KarateKen

Former Steelers, Patriots, Raiders, and Bucs WR Antonio Brown has plead not guilty to attempted murder and posted $25k to get out on bail. Brown will be under house arrest and is required to wear a GPS ankle monitor while awaiting trial. He was also required to give up his passport. No trial date has been set yet.

Charlie Sheen has joined the NA beer business, releasing a golden nonalcoholic beer called WildAF. Kind of a play on his Rick Vaughn character "wild thing." Not sure the exact date it will hit the market but sometime before the end of the year. I'd give it a try.

I have not had a chance to speak with Felix directly, but the word is he is very appreciative of the birthday wishes. And some people say cats don't care. Blasphemy!

Agree with this and @bushido_man96 response, it has gotten out of control. For me it is also damaging my ability to enjoy sports. It has all shifted to the gambling and corporate greed now. We are bombarded with sports betting ads, even ESPN and Fanatics have an online sports book. In the NHL the Vegas Golden Knights wear a patch on their jersey for a Las Vegas sportsbook. It is everywhere. Furthermore, now anytime someone's team loses, anything strange happens, or a call is missed, the fans of that team claim the game is rigged. I wonder if we will see some cutback on this now that we have several scandals in the news at once, but I don't expect much of that. There is too much money in it.

Two things that come to mind when something like this happens. One, could he be making more money throwing the fight and if he were to win it? And two, is there anyone else involved, such as the mob. It's possible that someone has a figurative gun to his head and it runs a lot deeper than one fighter making a bad decision.

I was watching a video about athletes and gambling, and evidently gambling is huge among pro athletes, many of them are likely somewhat addicted. Part of the conversation was that athletes see it as a competition, to try and beat the casino, beat the game. As you can guess, successful pro athletes are hyper competitive, and that extends past the competition on the field. I would also add that many top pro athletes are highly protected by the teams and the leagues they work for. The Ravens initially defended Ray Rice, as one example. A lot of these guys probably figure that they are above the rules because the leagues make so much money off of them, they want to protect that money train and keep it going, so a lot of these players might be under the impression that rules do not apply to them equally. They have agents, media coaches, ect, who are helping shape a public image of the player which might be nothing like who they are when the camera is off.

This is exactly it. If enough people decide not to buy the tickets prices will drop. Part of the problem also is the resale market. Some people are buying up lots of tickets and reselling them at a much higher price. This causes the original prices to be raised also because the entertainer looks at the ticket prices in the resale market and says, "why should a reseller make more money on my tickets than I do?" So, they raise the price to try and match it. Ticketmaster wants that ticket to keep reselling because every time it does, they get more money.

Another week and another sports gambling scandal. The NBA, the UFC, and now MLB. This is really getting out of hand. Two pitchers for the Cleveland Gradians, Emmanual Chase and Luis Ortiz, are facing criminal charges for rigging prop bets in games they pitched in. The investigation started earlier this year because of unusual betting activity. Ortiz was arrested on Sunday in is expected in court on Monday. The accusation is that the rigging of the bets helped gamblers win at least 460,000 dollars in the Dominican Republic. Ortiz's lawyer has said his client is innocent and there is no credible evidence that he knowingly did anything wrong.

It has been a busy day of sports news, including the first NFL head coach being fired this year. That is Brian Daboll of the NY Giants. The Giants were 20-40-1 during his time as head coach and the last straw was the loss to Chicago on Sunday, dropping the Giants to 2-8 on the season. Mike Kafka will take over as interim coach.

Thoughts to those who died in the recent plane crash in Kentucky. There was also a near collision of planes outside LAX the other day. Maybe not paying the ATC isn't a smart decision.

As you might know, Felix the Cat is celebrating a birthday. It was on this day (November 9, 1919) that Felix made his first appearance. We were a cat family, and I have many memories of the Felix cartoons as a child. Felix is now 126 years old, that is 882 in cat years!

I went as Dexter Morgan.

You might not have noticed but the Anaheim Ducks are in first place!! They are winners of 6 in a row and their 21 points is second best in the west behind Colorado. Are the Ducks for real? Too early to tell, as they got off to a good start in 2023 only to fall apart later in the season. It has been a lot of long years for the Ducks, who have not been to the playoffs since 2018, the second longest in the league behind Buffalo. During that stretch the Ducks have finished no higher than sixth in the division.

On a less serious note, the Bills were on the wrong side of a butt kicking against the Dolphins as the 30-13 win for Miami ended my season in survivor league, so you guys don't have to sit through my ramblings about that for the rest of the year. Another big upset was the Saints over the Panthers, and the Jets are on a rare two game win streak after beating the hapless Cleveland Browns. The Ravens seem to be back from the dead, they have won three in a row and are 4-5, with games against the Browns and Jets the next two weeks, so they could be 6-5 and back in the hunt by Thanksgiving. Colts and Patriots both win, so now three teams are 8-2, and the Seahawks win puts them at 7-2, same for the LA Rams. While the best team right now might be Indy, their run game looks unstoppable, there is no clear frontrunner thus far. The Bears and Bucs are both a quiet 6-3, while Washington continues to struggle and falls to 3-7 after getting blown out at home against the Lions. Aaron Rodgers is in LA tonight as the Steelers face the Chargers, and the 6-2 Eagles visit the 5-2-1 Packers Monday night, so two good matchups the next two nights.

Fromer NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has died at age 84. Tagliabue was the league commissioner from 1989-2006.