NCAA Basketball: Tonight the Hokies face UVA for their last meeting before the ACC tournament — interestingly if the tournament started today VT would play UVA in the first round as a #6 seed versus #11. VT will be without sophomore Jeff Allen after a one-game suspension was levied by Virginia Tech athletic officials in response to Allen’s middle finger gesture to Maryland fans in the Valentine’s day loss. This also adds Allen to the Vick Brothers as a fan of the one-finger salute. I expect that the Hokies can still sweep the Cavaliers following up on their victory in Blacksburg back in January. In that game Allen contributed only 3 points and 6 rebounds in 23 minutes of playing time. EDIT: Allen, we needed you. However, representing my biggest fear tonight: Virginia Tech was up by 15 points with just under six minutes to go in that first meeting between the teams and then the Cavaliers went on a tear cutting the lead back to just one point with a few seconds to go. Because of that incident (and the several other times we have seen such occurrences this season) I will not be comfortable with any lead unless its after the game is over. Incidentally, I will be in the stands trying to get under UVA’s skin - insulting the wine pairing decisions of the student section and racist Country Club membership practices of the alumni. EDIT: Those fans are horrible, old, and have stupid wives.

NFL Football: Michael Vick’s lawyers said they expected him to be out of the prison at any moment … and that was over a week-and-a-half ago. I am guessing Vick has already been quietly transferred out of general population as he awaits travel to a Newport News halfway house for the remainder of his sentance. As his release grows closer, Vick’s name has been tossed around by plenty of fans — but few team owners are willing to admit they will consider his services (keeping in mind there’s no guarantee NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will even reinstate Vick).  On the other hand, the new upstart UFL league has open arms, and has been on the record as seeing Vick as a great opportunity for both the new league and number 7. Though the UFL may be a epic flop after its six-game schedule starts in October, nothing Vick can do (except elloctructe dogs in his touchdown celebration) could be any worse damage than what was done in the opening XFL game sideline interview with HeHateMe. And why not cut the guy a break? The federal sentencing guidelines for Vick’s crime had recommend 12 to 18 months. Well, as we know, he got 23 months instead, and he lost all his money, and finally what was left of his public image was completely destroyed. I personally think he has learned his lesson and suffered enough, but if the cat abuser scandal of this weekend has taught us anything, public outcry favors animal life much more than human life (unless you are an ape).

MLB Baseball: Is screwed. First off Alex Rodriguez is a lying sack of shit. According to A-Shit he shot up with a needle of P.E.D.s at least 36 tims over three seasons. That sounds like plausable and fair admission, but then he went on to say the drugs were provided to him by his cousin Snuffalopogus and claims to not have known what was in said needles while injecting himself and that all of it was a big naive mistake brought on because he missed out on college… or some shit like that. Okay, fine, maybe Lip Gloss is telling the truth and a 25 million dollar a year player with a private jet he relied basically on his little sister’s boyfriend who has a fake ID for things he injected in to his body three dozen times. However on a 60 Minutes special a couple years back he told Katie Couric “I’ve never been tempted to use performance-enhancing drugs” and claimed he never tried steroids. Now THAT royally pisses me off because it wasn’t like it was a grand jury forcing him to testify under penalty of law nor was it something that the media demanded he do… no… A-Dick* did that show on his own voluntary decision and lied horribly the entire time,all-the-while admiring Katie’s purse. But then again, did all these drugs even help his numbers and turn him in to the Launchpad McQuack he is now? His average homeruns-per-at-bat in 2007 was just as good as what he did during his “juiced years” and that was when he was 5 years younger… however he did lead the AL in homers those three years. As a Sox fan I don’t like the guy, but I think we are talking about a handful of homeruns and not eye-popping Brady Anderson or Sammy Sosa jumps in the power numbers. In other news, the Nationals smuggle Dominicans in to the country using corrupt Baltimore shipping docks.

Aside from being my all time favorite dick cheer, every year there are a number of teams who shit the bed and don’t live up to lofty preseason expectations (thus being labeled overrated). On the flip side, there are also teams who grab a couple of roided up Juco transfers and post amazing seasons that their fans will talk about for years to come. I did a quick analysis of the data to find out which teams lived up to (or poo pooed) their preseason expectations. For my method, I looked at each team in the preseason and final AP and coaches poll rankings and compared their average poll positions. If a team was no longer ranked in the final polls, I had to use the Jeff Saragin ratings (aka the dipshit poll) to perform the calculation. The results are below:

And the award for most overrated team goes to…..Michigan! That’s right; the winningest team in CFB history pulled a Notre Dame this year and left a tightly coiled pile of losses on the lawn of the Big House. Rich Rod may be on unemployment by this time next year.

The most underrated team…TCU. LT’s alma mater was hardly noticed at the beginning of the season when they received only a handful of votes in the coaches poll and finished at a unanimous 7th place in both polls.

So who was fairly rated? Both USC and Pittsburgh finished at exactly the same average poll spots. Way to live up to expectations and not a penny more!

Other notable observations: VT was slightly underrated this year…Notre Dame finally got legitimate rankings (starting and finishing outside of both polls)….

Dock Ellis passed away on December 19, 2008. He was perhaps the coolest pitcher Major League Baseball ever knew. He pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates, among other teams, and in 1971 he won 19 games for the World Series champion Pirates. He was also the NL starting pitcher for that year’s All-Star Game. However Ellis and his legacy is better told through a couple of outrageous but also hilarious stories…

Dock was known for his gritty and aggressive competitiveness but also sometimes silly demeanor on the field. He would preach to fellow teammates that it was better to psyche out your opponent than actually conquer them athletically. In order to prove his point  following a heated debate over the topic with a handful other Pirates players, Ellis attempted to hit every batter in the Cincinnati Reds lineup during a regular season start in 1974. Ellis first hit Pete Rose, then Joe Morgan, and then Dan Driessen in the top of the first. The clean-up batter Tony Perez dodged the throws in an animated plate appearance and managed to draw a walk by narrowly ducking out of the way of very high and inside fastballs. Ellis then threw two pitches aimed at the head of Johnny Bench - which means 3 current Hall of Fame members were all targeted in the head by Ellis (one day that number will be 4 once they finally let Rose in). Amazingly it was manager Danny Murtaugh who pulled Ellis and not the home plate umpire - who apparently saw no problem with the head-hunting pitching tactics. Ellis’ box score for the game reads: 0 IP, 0 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 0 K.

The REAL gem of Ellis’ past is his LSD no-hitter and it is best told in his own words… “I was in Los Angeles, and the team was playing in San Diego , but I didn’t know it. I had taken LSD….. I thought it was an off-day, that’s how come I had it in me. I took the LSD at noon. At 1pm, his girlfriend and trip partner looked at the paper and said, “Dock, you’re pitching today!”

“That’s when it was $9.50 to fly to San Diego. She got me to the airport at 3:30. I got there at 4:30, and the game started at 6:05pm. It was a twi-night doubleheader.

I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. I was zeroed in on the (catcher’s) glove, but I didn’t hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters and the bases were loaded two or three times. The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to dust. They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn’t hit hard and never reached me.”

The Pirates won the game, 2-0, although Ellis walked eight batters. It was the highpoint in the baseball career of one of the finer pitchers of his time, and arguably, one of the greatest achievements in the history of sports. Rest in peace Dock.

In a sad turn of events for one of the nations oldest and crappiest looking mascots, the Penn State Nittany Lion mascot was arrested on a DUI charge this week and his status for the Rose Bowl is in doubt, police and school officials said.

The scarf-wearing, now-extinct Nittany mountain lion was pulled over on campus around 3:15 a.m. on November 22, hours before Penn State’s 49-18 win over Michigan State, University Park Police Capt. Bill Moerschbacher said Monday. The driving behavior that lead to the stop was that the vehicle was overloaded, with passengers piled onto each other and blocking the driver’s view. I’d assume that when the driver told the officer that he was “THE nittany lion” he only assumed the driver was confused from being intoxicated but had the driver been wearing the school’s signature mascot head he probably would have been let go with a warning and a severe scolding from Jo Pa on Monday morning.

The Hokies once disciplined Hokie Bird for going downtown in costume during one of the Main street psudeo-riots and we even commemorated it on a class ring (class of 2004 I think). The Nittany Lion of course far exceeds Hokie Bird’s behavior however I think you have to be a bit nuts to wear that febreeze soaked sweat factory a couple hundred times a year, I know from personal experience, and if he needs to drink with a car load of friends to deal with it - so be it. BUT come on man, you’re a mascot… you should be driving a segway, or an ATV, or a pogo stick.

I have to accept that the Red Sox season is over. I didn’t want to but alas this is the end of my baseball enjoyment for the year -granted there is some team that has no idea what its doing playing some team that Swain once said something about but otherwise that’s that. I really wanted to bitch about this shirt at some point also, oh well.

The Red Sox need to get their pitching together. No more Tampa Bay homerun derby over the wall. No more Ortiz with wrist problems. No more Varitek stinking up the plate and cheating on his wife. No more Jacoby not on base. No more suck.

The Red Sox may need another night to take care of the Angels. While the Phillies and Dodgers are out partying in their champagne goggles, the boys from Boston need to keep their eye on the prize and stay focused for game four. Jason Bay, who I know has some more Bay Bombs on tap, had a bad go on Sunday night since he hadn’t seen some of the pitchers he faced ever in his career. I’ll blame the loss on his lack of experience but expect business as usual on Monday.

I mean, I have no worries that they will bounce back, but when things hit extra innings after midnight and the camera starts panning the miserable faces of the Nation across the screen, I start to get that sick feeling in my stomach that somehow things will revert back to 2003, and the two World Series wins will be erased, and my eyes will go legally blind again.

As the sun sets over the smog draped skyline of Beijing we say goodbye to not only the 2008 Olympic games but also to the inclusion of baseball as an Olympic event. That’s right, for at least the 2012 Olympics there will be no baseball played -at least for medal status. This marks the only sport since Polo to be eliminated, never mind the fact that over 16 teams and 300 athletes will now be left out of Sydney London so that the world of competitive gun shooting can have center stage. Baseball has been played since 1904 in the Olympics in some fashion. Though it did not gain medal status until fairly recently (1992) many countries in North and South America are wondering just how an event with such popularity could be “voted out” of the next games. Of course the IOC is a tight ship that doesn’t let anything slip by so I feel confident it was a legitimate vote.

After investigating more on this supposed “vote process” I was able to see which other events missed the cut for the 2012 games by even narrower margins than our nation’s pastime…

iPhone Waiting

The iPhone Wait event barely made it on the radar for this year’s games but may gain momentum in coming years as market share of the iPhone increases and as Apple decides to release newer, shinier versions of its highly sought-after mobile phone device. The iPhone wait consists of standing in a line for several hours, sometimes overnight if the conditions and rebate price requires it, and obtaining an iPhone as quickly as possible and most-importantly before any stranger sitting next to you on a commuter flight from Washington DC to Chicago beats you to the purchase. Championship events are held daily in major American metropolises and the sport’s popularity is spreading to the European Union, Canada, and eBay. Training can be grueling, but the payoff is sweet for those willing to endure. Most athletes entered the world of sport waiting participating in Wii Waiting at a younger age and moved on to the professional circuit once they reached the age of 16, as required by international rules. This event may just be a twinkle in the IOC’s eyes (see 1996 Beanie Baby Collector petition) but the committee is keeping its finger on the pulse of the sport to see if it gains enough global popularity to warrant a vote for 2016.

Cockblocking

Perhaps even more surprising than baseball is the omission of the globally recognized sport of Cockblocking. Cockblocking, which is widely popular among amateurs and professionals alike once again missed the cut for the 2012 by the narrowist of margins. To those who may not know, Cockblocking is the ancient and delicate art of interfering with someone who is getting acquainted with, conversing with, or otherwise trying to fuck a member of the opposite sex. Teams consist of two women or sometimes may be co-ed teams consisting of one woman and one man who “has a place for you to crash”. The teams attempt to thwart the interactions between a member of the team and a “point man” -a heterosexual male- during his tactical attempts to get the tip of his dick wet (one way or another) as the three athletes wander through a controlled environment of pool tables, dance floors, and draft beer. 2006 World Games champion and likely top contender for a 2012 games Jenny Johnson (or better known to fans as “No Play J.J.”) of Minneapolis, MN had been training since she was a child and was crushed by the news from the IOC that the sport was not going to be played at London. “I gained all this weight and got shit on by just enough guys to really make myself as bitter as possible… now what am I supposed to do with all this spite and unmatched knowledge of the show ‘The Hills’?” Some speculate that the varying local rules of each participating country would add significant difficulty in assessing scores and lead to a debacle reminiscent of the Bird Dogging finals of the 1936 Olympic games.

Quoting Will Farrell Movies

One of the newer events that hopes to make it to the 2016 Olympic games (to be held in a yet-to-be-determined city) is that of Quoting Will Farrell Movies. As Will Farrell has produced one box office hit after another, a steady accumulation of lines representing the few reasonably funny moments from his films has been building in the minds of boring middle-aged white-collar males. These athletes, or “Farrelletes” as they prefer, have brought their craft to mainstream society by using Farrell movie lines in conversations with co-workers and strangers alike, usually resulting in spectacularly failed attempts to elicit a comedic reaction (usually due to the fact that saying the lines is only funny if said by Farrell himself while in character during the viewing of a motion picture which someone has actually decided to pay money and watch). In international competitions, judges base scores on obnoxiousness of the quote and award special points for excessive repetition and general lack of humor and timing. After the 2004 games in Athens many were convinced this event would make it to Beijing on the heels of such classics as “We’re Going Streaking”, “You’re my boy, Blue!” and “Stay Classy, San Diego”. Perhaps it is the restriction to an English-speaking audience that is hindering the adoption of this event.

Wasting Time Online

An event never imaginable during the first Olympic games in 776 BC just may find itself as the newest event for 2016. Wasting Time Online has become wildly popular in developed nations and may be a way to harmonize the many advancements in technology with the traditions and prestige of the Olympic games. Athletes in this event are given an option between an Apple Powerbook or a Dell Latitude laptop and have one 8-hour work day to spend as much time as possible online and not contributing to any work product whatsoever. Though the event is said to be the sport of only the wealthy, many point out that “wasting time” is a universally understood concept and this variation simply “tweaks” the playing court. Often times event participants will visit websites more than a dozen times a day, post to message boards such banter as “Buried for misleading title -it was a car accident, but he’s not dead you tard”, as well as watch countless movies of less than 2 minutes in length and play poorly coded Flash-based games which require no skill and even less intelligence to master. International rules restrict content used in official matches which is deemed to be “NSFW”- as many South American competitors found that masturbation was an easy but unethical method of achieving a near perfect score. Not everyone feels the Olympic games are ready for such a radical and technically advanced event. Barji Mannuli, of Brazil’s world champion traveling team noted “[T]his may not be the worst time to take a step back and let [the game] develop for another 4 years- we lost Scrabulous recently and that was a major blow to our Facebook routine.” Because it is in indoor event, Wasting Time Online may also be included in the upcoming Winter Olympic Games, which has a final listing of events that are still “under review.”

Until 2016 we will just have to wait and see if Baseball can again be considered an Olympic event and more importantly, whether these or any other events currently “standing on the outside and looking in” can make it on to the world’s stage for the athletic elite.

Phil Mickelson is known for shanking his drives when a win is on the line and that didn’t change much in the final hole of this weekend’s tournament at Colonial. Amazingly, Breast Pumps recovered with a incredible shot out of the woods to land ten feet from the hole which he followed up with a birdie putt for the win. In apparent reaction to the win, a fan in the crowd cannonballed in to the water hazard as if the Chicago Cubs had just won the World Series, and he’s been a die hard fan his entire life, and he actually won the Cubs franchise on a game show seconds earlier, and the game show was for the clinically retarded.

(Sorry for the video quality and redneck commentary)

If the guy’s friend bet him that he could pour fire ants down his shorts if Lefty won then maybe this was all justified. I just can’t see someone going that crazy over Beefy Tits Mick, let alone any golfer, of course that may have been his bookie jumping in celebration.

I guess it was just very out of place for a professional golf course. Then again, if I was ever to hit a hole-in-one I think I would totally freak out and set my golf cart ablaze before running naked through the fairways screaming Spanish verbs while firing stolen firearms in to the air.