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
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
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

Categories
MLB General

The Full Count: Yankees keep breaking their toys


1. Showing his potential: Yankees rookie Phillip Hughes was marvelous in his second start. Unfortunately, he’s now just another injured Yankees starter. Hughes had a no-hitter going through 6.1 innings before suffering a hamstring injury that will keep him out 4-6 weeks. He finally showed his great potential after a rocky first start, but now New York will have to find yet another body to put on the mound. The Yankees carried a team no-hitter through until the eighth inning, when the Rangers got their only two hits of the game. But by that point, the game was over, and the Yanks blew Texas away 10-1. Offensively, Alex Rodriguez, Jorge Posada, and Robinson Cano each had at least three hits to carry the team.

2. The Central Goes Through Cleveland: Some people didn’t expect anything out of the Indians in the preseason, others thought they would win the division title. So far, the latter group looks right. The Indians lead baseball’s toughest division by 1.5 games after a 12-4 rout of the Blue Jays. The offense took over in this one, as Travis Hafner and Jhonny Peralta homered, with Peralta driving in 5 runs. Trot Nixon had 3 runs and 3 RBIs, and Victor Martinez drove in two as well. AJ Burnett was the main victim on the Blue Jays’ pitching staff. He allowed 7 runs after a dominant previous start against the Yankees. For the Indians, CC Sabathia improved to 4-0 on the year. Cleveland is 6-0 in Sabathia’s six starts.

3. Back and Forth: Though the AL Central may have better teams, the NL West is just as competitive. Four of the division’s five teams are within two games of the lead, which is currently held by the Dodgers. LA beat the Diamondbacks 2-1 to snap their 6-game winning streak. Pinch-hitter Olmedo Saenz hit a game-winning RBI single in that contest. The San Diego Padres have slumped a little lately, but they’re right in the thick of things after a 3-1 win over Washington. Starter Chris Young pitched 8 scoreless innings for the win in his best game of the year. In the division’s other game, the Rockies topped the Giants 9-7 thanks to a terrible start by Russ Ortiz.

Player of the Day: Matt Holiday, Rockies: 3-5, HR (4), 4 RBIs in 9-7 win over the Giants. Holliday is second in the league to Derrek Lee with a .395 batting average.

Categories
Chicago Bears

Odds and Ends: Chicago journalist finally realizes how awesome G-reg is


You remember Lovie Smith don’t you? He’s part of the historic duo of coaches who met in the Super Bowl last year. No, not cause they’re black but because they’re two good Christian Coaches. And with the league’s new emphasis on personal conduct, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the Bears are drafting folks with high character. Take for example, Greg Olsen. Greg penned this little ditty about his views on women:


Chillin’ on the 7th flo’, I gotta let these chickens know
Big Greg is in the house, and I’m fittin’ to make these hoes choke
On my balls, on my dick, then I bust a nut, quick
On her face, on her chest, stick my dick between her breasts
Come on, fellas, let’s get weird, stick ya dick up in her ear
While I’m laughin’ at these guys, a second nut all in her eyes

What is this lady complaining about? That certainly isn’t any more offensive than JJ Redick’s poety and no one wrote an article about him. If you wanna hear the whole song, head on over to Flash Warner.

And in other news…

[Can’t Stop the Bleeding]: KTKR producer fired after the fake Iverson interview stunt

[WBRS]: Vlade Divac accused of selling counterfeit crap

[Inside Bay Area]: Barkley: “I’ve never been to Sausalito. They got a team over there?”

[STLToday.com]: Couple claims Josh Hancock was drunk off his ass day of accident and refused a cab

And finally, two random stories and a video. First, via Fark, comes a hilarious headline from WSOC TV:”Royals To Get A Taste Of Angels’ Colon”. That’s just wrong. Second, what the f is wrong with Boy George? And third, check out this hilarious video of members of Chelsea answering “who is the best looking person on your team?”