You've Got To Be Joking

Sit back and relax as you enjoy this week’s Sports Shorts.

The Mets are currently selling their Shea Stadium dugout for $100,000. Call now and they’ll even toss in Scott Schoeneweis and Luis Ayala for free.

Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt says he plans to stick with Kurt Warner at quarterback for the foreseeable future. If Matt Leinart doesn’t have a drinking problem yet, he certainly will now.

Lance Armstrong has hired anti-doping expert Don Catlin to test him anytime, anywhere, and to post the results online for the world to see. We haven’t seen a guy this eager to get pricked since Clay Aiken.

A dozen athletes, including six NFL players, have agreed to donate their brains to science. The brains of the football players are considered to be especially valuable since they’ve never been used.

A USC football recruit has been sentenced to four years in prison for armed robbery. On the positive side, he’ll be eligible to play for the Bengals as soon as he’s released.

German long jumper Kofi Amoah Prah retired after receiving a two-year ban for cocaine use. Authorities first suspected Prah was using the drug after observing how he would always jump into the sand pit nose first.

Tigers pitcher Todd Jones has announced he’s retiring from baseball. The veteran reliever decided it was time to step down when he noticed scouts were measuring his fastball with a calendar.

New York City police say they arrested 18 people for stealing pieces of Yankee Stadium during the 85-year-old ballpark's final game. New York’s finest were so overzealous they even brought in Bobby Abreu after he was spotted stealing second base in the seventh inning.

The Red Sox clinched the team’s fifth playoff berth in the last six seasons while simultaneously eliminating the Yankees. Boston residents were so excited they managed to forget about Tom Brady’s knee for a full five seconds.

Saints left guard Jamar Nesbit has been suspended without pay for violating the NFL's policy on steroids. Authorities first suspected Nesbit was juicing after noticing he kept on bumping his head on the roof of the Superdome.

Good news out of Denver. Nuggets guard Allen Iverson has said that he would consider a pay cut… for Kenyon Martin.

The U.S. Olympic dressage team had its fourth-place finish in Beijing stripped when a horse tested positive for drugs. As if that weren’t bad enough, new reports are also suggesting the horse may not have been 16 years old.

Getting Animated

I recently began contributing to a hilarious new animated web series entitled Sports Talk Weekly. Check it out here!

Question of the Week

Charles, Oklahoma City, OK
Subj: Going the distance
Who holds the Major League record for most innings pitched in a game?

That honor is shared by Leon Cadore and Joe Oeschger, a pair of rubber-armed hurlers who logged 26 innings each in a 1920 marathon match between Brooklyn and Boston. The epic game featured 168 at-bats, nine walks and six sacrifices and lasted for three hours and fifty minutes before being declared a 1-1 tie on account of darkness. Despite the length of the game, Cadore later insisted that he could have kept on pitching. "I remember saying, ‘Sure, but I can go one more,' figuring something just had to happen one way or the other, but that was the way it went through the 26th,” he told the press. “True, maybe a couple more innings could have been played. But as you can see what a crime it would have been to have a loss marked up against either pitcher.” Interestingly, Cadore and Oeschger also went the distance just one week before their epic duel with Cadore coming out ahead 1-0 after 11 grueling innings.

You've Got To Be Joking

Sit back and relax as you enjoy this week’s Sports Shorts.

Danny Granger has donated $500,000 to New Mexico's athletic department. It’s an impressive contribution considering the last time an Indiana Pacer gave away that much money it was at a strip club.

C.C. Sabathia lost his second consecutive game for the suddenly floundering Milwaukee Brewers. The big left hander was so despondent afterwards that he couldn’t eat for nearly five minutes.

Mavs forward Josh Howard was caught on video disrespecting the American national anthem before a charity flag-football game. Sure, it sounds bad, but in his defense he was so high at the time he thought he was in Paraguay.

The U.S. Olympic Committee has added the president of Xerox and the chairman of Electronic Arts to its board of directors. I should clarify: the EA chairman joined first. The Xerox guy just copied him.

The Cowboys managed to beat the Packers 27-16 for their very first win at Lambeau Field. You know something has gone horribly awry when Hell is frozen over and Lambeau Field isn’t.

45-year-old pitcher Jamie Moyer led the Phillies to a 5-2 victory over the Marlins. The veteran hurler is so old his first baseball card was printed on papyrus.

Rays manager Joe Maddon reportedly celebrated his team’s first playoff birth by drinking Dom Perignon champagne, Patron tequila and red wine. In fact, the veteran skipper got so hammered that many observers mistook him for the Mets bullpen.

Detroit Lions linebacker Jordon Dizon has been sentenced to 24 hours of community service for driving while impaired. You’d think having to play for the Lions would be punishment enough.

The Houston Rockets have reached out to victims of Hurricane Ike by purchasing four tractor-trailers full of food and water. Or, as Yao Ming calls it, breakfast.

The Cubs nearly no hit the Astros for the second game in the row. In fact, Houston went so long between hits that some observers mistook them for James Blunt.

Oakland Raiders defensive end Tommy Kelly was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence. On the positive side, he now has one more thing in common with Oakland Raiders fans.

The Milwaukee Bucks have announced that Charlie Villanueva will be the team’s starting forward this season. Villanueva was so surprised by the news that he lifted the area where he used to have eyebrows.

In The Spotlight

I'm delighted to announce that my celebrity profile on Capitals left winger Alexander Ovechkin is now online. Learn more about the NHL's reigning MVP by clicking here.

Question of the Week

Frank, Colorado Springs, CO
Subj: On the road again
Hey Ryan, who holds the Major League record for having played with the most franchises?

That honor belongs to Mike “Suitcase” Morgan, a well-traveled righthander who played with 12 teams during his 22 years in the Big Leagues. Far from an unwanted castoff, Morgan was actually a teenage phenom who made the jump from high school to the pros in 1978 with the Oakland Athletics. Over the next two decades this nomadic hurler was selected to one All-Star team and he compiled a respectable career record of 141 wins and 186 losses. Of course, the numbers are only half of the story. Morgan was also on the losing end of Dennis Martinez’s perfect game on July 28, 1991 and he served up Mark McGwire’s record-tying 61st home run seven years later on September 7, 1998. Thankfully he put those dubious distinctions behind him in 2001 when he appeared in his first World Series as a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks. "You watch the World Series year after year at home on television and yes, you start to think that maybe it's just not meant to be," he reflected at the time. "I mean, you see Derek Jeter, and he's 25 or so and he's been in it five times. I've been playing about as long as he's been alive. But that's what keeps you going — the hope that someday you might make it."

You've Got To Be Joking

Sit back and relax as you enjoy this week’s Sports Shorts.

It was a busy day in Pittsburgh where Sidney Crosby and his teammates hand-delivered season tickets to fans. Meanwhile, elsewhere across town, members of the Pirates coaching staff were also spotted going door-to-door delivering their resumes.

Lance Armstrong has announced that he’ll compete in one more Tour de France. His declaration come as a surprise to many insiders since the last thing he rode to victory was an Olsen twin.

Tampa Bay quarterback Jeff Garcia sprained an ankle during the Buccaneers' season-opening loss at New Orleans and is iffy for this week's home game. That’s a nice upgrade from last year when he was iffy all season long.

Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Jack Wilson will likely miss the remainder of the season because of a fracture in his right index finger. Unfortunately for Wilson, that’s the same finger he uses to change the channel when Pittsburgh Pirates highlights come on the TV.

Shaquille O’Neal has revealed he plans to quit playing professional basketball in two more years. Rims around the league are already breathing a sigh of relief.

Runningback Ricky Williams reportedly negotiated his own contract extension with Bill Parcells and the Miami Dolphins. That certainly explains why it was written on a Zig Zag rolling paper.

A physicist says that Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt could have run the 100 meters in 9.55 seconds at the Olympics if he hadn’t slowed down to showboat. Ironically, the same physicist could have published his report two weeks earlier if he hadn’t stopped to brag about his results to his colleagues.

An all-white jury has been selected in O.J. Simpson's upcoming kidnapping trial. The judge had tried to select a jury of Simpsons peers, but he couldn’t find 12 unconvicted murderers on such short notice.

Redskins tight end Chris Cooley accidentally exposed his genitalia in a picture posted on his personal website. We always suspected Cooley was nutty, but now we have the photo documentation to prove it.

A group of Chivas USA soccer players accidentally dropped goalkeeper Zach Thornton while carrying him off the field on a stretcher. That’s what happens when you don’t let players use their hands.

What’s the difference between the Mets bullpen and a hooker? A hooker usually gets down on her knees before she blows something.