Manny Ramirez rejected the Dodgers’ latest offer.
Manny Ramirez just got back to the Dodgers, whose latest offer to the slugger was $45 million for two years, with the second year including a player option. And the answer was thank you, but no thank you.
What now? Hopefully, the will continue to talk and they can eventually reel him in.
But if the Dodgers are intent on signing a Ramirez, I’ll take $3 mill for three years.
TAKE A LOOK –>: At the top right of our blog under links I have added several local high school prep pages, and prep sites that you might be interested in. If there are any other links you want added, leave it in the comment section and I’ll take a look.
Just some housekeeping for you, the Softball preview is scheduled to come out March 3 and the Baseball Preview on March 4, followed by the official start of the season for both on March 5. Until then, you can talk about it all you want. Meanwhile, I’ve got some quarterfinal soccer and semifinal basketball to think about.
By Roger Murray
Montebello High School has a new football coach, and the Oilers didn’t have to go far to find him. Pete Gonzalez, well-known in the city where he grew up and graduated from Cantwell Sacred Heart of Mary High School, has been named to replace Nishil Shah, who resigned after the 2008 season.
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Continue reading “Gonzalez pops up at Montebello” »
Note: Braves soccer photo taken by area legend David Casper
Boys Soccer
Friday’s quarterfinals
Division IV
Sierra Vista at Oxnard Pacifica, 3 p.m.
Division V
Baldwin Park at La Canada, 4 p.m.
Division VI
LA Baptist at Mountain View, 3 p.m.
Barstow at Rosemead, 3 p.m.
Girls Basketball
Division III-AA
Saturday’s semifinals
Diamond Ranch at Woodbridge, 7:30 p.m.
Fred’s take: You know what this comes down to don’t you? With Charter Oak being so scary next fall and the Lancers a real question mark, Bishop Amat didn’t want to risk losing a local game. It was one of those nothing to gain, everything to lose scenario’s. Dominguez has name power, but they were 2-8 last season while Charter Oak went undefeated and won a section title with one of the best running backs in the area returning. Dominguez sounds great on paper, but Charter Oak would have been a tougher opponent.
Yeah right: Even Diamond Ranch is upset it won’t get to see Bishop Amat and Charter Oak
At the end of the day Charter Oak never backed down from a dreamy season opener against Bishop Amat next fall, in fact it pushed harder than ever, with Bishop Amat finally saying “no thanks,” instead signing a deal to play Dominguez, a school that was 2-8 last season, a year after going 10-3 and advancing to the Western Division semifinals. Dominguez won the title in 2006. This leaves Charter Oak looking everywhere for a first round opponent, a frustration that Charter Oak coach Lou Farrar expressed on Thursday. “If we have to go to Chicago, we’ll go to Chicago,” Farrar joked. “We wanted to play Amat at their place or a neutral site like Mt. SAC. We thought it would have been great. They wanted three days to think it over, then thought about it again and decided to place somebody else. What can you do?” This leaves the Chargers looking at teams like Escondido, Quartz Hill, and others. “We can’t find anyone within 30 minutes from us. It’s going to be tough getting anything you want this late in the day.” In fairness to Bishop Amat and coach Steve Hagerty, he said they already have three games against local teams (West Covina, Damien and Diamond Ranch), and that was enough. He felt playing Dominguez at home was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up, though I think Charter Oak still would have been a tougher game next fall. “We think Dominguez is going to prepare us when the game is on the line,” Hagerty said. “They have lots of speed and athleticism. We consider that a great game.” Hagerty said that a game against Charter Oak could come in future years. “The Charter Oak (possibility) has been going on a long time. I talked to (Charter Oak AD) Glenn Martinez the night of our game against Notre Dame. But we figured in the end, this (Dominguez) is a better situation for us. I know the San Gabriel Valley would have loved it (playing Charter Oak), but this isn’t about trying to make the Valley happy, it’s about doing what we think is best for our team. When our current contracts with (West Covina, Damien and Diamond Ranch) runs out, then we can look at Charter Oak again.”
Girls Basketball
Division II-A
Tonight’s Quarterfinal games
Summitt 67, Bishop Amat 53
Mater Dei 77, Laguna Hills 39
Villa Park 73, Norco 68
Division III-A
Diamond Ranch 54, Magnolia 43
Marlborough 54, Arroyo Grande 43
Santa Margarita 66, Agoura 49
Woodbridge 43, Anaheim Canyon 39
This story comes from the San Bernardino Sun, written by T.J. Berka. We’ll have more in the coming days, but the word is out, Northview loses its CIF championship… There is also a lot of chatter about this in California Wrestler under Forums, take a look.
By T.J. Berka
After finishing second, reserving themselves to a second-place finish behind Northview at the CIF-SS Northern Division individuals finals, the Sultana High School wrestling team got some good news Tuesday. A legion of scoring errors in Northview’s favor were discovered, first by Sultana coach Rocky Humphrey and then confirmed using the bout sheets of the meet at Oxnard Pacifica. With the re-calcuations, the Sultans were awarded the CIF championship, an award they received Wednesday. “It’s better late than never,” Humphrey said. “It’s kind of an after-the-fact thing, because we took all the pictures with the runner-up trophy after the meet. But we are definitely happy about it.” The discrepancy was discovered when Humphrey went online to check out some scores. In the 112-pound third-place match featuring his nephew, Rod Keaster, Humphrey noticed that bout was scored 9-1 online in favor of Northview’s Jacob Delgado instead of the 2-1 score Humphrey had. The point difference gave Northview a major decision and an extra team point. Humphrey continued to dig and noticed 10 other matches with scoring inconsistencies that swung Northview’s way. After conferring with Pacifica, the team score was changed from 262-256 Northview to 257-252 Sultana.
I talked to Northview coach David Ochoa today and here’s what he had to say:
On receiving the news from the CIF-SS: “I guess the Sultana coach noticed the recorded score on the brackets you can view online was wrong. I was called by CIF the next day and was asked what the score of Jacob’s match was. I had to look at the bout sheet and told them it was 1-0. They then found enough additional errors (in other matches) to justify a change and give the championship to Sultana.”
How did the team react: “It’s been a rough week. I brought my guys in and talked to them as a group and told them, as to no fault of anyone with our our school, that Sultana was declared champs. I apologized to them. It was the toughest thing I’ve had to do as coach, and hope I never have to do it again.
“I’ve been telling them that sometimes life doesn’t go your way, and you just have to put your best foot forward. I feel they can give that extra effort and try to use this to motivate it us.”
Steve’s take: First, people here have to get a life and realize a mistake was made, period. That’s it. The Sultana coach noticed a mistake in one match, then noticed others. He informed CIF-SS officials and they made the right decision. People have to stop with an Oliver Stone/Jim Garrison reaction and quit acting like a bunch of squirrels looking for nuts. For one, there’s no way to prove the mistakes made were intentional; there’s no smoking gun on the bout sheets that show the score changed, just a different result on the online brackets. I applaud CIF-SS for realizing a mistake had been made and it was one they could change. I think we all need to follow coach Ochoa’s advice and move on.
But I will say, I never realized how much hate there is in high school sports, until I saw the comments on this topic alone. It’s funny how no one said anything about Northview until the school built a very successful CIF-SS sports program. I guess it’s like the late Dale Earnhardt said to Jeff Gordon once when the latter was always getting booed in pre-race introductions. Earnhardt told Gordon: “Don’t worry about that. They always boo the winner. When they do nothing, that’s the time to worry.”