It didn’t take long for the Minnesota Vikings to evaluate their once-and-future wide Receiver Randy Moss. Four weeks after re-acquiring Moss, the Vikings waived Moss. Linebacker Ben Leber says coach Brad Childress informed the team that Moss had been let go during a team meeting Monday afternoon.
One thing that you don’t do is criticize your coaching staff. After a very poor performance Sunday against his former team, the New England Patriots (Moss had one catch for 8 yards in the loss), the wide expressed admiration for the Patriots and criticized Vikings coaching in the postgame press conference.
Childress had said earlier Monday that Moss was staying back in the Boston area after the game to spend time with family. Childress said he did not regret acquiring him “at the moment,” but he also did not mention the roster move during his news conference.
The Vikings acquired Moss from the Patriots a month ago for a third-round draft pick. He played in four games for the Vikings and had 13 catches for 174 yards and two touchdowns.
It is almost funny watching the Vikings teeter on the edge of destruction, but it also interesting that this time it doesn’t involve quarterback Brett Favre. After coming one win away from the Super Bowl last year, Favre retired; was begged to come back; it was revealed that the aged QB had been “sexting” a female sideline reporter while a member of the New York Jets; got injured; and was close to being benched.
At the center of this and the Moss incident is Head Coach Brad Childress. Childress has done a fine job in engineering the resurgence of the Vikings franchise, but he has come off as a toady to Favre and perhaps his skin is now so thin that he couldn’t take criticism from another veteran.
Also, it should be noted that Moss may be near the end of the line. The big plays aren’t there anymore and that’s with not 1 but 2 future Hall of Fame quarterbacks throwing to him: Favre and New England’s Tom Brady. It will be interesting which team will give Moss another chance (and make no mistake, there will be one). Will Moss show that he still has something left like Terrell Owens is doing in Cincinnati, or will he prove that he’s done and sulk?

Last week, I wrote how I felt that Michigan State University fans were the most boorish assholes in the Big Ten, and if it weren’t for Notre Dame, they would be the biggest assholes in the nation. Well, I had that brought back home to me last weekend.
It was Northwestern’s Homecoming game, and the day began raw and rainy and cool. A tradition has been to go to Mustard’s Last Stand, a little shack next to the West parking lot for food prior to the game. Well, if the Pace buses followed the written Pace schedule, I would have been there in plenty of time, but after waiting in the cold drizzle for 40 minutes for a bus, I arrived too close to game time to wait in the long line at Mustard’s.
So, I decided, being Homecoming and all, that I would walk in the packed West parking lot and see if I knew anyone tailgating. I had my NU hat and jacket on, but I was wearing my iPod and listening to music; I thought that I was minding my own business. I was, that is, until this young woman comes up to me and pokes me on the chest. She is wearing Michigan State green from nearly head to toe; I would guess she is near 30. I have never seen this woman before in my life.
I take my earbuds out and she says to me “I don’t like you.” Instantly enraged; I made the comments that led this blog about MSU being assholes in a very loud voice and surrounded by MSU fans.
The woman slithered away, never to be seen again, but by the time I got to the stadium, I was fuming. I didn’t want NU to beat MSU; I wanted them eviscerated; I wanted them pummeled, and as everyone knows by now, the game started well enough, with the home team taking a 17-0 lead before falling 35-27. I hate when NU loses, and I hate when they lose a winnable game. But I especially hate losing to these classless bastards.

Things have fallen together well for your friend and narrator in this year’s Major League Baseball postseason. First, the hated Minnesota Twins meekly succumbed to the Yankees. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I won’t root for the Twins or anyone else in the White Sox’ division. Then the Yankees got beat and life was really good. And while I didn’t write about them, I was getting tired of the Phillies, and they are at home watching too.
So, that leaves us the Giants and Texas Rangers in the Series. Both teams are beyond due: the Giants haven’t won since moving from New York to San Francisco in 1958, and until this year, the Rangers were the only team in baseball to never have won even a postseason series.
Now that Barry Bonds is gone, I have no real dislike for the Giants. I grew up watching Willie Mays, Willie McCovey and Juan Marichal playing for the Giants and it would be good to see them win. Besides, San Francisco is one of the best cities in the nation: home of great food, beautiful surroundings, the ocean.
On the other hand, the Rangers have never been anywhere near this level. They used to the be old Washington Senators (as were the Twins) and therefore are the target of one of the best lines in sports history: “First in war; first in peace; and last in the American League.” The Rangers also have two truly great comeback stories: Josh Hamilton whose drug problems had him out of baseball until he got clean and sober and he could be named AL MVP very shortly; and manager Ron Washington who tested positive for cocaine last season. What other team could have a tradition of losing and drug problems and still be on the brink of the championship?
I have a friend who is a lifelong White Sox fan who says that he roots for the National League in the World Series because all AL teams other then the White Sox are “the enemy.” Well, I’m not that harsh – the sentimental favorite of mine is the Rangers, despite the fact that they play in the worst state in the union.
What do I think will happen? The Giants have too much pitching and I think they will win, but either way, I’m happy for the fans of the two franchises who have suffered so much futility.

Long-time readers know that I am a fan of Northwestern football; I have had season tickets for home games since 1996. I openly root for Northwestern, and I usually yell at the referees, and the opposing team’s fans, who sit one section over from my tickets, do annoy me from time to time. But there’s fans from one Big Ten school that are the leaders in boorish behavior, and their team returns to Evanston this weekend, the Michigan State Spartans.
Now, I know what you’re saying: worse than Ohio State? Worse than Michigan? There’s no denying that fans of Ohio State and Michigan are asses for the most part, and it annoys me that they believe that games at Dyche Stadium are basically their own home games and NU is going to be handily beaten. There’s a long history of us being a door mat and I understand that this is a hard mindset to break despite the fact that NU has beaten Ohio State at home, and has regularly beaten Michigan over the past decade. Iowa fans are jerks too, but I give them a little slack because there’s nothing to do and no team to root for in Iowa, so it’s their chance to show what kind of rubes they are (and we’ve done well against them since 1995 too).
But OSU and Michigan are programs that have a history of football excellence. Michigan State fans come into Evanston with an even worse attitude. An example, several years ago, NU and MSU were locked in a tight game and I said to my friend Tom with whom I share the season tickets that if NU makes a defensive stop, we might win. No yelling; no cursing; just conversation. There was an MSU fan sitting in front of us, and he turned around and started yelling how ridiculous my comment was. Usually, I’m the one getting into an argument with fans of the other school, not Tom, but I was the calm one this day. Tom started into the guy saying how dare he make such a comment, and worse than that. I, of all people ended up holding Tom back. (The best revenge – NU did stop Michigan State on that drive; won the game; and the guy sulked off.)
I have long wondered why Michigan State fans are such a$$holes. The only answer I can come up with is their inferiority complex with the Blue team from Ann Arbor. The last few years notwithstanding, Michigan has been a top flight program with an over two decade streak of bowl appearances, which the Spartans have not been able to field successful teams with the same frequency. Yes, they have had some good teams, but success was always measured against the Wolverines, and most times, MSU has come up far short.
One would think that by beating Michigan last week at “the Big House” in Ann Arbor, the fans would relax a bit, root for their team, but be respectful that they are in someone else’s stadium. That’s not their style; never has been.
This weekend, MSU leads the Big Ten; they are undefeated, which means that they will be at the stadium in force and they will be loud. That’s fine, but I know someone will be sitting near me talking crap, and I will get angry, and I will go out of my way to insult them. Honestly, I’m 50 years old and don’t need the aggravation, but I know it’s coming.
I hope we stomp the hell out of them.

Hockey players, for the most part, begin playing as children and that consumes them. Games, junior leagues, and all-star teams take precedence over everything, including education. Which is a nice way of saying that hockey players are generally not known for their intellectual expertise.
However, even the biggest goon who has had his brains bashed to mush should understand one thing: don’t get into a fight with the fans; the people that buy the tickets and ultimately, pay your salary. That’s not to say that fans are angels. A friend sent me a video link that a friend of his took from the Stanley Cup finals last year while wearing a Blackhawks jersey. Needless to say, it can’t be shown to children. (The worst was probably a very attractive young blonde who said some of the vilest, most X-rated comments about the Hawks and the photographer only asked whet she thought of the team. I wouldn’t have dated someone with that mouth, even if she did half of the things she claimed the Blackhawks did).
Anyway, one man is learning a tough lesson – Vancouver Canucks forward Rick Rypien has been suspended by the NHL indefinitely for grabbing a fan while heading to the locker room in a game against Minnesota earlier this week.
The Canucks stunk up the place the other night against the Wild (they were down 4-0 in the second period when I turned the game off), and I understand that one way to try and get a team energized is for someone to start a fight, and Rypien was the man.
When the dust settled, Rypien had been assessed a double minor for roughing and a 10-minute misconduct in the second period. So he was already gone for the night and was facing a fine from the league. But, on the way to the visiting locker room, Rypien pushed a Wild fan who was applauding at the railing, and he had to be restrained by teammate Manny Malhotra. (It should be noted that the fan was removed from the area, as well. Also, he should know that as a pro athete, with games broadcast and everyone with a smartphone able to photograph you and put the tape on You Tube, that anything you do, will end up known by everyone.)
Hockey has gotten a good and bad rap for the fighting that has occurred and the NHL has been much more PR-centric in trying to walk the tightrope between old style hockey and people who like fights, and a larger sporting populace who don’t. Some say the league has catered too much to the latter group, but they are a larger population, and they have much more money to spend, and that’s the difference between being a major sports league, and a marginal, dying one. I believe there’s aplce for fighting in hockey, and I also admit that I enjoy watching the most ignomineous beating in sports history – when ex-Bruin and current hockey commentator Mike Milburn went into the stands at Madison Square Graden in the 1970s and beat a fan who had gotten into the fight between the team with his own loafer. (Hilarious!)
I’m not surprised the league has come down on Rypien like a 50-ton weight. I’m surprised some tiny shred of grey matter didn’t tell Rypien the same thing.

I sometimes get pushback when I suggest that there are some baseball franchises that deserve to be eliminated unless they get an owner with EXTREMELY deep pockets and alternate sources of income where he/she/they/it can run the team as a hobby, with little concern for profitability. The Pirates, Brewers, Marlins, and Royals are the teams that are most in jeopardy in my opinion. They have lost for years, are in small markets where only winning will bring the fans back (or, like in the case of Pittsburgh, the fans save their money for football or hockey and probably won’t ever return even if the Yankees moved there). Two of the franchises, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, have only prolonged the inevitable by building (or, more correctly, had taxpayers build for them) beautiful new stadiums that all too often have fans conspicuously looking like empty seats.
However, I would place the Kansas City Royals at the top of my contraction list if the following item that was on SI.com yesterday comes to pass. The website reported that the Royals seem to be ready to start entertaining offers for their ace, Zack Greinke.
Royals GM Dayton Moore told the Kansas City Star that “nothing has changed at all. We know it’s going to make sense, at some point in time, to do something if we can’t sign him beyond 2012. We’ve just got to measure how (any deal) fits in today and long-term.”
This doesn’t mean that the Royals are about to trade the former Cy Young award winner, but they may have no choice. The team is still hoping that it can sign Greinke to an extension before his current deal expires in 2012, but Greinke has made it clear that he’s not going to stay in Kansas City if the team doesn’t contend.
I believe in loyalty for highly paid professional athletes to the teams that give them the millions, but in this case, I can’t blame him. He is the best pitcher for the worst team in the AL; a team that hasn’t been relevant in the standings since George Brett was playing third base in the 1980s. Every team comes into spring training with hope for the playoffs, but all too often, after an initial bit of winning, the Royals are playing out the string by June.
Kansas City is a proud franchise with lots of history. This once again shows that Major League Baseball needs MEANINGFUL revenue sharing like the NFL if there is to be real competition between the Royals and the Yankees, Red Sox and Mets. But if the Royals trade Greinke, they might as well close up Kaufman Stadium or have the Royals join an actual minor league to match their talent and their payroll.

Many Chicago Cub diehards are groaning today because former shortstop Ryne Sandberg was passed over for the manager’s job. Instead, the team returned the reins to former interim manager Mike Quade.
Some of the local papers have said that the former career minor league manager comes cheap at a time that the Cubs have among the highest payrolls in the game for no postseason returns. Yes, he is. Often articles have stated that Quade is Cub GM Jim Hendry’s close friend. Perhaps he is, but Hendry knows that he is on the hot seat. He negotiated all of those exorbitant contracts to the likes of underachievers like Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Zambrano. This may be his last managerial hire if it doesn’t work.
The simple matter is that Quade deserves a chance. The players liked playing for Quade when he became the 51st manager in franchise history when replaced Lou Piniella on Aug. 23. The bottom line is that the team responded with a 24-13 record, a .649 winning percentage.
The Cubs reportedly also were considering Yankees manager Joe Girardi, but honestly, would the manager of the Yankees, the team with the most World Series titles and an ownership that will spend whatever is necessary to win leave to manage a team that hasn’t won a title in 102 years?
Sandberg, who won the Pacific Coast League manager of the year in 2010, perhaps should have been named interim manager and been given the chance Quade received. But Quade has shown that he at least deserves a chance to take the team over a full season. Sandberg may want out of the organization now, and I’m sure he’ll get a chance somewhere else, but they did give him four years of training in their minor leagues to learn the trade, which they didn’t have to do.
Will the Cubs be a success with Quade? Only time will tell; but he did earn it.