<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
The Olympics proved to the world that Long Beach may, in fact, be the beating heart of sport<\/b><\/span>. We’re seeing it again in the World Series, with TBL favorite Evan Longoria<\/b><\/span> (the Dirtbag) and Chase Utley<\/b><\/span>, the former Long Beach Poly Jackrabbit, both arguably the most productive players on their respective teams. Misty May-Treanor<\/b><\/span> hit it on the head when TBL spoke with her last Friday, essentially calling Long Beach a big small-town with supportive fans who give a damn<\/b><\/span> about their community. Go Beach, forever<\/b><\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Had I told you to guess which athlete accidentally overdosed on sleeping pills<\/b><\/span> and covered it up by saying it was his daughter<\/b><\/span> that needed to be rushed to the hospital early Friday morning, you probably would have guessed it to be Isiah Thomas<\/b><\/span>. What’s suprising to me is the Police Chief who called out Thomas for blatantly covering up<\/b><\/span> his alleged overdose after his officers had confirmed it to be Thomas. I suppose that’s what losing does to your rep. If LAPD had a nickel for every time Phil Jackson<\/b><\/span> was caught smoking a joint<\/b><\/span> with Lou Adler,<\/b><\/span> well, they would be able to pay Kobe’s salary. The lesson here is to not piss off Knicks fans.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n The thought of Ohio State<\/b><\/span> in another BCS Title Game is nauseating<\/b><\/span>, and I say that with a generous amount of respect for Jim Tressell<\/b><\/span>. We can rest easy now, though, as Penn State beat the Buckeyes last Saturday 13-6 <\/b><\/span> and subsequently ended OSU’s national title chances. But are the Nittany Lions the real deal? Absolutely not, but I don’t think that really matters right now. I picture Joe Pa in the Rose Bowl <\/b><\/span>representing the Big Ten, in his funeral suit<\/b><\/span> maybe and being carried off the field for one last hoorah. Yeah, that would do.<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n As a Notre Dame fan<\/b><\/span>, I’ve decided to stay away from Tyrone Willingham<\/b><\/span> for personal health reasons. The whole situation is such a downer, for lack of a better word. I’ve been following his career since his days at Stanford, so I consider myself qualified to make this statement: the man is an awful coach and always has been.<\/b><\/span> His success at Stanford coincided with a Pac 10 decade of mediocrity (pre-Pete Carroll<\/b><\/span>) and really wasn’t that impressive from a wins and losses perspective (yes, there are other perspectives). But that’s just from the naked eye. Delve deeper<\/b><\/span>, which TBL does from time to time, and one can unearth the tragedy of Willingham. He can’t recruit, alienates alumni with consistency and has a record of blaming his players for losses. Good guy, though<\/b><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vince Girimonte returns with the second installment of his new national-esque column, The Bush Leaguer: It has nothing to do with the president, we just really really like that picture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5419"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5419"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}