We certainly add no value to the world.  We just leach of their fame and try to get a few page views with a snarky comment.

Then we get fodder like this…

JoseCanseco

(Jose Canseco)

Why do you guys hate me so much cause I told the truth and fixed the game and probably saved someone life like your kids or brother or frien

On 26-5-2010 16:25:29 from TweetCaster

That’s Wagging Gold!!

Or so I thought.  Within a few minutes I thought to myself, “Why do we actually hate Jose Canseco?”

It’s true.  He performed what was truly a valuable service. Everything he said ended up being true.  It basically beat Bud Selig into cleaning up the game.

And truth be told, he’s probably going to keep a few kids of steroids.  And that’s a good thing.

So I decided to highlight Jose’s tweet as true.   And ask the question to you, why do we hate him?

But I didn’t get further than the background on his Twitter page until I realized exactly why people hate him.

Here’s the background…

Then it all came flooding back to me…

The celebrity boxing.

This unfortunate scene from the Surreal Life.
Baseball promos like this (though it probably wasn’t totally his fault.  Managers and PR people can get celebrities to do the strangest things).

His odd fashion sense.

And finally his circus-MMA fight against novelty fighter Choi Hong-man.

I think he was on the Celebrity Apprentice too, but no one watches that anymore.

So I’m not trying to pile on Jose here.  Because here is the important thing…

He actually did, in his own way, a helluva lot of good for baseball and sports.  People like to think that cleaning up steroids in the game is one of those things “that would have happened eventually.”

I disagree.  You needed a whistleblower.  And you needed one with some credibility.

It’s true.  Jose probably did it to sell some books.  That motive is as clear as his finest sheer movie-premiere attire.

But sportswriters could scream until they were blue in the face.  Until a player, in those clubhouses–who was there while players used steriods– came forward, nothing was going to change.

So I, for one, thank Jose for his bravery and capitalism.

Now we just need a test for HGH and a colorful NFL character to clean up that sport.  My pick: Steelers kicker Jeff Reed.

In the North American television industry, an upfront is a meeting hosted at the start of important advertising sales periods by television network executives, attended by the press and major advertisers. It is so named because of its main purpose, to allow marketers to buy commercial airtime “up front”, or several months before the television season begins.

Why does any of this matter to us? ESPN is prepared to overtake the internet. Done are the days where they just want to ruin 4 channels on TV and a host of websites with different local “flavors”. No today marked a huge announcement. ESPN plans to help bring Facebook down in flames. You may have heard of Facebook, it’s a social networking tool that used to be just for college kids. Now it has expanded to include anyone who has ever touched a computer. Facebook has recently decided
that privacy is useless in this new world so now everyone who knows you now knows you listen to Collective Soul on Pandora.

Why am I so critical of Facebook? I can’t stand half of my news feed. It is filled with too much crap. I do not care about your mafia and I really hate seeing what kind of pig you are raising on your farm.

ESPN is about to make my Facebook experience even more annoying, we are talking ESPN2 First Take level of annoyance. ESPN will be partnering with Playdom to create a Facebook game based off Farmville. It will actually be called ESPNUVille. Let that soak in a bit.

I personally can’t wait to see Facebook friends bitching that their
UVille isn’t producing enough Sasha Vujacics…

Upfronts: ESPN Gets Into the Game

DickieV

(Dick Vitale)

Now I respect Dickie V and what he has done for college hoops. I also respect that is basically an ambassador for the game and tries to promote it whenever he can. That being said, this is just silly.

Dickie was on Mike and Mike saying John Wall, in his opinion, has what it takes to be an all time great point guard in the NBA.

Let’s review a list of all-time great point guards, picked by ESPN:

Magic Johnson
Oscar Robertson
Isaiah Thomas
John Stockton
Bob Cousy
Walt Frazier
Jason Kidd
Tiny Archibald
Steve Nash
Gary Payton

Now, that’s some good players there. Here is the question though how many championships between those guys?

17

17 World Titles between the best 10 point guards of all time. The
average is less than two per. Now let’s take out the number one best of the current three-point era of the NBA and the number one best of the non-three point era – Magic and Bob Cousy.

6

Now we are down to six titles between 8 of the very best 10 guys to
ever play the position in the history of the game.

My point here is, the difference between Jason Kidd and BJ Armstrong is that BJ Armstrong is an NBA Champion while Jason Kidd is not. It’s not that BJ Armstrong is any better than Kidd, in fact he much worse, the fact of the matter is that point guards don’t make a tremendous difference on your ability to win a championship. Playoffs? Sure, they can get a team there. The issue at point here is the all important ring and unless a guy is going to be Magic Johnson you shouldn’t risk your franchise in order to get or keep them. In fact, I would argue paying a max contract for a point guard does nothing more than hurt your team in having money to get a second tier guy to work with them.

All this being said, you have a proven point guard at a relatively low price for the next few years thanks to the extension. You should never, under any circumstances trade him for an unproven (at the NBA level) talent, unless you know 100% this guy is the next Magic Johnson. On that note, even Magic Johnson couldn’t win Boston a title next year when Pierce, Allen and Doc Rivers leave town.

So what are you to do? I suggest watching the hockey playoffs which have actually been entertaining.

Now considering hockey is on Versus and you might not be able to watch it I am sure TNT has you covered. They will have to play something instead of the NBA.

Let’s see what they got:

Air Force One – I never saw this one so I checked out amazon reviews, one is titled “Just simply wants to make you weep for America,”

Blue Streak – You can actually watch Shaq! Oh wait no, that was Blue Chip… I have no idea what the fuck this movie is

The Chronicles Of Riddick – Remember when people thought Vin Diesel was a good actor? Me neither

The Legend Of Zorro – No, not The Mask of Zoro, the movie that got enough people to warrant a sequel. This is the sequel who’s plot attempts to teach youngsters that the only reason California is a state is thanks to Antonio Banderas

Mission: Impossible III – Ok I actually kind of liked this one, I am a sucker for Philip Seymour Hoffman

Payback – Mel Gibson movie and the plot is described as “Porter is shot by his wife and best friend and is left to die. When he survives he plots revenge.” Great title for a movie about plotting revenge. Speaking of Mel Gibson, he was banging a porn star

Paycheck – A John Woo movie starring Ben Affleck?!? How have I never heard of this

Ransom – GIMMIE BACK MY SON!!!!!!!

So yeah, thanks NBA for not bending and ruining any momentum the playoffs have.

I bring this up because we actually had a good moment recently with Jerry Stackhouse doing an admirable job with the National Anthem before the Bucks playoff game:

And to balance the scales here is Scott Stapp’s horrible song for the Florida Marlins, also came out recently (please keep this out of ear’s reach of children – they may die):

And finally, one of the worst tribute songs ever. Here is Eddie Vedder tribute to the Cubs:

Adam Schefter reported this around 5 PM yesterday. He was beat to the story by someone. Who?

QuentinGroves54

(Q)

Duval County....I LOVE U GUYS...thanks for all your support...New Starts=New Beginnings...OAKLAND HERE I COME!!!!

On 21-4-2010 18:47:15 from Twittelator

Quentin Groves broke this news himself. I have no idea if this is the first time this has happened or just the first time I saw it but I thought it was a pretty cool thing to do. The guy reached out to his fans and friends first to break the news. He spent the better part of the next few hours answering questions from his followers and confirming the trade as people heard about.

Good luck in Oakland Quentin.

Great stuff there.

Well don’t worry folks Santonio didn’t do it! He spoke to NJ.com
and had this to say for himself:

“It wasn’t me,” Holmes said. “I never tried to defend myself on that topic among anyone on Twitter or among anyone that tried to ask me for interviews. I would definitely be accountable for my actions if I did say it.”

So what does one do when their twitter account is hacked? According to twitter.com the proper move is:

“It’s best to take action as soon as possible if updates are appearing in your account that you did not intend to have posted or approve.”

So I assume Santonio did just this and came back on and told everyone what time it was. Wake and Bake time of course.

So what did Santonio have to say on his first tweet since the big trade to the Jets:

santonio10

(Santonio Holmes)

Morning, the lessons from my bad choices are never forgotten, only to b utilized the next go round!

On 13-4-2010 13:15:07 from UberTwitter

Would of those lessons be not using password1 as your twitter password?

Also, if you didn’t find this post hilarious I would just like to say now that my account was hacked.

Revis24

(Darrelle Revis)

Wow we got holmes this is crazy. We makin big moves this off-season. Putting the pieces together to get closer to that superbowl ring.

On 12-4-2010 04:24:44 from UberTwitter

So the Steelers traded their Superbowl MVP Santonio Holmes for a fifth round pick.

The question is why?

A contract year for a player who has been suspended (and according to @ADAM_SCHEFTER will be suspended yet again) for drugs and is currently battling an assault case will be the excuse. They don’t want to bring him back next year due to all this and might as well get something for him now.

Could this be a message to Big Ben?

No comment on twitter from Santonio yet but when he does break the silence we will be there to make fun of him.

As for the Jets, all I can say is this.

I can’t wait to watch Hard Knocks.

NBA/NHL Playoffs

BigMay42

(Sean May)

Huge game on.... Chicago vs Toronto ..... Both fighting for the 8th spot in the east

On 11-4-2010 22:45:40 from TweetDeck

jeskeets

(J.E. Skeets)

Goodbye, sweet playoffs.

On 12-4-2010 00:30:03 from TweetDeck

J.E. Skeets (@jeskeets) is one of my favorite bloggers to follow on twitter, guy is hilarious. He is also a Raptors fan. I am a huge Chicago Bulls fan so for the next few days we are on opposite sides of this story.

So the East is all setup except for one spot. The Bulls now have a lead on the Raptors but the “magic number” to “mathematically eliminate” the Raptors is still at 2 because they own the tiebreaker over the Bulls.

With the way the Bulls shit the bed versus the Nets on Friday night and Vinnie Del Negro refusing to play Noah even though he is the main hustle guy on the team I wouldn’t count out the Raptors just yet.

The West is still a mess, we know the 8 teams going in but the rankings are still up for grabs. It should be an entertaining few days.

JLupul

(Joffrey Lupul)

Philly vs NYR shootout to get in the playoffs is the situation everyone feared when we adopted the shootout...

On 11-4-2010 21:45:25 from web

In the NHL the playoffs are now set. There was a defacto play-in game last night between the Rangers and Flyers, an excellent game by all accounts. That is, except for the ending. The game ended at 2-1 when Claude Giroux scored a goal in an OT shootout to clinch the playoff spot.

The question is though, is that how the playoffs should be decided? This is a relatively new way of ending hockey games and I won’t type here pretending I am a purist for the game; truth is I barely watch until the playoffs. I can’t help but feel like this is ending an NBA game with a free throw contest or a game of horse. I don’t think you should change the game for overtime. I’m looking at you college football.

Phil Mickelson Wins the Masters

The weekend started with Tiger and his story of coming back to golf after his self imposed hiatus and it ended with Phil kissing his wife whom herself was making her return to the golf course after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

From my point of view, both were pretty amazing. I want to be one of those guys who says Tiger’s personal life doesn’t matter to me but I can’t say that in one breath and then talk about what a great story Phil’s personal life is. It would be hypercritical for me to do both. So I will leave it at this, both men hit some amazing shots (Tiger’s shot at 9 on Thursday was probably the best shot I ever seen) and I look forward to these two battling for the coming years.

There also was some good showing by young guys (and older guys – Tom Watson still amazes me). Checking out Twitter this morning I was reminded while even though I make fun of athletes and their use of it, it can be a great medium for reaching out to fans (and vice versa).

Ianjamespoulter

(Ian Poulter)

Morning all, sitting in bed reading emails from last week, a bit disappointed with the result, but I guess you learn from mistakes made.

On 12-4-2010 13:31:19 from Twittelator

Here we have Ian Poulter who by all accounts had a great masters tweeting out to his fans and showing his disappointment. You could never have this type of closeness with ESPN or a CBS interview.

Thanks for the good show and reminding us how great golf can be.

Yes that’s right, America’s Rose the one and only – Oprah

Here are some of his professions of love:

ddockett

(DARNELL DOCKETT)

I'm going to bed, I'm tired of watching ESPN I'm just gonna watch the RE-RUNS of @Oprah show !! My little chocolate love bug! *wink* TTYL

On 8-4-2010 06:35:41 from UberTwitter

ddockett

(DARNELL DOCKETT)

@Oprah hi babe how are u doing my chocolate Milk dud!

On 9-4-2010 03:35:30 from UberTwitter in reply to Oprah Winfrey

ddockett

(DARNELL DOCKETT)

@Oprah If loooooooving u is wrrooooong I don't wannnna be right! *WINK* http://tweetphoto.com/17458397

On 7-4-2010 03:02:06 from UberTwitter in reply to Oprah Winfrey

ddockett

(DARNELL DOCKETT)

@Oprah hey babe I think I left my cleats in ur trunk, call me when u out ur mtg! And what we eating for dinner tonight?

On 7-4-2010 18:57:21 from UberTwitter in reply to Oprah Winfrey

Enjoy your Saturday night kids, I am off

It’s probably the best piece of advertising in a long while.  You may not agree with it but I have seen this commercial around 1,000 times this morning.  It was on Good Morning America, ESPN, CNN, I think I even saw it on youporn.

You may ask why Nike would chance this by getting in bed with Tiger?  Why would Nike worship Tiger?  Why would Nike clean the dung off Tiger’s shoes?!?  THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR THAT’S WHY!!!

Sorry I just broke into the million dollar man there.

Apparently I am not the only one though…

ro72

(Roman Oben)

Finally saw #Nike #Tiger commercial. Too bad Earl can't speak for himself. I guess "everyone has a price"! *Ted Dibiase referece*

On 8-4-2010 12:15:28 from UberTwitter

Just for fun here some Million Dollar Man: