Dare I say it?

They’re pulling me back in. Yeah, I’m a sucker.

A race I can stomach

I think I may have found the race for me: 4 miles, 5,000 runners, a dozen doughnuts. One part running, one part competitive eating. What could be better than the Krispy Kreme Challenge?

Make sure you check out the video of ESPN’s Greg Garber competing in his suit.

You stay classy, Bobby

Matt McCarthy, the former Angels farmhand turned medical student/author, has had his tell-all book “Odd Man Out” shredded by supposed inaccuracies. I haven’t read the book – just excerpts – but denials to the otherwise, I think he got his portrayal of mammoth White Sox closer Bobby Jenks just about right.

Why?

This Sporting News profile is why.

I didn’t think I’d find better quotes than Central Michigan QB Dan LeFevour – “I don’t read” – or the immortal Marshawn Lynch – What’s up, Africa? – but Jenks does it.

Here’s a sampling of the answers (because really, do the questions even matter, here?):

Anything ’80s rock

Read? I don’t even read the newspaper.

Pics that my kid drew for me.

I was 19 and just got drafted and sent to the armpit of Montana – Butte.

Kindness.

I have a nice butt.

My wife – just because she’ll read this.

Roger Clemens.

‘Nuff said.

In other Bills news

The NFL announced today that the Bills will play in the first Monday Night Football game of the year on Sept. 14 when they travel to Foxboro to take on the Patriots.

Let’s get the coaching staff cracking on this one, huh? We only got about 6 months to get ready. Somehow I fear that’s still not enough time to prepare for the Pats.

Word also comes from News beat writer Allen Wilson that the Colts are out as a possible Bills opponent in Toronto. Instead, the choices seem to be down to Tampa and New Orleans.

This is disappointing. I’m sure that football fans in the land of comedy were big fans of the droll Peyton Manning. My guess is they’re slightly less enthused about Drew Brees or Luke McCown.

There also seems to be some interest from the Canadian faction to bring the Bills to town twice a year for regular season games, as early as next season. I think (I hope) that is merely Toronto’s dissatisfaction with having 3 dead-weight preseason games as part of the Bills in Toronto series. Obviously, a regular season game will be a much better draw there as it is here. But since the Bills are collecting a fat paycheck to ship the exhibitions there and are contractually obligated to do so, I don’t think the Bills are much in the mood to negotiate a deal that would play so poorly back home.

You can’t spell controversy without T.O.

Obligatory outrage over OTA omission:

Terrell Owens missed the first day of voluntary workouts…harumph, harumph.

Hey, I didn’t get a harumph out of that guy!

My private Ottawa

As if last night’s smackdown by the Flyers in a necessary-back-to-the-wall-must-win game wasn’t bad enough, I have another reason to be pissed at this recent Sabres team.

I think they’re wearing off on me.

This morning I went on a long training run that included the second half of the Buffalo marathon route.

Kicked. My. Ass.

Again.

That’s three times I’ve run that course in the last 12 months and three times I’ve bonked. That stretch – particularly from the Albright-Knox to Niagara Square – owns me like the Senators own the Sabres. I’m telling you, Lincoln, Bidwell and Richmond are like Spezza, Alfredsson and Heatley. I don’t have an answer for them. It’s freakin’ disgusting.

I blame Darcy Regier.

The good news is that, unlike the Sabres, I’ve got 2 months to figure out how to break this mental block. Maybe I just need to trust The System. If anyone has any other ideas, I’m all ears.

Fired up and go Sooners!

I have no idea if firing Lindy Ruff and/or Darcy Regier is the right move for the Buffalo Sabres.

Look, we’re all disappointed that this year’s team has fallen short of expectations and it’s natural to want some sort of measure taken as a sign that this sort of thing is not tolerated well. I completely understand this. Someone should be held responsible for underachieving (provided, of course, that the Sabres don’t run off 12 straight wins to end the season then go on to win the Stanley Cup). But I’m not convinced that firing the coach and/or the GM will turn things around. I wish I knew the answer.

I also wish Ryan Miller had never gotten hurt. Lalime and Tellqvist have played fine, but I’m pretty sure – though you can check this – the Sabres were 5th in the East when Miller went down. Something tells me the picture would look a little different if he had been in the lineup the last few weeks. Could be that his injury was an easy excuse to mail it in for the rest of the season.

A few other quick thoughts:

**I’ve come around a bit on Jerry Sullivan’s “soft” comment, since echoed by former Senators coach Craig Hartsburg. I took Sullivan’s comment to reflect the physical aspect. I still disagree with that, though at times it looks like there are 5 Sabres skating around with eggs in their pockets. Where I agree with the soft assessment is mentally. This team is mentally weak, as evidenced by their third-period record in tie games and the aforementioned “mailing it in.” I don’t think that’s what Sullivan was implying, but if he wants to call this team soft, I’m OK with that.

**Great post over at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Empty Netters blog: A list of the 100-point-season scorers per franchise. Somebody named Mike Rogers had 3 100-point seasons – 2 for the Whalers and 1 for the Rangers. I have spent the better part of the day trying to think who in the hell Mike Rogers is?? I think he had a beard.

**This is really a post for another day, but everytime I see a story like this it makes me wonder why goalies are different from position players. You never see a story that says Evgeni Malkin needs a rest, he’s playing too much.

**Kudos to Marshawn Lynch for holding a press conference yesterday to discuss his meeting with Roger Goodell. Looks like somebody got a publicist! Marshawn said all the right things, but whether or not he believes them or follows through on them remains to be seen.

**The supremely talented Sally Jenkins gave us a look at an older, more interesting Tiger Woods.

**And finally, my pick for the NCAA Tournament: Oklahoma.

13 shots

Pathetic.

When will I ever learn?

I spent a glorious 2 hours at the corner pub Saturday. The Sabres-Thrashers game was on the main screen with the Hurricanes-Capitals and Leafs-Flames going on other sets. They even had the UB basketball game going. It was a great time. Drinks were flowing, the smell of hot wings filled the air, and best of all, the Sabres were winning. This was a terrific chance for them to make up some ground since so many of the teams they were chasing seemed headed for defeat.

But with about 4 minutes left in the third period of the Sabres game, I had to run to my next destination. This is moments after watching Thomas Vanek get stoned on a potential game-icing breakaway, a bad omen I immediately recognized but tried to forget. As I got up from my stool, the tall guy behind me swooped in. But before sitting he asked if I was leaving.

Me: Yeah, I gotta run.

Him: But, you’re going to miss the end of the game.

Me: I know. But I have faith the boys will pull it out.

Him: I wish I did.

Touche, tall guy. He wasn’t fooled. Me, I’m the sucker. Once again the Sabres played the role of Lucy to my Charlie Brown. Good grief!

It’s close, but I think I’d rather Carrie her Underwood

I caught some of the late local news while in a flu-like fog Wednesday night. Channel 4 led with the dude who went over the Niagara Falls and what a stupid thing THAT was to do. I flipped to Channel 2 and caught their story on Richard Zednik’s return to Buffalo since his gruesome injury here 13 months earlier. The Red Coats, of course, handled the affair with typical sensitivity, replaying the cut and his panicked skate to the bench over and over and over again. Finally I ended up at Channel 7, where I thought I heard Mike Randall extend an offer to let TO live in his basement. I definitely heard something about “Saturday is pizza night!”

Which brings me to the question: What the hell happened to the Mike Randall who used to do those delightfully offbeat stories and once got Rick, Irv & Commander Tom to lay down a rap?

I mean, I realize I was gone for a long time, but somehow in that time the dude transformed from Jim Carrey in “Bruce Almighty” to serious weatherman and acclaimed Mark Twain impersonator? That might be the most mystifying thing I’ve encountered in Buffalo since I’ve been back.

Granted, I haven’t been watching a whole lot of Channel 7 news, so maybe there’s times when the Old Mike and his mischievous side comes out. But every time I see Randall now it’s like seeing the husk of man too weary to fight the Man, or in this case, get a little crazy. The guy seems so painfully stifled that I would not be surprised to see him sending secret messages out over the airwaves.

“Let’s take a look at the map.” [Instead we see the back of a cue card with this message scribbled in crayon "Help, I'm being forced against my will to humorlessly report the weather in the lowest-ranked TV news station in Buffalo!] “Oh, how did THAT get there…”

So sad.

On the bright side, I can’t wait for the day when Randall loses it and all that goofiness he’s suppressed over the years bursts out of him like he’s Jerry Lewis.

Hey Laaadddy! It’s gonna raaaaiiiiinnn!!! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

That’ll be awesome.

A few links:

**Do you live in Buffalo? Do you like to eat? Of course you do, so check out the new mouth-watering Buffalo Eats site. I’ve been a big fan of the place since discovering it a few weeks ago. It’s food pr0n but with restaurant reviews, lots of photos, and even recipes.

**Blindsided by the Sports Guy! I thought he was heading to a smackdown on sabermetrics, but his ESPN The Mag column ends up copping out on the steroid issue. Very disappointing.

**Sportsnet’s Don Taylor gets his Art Fern on when he sees who’s in attendance at the Ottawa game (H/T Loge19.com).

**An amazing football video. Chris Cooley cares not for your walls.

**This just in Mark McGwire doesn’t want to talk about the past. But, the notorious ex-slugger recluse has re-emerged (sort of)… as a hitting instructor.

**And, you’ve probably heard all about Joe Torre’s book already. But have you read Roger Angell’s review in The New Yorker? No offense to Torre’s co-author Tom Verducci, but I’d venture that Angell’s review is vastly superior to the book itself.

Necessary roughness

Buffalo’s 3-1 win over Florida Thursday was pretty only in the way that 2 points can be to a team chasing the 8th and final playoff spot. But that hardly matters. There’s been a lot of talk about must-win games and games the Sabres should win in the final month. This would probably qualify in both categories. The sentiment that the Sabres SHOULD beat the Panthers seemed logical considering recent injuries that have hampered Florida, but in pro sports, “shoulds” rarely occur. Most often they are “coulds” misread though the hometown prism. Yet, to say that the Sabres MUST win seemed a bit severe, though accurate when assessing their psyches after damaging back-to-back losses to Ottawa and Philly.

As I thought about the victory, the word that came to mind was “necessary.” (Necessary has a long and distinguished history in sports and the post-season in particular. Take it away, and how else would you so succinctly denote that those possible Game 6’s and 7’s will only be played if the series extends that far?)

I think that “necessary victory” does  a much better job of positioning the game as a piece within a larger puzzle.  Buffalo’s win over the Panthers was necessary to keep Florida (and other Eastern Conference teams) from getting too far ahead of the Sabres in the race. It was also necessary in the sense that the Sabres desperately needed points. Before the game, the Sabres had 15 games remaining; they needed roughly 22 points to qualify for the playoffs, hardly a mathematical impossibility. If the Sabres are indeed to make the playoffs, it will be necessary for them to accumulate a few more of those “necessary victories.” But a few of the “shoulds” and “musts” wouldn’t hurt either.

That game made me sick. Literally.

By the time I woke up Wednesday morning my dinner and the Sabres’ post-season hopes were headed to the same porcelain graveyard.

Well, as I recover I wanted to post one small note on the loss to the Flyers before tonight’s game with Florida: I agree with John Vogl. I thought the effort was there in the third period, but I thought I recognized panic in the Sabres. Not nervousness or fear or disinterest. Just that, “This shit is going down NOW!” look.

We all get frazzled at work from time to time. It starts with the copier breaking down. You need copies for the big 3:00 meeting so you rush up to another floor only to find some jackhole is already there making 1,000 copies of a 10-page booklet. So you scurry off elsewhere. But while you are away from your desk, your boss drops off another urgent project but forgets to mention that the 3:00 meeting has been moved to 12:30. So when you get back from making your copies, you get started on the urgent project, work through lunch, and end up skipping the big meeting because you didn’t know about the time change. Then, to top it all off, just when you find out that you’ve missed the meeting, you learn that the “urgent” project you were working on is dead. It’s all been a giant waste of time.

The same thing happens in sports. Sometimes the other team gets you running around and the next thing you know you’re out of position, reacting instead of acting, and generally set up for a big fall. That was the Sabres in the third period Tuesday.

On the bright side, fellas, Annie from Accounting left some doughnuts in the conference room. Enjoy.

More to come later.

TO revisited and other thoughts

I  understand the rationale of Bills fans who subscribe to the “Do something, even if it’s wrong” line of thinking. Action, even poorly directed, is better than inaction. But fairly simply, one could make the argument that $6.5 million could have been more wisely spent than on a 35-year-old WR with a history of lockerroom disruption. It seems to me that if the Bills were as close to putting out a winner as they would like us to believe, that the money could have been spent on some younger players with a future in the organization. Or on the player(s) that would put them over the top. That it was spent on Terrell Owens only begins to hint at the thinking behind closed doors at One Bills Drive.

The more I think about it, the more I agree with Hitler (H/T to The Goose’s Roost for a great find). This is what happens when you put a PR guy in charge of football decisions.

We’ll forget for a second that the signing of Owens came just under the deadline for season ticket renewals. Instead, let’s look at some of the other reasons I think this decision was driven by factors beyond x’s and o’s.

One is the very fact that we’ve heard so early and often that it was Jauron and Edwards pushing for the signing. That’s more than likely true. But I’m sure when every quality player hits the market, coaches and players nudge the GM. What strikes me here is that it seems the Bills are going out of their way to point this out. Like “Hey, our guys were so gung-ho for it, we HAD to pull the trigger.” Of course that’s not exactly how it works. Coaches have input, but players have virtually none. It’s the GM’s call all the way, with the blessing of ownership. It’s spin that allows the Bills to position the signing as a football move.

The other big thing is the announcement the next day that TO jerseys are available for pre-sale. Now, this could be an example of an on-the-ball marketing department striking while the excitement is at a fever pitch. But is it that far of a stretch to envision a discussion in the front office where it’s agreed that the potential profits generated by that excitement outweigh the performance? That it’s not necessarily good for the football team, but great for business?

It’s a move motivated my marketing, and in my mind it reeks of desperation.

**One common remark I’ve been hearing about the Owens move is “Might as well, things can’t get any worse!” That makes me cringe. A sure way to see things deteriorate quickly is to say “Well, things can’t possibly get any worse than this.” Let’s plan to revisit this in January, shall we?

**The other thing I’m hearing a lot of is how the Bills were somehow to blame because they couldn’t even sign Laveranues Coles. Hence, they had to do something drastic. Again, I disagree. I think signing Coles for four years at $7M per year is drastic. Far more than spending a half-mil less for one year of Owens. Coles is nowhere near the excitement generator or receiver. The Bills were wise (or lucky) not to sign him. The Bengals badly overpaid for him.

**Terrible loss for the Sabres in Ottawa. Sitting at 10th place, they let their one game advantage slip away. It’s not going to be easy to make up ground now that the Rangers and Penguins seemed to have righted their ships and Carolina and Florida show no signs of slacking. Even Montreal is due for a burst of energy after coach Guy Carbonneau was fired and replaced on an interim basis by GM Bob Gainey.

**The Sabres haven’t much opportunity to establish new lines with all the lineup changes they’ve experienced in the past week, but I’ve been longing to see Derek Roy center Jason Pominville and Jochen Hecht. The wingers have struggled mightily this season without a playmaker center to get them going. Hecht and Pominville thrived when they played on a regular line with Danny Briere, who plays a similar game to Roy. For his part, Roy is better off at center with some grinding wingers than to skate on Dominic Moore’s left wing.

An interview with Paul Godfrey

This article could be full of bald-face lies, but it’s sure nice to hear from a Toronto power broker that the Bills aren’t the team the city is most interested in wooing.

As a side note, I don’t think I’ve ever heard Toronto’s plea positioned this way – at least not recently. I doubt the rival aspect has legs, but could it be that the Toronto people are changing tacts based on the death of old man Rogers and a less than impressive NFL debut?

One other question comes to mind: If the whole purpose of the Bills in Toronto series from Buffalo’s standpoint was to tap into Toronto’s fan base and corporate dollars, what would the Bills think of Toronto acquiring some other franchise? In other words, if Toronto’s cash flow goes to the new team in town, as one would expect, where do the Bills turn next for the market widening we’ve been told is necessary to their survival?

Get to FTLT for some grilled Pork

In case you missed it yesterday, the fellas over at First Time, Long Time interviewed me for their Sunday Night Conversation. Go over there and check it out!

And, while you’re there, make sure you catch up on some of the other great stuff Tedd & Talkin_Proud are doing. Keep up the good work, guys!