For those of you who didn’t watch “The T.O. Show” on VH1 last night, consider yourselves the lucky few: like the residents of Johnstown who weren’t washed away by the giant flood, you somehow missed out on being carried away in a torrent of filth, muck and debris. For those of us contractually obligated to watch the show (this is why you should read contracts before agreeing to become a blogger), there’s no Red Cross volunteers coming to our rescue. We’re left shaking on the banks of the river as we try to comprehend what we just saw.

Maybe I’m being a bit over the top. But man, it wasn’t good.

To recap: Terrell Owens has a great body (honed by only the finest rubber bands your $19.95 can buy), and enjoys spending time showing it off. A lot of time showing it off. As in, going shirtless for about three-quarters of the show.  But, as you would hear any good pitchman say, that’s not all.

No VH1 “Celeb Reality” show can just be about following a celebrity around, so there has to be some sort of convoluted plot, and here the one for “The T.O. Show”: his “best friends” and “publicists” Kita Williams and Monique Jackson have convinced him to move to Los Angeles during the off-season to “find himself.” Which - according to the first episode - means the following things:

• Spending more than $100,000 on new diamond earrings.
• Hooking up with the trashy real estate agent who rents him the mansion he’s staying in during the show.  (I know that the market is tough, but this seems like excessively aggressive sales tactics, although maybe now is the right time to buy.)
• Going out to a club with said earrings, meeting a bunch of trashy women and inviting them home to “party” with him.
• His half-assed attempt to get back together with his ex-fiancee, who seems like the only semi-intelligent person on the show by getting the hell out of Dodge.

Somehow T.O. has managed to create a show with less likable characters than “Rock of Love” and even fewer morally redeeming qualities as “I Love Money.” It’s an exercise in egotistical wish fulfillment - T.O. is famous and wants a show, so someone had to give it to him - and the early reviews have been particularly brutal:

Terrell Owens is one beautiful man and he knows it, oh, Lord, he knows it, and so do his publicists, Kita Williams and Monique Jackson, the forces behind “The T.O. Show,” which premieres tonight on VH1. Why else would the publicity art include a nude portrait of the football star, why else would Owens spend at least 60% of his time in front of the camera shirtless?

Good thing too, because the sculpted pecs, mighty shoulders and perfect abs are just about the only thing the show has going for it. No, wait, I take that back; he has a lovely smile as well.  - LOS ANGELES TIMES

Your mama never warned you to watch out for reality TV, but it can be poison. You sense its brain destructiveness when you get up in the morning, thinking, “I can’t wait to see if T.O. makes it with the real estate agent.”

The T.O. Show is so shallow mosquitoes couldn’t breed in it, though it appears some of the humans are trying to, as Terrell Owens joins up with two publicists, who are also supposed to be his best friends. -PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

What VH1 gets out of the deal, frankly, is less clear, other than a strange amalgam of soap-opera pathos and jock-like bravado, with Owens taking marching orders from his ubiquitous “publicists,” who, given their time commitment to the athlete, surely must have no other clients. - VARIETY

…and don’t even get me started on T.O.’s bodyguard Pablo. Just…no.

Meanwhile, while”The T.O. Show” was premiering, another type of muck was being dredged up in Pittsburgh. PRO FOOTBALL TALK reports that Ben Roethlisberger is the subject of a civil suit filed by a hotel employee in Washoe County, NV who says that in July 2008, the Super Bowl MVP called her into his room to fix her TV, and then “forced her to have sex with him.”

Using a little bit of local knowledge, based on the locations given and the date, I’m going to assume this allegedly happened when Roethlisberger was in South Lake Tahoe last year for the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship. And if this sounds a lot to you like the allegations made against Kobe Bryant in Colorado a couple of years ago…you’re not the only one. Of course, the big difference here is that these are civil allegations - no criminal charges have ever been filed by Roethlisberger’s accuser.

Finally, former North Carolina wide receiver and point guard Jason Holley was revealed as the winner of Michael Irvin’s “4th and Long” reality TV show on Spike, and with it has earned a shot with the Dallas Cowboys during their training camp. Is it possible to do a reality show about football and not have the Cowboys involved? So help me, if Alvin Harper gets a show, I’m never watching TV again.

Other sports stories from last night:

• ESPN’s Jayson Stark has the details of Pedro Martinez’s contract with the Philadelphia Phillies, and as expected it’s heavily incentive-laden. He is only guaranteed $1 million for the rest of the season, but could make more than double that if he meets certain longevity and performance-based milestones.



(Can Pedro keep his midget well-cared for on $1 million a year?)

• Anyone who questions whether or not Jeremy Mayfield is hooked on crystal meth - as NASCAR and his stepmother claims - should check out this video from a few years ago of him giddily blowing up watermelons and full gas cans. Nope, that doesn’t sound like something a meth head would do at all.
  

• Maybe John Smoltz should have retired last season so he could go into the Hall of Fame with former Braves teammates Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine instead of trying a comeback with the Red Sox, if last night is any indication: he gave up three home runs as the Rangers (and another former Braves pitcher in Kevin Millwood) beat Boston, 6-3.
• A few weeks ago, Quinten Richardson was traded by the Memphis Grizzlies to the Los Angeles Clippers, which pretty much defines “sideways movement.” Last night the Clippers turned around and shipped him to the Minnesota Timberwolves, somehow going from bad to worse. On the plus side, Mark Madsen’s back in Lipstick City. Watch out on the dance floor.
• I guess it’s a job: former big league manager Terry Collins lands a new gig - leading the Duluth Huskies of the Northwoods League. Is this a step up or a step down from managing Team China?
• What to do if you’re eight months pregnant but want to hang out at the sports bar watching your favorite team play. Get a Maternity Jersey, of course. Or as they are otherwise known, “Rich Garces Style.”
• To commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Moon Landing, the Houston Astros wore special patches and caps. In addition, they also went out and got loaded on Tang and vodka.
• Mississippi State might have a first-year coach in Dan Mullen, but they’re already in midseason form in terms of arrests. Leading running back Anthony Dixon has been arrested on a DUI charge, the fifth Bulldog to be nabbed by police this off-season.
• Police have arrested a man who shot and paralyzed former NFL player Michael Woods 27 years ago and charged him with aggravated murder after Woods died from a related kidney infection six weeks ago,
• Tom Watson might have lost out on his bid to win the British Open at age 59, but his equipment sponsor Adams Golf might be a big winner, as their stock price has risen 18 percent since Watson took the tournament lead on Friday.

Sometimes, all you can ask for is closure. Not revenge or punishment or the eye for the proverbial eye; just enough to begin the healing process.

And so, according to the MIAMI HERALD, the family of Mario Reyes, the man Donte’ Stallworth stands accused of killing in a March DUI accident, have been described by prosecutors as “the primary force” in a plea deal that is expected to be accepted today. And rather than spending years and years in prison, Stallworth may only have a short jail stay:

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte’ Stallworth is expected to plead guilty Tuesday to driving drunk when he struck and killed a pedestrian on the MacArthur Causeway in March, The Miami Herald has learned.

Stallworth’s attorney, Christopher Lyons, confirmed that the case was expected to be resolved Tuesday in court. Lyons declined to detail terms of the plea, which are not yet public.

While this is good news for Stallworth and his family, it doesn’t mean his NFL career is back in play; even after the jail stay imposed by the judge, Stallworth will still have to be reinstated by the notoriously unsympathetic Roger Goodell.  This will be a remarkably tough decision for the commissioner; no matter what length of suspension he decides on, it’s still going to be met by (not entirely unreasonable) protests of “Oh, so that’s how many games a human life is worth?”

But all the same, the person who’s really going to be haunted by the specter of death here is Stallworth, not Goodell. That he, even accidentally, killed a fellow man is a fact that will saddle him long after he’s gone from the league.

*UPDATE*: Stallworth gets sentenced to 30 days in jail & two years of house arrest.

Okay, we need a fun story after all that. So, as we warned you earlier, Joe Buck’s talk show career just started last night. And, judging by what AWFUL ANNOUNCING found, it may have ended last night too.

The milquetoast play-by-play announcer for FOX had put together a decent, meh-but-not-terrible first episode, with appearances by Brett Favre (more on him later), Michael Irvin, Chad Ochocinco, and other famous members of the sports world. And then to close it out, he had on longtime friend Paul Rudd, a practically non-existent Jason Sudeikis, and, inexplicably, Artie Lange.

The audio is ludicrously NSFW, but if you’ve got earphones and/or a door to your office, you’ll want to check out Lange single-handedly derailing the show:

And then yes, Favre. Favre Favre Favre. He was the first guest on the show, and allowed make unironic claims like he’s not looking for attention. While he’s on, y’know, a nationally televised talk show. And to his credit, the fact that this is his first public appearance while ESPN has hammered coverage of his dalliance with Vikings management into viewers’ brains (we think Ed Werder’s been tasked with rifling through the trash down at Favre’s ranch in Mississippi) should be noted. That said, this happens every damn year, and it’s so tiresome. Here we are in June, with training camps underway. Teams want to have their summer rosters in place. So is Favre going to play this year? “Maybe.”

(Here we go again.)

Also, the fact that Favre’s first public comments aren’t to ESPN should be noted as well. So rather than think of Favre as a caricature of an attention whore or drama queen or whatever, perhaps it’s best to - yes, we know this is neither fun nor easy - recognize the shades of gray and think that while he knows how easy it is to attract attention after spending two decades in the spotlight,  part of him actually is a country-bred bumpkin from Mississippi who would play football forever if he could.

But then again, we don’t know where the annual retirement charade fits into either side. And how many years in a row is this? Eight? C’mon, man.

Here are more stories to consider as you mourn Shawn Johnson’s euthanization…

• Look, this is clearly not the appropriate forum to discuss the ongoing turmoil in Iran. We’re not nearly qualified enough to comment on it, and that’s not what you’re here to read anyway. That said, if you’re wanting to find out more about watching the seeds of revolution occur in real-time, Andrew Sullivan’s blog is a good place to start. So why even bring it up? Only for the most epic picture in tOSU history, via 11W (click here for higher res, pops):

(Your move, Michigan.)

• YAHOO! SPORTS says Denver’s “troubled” (…by what? His impossible-to-shake ladybeating habit?) wideout Brandon Marshall has contacted Broncos ownership and demanded a trade. This has already prompted the Broncos to acquire Bears WR Brandon Lloyd. So then the Bears are in the market for a WR now? Hmmm… who’s their quarterback, again?
• In the NBA draft, super scorer Jodie Meeks is definitely gone from Kentucky, while Luke Harangody has withdrawn from the draft to return to Notre Dame. Harangody’s decision is strange, especially when you consider the similarly overbulked white guys who have gone on to star in the NBA, such luminaries as, um…
• The federal judge in charge of the Phoenix Coyotes bankruptcy case has rejected their sale to Jim Balsillie, the Canadian billionaire who intended to move the franchise to Hamilton. This is a victory of sorts for the NHL and Gary Bettman, who has incredibly poor judgment.
• UCLA held another Undie Run, and why yes, we do have video, thanks to JERSEYCHASER.COM. And wait, is that Kevin Love?

• According to the CELTICS BLOG, Boston GM Danny Ainge is reportedly shopping Kendrick Perkins and Bill Walker to Memphis GM Chris Wallace for the #2 pick in the draft. The Celtics aren’t actually that enamored with anybody in the draft; they just want to see first-hand how easy it is to rip off Chris Wallace.
• Mostapha Al-Turk wants to appeal the loss handed (fingered?) to him by Mirko Cro Cop in UFC 99 this past weekend. We can think of at least one reason why Dana White thinks this is a good idea.
• Speaking of MMA, as CAGEWRITER notes, ESPN may want to choose their words just a bit more judiciously when it comes to describing Wanderlei Silva:
• Orlando’s 2010 hopes take a hit as the ORLANDO SENTINEL reports Hedo Turkoglu will opt out of his contract and file for free agency. It’s a shame; Dwight Howard is the “face” of the franchise, but anyone who watched the Magic’s playoff run could tell Turkoglu was the MVP of the team.
• Earth to Joe Morgan: People can fact-check you now really easily. Stop making things up.

• Major League Baseball without steroids is like porn without the silicone.

Just don’t blog about the subject with Raul Ibanez.

• Rodney Harrison doesn’t like how the NFL has become “soft and pansy“.

• A Fox News morning show lambasts MTV for Bruno’s ass-ault on Eminem - then does a segment with a Fox reporter doing basically the same thing to a lingerie football player.

• Tim Floyd takes off from the Trojans. What, and leave the Song Girls?

• Soon-to-be newlyweds Kendra Wilkinson & Eagles WR Hank Baskett are expecting a baby. On the other side of the spectrum, Barry Bonds’ wife demands a divorce.

Read more…

Memphis Grizzlies guard Mike Conley was Greg Oden’s teammate in high school and college, and after looking at Oden every day while growing up, he evidently believes he has earned an upgrade. Here’s Katie, whom BUSTED COVERAGE identifies as a server in a restaurant, and who by all accounts is also Conley’s girlfriend.

No, she’s not pregnant … that we know of. She’s also not a shy, retiring type, as several of the photos below demonstrate. Things are looking up for Conley: First he regains his starting point guard spot with the Grizzlies, and now this. Read more…

Back in February supermodel Adriana Lima went and ruined the fantasies of teenage boys everywhere by marrying Memphis Grizzlies point guard Marko Jaric. Though it did provide ugly people throughout the world hope that they too could one day land a supermodel so long as they made over a million dollars a year. So far their marriage seems to be going pretty well, though there was that sexual assault scare for Jaric, and it appears things are going even better for the two of them now.

See that picture of Lima right there? She might not ever look that good again because it seems that Jaric wasn’t content with just taking one of the hottest women in the world off the market. No, he had to go and knock her up, too.

Read more…

Ricky Rubio and his agent, Dan Fegan, have started applying the pressure on NBA teams to ensure he ends up in the best possible media market. Because he still has to spend his own cash to get out of his Spanish contract, he has the leverage to return to Europe if the “wrong” team drafts him.

(Why would anyone not want to play in Memphis?)

Therefore, Memphis and OKC can just draft around him. Instead, Fegan (who failed to stop Milwaukee from drafting Yi Jianlian but got him moved to the NYC market eventually) wants his client in L.A. or Sacramento to get at that California cash.  Sacramento drafts fourth, but haven’t the Clippers promised to take Blake Griffin with the first pick? Rubio couldn’t end up in L.A. still, could he?

He could, as it turns out.

Read more…

The Los Angeles Clippers won the most favored martyr award last night in the NBA Draft Lottery and, with it, the top pick in the 2009 NBA Draft next month (likely to be Blake Griffin). The Memphis Grizzlies and Oklahoma City Thunder now follow, leaving the Grizzlies to pretend Mike Conley, Jr. is the answer to anything but “Name one theoretically famous Junior” and draft Hasheem Thabeet.

Oklahoma City, your Ricky Rubio awaits. (Ricky will love the fried bologna sammich at Toby Keith’s I Love This Restaurant a block away from the arena.) A staff containing Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Jeff Green, Rubio, and your dear departed grandmother should be capable of 50 wins in two years. If you find it less ghoulish, we’ll refer to your passed loved one as Nenad Krstic. Same mobility, anyway.

(By the way, please send your love to Sacramento tonight as they had the league’s worst record and washed out with the fourth pick.  And you thought living in Sacramento was punishment enough.)

Your intrepid correspondent pulled into a local sports bar in the Phoenix area just thirty minutes before the NBA Draft Lottery truly started (which was, of course, thirty minutes after it officially kicked off).  That will be the best way to take the pulse of the community regarding the first lottery draft pick for the Phoenix Suns likely to play for the team since Amare Stoudemire, your correspondent said to himself rather self-consciously.

It can be officially reported that the patient is dead; there was no pulse in the greater Phoenix community regarding the draft lottery.  The normally-popular bar was half-empty and the televisions kept being turned from the NBA lottery to practically any other sport.  In fact, the only person to keep half an eye on the proceedings was Dan Majerle’s brother.

Surely, much of the passivity came from having such a slim chance at a top-three pick, but the collected crowd seemed much more interested in the Western Conference Finals for the NBA and NHL.  They chose wisely as the Denver Nuggets couldn’t hold their late lead  against the Los Angeles Lakers and therefore provided another thrilling finish, a 105-103 Lakers victory to kick off the NBA edition of the Western Conference Finals.

Also, game 2 of the NHL edition ended in the first overtime with a 3-2 Detroit Red Wings victory over the Chicago Blackhawks to extend the series lead to 2-0. The ‘Hawks could not stop giving up the puck in the most exposed fashion possible, leading to two breakaway goals, including the three-on-one clincher.  You’d think a battle between a dinosaur and a human would turn out differently.

(The bar didn’t care for that result; Arizonans are either transplanted Colorado residents or former Illinoisans.  No love lost for Detroit from either quarter.)

On the other hand, the true locals were left to stew yesterday over news that a federal bankruptcy judge couldn’t bring the NHL or the former and future owners of the Phoenix Coyotes together on a deal regarding the sale of the team and a possible move back to Canada. Instead, he sent both sides into mediation and told them to hash it out themselves.

Of course, the NHL couldn’t resist putting gun to skate during yesterday’s proceedings.  For starters, the lawyer for the city of Glendale, AZ, had to admit that he’s never been to a Coyotes game.  Then the judge said late in the day, “The NHL is like a dog chasing a car. The question is, ‘What do you do if you catch it?’”  Bury it in Arizona, perhaps?

The relocation hearing in late June won’t answer the question, either; multiple rounds of appeals will surely follow if all sides can’t talk it out.  It all adds up to at least a month of indecision, misdirection, and public proclamations.  It’s not unlike the buildup to the NBA Draft, really.

When Arizonans aren’t paying attention to hockey mirages or 14th picks or UFOs in 2009, they might be taking in this hail of bullet points:

• Your Dancing with the Stars winner is Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Shawn Johnson, who will celebrate with her favorite taco popper.

• Congratulations to John Smoltz on his recent marriage! Hopefully, he had a favorable justice of the peace that let him have all the outside calls on sickness versus health and the like.
• Also, congratulations to USC on its men’s tennis title.  Your Yahoo! Sports investigation is in the mail.
• What’s more disappointing: Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin’s secondary violation for mentioning a high schooler’s name in his Twitter account or the school’s admission that Kiffin didn’t make the error because one of Kiffin’s personal assistants wrote the entry, meaning that it’s not really his Twitter account at all?
• If you’re a gay man in Turkey, you can pretty much give up on your dreams of a military career and of ever becoming a soccer referee.
• The new emissions standards/fuel efficiency law announced yesterday may not have ever happened if it wasn’t for a back stall in a Nationals Park washroom.
• College athletics are tax-exempt (even basketball and football) and the NCAA may have muddled the waters enough to make it incredibly difficult to change that.
• Seriously, Lane Kiffin has multiple personal assistants and we can’t find a way to tax that program?
• Todd Helton has his 2,000th hit.  No, really… this time, we mean it.
• It’s also been over 2,000 days since Michigan beat Ohio State.  Guess who rented a billboard in Ann Arbor to remind Michigan students of that fact?

One of the great mysteries of the NBA - right up there with how David Stern gamed the 1985 draft and what species Ervin Johnson is - is how the Memphis Grizzlies haven’t gone bearnipples up yet. Their performance is low, attendance is worse, and we can’t even imagine the horrors on their balance sheet.

(Oh Memphis, that ain’t good.)

We’re obviously not alone in wondering what the Grizzlies’ future holds. In addition to, oh, every NBA fan on the f—ing planet, some rather important people are giving up hope on the team. According to the MEMPHIS BUSINESS JOURNAL, that includes Event Merchandising, Inc.; the company that runs the Grizzlies’ team store at the arena itself.

It gets worse. Read more…

• What’s a little Playboy Golf without some free Tasers for the NFL guests?

• The Chicago Cubs get a little Captain in them with the opening of a new rum-fueled Wrigley Field eatery.

• Yankees say they have no seats left under $375 - but they’re lying!

• Are you an NFL team that wants to know more about the personal lives of potential draft picks? Why not create some fake Facebook accounts?

• Because of the ongoing U.S.-Iran trade embargo, Hamed Haddadi of the Memphis Grizzlies is short-changed from getting any endorsement deals.

Read more…

Unless you’ve spent the last 30 years or so living under a rock, you know that the relationship between the United States and Iran isn’t the friendliest one in the world. Something about them holding Americans hostage, our friendship with Israel, and nuclear weapons has driven a divide between our two countries. Still, we do have something in common with Persians, and that’s that we both love our sports.

This can be seen by the adoration for Memphis Grizzlies rookie Hamed Haddadi. Haddadi has spent most of his rookie season shuffling back and forth between Memphis and Bismarck in the NBDL, but that hasn’t stopped all the Iranians living in the United States from following Haddadi’s every move in the NBA. In fact, if he wanted to, Haddadi could probably get some pretty nice endorsement deals (possibly for gold chains and silk shirts). Well, he could if it wasn’t for that whole trade embargo we have with Iran.

Read more…