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Golden State Warriors

Photoshop Geeks have their fun with Charles Barkley


By now, you’ve heard about Charles Barkley saying he hates the Bay Area. We’re pretty sure it’s just the Chuckster being the Chuckster but that didn’t prevent some hurt feelings and some retribution from Warriors fans. Even Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, and Matt Barnes fought back by making fun of Charles’ Fave 5 commercial. According to Stephen Jackson, Barkley’s real Fave 5 is “McDonalds, Dominos, Burger King. It was Subway, but he pushed them out for Cinnabon. And Krispy Kreme.”

San Francisco Chronicle writer CW Nevius invited his readers to submit some photoshopped pics of Barkley in the Bay Area. There are some clever ones and we’ve posted a few of our favorites below. Still, with all the design geeks in the Bay Area, we think they can do better than the current offerings.

More Photos after the jump.

Continue reading “Photoshop Geeks have their fun with Charles Barkley”

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MLB General

The Full Count: Remember Gary Sheffield?


1. Sheffield’s back: Gary Sheffield took more than a month to give any kind of contribution to the Tigers whatsoever. Yesterday he finally gave the breakout performance every Tigers was fan was waiting for as the team beat the Orioles 3-2 to complete a sweep. Sheffield went 4-4, with a solo homerun and RBI single that provided the difference in this game. He raised his average from .191 to .226 in one day, and in the past ten days his average has nearly doubled. Additionally, he stole his fifth base of the season, which puts him at a career-high pace. The Tigers now have a four-game winning streak going, and they may finally have the slugger they were looking for.

2. From Champs to Chumps: The Cardinals are having one of the worst seasons ever for a defending champ. Due to a five-game losing streak, they have dropped to last place in the division and have the second-worst record in the entire National League. On Wednesday they were shut out 4-0 by the red-hot Milwaukee Brewers, who have the best record in the NL. Starter Anthony Reyes is now the official unluckiest pitcher in baseball. Despite allowing either 3 or 4 earned runs in each of his five outings, he is 0-5 due to awful run support. In fact, the Cardinals have only given him 1.2 runs per game in support, due to an offense with a .245 team average. Don’t blame Albert Pujols for their struggles; he is currently on an 11-game hitting streak that has increased his average by 90 points. The Cardinals can’t wait until starter Chris Carpenter returns, as all of their current starters have an ERA above 5.00 with the exception of Braden Looper.

3. Still perfect: Josh Beckett may be the Red Sox’s team MVP through one month of the season. He has yet to be beaten, and continued his success Wednesday by improving to 6-0 against the A’s. Beckett pitched 7 innings, with 7 strikeouts and 3 runs allowed. It wasn’t his best outing, but the Red Sox gave him plenty of support in a 6-4 win. The Red Sox are 17-9 and have the biggest division lead in the American League; Beckett has accounted for over one-third of those wins.

Player of the Day: Barry Bonds, Giants: 2-4, HR (9, 743 career), 4 RBIs in a 5-3 win over the Rockies.

Categories
General Sports

May 2 episode of Poor Man’s PTI

Welcome to another episode of Poor Man’s PTI. We review the NFL Draft for the first half hour and then move on to various blog topics.

You can download this week’s podcast directly (running time 65 mins) or subscribe to the feed.  

If you use iTunes, just click here and then click subscribe and iTunes will take care of the rest.

This week’s topics include:

  • NFL Draft
  • ESPN coverage of the draft
  • Rich Eisen and Alycia Lane
  • Yankees pitching woes
  • NBA playoffs
  • NBA refs biased against black players.
  • Mets batboy steroid scandal
  • Patriots and Randy Moss
  • Women We Love Nominations

Hope you guys enjoy the podcast.  If you did enjoy it, please give us a good rating below so we can rise up in the rankings. If you didn’t, send us an email ([email protected]) and give us some suggestions. Thanks for listening.

Categories
General Sports

Odds and Ends: If only Alycia Lane would grace us with some harmless banter

Alycia Lane’s publicist…er… the Philadelphia Inquirer had an interview today with Alycia Lane aka the chick who sent photos of herself in a bikini to Rich Eisen’s wife by mistake. In the interview, Lane tried to defend her photos as “harmless banter between to old friends, and not as an attempt to entire the Los Angeles-based Eisen or break up his marriage…”

Damn, we really gotta get to work on our harmless banter.  Don’t worry, Alycia, this won’t hurt your career one bit.  If anything, you can go national now. (hat tip: Sports By Brooks)

In other news…

[USA Today] The Mets fan who shined a high-powered flashlight at a couple of Braves gets 3 year ban from Shea and 15 days in jail.

[Seal Clubbers]: A nut shot is always funny

[Our Book of Scrap]: This guy is not doing anything for that ‘white men can’t jump’ stereotype

[Brew Crew Ball]: Don’t look now but the Brewers have the best record in baseball

[Blazers Edge]: Brandon Roy is your NBA Rookie of the Year.

[Hardaway Hates Pittsburgh]: Joe Thomas’ Aunt.  Wow.  Just… wow.

Categories
St. Louis Cardinals

Make sure your tattoo artist knows how to spell

Another bad tattoo

What better way is there to celebrate your favorite team’s championship win than by getting a tattoo?  You can go around commemorating the St. Louis Cardinals 2000 Worlb Series victory with an awesome tattoo.  What?  Oh, that’s supposed to  say 2006 World Series?  Damn.

Cards fan Jason Harris is suing The House of Ink in St. Louis for over $25,000 in damages.  Since it was on his back, he didn’t know about the errors until he showed his mother (“Hey ma, check this out!”) the following day.  The shop has offered to fix the work but Harris would rather get it removed at this  point.

We completely understand where he’s coming from.  A tattoo is supposed to be cool.  Now this tattoo was never going to be cool but now it’s a complete joke.  Hey, at least he didn’t try getting it in Chinese characters and end of with something like St. Louis Pigeon Moth Balls.  

We don’t have a photo of his wretched tattoo but it sounds like a job for Joe Sports Fan.

Links:
[The Smoking Gun]: What In The Worlb?

Categories
NBA General

Around the Rim: The Warriors’ grip slips

1. Another fight to the finish
The Warriors were down by 21 points in the first half of Tuesday’s Game 5 against Dallas, but a 3-point barrage helped them fight all the way back and take the game to another exciting finish. In the end, despite the fantastic comeback by Golden State, it was Dirk Nowitzki and his boys who barely made it off their home floor with a win, 118-112. Dallas was finally able to prevent the Warriors from getting all the way to the hoop in transition but it almost didn’t matter as GS went 16-of-35 from behind the arc. Now, the Warriors will take a 3-2 lead back to Oakland where a rowdy arena full of yellow-shirted fans will be going bonkers in hopes of seeing the first ever No. 1 vs. No. 8 upset in a seven game series. Golden State better treat this like a Game 7 because they won’t win in Dallas should the series return.

2. Marie Elie wants to be a rookie again

The Charlotte Bobcats are in need of a head coach to turn the franchise around and Larry Brown has been rumored to be in the running for the position. Brown has evolving pretenders into contenders for his entire career (minus that New York thing of course), but apparently the Cats aren’t quite ready to enter the cocoon. Well, maybe they are just exploring all their possible options because on Tuesday Charlotte interviewed former Rocket great Mario Elie for the head coaching vacancy. Elie might have potential but he’s not going to be taking this crummy team to the playoffs anytime soon. If the Bobcats decide to save some cash and go with Elie they can give their post season dreams the kiss of death.

3. Raptors almost blow a lead of Jurassic proportions
Game 5 between the Raptors and the Nets turned out to be a lot closer than anyone expected, especially Toronto’s fans. The Raptors were up by 17 in the second half but almost gave it away as New Jersey got to within two points at the final buzzer, 98-96. But hey, a win is a win and when you’re facing elimination you’ll take `em any way they come. Four of the five Toronto starters finished the game with double figures in scoring, the only one not to reach that plateau was T.J. Ford who went down in the first quarter after getting walloped and flopped on by Vince Carter. Eh, no biggie; Jose Calderon came off the bench to score a team-high 25 points to go along with eight assists. With a 3-2 Nets’ lead the series will shift back to Jersey for Game 6; maybe Chris Bosh will figure out how to be a post season All-Star by then after going just 3-11 for 11 points in the last game. Guess it was good that Ford got injured so Calderon could save the day.

Tuesday’s Player of the Day: Dirk Nowitzki vs. Golden State 40 min, 30 pts (FG: 7-15, 3FG: 2-3, FT: 14-15), 12 reb, 3 ast, 1 blk

Buzzer Beater: Chauncey Billups will become a free agent at the end of the year and there are tons o’ teams who are desperate to add the former Finals MVP to their squad. One unexpected team to be making at run at Billups is the former champs turned first round sweep victims, the Miami Heat. Now, talk about a dynamic duo in the backcourt; Billups and Dwyane Wade would make quite the formidable threat as the Heat tried to bounce back from their fall from grace. Personally, we don’t care where Chauncey ends up as long as it’s not with that retarded PA in Detroit as he stutters out Mr. Big Shot’s first name. Hell, we’d rather see Billups suit up with Memphis than stick around for another year of Detroit’s gi-gi-gi-gimmick.

Categories
NHL General

Wed Morning NHL roundup


Rangers 2, Sabres 1
Is it just me, or is this whole “Upstate vs. Downstate New York” battle starting to look a little like Scott Norwood might come hopping onto the ice? The Sabres are falling apart a little, and doing so in creative ways they haven’t collapsed since the late 1990s. On Tuesday, Daniel Briere appeared to score a game-tying goal with 17 seconds left, but it was disallowed when it was ruled Lundqvist stopped it before it crossed the line. Somewhere, Brett Hull snickered and said “Buffalo… HA” under his breath before continuing to make out with a supermodel. The series is 2-2. You know Mike Bloomberg wants to make that bet now with the Buffalo Mayor.

Ducks 3, Canucks 2 (1 OT)
These guys don’t like to play just an entire regulation game, apparently. The Ducks took a 3-1 lead – they might wrap it up Thursday at home – when Travis Moen netted one 2:07 into overtime. Roberto Luongo has to be thinking that first round was a glorious dream at this point. Honestly, though, you should be pretty hyped about a potential San Jose vs. Anaheim Western Finals; that might take you back to the Avs vs. Red Wings days, i.e. “When hockey was once relevant.”

[Ted Bauer will be covering the NHL playoffs for us this year. You can find more of Ted’s work at A Price Above Bip Roberts.]

Categories
NBA General

Study says NBA refs are racialist



Well, what about me?

A study by an assistant professor at Penn and a graduate student at Cornell found that there is a racial bias in NBA referee calls. They found fouls were called at a greater rate against black players than against white players. They also found that black refs called more fouls against white players than black players. Based on box scores from 1991 to 2004, the study concluded that the racial makeup of the officiating crew affected calls by 4 1/2 percent.

Of course, the NBA is denouncing the study because the study analyzed calls by the three-man crews in aggregate and not by individual referees. The NBA did it’s own study and concluded – suprise – that there was no bias in foul calls. The NBA has data on which called was made by which official but declined to give the researches the info, citing a confidentiality agreement with the refs. How convenient.

We don’t actually think there’s any racial bias in referees in the NBA. Everyone knows that they call the fouls that David Stern wants them to call.

Links:
[AP]: Study suggests racial bias in NBA calls

Categories
NBA General

Bruce Bowen says Computer Nerdz are Computer Crookz


Bruce Bowen and his wife Yardley have filed suit against a Texas computer repair shop for over $2M after the company sold their hard drive containing personal information to another customer. The Bowns want $562k in economic damages, $1.2M in mental anguish damages, and another $500k in punitive damages.

The Bowens claim they took a faulty computer to the folks at Computer Nerdz, who told them the hard drive was fubar and that they would need a new one. Since the computer was still under warranty from Gateway, they could get a new hard drive for free and all they had to do was send the broken hard drive back to Gateway. Computer Nerdz gave them a bad drive, they sent it back and all was well. Until they were contacted by a woman who said Computer Nerdz sold her a “new” hard drive and she discovered all the Bowen’s personal information on it. Oops.

Here’s what probably happened: the Computer Nerdz thought they’d make a quick buck by fleecing Gateway’s warranty service then fixing up and selling Bowen’s old hard drive as new to an unsuspecting customer. Unfortunately, someone forgot to erase the hard drive first. The Bowens would be wise to settle this quickly out of court — we don’t expect Computer Nerdz to be in business much longer.

Of course, this had to happen to Bruce Bowen, the boringest man in the league. Why couldn’t the contents of Rich Eisen’s hard drive be out there?

Links:
[The Smoking Gun]: NBA Star Claims Hard Drive Foul

Categories
General Sports

14 fans banned from Talladega


You probably heard about fans being really upset about Jeff Gordon passing Dale Earnhardt (if you ain’t got a 3 with angel wings on the back of yo truck, you ain’t a real fan!) in career wins after Gordon’s victory on Sunday. Just as they did the week before when Gordon tied Earnhardt, a bunch of debris was thrown onto the field, mostly beer cans, and 14 people were arrested. Well those fans have been banned for life from buying tickets to Talladega.

Buying tickets? So that basically is no sanction at all because those fans can basically get their tickets via a third party. The logical move would be ban those 14 fans from attending races but it’d be impossible to pick out 14 from a crowd of 100,000.


Superspeedway president Grant Lynch said identifying other fans who threw objects was harder than he had imagined.

“At a baseball game where everybody is sitting down, it’s easy to see someone stand up and throw an object onto the field,” Lynch said. “I was looking at a section that probably had 300 people in it, and they were all standing up. Plus they all have mullets.

OK, we made that last part up. But could you imagine picking out 14 mulleted rednecks out of a crowd?

Links:
[Houston Chronicle]: Talladega bans 14 from buying tickets