In Honor of Rush Week

Tiger Bias

I'll be the first to admit that I don't like Tiger Woods or the Mothership,
so this headline particularly got under my skin.  It's so ESPN it's like acid in my mouth. Here's a behind-the-scenes with ESPN's Editors/SEO experts - "Should we go with 'Michelson was 7-under through 9' or 'Michelson has chance at 59?'  Nope, let's go with 'Tiger watched Michelson's 63' so it can drive traffic."  Is it too much to ask for sports fans to try Fox Sports 1?

Nearly everything about Tiger bothers me, which makes me feel more racist than usual.  I always understood why Tiger had only a few friends on tour. He's an asshole and a bad tipper.  Granted, he's been on an island since about 1997, but he could just as easily carry himself like good friend Bubba Watson.  I do have to admit that I like the scumbag more since I saw his commendable sexting history with pornstar Joslyn James.  Highlights below.

Like Father, Like Son

They say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and the rape cases against LT Sr. and LT Jr. are further evidence. The main difference is that LT Sr. had sex, but he's famous and got off with probation.  LT Jr. is facing much stiffer penalties for forcibly going down on a sub-16 year old in Georgia.  I'm guessing Junior cuts a deal for about 8 years.  $100 says LT Senior doesn't make it that long.

What Grinds My Gears

So Johnny Football got suspended for the first half of the first game against Rice.  His punishment was for "failing to protect his likeness."  It's ironic that he is required to protect his likeness strictly so the NCAA can exploit it, but that's for a different day.  What really grinds my gears is the moral of the story -- what has the SEC learned?

Make sure it's cash & keep lying.

I want to make this a plaque or sign in the University of Alabama parking lot.  The NCAA may as well just add this rule to the recruiting regulations.  I knew it was common knowledge after Cam Newton's father's church was magically renovated, but the half game slap in the face shows how weak the NCAA feels with the O'Bannon case hanging over its head.

I heard an additional tidbit as well. Supposedly this whole autograph controversy came about because Manziel was debating changing his signature to "Johnny Football," and the autograph dealers drudged up the media firestorm (after warning him) in order to insure the value of the memorabilia.  Now it doesn't matter.  Genius.

Morning Takeaways

Kiffin Haters - move along, this isn't the post for you.  My takeaways from the game last night have been far more optimistic than from even my closest circle of USC-loving friends.  LFK treated this game like an NFL preseason game.  That may have rubbed some people the wrong way, but please just take a step back.  Say Kiffin had named Kessler the starter two weeks ago, wouldn't you have wanted to see Wittek take a few snaps after that very mediocre first half?  Lee had a few drops remember.

The Defense looked greatly improved to me (how could they not), especially up front.  Kennard looked angry (see above), and Dion Bailey reminded me of a mixture between Will Poole and a poor-man's Troy Polamalu.  Norm Chow's creativity was no match for even our depleted secondary, which still had 4 INTs.  Ballhawk Sua Cravens had an interception on his 2nd series on defense.  He already looks better than Taylor Mays does currently.  Kevon Seymour looked like he would be okay, but Anthony Brown's injury looked much worse to me as he was carted off.  Another CB or two goes down, and Lee's bid for Heisman might get that much easier going both ways.

The O-line looked mediocre to awful, but it's hard to say the line was terrible with 185 yards rushing by Tre Madden & Justin Davis.  I thought Madden looked slippery, and I really liked Davis' hurdle on the touchdown.  He could be special.  Both Wheeler & Graf looked slow all night, and I thought significantly better on run-blocking.  Maybe they should run-block all of the time.  It'd be easier for the RBs to see and pick up their slack.

Kessler should've been pulled for hanging on to that ball for the safety, but it was too early I guess.  I never like passing laterally or backwards, so I guess it's a good thing Kessler is horrendous at all of them.  I didn't expect this, and that short screen he jump-pass launched for an INT was especially atrocious.  Wittek was told not to turn the ball over or else, so I think he held back a little.  I real head-scratcher is why the tight ends are so underutilized.  We have the best two in the Pac-12 conference.  Our QBs must throw a bunch of picks over the middle in practice, because the TEs aren't even being looked at unless they are near the sideline.  A skinny post to either one of them is tough for any linebacker to guard, but we still don't do it.  It's mind-bottling.

Overall, it was what I expected.  I didn't think we would cover.  We didn't.  I thought the defense would be light-years ahead of the offense like every other year.  It was.  I thought our play-calling would leave me scratching my head.  It did.  USC just embarked on its easiest schedule out of the next 6 years, so I believe I saw a 9-win team out there last night.  Stanford is going to have their way with us, but I think the Pac-12 South is ours to lose.  Let's hope the defense can keep it up against a better spread offense in Washington State and Mike Leach next week.

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Beat the Rainbows

This week is better than Christmas.  College football is back and opening day of dove season is September 1st.  I look forward to these two things more than just about anything else in my life.  The game tonight is in Honolulu at 5pm Hawaii time, meaning nobody near the Mason-Dixon Line will ever see a single play of the game.  I bet on Hawaii at +24pts, and that line has been shrinking ever since my smart money came in.  I think 'Bama rolls, LSU should cover, and I'm positive that the first score in the South Carolina vs. North Carolina game will be a field goal.

I went to Oahu earlier this July with a couple of buddies, and we got fired up as we drove past the football stadium.  Since we couldn't be there for the season opener, we decided to do the next best thing.  Enjoy the video, and no, we didn't get to choose the song.

Rick Monday Tuesday

 

Last night was Rick Monday bobblehead night at Dodger Stadium, and I made a point of going to the game.  This picture encapsulates why Major League Baseball has been able to carry on the moniker of "America's Pastime."  And I have to commend the Dodgers on choosing this bobblehead in particular.  Although Rick Monday is a broadcaster for the Dodgers now,  he was a member of the Cubs at the time.  With the Cubbies in town last night, the first 40,000 received this patriotic gem.  Annual attendance surpassed 3 million fans yesterday as well, possibly making room for the first ever 4 million spectator season in the history of the Dodgers.  Enjoy the tribute video below.

Morning Melons with Barbie

So this is former Playmate Shauna Sands.  The overdone Barbie look turns me off more now than it used to, but she still gets a pass.  The one characteristic that bothers me more than anything is the face/lips botox.  I guarantee Shauna would look much better and more human had she just stayed south of the neckline with the plastic surgeon. It's just nice to see she's still starving herself at 42. 

Simpletons @ the Scientology Gala

Just look at all these idiots.  These pictures were taken at at the Church of Scientology Celebrity Centre 44th Anniversary Gala in Los Angeles on Saturday night.  All the bad press from Leah Remini disclosing that their Leader disappeared his wife has allowed us an easily-ridiculed glimpse into their sociopathic underworld.  The collective IQ of this group is around room temperature.  I just wish Tom Cruise permitted a few of his pictures to be released.

 

Morning Melons with Khloe Kardashian?

Matching tattoos are almost always a good idea, except when they're matching a junkie to a bastard.  I'll admit my intent was never to dedicate a MM to Khloe Kardashian, but it seemed like the easiest way to take a swipe at Lamar Odom.  Mark Cuban/Pablo Escobar has got to be pissed that he was paying a crackhead to have the worst recorded season in history.  Additionally, the 20% chance that Khloe is a love-child from OJ Simpson was too much for me to pass up.  She's got a massive head as well, just like The Juice.

Every time I see Khloe, I think of this quote -

Reddit's Response to the VMAs

So this was the picture of the night according to the internet.  Cheekage-leakage everywhere.  Lady Gaga is already trying to be Madonna, so I just hope Miley does her darnedest to be the next Amy Winehouse.  The VMAs coincided with Breaking Bad, so whoever shit the bed on that one needs to be fired.    The top two posts on Reddit this morning were absolute gold.  Also, @TheOnion is one of the best follows on Twitter.  Trust me.

Morning Melons with Kim DeJesus

Kim De---Jesus Christ!!?!  She may actually be the hottest woman on the face of the planet.  She is married to David DeJesus, and these first pictures are of her drinking her way through the trade dealine before he was eventually waived to the Rays.  Every single Google image for her is an absolute feast for the eyes.  Enjoy. Instagram - @kimdejesus

Mark Cuban is Pablo Escobar?

Just hear me out.  Randomly I decided to look up Cuban's ridiculous fraternity pictures from the 70's at the University of Indiana.  Both center photos of these collages are Mark Cuban.  Remember, Pablo Escobar literally had BILLIONS of dollars on hand for any plastic surgeon worth his salt.  A little lipo, a tiny facelift, and voila.  A student ID card was probably the easiest to come by.

Also, how exactly did Cuban make his money?  My sources say he made the bulk of his cash from Broadcast.com.  WTF is Broadcast.com you may ask.  No one knows.  Somehow with only $13.5mil in quarterly revenue (not earnings), Yahoo! paid almost 6 BILLION dollars for the startup.  That sounds like the biggest money laundering scheme of all time if you asked me.

Blondes on Blondes #ErinAndrews

Look at Rupert Murdoch just doing his thing at Fox Sports 1.  I truly respect that he is not trying to hide it in the slightest.  I touched on this topic earlier, but I didn't grasp just how far it went at the time.  I absolutely love his shamelessness, and I hope this is just the tip of the iceberg.  Erin Andrews is in charge of all things college football, while Charissa Thompson has been given a great job as panel moderator on Fox Sports Live every night.  You should definitely get to meet some of the new talent, and I do mean talent.

Julie "The Mynx" Stewart-Binks hosts Fox Soccer Daily at 4pm daily and is Canadian=hockey fan.  Danielle "Hot to" Trotta co-hosts NASCAR Race Hub at 4:30.  Crowd Goes Wild with Regis is destined for failure, but his co-host Georgie Thompson has been described as the "Erin Andrews of English soccer crowd."  I haven't found the tape of Georgie curling her hair naked yet, but I will post it as soon as I get my hands on it.  In the meantime, here is the video of Erin Andrews checking herself out naked, curling her hair naked, basically just prancing around her hotel room how we daydream about.  Molly McGrath is a transplant from New England, where she covered Boston sports after cheerleading at BC.  Lastly, we have Kaitlyn Vincie.  She works closely with Trotta covering NASCAR and looks like the 2nd-most fun to motorboat.  See above.

Charissa Thompson

              

Julie Stewart-Binks

     

Danielle Trotta

          

Georgie Thompson

             

Molly McGrath

Kaitlyn Vincie

Midget Stripper Fail

Somehow this is actually helping with my fear of dwarves.


H/T to Barstool Boston

College Football TV Guide

LSU has a webpage dedicated to the College Football TV Schedule.  It is on Central Time, so most of us will need to subtract two hours for the correct kickoff times.  It has the Sirius/XM stations available for if you are stuck in the car.  It even has a channel guide for DirecTV, Dish, & U-verse at the very bottom to help your bartender get there faster.  Save this page as a bookmark on your phone's browser, you won't regret it.

Anyone else excited for football?

Morning Melons with Christie Brinkley

I can never remember the difference between Christie Brinkley and Kathy Ireland.  Like the Mayans & the Aztecs.  I looked it up, and Ireland is the filthy rich one.  Here is Brinkley at 59 with her 27 year old daughter Alexa Ray Joel in the Hamptons this past weekend.  So what if she's older than my mom.  This picture begs the question, who would you rather?

1 Week Til Kickoff

It's exactly 1 week until kickoff, and LFK still hasn't named a starting quarterback.  Players are starting to break rank and express concern.  I'm about as big of a Kiffin apologist as there is, but this refusal to name a starter is really grinding my gears.  The delay bothers me for lots of reasons.  Total reps against the first team D are down, familiarity with the receivers suffers, whomever will be constantly looking over their shoulder, pressing to make the perfect play, etc. 

I'm convinced that Kiffin wants to start Wittek and is just hoping for him to seize the opportunity.  Time has run out & the numbers reflect that he hasn't, as Kessler has clearly had better stats.  This is troublesome when imagining the short leash Kessler will be under to possibly start the season.  He'll perform like all of Henry Bibby's first guys off the bench -- deathly afraid of making a mistake.  Confidence and moxie are nearly impossible to exude without your coach fully in your corner.

This all seems like a recipe for disaster considering how much Kiffin likes to throw the ball.  Keyshawn Johnson took USC to the Rose Bowl the last time we had a two-QB system, so maybe Marqise Lee can do the same.  This commercial should pump you up for football season.

Where's Kerry Rhodes' SI Cover?

I'm sure everyone remembers this feel-good story about the first gay athlete in sports.  I knew Robbie Rogers in high school, so I consider Jason Collins to be the 2nd gay athlete to come out of the closet.  Rogers may be the only one considering no NBA teams are currently willing to sign up for this media sideshow for a glorified practice dummy.

This brings us to the curious case of cornerback Kerry Rhodes.  His partner decided to get a little too ballsy by posting photos of them while on vacation.  Since these pictures surfaced, he hasn't been able to even get a LOOK by an NFL team.  Not even a fucking training camp.

Let me put this in context.  Rhodes started 15 of the Arizona Cardinals 16 games last year opposite Patrick Peterson.  He finished the season with 67 tackles, 4 INTs, 2 forced fumbles, and 11 passes deflected.  Those type of numbers don't grow on trees.  I know plenty of teams that need help at corner, just not his.

MLB Payrolls

Amateur statistician Phil Roth just posted this interactive graph to his blog. It's a fantastic way to waste 10 minutes.  The bottom graph colorfully illustrates the impending doom of Albert Pujols' contract.  The $19mil owed to Vernon Wells next year is swift kick to the jewels as well.  Needing to sign Kershaw this off-season and Hanley Ramirez the following is going to have the Dodgers running away from the Yankees in the payroll totals for a few years.

Will Ferrell SNL Audition

I cannot imagine a video that more desperately needed to be added to the interwebs.  It is my favorite part of his first Best Of DVD.  Probably mainly because most people haven't seen it. #DutchLitchford

Kershaw is NL MVP

Clayton Kershaw just finished off another gem down in Miami with the Dodgers winning 6-0.  He went 8 shutout innings before letting Brian Wilson finish the ninth in first outing since Tommy John surgery.  Kershaw needed only 49 pitches in his last five innings this afternoon, and in the process he lowered his league-leading ERA to 1.72.

Anyone that tries to tell you that Kershaw deserves only the Cy Young is brainless.  In the modern era of baseball, only two pitchers (Gooden, Maddux) have ever finished a full season with a lower ERA.  Another fun fact is that September has statistically been the best month of his career.  No Dodgers team has ever won the division by more than 10 games, but that may change as they are sitting pretty at 9 1/2 games up in the NL West.

Cromartie's Worst Nightmare

An app from Brazil called Boyfriend Tracker was removed from the Google app store last week amid growing concern.  It's pretty genius.  It allows jealous partners to track their partner's location, forwards all of their texts, and can even auto-pocket dial the other partner's phone to eavesdrop on any conversation.  That last touch is quite something.  

The rules & regs state that the owner of the phone is downloading the app themselves knowingly. Obviously this is a lie.  No self-respecting man would allow themselves to be cuckolded like this.  Hilariously the free copy of the app adds a visible icon to the phone, thereby forcing these jealous stalkers to pay $2 for the hidden version.  

Media Bias

I was perusing the Huffington Post this morning when I realized they actually have a section (and masthead) dedicated to Trayvon Martin.  Where is Libyan Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens' section (and masthead)?  Nevermind that, but please take a little longer to really take in that picture.  The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.

It's true that conservatives have called for a national outcry following the shooting death of Australian baseball player Christopher Lane in Duncan, OK.  I understand the Trayvon story is still fresh in the minds of Americans, but these two stories are apples and oranges.  I wish the comparison wasn't being made.  That being said, after dedicating an entire section of the website to the liberal media's manufactured racial firestorm over TM, the HuffPost's leading article is about conservatives manufacturing a racial firestorm in Oklahoma. 

Hypocrites are worst than racists.

Morning Melons with Ann-Kathrin Vida

Public boners are awkward, but this chick seems to just be eating it up.  Mario Gotze is a young star that was recently picked by Bayern Munich, so Miss Vida will do basically anything to keep this lottery ticket.  Laugh at his shitty jokes, go to his stupid scoreless games, and even tell him he looks good in these briefs.  Figure it out dude.  Probably a two pump & dump chump in the sack.

The better question is what type of shorts would you wear if you had bulge like this soccer bro?  Granted they're Euro, but I think I would wear something more understated.  Like Jon Hamm wears pants, but he free-balls so the paparazzi can still catch a glimpse of his absolute hammer.  That's just classy.

Chasing the Triple Crown

Larry Brown Sports tweeted out last night that Miguel Cabrera wasn't the only one chasing the elusive Triple Crown.  Joe Blanton has somehow been allowed to stay on the pitching staff with an astonishing ERA of 6.12, nearly half point higher than the next worse pitcher.  He's only one back in home runs allowed with 29 dingers served up.  Blanton has been relegated to the bullpen after his initial 10 losses as a starter.  So instead of just being cut at the All Star break, he's accounted for 4 losses in relief as well. 

So for the third piece of this disastrous quest, Blanton's currently tied with Lucas Harrell of the Astros at 14 losses.  I'm putting his season over/under total at 15.5 losses.  I just don't think he'll get that many more opportunities.  The golden sombrero of this god-awful season has been his also league-worst -2 WAR (Wins Above Replacement).  This means Blanton has been two games worse than the standard minor league pitcher replacement.  That begs the question, "Why the fuck are they still putting the ball in his hand?"  It's a good thing he's only going to collect an additional $7.5mil next season to round out this $15mil mistake.

Mike Trout is making $510,000.