8:07 PMGregg Rosenthal of Pro Football Talk reports that Vince Lombardi's life story will soon be adapted into a Broadway Play. Let's just hope Hank Williams, Jr., gets nowhere near the score.
7:57 PMJudy Battista of the New York Times on missed tackles in the NFL: "One trend most exposes how poor tackling is. According to the N.F.L., there were 81 touchdowns of 50 yards or more through Week 8, the most since 1970, great for highlight reels, a nightmare for defenses."
7:36 PMLou Holtz observing Opposite Day on ESPN set today after Navy dominated Notre Dame during 23-14 victory in South Bend today: "It was obvious Notre Dame was the better football team."
7:17 PM Here's a thought: When watching the Yankees ticker-tape parade from one of the adjacent buildings looming over the route, don't toss documents out the window that contain people's social security numbers. Or meatballs.
In the Big Ten’s best game of the week (and one of the best of the season thus far) on Saturday, Ohio State travels to Penn State in a top 15 clash that’ll effectively decide two of the top three places in the conference. It’s a rematch of last year’s epic battle in Columbus, where Terrelle Pryor fumbled the ball late in the game and allowed Penn State to win, 13-6. Pryor sat on the sidelines devastated after the game, and a meme was born.
(Whoa, what the hell?)
Penn State students decided to take hold of said meme, and decided to make “Terrelle Cryer” t-shirts for this year’s game in Happy Valley. As you can see from the above illustration, Penn State fans have disturbing tastes.
Did University of Minnesota mascot Goldy Gopher go too far when he mimicked Penn State defensive endJerome Hayes praying in the end zone on Saturday? The guy who shot this video (seen following the jump) obviously thinks so.
“He clearly mocked his prayer. That’s not cool,” says the camera operator, who is apparently a Penn State fan annoyed with the gopher’s antics. What was Hayes’ reaction? Will Goldy have to answer to a higher authority? And by “higher authority,” do I mean Joe Paterno?
Answers, and the video, following the jump. Read more…
And now a quick recap of Saturday’s early finals, with some selective commentary thrown in.
After last weekend’s exciting matchups, it was back to business as usual for the Big Ten’s big boys, doing what they do best - beat up on MAC schools. Coming off of a heartbreaking loss to USC, Ohio State took out its frustrations on Toledo, blanking the Rockets 38-0 in a game played in Cleveland. Now maybe Buckeyes fans won’t be so miserable & unhappy.
It’s hard to believe that August is almost upon us; time flies when you’re having fun. The best part about this time of year is that college football season is ready to return. It’s only a few short weeks until two-a-day practices begin in earnest, and fans nationwide are already poring over the rankings and obsessing about their favorite teams.
But this time of year isn’t just for football rankings; it’s also the time that the PRINCETON REVIEW releases their annual list of the nation’s top party schools. Back in the days before Wikipedia and the internet, every school’s students were convinced they had made “The List” of top party schools. But the thing is - a good party school is defined by more than just booze. Anyone can (and at an American university, does) booze, but to be a true top party school according to this year’s rankings, you’d better have a top football team as well.
If Vegas actually had a betting line on Pete Rose making it into the Baseball Hall of Fame, it would have probably been taken off the board for “suspicious activity” after the events of the last few days. The odds improved significantly when Henry Aaron - a close friend of Commissioner Bud Selig - mentioned to reporters that he’d like to see Rose in the Hall of Fame, leading to a report by the NEW YORK DAILY NEWS that Selig was “seriously considering” lifting Rose’s lifetime ban.
But if ESPN is correct, betting on seeing Rose anywhere in Cooperstown other than selling autographs at a card table might be a sucker bet. Their sources are saying that Selig is not considering reinstating Rose, leaving him to be happy with his place in the Soup Bowl Haircut Hall of Fame (alongside sartorial luminaries as Moe Howard, Chairman Mao and Jim Carrey from “Dumb and Dumber”).
Personally, I could care less one way or the other - at this point, the only way Rose actually makes it into the Hall of Fame is through the Veterans Committee, and they are chock full of grumpy old men who would keep people out of the Hall of Fame for not wearing suits and hats on their train rides during road trips, much less betting on baseball. The only person I feel sorry for is Ray Fosse, as he has to deal with a new round of awkward questions about Rose turning him into a tackling dummy and ruining his career.
All of which Rose finds pretty funny, I guess:
And speaking of “suspicious activity,” I guess you can go ahead and add The Big Security Threat to Shaquille O’Neal’s list of monikers. While appearing on “The Mike Wise Show” a few days ago to promote his stint tonight on WWE Raw, he asked the hosts if they thought he could get into the White House and meet President Barack Obamaif he dropped in unannounced. DC SPORTS BOG has the answer, and it’s a resounding “No.”
Shaq actually tried it yesterday, as part of a bet (1,000 push-ups) with one of his handlers. While the guys at the front gate were “nice,” they weren’t going to let Shaq act like this is a Tonight Show episode from 1982, and he’s Bob Hope interrupting an interview between Johnny Carson and an 82-year-old shoe collector to do a walk-through on the way to his latest special. Between the economy, the Middle East and studying the White Sox roster to find Walt Weiss, President Obama might have better things to do.
As far as Raw is Shaq went: he hung out with a leprechaun:
So yeah, I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t want him hanging around the Oval Office.
Finally, Jim Bunning might be a Hall of Fame pitcher, but it turns out that the Republican Party has no problem pulling him early and telling him to hit the showers. The WASHINGTON POST says that the Senator from Kentucky is bowing to pressure within his own party and will not run for re-election in 2010, a political fall from grace that would have been almost unthinkable a few years ago.
So what happens to the 77-year-old Bunning? Perhaps a seat on the Veterans Committee - or at least a table at a card show next to Pete Rose.
Other sports news that happened while you were accidentally shooting three people with your brand-new Taser gun.
If the Washington Nationals were looking to enhance the trade value of Josh Willingham, they just received the Mother Lode of all gifts last night. He became the 13th player in MLB history to hit two grand slams in one game in the Nats’ 14-6 rout of the Brewers. To put this into perspective, Willingham had 14 home runs this season - 12 solo shots, and 31 RBI. So the real story here is that the Nationals actually loaded the bases twice in one game.
Speaking of grand slams: Alfonso Soriano’swalk-off slam in the 13th inning gave the Cubs a 5-1 win over the Astros. Meanwhile, Matt Holliday had an RBI double in his home debut with St. Louis and Brendan Ryan had four hits as the Cardinals stayed a half-game back in the NL Central with a 6-1 win over Los Angeles.
Police feel they are making a break in the case of former Memphis Grizzlies player Antonio Burke, who was shot in the leg and abdomen during a robbery of a dice game at his house on July 20 - they’ve arrested a 16-year-old as an accessory after the fact in the shooting.
And it’s one, two, three punches and you’re knocked unconscious at the old ball game! At least it was in Irvine, CA as a baseball game turned rowdy, with a steal attempt turning into a brawl that left four people taken the hospital and two people arrested.
Here’s what you need to know about Jerry Byrd Jr., a high school football coach in Shreveport, LA: he came to the Superior Bar and Grill to do two things - drink some beers and get arrested for disorderly conduct. And he’s been cut off from having more beers.
If you’re young son is a budding tennis prodigy and you’re looking for a tennis academy for him, here’s a good rule of thumb: if the coach says he’ll need nude pictures of your kid for his computer records, you might want to look elsewhere.
BALL DON’T LIE points out that nothing says “I love you” likeStephon Marbury Valentine’s Day cards. For that special, totally insane person in your life.
You might remember Caleb Campbell as the former West Point football stand-out whose shot at the NFL was taken away from him when the Army backed out on a deal. Now he’s getting his second shot at athletic glory - this time as a potential Olympic bobsledder.
Obviously, the patron saint of football (and maybe even sports in general) in Pennsylvania is Joe Paterno. He’s iconic. He’s superfamous. He’s more loved than Barack Obama’s puppy. And now he’s the face of a restaurant in Shippensburg.
Yes, it’s “JoePa’s Sports Grille,” replete with a cardboard cutout of the wise old coach. General Manager Mike Shall says their goal is to “offer a positive environment along with good food and drink,” and who can complain about that? And JoePa! Who know he wanted to get into the restauranting game this far along in his life?
Long the target for criticisms of incompetence and nepotism, Penn State quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno (the son, obviously, of famous zombie Joe Paterno) came into his own in 2008 as one of the minds behind Penn State’s new “Spread HD” offense, a term that still might not mean a damn thing. The offense easily led the Big Ten in production, and the Nittany Lions were one last-second field goal away from likely playing for a national title.
(Boy, when I saw him work that overhead projector, I thought, “wow, this guy’s going places.”)
(”Hey, let’s make this guy feel unwelcome. What could go wrong?”)
One tiny problem: he’s still in Ames as we speak, working on things like summer wrestling camps. And as the CEDAR RAPIDS GAZETTE notes, it’s probably not a good idea to give jilted fans multiple months to get their Glenn Close on, whether it’s to you, your wife, or your infant son: Read more…
