When you hear the phrase “athlete turned artist”, you usually think of music - and ear-cringing vanity records like efforts by Ron Artest or Kobe Bryant. But the SPORTING BLOG says that there’s a new contender who actually puts the “art” in “artistic”: Rams RB Steven Jackson, who has taken the time to post some of his sketches on his Twitter page.

Although to be fair, we’re not talking “Merlin Olsen and His Pick-Me-Up Bouquet” level of sensitivity here. No, Jackson’s latest drawing shows what he considers to be a “strong woman” - which apparently means Pam Grier from “Foxy Brown,” except more heavily armed. And apparently more heavily topped as well.

Judge for yourself after the jump.

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Hey, remember when about two weeks ago I was spouting off some amazing reasoning on why the World Series would be Los Angeles and Boston for the sole purpose of perpetuating a great storyline? Well, here’s a better one: two under-the-radar teams are the only squads remaining on the World Series Doppler. Philly’s series tickets already have dry, dry ink, but the American League had a conclusion to reach that lasted, for some inexplicable reason, far, far beyond Game 5.

(With David Price throwing heat, hell, who needs opposable thumbs?)

The big reason the Rays won 3-1 on Sunday night was Matt Garza lasting seven strong, allowing one run and two hits. That also gave him the ALCS MVP, and a blank check to swear on TBS. Said Garza on LIVE UNCENSORED television, when asked what he’d take, the MVP or the World Series: “Sh*t, I’ll take the World Series every time!”

Other MVPs of the game: Price, who got the final four outs of the game for his first major league save ever; Willy Aybar, who provided the team with a solo home run and scored another; Evan Longoria, who gave the world an RBI double; and Jason Varitek for striking out three times and finishing the series with an .050 average. Could the captain catcher be moving elsewhere next year?

Let’s go with the surprise motif — heck, it’s gotten us this far. The Romo-free Cowboys shouldn’t be a team that the St. Louis Rams — the freakin’ Rams — should boss around. But sure enough, the trap game for America’s team turned into a full-out massacre in a 34-14 win for the Fightin’ Hasletts. You can thank Steven Jackson for 160 yards and three touchdowns, although if I were to draw a pie chart breaking down the amount of people elated with this result:

Now then. What else, you ask, is going on, besides 83 season previews of every NBA team?

• The JOURNAL SENTINEL’ BREWERS BLOG handicaps the next Brewers manager, and if you’re a fan of recycled torn-asunder skippers, then you’re in luck!
• The INDIANAPOLIS STAR watches one of the Colts’ worst losses in quite some time…
• … while STAMPEDE BLUE is torn between two ways on how to handle the loss.
• The HONOLULU ADVERTISER fires back at PETA for trying to get native son Shane Victorino off his Spam musubi diet.
• THE FAST AND THE FABULOUS has ten companies that should sponsor a Sprint Cup team. I would pay good money to see an MLS-sponsored car.
• Greg Oden has so many expectations on him this year, that writers for THE OREGONIAN will even apologize to his face when they say they haven’t been impressed so far.
• WAS WATCHING notes how the last home run in Yankee Stadium, a blast by the famous Jose Molina (!?), was expected to sell for at least $200,000, but had absolutely no bidders. Time to bury it under the new stadium, I guess.
• Journeyman hockey player Brad Isbister is on his 13th team in as many years, NY TIMES’ SLAPSHOT BLOG notes. His current team? Switzerland’s EV Zug. All right then.
• CINCY JUNGLE goes deep, deep, deep on the Bengals’ 0-7 start.
• Ball State Cardinals watch: They’re up to 20th, and all they had to do was not play a football game.

• Leave it to the Beavers: Once again, Oregon State shocks highly-ranked USC in Corvallis.

This is becoming quite a trend.

• But such a monumental upset is no comfort to OSU alum Steven Jackson, as the Rams RB is too busy lashing out at coach Scott Linehan.

• Pat Summitt may be basketball’s all-time winningest coach, but the Lady Vols leader is no match when it comes to rasslin’ with raccoons.

• How melancholy is the Mariners’ clubhouse? One teammate of Ichiro openly talked about wanting to knock the Seattle star slugger out.

• Despite the Colts’ 1-2 record, Tony Dungy must still be pretty popular in Indianapolis - why else would someone return a credit card the coach left at a gas station?

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Times are tough all over the country. Gas prices are high, financial institutions are broke. But never fear, residents of St. Louis. Your economic downturn is over, as soon as the Rams start winning some football games.

Uh-oh.

New research suggests that a winning NFL team has a “statistically significant effect” on the per-capita income of a metropolitan area. In fact, a winning team can boost individual incomes by as much as $165 a year. A single victory can account for an income boost of $30 (you hear that, Ed Hochuli?). David Nicklaus of the ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH has more:
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The people of Missouri are probably pretty grateful for the Missouri Tigers football team right now, because at least they’re good. They’re so good, in fact, that some people would probably consider them favorites in a game against either of Missouri’s professional football teams. On one side of the state there’s the Kansas City Chiefs, on the other side there’s the St. Louis Rams, and in the middle there are a bunch of people wondering what went wrong.

Rams running back Steven Jackson isn’t one of those people, as he knows exactly what’s wrong in St. Louis. Steven doesn’t seem to be a very big fan of his head coach Scott Linehan, and yesterday he went on the radio to let his coach know that he doesn’t agree with the decision to bench Marc Bulger for Trent Green.

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• World record-breaker Usain Bolt could have run even faster, but it could have cost the Jamaican sprinter more money down the road.

• If he ran the Rams, Marshall Faulk would balk at Steven Jackson’s ongoing holdout.

• Ocho Cinco no es bueno after suffering a shoulder injury.

• It took him three decades, but one college football fan has finally seen all 119 Division 1-A teams in action in person.

• A 7-year-old named Wrigley Fields will get to throw out the first pitch at Wrigley Field. Now’s a good time for any pregnant Boston baseball fans of Korean descent to christen their child Fenway Park.

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Perhaps Steven Jackson should have simply played along when people wondered about his student-mentor relationship with Marshall Faulk. He didn’t of course, saying that Faulk was no teacher, no guru, no mentor.

Now it looks like Faulk is getting his turn to take a shot back at S-Jax. The good news for Marshall is that he’s sitting in a cozy announcing booth and doesn’t have anything to prove (re: his ability to play football). That doesn’t really make him sound any less bitter about the whole thing though, when, as LARRY BROWN SPORTS dials up via SPORTING NEWS RADIO, he takes shots at the unsigned Rams running back:

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