this week's ranting in sports

Disrespect all around this week.

1. Jets. Let's compare two New York sport teams, the Jets and Yankees. Everybody knows that the Yankees pay players a lot of money. Often they offer "honorary contracts," way overpriced contracts to older players that have been good for them in previous years. Seems to be a kind way to say 'thanks for helping us.' And you know, people like playing for the Yankees and they want to play for the Yankees. That's why players wait until the last moment to call the Yankees before signing with someone else (i.e. Mark Teixeira, C.C. Sabathia). And guess what, in the last 40 years the Yankees have 7 championships, more than anybody else in baseball.

Now to the Jets. Earlier this week the New York Jets cut Thomas Jones. Jones was due a $3.3M roster bonus a few days later that the team happened to avoid paying.

Thomas Jones was the leading rusher for the top rushing team in the NFL. He led the team with 14 touchdowns, was third in the NFL with over 1400 yards and helped his team make the playoffs. It was the best season of his career. His base salary for the upcoming season was a modest $2.8M. He's turning 32 but he's had five straight years of over 1100 yards and the last two were among his best! They say the still want to sign him again, they just didn't want to give him a bonus he earned. And in this uncapped year the Jets decide that saving a little roster bonus money is more important than honoring an agreement with the most productive member of their team. The administration shows no loyalty or appreciation. And now a bunch of Jets players are unhappy with it, too. The correlation: the Jets have zero championships in the last 40 years.

2. Panthers. Want to know why some sports teams are losing money? It has nothing to do with the recession. It's called being stupid. Really stupid. In the NFL playoffs a year ago, the Carolina Panthers lost a home game to the Arizona Cardinals where Jake Delhomme produced 6 turnovers. What did the team do? They awarded the 34 year old QB a huge 5 year contract extension worth over $40M. I don't think I even need to keep writing for you to guess what happened next.

But I will anyway. Last season Delhomme threw 8 touchdowns with 18 interceptions (also lost 3 fumbles) in only 11 games as the Panthers went 4-7. Only after he broke his pinkie and couldn't play did they realize that they have a very quality quarterback that can effectively run the team that led the league in rushing the previous season, and Matt Moore led the Panthers 4-1 the rest of the way.

So now the Panthers realized they had a turnover machine in his mid-30s with a monster contract behind a quarterback 10 years younger who showed to be a winner when given a chance. You can't say that this was a surprise, last season ended like this one began! (and continued!) So in an effort to "save" money in the long run, the Panthers cut Delhomme yesterday and ate $12.5M they owed still him. That's right, even though he sucked and they just want to get rid of him, it takes $12.5 million to show him the door.

So along with a recession, you can thank teams like the Carolina Panthers for finding other ways to lose eight figures.

3. Baseball. An interesting thing happened Thursday in a spring training game that got a lot of attention. In a game last season, Prince Fielder and the Brewers had a choreographed celebration at home plate after a home run. Zito retaliated 6 months later by plunking Fielder in spring training on the first pitch.

Normally, I would frown at this and wave my finger at how this is a major problem in baseball, this unwritten rule that if you disrespect our team you'll get a fastball right at you. But check out the video replay. Barry Zito hit Prince with a 76 mph fastball in the butt (a butt difficult to miss) in an exhibition game. Not a Roger Clemens fastball at Mike Piazza's head in July. This would send a message to the team that "we don't like what you did," sting Prince a little bit, but it's not gonna hurt him and won't cause disruption in the regular season. Tempers were controlled, nobody was hurt, nobody will be suspended. This was the right way to go about it and I've got no beef with Zito.

4. NBA. What's up with all these whining professional basketball players? Michael Beasley of the Heat was still complaining last week that he felt disrespected by Charles Barkley calling the Miami Heat "Michael Jackson and a bunch of Tito Jacksons" last December (referring to Dewayne Wade and everybody else). Poor guy. "Disrespected and underrated." How did he and the Heat respond to that disrespect without Wade in the lineup? They lost at home to the Timberwolves (worst team in the West). With Wade a week later? They beat the Lakers.

And speaking of those Minnesota Timberwolves, Mavs coach Rick Carlisle decided to give star Jason Kidd a night off a few days ago against the T-Wolves, who were playing without Al Jefferson. Before the game Carlisle commented about the decision: "We aren't playing the Lakers." This hurt the feelings of Wolves' center Ryan Hollins who felt, "definitely, that's a disrespectful thing." What did they do about it? They lost.

Put your money where your mouth is. Or in other words, shut up and show it on the court.

5. Mavericks. Speaking of the Mavericks, since making the big trade with the Wizards they have won 10 games in a row. And you know what I find amazing about this? In these ten games they've been without Jason Kidd, Caron Butler, Jason Terry, and Erick Dampier each at least one game.

6. Nets. So how can an NBA team sit at 6-55? Are the Nets really that bad? Here's the latest evidence: video look at their defense at :25 where Rashard Lewis gets his own rebound. Enough said.