The witnesses and victims of the alleged crime are still being pieced together. According to some police sources, there are a lot of conflicting stories surfacing, some as a result of individuals hoping to shake down and cash-in on Harrison's celebrity. But that's expected as soon as a millionaire athlete caught with a gun in a not-so-nice neighborhood happens.

According to one source close to the story, more revelations about Harrison's character and background — disturbing, American Gangster-like stuff — are also percolating as a result of this incident. Although Harrison has been deemed one of the consumate professionals in the NFL due to his quiet nature and workman-like approach to his game, it's appearing more and more that Harrison mayhave a very dark side to his private nature that few people knew about.

Yesterday, WIP's Howard Eskin alluded to those facts on the air yesterday before he was yelling about blogs:

I have heard many things about Marvin and I am shocked. I don't want to get into it but it shocks me. I've heard too many things, I heard things which shocked me.

"I do know this. [Somebody he[Harrison] knows had $10,000 confiscated. He went back to the police station and said, that's my money. . . . Two detectives have told me that. I don't want to get into it any deeper. Doesn't that present a lot of questions to you, too?

Now, as much as Eskin is a blustery asshole on air at times, he's also not reckless and does his due dilligence when it comes to stories of this nature. Also, what Eskin said is consistent with some of the stories being corroborated by a few people close to the investigation.

The take-away: Next week prepare to hear some more things about Marvin Harrison that might erase most of the good-guy persona he's cultivated in the NFL. According to one prominent national television reporter, if Harrison gets charged in this case, all of the dirty laundry that many people have been sifting through will be revealed.

Marvin Harrison? Really? [Deadspin]

My NHL '94 team was the Buffalo Sabres. I have no clue why. I think it's because everyone else had already taken the Blackhawks. This was back when the Stars had just moved out of Minnesota, so I couldn't pick them (sorry Leitch, I don't swing that way). I liked playing with Buffalo because I liked using Alex Mogilny. With Mogilny (and really, with any player in the game, but I liked doing it with Mogilny), I could do this one move. It wasn't the best move, but it worked for me, so I did EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME I CAME DOWN THE ICE.

I would have Mogilny skate to an area between the goal post and the boards, then I would have him skate directly across the front of the net, shooting just before I hit the far post. That's it. Boring, but effective. Other players preferred the one-timer (Roenick was great for that), or juking the goalie just as they drove past the net. But those moves were far too nuanced and subtle for me. I needed a move that I could execute with half a case of Busch and an entire bag of Salsa Rio Doritos inside me, and holding down the left side of the stylus and pressing C did the trick quite nicely. I tried mixing it up once or twice and trying a different move, which never worked, causing me to immediately regret deviating from the norm.

Moves like this were a staple of old sports video games, back before the games were made far too realistic for me to be able to actually excel at them. Stupid EA sports. Don't they know I play Madden because I lack the timing and coordination to play REAL goddamn football? Annoying.

Anyway, the classic example of this was Bo Jackson in Tecmo. Everyone loves Bo in Tecmo Bowl because everyone did the same move with him: sweep him to the right, hit the corner, angle back to the center of the field if necessary, get the defense in the rear view, then run a zigzag pattern all the way to the end zone, bodies trailing in Bo's wake. It never failed. The few times it did, I would glare at my NES in complete outrage. Stupid fucking console. I DIDN'T PAY FOR YOU SO YOU COULD BEAT ME.

I am, like most people I know, a creature of habit. If I find something that works for me, I just keep doing it until it's beaten well into the ground (like those crazy Wade and Jerry posts!).

One time, I cooked dinner for a girl and got the hook-up. I proceeded to do this with every girl I liked thereafter. I even cooked the same thing: ravioli. Eight minutes in the pot, a ladle full of Rao's sauce, and VOILA! Instant tongue wrestling. The ravioli didn't have to taste great. What mattered was that I put in the effort. Women just LOVE seeing a man at work, I tell you. They're evil like that.

I also use the same move every time I play foosball. We have a table in our office (which, along with the insurance, is why I'll never quit my day job). When my front row gets the ball, I place the ball on the left side of the center's foot, at the right side of the goal. Then I quickly push the ball to the left and shoot all in one motion SNAP. This is the move I always do, because I'm decent at it and trying to expand my repertoire involves going away from the move. And I'm far too lazy to ever do that.

I bring this sort of go-to-the-well mentality with me to any sporting event I watch. If a team has one move that works, I get irritated when they try and move away from it, or the player who can best pull it off. This happened a lot during the NFL season, when the Vikings comically refused to hand Adrian Peterson the goddamn ball. If you're a Florida fan, chances are you got peeved whenever Tim Tebow does a direct handoff rather than something totally awesome. But this cuts across other sports too.

LeBron James has a move. He has lots of moves, but there's only one he needs to use. You know the one. It's the one where he says, "Fuck it," drives to his right, past his man, elevates over the rest of the defense, then either (a) lays it in, (b) throws it down, (c) kicks it out, or (d) hits a soft five-footer. Then he finishes with a counter-clockwise swirl.

But that move is so fucking easy for LeBron, it's laughable. Save for his dreadful Game 1 shooting performance against Boston, it's usually easy money for him. Almost like he's cheating. (And, with a little hand from the referees, he probably is.) Watching him drive to the hoop is like watching the end of "The Two Towers," when they ride out on horseback into the middle of the orc army AND NOT ONE ORC DOES A FUCKING THING ABOUT IT. Stupid Uruk-hai. They're on fucking horses. Pull an Eight Belles on Aragon's steed and take his ass out.

Watching LeBron play isn't like watching Kobe Bryant. When Kobe scores a million points, he has to work for that shit. He has to muscle through traffic, or consistently nail that turnaround fadeaway of his that looks exactly like Jordan's. It looks like a lot of effort. Kobe's probably a "better," or more well-rounded player than LeBron, but only because he has to be.

LeBron doesn't have to employ all those crazy moves. All he has to do is make like a goddamn tank and plow a bitch over. I remember watching Shaq back when he wasn't frozen in carbonite, and I remember people saying, "Eh, it's no fun to watch Shaq play. All he does is dunk." Well, at least someone had to pass Shaq the ball. LeBron needs no such help.

I get very annoyed whenever I see a Cavs player that is not LeBron handling the ball. And I get really fucking annoyed when one player who is not LeBron passes it to yet another player who is not LeBron. "What are they doing? Are they retarded?"

In my own simplistic mind, I'm convinced that LeBron should and can do this move every single time the Cavs bring the ball up the court. I know they almost do this anyway, but I'd like to see a game where they do it wire-to-wire. This nearly happened when in Game 5 versus the Pistons last year, but that was just in the second half. What about the first half? Yes, I know defenses will quickly catch on to this sort of game plan. But I don't give a shit. If LeBron kicks it out a handful of times, they still have to remain honest. I think. Fuck it, I just want to see it happen. I wanna see if the motherfucker can score 80. It worked for Mogilny, dammit.

This is how I think as a fan. Obviously, the coach knows better than me. But the whole fun of being a fan, for me, is to assume I know best. I'm sure there's a reason the Cavs have set plays for Ilgauskas. But fuck that shit. I'd far rather assume Mike Brown is just afraid to be accused of lacking creativity for running the same shit over and over again, or ignoring the rest of his players, or breaching some sort of on-court etiquette.

What. A. Pussy.

It's the same feeling I get whenever I see the Chargers NOT call a running play for LT, or whenever I see Randy Moss run a 15-yard square-in. I want to see them dominate by doing the same thing over and over again. In a sense, I'd like my real-life games to be more like the old video games I played. This makes no sense. If anything, I should want my video games to hew closer to real-life games. But I hate that, since newer games won't give me a move to rely on. I've got no security blanket, no Jay Novacek to speak of. And that makes me uncomfortable.

Seeing the same move executed over and over again should bore me. But it doesn't. There's a certain comfort to the repetition, whether I'm watching it or doing it. (This is also why I drink beer after beer after beer). I like knowing that something has been perfected to the point where it requires no deviation. And that's why I want to experience it multiple times over.

Wait. Now I know why I masturbate so often...

Unfortunate mishap ... or murder? View the persons of interest in the baffling Mr. Redlegs case, and judge for yourself:

• Gapper. Reds mascot and former carpet remnant was driving the vehicle, was last person to see Mr. Redlegs alive.

• Ghost of Marge Schott. Late Reds owner once vowed to strike at Mr. Redlegs from the grave.

• Mr. Red. Co-mascot felt marginalized by more popular rival, may have been bitter over lack of mustache, health benefits.

• Ken Griffey Jr.. Wants out of Cincinnati, will go to any means to achieve it.

• Marty Brenneman. Cranky octogenarian Reds announcer will tolerate no juvenile antics; once ordered Mr. Redlegs to get off his lawn.

• John Fay. Cincinnati Enquirer Reds' reporter may have been involved in contentious love triangle with Mr. Redlegs and actress Tina Yothers.

• Robert Weintraub. Despite handlebar mustache and 19th century-style baseball cap, Mr. Redlegs refused to talk in Purple Prose.

• Wizard Cat. Hates costumes.

The Zapruder Film of the 21st century:.

Mr. Redlegs Loses His Head [Bugs & Cranks]

As tough and big as he seems, he is real wimpy around doctors or any type of medical situation. I don't know why I thought the birth of our child would be different. In the middle of the night, I realized that I needed to go to the hospital. I wake him up. The first thing that comes out of his mouth, 'Can we call your mother?' And I started, 'No. Let's wait and make sure that I am in labor, and make sure that, you know, it's the middle of the night.' And go to the hospital and everything. And finally, a few hours later, I said, 'I think you can call my mom now.'

"Uh, and the color came back to his face when I told him he could call my mom. And then forget it. I was like not even having a baby; he was the one. The one nurse had a cold cloth on his head. The other nurse had the blood pressure on his arm. And my mother was like rubbing his back. And he is passed out on a couch. And I am there, in the middle of labor. And really, I am not being paid much attention to besides the doctor and a couple of nurses. And he is there moaning. In between pushing, I am going, 'Honey, are you OK?' And are you breathing? Are you OK?' "

And that, friends, is why you should never, ever get caught walking around with a muscular stripper in Las Vegas.

A-Rod Not So Clutch In The Delivery Room [LoHud Blog]

On Sunday, the bats were circled around the two naked female dolls, one of whom had a bat inserted in its backside to prop it up. Each wore a sign over her breasts, one saying "Let's Go White Sox" and the other reading "You've Got to Push," the National Post in Toronto reported.

Guillen, of course, defended the shrine, saying "I'm sure it wasn't done to disrespect anyone. . . A lot of worse things happen in the clubhouse. . . If people got their feelings hurt because of that . . . they don't really know much about baseball."

Duly noted. He is right about that. There was a time when struggling baseball teams used real live women in the locker room as slump-busting shrines. You've got to push...

White Sox Doll Blow Up [Chicago Sun-Times]

So, we took a look. From the original Roethlisberger post:

A serious story coming out of Pittsburgh: It appears Super Bowl hero Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was involved in a motorcycle accident about 45 minutes ago (11:30 a.m. ET) in Pittsburgh. The picture on KDKA's site is rather scary, and there's no word as of yet on his condition. We will keep you updated, and, of course, will be keeping good thoughts.

We, of course, weren't around yet when Winslow's cycle crashed — that was May 2005, and Deadspin wasn't born until September 2005 — but we did, when writing about Winslow's famous "I'm a SOLDIER!' rant, say this: "Interestingly, this was the exact same take Winslow's motorcycle had after his accident, about him." Now, to be fair to ourselves, we wrote about Big Ben when his health was still in question, and Winslow a year later, when it was clear he was fine, but the point is that the fact that the two incidents might have been covered differently because Roethlisberger was white and Winslow was black hadn't even occurred to us. Some might use that as some sort of cover, a "see, we don't even THINK about race!" But this is stupid. The fact that someone did not consciously think about something does not mean that it is not there.

In Jason Whitlock's column last week , he touched on the Bissinger madness but also bought up a criticism of our book that we've never quite addressed. NPR's Scott Simon had it first, but Whitlock has probably brought it to the largest audience. (Though this is Fox Sports.) Namely, the "jokes" in the Media Glossary section about black sportscasters talking "white."

When Scott Simon mentioned this in an interview with us months ago, we stammered and stumbled and generally sounded like a moron. This is because we were taken aback by it; it legitimately didn't occur to us that someone could take the impression from the book that we had some sort of problem with race. That does not mean that someone that who might infer that is somehow deluded, or just trying to cause trouble. It means they're not us, and that they can see something much clearer than we can.

Whitlock's column takes these Simon criticisms to the next level. We are not sure the book spends an "an inordinate amount of time telling prominent, successful, well-spoken African-Americans that they're not really black," but this does not mean this criticism of the book is not valid. Because, well, it is. The references in the book, to (and we don't have the book in front of us, so we may be off) the Gumbels and Ahmad Rashad, are cheap, lazy and not particularly funny. The joke we were trying to make was a mockery of the "Ohio accent," the slightly nasal, straight forward flat accent that every broadcaster has to contort himself/herself into. But it didn't read that way. It was lazy writing, rather than a pointed insult. (And why, you might ask, did we bring Tony Dungy into it? An excellent question that we do not have an answer for.)

But that's not really the point. Who cares what we meant? Nothing is worse than the apology that "we didn't mean to offend anyone." Well, of course not; the fact that you didn't think you were offending anyone is the reason that it's offensive. The point is that just because something was not conscious does not mean it's not there. An easy joke comes from somewhere, and it was one that was even repeated. We did not do it to mock black sportscasters. But there it is, regardless.

We were talking to Bomani Jones, who's very good at this writing business, the other day about the racist comments that inevitably pop up on any open forum, message board or comment thread. The most memorable instance of this, around these parts, was when Stephen A. Smith's site's launched, though, honestly, we think if you put a picture of a puppy as a blog post on a general AOL or Yahoo site, the n-word would come out by comment 20. Bomani was concerned it was indicative of a growing "angry white man" movement in the culture, reflected by the Web. We weren't so sure; we think it's more the nasty fringe element, bigots empowered by anonymity.

But we would think that, wouldn't we? We easily dismiss such comments as idiotic, the unfortunate byproduct of open forums, and move about our day. But that's our perspective. And that perspective, like all perspectives, as wrong as the next person's. It's easy for us to say that.

This is all to say: As we've said repeatedly, blogs are not a movement, or a single-minded entity. All blogs take on the personality of the author. Right now, the vast majority of those sports blogs are written by white guys. Bomani implored us: "You have to say something about this, because they won't listen to it from me." And he's right. If Scoop Jackson writes a column about race, well, there he goes again. This happened with Whitlock's column too. A nationally recognized sports columnist, on a widely read national Web site, calls us out, and we received a total of one email about it. Why? Because we think most people read the first few paragraphs about Bissinger, and then when they got to the part where Whitlock started writing about race, their eyes glazed over, and Whitlock turned into the voice of the teacher in "Peanuts." There he goes again, with the race stuff. There's a wall there that we, and most sports bloggers, don't have, due entirely to the audience. And Whitlock, and Jackson, and Bomani Jones, do. We might not mean this. It might be subconscious. But it's there.

So, friend, here it is: If you think those inevitable racist comments are just the ugly detritus of the Web and dismiss them with a wave of your hand ... you're probably a white guy. And If you hear us ever talking about what black people think, or how they should act, or whatever, completely ignore us, because we don't have the slightest fucking idea what we're talking about.

Tebow, famous for his charity and missionary work, spent his spring break in The Philippines. What was he doing? Circumcizing children.

"The first time, it was nerve-racking," he said. "Hands were shaking a little bit. I mean, I'm cutting somebody. You can't do those kinds of things in the United States. But those people really needed the surgeries. We needed to help them."

Richard Moleno, a Florida graduate and aspiring doctor, said: "You could see he was really into it. He thought it was cool. I'd make a stitch, he'd cut a stitch. He got his hands a little wet in surgery."

Tebow is to be commended for his sense of duty to help the downtrodden; we salute him. So, now that that's out of the way ... BLECH.

Tebow Begins Work On His Doctorate [The Wizard Of Odds]

Such an ugly turn of events. As Unsilent Majority wrote on Saturday, it was rather disarming to watch all the smiling faces in the winner's circle celebration while a few yards away, a horse lay dying. NBC defended itself by saying that it didn't want to upset viewers by showing the dying horse on camera; but the loud gunshot during the Gabriel Saez interview was a dead giveaway.

Meanwhile, horse fans over at the Alex Brown Racing message board are furious.

I want to throw up still. Thank God I have all of you in my living room via the net. That innocent smokey gray creature with her adorable striped tube socks on her legs lying on the track still wanting to run is stuck in my head and I can't go to sleep. This is what nightmares are made of. Afterwards, these lady horses are forced to have sex with different men horses they don't know that well so they can become pregnant only for their baby to be taken away is sad. I will never see the Kentucky Derby as a festive wonderful event. We need to respect these creatures. Judgement day will come for us. — From: csantovena 2:07 am

So racing fans are not happy. PETA is on the warpath. And the Washington Post is asking the musical question, is horse racing on its way out? (I blame the blogs!).

But thoroughbred racing is in a moral crisis, and everyone now knows it. Twice since 2006, magnificent animals have suffered catastrophic injuries on live television in Triple Crown races, and there is no explaining that away. Horses are being over-bred and over-raced, until their bodies cannot support their own ambitions, or those of the humans who race them.

But at the end of the day, I think we're all left with one fundamental question. All of this animal suffering, and yet Wizard Cat does nothing?

Is Horse Racing Breeding Itself To Death? [Washington Post]
Death Looms Over Churchill Downs [Deadspin]
PETA Wants Eight Belles Jockey Suspended After Horse's Death [SF Gate]
Alex Brown Racing Message Board

Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Marvin Harrison is under investigation in his hometown of Philadelphia in a shooting that took place late Tuesday afternoon, a source close to the investigation told Anthony Gargano of Philadelphia's WIP Radio. The shooting reportedly occurred outside a North Philadelphia bar owned by Harrison.

Harrison has yet to be arrested or charged with the crime.

The source said the alleged victim came into the bar, Playmakers, around 5 p.m. and engaged in an argument with Harrison, who was at the bar. The victim then left the bar, heading to his car, with Harrison following. Gunfire broke out, the victim was hit in the hand, and a young girl was slightly injured by flying glass from a car that apparently was hit by a bullet.

Obviously, more details are forthcoming. This seems a little sketchy.

UPDATE:
Philly sources: This appears to be all sorts of trouble for Harrison. According to some sources, the the gun used in the shooting was definitely Harrison's, and the investigation right now suggests that it "doesn't look good" for Marvin. The gun used in the shooting is apparently a very expensive, custom-made job that uses 50mm bullets. (No idea what that means, sorry. Not a gun guy.) But, the fella who first reported it, Anthony Gargano of WIP, is going on ESPN at 6 p.m. to talk about everything he knows. The Philly police are hesitating about naming Harrison. According to one source, all he said was that "There's a local guy who plays pro football who is being investigated." Police are being cautious about fingering Harrison at this point.

But for now, yes, it appears Marvin Harrison might be being investigated in a shooting that occurred Tuesday night at his bar which is located at a shady area in Philly.

Marving Harrison's Gun Used In Shooting [Sporting News]

UPDATE:

Okay, here's the full, fuzzy report, from WIP's Anthony Gargano, who did his best trying to convey the really jumbled facts that are all "allegedly" connected to Marvin Harrison. If these are the circumstances and the "facts" available right now, well...it appears Marvin Harrison's lawyer should really be able to sort this whole thing out. Hopefully, Gargano's sources are good ones.

Actually, a lot bit. Demetrius Bell's mother might have been 13 when she had the child.

The two have had very little contact during Bell's life. His mother, Gloria Bell, reportedly was only 13 years old and Malone a college sophomore at Louisiana Tech when Demetrius was born. Malone might have served jail time had her family asked the district attorney to file criminal charges.

So that would make Malone 20 at the time, and the mother 13. That, uh ... you know, that just can't be good. (This also makes us realize that the mother of an NFL draftee is almost our age.) We might have just found something worse than Malone turning his back on his own child. Not easy to do.

Dad Karl Malone A Footnote In Demetrius Bell's Life [Buffalo News]
Karl Malone's Son Is No Son Of His [Deadspin]

I could get hoodlums and thugs and win tomorrow. I won't do it that way.

Of course, the quote could be a nothing, harmless quote, made by Weis to an audience full of Central Pennsylvania Notre Dame alumni sitting in a banquet hall, eating lukewarm food out of chafing dishes, in an attempt to fire up a crowd even though his program is, under his tenure, a losing one. But it also could be interpreted as one that was very marginalizing, or that other big time athletic programs are filling their teams with "hoodlums and thugs," which is why it was brought up last night on BDSS last night, PTI , andfew other places around the web.

John Heisler, Senior Associate Athletic Director, said when I called him today he was aware of the quote but said that the university wasn't planning on commenting on the remarks at this time. He went onto say that "[Weis] was just trying to make a a point about student athletics at our institution — that we only recruit quality individuals and we just don't accept anybody here. That's no big secret." Heisler did add that he understands how some people could be offended by the comment, but seemed confident that the university wouldn't have to publicly apologize for the remark.

One of the event's attendees, and a director at the GNDAC, is Rick Staub, HVAC supervisor at Shipley Energy, "Central Pennsylvania's leading total energy supplier," who said that people who think that Coach Weis' comments were insensitive or racist were probably "Notre Dame haters."

"You know, we're like the Yankees to some people, " he said. Staub then asked if he was going to be quoted for the story and I said, yes, I did identify myself as a reporter and you are talking to me.

"I don't want my quotes to be in print whatsoever. None, no way..." (Hey, journalist folk: Don't you just hate it when people do that?) Staub then suggested I speak with the club president, Brendan Cushing-Daniels for a response.

Cushing-Daniels said Weis' quote was "absolutely not" racist or meant to be offensive in any way. He went on to say that he was "white Irish Catholic" and that there back in the old days of New York City, people like him were considered hoodlums and thugs. (Somebody's seen "Gangs of New York"... )

Daniels, who speaks with a slight country twang and a 1987 graduate of Notre Dame and a professor of economics at Gettysburg College, was genuinely annoyed at the question. "I find it remarkable and disturbing that people are saying that comment is in anyway racist." He also said that if "your website" makes any implication that the quote was in anyway racist that Deadspin could expect a libel suit.

"Look at the racial make-up of the football team!" he barked.

That's fine. There are a lot of black people on Notre Dame. But how many black people were in the crowd at your event?

"None, but I think that's more a symptom of the geographic makeup of this part of Pennsylvania. The Notre Dame alums who live in this area are white."

Maybe it wasn't a racist comment, and Weis' was using "hoodlums and thugs" to make a point that Bill "The Butcher" Cutting wasn't going to get into Notre Dame even if he did lead his inner city high school in touchdowns the last two years. And context and setting is key for this quote — why should Weis apologize for a comment he made in an informal setting from the safety of a dais that may have offended some people?

Charlie Weis addresses Notre Dame club in Gettysburg [The Evening Sun]

I don't smoke much weed anymore. The rare times I go out these days are for social occasions like dinners and weddings and shit like that. And I can't get high for those types of things. Because, when I'm high, I turn into a complete fucking zombie. I stare at the TV until I can see through it. Failing that, I put on "Loveless" by My Bloody Valentine, tear off all my clothes and hump the carpet until my dick bleeds. Needless to say, I can't really do such things in polite company.

Furthermore, the quality of my high is directly proportional to the environment I find myself in. There's a reason people in Jamaica smoke weed all the time. It's a warm, sunny place, where you have just an 85 percent chance of getting hacked to death by an angry goat merchant. No one's working. Music is playing. Everyone is scantily clad. You get high there, you're gonna feel relaxed. Until the police show up and throw you in their "holding pit."

Change that environment to something ideal, and my high gets thrown off. The last time I got high was in New York with this idiot. Ever wait 30 minutes for a subway at night while you're high? Don't. I nearly walked into the fucking tunnel so I could go find the train and ask what the fucking holdup was. I went to the bar and ended up staring at one of the light fixtures for 80 minutes.

This was because I oversmoked, which is a classic mistake I always make. I wish I had the willpower to just smoke enough so that I get a very light high, so that I feel like I'm walking on a moon bounce all the time. That would be delightful. But nooooooo. Someone sparks up that pipe, and I gotta suck on it like I'm John Travolta at a cock party. Then my eyes glaze over, and I spend the next four hours trying to bake cookies, only to realize I'm making pancakes.

I was even the victim of gay bashing one time in my life after smoking weed. No joke. No, I'm not gay. Honest injun. I don't even like sucking on a Sugar Daddy. It makes me feel uncomfortable and wrong.

But I was persecuted for being perceived as a gay. How, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. A few years back, a friend of mine picked up tickets for a Pearl Jam concert at Jones Beach. It was in the middle of summer. So I grabbed a couple joints and hopped on the train with my friends. Our seats for the show weren't all together in the same row. There were two isolated seats over in the next section. I didn't give a shit about where I sat, since all the seats were located at the far back of the ampitheatre. In fact, I think they may have been located in the terminal at LaGuardia airport.

So I volunteered, as did my friend Fred (not his real name), to sit in the two seats. Fred, at the time, was a part time actor and model. It's just like my life to befriend a professional model, only said model is a dude. He's half-Asian, half-Sicilian. Very exotic looking. (Yet everyone mistakes him for a Mexican. One time, the cops at a Jersey Shore bar planted his face in the driveway because a white girl accused him of pinching her ass.)

I was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt. (Big Daddy Berman?) In retrospect, I suppose, we looked like the perfect gay couple.

At least we did to the hicks sitting behind us. Fifteen minutes into the show, I had smoked both joints and had started doing the Stoned White Person Dance. I think you know the dance I speak of. Head cocked to the side. Eyes closed. Hands in the air. Singing along to the music, not at all on key, getting the lyrics wrong ("EEEEEVEN FLOOOOW! Toss some blow into my eyes yeeeeah!!!!") No movement of the feet whatsoever. Oh yeah, I was a stoned white person.

Soon, two guys behind me started yelling shit like, "Why don'tcha sit down, faggot! You and your faggot buddy!" Well, I had never been so offended. If anyone's gonna make fun of people for being gay, it's gonna be ME! I turned to both men and said they would never be invited to any of our future garden parties. That didn't seem to help. They kept harassing us until we had to change seats. And my buzz had been totally harshed! No fair!

So, when I get high, I'm extremely sensitive about the environment in which I reside. That's why I usually stay in when I'm high. If I'm watching TV, I can control the whole feng shui of my shit. I can watch "Sunrise Earth" and just chill the fuck out.

Or, I can watch sports. Sports, in general, make for excellent stoned viewing. Particularly during this time of year, which is my casual basketball/hockey/golf/tennis/bikini phase of the year. I can't watch the NFL while stoned, because I get distracted too easily on pot. I need to focus on the game, but I end up thinking about hot dogs. Can't do that. But during a Lakers/Nuggets blowout? Why, it's perfectly acceptable. In fact, I'd argue the more casual a fan you are of a sport, the more likely you are to enjoy it while high. You come into that shit with an open mind.

Personally, I prefer boxing and pro wrestling while stoned. (Mario Golf on N64 doesn't count.) It's easy to focus on a boxing match because there's only two dudes. And I don't need to know much about what happened earlier in the match. That helps simplify things for my retarded stoner ass. There's also that moment during every match that I think is really deep but actually isn't, where I say to myself, "Holy shit, man. These guys are, like, fucking ROMAN GLADIATORS, man. This is living history and shit!" That's always a nice bonus.

And pro wrestling? Well, we all know pro wrestling is fake. But when I'm stoned, it's far, far easier to suspend my disbelief. "Man, that guy fucking HATES that guy! He's not joking around!"

But I am just one man. There are all kinds of sports fans out there, and all kinds of weed smokers as well. So I put the question to a few folks, BECAUSE I AM HARD-CORE, FULLY CREDENTIALED JOURNALIST: What's your favorite sport to watch while stoned? Here were their responses:

Leitch: Football. Without question. Everything's VERY important.

Unsilent Majority: Well, for starters, I love boxing, but also because the action is confined to such a specific space. When I watch basketball I'm constantly focusing on the defensive rotation and what's going on away from the ball. (NOTE: Maj is just like an extra coach out there!) It's the same with football, really. Boxing is so much easier to focus on. Plus slow-motion punches to the jaw are fucking awesome.

Peter Schrager: ESPN used to have this show called "Amazing Games." They had some Chris Connely-ish host who would go to foreign lands and do a report on "sports" being played in small villages in exotic locales. Well, one time they did a thing on a sport called "Elephant Soccer," which , believe it or not, was exactly that — elephants playing soccer.
E-60 should do something on elephant soccer instead of sending Jeremy Schapp to Silicon Valley to talk to guys who smash keyboards against each other's faces. But yea, watching that stoned was some hell of a trip. Much cooler than watching the triangle offense or a sacrifice bunt in an altered state.

Michael "Christmas Ape" Tunison: Baseball is good. It's relatively slow with short bursts of activity and the field is nice to look at.

Daulerio: Oh, Outdoor Games is the shit. Dog jumping, log-rolling, wood chopping — it's amazing just how into it you get when you're completely stoned. But you have to be, like, drooling-moron stoned. It's still not as entertaining if you just take a few puffs off a joint. I mean, you have to be high, like, "oh my god, I think my hair is totally wasted" high. But once you get to that point, there isn't anything in the world you'd rather be watching while in that condition.

Buzz Bissinger: Pot?! What are you, some kind of hippie?! YOU'RE WHAT'S WRONG WITH AMERICA TODAY, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE.

But this is just a smattering of the world's pot smoking population. What about you, fair readers? You blog folk who are tearing down Western civilization as we know it? What's your construda-addled sport of choice?

We do not train to be merciful here. Mercy is for the weak. A man confronts you, he is the enemy. An enemy deserves no mercy. What do we study here? THE WAY OF THE FIST, SIR. And what is that way? STRIKE FIRST. STRIKE HARD. NO MERCY, SIR. And when the Fresno Grizzlies stage a promotion, they also take no prisoners. Thursday, May 15 is Totally Rad '80s Night at Chukchansi Park, where the honored guest will be Cobra Kai karate dojo bad boy Johnny Lawrence. Yes, Daniel-san's nemesis, in person. Not for the meek!

In case you question his credentials, Mr. Lawrence was voted No. 1 in Star Pulse magazine's list of Top Movie Dicks of All Time in 2006. Not only did he sweep Daniel Russo's leg in a pivotal scene in the 1984 film The Karate Kid, but let us not forget that he was also responsible for smashing Daniel's boom box at the beach, and trashing his bike. We will never forget his sneer and his solar panel hairstyle (see video below).

His real name is Billy Zabka, and he appeared in several films subsequent to The Karate Kid; among them the 1992 classic Shootfighter: Fight To The Death. Now 42, he's still active in films and is a creative director for a music publishing firm.

"When we decided to have an '80s night, and learned that Billy Zabka lived lived in Grass Valley (near Sacramento), it was a natural to try and get him," said Grizzlies' Vice President of Marketing Scott Carter. "He was glad to do it. We asked him if we could recreate a Karate Kid fight scene and have our mascot, Parker, kick him in the face. He said sure." Totally Rad '80s Night will also feature a tribute to Garbage Pail Kids, '80s music, and other things yet to be dreamed up. Grab your body bag and come on down. Yeah!

Other promotions you're not going to want to miss:

• Tree Sapling Giveaway. Friday, South Bend Silver Hawks (Class-A Midwest League). Who can resist a promotion in which the first 3,000 fans receive trees? Kind of like a do-it-yourself bat day. (Note: No, ESPN employees may not keep the trees).

• Who Wants To Be A Mexican Millionaire? Monday, May 5, Huntsville Stars (Class-AA Southern League).
Celebrate Cinco de Mayo the good, old-fashioned politically incorrect way, as the Stars will hand out "green cards" and take whacks at a "human pinata." Plus, for two bucks, Gen. Santa Ana will let you drink a beer from his artificial leg. [Thanks to Benjamin Hill]

• Chris Snee Day. May 18, Binghamton Mets (Class-AA Eastern League). The Mets honor the New York Giants offensive guard and Montrose, Pa., native, who will sign autographs before the game with the Erie Seawolves. Please form an orderly line. Mr. Snee will not sign body parts.

• Bobblehead of the Moment. Ross Grimsley Bobblehead Giveaway. Saturday, Augusta GreenJackets (Class-A South Atlantic League). The GreenJackets salute the 1970s with $1 Pabst Blue Ribbon in 16oz. cans, disco dancing, twister, afros and Ross Grimsley, the former Reds, Orioles and Expos pitcher who is their current pitching coach. The doll should be a very interesting and sought-after item.

We're looking for your Minor League tips. Send all photos, game accounts, promotional news and recipes to RickChand@GMail.com. Thanks!

That's not true, of course; Bissinger has a lifetime of work to stand behind, and Calipari is a smooth car salesman college basketball coach. But Calipari surely had similar concerns to what Bissinger had about blogs, but he asked questions, waited for a response, listened and asked followup questions. It's pretty simple.

If there's anything we can take out of yesterday — other than the outpouring of positive emails we received; we were very touched, though a few began to take the tone of condolences, as if something bad had happened to us, like a relative was ill or something — it's that two things that would have benefited both sides in this debate were destroyed on Tuesday night. (We made this point to Mr. Sandomir for his story today, but it didn't make the cut, probably because it, you know, was relevant.)

We think that Bissinger could benefit from a legitimate look at sports blogs: The bad, the good, the hilarious, the grotesque, all of it. Clearly, this was not something that had happened before the program Tuesday. And we also think many sports blogs could benefit from reading Bissinger's books, which, on the whole, are well-researched, well-considered and thoughtfully (if, sometimes, a bit purple-y) written. This could be good for everyone. Unfortunately, after Tuesday's show, neither of those will ever, ever happen.

And now, we're probably ready to let all this go. We knew it had grown out of hand yesterday when we saw a blog yesterday that didn't care about sports, or journalism, or anything else, just simply post the video with the headline: "Old Man Going Crazy." We do hope that's not the takeaway from all this ... but we have our fears.

It was an odd thing, really, to read the emails that flooded in, to see people (kindly, sure) ask us if we were OK. We're fine. We were not the person on that panel to be pitied. What more can one do when a man is disturbed than to show him compassion and not sink to his level. (It felt odd to be considered the uncivil person on the panel.) And hey, we get it: The simplest, most obvious emotion that comes when we are faced with what we do not understand is fear, followed quickly by rage. We're not sure what happened to Mr. Bissinger, but, honestly, we're kind of worried about him. And, as people who own all of his books, we say that legitimately; we want him to write more of them.

It was clear from the get-go, from the very first, "I bet you don't know who W.C. Heinz is," that this was not going to be a roundtable exchange of ideas. (Poor Braylon Edwards, honestly. He must be completely bewildered this morning.) It was obvious that Bissinger had been building up to this for a long time, those dark nights wondering what the kids were searching online, those terrifying moments when the world seemed to be spasming out of his control ... they all built up to this. We had seen him backstage, and introduced ourselves. He was, as Jimi Hendrix was famously described, a live wire with too much current running through it. We could see it coming; anyone paying attention couldn't have missed it.

We suppose we could have punched him in the nose or something, called him an asshole, said he was a piece of shit. It might have made for more riveting television; we are certain Costas wouldn't have minded. But that would have been counterproductive. When you see someone flailing desperately at someone, something, anything, there's nothing more to do than sit there, bemused and bewildered, amazed at what was happening, just like everyone else was. We cannot imagine any reasonable human being watching that display and saying, "doggone it, that raving man has a point!" The only way to win a battle like that is to let the audience take in what is happening, and trust them to respond accordingly.

Sure: We would have loved to have made all the points about blogs that we've made countless times before, trot them all out again, in front of a national audience. Had we that opportunity, we surely would have taken advantage of it. But we felt, in a way, the point was made for us. Watching this talented man spin himself into a typhoon of imploding bluster showed the fear, showed the anger, showed the futility of it all. We sat back and watched, and hoped nobody got hurt, just liked you. Honestly: We really hope he's OK. A fight would have done no one any good, least of all him.

We have to take a flight to Los Angeles on Wednesday morning and, as luck would have it, be gone all day today. (Daulerio will be taking over the site until Thursday. We hope he ignores Costas' bizarre misconception and doesn't just post grotesque comments all day, because, you know, that's what bloggers do.) We'll be back Thursday, doing what we do, trying to bring you a little distraction for another workaday. We are not mad at Bissinger, or Costas. We just watched a man immolate on national television. To have piled on the carnage would have been discourteous. The future is obvious to anyone even slightly interested in looking. We just stand aside, as he, as they, watch the light shrink, then fade, then vanish.

(Photo via AOL Fanhouse)

Today, Luke Burbank, the host of "Too Beautiful To Live" on 710 KIRO in Seattle, tells the tale of his career-changing run-in with Lou Piniella and the 1996 Seattle Mariners.

I was a really nervous, still-pimply 20 year-old trying to pretend I was some kind of real sports reporter.

My internship at the college NPR station was enough to get me press access to the Mariners' locker room, but that non-laminated day pass with "NBR" written on it wasn't exactly blowing Lou Piniella's mind-grapes the way I'd thought it would. It was August 1996, and the M's were locked in a tight division race with The Rangers. They'd come home for a make-or-break nine game stand. Somehow, I'd conned my way into an assignment doing a story about the insane breakout year A-Rod was having. This was going to be easy, just get some quotes from Piniella, and Griffey and Buhner and A-Rod and be on my way. Why wouldn't they want to talk about his awesome season? Well, because theirs was about to go to complete shit, that's why.

During the home stand, the M's managed to go 1-8 and fall completely and utterly out of the race. Every day I would go to the locker room hoping that they would not be in a super-pissed mood, and every day it would get worse. Baseball players (more than any other athletes, in my opinion) are total fucking babies when they lose.

Finally the last game arrived. The clubhouse was like a morgue. I was determined to get that goddamn tape no matter what. Here is a minute by minute account of that night:

6:02 pm (Pregame): In the trainer's office I can see A-Rod getting a rubdown or something. This is great. The clubhouse is totally empty and I am going to get my quote as soon as he emerges. There's only one problem. For some reason, my peeking into that room infuriates Mike Jackson. He runs up to me and starts screaming at the top of his lungs, 'WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!!!?' 'THE MAN IS GETTING TREATMENT!!' "I'm I'm just trying to to get my my quote" I stammer (literally holding back tears). 'GET YOUR ASS BACK HERE AFTER THE GAME LIKE EVERYONE ELSE!!"

Never mind that MLB requires teams to open their locker rooms before games so that reporters can get quotes. Apparently Mike Jackson takes a dim view of this rule. One other problem, it wasn't even A-Rod in there. It was Rafael Carmona. His back was to me and they look like the same guy. I'm racist and I don't have a quote and Mike Jackson wants to rape me. Awesome.

7:15 (Game time): Terrified by my encounter with MJ, I figure I'll just lay low and hope to Jobu that they win. Then they'll have to be in a better mood. I leave a bucket of KFC in front of my Jobu shrine. It totally works. They win.

10:13 (Post Game): The Seattle Mariners are more pissed than ever. Pissed like Blazer fans in 1986 realizing Jordan was going to be Jordan just as Sam Bowie picks up another three in the key. I still don't know why this was. Probably residual anger from the previous eight games or something.

10:14: Ken Griffey Jr. is sitting, fully reclined, in a barca lounger in front of his locker. This is a bad spot for this huge-ass chair, because his locker is also right next to the only narrow hall out to the field. This means everyone trying to go play in the baseball game has to hug the wall to try to get around his chair. He is playing Nintendo on a flat screen TV (very, very fancy for 1996) and eating a chocolate bar. Five different times I try to ask him a few questions. Not only does he not respond, he is totally unaware that another human being is trying to talk to him. I am basically Bill Murray during the ghosty part of Scrooged. I finally give up.

10:16: Still terrified of a "Mike Jacksoning," I cower behind a huge empty couch. Apparently I also accidentally lean on it, because from across the room Chris Bosio starts hollering. "WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!!" "GET OFF THAT COUCH!!" I stumble, dazed, towards a completely naked Jay Buhner.

10:18: During his time as a Mariner, Jay Buhner was known as quite the prankster. Of course, as me and my friend Bill often discussed the line between "prankster" and "total asshole who purposefully vomits into your work hat" is kind of a fuzzy one. So anyway, Buhner is completely completely naked. No towel. No undies. Nothing. And that's not even the creepy part. He agrees to talk to me (jackpot!) but during the entire interview he refuses to look at me. Instead, he goes to work on, and is completely fixated with, an ingrown hair literally ONE MICRON from his dong. If I want to interview Jay Buhner, I will also be interviewing his dong. That is just how he rolls. Desperate, I do the interview. It actually goes OK.

10:23: Wonder of Wonders! A-Rod is clean, showered, not Rafael Carmona, and walking out of the locker room by himself. I run out to talk to him. He is totally polite, and professional, and cardboard. But he's not yelling at me, or ignoring me, or naked, so I consider the interview a big success.

10:37: I'm just one interview away from having my story: Sweet Lou.

10:48 : All hyperbole aside, Lou Piniella is the most terrifying man ever in history ever. And he really needs to buy some new underwear. He's sitting in his office behind his desk. No shirt (what is this with the nakedness?), just some tattered tighty whities, smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer. The office is very small. The beat reporters (these dudes are plenty grizzled themselves and have interviewed him a thousand times) seem terrified of him. They stand with their backs up against the wall and nervously call him 'Skip.' He's like a tiger that you raised from when it was a little cub. You feel mostly certain he remembers that you two are cool, but on the other hand, he might bite your face off out of sheer boredom.

After everyone else has asked their questions, I finally summon the nerve to squeak mine out.
"Um Skip?" I say meekly. "Could you um, talk about the amazing season Alex is having?"

'Huh?' Piniella asks, his head cocked, perfectly angled for a face-biting.

"Um, could you talk about how well Alex Rodriguez has been playing this season?"

Piniella gets up slowly, and comes around from behind the desk. The rest of the reporters scramble to get out of his way. He's heading right for me. He gets up right next to me, I can see his balls through a hole in his underwear. He puts his arm around my shoulders, pulls me in so close I can count each individual whisker, and says... "Not tonight kid, not tonight."

"Perfect," I think. "That's the final memory of my sportswriting career: Lou Piniella's balls."

I never went back there again.

As you may know, Pat Jordan ain't no Rick Reilly. Jordan's profiles— from Roger Clemens, to Carlton Fisk, to O.J. Simpson, to Pete Rose Jr. — are all painstakingly excavated, analyzed and scrutinized through his head-first reporting. His stories reveal a darker, unflattering side of some — okay, most — of his subjects, but his technique is so refined it is more revelatory than gossipy. And although some of the stories are more than 30 years old, they feel remarkably timeless.

Here's a short interview with Pat Jordan that'll give you a little better idea of the type of writer — the type of man — behind some of these stories.

AJD: There seemed to be a time when sportswriters could befriend athletes — actually hang out with them, go to dinner with them, have a relationship that's convivial and not antagonistic. Are those days completely gone forever?

PJ: Gone forever. Now, you're lucky to get 20 minutes at their locker with everybody interrupting you. It's a big mistake on their part. Fans don't get to know them as people, to form a relationship with them as people, so they only know them as athletes and an image. See A Rod. Which is why fans delight in catching A Rod in gotcha moments with a stripper. These guys foster love-hate relationships with their fans because of the distance they maintain from them. If they let guys like me profile them, we could show fans their human side. Now, I was supposed to do a profile on Josh Beckett this spring, but he backed out of it. On one hand, I don't blame him. From his perspective, what does he have to gain? It's Beckett's prerogative, of course, but it would make him more human if I did a profile of him. Now fans just know him as a great pitcher, who's a sullen, red-ass, Texas boy. My profile would help him survive bad times in Boston when they come. But he can't think that far down the road.

AJD: Was there ever an athlete — either you've written about or just met casually — you perceived as an asshole who pleasantly surprised you?

PJ: Yes. Bo Belinsky (author's note: Bo Belinsky!). I thought he was a guy who pissed away his career, carelessly, but he was a man who was very sensitive, a good guy, who could never hurt anyone but himself.

AJD: You seem to have an admiration for players who are a little prickly, who have principles both on and off the field, like the piece on Carlton Fisk in your book. Do those athletes even exist anymore?

PJ: I don't know. I haven't interviewed such guys lately. Seaver, Fisk, they were men first, and athletes second. I admired them as men, and then, secondarily, as athletes. They had fucking standards. Maybe not my standards, but at least they had standards. They were AUTHENTIC. That's all i expect in a subject.

AJD: I found the story (Breakers West: Where The Kissing Never Stops) about the Williams sisters disturbing. It had this very incestuous vibe to it. You seemed to go out of your way to point out how their father wasn't the usual overbearing tennis father (in his mind, at least), but you had it peppered with those odd "I love you Daddy/I love you, Venus Williams" exchanges throughout. Were you genuinely freaked out by Richard Williams?

PJ: Second worst pathological liar i have interviewed. OJ was the first. Richard was a scary guy. A manipulator. He was not an authentic man.

AJD: You're married to Meg Ryan's mom. You did a piece slamming Meg because of some of things she'd said about your wife. Do you still have animosity toward her? Do you consider her, uh, a step daughter?

PJ: Technically, Meg is my step-daughter, even if she does refer to me in Hollywood as the Anti-Christ. But I hold no animosity toward her as long as she leaves her mother alone. I am known in Hollywood as Meg Ryan's mother's pit bull. No one fucks with my wife, especially not her kids. If Meg called her mother today and said she was sorry and she loved her, I'd be the first person to pick her up at the airport.

AJD: Obviously, Jose Canseco didn't appreciate the story you wrote about him. In fact, he (and his girlfriend!) pretty much discredited the whole thing by making it seem like you were an angry, bitter writer taking out your frustrations on him. How much of the version that you published on Deadspin do you think would've been in the piece had you actually spent some time with Canseco? Would an hour of his time really have changed the direction of the story that much? Or is Canseco just telling the truth again and you're just an angry, jealous man?

PJ: I certainly am not jealous of Jose. I never aspired to stupidity. But I was certainly pissed off at his dragging me to LA for three days and canceling our interview. He definitely would have come off better than he did if he'd have talked to me. Maybe he could have made himself more human in my eyes in a way he wasn't from a distance. His mistake.

AJD: Do you think the majority of sports writers are pussies?

PJ: Abso-fucking-lutely. Most have yet to grow pubic hair. They idolize and are resentful of jocks that have a talent they never had. They fawn over them one minute, and slam them the next. Very schizophrenic. I never admired athletes because I was one and knew just because we were athletes that didn't make us any better than anyone else. So I could throw a ball faster than a non-athlete, so what. Anyway, I admire athletes who are, again, AUTHENTIC. I am not a fan. I am a writer who appreciates authentic people, whether they are jocks, actors, politicians, or unknowns.

AJD:When was the last time you got into physical altercation with somebody?

PJ: I was 52. My wife and I were pedaling our bikes on the sidewalk on Fort Lauderdale beach. This big guy, maybe 220 lbs, 28 years old, was roller blading backwards toward us without looking. He clipped my wife's bike, almost spilling her to the sidewalk. When he passed me I said, "Hey, asshole, watch where you're going." So he skates back to me in a threatening way and says, "What did you call me?" I said, "Asshole." Now he's thinking, this is an old guy, but not that old, and then he slams into my wife's bike again and knocks her to the sidewalk. I leap off my bike on top of him and we're wrestling on the sidewalk. I have his head in a headlock, when my bicep rips, and I let go. He jumps off and skates furiously away, screaming back at me, that I was crazy. I told you, nobody fucks with my wife. Anyway, my bicep is still ripped and I never had it repaired. Long story, huh?

AJD: Does publishing a book like this depress you at all? Of course, it's gratifying, but at the same time, it's your life, or at least a huge chunk of it. Doesn't putting together a collection like this open you up to second guessing any of the choices you made?

PJ: Nothing depresses me, in my job, except when I'm not writing. Writing is an end for me, not a means. I aspire to nothing, ESPN-TV, fame, fortune, or anything, other than to be able to write each day and pay my bills. The collection has some of my best stuff, not all. I don't live in the past of everlasting regrets. Every story I do next, I think will be my best. That's what keeps me going. I am first, last, and always, a professional writer who lives to sit at the typewriter each morning. As for regrets, I have none, except for my sins, which will remain private as far as you're concerned. Certainly I have no regrets about my career. I never thought of my career as a career. It was God's gift. I fucked up the first gift God gave me, and hope He isn't still pissed off at me. Then He gave me a second career which I know I haven't fucked up. I do the best and truest work I can from story to story and let the rest of you decide whether their good, bad, or irrelevant. and you guys, Alex (Belth, the editor of Jordan's collection), and anyone else who reads my stuff is the point for me. I write for my readers, not me. If i don't please you, I failed. As for second-guessing, that's for losers. I live with my choices, even if I wish I hadn't made some of them. It's called, being a fucking man, guys.

Heavens. Remember Mindy McCready? She's a country singer who sang "Guys Do It All the Time," which was apparently some sort of country hit. Anyway, she's had a ton of personal problems in the last few years; this photo was taken she was arrested after a fight with her mom. She had a OxyContin addiction, once stole a truck and forced the driver to act as a hostage and tried to kill herself at least twice. It's the type of thing that might result from starting to date Roger Clemens when you were 15.

The New York Daily News has Clemens' denial, but minces few words.

According to sources, Clemens was with his Red Sox teammates in a Fort Myers, Fla., bar when then-teenager McCready caught his eye. After Clemens threw a shirt with his and several teammates' signatures onstage, an introduction was made.

"It was love at first sight, no doubt about it," said a source with intimate knowledge of the relationship.

According to the source, McCready did not learn that Clemens was married to Debbie Clemens until McCready attended a baseball game with her two younger brothers and read Clemens' bio in the program. The source says that McCready was too young to be angered by the news that Clemens was taken.

Supposedly this will have something to do with Clemens' suit against his former trainer Brian McNamee ... but honestly, who cares? (Unless the continuance of the suit means more revelations like this.) Roger Clemens, then 28 and with the Red Sox, with 15-year-old country music singers. Yipes.

Man, Roger, continuing to come out of retirement, staying in the public eye, what a great idea, huh?

More on this today, surely.

Roger Clemens Had 10-year Fling With Country Star Mindy McCready [New York Daily News]

Click here to see the new hats cast their eerie spell. (Caution: Not for the meek).

Someday of course all baseball cap logos will glow in the dark, and you'll have Ghosts CEO Kevin Haughian to thank for it. He is also responsible for the current top best-selling Minor League cap, that of the Lake Elsinore Storm.

The Ghosts are also the only team anywhere to be named after a Harveys Entertainment cartoon character. That's the studio that gave us Baby Huey, Wendy the Good Witch, Herman and Katnip, Little Audrey and Richie Rich ... kind of a low-rent Disney. Now if the Ghosts can tie in their concessions to Little Lotta, they'll have something.

And now, here come the Minor League promotions:

• 60's Psychedelic Night. Tonight, West Virginia Power (Class-A South Atlantic League). Generally I don't need an excuse to take LSD, but I'll fit right in tonight at Appalachian Power Park, where our nation's groovy, bell-bottomed heritage will be celebrated ... up to and including post-game karaoke.

• Australia Day. Saturday, Erie SeaWolves (Class-AA Eastern League). Includes the always popular Boomerang Giveaway, a Steve Irwin tribute, and salute to Australian-born Major Leaguers. Plus, music of the BeeGees and Men at Work. What, no Anne Murray?

Other breaking news:

Mr. Celery Conducts The Delaware Symphony Orchestra. Yes the rumors are true: Famed Wilmington Blue Rocks mascot Mr. Celery will take up the baton on Saturday at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington to conduct a presentation of The Firebird. The co-production by the Enchantment Theater and the Delaware Symphony Orchestra "weaves together puppetry, shadow play, masks and magic with evocative music by Stravinsky in this captivating Russian tale." The performance also includes Bizet's Carmen Suite and begins at 2 p.m. Adults $20, children $10. For tickets call the Grand Opera House box office at (302) 652-5577.

Joliet Jackhammers Offer Contract To Frank Thomas. The Joliet Jackhammers of the Independent Northern League have extended a contract offer to Frank Thomas, who was released from the Blue Jays last week. Had he signed, Thomas would have received "a monthly salary in addition to a free apartment," according to the Jackhammers' press release. Alas: It appears that the Jackhammers' offer was not sweet enough.

Cam Of The Week. Cedar Rapids Kernels Dale and Thomas Popcorn Field KernelsCam (scroll to bottom of page). Hmm, looks like rain.

Billboard Of The Week. St. Paul Saints Billboard Corn Field. If only this included a cam.

Kevin In The Ticket Office Says Goodbye. Sad, sad news from the Clearwater Threshers. Kevin from the ticket office is discontinuing his blog, to "pursue other interests." It's a heartfelt farewell, equaled only perhaps by the final episode of M*A*S*H.

Please send any Minor League promotional news, game accounts, photos or recipes to us at RickChand@GMail.com. Thanks!

So, as much as Jay Glazer presents himself as "a jag-off from Brooklyn," it's a calculated approach, and it's one he's mastered to create the brand that is Jay Glazer. Right now, Jay Glazer The Brand has made himself into one of the most plugged-in reporters working the NFL beat. Today, Jay The Brand is the face of Subwayfreshbuzz.com, starring in a goofy NFL draft-themed webisode with former fat guy Jared and draft day darling Chris Long. He dedicated 30 minutes to talk to Deadspin between 3 and 3:30. He was a surprisingly great interview. So for his time and effort, please go watch his weird Subwayfreshbuzz.com thing. You know, he kind of earned that. I trimmed the fat on this interview, but it's still long as Santonio Holmes. Take it with you to the bathroom and enjoy all the Spygate goodness.

If you — or your "client" — would like to be included in an upcoming "Interviews Of A Lifetime," please contact either myself or Deadspin HQ for inquiries.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—--

AJD: So, are you busy with the draft stuff right now?

JG: Oh, it's nuts. It's nuts Everybody calls constantly and you've got to try to figure out who's telling you the truth, and who's not, who's trying to smokescreen ya — for the most part, they don't smoke-screen me as much like they do some of the other guys. But you still have to make sure somebody's not smoke-screening you or when somebody's blatantly trying to tell you the truth then you have to check out WHY they're telling you the truth ... yeah, it's nuts. But fun, though.

You seem to developed a reputation as the go-to guy for a lot of people in the NFL. You piss Chris Mortensen off on a daily basis. How did you develop that reputation?

JG: I go about my business differently than others — I don't go for the scoop, I go for the relationship. I'm not trying to sit up here like I'm holier than thou, but that's what I do, and I probably report two or three percent of what I know and the other stuff ... well, you have to look at it like you're an information broker. Other guys will get a scoop and then burn somebody for that scoop. They're looking at it short-term, like "let's break this right now," even though it might burn this guy or piss this guy off. But I look at it and say, "If I burn this guy here, there's probably ten [stories] I'm going to lose." Let me never, ever screw anybody, and I'll continue to get the scoops. I'm not gonna get every scoop, Mort's not gonna get every scoop, Peter King's not going to get every scoop, Adam Schefter's not going to get every scoop — that's not how it happens. It's just a fact of life. The Favre thing was based on relationships that I've built for a long time, and I got it from a couple of guys that really nobody ever gives the time of day to. That's the other thing: You can't just go to the head coaches and the GMs and the star players — you have to go to everybody. Some of the biggest scoops I get are from the practice squad players, you know who are just a bunch of strokes, just like I am.

But how long does it take you to develop those relationships?

JG: Ah...my whole life. I have some guys that I've been friends with since I started in this league and they say to me, "You are absolutely the same jag-off you were the first day we met you." Before I was doing this, I was bartending in Brooklyn. I try to take kind of the same approach in dealing with people and attitude as I did when I was doing that. I act the same way toward my grandmother, or the commissioner of the NFL, or Warren Sapp —- doesn't matter who you are.

I think people realize that there are so many B.S'ers in this business, so many posers, that...one of the best compliments I got was from my ex...who said this to me at one point...

Not Miss New Jersey, right?

JG: Well, yeah, actually, that's who that was.

Ah...bummer?

JG: Yeah, yeah. Anyway...She asked, uh, Warren Sapp or somebody at the time, "Why do you all call my boyfriend — she was my girlfriend at the time — 24-7?" And Sapp or whoever said, "Because he's the only guy in our lives without a vested interest. He doesn't care about anything and he doesn't care about pissing us off." I thought that was pretty nice.

Do you think that approach is the way you have to be in this type of media landscape right now?

JG: It's just the way I am. Doing this thing with Jared and Chris Long at Subwayfreshbuzz.com, they'll tell you...I'm off. I'm off, man! I admit it , I'm somewhat demented. And I'm blessed with this kind of wacky personality...

Wait, what do you mean you're "off?"

JG: I mean, I'm demented, I'm just off, you know what I mean...different. I'm not your normal, conservative reporter.

I heard there were rumors other media organizations were trying to lure you away from Fox? That you were scooping everybody else so much that it was just becoming embarrassing for other media outlets.

JG: I haven't heard that one. I read somewhere that somebody was, but I've never had anything or saw anything like that happen. I can't see anything like that happening, Fox treats me great. They got a couple of pretty good shows, like American Idol, so I think they do okay...

But it is nice to be thought of that way. You go to the NFL owners meetings and your competitors and some of the owners will come up to you and go, "Hey, you know, you've had a great year, you've had a monster year." I've told the story that when I did get my hands on the Spygate video, Mortensen texted me that day and said "Good job, A-hole." Peter King, he was in Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever he was and he comes up to me at the owners meeting and he says, "I knew you had it over there. I'm proud of you." It's nice to hear that from your competitors. For years, me and the other reporters we hated each other. I had nothing in common with them, they had nothing in common with me. They didn't like the way I went about my business because, you know, I go about it by building relationships. And they'll [other reporters] be like, well, " You're not objective." And the difference is, because I have a relationship with these guys [my sources, NFL players] I can tell them anything. I mean, I've called guys out and told them to their faces, "Man, you suuuuck all of the sudden." Where as if another reporter says that to a player, that player will cut them off forever.

And you've never tried to contain that approach in anyway?

JG: No, no,no, no, no — I'm not the sugar-coating type of guy. I remember one guy who's hooked in tight with Subway also by the way, (authors note: Christ, another plug? For fuck's sake...) was Michael Strahan. And one year I was getting on him hard. I said to him, "Dude, enough of this crap about you getting double-teamed and triple-teamed. You never hear Reggie White complain about this. You don't hear Lawrence Taylor complain about it. You don't even hear Simeon Rice complain about it. Just shut up and deal with it. If you want to be one of the great ones, this is what's going to happen to you. I just haven't seen the effort recently..." And Strahan gets all pissed off and he's like, "Well, I've been wanting to talk to you because I've noticed that your writing hasn't been good recently..." That was a good comeback.

So, do you consider yourself a "writer?"

JG:Uhmmmm... I consider myself a reporter. Whether that's for writing, or TV, or whatever it is. I consider myself a reporter now, but I'm also trying to host a couple shows on Fox, my mixed martial arts show and pro football preview. I try to bring the same approach to those things as I do to reporting...you know, a little demented a little off...

Well, getting back to that whole lack of objectivity thing — some people might call you a jock-sniffer based on the way you get your stories.

JG:Never heard that one. Clearly, I don't kiss their butts. Scott Ackerson, who is a producer at Fox NFL Sunday, he came to the Pro Bowl one year with me. I stay with one of the teams in their hotel, because the rest of the media is like 30 miles away, and all you really do at the Pro Bowl is drink. So, I'm not drinking and driving.

So, Scotty came with me and went out with me and I'm there, holding court, and he goes back and tells people, "It's the damndest thing. It's unbelievable. He has his own little mafia...but the worst thing is, Jay treats them[the players] like crap! He's the one talking more trash than anybody and they just deal with it." I mean, I'm a bastard if anything, not a sniffer.

But don't you think these relationships could backfire at some point? Where do you draw the line between your job as reporter and your "relationships?"

JG: That's the thing of it, you almost have to look at it as the DEA would: Like, we've got this mid-level drug dealer and we can bust him and look pretty good, or we can use him, and get 10 more guys that are bigger. Like, guys know what the deal is. I'll help them, but they know what the deal is. I just did this whole thing with Jared Allen getting traded from the Chiefs to the Vikings. So, the Vikings called me about him, a couple of other teams called me about him, and the thing is, I take Jared Allen to train with me in Mixed Martial Arts at facility in Arizona, so I'm around him a lot, and I let him know about the calls I'm getting, but I hold off on it. Instead of me reporting it as something that might happen, I'll hold off an wait until I can officially get that the Chiefs have decided to trade him to Minnesota.

And you just got that firsthand from him, by virtue of training with him?

JG: Well, yeah, we work out together. Again, I could've reported that a while ago, but I'd rather cultivate it and then as soon as the news broke, he called me up and go, "Post it ... here are my numbers, this is what it was for," etc. and I'm the only one with that information. Here's the other thing, I get a call Monday from somebody with the Dolphins and he's like "We're getting close to Jake Long." And they're like, just hold off for us, hold off for us, we'll let you know and you'll be the first to know. I hold off, and there I am, the first to report it. Have I been burned before? Yeah. Thank God I've been right more often than I've been burned, but it does happen.

Do you have any worries about the Spygate issue if it does eventually end up in front of Congress? Do you worry about being in a Judith Miller-type situation because of your involvement in it?

JG: Well, I got a call from Sen. Specter and he asked me to meet...first off, there was some ridiculous report out there that said I had agreed to hand over the tapes to Congress. I do have the tapes, but am not doing that, nor would I, and if they want to see them, I show them at parties all the time, so they're more than welcome to come over to my house and see them. Me and my buddies will watch them all the time, because the tapes are hilarious to be honest with you....

How's that?

JG: Because it's not just football...it's classic. The tapes go back and forth between... Well, the first part of the tape, the guy recording it , all he's focusing in on are the butts of the Jet City Dancers. He's going from chick, to chick, to chick, and then you see, like, Tom Brady step in and then he'll [the dude taping it] hit the coaches a little bit, but when there's a break? He goes into the stands and then focuses on T and A. It is classsssic. It is like Spygate meets "Girls Gone Wild."

And that's what's on the tapes that everyone's getting upset about? Does that damage the credibility of those tapes at all?

JG: Oh, no, no, no,no — because the rest of it, is damaging. Because they go the coaches, to the down and distance, back up to the coaches, back to the down and distance — it couldn't be anymore clear. They focus in on three guys the entire time, it is soooo brazen it's incredible.

So, how long did you sit on that for before you went with it?

JG: Oh, I got the tape that week and showed it that week. The only thing I had to wait for was Fox NFL Sunday. My boss at Fox, I have to give him a lot of credit, they were nervous, they were concerned and I said to them "Guys, I'm not telling you where I got it from, I'm never telling you where I got it from, and if you want to know where I got it from? If that's the problem, than I won't run it." To their credit, they just said "Jay, the NFL is going to launch a major investigation into how you got it..." I said, "That's fine, they'll never find the people. Ever." And thank God because all of the Fox people stood by me. And after that, people thought I was going to lose my job over it because the NFL was calling me and asking me where I got it. To this day, even the producers at Fox have NO clue where I got it from. Nor would I tell them. And I said to them, "If you ever try to make me, I'll lie to ya." I'll die before I tell anybody where I got it from.

Will you go to jail for it though?

JG: Oh absolutely.

So, what's your relationship with Roger Goodell like now?

JG: Roger and I are fine. Roger understood I had a job to do and I didn't mean to put him in a bad position. I mean, people around him are ticked. I called him the morning I got it and said, "Look, I got something big here..." and I told him to just watch it and I'd call him from home and he's was just like, "Ahh....you're killing me." I mean, he knew.

fin

It's here? It's finally here? OH THANK YA SWEET JESUS, IT'S FINALLY HERE!!!! Every year, March rolls around and I think to myself, "Goddammit, where is the fucking draft already?" Yes, I know it's on the same weekend every year. But man oh man, does it take fucking forever to arrive.

It's been three full months without any football. Three long. shitty, rainy, cold months. I'd like to extend a hearty FUCK YOU to February, March and April, three months on the calendar that serve no purpose other than to slowly deprive me of my will to live. Especially you, April: with your half-sunny, half-rainy days, and your wild fluctuations in temperature. PICK A GODDAMN WEATHER PATTERN AND STICK WITH IT. I'm tired of needing a jacket in the morning, only to have the interior of my car hit 9000 degrees by the time I pull out of work.

I'd also like to extend a hearty FUCK YOU to people who snidely look down on the draft and on people who enjoy it. That means you, Mike Wilbon.

It's a nuisance, made-for-TV-by-TV event for people who couldn't tell a left tackle from a right guard, or zone from man-to-man coverage to save their mamas' lives.

Really? That's odd, because I've found that the draft is an event made specifically for people who can deduce such things. Like me! I know the difference between a left tackle and right guard. A left tackle plays on the LEFT! And has to protect the passer's blind side. And a right guard plays on the RIGHT! And sometimes has to pull! I knew that! Amazing, but true!

I also know that man-to-man coverage involves having the defensive player "cover" the offensive player one-on-one! Who would have thought a fan of the NFL might know basic things about the NFL? Surely, only a trained journalist could possibly know such things. And the biggest miracle of all is that I don't watch the telecast from my mother's basement!

Choke on Barkley's dick, Wilbon.

And you, Will Leitch! Yes you, you raging anti-draftite! You too can help yourself to a heaping spoonful of my dick milk. (Ed. Note: AGAIN?)

We were excited at the beginning, fooling ourselves into believing the recitation of names of people we don't know for four hours could be a scintillating experience, and watching Brady Quinn lose millions of dollars every 15 minutes kept our interest for a while too. But once he was drafted, we were out of steam and ready to watch, you know, actual sporting events where people run and jump and move around.

Well, aren't you just a little smartypants. Yes, I think it's just HI-larious how, every year, you (all one of you!) remind me that the draft is just the recitation of names. You really put the draft in its place. It's just names being listed! It's so clever how you boiled it all down to that! Don't I feel goofy now! I could attend the end of any college graduation, and it would be EXACTLY the same! How silly of me to actually care which players will be joining my team. Why don't you go listen to NPR and write something for McSweeney's, you fucking twee assfingerer.

Here's the thing, Leitch. Your favorite team plays 162 games every year (and this year, only 162). That gives you 162 chances to bust out your Ankiel doll and put on a 3-hour showing of "Leitch And The Real Rick." My favorite team plays 16 times a year. That's it. That's all I fucking get. Sixteen chances to get blotto and yell at Brad Childress for having Adrian fucking Peterson return kickoffs. So you'll excuse me if I find those names being recited just a tad important.

I'm well aware that no actual football is played during the draft. But it's not as if it's the only non-game sports programming in the world that people enjoy. No games are played on PTI. No games are played here on Deadspin. But who gives a fuck? They're still entertaining. Part of the reason I watch sports is so I can talk about them. And lo and behold! Here, before us, is a very long sporting event, which gives NFL fans like me lots and lots to talk about. Gee, I wonder if that might interest people?

So if you don't like the NFL Draft, and if you just can't possibly fathom how the unwashed masses could enjoy such a thing, please consider yourself cordially invited to stick your scrotum in a fucking Cuisinart. It's the NFL Draft, and this is your NFL Draft Jamboroo.

All aspects of the NFL Draft are evaluated for sheer watchability and or awesomeness on a scale of 1 to 5 Throwgasms.

Five Throwgasms

Cutting The Time Between Selections From 15 Minutes To 10: This year's draft starts at 3 p.m., three hours later than usual (BOOOOOOOO!!!!!!). But there is some good news. The NFL, at long last, has cut down the first round selection clock by 5 minutes. If Roger "The Ginger Hammer" Goodell leaves any legacy upon the league, apart from suspending all the black players, it will be this. The pace of the ceremony has been upgraded from glacial to downright slug-like. Whoa whoa whoa... stop this draft! It's all happening so not-quite-as-slow now! It's gone to plaid!

Mock Drafts: The Gregg Easterbrooks of the universe just adore telling you how pointless mock drafts are. "Why, those mock drafts never turn out to be 100 percent accurate, don't you know. (smells own fart)" That's not the point of mock drafts. The point of mock drafts is to let me know which players are currently meriting first round consideration, and to give me an approximate sense of where they're being slotted. That way, I can figure out which players I'd like my team to draft (Joe Flacco can throw far? That makes him way better than Tarvaris Jackson!), who I hope falls to them, etc.

Once I'm familiar with how the mock drafts are trending (apologies for that word, it's result of watching too much political coverage), I can then get into the drama of the real draft. I can express surprise should a player like Leodis McKelvin, whom I have never seen, slip down the board. I can cry out in disbelief should a player like Flacco go in the Top 15 ("Reeeaccchhhh!!!!").

You see, mock drafts help educate me, the fan. No, I haven't watched many of these players play football. It's just not feasible, given my schedule, and how much of that schedule is allocated for masturbation. That's why we have mock drafts. They're learning tools. And that's why I enjoy the draft itself. It's for learning. That's right, you anti-draftites. I'm the educated one! Plus, I get to drink and ignore house projects as I learn. And that's awesome.

Mel Kiper Jr.: After my team drafts a player, I rely on Mel to get me properly excited about his prospects. And what he needs to work on! What's that, Mel? He's got great agility? NICE. Excellent lateral movement? Fucking double nice. Bit of a tweener? Oh, I don't like the sound of that. But he's explosive off the edges?! (creams jeans)

Booing: Nothing beats a cocky young player being booed on the best day of his professional life. That'll knock you down a peg, Golden Boy. I also like it when the crowd lets out a collective, sarcastic laugh at a shitty pick. The Raiders took Sebastian Janikowski? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! What a bunch of retards.

Watching The Entire Draft If You're A Fan Of The Cowboys: Are you a Dallas fan? Holy shit, are you in luck! The draft lasts a combined 17 hours or so, and ESPN spends, oh, about 16 of those hours TALKIN' BOUT DEM COWBOYS! NYEEEEHAWWWWW! THIS IS DOUBLE J'S DAY TO SHINE, CHUBBY RAIN!!! I, for one, welcome ESPN's efforts to turn the NFL into a one-team league. Look at the great job they did turning baseball into a two-team affair. God, if only the NFL could be just like that!

Morons.

Unfortunately, there won't be any Emmitt for this year's draft. Which is too bad, because I was crazy excited to hear him talk about a player's agulation, not to mention lazurus quickness, excellenteration, and overall dexatrim. Taking Matt Ryan at Number 3? That is a fucking Debalkanization!

The Draft As A Harbinger Of Spring: They say March 21 is the beginning of spring, but it's usually not until mid to late April when you start seeing the ladies around town rocking hot sundresses and strappy sandals, with their cleavage bouncing to and fro. Now THAT is spring, my friends. Those ladies are just so eager for warm weather, so happy to rid themselves of all those cumbersome winter clothes, that they merrily strip down to all but the bare essentials. Ladies, I support you wholeheartedly in such efforts. Let those puppies roam free!

Nothing beats sitting outside at a bar on a cold spring day and just watching the parade of lovely ladies pass by. I tell you, people-watching is 100 percent more awesome when there are tits out and about.

Highlights of Previous Draft Moments: Oh Jets, will you ever stop being clueless for drafting Jeff Lageman? Fuck and no. (Actually, Lageman turned out to be pretty good.)

Player Highlights: I don't give a fuck about interviewing the draftees after they've been selected. I DIDN'T DRAFT YOU TO TALK, BOY! I just want to watch the five-minute, Kiper-narrated highlight reel of you fucking shit up. Running. Jumping. Tackling. Exhibiting a callous disregard for your own body. That's good stuff.

Trades: Trades rule. I'm convinced people like Belichick trade constantly during the draft just so they can have something to do. Only thing that sucks about draft day trades is, once a trade is made, the draft clock gets fucking reset. GAHHHHHHH!!!!!! You traded up because you knew who you wanted, Jerry Jones. Just go fucking pick him already.

Four Throwgasms

The Fact That The Draft Lasts Forever: Okay, so the whole thing drags a bit. So flip over to something else for a bit. Check out the day's token Horrible, Early Eastern Conference Playoff Game. Or watch a flick. Or go to the gym. When you're back, there'll only have been three new picks! You didn't miss jack shit. Draft weekend means there's always something interesting to tune into. You can season the rest of your TV watching with bits of draft from here and there. In fact, last weekend, the NFL Network replayed last year's draft IN ITS ENTIRETY. It made for excellent commercial break filler. That vest on Brady Quinn is just as gay this year as it was back then.

Chris Mortensen: Mort's wrong a lot, unless he's reporting something that's just been reported somewhere else. But he's right at least 2 percent more often than Mike Florio, and that makes him the best in the business. Cutting to Mort during a draft means he's got a potentially explosive non-scoop, and that gets me all atwitter.

In general, I RELY on Mort to be wrong, because it helps make the draft surprising. If there's any news event that stands to benefit from shoddy reporting, it's the draft. Accurate reporting just makes the thing predictable. I don't know why ESPN tries so hard to figure out who's drafting whom.