First, I’d like to wish the E-Street Band’s saxophonist Clarence Clemens a swift and complete recovery from a stroke. “The Big Man,” 69, Bruce Springsteen’s sidekick and onstage foil for over 30 years, has suffered health problems for a long time including a spinal problem and double knee surgeries in recent years.
And I don’t wish bad things on other people, so I also wish a recovery to Harold Camping, the minister who “calculated” that the Rapture would occur this past May 21st, 2011. Despite billboards, people giving away all of their material possessions expecting to be “raised up,” and too much media coverage, nothing has, so far, happened. After nothing he prophesized occurred, Camping said that the end of the world will come on October 11th of this year (he also said that the world would end in 1994). Maybe we got his message all wrong – perhaps he just meant the end of his world would come this year (sorry, I couldn’t resist…)?

It came suddenly, but not surprisingly – Ohio State besieged quarterback Terrell Pryor announced this week that he would not be coming back to Columbus for his senior season.
It was not surprising because with the departure of Head Coach Jim Tressel because he covered up the fact that Pryor and others were trading memorabilia for tattoos and other goods; and the NCAA was looking into five cars that Pryor owns/owned/drove, the collegiate noose was tightening. Already suspended for the first five games of next season, and more penalties looming, Pryor was a “dead man walking” to the OSU program.
The bigger question is: what now? Pryor, of course, sees himself as a QB in the NFL and will likely try to enter the league through some supplemental draft. (He has already turned down an offer to play in the CFL.) But he has a very long way to go as a pro QB – his passing isn’t great – he is big, runs well and moves around the pocket very well. But it was quite apparent that Pryor still needs seasoning – better reads, better fundamentals.
I agree with that, but once again, some unnamed “long time club personnel executive” quoted by Don Banks on SI.com says that he sees Pryor playing at another position. Why is it that every running black quarterback ever to come to the league is always downplayed, said that he needs work, may need to switch positions? Despite the careers of Michael Vick (on the field, I’m talking about), Randall Cunningham, Donovan McNabb, and so many others, every black quarterback who can run, is considered a reach by the old, predominantly white “personnel executives” that run the teams?
Isn’t any quarterback a reach? Is any QB a “sure thing?” Peyton Manning comes to mind, but even he had detractors when he came out of Tennessee. Tom Brady was a fifth round pick; Dan Marino had bad knees. But no one ever said that they should consider changing positions.
The true test of complete equality is when players are allowed to succeed or fail on their merits. Let him try to play QB – he could play like Vick, or he could be a bust like Akili Smith. But stop with the old, quietly racist comments made about every African American quarterback. Maybe the “personnel executive” should wonder whether his team is smart enough to run an offense with a mobile, agile black quarterback?

• The Boston Bruins have silenced British Columbia by pulling even with the Vancouver Canucks in the best-of-seven game Stanley Cup Championship series. It’s funny, a cheap hit that knocked Nathan Horton out of the series, may be the turning point to losing the series for Vancouver.
• Meanwhile, we have a serious Game 5 in the NBA Finals tonight. Whoever wins Mavs or Heat, would have the edge in winning the title. LeBron James, who had eight points in the last game and was said to have “checked out” of Game 4, has Tweeted that this is the most important game of his career. Perhaps; but if he pulls another choke job, Scottie Pippen and all those who compare him to Michael Jordan should be quiet and go away.
• One year ago tonight, I was crying in a bar. No, nothing happened with the family; work was fine. No, I was in Boston, watching Game 6 of last year’s Stanley Cup Finals between the Blackhawks and Philadelphia Flyers. Even in Boston, I had brought my Hawks jersey and hat – I was ready for something that hadn’t been seen in 49 years. Friends were texting me during the game, especially when the Flyer tied the score in the third period. But then Kane’s shot inexplicably slid under the Flyers’ netminder and I started jumping around. Some other people in the bar started celebrating with me. But when Jonathan Toews lifted the Stanley Cup, I sat on a barstool and cried. A good memory one year later!

If it’s June, it is about time for Chicago Cub pitcher Carlos Zambrano to have a melt down. In past years, he fought his catcher in the dugout; insulted his teammates; gotten suspended and had to undergo anger management classes.
Yesterday, he lashed out after the Cubs blew a 2-1 lead in the ninth inning against the hated St. Louis Cardinals and lost for the second day in a row on an Albert Pujols walk off home run in extra innings.
Zambrano was the starter yesterday and he pitched well, going seven innings and giving up 1 run on five hits. But former Cub Ryan Theriot drove a fastball into the corner to tie the game in the ninth before Pujols was allowed to win it in the 10th. Zambrano exploded in the post game press crush’ “We played like a Triple A team. This is embarrassing… for the team, for the owners, embarrassing for the fans.”
He continued his rant targeting closer Carlos Marmol who pitched to Theriot, “We should know better than this. We should know that Ryan Theriot is not a good fastball hitter. We should know that as a team. We should play better here. We stink – that’s all I’ve got to say.”
As of right now, the team has now announced any punishment, but Cub broadcaster Bob Brenly, himself a World Series winning manager, applauding the pitcher’s rant and referring to the Cubs as a “dead-ass team” with several indifferent players accoridn to the Chicago Tribune.
In a radio interview, Brenly said, “Big Z is just expressing what a lot of fans feel, what a lot of us broadcasters feel, and as usual, doesn’t always choose his words properly, doesn’t always choose his forum properly, but I applaud the emotions.
“This has been, once again, another dead-ass team. You’ve got some guys that look like they’re just playing out the string, and we’re only in the first (week) of June here, and we know from past experience that Carlos is not on e of those guys that can sit by idly and keep his mouth shut and just let things continue to spiral downward. He’s going to express his opinion, he’s going to be emotional about it when he does it.
“I don’t view this as a suspendable offense or anything like that. I just think it’s a guy who is frustrated with the way the season has gone, he’s frustrated with the way his teammates have approach their daily business … I’m sure there are times when Carlos is just as guilty as anybody on that roster. For me, it’s time. It’s about time that somebody stood up and said ‘Enough is enough. I’m tired of watching this.’” Brenly went out of his way not to criticize manager Mike Quade, which is probably fair considering the team he has, and the injuries players have suffered (although you can ask why you have your pitchers pitch to Albert Pujols with first base open on Sunday after what he did on Saturday).
The Cubs are 23-34, two games from having the worst record in the majors and there are problems on all fronts. The fans are discouraged and they are starting to stay home (the economy doesn’t help). Wrigley Field needs a lot of work and politicians are not going to use taxpayer dollars to pay for it; the Ricketts family who just bought the team two years ago, haven’t endeared themselves to the fans by asking for tax money in a down economy and having one of the highest average ticket prices in the sport; and last week, word leaked that the Ricketts used too much debt to finance the purchase, placing them on a watch list with Major League Baseball for potential financial difficulty.
It all seems like the team is coming apart at the seams on and off the field, which doesn’t bode well for the fans who desperately want to end the Cubs’ 102 year and counting World Series Championship draught,

Canadians have the reputation of being a little more gentile, more European, a bit more civil than their neighbors to the South, the United States. That is, until we get to hockey. Long time readers know that I have little love for Vancouver, but that’s because of the rivalry that has developed over the past three years, when the Blackhawks eliminated the Canucks the past 2 years until Vancouver knocked us out this year.
I have a friend whose daughter lives in Vancouver and is a Hawks fan, and she has regaled us with the how Vancouver fans have yelled at her and called her names. She said that she would have had a fight a couple of times if she had been male.
But the boorish behavior has not been limited to off the ice. SI.com reported that Bruins coach Claude Julien has criticized the Canucks’ sportsmanship in the wake of Vancouver forward Alex Burrows’ appearing to bite the gloved right index finger of Boston forward Patrice Bergeron during a scuffle in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals.
Before Game 2, Burrows appeared to bite the Vancouver forward Maxim Lapierre then taunted Bergeron about the incident, pointing his finger near Bergeron’s mouth. Julien says if the Canucks choose to “make a mockery” of the situation with Lapierre’s taunt, that’s up to them. The coach says he wouldn’t allow such behavior by his players.
God for him. Hockey is a sport where the “high road” is not beating the hell out of your opponent, and if the Canucks are “gooning up” the Stanley Cup Finals, it cheapens the game, and any credit that the Cunucks deserve for their great regular season and postseason run so far.

Former New York Giants star Plaxico Burress was released from prison today after spending nearly two years behind bars on a gun charge. He spoke to the media and then reportedly headed to Florida to be with his family while he contemplates his chances of playing again in the NFL.
As he left Oneida Correctional Facility in central New York Monday morning, he hugged agent Drew Rosenhaus and shook hands to people outside. “I just want to thank God for bringing me through one of the most trying times in my life,” he said to reporters outside the prison. “It’s a beautiful day to be reunited with my family. I want to go home and spend some quality time with them As far as football is concerned, if and when everything gets settled, when they get back on the field, I’ll be ready.”
But who would be ready for Burress? He is now 36 years of age, two years removed from competitive football and a known problem in the past off the field, including the event that led to his jail stint. If the sides do make a deal soon, who would take a chance on such a player?

Just as Burress was getting out of jail, it looks like former New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra may be taking his place in jail. Dykstra, who has had financial problems and other run ins with the law, was charged with grand theft auto and drug possession by prosecutors who claim he used phony information to lease a car.
Dykstra, 48, was charged with 25 misdemeanor and felony counts of grand theft auto, attempted grand theft auto, identity theft and other crimes, and faces up to 12 years in state prison if convicted. Dykstra’s accountant and a friend were also charged in connection with the alleged auto theft but not with drug crimes.
Prosecutors contend that the three men tried to lease high-end cars from dealers this year by providing phony information and claiming credit through a phony business called Home Free Systems. Two dealerships rejected the lease applications but a third allowed the men to drive off with three cars, according to a statement from the district attorney’s office.
When being arrested on these charges April 14, the arresting officers reportedly found cocaine, Ecstasy and the synthetic human growth hormone Somatropin at his home.
Dykstra, who had been profiled on television a couple of times as the baseball player who became a financial whiz, filed for bankruptcy two years ago, claiming he owed more than $31 million and had only $50,000 in assets., but in May, he was charged with more than a dozen federal counts, including bankruptcy fraud. Federal prosecutors contend that he hid, sold or destroyed more than $400,000 worth of items from the $18.5 million mansion without permission of a bankruptcy trustee.
I never liked Dykstra as a player. Outside of his hard nosed persona, he was one of the worse of the Mets of the 1980s, and this includes Darryl Strawberry and Dwight Gooden, both of whom had their own personal problems. There was always something askew about Dykstra in my mind, and when he started getting in trouble with the law (if I remember correctly, there was a story about him trying to have sex with an under aged girl who worked at a car wash he owned). Now, he faces more charges, and he may turn out to be the biggest ex-baseball criminal since Denny McLain.

If it’s spring/summer, it is the time that I hate around my house. I don’t mind sharing my back yard with nesting birds, it’s the red winged blackbirds that swoop down on me protecting their young that gets to me. If birds could understand, I would tell them that I don’t give a sh#@ about their babies, I just want to take out the f@#$ing garbage!
I am used to carrying a bat or a 2 by 4 when I go out to the alley, but last week the little f#$%ers went too far in my opinion. We had some guests over one day of the long weekend, and the Indignant Children were playing in the backyard, and one of the two males went batsh#% – swooping down just over the heads of the girls. Like the birds, when you threaten my children, I get a little upset. The girls were OK with it although the oldest one was crying one day earlier in the month when the bird had scared her swooping down.
The Indignant Wife says I should leave the birds alone, but I threw rocks and a couple of soccer balls at the little bastards. She says that I’m making too much out of it. Then I began thinking – a little rat poison mixed with some bird seed and the problem will be over.. But I decided to call the Village of Skokie to see what they came up with.
A very nice lady called me back, but I ended up scaring her. She told me that I couldn’t poison them – I would end up killing many more animals than I intend (which I admit I hadn’t thought of). She said to just let them swoop – they never attack humans, just scare them. She even says that to soothe people, she will stand in the yard and let the birds descend on her to show that they don’t land. I told her that if they get close to me or the children, I’ll take the bat on the little f@#kers (not in that precise language). She got really quiet after that.
So, the gauntlet is thrown – it the birds actually land on any humans in my backyard, drastic measures will be taken. I wonder if I can buy a shotgun with birdshot quickly?