You always hurt the ones you love

After hitting a walk off grand slam for the Angels on Saturday, Kendry Morales jumped into a mob of his teammates at home plate and broke his leg. Talk about experiencing a range of emotions in a few seconds. I haven’t seen a celebration go that bad since Derek Zoolander ran on stage and accepted Hansel’s male model of the year award.

Baseball players are always eager to run out onto the field and celebrate, even when what they’re celebrating about isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. Morales’ game winning shot ended a contest in May between two teams with losing records. But the way the Angels celebrated, you would have thought they had just won the ALCS.

So when the two teams hooked up again on Sunday and the Angels got another walk off homer (this time from Howie Kendrick), the celebration that ensued was much more subdued:

This isn’t the first time that an unruly bunch of baseball players has injured one of their own while celebrating. Remember the Twins’ Denny Hocking catching the final out of his team’s divisional playoff win over Oakland back in 2002? He wound up underneath a pile of happy teammates, got spiked and took stitches in a finger and was sidelined for the duration of the ALCS against the Angels.

Can’t afford a Hall of Famer? Will you settle for Buster Douglas?

Looking to get some time with George Brett? You can go through athletepromotions.com, but it’ll cost you:

The good thing about this is that the Hall of Fame third baseman is good for, well, almost anything:

George Brett is now available for celebrity appearances, corporate appearances, personal appearances, casino appearances, tradeshow appearances, convention appearances, celebrity golf tournaments, sports camps, coaching clinics, autograph signings, endorsement deals, website endorsements, television commercials, radio commercials, store grand openings, VIP Meet & Greets, new product launch campaigns, spokesperson campaigns and speaking engagements. (athletepromotions.com)

For an extra few thousand, Brett might even be talked into reenacting his most infamous moment just for you:

Brett’s in the middle tier in terms of the fees quoted on the site.  Mike Ditka is in the $20,000 to $30,000 range, while Joe Montana might cost you as much as $100,000.  Here’s a sampling:

• Charles Oakley: $5,000 - $10,000
• Buster Douglas: $5,000 - $10,000
• Bill Elliott: $10,000 - $20,000
• Dorothy Hamill: $20,000 - $30,000
• Jack Nicklaus: $100,000+

If you’re feeling charitable, you can hire Antoine Walker, whose fee tops out at $20,000.  Perhaps he can regale the guests at your next cocktail party with stories of how he squandered more cash than you’ll see in 10 lifetimes.

Jordan’s statue gets a makeover from success starved Blackhawk fans

What happens when a hockey franchise on a nearly 50 run of futility starts to sniff a Stanley Cup?  Well, for starters, hockey paraphernalia starts showing up on the statue of the basketball icon who actually did bring championships to the city:

At the end of the day, I don’t think His Airness minds that Jonathan Toews’ jersey is temporarily draped over his likeness. But on the flip side, there’s a little bit of tackiness to it. While the ‘Hawks, Bears, Cubs and White Sox were flailing away in the 90’s and not generating any ticker tape parades, Jordan was bringing plenty of championship hardware back to the city. C’mon people of the Second City, a little respect is in order.

A big reason why it took the ‘Hawks so long to become what is arguably hockey’s most complete team was former owner Bill Wirtz. He was a notoriously frugal guy whose head scratching moves included forbidding his team’s home games to be shown on local TV unless they were picked up by national broadcasters. Huh? Under his watch it got so bad that in 2004, ESPN tabbed the franchise as the worst in all of pro sports.

When he passed away in 2007, ownership of the team shifted to his son Peter, who subsequently passed the baton to his brother Rocky. Now Rocky Wirtz, there’s a guy who knows what the hell he’s doing. He’s welcomed back old Blackhawk icons like Stan Mikita and Bobby Hull, he’s gotten more of his team’s games on Chicago TV sets and he’s hired shrewd marketing people. Most importantly, he’s presided over an impressive assemblage of talent that will generate its own ticker tape parade in coming weeks.

Check out the new Fan of the Week…

…a woman who helped give Boston’s courtside crowd about 1/5000th the star power that LA’s usually has.

Maybe that guy from the school you’ve never heard of is right…

Elon is a college in North Carolina that you’ve probably never heard of, but since I grew up in the Tar Heel State, I’ve got a familiarity with the school.  Among North Carolina colleges, Elon is not quite as prestigious as Davidson (which you might have heard of thanks to Stephen Curry) but not as crappy as Campbell (once again, you’re giving me a blank stare).

The school has a fairly successful baseball program, and lately it’s making news for all the wrong reasons.  First off, Deadspin posted an email rant from an Elon student that they passed off as absurd and barely news worthy.  It happened to deal with the school’s baseball team, and here’s a snippet:

“I am told from credible sources - other athletes at the school - that most of the players use steroids, and by most, I absolutely mean all of them. The place is just a revolving door for these kids on their way to make it big*. They are all retarded and just crush scholarships for a couple of years until they get signed, at which point they drop out, and continue to live on campus while the major league clubs pay the Elon coaches to train them all day until spring training starts.” (Deadspin)

Let me reiterate by saying that what Deadspin posted is an unverified story from some random dude, who knows how much water it holds. But it’s timing is interesting because its posting comes on the heels of this:

That’s Elon and the Citadel having at it yesterday during the ninth inning of their meeting in the Southern Conference Baseball Tournament in Charleston, SC. The Citadel ended up winning 6-3 in 10 innings, but strangely, the bench clearing brawl is not even mentioned in the recap of the game on Elon’s web site.

I happen to have a connection to the Elon baseball team, I went to school in Fayetteville, NC with Phoenix (yeah, that’s Elon’s nickname) head coach Mike Kennedy.  He’s the guy in the red jacket in the video.

I don’t remember him being a confrontational guy back then, so I doubt he’s the cause of any violent streak his team may or may not have.  He did steal a bunch of baseball cards from me back in 1982, though, but he’s probably long since given up his thieving ways: Elon only ranked fifth in the SoCon in stolen bases this season.

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