Inside Line interviews Graham Rahal

Jeremy's Scott and Curtis interview Graham Rahal on Inside Line, ICB Sports premiere racing show that airs every Thursday night from 7 to 9 pm.
Listen to the Podcast HERE!

Chicago: A First Place Kind-of Town

To start, i'm Greg Ratliff, co-host of the Coed Sports Show.

Right now, Chicago is enjoying some much awaited sucess from all over the Chicago area.

The Cubs are heading into the All-Star break 1st in the NL Central with a 57-38 record, including going 37-12 at home.

The White Sox are also leading the AL Central with a record of 54-40.

And, the Chicago Force women's football team has gone 10-0 this season, defeating the Detroit Demolition and the Pittsburgh Passion to advance to the IWFL Championship Game on July 26th. The Force will take on The Dallas Diamonds in the Force's first ever championship game appearance.

Overall, Chicago is enjoying some success now but the baseball season is only half over. Hopefully a subway series in October?

Till next time,

Greg Ratliff (coedsportsshow@yahoo.com)

ICB Sports Chicago blog 6/18: NBA Post Mortem

After watching as much of the NBA Playoffs as I’ve watched in years, I’m left with a few questions, a few opinions and I’m as excited about the NBA as I’ve been since Jordan’s first retirement. It’s obvious the Pistons/ Spurs era is over, and not a moment too soon. I’m not saying those teams aren’t good, they’re very good, but that’s the problem, they’re too good at what they do and it’s just a visually unappealing style of basketball. First just some random thoughts, in my tribute to the old Larry King style, and then we’ll get to my observations:

. . . Tayshaun Prince is the most underrated player in the league. He’s maybe the best mid size defender I’ve seen since Scottie Pippen. Prince also has to be top 5 in most disturbing player to get a close up of in HD

. . . Speaking of Scottie Pippen and HD, I think we should all breath a collective sigh of relief that HD wasn’t around for the season Scottie shaved his head.

. . . What’s worse, Carmelo Anthony’s shot selection or Adam Sandler’s script selection? The answer, Mike Meyer’s script selection, by just a hair.

. . . When did Danny Ainge become “Super” Dave Osbourne?

. . . I would’ve loved to see what Rajon Rondo could’ve done if he was healthy in the Finals.

. . . when I watched Michael Jordan I saw a guy trying to dominate and be the best with a will to win unlike any I’ve ever seen before. When I watch Kobe Bryant I see a guy who is trying to be Michael Jordan.

The Goods- The emergence of exciting young Point Guard play. Utah and New Orleans played some of the most exciting basketball I’ve seen in a long time and I love the way Chris Paul and Darrin Williams run their teams. I especially like Utah’s passing in the paint, it almost looks like they’re making an extra one or two dumb passes for no reason, you cringe, throw your arms up and start to shout “What the hell . . .” and before you finish your thought, there’s a large, wide open white man throwing in an easy dunk or lay up.

The Eastern Conference finally developing some good young teams with exciting players to watch. Lebron is the best player in the league (I will not listen to any Kobe arguments after that Finals performance) and Dwight Howard is the scariest player in the league, assuming they stay in the East; they should have some classic playoffs battles down the road. Throw in Atlanta’s young nucleus and Chicago rebuilding again with either Rose or Beasley (please let it be Rose) and the Heat getting the other guy, that’s five teams that shouldn’t be going away soon.

The Bads- Defense in the West is non-existent. The Spurs are the only team in the West the least bit interested in stopping anyone but they’re too old and slow to actually execute. The Lakers lost the Finals in six games while giving allowing Rajon Rondo, Eddie House, Leon Powe and James Posey to take over quarters of games. I’ve never seen anything similar to Leon Powe scoring at will in game 2 with four Lakers just standing around and watching looking dejected as Powe drove to the hoop. IT’S LEON POWE?!? I’ve never seen a Championship caliber team allow a minimal role player to break their spirit before, it was really something to see.

ESPN’s coverage is just too nauseating for me to watch. From Kobe apologist blowholes like Steven A. Smith to ridiculous puff pieces (could I see Bill Russell talk to Kevin Garnett again?), they couldn’t insult the viewers’ intelligence any more . . . oh wait, they could, but Chris Berman only does Football. I accidentally watched the Sportscenter wrap up from the Garden this morning to see Stu Scott and his crew blame the Laker supporting cast, Laker coaching and praise the brilliant Doc Rivers (who was almost fired before the season) right before showing you an example of Celtic Championship merchandise you can buy at NBAstore.com. Can we go back to when they were an impartial news reporting network? Now they’re just glorified shills for whichever league is in season now.

Resurfacing allegations about widespread corruption regarding referees fixing games on orders from high ranking NBA officials in an effort to extend series for revenue or rig a more favorable matchup for promotional purposes. Believe disgraced ref Tim Donaughy or not, that is just not good press. Then right on the heels of that story, the NBA assigns Dick Bavetta, a central figure in the newest allegations, to officiate a crucial game 5 for the Lakers to send it back to Boston on Sunday. I can’t decide whether that decision was made of arrogance or just plain stupidity. Nothing fishy seemed to happen in game 5, but no one can deny some of the past shadiness, Lakers/ Suns, Lakers/ Kings, and I’ve always wondered about the Bulls/ Knicks foul at the end of the game to give the Knicks the series the year Jordan was retired/ unofficially suspended.

Uglies- Kobe Bryant’s reputation didn’t take as much of a beating after the Colorado hotel incident. Kobe went from MVP and proving he didn’t need Shaq to being the poster child for selfish, spoiled athletes. Much of the talk was fueled by a blog from Curt Schilling where he waxed poetic about his experience sitting courtside and trashed the way Kobe interacted with his teammates. Curt stated that from the first tip until 4 minute left Kobe spent every TO, every trip up the floor glaring at his teammates, yelling at them for mistakes, basically showing them up. Then at the four minute mark when they almost came back, Kobe then gave the, it’s time to get going message. I think Kobe is a major turd and deserves every bit of criticism for his behavior. From everything he does on the court to the way he tried to whine he way out of town before the season started, especially for leaking that video at the coffee shop where he trashed the team. It goes to my above statement where I feel his goal is to be Jordan. Take a look at an old interview from when he first came into the league; take a look at an interview now, his facial expressions, his speech patterns, he looks like he’s doing a Jordan impression. He even changed his number from 8 to 24, 24, the next number up from 23, it is so transparent and sad. Is Kobe trying to emulate the way Jordan was hard on his teammates? Is that why Kobe tried to get in a fight with Shaq, because a million years ago Jordan fought with Cartwright in a practice? Jordan also punched Paxson in practice, watch out Sasha. Was that all Kobe was doing in Colorado, following in Jordan’s philandering footsteps? However, to get back to my point, is Curt Schilling really the man to point this out? Schilling has often been accused of being as phony as a 3 dollar bill and his entire blog could be interpreted as a giant suck up to Boston fans and a giant PR ploy. Should Curt Schilling chastise an athlete for showing up his teammates? Let’s ask Mitch Williams, “I've always said, if there was a big game I had to win, I'd want him to pitch it. Then I'd want to punch him in the face when it was over.'' Apparently Mitch still feels a little shown up for the way Schilling spent the ’93 playoffs sitting in the dugout with his head down with a towel covering his eyes every time Mitch was on the mound. Sounds a lot like Curt was beloved by all his teammates and at least Mitch felt very encouraged and supported by Schilling’s sterling leadership.

So to sum up; Kobe is a turd, Schilling is a turd, ESPN is unwatchable and the NBA is as exciting as it has been in a long time. I’m actually looking forward to next season

Eric Kulaga (telleranderikshow@hotmail.com)