LeBlanc wrote Arlen Specter a letter regarding Spygate.

Here’s a snippet and what he got back.

I am not sure if you will actually read this or not. This is the first time I have ever taken the time to send anything to a Senator. I realize that you are not from my home state of Tennessee but I felt compelled to write. With all of the important issues facing Americans today including housing, gasoline, the war, and not to mention the economy and upcoming election, why would tax payer money and government time be wasted with continuing an investigation into the NFL’s New England Patriots and the league itself? It is time to move on and focus on things that are truly important to the country. I am a huge sports fan myself and appreciate getting to the bottom of an important issue such as cheating but please it is time to focus on the issues.

I was quite proud of myself. There was nothing fancy in it. I wasn’t rude, just to the point. I waited with baited breath to read the form email that I expected to receive. I didn’t expect this:

I receive a large volume of E-mails, phone calls, faxes and letters every week from concerned citizens like yourself.
Unfortunately, due to the high volume of mail, I can only respond if you’re a resident of Pennsylvania.

LeBlanc isn’t happy with Specter. Not in the least. 

Rowrrr.

Problem is, it reeks of arrogance, which is what is fueling this “war” betweens bloggers and mainstream guys. Whether they admit it or not, the mainstream good-old-boys club is, to some extent, being threatened. Thanks to blogs, they’re discovering that there are people out there who know grammar and structure and how to turn a phrase who choose to write about sports. And some of those writers are really good. And some of those writers get readers. And if they get big enough, they make money and go get yelled at on HBO. Turns out writing about sports isn’t rocket surgery. OF course we don’t have editors or fact checkers. That’s why some of the old school guys are going batshit crazy. People are writing and getting read and there’s no way for them to stop it, so they play the you’re-not-trained and the you’re-not legitimate cards from up in their ivory press box. I’ve never read a sports blog that I consider hard news. It’s pure entertainment.

Making It Rain is raising hell about this that happened last week.

And it is of the good. Love me a good fight.

Apparently Nashville Predator fans kicked it up in the last part of the season which is a good thing when it comes to getting a piece of the pie.

The Predators averaged 14,650 in paid attendance over the last 16 home games after averaging 12,640 through the first 25. Attendance has traditionally been higher after football season and similar surges were followed by setbacks.

Maintaining the higher paid attendance figures into next season is critical. The Predators need to average at least 14,000 in order to qualify for the NHL’s full revenue-sharing plan, which allows smaller markets such as Nashville to share profits made by bigger markets with bigger local television contracts.

So the hierarchy isn’t kicking up its heels and smoking cigars, but it finds the numbers reassuring after a season of tremendous turmoil headlined by an ownership change.

If you are suffering from hockey withdrawal, Paul has a Predator’s countdown clock on his blog.

137 days to go before Nashville pucks it up again.

New details coming out about how Tennessee’s Chris Lofton fought a private battle away from the cameras:

But Lofton’s greatest conquest came off the court.

He beat cancer.

The three-time All-American, in an exclusive interview with ESPN.com, revealed for the first time publicly that he played his senior season at Tennessee after undergoing surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from one of his testicles in March 2007.

And from the Sports Illustrated.

“Chris didn’t want it to be a distraction to his teammates, therefore he didn’t tell his teammates,” Pearl said. “And he certainly didn’t want an excuse if he wasn’t playing quite as well as the year before.”

The questions about Lofton’s play from fans and reporters certainly bothered the senior, Pearl said.

The team finally got to a point about halfway through the season where Pearl knew Lofton needed to take more shots and find better ways to get open. So he told Lofton he needed more to keep the team from losing and immediately saw a difference.

In a day of instant media attention, Lofton not only beat the odds in fighting cancer, but also did it privately with the help of family and friends which is amazing indeed.

Rich from Shot Across The Bow also weighs in as well as PTH from Six Meat Buffet.

Oh dear Titans. There are questions.

Vince Young: AAAAAAHHHHHHH F**k! I’m on fire! AH AAAAHH AAAAAAAHHH

Fisher: Hello Vince.

Reporter: Coach Fisher! Does Vince Young being in a state of combustion affect the strategy of this team going forward?

Fisher: We have integrated the fire into our larger off-season strategy, but whether we will acquire the means to extinguish it depends largely on cap room and the availability of fire safety equipment on the free agent market.

In fact, I have just been made aware that the Tennessee Titans have just acquired an undrafted wet nap to address the situation.

[Tosses wet nap on Young to no noticeable effect]

Reporter: Will that be enough? The smell of burning flesh is getting to be pronounced.

Fisher: The moisture from the wet nap will extinguish the fire.

Read the rest at Kissing Suzy Kolber.

H/T CeeElCee 

And ESPN people, if you’ve ever seen a Titans game, then you know that Nashville can provide all the drunk heckling fans you need. The only difference is that unlike Jets fans, we heckle other teams, not our own.

Goldnl writes a letter to David Freeman.

….is the bottom dropping out on any potential trade in which the Titans could get anything of value for Adam “Pac-Man” Jones.

It was really only a matter of time before another negative story with Pac-Man somehow involved hit the presses.   And with it, the value the Titans can get for the Pac-Man drops yet again.  At this point, we just need to cut our losses and turn the guy loose.  I am beginning to doubt he’ll ever play a down in the NFL ever again.

We should’ve traded him while the trading was good….

Nothing? Well, not anymore! There are lots of events happening in our fair city this weekend! Let’s take a look at a few of them, shall we?

Tonight! Under the lights!

GAME 5 VIEWING PARTY AT THE SOMMET CENTER
STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS—NASHVILLE PREDATORS VS. DETROIT RED WINGS

Doors open: 6:00 pm
Game starts: 6:30 pm

The Preds-Red Wings game will be shown Friday night on Nashville’s largest indoor screen — the Megatron — at the Sommet Center.

* Free admission! ($5 parking available in the south lot - just behind Sommet Center)
* Gnash and the Predators Dancers will be there.
* Concession stands will be open with specially-priced food.
* Contests and activities at intermissions.
* Inflatable games for the kids.

Also, some of Music City’s most famous Tweeters will be on hand, as well!

Tomorrow (Saturday, April 19th)

10AM till 8PM at Grimey’s New & Preloved Music

Record Store Day will be celebrated this Saturday all over the world (yep, it’s gone international) as passionate music fans and obsessed record store clerks meld minds and wield their considerable power for good, not evil (we’ll leave that to the corporate ogres). We’ve got a spectacular event planned for you and we hope that you’ll choose to visit our humble emporium at some point during the day and, if you ever buy music - physical formats like vinyl, CDs and DVDs - that you’ll choose to make a purchase on this day to show your support. If you don’t live near Grimey’s, I hope you’ll visit the closest indie record store wherever you are and do the same. Not every shop is weathering these tumultuous times well but we can all use the support to keep these community-based havens for real music alive.

There will be live music, food, and lots of opportunity for people-watching!

Earth Day - Centennial Park - 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

Local Living for Global Change - It all starts with me!
Youth Activities

Environmental exhibits and workshops on clean air, water, food and farming, cooking demonstration with local chefs, organic gardening and much more.

Live music from RAUL MALO and special guests: JYPSI, Jen Foster, Sam & Ruby and Five Star Iris

More info on Earth Day activities here.

No matter what you do, I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Steve McNair, hero of the 1999 Super Bowl for the Titans, and NFL MVP in 2003, will announce his retirement this afternoon.   The latter years of McNair’s career were not of the story-book variety, but all Titans fans remember a oft-injured warrior returning time and again and again to lead the Titans.

McNair to Wycheck…McNair to Mason…McNair running in for the touchdown….McNair willing the Titans to win games they had no business winning.

Godspeed to you, Mr. McNair.

The NFL released the schedule for the upcoming season for all 32 teams yesterday, including our own beloved Tennessee Titans. Here it is:

2008 schedule

All times Central
PRESEASON
Aug. 9 ST. LOUIS, 7 p.m., WKRN-2
Aug. 16 OAKLAND, 7 p.m., WZTV-17
Aug. 22 at Atlanta, 6:30 p.m., WKRN-2
Aug. 28 at Green Bay, 7 p.m., WKRN-2
REGULAR SEASON
Sept. 7 JACKSONVILLE, noon, WTVF-5
Sept. 14 at Cincinnati, noon, WTVF-5
Sept. 21 HOUSTON, noon, WTVF-5
Sept. 28 MINNESOTA, noon, WZTV-17
Oct. 5 at Baltimore, noon, WTVF-5
Oct. 12 BYE
Oct. 19 at Kansas City, noon, WTVF-5
Oct. 27 INDIANAPOLIS, 7:30 p.m., ESPN
Nov. 2 GREEN BAY, noon, WZTV-17
Nov. 9 at Chicago, noon, WTVF-5
Nov. 16 at Jacksonville, noon,* WTVF-5
Nov. 23 N.Y. JETS, noon,* WTVF-5
Nov. 27 at Detroit, 11:30 a.m., WTVF-5
Dec. 7 CLEVELAND, noon,* WTVF-5
Dec. 14 at Houston, noon,* WTVF-5
Dec. 21 PITTSBURGH, noon,* WTVF-5
Dec. 28 at Indianapolis, noon,* WTVF-5

The good news is we’ll be featured on national TV twice, including the return of Monday Night Football to Music City.

The less than positive news–we’re only on the Monday or Sunday night game ONCE so far. (There is a chance with flex scheduling that we could be on the Sunday night games down the stretch). Just to make my point: Cleveland, who last time I looked choked and didn’t get in the playoffs last year gets THREE such games.

No, I don’t see any conspiracies here….not at all. (That last part was sarcasm)

Oh well. Go Titans!

For those of you who don’t know, sports broadcaster Dick Vitale was voted into the college basketball hall of fame earlier this year as a broadcaster.

FOX Sports Columnist Mark Kriegel takes exception to this in his latest column:

Dick Vitale wasn’t a player. His coaching career — culminating with a 34-60 record for the Detroit Pistons — was a failure. And while the Hall recognizes media members with its Curt Gowdy Award (a distinction Vitale has already won), one cannot be enshrined as a mere broadcaster. So, again, how the hell did he get in?

Is he insightful? Thoughtful? Provocative? Courageous?

No, no, no and no. He’s loud. He’s a salesman. In fact, the very same qualities that served him so well on television have made him the perfect shill for Hooters. Also, he’s relentless. As people in the basketball business know too well, Vitale has been lobbying for entry into the Hall for years. The movement, such as it was, was spearheaded by influential letter writers campaigning on his behalf, most of them famous coaches whose butts he’s kissed for years. Foremost among them was Bobby Knight, the media-basher now cashing ESPN’s checks. Vitale has been on air since 1979; the next tough word he has for Bobby Knight will be his first.

I have to say I agree with a lot of what he says. Putting aside my personal feelings about Vitale, I will agree that he’s done nothing that indicates he should be in the hall of fame. But it just proves that this, like a lot of things in life, is about who you know and how you play the game rather than any merit or value you may add.

Nobody Asked sings the praises of Nashville’s sports-talk community and in particular the flag-ship station of the Commodores 104.5 the Zone.

There are three stations that I surf through, but most of my time is spent on my favorite, 104.5 The Zone. Their on-air personalities are the best — well informed, covering a wide range of sporting activities and events, articulate and personable — and they have the strongest signal of any, always available wherever my adventures take me.

What’s that, you say? You think the words sports and articulate do not belong in the same paragraph? Well, keen observers, you may be right in general, but not with the specificity wherein I dwell. To be sure, there are some jocks that have pursued post-playing careers in broadcasting, who demonstrate with every parting of their lips and movement of their tongues that the selection committee for Rhodes Scholars has not erred in omitting them from those prestigious awards. Some of the language is so colorful that I note it for relaying on to you, both of my readers.

While 104.5 the Zone does have some good guest (Doug Matthews), I’ve got to say that my personal preference in the afternoons is the Tom Abraham show. I tend to get frustrated by 104.5 the Zone a lot. But all of that is well covered at my blog and is probably part of my Big Orange-tinted glasses through which I see the world.

Former Vanderbilt and current Denver Bronocs quarterback Jay Cutler is not happy with teammate Brandon Marshall.

According to an Associated Press story, Cutler is fed up with the drama surrounding Marshall, who cut his arm at a Florida resort last month when he fell into a television set, cutting an artery, a vein, a nerve, two tendons and three muscles in his right arm.

Apprently, Marshall has had some other off-the-field incidents that have kept him from being on the field and Cutler is frustrated. Cutler said that incidents like this can’t and shouldn’t happen.

Former Broncos QB John Elway said he was “surprised” to hear Culter’s remarks.

He went on to say, “If that’s what Jay feels like he needs to comment on, he needs to do that. Personally, I would’ve done it to him. Even though I tried to settle things in the press, looking back over the years, it hasn’t been the right way to do it.”

Looking at this, I can see two sides. I can see what Elway is saying about handling these frustrations internally and not airing them to the media and world. But then again, thinking about the situation the Titans faced with Adam Jones, I wonder how our local community might have reacted if a Titans player publically expressed the frustration you must know they all feel toward Jones.

Comments?

Break out the tiaras, high heels, and red lipstick. This Saturday, April 12th, Cross (dressing) the Bridge Ride will commence at 12:00 noon.

The ride is to celebrate Nashville’s bicycle lane and greenway system, as well as bring attention to cycling in the city and the use of bicycles as viable forms of transportation, as well as bring attention to more opportunities for road and mountain biking.

That sounds just wonderful, but when those panty hose wedge up… well… NO.  I’ll be at the Youth Incorporated Ranch in LaVergne on a clean-up day with Girl Scouts, followed by sitting in my front lawn watching the Blue Angels scream overhead for the Smyrna Air Show.

The winner of the Music City Bloggers Bracketology Contest 2008 is……

:::drum roll:::

the MStateDawgs owned by Eric L.

Congratulations Eric.  You’ve earned bragging rights for the next year as champion.

Did you know that the tiger is the most dangerous animal in the wild? I’m deducing from that fact that a tiger could whip a wildcat, in the wild, if such a match-up were to occur.

Did you know that no men’s team from the state of Tennessee has ever won a National Championship? Did you know that only four schools have fielded both a women’s championship team and a men’s championship team (only once in the same year)?

Did you know that in the 26 years of NCAA women’s championships, that only 13 different schools have won the championship (including the two playing tonight)?

Tonight’s men’s game will be the 70th NCAA men’s championship game. Kansas is a previous winner. Memphis State has never won (they lost to UCLA in the finals back in the 70s). If Kansas wins, there will still be 35 different schools who have won a men’s championship (Memphis will be the 36th if they win).

Tonight’s’ trivia question: Can you name the 35 men’s’ teams who have won NCAA championships and the 13 women’s’ teams? I got 26 of the men’s teams and 7 of the women’s. If you cheat and look it up, let that be on your conscience. Put your HONEST answers in the comments section. I’ll treat the winner* to a meal at the Phunky Griddle on the weekend of your convenience.

I’m hoping that after tonight there will be 36 different teams who have won a men’s championship, which would mean that the state of Tennessee would finally have a men’s winner. I imagine that most folks around here are going to be hoping for a Tennessee sweep tonight and tomorrow night. I’m pretty sure I know one person who WON’T be wearing orange tomorrow night.

My predictions: Tiger, tiger, burning bright tonight, and tomorrow night’s color will not be orange.

*The person with the most correct answers.  2nd place gets you two meals with me..(I never get sick of that joke…)

I’ll admit that I’m new to the University of Memphis bandwagon (is that redundant?), but I’m hoping they win this whole thing. That being said, each time I’ve heard Memphis Coach John Calipari in an interview I have gotten the impression that he is trying to prove something. Maybe he has been working the “underdog” or “underappreciated” shtick so as to motivate his team, but I really prefer for a coach to just save the emotive and emotional stuff for the locker room.

Well, Coach Calipari just pulled a boner in the post-semi-final game press conference. At least I saw it that way, but I’m also not the type that swoons at a Barack Obama campaign rally. Calipari made a point (I don’t think it was in response to a question) to say at the end of the press conference (at least I think it was the end) that Memphis needed to win the championship because there is poverty and hardship in Memphis . . . kids in Memphis need a reason to have hope. He then said something along the lines of, “I’m not saying anything against where these other schools are located, but this is important for our city.”

What’s up with that? While looking for some sort of transcript of the press conference in question, I came across this story about Calipari’s being a stemwinding stalwart. Maybe I just need to avoid watching coach interviews until this season has passed.

I admit I thought I heard the fat lady singing for the Preds over the last few weeks. Play your way into the playoffs or wait for another team to play themselves out, I know which way I prefer. But either way, the Preds have captured the 8th seed in the Western Conference Playoffs and have also wisely held back from jumping up into the 7th seed.

Did you go to the last regular season home game against the St. Louis Blues thursday night? If you did, you got to experience something wonderful and rare for the last 4 minutes of the game. Take a minute to browse through the video clips on the Predators’ website too, they’re pretty cool.

The Preds will play the Red Wings in the first round and the first chance we will get to see them at home will be in games 3 and 4. The NHL has not released the playoff schedules yet, but the soonest game 1 can be will be Wednesday April 9.

If you haven’t experienced Predators playoff hockey before now, you need to. Tickets are on sale now.

And oh yes, one more thing…. Red Wings Suck!

Enclave Mike reports on the President’s “remarkable,” negative reception at opening day in DC. Mike writes:

Watching baseball’s stateside opening game between Washington and Atlanta on ESPN, and I can’t remember hearing as many boos of a president throwing out the first pitch as I heard tonight directed at George W. Bush. I honestly heard more booing than cheers during the ovation. It was remarkable.

I dunno, Mike . . . the guy sitting next to the cameraman certainly was booing, but I hear a lot of support for Dubya in this video of the event.

In the midst of March Madness and high-drama puckery, the baseball fan knows that the real season begins tomorrow (yeah, they’ve played some games in Japan and there is one tonight) during daylight hours in the country where the game evolved from its inferior English cousin (rounders).

In light of the new season, MCB has requested our West Tennessee sports correspondent - The Squirrel Queen - to make her predictions re the oncoming season. I’m sticking my opinionated nose in on the prediction game as well.

SQ Predictions and notes:

AL East - Boston by a mile. Yanks will struggle on the mound.
AL Central - Cleveland edges Detroit thanks to a more settled pen. Both teams will score a ton. Tiger pitchers are always getting injured.
AL West - Angels of whatever city they’ve added to their ridiculously long name. Mariners have the pitching, theoretically, but I don’t know if they’ll score enough.
AL Wildcard - Tigers

NL East - Three team race. Mets, Braves, Phillies. I think Santana tips it in favor of the Mets, but this one will be tight.
NL Central - I still think the Brewers may sneak in past the Cubs. BrewCrew has a ton of pitching and will score lots of runs. Need to be more consistent on the road. Who knows how long Kerry Woods’ arm will stay attached to his body. Soriano will have a better year, but I just don’t know

NL West - Another toss-up (she’s picking the Dodgers). Maybe Joe Torre is the difference here if the young Dodgers respond to him. Remember, Jeter and those guys were youngsters when he started in NY. Don’t know if the Rockies will get the same effort on the mound this season. Padres and D-Backs are still in the mix.
NL Wildcard - Phillies

World Series - Indians over Dodgers

JH predictions:

As much as it pains me, a life-long Yankee’s fan, to agree, I don’t think the Yanks make the play-offs this year either. Too many pitching question marks.

AL East: God, I hate saying this, but the Red Sox are the team to beat. Great starting pitching and bullpen, along with young superstars in the making: CF Ellsbury and 2B Pedroia

AL Central: Detroit Tigers. They picked up one of the best hitters in baseball from the Marlins (Miquel Cabrera) to supplement an already strong batting lineup. Great starting pitching and a more-than-decent bullpen wins the day.

AL West: Angels. Mariners do have better pitching, but Tori Hunter added to this ball-team, along with Guerrero and a future breakout star Brandon Wood AND one of the better hitting young second sackers in the game (Howie Kendrick) wins the day.

AL Wild Card: Indians. C.C. Sabathia rides off with the Cy Young award.

NL East: Mets, Mets, Mets. Adding Johan Santana to this staff, along with the best left-side of the infield in modern society (Wright and Reyes) bring the title to Queens.

NL Central: I agree with SQ. Brewers are loaded. Watch for a break-0ut year from Richie Weeks (2B) and great follow-up seasons from Fielder, Braun and Hart.

NL West: Rockies. Tulowitzki is for real and Holliday is going to just keep getting better. Now that they keep the baseballs, pre-game, in a humidor, the balls don’t fly out of the park with nearly the same frequency as in the old days (much to the delight of the improving Rockies pitching staff).

Wild Card: Atlanta Braves. The return of Glavine and Mike Hampton to the rotation complements Tim Hudson well. Look for shortstop Yunel Escobar to have a big season.

World Series: Tigers over Brewers (it’s a midwestern joint this year)

Best player not many people have heard about: Hanley Ramirez of the Florida Marlins. Put him in NY or LA or Chicago and they’d be writing plays, books and poetry about this guy.

Team with a load of future superstars that just doesn’t have enough pitching: Tampa Bay. B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford already are well-known. Watch for mid-season call-up Evan Longoria (not the Desperate Housewife!)

Best 1-2 punch starting pitchers: Arizona with Webb and Haren (not enough runs scored behind them to win..last season was statistically flukish).

Player most likely to be involved in serious off-field incident: Elijah Dukes (Washington Nationals)

*No, this is NOT a story about steroids!

In the country of the Colossi, Kansas, North Carolina, UCLA and Memphis State, little Davidson College (that’s right, COLLEGE), home of 1,700 bright students, has won its way tonight into the Elite 8 of the NCAA men’s tourney. Seeded 10th (roughly expected to be the 40-43rd best team in the tournament), the Davidson Wildcats trapped the Badgers of Wisconsin who probably thought their 3 seed was good for another round or two.

Davidson is lead by the son of former NBA sharp-shooter Dell Curry, young Stephen Curry, who might just be the best player in this tournament. Even ‘King’ James LeBron showed up tonight to see Curry in person, worthy praise from the man who just might be the best basketball player in the world. Curry only outscored the entire Wisconsin team in the second half of the game.

Every few years a team like Davidson pushes its way into the world of athletic factories sponsored by sneaker makers. The Wildcats will probably get knocked off by Kansas on Sunday, but it’s nice to see actual student-athletes excel on such a level. Most of us root for the underdog if we don’t have a rooting interest in a particular team. I’m guessing that Curry and company don’t consider themselves underdogs…wouldn’t it be something if they were right?

Another cool thing at play here is that the Board of Directors of Davidson colleges paid for any Davidson student who wished to make the trip to see the game, including lodging and food. Even though classes were not called off, and it’s a LONG way from the Carolinas to Detroit, several hundred students took up the B O D on the offer and cheered their team on tonight.

In other news, the Tigers of Memphis University are going to be playing Texas on Sunday, unless they think the game is over with 10 minutes left to go and leave the arena. Coach Izzo of the losing Michigan State Wolverines is probably gonna go schizo after watching this one on the tape if he doesn’t destroy the tape first.

My apologies to those of you who couldn’t possibly care less about basketball, but Laura over at Fixin’ Supper takes a break from dinner to talk about basketball grudges. She and I share some grudges and we both struggled during last night’s Tennessee versus Louisville game. For her, UT is both a rival of Memphis and Vanderbilt (her two teams), so the Vols top her list. Check out the rest of her list here.

For me, it’s a little more complicated. I’ve held a grudge against Louisville since I was a small child, when I’m not even sure Tennessee had a basketball team (I keed, I keed). UT didn’t even get on my grudge-dar until I discovered while in college at Memphis that my school also had a football team (that–with one notable and oft-referenced exception–routinely got whipped by the Vols). And after the Metro conference dissolved, we had a new basketball rival, Cincinnati. And Bob Huggins. Read a couple of pages here to get a little of the story. I never threw anything at him, but I most certainly did shout “Bundy” at him (25 pounds ago, he resembled the guy who played Al Bundy on “Married…With Children”).

So, with that little history lesson, I present my top basketball grudges: Read the rest of this entry »

Is it just me, or did the CBS announcers in the WKU v. UCLA game start shoveling dirt onto WKU a little prematurely . . . when they were only 6 points down with 1:25 to go in the game?

On that note, the CBS announcers in the UT v. UL game were talking up the Vols beyond even the point at which my boys had lost all hope.

Go Tigers.

The Commodores and the Blue Raiders will renew their rivalry on the football field according to reports this morning on 104.5, The Zone. 

The contract for the series runs for four years and will start with Vanderbilt visiting Murfreesboro.  Each team will host two games in the series. 

Now before you surf over to TicketMaster to get your tickets, I should add that the series won’t start until 2015.  Which gives both sides plenty of time to trash-talk leading up to the first game. 

Truly, I’m speechless.

ht: Deadspin