By Eric Pytel

The 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs are about to kick off and the theme this season is “redemption.” Both conferences feature players and teams searching for the kind of pressure cooker performances that ultimately will lead to hockey immortality and an engraving on North America’s oldest trophy in professional sports.
It’s also time to sit back and enjoy a tasty beverage while firing off one-liners at the TV screen for every shot that hits a goalpost or every bad penalty call made by the zebras “policing” the ice. This is also the time of year when players bury their razor blades in the far recesses of their bathroom cabinets as the “playoff beard” is born.
Let’s just jump right in and look at the matchups.

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Posted on April 9, 2008

By The News And Experts Publicity Service

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Multi-Million Dollar Purse Winner Exposes Horse Racing’s Dirty Secret: Jockey Eating Disorders
Coteau, LA – Superstar jockey Shane Sellers seemed to have it all: turning pro in the sport – horse racing – he loved so much as kid, winning more than 4,000 races and $122 million in purses and finding a soulmate in his wife Kelli.
But as candidly revealed in his “rags to riches to rags” autobiography, Freedom’s Rein, Sellers’ demons from an abusive childhood haunted his personal and professional life to the point of a near overdose death and a brief banishment from the sport.
As documented by author Tricia Psarreas, Sellers used “The Sport of Kings” to escape the grasp of an alcoholic father and quickly found another family in his fellow jockeys, who showed him the ropes and passed down extreme tips to make outdated weight requirements.
“We would starve, eat, heave, sweat and then try to control an animal that weighs ten times what we did,” Sellers recalls.

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Posted on April 8, 2008

By Jim Coffman

Anyone who was surprised by North Carolina and UCLA’s demise Saturday hasn’t been paying close enough attention. Memphis simply has more talent than any other team in this year’s tournament (and that will usually do the trick if the coach can avoid screwing it up). And it had a legitimate chip on its shoulder going in against a UCLA team that was getting a lot of attention during the week prior. UCLA was the storied program that has almost restored its faded grandeur, for goodness sake. The Bruins were returning to the Final Four for a third consecutive year and they would prove they were finally, truly living up to the legacy established by the . . . oh, enough already. UCLA won a bunch of championships in the 60s and 70s, one more in 1995 and the Bruins thought they were on their way to another one. Small problem: Memphis was clearly the better team.

Beachwood Baseball: The White Sox Report The Cub Factor

In the other semifinal, a Kansas team best described as the deepest in Bracketland was ready to let it all hang out against North Carolina. The Jayhawks had cleared a huge psychological hurdle by barely knocking off Davidson in a regional final to finally give coach Bill Self his first trip to the Final Four. The pressure was off and Kansas blitzed the Tar Heels, stumbled a bit in the first half of the second half, and then held on down the stretch.

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Posted on April 7, 2008

By Marty Gangler

It’s been a week and what have we learned about the 2008 incarnation of the Chicago Cubs that we didn’t know already? Well, the team ended last season without a real leadoff hitter and issues manufacturing runs but the pitching was solid. And through six games of the 2008 season it looks like the team has trouble manufacturing runs without a legit leadoff hitter but the pitching has been solid. So, will this change? Unless they make a move, I’d say no. Because until they get a real leadoff hitter they are going to have an issue manufacturing runs. Or maybe the issue is just with Alfonso Soriano, the Michael Vick of baseball. And I’m not talking about dog fighting.
I mean, he really is like Michael Vick. We all know that both players can be electric to watch and can make incredible plays at times. The numbers speak for themselves – if you look purely at numbers. I found a scouting report on Michael Vick coming out of college and the “negatives” in this scouting report sound very similar to those Soriano – well, if you change some of the verbage for the different sports. Take a look, my Soriano comments in italics:

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Posted on April 7, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

During Sunday night’s 13-2 beat down of the Tigers, ESPN’s venerable Peter Gammons fawned over new White Sox masher Nick Swisher, calling him a gamer and a grinder. While the two adjectives have become dirty words for stat-crunching, Fire Joe Morgan-reading baseball fans everywhere, Gammons is spot-on in his appraisal of Swisher.
Swisher is the White Sox’s best player, a fact that seems relatively clear to everyone, even if he’s only been on the team for one week. For Sox fans who have grown tired of watching Juan Uribe swing out of his shoes at chin-high fastballs the last three years, Swisher’s approach to hitting is refreshing, to say the least. If Swisher isn’t thrown a strike, he won’t swing at it. It’s that philosophy that has helped jump start the Sox offense the first week of the year.

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Posted on April 7, 2008

Your guide to March Madness, prepared by the research staff of Beachwood Labs.
Updated round-by round!
*
CHAMPIONSHIP
Kansas vs. Memphis
We’ve had Memphis the whole way and we’re not about to abandon them now.
*
FINAL FOUR
North Carolina vs. Kansas
Kansas is just dust in the wind. Let’s never forget that, people. Not that North Carolina is a piece of cake; it’s most positive attribute is that it’s one degree less horrible than South Carolina. If there were a Norther Carolina, we’d go in that direction, but given the choice, we’ll give it to the Tar Heels anyway.
Memphis vs. UCLA
Let’s face it, Memphis is cool. UCLA is . . . well, beachy and blonde. If the Elvis thing hadn’t become such horrible pop culture schtick, we’d like Memphis even more, but let’s all pull for the Tigers here and going forward. Automatic for the People.
ELITE EIGHT
EAST
North Carolina vs. Louisville
With an upcoming primary, the Tar Heels are wearing Obama patches on their uniform. Kentucky, however, is Clinton Country. Obama, er, North Carolina in a squeaker.
MIDWEST
Kansas vs. Davidson
Who is this Davidson, and how does he keep winning basketball games all by himself? Kansas always chokes in the tourney and this is as good a game as any to do so again. Plus, the rout of everybody’s Midwest Regional will be complete and we can go back to re-calculating our office pool odds.
SOUTH
Memphis vs. Texas
Elvis lives.

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Posted on April 6, 2008

By Kosuke Fukudome

Translated from the Japanese (via BabelFish).
*
No.100
2008. 4. 1 Tuesday
Today.
It is measure league member Fukudome filial piety mediating/helping, (laughing)
Facing safety commencement, it could debut.
Measure debut + Diary100 time eye! !
Especially there is no reality which has become the measure league member is however,
When facing to first at bat, in the Chicago fan where it receives enormous encouragement, is harsh
Receiving warmly, because it received, as for the feeling that became one member, whether it did.
It did relieved.

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Posted on April 1, 2008