Vick has his day in court

...And he will certainly have more... Yesterday Michael Vick, alongside his five lawyers, pleaded not guilty to the charges of competitive dog fighting, procuring and training pit bulls for fighting and conducting the enterprise across state lines. Even worse for "Ron Mexico" is that there may be further charges laid against the Falcons quarterback. The government will apparently be filing a "superceding indictment" that, more often than not, leads to more indictments.

Even better, the government's prosecutors delivered the following statement to Vick and his co-defendants: "We've already charged you with serious crimes. You might want to consider a guilty plea. We are going to file more charges next month. That gives you a few weeks to think about the guilty plea. If you come and talk to us about pleading guilty and testifying for us, there will be no more charges against you. If you do not, the charges and the potential punishment will grow quickly."

That does not sound like something I would want to hear in the courtroom; especially if I had the celebrity stature of Vick.

The date of his trial was also set yesterday to start on November 26 at 9:30 a.m. and last for two weeks. Whether or not it will interfere with Vick's practice, preparation and game schedules is still up in the air because, well, is he even allowed to play this season?

What's this? The NHL wants in on the action

Looking for some scandal action of their own, the NHL made some ripples in the pond yesterday when it came to light that two of the Staal brothers –Jordan of the Penguins and Eric of the Hurricanes- had been arrested over the weekend following a bachelor party gone awry. Eric Staal's bachelor party in fact.

How is this even remotely close to being front page news like I'm sure it will be somewhere? Some hockey players went out and got drunk at a bachelor party? I would be more upset if they didn't. These guys are supposed to be tough. Spending a night in the drunk-tank only solidifies their image as a) Canadians and b) hockey players.

Congrats boys, your moved up a few pegs on my list.

Schilling opens huge trap again

Curt Schilling opened his big, opinionated mouth again and of course people listened. Why? Because the entire Red Sox nation loves this guy, meaning the rest of baseball fans don't really care for him. Also, he comes off as a trouble starter for always speaking out and should know better to do so with the wisdom he should theoretically have under his belt at his age.

Anyways, he called out Bonds and McGwire for not denying the performance enhancing drug allegations and for not suing anyone who made that claim. This is based on the fact that Curt would have sued if he had been accused. Seems kind of wussy doesn't it?

Fantasy football legend coming back?

Priest Holmes is set to show up to Chiefs training camp after taking an entire season and then some off. Holmes has been bother by the effects of a crushing Shawn Merriman hit 21 months ago.

Holmes is Kansas City's all-time leading rusher and a former God of fantasy football due to his exceedingly high touchdown totals. Think LDT last year or Shaun Alexander the year before. Holmes was one of those players that could carry your team in the early 2000's.

This only makes Larry Johnson's pseudo-hold out a bit more complicated seeing how Priest may be able to impress some people and score some playing time due to Johnson's ignorance. It should be brought to everyone's attention that Holmes already did the comeback thing before when he came over K.C. He might not have the same success this time, but it's not out of the realm of possibility to think he could do some good.

Let's celebrate!

Soccer fans have always been known to take celebrations up to the next level over all other sports fans, but this one is tragic. Yesterday, after Iraq beat South Korea 4-3 on penalty kicks to advance to the Asia Cup finals, fans took to the streets and did what they seemingly usually do in Baghdad: set off car bombs. 50 people were killed during the celebrations in the horrific event.

It should be needless to say that this sort of thing is senseless but everyone hears and says it every day it seems. Who would've thought that a time of happiness could turn around this quickly?

You could only imagine what would happen if the Iraqi side defeats Saudi Arabia (who surprisingly beat Japan to advance) for the Asian Cup. It might be an even happier and conversely an even more tragic day if "celebrations" like that keep up.

The Tour de France is a joke

The headline's just in case you didn't already know that. Yesterday, just to make the tour a bit more ridiculous, the leader of the event, Michael Rasmussen, was removed from the race by his own sponsors. This actually came after he won yesterday's stage and looked like he was set to take it all home when the end comes on Sunday.

Officially, it was stated that Rasmussen had violated the team's internal rules, but if you don't think this was about doping, you are quite the naive person. In the past two days, two of the riders towards the top of the rankings have been outted. Unless something is done about this horrendous doping trend that's been defiling this sport, it should be just flat out put down.

They just keep rolling in

So you wanted ANOTHER scandal? Sure, why not? Let's try to get some more blood out of this stone.

Did you really expect a post-Lance Armstrong Tour de France to go off without a hitch? I mean, seriously. This year the culprit is Alexandre Vinokourov, nicknamed Vino, was slowly on his way to becoming a fan favourite of this year's tour; that is until he tested positive for a banned blood transfusion.

You read that right; a banned blood transfusion. Cyclists are now transfusing their blood to get an advantage, or more likely, filter their tainted blood out of their systems to not get caught. While they should get an "A" for effort, it's just plain dumb. No sport has one-eightied faster - in my opinion at least - than cycling. The once glorious event - The Tour de France - is now a mockery and is highlighted by suspicions of doping rather than for the sporting itself. The sport has been rocked harder than baseball has by doping; remember, baseball always maintained at least some of its popularity and is continually recovering. Cycling is skidding deeper and deeper into the pits.

It's even more of a shame that something like this had to break on Barry Bonds' birthday. Happy Birthday anyways Barry, make me proud.

Vick told to stay away

Well, in the best move they could probably make, the NFL has told Michael Vick to stay away from Falcons training until this whole dog-fighting situation has been worked out. He will be arraigned in court on what turns out to be the first day of Falcons practice so the timing couldn’t be better (or worse depending on your stand point). So it looks like Atlanta and Falcons fans everywhere are collectively holding their breath over this Vick issue and better get used to the sight of Joey Harrington or, my boy, D.J. Shockley running the point.

A question that I haven’t heard asked yet in the sporting world is an interesting one that brings up some debate: Who is the biggest villain in sports right now?

Barry Bonds, an alleged steroid user and overall jackass who is days away from breaking one of the most hallowed records in baseball history possibly because he was on the juice.

Tim Donaghy, who gambled on NBA games that he refereed and fixed them by making one-sided calls, including some playoff games and possibly the most influential game of the year (Suns-Spurs game three).

Or Michael Vick, who has officially reached his peak of indiscretions (hopefully) with this indictment regarding his dog-fighting ring and animal mistreatment. Even just the fact that someone referred to him as a “king-pin” in the dog fighting world is fairly damning.

And that list doesn’t even include Pacman Jones. Who would’ve thought he wouldn’t make the top three?

So you wanted more sports scandals?

If you thought that the world of sports hasn’t been rocked by enough scandals recently, you wish came true when the new surfaced that an NBA referee, Tim Donaghy, was betting on and influencing games that he was officiated. Even worse than that fact alone, is that several of the games were playoff games, most noticeably, the “are you sure this isn’t fixed?” series of Phoenix vs. San Antonio. Not to mention the fact that this has been going on for two seasons now; over 140 games have possibly been compromised.

So how huge is this? You would have to think that this is a lot worse for the league than the Michael Vick indictment because that didn’t involve football except for what his day job is. The same can be said for the Cincinnati Bengals as well as Pacman Jones and Tank Johnson because those were off-field issues. The Bertuzzi hit was a big black eye for hockey but not this big. Rick Tocchet and Janet Gretzky’s gambling ring is in the same ball park, but did they influence the outcomes of games to serve their needs? Pete Rose gambled on his sport, but when he did bet on the Reds, he bet on them to win so it’s wouldn’t be like throwing a game or point-shaving. This scandal has to rank up there, just past the aforementioned gambling scandals and just before the entire steroids in baseball scandal; huge, but not the biggest of all time.

**Note: I just thought of another comparison; the Black Sox scandal. It’s pretty close to being the same but still different considering the eras these travesties to the game took place.**

Needless to say, this is a huge blow to the game of basketball, especially when it was set to ring in a new era featuring phenoms like Greg Oden and Kevin Durant starting this fall. This is story that will never be swept aside; it can’t be. The name Tim Donaghy will be on the tips of our tongues and in the backs of our heads for quite some time to come and there’s no way that the NBA can rid us of that.