Place an Ad Calendars Classified Forums Sports Weather

sptimes.com Text-only News sections Arts & Entertainment AP The Wire Business Citrus County Columnists Floridian Hernando County Hillsborough Letters Movies Neighborhood Times News Update North Pinellas North of Tampa Obituaries Opinion Pasco County South Pinellas Sports State Tampa Bay TV Times World & Nation  Find your local news section Weekly sections Brandon Times City Times Homes Outdoors Perspective Personal Tech Taste Travel Weekend Xpress Special Sections Arena football Buccaneers College football Devil Rays Lightning Police reports Schools Seniority Subscriber Services Subscribe Renew Help Advertise Place an ad In print Online Market Info Join Us Internships Scholarships Times Jobs Contact us

Bucs surf for clues, cautiously

Like many of you, Rich McKay will be a spectator for much of Saturday's NFL draft. And like many draft fans, the Bucs general manager will spend part of today scouring draft sites for any morsel of information, then wondering if there's any truth to it.

The Bucs front office will be polishing up a mock draft of its own in meetings today, but it will use the ones online as a starting point, comparing its preferences with those of the so-called experts and draft gurus populating the Internet.

"We'll use those to set up our board, instead of us setting it up based on how we rate the players," McKay said. "There's so much out there that you're able to get a better idea of what teams are going to do. What we do, what most teams do, is go to their home sites, their newspaper sites, and we spend a lot of time trying to figure out needs and what teams are going to do based on those sites."

This isn't a week to trust anything a general manager says, but lost somewhere in the smokescreens, decoy name-dropping and the usual predraft counterintelligence is that rare useful piece of information that might help a team decide whom to pick or pass on.

"On more than one occasion, we've been able to glean who we thought a pick is going to be, and that helps in trading up and trading down," McKay said. "But last year, I felt there was a lot of information with respect to what we were going to do in the first round, and a lot of it was accurate. It works both ways, and that was not a positive."

At least two mock drafts so confident as to project into the third round have the Bucs taking a tight end, an option likely negated by Wednesday's signing of Ken Dilger. The biggest online scuttlebutt has been a report at football.com, unilaterally and repeatedly denied, that said the Bucs would deal Warren Sapp to the Eagles for draft picks Saturday.

The site manages this week to simultaneously stand by its story and awkwardly duck back into kinda-maybe-sorta territory: "We have never had a story cause such a commotion. ... With the rumors swirling around the NFL, it is obvious this story has validity and we were proud to be the first to break it. ... I think right now Sapp still stands a chance at getting traded, but Tampa is looking at other cities."

McKay is left to smile and deny, and with memories of online reports that had him manning the Falcons' war room this weekend, he won't be taking anything he reads too seriously.

"The one thing about the Internet that's disturbing to me is that the information, there's no editors, nobody with any journalistic ethics behind the story," McKay said. "Accordingly, you have to take everything you see with a tremendous grain of salt. The Internet can churn out a rumor in about five seconds."

BUBBLE BURST: A piece of gum supposedly chewed by Pete Rose on ESPN's Mohr Sports show and posted for a charity auction was pulled by eBay.com last week. ESPN producers were initially told the gum violated an eBay policy against items that contain bodily fluids.

The seller's e-mail address, however, belonged to an 18-year-old San Diego State student, who when contacted this week said someone had hacked into his e-mail account and posted the item without his knowledge. E-mails offered him $1,000 for the gum, he said, but because he didn't have it he ended the auction. In a fitting twist, he has spoken with an attorney and is considering suing ESPN.com (which mentioned his e-mail address in a story about the gum) for defamation of character.

Remember the good old days when athletes could spit gum out and not have identity theft, five-figure charity donations and threats of litigation involved?

TID-BYTES: The post-Masters buzz online isn't about course changes or Tiger Woods' continued dominance, it's about his girlfriend, Swedish model Elin Nordegren. She debuted at No. 34 this week on the most-searched list at 50.lycos.com, five spots ahead of the oft-ogled Anna Kournikova, though the site points out that 40 percent of her searches go in as "Tiger Woods girlfriend." ... Harsh words from Baseball America writer Alan Schwarz, chatting on ESPN.com Thursday: "Choppy (SF): The Devil Rays. Why? Schwarz: Because if you could make $100-$200 million by having an extra kid, you'd do it too." Later, asked which two teams he'd contract, Schwarz named the Rays and Marlins. "The fan bases are apathetic, the ballparks stink." ... Rays catcher Toby Hall was among six IPOs ("initial player offerings") last week at eTopps.com, an online sports-card trading forum. The allotment of 2,000 Hall cards, sold initially at $6.50 each, was trading at $11 Thursday. Last year's Barry Bonds issue now is trading at $95, or 10 times its initial value.

-- If you have a question or comment about the Internet or a site to suggest, e-mail staff writer Greg Auman at auman@sptimes.com.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright