Review: Smashing Pumpkins, “Teargarden By Kaleidyscope 1″

Still bald after all these years.

I understand that nobody likes or listens to this band anymore. Indulge me… Notes: songs ordered by release date, not CD/vinyl tracklisting. Also, for the three of you that read this and like it, check out the awesomely snarky Hipstersunited.com for your daily fix of Pumpkins news and deadpan commentary. I’ve plowed through 40 HU podcasts in three weeks. Figured they deserve a shoutout. Note rant over.

It’s hard to love Billy Corgan. It’s always been hard to love Billy Corgan. Thankfully, his music more often than not compensates for his oversized persona and snarky putdowns, for the confrontational live shows and for his general assholeishness. Hell, at one point, the music made all the pretentious sideshows something to admire. Billy Corgan was saving rock ‘n roll. And nobody likes a humble messiah.

The obvious problem with this incarnation of the Smashing Pumpkins, then, is not the rotating cast of musicians (none of whom, sans-Corgan, were in the original band). It’s that the songs haven’t been so hot. Consequently, the Alpha Pumpkin’s one-time legion of adoring fans has over time crystallized into a tiny, but ravenous cult following… Of which yours truly is still self-loathingly a part. Sorry, I can’t help myself.

So quick refresher before we dive into SP’s new four-song EP. Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlin revived the Pumpkins’ moniker around 2005 after the ugly breakup of their spectacular but short-lived supergroup, Zwan. The two sequestered themselves in a studio for several months and eventually came out with the largely hard-rock oriented “Zeitgeist.” Though it sold pretty well (Billboard #2), the album received mixed reviews, drove away most of what was left of the old fanbase and, predictably, suffered the wrath of the indie blogosphere, which considered it something of an ego-driven affront to the band’s legacy. I kind of liked it. Sue me.

Anyway, BFF Chamberlin left and Corgan’s since turned the band into a collective of no-names, newbies, alt-rock vets and psych pioneers… Which brings us to “Teargarden By Kaleidyscope 1: Songs for a Sailor,” the first installment in a 44-song, free-for-download concept album that you can essentially hear as it’s being made.

Title/artwork = biggest barrier to entry

So far, the formula’s gone like this: write sh*t-ton of songs, play songs live, choose choice songs to record one at a time, post four-song EP to website. Should Billy go the distance, he’ll ultimately crank out 11 EPs comprising this massive, multi-year project based on hokey New Age concepts and Tarot cards. AWESOME! It’s kind of convoluted, kind of cool. And it doesn’t cost you a dime. So there’s no downside to giving it a try.

And you should, because it doesn’t suck.

“A Song for a Son” is the kind of statement opener you’d expect from a man so preposterously ambitious. It’s big, majestic, occasionally bombastic and laced with Corgan’s signature searing fretwork. The sparse melodicism of the acoustic piano intro recalls the mysticism of some of the great classic rock epics of yore, building “Stairway”-style before exploding into back-to-back guitar freakouts 2:50 in.

“A Song for a Son” MP3

It’s a tune that you’ll swear you’ve heard before, that’s played on loop with all the other ’70s rock staples, and that’s totally devoid of any traditional Pumpkins hallmarks, save Corgan’s fuzzed guitar and distinctive vocals. That’s the catch with this album – it sounds almost nothing at all like the band whose name it carries. And given that Chamberlin’s force-of-god pounding isn’t part of the mix anymore, it’s safe to assume that SP will never again attain the punishing heaviness of “Zeitgeist,” let alone the sonic grandeur of “Siamese Dream” or “Mellon Collie.”

Not that Corgan’s trying. Or that this is necessarily a bad thing.

“Widow Wake My Mind” won’t win any converts, though. Unless my mom is listening. Pegged for radio and performed on Leno with a cringe-inducing children’s choir, it’s a perfectly melodic pop song made impotent by its syrupy delivery, adult contemporary lyrical themes and dearth of rock power. “I’m looking for a love that shines”? Gag me.

It’s a dollop of Cool Whip that wastes its super-catchy, chicka-chicka riff and oh-oh hook on wishy-washy balladry and a vocal mix from hell – his voice is in your freaking earhole. I’m not against happy songs. I’m against happy songs that suck. Yani probably sets his alarm to this crap.

“Widow Wake My Mind” MP3

Of course, I’m only this unabashedly critical because the subsequent release is so damn great. “A Stitch In Time’s” chiming, psych-folk propulsion and groovy sitar twang are evidence enough that carousing with stoner dudes from The Electric Prunes and Strawberry Alarm Clock totally works wonders for you inner flower child. Great headphone listening, especially when that subtle layer of synth buzz kicks in around 2:00.

“A Stitch In Time” MP3

Corgan kills the vocal melody, too – those yearning ooooh-oh, yeah-eah‘s are ace – and the lyrics get off on a palpably defiant, stick-this-in-your-pipe-and-smoke-it vibe. “Don’t let them lay the trips on you.” Translation: you people can kiss my ass. I like this one a lot (despite it’s similarity to Zwan’s irritating “Heartsong”). It’s a lush, textured tapestry of San Fran, mindtripping awesomeness that suggests Billy still has his fastball.

“Show me whimsy, Billy!”

Unfortunately there’s another song. “Astral Planes” does a fantastic job at reminding you of two things: 1) Jimmy’s not in the band 2) Corgan’s no wordsmith. The heavy guitar assault kicks loads of ass, but it’s got a whole lot of nothing to work with. Lyrically, the song consists almost entirely of the mantra, “Everyone gather, warm your soul.” And the drumming, courtesy of 20-year-old fanboy/former burger-flipper Mike Byrne, does little to lift this from the scrap heap of derivative rock noise. Maybe Chamberlin wouldn’t have helped… Adding Pirellis to a Camry just gives you a Camry with Pirellis. The fuzzed buildups at the end of each “verse” are kind of cool, though.

“Astral Planes” MP3

So there you go. Two outta four ain’t bad. And just because I say “Widow” is the turd in the punchbowl doesn’t make it an objective fact. You might like it (if you have no balls). “A Stitch In Time” pretty much guarantees that I’ll review the next “Teargarden” entry, and since you’re going to be waiting with baited breath anyway, you might as well give the tunes a shot in the interim. Like I said, they’re free. Unless you want the physical copy. It’s $22, and comes with an obelisk!

- Robbie

Props.

Special thanks to Kyle Rancourt of Kylerancourt.com for the title of this post. I totally stole it from him.

Several months ago, Sports Casualties put out a call for fan-generated site art via the first and only annual “SC Logo Contest.” Through no fault of their own, our some four readers at the time possessed little to no artistic talent. Turns out “aesthetic appreciation” really isn’t our sweet spot. I should have known…

So I did what any good nephew would do – hit up my mom’s sister (aka “Aunt Andi”) for a new logo, something that could replace that flaccid orange and blue “Swamp” photo shot by yours truly.

Here’s all you need to know about my aunt: she became my favorite relative roughly around the time she painted a giant Sebastian The Ibis over my bunk bed some 16 years ago. She’s the kind of person who opts for “Radiohead DVD” over “too-big sweater” as Christmas gift of choice. She also has a fireball daughter who may or may not be the spitting image of Goldilocks. In short, she’s pretty awesome.

Anyhow, I put in a request (read: made a desperate plea) for a new design with the condition that, uh, there were no conditions. She was game, and to my pleasant surprise, swamped my inbox a few weeks ago with some of the finest examples of outsourced labor I’ve seen in a long while… Turns out she got a couple of her superstar art students to mock up several cool designs, all of which you can see below.

To future famous people/Aunt Andi art students/Casualtists Hannah and Sarah, we send our very sincerest thanks. We already use one logo for our Twitter page and will be sure to make use of the others when we redesign the site later this summer. In the words of Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, great job by you guys. Drinks on us (when you’re in Gainesville… and of legal drinking age). Cheers. 

Hannah, Logo 1

Hannah, Logo 2

Hannah, Logo 3

Sarah, Logo 1

Sweet.

- Robbie

Anger and Vindication: An Unfocused Look at the Past Week in the World

 

I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut, and not just because I failed to read the disclaimer on my internship paperwork that read “you will only eat fast food this summer” in fine print.

You are experiencing this post through literary DVR which means two things:

1. I am writing this on Thursday.
2. The Boston Red Sox finished their humiliating sweep of my Tampa Bay Rays last night.

Yes, I know that complaining about this is comparable to me complaining about not eating in four hours when there are kids in some country/village in Africa that I can’t pronounce that are literally starving. Fans of less fortunate teams will likely see a fan of the best team in baseball complaining and turn away.I don’t care.

Standings are numbers. Boston is personal.

I’m not sure if I have made this clear enough during my time writing for Sports Casualties, but I freaking hate Boston. And no, I don’t just mean the Red Sox.

I hate Dustin Pedroia, who if it wasn’t for baseball, would have absolutely nothing going for him.

I hate The Standells. Who in the hell loves dirty water?

I hate “Red Sox Nation” and “how well they travel.” They don’t travel. They just have legions. of bandwagon fans that decided the Red Sox were cool in the early 2000s and started showing up at their hometown baseball parks dressed in red. In fact, I hate any fan base that labels itself a “nation,” and that includes my beloved Florida Gators (Go write the great American novel…Go jump off a skyscraper. Those commercials suck.). Nation is a synonym for new fans that will stop caring when the team stops winning.

I hate Paul Revere. A man famous for yelling too much, a foreshadowing of millions of Boston residents to come.

I hate David Ortiz and his 12-pack of lard per day habit. Josh Beckett and the excessive ropes around his neck. Kevin Youkillis and his ludicrous batting stance and all-around pissy nature. J.D. Drew and the fact that he is J.D. Drew.

I hate Pedro Martinez, Coco Crisp and Johnny Damon. And I don’t care that none of them play there anymore.

My hatred is seeded from many a day spent during my impressionable pre-teen years at Tropicana Field watching the [Devil] Rays lose to the Red Sox. We were almost always the only Rays fans in our section, and Boston fans were the most obnoxious and unfriendly people known to man.

The day that Crisp was mugged by a pile of Rays is one of my favorite baseball days ever, almost surpassing us beating the Sox in the ALCS. It was no coincidence that the two guys taking the biggest shots at Crisp were the Rays who had been in St. Pete the longest. It was built-up for many years.

A glorious day.

So enjoy your sweep and your current hot streak, Boston fans. I hope the Magic break your pathetic green hearts, Philly style.

Sticking with baseball, umpire Joe West made the news again last night for drawing the disapproval of Ozzie Guillen. For those wondering why West makes the news so much, it could be helpful to know that West has a publicist. Yes, a publicist for a guy that is supposed to avoid publicity.

But this publicist isn’t just promoting West’s career behind the plate. No, apparently Mr. West has a “budding” country music career that he is trying to expand upon. This is serious. To hear his twangy stylings on the game of baseball, click here. Scott Stapp may have competition in the race for worst baseball song ever.

[wpvideo Vl6EJ9HQ]

ESPN introduced the “Tebow Tracker” on its Web site this week. The tracker is a specific site that keeps up with nothing but all things Tebow at all times. That sound you hear is Shelly Meyer trying to drag Urban away from the computer.

In other Tebow news, the oil spill continues to be a major problem in the Gulf of Mexico. This is Tebow news because it is keeping him from performing his regular morning “swim to the Mexico and back” training regimen.

The official World Cup roster for the USA was announced on Wednesday. Apparently we’re still working on this whole Wayne Rooney U.S. citizenship thing as he was left off of the roster.

Man.

Evan Longoria made news of his own this weekend when he established his very own national Longoriaism. There’s been enough Oden talk around here, so I’ll let you check out this piece of athlete photography for yourself. Now keep in mind, this was initially posted on a Red Sox blog where some dude previously wrote in blasting Longoria for hitting on his girlfriend.

We’re eight minutes away from game time. Go Magic.

AND NOW…(drum roll)  

WHY I HAVE WRITER’S BLOCK: The Never-Ending Saga  

In no specific order, and with no real explanation, this is my weekly look at some of the things that kept me distracted while I was trying to write.  

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ti1x826rX0]

Lost in the shuffle of Robbie’s CNBC obsessions, Ainsley Earhardt.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1kYDiGxaNE]

This isn’t funny…at all…[laughs hysterically].

Song of the Week

In honor of this weekend’s installment of the Tampa Bay Rays’ summer concert series, I present to you…the first [and possibly last ever] edition of Song of the Week.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQxRy30qs0g]

Try and not let this get stuck in your head…HA!

Blah.

-Bryan

"Top Kill" and Other Google Trends: The Week in Review, Redux

Apparently this was a dolphin at one point.

This is part one in a two-part installment. Probably gonna drop the “redux” next week. Bryan is cavorting with hot ladies. He’ll be here sometime soon. Maybe. Let’s do this.

I have great news, Casualtists: Don Rickles is not dead! He was the No. 1 trend on Yahoo! Search as of Thursday afternoon. And given that he hasn’t been relevant for 40 years, I just assumed… But no. Not dead. Rejoice, fans of awkward talk show comedy!

But that’s not all. Thursday’s sector rotation gave a much needed boost to the American economy and to this humble website. Let me explain. At the same time capital in the stock market was pulling out of tech and plowing into financials and energy, searches for hot babe Michelle Beadle inexplicably gave way to searches for equally hot babe Natalie Gulbis. Apparently if you’d like to find the latter in a bathing suit, SC is the place to look. Nice work, Bryan.

Now to less awesome news. Oil is still shooting from the ocean floor at an alarming rate. The brain children at BP have decided – after more than a month – that the best way to stop the spill is to clog it with mud. They’ve coined this operation, appropriately, “Top Kill,” as in, “If this doesn’t work, we’ll have topped ourselves by killing every form of life in the Gulf of Mexico.” 

Plan Z.

Don’t get me wrong. I was all for BP cleaning up its own mess, but I was all for BP cleaning up its own mess four weeks ago. It’s since become abundantly clear that incentive doesn’t always compensate for ineptitude (ask Roy Williams). So here’s my suggestion, which I totally stole from Sen. Bill Nelson:

Make the freaking Army do it.

I understand that this leak is a mile under the sea, and that it’s hard to get to, and that we’re not experts and yada, yada, yada… I’m also under the impression that we have the best, most capable military in the world. I’ve seen those Navy Seals commercials. We do some crazy sh*t. 

Not sure why it hasn’t happened yet, or why my president hasn’t deployed a fleet of rescue crews to clean up the Louisiana coastline. Not sure why New Orleans looks like a ghost town, or really, why we’re still even talking about trying to plug a hole. Is it because we’re still fighting two wars? Is it because the National Guard is on the border chasing Mexicans in lieu of comprehensive immigration reform? Is it because we don’t have any money left to spend? I don’t know. 

Here’s what I’m getting at: the whole reason to have a government is to protect a people from its own calamities. David Gergen said as much on Wednesday’s “AC 360.” Can you find me any recent examples of this? Does the Wall Street bailout count, or is it nullified because we didn’t outlaw any of the old tricks? 

I’m not cynical enough to believe that President Obama doesn’t give a sh*t. He does. President Bush probably had a heart, too. Still whiffed on 9/11, though. Whiffed on Katrina. Still whiffing on Wall Street, and now we’re whiffing on an entire ecosystem. All evidence suggests that our government cannot even fulfill its most fundamental role. It doesn’t work. It’s slow, unresponsive, ineffective, and woefully inefficient…  

Photo op.

On that note, here’s hoping we can clog a leak in the next 39 days. Haven’t tried duct tape yet. Bureaucracy, you suck. Rant over. 

__________

On Saturday, Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki decided to opt out of his contract in a free agency bid that surprised some and disconcerted others. Apparently, something about big shot Germans breaking off negotiations to pursue ambitions abroad makes people uneasy.

This week, the Orlando Magic tried to become the first team in 94 attempts to come back from a 3-0 series deficit. In an anticlimactic turn of events, we still don’t know the outcome. We do know, however, that Vince Carter extended his streak of sucking in big games.

Game 4 line: 1-9 FG, 3 pts… A little part of Bryan Holt died on Monday night.

On Sunday, the Washington Nationals expressed interest in trading for disgruntled Astros pitcher Roy Oswalt, or as he’s known to Big League scouts, “The 31 Million Dollar Bad Back.”

In a tragic turn of events, former Major League pitcher and 21-game winner Jose Lima died of a heart attack at the age of 37 on Sunday. To honor the fallen, SC hereby declares May 23 “Lima Time.”

You will be missed, Jose.

A source close to the Cleveland Cavaliers told ESPN that Mike Brown was fired Sunday. Actually, the source just pulled anchor Steve Levy aside and pointed to the writing on the wall.

On Monday, Brown went back to a favorite hobby – driving his Ferrari below the speed limit.

Over the weekend, Blackhawks defenceman Duncan Keith took a puck to the mouth in the series clinching game against the Sharks. Duncan lost seven teeth, coughed up one he almost choked on, then assisted on a goal after an injection of novocaine.

The following morning, Duncan shaved with a piece of glass and wrestled his pet lion.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXtXKkNO8c4]

Duncan Keith: Hockey Player, Man.

During the 5/20 episode of the “B.S. Report,” guest Seth Meyers said of the upcoming film “MacGruber,” “I was an executive producer – [that] was my title. But what that really means in the “SNL” world is that I was on set and stuff with those guys when they were working on the script.”

He added, “I had very little to do with it, actually. I mean, really, almost nothing. I probably shouldn’t have been credited at all.”

“MacGruber” grossed just over $4 million opening weekend. 

ABC’s feed of the “Lost” finale mysteriously cut out in the entire Cleveland market Sunday night. Some insist it was for the better – watching James’ character leave the Island after seven years would’ve been too traumatic.

On Tuesday, NFL owners chose New York over Tampa and South Florida as the location for Super Bowl XLVIII. Distraught residents of the latter areas got over the disappointment by surrounding themselves with beautiful women and perfect weather.

Just another ho-hum day on Miami Beach.

Atlanta’s Kenshin Kawakami on Wednesday became the third NL pitcher since 1960 to start 0-7. Kawakami is currently making $1 million per loss, though that figure is expected to decline.

On Thursday, FIU infielder Garrett Wittels extended his hitting streak to 50 games. He is now only eight shy of Robin Ventura’s 58-game NCAA record.

In related news, administrators have banned walking curse Isiah Thomas from FIU baseball’s next eight games.

Now to more catastrophic news…

This week alone, oil from the still-gushing BP rig swamped 30 acres of Louisiana’s grassy marshlands.

Hmm, grassy marshlands + crude… Not exactly what I had in mind for “green initiative,” but okay.

Green initiative?

Green initiative?

Thirty-nine days after the explosion, government officials have yet to come up with a viable way to contain the spill. Republicans and Democrats alike are outraged at Washington’s slow response, and just days ago, rapper Kanye West declared that Barack Obama doesn’t care about black people.

Livid Dem.

In a you-can’t-be-serious turn of events, President Obama on Wednesday held a fundraiser in San Francisco at the estate of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty.

How’s that for irony? A wealthy industrialist family living in San Francisco?

Oh, and the oil fundraiser part is pretty ironic, too.

And 100 percent true.

Have a slick weekend. Here’s your buzzer beater.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYitHWgM1qE]

- Robbie

CNBC Fab 5 Pics: Rally Cap Edition

I wrote this around 12 p.m. on Thursday… All the major indexes finished up about 3 percent. Drinks on me tonight, ladies. 

The bulls are back, Casualtists, and not because LeBron signed with Chicago. Indeed, Thursday brought us the news that China was not pulling the rug (and their investments) out from under Europe, but instead that Wednesday’s Reuters report suggesting as much was a load of crap. This wouldn’t have happened had fact-checker extraordinaire Bryan Holt been on the wires, but I digress… One man’s faulty journalism is another man’s 280-point pop in the Dow.

Of course, knowing this market – not that I do – we’ll pull back hard as soon as the real traders go home, volume gets thinner than Steve Liesman’s hair, and the computers lock in profits via feverous short covering (4 p.m. update: Didn’t happen!). Did you know those things are actually called “Search and Destroy” machines? Seriously.

So where do we stand as of May 27? Well, the week is still generally sucking despite the monster rally, and that Trish Regan dressed like Big Bird today isn’t helping. Trish, I love yellow… on Ferraris. The financials are holding up, though, and Goldman in particular seems to be finding its legs around $140. The people who know stuff say that as Goldman goes, so go the rest of the blue chips. Whatever. I say Mark Haines’ body language is probably a better indicator.

I told you about China buying Europe, but I didn’t tell you that Erin Burnett pretty much owned Shanghai all week. She was on assignment interviewing every Asian bigwig this side of The Great Wall… As far as Chinese diplomacy goes, Erin’s way hotter than Richard Nixon. Communism has no chance.

A few more things to keep your eyes on…

1) The Euro continues to bounce off of $1.22. If this stop doesn’t hold, though, look for the Greeks to adopt olives as their new currency.

2) Spain does not have the same massive debt problems as Greece even though they get lumped together. Plus, Greece is to Europe what Rhode Island is to the U.S. (i.e. small potatoes) If the EU had a brain and balls, it would cut ties with Greece altogether, and allow the country’s currency and angular women to float to an area where they can be more competitive.

3) Both the dollar and oil are ON FIYA! Which seems kind of counterintuitive, but works for me. Stay away from BP, though… It’s the new Toyota.

4) The S&P’s built a floor around 1040. Short your dog and your best friend if we ever break to the downside. Mid-9s is the next stop.

5) These lovely ladies: Amanda Drury (the Bond girl), Trish Regan (the brunette), Erin Burnett (the brunette in China), and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera (the endowed brunette). Melissa Francis is still away being a mother… This is your CNBC week in review. Enjoy.

That’s really yellow, Regan… Happy trading.

- Robbie

Market Movers: Dirk and Mike Brown

Modern Bromance.

In my quest to ignore these godawful playoffs altogether, I present to you – without further adieu – more speculation!

As if this cluttered mass of moving pieces we’ve come to call “NBA free agency” couldn’t get any more chaotic, two major weekend headlines – one expected, one not so much – threw another wrench into the best laid plans of guys who never had set plans to begin. On Saturday, everyone’s favorite seven-foot, three-reigning German stuck it to his rich owner by declaring he’d opt out of his contract and become an unrestricted free agent come July 1. Will Dirk Nowitzki really leave Big D after 12 Cuban-coddled seasons, or is he just trying for a final fat paycheck before the owners lower the boom with next year’s Collective Bargaining Agreement? We’ll explore.

But first to Mike Brown, the freshly canned ex-coach of the Mighty Kingsmen. Reports of his imminent demise had been swirling around Cavs camp since that home meltdown in game 5 of the C’s series, so this doesn’t exactly come as a shocker. When LeBron came out a few days ago and flat denied any involvement in the Cleveland coaching situation, Cavs’ management evidently decided that its wishy-washy, will-he-or-won’t course with Brown wasn’t the best way to keep LeBron’s interest. After all, that’s the last thing the guys upstairs wanted to hear. 

You mean he doesn’t care one way or the other? PANIC!

Sunday night’s league deadline forced the issue. Had the Cavs waited, they would’ve had to pay Brown’s $4.5 million 2010-2011 salary regardless… So this leaves us with the obvious question: did he deserve it? Did he deserve an unceremonious canning after 127 wins in two years, a run to the Finals and the highest winning percentage in team history?

Uh, yeah. Totally. 

Doc Rivers disagrees. “Obviously, I was not thrilled to see it,” he told ESPN. “I wonder what you have to do to keep your job – back to back 60-win seasons.” 

In Brown’s case, he had to win a championship, not an unfair request given his improved roster and LeBron at the helm. Perhaps the Celtic’s sudden resurgence put him in an unfair position – they were, by all accounts, the better team. But fact is, he’d done more with less in the past. Fact is, his crunch-time offense was just as frustratingly stagnant in year five as in year one. He wasn’t big on in-game adjustments – or adjustments in general – even though everybody and their senile grandmother knew that his team could run you out the building if he just pushed the tempo.

Microcosm.

But no. Brown didn’t have the wherewithal to see that The Big Aristotle had since become the Big Man Tit. He refused to play LeBron at the 4 or go small with Hickson/Varejao. He fell in love with the LeBron-on-3. He pick-and-rolled his way to the foul line with a team that couldn’t make foul shots. And his vaunted defense – his calling card – made the scrappy Rajon Rondo look like the second coming of the Big O. In short, he had no answers. 

Plus, Brown always gave the impression that he was less coach than James’ personal cheerleader, a perception that perhaps undermined his authority. His mini-tirade after the game 4 C’s loss, for instance, went over like a gym teacher threatening detention. Nobody listened. And when LeBron checked out  right around the same time, Brown had no way of circling the wagons in win-one-for-the-gipper fashion. Devil’s advocate would suggest that a team with LeBron will always be LeBron’s team. Fair. But a guy like Phil Jackson or Larry Brown could certainly act a professorial co-pilot and would no doubt carry more weight in the locker room.  

Player reaction was classic. “Do I think he deserved it? No,” Mo Williams told the Plain Dealer. “My question is: Who’s out there that’s better? He’s not a bad coach. To fire him, that’s making a big statement. After him, you have to get a Hall of Fame coach.”

Bingo, Mo. 

Coach K already gave a big thumbs down. But Phil Jackson hasn’t. And John Calipari follows LeBron around like a lapdog. 

Like everything else LeBron related, the coaching vacancy puts the Cavs in a hands-tied bind. They want to hire the coach LeBron wants, but could ultimately end up fielding advice from a guy they don’t retain. Meanwhile, a team like the Nets can preemptively throw absurd amounts of coin at the Phil Jacksons of the world with the added luxury of knowing they’re a potential destination for more than just LeBron. Advantage: Russian billionaires. 

Let’s talk Germans. 

All fun and games until somebody opts out.

Long pegged as a Dallas-lifer, Dirk Nowitzki puckered the rear of many a Cuban when he told “sources” he was all in for LeBron-’O-Mania 2010. Translation: Dirk will opt out for more money… with the same team. It’s a matter of simple economics, really, and perhaps part leverage game as well.

Signing an extension both leaves money on the table and opens him up to retroactive salary cuts under a restructured Collective Bargaining Agreement. Under the current CBA, Dallas is restricted by the over-36 rule – Dirk is almost 32 – and thus can only offer three more years on top of next season’s $21.5 million. Opting out, on the other hand, still subjects Dirk to the age rule (he can’t sign anywhere for more than 4 years), but locks in salary terms of the current CBA and bumps a Dallas max deal up to 4-years, $96.2 million. Other teams can offer up to $93.1 million.

That “simple economics” part? I take it back. 

Here’s the catch. Cuban insists that the two camps are still negotiating, which implies that Dallas is hesitant to offer max money. Dirk has suggested in the past that he would take less to build a better team, but has no assurances that Dallas can land another big name should he accept a lowball offer. Ideally for fans, Dirk will sign an extension, leaving the team cap space to convert Caron Butler and Erick Dampier’s expiring contract into Joe Johnson or… wait for it… King James.

I get all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it… Michael, meet Scottie.  

Cuban recently told a local radio station that Dirk “isn’t going anywhere,” which I’m sure is the exact same thing he said about Steve Nash. Dirk would command max money on the open market. No doubt it. And The New York angle is especially enticing: what if LeBron or D-Wade needs a running mate? What if New York gets shut out altogether and wants to make Dirk the centerpiece before adding Carmelo in 2011-2012? Would he listen? How could he not?

What if he wants to reunite with Nash?

“PTI’s” Tony Kornheiser thinks Dirk would be the #3 free agent option this summer, and with due respect to Chris Bosh and his perennially underachieving Toronto Raptors, I agree 100 percent. He’s a 9-time all-star in his prime, a fiery competitor who always gives a crap, and a mortal lock for 25-8 and 75 games a year. Yes, he’s days short of 32. But have you ever blocked a fadeaway jumper from a 36-year-old 7-footer? Me neither.

Happy mercenary hunting. 

- Robbie

Big Papi Still Alive, Hitting Home Runs

Papi going yard: a surprisingly frequent occurrence.

All stats of Sunday, May 23, 2010. Ortiz went 2-4 with a homer and RBI on Monday.

Here’s the thing about writing stuff on the internet: it can come back to bite you in the ass. So when the calendar turned May and David Ortiz, on queue, started raking like the second coming of Roy Hobbs, you knew it had the potential to haunt the flock of sportswriters-turned-morticians jostling to call Papi’s time of death. Beantown had written off their frumpy fallen star by mid-April, and anybody privy to a keyboard and monthly splits was quick to pile on. 

Luckily for said sportswriters, these little bits of overzealous bluster disperse into the digital ether, never to be spoken of again. 

Until now.

Since SC’s never been wrong – ever - let’s use our 20/20 hindsight to call out a few people for their hastily erroneous ways. We’re all about accountability and public flogging. Let’s do this… 

__________

“As for the Red Sox? Without the security blanket [Jason] Bay was able to provide, David Ortiz’s downward spiral into irrelevance has seemed even more pronounced.” ~ Jeff Blair, The Globe and Mail, April 25

“There’ve been a million unmistakable signs, like the swings and misses through mediocre fastballs, the weak ground balls to the right side, even the way opposing managers have stopped maneuvering around David Ortiz. The forensic evidence keeps bringing the Red Sox back to the same bleak conclusion: it’s time to say goodbye to Big Papi.” ~ Bob Klapisch, FoxSports.com, April 26  

“The Boston Red Sox have two major problems: their catchers are helpless against opposing base-stealers and David Ortiz appears hopelessly washed up… Boston can’t afford to carry him much longer with AL East rivals New York and Tampa Bay looking strong and pulling away.” ~ Bob Matthews, Democrat and Chronicle, April 26

“Eight-figure acquisition Jason Bay was hitting so poorly, Mets fans were ready to ship him back to Boston for a Cheers beach towel and the remnants of David Ortiz.” ~ Jason Gay, The Wall Street Journal, April 30

“Ortiz looks like he can’t hit anymore… How could they have traded Lowell to Texas, then wound up with Lowell as platoon DH? And did anyone actually think Ortiz was going to reverse his decline after what we watched in the 2008 playoffs and all of last season?” ~ Dan Shaughnessy, The Boston Globe,  May 9

Forgot one…

 “Bittersweet day for Bryan Holt, who is simultaneously watching another Rays victory AND the funeral of David Ortiz.” ~ Robbie Hilson, Sports Casualties, April 19

__________

Poor Papi.

Do these guys really look that stupid? Yeah. They do. In 16 games this months, Papi’s batting .351 with 7 HR and 18 RBI. He’s slugging .754, getting on base at a near .400 clip and, most importantly, finally catching up with the fastball in. Ask Phil Hughes, who watched one of his two-seamers sail deep into Yankee Stadium’s right field bleachers last Monday. Hell, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think maybe FedEx just misplaced his March/April HGH supply with my monthly dose of Flintstones Vitamins. Since I didn’t get any Somatropin in the mail, I’m gonna assume this wasn’t the case.

Just kidding, Papi… Kind of.

As you can see, yours truly also jumped the bandwagon (via Twitter, so it really shouldn’t count) and wrote Ortiz off just like everyone else. And shame on me, because the stats suggest that I should have known better. Last season, Papi was in a similar situation – as late as June 2, he was stuck on an Ecksteinian 1 HR and 18 RBI. He hit .143 in May, striking out 26 times in 91 AB. He was already coming off two straight seasons of across-the-board decline. By any and every measure, he was no longer a productive baseball player.

Until, of course, he was.

Ortiz caught fire in June, never hit fewer than 6 home runs in any remaining month, and finished with a respectable 28-99 for a 95-win Sox team.

At 34, he’s a lot closer to the end than the beginning. His skills will go sooner rather than later, and if guys with similar builds – Cecil Fielder, Mo Vaughn, John Kruk, Tim Salmon – are any indication, they will go in a hurry. 

Big Mo, with PED of choice.

Perhaps this latest resurgence is just a dead cat bounce – a final heroic burst of pride and guts before it all falls off a cliff. But to assert as much would be to ignore the larger body of evidence.

Should you retrace the last calendar year, the guy’s still swinging the stick of a power player in his prime. Ortiz has hit 35 home runs and driven in 103 over his last 143 games, a mere 505 AB. In comparison, the ’07 Big Papi posted 35 and 117 in 44 more at-bats.

Moreover, the world-beater ’04-’06 Ortiz went yard every 12.6 at-bats in a lineup that included bash brother Manny Ramirez. In a lesser order and without the, um, “extra help,” that clip has leveled off to a respectable 14.4 over the last 143 games (Ramirez is at 14.7 for his career). Now factor in that he’s been much better on the road in 2010 (1.037 OPS) than in the short-porched confines of Fenway (.667 OPS), that older sluggers are notorious for heating up with the weather, and that he’s made a concerted effort to slim down as of late (“svelte” isn’t the word, but it’s not far off). 

As Biggy Smalls might say, reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.

I originally planned to knock out a quick “Dead/Alive” segment focusing on the similarly aging likes of Alfonso Soriano, Lance Berkman and Chipper Jones, but I’d probably just end up looking more shortsighted than Billy Packer calling the ’08 title game after 13 minutes. You can’t predict these things. Not in baseball.

It’s just the nature of game – fluky, fickle, logic-defying and premised on the impossible. And that’s why we love it. On Saturday, we were four outs away from a third no-hitter in two months. Days earlier, the Mets hit an inside-the-park homer and turned a triple play in the same game. And lost. The Braves finished April on a 10-game losing streak. I wrote them off in early May. Now they’re one of the hottest teams in the league.

It’s cliche, but it’s true: expect the unexpected. Lesson learned. No more jumping the gun. Sorry, Papi.

- Robbie

The "Lost" Finale, Seriously

Excuse me while I... *barfs everywhere*

Aspiring to be more coherent than Season 6; failing miserably.

I’ve been kicked in the balls before, but never after six years of steadfast devotion and never to the effect of utter confusion. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to take from Sunday night’s “Lost” finale – other than it was long as hell and crammed with scene after scene of pseudo-religious bullsh*t – but I can tell you that the 2 ½ hour capstone left me feeling emptier than a well on that godforsaken jungle island.

I can also tell you it had an awesome plug for duct tape. That planes are better on sand than you would’ve thought. That Michael is still roaming on the island, whispering sweet nothings to no one in particular. That his son Walt obviously outgrew his role, because we have absolutely no idea what happened to him.

I can tell you that Marilyn Manson is a huge fan, and that the “Survivor” alternate ending that aired on Kimmel would’ve been just as satisfactory. At least I would’ve known for sure that it was all just one big joke, and that the writers had no intention whatsoever of tying up all the obscure loose ends that strung us along hour by hour. Unlike Oceanic 815, “Lost” opted for the safe landing – a Kumbaya catchall that gathered all our favorite characters in the same room and said the hell (literally?) with everyone else.

Linus after getting kicked in the balls.

The finale revealed, if you can call it a revelation, that “everybody dies sometime,” which makes me wonder if there was any tangible difference between Sawyer and Kate catching that last red eye and Jack crapping out from a knife wound in a bamboo forest. If “everybody dies sometime,” did any of the unceremonious slayings and impromptu gunfights even matter? Was the Jack/Locke fight to the death the ultimate triumph of good over evil, or just another propulsive thrust toward some predetermined fate in the afterlife? 

Perhaps the final ghostly meeting of white-light rapture was all predicated on Jack saving the Island. He was, after all, in the most hit-you-over-the-head sense, the Christ figure that sacrificed his own life so that the others (not The Others – they’re still question marks) might experience eternal redemption. And should you take issue with this premise, I’m sure the writers have another Jesus statue with which to drive the point home.

You remember how “Doubt” ended with Meryl Streep’s “I have doubt!” line, or how Marty Scorsese stuck an actual rat in the last frame of “The Departed”? That’s essentially the sendoff we got Sunday night – a final, cringe-inducing opportunity to tell us what we knew all along…

IT’S A FRIGGIN’ METAPHOR!

In one refreshingly light-hearted scene, Kate actually turns to Desmond and asks of the man in the coffin, “Wait, his name is  Christian Shephard? Really? Christian… Shephard…?” And while I appreciate Lindelof and Co.’s self-deprecating humor, I also remember a time not long ago when their show was far too good for such lowball in-jokes. 

All of this heavy-handed explicitness would be fine if didn’t go against everything that made this show so great from the very beginning. The “Lost” narrative wasn’t built on cheesy clichés and over-the-plate fastballs. It just wasn’t. It was instead intricately woven with nuance and cliffhangers, backstories, frontstories and sidestories. Stories that lit up a million message boards with a JFK-type fervor and the electricity of endless possibility. 

So to fall like “The X-Files” before it into the trappings of quasi-religiosity and everything-goes allegory probably doesn’t sit well with the hyper-intelligent set who expected a bigger payoff from six years of twisting conspiracy. Nor, for that matter, does it satisfy people like me who just wanted to know what the hell it all means.

Wait. So if they were all dead at the end, how did they interact with the people who weren’t dead? Is this some kind of “Sixth Sense” deal? HUH? WHAT?  

And what about the dog? WHAT ABOUT THE DOG?!

That Matthew Fox suggested on Kimmel that his character actually died on the return flight during a mild bout of turbulence just poked at an open wound. WTF, real-life Jack?

It’s a bit of a paradox, really. Pursuing such transparent measures (the church, “Jacob’s ladder,” black vs. white, etc.) to square away the overarching theme at the expense of the cool minutiae ultimately undermined both the details and the symbolism. What, for instance, do we make of this indiscriminate form of “heaven”? I get that all religions are eligible – the gratuitous shots of stain-glassed yin yangs, Shivas and crucifixes shouted me down from thinking otherwise. We’re all a big happy family. Trust me, I get it. I would expect nothing less from a church in California. 

But we’re working with a hazy Redemption Scale, no? Am I to discount Sayid’s murderous ways? Am I to assume Jack’s father was something other than an alcoholic adulterer? What about Mr. Eko? Did he just have other obligations? And Ben Linus… What do I take from his refusal to join the final pew party? Is he stuck in Limbo or the victim of a cutting room clusterf***?

In short: I don’t get it. Maybe that’s my fault. Maybe it’s Dogen’s. 

I did, though, enjoy the “flashes” – those white-lighted replays detailing all the serendipitous turns that brought everyone back to this one special point in time. I enjoyed the reunited lovers – that Jack got Kate and Sawyer got Juliet. That Hurley got his blonde, even if I think he should still be protecting the Island (He’s the New Jacob, right?). That Locke got… Wait, who did Locke get?

And if I sound bitter, I’m not. Really. Just because the whole sucked didn’t mean I didn’t get endless thrills from the sum of its parts. Doesn’t mean this was 121 hours wasted. Quite the opposite. Six seasons of consistently riveting television is a tough trick to pull. Even the stinkbomb episodes got by on top-notch acting and the best production you’ve ever seen. Hell, all the bluster makes you forget that it all started out as “Gilligan” on steroids and the best crash-landing in television history. To go from that Point A to this Point B without ever jumping shark is a substantial feat in itself. And as a pop-culture phenomenon, the show is second to none. 

When it comes down to it, the “Lost” finale was a casualty of impossibly high expectations and a ravenous fan base that left no stone unturned. Indeed, the thing about the fans is that they were always two steps ahead of the writers. They had a theory – an awesome theory – not just for the polar bears and smoke pillars, but for all the seemingly imperceptible inconsistencies that just had to mean something!

But didn’t. Nope. Just inconsistencies – a character here, a time lapse there.

Perhaps they should of left it completely open-ended, you know, “Sopranos”-style: black screen, heated debate and a billion internet theories. We could’ve speculated wildly, creating our own endings in keeping with the democratic conclusion we got anyway. In the end, the finale’s downfall was that, with a show like this, finality was never something to be grasped in the first place.

And in case you weren’t sure, this post is over.

- Robbie

The Life and Times of a Summer Intern

The office.

This is the first installment in an occasional series that will document my days at a summer internship. I figured that since this site is run by two journalism students, it could possibly be appropriate to give a little insight into what a news internship is like. I could be wrong. Hopefully I’m not.

As was mentioned in both Week in Review segments, I began my summer internship at WTSP in St. Petersburg on Monday. WTSP is the local CBS affiliate station and is located at the St. Pete end of the Gandy Bridge which connects Tampa and St. Pete.

If you’re looking for some kind of angry rant here, then you’ll be sorely disappointed. After one week, this internship has already been a wonderful and educating experience. Will the new and exciting nature of it all eventually wear off? Probably, but I can honestly say that I look forward to spending the rest of my summer at Channel 10.

So the initial question is always how did you get this internship? Are Channel 10′s internship positions competitive?

I honestly have no idea.

Last fall, I found myself as a lost journalism student in my first semester at the University of Florida. Yes, I was a community college transfer. A kid that slept his way through high school and then decided that this school thing is kind of important. All that I had ever really wanted was to go to school at UF, and that was now a reality, so everything was cool, right?

Wrong.

My first semester at UF also happened to be my first semester as a journalism student. I watched “Jerry Maguire” one too many times as a kid and started college as a sport management major. So stepping in the door at UF, one of the country’s top journalism schools, was beyond intimidating.

Initial career path.

Here were kids that had known what they wanted to do since they were small children. They had been editors of school papers, interns at major media outlets and had memorized the AP Style book like I had memorized the 1993 World Series. Their memorization was much more useful.

“If you’re a sophomore and you haven’t had an internship yet, you really need to get on that,” said one professor. Uh, what if I’m a junior?

So I spent a couple of months frantically trying to find some kind of internship opportunity. I found that being a junior with no previous experience in the field is kind of like being a 50-year-old woman looking to begin a career as a glamour model. Nobody wants to be the first place to give you a shot, and if they do, they probably aren’t willing to admit it.

Over Christmas break, I walked into the lobby of Media General, which in Tampa is a three-way combination of WFLA, The Tampa Tribune and TBO.com. It was kind of like a movie scene when the beyond desperate dude shows up at the girl who keeps shutting him down’s doorstep. All that was missing was a little rain.

” Who are you here to see?”

“Uh, I’d like an internship.”

“You should probably make an appointment.”

“Uh, please?”

Enter Nancy Ryan, special projects producer at the NBC affiliate and all-around awesome person. She was willing to talk to me in the station’s lobby and after a 20-minute conversation, I had my internship.

That is until one night during spring break when I received an E-mail informing me that all Media General internships were canceled. NO! This cannot really be happening. After all of this, I’m going to end up heading into my senior year with no internship or actual experience to show. As Lee Corso would utter, “Not so fast my friend!”

Re-enter perpetual life-saver Ryan who called me the morning after one sleep deficient night. She said that she felt terrible about the corporate decision that had been made. She also promised that she would try to find me another spot somewhere else.

One day later, a wonderful phone call came in informing me that Ryan had gotten me an internship at Channel 10. So that was how this entire thing came about, kind of indirect but still a huge relief.

My first day at WTSP was short but still confusing. I had never worked around any kind of television before, I’d barely seen the inside of any kind of newsroom, yet here I was at a full-blown TV station. There was an entire new language to learn. Things like SOTS, VOSOTs and B-Rolls. A computer program named Avid Instinct, which is used to produce video packages, brought all of this confusion into one central source.

Unlucky for me, I was the only intern without any experience in television. Lucky for me, the other interns were more than willing to help.

Like I said, the first day was short. A couple of tutorials, a trip to the production room to watch the midday news and my first taste of a production meeting.

The awkward parts of the day came whenever somebody asked me the simple question that I am still unable to answer.

So what exactly do you want to do?

The only truthful answer to that question is that I have no idea. The other interns are focused on a particular goal. One wants to be a reporter, the other is an aspiring producer. I’m clueless.

Tricia Takanawa, Channel 10 News

I don’t know if I want to be on-air, off-air, print, television. I cannot decide. All I know is that I would like a job after I graduate college, and I’ll take about whatever I can get. I would obviously prefer something in sports, but I’m also assertive enough to see that there are over 100 jobs in a newsroom and three of them are credited to covering athletics.

The second day was when things picked up. Working the night-side shift (3 P.M. to 12 A.M.), I was sent out to shadow my first story, a look at tourism numbers dropping at Pinellas County beach hotels due to the oil spill hysteria. A week earlier, I had been at St. Pete Beach making fun of a wedding party because they were dressed in formal gear on the beach while I was in a bathing suit. Nine days later I was now standing on the sands of Treasure Island in slacks, a long sleeve button-up and dress shoes, holding a Blackberry and notepad.

One of the highlights of the trip was when a discussion broke out of where each of us was when 9/11 happened. I was in seventh grade homeroom, the reporter was in her apartment in Boston. “I was with George Bush,” said the cameraman. Uh, you win.

Because my particular internship has a focus on sports, I reported to the sports portion of the newsroom after getting back from the beach. Here my assignment for the rest of the night was pretty simple.

“Watch the Yankees-Red Sox game and take down notes when something important happens.”

“I can do that.”

The rest of the night was filled with Vince Carter choke jobs and frantic searches to determine who the hell Juan Miranda actually is.

And still no one knows what his face looks like.

After about fours hours of sleep, I worked Wednesday’s day-side shift (9 A.M. to 6:30 P.M.). I was met with two options. I could write up a package for the story that I had gone out on the night before, or I could go out on a new story and write when I returned. Because I was in spectator mode the night before, I took the second option.

This time, I went with a “mass media journalist,” meaning that due to budget cuts, he was a one man band. Shoot, report, edit. The story was a woman who had wrongfully been ticketed for running a red light by an intersection camera because her license plate was one character different than the one in the picture.

The reporter was new to town, so I spent a good portion of the day playing Tampa GPS. The day was hectic with plenty of driving and time running short after the story was pushed up to the 5 P.M. show instead of the 6 P.M.

This meant that lunch consisted of a Snickers, pretzels and a Red Bull.

I worked on my practice script when I got back and finished it the following day. Speaking of the following day, while it began with me finishing a practice script, it quickly got more interesting.

After finishing the script, I was told to go talk to the producer of the 11 P.M. show. “See if he has anything for you to write,” I was told. I confidently shook my head yes and walked over, but inside I was thinking “What!?!?! Like write something that goes on air in three hours? Like the real air that people watch things on?”

I was given two voice overs and an anchor intro to write. Producers write dozens of these in a day, but I was two days removed from being completely computer illiterate, so this was a big deal to me.

With plenty of help from another understanding producer, I wrote roughly 55 seconds of script and edited video to go along with it. Ten seconds were removed later when an arrest made a mug shot and “please contact police” graphic irrelevant.

Stuff that I wrote would now be on air at 11 and I still wasn’t quite sure why they had let me do it.

Regardless, watching the news that night was a great feeling. Were my two segments more than a blink of the eye to anyone else? Absolutely not, but I had briefly contributed to a newscast and it was very self-rewarding.

This gig still has an entire summer of growth in store for me. I have endless amounts to learn and a deficient amount of experience to make up for. I’ll try and walk anybody interested through my experience as I try to find my own way.

It should be an interesting summer.

-Bryan

Jobs and Hometowns: An Unfocused Look at the Past Week in the World

Just another day at the office.

 I’m here on time. Surprise! To read Robbie Hilson’s far more insightful take on the week, click here. I’ve already deducted 50 percent for its introductory fact error. 

Well it has happened, Casualtists. I have found summer employment, and by summer employment I of course mean that I have found somebody that is willing to let me work a 40-hour week for free. I mean, of course I’m not working for free. I’m getting paid in valuable college credit hours which will one day get me a diploma that will allow me to work somewhere for slightly more than free. 

As Robbie already mentioned, I am interning at WTSP, the local Tampa/St. Petersburg CBS affiliate, this summer. No. 1 in ratings at 5 A.M., 12 P.M. and 11 P.M. Get some, Channel 28. I did fail to inform Robbie that I do not work Fridays, so my contribution to the two-part Week in Review series is in no jeopardy at all. 

I’m planning an occasional series documenting my internship, so I’ll stay away from too many details here. I will however note that Thursday night was the first time that they have allowed me to write scripts and put together video that actually ended up on air at 11. This led to a very professional anchor using the word “sexting” in her introduction. Sorry, Heather. 

Pushin' the whip.

Busy weeks will also mean that I will be canceling my previously held stance of not writing on weekends. I have to make up for missed time somewhere. No more two day reading breaks for you. 

Moving from one job with no monetary reward to another. Let’s do this. 

The Boston Celtics continued their “I told you so” war against Bill Simmons on Tuesday night when they defeated the Orlando Magic to take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals. 

Now I have tried to remain the lone supporter of Vince Carter here at Sports Casualties, but c’mon, Vince. You missed two huge free throws. Beyond huge. When I was 12, you crushed the little bit of a NBA soul that I had and tested my support after missing the game-winning shot against the 76ers in Game 7. I felt almost the same way Tuesday night. 

I despise Boston sports teams, and you’re not helping me out any here. 

In wrasslin’ news, 57-year-old Macho Man Randy Savage got married this week to a woman named Lynn. It’s really nice to see that he’s gotten over Miss Elizabeth. 

The fairy tale wedding.

 Just hours after weathering Floyd Landis’ accusation-laden tantrum, Lance Armstrong looked like he was involved in a steel cage match after crashing during a race in California on Thursday. Armstrong walked away from the crash with a swollen eye and a bloody cheek. Perhaps a sign of foreshadowing for what Landis will look like after the next meeting between the two. 

Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez was benched by manager Fredi Gonzalez on Monday night after lazily attempting to field a blooper that eventually cleared the bases after he kicked the ball into foul territory. Some say Ramirez showed a lack of heart, I personally respect his enthusiasm for the upcoming World Cup. USA! USA! USA! 

As for Fredi Gonzalez, while I can respect his discipline, he is kind of in a no-win situation fighting with a guy that the Marlins have $7 million invested in this season. In case you’re wondering, Fredi is pulling in a little over $600k. And oh yeah, this is the team that once fired Joe Girardi. 

Sticking with baseball, the league-leading Rays head to Houston tonight for a three game set with the Astros. The interleague trip marks a return home for Rays’ outfielder Carl Crawford, a Houston native. The always eager to offer terrible interviews left fielder will surely have plenty of demands this weekend. Here is a transcript of how each one will go: 

Reporter: So Carl, what is it like to be back home? 

Crawford: Good. 

Reporter: What’d you think of the game tonight? 

Crawford: Fun. 

Reporter: What was it like having your family and friends in attendance tonight? 

Crawford: Baseball. 

[Reporter has a mental breakdown and eats his tape recorder.] 

Big on speed, not on charisma.

Be easy on him next year, New York media. I’m begging you. 

If you ever wanted to know anything about “road beef,” the athlete term for team groupies in away cities, Dwayne Bowe is more than willing to share. The receiver happily told ESPN The Magazine about the Chiefs’ process of “importing” women from all over to their hotels for what is probably nothing more than hand-holding and intelligent conversation. 

The resources that they use for this process are social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. If the Chiefs are stooping to the level of middle school desperation, one can only assume that the Rams have signed up for E-Harmony. 

A professor at the United States Naval Academy wrote a New York Times editorial this week blaming Division I sports for a downfall in the service academies. He complained that people don’t even care about the quality of a Naval Academy education anymore, they just want to beat Notre Dame. 

Damn kids and their football.

The professor’s name is Bruce Fleming. You may recognize him as the guy that called the cops on your last party, deflated your football when you were a young child or protested outside of the Super Bowl. 

And now, before I head into the weekly regulars, I leave you with a reason why the San Jose Sharks should be your favorite team in the NHL playoffs right now. Without further ado, daughter of Sharks GM Doug Wilson, Miss Massachusetts, Lacey Wilson. 

AND NOW…(drum roll)  

WHY I HAVE WRITER’S BLOCK: The Never-Ending Saga  

In no specific order, and with no real explanation, this is my weekly look at some of the things that kept me distracted while I was trying to write.  

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G3m6QJVCc0] 

Santa Claus is actually Karl Malone. Who knew?!?! 

http://www.wtsp.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=86428804001 

Okay, so I contributed nothing to this story, but I was there. Does that count for anything? 

Tweet of the Week  

Because too much television makes you fat and undesirable, but too much Twitter just makes you unproductive and socially awkward. Follow SC on Twitter, the awesomeness of your life depends on it.  

This week I discovered the Twitter page of one Mickey Rourke. This left me wondering why it took me so damn long to find it. How great is Rourke’s Twitter account? Great enough that I momentarily considered renaming this segment after him. Thank you, sir. I not only enjoy your movies, but also your way with 140-character hilarity. 

@Mickey_Rourke Some person named Spencer Pratt just sent over a bottle of champagne. I sent it back. Through the air. At his face. 

Ram freaking jam. 

Happy NASCAR All-Star weekend. 

-Bryan