It was great when the powers that be brought me Gimp, Logic and then Berstreet. We enjoyed great successes here. Then Berstreet signed on with With Leather and Gimp had his first child, and we entered a serious rebuilding phase. PJDiaries came on board and there were glimmers of hope in our eyes. Ryan “Kidd” Bidwell came on lost his life in an untimely incident and things looked grim again. Our scouting team found us a couple diamonds in the rough in Chubs_KGun and White Speed Receiver.

It’s a time of great promise and purpose here with the Gally Blog organization. We’ve got people doing interviews with National Canadian media. We’re doing interviews with former NFL players turned recording artists. We’ve also breached the land of the podcast, as both Berstreet and Logic have had their time under the spotlight in the House of Punte podcast.

I’m sadly stepping down though. I’m taking the road showed to me by my good friend Nomar Garciaparra. Nomar played for many years with the Boston Red Sox before he was shipped off to the Dodgers. He had some success with the Dodgers but battled injuries the last two years and his playing time greatly suffered as a result. The Red Sox on the other hand went and won two World Series championships without Nomar. Yesterday, he signed with the Red Sox, so that he could retire as a member of the team that dumped him in order to win. Taking that into account, I’m announcing that I’ve signed with the Red Sox so that I could also retire as a championshipless member of the team. They even came up with this wonderful plaque for me, which will be going directly on my wall. Thanks Red Sox, thanks Blogfrica and thanks to the members of the Gally Blog, I couldn’t have done any of this without you guys.

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Back to NY?

NOTE: THIS IS A GALLY BLOG EXCLUSIVE… If you don’t know my back story, I’m from Long Island, New York. Also, I live 5 minutes down the block from Hofstra. It’s very inconvenient because of all the restraining orders that the sorority houses have against me, I can’t even get to the mall! :(. However, I bang one of the journalism students that interns for the Daily News. It has its perks. For example, reading the paper one day before everyone else. I didn’t even have to go down on this girl tonight and she sent me this newspaper clipping! Check it out!

WOW!

Now that’s a shocker. Oh wait? Is that a complete fabrication? Did I make the whole thing up? Why, yes. Yes I did. Am I worse than Chris Carlin or Michael Smith? No. Actually, I’m better because I’m not serious with all these lies. Plus, I’m comical and adorable. These people are just blatantly making guesses at where people will end up in free agency or when they will retire; in hopes that the person the story is about just goes: “Am I? Shit, I need to get to San Fran..” or “Holy crap I’m old. I didn’t even know I retired.”

Jeeze. It’s like these people have office pools for these stories and their day was today, so they tried to coax everyone into thinking they won the money. Well you know what? My LEAST favorite animal is a Cheetah.

Except for you. I love you.

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Perfectly.

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Picture this, except with a fat black guy.

This is not going to be a long story because I don’t know how to add to it. Tony Washington, a Division II draft prospect from Albilene Christian…well…there is no easy way to say this…so I’ll just say it. Homey stuffed his sister’s box. Honestly, the only thing I’m going to say is this:

Going down on your sister has to be like drinking non-alcoholic beer. Sure it tastes the same…but it’s still fucking wrong, man.

Really?

/wink and gunfinfaz to Dave Matthews from Deadspin.

Wait? Really? Dave Matthews? Like this guy? He writes for Deadspin now?

Cocaine is a helluva drug.

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NFL: Logic’s number one favorite player in the NFL, Brady Quinn, is on the trade block? In an attempt to solidify their QB roster, they’re bringing in Jake Delhomme? See all those question marks? That means a story is legit, and will definitely happen.

MLB: Nomar Garciaparra signed a one day contract with the Red Sox so that he could retire as a member of the team. That’s awful cute Nomar, but did nobody give you the memo? Once you left the team, they won 2 World Series championships without you. For you counting at home, that’s as many as they won without me. Where’s my retirement plaque? Torii Hunter said that black Latino players are impostors. Just when I thought there was something interesting in baseball, Torii had to go and apologize and say that impostor was the wrong word.

NHL: The NHL powers that be decided yesterday that they were going to look into penalizing players for hits to the head. Having said that, they decided that Matt Cooke didn’t need to be suspended for his hit to the head on Marc Savard.
The stick and glove that Sidney Crosby used to score the Gold Medal winning goal, have been recovered. An investigation determined that they had both been misplaced rather than attempted stolen.

NBA: Jason Kidd had 20 points and 9 boards in leading the Mavs to a 96-87 win over the Nets. It was the Mavs 13th win in a row. Rudy Gay had 28 points in leading the Grizzlies to a dominating win over the Celtics, 111-91. Berstreet’s future ex-husband, Kevin Garnett, had a great game, scoring 6 points in 26 minutes. That’s good right?

Soccer: Wayne fucking Rooney has 30 goals already in this years EPL season. He has an outside shot at breaking Cristiano Ronaldo’s record of 42. Is he going to shoot for it? No, because he’s a big flaming pussy.

Gratuitous Semi Nude Female Athlete.

The leading lady from Chuck. Click for a much bigger version.

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I'm about to listen to Advice Dog

When this time of year comes around, I typically get upset. I’m a Knicks fan, of course I’d get upset. I also don’t have any allegiance to a hockey team; so really…the time of year blows. It’s also the key in the argument to why the lower 2 sports (basketball and hockey) can’t keep up with the top 2 (baseball and football). As a self-proclaimed sports writer, this time gets VERY boring. The most interesting stories come from free agent signings or spring training, though when you look at it, it’s pretty f*cking boring.

For example, let’s take a look at the two stories that caught my eye today Stephen Strasburg had his debut for the Nationals in Spring training. Yeah, he did good. That’s great. It’s actually leaps and bounds better than any other recently drafted player in the last decade because typically, you wouldn’t even hear about the lil fella until 5-6 years later when he hits Triple A and a starter goes down with an injury. So I guess, congrats to him? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS?!? In related spring sports news, a college lacrosse player gelled his hair and wore a visor to a bar exclaiming he’s “Gonna Ben Roethlisberger a biddy tonight”.

Probably the bigger news is that two ESPN related personalities are fighting! No, not with fists. With words. *YAWN* I can’t believe I can even stay awake typing this. I just think it’s ironic that we are even calling them personalities to begin with. Olbermann is the stereotypical celebrity who goes “I’m really good at X, so I’m going to go try to do Y” like other annoying people such as Tila Tequila, Chad Ochocinco and Jose Conseco. Olbermann is qualified to talk about sports, I’ll give him that. Not politics. Al Franken was even like “Whoa, homeboy. This ain’t you”. On the other hand, Simmons is “Joe Sportsfan” who gives opinions from the heart sphincter. Comparing Tiger Woods to Muhammad Ali is like saying “Logic got thrown off the train for calling fat, overconfident women “whores”.” He’s having a Rosa Parks-like struggle with today’s media like Twitter.” Pardon me if that sentence had spelling errors. It’s tough to type while doing this:

I Dismissive Wank All Over This Post

Well, that’s it. That is all that is happening. I guess College Basketball is picking up but in reality the expanded the tourny to 96 teams, so that means it pushes the deadline of caring back another month and a half. For now, just enjoy the meme that the Deadspin commenters gave you on that Simmons/KO post. Here’s mine:

“I’ve given up drugs. This isn’t why I got into sports-writing”

-Hunter S. Thompson

/fake

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Blogkakke is our collection of the latest and greatest to get tangled up in these here Interwebs. If you have something for here or would just like to ask Logic how to lose Internet friends, our contact info is over there on the right or you could try tips@ thegallyblog.com

Musical Interlude:

In honor of the anniversary of Biggie’s death, his major collaboration with Tupac, Runnin.

Linkage:

Deadspin: Today’s indispensable Balls Deep Mailbag, or as it’s referred to now, the Funbag.
KSK: Big Ben releases his side of the story. It was all a big misunderstanding about choco tacos.
Play Curling: Starting tonight at 7pm EST, is Blogs With Stones 3. If you haven’t signed up yet, it’s too late but you can show up to watch your favorite bloggers curl online against each other. Or play on of them in their downtime before or after games. God I’m cool.
Sportress of Blogitude: Tonight is Last Call over at the Sportress. So stop by and say hi to the Internet community that’s not involved with Blogs With Stones 3.
Gridiron Records: Remember Kyle Turley? The guy that Logic interviewed in our first podcast? Well, his debut album came out today, so check it out.
Orlando Sentinel: Is Tim Tebow going to to the Steelers? The question mark means it’s real and legit.
Pro Football Talk: Mark it on your calendars. Free agency is done. Over. Kaput. The Colts have won the FA period as they claimed DE J.D. Skolnitsky off the Redskins. Check and or mate NFL.
The Bachelor Guy: The birth and evolution of the modern shot glass. Frat boys everywhere rejoice and ask their mothers for some fuckin’ protein.
Puck Daddy: Puck Daddy held a photoshop contest for the photo of Sidney Crosby’s “Golden Roar”. Check out some of the contenders at the second gallery. I like the When Harry Met Sally one personally.
Uproxx: 7 inventions stolen from Nikola Tesla.

Bonus Biggie Song:

Biggie featuring Eminem, Dead Wrong

Related posts:

1. Blogkakke: The Missing Out on Vegas Edition
2. Blogkakke
3. Blogkakke

I know not many of you Americans know anything about the wonderful sport we Canadians call Hockey. It’s a glorious game played indoors on a sheet of ice. Twice in the recently ended, 2010 Winter Olympics, team Canada faced off against team USA. The Americans prevailed 5-3 in the round robin, while the Canadians prevailed 3-2 in an epic battle that went into overtime. In Canada, 10.6 million Canadians watched the game. When you consider there’s only 33 million of us in this country, that’s pretty impressive. Even in the USA, 27.6 million people watched the game. That was the highest watched hockey game in 30 years, and with a rating of 17.6, was the second highest rated sporting event of the year, excluding the NFL.

From Pat’s Papers, a US website run by a former Canadian that compiles news stories, comes this:

The water utility in Edmonton, EPCOR, published the most incredible graph of water consumption last week. By now you’ve probably heard that up to 80% of Canadians were watching last Sunday’s gold medal Olympic hockey game. So I guess it stands to reason that they’d all go pee between periods.

That piece accompanied the following picture, which is a real time graph of water usage before, during and after the Gold Medal game.

So bring on the jokes eh. Us Canadians are a bunch of dandy hosers that go to the bathroom together eh. Well, at least we can drink beer when we’re 18 eh, so take off hoser.

via. Amy K. Nelson

Related posts:

1. Battle of The Blades: Those Crazy Canadians
2. What would you do for a Klondike Bar

You haven’t heard of John Dudley. Why? Because you a) have never lived in Erie, PA, b) are a fan of intelligence or c) Jay Mariotti is all the blowhard you need. Dudley writes- in the loosest “there are words on paper that he put there” sense of the word- for the Erie Times-News as a sports columnist. He also likes to fancy himself as a credible voice on national stories. I mean, if you wanted a take on Tiger Woods, why would you read Dan Jenkins when you could read THE John Dudley (seriously though- Jenkins piece is fantastic and he is a remarkably entertaining, if infrequent, Twitterer). Generally speaking, he (and his cohort, Matt Martin) drove me nuts through my formative years- because before the internet, I had to read the Erie paper and the occasional SI in the doctor’s office to get my sports news. I had always wanted to tear a piece of his apart for humor’s sake (fisking, as the kids say), but then he wrote this.

And totally made it necessary.

We know Bob Sanders had plenty of free time this past season, because he played in only two of the Indianapolis Colts’ 19 games.

I see we left the typewriter at home and went with the hatchet. Fantastic. (also, I’ll skip some parts here and there, otherwise you’d need a sandwich to read all of this)

It’s obvious he didn’t spend it hanging out with a media relations consultant.

Because media relations is the most important thing ever. Screw your actual fans, you need to cater to the whims of a bunch of idiots that will just mock you on paper (which is TOTALLY DIFFERENT THAN MOCKERY ON THE INTERNET) if you don’t suck up to them. J-Duds didn’t get a fruit basket in the mail around Christmas time, Mr. Sanders. It’s time to pay.

Just after wrapping up a news conference Friday to announce his gift of computer labs at two Erie schools, Sanders lashed out at the Erie Times-News for asking about the value of the donation.

Uh, because it was a gift, and who the hell cares if it was $17 or $17,000? The guy is giving back to his community- are you going to make him keep it if you deem it insufficient?

On what was officially declared Bob Sanders Day in the Erie School District, Sanders carved out a few minutes to accuse the Times-News of fixating on his contract with the Colts, of dwelling on the injuries that have interrupted what at times looks like a Hall of Fame career, and of ignoring his generosity toward students and young athletes in Erie.

Which is exactly what you’ve done in the first three sentences.

“Why do you need to know how much it cost?” he angrily asked. “Why is that anyone’s business? All you care about is my money.”

This is a perfectly good question. I’m sure we’ll get a thought-out, intelligent response.

If there were a bully of the week award in the world of philanthropy, Sanders won it in a landslide. Friday’s outburst took place at McKinley Elementary School’s library, with the school’s principal and some teachers and district employees nearby.

We’re just trying really hard at this point to make him seem evil. If you’re keeping score at home, Sanders questioned why they cared how much it cost to donate computers to an elementary school. And the words “angrily”, “outburst”, “accuse” and “bully” have been attached. For that.

Also, I like the “if there was a Bully of the Week award in the world of philanthropy” clause. Nothing says bad journalism like the winner of the Contrived Fictitious Award of the Week Award in the field of shoddy writing, if such a thing existed.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a new act for Sanders.

This one time, he totally pushed an elderly woman down a flight of stairs, and then threw blenders at her while taking the Lord’s name in vain. HE’S OUT OF CONTROL CALL TONY DUNGY

This past summer he refused to do interviews before or during his youth football camp at Edinboro. That came on the heels of the first Bob Sanders Weekend in Erie, when he headed off all football-related questions and took exception when asked about a possible wedding date with his then-fiancee, now wife, who accompanied him on his gift-giving tour.

Again, he’s a jerk for ignoring idiotic questions from the media when he’s in town to run a football camp. Did you consider asking him about the camp? Or was that not a good enough story…when were they married? THE WORLD NEEDS TO KNOW

When I requested an interview with Sanders through the Colts during training camp this past August, the team replied that he wanted a list of questions submitted in advance and warned me that he would not discuss injuries.

Uh, yeah- the dude’s been injured. What would you want him to say? “Uh, my body apparently doesn’t like staying in one piece, but I’ve been drinking Krazy Glue to rectify that.” Try asking him about anything to do with Erie, since no one is going to read your paper for national stories. Wait, I’m not the one with the journalism degree, sorry, you go on ahead with the hatchet.

I passed. Sanders had appeared in only six games in 2008, so it’s not like the football part of the conversation would have lasted long.

ZING! There’s no way you can talk football unless you played all of last year! There’s no way I’m bitter that the guy won’t talk to me!

The Times-News planned a story on Sanders earlier this month when the Colts reached the Super Bowl, but he did not respond to interview requests.

I cannot imagine why.

It’s not just the newspaper’s readers he’s snubbed.

Classic, and archaic, argument. He isn’t snubbing the readers. He’s not giving a middle finger to Eloise Stanford, age 67, of North East. He is snubbing you. Let’s not act like you’re an elected representative because you write for a paper that- local legend has it- was used by Princeton to show journalism majors what a paper shouldn’t be. Maybe Bob gave an interview to the Indianapolis paper, or Stampede Blue. Just not the paper for his hometown, which has spent half an article destroying him.

WICU-TV sports director Mike Ruzzi says a few years ago Sanders requested a DVD of his local appearances for a television show he was doing in Indianapolis. Sanders needed the DVD to be compiled and shipped out right away.

“We spent a great deal of time putting it together and the DVD made it on time,” Ruzzi wrote in an e-mail. “Not a big deal on our part, we do that all the time. But when I called before the last camp asking if Bob was going to be available for an interview, I was told he was not doing interviews. That was a real letdown, since we made the effort to get the DVD out on time.”

So doing a DVD, which you do all the time, didn’t get you an interview at a camp when people only ask him about stuff that isn’t the camp? Color me shocked. Also, things like this article probably don’t help the cause.

And now this latest arrogant gem from a local sports hero who doesn’t have to be this bitter, this paranoid, or this short-sighted.

Despite the fact that you justified every single one of those words with this article. I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but seriously, this is ridiculous.

Yeah, I know this will sound like sour grapes from scorned media types. But I don’t need Bob Sanders to like me. I don’t even need him to know my name. I just need him to answer my questions — or not — without throwing a tantrum.

Which is, in fact, sour grapes from scorned media types. Just because you point it out doesn’t make it any less true.

Sanders could have politely declined to say how much it cost him to put computers and printers in technology labs at Wilson Middle School and McKinley Elementary. Instead he had his flak fetch a folder and look it up, and, with a glare, he confirmed the figure was about $20,000.

Then he turned angry, demanding to know why we needed that information.

Which is a completely justified reaction. He gave two schools a total 20,000 dollars worth of computers, but rather than focus on “that will help so many kids!” you focus on “that’s 2,000,000 pennies!!” Also, we’ve used variants of the word “anger” at least 10 times so far.

Gee, Bob, I don’t know. Maybe because we are in the information business?

Gee, John, I don’t know. Maybe you’re missing the point?

[...]

Don’t like the question, Bob? Show some class, anyhow.

Or tear a good person apart in a public forum. Your call.

Sanders made it clear Friday that he reads the Times-News regularly and he believes the newspaper never has treated him fairly. It was a ridiculous statement, but he wasn’t in the mood to have a civil discussion, so I gave up trying to mount a defense.

Again, you’ve spent how many words now proving him right?

There’s a good chance he will read this and not talk to me again — not beyond a phone call today, perhaps, to tell me how I’ve wronged him again.

I’ll get over it, I suppose.

THANK GOD. I can sleep at night.

But there’s someone else who might end up reading this, too — my 12-year-old son. He became a big Colts fan after watching Sanders go through workouts at the team’s training camp a few years ago when the paper had me drive to Terre Haute, Ind., to cover his rise to stardom.

Like a lot of kids, my son instantly was swept up in Sanders’ energy, his focus, and his passion for the game.

It’s going to be tough to resist the urge to go into his closet this morning and take out that No. 21 Colts jersey and slap it on eBay, knowing that someone, somewhere, probably needs to line a birdcage.

Or maybe you should take a lesson from your son’s maturity and remember that you’re freaking lucky that he grants you the time of day when he’s in town. He owes the city of Erie nothing. The fact that he gives anything is a miracle- because this isn’t the first time an Erie boy made it big in the NFL and he got run out of town. Fred Biletnikoff- yes, the one that the award is named after- was born and raised in Erie. He now refers to the city as “The Mistake on the Lake” and doesn’t really show his face around town. Mark Stepnoski apparently doesn’t hate the city, but he smokes enough pot that I don’t think he could hate much.

The question is why, exactly, this was written. The answer is two-fold. One, J-Duds loves to make inflammatory columns, then run a mailbag of angry letters with one liners afterward. Something like this:

“John, you’re a complete idiot. How you manage to sleep at night is a mystery to me. -Doug, Millcreek

Well that’s easy- warm milk has worked since I was a child.”

So he doesn’t respond to the criticism, he just plays off of it for really bad jokes. The other reason is a little more gossipy, and a little more conspiracy therorist on my part. Rumor around the Erie-parts is that Sanders and his high school coach had a falling out. This coach happens to be at one of the two high schools that the Erie paper covers, regardless of record. So, it seems more than a little coincidental that we start tearing the guy apart now.

I’ll always have a special place in my heart for my hometown- I’ve worked on State St. (briefly) and at the mall (less briefly), played in Veterans Memorial Stadium (there’s one in Erie, seriously) and eaten more Greek sauce than I (or any toilet, for that matter) care to remember. 90% of my family still lives there, and I try to visit whenever I can. But Erie deserves a better paper than this, and it’s a shame that it’s a prime example of what’s wrong with so many in the newspaper world. And in this case, it’s indicative of what’s wrong with Erie- some terrible people get heard the most/put in charge and ruin what should be a fantastic city. So, Bob, don’t cut the city out of your life because of this toolbox. Those kids at the football camp appreciate everything you do, even if the media doesn’t. At the end of the day, that’s what actually matters.

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Tool? Yes. Rapist? Meh.

I know we are a couple days late on this but it needs to be posted. Someone needs to talk about how Sloth from the Goonies can’t stop sticking his ham-fists in the opposite sex’s axe-wounds. Ben Roethlisberger is going to (at least) be going through his second civil trial for sexual assault. I say it like that because NO ONE has come out with any significant information about this. Is it because his Jewish brethren control all the legal offices? It is, sn’t it? The Police in “Milledgeville” were supposed to comment today; according Christmas Ape’s twitter but they said nothing of importance and no serious interviews were conducted.

Today there was a press conference from the police department and apparently, Ben hired Ray Lewis’s old murder attorney….so you know this guy is legit. I would predict that if he gets Ben off the hook, look for Roman Polanski to take a trip to Disneyland in 2011. As for a choice of attorney, I guess since Gloria Allred won’t support a man that could rival her cock size, she’d be out. Johnny Cochran is dead, but if you could re-animate him and get that Chewbacca Defense (shitty video quality) you’d be golden. I don’t know if hiring an attorney famous for defending his client from murder was the smartest move. The guy that the kids from Duke Lacrosse hired was pretty effing good. So good, that the stripper who accused them, is currently in jail for arson! Wouldn’t that be nice, Bennie? Arson? You’d like that, huh?

Steelers fans keep getting mad about the whole “If it looks like a duck…” argument, but it is pretty crazy that he’ll have 2 civil suits against him for pretty much identical fratboyish crimes. That means that these girls are either lying, money-grubbing whores, or the DA is a BIG Steelers fan and won’t take the cases in criminal court. I’m curious on how it pans out because I would love to see Charlie Batch under center for the Steelers next year while Ben has to be chained in a cave like the ogre he is.

As for a new nickname? Jason Whitlock has been calling him “PacBen” because clearly, “Big Ben” doesn’t suffice anymore. I’m thinking of “Grabby Hands Ben”, yes…that’s becomes the acronym GHB, why do you ask?

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