I had to admit, watching the 30 for 30 on Ricky Williams made me quite fond of this guy. I enjoyed hearing a different perspective on sports from a guy that realized he wasn’t, nor should be, in debt to it. After watching this interview, however, he’s definitely gone down a peg or two in my book.

Trying to downplay the scientific research stating the link between concussions and football is mind-blowing. Yes, I understand you take more steps to “heal” yourself, Ricky, during the off-season, and some of that progressive rehabilitation is actually beneficial, but there ain’t no rehab for the brain when it receives trauma. At least not yet.

The best is probably at 3:52 when LeBatard brings up science. Ricky : “Is science like, the new, diety, of our culture? It is, but should it be?”

Yes. Ricky. Yes. It should be. Science is based on facts. There aren’t many things that scientists ‘proved’ 100 years ago that aren’t true today. Very few things. What else should we go off of if not facts?

I understand a lot of players are upset about the reputation and perceptions being placed on football lately regarding player safety, it’s understandable. Players now want to play the game that they know is a rough sport, which they agree with. If they want to play it, fine. As time goes on, science is only going to prove more and more about the relation between trauma and football, and again, if players are alright with that, then that’s fine with me. You just can’t come back 20 years later when a good percentage of you are ill or suffering symptoms of trauma and try to sue or complain. That’s just how it has to go for things to be fair.

But every once in awhile, a video comes along that changes EVERYTHING!  This week, that video came as I was listening to Dave Dameshek’s superb NFL.com podcast (for those of you who have never heard Dameshek, do yourself a favor and give him a listen. High comedy).

If you haven’t seen the video, just follow this link. (Again, too lazy to imbed but maybe Randy will after I post this).

The highlights of this video include: A.) Some guy running at McNabb with a freaking broom stick raised really high over his head as McNabb attempts to pass the ball.

B.) Fat Donovan McNabb standing in the ocean throwing a football to…well…who knows. Maybe a mermaid, maybe a dolphin, maybe to nobody at all.

I’m going to go ahead and say that this video of Fat McNabb frolicking in the waves will not get him signed by a team.

As Dameshek put it, “Donovan McNabb, now he’s out of a job. In fact, I saw him, now he’s trying to get back into the NFL by losing weight and doing a bunch of cockamamie drills, standing in the ocean like he’s Daniel-son being taught by Mr. Miyagi. Or a football version of that. STANDING IN THE OCEAN GETTING HIT BY WAVES? Donovan McNabb, ugh.”

2.) Randy, stop posting about teams the day that they play. You always jinx them. Stop it.

3.) Can you imagine how the obnoxious the Celtics must be in every other aspect of their lives? My goodness. Watching them is worse than the Heat. Every time Paul Pierce drives into the lane, he literally SCREAMS: “AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” his whole way to the hoop. It draws a whistle every time. That’s not the act of an NBA superstar, that’s the act of a drunk hobo chasing down a shopping cart with a busted wheel full of aluminum cans.

4.) Somebody needs to tell “Coach Spo” and the Lakers coach Mike Brown that they have Lebron James and Kobe Bryant on their teams. With the Heat down 3, who did Spo draw up a play for? Not Wade. Not Lebron. But some scrub from Kansas! (Mario Chalmers).

But Brown topped him. Instead of having Kobe Bryant take the game winning shot, he drew up a play for….STEVE BLAKE! The poor man’s (or white trash version) of JJ Reddick.

5.) Good on ya Hector Luna! Man, what an exciting Phillies season, amiright? It’s been a rough start, but they’ve won 4 in a row (I think), and are only 1.5 games back of the wildcard. How is that possible?  HOW!

As Gandalf would say, “There was never much hope, only a fools hope. Now go make me some sammiches.”

6.) House Hunters was in Wilmington, Delaware last night!  Crazy!  It’s always fun seeing places that you know on TV. When they went to Costa Rica, my brain almost exploded when I saw the horse that tried to kill me.

On that note….until next time!

First, I’m going to jump back to the Sixer’s win over the Bulls to clinch the series. I couldn’t imagine a better finish. Our “star” player who’s struggled at the line all year completed two free-throws in the final seconds to win the game. I remember texting Adam during that time and saying something like, “If Iggy misses these….”

Imagine if he did miss them. I’m pretty sure he would have been murdered ala Andres Escobar style when he returned to Philadelphia. It would have been ugly. But, let’s forget that. He DID make them. It was ridiculously gratifying to see the Sixers win a close game, with Iguodala, in the fashion he did.

How about Doug Collin’s press conference at the end, too? “I started hearing the rumors about firing me. You hear that stuff. I’m a Sixer for life.”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!! That’s what I want to hear. That’s exactly what I want him to say. Preach, Doug, preach. Preach… and stop crying post-game.

Moving on to soccer, if you didn’t happen to catch basically the most epic game in the history of soccer, Manchester City had one of the most amazing comebacks of all time by scoring 2 goals within a 5 minute period of stoppage time. Not only did they win the game, they won the entire Premier League title. It was about as dramatic as it could get.

I don’t want to focus on that, however. I want to focus on the lack of focus this game received. I understand that soccer isn’t necessarily the most appreciated sport in the United States these days, but its fan base is increasing and this game needed to be covered more than it was.

I’m pretty sure if you took the total audience of the last 4 NHL and NBA playoff games and compared them to the audience that watched the Manchester City & Manchester United games, it wouldn’t even come close. Internationally, mind you. I know that ESPN has different broadcasts for different countries, yada yada, that’s not my point.

It is remarkable how much control the media has over determining what it deems “worthy” of broadcasting. This goes for more than just sports, but I couldn’t believe that ESPN openly admitted that 4% of their broadcasting time is dedicated to hockey. 4%. For a league that only exists in the United States and Canada.

You build a fan base by creating interesting, identifiable players and teams. You can’t make them identifiable without exposure, and you can’t expose them unless they are interesting. So, you can, in some instances, make them interesting, justifying your exposure (see Tebow, Tim), or they do something interesting to organically justify that exposure. I think soccer has done that several times over.

Manchester United and City have had a huge rivalry fueled by the shit-talking of Wayne Rooney (only the biggest player in the league) and many of the City players. To have the entire season determined in less than 5 minutes from a miraculous comeback between those two teams is a story line worthy of discussion. Monday morning, however, it’s like the game never happened. PTI and Around the Horn didn’t even include it in the first 2 blocks of headlines.

Chock that up to whatever you’d like, but the media essentially dictates interest just as much (if not more) than actual public interest these days. It was disappointing to see them dismiss something that the rest of the world reveled in for days.

Switching back to them Sixers, though, a couple notes from our current series with Boston:

1 – Kevin Garnett, you ARE the dirtiest player in the NBA. It’s not a coincidence that several different players, coaches, and owners have labeled you this. I don’t know why the media portrays you as a hero, but you told Charlie Villanueva he had cancer during a game. That’s all I need to say about that. It was fitting that you lost Game 2 to an blatant offensive foul and cost your team the game. I honestly don’t even think it would have mattered. They were down by 3 with like 7 seconds to go. Only a miracle was making a difference anyway.

2- I don’t want to count my eggs before they hatch, BUT, BUTTTTTTT, if the Sixers win this series, and the Pacers somehow knock out the Heat, we will have another favorable matchup with a team we could beat in the Easter Conference Finals. We even beat the Pacers late in the season in a game determined by 3 points or less. Just a thought….

3 – We have won a lot of playoff games now by 5 points or less. During the regular season, that game I mentioned with the Pacers was the only one out of 10 or something. There is really no explaining that. The Evan Turner from December 2011 and the Evan Turner from May 2012 are completely different, though. I will say that much.

Alright gang. That’s it for me. Excelsior!

You may be the antithesis of a ‘developing’ pitcher. For years, I have heard many an analyst say that you will one day emerge as a elite starting pitcher in the major leagues. Players have gotten your back, reporters, teammates, everyone defends you. This has probably been going on for six years.

Not only have you not been improving, you’ve been getting worse. It’s remarkable that with how different our team looks compared to our 2008 World Series winning lineup, you have somehow managed to remain on the roster and retain Charlie Manuel’s stubborn faith that you will be a decent pitcher.

Last night we desperately held onto the lead in the 7th inning in hopes of not being swept by the Mets. You came in and absolutely destroyed any hopes we had of taking a game in the series. I’m sure Cliff Lee was absolutely stoked handing the ball over to you in the game when it was still possible for him to be given the win.

Nothing could be a testament more to Manuel’s blind faith than letting you go back out for the 8th inning after giving up 3 runs in the 7th. He promptly came out and gave up another run. In his last 15 innings, he has given up 16 runs. That’s like a 1000.00 ERA or some shit. Actually, his ERA is currently 7.32.

How long is it going to take for the Phillies organization to understand that this guy is not panning out as hoped? For the duration of his career? At least he has a super hot wife to go home to….

The only consolation I have is watching this old video of Kendrick being pranked by Brett Myers. He legitimately looked sad in this.

Written by: John McKeever, Tommy Pope, Luke Cunningham & Chip Chantry

Edited by: John McKeever

@JohnnyMcKeever @TommyJPope @LukeXCunningham

Thanks to Doogie Horner, Erika Hoffmaster, Pat McKeever & Eric Fries

Cole Hamels admitted to intentionally drilling Bryce Harper in the 1st inning of last night’s game. I dig it. That Harper kid has done some awesome things in his major league debut (which… for all intensive purposes is a year-long debut), but there is always that chance that the adrenaline stops flowing and the hits stop coming. I think this kid has a lot of raw talent, but you always got to keep these things in perspective. Remember when Jason Heyward was supposed to be that guy? He’s still an every day player, but it certainly didn’t pan out to the hype.

I’m going on somewhat of a concert bender this week. 2 days ago I saw Miike Snow at the Electric Factory, tomorrow it’s Santigold and Theophilus London, and Friday it’s M83 at Union Transfer. They are all probably going to be good shows, but I think I’m probably going to enjoy Santigold the best. Why? Not because she has better music or anything. It’s mostly because I can’t dance up on girls with some very ambient emo-synth music going on in the background.

Jamie Moyer and Chipper Jones apparently have some beef going on. Saturday night, Jones was on second while Moyer was on the mound, and Jamie promptly stopped his delivery to call out Chipper for stealing signs. They jabbered a bit back and forth, but Chipper took a cheap shot after the game. When questioned about it, Chipper said something like “Every pitch Moyer throws is 78 mph, we don’t need to steal signs” or something like that.

This got me to thinking: Who would win in a fist fight between Jamie Moyer and Chipper Jones? How can I Don King this situation? I would probably take Moyer if my money was riding on it. They are both in ‘relatively’ good shape for their age, but Moyer seems more conditioned. Chipper got super fat in the off-season which makes me think that he’s just a retirement away from getting to John Kruk’s size. If the fight went past a minute, Chipper is exhausted and down for the count. Moyer in 5 rounds.

Yeaaaaaaa the Sixers won. It’s exciting for me. There are a lot of people out there who want to point out the injuries that have turned the Bulls into a somewhat-average team. It’s true, we aren’t playing their best. It would definitely be much more gratifying to knock off considerably the best team in the East with their full roster. Who knows what the results would be if Derrick Rose and Noah weren’t out. We would probably only win 1-2 games in the series. But you know what?

Fuck it. I’m going to go Fast & Furious circa 2001 on your ass and say, “It doesn’t matter if you win by and inch or a mile, winning’s winning.” They still have a good team that won a lot of games without Derrick Rose. We still have a very young core of players and tasting success in the playoffs is essential to their development. Cheap wins are still wins.

I’ll even go as far as to say that our matchup AFTER this series is favorable as well. We either play the Celtics or the Hawks (it’s looking like the Celtics), and that’s OK with me. We are 2-1 against Boston this season. It’s possible to taste more success if we make it past the Bulls. Nobody is predicting the Sixers to win the East or anything, but getting some healthy playoff wins under their belt bodes well for the upcoming seasons. You can see Jrue Holiday’s confidence level change dramatically from Game 1 to Game 4.

Small note about Fast & Furious now that I bring it up: Why did Jesse think his Jetta was going to be faster than a Honda S2000? Was that some sort of error on the writers?

1.) They start off the show, by taking the couple who they are working for to see a house that is almost always about $300,000 out of their price range.  So we at home get the joy of watching this couple fall in love with a place that could be their future dream home, only to watch that dream get CRUSHED when the brothers gleefully tell them, “Yeah…you can’t afford it.”

2.) They hit on the wife. Always. Without fail.

3.) They try to make the guy look like a chump in front of the wife. For example, they get the family to buy a crappy house (and by “crappy” we’re still talking about $400,000 homes here people), then they start the demolition process by handing the wife the sledge hammer and saying something like, “Have the first swing!” She does, they praise her.

Then they hand the hammer to the guy and no matter what he does, they say something like, “Oh man, that was weak. I think you better let your wife do the heavy lifting.”

4.) They set aside a “budget” to fix up the property but they always, ALWAYS, find something horribly wrong with the house that cuts the budget in half.  “Oops, sorry about this guys, but your house doesn’t have a roof.  But, that’s why we have the contingency money!”

5.) They played in the NBA all star celebrity basketball game…this is kind of a non sequitur, but I found it kind of funny.

6.) One of them–or possibly both–is a magician.  You know who else is a magician?  Mystery.  I don’t trust magicians.

Ok, well then, with that all out of the way, let’s get to some other topics:

1.) The best part of Jered Weaver’s no-hitter was when he was one out away from the no-hitter, they cut to the stands and show his parents, and his dad is just straight chillen, sipping on a beer like nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Talk about nerves of steel. It was also funny that he dashed to the bathroom and peed before the 9th inning, which is a supposed superstition of some kind. All I can say is that the urinal availability in professional baseball is perhaps the most appealing aspect of the sport. Remember when Joe Pa had to pee and he had to like sprint across the field to get back to the locker room in time before he peed his pants?  That must’ve been agony. Just put some urinals on the sideline and have Boomer and TJ do the halftime show behind them. “Teej…you know what they say. The Packers…hey…they don’t make em like the used to. We’ll be back with the blitz….after this.”

2.) So I went to bed on Wednesday with the Phillies up 4-0 on the Braves and Halladay on the mound and thought, “This game is over.” Cut to waking up in the morning and seeing the Braves won 15-13. Holy crap, Halladay got SHELLED! But still, Phillies took the series so no biggie.

3.) There is a music video out featuring Wooderson from Dazed and Confused. It is basically the scene where he walks into the Emporium flanked by Randall Pink Floyd and Mitch Kramer with Bob Dylan blaring through the stereo.  Well, the song for the video he was in is not very good. Rather disappointing, but it does have Wooderson playing the trumpet. Which, admittedly, is hilarious.

Alright alright alright.

That’s it for me.  I’m driving into Houston to pick up those Aerosmith tickets in the morning.

The best part might be when Jrue thinks the little girl is looking for a “Holiday” jersey, but she really wants at Roy Halladay jersey.

2.) That show “Girls” on HBO is incredibly, mind-blowingly awful. I watched it because it is produced my Judd Apatow and it got really great reviews, but man alive, it sucks. I can’t even remember a single character’s name, and the main girl is annoying as all get out. The show reminds me of a Radiohead album. Before it comes out, it already gets 4 stars from the critics no matter how average it is.

Just because a show is set in New York and is on HBO doesn’t mean that it’s automatically good. Don’t waste your 30 minutes on that show.

3.) Instead, waste it on the excellent third season of Eastbound and Down. Holy crap, I just watched the fourth episode and it featured perhaps the funniest moment in television. I don’t want to spoil it for everyone (like I did in a text to Randy yesterday), but it is a breakout episode for Stevie, and (mini-spoiler!) the hilarious moment in question features Candlebox. Enough said.

4.) The NFL Draft started last night, and because megalomaniac Hue Jackson decided to go “all in” with Carson Palmer (which never works), the Raiders were left without a first round pick. Which sucks, cause the draft is AWESOME! And boy oh boy were there trades galore yesterday.

My favorite pick? Morris Claiborne to the Dallas Cowboys!  You know why?  Cause Claiborne only got 4 questions correct on the Wonderlic test,  and here is his rationale via Profootballtalk via Sirius via USA Today: “That test don’t tell me who I am and what [type] of guy I am and what kind of ability I have,” Claiborne told SiriusXM NFL Radio, via USA Today.  “That test can’t drop me. They say it’s an IQ test,” Claiborne added.  “I came to the Combine for football.  I looked at the test, and wasn’t any questions about football.  I didn’t see no point in the test.  I’m not in school anymore.  I didn’t complete it.  I only finished 15 or 18 questions.”

And they say athletes don’t care about their education!  I would be really interested to see what classes Claiborne took whilst at LSU. “Basic Shapes” and “The Number After 2″ sounds about right.

5.) The worst pick?  Let’s just go with Bruce Irvin to the Seahawks.

Oh no, wait, let’s go with the Browns selecting a Quarterback who has never played in the NFL and is already older than Aaron Rodgers. That’s why the Browns will always be the Browns.

I also love the ESPN draft analysis. This morning on Sportscenter, here is what Jon Gruden said about Quarterback Ryan Tannehill: “You know what I love about this kid? It’s that he can throw the football.”  Well, I would HOPE that he can throw the ball. That is just a tiny requirement made of all quarterbacks. Gruden just made $100,000 dollars for saying that.

6.) Ron Artest should be banned for life from the NBA. What a moron. I know that when I’m celebrating, my first instinct is to elbow the crap out of the player closest to me.

7.) Remember that song, “If you’re friends with P then you’re friends with me. If you’re down with P then you’re down with me.”  I don’t have anything to add other than, do you remember it?

8.) I’ve gotta say Phillies fans, being only 3 games back from Atlanta for the wildcard when the Phils are playing arguably their worst baseball in the past 4 years is not a bad thing. Be worried NL East, be very worried…

That’s all for me, until next time!

Second, I did not see the Sixers’ overtime win over the Pacers coming. Did you know that’s the first game we’ve won all season in overtime, and the first we’ve won by 3 points or less? It’s only the 3rd game we’ve won by 5 points or less. We couldn’t win a close game all year, then to have it be in OT by a good team in the East?? Just when I think I have them figured out…

I didn’t get a chance to see Metta World Peace’s elbow until this morning. Good lord man. That’s all.

I think I’m joining Adam on this one, hockey playoffs are not only 10x better than hockey regular season, but they are definitely in the top 5 sporting events of the year. Mmmmmm, ok, top 10, but they’re good! I don’t want to chime in now after this whole season, but I gotta 2 cents about something. That guy Torres who got a 25-game suspension, what’s the big deal about that?? Baseball: 162 games a season, HGH gets you a 50-game suspensionn. Hockey, 82 games a season, 25 game suspension sounds about right. The guy’s a repeat offender (5 suspensions for similar offenses), sent the other dude off on a stretcher, and hit him waaaaaaaaaaaay after it could have ever been mistaken as a legitimate check. Seems fine to me.

I watch a lot of sports at the gym, usually without sound, so my awareness of the commercials and their marketing tactics have been somewhat elevated, even without sound. Like the 5-hour energy commercial that tells you to take their drink EVERY DAY. EVERY DAY. EVERY DAY. Just the repetition of some ‘average joe’ cramming that shit in your face is alarming. No, people, you should not take 28000% of your daily vitamin B, every day. There’s a guy at my work who was taken out on a stretcher last year because he took 5-hour energy. Every day.

I suppose the most infuriating commercials to watch are the car insurance companies that don’t even bother trying to lie to you anymore. I won’t get started on the rights and wrongs of privatizing an industry that dictates it’s own prices and value, but when there’s a commercial about tasting Geico versus a competitor I kind of lose it. How about that douchebag from Progressive who hands out $20 bills at gas stations because he’s ‘saving people money?’ I’m pretty sure Progressive ain’t helping anybody by handing out $140 at a Sunoco dude.

Last week the Phillies played San Diego…. poorly. Yes, we all know the Phillies are going to suck this year. We can see it from a mile away, but since I’m on the topic of advertising, I had to capture the gem encapsulating the Padres and San Diego baseball. Aladdin Bail Bonds?? Just this one single image raises so many questions. How did a bail bonds company manage to get so much money that they can advertise at a baseball stadium in primetime slots? Are San Diego advertising slots really cheap or something?

Honestly, why do bail bondsmen even need to advertise? When you’re in jail stuck in a drunk tank with some schmuck with one arm and a grizzly beard, are you really giving a shit about what company is going to post your bail? When the guard comes over to let you know you can make that one call get try and get bailed out, is Ray-Ray going to pop up and say, “Yo, make sure you use Aladdin Bonds dawg! They premium!” It makes no sense to me.

Last night’s loss was embarrassing by the way. More embarrassing than normal. I had just finished watching the Sixers clinch a playoff spot, my Sportscenter app gives me the heads up that the Phillies are playing, and today’s starter is… Kyle Kendrick? He’s still on the roster?? All I ever hear is “Kendrick is a great prospect, he’s improving, he’s on his way, blah blah blah.” I’ve been hearing that since 2007 when he was first called up. How long does it take you to figure out that he just doesn’t have what it takes? Kendrick has a career 4.41 ERA. Yikes.

Remember Kyle Lohse? He was on our roster in 2007. I can even recall the discussion when he was being traded in the off-season. It went something like, “Kyle Lohse is no good, Kyle Kendrick is the future.” Where’s Kyle Lohse now? Well, he started opening day for the Cardinals, pitched a no-hitter into the 6th, and he’s 3-0 this season. He was 14-8 last year.

I’ve talked to a lot of Phillies fans about the upcoming season, and they all seem to have the same prospective: “It’s going to be a long year.” You got that right, buddy.

I don’t talk about it much, but I’m a pretty big Manchester City fan. My and my friends started playing Fifa 2010 non-stop and ever since then, I’ve been hooked. If you haven’t paid any attention to Premier League soccer, now would be the time to start. Two weeks ago, Manchester had about a 1% chance of winning the league title (they don’t have playoffs…. I know, crazy, right?), but some strange events in the season have culminated to make Manchester City and Manchester United a mere 3 points (1 game) apart for first and second place. Even better, this Monday night (I think like 3PM ET), they will be playing one another. It’s epic. There’s only 3 games left in the season, but this is being dubbed as the game to determine the title.

A marketing team that actually deserves praise is the guys over at Scott’s. I don’t know what it is about that delightful Scottish man yelling at you instructions on lawn care, but whatever it is, it works. Perhaps it’s his unique catchphrase, “Seed your lawn. SEED IT!” Let that be a lesson to all you potential marketers out there. Double commands are the unlocks to a consumer’s soul.