Cornerback Orlando Scandrick didn't turn off his competitive spirit when the Dallas Cowboys made their annual visits to children's hospitals to spread the holiday spirit.
Scandrick's tactics while playing a 9-year-old patient in the Madden video game Tuesday earned him some playful grief from several teammates, including injured linebacker Justin Durant, whose tweets about the matchup went viral.
"Nothing is going to be given to you, so I don't think I should have gave him anything," Scandrick told ESPN.com on Thursday. "I made him better if anything.
"I wasn't teaching any lessons, but when you play a competitive game you've got to expect to be competitive. If they didn't want you to go for two and to kick onside kicks, it wouldn't be on the game.
"I didn't talk trash to the kid. It was all in fun."
However, Scandrick was playing to win.
He attempted to justify a surprise onside kick by pointing out that Cowboys fullback Tyler Clutts walked in front of the screen on the child's first touchdown of the game, so Scandrick felt like he needed an extra possession and to go for a two-point conversion while leading to make things even.
"I wanted to see if my two-point plays were good enough in a heated game," he said. "You've got to try them sometime. You don't have a practice for Madden, so you have to practice when you get up."
What's in a name?
Dan Jennings traded Dan Jennings.
The Miami Marlins sent Jennings, a 27-year-old left-handed reliever, to the Chicago White Sox for right-hander Andre Rienzo on Thursday's final day of the winter meetings.
Dan Jennings, the Marlins' 54-year-old general manager, laughed about the deal.
"On the road, sometimes he'd get to the room and say to me, 'I think I got the wrong room. They put wine in my room,' " the general manager said.
The two aren't related.
"We used to have running jokes, he and I," the general manager said. "A box would come in and it would go upstairs to me. Different mail would come in and go to the wrong guy."
A little too late
Some 2 1/2 months after the Ryder Cup was decided, high-profile critics are still scratching their heads about some of U.S. captain Tom Watson's tactical blunders.
In particular, Fred Couples still doesn't get why Watson sat Phil Mickelson for all of Day 2 at Gleneagles.
"I'm not bashing Tom Watson, but sitting Mickelson, your best team player? Are you kidding me?" Couples asked rhetorically Thursday while attending the opening of a six-hole golf course in Maricopa, Ariz., according to Golf.com.
Watson benched Mickelson and his preferred partner Keegan Bradley in the Saturday morning fourballs session in Scotland, with most thinking it was in an effort to give Mickelson some rest. Then when they weren't sent out in the afternoon session of alternate shot, Mickelson's weakest Ryder Cup format, Watson was almost universally panned.
Couples, the 1992 Masters champion, is good friends with Watson but previously has been effusive with praise of Mickelson, who was on all three of the victorious Presidents Cup teams Couples captained.
"Phil Mickelson has been the best [team] guy on every team I've ever been on," Couples said."By far."
QUIZ
Where did major-league pitcher Dan Jennings play college baseball?
ANSWER
Nebraska
Sports on 12/13/2014