On September 14, 2009, the great Patrick Swayze lost his battle with pancreatic cancer and passed away too young at the age of 57. Swayze had a prolific acting career, one that inspired his devoted fan base to believe that if anyone could beat this disease it was him (Swayze played a bank robbing surf ninja and villainous sky diving enthusiast in Point Break. Cancer? No problem, compadre). He was diagnosed in January of 2008 with a sickness that most people will succumb to in under a year – he held on for 20+ months. During that time period, his 1989 film Road House was the most broadcast movie on American television in the past year according to Rolling Stone – airing 45 times on AMC, A&E and CMT. Maybe you were lucky enough to flip it on and catch a riveting scene like this…

In lieu of burying Swayze with Dalton’s medical dossier, each Tuesday during football season I’ll be awarding one player the “Pain Don’t Hurt” Award to honor Swayze’s memory. This week’s recipient: Brandon Meriweather of the New England Patriots.

Last week, the retired Rodney Harrison said of his strong safety protege, “Brandon Meriweather will be putting his helmet down [Terrell Owens'] throat.”

Though Owens was held to just 2 catches for 46 yards, and no TDs by the Patriots secondary, the brand of raw aggression that Harrison, who’s apparently maintained his maniacal nature, is referring to here was best on display during that stack-up hit by Meriweather on Bills’ Leodis McKelvin during that kick-off return late in the 4th. ESPN failed to mention Swayze’s passing during the entire broadcast of the game, but they did show about 15 angles of Meriweather holding up McKelvin while his teammates ransacked him. The Pierre Woods forced fumble – recovered by New England kicker Stephen Gostkowski – and impending TD drive sealed the victory for the Pats and ripped the proverbial neck out of the Bills’ upset hopes.

(photo via NFL.com)

A couple good joshers from the wide world of prep football today. Chuck Klosterman (and other ex-high school athletes from North Dakota), these are in your wheelhouse…

The more draconian of the two, eight players at Upper Arlington High School in Ohio have been suspended for tonight’s game after some suggestive behavior in the team photo…

Upper Arlington High School has suspended at least eight players for tonight’s football game against Findlay High School.


A report from a Columbus television station says that at least eight senior players have been suspended from school and will not participate in the game against the Trojans because of sexually explicit gestures made in a picture…

So, eight imbeciles made the shocker in the team picture. Reminds me of the time one of my Catholic grammar school pals, we’ll call him Tito Jackson, flipped the bird in the second grade class photo. (He used both hands actually, which were hanging by his side. It was the double inverted salute, in fact.) My mom was less than thrilled when she saw that, and I didn’t get to play Nintendo track n’ field at Tito’s house for quite some time.

Like Tito Jackson, the actions of these H.S. baffoons did indeed see the light of day. The photo wasn’t discovered until it appeared in the school’s football program book and posters distributed to local businesses.


Upper Arlington suspends 8 players for Findlay game (WFIN.com)



Meanwhile, it wasn’t player hijinks that stunted the order of Alcoa and Fulton’s game last night,  but something out of an Indiana Jones or Kevin Bacon movie…

With Alcoa leading 20-7 in the fourth quarter last night, the game had to be postponed because of sinkhole all of suddenly opened on 41-yard line.

OK, maybe Tremors is a bad comparison here. The hole was only a foot in a half in diameter – it wasn’t exactly eating midfield.

Sensing victory, Alcoa coach Gary Rankin wanted to play it out using half the field. Instead, they’ve postponed until 5 p.m today. That is, unless it develops into this…

Sinking to the occasion (KnoxNews.com)

Everything must go, including a whole mess of lanyards and credentials with his goateed face laminated on them.

Former ESPN broadcaster and Detroit radio personality, Mark Wilson, is leaving town (the state of Michigan, actually). But before he goes, he needs to sell off all the memorabilia his career in sports has afforded him over the years. The stash includes autographed bats, balls, crates of baseball cards, those radio guy jackets that will never go out of style, really old golf clubs and jerseys galore. It’s not all treasure – a replica MVP trophy from the Great Lakes Hockey championship – but there are items like the signed Joe Louis boxing gloves to be had. He’s even got a Charlie O. Finley baseball – the orange ball that Finley tried to replace white Major League baseballs with. Finley also wanted to institute designated runners and a mechanical rabbit that would pop up behind home plate and deliver new balls to the umpire (I digress, but I made up none of that).

Most notably, Wilson was the co-host of the popular Detroit sports-talk radio show Parker & The Man, he was ‘The Man.’ Wilson has also worked as a sports anchor and producer in Houston, Miami and Lansing. Judging by the array of Super bowl gear in his collection- a ceramic football from Super Bowl XL designed by Steve Mariucci? – he was something of a radio row lifer superstar.

Now, say you just wanted the Louis gloves, and maybe a lanyard or two. Well, liquidation stipulation – the whole lot needs to be moved at once and the asking price for the boat is $47 K. The kicker, assuming you live in the state of Michigan,  The Man Wilson will drive all his swag to your house!

And if you talk Motor City Chiefs hockey with him, I’m sure he’ll throw in some heavy lifting too.

(some info c/o of wikipedia)

Nothing like a potential feel good story of the year that you know is going to, at the same time, rile people up. Get a load of this tale of redemption…

On April 4, 2008, thoroughbred Freedom’s Flight’s career came to an all-to-familiar halt when his leg snapped on the track at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale, FL. Actually, it wasn’t a halt so to speak, he still went on to finish third in the race. After the expensive treatment to repair the injury failed, owners sold off the racehorse for a mere $500.

From MiamiHerald.com:

“They told me his racing career was over,” said [Herman] Heinlein, who owns 100 horses. He faced a choice: pay to euthanize Freedom’s Flight or, as Pinchin suggested, give him to Marian Brill, a 44-year veteran of Florida racing and a horse rescuer.


To a racehorse owner, an animal that can’t run “is a broken machine that don’t work,” Brill said. “They get rid of it.”


Heinlein says he kept title to the horse “because I didn’t want somebody to get him back to racing.”


Still a stallion, Freedom’s Flight could have undergone expensive treatment for his leg then become a breeder, but “he never proved himself as a racehorse,” said Brill, and since his famous ancestors begat hundreds of offspring, “Why breed the one that’s farther down the line?”


Brill, 58, said she “started rehabbing him” but his injuries were too daunting. Then, she said, a man whose name she didn’t know bought him for $500.


“They loaded him on a trailer and left,” she said.

According to the Herald, several months later, FF was spotted by the Miami-Dade Police Department’s Agricultural Patrol Unit tied to a tree on a “garbage feeder farm” – which is exactly what it sounds like, a farm that they cook garbage and feed it to swine. His price tag at the time had been $100.

The owner of the farm, Manuel Coto, allowed an SPCA vet to treat Freedom’s Flight for multiple ailments including “severe “rain rot,” which made him lose most of his hair, bites, wounds, severe rashes, abscesses under his hooves, detoxing from steroids, a fractured right cannon — shin — bone, and strangles, a potentially deadly, highly contagious bacterial infection.”

So far it reads like Seabiscuit, from the twisted mind of director Rob Zombie. If you’ll further indulge me, I promise it gets better.

While nursing the horse back to health, they discovered a tattoo under Freedom’s Flight’s lip that read: I35289. The Jockey Club thoroughbred registry indicated that the number revealed that he was the scion of, count em’, two Triple Crown winners: Seattle Slew, his grandpa and winner of the Triple Crown in 1977, and the legend himself, Secratariat, Freedom’s Flight’s dad.

Since the famous bloodline discovery, Freedom’s Flight has received $30,000 in vet care, and is the front runner to play Secratariat in a Disney movie. I’m hoping for a sci-fi drama – lots of scions, siars, members of the brood, prophesies being fulfilled, etc. etc.

(photos via spca-sofla.org)

Racehorse’s health restored 1 year after hellish descent (Miami Herald)

Enter a Chick-fil-A this Labor Day wearing anything from a mesh Little League cap to a USC song girl outfit, and your chicken sandwich is on the house.

From the Triangle Business Journal…

Chick-fil-A Inc. will give away a free chicken sandwich on Labor Day to anyone showing team spirit at one of the fast-food chain’s locations nationwide.


Anyone who wears any sports-related apparel on Sept. 7 at a participating Chick-fil-A restaurant will receive a free chicken sandwich in celebration of the second annual Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game in Atlanta, which will take place Saturday night with Alabama playing Virginia Tech.

According to the Chick-fil-A locator, the only store in NYC is in a New York University food court. Sadly, my resources to gain access to New York college eateries is limited to nonexistent  at this juncture. But hey, at least an eatery exists in the city (looking at you, Sonic jerks).

However, if you’re in Atlanta, the birthplace of Chick-fil-a and the site of the annual Chick-fil-A Bowl, you won’t have to bum rush the Georgia Tech or Spelman dining halls to take advantage of the promotion . To quote the restaurant locator, “there are 63 Chick-Fil-A’s near you.” I recommend you to try the buttermilk ranch sauce, Falcons fans.

Team spirit = free Chick-fil-A sandwich on Labor Day (Biz Journals)

The traditions and pageantry of bullfighting are far from being universally loved in the sports native country. Take these people for example…

That was a anti-bullfighting protest that took place in Las Ventas in May that was staged by the animal rights group, Equanimal. The participants stripped down to their ropa interior and covered themselves in fake blood and picadores – which are the spears that matadors use to stab the bull during the bull fight.

The people of San Sebastien, a small town in Central Spain which is best known as a great place to go on a country jaunt if you’re living in a Hemingway novel, have come up with their own alternative to Bullfighting that they feel is more humane. It’s called bull dallying – as in dillydallying? – and involves no swords and certainly no killing of the bull. You just bait the bull into running at you, then hope that your range of joint motion doesn’t fail you now.

According to Google translator, the word dally does not exist in the Spanish language. However, in English, it can mean to waste time or to play mockingly. One of these guys is definitely dallying. The other has murder/death/kill in mind.

Check out some more photos via Xinhua

Spain Invents New Style of Bull Fight (Oddity Central)

Entourage could go off the air tomorrow without a whimper, and I wouldn’t be the least bit broken up about it. It used to be one of my favorite shows. A great antidote for a feeble mind on a Sunday (i.e. a show where no problem can’t be solved in under 8 minutes). Even the most lethargic of Lazy Sunday routines have an expiration date, I suppose. Now, we just watch Mad Men in the same state, and are left pondering every wacky thing that Peggy Olson does.

Where Entourage continues to thrive and excel however, is the end credits. I don’t mean that in a snide “thank god that 22 minute show is finally over, hyuck hyuck” sort of way. More specifically, the music the producers select for the fade to black – whether they put much thought into it or not – always delivers.

Check out my top-10 Entourage end hits below – including three gems from this current season – and let’s hope that, for the next 1-5 seasons that they prolong this show, HBO reverts to a format where you get to jam to the credits, see if the very brusque Bob Saget is making another filthy guest appearance, and then should you choose, opt-in to watch the actual episode.

The Doors – “Peace Frog” (Season One, Episode Six)

Outkast – “Da Art of Story Tellin’ (part 2)” (Season Five, Episode 63)

Muse – “Time Is Running Out” (Season Two, Episode Nine)

Ace Frehley – “New York Groove” (Season Four, Episode 52)

TV On The Radio – “Staring At The Sun” (Season three, Episode 33)

The Dutchess and The Duke – “Reservoir Park” (Season Six, Episode 72)

Yeasayer – “Sunrise” (Season Six, Episode 74)

Rolling Stones – “Tumbling Dice” (Season Three, Episode 36)

Funkadelic – “Can You Get To That” (Season Five, Episode 66)

The Buzzcocks – “Why Can’t I Touch It” (Season Five, Episode 68)

This is not the WWF’s annual Turkey Bowl match, this is gravy wrestling competition at the World class level – the local fire crew even came out to hose down the wrestlers.

From Metro UK…

Huge crowds – well, around 100 people – gathered in Lancashire to watch competitors from around Britain battling it out in the annual World Gravy Wrestling Championships.


The contest saw 16 men and eight women grapple in front of a judging panel in a bid to be named the best gravy wrestler. …


Amateur wrestlers traveled from Devon, Derby, Scarborough and Leicester to take part – in fancy dress ranging from a city broker to a frog, a geisha girl, a doctor and Princess Fiona from Shrek.

This year marked the third annual WGWC, which is staged at the Rose n’ Bowl pub in Stackhead, Lancashire. 2,200 litres (440 gallons) – or some 40,000 ladles worth – of gravy was produced for the event. The crowd was made up mostly of the firemen, local ambulance volunteers, and some folks who asked the wrong locals: How do we get to the Meatloaf concert?

30-year old Scot Joel Hicks, wrestling under the name Stone Cold Steve Bisto, was crowned the World Gravy Wrestling Champion at the event. Here he is about to take a chair to his lumbar system -  I thought a similar event was going to break out at last year’s Thanksgiving when only half the table got to sample my mom’s bacon infused gravy.

Check out the scene for yourself…and remember it next time you’re having the southern-style breakfast at a Bob Evans…