It wasn’t enough for Diageo, the makers of Smirnoff vodka, to invite the good folks of Phoenix out to see their hockey team free with the purchase of a bottle of booze.  Now they’re plastering their name across The World’s Largest Beer Garden in an attempt to make further inroads into the sports scene. That’s one way to pay for stadium upgrades if you won’t pony up to the governor.

Wrigley Field will now host the Captain Morgan Club (a restaurant) and the Smirnoff Patio and provide lovely mixed drinks to the fans that like to do a little drinking around 10 am at home and then ride the El to Addison and start downing car bombs around 11:30 am for a 1:20 pm start.

If Cubs fans aren’t careful, they might even put Toronto Blue Jays fans to shame.  That’s not easy to do, either; they can’t be stopped even if Daddy takes the alcohol away for a game.  (Not to mention the gratuitous nudity.)

Also gratuitous: the entire 2008-2009 NCAA women’s basketball season. The University of Connecticut Huskies won their 39th straight game by double-digits to complete their undefeated season and claim the nation’s crown.

Stanford University of Louisville kept this game competitive for about as long as you’ve been reading this article thus far, which still might be the best effort of the year for a UConn opponent.  This could be the point for a snide joke about going pro in a little something we call life, but these young women are already professional assassins.  Yikes.

We know the short-lived hole in the media filter (and the filter on media members themselves) caused by Twitter will soon close and leave us with more canned responses and layers of personal marketing protection.  As we speak, there are businesses springing up around the management of social spaces and new media integration and other phrases that dampen the soul.

For now, though, we live in truly awesome times.  Example: Bill Stewart (West Virginia’s head football coach and the antithesis of R-Rod) has been carrying on like a blessed fool on Twitter, including how he threw all the kickers out of a meeting or how he gets so fired up by Chubby Checker that he sprints into practice at 4:15 am.

Go like this, Coach Stewart.  Go like this all morning long.

And now the twisting hail of bullets that Carl Landry could heal up from in only three weeks…

• Need a Mets ticket? Why not purchase one from a Madoff trustee?  Nothing could go wrong there.
• Finally, justice will be served for Lance Armstrong as the thief that stole his bicycle has apparently been captured. We believe we have found a picture of the culprit:

• Stan Kasten, president of the Washington Nationals, went on Philly radio and told Phillies fans just how much they were welcome to fill those increasingly empty seats at Nationals Park, having apparently forgotten that D.C. sports fans survive the surprisingly harsh winters by burning compressed carbon logs of their own hate for other teams.  You’d think Stan Kasten had bigger fish to fry, frankly.  For example, Dmitri Young just called Stan Kasten’s house because he heard Kasten’s hosting a fish fry.
• Your NBA Draft early departure update: Blake Griffin (as mentioned late yesterday), Jodie Meeks, and everyone in the city of Tucson.  They’re gonna need a bigger green room.
• Senator Ted Kennedy threw out the first pitch at Fenway Park on Opening Day.  Senator Bill Frist saw this video and declared Kennedy alive and well, raising his batting average to .500.
• The San Diego Padres have one chance at a title: Miss California Carrie Prejean (a former “Deal or No Deal” model) will be competing for the Miss USA title in Vegas on April 19th and she’s a former member of the Padres’ “Pad Squad”.  It’s good that she’s no longer with the organization or Becky Moores might demand weekend visitation rights.

• Kellen Winslow, Jr. is now a very rich soldier in Tampa.  In fact, we don’t think there’s been a more wealthy soldier since Sgt. Slaughter committed treason.
• The weather will be miserable at the Masters this weekend.  Hey, at least everyone gets to stay in and around beautiful Augusta, GA.
• Even the Road Runner can’t get out of paying his remodeling contractors, Leandro Barbosa.
• As always, sports governing bodies’ petty infighting makes for complicated reading.  Therefore, please forgive us an analogy: baseball couldn’t hook up with softball to make a 2016 Olympics baby, so they’re slumming with women’s baseball to try to reproduce a “women’s component to its bid to get reinstated for the 2016 Olympics“.  (The IOC is loathe to add a boys’ sport without adding a girls’ sport as well.)  Of course, the idea might go over better if there were more than a thousand high school girls in America that played baseball, much less in other countries.
• Then again, maybe this would all be helped if these sports governing bodies weren’t so monochrome in their leadership that one expert found that the “whiteness is distressing.“

Here’s something that will make your day, Michigan fans. With an unemployment rate of over 10% in your state, you might not have job, but your football coach is doing pretty well for himself. Michigan paid $6.6 million to compensate Rich Rodriguez for winning three games in 2008.

In addition to the $2.5 million he made in salary and other compensation, the university kicked in an additional $4.1 million to cover part of the buyout Rodriguez owed his former employer in West Virginia.  The athletic department is separate from the rest of the school financially, but that’s still a lot of dough for not much return.

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When it rains, it pours for the University of Michigan. Coming off arguably the worst season in the team’s entire 129-year history - or worst season since 1934, depending on who you talk to - the Wolverines no doubt just want to put this year behind them and focus on the future. Unfortunately, that future just got a whole lot less exciting with news that highly-touted recruit Shavodrick Beaver will be playing elsewhere. Congratulations, Tulsa! You just won the Beaver Joke Sweepstakes!

Beaver planned on matriculating in Ann Arbor come January, but changed his mind (as Beaver is known to do) after thinking twice about the two-quarterback system Rich Rodriguez was planning. You see, Beaver needs to feel special. Beaver needs to feel appreciated. Beaver needs to be softly caressed, gently wooed and treated tenderly like the unique delicate flower he is.

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Suddenly it was 2002 all over again for the Lakers vs. Kings rivalry last night in Sacramento. The Arco Arena crowd was hooting and hollering and the Maloofs were acting like giant cheeseballs, high-fiving, bear-hugging and giving lap dances to anyone within reach. Sacramento temporarily forgot how lousy they are in delivering a 113-101 beatdown of Los Angeles that really wasn’t that close. Wake up the echoes of Vlade and C-Webb, indeed.

What the game came down to was defense, specifically the Lakers’ total lack of it. They were unable to stop the high pick and roll, leaving the Kings with huge lanes to the basket to score or dish for threes. This is not a good sign for the Lakers going into tonight’s game against Steve Nash and the Suns, even if Shaq isn’t playing.

That’s three bad performances in their last four road games against average to awful teams (Indiana, Washington, Sacramento), which should be enough to silence any talk about 70 wins. But before Lakers fans go calling their therapist for a new prescription of Zoloft, they should remember that the team is still 17-3.

Meanwhile in Cleveland, a legendary Cavaliers superstar reached a huge career milestone. Congratulations to Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who had set the franchise record for career rebounds in the team’s 114-94 rout of the Toronto Raptors. And oh yeah, some guy named LeBron James tried to horn in on the Big Z’s big night by setting the team’s career mark for steals and chipping in with 31 points.

Other sports news to read while you consider calling in gay to work today:

• Apparently, about the worst thing you can do in England is tell someone they look like Manchester United star Wayne Rooney. THE SUN reports that drunken slur in a taxi line led to one man’s death while the Rooney lookalike is currently facing manslaughter charges.
• The DETROIT NEWS has word that big-mouth former Michigan QB and mediocre MLB player Rick Leach thinks that former Wolverines coach Lloyd Carr should “support” the guy who replaced him, Rich Rodriguez.
• An Australian politician rues to the HERALD SUN that having soccer players overstay their visas and apply for asylum is one of the risks of hosting the Homeless World Cup.
• The WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL notes that Ted Turner and TBS have been found guilty of a breach of contract in the sale of the Atlanta Hawks and Thrashers and ordered to pay $316 million in damages. Turner immediately protests that this “was nothing like an episode of Law & Order.”
• Buffalo Sabres goaltender Ryan Miller is cross that a ref swore at him during Monday’s game against Pittsburgh, says the BUFFALO NEWS. Reg Dunlop does not approve.
• A good hint for coaches: don’t tell the press that it’s impossible for your team to win a game against your No. 1 rival, and Real Madrid’s Bernd Schuster said ahead of his team’s game against Barcelona. Not surprisingly, the NEW YORK TIMES reports Schuster’s been sacked. Also, don’t believe any rumors that Stephon Marbury is heading there to be the next coach.
• 20 years later, Billy Ripken talks to CNBC’s Darren Rovell about his infamous baseball card. He still gets recognized “a couple of times a week” because of it - three guesses what people call him. Hint: it rhymes with “duck race.”
• Stephen Curry: he’s streaky, but he’s also really good, as anyone who saw his second-half performance against West Virginia can attest to. The NEW YORK TIMES has all the details.
• The latest name to enter the CC Sabathia Sweepstakes? The San Francisco Giants, who apparently weren’t burnt badly enough by Barry Zito to swear off big money pitchers. But Giants’ GM Brian Sabean tells the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS his team is just a “fallback” option if Sabathia doesn’t sign with the Yankees.
• Remember when Texas Tech QB Graham Harrell said there was a “great chance” that Mike Leach wouldn’t be back coaching the Red Raiders next season. Turns out he’s changed his mind, says the AP (via the SEATTLE TIMES).

Poor, poor Michigan Wolverines. First Rich Rodriguez’s transition to Ann Arbor goes less than smoothly, then the season crumbles under the wretched play of Steven Threet and Nick Sheridan at QB. Really, when you register the most losses in your program’s history, it has been a bad, bad year.

(Also a Badger Katcher, it seems.)

So while the outside accolades will be scant–if not non-existent–at least they’ve got their own team awards to hand out and celebrate their own best. But for outside linebackers and defensive linemen, perhaps they’d like to skip that honor. Unless they want the words “Dick Katcher” attached to them for the rest of their lives, that is: Read more…

• We’re staying positive about South Florida coach Jim Leavitt - positive that he’s gone bonkers at this press conference.

(Really, Jim, you need to cool off)

• What folks could be asking come January: Who let the Vick out? (Who? Who-who?)

• A Idaho high school football fighter flattens his coach - and it’s finally caught on tape!

• Meanwhile, this Sixers cheerleader falls head over heels, and it hurts.

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Rich Rodriguez’s first year as Michigan’s head football coach was … how can we say, ah yes, abysmal. At 3-9, the Wolverines finished with the worst record in school history. They lost their first game to a MAC school when Toledo took them out at the Big House, and they looked almost apathetic in a season-ending loss to archrival Ohio State.

(Andy Warhol does Rich Rodriguez, as seen by THE WIZARD OF ODDS)

Well, as bad as it was, it’s getting even worse. In the aftermath of the program’s misery, RichRod has been happy to pass the blame, all while opposing coaches like Michigan State’s Mark Dantonio have been piling on Rodriguez himself.

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The last game for RichRod’s first season at the Big House is over and done, and thank God. Ohio State toyed with Michigan much like a cat would do with a dead bird en route to a 42-7 victory.

Really, though, the game was scarcely that close, as Michigan saved its worst performance of the year for the last. The Wolverines were 1-17 on third down. That is not a typo. Nick Sheridan’s numbers were just as anemic: 8/24 through the air, 87 yards, and of course no touchdowns. He will be sent to the gulag immediately.

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With his team 3-8 heading into their rivalry game against Ohio State, Michigan head coach Rich Rodriguez could probably use some support from some of the program’s legendary names. And right on cue, Heisman Trophy winner and ESPN analyst Desmond Howard is there to help, giving WBNS in Columbus (via the DETROIT NEWS) his assessment of the team in Rodriguez’s first year at the helm:

I made a comment (Sunday) on our show that it’s not like they were trying to learn a spread offense (as much as) like they were trying to learn how to play football in some of those games, they looked so bad. This isn’t Michigan, this is like Michigan Tech.

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Hand it to Rich Rodriguez, one of our particular favorites; the man knows how to turn heads and set records.  Today, he showed Michigan football a place it has never been before: eight losses in a season.  The 21-14 defeat to bowl-bound Northwestern in a “half-deserted” Michigan Stadium sealed RichRod in the Michigan history books for only his second time this season.

(Bo Schembechler had chunks of guys like Rich Rodriguez in his stool)

Of course, his first entry came in October when he sealed the “biggest talent absolutely wasted by a head coach in Michigan history”, surpassing the burying of Tom Brady by Lloyd Carr with his brutualization of Terrelle Pryor.  (Oh, wait… he didn’t go to Michigan!  Well done, Richie.)  He’s totally been worth the cost and headaches so far, hasn’t he?

Does anyone know if Hitler knows how to draw up the Wildcat offense?
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