It's usually because they're just so absurd or really lack even the most tenuous of news angles to give them the go-ahead. Other times it's because they're just absolute horseshit. But every Friday (except today, because we actually have off tomorrow for the 4th of July — more on that later.) until we get sick of running them, we'll present to you some of these not-so-shiny gems. All items should be treated as [Sic'd]. Enjoy...

Urban's A Happy Drunk

"Urban getting his wine on"

Tyler Hansbrough Is Very Photogenic

This was taken just hours after he was drafted. thought you would enjoy. Wasted? or caugth off guard. you be the judge.

This was taken just hours after he was drafted. thought you would enjoy. Wasted? or caugth off guard. you be the judge.

Angry Joe Devanna Returns!

I'll Alert The Video Editor Immediately

Sir, If You Let Me Know Who You Are, I'd Gladly Take It Down

Please Tell Me You Remember This Guy

lubert if you readin this here is esactly what happens. we was playin horshoe for like hour and i musta throw it like a thousand time. EVER time i throw it never make it even close to that pole. some time it only go like half way there AT TEH MOST. so there was little boy there and he start laughin at me and pointin and say "(laughs) hey look, stups cant even reach that pole."
so that make me real mad and probly very sad. so next time it is my turn i decide that i gonna throw it as hard as you can. so i close my eyes and put my arm all the wya back and (grunts) I throw my arm forward as hard as i ever can in my life. now here is where it is a problem, them horsoe is HEAVY. and teh weight of it just carry my arm real fast and miss teh part whyen you supposeda let go.

to be honets it didn't real help that my eyes was closed. anyways, finally i let it go and i open my eyes to see where that thing is gonna land. i was even even hopin for one one of them rigners. I was just hopin to get in even CLOSED to where that pole is. I feel like i waitin forever to see where that horshoe land. I dont see it all.

I still didn't know that it was from me, I thought maybe someone just chucks at her. Finally qwerts come over and say (real soft in teh ear) "hey stusa, you do this. you hang onto it too long at it fly over you head and hit tonky in back." I was devistating. i never, never, ever, NREVER would do that. it seem like just yesterday we was laughin about that video with that chimanzee.

and now i feel like we is never gonna laugh about that stuff agian. i am heartbroke and i am cryin most times. yesterday i cry even during gilligans and jimmy c come over and start doin he benji impressions just to cheer me up. i hope you will see this and you will knew that i dont mean it and i hope tonka is happy and healthy for teh rest of she life. (crying0

stu1ds

p and s - lubert if you readin this i so sorry that i hit you gramma with teh horshoe. i hurtin so much inside

It's a tarp!: In 2006, the A's and new owner Lew Wolff spread a green tarp across the Coliseum's often lightly populated, largely unpoliced upper deck, a move rather similar in spirit and effectiveness to an aging man throwing a few pitiful shoots of hair across his bald dome. This was done in the name of stadium "intimacy," as A's officials said time and again, which was plainly a con, and a popular one, too, among baseball owners. What the team had done, in effect, was to slash the Coliseum's seating capacity down to the lowest figure in the majors, creating an artificial scarcity for tickets and thus pumping up demand. An ancillary motive was to discourage cheapskate walk-ups in favor of the wealthier types who buy tickets well in advance. A business can cater to whomever it wishes, I suppose, but the result was that the stadium lost the last of its raffish charm, which is to say, the only charm it ever really possessed: the vast, scruffy 300 section, which, among other things, was maybe the last place in professional sports where one could freely smoke a joint, if one so desired. I don't want to sentimentalize Oakland's upper deck too much — a friend once witnessed a knife fight there while on a second date — but it was a relic of a time when baseball stadiums weren't shopping malls with a bit of grass in the middle, when the game had a narrow but unmistakable countercultural streak that, more often than not, could be found in baseball's cheap seats. The game's renegade spirit is all but gone now, buried beneath a fat, stupid pile of Ken Burns movies and neo-retro nostalgia palaces, and covered up in Oakland with a tarp that looks more and more like a burial shroud.

Mount Davis ... on a wall: One day, I maintain, we'll all get misty-eyed and wistful about the unsightly multi-use doughnut stadiums of the 1960s, the way we do now with ye olde brick-and-steel ballparks of yore. The sustainability fetishists will praise their efficiency. Cash-strapped mayors warming their hands over trash-can fires will marvel at the days when they didn't have to float a bond every time a new sport sashayed into town. The idea itself was perfectly sound — a venue that could be used almost year-round, rotating from sport to sport — and the only wonder was that it took sporting people so long to come up with something farmers figured out in the Middle Ages. That these facilities, and especially the Coliseum, are now counted among sports' ugliest is a testament to the unruly growth of the NFL. I refer specifically to Mount Davis, a chunk of third deck seating added in 1995 at the behest of Al Davis, whose Raiders were arriving once again in Oakland in much the same manner as the Clantons in Tombstone. The seats had been dropped on top of two new rows of luxury boxes, and the hideous additions replaced a wonderful view of the Oakland hills to the east. The stadium was now enclosed; it was a football stadium where baseball trespassed during the summer months. And now, when people think of dual-use stadiums, they don't think about their simple practicality; they think of a dyspeptic old rich guy and his silly mountain.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd): "One of my friends used to work parking at the Coliseum and one night he was in the VIP parking area and a guy in a BMW flies up and doesn't have a parking pass. He tells this guy he can't park here, etc. The guy starts yelling and screaming at him, demanding to speak to his boss and saying he is going to have him fired for even asking for a parking pass and storms off after my friend won't relent. Yeah it was Billy Beane." (David R.)

"I hate this stadium and hope Billy Beane trades it for 14 maple wood bats and a speedy bottle of wine with a high OBP." (Zach P.)

"Oh, good Christ, what can I say about that place beyond thanking God that I'm not a Raiders (or other AFC West team) fan, so I don't have to watch football there too. The worst part about the Coliseum is that it's awfulness hides what are truly great fans. I'm a Mariners fan (I'll pause for laughter ...) living in the Bay, so I go there often as the enemy. A's fans are awesome – knowledgeable, nice, love their team ... but they're stuck in this terrible place with no hope for a new home base. ... And then there's Mt. Davis. Fuck that guy." (Corey L.)

"I remember the season when they built Mount Davis- they did not finish construction in time for the baseball season, and were drilling in the outfield DURING the games. No joke. The concourses are dirty and crowded, and the football-friendly field creates the most foul ball territory in the bigs. Translation- there are no premium seats, cause nobody is anywhere close to the action. But many of the aspects that lots of people would criticize the Coliseum for are, in fact, its most endearing attributes. The smell of pot wafting from the bleachers, the unabashed chant of 'Fuck the Yankees' that resonates through the concrete hallways after every win over the Evil Empire- you gotta remember, most of these people are Raiders fans during the offseason. But they take it easy for baseball games. I've never seen an opposition fan held down and urinated upon at the Coli during a baseball game (sorry Dolphins fan). Someday, a glorious city (San Jose, Sacramento, Las Vegas...) will build my scrappy and loveable A's the home they deserve. Until then, make sure you are three beers deep before you walk through the gates, and hide your liquor in a camelback so you can enjoy the true Oaktown experience at the Coliseum. (Noah F.)

"well, first of all, and to get it out of the way before all those asshats in the comments who've never actually been to our fair city make the tired joke, it's in oakland. second of all, mt fuckin' davis. not only did it replace a spectacular view with an eyesore that reminds all in attendance of the corpse that ruined oakland sports, it also fucked with the wind patterns to the point where, on the worst nights, it can be downright candlestick-esque. this is particularly harrowing for me as it brings back memories of a drunken father, a shitty team, and a darker time when i was, ugh, a giants fan. third, it's a big old mess of concrete and plastic seemingly designed only for sterile functionality which, aside from the few planted areas outside the stadium, would look more at home in the eastern bloc than the east bay. add to that the fact that it's situated between the nimitz freeway, a mostly stagnant bay runoff, the train tracks, industrial wasteland, and one of oakland's gnarliest neighborhoods and you've got the basic foundations for the world's stereotype of our city. on the plus side though, it's not in fremont, i've never had an easier time smuggling in booze, and you can generally find a joint rotation to weasel your way into in the smoking section." (Ian H.)

"Just a couple experiences for the stadium that weren't necessarily terrible, but highly indicative of the Oakland atmosphere: 1.) When sitting in the plaza level with friends, we all flasked the game up and were taking swigs as young men would. Course, within 10 minutes, a street-wise security guard pulled us from the seats. He tells us he is going to kick us out because the TV camera saw us drinkin from flasks. But instead of doing that, he proceeds to tell us 'listen, i smoke weed too, so i'm just gonna let this shit slide. all i'm askin is that if you gonna keep drinkin, leave the seats and shout me a holla cuz i could use a free drink myself' Don't know where he got the weed thought from, but good to know he was there to get fucked up too. 2.) When the stadium had the upper deck open about 5 years ago, me and my friends would have an entire section to ourselves, which would consist of us getting shit canned, others smokin weed right in the stadium, and then most of us basically pushing/fighting one another because hey, that's what all drunks do right?. I, unfortunately, got tossed from row 7 to row 3, tumbling head over heels, with my friends actually worried i might be seriously hurt. Now, most guards would see that, know we were shit canned, and probably smell the weed smoke on my friends, and kick us the fuck out of the game. The security guard that approached us: 'nice landing, but i only give it a 7 because you got up too quick.' (Bert G.)

"October 17, 1989. I was 9 years old and at Candlestick Park to watch Game 3 of the Battle of the Bay, and had come all the way from Florida to see my idols play - Canseco, Rickey Henderson, Mark McGwire, Uribe. For a kid from Florida whose little league team was the A's and had multiple pairs of those neon green batting gloves, it was everything. My dad had scored sick seats, literally on a makeshift box with fold out seats built on the field. Chris Berman sat next to me and signed my A's hat. And then the earthquake hit. We jumped over and exited through the player's exit and after looking towards San Francisco and seeing nothing but darkened windows and fires, we bailed on our hotel and headed to Palo Alto where twelve hours later a hotel let us sleep on their basement floor. Two days later my dad, intent on taking me to a World Series Game, came to his senses and decided we had to get out of there somehow. But not before we took the long way around the bay and went to the Oakland Coliseum. Which, if we're being honest with ourselves, has got to be one of the shittiest stadiums known to man. I mean, there is very little to be said about this concrete behemoth, plopped in the middle of a sea of yet more concrete. Not to mention the fact that its in Oakland. DNW. And yet, its probably one of my favorite stadiums for this simple reason: just days after the earthquake, my dad drove me around the perimeter of the Coliseum's parking lot until we found an open fence and then we drove through it, walked around that massive monstrosity of a stadium until we found another unlocked gate, and trespassed not only into the stadium but onto the field where I pitched my first, last, and only throws on a major league field. And then we ran like hell out of there once the guards saw us and started yelling like crazy. The stuff dreams are made of for a nine year old baseball fanatic who's life goal at the time was to see a game in every MLB stadium." (Walker S.)

Next up: Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

Mariotti's flirtation with hopping over to the Tribune side began last August. On the way out of the Sun-Times, no one was spared. He torched the newspaper industry as a whole. His former employer. His former colleagues. This was expected because, as you may have noticed, Mariotti's created a cottage industry for insufferable prickdom.

In January, he stuck firm to his down-with-newspapers crusade when he joined AOL's Fanhouse as a regular columnist. The new digs gave him more real estate to spew Mariotti crappage and the clout to piss all over the print industry whenever he got ornery. Yesterday's column was particularly galling because he seemed to forget that he was writing for a blog altogether when he belatedly opined on the Jerod Morris-Ibanez ordeal with laughable ignorance and extreme prejudice toward the "reckless idiots" who spread unfounded rumors and speculation from the safety of a blood relative's cellar or what have you. Of course, many of Fanhouse's writers weren't happy about this, since the column pretty much bashed them too (two weeks late). But Mariotti is a professional. He's trained in libel law. He drives a Dodge Stratus. So he says. Mariotti was so off in his criticism and approach he even managed to briefly turn long-time Emeritus basher Gerard Cosloy of Can't Stop The Bleeding-infamy into a Will Leitch sympathizer. Brilliant.

Now, onto the Tribune rumor. According to sources at that paper and other Chicago newspaperland employees, Mariotti's going to jump over to the Trib-owned "Chicago Now" blog operation as soon as that pesky Sun-Times non-compete clause ends in August. Chicago Now is overseen by Bill Adee, a former Sun-Times sports editor, and the man who was heavily lobbying the Zell-owned paper to snap up Mariotti last year. He hearts Jay.

Once this is finalized (they apparently already have mock-ups of Mariotti's page prepared), what will become of the Fanhouse column? This is still shrouded in mystery, sadly. Fanhouse ed's won't talk about it. And even a well-intended email to Jay Mariotti himself (at his personal AOL email address — what a company man) was not returned. Bill Adee over at the Tribune also wouldn't respond to an email inquiry either so unfortunately this post will most likely fall into the Reckless Idiot category even though its intentions were good. Alas, I was forced to solicit comment from the Chicago Tribune's communications coordinator, Kate Mersman, about the Mariotti move. She responded via email with a very polite "no comment."

But as Mariotti knows, being a long-time professional and all that, "no comment" responses to direct, succinct queries generally mean that the underlying stories are true. At least, in my unprofessional opinion.

She keeps a switchblade under her pillow! (Quote from her: "Don't fuck with me!")

She doesn't know the ingredients of sizzurp! Because she's white!

She doesn't pay her parking tickets and then abandons her old truck in the impound when she gets $4,000 worth of them!

She does shrooms! In tea! ("I can just shoot it down and you're like WOOO! Right away. Nice!")

She's avoided heroin even though her friends tell her it feels awesome!

She didn't like coke when she tried it!

She regretted doing acid on Halloween!

She hates Tom Brady because she's friends with Bridget Moynahan, but she still thinks he's fucking hot!

She could beat Tyra Banks in a fight!

She once hung out with Divine Brown's pimp!

She's of mixed ancestry!

She doesn't know that an Abe Lincoln is a pube beard glued on with semen!

It takes a lot of beers to get her drunk, unless that beer is Belgian!

She hates Jessica Simpson for ruining Tony Romo!

She hates sleeping in gold body paint!

IT'S LIKE I'VE KNOWN HER MY WHOLE LIFE! We talked for nearly 45 minutes. We're very close.

This week's Deadcast is available for your listening pleasure right here. You can also find the new Deadcast in the iTunes Music Store here. Got a question/comment you need read over the air next week? Send it to me here. Special thanks to Liberated Syndication for hosting us. Now sit back, relax, and listen as I flirt with a supermodel just like that Neil Strauss book taught me to.

PHOTO: SI

Everyone loved Steven Zallian's version (he's an Oscar-winner, you know!), because it had jokes and snappy dialogue and actually made sabermetrics non-mind numbing. But Soderbergh wanted realism so much, he was determined to only film events that took place in real life. He also scrapped the conceit of having Bill James as the "Greek chorus", bookending the film with his anecdotes with and wise old man stories. The verdict:

That might make for an intriguing art film, but it clearly was no longer a film that any studio would spend $58 million to make, especially with baseball films having virtually no appeal outside of the U.S.

We got our hands on the Soderbergh draft, and it's about as bad as others have said. Gone, thankfully, is the Beane-as-dork-Messiah stuff. Soderbergh's Beane is more of a proxy for the audience this time — Bud Fox meets Crash Davis, as they say in Hollywood — and in his script, Moneyball is more of a Beane-Paul DePodesta buddy movie, which maybe makes some sense when you imagine Brad Pitt and Demetri Martin in those roles. Maybe.

The script was probably doomed from its second page, from which the above image was taken. Here's Soderbergh's disclaimer:

Billy Beane's minor and major league career will be shown via filmed interviews with scouts, coaches, managers, players, and family members who were with him at the time. These interviews will comprise approximately ten percent of the film.

Another ten percent of the film will consist of re-enactments of real events as remembered by the people playing themselves. The purpose of these scenes will be to provide set-up and perspective for subjects, situations, or relationships which currently appear in the screenplay without the requisite/normal amount of context.

All that is to say an important portion of this film will be written in the editing room. This isn't a cop-out; it's just a fact, and entirely by design.

That sounds an awful lot like, "Yes, this script sucks. But trust me. I made The Limey." It was probably at this point that Amy Pascal, the Sony executive, optioned the script to the bottom of her coffee mug. Even though it was five days from shooting and Sony had already sunk $10 million dollars into the film, Pascal pulled the plug. The movie is now in limbo. The studio would presumably still make the Zaillian version if they could find a director, but would likely lose Brad Pitt if Soderbergh walks. And the current talent is free to take the project somewhere else, but no one is biting, because that brings us all back to the original argument, "Why anyone make a movie about this?" Maybe Scott Hatteberg is really big overseas?

(Additional Soderbergh script reveals, information by Tommy Craggs.)

Sony's Amy Pascal speaks out about 'Moneyball' [Los Angeles Times, via Gawker]
What happened to...Moneyball? [ScriptShadow]
Billy Beane Is A Golden God: Excerpts From The Scrapped Moneyball Script

Wayne Ellington was drafted late in the first round by the Timberwolves — along with every other player in the NBA Draft — but most will remember his historic night for the time they met his girlfriend. She goes to Drexel and wanted him to stay local, but he's blessed to be going to Minnesota. Tell that to Ricky Rubio.

Joe Morgan decides to tell a story on Sunday Night Baseball. (Stop me if you've heard this before. OK, I'll continue anyway.) It was an utterly harmless story, until it proved to be an "utter crock." (Stop me if you've heard this before. OK, I'll stop.)

Take it away, Dash: "Let's say you love the Chicago Bears. (Relax....it's just an example.) And let's say you don't mind having a few dozen tattoos on your body. That doesn't logically follow that you need 92 Bears autographs permanently inked in your skin."

Simona Halep decides to get a breast reduction — but that was before Alena Schurkova, a professional volleyball player with 32Es, weighed in. "If she does this it sends out the message that girls with big boobs can't play sports and that is just wrong," Schurkova said. Halep hasn't yet reconsidered.

Fact: Chris Forcier is leaving UCLA. Fact: He needs a better press team than his family. Fact: Writing "fact" lots of times in a press release does not strengthen your argument.

Tucker Max and an unnamed ESPN columnist walk into a bar... no, there's no punch line.

Artie Lange was who we thought he was! A much more thoughtful, rational expression of the same sentiment, at least.

"YouTube is filled with grainy cellphone videos of drunken bleacher brawls, but few capture the drama, action, suspense, and heartbreaking childhood trauma of this donnybrook from the Yankees-Marlins series. It's like the Citizen Kane of stadium fan fight clips." Getcher popcorn ready.

What do you do when you win the Stanley Cup and your team's owner is Mario Lemieux? You go to Sewickley and swim with the Cup, natch.

You already know what happened, but it's worth another watch, if only to make Lucky Pierre a permanent phrase in the cultural zeitgeist.

In an e-mail, RotoInfo insisted that the names come from a "trusted source." Maybe so, but the problems with the list are plain to see. For one thing, Jason Grimsley's name is absent. Grimsley, you'll recall, has been confirmed as one of the Juicin' 104. You may also notice that the list now stands at 103 names. That's because, as RotoInfo told me, Jeromy Burnitz's name initially appeared twice.

Here's what the "RotoInfo Team" wrote me:

Hey Tommy

Sorry we haven't called you personally. This story is generating some buzz. The list is a rumor and unconfirmed. We stressed that in the article. Its a trusted source, that's why we didn't hesitate to post it. When we receive more details, you will be the first to know; we will gladly share everything with you.

I asked for more details about their source. RotoInfo's response:

Hello Jason [sic]

As we state in the in the article, its unconfirmed and a rumor. Grimsleys name isnt on there because of give or take a few names. The one thing i did notice at first was burnitz name was on there twice. We removed one, maybe one of them was suppose to be Grimsleys. Were receiving alot of negative feed back especially from Red sox fans. Which leads me to believe this list is 90% accurate. Someone sent me an email regarding KROD on the list. My answer was 2 years ago he was throwing 98 99, now he has a change up and is throwing 92 to 94. lol. As for my source, its a trusted one, thats all ill say. Im sure you understand. Ill update you accordingly if any more of this story comes our way. Were a fantasy site, we could actually care less about this stuff, didnt think it would generate this much buzz. Thought we would give some users on our site something to talk about.

So there you are. The list of 104 names, "give or take a few." Now, I'm not suggesting that RotoInfo might be exploiting a hot-button issue to goose traffic. And I certainly wouldn't go so far as to muse about the identity of RotoInfo's Deep Throat and whether or not he or she is the journalistic equivalent of a teddy bear propped up at a child's tea party. No, sir. But I will point out that, whatever their identities, RotoInfo's sources haven't always been reliable:

An ungenerous reader might idly speculate that the site's sources are all full of crap. The whole lot of them. Give or take a few.

Rumored 2003 Steroid list leaks out? [RotoInfo]

I don't mean that in a glib way. (Mostly.) The strangely moving aspect of Michael Jackson's death was how we so quickly dismissed the freakshow he'd become over the last 20 years and focused almost solely on the music, and just how fucking great it really was. His death shouldn't have shocked us as much as it did; clearly, something was wrong with that guy. But it did what death is supposed to do: It gave us the needed perspective to hark back and reevaluate the artist, understand what it was we'd truly lost, give us something to all share as one. If you would have told me two weeks ago that Michael Jackson's death would turn into a week of shared grief, I would have thought you were crazy. That weirdo? Come on. And now that it has happened, in retrospect, it seems obvious we'd react this way. We'll actually all remember where we were when Michael Jackson died. Never would have thought that.

And it got me to thinking: What sports deaths would cause us to have that reaction? Who in sports could die right now and jolt people in that way? Who would shake us like that? Whose death would cause such an unconscious re-evaluation?

So, this week's Ten Humans is a thought experiment. It's my list of the 10 people in sports who, if they were to die tomorrow, would inspire similar recalculations in the public consciousness. Whose death would affect us the most? It's a little morbid, I grant you. But I think it's instructive.

A few parameters to let you know where I'm coming from:

1. Age Matters. If, say, Willie Mays died tomorrow, it would be tragic and awful, and it would cause countless reminisces from Baby Boomers — I'm pretty sure there'd be a Bob Costas-Billy Crystal special within the hour — but I'm not sure it would be shocking. That is to say: Willie Mays is 78 years old. The same goes for Vin Scully, or Bob Pettit. Epic figures. Great men. But old. Their death loses points because of their own longevity. Sorry.

2. Culture Importance. Stan Musial was a better baseball player than Pete Rose, but he hasn't contributed nearly as much to the national conversation as Charlie Hustle. We account for that.

3. Historical Recalculation. When Michael Jackson died, we really did dismiss the weirdness — and, perhaps, evil — and remembered what truly made him great. We even felt a little bad for forgetting about that in the first place. That's a factor too: Roger Maris' death grew in significance because we had pegged so wrong in the first place. Our own guilt, revisited upon death, adds to the equation. It's the Man, now that we look at it, we were harsh to that guy principle.

4. Shock Value. Obviously, we remember Len Bias' death more because he was 22 when he died. In the same way you are inherently sadder when a relative dies suddenly than you are when they've spent 15 years slowly wasting away in a funeral home. It's not fair — after all, dead is dead, and it sucks to die no matter how old you are — but them's the breaks.

5. Specific Vivid Memories. The true joy from the Tyson movie — the only real joy, if you ask me — is watching the montage of knockouts, those massive bursts of violence that made him Mike Freaking Tyson. Anyone who watched sports back then remembers just how amazing it was to watch Tyson, and can share those memories, in the same way you could share memories of the Michael Jackson Trapper Keeper you had in the third grade.

Anyway, those are the parameters I'm working from here. What deaths would effect sports fans in a Michael Jackson way today? Here are my nominees. Let's hear yours too.

Muhammad Ali. Kind of a no-brainer, and even though he's old — only 67, actually — and feeble, the public outpouring of affection for him would be enough to stop most normal conversation for a day or so. ESPN's upcoming "30 for 30" documentary series — which you'll be hearing a ton about over the next couple of months — features one film on Ali's fight with Larry Holmes, back when Ali had a mustache and got himself pummeled. It's going to inspire a whole other round of Ali worship ... not that he'll need it. Ali was dominant, important and charismatic, and his late-in-life deification has allowed most people to forget how truly (and unfairly) despised he was at one point by the national media that now reveres him. I think Jeremy Schapp will be on television for 30 consecutive hours when Ali dies.

Charles Barkley. It's insane what Barkley gets away with, even today. Let's not forget: Not only did he get charged with a DUI a few months ago, he told cops it was because "I was gonna drive around the corner and get a blow job." He took a month off, and by the time he had returned, everyone had forgotten about it. Barkley is charming, funny and hilariously blunt, and all this obscures that there seem to be some legitimate demons bubbling underneath there somewhere. (The guy threw a man through a plate-glass window.) Generally speaking, we've all had this quiet grand vision for Barkley; he's too smart and fascinating not to run for public office, or cross over to the mainstream non-sports culture in some dramatic way. But he's not living the most healthy life either. If Barkley died, there would be a palpable sense of loss, and what might have been. Plus, you could just run clips of him talking for about three full days.

Steve Bartman. The glory of Bartman is that he shut up. The guy could have had a reality show by this point, or become some sort of unofficial Cubs spokesman in the wake of the 2003 NLCS. But he didn't. He released one statement about his broken Cubs fan heart, and then was never heard from again. Still, we've all kind of assumed that at some point, he'd return, perhaps right before the Cubs made it to the World Series again, and all would be forgiven. Cubs fans would realize how awful they were to him — and they were quite awful — and the guy could reach full absolution by throwing out the first pitch. I bet he'd get a standing ovation, and we'd recognize the depth of our sins. But what if that didn't happen? What if he were hit by a bus this week? We'd never have closure on the Bartman story, never have a full conclusion to a story that we cruelly invented for him. Bartman would end as a ghost, just two minutes in the public eye, vanishing forever, leaving us alone, dealing with what we had wrought.

Larry Bird. Oh, heavens, to imagine the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth from the aging white sportswriter set! Bird was heaven-sent for the casual sports fan: Talented, hard-working, scrappy and, yes, white: He became the example of Doing It The Right Way even while hundreds of others were also, lo, doing it the right way. Bird's death would bring forth all the stories about how There Can Never Be Another Bird, even though there are Birds everywhere, particularly people fortunate enough not to have grown up in French Lick. Bird dying would be an elegy for a time period that never actually existed. And Lord, in New England no one would stop drinking for a month.

Magic Johnson. Along those lines, Magic's death would hark us back to that day in 1991, when two different worlds collided in a way nobody quite understood. In a way, Magic should die of a heart attack, or a kitchen accident: Something that has nothing to do with this HIV at all. (Considering it has been 18 years since he was diagnosed, this seems somewhat likely.) Magic has gone through so many incarnations that his death might, in a fashion similar to Michael Jackson, remind us of his true genius as a basketball player, rather than the embarrassing spectacles of his television work. We'd all find ourselves lucky to have had the extra time, even if he didn't always use it wisely.

Michael Jordan. Man, lots of basketball players here. Still, the other MJ has to be included. He's probably the closest we have in sports to a Michael Jackson, actually, someone who came around and dominated at the exact perfect social time to have everyone on the planet watching his every move. Jordan had our complete attention in a way no athlete has had since, and surely, the first week of retrospectives would be just like Jackson's, with everyone talking about where they were when he hit the Ehlo shot, or won his first title, or retired (the first time), or beat Byron Russell. We don't have many true traveling roadshows anymore, the circus coming and taking over, and Jordan and those Bulls teams might have been the last glimpse of it. Jordan's just young enough to that we'd all wonder what his next step would be; it still seems unbecoming that the great Jordan's final act could be as absentee president of the freaking Bobcats. There has to be a third act, right?

Pete Rose. For years, people have said the only way Rose is going to make the Hall of Fame is if he's willing to wait until after he dies. Well, we'll find out! I happen to be of the belief that Rose's sins were far worse and for damnable, in baseball terms, than using steroids or HGH or whatever, but with every year that passes, it's more obvious that my view is in the minority. Rose — a guy who becomes more profoundly unlikable the more you learn about him — could benefit from the whitewashing death provides a reputation, and he'd be seen as the sad exile rather than the monstrous pit of self-indulgence he ultimately became, and probably always was. A baseball player was once anonymously quoted as saying, "the only way you'd like Pete Rose was when he wasn't in the room." Death is the ultimate exit from the room. Rose's sins are the sort that we can't forgive while he's alive ... but are easy to let go once he's dead.

O.J. Simpson. There will be no re-evaluation on O.J.'s death: He'll go down in history as a brutal double-murderer, as a relic of a decade in which we, as a country, made a compulsion out of meticulously obsessing over events that didn't actually matter. (Simpson trial, Monica Lewinsky, Y2K.) In fact, it won't be as an athlete that we'll ever really think of O.J. Unlike Michael Jackson, it seems unlikely there will be a revisiting of Simpson's athletic career. As accomplished as his gridiron life was, there were no signature champion moments that could be replayed to offset the wretchedness of what would come later. O.J. was the beginning of empty, gawking culture, a culture we all revel in. Now we use it as distraction. Back then, the rest of the world, the part that didn't involve the O.J. trial, was the distraction. Simpson will be a symbol of a time in American history in which we were all very, very stupid. It seems fitting.

Mike Tyson. Even more so than Magic, the secret surprise about Tyson is that he didn't actually die before now. Tyson has comfortably settled into pseudo tragic hero / comedic punchline now, which is odd, because it wasn't that long ago that he seemed the very nexis of our entire sporting culture, the dividing line between Real Sports Fan and Gawking Sideshow Rubber Necker. Tyson's death would be perhaps the most similar to Jackson's; we watch the old videos of him and be reminded how dominant, how violent, how holyshit he really was at one point. His highs didn't last long, and they were over by the time most of us graduate from college, but at its best, there was nothing like it. It would be worth it to watch that over and over, and I suspect, ultimately, we'd forget the Robin Givens and the Mitch Green and the eating of children.

Vince Young. Ideally speaking — at least for this column's conceit — Young would have died three years ago, when he was at the peak of his powers, the amazing Texas quarterback who pulled off one the greatest single-game performances most of us have ever seen. He could have been our Len Bias then, the one who got away. Instead, he went pro, and that's when all the great college stories explode. But with Young, there's the sense of a mental issue, something in his brain standing in the way, an inner torment that perhaps even he does not understand. Young would be the ultimate little-boy-lost, a superhuman talent who reached the top and then collapsed before any of us, particularly him, noticed what was going on. Any list like this needs a true athletic tragedy. Young's is already happening. Hopefully he can turn it around ... but, as the song goes, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think.

Other nominees: Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Wayne Gretzky, Pele, LeBron James, Mark McGwire, Terrell Owens, Cal Ripken, Derrick Rose, Bud Selig, Bill Simmons, David Stern, Michael Vick, Tiger Woods.

PHOTO: SBB

Blake Griffin, No. 1

Patti says: "He's not even really wanting to shake hands with the commissioner. He's not turning his body or extending his arm out. The commissioner has to do all the work. It ends up looking like Blake Griffin is holding a baseball bat rather than shaking a hand."

Hasheem Thabeet, No. 2

Patti says: "Hasheem looks like a parent looking at a child. His facial expression, his smile is not, 'Ooh, this is an honor.' It's, 'Oh, you're a little boy, commissioner.' His outer hand is on the commissioner's arm. That's a power handshake. That shows he feels powerful, in control. He's literally making him move the way he wants him to move."

Tyreke Evans, No. 4

Patti says: "Tyreke has his shoulders back and away, but his head is down. This is a conflicted movement. He's not comfortable and happy and in the moment. He's just kind of awkward. The commissioner looks much more confident, sure of himself. But Tyreke looks like he doesn't know what he's supposed to do. That index finger is really significant. You put out that finger when you're a little bit fearful."

Ricky Rubio, No. 5

Patti says: "He's shy. Even though he has a nice smile on his face, there's some stiffness to it. He's happy, but there's tension in this moment for him. The one thing that he is doing: He's giving a really nice, full handshake. He's connected to the commissioner. The other guys, it was more for show."

Jonny Flynn, No. 6

Patti says: "This is my favorite. He's not only joyful, but his whole body is leaning in toward the commissioner. He's actually putting weight on the commissioner, letting go of some of his power with that huge slant. He's lifting the commissioner's hand up a little bit as he's doing this. This is a totally different level of warmth."

Stephen Curry, No. 7

Patti says: "He's totally off-balance in this moment, and you see that throughout the whole body. His left arm is out to his side, reaching in the other direction — it's like he wants to be someplace else. There's a lot of tension around the head. He's not happy. He's feeling very awkward and doesn't want to be in this place."

Tyler Hansbrough, No. 13

Patti says: "This is the first one where we've seen a lot of stiffness around the commissioner's mouth. He's forcing a smile. Maybe he's been doing handshakes for awhile and has to fake it. And Tyler is just kind of, 'Uhhhh, God.'"

Jrue Holiday, No. 17

Patti says: "Wow. His posture is so different. That's the posture of somebody who was in the ROTC or the church, or who was raised by someone religious. Very erect, very proud bearing. His clasp on the commissioner is very warm. It surrounds the hand. He's not mad. He's not upset. He's not super-happy. He's just more self-contained and just very respectful."

Arlington cemetery: Rangers Ballpark is a monument to every crass instinct in the modern stadium business, a tombstone for good sense, corporate social responsibility and the belief that the public interest is anything but a nice phrase on which to campaign for a terrible bond issue. Everything about it is wrong and vaguely criminal, even — especially — the look of the place. The ballpark takes up an absurd 1.4 million square feet in the midst of that iconic feature of the Texas landscape, the office park. A couple sharp-eyed readers note this below, but the stadium is a mismatched collection of counterfeit parts: You can make out bits of Camden Yards (the red-brick exterior and general air of ye olde ballpark), Tiger Stadium (the home run porch), Yankee Stadium (the frieze), Fenway Park (the out-of-town scoreboard, since removed, that was built into the left-field wall), Comiskey Park (the arched windows), Ebbets Field (the quirks of the outfield dimensions, in this case wholly artificial). The corridor inside was patterned after Chartres Cathedral, which is not unlike modeling the Astrodome after the Kremlin. The ballpark's architect, David Schwartz, once said, "We tried to downplay the distinctions in class." Mind you, this didn't mean that they actually built an egalitarian ballpark with clean sightlines and close proximity to the action. This meant that they built, as the Washington Post put it, "plenty of lucrative luxury boxes, but without making it look that way." One of the owners at the time, a no-account oilman, would go on to build a political career on the principle of catering to the rich, but without making it look that way.

Eminently Bush league: Rangers Ballpark — more than anything not named Scalia, Rehnquist, Thomas, Kennedy or O'Connor — is what made George W. Bush president. This isn't an exaggeration. He put up $600,000 of his own money to buy into the team and flipped those shares into a $15 million fortune that he used to launch his political career, a bankroll that owed a great deal to the ballpark generously furnished by taxpayers. The stadium itself was a scandal, an unabashed land grab that lawsuits would later describe as "sordid and shocking" and "astounding, unprecedented and blatantly illegal." It was also Bush's signal achievement as an owner. I'll leave the details to others, but in essence, Bush and his fellow Rangers owners somehow contrived to privatize the city's power of eminent domain. Then they went shopping. They bought up land on the cheap for the twin purposes of baseball and speculation, and dropped a hideous, plagiarized ballpark in the middle of it all, next to an artificial lake, with thin bands of granite circling the exterior that might as well be police tape.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd): "Back when the Ballpark opened, in 1994, everyone was in love with the cigar-smoke antiquity of Camden Yards. This included your Texas Rangers, a team that debuted way back in 1972. So the Rangers outfitted their new stadium with a homerun porch (via Tigers Stadium), a frieze (via Yankee Stadium), and an old-timey sign in centerfield that said, 'Hit It Here and Win a Free Suit' (via, where, Bill James' wet dreams?). Those mindless and ahistorical little touches sum up everything you need to know about the Ballpark, and the Rangers, and-if we're in an expansive mood-Texas history: when all else fails, appropriate by force. Which is also how the Rangers got the land for the Ballpark, but that's a story for another day." (Jim Tom Pinch)

"It's fucking HOT!" (Jeff A.) ... "The seats are too small for fans in one of the most obese states in the country. There is dipspit everywhere." (Dixon M.) ... "Created in the image of Camden Yards, The Ballpark in Arlington/AmeriQuest Field, RBIA (Nandrolone Decanoate Field is the most appropriate name since it is, after all, Ground Zero for the steroid era) is a nice facility that just needs a winner. Yes it's hot. Parking costs $12 or something – big f-ing deal. Blah, blah, blah." (Sam E.) ... "With heroes like Canseco, Palmeiro, and Juan Gonzalez building the foundation for the ballpark, you knew things had to get better right??? I guess not." (Travis S.)

"It all boils down to one thing: family. Since the Rangers have sucked for a majority of their existence the organization is forced to market the ballpark as a family event. There's all kinds of stupid childrens' activities in the outfield, a stupid horse named 'Captain' but it gets even worse. You can't even heckle the opposing team (Swear free) without being asked to stop by an usher." (Brian H.)

"At the stadium, people are actually ordered to sit down at crucial moments. The stupid ass wave occurs at least twice a game. People aren't there for the baseball. Most people there don't even know what baseball is. The sad little plaques around the stadium celebrate the 3 playoff appearances. These netted one victory. One. damn. victory." (Lauren S.)

Next up: Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

It's usually because they're just so absurd or really lack even the most tenuous of news angles to give them the go-ahead. Other times it's because they're just absolute horseshit. But every Friday until we get sick of running them, we'll present to you some of these not-so-shiny gems. All items should be treated as [Sic'd]. Enjoy...

Well Thank God She Had The Salad

Commenter [redacted] here. Just wanted everyone to know that EA digs the taco bar in the press box as much as the rest of us media schlubs. She is elusive.

Needless to say, press box Mexican food sucks at Rosenblatt. Pretty sure she went with the salad before she peaced.

Sir, You're Lucky You Weren't Arrested For Stalking

More gratuitous EA from Commenter [redacted]. She was taking a photo of an LSU player (hard to ID with the championship tshirts covering their jerseys) with a toddler on his shoulders onfield after the LSU win tonight.

Actually, This Guy Will Get Arrested First

A Message To John Kruk Aka "KRUKIE"

If you even read this (i'm sure you get a ton of tips) but my tip is what john kruk (watch out fat boy, you might break that chair) apparently said about the colorado rockies on baseball tonight, because here was the quote on espn's mlb page.
Reaching The Peak
Colorado has won 17 of 18, but John Kruk wonders whether the Rockies can continue to climb or if this is the top of the mountain.

first of all john kruk is a dick. everyone who is a true rockies fan knows that hurdle should've been fired after the world series run so while they are playing very well and im pumped, they should have been doing this for a while. anyways i dont expect you to use this, i mostly am drunk and wanted to say FUCK YOU KRUKIE!!!!

I Guess She's A Fan

(Ed. note: Here's what the link was.)

Wait — No Mischa Barton Interview? Drew Will Be Pissed

Hi AJ,

We have a new thriller with a football angle called "Homecoming" opening July 17. I wanted to see if you'd be interested in covering.

In it, a star quarterback now on Scholarship at Northwestern (Matt Long) returns to his hometown for their homecoming game. However, his ex-high school sweetheart (Mischa Barton) is devastated to to see that he brought his new college girlfriend with him (Jessica Stroup). Soon, she finds herself going to violent extremes to win Matt back. It's a fun, guilty pleasure thriller that plays like a teen version of MISERY meets FATAL ATTRACTION.

Please let me know your thoughts. Even a highlight or mention would be great. We also have the Director Morgan J. Freeman (not the actor) and Actor Matt Long available for interview.

If you're interested I can send a screener.

Thanks!
Brian

YES. Still On. For Now

Aw, Ma, It's Just Gas

Good morning o' handsome son of mine. Just a reminder, please make an appointment with a gastro doctor, trust me, you'll feel so much better. Loved seeing you Sunday, hopefully you'll visit more often this summer. Love Ma

I cant make this Sh*t up.....Heading to tonights Whitesnake Concert in Bay City, MI me and a buddy (Cardinals fan and a Reds Fan) stopped to catch the Cubs vs. Tigers game at Comerica yesterday hoping for a sweep (we got it!) and this dude fell off the roof top balcony (3 stories up) before the game. Believe it or not during this malaye the dude was laying on the sidewalk and pulled his phone from his pocket and started to text someone. Not sure if there were any Cub fans involved and were letting out 100 years of losing frustration......

This is my pic from the roof top moments after it happened. Hopefully this guy is alright and only ended up with a mere flesh wound. The Local 4 news in Detroit said this guy only suffered from facial injuries.

If this guy didnt die then to quote Pulp Fiction.....Jules - "We just witnessed a miracle, and I want you to fucking acknowledge it!"

keep up the good work

It's so cold in the D...

Man Falls From Hockeytown's Roof [Local News 4]

Esteve Rubio's son Ricky, the basketball Jonas, was drafted fifth last night by the Timberwolves, who took another point guard, Jonny Flynn, with their very next pick. Esteve didn't waste any time declaring the Rubio camp dissatisfied with the night's events. Here's The New York Times' rendering of his comments:

Rubio's father, Esteve, cast serious doubt about Rubio's future with the Timberwolves, telling the Spanish Web site Marca.com, "Right now, Ricky is likely staying in Europe one or two years." He added, "We have to talk to the people in Minnesota and see what happens" and "we could be in Minnesota or somewhere else."

All the knowing coves think this could be prelude to a trade with the Knicks. The Timberwolves aren't budging, and already new president of basketball operations David Kahn is confusing the hell out of everyone, just like the last guy.

Esteve Rubio: "Ahora mismo, es muy probable que Ricky se quede uno o dos años en Europa" [MARCA.com]
Draft buzz: Trading game [Yahoo!]

Each week, we'll rundown some of the more comically bad softball atrocities by some of these players. If you've got your own, please send it along to tips@deadspin.com. Of course, these are [Sic'd] for your viewing pleasure.

Would Everyone Please Stop Sliding?

You have to wear sliding shorts if you're going to slide. Have to. A must. Especially if you're wearing shorts.

I got this nice raspberry sliding into second in low level coed playoffs last year. Well, it was more of a flop/bounce than a slide. It's 12 months later and I still have a grapefruit sized lump on my ass cheek. Horseshoe used for comparison's sake.

Hamstrings Are The First To Go

Attached is photos from a guy on our softball team that tore his hamstring just one week ago. He usually plays 2B but our 3B was out so he wanted to play on the hot corner. He actually had a great game. He tore it while catching a foul ball near LF. He took off down the foul line, took his hat off and made a Jim Edmonds like catch. Little did he know though he received a 3rd degree hamstring as well according to a doctor. Hope this makes it.

This Guy Completely Deserves This

Dear Sirs,

Longtime reader, first time submitter. My buddy, let's call him Frankie S. Valenzuela Jr., didn't even slid to render his leg into the likeness of ground hamburger. He slipped rounding 1st base. Luckily, our team managed two runs for his heroics earning us a final score of 20-2. Yup, we were the team that sacrificed our limbs to avoid the shutout.

No, It's Not Softball, But You Should Be Proud

Hey Deadspin...

Big fan of the site, actually all of us here @ the Boomer and Carton Morning Show on WFAN in NY are (Will Leitch was actually a guest on our program back in Feburary). When I saw the picture of the broken ankle on your page it brought back some not so pleasent memories. I broke my ankle back in January of 2007 playing basketball (not softball full disclosure) and here are a couple of nice pictures. On a side note, my wife was 8 months pregnant with our first child at the time, needless to say she was less than thrilled. I currently have a screw and pin holding it together...Good Times...

Again, Not Softball, But His Ingenuity Is Commendable

It is a picture of my right arm in a splint whose purpose is to protect my recently surgically repaired pinkie. And for what reason would I need my pinkie surgically repaired, you might ask? That is simple: I severed two tendons in my pinkie by shattering a glass with my hand following Detroit's third goal in Game 1 of the finals. I went to hit my living room table in frustration, but failing to look before I leaped so to speak, I ended up bringing my fist down on the lip of a glass of water. And I did so with just enough force, at just the right angle, and hit the glass at just the right spot to shatter the glass into a thousand pieces, including the 1 1/2 inch shard that embedded in my hand and severed my tendons.

The whole thing sucks, but I'll tell you, it would almost have seemed worth it if the Pen's had just won the game.

LET'S GO PENS!

Robbie

p.s. Yes, what you are seeing in the picture is a rubber band, two safety pins, and some fishing line that is connected to my pinkie by being looped through my fingernail. This MacGyver shit is supposed to maintain traction (whatever that is) on my pinkie to prevent 'active flexion.' Enjoy!

I didn't wear a diaper while conducting this interview, and that was a mistake. Listen to me bring up the time he was accused of throwing his girlfriend off a balcony in 1968. You can practically hear my bowels releasing as I try and phrase the question. Anyway, here's Jim Brown on a number of topics:

Did he bite a guy's finger off when he stuck it in his facemask? "No, but I did bite the hand that was trying to gouge out my eyes… the eyes are very vulnerable." I agree.

On Donte' Stallworth: "I think that he got off beautifully. I think that he's a very fortunate young man."

On Eric Mangini: "For the first time, we have a coach who will dominate the scene." Especially at local bakeries.

Did the flamethrower he used in The Running Man actually shoot flames? "Yes."

Did he keep it? "My personal desire was not to have a flamethrower."

Does he wish more black people played lacrosse? "No."

Can you ever be too old to wear a kufi? "Yep."

Does he still rollerskate like he did on CHiPs? "No."

On in-line skating: "I think the rollerblading is out now. I think it's going back to traditional skates."

Does he regret naming his childhood gang the Gaylords? "I can laugh at it with you because it's a strange name for young men to choose who are straight." That it is.

How does he respond to criticism about his personal history? "I chose to physically go to jail rather than take an assignment that was undignified to me. And so, when I voluntarily become incarcerated… then I've paid my dues."

Can I have just one rib? "Chris Rock, man."

This week's Deadcast is available for your listening pleasure right here. You can also find the new Deadcast in the iTunes Music Store here (should be up shortly).

Also, Mr. Brown's PR company asked that we plug his appearance at the Sports Legends Challenge event at the Atlantis in the Bahamas on September 14th to 17th, also featuring Joe Namath (kissing booth!), Mike Ditka, Troy Aikman, Dr. J, Jerry West, Reggie Jackson, and more. Visit this site to find out more.

Got a question/comment you need read over the air next week? Send it to me here. Special thanks to Liberated Syndication for hosting us. Now sit back, relax, and listen as I curl into the fetal position.

Pearlman's yarn:

One of my favorite all-time stories is about Elvis Grbac (left), Rich Gannon (right) and People Magazine's Sexiest Men issue from 1998. It is both outlandish and 100-percent true.

Back in the day I knew many People staffers, and they were all cool, fun, intelligent-and woefully ignorant about sports. Every year, in planning the Sexiest Men issue, People's editors would ask a bunch of us at Sports Illustrated for suggestions and insight. In 1998, for a reason I'll never understand, they decided not to seek out help.

The magazine chose Rich Gannon as its Sexiest Athlete. At the time, Gannon was a member of the Kansas City Chiefs. Still a couple of seasons removed from his golden tenure with the Raiders, Gannon was 33, handsome and likable. In other words, a solid choice. Yet People, being People, simply informed the photographer assigned to the piece that the Sexiest Athlete was the Chiefs' quarterback. Hence, he took pictures of the Chiefs' quarterback. Well, one of the Chiefs' quarterbacks: Elvis Grbac.

Yup.

The pictures made their way back to the New York offices, and editors were dumbfounded. This was their Sexiest Athlete? Yet upon learning the truth, no one with the magazine had the heart (guts?) to tell Grbac that an unfathomable mistake had been made. As a result, Elvis Grbac reigns as People's 1998 Sexiest Athlete.

The article's final line says it all: "His personality makes him sexy."

Amen.

Oof. Maybe this should be added to the "Elvis Grbac" definition on Urban Dictionary.

Elvis Grbac: Not As Sexy As Originally Indicated [Jeff Pearlman]

Pretty much everyone agreed that the Americans has no business even being in this match after getting lambasted by Brazil and Italy, before a miracle six-goal swing gave them a pass out of the preliminaries on goal-differential. Spain was all over goalie Tim Howard in the second-half, peppering him with shots, but they could not break the seal. The U.S. got two big chances, took advantage of both and sent a message to the entire world. We are not incompetent at soccer!

They'll play in the Confederations Cup final on Sunday against either Brazil (very talented!) or South Africa (very loud!)

But an earlier draft of the script, dated Dec. 1, 2008, is making its way around the Web. It's 129 pages, which means it's up to the intern to parse through it, pick out the good parts and then compile the particularly entertaining excerpts. It wasn't hard to find a handful of lowlights, and in addition to the ones included, there are a surprisingly large number of pointless factual inaccuracies: The Charlotte Knights are Triple-A, not Double-A; Scott Hatteberg never played one year for the Rockies; Bryan Bullington and Roger Ring were not the draft choices directly before Jeremy Brown; and when Olmedo Saenz grounded out in the ninth inning of the fifth game of the 2001 ALDS, there were no outs, not one, thank you very much.

Besides that — and plot twists that pit Beane as an avid concertgoer and convert Paul DePodesta into a weightlifter — the screenplay made me wish some studio would take a chance with this movie, even if Michael Lewis himself didn't see the movie in the book. The first two acts are slow, relying on Bill James to explain sabermetrics to the women dragged to the theater by their geeky boyfriends brothers. The last 30 pages, though, are as action-packed and climactic as a trading deadline and AL West race can be.

And yes, there are cameos from Lenny Dykstra and Joe Morgan, outright allusions to Roy Hobbs and Jimmy Stewart and subtle nods to Bobby Knight and Angels in the Outfield. It's Moneyball, coming to a theater near you... well, maybe never, but hopefully soon.

"OK, Let's start with a naked Billy Beane, the steam rising off the shower and crowning his head, like... God!"

"Great idea, but here's a better one. We'll cut to a Bill James voiceover, and then cite Henry Chadwick."

"Oh, I like it. But it's a bit too, hmm, secular. Let's throw some stigmata in there."

"You sure you want to go that route?"

"Absolutely. And blood! Lots of blood!"

Lest the movie offend the Jewish crowd, Arn Tellem makes a cameo when Beane goes to Tellem's son's bar mitzvah and, like everyone else, struggles to keep a yarmulke on his head. Bobby pins, Billy. That's the trick. And don't be depressed — bar mitzvahs are fun!

A few scenes in and Beane's already throwing chairs against the big board. Nobody pays any attention. Apparently there is fighting in the war room.

I think this is the beginning of a beautiful uncomfortably intense friendship.

Because after you seduce an Outback waitress, your next step isn't to call the Indians' general manager in the middle of the night?

Ah, Christmas — makes more sense than you think. But don't bother trying to figure out how It's A Wonderful Life comes into play.

I thought this was the most entertaining soliloquy of the movie, but then everyone's favorite Sunday Night Baseball analyst makes an appearance.

And the Lord said, "Ask and ye, Chad Bradford, shall submarine, no problem."

Well, all of this certainly makes a lot more sense now.

From bar mitzvahs to Auschwitz? Let's hope this was one of the segues Soderbergh edited out.

One of the screenplay's more puzzling revelations is that Jeremy Giambi is obsessed with The Natural. And, apparently, he's so caught up in the climax that he yells, "Yeah, Hobbs!" even though he's seen it hundreds of times. Also, this is why Beane trades him. Yeah, Beane!

Billy Beane and fantasy baseball owners across the country: not so different after all.

Should make for an interesting Spanish subtitle.

Aaaaaaaand scene!

First, this message that came to us from a tipster unaffiliated with either party:

I found the yankees vs Marlins fans fight taken down [from YouTube] late Mon night. I emailed the director and asked why it was taken down and what his relation to the fight was

His reply was

"they asked for me to take the video down.

The yankees fan wife bought us tickets. thats my relation. my uncle knows them."

So a family friend of Yankee Fan was on camera, which helps explains the ultra sharp images. Good to know. But later on we found this message sent in through the comment section that may or may not be a personal message from Yankee Fan's wife. All sic'd of course and (again) unverified, so judge accordingly.

To all the idiots commenting about my daughter, she was crying because that is not her fathers usual conduct. We don't raise our children to be like that marlins fans son, taking punches at my husband. That's a great example. But when you have marlin low life's and thier wife and child involved in a brawl... they need to stay at their trailer home. Not that I justify what my husband did, he should of walked away from tjose idiots comments about me. The person who put this video on is a scumbag, especially focusing in on my daughter.(and to think he sat there for free thanks to me) . That nasty marlin gringo and nasty wife were out of line. As u can see the cops were very cordial with us and asked if we were OK... And the idiot who made the comment about :your daddys going to disappoint you 300 more times in your life time?? you are so ??? U obiviously had a horrible childhood... I pray u dont have kids. I can't believe i'm even responding, but you all need to get a life.

Tough, but fair. The fact that both messages referenced free tickets for the cameraman certainly lends credence to its authenticity. As does the description of "trailer home" Marlin "gringos." (Hey, she calls 'em as she sees 'em.) But wait there's more! Another anonymous, unverified comment from someone who didn't quite grasp my sarcastic use of quote marks.

Listen again before you slander someone like this. You are sadly mistaken and it amazes me that you can not hear for yourself what he says. His daughter is scared and crying and afraid he got hurt and he says "I'm Fine, I'm fine!" She says why are you are fighting and and he says "I'm not fighting its okay". I happen to know exactly what happened and how this fight started. I won't use names but The Marlins Fan called the Yankees fan's wife names that are so obscene I can not even say them here. He curses her out for five minutes before the Yankees Fan realizes he is talking to his wife. Then he walks over and defends his wife as any man should. By the way, as for the character and type of father this man is.....I happen to live right next door to him. He does not even know this is on the internet yet. He is home playing with his little girl right now who absolutely adores him. By the way, guess who got kicked out of the game...The Marlins Fan guy with the foul mouth while the Yankees Fan got to stay and finish the game with his family. What does that tell you! This all happened at Friday nights game and the next night, guess who was at the game. The Yankees Fan! How do I know..... Because this man whose character you are slandering bought 6 extra tickets to the game to so that my family could go as a surprise for my 10 year old kid who is battling cancer. He really must be the awful guy you all think. Oh and if you think it was a Marlins - Yankees Fight you are sadly mistaken. We came with him in our full Marlins Gear, sat right next to him, and he was thrilled the Marlins won that night for our kid. Maybe you should adjust your misquote and retype your article now!

So there you go. If Marlins Fan really is the instigator—although I wonder what would cause him to hurl so many unsolicited slurs at Mrs. Yankee Fan—then kudos, I guess, to YF for defending her honor. He does seem like a stand-up guy, despite his unfortunate decision to root for the team from the Bronx. Nobody's perfect.

Oh, and if Marlin Fan or any of his progeny would like to hurl some invective our way, we'll be more than happy to publish those too.

Yankees-Marlins Fan Brawl Reveals Truth Of The Human Condition, With Punching [Deadspin]

The Sacramento Bee's Sam Amick reports:

Rubio, who had planned on working out for the Kings last week before he became sick on the trip, took part in an individual workout that included Petrie and coach Paul Westphal and lasted approximately an hour. While the session remained secret at the request of his representatives, he told The Bee it was a necessary exercise that hardly showcased his game.

"It's difficult to show them what I have to do on the court, because there are no teammates and nobody there," Rubio said at the Sacramento airport just before leaving town. "I can't show them what I do on the court. This workout is not my style. I need my teammates around me to play basketball. I was alone."

Meanwhile, DraftExpress' Jonathan Givony believes the Kings, drafting fourth, were cooling on Rubio before the workout:

It's looking more and more clear that the Kings are not nearly as enamored with Ricky Rubio as they once were, for a number of reasons. The official party line is that Sacramento is concerned that Rubio will struggle to assert his leadership ability on the group of players they currently have in place, due to the fact that he's only 18 years old and not a native English speaker. One of the biggest issues Sacramento had last year was with the culture of their team lockerroom. On top of that, the Kings are worried that will Rubio will have a huge target on his chest coming into the NBA, and that other players will "try to go at him every single night."

Just days before the draft, Rubio remains its most fascinating story, if only for the various psychodramas that seem to spring up all around him. Consider this blog entry, from the Bee's Sam Amick, who marvels at the lengths to which grown men go to get a glimpse of the kid (and who, not incidentally, chased down Rubio at the airport to record three minutes of Spanish-accented mumbling). Amick uses the word "shame" four times.

Between this and Brandon Jennings' lame shit-talk and the Kings' assorted phantom concerns, I'd say Rubio has already had a substantial impact on the NBA. He hasn't played a minute yet and he's turned the whole damn league into a bunch of neurotics.

Kings finally get to see Rubio play [Sacramento Bee]

I was assigned the story by the New York brass because I had considerable experience with upstart dot-coms, but I was outside of the loop on this one; Twitter was scary to me, someone who, as you might have noticed, prefers to write long, rather than in 140 character increments. I started my Twitter account because I thought it might be a fun gimmick for the story, a reporter updates readers on interview while it's going on type of thing. It didn't work out that way — thankfully, considering that's a really hacky way to write a story — but I ended up being hooked. But I'm not hooked on Tweeting. I'm hooked on reading Tweets. That has to be one of the more effeminate sentence combinations I've ever written. And I've written many.

As you know if you follow me on Twitter, I'm not the world's most entertaining Tweeter. Mostly, it's just links to stories I've written, banal updates on parental visits and conversations with Cardinals beat reporters. As a writer, I find Twitter useful mostly as an aggregate. But as a reader, it has become my morning newspaper. When I wake up in the morning, I log onto Twitter to find out what's happening in the world. Which is idiotic and utterly true.

To me, Twitter is the world's greatest RSS feed, allowing me to gather information from friends, colleagues, reporters, comedians and anyone else who regularly updates with information I care about. Movies? Check! TV reviews? Check! and Check! Hilarious stumbling and backtracking? Check! Smart media criticism? Check! and Check! Genius baseball wit? Check! Dry fake outrage? Check! Mattoon news? Check! I make my own newspaper every day. And I can unsubscribe to any section of the paper I want to, at any time.

This is nothing new, of course; Old Man Discovers Twitter. But what's interesting to me is that I find using Twitter almost as passive an experience as reading a newspaper. I update my own Twitter about as often as I wrote on my newspaper, which is to say, "occasionally." I just feel like everyone does it better than I do. I enjoy reading what other people have to say; some seem to have mastered the form. Twitter has become my morning news source, because I just pick and choose what I want and ignore the rest. This is why I'm growing stupider. This is why we all are. I couldn't be happier about it. I'll read the New York Times later, to explain what happens. For now, this'll work.

I'm not turning my icon green, though. I still support the Iranian people. Honest.

J.J. Abrams. My parents were here all weekend, and as with all parents visiting from out of town, eventually you run out of activities for them and everybody just collapses in front of the television. (Like we were gonna go to a museum or some shit.) Desperate, I strapped them in a chair to watch the pilot episode of "Lost," and now, of course, they're hooked, spending most of the rest of the week trying to figure out why the bald guy can walk now and who's going to be the lucky castaway to shoot Boone and Shannon in the face. You would have thought my parents the last people on the planet to lack even the most cursory exposure to "Lost," but you'd be wrong. Witness! Foster Kamer at Gawker this weekend uncovered a Dutch television station duped into thinking the scene of the plane crash in "Lost" was actual footage from the Air France crash. No, really: They actually thought this. They even had a hilarious Web posting about it, which they of course took down. The best part is that you can see Evangeline Lilly as Kate in the photo. The Dutch don't know who this is? Come on, Holland, let's try to stay in the game here.

Michael Bay. I love the notion of enormous robots fighting as much as anybody, but after the horrific first Transformers movie — which was a spectacle in the same way that spinning around in circles in your yard for an hour until your brain explodes was a spectacle — you couldn't drag me to the sequel. (Particularly after withering report from a screening, the highlight being the product placement of "a huge Planters peanuts can is placed smack in the middle of a garage floor during one scene, because that's where one usually keeps food - on the floor with nothing around it in a huge garage." (Roger Ebert's review is particularly spirited.) You still can't escape the marketing of this film, though, and much of that is because of Bay, who really shouldn't ever be forgiven for Pearl Harbor, which has a legitimate claim on the worst, most misguided movie imaginable. His instantly legendary angry email to the Paramount promotions department contains this super doubleplus brilliant clause: "So far our print has been in my opinion and abject failure." That is the most sentence ever. That looks like it was written in this column.

Matthew Berry. Like Daulerio and Drew, I received an angry email from Tucker Max this weekend, and man, if that's not a career capper, I can't imagine what is. I'm not sure why it's Daulerio's fault that the aging cretin outed ESPN fantasy expert Matthew Berry as a guy who had a "threesome set up with a porn star and some other girl, had them both IN HIS HOTEL ROOM, and blew it-didn't fuck either one!" but hey, the video he sent all of us was awfully clever anyway. Of course, acting as if Tucker Max has ever said a truthful word in his life is somewhat of a fallacy in the first place; one gets a sense that Berry and Max had a few beers, and next thing you knew, Max was writing pretend stories about threesomes with porn stars and Berry's all "Wha-wha-wha?" I'm sure this hasn't been a pleasant week for Berry, who seems like a nice, if somewhat frattish, fellow, but it's difficult to feel too sorry for him: If you hang out with Tucker Max, and then tell the world about it (at 5:40 in the morning!), you probably deserve whatever's coming your way. I like that Max felt obliged to point out it wasn't Bill Simmons, though. I'm sure Bill appreciates that.

Stephen Curry. As a late-in-life, I-grew-up-without-a-team, hey-Woody-Allen-likes-them-why-not? New York Knicks fan/convert — I accept all scorn here — I'm cheering madly for the Knicks to end up with the modern-day Maravich, even if almost every mock draft anymore has someone choosing him before he comes around. I was trying to come up with the worst possible person for the Knicks to draft, the person who would inspire the Garden to freak out like the Balkman days of yore. I decided it would be Tyler Hansbrough, who, oddly, NBADraft.net has going to the Nets at No. 11. There wouldn't be a worse player for Mike D'Antoni's style, and he'd become an instant, legendary punchline. No one would remember Frederic Weis again. I almost hope it happens. How will you feel if your team drafts Tyler Hansbrough, and your team isn't the Charlotte Bobcats? This is my favorite new storyline of Thursday's draft.

Johnny Depp. I'm willing to wait in line for hours to see Public Enemies — rough early buzz aside — because I would watch Michael Mann film a peanut butter sandwich for two hours. (Particularly if that ham-sandwich was being eaten by a crazed Al Pacino with a come beat everybody up.) That looks like the mascot for Hell's minor league baseball team. Nightmare Fuel, indeed. [pours one out for Chandler]

Lucas Glover. Like the rest of you, I have no idea who Lucas Glover is and will therefore not bother telling you anything about the new U.S. Open winner. I do think some credit should go out to The New York Times' Mark Sweeney, who, using some strange golf Bill James statistics, picked Glover as his sleeper pick to win the tournament last Wednesday. Way to go, Mark Sweeney, whoever you are! Actually, it turns out that he kind of is the Bill James of golf. This Golf Digest story from two years ago talks about his "Urgency Effect," which basically attempts to quantify how golfers get the yips. I don't know what it means. I'm just relieved we're halfway through the golf season, when people like me have to pretend golf is a sport we follow as closely as we follow other sports. You know what golfers need? They need numbers, like in NASCAR. That way the middle manager at your corporate complex could stick a "23 Woods" sticker on the back of his Miata, and we'd know all we needed to about the guy we're honking at in traffic.

Joe Morgan. Now that Craggs has hit his stride — eventually we're all going to forget anyone else works here — I'm taking particular glee in his weekly hectoring of Joe Morgan. Much like Josh Levin is still in Rick Reilly's head to this day with the whole tooth metaphor thing, you get the sense, in the wake of Morgan's "apology" on Sunday night, that the same thing might be happening. That's the good news. The bad news is that Morgan might end up so shaky that he turns into Tim McCarver. You can imagine in future telecasts, Morgan, afraid that he will inadvertently unleash another pile of bullshit "confusion," limiting himself to saying easily verifiable things like, "That was a single. I once hit a single." and "There are nine innings in most baseball games." I'm not sure if that would be better or worse. Think of it this way: Do you prefer the harmless brainlessness of Clark Kellogg, or the obnoxious but opinionated snootiness of Billy Packer? That we must make such decisions ... that, friends, is our plight.

Alex Rodriguez. Pete Abraham of the Journal News is what New York beat reporters would be like if they weren't all crazy — slight oversimplification! Don't depant me next time I visit the press box, guys! — and he has absolutely nailed how sloppy the Yankees have been with Alex Rodriguez since he came off the disabled list. A-Rod's rehab, remember, was more of a split-the-baby procedure, a little bit of surgery here, a little bit of surgery at the end of the season, let the man settle in and work his way back type of thing. Manager Joe Girardi didn't do this at all, though, playing him every day until, inevitably, he broke down, to the point that they're going to be sitting him at least a day a week for quite some time, probably even more. It's like they completely forgot he was hurt, which is not a smart decision for a team paying him about $26 million every season through the 2017 season. This is why the Yankees are insane and still compelling: Every year is so important that they're willing to risk a guy they still owe $206 million simply to stay competitive for May and June. And it didn't even work. I have to say: The Yankees are a fun team to write about for your job.

Donte Stallworth. Like me, the Palm Beach Post, in the wake of Donte Stallworth's light sentence for killing a man while driving under the influence, got to thinking about Leonard Little. The Rams linebacker killed a woman in 1998 while driving home drunk after his birthday party — the woman was actually the wife of a photographer who occasionally shoots Rams games, as documented memorably by SI's Mike Fish — and was only suspended for eight games. (He served 30 more days in jail than Stallworth will.) Little, amazingly, is still playing, even though he was arrested again for a DUI in 2004, though he was ultimately acquitted of the charges. It's impossible to have the right stance on instances like Little's and Stallworth's. Part of you wants to throw them in jail for 100 years, and the other says that if you serve your time, you should have the right to rejoin your chosen vocation while you have the opportunity, even if you're a monster who did something stupid and terrible. Either way, it makes you want to bash your head into a wall until it bleeds.

Jeff Weaver. One suspects Tigers fans, Yankees fans and Mariners fans aren't doing backflips about it, but we Cardinals fans are happy for Jeff Weaver, who appears to be settling into a somewhat regular rotation slot with the Dodgers. As I've mentioned before, there's no place on earth other than Busch Stadium that Jeff Weaver would be greeted with a standing ovation, and that includes the Weaver household. On the list of unlikely World Series heroes, Weaver has to be considered one of the least likely; the man was dominant in a deciding game against a classic offense. (The only guy who hit him was Sean Casey, of all people.) The Weaver tenure in St. Louis was a total blur; he didn't show up until July and was knocked around until the playoffs. His October was so ridiculous that, when my father and I had a discussion on whose World Series jersey we should buy to commemorate 2006, we ended up choosing Weaver. Sure, I look like an idiot when I wear the jersey to softball games, but hey, I'm usually wearing black socks and maroon shorts anyway, so the jersey is the least of my problems. By the way, the 2006 commemorative championship video is particularly amusing to watch now, considering Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds, Jeff Suppan, Adam Wainwright, everyone looks all officially and grownup, and then Weaver shows up looking like the biggest dirtball alive. All he's missing is a pack of Winstons and rotting teeth. Bless him.

As usual, we don't get to see what started the fracas, but we do get to see who finished it. Yankee Fan and Marlin Fan are going toe-to-toe across a stadium aisle railing, when Yankee Fan lands a roundhouse haymaker. Then Marlin Fan's wife jumps in. Then their 10-year-old kid gets his shots in. The Marlin Fan comes unhinged, leaping over the railing and sending Yankee Fan tumbling over a row of seats. Bystanders try to "break up" the fight while simultaneously trying to capture it on film. Security is nowhere to be seen. Then comes the shocking plot twist that melts your heart and jerks the tears from your cold, cynical eyes ... Yankee Fan's young daughter bawling her eyes out.

"Quiet, Sweetheart. Daddy's fighting."

But most of all, kudos to the cameraman for keeping his wits about him and getting some rare, super high-quality footage of the elusive stadium brawl. These things are usually more nauseating than The Blair Witch Project, but this guy is a real poet.

Happy Father's Day, everyone!

Fight at the Yankees at Marlins [YouTube]

Video via: ToastedJoe

Here's what Joe had to say about last week's story, per Larry Brown Sports:

Jon [Miller], I want to correct something that I said last week - you weren't here so you weren't involved - but last week we were talking about Don Wilson pitching a no-hitter and I remember talking to him about Hank Aaron and saying it wouldn't be the worst thing if he walked him. And he said "get away" and he went out and struck him out. Well it happened in the dugout, not on the field. I got it mixed up with an incident I had with Al Hollins, who in a similar situation was pitching with me at the Giants, so I had the two confused.

Again, it's a little improbable that Joe would breach the old, inviolate rule about talking to a pitcher during a no-hitter, but, whatever, that's what Joe says, and Don Wilson, tragically, isn't around to tell us any different. (He committed suicide in 1975.) So there the story ends, right?

Alas, this is Joe Morgan, a man who can't get from subject to predicate without saying something egregiously dumb. And, lo, do I detect another fib?

I wasn't watching last night, but it's safe to assume that the "Al Hollins" mentioned above was actually Al Holland, a teammate of Morgan's in San Francisco in 1981 and 1982 and in Philadelphia in 1983.

Joe claims he mixed up the Wilson and Holland stories — that Holland was pitching "in a similar situation" in 1981 or 1982, meaning, presumably, that he had a no-hitter going late in the game, and that Joe sauntered over from second and suggested he walk a big bat, etc. Let's have a look at the record, shall we? Surely there are some computer numbers out there that might help us.

Holland was a relief pitcher, a decent one for a time, and he recorded only 11 starts over his 10-year career, 10 of them with the Giants. Only once did he throw more than four innings of no-hit ball. That would've been Sept. 29, 1981, against Cincinnati; Johnny Bench hit a solo shot in the fifth to break it up. Now, I suppose it's conceivable that Joe would've proposed walking Bench at that point, even if his old teammate was then in the winter of his years. But consider: Holland didn't just have a no-no through four-and-a-third. He had a perfect game.

Maybe it's a little mean-spirited to bird-dog an old man's yarns in this way, and if Joe were just harmlessly estranged from the notion of fact, I probably wouldn't bother. He's not, though. He's downright hostile to the truth, and in turn to his own audience, whom he seems to regard as nothing but a lot of slack-jawed morons begging to be lied to. And he obliges, time and time again. In that, he is, as Joe Morgan himself would note, very, very consistent.

Joe Morgan Lies Again When Clarifying Previous Lie on Sunday Night Baseball [Larry Brown Sports]
September 29, 1981 San Francisco Giants at Cincinnati Reds Box Score and Play by Play [Baseball Reference]
EARLIER: It Wasn't So, Joe

Lost Angels: The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim's Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Say it soft and it's almost like praying. The stadium is a nondescript slab of suburbia whose sole defining characteristic over the years has been its bipolarity. Opened in 1966, it was first a baseball stadium (for the California Angels), then it was a baseball and football stadium (in the latter case for an NFL team based in Los Angeles that would eventually move to St. Louis), then it was a baseball stadium again (first for the California Angels, then for the Anaheim Angels, now for Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim). It has been an open-outfield stadium, an enclosed stadium, and now it is open once more. It has been known variously as Anaheim Stadium, Edison International Field of Anaheim and now Angel Stadium of Anaheim. The stadium — and the franchise — has retained so little of the character and history of the region it's inhabited for nearly 50 years that it feels compelled to remind you with autistic repetition just where it's located. Which is in Anaheim. The place doesn't need a renovation. It needs a shrink.

Fuckin' A: Angel Stadium once offered a nice sense of place — in particular a big, Googie "A" in left field that served as a scoreboard. It was tacky, but in a distinctly SoCal way. After wins, it would light up, and Dick Enberg would say, "And the halo shines tonight!" In 1980, when the stadium got a facelift to accommodate the arrival of professional football, the "A" was moved. It now overlooks that most iconic of California vistas: a highway and a parking lot. What quirks remain today, after the Disney-sponsored renovations of the late 1990s, are at best wholly contrived. If the ballpark has any signature now, it's the pile of fake rocks in center, which looks as if it had been trucked in from Jellystone Park. Alas, Angel Stadium is now left with only one element that truly captures the character of the region. On clear nights, if you look close enough, you just might be able to see a distinguished older gentleman skeeving on a young girl.

If the stadium were an actor, it'd be Emilio Estevez: The stadium has appeared in such films as Angels in the Outfield, The Fan, Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, and Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch, not to mention a number of horrible commercials.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd): "Just as PNC Park gives you a view of Pittsburgh's downtown and Pac Bell Park gives you a view of the San Francisco Bay, Angel Stadium gives you a view of...the 57 freeway. I don't think that there is anything more representative of living in southern California than being able to watch traffic while at a baseball game. ... And if you do decide to walk to or from the stadium to the bar, be prepared to take your life in your hands. The road that leads to the stadium doesn't have sidewalks and includes an underpass where Anaheim's homeless like to gather/use as a toilet." (Jason W.)

"Do you want to know what sucks about Angel Stadium? All of the Red Sox, Yankees and Dodgers fans who ruin the experience for anybody else. ... Smart Angels fans just don't want to deal with it. These fans are akin to suicide bombers walking into a crowded disco. Just give them their space because they are awful human beings. One Red Sox fan was taunting a woman in a wheel chair during last year's playoffs. Who does that? ... But California deserves some discredit here, too. The Raiders moved away in 1995, but their fans remained and have morphed into Dodgers fans. These fans look like the characters from the cantina scene in Star Wars – filled with Guido, Snaggle Tooth and Chewy. Make sure you wear body armor because when the Angels inevitably win, the Dodgers fans get stabby. I'm here to root for the Angels, not become one." (Adam R.)

And lastly, a tipster offers us the photo below, of which he writes: "I caught Bill MacDonald and his girlfriend(s?) at the Angels/Padres game on Friday night. I hope everything is ok, they talked off and on for about 10 minutes while he signed a few autographs, then the blonde walked away bawling her eyes out."

Next up: Rangers Ballpark In Arlington. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

It's usually because they're just so absurd or really lack even the most tenuous of news angles to give them the go-ahead. Other times it's because they're just absolute horseshit. But every Friday until we get sick of running them, we'll present to you some of these not-so-shiny gems. All items should be treated as [Sic'd]. Enjoy...

Tim Legler Shows Off The Lifetime Skills A La Salle University Education Provides

"Yep, Tim Legler still likes to party and apparantly sponsors some sort of team with his namesake. Go Phillies."

One Reader Offers Consistently Sage Advice

From a Mr. Joseph Devanna:

May 2:

Here's a tip, kill yourselves

you're welcome
Joe

June 16:

I don't really have much of an opinion about Joe Buck but I don't see how you can defend what Artie Lange did last night, It was fucking juvenile and it had no business being done on a show like that or any show. I know you view yourselves as some kind of truth meter that's gonna route out all the people that you perceive to be BS artists. You make a point of pointing out how phony and thin skinned these "celebrities" are, but whenever somebody critiques what you or one of the million other sites on the blogosphere you usually show yourselves to be every bit as think skinned as them. Just my opinion

Joe

June 17:

Your site blows, I guess that really isn't a tip ?

A Photo Of Adam Morrison Before He Was De-Locked

Stalking Steve Nash

snapped this picture of steve nash standing outside my apartment building in Tribeca, im assuming he was going to play socca on christie street where hes hosting some soccer/celebrity event soon. after i said hello and snapped the pic a man on a mo-ped pulled up, he hoped on, and they rode off together...figured id pass it along.

(Ed. Note: Or there's the Gawker version. Come on, guys. Quit stealing. Is this still about the Hipster Grifter?)

One For The Footie Fans

The former ESPN soccer commentator and egomaniac had a little Facebook explosion last night. I have pasted some of the choice comments where he slags on Adu, Donovan and basically calls the team a bunch of pussies on the attached image. If only someone could remind Eric that exactly 11 years before yesterday's loss to Italy, he and his buddies tucked their cocks between their legs at France 98 and lost 2-0 to germany. What an asshole.

With Sincere Apologies To Choi Young-hoon

(Ed. Note: I do apologize. I was flattered by his emails. Hopefully, we can still talk for his story.)

Reilly has gone in for a lot of abuse hereabouts, all of it richly deserved. But there was a time, long ago, when he was the sportswriter's sportswriter, a guy who some days was the best thing in the business. And on the days he wasn't the best, he was, to crib a line, at least in the photo.

A brief story: In 1998, SI handed over its back page to Reilly, and thus was born the now-trademarked "Life of Reilly." I was in college at the time. Every few weeks, my friend would tear out a good Reilly column and tape it up in a bathroom stall in his dormitory — the door, the walls, wherever he could find free space. The stall filled up in no time. To a college student, this was the highest of compliments. Of course, today, the whole project seems appropriate in an altogether different way. (His latest offering, for instance, is a rather sizable piece of shit.)

Anyway, here are five features — all from his Sports Illustrated days, tellingly — in which Reilly was at the top of his game.

"When Your Dream Dies" (Dec. 26, 1994)

On a refrigerated, colorless Saturday morning in the no-McDonald's town of Walnut, Ill., Kenny Wilcoxen walked along the street carrying the letter he had waited for his whole life, the one that meant that after 20 years he was finally going to ref the state high school football finals. On the other side of the letter, written neatly in blue ink, was his suicide note.

"Heaven Help Marge Schott" (May 20, 1996)

Alone in her bedroom, alone in a 40-room mansion, alone on a 70-acre estate, Marge Schott finishes off a vodka-and-water (no lime, no lemon), stubs out another Carlton 120, takes to her two aching knees and prays to the Men. To Charlie, the husband who made her life and then ruined it. He taught her never to trust. To Daddy, the unsmiling father who turned her into his only son. He taught her never to be soft. To Dad Schott, the calculating father-in-law, whom she may have loved most of all. He taught her never to let herself be cheated.

"I pray to them every night, honey," she says. "How many owners do that, huh? Hit their knees every night?"

Night after night she sits alone in her vast luxury box with just her telephone and Schottzie, not paying much attention to the game, waiting for some high-ranking employee to show up at the door and take Schottzie for a walk. Afterward there's always a report.

"Tinkle or poo?" she will ask.

"Just tinkle," the director of marketing or some other front-office-type will answer sheepishly.

"The Mourning Anchor" (Sept. 26, 1988)

What is it the poet said? Like muffled drums, our hearts beat a funeral march to the grave. And so it is that Bryant Gumbel, a man who is nothing if not prepared, keeps a list of his pallbearers.

Gumbel has a spare dark suit and tie hanging in his office in case the news is tragic and the suit he's wearing is too light for the occasion. He brings six golf shirts on a three-day golf trip just to make sure he looks perfect. Gumbel never loosens his tie or takes off his jacket, even in summer.

March to the grave. High above a checkerboard landscape, Gumbel reaches into the pocket of his first-class seat, pulls out his Filofax and draws out a yellowed piece of paper. The creases are so deep that the paper threatens to rip at the touch.

It is the eulogy from his father's funeral, the one Gumbel wrote and delivered that spring day in 1972. He keeps it with him always. It ends: I say goodbye for those who knew him as "Your Honor." ...I say goodbye for those who knew him as Dick or Richard and thereby shared in the joys which come of fine and rare friendship. I say goodbye for those who knew him as family.... I say goodbye for my dear mother who knew him as husband.... I say goodbye for Gregory, Rhonda, Renée and myself, who were lucky enough to call him father.... Goodbye, Daddy. We love you so very much. God has taken from us and unto himself, the finest man we'll ever know.

"What Is The Citadel?" (Sept. 14, 1992)

Freshman Chadd Smith knows why he's hanging from his closet shelf by his fingers at three in the morning, with his legs bent and spread. It has to do with football. The Citadel hadn't lost the Wofford game since 1958. In fact, it had never lost the Wofford game at home. But tonight it did. As usual, somebody has to pay. As usual, it's the freshmen. That part he understands. What Smith wants to know is, What is it? What is that coldness I feel now and again down between my thighs?

Smith is hanging because of football and duty. At The Citadel it is the sophomores' duty to run out any freshman who does not measure up to the Citadel man-to break him down, humiliate him, run him until he cannot feel his toes, drill him until the arm with which he holds his rifle is numb, yell at him until his cerebellum turns to Jell-O, rack him until he either does things the Citadel way or goes home blubbering to his mommy. It's a point of pride among the 17 companies at The Citadel to see who can chase out the most knobs, as freshmen are called; a usual figure is 15% of the class. This tradition is called the Fourth Class System, and if you survive it you are, say Citadel men, "nine feet tall and bulletproof."

Smith knew knob year would suck, but he knew what to do. You talk to no one and salute everyone. You run when you are inside the barracks. You ask permission to eat, leave, pass, cough, sneeze and scratch your nose. You serve everybody at mess and hope you can stuff in a forkful before mealtime has elapsed. You polish your shoes and your brass until midnight and then your French and chemistry until two, and you hope the guy who blows reveille dies in his sleep.

You do not put a picture of your girlfriend on your desktop. You do not watch TV, because you are not allowed a TV. You do not get Cokes out of the barracks Coke machine. You do not walk on any grass, which means you must walk around the football-field-wide quadrangle in the middle of campus. You do not have any answers besides Sir, yes, sir! and Sir, no, sir! and Sir, no excuse, sir! And you do not complain unless you want 13 weekends of being stuck in your room.

[...]

Then came the Wofford loss, and that's how Smith ended up hanging from his closet shelf, his legs burning, his arms trembling, his fingers slipping and his ears absorbing the insults and the spit and the constant warning: "Don't drop, Smith! Whatever you do, don't drop!"

What was it down there?

"O.K., Smith," a voice finally whispered in his ear. "We're getting ready to leave. But before we go, I want you to look down."

There, gleaming in the reflected moonlight, two inches below his testicles, was an officer's saber.

"King Of The Sports Page" (April 21, 1986)

The thing about Jim Murray is that he lived "happily," but somebody ran off with his "ever after." It's like the guy who's ahead all night at poker and then ends up bumming cab money home. Or the champ who's untouched for 14 rounds and then gets KO'd by a pool-hall left you could see coming from Toledo.

Murray is a 750-word column, and 600 of those are laughs and toasts. How many sportswriters do you know who once tossed them back with Bogie? Wined and dined Marilyn Monroe? Got mail from Brando? How many ever got mentioned in a governor's state of the state address? Flew in Air Force One?

How big is Murray? One time he couldn't make an awards dinner so he had a sub-Bob Hope.

Murray may be the most famous sportswriter in history. If not, he's at least in the photo. What's your favorite Murray line? At the Indy 500: "Gentlemen, start your coffins"? Or "[ Rickey Henderson] has a strike zone the size of Hitler's heart"? Or that UCLA coach John Wooden was "so square, he was divisible by four"? How many lines can you remember by any other sportswriter?

His life was all brass rails and roses-until this last bit, that is. The end is all wrong. The scripts got switched. They killed the laugh track, fired the gag writers and spliced in one of those teary endings you see at Cannes. In this one, the guy ends up with his old typewriter and some Kodaks and not much else except a job being funny four times a week.

They say that tragedy is easy and comedy is hard.

Know what's harder?

Both at once.

Instead, he works from home, writing items for Len Berman Sports, his daily newsletter that goes out to thousands of subscribers. Still, on the day we meet in a sterile, otherwise empty room in his daughter's office suite, he questions why I'm here.

"You explain to me why this would be of interest to Deadspin," Berman says.

"I just think that it's interesting that someone who did what you did for so long is now blogging. And I do think that the Spanning the World segments were a form of blogging before blogging exists."

"Well that's an interesting point. That's fair. I guess it's all in your headline."

"Yeah, we'll see."

"'OLD GUY TRIES TO REINVENT HIMSELF.'"

"Do you want that to be the headline?"

******

Ten years ago, even 18 months ago, Berman never would have envisioned himself as a full-time blogger, even when his most-known segments concerned the whimsical aspect of sports, partially directed at his viewers who weren't sports fans. He's convinced that most people — including integral parts of his audience, like his mother and his son — aren't sports fans, and he wrote with them in mind.

Since Berman lost his job, he has simply transitioned that accessible tone to his newsletter. It started last August with 22 subscribers, and it has slowly ballooned, doubling in popularity when he mentioned it on his last show in April. ("That's a great marketing tool," he jokes. "Get fired, build a Web site.") He has more leeway on the blog, but his preferred format of a list has remained rigid. News, context, cheeky one-liner. Breezy, concise and inviting. He was that way on the news, too, but when his contract ran out, Berman stopped tuning into Channel 4 at night.

"What do you watch?" I ask.

"11:00 at night?" he counters, as if setting up a kicker. "Will & Grace re-runs with my wife. She is a Will & Graceaholic."

Berman is more recognizable and more accomplished than most bloggers, but it's his site's demographics, more than anything else, that distinguish him. It's an older crowd, probably with more casual fans and more women, because the real draw of LenBermanSports.com is not the news — most of which is recycled anyway — but Berman, even if he's not wearing a tie with his dark checkered suit, even if his recognizable tenor, which booms when he makes a crack, doesn't translate to a computer screen. (It might soon. He's contemplated adding video, but he's still not sold on the idea.)

There are plenty of commentators wading through the Web, but Len Berman's Top 5 has Len Berman, and people know Len Berman. They trust Len Berman, they respect Len Berman and they want to keep up with Len Berman. So they visit his newsletter. Not millions, like he attracted on Channel 4 on a slow night, but one day, maybe. He hopes.

In the meantime, Len's Top 5 (TGIF edition at the end of the week) appears every day in my inbox between 10 a.m. and 10:15 a.m. I've seen most of the linkless news before, because Berman and I monitor the same Web sites and because no blogger waits until 10 a.m. the next day to publish. But I read it, and so do other people — because for Berman, it turns out, blogging was a natural progression. He'd like to get back into television, but on the Web, Berman doesn't have to reinvent himself. He's just going to do what he did for all those years on the set, albeit without all that makeup and, of course, all those viewers.

*******

Instead, Len Berman and I are discussing headline possibilities in an office that isn't his.

"You can do whatever you want," he says. "I'd love to see you tell people to go sign up for my top 5. Whatever else you write is up to you. You can say whatever bad things you want in the headline. 'HE'S NO ERIN ANDREWS!'"

"You want us to Photoshop you with a picture of Erin Andrews?"

"There you go. I've walked past her a couple times, and I don't think she has any idea who I am."

"But do other people recognize you on the street?"

"Oh sure."

"And do they ask you now where you've been?"

"No," Len Berman says with a smile. "People say, 'I watch you every night.'"

PHOTO: Gothamist. (No, this is no longer his office.)

Buzz and I spend an hour covering a wide range of topics, including CostasNOW, the bankruptcy of the Philly Inquirer (where he won the Pulitzer), and more. You'll have to excuse my stammering at the beginning of the broadcast. I was thrown off by the fact that, if you listen closely, Buzz kinda sounds like David Stern without the light Jersey accent. It's uncanny, frankly. Here are some highlights:

On Artie Lange: "I think I'm off the hook."

On Peter King: "He's really good." I DISAGREE, BUZZ.

On Peter Gammons: "(He) was a wonderful reporter for Sports Illustrated, but increasingly all he does is trade in rumors that turn out to be false."

On steroid users: "They saved the game of baseball."

On Manny: "One of the stupidest blithering fucking idiots that ever existed…. I hope when he comes back, the Dodgers realize they don't need him."

On the intro to Three Nights In August: "Part of it was written, yeah, to piss (statheads) off, because they're fun to piss off, because they sort of flap their wings like the little geeky birds they are and, you know, get all indignant, and I sort of got my rocks off on that. I have to admit." YOU CAN'T PURPOSELY PISS PEOPLE OFF FOR FUN, BUZZ. ONLY I GET TO DO THAT.

To Peter Berg before he directed Friday Night Lights: "Look Pete, if you change the fucking ending of the book, and you have them win… then don't do the fucking book."

On Berg: "He did admit that in the final game against Dallas Carter, he looked for the biggest, hugest, meanest, you know, black guys he could find. And he knew they were all in their 30's and 40's. But he did that on purpose just to heighten the difference." Spike Lee's spider senses are tingling.

Was he pissed when Varsity Blues came out? "Yes."

On Leitch: "He could do a bit more reporting in his columns, he could actually TALK to someone… What really pissed me off about him the most was when he fucking knew who WC Heinz was… I'm the best thing that ever happened to him."

Buzz also pulls the David Eckstein card when talking about clutch hitting (Ken Tremendous will get you for that, Buzz), and he talks about financially supporting Boobie Miles long after Friday Night Lights was published, sometimes against his better judgment. Buzz never raises his voice to me during our conversation. Shit. Next time, I'll steal his lithium prior to recording.

This week's Deadcast is available for your listening pleasure right here. You can also find the new Deadcast in the iTunes Music Store here. Also, Buzz has written a new book with LeBron James that you can pre-order here. Got a question/comment you need read over the air next week? Send it to me here. Special thanks to Liberated Syndication for hosting us. Now sit back, relax, and listen as Buzz explains why Moneyball pissed the shit out of him.

UPDATE: Dan Levy pointed just now that, in the course of talking about the Ibanez story, Bissinger thought the Hugging Harold Reynolds blog was Harold Reynolds' actual site. Oh, Buzz.

UPDATED UPDATE: Buzz's comment: "As it turns out I may not be a horse—-— but I am a horse's ass. I did confuse Harold Reynolds with the website/blog/etc. HuggingHaroldReynolds. When I read the original article in the Philadelphia Inquirer, I glanced over Reynold's name and wrongly assumed it was him. I am not sloppy in my writing, or at least I don't think I am, but I was sloppy here. I apologize for the error and I also apologize to Mr. Reynolds."

Each week, we'll rundown some of the more comically bad softball atrocities by some of these players. If you've got your own, please send it along to tips@deadspin.com. Of course, these are [Sic'd] for your viewing pleasure.

Miraculously, It Survived

Playoffs for my co-rec team in the Fall of '06. I am a spotty hitter at best and probably had not gotten a hit all night. I hit a great ball to dead center that almost rolled to the fence. I am probably the slowest girl alive and tried to leg out a triple. Having never learned how to slide, I slid with my right leg straight into the non-breakaway bag causing a spiral fracture high on my ankle. I don't know why I even slid, the third baseman hadn't caught anything all night. I was safe and obviously couldn't run, but wanted to stay cause I thought it was just a sprain. We were playing against the local hospital's team, they braced my ankle and told me to go to the emergency room, which was probably a good idea because my teammates said they heard a loud pop. We lost and I was in a cast for four months.

Another Bullshit Night In Staple City

I've played centerfield most of my life because I'm fast (like the wind). Sometimes when you're that fast you can only half hear teammates scream fence!! while running backwards full speed, head tilted back, cross bar of chain link fence meet head at full speed. Ball was about 10 ft. over a 12ft. fence. I'm told (by my mom who was way in the stands) that my head made a good tone on the fence. Reached up touched blood, felt flesh, ran in to shortstop who was an EMT and asked how it looked. He replied, "it does not look good." Mommy take me to the ER. Staple city.
Ed
injury on Long Island

Save The Girl, Ruin The Leg

I was on 1st base after a single. The batter grounded to short, so I slid at 2nd as to not kill the girl playing second. However, I was wearing shorts, because, shit, I'm playing beer league softball. The ensuing scab took about 14 days to heal, and at around the first week the plasma dripping down from it was epic.

(first picture is immediately after...)

(Then the second week in...)

Rule One Of Company Softball: Do Not Maim The CEO's 12-Year-Old Son

Alright, I held back from writing in this story because it's old and there's no pictures, but what the hell.

I played baseball up through college, taking a couple years off to recover from leg injuries. However I never lost my over-competetive spirit.

When I was young, I had a job with a small company back home; part-time on the weekends, full-time every summer. Usually, right after I got back to full-time there was the annual company "outing" at a summer camp in the area with a cookout, pool and a company slow-pitch softball game. The very first season I worked for the company, I showed up for the outing ready to play some softball. I hadn't played any organized sports in a little over two years, and I couldn't wait to get back. Keep in mind - this is a family event...

Early in the game, I was in right field because nobody really knew me and they needed somebody to play out there. The teams were picked by President of the company vs. CEO, and I was on the President's team. I'm out in right field with a couple runners on base and a guy flips a fly ball deep to right. I camp out under it and get ready to throw home to catch the kid tagging up at third. Yes, the "kid" - also known as the CEO's 12-year old son. The CEO was playing catcher and not really paying attention to my throw coming towards home plate; he was too busy goofing with his son like he was going to tackle him so he couldn't score. Unfortunately, my throw went up the third baseline about three feet... and hit the kid square in the shoulder, bounced off and clipped him in the head. He started crying, and I felt sick. I had only been with the company for like a month, and I thought I'd get fired for it. The kid came off the field after touching home plate, and he was fine on the bench. Until three innings later.

I was batting - I'm a lefty - and the same kid was playing second base. He was more interested in staring at the bugs crawling around on the ground... so he wasn't really paying attention when I smoked a one-hopper directly at him, and off of his knee. Broke his kneecap. This time, I was certain I was getting fired by the CEO on the spot. He came out to check on his kid and stare daggers at me, then they left for the hospital.

The next Monday morning, there was a note on my desk from the President of the company - "You're on my team from now on". That's all it said. I stayed with the company for five years, coming back every summer up through my junior year of college and playing in the company game and a couple of local rec-league tournaments. The CEO rarely spoke to me from that day on, and with good reason. I never saw his kid at the company outing again. But at least I always had a spot on the "roster" if I wanted it.

No, He Did Not Get Attacked By A Shark

Hey guys,

I have a pic to submit of my own softball fail injury. This gash required 25 stitches (though many of them are hidden under the skin now).

First inning of the game, I'm on first base and my girlfriend is up to bat with two outs. She hits a weak grounder to the SS, and I feel like Mr. Big Shot and try to take out the second base girl with a stylish slide.

Not only was I out by a country mile, but when I got up, I looked down to notice a monster gash on my lower left leg and blood all over my shoe! The cut was about 1.5 inches wide and a good 7 inches long.

So instead of a good hustle play getting me pats on the back, I get a ride to the hospital and juicy scar. All this for the lowest level co-ed rec league in the city :(

June 17, 1994, 1:15 ET

O.J. Simpson Charged With Murder

Holy crap. The LAPD has just announced that they have charged O.J. Simpson with two counts of murder with "special circumstances." O.J. Simpson. The football player. The Juice. Unbelievable.

We have all been wondering for the last week if it could really be true. Could O.J.—the legend, the Hall of Famer, the guy who ran through all those airports—could he really have killed his wife? Could he really have murdered two people in cold blood? The Los Angeles police seem to think so. They have issued an arrest warrant, but have made an agreement with Simpson's lawyers and he will turn himself in later this morning.

I guess we'll know more when he shows up, but the whole thing is still so surreal. Murder. It's almost too crazy to imagine.

UPDATE: 5:25 ET

Holy. Crap. The Los Angeles District Attorney just came on TV and said that O.J. Simpson is a wanted "fugitive." He was supposed to turn himself in three hours ago and never showed up. That can't be good.

Gee, it's hard to believe that a man possibly facing the death penalty, with the means and resources to go on the run, wouldn't voluntarily show up to go to prison. Maybe the police could have spared an extra car and given him a lift or something?

So now what do we do? I guess if you see O.J., you should give the LAPD a call or something. Other than that, I'm out of ideas.

UPDATE: 9:20 ET

HOLY SHIT. O.J. Simpson is fleeing from police RIGHT NOW. NBC just interrupted the Rockets-Knicks game to show O.J. being chased down by police on a Los Angeles freeway. The guy is actually making a run for it!

Simpson is in a white Ford Bronco that belongs to his friend Al Cowling, who is behind the wheel. They are trying to go ... somewhere? There's about 10 cop cars and 50 news helicopters following, so I'm not sure where he thinks he's going to go? Reports are saying that he may have a gun and has possibly threatened to kill himself? What the hell is going on here? How did O.J. Simpson's life suddenly turn into a Charlie Sheen movie?

The most amazing part is that this whole thing is happening in slow motion. Everyone on the highway has cleared out, but the cars involved in the chase are going maybe 35 miles an hour. Just a nice leisurely fugitive manhunt. And people are coming out of their homes to cheer him on!

Meanwhile, Bob Costas is trying to explain to NBC viewers why you should continue to care about the NBA Finals. Or anything else at this point. Good luck with that.

UPDATE: 11:00 ET

The chase has ended. Sorta. The Bronco drove back to O.J.'s house, but no one has gotten out and the cops are just sitting there wondering what the hell they're supposed to do next. The world's slowest car chase has now turned into the world's lamest hostage standoff.

UPDATE: 11:25 ET

Check this out. Over on ABC, Peter Jennings just took a live call from a crazy black man who says he sitting across the street from O.J. Simpson's house and can see O.J. in the car and he is "lookin' like he be very nervous." Turns out the guy is just a big Howard Stern fan and he just made one of America's most trusted (and trusting, apparently) newsmen look like an idiot.

Nice save, Al Michaels. Yep. This is officially the craziest day of all of our lives.

Simpson Held After Wild Chase | He's Charged With Murder of Ex-Wife, Friend [Los Angeles Times, 1994]
CNN O.J. Simpson Trial News: The Arrest [CNN]
THE SIMPSON CASE: THE PURSUIT; A Spectacle Gripping And Bizarre [New York Times, 1994]

Ichiro is apparently happy for the first time in years, and if the News Tribune's Larry LaRue is to be believed, this has a lot to do with Ken Griffey Jr. and his magic fingers:

Ichiro Suzuki spreads a towel on the carpeted floor in front of his locker, lies on his back and begins doing stretching exercises. From Ichiro's blind side, Ken Griffey Jr. pounces, gets his hands deep under Ichiro's armpits and digs in with his fingers.

Ichiro's laughter is almost childlike – genuine and uncontrolled – and after about five seconds he screams the magic word to make Griffey stop.

Junior stands up, walks back to his locker and sits down. Ichiro lies quietly for a moment, letting his body relax, then goes back to stretching as if nothing had happened.

[...]

"He's the only teammate I would ever let do that. In Japan, all relationships are respectful, so no one would ever do that to me," Ichiro said. "If someone else did it here, I'd probably punch them in the face."

Their relationship is secure enough that Griffey can offer frank appraisals of Ichiro's looks:

Each day when Ichiro enters the clubhouse in street clothes, Junior goes through a five-point rating process.

"I'd wear that shirt," he said in Denver. "The pants, no. That belt? No. Shoes? Yeah, I might wear those. But that man purse? No (bleeping) way. You're 2-for-5 today."

And then there are all the long, lingering looks into each other's eyes:

Griffin, the trainer, said walking through the clubhouse in that final hour before a game, Ichiro and Junior can be a bit unnerving.

"Sometimes they'll each be at their locker, just staring at one another," he said.

Ichiro, at 35, is putting up the best numbers of his career, a fact that some attribute to that reliable chimera, clubhouse chemistry. It's a lot of nonsense, of course, but there's something intriguing about the idea that Ichiro is hitting a robust .360 because he at last has a teammate to tickle him.

A happier Ichiro? Mariners can thank Junior [News Tribune, via Enjoy the Enjoyment]

The great Bernie Miklasz touched on this in his column yesterday, but I think he was soft-pedaling it a little bit, lest your average St. Louis Post-Dispatch reader try to drown him-or-herself in his/her oatmeal. Pujols leaving wouldn't be as damaging as LeBron James leaving Cleveland — we at least have won a couple of World Series over the last 40 years — but it would be close. And it might actually be more likely to happen. It's the most terrifying notion imaginable to any Cardinals fan, and, all told, if you were to ask me to set odds on it, I'd say it's 50-50. And that's probably being optimistic.

Pujols isn't a free agent until after the 2011 season, though that's somewhat misleading: The Cardinals will have to take care of his contract situation long before then. He has a $16 million option for that season, one the Cardinals would obviously pick up. But $16 million is nothing: That's $2 million less than Andruw Jones is making this year. If the Cardinals let it go long enough to the point that they're picking up that option, Pujols is as good as gone already.

Here's how it might go down:

The Cardinals are currently a game out of first in the NL Central, but that's far from some grand accomplishment. Their offense has imploded — the one Cardinals win against Cleveland over the weekend was a 3-1 victory behind two Pujols solo homers and a wild pitch — and Pujols has zero protection in the lineup. Every Cardinals hitter has regressed, from Skip Schumaker to Ryan Ludwick to the injured Troy Glaus to, yes, Rick Ankiel. (This season, Ankiel has transformed into Rob Deer ... except he only has four homers. It's possible he's playing so poorly that he priced himself back in the Cardinals plans next year.) Pujols is walking more, yes, but more to the point, he's straining to make something happen, swinging at pitches outside the strike zone and overextending himself in a way that, say, Barry Bonds was just patient and blase enough never to do. When you're constantly batting with no one on base, and you're bored with walking, you start swinging at anything. Only pitchers as sloppy as Tomo Ohka are throwing him strikes.

His frustration is palpable, but that's nothing compared to Tony La Russa, who is in the final year of a two-year contract. La Russa — who has been in St. Louis 13 freaking years now — was the last management piece left standing last season when Cardinals brass embraced the scouting stathead types like VP Jeff Luhnow and general manager John Mozeliak and allowed old GM Walt Jocketty to leave for Cincinnati. In theory, the owners made the right decision: Jocketty mostly ignored the draft (a slight oversimplification, sure) and stocked his triple-A squads with veteran fill-ins like Roger Cedeno, Timo Perez, Brian Daubach and Larry Bigbie, where as Mozeliak and Luhnow use the minors, you know, to develop talent. But so far, none of that talent has turned into Albert Pujols, and La Russa, who was close to Jocketty, is frustrated: He feels like there are no reinforcements coming, and that ownership is being purposely cheap. He might be right. He might not be. All that matters is that he feels that way.

Because no matter what your thoughts on Tony La Russa are — and I love him — nobody's closer to La Russa than Pujols. In Pujols' second season, La Russa said El Hombre was the best baseball player he'd ever managed, and though that seems obvious now, back then it was a shocking statement from a grouchy manager known for openly disdaining young players. Pujols and La Russa both have a lot of Bob Knight in them: They're surly, singularly focused on winning every game, in any possible way, and if you are in the way of that quest, you must be destroyed. Pujols is not one of those Bonds-esque superstars who does his own thing and sits idly by: His passion to win, at any means necessary, rivals La Russa's. The two men were born to work together. If Pujols had come up with any other system, under any other manager, he's not the player he is now, and if Pujols doesn't arrive, La Russa would have been gone seven years ago. At this point, they're nearly the same person.

So if La Russa decides these new front office folks don't have The Right Stuff, that they're not as brutally committed to winning as he is, he will leave. I'm not sure where he'd go next — maybe he'd just co-manage the Tigers with Jim Leyland; awesome idea for a bromantic comedy! — but he would, without question, leave. Every game the Cardinals lose 3-0, every solo homer Pujols hits, every heralded Cardinals prospect that disappoints (the "Faberge Eggs," they're called), brings him a little closer.

And have no doubt: If La Russa leaves, Pujols probably isn't far behind, because the only reason La Russa would leave is the same reason Pujols would leave: This Franchise Does Not Have What It Takes To Win. The Cardinals simply cannot afford to pay what Pujols is worth on the open market, something Pujols is aware of; he's always said as long as the Cardinals remain "committed to winning," he'll stay. But what if, say, the Red Sox, or the Mets, offered him $25 million a season, and La Russa is already gone? What is keeping him in St. Louis? Nothing. He's not money-crazed by nature, but he's also not a moron.

Miklasz encourages the Cardinals to try to extend Pujols now, but that seems unlikely, not from their perspective, but from his. Why would he agree to spend the rest of his All-World career — seriously, I get to watch Ted Williams every time I turn the Cardinals game on — on teams like this one, teams that have no hitters other than him? Even though the Cardinals are considered one of baseball's jewel franchises, St. Louis is not a major metropolis (it has fewer people than Kansas City) and doesn't have a lucrative cable deal. (CLARIFICATION: The St. Louis metro area, of course, has far more people than Kansas City's metro area; the comparison was meant merely to remind that St. Louis is thought of as a larger sports franchise city than it is. But I should have been clearer.) And the city itself is struggling financially; wait, come All-Star time, for all the reports about the empty lot next to Busch Stadium that was supposed to house "local businesses." Not even Anheuser-Busch is owned by St. Louisans anymore. The Cardinals could turn into the Royals, the Reds or the Orioles quicker than you think, once-proud franchises decimated by money worries and a heartbroken fanbase. (You can take a look at their payroll through Cot's Baseball Contracts.) That very well might happen if the Cardinals lose Pujols. It's more possible than anyone realizes.

The Cardinals are counting on cheap young players, and right now, those cheap young players are not hitting. Pujols is going to look to La Russa on this one; if La Russa can be convinced that the Cardinals can surround Pujols with quality hitters, he'll stay, because you only get to manage an Albert Pujols once in your lifetime. And much of that, much of La Russa's decision, is going to come down to the next month-and-a-half of baseball. If the Cardinals continue to not hit, and they don't trade for someone to help Pujols out, La Russa will have his answer, justified or not: They're not serious here, not anymore. And Pujols will follow, as soon as he can. (Again: If this isn't resolved by the time Pujols' option is up before 2011, he's gone.) Only through La Russa do the Cardinals get the hometown discount. And that only happens if they start hitting, immediately. I'd argue that the next month-and-a-half might be one of the most critical timespans in Cardinals history. We're gonna know, real quick.

When I talked to people about all this this weekend, non-Cardinals fans, they looked at me like I was crazy: It was difficult for them to imagine the Cardinals losing their franchise player, their whole identity. But it could happen. It really could.

So when you watch Pujols' moon shots evaporate into the St. Louis night at the All-Star Game next month, bathed in the adulation of 47,000 red-clad corny Cardinals souls, realize that it could all end, that he's not tied to St. Louis forever, that, yes, he could be yours. If you want Albert Pujols to be your first baseman — and, of course, you are a fan of the Red Sox, Mets, Cubs (gasp!) or, if Mark Teixeira dies, the Yankees — you need to start rooting against the Cardinals, right now, this second. We'll know very soon.

Gary Bettman. Dash knows hockey far better than I do, so I'll cede to his knowledge, but I'll say I found his description of how Gary Bettman was received after Game 7 of the NHL Finals kind of sad: "How many times can Gary Bettman walk on the ice-in any and every NHL city-to a chorus of merciless boos before he gets the hint? You're there to oversee the biggest moment of the year for your industry and the only thing everyone can agree on is that you are a villainous bum. What is he hanging on to?" Obviously, Bettman hasn't exactly run the NHL as a well-oiled machine, but the grief we give him and Bud Selig, and the slack we give Roger Goodell and (especially) David Stern, seem a bit out of proportion. The NHL has teams go bankrupt and sell off players, and it's just one more example of how much of an idiot Bettman is; when that happens in the NBA, hey, those franchises are stupid! Major League Baseball is about to pass the NFL in total revenue ... but boy, Bud Selig sure does look like a clueless car salesman, doesn't he? I think it's just because we like to make fun of dweeby-looking people. Which is fine, of course!

Joe Buck. You have to give it to Artie Lange, who singlehandedly turned Joe Buck's show watchable, if only briefly. I'm sure he knew it: I'm sure he was watching Buck's interview with Favre — because hey! It's HBO! It's comedy! It's Favre! — and said, "Jesus Christ, this show is horrible. I need to take it over, or no one will ever talk about it again. Besides, I'm very, very high right now." And that he did. I'm on the record as liking Joe Buck, but man, did Lange ever expose him as out of his element on that show. When Lange nuked the set, Buck was helpless; he didn't have the tool in his arsenal that would have minimized Lange and wrested back control of the show. Sure, Lange was being impossible, but Letterman could have dealt with him, Costas could have dealt with him. Buck was stuck, falling back on pre-readied "hey, see how goofy Paul Rudd and I looked when we were 18!" photos and crawling under his chair. (Spencer Hall has some fun with Buck-as-decorating-accessory.) Look, Buck seems like a genial enough guy, but the problem wasn't Lange, who, after all, is simply being Artie Lange. The problem was Buck. Hosting a variety talk "comedy" show is not something he's particularly skilled at. Lange just exposed it, in the worst, loudest and most immediate way. It's not the worst crime in the world. It happens. As Craggs pointed out this morning, Buck didn't help himself by going to his sports media buddies and apologizing for the whole episode, like it was some terrible ordeal he feels awful that children had to see. (You'd almost call it a "disgusting act.") But you think last night's episode was bad? Wait until the "safer," "friendlier" Episode Two of "Joe Buck Live." That's going to be the talk show equivalent of when, in the wake of Stephen Colbert's blistering mockery of George Bush at the Correspondent's Dinner, the White House asked Rich Little to do it. Episode Two is going to feature Troy Aikman and Billy Crystal playing checkers.

Andrew Friedman. I've always had a soft spot for the Rays ever since, before they suddenly ran to the World Series, they were good sports enough to buy themselves a fan on eBay. The whole organization seems like my type of people, and I can't help but root for them. And something else they're doing right: Annoying Murray Chass! Everyone's favorite Octogenarian (NOT A!) Blogger took the Rays general manager to task for not returning his phone call and, well, Friedman struck back (through PR flak Rick Vaughn), pointing out that Chass called him the day before the draft, when he obviously wouldn't have time to chat. Friedman was kind enough not to point another reason he didn't call Chass back: Because Chass' columns are basically conversations with the wall of his office, a sad old man still writing notes columns every Sunday, like the widower who still fluffs a pillow for his beloved even though she died 25 years ago. Chass, bizarrely, uncorks this gem while explaining his mindset:

How in the world could I expect to get the general manager the day before the draft, Vaughn asked, suggesting that the timing of the column was bad and that I should have waited to write it another time when it would have been more convenient for Friedman to call back.

Now Vaughn was not only acting as the Rays' vice president for communications, but he was also acting as my editor. One of the things I like about writing for this Web site is I don't have editors. I like having no editors. Most of them, I have found, have been useless, if not downright incompetent.

Emphasis mine, obviously. Murray Chass hates editors and thinks they're useless. But no. Murray Chass is not a blogger, not at all.

Phil Jackson. Phil Jackson has always been my favorite NBA coach, and I'm not sure why. Growing up without a team in Central Illinois, I just kind of picked my spots, and I eventually fell in love with that Bulls team that just missed the NBA Finals, the year after Jordan retired. This was Jackson on the top of his game, drawing the best from the most unlikely places — seriously, he could have won an NBA title with Toni Kukoc as the second-best player on the team — and once Jordan came back, I suspect Jackson was happy but lost a little part of who he was. Ever since then, quite reasonably, he has waited to coach supremely talented teams (and/or teams owned by the woman he's having sex with), and you get the sense that mostly, he just wants a place to sit down and rest his back during games. His pseudo-Zen ridiculousness can grate, and he's certainly more fake pop intellectual than real intellectual, but if someone was going to win 10 championships, I'm glad it was him. Surely better than Pat Riley. He'll surely "coach" one more year, then retire and spend the rest of his life on a beach, smoking old weed and having sex with younger women. (I'm assuming they'd have to be on top.) All told, not a bad life.

Michael Lewis. The author has a new book about Dads, and more power to him, Dads rule. (Though his "Today Show" interview about it struck me as strangely awkward. He was on with his wife, former MTV vixen Tabitha Soren, and, well ... I dunno ... I'm not sure those two are in complete agreement about parenthood, marriage, or anything, really. Maybe it's just me.) It will be fascinating to see how the movie version of Lewis' best seller turns out. No, no, not that one, the one with Brad Pitt and Demetri Martin and Steven Soderbergh. I mean the other one, the one coming out later this year. Somehow, everyone's being quiet about the movie version of The Blind Side, which stars Sandra Bullock and Kathy Bates. No, really: The film hits theaters in November. Obviously, football fans will rush out to see it, because nothing says Inspiration Football Movie than Sandra Bullock and Kathy Bates. Do we see Terry Bradshaw's ass in this one?

Shaquille O'Neal. I'm not sure any of us realize how fortunate we are to have Shaq in our lives. I mean, the notion of Shaq congratulating Kobe on his NBA title by Tweeting, "Congratualtions kobe, u deserve it. You played great . Enjoy it my man enjoy it. And I know what yur sayin rt now "Shaq how my ass taste" is on the good side of the force. (It was amusing to watch ESPN quote Shaq's Twitter on Sunday night but ignore the one line that actually has some funny news in it.) Also, make sure to watch Shaq challenge Jose Canseco to a fight and punch a cardboard cutout of Chuck Liddell. Sometimes I think the Internet was invented just for Shaq.

Stephen Sommers. Every summer movie season needs a big-budget full-fledged faceplant of a flop, and this summer is not short on candidates. Land of the Lost and that Eddie Murphy movie are already solid contenders, and the fact that critics aren't even being shown Year One until tomorrow, two days before it opens, is a bad, bad sign. (The NBA Finals commercials didn't help either, clearly.) But it's beginning to look like the worst film of the summer, by far, is going to be that G.I. Joe movie. The trailer looks horrible, the director (the guy who did the Mummy movies) has reportedly been canned and there are rumors that the film received the worst screening test scores in the history of Paramount studios. And those people did Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. We have our true bomb, methinks. It's a shame too, because a G.I. Joe movie had the potential to be so much better than that Transformers junk. I just wish they would have found a way to get the William "Refrigerator" Perry G.I. Joe character in there; he was my favorite.

Peter Venkman. The wait is over: This week, the Ghostbusters video game hits stores, and from all accounts, it's really fun! Basically, you just play as a "new" ghostbuster, joining the team only a month or so after the events of Ghostbusters 2. (Maybe Bobby Brown will show up!) Not only does it have the voices of the original cast — with the exception of Rick Moranis, who "retired" from acting, but including Bill Murray! — but the story was actually written by Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis, which makes it, I dunno, canon or something. I mean, they made a Ghostbusters sequel, and you get to be a ghostbuster. I wasn't planning on leaving my apartment this summer anyway.

Frank Williams. Everybody misses Ralph Wiley; It's worth remembering just how amazing that ESPN Page 2 lineup was back in 2002 (Halberstam, Wiley, a limping but still potent HST, Simmons right when he was learning his fastball). One of my favorite Ralph Wiley columns was about the 2002 NBA Draft, when Yao Ming, Amare Stoudemire and Caron Butler were drafted but all he wanted to talk about was old Illini point guard Frank Williams. Of all the Illini woulda coulda stars over the last couple of decades, Frankie was the one who got away, a leisurely, winding Slinkie of a point guard who could find every gap in the lane and somehow twist his way to a bizarre layup. I loved Frank Williams but — and I have Illini sources everywhere! — even back then, he was known as a guy more interested in the gravity bong than the pull-up jumper. Thus, Frank's drug bust last week made me a little sad, but far from shocked. Clearly, because he's a failed basketball player who had "between 30 and 500 grams of marijuana" on him, his life is Out Of Control, or something. That, or, you know, he just had some weed on him. Wait: How much is 30 grams again? God I'm getting old.

Tiger Woods. It's Father's Day this Sunday, which means it's yet another Tiger Woods weekend. The U.S. Open is the signature Father's Day event, and it's the perfect opportunity for old videos of Baby Tiger palling around with his dad, and new photos of Tiger being licked by the family dog. Why hasn't Tiger come out with a book about Father's Day, and his own father, yet? That thing would sell like crazy. (I know just the co-writer.) Anyway, your Father's Day is going to be spend on the couch, watching Tiger win the U.S. Open and talk about how much being a dad has changed his life, and Jim Nantz will happily promote his own Father's Day book, while he's at it. (CORRECTION: The U.S. Open in on NBC. Maybe Nantz will just run onto the 16th green with a copy of his book.) And then you will have another nacho.

If you haven't seen the video already, Artie, an old Howard Stern yuk-slinger, went on Buck's new HBO show and worked a few light shades of blue. He made a crack about Tony Romo rhyming with "homo," another about Romo dating a fat chick. He told a relatively sweet story about Buck's father, Jack Buck, who in Lange's fond recollection "wasn't politically correct" or "a pussy." He made like he was going to smoke a cigarette. When Buck said cheekily that his favorite web site is TMZ.com, Lange interrupted: "What's your second favorite site, suckingcock.com?"

In short, Artie Lange did exactly what you invite Artie Lange on stage to do.

Nonetheless, the response has been universal. "Comedian Lange crosses the line on 'Joe Buck Live'," huffed USA Today. The New York Times was already comparing it to the Bissinger meltdown on Costas Now.

Buck himself condemned Lange's performance:

Buck told USA TODAY he couldn't wait for the Lange segment to end. "I thought that spending time on a treadmill felt long. That was like 8 or 9 minutes that turned into an eternity. You know, it's cable, you can get away with it. It's not my style. But, you do one show and you learn and you move on."

Buck told reporters he thought Lange had an "agenda" when he came on stage to discuss the intersection of sports and celebrity. He was sorry Lange took time away from actors Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis of SNL. But Buck said there was little he could do to control the invited guest without "kicking him off the set" or hitting a "trap door."

"It's a thought. A gigantic hook," said Buck.

[..]

Controversy's not a bad thing in the TV business, especially when networks are trying to get viewers to try out new shows. Clips of Lange's performance on Joe Buck Live were already ping-ponging around YouTube last night.

"Do I think it went too far? Yes," said Buck. "Will he be back? If it's up to me, no. But again it's live TV man."

I was in the studio last night, and it was a Joe Buck kind of crowd. Brett Favre, Buck's first guest, now notable for not being notable at all, said the word "shit," and people at first tittered, then, amazingly, broke into applause, as if to forgive the transgression. This is important, because I doubt very seriously that Buck was shocked by anything Lange said. He was merely pretending to be offended on behalf of this sort of audience.

And that's essentially the subtext of Joe Buck Live, anyway. This is a crazy, mixed-up world, the show seems to say, and through it travels Joe Buck, a little bewildered but weathering it all with plain, homespun values and bone-dry wit. There was the ceremonial thrashing of that perennial straw man, "the media." There was an interview with Chad Johnson, who looked like he'd rather be anywhere else, in which Buck tried in vain to get the wide receiver to admit he could sometimes be an ass, but in which Buck also noted, approvingly, that Johnson doesn't drink. And there was a joke, in a taped segment with the aggressively wholesome David Wright, that turned on the wildly absurd notion that Buck might order a whiskey sour in a restaurant. A whiskey sour!

Lange was the ideal foil to all this, and I suspect that's why he — along with Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis — was invited onto the show. Buck was outsourcing the funny. And now Buck professes himself to be shocked, shocked!, that an old Howard Stern sidekick might waddle onto an HBO set and go off-color. This is just too perfect. One show in, Joe Buck, guardian of middle-American virtue, has already found something about which to moralize: His own goddamn show.

Comedian Steals Spotlight on Buck's Show [New York Times]
Comedian Lange crosses the line on 'Joe Buck Live' [USA Today]

After the show went off the digital airwaves, there was another online-only portion that takes the vitriol up a notch. That's what you're watching in the above video. Joe does everything he can not leap across the table strangle Artie with his bare hands.

Joe realized almost immediately that the project he has spent half a year developing went completely off the rails and is about to hit a tree and explode. I don't know what he (or his talent bookers) expected Artie Lange to do, but they got what they paid for. Artie launched right into the homo jokes and never looked back, flustering Joe at every turn and driving the final segment into the ground. Things couldn't have gone worse.

More on the fallout, throughout the day.

Your First Episode Of "Joe Buck Live" In Ten Minutes Or Less [Awful Announcing]

Ohlmeyer's resume is a dramatic shift from prior ombudspeople (both Schreiber and George Solomon were newspaper disciples) but it could possibly be a better fit for the position if ESPN covets criticism for all of its media platforms, especially its television programming. This move also further solidifies ESPN's takeover of the sports media universe, as they'll have one of the industry's more lionized visionaries on staff to publicly consult criticize them into becoming even more World Wide Leadery.

ESPN's comment about Ohlmeyer: "We will announce our new ombudsman when the process is finalized."

Pshaw. The potential downside of this is that it will probably abandon all hopes of Norm Macdonald ever hosting the ESPYs again: Upside? I can't wait to see Ohlmeyer's take on Blog Buzz.

The Sentinel's Jeremy Fowler writes:

Huntley Johnson isn't on the University of Florida's payroll. He's not on the UF football program's payroll, either. But the Gainesville-based attorney might just be the Gators' most valuable player other than Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow.

Johnson is the go-to Gator for UF football players who find trouble with the law. He has handled 23 of the 24 football-related legal cases the Orlando Sentinel documented during Meyer's four years as Florida's head coach. The 24th case happened in Daytona Beach.

The arrests have Florida facing public scrutiny this summer as newspaper columnists, Internet bloggers and fans debate whether the UF football team is out of control.

(An aside about the sheer absurdity and disingenuousness of that last sentence. Go back and look at the Sentinel's "database," which breaks down Gator arrests since 2005. I count nine cases that rise above garden-variety youthful delinquency. Three of those were tossed. One involved a guy sneaking into an impound to retrieve his girlfriend's towed car, which is downright noble. Nine cases since 2005, if you're counting generously. This a team "out of control"?)

The story is a fairly standard bit of newspaper-style innuendo — surely there must be an NCAA violation somewhere under here, Fowler is saying, without really saying it. The profile makes no mention, however, of the lawsuit brought in 2000 by Johnson's secretary, Pamela Thigpen, in which she accused her boss of foul language, sexual innuendo and physical assault. Thigpen won a judgment of more than $1 million in a civil trial, and the verdict was upheld on appeal. Some of the juicy bits from the appellate court panel's opinion in 2001 (PDF):

• "For example, Johnson repeatedly told Thigpen: she just wanted to 'get down on his hog and honk it'; 'you want me to put my hog in your mouth'; '[c]ome in here and give me some head.' He also told her, at least once, to give his client a 'mercy fuck.'"

• "Johnson also dictated to Thigpen while urinating in the bathroom in his office and left a nude picture of himself for Thigpen to find in his office."

• "There was also evidence of inappropriate, unwelcomed physical contact, including repeated touching of Thigpen's breasts, running a pencil up Thigpen's thigh and an incident in which Johnson made sexually threatening remarks to Thigpen and forcibly placed her hand onto the crotch of his trousers."

The Sentinel doesn't see fit to mention any of this, which is odd considering its pained efforts at depicting Florida as some sort of football-playing House of the Rising Sun. The paper does at least hold out some hope that the program will return to the path of righteousness. And, hey, guess what? It has something to do with Tim Tebow. Jesus. Get off the dude's hog.

UF athletes have a friend in attorney Huntley Johnson [Orlando Sentinel]
Will Tim Tebow help prevent future arrests? [Orlando Sentinel]
Huntley Johnson v. Pamela Thigpen (PDF) [FindLaw]
EARLIER: A Lesson In How Not To Spin, Courtesy Of The Florida Gators

First, about Blogs With Balls. This was an astoundingly well-attended and well-run event that showed the rapid growth and respectability this industry has gained. Forget the blogs and bloggers that attended — the mainstream media was there in full-force as well, including ESPN filming footage for an upcoming Outside The Lines segment that will hopefully not treat the whole thing like a Comic-Con event. Enjoy the many thorough recaps of the event from attendees.

Now onto Florio. Granted, this was expected, since Pro Football Talk has slowly but steadily gained a rabid audience and the respect of both the NFL and the many, many outlets that cover the sport year-round. Florio built up a solid core of reliable sources from both insiders and reliable outsiders who took notice of not only his (sometimes) scurrilous league gossip, but also his ability to push some stories to the forefront that may have been overlooked by the national media, most notably, his tenacious coverage of Michael Vick's dog-fighting past that laid the groundwork for much of the ensuing media pile-on. And come free agency time, he's consistently blown everyone out of the water with his non-stop updates.

And the big question that's seemingly on everyone's mind is will Florio's coverage suffer now that he's part of a media giant? In an email interview he reiterated what he's already said about maintaining editorial control but said he plans to " test that car out properly. And then likely drive it into a utility pole." So, for now, the 87 talking heads on Football Night In America will not be spared criticism. One would hope. But like Florio hinted, eventually there has to come a point where "Mike Florio NBC employee" and "Mike Florio independent shit-stirrer" thunk skulls. The other danger of this alignment is what it could possibly do to Florio's source pool. Most of the time, "sources" (unnamed or otherwise) do feel a little more comfortable discussing the ins-and-outs and backdoor dealings with the perceived respectable outsiders (present company included) than the big guns because the spin factor is greatly reduced. There's a freedom on this side of the playground, where the myth of objectivity — that many, many mainstream publications still hold onto much too tightly — is eradicated and unnecessary for accuracy and greater truth. But with the (presumably) larger audience that will come to PFT as a result of this partnership, an alteration on how things are communicated will be necessary at some point. Or not? Perhaps Dick Ebersol (who's championing this move very publicly) is convinced that NBC's online sports audience is savvy enough to comprehend Florio's approach, which shouldn't be a testament to the medium as a whole, but more Florio's ability to make/break/illuminate news in a much timelier, digestible way. Simply put, he's better than a large percentage of the people doing this, professionally or not. (I'm sure Florio's constant Seinfeld references didn't hurt him on the brand loyalty front, either.)

So what now, angry typers? What's the goal from here on out? This is a debate that varies among the thousands of people who are sports-blogging for personal satisfaction, or as a springboard to a mainstream career, or financial gain, or simply because they're bored at their current jobs. But do know this — the game has changed. For better or worse depends upon your vantage point I guess, but the keys to success (and what is successful) are becoming more and more clearly defined. Adjust your blogspots accordingly.

From Sunday's game, here he is, verbatim:

I guess I can tell this story now, one of my great experiences when I was a young player. Don Wilson was pitching a no-hitter against the Atlanta Braves. They had Orlando Cepeda, Rico Carty, Felipe Alou and Hank Aaron, of course. And they got to the ninth inning, he got two outs, no one on base, and Hank Aaron was the hitter. And in my infinite wisdom, I ran in to the mound. I said, "You know, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if Hank Aaron walked right here. He said, "Get back to second base." I proceeded to go back to second base. He threw three fastballs right by Hank Aaron. No-hitter.

Charming, right? And, alas, very likely an utter crock. This would've been June 18, 1967, Joe's third full season in the bigs. That Braves team did indeed feature Hank Aaron, Felipe Alou and Rico Carty — though not Cepeda, who was in St. Louis that year. And Wilson did indeed throw a no-hitter, striking out Aaron to end the game. None of that's the problem. The problem, as a tipster points out, is that Joe Morgan wasn't playing that day. Look at the box score. The Astros' second baseman was Julio Gotay. Morgan, who was probably hurt, hadn't played since June 3. He would pinch-hit the next two games, then return to the lineup June 21.

Now, Joe may well have said something to Don Wilson in the dugout, in which case he was merely indulging in a little poetic license last night. But given baseball's time-honored superstition about talking to pitchers during a no-hitter, not to mention the fact that Joe has told some stretchers before, I'm loath to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Please, Joe. Enough with the lies. As a wise man once said, how do you think we got Enron?

June 18, 1967 Atlanta Braves at Houston Astros Box Score and Play by Play [Baseball Reference]

So that's two years in a row that Hossa came ohsoclose to hoisting the Stanley Cup instead of his own petard doing likewise to him. Looking today, on June 13, it looks really foolish for Hossa to have gone from one team to the other.

As TSB's Adam Jacobi mentioned, Hossa did make the correct before-June-12 decision to sign with the best team with the best chance. The sequence of events made the team switch look really bad, but here's one thing to keep in perspective:

Four months. That's how long Hossa played for the Penguins. For years he played for the Ottawa Senators and Atlanta Thrashers, but he was a Penguin for four months. This wasn't a Johnny Damon situation where a longstanding fan favorite switched teams. This is more like a CC Sabathia situation, where players with lots of talent like signing with historically legendary teams. Or perhaps a Joe Lieberman situation. You mean you WERE a Democrat?

It wasn't a horrible move on June 13, either. An optimist would say that Hossa played with two teams in two years, both who reached the Stanley Cup Finals. But the decision, as of June 13, was probably a top three reason the series went the way it did, with the other reasons being the Red Wings injuries finally affecting the veteran players, and Marc-Andre Fleury using his limbs to block shots, rather than score them. Hossa did very little in the Stanley Cup, which means that perhaps signing with Pittsburgh would have helped Detroit repeat. Perhaps the Red Wings would do themselves well to trade Brad Stuart to Pittsburgh.

And he wasn't the only one to crossed Red Rover battle lines. How soon do we forget that backup goaltender Ty Conklin played for the Penguins last year? How about good luck charm Muhammad Ali being negated by the star of Twilight in attendance? And what of that Qdoba burrito that brought BGSU graduate and Penguins coach Dan Bylsma great fortune? Would Deadspin commenters agree* it's the best one available?

Requiem For A Marian Hossa [The Sporting Blog]
Is Ty Conklin Lucky Or Cursed? [FanHouse]
Muhammad Ali leads celebrity contingent at the Joe [Detroit Free Press]
Bylsma Brings Lucky Burrito To Detroit [Puck Daddy]

* - Of course not, because nobody comments on Deadspin anymore.