Live bloggin’ Daytona…you know it

Editor’s Note: Champ got here a bit late, but is ready to rock now. Joe Buck tells me there are 124 goddamned laps to go, so I think he still has a long afternoon ahead of him. Champ’s words are in regular text, Editor’s Notes will be italicized. Will we regret this decision? Certainly?

Champ put the liveblog here.

Came into the apartment at 4:36 eastern time and was disapointed to have missed the first 65 laps of the Greatest American Race. Turned on the television to a rather boring Napa Autoparts commerical and then left the channel on 8 instead of 7 for a while to even further delay my viewing of the Daytona 500.

Finally got the race on though, and it appears Tony Stewart is holding onto a slim lead over Kurt Busch.

*** 4:43 EST The caution is out! 2nd caution of the race apparently (I missed the first one) Problems on the 45 car of Kyle Petty brought out the Yellow flag. His right rear tire blew apart causing for a lot of damage to his race car. The caution came out on lap 85. Rumor has it the 20 car of leader Tony Stewart is also experiencing some sort of overhearting problem so we will have to keep an eye out for possible troubles later on in the race for him. After pitstops the 17 car of Matt Kenseth has assumed the lead of the race. Should be back green in a few minutes.

Editor’s Note: Going to make folks click the read more link for more of the scintillating coverage. I like how The Champ decided to add in the exclamation point after noting a caution is out. I’m anticipating a !!!!! when the real goodness goes down. For those of you who are NOT into NASCAR…I’ll be popping up in these editor’s notes and maybe Ryan will as well just to mock Nascar a bit and feed Champ some questions…such as…why the fuck do they do a race called the Busch Series on the same track with the same racers the day before?

It’s just a basketball, right?

Or, should we start to worry about this thing? The players have been outspoken about it, and really, there hasn’t been a whole lot out there about the new basketball other than various players badmouthing the thing. Things might take a turn for the annoying, now, however, as ESPN.com’s headlines produce a story that a “study” shows that the new ball doesn’t behave like the old.

Where we might be in trouble is that the study was apparently done at the request of Mark Cuban.

Beware the Neifarious One (def. flagrantly wicked or impious)

No I didn’t spell that incorrectly, I am talking about the one and only Neifi Perez. For those that couldn’t catch the Tigers’ Game 1 win over the Athletics, perhaps the biggest story was how Sean Casey went all Nomar on himself and strained his calf/Achilles coming out of the batters box. I haven’t heard the definitive word on the seriousness of the injury, Casey was to undergo an MRI at some point today, but at the very least he is ruled out of the lineup for Game 2. Jim Leyland announced that Carlos Guillen would move over to 1st base and Neifi Perez would move into the starting lineup at shortstop. Yeah, THAT Neifi Perez.

What the hell…

Are they doing with baseball hats these days?

They have GPS hats. In six different colors. They have hats with dog tags on them. They have various models inspired, I’m sure, by the latest Jay-Z or Lil Fizz music video. They’ve got a model called “Head of State” that puts the team logo in the middle of an outline of the state. I’m really just waiting until I see the team logo in the middle of a sketch of a dead body. I’m actually surprised they don’t have that, I mean, they have something called “durty” denim. Like eight color schemes for all of these. SOME OF THESE COST FORTY DOLLARS.

There is one called MLB tat. “MLB Gettin'” is the name of a hat. Most of these things literally look like someone got shot in a nightclub, MLB took the shirt off of the deadbody and designed a hat out of it.

I know some moron decided a few years back that off-brand coloring on ballcaps was apparently a GOOD idea, but didn’t we collectively send that dude a memo telling him to go the hell away? We didn’t. We ignored that dude and just laughed at him. We watched him in his hip hop videos and we made jokes. It’s too late now. We’re not returning from these depths. This is why we should open fire on North Korea. Yes, Testin’ a nuke is like the off brand hats. You don’t stop this bullshit now, it’s just going to spiral out of control.

The Western Conference Preview

Editor’s Note…no clue why he is adding these ! to the titles of these previews, but uh, here’s the NHLs West preview.
Well here is the preview for the stronger, better conference in the NHL. The West is much like the NL in baseball. The coaches have to be smarter and there isn’t a pussy DH spot. The West plays hard, skates fast and has the history of the conference with the most suspensions. Expect another year of bruiser hockey from the West with the Stars making it out alive on top.

Get Ready for the NHL Eastern Conference Preview

So, here’s another guest column. Primetime here loves hockey, is Canadian and the like. Doherty and I dislike the sport and don’t plan on covering it. Plus, we had no idea the season started today.

 

So why does Hockey use a Puck? Shouldn’t they call it Puckey? Or maybe call the puck a hock …..

These were actual questions posed to me by American citizens of North Dakota, albeit they thought i got down to North Dakota from Saskatchewan via a dogsled. So if you do know what is the fastest game on ice or care about hockey, you know that the season starts tonight. I’ve prepared a preview for the Eastern Conference on how the teams stack up and how they finish. Criticism is already brewing no doubt and I expect Ryan and Doug to rip this apart, but what the hell, here goes …

It’s Thursday, and the Champ is still waiting to Double Up.

Well, Its Thursday, we all know what that means. Time for the debut of Segregated Survivor, Bar Night Specials at the Riv and Rick’s and of course, what everyone has been anticipating the most, 5 more bold predictions from the Champ. My picks from last week have already been evaluated, and the Chicago v. Green Bay pick did indeed sink like the Titanic. However, the other 4 remain alive and some are even looking promising. It is also of importance to note that a certain NFL football player has decided to start mocking the Champ by making predictions more bold and wild than even the Champ would ever make. For that reason, I have included a special 6^th bonus prediction after my regular five. Without further ado (again in random order),

1. The Tigers hang on and win the AL Central

Dancing With the Stars 3: What you don’t need to know

Editor’s Note: This is the third time I’m writing this damn Editor’s Note, so I’ll get straight to the point, our buddy Shawn wanted a column gig here, so we gave him the OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME…a chance…to liveblog…Dancing with the stars.

We aren’t quite sure how he knows that this is season three of Dancing with the stars, but uh, hopefully that means he did research, right?
Well, this is the preview for the “Hit” Dancing with the Stars t.v. series. This will be a comical analysis of what happends during the show, I hope the readers enjoy the column and keep coming back to see what they missed.

Can Jerry Porter get a 15 year deal?

Apparently the San Francisco Chronicle reported the following today:

That ticked off receiver Jerry Porter was on the sidelines laughing and pumping his fist when Aaron Brooks was sacked for the seventh time in Monday Nights, expected, debacle.

Porter decided that the best approach to this situation was to, well, dispute the story.

“The San Francisco Chronicle report was not true,” Porter told some ESPN talking head. But, it gets better…”I wasn’t even paying attention to the game. The fist-pumping was in response to some fans that were talking to me when I was sitting on the sidelines.”
Good man, that Jerry Porter. He wasn’t throwing his man Aaron Brooks under the bus, he was openly not giving a fuck.

What are the Islanders doing?

The New York Islanders apparently just signed goalie Rick Dipietro a FIFTEEN year contract. As Tom Jackson would say, if this were on NFL Gameday on ESPN, someone in the Islanders organization is “retarded”.

First off, when I informed Doherty of this, he presented a very good question, will the NHL even be around in fifteen years? More to the point, though, WHY DO YOU GIVE A GOALIE A 15 YEAR CONTRACT? I’m going to assume that there is NO WAY they can have guaranteed contracts in the NHL…oh, wait…they do have guarantees, so the team WILL be paying this one out for 15 years?

Now, hey, if Dipietro plays for 15 years, well, this is a great contract for the Islanders. They will overpay now and save money long term. The chances of Dipietro playing for 15 years? Ridiculously low. So, 7 years from now, they may wake up and realize that they need to keep this guy until he is FORTY, pay him and they can’t trade him. Yeah, very easily could be a bad deal. On Dipietro’s end, however, the man is really smart.

Here’s to hoping this will be the last hockey article on this blog, ever.