Now, I went to UD, it’s a pretty small school, Catholic, conservative (not up to my mom’s standards, but we’re talking relatively here) and in general a nice, clean place.  Even I, a drunken bachelor, felt the sure creepy-crawly approach of pubic crabs whenever I stepped into a college restroom.  These are floors you don’t want to STAND on, let alone eat off of.  And the general idea was to get-in, get-out, leave no man behind.  Ben went to school about an hour from me at Miami of Ohio.  I have never been, but apparently the bathrooms there are pristine sanctuaries with butler service and fine Corinthian leather couches.  Apparently, there is no better place to put your moves on the ladies?

This happened in April.  Last night Ben met with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.  Roethlisberger, doing his best Svengali, convinced Goodell that he had “turned his life around” since April.  And by that he meant that he was able to not get drunk and cruise high school chicks for the past five months.  Top notch!

I don’t mean to make light of the situation, bad decisions were made all around and these weren’t Roethlisberger’s first.  But, I think next time, the league would look a little better just setting the suspension at four games to begin with and promising Ben more pine time if he uses Little Ben inappropriately before his time is up.

My 5.5-month old son is helping me write this. His favorite sport is the 8-finger keyboard mash, particularly when it results in an alert beep from the PC speaker. I have to watch him though because he’s all over the control and alt keys and frequently brings up previously unknown keyboard shortcut dialogs. “Are you sure you would like to self-destruct your computer?” He and clippy would have been the best of friends.

Hockey is a couple of months away, both NHL and rec style. I have a good feeling I’m going pro this year though!  Keep your fingers crossed.  I have it on good authority that the pros are looking for a lot of 34-year-old rookies.  They just watched and were inspired by that Dennis Quaid movie.

And everything else is kind of blah.  Things are so slow that the Bengals have gone the whole day without an arrest (last check 2 p.m.)!  Talk about a dull sports day!

Oh well, I guess I’ll go back to killing my lawn.  aj[[[ pofeisu 98gea – Oh, and Lincoln says goodbye.

Long time ago. Snow and things.

But the part you might remember is Vancouver’s Olympics. Hockey. Ryan Miller vs. Roberto Luongo. Overtime.  Sidney Crosby dumping it in the net. And an entire nation going completely insane.

Now, I’m not trying to rub that whole Canada-USA thing in. (Although I totally could.)

But here’s a question: Would you have cared as much if the game was being held at 4 a.m. in Russia instead of prime time in Vancouver?

The NHL is pretending you wouldn’t have. The NHL says it’s too disruptive to shut down for two weeks. The NHL says it’s too hard on their players. The NHL doesn’t want to let their players play anymore.

If you read between the lines, what the millionaires running the NHL are really saying is that they don’t feel like there’s anything in it for them. The pinnacle of sportsmanship, sure, whatever. The real point is, they didn’t get paid enough.  Nobody gave them one red cent to shut down for two weeks with four years’ notice. Nobody gave them a cut on the ticket prices or the merchandise prices or the overpriced concessions. Nobody let them control anything. The nerve.

So the NHL’s stance really is, if you want professional hockey players in the Olympics, if you want the guys we own in the Olympics, then we need to run the show – and you have to pay us for it. Never mind what the players want. You need to line *our* pockets first.  But we don’t want to come right out and say that because that would just be rude.

Instead, the NHL has a brilliant idea:  resurrect the World Cup. Which would take their players out of the NHL for weeks, would be played on the other side of the world, would be hard on the players, and – and this is the crucial part – would allow the NHL to call the shots and reap the profits.   Sure, nobody around the world really cares about the World Cup and viewership for a tournament like this would be lukewarm at best without an entire Olympic juggernaut behind it. This does not matter. We all know Gary Bettman and his penchant for expanding in to areas that have lukewarm support for hockey but great big deep city pockets to build arenas and pay franchise fees. (See: Phoenix). He’d love to charge obscure European cities obscene fees to host World Cup events that will then be played in the middle of the night watched by nearly nobody.

People watch the Olympics. People take time off work for the Olympics. People have Olympic-watching parties with couches and wings and beer. People talk about the Olympics and tune in to games surreptitiously at work. The Olympics is where people watch sports they only watch every four years – hockey included. Yet another tournament isn’t going to give the NHL more exposure.  As much as Bettman would like it to be, hockey isn’t football.  People love the Olympics. And you can guarantee that even if the next Luongo-Miller grudge match is being played at 4 a.m. EST on a frosty Siberian plain, we’ll be tuning in. Because for any athlete anywhere, the Olympics is the pinnacle. The best. If you win there, you win it all. Why steal that from both the fans and the players, just for the sake of profit?

Seriously, Bettman. Go charge another $3 for a bottled water, if you’re that hard up for cash. Leave the Olympics alone.

He was so close to the Super Bowl last year, he said, he could feel it. And he “owes it” to the Vikings to give it one more try. He’s not promising he can make it through the season, though, the season that he says will be his “last.”

Right, anyway.

I used to like the guy. Respect him, even. Now, the more I hear his name the more I want to pull my ears off with some rusty pliers. Dude, grow a pair and quit trying to relive your youth. I know that you produced last year but realistically how long will that last? I’m guessing one good sack in the regular season and you’re toast, as if your body isn’t already. You’ll be in a wheelchair before your 40s are over, and then where will you be? Counting your millions while someone has to feed you because you can’t lift your right arm isn’t as glamorous as it sounds. I’m also guessing that the millions that you’ve already earned won’t be enough to buy back the missed time with your family or the time you’ll spend rehabbing all of those joints that are going to have to be replaced.

And you know what? I’m not the only one that’s calling shenanigains on you.

Go home to Hattiesberg. Have a mint julep. Relax a little. Sure, let the tv crew in when they’re ready for a little NFL analysis come playoff time, but quit jacking with your team and your body. The shtick is just old.

You can thank me later, but I’d like my share of whatever you’re paying your therapist now, in small bills. And considering that your salary is reported to hit $16.5 million this year from $13.5 million last year, plus incentives reported to jack it up to almost $20 million, I think you can spare the dimes.

Kendra is ready for some football. But not like this.

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That being the case, I asked a friend if she was going. She told me she “wasn’t much of a golfer.” I replied, “Golfing is only a vehicle to drunkeness.” While a good Flyer never needs an excuse to drink, it helps to keep the rehab whispers at bay if you’re not drinking alone on your couch on a Tuesday or blending girly drinks in the office closet most afternoons. So, that is the opportunity that sport affords. Pure, delightful boozing.

In that spirit, allow me to present the best sports for drinking.

• Running Sports: So far, off to a bad start. Unless you’re going for the immediate purge, it’s a bad idea to chug a couple of beers and then start running all over hell’s half-acre. Pace yourself and slow things down so as to increase your intake. Remember drunkenness and not excellence is the goal in sports or aerobic fitness.
• Golf: Better choice. You’re outside. It’s usually sunny. If you’re one shade on the dark side of Powder like me, the sun will accelerate the process. But, you do have to swing the club kind of a lot and there’s an abundance of walking, even with the cart. If there’s no drink-cart girl, you might as well be wandering the Mojave.
• Softball: While nearly all softball players look like they could shotgun a twelver, it’s exceedingly difficult to partake during the game. I’ve heard of mythical “keg” leagues where there’s a keg at third base, but much like unicorns, it eludes.
• Boating: Boating is not really a sport, but you can do sport-type things off the back of a boat, water-skiing, tubing, exploding Jaws and whatnot. Problem being you’ve got to be hella-good at water-skiing to chug a beer while doing it. That would take many, many years of practice. Years you could have spent drinking. But, you might wonder, is pulling your friend in a tube behind the boat in an effort to get him to wipe out a sport? Well, ok, but only if you draw blood.
• Darts: To me, darts is the ultimate drinking “sport.” There’s an element of danger – ever hit the ring around the bull and the dart came back at you? There’s downtime between throws, adequate for chugging. It’s played IN A BAR. And, while probably not a “sport,” its professional players are always drinking DURING COMPETITION. I think that’s what’s always impressed me so much about Babe Ruth. He was hammered or hungover for nearly all of his games. Professional darters are his adopted sons, drunkenly throwing sharp metal objects at cork.

And there you have it. May all your drinks be cold and all your sports slow-paced.

He's too sexy for his shirt.

More attention-grabbing than Lindsay Lohan, able to defame quarterbacks faster than Ben Roethlisberger can unzip his zipper at a college bar, and able to ruin a team in a season’s time.  It’s a 49′er, it’s an Eagle, it’s a Cowboy, it’s a Bill, it’s a Bengal.  It’s Terrell Owens.

That’s right, the Queen City has acquired the biggest homewrecker the NFL has ever seen.  I could give you a million reasons why this move is crazy, but I only need one.  This is the manchild who once said,   “The only people that really matter are the people that are in my inner circle.”  This means that he is an ass and a liar, because everyone knows that the only person who matters to Terrell is Terrell.

Ocho Crappo and T.O. on the same team?  Truly.  Two reality show wannabes not only sharing the same locker room, but the same field.  Carson Palmer deserves better.  T.O. will gather his pack of enablers and defame Palmer and the offense and take down the Bungals’ hopes of a division title and Super Bowl glory.

With plenty of company in the troublemaker department, including Tank Johnson (assault and unlawful possesion of a weapon), Antonio Bryant (wreckless and drunken driving), Cedric Benson (assault and DUI), at least T.O. may not have to worry about suspensions.  What the hell happened to the team of my childhood?  Boomer, can’t you do something about this?

All I know is that you can’t teach an old dog with diminished skills new tricks and especially to get a new attitude.  Get your popcorn ready, but the drama is in town.  If nothing else, it will be interesting to watch it play out.  You know, kind of like a train wreck.

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That pretty much summarizes my bicycling knowledge.  How to get on, pedal and ultimately chafe like a melonfarmer after even the shortest of rides.  So when Floyd Landis says, “I saw Lance Armstrong using drugs,” I’m not exactly speaking as an authority.  I should probably stop here, but what fun is that?  Let the speculation and uninformed opinion-making ensue!

I got dibs on whale sperm.

Apparently, there are a lot of ways to cheat in cycling.  And Landis accuses Armstrong of the following:

• Transfusing his own blood and having a strong aversion to garlic.
• Dating Sheryl Crow.  While not performance enhancing, Landis found it “kind of creepy.”
• Landis said that Armstrong received blood transfusions during races.  It’s unclear if it was Armstrong’s own blood or the blood of 1,000 purified super-cycling babies!  Further confounding, how was Armstrong able to pedal with all those cumbersome tubes?
• Armstrong was known to “cut the legs off drifters” and use them to power up the Tour’s steep mountain climbs.
• Instead of water, Armstrong would drink the tears of newly orphaned children. While unnecessarily salty, the thought of their pain delighted and motivated him.
• Armstrong gave Landis testosterone patches in an effort to get Landis to stop being such a “gaping weeping vagina” about all the doping in cycling.

Armstrong has not answered this round of allegations directly, but his attorney, Tim Herman had this to say:

Landis is a confessed perjurer and he is a liar, and I think, as Lance said … when you taste milk to see if it’s sour, you take a first taste and you don’t have to drink the whole carton to know it’s all sour.

http://verto.net/public/2009/05/28/milkshake/

Take that for what you will, but it sounds like Armstrong has gone “downtown” with Landis. If you know what I mean. And I think you do. Sinner.

It seems to me that cycling is dividing into two distinct skills — riding a bike and, more importantly, getting away with cheating. And according to Landis, Armstrong was the perfect synthesis of super-cheating cycling power. And admittedly, I have no idea if Armstrong cheated. I hope he didn’t. But, considering how dirty the sport is isn’t it difficult to believe he’d be able to beat so many doped Frenchmen powered by only Wheaties and apple pie?

Look at the evidence; could a clean athlete win the All-Drug Olympics?

We may never know for sure. But we do know that right now Lance Armstrong wants to get off this crazy thing.

“She took them off and I held them because I was just trying to get her home.”

Of course! As the driver, it was his responsibility to handle her panties. So that’s what Evans meant in the PSA when he urged,

“Choose a designated driver before each game and have a safe drive home.”

Evans is set to appear in a Georgia court on July 12.  It is unclear as to whether he was fired by University officials or if he resigned, but either way he will be getting a three month severance package amounting to well over 100 grand.

What the hell?  Evans commits a criminal act and garners a six figure severance package. Great.  Crime pays and evidently so does the University of Georgia.  If I were a parent of a UGA student I would be livid. What kind of lesson is the university teaching with that sort of reward for criminal behavior? Especially when the accused is caught red handed, admits to what he did and there is no doubt as to the validity of the charge.  And if the severance wasn’t in his contract, and the UGA attorneys offered the pay out as a “settlement” than that’s just as wrong.  Drunk drivers kill people. This is serious shit and it is outrageous Evans is being paid anything at all. I don’t give a rat’s ass if the severance appears in his contract or not. Wrong is wrong. Illegal is illegal is illegal.

Evans should make a designation of his own and donate the severance money to charity, as long as it doesn’t cause hardship for his wife and kids.

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Maybe it wasn’t even true. Maybe the other party felt happy, even lucky to have you. That’d be great, but it wouldn’t help if you didn’t believe it. It’s a tough place to be. You spend half your time convincing yourself you’re beautiful enough on the inside to overcome your other deficiencies and the other half of the time trying to convince your soon-to-be ex the same. The desperation is ultimately a turn off. Maybe you had been good enough after all.

And maybe, if instead of being just a single desperate person, you were an entire team in a city of desperate people and you had a PR department that had video editing software:

If you are a fan of the NBA at all, or watch Sportscenter, or Larry King, or listen to NPR, or – ok, basically, if your head doesn’t reside inside your colon – you know by now that LeBron James is an NBA free agent. While July 1 was the official first day of NBA free agency, the frenzy surrounding LeBron has swirled all season and we are only now in the midst of its climax.

James has spent his  seven year NBA career with the Cavaliers in his hometown (or exceedingly close to his hometown, Akron.) And personally he has been very successful, twice winning the NBA’s MVP award. But his teams have fallen short. The Cavs reached the Finals in 2007, but were unceremoniously swept by the Spurs. Since that year, the Cavs have failed to achieve even that.

The Cavs have failed, it’s true. But not from lack of trying. They’ve remade the roster multiple times over the past few years. They have sacrificed long-term stability and talent in an effort to win “now.” These moves seemed like they would help and did help in the regular season, but somehow the whole hasn’t equaled the sum of the parts come playoff time. And sadly, LeBron and Cleveland have remained without a championship.

We're good enough; we're smart enough; and gosh darnit, people like us!

LeBron is not without culpability in those roster decisions. Undoubtedly, the team asked for his input. His failure to commit to the organization long-term limited their ability to make moves and hurt them in drawing free agents. I don’t know if LeBron will factor his complicity into his free agency decision-making process. That’s a nuanced view of things and it’s probably easier for him to say, “Hey, you didn’t give me good enough teammates to get it done.”

I am a Cavs fan and a native Clevelander. I love it here. I know it’s not for everyone. Some people like all their seasons sunny and 80 and that’s fine. There are many mid-January mornings when I’m scraping ice off my car that I wouldn’t mind a little more sunshine. And some people don’t like it when their rivers catch fire. That doesn’t bother me as much as 40-year-old jokes. And there are those who hate Drew Carey. Okay. He seems like a nice guy, but it’s understandable.

But the thing that irks me is the utter contempt with which some would besmirch my hometown. They find it so despicable that they can’t envision LeBron staying here, even though he grew up here. They think that even though he was born and raised here and most of those whom he holds nearest are here, the place is somehow not “big” enough to contain him. He is somehow short-changing himself by not moving on to the “bigger city.” Give me a break. I mean, I know living in Cleveland is the number one cause of death in these United States, but the criticism is a little much.

In short, I hate where you live too. Now stop trying to sign LeBron.

How does the airplane go? (Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images)

I have watched many US games on my own. I really started paying attention to US soccer during World Cup 2002. That Cup was held in South Korea/Japan, making start times in the States in the wee hours of the morning. 3 or 4 a.m., whee. I spent a lot of time bleary-eyed yelling at the TV as the US advanced to the quarter-finals and lost to Germany 2-nil (there are no zeros in soccer).

So, I’ve played and watched soccer for years now. Pay extra attention to what I have to say. I am smart and my brow protrudes in an attempt to contain my massive cranial body, just like Darwin.

World Cup Observations:

1. I don’t care how cold it is. If you need to wear mittens when you’re playing, maybe you aren’t running hard enough. I know it’s chilly, but run or something.
2. The vulvas or whatever those damn annoying horns are have finally receded into the distance for me. Or maybe they’ve just become a constant background noise to my life. And maybe I’m not going to KILL THE PRIME MINISTER OF MALAYSIA!
3. REPLAY! It’s most needed in soccer. They worry about interrupting the flow of the game, but that replay shit is instantaneous, for serious. I would especially like to see it on any goals/potential goals, cards in the box, red cards, maybe a couple of other situations. I don’t find the “flow” arguments compelling.
4. Giusseppe Rossi is at home, like the rest of the Italian team. Kid grew up in Jersey to Italian parents. After spending some time on some junior US squads, he ended up fulfilling his dream of playing for Italy. I don’t really begrudge him that, if that’s his dream, godspeed. But I’m jingoistic enough for that to rub me the wrong way. It all seems so . . . un-American to me. What is America but the place where you remember your heritage while embracing your new homeland? So, I will admit to schadenfreude when he didn’t make team Italy (although maybe he should have) and then it was pure delight when Italia finished last in their group and bid arrivederci to South Africa. Yes. I am petty and small.
5. Flopping is irritating. These dudes go down easier than a Denny’s grand slam breakfast. I’m probably on the far end of disbelief though. Every time a guy takes a tumble, I’m immediately saying, “Look at him flop like a gutted fish!” And then I see the replay and he took a shank to the face and I say, “Okay, that probably hurt.”
6. One of my favorite things to watch for is the crowd shots when mostly-impartial South Africans fans get caught up in the celebrations of other nation’s fans: “I don’t really care, but this is kind of fun!”
7. The US should score more and maybe not procrastinate so much this afternoon. I mean, very exciting ending vs. Algeria, but I could go for a little “easier” of a win.

There are your tips. Tune in this afternoon and watch probably the biggest game in US soccer history. Let’s win it.