pure science with a splash of black cat

QUEBEC CITY—Quebec’s premier is confident the NHL wants to bring a team back to Quebec City.

Jean Charest told The Canadian Press on Thursday that he discussed the issue with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman at the Montreal Canadiens’ 100th anniversary game on Friday.

The premier, on a trade mission in Moscow, said Bettman seemed sincerely interested in bringing pro hockey back to the provincial capital a decade and a half after the Nordiques left to become the Colorado Avalanche.

Charest said the commissioner appeared convinced of two things: the economic viability of a team in Quebec, and the prospect of finding investors.

Bettman has said in the past that he would consider Quebec City as a possible home to an NHL team if it followed through on plans to build a top arena and if a team were for sale.

At second base, he’s sounding more and more comfortable with DeWitt, although he still hopes to add a veteran from a group of free agents that includes Ronnie Belliard, Craig Counsell, Juan Uribe, Jamey Carroll and Felipe Lopez.

“Barring something not on the radar, it will be Blake DeWitt plus a veteran if we started the season today,” Colletti said.

Colletti said he sees DeWitt through the prism of 2008 — when he jumped from Double-A to hit .264 with nine homers and 52 RBIs in about two-thirds of a season while playing a new position — and not 2009, when DeWitt was displaced by the late signing of Orlando Hudson and shuttled from the Major Leagues to the Minor Leagues six times.

“‘09 wasn’t fair to him,” said Colletti. “In ‘08, he played most of the season, the toughest part of the season. We asked a lot of him and it wasn’t just a short sampling.”

General manager Jack Zduriencik was talking tonight about the early days of his scouting career, and told this story on himself.

“I was at the College World Series, watching Joe Magrane pitch, and St. Louis had their scout, Hub Kittle there,” Zduriencik said. “Now Hub Kittle had been in the game 30 years by that time, and I thought I could learn a lot from him.

“Someone introduced us at the hotel that night, and I started the conversation saying something like ‘What’d you think of that Magrane kid today?

“Hub looked at me and said, ‘That big donkey? Guys like that are a dime a dozen?’ I remember thinking I probably had a lot to learn, because I’d really liked Magrane.

“Two days later, St. Louis drafted Magrane.”

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White Sox general manager Ken Williams, who once joked that he should hang a Cardinals jersey in Buehrle’s locker, told reporters he’d be OK if Buehrle jetted away for a day during spring training.

“I’d give him a day off to do it,” Williams said. “I think it would be hilarious.”

This must happen.

Could you imagine if they tried to invalidate the contracts? The NHLPA would stir up a massive shitstorm.

The NHL is so very very poorly run. It’s almost comical, if it wasn’t so sad.

“This is the new rules.”
“Sweet, this is a new contract under those new rules.”
“We don’t like the new rules and hate your contract, and your face.”
“But you made those rules.”
“AND WE HATE THEM AND YOUR FACE! INVESTIGATION! INVESTIGATION! I HATE YOUR FACE!!!!!”

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“I agree with the process, but I don’t agree with the result regarding Marvin,” Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver told ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick. Seaver is a member of the 12-man executive panel and voted for Miller.

“I think we probably have to have a couple more players to have a balance in that meeting,” Seaver said. “That’s the thing I’m going to suggest. This is not about your feeling on Marvin Miller. This is about the history of the game of baseball. It’s a no-brainer for me.”

Miller came aboard the MLBPA at a time when players had no labor rights and and the minimum salary was $6,000. He helped do away with the reserve clause and saw the advent of the collective bargaining agreement in 1968 and then free agency.

With each passing failure to gain election to the Hall of Fame, Miller urged the Veterans Committee to remove his name from the ballot two years ago.

“I said it in the meeting,” Seaver told Crasnick. “He is on a par with Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson in terms of his impact on the game of baseball. He is right there.”

Brendan Shanahan tells a story, which he repeated Thursday on NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s satellite radio show, about growing up as a Maple Leafs fan and meeting former Toronto captain Rick Vaive during the summer of 1983.

“When I was 14 years old I was skating in the summertime at a rink in Toronto,” Shanahan recalled. “Rick Vaive happened to be skating at an adjoining rink and we were actually in dressing rooms that were right next to each other.

“I went in when he was sort of settled and asked him for an autograph. I didn’t get the best response from Rick Vaive at that time.”

It was not a moment Shanahan would forget.

The Devils made him their first selection and the second overall pick in the 1987 entry draft and he went straight to the NHL as a rookie with the team in 1987-88.

“Fast forward four years later and Rick Vaive is waiting for a meaningless faceoff in Buffalo,” Shanahan said. “He’s now playing for the Sabres. He’s lined up next to some 18-year-old kid from New Jersey. When the puck dropped, I attacked Rick Vaive.

“It was a quiet, uneventful game. He couldn’t believe the rage I had, not only in attacking him, but it took two (linesmen) to restrain me afterwards and throw me in the penalty box.”

Vaive was dumbfounded.

“He said to one of my teammates at the time, Jim Korn, ‘By the way, what’s wrong with that kid and why was he coming after me?’ ” Shanahan recounted. “Jim Korn said, ‘Apparently he asked you for an autograph when he was a little kid and you weren’t that friendly to him. So he’s harbored those feelings since then.’ ”

[…]

There is a postscript to the Vaive story.

“Three years ago, he came up to me at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto and introduced me to his 14-year-old son,” Shanahan said. “I signed the autograph, took a picture and gave him a piggy-back. I didn’t want karma to come back and get me.”

Boys will be boys.

A Nov. 26 article in the District edition of Local Living incorrectly said a Public Enemy song declared 9/11 a joke. The song refers to 911, the emergency phone number.

BAHAHAHAHAHA. You could not have possibly been serious, WaPo. Fear of a Black Planet is almost 20 years old. But, no, we’ll just assume it’s about 9/11. What kind of rocks are they smoking at this paper?

A nominee for Best Correction Ever.