First, here's how reporter Todd Archer describes the drill, apparently a favorite of Cowboys strength and conditioning coach Joe Juraszek:

So every other day during training camp the quarterbacks go through the rigorous four-circuit workout after practice. They flip the 300-pound tire one way, use a two-footed jump to get in and out, then flip it back. They do that eight times. They raise the 50-pound blue bag over their head eight times. They jump rope and hop on the soft black mat for 20 seconds. They do each turn four times before heading to the shower.

Fascinating. And this drill's name? Well, Todd would tell you, I'm sure, but Todd doesn't want to offend your delicate sensibilities.

The name of the drill cannot be mentioned in a family newspaper or on the Internet, but it has to do with, um, maturation.

The idiotic tendency of the media toward self-censorship has been well-documented elsewhere. This one in particular is a good example of how, in protecting readers from naughty language, a newspaper merely winds up inspiring even naughtier thoughts. "Um, maturation"? Is that a pun? Are we meant to think "masturbation"? Or is this really about puberty? Or, um, both? WHY IS THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS SPREADING FILTH ABOUT MASTURBATING PRE-TEEN COWBOYS?

We e-mailed Todd for some answers. First, we asked for the name of the drill. Todd's reply:

Sorry. Not gonna happen.

We pressed again. Todd demurred again.

[W]hy would I tell you something that was told to me by someone on the team? There's a trust level there that I won't break. Sorry.

Thwarted, we instead turned to the Cowboys themselves. We explained the situation to someone in the media relations department. "Hold on," we were told. A faint rustling could be heard, some muffled conversation. And then:

"We do not have the name of the drill."

Don't have or don't know?

"Don't know."

We asked another Cowboys reporter if the name was too hot for even the Internet. He e-mailed:

Not too hot for Internet. Just too hot for dallasnews.com. Tame by Deadspin standards.

We asked for the name. He replied:

It's Archer's story, so i'll leave it up to him. Trust me ... It's no big deal.

Oh, but it is. If anyone out there is familiar with a tire-flipping drill that may or may not have been named for the wanking habits of American pre-teens, please tell us. (Or perhaps you would like to suggest your own in the comments below.) The truth will out. And of those censorious types who would thwart us, we can say only this: They are all, um, jerkoffs.

Conditioning drills keep Dallas Cowboys QBs on their toes [Dallas Morning News]

On first glance, it looks to be the classic sign of the horns so beloved of Slayer fans and certain residents of Texas, with perhaps a vulgar twist. But you'll notice the extended thumb. This seemingly minor detail turns the gesture into the ASL sign for "I love you."

We contacted Pete Abraham, the Journal News' excellent Yankees beat guy and proprietor of The LoHud Yankees Blog. He traces the gesture's roots to spring training, a slack time of year particularly suited to developing nonverbal modes of communication. Swisher is very likely the originator, as evidenced by this photo (note the index fingers, however):

Abraham, on our behalf, asked Swisher about its meaning. "It doesn't mean anything," Swisher said. "Just something we do. Rock and roll, I guess."

But surely there's more to it than that. For further elaboration, we showed the photos to David McNeill, professor emeritus of psychology and linguistics at the University of Chicago, who is writing a book about the role of gesture in the development of language. He e-mails:

Your guess (the 'horn' - meaning evil eye, cuckold) seems good to me. That is, I think it's a kind of contempt gesture. This, combined with the tongue sticking out, plus the home run context, makes me think that the whole constellation is a gesture of triumph plus derision. ... The two live-action Damon examples differ from the original in interesting ways. First of all, he combines hand and face into a single gesture, whereas the original had them as two gestures (how you count gestures is somewhat arbitrary, but I mean there is more integration in the Damon versions). Second, he has three fingers extended, one more than the original. This interests me, and I think it may be an adjustment to having combined hand and face. If you try to do that with the hand in the original 'horn' gesture form, it's quite difficult, but by folding his index and second finger under his chin, and extending the ring and first fingers, he makes a nice chin cup; then the extended thumb is really unnecessary but was part of the original 'horn' and is quite awkward to fold in to get rid of, so it is still there, too. So Damon has transformed the gesture into a true symbol, with parts working together.

"Triumph and derision" is a fairly succinct summary of the Yankee Way. I-Team's conclusion: The gesture is a commingling of all of the above — a symbol of rock 'n' roll, triumph, derision. And, perhaps, one Yankee outfielder's taste for cunnilingus.