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Bill Livingston: Add one more loss to Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez's record -- reputation
by Bill Livingston/Plain Dealer Columnist
Wednesday November 19, 2008, 8:45 PM
Rich Rodriguez is not only the coach of the worst Michigan team ever, where they have been playing football since Rutherford B. Hayes was president, he also burned his bridges and trashed his files before leaving the employ of West Virginia University.
His daddy was a coal miner, and Rodriguez was a graduate of West Virginia. But after he jilted the school 17 days before the Mountaineers' Fiesta Bowl victory over Oklahoma on Jan. 2, he became a pariah. He is as welcome there as a Hatfield at a McCoy picnic.
Nothing he did at WVU so belittled him as his leaving it. He sent a graduate assistant to turn in his letter of resignation to the athletic director. He had six years left on his contract, but seemed to think his coaching cachet made him as immune to gratitude or obligation as free agents in the pros.
Like them, he had his hand out. Like them, he threw players who had helped him under the bus. He had his priorities in order: R-Rod came first, last and in-between.
He called the most highly recruited high school prospect in the land, Terrelle Pryor, and told him he was leaving before he told his West Virginia players. Pryor signed with Ohio State anyway and will start against Michigan on Saturday.
Then Rodriguez shredded his files on the way out the door. You know, like Oliver North in the Iran-Contra investigation in the 1980s.
Continue reading "Bill Livingston: Add one more loss to Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez's record -- reputation" »
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Bill Livingston: Brady Quinn's play is a revelation
by Bill Livingston/Plain Dealer Columnist
Tuesday November 18, 2008, 6:39 PM
Brady Quinn won't be the salvation of the season. But his play is a revelation, given how long the Browns waited to use him.
Still, some perspective is necessary. Quinn's intermediate passing game carved up Denver, but that defense is the Thanksgiving bird of the NFL, ranking 29th of 32 teams.
Buffalo was ranked in the top half, barely, at 13th. But part of the Bills' defense is the Buffalo winter. Snow didn't fall, but screaming wind showed up in force. Buffalo is windier than Chicago, so complaints about the lack of deep passes by Quinn have to be tempered by the conditions.
Continue reading "Bill Livingston: Brady Quinn's play is a revelation" »Bill Livingston: Boozer still fuels Cavaliers fans' ire
by Bill Livingston/Plain Dealer Columnist
Saturday November 15, 2008, 11:13 PM
Five years since the Bamboozler fled to embrace what can only be called filthy riches, Carlos Boozer returned again to Cleveland on Saturday night.
"Do you think the fans will still be on Boozer?" LeBron James was asked.
"Probably. It's over and done with, but they boo us when we don't score 100 points," said James, referring to a Taco Bell promotion for a free chalupa.
Cavs fans boo Boozer, however, because of an empty promise, not a barren promotion. Time has dulled the most acute pain, but the fans still worry at it, like an old ache.
Slights are remembered here with a generational ferocity. It is not the sins of the fathers, but their resentments, that are passed on to their sons. The Broncos' John Elway was the most loathed opposing athlete ever, because of the Browns' popularity and, frankly, his remarkable clutch play against them.
But jilting the fans works too, even for the otherwise inoffensive (Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez), and it gets worse when the defector turns into a scold (Albert Belle) and worst of all when he slips out of town under circumstances of doubtful truthfulness.
No one might ever equal Art Modell, but Boozer gave it a shot.
Continue reading "Bill Livingston: Boozer still fuels Cavaliers fans' ire" »Congrats, Cliff. . . and thanks for doing it here
by blivingston@plaind.com
Thursday November 13, 2008, 8:54 PM
Cliff Lee won the Cy Young Award without the spitball of Gaylord Perry or the Zen mysticism of Steve Carlton. The Indians' second straight left-handed Cy Young winner also did not undergo a postseason comeuppance from the runner-up, as CC Sabathia received from Boston's Josh Beckett last year.
That was in part because the Indians did not come close to the playoffs in 2008. But it was unlikely to happen anyway. Lee was in a state of athletic grace, one he accessed after injury and disappointment, one he maintained with a tightly blinkered focus. He surrendered bases on balls like a miser surrenders his wallet.
His 22-3 record for a team with an 81-81 record ranks with Perry's 21-13 mark with a 77-85 Tribe team in 1974, the last previous season in which an Indians pitcher won 20 or more games, and Carlton's 27-10 record with a 59-97 Phillies team in 1972. Lee won 19 more games than he lost, the best ever by a pitcher for a .500 team. The previous mark was Tex Hughson's plus-13 (18-5) for the 1944 Red Sox.
Lee's blazing start drew mention with Lefty Grove's racehorse beginning to a 31-4 record in 1931. It has probably not escaped notice that Lee did not have the 1929-31 Philadelphia A's, winners of three straight American League pennants, to support him.
Often, the players the Indians groom reach their peak elsewhere because the sport has no salary cap and the team can be outbid for free agents. The Indians traded Sabathia in this, his option year. He came fairly close to winning the National League Cy Young as a short-timer in Milwaukee. Rick Sutcliffe won the 1984 National League Cy Young after being sent to the Cubs.
Continue reading "Congrats, Cliff. . . and thanks for doing it here" »Bill Livingston: What happened to the LeBron James vs. Carmelo Anthony rivalry?
by Bill Livingston/Plain Dealer Columnist
Wednesday November 12, 2008, 7:00 PM
Whatever happened to the NBA's Magic vs. Bird rivalry of this century?
Only five years ago, the Cavaliers' LeBron James and Denver's Carmelo Anthony were supposed to save the NBA, the way Larry Bird and Magic Johnson did until Michael Jordan came along.
Now the Cavs' big statement games are against the Celtics and Pistons. The individual matchups at the top of the marquee are James vs. the Lakers' Kobe Bryant or Miami's Dwayne Wade.
The LeBron James vs. Carmelo Anthony rivalry has not lived up to its Magic/Bird expectations. James has made it to the NBA Finals, but Anthony has a 4-20 record in the playoffs with the Nuggets.James has been to an NBA Finals, with a team nowhere near as good as this one. Milicic became the new Sam Bowie, the mega-bust taken instead of Michael Jordan by Portland. Wade won an NBA Championship, or at least accepted one when Dallas declined it. Bosh, behind only James and Wade, was a key player on the "Redeem Team," the 2008 Olympic gold medalists.
Anthony's Nuggets are 4-20 in the playoffs with five first-round exits. He might not have reached McGradyean depths, a term coined for Tracy McGrady, who, in Toronto, Orlando and now Houston, has never won a playoff series. But that is only because some of McGrady's futility occurred in the then-weaker East.
"Carmelo hasn't been playing the worst teams in the first round," James said. "He's had San Antonio, the Lakers."
And Minnesota and, ahem, the Los Angeles Clippers.
Continue reading "Bill Livingston: What happened to the LeBron James vs. Carmelo Anthony rivalry?" »Bill Livingston: Herb Score belongs at the top of a lot of lists
by Bill Livingston
Tuesday November 11, 2008, 2:31 PM
The following are excerpts about Herb Score from "The Great Book of Cleveland Sports Lists," which I co-authored with WKNR-AM 850's Greg Brinda.
The book, which is available at www.amazon.com, celebrated Score, the Indians' left-handed pitcher who died Tuesday morning, for his endearing malapropisms behind the microphone as the Indians' play-by-play man and for his very underrated knowledge of the game. I think it says a great deal that so many of you never thought of him by his last name but as "Herb," or "Herbie." He was always a friendly presence around the batting cage.
I can say personally that no one was nicer to me when I was a newbie in town than Herb; that he was always a man who enjoyed every day he was given around baseball, despite the bad breaks he had had in the game; and that the lives of those of us who spent any time at all around the Indians were immeasurably better for having known him.
Herb Score waves goodbye to Indians fans in 1997.Memorable moment turns into a nightmare
by Bill Livingston
Monday November 10, 2008, 7:19 PM
Things can get pretty ugly inside Cleveland Browns Stadium, especially at night.
Her son had never gone to a Browns game when his father was alive. Kathy Pataky's husband, Clifford, who died of cancer in March, would always say, "That's not the type of crowd you want to be in." But last Thursday night was beautiful, an evening stolen from summer. "I bought tickets on a whim," Pataky said.
They were up in the cheap seats, section 502. The Browns have a no-alcohol section called the "Family Fun Zone." This wasn't it. Fun wasn't part of her package.
• Poll: Are you afraid to take your child to Cleveland Browns Stadium?
Winslow, Edwards are not complementary parts, Bill Livingston writes
by Bill Livingston Plain Dealer Columnist
Sunday November 09, 2008, 7:51 PM
The Browns need more leaders than divas, writes Bill Livingston. Are you listening, Kellen Winslow and Braylon Edwards?Last year, Edwards shattered a Browns touchdown-receptions record that had stood since 1963. Winslow became the most prolific tight end in terms of reception yardage the team ever employed. Quarterback Derek Anderson came out of nowhere to take the controls of a space-age offense.
It was never certain to work, though. The classic formula is to have complementary players, whose strengths compensate for others' weaknesses. Asked about the late Ernie Davis, whom Paul Brown dreamed of teaming with Jim Brown in a big-back tandem for the ages, Jim Brown said the ideal was to have players with different styles to test defenses completely. It holds for receivers, too.
Continue reading "Winslow, Edwards are not complementary parts, Bill Livingston writes" »- 'ABOVE & BEYOND' BOOK EXCERPTS
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