Boston is exploding

The Boston Red Sox may not lose again. They have won 12 straight games, just swept the Mets and are pulling away from that other New York Team.

So what’s happening? Our guess is that Manager Terry Francona told the team they’d have to sleep with Drew Barrymore if they lost a game.

That’d make any team — even the Royals — win 12 straight.

Elsewhere around the leauge:

-Ken Griffey just flashed back to 1993 and hit a homerun for his fourth-straight game.

-Minnesota has won 7 straight, but can’t pick up ground on the equally hot Detroit Red Wings Tigers.

-And the Atlanta Braves are behind the Florida Marlis. Yeah, strange.

Chris Mullin can be found hanging himself

Now the NBA isn’t really our thing. We think the pro game is boring and really takes the fun out of an otherwise fantastic game.

However we get very excited — damn-near giddy — come NBA Draft time. We know all of the college dudes and find humor in David Stern trying to pronounce the names of those damn Euros.

But while happy that it’s draft day, the joy subsides when the Golden State Warriors pick. This year, Chris Mullin, white, decided to pick two players who are about 94.82% sure not to make an impact.
The Golden Staters picked Patrick O’Bryant, center, Bradley at no. 9 and Kosta Perovic, center, Europe at no. 38.

Sure O’Bryant is big, but if the guy was a second-team All-MVC, how good can he really be? If he is so dominant, shouldn’t he have torn up a small conference like the Missouri Valley?

And for Europe Boy, um, well he’s not gonna be good. Sure, he’s the next Dirk. But who the fuck isn’t these days? And when Cal’s Leon Powe is still on the board, why pass on a guy who’s gonna fill seats?

So, if you’re looking for Chris Mullin — to, you know, kick his ass — well, he’s beaten you to it.

In other NBA Draft news: Spike Lee was seen in the audience doing scout work for his next movie on the life of NBA Commissioner David Stern.

NBA Draft Preview

As you may or may not know, the NBA draft is this afternoon. Seeing as the draft is only 2 rounds, and the top picks will likely be wasted on some European chump, a child molester, and a guy with an unfortunate last name, The Big Picture won’t be live blogging like we did with the NFL draft. History tells us that Europeans often turn out to be busts, white guys usually suck, and since the Warriors are projected in some mock drafts to land Rudy Gay, he’ll probably be terrible too. Bottom line? Don’t expect the guys coming out this year to have anything on the fellas from 2003.

A few notes on the draft:

– There’s no clear no. 1 pick, so Toronto is pretty much fucked. That’s what you get for being Canadian.

– If we were a GM, we’d take our boy Brandon Roy, whom Dicky V calls a “special player.” Of course, he said this while slobbing J.J. Redick‘s knob, so who knows what to believe?

– We expect to see some pretty sweet styles on stage.

So even though we won’t have a live blogging party, you can still watch the draft and make it a little more interesting with our official NBA draft drinking game. Here are the rules:

– Every time you see an unpronounceable name: 1 drink.
– When you hear an analyst refer to a player’s “inside game” or “outside game”: 2 drinks.
– When someone is said to “play above the rim”: 4 drinks.
– When Dick Vitale calls someone “special”: 1 drink.
-When Dick Vitale’s incessant screaming gives you a headache: 5 drinks (and maybe an aspirin)
– Every time someone is said to have a big “upside”: 3 drinks.
– Any time you hear a player compared to: Dirk Nowitzki: 1 drink, Shaq: 2 drinks, Dwyane Wade: 3 drinks, Larry Bird: 4 drinks, Michael Jordan: 5 drinks, Wally Szczerbiak: finish it!

Feel free to make up your own rules, heck, share ’em in the comments section! Enjoy the draft everyone.

-Jamie Costello

Jamie is a speech-language pathologist studying at the University of Washington. You have no idea how hard his job is.

Say a prayer for PG

Let’s take a break from the comedy for a minute and talk about something serious. Our favorite baseball analyst, the great PG, Hall-of-Famer Peter Gammons is recovering in a hospital after suffering a brain aneurysm. Gammons may have the most inside connections in baseball, and has provided a nice change of pace this season to the Sunday Night Baseball telecasts on ESPN. Let’s all pray/cross our fingers/perform healing rituals/whatever works for a speedy recovery. Pete, we hope to have you back soon.

In other news: San Francisco Giants GM Brian Sabean considered resigning after Francisco Liriano won yet another game for the Minnesota Twins.

And here’s your Tuesday morning entertainment…

…courtesy of Asheville Tourists manager Joe Mikulik.

Beavers!

Any excuse to mention Beaver is really pretty exciting. Yes, we’re college grads. Yes, we prefer sophisticated humor. Yes, we pride ourselves on maturity.

And still we find insurmountable pleasure in a team called the Beavers.

The Oregon State baseball team — the Beavers, yay! — beat North Carolina 3-2 Monday to capture the College World Series. It’s OSU’s first baseball title and, to steal a line from our other site, Oregon State and champions are two things not often associated with one another.

Back when we were writing headlines at the UW paper, we would always brainstorm great headlines if the Dawgs beat OSU pretty good. For example:

-Dawgs pound Beaver(s)
-Huskies nail Beaver(s)
-UW runs through Beaver(s)

Or, after a rain-filled evening:

–Dawgs rain supreme over OSU Huskies make Beavers wet

Ok, you get the idea.

But big ups to the Beavers and the rest of the wonderful town of Corvallis, Ore. This is the best thing to happen to them since the local diner introduced chocolate creme pie.

In other news: Jason Giambi hit two homeruns Monday after having a weekend play date with Victor Conte.

Who the Fuck is Booz Allen?

Well, it’s hard to say.

What we can confidently say is that it is the name of a golf tournament being led by Ben Curtis heading into today’s action. But for this Boozer dude, we just don’t know for sure. We typed some shit into google and all that came up was this silly thing. (Fine, so we probably added an “e” to his name.)

All we could dig up on Old Man Booz(er) is that Edwin G. Booz(er) crafted the idea of management consulting back during WWI. No word on his involvment in the war, but we’ll suggest he was not at all OK with prohibition. Boozer’s role in bootlegging is hazy, as was he while assissting other thirsty lawbreakers.

As for this Allen thing, it comes from Boozer’s drinking buddy at Northwestern, James L. Allen. If this is indeed the company sponsor for this golf classic (which we can’t confirm), Booz Allen is not one man at all, but two men who combined for a pretty wonderful name and a lot of blurry days in Chicago.

Read other Who the fuck is…: Mel Kiper Jr.; Chris Shelton; George Mason; Pat Venditte; Sidney Lowe; Orestes Destrade; Eric Musselman.

In other news: Esteban Loaiza beat the Giants Sunday after doing 120 on the freeway with a bottle of whiskey the night before.

What does Brett Myers tell a woman with two black eyes?

…nothing. He already told her twice.

And that woman would be his wife. The Phillies pitcher was arrested Friday and charged with assulting his wife outside a bar in Boston.

Myers was released on $200 bail by — get this — his fucking wife. Guess she really loves him. Or his money. Either way.

Though it could probably go without saying, we’ll say it anyway: Myers will not make love to his wife for a very, very long time.

We imagine the wife was in pretty bad condition. Based solely on the above photo, Myers appears to have a strong right hook.

And an intersting tidbit, Myers has a background in boxing and martial arts. Did the Karate Kid ever beat his girlfriend? Probably.

In other news: The St. Louis Cardinals gave up 10 more runs in a 10-6 loss to Detroit and are considering changing their name to the Rams.

Isiah Thomas must hate the Knicks

Everybody’s favorite cheap joke, Isiah Thomas, is once again going to be the butt of many jokes.

The Knicks fired head coach Larry Brown Thursday and replaced Brown with Thomas — the NBA exec of the year.

Brown, pictured during happier times, coached the Knicks to a 0-82 23-59 mark last season. Isiah did not like that.

Brown was also criticized for his treatment of the players, namely Stephon Marbury, which is thought to be a factor in his firing. Thomas has a good relationship with Starbury and plans to play him at the 1 through 4 position next season. If Marbury decides he can’t play four positions at once, Thomas is rumored to be in the market for a big-name guard.

Thomas has not discussed playing for the Knicks, though he will likely contemplate naming himself the captain.

In other news: Minnesota beat Houston 4-2 after striking for two early runs off of Rocket Man.

National Nightmare is Over

Everybody had poured over all of the scenarios for the U.S. to advance in the World Cup. The big one everybody seemed to omit was the obvious one — the U.S. had to, you know, win a game.

U.S. lost to Ghana (made famous by Kamala the headhunter) 2-1 Thursday, eliminating the Americans from the World Cup. And thus, it will be killing America’s dwindling interest in soccer.

In fact, this World Cup is going to have a devastating impact on Americans. This country was ready to embrace soccer and really get behind this team. But that won’t happen now. And don’t talk about the marketing campaign, either. That Nike commercial has no flopped worse than the Dan O’Brien commercial from Reebok years ago.

At least America can now turn its attention to the Stanley Cup playoffs!

— NFL Adam