Welcome to The Weekly Rewind, our attempt to look back at the week that was in the world of sports. Now with more snark and sass, and less Manti….
Cheers: to the memory of Stan “The Man” Musial, one of the most underrated baseball players of all time, who passed away last Saturday at his home in St. Louis.
Cheers: to the memory of Earl Weaver, one of the most fiery baseball managers to ever manage the game, who passed away in Baltimore last Saturday.
Jeers: to Green Bay Packers (as if that wasn’t enough to jeer about) running back Cedric Benson, who is facing a plethora of charges in Mantiwoc County, Wisconsin. Some of the charges include allowing his pair of rottweilers to run free, during which they attacked some calves owned by his neighbors, to driving 76 mph in a 35 mph zone, without a fucking license! Putz.
Cheers: to strange twists of fate. We all know Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis is about to retire. And we all know that Jim Harbaugh is a former NFL QB who is now coaching the San Francisco 49ers. What you may not know is that Lewis’ first ever NFL sack was on… wait for it… Jim Harbaugh. Who’s in for a chorus of “It’s a Small World”?
Jeers: to poor timing. The biological mother of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kapper, Kipper, Te’o Kaepernick, who gave him up for adoption when he was six weeks old, would like to meet him and tell him he’s always been on her mind. While I don’t doubt that, waiting until he’s a starting QB in the NFL about to play in the Super Bowl makes this whole thing look rather hinky…
Jeers: and speaking of Kapper, Kipper, Te’o Kaepernick, he wants to trademark the term “Kaepernicking”. Who does he think he is, Tim Tebow? And besides, kissing your own bicep is nothing new. Go to google, type in ‘kissing bicep’ and you’ll find no fewer than 1,042 images of people doing that. Have him find something more original to do – like Tebowing praying – and get back to us.
Cheers: to letting one’s opinions known. Many knew that, after the penalties he handed down over the New Orleans Saints’ “BountyGate”, that NFL commish Roger Goodell would not be one of the most liked people in the parish. Well, the good people of New Orleans let their feelings show with a few Goodell-centric floats in this year’s Krewe du Vieux parade including one of him, well, let’s just say having relations with a dog, to him coming out of a giant, well let’s just say ‘hoo-hah.’ Somewhere Georgia O’Keefe is feeling proud.
Jeers: to CNN for dropping Sports Illustrated as their sports reporters and picking up Bleacher Report. Great… pages and pages of slideshows and half-assed reporting. Be still my heart…
Cheers: to trending topics. Following on the infamous footsteps of a petition being sent to the White House to construct a Deathstar – and the subsequent no go statement – a petition has been started to convince the Obama Administration to make the day after the Super Bowl – a day that that’s been shown to cost companies close to $1 billion in lost productivity with people calling in sick – a national holiday. Sign. Me. Up.
Jeers: to Lance Armstrong… like I need to give another reason.
Cheers: to hockey. Cuz I can… and because it’s back. Jeer within the cheer to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and NHL Player’s Union head Donald Fehr for being absolutely moronic for allowing a work stoppage to happen for a second time under their watch. Methinks it’s time they left those posts and let someone else run things for a while, couldn’t do any worse than they did.
Jeers: to the news that former Chicago Cubs player Sammy Sosa is fronting a company that offers needle-free injections. Sometimes the snark just writes itself.
Cheers: to AJ McCarron’s girlfriend because… well, because… shut up, she’s hot.
Jeers: to this brief historical look back at the NFL’s response to brain trauma. The jeer isn’t so much for the look back, but more so for the NFL’s feeble attempts to say they’ve known about this problem for ages and were always working to improve it.
Cheers: to the news that former NFL bust JaMarcus Russell is trying to get back into the NFL. First he has to lose some a lot of weight, but he’s got some hearty NFL veterans (like Mark Clayton and Marshall Faulk) helping him. Somewhere Ryan Leaf is lamenting what was…
Jeers: to the New England Patriots, and their families, for being such sore losers. Note to all the kids out there, this is NOT how you act when you lose.
Cheers: to snark served straight up. On May 23 the Florence Freedom, a minor league baseball team that plays in the Independent Frontier League, will hold a Manti Te’o Girlfriend Bobblehead night where those in attendance will get, you guessed it, an empty bobble head box. When you start getting ridiculed by minor league baseball teams, you know you’re stock has plummeted. What’s next, a XX?
And finally…
Jeers: to the looming NFL Pro Bowl. I’d write more about it, but nobody gives a damn anyway…
And uber-finally… this week’s DDS winner(s) of the week is:
Conner and Cayden Long, who were named the 2012 SportsKids of the Year by Sports Illustrated Kids. Read the linked story, it will warm even the most sardonic of hearts.
That’s all I got. Have a great weekend and see you next week for another weekly rewind.
As a New Orleanian (transplanted NYer), I have to correct the Goodell and dog statement. I was at the parade, and it was the Boeuf Gras that was getting treated poorly by Goodell, not a dog. It is one of the oldest symbols of Mardi Gras–a little history lesson from the Krewe of Rex website:
“Boeuf Gras
Since the middle ages there have been celebrations and feasts leading up to the forty day Lenten fast. One of the oldest symbols of these ancient pre-Lenten celebrations was the boeuf gras, signifying the last meat consumed before the fast begins. This symbol had a place in the earliest celebrations of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and for the first thirty years the boeuf gras was part of the Rex parade. For some reason it disappeared from the parade after 1900, but was restored in 1959. Traditionally the float carrying the boeuf gras and masked riders dressed as cooks is one of the lead floats of the parade.”