When Horseplaying Goes Wrong

After walk-off hits and homeruns, the team has a right to celebrate. I mean it is the thrill of victory and you want to express yourself.

Well on Sunday when the Florida Marlins defeated the Atlanta Braves this happened again.

During a TV interview after the game, playing too much went terribly wrong.

Chris Coghlan, the 2009 NL rookie of the year, was attempting to give teammate Wes Helms a face-pie after the game-winning hit.

It wasn't the pie that was the problem; it was the after effects that the horseplay caused. Coghlan tore the meniscus in his left knee.

What seems like a tradition has ended in injury and one must wonder if this tradition should be done away with. When is "playing too much" too much?

Tell Coghlan what he's won.

A stint on the DL. It'll be a pretty legnthy one too, probably for the remainder of the regular season. 6-8 weeks if he has surgery and then we haven't included rehabilitation, time in A, AA, and/or AAA. Not to mention shattered pride and dignity.

This has Martin Gramatica written all over it.

This has been one of those seasons where we have seen very odd injuries occur in the MLB. With the trade deadline looming, what will we see next?

Dan Haren was traded on Sunday and already has succumbed to injury on his first start for the Angels.

Next up, we don't know, but when do we tell tradition to take a back seat?

Cut from a Different Cloth

I marvel at such acts as what happened around 9:00 p.m. EST.

LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh joined forces. The city of Miami just completed its transformation to the east coast's version of Los Angeles.

But this Miami Heat team is not the same as the Boston Celtics team that was formed in the 2007-08 season. So let the comparisons stop.

Garnett, Pierce, and Allen were put together at different times in there careers where they had been the man on their teams for over a decade and they saw that this would probably be their last chance to succeed.

Garnett and Allen did not have any say if they were going to Boston because they were traded with no trade exceptions in their contract. Now we knew that then-GM for Minnesota Kevin McHale had some deal worked out for Boston GM Danny Ainge and Kevin Garnett where he could end up in Boston for the foreseeable future. McHale figured he owed Garnett something since he spent his youth there with the Wolves and got little accomplished. Then McHale shipped Garnett to the franchise that he played for in his playing career.

How convenient for the Celtics.

There were hardly no General Managers involved in these proceedings that we saw three years back with the Big three in Boston.

This was free agency that had been built up for the past two years by "King James". New York had something to do with this as well but the brunt of this was LeBron.

Jesus Shuttlesworth, Pierce and KG did not have a chance to play together before and say that this was pretty cool to do like Wade, Bosh and LeBron did in the Olympics.

The big three in Boston didn't get to wine and dine together in a Chicago restaurant like the new big three did in Miami before letting intentions publicly known where they were playing.

The big three in Boston only has one superstar as to appose to three superstars in Miami.

There aren't any egos in Boston whereas Miami: King James, DWade, and CB4, self-explanatory.

Erik Spoelstra is the coach now for Miami; I can't see Pat Riley not coaching this team by January. Danny Ainge wouldn't dare try to coach a team of the magnitude that he put together through trades.

And the icing on the cake of this whole event was LeBron James having this press conference on national television.

The biggest star to come to Boston was Garnett. Garnett would have never done what James did but then again Garnett was never as big as James is or was.

The difference between those two is that Garnett has always shunned all the attention on "us 3", "we", "our team". I don't see that from LeBron and the general consensus doesn't see that either. It remains to be seen.

Kevin Garnett did almost every interview with Pierce and Allen there with him. The egos may be too big for any of the three to do that on a consistant basis.

This big three in Miami is a lot younger than the big three in Boston and notoriety there is more prevalent. Not to mention that the city is more appealing.

But the question still remains. Will this Miami team succeed like that Boston team in 07-08 by winning the title the first year together?

As the Atlanta Hawks Turn

What does a city that hasn't had success in the sports realm have to look forward to in the near future?

In short it's one word, desperation.

I have seen too many instances where a team over-pays for an athlete, but this one may take the cake.

It may be because I'm a homer when it comes to the Atlanta Hawks.

Joe Johnson has been offered a ridiculous contract that will be paying him a reported $119 million over the next 6 years.

When the contract is up, he will be 35.

Here are some of the pros. He is in his prime (supposedly). He is a perennial all-star.

With him, the team has only gone up in the last 5 years when it comes to the record and status.

And you get to keep him.

And here are the cons. At 29, you may have seen the best of Joe already. He might have 1 or 2 more all-star appearances left in the tank.

He dominated the ball to put up the second tier all-star stats he put up last year: 21.3 ppg, 4.6 rebs, 4.9 ast, (thanks Iso-Joe). And then he flamed out by January, as seen in the last 3 years. In the playoffs, he has been a virtual no-show in the last couple of seasons.

The Hawks will be paying him top dollar (average of about $20 million a season) when the man is in his mid 30s.

The list goes on and on but those were just some of the things that a franchise, which may be on the chopping block, is going through right now. It's rumored that the franchise is up for sale.

The contract will not even be eligible to be signed until the 8th and he wasn't supposed to be signing a contract of any sort until after LeBron, Dwayne, and Chris Bosh (the upper echelon on the free agent class of 2010).

Apparently somebody forgot to tell Atlanta that Joe isn't the lead domino.

Atlanta is so desperate it's a shame and I, for one, find it ugly.

History tells us that we will be back in the lottery in about three years if the Hawks continue to perpetuate the stereotype of this franchise.

The only thing that you can see good coming from this is another trip to the 2nd round of the eastern conference and a few more ticket sells. Other than that, the last season was the ceiling.

The new Collective Bargaining Agreement has not even been determined yet nor has the salary cap and luxury tax been set yet and the Hawks have made it no secret that desperation has set in.

Tell Stephon Marbury, Jermaine O'Neal, Jerome James, and Co. to move over because when it comes to ridiculous contracts being signed, a new sheriff is in town, because this contract takes the cake.