Reactions to Vasquez's return to Maryland

Greivis Vasquez is returning to Maryland for his senior season after withdrawing his name from the 2009 NBA Draft, which is great news for Gary Williams and the Terps. With Vasquez back, Maryland's starting lineup is significantly better, and it also makes the bench a little deeper.

Here are some reactions that examine Vasquez's return further:

• Terrapins Insider:
  

  
  G -- Vasquez
  G -- Bowie
  G -- Mosley
  F -- Milbourne
  F -- Williams
  
  Bench -- Hayes, Gregory, Tucker, Padgett
  
  How do you like that lineup?
  
  Here's the thing about Vasquez: You pretty much know what you're going to get every time he takes the court. For the most part, he was a consistent presence for the Terrapins last season. Even during the stretch when his shooting percentage sunk, he almost always found a way to score 10 or more points. How many other players on Maryland's squad possess that capability?
  



• The Dagger:
  

  
  While we can debate how good this will make Maryland next year (better than they would be had Vasquez left and certainly more confident), it's undoubtedly a good thing for Vasquez's pro chances. Had he gone pro, he may have slipped into the second round and earned the non-guaranteed contract that comes with it. Now, Vasquez will be leading a presumptive top 25 team in 2010 and figures to have a much better chance at being selected in the first round. Not bad for a guy who doesn't always make the right choice on the court.
  



• D.C. Sports Bog Live:
  

  
  I like Greivis. He's good for sports. And the Terps are, if not a Top 25 team, an Also Receiving Votes team now. So much for "Program in Crisis" talk.
  



• Mike Wise:
  

  
  The great thing about Vasquez returning isn't that it flies in the face of so many one-and-done kids making a farce out of the NBA's age-restriction rule; no, [Vasquez and Williams] deserve each other for one more season, if for no other reason than what they've already gone through.
  
  The Gary and Greivis Show was never validated by numbers and splits or any other timing instrument or tape measure; it was about the bonding of two survivalists.
  



• Baltimore Sun:
  

  
  With the 6-foot-5 Vasquez back, Maryland has all its starters returning except the graduated Dave Neal. The Terps will blend the backcourt experience of Vasquez and fellow guard Eric Hayes - who will also be a senior - with new inside players James Padgett and Jordan Williams and returning forward Landon Milbourne.
  
  Vasquez, however, won't be paired with Lance Stephenson, the highly touted, 6-foot-5 McDonald's All-American from Brooklyn, N.Y. Two sources with knowledge of Maryland's efforts, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Monday that the school no longer is recruiting Stephenson, who has had off-the-court issues.
  
  Vasquez's main assets are his size and ability to penetrate and rebound. He has struggled at times with his three-point shooting (32.7 percent for the season) and his defense. Williams said Vasquez has been working on improving his game, particularly the consistency of his shooting.
  



• Tracking the Terps:
  

  
  I think most suspected Vasquez wouldn't stay in the NBA draft and would return for his senior season. "I thought he would (remain)," Eric Hayes said. Gary Williams had said much the same thing.
  
  But still. You never know when an itchy NBA team will get a covetous feeling about a player and whisper in his ear.
  
  Gary Williams said he was perfectly prepared to say goodbye to Greivis if the player got a top-20 draft nibble. But I don't think the coach expected that to happen. And neither did most of you Terps fans.
  
  Say what you will about Greivis and his personality -- mercurial? passionate? hot-headed? I think the guy really works to improve himself. He knows all about the turnovers and knows he must improve his shot. I expect him to return a better player this year.
  



• ESPN:
  

  
  Williams said he is convinced Vasquez can be a top 20 draft pick in 2010.
  
  "He makes us pretty good,'' Williams said Monday afternoon, a few hours before the 5 p.m. ET deadline to withdraw from the NBA draft. "He's a competitive guy and when he was playing well against other point guards in workouts it was hard to see them projected ahead of him in the draft."
  



• Andy Katz:
  

  
  A number of teams contacted by ESPN.com said Vasquez would've been a strong second-round selection this year, with the potential of being a solid first-round pick in 2010. On Monday, Vasquez decided on the latter. The native Venezuelan averaged 17.5 ppg last season for a Terps team that advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament. Maryland returns essentially everyone from that squad.
  



• Andy Katz's latest preseason top 25:
  

  
  17. Maryland: Yes, the Terps are getting this high a nod. I know they got rocked by Georgetown and Duke at one point last season and had to scratch and claw their way into the NCAAs. But Greivis Vasquez' decision to return gives Gary Williams the ammunition he needs to build a tough-minded, gritty bunch once again, with eight of the team's nine top scorers back.
  

I think that about does it. Vasquez's return should certainly make the upcoming season a little more exciting.

Life after basketball: Ed O'Bannon

Remember Ed O'Bannon? In part two of a three-part series on retired multimillionaire athletes, Dave Sheinin of The Washington Post provides an interesting look into what O'Bannon is doing now and what happened to him after he was out of the NBA after just a couple of seasons.

O'Bannon helped lead UCLA to an NCAA title in 1995 over Arkansas with 30 points and 17 rebounds in the championship game. By all accounts, O'Bannon was one of the best college players in his senior season -- he won the Wooden Award that season as well -- and the New Jersey Nets selected him ninth overall in the 1995 NBA Draft.

And that's where things started to go south:

"I'd had a pretty good workout with [the Nets], and I said to myself, 'Watch it be my luck -- I'll go from UCLA to New Jersey,' " O'Bannon says. "And sure enough, the cameras come and focus on me just as New Jersey's pick is about to be called. And I'm just like, 'I can't believe I'm going there.'

"That's the honest truth. Right then and there, my stomach dropped and I started to get homesick."

The three-year, $3.9 million contract he signed with the Nets helped soften the blow a little bit, allowing him to buy an SUV for himself and another one for his brother, Charles -- who followed Ed to UCLA and then to the NBA. He and Rosa bought a condo near the ocean in Manhattan Beach, Calif., outside Los Angeles -- but that only served to make him miss home even more.

"I wanted so bad to go to Portland, or Phoenix," he says. "It didn't have to be the Lakers. I wasn't greedy. Just give me Utah or Denver, somewhere in the West, where I could shoot home on an off day. People who don't get homesick won't understand what I'm saying, but that's how I felt, and because of that I just never got comfortable."

Besides being so far away from home, other reasons for O'Bannon's NBA failures include: a bad left knee (he tore his ACL in his freshman year at UCLA in a pickup game); "coaches trying to make him into a shooting guard when all he had ever played was power forward" (O'Bannon is 6-foot-8); and the slow, physical play in the Eastern Conference.

After leaving the NBA, O'Bannon played several more seasons of professional basketball overseas to keep earning a paycheck, though his passion for the game was obviously waning. Though he wasn't really having fun, he still got to experience some bizarre things on the court:

It was in Warsaw, and O'Bannon's team, Polonia Warszawa, was playing a crosstown rival. It was snowing outside, and some of the rivals' fans had brought in some coolers, five or six of them, filled -- as everyone later discovered -- not with drinks, but with snow.

"You could see them start to pack them into snowballs," he says. "And then something happened -- a bad call or something. They get a technical foul, and we're on the free throw line, and all of a sudden a snowball hits the court and slides along the floor. The referee doesn't know what to do. He's standing there with the ball in his hand, and sure enough here comes another."

Pretty soon, it was a hailstorm of snowballs, and Polonia's fans were storming the court, picking up the snowballs and firing them back into the stands at the visiting fans.

"So it was a full-fledged snowball fight," O'Bannon says. "I'm standing there thinking, 'What have I gotten myself into?'"

O'Bannon eventually decided to hang up his sneakers and is currently working hard as a car salesman at a Toyota dealership in Las Vegas.

But even though his life is now devoted to his family and his work, he still has some mixed emotions on what could have been: "It's disappointing to me to this day that I didn't play until I was 40. I wasn't an all-star. I wasn't a Hall of Famer. Those were all goals I had as a kid. So that's disappointing. I'll admit that. It's the truth. But once I decided I didn't want [to play] anymore -- in that respect it's not disappointing at all."

Writer falls short in playing "real journalists" card

The debate on the legitimacy of sports blogging recently returned in a big way for the first time since Buzz Bissinger and Will Leitch had their infamous quarrel more than a year ago on HBO's "Costas Now."

For those who haven't been paying close attention to the controversy that took place this week, here's a quick summary: Basically, a sports blogger whom you've probably never heard of, Jerod Morris of Midwest Sports Fans, wrote a post on Phillies' left fielder Raul Ibanez and his fantastic start to the season. After trying to explain Ibanez's numbers by looking at a change in ballpark dimensions and various bad pitchers that he's hit home runs off of so far, Morris speculates that mentioning the possibility of steroids is not completely out of the equation:

[I]t’s time for me to begrudgingly acknowledge the elephant in the room: any aging hitter who puts up numbers this much better than his career averages is going to immediately generate suspicion that the numbers are not natural, that perhaps he is under the influence of some sort of performance enhancer. And since I was not able to draw any absolute parallels between his prodigously improved HR rate and his new ballpark’s hitter-friendliness, it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility that “other” performance enhancers could be part of the equation.

Sorry Raul Ibanez and Major League Baseball, that’s just the era that we are in — testing or no testing.

Personally, I am withholding judgment until we see a full seasons’ worth of stats. Many players put together terrific runs of 150-250 ABs in the midst of otherwise normal or just slightly above average (based on their career numbers) seasons. Ibanez’s terrific 219 AB run since Opening Day is just magnified right now because it came at the start of the season.

Really, is that so bad? Morris doesn't come out and accuse Ibanez of taking steroids, which is because no one knows whether he did or not. Is it unfair to even include Ibanez's name in the steroid speculation dicussion? Sure, but it's not the first time that something similar has happened, and it won't be the last. Try mentioning Brady Anderson's name to someone and have the issue of steroids not come up. It's almost impossible, yet Anderson never tested positive for steroids.

As Joe Posnanski recently wrote, the worst thing Morris did was to not go far enough in his analysis. Posnanski points out that in Ibanez's career, he routinely goes on stretches when he absolutely tears the cover off of the ball, but that this year his hot stretch started at the beginning of the season instead of later on.

If Morris had discovered that trend, he probably wouldn't have had to bring up the steroid element in his article. So if Morris is guilty of anything, it's 1) not completely following through with his research, 2) using steroid speculation as a crutch to explain a situation that he couldn't find a reasonable solution to, and 3) mentioning steroids at all -- really, it's possible to bring up the notion of steroids with just about any player, so what does it bring to the table?

But if Morris hadn't written his post and caused an uproar, Posnanski may not have written his post, and many people wouldn't have learned more about Ibanez and his hitting trends. Morris still did a good job of discussing the topic at hand, which is what many blogs are good for anyway. Not every blog is well written or is the place to go to be schooled in Journalism 101, but readers can absorb plenty of opinions from all over the place. Blogs further the discussion in many ways that mainstream media can't and won't.

And that's precisely what many in the mainstream media fail to realize. Case in point: Geoff Baker's recent article in the Mariners blog for The Seattle Times. Baker discusses accountability, dedication, and responsbility, etc. in his article, which is great; I agree that all of those things are important and are qualities that all journalists should have. Baker writes:

But when you go all-in, you've got to go all in. He didn't do that. When you write about topics like killers, or Hell's Angels, or major leaguers and steroids, you can't pussy foot around. You've got to go at it hard, directly, with no b.s. and be able to defend yourself afterwards. This blogger couldn't because he went in only halfway. He tried to raise the "steroids issue" then claimed he really wasn't pointing a finger at Ibanez....It's no different from being in the schoolyard in fifth grade. If you're going to talk smack about someone, be prepared to stand up for yourself and ride out the blows. That goes for writing about Ibanez, or Yuniesky Betancourt, or John McLaren, or Bill Bavasi. In this business, you can't afford to give in to momentary fan frustration and lash out at players and team officials. Sure, some people do it in this business. Nobody is perfect. But there is always a price to be paid. It's not as simple as doing it from your "basement" or "office" or whatever. You have to have the defense ready in your head, and be prepared to defend your reputation in any forum, when you venture potshots at people from my position.

And that's why you see mainstream media taking fewer potshots than bloggers. Because at the end of the day, reason and fairness has to win out. Nobody's perfect. But it's always better to err on the side of caution -- and do a little more legwork -- than to have Ken Rosenthal destroying you on national TV, when your only defense is mere cliches and half-hearted insinuations.

It's rarely about us "soft pedaling it" or currying favor with the people we cover, either. I laugh at those suggestions, which I still see made by bloggers who have no idea what they are talking about. I get accused of it from time to time by bloggers too lazy to try to consider why I might be saying something. Folks, I took on an 88-win manager in his first season of a multi-year contract when I was a rookie beat writer 11 years ago because the circumstances warranted it. Do you seriously think I cared whether McLaren liked me or not? Time to get real. There's a difference between being fair and critical and being an attack-dog. You learn things like subtlety and nuance when you do this for a while.

Some writers pander to the blogosphere, focusing on popular stats or topics, or targets, to curry favor. Trust me, I know exactly what to write if I want all Seattle baseball fans to like me and worship what I print. But it's never about that. It can't ever be that way.

This is serious stuff. When you have the power to ruin reputations and change lives, it can never be abused. Or gone at in a half-hearted way.

And the ability to think about those things beforehand, truly, is what separates real journalists -- serious ones, not Jason Blair types -- from basement bloggers.

Sorry for the long quote, but this is important stuff. I'm not really sure how writing about killers compares to writing about baseball, but that's just me. People should be accountable for whatever they write, that's a given. And it's also extremely important to take a side in an argument, but only when the situation calls for it. Why did Morris have to stand on one side or the other in his piece? He was trying to present an honest take on what he was observing. He didn't quite uncover all that he could, but he tried, and at the end of the day, that's important. He wasn't trying to call out Ibanez; he was trying to figure something out. Not everyone can get a manager fired like Baker did, and they shouldn't be penalized for it.

That's a huge problem between the mainstream media and the blogosphere -- having a discussion vs. becoming the discussion. Baker offers a more than reasonable argument, but his column also presents another wrinkle to the overall debate. He's too busy saying, "Look at me" and "Look what I've done." Whenever popular columnists are challenged or feel threatened, they want to throw out their resume or talk about their contacts or anything else that makes them feel popular. Baker's column isn't just talking about journalists vs. bloggers; it's about himself. Just look at how many times he uses the words I, my, or myself -- 100 times. That's right, 100. He's trying to tell you that he's right and that you should believe him because of what he accomplished 10 years ago and that if you disagree, well you don't have the experience that he does, so you're wrong.

It's hard enough to read a column these days without being bombarded with a lack of in-depth analysis. I talked about this before, but a recent Michael Wilbon article on the upcoming NBA Draft mentioned Gilbert Arenas and the fact that he's not really a point guard. I like Wilbon's writing, but his only reasoning was that Magic Johnson said Arenas isn't really a point guard, so it must be true. How's that for definitive proof? There are certainly exceptions -- plenty of writers provide outstanding analysis in their articles -- but for the most part, if fans want to delve further into statistics of their favorite team, they read blogs.

And if the entire mainstream media was so much better at analyzing all aspects of a sports topic than the blogosphere, then a website like Fire Joe Morgan wouldn't have been so popular in the first place.

There are good mainstream writers and there are bad ones, and the same thing is true in the sports blogging world. And many media members have embraced bloggers and understand that they're not going away.

Some O's fans are frustrated

Rather than analyze what appears to be another Orioles loss tonight, this time against the Braves, I figured I'd post a couple of comments I made today on Roch Kubatko's MASN blog in response to some odd suggestions from a couple of O's fans on what the team should do to get out of its current funk.

Feel free to chime in if you agree, disagree, or have a comment of your own.

First comment:

"Matt K. said:

After reading some of these comments, it's pretty evident how fickle so many Orioles fans are. Someone suggested hitting Roberts 9th and Andino 1st -- really, that's the solution? Actually, that's a perfect way for Trembley to get fired -- to make a whole bunch of snap decisions that don't make sense.

Another person suggested trading Guthrie for a third baseman -- well, what kind of trade value does he have right now with an ERA around 5.50? What kind of player would that get the O's?

As unfortunate as it is, teams go through slumps. I know the Orioles are 10 games below .500 now, but sit back and relax: the team is improving. Wieters is starting to feel more comfortable at the plate, and Reimold has been better than most O's fans could hope for, especially after watching Felix Pie for the first part of the season.

The pitching staff is getting younger and better, and that's not even counting the top pitching prospects that should be on the way within a year or so. So what if Roberts, Jones, Markakis, Huff, and Mora are underperforming a bit? The O's front office knows what it has in those guys, and they will turn it around sooner or later -- they're too talented not to. It's a shame that they're all struggling at the same time, but they will break out of it.

The worst thing to do would be to overreact and make poor choices now. Hey, Marco Scutaro is playing well this season, let's trade Markakis for him!"

A response to my comment, with a comment of my own following that:

"AnotherBrian said:
Matt K.,

I put Andino first because he's actually been hitting decent lately. Also, he's a base-stealing threat. What is your definition of a leadoff guy? A guy who gets on base and can steal second? Yeah.

I put Roberts 9th because although he hasn't been hitting lately, it takes pressure off of him. It also allows Mora and Weiters to see a few more pitches since teams will be trying to get them out before Roberts gets up. I wouldn't expect Roberts to be batting 4th-6th because I don't view him as a power guy as much as Huff, Scott, Jones, and Reimold.

There's nothing 'fickle' about that. It doesn't follow the set-in-stone ways of people like you who have one view on how things should be, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't work. This wasn't the 'what would Matt K. do' question.

I wonder if you think Walker should still be in the bullpen because it was a fickle move to get rid of him after he had a couple bad outings? I mean, he has had a history of success. Why change anything?

-----

(My response:) How is there not anything fickle about moving Andino into the leadoff spot and moving Roberts 9th? So Andino has been in a bit of a good stretch -- so what? He's hitting .254, and he has 1 stolen base in 2 attempts. And in 207 career at bats, his on-base percentage is .260. Granted, that's not a huge sample size, but that's not exactly tiny either. He's an 8th or 9th place hitter, and putting him in the leadoff spot for anything other than a game or two would make little sense.

On the other hand, Roberts is hitting .284 and hits plenty of doubles. He also gets on base a lot -- his career OBP is .355. His walks are down a bit, but he's still getting on base at an effective rate. Even if he's had a bad stretch, he's still the guy the O's want at the top of the lineup; why move him to the 9th spot, and how exactly does that take the pressure off of him if every time he has a slump he has to worry about being moved down? And also, if he's doing so bad as to be hitting 9th, why would other teams be concerned about hurrying up and getting the hitters before him out before he comes up? That logic doesn't make any sense.

There's no reason for you to get angry about what I said, and it's not just the way "only Matt K. thinks." If you ran a poll, maybe 1 percent of O's fans would choose Andino to hit leadoff over Roberts. That's not just what I think, it's a fact; Roberts is a much, much better hitter than Andino.

Walker is a completely different case altogether. He turns 38 on July 1st, and he wasn't effective at all last year. I didn't even think he'd make the team out of spring training and was shocked when he did. I do think the O's need to make a change here or there, but what's the point in overreacting and messing with the whole roster? The O's have a plan, and Roberts, Markakis, Jones, etc. are all in it. Moving them up and down the order just because the O's have been losing lately wouldn't change much, especially if you buy into the fact that batters' placement in the order doesn't matter a whole lot. I think it matters some, but obviously you think it is extremely important. I guess we'll just agree to disagree."

Another response to my first comment, with my comments again after:

"Malignant said:
Matt K wrote: 'Another person suggested trading Guthrie for a third baseman -- well, what kind of trade value does he have right now with an ERA around 5.50? What kind of player would that get the O's?'

I assume you're directing that towards me? The answer is, plenty. Not what you may have gotten last year, but he's got enough of a track record that you get one premium prospect and a couple of lower tier prospects. Easily. Whether or not there's a 3rd base prospect out there on a contending team, I don't know without doing research. The point is, this teams NEEDS a 3rd baseman for the future.

-----

(My response:) Really, a team would give up a premium prospect right now for Jeremy Guthrie? Look, I like Guthrie, but there's something wrong with him lately. His walks and strikeouts are about the same percentage as last year, but he's giving up way more home runs, plus opposing batters are hitting .291 off of him. For the Guthrie of last season, I'm sure the Orioles could have gotten back a nice prospect or two, but now, I'm not so sure. If it was possible, I guess that would be a smart move, but I don't know.

By the way, the Orioles don't just need a third baseman for the future -- how about potential starters at the rest of the infield positions, not counting catcher, of course. Snyder could work at first base, I guess, but second base (after Roberts is gone) and shortstop are question marks right now.

I know what you're trying to say, but it's hard to get another team to part with a potential solid player for players that aren't performing that well. What is Guthrie really worth at this point?"

Again, it's not a real big deal that there are some strange opinions out there on what the Orioles should or shouldn't be doing, but I thought these two were particularly odd.

WJFK considering a switch to sports talk format

The CBS Radio-owned station WJFK (106.7 FM) may be "switching... from its guy-centric talk programs to sports talk" in an effort to battle Daniel Snyder, who owns ESPN 980 and is the unofficial "king of sports talk radio" in the D.C. area, according to Paul Farhi of The Washington Post.

Although Farhi fails to produce any direct comments from CBS Radio on the potential changes to the station, which means the move is probably just speculation at this point, he still does an effective job of breaking down WJFK vs. ESPN 980:

At the moment, neither WJFK nor ESPN 980 is widely popular. During the first three weeks of May, according to audience figures compiled by Arbitron Inc., WJFK tied for 17th place among local stations, attracting an average of just 2.4 percent of the audience during its broadcasting day. ESPN 980 ranked 19th, with 2.2 percent. Both stations did somewhat better among the core market of adults 25 to 54: WJFK tied for 13th among this age group and ESPN 980 ranked 17th.

In addition to trying to broaden its audience, CBS also might be looking to reduce WJFK's operating costs. Its programming lineup has not been completed, but WJFK likely will retain the Junkies program in the critical morning "drive" hours. CBS has been talking with former Redskin LaVar Arrington and Washington Post sports columnist Mike Wise about hosting daily programs.

A few thoughts here:

First, I've listened to Mike Wise a few times on ESPN 980, and I have a hard time believing he could host a daily radio show. If Wise and Arrington worked together on a program, I guess that could work since Wise writes interesting columns and Arrington certainly has in-depth knowledge of the game and was a star for a few years with the Redskins, but maybe I just haven't seen or heard enough of them on TV or on the radio to have a better opinion on that.

Second, I don't think it's possible for the Junkies to go back to an all-sports format. I do listen to them routinely on my drive to work in the morning, but that's mostly because I refuse to listen to the dreadful Mike and Mike show on ESPN 980. Unless they're talking about the Redskins or the NFL as a whole, only two of the Junkies seem to care about other sports -- Lurch and JP -- and some of the conversations on sports topics seem a little awkward at times. I guess they could switch back if really necessary, but they have way too much fun talking about plenty of things that have nothing to do with sports, which is fine.

And third, Farhi mentions this briefly toward the end of the article, but I was sad to see Al Koken laid off and removed from The John Thompson show. Koken usually knew what he was talking about and has/had a great passion for D.C. sports, not to mention that he had solid chemistry with Thompson on the air. As for Brian Mitchell's similar departure from the show, I'm a little less bothered. Mitchell was extremely critical of the Redskins and particularly of running back Clinton Portis, though I can't say that I didn't enjoy the on-air battles between the two. But after a while, it got old to hear the same negative comments from Mitchell week in and week out.

But back to the topic at hand, I just have one question for CBS Radio on the possible decision: Why? The Junkies have a popular show with what their format is now, and lots of people love the Big O and Dukes show too. If they were going to get rid of one show, it should probably be the Mike O'Meara Show, which might make a little more sense than messing with the entire station. Replacing that program with a well-run sports show could work. But if they mess with the entire station's format, they may risk upsetting a lot of listeners.

Reporter dunks on kid, laughs about it

This past weekend I was on a little vacation, but I don't think I missed much. The Orioles lost all three of their games in Oakland with some awful performances, so not seeing any of that was fine. Plus, I did get to watch a great Game 2 of the NBA Finals, though the Lakers won in overtime as the refs continued to give them call after call.

Still, I'm glad to be back, if not just for stories like this one:

It isn’t often you get to see a grown man with few demonstrable basketball skills — you can tell from the one weak dribble — dunk on a small child. Even better, it isn’t often that small child takes the big angry man’s taunts seriously (then again, if you’re a small child, it’s hard to detect tongue-in-cheek ridicule). And even better than that, it’s even less often that the small child’s angry mother tries to salvage some shred of her family’s on-air dignity by holding her tearful spawn up to the reporter, in effect shaming him, before walking away from the camera in a huff.

After reading that, is there any possible way that you don't watch the following video?



My two favorite parts: 1) When the kid's mother gets bitter while the father keeps laughing in the background, and 2) the end of the clip when the WGN sports anchor (Pat Tomasulo -- the guy who dunks on the kid) pretends to apologize and says he feels "so powerful."

So, even if the Orioles keep playing horribly on the road and the Lakers win the NBA title, as long as reporters keep dunking on little kids, things will be just fine for the next few months.

(HT: Awful Announcing)

LeBron criticized over 'handshakegate'

I don't need to do so, but I'll admit it: I'm not a fan of LeBron James. Most of it has to do with the fact that the Wizards can't get by James and the Cavaliers in the playoffs, but that's not the whole issue. I've written about my dislike of James and his "too cool for school" attitude before, but what he did this past week was a little different: it appears that he actually did something in the spur of the moment when he angrily walked off the floor instead of staying to shake hands with the Magic after being knocked out of the playoffs.

Was he mad? No question. But did he do the wrong thing? Probably. And for the first time that I can recall, James was openly criticized for something.

Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski wrote the most critical article about James that I could find (and probably the one that I enjoyed the most). Here's a sample:

LeBron doesn’t want to win more than Michael Jordan did, but Jordan could stop and shake a winner’s hand. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird could, too. Julius Erving did. Isiah Thomas led a walkout after losing to the Chicago Bulls after winning two NBA titles, but Joe Dumars never followed him. He stayed and shook Jordan’s hand, the way Jordan had always shook his when the Pistons had beaten him.

“M.J. had stopped, shook my hand and hugged me three straight years that we had beaten them in the playoffs,” Dumars once told me. “There was no way I was walking off the court without shaking the Bulls’ hands.”

Within the Cavs, someone needed to tell James that he embarrassed himself and the franchise, but that won’t happen. They’re too scared of him. Most league executives with knowledge of Cleveland’s operation believe it’s far more of an ownership issue, than basketball operations.

And if that wasn't enough, Wojnarowski wasn't done (thankfully):

The Cavaliers are terrified of James. When you’re around them, it’s sometimes embarrassing to watch the way they tip-toe and grovel with him. In their defense, that’s how James wants it. As a childhood prodigy, that’s all LeBron’s ever known. The Cavs are at his mercy until he becomes a free agent in July of 2010, and that isn’t going to change. There’s no chance that he signs an extension this summer, because that would be the end of the drama, the intrigue and LeBron James isn’t letting that go away.

He's right. There's no question that James is the league's top talent, but he still has some maturing to do. And he obviously loves every moment in the spotlight.

Even NBA commissioner David Stern isn't particularly happy with James:

In an appearance on "The Herd with Colin Cowherd," Stern acknowledged he was not pleased that James, the league's reigning MVP, didn't meet with the media, or shake hands with the Orlando Magic, following the Game 6 loss Saturday night.

Noting that in the recent past, other players and teams have been fined for failing to meet the league's media guidelines, Cowherd asked why James had not been fined.

"I'm in the process of making a phone call or two now to talk to LeBron ... so I don't want to speak to that at this moment," Stern said.

"So you're not happy?" Cowherd asked.

"I think that's fair to say," Stern replied.

I don't think that James should be fined, but that's a separate issue.

And not surpisingly, Michael Wilbon came to James's defense with an interesting excuse:

These are the kinds of lessons that aren't learned in AAU ball, where the star is simply catered to, but college, where the coach has the position and the authority to say, "Son, go back out there and shake their hands or you'll get splinters in your butt for the next five games." LeBron, who came to the NBA straight out of high school, didn't get that. If Kobe Bryant had walked off the court without shaking hands, two straight years in the conference finals, no less, he'd have been taken apart in the court of public opinion.

Still, I'm reluctant, like most people, to be too rough on LeBron simply for the reason that he's been so consistently appropriate and well-reasoned. He's been everything you could want a star player to be in the NBA. I've had several conversations with him over the course of the 2008-09 season, one of them here in Washington, lengthy and wide-ranging, and it's not just that he's engaging, which he is. But he's thoughtful. He's taken the time, unlike a lot of famous players, to thoroughly examine the history of the league before he arrived in it.

Yeah, whatever. If not shaking hands after a game is the worst thing that James ever does, that will be pretty remarkable. But I have a hard time believing that he decided to storm off the court just because he didn't have the proper coaching. Who, at any point in James's basketball career, has had enough authority to sit him on the bench at any point? I seriously doubt that would have ever happened no matter which coach he played for in college. He would have been such a huge star that any coach would have been publicly roasted for disciplining royalty. But again, that doesn't really matter.

As far as my opinion, I'm a bit torn. I didn't play in high school or in college, but I can't remember a rec league game when I ever just stormed out of the gym without shaking hands with the opposing team. I wasn't happy about shaking hands after losing, but I always did. But when I'm playing pickup ball, my attitude can be pretty terrible, and I can often be hard to talk to if my team loses or things aren't going right on the court. It can take me a little while to cool down, but once that happens, I'm usually good to go.

I don't think James is a horrible person, but he may be a bad sport. And that's not the worst thing in the world -- unless, of course, you're supposed to be the face of the NBA like James is. So, yeah, he might want to work on that.

Luke Scott isn't untouchable

One of the most annoying things to overhear at a baseball game is any kind of conversation by people who don't know what they're talking about. At an Orioles-Nationals game about a week back, I sat in front of a confused Nationals fan who, oddly enough, took credit for a Nick Johnson trade to the Red Sox that never happened and then tried to explain a balk call to a woman friend who had no idea what he was talking about. So, yeah, that was interesting.

You've also probably overheard fans discussing trading various players even though they probably overvalued them because of a few good performances or perhaps some unreached potential. This is obviously common in other sports as well, such as when, say, Wizards fans use ESPN's NBA Trade Machine and include the likes of Oleksiy Pecherov and Darius Songalia, among others, in some possible package for a star like Chris Bosh -- not that I've ever tried that.

I've already seen a few comments on message boards pining for the Orioles to hurry up and deal Luke Scott for whatever the O's can get. While it's true that the Orioles have a tough decision to make regarding Scott and that it's unlikely the team could get a king's ransom for him, he could still bring in some good talent.

Scott has been on fire since coming off of the disabled list, including being named the AL's Player of the Week. Scott had back-to-back two-homer games, and he hit six home runs in a recent four-game stretch. In a relatively small sample size this season, Scott, in 117 at bats, has posted a great .325/.406/.658 split with 11 home runs. He's also walked 15 times while striking out 22 times, which is pretty good. And as the Orioles play the Mariners tonight in Seattle, Scott just laced a single to right field.

Unfortunately, while he's hitting extremely well at the moment, he's good, but not that good. If he was a little younger, it would be a little more likely that he was developing into that kind of a player, but Scott turns 31 later this month. In his career, Scott is a .272/.358/.512 hitter, which is still very solid.

So, again, I'm not trying to be that annoying guy at the ballpark who talks about trading everyone away, but it would seem to make sense for the Orioles to explore the possibility of trading Scott for a few pieces, especially since the Orioles are still not one or two players away from being a top team. They're getting much better, and a big reason for that is Andy MacPhail's willingness to pull the trigger on a few key trades. That's how the Orioles acquired Scott in the first place, so if MacPhail feels that dealing Scott can help the organization, I'd be all for it.

When a team like the Orioles is trying to become relevant again, not many players can be considered untouchable.