Maurice Clarett

Maurice Clarett is making news again as he often has been since he led the Ohio State Buckeyes a national title in 2002. This time he is being cut by the Broncos.

Let's review his headlines. After being a star running back for OSU in 2002, headlines turned negative. In trouble with the law, Clarett was suspended from playing football in 2003 at OSU. Naturally, he tried to enter the NFL draft. However, they require players to be at least 3 years out of high school to be eligible for the draft. Since Clarett was not, he sued the NFL in federal court--and lost. While sitting out another year of football, he made accusations against his coach at OSU. NCAA investigations found no evidence to support the accusations.

Not expected to be drafted by anyone in 2004, the Denver Broncos spent a third round pick on Clarett (finally eligible). In this preseason, Clarett injured his groin and missed a number of practices. Consequently, Denver is expected to cut him tomorrow when they reduce their squad to 65 players. Thus far, Clarett's career shows zero carries for zero yards. Coincidentally, I have the same NFL stats.

Will Clarett become an NFL superstar? Or will he become a Trivial Pursuit answer? Remember Casey Martin, who won the right to ride a cart in PGA tournaments. Casey who? Exactly.

A Classic Pitchers' Duel

Wow. Unbelievable. Amazing. These are the types of words that must be used to describe last night's baseball game between Minnesota and Chicago. I suppose AP's recap covers the same details I do.

A scoreless game through 7.5 innings, Jacque Jones had the Twins only hit of the game leading off the bottom of the eighth, a 423-foot homerun. Joe Nathan came in to close the game for Johan Santana and save the 1-0 win. For as good as the pitchers' stats are, the defense must be given credit for a number of game saving plays. Shannon Stewart, Lew Ford, and Jermaine Dye prevented runs by making catches as they crashed into the outfield wall.

Minnesota had just 25 at bats but 4 baserunners--1 hit, 2 walks, 1 on by error in 8 innings of batting--1 of which was erased in a double play. Chicago had 30 at bats and 5 baserunners--3 hits, 2 walks. That's a total of 59 batters faced; the minimum is 52 when the home team wins (51 outs plus one runner safely scoring).