Category: Sports

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Will Rogaine put Cal Ripken on its packaging?

When a theme crops up for the third time on this blog, it’s time for me to create a new category for it. In that spirit, I now offer up “Adventures in Wheaties,” which is a perfect compliment to my “Adventures in Gin” category. I’ll use this category to chronicle my love/hate relationship with America’s favorite breakfast cereal.

So what could possibly have driven me to write about Wheaties yet again? After all, I’ve already discussed my A-Rod boycott and my aversion to buying a WNBA-branded box of the stuff. Now I’m convinced that the boys at General Mills are just messing with me.

After all, how do you follow up this box:

Skinny runner Hunter Kemper

with this one?

Fat baseball player Tony Gwynn

With all due respect to Tony Gwynn, a class act and a legendary ballplayer, I don’t think Wheaties is doing itself any favors when it displays one of the guys whom people cite when they make their “baseball players aren’t athletes like football and basketball players” argument. I understand the Hall of Fame reasoning in putting him on the box, and it’s not like they’re putting Sidney Ponson on, too, but it’s still not exactly hyping a fit lifestyle.

In the writeup about him on the back of the box, we find that Gwynn

was truly a thinking man’s ballplayer, a perfect blend of art and science. Known best for his artistry with a bat, he also pioneered the extensive use of videotape analysis studying his own game relentlessly, never resting on his success. His work ethic was legendary as he spent countless hours refining his stroke in the batting cage and at the hitting tee.

The writeup goes on to mention that a Wheaties breakfast “can help jumpstart metabolism.” Note that this doesn’t say, “will help jumpstart metabolism,” considering it’s juxtaposed with another picture that doesn’t even employ the slimming effects of a pinstripe uniform.

If I was Hunter Kemper, I’d give up and start eating Krispy Kremes.

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Tremendous Upside Potential

Mitch Lawrence, NBA columnist for the NY Daily News, hates the New Jersey Nets. I didn’t realize this until the Nets became good after an off-season overhaul by general manager Rod Thorn before the 2001-02 season.

The key move of that period was the trade of Stephon Marbury for Jason Kidd. Kidd’s arrival catalyzed the team and helped them reach back-to-back NBA finals. Since the Nets had barely sniffed the playoffs in years, this was an unprecedented level of success.

Despite this incredible run, Lawrence contended that the Nets would end up the losers in the deal, because Kidd was considering leaving as a free agent to sign with the Spurs. Kidd re-signed with the Nets, while Marbury had one decent season for the Phoenix Suns before being traded to the New York Knicks, where he has reached the playoffs just once (and was swept 4-0 by . . . Jason Kidd’s Nets). The Suns, after Marbury’s departure, became the most exciting team in the league.

Besides the trade for Kidd, GM Thorn made one other major move before the season. The Nets, who stunk up the joint the previous year, had the #7 pick in the draft. They chose Seton Hall forward Eddie Griffin, who was leaving for the pros after a tumultuous freshman year. It seems Eddie had gotten into a locker-room fight with a teammate, repeating the behavior that got him thrown out of high school. Still, he was 6’10”, could block shots, run the floor and even shoot a little.

Weighing the talent against the potential headaches, Thorn elected to trade Griffin to the Houston Rockets for three other first-round draft picks: Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins, and Brandon Armstrong.

Armstrong washed out of the league, but Collins has been an (inexplicably) effective defensive center who also passed well enough to fit into the Princeton offense the Nets implemented with the arrival of Kidd. The key to the deal was #15 pick Jefferson, who became a “do-everything” linchpin for the team, even running the team as a “point-forward” when Kidd was rehabbing from knee surgery several seasons ago.

Griffin? Well, it looks like Thorn was right to be scared off. He battled alcoholism and generally idiotic, compulsive, loser-ish behavior. He got cut by Houston and the Nets actually signed him on the cheap. But he got into trouble while crashing a wedding at a NJ hotel and left the team before he ever played a game for them. He wound up in Minnesota, got busted for allegedly, um, taking care of himself with an adult movie while driving.

That turned out to be his last chance. Cut by the T-Wolves — but paid off for his contract — Griffin died Friday night in Houston after driving through a railroad barrier in his SUV and getting pasted by a train. Considering it took days to identify his body from the flaming wreck, I doubt we’ll find out whether his choice of “on-board entertainment” had anything to do with the crash.

What does this have to do with Mitch Lawrence? Well, my favorite “Nets-hater” moment from Lawrence occurred during an ESPN-radio appearance he made before that fateful 2001-02 season. Discussing the draft, he announced, “The Nets made a serious mistake trading Eddie Griffin. Five years from now, he’s going to be the best player to come out of that draft.”

Today? Lawrence writes, “His career will be remembered most for his numerous off-court problems.” Eddie was 25 years old.