Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Warrick drops from Heisman favorites list

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Monday, October 25, 1999

Warrick drops from Heisman favorites list
Performance as damaging as scandal to FSU receiver
By Bart Wright
Caller-Times Sports Editor

This is Monday? It's notes to me.
   Let's drop the Peter Warrick scandal issue from our list of the day's important issues.
   He played Saturday after missing games for being caught buying clothes at prices that were, you could say, criminally cheap.
   To bad he couldn't catch the ball as easily as the video tape camera caught Warrick and his buddy (the real wrongdoer in the episode).
   If society does not understand that these are precisely the sort of things that happen when the NCAA makes rules that separate athletes from non-athletes (having a job is one example), then the society is free to bark at the moon until it purges itself of its twisted thoughts.
   Because the real news of the Warrick story is both bad and good.
   Bad news - Don't count on this Seminole winning the Heisman. He dropped enough passes Saturday to justify voters wishes to drop him down their list of candidates.
   Good news - Who cares? Unlike Randy Moss, Warren Sapp and others, this discount shopping spree won't mean anything when it comes to draft day - the NFL teams realize it is a non-issue. Expect Warrick to be among the first five players selected next spring.

I was about as excited to hear that Tonya Harding had returned to the Ice Wars as I was to hear that Nancy Kerrigan released a dance single.

Joined at the philosophical hip - Seattle Mariners shortstop Alex Rodriguez and San Antonio Spurs center Tim Duncan.
   Rodriguez is the best shortstop in baseball, Duncan is the best big man in basketball.
   But it is their contract stances that truly connect them in a more important way. The Mariners have been saying they will make Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr., the two highest paid players in baseball while Griffey and A-Rod have said they'd rather take less money and play for a winner.
   So when they offered Rodriguez an eight-year contract at $15 million per last week, Rodriguez passed, saying he'll wait until he becomes a free agent after the 2000 season. By then, the Mariners will have either built a team or they will not have built a team.
   Duncan's contract also ends after the upcoming season. He could have signed a fat extension with the Spurs, too. But he'd rather know where he'll be five years from now and if the Spurs new arena ballot issue doesn't pass on Nov. 2, they will either be headed elsewhere or they will be at a market disadvantage in signing Duncan for what other teams could pay.
   Duncan, like A-Rod, will wait and see.
   Both made the right move. Call it the New Dignity of free agents to be. Instead of taking as much cash as soon as possible, some would rather know where they'll be playing and if there will be a team around them.
   Let the teams and the cities figure out their business first.

Drug testing in the NBA is already being botched with the reporting of six players who flunked having been leaked to the New York Times.
   Here's a better question:
   Instead of concentrating on the players, whose future is determined on how well they perform, why not have drug testing among owners and front office people?
   These are the ones who hold cities hostage for arena subsidies then sell the name of the building to some corporate giant. These are the ones who continually raise ticket prices even as the team declines.
   Let's test the suits, too, if we're testing anybody.

His career record is 184-277. They didn't give serious consideration to minority candidates such as Cito Gaston (a career winner) or Chris Chambliss, but the Colorado Rockies decided it made sense to name Buddy Bell their new field manager last week.
   The Rockies: For Whom Buddy Bell Toils.
   Waiting to see a minority manager who (1) would be allowed to lose that much and (2), gets the next available job opening.

There's a thought going around Los Angeles that seems to have some merit after watching him perform on the mound and share advice in the dugout with Mets manager Bobby Valentine:
   Orel Hershiser, next pitching coach for the Dodgers.
   Two years later, Dodgers manager.
   Question is whether the Fox hounds who own the team will have the smarts to make the obvious move.

Give Peter Vecsey of the New York Post credit when it's due. He called it T-Wolves' rookie Wally Szczerbiak's first double-double the other night when he scored 15 points and received 14 stitches from an errant elbow thrown by the Bucks' Ervin Johnson.
   Welcome to the NBA, Wally.



Sports Editor Bart Wright can be reached at 886-3745 or by e-mail at wrightb@caller.com

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