So you go pretty much everywhere and right now people are criticizing the Celtics for trading for an aging Ray Allen and to this I have to say, whats the point? It's not that bad of a deal, and they didn't give up that much sure he's only good for a year or two and this doesn't make them a potential champion but what would? KG wouldn't have, Marion wouldn't have, Allen doesn't. So to me this is the lesser of all evils, they kept Jefferson and got rid of Wally World's miserable contract. Hell they even kept Gerald Green who I think will develop into a better offensive player than either Jeff Green or Corey Brewer.

Let face it once those ping pong balls bounced in the wrong direction the Celtics effectively signed themselves up for 5 years of mediocrity. You know how many teams in the NBA have won a championship since 1980 without a top 5 player? At most 3, and you can argue that Ike during his prime of the Bad Boy Pistons was a top 5 player. Other than that the list includes 6 Jordan, 5 Magic, 4 Shaq, 4 Duncan, 3 Bird, 2 Hakeem, 1 Moses. So which player outside of Durant and Oden in this draft do you think will be a top 5 NBA player? Personally I don't think anybody from 5 down had a very large chance. And on the Celtics roster? I love Jefferson more than anybody I know, and I think he has the potential to be a perennial All Star, but a top 5 player in the NBA, that ain't happening. And Gerald Green has the potential to be an offensive stud but a top 5 player, definitely not.

Let's face it the C's weren't going to trade Pierce and go completely young. And with the 5th pick and the roster assembled they were going to be a playoff team, bottom of the barrell eastern conference playoff team but they would make it. Now atleast with Ray Allen they will have some buzz, could possibly win the division, will at minimum be competitive in the playoffs. So what if this doesn't get them closer to a title, they weren't getting closer to a title with the selection of Jeff Green or Corey Brewer either. It's all irrelevant.

I don't mean to rip Oden mostly cause he seems like a large 7 foot dork, and a nice guy and everything and it could be my Duke hate talking but if you read his blog entry about Josh McRoberts it was quite um... Lets say not too straight. Here's a little snippet of Greg on Josh and their day together.

It's JOSH MCROBERTS, one of my favorite people in the world. He is one of the funniest people I have met, and the one person in high school basketball that I dreaded playing, because I had to guard him and he is a monster. He uses both hands on the court. That gives him an edge on everybody else. He was here for a day so I got to hang out with him. It was one of the greatest days. Him and a couple of his friends and I laid out at his pool, played horse in the pool, stayed in too long, hands got wrinkled and when we got tired of being in the pool his mom came and grilled some hamburgers and teriyaki chicken with macaroni salad and cookies. It was the BOMB!

So I bet when the Blazers drafted the "monster" in the 2nd round that Mr. Oden was jumping up and down giddy like a school girl knowing that he could buy a house with a pool and have the funniest person he's ever met over daily. I wonder if they will hold hands while walking up to their press conference today, or maybe share a post press conference long walk at the beach and gaze at the sunset.

In Joakim's defense he is French so the resemblance to a poodle should not be shocking. But in all honesty just look at him, you want him on your basketball team? With the bow tie and the blowout, and the belief that he's thug life? I am just thankful he's not in Boston, what a relief.


I guess in more defense to Noah this is his dad, so how could you possibly expect to be normal when your father looks like that, is french, a pop star, and your mother is a Swede.

Outside of the Benoit issue which I'm not gonna touch for these awards there really aren't that many people to hit upon as being that dumb this week. But we'll make due. Here are the contestants for this week:

1. Jon Kitna - Someone just might be a bit delusional. Kitna said that the Lions, the same Lions that suck every season should be disappointed if they don't win 10 games. The Lions Jon? You guys were everyones, except mine, sleeper team last year and you burnt them. Jon no chance you win 10 this season. 2. Basketball Talking Heads - Every single trade rumor starts somewhere and its not just the GMs for the past week we've heard KG is going here, Kobe there, Amare there and then come draft night its Ray Allen traded and Zach Randolph in a deal no one talked about it. Good job Bucher, Ford, Stein, etc. 3. Ratters of Stripper Golf - In the Pocono's this week there was a nice private golf outing that just happened to feature strippers and lap dances. David Gold was denied access to go see his buddies and when he complained neighbors called in the Po-Po to break up the ideal combo of golf and strippers. Lame. 4. Real Life Chubs Peterson - Bruce Burger almost pulled a Chubs Peterson when he tried to pull his ball out of the water and was dragged into the lake by get this a one eyed alligator, luckily for Burger he did not complete the Peterson move and did not lose a limb. Get Your Vote On

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Previous Week Winner: Pacman Jones!!! No surprise there.

Someone really needed to show this ad to Federer either prior or right after the French Open Finals. It could have given him an idea of something to do or slightly cheered him up post another defeat.

Courtesy of 100% Injury Rate

Any dork like me at some point in there life found a video game so enthralling that they could not put it down. For me the worst came with my first experiences of Tiger Woods golf, as soon as I started playing it on my buddies playstation in college I was hooked. I would be in his room playing every time he was out of the room, whenever he was in class etc, until one day he decided he was going to skip class to play himself. This frazzled me so badly that I decided to run out to Best Buy and buy the game myself. For the next few days and weekends, I played almost non stop Tiger Woods golf until I beat everything. Since the end of college I've pretty much kicked the video game, have yet to set up my playstation in the 2 years I've been out and generally just have no motivation to get back into it. But for a large portion of my life and especially during the weeks of a Tiger Woods release, I was borderline addicted.

But not according to the American Medical Association who came out and said that they are not yet going to call excessive video game playing a formal psychiatric addiction.

Here's some other tidbits that I found humorous from the article:

1. There is a help group like AA, called On-Line Gamers Anonymous.
2. The AMA's report says up to 5 million kids "might" be addicted, but there not going to say if they are or aren't yet.
3. The Next time you will get a chance to possible call yourself a true Gaming Addict is in 2012, the next time the AMA comes out with a manual and will reconsider calling it an addiction. Takes 5 years to write a manual eh?

I guess if you can legally call yourself a Sex Addict than why not video games? Dorks need something to do while they're not having sex.

This is going to be short and sweet...

1) Portland: Greg Oden, they already said they were taking him.

2) Seattle: Kevin Durant, they get the 2nd serving.

3) Atlanta: Al Horford, Hawks make the right call?

4) Memphis: Mike Conley, Grizz need a pt guard.

5) Boston: Corey Brewer, Celtics get some defense.

6) Milwaukee: Joakim Noah, Bucks go for defense.

7) Minnesota: Brandan Wright, T-Wolves throw in KG replacement.

8) Charlotte: Jeff Green, Jordan takes another big time college player.

9) Chicago: Yi Jianlian, Paxson dancing in the streets of Chicago.

10) Sacramento: Spencer Hawes, the Kings are the ones who take a 7 foot white guy.

11) Atlanta: Javaris Crittenton, the Hawks take hometown boy instead of the right guy.

12) Philly: Al Thorton, a relative waste of a pick.

13) New Orleans: Nick Young, Hornets gladly walk away with Young.

14) Los Angeles: Acie Law IV, Clipshow are very glad Hawks took Crittenton.

I always enjoy the goofy Stern staring up at the 6-11 giants at the draft...

This is not my mock draft this is not what I think will happen but this is what I think each team should do. If you look at the draft it is my personal opinion that you shouldn't necessarily draft the best available player or the player you deem has the most potential, instead you should draft the player that is going to help your team the most both present and future. If you already have 7 swingmen, ala the Hawks, and you have a glaring need at PG take the friggin point guard.

Pick #1 Portland Trailblazers

Glaring Needs: A Centerpiece
3 to Consider: 1) Greg Oden 2) Kevin Durant, there are no more options and there isn't much to discuss.
The Man to Draft: They have to take Oden and find someone to take Zach Randolph off their hands. Randolph is an overpayed malcontent. I think the rumors about them wanting to pair Conley with Oden are a little far fetched but getting something decent in return for Randolph is a smart move.

Pick #2 Seattle Sonics

Glaring Needs: A Big Man, Some Toughness.
3 to Consider: 1) Kevin Durant 2) Greg Oden, again there is no discussion.
The Man to Draft: Greg Oden would more fit the Sonics needs however he should be off the board. Durant gives the Sonics a future centerpiece and a cushion if they cannot resign Rashard Lewis. Regardless of whether they get Oden or Durant I think they should resign Lewis as a Lewis, Allen, Durant combo would be a lot of fun to watch.

Pick #3 Atlanta Hawks

Glaring Needs: Point Guard and Low Post Scoring
3 to Consider: 1) Al Horford, he's a beast downlow and could give a nice low post option to Atlanta. 2) Mike Conley, after years of not taking a point guard and flunctuating Joe Johnson to the point Conley would solve these issues for the forseeable future. 3) Brandan Wright, eh it's really between the first two.
The Man to Draft: I think I've convinced myself into believing that the smart move for the Hawks is to take Horford and attempt to get a point guard with their second pick. I think the dropoff in low post scoring between Horford and someone at 11 is much worse than Conley to an Acie Law IV.

Pick #4 Memphis Grizzlies

Glaring Needs: Point Guard or a Low Post Compliment to Gasol
3 to Consider: 1) Mike Conley, it really depends on how much faith they have in Kyle Lowry running the point in the future, if they were smart they wouldn't believe he is a point guard and they would target Conley. 2) Al Horford, they do have Gasol but they've been throwing guys next to him like Stromile Swift ever since he's been there. Horford would finally give him a running mate in the paint. 3) Corey Brewer, I don't really see them drafting Brewer cause they already have Gay and Mike Miller at swingman, however he would play defense which is something Gay does not do.
The Man to Draft: Whoever the Hawks pass on, if the Hawks take Conley the Grizz should take Horford and vice versa.

Pick #5 Boston Celtics

Glaring Needs: Defense, Jump Shooting, a True Center, a Veteran, Paul Pierce to stop his bitching.
3 to Consider: 1) Corey Brewer, Brewer should most likely be the Celtics #1 target if they stay in the draft, he's long he's athletic he has a versatile offensive game and he can play D. Is he ever going to be the #1 player on a championship team, I'd bet no, but he's close to a sure thing as a productive draft pick. 2) Yi Jianlian, he's 7 foot and can shoot the J, I'm not quite sure why everyone is already labeling him mentally soft I think only time will tell. 3) Trade the pick + someone not named Al Jefferson for a veteran.
The Man to Draft: Just draft Brewer if he's still on the board. If he's off the board I guess trade the pick but for what? And any trade that Danny makes is just gonna piss me off regardless.

Pick #6 Milwaukee Bucks

Glaring Needs: They Are Mediocre across the Board, they have little to no hope to be great anytime soon. So just draft the best available player.
3 to Consider: 1) Corey Brewer, if for some reason Brewer, Horford or Conley don't go 1,2,3 they should take one of them. 2) Brandan Wright, I think he actually would fit best in Milwaukee, despite personally not being high on him, where they don't really have a dominant post scorer with Bogut having yet to develop into one. 3) Joakim Noah, Captain Eyebrows (Chucky V) plays no defense at all and Bogut is slow, Noah could help on the glass and with D.
The Man to Draft: Take Brandan Wright, he to me seems like a good fit into the 4 for them. Slot Bogut, Wright, Captain Eyebrows, Redd and Mo Williams and that might get you into the playoffs.

Pick #7 Minnesota Timberwolves

Glaring Needs: Anything and Everything. Once they trade Garnett depending on what they get for him they don't really have anything to build around. They need to get a stud youngster back in return.
3 to Consider: 1) Mike Conley or Corey Brewer, perchance the T-Wolves get lucky and either drops to them they will snatch them up in a second, both are doubtful to do so. 2) Brandan Wright, I'm not enamored with Wright to the Wolves however he does have a lot of athletecism and potential. 3) Jeff Green, would be a nice addition to the T-Wolves, he showed in the tourny that he can take over or allow other teammates to take over. He's the type of player that you always want on your team.
The Man to Draft: The T-Wolves should just take the best player on the board. I think at this juncture it will be Green and thats who they should snatch up.

Pick #8 Charlotte Bobcats

Glaring Needs: All Depends on if Gerald Wallace leaves if he does they need a replacement.
3 to Consider:: 1) Jeff Green, he would be the perfect replacement for Wallace. 2) Yi Jianlian, they have Okafor so his piss poor defense won't kill them. 3)Nick Young, he may be a reach here but the Bobcats aren't exactly a dynamic scoring team and he could wind up being a big time scorer.
The Man to Draft: If Green is still on the board I think the Bobcats should take him, else I think the Bobcats should roll the dice on Jianlian.

Pick #9 Chicago Bulls

Glaring Needs: Low Post Scoring, Low Post Scoring, Low Post Scoring
3 to Consider: 1) Yi Jianlian, he may not be a low post scorer but he's a big man that can put the ball in the bucket. 2)Spencer Hawes, he's tall he's white he might be able to score in the post. 3) Joakim Noah, Noah would atleast give the Bulls some enthusiasm, but he and Tyrus Thomas are practically the same players.
The Man to Draft: I don't get whats wrong with the Bulls, how do they not get this KG deal done. Give up Deng already and the #9 pick. That's certainly better for the T-Wolves than the 3-11 they are rumored to get in the Hawks-Suns 3 way deal. But they're not gonna do that, there's no way I draft Hawes I'm sorry when was the last time there was a really good white center with post moves. Just take Yi, he wants to go to Chicago and atleast you'll be able to sell millions of Bulls jerseys in China. If he's gone trade the pick.

Pick #10 Sacramento Kings

Glaring Needs: Blowup the Team and Start Over, they are terrible.
3 to Consider: 1) Julian Wright, the Kansas product is long and athletic and has potential to become a solid scorer. 2) Joakim Noah, I'm not a fan of Noah, in fact I very much dislike him however he could be a valuable piece on a playoff team and I don't think he will be a bust. 3) Jeff Green, if Jeff Green is on the board he would be the best player left and they should take him.
The Man to Draft: Trade everyone on the roster other than Kevin Martin and just draft the best avalaible player. White guys need not apply, shouldn't Sacramento be sick of big white guys after how bad Brad Miller was last year.

Pick #11 Atlanta Hawks

Glaring Needs: Pt Guard or Post Play
3 to Consider: 1) Acie Law IV, this is probably where Acie thinks and hopes he will land. 2) Javaris Crittenton, the GaTech product is probably thinking the same thing as Law except he definately wants to stay in his home town. Either could offer a solid point guard option from when/if they past on Conley. 3)Al Thornton, if they take Conley Thornton should be on the board and give them a little post play when they past on Horford.
The Man to Draft: This pick is completely dependent on where they go with their first pick and it sounds like they are going to take Horford which I belive is the right choice. If they do that than Acie Law IV is the selection, a Jason Terry esque point guard with the ability to come through in the clutch.

Pick #12 Philadelphia 76ers

Glaring Needs:A Superstar which they won't be getting in this draft.
3 to Consider: 1) Nick Young, a big time scorer to slot next to Iguodala would be nice. 2) Javaris Crittenton, Andre Miller won't be around for much longer. 3)Al Thornton, it's doubtful he's still on the board but they don't have much low post scoring either.
The Man to Draft: Draft whatever guy you think has the most potential on the board to become a superstar. Another quality guy does you no good. I probably take Crittenton hoping that at 19 he can still develop and as a 6-5 point guard he could develop the ability to dominate smaller guards that are covering him. That being said chances of him becoming a superstar are limited.

Pick #13 New Orleans Hornets

Glaring Needs: Perimeter Scoring
3 to Consider: 1) Nick Young, he's the perfect fit for the Hornets. 2) Rodney Stuckey, more of a PG/SG Stuckey could be effective with Paul on the court. 3) Acie Law IV, if Law is still on the board the Hornets might think about grabbing him and slotting him at SG which could be more of a natural position for him.
The Man to Draft: Nick Young they booted JR Smith out the building last year and they need a young shooting guard who can score to go side by side with Chris Paul for the future.

Pick #14 Los Angeles Clippers

Glaring Needs: Point Guard, with Cassell nearly on his way out and the Toothpick Man injured yet again, they need a reliable point guard to step in.
3 to Consider: 1) Acie Law IV, I bet the Clips really hope the Hawks don't draft him. 2) Javaris Crittenton, and I certainly be that the Clippers are hoping that if Law is off the board that Crittenton is on the board. 3) Marco Belinelli, why not get foreign and take a little Italian pt guard who can gun up some 3s for you.
The Man to Draft: Hope and pray that Crittenton or Law are on the board else get the Clips some pasta sauce.

Ugh, these things take too long and most likely there will be about 7 flip flopper trades.

To me High School was nothing more than a grind of doing nothing. I went to school everyday did my homework every period for the class next period, read as much cliff notes as possible didn't quite become a partyer until college. So to sum it up the only thing I remotely missed about High School when I entered the best drunkest 4 years of my life was my high school baseball team. The College team just wasn't the same, I grew up with the kids on my high school team, had played with them forever and even rotted the bench on a Little League State Championship in which we finished 3 games away from the World Series. So without baseball I would have fully hated high school instead of just plain ready to get out of town at the conclusion.

Well last week in Stoneham Mass, population 22,219, just north of Boston, they have decided to cut their high school sports programs, to which I say you people are evil. They didn't eliminate a struggling sport here or an expensive sport there, no they went across the board and eliminated everything, there will not be a single ball kicked, thrown, or caught competitively in Stoneham.

I know that if I was living in Stoneham I would immediately have shipped myself to a local prep school to play ball, and in my future years whenever I may or may not have children, I will be living in a town that offers the full gamut of sports.

The student population in grades 9-12 is approximately 875, and Lahiff reports that 70 percent of the kids play a sport at some time during high school. A lot of the other kids take great joy just going to the games. Now it's gone.

70% of kids, and the other 30% are going to the football games and pounding a few 40s under the stands, and making smoking up prior. And you're going to take that away from them. The High School year is still months away, Stoneham get on your horse and get a brain, you are a town 17 minutes north of Boston, aka a suburb, you should have boatloads of money. Just get it done.

Note: How goofy is the mustachioed mascot of my high school.

Note #2: Here's the Website Created by the People Who are Obviously Pissed Off by this

I don't know about you but I'm looking forward to the end of the NBA draft and all of these trade rumors. I'm sick of hearing Jefferson's name fluctuated in every single deal, and sick about hearing how players think Boston sucks, or how players want out of their town.

Every damn day KG is going here, Amare here, draft picks here, Kobe here, Andruw Bynam this that and the other. Enough already.

What's even funnier is that Danny Ainge says that it's doubtful the Celtics trade their #5 pick. So what he's saying is that he's tried to trade the pick for the past month and it hasn't happened so it probably isn't going to happen before the draft cause, well no one wants to play in Boston.

"I think it's unlikely," the pick will be traded, Danny Ainge said. "I've felt that way from the beginning, that these trades are hard to come by."

Litterly I've been so sick of the Jefferson trade talks that I thought about starting a site called, donttradebigal.com. But that would have taken more effort so I bailed on that idea, for the time being. But seriously how many trade rumors as a 22 year old can you be in before you say god damn it I don't want to be in Boston anymore.

Danny also said that he doesn't think Paul is going to demand a trade. Whatever, I'm sick of this. And the damn draft preview I'm writing is taking me friggin forever, ugh.

In another case of a retired athlete that is bored out of his mind, Allan Houston was just on the Stephen A Smith show and he's starting to put together thoughts about returning back to the NBA. He stated that he would like to come back if he knows he can contribute to another team and that he's enjoying working out again and being healthy. He would like to come back and contribute to a team towards an NBA Championship and if he was to come back that would be his preference. He brought up names like Jerry Stackhouse as veterans who jump in and on a solid team and are just role players. He also stated that the Knicks would not be his first choice.

Stephen A after his phone disconnected mentioned that he didn't play at all last year but made 21 million, you have to love the great moves of Scott Layden. For all the ripping that Isiah Thomas receives, it's not as if he's been worse than Layden was. Hey I enjoyed Allan Houston I thought he was a solid player, but it can be argued that he was the most overpaid nba player of his generation.

So this really shouldn't surprise anyone. Athlete who was booted out of the league because of injuries gets remotely healthy is bored and misses competition and wants to win the championship which alluded him during his playing days. Obviously he doesn't want to play for the Knicks despite living in New York. I'd be willing to bet absolutely nothing comes out of this, something tells me Allan Houston healthy means that he can run up and down the court about 5 times in a row before his knees hurt.

I know the last time I went to a Yanks Sox game there were definitive moments where I thought about doing this.

I'm really glad that they beeped out the chinese swear words, I would have been seriously scarred if those hit my ears.

I really just enjoyed the cocking of the other leg and the release into the face. Nothing says fun like jogging into a full blown knee to the face.

Also you have to love all of the European names envolved. The Goalie is Heinz Müller, I love the two dotted u, what does that mean? And the dude getting jacked up is Geir Ludvig Fevang. And bringing the corny joke, he has been Defevanged, ha ha that was horrendous.

Some of these shots the goalies had no friggin chance on but still it has to be pretty embarrassing to watch a guy kick it from midfield and it sail over your head into the back of the net. That's got to be depressing. Probably not as bad as these from last week, but still.

My favorite shot is Essien's and how the thing bent from well outside the post to just on the inner half. Diesel shot.

The only thing that would make this video more enjoyable is if it didn't have that friggin annoying Fargilicious song, I absolutely despise everything that girl ever comes out with.

Courtesy of The Offside, which is probably the greatest soccer site in the history of mankind.

Let's peak into the mind of possible things Rollins could have been thinking of when the ball was coming at his head:

~Hey atleast its not gonna hit me in the nuts.
~It's better than the AA Batteries that hit me at Shea.
~Is Cliff Lee a Phillies fan?
~Did Lee trade for me in his fantasy league after I hit 9 homers in the 1st two weeks?
~Good thing I wasn't wearing my sweet sunglass, those would have been busted
~I should have batted lefty.
~Perhaps he's mad at me for saying I thought Cliff Lee was fat
~6-0 and I'm Getting drilled in the Head, should have played basketball
~I hope I can get up and knock this white boy out
~I hope they got some Motrin back there

I don't really have much else to add to this but I thought this picture was that humurous that it needed to be up on the site one way or another. Luckily for Rollins his brain was not effected from the blow, perhaps unlucky for the Mets fans up the Jersey Turnpike.

Back when I was in middle school and the early stages of high school I like many others my age got into wrestling. It was at its prime, WCW was peaking with the introduction of the NWO and the WWF introduced Degeneration X and the Rock was starting to peak people's interest. Eventually I waned off watching but I have always been familiar with the characters.

The Canadian Crippler, Chris Benoit had been around forever. He was a mainstay at WCW and when that organization folded the WWE(F) snatched him up immediately. One thing was certain from his on stage persona, he was a guy who they could always run out to be a pissed off foaming at the mouth mother f'er. Well this weekend he canceled his appearance at the WWE's pay per view due to personal reasons, on yesterday he along with his wife and their son were found dead in what is believed to be a murder suicide, with the death of the wife and son believed to have occurred over the weekend and Benoit dead sometime yesterday.

This is obviously completely tragic and I fully understand the WWE's decision to cancel their live show last night. What I disagree with, is that they instead aired a 3 hour dedication to Benoit. I fully agree with this being a tragedy and I'm not going to fully destroy a guy who apparently killed his son, wife and himself, he obviously had serious mental problems which he needed help for. I just think that airing a 3 hour tribute to a man who just committed 3 murders is wrong. The guy was a famed wrestler for many years, however what he did despite his mental status was horribly cruel and wrong and had he not killed himself there's no way a tribute would have taken place. I'm sorry but suicide makes the story sadder but it does by any stretch alleviate the depth of wrong involved in killing an innocent 7 year old boy.

Note: The one commenter was right Benoit jumped ship just prior to the WCW collapse. Not sure how that's overly relevant to the story line, but he was correct in pointing out that I am not a wrestling historian.

When I went to London and saw the Jump London documentary I immediately thought that Free Running/Parkour was cool. Well here's an example of just how much it can suck to miss one of your jumps. Poor kid cries like a baby, perhaps you shouldn't have tried to do such a ridiculous jump with only concrete to land on. Ouch.

Or perhaps it's a good idea as somehow this dude knocks himself out and yet the other wuss taps out because of a body slam? Come on man atleast get punched in the face once or twice, what is wrong with you? I don't think you will ever live this one down, you tapped out of a fight when the other guy was unconscious. Just hang up your MMA gloves right now and pursue some other career.

I always thought the DDT was the simplest and sweetest wrestling move ever invented however this is definitely the first time I've seen someone give themselves a DDT. I think he's probably going to try to avoid doing that in the future.

Courtesy of With Leather

After another weekend of craptacular play the Yanks find themselves a game under .500 once again, and sitting behind the Toronto Blue Jays for 3rd place in the AL East a whopping 11.5 back of the Red Sox and 6.5 behind the Wild Card leading Indians. And while you could point the finger throughout the season towards the bullpen, the inconsistant hitting, or the millions of starting pitching injuries and beatdowns, here's a question why with a $200 million dollar payroll is the bench amongst the worst in Major League Baseball.

The Culprits

Melky Cabrera, Backup / Starting OF - We'll lump the Melkman with the bench despite the fact he's a starter now with Greese Head Steroids boy on the DL. The Melkman as a starter has been pretty decent since being thrusted into the everyday lineup batting over .300 for the month of June. However, his statline still reads a bit ugly. A .254 pretty much implies that when he was not starting and being put into the lineup sporadically he was 100% miserable.

Miguel Cairo, Utility IF - Cairo is a servicable bench player for any team. He can play any infield position and even sub in at LF if you are in dire need. But he's not a good hitter, in fact he's been downright bad this year. He's hitting at a .240 clip and has 5 RBIs this season in 75 at bats.

Chris Basak, Backup SS - The Yanks just recently called up Chris Basak. Ya I've never heard of him either, but he're an interesting stat line, he was hitting .265 in Triple A.

Kevin Thompson, Backup OF - Every time they bring this guy up I shake my head. He basically rots on the bench comes in occasionally and doesn't ever do anything. If you were to put together what a prototype Triple A player would be it's Thompson. He's got decent speed, is a decent outfielder, decent contact hitter, but lacks any pop in his bat. He has AAA written all over him.

Josh Phelps, Backup 1B - They recently waived Phelps to bring up Philips, but honestly who cares they both suck. In actuality Philips didn't do a miserable job at the plate with a .272 clip, but his glove at first was an embarrassment.

Andy Philips, Backup 1B -Now Philips has been brought up to most likely platoon with Cairo, Posada, Damon, eh whoever they feel like throwing at 1B that day. This is Philips fourth year where he's put on the pin stripes and he's never hit over .250 during any of those seasons and last year when he got some consistant playing time he hit .240.

Wil Nieves, Backup Catcher - He's the worst of the bunch. Nieves is establishing himself as quite possibly the worst hitter in major league baseball. Let's run down his stats. 5-45, .111, 0 XBHs, 2 Runs, 4 RBIs, 2 BB. Oh and one of Nieves hits he tried to stretch it to a double and was thrown out at 2nd. To put this in perspective let's compare Nieves to pitchers in the NL. First off no pitcher in baseball has 45 at bats as of yet. However, 21 pitchers have 5 or more hits this season. 4 Pitchers have 4 RBIs. 29 Pitchers have 2 or more runs. 8 Pitchers have hit a Home Run. 50 Pitchers have an extra base hit. Basically Nieves hits like a below average MLB pitcher and he's on the Yankees.

The worst part is, is that these guys with the exception of Melky aren't young. All of them are in the 28,29,30 range, aka they are not by any means prospects.

This Weekend

This weekend was a massive example of how the Yankees piss poor bench has hurt them this season. How can you expect to win a game in extra innings when you have a pitcher, Kevin Thompson, Andy Philips and Miguel Cairo in the game. That's 4 hideous batters out of 9 that are coming to bat. It just isn't going to happen and that's why they lost saturday. Yesterday they started with Cairo, Thompson, Nieves and Mussina in their order and pinch hit Philips later in the game. The result? The Yanks scored only one run through 8 innings, off Arods bat and got a meaningless RBI in the 9th from the aforementioned pinch hitter Andy Philips.

So the question is this, with a $200 million dollar payroll, how can you be stuck with no one on the bench who you could remotely expect to be productive at the plate. Mr. Cashman, your answer please?

So I embarked on the world of beer league softball this year. For the first time I'm doing multiple leagues and I have multiple games per week, which means every week there is another way I can be amazed at how we can lose a game. This week is just the perfect showing of how to be bad at softball.

Wednesday

So I'm in two leagues as I said, the first of which is a weeknight league with my buddies from the town over. To sum our team up we consist of a few athletes, a couple of decent kids, a few fat guys and some kids that I don't think ever played softball before. In other words we've got the full spectrum. So I start the game in the leadoff spot and line out to the SS, hit the ball on the button but right at him, what can you do. Anyway we go on score a few runs, blah blah. Then we get into the field make a ton of errors they score some runs superb. My next two at bats I hit one 3 Run Homer to Left Center and then I hit another 3 run homer down the left field line. So I'm having a good game obviously. My final at bat I hit the ball the other way for a single wrap up my final rbi and final run scored.

So we're up 16-14 heading into the top of the 7th. And with our teams history, I walk up to our SS (I play Left Center) and go so I bet we give up 3 runs and I get up runner on 3rd 2 outs on a day I have 2 homers and pop up. Well half that prophecy was fulfilled. They scored the 3 runs, the 3rd scoring on a ball which got by the left fielder. Unfortunately we went down 123 in the bottom of the 7th so I was left in the hole. Our past three losses in this league have been a walkoff loss in this loss, a walkoff loss in the 7th and an extra innings walk off loss in which we were up 13-2 in the 3rd. Yep we suck.

Final Score: 17-16
My Line: 3-4, 2 HRs, 7 RBIs, 3 Rs

Sunday

One would think that if you've suffered a loss which you were up 13-2 that there's no way you could possibly top it. But then you haven't watched my sunday league team. This leagues a co-ed league which always spells interesting, we have again an assortment ranging from decent to miserable to unfathomable levels of PMS and that comes from the dude playing left center, god he's a little bitch.

So first at bat I see they're playing a girl in Left Center, this kind of confuses me seeing as you usually put your fastest person there, so I hit it to her, and she catches it of course. Next at bat I get up and decide why not give it another try, so I end up ripping a liner straight up the middle and past both LC and RC for a 3 run homer. Next at bat I do the same for a 2 run homer. And my final at bat I ripped a shot over the left fielder's head for a solo homer. So we find ourselves up 12-2 in the top of the 7th, bare in mind we have yet to win a game this season, but we're up 12-2, we were playing really well. Ugh.

First ball gets hit to barely to the right of the pitcher and barely past him so I charge (I play SS) bare hand it and while bare handing it I get a friggin bear claw grip and have it in the palm of my hand end up throwing it in the dirt and the 1B can't scoop it. No big deal we're up 10 and they have the bottom of the lineup up. Well a couple bloop hits and a bomb later and we're up 12-8 no outs.

One girl in their lineup hit the ball over our leftfielders head two times. So he backs up and guess what she hits the ball he takes a step forward and its over our head again. He tosses it in to me I cut it and see that she took a huge turn at third and throw the ball to our 3B who for some reason completely turns away from me. I had dead on aim on the back of her head and have to scream her name to get her to be not knocked out. Ugh. Eventually they have bases loaded after our pitcher walked a kid who sucked, which in turn walked the girl behind him, cause in co-ed you can't pitch around a guy to get to a girl. So a pop fly is hit behind the second baseman I sprint towards it, its in my glove I stumble and it pops out. We blew a ten friggin run lead in the last inning. We get up to the plate one person gets on but we get out and I'm left on deck. Friggin Amazing.

Final Score: 14-12
My Line: 3-4, 3 HRs, 6 RBIs, 3 Runs
Week Line: 6-8, 5 HRs, 13 RBIs, 6 Runs, 2.625 SLG%, 2 Ls

Little Mac still is a little wuss 20 years later and he doesn't even have to go against the ear munchin raper Mike Tyson. Weak little Mac weak.

I'm a sucker for all things Mike Tyson's punchout, I even went as Glass Joe for halloween, greatest game ever.

Ok sometimes you just here shit that baffles your mind. Every franchise gets someone random to throw out first pitches, whether they be a mayor who couldn't hit a barn or the GW or an ex player. There's always something different. But the Red Sox of course have taken this to a new level. They are having a friggin monkey throw out the first pitch. A friggin monkey that's great. And apparently it's for a fund raiser.

A monkey named Ayla will throw out the ceremonial first pitch before next Saturday’s game at Fenway Park against Texas. It is part of the Helping Hands: Monkey Helpers for Disabled, Inc., outing at Fenway.

So now we're apparently letting monkeys help the disabled? What do they fetch them bananas and throw poo at their enemies? If so I want one and I'm only slightly mentally disabled.

Photo and Tip Obviously Courtesy of With Leather

So you know how atleast one of your friends when you hit up the amusement park wusses out of a ride saying something stupid like what I don't want to die have you seen Final Destination 3, the whole roller coaster, everyone dies. And then you make fun of them and go off on your merry way. Well in Kentucky thankfully no one is dead, but the Superman Tower of Power, cut off a 16 year old girls feet.

"The people on the ride just came and hit the ground," a witness said. "When I got up there, the lady she was just sitting there, and she didn't have no legs. ... And she was just there, calm, probably in shock from everything."

"I seen the car go up. Then, like, the cable broke, I heard -- pwchh -- and I heard a lot of people screaming," Chris Stinnett, who was at a ride next to the Superman Tower of Power, told WDRB/WMYO. "The cable went under the car -- and I seen it pull up and hit a lot of people -- and I seen them bring their legs up," Stinnett said.

Everyone who's been to an amusement park in the past ten years has been on a ride like this, it shoots you up it drops you it shoots you back up. I always thought it was the most overhyped ride in the park and that it was never worth the wait in line (Roller coasters are ten times more fun). So how many people tomorrow do you think are going to make up an excuse with their buddies as to not jump on one of these rides, I'd probably do it.

Hopefully the girl gets the best prosthetics in the world and wins a nice massive lawsuit but remember we don't need to see your feet to think you're hot.

~Vinny Baker got charged with a DUI, I never knew he was a drunk? Since when did that guy start picking up a bottle? He was such a model citizen when he played in Boston.

~Thank you KG for not wanting to play in Boston, I did not want you either and I will be much happier watching Big Al dominate the paint for the next ten years.

~What could possibly signify being the worst golfer on the planet? How about starting a fire that burned down 15 to 20 acres of land with one of your golf swings cause you duffed the previous shot in the woods?

~Apparently there is debate about which team Jews should like more the Yanks or the Red Sox and there's a big case that it should be for the Red Sox cause they have Youkilis and Epstein. But here's what I do know, when I went to the Yankee game last week there weren't just a couple of Jews in my section there were a boatload of Jews in my section and lets face it there's a lot more Jews in New York than Boston, and the Yankees do have more mon**, eh I won't go there.

~Baseball is just one hard friggin game to figure out. Josh Friggin Fogg shutting down the Yanks, in Coors? What come on, I mean I wouldn't put it past the Yanks to throw up double digits in the next two games, but getting shutdown by Josh Fogg, who blows, was frustrating. And then they get shutdown again? What the hell.

~Tom Hicks says he thinks Juan Gonzalez took steroids. Um No Shit.

~So is it legal to knock up a 16 year old who happens to be on your track team in the South and then marry her. Isn't that a bit young? Genarlow Wilson went to jail for several years before he won an appeal for getting head from a 15 year old when he was 17. And this guy is 40 knocks up a girl and marries her when he's her track coach and there's nothing charged. I'm not one to bring up the race card ever, but come on somethings going on with this one.

~Who wants to plan a night out with Pacman Jones using his fun gameboard wheel?

As a lifelong Yankee fan I should really be able to sit and watch a game broadcast by the home stations and be able to enjoy myself but I just can't. They are miserable and often I find myself enjoying the Joe Buck changup when they play on FOX on the weekends. I can't believe I just said that, excuse me for a moment while cleanup the vomit on my floor...

Ok, so as I was saying, watching the Yankee broadcast and even worse listening to the radio is excruciating. Here's a rundown from the Yankee broadcasters who are OK to the worst of the worst...

9. Ken Singleton - Ken is really the only broadcaster the Yankees have the gets a lot of games that I truly enjoy listening to. He has a solid voice and is usually pretty informative and him and Jim Kaat last year doing games together were very good. Too bad friggin Kaat retired.

8. Bobby Murcer - Bobby is really good but since his cancer he hasn't been around nearly as much as he used to be, but when he is around he does a really good job. And if Singleton and him are together they can usually salvage a broadcast even if they are partnered with the largest douche on this list.

7. Joe Girardi - Joe is a really good broadcaster, but A) He doesn't do many games and B) He'll be gone at the end of the season, everyone knows this.

6. John Flaherty - Another catcher who couldn't hit a lick. Flaherty is alright up there, but nothing special.

5. Paul O'Neill - He's ok. But is mostly eh.

4. Al Leiter - He has his moments where he can be very annoying but atleast most of the times he's tolerable. By the way how many friggin game guys do you need YES, you have 6 guys that you can pull to do color commentary, is that a bit ridiculous.

And now the people that suck...

3. John Sterling - Ok most Yankee fans love Sterling and I'll be honest I typically enjoy his broadcast and some of his eccentricities, especially when he almost has a heart attack with his THHHHHHAAAAAA YAAAAANNNNNKKKKKEEEEESSSSS win. But here is a fact the guy can't see anymore. And almost once a week he blows a home run call. The worst of which came yesterday. With the Yanks down 2, Robbie Cano on 3rd and Melky Cabrera up at the plate with 1 out in the 7th, Melky hit a deep shot to left. And here is the essence of what Sterling said....

Sterling - "And there's a deep shot to left. It is high, it is far it is gone... And the Melkman delivers to make it a tie ball game at 4-4... Oh wait did Holliday catch it, he did? Oh Matt Holiday made the catch at the wall. They have a clear fence here in Colorado and I couldn't see it."

So this is me driving in the friggin car all excited that the Yanks tied up the game, a game they really needed, and it takes the dude 30+ seconds to tell me that the ball was caught and I haven't seen the ball yet but apparently it wasn't even that deep. Sterling, dude hang it up your blind as a bat or atleast invest in some binoculars.

2. Suzyn Waldman - Not long ago she had a conniption over the fact that Clemens had announced he was coming back to New York, which was just ludicrous. But all in all you will never here anything you care for out of the mouth of Waldman, its just one useless comment after another. The radio broadcast is so bad that during the Mets Yanks series if I'm in the car I choose to listen to the WFAN broadcast of Howie Rose and Tom McCarthy because they provide actual good broadcasting. I guess we can atleast take solace in the fact that she is now on radio instead of tv, gross...

1. Michael Kay - And the winner for biggest douche is Michael Kay. I don't think I can quite put into words how annoying he is. He'll repeat stuff over and over and over again inning after inning. For instance during the Rockie series every single time Troy Tulowitzki fielded a ball or was up at bat or stepped within a foot of Jeter he mentioned how the young SS grew up idolizing Jeter. Ok I guess you can do that once per game if you have nothing to talk about, but every friggen time he mentioned it. Furthermore, I pretty much disagree with 75% of the baseball strategy he brings up and I feel like the YES broadcast is much more informative whenever he is not in the booth.

He also has a tendency to bring up stuff on his radio show and criticise people, but when he gets to YES and puts on that corporate Yankee Pin Stripe hat he doesn't mention it at all. And last year he chimed in on the Arod saga every day saying fans shouldn't boo him and that Jeter needed to come out and tell fans to stop booing him. He's just an ass.

Your the friggin Yankees, you have the best funds of any sports team in the country and yet your main three broadcasters are just hideous to listen to. For gods sake if I had the choice I'd probably watch NESN and Remy for the Yanks Sox games over Kay. So basically the Yanks broadcast on YES could be good if they eliminated Kay or just got him to stop acting like he knows baseball, but the radio has no friggin hope, it is just doomed to suck.

Another strong week for morons and losers which consisted of getting caught masterbating, more trips to the strip clubs, a little blind faith in America and finally clearing Slammin Sammy of any wrong doing. Here are this weeks contestants:

1. Byron Houston - I certainly can't claim to remembering Byron Houston's illustrious playing days at either OSU or in the pros, but his news last week of getting caught masterbating in his car was certainly classic. And he has a solid history of indecent exposure, nice job Byron. 2. Alexi Lalas - This pompous dumb ass is so drunk off American soccer that he thinks that the MLS is as good as the Premiership arguably the best league in the world, as well as thinking that Beckham will be bigger than Tigger and MJ. What an ass. 3. Pacman Jones - Oh Pacman, apparently the directive from Roger Goodell to stay away from the strip club went in one year and out the other, perhaps you dropped your appeal in anticipation for one of your trips to the club. Please Pacman, take my advice and bring the strip club to you, it's for your own good. 4. Anyone Who Defends Sosa - I would normally just put Steve Philips here and he'll be the poster boy, but anybody who defends Sammy Sosa is a nut. Everything about his career screams I guzzled down steroids and am cheating slime. Get Your Vote On

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Previous Week Winner: A Split Vote Between Naoyi Kikuchi and Justine Henin, and by Dictatorial Power I say Henin and her Herpes win.

Alright in further evidence that I'm a dork, when I was younger I did in fact enjoy the Power Rangers for a few years. What? I was in 5th grade for christs sakes, it wasn't that horrendous of a show, I watched it after Transformers in the mornings before I went to school.

Anyway apparently, the guy that played the Green Ranger, aka the one with the Zelda like whistle knife and his own Dragon Robot, is going to participate in his first Mixed Martial Arts fight. Apparently Jason David Frank or Tommy Oliver the Green Ranger, is a 6th degree blackbelt in Karate and has opened up 4 studios to keep some of that Power Ranger Cash flow coming in. He'll be fighting on saturday night so lets hope that he throws down for the sake of the universe. Most likely he'll get his ass kicked cause A) The Karate Guys always seem to get mauled and B) Well he was a Power Ranger.

The Swing and the Miss...


The Out for a Sunday Stroll at the Park...


I wonder how many kids would go to camps developed by these guys, probably none, or maybe the handicapped?

Courtesy of Who Ate All the Pies, I'm not really sure what Who Ate All the Pies is in reference to and I don't really get it.

I have no idea why anybody in the world would come out and defend Sammy Sosa, but off to the races is Steve Phillips who appeared on the Screamin A and Jackass Mike Missanelli show this afternoon. First of all Phillips proclaimed that he does not think there is any smoking gun surrounding Sammy Sosa which is absolutely ridiculous. But here's some of his points on why he thinks Sammy Sosa did not take steroids and me taking him to town on them:

1. At the trial, despite not being able to speak english during the majority of it, he denied using steroids.

Oh no a verbal denial, Sammy wouldn't lie right? Just ask Rafael "I did not take steroids period" Palmeiro if you can lie in front of a grand jury.

2. Roger Maris' 61 home run year came out of nowhere so why couldn't Sosa's 60+ come out of nowhere.

That's complete nonsense. First of all Roger Maris had one season where he hit 60+ not 3 out of 4 like Sosa did. Oh and here's a fact Maris lead the American League in rbi the prior season and won the AL MVP award. Yes, he was declared the best player in the American League the prior season, so it didn't come out of nowhere. Sosa was always a solid player, think Alfonso Soriano speed + power. But all of a sudden he went from a 36 homer guy to a perennial 60+ guy. That doesn't happen. 60+ homers had never been a routine thing before. Sammy made it routine, how does that not provide a little smoke.

3. Sosa's never tested positive for steroids nor been implicated in BALCO or Canseco etc.

The MLBs first random drug testing was done in 2001. When the cream and the clear and every other possible untestable drug was at the forefront of usage. No one tested positive for steroids then, so why should this tell us anything. Also, just cause he didn't get steroids at BALCO or ever take steroids with Jose Canseco that certainly doesn't free him from guilt.

4. If we go after Sammy Sosa why wouldn't we go after Clemens who had his "best years" of his career at 41,42 43.

Ok the Clemens steroid thing great. First off can we just establish a few facts Clemens was a pretty big dude when he pitched for the Texas Longhorns. Clemens in the 1980s and early 90s far before Sammy's 60+ stretch had already one an AL MVP, 3 AL Cy Youngs and finished 2nd and 3rd in two other ballets. His worst year with the Sox was his last when he had a 4.18 era and was injured. Now if you want to say that Clemens probably took steroids during his Blue Jay days you can provide a decent argument. But his Yankee days he never had an ERA under 3.50 and was never that studly so that doesn't look like steroid numbers and that brings us to Roger in Houston. Haven't we already established just how much easier it is to pitch in the AL than NL, it's much more believable for a pitcher to drop his ERA a run moving from the AL East to the NL Central and during each of those years the MLB steroid policies were further along. Clemens and Sosa's arguments for them taking steroids are not in the same stratosphere.

5. He thinks that Sammy Sosa corking his bat somehow tells us that he did not take steroids. His reasoning, a steroid user gets the mentality that they can dominate and thus wouldn't want to cork his bat.

Oh this is my absolute favorite. Instead of looking at the corked bat logically and thinking to yourself if he's willing to cheat and cork his bat and then lie about it why wouldn't he be willing to A) Cheat and Take Steroids and B) Lie in front of congress. Philips pulls a complete 180 and some how convinces himself that if you take steroids you are a god and why would you want to cork your bat.

Steve the corked bat happened in 2003 during somewhat random testing period, and Sosa was on his perennial decline at the plate. Perhaps he thought to himself, damn it I want to hit 60+ homers like I did when I was in my steroid prime, I bet if I corked my bat I could hit another 10-15 HRs. That wouldn't make sense would it Steve?

Steve that last point has no logic behind it, and your thought that their is no smoking gun surrounding Sammy Sosa is ludicrous. There's a smoking gun surrounding Sammy Sosa and it resembles the smoke from a rocket launcher more than that of a Pellet Gun. So do yourself and everyone else a favor Steve, please shut up.

Maceo Rigters of Holland ties up the Under 21 championship match in the 89th minute against England, which lead to a marathon 13-12 shootout victory for the Dutch. I wonder if this kid will ever have a cooler goal in his life, my guess is no, so son your football career has hit its climax.

Anton Ferdinand younger brother of Man U Player Rio, was the English goat missing the final English penalty allowing the Dutch to capatalize for the victory. Here's the whole highlight video including penalties. It's a pretty good watch.

In the last months of 8th grade I was starting to visit different high schools to see if I wanted to go to one of the Prep schools in the area or if I wanted to continue my path down the public schooling method. Much is the same for Ryan Boatwright, a stud basketball player in the 8th grade in Aurora, Illinois who has to choose between East Aurora High and West Aurora High. Oh but there's a big difference as Boatwright while attending a USC Basketball Camp just so happened to give verbal commitment for a scholarship to USC. SO logically this makes no sense, he has yet to step foot in a high school, he has no idea where he's going to high school and yet at the age of 14 he knows he has a scholarship to USC? Super. Oh and traveling from Illinois to LA for a Camp like that isn't shady, come on the Illini don't have a camp down the street? Oh and the quotes well they are classic...

"They were the first one to show interest in Ryan," said Boatwright's father, Mike. "A lot of people have said Ryan isn't that good, but he went to USC's camp and played well."

"It was just a coincidence," Tanesha Boatright, Ryan's mother, said. "Ryan has always loved USC and North Carolina. So when one of his favorite schools offered him a scholarship, he couldn't pass it up."

Apparently both Depaul and Indiana were expressing interest in Boatwright and USC just so happened to be the first one to offer him a scholarship, so how could he possibly refuse. So let me get this straight an 18 year old isn't ready anymore to jump to the NBA where he will make millions of dollars but a 14 year can give a commitment to a college before he's dribbled a ball for a high school team or hit the conclusion of his growth spurts. The kid is a large 8th grader 5-10, 145, but come on. Ryan has always loved USC and UNC? What does that mean, he's 14.

So what is the logical next step conclusion? Tim Floyd must be offering an invite to his basketball camp for toddlers next summer to Bryce Maximus James, son of Lebron. If he can get a verbal commitment after summer camp next year, than USC program should be all set for a run at the national title come 2025. I mean can Tim really afford to wait? How will USC be able to compete with juggernaut UCLA and Ben Howland in 2025 if they do not start recruiting BMJ right now?

Picture Courtesy of Miss Gossip

As if running up and down a court and dunking with the use of a trampeline isn't a big enough waste of time this dude, somehow pulls a Shaq and absolutely torches the backboard. Cleanup on aisle 11.

Ruling, Bill Raftery must do the sound to this video. Send it in Jerome...

Slammin Sammy finally made it to 600 ironically against the team he cheated with the most. In the bottom of the 5th this evening Sammy went blast off against the torridly heading back to his miserable norm Jason Marquis. After taking a whole year off, to eliminate all of the steroids in his system, and a year prior where he couldn't hit a beach ball Say it Ain't Sosa finally reached this epic milestone. Hooray for Sammy... Ugh.

No one will ever really know how many homeruns off Sammy's bat that launched over the fences year after year were due to either the drugs that he most certainly took, or the corked batting practice bat that he most likely mistakenly took to the plate daily. But thankfully this will be the last of the Slammin Sammy milestones, and he will walk quitely into the sunset at the conclusion of this season, with nobody make a big spectacle until his Hall of Fame candidacy debate pops up in 5 years.

Nothing bothered me more during the Celtics psuedo good years when they were competing for the horrible Eastern Conference finals than Kenny Anderson's top of the key jumper. Every single time he caught the ball at the top of the key beyond the three point line he would take two steps to the college three line and take his 20 foot jumper. I never understood why he wouldn't just take a damn three and it always bothered me.

Well after a few years, Kenny Anderson has surfaced to begin his head coaching career as he landed the job of the, drumroll please, the Atlanta Krunk in the CBA. The Atlanta Krunk, with a K even, that's a legitimate team, wow. Apparently they were even known as the Atlanta Krunk Wolverines last year, why the droppage of a second mascot name? The Krunk will be making their long awaited debut in the CBA this fall, wait the CBA still exists? I thought Isiah ran that league into the toilet. Oh well.

Oh and the Krunk just might have the ugliest website ever created but it does include some hot beats that make you feel as if you're in the waiting line for Space Mountain.

In an effort to get Kei Igawa not to suck I think the Yankees sent him down to the minors to learn this pitch, and now that he has been recalled and will pitch in place of the Yankee Clippard you should expect this to be thrown atleast once or twice an inning. Ok probably not, but hey he should, it'd be better than the slop he usually throws up to the plate.

Oh and to take away the thunder, I've used this pitch in wiffle ball countless times.

Courtesy of Red Sox Monster

Count me out for taking a 1000 pound punch anytime soon and having whats left of my brain post college and trips to Mexico experiencing 'trama' from both sides.

This will probably be my favorite video of the week, and that's why I'm a dork. I think I could watch different video like this of punches kicks, getting hit in the head with nunchucks, etc.

Off the street sign over the rafters nothing but net has nothing on hitting a shot in a moving jeep. How many friggin times did they attempt this, there's no way they just got lucky and hit the first one? Or is that Jesus in the back of the Jeep.

While this may look fake because of the way the ball is moving, you have to realize that the ball is actually moving the speed of the car forward. And yes, I took too many physics classes in college and I sucked at them.

Everyone has already heard about the next addition of Pacman's problems which again occurred due to another trip to a strip club. Pacman there is a simple solution. Back in college there were given times during the years where we decided hmm, I think it's time that we bring some strippers over to the house and get a few Kegs of beer. Now bare in mind that we were some 30+ college dudes with little money to their names and we were still able to afford this.

Guess what Pacman, you are a multi-million dollar football player, who probably has several other multi-million dollar football buddies, I'd be willing to take a gamble that you could not only bring strippers to your house whenever you so desire but you could in fact remodel your entire basement to have the setup of a strip club. If you so desire get a lap dance, and make it rain at a strip club why not just sit on your ass at home and make the strippers come to you. That way perhaps your posse could not get into a massive shootout with another posse over someone stepping on another's PUMAs. Ok, maybe the gun fight is inevitable regardless.

Poor Poor Rick Ankiel. In 2000 to me there was no pitcher easier to root for than Rick Ankiel. He was my favorite pitcher in the big leagues. Young, fireballin, sweet friggin socks, he was the man. And then as everyone knows he went Chuck Knoblauch on everyone and not only could not throw strikes but couldn't throw the ball anywhere near the plate. Since then he toiled in the minors for a few years trying to put back together his ability to throw strikes until eventually after an assortment of injuries and the continuance of his control problems he decided to switch to the outfield in 2005. Well that didn't get off to a superb start after a half of season in 05 when he played relatively well in the low minors and in 06 when he had season ending knee surgery in May 2006.

So coming into this year Ankiel was in limbo, he was given a Spring training spot with basically no chance of making the roster and was eventually sent down to AAA where he has remained for the season. And guess what he's absolutely raking for the AAA Memphis Redbirds:

AVG Rs H HR Rbi OBP SLG OPS
.282 38 60 19 52 .317 .606 .923

He's actually leading the Pacific Coast League in Homers, is fifth in the league in Rbi and has been named to the AAA All-Star team, so the callup is imminent right? Especially with Jim Edmonds just landing on the 15 day DL right? Well, apparently not. The problem is the Cardinals don't want to bring him up on a trial basis because they are out of options on him. Meaning if they bring him up and they decided the want to send him back down he goes on the Waiver Wire, so basically now he's getting boned because he made the roster a bunch of times during his pitching years and the Cards are afraid to lose him. Ouch. Rick Ankiel you certainly have not had the charmed baseball life.

Here's a depressing Ankiel glory days video...

My best friend is an Orioles fan, don't particularly know why perhaps he was on the Ripken juice when we were kids, but right now his interest in baseball is very marginal. Yesterday, when they dumped Perlozzo he seemed pretty intrigued at the fact that they could possibly sign Joe Girardi to the managerial role, and hell if he can put the Marlins in playoff contention perhaps with a little bit of luck he could along with the new COO hire Andy MacPhail turn the Orioles into the franchise they were in the mid 90s when they managed to dethrone the Yankees as the best team in the AL East. (In case you have forgotten the last team to win the AL East other than the Yanks were the 1997 Orioles and not any recent Red Sox team)

Well today Joe Girardi has apparently booked it to Baltimore for a nice little sit down to talk about the Orioles job and I have to think, what the hell are you getting yourself into Joe. The Orioles? You really want to manage that badly that you will take a midseason gig with the Orioles. So you have limited hope for the future and you are signing up for a meaningless second half of the season. Newsflash Joe, you will most likely be the most intriguing name on the market this offseason, meaning you could get just about any job your hearts desire.

So why did the Orioles can Perlozzo in my opinion, for this exact reason. They know their chances of getting Girardi on their bench midseason, with no other offers coming his way is much better than say if Torre resigns and Girardi is in a head to head competition with Mattingly for the job, or if another more attractive job opens up for any given reason.

So Joe think long and hard about this one before you subject yourself to the Orioles job which chewed up and spit out its last 4 managers leaving them with their stock severely down.

And that reason is that apparently he's smoked his brain cells into retirement. Basically ticked off about all the talk that Beckham is coming to the US for a nice little semiretirement, Alexi Lalas popped off and said something completely ludicrous. That being that the MLS is on par with the English Premiership. Here's his dumb ass quote:

"The fact that a segment of the world worships an inferior product in the Premiership is their business,'' Lalas said in an interview with The Guardian published Tuesday. "In England, our league is considered second class, but I honestly believe if you took a helicopter and grabbed a bunch of MLS players and took them to the perceived best league in the world they wouldn't miss a beat and the fans wouldn't notice any drop in quality.''

Wow someone has lost his mind. First of all the Premiership dwarfs the MLS in every single economical aspect, which gives them the leverage to sign the absolute best international players. Hell the richest of the rich Americans have gone out and bought Manchester United and Arsenal. And Chelsea is owned by a multibillionaire. The MLS has a team salary cap that can fit under 75% of the Premiership players yearly salary. Secondly, the best of the best Americans aren't even on the best Premiership teams, they play for Fulham a team that finishes in the middle of the pack. Thirdly, the Premiership had 3 of the 4 finalists in the UEFA Champions League this season, throw an MLS team in that and they wouldn't even make pool play. Alexi I know you love American soccer but shut up.

Oh and he didn't stop there apparently he thinks Beckham will be bigger than Tiger and MJ:

"The U.S. will never have dealt with an athlete who has had this kind of international impact,'' Lalas told The Mirror. "Tiger Woods has that international appeal but, with due respect to Woods and Michael Jordan, David Beckham is at an entirely different level.''

Someone please keep all hallucinogens away from Alexi for the remainder of his future as if he continues at this pace he just might end up like Jim Carey's Riddler at the end of Batman Forever.

Perhaps I'm a bit lost on this one but the Chinese actually play baseball? Since when? They just seem like that token, you have enough players to suit up a team and play in this here International Competetion, squad. So when they played the other Asian teams in the World Baseball Classic they lost 18-2 to Japan, 10-1 to Korea and 12-3 to Chinese Taipei or Tawain or whatever you want to call it. In essence they were the worst team invited to the tourny.

Well apparently the Yankees, not surprisingly, are the first team to really scout in China and are the first to sign a single Chinese player. And while they're at it, why not make it two, as they signed two 19 year olds, a catcher Zhenwang Zhang who plays for the Tianjing Fierce Lions and Kai Liu, the Chinese Kei Igawa as in Lefty pitcher who's probably not any good. Basically this is just another effort for the Yankees to begin expanding their marketing and start dominating the Asian market. Nothing says profit more than getting a portion of that 1+ billion people to begin buying Yankee merchandising.

Apparently Zhenwang helped lead the "Fierce" Lions to the China Baseball Championship in 2002. He was 14, is that how badly baseball sucks in China that they have 14 year olds on their championship teams. Wow that's impressive. Oh and it's not like it's difficult to win the CBL title, there's only 6 teams in the league.

Of course the fun will begin with an overblown, boring and useless press conference on July 6th, which will probably exclusively be shown on the YES networks. For those of you outside the New York market, you just might have to get Satellite so that you don't miss this extraordinary event in which the Yankees talk about signing two 19 year old Chinese guys you never heard of who most likely will never suit up in pin stripes.

Nothing brightens a case of the mondays more than watching a kid get beaned in the forehead with a liner. Don't worry kid, that's happened to me before except I caught it in the face and fractured my cheakbone in three spots. It will just amount to a useless 4 hours in the ER where they eventually tell you they can't do anything and about a years worth of "You should probably catch it with your glove" jokes to look forward to. Have fun with that.

Courtesy of With Leather

~Angel Cabrera? Didn't exactly see that one coming but I guess that's what the US Open has turned into in recent years, guys you who come out of nowhere to win their first major at scores that aren't so pretty. In the past 4 years no American has one the US Open and the past three winners, Michael Campbell, Geoff Ogilvy and now Angel Cabrera won their first major at the US. In Cabrera's case it was his first PGA tournament victory. I'll be honest though the weather was beautiful this weekend, and I spent much more of my weekend outside doing stuff than sitting at home watching the golf so I didn't really catch much of it.

~Other than the home stretch on Sunday afternoon, when I saw Tiger just not getting it done. Really it's just amazing how different a player he is when he's leading going into the last day, then when he's not leading. I really think it speaks to the fact that when he's playing really well, other guys have absolutely no chance to catch him, but when he's not playing terrifically often enough he is good enough to be right there, but because one aspect of his game is not up to par he can't hammer home a win on sunday afternoon. In this weeks case it was his putting, although on the last few holes his approach shots left something to be desired. Either way, I'm sure Tiger is pretty pissed today knowing that he could have tallied another 2 majors under his belt this year if he had just played a little better.

~Also, why does Tiger wear skin tight shirts now?

~Speaking of not playing up to par, jebus did my golf picks absolutely blow or what. Let's rundown just how bad they were:

My Winner: Adam Scott, +18 and missed the cut.

My Contenders: Ernie Els, +21 T51; Padraig Harrington, +13 Missed Cut; Zach Johnson, +20 T45; Rory Sabbatini, +21 T50.

My Cut Missers: Vijay Singh, +14 T20; Colin Montgomerie, +18 Missed Cut; Jose Maria Olazabal, +20 T50.

So basically I got the fact that Monty was going to miss the cut right and that's it. My winner was horrendous and all of my contenders either missed the cut or finished at the bottom of the pack.

~The Yankees taking 2 of 3 from the cross town Mets to even the season series at 3 a piece was nice but would have been much better had the Giants not blown chunks in Fenway. Not as if that is very surprising considering the Red Sox have been the best team in baseball this year and the Giants are miserable but the Giants pulling out one game would have been nice.

~Speaking of the Mets, all this talk continues about how Mark Buehrle would be the perfect fit for the Mets and that he will be their target. How about getting a corner outfielder first. Shawn Green since coming off the DL is in a prolonged slump and his average has dipped below .300 after such a hot start. And Moises is an elder statesman and who knows how much he can stay healthy throughout the year. Carlos Gomez just isn't quite ready for the big time. And Milledge is hurt in the minors. They need someone consistent in one of those spots. And they need Glavine to start pitching well.

~Prince Fielder apparently hit an inside the park home run yesterday, I would like to see that massive frame run around the bases but have yet to find the video. Boo.

~David Beckham finished off his stay in Spain with Real Madrid's first championship during his four year tenure as they won this weekend to cinch the title over Barca and it's cheating handball tactics. So now you go from winning arguably the best league in the world, atleast top 3 to the MLS, talk about a downgrade.

~Also, apparently Barcelona was going to pay Mallorca 2.7 mill if they beat Madrid, which is blatantly against the rules.

~Whining Kobe is back and wants out of LA. Shut up. You make a boatloads of money, you have 3 rings to your name, and now your team sucks partly because you couldn't get along with Shaq. So what if you didn't specifically ask for Shaq to be traded, everyone including the GM and owner knew you two didn't get along and that a trade needed to happen. So don't try to walk away from that responsibility. You want a good team it's simple, take a massive pay cut and give your team cap space to make trades. Else, sit back shut up and enjoy the fact that at best you can lead the Lakers to another 7th seed in the West next year.

~Not that I ever can watch NASCAR but I do find this whole Dale Jr. thing kind of intriguing, as they will be all this negotiation over whether he can get his number and whether or not he can get the Bud sponsorship. One intriguing possibility, could be a flip flop of drivers where DEI gets Kyle Busch and he drives in the Bud car while hs brother drives in a Miller Lite car. I think it would be pretty classic, if they set him up in a Bud Light car to go up against his brother.

~This is disgusting.

~And Shawn Kemp is not the undisputed champ of illegitimate children. But the up and coming superstar is definetely Elijah Dukes who currently sits at 5 with 4 different women and the dude is only 22. Someone certainly doesn't like to wrap it up.

Apparently Derek Lee takes umbrage to the fact that a Princeton student was about to knock him the f out. For some reason I don't think Chris Young and his Ivy League degree are much of a fighter. But perhaps he learned how to brawl on the mean streets of whatever Prep High School he went to.

In other knews, I didn't know Jake Peavy was a massive hot head, how about the Cy Young of the national league doesn't get swarmed but the opposing tams players during a brawl just cause he wans to throw Lee to the ground. Not very bright.

Finally, watch the sweet lou tumble it's classic.

For some reason I'd imagine Roger Clemens being a lot fatter and having much less hair in 2057 and being more dead than alive due to the massive amounts of suplements he's probably taken in his life.

"What is that smell?"
"My Groin is Tired."

Courtesy of Boston Dirt Dogs

Its surprising to no one that the winner of the spelling bee is A) Home Schooled, B) Is Obviously Lacking in Social Skills, and C) Is a little too chippy about misspelling a word. I bet that's gonna go down as one of the most awkward interviews that women will ever have to undertake. Anyway here's an entry into Simon's Dictionary for Spelling Bee Champ...

Spelling Bee Champ [spel-ing bee champ]
-noun

1. A Child with Limited Social Skills and Friends. Often Home Schooled to further distance themselves from any social interaction with anyone other than their mother.

Synonyms: Weenie, Tool, Not The Cool Kid, 40 Year Old Virgin
Sentence Usage: "What the hell are they doing raising a spelling bee champ, he's never gonna get laid."
Common Characteristics: Glasses, Often Indian or Jewish, limited physical coordination.

I think this one just might need a try this weekend...



However this one I think is out of the question, as I would like to keep my member attached to my body...



Now why in the world would these be banned? Could it perhaps be the nice bare bottomed ladies?

Courtesy of With Leather

It's certainly been an interesting week for people that suck, from the horrible finals to admitting to herpes to screwing a 15 year old girl and getting caught here's the rundown of people who have the chance to come home with the week's biggest waste of oxygen award:

1. David Chase - With the Soprano's coming to an end, who let down on this planet more than David Chase with a relatively uninspired, boring and uneventful series ender, which concluded with everyone thinking that their cable boxes malfunctioned at the worst possible moment. 2. David Stern - Congrats to David Stern for having a horrendous NBA Playoffs, NBA Finals and for all around just having a miserable few months of basketball. This just goes out for the combined efforts of David Stern to make the playoffs so unwatchable, all of his scheduling efforts to eliminate interest on the East Coast along with the delay between games in addition to his suspension of Diaw and Amare. 3. Justine Henin - So ever wonder what kind of person would give an interview post match or game and say that they were more worried about their Herpes flare up than their actual opponent? Well that kind of person is Justine Henin. Who apparently was quoted as saying that she had a horrible night because her Herpes came out again. Woo. I bet the guy who used to be the Hardenne in Henin-Hardenne is proud to let the world know that he may or may not have gotten Herpes from his former wife. 4. Naoya Kikuchi - Things not to do when you sleep with a 15 year old and you are a professional athlete: Leave your wallet in the basket of her bicycle. I think when the girl you're are screwing has a basket on her bicycle period you should rethink what you are about to do.

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Who will you choose to follow in the footsteps of Gary Sheffield, our inaugural winner of the Weekly Waste of Oxygen?

Nice Pick Up - Watch more free videos

I can't wait to attempt this shot the next time I go bowling, I'm sure that I will either A) Smash my ankle, B) Drop the ball on my head or C) Hit my groin on the release or D) The best case scenario and just end up throwing it straight into the gutter or into a different lane entirely.

Basically I took so many bowling classes in college I probably could have pulled off a minor, it might be time to round up some Bud Lights and hit the lanes again.

The Jaguars over the past few seasons have constantly struggle to figure out who their starting quarterback was. They had the one quarterback in Leftwich with the massive arm but feet that work like they were stuck in concrete and the mobile but much less accurate David Garrard. Every year they would start the season off with Leftwich as the starter and then eventually he would get injured and they would fill in for the time being with Garrard. The Jaguars would then win a few games in a row, people would clammer that he was the better fit and that the Jaguars needed his mobility and ability to "make" plays happen. And then they start the whole process over the next season. So what would be is the best solution for the Jaguars? How about merging the two quarterbacks into a single entity?


Ya that's right folks the Jaguars brass have told both of their quarterbacks that they might be interested in Culpepper. Interesting move. The acquisition of Culpepper would give the Jaguars a quarterback who potentially would combine both the arm strength and accuracy of Leftwich with the mobility of Garrard. The problem, he also has the injury history of Leftwich and the proneness to the turnover of Garrard. So basically, what the hell would be the point. How about you just pick a quarterback and go with him, as novel of a concept as it may be, how about if Leftwich gets hurt one more time you bench him completely and just get rid of him. He may be a tough kid, and plays through a lot of pain, but there's something to be said for someone that is always injured. It can't all be bad luck.

This is how bad the Mets have been this month, not only did John Maine give up Back-to-Back-to-Back homeruns on three consecutive pitches but Hong-Chih Kuo hit the ball so well that he knew that it was gone the second he hit it. And he's the friggin pitcher. Now the Mets have lost 8 of their last 9, 9 of 11 in the month of June and their last 7 against a lefty starter. Ouch.

And if you ever want to hear some humour watch or listen to any form of Asian entertainment. They always insert a token english phrase in no matter what the genre, whether it be in the chorus of a pop song or the announcer going "Back-to-Back-to-Back" and "This is my Place".

While I don't like the US Open as much as the Master's or if the British is played at Saint Andrews, it is still typically my second favorite golf tournament of the year. What's the best part of the tourny, the fact that anybody can go through qualifying. Just look at the qualifying list, look at some of the guys that were forced to go through a qualifying tourny and may or may not have made it through. Justin Leonard, Sean O'Hair, Jerry Kelly are just a few tour players that had to qualify. And players like the Walrus Jr. Kevin Stadler, Calcavecchia and Rocco Mediate failed to qualify. Also, what is cool is the off chance you know a guy who qualifies, one of my cousins best buddies Chris Thomas, made it to the final stages of the qualifying tournies but was unfortunately unable to get over the hump. Anyway on to the predictions...

4 People to Watch to Contend

Obvious - Ernie Els - Obviously Tiger and Phil are always contenders, but it's Ernie who is coming back to his first major win which happened 13 years ago. Wow that seems like ages ago. Ernie has been playing relatively will this year and had a decent showing at the Memorial, so perhaps a little nostalgia and can his jets flowing.

Secondary - Padraig Harrington - The luck of the Irish. Harrington typically plays well at the US Open and has made the cut 7 of 9 times never finishing below 32nd when he has. He also has 4 top 10 finishes under his belt at the open so he's got a solid chance to compete this weekend.

Grand Slam - Zach Johnson - The Master's Champion that not many people have ever heard about is tough as nails and should be very much towards the top of the leaderboard come sunday. Another major would be stunning for Johnson, but he'll be in the running at some point this week. In a not planned piece I just noticed, Johnson, Els and Harrington are a single pairing the opening two rounds.

Darkhorse - Rory Sabbatini - This trashtalking jackass is pretty much on fire recently. In his last 5 tournies he's made all 6 cuts and finished top 3 in 4 of the tournies including his victory two weeks ago.

3 People Who Might Surprisingly Miss the Cut

The Unthinkable - Vijay Singh - Just throwin this one out there even though it isn't going to happen. You know how many cuts Vijay has missed this year? None zilch nada, and he never misses a major cut. But things need to start someday right?

The Shocker - Colin Montgomerie - He's returning to the spot where he made it into a major championship playoff and just came up short. And coming off last year when he should have won if he had not choked as well. And he just fired his long term caddy. A lot of stuff has to be mentally bringing down Monty. I hope he does well, but there's a chance he struggles this weekend.

The Old - Jose Maria Olazabal- The man who gets linked to my site somehow via his name and the word homosexual is going to struggle this week knowing this fact.

2 People to Root For this Weekend

The Random Country Club Guy - You never know who they are going into the tournament, but there's always one qualifier that ends up on the leaderboard on saturday that you've never ever heard of. And you just have to root for that guy to stay in the running throughout the weekend.

The Locale Boy - JJ Henry - If you've read any single one of any of my golf previews you know that JJ is a staple in the who I am rooting for category. He's the locale pro, so he always gets the ole hope he does well and is in the running sentiments.

1 Winner

Adam Scott - Basically I'm bored with picking Tiger or Phil every single major, it's not much fun. So I wanted to pick a guy to breakthrough and pick up major #1 so for me it came down to picking between Luke Donald, Sergio Garcia, and Adam Scott for the winner. I decided to cut bait on Sergio, when I found out he was dating Greg Norman's daughter, talk about bad karma no wonder why he can't putt. So then it came down to Scott or Donald, and Scott wins because he is playing stellar golf recently. In his last three tournies including the Memorial and the TPC he has a 7th, 6th, and 5th finish. He's playing really well so what better time than now. Also, I picked him to miss the cut at the Master's and he hasn't missed a single cut this year, so I owe him.

Also, if your bored, you like Will Ferrell and you like golf, here's a bunch of videos he's done for Golf.com.

Now I know this looks pretty cool when he's done, hell he made a legit picture of Lebron James on a friggin Etch A Sketch, but could you imagine how many countless hours he needed to spend on one of those things to get that friggin good, couldn't he have found something else to do in his childhood rather than the Etch A Sketch.

Please tell me he doesn't make a living off being an Etch A Sketch artist, is that friggin possible? I guess in all honesty watching that 3 minute Youtube clip was more enjoyable and worthwhile than watching either game 1 or game 2.

~Ichiro might be the funniest man on the planet that no one knows about. Here's a list of a bunch of quotes from Ichiro but it all comes down to this classic quote: "To tell the truth, I'm not excited to go to Cleveland, but we have to. If I ever saw myself saying I'm excited going to Cleveland, I'd punch myself in the face, because I'm lying." In essence Cleveland is so uncool that a Japanese man would rather punch himself in the face than step foot there. So I'm guessing that during his free agent search this offseason the Indians might as well forget about their candidacy.

~CGB is back and posting and unearthed the fact that ESPN is continuing to attempt to further their global dominance by buying the worlds friggin largest cricket site. I don't know whether you have ever attempted to watch cricket or not, if you have I'm sorry you were not forewarned, if you haven't please for the sake of your own sanity never watch it. It's agony, it's horrendously boring. If you are a big time baseball fan you will find it boring, if you don't like baseball cause you think it's slow and boring, then I'd be willing to bet you'd rather watch paint dry. Unless you really really really like tea and crumpets.

~In more cricket news, that Pakistani coach apparently was not murdered, so that in essence ruins what would have been a sweet made for TV murder mystery.

~Not so surprisingly Manny Ramirez loves his hair way too much and not so coincidentally loves his hairstylist LMonstro. What the heck kind of name is Lmonstro? Apparently Manny got sick of the Cheetos that were in his hair and his dreads are back to all black. Boo to that Manny, Chester Cheetah is very mad at you.

~The whole Dale Jr. DEI cross is over and he will join rival Hendrick motor sports. This just might be one of the stupidest in family conflicts in the history of racing and I guarantee Dale Sr. is fuming in his grave over the fact that his wife and son couldn't agree to anything. Just all around dumb.

~Boo to no Pac Man this season after he dropped his appeal.

~I think Bonds hit a homer last night solely because my father an hour previous said that he read somewhere that Bonds might just be done, that he may have hit a wall and that he may not last the season nor break the record. And of course he hits a homer.

~ESPN.com not surprisingly has failed to mention how badly the NBA ratings sucked.

~Last night while watching Baseball Tonight they had a segment where Steve Philips argued with himself for 10 minutes, one Steve Philips was hetero in blue and the other was not so hetero in all pink. I don't know who thought this was a good idea but ya they were wrong, this might have been the creepiest thing ESPN has ever done.

~Harold Reynolds will be working for the ole MLB, hopefully he does a better job of not taking his co-workers out to a chain restaurant and hugging them. He is definitely missed on Baseball Tonight though, especially with that lame Philips segment.

Well that's not particularly true, but what is is that he's not bringing in the audience that the NBA was hoping. In fact they are down 24 percent from last year and posted 6.9 rating in comparison to last years 9.1. And while I definitely agree that the Spurs are not the most exciting team ever assembled, their appeal is no less than the Mavericks last season.

So why the miserable rating? There are a plethora of reasons lets count the ways:

1) This years playoffs lost all buzz the second Stern decided to suspend Amare and Diaw, it killed the most interesting series and took a lot of buzz away. But the rest of the playoffs were pretty much flat out uninteresting. The Warriors beating the Mavs was a cool story, but everyone wanted to see the Mavs in a battle for the Western Conference, not the Jazz getting pounded. Hell the Rockets losing hurt the NBA. And so did the exit of Shaq round 1. In essence there was no carry over effect into the finals.

2) No Shaq. It's really as simple as that. Shaq adds ratings. People like Shaq, he's funny, and it's enjoyable watching him knock the crap out of someone down in the paint.

3) The games start at 9:30 on a sunday night, a sunday night when everyone is wrecked from the weekend and wants to hit the sac relatively early in prep for another grinding 5 days at work. Why you would schedule a game late on Sunday night regardless of the opponents is just plain dumb. The West Coast doesn't have any work conflicts on a sunday afternoon at 4, start the game at 7.

4) Don't friggin schedule the game against the Soprano's Series finale, so what if it's a premium channel. Everyone with HBO was watching it.

5) I know that they deathly don't want to schedule a game on friday or saturday night, but still the extra day layoff cools down some of the buzz.

6) Despite Lebron, the Cavs just aren't that interesting a team. They never play dynamic offense and no one other than Lebron is evenly slightly intriguing to watch. If Lebron was off the team, I think I'd rather watch any squad in the NBA more than the Cavs.

7) People are sick of the Spurs winning. Eventually one team always winning gets old. We've seen this already, we've done the Spurs championship thing three times. It's old.

8) No one is expecting the series to be that competitive and it's living up to that analysis. No one is going to continue to watch a game with a 20 point deficit. All the people that flipped from the Soprano's to the finals, turned the game on to what was already a 20 point margin. Chances are a ton of those people on the east coast said screw it, I'm going to bed.

9) No one is expecting a competitive series because the Eastern Conference stinks, and the Western Conference is vastly superior. This problem isn't going anywhere with the draft to send two more future superstars to the Pacific Northwest. And in the near future we won't see the best two teams in the NBA meet in the finals.

My guess is game 3's rating are slightly better simply cause the Soprano's won't be on, and the game has to be closer and hold onto more of an audience. But it still won't come close to last year.

So what will the consequences be for the NBA? Really who knows. Maybe their ad rates will flatten out in the future and will not increase at the same percentages yearly. Perhaps, Stern and the NBA brass will start thinking about shuffling the start times of the games, to increase viewership in the Eastern Timezone, where the largest portion of Americans live, but that is doubtful.

I just can't wait to see the overnight ratings to see how badly it lost to the two Tony's, The Soprano's and the Tony awards. But atleast they can pride themselves in getting better ratings than hockey.

So over the course of the last year Stephen A Smith spent most of his radio show with Brandon Tierney as his co-host. BT was a nice change of pace from Stephen A who as everyone knows has his points in time where he can be deafening and annoying. BT while passionate was able to counter most of Smith's rants and create and actually listenable and most often enjoyable show. Then 1050 decided to give BT his own time slot in the fall at night and they ran with Stephen A going solo for awhile, still not terrible, not as good, but it was hoop season and Stephen A destroyed the Knicks on a daily basis and that's always funny.

Then I guess the execs upstairs finally decided that Smith needed a partner, and I guess they somehow came to the conclusion that Smith could use a co host who was almost as deafening as Stephen A and even more annoying. And so they pinpointed Mike Missanelli, a Philly guy who was canned last year for basically starting a fight with his producer.

I don't think this guy ever says anything positive ever. If the Yanks are winning it's cause they're playing bums, if the Mets are losing he'll say that they're tormented with injuries but when a caller comes in and says the same thing they rip him saying he's being soft. It is absolutely unbelievable that a man could come on and make Stephen A's annoying moments look tame.

Basically a daily segment now, is some Blind Yankee fan calling in annoyed at Missanelli equating their hot streak to their impeding World Series victory, allowing Missanelli to dump all over the guy being an idiot. Any actual analysis would be appreciated.

So, please if you know of any sports talk radio show that's a decent listen from 12-2 let me know, I'm overly sick of the brain damage Missanelli leaves me with daily.

So this goal scorer is Lionel Messi, who just might be the best young player in the world on one of the best teams in Europe in the midst of a major league championship race. Barcelona, his squad, is effectively tied for Spain's Primera Division title with one game, remaining, and without that handball they would be a point behind, but apparently it doesn't matter according to him:

"My goal? With the hand? My first goal does not matter now," said Messi. "What really matters is that on Sunday we will have to win and Madrid must not. We had the victory and the leadership in our hands and in the final minute everything was lost. It is difficult to describe how we feel. We were crazy with joy, we knew that Madrid were losing 2-1 in Zaragoza and that we could even have scored to make it 3-1. But now I am devastated, depressed."

The irony is that Messi, an Argentine, has been often compared to the great Diego Maradona, who was hailed for scoring the "Hand of God" goal and now he follows in his footsteps with a goal that is eerily similar. Why don't you just attempt to legally change your name Lionel, or claim that he's really your father.

Here's the video of it in action, it's pretty classic in slo mo. How in the world did all 3 officials miss this call?

~Talk about a blown opportunity to have anything good conclude your weekend, we'll start with the Soprano's even though that has nothing to do with the sporting world, but it was the dominant storyline for the weekend. I have personally have never gotten that into the Soprano's occasionally I've watched a string of episodes with my father (its his favorite show as a 100% Italian American) but that's been it. So I figured why not I'll flip on the final episode and watch and what did it leave me with, a feeling of relief that I had not invested much interest into the shows past. What a lame friggin ending, and a lame episode completely. One guy gets popped and while that scene was relatively cool, it lasted for about 3 minutes, the rest of the episode was filled with useless jargon that didn't belong. And the conclusion well, their was no conclusion all they did was make you think that something went wrong with your TV when it all of a sudden went black screen on you for about 10 or 15 seconds before the credits rolled. All in all, I'm just glad I'm not a die hard Soprano fan cause those out there have to be left feeling ripped off.

~Speaking of ripped off how about the NBA finals. For those like me that decided to tune into the Soprano's first and then flip to the game afterward, you turned on a game that had a 20 point margin already, after an hour. That effectively was the end of my viewing of that game. There's no friggin way the Spurs are gonna blow a 20 point lead, I don't care if the Cavs got it to single digits with a few minutes left, it wasn't happening, the Spurs are too good, too smart, and too experienced to blow any lead like that. Perhaps the Cavs can turn on the Jets like they did starting game 3 against the Pistons, but it all just seems so doubtful to me.

~Continuing the theme of lame this weekend is everything French Open. My girl Ana Ivanovic not only lost to Henin, who seems like the biggest asshole in all of tennis mens or womens, but she got steamrolled in barely over an hour. There was absolutely no drama in that match whatsoever. And the men's final which provided some drama was just a formality after Nadal broke early in the 4th set. The theme of the match was watching Federer miss hit ball after ball into the stands. For someone who is the greatest player in the world, who could at some point in the not too distant future lay claim to being the best ever, he miss hit so many balls and was absolutely terrible at capatalizing on break point opportunities. I would have very much liked to see either win, but it wasn't in the cards.

~Chad Johnson beating a horse in a race is quite humurous, I'm not quite sure why he got such a massive head start, kind of seems like it took the whole point out of it, but his whole overly cocky schpeel afterwards was funny.

~I'm not sure why Gilbert Arenas would admit a full year prior that he was going to opt out of his contract, but it's not really news is it? If he plays overly well again this year, won't it be common sense to opt out and get more?

~What's better than going 2 for 3 at the plate and throwing 9 innings of shut out baseball and getting a Wi--- what the f, Sabathia threw 9 innings of shut out ball got two hits at the friggin plate and his team couldn't score for him at all? In his teams defense, if Sabathia wasn't fat he should have advanced to third on a passed ball and would have scored on the following pitch which was a hard single to left. Anyway, the Red beat the Indians in extras cause they couldn't score at all.

~The Yanks are now on their first big time hot streak of the season, and the majority of the reason has been the hot bats, and the re-emergence of Bobby Abreu as someone who doesn't suck. You have to love playing the Pirates during a time when your lineup is clicking, because even when a starter like Gorzelanny has his good stuff working they are able to work him and eventually get to him, and they absolutely brutally beat up the Pirates bullpen all weekend long. So the Yanks slip to within single digits of the Red Sox right now, and have to continue to win games and stay hot.

~Missed the Belmont, I'm not very upset about it.

~Also didn't watch any of Clemens return, which I'm sure was completely overblown for a 45 year old man making his first start of the season. He pitched exactly what you expect from him, 6 innings around 3 runs or so and a W cause the Yankees mashed the Pirates. So in essence he's a big upgrade from De Salvo, who saw that coming?

~I went to see Knocked Up instead on saturday afternoon and I would highly recommend it, especially if you're looking for a date movie as it's funny enough for even the dumbest guy and has enough of a plot for even the sappiest girl. All in all I think it may not have had the absolutely hilarious scenese in 40 Year Old Virgin, but it was more consistantly funny throughout and was probably a better movie overall. I'm not sure if I'd put it on par with Wedding Crashers, but regardless it's a much watch.

The Ultimate Brushback - Watch more free videos

Things not to do when you square around to bunt: 1) Miss the ball completely with your bat. 2) Get all of the ball with your groin. But atleast as the guy in the stands said, he had his cup on...

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This is the post to get your weekend started on the right foot, I love how he's mesmerized by the ball flying next to him and somehow misses the giant green ball which is twice as big as him thrown directly at his head. Ah, this is gonna be a good weekend.

Courtesy of With Leather

~I wonder what David Stern would have done to Lance Berkman if he ran Major League Baseball. Lance apparently was ejected from the game in the 8th inning and came out of the clubhouse for an altercation in the 9th. So Amare and Diaw get suspended for walking the sidelines during an altercation, one could only imagine that there would be a double digit suspension had either of them been already ejected from the game and walked back onto the court.

~So somehow I missed this yesterday but Big Z admitted to crying when he and Barrett got together to make up for their little scuffle in the dugout last week. Um, Big Z why so emotional. How about you just friggin pitch and not sound like a little girl.

~So who's ready for the Rocket to finally pitch so we can move on with our lives. I am. I'm not even gonna be around for the the game tomorrow afternoon and I can't say I care too much, everyone makes this out to be such a big thing, they're playing the friggin Pirates, and Clemens has in fact pitched in the majors for 20+ seasons, this isn't exactly that new of an idea. The only thing to be excited about, is if you're a Yankee fan and you're sick of watching the De Salvo's of the world.

~The good guys have won 6 of their last 8 and somehow someway Bobby Abreu is actually starting to hit the ball, as well as Cano. And the rotation is pitching well and Arod is an absolute beast in the 9th inning this year. I think Giambi getting injured might have been the best thing to happen to this team, as the Yanks have undergone the Curse of the Giambino since his signing.

~Joe Torre won his 2000th game for which I say, who cares. That just means you've been coaching for a long time, and were lucky enough to be the manager of the Yankees during some of their peak years. I don't classify this as a big deal at all, sorry just don't.

~It was nice to see the Red Sox actually lose a friggin series this week. As it seems like they haven't done that nearly enough this year against any team not named the Yankees. Not like there's anything to worry about in Red Sox nation, they still have that massive lead.

~My boy Yovani Gallardo finally threw a bad game in AAA in which he only last 4 1/3 and gave up 7 runs while recording only 3 Ks. Perhaps this was his way of telling the Brewers that he is officially uninterested in pitching in the minors any longer.

~Michael Burgess the kid I chronicled here, was drafted 49th by the Washington Nationals, who probably hope that he can be contained like a Latin player.

~In the Never ending Vick dog fighting story, apparently they had a lead with 30+ carcusses on the site, and now Vick's cousin is trying to take the complete fall for the operation by admitting that everything that happened at the house was his fault and that Michael had nothing to do with it, which was obviously a direct order which he's following. But somehow I doubt that it works like that, I feel as if perchance I owned a home in say Fairfield County that I was letting my cousin live in without paying rent, and he was running a brothel that I would be heald responsible for it once the feds came knocking on the door. One way or another hopefully this story ends soon as it's just been way too covered.

~This is pretty hilarious, even the Miami Dolphins players were thinking to themselves what the f as they drafted Ted Ginn with their first pick. I betcha he's gonna be welcomed in the locker room well.

~Honestly I forgot the hoop was on last night and by the time I got back from class and turned it on the Cavs were down double digits with 8 or so to go, so I watched Tennis instead. It's pretty amazing how completely uninterested I have been in these NBA playoffs.

~Something I have yet to mention, the Ducks won the Stanley Cup and I nor anybody else on the planet cared very much.

~Federer vs. Nadal is lined up for Sunday, and I already have my DVR set cause I'm going to miss the match. So if you tell me what happened prior to about 8 PM, when I get to watch it, I am going to be not so kind to you. Eh who am I kidding I got a 3 hour car ride in front of me on sunday morning, I'm gonna be listening to the FAN and they'll ruin the surprise. Boo Grad School.

~I'll be rooting for the two people that come from countries which begin with S, as in Switzerland and Serbia, because Federer doesn't wear Capri pants, and Ivanovic is much hotter than Henin.

~In this week alone I've received more hits than any other month of this blogs existance. So this week was a good one.

Yesterday, as Ana Ivanovic was dispatching Maria with ease at the semifinals of the French it was a sign of her arrival in the world of sports and more importantly for her pocket book the media. Nothing in this world is easier to sell then a highly attractive female that is actually good at the sport she participates in. So while I'm sure her Serbian ad campaigns will go through the roof, it will be interesting to see how well she speaks English. If her english is terrific and she pulls off another upsets and pounds Henin in the finals then she could be looking at a nice chunk of change. If her english blows then she's probably out significant cash, and if she loses well then she won't be in as big of a demand.

But she definitely has a bunch going for her she's only 19, she's highly attractive, she's in the French Finals, she's obviously really good, she is managing to edge Sharapova in my poll, and she's got stalker-like people on youtube throwing out video tributes.



So Getting Completely Pounded in the French Open, isn't going to help...

So I think with my new found love for polls I'm going to set up a weekly friday post that highlights the douches of the week, the people who have proven through their actions during the current week that the planet would be better off without.

So who are our first contestants...

1. Gary Sheffield - Gary came out and threw out conspiracy theories about him getting suspended and about Latin players falling in line while Black players will always be who they be. Shut the hell up. 2. Billy Donovan - What says annoying more than spurring a weeklong story that didn't have too many sidebars. Billy Donovan made us talk for a week about nothing, including myself, and he definately douched over Anthony Grant. 3. Johnnie Morton - Not only were you a bust in the NFL, especially for the Lions, but you got knocked the F out by a comedian in your MMA match and then you didn't even agree for the steroid test post fight. Which implies that you were on steroids and you still got knocked out. Nice. 4. Drunken Dutch Fan - He's the chap who ran on the field during a 3-3 tie took a swing at the ref, forced the UEFA to disqualify the Dutch, which eliminated their country from qualifying for the European Tournament. Talk About being a solid countryman. Get Your Vote On...

Opinion Polls & Market Research

Not be to completely anti Red Sox or anything, but congrats to Shannon Stewart for breaking up Curt Schilling's No-No on the last possible occasion. So does that make me happy, why yes it does, because not only does that douche not get a no hitter, but the person that owns him in my keeper league will not get bonus bucks for having a pitcher throw a no no.

One person to thank is Julio Lugo who made an error in the fifth to allow the A's to get their first base runner. Had he made that play then Stewart would have never gotten up to bat, and Schilling would have had the 18th Perfect Game thrown in Major league Baseball history. Which I'm sure would have been all over his blog, but thankfully due to the combined heroics of Lugo and Schilling, we don't have to deal with such banter and Schilling going down in history. Woo.

I've always thought that Tavarez was one of the nuttsiest pitchers in all of baseball and chose him for one of the pitchers I would least like to face, as well as the Biggest Instigator/Scumbag of the Times, well apparently I'm not the only one. I just enjoy Tavarez motion of the ball towards the head, that was nice.

Courtesy of Red Sox Monster

At the end of all this Donovan saga there were a few extra bucks spent here and there by the University of Florida and the Orlando Magic. And there were different levels of embarrasment brought down on Billy Donovan and the Magic, but after 3 days of him being the coach of the Magic and pulling out, there's only one loser and that is Anthony Grant. Grant was all but assured the Florida job had Donovan left, he was given the Donovan stamp of approval, the coach's choice as his successor, and an up and coming coach in his own right. Now after 3 days not only is it completely obvious to his current university that he doesn't want to be there for much longer, that he wants bigger and better things (which should have already been assumed), but he gets shafted on signing up as the coach of the University to be at in college right now.

What do the Magic lose? A few days of draft scouting? Big deal how hard do you need to scout the NBA draft, it's a matter of a handful of players you have to choose from, it's not hard. A few season ticket holders that came on solely because Donovan was the coach? They wouldn't have bought tickets if he wasn't. You ended up giving up a 2nd round pick for Van Gundy? Ya that's a bit ludicrous considering he wasn't even the coach, but what is a 2nd round pick? Chances of that being an impact player are slim at best. And come mid season how many people are really going to bring this up anymore. It's not your fault Donovan second guessed himself, it's his fault for not thinking through a contract extension.

What does Billy Donovan lose? Well the money that he decided he didn't want but big deal. Embarrassment, again people will get over it for as long as he stays at Florida. If he tries another attempt at the NBA perhaps people will mock him then but if he stays in college no one will care. Recruits? He'll be at Florida for a minimum of 5 years, and he just won back to back titles, there will be no ill effects.

What did Florida lose? A few pennies of Gas for their Jet for interviewing Grant. A few hours of despair for losing their two time champion coach. In otherwords nothing, whatever they spent in the 3 days following his hire for gas and other expenses pales in consideration to the millions upon millions he gained them the past two seasons and the millions he will gain them in the future. They probably now just know how lucky they are to have him as coach.

So in reality the only loser is Anthony Grant. He was days away from landing the head coaching position at a perennial power, a recruiters heaven. Jobs like Florida don't come around that often. Will he land another big time job in the future? More than likely. But he'll have to get lucky to ever land a job like Florida, and for now he's stuck working for people that know he doesn't want to be there.

Earlier this week Asante Samuel came out and said that he was ticked off at the Pats and that he was planning on sitting out the first 10 games of the season. Well Michael David Smith at the Fanhouse (who kind of looks like Pierce with glasses) thinks that the Jets are the biggest reason behind his complaints. And well I completely agree with him, the Jets are more than likely talking to Asante, and I bet you there are boosting his ego and telling him he's the best defensive player in the league and that the Patriots aren't treating him right etc. And while I agree that there's no way the Jets would be willing to give up 2 first round picks for Asante, I'd be willing to bet that they are at a minimum setting the groundwork for when he becomes an unrestricted free agent at some time in the future.

What do the Jets need more than anything on their team, well other than some arm strength, they need a shutdown corner. They picked up bums off the street last year and started them. See Hank Poteat, who was cut by the Pats and started in their playoff game. Meanwhile their big draft pick from 2 seasons ago, Justin Miller has primarily turned into both a woman beater and a kick returner. They want Asante, and they are letting him know how much he would be valued by their franchise.

And coincidentally it makes Asante feel as if the Pats don't give a crap about him, are low balling him and pushes him to not wanting to show up til week 10 when he is forced to. Ah the Mangenious at work.

After the Spurs knocked off the Suns in the Western Conference Semis I pretty much deducted that the Spurs should be handed the trophy now and that Tim Duncan should get his pinky fitted for his 4th ring. And as the Cavs were on their way to knocking off the Pistons I became less and less interested in the prospects of the NBA finals. I mean the Cavs don't have a good team right, they have Lebron and what? Daniel Gibson? So if you asked me on monday I would have said Spurs in 5 no problem. But than I read this little article at TrueHoop, which highlights just how much Lebron has abused the Spurs in years past. And now I am reconsidering my thoughts about the finals. I don't think it's just a formality, and I actual have some interest in watching the games and of analyzing the matchups.

Bowen on Lebron

No one can stop lebron, he's too strong, too athletic, too talented for anyone to stop him. Bowen is a pest but his main job will be to deny Lebron the ball cause once he gets the ball he'll abuse Bowen just like he does everyone else. The key for the Spurs will be to help Bowen both on traps, and help D on drives.

Cleveland Scrubs Versus Open Shots

So with the Spurs spending all of the energy in stopping or stifling Lebron the rest of the Cavs should expect plenty of open looks and open lanes to the hoop. They must take advantage of every single situation. The problem? None of them are very good. Do you honestly trust Donyell Marshall to hit a big shot, or Daniel Gibson to come up big? Honestly? Even the most die hard Cleveland fan couldn't say yes.

Too Fast Too Furious Too French?

Who's gonna cover Tony Parker on the perimeter? I'd imagine LBJ will be matched up against Ginobli, or Bowen if they want to give him a breather. So who tries to slow down Parker? Hughes is banged up, Gibson isn't much of a defender, Damon Jones ya right. Tony Parker is a nightmarish matchup for the Cavs. Would it be vastly disappointing to you as well if a French guy won the NBA Finals MVP and was routinely sleeping with Eva Longoria? Atleast I can tell myself that it's all just a figment of my imagination and that Parker truly enjoys Ronny Ron's junk.

The Fundamental Dominance

Speaking of covering Spurs, who is going to cover Duncan? Big Z, he's too slow. Varejao, perhaps. Maybe they hope that his big curly fro will blind Duncan's view of the glass on the Bank Shot Jumper. More than likely Duncan drops 24 a game and pulls down 15 boards per.

Lebron Dunking on Duncan is Fun

Here's something that has to give the Cavs some hope.



The Winner: San Antonio in 6

I still just can't see the Cavs pulling it off. When you have to choose between Big Z, Anderson Varejao and Daniel Gibson as your #2 player you have to be at a severe disadvantage. Both of the Cavs wins came well before the Spurs hit their stride and this is the playoffs, a whole different ballgame. I don't see the Cavs having anyone who can matchup with Parker or Duncan and while Lebron has a decided advantage over the Spurs, it just isn't enough.

Who You Got

~It appears as if all the Billy Donovan stuff has come to a conclusion he will be heading back to Gainesville to coach the Gators, who won't be terribly good next year, and the Magic will wind up with Stan Van Gundy as coach. Can't really say this is that bad for either side. I don't think that Donovan will be hurt by this at all, so he flip flopped but it showed that he really wanted to be at Florida, why would recruits see that as a negative? Especially coming off 2 national titles and after he didn't take the Kentucky job. With the imposed 5 year NBA ban, every recruit should be assured that he will be there for 5 more seasons, why wouldn't you go there? As for the Magic, will Stan Van Gundy be any better or worse than Donovan coaching this team, my guess is no more than a few game swing in either direction. They are what they are a mid to low NBA Eastern Conference team.

~The Red Sox gave Dice-K the Pedro Martinez treatment last night, allowing him to throw a whopping 130 pitches and giving him zero run support despite facing former Red Sox bum Lenny Dinardo.

~Al Reyes just might be the most valuable closer in major league baseball right now, or shall I say the biggest drop off between closer and the rest of the bullpen. He pitched 3 days in a row going into last night so the Rays were forced to throw other guys, and they blew an 11-6 lead in the 9th and lost 12-11 on a walk off walk.

~Fatassia keeps on chugging away with 9 wins now after a CG shutout over the Royals last night. Most underrated pitcher in baseball, is Fatassia.

~Speaking of nasty pitching, what the hell is up with Kelvim Escobar this year, he threw his second complete game of the season last night and gave up a single run. He's been a good pitcher in the past but 7-3 with a 2.76 ERA good, hell no.

~Randy Johnson passed Clemens on the all time strike out total list last night and for some reason people are saying that it will be a battle for the remainder of the season to see who will end up #2. Unless Johnson gets hurt it's him. He gets more Ks per inning, and pitches in the NL. It's not really a story, he will finish his career as #2 in total strikeouts in history.

~Trent Green to the Dolphins? Who saw that coming? Not like it's been reported to going to happen for the last 2 months. Does it really matter? Eh I don't think it will change the dynamics of the AFC East that much, he's old, and with one huge tackle could get injured. I do bet Culpepper is a little ticked off about it.

~The NHL has this whole buyout to get out of cap space clause perfectly right. The Islanders yesterday bought out Alexei Yashin's contract and will be forced to pay him 2/3 of his remaining contract spread across an 8 year period. It gives the team a chance at cap relief, as well as forces them to oblige most of the contract agreement, I think this is a terrific policy which should be implanted in every sport around the board.

~Is anybody surprised that Kevin Durant isn't strong and that he was unable to bench 185 pounds? The kid has twigs for arms and probably barely weighs above 185 despite being 6-10. But who cares, he can drive, he can shoot, and he's taller than anyone that will have the quickness needed to guard him. We know he needs to get stronger, it's obvious, but it's basketball, the bench press means nothing.

~I like the idea of doing polls like the one from yesterday, I'm going to do them more often. Oh and surprisingly Ivanovic is currently winning...

~Also, I got an all-time high # of hits yesterday thanks to the links from With Leather and The Big Lead, so I just want to say thanks.

~Speaking of advancements in life, I finally got a DVR which means I can finally tape sporting events, namely soccer matches and tennis matches that happen while I'm stuck at work. I asked for it for my birthday, which was in January, so it's 4 months late, but I guess it's better than never. Although, I really wanted it for 24 and Heroes especially considering I still haven't watched the season finale of 24. But again oh well.

Wow the Beer ads are just flowing this week, can't say I enjoy the Rolling Rock brand at all but that's a solid clip. I would certainly be in trouble considering I stopped wearing a cup in middle school, despite catching, and yes I do have a few screws loose.

Last year at some point in time I stumbled across watching an up and coming Serbian player and thought to myself damn, she just might be hotter than Sharapova, especially given that I am very much inclined to brunettes. Well it so happens that Ana Ivanovic has managed to defeat Russian Evil in the quarterfinals and is now lined up to play Sharapova in the semis come thursday morning which is a much watch if you either A) Like Tennis or B) Like watching two attractive women run, sweat and grunt for a few hours. My women's tennis philosophy is to typically root for the one I find more attractive, so I pose the question, who should win?

During Orientation in college I spent an entire week playing Mike Tyson's punch out until I beat it straight through. I don't know if I could have handled defeating the elusive Michael Jackson.

Via: We Are the Postmen

As I said yesterday, as of the two month mark of the baseball season I currently sit a top the lofty post of #1 in all three of my leagues. I honestly think this is the first time this has ever happened, as typically I always have one draft that is only mildly successful. However, over the opening two months I have done remarkably well, or the exact opposite of the New York Yankees. Let's Highlight the Squad's heroes.

Dell's Herp Army - H2H League

Best Hitter: Jose Reyes, the #2 pick in the draft puts me in the steal discussion every week by himself. And the rest of his numbers are good as well.

Best Pitcher: Francisco Rodriguez, K-Rod is locking down save after save, and has been that safe front end closer I was looking for in the draft.

Best Free Agent Pickup: BJ Upton, Snatched up BJ Upton in the opening week and dumped Alex Gordon, I think that move has worked out quite well.

Best Draft Pick: Josh Beckett, I scuffled between drafting Matt Cain or Josh Beckett and went with Beckett, minus the three missed starts, Beckett is up their in the All Star Game starter discussion.

Biggest Surprise Hitter: Todd Helton, this is a very shallow league, so I only have a 10 person deep hitting lineup. I say Helton is my biggest surprise cause I wasn't expecting a .333 average.

Biggest Surprise Pitcher: Cole Hamels, Again the league is shallow, I knew Hamels was going to be good, but he's got 8 wins and 91 Ks that is superb.

Disappointing Hitter: The Big Hurt, he has not put much Hurt into the ball this season. He was one of my last hitting draft picks and I thought it was a steal, instead he's been the one guy on my bench most of the season.

Disappointing Pitcher: Mike Mussina, Ugh he's been bad and he missed a few starts. He's been very close to being dropped many times thus far this season.

Dreamboat's Sperm - H2H League

Best Hitter: Vlad Guerrero, Here's something that's a given, Vlad is hitting above .300. In all honesty Vlad might be the best hitter of this generation, but he probably doesn't get talked about enough cause he doesn't speak any English.

Best Pitcher: CC Fatassia, My boy CC's got 8 wins and he's pitching against the Royals tonight.

Best Free Agent Pickup: Al Reyes, Another D-Ray as a solid opening week pick up. Reyes has locked down games with ease and has given me the extra saves needed to win that category weekly.

Best Draft Pick: Matt Holliday, I love Matt Holliday, everyweek he seemingly hits over .300.

Biggest Surprise Hitter: Prince Fielder, in all honesty Prince was my best draft pick, and has been my best hitter, but to spread around the wealth I'll give him the surprise hitter. Did I expect good stats? Yes. MLB lead in homers? Um no.

Biggest Surprise Pitcher: Kelvim Escobar, Escobar is typically an underrated pitcher, but his numbers are terrific this year.

Disappointing Hitter: Garrett Atkins, I thought I was going to get an absolute stud in Atkins, instead he's hitting .233 and not much else.

Disappointing Pitcher: Daniel Cabrera, Here's why my team has been good in this league, my pitching has been fantastic. Cabrera hasn't been much worse than could be expected, but lands the most disappointing spot, because everyone else has been so good.

Matt - Roto League

Best Hitter: Aramis Ramirez, A-Ram put on the jets in the month of May and moved his average above .300 with solid power.

Best Pitcher: Dan Haren, I picked him up cause Haraang got snatched up, and well he's leading the AL in era and should have picked up another win last night if the damn pen didn't blow it.

Best Free Agent Pickup: James Shields, My IP hero, picked up another W and worked more then 6 innings yet again. In a league where IP is a category, Shields is an absolute beast.

Best Draft Pick: Adrian Gonzalez, I snatched up Gonzo for one of my two 1B slots and he's definitely delivered. The power has cooled off a bit but he has moved his average over .300.

Biggest Surprise Hitter: Shane Victorino, I picked him up hoping for steals and well he's delivered with 16. And has even given some pop, with 4 dingers.

Biggest Surprise Pitcher: Rich Hill, I drafted Rich Hill cause Capuano got snatched up, and he sits with a 2.88. If only the Cubs gave him some run support.

Disappointing Hitter: Lance Berkman, My best player last year, has started the season as by far the biggest disappointment. Only hitting .238 Lance? Come on heat up son.

Disappointing Pitcher: Dave Bush, I'm first in 4 of the 5 pitching categories, mostly due to my starters being pimp. And Bush is the only one who hasn't been great. But he really hasn't been good either. Gallardo might be replacing him soon.

This would definately provide a more entertaining work environment. Hmm, I could use a Bud Light right now. Will the Owner of a White Station Wagon Please Go F*ck Yourself.

I think anything beer related is well enough associated with sports to be posted here. Ruling, Beer > Spelling Bee when it comes to sports.

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Rolling Rock Comes in just behind with this ad

1. Boston 37-18, Lost 1: Despite losing two consecutive series to the Yanks the Red Sox still sit firmly a top the power rankings. They are getting huge numbers from some unexpected players in their lineup, like the Ogre and Pedroia, meanwhile Manny is beginning to heat up and their pitching isn't going anywhere. In order to lose their wide lead injuries will need to begin to tarnish their roster. Last Months Rank: 1, Even

2. Cleveland 34-21, Lost 2: The Indians have been the turnaround team thus far this season. They're hitting has been above average and their are getting some stellar starts. Currently there have been rumors floated that they are interested in acquiring Gagne to sure up what has been a shaky bullpen. If they get him, and somehow he manages to stay healthy, watch out. Last Months Rank: 3, +1

3. NY Mets 35-20, Lost 1: The Mets continue to win games, but one has to question how many more injuries they can sustain when their lineup this weekend included Franco at 3rd and Newhan in left field. The good news is that Delgado has begun to turn it around and he's starting to crush the cover off the ball. Last Months Rank: 4, +1

4. LA Angels 36-22, Won 3: I hate the Angels. Possibly more than I hate the Red Sox, and it pains me to see them doing well again this season, because I know that if the Yanks do make the playoffs, somehow, they will just get ousted by the Angels if they are there. Last Months Rank: 6, +2

5. Detroit 32-24, Won 2: The Tigers are good at everything this season except keeping Gary Sheffield quite, which is a necessity. Eventually they could get the Gambler back to finish off their rotation, as well as Zumaya, and they are also rumored to be looking at Gagne. Last Months Rank: 7, +2

6. San Diego 33-23, Won 2: So who saw a Whale's Vagina being so productive in the month of May. The Kouz started to rake the day I dropped him, Cameron began to hit as well, and their pitching maintained it's stellar pace. The West is the National Leagues best division right now? Perhaps. Last Months Rank: 11, +5

7. LA Dodgers 33-23, Won 1: The Dodgers are going to be steady for the majority of the season. They have consistent pitching and consistent middle of the pack hitting, they will contend for the west for the entire season. Last Months Rank: 8, +1

8. Atlanta 32-24, Lost 1: Hotlanta takes a mild slide down the power ranking ladder. But their biggest issue is keeping Chipper healthy, with him out of the lineup, they aren't very deep. Last Months Rank: 2, -6

9. Arizona 34-24, Won 1: Where the Hell are these teams coming from? Why are the D-Backs so friggin hot right now? Who do they have on their team other then a bunch of kids. Well they just went into Shea and knocked off the Mets 2 of 3 so they have some gusto, I just think that of the 3 West teams in the top 10, they are the least likely to keep it up. Last Months Rank: 10, +1

10. Milwaukee 32-25, Won 1: The BrewCrew found out what it's like this month to play teams that are actually good instead of teams in their own slop division. The best asset the Brewers have right now, is their Ace in the Whole Yovani Gallardo, who is tearing through batters like Kobayashi through Hot dogs. Last Months Rank: 5, -5

11. Philadelphia 28-28, Won 2: The Phillies are coming and it's pretty much all due to their hitting. Their bullpen desperately needs some help, but if Howard can stay healthy and return to form, they will make a big push. Last Months Rank: 12, +1

12. Seattle 28-25, Won 2: Speaking of teams out of nowhere, the Mariners are decent this year? Huh? When did that happen? I guess putting Dreamweaver on the DL was a big help. Last Months Rank: 20, +8

13. Oakland 28-27, Won 2: So who is this Chad Gaudin guy and why is he lowering my fantasy teams ERA wit every start and why did he outpitch Johan Santana yesterday? He and Dan Haren have both been terrific this season. Last Months Rank: 13, Even

14. Chicago Sox 25-27 Lost 2: At some point in time you have to think the 2005 champs will turn it around. They have too many of the same players who were terrific then to continue to be under .500. A Yankee fan hopes that they don't start getting hot this week. Last Months Rank: 14, Even

15. Minnesota 28-27, Lost 2: Morneau is much more an MVP this season thus far than last year, and I bet right now he wouldn't get many votes at all if the award was given over the first two months. The Twins need Mauer back and healthy to contend in the Deadly Central. Last Months Rank: 9, -6

16. Toronto 27-29, Won 2: The Blue Jays are playing decently well for a team that has been littered across the board with injuries. One person who has been terrific as a replacement has been their new closer Accardo, who they picked up last year for Hillenbrand. He's moved into that closers role and been overly successful. Last Months Rank: 15, -1

17. Baltimore 27-30, Lost 3: The Os have been pretty much middle of the pack all season, nothing to get thrilled about. They have their ups and downs, Bedard has been very good, but has been given no run support. And Chris Ray has been good on occasion but given up a few walk off bombs. Last Months Rank: 21, +4

18. NY Yankees 24-30, Won 1: The Yanks could be turning it around, or they could be falling off again after taking 2 of 3 from the Red Sox. One way or the other, the month of May was certainly an ugly one. Last Months Rank: 16, -2

19. Florida 27-30, Lost 1: When you have BK Kim in your rotation thinks can't be going to well for your organization. One thing I did fine funny was how in the span of a few weeks, they peddled off one unstable closer, Jorge Julio, and brought in another one, Armando Benitez. Last Months Rank: 18, -1

20. Colorado 27-30, Won 2: Name three pitchers that start for the Rockies? Ok you can't either, and thus you are surprised that they are only 3 games under .500 too, right? Last Months Rank: 27, +7

21. San Francisco 26-29, Lost 2: The Giants lineup is older than the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. Too bad, cause Lincecum and Cain are two terrific young pitchers. Last Months Rank: 17, -4

22. St. Louis 24-30, Won 1: Pujols actually got off last night and hit 2 dingers. But in reality the only reason the Cards have any hope this season is because they play in the NL Central. Last Months Rank: 26, +4

23. Chicago Cubs 23-31, Won 1: The Cubs are pretty close to blowing completely up as Sweet Lou is losing his mind and teammates are throwing blows at each other in the dugout. The Cubs are very close to disaster zone. Last Months Rank: 24, +1

24. Houston 23-33, Lost 1: I don't quite think this will be the typical Astros season where they get remarkably hot and contend down the stretch. They just don't have the pitching without Clemens and Pettite to get it done. Last Months Rank: 25, +1

25. Tampa Bay 23-31, Won 1: If only Tampa had serviceable pitchers at the back end of their rotation to support James Shields who's a beast, and Kazmir who has all the talent in the world. If they did they would possibly be able to contend for the Wild Card, instead, they're at #25. Last Months Rank: 22, -3

26. Pittsburgh 24-32, Lost 1: Nothing to ever get excited about in Pittsburgh. Gorzo has been very good for their staff, but their lineup is shallow and so is their rotation. The good thing for them is that their division is pitiful. Last Months Rank: 23, -3

27. Washington 23-34, Lost 2: The Nats actually had a pretty good month. Where the heck did that come from? How are they scoring any runs with that lineup? Last Months Rank: 29, +2

28. Cincinnati 22-36, Lost 2: This is what happens when you think Bronson Arroyo is your #2 starter, you aren't very good. In his last three starts Arroyo has given up 6 runs or more, and his ERA jumped from 2.64 to 4.73. Ouch. Last Months Rank: 19, -9

29. Texas 20-37, Lost 2: Now I fully understand just how bad the Rangers have been playing and I would understand dumping Gagne for prospects, but Big Tex? Why in the world would you dump him when he still has another year on the contract? I don't think that makes any sense at all. Kid's a beast. Last Months Rank: 28, -1

30. Kansas City 21-36, Lost 1: The Royals have pretty much no hope. They've got Teahan and a massively slumping Alex Gordon. And have found the basement of the power rankings for the second consecutive month. Last Months Rank: 30, Even

Last Months Rankings

~Billy what the F? Why in the world did you take the job and then within a single weekend decide it was a bad move. I don't get it. What changed so much in the two days between you signing the contract and then asking them to release you. I don't think I could ever do that, I think you really should take the time to decide what you want and then when you come to the conclusion stick with it. Perhaps this rebuttal is a bad move. One way or another the Magic have to let him go back to Florida, sure it sucks and is a PR hit but you can't keep him there against his will, it would be bad for your franchise. There are plenty good coaches out there that would love to coach Dwight Howard, just find a different one.

~Johnnie Morton got knocked the F out in his MMA debut on a quick right to the chin. Then post match he refuses to take his performance enhancer test and they refuse to pay him. Looks like nothing has changed in Johnnie's life.

~Can't say I watched much of the saturday night NBA game. Me and games during bar hours don't usually mix well. I'm not really that surprised that the Cavs won game 6, just seemed like the Pistons couldn't figure out who their go to guy was all postseason and as much as I have loved C Webb my entire life, what the Pistons needed at the #5 was someone who could play help defense, and C Webb is not that man. Boo, I was hoping he would get his opportunity in the finals.

~Hooray the Hockey was actually on a station I get this weekend, so I watched a few minutes of it. Congrats to the NHL for getting one more viewer for a single period of the Stanley Cup finals, that brings you up to about 23 total viewers.

~Walkoff homer sunday as Vlad the Impaler and the Flyin Hawaiian drop homers in the ninth so they could enjoy getting pounded in the skull when they cross home plate. It was even Victorino hula bobble head night, which looks exceedingly not heterosexual. I probably would have protested if I was him.

~Johan Santana is 6-5 and was outdueled by the 6-1 Chad Gaudin yesterday afternoon? Um who knew. In all actuality, Santana sits with a 3.30 era through his first 12 starts, so it's mostly the fault of the Twins lack of run support.

~Gary Sheffield might be the most ignorant person on the planet. How about you toss the race card out there a few more times this weekend? First you say that if you get suspended for what was deemed throwing a broken bat at the umpire (I didn't see it) that it would be a conspiracy. And then you come out and say that Latin players just do what their told and that's why there's not that many black players in the Majors? Some just needs to get that man to shut up and just hit the ball. He is out of his friggin mind. I just hope he doesn't get suspended cause I have him in 2 of my 3 leagues and he is starting to rip the cover off the ball. Jimmy please tell your DH to shut the f up.

~Federer and Nadal are both still on a collision course for the final next weekend, which I would be very excited to watch. Nadal's match today is against Leyton Hewitt so that could potentially be entertaining.

~I caught a little sportscenter this weekend and caught the story of the gay lacrosse coach that was ousted weeks after he came out. They put part of this decision in the players hands and they proclaim his sexuality had nothing, zero, zilch to do with it. That's quite laughable. The part that startled me the most was the "woman", so the name Karen suggests, that fired him. Woah was she a Pat and quite hypocritical.

~It's official, three leagues, 2 months, 3 current pole positions. Woo. May have to do a fantasy round up post this afternoon, in celebration.

~What to take from the Yanks Sox series. Well if your a Sox fan its along the lines of annoying but whatever we still have a double digit lead, and we'll just swing out on the west coast and bounce right back. If your a Yankee fan you can have a glimmer of hope. Last night was a win that they haven't gotten all season for the most part. Claw back into a game in the late innings against a teams bullpen. Robbie's bullet off the wall was huge, and Arod's homer was obviously bigger. Could this catapault them into a good stretch? Yes. Could they go out and get swept by the White Sox like they did after their last series win over the Sox perhaps.

~Here's the good thing for the Yanks, the White Sox are currently scuffling mightily, so they are catching them at the right time. And further more the impeding schedule is a lot easier then the month of may. Their June schedule is 4 @CWS, 3 PIT, 3 ARI, 3 NYM, 3 @COL, 3 @SF, 3 @BAL, and 3 OAK. Now's the time to start winning games.

~More good news for the Yanks, some of their hitters are starting to hit up, namely Cano who is starting to hit the ball very hard on almost every at bat. Also, Abreu woke up yesterday and perhaps he can get back to his old ways of actually getting on base and being useful.

~I think the Giambi injury might actually help the team. It gets his fat ass off the base paths and it gets Melky into the lineup and more importantly into the outfield daily. Really, he's the only one who plays the outfield that is solid. He's got a + arm, he's got good speed all around he helps them being in the outfield. And so what if he's not a super hitter right now, I think he's a guy that will help them being in the lineup.

~Damon playing 1st base could be very humurous. Don't know when this could happen, but he is taking ground balls there. I think the highlight will be when Damon takes a relay to the plate, wow that will be funny.

~Dougie Minkowitz's head had to be ringing for a long time. It's not exactly a big loss for the Yanks, but it does hurt their late inning defense, and it definately sucks for him. The photos on Yahoo are a pretty good flip through.

~Some bad things for the Yanks, Abreu is just god awful in right field. Even that catch he made on the run was pathetic last night. It shouldn't have been near that difficult. The Ortiz hit that got by him was incredibly weak, and the worst of it all was the I'm a little girl scared of a 3 feet high wall on saturday which started of the Yanks miserable inning.

~More bad, Joe Torre is making some dumb ass decisions. You have a runner on second you are up 1 with no outs, and you intentionally walk the batter because why? So you can put the lead run on base with no outs? That's super decision making. Then you intentionally walk V-Tek later in the inning to "set-up" the double play. Great, especially when both scored.

~Groin Fatigue? Friggin Groin Fatigue? What the hell is that? You been gettin too much action lately old man, poppin too much Viagra? Just amazing how much money he will make this season for a guy that won't be the ace of a teams staff. It's sad that the Yankees really needed to make this move.

~Andy Pettite better not be seriously hurt that would blow.

~When did Dustin Pedroia start hitting .333? How under the radar has that been, and how annoying is he? I think he's already climbed into the pole position for most hated Red Sox player. I don't like him. Him or the Ogre is the worst.

~I wonder how the Red Sox will play tonight after their late night finish, and the flight out to Oakland and facing Dan Haren, who's been the best pitcher in the American League this season. It'll be an interesting test for them.

The resemblence is astounding. At the very least, Youkilis must be Shrek's long lost brother. My guess is Youkilis is the human version of Shrek from the second movie.

Sweet Lou this is how it's done, the kicking dirt on the umpire was classy, but it's got nothing on the Rosin Grenade.

Kudos to you Phillip Wellman, manager of the Mississippi Braves, you had one quality blowup.

But I guess Sweet Lou, yours was entertaining as well.

Barrett and Zambrano should probably concentrate more on getting outs than flailing body punches at each other. I think Zambrano was bitching about Barrett making an error, and then Barrett pointed to the scoreboard and said something along the lines, how about you not suck and give up double digit hit totals. So much for Big Z's Cy Young award he said he was going to win.

Perhaps Sweet Lou should have waited for the Yanks job to open up after this season and left the Cubs job on the table.

Michael Burgess might be the #1 one prep baseball player in the country and he may have 5 tools which seem destined for major league production but there is a shadow from the past that might tell many GMs to run away. Run away and look elsewhere.

And what is the reason behind this, look no further than the giant H which is plastered on his left pectoral. That H stands for Hillsborough, as in Hillsborough High School in Tampa, Fl, a breading ground for both terrific baseball talent who are a bit unstable mentally. Doc Gooden, years of coke abuse. Gary Sheffield years of whining about money, trade demands, and bashing people after he's left the door. Carl Everett, a genuine loose cannon who was so nuts he proclaimed that dinosaurs never existed. And finally Elijah Dukes and his whole saga with threatening to kill his wife. Not very difficult to find a pattern here, they all have superior talent, but my oh my the headaches that organizations must go through to put up with them being on their roster. Wouldn't it make more sense with a top pick, to go with someone who is less likely to be nut? Especially seeing as he has already had conversations with Doc, Sheff and Carl on what it takes to make it at the next level.

So when Burgess name slips a few picks in next weeks MLB draft, he can blame his predecessors for giving Tampa Bay a bad wrap and he can either go out and prove the past wrong, or he can follow in their foot steps, and both be a genuine talent as well as a complete nutcase. He's probably got a head start in the nutcase category with his statement that looks forward to being the first player to hit .500. Watch Out, MLB, here comes your next entertainer...

Winner = First one to get the Correct Final Answer
Ultimate Winner = Person to Get all of the clues correct

The 3rd clue is a doozy...

Post your answers in el comment box...

PLAYER	AVG	G	AB	R	H	2B	3B	HR
Matt LaPorta	0.286	57	210	41	60	14	2	15
Matt Wieters	0.329	51	170	37	56	6	0	12
Beau Mills	0.251	55	207	31	52	17	1	5
J.P. Arencibia	0.313	50	211	34	66	20	0	10
Mike Moustakas	0.237	53	207	23	49	8	2	7
Josh Vitters	0.214	4	14	1	3	3	0	0
Matt Dominguez	0.333	11	39	8	13	4	0	1
Jason Heyward	0.332	56	217	43	72	15	2	7
Devin Mesoraco	0.279	19	68	9	19	2	1	3
Kevin Ahrens	0.26	50	192	28	50	14	4	1
Peter Kozma	0.274	51	190	33	52	9	3	3
Ben Revere	0.42	33	138	22	58	11	5	1
Wendell Fairley
Total	0.295223	490	1863	310	550	123	20	65
High School	0.296714	277	1065	167	316	66	17	23
College	0.293233	213	798	143	234	57	3	42

PLAYER	RBI	BB	SB	OBP	SLG	OPS
Matt LaPorta	49	31	1	0.395	0.586	0.981
Matt Wieters	33	29	1	0.426	0.576	1.002
Beau Mills	33	32	1	0.359	0.415	0.774
J.P. Arencibia	49	9	0	0.341	0.55	0.891
Mike Moustakas	24	14	3	0.293	0.396	0.689
Josh Vitters	1	0	0	0.214	0.429	0.643
Matt Dominguez	4	6	0	0.447	0.513	0.96
Jason Heyward	29	22	8	0.385	0.516	0.901
Devin Mesoraco	7	6	1	0.347	0.471	0.818
Kevin Ahrens	24	21	3	0.338	0.391	0.729
Peter Kozma	19	22	5	0.358	0.4	0.758
Ben Revere	20	11	16	0.463	0.594	1.057
Wendell Fairley
Total	292	203	39	0.364472	0.487386	0.851858
High School	128	102	36	0.358183	0.455399	0.813582
College	164	101	3	0.372636	0.530075	0.902711

~Per request of one William Edward Salomon, I must comment on the Spelling Bee, which because I had class last night I did not watch a second of. Perhaps, Wes missed this but the spelling bee has been aired on ESPN since we were in grammar school, nothing has really changed it's always been on, now they just expanded it to prime time, which seems like an awful stretch to me, but hey its ABC's money. In all honesty if their is some semblance of competition involved I think ESPN feels like they can show it as long as it will get ratings. Let's be straight this nor poker, nor NASCAR are really sports but they do have defined markets and they do have competition involved so I will not crush ESPN for showing them. But if you ask me if I'd rather hockey be back on the network, so I could actually F'in watch the playoffs, instead of this other stuff, my answer would be a quick yes.

~Jason Giambi is injured, boo hoo hoo, I'm crying on the inside. Here's what is most laughable about this injury, the first is how they are claiming that it happened, while rounding the bases on a home run? So while jogging at a light pace he tore apart his foot, well isn't that classic. Secondly, the duration that he will be out. Atleast three weeks but perhaps the entire season? How vague can you possibly make an injury timeline out to be? He could miss the 3rd inning or he could be gone until 2011?

~And the King was crowned last night. I wonder how many times in NBA history a player has scored it's teams final 25 points in a game, nevermind in the Conference finals of a series that is tied and heads into multiple overtimes. James was pretty much a beast last night and it makes you wonder several things:

1. Just how good is he? If he could do that, what can't he do? If he can do that, why doesn't he do it more often?

2. Just how bad was the Pistons defense last night, James got to the rack almost effortlessly in the final minutes of regulation and overtime, where was the help D, or the ball denial or anything. He had all their points, friggin triple team him.

3. Just how bad are the rest of the Cavs, 25 of 25 and 29 of the teams last 30, where the hell was the rest of the squad, do they even serve a purpose.

4. How badly will the Cavs be dominated by the Spurs if they do finish of the Pistons? Any chance they win 2 games in the series, I would say they lose 4-1.

~So Billy Donovan decided that he would leave like the rest of the team to the NBA. You can't necessarily blame the guy, his whole team is essentially gone, he's going to get paid much more money, he won't have to leave the state of Florida, and he'll have Dwight Howard to build around. However, you have to think that if he stayed at Florida, everything on the campus would eventually be named after him. He's been a beast there, and perhaps the program continues to dominate perhaps it doesn't if he stayed, but where can he possibly bring the Magic. Dwight Howard is great, but he currently does not have close to the Offensive firepower to be the #1 weapon on a Title winner. And honestly, I'd rather have Oden than Howard. I think this is a very risky decision by him, will he make the playoffs, sure, but will they do anything in the playoffs? Almost certainly not.

~Is there anything more meaningless that contract extensions signed by college coaches? Do any of them ever honor the full length of the contract and how many times do guys get big time extensions and then leave before they even hit their first year of the contract? I don't think these contracts should even be reported, their ridiculous.

~Jim O'Brien got the Pacers job which is completely unexciting in every possible way. He has been a good coach, and really the Celtics would be better off with him then what they morphed into, but I can't say if I was a Pacer fan I would be jumping up and down with happiness right now.

~I always like looking at the Fortune 50 list, and laughing at how many undeserved players from New York are on the list of highest paid athletes. Way way too many.

~In news flying under the radar, somehow someway this happened 10 days ago and I missed it but, a Steelers assistant emailed porn to several NFL execs including the Commish. Apparently he just hit 'the wrong button'. Ya that button on your computer that instantly sends porn to the highest employee of your company, I usually avoid that button during my days work. Come on who in the world is ever going to believe that excuse, I was just trying to forward it to my friends and then somehow I sent it to several execs and the commissioner of the league. I think you'd be better off going to the Sammy Sosa school of answering questions, No Hablo Ingles.

~Another Yankee Red Sox series to get me depressed about 2007 baseball, woo.

~A long awaited rebus is going to go up at 1ish, first one to get the answer = winner.