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Phil Mickelson dealing with some serious post-Groundhog Day gloomies
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Daily Kos
Looking back: Why was the Obama smoking thing not a bigger deal?

If you have any link ideas, please send them along by clicking here and we’ll try and include them in the daily digest. We’re always on the lookout for anything good in politics, sports, or anything else.

In a game that will forever be remembered for several amazing plays, one play by Larry Fitzgerald sticks in my mind this morning.

No, it wasn’t the jump ball touchdown catch over a tall defender in the corner of the end zone, which got the Cardinals back into the game. Though that was an amazing play.

And, no, it wasn’t the sixty-four-yard sprint to glory up the gut following a short completion, which put the Cardinals ahead in the waning moments of the game. No, it wasn’t that amazing play, even though that one will be forever immortalized, with the image of Larry Fitz looking up at the big screen as though it were a rear-view mirror forever etched in NFL history.

No, the play that I’m thinking of ended up being relatively insignificant. It was right at the end of the game, with the United States still buzzing over Santonio Holmes’ magic catch in the end zone and the Steelers having taken a 27-23 lead. The Cardinals took the ball back at the 23-yard line and on their first play from scrimmage, Warner completed a 20-yard pass to Larry Fitzgerald. He went down with about 23 seconds left, and two plays later, the Steelers were NFL champs.

The play, however, was amazing; Fitzgerald, who already had two touchdowns and destroyed every receiving record in the history of the NFL playoffs, had about four Steelers covering him on that play, since everyone in the world knew he was getting the ball. Still, somehow, Warner got him the ball; all I remember thereafter was a sea of white jerseys converging on him while he <em>advanced the ball five yards</em>.  Nobody will ever remember that play, in the scheme of things, but it’s the sort of subtle type of thing that demonstrates conclusively just how incredible Larry Fitzgerald has become.

Larry Fitzgerald set a trifecta of records this postseason; catches, yards, and touchdowns. It’s going to take a long time to fully grasp how great Larry Fitzgerald is, in the pantheon of wide receivers in the NFL. But, for right now, it’s hard to believe that there’s any player in the NFL who is better than he is. Certainly, for the past four weeks, he wanted to let us all know that it might be the case. Consider me a believer.

You go viral.

Charlie Wheelan, who is a candidate for the IL-5 seat vacated by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, has released his first campaign ad, and it’s pretty clever.

<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4M_8_49zi3Q”>View Charlie Wheelan’s underwater ad</a>

The advertisement is barely being shown on television — under $10,000 in total ad buys, according to some sources. However, it has been picked up by a few national news outlets. Ultimately, it’s a thinly veiled attempt to spark a viral craze. I guess we’ll see what happens.

At the time of this writing, the video has 6,290 views on YouTube. We’ll see how many it ends up with.

Ultimately, to win as an outsider, especially in Chicago, you’ve got to do something unique, so I commend the campaign for their modern approach.

The primary for the election is in early March. Is that enough time for an unknown to gain the widespread recognition that he needs?

A couple of things to note:

1. Milton Bradley is an exceptional writer; certainly much better than, say, Todd Jones.

2. I realized in reading this that I was definitely one of the people who wrote off his career last year during that freak accident.

3. Milton Bradley, in spite of seeming like a raging asshole type of guy, is actually quite likeable.

What have I done now?

Ah, but there was a little drama earlier. Gregor Blanco dropped down a nifty bunt in the top of the 7th inning to try and break up the perfect game. Save a great play by Blake Dewitt (I mean a truly big time defensive play, the sort of play that keeps a guy like Andy Laroche on the bench for another few weeks), you’d be hearing a lot more about Gregor Blanco today.

When I first saw it, I was outraged, but I attribute this mostly to my undying (and, quizzically, still blossoming) love for Hiroki Kuroda. Given a day, I’m not so sure it’s a bitch move. I do know that you won’t see veterans pulling stuff like that. It’s always the young guys who are trying to make something like that happen.

I guess at the end of the day, I sort of feel like if you are going to get a no-hitter or a perfect game dropped on you, then you just have to sort of wear it. It happens to everyone. But, in my opinion, it’s worse to have a perfect game dropped on you than to have a one-hitter where you ruined some guys lifelong dream by dropping a bunt down the line when you were down by three runs.

As you surely have heard by now, Shawn Chacon attacked Houston Astros GM Ed Wade after they had a verbal altercation in the Astros dining room. Chacon has been cut by the Astros following the incident, and is going to have some trouble finding a job in MLB, I think.

Which is wrong.

I’m not saying Chacon was right to attack Ed Wade. He was not. And I’m not saying Chacon was not guilty in letting this argument get out of control, because he probably has a lot of guilt. But from everything that has been reported about this situation, Shawn Chacon was very calm until Ed Wade continued to incite him. From what has been reported, Shawn Chacon also basically told Ed Wade a couple of times to stop berating him, before he took physical action.

It’s not surprising to me that Chacon got cut; after all, he did attack his employer. It is surprising to me that the Major League Baseball Player’s Association is not all over this matter. This is a workplace matter, and the fact remains that, although Shawn Chacon is clearly in the wrong for attacking someone (violence never being the answer and all that jazz) there is a huge and important precedent here, which is that baseball players are human beings and deserve to be treated as such, and also deserve to be given a little leeway when they behave like human beings.

I was thrilled to see that umpire Brian Runge was suspended for his actions toward Jerry Manuel–he picked a fight, he sought out the conflict, and he deserves to be punished. And MLB acted swiftly and fairly and said the rules go both ways.

The MLBPA should be making an example out of this situation with Chacon in the same way, because had Ed Wade not confronted Chacon, and had he not really gotten in his face, he wouldn’t have ended up being attacked.

Chacon deserves to be cut, not only for his actions, but also because he sucks at baseball. But baseball players also deserve to know that the organization that represents them is going to step up on their behalf when something bad happens, even if it is (partially) their fault.

I am not really interested in the WNBA. I think it’s a little bit amusing, because there are not a lot of fans, but there are a few, and they had some major freakouts based on some SeriousSportsNewsNetwork.com stories we had about the WNBA, about what haters we were, etc. The second reason is that one of our first stories in the Chicago Sports Review was a profile of a then high-school-aged Candace Parker, so I’ve watched with interest the development of her career.

You know what she did at Tennessee; back-to-back titles. You probably have already heard what she did the other day, nearly putting up a triple double and scoring 34 points, notching twelve rebounds and eight assists. The game was actually moderately entertaining.

I don’t think it’s going to be enough to make the WNBA a success. I think that after watching men’s basketball all the time, there is just not enough excitement in the women’s game. I think it’s crisper–more passing, more players have to participate, no Chris Paul doing everything, etc.–but overall I think it’s one of those things where it’s a totally different product than the NBA proper. And I don’t think it will ever have the mainstream appeal of the NBA.

That being said, Candace Parker is something special. She’s awesome to watch, and from what I can tell, she’s a good person and nice enough and all that jazz. So it will be interesting to see what happens. I’ll be rooting for her, at least.