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

Fun with uniforms

We here at The Big Picture recognize that Uni Watch is the premier place on the internet to obsess about uniforms. Uni Watch, we are humbled by you, however, we would like to take a stab at posting about uniforms as well. That being said, get your clicking fingers ready, and away we go.

We've always admired the city of Pittsburgh for having three professional sports teams with the same color scheme. We're not sure how this got started over in the steel city, but we imagine some forward thinker saw the benefits of being able to wear gear from one team to the others' games and still blend in. A little internet research led us to this gem of a website that attempts to answer the question (scroll to the bottom of the page). Continuing our trek through google land, we find that the Wikipedia entry doesn't offer any enlightenment, but does reveal some lesser Pittsburgh sports teams that also use black and gold. Women playing football, who knew? We recall reading something, somewhere, sometime about why all the teams wear black and gold, but our memory is clouded. We're pretty sure that the reasoning behind it all has to do with the colors on the city flag, which kinda makes sense. Indeed, Uni Watch confirms with a terse explanation on this page.

Now for the fun part. We got to thinking, what would happen if OTHER cities all used the same colors? What we should have done is looked at the flags of other cities, and used those colors. Instead, we chose the team with the worst colors and went nuts.

Oakland: Home of the Warriors, A's, and Raiders. These teams currently have no Uni continuity, even though two play in the same stadium (until the A's move to Fremont), and the other is in the arena right next door. We mostly chose Oakland because the Raiders have such simple, classic uniforms that would be ruined by the addition of any color other than silver. The A's meanwhile, have a fairly awful color scheme of green and bright yellow. What would happen if the A's spread their Uni colors to all the teams in Oakland? The Warriors would go from this to this. We'll call this an improvement, there's been something wrong with those duds ever since they stopped wearing these. The Raiders are another story. As stated, the Raiders current Unis are some of the best, and they would go from this to this. Not as bad as first imagined, but still a huge step backwards. They look a little too much like the Packers, and that's never a good thing. Overall: A bad idea. The Warriors get a little better (up for debate), but the Raiders lose everything that makes them great. Put the A's and Warriors in silver and black, and then we might make a deal.

Miami: There's just something about Orange and Teal that really makes us wonder, couldn't the Dolphins have done better? We've thought for about 10 years that this team would be the next to get a full Uni makeover, and it still hasn't happened. They even realize how terrible their own Unis are, and elect to wear white at home. Smart choice. So what would happen in the Dolphins infected the other Miami teams with their colors? The Marlins would go from this to this. The Marlins don't have Unis that are anything to write home about to begin with, but a black jersey is way more classy than teal. The truth is, the Marlins already have a similar teal color in their Uni, and they've been smart enough to not make a solid jersey with it. If they did, it would be a disaster. What about the Heat? The NBA champs would go from this to this. Shaq would probably be unhappy. Overall: Another bad idea. Two black jerseys become teal, and Dwayne Wade demands a trade. Ooh that rhymes.


Minneapolis: For some reason all the teams that play here go with Minnesota, instead of using the city name. They both sound sorta silly. Anyway, things could really get ugly if the Minnesota teams took a cue from the Vikings. The good people over at Uni Watch hate nothing more than the color purple, which we sort of understand but have a little problem buying into, being Huskies and all. For the most part though, we agree, and believe that purple must be done right, and in only small doses. So what would happen if all the teams in Minneapolis switched to purple and yellow? The T'wolves would go from this to this. Eek. The Twins would go from this to this. The colors didn't come out quite right on that one, but you can imagine the horror. Overall: Trouble, big trouble for all parties. However, they could be worse. Which brings us to...

Denver. The people of the mile high city would have to be, well, about a mile high to think this is a good idea. The Nuggets, Rockies, and Broncos all play here, and all have very different color schemes. The Rockies might have the worst Unis in all of sports, at least, on the days they wear black vests with purple sleeves. The Broncos do fine with orange and blue. And then there's the Nuggets. We normally like powder blue, especially in baseball, and although we like the idea of using powder blue for the Nuggets, it's just not quite right. Though they are certainly a step up from these days. So what would happen in all the teams in Denver went to powder blue? The Broncos would go from this to this. Whoa. It actually, kind of, works. It reminds us of the old Chargers Unis, which they've brought back recently as a throwback. We think they should make that change permanent. As for the Broncos, it wouldn't be bad, but having two powder blue teams in the same division could be overwhelming. The orange and blue is working, might as well stick with it. How about the Rockies? They would go from this (shudder) to this. DANGER DANGER, ABORT!!! This would truly be a disaster. The blue vest with yellow sleeves, it gives us the jibblies. The verdict: run for the hills. The Broncos would be acceptable, but they would look like copycats, the Rockies would go from bad to unspeakable.

The lesson we've learned today is this: Pittsburgh is cool, but probably the only city that could pull off the multi-team, single-color-scheme feat.

Thanks a million to Chris Creamer's Sports Logos Page, Dressed To The Nines, and of course, Uni Watch. Without your websites this column would not be. An extra special shout out to Photoshop, which can be used to put faces of hot celebrities on naked bodies, and can turn any uniform powder blue.

-Jamie Costello

Jamie is a graduate student at the University of Washington, and Zach's unofficial editor. His favorite exclamation is Oo-de-lally. He is aware that he left out some hockey teams.

Yanks take down Germans once again

Not satisfied with the USA's dominant victories in World Wars I and II, Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal (Americans) stuck it to Dirk Nowitzki (German) as the Miami Heat won their first NBA championship, beating the Dallas Mavericks 95-92 and taking the series 4-2. Being unsure how to take this joke any further without offending anyone, we'll just offer some thoughts on the Finals:

- Why does Wade spell his first name Dwyane? Shouldn't it be Dwayne? We don't pronounce it "Dwa-yane" do we?

- Nice to see Gary Payton and 'Zo get rings. Those guys have been through a lot and deserve to be champs for once.


-Nice to see Mark Cuban lose. What a tool.

- We love Shaq, but he didn't prove he can win one without Kobe. He proved he still needs Kobe or someone even better in order to win.

-Pat Riley is like, apparently a pretty good coach.


-Love Avery Johnson. He could probably fit inside the Larry O'Brien trophy.


In other news: The NHL Stanley Cup Finals also concluded this week, and somebody beat someone else to win it all.

-Jamie Costello

The Mighty Devil Rays are slipping

The once proud and true franchise the Tampa Bay Devil Rays might be going down the tubes. Don’t worry. We’re just as shocked as you are. It seems that their draft picks seem to have a hard time outrunning the long arm of the law. Just in case you don’t have the Internet, here are some of the highlights:

Josh Hamilton — forgot to “Just Say No” and drugs ensnared him just like Zach some other kid that isn’t Zach.

B.J. Upton — furious over being named after the act of fellatio, Upton reached a breaking point. One night in North Carolina, he got drunk, got arrested, met J.J. Redick in jail, autographed Redick’s scrotum, donkey punched him, tea-bagged him, slapped him with both an open hand and a closed fist, peed on J.J., and made farting noises with his hand and his armpit.

Toe Nash — the infamous Nash thought it would be a hilarious prank if he assaulted a minor, raped her, and then topped it off with a felony theft. The girl didn’t have quite the same sense of humor as Toe, and failed to see the funniness. Now, he can only hope his cellmate T-Bone shares his sense of amusement.

Delmon Young — everyone is familiar with batgate. Although, in his defense, he did do it all in the name of science.

If a man named Toe Nash can’t succeed in the world, what hope is there for the rest of us? It just makes us count our blessings everyday that instead of buying the Devil Rays when they were offered to us for $129.99 in 1998 we made friends with Bob Sagat. The rest, as they say in Mexico, is history.




-The Tar Heel

The YAYsports! dance is your chance to do the hump

All right stop what you’re doing
‘Cause I’m about to ruin
The image and the style that you’re used to
I look funny
But yo I’m making money, see
So yo world I hope you’re ready for me
Now gather round
I’m the new fool in town
And my sound’s laid down by the YAYsports!
I’ll drink up all the Kool-Aid you got on your shelf
So just let me introduce myself
My name is Tar Heel
Pronounced with an Arheel

So Zach asked us to fill in while he’s in rehab volunteering at the orphanage. Just in case you can’t read, I’m the Tar Heel and I normally kick it over at YAYsports!, the fourth greatest sports blog on the Interweb with the word YAY, sports, and an exclamation point somewhere in the title. So sit back and relax and enjoy your day. Don’t worry, we’ll be gentle.

P.S. We'd like to give a hat tip to Adam over at the Hater Nation for filling in yesterday and leaving the place in such immaculate condition. Every single blow-up doll was deflated and put away by the time we got here. Thank you, Adam. We salute thee.

P.S.S. Looptid.


-The Tar Heel

eBay

See the box on the left? It’s an actually replica of Ben Roethlisberger’s motor cycle helmet. And you can purchase it on eBay.

Very funny. The winning bidder paid nearly $1 for this historic heirloom. But it also got the ol’ imagination going. What else could this prized peace of emptiness also represent. So your assignment for the rest of the day is to think of things this empty box could also represent. Here is a few fairly obvious suggestions. You are expected to be more clever than this.

• The Manning family’s Super Bowl trophies.
  

• The Bish’s real hair.
  

• A video tape (oops, forgot you kids are of the computer age) DVD of the NFL playoff game won by Jim Mora (the elder).
  

• All of the girls Zach has seen nude. (Strip clubs don’t count.)
  

• All of the great music ever created by U2.

Alright people, it’s time for work.

--NFL Adam

Seriously

At some point you have to wonder if the Steelers even want to defend their Super Bowl title. Rookie receiver Santonio Holmes was arrested for the second time since being drafted by the defending champs. Holmes was picked up on domestic violence charges over the weekend.

It looks like Bengals receiver Chris Henry has a challenger for his coveted most incarcerated award. But what makes Holmes impressive is that he has not even played a down of football.

Nice offseason for the Steelers. Next you’ll here that Troy Polamalu set his hair on fire in a fondue incident.

--NFL Adam

Greatings Seattle!

SUNSET BEACH, CALIF. – Welcome to the Big Picture.

Zach is away for the week teaching Aborigines how to blog and The Hater Nation has been selected to host today. Some peole make the world a better place, others make jokes about Cowgirl. Most of you might be familiar with the website, a favorite of OC Register columnist Steve "the Bish" Bisheff. But for those of you who are not, The Hater Nation is just like the Big Picture, without all of the f-bombs. And crippling porn addiction.

A THN Monday tradition is the Post Mortem — a weekend wrap-up of the happenings. This will be special Big Picture edition with all new material for all of you U Dub types who, since you have a football team, could care less about college baseball. Instead, we’ll start with the Stanley Cup, the NBA Finals and the World Cup.

Just kidding, come back, come back. No, it’s time to open this up with some boobs:

• Maybe there was something to the theory expounded by Ben Wright who said that the boobs get in the way. How else could you describe the demise of Colin Montgomerie and Phil Mickelson who completely choked down the stretch? So much for the "Mickelslam." And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, too. Mickelson’s nickname on the tour is FIG JAM (F*** I’m Good, Just Ask Me). Mickelson’s act is as transparent as Cris Carter’s nice guy rep in the NFL.
  

• But it’s good to see Mickelson back where he belongs—choking. The new Mickelson had become quite unsettling. Like watching Peyton Manning win a big game or something. The only shame in all of this is that it wasn’t Tiger Woods putting him back in his place, just his own incompetence.
  

• The mental image we have for Zach is Breckin Meyer. Is that even close?
  

• David Segui has admitted the he used HGH. This is really bad news. No, not for baseball. But for all you readers who are going to sift through endless jokes about how Segui should have been hitting better, or that steroids don’t work at all, or any of that nonsense. Seriously, those jokes are as predictable as a Norv Turner game plan.

AND FINALLY
Some good news for the Mets. Not only did Kris Benson defeat the Mets on Saturday, dude also hit a home run for good measure. Where did Kris find the strength to do out on defeat his former team? His wife, Anna, made good on her promise to “do” the entire Mets team (and staff) if she ever caught Kris cheating—which she did. So obviously the Mets were unable to play baseball with a raging case of herpes. Only Keith Hernandez could do that.

This should be a good week, so be sure to stick around. THN will be here for the rest of the day, Tar Heel from YAYsports! will be here on Tuesday, and some dude on Wednesday.


--NFL Adam

Are Timeouts Important?

To be fair, Josh Howard’s timeout blunder is not as devastating as C-Webb’s indiscretion, but damn dude, get your head into the game.

--NFL Adam

Housekeeping

We know we were just gone for a week, meaning The Big Picture was not very cool with infrequent posts.

Now we have to go away again, for about 5 days -- this time for a staff retreat for our job. So the site will suck again this week, right?

No. Definitely not. We have turned to some of the best bloggers out there to help us out for the week while we're gone.

So here's the deal:

• NFL Adam from the whoop-ass The Hater Nation will be posting here Monday and Thursday.
• The Tar Heel from the still sexy YAYsports! NCAA and MLB will be posting Tuesday and Thursday.
• And our pal Jamie, from El Cerrito, Calif. will be posting Wednesday.
  

So there you have it. The Big Picture promises to be cool -- if not better than normal -- while we're away. This way you can catch up on your reading while realizing how much you hate your job.

Enjoy the guests this week, treat them well, and we'll see you Friday.

U.S. soccer: 'let's just not look silly'

The United States has a group of men that they sent to Germany a week or so ago that plays on a field against other groups of men from other countries.

When these group of men got together on the playing field last week, they were badly embarrassed. Today, against the country famous for pizza, pasta and (insert your racist Italian joke here), these men will try not to look silly.

The United States soccer "team" -- as they like to call themselves -- will take on favored Italy and try not to get eliminated from the World Cup. It would make many Americans upset, because, all of a sudden, people in the States are buying into this game where no hands are used. Strange that a game where a person with no arms could theoretically succeed, is so popular.

Well, we suppose that's a good thing for people without arms.

In other news: Jerry Stackhouse was suspended for Game 5 of the NBA Finals after he told Shaq that Kazaam "fucking sucked."

Atlanta may want to start thinking about a new streak

The Atlanta Braves play baseball. They play it well. They have a good coach. His last name is Cox. It's not his stage name.

The Braves have won the National League East 14 straight times, which, we're told, is some sort of record. Though, Mr. Met has something to say about that.

The New York Metropolitans, after winning their eighth straight game, have opened up a 9.5- game lead on Philadelphia and a 13-game lead on Atlanta.

Braves fans are angry and are considering chopping up the team into small pieces with their foam toys.

Math has never been our strong point, but we think that New York's magic number is 7.

Sure the Mets have many good players, like this fresh-faced 23-year old named David "the price is Wright" and Carlos "Vega" Beltran. But we're about 96.9% sure the reason New York is now 19 games over .500 and in control of the NL East is because most of the players took their turn with Anna Benson during the offseason.

Editor's note: Reader JMC raises an excellent point. The Braves have not won the NL East 14 straight times. They have won the division. They played in the NL West before 1994's re-allignment.

In other news: Miami evened the series with Dallas after the Heat literally lit the city of Dallas on fire.

Esteban Loaiza is not very smart

Via Insomniac's Lounge and local sports radio comes the troubled story of A's pitcher Esteban Loaiza.

Loaiza, 34 and stupid, is scheduled to pitch tonight against Seattle. Fantasy owners like ourselves (long story), may consider leaving Loaiza on the bench tonight. See, the Oakland right-hander spent the night in jail yesterday.

Prostitution, right?

Remarkably, no. Loaiza was instead arrested on suspicion of drunk driving after he was pulled over going 120 mph in his Ferrari.

Now, Esteban, a few things:

1. Don't drink and drive. Though J.J. Redick didn't tell you that.
2. Don't do 120 mph.
3. If you do drink, try the speed limit.
4. If you do 120 mph, don't drink on top of it.
5. Don't waive a red flag that tells cops you're as drunk as Jim Bowden.

We're pretty sure here that if you were to take a cross-section of Loaiza's head you would see nothing -- much like in that picture. Though we doubt we'd hear an echo. Esteban probably doesn't have much in his head, for if he did, he wouldn't drink, drive and put a sign (or speed) on his car that says, "Pull me over, please!"

In other news: England beat Trinidad & Tobago 2-0 this morning despite not knowing who Trinidad or Tobago were.

We made it back in one piece...almost

We just arrived home from Central America after a hellish day of traveling. Our plane from San Jose, Costa Rica to San Salvador, El Salvador was late, so we missed our connector to San Francisco.

We ended up staying in LA for the night, paid an hourly rate -- much like Denny Neagle -- and headed back home on a 6:30 a.m. flight. We asked a few folks in LA how their NFL teams will be next season and they promptly shot us that, "Fuck off" look. Deserved.

We are tired, grouchy, and if someone gives us a bad look, we may throw them out of a window/car/plane.

But we're back...for a few days at least (will explain more later) and can honestly say we watched an entire soccer game (Germany vs. Costa Rica from a Costa Rica bar. By the way, when Costa Rica tied the game at 1-1, people ran in the streets and started climbing on buildings like these guys. Not really. Though it was cool).

So regular updates are on their way. Stop on by, drop a comment, drop an f-bomb, fuck it, drop a deuce if you're in the mood.

It's good to be back.

Oh J.J.

Who the fuck is Eric Musselman?

Well, he's apparently the new coach of the Sacramento Kings. We find it a bit odd that Sacto would fire a coach who guided them to numerous playoff appearances, but some people just don't settle for less than a championship.

Musselman last coached the Golden State Warriors to a near-.500 record a few years back. Of course it wasn't actually .500 because the Warriors haven't seen the land of mediocrity since about 1992. They just are constant shit.

Musselman was a famed CBA coach and had a career record of 270-122 while in that league. We're not entirely sure what Musselman's been up to since the Warriors gig, but perhaps he's been making motivational videos.

And based on Musselman's losing record as an NBA head coach, we think he's missing about 25 of those essential skills to be a successful coach.

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

So we're going on this little trip...

Ok, it's been a hectic few weeks here at The Big Picture headquarters. Saturday we packed up all of our shit and drove from Seattle to San Francisco. The trip took about 13 hours and there were few highlights.

Though, while passing by some pickup truck in Oregon, we saw a sign in the window that read: "Girlfriend wanted: 555-7855." You must be thinking that we called and fucked with this wacko, but we actually thought better of it after recently watching the movie Joy Ride.

We also came through some town in Oregon called Talent. Yeah, Talent, Ore. The talent there is likely minimal.

Anyway, we're back in the Bay now, but are leaving for a much-needed vacation in Costa Rica early this morning. We'll be gone for about a week, but don't fret. We have some non-timely stories ready to go and expect to get a few live posts up while we're away.

Check back regularly because, well, there's always fun to be had here. In the meantime, take care of yourselves and watch plenty of sports for us. And female readers, if you're into sick nutjobs, give that guy a call. He's waiting for you.

In other news: The Stanley Cup Finals got underway last night, and to the astonishment of about six million Americans, it was not between the U.S.A. and Russia.

There is crying in softball

Because women play sports too (fucking Title IX. Joking.), the ladies will be starting the championship of this little game we've come to know as softball Monday.

The Pac-10 owns this sport, so it's no surprise to see a team from that conference in the championship series. The Arizona Wildcats will be taking on the Northwestern Wildcats, while the respective athletic directors look into mascots that are a bit more original than "Wildcats" -- like the "Bears" or something. The action begins this afternoon in Oklahoma City.

Northwestern beat top-seeded UCLA Sunday, which keeps the Bruins' total championships at 99. Also, No. 3 seed Texas, led by Wild Cat Osterman, was bounced after they lost to UCLA on Saturday.

Because you're likely wondering, the lady pictured is former Arizona and Team USA pitcher Jennie Finch, who may be calling the action during the telecast. Finch is rather attractive, which is good. What is not so good is that she is a terrible commentator. During today's telecast (figuring she's calling it), we don't expect her to:

a. shy away from rooting for U of A
b. sound smart
c. say anything relatively insightful.

Though Finch will be expected to look good. She is, after all, a pretty hot wildcat.

In other news: St. Louis liquor stores saw a dramatic increase in alcohol sales Sunday after the Cardinals announced they have placed Albert Pujols on the DL.

Meet Elijah Dukes

From the same organization that brought you Delmon Young, B.J. Upton and Carl Crawford, now brings you Elijah Dukes. He hits long homeruns, flips his bat and does not give a fuck if he's doing it in the minors.

Usprache: N-E-R-D. Usprache.

We’re well aware that the Scripps National Spelling Bee took place last night. We purposely missed the final round, which aired on ABC, but unwillingly watched some of the early rounds.

Quick observation: Do white kids not know how to spell? We tuned in for about 12 minutes and saw like 417,939 Asian kids (many from India. Don’t exactly know why) and 2 white suckas. There were -532 black spellers, too bad — though “before” is not spelled two plus two “be four.”

Anyhoo, these smart kids spelled a lot of words correctly. No need to comment on them here — they’re brainiac nerds whose interests generally include “reading” and “Mozart.” They probably are intimate with their school’s lockers and hallway trashcans.

We’ve always been a tad curious how one gets involved with a spelling bee. This just doesn’t seem like something that you wake up one day wanting to master. Most of the words they spell are probably fake (see “gematrial”), so training must be a bitch.

Our real question, though, is who in fuck's name decides to judge this competition!? We can’t imagine these forty-something people aspiring to judge middle-schoolers spell words no one has ever heard of.

Maybe they’re the fine folks who created the dictionary. Oh, that’s it, they are Merriam and Webster.

Kids spell, parents videotape, judges, um, make up words. Everybody wins. Or apparently it’s just 13-year-old Katharine Klose, white, from New Jersey. “Ursprache” is your winning word. “Usprache.”

In other news: The Carolina Hurricanes advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals last night after spelling “Sabre” correctly.

-Adam Landres-Schnur

Steal from the other team

See that picture? That's where former Florida State football players A.J. Nicholson and Fred Rouse may be going. (And if that cartoon character is their future cellmate, they better grip the soap firmly in the shower).

On May 20 or 21, Nicholson, who was drafted by Cincinnati in the fifth round of April's Draft, and Rouse, who was booted off the team in January, stole from Lorenzo Booker.

Ok, you must be thinking, plenty of athletes, especially in the state of Florida, break the law. Well, yes. But Booker also plays football and is a running back...for the fucking Seminoles!

Nicholson (pictured left) and Rouse (pictured right) ripped off nearly $2,000 worth of electronics from their former teammate's apartment. Unless Nicholson and Rouse were trying to teach Booker a lesson -- like that he was watching too much TV -- this is pretty bizarre. Though we suspect that the two thieves stole with the intentions of selling the goods back to Booker at a discount. Then everyone wins: Booker gets a good deal on some electronics and Nicholson and Rouse make off like, well, bandits.

Nicholson and Rouse were charged with grand theft and burglary -- both felonies -- and both have a criminal record that will make Ricky Williams (or Ricky Manning) look like an angel. Is jail in the cards? Perhaps. But if they end up in the slammer, maybe they can arrange the addition of some new electronics in the facility.

In other news: Detroit beat Miami 91-78 after getting a pre-game pep talk from Ron Artest.