Say bye-bye to C.C.

C.C. Sabathia has broken off contract negotiations with the Indians, apparently turning down $17 million to $18 million a season over the next four years.

I've written about this before; I've never believed the Tribe would be able to keep Carsten Charles without spending too much on him, and I think they're going to be OK regardless because of all their young pitching depth. Today's development doesn't really change anything.

Today in sports history

Happy 35th birthday, quarterback Steve LaTreal McNair, who's played for both the traitorous teams that abandoned their cities after the 1995 season. He took the Titans to the Super Bowl, but came up a couple of yards short of winning it. May he never win another game with the Ravens. Nothing personal, Steve LaTreal.

He's the Manu

The Cavs' four-game regular-season winning streak against the Spurs is over. Hey, when you're playing the defending champs and Manu Ginobili is unconscious from three-point range in the fourth quarter, I doubt there are many teams that could beat them, especially teams that are missing three key players (though it should be noted the Spurs did it without Tony Longoria Parker). But it's always disappointing to lose a game you're winning with less than six minutes to go.

Ginobili hit four-of-four from three in the final 12 minutes, and the Spurs as a team were seven-of-eight from downtown, 14-of-18 from the floor overall in the period. It does beg some questions about the presence of the defense.

I'd also point out that Larry Hughes put up some good-looking numbers, with 26 points on 11-of-19 shooting, to go with six rebounds and three assists, but while he was on the floor, the Cavs were outscored by 13. I'm starting to wonder about his worth.

The Rocket crashes

It would appear as though Roger Clemens might be in trouble, thanks to some congressional hearings held today. I watched about 10 minutes of it this morning, but I'm on vacation, and I'm not in the habit of watching congressional hearings anyway. But I've read that Rog had no adequate response to Andy Pettitte's story that Clemens told Pettitte he used HGH, and that he could be in line for a perjury charge.

My response: Why in the world is our Congress wasting its time talking to baseball players about what substances they have or have not injected into their bodies? We have no bigger problems as a country? Is this what you elected your senators and congressional representatives to do? Sure, I hate cheating as much as the next person, but that's a matter for Major League Baseball to figure out. They were asleep at the switch for far too long, sure, but that still doesn't mean it's time for Congress to get involved. If Clemens broke the law, that's a police matter. Congress is not a law enforcement agency; it's there to make laws, not enforce them.

They're grandstanding to get their names in the paper. That may seem cynical, but that's the way I see it.

Brady Quinn a homophobe?

Reportedly, Browns quarterback-of-the-future Brady Quinn was seen outside a gay bar in Columbus in the wee hours of New Year's Day, shouting insults and trying to provoke a fight. Ironically, I'm blogging about this from America's most gay-friendly city, San Francisco, but that's really neither here nor there; I just thought I'd mention it.

What can we conclude about an alleged event, these six weeks later? Well, if the allegations are true, Brady Quinn is undoubtedly not the only homophobe in the NFL. But he'd be the only one stupid enough to stand outside a gay bar and call gay people names.

I have a hard time believing that this actually happened; my guess is that someone who looks a lot like Brady Quinn did it. But we all know how New Year's Eve can go, and I could believe that Quinn got rip-roaring drunk and lost control of himself. If he really did this, I sure hope he learns from it.

UPDATE: As has been pointed out to me by a commenter, the police arrived that night to find Quinn arguing with someone outside the bar. That makes my former last paragraph seem a little bit ridiculous; I admit I read the story a little bit too fast in an attempt to get out of my hotel and off to breakfast faster. Does that mean Brady Quinn is a closet homosexual? I don't think so, but the anonymous comment poster undoubtedly knows homosexuals better than I do. I don't really care if he's gay or not; he's an idiot if he hung around outside a gay bar to insult the people going in and coming out (no pun intended).

Today in sports history

Twenty years ago today, the 15th Winter Olympic Games opened in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

Among the highlights were Italy's Alberto Tomba winning two gold medals in alpine skiing, Matti Nykanen from Finland winning three golds in ski jumping, and Dutch speed skater Yvonne van Gennip getting three golds and setting two world records.

And two cult heroes were created: Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, a British ski jumper; and the Jamaican bobsled team. Neither had much experience or any real chance of finishing higher than last place, but both earned widespread acclaim just for getting to Calgary and doing their thing. God bless you, Eddie the Eagle and Jamaican bobsledders.

The United States won exactly six medals: two golds, one silver and three bronzes.

Tribe comments

Here's an interesting column that leads off with a look at whether the Indians can repeat last season's success, from Fox Sports.

Here's more of a straight preview from USA Today, and here's one from MLB.com.

What do I think? Well, I'm glad you asked. I think we're going to have some trouble holding off the Tigers, who have significantly improved their offense; but our pitching is going to be a lot better, especially if Fausto can repeat his performance from 2007. Sure, it's hard to predict what you're going to get from a young pitcher, but everybody thought from the beginning that Fausto was going to be great, and last year, he proved them right. I think we're looking at a budding superstar.

Today in sports history

Fifteen years ago today, Cavaliers head coach Lenny Wilkens moved past former Cavs coach Bill Fitch into fourth place on the NBA's all-time wins list. A 120-98 victory that day over Milwaukee gave Wilkens 846 career wins.

Wilkens, who last coached for the Knicks in 2004-05, now has a career record of 1,332-1,155 in 32 seasons with the SuperSonics, Blazers, Cavs, Hawks, Raptors and Knicks. But in all that time, and with all those victories, he won just one NBA title, in 1978 with Seattle. His teams thrice won 57 games in a season, in 1988-89 and 1991-92 with the Price-Daugherty-Nance Cavs, and in 1993-94 with the Dominique Wilkins-Kevin Willis-Stacey Augmon Hawks. Those teams all had one player in common -- Craig Ehlo, most famous for falling to the ground as Michael Jordan hit The Shot.

Sorry, Cleveland fans. But it did happen.

Hello, Larry!

Just when it looked like the Cavaliers might finally fall apart due to all their injuries, along comes Larry Hughes. In last night's 118-111 win over Orlando, with Boobie still out, along with Pavlovic and Varejao, and with Z and Damon Jones game-time decisions, Hughes came through with a season-high 40-point effort. The normally scattershot Larry went 12-of-19 from the field, including four-of-five from 3-point range. I don't think this signals the end of his shooting struggles, but it's a jolly good sign nonetheless.

And I went a whole paragraph on the Cavs without mentioning King LeBron, who scored 29 of his own and came within three rebounds of a triple-double.

On a side note, I love the fact that the expanded box scores on many sites include a plus-minus now for individual players, just as they've done in hockey for years. Last night's box score tells me Ira Newble was a heavy liability (-14), while Devin Brown was getting the job done (+14). Obviously, there are four other guys on the floor at any given time, so that's a bit simplistic, but it's still an indicator that ought to be taken seriously.

Today in sports history

Forty years ago today, Peggy Fleming won a gold medal for the U.S. in Grenoble, France, in figure skating. Ten years ago today, and 30 years to the day after winning that gold (I know, I'm quick with the math), Fleming underwent breast cancer surgery.

The cancer was detected early, the surgery was successful, and Fleming is by all accounts still quite healthy at age 59. She has become an activist for breast cancer detection, telling women to get screened early and often.

RedHawks hold tough

Sure, we Miami fans (and other Michigan-haters from the Buckeye State) might have preferred that the RedHawks get a win last night at Cady Arena. But the 5-5 tie leaves us in pretty good shape.

I did not watch Saturday's game, as much as I would have liked to, because I have to catch a plane early this morning to San Francisco, and I realize it's a lot more important that the pilot be awake than it is that I be, I've got a long drive to the airport. But the game reports I've read, here and here and here, and a Michigan-centric story here, tell me it was quite an exciting game. One story calls it "arguably the most exciting game of the year," which I suppose is what can usually be expected of a matchup between No. 1 and No. 2.

The 0-1-1 weekend against that school up north leaves Michigan in first place by one point in the CCHA, and the two teams will probably trade places atop the polls for about the fourth or fifth time this year, but fear not, RedHawks backers. Each team has six games left in the regular season. Miami (25-4-1) has two each against Ferris State (11-12-5), Western Michigan (7-20-3) and Ohio State (9-20-3; and this is the only sport in which I don't feel any particular allegiance to the Buckeyes). Michigan (23-3-4) will end against Ferris, before which they've got two against Lake Superior State (6-16-6) and -- and this is the key to the point I'm about to make -- two against Michigan State (18-7-5). The Spartans are a good bet to split that series, or maybe come away with at least one tie. If the Hawks win out, as they should, they've got a pretty good chance to overtake Michigan for the conference title and the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Stay tuned, Miami fans.

Today in sports history

On this date five years ago, Cavaliers center Zydrunas Ilgauskas played in his first NBA All-Star Game. Z played just four minutes, despite the fact that the game went into double-overtime. He didn't score, but had one assist and one steal.

The Cavaliers were one of the NBA's worst teams in '02-03, finishing 17-65, which tied for the worst record in the NBA. But it wasn't Z's fault; he had a fine season, average 17.2 points and 7.5 rebounds. And help was on the way; that awful record got them more ping-pong balls in the upcoming NBA lottery, which got them the first pick in the 2003 draft. They used that pick on a 6-foot-8 high school phenom from Northeast Ohio, and I won't tell you his name, but he's currently the NBA's scoring leader.

Bad first period

I watched last night's hockey game between No. 1 Miami and No. 2 Michigan at the Winking Lizard in Mentor because I couldn't get it on my cable at home. I ordered shrimp-crab quesadillas, and there were four of them. Now, I'm not one of those people who believes that my actions in a restaurant in Mentor can influence what happens on the ice in Oxford, some 280 miles away, but the fact is, when I started eating my quesadillas, the score was 0-0. The Wolverines scored their first goal while I ate my first quesadilla, their second goal while I ate my second, their third goal while I ate my third, and their fourth goal while I ate my fourth. So I suppose you could make the argument that I lost that game for Miami by eating some quesadillas. I apologize, Miami fans.

Our RedHawks really looked overmatched in that first period, and it hurts to say that. They weren't able to get any good shots off, and they did things like fumble the puck in front of their own goal and allow breakaways. They turned the puck over repeatedly in the neutral zone, and goaltender Jeff Zatkoff, who's been phenomenal all season, just didn't seem to have the stuff. Michigan scored all four goals within six minutes of game time. It was really hard to watch.

But once I finished my quesadillas, Miami started to settle in. Zatkoff made some fine saves in the second period, and the Hawks took some nice shots. But Michigan's goalie is pretty good too.

Finally, in the third, Miami managed to take advantage of some power-play opportunities. Ryan Jones broke through about five minutes into the period, and Jarod Palmer's goal with about seven minutes left cut it to 4-2; both were scored with a man advantage. It was starting to look like we had a chance. And we got some more power-play chances, including a brief 5-on-3, but give Michigan credit (boy, does THAT hurt to say). They held tough.

There is reason for optimism going into tonight's rematch. Michigan did not score over the last 45 minutes of game time. If our guys can keep that going, I like our chances to salvage the split.

One more thing: I'm fairly confident that this morning was the first time Miami hockey has ever appeared on SportsCenter. It would have been a lot better if they'd been talking about a win, but it felt good to see highlights from Oxford on ESPN. Anchor Robert Flores complimented Zatkoff on his goalie mask. And it is a beaut.

Today in sports history

Twenty-five years ago today, Wayne Gretzky of the Edmonton Oilers set an NHL All-Star Game record by scoring four goals in one period, leading the Campbell Conference to a 9-3 win over the Wales Conference. So he scored more goals in one period than the other team did the whole game.

Gretzky, just 22 at the time, was already in his fifth NHL season, and was already considered the sport's best player. I'm not sure whether he was "The Great One" yet, but he had already made a mockery of some long-standing NHL records. He broke the league's record for scoring in just his second season, 1980-81, at age 19, with 164 points. He then went on to break his own record the following year, with 212. The previous record was 152; he topped it by 60.

That's Babe Ruth territory. Ruth first broke the home run record by hitting 29 in 1919, and the next year, he hit 54. Ruth would go on to break his own record two more times; Gretzky would break his own record one more time. Both men would spend a decade or so dominating the sport as no one ever had before. Gretzky won four Stanley Cups; Ruth won seven World Series (including three in the 19-teens with the Red Sox, when he was a pitcher).

As everybody knows, Gretzky would go on to be the all-time leader in all the major scoring categories, and is almost universally considered the greatest player ever to lace up the skates. It's too bad Cleveland never had a hockey team during his career, because he would have been fun to see in person.

More on Miami ice hockey

Here's an interview with RedHawks Coach Enrico Blasi, from about a week ago. For whatever reason, my browser isn't showing the video, but I'm able to hear the interview. Blasi talks in some depth about the upcoming matchup with Michigan, and throws some accolades to Ryan Jones and Nate Davis.

More bullpen help?

The Indians have signed veteran reliever Brendan Donnelly to a minor-league contract. Donnelly, 36, went 2-1 with a fine 3.05 ERA last year for the Red Sox, after five years with the Angels (which explains the hat he's wearing in that photo). He hasn't pitched since June 11 because of a strained right forearm, and he had Tommy John surgery in August, which means he'll miss the first half of '08. He's pitched in a World Series -- not last year, obviously, but in '02, with the Angels. And he was an All-Star in 2003, which is pretty rare for a bullpen guy who's not a closer.

Donnelly is mentioned in the Mitchell Report, alleged to have purchased steroids at some point. He insists that when he found out the substance he was considering was classified as a steroid, he changed his mind. What can we do but believe him? Given how many players apparently used steroids, it's virtually impossible to build a team with guys who are above suspicion.

What does this signing mean for the Tribe bullpen? Maybe nothing. The man's going to turn 37 on the Fourth of July, and he's coming off major surgery. It would be imprudent to expect much from him. But if he can return to form, he's been a fine setup man for a few years, and you can never have too many of those guys.

He becomes the third veteran reliever the Indians have signed this winter, after Masahide Kobayashi (not the eating champ, but a longtime bullpen guy in the Japanese leagues) and Jorge Julio. This despite the fact that the Tribe had one of the best bullpens in baseball last year. Mark Shapiro's philosophy seems to be that you can never have too many arms, and who can find fault with that?

Today in sports history

One hundred years ago today, Olympic athlete and Hollywood/TV actor Buster Crabbe was born. Or was he? I've found conflicting reports. One site says he was born Feb. 7, 1910, and another says he was born Feb. 17, 1907. But Britannica online says it was Feb. 7, 1908, and I'm going with that.

Crabbe, who grew up in Hawaii, became a world-class swimmer, and he won a bronze medal in the 1,500-meter freestyle at the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam, and a gold in the 400-meter freestyle at the 1932 games in Los Angeles, which wasn't a long drive for Crabbe, who had graduated from USC in 1931.

Following in the footsteps (swim strokes?) of fellow swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller, Crabbe played Tarzan in the 1933 film "Tarzan the Fearless," which launched him into a very successful second career. He would go on to appear in more than 100 movies, playing at various times Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and Billy the Kid. He also starred in the late-'50s TV series "Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion," as the title character.

Crabbe died of a heart attack in 1983, age 75.

Big hockey series

No. 1 Miami University (25-3-0) faces off Friday and Saturday against No. 2 Michigan (22-3-3) at the Goggin Ice Center in Oxford. This is a very exciting time to be a Redsk ..., er, RedHawk. (The team nickname is a blog entry for another time.)

I've been an Ohio State fan all my life, and I always will be (even though Bob Knight played there), but I never really considered it when I was looking at colleges. I wound up at Miami, a non-BCS Division I school (no, the BCS didn't exist in the late '80s and early '90s, but we all understood that the Mid-American Conference was not the Big 10), which meant that the best we could reasonably hope for on a year-to-year basis was winning MAC championships in the various sports. Our football team was second-tier at best, our basketball teams were second-tier at best, our baseball team, our swimming team, our field hockey team, and so on and so forth.

From a national standpoint, we've had a couple of good years in individual sports: Wally Szczerbiak's 1998-99 basketball team reached the Sweet 16 before losing a highly respectable 58-48 to Kentucky; and Ben Roethlisberger's 2003 football team went 12-1, its only loss in the season opener against Iowa, and ended the season No. 10 in the nation. The lesson? In order to be a superstar athlete at Miami University, you have to have a name that only people smart enough to get into Miami can spell.

But in ice hockey ― and only in ice hockey ― Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, is NOT a second-tier school. We are a member of the first-tier Central Collegiate Hockey Association. We are in the same league as Ohio State, Michigan, Michigan State ― and even Notre Dame. Brian Savage, who would go on to play 12 years in the NHL, played at Miami while I was there.

The setup in college hockey is TOTALLY different from all the other sports. Several schools that are Division II or Division III in other sports are big-time powers in hockey. The last back-to-back national champion was the University of Denver. When's the last time you heard about the University of Denver's basketball or football team? Among other traditional Division I powers ― all of whom are currently in the top 20 ― are North Dakota, New Hampshire, Colorado College, Minnesota-Duluth and Clarkson.

Oh, yes. And Miami. In fact, if you check college hockey Web sites, you'll see that Miami University is not even referred to as "Miami (Ohio)." It's just "Miami." You know how, if you look at the national football pool and see the word "Miami" on the list? You don't have to ask which Miami. It's the one in Florida. Duh!

Well, Miami of Florida doesn't even have a hockey team, as far as I know. You never see "Miami (Ohio)" on a hockey poll. Of course it's the one in Ohio.

But even in ice hockey, Miami has never won a national championship. In fact, they were never really a national power until quite recently, after Savage's former teammate Enrico Blasi became the head coach in 1999. Blasi had cut his teeth as an assistant at Denver under his former Miami coach, George Gwozdecky. It took Blasi awhile to build up the program, but he's done a fantastic job. The RedHawks reached the Elite Eight last year before losing 4-0 to Boston College ― the same team that knocked them out 5-0 in the first round in 2006 (the tournament is only 16 teams to begin with in hockey, so the office pools are somewhat less exciting).

And this year, they've been ranked No. 1 for much of the season, trading back and forth with fellow CCHA power Michigan. I went to see them in Bowling Green (the BG Falcons, Miami and the Western Michigan Broncos are the only MAC schools in the CCHA) the Saturday of the first weekend of 2008, and the Hawks looked pretty darned good. They won 5-2 and almost made it 6-2 with an empty-netter. They skated faster and controlled the puck better than the Falcons. But one of Miami's three losses is to BG, and it was actually the previous night.

And now Miami and Michigan are the top two teams in the country, and they're playing this weekend. I've been led to believe Friday night's game, at least, is being shown on TV, but I don't seem to have it on my cable. I don't know who's carrying it, but apparently somebody is.

Today in sports history

Fifty years ago today, an airplane carrying the Manchester United soccer team crashed on the runway at the Munich airport, killing 23 people ― eight players, a team secretary, nine journalists, two members of the flight crew, an assistant coach, a trainer, a travel agent and a fan who was a friend of the team's manager (which is apparently equivalent to a baseball manager).

The team was trying to return home from a European Cup match in Yugoslavia, with a scheduled refueling stop in Munich. Slush on the runway kept the plane from building up enough speed to get properly airborne.

A Hollywood film about the crash was reportedly in the works a couple of years ago, but the most recent news about that appears to be from 2005, so I don't know what came of it. I can tell you that the movies "Alive" (1993), about the 1972 plane crash in the Andes that killed most of the members of an Uruguayan rugby team; and "We Are Marshall" (2006), about the aftermath of the 1970 crash that killed most of the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team, were both pretty good. But those movies were made with extensive involvement from the people involved in the real-life stories; reportedly, none of the survivors of the Manchester United crash were contacted.

Pro Bowl plots

So it seems now that Derek Anderson and Kellen Winslow will be playing in the Pro Bowl in Hawaii on Sunday. Good for them, they've had fine seasons and have earned it. Tom Brady bowed out, citing his ankle (I think he'd have played if the Patriots had won the Super Bowl, since a Pro Bowl win would kind of extend that undefeated streak), making a spot for Anderson; and Chargers tight end Antonio Gates (the Kent State Golden Flash hoopster) injured his toe trying to kick the Patriots out of the playoffs, clearing the way for Winslow.

They join rookie tackle Joe Thomas, the No. 1 reason Anderson had a Pro Bowl year; Ryan Pontbriand, who did nothing all year but convey the ball accurately seven yards from the ground in front of him, between his legs, to a man who was kneeling for the purposes of placing it in a way that would make it easy to kick, then occasionally convey the same ball back 15 yards to a man who will kick it in the air (and if you think that's an unimportant skill, watch a few junior high school games and see what happens when that skill is less-than-NFL-caliber); wide receiver Braylon Edwards, the primary accomplice in Anderson's crimes against defenses; and Joshua Cribbs, who in some cases made it unnecessary for the offense to do anything.

So that's four offensive players, two special teamers, and let's see, let's count the defensive players. Didn't Cribbs play D a couple of times? No, he just made tackles on special teams. So that doesn't count. OK, zero. I wonder which unit we should blame for missing the playoffs (leaving aside the Colts' Christmas gift to the state of Tennessee in Week 17).

If Phil Savage and Romeo Crennel can build this team a defense, and maybe get a few stealthy videographers, they could have a shot.