11:35 PMCal upsets Stanford @ The Farm on Saturday night 34-28. Cardinal QB Andrew Luck goes 11-29 passing, including a late INT deep in Cal territory. Coach Jim Harbaugh with a questionable 4th down, Belichickian call that caused Stanford to need a late TD to win.
10:09 PM ESPN BCS guru Brad Edwards reports today on ESPN Radio that Penn State will be selected over Iowa for Fiesta Bowl. Iowa is likely to land in the Capital One Bowl, in a game against Ole Miss. Edwards cited TV ratings, fueled by Joe Paterno's presence, as reason PSU gets BCS over Iowa.
10:08 PMDrew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press reports on ESPN News Saturday night that UM AD Bill Martin has confirmed Rich Rodriguez will be back next season as Michigan Coach.
If you’d rather catch up on your laundry and clean out the cat box than see Terrell Owens primping in the ladies room, listen to Kevin Costner sing for an hour, rub elbows with the owner of the L.A. Clippers, and hear about Chris Berman flying on private planes, I have great news.
(Apparently this gentleman (left) caught up on his laundry before last weekend)
Chris Berman presided over the festivities, which meant they kept a half-dozen dry, pressed Hawaiian shirts under the bar for quick changes every quarter hour.
Markazi notes that during the party, Berman told partygoers that he “has been flying on private planes for the past five years.”
• Lions fans should be pretty excited that they’re still going to go 12-4, according to Roy Williams. The Cubs are also going to be the only team to come back from a 3-0 deficit in a best-of-five series.
There have been plenty of great baseball movies made throughout history, and for a lot of people one of the best ever made was Bull Durham. Personally, I don’t include Bull Durham in my list of the greatest baseball movies because I don’t consider it a baseball movie. In reality it’s just a chick flick disguised as a baseball movie, as it’s more about the love triangle between Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, and Kevin Costner than it is about baseball.
I do realize that there are people who think differently about the flick, though, and those folks are going to be pretty happy to hear this. Apparently there have been plans for a sequel to the movie for a while, and those plans are finally starting to get off the ground.
With all apologies to the folks at the Cell for the Sox-Twins game, the real blackout on Tuesday night took place in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where Middle Tennessee Blue Raider fans ignored the color suggestion provided by their nickname and donned the darkest color of them all in a show of solidarity. The Raiders, wearing black unis for the first time ever, responded by delivering a 14-13 win over Florida Atlantic on a crazy, last-second Hail Mary that sent the crowd of nearly 26,000 into a frenzy. On a 4th-and-8 play, QB Joe Craddock heaved one into the endzone on what ended up being the last play of the game, and MTSU’s Malcolm Beyah pulled it down amidst a sea of, uhhh, mostly other teammates of his. Nice prevent D, there, FAU.
And yes, the White Sox finally got their chance to celebrate with the champagne and all that. Most exciting about the Sox’ first postseason appearance since they won it all in 2005 is that we can finally get a little bit of this guy back in our life:
As you may remember, Steve Perry was adopted as an unofficial mascot by the 2005 Sox after they chose “Don’t Stop Believin’” as their theme song on their “journey” to the World Series title. They even had Perry celebrate with them in the clubhouse after all of the big wins. But, from what I understand, Tampa has Kevin Costner writing its playoff song this year. I don’t know if Perry can hang with the immensely relevant powerhouse that carried Swing Vote to box office records.
In other baseball news, Cliff Lee and Brad Lidge are your comeback players of the year. Lee went 22-3 with a 2.54 ERA this season and the Indians were nowhere close to making the playoffs. Last year, he was a crappy 5-8 with a 6.29 ERA and his team came within one game of the World Series. Go figure. Lidge’s career was nearly destroyed by Albert Pujols in 2005, but he bounced back to go 41-for-41 on saves this year.
Speaking of the Phillies, Pat Burrell tweaked his back during batting practice yesterday and his status is unknown going into today’s playoff opener against the Brewers. The Phils are trying to avoid a repeat of last year’s NLDS disaster, when they fell flat on their face and didn’t win a game against the Rockies.
Not satisfied to watch their cross-town rivals sign their GM to an extension after missing the playoffs, the Yankees followed suit by extending Brian Cashman for three years. Now Cashman gets to deal with having like 17 guys who can’t do anything but play a crappy first base.
Today is a bittersweet day for baseball fans across America. Sure, it’s awesome that the playoffs are finally here, but the Frank TV promos are just getting fired up. You know, without the writers’ strike this show would’ve gotten its fair chance to die last year.
Now, without further ado:
Maria Sharapova isn’t playing tennis these days, so the only way to sneak in gratuitous photos of her is to talk about who she’s dating. BITTEN AND BOUND says the lucky dude is Charlie Ebersol, son of NBC Sports lord Dick Ebersol and Kate from Kate & Allie.
Not to be outdone by Jason Williams‘ retirement announcement, Jayson Williams is back in the news because one of the investigators in his manslaughter case used a racial slur, according to the ASSOCIATED PRESS. Naturally, the slur caused him retroactively to shoot his limo driver.
A.J. Pierzynski is a giant d-bag, but CHICAGO BULL loves him anyway.
It’s apparently illegal for a goaltender to be a team captain in the NHL, but that didn’t stop the Canucks from naming Roberto Luongo to the post, says the HOCKEY NEWS. He’s still the captain, he just can’t actually do anything that captains do in a hockey game. He can’t even wear the “C” on his shirt.
Writer/Director Ron Shelton was back around some old stomping grounds on Wednesday, helping celebrate the 20th anniversary of one of the most well-known sports movies to hit the silver screen.
The movie, of course, is “Bull Durham“, Shelton’s cinematic masterpiece about the lives, laughs & loves in the world of minor league baseball. Ron had returned to Durham, NC, to partake in the celebratory festivities honoring the film.
But during a luncheon, Shelton mentioned the possibility of a plan that’s death to many a memorable movie - a sequel! Read more…
Since “Talk of the Nation”’s producers aren’t nuanced enough in the world of sport to catch all the rascals, one person slipped through security to ask about an old rumor: did the Orioles once cancel a night game with ‘electrical problems’ because Ripken couldn’t be found?
COLLEGE WORLD SERIES MAY BE OUT OF OMAHA BY 2011: The ping at Rosenblatt may soon fall silent, as the College World Series may be looking for greener pastures:
The OMAHA WORLD-HERALD pitches us news that the NCAA’s current listing of the 2011 CWS doesn’t mention a host site. This small omission has the folks in Omaha concerned, since the College World Series has been held in the Nebraska city for the past 58 years.The NCAA has been mulling over the option of moving the college baseball championship out of the 1948-built Rosenblatt Stadium.
An NCAA spokesman said the early event posting sans-city was a routine procedure. But if the organization decides to say ta-ta to Omaha, other cities have been eyeballed as potential Series hosts.The three locales reported to be in the top running are Indianapolis (home of the NCAA), Oklahoma City (home of the Women’s Softball World Series) and Orlando (home of Disney World).
Omaha mayor Mike Fahey has been pushing the idea of building a new downtown ballpark for the Series and for the minor league Omaha Royals.
Meanwhile, a local group has recruited the likes of Kevin Costner to help save the park and keep the CWS at the ‘Blatt.It’s bad enough for Nebraskans to have lost their pigskin dominance, do they ned to lose their ping bling, too?
