You've got to be kidding me. Fire Mason, right now.

The Year in Youth Sports

As taken from Patrick Hruby's Page 2 column:

Because Pol Pot snippets are too hard to find
A North Carolina high school soccer team played a 90-second portion of a speech from Adolf Hitler over the PA system during pregame warmups.

Happens to the best of us
Said the school's principal in an apology fax: "We have a German exchange student on our team. He taught our students to say ['on to victory'] in German. Some of our more zealous students sought to capture this slogan in German and to play it on the PA. They copied it from a speech by Hitler but could not just copy the 'On to victory' and got too much of the speech."

Apology fax time!
A Nebraska youth football coach was charged with 96 counts of possession of child pornography after handing out football camp flyers that had been printed out on child porn he had been looking at while drunk.


That'll learn 'em
A Texas high school football coach kicked six players off the team because they donated blood before practice.


Now soliciting blood donations
A Utah high school football player was charged with assault for allegedly putting a thumbtack in his glove and pricking opponents during postgame handshakes.

Molding boys into men, one crackback block at a time
Former Carolina Panthers lineman Kevin Donnalley resigned his position as a high school football coach after he reportedly disciplined a player by taking a running start and hitting the player from behind, then disciplining two teammates who tried to help the player up.


Woody Hayes? Wuss
A California assistant youth football coach was arrested for rushing onto the field during a game and tackling an opposing player.

"And when you want that first down as much as you want oxygen, that's when you'll be a champion!"
An Oklahoma assistant high school football coach grabbed one of his players by the throat, threw him against a wall and choked him until he passed out.

Hey, you can't be too careful around youth football coaches
A Philadelphia man pulled a gun on a youth football coach because his son wasn't getting enough playing time.

Pulling a gun? So uncouth
A Virginia youth football league commissioner fired a team's coach on the eve of the playoffs because the coach failed to play the commissioner's son exactly as he demanded.

Friday's school lunch: shish kabob
Utah high school students killed a sheep and hung it on the goal posts of a rival school prior to a football game.

Because a diaper would have chafed
A Florida junior high baseball coach was accused of forcing a player to strip and suck his thumb while running laps.

One buck to avoid firearms, animal sacrifice, child porn, naked laps, youth football coaches and Hitler's Greatest Hits? Sounds like a bargain to us
A Florida middle school teacher was charged with bribery for allegedly letting children pay a $1 a day to skip gym class.


God I miss Little League.

Merry Christmas from SNL!

This is the funniest one since "Lazy Sunday".

Goddamn Wolves

"Once again thanks to McHale the T-wolves have f'uped anychance they had to
get Iverson. Even though I think Denver gave away too much, it would have
been nice if we could had offered Philly at least one first round pick. Oh
wait, that's right we gave away are number 1s for Marko Jaric and Marcus
Banks. But hey, he most know what he doing. After all he drafted KG like
11 years ago so we have to cut him slack.

I predict a KG trade before the Feb deadline. KG to the Bulls for Tyrus
Thomas, Ben Gorden and the #1 pick they have from the Knicks."
--From Todd to me

"I swear to god, as a small boy Kevin McHale must've been raped by a giant grizzly-ish man in a "Minnesota" sweatshirt, and has made it his life's goal to somehow screw over the entire state since then. He couldn't do it with the Gophers because he and Flip invented the pick and roll, even though Stockton and Malone won't give them the proper credit. Minnesota didn't have an NBA team at the time, so he couldn't exact his revenge then. Finally, the GM spot opens for the Wolves, and now the plan falls into place. He tried to ruin it right away, but it turns out the Kevin Garnett is really, really good, so that didn't work. But the rest of his resume? Total sabotage. No competent person who's trying to help his team would honestly trade Sam Cassell and a 1st round pick for Keanu Reeve's stunt double, who ISN'T EVEN GOOD ENOUGH TO START FOR THE WOLVES. You only make that trade if you have vengence on the brain.

I've been watching ESPNNews all day today, and I noticed that Rex Chapman is the VP of Player Personnel for the Nuggets. The same Rex Chapman that was supposed to be groomed into taking over for McHale. If Glen Taylor had done what everyone else in the world, including my Mom who is a huge McHale fan (*sob*), Rex Chapman would be the GM here. Now, I'm not saying that if Chapman were here, Iverson would be too, I'm just saying. I'm absolutely furious with the Wolves right now. Randy Freaking Foye was the holdup in this trade? You had a chance to trade for one of the top-20 players of all time, still in his prime, sitting at #2 in the NBA in scoring. He could've played point, kicked out to Mike James if necessary, and run the Flip-and-Kevin to death. KG would end up having another MVP-caliber season (but not actually win because the League is too enamored with white guys who pass the ball), and the Wolves would've made a nice playoff run, setting the stage for next year. Ticket sales would've exploded, the Iverson "3" jersey would be the hottest in the league, and every game would be on TV, many on ESPN which equals phat cash. But Randy Foye is worth bypassing all of that. How shitty would it be to be him right now? Talk about pressure. I like Foye a lot, but AI will light him up for 35 next time the Wolves and Denver meet. Alright, I have to stop talking about this for now."
--From Me to Todd

"I hear ya. Seriously, who is worse McHale or Isiah?
I honestly don't think Foye was the sticking point. Besides him, we had
absolutely nothing they wanted. They wanted draft picks and expiring
contracts. Because of his abysml GM abililty, McHale managed to have
neither. As much has Philly has been drooling after Foye since we took him,
they weren't willing deal with the role players with bad deals we were
offering.

I look back to last year. We could have traded Wally for Artest straight
up. What do we do? Ship Kandi with his expiring contract, Wally and an
another freakin number 1 pick for Blount (who is decent but his contract is
a nightmare) Justin Reed(has played all of 5 minutes this year) Ricky
Davis(who continually tries to shoot threes even though he is shooting like
10% behind the arc) and Marcus Banks (our point guard of the future who is
no longer with the team)

I swear some day soon we will see KG walking out of pratice covered in blood
as he takes out his frustrations on McHale."
--From Todd to me

"Oh my god I forgot about the Wally/Artest deal that never happened. Now I'm going to cry. McHale must be afraid of talent, or he's racist. Think about it: Artest-troublesome black man, put out a hip-hop record, one of the 15-best in the league right now. AI-troublesome black man, put out a hip-hop record, one of the 8-10-best in the league right now. Maybe's he's not racist, but he must certainly hate hip-hop. When Kevin Garnett gets inducted into the Hall of Fame, McHale should not be allowed in the building. He's ruining KG's career. I love KG to death and never want to see him leave, but they have to trade him or you're right, he will kill McHale."
--From Me to Todd

Who says no one pays attention to the Timberwolves? This was all taken just from today, and they have to play the Lakers yet tonight. More ranting to come.

Not Exactly the Palace

So in watching, and rewatching, the fight shown above, there are a couple of things that startle me:

• The fact that it's still being referred to as a "fight". This was a shoving match at best.
• Carmelo Anthony recieved a 15 game suspension for his "involvement"-he threw one of the top-3 weakest punches ever thrown by a professional athlete, and then ran away from Jared Jeffries. The NBA should make him play every night to endure the jeers from the fans. For those of you unfamiliar with Jeffries, he's built like me, weighs about what I do, and is over a foot taller than me. What I'm trying to say is, 'Melo maybe should've stood there and waited, because he would've had little problem with ol' Double J.
• Nate Robinson is insane. He's 5'7". He blocked a Yao Ming jumper a month ago. He tried the same terrible, school-yard dunk 33 times in a row last year in the Dunk Contest, finally connecting long after anyone stopped paying attention. When JR Smith ran over and tackled him, he completely disappeared. Just strange.

What makes the whole thing most unsettling for me is that all of this came out of frustration and embarrassment because George Karl was still playing his starters with a 20 point lead and under a minute to play. Are these people serious? You're worried about being one-upped? Where does it say that a coach has to pull his starters at the end of the game? If you don't want to be embarrassed, don't lose by 20. Act like a real NBA team.

All of these unwritten rules and ballplayer codes are starting to make me sick. As a coach, Karl has the right to play anyone on his roster at any given time.

Two years ago today, this was the scene:



Happy Birthday Molly.

I don't know how I can stress this enough--the Minnesota Timberwolves need Allen Iverson. Even if it means moving Randy Foye.

The Saint Paul Police Department Can Suck My Dick

Thanks for your help, fellas. Always there when I need you. Pricks.

Thanks

To whomever broke into my van last night and stole the center console, DVD Player and screens. I was going to be rid of the van in about a week, now I'm stuck with it longer. To borrow lines from Ben, I hope the crack dealer you try to trade the DVD player to beats you within an inch of your life when he realizes that it doesn't even work, and I hope you end up in jail after getting busted for holding said crack.