Author: Vin

Vin is a Philly boy who shouldn't be invited into your house because he'll judge you on your book and music collection. He owns Dawkins, Utley, Iverson, and Lindros jerseys, which is all you really need to know about him. He can be reached at [email protected].

Categories
General Sports

Odds and Ends for Wed March 29 2006: Selig Poised to Begin Steroids Inquiry

Bud Selig spent last weekend reading “Game of Shadows” and is on the verge of announcing a steroid investigation. Selig is expected to ask George Mitchell, a former senate majority leader from Maine, to lead the investigation. It’s about time.

In other news…

[Steve Straiger]: SC has no opinions on Kelvin Sampson so we’ll let this hoosier tell us what he thinks.

[The Journal News]: Road to the Stanley Cup is paved with whiskers. (via Kuklas Korner)

[ABC7 Chicago]: Maguire University, a fake college, duped the NCAA and scored tickets to the Final Four for two years. Now they just have to buy them along with us schmoes.

[Reuters]: Theaters will begin showing live 3D sporting events in 2007. I don’t get it.

Categories
General Sports

Vote for the next Woman We Love

Last week, Lois Griffin won by a narrow margin over Vanessa Marcil. This week, we have six new candidates and it’s going to be a tough decision for you. (On the podcast, we mentioned Scarlett Johannson but since she’s so damn hot, I’m going to automatically make her a WWL. Plus, it wouldn’t have been fair to the others on this list.)

Rachel Bilson

Maria Sharapova

Heather Graham

Mandy Moore

Portia di Rossi

Halle Berry

Voting will end next Tuesday before the podcast. Vote Now.

Categories
All Other Sports

Ben Johnson really needs the money



The man with no shame

How else can you explain his willingness to do ads for a new Canadian energy drink called Cheetah Power Surge. The ad goes something like this:

Frank: Ben, when you run, do you Cheetah?
Ben: Absolutely. I Cheetah all the time!

This is almost as sad as Gary Coleman doing cash call commercials or Erik Estrada trying to sell me real estate in northern California.

Media people are all over this ad campaign for being so poorly thought out. Athletes are great endorsers because people want to be champions. People don’t want to be cheaters. What’s next? Raffy Palmeiro doing commercials for a DC hotel? “Absolutely, when in Washington, I lie all the time!”

Links:
[Toronto Star]: Ben Johnson, Cheetah. Get it?
[D’Angelo Brands]: Talkshow commercial (Quicktime)

Categories
Philadelphia Eagles

Dhani Jones gets arrested for dancing


Dhani Jones decided to take a girl dancing in the middle of a Miami street. Unfortunately, he was charged with a misdemeanor for obstructing traffic.


When asked to leave, the female figured it out and left, but he kept dancing in the street by himself.

Eagles fans think he should be arrested for being such a shitty linebacker. Although I guess next to Mark Simoneau, he’s practically the reincarnation of LT. There’s nothing worse than Jones doing his celebration after every tackle, especially since he doesn’t even play guitar in real life.

I’ve gone ahead and asked him what happened in Miami on his website. I doubt I’ll get a response.

By the way, via Fark comments comes this amusing anecdote about Dhani in college:

Dhani Jones was my year at U of Michigan. He was in the Residential College, which loosely translated to “artsy fartsy poetry writers.” Anyway, his answering machine message was (this was him saying it): “Don’t have a closed mind when leaving a message for Dhani Jones.

Links:
[Philly.com]: Misstep for Birds’ Jones

Categories
NFL General

NFL announces first weekend of national games

The full schedules don’t come until next week but the NFL has announced the opening weekend national games.

To kick off the season, Miami will visit Pittsburgh. It seems that this new tradition usually has a team being sent to slaughter against the defending Super Bowl champs. The Steelers get their rings and the fans get to enjoy a win at home. (Yes, I’m already picking this game 6 months out.)

T.O. gets his national exposure in a Dallas uniform right off the bat as Dallas at Jax is the nationally televised game on Fox on opening weekend. The Sunday night game will feature the battle of the Mannings. I guess the league figures they won’t ever meet in the Super Bowl so might as well get it out of the way early and use the story line while they can.

For the first time, there will be a doubleheader on Monday Night Football. Right now the matchups (Vikings at Redskins, and Chargers at Raiders) don’t much excite me. The NFL couldn’t find a better draw than Brad Johnson vs Mark Brunell in one game and Aaron Brooks vs Philip Rivers in the other?

Finally, the NFL network will kick off its coverage (please god, let it be without Bryant Gumble) with the third Thanksgiving Day game, Denver at Kansas City. The other two games are Miami and Detroit and Tampa Bay at Dallas. Another national spotlight for T.O.

Links:
[NFL.com]: Five games featured on opening weekend, three games on Thanksgiving

Categories
Video Games

The Top Cyber Hockey Players of all time



I’m about to do my thing with the thing

IGN confirms what anyone who has ever played NHL 94 on the Sega Genesis knows, Jeremy Roenick was unstoppable. This is why Swingers is such a genius movie. What else could capture the 90s better than two guys playing NHL 94 with Trent saying “It’s not even so much me as it is Roenick. He’s good.”

My roommate Andy and I used to play a full 7 game series every night after work. Roenick was so good that we were banned from using Chicago. Although he used to kick my ass with Alexander Mogilny who is #14 on IGN’s list. I didn’t think anyone but my roommate used Buffalo.

Rounding out the top 10 are: Gretzky, Patrick Roy, Lemiux, Hasek, Forsberg, Jagr, Iginla, Belfour, and Chelios. Jerome Iginla is the only one from a recent game (NHL 2K5) to make it.

Links:
[IGN]: Top 25 Cyber Athletes of All-Time: Hockey

Categories
General Sports

The World’s highest paid athletes



It’s good to be Tiger

[Update: Check out the 2007 highest paid American Athletes]

Here are the top 10 highest paid athletes in 2005 according to Forbes.

  1. Tiger Woods – $87M. The guy makes most of his money ($80M) just from endorsements and appearance fees.
  2. Michael Schumacher – $60M. This is actually a drop in income because of lower endorsements and licensing.
  3. Oscar De La Hoya – $38M. $35M came from just 2 fights.
  4. Michael Vick – $37.5M. Got $30M as guaranteed bonus money for his 10 year contract with Atlanta.
  5. Shaquille O’Neal – $33.4M. He has the NBA’s highest salary at $28M.
  6. Michael Jordan – $33M. All of it from endorsements.
  7. David Beckham – $32.5M. All that money and he still doesn’t know how to tell time.
  8. Kobe Bryant – $28.8M. Hate him for his cash.
  9. Lance Armstrong – $28M. I guess he realized with $28M, he could do better than Sheryl Crow.
  10. Valentino Rossi – $28M. Yeah, we never heard of him either. Apparently he races motorcycles in Italy.

What do these athletes have in common? Most of them are pimping Nike. That and they have more money than you ever will.

Related Links:
[Forbes.com]: The World’s Best-Paid Athletes

Categories
All Other Sports

Odds and Ends for Tues March 28 2006: Dumb Luck

When I was younger, I heard a story about a guy who left his glasses at home, filled out a lottery sheet upside down, and won the lottery. While not nearly as lucrative, it turns out that one of the four people out of 3 million who picked this Final Four actually thought he was picking George Washington University. Why anyone would think George Washington was going to be in the final four, I don’t know. But it proves that picking brackets is all about dumb luck.

In other news…

[Beer Leaguer]: Five Questions: Philadelphia Phillies (Season preview)

[SI]: The SI cover jinx has claimed 16 victims since Jan 2005.

[The-Coffeys.com]: 2005-2006 Official Unattractive Final Four Team

[SF Gate]: Bonds wants our sympathy. We just end up hating him more. “My life is in shambles. It is crazy. It couldn’t get any crazier. I’m just trying to stay sane.”

[Joey Harrington3.com]: Joey expresses gratitude for Matt Millen – we lose a little respect for Joey… and we didn’t have that much to begin with.

Categories
All Other Sports

Duke lacrosse team’s got plenty of spunk


A couple of weeks ago, the Duke lacrosse team came up with the bright idea to hire two strippers for a party in a university-owned house. Then three guys had the bright idea to rape one of the young ladies in the bathroom. Allegedly.

The dancer, a North Carolina Central University student (’cause you know, when you go to NCCU, you have to dance for the rich kids at Duke to pay your tuition) claimed she was raped by three players and nearly strangled to death. Way to go, gentlemen, it’s always a good idea to show how tough you are by beating a girl and sexually assaulting her. Couldn’t you just have done some gay hazing instead?

Since all lacrosse players look alike, police took DNA samples from 46 members of the team yesterday, including some who weren’t even at the party. The team has already forfeited one game and will forfeit another as punishment for hiring private party dancers and underaged drinking. Oh, and in case you have the moral compass of Mike Tyson, University President Richard Brodhead issued a statement that “Physical coercion and sexual assault are unacceptable in any setting and have no place at Duke.” Thanks for the clarification, Dick.

(By the way, sorry about the headline, I couldn’t resist.)

Related Links:
[NBC17]: Members Of Duke Lacrosse Team Tested In Suspected Rape

[GoDuke.com]: Statement by Duke University President Richard H. Brodhead On Men’s Lacrosse Team

Categories
College Basketball

4 people out of 3 million had this Final Four

My bracket is a sea of red.  Hell, it was a sea of red after the first weekend.  But 4 out of 3 million brackets (that’s .00018% or about the chances of you deflowering Adriana Lima) on ESPN’s tournament challenge actually had LSU, UCLA, George Mason, and Florida in the Final Four.

How exactly did this happen?  I am certain that all 4 people must be students or alumni of George Mason.  Either that or they are retarded and picked games by pointing at them with their left foot. How else can you explain picking a team that has NEVER won an NCAA tournament game to go to the Final Four.  

Here are some more interesting stats courtesty of ESPN:

Entries with one Final Four team left: 30%
Entries with three Final Four teams left: 0.1%

Entries with Florida in the Final Four: 11%
Entries with Florida winning it all: 1%

Entries with LSU in the Final Four: 5%
Entries with LSU winning it all: .4%

Entries with UCLA winning it all: 2%

Entries without Duke in the Final Four: 37%
Entries without UConn in the Final Four: 31%