Who is Slade Heathcott?

      Yankee fans now have a new name stuck in their head. Slade Heathcott. Heathcott was the 29th overall pick in the 2009 MLB draft, and after six years of bouncing around the majors, he has tasted the big leagues. In four games this season, Heathcott has batted .417 with a home run and three RBI's. This past memorial day, Slade got his first start, when both Ellsbury and Beltran were out.
     
     So who is Slade Heathcott and what's so special about him? When Slade was a junior in high school, he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol, and thus started his alcohol problem. On top of that, Slade was also arrested for pointing a 12 gauge shotgun at his father's head during an argument. He grew up in a tormented house with divorced parents, and his upbringing was not perfect. His alcohol abuse continued until the Yankees learned Slade was blacked out and lost his passport the night before he was to fly to the Dominican Republic. The Yankees introduced him to Sam Marsonek, a former MLB pitcher, who took Heathcott to AA meetings. Heathcott also found a new life through religion, and claims that god saved his life.
   
  This man made it all the way from the bottom, and he has the skills to make it in the MLB. In seven seasons in the minors, Heathcott had a .270 average, which is fairly strong. He doesn't necessarily hit for power, but like Yankee fans saw this past Memorial Day, he can hit the occasional dinger. In the minors he was a great fielder, with an almost perfect fielding percentage in the minors. This kid is an all around strong player, who could play a significant role in the Yankees future. With an up and coming outfield, Heathcott could certainly find a spot somewhere in there. Beltran will be on his way out, and Ellsbury has been injury prone. Once Heathcott proves himself more worthy to be in the outfield than Garrett Jones, who is a 1B as well as RF, he will find himself in the rotation with Chris Young for the outfield spots.

    Personally I have become fond of Heathcott after hearing his story and watching him play. The fact that he turned his life around and now is doing great things, and has a family now is inspiring. His play on the field was fantastic. I truly think that Slade Heathcott belongs in the MLB, and I urge you all to keep an eye out for him.

Tom Brady is Innocent

WARNING: THIS ARTICLE WILL BE HIGHLY OPINIONATED

    Ridiculous. That is the only word I can use to describe the punishments dished out to the New England Patriots because of "Deflate-Gate." The loss of draft picks and $1 million fine is reasonable, because there truly was evidence of cheating. But what is unreasonable is the four game suspension given to Tom Brady. If anyone looked at the specific texts between Patriots employees, it is explicit that those employees were plotting against Tom Brady.
 McNally: "Tom sucks...im going to make that next ball a f---in balloon." (Oct. 17, 2014)
 On several other occasions, there were more texts exchanged between employees discussing ball inflation and deflation
 McNally: "Make sure you blow up the ball to look like a rugby ball so tom can get used to it before Sunday" (Oct. 21, 2014)

McNally: "F--- tom....make sure the pump is attached to the needle.....f---in watermelons coming" (Oct. 23, 2014)

Clearly Tom Brady was not the protagonist in this situation. The evidence is explicit in favor of Tom Brady being innocent. So, if the NFL saw all these texts, why did they suspend Brady for four games? It's absurd! Tom Brady did nothing in this situation, and the four game suspension was way out of line from the NFL. 

What should have happened? If they, being the NFL, were still stupid enough to suspend the greatest QB of all time, it should have been for the pre season games, AT MOST. 

I sincerely hope that the NFL reduces the suspension on Brady during his appeal. It is absolutley absurd that the NFL would have dished out this kind of suspension on an innocent player. Roger Goodell can redeem himself here by reducing the suspension he so unrightfully came up with.

MayPac = Hug Fest

       One word can be used to describe the Manny Pacquiao vs Floyd Mayweather fight this past May 2nd. Underwhelming. This was supposed to be the most anticipated, the most exhilarating fight of the century, and it fell way flat. With all the hype leading up to this fight, viewers at the MGM, and at home were yearning for a knockout. What did they get? A 12 round hug and jab fest, which was not worth their $100 at home, and thousands of dollars at the MGM. It became apparently clear to me that Mayweather has one motive. Money. He does not love the sport of boxing, and he does not love to compete. Floyd Mayweather "fights" for his nine figure check. For every second that passed by, Mayweather made $83k. No wonder he dragged the fight out. If this fight was against anyone else, with any other circumstance, he would have gone for the KO. But his strategy for the entire fight, was to drag it out, and there are a few things that make me believe this.

     1.Fight Style: Floyd played defense the entire night. Just by watching, I could tell he was running around, and one could say he fought scared. On several occasions, Pacman would work Mayweather into the corner, and begin to land a sequence of punches, culminating with one heavy left hook. Instead of fighting his way out, and landing a few return punches, Mayweather would slip out of the situation, and reboot the fight. That lack of offensive fire-power shows his lack of interest in the fight, in my mind. If Mayweather really cared about the fight, he would have gunned for Pacquiaos head, and left no mercy. On May 2nd, he jogged around, and gave the occasional hug. Seriously? Mayweather's lackluster fight style also restricted Manny from going after it. Because Floyd took Manny in for a tender hug everytime a 66 pound per punch fist was cocked for his head, Pacman couldn't fight like he normally would. Mayweather's cowardly fighting style made it impossible for Pacquiao to make any moves on Floyd.

     2. Too Much Hype: This fight was five years in the making. Every TV station had a Mayweather vs Pacquiao commercial running. T-shirts were sold in large quantities. ESPN didn't even have coverage of the actual fight, but they moved their live SportCenter shows out to LA to have a week full of coverage for the fight. With all the anticipation for the fight, there needed to be a bloody match, where both men poured their heart and soul into the match, culminating in a knockout. To avid boxing fans, it may have seemed like a good fight. But the majority of the audience were not avid boxing fans, merely just people looking to see a good fight, potentially the fight of the century. Most people wanted to witness history, not a match where someone outboxed the other. All the hype leading up to it was too big.

This fight barely satisfied it's viewers. To be honest, I almost turned the fight off after two straight minutes of a black screen because Charter couldn't handle all of the traffic it was getting from its hundreds of thousands of Pay-Per-View buyers. And to be honest again, I was dissapointed in the fight as a whole. The week leading up to the fight was filled with hype, but the fight did not fulfill my hopes and dreams. This was my first, and probably my last boxing match I'll ever watch. Even IF there was the possibility for #MayPac2, I probably wouldn't even watch. MayPac1 might have ruined boxing for me.