Today’s curiosity: the part-time sportswriter with no reading comprehension skills

If you stay on Twitter long enough, you’ll read all kinds of crazy stuff. It’s the unexpected benefit of the social networking phenomenon, you’re constantly reminded of just how many insane people are walking around out there.

Which leads me to the Twittererer who goes by the handle @RHancock19. Today he stumbled across a story by Evan Woodberry on al.com and felt compelled to tweet about it:

THOSE AUBURN BASTARDS!!! They CHEERED Bear Bryant’s death?!? Does their evil know any bounds?!? I’m just glad that @RHancock19, an “LSU fan and a part-time sportswriter,” was vigilant enough to read that article and share its points with his tweeps. Because the awful truth has to be known.

But if you actually click on the link to the article, you’ll stumble across something curious: the point Woodberry is trying to make is that the notion of Auburn fans cheering Bear Bryant’s death is pure myth. Hell, even the title, “Auburn after Bear Bryant’s death: Setting the record straight,” gives you a hint of where it’s going. Here’s a sample:

The War Eagle Reader, a popular Auburn blog, combed through microfiche of old Alabama newspapers, compiling just about every contemporary media account of Bryant’s death.

Not only was there no indication of any public celebration in Auburn — let alone rolling Toomer’s Corner — most of the reports focused on the grief and respect coming from Bryant’s rivals.

“When word reached Auburn, the War Eagles mourned,” was the headline in the Birmingham News the next day.

The story was filled with quotes from Auburn coaches and players expressing shock.

“Like all great men, he may be gone, but the things he taught us all will last forever,” said then-Auburn coach Pat Dye, who was also a former Bryant assistant at Alabama. (al.com)

You see, I was right.  Spend a little time on Twitter and you’ll come across some batshit nuts stuff, like a part-time sportswriter who can’t understand what he’s reading.

Wait, hold on, perhaps I’m being too hard on @RHancock19.   Maybe someone slipped a wacky browser app onto his iPhone that produces the opposite of what he should be reading.  We’ll know that’s the case if he starts dropping other tweets like, “What a sweet raise Jim Tressel got from Ohio State, he deserves it.”

Legends of the Precipitous Fall: Nails Dykstra

Have you ever dealt with someone with whom you had a negative first impression of, but then they started to sway you, only to come full circle and make you realize that your first impression was spot on? That sums up Lenny Dykstra.

When his pro baseball career ended in 1996, he had pretty much become the prototypical dumb jock. With softball sized wads of chewing tobacco in his mouth and a penchant for mumbling through interviews, “Nails” came off like a long haul truck driver.

I didn’t pay much attention when he finally hung up his spikes, but if you had pressed me at the time for what his post-MLB life would be like, I would’ve guessed that it would entail a series of failed sports bar ventures broken up by periodic stays in rehab.

So there’s that negative first impression.  Then a decade slides by and all of us pretty much forgot about Nails.  That’s until Bryant Gumbel’s sometimes credible HBO show “Real Sports” brought him back into the nation’s consciousness with a profile in 2008.  The basis of the piece was that Nails had become some sort of financial genius.

At the time, it’s not newsworthy if a Cal Ripken or a Joe Montana had blossomed into a Wizard of Wall Street.  We actually expect high achievement from guys like that.  So let’s be brutally honest, the only reason that “Real Sports” profiled Nails was that they too shared that same first impression that the rest of us had: he was a dumbass.

Even the people singing his praises had to qualify what they were saying because, you guessed it, they too had considered him to be a dumbass.  In this roughly one minute clip from the trailer for “The World According to Lenny,” supposed stock market guru Jim Cramer weighs in on Nails:

Is it just me or does the voiceover guy saying, “Then he took a year off to master the stock market,” sound like a line you might hear in a really funny “Mr. Show” sketch? Getting back to Cramer, he echoed the same sentiments in the “Real Sports” piece as he did in the clip above, basically saying that, “Nails has overcome his dumbassedness to master this stock market thingy!”

And it wasn’t just Bryant Gumbel who was doing a double take and re-evaluation of Nails back then. Ben McGrath of “The New Yorker” took up the cause in the print media world with a piece in March of 2008 entitled, get this, “Nails Never Fails.” But while singing Dykstra’s praises, McGrath also dropped hints that the dude was a giant asshole. Here he recaps a lunch meeting the two had at the swanky St. Regis Hotel in New York:

Dykstra ordered a Coke and French fries with ketchup: “And I’m actually going to have that as my meal—might be the oddest order of the day.” (Healthy living was never his specialty.) When the Coke arrived, he sent it back, believing it to be Diet. After the fries were delivered, he made a show of extracting a “You’re welcome” from the waiter, who had since moved on to another table. “I pay a thousand bucks a night—actually, three thousand bucks a night—and people are discourteous,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s some point in life when you have to grow up.” (New Yorker)

The piece ended up being a de facto advertisement for Dykstra’s newest can’t miss business venture at the time, a magazine called “The Player’s Club.” I’ll let McGrath give an overview:

The Players Club will be published monthly, and will be sent, free, to active professionals in each of ten sports, along with their agents, and club and league officials, for a total circulation of twenty thousand. It will be “photographically lush,” according to its editor, Randall Lane, and, to the extent possible, “peer to peer”—written by athletes. (The Utah Jazz forward Kyle Korver on video games, for instance, and the old Mets captain Keith Hernandez as food critic.) “It’s not just about the bling and the toys, though there’s some of that,” Lane told me. “There are all these hard-luck stories. We’re going to educate these guys to take advantage of this windfall. ‘Keep Living the Dream,’ that’s our working slogan.” Lane, who was once responsible for assembling Forbes’s annual list of top-earning athletes, is now the president of Doubledown Media, which publishes niche magazines for the extremely wealthy: Trader Monthly, Dealmaker, Corporate Leader, Private Air, and the Cigar Report. (New Yorker)

So you can see, it was good to be Nails back then. But it wasn’t long before chinks started appearing in the armor of America’s favorite tobacco chewing ex-MLB’er turned investment guru/publisher. Kevin Coughlin’s piece for “GQ” in April of 2009 entitled “You Think Your Job Sucks? Try Working for Lenny Dykstra” was the first big hint that maybe folks were a little too quick to dump those first impressions.  Coughlin made the mistake of getting a job at “The Player’s Club” and provided glorious details like the following:

The strangest part of working at The Players Club, though, is Lenny’s adolescent antics. Editorial “brainstorming sessions,” fueled by Coca-Cola and ice cream sundaes, typically last until dawn. But this does not mean things are getting done. Most meetings are simply extended hang-out sessions, with Lenny cracking up at his own jokes or asking us to watch the Real Sports segment over and over, especially the moment where Lenny points to his seat on his private plane and says, “This is where the Big Man sits.” He also seems to relish letting go a long, leisurely fart for the amusement of his employees or showing off his silk tie and saying, “You see this tie? I paid $500 for it” as he rubs it on his crotch and laughs at our embarrassed expressions. (GQ)

One of the greatest insights the piece provided was a look into how Nails handled payroll at the magazine:

Lenny, it seems, does not exactly have a handle on the cash-flow aspect of running his business. I’m informed by other employees that I should deposit my paycheck as soon as I receive it, as Lenny sometimes moves money out of his accounts, and once it’s gone—well, good luck. Previous employees, I learn, have left when their paychecks never materialized; Lenny openly calls such employees “losers,” “not gamers,” or “quitters.” (GQ)

“The Player’s Club” folded up its tent in early 2009, which resulted in a torrent of lawsuits from people who had been jilted by Dykstra during the magazine’s short life.  But as Coughlin’s “GQ” piece showed, it wasn’t a case of a well run niche magazine going belly up.  On the contrary, it was a study in what happens when people trust a bad dude.  And as it turns out, Nails is a very bad dude.

Since 2009, they guy has been hurtling toward jail time.  He filed for bankruptcy in July of that year and that’s the point when he REALLY kicked things into high gear.  He bounced a check to a call girl in 2010 and in 2011 this beauty of a story came out:

According to the rejection memo by Los Angeles County prosecutors, a female housekeeper alleged Dykstra would force her to give him oral sex on Saturdays. However, the 41-year-old woman’s case seemed to flounder because of an apparent lack of evidence that the activity was forced.

The woman told investigators she “needed the job and the money so she went along with the suspect’s requests rather than lose her job,” according to the filing, and “returned to work in the suspect’s home with knowledge that she obtained from the Internet of a claim of sexual assault by another woman.” (Los Angeles Times)

Well, as bad as Coughlin’s experience was in working for Dykstra, at least he was never forced to blow the guy.  So while Dykstra dodged a bullet on that charge, his luck finally started to run out.  Earlier this year federal prosecutors charged him with one felony count of embezzling from a bankruptcy estate.  Then this hit the news wires yesterday:

Downtrodden former Mets star Lenny Dykstra was hauled out of a Los Angeles courtroom in handcuffs yesterday after prosecutors slammed him with 25 felony charges for allegedly possessing drugs and faking financial records to lease luxury cars.

The Los Angeles DA’s office nailed Dykstra, 48, with eight counts of attempted grand theft auto, eight counts of filing false financial statements and four counts of identity theft for allegedly duping the high-end automobile dealers.

He was held in lieu of $500,000 bail and is due back in court Friday to enter a plea.

LAPD detectives said they stumbled on a cache of cocaine, ecstasy and human growth hormone in Dykstra’s home while investigating the leased-vehicle scam. (New York Post)

Why the hell is Dykstra STILL doing steroids?  Was he planning a baseball comeback when his financial empire started to crumble?

If he’s convicted on all the state charges, Nails faces up to 12 years in jail.  That will ample time for him to plan yet another reinvention of himself to sell to the public.  Trouble is, everyone’s back to their first impression of the guy.  Burn us once, dumbass, shame on you. You know the rest.

Legends of the Precipitous Fall: Cecil Collins
Legends of the Precipitous Fall: Chris Washburn
Legends of the Precipitous Fall: Steve Blass
Legends of the Precipitous Fall: Joe Charboneau
Legends of the Precipitous Fall: Russell Cross

John and Ehud talk missing great comebacks and the new Transformers chick

The guys discuss some NBA Finals stuff, Grantland.com and a mess of other topics. At one point, Ehud asserts that the woman below is kind of ugly:

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Great sports moments I’ve missed due to bailing out

Last night as I was watching Game 2 of the NBA Finals, I found myself dragging a little bit. I’m pretty much a night owl but after a Dwayne Wade 3-pointer with 7:15 left gave the Heat a 15-point lead, I called it a night, resigning myself to the fact that the Mavs were halfway to being swept.

Nevermind the fact that Dallas has already proven during these playoffs that a double-digit 4th quarter deficit can be overcome. Nope, off to bed I went.

So I wake up this morning and muddled through my routine, most of which is devoted to getting my daughter ready to go. When I turn on Dan Patrick, he’s saying things that start to confuse me, things like, “Why didn’t they guard Dirk on that layup?” I thought to myself, “Huh? What bearing would a Dirk layup have had on anything?”

That’s when I get on Twitter and start to have the realization that I had missed one of the most startling collapses in NBA Finals history. The friggin’ Mavs had WON.

Thus continues a proud tradition I have of folding up the tent before the clock hits 0:00. I’m the guy heading to the exits in the 8th inning with the Braves down a run and the heart of the order coming up. Let me provide a sampling of what I’ve missed:

Marvis Frazier vs. Mike Tyson (July 26, 1986)

Okay, this one’s a little different because I didn’t actually bail out before the end. Nope, I missed the WHOLE fight due to a mistimed piss break.

My pop and I had settled in to watch “this Tyson kid,” as he referred to the future champ, on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Tyson’s legend was growing and his matchup with Joe Frazier’s kid Marvis was actually deemed to be a good test for him.

So right before the opening bell I take off for the bathroom, thinking I’ve got enough time to do my business and come back. After that’s taken care of, I stroll back into the den and my father announces, “Fight’s over.” Yes, Mike Tyson took all of 30 seconds to knock out Marvis Frazier:

Of course I got to see it get replayed multiple times because ABC had time to kill. But that didn’t make me feel like any less of a douchebag.

Houston Oilers at Buffalo Bills, AFC Wild Card Game (January 3, 1993)

Here’s one that I was SURE was over. The Bills were without Jim Kelly that day, who had injured his knee against those same Oilers in a blowout loss to close the regular season. Backup quarterback Frank Reich hadn’t done much of anything for a half and change and the Bills were down 35-3.

Well, at least I won’t have to endure another Bills loss in the Super Bowl I thought to myself as I cut off the TV in the third quarter and headed to the gym to play some hoops. As I was leaving to go back home, I overheard some dudes talking about the Bills HAVING COME BACK TO WIN THE GAME. I had bailed on the greatest comeback in NFL history:

Florida State Seminoles at North Carolina Tar Heels, ACC hoops (January 27, 1993)

Do you think I learned my lesson from bailing on the Bills? Oh, of course not, because not even a month passed by before I DID IT AGAIN.

This is one I remember vividly. It was a Wednesday night and I had settled in to watch the Heels play a Florida State team that many folks considered to be just as good. Sure enough, I watched Bob Sura, Sam Cassell, Charlie Ward and the rest of the Seminoles lay the friggin’ wood to North Carolina. With less than 12 minutes to go, Florida State had built a 21-point lead.

At that point, going out and drinking a beer or three seemed like a much better option. So off I went, blissfully unaware that North Carolina stormed back to claim an 82-77 victory. I found out when I checked my answering machine when I got back to my place. “Did you see that shit?!?” exclaimed one message. No, actually, I didn’t.

Duke Blue Devils at Maryland Terrapins, ACC hoops (January 27, 2001)

Eight years to the day after bailing on an epic ACC comeback, I bailed on an even greater ACC comeback. But I don’t feel as bad about this one, because seriously, Maryland was up by 10 with :54 seconds left. 10 POINTS. And Duke was out of time outs!!!

How in the hell did Gary Williams and the Terps not close the deal? If you’ve got seven minutes to kill, you can see for yourself. At the time, I sure as hell didn’t:

I do have to give myself a little bit of credit for not bailing out on the greatest sporting spectacle I’ve ever witnessed in person. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, will top that LSU-Auburn game from 1994. LSU had Auburn dead to rights in the 4th quarter and I was THIS CLOSE to heading back to the apartment to personally float the pony keg right before all hell broke loose:

Fat Bastard has a heart of gold

Last year I wrote about the feeding frenzy that was going on over Stephen Strasburg baseball cards. Extremely limited edition cards of the Nationals pitcher were fetching in excess of $20,000 at one point.

That sort of insane demand was based on the notion that Strasburg would explode into some combination of Nolan Ryan and Tim Lincecum and eventually make every baseball fan forget about every other pitcher who’s ever lived. And when he struck out a MLB record 32 batters in his first three starts last year it only made collectors that much hungrier.

We all know that Strasburg had to close it down last August for Tommy John surgery, which while not being a death sentence for his career certainly tempers demand for his memorabilia. Which brings me back to his rarest and most sought after baseball card.

I’ll let Chris Olds of Beckett Media provide the details:

A 43-year-old California man has found the Stephen Strasburg 2010 Bowman Chrome SuperFractor in a pack of Razor Rookie Retro and has big plans in store for the $21,000 baseball card.

Devin Grant will be launching a raffle next week to benefit the Brian Stow Fund — the Giants fan who was beaten by two men after a Dodgers game on Opening Day — two Little League organizations and two softball leagues in his area. He found the card in a pack at Peninsula Sports Cards in Belmont, Calif.

“It took about two days to know that this was something bigger than me,” Grant said. “I mean the act of pulling the card was phenomenal, but a card like this has some firepower and I felt that it could be used in a more powerful way.”

The card has, indeed, been a powerful force in the hobby initially selling for $16,403 before the Washington Nationals pitcher made his debut last summer and then re-selling for $21,403. It was sold the second time after its owner, Robert J. Power, received several negative and harassing messages after the publicity about his buying the card. The card was purchased by Leaf’s Brian Gray, who placed it into packs of his repackaged product that launched last year — but the card had never been found until now. (Beckett.com)

I say good for Devin Grant, that’s a hell of a gesture on his part and I hope that angle will prompt bidders to give a little more than they might be willing to given Strasburg’s current status. Here is Grant with his godson Tristan:

I had to do a double take when I first saw that picture because I initially thought I was seeing Fat Bastard and the kid who played Indiana Jones’ little sidekick in the flick where they eat the chilled monkey brains:

Moving away from movie resemblances and back to Stow’s senseless beating, there’s been some confusion of late regarding whether or not authorities have the right guy in custody for the crime:

As if the names Giovanni Ramirez and “Giovanny Ramirez” are not confusing enough, new LAPD inaccuracies are being revealed. For Giovanni Ramirez, the names, the tattoos, the hair, and the Henderson confusion are all making the LAPD’s case about Bryan Stow (aka Brian Stow) more problematic by the day.

First, is Giovanni Ramirez, the suspect arrested in the Stow case, the same person as Giovanny Ramirez of Henderson, Nevada? This week NBC Los Angeles reported that on “Tuesday night, KCBS [also] reported that authorities in Henderson, Nev., following up a January shooting incident as an attempted murder, are seeking a suspect identified as Giovanny Ramirez with the same birthdates as Giovanni Ramirez.” But a spokesperson for Henderson police also tells news that the local “Giovanni” Ramirez is not wanted in Henderson.

Second, more confusion about Giovanni Ramirez’s neck tattoos is coming out. As previously detailed on LALATE, the LAPD witness did not notice neck tattoos on the person who was beating Stow. No neck tattoos appeared on LAPD suspect sketches.

As previously reported here, Ramirez after the Stow beating was spotted by his parole officer allegedly trying to change his neck tattoos. A parole photo of Ramirez shows Ramirez with a “LA” Dodgers logo tattooed on his neck. But NBC Los Angeles reports that Ramirez’s attorney Anthony Brooklier “said Ramirez insists he has never been to Dodger Stadium.” (lalate.com)

If you’re interested in contributing to the Bryan Stow support fund, click here.

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