Categories
Baltimore Ravens

We hope the men get different uniforms


We’ve never been to a game in Baltimore but apparently they have male cheerleaders on their stunt team. The Ravens recently held tryouts for the squad.


Many of the men participating in Sunday’s tryout had good experience, said Dan W., a new participant. Most of them were cheerleaders in college and grew up playing sports. A big part of their job description includes lobbing their female counterparts high into the air and catching them. Dan W., 24, cheered for three years at University of Notre Dame and played lacrosse in high school

This is exactly what’s wrong with male cheerleading. (“There are 10 things men should never do and cheerleading is 9 of them.”) Most decent high school athletes who can’t make the leap to the next level just accept their lack of athletic ability and go on with their lives and once in a while think back on glory days. However, a small percentage decide that this isn’t good enough and feel the need to be in the spotlight — but as a cheerleader.

The defense for male cheerleaders are “well, they are always looking up the cheerleader’s skirts”. Listen, who cares. They are after the athletes. You are like a eunuch who claps his hands real loud. And besides, it’s just not worth it. The mascot is cooler than you. Have you ever seen a male cheerleader and thought, “yeah that guy is cool, I want to hang out with him”?

Links:
[Examiner]: Ravens cheerleader tryouts attract men, women

Categories
NBA General

This could lead to an exodus to Canada


A top drug testing official in Canada said that marijuana should be removed from the list of banned drugs because it’s taking time and resources away from catching people who are actually cheating.


For athletes to be punished, they have to show a level of marijuana in their systems that indicates regular use, or some attempt to get an edge, said Joseph de Pencier of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports, the group that administers drug testing to athletes in Canada.

Why is this story filed under the NBA? Well, cause everyone knows that 75% of the NBA smokes pot. Could you imagine if the NFL or NBA decided it was no longer going to test for pot? It’d be like the end of prohibition. Pacman Jones would have a field day. Ricky Williams could come back to the NFL. Michael Vick wouldn’t have to worry about smuggling it in water bottles. Wait a minute, maybe this story should have been filed under the NFL.

Links:
[CBC Sports]: Sports officials debate removing marijuana from ban

Categories
NBA General

Kevin McHale is the best GM in Sports?

 

The authors of this Forbes study are just messing with us right? Kevin McHale?  Arguably one of the 5 worst GMs in the NBA?  

We’ve always thought that the best measure of a GM is the number of wins he can muster with the payroll that he has. (It’s actually something we track for baseball called the MLB Cost Index.) However, the authors of this Forbes article are using criteria where they compare wins and payroll but relative to the current GM’s predecessor.  And that’s where the flaw is.  It’s all about how good you are relative to the person who had the job before you.  That’s like saying Steve McNair was the best QB in the NFL last year because of his drastic improvement over Kyle Boller.

Listen, when you have Kevin McHale and Billy King as your #1 and #3 GMs in sports, you have to go back and really look at your methodology.  Kevin McHale has done nothing with that franchise except retard Kevin Garnett and make dumb trades with his buddy Danny Ainge.  Billy King on the other hand has managed to throw money away at guys like Chris Webber, Samuel Dalembert, and numerous head coaches.   Meanwhile his “high winning percentage” is relative to a guy named Brad Greenberg who lasted one year and was what Pat Croce called his biggest mistake as a rookie owner.  And on top of that, Larry Brown was calling the shots when Billy King “won” those games.

Oh and it’s probably a good idea to remove Bobby Clarke from your list. Sorry Forbes, back to the drawing board.

Links:
[Forbes]: Best General Managers In Sports

Categories
New York Yankees

March 5 in Sports History: Wife Swap — Yankees Edition

 

In 1973: At the start of spring training, A-Rod admitted that he and Jeter don’t get along that much anymore. Blah blah yawn. And this is supposed to be some type of “huge distraction” according to the New York Media Hand Wringers Association. They should look up “spring training distraction” in the Yankee dictionary (if such a thing existed) and they would find the ultimate one took place on the first day at the very same training camp in 1973. You see, it had nothing to do with actual baseball. On this day, it was announced that pitchers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson were involved in a trade. Some called it the “strangest trade in baseball history.”

It turned out that Peterson and Kekich swapped wives. And their two children they each had (no honey, you won’t need any therapy). Even the two dogs were thrown into the deal. As Kekich said, “we didn’t swap wives, we swapped lives.”

The aftermath was interesting.  Kekich and his new wife, formerly Marilyn Peterson, only lasted a few months. Mike’s career didn’t last much longer, as he was traded to Cleveland where he went 2-7 before being released. Peterson — who was considered a pretty good pitcher — went from 17-13 the year before the “trade” to 8-15 the year after. The marriage between him and the former Susanne Kekich has lasted to this day, however. (Full story)

In 1964: Those of us who don’t work during the day were permanatley given something to watch as NFL Films was created on this day 43 years ago. Ed Sabol, father of current NFL Films president Steve Sabol, sold his Blair Motion Pictures Company to NFL owners. The Sabol’s went from filming 30-minute team highlight videos on 16 mm film (which are still produced today with teams being shown in the same positive light whether they were the 14-2 Chargers or the 2-14 Raiders) to amazing Super Bowl shows (still on 16 mm film) with every player and coach (and mom, unfortunately) wired for sound from every conceivable angle. Steve once told 60 Minutes that only World War II has been filmed more than the NFL. Hey, as long as we can find “Football Follies” somewhere on cable at 2 PM on a Tuesday, we’ll keep tuning in.

Categories
Atlanta Falcons

Just when you thought NFL players couldn’t sink any lower



Awwwwwwwwwww

Atlanta Falcons DT Jonathan Babineaux was arrested for felony animal cruelty last week for allegedly killing his girlfriend’s dog. The dog died of blunt force trauma to the head which Babineaux claims happened when the dog accidentally hit his head against the wall. An autopsy on the dog will be released this week.

PETA (which we have absolutely no use for) sent a letter to Commissioner Goodell asking for Babineaux to be suspended for a year and a letter to the Falcons asking them to release him if found guilty.


It’s the kind of thing people can’t identify with,” said Dan Shannon, the manager of youth outreach and programs at PETA’s Virginia headquarters. “You just can’t think there is any way you’d kill a dog.

No but everyone can imagine slamming a stripper’s head against a stage because she dove for some money.

Babineaux’s lawyer said that Babineaux did nothing wrong opened his mouth and lied about something.

Links:
[New York Times]: Death of a Dog May Be Latest Mess for N.F.L.

Categories
Philadelphia Eagles

Source: Eagles tell Stallworth to take a hike


A inside source tells us that the Eagles asked Donte Stallworth’s agent Drew Rosenhaus for premilinary numbers for their contract negotiation and Rosenhaus came back with “absurd numbers”. The Eagles have now told Rosenhaus that they are no longer interested in signing Stallworth and will move forward accordingly. While it has been rumored and speculated for the last couple of weeks that the Eagles would not resign Stallworth, it seems to now be (semi-)official.

Perhaps this is all posturing on both fronts but it doesn’t surprise us that the Eagles would not spend the big bucks on Stallworth. The latest figures indicate that the Eagles have $9M-$12M in cap room and with some finagling could get a few million more. However, the Eagles have made it clear that they think Hank Baskett could be a breakout WR next year and produce along the lines of Marques Colston in New Orleans. Eagles fans will eat Baskett and the front office alive if he doesn’t.

Stallworth has indicated that he would like to play for the Niners or the Patriots.

Categories
NFL General

Does Michael Irvin have some unemployment in him?


Maybe that comment Michael Irvin made in December about Tony Romo having “some brothers in that line somwhere” finally caught up with him. According to the NY Post:


One industry source believes the decision has already been made, and that some at the network view the outspoken Irvin as a ticking time bomb, ready to explode into a public-relations nightmare.

ESPN did not confirm or deny the report, but issued a statement, saying: “We are currently in the process of discussing studio assignments for next season.”
There is speculation that newly retired Bill Parcells could end up at the network, but there is no indication that a deal is imminent.

Upgrading from Michael Irvin to Bill Parcells is like upgrading from Kyle Boller to Steve McNair. It won’t nearly be as fun to watch in a Titanic sort of way but at least it won’t make you cringe every 5 minutes.

What exactly will Irvin do if he’s fired from ESPN? Maybe he can team up with Bryant Gumble for the NFL Network broadcasts and make that the biggest pig fuck in the history of sports broadcasting.

Links:
[NY Post]: JD SINGIN’ THE BLUES AS GARDEN RETURN NEARS
[The Fanhouse]: Michael Irvin Could Have A lot More Time to Do Illegal Stuff

Categories
NFL General

About that "anti-gay" Snickers ad

An immediate outcry yesterday about the “homophobic ad” above has promoted Snickers to pull the whole campaign. You can’t find any trace of it on the website that was promoted at the end of the spot – it just redirects you to the Snickers site. A website called Americablog.com breaks down the whole campaign and explains why it “promotes violence against gays and lesbians.” A pretty compelling argument from those guys — but not so fast — a column from Outsports.com asserts that everyone is just overreacting.


All of the endings point to a rather sophisticated message. The two men in the “Love Boat” ending don’t protest or even react to the third man’s solicitation. And in the other three endings, the two men try to do something “manly” to make up for their kiss. Instead, they end up doing things – drinking motor oil and hitting each other with metal objects – that are just harmful and stupid, or they do something – ripping off chest hair – that could be considered “gay.”

The sophisticated message seemed to be that the overreaction of “straight” men to homosexual contact is completely irrational, and, in the case of the proposed threesome, maybe that contact is not entirely shunned.


This ad is not remotely gay-bashing. The point of the reaction of the men was so ridiculous that it made the reaction of straight men to homosexual contact the butt of the joke, not the kiss itself.

Plausible. But the problem with this argument is that it assumes any of the gay-bashing morons out there would be sophisticated enough to understand the satire of the commercial — if that was indeed the way Snickers/Mars intended it. The author is right though, Snickers got more advertising out of the controversy than they did from the $2.6M spot itself and their bottom line won’t be hurt one bit: “And if I were Mars Inc., which produces Snickers, I wouldn’t worry too much about the boycott that Aravosis is threatening: Containing a high fat content and more calories than you could burn running a 5k, Snickers bars don’t get eaten by gay men anyway.”

Categories
NFL General

Best and Worst of the Super Bowl Ads

We don’t know what was more boring, the end of Super Bowl XLI or the Super Bowl ads that companies paid $2.6M for. Very few ads stood out last night but we still have our picks for best and worst ad. (All the Super Bowl ads can be found at ifilm.com.

The best ad was the careerbuilder.com jungle warfare spot. Granted, this would only make sense to anyone who has ever had a corporate job but that’s probably most of you.

The absolute worst ad in the history of Super Bowl advertising goes to Salegenie.com. Most people agree that this spot was a complete waste of money… and they showed it twice! Will the Salesgenie people convince themselves that the fact that everyone is talking about how bad the commercial was makes it a successful commercial? Someone over there should be shot for wasting $5M.

And finally, a tip of the hat to the NFL Network, not for that putrid fan generated commercial but for the Chad Johnson Super Bowl Party spot. Patriots fan to David Beckham: “So you’re a professional football player. For Los Angeles. I dunno if it’s gonna fly at this party but I like it. Good angle.”

However, ads aren’t necessarily targeted to everyone so we took a sampling of Super Bowl ad critiques out there on the internet today. Here are some of them:

[Yahoo]: Dan Wetzel’s Super Bowl ads review: “Later, GMC gave us a robot contemplating suicide after getting laid off (it turned out to be a dream). This was particularly hilarious, we’re sure, to all of the recently laid off General Motors factory workers.”

[SuperAdFreak.com]: BLOGGING THE 2007 SUPER BOWL AD: “Doritos user-generated spot: I hope this commercial finally dispels the myth of user- generated content, and most importantly as a submission-based campaign. It doesn’t work. These spots aren’t good, or funny, and there is a reason people get paid to make ads for a living.”

[Salon.com]: King Kaufman’s Sports Daily: “This year’s commercials were the usual warmed-over stew, a few mildly amusing spots, a few semicreative ones and a whole bunch of obvious big budgets used to no great effect.”

[Ad Age] Bob Garfield’s Super Bowl Ad Review Text Column: “Two auto mechanics are so famished they eat one Snickers bar from opposite ends, culminating in something suspiciously “Brokeback Mountain.” This freaks them out. Viewers can go to Snickers.com to choose their favorite ending. The vote should have come at the beginning, and it should have been ‘No.'”

And if that wasn’t enough, here are some more opinions on the Super Bowl ads:

[Neurosciencemarketing.com]: Super Bowl Ads: Brain Dead

[The Opionated Marketer]: Super Bowl Ads – Play by Play

[USA Today]: How all the ads ranked in USA TODAY’s Super Bowl Ad Meter

[Know More Media]: Top 10 2007 Super Bowl Ads

Categories
Arizona Cardinals

Top 10 Dumbest in-game Injuries: #1 Bill Gramatica


[Sportscolumn is running down the ten dumbest in-game injuries in sports. And here it is folks, the all time dumbest in-game injury in sports history.]

While it certainly is debatable whether #2 Gus Frerotte really should get the honor of the dumbest in-game injury of all time, the fact that he’s a kicker and it was with the laughingstock Cardinals puts Bill Gramatica over the top. Gramatica got injured celebrating a made field goal in the first quarter. While jumping and contorting in typical Gramatica fashion, he landed awkwardly and tore ligaments and cartilage in his right knee.

Bill was placed on injured reserve and missed the remainder of the season. Arizona went on to lose the game to the New York Giants 17-13 but Gramatica won his way into the dumbass hall of fame. Sadly, Bill’s days in the NFL are over and we can only cringe at the thought of a similar performance from his overly enthusiastic brother Martin.

Back to #2 | See all 10 Dumbest in-game Injuries