Why No Word From Bud (the Commissioner, not the Beer) On Cabrera Getting Stinko?
Open Mike | by Mike O'Hara | 10.6.2009/12:30PM
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Miguel Cabrera, invisible commissioner: Where is Bud Selig, the commissioner of Major League Baseball, in the wake of the drinking incident involving Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera?
I know what happens when an NFL player has a brush with the law off the field. Immediately, reporters call the league office to ask what disciplinary action – if any – will be taken by Commissioner Roger Goodell under his tough personal conduct policy.
So far, there’s no word from Selig about any possible discipline for Selig. Maybe nobody bothered to call him.
And maybe the culture of baseball is different.
Doesn’t a player getting loaded during the season, having a scrap with his wife, and being detained by the Birmingham police, fall into the realm of the commissioner’s power over what’s good for baseball?
Two sniffs of the cork, and Goodell springs into action. He’s the law-and-order sheriff.
But Selig apparently thinks alcohol abuse – and it is documented that Cabrera had a blood-alcohol level of .26—is just part of the baseball culture. Get drunk. Have a dust-up with the missus. Sober up. Play baseball later that day.
Now that more details have come out on the issue, Tigers Manager Jim Leyland comes across something less than a stand-up guy in this affair.
We know now that Tigers President Dave Dombrowski picked up Cabrera at the Birmingham jail around 7:30 a.m. Saturday. Later that night – when the Tigers played the White Sox – Leyland was questioned by reporters about the marks on Cabrera’s face.
Leyland said he didn’t know anything about it.
So either Dombrowski never told his manager about it – and how improbable is that – or Leyland just didn’t think it was necessary to tell the truth when questioned by the media.
Wonderful.
Just wonderful.
Goodell and Braylon Edwards: Edwards, the Cleveland Browns’ fourth-year receiver, allegedly was involved in a scuffle outside a Cleveland night club early Monday morning.
On Tuesday, the NFL sad it is investigating the incident, which involves allegations that Edwards assaulted a man associated with Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James, outside a night club.
The NFL is acting with 36 hours of the Edwards incident.
More than 80 hours after Cabrera’s incident, no word from Bud Selig.
Again – has anyone asked him?
Favre and away No. 1: No matter what you thought about the shenanigans and melodrama that landed Brett Favre in Minnesota, you have to marvel at what he has accomplished in the first four games of this season.
In Monday night’s showdown game against his old team, the Green Bay Packers, he was not the Favre of old. He was the old Favre – and in some ways, that made him even better than when he was in his athletic prime.
Favre did what he had to do – manage the game and distribute the ball to receivers – in leading the Vikings to a 35-28 win.
Just as important, he didn’t do what he couldn’t do – drop back and throw on every down, and try to force balls into narrow cracks in the Packers’ defense.
No matter what Favre said before and after the game, revenge was part of his motivation for playing against the Packers and beating them in the first matchup against the team he led for 16 seasons. But it was a factor – for Favre and the Packers.
There were some genuinely warm handshakes after the game – and some others that were nothing more than cordial. Favre rubbed some people the wrong way with his yearly offseason dramas over whether he would retire or continue playing.
Finally, Packers GM Ted Thompson drew a line in the Frozen Tundra after the 2007 season and committed to Aaron Rodgers as the Packers’ quarterback of the present and future.
There was no real loser in that ego clash – except in public perception. Some people thought Favre was acting like a petulant child. Some thought Thompson let ego get in the way of good business sense.
Both sides might have been right. In the long term, the Packers have a terrific young quarterback in Aaron Rodgers. However, he has not been a winner – 6-10 in 2008, and now 2-2 with a loss to the Vikings.
But the Vikings have filled a void in the short term – a winning, veteran to fill the missing piece in their puzzle.
Can Favre hold up for the season? Good question, and the answer will come. Down the line, he’ll have to win a big game to get the Vikings into the playoffs, and then win big games in the postseason.
The odds are against his 40-year-old body functioning at a high level into January and February. And the truth is, Favre hasn’t starred in the postseason since the 1996 and ‘97 seasons, when the Packers won one Super Bowl and lost to Denver in the other.
But for now, he and the Vikings are riding high.
If the MVP voting were done for the first quarter, Favre would get a lot of votes. We’ll see where he stands – and if he’s still standing – after four quarters.
Michigan State paranoia: MSU coach Mark Dantonio was upset during his regular Monday-morning interview on WJR-AM in Detroit by the questions asked about Saturday’s 26-20 overtime win over Michigan.
No question, Michigan State lives in the shadow of Michigan. Michigan simply has a bigger following and is more popular with readers, listeners and viewers.
Having said that, from Dantonio’s perspective, he was justified in being ticked off about being asked if his fans thought they were headed for a loss.
Michigan State had never trailed in the game after the first 13 minutes. If anyone was worried about blowing the game, it should have been the Wolverines.
Joique Bell: Wayne State has to do a better job of promoting Joique Bell, its record-setting senior running back. He leads Division II in rushing and should be the leading candidate for the Harlon Hill Award – the Division II version of the Heisman Trophy.
Wayne State may never have another athlete who dominates his sport the way Joique Bell is running through opposing defenses this season – to the tune of almost 200 yards a game on the ground.
Wayne State has five more weeks to bang the drum for this great athlete – to bring attention to him, and to the Great Lakes Conference, where Grand Valley State is a contender for the national championship every year.
Let’s hear it.
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Weekend Worrier: Lions-Bears Pick, Tigers Finish, MSU-U-M, Henne’s First Pro Start
Open Mike | by Mike O'Hara | 10.3.2009/12:35PM
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NOTE: Mike O’Hara will participate in a live chat at noon on Monday, to reivew the Lions-Bears game and other issues. Go to detnews.com for information.
Rambling Prose: awaiting the Twins, Tigers, Lions – with my pick on the Lions-Bears, MSU staggering to a win over Michigan, and other priceless thoughts.
Lead off: Here’s an awful thought. Suppose the Lions are the only winner this weekend in the battle of Chicago-Detroit sports teams?
Would Lions fans feel great if the Lions upset the Bears at Soldier Field on Sunday? Or course.
But would that offset the sick feeling of the Tigers being swept by the White Sox – and letting the Twins, with a sweep of the Royals, steal first place in the Central and leave the Tigers out of the playoffs?
No, that would not offset the Tigers being KO’d from a Central title that looked to be firmly in their grasp when they got a 2-2 split in their series with the Twins earlier in the week.
Lions-Bears: My pick in this week’s NFL column on The Detroit News website – detnews.com – is for the Bears to win, 26-13, and cover the 10-point spot.
I’m not expecting an emotional letdown from the Lions. They didn’t beat the Redskins, 19-14, in the last game because they were jacked up to play. They played sound football and executed on offense and defense.
Emotion will carry a team through a series or two, but not through a game. Intensity is another matter, and the Lions had it for the full 60 minutes.
The Bears are better than the Lions. They should be. Lovie Smith has been their head coach for 84 games. This is the fourth game for Lions head coach Jim Schwartz and his staff.
The Bears have some issues. Their running game has fizzled so far. They have injuries on defense, particularly at linebacker. However, the pass rush is better, largely because of the presence of Rod Marinelli, who coaches the defensive line.
The Lions can win – if they get close to 100 yards rushing, if Matthew Stafford does not have a negative turnover ratio, if they get the ball to Calvin Johnson, and if they harass Bears QB Jay Cutler into mistakes.
All of that can happen, but you can’t count on it.
What you can count on is that the Lions are getting better. That was their most important development in the first month of the season.
More Tigers: Sometimes, I wonder what a Tigers fielder has to do to get charged with an error at Comerica Park. A few games ago, Placido Polanco misplayed a grounder. It was called a hit, not an error. On the broadcast, former Tigers catcher Jim Price called it an error. Not the official scorer.
Friday night, Carlos Guillen misplayed a fly to left. He slid too early, and the ball fell in his lap. That was ruled a hit.
Baseball has more stats than any sport. The box score reads like the roll call of the Italian Parliament. Even the temperature and wind direction are listed – along with the number of ground balls, pitches, names of the umpires.
What’s missing is the name of the official scorer. Add the scorer’s name to the official box score, I say.
Michigan-Michigan State: For the record – or check the record – my pick was Michigan State 37, Michigan 20.
I felt good about the pick when it was 20-6 – until Kirk Cousins fumbled in his own territory.
Chad Henne: Down in Miami, the second-year quarterback from Michigan makes his first pro start against Buffalo because of a season-ending injury sustained last week by Chad Pennington.
The Dolphins drafted Henne on the second round last year with the plan to make him Pennington’s eventual successor.
Henne had a solid, productive career in four seasons as Michigan’s starter. He’s a thrower, not a scrambler, and the succession timetable in Miami was accelerated by Pennington’s injury.
It’s not a perfect scenario for Henne’s first pro start. The Dolphins are 0-3 and heading into the meat-grinder of their schedule. After Buffalo, they host the Jets on Monday night, have a bye, then play the Saints, Jets and Patriots.
Henne threw 12 passes in three brief appearances as a rookie. He was 10-for-19 with an interception in relief of Pennington last week.
He has prepared to starter – but not at the expense ofa teammate’s injury.
“It’s terrible to see that happen,” Henne told reporters in Miami.
But getting the starting job has given him time to reflect on his new status.
“Everything is going through your mind,” he said. “freshman year on, and I just tried to carry that to the next level.”You have the nerves, the excitement, the emotions that you have to prepare to be the starting quarterback.
“You have to take this team over, give them confidence in yourself – show them during the week of practice that you can get it done.”
Henne had a great high school career in Pennsylvania. He chose a college program to prepare for a pro career.
“That is why I went to a big school,” Henne said.
Final: Michigan State 26, Michigan State 20: That’s not a misprint. I know the real score was MSU 26, Michigan 20. But the Spartans spent most of Saturday afternoon trying to beat themselves and almost succeeded.
In the third season under head coach Mark Dantonio, there’s no way they should be so ragged in a big game at home. They had to go 130 yards—because of 50 yards in penalties—to score their first TD. And they helped Michigan tie the game with two fourth-quarter touchdowns. They couldn’t tackle in the secondary, or cover anyone in the secondary. And on the same play, there was a defensive offside and a penalty for roughing the quarterback.
Michigan did not play well, except for its two fourth-quarter TDs. It should have been an easy win for the Spartans, but they never make anything look easy.
MSU deserved to win, but watching tapes will be like a double-feature horror show.
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