The weather reports appear to be clear as one could reasonably hope for this evening, so it looks like the Cardinals and Mets are finally going to kick off their NLCS, with Jeff Weaver taking on a now very rested Tom Glavine. Because of the rainout, the series is going with five games in five days, so it’s a dead sprint now.
But Cardinals fans have gone since Sunday without a game, and Mets have gone any longer, since Saturday. So it’s probably time to get moving.
As with yesterday, we suggest following along in the active commenting sections of Viva El Birdos and Metsblog. No place is more fun to root around during the game than with the diehards. And feel free to chat around in here too. And enjoy. We, obviously, can’t wait and are actually losing our minds a bit.
Proving once again that no one is funnier than those who work for the official Web sites of professional football teams, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in preparation for their game Sunday against quarterback Carson Palmer and the Cincinnati Bengals, have put together a little flash intro to their homepage.
It features Palmer playing “Deal Or No Deal,” with Howie Mandel, and choosing the jersey number of Buccaneers players who proceed to pummel him. (At one point he appears to have a torn shoulder.) The animation is crude, the humor isn’t really there and, uh, they’re really pretty brutal to little animated Carson. All that’s missing is Kimo von Oelhoffen slicing his knee with a cheese grater.
We, of course, love it and would like to see more like it on official team sites. Who wouldn’t enjoy what flash animation the Eagles site would come up with for Terrell Owens? Maybe some Owens pill pong?
If you haven’t heard, the Washington Wizards’ new slogan for the 2006-07 season is “Go All In,” which is possibly a reference to Gilbert Arenas’ love of playing online poker at halftime and is definitely not something that makes much sense. To quote DC Sports Bog:
There are several scenarios that would make you go all in in poker, right?
1) You have the best made hand, someone else is on a draw, and you want to end things.
2) You’re bluffing.
3) You’re short-stacked and desperate.
4) You actually do have the best hand and want to get paid.
I don’t see any of these scenarios applying to the Wizards, circa 2006. They don’t have the best team, they have no reason to bluff or be desperate, and it’s not like they’re ahead in this hand, metaphorically or otherwise, although I have no idea what that means.
Bullets Fever looks at this in more detail. As far as slogans go, it’s not as bad as the Cardinals’ famous “Red Means Go,” but, you know, we still don’t understand it.
It’s hard to believe, but the NBA season is just around the corner. So come with us now as we present five tiny tidbits on each team, just to get you in the mood. Today we continue with the Pacific Division, so do us a favor and send your tips to tips@deadspin.com.
• 1. He’s The Hoff. Of all of Ron Artest’s controversial actions, perhaps the most egregious of all: During his rookie season with the Chicago Bulls, he applied for a job at Circuit City just to get an employee discount. Also, like David Hasselhoff, he is beloved in Germany.
• 2. Always With Him. Francisco García’s 19-year-old younger brother Hector was shot to death in an apartment complex in the Bronx in 2003. The night after the shooting, García led Louisville with 24 points as the Cardinals beat Seton Hall. After the game, he flew home to attend the funeral. In his brother’s memory, he taps his heart twice and then points to the sky in between his foul shots.
• 3. Gotta Support The Team. Maurice Taylor is not allowed to attend any Michigan home basketball games until 2012. Taylor, who played for the Wolverines, was accused of taking money from booster Ed Martin, somewhat tarnishing his college achievements. Taylor was in the stands in New York with another former Wolverine, Jalen Rose, to support the team during the 2006 NIT Final Four. And this isn’t a “Mitch Albom says they’re there” kind of “in the stands;” they were actually there.
• 4. Fifty-Five Years And Counting. The Kings began life as the Rochester Royals in 1945, then winning the National Basketball League title in 1946. In 1948, the Royals moved to the Basketball Association of America, which absorbed the NBL the following year to become the National Basketball Association. The Royals won the NBA title in 1951, which remains the only championship in the team’s history. The Royals moved to Cincinnati in 1957 (you may recall Oscar Robertson), then to Kansas City, Missouri. Renamed the Kings (because of the Royals baseball franchise in the same community), the team initially divided its home games between Kansas City and Omaha, Nebraska. They moved to Sacramento in 1985, bit it is rumored that the owners, the Maloof brothers, want to move them again.
• 5. Lost In The Woods. Seven-foot-1, 245 pound center Loren Woods had been viewed as a lock to be a first round selection in the 2001 NBA draft, but slipped to the second round; some say due to his volattile personality. During the summer games following his selection, he fought with fellow 2001 draft pick Brendan Haywood.
Mixed Martial Arts— Tito Ortiz vs. Ken Shamrock Shatters All UFC Ratings Recordsby Ivan TrembowOriginally Published on MMAWeeklyThe two-hour Spike TV broadcast of “UFC: The Final Chapter” shattered all of the UFC’s ratings records on Tuesday night, O…
Though the woman in this photo apparently didn’t get the memo, anyone in the New York City area yesterday, when not preoccupied with planes coming out of the sky and Alec Baldwin all full of bustle, knew there wasn’t going to be a NLCS game last night. It was pouring rain and was just getting worse. Frankly, we have a little bit of concern about tonight’s game too.
But nevertheless, the Cardinals, the Mets and the FOX crew all had a free rainy night in New York City, and Joe Sports Fan hypothesized how some of them might have spent their evening.
David Eckstein - Walked around Times Square, wearing his newly purchased styrofoam Statue of Liberty hat and hit every single spot on his “Explore New York” tour map.
Jim Edmonds - Four words. Shop till you drop.
David Wright - Put on his leather bomber jacket and headed to the diner to share an apple pie and a malt with his girl, then caught a movie at the drive-in.
Albert Pujols - Put his full uniform on, spikes and eye black included, and stared at a picture of Tom Glavine for six consecutive hours without blinking.
By the way, we think it’s absolutely insane that MLB and FOX still haven’t announced the time for tomorrow’s game. (It’s still TBA.) The logical answer is to have the game at 4:30 — not only so we don’t have to switch between FOX and f/x, but alos because both teams have a flight to St. Louis they have to take afterwards for a game the next day — but whatever they do, we can’t fathom what’s taking them so long to decide.
Okay, barely finished with Dave Navarro, porn star Jenna Jameson has been acting like “soul mates” with Tito Ortiz lately. Now i could go into a big blog about the Shamrock fight and my thoughts on it, but they are few and pretty unambiguous:
1. Shamrock looked relaxed and like he had taken a new approach to fighting. 2. Shamrock figured out an effective way to control Tito’s normal elbow strikes on the ground. 3. Shamrock DIDN’T figure out how to control all angles that Tito could thrown on the ground. It looked like an upward angle broke Shamrock’s control and opened him up for the barrage that he claims knocked him out. Fair enough.
Honestly, i don’t know which of them i should have been rooting for. Shamrock is old as Hell, and in the business of external Martial Arts, you get worse with age. So at some point he’s just not going to be that effective against a younger, well trained fighter. Now, back in the day Shamrock was a versitle, well trained, and evolving fighter. i was surprised to see him hold his own with Royce Gracie after having been dominated by him so many times. If he was a younger guy, i think his new approach to this fight would have paid off for him.
With that said, he’s a bit of an asshole, and certainly Ortiz is a bit of an asshole in a different way. Both of them seem to misunderstand each other and allowed that misunderstanding to fuel a pretty petty hatred and dispute for many years. It was great to seem them resolve shit in the end…
So those are my thoughts on that. Pretty straight forward right?
So the real question is how could Jenna Jameson so thoroughly pussy whip Tito from like August, or whenever, to now. My God, that was like some teenager pussy whipping. i mean, we’ve all been there, but at Tito’s age that’s uncalled for. All that’s besides the fact that the chick is a pornstar, and barely takes a shower between new boyfriends. Being that pussy whipped to mouth “i love you” in some Rocky Balboa type silly bullshit manner is wrong no matter who you are. Even Rich Franklin, whose happily married and been with his wife for a while, was totally embarassed the one time she tried to make her presence known. As well he should be; as it’s a sign of masculine maturity to not act like you’re fighting for your chick or whatever.
Seeing Tito mouth “i love you,” and Jenna return the mouthing on an effortless exhalation (said almost as passively as she breathes), made me want to puke, frankly. Aside from that, i like Tito and have no real qualms with him; other than my personal disdain for the phrase “bad boy.”
As we take a step back from the Cory Lidle story a day later, we look at, perhaps predictably, the strange situation that arises when a journeyman (but capable) pitcher like Lidle suddenly becomes a household name in the worst way possible.
Cory Lidle never matched their popularity, and not even close. Nonetheless, eBay action on Lidle items went crazy on Wednesday. Before his name popped into the news, an autographed ball of his sold for $15. Not more than a minute after that auction closed, another ball began its climb to selling for $318. That item’s bidding history shows a very interesting timeline.
The details on Lidle’s crash appear to be official now, though they won’t be able to determine a “cause,” per se, for a matter of months. We are still waiting comment from Arthur Rhodes, by the way.
Proving once again that no one is funnier than those who work for the official Web sites of professional football teams, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in preparation for their game Sunday against quarterback Carson Palmer and the Cincinnati Bengals, have put together a 
It’s hard to believe, but the NBA season is just around the corner. So come with us now as we present five tiny tidbits on each team, just to get you in the mood. Today we continue with the Pacific Division, so do us a favor and send your tips to 
Though the woman in this photo apparently didn’t get the memo, anyone in the New York City area yesterday, when not preoccupied with planes coming out of the sky and Alec Baldwin all full of bustle, knew there wasn’t going to be a NLCS game last night. It was pouring rain and was just getting worse. Frankly, we have a little bit of concern about tonight’s game too.
As we take a step back from 