• Suspected steroid abuser Manny Ramirez gets a rude reception from San Francisco Giants fans - the same Giants fans who were so passionate in supporting suspected steroid abuser Barry Bonds.

• 49ers coach Mike Singletary makes a mountain out of a molehill, forcing QB Alex Smith to watch the rest of practice from high above.

• Bobby Bowden would like to share his prostate problems with you.

• EA sports donates advanced copies of Madden 10 to a U.S. submarine crew who are shipping out before the game’s official release date.

• Would it really kill the NHL to let Jim Balsillie move the Phoenix Coyotes to Hamilton, Ontario?

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Many people much wiser and braver than myself have described life in the military as - we’re paraphrasing here - unendurable boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. A Marine friend spent the better part of the 2003 Iraq invasion sitting outside in the Kuwaiti desert heat, smoking cigarettes and watching Disney DVDs. That’s not to say that sitting around in wartime is fun - the 130-degree heat, constant preparedness and the knowledge your life could end any minute takes a major physical and mental toll, even if you’re watching The Lion King while puffing on a Marlboro.

EA Sports recognizes this, and has decided to do something pretty cool about it - giving advance copies of Madden 2010 to a group of submariners deploying just before the game’s August 14 release date. As far as supporting our troops, this beats the hell out of a magnetic made-in-China ribbon.

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After Affliction’s sudden, immediate, largely hilarious demise in the world of fight promotion (no worries, meatheads, you can still wear those silly shirts with the skulls and stuff on them), all eyes were immediately trained on human/wolverine hybrid Fedor Emelianenko.

(FEDOR FACT: punching people in the face is awesome.)

With his stature and the seeming dearth of serious UFC competition for fellow destruction machine Brock Lesnar, it seemed like Emelianenko was a natural fit for moving to the UFC. As a matter of fact, the LOS ANGELES TIMES cited sources close to the situation in a report that Fedor would be signing with UFC by Friday.

Um, about that. Whoops.

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Meet Tim Kennedy, a combat veteran who is assigned to the 7th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg, N.C. (read: Green Beret). At least he will be posted there until Aug. 4, when his six-year enlistment runs out. Kennedy is choosing not to return, because his unit commanders won’t let him participate in his other love besides the U.S. military: Mixed Martial Arts.

By all appearances, he’s pretty good at both. Kennedy, who trained with Chuck Liddell before joining the Army, beat Nick Thompson, ranked 10th in the world in his weight class by MMAWeekly.com, on June 19 in a fight aired on Showtime. If it were me, I’d want someone like that on our side, and would do everything in my power to keep him happy. But then I’ve never invaded Iraq.

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ESPN may be boycotting the Ben Roethlisberger story, but it’s all over this breaking news: Former Cincinnati Bengals & current Seattle Seahawks receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh (“championship!”) is boycotting “Madden ‘10″ because, he says, his rating is too low. (Terrorists throw up hands in disgust, say it’s just not worth hating us anymore).

Houshmandzadeh (“championship!”) appeared on Colin Schrutebag’s show on Monday and waxed eloquently on a variety of subjects, including the fact that Seahawks coach Jim Mora invited Houshmandzadeh to climb Mount Rainier with him. But the most head-scratchingly funny moment came when he discussed the Madden ‘10 video game: Read more…

• Erin Andrews seems to look a bit emaciated at the MLB All-Star Game:

Somebody get that gal a huge plate of St. Louis BBQ ribs, pronto!

• Pics of the bloody strap & knife that Amanda Rodrigues allegedly used to kill her ex-boxer husband Arturo Gatti.

• If the United Football League will be remembered for anything, it could be for the wireless QB wristband known as the ID Coach.

• Delaware to allow betting on NFL games. Wilmington, here we come!

• Albert Pujols says he’s so not doing steroids that he dares you to help yourself to his bathwater.

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As you might recall, EA Sports revealed that they’re developing an MMA game, cleverly titled “MMA.” That’s strange, because the UFC already has their own game through THQ (with their own fighters, naturally) that’s already out and selling reasonably well.

(Are they seriously trying to brand this thing with a tramp stamp?)

Then again, it’s also strange because according to UFC’s head hypermanic gorilla in charge, Dana White, EA Sports told him just last year that his sport, well, wasn’t one. Fast forward to today, and the war is on.

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What the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo is for fans of erotica, E3 is for hardcore gamers. Starting today in Los Angeles and going through Thursday, E3 is a virtual cornucopia of excess for the gaming world, with all of the big names making major announcements and rolling out new titles. (And with every company employing scads of scantily-clad “booth workers” to intice horny video game nerds, it’s a lot closer to an adult video convention than you would think.) And while the main headline so far has been the announcement of “Rock Band: Beatles” (complete with a virtual Yoko Ono shrieking at you during the Expert levels), there has also been plenty of news on the sports video gaming front.

For example, GAMASUTRA says that EA Sports (the 700 lb. gorilla of sports video games) is readying an MMA video game for a 2010 release, as a competitor to the UFC-branded game series by THQ. Their press release on “EA Sports MMA” mentions that they plan on having “a vast array of top fighters and fighting styles from around the world,” which seems almost impossible without the UFC brand. They could include fighters like Fedor Emelianenko, Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski, but the names the casual fan knows will be tough to pull off since they are all part of the UFC banner.

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• Manny Ramirez gets suspended for 50 games after failing a drug test.

How will the baseball media “experts” react to his Hall Of Fame status?

• But here’s an even bigger story coming straight outta Dodgertown - Kim Kardashian threw out last night’s first pitch!

• Is Red Sox Nation trying to fill the NL All-Star ballots full of Washington Nationals so Boston will have World Series home advantage?

• We figured Jelena Dokic’s dad was crazy & abusive, but would he really take out an Australian ambassador with a rocket attack?

• Ex-Nebraska & Arizona State QB Sam Keller is taking the NCAA & EA Sports to court over his likeness being used in a video game.

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I don’t play video games nearly as often as I did while still a teenager, but each year I do buy the newest version of EA Sports’ NCAA Football and then spend about two weeks ignoring all friends and responsibilities before putting the controller down. Every year when I get the game, I also make sure that I spend about an hour to an hour and a half manually entering the names of all the players on whichever team I’ve chosen, and the key players from the other schools as well. I just get tired of yelling at WR #83 for dropping passes, I need to know his name to make it real.

Of course the reason I have to do this is because EA Sports can’t use the actual players’ names because even though the NCAA licenses all the schools, mascots, stadiums, etc., they can’t allow them to use the players’ likenesses. Something about them being student athletes and not letting anybody profit off of them except themselves. So using a number instead of a name allows EA to do this.

However, that’s still across the line if you’re former Nebraska and Arizona State quarterback Sam Keller. He’s decided to sue both EA Sports and the NCAA about it.

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