Strange,Because Her Dad Rarely Missed a Period

This guy

…is a grandfather.

Congratulations to The Great One, Wayne Gretzky. His daughter Paulina

who is getting cannonballed by suspended pro golfer "Dustin" Johnson

gave birth to a baby boy, who is gonna have a way easier time in pee wee hockey with the name Johnson than he would have with the name Gretzky.

Last Time Someone Laid Down Like That, Darren McCarty Was Beating His Head In

"Unforced error" is now part of the sports lexicon. It originated either in the tennis world or Bruce Jenner's face, but wherever it came from, the biggest one I've seen in decades was one that occurred Sunday night during the NFC Championship Game on the frozen latte of CenturyLink Field.

In the 4th quarter,Green Bay Packers strong safety Morgan Burnett picked off Russell Wilson, who spent most of the day playing catch with the Packers secondary like they were his nephews.

Burnett is known as a "ball hawk", one of those talented individuals who always seems to get to any nearby balls. Like Troy Polamalu. And Cameron Diaz.
So Burnett picks Wilson and:
A. Runs for a touchdown as 22,000 Green Bay residents simultaneously choke to death on bratwurst and die happy
B. Runs 40 yards then out of bounds directly for Erin Andrews and wins an Emmy for his Richard Sherman imitation

                                              This is a running shoe. As in "running 
                                                               with the football"

C. Flops on the ground like masked gunmen just rushed into his Wisconsin Savings and Loan branch after he cashed the check he earns for intercepting footballs and running with them toward the goal line where the fucking points are scored!

 Morgan… Dude... There's five minutes left in the game you have to win to play in the Super Bowl! The Seattle Seahawks can score four times in 5 minutes and learn two Mother Love Bone songs while they are doing it. You run a 4.5 40, which isn't completely blazing for your position, but it's still probably faster than the 360 lb. O-Linemen that are standing between you and at least a freaking Dave Krieg Used Car Lot commercial.
Your quarterback has been stumbling around like FDR is his partner in a 3-Legged Race and you flopped on the ground seventy yards from your end zone so you could put the ball in his hands ??
How many times in post game interviews have you heard players on the winning team say "We took advantage of our opportunities."
I'm sure I've heard your own quarterback (whose calf muscle is fluttering loose like Tara Reid's bra strap after 2 beers) say it about a half dozen times.
You had the opportunity to score a touchdown or at least get America to tune into the Crosby show, and you slid like Tom Brady up 52-0 in the preseason. So Aaron Rodgers could face the best defense in the league. At home. Artie Lange makes better decisions.
At least Goat of All Time Leon Lett was trying to make something happen. You were trying to make nothing happen. The more I think about it, the angrier I get and I'm a Lions fan. If I was a Packers fan, I'd never date a brunette again because it's almost an anagram of your name. I'd write Ted Thompson a letter begging him to trade you for a bamboo draining mat. At the very least I would toilet paper the hell out of your house. (And I'd be able to find it, too, because you play for Green Bay and Aunt Bea would tell me where you lived if I painted her fence).
The Seahawks won in large part because their punter threw a pass and one of their linemen caught it for a touchdown. Neither of those things is in their job description. The Packers lost, in large part, Morgan Burnett, because you chose not to do what is in yours.

                                   

If I Was German, I'd Be Even More Aneuered

The Victory Charade blog would like to extend our sincere congratulations to Cristiano Ronaldo

                                                        for winning the Ballon d'Or.

My Ass is Bleeding, and Pete Morelli Didn't Leave Cab Fare on the Night Stand

The NFL owes me and every Lions fan an apology. Pete Morelli owes us a huge apology for being a deceitful, disingenuous, hyperbolic ("a hundred miles away"), sorry excuse for a sports official. He's either completely incompetent, or he's covering for someone above him. {If you haven't seen the play, you can find it all over this happy little glowing box. The play in question occurred at 8:18 of the fourth quarter of the Lions vs the Cowboys 1/4/2015..
Fuck it, I'll link it for you even though I'm feeling about as charitable as Ebenezer Scrooge on tax day in divorce court.
We could have gotten an apology last night. We didn't. We are not going to get one, verbal or otherwise. But much like Kobe Bryant allegedly banging that Colorado hotel worker in the ass without consent, then buying his wife a diamond the size of section 102 of the Staples Center, a verbal apology would not have been enough. I don't care if Roger Goodell delivered the apology while getting an Eminem tattoo on his neck and drinking a Faygo.
Here are just a few suggestions as to what the NFL could do to mitigate their guilt and ease the pain of a city and Lions fan around the globe (maybe there are none in Marrakech, but there are Lions fans a bunch of places).
In no particular order:
- Make what Anthony Hitchens did legal for the entire 2015-2016 season. Allow defensive players one tug on the receiver's jersey per play, with no limitations (yards from the scrimmage line, ball in the air, etc). Allow them one shove with the ball in the air, and allow them to flail wildly in any manner without ever attempting to even look at the football. If the play by Hitchens in the wild card game was legal, regardless of the fact that many officials on the field felt that it wasn't, accept those actions as legal across the board. The league's competition committee has done everything to boost scoring other than adding a 5th down, outlawing punting (though after Sam Martin's shank that went three and a half Tyrion Lannisters I might not mind that so much)

 or making the field 80 yards. If Hitchens play is truly legal, aggregate scoring will plummet. But Jimmy, that's not what the league wants, you just said it.
No, it isn't what the league wants. So why, then, did they want it last night ? I could list dozens of conspiracy theories, and they'd all come back to one thing: Money. Jerry Jones's money, the league's TV and merchandise money, and more importantly, Vegas's money. Simple math: More people live and work in the greater Dallas area and identify with advertisers/focus groups as football fans than there are in the greater Detroit area. The reason that there is not greater uproar is that the call did not fuck the Vegas sports books. Detroit was getting a minimum of 6 points and leading by 3 at the time. If they continue to march down the field and score, Vito Abramowitz and Schmuley Rigatoni at the Mirage don't care because the Lions are already up. If Dallas gets the ball back and scores a touchdown to win it, they still don't care because the Lions still win on the point line (which, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is exactly what happened). It doesn't affect them in the least. If it did, you can bet your Joique Bell replica security guard uniform that the party boys in the NFL "Officiating" War Room never would have let that decision happen. Did you know that NFL on field officials wear communications headsets ? You do now. So it smacks of being scripted, much like pro wrestling and 99% of the reality shows out there. So bag it, change the storyline and let defensive backs flail around Like DiCaprio looking for driftwood in the North Atlantic. Make what Hitchens did legal, and it will be fun for Lions fans who can still stomach the WWEFootballShow to see Tony Romo and Jason Witten throw tantrums for half a season until they realize how Matt Stafford and Brandon Pettigrew felt.
-Hire full time officials. My buddy Mike Grose from NBC Sports Radio 1060 in Phoenix is the guy who brought this up to me. All the guys on the field in the black and white do it as a part time gig. In other words, they are civilians with real life responsibilities. The NFL can more than afford to hire full time guys, who have to answer to some sort of governing board made up of retired players and coaches operating independently of the soiled panty shield of the NFL. (Mike is far too mature to make a crack like that. That's all me. I'm pissed and depressed and I'm manstruating and I'll use all the prurient sophomoric references I want, thanks).

-Wanna talk money ? The NFL has an enormously well funded charitable arm. Divert some of that money to the Detroit area. Why ? That decision cost thousands of Detroit area service industry personnel hundreds of thousands of dollars. It wasn't exactly BP turning every oyster in the Gulf into 10W30, but trust me, most Detroit area sports fans are not gonna make a special trip to their local tavern to watch Richard Sherman go Straight Outta Compton on some smokin' hot sideline reporter after pickin' Cam Newton. I'm not saying Roger Goodell should start sending checks to every bartender at The Townsend, but as a gesture of goodwill and an admission of guilt, it would be nice if The Capuchin Soup Kitchen got a fat check. Yeah, I know, dream on.

 If you're so inclined, you can write 'em one yourself.
So the Lions season is assassinated, thanks to an obviously, perhaps purposely botched call . Jack Ruby ain't gonna shoot Pete Morelli, though I would laugh if I heard Morelli passed a kidney stone the size of a dinner platter sharpened like a bo shuriken. Because that's pretty much what it felt like for Lions fans yesterday.

Moe is Now the Second Greatest American Howard

There's no "I" in team, but if there was, it would be between a "T" and an "M".
In what was the most important men's soccer match in US history, one man stood (and jumped, lunged, kicked and punched) between two posts 8 yards apart and between a demoralizing defeat and what turned out to be a thrilling but heartbreaking extra time loss.

                                            I assure you that in a few smaller World Cup
                                             nations he would win the popular vote based 
                                           on his performance.

Those who aren't on the winning side are not generally remembered. But I don't think anyone who watched the US v Belgium match Tuesday evening will ever forget the mind blowing brilliance of Tim Howard.
Howard was so good he knew when to withdraw his hand and let the crossbar do the job for him so as not to concede another of what seemed to be a clown car parade of corner kicks for the Belgians.
That game could easily have been 5-0 at the end of 90 minutes and bar TVs turned to baseball pre- game shows, but where I watched couples who sauntered into the bar for an after work beer were applauding right along with the Stars and Stripes diehards.
Instead of an embarrassing blowout, the game extended zero-zero into extra time, courtesy of a bearded, gloved acrobat who seemed to magically appear in front of more balls than Jenna Jameson's lower lip.
Howard might have even carried the US to victory had sub Chris Wondolowski not pulled a Scott Norwood late in the match and booted the ball wide right of a nearly vacated Belgian net.
And lest you think I'm being some national side homer trying to find extra change for a 40 ouncer in a pocket full of lint, Belgian captain Vincent Kompany--who won a Premiere league title with Manchester City-- tweeted "Two Words: Tim Howard # Respect" after the match.

                                            Courtesy of Troll Football
Officially, Howard made the most saves by a World Cup goalkeeper since 1966 when they started keeping records (Really, FIFA ? You're historically bad at shit too ??) and more than likely the most ever ( correct me on that if you want, I'm not researching it).
Yes, it's an L, and the Americans don't get a chance to prove themselves against the Best Player of his and many other generations, Lionel Messi. But soccer is known in many places as "The Beautiful Game" and not too many goalkeepers have ever played as beautifully as Tim Howard did last night.







                    

PK Subban Will Fly to San Antonio with Some Magnesium and Kleenex. Coach.

The video below is hockey. There are many, many more examples of this kind of mental and physical fortitude. If you are not already aware of the lengths to which Steve Yzerman went to stay on the ice, read up on it. Some of the surgeries he had sound almost medieval.

Trust me, Bobby Baun did not make enough money or endorsements from his NHL career to be able to retire to luxury (or at all ) with a limp.

Tonight in pro basketball. The biggest star in the game. A guy who orchestrated transactions for his own dream team. A guy who will never ever have to have a day job again in his life.  Quoting ESPN:

"(Lebron) James exited the game with 7:31 remaining in the fourth quarter because of cramping but returned with 3:59 left for one play, finishing a driving layup. He signaled to come out immediately after, limping to the bench before having to be carried off".

I won't even put his picture up here. Anyone who gives their money to that sorry charade--I'd rather watch some B-lister play charades on Hollywood Game Night, just so ya know-- might as well launch a Kickstarter to get Tommy Lee a dick extension.
The Larry O'Brien Trophy means nothing to NBA players anymore except the sports drink endorsements that go along with them. Isn't that ironic ? These miracle elixirs that are supposed to ward off things like cramps ?
Be honest: If you're a casual NBA fan did you even know it was called the Larry O'Brien Trophy ? You know what the Stanley Cup means to hockey players in at least 8 nations: Everything.
Whatever the NBA had is lost in a sea of wealth and privilege and individual desires, not efforts.
Their biggest ambassador hung a sign from the embassy tonight that says "Why Do You Care? We Don't".

And guess what, the sports drink industry does have an opinion on the alleged "superstar":
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-basketball/24581790/gatorade-twitter-account-trolls-lebron-james-over-cramping

World Cup 2014: After the US and Ghana Advance, He Wants to Meet Tonya Harding

The World Cup is just around the corner and that can only mean two things:
Guys whose moms still have their socks framed from the CYO basketball game in which they poured in 6 points will complain that there's not enough scoring, and witch doctors.
Wait, witch doctors?
{As sensitive as people are now, I'm sure there is a more polite term for 'witch doctor' that I'm completely oblivious to, so if you'd like to comment and tell me what it is-feel free, just skip the story about how your uncle the non-traditional physician with the cauldron couldn't get into Harvard Med School and had to drive a cab and got shot and now has a prosthetic bone through his prosthetic nose}.
Or whatever.

                                   Kwaku Bonsam:Probably closer to a real doctor than Phil

Yeah, I didn't make that up.
According to dozens of sources, a Ghanian witch doctor is not only taking credit for Cristiano Ronaldo's  knee injury, he claims he has dogs helping him concoct a potion to make the injury worse, and even move it around to make it more difficult to treat.
I don't think I even got my first aid ribbon at summer camp, but I'm inclined to think that Crissy's patellar tendinosis  just may have been caused by the unforgiving turf that he flails to every time a Barcelona supporter opens a beer to roughly.
I am worried the good doctor just became the Salman Rushdie of Portugal, but I applaud his efforts.
Crissy is such a sensitive head case that when (if?) the winner of the Ballon d'Or ( French for tears of a clown) gets on the pitch in Brazil he might actually be distracted by the voodoo. He may even miss a few scheduled tantrums.
The US also happens to be in Group G along with Germany, Portugal and Ghana and they are gonna need all the help they can get to advance.
In 1980 at Lake Placid, Al Michaels famously said "Do you believe in miracles ? Yes!"
Don't discount other people's belief systems just because they are different from yours and apparently involve dog urine.
In 2014 in Brazil, do I believe in Kahwiri Kapam ? Maybe.