This and that

Stuff from all over today.

We’ll start with that garbage from the Orange Bowl Saturday night. I know it seems I refer to each new topic as the worst part of it, and here’s the next thing I’m calling the worst: leading topic of discussion for three days now. But today we’re at least getting into the aftermath. Saying they will extend the disciplinary action against other players, the University of Miami has for now just suspended one player indefinitely. The player in question is Anthony Reddick, whom you may recognize as the guy that was using his helmet as a weapon in the melee. Florida International University made a slightly more impressive point by dismissing two players and extending the suspensions of the 16 other suspended players. They’ll all miss the remainder of the season. The analyst that was essentially cheering Miami players on during the brawl was fired by the TV channel. And once again, the network gets it right when they screw up, one team gets it half right, and the biggest name in the game walks away almost unscathed.

Lou Piniella will be introduced as the Chicago Cubs manager later today. Frankly, I’ve never thought Piniella was anything special as a manager. He took a phenomenally-talented Seattle team to the playoffs a couple times, but they never won anything. Later on down the road, he didn’t do much of anything with Tampa Bay when he didn’t have the same kind of talent. So we’ll see how it shakes down in Chicago. The most interesting part so far is the fact he wants management to do whatever it takes to acquire Alex Rodriguez. Tell me Chicago wouldn’t love A-Rod, and tell me A-Rod wouldn’t love playing in one of the sane baseball markets, where .290-35-121 ain’t so bad.

Last item today, the NHL has dropped their playoff of the week award, and instead will name a weekly three stars. Why did this change take so long? I love it. I wish I’d thought of it. It’s just one more way the NHL is molding its image around the things that make it unique, and I can’t express how much I like it. Especially in the wake of so many weekly co-MVPs Major League Baseball handed out this year. Hell, they even seemed to get it right with the first selections of the year: a 5-0 goalie in Marty Turco, the league’s points leader in Martin Havlat (10 points), and Mats Sundin, who’s scored eight points this year including the 500^th of his career Saturday night. Good work NHL.

Taking tomorrow off, but I’ll be back Thursday.