This particular issue was one that was veiled in such secrecy that even the most reliable sources usually on board with discussing the ins-and-outs of their boss's bowel movements with child-like glee clammed up. "I think that's crossing a line," one said. "I will lose my job," another said. "I will be escorted outside and then promptly set on fire," said the man who sits at the desk three cubes down from you-know-who. (Just kidding, I have no idea who that person is. Your life is safe. For now.)

USA Today caught up with Olympic hurdler Lolo Jones who, despite her strong Christian beliefs and dislike of being nude in doctor's offices, decided that it was okay to birthday suit-up for the Disney corporation. Unfortunately, she had to yank her favorite photo from the shoot.

"There was another photo that was very cool where you could see how hard I worked for those muscles. The problem was, that photo didn't portray the message I want to send."

You can't play with ma, Lolo.

*****

Thanks for your continued support of Deadspin. Petchesky's here in a few. Just three and a half days until Friday night.

Today's story:

"Who among us has not wondered what it would be like to spend a day in the shoes of ESPN The Magazine's editor in chief? Well, this week, one lucky fan got that chance — and it only cost him a couple thousand dollars for charity. The fan won the right to shadow Belsky for an entire day, attending editorial meetings, rubbing shoulders with senior staff members and even sitting in on The Mag's satellite radio show Belsky co-hosts with ESPN publishing honcho Gary Hoenig. No word as to whether Gary's new friend plans on returning the favor by showing Belsky the ins and outs of his noble trade. He's a gynecologist."

Be sure to tune into the next exciting installment of "From The Desk Of Gary Belsky"! Want to tell us a story? E-mail us at tips@deadspin.com.

Patrick has graced the pages of FHM and Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue, but declined an offer to go clothesless in Hef's shrine to womankind. But ESPN The Mag? That's a dealbreaker, ladies, SportsByBrooks reported Thursday night. Darren Rovell did some gumshoe reporting and got comments from Mr. Gary Belsky and Patrick's camp, which was shocked — shocked! — to hear the report. (Your paycheck, ma'am.)

So says Patrick's rep:

Lewis Kay of BNC public relations, which helps represent Patrick, came back with this note. "Danica is NOT confirmed to appear in the issue, nor has she even been approached," Kay wrote.

And from the desk of Gary Belsky, (our emphasis):

"We are not announcing which athletes are participating in The Body Issue at this time," Belsky, wrote in an e-mail. "When we do reveal the participant list, we will not reveal who disrobed and who did not. The photos will answer most such questions, of course; and we will otherwise let the individual athletes reveal, should they so choose, whether they removed all clothing for our shoots."

"Some are fully disrobing, some are not. That's why we're calling it The Body Issue, not The Nude Issue. In every case, the photos are appropriate and tasteful. The Body Issue is a celebration and exploration of the athletic form in all its glory and extremes, situated within the boundaries of taste and the frontiers of artistic excellence upon which ESPN The Magazine and ESPN have built their reputations."

Personally, though, I don't understand the fuss. So what if ESPN The Mag is trying to be a more refined copycat of Playboy once a year? I read it for the articles anyway.

Danica To Bare It All [SBB]
ESPN 'Nude' Issue Rumors Surface [CNBC]

Today's story:

"GB [Gary Belsky], not in line for dinner but in vicinity, handed a cupcake to a woman in line who audibly proclaimed her hunger for one. And while he was getting fruit, another woman came to the place where you get fruit, and he served her first."

Be sure to tune into the next exciting installment of "From The Desk Of Gary Belsky"! Want to tell us a story? E-mail us at tips@deadspin.com.

Today's story:

"the big boss [Belsky] just pooped and then washed his hands for less than half a second. 95% sure no soap was involved."

Be sure to tune into the next exciting installment of "From The Desk Of Gary Belsky"! Want to tell us a story? E-mail us at tips@deadspin.com.

The last one, at least, is old news. But The Mag's always excellent Peter Keating also got his hands on depositions from a discrimination lawsuit brought in 2003 against the real-estate mogul by 19 tenants and the Housing Rights Center, a case that prefigured the more recent volley of charges that Sterling is not exactly the most racially enlightened guy around. The picture that emerges isn't pretty.

Some highlights, such as they are (the story's not online):

"JUST EVICT THE BITCH." It was 2002, and Donald Sterling was talking to Sumner Davenport, one of his four top property supervisors, about a tenant at the Ardmore Apartments. Already the largest landowner in Beverly Hills, Sterling had recently acquired the Ardmore as part of his move to extend his real estate empire eastward toward Koreatown and downtown LA. As he did, Sterling "wanted tenants that fit his image," according to testimony Davenport gave in a discrimination lawsuit brought against Sterling in 2003 by 19 tenants and the nonprofit Housing Rights Center.

...

Cultivating his image, Davenport said, meant no blacks, no Mexican-Americans, no children (whom Sterling called "brats") and no government-housing-subsidy recipients as tenants. So according to the testimony of tenants, Sterling employees made life difficult for residents in some of his new buildings. They refused rent checks, then accused renters of nonpayment. They refused to do repairs for black tenants and harassed them with surprise inspections, threatening residents with eviction for alleged violations of building rules.

...

When Sterling first bought the Ardmore, he remarked on its odor to Davenport. "That's because of all the blacks in this building, they smell, they're not clean," he said, according to Davenport's testimony. "And it's because of all of the Mexicans that just sit around and smoke and drink all day." He added: "So we have to get them out of here." Shortly after, construction work caused a serious leak at the complex. When Davenport surveyed the damage, she found an elderly woman, Kandynce Jones, wading through several inches of water in Apartment 121. Jones was paralyzed on the right side and legally blind. She took medication for high blood pressure and to thin a clot in her leg. Still, she was remarkably cheerful, showing Davenport pictures of her children, even as some of her belongings floated around her.

...

Davenport reported what she saw to Sterling, and according to her testimony, he asked: "Is she one of those black people that stink?" When Davenport told Sterling that Jones wanted to be reimbursed for the water damage and compensated for her ruined property, he replied: "I am not going to do that. Just evict the bitch."

Repairs never came. The shower stopped working, and the toilet wouldn't flush; Jones needed to use a plunger and disposed of waste tissue in bags. Kandynce Jones departed the home she loved but that caused her so much grief when she passed away, on July 21, 2003, at age 67.

He wasn't just horrible with his tenants. He demeaned women, too.

But it's the people who work for Sterling and live in his buildings who say they bear the worst of his unconventional behavior. For years he has run semianonymous ads (crude design jobs he reportedly mocks up himself) seeking "hostesses" for Clippers events and his private parties. In a Times ad last summer, Sterling's company solicited "attractive females" to bring a résumé and photo to his address, where employees reviewed their looks. Some of the women who have gone through this process found it humiliating. "Working for Donald Sterling was the most demoralizing, dehumanizing experience of my life," says a hostess from the 1990s who says she helped set up "cattle calls" to find other women to work the job. "He asked me for seminude photos and made it clear he wanted more. He is smart and clever but manipulative. When I didn't give him what he wanted, he looked at me with distaste. His smile was so empty."

In 1996, a former employee named Christine Jaksy sued Sterling for sexual harassment. The two sides reached a confidential settlement, and Jaksy, now an artist in Chicago, says, "The matter has been resolved." But The Magazine has obtained records of that case, and according to testimony Jaksy gave under oath, Sterling touched her in ways that made her uncomfortable and asked her to visit friends of his for sex. Sterling also repeatedly ordered her to find massage therapists to service him sexually, telling her, "I want someone who will, you know, let me put it in or who [will] suck on it."

...

Sterling's testimony in another case, this one involving former associate Alexandra Castro, underscores his aggressiveness with women. When Castro, whom Sterling met in Las Vegas at Al Davis' birthday party over Fourth of July weekend in 1999, visited his Beverly Hills office, Sterling later stated under oath that she brought a lab report proving she was HIV-negative, freeing him to continue having unprotected sex with his wife. "The woman wanted sex everywhere," Sterling said. "In the alley, in her car, in the elevator, in the upstairs seventh floor, in the bathroom." And he paid her for it. "Everytime she provided sex she got $500," he testified in 2003. "At the end of every week or at the end of two weeks, we would figure [it] out, and I would, perhaps, pay her then."

"When you pay a woman for sex, you are not together with her," he further testified. "You're paying her for a few moments to use her body for sex. Is it clear? Is it clear?"

Sterling isn't a total racist, to be sure. He has a fine appreciation for Asian culture, for one thing.

"He would tell me that I needed to learn the ‘Asian way' from his younger girls because they knew how to please him," Davenport testified in 2004. Davenport also stated: "If I made a mistake, I needed to stand at my desk and bow my head and say, ‘I'm sorry, Mr. Sterling. I'm sorry I disappointed you. I'll try to do better.' "

Sterling's preference for Asians extended to the people he wanted in his buildings. "I like Korean employees and I like Korean tenants," he told Dean Segal, chief engineer at a Sterling property called the Mark Wilshire Tower Apartments, according to testimony Segal gave in the Housing Rights Center case. And Davenport testified that Sterling told her, "I don't have to spend any more money on them, they will take whatever conditions I give them and still pay the rent … so I'm going to keep buying in Koreatown."

But Mexican culture? Certainly not.

Raymond Henson, head of security at the building, who was standing outside the room, heard what happened next. Sterling, according to Henson's 2004 sworn statement, once again expressed his distaste for Mexicans as tenants, saying, "I don't like Mexican men because they smoke, drink and just hang around the house."

Why Sterling is still around is beyond me. (And, yes, many of the allegations in the story come from lawsuits that have since been settled, one of which resulted in what a judge called "one of the largest [settlements] ever obtained in this type of case." So take with a grain of salt and all that). The NBA, so conscious of its image as a league of miscreant thugs, is nevertheless giving wide latitude to someone behaving far more repulsively than, say, Ron Artest ever did, merely because he happens to own a team. Just evict the bitch.

Belsky stood by his decision to run it, saying that "it was our writer and Candace, two women, talking about it [C cup boobs] and they felt comfortable", " hetold the website. "It's not the worst thing in the world in a men's magazine to talk about things like that [C cup boobs]. Plus, I understand that some young men are interested in things like that[C cup boobs]."

That's true. Young men are also interested in fast cars, setting things on fire, and videos of Latino teenagers in school girl uniforms fighting in a classroom. But I guess squeezing all of those things into the opening paragraph would make it a little busy. Next time!

Belsky also stands by the decision to put Parker on the cover, even though she's very, very pregnant — a first for a men's sports magazine.

"We don't have any problem when a young man becomes a dad so we shouldn't have any problem when a young woman becomes a mom even if it derails her athletic career for a few months. We are talking about women who are serious athletes so it wouldn't derail their career for too long...I have a couple of nieces who are very good athletes and this cover tells them and every other girl out there that there is nothing that can keep you off the cover of ESPN The Magazine if you are a woman and a good athlete. That's the ultimate message. "

That is the ultimate message — and a good one — but hopefully it won't be misinterpreted by Belsky's nieces as "Uncle Gary encourages us to have lots of unprotected sex."

Discussing The Candace Parker Cover With ESPN Magazine Editor-In-Chief Gary Belsky [WNBA.com]

Here's the offending graph:

"Candace Parker is beautiful. Breathtaking, really, with flawless skin, endless legs and a C cup she is proud of but never flaunts. She is also the best at what she does, a record-setter, a rule-breaker, a redefiner. She is a woman who plays like a man, one of the boys, if the boys had C cups and flawless skin. She's nice, too. Sweet, even. Kind to animals and children, she is the sort of woman who worries about others more than about herself, a saint in high-tops."

Okay. A couple of mentions. The SJ crew loves getting self-righteous about stuff like this and this time it took a nine-page discussion on the forum to figure out the significance and appropriateness of Candace Parker's breast size.

•" How did her cup size even come up? Did the writer ask or did Parker just volunteer it? Either way, that's weird.
I covered women at in a BCS conference for years. I'd have never even considered ask about their physical attributes like that — and they certainly didn't bring it up."

• "Talking about size her bra is reduces a great women's basketball player to nothing but a sex object. It's ridiculous."

• "This is why I don't get this magazine at all, and every issue reinforces my confusion. They put this beautiful woman on the cover, elegant and pregnant and cool.....but they can't resist the gratuitous boob reference. If Parker 'never flaunts'' her breasts, why did Glock have to flaunt them for her?"

• "If she's such a great athlete, there's no need to talk about her cup size. This isn't Maxim or FHM. Talking about her flawless skin is fine - and spot-on. You can describe how beautiful she is without going into the discussion of bras."

• "It's a double-standard that a female writer can write about such personal attributes and get a pass for the most part. If a male writer made such a reference, he'd be called sexist and drilled by every feminist organization out there."

You get the idea. It seems most of the SJ people are either anti-boob reference or incensed that if a man wrote this opener, he'd be shredded for it (duh).

For a follow-up, maybe someone should figure out if Parker was a C-cup before or after the pregnancy. Because if she's a D-cup now, that's definitely probably worth three mentions in a lede paragraph.

How do you feel about Candace Parker's C-cup being referenced in the lede? [SportsJournalists.com]

They range from dissecting his vocal inflection during his podcast, to analyzing turns of phrase in his columns, to his masthead position on the front page — and one even asked "Did Simmons smoke a bong before his most recent podcast?".(Answer: No. He was drinking orange juice.)

But most read something like this:

Pretty interesting that Simmons’ annual football preview column is buried over at ESPN.com…….not sure if the opening paragraphs on old school/new school vegas is a thinly veiled dig at ESPN burying Simmons for Reilly…..

We received another one today about his recent love letter to "The Wrestler" (Leitch thief!) in this week's ESPN the Magazine. The accompanying still photo from the movie features a sign in the background that says "Necrobutcher Sucks a Fat Dick", which is also prominently displayed on the website and the front of Page 2. A mere oversight by the web editor or another subtle dig at Shawshank by Simmons?

Probably a coincidence. However, the timing of such Fat Dickery is a little amusing considering Simmons was just enlightened about the new "guidebook" for writers by ESPN's ombudsman Leanne Schreiber. Here are some grouchy Sports Fella quotes from "The Sports Guy Dilemma" section of her most recent column:

When I told Simmons about the guidebook in progress, he said, "You mean they are planning on cracking down?"

When I suggested he think of it as clarifying rather than cracking down, he said, "So I'm writing a column and I have to consult the rule book."

I reversed field and asked him what he found most troublesome about writing for ESPN.com.

"When you are supposed to push the envelope," Simmons said, "but you are afraid of the repercussions of every decision, I think it affects you. I don't really blame the editors, because those guys aren't really sure where the lines are anymore, so they're going to take stuff out that is anywhere close to the line. But if you're going to take something out, the reason can't be 'We'd rather be safe than sorry.' You have to put some thought into it and say, 'If this stays in, what are the potential repercussions?'"

So, Leanne Schreiber is the"The Necrobutcher." Makes perfect sense. She needs a nickname anyway.

UPDATE: Necrobutchered!

ESPN can have rules, Edge [ESPN.com]

Each year, ESPN "The Magazine" trots out special issues like the goofy jocks-are-in-charge issue one when they let a professional athlete play editor for the week. (Remember one year Matt Leinart did this. Yeah, it'll probably be a long time before he gets on the cover again.) This year the mag has enlisted the help of grunty, long-legged tennis player Maria Sharapova to put her own distinct editorial flourish on it. According to the email sent out to the ESPN magazine staff, she's, not surprisingly, going with a fashion-oriented issue — but could use some more help:

Folks,

Maria Sharapova is going to be the "Editor-in-Chief" of our Athletes Issue. She accepted this responsibility with great enthusiasm and would like, for an issue, to focus her efforts for the Magazine toward revamping the fashion-sense of America's favorite athletes. She has two ideas:

-The make-over. She wants to redo the style of LeBron (even though he only wears Ralph Lauren's premium label), Carmelo Anthony, Reggie Bush etc.
-The Best Dressed/Worst Dressed list. It's debut in our pages.

Why am I going on about this? Because we need to come up with some other things she can do in addition (or in place of) the above. Ideally, some of you have ideas that put to use her interest in style and applies it to our pages. I'd love to hear any and all thoughts on the matter. There are no stupid ideas. Please take a few minutes and ask yourself "If Maria Sharapova were my boss for a day, how could she make the magazine better?" And then send me what you come up with. By Wednesday, please.

I predict there will be a lot of "Less words, more creepy up-skirt shots of Sharapova" suggestions from the staff for the sake of job security. Gotta move those suckers off the newsstands if they're going to survive the downturn in ad pages.

ESPN The Magazine [ESPN.com]

He says he finds blogs mostly boring, which we can understand around here, particularly on Fridays. But mostly, he just reveals his 27 favorite sports, a list that, oddly, doesn't include college basketball. (But surfing is on there!) But we were more taken aback by this:

Leeds United, my favorite team since I roomed with a guy from that Midlands city in 1979, has been relegated to the third division, making them the Arizona Cardinals of British football, which is cruel irony since I am also an Arizona Cardinals fan in American football.

Holy crap, the EIC of ESPN Mag is a Buzzsaw fan?! That's our schtick, man!

Truly, the media takeover by Buzzsaw fans has begun. Expect to see a whole lot of Deuce Lutui over the next few years, people.

BREAKING: ESPN THE MAGAZINE EIC RANKS ALL SPORTS IN INAUGURAL EDITOR'S BLOG POST [ESPN]

What actually ranked 25th was... I don't know, something about blogs and the internet and blogmeisters. I think anyone who has a sports blog shares part of the glorious #25, so congratulations. I don't know. I didn't really read the whole thing, to be honest with you, but there's a brief interview with Will and some other character. I didn't read that, either. I'm eagerly awaiting the one-hour Will Leitch interview on Quite Frankly, though. It's his house, but we're welcome anytime.

Hey, have a nice holiday and do your best to stay safe out there.

ESPN the Magazine [ESPN.com]