There is dumb. And then there’s dumber.
Dumb is shelling out $252 million to a baseball player.
Dumber is bringing together fire and gasoline: Carl Everett and John Rocker.
Can’t you see it now? First day of spring training, the two get into an argument in the Texas Rangers clubhouse, Alex Rodriguez tries to pull them apart, dislocates his shoulder and is sidelined for six weeks.
The Rangers went out and improved their pitching staff, but what they need more than anything now is a diplomat. Henry Kissinger isn’t doing anything; maybe they can hire him.
How would you like to be Rangers manager Jerry Narron? He may be begging to be fired a month into the season.
Lou Piniella is a master at keeping a peaceful clubhouse, but even he might be challenged by the new Texas twosome. Rocker doesn’t like minorities and gays. Everett seemingly doesn’t like anyone.
Watch. They’ll fool us all and get along handsomely.
And if they don’t – it couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy than Texas owner Tom Hicks.
Jeff Cirillo won at least one reporter over the day before his announced signing with the Mariners.
When they finished talking on the phone, Cirillo said: “If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to call back.”
The newsman was at a loss for words.
More Cirillo: You knew that he and Bret Boone were teammates at Southern Cal, but maybe you didn’t realize that Boone was a student there for three years. “I don’t think he was,” Cirillo said.
The Mariners should hire Jay Buhner just to hang around the clubhouse and keep things loose.
Let’s have a show of hands: How many of you think Gil Meche will ever throw another pitch in the major leagues?
Position wise, the Mariners are a better team than they were a year ago. The starting pitching is another issue.
The New York Times has been running short stories on all the people who died in the Sept.11 terrorist attacks. One woman was an avid Yankees fan and kept an autographed picture of Piniella on her desk in the World Trade Center. I wonder if he knows.
Surely Trent Dilfer starts at quarterback for the Seahawks on Sunday, even if Matt Hasselbeck is healthy.
Hasselbeck may be the future, but Dilfer is clearly the present.
Dilfer has played in big games – it doesn’t get any bigger than the Super Bowl – and Hasselbeck hasn’t since he was in high school. Dilfer is unbeaten in his last 14 starts. Dilfer didn’t panic when the Seahawks got behind 13-0 on Sunday and then put them in position to win.
Hasselbeck is coach Mike Holmgren’s boy, but surely he’ll be willing to swallow a little pride and choose the guy who has the best chance of bringing his team a win.
Won’t he?
You ever seen a better college football game than the Holiday Bowl shootout between Washington and Texas? The Sun Bowl game between Washington State and Purdue wasn’t exactly a ho-hummer, either.
You ever get the feeling that WSU’s Mike Price is underestimated as a football coach? Two 10-win seasons in five years isn’t bad. He could be about to go on a roll. Time to show him the money, isn’t it?
Purdue coach Joe Tiller seems like he’d be right at home in any social setting, hanging out at the grain elevator swapping stories with the farmers or regaling the wine-and-cheese crowd at a party in Manhattan.
He comes off as kind of a cowboy – a very smart cowboy.
You’ve got a player like Minnesota receiver Randy Moss admitting he doesn’t always try his hardest. Then you have a guy like Doug Flutie, who played in a game Sunday in which nothing was at stake. Nothing but his pride. Which was enough. Flutie threw himself into the game so aggressively you’d have thought it was the Super Bowl. But that’s just Doug Flutie. He’s had to play that way all his life to make believers out of doubters. But at 5 feet 9, he’s taller than any player in the NFL.
So we asked Stanford football coach Tyrone Willingham last week if he was interested in the Notre Dame job, to which his name had been linked. “No,” he said, “the job I have is where my focus is.”
Then he got off on this tangent about teaching his players to make good decisions so that they can make good decisions in life.
“If I expect that of them, then I expect no different from myself,” he said. “I expect to make a great decision when that time comes.”
Monday, he made a great decision.
And Notre Dame got itself a good football coach.
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