Retweet of the Day – July 2, 2013

The story of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez has been the gift that keeps on giving for bloggers like me. Much of the sports article reading population was unaware of the degree of Hernandez’s excess baggage before the Boston area shooting death of Hernandez associate Odin Lloyd in the wee hours of June 17, 2013. Since then, all manners of unsavory tales about Hernandez have bubbled to the surface.

Among the many troubling stories of Hernandez’s past, he reportedly was in a bar fight in 2007 while a student at the University of Florida at The Swamp Bar in Gainesville, FL. Allegedly, the man on the receiving end of Hernandez’s fistic delivery lost hearing in one of his ears. Current Patriots quarterback Tim Tebow and Hernandez, briefly teammates in New England, were teammates at Florida, both taken in the 2010 NFL Draft. Reports are now surfacing that Tebow attempted to break up the fight.

Today’s retweet by Referee Logic (‏@RefereeLogic) just piles on to the endless angles of this sensational yet tragic story:

"Tim Tebow tried to break up the Hernandez bar fight by hanging onto Hernandez's leg and yelling "This isn't what Jesus would do!"" 

Hernandez: "Hey, man. Stay in touch. I might be able to get you on with the Patriots."

Tebow: "Great. I won't have to drive far to bail you out of jail!"

 Image from www.sports-kings.com

Retweet of the Day - May 28, 2013

I promise that The Daily Hat Trick is not becoming The Daily Retweet. I 'll make every effort to return regular feature articles to you as soon as possible. However, I have a "real" job that pays the bills that has drained my mental energy of late. Rather than write uninteresting drivel, I'd rather give you the short, sweet, proven stuff.

The San Antonio Spurs won the Western Conference Championship last night, completing a 4-0 sweep of the Memphis Grizzlies. The Spurs' long term excellence cannot be disputed. San Antonio is headed to its fifth NBA Finals series in 15 seasons. The Spurs have never lost an NBA Finals series under Head Coach Gregg Popovich. Future Hall of Fame center/forward has been a member of all five of those teams.

The conventional fan wisdom has been (in a nutshell) that the league may as well hand the Larry O'Brien Trophy over to the Heat right now and save everyone the trouble. And while the Heat are only up 2-1 against the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, the Heat appeared, from my point of view, to be sleepwalking their way through the playoffs until Game 3 on Sunday night in Indianapolis. They had practically won the game by halftime. I don't think the giant that is the Heat is going back to sleep.

Nonetheless, while I would personally put my money on Miami in a seven game series against the Spurs, I don't think that even the most die hard Heat fan expects anything to be "easy" about a matchup with the Spurs. As efficient as the Spurs are, their highlight reels are rarely spectacular. They are the embodiment of cold, efficient, fundamental basketball. Some would describe them as "BORING".

Today's retweet, from Referee Logic (‏@RefereeLogic) captures that sentiment. 

"I like Tim Duncan, but even his dunks are boring."
 

It's fitting that he's the poster man.

Image from www.complex.com 

Retweet of the Day - August 6, 2012

The NFL has made its way back into the headlines in a big way over the last couple of days. First, the 2012 preseason kicked off with the annual Hall of Fame game, played for the first time in two years because of last season's lockout. The New Orleans Saints defeated the Arizona Cardinals in an exhibition that went downhill, from an entertainment standpoint, from the opening drive going forward. Still, football is BACK!

This morning, ESPN reported that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell offered suspended Saints linebacker a reduced suspension, from one full year down to eight games for his alleged role in the Saints Bountygate scandal, on the condition that he drop his defamation of character lawsuit against Goodell. This would seem to indicate that Vilma has some degree of leverage, for whatever reason, on Goodell (and his absolute power) and the league.

Today's retweet is a nice one, from RefereeLogic ‏(@RefereeLogic). Cardinals quarterback Kevin Kolb suffered a rib injury during last night's game in which, of course, Vilma did not participate. RefereeLogic served up this to the Twittersphere:


"Kevin Kolb is hurt, Roger Goodell fines Jonathan Vilma anyway."

Vilma: "He's gonna need the fine money by the time I'm done with him in court!"

Image from http://sports.yahoo.com