Sports News
Ohio State's Tressel Impressed with Pryor
Pryor restraint -- When Jim Tressel acknowledged Saturday that he wouldn't hesitate to put Terrelle Pryor into a game right now, my mind shifted into overdrive.
Under normal circumstances, the word-wise Ohio State football coach would have said "he's good, but he's just a freshman." Tressel-ese translation: "He's an amazing talent and will probably play some this season." Or he might have said he could "see him getting on the field at some point this season." Translation: "This kid could be Big Ten freshman of the year."
But Tressel said he would "absolutely" consider putting him on the field now and even said Pryor has "extraordinary ability."
I'll have to study the translation book a little more closely, but I'm pretty sure that means Pryor is on his way to the College Football Hall of Fame.
The high cost of drug use -- When Jamaica's Usain Bolt ran that incredible 100-meter race in the Olympics, shattering the world record despite slowing down to pound his chest and celebrate 20 meters from the finish line, my first thoughts were of performance-enhancing drugs. Sad, isn't it?
This isn't fair to Bolt, obviously, but it isn't fair to the rest of us, either. Bolt's incredible talent has amazed all track officials and competitors who know him, but it's still difficult for many of us to block thoughts of doping when you constantly read about drug cheats in sports and then see a guy run away from everybody else in such a high-profile race.
Even with today's drug-testing, there's probably no way to eliminate that last shred of doubt for many for us. We've been burned too many times by people who swore they were clean right up to the day that they were confronted with the damning evidence.
The athletes pay, but so do we. When you can't marvel without wondering, watching isn't nearly as much fun.
Keeping the right prospects -- As the Indians wallow near the bottom of the American League Central standings, my thoughts turn to the terrific Tribe farm system for which Mark Shapiro and company have been given so much credit.
It's true that Cleveland's farms have cranked out a lot of good players in recent years, but the success some of those players are having on other teams shows how difficult it is to build a World Series champion by simply collecting and developing prospects.
These Indians could use a slugger, and former Tribe farmhand Ryan Ludwick has 31 homers and 92 RBI for St. Louis. Ludwick left Cleveland as a minor-league free agent in 2005. The Indians could use a good, young starting pitcher and Jeremy Guthrie is 10-8 with a 3.18 ERA in 26 starts for Baltimore, which claimed him off waivers from the Tribe in January 2007. They could use a slugging young infielder and had Brandon Phillips -- he hit 30 home runs last year and has 19 now -- but traded him to the Reds for pitcher Jeff Stevens in 2006.
If you don't keep the right guys, a strong minor-league system is just another empty promise.
The Cincinnati Who? -- Now that Adam Dunn and Ken Griffey Jr. have been traded, the Reds have become almost a faceless franchise: None of the Reds' old heroes are left.
The Reds have plenty of good young players with a chance to be the new face of the team -- Edinson Volquez, Johnny Cueto, Joey Votto and Jay Bruce -- but there's not much of a link to even the team's recent past. Since the Big Red Machine days, the Reds lineup has always featured a few familiar, long-running stars and they overlapped -- Dunn, Griffey, Barry Larkin, Sean Casey, Reggie Sanders, Hal Morris, Paul O'Neill and Eric Davis -- but no more.
Now, Ryan Freel is the team's most entrenched position player -- he came up and saw limited action in 2003 -- and he has been on the disabled list since the first week of June. He hopes to return before the end of the season, which would be a good thing for Reds rooters.
Freel is about as close to nostalgia as they're going to get.
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