Juiced Sports Blog*: Writing Enhanced by Flaxseed Oil » Don Imus

Eric Cartman, Pink Floyd, Victory Smokes & More

clinneweber — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:24:02 +0000

COLIN LINNEWEBER
Welcome! Below are my thoughts on the week that was in the world of sports.

PAT SUMMIT
Head Coach Pat Summit and her Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team defeated Stanford University last Tuesday night 64-48 to win the women’s NCAA Championship game for the second consecutive season. Summit, 55, a 7-time NCAA Coach of the Year, won her 8th championship as the Lady Vols leader and she closed to within 2 crowns of tying legendary UCLA Coach John Wooden for the most all-time among college coaches. Nevertheless, despite her accolades, lack of visible tattoos and race, I bet Don Imus would still consider her a “nappy-headed ho.”

JOHN CALIPARI
Memphis Head Coach John Calipari will rue his decision to not utilize his final timeout in last week’s NCAA Men’s Championship game until the day that he meets his maker. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

LEBRON JAMES
Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics and Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets were all tremendous this season and the entire trio deserves credit for the enormous impact that they had on their respective teams in the 2007/2008 campaign. Nevertheless, as Bill Parcells is known to say, “the numbers don’t lie.” Cleveland Cavaliers superstar Lebron James, 23, recorded statistics this year that were otherworldly (30.0 points, 7.9 rebounds, 7.2 assists) and if he doesn’t win the award it’s an injustice to both himself and to the league. Without King James, the Cavaliers would have been hard-pressed to win more than 10 games this season and I for one believe that they could have lost to Michael J Fox’s squad in Teen Wolf.

KOBE BRYANT
Still, when sentimentality and politics play their roles. look for Bryant to win his first lifetime achievement award (MVP) when the votes are collected.

KYLE FARNSWORTH
When having their name called on the public address system at Yankee Stadium, every Bomber is introduced with their chosen music blaring in the background. For example, legendary closer Mariano Rivera exits the bullpen with Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” clamoring and Big Apple favorite Paul O’Neill greeted the Bronx faithful with the Who’s “Baba O’Reilly” resounding throughout the stadium. With that in mind, I think reliever Kyle Farnsworth’s ideal anthem would be Pink Floyd’s “Goodbye Cruel World.” Unfortunately, I do not believe that Farnsworth needs to be kept astray from sharp objects. But, if Manager Joe Girardi continues to allow him to cripple the Yankees with his unseemly debacles late in games, I may put myself at personal risk.

CHIEN-MING WANG
Yankees ACE Chien-Ming Wang was desecrated last year by critics for his putrid performances against the Cleveland Indians in the ALCS (0-2, 19.06 ERA). Those same critics who bashed Wang, 28, conveniently dismiss the fact that he has won more games (49-18, 3.64 ERA) since the middle of the 2005 season than any other starting pitcher in Major League Baseball. Wang absolutely was subpar at a very inopportune time for himself and the Yankees. But, Wang’s futility was not an ongoing A-Rod-like post-season demise. Wang simply had two bad outings. The Taiwanese import is one the best pitchers in the sport and, with the possible exception of Mets lefty Johan Santana, there is nobody I’d trust more to take the mound in October.

JIMMY LEYLAND
Despite their anemic 2-11 start, I still predict that Detroit Tigers Manager Jimmy Leyland will enjoy many a victory smoke when it’s all said and complete.

ERIC CARTMAN AND BELICHICK
Last week on an episode of South Park, the portly, foul-mouthed caricature Eric Cartman revealed the true reason that the heavily-favored New England Patriots faltered against the New York Giants 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII.

“Just before the last Super Bowl, Bill Belichick gathered his football players and said let’s win this one for real… Just this one time.. Let’s not cheat. You know what happened? They lost. Even if you feel all eyes are on you, you can’t give up on cheating!” — 4.9.08, Cartman, South Park.

Any way you portray it, South Park’s resident fat-boy provided some of the great investigative journalism our nation has seen since Woodward and Bernstein uncovered Watergate with the help of the enigmatic “Deep-Throat.” Now, nearly 3-months-later, the outcome of the game makes entire sense.

Agree or disagree with my vantages, I hope I was able to entertain. Thanks for your readership.

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LEGAL TIME: A LOOK AT THE TWO DEFAMATION CASES

mhblatt — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:42:00 +0000

Mitchell Blatt

Goldigging Hoopster Sues Nappy-Headed Radio Host;
Bonds Vs. Schilling

Already with experience losing the national championship, Rutgers basketball player Kia Vaughn has decided to engage in another losing battle, suing radio shock jock Don Imus, who called the Rutgers womens basketball team “nappy-headed hos.” Vaughn says that her character was assaulted and maligned due to that comment. I say that she is showing her true character by attempting to bring this case to court. Her reputation was not hurt at all because almost everyone went after Imus and sympathized with her.

In another case, Barry Bonds is suing Kurt Schilling for calling him a “cheater” and accusing him of steroid use. Each of these cases have no chance to win in court, as they do not live up to the standards of defamation. Those standards will be explored in this article.

The standards for defamation are:
1.) The statement must be false. (It must be proved to be false with “convincing clairity.” The burden of proof is on the plaintiff.)
2.) The statement must have hurt the reputation of the plaintiff.
3.) The statement must have been said with malice, that is with the intent to damage the reputation.

Possible defenses:
1.) The statement was true.
2.) The statement was a joke or parody. (See Hustler Vs. Jerry Falwell.)
3.) The statement (in the case of an opinion, such as “This man is a cheater.”) was made about a national figure.

Now, these standards will be put to use in each of the cases.

Vaughn vs. Imus

False? “Nappy-headed hos” is an opinion, so this isn’t really applicable, but it could certainly qualify for defamation. EDGE: Wash

Hurt the reputation? Vaughn was virtually unknown before the comment, unknown afterwards, and not very well-known until she sued Imus, so it didn’t really do anything to her reputation. The comment was made about the team as a whole, not an individual player. Furthermore, the vast majority of society went against Imus, not the team. EDGE: Imus (Imus wins, but let’s keep going.)

Done with malice? Imus is known to make controversial and racist comments on his show. He doesn’t mean for them to be taken seriously. He did not mean for any harm to be inflicted to anyone’s reputation with this statement. EDGE: Imus

Defenses
Joke/Parody Imus’ entire show was based on making racist comments about certain people and events. Thus, it can be assumed that the Rutgers comment was also a joke.

National Figure The Rutgers basketball team had recently lost the Womens Final Four championship, so they were a national figure.

Imus wins.

Next case…

Bonds vs. Schilling

Both of them are losing a little as they get older, but they are still solid players. Bonds is batting .280 with 25 home runs. Schilling is 6-5 with a 4.51 ERA. It looks like a pretty even matchup…

Okay, on a more serious note:
False? Since the burden of proof is on Bonds, it would be hard for him to prove that Schilling’s comments about him taking steroids were false, but a good lawyer might be able to do it. EDGE: Wash

Hurt reputation? Bonds was already considered a steroid-user long before Schilling started speaking out. Furthermore, he would have to prove how the comments acctually hurt him. Did he lose marketting contracts? Did he get cut from the team? Simply being offended or being ridiculed is not grounds for defamation. EDGE: Schilling Schilling wins.

Done with malice? Since Schilling has been trashing Bonds for a year or so now and going out of his way to call him a cheater on Bob Costas Now, it is pretty easy to prove that he did so with malice. EDGE: Bonds

Defenses:
National Figure Having set the home run record, Bonds is something of a celebrity, so there isn’t anything terribly illegal about calling him a “cheater” whether or not he cheated.

For more info on defamation, check out Gregory A. Abbott (Esq.)’s law offices and their page on defamation.

Michael Vick Dogfighting Page

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