In Case You Didn't Hear

Some interesting sports related items in the news today:

1) R.I.P. - Merlyn Mantle - The wife of Mickey Mantle passed away yesterday at the age of 77 from the effects of Alzheimer disease. She and Mickey had been married for 43 years when he passed away in 1995. She'll be buried in Dallas, Texas next to Mickey. R.I.P.

2) Rambo Signs with the Wolves - Today Kurt Rambis will be introduced as head coach of the Timberwolves. I think this was a smart move for him. The rumors I've heard out of LA is that when Phil steps down (whenever that is) he probably wasn't going to get the head coaching job there anyway. They apparently like Brian Shaw to take over so Rambis needed to go elsewhere to prove himself. The Timberwolves have a good young nucleus with Al Jefferson, Kevin Love, Johnny Flynn and Ricky Rubio (if they can buy him out of his Italian contract). I think this was a good situation for everyone.

3) Donte Stallworth - I see where Stallworth is asking for his sentence to be reduced. Here's a man that admitted to killing a pedistrian by drunk driving, got a riduculously light slap on the wrist and is allowed to train outside the house 5 days a week while serving his house arrest. Are you kidding me?? If this was you or I, we would be in a medium security prison for a year and a half before serving another 12 months in house arrest if we did the same..... Unbelievable.

4) Eli Contract - With Eli Mannings new contract (pending still, but reported to be in the neighborhood of $97 million), expect brother Peyton, Brady and Phillips Rivers to be the next in line. All 3 of their contracts come up in the next 2 years and all are due for a raise. Granted the football contracts are not guaranteed (and largely back loaded), so look for the signing bonus of Eli to be the benchmark these other guys go after.

5) Delaware Betting - This is a story that will have lots of ramifications. I'm planning on doing a full story soon on this so I won't go into details now, but lets just say professional leagues attorneys are gearing up to prevent this from happening. It's been flying under the national radar but this could effect professional sports as much, if not more, than the collective bargaining agreements do. Professional sports have filed an injunction against the state to prevent the waging from starting next month but were denied. Yesterday they filed an appeal and a trial date has been set for December 7th. I'll have more on this next week.

Bill