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| None "extremely selfish individuals." January 9, 2012 5:44:37 AM Entry ID: 1945392 | But fingers are being pointed after a disappointing season. Backup quarterback Greg McElroy told a Birmingham, Ala., radio station on Wednesday that the Jets locker room had a "corrupt mindset" with "extremely selfish individuals." "Bad attitudes will ruin your team," Bradshaw said. "I mean, they will kill you. So many times we see great talent, but it's 'All about me,' like with Terrell Owens. ... And when you have players like that, they're a distraction. They mess up the continuity of a football team, and a football team has got to play together. You gotta pull together and believe together. ... You can't have one guy doing what Santonio did. "If you wanna get this Jet team back, you've gotta make some changes, and have leaders that get control of guys like Santonio. If you have to unload him, unload him. You can't have that." The Jets signed Holmes to a five-year, $45 million contract extension last offseason. He is due a fully guaranteed $7.75 million in base pay for 2012, a person familiar with his contract told Cimini. So unless the Jets are willing to eat a lot of money, they're going to have to keep him and try and make peace. |
| None Today January 7, 2012 8:03:46 AM Entry ID: 1945174 | " The here and now is all we have, and if we play it right it's all we'll need". ~Ann Richards |
| None 2012 January 2, 2012 7:22:17 AM Entry ID: 1944423 | “Another fresh new year is here . . . Another year to live! To banish worry, doubt, and fear, To love and laugh and give! This bright new year is given me To live each day with zest . . . To daily grow and try to be My highest and my best! I have the opportunity Once more to right some wrongs, To pray for peace, to plant a tree, And sing more joyful songs!” 'Wlliam Arthur Ward' |
| Christmas 2011 Who is St. Nicholas? December 25, 2011 8:40:32 AM Entry ID: 1943592 | Merry Christmas> Shout it out, its our holiday its a special time of year for many. St Nick is ours he was a generous saint. Don't be hushed. Enough of the happy holiday stuff possibly offending others. It's Christmas shout it out make it loud and clear you are a christian you are special. Say it often don't ever forget what today is all about. Merry Christmas. The true story of Santa Claus begins with Nicholas, who was born during the third century in the village of Patara. At the time the area was Greek and is now on the southern coast of Turkey. His wealthy parents, who raised him to be a devout Christian, died in an epidemic while Nicholas was still young. Obeying Jesus' words to "sell what you own and give the money to the poor," Nicholas used his whole inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. He dedicated his life to serving God and was made Bishop of Myra while still a young man. Bishop Nicholas became known throughout the land for his generosity to the those in need, his love for children, and his concern for sailors and ships. Merry Christmas. |
| None Bah Humbug. December 21, 2011 11:31:23 AM Entry ID: 1942964 | If Christmas is not in your heart, you won't find it under the tree. |
| None Don't see it? A sad state of affairs- December 20, 2011 8:29:08 AM Entry ID: 1942685 | PITMAN, N.J. (CBS) – Some residents of a South Jersey town are calling a Knights of Columbus banner that hangs over Broadway in Pitman, a sign of the season. It reads “Keep Christ in Christmas.” “I think it’s wonderful, Christ is Christmas,” said Maria Marandino of Vineland. Some unnamed residents who live in Pitman and who believe the sign that hangs across Main Street violates the Constitution, contacted the Freedom from Religion Foundation in Wisconsin that promotes separation of church and state. The group’s consultant told Eyewitness News by phone that they’ve asked the town to remove the sign. “It’s a group endorsing religion over a public right of way,” said Andrew Seidel, the group’s constitutional consultant. The town’s mayor says the sign is attached to private property and hanging over a county road. “I think it’s a sad state of affairs that our country, we kowtow to the minority and not the majority of people who like that sort of thing to stay,” said Mayor Michael Batten. Some residents say a nativity scene was removed from a Christmas display because the park it was displayed in is Pitman’s property. The Freedom from Religion Foundation says they will look for private property in Pitman now to hang their sign, which reads: “At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds,” said Seidel. Anna Dora Shipley said the sign has been hung every Christmas in the 45 years she’s been here. She doesn’t like the Foundation’s sign but says they have a right to put it up. “Just don’t take mine down,” said Shipley |
| None Keep 'Christ' in Christmas. December 16, 2011 5:44:24 PM Entry ID: 1942198 | After a Good Samaritan helped her pay off the layaway bill she'd accumulated to buy Christmas gifts for her grandchildren, Lori Stearnes planned to collect her paycheck today and head to Kmart anyway. Her new plan: Pay the stranger's kindness forward by using the money she'd budgeted to instead support somebody else. "It just gives you a warm feeling," said Stearnes, 53, of Omaha. "... With all the things going on the world, just to have someone do that is so, I don't know, it's hard to put into words." At Kmart stores across the country, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers' layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's clothes set aside by impoverished parents. Stearnes said at first she thought it was a joke when someone from the Omaha store called to say someone had paid off most of her layaway bill for toys and outfits she bought for the youngest four of her seven grandchildren. The total bill was about $250, but after the stranger helped, she only had a $58 balance, she said. Stearns, who cleans medical instruments at a hospital, said she and her husband, Lloyd, live paycheck to paycheck and that layaway often helps spread out the costs of Christmas. A similar random act of kindness happened at a Kmart in Indianapolis, where a young father wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots, stood in line at a layaway counter alongside three small children. He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter. "She told him, 'No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. "He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears." Before she left the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register. "She was doing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said she wasn't going to be able to spend it and wanted to make people happy with it," Deppe said. The woman did not identify herself and only asked people to "remember Ben," an apparent reference to her husband. Deppe, who said she has worked in retail for 40 years, had never seen anything like it. "It was like an angel fell out of the sky and appeared in our store," she said. Most of the donors have done their giving secretly. Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son. "I was speechless," Bremser said. "It made me believe in Christmas again." Dozens of other customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Montana. The benefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items for young children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a few dollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store's system. The phenomenon seems to have begun in Michigan before spreading, Kmart executives said. "It is honestly being driven by people wanting to do a good deed at this time of the year," said Salima Yala, Kmart's division vice president for layaway. The good Samaritans seem to be visiting mainly Kmart stores, though a Wal-Mart spokesman said a few of his stores in Joplin, Mo., and Chicago have also seen some layaway accounts paid off. Kmart representatives say they did nothing to instigate the secret Santas or spread word of the generosity. But it's happening as the company struggles to compete with chains such as Wal-Mart and Target. Kmart may be the focus of layaway generosity, Yala said, because it is one of the few large discount stores that has offered layaway year-round for about four decades. Under the program, customers can make purchases but let the store hold onto their merchandise as they pay it off slowly over several weeks. Karl Graff, assistant manager of the Omaha store, said at least one good Samaritan paid off the accounts of five people. One woman broke into tears when he called to tell her about the help. "She wasn't sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and was afraid their kids weren't going to have anything for Christmas," Graff said. "You know, 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right time, it may as well be a million dollars for some people." In Missoula, Mont., a man spent more than $1,200 to pay down the balances of six customers whose layaway orders were about to be returned to a Kmart store's inventory because of late payments. Store employees reached one beneficiary on her cellphone at Seattle Children's Hospital, where her son was being treated for an undisclosed illness. "She was yelling at the nurses, 'We're going to have Christmas after all!'" store manager Josine Murrin said. A Kmart in Plainfield Township, called Roberta Carter last week to let her know a man had paid all but 40 cents of her $60 layaway. Carter, a mother of eight from Grand Rapids, said she cried upon hearing the news. She and her family have been struggling as she seeks a full-time job. "My kids will have clothes for Christmas," she said. Angie Torres, a stay-at-home mother of four children under the age of 8, was in the Indianapolis Kmart on Tuesday to make a payment on her layaway bill when she learned the woman next to her was paying off her account. "I started to cry. I couldn't believe it," said Torres, who doubted she would have been able to pay off the balance. "I was in disbelief. I hugged her and gave her a kiss." |
| None Truth be told, December 9, 2011 2:58:00 PM Entry ID: 1940957 | Truth be told, inside the Cardinals' clubhouse Pujols was, on his best days, pleasantly present. When asked, younger players would praise his leadership skills because, frankly, that's what young players do. Yet with last season's arrival of the affable, open, intelligent Lance Berkman, members of the team were able to witness what genuine leadership looks like. |
| None The liberation of St. Louis begins now. December 9, 2011 2:44:47 PM Entry ID: 1940952 | (CNN) -- The liberation of St. Louis begins now. Albert Pujols is leaving the city and you are free, dear people, to speak the truth. No longer do you have to cower. No longer do you have to worry about stern looks and furious retorts. No longer do you have to tiptoe around the mighty slugger and his Ruthian numbers, fearful that he might say to hell with riverboat casinos and go elsewhere, someplace warmer. No longer do you have to mindlessly utter the Cardinal company lines about all of Pujols' charity work and family life and what a wonderful person he is. With Thursday's news that Pujols has agreed to a 10-year, $254 million contract with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, Cardinals officials, players and fans are finally permitted say what has gone unsaid far too long -- that Albert Pujols is a pain in the rear. I know. Albert loves kids. And puppies. And kids with puppies. He is a devout Christian who has written, "My life's goal is to bring glory to Jesus." His foundation raises large bundles of money to help kids with Down syndrome (and if you don't believe this, ask anyone associated with Pujols. They'll tell you. And tell you. And tell you.). He has never, apparently, drowned a dog or shot himself in the leg. Over the past 11 years, St. Louis' slugging infielder could do no wrong. And yes, it helped that he averaged 42 homers and 126 RBIs while leading the club to two World Series titles. Jeff Pearlman Jeff Pearlman And yet ... for the hundreds of people who work for the Cardinals, and for the majority of the thousands upon thousands of fans who have asked Pujols for an autograph or a handshake or the smallest of words, the three-time National League MVP is, well, terrible. Having now covered sports for 17 years, I've witnessed few professional athletes who show greater disrespect and outright disdain for loyalists than Pujols. He is a man who, during spring training, walks from station to station with his head down who responds to "Albert, we love you!" not with a smile or a nod, but with cold nothingness. When people call his name, he almost never gazes up. When people ask for an autograph, he doesn't even bother with a "Not now" or "Try me later." Instead, he turns to devices that men such as Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent perfected in the recent decades -- the steel-faced, how-dare-you-even-talk-to-me, ignore-the-world two-step. It's not a problem that Pujols doesn't say much -- neither does Derek Jeter. It's not that Pujols is intense -- Jimmy Rollins is certainly right there with him. No, what rubs so many people wrongly is his frostiness. Or, as one longtime Cardinals usher told me last March, "How about looking up at people when they talk to you? How about acknowledging that they exist?" During the waning days of last spring training, I stood alongside Pujols' table during the annual Cardinals Autograph Day at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter, Florida. Admittedly, the event is one that no player enjoys a contrived, goofy, strictly-for-the-benefit-of-the-fans labor of torturous obligation. Here is a direct, play-by-play transcript from the opening minutes: Fan: "Albert, great to meet you! You're my favorite player in the world!" Pujols (not looking up): "Thanks." Fan 2: "Albert, do you sign jerseys?" Pujols: (not looking up): "No." Fan 2: "Helmets?" Pujols (not looking up): "No." Fan 3: "Good luck this year, Albert. You deserve everything you get." Pujols (not looking up): "Uh-huh. Thanks." Fan 4: "Albert, my daughter loves you." Pujols (not looking up): Because of his endorsement deal with Upper Deck, Pujols signed only pictures and baseballs (every other player signed whatever was presented to him). To call him rude would be to personify an utter lack of emotion. Pujols wasn't rude -- he was absent. And yet, because baseball lathers itself in mythology, and because Pujols was St. Louis' Zeus, and because St. Louis clutches onto its ballplayers the way a 5-year-old clutches her American Girl doll, nothing negative could ever be said. Truth be told, inside the Cardinals' clubhouse Pujols was, on his best days, pleasantly present. When asked, younger players would praise his leadership skills because, frankly, that's what young players do. Yet with last season's arrival of the affable, open, intelligent Lance Berkman, members of the team were able to witness what genuine leadership looks like. Now, Pujols -- perhaps the most revered Cardinal since Stan Musial -- has pulled a LeBron James II, abandoning his adopted hometown when bigger bucks and a sniff of Hollywood came calling. Whereas once he had a chance to stand alongside Ted Williams and Mickey Mantle and George Brett and Cal Ripken Jr. as legends who spent their entire careers with one franchise, now he is but a nomad -- richer, without question, but shockingly smaller in stature. Though the idea of Pujols in an Angels uniform seems strange at this moment, our eyes will inevitably adjust. And in St. Louis, I believe, so will opinions. |
| None What is Jr Thankfull for? November 24, 2011 11:34:37 AM Entry ID: 1937915 | http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c3#/video/living/2011/11/23/cnnheroes-martinez-wallrath.cnn |
| None Mike Krzyzewski made sure to hug Bob Knight Read November 16, 2011 7:43:33 AM Entry ID: 1935600 | NEW YORK -- Mike Krzyzewski became the winningest coach in the history of men's major college basketball at 9:36 p.m. on Tuesday, when his Duke Blue Devils defeated Michigan State, 74-69, at Madison Square Garden. The achievement, however, was not sealed until a minute later, when Krzyzewski walked to the broadcast table and shared a teary embrace with the man whom he had just surpassed, Bob Knight, who had analyzed the game for ESPN. "I know a lot of people don't tell you this, Coach," Krzyzewski said. "But I love you." As Krzyzewski spoke, Knight had his face buried in Krzyzewski's suit jacket. Then he pulled back, smiled and said, "Boy, you've done pretty good for a kid who couldn't shoot." Knight laughed and slapped Krzyzewski hard on the shoulder. "I think that meant he loved me, too," Krzyzewski said later. "I'm going to take it as that." It has been a long, winding, tumultuous, heartfelt and sometimes heartbreaking ride that brought Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight to that embrace. But there they were, sharing the happy coincidence that allowed them both to be present for this moment in history. The record now shows that Krzyzewski has 903 career wins to Knight's 902, but their relationship cannot be defined by mere numbers. It only took five decades, but these two men finally speak each other's language, even if those closest to them don't. "Their relationship fascinates me. It kind of defies description," Krzyzewski's wife, Mickie, said Tuesday night. "It's sort of unbelievable that they're a coach and player who together have 1,800 wins. But the relationship between Coach Knight and Mike, which healed years ago, is much more unique to me than the fact that they share this honor." It's amazing enough that a man would surpass his former college coach to break the NCAA's most significant coaching record. What's even more amazing is that the university which brought them together wasn't a basketball factory like Kansas, Kentucky or UCLA. It wasn't even Ohio State, where Knight was a reserve guard on the 1960 NCAA championship team. Rather, it was the United States Military Academy at West Point, a place known more for churning out generals and presidents than Hall of Fame basketball coaches. |
| None 20 Ideas for Your Bucket List November 15, 2011 1:21:00 PM Entry ID: 1935411 | 20 Ideas for Your Bucket List Priscilla Presley once said of Elvis’ mid-life crisis, “It was more that his career was going down again and he was tired of the songs. He was tired of the routine. And there was a point where he just kind of gave up. He couldn't face being 40. And he resorted to stimulants. There's a dark side there, a really dark side.” All of us contemplate having more road behind us than in front of us. If you’re over 40, consider creating a list of meaningful things you should accomplish before you die. Here’s 20 Ideas That Should Be On Your Bucket List. Look it over, delete what you wish and add your own items. Then print it off and put it in a prominent place. You may also be interested in Family First President Mark Merrill’s bucket list. You only have one chance to get life right. Make it count. What’s on your bucket list? |
| None It was all a vision in 2003........ until November 13, 2011 12:40:31 PM Entry ID: 1934551 | You get one swing in life make it count. The Long Island Express is an Independent travel baseball organization that was established in 2004. At this time, there are two teams 13U and 15U, that consists of players from Suffolk County, Long Island. The organizer and manager of the team,along with the coaching staff and its members have aspired to create an organization which will continue to develop its player's knowledge and philosophies of baseball on what we call "Our Field of Dreams". With objectives in mind for the organization and its players, we take pride in offering a well rounded coaching staff to teach and motivate the team to play the American pastime, Baseball. While the organization is young, all of the managing staff and the majority of the teams have been together for the past six years. We are looking forward to expanding the organization's team divisions, taking our time do this in the proper manner is important. We want to ensure that the players remain a primary focus and each added team will receive equal attention in achieving the goals the organization has set forth. On the baseball diamond many dreams can come true. Whatever they may be respect, courage, team spirit or just playing ball, we are trying to help our players fulfill theirs. "Some people make things happen, some people watch what happens and some people wonder what happened. We try to surround ourselves with people who can achieve the former." "We believe in work, work is how you get better." "We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give." -Winston Churchhill |
| None Understand that, and you understood Joe Frazier. November 12, 2011 11:12:54 AM Entry ID: 1934363 | George Foreman’s crushing right uppercut connected for the first time in Round 1 and, suddenly, the heavyweight champion of the world was on the canvas. At ringside, the shocking sight sent Howard Cosell into a frenzy. “Down goes Frazah! Down goes Frazah! Down goes Frazah!” Cosell screamed into his ABC television microphone. Across the ring, Foreman was thinking one thing: Please don’t let Joe Frazier get up. “I saw him get up and I said to myself `Oh boy, he’s going to get me now,” Foreman recalled Tuesday during a telephone interview. “You didn’t want him getting up, and you really didn’t want him getting up mad.” Get up Frazier did, only to go down again and again. Six times in all before the bell could sound to end the second round. Yet there he was still, out on his feet but still upright and ready for more. Frazier wasn’t going to surrender his heavyweight title until the referee mercifully put an end to the carnage in Jamaica. “Joe Frazier wouldn’t back away from King Kong,” Foreman said. “Joe Frazier was one brave man.” Brave enough to take on the fearsome and much bigger Foreman in a fight he seemed destined to lose. Brave enough to hand Muhammad Ali his first loss and then almost fight to the death with him in the Philippines. But that’s what Frazier was. An undersized warrior who didn’t know how to back down. A fighter to the core. Understand that, and you understood Joe Frazier. He kept getting up when Foreman knocked him down. He kept trying to fight Ali even though one eye was swollen shut and he couldn’t see out of the other. And he kept fighting for his rightful place in history until his death Monday night in Philadelphia at the age of 67. “His pride and dignity made him fight to the end,” Don King said. “Joe never forgave Muhammad Ali for what he did to him, but Joe Frazier proved that he wasn’t only a great fighter but a great man.” I spent some time talking to Frazier earlier this year as he reminisced about his career and his life. The 40th anniversary of the Fight of the Century was looming, and Frazier was more than happy to talk about a memorable night long past. No one in Madison Square Garden that night, it seemed, wanted him to beat Muhammad Ali. Not the fans who scraped together enough money to get a cheap seat in the rafters, and certainly not the celebrities and various rogues of the night who dressed in their finest to parade around ringside before the bout. Frank Sinatra shot pictures for Life magazine from ringside. Barbra Streisand and Bill Cosby watched from seats just a few steps away. They saw Frazier do what no man had done before—beat the great Ali. If that wasn’t enough, he knocked Ali down in the 15th round with one of his classic left hooks to seal the deal. I can’t go nowhere where it’s not mentioned,” Frazier said. “That was the greatest thing that ever happened in my life.” He fought Ali the way he fought everyone, with his chin planted on his opponent’s shoulder, because that was the only way he could fight. Frazier barely stood 5-foot-10, never weighed more than 205 or so. He wasn’t going to beat people with his physical skills, so he figured out a way to keep relentless pressure on until he could find a way to land a left hook that surely was one of the most beautiful punches in boxing. It didn’t work against Foreman because Foreman was simply too big, too powerful. Ali found a way to beat him in their final two fights, too, including a fight so epic that boxing people simply shake their heads when asked what happened at the Thrilla in Manila. Ali would later say it was the closest thing he ever knew to death. Though blinded by his swollen eyes, Frazier still tried to fight the 15th round against one of the greatest fighters ever. The bitterness toward Ali that Frazier carried throughout the rest of his life was especially rooted in that fight. Ali called him a gorilla, an Uncle Tom. When Frazier returned home, his children asked why the other kids at school were saying the same thing. “Joe could never forgive him for that,” King said over the phone. “But you have to know the times, the race struggle in America. Joe couldn’t understand why some of the blacks looked at him with disdain and then extolled Muhammad Ali. But Smokin’ Joe was an integral part of history. That fight changed things for a lot of people. It changed the respect paid when people would look at other people of color.” That fight changed things for Frazier, too. Neither he nor Ali were ever the same after the brutal bout, and Frazier would have only one more meaningful fight, a second knockout loss to Foreman. He would burn through all the riches he made in the ring, ending up in an apartment over his gym in Philadelphia. But he loved to make appearances, loved to be with fans, as he was in September when he signed memorabilia in Las Vegas. “Joe Frazier, sharp as a razor,” he told them. Ali put out a statement saying he would always remember Frazier with respect and admiration, something Frazier surely would have scoffed at. In the end, he’ll go down as one of the great heavyweights ever, a man who fought hard in Ali’s shadow, then fought even harder to get out of it. “All he wanted to do was beat up Muhammad Ali one more time,” Foreman said. “Maybe someday in heaven he’ll have a chance to do it.” |
| None Smokin Joe November 11, 2011 9:24:06 PM Entry ID: 1934295 | "I met Joe through my father, who trains fighters,'' Samantha Ramey said. "I was walking by him one time, he asked me to take a picture with him, and I turned and told him `I should be the one asking to take a picture with you.' Joe had that smile, that championship smile. When I met him, he made me feel like I knew him his whole life. That's the kind of man he was. He strolled around with a cane and that cowboy hat.' PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- They braved the November cold and the whipping winds to line up outside the Wells Fargo Center Friday morning in tribute to a legend. Old men in cowboy hats and canes, young men, fathers with children, and businessmen in suits standing alongside construction workers in mud-caked boots taking some time from their jobs to pay their respects. Mourners began arriving around 9 a.m. for the public memorial viewing of former heavyweight champion Joe Frazier. The two-day affair, put together by Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter in cooperation with Philadelphia Flyers owner Ed Snider, is expected to draw 15,000 fans. Frazier was laid out in the middle of the arena in a white, closed casket, as per his will, with his trademark black cowboy sitting atop and a white blanket that said, "Heavyweight Champion of the World, Smokin' Joe Frazier -- Your friend, Jake.'' To the left of the casket was an original fight poster of Frazier's first epic fight against Muhammad Ali on March 8, 1971, and an encased American flag. To the right was an autographed portrait of Frazier. Friday's public memorial is to run through 5 p.m. Saturday's hours are 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Private funeral services for Frazier will be held Monday at the Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church, on 2800 West Cheltenham Ave., in Philadelphia. Ali is scheduled to arrive, as well as former heavyweight champions Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson. Welterweight world champion Floyd Mayweather is donating money to incur some of the costs of the services. George Foreman, another old Frazier nemesis, will not be able to make it, but has offered to help pay for some of the funeral expenses. Almost every passing mourner, it seemed, had either met Frazier personally or had an indelible recollection of the Hall-of-Fame fighter. Some stopped to take pictures with the casket, with glistening gold handles and embroidery on the sides. Others took shots in front of Frazier's portrait, and still others took camera phone shots of the casket and the memorial blanket lying on top. "I met Joe through my father, who trains fighters,'' Samantha Ramey said. "I was walking by him one time, he asked me to take a picture with him, and I turned and told him `I should be the one asking to take a picture with you.' Joe had that smile, that championship smile. When I met him, he made me feel like I knew him his whole life. That's the kind of man he was. He strolled around with a cane and that cowboy hat.'' Peter Lyde, Frazier's son-in-law, let out a laugh when he recalled the first time he thought about asking Frazier's daughter, Jacqui, out. Lyde knew the Frazier family through Frazier's nephew, Rodney. One time after a fight in New York City, the Fraziers convened in a hotel suite, Lyde recalled, when a photographer hugged Jacqui a little too tight for the former champ's taste. "It's festive and everyone is having a great time, then all of a sudden you hear this booming voice say, `Hey you, get your hands off my daughter,' and everyone stood still, because Joe was still imposing,'' Lyde recalled. "Joe had that voice, the rare times he was mad, that could cut through a room. The man was a true modern gladiator. I'm 6-foot-9 and Joe scared me so bad I waited two years to ask Jacqui out before she became my wife.'' South Philadelphian Joe Pultrone came to the memorial with his nine-old son, Santino. Pultrone knew Frazier through the music business and sometimes traveled with Frazier. He was fighting back strong emotions. "What I'll remember most about Joe is how he treated everyone with mutual respect, it didn't matter who it was,'' Pultrone said. "I'd get these calls in the middle of the night with that raspy voice, `Let's go road dog,' and the next thing you knew, I was with Larry Holmes and Gerry Cooney at some clothing place getting fitted.'' But it's the common fan that Frazier seemed to relate to the best. Buck Estel, a 54-year-old avid boxing supporter from Maple Shade, N.J., was decked out in Philadelphia Eagles gear. It was Estel's way of honoring the way Frazier personified Philadelphia, even though Smokin' Joe was born in Beaufort, S.C. Estel was one of around 50 mourners who went up and sat in the Wells Fargo Center stands, looking down on the white casket for a few more minutes after paying their respects. He met Frazier for the first time a few years ago in an Atlantic City casino. "After I met him, I had to go back to him three more times,'' Estel said. "Joe was just a real person. He took the time to talk to me and everyone around us. I remember going back to thank him for the time, and like a little kid, calling my wife later telling her I met Joe Frazier. This city needs to build a statue to him and put that in front of the art museum. "The city should have embraced Joe a little more, but I'm happy they're doing this for him.'' |
| None November 8, 2011 1:30:46 PM Entry ID: 1932958 | "Joe Frazier should be remembered as one of the greatest fighters of all time and a real man," Arum told the AP in a telephone interview Monday night. "He's a guy that stood up for himself. He didn't compromise and always gave 100 percent in the ring. There was never a fight in the ring where Joe didn't give 100 percent." |
| None WOW November 8, 2011 11:51:11 AM Entry ID: 1932906 | Dear Pitching Insiders, MLB pitching coach helps high school pitcher go from 86 mph to 82 in the off-season How pitching instructors kill velocity On Saturday we made a triple play here at a lesson. A father and his 21 year old son Marc came in from Long Island, NY. A D2 pitcher whose velocity has been as high as 91 mph but now sits between 86-87 mph. He wants to continue to pitch and of course play pro ball but must get his velocity above 90 mph...and probably more toward 92. The triple play occured because Marc had three instructors watching and helping him. Me, my son Ryan and my college teammate and roomate Jim Zerilla or who most know by just "Z". Z was here visiting for our college baseball reunion. "Z" and I did the college recruiting seminar last month and will continue with Session #2 next Tuesday at 6 pm. (this will save parents not only thousands of dollars but tons of wasted time). Marc and his father Christian left with a plan for the next 90 days on how to get his velocity up to the 92 mph range and above. Marc's "velocity killing" problems...all typical: 1. collapsing back leg 2. started with too much hip and trunk turn - so he immediately starts rotating into landing 3. poor bracing action at landing What was killing his velocity? It was mainly his trying to get velocity from counter-rotating his hips and trunk away from the target. Then he would immediatley have to start turning while moving toward landing. His back leg collapsed and this big slowing action prevented forces from being directed right at the plate. This also prevented him from bracing upon landing. |
| None "The kids is tomorrow." November 8, 2011 8:34:03 AM Entry ID: 1932767 | " Frazier told CNN's Don Lemon in 2009. "The kids is tomorrow. And if we don't do what we're supposed to do for them now, how are you going (to) expect them to carry on?" Asked whether he was similar to Rocky Balboa, the title character in the "Rocky" series, Frazier replied, "Sure. I worked at the slaughterhouse. I'm the guy that ran in the streets of Philadelphia." |
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"The world has lost a great champion" November 8, 2011 8:31:34 AM Entry ID: 1932763 | (CNN) -- Former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier died Monday, after he was diagnosed with liver cancer, his family said in a statement. Frazier was 67. "We The Family of ... Smokin' Joe Frazier, regret to inform you of his passing," the statement said. "He transitioned from this life as 'One of God's Men,' on the eve of November 7, 2011 at his home in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania." He fought fellow boxing legend Muhammad Ali three times, including the famous "Thrilla in Manila" fight in 1975. Joe Frazier: A Life in Pictures Joe Frazier: A Life in Pictures "The world has lost a great champion," Ali said in a statement early Tuesday. "I will always remember Joe with respect and admiration. My sympathy goes out to his family and loved ones." Star boxer Floyd "Money" Mayweather offered to pay for Frazier's funeral. "My Condolences go out to the family of the late great Joe Frazier," read a post on Mayweather's official Twitter feed. "#TheMoneyTeam will pay for his Funeral services." 2009: Joe Frazier reflects on his legacy Frazier, nicknamed "Smokin' Joe," used his devastating left hook with impunity during his professional career, retiring in 1976 with a 32-4-1 record and staging one last comeback fight in 1981. Fans and well-wishers were encouraged to post their thoughts and prayers on a Facebook page at joefrazierscorner.com. "RIP Smokin' Joe Frazier you had heavy hands and a big heart you will be missed," read a Facebook post . Another post said: "One of my childhood heroes has left us ...I'm really sad." The son of a South Carolina sharecropper, Frazier boxed during the glory days of the heavyweight division, going up against greats George Foreman, Oscar Bonavena, Joe Bugner and Jimmy Ellis. He made his name by winning a gold medal for the United States at the 1964 Summer Games in Tokyo. But it was his three much-hyped fights against Ali that helped seal his legend. Frazier bested Ali at 1971's "Fight of the Century" at Madison Square Garden. In the 15th round, Frazier landed perhaps the most famous left hook in history, catching Ali on the jaw and dropping the former champ for a four-count, according to Frazier's bio at the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Frazier left the ring as the undisputed champ and handed Ali his first professional loss. Ali won a 12-round decision in a January 1974 rematch, setting the stage for the classic "Thrilla in Manila" just outside the Philippine capital in 1975. Ali took the early rounds, but Frazier rebounded before losing the last five rounds. By the end of the 14th, Frazier's eyes were nearly swollen shut, and his corner stopped the bout, according to the biography. Later, Ali said, "It was the closest I've come to death." Frazier was a two-time heavyweight champion for nearly three years until he lost in January 1973 to George Foreman. He lived in Philadelphia, where he operated a boxing gym for many years. "I don't mind working with the kids," Frazier told CNN's Don Lemon in 2009. "The kids is tomorrow. And if we don't do what we're supposed to do for them now, how are you going (to) expect them to carry on?" Asked whether he was similar to Rocky Balboa, the title character in the "Rocky" series, Frazier replied, "Sure. I worked at the slaughterhouse. I'm the guy that ran in the streets of Philadelphia." |
| None first pitch at the seventh and deciding game November 4, 2011 9:36:19 PM Entry ID: 1931554 | Bob Forsch, the only St. Louis Cardinal to throw two no-hitters and the third-winningest Cardinal pitcher ever, died Thursday after collapsing in his Florida home, the team and MLB.com reported. Forsch’s death came six days after the 61-year-old threw the ceremonial first pitch at the seventh and deciding game of the World Series in St. Louis. The Cardinals won their 11th championship that night, defeating the Texas Rangers 6-2. "Having been with Bob just last week, we are all stunned by this news," Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. said in a Cardinals news release. “Bob was one of the best pitchers in the history of our organization and a valued member of the Cardinals family," DeWitt said. Forsch’s wife said that early indications were that he had suffered an aneurysm in his chest, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. He most recently was a pitching coach with the Billings (Montana) Mustangs, the Rookie League affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. Forsch compiled a 168-136 record and a 3.76 earned-run average in 16 Major League Baseball seasons, from 1974 to 1989. He played all but his final year in St. Louis, ending his career with the Houston Astros. He won a World Series with the Cardinals in 1982. His no-hitters came against the Philadelphia Phillies in 1978 and the Montreal Expos in 1983. He was one of only 28 pitchers to have more than one no-hitter, according to the Cardinals. The Billings Gazette reported that Forsch was out of baseball for 20 years until the Reds gave him the coaching job in the Montana city in 2009. “I always told myself that I’d get back into it,” Forsch told the Gazette in 2010. “I planned to take a couple years off and then get back into baseball, but I found out that summers are really nice to spend with the family. My kids grew and went their own way, and I was home watching baseball and I thought, ‘I think it’s time.’ ” |
| Strap yourselves in. If game seven October 28, 2011 2:41:51 PM Entry ID: 1928195 | If Game 7 of the World Series is anything close to Thursday night's instant classic, it's going to be a white-knuckle, gut-wrenching, hair-raising, eye-popping ride. If you're a Cardinals fan, how can you not believe destiny's on your side? If you're deep in the heart of Texas, Busch Stadium just became your own personal Halloween house of horrors. The game "breaks your heart," the great Major League Baseball Commissioner Bart Giamatti once wrote. "It is designed to break your heart." A lot of hearts are going to be broken Friday night. But for fans from coast to coast, the drama of this series -- Game 6 in particular -- is a reminder of why 21st-century America still loves this 19th-century game. The game has those transcendent moments that connects the generations Sports writer Andy Martino "The game has those transcendent moments that connect the generations," said Andy Martino, a sports writer for the New York Daily News. Game 6 "was so exciting that it roped everybody in." |
| None World Series Game #7 October 28, 2011 2:14:40 PM Entry ID: 1928161 | Everything that makes people hate baseball in the summer should make them love it right now. |
| None Baseball can be the game of fables October 28, 2011 7:50:21 AM Entry ID: 1927993 | ST. LOUIS -- Baseball can be the game of fables and fairy tales, the anticipatory lull between pitches sewing the fabric of our imaginations that run wild in backyards, cornfields and alleyways, anywhere there's a stick and a ball or a reasonable rendition thereof. Few are so fortunate to live those daydreams, much less correctly imagine the professional uniform they will wear when their childhood fantasies play out on a perfectly manicured professional ball field, surrounded by nearly 50,000 screaming voices whose faith is tested with each pitch and catch. David Freese is the lone Cardinal with local roots, raised in a western St. Louis suburb where he idolized the local red-wearing nine. His favorite team now employed him, and it faced its final strike on two separate occasions Thursday night, not just the final strike of an inning or a game but of a World Series that many thought they wouldn't see this year. Yet here the Cardinals sit, victors in one of the most dramatic championship-series games in the sport's two-century history, having become the first team to score in the eighth, ninth and 10th and 11th innings of a World Series contest -- twice off the bat of the local hero, Freese -- that it would go on to win 10-9 and force a do-or-die Game 7 on Friday night. "It's all about knowing that this is the game as when you're six years old," Freese said. "It's just elevated on a stage, and everyone is watching." The realities of the game are so much harder than a child could ever imagine, a throng of critics there to document your success or failure and a fireballing closer's 98 mile-per-hour pitch humming faster through the air than through the fantasies of a young mind. "When you're a little kid and you're out there, you don't have a bunch of reporters and fans that are ready to call you a choking dog if you don't come through," said Cardinals right fielder Lance Berkman, who added his own heroics with a game-tying single in the 10th. "So when you're a kid, you don't realize what a big moment that is. I'm just going to caution all little kids out there, be careful what you wish for." In the bottom of the ninth inning with Texas leading 7-5, Freese missed the first such offering from the Rangers' Neftali Feliz to fall behind in the count, one ball and two strikes on the at-bat and the season, when he got a second chance and crushed a ball to right field that barely escaped the glove of right fielder Nelson Cruz, colliding with the fence for a two-run, game-tying triple. "Playing anywhere else that game is over right there," Berkman said. "That's a home run for sure in Texas, and in 99 percent of the ballparks in the league, that's the walk-off." Surely in every young boy's dream, that bottom-of-the-ninth ball finds the hands of a bleacher-bound fan rather than remain in the field of play. And most assuredly such a hit isn't preceded by an error so egregious that even a younger child wouldn't have made. A fifth-inning pop-up soared into the Busch Stadium night and fell to Freese's glove at third base, only to pop out and fall again, this time to the ground, an error that led to a run his team could ill afford to allow. "A four-year-old would have used two hands," he said. "But you look at the scoreboard and there's four or five more innings left, and we're down one with a lot of game to play." Little did he know his team would bat in seven more innings and that he would get not just the game-tying opportunity in the ninth inning, but a go-ahead chance in the 11th. This time he faced a different Texas reliever, Mark Lowe, who worked the count full with a battery of fastballs and sliders before he ran up his first changeup of the at bat, which Freese crushed to center field for the game-winning home run. It was a blast all-too-reminiscent of another Cardinals' extra-inning home run to win a postseason game: when Jim Edmonds did the same to win Game 6 of the NLCS in 2004, a game a fan like Freese had cataloged for automatic recall as he rounded the bases and drowned out everything else. "I was running around the bases and Edmonds popped into my head, that moment, because I remember when did that in Game 6," he said. "But, seriously, growing up or whatever and you see stuff like that happen, those become memories." Not in any of his many travels -- not his college, nor his junior college, nor his high school, not his Little League team -- had Freese ever done what he accomplished early in the cool Friday morning. "I didn't hear much," he said. "When I rounded second, I was looking for my team. I've never had a walk-off home run in my life. Never. Ever. I've never met my team at home plate." The other reality you don't consider as a child is the greeting you receive at the end of your trot. The jumping, cheering mob of teammates consumed the dirt around home plate, at which point Freese removed his helmet, spiked it through his legs and entered the fray. By the time he exited it, one of the artifacts he'd be sending to the Baseball Hall of Fame, along with his bat, was two-thirds of his jersey, it having been ripped apart by teammates, the right sleeve missing and unaccounted for, thanks to the celebratory work of infielder Nick Punto. "Hopefully it's around here somewhere," Freese said. "But, yeah, the Shredder. We've got an alter ego on this team, and he comes out every once in a while." He's come out more than once for this resilient team that sat 10½ games out of the playoff picture with five weeks to play. It was so improbable a regular-season comeback that their manager said he'd have publicly kissed the rear of the man who promised an appearance on this stage back on the darkest February night when the club lost one of its two aces for the season. And then this game left a man in his 50th year of professional baseball at a loss to compare this game. "What happened today, I just think you had to be here to believe it," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. Of course, there's one more obvious catch -- in the classic dream conjured by every child, the game-winning home run comes in Game 7 to win the championship. "We've got one more game," Freese said. "I want to win the World Series. I hope we're the ones smiling 24 hours from now." |
| None to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans. October 26, 2011 9:00:52 PM Entry ID: 1927403 | Every off season Ron Washington returns home, to the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, to the same modest house where he and his wife, Gerry, have lived since he was a back-up middle infielder two decades ago. No one bothers him there. "Some don't know who I am," he says, of his neighbors. "And I like it like that. Because I like to cut grass. I like to wash my cars. I like to do stuff outside. People just pass and wave and keep going. And that's good." Washington may never again get to cut his grass in peace. This October, he's gotten more air time on FOX than Simon Cowell, with his dugout boogying, animated mound visits, and unorthodox (some would say, downright crazy) in-game tactics. But now he has a chance to become more than the free-spirited skipper who had some funny lines in Moneyball. With one more win, Ron Washington will be the genius who out-smarted La Genius, the man who led the Texas Rangers to their first-ever championship. |
| None He's not afraid to fail. October 25, 2011 2:38:31 PM Entry ID: 1926731 | ARLINGTON, Texas -- Ron Washington might have become the first manager in World Series history to walk into a news conference before a game and say, "I'm not as dumb, either, as people think I am." It was classic Wash: self-deprecating and funny, but still fiercely proud of his baseball acumen. "I don't call it unorthodox," he said of his style, "I just call it taking it to you." By the end of the night, Washington, a freewheeling spirit with enormous trust in his players, had become not just the first manager in World Series history to intentionally put four runners on base and still win the game, but also the guy who left future Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa awkwardly trying to wipe egg off his face after as sloppy a game as you ever will see managed in a World Series, Williamsport included. The Rangers' 4-2 win in Game 5 was as much about how La Russa and St. Louis lost it as anything else. The Rangers now have a slim lead in the World Series, three games to two, and need one more win to end the third-longest championship drought in history, a title 51 years in the making. But the difference in the dugouts was a far more yawning gap. "You know, I did what I felt I had to do with my players, and that's all I'm worried about," Washington said when asked about outmaneuvering La Russa. "As you said, I can't match wits with Tony. I haven't been in this game that long. I just wish I could stay around as long as he has and be as successful as he has. I just trust my players and try to get them in a position where they can be successful, and they haven't let me down so far." It's not so much that Washington has drilled down to another layer of baseball intelligentsia bedrock. After all, the dude bats his hottest hitter, Mike Napoli, eighth. He already lost one game in this Series in part by giving a key at-bat to somebody named Esteban German, who had not batted in three weeks. But what Washington has is immense trust in his players and, most of all, a growing confidence in himself. He has become more than a manager. He has graduated to trusted leader. Last night, for instance, Washington allowed left-handed hitting David Murphy to bat against left-handed reliever Marc Rzepczynski with two on and one out in the eighth with the score tied. Murphy typically looks at a scouting report in the dugout when a new pitcher comes in the game. He did the same thing this time, and even though Washington has pinch-hit for Murphy twice before rather than let him hit against Rzepczynski, the manager simply said to him, "You've got him." "I just felt like right there was a good opportunity to let Murph swing," Washington said. "He could get lucky for us and make something happen, and he ended up hitting a ball up the middle off the pitcher's glove, loaded up the bases and it worked out for us." Get lucky for us? My how that must chap the manage-by-data crowd, the ones who cannot make a decision without a binder. When I asked Murphy how often he sees Washington make an in-game decision based entirely on numbers, he replied, "I don't know if I ever do." And about hitting Napoli eighth: Yes, it's odd to keep such a hot bat so low in the lineup, but at least the grouping of his players made sense. Washington wanted to make La Russa's late-game relief decisions harder by going right-left-right-left in spots six through nine. Naturally, the Rangers wound up winning the game when Napoli doubled home two runs off a left-hander, Rzepczynski, with the bases loaded. "I've seen him get better and better every year," Murphy said of Washington. "He has a lot of confidence in himself right now, as he should. It's pretty impressive as a manager to improve your win total five straight years. What you see from Wash now is not that he's reckless, but that he's not afraid of the consequences when things don't work out. He's not afraid to fail. |
