Hump Day Headlines

In this week's Hump Day Headlines, we discuss the stumbling Celtics, Jeff Jagodzinski, the A's actually signing free agents, and taking a page out of Mike Tyson's book...

• After a record setting 27-2 start, which was actually ahead of the pace of the '95-'96 Bulls, the Boston Celtics are coming back to earth.  Well, to be fair, they're likely somewhere between the all-world start they had and their recent struggles.  Boston has lost 5 of 7, including losses at Golden State, at New York, and last night in Charlotte.  This is the same team that won 19 straight games, and now they've lost to the Knicks and Bobcats.  "We told our team before the season it will be 82 game 7s,"  Celtics coach Doc Rivers said after last night's puzzling loss to the 13-22 Bobcats.  "On the nights we're not ready mentally for that, we're going to have to get lucky and play over our head to win."  The Celtics are obviously the team to beat in the NBA, regardless of the fact that they now have more losses than the Lakers and Cavaliers, since they are defending their NBA championship of last season.  And, thankfully, unless they go 43-3 the rest of the way, the Bulls record will stay in tact.
• Boston College head football coach Jeff Jagodzinski met with the New York Jets yesterday to discuss their head coaching vacancy, despite the fact that he would likely be fired for accepting the interview.  ESPN.com is reporting that Jagodzinski will not be retained by B.C. for interviewing with the Jets, and Yahoo! Sports says Athletic Director Gene DeFilippo will meet with Jagodzinski today to discuss his situation.  Jeff Jagodzinski must know one of two things:  either A) he knows he's going to be hired by the Jets, or B) he has another college or NFL job locked up as a back up plan if he is not hired by New York.  Otherwise, he is willingly being fired from his job.  But more importantly, and check out the podcast for more on this, the fact that Boston College is doing this to him makes them an utter disgrace of a place to work.  It is understood in this industry and in many others that coaches will bounce around from job to job to advance their careers.  If B.C. can't understand that, I pity the fool that agrees to be their next football coach.
• Quietly, the Oakland A's are actually making strides to be a legitimate force in the AL West next season.  First they added Matt Holliday by making a deal with the Rockies, and now they're close to signing Jason Giambi.  That's a lot of pop to add to the middle of your lineup, even if the Giambino is no longer the player he once was.  Still though, while he only hit .247 last year, he hit 32 home runs and drove in 96 runs.  He also got on base at a .373 clip.  Granted, the 2002 MVP would not be returning, but a good power bat would be.  As for Holliday, people always want to question how good he really is since he's played his entire career in Colorado.  Now that he'll be playing in the cavern in Oakland we'll see how good he truly is.  I believe he will be very good, even though his career batting average at Coors Field was .357, a whopping seventy-seven points higher than his career average of .280 on the road.
• Since many people don't follow hockey, here's something even the non-hockey fan would find disturbing, and probably amusing at the same time.  First, check out the headline of this Yahoo! Sports article and tell me you don't find the childish innuendo amusing: "Ruutu bites Peters in Sabres 4-2 win over Senators".  Now that you've had a chance to snicker, or chuckle, or decide I'm pathetic for finding this funny, here's what happened.  Senators winger Jarkko Ruutu bit the thumb of Sabres winger Andrew Peters in a fight last night between the two teams.  Peters' thumb was still in his glove at the time.  "Just the fact that that happened it's unfortunate," Peters said after the game.  "It's not good for the game of hockey."  Clearly, it's not.  And here's the best part, Ruutu was not penalized, and Peters was.  Since the fight was instigated by Peters, he served time in the penalty box.  Maybe Ruutu was inspired by this little ditty from our old pal Mike Tyson:

• This video is still unbelievable.  But the incident last night?  Just another black eye for the sport of hockey.