9:34 PM Never really had an opinion on Canadian hoops hero Jay Triano, who is now coaching the Toronto Raptors. But after watching him do this, he's officially my favorite coach of an NBA franchise.
9:25 PM Interesting stat in Topeka Capitol-Journal from Kansas State's hoops win over Dayton today in Puerto Rico: "K-State comes home with its first nonconference win over a ranked opponent since 2000." Is that a good thing, or bad?
7:55 PM WTH: "Ricky Williams will send me a text message saying, for example, to work on his ankle, visualize Ricky's ankle as if he's standing in front of me. I visualize him glowing. I make a sweeping motion over my ankle to remove the dirty energy from his ankle that's creating an abnormality.''
Sosa finally came out and said it was the results of using a skin bleaching cream. And now that he has everyone’s attention, he’s ready to offer the same miracle medical results to you.
Sammy Sosa’s ridiculous skin-bleaching got amazingly tame treatment from George Lopez on his night time talkshow on TBS - considering it was right in Lopez’ wheelhouse:
In watching a bit of the show, Lopez really doesn’t seem much into it. When he’s performing off anything but cue cards, he’s previously performed really blue. The everynight, fake-smile talk show format doesn’t suit him. He comes off as the guy who wants to be interviewed, which is more than a tiny detail when you’re hosting a late night interview show.
Before his TV sitcom hit, he was a failed morning radio guy for the same reason: he just wasn’t into it enough. I remember listening to Lopez do his radio show here in L.A. He eventually was let go, and later crowed about how he’d made it big in teevee and how wrong the radio people (Clear Channel management) were about him.
From what I’m seeing on Lopez’s talk show, they weren’t.
The MILWAUKEE JOURNAL-SENTINEL has the tale of a 47-year-old man (who for some reason has been unidentified) who was abandoned at the Kettle Hills Golf Course in suburban Milwaukee by a group of people he referred to as his “uncles.” And when you’re 10 beers into your day, taking the cart home seems like a great idea, even if would take you a week and a half to get there. Luckily the guy was run down by the cops in an extremely low speed chase about a mile from the course. Here’s a map of the 2009 “Tour de Beast Light”:
(In the guy’s defense, he thought he was playing “Tron”)
Originally, when the cop car blew his horn and flashed his lights at the guy, he just pulled over to the shoulder and kept right on driving, as if the only thing he was doing wrong was driving in a lane instead of the shoulder. He eventually pulled over and was charged with operating a vehicle under the influence and for blowing a stop sign on the corner of Route 167 and Route 175.
There’s no word on the whereabouts of the “uncles,” who clearly were not pleased with their nephew for some reason. It appears as if things might have gotten well out of hand before he decided to flee, as the police were called to the course before the crew even finished up their round.
Speaking of deluded men under the influence, it’s not exactly news that Sammy Sosa was juicing all those years, and still not news that Ryne Sandbergsays he doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame. Personally, I think so many guys were ‘roiding it up that the now-sullied stars of the era were still the best players of their generation even if they were artificially enhanced (and pitchers were doing it too). So I’d probably be OK with guys like McGwire, Bonds, and Sosa getting into the Hall someday. But I might be changing my mind on Sosa now that Darren Rovell has discovered that Sammy had his jersey sleeves tapered so that his arms would look bigger:
Courtesy of Rovell’s article:
CNBC confirmed through a source that Sosa did indeed ask for the elastic arm tapering for at least the 2002 season. The source said that he could not remember another player that asked for this specification.
“I don’t know why it would be tapered like that other than it being a purely cosmetic change so that people could see his muscles,”said David Hunt, president of Hunt Auctions.“There doesn’t seem to be any other reason why he’d do it.”
Oh man, that’s just kinda sad. At least Bonds and Big Mac had the courtesy to just take some drugs and mash. Who knows what all Sosa was doing. We now know that he was willing to not only shoot up, but also cork bats AND make his jersey tighter. I wouldn’t be shocked if he somehow found a way to sneak some sort of springy superball into play during his at-bats.
• The Red Sox beat the Nationals 11-3 last night in D.C. in front of the usual 5,000 or so Nats fans. And, oh yeah, about 36,000 Sox fans.
• This might be the classiest video you see all day — a Yankee fan getting in a fistfight with a Marlin fan in front of his young daughter, who is now scarred for life (thanks BBTF):
• The 76ers have become the latest team to try and forget about the last few years by bringing back their old-school logo. If this is the first step toward the rebirth of the Bullets, I’m all for it.
• Swimming’s governing body, FINA (where’s the “s”?), is alarmed that world records have been getting crushed lately by swimmers wearing polyurethane-covered suits. Their solution to the problem? Just keep allowing the suits at the world championships.
• YOU BEEN BLINDED has video of ESPN’s fantasy guy Matthew Berry f-bombing it up in a faux-interview with a sports comedy duo called 12 ANGRY MASCOTS. He tries waaaaay too hard, but delivers a few decent lines. Not sure how ESPN feels about Berry dropping the phrase “Kosher C***block” on YouTube.
• Did you think last August that Michael Phelps was going to be rendered mostly irrelevant already, while Shawn Johnson would be the one going to every big film premiere? Here’s Shawn at the Transformers premiere:
Eleven years ago, the world of sports was a very different place. Internet usage was in its relative infancy, ESPN cared more about televising sports news than people shouting at each other, and steroids were something that old-timey football players like Lyle Alzado used. That summer, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa would capture the nation’s attention and “save baseball” with their epic home run battle. It was truly a simpler time.
The lone voice of cynicism that summer was AP writer Steve Wilstein, who introduced the world to the bottle of androstenedione in Mark McGwire’s locker. By doing so, he opened the floodgates to the controversy over steroids, and opened himself up to much controversy. Fast forward eleven years. That summer’s heroes - McGwire and Sosa - are disgraced shells of their former selves…and Wilstein? He might be headed to the Hall of Fame.
Bud Selig’s big problem is that English is his first language. When caught up in one of his monumental f***-ups, it would be convenient if he could just sit back and claim that he doesn’t understand what anyone is saying. Coincidentally, that’s what Sammy Sosa has done on more than one occasion – including to Congress — when asked about steroid use.
So now it’s leaked that Sosa tested positive in 2003, and Selig’s reaction is, basically, “Hey! That was supposed to be a secret!” And now, like an Irish cop on the beat, his job seems to be to disperse the onlookers. Selig is SHOCKED that anyone has interest in this!
The issue of Sammy Sosa’s Hall of Fame candidacy has lay near the center of a vortex of both cynicism and optimism for years now, teetering between “Hey, he never tested positive, did he?” and “Come on, everybody knows he was using something.” Both sides had merit, and how one felt about Sosa closely mirrored how one felt about the era as a whole. So goes Sosa, so goes the rest of the league from, oh, ‘96 to ‘03.
(This, in retrospect, was most unfortunate.)
Well, both sides had merit, anyway. Lawyers close to the 2003 drug tests have just revealed to the NEW YORK TIMES that Sosa did, in fact, test positive for a performance-enhancing drug in the league-wide tests that year. Neither Sosa nor the MLB is allowed to comment, since those test results are sealed (you’d think a lawyer would understand what that meant), but we don’t know what any of them would say.
Credit the Atlanta Braves for knowing how to manage a news cycle. They flipped three prospects to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Nate McLouth to answer the need for outfield help (which they failed to answer correctly the first time by not signing Adam Dunn in the offseason), and called up Tommy Hanson (pitching phenom) and sent down Jordan Schafer (outfielder phenom) and look at all the exciting news!
(Nate McLouth: interstate man of mystery no longer)
Braves GM Frank Wren swears it’s not about the money - which always means it’s about the money. McLouth is actually fairly inexpensive through 2011 with a club option for 2012 if he’s worth $10 million, but the team is replacing three minor league salaries with a major league one (roughly speaking).
Glavine will look for another job and has a decent chance of finding one if the price is right for a desperate franchise. However, no franchise has shown enough desperation to hook up with Sammy Sosa since Baltimore began its bizarre fascination with Chicago Cubs outfielders in 2005 and Texas took Sammy out around the block in 2007.
Some will celebrate their last chance to moralize about him before his Hall of Fame eligibility kicks in. Others will tell Sammy to put a cork in it because they’re sick of him. The best recommendation? Smash a boom box with a baseball bat. It’s like an aural piñata!
Finally, the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team squirted the bed in a simply filthy manner last night in San José, Costa Rica. The U.S. squad gave up two goals in the first 15 minutes of a World Cup qualifier to Costa Rica at the notoriously difficult Saprissa Stadium (banned: alcohol, batteries, and coins) on their way to a 3-1 thumping that wasn’t remotely that close.
(A Costa Rican Superman? Well, that explains a lot)
The bastard out there at ESPN that thought it would help ratings if they jammed Jon & Kate Plus 8 in front of U.S. keeper Tim Howard instead delivered a showing that led the Galavision announcers to chastise the Costa Ricans for not stomping on the throats of the Americans even more and to compare one goal in particular to stealing candy from a baby.
(Actual photo of attempted defensive wall)
Because of two silly yellow cards received by two U.S. players, the American team will be short two people when they play against Honduras at Soldier Field in Chicago Saturday, in what promises to feel like an away game with maybe 25% of the 60,000 fans cheering for Uncle Sam’s boys. If the U.S. doesn’t earn three points with a win, there’s a very real chance they could miss next year’s World Cup in South Africa.
If U.S. coach Bob Bradley is still looking for a left back that has never played there before in a crucial situation, why not call on Tom Glavine? He’s available; he’s a winner; he’s looking for a job. At worst, he can help heave batteries back into the crowd at a gentle 83 mph.
One old baseball man who tabled his moment in the sun: Randy Johnson. His first attempt at 300 wins in D.C. last night got washed out by Mother Nature (whom Randy went to elementary school with) and will be played today at 4 pm ET with Mr. Unit on the mound.
Also filed under “not living up to expectations and therefore open to criticism”, please note the Serena Williams entry created when she lost in the quarterfinals. She showed up to the French Open out of shape mentally and physically, choosing to wear outfits that accentuated the latter and threw snit fits that proved the former. The only person this “athlete/actress” is cheating is herself.
Perhaps Serena just needs the proper motivation, just like this young lady race driver does: win a race, get a lawn mower.
It’s unclear what would motivate you and 13 of your closest friends to spend $15,000 on a suite for two Cleveland Indians games and one Cleveland Browns game, though. Perhaps you have a pathological fear of germs transmitted by $100 bills.
In other legal news, Yahoo! sues the NFLPA for their shot at fantasy stats sans royalties, same as CBS Interactive. Please remember to send the Players Association one dollar every time you think of an NFL player. (This should leave you free to think about Vince Young all day.)
The WNBA pushed back their season two weeks to accommodate the schedules of Russian and European women’s leagues instead of the other way around. So we’ll be taking the WNBA seriously any day now.
A José Lima sighting is a cheap excuse to run this photo again with zero apologies required:
