WALT WEISS: WE KNEW HIM WHEN...

On Friday afternoon, Walt Weiss will be introduced as the sixth manager in the brief
history of the Colorado Rockies. His ascent from high school coach to skipper of a
major league franchise is quite shocking, even to a sports nation that has built up a
strong immunity to surprises, thanks to all the scandals that have reared their ugly heads
over the past five years. But to everyone who was a teammate of Weiss at UNC, including
myself, the new position for Weiss is close to mind-boggling.

There's no question Weiss has a tremendous baseball IQ,  his work ethic at UNC was
legendary, and he was respected by everyone who played with and against him in the ACC.
The same things were said about Weiss during a 12-year career in the big leagues that
saw him win a Rookie of the Year award and become a World Series champion.You'd
have to search far and  wide to find anyone to say a bad thing about Weiss. He is just a
solid, solid guy. But when he was working his craft in Chapel Hill, there was nobody,
and I mean nobody, who ever  thought Weiss would be a manager in the big leagues
some day. Nobody.

I thought Michael Jordan would have a better chance of becoming a basketball executive
that knew what he was doing than Weiss did of becoming a manager, especially without any experience at the professional or collegiate level. I was clearly wrong. I'm still shocked
as I type this article.

When Weiss was at UNC, his life was pretty much baseball, blue jean jackets, and Bruce
Springsteen. He and the other half of the brilliant double-play combo at UNC, Mike Jedziniak,
worshipped Springsteen and knew every word to every song that the Boss had ever played.
He probably still does.  That was his hobby, but baseball was Weiss' passion. He was such
a great shortstop, he made everything seem so routine. He was so smooth that he rarely made a mistake. He was so quiet, you sometimes didn't even know he was there.

Everybody on the UNC baseball team had a nickname. Everyone. Weiss became known
as "The Peanut Man".  His head was so small it looked like a peanut and the name fit--and
stuck. The plastic adjustable strap on the baseball hat wasn't enough to keep Weiss' lid on,
so he had to tape it to make it tighter.

Weiss was tagged with a great nickname and also gifted with a powerful arm that could
pump out 93-mile an hour fastballs and it led to a few of the most memorable moments in
UNC history. Our coach, Mike Roberts, was Bobby Valentine with a southern twang. Like
Valentine,  he always wanted people to believe he was the smartest man in the game.
During Weiss' sophomore year, he tried to turn Weiss into a shutdown closer. And he tried
to do it without any practice or preparation.

In the final week of the 1984 season, Roberts summoned Weiss in from shortstop to pitch
the 9th inning against Virginia Commonwealth. Weiss drilled the first and only batter
he faced in the ear hole with a 93-year mile an hour fastball. It was the first time
I saw the helmet of a batter actually pop off. It was frightening. We all thought
the guy was dead. We also thought it would be the last time we'd ever see Weiss on the
mound again. We were wrong.

A week later, during the ACC tournament at Durham Athletic Park which was later made
famous by "Bull Durham", we were playing North Carolina State, a longtime fierce rival
with loyal, but vicious fans. In front of nearly 8,000 people, we built a five-run lead
on the Wolfpack heading into the later innings. Instead of going with an established
reliever, and there were many talented ones on the UNC staff, Roberts brought in Weiss
to help close the game out. Seriously, he really did. Weiss was so amped up, he was hitting
95-miles hour on the radar gun. Trouble was, he had the accuracy of Nuke LaLoosh.
Weiss couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat, but he did nearly hit the mascot, which
would've resulted in an instant death.

With every ball and subsequent walk, the decibel level  generated by the Wolfpack fans,
rose so high, it felt like the roof of the stands was about to blow off. It was a surreal scene
and Roberts did nothing to end it quickly. The five-run lead vanished as Weiss continued
to walk the entire free world. Dominant relievers sat in bullpen in utter astonishment until
Roberts finally went out to save Weiss, a fan from NC State screamed, "Hey Roberts,
who you going to bring in next, BJ Surhoff?" Weiss went back to shortstop and his
pitching career was over. Weiss did a lot of great things at UNC, but that moment is the
one that a lot of Tar Heels remember the most.

Walt Weiss is a great man. If he fails as a manager, it won't be because of a lack of preparation
or hard work. The man is dedicated to his profession and I guarantee that he will be the first
one to the park and the last one to leave. I'm also pretty confident in saying that the Rockies
new manager will be, pound-for-pound, the strongest man in the clubhouse. He's a fitness
freak who loves to be challenged.

Managing the Rockies will be a tough challenge for Weiss and the critics are sure to pounce
on his inexperience as soon as one of his moves backfire. But Colorado has a manager who
will lead by example, and one thing is certain, he will have the respect of his players and
he will always have their backs. Weiss is the anti-Bobby Valentine and a man who every
Tar Heel is rooting for.

Good luck, Peanut Man.

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LINDA MCMAHON'S $100 MILLION BUYS NOTHING

ESPN. com featured a story of Linda McMahon losing her race for the senate
on Tuesay night. McMahon was never an athlete, but she happened to be a
former executive and wife to Vince McMahon, who built the WWE into a
wrestling empire and money-making machine.

I've never considered "pro" wrestling a sport, after all, it's just a bunch of
people whose bodies have been pumped up with steroids to the brink of explosion,
running around yelling and screaming in carefully choreographed skits that millions
of people with the I.Q. of 3, believe to be real. That's great. To each his own.

Linda McMahon, with her own money and like the New York Yankees, tried to
buy a title. Unlike the Yankees, who spend the most cash to win every year,
McMahon gets in the ring with her boatload of Benjamin's once every two. In 2010,
she lost to Richard Blumenthal to be the state senator representing Connecticut.
On Tuesday night, McMahon got thumped by 39-year old Chris Murphy.

Losing in politics is really no big deal, after all, Abraham Lincoln lost eight elections
during his political career. But it's how McMahon lost that is truly shocking. In
her two attempts to win a seat in the senate, McMahon, who has the warmth of a
glacier, spent nearly $100 million of her own money to try to win. $100 million
and  what did she get for it? Absolutely nothing. $100 million worth of posters
and endless television ads ripping her opponent to shreds and McMahon can't
get into the win column.

Outside of her staffers, I can't imagine there will be too many people trying to
comfort McMahon on Wednesday. Nobody feels sorry for the Yankees after they
don't win the World Series despite having a payroll over $200 million. In fact,
many people take great pleasure in seeing the Yankees fail, just as many in
Connecticut are happy that McMahon, who spends money on herself, like Dallas
owner Mark Cuban spends money on his team, lost out on her bid to "buy" a seat
in the senate. In this economy, many feel  that McMahon's extravagant campaign
was a slap  in the face of a state that is dead broke.

I'm not sure McMahon, who has a net worth of $238 million, has the resolve of
Lincoln to keep up the fight to achieve her goal, but I do have a few ideas where
McMahon might be able to find some success as a leader. Buy a sports franchise.
Be an owner. Be a Steinbrenner. In sports, just like in the political arena, you
can spend millions to win a championship and get absolutely nothing in return.

McMahon can buy a Carl Crawford, Carlos Zambrano, Jason Bay, Jason Werth,
and J.J. Putz, and get what many baseball owners often get: overpaid, overrated,
and under performing players, and NO title. Every owner in sports made their money
in something other than sports and owning a team is really just an expensive hobby
used to massage their massive egos. McMahon made money in a "sport", so now
she can put that money in the sport of her choice and buy a team.

McMahon should  strongly consider it because politics is not quite working out so
well for her. And she'd fit right in with the owners who spend millions foolishly to
never win a thing. Better yet, instead of the right fit, McMahon should do the right
thing and go down to Staten Island and drop $50 million on the recovery effort. That
might buy enough good will to win something that's actually important.

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HURRICANE SANDY MAKES SPORTS INSIGNIFICANT

Somewhere along the line, somebody said that sports are a distraction from life's
everyday hardships. Even for just a few hours, they say, sporting events can provide
"relief" and take your mind off the problems that may come as a result of a crisis.
I've never believed it.

Superstorm Sandy re-affirmed my belief that sporting events really don't matter
much at all. They are just games, that's it.  As the people of Staten Island were dealing
with the devastation that wiped out their homes, livelihoods, and in some cases, the lives
of  their loved ones, do you really think they cared about the running of the New York
City marathon that starts in their borough every year? I don't think so.

Some people wanted the New York City marathon to go on because it would
show the "toughness and resilience" of New Yorkers, as if that actually means
anything when  your home has been decimated by a storm surge and you're trying
to find your next meal.  There would've been 40,000 people in that race with only
about 10 who had a chance at winning it. And those runners come from places that
are hard to spell,  much less even  pronounce. Nobody really cares who crosses the
finish line when you have to pretty much re-start your life with next to nothing.

Thanks to ESPN, the Internet, and dreams of being professional athletes, a good
part of the nation has become obsessed with sports. But when the biggest storm to
EVER  hit the Northeast, it's amazing how insignificant sports become. I say this as
person whose  world, at one time, was all about sports. I played sports through college
and was lucky enough to play minor-league baseball for a few years. After that, I became
a sportscaster. It was my world. But the longer I worked in it, the less important sports
became to me.

I can never really understood why people get so emotional about their teams. Adults
wear the jersey's of their favorite team and get offended when somebody, usually
another adult, talks "trash" about "their" team, as if they're actually a member of it.
In some cases, it leads to physical confrontations, bodily harm, which can result in
prison. All over a game where fans don't make a difference and have nothing to
do with.

I've never understood why fans care so much about athletes who care nothing
about them. Do you think Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks really cared
all that much about the storm victims just because he took the microphone before
the team's season opener against the Miami Heat and thanked the fans and said he
was "thinking" about the all those who are homeless because of the hurricane? I didn't
see Anthony down on Staten Island providing support or signing a check to make
a big donation.

In fact, I haven't seen anything athletes help out or chip in with  a game check. I
guess they think talking into a microphone or giving an emotional 15-second soundbite
on "SportsCenter" will be more than enough.

Without having power to light up televisions or beam up a radio, people found
other ways to spend their time and pretty much forgot about what was going on
in sports world. That might be a good thing, because in the grand scheme of things,
sports don't really matter.

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LANCE ARMSTRONG SHOULD'VE PLAYED BASEBALL

Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles after a massive amount of
evidence by the World Anti-Doping Agency painted him as a drug cheat. International Cycling president Patrick McQuaid said that "Lance Armstrong has no place in cycling."

Armstrong might be banned forever from cycling, but if he played baseball and failed a drug test,
he'd probably be welcomed back with open arms, and if he was really lucky, he'd probably be rewarded, depending on how good he was.

Last August, Oakland A's veteran pitcher Bartolo Colon got flagged for using testosterone
and was suspended 50 games as part of Major League Baseball's policy for using performance-drugs. Colon, 39-years old, was 10-9 at the time of his suspension which will run into the first five
games of 2013. He let his teammates down, as well as the entire franchise. The A's certainly
could've used Colon and his experience in the playoffs where they were bounced out by the Detroit Tigers.

Instead of saying sayanora to Senor Substance Abuser, the A's rewarded Colon in December
with a one-year, $3 million dollar contract which includes incentives. Is Major League Baseball
a great organization or what? That's what Colon must be  thinking after putting his signature on
a multi-million dollar contract. Billy Beane, immortalized in the book and movie, "MoneyBall",
as one of the smartest men in the game said:

"In Bartolo's case, based on the production, he was cost effective and good. It's pretty hard to
find that type of pitcher at that cost on a short-term deal." We know Beane is a smart man when
it comes to baseball and this move has paid off in spades. Colon made the All-Star team and is
13-3 with a 2.55 ERA. Now, that is value.

But Mr. Beane, are you serious? "That type of pitcher"? You mean the one that pumps cheat
into his body that fuels 95-mile an hour fastballs? Good, Lord. What a great example for young
kids. Hey, go ahead and cheat, it doesn't really matter when you have teams like the Oakland A's
in baseball.  If you get caught, it's no big deal, as long as you have lightening in your arm and
can eat up 200 innings a year, there is a place for you in the game and you just might just get rewarded with a $3 million contract.

If Armstrong played baseball, he could have kept all his records even if there was a "massive
amount of evidence" against him. That was certainly the case with Barry Bonds, wasn't it?
At the age of 37, his head grew to the size of the moon and his body morphed into that of an
NFL linebacker. He had never hit more than 49 home runs in his career, yet somehow, in 2001,
he managed to set the single-season record with 73!

Bonds went on to smash Hank Aaron's all-time record, but both of his records mean nothing  to anybody except him because they were shattered with the help of PED's. Commissioner  Bud Selig could have wiped Bonds' name from the record books, just as the head of cycling did with Armstrong, but he lacked the backbone to do it.

Rewarding steroid cheats is nothing new for the A's or sadly many teams in baseball. Oakland

signed Manny Ramirez  to a minor-league contract last year after failing not one, not two, but
three drug tests and being suspended for more than 100 games. Beane was thinking Ramirez
was "cost-effective."

Too bad Ramirez couldn't muster any manpower after going off his female fertility drugs.
He subsequently asked for, and was granted his release. After a stint in Taiwan, Ramirez
returned home to sign a minor-league contract with the Texas Rangers. Toronto gave Melky
Cabrera a $16 million contract after flunking out in San Francisco, and the Mets were so
desperate for bat, they took a flier on Marlon Byrd, who served a 50-game suspension
while he was with the Chicago Cubs.

Alex Rodriguez, admitted he was a steroid user and was supposedly on the list of 104 players
who flunked tests in 2003. He will follow Ryan Braun to cheaterville sometime soon. Both
A-Rod and Braun will be back next year to collect a big chunk of what is remaining on their
$100 plus million dollar contracts.

Armstrong never failed a test and never admitted to using  PED's, until like Braun, there was
so much evidence against him, he really had no choice to come clean. Armstrong was stripped
of all his yellow jerseys and has been forced to pay back a lot of the cash he earned from
racing and sponsors, plus he's still in litigation with several event organizers and the U.S.
Postal Service, which had been one of his major backers.

Lance, what the heck were you thinking? You could've cycled steroids in baseball and you'd
still be playing. Instead, you got into cycling and got cycled out of the sport even though you
never tested positive for anything.


In baseball, if you get caught cheating, you don't have to give back anything, can still collect
every penny of your contract, and still do the thing you love doing the most.

Baseball Fever. Catch it!

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LOLO JONES: SHE'S BAAAAAAACK

After watching Lolo Jones cry on the set of NBC after failing to medal in the Olympics,
I wrote that the American Hurdler wouldn't go away any time soon. She's a reality show
waiting to happen and the female version of Bobby Valentine, who is addicted to
everything and anything that concerns himself. When Jones touched down in the
United States after her performance in London, I expected there to be a sex tape,
Playboy pictorial, or a spot in celebrity re-hab. I firmly believed that she'd become
like Jose Canseco, who tried anything to stay relevant, no matter how embarrassing
it was for him.

As Canseco plans his next venture and Valentine adjusts to life without being a
lightening rod in Boston, Jones has discovered a new sport and a way to re-capture
the spotlight she so desperately craves. Jones tried out and made the U.S. Bobsled
team as a pusher. That's right, Jones, who probably never saw snow or ice in her
home state of Louisiana, will be pushing a big sled on one big sheet of ice. This is
nothing new in the sport, football legend Herschel Walker made the 1992 Olympic
team as a bobsledder. If you have speed and power, then bobsledding might just
be the sport for you.

Many have criticized Jones for her love of the spotlight, me included. Her two Olympic
teammates who finished ahead of her, complained loudly why Jones was getting all
the attention and they were getting none. Jones hogged the spotlight because she is
beautiful and is rather exotic looking.. As we all know, sex appeal sells, even if the
person  has never experienced sex. Jones burst into our consciousness last spring
when she  tweeted that she was a 20-something virgin. That's right, she told the
world that she had never had sex. Bill Clinton's definition of it, anyway.

The media  picked up her story  and Jones appeared on nearly every news
channel, talk show, and appeared on the cover of a lot of magazines.Of course,
that will make a lot of people jealous. That's just how most of American  deals with stuff
like that. And there were more than a few eyeballs rolled when people read that Jones
is now a bobsledder.

Jones was on top of the world in September and then crashed hard when she
finished fourth in her event in London. She failed badly. All the hype and she
couldn't even medal. Unfortunately, for her two teammates, who actually DID
medal, Jones gained most of the attention, even though she left the games with
nothing hanging around her neck but failure.

Now, she's back. And you know what, I applaud her. She should be commended
for getting off the mat and pursuing her dream of winning an Olympic medal. So
what if it comes in a sport nobody really cares about but once every four years for
about 30 seconds. A track athlete has an extremely short shelf life. They train every
day for the chance at Olympic glory. If they don't get it, they are quickly forgotten.
Heck, even if an athlete does win a medal, the attention fades away after the Olympic
flame is doused. The only thing I saw on television with Michael Phelps was the
185-foot putt he sank on the golf course.

People will hate on Jones, I was guilty of that. But good for her. She's branching
out and doing something different if life. Nothing wrong with that and is a lot better
than saying, "What if?" and living with regret. Life is a bobsledding event, drink it up.

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BOBBY VALENTINE'S BLAME GAME

Leave it to Bobby Valentine to grant his first national interview since being fired
by the Boston Red Sox on the very same day, John Farrell, was introduced as the
new Red Sox manager. Instead of talking about the breath of fresh air that is blowing
through Red Sox nation today, the entire region will now be consumed with the guy
who was blowing hot air to Bob Costas on the NBC Sports Network on Tuesday night.

Self-centered and self-absorbed, Valentine made sure all the talk today would be
all about him. He's not just trying to rain on Farrell's and the Red Sox parade, Valentine
is hoping to flood it with a tsunami. In his interview with Costas, Valentine said David
Ortiz had all but gone to U.S. Post Office, licked a stamp, and mailed his season in
after the Sox traded its heavy baggage (Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, and Carl
Crawford) to the the Los Angeles Dodgers. Valentine learned nothing after trashing
fan favorite, Kevin Youkilis during the season, so it's hardly surprising that the mouth
without a filter fired a scud missile at Big Papi after it.

I'm sure Curt Schilling is just chomping at the bit to rail against Valentine on "Baseball
Tonight", and just might morph into "Curt from the car" again and blast Bobby V for
making one of the greatest players in franchise history the scapegoat for one of their
worst seasons in the history of it. That won't play well with Schilling and it most certainly
won't go over well in Red Sox nation. Any road that Valentines rides his bike on in
Boston is now bound to be littered with spikes and nails.

As Valentine was shooting darts at Ortiz with his forced, disingenuous smile,  it became
easy for everyone to see why nobody likes playing for Valentine. He grates on you like
sandpaper and is the gum on the bottom of your shoe that you can't get off. Instead of
trying to clean it because it's peppered with pebbles and glass, you just rid of the shoe,
even if it's Kenneth Cole's top of the line.

Valentine also revealed a conversation he had with former Dallas Cowboys legendary
coach, Tom Landry. When he was a 35-year old rookie manager with the Texas Rangers,
Valentine was told by Landry to get coaches who "speak your language", meaning ones
that he could trust, which Valentine said he didn't have on his staff in Boston. Bobby V
said he wished he had taken Landry's advice, but it's apparent that he's never taken anyone's
advice because Bobby V thinks he's the smartest man in the room.

It continues to amaze me how baseball experts and analysts label Valentine a baseball
"genius" as if the game is akin to drawing up the blueprint and constructing the atom bomb.
It's baseball. As the manager in "Bull Durham" said, "You throw the ball, hit the ball, and catch
the ball." It's not rocket science. Nobody has ever called Terry Francona a baseball
intellect, but he has two World Series titles to Valentine's none. The difference is, Francona
gets it. He knows that success doesn't come with the greatest baseball knowledge, but
rather in how you "manage" players and personalities.

It's clear that Valentine doesn't get it, and the man who often tells people that he invented
the sandwich wrap, just wrapped up one of the biggest nightmares in franchise history with
that interview with Bob Costas on Tuesday night.

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NFL IS PRETTY (AND RICH) IN PINK

If you've watched an NFL game in the month of October, then you might've wondered
if the league has Pepto Bismol as one its sponsor. There is hot pink everywhere. Sweatbands,
mouthpieces, sleeves, cleats, shoelaces, hats, and chinstraps all seemed to have been dipped
in the fluid that coats, soothes, and relieves.

In support of breast cancer awareness, the NFL, which protects its dress code the way
Michael Jackson once guarded his privacy, let the players get all pretty in pink, if they
chose to. Many of them have and some have gone beyond the field to support the cause.

I saw a player on the Denver Broncos (It wasn't Peyton Manning) arriving to a Sunday
Night game against San Diego in an ALL pink suit. NFL Network analyst Warren Sapp wore
bright pink shoes on the set. (I'm sure Sapp, who recently filed for bankruptcy, autographed
the shoes and sold them on eBay to help pay off creditors.) Washington Redskins QB Robert
Griffin III wears a sleeve opposite his golden arm that is hot pink which even Felix Baumgartner
must have noticed it before jump out of his capsule from 23 miles above the earth.

I often think if players got the green light to wear pink for the entire year, they most
certainly would. Oh, most of them wouldn't be caught dead wearing a pink suit out in
public if they didn't have the shield of breast cancer awareness protecting them from taunts
and ridicule, but since the NFL says it's OK, then it must be OK to really express yourself.
But I sometimes wonder if the players splash pink all over themselves just to gain attention
and a thousand more Twitter followers, or are they doing it to really help the cause. Do
they want to be noticed for the color they wear or the cause they are supporting?

The NFL gets major points for making people aware the cause, but I'm just not sure how
much theyare really donating to it. According to the Business Insider, only 5% of the sales
from the NFL Shop on-line, are being donated to the American Cancer Society. The Business Insider states that, "If the pink products have a typical 100% mark-up at retail, that means
the NFL is keeping 90% of the profit from the sale of Breast Cancer Awareness gear."That
means, the NFL is getting fatter off all the sales of the pink gear that the NFL has allowed
the players to wear this month. Hmmmm. Interesting. Seems to me the NFL should be
donating a lot more of the proceeds to cancer research. Perhaps, they're going to put all
that cash in reserve so they can pay the referees the next time their contracts come up.


I applaud the NFL for supporting the cause by allowing the players to wear pink and I
think it's great the players are bold enough to be seen wearing the color. I'm just not sure
both are doing enough themselves to being making a difference for breast cancer research and recovery. Sure, they are helping make people more aware of breast cancer, but are they
really helping in the fight against it? I'm not so sure. And once the calendar rolls over to
November and the pink fades away, what will they do to help out in the fight against breast
cancer?

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