Bleacher Report - Articles by Ryan Guellow

Brett Favre and The Dilemma Of Pre-Mature Retiring

Ryan Guellow — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:13:20 -0400

It must be the middle of summer. You want to know how I know? It's simple. Fox News...oops, I mean ESPN has the spin machine working. ESPN has the daunting challenge of filling a full hour for Sports Center with only one true sport in season. After they give you all the baseball highlights, they still have about twenty minutes to fill.

So what do they do? One word: Filler. It's like your favorite recording artist who doesn't have enough good songs to fill an entire album so they throw in a couple of songs that even they know are no good. That is what ESPN is doing with the "Brett Favre Saga."

So after the completely pointless " Title-town" feature they are running, they feel the need to throw Bret Favre under the Green Bay Packers Team Bus. I feel that if Brett Favre would have claimed to feel his "itch" during the NBA playoffs this wouldn't be the debacle it has turned out to be.

Players of Favre's stature have done this before without the scrutiny that he is facing. When Michael Jordan retired then un-retired then retired again then un-retired it was not this "TMZ" coverage that Favre is facing.

It was just a story in between highlights on Sports Center. ESPN in recent years has become a tabloid sports news station. Everything from Alex Rodrigueiz's divorce to Roger Clemens' affairs has become top headlines taking away from real sports news.

It doesn't help that the Packers themselves have been feeding the fire. When superstars like Jordan, Clemens, Mario Lemieux, and Ryne Sandberg decided to un-retire, their respective teams haven't aired every detail in the media. The Packers are as much to fault for this fiasco as ESPN is.

They could have quietly negotiated this dilemma without getting the Stewart Scott's of the world involved. It's as if the Packers are doing to spite Favre. It seems to me that if a Hall of Fame quarterback who has led you to numerous success would be welcomed back with open arms.

The Packers have a better chance to win this season with Favre than without him. So why are they making this process so difficult? It's like a parent who told a child that if they did something there are going to be consequences. In this case, it seems that the Packers told Favre when he retired that it had better be the real deal because they were moving on no matter what.

What if Favre never did retire? He would still be the quarterback for the team and Aaron Rodgers would still be the backup. There wouldn't have been any quarterback controversy. The Packers and ESPN seem to be punishing Favre for changing his mind. Why Favre? Jordan, Clemens, and Lemieux were not punished.

Even when George Forman un-retired to fight again he was almost loved by everyone. Is there something we don't know? If there is I have no doubt that ESPN will tell us, even we don't want to know.

Where Was Joe Morgan at The All Star Game? No One Seems to Know.

Ryan Guellow — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:00:24 -0400

When I was a kid my favorite part of the All Star Game was the very beginning. All my idols were lined up on the first and third baselines as the starting lineups were announced. This year was different. Forty-nine Hall of Famers took their positions in the field and were then joined by the starters of this year's game. Nine members of the 500 home run club were there, thirteen members of the 3,000 hit club were there. Joe Morgan was not.

Why? He was at the Home Run Derby the night before. He was even in the parade down sixth avenue THAT DAY!

Joe Morgan is on the board of directors of the Hall of Fame, so you would think he would be on the field with 49 of the greatest players to ever play the game. If you have ever seen an ESPN Sunday Night Baseball telecast you know that Joe never relinquishes the spotlight. He is always in his flashy suits and will tell more stories about himself than the players in the game.

So why would he not jump at an opportunity to show himself off? I have been researching this since Tuesday and I cannot find the answer. He was not doing a radio or TV broadcast, so that's not it. There were 49 Hall of Famers, not a nice round number like 50, so maybe there was some emergency and he was to be the 50th. Unlikely.

The story that I and most other people are going with is that it has to do with the presence of Ryne Sandberg. Sandberg, who retired in 1994 only to come back in 1996 and break Morgan's second baseman homerun record, has had his run-ins with Morgan before.

Morgan was suspiciously absent from Sandberg's Hall of Fame induction in 2005. There has long been rumors that Morgan has always been bitter that Sandberg un-retired to break his record. That can't be, right? Joe Morgan is a two time MVP, a two time World Series Champ, even an Emmy Award winner; why would he care about a record that was eventually broken by Jeff Kent? Oh right, we are talking about Joe Morgan.

Hopefully somebody will ask him his whereabouts on the 15th of July. Whatever excuse he has I'm sure it will be lame.

2008 Or 2015? Is This The Year For The Cubs?

Ryan Guellow — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:24:22 -0400

Every day that goes by, it becomes more and more apparent that the Chicago Cubs are going to make the playoffs. Being a Cubs fan, I know not to get too ahead of myself. I was all but making reservations for the World Series in 2003 when the eighth inning rolled around. I know not to make that mistake again.

I have this problem of getting my hopes up. At the beginning of the season, I was talking about how much they spent on players, and how Fukudome is going to be the missing piece..etc. Well, now with the acquisition of Rich Harden it looks like Cubs fans will not have to utter the fabled phrase that every Cubs fan seems to utter, "Wait Til Next Year."

If the Cubs collapse or are swiftly ousted out of the postseason as last year, then we'll be saying it again. But I'm not saying it. My new phrase will be, "Wait Til 2015." I just hope I make it 'til then.

2015, if you don't know, is the year that Marty McFly and Doc Brown go to in the movie "Back To The Future II" in order to save Marty's son from getting into trouble. This, if you ask me, is totally unnecessary.

Why didn't Doc just tell Old Marty to not let his son out of the house? Why did he have to get young Marty and dress him up as his son? Tangent, I know. So after the big Hover-Board chase, (tangent part 2, Did everyone have a friend who had a cousin in Florida that HAD a Hover-Board?), so after the hover board chase Marty runs into a guy who tells him that the Cubs won the World Series and that he wished that he would have put money on the Cubs, thus spawning Marty to buy the "Gray's Sports Almanac" and creating the entire plot of the movie.

So the question is: Will the Cubs not win until 2015? Was this a bold prediction or an attempt to jab the Cubs fans? Most likely the latter. I know that I will put my net worth on them in 2015 if they haven't won it by then.