SportsGrinder 02.23.09

That, all in all, was a solid sports weekend. We had the usual, big-time college basketball upsets. LeBron James went off for 55 on Friday night -- including 8-11 from outside the arc. The NFL Combine churned in Indianapolis. NASCAR managed to get a Cup race in between the raindrops and, and folks are even talking about baseball without mentioning steroids.

Oh, wait. We lied. That story does mention 'roids. Dang. But we won't mention drugs again. Here's a better baseball story. The Washington Nationals found out that Esmailyn Gonzalez, the 19-year-old shortstop who in July 2006 received the largest bonus ($1.4 million) the franchise has ever given an international player, is actually a 23-year-old player named Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo. Insert your Little League World Series jokes here.

What else? The Rangers fired coach Tom Renney today after the team lost 10 of 12 games, putting their playoff spot in peril. Of course firing an NHL coach isn't rare. It's about as common as steroids in baseball. Oops. Sorry. There we go again.

We are kind of bummed that Blake Griffin, he of the 22 points and 13.8 rebounds per game, won't play when Oklahoma hosts the Jayhawks tonight. This game has been circled on both teams' calendars since the schedule came out and will most likely to decide the Big 12 winner. It’s shame for hoops fans that OU won't be at full strength. Unless they happen to be Jayhawks, in which case they probably aren’t all that upset.

And how weird was Griffin's injury anyway? It looked like Dexter Pittman, Texas' 300-pound center, did nothing more than swipe Griffin's nose with his arm, yet it was enough to give the kid of concussion? A strange injury on a strange play.

Lastly, If you spend way, way too much time online like we do, you know Brian Collins, the "Boom goes the dynamite!" guy. If you have better things to do with your time, this is him below, giving maybe the worst sports report in the history of sports reporting.




Awful Announcing noticed that Brian's catchphrase has made it all the way to Hollywood, being uttered on stage at last night's Oscars by none other than Will Smith.