FanHouse

This story is a few days old, but I didn't hear anything about it until today, so it's new to me. A suburban Chicago man named William Hermes was recently arrested after he sold 1.5 grams of cocaine to an undercover police officer. As is normally the case when police arrest somebody for selling drugs, any money found on the person is assumed to have been made by selling drugs, and the police confiscate it. Which is exactly what they did when they found over $1,400 in Hermes' pocket.

The only way to keep your money if you've been arrested is if you prove to the police that you got it another way, which is what Hermes did. Though it's not exactly a story police are used to hearing in these cases.

"He told the officers he was a baseball card collector and that he had just sold an Ernie Banks rookie card," Day said. "It certainly was the most interesting story I have heard under these circumstances, but we had to check it out."

And it did check out, Day said. Police contacted the card buyer who confirmed the transaction. Police followed that up with a visit to the purchaser, who showed them the card and the receipt provided by Hermes.

"The card deal was legitimate, so we gave him the money back," Day said. "The best thing about it was I got to see the card."

Ahh yes, Ernie Banks and cocaine. The two just go together don't they? After all, wasn't it Banks who once said "It's a beautiful day for a bump! Let's do two!"

Have the folks running USA Basketball finally learned how to put a team together that can win at the international level? LeBron James thinks so. In a Time magazine story that comes out tomorrow, LeBron discussed what it would mean to bring home the gold, and went as far as to guarantee that it will happen.

After comparing the feeling of receiving a gold medal on the podium to opening a prized gift on Christmas morning, James was asked if that meant he would lead the Americans to the title.

"Absolutely," James responded.

Asked if he guaranteed it, he repeated, "Absolutely."

Let's be honest, guarantees in professional sports don't mean a whole heck of a lot, and when they don't come true, they're often quickly forgotten. I seriously doubt that if Team USA falls short of their goal that anyone's going to say to LeBron: "so hey, what about that guarantee? YOU LIED TO US!" But it appears that this might be the USA's best chance to win the gold since they last did it in 2000, so in reality, guaranteeing a victory this time around probably isn't that much of a stretch.

In most professions, if a co-worker announces that he can't do his job for $445,000 a year, you'd punch him in the face. Professional sports is different -- a half-million bucks is blue-collar money -- and that's why the Chicago Bears' only scoring threat, Devin Hester, has declared he is sitting out training camp until he gets a new deal.

Viva La Revolución! Or something.

"I'm not coming," [Hester] said by phone. "I have to make a statement. I showed by going to [organized team activities] that I was a team player. But then, I just felt they weren't taking it seriously that I wanted to get a new deal.

"I can't go out and play this year making $445,000. Come on, man."

The Bears were surprised by Hester's decision, primarily because they were in the middle of working on an extension. The problem, it seems, is that the organization is having trouble measuring Hester's worth because he's a man without a true position.

With the trade deadline coming up on us quickly, there's been plenty of talk surrounding a certain Blue Jays starting pitcher that may be available via trade this season. That pitcher is A.J. Burnett, who has the ability to opt out of his contract at season's end, and even if he doesn't the Jays aren't sure they really want to pay him the money still owed him on his current contract.

So they wouldn't mind trading him at all, and given the way he's talked in recent months, A.J. wouldn't mind it that much either. Of course, the Blue Jays have another pitcher on their staff who hasn't exactly been thrilled with the way things have gone in Toronto, and he's been letting management know about it too.

Which is why the Jays are calling teams to gauge their interest in 2003 Cy Young winner Roy Halladay.

The whispers just won't go away. Halladay is apparently unhappy in Toronto and has let management know it, and management has apparently responded by doing some quiet surveying of teams (such as St. Louis and the Dodgers) that are far, far away from the AL East in an effort to see what it could get for the 2003 Cy Young Award winner. Apparently, the returns other teams are getting for top-talent pitchers such as C.C. Sabathia, Rich Harden and Erik Bedard has inspired the Blue Jays to at least find out what it could get for one of the best pitchers in the American League. It remains unlikely that they'd deal him, but you never know.

I don't know if there's any way the Blue Jays would actually trade Halladay, but it could be a good way for J.P. Ricciardi to stick it to ownership. With John Gibbons being fired earlier this season in favor of Cito Gaston, and the Jays disappointing again, most believe that Ricciardi won't be the team's general manager next season.

Would there be a bigger "screw you" to the organization and fans than trading away the team's most important player before being fired?

The International Olympic Committee ruled today that Iraq will not be able to participate in the Summer Olympics after Iraq's government replaced elected Olympic Committee members with officials not recognized by the IOC.

That means the two Iraqi rowers, two Iraqi sprinters, one Iraqi archer, one Iraqi weightlifter and one Iraqi judo competitor who had qualified for the Summer Games cannot attend.

"The IOC very sadly has now to acknowledge that it is likely there will be no Iraqi presence at the Beijing Olympic Games, despite our best efforts," IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said. "Clearly, we'd very much like to have seen Iraq's athletes in Beijing. We are very disappointed that the athletes have been so ill-served by their own government's actions."

The Getty Images photo shows an Iraqi Olympic swimming coach giving instructions to team members from a row boat in the Tigris river.

Any concerns about how new Olympiakos star Josh Childress would adjust to life in a foreign country should be squelched by this video posted by TrueHoop, which purportedly shows our protagonist mingling with his new neighbors in an Athens nightclub hours after signing his contract.



Childress will seemingly have no trouble making friends in Athens.

That Tom Brady sure is personable. It's easy to hate the Patriots, what with all their winning and cheating (mostly winning), and head coach Bill Belichick does nothing to change that perception. But Brady, man is he smooth.

Here he is after this morning's practice explaining how he feels great, blah blah blah, but also pointing out how his 2008 season got a lot better last Sunday.

That's right, Dolphins Football Czar Bill Parcells could've made it more difficult for his team to be competitive in the AFC East by trading Jason Taylor to the Redskins. Of course, I suspect the plan is for Miami to do more than beat New England once a year, so maybe in the long-term interest of the team, trading Taylor was the right move.

That said, to hear Brady and his BFF Matt Light talk about it, they're less concerned with Parcells' down-the-road vision for the Dolphins. All they know is that Taylor is gone, and that's definitely worth cracking open a couple Zimas and celebrating.

Minnesota Twins second baseman Alexi Casilla has been somewhat of an unsung hero for the surprising Twins this season. He didn't play his first game of the season for Minnesota until May 11th, but since joining the team Casilla is hitting .323/.360/.438 with 38 runs driven in. Another player who's been performing well but under the radar in Minnesota is starter Glen Perkins.

Much like Casilla, Perkins didn't start his season with the Twins until May 10th, but has gone 7-3 in 15 starts since. Still, neither had the best time in New York as the Twins were just swept by the Yankees in the Bronx, but Perkins' memory of things seems to be a bit tainted.

During the fifth inning of yesterday's game, the Yankees had runners on first and second with one out and Jose Molina at the plate. Molina hit a ground ball to Brendan Harris at third and after Harris threw to Casilla at second, Alexi started walking slowly to the dugout. He'd completely forgotten that he had only made the second out of the inning, and never threw to first to complete the double play.

Needless to say, Perkins wasn't very happy about it and yelled at Alexi while on the field. It didn't help matters at all a few pitches later when Justin Christian lined a two-run double down the left field line to break up a scoreless tie.

As Brinson told you about yesterday, the unfairly vilified Steve Bartman was offered $25,000 by an online sports memorabilia site to sign a picture of him interfering with a foul ball in the 2003 NLCS at Wrigley Field. All Steve would have had to do was show up at a sports collectible convention in Rosemont, Illinois, sign the picture, and cash the check.

Unfortunately there's one factor that Sportsbuy.com didn't take into consideration before making this offer, and that's that Steve Bartman cannot be bought! He doesn't need your stinking money.

Bartman friend Frank Murtha says that Bartman won't accept an offer of $25,000. For the money, all Bartman would have to do is attend the National Sports Collectors Convention in Rosemont and autograph a photograph taken of when he tipped a foul ball that seemed destined for Cubs' outfielder Moises Alou's glove during a 2003 playoff game with the Florida Marlins.

Bartman has declined all offers to appear or make money off his brush with fame.

I don't know if I'd call it a brush with fame as much as a brush with infamy, but to each his own I suppose. Can't we just leave this guy alone, though? It's been five years since it happened, and the Cubs kind of have other more important things going on at the moment. Considering that Bartman completely dropped off the face of the earth after that fateful night in October 2003, and has done a very good job of staying there, I think it's pretty obvious he doesn't want to be pigeonholed with this the rest of his life. It wasn't even his fault the Cubs lost that NLCS anyway.

So let's just leave him be, okay?

Few NFL players are so good that they can shine no matter what the offensive system or the players around him. Texans wide receiver Andre Johnson is one of those players. You have to be great to go to the Pro Bowl twice with Mister Mittens David Carr throwing you the ball.

I've seen a few articles about Johnson's fantasy prospects like this worth-a-read one from FootballGuys.com. From someone who has followed Johnson's career closely, I will add my observations about his injury history and prospects in Gary Kubiak's offense.

Injury History: No NFL team is particularly forthcoming on injuries, but I put all the information found from public sources in this entry on Andre Johnson's offseason knee scope. In part:

In 2005, he missed three games due to an unspecified pain, variously described at the time as pain in the back of his left knee or in his calf near the knee. In 2007, he missed 7 games for receiving what was eventually described as a sprain to his left PCL and MCL.