8:07 PMAdam Schefter on a possible destination for Larry Johnson: "When Larry Johnson left Penn State, the one team he wanted to most play for was the Steelers. If he clears waivers, he'd love Pittsburgh." Wait, is Mike Tomlin qualified enough for L.J.?
7:36 PMFrom this report by ESPN's Chris Mortensen, it certainly appears that the NFL will hold league office-enated punishment from the Randy Hanson incident over the head of Raiders Coach Tom Cable unless he gets counseling. As the league should, good move.
7:18 PM AOL's Jeff Fletcher reports tonight, "(Dodgers GM Ned) Colletti, on Joe Torre: "He's expressed a serious interest in coming back (beyond 2010). We'll talk about it and see where it goes." Perhaps Torre anticipating an ownership change? Know something we don't, Joe?
What would you say if we told you somebody got Stephen Hawking, Michael Jordan, Gandhi, and King Kong together? Right, exactly, that would be the BALLINEST PARTY IN ALL OF HISTORY. And what if we told you it was in Brazil? So much the better, right?
(That? That is… exactly what it looks like. It’s #23 going #1.)
So in case you don’t already think so, things are about to get weird. Because the four characters (one of whom is fictional, another of whom is dead, and a third of whom is entirely immobile and confined to a wheelchair) are in a commercial. To save the environment. By saving water. By peeing in the shower. No, really, that’s all true. Watch for yourself, below the break.
You see in Brazil, they know how to scorn an opponent. You make your tiny, weak sign accusing Manny Ramirez of taking steroids, they unfurl a giant banner declaring Ronaldo “King of the Transvestites”. Nice teamwork and execution there. Plus, it’s a positive, upbeat message: They’re not saying that Ronaldo is a “dirty transvestite lover” or something like that. He is their king!
Fans of Brazilian soccer club Flamengo are obviously a little peeved at our chubby hero for forsaking their team at the last minute and signing with arch rival Corinthians a while back. Add to that Ronaldo’s infamous run-in with a couple of transvestite hookers last year, and you have the makings for comedy gold on Saturday at Maracanã stadium, when Corinthians came to town. But the banner was only the beginning. Read more…
Despite the fact that police announced nearly immediately that Arturo Gatti was strangled to death by his wife last weekend, a report in a Brazilian newspaper claims that the circumstance of Gatti’s death are anything but clear. The JORNAL DE COMERCIO acquired an autospy report that indicates he very well could have killed himself while his wife slept, as she has contended all along.
According to the findings in the report, Gatti’s injuries were consistent with someone who was “suspended and hanged,” indicating that he may have actually committed suicide. Gatti’s wife, Amanda Rodrigues, insists that she found him dead when she woke up in the apartment the couple was renting. Could the authorities really be getting this all wrong? Have we all been showing a little too much faith in the Brazilian justice system?
Another weekend, another sad sports death. Boxer Arturo “Thunder” Gatti has been murdered at the age of 37. According to news report, Gatti was smashed in the back of the head with a blunt object at a condo he and his wife were renting in Brazil for a second honeymoon. What a way to go.
Gatti, who retired in 2007, was one of the most exciting boxers in recent memory and is perhaps best remembered for his epic 2001-2003 trilogy of fights against Micky Ward. That trilogy managed that rarest of feats in modern times - getting casual sports fans to take notice of boxing. Remembrance after the jump.
Brazilian soccer club Sertaozinho needed to celebrate, having just won promotion. Ticker tape parades being the logistical nightmares they are, off the players went on top of a sound truck through the city streets. Their only restraints were some side rails, a detail that never comes up unless something terrible happens.
(Shirtless Guy Who Doesn’t Even Flinch At The Crash, you are the runaway winner of the Creepiest Detail Award. Please accept your trophy in my nightmares.)
Surprisingly, putting over a ton of weight at the very top of a large vehicle tends to skew its center of gravity. Surprisinglier, the roads aren’t perfect in Sao Paulo. Surprisingliest, one dip in the road and the entire team was thrown off the top of the bus.
(Video of the Brazilian bus plunge after the break.) Read more…
Woody Hayes. Buddy Ryan. The names have become synonymous with ridiculous outbursts in which the coaching idols drilled either opposing players or their own assistant coaches. Well, now they’ve both been upstaged by Pedro Santilli, the manager of Brazilian soccer club Comercial, who took out an opposing player and a ref on a single run out on to the field.
(Guess which one likes to punch refs? Here’s a hint: He has white hair.)
According to the soccer blog THE SPOILER, Santilli was upset with a call and wanted to inspire his team, which was facing relegation from Brazil’s top division with a loss. Unfortunately, when he grabbed a second ball and ran out on the pitch with it to try and show that his team deserved the ball, he also ran over a player from the opposing team, Catanduvense. But that didn’t stop the former assistant coach of the Brazilian national team. No, instead he went right back over, picked his ball back up, walked up to referee Flavio Rodrigues de Souza (who had just ejected him) and drilled him with a nasty right uppercut.
That’s right, in one span of approximately 60 seconds, a coach ran over a player like a speed bump and punched a coach. That has to be some kind of land-speed record. Luckily, we have video of the incident after the break, so you can time it for yourself.
After 20 years of spikes, sand and spandex, Brazilian beach volleyball legend Sandra Pires says she’s served enough time serving up shots and is calling it quits.
I was not aware that beach volleyball has been around long enough as a big-time sport to actually have “legends”. But Sandra did win a gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics & claimed a bronze at the 2000 Sydney Games, and she has over 1,000 overall volleyball victories to her name. So Sandra does deserve some respect on that front.
But I believe this is what truly makes her a legend:
We’re only on Day 3 of the “Alex Rodriguez may have been exposed to-tested positive for-admitting taking steroids” epic, and clearly this scandal is already getting such an overwhelming media tap out that everyone is completely burned out on it already. It’s just the bottom line truth, end of story.
Yes, the Peter Gammons interview was riveting the first time. Unfortunately for all of us, it lasts for 35 minutes. That’s approximately 15 minutes too long for any mentally balanced human being. Hey, it’s so long we had to break it up into three different video segments just to show it here.
By our calculations, SportsCenter devoted all but approximately 8 minutes of its 6 p.m. broadcast to the A-Rod steroids scandal (and that’s a liberal assessment). Things were a little better for the 11:30 slot with Stuart Scott and Scott Van Pelt, though the duo still had to sit in the A-Rod sidecar for some 34 minutes.
Of course, that isn’t going to stop anyone from weighing in as heavily as they know how to, and all of the Sports pages in New York — and around the country — are delivering their $0.02 with exactly the broad range of reactions you’d expect from a city that hosts the country’s most respected reporting (THE NEW YORK TIMES) and it’s most hackneyed headlines (THE NEW YORK POST).
Let’s start with the measured responses, shall we? THE NEW YORK TIMES offers the straight take, even going so far as to refer to steroids as “performance enhancers”. But, as NYTIMES.com oft does, it also delivers a pretty snazzy graphic, complete with a year-by-year look at Rodriguez’s development. That’s more than you can say for the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS, which has a pretty balanced Sports front page, but includes a rotating front page top story that has a brightly splashed “I WAS STUPID” in front of A-Rod’s contemplative mug. NEWSDAY goes into attack mode, starting it’s homepage with a story attempting to shoot holes into A-Rod’s apologetic interview, and also pimping a banner that claims Rodriguez may be called to testify in Washington. If true, that’s a hell of a story.
Yet for all the New York papers, none can ever compare to the NEW YORK POST. As with all the other New York papers save THE TIMES, the POST gives President Obama the boot for A-Rod, but dampens down it’s screaming “A-Roid” based print backpage for an “I WAS STUPID” front. Somehow we thought it would be worse.
And leave it to Darren Rovell to nail the most interesting angle on the whole thing. The biggest loser in the A-Rod scandal is … wait for it … the city budget of Cooperstown New York. Bet you didn’t see that coming, did you.
The blogosphere has been no different, unfortunately. Deadspin gets first prize for best ironic take, focusing on A-Rod’s bizarre skin color rather than his drug habit. Daulerio claims that it could be the Bahamas effect, though we’ve been skeptical of this DAILY NEWS report since it came out. Why? Because other reports had him at the bedside of his ailing daughter in a Miami hospital. Agent Scott Boras’s weekend response that he was out of the country gives creedence to the Bahamas rumor, but his ex-wife Cynthia sure seems to give credibility to the idea he was in Miami. So, rather that “What color is A-Rod?”, maybe we should all be asking “Where the hell was A-Rod?”
You know what? Forget it. We just can’t take any more A-Rod analysis. Yes, it’s probably important. Yes, just about everyone has to weigh in on it, because now we finally know what it would have been like if Barry Bonds or Mark McGwire had admitted being users. But at the end of the day, while it’s been fascinating for a day, it’s a killer for three. Consider us dead.
If you saw Lil’ Wayne’s appearance on ESPN First Take’s “1st and 10″ earlier this year, you’ll be pretty excited about this next item: He’s going to be on AROUND THE HORN. Really. Can you imagine what Woody Paige is going to look like trying to come up with a response to a Lil Wayne retort? Priceless.
You know, there were some actual sports on last night. In fact, there was a heck of a game between Kansas and Missouri, which magically erased a 14-point halftime deficit. That’s saying something against Kansas, too.
In case you don’t already know NASCAR driver Joey Logano, well, get to know him. He’s like Tony Stewart except younger and more talented.
In case you missed it amidst all the A-Roid hype, one of England’s biggest soccer teams, Chelsea, fired it’s manager, former Brazil World Cup Winner Luis Felipe Scolari, Sunday night. Well, they have a new caretaker manager named Ray Wilkins, who may or may not have played a pivotal role in teabagging an assistant coach. Yes, that kind of teabag.
Speaking of soccer, Spanish giants Real Madrid spent $30 million bringing in a Dutch striker just a few weeks ago during the January transfer window. Guess what? Klauss Jan Huntelaar already wants out. Good management there folks.
OK, we tried to avoid it, but we’ve got to get back into soccer for one last story. This one is just too bizarre: A Brazilian goalkeeper who suffers a complete emotional breakdown on the pitch after letting in a sloppy goal. It’s as embarrassing as it sounds:
