Archive for October, 2010
You know, come to think of it, has there ever been such a thing as a billboard war before the current pissing match taking place between the Knicks and the Nets? I don’t think so. Well, leave it to New York teams to engage in such a childish, moronic feud.
You might recall back in July when the Nets ruffled the feathers of the Knicks organization by erecting a 225-by-95-foot billboard featuring Jay-Z and new Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov near Madison Square Garden in an attempt to establish the team’s new turf in nearby Brooklyn. The brash move sent Knicks owner James Dolan into a childish tantrum, prompting him to actually call Jay-Z to inform the rap mogul/Nets part-owner that the billboard was “intimidating to his employees.” Say what? Intimidating how? Did it confuse the Knicks employees so much it caused them to spin into a state of panic, fearful for their lives from the thought that a giant mad Russian and Brooklyn rapper were going to pluck them up on their way into the Garden and devour them? What a goofball.
Easily the most intriguing person involved in the World Series, the oddball that is Giants closer Brian Wilson keeps on bringing the crazy. If he’s not making allusions to the mysterious “The Machine” to Chris Rose, he’s attracting loads of attention from the unique, slightly unhinged persona he has created for himself. Not only that, and perhaps even more than anything, Wilson has become quite the attraction due to the fact he has the most magnificent beard in major league baseball going.
When the topic of his beard was brought up recently with the press, Wilson addressed the theory posed by some that he might be dyeing his beard to get it so dark. He also responded to a query as to whether or not he has considered dyeing his beard orange for the World Series. Here’s what the delightfully weird Wilson had to say (via The Fabulous Forum):
“I’ve given it thought,” Wilson said, with an impish grin. “It’s just dark because we play a lot of day games. It’s tanned.”
Wait. What? I don’t know what color the sky is in Wilson’s world, but one thing is for certain: the sun in that sky of his has some pretty weird effects on facial hair.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to take Wilson’s twisted logic to heart regarding the magical properties of ultraviolet rays and go see if I can get my teeth tanned. A well-bronzed set of chompers would be ten kinds of awesome. Or completely gross and off-putting. But it would most certainly be different, something I’m pretty sure Wilson would appreciate.
Fear the beard? Not in orange, Giants’ Brian Wilson says [The Fabulous Forum]
Minnesota Timberwolves, Kevin Love has always been an opinionated fellow of sorts and has never been afraid to let it all hang out, especially when it comes to his online presence. You might recall when Love, in 2009, experienced a bout of premature etweetulation when he announced to the world via his Twitter account that Kevin McHale was no longer the T-Wolves’ general manager, unaware that a formal announcement had not yet been made. Oops.
Because of his affinity for presenting his straightforward opinions, Love landed a gig writing an NBA blog for GQ, called “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” obviously an homage to the classic song by the Joy Division. Love didn’t take long to get controversial, because in his first post, published yesterday, the T-Wolves forward took exception with something Bill Simmons said during a podcast about the woeful Timberwolves and the outlook of their season. Love then proceeded to lay into the The Sports Guy.
Oh, snap! Suck on that, Bill Simmons! While it remains to be seen whether Love and his teammates will be able to make good on his lofty goals for his squad this season, the fact that Love called out #1 NBA Sports Fan Bill Simmons is definitely a shot across the bow to all the media types who don’t give the Wolves a chance to be even moderately successful this season, although said media types’ expectations are likely more accurate than Love’s. But to talk smack regarding Bill Simmons’ considerable NBA knowledge and his “highly-regarded” (heh) gambling acumen? That’s gutsy, Kevin Love. Bill Simmons is a national treasure and should be treated as such. Love doesn’t know who he’s messing with! In any event, in light of Simmons’ negative outlook regarding the T-Wolves’ season, there’s no way he’s going to see his name up in lights around Target Center anytime soon.
Love Will Tear Us Apart [GQ (via RandBall)]
Just let me note first that if a person, a team or an organization is looking for an instant dose of credibility on the streets, the very best thing to do is align themselves with the realest teen pop idol out there, Justin Bieber. We’re talking instant respect here.
With that said, the Lakers, who were presented their NBA championship rings last night at Staples Center before they took on the Houston Rockets in their season opener, are clearly the frontrunners to be the favorite team of tween girls and pedophiles the world over after Jeannie Buss, the daughter of Lakers owner Jerry Buss, somehow managed to procure Phil Jackson’s ring which she then loaned to Bieber so he could wear it while he sat courtside during the game. Buss apparently has the Bieber Fever and must have used her feminine wiles to convince Jackson to surrender his ring for a few hours. Nice.
Yep. Justin Bieber was wearing an NBA championship ring. Charles Barkley doesn’t know what to think.
Actually, I do have some idea what Barkley might be thinking: “Why is some chick wearing a Lakers ring? That’s turrible.” Something like that.
Justin Bieber rocks Lakers ring at game [FOX Sports]
Wake N’ Blog: Mmmmm, 1.7 Mile Long Burrito…
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Wake N’ Blog is the Sportress of Blogitude’s morning link dump. Send tips, link submissions and your ideas for the next ginormous Mexican food delicacy someone should create to weedagainstspeed@gmail.com.
• More than 3,000 people in La Paz, Mexico are going to take a crack at breaking the record for the world’s largest burrito when they attempt to roll up a 1.7-mile long burrito next month. That would break last year’s world record by 700 meters. “ill take 12 hours to make, starting at midnight, and will pack three tons of fish, two tons of corn flour, half a ton of beans, 200 kilograms (450 pounds) of butter and 200 kilograms of salt.” Once completed, the megaburrito will be sliced and served up for free. That’s it, I’m going to La Paz. Clear my schedule, imaginary secretary lady. [Yahoo!/AFP]
• Here are some hockey-themed Halloween costumes for the frugally-minded. [Puck Daddy]
• Far out: Giants fan offers weed in exchange for World Series tickets. [Larry Brown Sports]
• Yes, what you heard is true: a Cleveland radio station hired a witch doctor to put a curse on LeBron James. [Out of Bounds]
• An alleged mistress of Tiger Woods has a book coming out. [Wei Under Par]
• Check out what Smiths frontman Morrissey thinks of recent NHL action. [Melt Your Face Off]
• PGA golfer Bubba Watson just might be completely insane. [Waggle Room]
• Giants closer Brian Wilson is easily the most intriguing character of World Series. [The Legend of Cecilio Guante]
• When rap and the NHL collide, this is what you get. [Bob's Blitz]
• Here’s another new Nike commercial. This one features Dwyane Wade and Kevin Hart. [The Sporting Rave]
• Chris Bosh presents, “Tall Justice.” [That NBA Lottery Pick]
• Displaced Rangers fan quits job in the legal field to watch World Series. [Big League Stew]
• The Onion Headline of the Day: Area Man Can’t Decide Whether To Give Sandwich To Homeless Man Or Ducks
It’s 4:19, You Gotta Minute?
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• Standout Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon got popped for DUI. [EDSBS]
• In somewhat predictable news, John Daly admits he’s a better golfer when drunk. Aren’t we all? [Devil Ball Golf]
• HHR spent five minutes with Jets offensive lineman Nick Mangold. [Hugging Harold Reynolds]
• The oddness of Giants closer Brian Wilson might be a bit contrived, but who cares? It’s hilarious. [Walkoff Walk]
• Ladies and gentlemen, the Dallas Cowboys Panic Button. You know you want to push it. [TAUNTR]
• UFC is going big time, set to debut on network television in 2011. [Larry Brown Sports]
• Four-year-old girl can recite the names of every player on North Carolina’s basketball team. [The Dagger]
• It’s time for this week’s mascot power rankings, everyone. [Out of Bounds]
• This is what the aftermath of a skate to the neck looks like. Yowsers. [Puck Daddy]
• Vermont is the only state in the Union where a majority of folks believe that the fan was most responsible for the brouhaha between him and Rick Rypien. [Melt Your Face Off]
• The caption writers for Getty Images photos are clearly off their rocker. [Bob's Blitz]
• Tony Dungy would like to remind a certain segment of our population that no matter what, it gets worse. So much worse. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]
• The Onion Headline of the Day, Part II: My Opponent Knows Where Washington Is On A Map; I Don’t, And I Never Will (By Ron Johnson, Republican Candidate For Wisconsin Senator)
Send tips, link submissions, etc. to weedagainstspeed@gmail.com.
I must admit this is a more of a regional story (shout out to my peeps kicking it in Utah), but I wanted to shed some light on how folks do their D-League-ing up Utah way.
On November 1st, the eating and drinking (they can still drink in most of Utah, right?) establishment of Noah’s in Lindon will be the place to be as the Utah Flash, everybody’s favorite NBA D-League team, will be holding their 2010 draft party. Fans in attendance will be able to rub elbows with the “team’s top brass” as “they make some of their most important personnel decisions of the year.”
Via The Salt Lake Tribune:
Fans will be able to watch along during the eight rounds of the draft and listen to Flash coach Kevin Young explain his rationale for his decisions. The team has the eighth pick in the first round.
Sounds like not only a hoot, but a holler as well. It almost makes you wish you were living large in Lindon, Utah right about now. Almost.
Flash to host D-League draft party [The Salt Lake Tribune]
The geniuses behind choosing which musical acts get the high profile gig of singing the national anthem before a World Series game really “knocked one out of the park” with the choice of corn-fed Texas native Kelly Clarkson, who happens to be the lucky gal who will belt out “The Star Spangled Banner” before Game 3 when the World Series switches locales from San Francisco and is played in the Rangers’ home ballpark in Arlington.
For the opening two games of the World Series in San Francisco, the national anthem will be sung by John Legend (John Who-Now?) prior to Game 1 and something called Lady Cerebellum (wait, it’s Lady Antebellum? Same dif) will perform before Game 2.
Wow. Great job, MLB. Talk about pulling out all the stops to land three of the top musical acts currently going. Considering the high profile acts they have lined up for the first two game, I cannot wait to see who they have in store for Game 4, let alone Games 5, 6 and 7 (if necessary, of course). All I know is Sisqo, Daniel Powter, Lou Bega and Macy Gray better stay close to their phones. The magical call which would shoot them right back into relevancy could be on its way lickety split.
On second thought, scratch Macy Gray from that list and plug in Vanessa Carlton instead. Because you know that I would walk a thousand miles just to see her…get another shot.
Kelly Clarkson to sing national anthem at first Rangers’ home World Series game [The Dallas Morning News]
Above is a photo of Mary Jane Schriner, 77, who is currently embroiled in a legal battle with the New York Yankees regarding her desire to publish 19 personal letters the late, great George Steinbrenner wrote to her from 1949-1951 when Steinbrenner obviously had taken a shine to they young Mary Jane.
Schriner, who had the maiden name of Elster way back when the two were both coming of age in the Cleveland suburb of Bay Village (the “Hicksville town we live in,” as Steinbrenner once referred to it as in one of the letters to Schriner), does not understand why anyone affiliated with the Yankees or Steinbrenner’s family would have any problems with the publishing of these sweet letters which revealed a softer side to the blustery personality baseball fans worldwide have come to love (or hate), but team spokesperson Alice McGillion has indicated in an e-mail to the AP that “[t]hese are personal letters from George,” and that “[t]hese are not letters than we want published.”
Further, Schriner has nothing but the kindest words regarding the love of her youth (via AP):
“He just was very, very nice. I can’t think of a mean thing to say about him,” she told The Associated Press by phone. “He just couldn’t have been nicer. He was over at our house all the time. That said, in the letters, in one of them, he apologized for being such a pest and thought my parents might get sick of seeing him.”
To me, this all seems to be much ado about nothing. They are sweet letters written by a young man in the passion of his youth and only shed light on who the legend became the man he turned into. More so, in light of a very personal, very provocative correspondence which came into my possession via the covert operations of the Sportress’ many minions, the innocent letters to Mary Jane Elster are child’s play.
Read on, if you dare. Troubling issues are raised regarding the man, the myth, the legend, The Boss.
And quite excellently, I might add.
Created by a mad autotune genius who goes by the moniker DJ Steve Porter, this little remastered ditty features not only Andy Reid addressing the quandary the Eagles head coach finds himself in regarding which healthy QB he should start against Indianapolis in two weeks, but also some remixed comments by the quarterbacks in the middle of this confusing conundrum, Michael Vick and Kevin Kolb.
Now this is the kind of fresh jam that should undoubtedly shoot up the charts on Philly radio, because everyone knows that Andy Reid is a respected individual in the Philadelphia sports community and anything with his name attached to it is gold in City of Brotherly Love. Up until the playoffs, that is.
[H/T The700Level]
Former professional hockey player Bob Sirois, who played 286 career games in the NHL during stints with the Philadelphia Flyers and Washington Capitals, is about to drop a mind-blowing bomb upon the National Hockey League by pulling back the curtain and revealing the deplorable discriminatory practiced by the league as it pertains to its bigoted actions…against non-English speaking Canadians, Americans and Europeans.
Stop the insanity! It’s hard enough for regular white guys out there, now this? Shame on you, NHL!
Well, that sure is a relief. Had Jamario Moon intended to replace the most despised native son of Ohio, that could have possibly set into motion another heartbreaking split down the road when Moon, as a highly sought after free agent, would have spurned the Cavaliers to take his talents somewhere else or whatever, setting off an unfortunate sequence of events which would have prompted Cavs owner Dan Gilbert to do something else incredibly stupid, probably involving the Comic Sans font.
And obviously, that wouldn’t be good for anybody. Duh.
Who are the memorabilia wizards who came up with this one? By all appearances, it sure looks like some savvy ones, because for $39.99 (plus $5.99 shipping and handling) at shopNHL.com, you too can order a bottle containing water which was once the ice sheet from the old skating grounds of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Mellon Arena. Making the bottle of dirty water even more valuable is that it derived from the ice surface from the very last game at The Igloo, a May 12th game against the Montreal Canadiens, a heartbreaking 4-3 home loss to the Habs in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals, a stunner which prematurely eliminated the Penguins from the postseason.
But now that the Penguins have moved into their new digs this season, the brand-spanking new Consol Energy Center, all the miscellaneous crap from the old arena is now obviously a valuable commodity to memorabilia enthusiasts with money to burn. Can you imagine how much other, for all intents and purposes, useless junk from Mellon could be sold for if they can get away with charging $40 for a little bottle of nasty brown water? The mind boggles. If only they could somehow figure out a way to extract and bottle Sidney Crosby’s irritating petulance. Now that, my friends, is a product which would most certainly move quickly, if only for the sole purpose of cleaning out Crosby’s seemingly unlimited reserve of the stuff.
[H/T Mondesi's House]
I’ve got some bad news to break to all the fans of psychic cephalopods out there: Paul the Octopus Oracle who achieved worldwide fame for his ability to predict the outcomes of matches during the 2010 World Cup, has sadly shuffled off this mortal coil. Paul was two-years-old, which seems awfully young but to be honest, I have no clue how long octopuses usually live. And given the fact that Paul was the recipient of death threats due to the controversial nature of his prognostications, the fact that he managed to get through everything unscathed makes this a heartbreaking development, especially to those who knew him well, the staff at the Oberhausen Sea Life Centre in western Germany (via Yahoo!/Reuters):
“He appears to have passed away peacefully during the night, of natural causes, and we are consoled by the knowledge that he enjoyed a good life,” said the centre’s manager Stefan Porwoll.
Adding that they were “devastated” by the sudden and tragic demise of the greatly-loved inverterbrate, the staff have made a commitment to ensuring that Paul’s contributions to the world are not quickly forgotten, so says the centre’s manager, Stefan Porwoll:
“We may decide to give Paul his own small burial plot within our grounds and erect a modest permanent shrine,” he said.
While that would be a dignified way to preserve his memory, for the time being, Paul is to remain in cold storage – perhaps to one day, given the needed technological advancements, even be reanimated along with the likes of Ted Williams and Walt Disney. We can hope. But for now, let us celebrate Paul’s memory, with a little song I am certain Paul would have loved.
Yeah. That was nice. Happy trails, Paul. You will be missed.
World Cup’s psychic octopus dies in Germany [Yahoo!/Reuters]
Wake N’ Blog is the Sportress of Blogitude’s morning link dump. Send tips, link submissions, comments and complaints to weedagainstspeed@gmail.com.
• DUR! After smoking something he thought was marijuana, a man from southwestern Pennsylvania called 911 to report that “it was nasty.” To add insult to injury, police who reported to the scene determined that the substance wasn’t actually weed but the man could still face charges of possessing a counterfeit controlled substance, presumably because this guy is a complete idiot and deserves to be punished for it. [Yahoo!/AP]
• Shocker: Rick Rypien regrets grabbing that Wild fan. [Puck Daddy]
• A treasure trove of Tony Romo injury images. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]
• Now that Romo is out for the foreseeable future, is Jerry Jones dumb and arrogant enough to go after JaMarcus Russell? Probably. [Larry Brown Sports]
• Miami bar to offer free drinks every time the Heat lose a game. Yeah. [Out of Bounds]
• Speaking of the Heat, LeBron James’ new commercial will probably not reverse the anti-LeBron frenzy. [You Been Blinded]
• A five minute compilation of every viral sports-related video from the past year. [Bob's Blitz]
• Yeah, it sure doesn’t look like Reggie Bush will be getting back together with Kim Kardashian anytime soon. [The Jersey Chaser]
• Having trouble coming up with a costume idea for Halloween? Try these five on for size. [TAUNTR]
• Steve Nash isn’t feeling too confident about the Suns’ chances this season. [Ted Williams Head]
• The Onion Headline of the Day: Area Man A Walking Encyclopedia Of Everything Except Leading A Normal Life
