Currently, there are NBA memorabilia items up for auction on ebay that are both priced higher and more ridiculous – for example, a framed, vinyl-copy of the Thriller album signed by Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan. However, this has to be the most curious case of trying to cash in on a superstar’s early accolades that I’ve seen since last year when I found someone selling eight scrapbooks of Lebron James complete press clippings for $250 K. For just under five grand you can purchase a set of four yearbooks from Lower Merion High School, in Ardmore Pennsylvania, from 1993-96.

It’s no coincidence, that during that four year span, the Lower Merion “Aces” varsity basketball team was led by Kobe Bryant. He was also voted to Homecoming King and Most Likely to Succeed his senior year. (A+ to the seller for including every single shot of Kobe from each book in the listing.)

Redacted: Bears mentioning that First Cuts posted this find yesterday – someone selling an 8th grade yearbook that Kobe signed for $9,995.00! His message: “Blosom, you are a good dancer and very sympathetic. Love, Kobe Bryant.” (H/T @chrislittmann)

Maybe it’s because I’ve been reading a lot of deranged fiction lately (Bret Easton Ellis), and need to get the aggression out, or maybe it’s because I just really like boxing. Either way, I haven’t read a good sports book in awhile (about two months; read When March Went Mad during March Madness), and I’m interested in reading a great book about boxing. Looking for suggestions.

Here are eight I pulled off Amazon. Leave insights in the comments, fellow fans of pugilist lit.

The Greatest Boxing Stories Ever Told: Thirty-Six Incredible Tales from the Ring, edited by Jeff Silverman

The Sweet Science, by A.J. Liebling

My View from the Corner: A Life in Boxing, by Angelo Dundee

Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson, by Wil Haygood

The Professional, by W.C. Heinz

The Arc of Boxing: The Rise and Decline of the Sweet Science, by Mike Silver

Sound and Fury: Two Powerful Lives, One Fateful Friendship, by Dave Kindred

Four Kings: Leonard, Hagler, Hearns, Duran and the Last Great Era of Boxing, by George Kimball

This past week, I haven’t exactly been on a live music hot streak.

On Tuesday, the news came down that The Eagles and Phish are headlining Austin City Limits (Here’s a message for the crack geniuses who made that decision). I’ll never buy tickets to a festival when the line-up is site unseen ever again.

On Thursday, I went to see Pearl Jam at Madison Square Garden, and it was just OK. Then – and this is where non-Pearl Jam nerds can just scroll down and watch the video with Ben Bridwell – I saw the set-list for the show at MSG the following night.

Here are the set-lists from the two shows:

Thursday night:

1. Sometimes
2. Breakerfall
3. Last Exit
4. Animal
5. The Fixer
6. Severed Hand
7. Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town
8. I Am Mine
9. Comatose
10. Force of Nature
11. Even Flow
12. Low Light
13. Down
14. I Got Id
15. Army Reserve
16. Insignificance
17. Unthought Known
18. Do The Evolution

Encore:
20. The End
21. Lukin
22. Just Breathe
23. You Are
24. Love, Reign O’er Me (The Who cover)
25. State Of Love And Trust
26. Once
27. Porch

Encore 2:
29. Jeremy
30. Leash
31. Mankind
32. Crazy Mary (Victoria Williams cover)
33. I Believe In Miracles (Ramones cover)
34. Alive
35. Indifference

Friday night:

1. Corduroy
2. Hail Hail
3. Do The Evolution
4. World Wide Suicide
5. Got Some
6. Breath
7. Nothingman
8. I’m Open
9. Unthought Known
10. Grievance
11. Amongst The Waves
12. Present Tense
13. Not For You
14. Push Me, Pull Me
15. Rats
16. Daughter
17. The Fixer
18. Why Go

Encore:
2. The End
3. Just Breathe
4. Lukin
5. Black, Red, Yellow
6. Sweet Lew
7. Given To Fly
8. Spin The Black Circle
9. Rearviewmirror

Encore 2:
2. Wasted Reprise
3. Better Man
4. Black
5. The Real Me (The Who cover)
6. Hunger Strike (Temple of the Dog cover) (with Ben Bridwell)
7. Alive
8. Kick Out The Jams (MC5 cover)
9. Yellow Ledbetter with Star Spangled Banner guitar solo

My girlfriend and I made the decision to go Thursday night for a number of reasons, not the least of which was to see Black Keys over Band of Horses. Eddie mumbled a shout out to Dan Auerbach at one point – pittance compared to this:

Don’t get me wrong, Thursday had some highlights (Reigh O’er Me through Porch), but the set-list as a whole is just pale in comparison. I should’t even be complaining considering that I was at this show in 2008. At $90 a ticket to sit in the 400 level, I reserve the right to sulk a little.

Maybe my timing will be better next tour. I leave you with a quality video of Breath that someone took on Friday:

That Malcolm X by Edward Jackson is part of Grant Hill’s extensive collection of fine African American art. But first off, wasn’t he fantastic last night? I can’t remember a game where I saw someone disrespect Kobe with so many mid-range jumpers. His team is still going to lose the series, but I’d love to see Hill keep up.

Even though the Suns appear to be on their way out of this year’s NBA playoffs, Grant Hill, painting and sculpture aficionado, is just starting to pique as a renaissance man. For instance, we recently learned that Hill signed on to executive produce a documentary about Duke basketball. He discussed his philosophy on having passions outside the game with USA Today this week:

Hill doesn’t believe he’s the exception among NBA players in his unique interests, which include exhibits for 20th century African-American art.

“A lot of times they’re scared to comment on it or to share their interests with the public,” Hill says of other athletes. “We should. It’s encouraging to see that. When I shared my art collection there were a lot of positives that came from that. Hopefully it showed a lot of other athletes it’s OK if you have a hobby or interest you’re involved in. Use your platform as an athlete to expose, to share, to bring knowledge to people.”

That was deep Let’s be honest, Hill’s going to have to have another assassin’s game and Phoenix needs to win game three in anyone other yours truly is going to acknowledge that Grant Hill, film auteur, art connoisseur is in the midst of a renaissance. Otherwise, it’s just an aging athlete doing stuff with money.

Immediately following last night’s NBA Draft lottery, columnist David Steele, posted on Twitter asking that armed guards keep Michael Jordan from coming anywhere near D.C. until the draft is over. Wizards fans who remember when Jordan drafted Kwame Brown with the #1 pick in 2001 do not find this statement one bit outlandish.

I thought it worthwhile to revisit that hot debacle, and my research led me to discover that not only did Kwame expect, presumably, that he would average more than 10 points per game more than once (10.9 ppg, his career high in 8 years in the league), but he also thought he might get a chance to shine alongside M.J.

Here’s an exert from a June ’01 article in USA Today:

One of those dreams is possibly playing with Jordan, who is contemplating a comeback this season. Broken ribs 2 weeks ago slowed Jordan, but he is getting in condition to play again.

“I had to make my (selection) as if Michael Jordan will not be playing,” Jordan said. “If I decide to play, it’ll only add to what we’ve done.”

Brown is eager to play with Jordan.

“Who else has a chance to say that their boss is the best player ever,” Brown said. “If he plays, I can learn a lot, and I can still learn from him even if he doesn’t.”

Jordan did in fact return during Brown’s rookie season to lead the team in scoring with 22 ppg in 60 games, Brown contributed 4.5 ppg in 57.

Without getting too carried away with the hindsight here, what’s appropriate to describe these statements? Lousy with delusions of grandeur?

Apropos of nothing other than that Wizards fans have been having entirely too much fun today.

In a new poll commissioned by UK milkshake company Frijj, makers of the chocolate fudge brownie shake, indicate that a percentage of English citizens are ready to make some really rash decisions should England win the 2010 World Cup. According to the exercise in would-be sacrifice, 51% would turn down a night of passionate buggering with the alluring, above pictured, Cheryl Cole. 12% said they would give up sex altogether for a year.

The gauntlet for impetuous World Cup abstinence has been thrown down.

I’m sure we could find some berserk fans on this side of the pond who would give up the same if the U.S. could beat England on that first Saturday of group play.

We’d give up sex.. if team won (Mirror UK)

Earlier this week on Twitter, Friday Night Lights author, Buzz Bissinger, added some biting commentary to the story surrounding outed 22-year old Guerdwich Montimere, who posed as a 16-year old basketball superstar at Odessa-Permian High School in West Texas, the setting of Bissinger’s formative FNL novel.

The Associated Press story puts much – if not all – of the blame on Montimere’s shoulders, and casts Permian as being duped on account of their good nature. Buzz’ tweets obviously do not concur.

He clearly believes that something was up with Montimere’s handlers in Texas, and I can’t help but see his point. Consider these details:

Montimere presented himself as Joseph after moving to Odessa in February 2009 and enrolling as a ninth-grader at a junior high. He showed officials a Haitian birth certificate indicating he was 15 and claimed he lived with a half-brother in the dorm of a local university, [Mike] Adkins said.

After admitting the person was a friend, not his half-brother, Montimere moved in with Permian boys basketball coach Danny Wright when the friend left the state last summer, Adkins said.

The story about living with a brother in a University dorm is at least a little suspect. It then becomes a highly suspect situation when he confesses that this person was actually just a friend and he needed to move out. I don’t question Danny Wright’s or anyone else’s compassion – but I bet Buzz does – but I wouldn’t be surprised if their hiding behind it to mask that they did nothing to question the situation that was unfolding, and came to a head this week.

Buzz has since switched gears to ranting about Lebron and bloggers (his favorite topic to run wild on).

In photo: Raymond Towler, the other guy, enjoys the National Anthem before last night’s Celtics-Cavs game while standing on the court alongside a afflicted looking Shaq. (Did Shaq know what was coming?)

He’s wearing the number 52, because that’s his age. Prior to last week, the last time Towler was not an inmate was when he was in his early 20s.

Yesterday, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer reported that Towler, a lifelong Cavs fan who used to watch games on a 13-inch television while locked up, would be the Cavs guest of honor at the game last night after being released after serving 29 years for a false conviction that he raped an 11-year old girl.

(Sidebar: Falsely convicted of Murder. That’s the only false charge that comes to mind that’s on-par with being falsely convicted on raping an 11-year old girl)

The Cavaliers set him up nice: treated him and his family to a dinner in the VIP lounge, he stood on the floor during pre-game warm-ups, they let him take two three-pointers (he made one), and the team even showed up for two quarters of their playoff game.

Considering the Cavs lost Towler’s homecoming game 120 – 88, I can’t decide whether his reaction would be positive – because hey, no more heinous crimes on my record, woot – or if he’d rail on the team like any other diehard fan. I’d say any margin less than 20 is guaranteed good tidings from the guy who just got out of prison after falsely being convicted of raping an 11-year old (Man, I still can’t get over how awful that is). But torched then cauterized by 32 points in game five of a playoff series? I’m not sure even a newly freed man is going to be able to take the bad with the good.

I couldn’t care less what Mike Brown and Lebron James have to say about last night’s game, I want to hear this guy’s post-game quote.

Photo via ESPN.com

With Iron Man 2 opening today to the delight of RDJ fans – including this one – wanted to give Downey Jr. the same treatment that we gave Johnny Depp a while back and poll the sports blog intelligentsia: Which Sports Biopic would you like to see Robert Downey Jr. star in?

Now I’m no David Rubin (casting director on Less Than Zero, film moguls), but here are some of Downey’s traits I sent around:

• Can play unhinged (citing: Natural Born Killers, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Charlie Bartlett)

• Can dial it back, and play still unhinged, but repressing it (citing: A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints)

• Can Will play black (citing: Tropic Thunder)

• Can make ill conceived career decisions (citing: the 22 episodes of Ally McBeal from 2000-03, and his foray into music)

• Can take his shirt off (citing: Sherlock Holmes)

• Can play British (citing: Natural Born Killers, again)

Realistically, we’re far closer to seeing Downey star as Hugh Hefner, then any sports personalities (H/T Dan Adams). However, I got some great submissions from the sports blogosphere’s finest, all of whom I even sent a picture of 80′s hot Jami Gertz as a source of inspiration. Check out the Top-5 suggestions below, and feel free to add your own in the comments.

Mark Cuban

My quick take is Mark Cuban. We’ve seen him play the brash billionaire quite well in Iron Man, so Cuban’s a natural fit for him. (Ben Q. Rock/Orlando Pinstriped Post)

Theo Fleury

His rise to stardom, fall due to substance abuse, and the recent come back attempt, feel good ending. (Adam Kingsley/The Hoop Doctors)

Helio Gracie

Since Robert Downey Jr. has martial arts training (specifically jiu-jitsu), only fitting that he play the Godfather of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in an MMA origins movie. (Adam Best/Fansided.com)

Lance Armstrong

Ill-advised? Dude was awesome in Ally McBeal.  How bout Lance Armstrong? (David Chalk/Bugs & Crank)*

*I’m pretty sure David couldn’t care less if Downey Jr. plays Lance Armstrong, and just responded to defend his performance in Ally McBeal.

Roberto Clemente

H/T to Ryan Hudson (Editor, SB Nation) for finding this deep link on the Red Sox website that lists their walk-up music. He especially likes Dice-K taking the mound to Fabolous. Personally, I don’t think it’s gets any better than Jeremy Hermida coming out to N2Deep’s “Back to the Hotel.”

Four different tracks. Artists and titles unknown.

They actually let him get away with that.

Is this something that’s universally listed on every team’s website? It should be. I did some not-great research, and could only find a listing of the 2008 Detroit Tigers entrance music. However, a coworker of mine who was at the Yankee game last night at least confirms that a certain captain comes out to this song…

And yes, here’s N2Deep with “Back to the Hotel”