The Week That Was 8/15/05 - 8/21/05

ED: The greatest thing about the Little League World Series? All those great porn star mustaches. On the coaches AND the players from the Bronx.

PR: Poor little children corrupted by Dante Bichette and Mike Stanley. I guess they are being taught how to not be winners.

BB: Ah, as long as lil Dante is Chicano he is fine. MIL-TON BRAD-LEY!!!

MLB

ED: Your weekly cripple list includes: Padres SS Khalil Green (broken toe), White Sox OF Scott PodSCRAPnik (some sort of muscle strain), Reds DUI Ryan Freel (knee), Tigers SS Carlos Guillen (knee), Brewers OF Brady Clark (ribs), Mariners P Gil Meche (knee), Mets C Mike Piazza (hand), Cardinals 3B Scott Rolen (now done for the season to get shoulder surgery)

BB: I tell you what muscle Scott Podsednik strained – his heart. No one gives more of it. Not to mention the fact that he has 190 stolen bases this year, hasn’t dropped a fly ball once, didn’t beat up any homeless people, and even gives Joe Crede a reacharound enough of the time to make it statistically significant. And I hear Lisa Dergen thinks he has the bomb dick. Aww….

ED: USA Baseball names Davey Johnson as their new manager for the 2005 IBAF WorldCup. Sweet! Now we can find out if there's a Bill Buckner in other countries.

BB: Maybe Davey will use the ’88 Mets staff since no Major League team in their right mind are going to give up any of their pitchers. Come on – you know you want to see 46 year old Sid Fernandez pitch.

PR: Do the Orioles get right of first refusal any time Davey wants a new job somewhere? Just wondering.

ED: Rangers P Kevin Gryboski is suspended 3 games for "inappropriate actions" after a Rangers-Red Sox game on August 9th. Jeez, as if being a Rangers pitcher wasn't enough of an inappropriate action.

PR: Did he question the almighty Curt Schilling? Did he suggest that Kevin Millar sucks? Did he bring up the idea that maybe they should keep Mark Bellhorn?

ED: Player Movement: the Red Sox DFA 2B Mark Bellhorn, the Giants release P Kirk Rueter, the Mariners leave CANDLEBOX!!! Scott Spiezio far behind?

PR: Okay – I know we covered Kirk Reuter last week. Is Kirk Rueter the less angrier version?

BB: Oh, when Ed makes a Candlebox reference, I end up flat on my back giggling and you have to turn me over to get me to my feet. YAY FLANNEL!!!!! I’ll presume they didn’t mean to treat him oh so bad. But they did it anyway!

BB: And yes – I am too hurt to discuss the Bellhorn move right now.

ED: Hey! The Royals snap their 19 game losing streak! Allard Baird still amazed that he has a big league GM job.

PR: Maybe he will be given the Yankee GM job instead of Jim Bowden. I hate the teams I love.

BB: Milton Bradley goes crazy on Jeff Kent. More on this developing story next week even though by the time you read this it will have probably stopped developing. DUB! TEE! DUB!

CFL

WEEK NINE!!!

ED: HENRY BURRIS!!!!! goes off for 327 yards and two TD's - even running for another 96 yards as Calgary edges Montreal, 40-37. Oh yeah, and Jermaine Copeland got to dance, too. Mmm, whipped Montreal.

ED: Winnipeg laughs at your Beaver Fever and stomps Ottawa, 38-17. Be brave litte Renegade fans.

ED: BC humiliates Hamilton, 39-15. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate football?

PR: Aww…at least the Ti-Cats cheerleaders are amazingly hot. Or at least that one who was on the front page of the CFL page was.

ED: Four thousand year old Damon Allen rips Edmonton a new butthole as Toronto tops the Eskimos, 22-18.

SOCCER

PR: Week 2 – Millwall and Portsmouth still suck. Life sucks.

BB: Wow did Blackburn have two nice goals this week. Of course, they had like 9 yellow cards to make up for it, too. The real great moment of the week was Tugay’s volley being hit so hard that the defender on the line (Niclas Jensen?) moved out of the way instead of blocking it. That is something I would definitely do. Me and Mike Burns.

PR: Lots and lots of World Cup Qualifiers. Of course the funniest result was just a friendly. Poor little England.

BB: Oh yeah – the old man Britain article with the “SIR ALF RAMSAY WOULD HAVE ROLLED OVER IN HIS GRAVE!! WE NEVER HAD FRIENDLIES IN _OUR_ DAY!!!” article made me realize that as stupid as old American athletes are…old British athletes are right with us. Oh, the world. You are so gullible.

NFL

ED: 49ers OL Thomas Herrion dies after San Francisco's pre-season game against Denver. Herrion was 23.

BB: What has really been obnoxious about this is how every article I’ve read has said “His BMI would classify him as morbidly obese!” Never mind, of course, that the BMI has already been discredited – in PARTICULAR for people with significant amounts of muscle like – say – a large athlete. Journalism sucks.

ED: INJURIES!!! The Pats place LB Ryan Claridge on the IR (out for the season with a shoulder injury), Panthers LB Brandon Short (out indefinitely with plantar fascia), Jets WR Harry Williams (out 2 weeks with a knee injury), Jets LB Darrell McGlover (put on the IR and is done for the season with a bad ankle), Cardinals LB Gerald Hayes (out two weeks with a bad knee), Rams CB Jerametrius Butler (done for the year with a bad knee), Raiders LB Sam Williams (done for the year with an ACL), Cowboys OT Jacob Rogers (done for the year with a knee injury), Cowboys K Billy Cundiff (out a month with a hip flexor)

PR: Was Cundiff hurt by an errant Drew Henson throw?

BB: All I know is I saw Rogers and I immediately assumed that someone had broken their collarbone again. Poor poor useless WR.

ED: PLAYER MOVEMENT!!! The Pats sign LB Ifo Pili. The Bears sign KR J.J. Moses. The Browns sign CB Ray Mickens. The Ravens sign LB Peter Boulware.

BB: Ifo Pili deserves a joke but I can’t think of anything. The Peter Boulware story was fun – the Ravens tell him to cut his salary to $6 million or get waived, he says no and gets waived, can’t find a deal…and then comes back for $1 million. Oh, our other Ozzie is giddy.

ED: TROUBLE LIST!!! Because Phil likes to spoil my fun, I will repeat this - Ravens KR B.J. Sams arrested for DUI. Chiefs K Lawrence Tynes arrested for felony assault after breaking a bouncer's nose. (By a kicker. A bouncer beat up by a kicker. Or as we like to refer to that guy now, a former bouncer.) Chiefs DT Junior Saivii and S Greg Wesley are arrested for public drunkenness. And Chiefs QB's Todd Collins and Trent Green are investigated for a domestic disturbance after they got wasted in a bar. I like how the Chiefs are becoming the lamest possible Ravens. I wonder what kind of trouble Dante Hall will get in. I wonder if all of that will make Dick Vermeil cry?

BB: Lawrence Tynes is from the CFL so you know that evens out his kicker status. I know you spelled Junior Saivii’s name wrong but I don’t know how to spell it right. And I will go with Dante Hall being caught shoplifting – that sounds about right.

ED: Hey! Because this is too good to just list with the rest of the trouble stuff - guess who's wanted for domestic violence again? God, yeah. That's really vague, isn't it? Yeah, I'm thinking I too would have guessed Randy McMichael. OK. Guess which former player is wanted for domestic abuse again? Oh. Right. I would've guess OJ too. Alright then, our old punchline Lawrence Phillips is wanted for attacking his girlfriend twice including once chocking her into unconsciousness. Ahh. It's nice to know the scum of the earth never changes.

PR: How I didn’t select Lawrence Phillips in the death pool shocks and saddens me. I should have just selected him and no one else. I would have been openly rooting for his demise. So much hate.

BB: And how did our boy top this? How, you ask? Oh, he only decided to drive his car at three teenagers he was playing football with. Right – he was just driving down the street and saw a pickup football game and said – “Hey! I like the football!” And then there was immediately a fight between the two teams of scrawny kids to determine which one got the huge black man.

ED: And then there was one. Only Bears first rounder Cedric Benson remains unsigned after Pacman Jones and David Pollack sign. Mmm, holdouts.

PR: Aww… maybe Benson is still mumbling about being disrespected. Or maybe he is still trying to find Chicago on a map.

BB: Oh no – you are forgetting RICHIE INCOGNITO!!!! Not only a great name – but a great story. The Rams are offering him 4^th round money (despite the fact that he was a 3^rd rounder (with 1^st round talent but a 6^th round brain)) because…wait for it…they already spent too much money under their rookie cap for their other draft picks. That’s RIGHT – in a SLOTTED DRAFT SYSTEM – where everyone gets paid a set amount of money – Mike Martz could not figure out how to spend enough money to sign all his draft picks. Wait for it…wait for it…

ED: On the whole holdout tip, Chargers TE Antonio Gates is suspended for three weeks for not signing some ridiculously low contract. But on the bright side, he will now be able to play down to that level of the contract, so really both sides win. Yay!

PR: Uh-oh. Why do I get the impression that Freddie Jones will unretire and end up a Charger and I will draft him. No drafts yet but my fantasy teams suck.

BB: MIKE MARTZ IS TWO STEPS AHEAD OF YOU!!!!!!!

NBA

ED: Cuts, trades, signings! Oh joy! None of us care, so we'll move on.

PR: Aww… Isiah didn’t get the memo about the Allan Houston rule.

ED: Oh wait! The Hawks finally force out Steve Belkin from their ownership group…so they can finally pick up Joe Johnson. Well, at least Atlanta fans can still look forward to…uhh...Well...ummm...Yeah.

BB: Poor Steve Belkin was fine with signing a shooting guard on a great team to a Max contract – he wasn’t fine with dealing a first rounder and Boris Diaw for him. Steve Belkin is horribly, horribly confused.

NCAA

ED: Northwestern reaches a $16 million settlement the family of Rashidi Wheeler. Aww, Dennis Green does not approve.

BB: If this were Northeastern, they would have given him $16 million, but made him wait 20 years to get it. Stupid freaking eight year plan.

ED: The NCAA purchases the NIT basketball tournaments for $56.5 million. Shoot, my ebay was only $56.499999 million too short.

BB: What leverage did the NIT have here? I mean, who else was going to buy them? Roman Abramovich?

ED: UConn suspends G's Marcus Williams and A.J. Price for stealing laptops from the school.

BB: Man, if you are an athlete and you get suspended for stealing things from the school – you really aren’t trying very hard.

ED: San Diego State extends head baseball coach Tony Gwynn's contract for 3 more years. Mmm, cheeseburgers.

NHL

ED: After getting rejected by ESPN again for television rights of the 2005-2006 season in the US, the league signs a deal with…Comcast to show games on…the Outdoor Life Network. Poor-poor NHL.

BB: Oh I cannot wait for Larry the Cable Guy to announce NHL games next year.

OTHER

ED: Jeremy Mayfield wins the GFS Marketplace 400. This all left turns this week, Phil?

ED: HEY!!! WNBA NEWS!!! The LA Sparks fire head coach Henry Bibby and replace him with…Joe Bryant. Yep. Kobe's dad.

PR: Aww… I fear for all the members of the Utah Starzz. Oh wait – there is no more Utah team. Way to go WNBA. Ruin the only decent joke I will ever have. Stupid below rim league.

BB: More stature: WNBA Coach or XFL Coach? To be discussed next week.