The Sports Review

Yesterday in Chicago, rumors flew around all day about a possible fight between new Bears quarterback, Jay Cutler and defense player Brian Urlacher. When these two players come together, it could be explosive, the reports seemed to indicate. A former Bears player was quoted in an interview saying that Urlacher had questioned Cutler’s toughness in a profane way. There was discussion about jealousy between the two and the possibility that the Bears were about to become a big drama team. But today they have come out and said that there hasn’t been a fight. No battle or anything. Urlacher wasn’t even in practice when he was supposed to have fought against Cutler, hand to hand. Anyway, it looks like things are ok in paradise again, so we’ll see what the next fun piece of info from camp is!

Michael Vick has stated clearly his desire to return to the NFL as soon as possible. Yesterday, it was decided that he could possibly return in October, following a suspension and a further review with the commissioner, parole officer, friends, and other officials. Then the final decision will be made on whether he has changed enough to return to the game. He is being helped in all of this by retired coach Tony Dungy. Dungy, a kind and religious man, is trying to rehabilitate Vick. He says that Vick seems to have admitted his mistakes and is looking to make amends as much as possible. This is part of a coordinated effort to improve the Vick PR image once again and transition him back to the sport as soon as possible.

Yesterday was a fantastic game for the Chicago White Sox. Their pitching ace, Mark Buehrle pitched a 27 up, 27 down game against the Tampa Bay Rays. This pitcher is one of the best in the American League, but hasn’t really been noticed, probably because his fastballs aren’t nearly as fast as other pitchers. Sure, he doesn’t have the power, but he has the control and repertoire of pitches to get the best of players all the time. This pitcher has been able to push himself again and again. A couple years ago, he had another no-hit game. Yesterday, he didn’t give up a hit, walk, error or anything. He says that he will be giving everyone on the team a present after this game. He gave everyone a watch last time around. Dewayne Wise might get a new car because he made a ridiculous leaping catch in the top of the nine that took away a certain homerun. This was an historic moment for baseball and a lot of fun too!

The Softball World Cup has been decided and it was the American women who took home gold! They did it in a 3-1 win against Australia last night, having dominated all their other opponents 51-4 over the course of the 6 game tournament. They are a greatly talented team and one that’s still young. So we can expect further great performances over the next several years. Their goal was to not only win games but also to score as many points as possible in each game. They did a great job too, with some of the best performances that we’ve seen in years! It’s not often that American teams do well in World Cups like this (see in evidence soccer’s World Cup for men), but softball seems to have worked out well for them! We’ll be watching for them to do even more over the next several years!

David Beckham is back! It’s good to see him back in the lineup of the Los Angeles Galaxy with Donovan. He wasn’t a big factor in his first game back last night but it was a signal of how the team and Beckham are getting along now. This comes in the wake of a new book about how Donovan was having trouble with Beckham, especially how the latter gave up on the team during the course of last year’s disappointing time. And it didn’t help that Beckham went back to Europe for the last several months. Obviously he liked it better there, but he’ll have to finish out his contract here. The book in the end says that Beckham didn’t make soccer stick over here, which is evidenced by the 25% stadium capacity last night.

This is a curious move. The Chicago Blackhawks have fired their general manager, Tallon, today to be replaced by Scotty Bowman, who’s been with the team for awhile. It’s unusual for a team to get rid of their GM just a few months after the team went to the Western Conference Finals for the first time in a long time. The team is doing very well right now, and is expected to be a contender again this coming season. But with a new GM coming in, without any clear indication of why, it’s going to be a little bit of drama coming into the Blackhawks’ world. Perhaps it’s because the GM accidentally sent out notices to free agents late? But that’s not a capital offense except on a team that’s struggling mightily anyway. How odd!

When you want to see one of the most anticipated fights this year, UFC 101 might well be the one you want to see. This year’s battle feature a world championship bout and an important light heavyweight battle. BJ Penn and Kenny Florian are going after the lightwweight world championship for the second year in a row. Penn is hoping that he can keep the title, and so he can remain unbeaten in the 155 lbs weight class, since he hasn’t lost a bout at that level since 2002. Meanwhile, Kenny Florian has won many different battles over his 6 years in the sport and only lacks a world championship to complete his set!

The other fight features Anderson Silva fighting against Forrest Griffin. Silva has won 9 straight fights (a new UFC record) and has defended his title a record-tying 5 times. But now he will be trying to start making wins in the light heavyweight division. Meanwhile, Griffin will be trying to stop him from making it to that level. It’s going to be a lot of fun this August so get your UFC 101 tickets today!

Roger Federer won a record-breaking 15th Grand Slam title this weekend at Wimbledon. He played a fantastically long game against Andy Roddick, who put up an amazing fight. Roddick looked like he was going to take the final at the beginning, leading for most of the first part of the match. But then Federer came back to put it all in the right place. It’s been a long way for Federer, who lost his #1 ranking last year to Rafael Nadal and lost several major matches in a row. It also looked like he was dropping like a stone for several months, particularly while he was injured. But now he’s back and showing that he’s one of the best players in the world, possibly the best men’s player ever. When Nadal comes storming back, assuming he can return from his knee injury, it will be very interesting to see what happens.

The Canadian Football League had a touchdown the other day which included a tribute to the late Michael Jackson. Arland Bruce scored the touchdown and then took off his helmet and jersey and laid down in the endzone. He said that it was a tribute to the pop star because he was pretending to be buried. But it seems a little bit far afield to be a real tribute. Perhaps if he did the moonwalk as his celebration, that might have been more fitting. Or a hip dance move. At least those wouldn’t be judged by most people as being in poor taste. Pretending to be dead tends to be a low-brow humor kind of thing to do. The CFL is investigating and deciding whether he might be fined; the coach said that he has talked to Bruce to clarify.