Say What?
Harvick rips his pit crew after Truex wins Darlington
Martin Truex Jr. has been denied several victories in Sprint Cup competition because of crew malfunction. But at Sunday’s Southern 500 at Darlington, Truex won the race because of a slow pit stop for Kevin Harvick. And afterwards, Harvick violated the sport’s protocol by publicly chastising his Stewart-Haas crew: “I’m over being a cheerleader. Those guys get paid a lot of money to perform on pit road. Cheerleading hasn’t been working. You have to get after it on pit road and do your job. . . . We had a dominant car – just three bad pit stops. . . . They just can’t put together a whole day on pit road right now.”
Dear Kevin: That was a scathing indictment of your team, but it doesn’t compare to A.J. Foyt after a loss at Indianapolis: “I coulda picked up a better crew at a Chevron station.”
49ers cut Bruce Miller after arrest for assaulting 70-year-old
Bruce Miller, San Francisco’s hard-blocking, soft-handed fullback who was shifted to tight end in Chip Kelly’s up-tempo spread offense, was released after being arrested for an alleged assault of a 70-year-old man. Miller, 29, tried to check into a hotel in San Francisco on Sunday night but was told no rooms were available. But according to a complaint reported by KTVU, he knocked on the door of one of the rooms, and when a man answered and said the room was occupied, the player assaulted the occupant and also his 70-year-old father sharing the room. The report said the father and son were hospitalized for treatment of fractured facial bones. This is not Miller’s first brush with the law. Last year he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor domestic violence involving his former fiancée.
Dear Commissioner Goodell: We’re seeing too much recidivism on domestic violence. There needs to be treatment and therapy, not just punishment.
Kiffin jabs USC after receiving Alabama game ball
Lane Kiffen, offensive coordinator of the Alabama Crimson Tide, received the game ball after Saturday’s 52-6 rout of his former team, Southern California. And he couldn’t resist tweaking the school that fired him as head football coach at 3:14 a.m. in a small room at the Los Angeles International Airport. The meeting with the athletics director came minutes after Kiffen disembarked from a flight from Tempe following a blowout loss to Arizona State. Kiffen recalled that incident by stamping the game ball with “#3:14 AM-LAX” and later reporting it on Twitter.
Navy calls a QB out of the stands to play in opener
Navy freshman Malcolm Perry was in the stands Saturday afternoon, wearing his white dress uniform for the season opener against Fordham. But during the third quarter he was told to change into his football gear. He was the fourth-string quarterback, had played the day before in a junior varsity game, but with injuries and illness to others ahead of him, he was needed for the varsity. Perry, who himself was feeling ill, led the Midshipmen on a 90-yard drive late in the third quarter of a game Navy won 52-16. Perry gained 30 yards on 7 carries.
Jay Bruce before trade to Mets: ‘Anywhere but New York’
When Jay Bruce, leading the National League in RBI, learned the Cincinnati Reds were trying to trade him in a salary dump, he asked the front office to send him “anywhere but New York.” So writes Hall of Fame baseball writer Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News. After the trade to the Mets was completed against his will, Bruce played as if he didn’t like where he was. In his first 24 games with his new team, he put up a miserable OPS of .510.
Between the Lines: New York magnifies everything. If you’re playing well, no city will show more appreciation. But there’s little tolerance for poor play.