Boston Red Sox a Headache to this Toronto Blue Jays Fan

Roughriders Improve Quarterback Situation With Trade

Back to Milan

by Drew Singh…

After two long and fruitless years in West London, Andriy Shevchenko is back where he belongs, Milan, Italy. Shevchenko was widely expected to return to the San Siro where he scored a whopping 127 goals in the Serie A between 1999 and 2006. Shevchenko has returned to Milan on a season long loan and he should turn that into a permanent move at the end of this coming season. Shevchenko should have never left Milan in the first place, but what’s done is done and he is now ready to write the second chapter of his Milanese tale.

The reason that Shevchenko struggled in the Premiership is simple, he is not cut out for such a league. Shevchenko is tailor made for the Italian game which is far more technical than the more fluid Premiership. However now that he is back in the red and black of the Rossoneri he should pick up exactly where he left off. In fact this year’s Milan squad looks a whole lot more impressive than the teams that Shevchenko was apart of in the past. Pirlo, Seedorf and Kaka’ will still be in the midfield feeding passes to Shevchenko. He will still be able to form a partnership with Inzaghi upfront and the defensive corps that he played with remains. But now he has Ronaldinho behind him. One of the most exciting soccer players in the world today will only make Sheva better than he already is. How is that even fair? Pirlo, Kaka’, Ronaldinho and Shevchenko on the same team every single week.

Milan will again be a force in the Scudetto race this season. With such a deep team you can expect Milan to go far in the league, UEFA Cup and the Coppa Italia. Yes, it is a shame that one of the best Champions League teams will not be apart of the Champions League this season, but life goes on. Milan will definitely qualify for the Champions League next season. On paper, Milan look to be unstoppable but as we all know, no real sport is played on paper. Thus we will just have to wait and watch the Serie A season unfold. Forza Milan!

The Cito Regime and the Wilson Puppetry

by Jon Dwyer… Baseball served the city of Toronto well this past weekend. Gone were the ominous incantations summoning the spirit of the 92’ and 93’ Jays, present was Cito and the Samuel L. Jackson of Baseball, Vernon Wells; who I assume also has a wallet that reads “Bad Motherfucker” –see Pulp Fiction.

With a surprising 14-3 vic against the Yankees Thursday evening and an 11-0 ass thrashing that, pending you’d not seen the jerseys and notable players, might have seemed like the Jays were matched against the Canadian Special Olympic team, we were sick! Though we didn’t post a “W” Friday night and while Sunday’s match ended in the 11th inning when Jed Lowrie destroyed Brandon League’s beleaguered fastball, statistically 50% of the time we were pennant contenders and the other 50% we were just plain contenders…either way we were good.

Not wanting to inundate you with statistics normally reserved by journalists to remind us that were normally not this good, I’d rather dwell on what this means for the Jays and the psychology of the city. The transition witnessed in the bullpen since the Jays fired John Gibbons June 21 is nothing short of a revolution. When revolutions occur within a state, certain indicators of change are measured by the degree in which the new leader changes existing structures. For example, if we lived in South America, say Venezuela in the late 1980/early 90’s, and Cito was Hugo Chaves (which he could be, Cito loves the Cubans), Populism would be the new “thing” for the Jays. Everyone would hit homers (or at least use a corked bat), occasionally be the DH, wealthier players would subsidize rookie salaries and those of outgoing players (i.e. Gregg Zaun) outfielders would share equal praise with infielders and Cito Gaston would be the scourge of the MLB.

Thankfully, the “Cito Revolution” has played out in the Toronto’s favour, with the old way of doing things succumbing to Gaston’s winning strategy. John Gibbons’ combative nature, inability to execute strategy and ultimate lack of respect from a majority of the roster is nowhere to be seen. Like a hybrid of Mohandas Gandhi and Hugo Chaves, Cito is stern yet patient, benevolent yet shrewd, all at once a shying media figure and yet a masterful dictator of they new direction being praised by the media. Much the same way Chaves overthrew Carlos Perez and Gandhi fought the oppression of the British Raj, Cito is fighting an uphill battle against a losing record and prospering NL East rivals. The structure created by Gibbons was more easily removable then initially thought and this past weekend serves as an indication that the Cito regime can and will prosper, however it may be too late to salvage this season.
So, what does that say for a city defined not by baseball, but another sport in dire need of a rebirth?

A lot really.

The incompetencies of both Paul Maurice and John Gibbons can be paralleled all day long, most notably the inability of either coach to command the respect of their former teams, elders and rookies alike. Obviously the removal of Gibbons has spurred the dormant talent of the Jays to start hitting the ball again, however I’m afraid the case will not be the same for the Leafs. “Roster,” originally a Dutch military term denoting the placement of troops, just doesn’t seem to fit with the Blue and White. Our leaders are false prophets in absence of real men; speaking of absence don’t get me started on our captain! Star players in the past have all gone the way of the 8-track and singing fat women.

For that very reason I wasn’t all that excited when “ole-wrinkly-balls” Cliff Fletcher, a man occasionally mistaken for Methuselah and a few other characters from the book of Genesis, named Ron Wilson as the new head coach. Assistant-coach in last years all-star game and proprietor of the most winning-est. record in San Jose Sharks franchise history, Wilson was drafted by the Leafs in 1975 and played a less-than mediocre 3 seasons with the Buds before heading to Europe. It is a step in the right direction for the Leafs to appoint a veteran player and coach who clearly has first–hand experience with a diverse group of players, but that wont mean shit this season.

In a sense Cito has it easy, his roster is stacked with some pretty good players, Wilson on the other hand will not only struggle with a short list of goodies and a long list of nobodies, he’ll soon come to find out that drafting and trading for quality players is not something the Leafs do well. Perhaps the first time n a few decades, the Leafs organization have noted the upcoming season as the beginning of a new era, in which the team may not post a lot of wins, but will set themselves up as contenders in the future.

Let me ask ya this, do you believe them? What else were they gonna say?

-“Hey, we were fucking garbage last year and were probably gonna be this year”

I thought not…cause’ that would have been honest for the Leafs.

GO JAYS!!!

You wish you wrote it

by Mark Ritter… The Olympics are over, does anybody care? The U.S. continued their dominance proving once again that they are the best cheaters around. The Chinese can’t escape rumors of fourteen year old girls participating in Gymnastics and Canada’s Flag Bearer came up lame; sounds like a status quo Olympics to me! How long do you suppose it will be until the “Marian Jones” of this Olympics will be implicated? It’s just a matter of time my friends. The Olympics is nothing but a cash grab, I tried to get “into” it, but I ended up watching more commercials them I did Olympic events and some of those “Olympic Events” ought to be ousted from the games. Kind of leaves you all tingly inside, doesn’t it? On the lighter side, let’s look at the top three “Stupid” things commentators may or may not have said at the Olympics-
1.    Tennis Commentator: “One of the reasons Andy is playing so well is that before the final round, his Wife takes out his balls and Kisses them…”
2.    Soccer Commentator: “Julian Dicks is everywhere. It’s like they’ve got eleven Dick’s on the field.”
3.    Dressage Commentator: “This really is a lovely Horse, and I speak from personal experience since I mounted her Mother…”
On another note, here is the dumbest comment by an Athlete at the Olympics- Gymnast, “I owe a lot to My Parents, especially My Mother and Father…” Who say’s Athletes aren’t “S-M-A-R-T???”

Michael Bishop was let go by the Toronto Argonauts in order to give Kerry Joseph some piece of mind, funny, I think the majority of Argo fans would love to give him a piece of their minds! Four touchdowns and six interceptions is not the makeup of a starting quarterback. Shipping Bishop out won’t make Joseph a starter, making a few plays will. I wonder if the Argos got blind-sided by Joseph’s statistics from last season and forgot the rest of his career. This dude is marginal at best; if Joseph looked at his career stats he’d have to concede this fact. Bad move Argos, Bishop was way more popular with the players and had a real chance to make something of himself this season. If I could speak for Bishop for a moment, “Thanks for nothing Argos, Kiss My Purple Butt!!!”

Is it just me or have all the Leaf fans been pretty quiet this off season? Maybe, just maybe they are starting to realize that the 40 years of mediocrity wasn’t a dream and now concede that blowing this “Mother” up is the best thing MLSEL could do? Many believed that Leafs GM Cliff Fletcher was well past his time, others thought he might have dementia! If you ask me, Fletcher has proven to have the most foresight of any Leafs’ GM the past twenty years. The Leafs are going to be terrible this season, Fletcher knows it, so what does he do? He polishes up the old Axe and “gets busy”. Terrible hockey awaits Leaf fans everywhere, get used to it; this is year one of a five year plan and it’s going to get worse before it gets better. Kudos to “Trader” Cliff, at least he recognized the lack of talent on the roster and had the fortitude to make the unpopular moves, finally someone willing to put his neck on the line in the hopes of making things better. Kind of makes you think that maybe, just maybe, there is a plan for once? The seats at the ACC should be filled with “We want Tavares” banners; that’s the best the “Leaf Nation” can hope for.

The Buffalo Bills in Toronto sucked! You can try your best to put a good spin on it, but at the end of the day this was one of the most boring football games I have ever watched. In fact, it was so boring I had it turned off after five minutes, which is more than most football fans put up with. The Last thing Toronto needs is another losing team; Buffalo hasn’t been “talking proud” about the Bills in well over a decade. If you ask me Bill’s fans can keep their team right where they belong, with the rest of the losers in Buffalo. Send up your wings and keep the precious Bills, we don’t want them!

Some say that the Blue Jays are in a pennant race? Could have fooled me! Once again this Baseball team has let their beloved fans down; I think “We” fans are all getting a little tired of the “Groundhog day” similarities between the movie and the past ten Blue Jay seasons. It’s great to beat the Red Sox and the Yankees, better still to beat the crud out of the rest of the American League too. Dismal hitting cost this team large in the early weeks of the season, the hitters should all give their pay to the Pitchers, the way they pitched this season and the lack of run support they received made them all underpaid. I like bringing back Cito Gaston, if he was to do a movie it would be “An officer and a gentlemen”, he is both. Hey Riccardi, ever wonder how Troy Glaus would have looked in a Jay’s uniform this season? Nice job shipping him out, we should all be so lucky as to mess up as often as you do and still have a job. I don’t know who was worse, JFJ or Riccardi? Pick your poison. Together these two guys couldn’t organize a trip to the corner store!

Until next time,

Peace!

SUMMER OLYMPIC’S: WHY “WE” CANADIANS SHOULD BE PROUD

by Mark Ritter… Every four years, with varying expectations, Canadian citizen’s dust off their remote controls and tune into one of the greatest sporting spectacles your eyes will ever behold, the Summer Olympics. Canada, by in large, is not expected to have “huge” success at the Summer Olympics, that said, why is it the entire Country seems to feel that Canadian Athlete’s have somehow let Canada down in 2008?

Canada has participated in 23 Summer Olympics, missing only the inaugural 1896 Olympics in Athens and the Boycotted 1980 Olympics in Moscow. Canada’s best results were at the 1984 Olympics in Atlanta where they pulled off a huge Medal count capturing 10 Gold’s, 18 Silver and 16 Bronze Medals respectively for a total of 44 Medals, no easy feat. At present, Canada’s all-time medal count stands at 256; factor that Canada has participated in 23 games that gives Canada an average of just over 11 Medals per Olympic Games. With 14 Medals (May Change) currently having been awarded in Beijing why all the fuss about Canada’s supposed lack of results? Give your collected heads a shake Canada, I for one believe Canada has done just fine, thank you very much!

I think most of the backlash directed towards Canadian Athlete’s comes due to the lack of results in the so-called “Gucci” events; by that I mean the 100m, 200m and 4 x 100m events. How soon we forget the great results brought to us by the likes of Donovan Bailey setting a World Record in the Men’s 100m race in Atlanta and the Men’s 4 x 100m Relay Team destroying a “cocky” American team by nearly half a second at the same games. Ben Johnson, vilified for his steroid use, had the entire Country leap out of their chairs when he crossed the finish line in 9.79 seconds in Seoul Korea, then the fastest recorded 100m time ever. I think it’s pretty obvious that Johnson was not the only one on steroids that day, the difference is he got caught, that said, cheaters have no place in the Olympics or any other sports, so I digress. But that moment was incredible, just the same.

Maybe “We” as a Nation need to be a little more supportive, look at the Spirit of competition and not just the results. Any Athlete fortunate enough to participate in the Olympics and represent their Country is worthy of your support, admiration and attention, regardless of the results or lack thereof. How is it that an Athlete such as Canada’s 200m Breaststroke participant Mike Brown gets dumped on for finishing fourth? Sure it “sucks” to be fourth, but how do you think the Athlete feels? I don’t know about you but I would love to be the fourth best in the World at anything I did! Sure, First, Second or Third is better, but Fourth ain’t too shabby Brother!

Trust me, every Athlete wants to bring home a Medal, they spend countless hours working out, practicing their event, make countless sacrifices and endure financial hardships just to get to the Olympics and get one shot at a Medal every four years, how can anyone suggest for a minute that they are not giving it their all? Canada will never dominate the Summer Olympics; the Country simply does not have the financial wherewithal or the talent to compete against the Medal favorites, anyone who thinks otherwise is a lunatic! Besides, when is the last time, outside of an Olympic year, that you cared one iota about any of these events/Athletes? Most Canadians sit on their couches with a mouth full of peanuts and beer and criticize every Canadian Athletes performance without knowing “Diddly” about the event they are watching. Maybe if Canadians spent as much time getting involved in their communities and supporting Amateur sports as they do complaining about the supposed lack of results Canada could send more Medal contenders. My advice to the “Couch Critics” is to get off your collective keisters and get involved then, and only then, should you have an opinion.

Canada has put fourth a great team of Athlete’s to compete at the Beijing Olympics. Sure there have been disappointments, but that’s the beauty of the Olympics, you never know who is going to put fourth their best performance on any given day. If the events were predictable then there would be no need for the games. Competition fuels interest, interest drives ratings, ratings drive revenue, revenue contributes to making Olympic dreams possible and that’s the bottom line.

Hey Canada, “Chill-Lax”, enjoy the games, let the spirit of the games and the glory of competition move your Soul. Let’s focus on praising the likes Simon Whitfield, Carol Huynh, Ian Miller, Karen Cockburn, Alexandre Despatie and the surprising performance of Pricilla Lopes-Schliep, to name a few. Let’s not forget the Athletes who fell just short of a Medal like Mike Brown, Dylan Armstrong, Blythe Hartley, Christine Girard, Christopher Cook, David Ford and the Women’s Softball Team, to name a few. There is no sense in complaining, the Athletes don’t deserve it and even if you do not share the sentiments, the rest of the World respects our results and our efforts to bring forward a product that every Canadian should be proud of.

Now get off that couch and start training, the 2012 games are only four short years away!

Lightning Strikes Thrice at National Stadium for Jamaican Usain Bolt

by Brady Rynyk… Not since the Bobsled team entered the Calgary Winter Olympics of 1988 has there been so much publicity and hype surrounding Jamaican Olympians.  Considering he is a relative newcomer to the sport, the now 22 year old, Usain Bolt, from Trelawny, Jamaica (the same hometown of fallen Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson) did not make his foray into this year’s Beijing games as a clear cut favourite.  He immediately catapulted his status, however, as the biggest threat on the track after he eased his way to a first place finish in his very first heat.  Despite setting a world record in the 100m with a time of 9.72 at the Reebok Grand Prix in New York in May, many experts in the field felt he may not contest for the gold medal due to the 1.7 m/s tail wind that aided him during that race.

Bolt, who was uncertain if he would even race in the 100m event, left the decision up to his coach, Glen Mills, to determine whether or not it made sense for the sprinter to run in addition to what was considered his specialty, the 200m.

Any uncertainty would all change after the qualifying rounds when the Lightning Bolt, as his is fittingly called, embarassed everyone he was matched up against with his lightning speed in each heat.  The 6’5 runner, who never seems to get a good spring out of the starting blocks, seemed to prance to a definitive lead crossing the finish line without anyone on his heals.

By the time he stepped into the blocks of the medal round of the 100m race, Bolt still may not have been the clear cut favourite for the event considering other runners in the field included former world record holder and teammate Asafa Powell, American Walter Dix, and Churandy Martina.  However, the looks on the faces of the runners participating in the event told a different story.  While the other sprinters noticeably looked anxious and nervous, Bolt bolstered with confidence and determination.  In a heartfelt talk with Willie Bolt two days before the final, Usain assured his father that he would “carry the gold back home.”  He would not dissappoint as he broke away from the pack by the 50m mark and clearly pulled back with about 15m left in the race, still managing to beat his own World Record.  Without anyone remotely close to him, he crossed the finish line with a time of 9.69 seconds, ahead of Richard Thompson who crossed .20 seconds afterwards – almost an eternity in the world of track & field.  As Bolt celebrated during and after the race, he emphatically pumped his chest, while many of his supporters and fellow counrtymen rejoiced by spraying Red Stripe beer into the air.  Surprisingly, Bolt’s victory marked the first time in Jamaican history that a sprinter would finish first in the 100m event, which was justifably a good reason to celebrate.

Four days later, just hours before his 22nd birthday, The Lightning Bolt proved that his finish in the 100m was certainly no fluke when he showed the 200m was truly his specialty at the Beijing Summer Games.  The 200m men’s final may have appeared to be a tighter race until Bolt turned the final corner and seemed to go into another gear, leaving the rest of the pack in his wake.  Despite being impeded by a 0.9 m/s headwind, the running phenom crossed the finish line at 19.30 seconds, shattering American hero Michael Johnson’s 12 year World Record.  Adding to the illustrious evening, following the race at the stroke of midnight, “Happy Birthday” was played across National Stadium’s sound system in tribute to Bolt who had just received his birthday present, a second gold medal.  In doing so Bolt also become the first sprinter, since American legend Carl Lewis, to finish 1st in 100m and 200m within the same Olympic Games.

But the speedster was not finished. On Friday, he aided his Jamaican teammates, Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, and Asafa Powell, to a first place finish in the men’s 4×100m relay.  As Bolt passed off the baton to anchor runner Powell, it was clear that no other team would come close to challenging the group of spinters.  The team finished with a time of 37.10 seconds, giving Jamaica yet another World Record and solidifying Bolt’s place in history.   

After his performance in this year’s games, the Jamaican runner will possibly go down in history as the greatest sprinter of all time after his emphatic and certainly decisive results, which clearly embarassed the competition.  However, despite Usain Bolt’s convincing finishes, there are some, like Olympic medalist Kriss Akabusi and IOC president, Jacques Rogge, who construed the world’s fastest man’s antics on the track as disrespectful.  Bolt, who in celebration belted his own chest before crossing the finish line, irked some with the perceived signs of showboating. Some also felt he could have finished with even more convincing times had he done so without boasting.  Former Trinidadian Olympic sprinter and finalist in the 100m, and NBC 2008 Olympic analyst, Ato Boldon, commented, “That [the race] was great television, but I think it was poor sportsmanship.” After being subject to some controversy, especially after being baited into debate during an interview with Bob Costas, Boldon, who meant no disrespect to Bolt went on to say, “My stance as a track purist is that an athlete should celebrate as much as possible before and after, not during a race - simple as that.”

In retrospect, the fact that the runner was able to coast to the finish line, take-in his surroundings and glance up at the crowd, while pounding his chest in celebration should be a true testament of how incredible he really is. When asked to comment, American sprinter Shawn Crawford stated, “I don’t feel like he’s being disrespectful.  If this guy has worked his tail off, every day, on his knees throwing up like I was in practice, he deserves to dance.”  Maybe the naysayers would rather if Bolt slowed up enough to make the race interesting or better yet stopped before the finish line to let all his competitors take the glory.  Regardless,  Usain Bolt’s accomplishments in Beijing are like no other sprinter, and one can only imagine what the future holds for this incredible athlete. Some optimists suspect a gold medal and World Record in the 400m might be next on his list of career goals.