The Chicago Cubs FINALLY made the trade fans knew was coming for a long time.
Cubs’ fans assumed it would take two separate deals to trade both Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel, but they found their trade partner in the Oakland A’s.
The Cubs need young pitching, so you would expect the deal would surround some young arms. Right? Not exactly.
As I’m currently focused on the World Cup and baseball, I rarely go to DallasCowboys.com and watch videos (I’m also a Colts fan). A friend of mine gave me the head’s up that one of my tweets was featured in a video they posted on their website. They did a Jimmy Kimmel-esque ‘Mean Tweets’ video in which players like Tony Romo and Jason Witten read mean tweets about them.
Here is a screencap of Anthony Spencer reading my tweet.
If you want to watch the entire video, click here.
…and if you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m @sweetbob.
The NBA Draft is only 60 picks, so many players fall through the cracks…especially in a year in which a draft his deep.
The 2014 NBA Draft is very deep, so more good players than usual didn’t make the cut. It’s not the end of the road for these players. They will just need to work a little harder to attain their dream.
Many of these guys will be signed to play in the NBA Summer League. They can showcase their skills in hopes of earning a invite to training camp. Unfortunately for most, they will end up playing overseas or in the NBA Development League. There are still a few every year that surprise everybody and beat the odds to earn an NBA contract.
Here are the best college and international players who went undrafted during the 2014 NBA Draft.
My favorite night of the year has arrived!
I love the anticipation and the speed of the NBA Draft. You don’t have fifteen minutes in-between picks like the NFL and you actually know these players, unlike the NHL and MLB.
If you can stomach two-three hours of Bill Simmons, it will be a fun night.
We give analysis for every pick in the first round of the 2014 NBA Draft.
1. Cleveland Cavaliers: Andrew Wiggins (Kansas) – No surprise here. Cleveland is looking to rebuild and they don’t need a player like Jabari Parker to be an instant boost. They loved Embiid, but they couldn’t risk a #1 overall pick on a player who is a major injury risk.
Look at that glorious logo!
I’m not a Logophile, but the Philadelphia 76ers unveiled a good looking logo. The NBA should go back to the goofy logos that filled the ABA.
This new Sixers logo is said to be their ‘secondary’ logo, which doesn’t mean it will appear on any official jerseys. I’m an Indiana Pacers fan, but I would consider buying some Sixers gear if this dribbling Ben Franklin logo was featured.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the Sixers will be using this logo.
*teardrop*
Justin Verlander has been in the running for the Cy Young award in nearly every season for the better part of a decade. In the span of his career, the Detroit Tigers have went from worst to first in the AL Central. They couldn’t have done it without his dominant pitching.
Things aren’t going so well for Verlander this season. He currently has a record of 6-7 with a 4.98 ERA. Detroit is only leading Kansas City by a half game in the AL Central. While the official MLB Futures betting lines have the Detroit Tigers in contention to take the AL Central Division, I am no longer comfortable with their position in the top spot as the Royals look to make their move on them.
Matthew Leach of MLB.com wrote an in-depth article breaking down Verlander’s problems this season. Leach opines that he shouldn’t be breaking down at 31 years old. As a power pitcher, he should actually be firmly in his prime. His velocity has taken a hit and he’s even having issues against players the second and third time through the order. This is new territory for Verlander.
What’s going on with Detroit? What should we expect from them going down the stretch?
Now that the NBA season is over, let’s focus on the NBA Draft. I personally think the NBA Draft is the best draft in any major sport. There’s usually more trades, the impact of these rookies is usually felt immediately and it doesn’t go on and on like the NFL Draft.
You will begin to hear a lot of rumors about what’s wrong with these prospects. You rarely hear anything positive until a day or two before the draft. Teams know how to leak information to attempt to hurt a player’s draft stock. It’s all smoke and mirrors at this point.
I try to forge through the piles of trash out there and give you where I think the player will be drafted. I personally wouldn’t draft a few of these players in the lottery, but it’s the NBA and there are a lot of bad General Managers in the league.
Here is my 2014 NBA Mock Draft for the first round.
Clayton Kershaw, who signed a $215 million contract this offseason, was worth every penny against Colorado. He earned his first career no-hitter and was only a throwing error away from a perfect game. I’m sure Hanley Ramirez would like to have that throw back.
This is the Dodgers second no-hitter this season. Josh Beckett unexpectedly earned one less than a month ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kershaw, or another member of their rotation, would notch another one this season.
The Dodgers are currently four games back in the NL West behind the San Francisco Giants.
Kershaw’s next start will be in Kansas City to face the AL Central-leading Royals.
We are a quarter into the 2014 MLB season and the Chicago Cubs are already playing for the 2016 season (yes, not even 2015).
Their farm system is deep, but lacks pitching. They have bats for days (Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Jorge Soler) and have used their high draft picks on position players. I assume they will draft a starting pitcher with the #4 overall pick in the 2014 MLB Amateur Draft, since they desperately need a future ace.
The Cubs currently have a handful of players that contenders would love to have down the stretch.
There is one player specifically that has been the focus of nearly ever Cubs trade rumor, Jeff Samardzija.
Which Cubs players are currently on the trading block? We will list the most likely trade candidates and any players the Cubs have their eye on in return.
We’ve written a handful of ‘Sports Crush’ posts since we launched Americas White Boy a few years ago. We’ve spotlighted sportscasters, female MMA fighters, WWE Divas, and my favorite U.S. Women’s soccer player, Alex Morgan. We decided to profile another player on the team, the lovely Sydney Leroux.
Leroux currently plays for the Seattle Reign in the National Women’s Soccer League and is a member of the U.S. Women’s National Team. She will be playing in the 2015 World Cup in Canada.
Hope Solo and Alex Morgan gets most of the love, but that will change during the World Cup. Leroux is a stunner who, in the past, was romantically-linked to San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (I hope that rumor isn’t true).
We are crushing on Sydney Leroux and once you look at our photo gallery, you will understand why.
I’m a sucker for a great sports movie. I watch every one that comes out and have been disappointed by so many. It’s because I hold such movies as ‘Hoosiers’ and ‘Field of Dreams’ in such high regard. The bar is set really high.
I brainstormed some blog ideas and realized I’ve never written about the best sports movies of all-time. I spent most of this morning making the list of the top 50 sports movies of all-time.
I didn’t include any documentaries or this list would be loaded (I’ll save them for a future post). So if you’re asking yourself why ‘Hoop Dreams’ didn’t make the cut, now you know. Also, I only listed movie franchises once and only ranked the first movie in the series…’Rocky IV’ and ‘Might Ducks 2’ would have definitely made the list.
Here is our list of the 50 best sports movies of all-time.
Most of you are already aware of the professional basketball’s recent fiasco, so we won’t exhaust that topic any more than we have to in this space. In a nutshell, NBA commissioner Adam Silver banned 80-year-old L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling from all team and NBA-related events for life. This happened after celebrity news site TMZ released a private phone conversation between Sterling and his ex-mistress. In the convo, Sterling can be heard making insensitive remarks about African-Americans. Now, the question is not whether or not, but when Sterling is going to relinquish his ownership of the team.
At the center of this scandal was a picture of Sterling’s ex-mistress standing next to legendary L.A. Laker point guard Magic Johnson. “Don’t put him [Johnson] on an Instagram for the world to have to see so they have to call me. And don’t bring him to my games,” Sterling told his ex-mistress. When Magic found out about Sterling’s racist remarks, the 5-time NBA Champion called for Sterling’s removal and vowed to never attend a Clippers game again as long as Sterling was still the owner. When Sterling was banned, Magic sent out a celebratory tweet.