Bottom of the Bird Cage 4/5

It’s the 95th day of the year.

Born on April 5, 1937 was former Secretary of state Colin Powell. On this day in 1964, General Douglas MacArthur died.

And on April 5, 1955 Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was one of the great leaders in the world and he had a way with words. Here are a couple of his best:

• Never give in – never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy
• Many forms of Government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time
• And my favorite, when Lady Nancy Astor said to him: “Winston, if I were your wife, I’d poison your tea.” Churchill answered: “Nancy, if I were your husband, I’d drink it.”

From New York Times columnist William Rhoden:
A few days after committing the blunder of his life last year, Plaxico Burress sat in a Giants office with a look on his face that General Manager Jerry Reese had never seen before. Reese had seen plenty — mostly looks of indifference through all the fines and suspensions levied during the course of Burress’s four years with the Giants. The lectures all seemed to go over, under and around Burress, but never seemed to penetrate.

Then on Nov. 29, Burress crossed the line. He accidentally shot himself in the thigh in a Manhattan nightclub with an unlicensed gun he had tucked into his waistband. Burress was charged with two counts of criminal weapons possession. Worse, his recklessness incurred the wrath of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has made the prosecution of illegal weapons possession one of his pet projects.

As Burress sat in Reese’s office that day, there was no slouching, no looking out the window. He leaned forward, looking in Reese’s eyes, paying attention to every word he spoke. When Reese told Burress that he was finished for the season, suspended without pay and fined, Burress was visibly shaken. He told Reese how much the Giants meant to him, said they were effectively his family.

Today, Burress has no football family.

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By releasing him, the New York Giants have tried to teach Burress a lesson that he should have learned many years ago: there are consequences for his actions. He’s been in low-grade trouble most of his life, never learning from his  mistakes, getting into more at the next turn.  The Giants put up with his antics because of what he could bring on the field.  Now, there’s no idea when he can again contribute.  Burress is going to spend time behind bars, that much we know for sure.  That’s the temperature of the legal situation in New York and frankly, it will be the best thing that ever happened to him.

From the Detroit Free Press:
If 24 years as a team executive taught Charley Casserly anything, it’s that the Lions are trying to trade the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft. And if Casserly’s experience has taught him anything else, it’s that the Lions probably won’t be able to trade the pick.

“Every team that I know that’s had the first pick recently has tried to trade it, including us when I was in Houston,” said Casserly, who wielded the top pick twice — as general manager of the Texans in 2000-06 and as GM of the Redskins in 1989-99. And the outcome of those negotiations?
“No takers,” Casserly said. “Not even a discussion worthwhile having.”

Since the NFL and AFL merged in 1970, 10 teams have traded the No. 1 overall pick. As recently as the 1990s, the top pick was dealt four times that decade. But only one team in the past 11 years has traded the crown jewel of the draft, April 25-26 in New York

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The worst thing that can happen to a team is getting the first pick  in the draft.  It means you were really, really, really bad the season before on the field.   The Draft is designed to help the bad teams, but having that first pick is a pot load of pressure for the player and the person who selects him.  He is supposed to be the savior.  He seldom is and those failures are painful.  That’s why nobody wants the pick, not even if they earned it.

From the Orange County Register: Former USC quarterback Todd Marinovich was behind bars Friday for failing to show up at a drug rehabilitation progress review in a Newport Beach court this week, authorities said. Marinovich had gone through drug programs before when an Orange County judge gave him another shot after he pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine and resisting arrest two years ago.

Marinovich, 39, was being held at the Orange County Jail without bail, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Web site. He is scheduled to be in court Monday.

Marinovich was arrested by probation department officers for violating terms of his probation after he pleaded guilty two years ago to felony possession of a small amount of methamphetamine and misdemeanor syringe possession and resisting arrest.

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Could it possibly be 18 years now that Todd Marinovich was the quarterback for the Los Angeles Raiders in a post-season game at Arrowhead Stadium against the Chiefs? He ended up playing all of eight games in the NFL.

He was just 22 years old at the time, after leaving Southern Cal early. Marinovich was a screwed up kid then and nearly two decades later, he obviously remains a screwed up kid. What a sad waste of a life.