Archive for July 24th, 2012

WATERCOOLER CHAT: ICHIRO A YANK, OCHO A FISH WITH A DIFFERENT NAME, PUNISHMENT FOR PENN

BASEBALL

The biggest story of the day was out of the baseball world.  Ichiro Suzuki came to the Seattle Mariners at the turn of the century.  He was a phenomenon in Japan, and practically the entire Japanese media followed him to Seattle.  Ichiro was an instant success.  He made the all-star team almost right away, and was a key factor in leading Seattle to tie the all-time wins in a season record.  Now, more than a decade later, the Mariners were forced to part ways with Ichiro.  Yep, like many stars before him, Ichiro will be wearing Yankee pinstripes the rest of the year.  The Yankees are currently in first place and need a bat like Ichiro to gain clutch hits if they want to stay atop.  Seattle fans will miss Ichiro.

FOOTBALL

And in the NFL, it looks like it’s the end of another era.  Chad OchoCinco has entertained us for about a decade now with his arrogant touchdown celebrations and off-the-field antics and funny lines.  He’s out there playing a character… a character he called ‘OchoCinco’ after his jersey number 85.  He created almost an alternate identity.  Last season, the Bengals finally let him pursue free agency and he was signed by the New England Patriots.  Bill Bellichick had a reputation for giving former superstars a second chance to show their glory, but OchoCinco had trouble learning their offense and had a very lackluster season.  Now, he signed a 1-year deal with the Miami Dolphins, and in an effort to switch things up, he legally changed his last name back to Johnson.  Johnson said he wanted to do it so he could reconnect with himself and focus on just playing great football (and not the OchoCinco character).  This is good news for Dolphins fans, as they might get a surprise, highly productive season out of Mr. Johnson.

Finally, in college football, the NCAA finally passed the punishment against Penn State University for covering up a serious crime.  This was their biggest offense in sports history and there was no precedent as to what to do to the school.  So here’s what they settled on.  A $60 million dollar fine, a 4-year bowl ban, the eradication of wins dating back to 1998 (moving Joe Paterno from most wins ever to 12th most wins ever), but more notably a complete loss of scholarships for the next 4 years.  Basically, the program won’t be able to recruit quality players for 4 years, and their program should just about finish last in all 4 of those seasons.  Then, to get back on track, they will need another few years.  This pretty much means that the program will be non-existent competitively for the next 7 or 8 years. Many thought they would impose a ‘death penalty’ and fully shut down the football program for the next few years (meaning no football at all).  But the economy of that town depends on football games (e.g. hotels, restaurants, etc…), and they need to at least bring in the faithful in the alumni to spend money there.  Penn State is definitely paying for their crime, but no punishment could ever make it right for what Sandusky did.

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