Stephen's Untold Stories

The NFL must be taking lessons from a lot of school districts with this level of paranoia.

Last week, Chad Ochocinco revealed his plan to circumvent NFL rules and tweet during games. This afternoon, the NFL informed teams of its social media policy, and it appears Ochocinco’s plot to hand signal a fan in the stands and have him or her update his account for him is now squashed, along with lots of other player and media activities.

As it pertains to Ochocinco, the rule that would seemingly keep him from tweeting reads: “No updates are permitted to be posted by the individual himself or anyone representing him during this prohibited time on his personal Twitter (Twitter), Facebook (Facebook) or any other social media account.”

The prohibited time is not only during the contest, but also 90 minutes before and after the game. It applies to not only players, but coaches, team personnel, and officials. Beyond that, the media is also being put on warning about in-game social media activity:

“Longstanding policies prohibiting play-by-play descriptions of NFL games in progress apply fully to Twitter and other social media platforms. Internet sites may not post detailed information that approximates play-by-play during a game. While a game is in progress, any forms of accounts of the game must be sufficiently time-delayed and limited in amount (e.g., score updates with detail given only in quarterly game updates) so that the accredited organization’s game coverage cannot be used as a substitute for, or otherwise approximate, authorized play-by-play accounts.”

Read the rest here.

An Ohio State fan made a nice video welcoming the Naval Academy’s football team for a game this fall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3Z52GKONPc

And I was lucky enough to be there!

I’m not a Yankees fan, but I have always admired Jeter. He hit a double on Tuesday night, and I got some good footage.

I had the pleasure of  attending the Braves/Yankees game earlier this evening with my father, and we are proud to report that the Good Guys won 4-0!

Chipper Jones at the plate.

The Cows love the Braves.

View from our seats…section 224.

I don’t normally read the Huffington Post, but this one made me laugh.

In what many are describing as an upset victory of unprecedented proportions, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins last night to win the 2009 Stanley Cup, Iran’s Interior Ministry announced today.

According to the ministry, which Mr. Ahmadinejad runs, the Iranian hard-liner defeated the Penguins by a score of 6-0, scoring two hat tricks in the victory.

But Penguins star Evgeni Malkin immediately disputed Mr. Ahmadinejad’s claim, arguing that the Iranian president did not even appear in the game.

Mr. Ahmadinejad scoffed at Mr. Malkin’s charge, stating, “He’s just pissed that I was named MVP.”

The Iranian president took time out from celebrating his Stanley Cup win to announce that he had just been named Poet Laureate of England.

Link to article.

I’ve played tennis most of my life, and I am thrilled that Roger Federer has completed the career grand slam and tied Pete Sampras with 14 major titles. He is an amazing athlete and a total class act.

I posted this a couple of years ago, but it deserves a repeat. Conan O’Brien found a baseball league that plays in vintage 1864 costumes and uses rules of that period.

Great story about a guy who was cut by the worst team in the NFL and is now playing in the Super Bowl.

Sean McHugh had just bought his family’s first house in suburban Detroit.

He’d just found out his wife, Ashlee, was pregnant with their second child, a daughter to go along with their then-18-month-son, Jack – though the excitement was tempered due to some early complications with the pregnancy.

McHugh, right, celebrates with Willie Parker.

(Gene J. Puskar/AP Photos)

The good news was McHugh had just survived final cut day with the Detroit Lions, meaning he was all but assured another year in professional football. He hoped to start at fullback and would play for the league minimum – about $520,000 for his experience level.

But just before the first practice in September, he was summoned to the office of team president Matt Millen. He knew the drill.

“When they come get you and Matt wants to talk to you, it’s never a good thing,” McHugh said. “You just have a sinking feeling. You walk through the locker room, up a flight of stairs and you just think, ‘What the heck is going on?’ ”

What was going on was that he got cut, fired, laid off by Detroit. The team had signed someone else and to make room, McHugh was out.

Just like that, Sean McHugh was deemed not good enough to play for the lowly Lions, who would go winless – the first 0-16 season in league history.

If you’re not good enough to play for the worst team ever, who exactly are you good enough to play for?

“What are we going to do?” he thought.

How about play in the Super Bowl?

Within days of Detroit cutting him, he unexpectedly signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Four months later he finds himself here preparing for a shot at an NFL championship against the Arizona Cardinals.

Read the rest here.

A friend of mine from college lives in Pennsylvania and is a die hard Steelers fan. I did some checking, and it turns out that the good people of western PA have some colorful phrases. Let’s review a few of them now:

Cheese and Crackers = WOW!

• Let’s use it in a sentence…Cheese and Crackers, dat jag off almost hit my car over der!

Fer cryin in da sink = I don’t believe this.

• Fer cryin in da sink, can’t Kordell throw to da right people er what?

Takin’ da Brahns to da Super Bowl = Going #2.

• “Hey, wucha doin’ in dere!?” “I’m takin’ da Brahns to da Super Bowl.”

Here is a rather comprehensive list.

Yes, the Atlanta Falcons are headed to the playoffs. I can’t even tell you how improbable this was considering how things played out last season. They could still wind up winning the division, but I’m just going to savor this for now.

Even though Matt “Ice” Ryan fumbled on this play, the Falcons still recovered the ball in the end zone for a touchdown. Yes, it was lucky, but this franchise has endured plenty of bad luck in its history.

Some of these are just plain weird. This one is called Floyd of Rosedale, and it goes to the winner of the Iowa/Minnesota game.

Here is the complete list.

In case you haven’t seen it, check out ESPN360.com. You can watch live games online, as well as replays of entire games. Not all Internet providers are compatible, but head on over there and see if yours is. Everything is FREE to watch.

Simply amazing!

Longtime Atlanta Braves broadcaster Skip Carey passed away earlier today at age 68. He is the son of another famous broadcaster, Harry Carey. Skip called the Braves for 33 years, and he also was the voice of the St. Louis and Atlanta Hawks of the NBA.

The Olympics are almost here, but I don’t think this guy will get a medal.

It will be nice to be able to watch the Olympics and see someone the same age as I am. Congrats to Dara Torres!

Link to story

The Atlanta Hawks won their first playoff game in nine years last night. Josh Smith was amazing.

I can always count on my blogging buddy Rick for some good ideas. He suggested:

1. It’s baseball season. You could discuss the chances of Oregon State once again beating North Carolina in the CWS in a couple of months.
2. Go through your archives and re-publish some of the ones that stick out to you for one reason or another.

Okay, I realize it’s baseball season but I don’t watch a lot of college baseball. I could tell you about the problems that the Braves and A’s are having right now, but nothing about Oregon State and/or North Carolina.

But not knowing anything has never stopped me in the past, so I will unequivocally say that OSU will earn a three-peat by whipping the Tar Heels at Rosenblatt Stadium in June. Go Beavers!

I’ll start looking through the archives and see if I can find anything worty of a repost.

Thanks, Rick!