In case you missed it, and I’m sure most of you did, the Fed-Ex Cup finished this weekend with Tiger Woods emerging as the champion. I know a good majority of people are sitting around here thinking, what the fuck is the Fed-Ex Cup? So let me explain.

From the fact that Tiger Woods won it, I’m sure that you can figure out that its some sort of golfing event. Either that or a contest to determine the whitest black man on the planet, but I doubt that a company like Fed-Ex would sponsor something like that, perhaps Brooks Brothers but not Fed-Ex. Anyway, its basically the championship of the PGA. Points are accumulated for your finishing places in tournaments during the whole year, but then there is what amounts to a playoff for the final four events. The top 125 golfers make it into the “playoffs” and are seeded accordingly, with then the most productive person being declared the PGA champion after the 4 events.

This ridiculous thing is golf’s attempt at having an exciting chase to the championship similar to what you see in Nascar. Unfortunately for the PGA, it doesn’t really work. What kind of  a playoff can you have anyway when you have 125 golfers eligible. I mean come on, the NBA and NHL take a whole lot of heat for having 16 of their teams make the playoffs each year.

Also, can it be any coincidence that the Fed-Ex cup lasts for four weeks and ends on the same Sunday that is week 3 of the NFL season. Golf can’t honestly expect to compete with the NFL on Sunday, but this is their pathetic way of trying. By having that first “playoff” event before the NFL season starts, the PGA is hoping to sink the hook into people so much that their going to blow off the NFL in favor of watching Golf on Sunday’s for awhile. That is simply crazy talk and never going to happen.

At least it never should happen. This weekend I came home to one of my roommates actually watching Golf instead of football. I thought I had stepped into some parallel universe. Now I’m a golf fan, I enjoy playing it a whole lot and do enjoy watching it. There’s just no way when football is on. If golf is really that much concerned with TV ratings, then their going to have just install lights and have all their events on prime time during the week because here in America, football rules the day during the weekends.

Getting back to this ridiculous farce, on Sunday Phil Mickelson won the final event of the year which is ironically called The Tour Championship, while Tiger Woods walked away with The Fed-Ex Cup which is supposed to be awarded to the champion of the tour for the year. Hmmm, is that a little bit confusing to anyone else. Now for his trouble Tiger Woods did walk away with a very big check for $10 million dollars for his trouble, while Phil Mickelson the winner that day got a check for less than a third of that number. Something just doesn’t seem right about that.

Golf will always be an individual sport that is about winning individual events. This whole Fed-Ex Cup thing is ludicrous and a horrible idea. In Nascar’s Chase for the Cup for instance, a driver might play it safe during a race and not take chance going for the win because he knows that the points accumulate and the championship is the thing that really matters. That’s not the case in golf. There is no way that someone is going to lay up on the 18th instead of going for the hole to try and preserve their spot in the Fed-Ex Cup. That’s just not the way the game is played, and I’m glad its not.

I think the PGA recognizes that this thing has failed and I hope they pull the plug on it soon. The Fed-Ex Cup was only introduced in 2007 and they have already adjusted the rules and point scoring setup every single year since its introduction. Their trying to tinker with the thing and make it work rather than just give it the proper burial that it deserves. From their standpoint its pretty much win win because they get to sell Fed-Ex the naming rights for something that’s pretty much invented out of thin air. However its gotten to the point that its distracting and taking away from the true nature of the game. Phil Mickelson was the winner on Sunday after playing some excellent golf, yet his thunder and accolade was stolen by Mr. Tiger Woods and his mythical Fed-Ex championship, that’s a dam shame.

If anyone doesn’t know the story of Donte Stallworth by now let me give you a quick recap. Its pretty simple really, he was speeding down the road in Miami Beach early one morning in his Bentley when he struck and killed a pedestrian.

This pedestrian was 59 year old Mario Reyes, a crane operator who was just getting off work and trying to catch the bus. Stallworth ended up being legally drunk at the time, and got charged with DUI manslaughter. He was found guilty and sentenced to 30 days in jail. On top of this he got two years of house arrest, 8 years of probation and some other restrictions.

Now I know that I’m not the only one that thinks this sentence was extremely light. The craziest thing was that is was right around the time that Michael Vick was finishing up his sentence. Here was Michael Vick who served 18 months for fighting dogs, while Donte Stallworth only got 30 days for being drunk and killing someone. That means that fighting dogs must be 18 times as bad as killing an actual person. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big time dog lover, but I’m also fairly found of the human species as well. Actually that’s a lie, I think about 85 – 90 percent of humans are complete worthless. I however, do think even the most worthless among us deserves the right to live.

Donte Stallworth is in the news once again now, because he was looking for a special exemption to his house arrest that would allow him to go train for his return to football. As of now Stallworth is suspended indefinitely, but he is still officially on Cleveland’s roster. If you go by the 18 times standard from earlier, than Stallworth should be eligible to play again in about a month.

Stallworth’s petition to be able to train was granted. Despite the prosecutor’s objections. “The fact is that he’s presently not formally employed by the NFL,” said prosecutor Patrick Trese, who objected to the motion. “And absent him being formally employed by the NFL, he’s not in a position where I think it’s necessary for him to worry about those types of issues.” Now Stallworth will be allowed to leave his home 5 days a week to go work out at the local high school. I’m sure that Stallworth has a gym in his multi million dollar home, but I guess he needs the extra space to be able to run routes and catch balls.

It seems like Stallworth is getting treated like a diva here. He’s not even playing football right now, I think working out in a gym will be plenty to keep him into shape in order for him to one day return to the NFL. To get back to Vick, he was stuck in jail and he seems to be in playing shape just fine. I think it would be a whole lot easier for Stallworth at home.

I also should say that I have had a DUI conviction in my life. Thank god, I didn’t kill anyone, but it very well could have happened. Stallworth gave a blood alcohol reading of .126 at the time of the accident, mine was .225. Florida’s legal limit is .08. I don’t really remember anything about what happened. So that might make you think that I would lean easily on people that got DUI’s. However, this situation is just out of hand. I was lucky, I didn’t kill anyone. Mr. Stallworth wasn’t so lucky, and now he has to take responsibility for those actions.

His responsiblity it seems is that its going to be a major inconvience to his life and his pocketbook. He has expressed regret, but he does have a PR team and an agent coaching him on what he should say, so who knows how much of that is really sincere.

Stallworth said “If I ever so much as take a sip of alcohol and I get behind the wheel and drive after what had happened on March 14, I would be spitting on Mr. Reyes’ grave.” You would think this might scare him off drinking forever, but that isn’t the case as I gather from that statement. He’ll just remember to have a limo whenever he goes out drinking from now on.

Last night in Los Angeles, the Dodgers mauled the Milwaukee Brewers 17-4. While an impressive victory, the win was overshadowed by what took place at the end and after the game.

It all started in the 7th inning when Manny Ramirez was hit by a pitch while the Dodgers had a nine run lead. Ramirez had an impressive game, breaking the longest RBI drought of his career with a HR and then also added a 2 run double.

In retaliation for the play with Ramirez, Dodgers reliever Guillermo Mota plunked Brewers slugger Prince Fielder in the 9th with 2 outs and the Dodgers very much in command. This is a routine that has been around since the dawn of baseball. You hit one of ours and we’re going to hit one of yours. When you hit our top dog, we’re going to come after your top dog.

Last year in the playoffs, Ramirez got hit and the Dodgers took a whole lot of flack for not retaliating. You could be sure that when it happened this year, something was going to happen. You have to have your star players back, its as simple as that.

Mota was ejected as you can expect. Mota turned and started walking to the dugout immediately after the pitch, he knows the routine. What made this extraordinary, was Prince Fielder’s reaction. He started going off. After the final out was made he was still yelling and started walking towards the Dodger dugout. He was restrained by teammates, but it still didn’t end there. After the game, Fielder went storming through the tunnels underneath the stadium trying to get to the Dodgers clubhouse. He made it to the set of doors that lead down a hallway to the clubhouse, but security didn’t enable him to proceed any farther.

I don’t know what Fielder was trying to prove, but his reaction was just insane. It wasn’t as if Mota was headhunting or anything, he hit Fielder in the thigh. If you don’t know what Prince Fielder looks like, let me assure you that it is quite a mighty thigh. Prince is the son of former MLB player Cecil Fielder and is built the same way. Hitting him in the thigh is like throwing a ball into a couch. I mean come on, the guy’s thigh is about the size of Delaware.

Another interesting aspect of this incident, is that Mota and Fielder were teammates on the Brewers last year. Maybe its all an inside joke between friends that none of us civilians gets. They sure seemed anything but friendly last night.

I think that maybe Fielder was just trying to light a fire under the Brewer’s ass. If this was his intention then that is perfectly fine. Ham it up as much as you want. The Brewers have been disappointing so far this season. After making the playoffs last year, more was expected from a team that currently sits third in their division and 5 games out of 1st place. I don’t really think more should have been expected though, after all C.C. Sabathia basically put this team on his back and led them to the playoffs on sure will last year.

On the other hand if Fielder was honestly that upset, he needs to grow up. This is baseball and that’s just a part of the game. The score doesn’t matter at that point. Its debatable whether the Brewers were throwing at Manny or not, I’d say probably not, but with the situation that happened in last year’s playoffs the Dodgers weren’t going to be taking any chances. I can imagine they would have been crucified in the papers today in LA if they had let Manny get hit again with no response.

It should be interesting to see what happens tonight, but I don’t think it really should be anything. Its part of the game and the teams should just move on. I sincerely hope that Prince was trying to provide a spark to a team after a lifeless effort. If not I can tell him to grow a set of balls you big pussy. It does seem like the biggest guys are the biggest crybabies a lot of the time. Grow up Mr. Fielder were not going to be treating you any different than any other star player. It’s not like your the spoiled King’s son, are you…Prince?

I proudly admit to being a big NASCAR fan. When I lived in Gainesville I used to go to at least one of the Daytona races every year. Everyone that’s a NASCAR fan has a driver they love, mine is Dale Earnhardt Jr. Everyone also has a driver they hate, mine used to be Jeff Gordon until he became Dale’s teammate so now its become Tony Stewart. I say that everyone that hates on NASCAR obviously has never been to a race. The classic case of contempt prior to investigation. I can guarantee that if you go to a race, you will fall in love with NASCAR.

NASCAR has been inching its way into mainstream America for quite a long time now. Everyone enjoyed Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise back in the day and I think that was the real start of it. There’s still a long way to go though for NASCAR. That doesn’t mean its not hugely popular, as it is. That however is due to the fact that the people who are into it are extremely devout. Its still not mainstream America I don’t think. It still suffers from some geographically slanted demographics, even though there are races all over. I see people at the races in Delaware and Watkins Glen, but I still have never found someone from the Northeast that will, openly at least, admit to being a NASCAR fan.

That being said, I have heard some of the diehard NASCAR fans rumblings that it is selling out. They say that the boys are toning things down to appeal to corporate and mainstream America. Well thank god for Jeremy Mayfield then, because I don’t think anyone is gonna be thinking that NASCAR is not redneck enough for quite awhile.

For those unfamiliar with Mr. Mayfield’s saga, let me explain. Mayfield is I’d say a middle of the road NASCAR driver, he’s very competitive and has won a few races. He’s not a star, but he’s certainly no slouch either. In May of this year, Mayfield failed a NASCAR drug test for crystal meth. He was then suspended for substance abuse as per NASCAR rules. Mayfield however, adamantly denied ever using the drug claiming that the false positive must have been from a combination of Claritin and Adderall that he had taken. Mayfield then took the NASCAR brass to court. There he won an injunction in federal court that lifted the suspension. NASCAR has since countered with an appeal that brings a whole lot of other things to light.

According to NASCAR, Mayfield has also failed a July 6th test given to him at his home. Once again for crystal meth. This time though NASCAR took it up a notch by also bring to the table a sworn affidavit from Mayfield’s stepmother where she claims to have seen him use meth at least 30 times. She also claims that Mayfield used to cook meth in the shop by his house. Here’s what his stepmother had to say…

“I first saw Jeremy using methamphetamine in 1998 at Jeremy’s shop on Jackson Road in Mooresville, North Carolina. Jeremy cooked some of his own methamphetamine in his shop by the house until the stores took pseudoephedrine off the shelves. In addition to making methamphetamine for his own use, I am aware that Jeremy has bought methamphetamine from others.”

“I was concerned about his heavy use and talked to his father about it. I saw Jeremy use methamphetamine by snorting it up his nose at least 30 times during the seven years I was around him. Jeremy used methamphetamines not only in my presence, but also when we were both in the presence of others.

She also brought up some specific instances where she had seen him use the drug. Including before the NASCAR Awards ceremony and just before a race in Darlington.

Mayfield of course then countered with these courteous statement…

“Now they got this lying whore to tell lies about me, someone I am embarrassed even uses the Mayfield name. She’s tried everything she can do to get money out of me. I won’t help her, so I guess she found a way to get money from NASCAR by giving them an affidavit full of lies.”

Now as if that isn’t Jerry Springer enough for you. Mayfield has also come out and accussed his stepmother of killing his father. His father’s died in 2007 by what the Chapel Hill, NC medical examiner determined was a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Mayfield now says he plans on serving his stepmother with a wrongful death lawsuit as well. He also claims that Nascar can not be trusted and that they paid his stepmother to concoct this lies, which her gold-digging ass gratefully agreed to.

This shit just gets crazier and crazier by the day, and I fucking love it. Its like that crazy girl in Wedding Crashers that Vince Vaughn falls for. Now this is definitely not the kind of story that you see in a “mainstream” sport. Can you imagine something like this happening in baseball or football. No way. That’s kinda what makes NASCAR so great though. NASCAR was never meant to be a grandfather, its a crazy uncle and it should be proud to be that. Everyone loves a crazy uncle after all.

Either Jeremy Mayfield is right and NASCAR is just completely railroading him for some unknown reason, or he’s just a complete drug addict dumbass. I mean come on, if he had really failed the first test due to taking a combination of Claritin and Adderall, then how on earth would he take that again before the 2nd test. Now he’s coming out with all these conspiracies theories and accusations of covered up murders, it’s just classic tweaker behavior. I think the guy is a complete meth addict and needs some serious help. He’s not going to get it though, cause I think he’s in way too deep at this point to admit that this whole thing is a lie. His NASCAR career at this point is basically done, no team or sponsor is ever going to touch this guy with a ten foot pole. Part of me feels sorry for the guy, but part of me just hope he comes out with something crazier every day. How about tomorrow if he says that he was abducted by aliens who forced him to snort meth as a way of preparation for the anal probe. That would be classic! I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

So I’m really quite amazed that up until this point I haven’t written a single story about the Gators yet. Don’t expect that trend to continue as I’m a huge Florida Gators fan. I was born in Gainesville, FL while my parents were attending UF, and I also ended up going to UF. One of the earliest pictures of me has me just out of the hospital and rocking a shirt that says “I’m a Baby Gator.” So expect me to show a lot of Gator love on here.

What I want to talk about today though is our university president Bernie Machen and his crusade to curb alcohol abuse at anything associated with the university. Now I used to have a major alcohol problem, and consequently I don’t drink anymore, but I think the majority of people can just fine. I don’t condone drinking during class like I used to do or anything, but a football game is a whole  other story.

Mr. Machen’s  latest pet project is to try to cut back on alcohol at the Florida vs Georgia game. Now this is a game that is known as “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” and for good reason. A few years ago they asked the TV stations to stop using that nickname, but your not gonna wipe out years of history and an ingrained nickname with the fans. It most certainly is still “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party.”

The reason the game got that nickname is of course for the tremendous amounts of alcohol consumed by fans before, during, and after the game. Not to say that is really any different than any other football game at UF, but here they are actually allowed to sell alcohol inside the stadium as its not located on a college campus and rather played at a nuetral site in Jacksonville. Although that didn’t really change anything for me when I went. I’d still rather smuggle in a couple of ziplocs filled with bourbon rather than pay those ridiculous prices.

In a letter to the mayor of Jacksonville, Bern the Worm requested that the number of locations selling alcohol inside the stadium be cut in half. This isn’t really that unreasonable, but I don’t think it would really have any effect. The only thing that would cause would be longer lines and cause people to miss more of the game. The best way I’d think to satisfy Mr. Machen here would be to cut the # of locations in half, but just make those locations larger and able to serve more people. See, we can all win.

Machen’s 2nd request though is the one that is just insane. He wants the city to ban all shot sales at Jacksonville Landing bars and restaurants. This is just crazy. Your going to go and tell these business owners that they can’t sell any shots on their busiest weekend of the year. That’s pure and simple crazy talk, and you can go sell it somewhere else. This is America and we should have a right to drink our booze in whatever form we wish. If this crazy rule was adopted it wouldn’t have any effect either. If bar owners are anything, its inventive. They would surely find ways to make drinks that are just as strong and get you just as drunk without it being in shot form. Hey, since shots are banned I guess I’ll just have to buy a whole glass of Jager instead. Cheers Bernie!

This is just so typical of the way things have been heading in recent times. Since a couple of years ago when “binge drinking” became a big buzz word among administrators, all sorts of plans have been made to try and curb this massive problem. Though all their doing is making different kinds of problems. This is SEC football at its finest and with that is always going to come a whole lot of drinking. That’s just how we do football in the South.

I can remember that my first couple years at UF there was no 2am closing law and there was a lovely system called “halftime reentry”. Oh god how I loved that. What that meant was that at halftime you could run across the street to The Purple Porpoise or The Swamp, where the lovely bartenders would already have shots lined up and waiting, down a few (or ten in my case) shots and then run back to the stadium and not miss a snap. Now I don’t really have any stats to back this up, but I swear in those times we’d always come out and play huge right at the start of the third quarter. I swear the team fed off the crowd’s increased drunkenness. Now sadly this is no longer allowed during halftime.

We didn’t win the halftime reentry battle, but we can’t lose the cocktail party as well. That’s what Florida vs Georgia is all about and who the hell is Bernie Machen to mess with all this tradition.

Now you know I couldn’t write all this without mentioning the Gators complete and utter dominance of Georgia in recent times. Since 1990 the Gators are an amazing 16-3 in this “rivalry” game. Its even been sweeter since that idiot Mark Richt took over the Georgia program as I really can’t stand that dumbass.

My personal favorite cocktail party that I attended was in 2002. In that game the Dawgs came in rolling at a perfect 8-0 and ranked #4 in the country. My Gators on the other hand were struggling. Spurrier had left and we limped into this game at 5-3 and unranked. Needless to say, Georgia was a fairly solid favorite. Georgia scored first then we answered with a TD pass from my boy Rex Grossman. Gus Scott later added a tremendous interception return for a TD, but we missed the extra point and trailed by that extra point 13-12 in the 4th quarter. Rex than led the Gators on a drive for the ages. That drive ended with him hitting Ben Troupe on 3rd and goal for the go ahead score, Rex added the 2 point conversion himself for a 20-13 lead. Our defense held and that’s how the game ended. Georgia came in riding high and we snuffed their National Championship hopes. They did go on to win the SEC title that year, but they got no further. Hey, if we weren’t gonna have a great year, at least we got to ruin theirs.

First let me start out by saying that yes I am a Los Angeles Dodgers fan. I spent my early childhood, “the formative years”, living in Hollywood so my pro teams are the Dodgers, Lakers, and Raiders. The Raiders were in LA at the time before moving back to Oakland. I guess you can accuse me of being a bit of a homer, and yes I do love Manny Ramirez, but I did go to journalism school so I know how to write without bias. Unfortunatly, for those Dodgers haters, this is a blog so there is no reason for me not to be a huge homer. GET USED TO IT!!!

So last night Manny Ramirez played in his last minor league game before his expected return from his 50 game suspension for using performance enhancing drugs. In the Single A game last night in San Bernandino, Manny went 1-3. He beat out an infield single and struck out swinging two times. In his 5 minor league games Manny went 3-10 with a HR and two runs scored. Those stats really are meaningless though cause he’s just trying to get his legs back, and if you know anything about Manny you can be sure he ain’t gonna give much effort in the minors. Ironically he did beat out an infield hit last night though.

After the game Manny once again refused to talk to reporters. He did find the time to tell them “”No thank you,” Ramirez said. “Go to YouTube.” Its just classic Manny, and one thing that you can be assured of is that’s never gonna change.

So what’s really changed in the 50 games that Manny’s been out. Not much. The Dodgers were in 1st place in the NL West with the best record in baseball with Manny, now their still in 1st place in the NL West with the best record in baseball.

Juan Pierre has been outstanding for the Dodgers since Manny’s been out. For the month of May, Pierre hit .369 with an OPS of a ridiculous .940 he also added 18 RBI’s and swiped 9 bags. He’s cooled off a little in June, but still hit .274 with an OPS of .651 and swiped 11 bags. Of course Pierre is still gonna find himself with a seat on the bench as there really is no way he will get the nod over Ethier or Kemp at either of the other two outfield spots.

A lot of people did predict that the Dodgers would fade for the 50 games they didn’t have Manny. After all they were really even excedding expectations with Manny. That has not been the case as they are playing some excellent ball.

Now the question is whether the return of Manny is gonna disrupt that? One way of thinking would tell you, of course not they we’re playing just as great with him so why would anything change. What changes however is the media attention. They were always all over Manny, but now the questions are gonna change. Someone is gonna have to answer them, even if Manny refuses too.

Of course the organization is glad to have him back, if only for a financial perspective. Manny sells tickets that’s a fact that is easily measured. The Dodgers built a whole marketing campaign around him and even had a special section of the stands for him named “Mannywood”. Now “Mannywood” has been closed for a few months and I’m sure its gonna reopen to some great fanfare.

I really don’t see any reason that Manny’s not gonna be fully embraced by the fans as soon as he comes back. After all, this is Los Angeles they seem to be a very forgiving lot with their heroes. Perhaps Manny might even be more popular now as Hollywood has always loved a good story of redemption.

The prodigal son is scheduled to return on Friday at San Diego. After that the Dodgers go to New York for a series against the Mets and then to Milwaukee. Then we have the All-Star break so Manny’s not going to get to play a game in Los Angeles for quite awhile. That series in New York should be mighty interesting as I’m sure that’s going to be quite the circus atmosphere.