Daily Double - The Global Warming Edition

1. Sure it is snowing like crazy in the Northeast and the rest of the country is fairly cold as well, but it is a little warmer in my part of the world because pitchers and catchers reported yesterday for the, ahem, WORLD CHAMPION ST. LOUIS CARDINALS.
   
   
   Nice puff piece on Braden Looper in the Post-Dispatch. Count me as a member of the group saying that Looper and/or Wainwright are just holding a spot in the rotation until the front office can find a suitable trading partner. Sure Junior and I believe that Dave Duncan has the powers of the Almighty himself, but come on. A team that won 83 games last year now has two guys moving from the pen to their starting rotation. I don't like the sound of that at all.
   
   
2. Bear with me for a minute, but I give Tim Hardaway some credit. He essentially said what a majority of current NBA players wanted to say concerning John Amaechi and the prospect of playing with a homosexual teammate. Did he have to be so bold? Well, no not really. Do I personal agree with him? No. However, it is a free country and of course, ESPN is free to fire Hardaway for what he said.
   
   
   I have had a week or so to think about it and my thought on the whole gay player in professional sports thing is that there surely are some players in the major league sports that are gay. So what? Big deal. The number one issue is does the guy do his job as well as he can? If so, great. And if he wants to tell people he is gay, that is his right. It is also his right to keep his personal life quiet just like if he didn't want to talk about the fact that he is an atheist or really only plays the sport because of the money. Just do your job and no one will care.
   
   
   What does drive me insane are the columnists who are seemingly cheering for a gay player to admit to it. Why? What benefit would it have for that guy? Think about the questions that he would face in every city he visited. And think about what his teammates would have to go through. As a society we tend to look down on athletes who put their personal glory ahead of their teammates. Why is this any different?