Archive for January, 2010
I know every blog under the sun has already published a post about former Alabama defensive tackle Terrence Cody’ s, ahem, figure, that he debuted at the first day of practice at the Senior Bowl. At first, I thought, what’s the point? Then I realized that I would be doing myself a tremendous disservice not publishing it and having that wonderful photo a part of the Sportress of Blogitude’s archives for all eternity – or at the very least, until I refuse to pay the annual fee to my hosting site.
So there you have it, folks, in all its splendor. Soak it all in. Terrence Cody is the reason cavemen painted on walls.
And one last thing about posting this a day late: if and when the aliens come down and force humankind into slavery so they can harvest whatever it is the aliens want out of our planet (seashells?), you never know which sports blog they will want to read to pass the time. If they choose my humble blog, at least we can take comfort in the fact that Terrence Cody’s tits will never be forgotten even after humanity has taken its last dying breath. And that’s a good thing.
Site News: I’m sorry to say on that note, the Sportress will be shut down on Thursday and Friday due to some personal affairs that unfortunately need to be attended to. I expect to be writing over at Out of Bounds this weekend so come visit me over there if you like. And as always, thanks for reading.
See you on Monday.
It’s 4:19, You Gotta Minute? (January 27th)
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It’s 4:19, You Gotta Minute? is S.O.B.’s afternoon link dump. Send tips here.
• It is time once again for KSK’s Celebrity Pickakke! Today, we have Paul Shirley and Steve Jobs. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]
• Phil Mickelson finally breaks his silence, discusses Tiger Woods. [Devil Ball Golf]
• Kim Kardashian will be spending Super Bowl week in Miami getting driven around in a armored limo. Yep. [Shutdown Corner]
• The Minnesota Vikings are going to look into why Adrian Peterson fumbles so much. That’s, uh, good. [The Sporting Blog]
• For $250, even a slob like you can hang out with Chad Ochocinco at his Super Bowl house party! [Busted Coverage]
Frank DeFord has been around the block once or twice and has forgotten more about sports than most of us will ever know, so as he gets older, we should all take his opinions with a grain of salt, specifically when he chooses to discuss newfangled, highfalutin, gosh-darned contraptions like Twitter.
In his most recent column for SI.com, “There are no guarantees … no matter how much we insist,” DeFord initially opines on why, with an astonishing degree of frequency, the modern athlete feels compelled to make guarantees regarding victories, personal accomplishments and the like. Moreover, he lays part of the blame on the media:
Actually, I don’t primarily blame athletes for this guaranteeing nonsense — which is just enthusiasm run amuck. I blame my colleagues in the media for promulgating this idiocy. It would be the equivalent of financial writers breathlessly printing verbatim whenever some unqualified analyst guaranteed that he could double your money in one stock overnight. Come on, guys, just because some jock babbles incoherently, you don’t have to pass it on.
Awesome. If I could ever write a paragraph about sports that eloquent, I’d give up the blogging game immediately afterward. But I will never accomplish such a feat, so I suppose I will be forced to continue “promulgating this idiocy,” to borrow a phrase from DeFord.
DeFord isn’t done with what’s wrong with sports by simply castigating his colleagues. He has some critical words about all this malarkey surrounding Twitter.
A fantastic bit of news recently came across the wire under the frustratingly misleading headline, “Can Emmitt Smith help save NBC from ‘Tonight Show’ mess?” Emmitt Smith (pictured above, becoming emotional while attempting to read) will be among the celebrities featured on a new NBC show, Who Do You Think You Are?, one of the first horrific-sounding programs that the struggling network has had to frantically come up with to fill the primetime schedule after Jay Leno’s primetime “experiment” fell flat on its face and he forced Conan out of a job.
The show featuring Smith’s family history will debut on March 5th at 8:00 EST.
According to an NBC press release, “Who Do You Think You Are?” gives viewers an up-close and personal look inside the family history of celebrities.
Think exploring the genealogy and family tree of your favorite star.
Among the celebrities featured are Matthew Broderick, Lisa Kudrow, Spike Lee, Sarah Jessica Parker, Susan Sarandon, Brooke Shields and Smith. This wouldn’t be the first reality TV stint for Smith, who won ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” competition a few years ago.
Wow! Lisa Kudrow and Sarah Jessica Parker? I better set my DVR toot sweet! No, better than that, I should probably instead quit my job and watch NBC nonstop until every episode of this brilliant concept has aired lest I miss even one second of the mind-blowing insight that will undoubtedly be revealed regarding people that I couldn’t care less about, let alone their family histories. For instance, did you know that Matthew Broderick’s maternal grandfather was also a closeted homosexual? Amazing!
Despite the presence of all these, ahem, A-listers, Emmitt Smith’s appearance will be the merciful coup de grâce for this horrible idea of a show. Why? Because watching Emmitt Smith butcher the word “geneology” might be too much for a primetime audience to bear, even for people who find Leno entertaining.
Can Emmitt Smith help save NBC from ‘Tonight Show’ mess? [The Dallas Morning News]
By now you have likely heard about the Paul Shirley-penned post, “If You Rebuild It, They Will Come” he wrote for the site Flip Collective where he takes what many consider a rather controversial viewpoint regarding the relief efforts in Haiti. Here’s a sampling of his thoughts:
I haven’t donated to the Haitian relief effort for the same reason that I don’t give money to homeless men on the street. Based on past experiences, I don’t think the guy with the sign that reads “Need You’re Help” is going to do anything constructive with the dollar I might give him. If I use history as my guide, I don’t think the people of Haiti will do much with my money either.
While Shirley has the absolute right to express his views – however unpopular on the surface they may be – the resulting backlash to the blog post didn’t sit too well with Shirley’s sometime employer, ESPN, who, clearly in full-blown damage control, has issued the following statement (via With Leather):
[Shirley] was a part-time freelance contributor. The views he expressed on another’s site of course do not at all reflect our company’s views on the Haiti relief efforts. He will no longer contribute to ESPN.
“Hey Jack Hillen, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” If he does, he might want to hold off for a while at least until the bleeding stops.
Not only were the New York Islanders left reeling after the 7-2 shellacking laid upon them by the Washington Capitals, they are also concerned today with the well-being of Jack Hillen, who took a vicious slapshot off the stick of Alex Ovechkin during the first period of last night’s game.
With the Capitals on the power play, a rebound squeaked outside the slot and just above the faceoff circles. As the Islanders scrambled in their zone to clear the puck, Ovechkin skated in and absolutely unloaded a massive shot. Hillen unfortunately was left defenseless as he took the full force of the slapshot to his face, falling to the ice where a sizable pool of blood began to appear.
Video follows.
If the Texas Rangers organization ever had any plans of luring a player of the talent and girth of Prince Fielder to Arlington, they might as well shelve them now since the team hired a dietitian to drastically alter the kinds of food available for the players in the clubhouse. That’s right, Texas Rangers, say goodbye to tasty treats like fried chicken and burgers and say hello to boring, bland food.
Dietitian Amy Goodson has been hired to help the Rangers improve their eating habits, NBC’s Dallas TV affiliate reported.
Goodson is replacing pizza, hamburgers, hot dogs and slushie machines with grilled chicken and fish, beans, rice and sports drinks.
“A lot of these guys need a lot of calories, but we want to make sure it’s the right kind of calories that are going to fuel performance,” Goodson told NBC.
Lame.
Wake N’ Blog is the Sportress of Blogitude’s morning link dump. It has time and money for girls covered with honey. If you’re bored and want to feel like you’re doing something with your life, send tips, goals, hopes and dreams here.
• If doing hard time in prison isn’t bad enough, a man in a Wisconsin prison has been banned from playing the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Via AP report: “Kevin T. Singer filed a federal lawsuit against officials at Wisconsin’s Waupun prison, arguing that a policy banning all Dungeons & Dragons material violated his free speech and due process rights.” Prison officials are concerned that the game promotes gang activity and when they discovered that Singer was carving a 20-sided die out of soapstone, that was the end of it. “Get busy livin’ or get busy hidin’ your Dungeon Master’s Guide, I guess.
What’s worse is the ruling sure doesn’t look good for the upstart Quidditch league a few Harry Potter-obsessed inmates were trying to get started. [MSNBC/AP]
• Sorry, Chicago Cubs: Andre Dawson will enter the Hall of Fame as a Montreal Expo. For you young punks out there, Montreal used to have a real live major league baseball team. [Chicago Tribune]
• Happy belated birthday, Wayne Gretzky. [Game On!]
Above is the sign for Club Evolution, a gay bar in Foley, Alabama. The owner for Club Evolution, Sixto Rivera, Jr., is arguing that a new ordinance requiring all bars to close at 2:00 a.m. hurts his business more than other drinking establishments. Further, he claims that the ordinance is simply a means to shut down his club.
“If you say there’s a problem, let’s see it with your own eyes,” Rivera told council members. “Don’t do this, because you’re taking away my rights as an American; my rights as a business owner and their rights as voters and citizens. To have the same rights as you people who were born and raised here in Foley.”
Rivera said city officials are trying to close the bar because some of his customers are gay.
“They call me a gay club,” he said. “If that’s what you’re going to call me, that’s what you’re going to call me because I’m open to everybody.”
I don’t know, maybe the fact that the sign has interlocking transgender-intersexual symbols might have something to do with the assumption that the bar caters to, shall we say, less “traditional” clientele,” at least what the term “traditional clientele” may mean in Alabama.
I’m sure the patrons of Club Evolution are relieved that Sixto Rivera, Jr. isn’t going down without a fight. Wait, that’s not right.
It’s 4:19, You Gotta Minute? (January 26th)
Posted by:• Ugh. As much as it hurts me to do this, here is the LOLNFL, Championship Sunday edition. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]
• Here’s video of a Saints fan reveling in his team’s first trip to the Super Bowl a bit too much. Hint: he vomits. [Busted Coverage]
• In keeping with the vomit theme, here is a photo of some marathoner chuffing at the finish line. [Total Pro Sports]
• Old man who was struck with a puck at a Capitals game last week thought he was “a goner.” And get this, he was there celebrating his 80th birthday. [D.C. Sports Bog]
• Who wouldn’t want an autographed Steve Nash hockey jersey? [Puck Daddy]
Sometimes, I wonder if Mark Cuban even thinks about what he is saying before he says it. And then I wonder why I am spending even one second thinking about what Mark Cuban is thinking.
Mark Cuban, never afraid to engage in a little hyperbole, said that the activities and parties leading up to the NBA All-Star Game in Dallas on February 14th “literally could be the largest party weekend in the history of the United States. That’s how big this thing has gotten.”
He then stated his belief that the festivities surrounding the Super Bowl are about as low-key as a Jewish coming-of-age ceremony.
“The Super Bowl, from a television perspective, is the biggest event of the year. But for attendance and partying, All-Star Weekend will make the Super Bowl look like a bar mitzvah.”
Huh. I have never been to a Bar Mitzvah myself, but I imagine them to be like any other social gathering – it’s all about who you invite. I bet Cuban has never been to a Bar Mitzvah where Me First & The Gimme Gimmes were the band. Talk about a rager.
Mark Cuban: Dallas All-Star Weekend will make ‘Super Bowl look like a bar mitzvah’ [The Dallas Morning News (via Game On!]
In light of the tragic details surrounding the death of Nancy Kerrigan’s father Daniel comes news that the Grim Reaper has visited yet another family of a U.S. Olympic athlete to take away a beloved parent. Meredith Beery, the mother of Dan Beery, a member of the 2004 U.S. rowing team that won a gold medal, was killed in a traffic accident.
Police say 65-year-old Meredith Beery of Oaktown was pronounced dead at the scene of the crash near Terre Haute. The Vigo County Sheriff’s Department says her SUV crossed the center line and hit a pickup truck Sunday morning.
Yowsers. If you happen to be a parent, crap, even a relative of somebody who has competed in the Olympics, you might want try and be extra cautious over the next couple of days. Yeesh.
Mother of Ind. Olympic medalist killed in crash [Sporting News/AP]
Skater Nancy Kerrigan’s brother jailed in father’s death [CNN]
Those Hollywood big shots and their highfalutin, party-all-the-time lifestyles!
A “spy” has reported that Paul Rudd, best known for his starring role in Overnight Delivery, was spotted hanging out at Lansdowne, a sports bar in New York City Sunday evening after the NFC Championship game and actually interacted with some of the other patrons! That’s crazy stuff, indeed. You know, because he lives in New York City and is known as a pretty friendly, outgoing person.
A spy at the Chelsea hangout says that when a group of women at the next table recognized him and started quoting from his flick “Knocked Up,” the actor joined in the fun.
“He was finishing their sentences, and they were all doubled over laughing,” a fellow football fan told us. “Much of the bar started joining in.”
So, people spot Paul Rudd at a bar and the they can come up with are Knocked Up references? I don’t know if it’s ever a good time to remind someone that they once had to work with that arrogant, overrated hag Katherine Heigl.
Yeah, I went there. I don’t even care if she hears about it. MEEEEEE-YOWWWW, amirite?
Ah, who am I kidding? To be honest, I was just trying out some celebrity-sports snarkiness here and this post was simply an unsolicited audition for a writing gig for TMZ Sports. How do you think I did? I’m pretty confident you would just tell me I did totally awesome, so don’t even bother letting me know. But hey, TMZ: call me!
Paul Rudd ‘Knocked’ out by fans at New York’s Lansdowne sports bar in Chelsea [New York Daily News]
The Space Shuttle Atlantis – pictured above docking with the Russian Space Station Mir way back in 1995 - had some precious cargo aboard the ship during its most recent mission. Okay, not really “precious” in the true sense of the word, but maybe interesting? Okay, not really interesting either, but it’s somewhat related to sports, so there you go.
During an 11-day mission this past November, the coin that will be used for the official toss at Super Bowl XLIV in Miami was aboard the Atlantis, along with some other football memorabilia.
Along with the coin, Detroit Lions and Dallas Cowboys jerseys and a football inscribed with the names of all Hall of Fame members were on the shuttle flight. All the items will be presented to the Hall in Canton, Ohio, on Wednesday.
Detroit Lions, eh? Huh. I suppose even the Hall of Fame needs to throw that franchise a bone every once in a while.
For those people who feel that NASA frequently pisses away money that could be better used especially considering these trying economic times, have no fear: from what I understand about the cost of space travel, bringing along the NFL cargo probably only cost taxpayers an additional $78 million. But I should point out I know absolutely nothing about space travel, except for what I have gleaned from watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, so my guess is that NASA put a Klingon in charge of the security for the memorabilia.
Klingons are real, right?
Space shuttle crew to provide coin that travelled into space for Super Bowl toss [The Canadian Press]
Wake N’ Blog is the Sportress of Blogitude’s morning link dump. It did it like this, it did it like that, it did it with a wiffle ball bat. Tips and other stuff should be sent here.
• Eric Favetta, a 31-year-old employee at the PetSmart in Secaucus, New Jersey was fired for “theft of services” for bringing his dog into work and placing it in the “doggy day care” facility after he picked up an overnight shift when the store is not even open. PetSmart, a store than encourages customers to bring pets into the store, mind you, eventually offered him another job at a different store but Favetta had already secured other employment. [MSNBC]
• Nearly sixty million people watched the Game That Shall Not Be Named on Sunday evening. [Sports Media Watch]
• Thankfully, only two teams will have their seasons screwed up as the NFL has announced it will not add a second regular season game in Britain in 2010. [Fox Sports]
• A look at the NHL’s “Gordie Howe Hat Trick” which consists of a goal, an assist and a fight in the same game. [NHL.com]
