12:15 PM A man who was arrested for streaking across Busch Stadium during a St. Louis Cardinals game Thursday night said he did it because he lost a bet.
11:30 AM Amid rumors that he bought Lawrence Taylor's Super Bowl XXV ring in an auction, Charlie Sheen tweeted Friday: "As much as I would be honored to own such an important artifact ... I had nothing to do with the acquisition."
Andrew Baggarly of the SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS was recently kind enough to forward us this email from Bay Area News Group photographer Karl Mondon as he recounted a thrilling experience while shooting the Giants opener on April 9:
In the bottom of the 12th inning Friday, with Eli Whiteside at the plate and Pablo Sandoval dancing off 3rd base with the possible winning run, it hit me.
Panda’s athletic cup.
In the head.
In 25 years of photographing baseball, that was the first, and please, last time that’s ever happened.
Translation: Mondon, positioned in the photographer’s bay just beyond the third base dugout, was plunked in the head by Pablo Sandoval’s cup after it was thrown in his direction by the Giants third baseman.
(”His precautionary goblet was already out of his pants” - too soon?)
I’m also happy to report Baggarly, dutiful beat journo that he is, followed up with Sandoval about it. Read more…
You mean to tell me that the fellow in the picture below enjoys weed? What? Because I would have guessed he spends the off season reading the Book of Mormon, or cleaning oil-infested sea fowl. But there’s word today that Tim Lincecum was pulled over by the cops last week and charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia.
It happened on I-5 in Vancouver, Wash., (Lincecum is a native of Bellevue, Wash.) on Oct. 30, as a motorcycle trooper timed him on the radar gun (ironic) doing 74 mph in a 60 mph zone in a ‘06 Mercedes. Once Lincecum rolled down the window, the jig was up, smell-wise. He handed over a small bag of weed to the cop. Read more…
The San Francisco Giants are right in the middle of the NL wild card chase heading into the season’s last two weeks, but one guy who apparently won’t ever help get them into the playoffs is Angel Villalona. The 19-year-old Dominican prospect was one of the top players in the Giants system, and received a then club-record $2.1 million bonus when he signed with the team as a 16-year-old in 2006.
Now, it’s being reported that Villalona is suspected of killing a man at a bar in the Dominican Republic last night. He turned himself into police today, and could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted (that’s the maximum?). Villalona played this season for the San Jose Giants, but was injured and not with the team when they won the California League championship last night.
Rich Rodriguez finally has some breathing room at Michigan. After going on the hot seat after a 3-9 debut season that was the worst in school history, Rodriguez was almost buried before the season began by a range of allegations including violating NCAA practice rules and getting sued for a condo deal gone bad. But after a 38-34 win over Notre Dame in one of the most amazing college football games ever played a college football game, the Wolverines are back in the Top 25 and suddenly relevant again.
So how does Rich Rod celebrate this stunning reversal of fortune? Exactly like you would expect he would: by opening his fool mouth and blowing out any goodwill he had earned by blatantly lying. It’s not his fault: it’s human nature. We all revert back to our default mechanisms at some point. For Rodriguez, it’s making an ass out of himself.
You might wonder why you see the occasional baseball fight during July or even August, but almost never in September. For a good reason why, ask Bill Lee. (Actually don’t, because you’ll probably get a two-hour lecture on pot. Or the evil of the DH. Or both.) Even though it happened in May of 1976, him separating his shoulder during a huge brawl between the Yankees and the Red Sox caused him to miss the majority of the season (and possibly ruined his career).
So the same reason last night’s fight between the Yankees and the Blue Jays was both so compelling and ridiculously stupid. Because they were throwing real punches - not just the usual preschool pushing of most big league fights - and big-name pitchers like Joba Chamberlain and C.C. Sabathia were right in the middle, just waiting for a Blue Jay with a grudge to rip up their multimillion dollar arms. A good rule of thumb: don’t get into fights with teams who are 13 games under .500 - they don’t really have much to lose. Read more…
For the record, the Milwaukee Brewers don’t play the San Francisco Giants again until next season, probably sometime in May. That’s when we’ll find out if Matt Cain offers a gentle high-and-tight message to Prince Fielder for the little show we see in the photo below.
Also for the record, the San Diego Padres are feverishly working on their own choreographed home run celebration performance art. This is all hypothetical of course, because in order to do it, your team actually has to hit a home run. But the Padres have a couple of routines in the can just in case. You’re not going to believe what they are. Read more…
By all appearances, Brad Penny is a new man. As Richard mentioned in this morning’s Speed Read, Penny’s San Francisco Giants’ debut was nothing short of awesome, as he tossed eight scoreless innings in a 4-0 win over the Phillies on Wednesday. This after throwing a grand total of one shutout inning for the Red Sox over the previous five months.
Somewhere in a Beverly Hills mansion, surrounded by dishes of caviar and flying monkeys, Alyssa Milano violently curses the fates. Penny, who dated the fetching actress for a brief period in 2005, seems to be the latest of her former boyfriends to have beaten the terrible Curse of Alyssa Milano. Could it be that her bony grip on America’s Major League pitching has finally been broken for good? Consider the evidence:
For a lot of us, tonight is like Christmas, your birthday and finding your Dad’s stash of Swank Magazines when you were 12 all rolled into one: college football starts tonight. And unlike most opening week mismatches, tonight’s marquee match-up should be a doozy, with Pac-10 dark horse Oregon braving possible blindness from the Smurf Turf and the color-coordinated fans to America’s underdog, the Boise State Broncos (current listed as a 3.5-point favorite).
But this isn’t just a compelling game between two Top 25 teams with big aspirations. No, these two teams (in my best Jim Ross drawl) Just Plain Don’t Like Each Other, especially after last season’s win by Boise State that featured two Broncos getting ejected and Oregon QB Jeremiah Masoli getting KOed by a cheap shot while attempting his first pass of the game. Here’s some video if you want to judge for yourself:
Sure, Denver Bronco fans booed Jay Cutler with all their might last night when he returned to play against his old team for the first time, but the boos eventually faded to mild displeasure, and then the eventual realization by the home crowd that they are, in fact, really stuck with Kyle Orton. The Bears won the first half — when both guys played — 17-3, and won the game 27-17.
In other words, the Broncos are about to fade into oblivion, somewhere they really aren’t used to inhabiting. It just took last night’s game for it to finally sink in. Even the lady pictured above doesn’t really seem to have her heart in that sign. She’s quite clearly not lovin’ it. Chargers fans, meanwhile, are already clearing their weekends in January. They could probably take four games off this year and still win the AFC West.
Cutler, of course, played well last night for his new team despite all of the distractions and a concerted attempt by the Bronco defense to make things as tough as possible on him. Suddenly, the Bears are brimming with confidence heading into their opener at Green Bay, and thinking they might be able to duplicate their Super Bowl run a couple of years back — this time with a QB who isn’t allergic to footballs.
Orton, of course, didn’t even make it to halftime because he sliced his finger open on another player’s helmet. For what it’s worth, he actually played fairly well (12-for-16 for 96 yards). But this is a guy who the Bears really only grudgingly let be their starter because a better option wasn’t available. Are there even five other teams where he’d be the #1 guy?
FOX SPORTS’ Alex Marvez just comes right out and says the Broncos were fleeced in the trade, not only in the 50-cents-on-the-dollar they got in return, but because of the way coach Josh McDaniels and owner Pat Bowlen botched the whole situation from the start. Maybe Mike Shanahan had lost his way a little, but wouldn’t your average Bronco fan rather have him and Cutler than the McDaniel-Orton combo? Did it really have to come to this?
Well, at least you can look forward to some more scenes like this out at the local bars, Denver:
Some idiot blogger totally wrote off the Giants last week after they lost an excruciating game to the Rockies that dropped them four games back in the wild card hunt. In fact, all of the talk was about how Colorado might even run down the Dodgers when all was said and done. And no, I wasn’t the only one sticking the fork in San Francisco.
(Edgar Renteria: When your team just doesn’t care enough to find a better shortstop)
I knew, of course, that Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain would always give their team a chance to win. But I hadn’t counted on the sudden rejuvenation of Barry Zito. Since a meltdown against the Padres on July 18th that made me wonder if they’d find a way to get rid of him altogether, he’s posted a 1.92 ERA in his last nine starts. Throw in Jonathan Sanchez, whose ERA has been right around 3.00 since the beginning of July, and you’ve got the best starting pitching in baseball right now. Just think if they could hit!
Now, the Giants have to find a way to stay close over the next 10 days. The Rockies start a 10-game homestand on Tuesday and host the Mets, Diamondbacks, and Reds. San Francisco, on the other hand, travels to Philadelphia and Milwaukee before returning home to play the Padres.
(Yes, that is Zito not only tipping his cap, but also receiving applause)
• The US Open is starting today. An 18-year-old kid named Devin Britton won the NCAA championship this year, and his reward is a first-round match against Roger Federer. Let’s hope he handles the pressure better than Richie Tenenbaum did:
• TRUE HOOP has a great post about last week’s episode of “Mad Men,” which had a subplot dealing with the outrage about tearing down the old Penn Station to build Madison Square Garden in the 1960s, and how MSG is revered today as a sports venue:
Four decades later, it’s ironic that the building that was the bête noire of architectural preservationists has become the defining symbol of basketball preservationists — a receptacle for the sort of sentimentalism that fueled the opposition to its creation.
• 124th-ranked Heath Slocum drained a 20-footer to beat Tiger Woods, Padraig Harrington, and Ernie Els by a shot at the Barclays tournament in Jersey. Tiger missed a six-footer on the 18th that would’ve tied it. The real winner of the day, though, was former MLB hurler Heathcliff Slocumb, who I briefly thought about for the first time in 10 years.
(Think the Red Sox regret trading him for Varitek and Lowe?)
For Giants fans such as myself, Monday’s 14-inning frustration-fest with the Rockies was about as entertaining as watching workmen build a gallows in the center of town. Ryan Spilborghs’ walk-off grand slam was them testing the trap door. Bam! Isn’t anyone going to ask me if I have any last words? Well, as if that day needed any more drama, now comes word that Rockies players and umpires were feuding all through the game, and both factions may be in for disciplinary action.
Yes, I said players and umpires may be suspended by MLB dean of discipline Bob Watson, who is speaking to all parties involved before bringing down the terrible ruler of justice. Chief among the combatants, as I understand it, are umpire Bill Miller and Colorado catcher Yorvit Torrealba, who really got into it after the game (artist’s interpretation of that argument shown above, center). Read more…
