This spot featuring Roger Federer, Thierry Henry and Tiger Woods premiered in early 2008. Federer went from averaging double digit titles a year before the campaign, to totaling eight wins in the two years since. Henry has become a global goat for his handball. And Woods...you know.

David Beckham's contract with Gillette ran through 2007, the year he became the world's only superstar athlete who managed to fade into obscurity by playing in Los Angeles. Was this year's MLS Cup disappointment a direct result of his association with Gillette? It's tough to be certain, but yes. Yes it was.

This ad featuring Sergio Garcia premiered in the summer of 2008, right after El Nino won The Players Championship. He's 0 for 27 on the PGA Tour since.

Oh, and that other guy in the spot, Ricky Rubio? He had the misfortune of being taken by the Timberwolves, and scurried back to Spain.

The curse doesn't stop at "real" sports. John Cena signed a deal to become a Gillette pitchman in February of 2008, just after winning the Royal Rumble as a surprise entrant. But as well all know, he managed to lose three straight title matches in the next three months.

So how about Derek Jeter? The man's superhuman. Gillette ads, SI's Sportsman of The Year, and no divine retribution. If he manages to get himself on the cover of Madden 11, the universe may collapse in on itself.

•Reebok nixed a shoe deal with Marcin Gortat because of his Air Jordan logo tattoo. He'll just have to settle for being paid $34 million to be a slightly better Maciej Lampe.

•Rodney Harrison says the Patriots would be a great fit for Michael Vick. Sadly, the three-time dirtiest NFL player might be the best person Vick's ever taken advice from.

•Parity! None of baseball's six division leaders have payrolls less than $88 million. Meanwhile, the Pirates' entire roster's contracts were paid off by sales of Dippin' Dots at the last game.

•Lamar Odom ends up back where he started: sulking on the bench.

•The MLB trade deadline is today, and it looks like at least one big deal will be made: Victor Martinez, possibly heading to Boston. They've already got him taking grounders at shortstop.

•David Beckham might miss tomorrow's friendly against Barcelona with a bad back. Probably from carrying American soccer on his back for all these years.

•Pocono Raceway plans to be completely solar powered by next year. NASCAR fans, meanwhile, will continue to be powered by party liquor.

So read his excerpt and ask him Beckham related questions in the thread below. He'll respond. If this goes reasonably well (or horribly awry) we plan on doing more of these. So have fun with it. Mr. Wahl will take your questions in the thread below. He'll be here for, oh, 20-30 minutes until something else happens. And, if you haven't done so already, do buy his book. It's an incredible read. Have at it, monsters.

If you stood inside the velvet-roped VIP section in Toronto's Ultra Supper Club just before midnight on August 5, 2007, you would have thought you'd stepped into a time warp back to 1977, to the days when the New York Cosmos of Pelé and Giorgio Chinaglia partied with Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger and the gang at Studio 54 in Manhattan. For the Galaxy players, that night in the Supper Club-the hottest nightclub in downtown Toronto-was the first time they felt like a SuperClub. On the team's opening road trip with David Beckham, L.A. (now 3–5–5) had tied Toronto FC 0–0 earlier in the evening, an ugly game that was now being redeemed by the packs of pretty young things packing the open-air dance floor, waiting in block-long lines outside the club, and flashing eye-popping amounts of skin at the Galaxy players, all in the hope of being invited with one crook of an index finger inside the velvet rope.

Joe Cannon took a sip of his drink and surveyed the scene. For nine years the Galaxy's All-Pro goalkeeper had waited for this, waited for MLS to feel like the spectacle of the NBA and the NFL, waited for gorgeous women in skintight sequined tops to flash come-hither looks his way just because of the team he played on. Cannon knew this would happen once Beckham arrived. Wasn't that what he'd said at Cobi Jones's birthday party in June when one of the players' girlfriends had asked if Cannon was dating anyone?

"Nah," he replied. "I'm kind of waiting for David to get here."

"What does that mean?" Alan Gordon asked.

"You know, all the girls."

Gordon couldn't take it. "Joe, what do you think is going to change?" he asked. "Seriously. You're still the same person. Like a girl is going to want to get with you just because David Beckham is on the team. What are you gonna do, pull a little Beckham out of your pocket and say, ‘See, look! Here I am!' No, dude."

Now look. For one night, at least, Cannon had sweet vindication. Who knew if it would happen again? This was a team function, after all, and Beckham was obligated to be here. But for now Cannon couldn't let go of the thought: Everyone wants to be inside this VIP section because we are the Los Angeles Galaxy. It was an intoxicating feeling, due only partly to the free bottles of Patrón and Grey Goose being passed around like water jugs on the practice field. For it wasn't just the women who were trying to get in, lying to bouncers and snatching VIP passes. Men were pleading with Galaxy players too. I know Ante! I know Joe! Can you get me up there?

Yet Cannon was also fully aware that none of this-the VIP section, the free drinks, the women-would be happening if it weren't for one individual, the global icon who was talking quietly with some teammates at a corner table behind the velvet rope. Every once in a while,

Beckham's hulking bodyguard Shane, who everyone said was once an Ultimate Fighter, would let in a fan for an autograph or a picture. As the music thumped and the VIP section filled and the clock struck 1 A.M., Galaxy midfielder Peter Vagenas tried to wrap his mind around the strangeness of it all. How does Beckham deal with it, he wondered, the notion that if he were to get up and walk to the other side of this club, everyone else would suddenly migrate to that section as well? How would the other players deal with it too? For his part, Gavin Glinton wanted to keep things in perspective ("We know why it's that scene, you know what I mean?"), but the dreadlocked reserve forward was too busy chatting up some runway-model types to worry about what was going on in everyone else's heads.

If these were the perks that came with being David Beckham's teammates, then playing the real-life versions of Turtle from HBO's Entourage wasn't so bad a deal. The road trip had plenty of other benefits, too. All the players had been given new Hugo Boss suits for official events, courtesy of an agreement the team had made with the clothing designer for the rest of the season. Instead of staying in the usual MLS-mandated (read: mediocre) hotel, the Galaxy was using one of its two exceptions for the season to lodge at the fancy Le Meridien King Edward downtown. What's more, the hotel stay was free, the result of a deal the Galaxy had reached with a Toronto promoter. As part of the pact, the Galaxy players also got a free shopping spree at the Roots clothing store and free meals and drinks at the Ultra Supper Club. In return, those outfits publicized their connection to David Beckham and the suddenly sexy L.A. Galaxy, leading to the mob scene at the dance club. "We were riding David's coattails," Lalas said. "The welcome mat was laid out wherever we went."

Perhaps, but Beckham's handlers were hardly thrilled that he was being used so nakedly for free hotel stays and shopping sprees; they made sure no such "local promoter deals" ever happened again. Even Lalas was uncomfortable with what he had witnessed from the Galaxy's players in Toronto, most of all the 0–0 result against a terrible expansion team. "You guys have to understand," Lalas announced to the team at dinner one night. "All of this comes with a price. And don't for a second think that if this guy"-he pointed to Beckham-"wasn't on our team that we'd be getting this. It's all because of him. Thank you, David, it's been wonderful. But at least David understands this comes with a price, and you pay that price on the field."

Beckham had opened an entirely new world for the Galaxy. For the first time in its history, the team was flying charters instead of using commercial airlines on this ten-day, three-city road trip to Toronto, Washington, D.C., and New England. MLS had always forbidden charter flights, claiming they provided a competitive advantage, although the players reasoned that the ban was the result of the league's cheaper owners not wanting to be pressured into an arms race. ("Don't you want to have a competitive advantage in everything that you do?" Donovan asked.) MLS had relented somewhat upon Beckham's arrival, allowing the Galaxy to charter on his first road trip due to security concerns, and AEG had sprung for the expense. For most of the players the flight from LAX to Toronto was their first noncommercial trip. When the flight attendant came to offer Alan Gordon a pretakeoff cocktail, he looked around at the first-class leather seating, the lie-flat beds, and the fully stocked bar up front.

"Let me tell you something, ma'am," Gordon said, turning on the charm. "This is nicer than my apartment."

The flight attendant laughed.

"No," he replied. "I'm serious."

The sports heckler is really just a close ancestor to another unfortunate phenomenon of modern life—the Internet Tough Guy. Go to any sporting event, from NFL playoff games to little league softball, and you will regularly hear unbelievably vile epithets hurled at anyone standing between the lines. (And not just in Philadelphia!) You know, the kind of things you would never say in front of your mother. But if asked to back up their raging threats, most folks immediately back down like the cowards they are.

Like this guy:

Video blogger Ramsey Mohsen was at the Kansas City game and right on top of the action when Beckham had his little showdown with the fans. (You should really watch the whole video, but I grabbed this snippet just to make my point.) One of them, wearing an England kit, insulted the player's wife so Beckham told him he had no business wearing that jersey. (And maybe called him a scumbag later.) The other guy dared Beckham to call him down to the field if he thinks he's so strong. So Beckham did call him down ... and the guy, of course, did not answer the challenge. That didn't stop him from trying to brag about it on video anyway. Well played, sir.

The safety of the bleachers allows fans to shout terrible things that they would never, ever say to another person's face. (Just like I'm doing now, maybe!) The L.A. Galaxy fan who leapt on the field actually tried to back his talk up, which is why it's sort of fitting that his lifetime ban from the arena was lifted. Congrats on not being a coward! On the other hand, Beckham would have never pulled that crap in Europe, because he would probably be stabbed in the heart with a burning road flare. They don't mess around on the continent.

I'm not saying taunts shouldn't be allowed at games, or that you should go charging on to the field at the first sign of a challenge. I'm just asking fans to take a little more pride in their trash talk. Be clever. Be amusing. For real amusing, not just internet comment amusing. Making a player laugh would be way more distracting than making them angry. There's no need to be cruel/offensive/racist. Most of all, don't make threats. Because you know you can't back them up. If you said those things to David Beckham on the street, he and/or his security guard would pummel you into the concrete. But it doesn't make you a hero to say it to him from behind the safety of the railing.

Unless you're these guys. They walked the walk, they can talk the talk.

Beckham Fan Incident Explained [Hillcrest Road]

-Tony Bernazard, fresh off of offering to fight the entire Binghamton Mets, nearly throws down with Francisco Rodriguez on the team bus. The "Queens Zoo" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but it'll do for now.

-In a must-read, Bill James finally gives his take on baseball's steroid problem. CliffsNotes version: the juicers will eventually get into the HOF, but those who chose to stay clean and whose stats suffer for it will be the ones shut out.

-Even NFL.com is getting a little pissed off waiting for Brett Favre to make up his mind. While their columnists technically have editorial independence, I'm going to go ahead and assume that's the company line as well.

-Jrue Holiday explains where his name came from. If you guessed typo, you're not that far off.

-Beckham says he won't apologize, lays all the blame on the fans for Sunday's confrontation. So let's tally it up. He's alienating fans, making ungodly amounts of money, and not helping the team win? Jeez, even Alex Rodriguez hits a home run every now and then.

-Minor leaguer who nailed a fan with a ball claims he was aiming for the dugout. Even if he's found not guilty, I think those control problems preclude a call-up.

-Detroit City Councilwoman accidentally includes Lions logo on reelection flier, when she meant the volunteer organization Lions Club International. When she loses, we'll never know if it was her stupidity or the stank of 0-16 that did her in.

Josh Paige was the member of the "Riot Squad" section who was hauled off by security during the Galaxy's friendly vs. AC Milan, after he jumped out of the stands to confront Beckham. Of course, Beckham went over to the section first and appeared to challenge the fan, so he wasn't exactly an innocent victim. However, for his crimes, Paige will never be allowed to return to Carson, California's most glamorous Olympic training facility.

Imagine being denied the right to attend the L.A. Women's Tennis Championship or X Games 15 or ... that's it really. Oh, I guess there's the soccer games, which this guy obviously lives for because he's a registered member of the "Riot Squad." But still ... it's the Home Depot Center. Who are they turning away?

Fan pays for Beckham confrontation with lifetime ban [USA Today]

Here's how the Los Angeles Times' Helene Elliott saw it:

Incensed at remarks hurled at him by fans sitting in a corner of the Home Depot Center, Beckham approached them to urge them to calm down. One hurdled the barrier separating the stands from the end zone and was escorted away by security officers.

Here's the Associated Press:

As Beckham left the field at halftime, he went over to the section where one of the team's support groups holds court and appeared to shout. A fan jumped down from the seating section and was subdued by security before being escorted off the field.

Now, across the pond, here's the Guardian:

David Beckham was involved in an ugly confrontation with fans at his first home game for the Los Angeles Galaxy after returning from Italy and his spell with Milan. The midfielder attempted to jump over a barrier as he left the field at half-time into a section of the crowd that had been jeering him.

The former England captain was held back by security staff, who also needed to restrain an angry fan who left his seat and rushed towards the footballer.

And the London Times:

The former England captain attempted to jump over a barrier as he left the field at half-time into a section of the crowd that had been jeering him. He was held back by security staff, members of whom were also needed to restrain an angry fan who left his seat and rushed towards the footballer.

The video below — and particularly this one here — would seem to support the Brits' view of the confrontation. (Let's pause here to imagine the national panic that would ensue if this were Rasheed Wallace at Conseco Fieldhouse instead of a celebrity free-kick taker in Carson, Calif. My God. Around the Horn would look like a meeting of survivalists.) I'm sure there will be a lot of handwringing over what the failure of the Beckham experiment means for American soccer, but this incident, at least, suggests two important milestones have been reached: Crapulent soccer fans are getting themselves arrested at games, and the American soccer press is going out of its way to suck up to the stars.

David Beckham doesn't get a royal welcome [Los Angeles Times]
For Beckham, a Rude Welcome Back to Los Angeles [AP, via NYT]
David Beckham in ugly confrontation with LA Galaxy fan [Guardian]
David Beckham confronts jeering LA Galaxy fans [Times Online]

Our soccer hero is currently playing for A.C. Milan in Italy where it's safe, but while in Los Angeles last month, he supposedly ordered his bodyguards to rough up photographer Emicles Da Mata at a stoplight. Above we see said bodyguards gently explaining the situation to Mr. De Mata, who shook off the entire incident by smiling and remarking to the police "I'm going to sue his ass."

And indeed, TMZ found the lawsuit filed in L.A. County Superior Court, in which Da Mata claims "on December 7, 2008, he had stopped his car on a Beverly Hills street when Beckham reached through the driver's window and grabbed his camera and attempted to wrestle it from him. Da Mata was holding the camera at the time."

The lawsuit claims Beckham's bodyguard — also a defendant — then beat him repeatedly, grabbed the camera and threw it in a trash can. The picture (above) shows two of Beckham's bodyguards on top of Da Mata. Da Mata says he was injured and is suing for assault and battery, as well as emotional distress. He's seeking unspecified damages.

It seems extreme, but I'm telling you, for guys like Beckham and me these photographers are a curse.

Meanwhile, we have this. Don't know what that has to do with the case, actually. Sorry.

It also seems that A.C. Milan is renting Beckham with an option to buy.

Beckham Sued; Accused Of Beating Photog [TMZ]
David Beckham: My Bodyguard [Josh Q. Public]
AC Milan Wants To Take Beckham From Galaxy [NBCSports]

What's a keck? Probably gibberish: I fully believe that they make up words over there just so they'll get a rhyme. But the story pertains to AC Milan striker Marco Borriello, who says that he can't wait for David Beckham to arrive with the team after Christmas, where he is on loan through March from the Los Angeles Galaxy. And I mean he really can't wait.

Borriello, in The Sun:

"I must admit I have a dressing room curiosity over Beckham. I want to see if he is equipped as he is in the Armani underwear adverts."

Boriello, of course, is Italian. Not that there's anything wrong with that. As Woody Allen said in Love and Death, some men are heterosexual and some men are bisexual and some men don't think about sex at all, you know ... they become lawyers.

David Beckham Receives Some Worrying News [The Spoiler]

• Berman vs. Mangino: WHO YA GOT? [Machochip]
• The John Wooden mural is quite the sight. [Gutty Little Bruins]
• Tim Wakefield has seen better days. [Slanch Report]
• Joe Buck returns just in time to ruin your summer [Awful Announcing]
• LOLF [Joe Sports Fan]
• David Beckham blogs about his big fancy San Francisco billboard [You Been Blinded]

The 33-year-old is pictured relaxing in his underpants against a backdrop of sand and surf on Malibu Beach in California, but on close inspection his package seems to have benefited from a little computer enhancement. In comparison, when he wore similar white trunks on holiday off Italy's Ligurian coast more than two years ago, he just did not seem to fill them as well.

This comes as shocking news, and could derail the surging popularity of soccer in this country. Is there nothing to believe in anymore?

I saw the mural yesterday, and if you walk back and forth in front of it, the crotch seems to follow you. Eerie. Anyway, thanks for the journalism, Daily Mail!

Great Tackle, Becks — But Have The Armani Airbrushers Pumped Up Your Lunchbox? [Daily Mail]

If he grows up in the United States, he will do so perhaps becoming a baseball fan. But will he becomes a Red Sox fan? Because then he'd have some friends. Oftetimes we think about the children of celebrities, wondering if they're going to grow up right, or have a warped understanding of the world around them. Then you realize, of course, that you forgot to feed your own kid 30 minutes ago.

David Beckham's Son Has A Message For You [On 205th]

I'm kvelling, and not just because I'm going to be eating matzo all next week. No, the reason I'm feeling so good is that David Beckham is sending his son Cruz to a Jewish nursery school in Los Angeles.

While Becks and Posh say they have no plans for Cruz to convert, which is probably wise because that other Cruise — Suri — probably won't date a Jewish guy anyway, at least they're going halfway.

Then again, how much can you really ask from someone who's only half Jewish (on his mum's side) and has a Hebrew tattoo on his clearly Gentile body?

As for the biggest mensch in the Galaxy, he's having quite the month — at least off the field. He got to sit courtside at the Lakers-Clippers game and was given his first traffic ticket for bending too much on a left turn. But perhaps the most exciting news is that a recent survey of adult film stars named him the celebrity they'd most like to shtup.

All I can say is: Mazel Tov!

• Oh, and the Spurs too. San Antonio has struggled to a certain extent as of late, but after beating the Sonics they moved to within a game of the Conference leaders. Nobody scored more than 20 for the Spurs (Tony Parker), but they put forth one of those "balanced efforts" all of the purists just die for. Basically they let everybody play (save for the "injured" Manu) and they still beat Seattle by 21. I bet Clay Bennett loved every minute of the debacle.

• The East is unchanged. Cleveland, Washington, and Philadelphia are all jockeying for playoff positioning within the Eastern Conference, but all three lost last night. Add those losses to the aforementioned Hawks win, and you get a playoff picture that looks eerily similar to yesterday's.

It's not often that I plan my Saturday night around watching a MLS game, especially when it kicks off right when my man Tyler Hansbrough is in the midst of giving little Ricky Pitino a facial for the ages. But this was not just any MLS game, it was the showcase match of the league's opening weekend, and it involved a certain English underwear model who plays for the LA Galaxy and, who from all accounts, was finally healthy and ready to justify his "$250 million" hype as the latest Messiah of American Soccer.

So really, what choice did I have but to TiVO the Heels, hook up an I.V. of Stella and watch David Beckham's do-over debut for the Galaxy against the Colorado Rapids? I had granted Becks a mulligan for last year 's train-wreck of a season in which he had played in only five games and scored a single, solitary goal. Yep, I had decided to give him a clean slate, to suspend any judgments on his ability to transform a team, a league, a sport, until he could perform pain-free on the field.

But after watching him stroll around Dick's Sporting Goods Park Saturday night (it doesn't quite roll off the tongue like Old Trafford, does it?), it's clear that no amount of Becks' trademark laser-guided passes or exquisite dead-ball deliveries is going to change the fact that the Galaxy are eye-bleedingly awful. The ease with which they were dismantled 4-0 by a workmanlike Colorado Rapids team missing half a dozen key players makes you wonder what Lalas and the rest of the Galaxy 's so-called braintrust were thinking when they surrounded their prize catch with what looks to be two MLS All-Stars (Donovan and Ruiz) and eight one-legged circus performers. Even more astonishing is how they were able to convince the great Dutch player Ruud "Sexy Football" Gullitt to coach this farce, other than by promising him safe haven in Bali if things didn't work out.

You would think that after last year's premature ejaculation about soccer's second coming in the U.S., the MLS might have lowered the expectations. But there on Saturday night was Fox's Max Bretos, the carnival barker of American soccer, assuring us "it's hard not to get excited by a game of this magnitude" (Jeez, Max, how tumescent would you get about, say, Brazil v. Argentina?) Referring to the game's marquee attraction as "David Robert Joseph Beckham" Max pronounced "the Beckham Era" upon us.

As it turned out, it was more like the Terry Cooke Era. Cookie, who played alongside Becks on Man U's youth championship teams back in the day, eventually crumbled out of Old Trafford in the mid-nineties and found his way to Colorado two years ago. On Saturday, he had a goal and two assists against the Galaxy and combined with Colorado's Argentine playmaker Christian Gomez to make LA look like a poor man's Derby County, if such a thing is possible. And I should know because earlier in the day, preparing for a "game of this magnitude," I watched another game that was hard not to get excited about — Derby vs. Fulham for the bragging rights to the title of the Worst Prem Team In Anyone's Memory.

For years Lalas has been yammering about how the best MLS teams could hold their own in the lower reaches of England's top flight. Let me just say that, as spectacularly incompetent as Derby is, the Galaxy, on the basis of Saturday's performance, aren't worthy of washing their jocks. But given where Beckham's priorities seem to be — getting a new $5,000 tattoo of a bare-breasted angel who looks like his wife, playing footsy with Anderson Cooper on "60 Minutes," or offering a private lesson to Salma Hayek for $350,000 at a charity auction — who cares about soccer when you can look at a giant billboard of your golden balls in Times Square? Yes, there he is in all his near-naked glory at the crossroads of the world, reclining in a pair of too-tighty Armani whities for which he's been paid an estimated $30 million, which, if you believe Posh Spice's math, works out to about three million an inch.

"He does have a huge one," she recently said, describing how he truly bends. "You can see it in the advert. It is all his. It is like a tractor exhaust pipe."

That may be fine when it comes to plowing HER field, but the MLS needs every inch of Beckham The Player to take soccer to the next level. That means no more jetting off to make cameos for England three days before a Galaxy game. Congratulations on your 100th cap, Becks, you looked sharp launching 40-yard balls to Rooney and Gerrard in that 1-0 loss to France on Wednesday. I realize it's perhaps not as gratifying pinging gift-wrapped passes to Landycakes and Ruiz, but I hear Lalas is scouting a new striker for you. Her name is Salma Hayek.