Manziel has spent the offseason seemingly enjoying his status, and while some may not appreciate how much fun he's having, we at the Haboob Blog don't mind. He's just 20, after all.

Anyway, Johnny Football's travels took him to San Diego Thursday where he threw out the first pitch before the Padres hosted the Washington Nationals, and he threw it in the most Johnny Manziel way possible.

He basically re-enacted a play against Alabama that led to a touchdown pass. And not to be outdone, Mark Kotsay Caught the pitch in a very outstanding way.

Well, apparently the art of sliding has universally gone out of style.

Thursday night in a game against the Detroit Tigers, Texas Rangers second baseman Ian Kinsler attempted to go first to third on a single by Elvis Andrus.

Unlike Ramirez, Kinsler has no problem reaching the base. Instead, the former ASU standout went right over the bag head-first and beat up his face in the process.

If you have small children still learning the game, hide them...NOW!

"I'm 48 years old. I'm too old for this. My family deserves better," Grace said from a picnic table within the razor wire at Tent City.

As a high-profile former major leaguer with the ability to instantly generate media coverage, Grace has decided to appoint a poster boy/spokesperson to drive awareness on drunk driving. Namely, himself.

"I made a rotten decision and ended up here," Grace explained. "I'm not an evil person."

Grace told the media he hasn't had a drink since his August arrest. And ever since sobering up, he's been delivering a sobering message.

"What you think is intoxicated and what the state of Arizona thinks is intoxicated are two different things," said Grace.

Two would also be the number of DUI convictions Grace endured over a 15-month span.

"Shoot, if you do what I did, not only once, but you're dumb enough to do it twice like I did, you belong here."

"If I do it again, I'm going to be in the Arizona Department of Corrections for over a year," Grace continued during a Wednesday night press conference. "Like I said, my kids deserve better than that. My family deserves better than that."

Back in high school, I had an old ball coach (no, not Steve Spurrier) who was fond of free advice to his motley collection of wanna-be-Ronnie Lotts: "Look, life really ain't that hard. Do the most with what you have. That's all you can do. And you owe it to everyone who doesn't have as much as you."

Right now, Gracie doesn't have much more than a bunk bed under an open air tent after his day job as a D-backs minor league coach, but I do admire the manner in which he's finding a way to create awareness.

If people live vicariously through pro athletes, then Grace is turning the tables and forcing people to look in his mirror and (maybe, just maybe) see themselves -- before it's too late.

"If I'm that stinking stupid to do that again, I want you to come punch me right in the mouth," Grace said emphatically.

No thanks. We'll take Grace's message as a verbal jab and consider it a message sent.

In fact, this weekend, we have plans to attend an annual fund raiser dinner, replete with complimentary bar. Sure, I'd like to go Paulie Pale Ale. But it's not worth it, not if I'm planning to drive.

Instead, that beer can wait until I get home for the night. Something Mark Grace can't do until his release on June 10th.

Wednesday night, I'm waiting to see Star Trek, and the popcorn kid tells me that what I should be seeing is Mud with Mathew McConaughey, which is funny because he's now the third person to share this with me. In a summer movie season filled with blockbusters like Iron Man, Star Trek and the upcoming Hangover 3 and Man of Steel, it's Mathew freakin' McConaughey claiming scoreboard with his 98% on Rotten Tomatoes.

It reminds me of your Arizona Cardinals.

Especially when I read this piece on Sports Illustrated titled, "Cardinals may not win much in 2013 but don't overlook them."

The author's premise, in this case NFL writer Chris Burke, is to praise the Cardinals for their work this offseason while acknowledging reality; they play in the NFC West. The 49ers are loaded. The Seahawks are loaded. They are not only the two best teams in the division but perhaps the conference, heck maybe in the NFL. Oh yeah, and St. Louis kinda killed it in the draft and look to be trending upwards.

Burke suggests that the Cardinals could be vastly improved in 2013 with nary an extra win to show for it. I agree with the premise but with one caveat I'll get to in a second.

I agree the Cardinals have had a good great offseason. There are question marks that can't be glossed over -- Daryl Washington's dicey status and the selection of Tyrann Mathieu in particular -- but between the draft, free agency and the acquisition of Carson Palmer, I think Keim and company nailed it.

I agree with the notion that it might not matter in this division. Box office is all that matters in Hollywood and I'm pretty sure Mud ain't gettin' any.

And yet...

What if something happens to Colin Kaepernick or Russell Wilson? What if NFL defensive coordinators, with a year's worth of tape as reference, figure out a way to slow their attacks? What if one of those teams is besieged by injuries? It's the NFL, it happens.

I understand the "what if" argument isn't the most sound one, but all you have to do is go back and look at preseason predictions from any year to understand that very little in this league goes according to script. You have to be prepared when they don't and I believe the Cardinals are prepared.

The 49ers are Iron Man. The Seahawks are Star Trek. The Cardinals are Mud, and I mean that in the nicest way.

So when my 17-year-old son told me he'd won tickets to Wednesday's day game between the Diamondbacks and the Atlanta Braves, and he wanted me to go with him, I jumped at the chance. It represented the rare chance to bond and an even more rare chance to get out of the office. Plus, the D-backs were playing the Braves, so I'd get to gauge the fan response to Justin Upton, who was making a return to the desert after a long-talked about trade was finally consummated last January.

Admittedly, we weren't in our seats when Upton grounded out to short in the top of the first -- the Sonoran Dog was beckoning, and well, those concession lines move really slow.

But when Upton strode to the plate in the third inning to face D-backs starter Ian Kennedy, I heard it all.

There were cheers (there were a lot of Braves fans in the house) and there were boos, because Phoenix fans have developed a fondness for chorusing disapproval over the past couple seasons. Los Angeles East? How about Philadelphia West?

Anyway, among the boos, somebody in our section actually yelled to Kennedy "put one in his earhole!" That's great, you want Upton to get beaned in the head by a 90-mile-per-hour fastball because, umm...why was that again?

My two biggest takeaways from my most recent fan experience at Chase Field were one, that Sonoran Dog is really good and well worth missing the top of the first inning for, and two, D-backs' fans have what is bordering on an irrational hate for Justin Upton and I have no idea why.

Yes, Justin Upton, the same guy that played on two division championship teams, the same guy that played in over 140 games last year with an injured thumb and the same guy who represented the Diamondbacks twice in the All-Star Game and won a Silver Slugger Award and finished fourth in the NL MVP balloting just two years ago.

Oh yeah, speaking of two years ago, remember when Milwaukee's Prince Fielder didn't pick Upton to participate in the Home Run Derby during the All-Star festivities at Chase Field? You would have thought the portly first baseman had started a string of wildfires around the Valley. He was pelted with boos in the stadium (for months following the event) and pelted with a water bottle in a pre-All-Star Game parade in downtown.

Shameful.

But even more shameful is the fact that it's the only time I really remember D-backs fans having Upton's back during his six years with the big league club. Okay, not all fans, but the majority of them.

I didn't really understand the fans of Phoenix not elevating Upton to superstar status while he was here -- he had/has superstar talent. Maybe the fans were reticent to do so considering Upton's lack of superstar statistics. He's hit .300 only once. He's topped the 20-homer plateau twice and once went over 30. He's never driven in more than 88 runs in a season. I get all that.

But can we remember...he is STILL ONLY 25-YEARS-OLD! When Barry Bonds entered his age-25 season, he was a .256 hitter with 84 career home runs and hadn't made an All-Star team. At 25, Upton is a .278 hitter and has 121 home runs.

In the aftermath of Upton's first three-game series back in the Valley Wednesday night, I perused the Arizona Sports Facebook page to see if anyone was on-board with me on these type of thoughts. I didn't find many like thinkers. In fact, I found a lot of haters.

"J up showed the reason we traded him. No performance in big situations and a bad attitude," wrote one user.

Bad attitude? Because he got mad at himself for striking out?

"nice strike out jup. that was clutch of you to do that," shared another, making reference to Upton's strikeout in the ninth inning when his team was down two runs and nobody was on base.

Oh, there was more.

"The fact is that Az. has improved greatly and have won the west in 11 and is good enough to win it again and go to the World Series this year. Well done I say. Go Snakes. World Series or bust!!!"

We'll just ignore the fact that Upton was the main offensive cog in that 2011 division championship run, okay.

Want more?

"I think Alex Cintron was more clutch than Justin Upton," shared another commenter.

Do I even have to comment on this one? Okay, I will. The three years that Cintron was a regular player in Arizona, the Diamondbacks won 43 percent of their games. Clutch.

I'm not going to sit here and debate whether or not the Diamondbacks should have traded Upton or whether or not they got enough in return from Atlanta. The trade is done and there's no going back.

I'll take a different tact. I'll say Phoenix is a Martin Prado-type of town. This city loves the guys who play with, wait for it...."grit" and are good clubhouse guys. Martin Prado is that type of player. And he's gotten a free pass from fans in this city because of it despite the fact that he's been dreadful since putting on the Sedona Red. I have no doubt that Prado will improve in the future -- his track record says he will, but facts are facts.

Upton was a good player in Arizona with the potential to be great. But was he a bad guy? Despite being handsomely paid at an incredibly early age, he never got in trouble with the law like so many other athletes do. He played through injury and produced. He was respectful, if not a little quiet, with the media.

By the end of his stay, he may have wanted a trade, but let me ask you this -- wouldn't you have wanted one? I'd like to see how you'd react if your employer tried to get rid of you in a very public fashion for three straight years. You'd probably want a change of scenery, too. And even so, Upton never employed the "scorched earth" tactics former Phoenix athletes like Charles Barkley and Simeon Rice did.

The one that always comes up is he didn't hustle. I personally don't recall any repeated occurrences of this. If anything, it's just a matter of Upton making things look easy. By the way, have you ever watched Albert Pujols on a pop-up? How about Miguel Montero on a ground ball to second? There's not a whole lot of hustle going on in those instances, either.

"He plays hard, he played hard while he was here, it was never an issue," Arizona manager Kirk Gibson said earlier this week.

If his former manager who built his own playing reputation on playing all-out, all the time has no issue with Upton's work ethic, why should any D-backs fan?

So, I'll continue to ponder why a young star athlete with worlds of still untapped potential is hated by many fans of his former team.

And I'll be grateful that Atlanta only comes to town once this year. I won't have to be frustrated and confused until next season.

If so, was it a women's competition?

Whatever, that's not important.

What is important is the fact that a Georgian competitor whose name we do not know was locked in a battle with a Ukrainian competitor at the European Women's Arm Wrestling Championships in Lithuania, with the intensity of the event being a bit too much to handle silently.

So, she screamed. Often and loudly. And for the record, it did not help her win.

I am happy for Ian because there were so many games in 2010 that he got the loss or a no-decision that he didn't deserve. Josh Byrnes and the 2010 bullpen cost him so many wins, it seemed like a weekly occurrence. It was nice for him to get a win he didn't deserve on Wednesday. Unfortunately, and there's no doubting this, he didn't deserve this win.

An ace can never be happy with a five-inning outing. It is inexcusable for an ace to walk in a run. However, Kennedy struck out seven. He used his curveball more. He was much more aggressive. He went 2-0 on curves to Freeman that were strikes but not called. Arizona didn't get the results they need or expect from Kennedy, but a scout would say he looked better.

NBA OWNERS

I really want to believe that the NBA owners vetoed the move of the Kings to Seattle because that's in the best interest of the league. When teams relocate, it looks bad for the league as a whole. It exposes a great deal of failure if a team moves. It even reeks of instability like the early days of every league. Owners would have made so much more money if they okayed this move. It appears they put the best interest of the league in front of their own.

I wish I could believe that was the case. The true reason this is happening is because the owners want to stick it to Seattle, stick it to any NBA city with an old arena and stick it to the Maloofs. By keeping the Kings in Sacramento, the NBA can show Seattle they should have listened the first time. By keeping the Kings in Seattle, the NBA can say "Remember the Sonics" to any current city rejecting the idea using tax payer dollars to build an arena. Most importantly to them, the message to the Maloofs is "get out of our league if you're not going to negotiate with us."

ARTE MORENO

The Angels owner gave the dreaded vote of confidence to manager Mike Scioscia. It's over in Anaheim. I completely understand the future firing of Scioscia on one condition: Moreno admits it's his fault.

Scioscia is an outstanding manager. Everyone in baseball knows it. It's not his fault the general manager built a team that doesn't play to his strengths. A situation like this is almost always the GM's fault. This team is the exception. There is no way Jerry Dipoto wanted to spend over $200 million dollars on two players. This is an ownership move clearly designed to keep up with the Dodgers. In order for advertising agencies to buy commercials on television, they want buzz. These signings created buzz which creates ad buys at the beginning of the year. The Angels are the fault of the owner and firing the manager won't fix that.

KELVIN SAMPSON

I think he'll be the next head coach of the Suns. I think the Suns will be mad at me until 2016 when I stop railroading against the hire of Sampson because they will have fired him.

Every man is responsible for the decisions that he makes in his life. Every man must pay the toll of consequences for the choices he makes. But this one really bothers me. I'm tired of seeing young men throw their life away. And it's happening more and more.

The question is, why? It's a question without an easy answer, impossible to quantify and critique. But theories abound.

Our society teaches young men the real measure of a man can be found in athletic prowess, sexual conquest and financial gain. And if you don't believe it, watch television. And make no mistake, TV is the matrix of pop culture, the tip of the pop culture spear.

It certainly doesn't espouse values and virtues, does it?

How many boys dream about being a fireman, police officer, scientist or teacher? And how many boys grow up dreaming about being a professional football, baseball or basketball player?

As C.S. Lewis said, ""We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We remove the organ and demand the function. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and then bid the geldings to be fruitful."

And it's only going to get worse unless we start talking to our boys about faith, honor, courage, sacrifice, honesty and love.

As the saying goes, "one man's trash can be another man's treasure," and that is indeed the case.

But still, there has to be some reason certain pieces of artwork are valued and others not. Right?

Wrong.

As reported by BlazersEdge.com, Portland Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen recently sold a painting for $43,845,000.

That price is a record for famous high-end auction house Sotheby's.

The painting is a 1953 piece by Barnett Newman, and it is called "Onement VI."

It's 8.5-foot-by-10-foot, and it's two blue rectangles vertically separated by a light blue line.

And that's it.

So, the good news is if Allen misses the painting chances are good he can recreate it fairly easily. In fact, we argue most children in a second-grade classroom could recreate it.

Hey, we may have just fixed the education budget shortfall!

And for some players, like Michael Jordan, their line continues long after they've retired from the game.

Apparently Charles Barkley has a similar deal.

Nike is releasing the Chuckposite Barkley Posite, and the shoes are adorned with Phoenix Suns colors. Of that, we approve.

Of course, we do not know if this is a shoe for broadcasters or players -- or both -- only that it is purple and orange. And odds are it will be more successful than the Air-Bombay Loafer, but we digress.

Along with the knowledge that a new Barkley shoe is on the way came the revelation that there is someone who makes YouTube videos dedicated to sneakers, where they are discussed and reviewed.