All Favre, All the Time

I know I'm kind of infringing on Passive Voice's beat here, but I read something in Peter King's little column about Favre that kind of made me wonder...

At one point, I text-messaged Favre, telling him what I thought -- the team would rather pay him his 2008 salary and not have him play rather than cut him loose.

This text message came back from Favre's phone: "tell ted to release me."

This kind of begs the question, what kind of relationship does Favre really have with PK that the former feels comfortable basically using the latter as a kind of intermediary between himself and his own boss? Is it just me or is this kind of inappropriate?

Oh and please feel free to insert your own Peter King-Brett Favre homo-joke in the comments.

Fuckin' ESPN...

In the midst of dealing with a hard-on the size of a house at the possibility of Manny Ramirez coming to Miami to play for the Marlins, I noticed something fishy about The World Wide Leader's reporting on the story. Early in the afternoon, the only place this rumor/story(?) was being reported was at Baseball Prospectus and, later, Sports Illustrated. Now I know we're generally pretty hard on SI in general and Jon Heyman in particular, (and by "we" I basically mean Passive Voice) but to their credit SI/Heyman had the professionalism and decency to mention BP's breaking of the story.

Jon Heyman, you are frequently a dumbass and/or unfunny, but today you're a righteous dude.

You do see where this is going, don't you?

ESPN reported the story on their website (or at least "updated" it, whatever that means) at 8:47 PM. They cited "sources" that told "Buster Olney." No mention of SI. No mention of BP. Nothing.

On behalf of BP, and I think, most of the blogosphere-- Fuck you, ESPN, you unprofessional bunch of cunts.

Late Great Bill Walsh

Bill Walsh is still dead. Let the record show that I have thought for some time that he was the most overrated coach in the history of overrated coaches. His "innovative" West Coast offense? Yeah, the '72 Dolphins that everyone loves to hate now was running that offense under Don Shula and Howard Schnellenberger.

In any case, now that Sports Illustrated has opened its digital archive, we can go back and see exactly what was written ten years ago. Remember back when people were wondering if the Colts should take Peyton Manning or Ryan Leaf with the first overall pick in 1998? Peter King asked Bill Walsh who he would take and Bill Walsh's answer was "NEITHER!"

"I don't see Favre or Elway," Walsh says. "I see those guys on the next level. But Manning seems to be more pro-ready than Leaf."

The oft-quirky Walsh was the only one of the six experts who said he wouldn't take Manning with the first choice. "I'd pick another top player," he says, "and then I'd take [Michigan quarterback] Brian Griese in the second round. I think he could have the tools to be special."

I hate to kick a guy when he's dead, but considering the bright ol' halo glowing around Walsh's head, I think it's always good to put these things in perspective. Hang on let me go to all caps here:

GENIUS BILL WALSH WOULD HAVE PICKED BRIAN GRIESE OVER PEYTON MANNING.

The point isn't just that Bill Walsh wasn't the genius that people thought he was. The point is, and this is particularly important to remember this weekend, that nobody really knows what's what until a long time after the draft is done.

Now I feel like I gotta pull my weight...

Quick-- name three or four players the Yankees are really glad didn't retire before spring training in 2007. Did you name Johnny Damon? Congratulations! You are:

a) Retarded and/or
b) Jon Heyman

When Johnny Damon walked out of spring training early last year, he thought he was walking away from the game, SI.com has learned. The Yankees explained Damon's absence early last spring as "personal reasons,'' and there was a lot of wrong speculation about something or other happening with Damon's family that would necessitate the time off.

The reality is, according to Yankees clubhouse sources, Damon just wasn't sure if he wanted to keep playing and was actually seriously considering walking away from the final three years of his $52-million, four-year contract. Nobody does that, but Damon almost did.

"I was just exhausted .... Burnt out,'' Damon told SI.com Tuesday. "[Retirement] definitely crossed my mind.''

After a few days, Damon decided to return. "I knew these guys needed me,'' Damon said with a smile. How true that was.

Yeah, because that's not at all self-serving. I'm guessing the Yankees would rather have that money come off the books. As the good folks over at AtHomePlate point out, Johnny Damon, has pretty much zero value when he's not playing centerfield, where he played all of 48 games last year and had an OPS+ of 97. But hey Heyman, Johnny just knew these guys needed him. Certainly, more than that asshole, Rodriguez. Man, what a dickhead he is.