Monday Miscellany: 7-28-08

It's Monday. We're working hard/hardly working, and bored. To pass the time, here are a few fun sound bytes to listen to while we hurl a bunch of completely random barrels at our readership. I've never understood the concept of using a hammer to bash anything other than a nail. It just seems odd and fruitless. An easier solution seems to be to simply jump.

CBS Sportsline is re-visiting their Top 50 Jerkiest Athletes of All Time list from last year with an updated version. Good calls include: Art Modell, Bill Romanowski, Terrell Owens, Mike Tyson, Ron Artest, Adam Jones, John Rocker, "Ko-Me" Bryant, and Mike Vick.

Not so much: Michael Irvin gone from the list? O.J. Simpson replaced at number one by Roger Clemens? Reggie Jackson higher than Bonds, Bryant and Jones? Tommy Lasorda's more of a jerk than George Steinbrenner? What will Humberto and the Dodgers' faithful say?

(Props to The Big Lead for delivering the links, and for this story, which makes me wonder if Peyton was around.)

Kissing Suzy Kolber has been previewing each division in the NFL. Their latest is the AFC North, which they apparently don't think too highly of. Freaking hilarious.

Joe Morgan accepted the first Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award in Cooperstown this weekend. The award itself is an honor, and Morgan is clearly deserving of it. The article, however, is very confusing as MLB HOF president Jeff Idelson presented the award to O'Neil's son Warren, who presented the award to Morgan? On behalf of the O'Neil family? Though The Kansas City Star article's sub-header and photo caption are confusing, it's clarified in this video by Negro Leagues Baseball Museum Marketing Director Bob Kendrick; O'Neil's family received the first award, in honor of the late Buck, then handed one to Joe Morgan, as this year's recipient.

Fire Joe Morgan thinks that the Dodgers G.M. is crafty. I mean, his name is Ned after all. He must be.

Elsewhere in the world of craftiness is the guy that made this sign:



(image courtesy of Babes Love Baseball)

Those crazy Red Sox. When they're not belting tunes with Chesney, or cooing Manny, they're looking back at some of their club's best 'staches of the past. Or at least we are.

Be it AL East, NL West, or NL Central, trade talks continue to circulate, and Mark at Bugs and Cranks thinks that the rumor mill regarding the Rockies might be changing.

Of course there are always rumors. Some are more believable than others. Some are just plain shocking. Like the one that suggests that ESPN might replace Barry Melrose with Matthew Barnaby. The former Sabre and Penguin did have a knack for logging penalty minutes (2562 for his career next to 113 goals and 187 assists), but I doubt he can outdo the mulleted master of pinstripe-suit-wearing white guys. Come. On.

(shizams to Going Five Hole via Awful Announcing)

And for no apparent reason, I'll once again link to the article known as "The Chase." Just because it's that good.
Read more

Stay Classy, Kansas City: Nick Lowery

Coming at our vast readership from the sticks in Ohio is another exciting installment of "Stay Classy, Kansas City." As we prepare for rehearsal-related material for The Lone Reader's day-away nuptials ceremony, it's really important to take sacred time with friends and family and throw it in the garbage so that one can editorialize about former athletes they despise. And that's just what I aim to do today. Thus far in the series we've talked about hookers-and-cocaine hockey defensemen, baseball manager tirades, and offensive linemen that like to ram spouses with vehicular modules. Today, after the jump, we stray, and visit an example of how to be a complete and total douche bag.

There are a million Nick Lowery stories to debate, this most recent one aside. Know what? I'm simply not interested in them. Why? 'Cause I fucking hate Nick Lowery.

Why? Well, that's a good question, as are most that one asks of oneself. Truthfully, I probably shouldn't hate him. But I do. I shouldn't because a lot of my animosity should be aimed at the front office and coaching staffs -- those of Lowery's tenure -- of the Kansas City Chiefs for all of the pain and suffering they put me through. That pain and suffering translates to this: this team, for most of my childhood and early adolescense, could not manage to accomplish a single thing beyond kicking field goals and losing football games.

So, it's not necessarily, for the point of this series, to assume that Lowery is not a classy guy. That wouldn't be fair. I'm just here to illustrate the fact that I think Lowery is the source of the motivation behind calling dudes "tools." And that's so because he always struck me as a smug prick, way before I knew what "smug" and "prick" meant. I'm aware of the fact that this anguish comes from seeing him immediately after endless failures to get in the end zone, year after year after year. But it wasn't like I'd not want to see him and he'd come out on the field and do something cool. He wouldn't.

Instead, he'd trot out there in that retarded single-bar helmet, that really didn't look cool on anyone. He'd stand there, leaning forwardish, and dangle his arms out in front of him, then reach up into that gay-ass helmet and pull on his moustache with both hands about 47 times before the ball was snapped. Then he'd drill the pigskin through the uprights, and offer himself an over-zealous fist pump. Oh. I forgot. Except when it fucking mattered, like, in important, threshold-of-the-season type scenarios. And then he sucked rotten lemons.

But yeah. Repeat that pattern for like forty-hundred seasons or so, throw in a zillion Chiefs and NFL records, blend it up, strain it into a glass, and whaddaya' have? A total dill hole, that's what. I suppose that, had the Chiefs, say won a couple of Super Bowls while Nick the Dick was on the payroll, I'd probably love the guy. But I don't. He can fall onto a pile of battery-acid soaked porcupines for all I care.

But oh well. At least it's 2008 and the Chiefs have abandoned the philosophy of losing lots of games they couldn't win by buckets full of field goal attempts. Christ.
Read more