2 down, 21 to go.

Hey, Trent Green is now 2-0 as YOUR Dolphins starting QB. Sure it's only the pre-season, but hey, 21 more in a row and we're the first Super Bowl champions in history to go perfect in the pre-season, perfect in the regular season, and perfect in the playoffs! Hey, I can dream right?

As to the game itself, Trent looked good if not great out there. Definitely serviceable. Beck & Lemon are both doing okay. What concerns me is Ginn & Jason Allen. Jason Allen's name got mentioned once for making a play. Really, he's had a year now, he really needs to be making more progress than he has. "Ted Ginn's Family" as coach would like me to refer to him apparently, just didn't see anything kicked his way at all. And when he did, he got annihilated. Ted Ginn's Family has apparently never heard of the Fair Catch rule.

Washington is only 20 days away. Starting to get excited.

Re-united and it feels so good

Sure, he's nothing more than a backup on the roster, but it's always fun to see reunions. So from us at HSFT, I wanted to relay a message to the newest member of the Heat.

Apparently "Lil' Penny" from the science club says, 'Hello.'

Training Camp Sotck Report #1

UP- 26yearoldmormonrookie: The last couple of practices, he's owned by throwing slant lasers all over the field and also throwing a bomb to Ted "SPEED" Ginn. He's not going to be #3 on the chart for very long. I'm trying not to get too drunk off the Kool Aid with him and let's see him play a game with live ammo before we put him in Canton, but it's obvious that this guy's got something. Most QBs take 3-4 years to develop, but some guys just seem to click right away, although they're the exception that proves the rule.

DOWN- Jason Allen: There might be some more patience required here. Ever since UT, he's been moving back and forth from safety to CB and Capers has it in his head to play him at corner. And so far, he's struggling a bit. But then again, he's never really had an actual position since he's been in Miami. So it might be for the best to keep him in one place and damn the torpedoes. Unfortunately, he keeps up how he's playing and he's going to be seeing A LOT of torpedoes this year.

UP- Vern Carey: He's making the adjustment to LT, and he's also holding his own against the reigning Defensive Player of the Year in the process.

DOWN- Chris Chambers. The next time he catches 5 balls thrown to him will be the first.

UP- Derek Hagan. By contrast, so far his hands seem to be improved.

DOWN- The offense as a whole. They say in Spring Training that the pitchers are always just a little bit ahead of the hitters. In this case, the pitchers are a lot ahead.

UP- Jesse Chatman. Although he's been up AND down. On one end, he hasn't followed through on his runs. On the other, he made some impressive work of the defense on Sunday and with Ricky Williams gonzo, he's sitting at #2 on the chart ahead of Booker at the moment.

DOWN- L.J. Shelton- He might not have a starting job at this rate.

And that's the end of that chapter...

Daunte's like that person you're ready to break up with but still have to go on vacation together or have commitments you can't get out of. Mercifully, it's over.

Now everyone can move on with their lives and Saban's pet project can go to hell with him. Or Jacksonville... whichever one is worse.

Navigating The Dead Zone

This absolutely IS the dog day period. Baseball is just kicking back into gear after the All-Star Break, training camp hasn't opened up yet, Summer League ball is winding down for the NBA and the NHL is following its inate Canadien-ness and standing in the corner quietly not wanting to cause too much of a fuss.

But there is stuff to be found. That is, if you have the patience to scroll through the daily papers.

-First off, you KNOW it's a dead period when The Courtship Of Maurice Williams is the most captivating story in the market. No, really. Mo Williams is a nice player, but he's not exactly anything special. The Heat really can't do anything more than its vaunted mid-level exemption anyway, so it keeps them from overpaying for the guy. That is, if they don't do a sign-and-trade so that they CAN overpay him.

-Also, the Sun-Sentinel-- not to be outdone by ESPN's silly meaningless Big Now tourney, is asking for your vote for the All-Time-For-This-Year Dolphins team. Delvin Williams, really?

And then there is my favorite story so far of dead zone period. I knew that they were looking to renovate Dolphins Stadium, but I'd love to know whose idea this was. I suppose SOMETHING should be of interest for Dolphins fans this coming season other than the game itself. Although be wary of the following quote:

"We’re working with Sprint on activation."

They wouldn't be so hopeful if they ever had one of their cell phones.

Half and Half...

And here we are at the All Star Break. Like Kansas City, we've been relegated to "Team Designee" status. As my "cousin" Miguel Cabrera makes the reserve roster at 3rd. With the exception of Ramirez, no one else really deserves to be on the team. Hanley, though it's hard to admit, really is the 3rd or 4th guy in the NL at an incredibly stacked position as there are at least 3 guys who have legitimate gripes that they are not in SF tonight. Hopefully, next season, more people can see that Ramirez really is among the elite at the position... and he'll only be 24 too.

However, it's the whole Marlins team that really concerns me at this point. 5 under .500... no major prospects on the immediate horizon... no legitimate shot at winning the division barring an astronomical collapse by the Mets, Braves, and Phillies... the very real possibility of losing Cabrera very soon... and still no word on the stadium.

I want to focus on the positives (Cabrera, Uggla, Ramirez), but the negatives are too obvious not to acknowledge.

The second half starts on Thursday and this franchise definitely has a history of making things interesting in the 2nd half...

I.....Called It?

"The real fear pick here is Jason Smith"
-Me, about 30 seconds before the Heat drafted Jason Smith.

"Not so fast, smart aleck"
-The Heat, as they traded Smith for Daequan Cook five minutes later.

Geiger Counter

So tonight's the NBA Draft and everything I read says the heat are going to pick a 1 or 4. I gotta think Jason Williams has got to be a little nervous right now. But hey, he can take solace. White players in the NBA do just fine... look at Matt Geiger.

It seems the former Heat center is selling his house. Excuse me, he's selling his MANSION (and believe me when I tell you about the details, you'll understand why I use all caps). This guy has a 5 sq. mile estate, 40 tvs, nearly half of which are hooked to video game systems, bars everywhere, a herd of his own livestock, and a 330,000 gallon pool. I don't think some amusement parks have pools that big. Anyway, I guess chlorine's getting expensive so Matty is selling and moving to another place nearby. Now, again, this isn't Michael Jordan's house or Magic Johnson's house. It was Matt friggin' Geiger.

I guess living well really is the best revenge.

WOAH-kun

I stop paying attention to the Panthers for a minute and then they go and make a HUGE acquisition. The future London (Ontario) Monarchs or Kansas City T-Bones (now known as the Nashville Predators) have been having a fire sale of epic proportions and the Panthers have cashed in by snatching one of the top goalies in the league.

Say what you will, but the Cats have always seemed to be anchored by good goaltending. Johnny Beezer, Bobby Luongo, and now Tommy V. Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel. Or whatever the South Florida equivalent is to a tunnel...

And Speaking Of Fish Frys....

"You remember Fernando Valenzuela? He started out a pitcher, ended up a truck."

-Albert Brooks

Maybe it's just the fact that there's nothing else to write about right now, but the Miami papers seem to have this obsession with Miguel Cabrera's waistline...but then again, the Dolphins/Hurricanes are between camps, the Heat/Panthers have shut it down for the offseason. That leaves the Marlins and that also leaves Miggy and his Pringles.

The only problem is that they're not wrong. Here's Miggy in 2003:

And here's the BEFORE picture, except that it's from four years in the future, where there are no flying cars unless he elects to leave his feet for anything. Also in a moment of unintentional comedy, the navigational direction for said photo gallery? "Click To View Larger Image" And it is indeed:

And while the Herald and the Sentinel have been attempting to stage an intervention all this week, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen-- a friend of Cabrera's-- has also staged an intervention. As only Ozzie can: "When you're not hitting .340 with 40 home runs, they're going to call you a fat boy from Venezuela."

I just like to think it's all a helping hand to make Blog Sidekick look more to scale when he dons his Marlins jersey. I'll leave it up to the reader to decide whether that was a gratuitous pot-meet-kettle fat joke or me showing jealousy that there's never been an All-Star with my last name so I could get a legit badass jersey (not one of those awful fake custom dealies for three bills that cross the line of fandom into Xbox create-a-player alternate reality) with my own name on it.

To date in the last three decades, Dophins backup WR Marcus Mann came the closest, but he didn't make it out of preseason alive.

Fish Fry

Yeah, so... god damn it. Now that's 3 series in a row that the Marlins have lost. Tampa, Cleveland, and KC. The Indians, I get because they're playing incredible baseball right now. Tampa is questionable because they are arguably a step behind or on par with the Marlins talent-wise and are in the toughest division in baseball. But Kansas City? That's just unforgivable. It makes the mind boggle that we gave the friggin' Royals 2 of 3.

First you get "Mr. All or Nothing" Sergio Mitre, who's either lights out or off the pages bad. Friday night, we unfortunately got the latter. Then Saturday had Vanden Hurk get a win in a game he and the boys in the bullpen tried desperately to give away. In fact, Rick VDK pitched so well, he got a real nice reward today. A free trip back to Double A! And yesterday, Scott Olsen pitched like Mary-Kate Olsen. Well, at the end of the day, I'm not really expecting that much from the Teal Warriors this year, but at the same time, they're capable of much much better than this.

At least Miggy seems to be powering up again and HanRam has been living up to the potential he's got.

BoRing

Congratulations to former Heat forward Bruce Bowen and the Spurs who mugged, defeated the Cleveland Caveliers, while putting the rest of us to sleep. Not an unexpected result, but still all our best.

By the way, Bruce Bowen would have needed to hit LeBron with a bat with nails sticking out of it to get called for a foul. It's odd, last year, everyone (in Dallas) freaked out because D-Wade got so many calls. It's like the referees saw what happened last year and said, okay, this year, no one gets any calls. Funny how that works.

The Plot Thickens, And Then Possibly Stops Out Of Nowhere

Apparantly late last night, Daunte Culpepper was involved in a minor car accident out on the Sawgrass, complaining of a hand injury afterwards. No word yet on weather or not Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" was playing in the car at the time the accident happened.

But I think Daunte just got that release that he wanted, just not in the way that he intended getting it.

Wah!

Frustrated Culpepper seeks NFLPA union intervention

You've got to be kidding me. Daunte's gone into "Whiny Bitch" mode quicker than a defender returning his pass for a touchdown. Whatever dress Daunte puts on next season, she'll have a hard time fitting it over her gigantic knee brace.

Security

Daunte leaves minicamp under security. Well, that's a headline I wasn't expecting to see today. I'll leave it to you good reader to figure out what happened, but personally, I think Daunte brought one of Mike Vick's dogs for a demonstration.

Seriously, who the fuck shows up for work when you have been clearly told, "You're not welcome here."

You Say Goodbye, And I Say Hello

So far, it's just been another uneventful Dolphins minicamp. Plays have been learned, relationships have been forged, shorts have been run around in....and oh yeah, there's a whole quarterback working out for whom the team would be on the hook for 5.5 million for should he get a hangnail on the field...oh wait no, there he goes...and also is once again assuming his secondary role as E-MailBomber.

It is here where I have to tag out and quote Kelvin yesterday regarding Daunte being on the trading block:

Been dreaming of an overrated, old, injured QB manning your offense? Want to hear the term Pick 6 over and over? Like how the #8 looks on your team's colors? Boy have the Dolphins got the man for you!

This should pretty much play out over the next few days. Since the Dolphins like to pile up 6th and 7th round picks, it's nice that they'll have an early jump this year.

Families Love Orlando

A season and a half ago, Stan Van Gundy resigned from the Heat, claiming he wanted to spend more time with his family, which was a story that few people bought and resulted in Pat Riley winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor that day and an NBA Championship six months later. But for those who didn't see the PC that day, it was Riley at his Gordon Gecko best. Talking about crisis situations and the fact that he was uncertain he could return, thus lowering the bar for himself...all of which was a reminder that in another life, Riley would have been the greatest sermonist who ever lived were he to have gone that route.

Twenty years ago, both the cities of Orlando and Miami attempted to secure an NBA franchise. Twenty years ago, Orlando's method of procurement was to not only put forth their own expansion package, but to make sure they could make as many Miami-as-crime-central barbs as possible. This made people in Miami annoyed-- not mad, mind you, as we know what a cesspool Miami can be at times-- but that someone else was the one saying it. You see, the one thing Miami has any type of civic pride about is when someone who doesn't live here chooses to bag on us.

The point is that about twenty years ago was more or less the last time the two teams were anything resembling archrivals. Both teams were babies then and both teams were awful. Then came periods where both teams took turns being good and the other went into a down-cycle and each has only been a varying nuissance to the other at varying points.

That is, until today. Stan Van Gundy being the beneficiary of the Gainesville Hamlet Sweepstakes just made the matchup between these two teams interesting for the first time in years. Also, I'd be curious to know if now, finally at this point, if only to sell tickets, that if any further truth to Van Gundy's departure gets unraveled here. Although in the end, everyone's a winner: Miami gets a second-rounder, Van Gundy gets another job, Orlando gets a PR save, and we get a pretty good story that's about to happen.

Welcome to the planet... welcome to existence...

So I've gone ahead and joined the Hot Stormy Fish Tank crew. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Kelvin Cabrera. Resident of the city of New York. Graduate of Christopher Columbus High in the beautiful city of Miami. And like your party host, I too am a fan of all sports things Miami. Dolphins, Marlins, Heat, 'Canes, & Panthers.

Today, I come to you talking Dolphins...

So the Green Line has pulled into the Tri-Rail Station at Dolphins Stadium. I beat my head into the wall last year when Drew Brees went by the boards and we got the boobie prize known as Daunte Culpepper. Well, now it's a year later and everyone in Miami will be happy to know that the Cpep jerseys are now worthless. I don't mind the trade since they've now put money into Lemon as a 2nd/3rd QB and Beck (and don't get me started on THAT mess) is waiting in the wings.

We're still trying to pull out of the tailspin the Wannstedt era put us in and I hope to hell Green's
still got some of the goods that made him King of KC for a few years. Of course, it's all supposedly a place-holder while the World's Oldest Rookie gets ready to take over the franchise in '09 or whenever.

Summer workouts should be interesting. Let's see what we've got here.

Hostage Crisis Averted

Within 24 hours of each other, Trent Green finally was traded to the Dolphins and Paris Hilton was released from the big house.

Also, the Daunte Culpepper era might have a milk-level shelf life to it.

The Annual Rookie Posture Clambake

Casey: It's a vicious circle.

Dan: Yep. Just keeps going around and around.

Casey: Never stops.

Dan: That's what makes it vicious.

Casey: And a circle.

-Sports Night

Every year the same thing happens in DolphinLand. You can just about set your calendar to it. The front office demands that the rookies be brought in right quick and also evey year the rookies' agents tell the front office what to do with themselves. Beck and Booker are one thing, but Ginn isn't signing anything until numbers eight and ten have been slotted. That's the process, and for all of the things Huizenga does in a hands-off process, this is the thing he's a stickler about, except that it has the honor of not working yet.

Like Throwing A Gas Can On A Fire

On the bright side, Troy Percival wouldn't be a comeback case that would cost $28M. On the downside, while pitchers with Percy's fastball don't exactly grow on trees, they don't necessarily stay on the tree that long. But yet, because there are teams that need bullpen help there's always someone willing to take a chance on someone like him, even if he threw his last competitive pitch two years ago. But it's not like Florida doesn't need the help. Jorge Julio, we hardly knew ye, yo.

Introductions Are A Pain

My name is Josh. I blog. I make blogs. I tell non-exciting stories about the birth of said blog. Like this one...

I realized that as long as I was going to have a blog that was just me putting articles in it-- mostly sports articles involving Miami sports, that the logical thing would be to create this blog...but what to call it was another matter. The blog that is this blog's spiritual daddy (read: the template I'm going to blatantly steal over time) is Chris Gates' The Daily Norseman. And like Brock Landers and Chest Rockwell, that's a great name. And also, Daily Fish/Daily Sauna/A Mighty Wind was a little bit not good.

My first instinct was to call it the Miami Sports Espresso (hence the subtitle) but the other name in my head was Hot Stormy Fish Tank-- which covers the Heat, the Hurricanes, the Marlins and the Dolphins. I realize there's nothing in my wizard bag at the moment for the Panthers, but the Panthers are on my personal ON NOTICE list at the moment. But of course, in the spirit of Miami fans, if they ever show anything resembling a pulse ever again, likely I will be there to cover it. Actually, this is how I show the Panthers tough love.

I also plan on having help with this-- by of course creating this blog first before even asking so that there's something concrete and asking certain people to contribute later. And it'll be more exciting than this...I promise. Introductions are a pain.