Ever since the Phillies won the World Series last October, Cole Hamels has been making his presence felt throughout all forms of media.  He’s been on Letterman, graced the covers of a few different magazines, and has gone out of his way to remind Mets fans that their team sucks whenever he can.  Really, he’s just doing anything he can to keep himself in the spotlight while it’s still shining on him.

Which means that Cole needs representation to get him all those endorsement deals and television appearances, and now Cole has finally found that agency.  Hamels has signed on with The Prince Marketing Group, and he joins a roster of some very talented people currently working with The Prince Marketing Group.  I mean, it doesn’t get much better than the Iron Sheik, does it?

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Did Mickey Rourke get robbed at the Oscars? Not especially, since he was basically playing himself. A true and therefore more interesting character is that of Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, the real past-his-prime wrestler who lives in New Jersey with a heart problem and wrestles on weekends to recapture past glory.

Snuka is doing more than just dreaming of his heyday, however. He’s helping to create the next generation of professional wrestlers. At Body Slam University, young men and women learn the ins and outs of the business, from the athletics to the theatrics. Basically, everything short of landing a Superfly Splash on Magnificent Don Muraco from atop a 15-foot steel cage.

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So they handed out a bunch of awards last night, and frankly, we don’t care. Until the “Academy” lifts their de facto ban on nominating sports movies with animals as the lead, we’re boycotting the Oscars and we think you ought to as well.

(Sweeping the Oscars in our hearts.)

And as if you needed further proof, The Wrestler, which was probably the best sports movie since Air Bud 2: Golden Receiver Rudy, was snubbed entirely by the Academy last night, as traditional Oscar-bait roles like “impoverished underexposed foreign minority” and “socially stigmatized overachiever” took center stage for the 90 millionth year in a row. But for Mickey Rourke and us, we’ll always have his exuberant speech from the Spirit Awards, which features insanely NSFW speech.

Oh yeah, he definitely did roids.

And there was one other nice sports moment at the Academy Awards: Will Smith, tripping over some pedestrian-at-best lines from the teleprompter, goes boom:

(Click here if, lord forbid, you don’t get it.)

(”Nope, I see nothing wrong with 30 shots and 5 assists.”)

But back in the real world, we had another big individual performance: Dwyane Wade dropping 50 on the Magic. One problem–none of the rest of the Heat decided to show up, and Orlando ended up blowing Miami out, 122-99. Dwight Howard was the man for the Magic once again with 32 and 17… and this 75-foot shot, which didn’t count but makes me feel like it somehow should have. If you needed more evidence that going Berzerker like this was actually a bad idea on Wade’s part, the Heat are now 0-4 when Wade scores at least 44 points. The Eastern Conference is dutifully taking notes on giving D-Wade the long jumper all night long.

(Welcome back, man! But about those cornrows…)

And speaking of notes for the Eastern Conference, Delonte West is back for the Cleveland Cavaliers, and that is bad, bad news for everyone else. The Cavs dispatched the Pistons, 99-78, in a game that wasn’t really that close at all; the Cavs led 67-34 at the break (!!!) and coasted to a jarringly easy win. West led all scorers with 25 points, including a 5-5 performance behind the arc.

Some more quick links to peruse while you face full life consequences…

• Remember the murder of Eddy Curry’s ex-girlfriend and their daughter? The man her family (and Eddy’s son) had been swearing was the killer has finally been arrested.
• Steve Blake racks up 14 assists in the first quarter, tying an NBA record… and finishes with 17 on the game. Slacker.
• Yes, Andy LaRoche, if the doctors tell you to do certain things to help your injured back, you should probably do them.
• Matt Kenseth 2, rest of NASCAR, 0. That’s probably not the way the Nextel Cup works, but whatever, Kenseth won again.
  

• Marty Turco may have registered the save of the year on superman Jonathan Toews. Or, in hockey parlance, “kick save, and a beauty…”
• As a freelance tree proctologist, I know this story is a total lie.
• One of the guys fighting for the starting QB spot at Nebraska just decided to transfer amid ominous “really can’t go there” language. Yeah, the NFL’s going to love that dedication; great idea, man.
• Jacoby Ellsbury is yet another sports victim of the Stanford money scheme, but unlike Johnny Damon, diversification means Ellsbury can still pay his bills. This sort of thing is yet another reason why I choose not to be insanely rich (cough).

  

• The Florida president thinks Urban Meyer’s the kind of guy who’ll just “burn out and quit” from Florida instead of taking another coaching job. To be fair, coaching a football team and fighting the Joker at the same time is both physically and emotionally taxing.
• Name one sports announcer who can say “this bitch didn’t mean a thing to me” (skip to 6:33 in the video) and not only make it remotely SFW, but totally get away with it. If you said anybody but Don Cherry, set yourself on fire.
• New disease you really wish you didn’t know existed, but thanks to sports, you now know about and can never ever forget: Eye cancer! DOUBLE FATAL ILLNESS BONUS: Same guy was the first major leaguer to wear an insulin pump on his belt. Dude, just admit it: God hates you.
• Garret Anderson signs a 1-year deal with the Braves after spending a long career with Anaheim. This is like when Willie Mays finished his career with the Mets, except if Willie Mays had like 1 good year instead of 15.

There’s something to be said for authenticity in film.  If you need a lost soul with quite a few wires haphazardly resoldered in his brain to play a pro wrestler, you hire Mickey Rourke.  And if you need a steroid dealer to sell to your wrestler in the movie, you hire a steroid dealer for the role.

Just don’t be surprised when your previously-convicted steroid dealer/actor (The Wrestler’s Scott Siegel) is trailed by the DEA and caught scooping up a package.  That’s just commitment to a role.

(ACTING!)

You are allowed to express shock, though, when he then allegedly leads police on an ill-advised chase that smashes three police cars, moves to a foot race, and then ends with the third event in the unofficial Sheriff John Bunnell triathlon: trying to break away from the cops once captured.
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Barry Bonds may be getting his own Southwest Airlines “wanna get away?” commercial in the near future. The NEW YORK TIMES reported late last night that federal authorities have urine samples believed to belong to Bonds that have tested positive for anabolic steroids, and not just the “cream” and “clear” that Bonds has already admitted to taking.

(This wood shack in Manitoba is where you can find Barry for the next six months)

The news came as authorities raided the house of trainer Greg Anderson’s mother-in-law in an effort to put pressure on Anderson to testify against Bonds, which he has thus far refused to do. Anderson has been in prison for more than a year for contempt of court. Much more on this to come today, I’m sure.

The Internet was abuzz when Mickey Rourke called out Chris Jericho on the red carpet at the SAG Awards the other night and said he would participate in April’s Wrestlemania, presumably as his Randy “The Ram” Robinson character from The Wrestler. Well, that excitement lasted all of three days.

Rourke has released a statement saying that he won’t be getting into the ring after all. Perhaps Rourke decided that he wouldn’t stand a chance unless maybe he could get the Ultimate Warrior out of retirement.

The last thing anyone wants to be these days is the #1 team in college basketball. For the third straight week, the top-ranked team went down. This time, it was last week’s #1 Wake Forest taking down Duke, which rallied from a 13-point deficit in the 2nd half but forgot to play defense on the last play of the game. James Johnson’s virtually uncontested layin with 0.8 on the clock gave the Demon Deacons a 70-68 win. Here’s the end of the game. If you want to see the last play, skip to about the 3:50 mark:

Elsewhere, #6 North Carolina got a three-pointer at the buzzer from Ty Lawson to beat Florida State, while #21 Villanova handed #3 Pitt its second loss of the year in the last college game ever at the Spectrum in Philly.

• SI.COM isn’t bowing to the liberal media, as they’ve brought conservative pundit (and vaguely Palin-esque) S.E. CUPP (yeah, that’s her name) on board as a columnist. Her first subject? Bull-riding, of course. THE BIG LEAD has more.

• Everybody thinks they can run an MLB team. Now, 2K Sports is giving you the chance to prove it. Billy Beane is the pitchman for MLB Front Office Manager, which lets you run a franchise as a GM and see if you can screw up as badly as Steve Phillips. There are some other titles out there along these lines (I like Baseball Mogul), but this still looks like it could be pretty cool for all the seamheads out there.  CNET’s GEEK GESTALT blog has a story on the launch.

• DEADSPIN has a photo of columnist Jason Whitlock with a couple of strippers:

•  The OKLAHOMAN says that Oklahoma City sports anchor and former ABC sideline reporter Dean Blevins fell and hit his head on some ice on Monday, causing him to miss the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game. He says he actually was laid out unconscious for at least 45 minutes in broad daylight before a neighbor noticed. Yikes.

• The ORLANDO SENTINEL says that Bobby Bowden has agreed to a one-year contract to remain at Florida State, but there appears to be no commitment beyond that.

• Iowa radio broadcaster Ed Podolak, who resigned after photos of him enjoying himself a little too much in Tampa before the Outback Bowl hit the web, is seeking “professional treatment,” according to THE WIZ OF ODDS. If everyone who’d ever had pictures taken of them drunkenly hitting on a questionable girl sought treatment, half of America would be in rehab.

• Stephon Marbury still isn’t playing, but the NEW YORK POST reports that he’s still in business. The store that sold his cheap Starbury sneakers closed, but now he has an arrangement with Amazon to sell the shoes online.

• Jason Caffey, who might have the worst illegitimate-children-to-points-per-game ratio in NBA history, now has a warrant out for his arrest for failing to pay more than $200,000 in child support, says the AP.

• PRO FOOTBALL TALK reports that Jon Gruden finally spoke out after getting thrown under a entire fleet of buses over the last two weeks by his former players. He called himself “Chucky,” and didn’t outright deny interest in the Notre Dame job.  He probably would’ve been better off just staying disappeared.