Sports Today: Bengals/Flyers Fight Club Edition

The moving pictures from the Greene County Jail are not flattering for Sam Miller, a junior forward at UD who doubled down on the underage drinking and disorderly conduct charges stemming from an embarrassing episode at a bar near Wright State by picking a fight he doesn't seem to have had much chance of winning with a cellmate at the jail in Xenia.

To say Miller lacked judgement in these instances would be quite an understatement…

That is something Vontaze Burfict is familiar with, too.

After yesterday’s viral video from Bengals camp, it is fair to wonder if the Pro Bowl linebacker is beyond help.

There's nothing wrong with a little training camp skirmish, but this seems pretty beyond the pail.

The Bengals relentlessly defend him, and I agree he gets held to a higher standard than many because of his reputation.

Yet that's an earned reputation, and this is far less understandable than hitting the wrong launching point in a game or playing to (or just beyond) the echo of the whistle.

This is a teammate coming off ACL surgery in a non-tackling drill in practice. Shouldn't be too hard to stay reined in here…

On to better news: Ohio State's new basketball coach is interested in making the big programs in the greatest state in the union better friends — and hopefully more familiar enemies.

Chris Holtmann said last night he is interested in playing teams such as Dayton, Xavier and Cincinnati more often than the Buckeyes have in the recent past (which is almost never).

Holtmann liked the what he saw as the coach at Butler when the Bulldogs, Indiana, Purdue and Notre Dame were part of the Crossroads Classic, but I would go a step farther.

Let’s have an annual holiday tournament featuring as many Ohio teams as we can get.

That’s a quick sketch I did for a hypothetical 12-team tournament that would rotate sites and involve different teams from year to year. (I’m assuming the big boys won’t play without getting a bye, but even if we only had two of the four powerhouse programs every year, this could be a great event.)

Now what we need to do as fans and media members is everything we can to shame these teams into playing each other.

Dayton fans, you go after OSU. Wright State fans, take UD. Since Cincinnati and Xavier already play each other, the Bearcats can mock the Musketeers for dodging Dayton.

Together, we can bring about real change…

Hey, the Cincinnati Reds have won two in a row! 

More importantly, they have gotten good starts each day from pitchers who figure to be important parts of the future of the team.

Last night, it was Homer Bailey, who allowed one run in six innings of a 9-1 victory in Pittsburgh.

Luis Castillo allowed one run in eight innings Sunday as the Reds beat the Marlins 6-4.

Last night also featured the first major-league home run for Jesse Winker, the Reds top outfield prospect who batted second and played right field.

He had a second homer stolen at the wall, but he is expected to get lots of chances to build a case he should be with the big club next season as Scott Schebler was played on the DL.

The Reds also called up Phil Ervin, an outfielder who like Winker was a Reds first-round pick.

The best that can be accomplished the rest of the year is for some pitchers to prove they can be relied upon next season and for at least a couple of position players to give them some hard decisions to make about who is going to be part of the long-term future and who could be moved for more assets in the short-term.