Edmonton Eskimos? empire strikes back

This entire offseason was full of confident talk from the Edmonton Eskimos' organization about restoring the glory years. Given their remarkably high off-season turnover and significant questions, that wasn't something a lot of pundits (including myself) bought into, and the general consensus was that the Eskimos were likely in for a rebuilding year and a basement finish. Yet, after Sunday's unbelievable 42-28 win over the defending West champion Saskatchewan Roughriders, the one team everyone figured was safe to count out of the predicted three-way dogfight for first place in the West Division is alone at the top of the divisional standings and bringing back memories of better days.

How'd they do it? Well, the Eskimos' offence started clicking. Despite being awful at the start of the 2010 season, they showed some potential down the stretch last year, so this isn't entirely surprising. The offence they displayed Sunday night was far better than anything they showcased even in their best games last season, though, piling up points against a Saskatchewan defence that was supposed to be in good shape under new defensive-minded head coach Greg Marshall and new defensive coordinator Richie Hall (who was fired as the Eskimos' head coach after the season last year).

One crucial change was that veteran quarterback Ricky Ray was not only healthy going into the game, but he was kept upright and given time to throw by his offensive line. Guard Patrick Kabongo, who shed an incredible 76 pounds in the offseason (to get down to 315), displayed his usual force in the interior blocking game, but with much more athleticism. The rest of the line followed suit, dominating the line of scrimmage throughout Sunday's action. The unconventional move to use left tackle (and second-overall 2011 Canadian draft pick Scott Mitchell) as a tight end on several plays, something rarely seen in the CFL, also paid massive dividends. The Riders' defensive front couldn't get to Ray for most of the game, giving him plenty of time to pick apart their secondary. He finished with 21 completions on 27 attempts for 294 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions.

Ray's receivers deserve tons of credit themselves, though. Jason Barnes (pictured at top celebrating a touchdown catch with Ray), who was cut and then brought back during the offseason, had an incredible game, hauling in five passes for 104 yards and two touchdowns. Adarius Bowman, an off-season acquisition after Winnipeg cut him late last year for dropping too many balls, proved to be in great form in green and gold, making seven catches for 103 yards and a touchdown. Star receiver Fred Stamps was largely focused on by the Saskatchewan defence, but that sprung openings for others, and Stamps still recorded three catches for 34 yards. Andrew Nowacki also got in on the action with two catches for 29 yards, including a spectacular one for a first down near the sideline. The Eskimos' passing game looked to be a strength this year, but I wasn't expecting it to be this good.

Don't start planning parades just yet, though. This is just one game, after all, and individual games are not transitive. Just because Edmonton > Saskatchewan Sunday night and the Eskimos > the rest of the West Division on opening weekend, it doesn't mean those relations will hold through out the year and Edmonton will wind up heading to this year's Grey Cup. There are 17 games still to play, and it's worth noting that Edmonton's questions weren't entirely answered; their defence looked very vulnerable at times, and conceded 28 points overall to the Roughriders. Saskatchewan quarterback Darian Durant still completed 27 of 36 passes for 339 yards and two touchdowns, even if he was picked off three times, and Wes Cates picked up 56 yards on the ground on just 10 carries.

If they want long-term success this year, Edmonton's going to have to address their defensive issues. They're also going to have to try and make this kind of offensive explosiveness sustainable. Still, it's tough to imagine Opening Weekend going much better for them, even if almost no one outside the Green and Gold offices saw it coming.

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Tito Ortiz shocks with UFC 132 submission of Ryan Bader

Tito Ortiz came back from the brink of extinction at UFC 132 on Saturday night, winning with a guillotine in the first round over Ryan Bader.

Bader was landing intermittent strikes until Ortiz moved inside and landed a right hand directly on Bader's jaw. Bader's knees buckled, and Ortiz jumped on top of him and sunk in an arm-in guillotine. Ortiz squeezed until Bader tapped at 1:56.

He was jubilant after the fight, resurrecting his gravedigger celebration, then jumping onto the side of the cage. He thanked UFC brass Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta for pushing him to win this fight.

Ortiz knew going into this fight that it was win or lose his job. He has been a legend in the UFC, but his last win was in 2006 over Ken Shamrock. He hasn't been a champion since 2003. Battling back and neck injuries, he had never been able to return to that form until Saturday.

For Bader, it was a chance to get back on track after losing for the first time in February to eventual UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones, but it didn't happen. Since being on the brink of the a title shot, Bader has gone 0-2, losing both fights by guillotine.

This win may not mean that Ortiz is ready for another title run, especially in the UFC's stacked light-heavyweight division. Nonetheless, Ortiz was on the brink of losing his job and possibly retiring, and he won in convincing fashion. That feat reminds MMA fans of why he is a legend in the sport.

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UAE?s Awana Diab attempts insane penalty (and it works)

The United Arab Emirates crushed Lebanon 6-2 in a friendly on Sunday. So perhaps in an effort to make things interesting and perhaps because he simply does not conform to acceptable standards of penalty kicks, the U.A.E.'s Awana Diab decided to attempt an absolutely ridiculous penalty kick. And it worked.

Diab's setup seemed like any other for a penalty, but as he ran up to the ball, he stopped, turned around and backheeled the ball toward the goal. Stunned by the audacity, madness and nerve it takes to try and score a penalty with your back to the goal, the keeper just stood and watched as the ball trickled into the net.

Acrobatics aside, the back-flip penalty kick has nothing on this.

UAE manager Srecko Katanec did not appreciate Diab's creativity, though. He immediately substituted the player out of the match and after the game said that he would be disciplined for the "disrespectful act."

Video via 101gg

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Argonauts pull ad campaign?was it the right move?

The Toronto Argonauts have found themselves at the centre of some controversy thanks to an ad campaign running in Toronto subway cars. The posters, seen at right, feature defensive end Ricky Foley looking tough and the message "Home Is Where The Heart Is. It's Also Where We Hurt People," as well as ticket information for the team's July 23 home opener and other games.

That message spawned some negative reactions; the Toronto Transit Commission received at least five complaints about it, it's drawn criticism on Facebook, Toronto city councillor Mike Layton (son of federal NDP and Official Opposition leader Jack Layton) wrote a letter to Argonauts' president Bob Nicholson blasting the campaign, and the team eventually decided to pull their ads. Here's what Mike Layton had to say about why he was concerned:

"While I understand the intended meaning, my concern is the unintended consequences," Layton wrote. "In the context of domestic violence, the ad insinuates that domestic violence in the home is acceptable or normal. The ad may also trigger traumatic responses in the many survivors of domestic violence who are courageously moving forward with their lives."

Argonauts' vice-president of marketing and communications David Bedford told The National Post's Mark Masters the team didn't consider the posters in that context, but perhaps they should have.

"I think it's pretty common knowledge that football is a contact sport and a physical game," Bedford said. "We didn't look at it in the context of domestic violence and we probably should have, given that we've had a handful of complaints."

However, even pulling the posters has caused controversy. The National Post's Joe O'Connor blasted Layton's criticisms as an example of overly-enthusiastic political correctness:

How that particular football ? hurt ? could possibly "insinuate", as Toronto city councilor Mike (son of Jack) Layton wrote in a letter of complaint to Argos president, Bob Nicholson, "that domestic violence in the home is acceptable or normal" and "the ad may also trigger traumatic responses in many survivors of domestic violence who are courageously moving forward with their lives," is, well, let me see here: crazy talk.

Politically correct crazy talk uttered by a politician who has received a handful of complaints from a handful of concerned citizen-busybodies who clearly missed the intended message. Or else, they did not miss it, and simply chose to ignore it and label the poster as some unholy, domestic-violence-promoting demon instead.

You know, because that is what our modern day puritans do: they go looking for the beast with the horns, the pitchfork and the tail. And they invariably find that he is everywhere.

O'Connor's got a bit of a point; the Argonauts certainly weren't trying to promote domestic violence, and the ad doesn't necessarily suggest it to many people. I doubt most people are going to come away from that ad with the message that "domestic violence in the home is acceptable or normal". However, that doesn't make it a good ad campaign, and Layton's second criticism, "the ad may also trigger traumatic responses in many survivors of domestic violence who are courageously moving forward with their lives," seems to carry more weight.

Display advertising in particular is often about quick impressions rather than gaining the whole context of an advertisement, and displaying "Home Is Where The Hurt Is" in big letters certainly would appear to have the potential to bring back awful memories for some domestic violence survivors. It's not like the Argonauts needed to use that specific marketing line; there are plenty of other taglines they could have gone with that wouldn't have hurt or offended anyone, so blaming "political correctness" seems a bit over the top.

It's worth noting that even the straight football interpretation of the ad campaign isn't all that great. It's implying that the Argonauts play specifically to hurt their opponents, and while some fans might like the idea of that, it's worth noting that leagues have cracked down on that kind of language in the past. In particular, NFL linebacker James Harrison got in trouble last year over comments that he's out to hurt opponents, and deservedly so. Playing to hurt people has drawn criticism from outspoken Argonauts like Adriano Belli in the past, so it's curious that the team's aligning themselves with that mentality.

Sure, football is a physical game, and violence is often used to sell it; big hits (like Jamall Johnson's on Buck Pierce) get attention, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. There's a difference between hitting somebody and hurting somebody, though, and the latter is troubling in the context of all the frightening information out there on concussions and leagues' attempts to reduce and deal with them. There are plenty of ways the Argonauts can sell their product without promoting hurting people, on or off the field. In fact, some of the best efforts they've done in the past have come through community engagement, whether that's through revitalizing high school football or running anti-bullying campaigns through Stop The Violence; that presents a much more positive message than ads testifying their willingness to hurt people.�From this corner, it's a good thing they pulled this campaign; let's hope they can come out with a better one next time around.

Maggie Gyllenhaal

Keep up with the British Open and more at our Facebook page

We get it. You're a busy person, lots going on in your world. But hey, we want to bring you the best in golf coverage where you want it, and since something like 800 trillion of you are on Facebook, we're there too.

Come join us at the Devil Ball Facebook page for all the best posts from Devil Ball, along with FB-only photos, questions, games, polls and perhaps even prizes. (Sponsors, that would be your cue.) It'll be fun, and we won't bug you for more Farmville pigs or whatever.

And if Twitter is more your speed, we're at @jaybusbee, @shanebacon and @jonathanrwall. Basically, friends, we're here to serve. Won't you let us? Enjoy the rest of the Open Championship, everybody!

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UFC 132 postfight: Tito was in dream state when he took out Bader

Tito Ortiz is still in the UFC. The way he kept job made for one of the best MMA moments of 2011.

Ortiz pointed to finally getting healthy and new found confidence as the reasons he was able to pull off one of the biggest upsets in recent MMA history, at least according to the oddsmakers and bettors. By the time the fight started last night in Las Vegas, players had bet Ryan Bader all the way up to a minus-600 favorite.

A euphoric Ortiz said the fight was in slow motion.

"I had an out of body experience...Everything was in slo-mo. I was kind of watching myself do it. It was really weird," Ortiz said during the UFC 132 postfight press conference (3:35 mark). "For the first time everything was super, super slow. He was punching ... block, block. I was like 'that was it?'"

Ortiz gave credit to his trainer Jason Parillo.

Parillo's speed in training camp made Bader look slow to Ortiz. When he clinched the victory with a guillotine choke, Ortiz was still on cloud nine.

"He tapped and I didn't want to let go because I wasn't sure what was going on, because like I said, I had an out of body experience. I didn't know how to react," Ortiz said. "I wasn't letting go until the referee rips me off. I didn't mean to hold on longer than I was supposed to but I wasn't letting go."

Ortiz hadn't won a fight since 2006. He was 0-4-1 in his last five fights. The 36-year-old underwent two serious neck and back surgeries along the way.

"Physically I'm able to do it now. The surgeries I've gone through athletes don't come back. You're done," Ortiz said. "Not me. I have too much drive. Tonight it starts."

Ortiz really appeared sort of mentally beaten during prefight press conference. The losing and the questions about retirement were tough.

"It does eat at you [but] you have to have something to motivate you," Ortiz said. "When you have confidence behind you, you're unstoppable. You know, you look at Jonny 'Bones' Jones, he's unstoppable because his confidence is through the roof."

Ortiz said he'd like to face the winner of the Forrest Griffin-Mauricio "Shogun" Rua fight at UFC 134. It was good to see the old champion back to his form in the Octagon and outside following the fight. The crowd rallied behind Ortiz, who told the media that he had to beg UFC management for one more chance. He made the most of it.

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Boss! Pitcher identified from Bruce Springsteen?s ?Glory Days?

Trying to choose a favorite Bruce Springsteen song might be like trying to pick a favorite child. The internal dialogue could go on for decades.

Picking the best Springsteen video, however, takes no time at all. For me, it's "Glory Days" and it's not even close. The video not only includes footage of the Boss acting as a laboring, pile-driving husband, but it also shows BOTH lead guitarists from the E-Street Band (Nils Lofgren and Little Steven Van Zandt).

And it has REAL baseball footage from the 1984 or 1985 major league seasons. Dwight Gooden, back when the New York Mets were cool, striking out two Cincinnati Reds!

The tune obviously is catchy ? practically instantly memorizable. It begins:

I had a friend was a big baseball player back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside sat down had a few drinks
but all he kept talking about was ...

One prominent question about "Glory Days" has remained, even 26 years after its release: Was the "speedball pitcher" the Boss sang about a real person?

Thanks to a story in the New York Times written by Kevin Coyne ?� who, like the Boss, grew up in Freehold, N.J. ? we know the pitcher was a real fellow indeed.

I finally found out at a reunion we held recently for our Little League's 60th anniversary ? not from Springsteen, who did not come, but from Dick Enderly, once a fine schoolboy pitcher, who had put the question to Springsteen at their 30th high school reunion in 1997, and received the answer.

"Joe DePugh," Enderly told me. "I got it straight from the horse's mouth."

DePugh, the oldest of six brothers, was a star Little League pitcher and a teammate of Springsteen's in the Babe Ruth League. A joint assessment of their comparative baseball skills led to DePugh's affectionate nickname for Springsteen, a right fielder: Saddie.

Coyne's neat tale opens with Springsteen and DePugh bumping into each other outside of a bar in New Jersey years after they had lost touch as childhood friends ? just like in "Glory Days." The chance meeting came more than a decade before the song hit the airwaves and MTV.

So, how did DePugh react to becoming immortal on vinyl once the song came out?

He and Springsteen had lost touch again after their brief reunion in '73. At first, DePugh didn't believe it when a friend named Scott Wright told him about a song he heard on the radio.

"He told me, 'Springsteen has a new album out, and there's a song on there about you,' " DePugh said. " 'It's exactly the story you told me.' "

DePugh was skeptical, so Wright called a radio station in Montpelier, Vt., and requested the song.

"My wife starts bawling," DePugh said. "That's how I knew exactly that it was me."

The story spread slowly among his friends in Vermont and, when DePugh was 50, he was recruited to join a baseball league for older men.

"When I showed up for the first practice that summer," he said, "these guys would come up to me and feel the sleeve of my shirt, and say: 'Oh, you're real. We thought you were a legend.' I pitched the whole season that year and ended up with a 0.00 earned run average."

Ah, it all comes back to baseball.

The song and video aren't about baseball per s�, but "Glory Days" does use the sport as a metaphor and a vehicle for the wistful regret of days gone by, innocence lost, wonder about paths taken and not taken, etc. It can be an exhilarating listen, but also kind of depressing if you let it be.

Gooden's appearance ? awesome for a baseball fan in 1985 ? is a little arresting, so to speak, years later. (Now, if only Wezen-Ball would identify which specific game the Mets-Reds footage is from. Oh, well.)

Springsteen's video didn't limit the MLB references to his hometown-ish team. At the end, he and a kid wearing a Detroit Tigers cap talk about Graig Nettles (then of the Padres) taking Springsteen deep. In Bruce's dreams.

Ah, the glory days. It's good to know that DePugh didn't wind up some washed-up lush, hoping to catch a glimpse of rock stars on their way out of local bars. His life has had its ups and downs, though.

?�He got a tryout with the Dodgers, but didn't make the cut.

?�He earned an English degree from King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., but his parents had died by the time he graduated so he needed to become legal guardian for his two youngest brothers.

?�He couldn't find permanent work as a teacher, so he became a self-employed contractor and moved to Vermont.

?�He and Springsteen have seen each other twice in the past few years, at emotional restaurant gatherings in New Jersey.

As for Springsteen ... Hey, whatever happened to that guy?

Follow Dave on Twitter ?�@AnswerDave ? and engage�the Stew on Facebook

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