Justice is Served

Do Browns see Wallace will as Quinn's backup? No

2010-03-09T17:05:20Z

I was sitting around the pressroom inside The Q last night with a handful of other sports journalists. It was halftime of the Cavs-Spurs game, and we were talking sports -- what else would sports journalists talk about: the Argentine

peso? -- but not a word was being said about the Cavaliers.

Now, we had an interest in how they were doing. I mean, they were playing Tim Duncan and the Spurs, and the Cavs were playing without LeBron James. But the Browns were what dominated our conversation.

We had just heard that team president Mike Holmgren traded a low draft pick for a quarterback, and we were discussing the merits of bringing another backup quarterback to Cleveland to compete with two quarterbacks who are, essentially, backups. None of my colleagues saw Seneca Wallace as an upgrade over Derek Anderson or Brady Quinn.

They reminded me that Anderson will be a former Brown before March turns into April -- a $2 million roster bonus will send D.A. into free agency, leaving Quinn as the team's No. 1 quarterback.

I had to laugh at the latter notion. For I can't imagine Holmgren brought a player from his old team to Cleveland as a backup. He had watched Wallace's maturation, and the athletic Wallace produced more than a handful of highlight moments in his fill-in roles with the Seahawks.

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'Pop' sees plenty of Spurs in Ferry's Cavs

2010-03-09T04:33:54Z

You pray the house of basketball that general manager Danny Ferry and coach Mike Brown have built here in Cleveland isn't made of balsam. You hope the frame and the foundation are pieced together with mortar and brick and not driftwood and rusty nails.

Plans for building a basketball team from floor to roof aren't as exacting as the architectural renderings for a five-star hotel on Mars. Talent goes a long way in the former, but talent alone isn't always enough, although an NBA team is never hurt when it has a bright light like LeBron James illuminating the project each night.

A team like the Cavs can follow that shining light until the final brick in the NBA championship is laid.

So far, what Ferry and Brown have built is an impressive structure, coach Gregg Popovich said Monday night before his Spurs lost to the Cavaliers, 97-95.

Popovich could look out onto the arena floor and see how strong that house was. "Pop" could see a team with the NBA's best record, a team 12- or 13-men deep in talent, a team with LeBron to rely on in the clutch, a team with the ability to do something extraordinary.

"Great, great opportunity to get it done this year," Pop said.

And Pop should know.

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As a GM, Shapiro rates low marks, SI says

2010-03-04T21:52:13Z

It's always a tough task to rate the performances of general managers, but just as sportswriters rate a player, they can't let the performance of the men who build these teams go ungraded.

Somebody has to be held accountable for these failures, particularly in the case of the Indians organization. Sportswriters can't give high marks to what Mark Shapiro has done with the franchise.

That's not my opinion alone; poor marks are the judgment of a media with a lot more national credibility than I have.

On its website, Sports Illustrated ran an article that rated general managers, and out of 30 GMs in Major League Baseball, Shapiro ranked No. 22.

"He has to be the most overrated executive of the last few years," SI writer Tim Marchman said. "His Indians were widely praised as one of the best-run clubs in baseball for years, but despite immense reservoirs of talent they've had two winning seasons in his eight years at the helm."

I'm not sure about the reservoirs of talent that Marchman referred to. Having covered the Indians as a beat writer for about five years, I didn't see that deep pool of talent. Sure, good ballplayers came through the organization, but few came here in the draft, an abject failure of the Shapiro regime.

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Cavs need big 'Z' more now than ever

2010-03-01T20:05:29Z

Zydrunas Ilgauskas, of course he's coming back, isn't he?

He'd better, because with Shaquille O'Neal on the mend, the Cavaliers need help desperately in the middle.

They had discovered their shortcomings there in the playoffs last season. With Z at center, he couldn't alone handle the muscle inside of the Dwight Howard and the Orlando Magic, so Cavs general manager Danny Ferry sought help and picked up Shaq for a bucket of bolts and a case of Gatorade.

With Shaq getting most of the minutes in the middle, the Cavs would now be able to double-team the bulkier NBA centers, freeing LeBron James to do what he does better than any player not named Kobe Bryant: dominate the endgame.

And Ferry's decision to add Shaq was a smart move. Indeed, he had been the incredible force inside. His presence helped the Cavaliers forge a comfortable lead in their attempt to claim the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference.

Kareem proves he's more than a sky hook

2010-03-01T02:16:00Z

The fresh faces filled the row of seats on the outside of the auditorium's main floor. They were teenagers, boys and girls from public high schools in the Metro Cleveland area, and they had come downtown to the public library to listen to a man who, for the majority of them, was just a name from history.

To them, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was as unfamiliar as Earl Warren or Nelson Rockefeller or Spiro Agnew. All played starring roles in U.S. history, although perhaps their significance to boys and girls of a certain age was because somebody like me told them so.

Yet as I looked at the faces of youth, I saw an enthusiasm, a real interest in what the giant of a man on the stage in front of them had to say. Abdul-Jabbar, 62, said plenty this day, too -- to these teens and to anybody who cared about the futures of these teenagers.

Abdul-Jabbar, the former NBA star who made the sky hook famous, knows that what people do today can shape how a teenager turns out tomorrow. In a room packed with the melting pot that reflects Cleveland, he could have told the audience of 600 that it takes a village to raise a child. He didn't.

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Z, can any city but Cleveland be your choice?

2010-02-26T04:40:46Z

Of course Z's coming back, isn't he?

Nothing else makes sense. Does it? After all, that had to be the reason, deep inside all the posturing and front-office head-fakes, Cavaliers GM Danny Ferry included center Zydrunas Ilgauskas in the three-team trade that brought power forward Antawn Jamison to Cleveland.

Yes, Jamison was needed piece here, and so was Z.

The Cavs, though their roster is loaded with talent, might not be able to compete seriously for the NBA championship without Z. He's an irreplaceable piece of any run the team hopes to make toward its first title.

Much like LeBron James and Shaquille O'Neal, Ilgauskas can create nightmares for opposing defenders. Z's long and tall, and he has an outside game that big men must respect. His presence opens room for LeBron to slash to the rim, and with Z on the floor, Jamison becomes even more effective.

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How can media play God in judging Tiger?

2010-02-24T03:40:56Z

Columnist Mike Wilbon is right to be angry. How can Wilbon not be right? For in a world in which no human is perfect, he's outraged that the moral authorities in sports journalism have lost their damn minds.

Too many of them have cloaked themselves in the garb of saints, brandishing their moralistic outrage about Tiger Woods and his serial infidelity on their chests like a medal of valor.

Sportswriters have dissected and analyzed and criticized Tiger for failings that they haven't made peace with in their own lives - or in the lives of people who are closer to them than Tiger ever was.

Hypocrisy in sports journalism never had any bounds, and whatever it pretended to have got washed away under the tsunami of sanctimony that has marked the unyielding criticism of Woods.

Yes, he was wrong, and he said so. He cheater. He was an adulterer. Tiger Woods, the world's greatest golfer, was all of that and probably more. And he was surely one more thing: a man.

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'Missing piece' didn't look good in Cavs debut

2010-02-20T20:32:28Z

So much for the "missing piece," huh ?

OK, this missing piece will get better; it will fit in, because nothing in his NBA resume suggests that forward Antawn Jamison plays as badly as he did Friday night in Charlotte.

Jamison's debut in wine and gold was either "Nightmare on Elm Street" or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." His play wasn't just frightening; it was ... well, I don't know what word you would utter in describing a night when a player - a player of Jamison's immense talent - does a better job of laying bricks than a mason.

A bad night for Jamison might be in the order 4-of-14 from the floor. To go 0-for-12 with two points, as he did against the Bobcats, is to leave everybody in Cleveland ready to scream: Bring Zydrunas Ilgauskas back!

It would be typical of sports fans in the city. They are impatience for success - not the getting-into-the-playoff kind of success either. They've had teams get there over the decades. They want a championship; they want a team that they can hold a tickertape parade for on Euclid Avenue.

Contrite Tiger Woods asks fans to forgive him

2010-02-20T04:40:13Z

His advisers handled him well. They kept Tiger Woods from people whose aim Friday morning was to revisit the past. His advisers wanted that past buried, left under a pile of rubble someplace where people - Tiger's critics, the morality cops and the paparazzi -- will need a bulldozer to unearth it.

His advisers know Tiger's followers will return. Oh, yeah, they willbe back. They will return soon because they never cared a bit that Tiger Woods was a flawed man.

His womanizing?

All it did was spotlight his manhood, right? Steamy sex, mountains of money and otherworldly talent have always held their fascination. They stoke people's prurient interests. None of those deadly sins tarnished Tiger's golf legacy, a legacy that has absolutely nothing to do with his being a no-account father or a husband with the sexual appetite of a horse at stud.

"I was unfaithful," he said. "I had affairs; I cheated."

So Tiger wasn't perfect.

Big deal!

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Cavs land missing piece. Welcome, Antawn!

2010-02-18T13:52:05Z

No excuses -- not anymore.

For the trade Cavaliers general manager Danny Ferry had been trying to make is done, and the deal didn't cost him his most gifted young talent. So with J.J.

Hickson not in the bargain, Ferry had no choice but to take this deal over another possibility he had to weigh.

And he took it.

Ferry landed what should be the missing piece his Cavs needed in forward Antawn Jamison, a classy veteran who looked like a better fit here than forward/center Amare Stoudemire would have been.

Not that the team needed much help. Already, LeBron James, Shaq O'Neal and the Cavaliers were heading into the season's second half tonight with the best record in basketball, and given the chance to make his hand stronger, Ferry didn't stand pat.

Ferry traded a first-round pick, center Zydrunas Ilgauskas and his $11.5 million expiring contact in a three-team deal that also brought the Cavs a serviceable point guard in Sebastian Telfair.

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To trade or not, that's the question Cavaliers face

2010-02-17T19:44:36Z

What's to complain about?

Even if the Cavaliers can't pull the trigger on a deadline trade, they have left their fan base no reason for pessimism. They go into the second half of the season Thursday night at The Q with the best record in the NBA and with all the swagger and confidence of a team that knows it's damn good.

Yeah, it might be nice to add a piece -- a big piece.

Wouldn't Antawn Jamison shore up the power forward slot, although Amare Stoudemire would look awfully attractive there as well? And all you keep hearing around NBA circles is that Cavaliers general manager Danny Ferry is working to strengthen a team that's strong now - a team capable of winning an NBA title.

From what I've seen of the Cavs this season, I would advise Ferry to play it cautiously: keep the hand he's been dealt.

Super game brings French Quarter to life

2010-02-08T05:29:15Z

I had expected to get a call Sunday night from at least one of my good friends.

Some kind of friends, eh?

You see, I knew they were in New Orleans, hopping from jazz club to jazz club in the French Quarter. They were there, in the heart of Saints country, enjoying the Super Bowl on television; they were hoping, praying and cheering for not just a team but for a city.

For if any city in America deserved to win a Super Bowl, if any city deserved to celebrate living, to turn its attention away from a decade of heartache, disaster and despair, hard-luck New Orleans would be that U.S. city.

The place has had its share of disappointment - more than its share, actually. Can any big city claim the kind of hardships that had visited this port city in the past decade? The place almost lost what had been its signature: the ability to party like it's 1999.

So we all mourned it. We all rooted for New Orleans to find some reason -- any reason at all -- for another grand celebration, for another day to wave banners and colorful streamers, for another day to trade hugs and high-fives, for another day to put into mothballs, if only for one night, the misery that had ripped this city at its seams.

Newspaper pushes Pirates owner to sell his franchise

2010-02-05T07:19:55Z

Justice B. Hill

To outsiders, Pittsburgh might not be a city they understand well. All they can see is blue-collar city tied to a dying industry like "Big Steel" and with an affinity for the Steelers.

The outsiders might misunderstand the deeply-rooted pride and unflagging loyalty that the locals here cling to, but the outsiders would understand if they lived in the city for a year or two.

For all the things Pittsburgh might not be, it has plenty that points to what it is. The locals tend to dwell on the latter while ignoring the former. Because to fret about not being, oh, as urbane or as sophisticated as its bigger brother Philadelphia is to waste a worry.

Hell, the locals can also say their city ain't Cleveland, and they would be right, too.

For Pittsburgh, a city with an intellectual underpinning that seems to get ignored, can boast that it has plenty in common with Philadelphia, which includes a low-tolerance for mediocrity.

The city's residents showed that to the Penguins, the defending Stanley Cup champs, when the hockey team was the laughingstock of the NHL, and they're displaying that same intolerance now toward the Pirates, whose 17 seasons of ineptitude have stretched the city's tolerance to the breaking point.

How deep that city's frustration runs played out Thursday in an open letter The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the city's largest daily, wrote to Pirates owner Bob Nutting.

Bad hire threatens Buck's baseball museum

2010-02-03T17:05:35Z

The hiring was a mistake from the start. OK, maybe it wasn't a mistake, because who could have known in December 2008 how Greg Baker would do at the helm of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

An outsider, Baker was being tasked to guide the museum, a repository of all artifacts, photographs, memorabilia and information about "black baseball," into the future and move the institution forward in the absence of its late chairman and ambassador Buck O'Neil.

It was a job I wouldn't have wanted.

For how does any human replace a personality like Buck O'Neil? Who would you replace him with - Satchel Paige, perhaps? Of course, Satchel wasn't around to hire, and if he were, not even Satchel would have been up to the job that Buck did so well.

Only the most optimistic of museum supporters could have thought Baker, whose selection split the executive board that made it, would be up to job either. They weren't asking him to replace the iconic Buck as the museum's face but, rather, as its guiding light. After all, Baker wasn't a baseball man -- Negro Leagues or otherwise.

And, even if he were, he would have found using his profile instead of Buck's a misguided choice. Baker had a better chance of being the face of the Yankees or the Red Sox than stepping in and taking over Buck's role at the museum.

No one expected Baker to be Buck's clone. What they did expect was the sort of leadership that would keep alive the history and carry on the initiatives that made the museum a must-visit destination for travelers who found themselves in Kansas City for a few days.

Arenas one star who's worth of forgiveness

2010-02-03T04:04:28Z

You can find no quick truths to a man's contrition. Take Gilbert Arenas, for example. Arenas wrote a column in The Washington Post decrying the stupidity of his brandishing handguns, as if he were Wyatt Earp, in a place where Glocks and .44 Magnums didn't belong.

His essay was a compelling piece of prose, words worthy of a man who knew his behavior was outside the lines.

"I understand the importance of teaching nonviolence to kids in today's world," Arenas wrote an op-ed piece for The Post. "Guns and violence are serious problems, not joking matters -- a lesson that's been brought home to me over the past few weeks."

From his words, he sounds as if he understands his civic failings, though who can be certain. I mean, what Gilbert Arenas wrote might just be another one of those SportsCenter moments that athletes are fond of.

For we've seen apologizes aplenty from high-profile athletes - from men like Mike Tyson, Kobe Bryant, Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez, Donte Stallworth, Michael Vick, and we all know that, at some point, we will see Tiger Woods producing his camera-ready moment. It will, of course, come with the appropriate tears and the maudlin words penned by Tiger's agent to give humanity to his client's serial infidelity.

But Tiger and Tyson and none of the other athletes gone wild are what interest me this day. Besides, a few of them have already fallen on their swords in hopes of being forgiven. I'm sure some people have forgiven, knowing that nobody's life is absent flaws.