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.
You probably thought we were avoiding it today. And you know what? We were going to. I mean, come on - the guy’s way past his prime. Just because he’s going north, back to his old stomping grounds doesn’t mean he’s the same player he was in the ’90s and the earlier part of this decade. The magic is gone at this point; he only looks like the superstar of 10-15 years ago.
(This picture sorta ruins the joke.)
Yeah, we said we weren’t going to talk about him, but we just couldn’t help ourselves. And when you consider the guy’s been in the league since 1991 - anytime he changes teams, it’s a big story. So here we are.
So often the news is bad when it comes to baseball spectators and balls hit into the stands (Cub fans, you know who you are). America longs for a feel-good story about snagging baseballs, and here it is. Below you see CJ (last name unknown), who caught not one but two foul balls off the bat of the Rangers’ Josh Hamilton on Sunday — during the same at-bat.
But the best part for many people is that this kid caught both fouls directly in front of a pair of Red Sox fans. Robbed! Face! Red Sox Nation cannot be happy about this.
David Ortiz has got to be thrilled with the way today unfolded. But for the sudden presence of the immediately-infamous Josh Hamilton photos, his press conference today would’ve been the most talked-about story in sports. As is, he’s basically off the hook for now as the sports world digests the surprising photos and even more surprising admission from Hamilton, given the way most sports figures handle unflattering news these days (DENY DENY DENY).
Unfortunately, one thing that may get lost in all this Hamilton scorn/praise is the extremely curious reaction to the photos by Hamilton’s personal advisor/coach/chaperone, Johnny Narron, who, as Hamilton’s religious mentor deserves scrutiny in the face of DEADSPIN’s questioning.
Vicente Padilla exists in a small sliver of the pitching population of baseball: the sustained mediocre. He’s never good enough to, well, be considered good. He’s never bad enough to be moved to the bullpen or demoted. He’s just there.
(He fights like he pitches: Poorly and with that stupid look on his face.)
Well, he was there, anyway. Texas, apparently tired of paying $12 million a year for a steaming plate of below average, designated the pitcher for assignment today. And they seem to be really, really happy about it.
By now, the saga of Josh Hamilton is well-known: #1 draft pick, flamed out spectacularly like a squirrel in a bonfire, then a triumphant, clean return to the game that climaxed in an awe-inspiring performance at the 2008 Home Run Derby.
(Josh, that doesn’t look like sobriety at all.)
But then DEADSPIN released a dozen photos of Hamilton, often shirtless and surrounded by gleefully revelrous young ladies. That’s one above, and the other 11 are similary raucous - and damning, considering Hamilton’s supposed to have been off the sauce for years.
Time for lame denials and no-comments? Actually, no. Read more…
When going to watch your favorite baseball team in an opposing team’s stadium, there are a couple things to keep in mind as an away fan. If you’re wearing your team’s jersey, expect to be heckled. Your reaction to the heckling determines whether you’ll have a fun time or end up with a beer spilled on you or worse. It’s generally a good idea to keep the massive drinking down to a minimum as well - if the home team’s fans are famously hostile, you’ve gotta keep your head on a swivel, just in case. Stay aware of these things and you’ll have a great time in any city, even if your team’s the enemy.
These helpful guidelines unfortunately come a day late for one Texas Rangers fan who attended last night’s A’s-Rangers game in Oakland. Being drunkenly belligerent to the home team’s fans is asking trouble in and of itself - taunting Oakland fans is always a dicey proposition. But taunting the police who show up to escort you from the premises? Yep, that’s a Tasing.
A few months ago, the swine flu epidemic turned the international sports scene into absolute chaos. Soccer teams in Mexico were forced to play in empty stadiums, and high school games and tournaments across the US were threatened. It was a total mess, but fortunately American professional sports were spared any damage.
But that’s all changed, as the DALLAS MORNING NEWS reports that Texas Rangers pitcher Vicente Padillahas been diagnosed with the swine flu after missing a start earlier this week with the always mysterious “flu-like symptoms.” Even more troubling, several of Padilla’s teammates are also laid up with bad flus, and while the team is waiting for test results to come back before they know anything for sure, it seems pretty clear that the Rangers might have a swine flu outbreak on their hands.
The Lakers are already the defending champs, and while the Cavs are adding an over-the-hill Shaq and Boston is making overtures to the shell that once housed Rasheed Wallace, the champs may have made the biggest splash of all — adding the insane, yet extremely talented, Ron Artest.
(Odds Ron’s going to forget he’s Kobe’s teammate and gets a flagrant 2 on him? About 2-to-1.)
The news came somewhat out of nowhere last night, as ESPN was still reporting during the early evening hours on the east coast that LeBron James had been reaching out to Artest in an effort to get him to Cleveland. ESPN expert Chris Broussard went on Sportscenter downplaying that situation, and within a couple of hours Artest was in ESPN’s L.A. studio announcing his intention to sign with the Lakers for the mid-level exception.
This is all fine and dandy, but does nobody remember about this?
Although, to be honest, Artest is just about the only guy in the league who could do this and then ask Kobe to go out to Applebee’s afterward. This guy doesn’t exactly go about things the normal way. I mean, we are talking about a guy who once tried to work at Circuit City in the offseason to get the employee discount.
“L.A. is what it is,” Artest said. “I’ve been here for the whole summer, and it’s pretty good. It’s good for me. I know Lamar Odom, so that’s pretty cool.”
All the clamoring for the Lakers to pony up the cash to keep Trevor Ariza sure went away quickly, considering that Artest is accepting the mid-level (which will be under $6 million next year) while Ariza was looking for something in the $7 million+ range. And now word is out that Ariza will be taking Artest’s place in Houston, and will in fact accept the mid-level (though over the full term of five years).
(”Here’s how many titles I’m going to win in Houston.”)
Apparently, the swarm’s queen bee took up residence inside the coat, which led to thousands of workers, or drones, or whatever they are, descending on the area around the jacket. It was nearly an hour before a beekeeper arrived on the scene to take care of the bees. He dove right into the jacket, sprayed the bees (which were in a mass about the size of a soccer ball) with some sort of agent, then shoveled the presumably dead bees into the jacket (PETA is already preparing to complain about this I’m sure), which was put into a plastic bag and carried away. Eyewitnesses report that the beekeeper received the biggest ovation of the day, as the Astros cruised to a 7-2 win.
• A suspected rapist who was attempting to assault a woman yesterday in San Diego was fought off successfully by the woman, then he tried to run away from her. Which might have worked…if the woman wasn’t a marathon runner. Let’s just say the future’s not looking too bright for this guy right now.
• I’m a big 1964 Topps baseball card guy, partly because of the multiple laughable errors made throughout the set by Topps’ editorial staff, which seemed to exist of a five-year-old with a learning disability. And Keith Olbermann delivers us the most ridiculous error in the set (if you’re not getting it, just read Dave Bennett’s bio again):
• The World Series of Poker’s main event starts today at the Rio in Las Vegas, and among the thousands registered to play over the next few days is none other than Barack Obama. No, the Prez didn’t buy in himself — a poker pro named Richard Sklar (who also happens to be an ex-con) put up the $10,000 to enter him into the event. Sklar then made a number of bets with other pros that Obama would show up to play at least one hand. Chris “Jesus” Ferguson and Phil Gordon are among the pros who said they’d pony up big cash for charity if he does show. GAMBLING ONLINE has details, as does this thread at poker site TWO PLUS TWO.
“If you look at college football now, it’s the greatest sporting event spread over September, October, November, December and a little bit of January that the country has. A playoff would seriously diminish the regular season, as it has in college basketball… This isn’t basketball. This isn’t March Madness. Football’s a different game, different environment. We have different traditions. It’s hard to see why a playoff is a good idea.”
I’m with you, Harvey. I don’t even know why any of these silly sports with their useless playoffs even have a regular season. An arbitrary, invitation-based system guided by a perplexing computer formula is obviously the way to go for any sport that wants to be taken seriously.
• Mariners prospect James McOwen (who honestly wasn’t much of a prospect prior to this year) extended his California League-record hitting streak to 39 games with a 3-for-4 night in the High Desert Mavericks’ 6-2 win over the Rancho Cucamonga Quakes at the most awesomely-named park in all of baseball — The Epicenter.
One of the most jarring aspects of the Stanley Cup finals, other than the ease with which the Red Wings dispatched the Penguins on Sunday night to push the series to 3-2, has been NBC’s hardball with fans in Detroit and Pittsburgh. For the duration of the playoffs, both teams have been able to hold massive viewing parties in and outside their arenas. It was such a wonderful, organic expression of the communal nature of fandom that it was basically destined to be ruined by business in short order.
(Thousands of fans watching the game with each other? Nope, can’t have this!)
A near-sellout of Joe Louis could shave a ratings point off the local television ratings measurement, and such ratings are used to establish advertising rates.
So to that, if the all-important ratings model can’t deal with 8-10 thousand people watching a show in one place on one screen, you know what? The ratings model is completely worthless. Seriously. How can NBC or Nielsen not figure out what to do with a giant honking party of some of the most hardcore fans all watching one screen? Is that really a deal-breaker?
And if so, if they’re really curious as to what the ratings would look like if everyone stays home, away from the shared community aspect from which most of the value of a ticket to a game is derived, there’s a really easy answer to all of this. You ready? Dick Ebersol, you taking notes?
All NBC has to do is announce that in exchange for showing the game outside both arenas, attending fans have to fill out a simple, anonymous survey about where they would otherwise watch a game (their place or someone else’s), with how many people, and whatever other information the network needs to most closely approximate what ratings would look like. Use that and Nielsen data to extrapolate what the final ratings would be with that many eyes on a TV, and adjust. That’s it. Easy.
This is a rare, rare opportunity for the NHL and NBC. At no other point are they ever going to be able to get this kind of a free pool of television watchers from whom they can mine valuable demographic information. Forcing them back into their homes and away from a group of thousands of like-minded, passionate fans for the sake of moving a needle one or two points does the city, fanbase, and team a disservice. It’s so easy to work around. Figure it out.
Speaking of soccer [I thought we were talking about hockey. No, I’m dead certain of it.–ed.] [Shut up.–AJ] [You have problems.–ed.], UEFA just got a seismic news flash as Real Madrid, evidently furious at having seen FC Barca take the title, has bought the contract of Kaka from AC Milan. Too bad UEFA contract holder SETANTA SPORTS probably won’t survive to see him in the new kit.
Kaka, a sensational striker from the one-word-name factory that is Brazil, will reportedly command a 6-year, $94 million contract. That’s enough to make it the most expensive in soccer’s history, barely beating out Zinedine Zidane’s 6-year, $65 million deal with Juventus from eight years ago. Meanwhile, David Beckham is running around for a crappy MLS team in Los Angeles for 30 cents on the dollar and going home to a bag of antlers with oversized sunglasses and the “I’m married, but still vain” haircut straight from Jon & Kate + 8. Sic transit gloria mundi: Glory is fleeting.
But as we (rightfully) focus on the three people killed far before their time, we should point out that one passenger in Adenhart’s car, 24-year-old Jon Wilhite,has, in fact, survived the crash that left him in critical condition (via the RIVERSIDE PRESS-ENTERPRISE). Wait, that doesn’t appropriately convey the gravity of what happened. He survived internal decapitation.
As MANOLITH explains, internal decapitation, which is exactly as horrifying and life-threatening as it sounds, happens when the skull detaches from the spinal column. It’s usually fatal. Wilhite somehow survived without total paralysis, which is unbelievably rare, and he’s now in rehab with the help of several major leaguers. He’s got a long way to go, but he’s on the right track.
Thanks to the sports media’s ludicrous east coast bias, GASLAMP BALL is the only site to notice THE ONION’s satirical piece on NL home run leader Adrian Gonzalez’s anonymity doesn’t even have the right picture of him in an article about said east coast bias. Intentional? Maybe. It’s fitting either way.
This is Dahntay Jones, Chris “Birdman” Andersen, Grant Hill, and Amar’e Stoudemire playing “The Team Mating Game” on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE. Big ups to BALL DON’T LIE for finding the video, and yes, you are watching this with rapt attention. Don’t lie and say you’re not; yes, you are.
David Ortiz’s stupid excuse to blame his eyes on his slump didn’t work; they’re fine. Is Rafael Nadalgoing down the same road with his knees?
And finally, the Oakland Raiders have spent a metric buttload of high-level draft picks on skill players, but is their best move in the return to relevance the signing of 16-year free agent fullback Lorenzo Neal? FANTASYPROS911.COM thinks so.
