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Eye On Ian

File this under you learn something new every day. Until 2004 there was never a major league baseball player with the first name Ian. Ian Snell debuted for the Pirates that season and Ian Kinsler, the Texas second baseman, became the first position Ian last year.

That's pretty surprising. Ian has been one of the 100 most popular names in the United States every year since 1982 in the top 200 since 1972. For the sake of comparison, there have been 20 Vernons in the show and that name hasn't cracked the top 100 since 1937. Six Rex's draw pensions and that name's never ranked in the top 100 and only in the top 200 for two strange stretches, 1933-35 and 1950-56. If you're looking for a depository of useless information the Social Security Administration baby name website is full of it. Wilbur was actually a fairly popular name once but peaked in the teens of the last century. Still there have been six of them as well. Hell, two guys named Ryne preceeded Snell and Kinsler and that name only started appearing on the list when Sandberg won the 1984 MVP Award.

So why hasn't Ian prospered as a big league name? It's hard to say. It could be that kids with the name have to spend a lot of time telling people if it's pronounced Eye-an or E-an and that doesn't leave them sufficient hours for the baseball diamond. It could be worse though. There's never been a major league player named Dylan, Mason or Aidan and all those names are more popular right now than Ian. Perhaps the recent surge in popularity of the name will make Ian the 2010's answer to Irv in the 1910's. That would make Snell and Kinsler true trailblazers. Other leaders:

Tyler Green was the first Tyler in 1993 but has been followed by six others.

Ryan Kurosaki pitched seven games for the Cardinals in 1975 and since then 26 others with that name have had their bags carried to a hotel room. Two Ryan Brauns just this season, even.

Gavin Floyd is the only Gavin to ever make it to the Show and his former teammate Cole Hamels is the only man with that name in the Baseball Encyclopedia.

Evan Longoria, a prospect for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, is the odds-on favorite to inaugurate that name although Tracy Stallard, who served up Roger Maris' 61st homer, was an Evan who went by his middle name.

Snell and Kinsler have each shown signs of being good ballplayers and they do their name proud. It will be quite an effort for them to usurp the clubhouse leader of men named Ian, though. If they keep doing the name proud it's certain that Mr. Ziering will give them all the appropriate acclaim.

When It's Time To Get Funky It's Time To Get To San Antonio

Thanks to the excellent Spurs blog Pounding The Rock we have this look at how excited Spurs fans are about a trip to the finals. What we wouldn't give to see such a video with Matt Bonner and Beno Udrih but somehow we can't imagine things getting quite so rowdy in the San Antonio locker room.

The Big Story: Kobe, Again

A daily look at the big story of the day in sports as seen through the eyes of writers and bloggers all across the internet.

If you're a Sopranos watcher you've seen A.J. go from cherubic little anklebiter to disinterested high schooler to college dropout to shaved eyebrow turd to construction worker to Puerto Rican activist to jilted fiance to pizzeria manager to third-tier thug to suicidal and committed to a mental institution. All along the way he's had a knack of making everything about him up to the last episode when he blamed his parents for every bad thing that's ever happened to him. It's been a constant refrain of his but it's never explained why he's done any of the things. It's just be an excuse to act like a douche at every opportunity and never do anything constructive with his life.

Kobe Bryant's kinda the same way. He was blessed with a remarkable athletic ability, a father who knew how to cultivate it and, in the Lakers, a team that's moved heaven and earth to keep him happy. He won titles, became a superstar, beat a rape rap and has been given every opportunity to be exactly the Kobe Bryant that he's wanted to be. Yet he's still not happy. He's spent the last week demanding to be traded or denying he demanded to be traded but always criticizing the Laker family for not doing enough to make his home a happy one.

After the dust settled on yesterday's dueling radio show appearances and Bryant again backed off on a trade demand one thing was clear. Kobe's the man in charge out in Los Angeles and next year's team will be one of his own design. The Lakers let him make his bed once already and he hasn't felt comfortable sleeping in it. Even before he rescinded his trade demand the chance of a deal was infintesimal, nothing was going to work out well for the Lakers. He'll get his chance to make another go of it in purple. Hopefully it will work out better for him than the old cinder block/plastic bag combination that failed A.J.

Houston Has A Problem

A visit to Houston last summer convinced us that it's not a place worthy of a return trip. The Astros probably feel the same way after dropping their 10th straight game last night. Norris Hopper, a man who has no need for first names, went 3-for-4 in the leadoff spot and scored two runs. Houston's offense, on the other hand, needs fewer goldfish and more sharks. The AP article on the 4-3 Reds win begins "Aaron Harang was not the ideal pitcher for the Houston Astros to face as they to tried to end a losing streak Wednesday night." Sadly the ideal pitcher for them to face is starting for the Kingsbridge Little League later this afternoon.

• Randy Johnson came back from tendonitis with six innings of one-hit baseball and Ryan Howard failed as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning in Arizona's 4-3 win in Philadelphia. It's seven straight for the Snakes who got two homers from Eric Byrnes to build a 4-0 lead before Brandon Lyon and Jose Valverde tried thier best to give it away in the ninth. The Phils rallied for three runs but Howard, still bothered by a balky quad, lined into a game-ending double play.
• The rookie Scott Baker got strafed for 10 hits and six runs in three innings of work but the Twin bats woke up and brought them back for a 7-6 win over the White Sox. Chicago has dropped four straight and lost last night when David Aardsma, first in your encyclopedia but last in your heart, walked Torii Hunter with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth. Ozzie Guillen, your time is almost up.
• I'm not sure where Daisuke Matsuzaka slept Tuesday night but the dust seems to still be affecting his pitching. The Indians pounded him for 12 hits and six runs en route to a sweep-averting 8-4 victory at Fenway. Paul Byrd didn't walk any Boston hitters, extending to 43 innings his free passless string, but left after loading the bases in the seventh. The Sons of Geronimo got out of the inning by whiffing Kevin Youklis, who brought his hitting streak to 22, and retiring David Ortiz.
• The King was in a giving mood last night and the Angels took advantage to grab their second straight from the Mariners. Gary Matthews and Casey Kotchman hit back-to-back jacks in the first inning and Vlad Guerrero connected for his 11th with two on in the fifth to provide the runs in an 8-6 win. Hernandez was shaky and Jered Weaver wasn't much better, ruining an anticipated pitching duel, and the surging Mariners fell back to five and a half games behind the Halos.

(AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

Spurs Yawn Their Way To Another Finals

Back in October on these pages the San Antonio Spurs were the pick to win the Western Conference. It wasn't the boldest pick, after all the Spurs have been the filet of the NBA for some time, but still it feels good to be right. It would feel better if they were easier to like, though. Tim Duncan, for all his talent, looks like he'd rather be anywhere than on a basketball court most of the time. Manu Ginobili's flopping, Gregg Popovich's eternal whininess, Tony Parker's Gallic heritage...they all add up to a stew that's less engaging than it should be. Last night's game was a microcosm of the way they've taken care of business through the years, methodical and effective demolition of the opposition done without many smiles and without any outward expression of effort. It makes sense, teams tend to take on the characteristics of their best players and Duncan has been that for the entire Spurs run. It just would be a lot more fun if they seemed to care about things other than calls that go against them and showed a bit more of the enthusiasm that lesser teams like the Warriors seem to find in the game. Congratulations to them, though, because they've earned their place in the finals and two months from now when the Finals wind down they'll likely have earned another title.

All A-Rod All The Time

A lot of people have said that any time Alex Rodriguez opens his mouth he ends up putting his foot into it. He opened his mouth during the top of the ninth in Toronto and a few of the Blue Jays would like to put their feet into it after he helped cause a infield pop-up to fall in and extend an inning that saw the Yankees score four times. It put the 10-5 win out of Toronto's reach and made the story something more than the much anticipated end of the Yankee losing streak.

Say-Rod claims that he said "Ha!" as he passed Howie Clark near third base while the Jays heard him say "Mine" but either way the ball fell to the earth uncaught and the Yankees scored four runs in the inning. The Blue Jays were quite upset.

"I was under it and I heard a 'Mine' call, so I let it go," said Clark, who thought the call came from shortstop John McDonald. "This is my 16th season, granted most of them are in the minor leagues, but it's never happened once. It happened tonight."

"I told him it's bush league. That's what we do in Little League," (manager John) Gibbons said. "The one thing that everybody in the game respects about the Yankees is that they play the game right, they play the game hard. That's what they're known for. They're a class operation. That was bush league; it's just not Yankee baseball, man."

"Not since I think 'Major League II,' the movie; I think that's the only time I've ever seen it on the field," (Troy) Glaus said. "I've never heard of someone doing it and I've never seen anybody do it. That's not proper. That's not the right thing to do."

I like the way he said "Major League II, the movie." I thought for a second he meant Updike's novel. This happens all the time in baseball when a foul ball is hit near the dugout but that's obviously a different case than a ball hit near other fielders. Peter Abraham reports Rodriguez said he yelled, “Ha!” because, “I was excited running around third base. I don’t know what my intention was.”

That's as good a quote as any to illustrate why people hate Rodriguez. You were excited running around third base as the third out of the inning appeared to be settling into an infielder's glove? It's very telling that Joe Torre, while not slamming A-Rod, was unable to come up with an overwhelming defense of his player. If you go back to the 2004 ALCS when A-Rod slapped the ball out of Bronson Arroyo's glove Torre defended his fight if not the act itself. Last night he said "I don’t know what to feel for it. It’s baseball. It’s not like he said, 'I got it.'" Larry Bowa, the third base coach, said that "If you say, ‘I got it,’ I think that’s very unacceptable. He didn’t say, ‘I got it.’ He said, ‘Hey, hey.’ They parted like the Red Sea."

Bowa's last point is an important one, there's no reason that Clark shouldn't have caught the ball, regardless of anything A-Rod did. If Clark did this to A-Rod there's not much chance that this would be the subject of so much discussion. That doesn't mean that it's right or wrong, it just means that Rodriguez always finds himself at the center of one controversy or another because everything he does rubs people the wrong way. I was reminded of two plays last night. The first was when Pete Rose barrelled over Ray Fosse in an All-Star Game to score a winning run and the second was when Lonnie Smith got fooled by Minnesota's infield in the seventh game of the 1991 World Series and didn't advance on a ball because he thought a throw was coming back to second. Rose has always been saluted for his grit, even when he went out of his way to injure another player in an exhibition game, and the Twins were hailed for using deception to keep a key run from scoring. If A-Rod did either of those things he'd be reviled for it. Either way, you have to give him credit for getting people to talk about something other than his propensity for adultery on the road.

Great Moments In Excuse Making

Daisuke Matsuzaka had a poor start in Texas on Friday night and like many professional athletes came up with an excuse to try and explain away his play. He was suffering from stomach illness, a popular standby, he told reporters. Where it gets interesting, however, is when Dice-K talked about how he got sick. It wasn't bad clams or someone tampering with his food, no for Matsuzaka the culprit was a dirty carpet in his hotel room.

“Well, it could be something to do with my sleeping arrangements,” he said. “I haven’t slept on the bed. Instead of doing so, I bring my own mattress and put it down (on the floor and sleep on it). So maybe dust and other things could have contributed a little bit, too. I didn’t want to do so but I thought that would be better for my back than sleeping on the hotel bed.”

Matsuzaka acknowledged he must overcome cultural difference.

“It is different from Japan,” he said. “People (here) keep their shoes on and that is how it is. I will give more thinking to it for our next trip.”

Matsuzaka also told reporters that he'd come up with a solution for the next time he's faced with a mattress that's too soft for his liking but chose not to share it because "he preferred not to have people wondering or imagining how he looked while he slept." I imagine he sleeps with a stuffed Hello Kitty doll while wearing footie pajamas with a pattern of hermit crabs and eyeshades shielding him from the sunlight. Here's hoping that image doesn't cause the righthander any undue agitation.   

Nick Saban, Smooth Talker

Nick Saban has some issues with telling the truth. After denying he would leave the Dolphins for the University of Alabama, Saban did just that and, now, he's in some trouble after reports surfaced that he had improper contacts with recruits in the Miami area. Not that kind of improper, he just spoke with high school players when he was limited to evaluating them and an "exchange of greetings" by NCAA rules.

Miami Krop linebacker Etienne Sabino told The Miami Herald that Saban talked with him about defensive schemes and told him he's ''the big physical type of linebacker'' Bama needs.

Saban's conversations with Miami Northwestern High juniors Marcus Fortson and Brandon Washington also could be perceived as more than a ``greeting.''

As reported in Sunday's Herald, Washington, a UM oral commitment, said Saban asked him if ''my heart was in Miami.'' Washington said he answered no. He said there's a good chance he will sign with UM but wants to visit other campuses.

Washington later told canesport.com that Saban ``was talking to me about different things, about coming to the summer camps, to come on an unofficial visit, see how things are in Alabama. He said I'm a great player.''

Unless the players are lying it certainly sounds like Saban gave them more than just a wink and a nod. Saban addressed the rumors at the SEC spring meetings but his comments stopped short of being a forceful denial.

"You really can't prove what you didn't do," Saban said Tuesday at the SEC spring meetings, where he addressed the topic for the first time.

"We respect the rules and certainly have always respected the rules and will continue to do that. And I think it's funny that it came from Miami."

When asked if the reports were inaccurate, Saban responded: "I said I think it's funny it came from Miami."

Respecting and following the rules, it goes without saying, are very different things. It should also go without saying at this point that believing anything Saban says is a risk not worth taking.

A Civics Lesson

There can't be many people more popular in New England than Tom Brady. Even if he does root for the Yankees, Brady's brought too many smiles to the men and women of Massachusetts to make it good politics to attack him as part of a Congressional campaign. Someone should tell that to Kevin Thompson, candidate of the Constitution Party.

“Many millions of small, adoring fans look up to Brady only to find him chasing models, fathering children out of wedlock, and unashamedly engaging in an immoral lifestyle,” Thompson writes. “This is the man we look up to, admire, and spend money to purchase tickets to see . . . What kind of world is this if Tom Brady is not absolutely ashamed of himself? He, a grown man, is showing the maturity of a hormone-driven teenager. Tom Brady apparently has no regard for traditional virtue or Biblical morality.”

According to their website the Constitution Party of Massachusetts exists to "restore the Republic and bring our government back to its constitutionally limited role." We don't remember much of junior high school history but who could ever forget Federalist Paper #71 when John Jay argued that NFL quarterbacks must only engage in sexual relationships with their wives. My friends didn't die face down in the muck of Hill 293 so that signal callers could engage in intercourse willy-nilly with anyone and everyone they found attractive.

The Impossible Dream?

Legend has it that you don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind, you don't pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger and you don't mess around with the NFL. A financial whiz named Bill Hambrecht is challenging the last of those assertions. An article by Joe Nocera in the forthcoming Play, an occasional New York Times weekend supplement on sports, reports that Hambrecht is in the nascent stages of formulating the United Football League as a rival to the country's most powerful sports league. He's teamed up with Tim Armstrong, who has deep pockets thanks to his association with Google, and has installed a C.E.O. and C.O.O. with NBA experience. They've even signed up an owner for one of the eight planned teams - Mark Cuban.

So the first step in Hambrecht’s plan is to enter big cities where the N.F.L. isn’t. As Mark Cuban put it to me in an e-mail, “There are quite a few good-sized non-N.F.L. cities that can support a pro team.” So far, the U.F.L. has decided to put teams in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Mexico City. (Cuban is considering taking the Las Vegas franchise.) Each owner will put up $30 million, giving him an initial half-interest in the team; the league will own the other half. But eventually the fans themselves will become shareholders — because each team is going to sell shares to the public. Then the owner, the league and the fans will each own a third of every franchise.

Can it work? The NFL is only in 29 of the top 50 markets in the United States so there are certainly locations with a population that could support a professional football team. As for players, Hambrecht believes that his league could offer more competiitve and more secure contracts for low-round draft picks and players from the Arena and Canadian leagues than the ones that the NFL's collective bargaining agreement allows them to sign. Unlike the USFL there's no plan to challenge the NFL for the highest profile players and the $30 million buy-in is paltry when compared to the $800 million it takes to get an expansion franchise. The growth of cable television and outrageous television rights fees for mainstream pro sports makes it easier to secure space on programming schedules and judging from the growth of the Arena league there's a thirst for football in this country that can't be quenched.

The three cities mentioned above plus, for the sake of argument, San Antonio, Orlando, Portland, Sacramento and Salt Lake City would give the league eight teams in markets of more than or close to a million people. If they scheduled their games on Friday nights, something the NFL is barred from doing, there's a real opportunity to make a go of it. The relative ease of ownership for wealthy investors who aren't able to get a NFL team makes the chances of success even better. Guys like Cuban would put a lot into their teams and would guarantee them loads of media coverage. The league is planning to play its first preseason games next summer, expect to hear a lot about the UFL between now and then.