Lame Moments in Sports Nos. 17-102

86 baseball players singled out as having taken performance-enhancing drugs (warning: link opens a PDF). 86!!!! Now, this is, of course, not as horrendous a thing, as, say, this horrendous thing, but it's still a bit of a shock, and baseball fans have got to be a pretty angry bunch today. Two current Blue Jays were mentioned: Troy Glaus (this suprised nobody - he'd been under investigation since late last season) and Gregg Zaun (whom I'd thought better of). Some of the other players named, with my comments:

Roger Clemens: Probably the biggest name mentioned.

Andy Pettite: This did surprise me, as Pettite's always had a fairly squeaky-clean image.

Miguel Tejada: Ooooh, the Houston Astros are pissed off today! Exactly one day after they traded for the guy, he's outed as having purchased (and presumably used) PEDs.

John Rocker: Bigot, homophobe, and now cheat. Rocker's a real quality guy...

Joe Carter: Was not mentioned in the report, thankfully! I'd hate to see the gloriousness of this tarnished (I'd point out that Carlos Delgado was not mentioned either - hooray!):

Fun With U.S. College Football

I'm not the biggest fan of college football, although a brief inhabitation of Ypsilanti, Michigan, during the 1990s (reason: there was a girl) means that I keep a bit an eye on the fate of the University of Michigan Wolverines. However, this fall there have been a number of laugh-out-loud incidents in the collegiate gridiron game south of the border. Allow me to share a few of them, in lieu of doing anything that requires thought this evening:

1. In our first clip, a TV commentator struggles to concentrate on the game before him while suffering angst over a major current-events issue. The best part of this clip is the (understandable) incredulity of his colour commentator. The saddest part is what it says about the decline of ESPN...



2. In clip #2, a college referee waxes poetic in describing the circumstances surrounding a penalty call.



3. And, finally, a member of law enforcement expresses an opinion on an Auburn player.



Enjoy!

Aw, Crap, here we go again...

Weekend Italian matches called off

This weekend's football matches in Serie B and Serie C have been postponed in the wake of Sunday's violence in the Italian league.


The country's football federation (FIGC) announced the decision this evening following a series of meetings during the day.


And Giancarlo Abete, president of the country's football federation (FIGC), has not ruled out the possibility of the postponements continuing after the international break.

'We don't intend to restart all tournaments from Sunday 25,' he said.

A bizarre one, this. An apparently innocent fan caught up in a fight and accidentally shot by the police, thus provoking major rioting in Rome and elsewhere.

Unlike last time, I don't think you can lay this one at the feet of the Ultra'. Rather, it has more to do with the fraught relationship between Italian society at large and the police. Part of the problem goes back to mid/late-1970s (I believe). At that time, in response to a number of murders of policemen by outfits like the Brigate Rosse and various organized crime crews, the Italian parliament broadened, greatly, the definition of when the police were legally allowed to use lethal force. The result was twofold: First of all, the Italian police killed about 600 people throught the decade of the 1980s (once again, I believe). Secondly, it provoked deep distrust for the police among Italians in general, especially those who could remember fascism. Things are better now, but events like Saturday's do cause some of the old bitterness to come to the fore again.

Anyway, it looks like, once again, calcio is going to take a little time off, and hopefully allow cooler heads to prevail.

New Additions

It has come to my attention that I have added some new links to the "Sports" section of the sidebar. Hooray me.

Lame Moments in Sports #16

So long, farewell
Final Lynx game means end of Triple-A ball in Canada
Posted: Monday September 3, 2007 4:42PM;

OTTAWA (AP) -- The Ottawa Lynx played their final game Monday, joining in the funereal footsteps of ballclubs that once played in Calgary, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Edmonton.

The Triple-A affiliate for the Philadelphia Phillies finished up with an 8-5 loss to the Syracuse Chiefs at nearly filled Lynx Stadium. Next year the team will move to a new home in Allentown, Pa., leaving the Toronto Blue Jays as the sole Canadian baseball team above Single-A ball.

This has been inevitable for the better part of five years now, but it's still rather sad. One hopes someday to see the trend reversed, but it ain't gonna be soon (and it's going to be never if the Canadian clubs in the Northern League don't start pulling in bigger numbers - Edmonton Crackercats, I'm looking at you).

Something Rather Funny

The article quote below is satire. How long it will remain so is anybody's guess.

Anyway, from The Brushback:

Conservatives Release Conservative Mock Draft

WASHINGTON, DC--Right wing conservatives have long criticized NFL mock drafts for their anti-American, anti-Christian viewpoints, and now they finally have an answer: On March 4, the National Review Online released the first ever Conservative Mock Draft, which forecasts the draft without the “clear left leaning bias” of its liberal counterparts.

My favourite quote from the whole thing? This one:

“I know I personally have emailed several of these publications to point out the slanted tone of their mock drafts, and have been dismissed at every turn,” said [Kathryn Jean] Lopez. “I contacted one website which called Jamarcus Russell a ‘genetic freak’ who ‘represents the next step in the evolution of the quarterback position.’ Well okay, fine, some people believe in evolution, but there are millions of other Americans who don’t. Why aren’t they represented? Why isn’t it noted that evolution is not a scientific fact, but a theory? Also, why isn’t there anything about Hillary Clinton being a cunt? Apparently this is what passes for objective journalism these days.”

All Done

Well, I finally finished labelling all the old posts on this blog. One observation: I sure don't blog about sports as much as I used to (recent foray into the difficulties besetting Italian soccer aside).

More Italian Soccer Stuff

ROME, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Soccer matches in Italy will resume this weekend, the football federation said on Wednesday, after the government approved a tough set of measures to fight hooliganism despite resistance by clubs.

All play had been suspended last Friday following the killing of a policeman by rioting fans outside a stadium in Sicily.

And the "tough set of measures"?

Under the new measures stadiums which are not in line with security regulations will remain closed to fans.

Other measures include a ban on the block sale of tickets to away fans, a beefing-up of stadium bans for those involved in violence, including under 18s, tougher prison sentences for hooliganism and a ban on financial relationships between clubs and fan associations.

Firecrackers will no longer be allowed inside stadiums and, at least initially, there will be no late-night matches.

Well, most of those are what I was writing about yesterday. I hadn't thought about the issue of late-night matches, and I'm not sure what problem they're trying to address. Somewhat surprisingly, booze is not a major contributing factor (although it does play a role) to the mayhem provoked by the Ultras; this is a major difference between soccer hooliganism in Italy and that phenomenon in, say, Britain. Perhaps the issue is more the availability of public transport to get fans away from the stadium.

Anyway, it's progress. Time will tell whether it's enough progress.

Italian Soccer Excursus

Well, anyone who follows European soccer, or soccer in general, is by now all too well aware of what went down last Friday in Sicily. In case you haven't been following soccer, what happened was this:



Italian league halted by violence

The Italian Football Federation (FIGC) has suspended all matches indefinitely after a policeman was killed at a Serie A match between Catania and Palermo.

This is not the first time that the Italian authorities have shut down the top divisions (or more) of Italian soccer; similar measures were taken after a fan was killed outside Genoa's stadium in 1995. However, this time there seems to be a sense that, even if the games resume soon, it may be awhile before fans are let in to watch them:

Serie A and B clubs meet on Tuesday to discuss a government proposal to close stadiums deemed unsafe for fans.

That's all well and good, on the surface. It would leave open only five stadia among the forty-two teams in Serie A and B, although some of those venues host more than one team; presumably games not taking place in those stadia would be played behind closed doors. Something along these lines is indeed necessary; it's something of a miracle that Italy has not experienced, domestically, a disaster like Heysel or Hillsborough. However, fixing up the stadia is not, by itself, going to fix up the problem. The policeman in Catania was not killed in the Stadio Angelo Massimino, and the Genoa fan in 1995 was also killed outside, on the street.

Restricting access to the games (and yes, fixing up the stadia will help with that) is indeed part of the solution. However, what's really got to go away is the influence exercised over the clubs by the "Ultras". What began as simply somewhat boisterous fan clubs have developed into groups of violent marauders, condoned and often even financially supported by the teams themselves. Far too often, now, these groups have been taken over by elements of the violent right (or, in the case of Livorno, the violent left). They control access to parts of their home stadia, and they control what goes on there (one lovely example: in May of 2001, Inter Milan Ultras smuggled a motorscooter into their stadium, set it on fire, and threw it off the upper tier. Miraculously nobody was hurt). So, what's to be done? Well, here are a few ideas for starters:

1. Clubs should be prohibited from giving money etc. to supporters' groups. Let the Ultras buy their own damn flares.
   
   
2. Put the infrastructure in place to allow dangerous materials to be effectively banned from stadia. Right now, flares, weapons, motorscooters, etc, are banned from soccer games, but there's just no way of making that stick, particularly with the Ultras controlling access to parts of the stadium. Hopefully, a meaningful ban on dangerous items would prevent people from bringing them to the game in the first place, which would make the area around the stadium safer as well.
   
   
3. No large groups of away fans at games. Difficult but not impossible to enforce, this seems to me to be simple common sense.
   
   
4. People convicted of soccer-related violence should not only be banned from the stadia, but forced to report to the police when their team is playing. This has been done in response to hooliganism in Britain.
   
   
5. Maintain the crackdown on extremist political behaviour at matches. In 99% of the cases, this means stomp hard on neo-Nazis. No racist banners, no anti-semitic chanting, no monkey noises at black players, and, to be fair, no celebrating Stalin's birthday, or your team pays the price both in the standings and in the bank account. Yes, this means that the team becomes responsible for the behaviour of its more lunatic fans, which isn't really just. However, it also provides an incentive for the "ordinary" fans, just out to support their team, to turn around and say to the Ultras "look, you are hurting your team, shut up now." It's a difficult thing to do, and not entirely effective, but the effort has got to be made.

Even taken together, this does not represent a panacea (nor is it terribly original; the Italian parliament is hard at work on numbers 2 and 3 as we speak, and attempts have been underway at number 5 for years). However, it represents a start.

To end on a positive note, and to clear up any idea that I'm just bashing on Italians in general, the Italian Olympic Committee has stepped in to fund the educations of the two small children of the policeman killed in Catania. A decent, classy, move.

So What Did We Miss?

As is usual for the weeks when I'm too busy to do much blogging, this past one was eventful. Let's see:

• Ralph Klein announced that, instead of hanging around clinging to power like a particularly clingy leech, he's going to resign. In a few months. You know, after he does some more powery sort of stuff.
  
  
• Preston Manning apparently wants Klein's job, and rather surprisingly, is early leader in polls taken this week. Oi! Thump! remains skeptical; for one thing, the polls only show that Manning would win the first ballot, so a lot would depend on who a lot of the delegates' second choice is.
  
  
• The explosion at the Toronto Tim Horton's was apparently a suicide.
  
  
• The baseball season began. This is good.
  

Whoah.

Swedish women shock U.S. in semis
Posted: Feb.17, 2006, 12:52 pm CST; Updated: Feb.17, 2006, 2:21 pm CST

TORINO, Italy (AP) --
Women's Official Full Results
Team 1 2 3 OT SO Total
1 1 0 0 0 2
0 2 0 0 2 3

The U.S. women's hockey team made history Friday night - the wrong kind.

For the first time since international competition in women's hockey began in 1990, the U.S. and Canada won't meet in the championship match - and it's largely because of Kim Martin.

Martin made 37 saves and stopped all four American attempts in a shootout, while Maria Rooth had two regulation scores and the clinching shootout goal in Sweden's 3-2 victory in the semifinals.

Possibly the best thing ever to happen to women's ice hockey, and I honestly don't mean that with any snark towards the U.S. team. I actually feel somewhat gutted for them. However, with the Finns looking competitive, and the Swedes pulling off this monumentally unlikely victory, it appears the sport may be developing nicely at the international level. A lot of Canadians are celebrating as though this result automatically hands them the gold, but don't bet on it just yet...

Lame Moments in Sports #15

This is a couple of days old, but what the Hell:

Mighty Ducks of Anaheim to change name
Canadian Press
1/27/2006 12:17:29 PM

ANAHEIM, Calif. (CP) - The Anaheim Mighty Ducks are Mighty no more.

The NHL club said Friday it will change its name to the Anaheim Ducks starting next season, dropping Mighty from the moniker after nearly two thirds of fans surveyed said they supported the switch.

The lameness is not in the fact that the team is changing its name. That is, indeed, a good thing. The lameness comes from the the fact that for 13 (thirteen) fucking years the NHL included a team which the fucking Walt Disney Corporation had named after a fucking Emilio Estevez movie. This represented possibly the lowest point in the history of the League, and possibly the history of ice hockey overall. So we at Oi! Thump! say to the folks in Anaheim: get rid of it all. Everything associated with that hideous travesty of profit-driven business-think. Lose the name (simply switching it to "Anaheim Ducks," as is the plan, is not enough), the logo, the colours, the mascot, the entire shabang. Only then can the healing begin. And as far as your new name is concerned, no singular names, no weird-ass "Los Angeles Turnips of Somewhere North of Mexico Who Play in Anaheim" crap like your baseball team did, no replacing the "s" at the end of your name with "z", and for fuck's sake no ephemeral pop-culture references. Just be the "Anaheim Somethings" and get on with playing hockey.

Lame Moments in Sports #14

A few weeks ago, we here at Oi! Thump! took some time out from our usual snarking to pick on Skip Bayless of ESPN for generally being a tool. Boy do we feel crappy about that now, especially after encountering this guy. Let's take a look at the sordid underbelly of fundamentalist Christian sports reporting:

Blind to Their Own Depravity
By Brad Locke
November 17, 2003

(AgapePress) - Homosexual activists have for years tried to convince us that their behavior is normal, that two men or two women can share just as deep a love as a man and woman, and that they aren’t promiscuous perverts at heart.

Funny how all it takes to unveil those lies is a single sports column.

Um, wha...?

Not this column. No, rather one written by Sports Illustrated’s esteemed Rick Reilly. His piece in SI’s Nov. 10 issue, titled “Queer Eye for the Sports Guy,” chronicles his efforts to make his column “gay enough for Nathan Lane to read.” It’s meant as a humorous bit, and there are a few mildly amusing zingers (most, however, are just disturbing).

Oh, to know which bits Brad found "disturbing." Anyhoo, the article goes on to mention how, according to Reilly's piece (which I tried to find a link for, but failed), gays and lesbians want to see pictures of underdressed members of their respective genders. This is espectially shocking, given that the venerable Sports Illustrated would never ever stoop to such lewd and disgraceful pandering.

But wait! Brad is aware that he is coming across as a hypocritical, homophobic twit, and he confronts the issue head-on:

Am I the only one seeing a correlation here to men who gawk over Sports Illustrated’s annual swimsuit issue? In both instances, there is nothing deeper than lust involved. At least with the skin mag, the models are willing participants and know why they’re being photographed. As for Carr and McCaffrey and Roddick, how do you think they would feel if they knew a homosexual was leering at them? These men, I would bet, do not want to be homosexual icons. But the homosexual’s appetite is apparently insatiable. And remember, you can’t spell homosexuality without mo sex (forgive my Ebonics).

And how he's a hypocritical, homophobic, racist twit!! Well done Brad (even though his main argument in this paragraph seems to be that homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to look at pictures). Now, that column was from awhile ago; let's see what Brad's been up to more recently:

Sexing Up Sports
By Brad Locke
August 20, 2004

(AgapePress) - As the media have obsessively reminded us, the original Olympians competed in the nude. Judging by recent trends, I'd say modern-day athletes are trying to turn back the clock a few hundred years.

No, turning back the clock is what fundie morons are trying to do.

I sometimes naïvely think that sports is a respite from the sex culture that bombards me daily. I know better, of course. After watching a few days of the Olympics -- where amateurism and a certain amount of innocence once reigned -- I'm reminded that sport is using sex to sell itself. American swimmer Amanda Beard, once known as the precocious teddy-bear toting teen of the 1996 Games, is now a certified sex symbol -- by choice. She's modeled for such soft-porn magazines as Maxim and FHM, and during a profile by NBC the other night, she pranced about and posed in a skimpy bikini. (This was a portion of the programming I was taping for my 7-year-old daughter, by the way. Have to be handy with the remote when she watches it. Thanks, Amanda!)

Yeah, 'cause the worst thing that could happen to your 7-year-old daughter is that she find out what a healthy athletic female body looks like. This guy could tell you that! Oh, and let us note how Brad blames Amanda Beard for the fact that he actually has to watch television with his daughter, instead of simply popping a tape in the VCR and wandering off. Nice parenting, asswipe!

We now arrive the "research" portion of this article:

The media is what ultimately drives this, or at least keeps up the momentum. ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com find any excuse to feature scantily clad women, athletes or otherwise. CBSSportsline has a "Sexiest Athlete Rating" for Olympians. Sports Illustrated, in its "Sports Beat" section, usually runs a picture of some cleavage-baring bombshell, no matter how remote her connection to the accompanying pseudo-sports story. A few years ago, Serena and Venus Williams posed for Sports Illustrated wearing nothing but the same American flag. How proud George Washington would be.

OK, but all that stuff is away from the arena, where we know sex won't invade the actual competition. Well, except for women's volleyball, where the players' bikinis are at least three sizes too small. I find it ironic that these women have taken offense at the cheerleaders who perform during breaks in Athens. They're wearing more than the volleyball players!

Oh, and women's tennis, where you'll have no problem finding pictures of certain players (Sharapova, Williams, et al.) reaching up their skirt to retrieve a tennis ball, revealing smooth, toned upper thighs. And speaking of Williams, her catsuits make Las Vegas prostitutes look like Mennonites. And as one reader recently pointed out, there is no shortage of pictures or video taken from the floor looking up at gymnasts and other athletes as they splay their legs in athletic maneuvering.

Brad, you and your readers are flat-out creepy... And to think that a year or so before this you were accusing gays of leering obsessively at athletes.

But Brad's still at it, and here he is from within the last month or two:

Getting the Straight Story
By Brad Locke
November 18, 2005

(AgapePress) - We sports writers can appear to be an insensitive lot. When a running back starts showing physical wear as he grows older, we write things like, "He's getting too old to beat those quick linebackers to the corner." When a coach can't make his team a winner, we write things like, "He hasn't been able to make the transition from assistant to head coach." When a high school kid throws to the wrong base, we write things like, "Smith's mental lapse allowed Jones to score from first base."

I once wrote something like that last one. Kid's mom didn't like it. I wrote nothing that wasn't true -- the kid had a mental lapse that cost his team. I did nothing wrong. I was simply reporting what I saw.

Ah, fundamentalist Christian compassion at work! "I'm going to slam your child for a mistake made in a high-school baseball game, and if you object I'll get all huffily defensive." What a loathesome human being. Although it is hilarious that Brad's big moment in cutting-edge sports journalism came while reporting on high-school baseball.

Lame Moments in Sports #13

In which Steve Yzerman apparently is possessed by the ghost of Tiger Williams' career.

Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman has voiced his opinion about the new NHL - and so far, he's not a fan.

"Everybody keeps saying this is great. It's not great," Yzerman told the Detroit Free Press.

"It's not hockey."

Erm, baseball perhaps? Or golf?

"There are penalties all over," he told the Free Press.

Ya know, Steve, if the NHL had been calling penalties throughout your career the way they are now, you'd have about half again as many career points as you do now, so stop complaining.

"I'll just use Mathieu Schneider's penalty as an example. He steps up and takes his guy out, and his stick gets caught and the crowd cheers so the referee puts his hand up. There has to be some discretion. The referees have to use some judgment on what is a penalty and what is not. They've taken judgment out of it and I think it's somewhat made it easy on the referees just to call anything, because there is no judgment.

"Good referees used to have good judgment. Now they've taken that out of the game. I'm not saying I'm blaming the referees for it, I just feel the whole thing has to be adjusted and they have to look at this seriously. They can't continue to call irrelevant things that have no business being called."

Ok, this is actually the lame part of this whole thing. Read those two paragraphs, and try to find some sort of point in it, beyond some sort of vague sense that referees=bad. It's a beautiful example of jock-talk.

Yzerman, in his 22nd and possibly last NHL season, has two goals and four assists for the Red Wings in 2005.

You know, I do have a lot of respect for Steve Yzerman. Twenty-two seasons, several Stanley Cups, one of the biggest goals in the history of Team Canada, and generally a class act through it all. And that's why this whole thing is so disappointing. With interest in hockey up, a more entertaining game, in general, on the ice, and a heightened sense of parity across the league, to hear something like this from one of the game's supposed "ambassadors" is just sad. He'll probably get fined for this, and rightly so. Steve, the next time some media chappie asks you your opinion on the new NHL, please keep your mouth shut.

Sports Break at Oi! Thump!

...but don't let that deceive you into thinking we're going to be nice all of a sudden. Not on your life! However, before we start with the bashing, we're going to note that this is an historic post for the Oi! Thump! elite blogetteers, for with this post we surpass the total posts for our previous attempt at blogging. A quick look at the old girl shows that the Oi! Thumpers! were considerably more obsessed with sports in them days, although we still didn't like Bob Wasylyshen.

Anyhoo, we're going to resurrect an old tradition from them days, to wit, the Lame Moments in Sports series. Expect them to be regularly irregular. And now, onto the snark!

Lame Moments in Sports #12: The Existence of Skip Bayless

Meet Skip Bayless, proud ESPN commentator.

Read Skip on "Supporting Your Team-mates, The Importance Of:"

"For a vicariously thrilling moment on Sunday, I was Larry Allen of the Dallas Cowboys. I was the strongest man in the National Football League, and I had my kicker by the face mask. If I ripped off his helmet and his head stayed in it, so be it."

Read Skip on "Education, Its Vital Role in Today's Society:"

"As an OU fan, I don't care if OU players are required to attend a single class, and I don't want my coach jeopardizing our chances to win because of a ridiculously strict new attendance requirement."

Read Skip on "Hyperbole, Dangers Of:"

"If possible, he's even better and worse than ever. He continues to astonish, with his bat and his mouth. At 41, Barry Bonds is again proving to be the greatest hitter and biggest jerk in baseball history."

We could go on, but I think we'll stop here and mourn the death of actual sportswriting. I mean really, the column on placekickers has got to be one of the most godawful things I read recently. Memo to Skip: IT'S OK JUST TO WRITE ABOUT THE GAMES; YOU DON'T NEED TO BE 'CONTROVERSIAL.' Trust me, nobody's standing around the water cooler at work wondering "What does Skip Bayless think about all this?"

As a final note, Bayless is not the only bad sportswriter out there, nor is he probably the worst. He just happened to catch our attention today, is all...

Stupidest...Fucking...Article...Ever...

Ye gods, some mothers do have 'em...

Should Women Play Sports?
By Scott Jonas
Jan 4, 2005, 18:33

I have read many great articles by Christian men and women regarding the participation of women in the workforce, politics, and in the military. These are activities that most women didn’t participate in until fifty years ago. However, I feel there is one other major activity these writers have not addressed. For some reason, they've overlooked women’s participation in sports.

Needless to say, our intrepid correspondent doesn't think women should play sports. This is because he is an adherent to the branch of Christian theology known as "being a douchebag." The best paragraph in the piece is this one:

Most men I know admire a woman who is reasonably healthy and fit; they are also attracted to a woman who is somewhat “soft” and cuddly. This does not mean she should be delicate like tissue paper; no, a woman should be reasonably strong, and the normal duties of life will make her that way. This is what we learn from the Proverbs 31 woman. However, if you look at pictures of female athletes who play sports or observe them on the playing fields, you will notice that many develop strong, muscular bodies. Female athletes also sneer, wince, push, and fight just like the men. I notice these things all the time in pictures in our hometown newspaper. The sneers are most obvious; they make young women very unfeminine. The masculine uniforms and sweaty bodies aren’t very attractive, either.

This guy sure spends a lot of time thinking about the sweaty bodies of muscular women who happen to be complete strangers... Did he have a bad date when he was younger? Did Mia Hamm run over his dog? And does Mrs. Jonas think?

Actually, I think our boy has just realized that there's yet another group of people out there who can kick his ass if he gives them any lip.

Oh yeah, and there's this:

I also notice when driving by our public school grounds and sports fields another phenomenon taking place: the young girls are trained in sports right along with the boys. To me, this can only be degrading to the boys. In some cases, girls regularly participate on boys' sports teams, and therefore compete against the boys themselves. During the past decade, more and more girls participated in wrestling; since there were no girls' wrestling teams, they joined the boys' teams and competed against the boys. I read about one school where the boys refused to wrestle the girls and forfeited their matches; there could be no greater embarrassment to them than to lose to a girl, not to mention it likely violated their sense of masculine chivalry. So not only is female sports participation degrading the feminine nature of women, in many cases it degrades the developing masculinity in boys.

Without addressing the issue of how much time Scott Jonas spends "driving by our public school grounds," let me merely say that this paragraph is very revealing. For in it, we see the ghost of young Scott, 14 years old, aspiring Olympic wrestler, until one black day, he takes the mat only to see that his opponent... IS A GURL!!!1!!! The unsettling effect of the sight of her ankles, plus the fact that 83% of Scott's body mass is acne, combine to lead to an epic beat-down, which ends with Scott in surgery to have his big toe removed from his ear. And a legend is born (Ok, it's the legend of a man downloading terabytes of pictures of female athletes "for research," combined with the legend of a man learning the meaning of the term "strap-on," but it's still a legend).

A douchebag, as I said...

Undies...


Ok, time for a sports break here at Oi! Thump!. Not long ago, Mr. Barry Bonds of the San Francisco Giants Baseball Club (Est. 1883) hit the 700th Home Run of his illustrious career. And then, what has sadly become inevitable in such situations occurred...

Dispute over a Bonds home run arises again
Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO -- The San Francisco Giants fan who caught Barry Bonds' 700th homer is being sued by another man who says he was the rightful owner of the prized ball, which he maintains was stolen from him during a mad scramble.

According to a restraining order to be filed in state court Tuesday, Timothy Murphy said Steve Williams stole the historic blast from him during a melee in the left-center bleachers at SBC Park on Sept. 17.

There is a solution for this sort of thing, you know. And here it is - the The Official Oi! Thump! Guide to Resolving Disputes Over Historic Baseballs:

1. If any one of the disputants is under 13 years of age, that person shall be awarded the baseball. In addition, if any of the disputants are under 13 years of age, any disputants over the age of 25 will be charged with assault.

2. If two or more of the disputants are under 13 years of age, the ball will be awarded to them jointly.

3. If any of the disputants are over the age of 40, they shall automatically be disqualified from any stake in the ball. And they shall be mocked.

4. Any disputant who uses any equipment other than a standard-issue baseball glove to attempt to catch the ball will be disqualified from any stake in the ball.

5. If there are no disputants under 13 years of age, the remaining disputants between the ages of 13 and 39 (inc.) shall be made to write an essay on the history and significance of baseball. The length of said essay will depend on the writer's age as follows: 13-19 y.o. = 2500 words, 20-29 y.o. = 5000 words, 30-39 y.o. = 10,000 words. The essays will be judged by a panel of baseball writers, and the winner will be given custody of the ball.

See, not too difficult...

Generic Punk Related Photograph of the Day



Well, I know I've been away for a bit here, but I am back, and set to blog again... Hooray. Part of the reason that I haven't been posting much is that I took some time off and took a little jaunt to British Columbia to watch some exhibition soccer. I stayed in a wonderful place on South Granville in Vancouver, with a strip joint for a pub and glue-sniffers in the parking lot. The soccer was good, and the bus trip there and back actually bearable. And, with that, not a hell of a lot else has been going on, except that we're absolutely swamped at work. However, a couple of wee things have come to my attention. First off:


Friendly fire bomber denied his final appeal
AP AND CP

NEW ORLEANS -- The Illinois National Guard pilot who mistakenly bombed Canadian troops in Afghanistan, killing four and wounding eight, lost his last U.S. air force appeal yesterday. The commander of Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia upheld the punishment ordered last month for Maj. Harry Schmidt - a severe reprimand and loss of a month's pay.
Schmidt, 39, who was found guilty of dereliction of duty, also has agreed that he will never fly U.S. air force jets again, although he remains in the National Guard.

As I think I've said before, for my money, the flying ban is the big part of this story. Some people up here are upset at the small size of his fine, but I couldn't care less about that. Nothing's going to bring our boys back, so all we can really ask for is reassurance that dumbass will never again be able to fly a heavily-armed aircraft.

And secondly, big and very very very late propz to these guys:



Yes, as everybody who cares is already well aware, unheralded Greece won the 2004 European soccer championship. I should also mention that Brazil defeated arch-rivals Argentina for the Copa America. Again, not news.

Could It Be?

I got muy excited this morning when I saw this headline...

Bush faces several charges following arrest

And then I remembered I was reading ESPN. Dammit! Anyway, another budding young professional athlete makes an ass of himself.

Bliss!!!





WWE Hall of Fame calls on Rose
Associated Press
3/2/2004

NEW YORK (AP) - Pete Rose will be inducted into World Wrestling Entertainment's hall of fame later this month.

This story made me run around the room banging my hands together like a trained seal. How perfect is this? Pete Rose, supposedly attempting to convince folks that he's a wonderful, honest, hard-working, stand-up guy who oh-so-deserves reinstatement to Major League Baseball, is now going to accept money to be inducted into the Hall of Fame of a sport wherein the results are pretermined. Yeah, this is going to go over real well...