Archive for September, 2009
• National Football League. Peyton Manning went 24-35 for 379 yards, threw four touchdown passes, including three in the second quarter, as the Colts throttled the Cardinals 31-10. [Yahoo!]
• Major League Baseball. The Yankees beat the Red Sox 4-2 to won their 100th game of the year, clinched the AL East and home field advantage through the playoffs. Colorado maintained a 2 1/2 game lead in the NL wild-card, beating St. Louis 4-3 as Atlanta kept pace by beating Washington 6-3 in 10 innings. [MLB.com Scoreboard]
• PGA Tour. Phil Mickelson finished off a tough season, where he had to deal with his wife’s and mother’s cancer scares, by coming back to win the Tour Championship with a 5-under round Sunday, beating Tiger Woods by three strokes. Woods won the FedEx Cup and $10 million on account of his consistent season. [PGATour.com]
• Chemcial castration for some, miniature Polish flags for others. The Polish government has approved the use of chemical castration on pedophiles in some cases, including when a family member or someone under 15 has been raped. I guess there isn’t really anything funny about this story, but anytime I can type “chemical castration” and make a Gary Glitter is a pervert reference, I’m going with it. [Yahoo!/Reuters]
We’re going in a bit of different direction for this week’s “Twist One Up.” You see, I have a special announcement to make: for reasons unforeseen, the fellas over at With Leather have elected to allow yours truly to handle Weekend Daddy duties this Saturday and Sunday. I assume they were ordered to do some blogunnity service by the powers-that-be or something, but it is what it is.
So wish me luck and head on over to WL and openly mock and ridicule me.
This can only end in tears. Of joy!
Have a great weekend, kiddos.
• College Football. Missouri at Nevada. I’ll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missourah! [ESPN, 9:00 ET]
• High School Football. Lakeland (Fla.) at De La Salle (Calif.). I might watch this game. Just Me, Myself & I. Wait. That’s De La Soul. My bad. [ESPN2, 10:00 ET]
• Major League Baseball. Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees. How is this “very funny”? I guess it’s better than one of those Tyler Perry trainwrecks. [TBS, 7:00 ET]
• Basic Cable Double Feature of the Night. Ghostbusters & Ghostbusters II. I just realized their was five years between these two films. Five years? Oh, that’s right – now I remember why. Rick Moranis was in prison those five years for raping that 8-year-old boy. I can’t believe I forgot that, but as you get older, the memory fades a bit. [TCM, 8:00 ET]
• Good news! Detroit manager Jim Leyland down to smoking four packs a day. [Style Points]
• Epic face plant fail by female sprinter. [Total Pro Sports]
• A preview of the Petit Le Mans race in Georgia. It’s pretty wild shit. [The Phoenix Pub]
• Hex brings us another edition of “What Were You Thinking?” Today, Edge of Your Seat edition. [Melt Your Face Off]
• Your Week 3 Pammy winners. If you haven’t been following this feature, you’re missing out. It compiles the most moronic statements made by announcers throughout the week. [Awful Announcing]
• As always, a must read “Always Be Covering” from Maj. Especially if you’re a degenerate gambler, and we all know you are – get help. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]
Arena Football, the Edsel of professional sports leagues…
Okay, that might be a bit harsh – the league was around for over 20 years – let’s start over.
(Ahem) Arena Football – the Ford Taurus of professional sports leagues, only months after shutting down shop, is about to make a comeback as a new league, the oddly-named Arena Football 1.
“The owners meetings are Monday morning, and they’re really going to line everything out on Monday morning as far as how the divisions go and what teams from the AFL are actually going to join Arena Football 1 and what teams from AF2 are going to join,” said Troy Thompson, director of operations for the Arkansas Twisters.
Representatives of the af2 teams in Oklahoma City, Arkansas, and Spokane, Wash., all confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday that they intend to participate. Iowa’s af2 franchise also plans to send a representative to the meetings.
Well, good for them. But from what I understand, the league will feature mostly teams from the af2, which was comprised of 25 teams last year, with a handful of teams from the original Arena Football League. They intend to solve the competitive problem by having two leagues, which insiders say will be similar to Division I and Division II football in college.
So essentially, without any improvements or tweaks, they are intending to return to a business model that completely failed and went bankrupt less than a year ago. Makes sense.
I’m sure the geniuses behind the UFL are shaking in their cleats. You know, if they could afford cleats.
New Arena Football League in the Works [The Washington Post/AP]
Oh, Chicago Cubs, You Magnificent Losers
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If it wasn’t so goddamned funny all the shit that happens to the Cubs, I might actually start to feel bad for them.
Although not technically elminated from postseason contention, the Cubs have had yet another miserable year. And it only got comically worse yesterday. Apparently, the Cubs can’t even get celebrating right. After first basemen Derek Lee scored the game-tying run when Jeff Baker hit a two-run homer to take a 3-2 lead against the Giants in the 9th inning, Baker and Lee were excitedly congratulated by teammates in the dugout.
Yeah, Lee got hurt during the celebration.
As Lee and Baker were mobbed by teammates in the dugout, relief pitcher Angel Guzman slapped the side of Lee’s helmet, causing Lee to experience neck spasms that forced him to come out of the game for defense in the bottom of the ninth.
The best part? Angel Guzman was shut down for the season earlier this week with a muscle strain near his armpit. So a guy who is hurt and not contributing anything to the team injures a player who is contributing. Ahh, the sweet, sweet schadenfreude of it all.
You have to feel bad for Cubs fans, though. To be one must just suck and still be frustratingly hilarious at the same time – sort of like attending a Carrot Top performance, I reckon. Not that I would know.
Lee injured after slap from teammate [ESPN Chicago]
Season’s over for ailing Cubs reliever Guzman [Chicago Sun-Times]
Donald Brashear of the Rangers and Brandon Sugden of the Washington Capitals went toe-to-toe Thursday night during an exhibition game at Madison Square Garden. Or did they?
There sure was a lot of flailing about and not much punching. I’m not sure, but that looks eerily similar to the mating dance of the Riflebird. It’s hard to tell.
[H/T FanHouse]
• Mark Sanchez is an illegal immigrant? And to think, he’s taking a job from someone born in the United States who would have done a worse job for more money. [Style Points]
• Blue Menu bids farewell to Wayne Gretzky, Hockey Coach. [Food Court Lunch]
• Good question: how in the hell does Eric Wedge still have a job? [Walkoff Walk]
• Talk about a scoring a major coup – an interview with Florida head coach Urban Meyer. [EDSBS]
• The Washington Nationals are the suckiest sucks who have ever sucked. [With Leather]
• Fred Funk was fined for using a club out of another player’s bag. To quote the great hip hop artist Sagat: man, funk dat! [Devil Ball Golf]
• Here’s the tool that was let out of jail to watch a Red Sox game. [Busted Coverage]
I suppose if you are going to cheat, you might as well go all out – just make sure there aren’t cameras around recording you do it.
Somebody might have wanted to make Kim Christensen, the goalie for IFK Gothenburg, aware of that rather important caveat. TV cameras caught Christensen popping the goal posts out of their footings and nudging them a few centimeters inward during a match against Orebro.
IFK Gothenburg, considered one of the most successful soccer clubs in Scandinavia (thanks, Wikipedia!), ultimately drew a 0-0 tie with Orebro. The Swedish Football Association will be investigating the incident.
Referee Stefan Johannesson spotted the posts had been moved a few centimetres about 20 minutes into the game and pushed them back into the right place.
Christensen later said he had done the same thing before several other games.
That’s always a great idea: when caught blatantly cheating, be real cavalier about it and say you do it all of the time. No wonder Christensen is now on his fourth marriage. You’re breaking your mother’s heart, Kim!
I freely admit I’m not a great soccer mind, but it seems to me that Christensen took an unnecessary risk for a minimal benefit? How much of a difference can a few centimeters make?
On second thought, instead of his nonchalant attitude toward cheating, maybe the difference of a few centimeters is the real reason why Christensen is on his fourth marriage. I guess only his ex-wives no for sure.
Keeper guilty of moving goalposts [BBC]
Now I’m not sure how they do things up in Canuckistan, but I still have to question the motives behind this headline, not to mention the fairness of the competition which is being reported.
At first, I thought it was about a bunch of surly Canadian women beating the tar out of some little people for fun – rumor has it that originally, the sport of curling used a portly petite person instead of the curling stone we have grown accustomed to today, so I wouldn’t put anything past our friends to the North – but apparently, I guess simply for the fun of it, the Canadian women’s hockey team took on a team comprised entirely of little people. And big surprise, they beat them, but only by a score of 3-2.
Come on, Canada, hockey is your national sport and your women’s team narrowly beat a bunch of little people? They have those real weird arms so I imagine their puck handling is suspect to say the least. And the goalie? Can they even reach the upper corners of the net? And what’s the deal with Triple-A Midgets? Is that some sort of joke? Have the Canadians comprised some sort of totally inappropriate rating system for little people? Or are they attempting to make some sort of Smurfs joke? You know, Triple-A = Three Apples High? I’m sorry, but everything about this story is just plain wrong.
Shame on you, Canada.
CANADIAN WOMEN BEAT CALGARY TRIPLE-A MIDGETS [TSN/The Canadian Press]
I’ve heard the term “working blue” before, but “working purple”?
No one knows yet if this whole NFL running back gig is going to work out for Adrian Peterson, but if it doesn’t, you might just see Purple Jesus try to make it doing stand-up and working the comedy club circuit.
During his media session after practice yesterday, Peterson entertained the press with a zinger regarding his ailing back.
• MLB Roundup. Detroit handed Cleveland their 11th straight loss, winning 6-5 and extending their lead over the idle Twins to three games. Felix Hernandez notched his 17th victory, striking out a season-high 11 as Seattle edged Toronto 5-4. The Nationals have reached the 100-loss plateau, which is probably not the right word, losing to the Dodgers 7-6. [MLB.com Scoreboard]
• College Football. The Old Ball Coach has still got it. South Carolina stunned possibly overrated No. 4 Mississippi 16-10. Three field goals by Spencer Lanning and a 2-yard TD by Patrick DiMarco was all South Carolina needed as Ole Miss QB Jevan Snead was constantly harrassed by the Gamecocks’ defense. [The New York Times]
• PGA Golf. After receiving a putting tip from Tiger Woods, Sean O’Hair hit a 4-under 66 to take the early lead at the PGA Tour Championship at East Lake. Woods, Stewart Cink and Padraig Harrington are all nipping at his heels, sitting one back at 3-under. [PGATour.com]
• Best.Coffee Shop.Ever. Five baristas working at the Grab-N-Go coffee shop in Everett, Washington have been charged with prostitution after a two-month investigation by police. At the Grab-N-Go, the baristas are dressed in bikinis, but that’s not where the fun ended. According to the report, “…detectives also saw the women lick whipped cream off each other and pose naked for pictures at the Grab-n-Go Espresso stand in Everett, about 30 miles north of Seattle.” The girls were reportedly charging up to $80 for a coffee. Seems fair. [MSNBC]
• College Football. Mississippi at South Carolina. Just think of all the extra 21st chromosomes in the crowd. Amazing. [ESPN, 7:30 ET]
• Major League Baseball. Detroit Tigers at Cleveland Indians. Can Detroit hang on and win the crappiest division in baseball or will the Twins be the sacrificial lambs for the Yankees in the opening round of the playoffs? [MLB Network, 7:00 ET]
• Must See TV. SNL Weekend Update (always amusing), Parks & Recreation (I thoroughly enjoyed last week’s episode), The Office (pretty good last week for a season premiere) and Community (my favorite new show in years – lots of potential). Now that you know what I think, don’t you feel better? No? [NBC, 8:00 ET]
• So Much Better Than Must See TV. A new episode of It’s Always Sunny. “The Gang Hits The Road.” The gang heads to the Grand Canyon. It will be just like when the Bradys visited the Grand Canyon but you know, different. Followed-up by a encore presentation of one of my favorite episodes, “Nightman Cometh.” [FX, 9:00 ET]
• HHR provides a great service and gives you the Cynic’s Guide to College Football, Week 3. [Hugging Harold Reynolds]
• Jim Rice is not impressed by Zack Greinke. He is also not wowed by potatoes. [The Sporting Blog]
• John Buccigross knows his hockey. [Melt Your Face Off]
• Both the Cowboys and Colts are playing in prime time games again. Give some other teams a chance, dammit. [Shutdown Corner]
• Introducing Anita Marks, the UFL’s sideline reporter. She has boobs. [Busted Coverage]
• Sean Salisbury Will Have His Revenge On Seattle. I mean Deadspin. [Deadspin]
