Speculation has been rampant that one of the reasons that Sahel Kazemi decided to kill Steve McNair was because she suspected that McNair was involved with yet another woman who was not his wife.

And now, the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS says they have discovered that McNair was involved in what they characterize as a “longtime affair” with a stripper in Minneapolis. But was it really an “intimate” relationship, as claimed by DAILY NEWS sportswriter Michael O’Keefe?

His only source for the story is the former business manager of an unnamed strip club, who asked remain anonymous for the story. This guy says McNair was a frequent visitor to the club and had an ongoing affair with a dancer that lasted for six years. Here’s what he had to say:

“She liked money and athletes,” the former business manager said on condition of anonymity. “She went out with athletes before. She was one of those girls who said, ‘You’re married? You have kids? So what?’ Lets have fun.

“I can tell you that she was very upset when she learned that he had died,” the former business manager added.

I don’t doubt that McNair may have visited this club every time he was in Minneapolis, and that when he did he sought out the same woman. But was there really a relationship here? Maybe he just liked to see the same stripper every time he was in Minnesota? Did he have a different woman in every city he went to?

(What about this city was so alluring for McNair?)

But how often would he have occasion to go to Minnesota? Since he played only for AFC teams, a search of PRO-FOOTBALL-REFERENCE.COM shows that McNair only went to Minnesota to play against the Vikings three times: in 1995 (as a rookie when he wasn’t even a starter), 2001, and 2004. That’s only one game there in the last six years. He was from Mississippi and lived in Tennessee, so I’m not sure why he would be making frequent trips up to Minneapolis, unless he was good friends with some of the Vikings who were on that sex boat.

If there’s anyone out there in Minneapolis, what club would be the choice of athletes?

So while it might make sense for the woman in Minnesota to be sad (perhaps more for the loss of a customer), it doesn’t make sense that she would be completely distraught, unless she traveled to see McNair. Kazemi reportedly saw another woman leaving McNair’s condo days before the shooting, but it’s far-fetched to think that it could be the Minnesota stripper. Which makes you wonder exactly how many women he was involved with in some way.

While McNair had a very public memorial service yesterday, Kazemi’s funeral is scheduled for today in Jacksonville, Fla.

Moving on, Lenny Dykstra continues to try and keep up with Darren Daulton in the race to be crowned the “looniest guy who played for the 1993 Phillies.” In an interview with CNBC’s Jane Wells that is not done justice by this accompanying article, Dykstra rambled (often incoherently) about his financial woes that has led to him filing for bankruptcy. Here’s the video, and it’s worth all 18 minutes of your time:

Dykstra claims that Washington Mutual perpetrated fraud against him on a mortgage that he can no longer afford, and that he is simply filing in order to deal with foreclosure proceedings (he points out that it is his corporation filing Chapter 11 in order to “reorganize”). He even goes as far as to call out a specific Wamu employee, even mocking his stuttering. Of course, Dykstra also stumbles over his words, so it’s unclear when he’s pretending to be the stutterer and when he’s just being himself. He also claims to not be very smart, and to not really know how all the paperwork works in any of this. So how is he so sure that he was taken advantage of in his mortgage? His attorney says he’s worth around $50 million, but Dykstra won’t go as far as to even give a ballpark figure of his net worth. When Wells informs him that the bankruptcy paperwork indicates his assets are no more than $50,000, he doesn’t really have any answer that would lead you to believe otherwise. This despite boasting that he’s “111-0 in the stock market” (which, if you steal other people’s stock advice, maybe that isn’t that hard).

The only evidence Dykstra could offer of his net worth still being in the millions (it was reported as $58 million in 2008) was that his failed venture at a lifestyle magazine for athletes (called “The Players Club”) was being reorganized into a company that I think is also supposed to help pro athletes manage their money. And, in his words, “will someone be interested in that later, and want to give me $10 million? I don’t know, but what I have is exactly what’s stated.” Oy. So, basically, it looks like he’s got a few businesses that aren’t worth anything or aren’t profitable, like his private-jet airline called Legends Air, and he’s just hoping that someone will want to give him millions for them later.

The interview took place at Dykstra’s home, which he bought from Wayne Gretzky two years ago. Just after the 8:00 mark, when Dykstra claimed that it was his primary residence, Wells starting losing her patience, pointing out that there was no furniture in the house (with a great “wtf is wrong with you?” look), to which Dykstra responded that the house was undergoing a “remodel” as if that was supposed to be apparent.

(The home in question, which is supposedly worth $25 million)

Please, someone get Dykstra and Daulton together for an interview. Or just tape them talking to each other for an hour. That would be better than anything I’ve ever seen on “E:60.”

Alright, before I go on any more Dystranian tangents, let’s get to today’s links:

• You thought Yankee Stadium was expensive? The total cost of the new stadium for the Marlins in Miami is going to run at least $2.4 billion because the county is going to take an insane amount of time to pay back its loans. Because it can’t afford a new stadium. And they’re still going to draw 8,000 fans a night. Has there ever been a worse idea than this?

(This is an early rendering, missing the tarp over the unused top deck)

• Tim Lincecum finally gave up a run after more than 29 scoreless innings. He actually took a no-hitter into the seventh inning against the Padres last night, but gave up three runs in the inning. No worries, though, as the Giants still won 9-3.

• Things got ugly last night during a soccer match between Mexico and Panama in Houston. There were fights in the stands, and apparently a Panamanian player fell off a stretcher when he got pelted by debris from Mexican fans. I guess it all started when the Mexican coach thought it would be OK to try and kick one of Panama’s players:

• Rickey Henderson’s jersey is going to be retired by the A’s on August 1st. Rickey, of course, just thinks they’re reserving the number for him when he makes his comeback.

• FANHOUSE discusses a little-known fact about NBA salaries. Due to a clause in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, all NBA players had to give 9% of their salaries back to their teams. All of this money went into an escrow fund, and is being redistributed to every team equally, in the sum of $6.3 million per team.

• San Diego State fired football coach Chuck Long back in November, but he’s continued to show up for work every day because his contract guarantees him his salary of more than $715,000 per year if he keeps coming to the office. What exactly he’s doing, nobody knows. SDSU can’t force him to leave, but the SAN DIEGO TIMES-UNION says the school is paying a consultant $125 an hour to try and mediate a settlement with Long and get him to leave (thanks the WIZ OF ODDS for the tip).

(”How’s that Pensky file coming along, Chuck?”)

• A group of Canadians are working on an offer for the Phoenix Coyotes, and they totally want to keep the team in Phoenix. I mean, what group of Canadians wouldn’t want the team to keep failing in when they could be selling out a new arena in suburban Toronto every night?

• The D-Backs were crusing through five innings last night, leading 7-0 over the Marlins. It was still 7-4 after seven. Then the eighth inning happened. 13 hitters, eight hits, two errors, and a passed ball later, Florida had scored a franchise-record 10 runs in the inning.

• The Nats and Astros resumed a game last night that was suspended on May 5th with the score tied at 10. The Nats, the home team on the scoreboard, only took seven minutes to push the winning run across — in Houston. Even stranger, the winning pitcher was Joel Hanrahan, who now plays for the Pirates.

• Ron Artest has worn a different number everywhere he’s gone, so it’s no surprise that he’s changing it up again with the Lakers. According to INSIDE THE LAKERS, Ron-Ron’s going to wear #37 — because it’s the number of weeks Thriller was the #1 album. Top that tribute, Griffey.

• Lakers point guard Jordan Farmar just played poker for the first time two weeks ago, but he’s still alive in the main event at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. Of the 6,494 players who started the tourney, only about 1,500 are left going into today’s play (and 648 will get paid). While it’s still way too early, Farmar would face an interesting dilemma if he were to make the final table. That table won’t be played until early November, which is during the NBA season. Would the Lakers let him miss a game or two to finish a poker tournament? Actually, I’m really rooting for this to happen so we find out. First place, by the way, is more than $8 million — much more than Farmar makes at his job.

• Speaking of poker, ex-WWE star Torrie Wilson also played in the main event, but busted out early (and often!):

• Soccer WAG Abbey Clancy really needs to find a swimsuit top that fits.

• Just a few weeks before his death in an alleged murder-suicide, Steve McNair had filmed a public service announcement about suicide prevention.

• An Aussie tennis player gets slapped with a fine & suspended for six months for shouting a racial slur at a South African opponent.

• The Mountain West & WAC hate the BCS, but don’t hate the BCS’ money.

• Has it really been 30 years since Disco Demolition Night more or less demolished Comiskey Park?

Read more…

The word “ironic” gets thrown around a lot these days, usually in places it has no business being used. The word actually describes something happening that is the opposite of what one might reasonably expect. Rain on your wedding day is not ironic, unless your wedding date was moved to a desert specifically to avoid rain. 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife is not ironic, merely an annoying pain in the ass.

(No matter what, this is how we choose to remember McNair.)

Internet grammarians can argue back and forth about this one until the cows come home, but it won’t make it any less haunting and sad: only weeks before the murder-suicide that took Steve McNair’s life, the former Titans QB filmed a suicide-prevention ad for the Tennessee Department of Mental Health. Ye Gods.

Read more…

The NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN reports this afternoon that, “Police have determined that Sahel Kazemi murdered former Titans quarterback Steve McNair last weekend with four shots while he was asleep on the couch, then sat down next to him and shot herself in the temple.“

(Sahel Kazemi with friend in Las Vegas)

Nashville Police Chief Ronal Serpas said that a four-day investigation revealed Kazemi, “had become very distraught, and on two occasions told friends and associates that her life was all messed up and she ‘was going to end it all.’ Several things were overwhelming her, including financial problems … Her roommate was moving out, meaning her rent payment was about to increase. She was also making payments on the Escalade she co-owned with McNair.“

Residue from the murder weapon was found on Kazemi’s left hand, which appears to be the final piece of the puzzle for police to declare her McNair’s murderer.

Serpas also addressed the question of why no one heard the shots coming from the condo early Sunday morning.

Read more…

• FIU’s cheerleader squad is back in business - thanks to a bikini car wash!

• Welcome back to New York, Manny Ramirez! Now get out of here.

• Interesting that Keith Norfleet, ex-boyfriend of Sahel Kazemi, would write & perform a rap about shooting someone to death.

• Also interesting is the fact that Steve McNair’s mistress put all her furniture up for sale on the day of her DUI & suspected gun purchase.

• Despite the tragedy, it doesn’t seem like the ex-QB is Hall of Fame-bound.

Read more…

Tennessee’s DAILY NEWS JOURNAL has more info today that indicates the mistress of Steve McNair, Sahel Kazemi, was dead set on moving in with the still-married McNair.

Excerpt:

On the day of her DUI and the day police said she bought a gun, Sahel Kazemi posted all her furniture to Craigslist under a headline: ‘NICE FURNITURE. TV, COUCH, COFFE TABLE AND MORE - $1 (hermitage).’

The cell number listed in the ad matches the number police got from Kazemi, 20, on July 2 when she was arrested. It was later that day that police said she bought the gun that was found beneath her body.

Family members have said she was getting rid of her furniture because she was planning to move in with McNair. She listed a flat-screen TV, couch, dining room set and coffee table for sale.

So now the question pops up, why would she buy the gun on the same day she was selling her furniture - presumably to move in with McNair? Read more…

As if this story needed any more surreal twists, Sahel Kazemi’s former boyfriend, Keith Norfleet, wrote and performed a rap song about killing an older man with a handgun about four months ago. NASHVILLE CITY PAPER uncovered the song on Tuesday, in which Norfleet, an aspiring rapper who goes by the name of KaNe, raps about guns, putting a clip in someone’s mouth, and telling an older man, “you’ll die, I promise.” The state medical examiner has said that it’s likely Kazemi orchestrated the murder-suicide of herself and her boyfriend, ex-Titans quarterback Steve McNair, but police are not yet ruling out any possibilities.

(Keith Norfleet and his ex-girlfriend, Sahel Kazemi)

The rap, entitled “Closed Casket,” was downloaded onto SoundClick.com on Feb. 2, which is after Kazemi and McNair began their relationship. Norfleet voluntarily talked to police the day after the shootings, and is not considered a suspect. But he has admitted being in the Nashville condo the day of the tragedy, saying that he was looking for Kazemi. Link to “Closed Casket” below. Read more…

The Manny Ramirez Traveling Salvation Show hit a snag last night in New York, thanks to an umpire with a hair trigger. Well, it’s hard to call anything about John Hirschbeck’s fifth-inning ejection of Ramirez “hair trigger,” since it took roughly 15 minutes seconds from when Hirschbeck rung Ramirez up on a called third strike to when he tossed Ramirez from the game for throwing his helmet, bat, elbow guard, cleats, socks and jock strap into the air in disgust.

Manny didn’t seem to think it was that big of a deal, since “I was playing only five innings, so I was leaving anyway.” Which came as news to Dodgers manager Joe Torre. Not that it mattered much - with Ramirez going 2 for 4 with three RBI and Clayton Kershaw throwing six shutout innings, the Dodgers cruised to an 8-0 win over the Mets. But it did give Los Angeles residents driven nutty by the Michael Jackson Circus a chance to remember the other, ridiculously overblown media circus in town.

If you are a college football fan who hates the current BCS system, you had reason to celebrate yesterday as Sen. Orrin Hatch ordered up a can of whoop-ass with a side of hash on the football elite during a congressional hearing about the college football playoff system, and the Senate cafeteria was all out of hash. Specifically, he said that “the Justice Department ought to be looking at this” because he believes the system violates antitrust laws.

(Play the BCS off, Keyboard Hatch.)

Which is great, until you realize that Hatch was the only member of the subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights to actually attend any significant portion of the hearing. But there were plenty of junior staffers there, fresh out of college and probably the only people outside of Hatch and Barack Obama who care about college football in Washington D.C.

Also, you have to understand that Hatch is from Utah, where the majority of the state is still steaming about the undefeated Utes being left out of the BCS Title Game last season, so there’s certainly an element of “playing it up for the home constituants” going on here. So you basically had Hatch grilling the President of Nebraska University, who was acting on behalf of the BCS Backers, which is kind of sad when you realize that Nebraska is roughly one zillion percent less likely to play in a BCS Title Game in our lifetimes than Utah.

Meanwhile, you might remember a small link we had yesterday about U.S. National Soccer Team midfielder Michael Bradley being suspended following a red card and subsequent confrontation with a referee at the end of the team’s shocking 2-0 win over Spain in the Confederations Cup. And it turns out that he will be suspended for three games, although it’s perhaps the weakest three-game suspension in sports history.

Ever get mad when a pitcher receives a five-game suspension for his part in a brawl, which only means that his next start gets pushed back one game? This one is even worse. FIFA has suspended Bradley for three games, all right - three games that he was never going to play in. The suspension will be served during the group play stage of the CONCACAF Gold Cup, which is convenient for Bradley since he’s not on the roster for the tournament.

Which means that Bradley will be available for the U.S. next game that matters, a World Cup qualifying match at Mexico on August 12. Somewhere in Mexico City, a Mexican senator is preparing a special committee hearing.

Other sports news that happened while you were fighting for the rights of busty mannequins everywhere, especially if they turn into Kim Catrall:

• DEUCE OF DAVENPORT knows that the only thing better than Erik Estrada drunkenly butchering “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during a Cubs game is him giving an interview in the booth during the game that somehow works in child porn and Ron Jeremy. A master class in awkwardness in two parts: First the singing…

…and then the interview:

• Lance Armstrong has moved to within a second of the yellow jersey after his Astana team cleaned up during a team stage during the Tour de France. Which I’m sure no one in America cares about, but it has to be irritating the French more than a canceled Jerry Lewis movie marathon, and that’s always a good thing.
• When playing for Russian side CSKA three years ago, Yuri Zhirkov didn’t take the advice of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich to learn English. Which is a problem, since Abramovich signed Zhirkov to a a huge deal on Monday, and the winger will have to deal with struggling to communicate with his teammates.
• When GM Joe Dumars fired Michael Curry as head coach of the Detroit Pistons, he claimed that the team needed a more experienced hand at the helm. Which makes it curious why he eventually decided to give Cavaliers assistant John Kuester his first crack at an NBA head coaching job. Couldn’t have anything to do with both Doug Collins and Avery Johnson bailing from the gig? But Kuester has been a head coach at Boston…University, which is close to the Celtics, right?
• Another depressing sign of the economic times: the NBA salary cap will decrease next year for only the second time in 26 years. The cap number next year is $57.7 million, down almost one million dollars from last year. So when Dwayne Wade lashes out at the Miami Heat for failing to land a big free agent again, they have a ready-made excuse.
• Reports are circulating that Mike Krzyzewski is going to be coming back to coach Team USA at the 2010 World Championships and the 2012 Summer Olympics. Because as he showed in Beijing, he clearly could handle coaching with limited talent.
• If you had forgotten about it in the wake of the Michael Jackson Media Overload, just a gentle reminder about swine flu: IT’S GOING TO KILL US ALL! Swimmer Kate Ziegler had to pull out of the U.S. Nationals with swine flu, which is also sweeping through the World University Games in Belgrade. If Ron Weasley can’t use his Muggle magic to stave off the swine flu, no one is safe.
• In case you were wondering if there was any bad blood between Brock Lesnar and Frank Mir ahead of their heavyweight title unification rematch, CAGEWRITER answers with a resounding “yep” after watching the two trade barbs during the “Countdown to UFC 100″ on SPIKE. Also, Lesnar thinks the referee of the first match is an idiot, and really, really hates doors.
  

• Meanwhile, if you were curious, UFC fighter Quinton “Rampage” Jackson is still insane. He’s not crashing an SUV with his name and picture on it after a wild car chase this time, but SPORTS RUBBISH says he is dry humping unsuspecting reporters during interviews.
  

• Interesting news about “aspiring rapper” Keith Norfleet, the ex-boyfriend of Sahel Kazemi. Not only was he the person who picked her up after she was popped for a DUI in Steve McNair’s car, but he also emailed a local newspaper the following: “Pretty interesting news about our golden boy McNair…You would be pretty amazed at the fact of who he was actually with, which I really don’t think his wife would like it too much either.”

• A Tennessee state medical examiner says it’s “likely” that Sahel Kazemi was the one who shot & killed Steve McNair. But the case continues.

• Phillies flatten Reds with a 22-1 drubbing - the worst in Cincy’s history.

• When it comes to major leaguers on rehab assignments treating their temporary minor league brethren to a fine meal, Manny’s a miser.

• The Tampa Bay Rays are suing a man for selling shirts with a supposed similar starburst logo.

• Prime suspect Mark Becker has plead not guilty in the shooting death of popular Iowa high school football coach Ed Thomas.

Read more…

More news today for you in the Sahel Kazemi/Steve McNair murder mystery.

The TENNESSEAN reports this morning that Kazemi bought a semi-automatic pistol in haste last week - immediately after being bailed out by McNair for her DUI charge in his Escalade. The same pistol was discovered under the body of Kazemi at the crime scene and was used in both shootings.

(Sahel Kazemi, 20-year-old mistress of Steve McNair)

The Nashville paper also notes the generic nature of the condo where killings occured. How it resembled a sterile timeshare. (I think we all know what that means.) Additionally, numerous liquor bottles were found in the dwelling, which of course could indicate alcohol was involved in the crime. Every person who claimed to know Kazemi well has said she was quiet and wouldn’t hurt a fly. You wonder if her personality though would change when fueled by alcohol and the drugs that made her “high” when she was popped for DUI.

It also makes one wonder about what else could’ve been removed from McNair’s condo by friend Wayne Neely, who didn’t report the crime scene to police for an hour after discovering the bodies.

More important though is new, candid comments from Tennessee State Medical Examiner Bruce Levy to the newspaper. Read more…