The Best of 4 Quarters Radio: Volume 1

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It's hard to condense an entire year of great sports talk into one half-hour program, but the 4QR staff has managed the feat.

The highlights include:
--Scott and Bobby discussing Ines Sainz, and Clinton Portis's comments regarding Ines Sainz and "53 men's packages."
--Scott going solo on an absolutely epic rant about the idiots who choose to run onto baseball diamonds during games.
--A couple of memorable Whodaman segments, with Logan happy for his fantasy team, Scott happy for a NBA scrub scoring a hot fiancee, and celebrating a highly buff bird.
--Excerpts from interviews with MTSU football coach Rick Stockstill and Sporting News college basketball writer Mike DeCourcy.
--Brief shots on a potential name for Arian Foster's fan club, a new martial art that wins UFC matches for those who DON'T practice it, and what breed of dog comes to Scott's mind when he looks at Cortland Finnegan.
--And of course, it wouldn't be 4Q without ending on some Epic Fails. Scott takes time to make fun of a guy who thought the World Cup was underdressed and an announcer who thought a quarterback was "DEFENSELESS!!!!!!!!!"

Enjoy it all, and the crew will try to do even better next year.

Cleveland Seether: Cavs Get the "Business" End

First thing's first: LeBron James made himself bigger than the league with his University of Phoenix infomercial. Michael Jordan dealt in press conferences, and when he really wanted to get some tongues wagging, a fax. Cloaking sports history's most shameless self-promotion to date in the altruistic robes of charity is simply polishing a billboard-size turd of narcissism.

That said, Dan Gilbert needs to get over himself. The only differences between Miami poaching LeBron and Cleveland trying everything possible to poach Chris Bosh are that Bosh was blatantly obvious about his desire to get the hell out of Canada and that the Raptors were bound to get something for their pain. (Surely, Anderson Varejao's hot Brazilian blood would have greatly enjoyed Toronto in the winter.) Congrats, Danny, you've now scared the ever-loving shit out of every potential free agent/draft pick that may ever end up there, as nobody wants to feel like they're running for the door before the owner starts shooting.

All this bitching and moaning from Gilbert makes him look every bit the enabler, since ever since the day he bought the franchise, he's the one who's been green-lighting every move that's given LeBron this big a hammer in the first place. No one's said no to this guy since he was in about seventh grade, and you're surprised that he's not terribly concerned about your bottom line and your team's well-being? You dug this grave, don't begrudge someone else for throwing dirt on you.

Cleveland fans have fallen into the same trap that every small/medium market fanbase has since the advent of "big/small market" distinctions: they convince themselves that their athletes are theirs, they own their athletes, and they demand unconditional devotion from their athletes, even when those same fans reserve every right to boo and slam an athlete when his effort flags. When he leaves, you'd swear he'd bombed the Federal Building on the way out of town.

It's time for the city of Cleveland to get over themselves, as well. It's business. Always has been, always will be. Take it personal and decry the evil athlete all you want, just remember that no one's really listening.

What I'm more interested in, far more than how this new hydra in Miami will keep its three monstrous heads from eating each other, is what the Cavaliers decide to do from here. Frankly, the fans need to be glad that Chris Grant is in charge of the process instead of Danny Ferry, and let's examine why.

June 27, 2005: Danny Ferry hired as GM
August 2, 2005: Signed Larry Hughes to 5-year deal for more than $60M
--Hughes was coming off a 22-PPG season in Washington, and it was expected he'd be LeBron's caddy. In two-and-a-half seasons, however, he averaged 14.3, and his career's never really recovered.
December 5, 2007: Matched 3-year, $17M offer sheet for Anderson Varejao, including player option for 2009-10
--File this away for later.
February 21, 2008: Acquired Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak, Joe Smith, and Delonte West in three-team trade
--This deal waved the white flag on the Hughes and Drew Gooden era, bringing in a 33-year-old offensive albatross, a one-dimensional shooter, a guy who Seattle (20-62 that season, mind you) mysteriously gave up on after only half a season, and a former number-one overall pick who even then was standing on highway overpasses with a sign saying, "Will warm bench for food."
August 13, 2008: Acquired Mo Williams in three-team trade
--The Cavs only gave up Joe Smith and Damon Jones, so that part of the price was right, especially for a point guard who'd averaged 17 points and six assists for Milwaukee the prior two seasons. Unfortunately, Mo was only one year into a six-year, $51.5M contract.
June 25, 2009: Acquired Shaquille O'Neal in trade with Phoenix
--So, you've got a young, athletic, up-tempo team that you think may be on the threshold of a title, but you've got an aging, undersized albatross of a center. What to do? Oooh, how about trading him for an outrageously oversized albatross of a center who's two-and-a-half years older and has just gotten done weighing down the offense of another athletic, up-tempo team? Fair for all sides, sure. It simply reeked of two teams making a move for the sake of saying they were making a move.
July 9, 2009: Re-signed Anderson Varejao to six-year, $50M contract
--Eight points, seven rebounds, and 61 percent from the foul line apparently earned you $8.5M per year in Cleveland. Considering the Cavs were adamant about turning down a host of trade offers for J.J. Hickson (who had extremely similar numbers per 36 minutes), wouldn't it have made sense to remove the main obstacle from his path to the floor? The only way this deal would have made sense would be if every man, woman, and child in the greater Cleveland area bought Sideshow Varejao wigs to pay for it.
July 23, 2009: Christian Eyenga signs three-year contract with DKV Joventut of the Spanish League
--Who? Oh, yeah, their 2009 first-round draft pick. Sure, you had the last pick of the first round, number 30 overall. But if you're drafting a guy with absolutely no intention of seeing him come to camp that season, why not make a trade? Guys like DeJuan Blair, Jonas Jerebko, and Sam Young turned out to be fine picks in the second. San Antonio's won multiple titles not just because of the lottery luck that brought them David Robinson and Tim Duncan, but because they also don't punt the late picks. Blair slid to them at 37, Manu Ginobili was the next-to-last pick in 1999, and Tony Parker was the last pick of the first round in 2001. Cleveland hasn't even taken the draft seriously these last two seasons, and at least this year, they were smart enough just to not show up.

Cleveland fans, do you want a sign of optimism? Ferry's gone.

Unfortunately, the stink of some of these deals will linger on for a while.

Your team's got about $9M in cap room, but unfortunately, all the guys worth that kind of scratch are spoken for already. Asking you to get excited about the prospect of a J.J. Redick (a possible Wally 2.0), a Josh Howard (who's completely misunderstood all the talk these days about "going green"), or a Brad Miller (one of my Purdue boys, but he's kind of long in the tooth these days hisownself) is actually sort of insulting.

Still, LeBron has to react to his surroundings, and honestly, his surroundings aren't all that attractive. You wanna blame somebody? Blame the deals that came before and handcuffed your team's payroll. If this team looked good enough to stay with, maybe he might have done so.

These were LeBron's options: 1) playing with two Olympians and going to one of America's primo women-in-thongs destinations whenever he saw fit; and 2) playing with a guy in a fright wig and another who (allegedly) banged his mom in one of America's primo women-in-parkas destinations.

Tell me you'd make a different decision, and I'll call you a liar.

This isn't The Shot...



or The Drive...



or The Fumble...



...where the sports gods tempted you with thoughts of glory and then cruelly dashed your dreams. This was a business decision. A poorly played business decision that wipes excrement all over the decision-maker's "brand," but a business decision nonetheless.

4 Quarters Radio May 17: 2nd Half

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In the third quarter, Scott gets fired up like we've never seen him on goobers who charge the field at baseball games and equally large goobers who plead for mercy on them. He relates well to Junior for needing a nap and ponders why anyone would need binoculars to steal signs in baseball. In the 4th, Scott defends Lawrence Taylor's Hall of Fame bust and notes that Cincinnati's new Jones boys might not be bonehead pickups after all. We find out which sports city is most miserable, and a 22-year-old getting in touch with his inner high school athlete is the week's Epic Fail. Excised music: "Windsurfing Nation" by Broken Social Scene featuring K-Os & Feist and "Compliments" by Band of Horses.

Memo to Philly Fans: Don't Trespass, Dumbass

Three weeks ago, Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia hosted a sick, drunk freak yarking his nachos all over a teenage girl. The only thing saving him from a righteous beating at the hands of her policeman father was the dad keeping his head and not getting his daughters left alone at the ballpark.

Last Monday, we had a 17-year-old kid decide that running laps around left field would be a lot of fun. The picture shown here is a beautiful piece of photography, as it captures the exact moment that the kid switches from "WHEEE! THIS IS FUN!" to "Yannow, I may have not thought this through very well."

It also captures the last moment before he got electrified metal prongs shot into his ass.

The officer's action has touched off a bit of debate over unusual and excessive force, but more on that momentarily.

Finally, on Tuesday, another yobbo hopped the wall and simply took a leisurely stroll along the warning track...with a small quantity of weed on his person, to boot. Why? To prove a point, apparently.

34-year-old Thomas Betz had this to say after his arrest: "I just wanted to go out there and basically prove that, at least in my case, you don't need to Tase anybody or do anything like that to subdue a fan who would be in the position I was in."

Did ballpark security HAVE to Tase Steve Consalvi, the teenager from Monday night? Maybe not. Does his father have grounds to piss and moan about Steve getting shot with said stungun?

Absolutely not.

Let's be honest here. Trespassing is trespassing, wherever it may occur. I have a couple of friends who, as teenagers, decided to climb the roof of a local school for giggles one night. The police showed up and...did what?

Politely ask them to get down? Nope.

Chased them in circles for 30 seconds? Uh-uh.

These boys were ordered off the roof by policemen WITH GUNS DRAWN. This was not "Get down, or I'll send an electrical current through you that will cause mild discomfort and black you out for a few seconds," this was "GET THE FUCK OFF THE ROOF, OR I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU!"

Simple, direct, to the point.

Steve Consalvi got off light. If you are somewhere where you are not supposed to be at a time when you're not supposed to be there, you run the risk of Johnny Law showing up and setting you straight, not just with Tasers, but with guns. They do this not because it gives them pleasure (although with some cops, I'm sure it does), but because it's impossible to gauge intent from a distance.

It's reasonable to assume that Consalvi didn't have any harmful intent in running circles around the outfield...but how did anyone know at that point?

Did they know he wasn't drunk or stoned? No.

Did they know he didn't have anything dangerous in his pockets or strapped to his chest? No.

Is it sad that we've reached this level of paranoia? Yes. What's surprising is that naive Pollyannas like AP columnist Tim Dahlberg have to ask if we have.

When it comes to sports, the same obstinate climate that spawns angry bloggers, message-board writers, and talk-radio callers could spawn more people like...well, like this guy.

Remember him? That's Gunter Parche.

April 30, 1993? Knife in Monica Seles's back? Ring a bell?

When we're evacuating Times Square because someone left some gas cans in the back seat of an old beater, yeah, we're paranoid. When we're being subjected to everything to the left of a body cavity search to get on an airplane, yeah, we're paranoid. The only question is, what kind of oblivious moron hasn't gotten the memo?

One guy who got the memo a long time ago about goofs on the field was the esteemed home run king, Henry Aaron. The two guys who came to pat him on the back as he rounded second base made Hank nervous, and after what he'd dealt with on the journey to 715, who could blame him?

The two college students also alarmed Aaron's bodyguard, who was pondering whether popping the two would be worth the risk of hitting Hank.

It's on page 222 of a fine book on #715, if you'd like to check it out. Go ahead. I'll wait.

...

Back? Good. On the very next page, the author mentions that Hank's mom didn't come barreling into Hank at home plate merely out of joy for his achievement. She was ready to take a bullet after hearing Chief Noc-A-Homa firing his cannon near his outfield tepee. You think fans on the field didn't scare the shit out of her?

Simply put, fans on the field are not part of the game, nor should we give them the leeway that would suggest that they are. If you come onto the field, being tased should be the least of your worries. The only reason I wouldn't advocate having someone kneecapped is because there are about 50,000 other people that a shot could hit in a crowded ballpark.

This may sound like I have no regard for human life, which is a long way from the truth. I have tremendous regard for human life, but not nearly as much for stupid human life.

Maybe Steve Consalvi's a good student and a good kid, but for that moment, he was stupid, and consequences should have been expected. Likewise for the guy with the weed stuffed in his ass-ugly shorts. Either way, they're screwing up games for a team that gets enough attention for being two-time defending National League champions.

This kind of attention, though, the Phillies don't need. Nor do they want it. If a little force keeps the idiots in the seats where they belong, it's well worth any pain or inconvenience to one schmuck who was stupid enough to put his head in the lion's mouth.