Really Ready for their Close-Up: Part II

This week’s Movie Spectacular edition of ESPN The Magazine features .  Lindsey Vonn in Basic Instinct, Baron Davis in Back to the Future, and Danica Patrick in Anchorman are some of their cinematic recreations.

The staff here at DSB thinks the Worldwide Leader missed a golden opportunity.  Instead of letting the stars recreate their favorite films or characters that resemble them, we think ESPN should have done a better job of “matching” the movie to the athlete.  So, we broke open the expense account and hired our own photographer off of Craigslist and took matters into our own hands.

Eli and Peyton Manning as Wyatt and Gary in Weird Science

Plaxico Burress as Cheddar Bob in 8 Mile

Brad Childress and Wade Phillips as Lloyd and Harry in Dumb & Dumber

Wes Welker and Tom Brady in Brokeback Mountain

Cliff Lee, Brian Cashman, and Derek Jeter in Trading Places

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Max Power

Really Ready for their Close-Up: Part I

This week’s Movie Spectacular edition of ESPN The Magazine features .  Lindsey Vonn in Basic Instinct, Baron Davis in Back to the Future, and Danica Patrick in Anchorman are some of their cinematic recreations.

The staff here at DSB thinks the Worldwide Leader missed a golden opportunity.  Instead of letting the stars recreate their favorite films or characters that resemble them, we think ESPN should have done a better job of “matching” the movie to the athlete.  So, we broke open the expense account and hired our own photographer off of Craigslist and took matters into our own hands.

Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Jose Canseco, Roger Clemens, and Mark McGwire as The Usual Suspects

Tim Lincecum and Michael Phelps as Harold & Kumar

Greg Oden as Elijah Price (Mr. Glass) in Unbreakable

Ray Lewis as Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs

Scott Boras and Jayson Werth in The Devil’s Advocate

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Max Power

Fantasy Football Advice with Tracy Jordan

I’m Tracy Jordan and I got up very early today to write this fantasy football post – and it wasn’t even court-mandated! I woke up at 10:30am just for you. Do you know that in the morning, they have food, TV, almost everything? It’s pretty good.

So you may be wonderin’ why I’m here to give you free fantasy football advice. Well, did you ever think about why Catholics don’t eat meat on Fridays? I’ll tell you why – it’s because the Pope owns Long John Silver’s. That’s called insight! Plus, I was born in Giants Stadium so that makes me kind of a football expert right out of the womb. And I also starred in a made-for-TV movie about the perils of playing fantasy football called “Third and Long: The Story of Robot Dan Reeves Versus the Werewolf Zombies.” So those are my qualifications, and here is the absolute best advice I can give you – live every week like it’s Shark Week. Don’t be the scared guy in the cage teasing the sharks with your goggles and fancy video equipment; get out there and provoke the sharks, like chum. Don’t get suckered into that hot quarterback on a hot streak … look closely into his numbers. Did he play soft defenses? Are his receivers healthy? Is he a post-op trans centaur? Those are the things you need to look out for. See, it’s like this – I love cornbread. I love cornbread so much, I want to take it behind a middle school and get it pregnant. I want its privates and my privates to do a high-five. That’s how you should feel about your weekly waiver wire pickup! Because if you don’t put in for him, you’ll regret it, and regrets are for horseshoes and handbags. So go to your waiver wire and pick up Ryan Torain. Why? Because his last name is Torain, which Pacman told me means “to shower with money.” If you pick him up, you’ll be showered with money, just like Lexus down at the club.

I feel we’ve come a long way, you and me. I feel like we’re a team now, like Batman and Robin, like chicken and a chicken container. I see you, chicken! Why you hanging out with those french fries!?! Crazy chicken!

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
ZJ

The NFL’s Blind Eye

The NFL does not really care about the health of football players. You probably already believe this but up until now I am pretty sure no one has proven it too you. The NFL has been passing out fines, substantial fines, for helmet to helmet hits the last couple of weeks. They’ve been ratcheting up the cost of “illegal” hits so as to appear like they care about the health of the product they put on the field. But image is all that matters to the NFL. If you need proof of that you need to look no further than Hall of Famer Mike Webster.

Iron Mike was the anchor of the Pittsburgh Steelers offensive line from 1974 until 1988. He is the greatest center in the history of the game and at the age of 50 he died while living out of his pickup truck. Webster was unable to maintain employment and relationships due in part to chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a neurodegenerative disease that was the result of the wear and tear his brain was put through while working in the NFL trenches. Doctors estimate that Webster’s football career was the equivalent of 25,000 car crashes on his brain. 25,000.

Even with the increased attention towards “illegal” hits, the battle on the line of scrimmage remains the same. The NFL fines for horrifying (for me entertaining) hits in the open field and on the QB but they never fine or even discuss what is clearly brain trauma inducing hits between sometimes 400-pound men. The NFL gets to look like they care about protecting its players because they fine linebackers for trucking wide receivers and for planting the untouchable quarterback but they look the other way when supersized men erupt on each other at the snap of the ball.

I personally don’t care about the fines or the devastating hits. The NFL players signed up the play a brutal game. They signed up to do it because it’s as good as hitting the lottery. They receive millions of dollars to entertain. I just wish the NFL stopped pretending like it cares about the health of its players. If it did it would work to protect them all. Not just the ones that end up on highlight reels. In the end it is the linemen on both sides of the ball who will be victims of the brutal game; more so than some wideout or the man they protect. The linemen are involved in a collision on every play. But there is nothing glamorous about those hits and those players so the NFL just ignores the next Mike Webster.

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Bearcat

Fantasy Football Advice with Abe Simpson

Hello!!

My story begins in nineteen-dickety-eight. We had to say “dickety” because the Kaiser had stolen our word “twenty”.  I was working in the circus as an assistant to the assistant lion tamer when I met a young girl in Amarillo, Texas.  Her hair smelled like corn flakes and her breath like mustard, but I thought she was the bee’s knees just the same.  We took a hot air balloon ride and raced a limey who called himself Phileas Fogg around the world…and we would have beat him too if it wasn’t for that Abominable Snow Monster of the North.  I had tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time, and he smelled us coming.  So we hitched a ride in a pelican’s beak until it dropped us off on Ava Gardner’s doorstep.  She fed us breast milk and nilla wafers until we gained enough strength to send us on our way.  Eventually we caught back up with the circus where they called me Jo Jo the Dog-Faced Boy and I was soon discovered by Hollywood and went on to star in such movies as “Bedtime for Bonzo” and “Star Wars”.  It was during this time that a dance craze swept across America and everyone was doing the Funky Chicken, which in those days we called the Old Tokyo Sandblaster.

Where was I?  Fantasy sleeper…oh, right.  Expect at least three nickels worth of points from the Buffalo Bills’ Ryan Fitzpatrick.

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Max Power

The Unemployment Line Just Got Fatter, Crazier, and a Lot Dumber

In the last 24 hours Wade Phillips, Dan Hawkins, and Joe Morgan were all fired from their respective jobs and positions. DSB takes a look at each situation…

*********************

Wade Phillips had to go. He had gone from just appearing like an incompetent, bumbling boob on the sidelines to actually coaching like one. Does this make him any different than half of the head coaches in the NFL? No, but even the most diehard Cowboys’ fan in the world had finally turned on Wade. The massive expectations and disappointing 1-7 record was just too much for Jerry Jones to take. I think Jerry would have made the move weeks ago, but there is absolutely no one on this staff that can make a difference and is capable of turning this team’s fortunes around. I’m sure Dave Campo thought the job might have been his by default if Jones got all the way down to his name on the coaching staff, but instead they promoted former wunderkid Jason Garrett who has proven his lack of leadership and offensive genius this season.

*********************

I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about now former Colorado Buffaloes head coach Dan Hawkins. But I do remember his classic meltdown in front of the press after a player’s parent wrote him a letter expressing their concern over what little time off the players have during the year. Here’s the clip and it’s worth every second of your time.

To say that Hawkins was a bit of a loose cannon is probably an understatement, but he had to be better than that sexist zealot Bill McCartney who was there for a dozen years. At least for the rest of our entertainment, right?

*********************

In a move reminiscent of putting a dog out of his misery, ESPN finally chose to cut ties with Joe Morgan in his role on their baseball coverage. Morgan is obstinate, elitist, and stuck in his thinking to his playing days over thirty years ago. Morgan had justifiably become a lightning rod to criticism from both statistically-minded followers and old-school baseball viewers. Often he would talk in circles, contradict himself, make up facts, and state the obvious far too many times to do anything but hit the mute button during the telecasts. Just some random examples are:

“See that’s what good hitters do…they hit the ball.”

“Of course, we’re not comparing him (Ryan Howard) to McCovey; we’re just saying that he’s similar.”
“A lot of star players get booed in opposing stadiums.”
“I don’t deal much with stats, Jon. All I know is he’s got those intangibles.”
“Without their star players, the Mets lineup isn’t as strong as it is with them”
“Yeah, he’s good and all, but like I’ve always said, I always prefer major leaguers over minor leaguers any day. They just seem to be more major league ready.”
“Everyone believes that a .300 hitter is a good player and that a pitcher with a low ERA is a good pitcher. That belief is not necessarily the case. . . A .300 hitter makes seven outs for every ten at-bats, and if his seven outs come with men on base and his three hits come with no one on base, these hits are not very productive. . . Likewise, many pitchers pitch just good enough to lose. . .Run production is how you measure hitters. Wins and losses are how you measure pitchers. Batting averages and ERAs are personal stats.”

*********************

Good riddance Wade, Dan, and Joe…enjoy your time with Rob Dibble and Omar Minaya as you wait for Brad Childress to join you.

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Max Power

10 Things I Learned About ESPN Personalities From Wikipedia

1. We know the Rick Sutcliffes and Mark Mays at ESPN are ex-athletes, but would you believe anchor John Anderson was a high jumper during his time at Missouri?  How about Dr. Jerry Punch and Kenny Mayne both as backup quarterbacks at NC State and UNLV respectively?  And my favorite has to be picturing that pencil-neck geek John Clayton playing football at Duquesne.

2. Baseball Tonight host Steve Berthiaume & anchor Cindy Brunson have been married since June 2006.

3. Ex-NFLer Marcellus Wiley was the 1988 National typewriting champion with his torrid 82 words per minute rate.

4. Longtime broadcaster Brent Musburger previously worked as an umpire for minor league baseball during the 1950s

5. Chris Mortensen served two years in the Army during Vietnam, but he’s not the only one at the Worldwide Leader who was in the Armed Forces.  Sal Paolantonio was awarded the United Nations Meritorious Service Medal for his four years of service in the U.S. Navy.

6. Both Gary Thorne and Len Elmore briefly worked as assistant district attorneys after they received their law degrees.  Another lawyer in the fold is basketball analyst Jay Bilas who successfully defended a costume business against Barney the Dinosaur in North Carolina Superior Court.

7. Speaking of Bilas, he has had his Screen Actors Guild card since 1987 and the apex of his acting career is in the 1990 Dolph Lundgren vehicle, I Come in Peace.

8. Born and raised in New Orleans, Stan Verrett’s boyhood home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

9. Reporter Lisa Salters’ cousin is former Dallas Cowboy star and Pro Football Hall of Famer Tony Dorsett.  But she’s not the only one at Bristol with a famous relative as Chris McKendry’s great uncle is noted thespian and gifted entertainer William Shatner.

10. Prior to his employment at ESPN, Mike Golic used to provide color commentary for telecasts of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling

Thanks for coming and suckling Daddy’s Sugar Ball…
Max Power