Cleveland Sports Forum

rusty2 wrote: If you used your eyes and ears as much as your mouth then you would know that I was not a supporter of Obama during the election.

I most certainly recall and recalled you claiming to not support Barack Obama in the past election pregame.

My eyes have previously told me that you as a Youngstown area guy have a soft spot for some sports angles and things Pennsylvania, and I understand.

That said, where do you stand on "Biden 2016?




Still remember The Big Apple?

Talk about bat control!

https://www.facebook.com/video/embed?vi ... 7389352693

Seeing is no longer believing.

VT'er wrote:Seeing is no longer believing.

Or, in Manti Te'o's case, NOT seeing is no longer believing.

We are approaching Super Bowl weekend, one of the few times of the year I think about wagering on anything other than Black Jack, horses, or occasionally now again....dogs.

Recently I visited our local Southwest Florida OTB, which happens to be at a dog track, to monitor some Southern California horse racing for wagering. I was given a comp program on entrance for the dogs, and noted the next race had the #1 dog a rare dog racing scratch giving the maiden #2 dog a birds eye view of the rail out of the box with lots of room to run.

I dashed to the window as the boxes were closing and "the rabbit" was approaching and threw down a bet to have my choice and the #2 finishing in the top three.

As I cashed the triple digit chance of the moment win, the female ticket seller asked how the heck I picked that long shot and decided to wager on it.

A Gentleman has his gambling secrets, I guess.

(better said, "I got lucky, and I do not want to inspire others to gamble with tools that might not work for all.")

I do not see a gambling angle I feel in the gut on this Super Bowl. If I were placing a fun bet I'd put double digits on the San Francisco QB scoring the the first TD.

The gutter football fan in me wants to see Ray Lewis decimated and humiliated on Super Bowl Sunday. He should have been in prison years ago for his Atlanta actions, and walked off free after someone in his car....most said "Ray Lewis"......shot and killed an Ohioan in Atlanta.



His later adulation makes me want to puke.

There was no shot and killed. Both men were stabbed to death.

Following a Super Bowl XXXIV party in Atlanta on January 31, 2000, a fight broke out between Lewis and his companions and another group of people, resulting in the stabbing deaths of Jacinth Baker and Richard Lollar. Lewis and two companions, Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting, were questioned by Atlanta police, and 11 days later the three men were indicted on murder and aggravated-assault charges. The fight occurred about 200 yards from the Cobalt Lounge at 265 East Paces Ferry Road in the Buckhead Village neighborhood about two miles north of downtown Atlanta where Lewis had been celebrating. The white suit Lewis was wearing the night of the killings has never been found. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard alleged the blood-stained suit was dumped in a garbage bin outside a fast food restaurant. A knife found at the scene did not have any fingerprints or DNA. Lewis subsequently testified that Oakley and Sweeting had bought knives earlier in Super Bowl week from a Sports Authority where Lewis had been signing autographs. Baker's blood was found inside of Lewis's limousine.

Teen performer at inaugural events fatally shot

CHICAGO —

A 15-year-old girl who had performed in President Barack Obama's inauguration festivities is the latest face on the ever-increasing homicide toll in the president's hometown, killed in a Chicago park as she talked with friends by a gunman who apparently was not even aiming at her.

Chicago police said Hadiya Pendleton was in a park about a mile from Obama's home in a South Side neighborhood Tuesday afternoon when a man opened fire on the group. Hadiya was shot in the back as she tried to escape.

The city's 42nd slaying is part of Chicago's bloodiest January in more than a decade, following on the heels of 2012, which ended with more than 500 homicides for the first time since 2008. It also comes at a time when Obama, spurred by the Connecticut elementary school massacre in December, is actively pushing for tougher gun laws.

Hadiya's father, Nathaniel Pendleton, spoke Wednesday at a Chicago police news conference, which was held in the same park where his daughter died.

"He took the light of my life," Pendleton said. He then spoke directly to the killer: "Look at yourself, just know that you took a bright person, an innocent person, a nonviolent person." Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy consoled him, the girl's mother and 10-year-old brother.

Hadiya was a bright kid who was killed just as she was "wondering about which lofty goal she wanted to achieve," her godfather, Damon Stewart, told The Associated Press. Hadiya had been a majorette with the King College Prep band.

"She was a very active kid, doing dance, cheerleading, who felt like she could accomplish just about anything, a very good student who had big dreams about what she wanted to be, a doctor, an attorney," said Stewart, a Chicago police officer and attorney. "She was constantly getting good grades."

Obama was asked about Hadiya's death in an interview with Telemundo, which led to a discussion about gun control. Also Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that the president and the first lady's "thoughts and prayers are with" the teen's family, adding: "And as the president has said, we will never be able to eradicate every act of evil in this country, but if we can save any one child's life, we have an obligation to try when it comes to the scourge of gun violence."

In Chicago, gangs routinely and often indiscriminately open fire. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and McCarthy are pushing for tougher local, state and national gun laws and longer prison sentences for offenders.

About three blocks from Hadiya's school, she and a group of 10-12 young people, including members of her volleyball team, had taken refuge under a canopy at a park to avoid the rain Tuesday afternoon. A man climbed a fence behind the park, ran at the group and started shooting, and then jumped back over the fence and into a white Nissan. The group scattered, but Hadiya was shot once in the back and a teenage boy was shot in the leg.

Police said Hadiya had no arrest record and there was no indication she was a member of a gang or was the gunman's target. In fact, McCarthy said there are no indications that anyone in the group was gang-affiliated. He said the police suspect that the gunman may be a member of a gang that considers the park its turf and that he mistook somebody in the group as someone from an encroaching rival gang.

McCarthy vowed to put a police officer at the park "24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year" if that is what it takes to show the gang that the park belongs to no one but the community.

Comments by both Stewart and the girl's father echo the message that city officials have long said: Gun violence is not confined to street corners in dangerous neighborhoods. Obama's neighborhood, Kenwood, is just north of the University of Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry.

"Her parents had done everything right and she was doing everything right," he said. Stewart, who was 12 when his own brother was shot and killed, said his family and Pendleton's family were so close that his own children saw the 15-year-old as an older sister.

"The worst thing in the world was when yesterday I had to sit there and tell my children that their sister is gone," he said.

Our Pet Lizard who has adopted us

Now living in South Florida, he have "a lanai."

A screen enclosure at the rear of our home on our patio looking at the community lake.

Lizards frequently have found ways to get into or up or over our under our screen door to partake of our lanai atmosphere and I guess, ambience.

I've always liked Pointsettia plants, perhaps because I've always liked the color red.

I was gifted a poinsettia plant, and purchased one on my own....around Thanksgiving.

Long story short, I bring the pointsettias in at night when the temps are forecast to go below 60 degrees.

One little lizard had learned the routine and has become a plant "hitchhiker" to come in and enjoy the warmth overnight.

My wife has screamed her head off on two occasions as the lizard strayed from his indoor plant as she has shut blinds at midnight.

One morning I put the plants in the sink to spray and water, and the lizard leaped out shaking the water off his head looking at me like "WTF were you thinking??"



Now I put water out for him on our lanai, and he dashes to partake.

My wife gets scared of leaping lizards and asks me to get the plants out in the morning before the lizard wakes up.

This morning was cool, but I did put the plants out as we were readying for the morning and day.

It was still chilly South Florida style at 9AM.

Honest to goodness, that lizard was looking at me through the glass door at 9:30AM, apparently asking to come back in to the warmth.

I grabbed a plant, let him leap on board, and then parted with him as I took the plant back outside with the lizard en tow at lunch.

Criminy, I had a smoking hot Asian female bookie back in San Francisco.

I'd like to get a couple bets down on this Super Bowl, but I will not.


That said, my WIFE is more smoking hot than any San Francisco bookie I might have ever done shots with.

TFISC- Re the Lizard........

Just buy the freakin policy!

loufla wrote:TFISC- Re the Lizard........

Just buy the freakin policy!

My wife suggested I buy more plants that do not need to be brought in at night in the chilled South Florida sub 60 degree air.

I did.

I guess I have a lizard condo development in possible play on our lanai.

That's Progressive, I guess, not that I would harm any GEICO reps in this post......

My Dad is seemingly near ready to pass. We've been here with him at this point multiple times before and he has always outfoxed doctors and prognosticators.

The last time he was at this point over a year ago, after several times before, we said our good byes in yet another bedside all night vigil.

We said our good byes, at least in my mind.

And he pulled through against all odds to confound the doctors. Yet again.


He has not known or recognized me or my wife in over two years I have thought and believed, and I have him in the 24 hour care of good people I know in California while I am currently in Southwest Florida.

As the doctors told me last week they expected him to pass at any minute or day, I began prepping his final arrangements.

A great professional trumpeter who played a couple decades in Las Vegas and I have known since Grade School in the late 1960's has agreed to play "Danny Boy," "Anchors Aweigh" and "When the Saints Go Marching In" graveside. His immediately stepping up on first request means and meant and means the world to me.

I have worked the numbers with funeral homes in California and Ohio and the first estimates for shipping and funeral and burial in a grave he has already paid for with a headstone he has already paid for are coming in at about 20 G's for me to pick up.

I plan hard negotiation tomorrow, and hope the funeral homes have folks that will cave like Mark Shapiro when negotiating.

I was thinking something closer to 12 G's.

I'm trying to arrange a party room with a date yet unknown in a casual place for his wake, and the female booking person got all profound on me.

She said, "he might stay for awhile.....he might be waiting for someone to tell him it is time."

Her words resonated. I first thought she might be thinking of one of his previously passed family members.

And today realized she might be thinking of me.

I'm taking my wife to Valentine's Day dinner Thursday evening. I'll converse with my Dad's doctor before hand.

If the Docs think My Dad can make it to Friday night, all my bags are packed and I'm ready to go.

I'll be leaving on a jet plane.

Don't know when I'll be back again.

Our Thoughts are with you TFISC, went trough a similar thing about 3 months ago and it is tough. Hardest part of life.

What Lou said TF. I went through a similar situation with my mother a few years ago. I was traveling back and forth between Chicago and Bridgeport for nearly three months every weekend. I was heading back to Chicago after visiting with her in the hospice on a Sunday evening when I got the call while on the toll road in Indiana. I turned around and go back home.

My mom died 3 years ago, so I can understand that situation as well. My thoughts and prayers will be with you and your family.