The Ducks win the Cup

The Ducks win their first ever Stanley Cup championship, shocking the hockey world... which consists of fifteen Americans and the entire country of Canada.

Who cares?

Congrats are in order, I suppose... I mean... they did win the most highly regarded championship in all of hockey... wait... I still don't care.



Great playoff beard, Scott Niedermayer, jesus christ... look at that thing.

Knibb High Football Rules!!

Cheerleading Mishaps

VIDEOVAT.COM > GET AWESOME MYSPACE VIDEOS FREE!!

Mmm... blood

This one is so brutal that it's mesmerizing.



The goalie who got sliced was Clint Malarchuk, a Canadian goalie who played for Québec Nordiques, Washington Capitals, and Buffalo Sabres. This famed injury occured on March 22, 1989 with the Sabers hosting the Blues. Blues player Steve Tuttle colided with Uwe Krupp of the Sabers and the two of them slided right into Malarchuk, slicing open his external jugular vein. Malarchuk somehow managed to get off the ice under his own power and the team trainer and Vietnam medic Jim Pizzutelli pinched his neck closed to make sure that he wouldn't die until the medics got there to suture his neck. Pizzutelli pinching his neck is what kept Malarchuk alive.

Seven fans fainted from the sight of the blood, two fans had heartattacks, and two players vomited on the ice. Which is awesome.

Malarchuck was playing again about a week and a half after the injury.

Billy Donovan is a woman

Billy Donovan is a chicken. He was making a smart move by moving up to the NBA with a team that has a pretty decent chance of turning it around and being a viable threat in the East but he chickened out and went back to where he was comfortable.

I can't blame the guy for wanting to be comfortable, I mean, he earned the right to have that choice. However, he won his two championships with his players and he deserves the money he can earn in the NBA. It's probably a smart move to stick with the players that you worked hard to recruit, but he's getting out of the pros before he gets a chance to prove. From now on he'll always be known as just a pretty good college coach. I mean, he could have pulled a Patino and done absolutely nothing in the league, but he could have broken the mold and actually had a successful NBA career. Who wants to have their career surrounded by a bunch of "what ifs?" The way it's looking, he might have actually done pretty well with a pretty talented Magic team.

Oh well, I guess he's just gonna be a baby about it and run back to Gainsville where there's no real basketball community. They are a football school. It's not like when Coach K decided to stay with Duke... that's the only thing they have aside from Lacrosse... hahaha... Duke Lacrosse...

So yeah, I got nothing.

Hahaha... oh wow

Now that, my friends, is how you get ejected from a baseball game.

I just love how nobody on the field seems to make a big deal out of it. This is part of why minor league baseball even exists.

God Bless The Internets!!!

The glory of youtube and Al Gore's "Internets" bring us footage of Zambrano/Barrett Round 1.

I still say Soccer is dumb

Alright, the continuation of my little injury series takes us overseas.



Apparently this guy's name is Henrik Larsson, a now retired professional soccer (fuck you rest of the world, it's soccer) player. The injury occured during a 2-0 against Lyon when Larsson was playing for Celtic.

Up to the injury, Larsson was well known for his long blond dredlocks, but after he returned from his year long recovery peroid (A full year? What a pussy. Painkillers exist for a reason, poofter) he shaved his head and never grew out his dreds again.

The injury broke his leg in two places, but when he came back he was (apparently) better than before.

Soccer is still a pussy's sport.

umm

Zambrano sucks...really bad. I've been watching the Cubs game as I often do, to get a sick pleasure out of their suffering. Today's game has really filled my appetite. The once dominating Zambrano has been absolutely lit up through 5 innings, giving up 13 hits and 7 runs, while striking out 0 and walking 2. But the real fireworks happened in the Mid 5th inning when Z and Michael Barrett got into a heated shoving/shouting match in the dugout. In the top of the 5th, a frustrated Zambrano gave up 5 hits and 2 walks in a 5 run inning. With 1 out and men on 1st and 2nd, Z and Barrett got crossed up on a curveball allowing both runners to advance, Barrett attempted to get the lead runner at third and promptly threw the ball to Soriano in left. Apparently Big Z didn't take too kindly to Barrett's sudden Knoblauchitis and tried landing a few on Barrett's kisser between innings. I loved Barrett's smartass reaction when Z approached him before the melee though. I can't read Zambrano's lips, well hell I probably couldn't understand him talking anyway, but Z probably just blamed Barrett for the crossup and said something smartass about his throw. But I could definitely read Barrett's lips: "Look at the fucking scoreboard, you gave up 13 hits!" Both players were pulled by Piniella the next inning and weren't seen on the bench after. I'm guessing Zambrano had a shit parade in the locker room, abusing any towel boy with the nearest Louisville Slugger in sight. His troubles are becoming a major issue for a team that has had a rough start despite outscoring their opponents 231-220. It would not be surprising to me at all if Z is traded before the deadline this year. He is in his last years of arbitration and it will take a huge contract to keep him in Chicago, and the Cubs desperately need some bullpen help. But what went wrong with Zambrano? How has he gone from a bright young star into Batting Practice for NL teams? The Hardball Times' Carlos Gomez wrote a short article on Zambrano, and it shows a definite drop in his arm slot from '05, his best year, and now. A drop in the arm slot has huge implications for a sinkerball pitcher like Big Z. A sinkerball pitcher has to stay on top of the ball in order to get the downward rotation for a "heavy" sinker. Gomez theorizes that it could be due to him hiding a sore shoulder or even worse, a shoulder injury. This all makes great sense considering that Zambrano has been at top of the Majors in PAP (Pitcher Abuse Points) the last 4 years. Maybe like another Rothschild gem, Kerry Wood, the years of abuse have simply taken its toll on Zambrano. His pitching lines are way off his nearly dominating career averages, He is giving up homeruns at twice his average, walking nearly a batter more per game, striking out 3 less men per game, and his superb Groundball rate has fallen below his average. This of course couldn't come at a worse time for Z, as he's playing for one of those obnoxiously large contracts that teams have been handing out lately. (Yes, Juan Pierre is really making 44 million over 5 years...Juan Pierre!!!) I think the best thing the Cubs can do in this situation is to trade Zambrano while he still has some value. The demand for pitchers like Zambrano at his age is tremendous. If they can pull off a Josh Beckett type deal (Anibal Sanchez and Hanley Ramirez) they could be sitting pretty for a few years to come. But this being the Cubs and GM Jim Hendry, they more than likely will hang on to a pitcher that is unsignable and he will continue to suffer under a pitching coach who managed to help destroy 2 of the brightest arms of this early century. A third could be in the works.

That is a Serious Leg Injury for Willis McGahee

One of my favorite things to do online is show people horrific sports injuries just to see their reaction. The glory that is YouTube makes all of this possible, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites,i.e. most gruesome, with you. Enjoy!

Willis McGahee's gloriously disgusting knee injury occurred during the 2002-03 Fiesta Bowl for the BCS National Championship as McGahee's Miami Hurricanes looked to repeat by defeating the Ohio State Buckeyes. They just might have done it, too, had it not been for this horrific injury to McGahee during the fourth quarter.


Yep

The Hurricanes ended up losing to the Buckeyes in double overtime, but one must wonder if fortune would have smiled Miami's way had Will Allen gone a little lower or a little higher on that hit.

Regardless of the outcome of the game, McGahee was incredibly lucky and only suffered an ACL tear. He was drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the first round of the 2003 draft and has the potential to be one of the premier running backs in the league.

...

That is, of course, if he didn't play for Buffalo. He was traded to the Ravens this offseason.

The "yep" at the end of the video always cracks me up something fierce.

Yum...

One of my favorite things to do online is show people horrific sports injuries just to see their reaction. The glory that is YouTube makes all of this possible, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites,i.e. most gruesome, with you. Enjoy!

This is it my friends, this is the injury that the majority of football pundits believe is the most disturbing hit in the all of football. This is Lawrence Taylor snapping the tibia and fibula of Joe Theismann's right leg.

I believe this goes without saying, but for those who have weak stomachs better not fucking watch this. I will not be held responsible for you vomiting. That's just mean.



snap

Thank God that you can't hear Theismann's bones snap... that would have been even more gruesome.

This all took place in 1985 during a Monday Night Football game between the New York Giants and the Washington Redskins. In a called flea-flicker that did not fool the Giants' defense whatsoever, NFL Hall of Famer Lawrence Taylor lunged at Theismann, grabbed him by the shoulder pads, pulled him down, and landed with all of his body weight on Theismann's right leg. Snap, snap. There goes a career.

Although he looks to be writing about in pain, he apparently felt none of it.

"It was at that point, I also found out what a magnificent machine the human body is," Theismann said. "Almost immediately, from the knee down, all the feeling was gone in my right leg. The endorphins had kicked in, and I was not in pain."*

Both Theismann and Taylor have refused to view the footage of the hit, although word is that after it occured, Taylor told Theismann that he was lucky that he hadn't broken both of his legs.

But of course, that's just the type of guy Taylor was/is/always will be. I mean, come on, he's a well known coke-head who's in the Hall of Fame. Take that Michael Irvin.

One must wonder, though... if Theismann had played a few more years maybe he would be considered a legandary quarterback for more than just getting his lag snapped in half and winning one Super Bowl. Maybe he would be in the NFL Hall of Fame and wouldn't be working for ESPN where we have to suffer through his really really dumb comments on a regular basis.

Nothing is really different for Lawerence Taylor. He finished that day just like he finished any other day... coked out while banging a prostitute.

Lawerence Taylor, member of the NFL Hall of Fame.


*Shapiro, Leonard (Nov. 18, 2005). "The Hit That Changed a Career". , p. E01.

OK...so last night's Ollie and Lincecum matchup wasn't the 1-0, dual no-hitters/unearned Run game. But it was damned good baseball. The issue of maturity comes up again, they both showed great strides and held their mistakes to a minimum. For Ollie, he pitched really well over 7 innings, limiting his mistakes to three solo home runs, and only 2 singles. If Ollie can hit his spot a little better on even 1 or 2 of those solo shots and make those a flyout, we're looking at a gem. The key was Oliver kept the baserunners at a minimum, walking 0, which is huge for Ollie as he has struggled with control over the last 2 years. He struck out 8, his slider was sharp once again and he had good velocity on his fastball getting a lot of swinging strikes. Once again, for Ollie to be successful, he has to get a lot of swinging strikes, strikeouts and infield flies to compensate for being a heavily flyball pitcher. He did that well on Tuesday and looks to have an impressive year for what's shaping as a juggernaut Mets team. If I was a gambling man (which I definitely consider myself) I would put money on the Mets to be the NL champion...As long as Jorge Sosa isn't needed for a playoff start, which means they need a healthy Pedro Martinez to round out. A rotation of Glavine, Perez, Maine, and Pedro could be really dominating come October. The outlook is not as good for the Giants. Although they own arguably the best rotation in the NL with Zito, Morris, Lincecum, Cain, and Lowry, they have struggled to score runs so far and will have trouble beating the pitching rich NL West if something doesn't change. They are in desperate need of another power bat to protect Barry (Ray Durham should be nobody's answer as a cleanup hitter, not even the Nationals). TLinc also pitched well with minimal mistakes. Lincecum spread 3 hits over 7 innings against a stout Mets lineup, hardly an easy task. He struck out 8 as well but walked 3. The major damage was in the 4th inning, when he walked Reyes to start the inning and then gave up a 2 run shot to Delgado. But other than that, he was unhittable save for a 1 run double in the 6th. Both pitchers combined for a lot of swinging strikes, looked dominant and limited their mistakes as flyball pitchers. I'm excited to see what these guys can do the rest of the year.

ESPN is gayer than John Amaechi taking it to the hole

Is there really anything worse for sports than ESPN right now?

I pose that question knowing full well that ESPN is an infotainment kind of thing with the goal to inform viewers of the goings on in sports while attempting to entertain them at the same time. The entertainment is obvious in the form of the many live sporting events that are shown daily. Along with those are sports discussion shows that are intended to entertain and inform with witty banter and opinions from experts.

The information is omnipresent in the form of a news ticker and it's own network simply to relay the sporting news of the day, all day. With the way everything is set up, you can learn of the entire day's news and events from the sports world by just an hour and a half to an hour of Sportscenter.

------

Well... all of that is what ESPN would like you to believe. In reality, most of things are true, but in ESPN's effort to inform, they forgot one of the main rules about talking heads, they're normally biased and wrong. With the popularity of ESPN this has become devastating to the sports viewing world. Those with very little understanding on how the sports world runs will tune in to ESPN nightly and have their opinions morphed and developed into exactly what ESPN wants you to believe. ESPN wants you to believe Barry Bonds is really important enough to warrant a mention when he goes 0 for 4 with two strikeouts in a game that the Giants lose, they feel it necessary for you to know that T.O. sneezed at training camp.

They give you far too much information about stuff you really don't care about but give you said information so much that it gets lodged in your mind and you start to actually give a damn... or you just yell at the TV like I do.

I am a sports fan, I enjoy watching sports and trying to understand and enjoy the many intricacies of any game in which I am viewing. ESPN is a network intended for those who do not enjoy watching the game like I do, it's for those who like watching the game and being told what's going on. It's like going through life holding your father's hand the entire way through as he leads you from one place to another, one experience to another. At first it's great to have everything in the world explained to you, but after awhile you want to experience things for yourself. To view the world the way it is without having someone point out everything.

Hold, that's a horrible analogy. In life, you outgrow the father's explanations because you believe him to be incorrect but later on through live you realize that your old man was right all along. No, that is in absolutely no way like ESPN. ESPN is more like your mom teaching you how to drive but she remains in the car with you even after you've mastered the skill but she still insists on telling you what to do every time. You grow out of the phase of needing your mother to drive, but you still do it incorrectly and your mother was wrong because she is a woman, and women can't drive.

ESPN is like your mother teaching you how to drive. Now that's an insult.

Now I know what you're thinking... you're thinking "What the hell difference does it make? I am a well-informed, knowledgeable fan and I don't use ESPN as a means to learn, I simply get scores and whatever else I feel like watching for. It affects me in no way."

Well, that might be true person who doesn't exist, but the vast majority of people who do watch ESPN are heavily influenced by it without even realizing it in the worst possible way.

The main problem with ESPN's lock on the sports viewing world is the "experts" in their employ. Almost all of them are idiots.

Skip Bayless, Jim Rome, Jay Marriotti, Woody Page, Bob Ryan, Tony Reali, Joe Morgan, Chris Berman, John Kruk, Steven A. Smith... must I continue? These are a whole lot of people, for one reason or another, who have risen up to the ranks in ESPN and are regulars on numerous shows throughout the day where they do nothing but spew idiocy and declare their ideas as the truth. Mind you, this is an abridged list, there are many more idiots at ESPN. What makes it worse is that this style of analyst has become the staple, calling play-by-play or what have you in sporting events is no longer art that it once was, and with every year that passes, more and more of the wordsmiths of yesteryear die off leaving an ESPN influenced idiot in their wake.

So now ESPN's brand of misinformation has spread to practically all other stations in an attempt to better connect and get better ratings from the ESPN audiences. Leading to, of course, dumber fans.

Dumb fans lead to dumb fan bases, which leads to fans becoming enraged by a smart move made by their favorite sports team because ESPN's talking heads disagree with the move which leads to decreased revenue for the team which leads to organizations watching ESPN to base their own moves on.

This is, of course, speculation, but I can't help but feel that it's accurate.

ESPN fans are fans that will jump on the bandwagon of any player or team that ESPN has deemed good or exciting. To (finally) put it bluntly, ESPN is filled with idiots, and ESPN fans are idiots.

So basically, ESPN is gay like Brady Quinn. They'll never admit to it, but it's obvious to anyone who is paying attention that it's true.

Steroids II

I thought I might chime in on the subject as well as it got my little Vince Young-sized brain churning with excitement. Are steroids cheating? Yes. Do I care? NO. What makes popping a needle in your ass any more morally wrong than say, stealing a team's signs from second base or taking a little K-Y "Intimate Sensations" jelly and making a spot on your glove so you can throw a shineball? It's because, at least in my mind, no difference exists. Cheating is cheating is cheating. And baseball is, and always has been a game of prevalent cheating. We laud some players even though they are possibly the greatest cheaters ever. 100% of Major League Baseball players have cheated, and that's not some typo. One of the special things about baseball, is that the rulebook is left with a lot of interpretation, and therefore a lot of leeway when it comes to people who like to cheat. For example, the takeout slide we so often see into the second baseman or shortstop, VERY illegal, but the umpires never call it. Also illegal is the phantom tag that second baseman pull all the time. Often on double play balls, the second baseman only sometimes will touch the bag. In some cases he's a solid a foot or more away from the bag and gets the out from the field umpire. I just finished reading Derek Zumsteg's book: The Cheater's Guide to Baseball. He also has a fine blog that updates recent cheaters like Frankie Rodriguez this year when he had a "mysterious" substance on his hat. In his book Zumsteg argues that cheating and baseball are two things that are inseperable, and also a somewhat healthy thing. Cheating adds to the competitive spirit. Now I'm not gonna sit here and argue that steroids are a good thing for baseball, they were about as good for baseball as Pete Rose betting on games. Steroid abuse is a serious issue for obvious reasons, if it becomes an acceptable practice, than the average lifespan of the major leaguer will start to rival NFL players, and a generation of children will think that nothing is wrong with sticking a needle up your ass to get stronger. Ken Caminiti only saw age 41, and I will place bets that Canseco doesn't make 50. Using steroids has serious consequences on the abuser. And as biochemicals advance with time, the results could become more disastrous. The whole shitty thing about 'roids, is that it came in a time with a worthless MLB front office. I guarantee you if Kenesaw Mountain Landis was commissioner now, steroids wouldn't have ever become an issue. But because Bud Selig and the higher ups sat and watched the players get bigger while the money poured in following the '94 strike, steroids became an issue. How big of an issue? We'll probably never know. We could go by the hilarious and unrealistic statement of Canseco and 85% of MLB players using, or the slightly less ridiculous Caminiti's 40% (still unrealistic). What is realistic is probably between 5%-10% (10% being worst possible scenario). Now 40-70 out of the 800 MLB players is hardly epidemic rate, which means that...the steroid scandal is blown entirely out of proportion. The game was never filled with roided up monsters. Furthermore like S Dub pointed out, steroids don't make you hit a ball 550 feet. But I do think they can help a little, maybe a 320 ft flyball on the track into a 330 ft flyball over the wall. Bat speed is not something that can be exponentially changed. David Eckstein, as terrible hitter as he is, has incredible bat speed. Major League Hitters have incredible reflexes and hand eye coordination that they need in order to hit a 98MPH fastball or a diving splitter. Theres more to the story than just brute strength. Barry Bonds should be lauded as one of the top hitters in history, because if you argue otherwise you are an absolute idiot. His 2001-2004 seasons are the greatest offensive years EVER by any player that has ever roamed Darren Daulton's world (it is indeed his world, we are just lucky to live in it). However, when looking at Bonds, as you should with players of all eras, you should look at him with context. Bonds undoubtedly has taken the Cream and the Clear and more than likely some other PED's like HGH and testosterone. So take that into account, but also take into account he is/was an unbelievable hitter regardless if he took rhinocerous tranquilizers, popeye's spinach, or Towelie's weed (wanna get high?) So if there's a lesson to be learned, it's that each era, especially ours, has its own context that you have to look at. For example Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, and Rogers Hornsby never faced a pitcher who wasn't white, A foul ball wasn't a strike until the AL adopted it in 1903, hitters after 1968 gained by the mound lowering 5 inches and a smaller strike zone. So when we look at Barry today, we should take into account that it was a remarkable hitters era, and that Babe Ruth's 60 HR and 714 career is dramatically more impressive considering the home run record that Ruth broke...the single season was 25 and he smashed it with 29 in 1919 and nearly doubled that with 54 the next year, his first in New York. Babe broke Roger Connor's career Homerun record with his 139th HR in 1921. Let's talk about context there, he smashed the career record by almost 600 Home Runs!!! So baseball fans should not bash Barry when he passes the record in the next month or two, just recognize the accomplishment with a grain of salt.

Steroids

Yes, fucking steroids.

In today's sports world, no form of cheating is exposed in the media more than steroids, but are people getting upset over it for all the wrong reasons?


Steroids seem to be scrutinized the most in Major League Baseball where you'll hear the higher ups talking about how it makes for an un-level playing field, but everyone knows that that's not the main concern. Baseball is such a stat fueled sport that what most people care about are the records and the affect steroids have on them; namely the career home run record that Barry Bonds is currently chasing.

I believe that most baseball fans will not respect his record when he breaks it and it will be the subject for mainly retarded debates. Okay, let's just get a few things out of the way. Barry Bonds has and does take steroids, we all know this, he will break the home run record, he is only still in the league because of steroids, and he does absolutely NOTHING for his team.

Barry Bonds is an excellent hitter, there is no doubt in my mind about that at all, hell, he might even be one of the greatest hitters of all time. Steroids do not help you hit, all they've done is kept him hitting well into his forties. Honestly, that's my biggest problem with steroid usage. It keeps players in the game that have no business being there. Barry Bonds should be retired, writing his blog for a living.

Somebody like Bonds does nothing but take up a roster spot and a shitload of the team's money. Which is something about steroids that also pisses me off. With the older stars being able to stay around for so long because of their steroid usage, it's potentially keeping youth out of the league. What's more exciting? A steroid filled aging giant, are a rising stud? Just look at the Giants as a good example of this for their average age of 35.6 years old could very well end up being the oldest professional baseball team ever.

Steroids hurt baseball in ways that people don't even realize.

What about other sports? Well... it seems like nobody really gives a fuck about steroids.

Well... except for maybe this guy:



...ew