The Loss Column — Baltimore Sports Blog and Community

That slightly deranged looking gentleman to your left is Terrell Owens, aka T.O. You might remember him on account of his checkered history as a malcontent, or perhaps from his botched suicide attempt a couple of months ago. Most likely you know him as that guy you don’t ever want to hear from/about ever again.

For the past several weeks he’s been all too kind on that front, keeping silent on such pressing issues as Tony Romo’s ascension to God status and his own propensity to drop passes. Things had settled down so well that I’d almost forgotten about him entirely. So, naturally, I was less than pleased to see the following headline:

T.O. Questions Release of Vanderjagt

I don’t want to see T.O. “questioning” anything, but of course I clicked the link anyway. And what to my wondering eyes should appear?

“I don’t see what he did wrong to warrant him being cut,” Owens said Wednesday. “I hope it doesn’t come back to haunt us. Whoever made that decision, I’m pretty sure they’re hoping the same thing.”

And…

“Going into the Colts game, the guy was 12-of-15. That’s still a high kicking percentage,” Owens said. “He didn’t lose any games for us. If I had to put myself in the mix, I feel like I lost some games and I’m still here, so it’s just unfortunate.”

Just so we’re clear, this is the Terrell Owens, and he’s commenting on the game of football in a way that (a) doesn’t glorify his own contributions and (b) actually exhibits sympathy for a fellow player and a reasonably objective point of view.

You’re not going to find me coming up with a way to explain this, but what the hell…credit where it’s due.

America loves controversy. And when our athletes — who are held on a pedestal as the paragons of physical prowess and somehow get put on a moral pedestal as well — provide that controversy, we love it. Throughout history there’ve been plenty of checkered heroes: Ty Cobb, Latrell Sprewell, Hollywood Henderson, Dock Ellis, Charles Barkley, John Rocker. But other than T.O. and Chad Johnson, who is there now?

What makes those two so interesting? T.O. brags and complains. Chad Johnson complains and brags. That’s boring. The truth is, these men are not interesting public figures. But they’re all our poor media has to work with. There are no more true characters in sports, just spoiled kids with good PR departments and too many handlers.

The requisite strip club shootout is passé. The drunk driving charge is done to death. Even domestic violence has lost its zing thanks to OJ. The off the cuff racism of John Rocker seems tame after Kramer and Mel Gibson’s rants.

Today’s American sports figures are sadly lacking in intrigue, on the field as well as off. Where have you gone, Ty Cobb? Dock Ellis pitched a no-hitter on acid. Now THAT’S interesting. Who takes hallucinogens and takes the field anymore? And who’s left to smoke crack with and sexually assault teens? Hollywood Henderson made a tender art of it. Any contemporary attempt would be plagiarism, an homage at best.

What’s even more depressing is that even at our worst, we can’t beat Europe’s best. John Abraham drives his Navigator into a ditch after two Hypnotique and Hennesseys. Scotland’s Jackie Stewart drove F-1 cars with the BAC of a passing GPA and won races. Miami players swing football helmets in retaliation for a hard foul. Robin Friday (soccer player for Reading FC) kicked an opposing player in the face after he was aggressively fouled. That wasn’t significant retribution for Friday, so he took a dump in the player’s gym bag after the game. Joe Horn uses a cell phone during an end zone celebration. Robbie Fowler (soccer player for Manchester City) got on his knees and mock-snorted the white goal line like a giant rail of coke. John Rocker made some off-color comments. Italian soccer player Paolo Di Canio has “Duce” tattooed on his arm. Yes, as in El Duce, Benito Mussolini. Di Canio is admittedly a “fascist” and often gives a Nazi salute after scoring goals.

Disgusting? Yes. Reprehensible? Yes. Interesting? YES!

Take notes, future American sports figures. Stop practicing your cross-over and start developing drug habits, extreme political beliefs, and a maniacal sense of vengeance. And once you’ve honed your craft, sin big and sin with style. Our collective attention is in your hands.

Wherein we continue paring down our list of potential playoff teams…

Pittsburgh is not only out of the race, but that performance against the Ravens was so bad I feel like the NFL might award them a few extra losses as punishment, just to hasten their mathematical elimination.

They are now officially a bigger disappointment this year than Washington, who managed a big win over a likewise underachieving (but talented) Carolina team.

This week’s games should go a long way to providing some postseason clarity. In the meantime…

Denver drops two, KC picks them up, and the two teams are now tied up at 7-4. It’s a bad trend, sure, but 7-4 still seems like a decent record to me. Not to Mike Shanahan, who is turning to rookie Jay Cutler in a move straight out of the “eh, what the hell” school of coaching. If this works he’ll look slightly less dumb (dumb dumb) than he does every day anyway. If it doesn’t, I’d imagine there will be calls for his head. It’s probably time.

The Tomlinsons Chargers look like the second best, second hottest team in all of football. If Marty Schottenheimer is ever going to win a big game or two this is the year to do it.

Ahead of them, of course, the aforementioned Ravens. Best team in the AFC? Best in the whole league? If they stomp Cincinnatti like they did the Steelers then it means they’re peaking at the right time and probably won’t be stopped. It’s almost scary.

Regarding the Giants and the Colts, remember one thing: until one of them proves otherwise, a Manning is still a Manning.

The unceremonius release of Mike Vanderjagt (I’ll spare you your five hundredth “idiot kicker” joke) is still more proof (like anyone needed it) that Parcells is out of his mind (and not in a funny, Eddie Murphy circa Beverly Hills Cop kind of way). Not because Vanderjagt is that great, but because Martin Gramatica sure as hell isn’t. And anyway I think Michael Husted is still available, so what gives?

Finally, that pic up there? That’s Brooke and Kerry, from the Titans, doing some Thanksgiving volunteering. We like to give the cheerleaders some equal time around here (pic via this site).

Thanksgiving has come to an end and the real fun — the mad December dash to the end-of-year holidays and the calendar flip — is about to begin. Will the Orioles leave a power hitter and a 15-20 win starter in our stockings this year? A man can dream.

First things first, we want to pay our respects to former Oriole Pat Dobson, who passed away at the age of 64. Dobson was part of the storied 1971 Baltimore staff that boasted four 20-game winners. It always sucks to hear/report news like that.

Moving on…the free agent market continues to confound all rational thought, as both Juan Pierre and Gary Matthews, Jr. have received horrendously bloated contracts.

Far be it from me to care much about the well being of the Angels, but any Orioles fan can attest that Matthews is under no circumstances worth $50 mil for 5 years. While he had flashes of brilliance now and then, his time here was thoroughly forgettable. He’s not terrible, but that’s about all you can say for him. Seriously.

Pierre makes a bit more sense, but the real story continues to be Carlos Lee. How high will the bidding get, and will the O’s stick around to see the end of it? My guesses are “very, very high” and “no”, but we’ll see. The Astros look to be closing in, and the Phillies remain in the mix as well.

If you’re a religious sort of person, pray that the O’s don’t develop a serious interest in J.D. Drew.

Speaking of the Angels, they also managed to land top reliever Justin Speier. That doesn’t make up for the Matthews signing, but at least it’s not stupid.

The Yankees re-signed noted turncoat Mike Mussina. I’m quite happy about this, and here’s why: I want to see “Moose” retire as a Yankee, and I want him to do so without a 20-win season and without a World Series ring. That will satisfy my lust for karmic justice. We’re getting there.

The O’s stayed busy on the minor league front, signing outfielder Roger Cedeno and purchasing the contract of former Beach Bum Ryan Ariail. They also lost pitcher Scott Rice to the Rangers. That last move bums me out, because I saw Rice pitch in the AA All-Star game a few years back and he really impressed. I wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up somewhere down the road as a decent contributor.

The Cedeno move was reported by Roch Kubatko, but we’re the first local outlet (as far as I can gather) to report the other two.

This is the point in the NFL season where things begin to get crazy. Stoopid even. Thursday games, Saturday games, playoff talk that finally means something, and a general sense that blood is in the water. So where early editions of the NFL Inquest were mostly about picking and choosing some angles on a given week’s games, we start now with trying to formulate a more holistic view of the season with eyes on January and February.

The first step is counting out the failures. There are currently 8 teams with no chance whatsoever of making the playoffs: Arizona, Tampa Bay, Detroit, Washington, Oakland, Houston, Tennessee, and Cleveland.

Of these only Washington is a serious disappointment. I personally picked them (publicly, for PressBox) to finish 11-5, and I had damn good reasons. I don’t think anyone saw this coming. How do you figure on a team with that much talent and that many resources flailing as they have? My gut tells me they’ll bounce back next year with a healthy Clinton Portis and Jason Campbell entering the season with experience and job security, but who knows?

On the flip side, six teams have playoff spots locked down: Chicago, Denver, San Diego, Indianapolis, Baltimore, and New England.

You’ll notice that five of those six are in the AFC. The NFC remains wide-open, with seven teams at .500 or better and three more just one game below. Every single game still matters there, and if you catch other (less scrupulous) websites making predictions this early then you can summarily dismiss the overall worth of their work. It’s tantalizingly easy to look at, say, San Francisco (5-5) and say they have no shot, but who’s to say they can’t ride this out and overtake Seattle (6-4) for the division title? Likewise, Atlanta (5-5) may have a run in them, and even teams like Green Bay and Minnesota (both 4-6) could conceivably make a surprise wild card push.

The AFC is both less and more interesting. Less in the sense of fewer spots to be decided, more in the sense of how many teams have a shot. Kansas City and Jacksonville (both 6-4) have the edge, but New York and Cincinnatti (both 5-5) and Miami, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo (all 4-6) remain within enough striking distance that it’d be foolish to count them out.

We could start breaking down remaining schedules, division records, offensive and defensive trends, and the like, but at this stage only two things are certain: one, the next two weeks will tell us a lot. And two, something bizarre and unexpected will happen.

Don’t let anybody tell you different.

We here at The Loss Column would like to extend our best wishes to one and all for the Thanksgiving holiday. We hope you enjoy it in good health.

Work and holiday pursuits have slowed the posting a bit, and we apologize. Rest assured that won’t be a pattern. On the horizon for later today/later this week we’ve got another NFL Inquest, an extensive Hot (Stove) Action report, and a look at minor league baseball uniforms and logos. All that and whatever else comes up.

So thanks for stopping by, have a good holiday, and we’ll see you soon.

I’m not a big fan of tossing superlatives around like they don’t actually mean anything (as in, “that was the most amazing game I’ve ever seen!), but this was one hell of a weekend for sports. It was so good that I left you without a Monday post until 10 pm. Tsk tsk, I know.

So without further delay, let’s take a selective look:

The Cubs screwed themselves all of baseball by signing Alfonso Soriano to that ridiculous contract. I never thought any move could make the Alex Rodriguez deal look sensible, but leave it to the most desperate team in baseball to make it happen. As much of a debacle as the Rodriguez deal was, the Rangers were locking up a player just entering his prime who turns in top-flight performances year after year on both sides of the ball. Soriano is one hell of a player, but he’s also 30 years old and has only played solid outfield defense for one year. Hell, he’s only actually played the outfield for one year. Unimaginable stupidity, especially considering that the presence of Lou Piniella pretty much puts the World Series out of reach regardless of what kind of lineup they send out.

The worst part is that this will have the added effect of skewing the bids for Carlos Lee, so I think it’s safe to cross him off our wish list. Full Hot Stove coverage later in the week.

The Maryland basketball teams both look good. Real good. With the women that’s no surprise, but I’m feeling way better than I thought I would about Gary Williams’ squad. None of it really counts until the ACC season begins, but they’re setting themselves up to surprise a lot of people.

Usually, any event as hyped as Ohio State-Michigan is bound to disappoint. Saturday was not “usually.” If you missed it, you missed maybe the only college football game truly worth watching this year.

Unfortunately it didn’t really settle anything. OSU will probably end up playing USC for the championship (in fifty days), while Michigan fans will be left wondering what might have been. The BCS = 8 years for Alfonso Soriano. Dumb dumb dumb dumb.

Jimmie Johnson won the Nextel Cup, capping off the 2006 season. I have a feeling nobody believes me on this, but stock car racing is getting interesting. The infusion of talent from other circuits is going to turn NASCAR into an object of international attention, and if you have any interest at all in auto racing then 2007 will be the year to start watching.

The NFL home stretch officially began this week with a crazy good slate of games. I’ll give it the full treatment when the NFL Inquest returns tomorrow.

The Orioles have been busy, which I’ll take as a good sign. The “big” (let’s not get too carried away) acquisitions so far have been starter Jaret Wright and solid left-handed reliever Jamie Walker. Under the radar, however, they’ve also been stocking their new AAA affiliate in Norfolk (probably the smartest move they’ve made in years) with solid veterans who can add depth and help out in a pinch. They include outfielder Luis Montanez (a former first round pick), catcher J.R. House, infielder Terry Tiffee, and utility hitter Josh Phelps. Our thanks to Roch Kubatko for dutifully reporting these moves.

Meanwhile, the AL East competition keeps getting tougher as the Red Sox won the Matsuzaka bidding war, the Blue Jays plucked Frank Thomas from the A’s, and, in one of the more underreported moves of the hot stove season, the Devil Rays won a bidding war of their own for the rights to Japanese power hitter Akinori Iwamura.

All of which means that, with all due respect to Wright and Walker, the Orioles still have a lot of catch-up to play. I wonder…were they in the mix for either Aramis Ramirez or Sean Casey, the latter of whom re-upped with the Tigers for one year at only four million?

From all indications it looks like they’ve identified Carlos Lee as their main target, but one never knows.

Other stories…The Phillies and Astros are hot on Soriano, and the A’s seem, for some reason, to really want Barry Bonds…Gil Meche — who wouldn’t be a bad value option for the Orioles — has been targeted by the Yankees…last Friday, the Brewers announced that Robin Yount wouldn’t be returning as bench coach. Yount’s son, Dustin, plays for the O’s single-A affiliate in Frederick. This probably doesn’t mean anything.