Congrats to a former prospect. Well wishes to another.

I don’t care what Red Sox fans say, all the sarcastic “Why can’t we get those guys?” crap. This is awesome. And the Marlins are awesome, too. A team that has come from the depths of the cellar and now are two games back of the Wild Card? I know who I am rooting for for the rest of the year. They are and bunch of kids just playing ball, they aren’t worried about overzealous media attacking and scrutinizing every little nuance of the team. All this excitement for 15 million? Thats a deal.

That is one excited Venezuelan. 

Our (“our” being all people who care about people at all) thoughts are with Jon Lester as he begins chemotherapy on Friday for cancer in his lymph system. Lester was out due back pain when an MRI showed something was a lot more serious than just a tweaked back. The kid is tough though, he is hoping to be back by the time spring training comes along. Of course, he can take all the time he wants.

Football is back; all is not well in Conway.

Some words that come to mind when I think about Coastal’s loss to the Phoenix of Elon: Fuck. Shit. Balls.
Yea, we had a chance to drive for a field goal to tie the game, and yea it was the first game of the year, but this was an inexusable performance. Something like seven trips to the endzone and we have 1 touchdown to show for it. ONE. We shot ourselves in the feet multiple times, and let Elon pull a play they saw on TV Thursday night for a touchdown.

Thats all I can really muster right now. I am still sick from Saturday.

Sorry DJ, your sack ended up meaning nothing Saturday.

That being said, the rest of the weekend did me right. Football is a uniter. Even if it unites people in one room to fight about meaningless things like the strength of a receiving core, or how one team can get better athletes because they have lower academic standards. Its beautiful, really.

South Carolina won, so my 1-A team won. Two teams I hate were unimpressive (I don’t care about your defenses Miami and F.S.U., that was sad). Texas elevated their ranking to #2 to set Saturday’s game up to be even more epic than it already was set to be. It was just good stuff all around.

Succop, player of the game and SEC special teams player of the week.

That being said. Give me some well paid ballers (well, legally well paid ballers) on the field, stat. I need some of that pro pigskin.

We are looking for you too, Chad.

U.S.A.! U.S.A! Georgia does us right.

Congrats to the boys from Columbus, Georgia, who beat the valiant Japanese team 2-1 in the championship game today. The Japanese kids cried a bunch, I can’t really blame them. I would cry a shitload, too.

Bill Simmons, It’s time we had a talk.

Dude is a tool. 

Ok Sports Guy, I have been a fan of yours for a long time, you have been funny, a little cutting edge, a little corny, but good nonetheless.

Well, your last few articles were the end of the line. Some say it was years ago, some say it was when you joined up with the Worldwide Leader. Well I gave you a chance others haven’t, and you betrayed me. You went behind my back and started being a whiny little girl about everything you used to be rational about. You started making egreious mistakes that no writer should should ever make. You keep claiming to know what the true fan thinks, but you are far from the pulse of any fan base, let alone the Red Sox fans. And you have gone to the inside.

I am going to keep this short, but this is why its over.

Your quotes in bold.

Your latest Mailbag.

But most of all, I’d want to go to “The Bachelor” fantasy camp and just reenact rose ceremonies and bad dates. I think I’d pay $4,000 for this.

Are you effing serious, dude? You wasted a mailbag question on a Saved By the Bell/Grey’s Anatomy/Bachelor fantasy camp question? What are you the E! News Guy? are you going to host the Daily 10 with another ESPN employee Sal Masakela?

In real life, you should never split 10s when someone else has $300,000 riding on the table…

Thanks for teaching us how to gamble, how are your rules working in that other card game? I am glad your football picks are working out for you as well. Oh right, no one believes you have any insight into sports whatsoever.

Regarding the equivalent of a hung over lady friend asking if you had sex last night Bill equates it with an amazing win in a a night game, then having your pitcher give up a bunch of runs in the first of the following day game. The he says this: By the way, this is a mortal lock to happen any time the Sox win a dramatic Friday night game against the Yanks. Guaranteed. You know, if that ever happens again.

Hey thanks for the positivity, if you ever say you keep the faith and chastize those who may not believe in their team at any one point, you can go suck the proverbial biscuit.

Hey, four straight non-sports related questions in a row (no sports equivalent questions don’t count, they are sad excuses for you to give us “man advice”. Thanks. I am doing fine on my own.)

One of his favorite places to catch a sporting even is: Front row between home plate and the home dugout, Game 7 of the World Series. Best possible seat, PLUS you’re in serious foul ball territory and you might even be able to interfere with one of the opposing players on a pop-up. Really no downside.

I hope you catch that foul ball soon, Bill! You gonna push a kid over for it? O you are going to intefere with an opposing player? Then brag to your buddy Hench about how awesome it was to change the course of a game you aren’t involved in other than as a cheerleader? Good to know you are such a purist.

Your infatuation with Lindsay Lohan and all things U.S. weekly is getting kind of scary.

You root for a school for four reasons: Either you grew up near them, you followed them since you were kid, you went there or your kid is going there. And that’s it. For instance, let’s say that I decided tomorrow, “UCLA is a half-hour from my house and I like their uniforms … screw it, I’m becoming a Bruins fan!” And I started going to football and basketball games and sitting with alumni and fans whose families had been following them for four generations. I mean, wouldn’t that be a little weird? That’s like showing up at some stranger’s house for Thanksgiving and being like, “Hey, I’m in the family now! Pass the turkey!” I just couldn’t do that and feel good about it.Your whole explanation for not choosing a college to root for is EXACTLY how you chose your English Premiere League team. You chose Tottenham because they are in London, and you would only want to visit there, you liked their uniform, you liked them because they weren’t one of the big four so you thought you could be cool choosing a “darkhorse”. Too bad they came in 5th last season, and have a ton of potential to be a top 4 team. The fans in England feel the same way about their teams, they are born into it, they don’t make a spectacle about it using superficial criteria.

I just think the whole process was inane. We’re going to lose to Brazil, Spain or Argentina. I’m telling you.The verdict is still out on this. I don’t think it will happen, but we will see.

About Rangers pitcher Feldman after he threw at a small Angels player: He should have been suspended an extra 10 games just for being a wuss.

Ten bucks says you don’t come within 10 feet of Adam Kennedy when he is mad. You would be in the clubhouse faster than if they told you the new InSyle just got delievered.

Look, don’t forget that I’m an idiot. Don’t forget this for a second.

Well you got that much right.

Your Trip to Wisconsin

Gentleman, start your tailgates! We’re drinking outside the ballpark, which looks like a giant Space Vulva from the outside (as I described in detail back in 2002).

Thanks for linking to an insider article. I am sure it was a riveting description that had some point whatsoever. But probably not.
We’re headed to our seats one inning late…

L.A. is getting to you Bill. Bet you made a whole row stand up.
That’s one of those terms where you immediately assume that it IS special, kinda like when a restaurant throws in the phrase “world famous” to describe any of their foods, even though it’s impossible for some random seafood joint in Cape Cod to have “world famous” clam chowder.

First off, thanks for making an observation I have heard 3 times today and probably originated on Seinfeld. Also, you should know better Cape Cod is a peninsula, not a town. Therefore, when you refer to something from there, you say ON Cape Cod. ON. You are IN Boston, but when you go to an island, you are ON it. As a Cape Codder this pisses me off to no end.

That leads to a spin-off discussion: What in God’s name makes Damon so great to have in the clubhouse?

If you weren’t a pawn to the WWL, I could go back to one of your articles raving about Damon’s intangibles in the clubhouse when he was on the RED SOX. But nooooooo, he is a Yankee now, so we have to doubt what we said one year ago.

Not to sound like legendary Hollywood producer Bob Ryan…

Lookee there, staying hip, showing you watch Entourage. This joke would have been better to lead off the column by the way. Saying ” What if I told you you could take a weekend and fly to Milwaukee to see some friends, hit two baseball games, abuse your body, do some tailgating and make the holy pilgrimage to Lambeau Field. Would that be something you’d be interested in?” Without dropping any obvious references. Of course, I am only 20 and still in school, so you must know how to form your columns better.

Thats another obvious thing you have been slacking on. You aren’t creative anymore. All you do is babble on, nothing different.

Did I mention that the 7-8-9 batters for Houston tonight are Adam Everett (hitting .239), Eric Munson (.207) and Brandon Backe (.139)? Let’s just legalize performance-enhancing drugs in the National League. It’s time.

You realize you just used a pitcher in your silly cut at the NL right? You went to make a funny and put in a friggin pitcher as your evidence. Top notch stuff, Bill.

I’m going with “Hate It or Love It” by The Game. I’d want to be the first white baseball player who crosses the at-bat music racial barrier. Like the Reverse Jackie Robinson.

Oh, only black people can listen to rap? I will remember that next time I try to listen to it, gotta turn it off, don’t want to ruffle any feathers.

Don’t listen to me.

Done.

Chip picks us up in his minivan. And why? Because that’s how we roll, beyotch.

Oh, you slay me. So funny with your blackcent.

We were a little worried about rain today, but we just passed a herd of cows, all of whom were standing. According to Chip, if cows are lying down, that means rain is coming. If they’re standing, you’re OK. These are the things you learn in Wisconsin.

I learned that on Cape Cod. There are cows everywhere you know? Its not tough to find these things out.

So which sample did I like more? Naturally … the Bud Light. I want to kill myself. How is this possible? I feel like my whole life has been a lie. Gallo liked the Bud Light more as well. The girls seem testy. I had drunken hookups in college that ended better than this.

Stop being a little bitch and drink whatever you want. I bet you could have left that paragraph out and probably still written 238749874398742 words about nothing.

Did I mention we have pre-game field passes? And we’re standing ON Lambeau Field? Right behind the visiting uprights? All of us are walking around looking like Cruise and Bacon after Col. Jessup admits to the Code Red. I don’t know what to say. I’m speechless. I’m not a good enough writer to describe this. Metal rows, green jerseys, green grass and a blue-red sky. What else do you need in life?

Should have sent a poet. Also, what else do you need in life? How bout a good team to go with that history? That’d be fun. And don’t tell me you value the history of the franchise blah blah blah, because you abandoned the Bruins and they reek history.

Here’s what happened: A Brewer popped a foul ball straight back, and we were looking up for it, and then we realized that — wait a second, that’s coming toward us!!!!!!! — and it started falling and falling, and the whole thing took long enough that I had time to put my notebook in my pocket and wait for the ball to ricochet toward us. Wouldn’t you know, it landed one row in front of us, four seats to my right, and the guy in that seat tried to catch it with his hat. So what happened? The ball ripped through the hat, bounced off the sidewalk in our row, then caromed one row behind us straight to the kid sitting RIGHT BEHIND ME. That’s right, my lifelong foul ball drought continues. I’ve never been that close. The Foul Ball Gods are officially taunting me.

“Damn,” I said to Chipper. “Catching a foul ball would have been the perfect ending to this column.”

Yea, then you could kick a little kid in the nuts and laught at him because that would have been perfect!

“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s pretty tough to top standing on Lambeau Field.”

This is true. And that’s why you go to Milwaukee in August.

This better have been a cut by your editor. That has to be the worst ending to a column you obviously worked your ass off for (though the results didn’t come through in the least). Lazy,unorginal and not thought out.

You used to be cool, Bill. Try harder next time.

The First and LAST time I will stand up for Peyton Manning.

So I am at the gym today, breeding place for meatheads and the only place it seems ok for guys to check each other out, and I hear this discussion about SEC football. These two kids are discussing the quality of the league and how tough it is for a team to come out of their as a national championship contender. Now this is a good observation because if you come out of the SEC undefeated, you surely would have killed all the other teams in their entirety and won on forfeits. Its that tough to win. So the kid who thinks he knows everything football oriented (who also happens to be an oaf of epic proportions) declares that “The SEC never produces any quality quarterbacks, none!” He then qualifies his statement with “Other than Michael Vick”, who of course, played for the ACC team Virginia Tech. So he tried to make up for a terrible statement, but followed it with an error, making anything he says for the rest of his life a lie and punishable by death. The problem was the guy he was talking to made no attempt to discount him. Now I hate interjecting into conversations but I couldn’t let this go, I calmly said “What about Peyton Manning? “. I think it was the first 30 seconds that kid has ever shut up. I hate Peyton Manning, and it killed me to say he was a legit QB, but you gotta do what is right sometimes. Of course, after him, the SEC really doesn’t have that many good QB’s in the pros.

This kidis also a Bills, Yankees and Rangers fan. I hope someone drops a 60 pound weight they think they can curl but really can’t onto his foot. Tool.

Carrick Out at Spurs; Joins United

Carrick won’t be celebrating with Robbie Keane when he plays for United this season.

According to All 3 Points, Manchester United will confirm that Michael Carrick has been bought off of Tottenham for a reported 15 million pounds. The signing may do well for both squads as Tottenham had a replacement ready for Carrick

in Tom Huddlestone and United has been looking for a center midfielder to replace Roy Keane. Carrick isn’t a Roy Keane type of player but United needs to get over its dependency on the old captain and play a new style that fits their players.

The deal will also help Spurs secure a transfer with Wigan star right back Pascal Chimbonda and go after a top class left winger. Both positions are serious needs for the club. There have been rumors that the North London club are in negotiations with Atletico Madrid regarding left winger Martin Petrov. Petrov is a good friend of striker Dimitar Berbatov, another new signing by Spurs and is known for his pace and ability to set up goals.

Martin Petrov, possible Spurs winger?

Say it ain’t so, Floyd. Say it ain’t so.

First Harold Reynolds, now another American hero is caught in the turmoil of scandal. Floyd Lanids, everyone’s favorite Mennonite has been suspended from his team after testing positive for an unusual amount of testosterone after Stage 17 of the Tour de France (the stage where he made his incredible comeback). Landis is going to ask for the B sample he gave at the end of the stage to be analyzed in order to prove there was a mistake or that the high level of testosterone was caused by a natural process (Landis, being American, has bigger balls than most other cyclists, this could have lead to the unusual testing levels.) Landis’ team, Phonak, out of Switzerland, is comfirming the report and leaves me with no reason take a cheap shot at the French. So that sucks (like the French!).

(Re)Hire Harold!

This is a travishamockery. It has now been confirmed that Harold Reynolds was fired because of a sexual harrassment claim by a co-worker at ESPN. Evidently, the incident occured in an Outback Steakhouse. I for one am siding with Harold. If he says its a big misunderstanding then it is a misunderstanding. I say they give him his job back at the world wide leader (for the sake of BBTN viewers everywhere) or watch him flourish on Fox or on the radio.

Why do I believe him? I don’t know. Maybe its his smooth approach. His laid back attitude and sharp dressing sense. Maybe its because he knows what viewers want to hear and spits a good game. Come to think of it, he would be able to woo any of those young production assistants. Get you some, Harold.

Kruk: Dude, nice score with that intern last night!

Reynolds: Yea I took her to TGIF’s, grabbed her hoo-ha when I pretended to trip.

Kruk: Nice move, I wish I was as slick as you.

Reynolds: Yea you wish you had two balls like me, too.

Pourquoi, Harold, mais pourquois!

The world needs to know why.

Harold Reynolds, the second best analyst on ESPN (right behind Orel Hershiser and about 38478 in front of Steve Phillips) has been fired for reasons unbeknown to man. Aside from reasons like sexual harassment and laughing at Linda Cohn’s jokes, this is a travesty. You need HR in your life, I know I do.

We don’t know why either, Harold.

Do they have red cards in horse racing?

When the daily French paper Ouest-France called for Zidane to apologize “… just so that the children in the stadiums and in the suburbs, in the parks and the school playgrounds, can hear from his lips that this kind of action, while it can be understood and even forgiven, is unacceptable” they must have been referring to grown men who happened to be the size of a child. Jockey Paul O’Neil of England is facing a ban for headbutting his horse. Read that again. Try to comprehend it. He ZiZou’ed his horse in the face. The horse didn’t even cost him the race. He was thrown before the start and evidently thought the horse had become a slave to the business for its own good and punished him for his indescretions with a crash helmet to bridge of the nose. I wish I could make this stuff up.

Edit: Found Video and Photo thanks to deadspin.com (check links).