Musselman's crown removed by Kings Eric Musselman's first and last NBA season coaching Sacramento started with a drunk driving bust and ended with the team 16 games under .500 and out of the playoffs.

The Maloof boys have made plenty of gambling money by being the house. They recognize a bad run when they see one, and they promptly cut their losses by cutting Erratic Eric loose. Of course it was their fault the Kings even had Eric as a coach...

The firing is a disastrous end to an experiment by Sacramento owners Joe and Gavin Maloof, who dropped Adelman last summer against Petrie's apparent wishes.

They eventually collapsed into a season-ending 5-17 skid despite returning largely the same roster that scared the San Antonio Spurs in a first-round series last season.

Nothing like a little ownership meddling to really throw off a team. At least when Mark Cuban was a fatal distraction to his team last year, they were already in the finals.

Magic fires Hill. Yeah, again. I would have thought the Orlando Magic figured it out ten years ago when they fired Brian Hill the first time. The players hated him so much, I figured it would be inevitable that they'd find him in a shot-up burning car some night outside Downtown Disney, his lifeless hand clutching a torn piece of a Penny Hardaway jersey.

Didn't happen, and Brian got bounced. That was 1997. Eight years and five coaches later, they rehired Bouncing Brian, but it didn't work out...

But by the end of the season, Hill was receiving lukewarm endorsements from President Bob Vander Weide and Otis Smith.

There was speculation that Hill and Smith had some philosophical differences, most notably with the style of offense and Hill's use of certain players.

Probably non-use of certain players, like Darko and Reddick, was the reason. They went 40-42, it's not like they would have been much worse with either of those guys on the court more often.

So who will be the next washed-up former coach to step up and try to motivate a bunch of millionaires to make a few free throws in a meaningless game in February in Orlando?

Orioles clip manager's wings Sam Perlozzo finally got the expected axing by Baltimore. The only way Baltimore's season could be worse for the fans is if Boog Powell decided to shutdown his barbecue spot on Eutaw Street.

The crew at Deadspin say Sam's whacking was a courtesy assassination for incoming executive Andy MacPhail. That way he can make Joe Girardi the next unfortunate bastard to work as manager under Peter Angelos.

Baltimore's behind Tampa Bay and everyone else in the AL East. They're average at hitting, no worse than a lot of teams at hitting, and lead the AL in fielding. They manage to find more ways to lose than anyone not watching games in Texas or Kansas City. Or Cincinnati, which has redefined the phrase "crappy baseball" for everyone this year.

Cal Ripken Day on July 24th should be a lot of fun. The Ironman probably wishes the O's would just send him a cake instead of making him come out to the park.

Bears reloading after they fire Tank When Tank Johnson got busted for having handguns in his home, I thought that if he were in a different state than Illinois, maybe someplace in the South, all those guns would be considered part of the interior design. Ex-felon Martha Stewart probably has things to say about shiv cozies and the use of broken Glock magazines as bud vases.

Tank will get to look for a new place to play and live, once his suspension ends, now that Da Bears have waived him...

"We are upset and embarrassed by Tank's actions last week," general manager Jerry Angelo said in a statement. "He compromised the credibility of our organization. We made it clear to him that he had no room for error. Our goal was to help someone through a difficult period in his life, but the effort needs to come from both sides. It didn't, and we have decided to move on."

Police in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert said Johnson was stopped for driving 40 mph in a 25 mph zone at 3:30 a.m. Friday and the officer made observations that led him to believe Johnson was impaired.

Tank already had an eight game suspension waiting for him, with the possibility of it being dropped to six for good behavior after his gun charge sentence ended. New commish Roger Goddell probably has to bust him for the rest of the year now.

Oh yeah, Bears fans, Lance Briggs is still ticked off at your front office. The only way you're seeing number 55 on the field is if Urlacher wears it again like he did at the mini-camp.

Reds fire Narron, and Hargrove fires himself Major league baseball teams are in form when it comes to making changes on the bench. The Reds tossed Jerry Narron from the last place dugout Sunday night.

That's got to be more like a mercy firing. It's almost July 4th and the Reds' season is pretty much over this year...

Reds General Manager Wayne Krivsky today praised Jerry Narron but said he and CEO Bob Castellini decided to fire him because the last-place team needed a "different voice … a different approach.''

Krivsky said advance scout Pete Mackanin, 55, will be interim manager of a team with the worst record in baseball. A search will begin for a permanent manager.

"Permanent manager" is an oxymoron in sports, kind of like "jumbo shrimp" or "pleasant airline travel." Everyone's hired to be fired in pro ball.

Mike Hargrove fired himself on Sunday night, but not from a dog-like cellar dweller. His Mariners have been playing well. They're playoff contenders on a winning streak. Whoever gets the Seattle job will be managing to beat Detroit for a wild card spot...

Hargrove left saying his "passion has begun to fade" after 37 years in baseball, even though Seattle is on its best tear in four years. He became the first big league manager since at least 1900 to depart while on a winning streak of more than seven games, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

He picked a weird time to bail out to be with his family. I'd think they would understand if he wanted to stick around for three more months. Imagine if the Mariners somehow win the World Series. Wow, Thanksgiving in the Hargrove household is really going to suck if that happens.

Accused stalker dribbled off the court. Coach? I wanted to write about this yesterday but my router died a painful heat death. Let that be a lesson, just because something has been marked as an open box return by an electronics retailer (that Lucas says I can't name under any circumstances) doesn't mean the scumbag who returned it didn't slip a busted unit through the returns desk and take the cash.

Even with that, I'm still better off than ex-Florida A&M hoops coach Mike Gillespie. Meandering Mike was accused of stalking back in May. The U decided they didn't want to spend the fall with a coach who might be in court more often than on the court...

Gillespie has been on paid administrative leave since May 30, five days after he was arrested by Tallahassee police and charged with one count of misdemeanor stalking.

"This employment action is in the best interest of the men's basketball program and the university," Ammons wrote in the Aug. 13 letter.

It gets better.

Mike Jr just happens to be one of Dad's assistant coaches. He wants his Dad's old job...

"(Townsend) said he was unsure in which direction the administration was going, but that it was his hope that Avery and I could still be a part of the program," Gillespie Jr. told the Tallahassee Democrat by phone Tuesday evening.

"I told him it was my desire to be named interim coach for the remainder of the season. I thought Avery and I deserved that chance. We recruited these guys and helped lead them to a championship."

I don't need to be a hardcore sports book dude to know a sucker bet when I see one. When the U finds a new coach, that guy will fire Junior and everyone else the former coach hired about three milliseconds after he signs a contract.

I can suggest a place where they can search for a basketball coach job. They're going to need the love and support Simply Hired can give them in their time of need.

Astros bench manager and GM The Astros aren't the worst team in baseball, not as long as Tampa Bay continues to have a franchise. Houston even has a winning record at home.

On the road, they fare about as well as stranded tourists dangling Benjamins in downtown LA after midnight, only without the usual pleasantness associated with a vicious beating and robbery. Stros owner Drayton McLane woke up this morning and decided enough was enough and canned GM Tim Purpura and manager Phil Garner...

McLane said he met with Purpura following the Astros' 5-4 win over the Pirates on Sunday and informed him of his decision. Monday morning, McLane called Garner and dismissed him.

"[Purpura] was disappointed," McLane said. "He certainly wanted to continue, but I felt, for a number of reasons, we needed a new direction, a new configuration. To play with more enthusiasm and to be a champion."

Those numbers of reasons could be 73, as in losses this year, or 252, Phil's losses over the past four plus years.

Carr Wreck With all due respect to Sporting News blogger aajoe7, who's defending Michigan coach Lloyd Carr, I don't see why the coach deserves defending.

Michigan lost both its games last year after Bo Schembechler died, and nobody in Ann Arbor expected to lose a home opener to a I-AA, or whatever the hell the division is called now, team, no matter how good Appalachian State was supposed to be.

Loser Lloyd didn't have his fifth-ranked and maybe overrated team ready to play a beatable team in its opener in the Big House. Michigan could win or lose every game from now to Thanksgiving, and their chances to compete for a national championship are the same. Zero. Nada. Zilch. No way.

There's no way Michigan can bring him back next year. First day of September, and the Michigan season is done. Even Notre Dame can get a shot if they win out because they didn't lose to a I-AA team on Saturday.

This is why the top division in college football is a complete joke. Any other division in college has a playoff. You lose the first one, you've still got a chance at the title.

Loser Lloyd isn't fired yet. Save that for after they get owned by Ohio State again. There's no way you can coach the number 5 team in the country to the most epic loss in college athletics history and come back the following year.

Charlie Weis has to be glad Michigan fell on its face, otherwise everyone would be talking about the Irish getting a big dose of owned themselves.

Image by Leon Halip / Getty Images

Job cuts going to the house People working in the home loan biz are having about as much fun as LT did running the ball against the Bears on Sunday. If you're doing real estate loans or anything related to mortgages, I'd like to suggest you familiarize yourself with Simply Hired.

Cuz ol' Bloomberg News says you're looking at being totally fired really soon...

The worst U.S. housing slump in 16 years may lead mortgage companies to eliminate almost 100,000 jobs, more than double the number already cut this year.

"When you're born in a boom, you generally die in a bust,'' Countrywide Chief Executive Officer Angelo Mozilo said in an interview after the Calabasas, California-based company announced the cuts eliminating about 20 percent of the 55,000 employees it had at the start of the year.

Countrywide is that loan place that has an office in damn near every strip mall in the country. They're going to snuff so many people I half expect to start hearing that Celine Dion song from Titanic when they start making the cuts. All those careers being drowned, ya know?

Those are going to be some depressing networking meetings when the ranks of the unemployed swell with these loan sharks. "Hey Jim, how's the housing market looking?" "It looks FREAKING terrible, you dumbass, don't you read Yahoo Finance, the whole market is marinating in cream of crap soup!"

Speaking of making cuts, is it too soon to ask the Chargers to fire Norv Turner? Nobody could stop LT last year. This year Norv manages to hold the MVP to 25 rushing yards. Because LT is the greatest football player to ever put on pads, he still managed to win the game by running for one TD and throwing for another.

Fire Norv. Please?

Knicks fouled over firing executive They're putting the screws to the guy who keeps giving Isiah Thomas contract extensions. James Dolan runs the big cable company that owns the Knicks. He's getting unfriendly questions about firing Anucha Brown Sanders, their ex-marketing executive who's accused Isiah of sexual harassment.

Because Jimmy D is a rich white guy, he got to testify by videotape instead of chilling out with the masses while waiting his turn in the witness stand. He fired Angry Anucha for interfering with the Knicks' probe into her accusations against Isiah...

Dolan said another company executive, Rusty McCormack, told him in a helicopter ride to his office at the midtown Manhattan arena that Browne Sanders was impeding the investigation by asking employees in her department to write memos documenting their recollections of abusive behavior directed at her.

Browne Sanders was "essentially attempting to coerce her direct reports'' and "influence the process,'' Dolan said.

Dolan said she was fired within 24 hours.

"I don't know where the investigation was at that point,'' he said in his testimony.

That should make her attorneys pretty gleeful. "You fired Anucha without knowing how far along your investigation was into her accusations?"

Mmmmm, that's the sweet smell of lots of money being offered in a settlement I think I'm smelling. Maybe that will keep Isiah from taking on another crappy player with a massive contract this season.

Who should the Mets fire first? As much as I'd like to weep bitterly about the Chargers losing yet another game, and suggest Norv Turner's firing involve him set adrift in the Pacific aboard a blazing Viking funeral boat, I can't ignore what the Mets managed to not do this weekend.

If you listen to any sports radio at all, you've heard the Mets blew a 7 game lead with 17 left to play. It's a bigger collapse than Michigan losing to Appalachian State. Like, the biggest collapse in professional sports ever.

I'll guess the Mets fans want blood, because this was one of the less obscene blog posts about it that I've seen today...

The Mets finished off their late-season train wreck in suitably spectacular style, giving it up quicker than a prison bitch and losing 8-1 to the Marlins. It was a classic choke job, the kind where the last-place team scores seven in their first at bat, while the first-place team leaves a boatload of men on base early before phoning it in late.

Do they fire the GM, Omar Minaya, for not assembling better pitching? Do they toss Willie Randolph for failing to manage the Mets to one more win? I've got the easy solution. Fire them both.

I see it like the Lloyd Carr thing at Michigan. Fiasco. Debacle. Season over on the first day of September, followed the next week by getting completely owned by Oregon. You can't bring the guy back, unless they beat Ohio State by 50.

Same thing goes for New York. Except it's two guys. And it's a different sport. And it's pros instead of college. But it's the same thing.

Epic collapses in baseball aren't the best way to sell people on your new stadium coming in a couple of years.

Did I mention my Chargers lost? Again? Yeah, me and the Futon Of Love are going to see the passing of a lot of cheap beer to get over that. The Chargers hired Norv Turner. I'm still in shock here.

Pirates scuttle their skipper Another baseball season down the tubes in Pittsburgh, and another manager sent away for not being able to perform cold fusion, cure cancer, and get the Pirates over .500.

If you stop the video of GM Neal Huntington chucking Jim Tracy at the see-ya press conference at 1:00 on the timer, you get a frame of him that looks like his soul just left his body. Creepy...

Tracy, 51, went 135-189, including 68-94 in the season that ended Sunday, since former general manager Dave Littlefield hired him Oct. 11, 2005. Littlefield was fired earlier in the month, and the decision regarding the manager was left up to his replacement, Neal Huntington. Team president Frank Coonelly also was heavily involved in the process.

Little advice, if your record stinks like yesterday's diapers, chances are the new GM will want to bring in someone a little less stinky to be the manager. They also kicked out three front office guys, and told the old coaches they were free to go look for other jobs.

Joe Torre might be available for a job interview after the Yankees get knocked out by the Indians, since Boss Steinbrenner pretty much said his ass is out if they lose. He could be a hero in Pittsburgh. They don't expect 110 wins and a World Series every year like the psycho Yankees fans do.

Image courtesy of Chris Carlson/AP

A tale of three bosses One's been run out, one may be run out, and one has done a runner.

Sprint ran out its CEO, one Gary Forsee, after they cratered their second quarter profits. I betcha he did foresee this coming, because his parachute out of Sprint totaled about $55.5 million.

Sprint shareholders, feel free to be inventive with your invective in the comments.

Another boss may be run out by Boss Steinbrenner. Yankees manager Joe Torre, who to my knowledge hasn't played an inning or swung a bat since 1977, is being blamed because the richest payroll in baseball crashed and burned against the Cleveland Indians.

I think GM Brian Cashman ought to be sleeping a little more restlessly. He's the one that assembled a high-price roster, but no one's suggesting feeding him to the fans in the upper deck. Should be fun when Torre gets Willie Randolph's job with the Mets next year. (I made that up. But c'mon, everyone's thinking it.)

As far as bosses taking flight, that would be my cheery boss Lucas, who's becoming a Yahoo. Now Sachin has to put up with me in his email box. Sachin, this is not my fault, don't believe a word Lucas says, I have no idea who left those eels in his desk.

A history of firing It's been almost twenty years since Billy Martin died before the Yankees could hire him to be a manager for the sixth time. He had getting fired down to a headline grabbing art form.

Seriously, the modern sports manager, coach, ball boy, whatever, couldn't hold a candle to Billy the Master...

Fighting and drinking continued to be the thread that linked his playing days to his managerial career. In his first season as skipper of the Twins, he gave pitcher Dave Boswell a black eye in a bar, won a division title, and was fired.

Steinbrenner hired him for the first time in 1975, and the Yankees won the World Series two years later, even after Martin and Reggie Jackson nearly came to blows in the dugout during a nationally televised game. A year later, Martin was fired.

By 1979, he was back at the helm, only to be fired again by October after punching out a marshmallow salesman in the elevator of a Minnesota hotel.

You just don't get that kind of dedication out of modern day managers.

Image courtesy of FindAGrave.com

Oh and six? Oh get out! Maybe 20,000 people in Atlanta will even notice this, but the National Hockey League has its first coach firing of the year. The first pucks have barely been dropped and shot over the glass into the beer cups of unsuspecting fans, but Atlanta Thrashers coach Bob Hartley is gone...

“This is always a very difficult decision to make, but we feel that this is the best thing for our team right now,�? said Waddell. “We thank Bob for his service over the last four-plus seasons, but we believe that a new approach is necessary to get the club back on track and compete at the level we feel we are capable of.�?

Right now the Thrashers aren't capable of much, with an 0-6-0 start. The Flyers dropped a 4-0 shutout on Atlanta last night, leaving them the only team in the league without a single point.

Even in the come one, come all playoff system the NHL uses, zero points won't get a team into the post-season. Someone has to be the butt of the "what's blue and orange and plays golf during the Stanley Cup" jokes.

Torre disses $5 million deal. What?! No World Series titles since 2000.

Three straight first round playoff exits.

George Steinbrenner publicly saying Joe ain't coming back if the Yankees and their massive payroll are sidelined in the first round again.

Even with all this, the Boss's offspring still put a deal for $5 million on the table, with incentives that could push it to $8 million and an option year.

Joe went to Florida and asked for more. He didn't get it. How's he feel after making about $70 million off the Yankees just in the last twelve years? Yup, total disrespect...

"When I expressed my dissatisfaction with the length of contract ... I explained that and the incentives, which I took as an insult," Torre said. "If we hadn't started this run, being in five of the first six World Series, I don't know how to say that one is never enough, or two is never enough. You're constantly driving because you know that's the goal you've set for yourself.

"The most important thing for me -- sure, money's a part of it, and five million dollars is a lot of money, and I'm not going to make that this year, so I'm not taking it for granted -- but if someone is reducing your salary, it tells you that they're not satisfied with the job you're doing. ... Two years would have opened the door for further discussion, but it just never happened."

I'll put it like this, and Sachin, if you're reading this and not out mountain biking or kite surfing, please. Diss me. Insult me with a $5 million offer. I can be bought. Seven digits, pride takes a backseat, no, it gets in the trunk with orders to keep quiet or Bad Stuff will happen.

I'm begging you. Ignore my pride. Write the check.

Goalie-benching coach gets himself red-carded Put me in the Hope Solo camp. After the precocious young star keeper for the US Women's Soccer Team ended up on the bench to watch her team get shelled by Brazil, she ripped coach Greg Ryan a new one.

The talking heads on ESPN were falling all over themselves to criticize her for being honest. I'd subscribe to her newsletter if she had one. Awww, she wasn't nice to her coach because of his boneheaded decision, boo hoo hoo.

Goalie-swapping Greg finally got the richly-deserved firing he fully earned by pulling Hope from the squad based on a hunch. Yeah, I know, I want coaches to take chances, but Greg's got all the sense of timing of a busted watch. See ya Greg...

Sunil Gulati, president of the United States soccer federation, declined yesterday to second-guess Ryan’s goalkeeper decision, but he noted that the top-ranked Americans were undefeated before the Brazil match.

Gulati said he would not characterize the goalkeeper switch “as a right or wrong decision,�? but “obviously the result of the game was not what Greg was looking for.�? He seemed to lose the confidence of some of his players.

Yeah, ya think? Hope shredded Greg for blowing it on a really big stage, and he retaliated against her. She's not going to win any sportsmanship awards, but she might help the team win a World Cup again.

Can't say that about him. I know, 45-2-9 for Greg's career, that second L was a killer though.

Image courtesy ESPN, the Worldwide Leader in bloviating

They feared his old porn career A couple of guys in Surprise, Arizona must have watched way too many tapes from the back of the old video stores. They were so terrified that Geoff Mena had been in the adult video business in the past that they got him fired from his job.

Someone calling himself 'a concerned parent' sent a letter complaining about Geoff's past...

"My friend and I were talking to the tennis pro, Geoff Mena, about lessons, tournaments, etc. for our families. Once we returned home, we decided to 'google' his name to check his teaching credentials. It was at this time that we discovered that he also is involved in the adult entertainment industry. As a former Marine, I am certainly not a prude, but, after some discussion, Mr. Mena's other career made us wary of him teaching our wives, daughters and their teenage friends."

I can imagine what this non-prude must have been thinking. His wife goes for a tennis lesson, someone starts playing a funky bass line, she gets a repetitive lesson on the ins and outs of baseline play, another guy's wife comes in for mixed doubles, you get the idea.

Carr drives away from Ann Arbor I saw this coming at the beginning of September after the Wolverines took the biggest loss ever in the history of college football. Losing at home to Appalachian State didn't end the Michigan season even though no one knew it at the time.

Getting waxed by Oregon didn't end their season either, and no one knew nearly every other team in college football would lose bizarre games all season long.

Then Lloyd Carr's team lost to Ohio State again. 1-6 in the last seven years against the chief rival doesn't make wealthy, capricious alumni willing to part with millions of dollars in donations to the good old boy endowment fund.

The guy did have a national championship under his belt. Not everyone believed he should have been pushed into retirement...

One doesn't get the sense that Michigan fans are sad to see Lloyd Carr ride off into the coaching sunset. They might appreciate the man, but the coach in Lloyd Carr is receiving incredibly short shrift from the Wolverine fan base and the larger community of college football commentators and analysts.

Coach was making about $347,000 a year, so unless he spent it all on Magic the Gathering booster packs he should be ok.

There was another college football coach getting fired today, Guy Morriss at Baylor, but no one cares about Baylor football.

Weak ACC football schools fire their coaches Want to make a Dallas Cowboys fan scream like he's just got a note from the IRS asking for his financial records? Say the name Chan Gailey to him, preferably when he's drinking. You'll get the whole beer through the nose routine if you time it right.

Oh, they won more than they lost in the two years he was there, but they lost in the first round of the playoffs both years. At Georgia Tech, they didn't even have that kind of success, and after six years of watching other teams get fat BCS paydays, they fired Chan before he could finish his Egg McMuffin today.

The school is on the hook for $4 million unless they can show cause for firing the coach, meaning unless the AD has pictures of Chan and the Yellowjacket mascot doing strange things with the stinger, he's getting a nice check for his Christmas shopping.

Duke's AD wasn't nearly as vicious as Tech's was in firing Duke's coach...

"Whenever you make a change, it's difficult," Duke athletics director Joe Alleva said as he announced the move this afternoon.

"It's really difficult when you have a man like Ted Roof, who exemplifies all the values and integrity that you want in a head coach."

I wonder if he managed that with a straight face. You have to know these schools are looking at Missouri, not exactly known for being a football powerhouse, being in position to play the BCS Championship game and pull down some serious green, and they're wondering why the hell their dumbass coach can't get them into that game.

Values and integrity don't mean crap when it means your school won't even be in the Weedwhacker Bowl, let alone the BCS.

Of course Missouri's going to choke against Oklahoma and put Ohio State in the 1 or 2 spot. Ohio State versus West Virginia, yeah, I know everyone can't wait for that game to happen.

UCLA punts its football coach Karl Dorrell didn't want to try and beat BYU again by coaching in the Las Vegas Bowl, I guess. He had the chance to coach his team one last time, but since he'd been fired, Karl said screw that.

Ok, not really. Sort of. He said the bowl game should be about the kids...

"While I would love to take the field with these young men one last time, I felt that my situation would take the focus away from our players and their efforts and that's the last thing I would want to do."

In other words, screw that. Who would want to be on TV for three hours while the talking heads in the booth spend most of the game wondering who's going to hire a coach with 27 losses in five seasons?

I'm not weeping too much for Karl, since he's getting over $2 million to go home, watch some daytime TV, fantasize about the AD being killed by toilet ice falling out of a jet approaching LAX, stuff like that.

Karl did say one thing that some people may have missed - that UCLA might have to change its philosophy when it comes to academic admissions. Does that mean the Bruins need to lower their standards and bring in guys who lean a lot more toward the athlete side of student-athlete.

Math is hard and reading is inconvenient, I guess. Go Bruins?

Bobby Petrino flies away from Falcons The coach ditched Louisville for the chance to work with Michael Vick and make him into the quarterback everyone hoped he could become.

Mongrel Marauding Mike turned into the Falcons' nightmare. His dogfighting activities, and a big helping of lying to the feds, cost him around $143 million and possibly 23 months of his freedom.

That dream job of coaching one of the most exciting talents ever to put on cleats and face maniacal linebackers ended up a 3-10 embarrassment, as Bobby P bailed fast out of Atlanta...

Team owner Arthur Blank and the Falcons brass were caught so off guard that they are still trying to figure out who will coach the 3-10 team over the final three games.

Petrino, who was signed from the University of Louisville to a five-year, $24.5 million contract Jan. 8, told him Monday afternoon that he definitely would be back to coach the Falcons in 2008.

It was the second time Blank had asked Petrino about his commitment to the team and the second time Petrino told him he would be back next season.

Bobby P has some truthiness issues. He's heading to Arkansas to take Houston Nutt's old job that became open when the fans ran the coach out of town, all the way to Ole Miss. Sounds like Bobby P and the Hog faithful will get along like pigs in a mud puddle.

Bulls gore Stiles on Christmas Eve It's not even the first time the Chicago Jordan-less Bulls have taken a colossal dump in a coach's stocking on Christmas Eve.

The Windy City is buzzing now that Scott Skiles has been fired. GM John Paxson had the honor of backstabbing his coach...

In a statement released this morning, Paxson said, “This was a difficult decision to make, but one that was necessary at this time. Scott helped us in many ways during his time with the Bulls; most importantly, he helped this franchise get back to respectability. I am appreciative of his hard work and the imprint that he left on our team.�?

In a sucky Eastern Conference, the Bulls have stood out for sucking above and beyond the East's standard of suck. Ok, they're actually a game better than the Knicks or the Heat, whatever. So it's Scott's fault John couldn't pry Kobe out of LA. Riiiiiight.

Back in 2001, the Bulls tossed out Tim Floyd, aka Worst Hire EVAR, on Xmas Eve. Maybe Scott got a nice buyout, so instead of trying to motivate a roster full of suck, he can head down to South Beach and try and talk some Argentinian supermodel into putting sunscreen on his bald head.

Maybe John gave him a Christmas present after all. Hawaiian Tropic, maybe?

Secret emails from the NFL The regular season came to an end. My Chargers get the three seed in spite of Norv Turner's coaching. The GM who masterminded last year's coaching fiasco, A.J. Smith, got a freaking extension.

Words fail me.

A few people didn't receive Bizarro-world consideration from their bosses. Here's what the emails looked like on Bloody Monday, the day after the end of the season.

From: Big Tuna
To: RMueller@dolphins.com
Subject: Your job

Randy Mueller,
You drafted Ginn and Beck instead of Brady Quinn. The team finished 1-15. Bullethead wanted to take a contract out on you with one of these Jamaican drug gangs, but I think I talked him into just letting me fire you.

When security comes to escort you out, check for dreadlocks anyway. Chromedome might have changed his mind.

Bill

---------

From: Steve Biscotti
To: Brian Billick
Subject: You don't know QBs

I am so glad the season is over so I don't have to break my customary promise not to talk to the media during the year. Brian, you don't know quarterbacks, you can't run an offense, and the team hates your guts. Get the hell out and be glad I don't take Ray Lewis up on his offer to have a couple of his friends meet you in the parking lot to discuss cutlery with you. Out OUT OUT!!! I've got a press conference in five minutes.

---------

From: Teflon GM (mmillen@detroitlions.com)
To: Mike Martz (Ogenius@detroitlions.com)
Subject: See ya fall guy

Yeah, I know it would make more sense for Mr. Ford to have me dropped into the lake wearing nothing but a Ford pickup, but guess what? I get yet another free pass on a failed Lions season. Again.
Hahahahahaha. Take your kid with you, bitch. You're fired. I'm not.

---------

From: Carl Peterson (gm@kcchiefs.com)
To: KC Chiefs fans
Subject: me and Herm ain't leaving

Never underestimate the power of discreet photographs when it comes to dealing with ownership. So the Chiefs had their worst season since Jimmy Carter was in office. We fired some of the coaching staff, but me and Herm, we play to win the game, and the game is "keep our fat paychecks." Don't forget, season ticket prices go up next week.

---------

Tuna almost missed someone From inside the mind of the Big Tuna, Bill Parcells, about 24 hours ago...

Dammit, something's bothering me. Tossed Mueller out, that was the big item in my day planner. Thank god for those Stephen Covey books, I wouldn't be able to remember a single birthday if I hadn't bought those, had someone read them, and got them to pick up a planner and fill all that stuff in for me.

Birthday...did I forget someone's...no, that's not it. Crap.

Hey, Bullethead, how ya doin'? Thanks for keeping the team. You should have seen the look on Blank's face when I told him to forget about the job he was offering. What a rube. Played him like a violin. Sure made you add a zero to the contract though, didn't I?

Hahaha. Dammit. What am I forgetting? The horses, no, that's all good, they're being brought down from Sarasota to Ocala. I should have done that years ago. Cripes, upstate New York in winter, are you kidding me?

Hey, Ricky Williams, how ya doin'? No problem, glad we could hang on to you, fragile bitch that you are now thanks to the dope and the yoga. If I could move your ass for a seventh round pick I'd do it in the time it takes me to fart the theme to Spongebob.

Farting? No, did that out by the secretaries. Got to let them know where they stand. In my case, upwind. Hahaha.

Hey Cam, how's it go....hey, yeah, let's talk for two seconds. You're fired. Ok, one second.

No. That wasn't it. Ah, forget about it, I'm going to flip through the cheerleader calendar in the executive bathroom again.

Norv Turner calls for CYA option You had to know I could no more let news about Chargers+firings pass by me any more than John Pinette can skip a seventh trip to the buffet line.

Coach Norv entered full cover your ass mode, sending the classy James Lofton (yes, the Hall of Famer) out job hunting...

“I don't have any idea,�? Lofton said when asked why he was fired. “I was stunned. He just said he was going in a different direction.�?

Unless Norv is planning to announce Jerry Rice taking the job, I'm wondering which way that direction is going to go.

Norv also ditched running backs coach Matt Simon. Looks to me like Matt's being scapegoated for LaDanian Tomlinson's 90% ready = 2 carries and 1 catch Sunday performance.

Neither of those guys were doing the playcalling on Sunday. If Norv's not on the street collecting tin cans for the deposit money, especially after punting with nine to go in the game, down two scores, at the Pats' 36, I have to wonder if Chargers ownership is either clinically insane or completely blinded to his screwups.

Image courtesy of Deadspin

Sideline reporters sidelined by ESPN Depending on who you listen to, Michele Tafoya and Suzy Kolber have either been fired from Monday Night Football, or given new roles at the sports network. Andrea Kremer is ticked off...

Says Kremer, who worked at ESPN for 17 years before joining NBC: "They were doing the role that ESPN asked them to do — more feature-ish stuff — and they were fired for it? If you don't like them in that role, change their role. Don't humiliate them like that. The way (ESPN) handled it was terrible, just disrespectful. … They treated two professionals in a completely non-professional way."

Hello, it's show business, not show friends. Lesley Visser got replaced by Melissa Stark once upon a time. It wasn't very nice of ABC to do that, but skewing younger meant screwing Lesley over, and they did it in a heartbeat.

The real lameoid is the ombudsperson at ESPN. She had all of this to say about Suzy and Michele...

ESPN confirmed reports that the mid-game role of sideline reporters will be reduced next year.

Fired? Reassigned? Stuck watching the game from a sports bar eight miles from the stadium? What's going on?

Ombudsperson also said boo hoo, but ESPN simply can't be expected to make Monday Night Football a viewing experience for the *sniff* purists...

These viewers offered a hard knot of resistance to MNF from first game to last, and I imagine they are ESPN's nightmare -- they are football's true faithful, purists important to please, and yet perhaps impossible to please while MNF seeks an audience large enough to justify its eight-year, $8.8 billion rights contract with the NFL.

As a football purist who thinks anything beyond the occasional cheerleader or crowd shot after a score borders on excessive overindulgence, Monday Night Football is nearly unwatchable. There is so much going on that the game takes a back seat to the chatter, the guests, the millions of little things ESPN pukes onto the screen.

I'd like to see Roger Goddell fire ESPN. Just call ESPN into NFL HQ and tell them their services are no longer required, here's a pro-rated refund of the contract, now get out before I have some linebackers pummel you.

Then Roger could hire Suzy and Michele to do the Monday night games.

Coaches: Martz dishes, Sampson going, O'Brien cashes in Looks like it's all over but the paperwork in Bloomington. Kelvin Sampson won't be coaching Indiana anymore, leaving the bench open for a triumphant return by Mr. Bob Knight, late of Texas Tech. Yeah, that'll happen. Off ya go Kelvin, and try to keep under your mobile plan minutes if you ever get another coaching job...

According to a third source, there was a team meeting at 3:00 p.m. ET in which several of the players — including D.J. White and Eric Gordon Jr. — were told that Sampson would not coach the team the remainder of the season. The source did not know if Sampson would be fired, or merely suspended.

Meanwhile, someone got fired in the Detroit Lions organization last month. To the sadness of Lions football fans, it wasn't Matt Millen, but Mike Martz, the madman offensive coordinator. He's got a new job trying to turn the 49ers offense into something resembling an NFL unit. But first, he had a few words to say to the media at the NFL combine in Indy...

Q: So they did fire you?

A: “Oh, yeah. They fired me. Absolutely fired me.”

Q: How is a firing a mutual thing?

A: “That I agreed I should probably go (laugh). When they fired me, it became mutual. I said, ‘You’re right. I probably should go.’ That’s how it became mutual.”

Q: Were you surprised the Lions danced around it, never saying you were fired?

A: “I can’t explain anything that they do. I can’t.”

That's ok, neither can anyone else in Detroit, except maybe the voices in William Clay Ford's head when he keeps giving Matt Millen extensions.

Ex-The Ohio State University hoops coach Jim O'Brien should finally get a big check from the school for firing him and breaking his contract. The Buckeyes appealed the decision all the way up to the Ohio Supreme Court, which decided they aren't going to hear the case...

O'Brien, the men's basketball coach at Ohio State from 1998 until 2004, was fired after he told then-athletic director Andy Geiger that he had given a $6,000 loan to a prospective recruit. Such loans are a violation of NCAA rules.

O'Brien sued the university for wrongfully firing him and won $2.2 million plus interest in the Ohio Court of Claims in 2006. The university appealed to the Supreme Court after an appeals court upheld the award. The university and O'Brien's lawyers figure the total award will be $2.7 million to nearly $3 million.

I think some OSU alums will be getting some frantic calls from their alma mater this weekend.

Being Brian Billick Someone ought to get inside the fired Ravens coach's head. Brian Billick has no idea why he was fired in Baltimore.

Maybe he ought to read the Ravens Central blog. Mike Preston all kinds of reasons why Brian got crunched by Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti...

Billick was fired because he lost to a quarterback named Cleo Lemon. He was fired because the offense was inept. He was fired because the Ravens couldn't score touchdowns. He was fired because he was changing offensive coordinators like Hillary Clinton changes moods in the presidential election race. He was fired because fans stopped coming to games and his locker room was in disarray. He was fired because he no longer could connect with his players, and he won only five games and had a losing record with a team that was expected to be one of the league's elite.

No tears for Billick, for sure. He'll get $15 million to sit around the house over the next three years. That's a lot of time for him to get good at Madden NFL and figure out how to run an offense again.

Photo credit: David Hobby, Baltimore Sun

Hawks coach experiences early Ides of March Atlanta still has a basketball team. Who knew? At 24-33 in the NBA Least-ern Conference, I think I can be forgiven for not realizing Al Horford plays for an NBA squad.

General manager Billy Knight has been around Atlanta longer than Coke, peaches, and peanuts. At least that's how it feels to Hawks fans who haven't seen a playoff run in a long time.

Backstabbin' Billy tried to give coach Mike Woodson the Caesar treatment. He wanted the coach fired, but instead of warm approval from the owners, Billy got something else...

Something significant has happened: The same owners who backed Billy Knight to the hilt in the fight against Steve Belkin in the summer of 2005 have disregarded Knight’s recommendation that Mike Woodson be fired. The general manager who once inspired blind trust in his ownership (if not his fan base) has lost his hold and might soon lose his job.

Passing on Chris Paul (20.8 pts, 4 boards, nearly 11 assists per game) should have cost Billy his job last year. Looks like Billy will be Billy-B-Gone after this season. Mike should be right behind him.

Ouch ouch ouch ouch ouch Not a firing story, but one of a baseball player likely to be placed on the injured list, which is kind of like being fired for a few days.

This might be the most painful injury report I've ever seen...

Mar 16 2B Kaz Matsui is scheduled to undergo surgery Monday in Houston to repair an anal fissure, which is a tear of the skin near the anus that causes bleeding and periodic pain. He's expected to miss two weeks, which would put him in doubt for the March 31 season opener at San Diego.

The stream of Japanese profanity when he first experienced this injury must have been hot enough to blister paint. I couldn't even re-read the injury report without clinching in sympathy. Every time Kaz takes a dump, half the locker room probably gets to hear the seven words you can't say on Japanese television.

Image courtesy PE.com

Red Sox fire unfair Japan policy Management promised Major League Baseball players all kinds of things in exchange for prying a couple of teams out of North America to play a couple of games in Japan. So when the greedheads who run baseball, as in used car salesman Bud See No Steroid Evil Selig and his gang, decided to screw coaches out of the appearance fee previous team coaches received for the Japan trip, the Red Sox, and later the A's, took action.

The Worldwide Leader said the Sox threatened to boycott their last spring training game and the Japan trip if coaches did not receive the $40,000 bonus players would get for crossing the Pacific to play a couple of games. Bud probably nearly had an anal fissure when he caught wind of this, to which I say good...

"We had an agreement," Curt Schilling, one of a handful of Red Sox players who talked with Major League Baseball on ground rules for the trip, told ESPN's Claire Smith.

"Some of the promises have already been taken away, now this," Schilling said. "As far as the players are concerned, [withholding the coaches' bonuses] can't happen."

''When we voted to go to Japan, that was not a unanimous vote,'' Lowell told The Boston Globe, "but we did what our team wanted us to do for Major League Baseball. They promised us the moon and the stars, and then when we committed, they started pulling back. It's not just the coaches, it's the staff, the trainers, a lot of people are affected by this.

Gee, MLB hosing people over, a surprise of epic, EPIC, proportions. I feel for the fans with cheap rat-bastard owners who run their teams several places below frugal when it comes to payrolls and operations. None of them will be surprised MLB tried to pocket a little extra scratch from the Japanese trip.