You really have to pity the career caricaturist. If your drawing hand isn't already trembling at the thought of successfully capturing a USC legend/Saints Messiah, you always run the risk of making him look like the mascot for some racist snack packaging from the 1920s.
The Stanley Cup—aka Canada's Holy Grail, from which, legend has it, one sip of Labatt Blue renders the drinker immortal—took some time off from its current damnation home in Detroit to take in some local sunshine and glamour. Starting in Manhattan Beach at the home of former San Jose Shark Brad Stuart, the cup then bounced into its rental (a convertible Sebring) and hightailed it down to Chris Chelios's place in Malibu. It stopped for breakfast at Coogie's Beach Café, where a cup-struck Rob Reiner bashfully approached it and requested a photograph. But it was once it arrived at Bally's gym owner John Wildman's annual Fourth of July party that it really started getting caught up in the Hollywood fast lane, rubbing handles with the likes of Detroit's own Kid Rock, David Spade, Cuba Gooding Jr., Ray Liotta, and Jeremy Piven. The Stanley Cup Journal blog reports:
Sean Avery, a man of contradictions. He has an eye for couture, but is definitely straight. He plays left wing for the New York Rangers (that's ice hockey, I'm told) but he was also a fabulous fashion intern at Vogue. The sartorial skater is in Paris right now gawping at the Chanel, Gautier, and Dior shows (with oh, you know, Anna), while also making time to mack on cute blonde lady bloggers. Specifically fashion writer Susan Kirschbaum, who ran into Avery in Paris, asked if he was sure he wasn't gay and was met with an endearingly bonk! straight boy response:
The UK's stupid libel laws allow people to successfully sue the media for making fun of them. So Robert Dee, a 21-year-old British guy who is the world's Worst Professional Tennis Player, is suing three newspapers there for pointing out that he is, in fact, the Worst Professional Tennis Player. Mainly, this makes us glad to be in America, where we're free to tell you that Robert Dee is the Worst Professional Tennis Player. But also, the facts aren't even on his side; it sure sounds like he really is the Worst Professional Tennis Player!:
Tit-and-chicken-wing purveyor Hooters has signed on as the exclusive sponsor of Big Brown, the star racehorse that has already won two legs of the Triple Crown, and will try to complete the feat this weekend at the Belmont Stakes. UPS, the brown-themed shipping company that was was originally the sole sponsor of the horse, inexplicably allowed Hooters to slide in just before Big Brown is set to achieve the pinnacle of its publicity. In addition to being a bad PR decision, UPS' move has now subjected us all to the prospect of Jay Leno (and, less painfully, Tracy Morgan) chuckling about Hooters' upcoming "Big Brown Day":
Well, ultimate fighting is now officially an acceptable sport for mainstream America. Tomorrow night, CBS is showing a live fight featuring none other than the Miami headcracker, Kimbo Slice. He's an ex-bouncer who's risen to fame, fortune, and respectability solely through brutal, bare-knuckle fight videos of him on YouTube. A true American success story for our modern age. Half of you are saying, "Who?" The other half are saying, "My favorite was when that guy in the backyard kept trying to pause the fight, but Kimbo knocked the hell out of him anyways." Though there will be some halfhearted controversy over CBS' decision, we're calling it right now: ultimate fighting is no longer a trend, or an oddity; it's a part of the sporting establishment that families can watch together. Two of Kimbo's YouTube classics are after the jump. America will have its blood:
Veteran sportswriter Pat Jordan, who worked for Sports Illustrated back in the good old days when every athlete would grovel and tap dance for a chance to appear in that magazine, has a long piece in Slate today detailing exactly why his job was way better back then than it is now. To sum it up: athletes today know they can control the media, whereas back then they were basically underpaid rubes grateful for any press coverage that might land them some endorsements to enhance their meager salaries. Jordan also notes that Jose Canseco is a jerk, old-timey players weren't afraid to ogle girls in front of a reporter, and Deadspin.com is the future of sports journalism. Suck on that, Buzz Bissinger!:
Well now! Terrance Dean, the former MTV producer who's about to release a book about the secret gay secrets of the rap industry, is slowly unveiling some teaser stories on a blog (not to be confused with his own, vague blog). His first story concerns his sexy meeting and sexy rendezvous with a sexy male professional athlete, who proceeds to have sex with him! And is a closeted man! So who might this be:
We honestly thought there was no way we'd be able to shoehorn a reference to the NHL playoffs—and, more specifically, a tuque-tip to our beloved Habs, who dismembered the Bruins 5-0 Monday, inciting one of many dépanneur-looting riots to come—in this space. But that was before we came across this beyond-inspired gallery at SI.com, placing some of the lesser-known faces under the helmets alongside their celebrity doppelgangers. The effect, in certain instances, is nothing short of astonishing, introducing a whole new audience to the likes of Sharks goalie Evgeni "Chino" Nabokov, and Penguins center Sidney "Stick in a Box" Crosby.
A new book called Chalked Up by ex-gymnast Jennifer Sey appears to confirm what many of us have long suspected: gymnastics is a weird and creepy sport. Not the tumbling and flipping part; that's cool enough. But the entire gymnastics complex that takes little girls and hammers them into world class athletes with eating disorders is a little sickening. And all those middle-aged men coaching—what are they doing there? I choose to sweepingly judge the lot of them as shady characters. Sey's experiences, related in a new interview with Salon, certainly reinforce that impression:
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, basketball legend, humanitarian, and LA Times blogger, turns 61 today. And he's not just sitting back quietly writing children's history books and skyhooking $100 bills into the garbage can; he's asking for a little birthday love from his readers! You are instructed to "send a detailed note to Kareem's manager if you can help make his birthday wishes come true." I would think he could take care of the "tropical vacation" out of his own pocket, but maybe not? After the jump, his wish list, and how YOU can help.
Seattle's only championship sports franchise, the Sonics, are headed to Oaklahoma City, much to the dismay of longtime fans now stuck rooting for the hated Portland Trailblazers, owned by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen. Bilious billionaire and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, with his friends, pledged $150 million toward renovations of Seattle's coliseum and the cost of an NBA basketball team, but there was a catch. The state and the city had to come up with $75 million each for the venue upgrade.
Alex "Blue States Lose" Blagg is a pretty prototypical New York blogger, except for the fact that he used to wrestle in high school. That bit of athletic glory in his past somehow inspired him to arrange an actual, physical wrestling match with Quentin "Rampage" Jackson, the current Ultimate Fighting Championship champion and honest-to-god badass of the first order [Best Week Ever]. We won't give away who won this battle of equals! The full video is after the jump. Keep in mind that Rampage's favorite technique is called the "Power Bomb":
Sports Illustrated has put a huge gallery of its archived content online for free. The best part is the selection of old covers, from back in the grainy days of short shorts and wild hair. Some of the production meetings back then probably involved drugs. We've selected the five weirdest covers from 1978, a year we picked because SI put Clint Hurdle on the cover that year, and you have to admit that man has a fine name. Look at the covers below!
If you're going to waste time at work on a social network, why lavish it on the proles of Facebook? You could instead luxuriate it on the wildly attractive Jessica Alba and NBA All-Star Baron "Bulletproof" Davis of our hometown Golden State Warriors. Davis and old friend Cash Warren, Alba's paramour, cofounded Alba's favored social network, iBeatYou. The basic premise: One interacts through friendly contests like Best Beard. But the "differentiator," in Valleyspeak, is Alba and Davis's celebrity draw. It kind of reminds me of the now-defunct Consumating, except with playful jocks instead of indie rock hipsters. After the jump, NewTeeVee's Liz Gannes captured a moment with the effusive Davis.
"Mark Harwell knew he was on to a good idea when he brought the Los Angeles Lightning, an International Basketball League Team, to the hoops-crazy City of Angeles." That's the first sentence of a press release that, if Mark Harwell has more sense than his decision to buy an International Basketball League Team would indicate, will prompt him to say, "God, I need to fire this fucking flack."
Athlete and sportscaster Josh Booty thought he could drive just fine, even though he was drunk, and then he thought he could take on taser-wielding Orange County Sheriff's deputies, who of course tased him right before he cracked his head. But is it a surprise the 32-year-old thought he was invincible, or that he was acting out? First he was "the most highly recruited high school quarterback in the country," according to the New York Times. Then he drew a record-setting $1.6 million draft bonus to play for the Florida Marlins' minor league franchise. When he got bored of that, he went to college for a year, until he was drafted into the NFL. He was a quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks, then the Cleveland Browns, then the Oakland Raiders. The free-agent quarterback parted ways with the Raiders in 2007 and has been killing time as a sportscaster for Fox, ESPN and the NFL Network. So why the self-destructive behavior? A possible answer, plus a larger shot of Booty's booking photo, after the jump.
So much for the death of television. 97.5 million people, a Super Bowl record, watched my beloved New England Patriots lose to the New York Giants, according to Fox. 107.5 million people watched the last half-hour of the game, besting the 106 million that watched the final episode of M.A.S.H. Television advertisers, who paid $2.7 million for each 30-second spot, definitely got their money's worth. Altogether, they spent $156 million on the five-hour game. It takes Google three days to make that much money.
Behold the best tech ad in Super Bowl history: Apple's "1984" ad, which cost $1.6 million to make and run, and only aired nationally once. The following nine ads, while perhaps not as iconic, are all fascinating in how they seek to make the mysteries of tech compelling to the masses.
