In case you decided yesterday afternoon was a good time to crawl under your proverbial rock, here’s the Deadspin investigative report on how the biggest human-interest story of the 2012 football season was a complete hoax.
Here’s how we saw the day from our Twitter command center:
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The NFL playoffs is down to its final four teams, and by Sunday night, we’ll know whether Baltimore or New England will be facing Atlanta or San Francisco in the Super Bowl in New Orleans.
These playoffs have been a Rusty’s Last Call ride for Ray Lewis, whose Ravens somewhat improbably have advanced to the AFC championship game. While their opponent, the Patriots, is a perennial postseason favorite, the Ravens (and not, any longer, the Seahawks) are the hot team of this postseason, and it’s becoming difficult to bet against them– ESPN certainly isn’t. Lewis’ last dance may come Saturday. If not, it will come on Super Bowl Sunday.
If it does, Lewis will share the setting sun’s spotlight with one other notable retiree. If the NFC championship game goes according to the seeding, it will be longtime Chief and current Falcon Tony Gonzalez. The tight end, probably best known for popularizing the crossbar dunk TD celebration, says he’s 95% certain he’ll retire after this season, and while his final act has received markedly less than the gyrating, bionic-armed one of Lewis, the attention he has received has taken care to note just how impressive of a career he’s had.
If the NFC championship game follows the hot hand, as it sure seems like it may, Lewis’ possibly outgoing opponent will one whose superstardom has long since burned low. Randy Moss’ days as the league’s most dominant wide receiver are long gone. His days as an albatross– i.e., his days in Oakland and Nashville– seem to be in the past as well. He’s retired once, and he’s rapidly approaching the end of his one-year contract with San Francisco. There hasn’t been any retirement discussion from Moss (this ambiguous retweet aside), or really much discussion of him in the media at all. Moss’ numbers are way down from his peak-production years, though they’re up over his recent disaster years. It’s tough to know whether the 49ers or Moss will want to sign a new contract for next year– he started only two games this year, the fewest of any season in his career– or if this is it. The only sure bet looks to be that, if this Sunday or Super Bowl Sunday really is Moss’ last game, he’ll treat it a little differently than Lewis will handle his.
As America’s most popular sport encounters a liability problem … as gladiator Junior Seau kills himself with a shotgun blast to the chest and leaves his damaged brain to study … as awareness and penalties increase around an NFL commissioner confronting the oxymoronic task of making a violent game safe … and as the rules change but the culture really doesn’t … we think we know this forever-growing monster we are cheering on Sundays. But we don’t. We have no earthly idea. … Read More
(via The Miami Herald)
Big Boi is a tough act to follow, but here goes. The Seattle Seahawks meet the Atlanta Falcons in the Georgia Dome today at 1:00. There are a couple things you should read before then:
O.J. Mayo may have a better beard, but it’s a close call. I wasn’t thrilled when James Harden left Oklahoma City, but he seems to be doing just fine in Houston:
Still, this is only my second favorite James Harden clip, but it is a very close second.
The NHL freezeout finally thawed a few days ago, and like the slow, first drips of a spring melt, hockey writers’ earnest material is starting to trickle out. Breakdowns of the new CBA. Recommendations for how the league can bring back the fans. Wonderings about whether the league is better off as a lesser sports entity. Psychoanalyses of players who might not want to come back to the NHL. Discoveries of a beauty pageant winner’s role in the 2011 Vancouver hockey riots. Something about junior hockey championships. Remembrances of the Great One. I’ve read it all.
I’ve read it all, and it’s all fine, but none of it really satisfies. Just textual workouts over the same old themes. Nothing revelatory or even thought-provoking. None of it, at least, until the last hockey article I read, which might be the last stretch of hockey writing I read until I can get my hands on a commemorative magazine retrospective of my team’s Stanley Cup-winning run.
I don’t care if you call me biased. (Our phone lines are down anyway.) But if you dismiss this piece because I’ve declared my position on the author’s merits and you assume I prejudged the article and was going to like it and highlight it regardless, you’ll miss out on the best bit of post-most-recent-lockout hockey writing and the best swatch of sports writing in recent memory.
Norm Macdonald’s latest article is a short story in two parts– two short stories, really– with some light humor, of course, but more compellingly, real, emotional, suspenseful, rising action conveyed in absolutely compelling fashion with two lovely turns of phrase, one for each part.
I hope I haven’t over-hyped it for you the way that one girl over-hyped Shanghai Knights back in high school. Bring your expectations back to norm(al) levels and click here.
A few additional thoughts: Continue reading
I did not want to work with Richard Ben Cramer.
OK, I did. I adored him as a writer and journalist. I’d devoured his works, from “Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life” to “What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?” to “What It Takes: The Way To The White House.” The latter had been assigned reading, widely considered one of the greatest political books of the 20th century. The other two I’d bought for permanent placement in my office bookcase.
So yes, of course, I wanted to work with the Pulitzer winner. I had dreamed of working with him on some project at some point in my career. I just didn’t want to work with him on this particular project at this particular time. This one was mine.
What an idiot I was. … Read More
(via ESPN)
With Bama’s drubbing of Notre Dame in the National Championship, the inaugural (Or did we have one last year? You tell me. Seriously, tell me.) ALDLAND Bowl Pick ‘Em Challenge is over. I promised I would write a post about the winner, and so here I am, writing something again for the first time in what seems like forever. The actual winner was blog founder AD, who is widely believed to have cheated to win. Just kidding, I don’t want to tag him with that kind of label because it might one day adversely affect his candidacy for the Bowl Pick ‘Em Hall of Fame. Since you know everything there is to know about AD already (quick recap: is a brony, believes he has a pen pal in Burkina Faso, although in reality it is just Chris Cunico humoring him, favorite athlete of all time is Bobby Higginson) I am going to write about the runner up DRTAZ 1.
DRTAZ 1 is an interesting guy . . . or girl. The reality is that we don’t know anything about him . . . or her. An APB was put out on the tweet yesterday which received no response, so I am just going to make stuff up, much like I just did about AD (or did I?). DRTAZ 1’s name derives from his or her favorite Looney Toons character of all time, the Tasmanian Devil. Interestingly enough, DRTAZ 1 hates Dizzy Devil, the Tasmanian Devil analogue from Tiny Toon Adventures as he or she thinks that Dizzy Devil destroys the integrity of the Tasmanian Devil. Let’s be real, DRTAZ 1 is totally right about Tiny Toons. That show suuuuuuuuuuuucked. It was all about Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, am I right? Anyway, DRTAZ 1 can often be seen wearing gear with the Tasmanian Devil on it and has many Taz stuffed animals lying around the house.
Now, you might have heard “stuffed animals” and said, “I know who DRTAZ 1 is: popular podcast humor fodder, Bad Jeremy!” I can confirm that Bad Jeremy is not DRTAZ 1, because he knows absolutely nothing about college football. Furthermore, he is not allowed to use the internet so he couldn’t fill out a bowl pick ‘em entry. He is also not a doctor, which DRTAZ 1 obviously is. DRTAZ 1 graduated at the top of his or her class from the University of Miami’s medical school, where he or she was best friends with Marvelous of 7th Floor Crew fame. After graduation DRTAZ 1 decided that he or she did not want to practice medicine and instead embarked on a career making art using those little plastic things you put on a peg board and then iron so that they make a shape. Contrary to what you might think, DRTAZ 1’s favorite subject for little plastic thing art is not in fact the Tazmanian Devil, rather it is the Busby series of video games.
I don’t have much to say about DRTAZ 1’s entry. It’s linked above, so you can check it out for yourself. He or she simply picked better than everyone except AD. As such, he or she is entitled to a receipt signed by AD as well as a signed Andy Brink head shot.
No one was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame today. A lot of people are upset about that. Others feel a little (belated) vindication, however.
ALDLAND 