Chicago Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica
So God made a Farmer.
(Commercial sponsored by Dodge Ram during Super Bowl XLVll; Author Unknown. Article reproduced from Paul Harvey radio show, but unable to trace the source.)
And on the 8th day God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker!". So, God made a farmer!
God said I need somebody to get up before dawn and milk cows and work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board. So, God made a farmer!
I need somebody with strong arms. Strong enough to rustle a calf, yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry and have to wait for lunch until his wife is done feeding and visiting with the ladies and telling them to be sure to come back real soon...and mean it. So, God made a farmer!
God said "I need somebody that can shape an ax handle, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire make a harness out of hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And...who, at planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty hour week by Tuesday noon. Then, pain'n from "tractor back", put in another seventy two hours. So, God made a farmer!
God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop on mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor's place. So, God made a farmer!
God said, "I need somebody strong enough to clear trees, heave bails and yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink combed pullets...and who will stop his mower for an hour to mend the broken leg of a meadow lark. So, God made a farmer!
It had to be somebody who'd plow deep and straight...and not cut corners. Somebody to seed and weed, feed and breed...and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk. Somebody to replenish the self feeder and then finish a hard days work with a five mile drive to church. Somebody who'd bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who'd laugh and then sigh...and then respond with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life "doing what dad does". So, God made a farmer!
CS&T/AA salutes all of the farmers of the world. They lead us, guide us and most of all, they grow the food that sustain us. It doesn't get any better than that!!!
How 'bout them Chicago Blackhawks?
Overall Record 8-0-2. So far so good on this six game road trip!!! The Chicago Blackhawks are the only undefeated team without a loss in regulation three period play. They do have two overtime losses, however, they did get one point in each of those games. Let's finish this roadtrip strong!!! As I've said, I have a great feeling about this team. This is our year, remember, you heard it here first!!!!! Go Hawks!!!
The NFL in February.
By Jack Bechta | National Football Post
The season is officially over but February is a busy month for many NFL execs and agents.
As things quiet down (except for Ravens fans) the NFL execs, coaches, scouts, agents and players have plenty to do.
Here’s a break down of who is doing what and how and where:
The Players: With the stress of the season over, the majority of players book some vacation time. The most popular destinations are Vegas, Hawaii, Mexico, San Diego, Florida and Atlantis. I have one client touring Europe as I write this, a few here in San Diego and Phoenix just starting their off-season workouts.
February is also medical maintenance time for those whose body didn’t fair so well during the season. Many players use this time of the year to “clean out” their joints. I have five of my eighteen clients who have had a scope to have their knees, ankles and/or shoulders cleaned out of debris created from a physically taxing season. Another two had more serious orthopedic procedures. Rehab starts immediately after the operations.
Other players who took off three to four weeks after the season usually start their off season workout rituals this week. Drew Brees can always be seen this week in San Diego starting his core workouts. Many players focus using just Yoga in January and February to unwind the body from its fall pounding. I know some guys who do nothing but yoga and non-weight bearing exercises for the whole month of February to help regenerate their bodies.
Unfortunately, February also brings a high arrest/incident rate for NFL players. There is no structured environment this time of year so many players are rudderless while blowing off steam and end up making some poor choices.
The agents: February for the agents means Combine preparations for our rookie class, gearing up for free agency, performing post-season maintenance such as filing workman’s compensation claims, helping with tax preparation and other paper work. It’s also a good time for us to help our clients set their 2013 goals.
The “unofficial” free agency begins with us talking to potential suitors and setting up meetings at the Combine with teams that may have a serious interest in our clients. The weekend of the Combine in Indianapolis is full of deal making, restructuring talks and establishing a market for our clients.
Scouts: February has scouts tweaking their grades, watching more college film and selling their opinions to their bosses. Pro directors are finalizing their free agent rankings and discussing their opinions on which players can best help their team. It’s also a great time to self-scout, which is the hardest evaluation for teams to perform.
Coaches: Some teams give the coaches a week off this time of year. Others keep grinding. Some teams let the coaches be a part of the evaluation process of rookies and free agents while others don’t want them anywhere near it. Head coaches are finalizing their staffs and negotiating salaries for those whose contracts may be expiring. The new staffs are drawing up their playbooks, off-season workout plans and watching every one of last year’s games to evaluate and get acquainted with their new players.
Cap managers: They have a tough job this time of year getting the cap ready for the start of the new season. It’s their job to let coaches and GMs know where they stand on both a micro and macro level. While the coaches may want four new free agents it’s the cap manager’s job to let them know they can’t afford them. For those who have plenty of cap space they go over each contract looking for ways to save even more or show the decision makers how to spend efficiently in 2013. For those who are managing a big overage on the first day of the new year they are advising their bosses on what must be done to get under the cap.
The media: February means speculation time. They are trying to figure out who is going where in free agency. Believe it or not, agents are very tight lipped and don’t give the media anything until we need to or want to. The information we choose to give to desperately thirsty reporters is self-serving to help our clients gain value. Thus, the media is used and abused by agents this time of year (and even by team front office execs) so don’t believe much of what you read in February.
Although the season is over, moves being made and the strategy being forged in February by your team will set the stage for their success or failure.
The buzz in golf not all good.
By
Tiger Woods won for the 75th time on the PGA Tour and set a record with his eighth win at Torrey Pines. It was a command performance, the kind that made people think more about where he is going than where he went.
The next week, Phil Mickelson had a chance at 59 until his 25-foot birdie putt on the last hole took a cruel spin around the cup. He thought he had golf's magic number and instead shot his tax rate in California. Lefty still sailed to a wire-to-wire win in the Phoenix Open.
It was the first time since 2009 that golf's two biggest stars won in consecutive weeks.
The trouble is, any discussion about golf these days goes beyond birdies and bogeys. Now it includes ''bifurcation.''
And the day after the buzz was about Tiger, the focus shifted to deer antlers.
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem might have seen this coming when he said two weeks ago that while he views the professional game as being the strongest it has ever been, ''I don't like to see distractions.''
There are too many of them right now.
Vijay Singh was leaving the practice range at Pebble Beach on Tuesday when one of the few reporters that has a working relationship with the Fijian called out to him. Singh looked at him, said nothing, and kept walking.
''So that would be no comment?'' the reporter said.
''Yes,'' Singh replied.
Sports Illustrated reported that Singh paid $9,000 to Sports With Alternative to Steroids in November for products that included deer-antler spray, which is said to have an insulin-like growth factor, which is on the PGA Tour's list of prohibited substances. Singh told the magazine he uses the spray ''every couple of hours ... every day.''
Singh might have been better off keeping quiet, as he often does. But he issued a statement confirming he used the spray, but was unaware it had a banned substance.
''I am absolutely shocked that deer-antler spray may contain a banned substance and am angry that I have put myself in this position,'' he said. ''I have been in contact with the PGA Tour and am cooperating fully with their review of this matter.''
The tour will not comment except to say it is looking into the matter, though it is backed into a corner.
Singh's admission alone constitutes an anti-doping violation. The first violation is up to a one-year suspension. The tour has a minimum requirement to publish the name of the player, his anti-doping violation and the sanction.
As long as Singh is in the field, that means the tour has not suspended him. He is playing this week. For now.
That's not the kind of distraction Finchem was talking about, but it's a big one. The only other player suspended under the anti-doping policy was Doug Barron, the consummate journeyman. Singh is a three-time major champion who was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2006. He hasn't won in more than four years, and he had made it to the Tour Championship only once since 2008.
The distraction to which Finchem referred was about the proposed rule that would ban anchored strokes - the kind used with long putters and belly putters. It already was a mess because three of the last five major champions used a belly putter, and because the rule would not go into effect until 2016.
But it's the debate over this proposed rule that has given some corners reason to bring up bifurcation - two sets of rules.
PGA of America president Ted Bishop polled his 27,000 members on anchoring. Just over 15 percent of them responded, and he said 63 percent opposed the ban. The USGA and Royal & Ancient write the Rules of Golf. Bishop noted that the PGA Tour didn't exist when the USGA was founded in 1894, and that the tour has a ''powerful impact'' on the game. He suggested golf was at a point where two sets of rules should be considered as a potential solution.
The CEO of TaylorMade suggested the USGA was ''obsolete'' and that the PGA of America, in conjunction with the PGA Tour, should be setting the rules. Maybe he forgot that the PGA Tour broke away from the PGA of America in 1968 because of the disconnect between tour pros and club pros.
Finchem said he thought there were certain parts of the rules that could be bifurcated ''and it wouldn't hurt anything,'' though maybe not in the case of anchoring.
Where will it all lead?
Finchem said the tour's objective was to keep the rules together. Bishop said in an ''ideal world,'' golf would be played under one set of rules.
Debate is healthy as long as it's about golf's best interest, and not financial interests. Don't get the idea that golf isn't growing because the game is too hard. That's one of its greatest appeals.
''The challenge was constant. And it never stopped being a challenge,'' Arnold Palmer once said. ''That was one of the things that really excited me as a kid.''
USGA president Glen Nager got to the heart of the bifurcation bluster during his speech at the USGA's annual meeting over the weekend in San Diego.
''There certainly are important issues for the golf industry to address, including economic issues, but revenue concerns arising during a broad economic slowdown should not lead us fundamentally to alter our approach to writing the rules and defining the game,'' Nager said. ''It is our obligation as a governing body to keep our eye on the long-term good of the game and to hold firm to what we know to be true about the essence of golf.''
In the meantime, Mickelson goes for his fifth win at Pebble Beach this week. All the stars get together for the first time in two weeks at the Match Play Championship.
And the Masters is only two months away.
3 Democratic appointees to hear Bonds' appeal.
By
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday unveiled its February schedule, which showed publicly for the first time the three judges assigned to Bonds' case.
Senior Circuit Judges Mary M. Schroeder and Michael Daly Hawkins along with Judge Mary H. Murguia will hear oral arguments Feb. 13.
Jimmy Carter appointed Schroeder in 1979. She wrote an opinion in 2010 upholding U.S. District Judge Susan Illston's ruling to bar the testimony of former Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative executive James Valente from Bonds' trial, which led to the exclusion of some BALCO records that the government maintained included positive drug tests.
Bonds, baseball's career home run leader, was still convicted by a jury in 2011 that concluded he gave an ''intentionally evasive, false or misleading'' answer to a grand jury in 2003 when he was asked whether Greg Anderson, his personal trainer, ever gave him ''anything that required a syringe to inject yourself with?''
Bonds gave a rambling response during which he said ''I became a celebrity child with a famous father. I just don't get into other people's business because of my father's situation.''
Bonds' lawyers claim the answer was truthful, was not obstructive and that he answered the question later in his testimony. Federal prosecutors say the answer impeded the grand jury's investigation into the illegal distribution of performance-enhancing drugs.
Bill Clinton appointed Hawkins in 1994. President Barack Obama appointed Murguia in 2010.
A section of Bonds' appeal is based on a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case, Bronston v. U.S., that declared in a perjury case ''a jury should not be permitted to engage in conjecture whether an unresponsive answer, true and complete on its face, was intended to mislead or divert.''
Bonds' jury failed to reach a verdict on three counts of making false statements, which accused him of lying when he denied taking steroids given to him by Anderson, denied receiving human growth hormone from Anderson and said only physicians injected him. Illston declared a mistrial on those counts, and the government then dismissed them.
Illston sentenced Bonds to 30 days house arrest, two years of probation, 250 hours of community service in youth-related activities and a $4,000 fine. She delayed the sentence pending the appeal.
Please let us hear your opinion on the above articles and pass them on to any other diehard fans that you think might be interested. But most of all, remember, Chicago
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