Half of the AFLs ruckmen may one day hail from America, the leagues national and international talent manager?Kevin Sheehan believes. ?The AFL last week bade farewell to the latest two imports invited to try out for the Australian sport -- Stanislas Heili and Brandon Nazione, who both impressed at the American draft combine in April this year. ?Frenchman Heili -- who stands a centimetre short of seven feet at 212.3cm, making him the tallest player ever tested for AFL -?played basketball at Lindenwood University in Missouri and Nazione, whose sporting background includes American football, soccer and baseball, played with Eastern Michigan Eagles in college. ? ?The duo was flown to Melbourne to learn more about the chaotic Australian game, as Nazione described it, in the hope of potentially joining a club as a category B rookie. ?The pair trained under the watchful eye of six clubs while in Australia - Port Adelaide, Melbourne, St Kilda, Richmond, North Melbourne and Essendon. ?While neither said they were fully committed to joining a club if offered a contract -- Heili needs to complete the final year of his masters in computer engineering, while Nazione has offers to play professional basketball in Europe -- Sheehan said the AFL was taking a long-term view. ? ?[These guys] were hand-picked for their size. Australia only has 23 million people, and we cant find enough [tall athletes] to fulfil our needs, Sheehan told ESPN. ? ?I think half the clubs would need another ruckman every year, so nine or 10 very big guys who have all the attributes of size, athleticism, courage, eye-hand coordination [are needed each year]. That [need] has been identified and the last four or five years weve worked ... to see if we can address that. ?Weve got [St Kilda ruckman] Jason Holmes, [Collingwoods] Mason Cox through from the small numbers that have come [to Australia] and Matt Korcheck is doing very well at Carlton in VFL in just his first year, so all the indications are that this can work. ?Its early days. Only a handful have ever come out ... but in 50 years or so half the ruckmen in the AFL might well be Americans - thats probably the vision.Theres enormous potential in it. ?Holmes, Cox opened doors for U.S athletes - KorcheckSheehan said he hoped the AFL would soon be viewed as a legitimate option for American athletes who failed to make the top level in their chosen sports. ?We know were in competition with European basketball, other sports and [professional] careers ... we have to compete in that space, he said. ? ?With only about 60 making the NBA each year, theres still some wonderful athletes [available] ... if we can win their hearts and minds and give them opportunities, there may be another Mason Cox somewhere. ?Nazione and Heili view Cox -- who made a dramatic debut for Collingwood in front of more than 85,000 people at the MCG in April -- and Holmes - who became the first born-and-bred American to play AFL late last season - as trailblazers. ?They spent time with Cox, the former Oklahoma State basketballer during their time in Melbourne, picking his brain about his journey, his new sport and living in Australia.The pair also watched several AFL matches during their time Down Under, both men shocked at the running power and physicality on display. ? ?Nazione said he believed many of his basketball skills would translate to AFL if he did eventually take a chance on the sport. ? ?The most translatable skills [are] jumping, cutting from basketball, lots of quick movements which can be used on a footy field, the 198cm?athlete told ESPN. ?Im definitely [attracted to] the chaotic nature of the game - I like how open the game is and the skills are awesome too ... but my family isnt keen about it, because its such a tough sport physically! ?Both said they had plenty to think about during their return flights to America and France respectively. ? ? ?Im up in the air about it, Nazione said. Im not completely 100 percent [certain about, hypothetically] if I get an offer today, Ill sign. ? ?Itll be something Ill have to discuss with my family and, with basketball, Ive got opportunities to play professionally - I actually signed with [German second-tier club] Bayer Giants Leverkusen. So, Ill definitely do one of the two but it has to be the right situation either way. ? ?Heili said he was also unsure of his intentions. ? ?I need one more year for my masters - I cant do it online, I have to be in France, he said. I also have offers to play basketball in France. ? ?Australia is opposite side of the world to France, so it would be a big decision for me. It could be a great experience here, but Im not 100 percent sure.Replica Shoes 2019 .C. -- Kemba Walker and the Charlotte Bobcats got off to a fast start, and the Sacramento Kings were never quite able to catch up. Fake Shoes Website .4 million title. 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Winchester, who was not penalized for the hit, appeared to make contact with Kellys head early in the first period of Thursdays game in Boston.Former Yankees manager Joe Torre had a saying that seemed especially pertinent during the hell and lying of the Steroid Era. He would often tell players who were damaging the game that baseball is something you borrow. Your responsibility is to leave the game in better condition than it was when you entered.On Sunday, a new 16-member group called the Todays Era committee enshrined Bud Selig into the Baseball Hall of Fame, perhaps by deciding that Selig falls on the affirmative side of Torres criteria or perhaps because Seligs induction was always a foregone conclusion to happen while he was alive. To ensure the latter, baseball essentially held a special election, guaranteeing the nearly 83-year-old ex-commissioner and ultimate baseball insider would come up for a vote.But does Selig pass Torres litmus test? In so many ways, Seligs 20-year reign as commissioner resembles the contradictions of the Steroid Era itself. On the night of Sept. 8, 1998, at old Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Selig sat next to Cardinals legend Stan Musial when Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run. Cubs right fielder Sammy Sosa, McGwires friendly rival that summer, raced from the outfield to hug McGwire as he rounded the bases. Watching the scene, Selig leaned over to Musial and said, This is a renaissance.In retrospect, the moment was grotesque. Baseball doesnt even celebrate it now -- McGwires 70 home runs that year, Sosas 66, or the 73 Barry Bonds would hit three seasons later. The two protagonists of the scene, McGwire and Sosa, are both disgraced -- 1,192 combined home runs, and neither are in the Hall of Fame. In fact, neither has come close: McGwire has never surpassed 23.7 percent of the 75 needed for enshrinement, while Sosas high was 12.5 percent in his first year of 2013 (it dropped to 7 percent last year). Baseball disowned 1998. Those players are radioactive. Selig is immortal.Selig would use the word renaissance often during those years, forcing the question of what kind of renaissance could be defined by a simultaneous financial rise and moral decline. Baseball has become a $10 billion money machine, and yet drugs have undermined it, a sport in which the record book is central to the game. The greatest players of Seligs time might never take the dais he will assume come July.Under Selig, baseball lost virtually every advantage that gave it its very special power as a national pastime. But there was never any question of his induction, because he succeeded in accomplishing two primary missions -- for him, really, the only two that mattered -- harmony and money. Before Selig, baseball owners did not just fight the players but also each other, cut along the interests of large and small markets. Selig, as an owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, was the consensus builder who worked the phones tirelessly in an attempt to create a kind of unity. He saw harmony through the NFL, where then-commissioner Pete Rozelle was able to bring together disparate financial interests under one umbrella for the good of the league.Seligs most lasting accomplishment will be the greatest era of stadium building in the history of the sport. From the time he was named interim commissioner in 1992 until his retirement at the end of the 2014 season, 22 new stadiums were built. One team, the Atlanta Braves, broke ground on two. With the exception of San Franciscos, all of the stadiums were built with a majority of public money. In return for their compliance, Bud Selig made his owners and himself enormously wealthy.He also brought one of the games legends back into the fold. As a college student, Selig skipped class to watch the Milwaukee Braves. He was there in 1957, when Hank Aaron hit the 11th inning home run that put the Braves in the World Series for the first time since moving from Boston in 1952, and he and Aaron would become lifelong friends. When Selig took over as commissioner, Aaron was a disillusioned legend, convinced the game had never respected him or his accomplishments. With Selig as commissioner, a generation of baseball people who saw Aaron as a bitter old man now hadd to face Seligs wrath.dddddddddddd. Today, Aaron is revered as a legend of the sport -- the Hank Aaron Award, given to the best offensive players in each league, bears his name. None of this happens without Seligs support.For these accomplishments, Seligs success is not to be discounted. Equally important, however, is another message Selig sent throughout his tenure, and again Monday during the announcement of his induction -- he is an owner, and the rules of accountability do not apply to the people in power. At the core of baseball has always been a never-ending battle between management and labor, and of this Bud Selig is most reflective.He was a small-market hawk dedicated to curbing the power of the big teams -- most notably the Yankees, the games most legendary franchise -- but for several of his years as commissioner, he earned a higher annual salary than almost every player. He was a primary force in the collusion battles of the 1980s, when owners were found guilty of conspiring to not sign free agents, destroying an already bitter relationship with the union. He was the face of the coup that toppled former commissioner Fay Vincent and led to the disastrous 1994 strike. Seligs response, as acting commissioner, was to cancel the World Series and allow the installation of replacement players -- until future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ruled that ownership had not acted in good faith.The Steroid Era players over whom Selig presided -- McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Roger Clemens, Rafael Palmeiro -- have been barred from enshrinement. Alex Rodriguez is soon to follow. But Selig responded Monday to the position that he ignored the rising use of steroids in the same manner he has responded for the past decade and a half: by blaming the Players Association and relying on the strength of baseballs current drug-testing policy. This position skirts the truth. Selig did not ignore the steroid threat. Instead, like the union, he actively denied a threat existed. He reacted only when the absurdity of the numbers -- the top six single-season home run records were established between 1998-2001 -- as well as heavy pressure from Congress, the IRS and the Justice Department, exposed the game. Seligs leadership did not force change. The sport simply could not deny the facts any longer.His pronouncement that baseball has the toughest testing program in America does not reconcile with his previous behavior: the steadfast refusal to look back and investigate the sport. Selig and the league believed it could stiff-arm Congress until the government forced it to be humiliated at the 2005 hearings. Selig believed his vindication would be the 2007 Mitchell Report, but the power of the report was thwarted both by the unions refusal to cooperate and by Seligs decision to take care of his friends -- his practice of always trying to tilt the deal in his favor: he appointed George Mitchell, who was on the Red Sox payroll, and his law firm, DLA Piper, which worked with MLB. The result was a powerful document that served more to hammer labor than deliver justice: The players absorbed the public shame and have been kept from Cooperstown, but the organizations and front-office employees, also indicted in the document, received no punishment, at Mitchells urging. Somewhere, Selig knows this, and periodically he will say that he should have done more. In reality, there is a union to be blamed, a press, players and a cynical public, and with that is an immutable truth: the industry failed, it has paid a devastating, irreparable price, and Selig was at its head.When applied to Selig, Torres question of whether he left the game better than when he entered will likely live without consensus. The legacy of his enshrinement may very well be the eventual enshrinement of the steroid-tainted players, who so far are the only ones who have paid even a partial price from a ruinous generation of dishonesty that changed the game far for the worse.Cheap JerseysChina NFL JerseysCheap NBA Jerseys [url=http:// paid even a partial price from a ruinous