NFFA News Roundup SEA HOGS REWARD HERNANDEZ Higher salary, extended contract follow arrest

Tirik Obobber lauded TE Aaron Hernandez for doing things the "Sea Hogs way."

By Ariel Mutha-Tafoya
FSN Sports

Following Aaron Hernandez’s arrest Wednesday, the Fidalgo Island Sea Hogs wasted little time tendering a contract extension to their star tight end. While terms of the offer were not disclosed, officials said the new contract offered a three-year extension and a “substantial” increase in annual salary.

On Wednesday morning, Hernandez was led from his home in handcuffs and charged with the murder of an acquaintance. An anonymous Boston police source familiar with the case said that, under questioning, Hernandez refused to talk about the crime he is charged with but did confess to the murders of Mr. TD, Amy Winehouse and Manuel “Shorteyes” Linardo. The source said that police did not take these confessions seriously and believed that Hernandez “was just dicking with us.”

For now, the Sea Hogs not only are standing by their man, but his arrest appeared to rejuvenate the team and its formerly criminally insane owner, Tirik O’Bobber. “This is the Sea Hogs way, baby,” Obobber said. “If someone gets in our way, we mow them down.”

At a hastily called press conference to announce Hernandez’s new contract, Obobber noted that, while he had been treated successfully at the Betty Ford Clinic for the Criminally Insane, he did not reject the label of “criminally sane.”

“I’m a lawyer,” an apparently inebriated Obobber continued, “so obviously I don’t have a problem with being thought of as a criminal. Now that my sanity has been restored, I recognize this. And in the NFFA being a criminal is just a sane business decision, you know? You don’t get anywhere in this league by staying clean. Just look at the Alamo Scouts.”

Later Wednesday afternoon, a judge denied bail in the case, citing Obobber’s ownership of a nuclear submarine as a factor that made Hernandez a flight risk. Sea Hog officials said the team’s attorneys would appeal the decision. 

One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Sea Hogs had considered the possibility that, if Hernandez is released on bail, the team could move its home games to the Chinese aircraft carrier where the Corsairs played two seasons ago. “But we’re obviously a long way from any decisions,” the official said. “A lot of ideas are getting floated around right now.”

Animals Celebrate Perfect Season

The Cambridge Animals today announced a ticker-tape parade for July 4th in honor of the 2013 team’s 16-0 season and first NFFA championship.

DTA celebrates his perfect season with Cambridge fans.

Though the league schedule for 2013 has not yet been released, a press release from the Animals presented the team’s record for this year as “in the books.” The release also noted that general manager Wilder the Animal had been named NFFA Executive of the Year.

Pressed for comment, a team official explained that the Animals rely on sophisticated computer technology that is several generations ahead of “Nancy,” who also served as consort to team owner Dave the Animal before her tragic suicide three years ago. “We use the system to project with a high degree of accuracy what each of our players will score in a given week,” the official said. “And since the projections for this year were 60 percent higher than the highest scoring team in league history — I think it worked out to about 240 points in every game — we obviously can project a perfect season and a championship.

“It will still be fun to see HOW we do it, but for the sake of our fans, we wanted to go ahead and let them know about the exciting results.”

When a reporter asked how the Animals could project scoring for their players even before the team’s roster for 2013 has been set, the official replied, “Part of the beauty of the system is that it accounts for this. Plus, since DTA is traveling backward through time, he already knows the results. This is how we know he ultimately will be recognized as the greatest coach in the history of professional football. It’s in the books, even if the books haven’t been written yet.”

Health Inspectors Raid Cherry Bomb

Uniformed city officials claiming to be health officials nearly caused a riot at Nashville’s Cherry Bomb Café during an incident that they termed a “routine inspection” but patrons and club management termed a “raid.”

About 10 pm Tuesday, a dozen men wearing police uniforms burst into the café just as the evening’s musical performers, the band Lewis Had the Weed, prepared to take the stage. Several of the officers began rummaging through containers behind and under the bar, while others headed for the kitchen. As the band packed up its gear and hastily exited through a rear entrance, a crowd estimated at 200 began jeering and taunting the officers. 

Powers Boothe at The Cherry Bomb.

Several patrons said they were accosted by the officers, taken outside and subjected to searches. Among them was actor Powers Boothe, who served as Grand Marshall for the 2012 Bacchanal to the Future. Witnesses say Boothe has been a regular at the Cherry Bomb since the TV series “Nashville,” in which he stars, began filming in the city. In fact, said the waitstaff, a corner booth dubbed the “Powers Booth” is always reserved for the actor’s visits. They said that after Boothe was hustled outside by officers, he did not return to the club. A spokeswoman for Boothe had no comment on Wednesday.

Metro officials said the officers had entered the Cherry Bomb as part of an inspection to determine whether unlicensed alcoholic beverages were being sold. They said that similar inspections were being conducted all over the city. 

“Pardon me, but that’s horse hockey,” said Devlin Redd, Chief Bartender at the Cherry Bomb, who was arrested during the incident. “You don’t see the cops storming the Hermitage Hotel’s bar or running the convention hookers out of Opryland. This was a hit on us that somebody ordered.”

Redd was charged with “assault with bodily fluids” after allegedly spitting on a Metro officer. “It’s all a trumped up claim,” said attorney Rusty “Copperhead” Rhodes, who is representing Redd. “The cop demanded that Devlin show him all the ingredients that go into a Touchdown Taser®, which is the Cherry Bomb’s signature drink. Devlin was attempting to show him one of the ingredients that would have gone into a Taser as he would prepare it for a Metro official, and the cop’s shoe got in the way. Nothing will come of this.” Redd was released after posting $200 bail.

Club owner QCurl Sharif apparently was not at the café when the incident occurred. Bakers PR maven Faith Popcorn said on Wednesday that Sharif had been at his West End “Treehouse” entertaining producers of “Nashville,” who have been negotiating with Metro officials over incentives for them to continue filming the show in the city. Popcorn declined to speculate on whether Boothe’s treatment at the Cherry Bomb was related to the negotiations or on what possible effect it might have on the series’ future here. “It can’t help,” she said.

Update: On Thursday morning, Metro health inspectors arrived at work to find that all of the tires of their city-owned vehicles had been slashed. In addition, on at least one of the cars vandals had spray-painted the phrase “Welcome to McMahonistan.” Police said they cannot be sure at this point whether the vandalism has any connection to the incident at the Cherry Bomb. Detectives questioned Black Dogs coach Jim McMahon, whose name was similarly spray-painted near a crater resulting from an explosion on 12th Avenue several years ago, but the police say McMahon is “not presently a suspect” in either of the vandalism cases.