Believe it or not, NHL training camps open this weekend and that means press junkets galore. Ovechkin is the cover boy for 2K Sports' NHL game this year, so that seemed like as good a time as any to invite a couple of pasty-faced bloggers out of their basements for a little throwdown. In Russian!

Since he was on roughly Hour 36 of his whirlwind tour, Alex wasn't that talkative (unless you talk Russian), but he was very interested in winning the games. He seemed genuinely upset when some kid—who won a video game tournament to get there—bested him in the first game. (He demanded a rematch.) Fortunately for him, I did not put up such a valiant fight.

Yes, I lost. BUT! He had already played two games against other people and I think that he was able to use that valuable game experience against me. Also, he had the crowd behind him (the fans at the NHL Store loved him and he was mobbed with every move he made) and his handlers supplying him with water mid-game. Water! I did not receive these valuable performance enhancers. Plus, who wears a jersey with their own name on it to a game? Come on!

AND! I didn't want to point this out to his face lest I get a mouth full of Wiimote, but before our game he "inadvertently" switched from the Capitals to the Penguins—and then scored two of his goals as Sidney Crosby. I'm not sayin' ... I'm just sayin' is all.

I have many more excuses if you'd like to hear them.

(Top Photo: Michael Cohen/Getty)
Ovechkin Dismisses Boomer Esiason, NYC [D.C. Sports Bog]
Alexander Ovechkin made his way through NYC in style to promote NHL 2K10 [NHL.com]

So I did. And I lounged, and I ate. I drank my glass of water and I ogled the stack of pink "I ♥ Evian Masters" backpacks. I endured a PowerPoint presentation about the core values of Evian and the Evian Masters and learned that Gulbis, ladies and gentlemen, is the true-to-form, glamorous embodiment of those same buzzwords. Which is why I'm about to treat this sun-splashed club like it's my local, bare-bones range, carpet on the miniature golf course shagging at the seams.

At least, that's what I think. At the time, and even a week later, I'm still not quite sure what I was doing inside, where a sparkling chandelier adorns the room and bowtied waiters ask if we need a refill on our glasses of water and a chef in a New York Mets cap flips eggs in the corner. The Evian bottles are big and small, glass and plastic, simple and ornate — designer, even, I'm told later — and I'm scared to touch them. Everything is so precious and delicate, and transporting a room full of people to the Evian Royal Resort, but an ocean away, is dreamy, if not realistic. But then that's the point, I suppose.

Then Natalie Gulbis walks in, and the overhanging lights and buffet bar seem less thrilling.

She struts past red couches in her pitch-perfect ensemble — orange polo with orange collar and orange sleeves, short orange skirt — and the white bouquets of flowers pop as brightly as the pearl studs in her ears. Canon on her arm, MasterCard on her hat, TaylorMade everywhere else. The Evians glisten in her sunglasses' gleam as she laughs at mindless promotional spots. Her portraits are everywhere.

She moves outside, where she's giving one-on-one lessons on the patio. ("You been upstairs to the terrace yet?" one suit asks another. "Gorgeous up there.") On this floor, though, there's a makeshift putting green to the right, visible through the legion of alternatively shaped Evian bottles, bouncy tee mat and net to the left. Gulbis sits on a white couch as I walk out to meet her.

"Let's go hit some balls," I say immediately after our introduction. I don't have any questions prepared. I could have asked her about her Twitter page, I guess, and Wikipedia told me the night before that Gulbis was a contestant on The Apprentice, so I could have grilled her about The Donald, maybe. There's that golf career, too. But asking her fluffy questions and pretending to be there for the Evian Masters seemed disingenuous.

"Sure, you want to hit balls?"

She jumps up from the couch. No questions for four minutes!

"Now I have to warn you," I say, preempting catastrophe, as she yanks a club from a generic bag, "that this might be a disaster. I haven't hit balls in, like, eight months. So this could get ugly. What are you giving me? A sand?"

My lucky day. It's damn near impossible to look spastic hitting a sand wedge into a net two feet away. You want to hit golf balls with Natalie Gulbis? Hit the sand wedge. I did, and I spattered those bad boys all over the net, same height each time, swing perfectly fluid, because it was all I had to do. Imagine that — playing golf when the distance, trajectory and spin of the shot is about as meaningful as a divot on a turf mat. It's Golden Tee come to life. With a sand wedge, all the time.

Looking pretty is the only objective, and if I couldn't do that with a sand wedge, I just would have plopped down on that couch and asked if she would tweet about our day. It's beautiful morning. My stomach is full. And my fears of yanking drives wayward into the water have been mollified by the new goal of impersonating a hacker with a swing disproportionate to his game.

"You have a nice swing!" she reassures me.

"You're just trying to butter me up."

"No! You keep your lower body quiet, nice swing. And you didn't used to play golf?"

"Nope," I boast as she hands me her own 7-iron, gripped in a worn pink.

"But something, right?"

"Baseball."

"Yeah, I can tell."

Hear that? She can tell! Five swings later, and she finally gives some advice — slow down the backswing, she warns — and I become so indignant that I tell her to take some swings of her own. Show me how it's done, if you're so sage.

"You know," she says as we switch places, "I've seen some interesting pictures on Deadspin."

I pretend not to know what she's talking about, so I deflect and say something dismissive like, "Oh, I bet," and move on to offer tips on her swing. We laugh.

Soon, the event's organizers are shuffling me off the mat, with another reporter waiting to ask questions about the so-called sex symbol's stable sense of self, or something like that. So Gulbis and I shake hands, and, with no reason to stick around, I'm left wondering if the town car will be downstairs when she yells after me.

"You better be nice to me," she chides as I walk back inside, grab my hot pink keepsake and, parched, wish for a bottle of water, and maybe a ticket to France. "I don't want to see bad pictures of me on Deadspin!"

So yeah. That photo you see above is not from the man I hired to come down to Indy with me, but from Deadspin reader, Ryan S., who was kind enough to entertain us in the infield for our first trip to Indy. I believe that's a man passed out and covered with ranch dressing and Cheetos. There were many more of them, but unfortunately they are now owned by some thief in Indianapolis who made off with Evan the Photographer's camera. Let me also give you a brief little synopsis of what it was like to travel with Evan. We had four connecting flights up and back to Indianapolis and he upgraded his seat all four times by faking a leg injury. So while I was crammed in the back of the plane with my knees jammed up against the Sky Mall, Evan enjoyed bulkhead seating for three out of the four trips. I actually didn't mind this because the one time I did sit near him, during the slightest bit of turbulence, Evan would make a downward hand gesture and whistle, and offer insights about what he'd do if the plane crashed. As we were boarding the plane in New York he actually said, "Wouldn't it be cool if we landed in the Hudson? I hope that happens." Yeah. He's that guy.

*****

This was my first car race of any kind. I've never even been to a soap box derby. So wading through the massive infield on a sticky Indiana morning was unique. Yes, there is an overabundance of shirtless guys in jean shorts and Penske baseball hats slurping tall boys, but it's also teeming with Affliction-clad teenagers and pudgy nuclear families toting Styro foam coolers full of packed lunches and Capri Suns. From start to finish at the Speedway, between the marching bands and pomp and flag-waving, interspersed with reckless drunkenness and ceremonial kitsch, it has the feel of the world's largest VFW parade plopped in the middle of an outdoor Allman Brothers concert. You make a choice early: either float along with the family atmosphere, frisbee-tossing, watching the Purdue marching band clomp around the track; or zig through the sprawling tent-filled tailgate on the lawns, dodging cornhole bags and F-150s stuffed with young guys with blotchy sunburns and tribal tats. For most of it, we chose the latter, getting red-necked like the rest of 'em. Three hours in the sun, going on four hours of sleep makes 11 a.m. feel like 4 p.m. I'm amazed at the endurance of most of these people, some of whom had been up since 2 a.m. in order secure a prime spot in the infield for the 1:03 p.m. start-your-engines. With the thousands of vehicles littering the infield, it seems an impossibility that anyone attempting to leave the event sun-drunk and dizzy would be able to navigate their way out of the gates in under 12 hours. Miraculously, it usually only takes a couple of hours, since the local authorities and the Indy yellow shirts have mastered the art of herding thousands of drunk drivers out onto Georgetown Avenue efficiently without it turning into a massive demolition derby.

At around noon, we leave the tent area and head up to the mounds in front of the track at turn 3. This spot had been dutifully staked out by Ryan and his family since early in the morning with blankets. It's remarkable that the the two blankets only moved a few feet away from their original location, but most of the Midwest respects a man's Indy spot. So there we were, just about 20 feet away from the fence on turn three, waiting for the little cars to zoom by. But first, of course, the ceremonial pre-race regalia commences. There's balloons launching. There are fly-overs. There is Florence Henderson singing "God Bless America." There is Jim Nabors singing "Back Home In Indiana." I believe "Taps" was played. Plus "The National Anthem" and every other song written in the last three centuries that commemorates America. And after each one the crowd (now good and loaded) would yelp and whistle through their fingers and begin chanting U.S.A. the way blind, fervent Midwestern patriots do. Ryan and his family are surrounded by what seems like hundreds of 20-somethings doing their best to insinuate some Spring Break debauchery into their family picnic, e.g., "Bat bong.":

But when will this race start? Poor Evan is about to pass out in because he's wearing a black t-shirt and jeans, and he's gagging every five steps due to the enormous amounts of smoked prehistoric turkey legs the size of desk lamps being devoured by the spectators. (He's also a vegetarian. Figures.) Most people have eschewed traditional trash receptacles because, by this point, most of the oil drums serving as garbage bins are overflowing with beer cans and dirty diapers. So the half-eaten legs are just tossed aside, left with just enough meat on the bone for the horse flies to regurgitate on. Also as you make your way down the hill back into the humming intersection of cars and tents you are greeted by the unholy bathroom smell. The gymnasium-sized restroom does not have urinals, but one giant trough whose drainage system can't empty fast enough, leaving the gallons of pee to marinate in in the cement holding cell. Those who can't wait in the lines or stand the hellish odor resort to unzipping behind parked vehicles and pissing on the grass. And just a few feet away along one of the many dusty outlet roads there is a man holding a giant placard decorated with beer cans that says "Beer For Boobs." Amazingly, some women stop and play along. For three seconds of raw tit they are rewarded with a can of Bush Light. Just after a young woman flashes, a golf cart driven by a uniformed Indianapolis police officer pulls up. He makes smalltalk with the sign guy and jokes that he'd like to help judge the females slutty enough to expose themselves. Protecting and serving at its finest. ( I know it's inhumane to mention that we saw boobs without actually showing boobs. But the camera is gone. Instead, I'll make it up for you by showing you a picture of Stacey Dash's ass.)
Finally, the race is about to begin. There is an electricity when the engines roar and witnessing the cars veeerm....veeerm.....veerm by you the first ten times is definitely cause for mass screaming and beer throwing.

It's easy to simplify car races to their most boring, tedious essence but if you don't know the nuances and who to follow, that's really all it is. Yes, crashes are exciting and as loud and scary as any other accident you'd witness on a public highway. Only this time the drivers are going 200mph and have a stronger chance of survival. But standing on a knoll in the sun while random college kids drink beers out of wiffle ball bats grows a little tiresome. By around lap 46 I was ignoring the cars all together and instead focused on an 45ish-year-old man with a white muscle shirt and an "I Am Indy" hat try to convince a 19-year-old girl to flash for him. "Come on. Just one tit?" Lovely.

Finally, at around lap 119, with Evan about to pass out from dehydration and turky leg -induced nausea, we made our way out of Indy. Others were leaving early too, for more obvious reasons.

But, yes, I'd do it again at some point. Next time I'll be more prepared.
PHOTOS and Thank yous to Ryan S.

Yes, it's a "field trip." Haven't done one of these in a while. So while the rest of you are heading down the shore, engaging in hot dog related activities, drinking out of red cups, I'll be scanning the infield at Indy for some controlled chaos. In fact, that's why they invited us. Look:

AJ:

I noted and enjoyed the Deadspin coverage of the "action" in the infield of Churchill Downs at the Kentucky Derby — and wondered if you or another staffer from Deadspin would be interested in covering the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday, May 24?

The Indy 500 is the world's largest single-day spectator sporting event in the world, and as you can see from the link below, our infield is big enough to hold Churchill Downs – and then some:

So you can only imagine the kind of fun that goes on during the infield at Indy during the race! J

Plus there are a variety of other stories and angles that would interest Deadspin readers throughout race weekend at Indy.

Please let me know if you're interested in credentials.

See we do get invited to stuff like this. We do have "access" on some occasions. Does that mean Deadspin will have to handle itself like a mainstream publication and dutifully report if the little woman who likes to take her clothes off or the Italian guy married to Ashley Judd came in first? Nope. As you can see, this is an invitation to come watch drunk people fall down in some gasoline-scented grass. Those are credentials I feel are acceptable and may lead us all toward a glorious adventure. I'll give you the update on Tuesday, but I will also be off that day. So you'll have Dash and the two new guys to kick around for most of the day and won't be able to see how much you hated the story until Wednesday.

*****

But thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Now get the hell out of here.

I believe the first Deadspin field trip on this site was to a live broadcast of Stephen A. Smith's "Quite Frankly" (RIP). The concept is simple: go outside, typist. Unlike the ones we would all attend as elementary school kids to planetariums, these trips don't require permission slips from parents or getting tagged with a special pin if you have head lice. 2008, was a year of many outside adventures. Some show how far Deadspin's access has evolved since the early days. Other times, not so much.

• There were dog shows.

• Oh, and there were cat shows.

• 2-on-2 with Oak and Charles Smith at MSG.

• ESPN extended me an invite to watch their MNF crew assimilate with the masses.

• I went cavorting with Linda Cohn.

• Rick attempts to solve the riddle of the A-11 offense up close and personal.

• Oh, there was a strip club outing because there are worst ways to blow through your last month of "business expenses."

• And sometimes nights like this are just too much for a young boy from Mattoon.

Well, Linda’s PR team agreed to the date, but kept saying it in a way that they made sure I knew it was just a “play date” and not a “DATE-DATE”.

“She just doesn’t want to be a part of anything that might embarrass her kids.”

Fine. Fair enough. To be honest, I’ve never really been on too many dates in my life. I’m one of those get-drunk-and-hook-up-with-the-first-person –who-talks-to-you-types. Hey, it’s better than eHarmony.

Again, no. That won’t happen, Linda Cohn’s PR Machine told me.

“She has a very busy schedule and needs to be done by 9 and up early for an interview the next morning.”

Fine. No binge-drinking. There went my plan of heading over to Cheap Shots in the East Village, chugging Cuervo and playing air hockey. This had to be a little more fancy and required more effort. So, I booked a reservation at Insieme, on 51st and 7th, which was near her hotel. I picked up a $5 bouquet of flowers at a random bodega and debated about the color. White seemed to be the safe choice. We walked over to the restaurant and started chit-chatting about the Mets and Phillies. She’s one of those “my Mets”-types and she gets all fired up about it. Things are good, now, obviously for the Mets. She blabbed about Carlos Delgado and I briefly considered shoving her into traffic. I did not.

We arrived at the restaurant before 7, little lady by my side, and I opened the door all gentleman-like and we made our way over to the table. As soon as she Ms. Cohn squeezed into the booth she knocked a glass off the table next to us and it shattered all over the place. Out came the laugh.

“That’s funny, right?” she asked.

As soon as we sat down, I had to ask her about that accent. That accent could break glass on its own.

“ I talk about it in the book. While I was in college, Oz-wego State, I had a profess-er, great prof-esser, his name was Fritz, he said, ‘You know yer gonna have to lose that accent when you go on TV.’ And he told me to speak slow-er and open my mouth wider when I speak. And then I started dooo-in it and it worked, but what’s cool is that I can instantly revert back to Lind-er that grew up in Long Island, that’s soo-aw Long Island.” It’s like magic. She’s like Meryl Streep.

She asked for a Shiraz from the waiter. They had none. He trotted out something fancy. She liked it. I had Grey Goose on the rocks with olives. We shared octopus carpaccio. She had some sort of fish with the skin on it. I had the veal chop. We went back to the Mets/Phillies. She’s says Billy Wagner being out of it “will be good for the Mets.” Then she starts talking about “Chawk-lit” and it hurts my ears. We move on to her job, which she loves whole-heartedly.
“Baseball Tonight is the most challenging show to host out of all of the shows at ESPN. Everything is on the fly. “
I ask her if she was pissed about monitoring the trade deadline all day with a roomful of ESPN’s baseball experts only to have the Manny trade come across her desk at the last minute.

“That was so frickin’ exciting, though! That’s what makes ESPN News great. You see, ESPN news is what Sports Center used to be. You know, boom, instant, nuts and bolts. Yeah, but so much for that deadline, you know? But it was great to break that story through our family of networks…”

Oh.

A lot of Cohn’s book is focused on what it’s like to be a woman breaking into the sports media industry, the pitfalls of her gender, the locker room leering, etc. This brings us to America’s sideline princess, Erin Andrews and the dress saga. She empathizes with the plight of Erin.

“You know that happened to me years ago when they with a couple of incidents when I did stand-ups. But I gotta tell you this: there’s a lot of pressure on women to look the best that they can look. And the thing with Erin, she’s got a lot to work with, you know? And Erin does such a great job, she’s always prepared and when that red light goes on, she kicks butt. Guys don’t have that pressure to look as hot as they can look. And women feel that pressure – but that’s all it is: pressure. But bottom line, A.J., if you’re prepared and you kick butt, that’s all that matters.”

In her book, Cohn talks about an ad that was pulled from ESPN which featured her in a soak tub with the Rams’ enormous offensive lineman Orlando Pace. The way it was shot, it looked like she was naked. Norby pulled the photo. (“They burned it!”, she said.)

But on the front of the book, she’s wearing a long hockey jersey as an homage as her time as a goalie at Oswego State. It’s a little skimpy. It was intentional, I think. I nudge this topic a little bit because, you know, it’s Linda Cohn and that seems a bit of an odd approach. There's also a portion of the book where she talks about Playboy and fantasizing about it when she was younger. This leads to a rant about how female athletes "showing off the female form" by posing naked are really undermining the sport. But would she still pose for Playboy now?

“ Nobody asked! Oh…you know what. Who the heck knows? Nobody’s ringing my cellie off the hook, though. “
Moving on!

The real deal on Cohn: she’s a tremendously nice woman, but it seemed a little weird to be promoting the book so heavily that ultimately has an unhappy ending with her divorce from her husband. I ask her about it. She’s still healing from it, she says, but this is the process you go through with these sorts of things. But why write about it to begin with? Why not keep it personal?

“He’s been in my life for so long and it’s a memoir, so how could I not?” She maintains that she was very careful not to write anything that would upset her kids, but at the same time, she wanted to get it all out there. Still kind of weird, though, right? She says they maintain a friendship and are still finalizing the divorce.

We had dessert. She had sorbet. I had figs. A lot of figs. Linda Cohn and I shared a fig together and she said to mention that fact that she had a fig. We wrap up and the check comes. $205. Fuck me. How much was this lady costing me? She eyed the bill. She was impressed. “You do it right,” she said.

Kind of. We walk back to the hotel and it’s extremely awkward. She’s holding her $5 flowers and neither one of us knows how to end this evening. It started with a handshake and ended with a “Thank you, very much for all of this, A.J.” She disappears into her hotel lobby. I've officially come to the realization that I have absolutely no game.

At this time, I began walking south, thinking over the evening, figuring out where I’m going to stay that night and then it hits me. Hard. In the stomach. You know that scene in "Trainspotting" when the heroin suppository kicks in? Yeah. Just like that. At this point, I’m starting to sweat and frantically try to find a bathroom. For some reason, it appears I’ve wandered onto the only three blocks in Manhattan that don’t have any goddamn bars nearby…then….splat. Seriously. Stuff just came out of me. I finally found a bar and gingerly walked inside, covered in sweat, soccer jacket now around my waist to conceal any evidence of my accident. I ask the bartender for an Amstel Light, plop the money on the table, then take two quick sips, attempt to make a face that looks refreshed then amble down the stairs into the bathroom. Christ. This is a mess, but manageable. Ten minutes later, back upstairs, I take two more sips of my beer, leave a $5 tip and skip out of there trying to ignore the bartender’s withering expression and trying my best not make a face like a guy who just shat himself.

As I’m back outside , stiffly walking toward my friend's house, The Linda Cohn PR Machine calls to tell me that “Linda had a really good time.” I tell him that’s great, she was nice, but I'm actually feeling a little ill at the moment.

“Oh, I hope my client is okay…”

Yeah, I wonder if Linda Cohn shit her pants?

I found out, today, that no, she did not.

It was a three hour ordeal that began with a broken glass at the restaurant and ended with a pair of soiled underwear. (I have realized that one can only eat so many figs before it causes a your intestines to revolt.) I attempted to ask her questions

But more on that tomorrow.

Tonight, do that thing that you usually do on a Wednesday evening.

Also, thank you for your continued support of CohnSpin.

Daulerio came all the way up from Philadelphia to play this morning; we took the court at 7 a.m. We really can't believe he had the cojones to wear the jersey of a man Oakley was slapped for owing him money. Though sometimes we wonder if there's anyone on earth Oakley didn't slap for owing him money.

We don't mean to sound all Fawny Lupica here, but there really is nothing like stepping onto the floor of Madison Square Garden and shooting warmups. To think: Isiah Thomas lords over this court every night. Sadly, he was not there to scout, though, to be fair, not even he would have signed us.

It is worth noting that Charles Oakley didn't appear particularly amused by Daulerio's jersey choice. All told, Oakley wasn't amused by anything; he either didn't want to be there at all, generally looks like he wants to kill everybody in the room ... or both. Probably both. As we warmed up, he just glared off into space, wondering what Michael's up to, realizing that had he not gotten a little too cocky in that poker game the other night, he might never have been forced to sign up for this ridiculousness.

Or maybe he was deliriously happy and just looks like that all the time. It's Oak. You never know.

Worth noting: Our warmup session did not exactly inspire fear in the hearts of our opponents. (We think we airballed a dribble. We're not even sure how that's done, and we did it.) This kid, however, was unconscious; we didn't get to stay for his game, but the guy was draining NBA threes from everywhere. He can also grow facial hair better than we can.

Finally, warmup was over, and we sat to the side while a bleary-eyed announcer introduced the Knicks City Dancers. This was surely the earliest any of these women had ever been up in the morning; they dance for about 25 seconds. And it was still enough time for Patrick Ewing to have sex with half of them!

We were slated for the second game. In the first game, two of the "Joes" from the show took advantage of a clearly bored — and cold — Oak/Smith combo and, somehow, won. (Everybody played for seven minutes.) This was clearly the worst possible scenario for us. Not only was the veneer of invincibility gone, Oakley and Smith would be more warmed up now ... and pissed off.

So, after the loss, they had a pow-wow. This made Daulerio and us extremely nervous.

But, we had the ball first, because they were being sporting. We hadn't really designed any plays; in fact, we hadn't played basketball at all in about six months. Against two angry, competitive, cranky men ready to take our their frustrations. What could possibly go wrong?

OK, so Oakley didn't actually elbow us to the floor. (Though Daulerio claims he did get a shoulder when he tried to talk trash, whatever that means.) But we thought it was a cheap and funny visual joke after the setup. Forgive us.

So how did it go? Well, we'll put it this way: We figured any hope we had of winning would have to revolve around a perimeter game. And Charles Oakley was draining more shots than we were. It was gonna get ugly fast. We couldn't figure out what we were doing wrong.

It's possible they might have had a bit of a size advantage. Oakley and Smith jumped out to a spirited — as spirited as Oakley can be about anything — 7-0 lead ... and we were the ones winded. Fortunately, the "fans" were far away from the proceedings and might have missed it.

Oops. We suppose not. The worst part about this was not that we were losing; we expected that. The worst is that we were terrible. Neither we nor Daulerio have ever considered ourselves world class athletes — really! — but we were exhausted, pathetic and beaten ... just two minutes in! Our friend Aileen, who took these pictures, called us "old and unskilled." That was nice of her, particularly because she was exactly right. Five years ago we would have joked, "we're not teenagers anymore." Now, nearing our mid-30s, we started to realize that we didn't have youth anymore to sustain us or overcome our lack of natural ability. We were just old. We were the sad people in the fantasy camp we used to make fun of. Except we had hair. For now.

You see, now this is a shot that just doesn't have much hope of going in.

Like Rock'n'Jocks on MTV back in the day, the Pros Vs. Joes producers had given us a Break In Case Of Blowout button; any shot from halfcourt was five points. We would have needed to hit about three. At least the one we tried hit the rim. The best we could do was pull off one nifty backdoor play. The reaction of the crowd was not excitement; it was surprise.

After we missed this halfcourt shot, the ball bounced back to us. Charles Smith, who had been "guarding" us, backed off. "Go ahead, man, chuck it again." He was really nice about it, actually. We had never felt so much like a kid from the Make A Wish foundation. We obliged by trying to drive past him. He obliged by blocking our shot. We deserved that.

As the game mercifully wound down, we made one last dive for a last ball. We lost it, and we heard, from the sidelines, "good hustle, man, good hustle." We looked up, and standing over us was ... John Starks! He was "coaching" Oakley and Smith. But mostly: He was just smiling and having a good time. He was an awfully nice guy.

Like most of you, we remember Starks for his horrific Game 7 performance in the 1994 NBA Finals, when he went 2-for-18 and essentially cost the Knicks the title. As we looked up at him, applauding us, cheering us on ... well, John Starks was 2-for-18 once in his life, causing people like us to mock him for it. And this is how he returns the favor. We felt kind of 2-for-18 for life right there.

So we benched ourselves, and, around noon, we were finally able to breathe correctly again.

Photos by Aileen Gallagher. You can find the full set of photos right here.

(UPDATE: The Pros Vs. Joes people just sent us two shots from their cameraman — Al Bello/Getty Images for Spike TV — that sum up the experience right well. They are below. We lost 14-3, by the way.)

Not for long, as the guy above shows: By Friday's game, people were writing Ankiel's name on the back of their shirts, and by Sunday, we actually saw our first legitimate "ANKIEL 24" jersey. We are glad the gift is being shared with the world ... but this kind of intense media attention is kind of what started this whole mess in the first place.

That said, we can't help but contribute to the problem. By pure happenstance, our yearly visit to Busch Stadium coincided with Ankiel's first games as a Cardinals outfielder. After the jump, a mostly incomplete and fuzzy report of our trip, specifically Saturday's game, in which Ankiel hit two homers and a middle-aged woman nearly stuck her finger in our anus.

This is the second season for the new Busch Stadium, and we're now getting used to it enough to stop calling it "the new Busch." But for all the supposed downtown revitalization it was expected to inspire, downtown St. Louis remains a dump. There's some alleged "ballpark village" that's going in next door, but they haven't made an inch of progress on it since we were last back in October for the World Series. The highways are too bunched together, the stadium is surrounded by gravel and dust and you're perpetually one wrong turn away from fisticuffs. St. Louis could have a gorgeous downtown. Why doesn't it?

Inside, though, the crowd was awash in Ankiel madness. Much to our relief, the majority of Cardinals fans were fully aware of Ankiel's history and didn't just think he was some rookie who came out of nowhere. Also: The ladies and those with alternative lifestyles love him. We informed some young woman that Ankiel was married, and she nearly punched us. See? Our man crush isn't that severe.

It's difficult to overstate how surreal it is to see "ANKIEL RF" in the lineup and on the scoreboard. We have seen every game Ankiel has played in the outfield so far, and we still aren't used to it.

A friend pointed out that now-injured Cardinals second baseman looks like Bill Simmons. We agree, and note that, the way Kennedy has been hitting this season, it's clear they both know an equal amount about the National League.

Anyway, you saw what happened: Ankiel homered twice, and we're really not gonna say much more about it. We did not have an erection — thank you very much — but yeah: Good day. We're not gonna go into too much more detail about it, because we kind of want you to still like us.

After the game, we headed to Paddy-O's, which is St. Louis' cute equivalent of a Wrigley Field bar. Cardinals broadcasters Al Hrabosky, Mike Shannon and Joe Buck all have similar establishments, but Paddy-O's is the most successful, because if you stand close enough to the DJ stand, he pours shots in your mouth. This is not to be underestimated. Also: This is a bar that's much more likely to play "Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy" than "Ayo Technology." Obviously.

You might think this guy is another one of those idiots who puts his own name on the back of his jersey, but you'd be mistaken: He's actually honoring Baldus de Ubaldis, an Italian jurist who was, in fact, a cardinal. He also invented the notion of turning your baseball cap backwards in order to look more dope.

See, now here's a definitive problem with having your bachelorette party at Paddy-O's after a Cardinals game: Some asshole's gonna take a picture of you dancing with your "Blowjob Bib" and put it on the Internets. You'd think that if she'd go through all this trouble, she'd find somewhere to put her purse.

Fortunately, we found our fun in less conventional places. Namely, with this group of oppressively drunk middle-aged women, one of whom came to us, seeing our Ankiel jersey, and pinched our ass. They offered our father and us a few beers, and we asked what the special occasion was. (They were, after all, dressed up like cheerleaders.) "Whaddya mean? It's Saturday. It's the Cardinals! IT'S THE CARDINALS!" They then hugged each other and, defying the laws of physics, jumped up and down and started a cheer.

Our father suggested we take a picture. They obliged. The woman to our left appears to be trying to grab our package with a lunch box, and the woman on our right literally tried to stick her finger down the back of our jeans. We kept it together for the picture. It was, after all, Saturday, and it was the Cardinals.

It was a full day, and we were there at 8 a.m. to document all the madness. After the jump, the tale of our immersion into the world of moist sausage.

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When we showed up at 8 a.m., we were surprised by the number of people already crammed against the gates for front-row seats. As far as "media" there, so far, it was only us and the lonely ESPN broadcaster, who looked a bit bewildered by all the festivities. He kept asking the CEO of Nathan's questions like, "Wait ... how many people are you expecting at this thing?" and "Do they really have to eat the vomit, if it comes to that?" We're fully expecting to see Theismann assigned to this in a few years.

Thirty seconds after this picture was taken, these headphones pinched us, propelling us forward and into the air.

The Fourth Of July must be the worst day of the year for Big Al's Chicago Hot Dog King, which is located directly across the street from Nathan's. We doubt the owner even bothered to come into work yesterday. Instead, he just sat at home, rocking back and forth, clicking the lamp on ... and off ... and on ... and off ...

After talking to a few early arrivals, most of whom were stoned college students we think were still up from the night before, we decided to go check out the least welcome people in Coney Island yesterday: The vegetarian protesters! They were not amused by our question, in our strained Harry Caray voice: "If you were a veggie hot dog, would it be OK to eat yourself?" We would have pushed it, but that guy in the pig mask had a hatchet. Later, some lady dressed up like a green bean had a scuffle with a meat eater in the crowd; someone tried to steal her sign, and she responded with a firm elbow to the ribs. Because she doesn't eat meat, though, her elbow shattered.

Realizing that showing up four hours early to a hot dog eating contest in which we already had reserved seating was a bit of a waste of time — though we bet we gave away about 10 cigarettes to the stoned college kids — we figured we'd at least taste the local merchandise. We'd forgotten how huge Nathan's hot dogs really are; even for hot dogs, they're massive. We ate this as fast as we could, though; it took us 36 seconds. We then couldn't walk for about 10 minutes. We're still having fissures today.

Around 10 a.m., with more crowd rolling in, the pregame festivities began. This was our first hot dog eating contest, and we were curious what kind of acts open for such a spectacle. It turned out to be "Reese." Reese is this pseudo-Lenny Kravitz wannabe who proudly introduced himself as "the guy who wrote the official team song for the 2007-08 New York Knicks." Now THERE'S something to put on your resume. Reese had unflagging enthusiasm — "Ya'll ready to see some hot dogs eaten up in here?!" — but the crowd wasn't into his signature brand of the worst parts of rap, soul and light rock. To either his credit or his detriment, Reese didn't waver when the only being listening to his pleas to "clap along with this one, ya'll" was a large furry hot dog mascot. You see that dog at all the clubs in New York; such a slut, and always fucking high.

We found ourselves distracted instead by this sign; Big Ben would be so proud, were he not busy bouncing his head off something.

Harold never listened when his friends told him that moving to New York City without a job was a mistake, that he was following his heart more than his head. But he knew the Big Apple was where he belonged. He'd show them; if he could make it there, he could make it anywhere. The city was just teeming with opportunity, wherever he looked, and if he kept his nose clean and his head down, worked his ass off and connected with the right people, the perfect job would just fall in his lap. Take that, Oak Lawn High School, Class of 1988. Who's laughing now?

We were treated to one last musical act; the band is The Gaskets, and we are not overstating a bit when we say that we have seen the future of rock and roll, and its name is The Gaskets. Two indulgent hipsters, a synthesizer, some Funkmaster dance moves and songs called "Cold Busted" — about your girlfriend (or mom) catching you masturbating — and "The High Five Song." We found these guys compulsively entertaining, but we might have been the only people in on the joke; the impatient crowd looked ready to dunk this skinny lead singer in water, shove him down their throats and then vomit him back up. But we're seriously fans. We can't quite do their set justice, so we will no longer try.

Then it was time for the great George Shea. One of the top dogs of The International Federation Of Competitive Eating, Shea is a true link to what makes Coney Island great: Unabashed hucksterism — Ufford from With Leather, who was out in the crowd, texted us to mention that he "would absolutely buy a monorail from this man" — rat-a-tat vocal cleverness and a showman's spirit. We couldn't possibly have found him more entertaining; he's the best part of seeing the event in person. The best part was his individual competitors introductions ...

... in which he wrote wonderfully literate and hilarious intros for each of the competitors. (There was an extended riff on the nature of man, hell and the inexorable winding of time while introducing the competitor who is a vegetarian except for when he competes in eating competitions. This makes complete sense to us, by the way; by the time he sees a hot dog, he probably can't help but eat 40.) Shea always introduced former champion Michael Devito, who announced the charitable contribution of 10,000 hot dogs to City Harvest. Unfortunately, the kids have to eat them in an hour.

Our favorite intro belonged to this guy, who was carrying a sign that said, "Hermoine Dies," in reference to all the speculation about the upcoming "Harry Potter" book. If he's right, we're gonna hunt him down and strangle him.

After a rousing, "America ... Fuck Yeah!" intro for Joey Chestnut, the real man of mystery arrived: Takeru Kobayashi, who we were informed was receiving acupuncture for his jaw just that morning. The man looked more confident than we were expecting. The stage was set. The competitors were at their stations. The hot dogs were placed on the table. The rousing intros had finished, and completely fired the crowd up.

And it really was a huge crowd, too. It was listed at more than 30,000, and that sounds about right. That's more people that have attended a Buzzsaw game in decades. (Unless they were playing the Cowboys, of course.)

Even though we could have done without the Thunderstix, it was a frenzied atmosphere. We never thought 30,000 people could be shrieking for such gluttony, but we will confess to being entirely swept in it. And then, with a flourish, Shea announced ...

... that this was just a fake intro, that the contest wouldn't be starting for another 45 minutes. Why? Well, ESPN, of course: now that they telecast it, they're in charge of the whole event, and they had to run 40 minutes of prepackaged bunk. So Shea sent all the competitors backstage, and the crowd was stuck with a massive collective case of blue balls. Shea tried to rev the momentum back up, with former champ Eric Booker rapping, and the Bunettes dance troupe lamely trying to look interested in a Gwen Stefani song, but it was clear he was just filling time. He even brought out ...

... the clogging group "Clogtastic." We appreciated the nod to Coney Island novelty acts, but, seriously, could we please get going? (Only these guys would have the intestinal fortitude to put on clog dancers 20 minutes before the biggest event of their year.) Shea was then trotted back outstage again, whispering not-quite-off-mike, "Hey, is ESPN freaking ready yet, or not?" and still trying to bridge the time gap. The crowd, restless, began to lightly boo, and it was clear this pained him. What was once a perfectly constructed event, with its own natural rhythm, now has the normal starts-and-stops caused by Lord God Television. He couldn't help himself, quietly grousing about ESPN several times. We're sure the television coverage is worth it in the long term, but it clearly hurt.

At last, we were off. If you saw it on television, you know it was gullet-to-gullet almost the entire way, but watching it in person really makes you realize just how much it puts someone through to do this to themselves. It was clear, though, that Chestnut was better, try as Kobayashi might to catch up.

Meanwhile, we sat next to this guy, Ed "Cookie" Jarvis. As much as we respect a guy who has a jacket made up entirely of a listing of his competitive eating achievements ... well, we wonder if this is the only day he wears this.

We came to the final madness at the end, when Kobayashi had his "reversal." ESPN might not show this to you again, but we'll give you this closeup, because we here at Deadspin always give you what you want.

There seemed to be some confusion after it was over about who had won, though it seemed pretty clear Chestnut was at least a dog ahead. We don't understand, however, how he suddenly was credited with three more hot dogs by the judges. We've yet to receive a coherent explanation for this, and we'd explore it further, but you know what? We don't really care all that much.

And thus, was a new champion crowned, a champion for America. We have reasserted our status as the world's Champion Of Gluttony. The universe is back in order. We had the opportunity to interview the competitors afterwards, but we demurred; we weren't sure exactly what to ask them. So, uh ... shit, man, that's a lot of freaking hot dogs you just ate. I mean, Christ.

We fought our way through the crowd to Nathan's afterwards, and, much to our surprise, the lines for hot dogs there were immense. We can't imagine why watching such a contest would inspire someone to immediately eat a Nathan's hot dog, but hey: What do we know? Besides, we had other things to do.

Because at the end of the day, the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Championships are all about making new friends. You should really see what happens when the mustard gets drunk.

Full 2007 Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Championship Photo Gallery [Flickr]

Friday afternoon, we accepted an invitation to MLB.com's offices in Manhattan for an interview with ... Harold Reynolds. This is the first SHOTY nominee we've interviewed — save for the imaginary conversations with Barbaro that go on in our head every day — and we talked for about an hour on a variety of topics, most of which involved ESPN and Reynolds' ongoing lawsuit against the company.

Reynolds couldn't get into detail on most aspects of the case, but he still had plenty to say. After the jump, dip inside the brain of the newest MLB.com employee. And we will say this: The man can hug.

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Mr. Reynolds, we won't lie: We're pretty surprised to be talking to you right now.

Hey, you guys have been real good to me.

Really? We think we once called you "Handsy" Reynolds.

I've been called a lot worse.

We think that if your firing would have happened five years ago, you would have gone quietly into the night, ESPN would have just moved on and no one would have ever thought about it again. You'd have just been gone. But today, the way they're used to running their business doesn't work anymore. People hold them more accountable than they used to, and when they shroud something in mystery, people want to know what happened. The day after your firing, "Harold Reynolds" was the No. 1 most searched item on Technorati. No offense, but you're not Britney Spears. Were you surprised by the mass interest in what had happened to you?

First off, I'm glad I'm not Britney Spears. And certainly none of those searches were done by me. As for being surprised, yes and no. Yes, because to me, I'm just Harold. But no, because ESPN, it's a huge entity. It's a huge monster. The day I was let go, with nothing said, no comment but "he's just no longer with the network," that piqued a lot of curiosity. Because of that, people were trying to find out what was going on.

You did an interview with The New York Post the day after you were fired where you just sounded confused.

That was an ambush. I just answered the phone, and the guys says, "I hear it's sexual harassment." I was like, 'Excuse me, who is this?' I wasn't ready to do an interview; I was still trying to figure out what the heck's going on.

And at that point, you had no idea you'd been fired for sexual harassment?

I found out solely through newspapers and your site. They never specified this is what it is. In the vernacular of the paperwork, it's actually "Not Following The Direction Of Production." But they never said that publicly. They just let me hang out there and get slaughtered.

To this day, of all the people you worked for at ESPN, the people who fired you, you still haven't talked to any of them about why you were fired?

Nobody in upper management. I've talked very briefly with a few different people I used to work with. I've searched for information just like anybody else. I didn't know what was in the complaint. We sent the labor board to go get [my personnel file and complaint], and they were denied. The state attorney general subpoenaed ESPN, and they just didn't turn it over. Finally, we got in front of the judge, and the judge turned over the personnel file. And that was just May 18. May 18 was the first time I had ever seen my personnel file and what any of the complaints were against me. Through a court order.

Do you still talk with any of the guys from the show?

Kurkjian and Peter (Gammons) have called, and I speak with them a lot. Ravech has tried to contact me a couple of times. The main people I worked with were Peter, Karl, Krukie and occasionally Kurkjian, and everybody's contacted me except for Kruk. I'm not gonna sit here and slam him, though.

I think what has happened with most of the people at ESPN is, because of the lawsuit, a lot of people are afraid to get in touch with me. It's not that they don't like me. I understand.

You were there for a long time.

Eleven years. I knew everybody from the janitor to the president. I felt like that was home for me. I understand if people don't get back at you.

It was tough to leave, because I went across every portion of ESPN, with Little League, and College, and Major League Baseball. That means studio and remote side. I knew thousands of people. It's difficult not being in touch.

Was there a fear, once all this went down, that you'd never work again?

I had to think about it, before I filed the lawsuit, and I came to the point that I was like, "You know what? I'm just not working anymore." And that was fine with me. To me, it's always been about clearing my name. I don't, to this day, feel like I was fired properly. I was wrongfully terminated, it was rush to judgment, they did not do a proper investigation. Had they done this the right way, we would have never been in this situation. I stand by that. I built my life for 30 years as a professional, whether it's in baseball or broadcasting, and to have that torn down, in one statement, by one person, I wasn't gonna stand for. This was my only recourse. I wanted to meet, and I wanted to sit down, and I didn't get any answers.

We've seen the court papers of what has been filed against you, and, not to make you get into specifics, but when you look at what some other ESPN personalities have been accused of, or what they've even admitted to ... why you? If these were all just misunderstandings, they could have had stronger cases against other people, if they wanted to make an example out of someone.

I won't get into specifics, but when you look at some of the other stuff people have said about other people there, it's pretty obvious that this situation was not fair to me. I will say that. They can read between those lines as well as you can. That's one of the main reasons I think I've got such a strong case. I was not treated fairly in comparison to some of the other things that have gone on in that place.

Talk about the day all this went down. Was it just HR in the room with you? Oh, and by "HR," I mean "human relations," not, you know, you.

It was Norby Williamson, Marcia Keegan and Steve Anderson. That's who was in the room, and that's who fired me. They called me in, and told me I was fired.

After you were fired, did you look around for other jobs immediately?

I talked to just about everybody in the industry. The first people who came to the forefront were the Mariners; I've always got a job there. I met with everyone. And every single one of them was like, "Well, let's see what happens with this ESPN business first." That's another reason I'm so grateful for MLB.com, to step up and say, "we'll give you a job right now." They know interviews like this are gonna have to happen. But when I met with other executives at other networks, they'd always ask immediately about the ESPN thing. After I tell them what happened, they're like, "That's it?"

Have you ever talked to any of the women who made accusations against you since they made them?

No. These weren't relationships. They could stand in front of me right now, and I wouldn't know who they are.

Do you still watch "Baseball Tonight?"

A couple of times. But it's hard. I feel like I helped build that show. It's tough to turn it on and see the show and not see me on it.

Do you think, generally speaking, that ESPN is a difficult place for women to work?

Anytime you have women in a sports environment, it's going to be difficult to them. They're just outnumbered; they become a minority. I think you have to be extra respectful to them and their position. You have to be more sensitive to it, because you never know how people will react to something.

Did you ever have any sexual harassment training at ESPN?

Nope, never. They put out that there were concerns of five women with incidents of misconduct, but this isn't something that happened in one incident. I never had training, I was never asked to go to training, though I think everybody else in the building probably had it.

Everybody but you?

I'm sure I wouldn't slip through the cracks now, after me, but yeah: It was just never offered to me.

Do you think, generally speaking, that ESPN is too powerful?

They're a powerful entity, there's no doubt about that. But I couldn't worry about that. But I needed to file this suit to file my name. Whether it would have been ESPN or anybody else. It had to be done.

Before this whole business, we never got the impression that you were one of the least popular ESPN broadcasters; there wasn't a site called "Fire Harold Reynolds" or anything. People like Kruk and Berman get it a lot worse than you ever did.

Man, you guys just kill Chris. Leather? Is that what it is? You're with leather?

Something like that. We actually have no problem with leather. It's one of our favorite materials. Anyway, you'd never had that much negative about you in the media, and then, suddenly, everything in the media about you was negative. That must have been disconcerting.

The biggest eye opener for me was that I never had enemies. My whole life, I was the guy who loved everybody, hugged everybody, said hi to everybody. When something like this happens, they come out of the woodworks. I'm like, "Man, people hate me." That hurts, you know? That's probably the biggest shocker of it all. I really was naïve to that side of things.

Did people get quiet when you walked in the room?

Oh, yeah. I'd walk into restaurant, and my wife would always get the "Oh, poor girl" looks from everybody. That's hard. That's been the most difficult part of the whole thing was seeing my wife see all the hurt she had to go through. We're pretty upbeat people. To have night when you were crying and you don't have direction, it's real hard. But it's been good for us, it's forged our relationship closer. Hell, we'd just been married a couple of years. It was like, "Hello, marry me" and then BLAM. But we'll weather the storm. Forget jobs, forget if I'm gonna work again, forget about how people who don't know me perceive me. What matters is what's happening at home. I sat down with my wife, explained to her what was going on and she said, "Let's go forward with the lawsuit." She backed me up, no matter how darts were thrown our way.

Talk about this new MLB.com thing. Do you have a contact all set? Is part of this a deal with the new baseball network that's coming in a couple of years?

It's a two year contract, and, as for the baseball network, that's something that we'd all have to address down the line. They don't have it under the same umbrella. In my eyes, I see them co-existing, but it's up for MLB to set up the difference. I'll be on five days a week after the All-Star break, and then it'll be two days a week in the offseason. I'm not taking this job because I couldn't wait to work again; it's an unbelievable opportunity. The reach here is greater. I'm not Internet savvy, so it kind of blows me away what people can get to on the Web. In my heart of hearts, I love to teach baseball. If I can get in people's homes and teach the game, and educated people on it, this is where I need to be.

Do you still live in Connecticut?

Yep, in West Harford. I'll come into the city twice a week, and we'll have everything done that can be posted for the rest of the week. We want to be as current as possible.

Have you lost any friendships because of this whole thing?

Naw, people know me. People who have been around me have never wavered. They know that if I had done anything, I would have said so. The real people around me ... well, I don't want to get into anything too philosophical.

The Web doesn't handle philosophy well.

Exactly. I'll get killed when this runs.

So we were wondering if you would give us a hug.

I don't think my lawyers would like that too much.

We promise not to file a complaint.

Sorry. Probably not a good idea.

You see, AJ Daulerio is leaving his loyal comrades in New York City this week for his hometown of Philadelphia, where he will be working for Philadelphia magazine. (Don't worry, Cultural Oddsmaker will continue.) So Friday night, we gathered for a surprise roast of the Deadspin cult hero who is, in fact, the balls.

We were the host of the gathering, but other roasters included Aileen Gallagher, Eric Gillin and Amy Blair of The Black Table, Lindsay Robertson, Matt Dorfman and Deadspin design savant Jim Cooke. Above are the video highlights of the evening, shot and edited by the outstanding Richard Blakeley.

If you're a regular Cultural Oddsmaker reader, you won't be surprised that AJ urinates on his roommate's computer, attempts to pick up girls with the promise of a "smoky tornado" and tries to stick suppositories in his anus while in cabs. We tried to hire Stuart Scott to join us, but he was too expensive. Witness the madness above.

Full pictures from the manic evening are found right here, and Daulerio's response to the evening is over at Gawker.

Good luck in Philly, Daulerio. Don't burn the place down.

AJ Daulerio Going Away Roast Photos [Flickr]
Former Gawker Guest Editor, Noted Skirt-Chaser A.J. Daulerio's Video Goodbye [Gawker]
Cultural Oddsmaker: What Will Happen At The LeBron Roast? [Deadspin]

Last year around this time, thanks to a promotion for that "Pros Vs. Joes" show on Spike that no one we know watches, we strapped on a helmet and batted against John Rocker. That trip worked out so well for everybody that they asked us if we'd be interested in heading to Grand Central Station in New York City this morning and playing a little two-on-two against — of all people — Kordell Stewart and Andre Rison.

We find it difficult to resist the opportunity to publicly embarrass ourselves, so we called up Cultural Oddsmaker A.J. Daulerio to come with us and take the duo on. We had to wake up extremely early — the ball was hiked at 7 a.m. — but we, along with photographic correspondent Aileen Gallagher, were there. The story of our journey is after the jump.

The notion of Pros vs. Joes is a simple one: Retired — or "in between jobs" — athletes displaying their physical might over us mere mortals. We've never actually watched the show, but we're going to assume that the Joes usually lose. The show is mostly about headlines, look what Jose Canseco is reduced to now, so it's fitting that the makeshift "field" was set up in the Vanderbilt Room in Grand Central during rush hour. We find it amazing that people actually showed up and sat in the "bleachers." We assumed they were all friends of the "Joes," or perhaps the saddest groupies of all time.

Because this is Spike, there were of course cheerleaders. Unlike pretty much every other publicity "event" with cheerleaders we've "covered," this one allowed the cheerleaders to stay indoors. Honestly, some people will do anything to get their SAG card.

The public relations person in charge of setting this whole business up beckoned Daulerio and us over and informed us that not only were we up next, but that the show had actually put together jerseys for us with "Deadspin.com" on the back. We would have preferred just "Deadspin;" something about the dot-com stamps us as the pasty, wonkish assmunches that we are. That said, we did our best to get our games faces on; we respected that Daulerio grew a Wannstedt-esque mustache for the occasion. If we could grow facial hair, we might have done the same thing.

(Note: Daulerio says he's growing the mustache for his coverage of the Super Bowl in Miami next week. We do not know what that means.)

Before we realized what was happening, we were already on the "field." First off — and this should go without saying — football players are rather huge ... and these are a couple of the small ones. As we walked on the field, the PR guy reminded us "No tackling," as if this was possibly going to be an issue. We laughed it off, and then his face fell serious: "No, seriously; these guys both plan comebacks."

And that just made us sad all over. As we've mentioned before, few plights in athletics are more depressing than that of the retired athlete. (A sadness the show deftly exploits.) We sympathize; from birth, essentially, these men are groomed, prodded and flattered to do one thing, and one thing only: Play sports. But the athletic career ends prematurely, even for the great ones: Kordell Stewart is 33 years old. Can you imagine? Being that age and knowing that your best years are behind you, that no one wants you to do the one thing you've ever been able to do? It's little wonder they sign up for these shows. It's a reminder that they are different, that they are special, that life isn't over, not yet. Heck, we felt so bad for them, we figured we should just take it easy on them. Losing to us could have been psychologically devastating. We might be stupid and frivolous and just a bunch of soulless Internet naysayers ... but at least we have years left to turn it around. What does Kordell Stewart do now? Learn to type?

Oh, and before you ask: We still do not know if Kordell is gay or not. Here, we gave him our best come-hither face, right before he snapped the ball, and our doe eyes fell sadly short. We should have slipped him our number.

Anyway, it was time to rev this engine up. The rules were basic: Two-on-two flag football, four downs, if we stopped them or intercepted a Kordell pass — not an impossibility! — we won, and if they scored, they won. As Kordell, who didn't stop laughing the entire time, prepared to hike the ball, Daulerio decided to trash talk with Rison.

Daulerio: Hey, let's go.
Rison: Where you from?
Daulerio:: Philly, actually.
Rison: You're from Philly? Do you not like black people?
Daulerio: Wha?—-

And then the ball was hiked.

It didn't take long. Kordell lofted one right over Daulerio's head, Rison caught it and the Pros had done it again. We were ready for our dejected walk of shame, until the ref, sensing the philosophical void in our souls, asked if we wanted to try again, this time with Daulerio "guarding" Kordell and us splitting our to take on Rison. We agreed, because we hadn't gotten up at 5:30 a.m. for something that lasted 10 seconds. So we switched spots.

You can't quite tell from this picture, but Rison decided to palm our head. We're not sure why. We ducked, because we don't know where that hand has been. We didn't make any jokes about burning his house down, because he is, as mentioned, rather large.

We had been watching Kordell and Rison play a few other Joes beforehand, and we noticed they had two plays: Go deep, and slant across the middle. (Both tended to end in touchdowns.) So we assumed Rison was going to slant. (Honestly, we're such defensive geniuses; we're like Buddy Ryan here.) So Rison cut across the middle, and we stuck with him ... and then Kordell overthrew him. And we had a stop!

This simply would not do; Kordell and Rison huddled up, and as we prepared for second down, we wondered if we had just earned a modicum of respect from Rison. After all, we — a lowly typist — had stopped him from doing the very thing he had devoted his life to doing. We wondered if he would nod at us, nice play kid, and we would nod back, that's just what we do, baby, and we would enter into battle again. After Kordell and Rison had figured out the new play they put together, Rison lined up across him again. We waited for the nod. "Bad pass," he said. "You're done this time." We didn't nod back. And the ball was hiked.

Rison cut across the middle, again, a little deeper downfield, surprising us. As we followed him, we turned and ...

We ran straight into one of the oversized pilons planted in the middle of the field. We have no idea why those freaking things were there. Rison — the only one of us standing anymore — caught the pass and scored.

Considering the rather obvious physical disadvantages we had, we found the need for trickery on Rison's part a bit, oh, underhanded. (In a joking, please-don't-hit-us way.) We went to tell him so, and we were reminded, once again, that athletes are trained to win, whatever ever the circumstances, whatever the cost. Sure, Rison could have beaten us straight-up ... but it's fun to win in different ways.

Kordell, for his part, was awfully fired up. We suppose the rush is always there, no matter what.

And then, in one of the more surreal experiences of our lifetime, Andre Rison gave us a huge, air-compressing hug and told us he loved us, great game, man, "love ya, totally." We totally understood what Left Eye saw in him.

Finally, we were shuffled off the field and patted on the back. We wondered if we had earned any respect in the eyes of Kordell and Rison, if we had proven ourselves somehow. If we could hold our heads a little higher. If we could stand with the big boys. If Kordell was gay or not. We wondered, and then we looked back, and there were already two other dorks in there with them, we were long forgotten, hugs and "love ya, totally"s and doe eyes all ineffectual, all just another couple of idiots.

And off we went, happy that our future is ahead of us, rather than behind us. Oh, and yes: A little humiliated too. There was that.

Because all bloggers live in their parents' basements and just type in their underwear all day because they can't get a real media job, we took our mom and dad to the game; our father was 18 when the Cardinals won in 1967 and (gulp) 33 in 1982, so it was a rather intense experience for him and Mom as well. It was also cold; extremely cold; we actually found ourselves screaming at players to mush rather than run.

But it was something, obviously, that won't be forgotten, even after this series has long faded. (And judging by the ratings, and the general sluggish nature of the games, won't take long.) So here's our report from the front lines, being at Busch for the clinching of the World Championship. We'll be done after this; it's pretty much all left that we have to say.

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Typically, we showed up outside Busch about four hours before gametime and parked our Chevy Cobalt, the road cannon of destruction, and ended up next to a van with a picture of Derek Jeter on it. Honestly, this World Series would have been so much better if it had the Yankees in it? Don't you agree? What's baseball without the Yankees? Derek Jeter is, after all, the face of baseball.

The Cardinals might have won the World Series, but, without question, they will always finish in last place in fan signs. Honestly, Cardinals fans come up with the dopiest goddamned signs. They're all made by the same people — we don't know who they are, and, frankly, we don't want to — and they're easily identifiable by that odd font we don't remember seeing anyplace else. We'd feel so much better if they just held up signs that said, "GO CARDS!" The most clever one was "LEAVE IT TO WEAVER." That was the most clever one.

While drinking at frat house enclave Paddy-O's before the game, we came across this gentleman, wearing only a pair of shorts and painted entirely in red. Falling back on one of our favorites jokes, we asked him if he had a skin condition. He answered in an oddly literal way: "Actually, yeah, I can't stay out in the sun too long or I peel real bad." We nodded, confused, and said we were referring to the fact that he was, you know, entirely red. "Oh, yeah, that too, man, yeah, ha ha ... GO CARDS!" Out of conversation, we just yelled the same thing back at him.

We had hoped the rainout of two days beforehand had scared Billy Ray Cyrus off his duties as singer of the national anthem, but, alas, 'twas not to be. Here's something you might not know about Billy Ray Cyrus: He cannot sing. We're not fans of country music, but we at least acknowledge some giants of the genre. Cyrus is proof that you can just toss a twang in here or there, and, for some people, that's enough. Honky Tonk Badonkadonk!

It is to the credit of Cardinals fans in our section that Cyrus was booed. We wouldn't call it "lustily booed," but it was too cold for anything involving lust. Oh, and we were with our parents.

If we might get sporty for a moment ... it's a good thing the Cardinals took care of this series early, because everyoen's been awfully quiet about just how much Albert Pujols struggled in this series. He had two opportunities to put Game 5 away and failed in both spots. If they had lost, he'd start getting those "Bonds-postseason-choker" labels that are always unfair but not really. It's telling that Pujols is probably the best player in baseball, and the leader of the team that won the World Series, and afterwards everyone was talking about David Eckstein, Adam Wainwright and Scott Rolen. We think this might stick in his mind a bit through the offseason, because that's just what Pujols does.

Anyway, long story short: Everything went perfect for the Cardinals all game — though if we ever see Chris Duncan in the outfield again, we're going to personally take his left hand off with a welding torch — and then Adam Wainwright struck out Brandon Inge in the top of the ninth inning to win the World Series. This caused people to go rather nuts.

It's extremely difficult to take pictures of fireworks, particularly when you're screaming at the top of your lungs and pouring beer on your own head. Trust us.

It's an odd thing to stay in the stands when your team wins the World Series at home, because after everyone's done jumping on top of each other and bonding homoerotically, they clear everything out, drive a truck on the field, set up a podium and hand the microphone to Bud Selig. During this whole time, you're yelling as loud as you can, and yelling is an activity that requires considerable effort. By the time Bud Selig starts talking, it can be difficult to hang on to one's enthusiasm. It's almost as if, we dunno, that guy has a special ability to suck the life out of things.

Fortunately, you can always leave the stands, run out on the concourse and do a public imitation of a blowup doll.

And then we took to the streets, where, sadly, no cars were burning. There were just a few brave souls climbing up the Stan Musial statue, and some guy who vowed to do a pushup for everyone one of the Cardinals' wins this season. (There weren't that many, mercifully.) We did try to drink that big bottle of Jager, though.

Look, even Eckstein came outside for the party!

The party went on pretty much all night; when we finally made it back to a computer to do the Holy Freaking Crap post, it was 5 a.m. CT. (We love that photo of Eckstein more than anything, by the way, not least of which because of the picture of Jayson Stark in the background, quietly computing which World Series MVPs of the last 25 years have been under six feet tall and slugging tequila directly after the clinching game.) The rest of the weekend was pretty much the same. The Cardinals won the World Series, and we were there, and everything else, we were just zonked and checked out from. We're sorry we can't give you more here; we just don't believe it happened, and we're not gonna question it ... we're just going to bathe in it and never forget it. And — we promise — we're gonna stop talking about it now.

Nevertheless, since one of the best parts of this job is that we are technically "on duty" while still being a fan and drinking Bud Lights, we frittered around the soggy stadium on Wednesday, before, during and after the game, talking to people, taking pictures and mostly trying to stay warm. (And failing.)

Our tales of a windy, freezing night at Busch are after the jump.

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As tends to be the case, we showed up far too early, blazing a trail through southwestern Illinois in our Chevy Cobalt, the road cannon of destruction. It was only drizzling when we first arrived, around 3 p.m. local time, and there was general optimism that the game might start, if just because it was supposed to be worse Thursday and Friday. Nobody was by the ballpark this early but us, some stoned-looking cameramen and bomb-sniffing dogs, who ended up just hanging outside Berman's trailer, focused on the sausage.

Speaking of Berman, did you know he lives here in the offseason? True story.

While sneaking a cigarette — extremely difficult to do while wearing lineman's gloves, by the way; we might have mentioned that it was cold — we ran into these two toolboxes, belonging to the most frightening race on the planet: Teenagers. One of them asked us for a cigarette — "For Game 5, man!" — and we obliged, as the red guy on the left snorted at our Marlboro Reds. We asked how much money they'd raised so far. "Couple bucks, man," baseball face kid said. "But it's early. We're a tenth of the way there!" Yes. You are.

You can't tell this, because we're a shitty photographer, but that's Peter Gammons, pretty much the only sports reporter who makes us weak-kneed. We had considered yelling something out to him, like "Tom Petty is totally underrated!" or "Harold Reynolds was framed!" but we didn't want to startle him; he's had a rough few months.

Interestingly enough, this guy is actually a Cardinals fan. He's just an unfortunate victim of a poorly timed genetic malady. You have no idea how much this guy was rooting for the A's.

Believe or not, the game was sold out, proving that we weren't, in fact, in Atlanta. (Sorry!)

It was late Sunday night. Bob knew he had to do something; this injustice simply could not stand. But he is but just one man. What can one man do to make a difference? But he could not sit idly by, atrophying away while the evildoers attempted to spread their sinful seed among the most sacred of institutions. So he stayed up, way past his 9 p.m. bedtime, and he ran to the Wal-Mart, and he grabbed some glue, some printer paper and a pair of scissors. He knew he must have looked silly, bent over his workbench, feverishly cutting and pasting, cutting and pasting, that's good, that'll work, no, it must be PERFECT! His handiwork would change the world. He knew it. It was his quest, and he would not be denied.

Do you know how embarassing it was to show up at the ballpark and see someone wearing the exact same thing? Was totally like prom.

We know we're a Midwesterner, and a Cardinals fan, so we're certainly biased. But: Sometimes, St. Louis is just the most beautiful place on earth. It makes one's heart ache.

And then we finally went inside, and were greeted with this. We looked at this exact scene for two hours. And then they told us we could go home. We were extremely frustrated by the rainout and having to come back to St. Louis two days later.

We are no longer so frustrated.

Well, the evening for Deadspin readers at RFK Stadium was Monday night, and we'll say this: We woke up just in time to do the site this morning. We had an excellent turnout, and we were deeply honored to meet some of our finest commenters around these parts, including many of the All Star crew behind Kissing Suzy Kolber. We are proud to report that the average Deadspin reader is as intelligent, charming and drunk as we anticipated they would be.

Yeah, about the drunkenness: It might have been the intense humidity, but the evening led itself to several blackouts and even, we hear, the first ever Deadspin commenter hookups, which is what we're all about here: Bringing people together. Through alcohol.

Anyway, here's a photo of our section; you can tell, it was a packed house at RFK. We'll surely have more photos later on, but that'll hold for now. Thanks everyone for coming, and we're totally going to have another one of these. If our livers can take it.

But that wasn't his first appearance in New York today. At 7 a.m., Rocker was in Bryant Park, promoting his new reality show, "Pros Vs. Joes," by pitching to winners of an ESPN Radio contest in a batting cage.

Oh, and us: He pitched to us too. Seriously. We batted off John Rocker this morning. We have the full report of just another strange day in the life of John Rocker, after the jump.

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We arrived at 6:30 a.m., which, after a night of drinking every time the Oscars showed Jamie Foxx right after a reference to "Crash," was a sore mistake. We mulled around and met up with the beleaguered press contact for SpikeTV, who had invited us to the event. He was one of the few people there, but, then again, it was 6:30 in the morning.

In what was anything but a surprise, Rocker is huge. He also has a ponytail, which we suppose was inevitable. Some "hey, who's ready to PAR-TAAYY!" dope with a microphone asked Rocker what he thought of the contest winners he was about to pitch to. Rocker responded, "More like contest wieners." Honestly, it's so nice to have Rocker back around.

Just to be mean, SpikeTV hired "cheerleaders" to jump around, bother commuters and hand out Cracker Jacks. We spoke with one while we were both sneaking a cigarette. The conversation:

Us: Jesus, it's freezing out here.
"Cheerleader": You have no fucking idea.

As we waited for Rocker to finish stretching, we looked around for other "reporters." We found two: One was a reporter from The New York Post who looked extremely nervous about the possibility of batting against Rocker. The other: Asian reporter Tricia Takanawa.

Bored and freezing, we began talking to Christopher Becerril, a contestant on the show (a "Joe," if you will). He said that he had lived in New York City for 13 years and "dabbled in skeleton." We tiptoed away before finding out if he meant the Olympic sledding event, or something more weird and sinister.

At last, we were on. Strangely, SpikeTV had hired an actual umpire for the event, even though each "competitor" was only allowed three pitches. We don't know much about the culture of umpiring, but this has to be considered just above umpiring blog softball on the Umpiring Chain Of Gigs.

Unfortunately, before we finally started, Takanawa had to cut some strange promo with Rocker which involved — and thankfully, we have photographic proof here — her sitting on his back while doing pushups. And that got us to thinking about Rocker, and how little headway he has made.

We are a country that loves redemption. It really shouldn't have been that hard for Rocker to rehabilitate his image after that disastrous interview in 1999; it was, after all, only an interview. And it's not that he hasn't been trying. He has hired a full-time PR person — whom, after talking with her, clearly seems to care about Rocker personally as well as professionally; she has the disposition of a perpetually disappointed but still fiercely protective mom — he has taken every opportunity to be fan-friendly during his minor-league stints and even posed in a NYPD hat. Yet he seems destined to be classified as a racist moron with more than a few screws loose in the eyes of the sporting world. He pops up every once in a while, and we all gleefully whack him back down.

Mind you, as the "Cold Pizza" stunt today shows, he doesn't do himself many favors. But why do we save so much vitriol for Rocker? Even if he's is merely an idiot, he's certainly a harmless idiot. He's an out-of-work ballplayer who said something extremely stupid seven years ago and will forever pay the price for it. It's as if we collectively use Rocker as the extreme prism through which we view our own discomfort with the real issues of race, ethnicity and homophobia in sports, and in the world. We might have our own prejudices, unspoken or not, our own concerns, our own views of inequity ... but hey, at least we're not as bad as that guy! Demonizing Rocker makes us feel better; he has become the canvas on which we project all our negativity. He's the dumb hick; not us, not ever.

Which is why no matter what Rocker does, no matter how hard his publicist tries, no matter how many reporters he lets ride his back while he does push-ups ... he'll always be doomed. We need him to be doomed. It makes us feel better.

But enough of matters of a semi-serious nature: It was time to hit. (Excuse our puffiness, by the way; it was extremely cold.) After the Post reporter — who had looked much, much worse than we had during warmups — hit one out of three pitches, we were motioned to enter the cage.

We stared out at Rocker. He really was quite huge. And you know what? We were intimidated. It would be a lie to say otherwise. We didn't need a reminder of just how touched athletes are by the gods in their abilities, just how superior they are to us in every physical aspect ... but we had a feeling we were about to get one anyway. We just hoped it wasn't a reminder right at our head.

But no! We were undaunted! Professional athlete or no, Rocker was not about to deny us our opportunity to relive high school athletic glories. Sure, we spend all day on a couch typing, but that's just how it happened to turn out. Today, today, we would remind the world of how opportunity slipped through our fingers, how close we came to athletic glory. We don't just write here, we don't just observe here, we don't just criticize; we do things!

Three pitches later, we were done. He throws really hard. We mean, like, really hard.

Well, we'd heard rumblings of Prince's email temper before, but now we get to see it firsthand. We just received a pretty fired-up email from Mr. Prince that we'd be remiss if we didn't share it with you. To quote:

My name is Darren Prince and I am Dennis Rodman's agent.

How pathetic are you or maybe financially compared to Dennis how broke are you or sexually you probably have not had the amount of women your whole life that Dennis has had just in the past year.

... Dennis Rodman proved yesterday he still has massive staying power. Just like when he was in Finland playing basketball last week and China and Mexico the month before.

... Dennis Rodman did not need to stand there you asshole and soak up media yesterday. He did what he always did and that is cause a riot with the paparazzi who was loving every minute of it.

He then requests a retraction or we can "count on my other 2 clients Magic Johnson and Smokin' Joe Frazier never doing interviews with you as well." We consider this a difficult call. No retraction, or Smokin' Joe? Is there an option C?

Oh, there's all kinds of more goodness after the jump, as we present the full email. Do enjoy. Darren Prince, ladies and gentlemen.

From: Darren Prince
To: tips@deadspin.com
Date/Time: 11:45 AM

Hey:

My name is Darren Prince and I am Dennis Rodman's agent.

How pathetic are you or maybe financially compared to Dennis how broke are you or sexually you probably have not had the amount of women your whole life that Dennis has had just in the past year.

Not to mention most of his are A listers from Hollywood that no one knows about.

This story is by far the most untrue piece of bullshit I have ever read.

There were 2 blocks of press and people and over 2500 people in attendance.

This pr event was more successful then the pop culture moment of the wedding dress.

Dennis Rodman proved yesterday he still has massive staying power. Just like when he was in Finland playing basketball last week and China and Mexico the month before.

He has more going on in his life than ever before and is making millions of dollars with the respect of some of the biggest Corporations in the universe.

Dennis Rodman did not need to stand there you asshole and soak up media yesterday. He did what he always did and that is cause a riot with the paparazzi who was loving every minute of it.

You must have been one of the loser kids in high school who always got beat up right or just a 3rd rate writer as you proved here barely getting by in life as you really have acheived not 1 million of one percent of the success and over coming odds like Dennis Rodman has.

Its a shame you have such a wasted life and narrow minding thinking to bash my client as we would have given you an interview with him today on the phone to discuss this pr stunt.

Unless a retraction is made count on my other 2 clients Magic Johnson and Smokin' Joe Frazier never doing interviews with you as well as I forwarded them your story which at the end of the day is all about you finding an outlet to unload about your pathetic little life you have.

Best regards loser!!!!!!!!!!

Darren Prince
BlackBerry service provided by Nextel

Deadspin Field Trip: Rodman's Book Signing [Deadspin]
Worm's Prince Writes Homer [SunStar.com]

(By the way, we're AMAZED that he typed that whole thing on a BlackBerry.)