Jinxing Maddux and Ridiculous Comments in Big D

I figure by the time this gets posted I will have done enough to jinx Greg Maddux's bid for a perfect game/no hitter, one of the check boxes remaining for the lock-job Hall of Famer to accomplish. He's five innings deep right now against the Reds, with only 46 pitches as I started typing this, but I figure with the way technological information gets across the web and TV these days, I'm the last of his worries. You're all but guaranteed a "live look-in!" during the seventh inning, which will inevitably result in an immediate hit against Maddog.

He's actually pitching for the guy that is chasing me in my points-based fantasy league, but I don't really care. As a Braves fan, Maddux has given me enough where I'm willing to take the cave on a win for the other guy if it will guarantee that he gets a no-no. Especially since Maddux once said there's no chance that he'll ever toss one, because he doesn't strike enough guys out. He's been very close though, going into the eighth with Atlanta against Houston before Lance Berkman took him deep way back day and he had one with LA last year before they had to yank him because of a rain delay (OUCH.)



Top of the sixth, Alex Gonzalez tries to make some noise, but Maddux gets a broken bat grounder that sneaks past him--Khalil Green makes the play easily. Annnnnd there it goes. I literally feel like I personally just cost Maddux his no hit bid. Jose Valentin. Are you kidding me?

Back to the basketball then, where Steve Kerr is wondering if "we are literally going to show [Eva Longaria] during every game for the rest of Tony Parker's career?" I mean, uh, yes. Why the hell wouldn't we??

Anyway, I know there was something I wanted to talk about, and that would be the inane comments coming out of the Dallas Cowboys training camp. Terrell Owens has not only said that he learned "Nothing, really" from his only year under Bill Parcells, but he also pointed out that "having a new head coach is good for everybody."

Sure, TO. No doubt. If by "everybody" you mean just you. Or maybe you just mean that ludicrously huge ego of yours that didn't like having someone else, your boss namely, being the center of attention on your team. I mean, look, we all knew it wasn't going to work out with Parcells and TO, right? Didn't we, and by we I mean everyone from Joe Fan up to John Clayton, say this wasn't going to pan out well, way before the season ever started? And am the only one who thinks that TO is happy because his coach has a laid back attitude (read: lacking the testicular fortitude) to actually bust his ass about being a diligent football player? I don't think Wade Phillips is a pushover or anything, but I think he's a helluva lot closer to Mooch than Tuna in terms of how much control he gives his players. Which is great. More freedom in the workplace. No problems here.

Except.

(And there's always an "except".)

When Dallas loses three straight games during the course of the season, or Tony Romo hits some sort of sophomore slump, and TO starts bitching. What then? Is this loose, let it all ride attitude really going to be good for the team then? Of course not.

Not to mention there's a quote from Parcells that came out this past weekend where he says that signing TO wasn't his idea and that he did the best he could with what he had; Owens sarcastically contradicts this, acting like Tuna wanted him there the whole time. Get f'ing real, Terrell.

He does not get real, with this little number: "I could have played better, but I'm not the one to really harp on why I had the season I did," Owens said. "I'm not going to say why I had the drops I had. I knew the reason, but I didn't take the time out to make that an excuse. ... I played through an injury that I didn't really talk about, I didn't care to talk about."

So, I'm confused. Because that makes it seem like you kind of had an injury (the finger) but we all knew about that. So what's the reason that we don't know about that you seem to imply? Parcells' presence? His willingness to go along with Jerry Jones' gamble is the reason you didn't play as hard as you did? Because that's the message I'm getting from the quote. Or maybe I'm misreading it. Like I misread when you popping 30+ painkillers, not implicitly understanding that it was an accident.

What's my point to all of this? Besides the fact that TO sucks? Basically that it's bullshit to see Bill Parcells, one of the greatest coaches of our generation, getting tossed full body under the bus here. On one hand we have a receiver who has played for the Niners, the Eagles and the Cowboys. At every stop, he has either permanently embittered his coach, his quarterback, or both in the cases of Philadelphia and San Francisco. On the other hand, we have a well respected leader and coach, who has appeared in three Super Bowls and won two of them; he has been awarded AP Coach of the Year twice and has produced remarkable turnaround and success at every stop in his career.

Look, I know that TO is great for soundbytes and ratings and whatever, but please, national media, do not feed the animals. Or at least wait until Thanksgiving when Wade Phillips becomes an uptight asshole.