Athletic criminals

As the end of the year is upon us, many websites are coming up with their “top” lists of “best of” lists for the year 2006. ESPN is no different, as today Patrick Hruby put out his police blotter power rankings list, with the top 25 crimes committed by athletes in 2006. Unfortunately he finished the list too early, so he was unable to fit Mike Tyson in there. Oh well, there’s always next year!

The ultimate road trip

Miguel Rodriguez is attempting to see a home game at all 337 D1 basketball arenas this season. The only problem is that he has 107 days to do it (not to mention a full time job and a pregnant wife). His rules include the fact that he counts a game if he makes it through one media timeout. It is going to be a tough road, but I am sure he will give it a valiant attempt. You can chronicle Miguel’s travels here.

Models choose the best looking athletes

On SI.com today, there was an article which featured the hottest athletes in sports, as chosen by SI Swimsuit models. While I believe that these girls are definitely qualified to tell us who’s hot and who’s not, I was puzzled by one of their answers. At #7 for hottest male athlete, they had Jesse Palmer. Palmer is a former backup for the Giants and briefly for the 49ers, but mainstream America knows him as the guy who was on “The Bachelor”. Now, Palmer is broadcasting games along with Ron Pitts, for FOX. I had heard that he was broadcasting, and not doing badly from the reviews I have heard about, but it took a little research for me to find out that Palmer is in fact still playing. He was the 4th string quarterback for the Montreal Alouettes last season. Technically I guess he can be included in this list of athletes, but it seems like his future and his present may be off the field, not on it.

Hornung not leaving the record books without a fight

In case you don’t know, Ladanian Tomlinson is good. In last night’s 20-9 win over the Chiefs, Tomlinson scored 2 more Touchdowns to bring his season tally to an eye popping 31. With his 31 TD’s, Tomlinson has now scored 186 points this season, breaking the single season mark of 176 held by Paul Hornung. Now Hornung is questioning whether Tomlinson deserves to be in the record book ahead of him. Hornung, who played Running Back and Kicker in his record breaking season, is contending that he had the record breaking season because he scored his points in 12 games. He also said that he would accept the record if someone had a better point per game average than him. Hornung’s average in 1960 was 14.6 while Tomlinson’s average this year is 13.28. It seemed like Paul Hornung had a lot to say, but he did not say the one thing he reslly should of, which is congratulations.

Inflatable Defender

Have you ever been shooting hoops by yourself and thought to yourself that this is too easy, I need a defender? Thanks to PlayAir Systems, your problem is solved with the Inflatable Defender. The Inflatable defender is a life-size, seven foot inflatable model of Ben Wallace, complete with afro and a “fear the fro” headband. This actually is not a terrible idea, it just seemed funny to me that many of the people in the video on the website were little kids, and I am not expecting them to be playing in games against 7 foot opponents any time soon. Either way, there are drills that come with the Inflatable Defender to improve your game. The Inflatable Defender is fairly lifelike, except for the fact that it stays in one position unless someone is there to move it around for you. Since it does not move, maybe they should have come out with an inflatable Michael Olowokandi instead.

Sports title results for Spike's 2006 VGA's

There were 2 sports categories from tonight's Video Game Awards, one for "Best Individual Sports Game" and one for "Best Team Sports Game". I was personally pulling for Rockstar's Table Tennis in the individual category, not because I've played it or anything, but because as I've stated before, I love me some ping pong. In fact, I was crushed when I first found out that Table Tennis would only be available for XBOX 360, which I do not own. I had thought it would be available for PS2. Well, it turns that Tony Hawk 8 took the individual award. I now officially feel old because I think I was in college when Tony Hawk 1 came out.

In the team sports game category, I was definitely pulling for NBA 2K7 from 2K Sports, another game I've never played. My reasoning was that the other 4 titles in the category were all from EA Sports. I'm definitely not a fan of the monopolization that EA has over NFL games, so I'm willing to back 2K, who seems like the only competitor out there in the sports category. Oh by the way, NBA 2K7 did win, so I can now go to bed happy knowing that at least one of my two took home the cake.

Get a Detroit Pistons faux-shuffle mp3 player

The Pistons are selling mp3 players for $25 that are complete knockoffs of iPod Shuffles. They are donating the proceeds to the Detroit Medical Center to benefit Breast Cancer Prevention however.

Joey Porter back in the news

Joey Porter has a knack for making his presence felt before, during and after a game. This was evidenced by the verbal war he got into with Seattle tight end Jerramy Stevens before last year’s Super Bowl. Porter got the best of Stevens on and off the field in that case. Now he got into another verbal war, this time with Kellen Winslow before last week’s game, calling him a derogatory term. Yesterday, Porter apologized, sort of. He came out and said he did not mean to offend anyone by his comments except for Winslow. I am sure Porter rubs people the wrong way, but most of the time, I find Porter’s antics amusing. My favorite Joey Porter moment was his introduction of the Pittsburgh defense during their Monday night game earlier this season against Jacksonville, seen below. As funny as Porter is in that clip, I think I like Mike Tirico's explanation to the fans of what Joey is referring to just as much.

Pneumatic batting bot

A German guy has been building robots out of junk parts and scrap metal. The one below has been designed to hit. I'm impressed by its motion, which looks like a person hitting infield grounders. The website for the robot's maker explains that they "are controlled manually via a system of switches."

David Stern bouncing from ball to ball

After many complaints by players, the NBA will switch back to their old leather ball on January 1st. Since the beginning of the season, the league had been using a new synthetic ball (shown below) that players said was slippery when wet and was cutting up their hands. NBA commissioner David Stern evidently got tired of all the complaints and decided to make the switch. I was surprised when they made the switch in the first place because I did not see the need to switch, but I am even more surprised that they decided to switch back, especially in the middle of a season like this. Hopefully now everyone will be happy, but I bet at least a few players complain about the new ball when it returns too.

Where is Iverson headed?

On Friday it was announced that Philadelphia 76ers guard Allen Iverson had asked for a trade. Iverson is one of the top players in the NBA, but could potentially be one of the riskiest players for a team to trade for because of his attitude. Even still, many teams have inquired about Iverson. Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Stephen A. Smith (yes, the same Stephen A. Smith from ESPN) wrote a column today with many possible trade scenarios for Iverson. Thanks to ESPN, fans can try and come up with their own scenarios on the trade machine.

A game headed straight to NBA Classic

Last night in East Rutherford, New Jersey, the Phoenix Suns beat the New Jersey Nets 161-157 in double overtime. This was by far the highest scoring game in the NBA this season. In fact, the previous season high for points by one team was 140 by the Denver Nuggets. As you might imagine, there were a few stats in this game that stood out, but 2 really caught my attention. There were 58 minutes players and 318 points scored, yet the two teams combined for just 29 turnovers. Second, with such a long game, you would think everyone on the team would get major minutes. That was not the case for Phoenix, as only 9 of their players got in, with Jalen Rose, Jumaine Jones, and Pat Burke all getting the dreaded DNP-Coaches Decision.

Good Gift / Bad Gift - Volume 2

This time I'm bringing you commentary on beer gifts, a relevant choice because of its popularity at pretty much any sporting event. Its also great Christmas morning to help drown out the kids.

Good Gift - The Wunderbar Home Beer Dispenser. Looking at the picture below, you should be able to tell that this is a sweet thing to have around the house. It can be stocked with 4, 5, or 6-liter keg in your choice of 300 brands of draft beer and it ranges in price from $105 to $238. The low end model will keep beer cold with batteries. The high end model will cool beer using the same technology they put into Sub-Zero fridges. The only catch, its not actually for sale in the US. So actually, that makes this a horrible gift idea for THIS year.


Bad Gift - The Sports Nut Beer Basket. This one had me pissed off right away, because its actually the kind of crap that someone will end up buying/receiving as a present. All it is is 4 bottles of beer and a few snack foods you could pick up standing in line at 7-11 with a bow on top. And why is it labeled the "Sports Nut" variety of beer gift basketness? Is it the yellow koozie? Nope, its because everyone knows that athletes eat sunflower seeds. By the way, the baseball, golf balls, tees, and fishing lure in the picture? Nope, not included. They couldn't fit that into the $49.95 price range they were working with.

Arizona marching band plays Radiohead

Here are a few tracks from OK Computer as interpreted by the band folks at U of A. It starts off a little sloppy, but definitely gets good a couple of minutes in. Beats the crap out of the half-time shows I see at most college football games I've gone to.

PUMA table tennis tournament in NYC

This saturday, sneaker and apparel giant PUMA will be holding a ping pong tournament in New York City. Its not going to be a huge event, only 16 teams (48 total players) will be allowed to enter. I'm all about anything that draws more attention and coolness to table tennis. Easily my favorite participation sport, but it doesn't get alot of attention or respect in America. Then again, neither does foosball or skeeball, probably with good reason.

Link to PUMA.com event site.

Shoes from Starbury

Back in November, we told the story on this blog about how Nike was making custom sneakers for high school teams, including Christ the King high school in New York. Today came the news of another basketball shoe story from New York. Knicks guard Stephon Marbury is giving away 3,000 pairs of his shoe, the Starbury One. He is giving away a pair for every high school varsity basketball player in New York City. The total value of this comes to around $45,000. Marbury got publicity with these shoes in the summer, when he announced that they would be sold for just $14.95 a pair. I commend Marbury for coming up with a cheap shoe that is made the same as a regular basketball shoe but costs like 10 times less. It’s nice to see a player like Marbury has not forgotten where he came from, and is able to give back.

TO in LaLa Land

Monday was Terrell Owens 33rd birthday and he celebrated in style by throwing a birthday party for himself in Los Angeles. The birthday party was star studded as you might imagine, as Hollywood stars such as Justin Timberlake and Chris Rock joined NFL stars Javon Walker, Edgerrin James and Shawne Merriman at the party. Of course TO was there too, but it seems like Owens wanted to get the party started a little early, since he was not even listening to Dallas Coach Bill Parcells during his speech to the team Monday. Owens quote about what Parcells said in the speech was “I can't remember. I had my mind on the party…… I was already in L.A.” At least this time during the Cowboy’s meeting, TO was thinking of going to the actual La La land (Los Angeles) and not the one he usually goes to during meetings.

Dynamic info displayed on player jerseys

Researchers at the University of Sydney are working to develop a great concept, displaying dynamic statistical info right on player's jerseys. After reading the first line of this article from newscientisttech.com, I was totally psyched about the possibilities.

Basketball vests (singlets) with electroluminescent displays that show a player's score, and number of fouls, are being trialled in Australia.

Sounds great right? Sounds like some sort of high tech fabric that can display LCD like images. I'm thinking of a jersey where instead of the player's number on the back, there's his point total. Here's the deal, what I had in my head upon reading the first bit of the article is not exactly what has been developed. The picture below shows a vest that looks like something straight out of Tron. Apparently, information is displayed through lightup crossing guard style stripes. Eh, the idea is cool and I'm sure eventually someone will develop some really nice intelligent textiles for sports uniforms.

ESPN continues to branch out

ESPN has announced today that they are teaming with the Tribeca Film Festival to launch a film festival featuring independent sports films. This festival will take place during next year’s Tribeca Film Festival. This has the ability to be interesting, and I hope that some of these films will be available eventually on YouTube. If I were going to make a short film, I might make it similar to the video below, which focuses on the greatest basketball game ever played.

The Hot Stove League heats up for Maier

The Major League Baseball winter meetings are in full swing and the rumors of where players will land are flying everywhere. On person that’s down there trying to catch on with a team in the front office is Jeff Maier. If you don’t remember, Maier was the 12 year old Yankees fan who took a catch away from Tony Tarasco of the Baltimore Orioles in the 1996 AL Championship series. According to a Yahoo Sports article, some people from the Orioles still can’t seem to forgive him. I was an Orioles fan at the time of the incident in 1996, but I have nothing against him now. If he were to find work in Major League Baseball and screw one of my favorite teams over again, then I would be pissed.

"Pre-hydrate" with Pickle Juice

Golden Beverages, Inc. has created a drink with the intended purpose of pre-hydrating you. And oh, it tastes like pickles... tasty, tasty pickles. So, I'm guessing by the ingredients that water, salt, vinegar, and corn syrup leads to this pre-hydration they speak of. But the best part of this urine-imitating beverage is the endorsement from All-Pro tight end Jason Witten. Now I'm curious if he actually drinks this stuff before games.

Link to Bevnet.com review. They gave it a 1/2 star out of 5.

Where are they now: NBA version

On the front page of ESPN.com today they had a feature story by Chris Sheridan on the whereabouts of many former NBA players that are no longer in the league. Some of the players featured like Penny Hardaway were household names while others like Zoran Planninic you may not recognize unless you were a hardcore NBA fan. Of course, the story was an insider story, which I do not have access to, but after some research (thanks Google) I was able to find the article in its entirety on a different website. I found it interesting to see how many are playing overseas, how many are trying to get back in the league, and how many just want to spend time with their family. My personal favorite was Shandon Anderson, formerly of the Heat, who they said was presumably busy at home counting $100 bills until a warm weather team calls. Oh the tough life of an NBA player!

Sly adds a touch of pretty to MNF

For those who missed it, Stallone showed up to Philly to promote Rocky 6 and luckily for us, his face brought its A game. This thing is great. Its gotten all puffy and cartoonish. Unfortunately, the pictures don't do it justice because you can't get the complete sense of how it contorts and moves when he talks. You can however see from the picture above, the perfectly waxed eyebrows that form such nice arcs (from the facelift). I'm also pretty sure that he's getting collagen injections to his lips and possibly using servo motors to control the bottom left part of his mouth.

Another battle between Michigan and Florida

The Chicago Bears beat the Minnesota Vikings yesterday to improve to 10-2 and clinch the NFC North Division. That was the good news. The bad news was the fact that Rex Grossman, the Bears starting QB, had another pitiful game. Now the talk has begun that maybe they should pull Grossman in favor of backup QB Brian Griese. I find it funny that this QB battle takes place with a QB who went to Florida (Grossman) and one who went to Michigan (Griese) on the same weekend that the BCS Bowls were announced. Just like the BCS results, I think Florida will top Michigan in this battle and Grossman will be the starting QB when the Bears take on the Rams next Monday night.

Parity in the NFL continues at the QB position

Parity in the NFL continues at the QB position

Yesterday while watching the Redskins-Falcons game, I found myself watching Michael Vick and thinking that he has his moments as an NFL quarterback, but I would not call him a Pro Bowl Quarterback. Then it occurred to me: who is a Pro Bowl QB in the NFC? I found this article that wondered the same thing. It seems there are way too many mediocre QB’s starting, which could be the reason for so many mediocre teams. Just look at the list below of the starting QB’s in the NFC yesterday and today. Not exactly a great list to choose from when you need 3 to make a Pro Bowl roster. My personal picks as of today would be Drew Brees, Tony Romo, and Marc Bulger. That would give you a guy who the Chargers did not want anymore (Brees), a guy who has only started half of his team’s games (Romo) and a guy who has led his team to a 5-7 record (Bulger).

Dallas-Tony Romo
New York Giants-Eli Manning
Washington-Jason Campbell
Philadelphia-Jeff Garcia
Detroit-Jon Kitna
Chicago-Rex Grossman
Minnesota-Brad Johnson
Green Bay-Brett Favre
Atlanta-Michael Vick
Tampa Bay-Bruce Gradkowski
Carolina-Jake Delhomme
New Orleans-Drew Brees
Seattle-Matt Hasselbeck
St. Louis-Marc Bulger
Arizona-Matt Leinart
San Francisco-Alex Smith

Free, live NFL video feeds

If you know your way around the internet, then you know there's a way to get pretty much any kind of media for free, whether its music, movies, video games or porn. Well now its been getting some attention around the net that sites (like this one) are setting up peer-to-peer systems that allow people to watch live NFL broadcasts.

What were the parents thinking?

Lucious Pusey - Junior LB, Eastern Illinois (player profile)

The new/old Pacmobile

Tennessee Titans cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones won a $77,000 car for $48,500 yesterday. This would make most people pretty happy. There was just one problem: The 2004 Cadillac XLR Roadster Convertible was already his car. It had been seized after the cocaine related arrest of Daryl Moore, a rapper and friend of Jones. Need more evidence that the car was actually his, look at the picture of the car below with the words “Pac-Man” stitched into the seat. Pac Man had another problem when trying to get his car back though: the bidding ended yesterday during the middle of Titans practice. No worry though, as he had one of his “associates” bid on the car which they eventually won. The $48,500 goes to the drug task force, the car goes back to Pac Man and everyone lives happily ever after.

Athletic feat of the week

A 94 year old woman in Washington state bowled a 244 the other day. As if that feat was not impressive enough, how about the fact that she is legally blind! Her 86 year old husband has to tell her which pins are remaining. I would have been impressed had she bowled her age, but she almost tripled that! It usually takes me 2-3 games of bowling to knock over 244 pins, and last time I checked I had 20-20 vision!