Deep thoughts, cheap shots & bon mots …
Here’s Jim Harbaugh’s Rx for avoiding a funky ticker over the holidays: Gobble-gobble less turkey and avoid the jive giblets.
Vernon Davis’ coaches say that he is earning his keep as a blocker and decoy, and that his pass-catching has been limited by foes ganging up on him. How come that doesn’t stop the league’s other elite tight ends from catching passes?
Ties suck in the NFL. After one overtime, let’s break ties with a game of Cornhole — the tailgaters’ beanbag-toss game. Every beered-up fan could dream of becoming an NFL hero.
Jeff Tedford is under fire for (among other things) his team’s low graduation rate. But are the numbers misleading? Seriously, players who leave early and make the NFL shouldn’t count against a school’s graduation rate, because those guys achieved their collegiate goal.
The Raiders have not contacted the 49ers about renting their new stadium. Assuming the 49ers would offer a fair price, would the Raiders really rather play in their dumpy digs? Or do the Raiders have their unpatched eye on a new stadium a few hundred miles farther south?
Jack Nicholson was on hand for the Lakers’ unveiling of the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar statue, next to the likenesses of Magic Johnson, Jerry West and announcer Chick Hearn. Hey, what about a statue of Nicholson, the NBA’s greatest fan? Spike Lee can’t carry Jack’s jock.
The sky-hooking Abdul-Jabbar statue is great, but on most L.A. days, you can’t see above Big Fella’s waist.
Johnson tweeted that he is “in mourning” over the Lakers’ failure to sign Phil Jackson. Imagine this awkward moment at team HQ: New coach Mike D’Antoni says, “Good morning, Magic! Say, what’s with the black armband?”
Mike D’Antoni — the only NBA coach with three first names … Mike’s brother Dan, a Lakers assistant coach, also has three first names, but two of them are “Dan.” Do the D’Antoni boys have another brother named Tony?
Yes, I know, I wasted a lot of valuable space with the previous item.
Bob Melvin, weighing in on the re-signing of Bartolo Colon: “It’s one thing if a guy is a bad guy, but this is a true gentleman who just made a mistake.” So if Colon was a lousy tipper, say, the A’s wouldn’t want him? 1Melky Cabrera, two years for $16 mil. That, friends, is a coffeespitter.
Yes, Cal is now the center of the college swimming universe. David Durden’s men’s team wins two national titles in a row and now Teri McKeever’s power-packed women’s team lands megastar Missy Franklin.
Andrew Bogut is getting the Regenokine treatment, nothing more than Bogut’s own blood, removed and centrifuged, then reinjected into his ankle, at about $7,400 per treatment. Let’s hope Speedee Oil Change doesn’t hear about this.
Retired WNBA star Chamique Holdsclaw allegedly smashes an ex-girlfriend’s car window with a baseball bat, then fires a gun into the car. So Chamique can still crash the glass and shoot.