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Sports
WWE CEO And Trump Friend Is Relaunching XFL With Social Stipulations
DeMarcus Cousins' Injury Leaves Questions With Big Ramifications For Pelicans
DEMARCUS COUSINS DeMarcus Cousins
grabbed an offensive rebound, finished through contact and went to the free throw line for the traditional 3-point play. The All-Star center was looking to put the Pelicans ahead of the Rockets by five points with only 15 seconds remaining in regula- tion Friday night at Smoothie King Center.
Cousins' free throw at- tempt was long, but he chased it down in an effort to regain possession and kill what was left of the clock. Suddenly, Cousins was unable to put any weight on his left leg, and watching the game live, the ini- tial fear was there: a dreaded Achilles injury.
Two of Cousins' team- mates carried him off the floor, and shortly after the game the bad news came. Cousins had suffered a season-ending left Achilles tear, an injury with far- reaching impact on not only the big man himself, but also the future of the franchise.
Cousins will be out for the next six to 10 months.
Suns PG Devin Booker Leaves Loss To Rockets Late With Apparent Injury
DEVIN BOOKER
The Suns added insult to in- jury Sunday in a 113-102 loss to the Rockets when starting point guard Devin Booker left the game late with an injury.
Booker scored 31 points with 10 assists before leaving the game in obvious pain. He will reportedly have X-rays on his ribs and hip areas to deter- mine the exact injury.
Booker now has 16 games with at least 30 points this sea- son, but the Suns are only 8-8 in those games. After being snubbed from this year's All- Star game, Booker moved to point guard, leading the Suns' young offensive attack. A natu- ral shooter, Booker has dealt with the switch well, but the Suns are just 3-9 this month.
Should Booker miss ex- tended time, Tyler Ulis would see an uptick in minutes.
Denying Barry Bonds And Roger
BEAUTY UNLIMITED
YESENIA
This week’s Spotlight feature, Yesenia, is full of confidence and sure she will be successful in whatever endeavor she chooses. A very independent and focused young woman, Yesenia has her sights set on a 2018 that will bring her the success she’s been look- ing for, and the tools to takes others with her on the journey. Con- gratulations to Yesenia as this week’s Beauty Unlimited feature.
Clemens Hall Of Fame Entry Is Making
Cooperstown Irrelevant
For only the fifth time since the Baseball Writers' Associa- tion of America began electing players to the Hall of Fame in 1936, four former stars were in- vited to Cooperstown this week. There should have been two more.
Chipper Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Jim Thome and Trevor Hoff- man are the 2018 Hall of Famers, but the fraternity they'll join later this summer remains incomplete. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, the best hitter and pitcher of their generation, both fell short of the 75 percent vote threshold in 2018, just like they did in the five years prior.
But also like the five previ- ous years, each of their vote to- tals ticked up, if only marginally. Here are the num- bers for Bonds, who hit 56 percent for the first time 2018.
2013: 36.2%
2014: 34.7%
2015: 36.8%
2016: 44.3%
2017: 53.8%
2018: 56.4%
And for Clemens, who re-
ceived four more votes than Bonds.
2013: 37.6%
2014: 35.4%
2015: 37.5%
2016: 45.2%
2017: 54.1%
2018: 57.3%
The argument that these
two belong in Cooperstown has been made so many times, in- cluding on this website, that it's not worth diving into again. The summary is simple
ROGER CLEMENS AND BARRY BONDS
enough: Clemens and Bonds were the best players in an era marred by PED-use. If any players from that area are al- lowed into the Hall, they all should be.
There are other good argu- ments for their induction, in- cluding the absurdity of thinking the BBWAA should be arbiters of morality and the in- ability of baseball writers to know who did and did not use PEDs.
But the argument that feels most relevant in the sixth con- secutive year that Bonds and Clemens have been excluded from Cooperstown is that the Hall of Fame is doing itself an enormous disservice by exclud- ing them.
A Hall of Fame without Bonds and Clemens is in- complete and increasingly irrel- evant.
This sentiment is easy to understand. When baseball fans think of the Hall of Fame, they think of a museum that en- shrines the best players of all- time. Each year that Bonds and Clemens remain on the outside, is another year that it doesn't meet that simple crite- ria. And another year that base- ball fans dismiss its relevance.
The WWE CEO, Vince McMahon announced that he will be relaunching the XFL football league in 2020 with a scheme to entice sports fans who believe players shouldn’t have the right to make social and political statements on the field.
McMahon envisions a self-funded league that will allow him to do whatever he wants. “I can say, ‘Here are the rules, and as long as you are playing football in the stadium for us, you follow these rules,’“ he explained.
One of the major “rules” that McMahon plans to en- force is a ban on social protests. “People don’t want social and political issues com- ing into play when they are try- ing to be entertained,” he asserted. “We want someone who wants to take a knee to do their version of that on their personal time.”
McMahon is a longtime friend of Donald Trump (who has made his opinions
Vince McMahon of the wrestling world is a Trump sup- porter and friend and is saying if you ‘kneel you cannot play for me’.
about kneeling NFL players crystal clear), and his wife, Linda McMahon, was ap- pointed by Trump to lead the Small Business Administra- tion. In announcing this plan for a new XFL, McMahon de- clared that "the quality of the human being is very impor- tant. Just as important as the quality of the player." In his football league, he continued, “you want someone who does not have any criminality what- soever associated with them. Even if you have a DUI, you will not play in the XFL.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2018 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY PAGE 15