Hello and welcome to another Wednesday of deep thoughts. Usually, I try to keep my writing at the Gab to sports. I will get to sports, but wanted to venture for a moment to politics. If you spend anytime on face book, I am sure that you have a friend or two that shares political “stuff”. I typically give it a glance and move on. Yesterday, two items that I could not shake. Since I am on the north side of 50, I recognize that I no longer see the world through young eyes. I do consider myself a moderate with a fairly open mind. Although I did not vote for President Obama, I have tried to look for the positives in his becoming president. What has me troubled is the continued movement of our country toward more socialist thinking. One of the things that grabbed me yesterday was the story about an economics professor arguing with his class concerning the viability of socialism. His students could not understand why socialism was not a good thing. He made a deal with his class…he would average all of their grades and each of them would receive the same grade. After the first test, the grades averaged out to a B. The students that studied and worked hard were not too happy. For the next test, they decided to enjoy the free ride as well and everyone received a D. It should hardly be a surprise when the final test resulted in an F for the entire class. The professor made his point in a way that his class will never forget. Is this story true? I have no idea, but the outcome is accurate. I don’t understand how anyone would think that a system that encourages mediocrity would be successful.

It is one thing for kids with a lack of experience to fall victim for this ruse, but how can adults with real life experience fall for this? This thinking is what has weakened our country. It is why so many want to reward everyone for competing and ignoring the fact that someone finished in first or second. Without rewarding excellence, we tell our youth that mediocrity is okay. When a kid realizes failure, and understands that to be the best requires effort…this is a good thing. I realize that this is a simplification of a large problem, but it is the essence of the problem.

I am reading a tremendous book about Lyndon Johnson. Actually, it is a series about Lyndon Johnson’s rise to power. Much of the book is a reminder of what our founding fathers pondered when designing our country. The separation of power was really an ingenious design. Of course, our world is much different today, but the original design still works…all we need is leadership. Our Congress has the power to prevent further erosion of our democracy, based on what I have seen of late…I am not especially confident.

Do you think that this thinking is limited to politics? I read this week a sportswriter espousing the point of view that Alex Smith should never have lost his job. Kapernick was the back up when Smith was injured and should have returned to that role when Smith was able to return. I certainly have issue with some of Jim Harbaugh’s behavior, but isn’t it Harbaugh’s responsibility to play the best player? I guess the writer had never heard of Drew Bledsoe and Tom Brady?

Jerry Jones was in the news again this week. Jerry wants to be sure that we give him credit when he rebuilds the Cowboys into a Super Bowl winner again. He also said that having a great offensive line is not necessary because Romo is athletic enough to succeed without spending money on an offensive line. Now I know how Raider fan felt in the last days of Al Davis. It is like Ground Hog day, every year. This time it is Jones convincing himself that an offensive line is not necessary to win. When I hear this, I realize how far Jones really is from understanding what it takes to win an NFL championship.

Big news from the NFL combine…Teo is smaller than listed in the Notre Dame program and he only ran a 4.82 in the 40. Word is that Teo’s draft value is rapidly falling. Anyone know what Terrell Suggs ran the 40 in at the combine? 4.84. Jerry Rice ran a 4.75. Running fast does not make a football player. Perhaps Teo will not find success in the NFL…I don’t know. One thing that is tangible is that huge chip that will be sitting on Teo’s shoulder. Some team will take a chance and could be getting great value.

In case you were wondering…Zach Greinke signed with the Dodgers because they gave him a suitcase full of money. Apparently Greinke did not care who he signed with. Here is exactly what Zach said: "If the last-place team offers $200 million and the first-place team offers $10, I'm going to go for the $200 million no matter what team it was." Well, there you have it. Great job of reporting to bring us this earth shattering news…

Last week, I talked about how important leadership and team chemistry is for any team. I think that most of you remember that my son’s high school team did not have a great season last year. They had 3 D1 players on the team, but they won a total of 6 games. Several parents asked me how I thought this year’s team would do…I have rather reticent in offering an opinion. I was honestly worried that the pitching would be too thin to win many games. Last week, they played six games in a tournament and won 4 of the 6 games. This is a team full of seniors that genuinely like each other. I can’t tell you how much fun it is to watch these guys play. We have another tournament this week…hopefully I will have more good news next week.

That’s all I have today, but I will leave you with a bit of Jack Handey:

Whenever someone asks me to define love, I usually think for a minute, then I spin around and pin the guys arm behind his back. NOW who’s asking the questions?

When I was a kid my favorite relative was Uncle Caveman. After school, we’d all go play in his cave, and every once in a while he would eat one of us. It wasn’t until later that I found out that Uncle Caveman was a bear.

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave a few deep thoughts of your own…

Hornets are buzzing away?? Kobe better than Magic?? Goodbye Big East?? All this and more, MLB, Boxing, NFL, in this weeks edition of….

I want to wish all my Jewish friends a Happy Hanukkah. I hope you enjoyed the potato pancakes. I Mom and Sister made tons of pancakes. I ate of 25 of them. I am bloated right now.

Thank you Los Angeles Spenders, oops I mean Dodgers. You have done something that no baseball team has done since the Baltimore Orioles did it in 1998 and that is past the New York Yankees as the team with the highest payroll.

So the Hornets might be buzzing away (ouch I had to say it) just to be replaced by a Pelican. That’s what the rumor mill is saying. Tom Benson, owner of the NBA team who just so happens to own the copyright to New Orleans Pelicans, would like it to happen. So to would Michael Jordan owner of the Charlotte Bobcats who would like to return the Hornets back to the Charlotte name.

Major league baseball had its version of the Dick Chaney hunting fiasco as Dale Sveum, Chicago Cubs manager, was shot by Hall of Famer, and good friend, Robin Yount while quail hunting. What is it with quail hunting. It seems to me too many people get hurt was hunting these birds. Gee where is Bob Costas rant on hunting now???? LOL.. I guess the Cubs will do anything to get rid of the Curse of the Cubs, even shooting their own manager.

Kobe Bryant might be the Laker's all-time leading scorer, but if you asked me Ervin “Magic” Johnson is the Laker's all-time greatest basketball player, hands-down. Magic could do anything on the court, Guard, Forward and Center. Pass, score, rebound, play defense and block shots, whereas, Kobe couldn’t do even half the things that the Magic can.

When will the NFL crack down on drunk driving? Now we have one NFL player, Jerry Brown, dead when his “so-called” best friend, Josh Brent, who was intoxicated, traveled at a high rate of speed hit an outside curb, the car flipped over and come to a rest in the middle of the service road.

We condemn those who do drugs, or take steroids, but there is no public outrage when this happens to a sports personality.

More news from the Cowboys camp, as nose tackle Jay Ratliff had to be separated from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on December 2^nd. Jones was trying to encourage Ratcliff to return from a groin injury, which set Ratliff off and he started yelling at the owner before teammates stepped in.

Can you be religious and still be aggressive enough to box??

When do you really know when a team quits on you??

They might as well cancel the NHL season. I me lets face it a little less than half the games have been canceled this year. If any league could not have afforded to have a season canceled is the NHL. I don’t think they recovered from the last lockout.

ESPN's president finally figured out something our friends here at YouGabSports new all along and that’s ESPN OD’d on Tebow. Now they plan on cutting back on news about Timmy.

It looks like Andruw Jones is taking is act to Japan, as he has signed a one year deal with the Rakuten Eagles for $3.5 million.

Seven members of the Big East are looking to break-away from the league and possibly forming a new league. The seven non-football schools DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, Providence, St. John’s, Seton Hall and Villanova have the votes if they want to break from the Big East. The fate of the Conference will be soon.

Til Next time

Scott

Today ScottJax talks about Baseball Digest, Sports Weekly and more in this weeks edition of This and That….

I want to wish all the Gabbers a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Mrs. ScottJax is making me my favorite meal, veal parmesan for dinner. I am not a turkey eater.

As long as Jerry Jones has a hand in everything that goes on, the Dallas Cowboys will never win a Super Bowl. He is the modern version of Al Davis.

I enjoyed reading baseball digest when I was a kid. Every month I would go to the local candy store and at the newspaper/magazine section I would pick up my copy and read it from cover to cover. My favorite part of the Digest was “fans speak out.“ Fans would ask questions and the folks at Baseball Digest would come up with the answer and the statistics to back it up. When I joined the Navy I stopped reading the Digest. But recently I was at Publix’s supermarket at the magazine section and I notice they had the Baseball Digest, and so I purchased it.

I again read it from cover to cover, but there are differences with it now. First it is printed 6 times a year, the Digest is now printed in color, and scouting was added to it (it might have something to do with Baseball Digest merging with ProScouting). By the way, “fans speak out,” the crossword puzzle, baseball rules and baseball quick pick are still in the digest.

Another magazine that I enjoy is Sports Weekly.

When it first began, in 1991, it was called “Baseball Weekly” and as it suggests it strictly covered baseball. It was the last sports magazine to have the box scores of every MLB game. Beginning September 4, 2002, the name was changed to “Sports Weekly” as it now covered the NFL in addition to continuing coverage of MLB now minus the box scores.

Sports Weekly covered NASCAR for a year in 2006. But in 2007 college baseball and college football coverage was added. Now it looks like the magazine is starting to take the place of the Sporting News, as it has added college basketball and the NBA to its lineup. Now I have been a subscriber to Sports Weekly since the beginning and am glad it is picking up the slack vacated by the Sporting News.

What is your favorite sports newspaper or magazine?

Maryland, a charter member of the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1953, is leaving the ACC to join the Big-10 effective 2014-2015 academic year.

Meanwhile Rutgers University is leaving the Big East to join Maryland in the Big-10.

Till Next Time

Scott　

Mercy, mercy, mercy. Cowboys. Overrated NFL players, Guess who?? ESPN, Irish, Tide, and more in this weeks edition of…..

Before I start, I would like to send my best to all those effected by hurricane Sandy. I hope you are safe and okay.

Okay, so like we didn’t already know that Tim Tebow is the most overrated NFL player there is. So now Sports Illustrated has to validate what we already knew with the help of 180 NFL players. Tim received 34% of the vote, followed by his teammate Mark Sanchez with 8% and Tony Romo who also had 8%. Michael Vick finished 4^th with 4% and in a shocker, Ray Lewis received 3% for 5^th place.

Maybe SI did it to quite Skip Bayless, who as we all know, is the #1 fan of Tebow.

I know they have the Mercy Rule in Little League Baseball, but I think it is time to expand it to College Football. I really don’t want to watch a game that is 70-14, 68-3, etc, etc. etc. I think the NCAA ought to come up with a rule that states “If you are more than five touchdowns behind at half-time, or at the end of the 3^rd quarter, the game will end and all stats are final. Game clock will still run and with the remaining time, both teams bands will entertain the fans until the clock runs out.”

How the mighty have fallen. Cam Newton, last years stud, is this years, dud.

Sorry Dez. You, Romo, the Cowboys and all the fans in the stands and those watching on TV thought you had the game winning touchdown. Then you did this…

Instant replay showed “the truth.“ It turned out to be the catch that wasn’t. Victory taken away from the use-to-be America’s team!!!! Another great Cowboy blunder!! How does that eat at you Jerry Jones!!!

How can you have anyone other than Alabama as the #1 team in the nation? First off, the Crimson Tide are undefeated and second, they are the defending National Champs. Until someone knocks them off, anyone who is ahead of them in the polls are imposters!!

I am one who is for the defending National Champ, in any college sport, to be the next years preseason favorite, regardless of the number of talented players who have departed the team. The Champs have at least earned and deserved that right. Once they lose, all bets are off.

We bitch and moan about ESPN and how they are all this, or that, but admit it, we go right back and watch their sports programming. Same goes for announcers. I use to dislike listening to Howard Cosell, but I’ll be damned if I didn’t turn on Monday Night Football to listen to see what BS comes out of his mouth.

Til Next Time

Scott

Hello and welcome to another Wednesday of deep thoughts. Monday night, I watched the Angels obliterate Roy Oswalt. It is clear that RoyO is not the pitcher he once was. I am sure other Ranger fans that watched the Angels offensive explosion, hoped a deal for another arm was in the works. As the clock ticked down on the trade deadline, it appeared that the Rangers would miss out on a deal. But, with just a few minutes remaining, the Rangers pulled off a deal for Ryan Dempster. I was pleasantly surprised with the deal for Dempster as I figured that Texas would have to pull Ogando from the pen to fill a spot in the rotation. The other move the Rangers made was to grab Geovany Soto from the Cubs. Soto is a definite upgrade defensively from Torrealba and Napoli and of course is very familiar with Demptster. The Rangers are clinging to a 3 game lead over the Angels, but watching the Angels this week, it is clear that the Rangers must step up their play if they want to stay in first place. Did you notice that Albert Pujols hit his 19^th and 20^th HR of the season on Tuesday? Anyone want to bet that he does not end up with 35 for the season? Another safe bet is Mike Trout winning the AL MVP and the AL ROY. The rookie scored 32 runs in July to go with 10 HRs for the month. The runs scored ties the rookie record and the HRs is a new record. To be honest, unless Josh Hamilton gets very hot, the Rangers just don’t appear to have the firepower to match the Angels. But, as we have seen…hot streaks come and go. With all of the trading activity in this division, what did the A’s do to keep up with the leaders? Nothing…We will soon see if the A’s have enough to talent to snag a playoff spot. The AL West is playing great baseball and this race will be very interesting to watch.

Another team was busy at the trade deadline…the Pittsburgh Pirates grabbed Gaby Sanchez from the Marlins  and Chad Qualls from the Yankees for Casey McGehee. Sanchez and Qualls join Travis Snider and Wandy Rodriguez representing talent obtained on the cheap to help the Pirates make a postseason run. I am not sure if these moves will be pivotal for the Pirates, but I am sure that fans in Oakland and Cleveland would have enjoyed seeing their ownership make some attempt to improve their team’s chances for playing after the regular season. AJ Burnett looks ready for the postseason after throwing a one hitter Tuesday night. This Pirate team is fun to watch and really has a chance to do something this year. For the record, I think that Travis Snider will help Pittsburgh this season.

I like Snider and think his hard working approach will serve him will with the Pirates. His twitter handle is: Travis Snider @lunchboxhero45

The other big trade news was in the NL West. The Giants acquired Hunter Pence from the Phillies. I got a kick out of reading Philly fan’s reaction to this trade. “Pence’s offensive numbers are hollow.”  “Pence is a terrible outfielder”. “Good riddance to Pence, he was not worth the money.” I know it has been a tough year in Philly, but to blame the team’s struggles on Pence seems just a bit unfair. Without Utley and Howard for most of the year, Pence simply did not have enough help. The good news for Philly fan…one of the players obtained in the Pence deal is a very good player. Tommy Joseph is a AA catcher that is actually the nephew of a buddy of mine. Joseph is considered one of the best catching prospects in the minors. He had 22 HR’s last year and I suspect he will be very happy to hitting in Philly vs the cavernous Giant home park.

Here is a write up on Joseph: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1279701-tommy-joseph-full-scouting-report-on-prospect-dealt-for-hunter-pence

 If you take a look at the results of the Pence trade, the Giants finally have a lineup that can score runs. With Melky Cabrera, Buster Posey, Pence and the Panda…this can work. If Lincecum can figure out his issues, The Giants will be a tough team to beat. Of course, the Dodgers will have something to say about this race. Although the Dodgers were unable to grab an additional arm, they still are much improved with Greinke added to their rotation and Hanley at 3B and Victorino in the OF. Of course, Harvey would want me to point out that the DBacks dominated the Dodgers Tuesday night. Although the Snakes did not do much to upgrade their team, they did add a quality young bat in Chris Johnson.  This looks like another three team race, but my guess is the added offense in San Francisco will be tough to beat. Of course, it would be better for the Giants if the bearded one was healthy…

It is no secret that I am a Cowboys fan. It has been frustrating to see talented teams in Dallas underachieve each year. I was hoping that this might the year that things quietly came together for my team. I should have known better…Jerry Jones is on record of telling a group of fans at training camp that he looks forward to beating the Giants’ ass this year. I understand that Jerry was probably responding to former Cowboy TE Bennett that is now a Giant…Bennett announced last week that he just wanted to “kick those guys’ asses”. He apparently has some “ill feelings” from his time in Dallas. Well, Martellus, there are plenty of Cowboy fans that have some ill feeling toward you as well. Great things were expected of the former Aggie, but Bennett was a major disappointment…which brings me back to Jerry. If I was the owner of the Cowboys, the last thing I would want to do is poke the Giants. I have tried to forget most of last year, but didn’t the Giants beat the Cowboys twice and win the Super Bowl? Hey Jerry, just lay low and take it one game at a time…

I have been enjoying the bits and pieces of the Olympics that I have watched…but am curious what is going on with the athletes in badminton. I admit that this is not really a sport that I would normally pay much attention to…but what the hell? How do you show up for a once in a lifetime opportunity and try to lose a match so your pairing is more favorable? The ideals of the Olympics are pretty straight forward. Honor and integrity are assumed requirements for all involved. To intentionally lose is beyond poor form…it is idiotic. Formal complaints have been filed against 8 athletes and new single elimination rules will undoubtedly be instituted in the future.

Now...this guy is crazy!

That is all I have today, but I will leave you with a bit of Jack Handey:

“My young son asked me what happens after we die. I told him we get buried under a bunch of dirt and worms eat our bodies. I guess I should have told him the truth - that most of us go to Hell and burn eternally - but I didn't want to upset him.”

“There's nothing so tragic as seeing a family pulled apart by something as simple as a pack of wolves.”

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave a few deep thoughts of your own...