Looking for a Midweek Pulse

Back from the dead, it’s the midweek pulse check (please mind the dust and dank smell). As always, this is not a knock on ESPN, but a look at the top stories of today in a sporting world without football. And at the end, I determine if there is life in the world of sports at the midway point of this week. So from ESPN.com’s homepage, the top stories of the day…



Lakers make statement, rout Rockets by 40. I didn’t get to see any of this game because I was bumbling my way through another trivia night at a local drinking establishment, but one had to think it was a matter of time before the loss of Yao Ming really hurt the Rockets. The TV people like to throw in the loss of Tracy McGrady too, but we all know the rest of the Rockets hate him and actually play better without him. And I’m sure it warms the other Rockets’ hearts, as it does mine, that another year has passed and McGrady has never made it out of the first round of the playoffs. A more overrated basketball player I cannot recall.

Report: USC’s Floyd paid $1K to Mayo handler. Whoops. If this turns out to be true, two things will happen. One, nothing will happen to USC (see: Bush, Reggie). And two, Tim Floyd will have plenty of time to play golf with his buddy, the Clarion-Ledger’s own Rick Cleveland. Actually, three things will happen. The third being Cleveland will write at least two columns before next basketball season that say some school should take a chance on Floyd.

While we’re on the subject of recruiting violations, can someone out there with writing talent and a knack for investigation please write the definitive book on the seedy worlds of college football and basketball recruiting? In order to get some of the stories, they’d have to agree to change the names of the people and schools involved, but I’d be fine with that. I just want to hear all the completely outrageous demands of recruits and the meeting of said demands by coaches. Would you refuse to read a 900-page book about money, cars, houses and private “entertainment” parties? Seriously, it’s 2009. Why hasn’t this book happened yet?

Ducks halt Wings in feisty Game 6 to force 7. Hey, look. The NHL playoffs have started. Games can be found only on the Versus Network, which is sandwiched between Home Shopping Network 2 and that channel that plays a P90X infomercial on a constant loop.

Clemens bashes new book, denies drug use. Apparently, Clemens went on ESPN Radio’s Mike & Mike to defend himself against a book that says he used steroids and whatever else he pumped into his body. Only Roger Clemens would be dumb enough to create another potential shit storm for himself. His time in the national spotlight had passed and here he goes stirring everything up again. Luckily, no one really cared this time because now we all know that EVERYONE CHEATED.

Rallying B’s knot series with Hurricanes at 3. If you can correctly name the city in which either of these teams play, Gary Bettman would like a written statement from you so that he might use it in his defense that he has not destroyed the NHL. “See, John from Midland, Texas knows the Bruins are in Boston! I know what I’m doing! Ask Little Rock if they’re still interested in a team!”

Howard laments lack of touches in Magic loss. However, he did not mention any lament for a lack of shooting ability.

Dibs at QB: McCown says Buccaneers job is his. Luke McCown held off an impressive field of Byron Leftwich, Brian Griese’s corpse (although it seems he was never really considered for the job), first-round pick Josh Freeman, who is still at Kansas State finishing school (boo education!), and 2008 fifth-round pick Josh Johnson. And you should probably know that McCown attempted one pass last year, which was incomplete. Shaun King, if you just read that paragraph, you might want to consider placing a phone call to Bucs headquarters.

Varitek, BoSox edge Angels. The time is coming when I will dislike the Red Sox as much as I do the Yankees. We’re not there yet, but if I have to pick a year, I’ll say in 2012 the Red Sox will pull even with the Yankees.

Renault joins Ferrari, threatens to bolt from F1. I don’t even know what this means.

Insider: Why Shaq was right about the Magic. This is the kind of story I want to pay $3.33 a month to read.

Pulse Verdict: Sort of like the peasant in Monty Python and the Holy Grail who’s dying, but not quite dead yet. And maybe it’s even feeling a little better.

From the Weekend That Was

The best thing I can say about the weekend we just experienced is that we’re now one weekend closer to the start of football season. And it’s going to get worse. The NBA playoffs, believe it or not, will actually end, as will college baseball, which will leave us with nothing but Major League baseball for a solid two months. Now, those months could prove to be interesting if more steroids users get named (Seriously, how the hell has Alex Rodriguez’s name been the only one released from the infamous list of 104 or whatever names of users? It makes no sense. I would like to take this chance to announce to the national media that everyone understands and believes that Rodriguez is a schmuck. We really do. Please move on and find someone else to crucify for our entertainment.), but if we’re subjected to keeping tabs on the Blue Jays and their run at the AL East title, then July and August will suck.

On to what happened over the weekend…

Much like Rasputin, the undead Brett Favre refuses to die. First, he was interested in a comeback with the Vikings. Next, a story came out saying he wasn’t coming back. Now, the latest appears to be that he sent X-rays of his right shoulder to the Vikings, and if team doctors determine he does not need major surgery on his shoulder, the Vikings would be willing to sign him. And Wrangler is pissed because Favre showed up on TV over the weekend in a Snapper mowers commercial (I have no idea whether they are or not, it just seems that they wouldn’t want those fancy pants mowers hurting the image of their permanently unshaven, dirt-lovin’ good ol’ boy who loves playing in spontaneous, unorganized touch football games in soaking wet field because he just loves football that much.).

I look forward to this story gathering more steam because I really want to see if ESPN has the balls to put a doctor with the credentials of Leo Spaceman on SportsCenter and claim he is their “Senior Biceps Tendon Expert.” And who doesn’t want to see Rachel Nichols get scooped on yet another Brett Favre story.

Falcons get their first taste of a Peria Jerry injury. If you’re a regular reader here, you know that outside of some immediate family members, no one loves Peria Jerry as much as I do. Hell, I’m still working on getting that apartment for the two of us lined up. I’m a mess without him. I miss him so damn much…maybe I should stop talking for a while.

(Waiting for a while to pass…)

But Jerry has had problems staying healthy and you could accurately call him injury prone. I’m not entirely sure (and simple research could easily prove me wrong), but I believe every year Jerry was at Ole Miss he missed some game time with an injury. I have a hard time believing that at the next level this trend will stop. Logic would suggest that going against stronger and faster players will cause him just as many, if not more, injuries.

The good news for Jerry and the Falcons is that, unlike at Ole Miss, he’ll be around professional trainers and doctors who know what they’re doing (although I assume there are one or two exceptions at Ole Miss, but this is the same group that often seemed baffled when treating sprained ankles and hamstring pulls). Professional teams aren’t going to invest millions of dollars in players only to have them treated with some “good Rebels” types. I may be naïve in thinking that, but I like to hold on to the idea that someone, somewhere runs a football program the way it should be run.

And thus begins the annual Ole Miss baseball collapse. The Ole Miss baseball team dropped two of three against State, one of the worst teams in the SEC, its ace pitcher hasn’t pitched in two weeks and no timetable has been set for his return. At first, Scot Bittle was said to have a sore bicep. Then, when it was obvious that story wasn’t holding water, Mike Bianco admitted Bittle had an MRI, which allegedly revealed no structural damage. Throw in some shaky starts by other guys in the rotation, and all of a sudden a once good SEC rotation doesn’t seem the same. If you’re an Ole Miss fan, would you feel good about Brett Bukvich or Nathan Baker starting a must-win game?

The NBA Playoffs rage on: A quick summary. No Tracy McGrady. No Yao. Kobe Doin’ Work. Aaron who? So, Shane Battier CAN score. Stuart Scott street talkin’. Send in the scrubs. Don’t miss Kobe Doin’ Work. Cross promotion and shit. Tied at 2. Phil Jackson doesn’t get f#$%@*! embarrassed.

Mavericks down 2-0. Do or die. Almost. Dirk not distracted by women folk troubles. Please retire, Jason Kidd. Carmelo don’t wor…sorry, copyright infringement…Carmelo doing as he pleases. But workin’. Late collapse. No foul. Hysteria ensues. Josh Howard not amused. Mark Cuban fuming, insults mothers. Kenyon Martin says he’ll take care of it. So long Dallas.

The Best, Worst and In Between of the Week

THE BEST
The Blind Side officially set to be the greatest movie ever made. Just when you thought the movie based on Michael Lewis' The Blind Side couldn't get more awesome, word came out this week that in addition to the Shrimp Boat Captain playing himself, Alabama coach Nick Saban and former Tennessee coach Phil Fulmer will also play themselves in the movie. This nugget of information now increases the chance that I see this movie from 254,903% to 1,343,945%.

Of course I expect the Shrimp Boat's scenes to be nothing short of the greatest in the history of film, but if you read the book, Fulmer isn't portrayed very well at all. In fact, he's referred to as a "hick" by Oher's tutor, and members of the Tuohy family mentioned "yokel" and "good ol' boy" when recalling Fulmer's in-house visit while recruiting Oher. Seeing that dumpy redneck say things like "shucks" and "My-kul, you'll be my startin' left tackle at Tenn-uh-see" is going to be fantastic. They could charge $20 to see this movie and I'd pay. And I'll be interested to see how Nick Saban reacts to being around fellow 5'6" people (since all actors are borderline midgets). Perhaps it will reduce his assholishness by a degree or two.

Brett Favre chooses not to return to the NFL; still remains selfish, arrogant. Nearly one year after he held the sports world hostage over his return to the NFL, Favre threatened to repeat the same saga this summer. Thankfully, he either realized his arm was done (injured biceps muscle) or that going to mini-camp and training camp would interfere with filming more Wrangler jeans commercials. Whatever the reason, he told the Vikings he would stay retired and is officially done for at least this summer and upcoming year.

I know that there some Vikings' fans who are probably a little disappointed at this news, since it would seem logical that Favre (even at 75%) is an upgrade over Tarvaris Jackson and Sage Rosenfels. But think for just a minute, with Jackson and Rosenfels, you know what you're getting. Jackson will have maybe four or five good games, will stink for the rest and get you to the 9-7, 10-6 range. Rosenfels will throw a couple hundred back-breaking interceptions, will inexplicably play really well for a stretch of time and get you to the same range as Tarvaris Jackson. But with these two, there's no false hope. You know what's going to happen when one of these guys lines up under center. They're going to suck and you'll still win 10 games.

With Favre, he's going to start out red hot, something in the 9-2 range, then start to feel old and tired and finally not give a crap the rest of the season, which will get you to the 10-6, 11-5 range. Essentially, he's a one game improvement over Jackson and Rosenfels, but he exponentially increases stress and hatred for yourself for caring so much about football. The stress and hate aren't worth it for just one game. Trust me, you'd rather see Brett Favre on your television playing touch football in the mud with a bunch of 5'8" actors than staring blankly out at the field from the bench after he's just thrown his fourth pick in a 16-10 Week 14 loss to the Bears.

THE WORST
Ole Miss football needs help from The Center For Kids Who Can't Read Good and Want to Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too. Thanks to the aforementioned Shrimp Boat's inability to do anything right, the Ole Miss football team will lose three scholarships because of poor marks in the NCAA's Academic Progress Ratings, which is something the NCAA devised to pretend like college sports aren't about money. The Rebels scored a 910 (teams need to reach 925 to avoid any possible sanctions) mainly due to players that were run off by the Shrimp Boat leaving school and the culture of intimidation he created, and the rebellion that followed his intimidation.

My only solace from this mini-disaster he managed to bring on us a year and a half after getting fired is that at the end of 2010, he'll be in the unemployment line again when the Lane Kiffin era, or Ed Orgeron 2.0, comes to a close in Knoxville

THE IN BETWEEN
So, Manny Ramirez IS smart enough to stay on a steroids cycle. Well, it's official. Everyone, and I mean everyone, who played baseball from 1995 to 2007 took steroids or some form of a PED (which is baseball's new buzzword). If Manny Ramirez can do it, everyone did it. Well, that's actually assuming everyone else in baseball is smarter than Manny, which, given that he once cut a throw off from center field while playing left field, seems to be a pretty safe bet.

As for what this does to baseball for me, it doesn't really bother me because I had already come to believe that everyone cheated and, while I still watch, baseball has become a sport with which to pass the time until football gets here. Plus, baseball's leadership (from the commissioner to the player's union) is some of the worst and most irresponsible in modern history. Only hockey stands in their way of being at the bottom of the professional sports food chain.

However, this does bother me in the world of fantasy baseball. Dodgers' outfielder Andre Ethier is a member of my fantasy team and he (and my team) has benefited greatly from hitting in front of Manny or right behind him. Only Albert Pujols has more RBIs than Ethier. So, before Ethier's numbers start declining, let me send out a hearty screw you to Manny Ramirez, not for causing baseball analyst and fans to cry over our national pastime that isn't really our pastime anymore, but for potentially damaging my fantasy baseball season. Seriously, I hope your woman's fertility drug burned a hole in the lining of your stomach.

From the Weekend That Was (and Monday)

Celtics finish off the Bulls; “the greatest playoff series ever played” soon to be forgotten. After seven total overtimes, 4,000 lead changes and 42 Kevin Garnett poser chin thrusts, the Celtics/Bulls first-round series came to a close on Saturday. We heard from seemingly every person with a radio show, column or TV gig that this was the greatest playoff series ever. Mind you, this was a first-round series that prominently featured Glen Davis, Brad Miller, Brian Scalabrine, Joakim Noah, a terrified Stephon Marbury and former Jackson State star Lindsey Hunter, who apparently is still in the NBA at the age of 64. It was only fitting that after all the hype, game seven, while close, did not have the spectacular finish everyone was sure it would.

While this was one of the best playoff series I can remember watching (and I watched every game), I can’t get on the bandwagon for the greatest series ever. One, look at some of the names mentioned above. If some of these guys were role players, then things might be different. But all of these guys, with the exception of Hunter, were relied on to contribute at key points in the game. And two, and probably most important, these games decided who ADVANCED OUT OF THE FIRST ROUND.

Seriously, everyone just calm the hell down about this series. Why does everyone feel the need to lose their collective shit when something remotely compelling happens in sports? Yeah, it was a good series (and probably the best first-round series in the league’s history), but there’s no way a first-round series can be the greatest playoff series of all-time. The stakes aren’t high enough and we still have about five months of playoff basketball left. When the Cavs face the Celtics or Magic in the Eastern Conference Finals and it goes to seven games, see how many times the Bulls/Celtics series gets mentioned. I’m going to go with zero.

Hawks and Heat complete the worst seven game series in the history of the world. Remember that stuff I just wrote about calming down and not over-hyping things? Well, that doesn’t apply here because this truly was the worst playoff series ever. Somehow, this thing went to seven games and exactly zero of the games were even close. I’m not really sure how that happens, but this series is a great piece of evidence for the NBA going back to best of five in the first round. No one walked away from these games thinking, “You know, I could have used another out-of-control Dwayne Wade drive to the basket that ends with him missing a lay-up, getting a foul called and laying on the floor as if his leg is broken.” When this series ended, men shed tears of joy, babies were made and I’m pretty sure the stock market went up.

Ole Miss baseball sweeps Auburn; Auburn fans still underwhelmed by Gene Chizik. Not much to say here other than Gene Chizik was promoted after a 5-19 stint at Iowa State. It’s still stunning to read that. Anyway, Ole Miss moves to 36-13 and 16-8 in the SEC and a little closer to at least hosting a regional and potentially receiving a national seed. Next up is Mississippi State, who stinks. Another three game sweep and the Rebels probably become a lock for a regional host.

Apparently, there was some sort of horse race over the weekend. Something called the Kentucky Derby. It sounds vaguely familiar. I think I remember hearing about it once in 2001. If you were smart enough to bet on the winner, Mine That Bird (no doubt a name selected out of a hat during a drunken bar bet), at 50-1, congratulations, that was a profitable bet. However, don’t feel too proud of yourself because you should remember that horse racing is stupid.

Seriously ESPN, cut this crap out. If you haven’t heard, Kirk Herbstreit is interviewing college football’s top returning quarterbacks all this week for a special segment on SportsCenter. Today’s feature is on Ole Miss quarterback Jevan Snead (I believe Tim Tebow, Sam Bradford, Colt McCoy and Terrelle Pryor, who totally doesn’t belong in this group, were the others interviewed.). Ugh. What will it take to stop getting all the national media coverage that just sets everyone up for a colossal letdown in the fall? Seriously, what will it take? I can’t take much more of this. All good Rebels know that the more hype and expectations that surround an Ole Miss team, the more impressive the collapse is.

I would request that all media outlets cease and desist their coverage of Ole Miss immediately. You secretly don’t want to cover us because you still think we hate black people and no one in your key markets gives a crap about Ole Miss. And we don’t want the coverage because we know what happens when we get it. So let’s both get what we want and stop this nonsense now. This way everyone wins.

A Break From the World of Sport

Consider yourself very lucky to be reading this because you’re about to be introduced to a game that will change your life. Well, I should say it won’t change your life in the sense that you’ll see the world in a new light, but it will change your life by the countless hours you can spend playing, thus preventing you from doing your priorities and making everyone else angry when you explain to them what caused your slacking off.

The name of the game is Nicolas Cage Movie Title Creator and its rules are simple. Nicolas Cage is one of the worst actors of our time and has been in some of the worst movies of our time. But not only that, some of his movie titles are so over the top or just so awful that you have a hard time believing they’re real movies. Some examples: Knowing, Bangkok Dangerous, The Weather Man, Fire Birds and currently in post-production he’s got some real winners coming out, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Season of the Witch, Astro Boy, G-Force and Kick Ass.

Seriously, those are all real movies. So the object of Nicolas Cage Movie Title Creator is to create movie titles that if they were actually made, the only actor who would or could play the lead role is Nicolas Cage. That’s it. Probably the simplest rules to any game ever.

Now, you could be thinking that this game could get really old, really fast. But then you would be wrong. The great thing about this game is that it’s timeless (well, at least until Nic Cage dies) and the possibilities are endless. I spent about an hour playing the other day and came up with about 40 legitimate Nicolas Cage movies. And yes, it was a good use of my time.

So to help you get started, here are some of mine:

The Wizzard Warrior
The Bank Alliance
The Mecca Exception
Payout Deluxe
Ice Chalice
The Scientist’s Letter
Sly Fox
The Dollar Maker
Silver Top Cherry
Devil’s Fool
Quick

Can you see anyone else as the male lead in those movies? I think not.

For additional fun and time wasting, develop a one or two sentence description of the plot, like the kind your might see on a movie poster or in an ad for the movie. For example, take the soon-to-be-greenlighted Ice Chalice (once someone sends this blog to Nic Cage and assuming he has someone read it to him):

“Man has always sought to discover the great treasures of the Earth. Now, its greatest – and most dangerous – is being hunted…in Antarctica.”

Enjoy, and you’re welcome.