Categories
New York Jets

The media’s muscle is flexing for Thomas Jones

So, we were just surfing along, minding our own business when this article about Thomas Jones and his rippling muscles jumped off the screen and smacked us across the face. Tom Rock spent the whole story slobbering over Jones’ arms like an enamored little school girl. Sounds to us like Rock might have a bit of a man crush going on, kinda like how Mark Cuban feels about his MVP.

With his bulging, tattooed biceps on display below those tucked-under white sleeves, it would be easy to think that Jones was the only Jet wearing full pads during the shorts-and-helmets practice. But it was all him.

Now we know that Jones is a physical specimen but this seems just a bit too Danielle Steel for our taste. But that’s all beside the point; what really got our goat was that this journalist was clueless when it came to the human anatomy. Rock needs to start doing a little research before he just dishes out descriptions like “freakishly large arms.” Sorry buddy, but this is the only guy we can find who is considered to be “armed and dangerous.”

But to be fair to Mr. Rock, he isn’t the only one who is starting to make football seem sort of creepy. We came across this piece on WCBSTV.com and the author seemed to have the same dreamy-eyed approach when describing Jones.

Jones’ jersey sleeves were rolled up to his shoulders, probably because the fabric would be no match to contain his sinewy arms. And it’s hard not to notice them, covered in tattoos and looking as if they should be on a professional bodybuilder.

Are we the only ones who feel dirty reading this?

Links:

[GreggValentino.net]: Home Page

Categories
All Other Sports

Oh, and you think you could spell "aniseikonia" ?!?

Now, we don’t usually bring you news from the world of spelling but, as you could probably tell by the interruption of your normal ABC broadcasting, the 2007 Scripps National Spelling Bee went down on Thursday…and we have a new champion, baby! Evan O’Dorney, 13, spelled “serrefine” without any problems to cap off a consonant and vowel filled tournament and won $35,000, plus a $5,000 scholarship and a $2,500 saving bond. Not a bad day’s haul if you ask us.

But it wasn’t all smiles at the bee as many casualties were left in O’Dorney’s path to the trophy, including Samir Patel, who many considered to be the favorite before the event. But the teary-eyed little nerd sealed his own fate last week when he compared not winning the alphabet bowl to “Dan Marino not winning the Super Bowl.” After he said that, Samir was doomed to misspell something simple like “clevis.”

Samir wiped away tears as he talked about his gaffe.

“The first thing I thought was c-l-e-v-i-s, and if I had been slow and cautious like I always am, I would have got it right,” he said. “But I just outsmarted myself. It was an easy word. I just made a stupid mistake.

But, hey, dry those tears baby boy; you’re the Dan Marino of spelling. That’s something to be proud of. It’s not as impressive as winning the big one, but it’s not bad. And you made ESPN’s “Best of the Bee,” so that’s pretty cool, huh?

Well, you did get outshined by the Napoleon Dynamite kid and that boy that fainted definitely showed more heart than you did. Hmmm, well you can spell really well and nobody can take that from you. You just can’t spell as good as this spastic little girl.

Links:

[Examiner.com]: Boy Wins Spelling Bee With `Serrefine’

Categories
NBA General

Around the Rim: King of the road


1. Video game James
There has been lots of criticism about LeBron James‘ game of late, but nobody can say anything about the league’s young King anymore. Scoring 29 of your team’s final 30 points in a double overtime Game 5 road game victory has a way of shutting people up. LBJ ended up with a career playoff-high 48 points as he led his Cavaliers to a 109-107 win that put his boys up 3-2 in the Eastern Conference finals and just one win away from a finals appearance. Oh, and let’s don’t forget about his nine boards and seven assists; the kid is multidimensional, ya know. However, Detroit has been making it easy for LBJ to win games for his team; just like they’ve blown a 2-0 lead in the series, the Pistons blew a seven point lead in Game 5 with 3:15 left in regulation. But the Bad Boys could have been up by 20 with the clock winding down and James was going to find a way to win that game. Big shot after big shot after big shot; it was an incredible performance. And even though the reference is way overused when it comes to some of today’s young superstars, LeBron’s takeover of Game 5 was definitely Michael Jordan-esque.

2. The Magic’s man

The Magic are ready to shoot up the Eastern Conference ranks with an All-Star in the middle and talented young point guard running things on the floor. And now it appears that they now finally have the superstar coach to guide take this franchise back to the promised land. Billy Donovan had fulfilled his duty to Florida by winning a pair of championships and after all his players jumped ship for the NBA there is absolutely no reason for him to turn down a five year deal worth $27.5 million from Orlando. And talk about stepping into a sweet situation! Most college coaches end up running squads like the Hawks when they get the big call; but not Donovan. Nope, a championship pedigree has earned this former Gator an immediate opportunity at success. Now we just have to wait and see if he’ll be another college punk who couldn’t make it with the big boys.

3. Movin’ on up
If you enjoy hearing Steve Kerr‘s in-depth analysis and self-references of dishing the ball off to Tim Duncan and Michael Jordan while racking up five rings o’ bling then you better be DVR-ing these final Eastern Conference finals games. Why you ask. Well, once either the Pistons or Cavs move on to play the Spurs, Kerr will be leaving the TNT booth for an awesome gig as the Suns president of basketball operations and general manager. Mike D’Antoni will be stepping down as GM so that he can be a full time coach and Kerr can be a full time fat cat. No more having to put up with Marv Albert‘s stupid comments or spending nights squeezed in-between John Thompson and Kevin Harlan while his spits out his obnoxious “Buckle up!!” catch phrase. Not a bad promotion if you ask us. We’d like to see that schmuck Mark Jackson from ESPN do that.

Thursday’s Player of the Day: LeBron James @ Detroit 50 min, 48 pts (FG: 18-33, 3FG: 2-3, FT: 10-14), 9 reb, 7 ast, 2 stl

Buzzer Beater: There’s a saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but Salt Lake City might have something to say about that after John Amaechi gave his old home town a shout out as “the hippest, gayest place east of San Francisco.” We’re sure that Deron Williams was even happier about his current situation in Utah after hearing that excerpt from Amaechi’s memoirs. Not that there is anything wrong with that. In fact, Utah will be drenched in gayness this weekend when Amaechi serves as the grand marshal for the Utah Pride Parade. But America is still waiting for an active player to come out of the closet and lead one of these parades in uniform. And hurry it up Brady Quinn; we’re not getting any younger.

Categories
NBA General

Odds and Ends: ESPN finally makes itself useful


ESPN sucks. There’s hardly any redeeming features to the slow ass bloated website or the retarded programming but we finally found something that’s worth using over at “.com.” The Trade Machine allows you to propose a trade between up to 4 teams and the website will figure out if the trade will work from a salary standpoint and point out any clauses that might negate the trade.

For example, if you want to test the trade that Peter Vecsey is claiming might happen between the Pacers and the Lakers, you could put in Jermaine O’Neal for Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom. But the resulting trade would fail because “the Lakers are over the cap, and their incoming salaries are greater than 125% plus $100,000 of their outgoing salaries. They need to cut $10,405 from the incoming trade value to make this trade successful.” With all the trade rumors flying around, it’s fun to see if it even makes sense salary wise.

In other news…

[Sportsline]: Prosecutor: Informants say they can link Vick to dogfighting

[Can’t Stop the Bleeding]: Florida A&M basketball coach arrested for stalking a woman

[The Big Lead]: So this is why UFC can’t market Rampage Jackson

[The Offside]: People really need to stop thinking up new sports

[The Golf Blog]: Michele Wie is kinda useless

And finally, a random story about a woman who is suing Wal-Mart because she slipped in a puddle of vomit. Investigators don’t know how to proceed because you can’t really dust for vomit.

Categories
New York Yankees

A-Rod "likes the she-male, muscular type." Hmmmm… like Derek Jeter?



Cynthia Rodriguez is not happy

We had a whole conspiracy theory yesterday that the report and pictures of Alex Rodriguez with some blonde in Toronto was drummed up by A-Rod and the Yankees to take everyone’s attention away from the fact that the Yankees are in last place in the AL East and effectively out of competition for the title. Well, either A-Rod’s wife is in on it too or he’s in serious trouble.

The NY Daily News, with writers who were chewed out by the Editor in Chief for missing out on the scoop, launched into a full fledged investigation in multiple cities about A-Rod’s womanizing. The Daily News reports that A-Rod’s wife Cynthia packed up a couple of suitcases and left their East Side condo. But that’s not all, they also report on possible infidelities in Miami, Tampa and Las Vegas. It seems taking hot chicks to strip clubs is A-Rod’s M.O.

There are a couple of startling revelations in this Pulitzer -worthy piece. First, a (we assume female looking) stripper claims that A-Rod “likes the she-male, muscular type. They brought me up to the champagne room one time. I spun around once and that was it. I’m not his type.” Second, A-Rod, king of the strip clubs, “loves to text dirty.” (How much do you want to bet some blog is already working on a fictitious A-Rod text message log?)

Luckily for Yankees fans, both Rodriguez and Torre have said that these reports won’t affect the play of the Yankees. So expect a lot of below .500 ball for the rest of the year.

And finally, Sports by Brooks tells us that those ESPN douchebags Mike and Mike are appalled that anyone would spill the beans about infidelity on a major baseball superstar. Mike Golic probably got some tail by virtue of his professional athlete status but you know Greenie had to pay for it.

Links:

[NY Daily News]: As wife packs up, is A-Rod out at home?

Categories
NHL General

2007 Stanley Cup Finals Game 1 Review


Ducks 1, Senators 0
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t actually watch this game, because I was at a coffee bar in Hartford, CT trying to pick up some foxy ladies. It’s a good thing, too – not that I failed miserably in trying to get girls (that’s bad), but that I didn’t watch it – because me, not being a hockey purist, probably wouldn’t have appreciated this see-saw battle.

The only goal came from Samuel Pahlsson, interesting in the sense that Sami’s main role in this series was supposed to be checking the hell out of good, scoring-centric Sens players. Now, for two consecutive games – that being 1 and 2, for those of you in the know – an Anaheim player mostly responsible for checking (Travis Moen in Game 1) has scored the essential goal for the Ducks, in the process giving them a 2-0 advantage and helping them to retain home ice advantage.

As we said earlier, no Canadian team has actually hoisted Lord Stanley’s chalice since 1992, when the Montreal Canadiens did it. That’s 15 years, which seems like an egregiously long period of time considering that Canada is probably the No. 1 thing you associate with hockey, at least in a geographic sense. For the Sens to make this interesting, here’s what has to happen:

1. Emery has to enter complete lockdown mode, like Giguere was in last night. No mental mistakes.

2. Their first line – Heatley, Alfredsson, and Spezza – has to start lighting the red light frequently.

3. They have to take the Ducks checking lines and let them hit ’em, but don’t let those guys get open looks at the net.

4. They have to somehow imagine the Ducks are, in fact, the Buffalo Sabres.

Brett Hull predicted this series would be over in five games. One win in Ottawa, and I’ll go with him. Every Cup Finals since ’01 with just one exception has gone seven games. I’d love to see this one join it, so long as we can get a few 5-4, 2OT finals in there as well.

Categories
Cincinnati Bengals

Someone might want to check Chad Johnson for horse steroids

So, if you had to guess, which NFL player would you say is crazy enough to race a friggin’ horse? Give up? Well, we all know that Ray Buchanan would probably guess it would be Shannon Sharpe but Sharpe doesn’t have the stones to go one-on-one with a stallion. You gotta be a batshit, fruit-loopy, Man-Ram type nutjob to go “man vs. beast” with a horse. So, Chad Johnson is naturally a perfect fit.

Ocho-Cinco will be taking on Restore the Roar on June 9 at the River Downs racetrack in Cincinnati, Ohio in order to raise money for Feed the Children. We can’t knock the guy for doing something to benefit a worthwhile charity but we have a feeling that he’d be trying to outrun the animals during a trip to an African wildlife safari. But regardless of motives, any way you slice it, this will be another entertaining adventure brought to you by Mr. Johnson.

While we’re not experts in the art of man vs. beast, we feel pretty comfortable in saying that the safe money is on the horse because we’ve seen the old FOX show where that track dude got smoked by a zebra and then had the balls to accuse “Zippity” of cheating.

We suggest that Chad calls off the race against Restore the Roar altogether and tries to race a giraffe instead. Maybe Carl Lewis can work the sidelines of that event as well.

Links:

[ESPN]: Man vs. horse in benefit race at River Downs

Categories
Oakland Raiders

Jerry Porter might be an idiot but one thing he is not is an idiot


Jerry Porter was ready to make a change in life; a fresh start and a new attitude to complete the new Randy Moss and Art Shell-less Raiders. And Porter was signifying his rebirth with a switch from jersey No. 84 to No. 81. But then he found out that it was going to cost him $210,000 and he threw on that old No. 84 quicker than you can say “I’ll shoot your motherfuckin’ ass with a blowdart, dawg.”

Turns out that there’s a whole business aspect to the NFL that Porter didn’t think about and he would have to fork over the $210,000 for the wardrobe change in order to pay back the team and Reebok for the price of all the unsold jerseys with the old number on them. Guess he figured the league would just send `em to some third world country like they do with all of the Super Bowl loser’s gear. But like any good businessman, Porter knows how far his money will stretch and the close to a quarter-of-a-million dollar penalty just didn’t seem like a fair swap for the three digit reduction.

Man, there’s a couple of nice cars I’d like to get for that money,” Porter said. “I could buy a nice vacation home, or at least go half on one with someone else.

We’re not sure exactly what kind of a vacation pad Porter is looking for but Ahman Green could probably give him the lowdown on some current prices.

But hopefully for the Raiders this doesn’t mean that he’s going to be putting off that whole attitude adjustment thing. Jamarcus Russell would probably really appreciate having a top receiver to throw to who doesn’t get suspended for insubordination. And Lane Kiffin could really do without Porter’s public trade demand stunts as he opens up his career in Oakland. But, hey, anyone who doesn’t get accused of being a kingpin of the dog fighting world gets a free pass this season.

Links:

[FoxSports.com]: Porter’s number change too expensive

Categories
NBA General

Around the Rim: The Spurs are celebrating again



Wonder how the lil’ Frenchman is gonna
commemorate the event?

1. And that’s how the West is won
Most people figured that the Spurs wouldn’t be returning to Salt Lake City after they grabbed a Game 4 victory on Monday, and it turns out that most people were right. San Antonio came out of the gates with guns blazing and the Jazz were overwhelmed from the opening tip as the Spurs ended the series with a 109-84 victory that put them into the NBA finals for the fourth time since 1999. The Spurs stars had plenty of time to rest during the game but now they still have a whole week to kill before the finals kick off next Thursday. And with a veteran team for the most part, San Antonio will definitely opt for a chance to rest over the risk of rust. The Jazz have a lot to build on with Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams in the lineup, but as long as Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili are teamed up in SA, it is going to be tough for anyone to get past this squad.

2. Kobe’s flip-flopping like a fish

Well the Kobe Bryant rollercoaster took some unexpected turns on Wednesday when the Mamba said that he wanted out of Los Angeles and then promptly changed his mind after a talk with the Zen Master. Bryant went from hate to love in a matter of hours with his bosses, but what else can you expect out of Hollywood. We’re guessing that the twists and turns aren’t going to be ending anytime soon because even if Bryant has supposedly changed his mind about the situation, he still had some harsh words for his bosses which they probably won’t be forgetting anytime soon. And any coach in the league who was interested in Bryant before his about face will still be enamored with Mr. 81 now and they could end up sending LA some very tempting offers. But then again, we all know that there is virtually no way a trade could end up in the Lakers favor.

3. Dunk of the Day
This has nothing to do with the NBA but we figured that with hops like Willie Warren displayed in the “’07 Memorial Day Classic” it will be just a matter of time until we see this kid on the NBA big stage. Well, he’s at least good enough to get on Streetball with Hot Sauce and the crew.

Wednesday’s Player of the Day: Tim Duncan vs. Utah 29 min, 21 pts (FG: 7-14, FT: 7-8), 7 reb, 3 ast

Buzzer Beater: LeBron James looked like a whole different player during his two wins at home compared to the Cavs pair of losses in Detroit. Hopefully he can transition that energy into Game 5, which will be in the Pistons’ gym, because there is no way Cleveland can rely on rookie Daniel Gibson to produce the way he did in Game 4. Detroit has players who thrive in the big moments and it doesn’t get any bigger than having a 3-2 advantage with a trip to the finals on the line, so expect Chauncey Billups and Rip Hamilton to bust out of their mini-slumps in front of their home crowd. LeBron can’t win the game by himself but he has got to be an aggressive scorer to win this series. There’s plenty of time to be Magic Johnson later; the Cavs need LBJ to channel his inner Michael Jordan if they are going to keep their drive for a ring alive.

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Diamondbacks are hot again


1. The League’s Hottest Team: The Arizona Diamondbacks have had an up-and-down season, alternating between winning and losing streaks. Right now, they’re on an MLB-high 7 game winning streak after sweeping the Astros and Phillies. Randy Johnson was dazzling on Wednesday as they finished off the Phils. The Big Unit pitched 6 innings, gave up one hit and no runs, and won for his third straight start. In May, Johnson put up a 2.93 ERA and 41 strikeouts. He’s part of an excellent Diamondbacks rotation that includes four pitchers with below a 3.90 ERA. Also, Jose Valverde has proved to be a capable closer, with a league-leading 19 saves in 21 chances. Between the D-Backs, the Dodgers, and the Padres, the NL West has one of the more underrated division races going on right now. Those three teams are separated by just a game.

2. The League’s Coldest Team: The Houston Astros, one of my preseason favorites in the NL Central, have suddenly become the third-worst team in the National League. They have dropped ten straight games, including two in a row at home to the league-worst Reds. Their problems are numerous: Lance Berkman isn’t hitting well, they lack an above-average starter besides Roy Oswalt, and three of their regulars have an OPS below .700. In almost every offensive category, the Astros rank in the bottom five in the MLB. Their only bright spot has been Carlos Lee, who has proved worthy of his contract with a .313 average and 46 RBIs. This team still has potential to be a contender in the weak NL Central, but time is running out.

3. Almost Unbeatable: Oakland’s Dan Haren is not undefeated, but he should be. The breakout ace has allowed three or fewer earned runs in all of his starts this season, good for an AL-leading 1.64 ERA. He also leads the league in WHIP and has won six decisions in a row. On Wednesday Haren dominated the Rangers, going 8 innings with one run allowed. Rich Harden was supposed to be the A’s ace this year, but he’s hurt once again. That spot has been filled admirably by Haren, who has come a long way since his 14-13 record and 4.12 ERA in 2006. The A’s are sitting at .500 now, but if they go on another second-half run, Haren will get the attention he deserves.

Player of the Day: Tie between Erik Bedard, Orioles; Derek Lowe, Dodgers; and Chris Young, Padres: Combined 22 innings, 0 runs, 17 strikeouts; each of them picked up the win.