So, Cole Hamels claims he’s “old school” after admitting he intentionally hit Washington Nationals’ phenom, 19-year-old Bryce Harper. Now, the reality is, he’s a piece of crap. There’s nothing old school, honorable, admirable, or otherwise positive about what Hamels did; essentially, drilling a guy in the back with a fastball with zero provocation. Now that we’ve established this, let’s move on to the real issue at hand. What is a proper way to respond, if you’re the Nats?

They way they did respond is that Nats starter Jordan Zimmerman hit Hamels in the leg the next time Hamels came up to bat; a tacit acknowledgement that they knew what he was up to earlier. The response elicited a warning to both benches that any more of that nonsense would result in ejections. Is that really enough of a response though?

My answer is no. If you’re Zimmermann (and yes, I know that managers have a say in this matter), how can you not throw your fastest fastball right at the chin of Hamels. You don’t have earhole him (though I wouldn’t be against it in this situation) but you need to remind him of how vulnerable a hitter can be up there. Moreover, you need to show your teammates that when you’re on the hill, guys aren’t aren’t going to be throwing at them because you’ll protect them.

In the 2008 NL Championship Series, Phillies’ starter Brett Myers was throwing at Dodger hitters, including Manny Ramirez and Andre Ethier, with impunity. The chicken#$%^& umpires did nothing, and neither did Dodgers starter Chad Billingsley. Phillie pitching continued to take liberties well into the following game until Hiroki Kuroda fired a fastball above the head of Shane Victorino as if to say, enough is enough.

How’s this for a solution to today’s issue? The Nats have a guy in their bullpen named Henry Rodriguez, their stand-in closer who recently had a fastball clocked at 104 mph. How about warming up Rodriguez and bringing him in the next inning in which Hamels is due to bat, slide Zimmermann to whatever position where a player can be sacrificed for the game, and having Rodriguez drill Hamels with one of those 104mph bullets? Sure, it’s transparent, but what can anyone say? You’ve just sent a message, “nobody throws at the future of our franchise.” Sure, Bud Selig, who is a complete travesty of a commissioner, corrupt and incompetent, would definitely botch the discipline aspect. But isn’t a 25 game suspension for the manager worth the next ten years of your prized prospect batting in relative safety?

If you think that’s extreme, I’d insert myself as catcher when Hamels came up, and lock his oh-so-valuable left pitching arm in a MMA style subission hold and not necessarily let go when he tapped. But that’s just me. What about you?

We’re over a month into the baseball season and they Yankees and Red Sox are occupying the bottom two spots in the AL East.

No analysis here. I’m just going to sit back and enjoy my smugness for a moment.

Huge EPL game between Wigan and Blackburn tomorrow. I hope nobody at my day job has high hopes for my productivity for those 90 minutes.

The Guggenheim group has been in charge of the Dodgers for over a week now, and still no answer to the atrocity that is James Loney? In brighter news, if Shaun is going to pump Bartolo Colon as an early front runner for AL Cy Young, how about a little love for Chris Capuano. It’s not like he’s never been good. He did win 18 for the Brew Crew in ’06.

And I pulled a calf muscle legging out an inside the park homer on my co-ed softball team about an hour ago. I. Am. Getting. Old…

Jeff Francoeur has bounced around a bit in his 7 year career, being with his 4th team already.  But the man Kansas City likes to call Frenchy seems to have found a place he can settle in as a fan favorite.  The Royals have designated a section in the right field bleachers the “French Quarter” and every Thursday home game, a t-shirt and soda is included with the price of the ticket.  While that is a nice deal, sitting in the right field bleachers of any game Francoeur plays just might land you a deal you won’t soon forget. 

It was earlier this season, in a game in Oakland, that Francoeur arranged for 20 pizzas to be delivered to the fans sitting in the right field bleachers.  Along with the pizzas, he sent a signed bat and a personalized message to the fans.  Francoeur can regularly be seen interacting and joking around with fans in the bleachers regardless of the city.

Then, last night, while celebrating the first “French Quarter” night of the season, Francoeur tossed a ball into the section, along with a note, and a $100 bill.  What did the note say?  “Buy some beers on me”.  There is a great video on both mlb.com and on deadspin.com showing the fan that caught the buying the beers for the section, and whole section raising their beers to “Frenchy”.

Francoeur is a guy have have been enamoured with the guy since he came up with Atlanta in 2005 because watching him throw the ball is something to behold.  He has an absolute cannon of an arm, and is a joy to watch, but more importantly, he is a guy that clearly realizes he is playing a kids game for a living, and he is making sure it is as enjoyable as possible, both for him, and the fans that attend the game, regardless of rooting interest.  Bravo Jeff Francoeur!

In a sports world that all too often is filled with sports stories like the Junior Seau reported suicide, “bountygate”, the Bobby Petrino scandal, and guys like Delmon Young being accused of an aggravated hate crime, we focus too little on the great stories of human achievement and decency.  Today one of those moments happened, but only got a few seconds of time on radio and TV.

Today, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed undrafted rookie free agent, DT out of Rutgers Eric LeGrand.  In October 2010, late in a game against Army, LeGrand broke two vertebrae leaving him paralyzed from the neck down.  Since, he has been able to stand and even walk with assistance.  He has vowed to walk on his own, and from everything he has accomplished thus far, I am sure he will.  He is a broadcasting major at Rutgers University and has had some sports casting gigs since the injury.  Just a year after the injury, LeGrand led the Rutgers Scarlet Knights football team onto the field via his wheel chair, a tear jerking moment that found itself gracing the cover of SI twice, the second as a well-deserved Moment of the Year.  His new position with the Buccaneers will likely be as a part time sportscaster, but regardless, the Buccaneers allowed Eric LeGrand to realize his dream and make it to the NFL. 

But, this isn’t the first time a story like this has happened.  In 1981, soon after winning a National Championship with Indiana University, Landon Turner was involved in a one car crash that left him paralyzed from the waist down.  That year, the Boston Celtics gave Turner the moment he had earned; he was drafted by an NBA team.

Then there was this past MLB draft.  In a story that went much unnoticed, two teams gave kids a moment they thought was surely gone.  University of Georgia player Johnathan Taylor had collided with teammate Zach Cone in a March 6^th game, leaving Taylor paralyzed.  That June’s MLB draft, in the supplemental part of the first round, Zach Cone was drafted by the Texas Rangers, then, in the 33^rd round, the Rangers looked at the board, and did the honorable thing, drafted Cone’s Georgia teammate, Johnathan Taylor. 

In the 40^th round of the same draft, the Houston Astros drafted local community college standout Buddy Lamothe.  Lamothe, a promising reliever with an ERA under 1.00, was another kid that had lost any hope of being drafted, much less walking, as he was left paralyzed after a recreational accident that landed him in a wheelchair.

I am sure there are other examples of this, but these were the four that came to mind.  Regardless, I would love to turn on Sports Center and see a 15 minute segment on one of these stories rather than hear about another DUI, domestic disturbance, or athlete complaining that his $10 million a year contract isn’t enough.  Instead, share a story of a team that has given a young athlete a moment that surely brought a smile to their face that is simply priceless.

On the day that legendary linebacker Junior Seau was found dead in his home of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, the NFL has also announced that four players from the Saints “Bountygate” team will face bans, the lengthiest of which goes to linebacker Jonathan Vilma. These two significant news items, one tragic, the other both satisfying and sickening, will be inextricably linked.

Should there be an autopsy on Seau, there is little doubt in my mind it will reveal signs of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), the name they’ve assigned the degenerative brain disease believed to result from repeated concussions. I’m so certain of this, I’d wager just about anything on it.

Back to Bountygate, someone ought to ask Gregg Williams now, right after the tragic apparent suicide of a league legend, what exactly he meant by telling his players that they had to “kill Frank Gore’s head.” Did he mean that they should try to concuss him so badly that he would cognitively degenerate while still a young man, until he finally reached the point of such despair that no other option but suicide remained in his mind?

The other players on the Saints who were suspended besides Vilma are Anthony Hargrove (now on the Packers), Scott Fujita (now with Cleveland) and Will Smith. All three were reportedly heavily involved. But they weren’t the architects. Sure, participation is bad enough. But they had issues like peer pressure and the like to deal with. Nobody was pressuring Williams.

It may seem silly to outline peer pressure as an issue faced by grown men, professional athletes at that. But how silly is it really? In many cases, these are people who their entire lives have had people cater to their whims. They have people who attend classes for them, do their homework, coach them on what to say in every conceivable conversation, etc., so 100% of their focus can be on football, whatever level they happen to be at. Special athletes are noticed early in most cases. There aren’t many late bloomers.

These are prime candidates to suffer from seriously impaired social development. Look at Tiger Woods. when you’re in an evironment as a child, adolescent, teen, and young adult where you’re shielded through so much, you never learn the true meaning of consequence. All actions have consequences. You don’t learn real social skills. You don’t know how to talk your way out of a bad situation. You don’t say no. You don’t know how.

Gregg Williams, he doesn’t have that excuse. He’s a coach, not some younger, impressionable super athlete who is being groomed for stardom. He knew what he was doing. Do I think he wanted Frank Gore dead? Of course not. But death from injury in football, even if it occurs ten or fifteen years down the road, is still a very real possibility. 250lb men are running 4.5 second 40 yard dashes. At each other.

To our regular readers, I apologize for belaboring the Williams situation. But I’m not going to stop until Roger Goodell does the right thing, and offially makes Williams’ indefinite suspension an unequivocal lifetime ban. If Bart Giamatti can ban Pete Rose for life from baseball for betting ON HIS OWN TEAM TO WIN, then Goodell can ban Williams for bribing his players to intentionally endanger the life of another man.

You know I’m right. And it sucks that people have to die to drive home the point. Seau had a family. Frank Gore still has a family. They’re the ones who will suffer. To paraphrase a Diamond Rio song, God only cries for the living, not the passed. It’s the living that are left to carry on.

Seau’s death isn’t the first of its kind, and sadly it very likely will not be the last. But it’s the most high profile to this point, and if anything good can possibly come of it, this is it.

See, mom? We do play well with others! It appears an enterprising Falcons fan happened to stumble across our humble little blog here and start a thread on the Falcons message board. Most of the commentary is good natured so we’re having a good time with it. Special thanks to the gentleman who complimented our writing. As to the name attracting more 12 year olds than adults, you’re probably right as well. That said, it only makes sense to write to our own maturity levels.

We do want to clear up one potential misconception. We don’t dislike Matt Ryan. Quite the opposite. In fact, we love him. Not only does he have a rifle for an arm, he can poop himself mid game and not miss a step. As one of the Falcons message board readers astutely pointed out, they thrashed my hapless Rams that game behind a big performance from our blog’s namesake. Ryan is a winner in our book.

The Anatomy of Men

Not THAT anatomy you sick puppies… It bears mentioning that in last night’s LA Kings St. Louis Blues playoff game, Dwight King and BJ Crombeen settled things as they should be settled. Not with cheap shots or slashes, but with fists in a fair fight. In Game 1, King put Blues stud defenseman Alex Pietrangelo in the boards with a hit from behind. It wasn’t necessarily dirty, but it caused an injury forcing Pietrangelo to miss game 2. Well, you don’t take out the stud players without retribution, but kudos to Crombeen. He didn’t go after Kopitar or Doughty. He went to King and challenged him to a fair fight. King, knowing he owed the Blues to at least answer to his transgression, obliged. I don’t know, I just thought it bore mentioning during a playoffs tarnished by the actions of guys like Raffi Torres, Bryan Boyle, Matt Carkner, Shea Weber, Byron Bitz, and others.

Hey, did something happen in the Clippers game?

What kind of a heartless jackass taunts a seriously injured player? Apparently, a shoe designer. Nike needs to grow a pair and fire the guy.

Just like Gregg Williams needs a lifetime ban. I’ve now read his quote about 100 times about, “doing everything possible to kill Frank Gore’s head.” It gets worse every time. And seriously, why do they keep calling this guy a good defensive coordinator? Wasn’t it his defense that gave up 38 points to the 49rs, not exactly an offensive juggernaut in the playoffs? I thought so.

I’ve been searching the NFL draft recaps long and hard to try to find a team that drafted worse than my Rams again. (explanation on that in a moment). I finally found it. Jacksonville, Brian Anger, really? Why would you use a third round pick on a punter, the player who ideally your team uses as infrequently as possible? It makes zero sense.

Back to the F+ grade I’m giving the Rams. Yes, they got some good players. Brockers figures to be good, as does Janoris Jenkins. Speaking of, if you were a NFL team thinking about drafting Jenkins, wouldn’t you make it contingent upon him having a vasectomy? Come to think of it, if you’re a male pro athlete, why WOULDN’T you get one!? I digress, the Rams watched their golden investment, Sam Bradford take unspeakable beatings all season long before he mercifully shut it down the last 6 games of last season. How was offensive line not the primary need at the draft? Not taking David DeCastro with their first rounder as he sat there waiting for them is the single most ridiculous decision they could have made. Not only did they fail to do the obvious, they compounded that mistake by not addressing the line with any of their three second round picks, or their third. Finally, in the fourth round, they take a kid who projects as… well, a project. I had hoped that incompetence was merely a trait of the Rams’ previous regimes, but alas, it must actually be the team. When respected minds like Jeff Fisher and Les Snead can’t get the obvious right, what the heck else could it be?

As a Rams fan, I love Bradford, and it’s going to pain me greatly when he suffers a season ending and possibly career threatening injury in the first third of the 2012 NFL season. You heard it here first.

Was originally gonna be the jerk that called Mohamed Sanu informing him he was being drafted in the first round by the Bengals.  But instead, it will go to a fan at the Dodger game.  It came in the third at bat for Bryce Harper, the stadium is in the middle of the wave, and a fan stands up, turns around, and drops trow.  Ass in all its glory right behind the plate, just as Harper swings and connects with a double over Matt Kemp’s head.  Replays are delayed as the truck scrambles to find a replay that doesn’t show ass.  Before they even manage to get a replay, I have taken a picture and blasted it onto twitter, as seen here.  I got many great responses, then 15 minutes later Deadspin posts the video and you know it will be topic of conversation on sports radio come Monday.  So, I will also give the future douche of the week to all those media folks who take credit for seeing it, when we all know the place to turn for random stories of unfortunate ass shots is right here, at The Stain.

Today is one of the best nights you get in sports.  Obviously, it is the NFL draft, and that is about as big as the Super Bowl these days.  But, while my eyes will be glued to the draft, my hand will venture over to the remote a few times tonight due to the other fascinating events.  In the NBA, the sport I rarely watch, I want to see if the Bobcats can pull off the worst winning percentage in NBA history and set the record for most consecutive losses to end a season.  Then there is the Laker game.  Kobe Bryant needs 38 points to win the scoring title.  If he does, he will become the second oldest player to ever win it, Jordan has twice done it at an older age.  The best part of it will be watching Kobe throwing up wild shot after wild shot with no regard for his teammates or the score.  Oh, and then there are the two seventh games in the NHL which are always crazy and must see TV.  And of course I get to watch the Red Sox suck again.  Needless to say, tonight is a night to grab your favorite six pack, sit in your favorite spot, loosen up your fingers, and get ready for an active TV night.

As Shaun mentioned, we have a little contest going to see who can predict the most first round draft picks in the upcoming NFL draft correctly. Here are mine. Snide comments are welcome.

1. Indianapolis – Andrew Luck, QB – Analysis is dumb here. He’s the best player, Indy has the first pick. Analysis over.
2. Washington – Robert Griffin III, QB – They didn’t trade up with the Rams so they could pick Brock Osweiler… just sayin…
3. Minnesota – Matt Kalil, OT – I’m more sure about this pick than I am about the first two, and that’s saying something
4. Cleveland – Trent Richardson, RB – Fan favorite Peyton Hillis is gone, and someone other than Montario Hardesty, Cleveland faithful can only hope, has to carry the ball.
5. Tampa Bay – Morris Claiborne, CB – If he’s available and Richardson is not, as I expect, you can etch it in granite.
6. Saint Louis – Justin @#$%ing Blackmon, WR – I still think he’s overrated, and the Rams have a dreadful record with personnel decisions (see Williams, Gregg)
7. Jacksonville –  Reilly Reiff, OT – Maybe Blaine Gabbert can throw after all. He’ll have to remain upright for that to happen
8. Miami – Ryan Tannehill, QB – I will never understand how Shaun Hill isn’t considered good enough. I just. Don’t. Get it.
9. Carolina – Melvin Ingram, DE – If they don’t shock everyone and pick Michael Floyd. Which is what I would do.

10.  Buffalo – Michael Floyd, WR – Ryan Fitzpatrick, aka the $66 million Shaun Hill, needs someone to complement Stevie Johnson.

11.  Kansas City – David DeCastro, G – Instant all-pro guard should probably go even higher but won’t over some stupid value perception on interior linemen.

12.  Seattle – Fletcher Cox, DT – Unfathomable value here, and they’ve already quietly built what’s becoming an elite defense.

13.  Arizona – Quinton Coples, DE – If I didn’t put him here, I likely would have forgotten about him until too late and looked stupid…

14.  Dallas – Stephon Gilmore, CB – Reach? Maybe. But not because he isn’t good, and the Cowboys’ secondary needs help.

15.  Philly – Luke Kuechly, LB – If he’s here, this pick will take the Eagles all of about 1.7 seconds to make.

16.  Jets – Cordy Glenn, OL – Versatile lineman makes sense here, so the Jets probably won’t do it, but they ought to.

17.  Cincy – Kendall Reyes, DT – Not the physical freak that Dontari Poe is, but a more complete player at this point, therefore a safer pick.

18.  San Diego – Chandler Jones, DE – SD defense with Merriman back in the day? Good. Without him? Fail sandwich. Jones is good.

19.  Chicago – Mark Barron, S – Even though it’s not 100% accurate anymore, I still equate Chicago with defense, and Barron is good.

20.  Tennessee – Dontari Poe, DT – Lacks polish, but also lacks the Haynesworth psychosis… and this team was at its best with a dominant DT.

21.  Cincinnati – Michael Brockers, DT – More polished, slightly lower ceiling than Poe.

22.  Cleveland – Stephen Hill, WR – He’d give McCoy the vertical threat to complement Greg Little’s excellent possession game.

23.  Detroit – Dre Kirkpatrick, CB – Clearly the secondary is a need after Matt Flynn lit them up for one of the greatest fantasy games in history

24.  Pittsburgh – Jonathan Martin, OT – Unless they want to bury Big Ben soon, keeping him standing will be a top priority

25.  Denver – Bobby Massie, OT – Don’t think the Broncos will want to protect Peyton? You’re wrong.

26.  Houston – Whitney Mercilus, DE – A certain super Mario is no longer here, and that changes the Texans’ draft priorities, I venture to say.

27.  New England – Kendall Wright, WR – Tom Brady makes this pick. He told me so. Ok, no he didn’t. But it makes sense.

28.  Green Bay – Harrison Smith, S – He’s probably a quiet top 20 talent, but needs of others have him fall a wee bit

29.  Baltimore – Courtney Upshaw, OLB/DE – They might look for another Adalius Thomas type…

30.  San Francisco – Rueben Randle, WR – Really think Randy Moss is the answer? Me neither…

31.  New England – Alfonso Dennard, CB – I think he’s better value than most… if I’m right, it won’t be anything Pats management doesn’t know too.

32.  Giants – Devon Still, DT – Doesn’t fit the scheme, but value is value.

I’m guessing I get about 5 of these right, but only 3 wouldn’t shock me.