1:00 PM St. Louis Cardinals first baseman Lance Berkman is expected to miss 8-10 weeks after undergoing surgery on his right knee Friday.
12:45 PM When he entered the team's locker room Thursday, New York Jets QB Tim Tebow was reportedly teased by teammates with chants of "Lolo! Lolo!" - referring to Olympic hurdler & fellow admitted virgin Lolo Jones.
12:30 PM After being suspended indefinitely on Wednesday, Tennessee Volunteers TE Cameron Clear has been dismissed from the team after he was charged with stealing a laptop from a UT baseball player.
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.
As the NEW YORK POST continues its investigation, it looks like Hundley’s posing as a high school classmate of Phillips’ son wasn’t an isolated incident; she appears to have a knack for assuming new identities online, identities crafted for the sole purpose of getting into the Phillips’ life and breaking up the marriage. Next stop: CRAIGSLIST.COM; why, where else is someone supposed to hire a phone stalker for $50?
With his one-week suspension & following self-imposed leave of absence, Steve-O will have plenty of time to think about what he’s done - and plenty of time to track down a good divorce lawyer. Meanwhile, this experience should aid Brooke in dispensing out some more good professional advice & astute observations.
22-year-old ESPN employee Brooke Hundley, who had sex three times with ESPN’s Steve Phillips, who was still married at the time, wrote this Oct. 5 message currently on her Facebook account: “David Letterman yet another dirtbag with no morals on television surprise surprise….Jimmy Kimmel’s better anyhow.”
Today she messaged her Facebook friends: “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers… If you’re a friend of me, it’s like the papers have or will ask you to comment. Please refrain from saying anything.”
This afternoon, Phillips announced that he is taking an indefinite leave of absence from ESPN, following his initial one-week suspension from the network. He has not been fired, and the leave is apparently voluntary.
I spoke this morning to a former acquaintance of Hundley’s. Here’s what that person had to say about Phillips’ fling. Read more…
If we were to tell you that Steve Phillips had an affair with a 22-year-old production assistant, how do you suppose that situation would play itself out? It couldn’t possibly end discreetly and amicably with nobody in his family the wiser, right?
(Weird, we figured her Facebook profile would be a boiled rabbit.)
No, in a surprise to absolutely nobody, Phillips’ affair has blown up in his face in a failure every bit as epic as his career as Mets’ GM. The NEW YORK POST has the sordid details, which include a divorce, a suspension from ESPN, his son being stalked online, and more information about Steve Phillips’ crotch region than you ever cared to know.
We know that for years now, baseball fans have wondered to themselves, “gosh, this ESPN baseball coverage is so close to perfect, but it’s missing something.” It’s certainly what we tell ourselves.
(”And now, Joe Morgan will put himself in harm’s way for no reason at all.”*)
Fortunately, ESPN thinks they may have stumbled onto the answer. For tonight’s game between the Dodgers and Cardinals game, they’re taking Orel Hershiser and Steve Phillips out of the booth and putting them next to the field. Why? Because it will blow your mind.
We’re also learning more about Rodrigues, like the fact that she’s a 23-year-old former stripper - in fact, they met at an “exotic” club in Brazil. (And I don’t want to know how “exotic” things can get in a Brazilian strip club - I just hope that jaguars aren’t involved.) And she had received a restraining order against him earlier this year that required him to stay 200 meters away from her and quit drinking.
Needless to say, while this is a tragedy, perhaps it’s not a shock. After all, Gatti’s sister is claiming that Rodrigues had planned to murder him and was only in it for the money. Meanwhile, Rodrigues’ lawyers are apparently going to claim that she is “too skinny” to have strangled Gatti to death. Which would make sense if they claim he was conscious when this happened, not passed out after a night of drinking (and possibly getting stabbed in the back of the head).
In less messy and horrific news, you may think the Home Run Derby is at best a pointless exhibition that tarnishes baseball by reducing it to its basest level (MASH BALL HARD) while ignoring the subtleties the make the game so enjoyable. You many even possibly consider it a major factor in the rise of the Steroid Era. Or, you might just enjoy seeing some of the game’s biggest names blast the living bejeezus out of the ball while drinking enough to ignore the infernal booth combo that is Chris Berman and Steve Phillips.
While last night’s edition at Busch Stadium didn’t have the transcendent moments of, say, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa hitting rubber baseballs with Flubber cores out of Fenway Park, or Josh Hamilton hitting 500 home runs in one round, it was entertaining enough. And while the hometown crowd might have been disappointed with their hero Albert Pujols bowing out in the semifinals, they seemed to enjoy the show that Prince Fielder put on in winning the event.
Maybe the newly vegetarian Fielder was following Pujols’ lead from when the Cardinals slugger blew out the “i” in the “Big Mac Land” sign in the Busch Stadium outfield deck earlier this season - with his goal to bring the whole sign down to punish McDonald’s for their carnivore ways. No matter what the reason, Fielder had enough in the tank to hold off Nelson Cruz (again, I said “some” of the game’s biggest names) in the finals after bombing an event-best 503-foot blast in the semis.
And then there was poor Brandon Inge, who had been so excited to be a part of the Home Run Derby that he said it was bigger than actually making his first All-Star team. I’m guessing he didn’t feel the same way after becoming the first batter since Jason Bay in 2005 to take a donut in the first round - or as my friends used to call it, “Posting a Piazza” (named after Mike Piazza, who went 0-for-his career with blanks in 1993 and 1994).
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Clippers might be ready to make a move that could either turn them into playoff contenders or…OK, let’s be honest, it’s not possible to ruin the Clippers, so what harm could come from Allen Iverson joining the team? Marcus Camby played with A.I. in Denver, and he’s on board with the idea, with PRO BASKETBALL NEWS saying that he’s willing to help recruit Iverson to the team. Even Eric Gordon is OK with it, even if that means losing playing time in a backcourt with Iverson and Baron Davis.
The one person not too hip on Allen Iverson right now in Los Angeles seems to be Ron Artest, whose opinion doesn’t matter too much since he’s now playing for the Lakers. Plus, he’s totally nuts. But his Tweet that Iverson is “missing more shots than Muhammad Ali with a sniper rifle” is pretty damned good.
Still, Iverson could provide the veteran leadership and role model that Blake Griffin could use as he establishes himself in the NBA - and he might be a force, based on his NBA Summer League debut of 27 points and 12 rebounds versus the Lakers yesterday. Except for that whole “practice” thing.
Hey kids, want to spend money to get football lessons from Andre Rison? After all, he told the ALTOONA MIRROR that he’ll spend the second day showing you his highlights so he can “really let them know, in my eyes, I was the best to ever play the game.” And parents, if you think Andre Rison is a good role model, I’m coming to your house with Child Protective Services.
As usual, more chaos coming from the Oakland Raiders: PRO FOOTBALL TALK reports that they’ve cut sixth-round draft pick Stryker Sulakbefore even signing him to a contract, which a league source says he’s “never seen happen before.” Meanwhile, Raiders blog JUST BLOG BABY thinks that PFT is making a big deal out of nothing.
I didn’t mention the Celebrity Softball game that was part of the MLB All-Star festivities. I’ll just show you the final out, where Ashanti managed to make the type of play to end the game that makes coed softball a nightmare for most guys. She should consider herself lucky that Bob Knight didn’t piledrive her at first:
David Beckham swears that his spat with Landon Donovanis a thing of the past as Golden Balls returns to practice with the Los Angeles Galaxy. In related news, Landon Donovan was found dead in his Home Depot Center dressing room, with a six-inch stilleto heel in his eyeball as Victoria Beckham was seen leaving.
The Chicago Blackhawks want to thank GM Dale Tallon for putting together a team that got to the Western Conference finals this season - by giving him a severance check and making sure the door doesn’t hit his butt on the way out the door. Reports says that assistant GM Stan Bowman will replace him.
If anyone is interested in an 34-year-old quarterback who was never really that great in his prime, please call Brian Griese - he’s available after being cut by the Bucs.
Former MLBer Billy Koch has been arrested after a 2 a.m. altercation with his next-door neighbor. The ironic part? The neighbor had grabbed a baseball bat in an unsuccessful attempt to defend himself.
In case you hadn’t noticed, and after these many years it’s okay if you hadn’t, Chris Chelios has been around forever. For-eh-vur. The 47-year-old has literally spent a majority of his life as a player in the NHL, breaking into the league with Montreal during the 1983-84 season. Yeah, back when “Jump” was the hot new sound from Van Halen. That’s how long dude’s been around.
(Of course he stuck around this long because of hard work. What did you expect? Prayer?)
And while injuries and the unrelenting assault of time on an aging man’s body have kept Chelios from the legendary Gordie Howe’s all-time record in games played and other marks of longetivity, Chelios is still a colossal freak of nature. Look no further than at (it bears repeating) the age of 47, Chelios is finally being released by the Detroit Red Wings. As the DETROIT NEWS reports, though, he still might not be done:
General manager Ken Holland met with Chelios Monday afternoon and, as expected, gave him the news Chelios will not be re-signed.
“It was kind of understood last summer, after Cheli signed, that the 2008-09 season would be the last one for Cheli as a Red Wing,” said Holland, noting the need for the Wings to bring in younger players. “He wants to play another season and I believe he can still play.”
Perhaps Chelios has a year or two left in him as a swan song in Chicago, or maybe he wants to see if he can hit 50 in an NHL uniform, a stunning accomplishment that really has zero bearing on the world at large. Don’t get us wrong, most guys don’t make it to 30 in the league, much less tack two more entire decades on the odometer, but at no point is Chelios ever going to be a catalyst for great things anymore.
Which is fine, of course. Guys stick around in professional athletics for a few years too many on a regular basis, and few (if any) have earned the privilege as much as Chelios. It’s just that at this point, the list of teams who might pick him up are those who really don’t even need the help to begin with.
Speaking of Chris Chelios (WARNING: this segue makes no sense), let’s talk about women fighting each other. You might remember last week where Cris “Cyborg” Santoschoked out a reporter who foolishly questioned her ability to finish a submission move against a fighter, y’know, like how real men do. Well, being that Santos is going to fight SbB favorite Gina Caranoin Carano’s post-EliteXC return to the Octagon, one display of lady-on-gentleman brutality can’t go unreturned before the fight, right? Right:
Nighty nighty, talker man. The question isn’t where are you, as Santos’ victim asked when he came back to Earth, but what are you: that would be lucky as hell, lucky that someone strong enough to turn the lights out with such ease also possesses the capacity for mercy, which is pretty much the only thing that has saved your brain’s regular functions.
If ladychoking is the next salvo fired in the War on Equality, then so be it, because strong women are clearly capable of winning that fight against weak men. And sure, a man can still probably choke out a woman, but anyone willing to make that case, even hypothetically, probably isn’t someone worth your time in conversation. Avoid accordingly.
(The SongGirls aren’t really hired, per se, so that doesn’t count. The white-haired guy in the middle does, though.)
Turns out, as the LOS ANGELES TIMES points out, he doesn’t exactly have a track record of success to fall back on, despite his boasts. So while Carroll’s hire is to Garrett as the Emancipation Proclamation is to Abraham Lincoln (seriously, Abe, what else did you accomplish, other than monopolizing the top hat?*), the rest of the resume seems to be, ahem, lacking. The worst hire, in retrospect, seems to be Floyd, who may have crippled the Trojans’ basketball program for years to come in order to secure one year of service from O.J. Mayo. And let’s hope that mistake doesn’t happen again…
So above all else, Garrett’s resume suggests that success is but a random decision away, a call to be made by livestock choosing to address one of several piles of food, each festooned with a different logo. Blew it on that up-and-coming coach from Southwestern State back in 2003? Hey, what can you do; Ernie the Carnivorous Pheasant clearly indicated he was due by way of which chum pile he devoured, and in any case, we saved the $12 million a barely-competent would have demanded over those same six years.
J.R. Smith and Eddy Curry were apparently webcasting online as they were pulled over for the all-too-common D.W.B., as INSIDE HOOPS reports. No charges were filed and no video seems to exist, which is precisely why you’re reading about it here and not blaring at the top of a morning post. [UPDATE: Smith’s unequivocally calling bullfeathers on the story, though it seems so oddly specific we’re not sure why they would make any of that up.]
OPPOSITE DAY: The worst GM in at least the last 30 years, Steve Phillips, is allowed to make assertions about baseball that go routinely unchallenged. This is like giving Karl Rove his own political column… oh wait.
A word to Texas baseball coach Augie Garrido: there are many, many opportunities for somebody to make self-deprecating jokes to the press. A recent DUI arrest and your mugshot, for example would probably not be the best opportunity to do so. Just something to keep in mind going forw–well, I see we’re too late.
Tony Hawk got to visit the White House, then skateboard through it. And you know what? You can do the exact same thing if you spend 20 years getting famous for being better at one thing than anyone else in the world, and no, we’re not talking about what you do three times a day whenever the wife’s not around. In that case, practice makes pervert. Now pull up your pants and keep reading.
Bet you don’t know who just beat out Jason Jennings for the franchise lead for most victories. Did you guess Aaron Cook? Well, you probably cheated.
Some eight-grader does a flip and throws the basketball in a hoop from almost a full court. This is actually less related to competitive basketball than dunk contests, which we didn’t even think was possible.
(What’s next, trying to shoot it out of a cannon into a hoop? What does this have to do with actual basketball? God, we’re old.)
Former St. Louis Ram and six-time All-Pro La’Roi Gloverretires from the NFL, reports STLTODAY.COM. Just in time to see his brother win the U.S. Open, we see. Seems fitting. What? Their last names are the same. They’ve gotta be related.
LeBron James‘ youth basketball camp has moved from his hometown of Akron to the UCSD, for some reason, and now costs up to $650 per child, says San Diego’s 10 NEWS. We’re sure there’s a good reason and it in no way exists to make an insanely rich man richer. That would just be untoward, now wouldn’t it? As a matter of fact, we’re planning on sending Brooks in undercover as a child to see what… oh damn it, we just blew his cover. Abort, Brooks! Abort!!! This is not a drill!
If Jose Reyes‘ hamstring injury wasn’t bad enough, it turns out he was just rear-ended by an ambulance. No, we mean the car he was in was hit from behind by an emergency vehicle, not… dude, gross.
*We’re addressing him in the first person because we have it on good authority that Abe Lincoln and other dead Presidents read SbB with astonishing regularity in the afterworld. Heaven has great wi-fi. Which seems appropriate, if you think about it; how good could heaven really be if the wireless sucked?
Have you ever been watching “Baseball Tonight” or any other studio show on ESPN and wondered if the anchors actually liked each other? I mean, I know I can’t stand most of the talking heads ESPN puts on the air so you have to figure there are times when Mike Ditka wants to reach across the desk and punch Stuart Scott right in his lazy eye when he says “Boo-ya!”
The one ESPN personality who I think has probably had it worse than anybody else is Karl Ravech. As host of Baseball Tonight he’s had to work with his fair share of idiots. Sure, dealing with Harold Reynolds wasn’t too bad — well, except for Harold’s insistence on post-show hugs — and Peter Gammons is an icon, but aside from those two there are a lot more Steve Phillips and John Kruks sitting behind that desk. There has to be occasions where Ravvy just wants to choke Krukker after he says something that makes no real sense, but if there have been, Karl isn’t talking.
During Wednesday morning’s Boston-Oakland tilt in Tokyo, ESPN thoughtfully took the time to promote another of its televised events: Saturday’s Civil Rights Game against the White Sox and Mets. Steve Phillips made a compelling argument after the Civil Rights Game promo for the progress of minorities in baseball in the last half-century or so:
Phillips noted the Detroit Tigers could reasonably field a starting nine that did not have a single white person. As he rattled off the starters for such a squad (including Ivan Rodriguez, Magglio Ordoñez, Curtis Granderson, and Jacque Jones), he built a strong case for the widening influence of baseball internationally and shrinking domestic (i.e., African-American) influence.
Gary Thorne’s wizened response? “Pretty good international team.”
