Water Cooler – August 25th, 2010
Here we go with today’s sports water cooler talk. Here, you won’t just find the straight news; you’ll find the stuff everyone is talking about – the ice breakers, the Twitter Sports Picks and topics…well, basically all the stuff you discuss at the water cooler.
Enjoy!
The injuries continue to pile up in the NFL preseason. More on the latest big name to go down in today’s news.
NFL news: Sidney Rice out until at least midseason after hip surgery; Ochocinco fined for Tweeting 
The Vikings are thrilled to welcome back Brett Favre but he’s probably not so thrilled that his top target from a year ago, Sidney Rice, won’t be around for a while. Rice, who broke out last season with 1,312 yards, had hip surgery yesterday and will be sidelined for at least the first eight weeks of the 2010 season. It’s entirely possible he’ll end up on injured reserve.
With Percy Harvin also missing tons of time lately due to migraines, the Vikes have to be worried about their receiving situation. Why else would they dust off Javon Walker? They signed the veteran and former Brett Favre target from Green Bay yesterday. He hasn’t played a full season since 2006.
It’s not that the NFL hates all Tweeting; it just hates when its athletes use Twitter at the wrong times. It fined Chad Ochocinco (who else?) $25,000 for Tweeting during his Bengals’ preseason game against the Philadelphia Eagles last Friday. Kickoff was at 8:07 p.m. and Ochocinco tweeted at 6:50 and 9:53. The wideout broke the rule stating that NFL athletes cannot use social media from 90 minutes before kickoff until the end of the game.
Ochocinco apologized – via Twitter, of course.
MLB news: Johnny Damon vetoes return to Boston; Roy Oswalt plays the outfield
Give Johnny Damon credit for having the wherewithal not to surrender himself to an angry mob. The Boston Red Sox – the team he spurned to join the rival Yankees a few years back – claimed him on waivers yesterday. But Damon understood what every Boston fan understood – that his welcome probably wouldn’t have been too warm in Beantown. So he exercised his veto power and refused to join the Red Sox.
How desperate was Damon to avoid Boston? He spurned the waiver claim despite saying he “would’ve loved to have gone back and played with Papi and Varitek” and realized that “going to Boston could have helped out my free agency for next year, but so be it.
Don’t tell every major-league pitcher that he’s good for nothing besides throwing. During a wild, 16-inning romp between the Phillies and Astros last night in Philadelphia, Roy Oswalt got called in to play the outfield. Manager Charlie Manuel chose him because of his athleticism. Oswalt caught a ball in the 15th and got a standing ovation.
PGA news: Tour to make golfers play every tournament?
Tiger Woods not playing and then not playing well has damaged golf ratings badly this year. Perhaps that’s why the PGA is looking at instituting a major rule change that would require every golfer to play every tournament during the year.
That would mean we’d see the Tigers and Phils of the world play even the Mickey Mouse events like the Canadian Open; it would also mean we’d never see Steve Stricker win another tournament. BURN!
Comments are welcome below!
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