Alright, peeps, I’m heading out to CB Park for Opening Day. Sweet! Here’s a few great baseball quotes to commemorate the occasion:

People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring. ~Rogers Hornsby

If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, she will choose to save the infant’s life without even considering if there are men on base. ~Dave Barry

A hot dog at the ballgame beats roast beef at the Ritz. ~Humphrey Bogart

With those who don’t give a damn about baseball, I can only sympathize. I do not resent them. I am even willing to concede that many of them are physically clean, good to their mothers and in favor of world peace. But while the game is on, I can’t think of anything to say to them. ~Art Hill

Baseball is almost the only orderly thing in a very unorderly world. If you get three strikes, even the best lawyer in the world can’t get you off. ~Bill Veeck

When I began playing the game, baseball was about as gentlemanly as a kick in the crotch. ~Ty Cobb

Did you know that the movie the Natural was based on a Philadelphia Phillie player? Phils first baseman Eddie Waitkus was shot by a crazed stalker in 1949, then came back in 1950 to help lead the Phillies to the World Series.

Lebron James, who is less man than product, tried to take a pot shot at Stephon Marbury, who endorses a $15 shoe so that underprivileged kids can have an NBA sponsored shoe. But Marbury owned his sorry ass. This from Newsday:
Before the game, James took a little shot at Marbury’s $14.98 kicks, saying he couldn’t imagine endorsing a sneaker that cheap. “No, I don’t think so,” James said. “Me being with Nike, we hold our standards high.”

Marbury, who is friendly with James, was lacing up his Starburys before the game when informed of LeBron’s comment. He thought about it for a moment and said, “I’d rather own than be owned.”

Oh snap!!! Yeah, you and Nike hold your standards high, don’t you Lebron? In fact, I hear that you guys pay your sweatshop workers a whole quarter an hour so they maintain those high standards.

Oh, and go ahead and guess which shoes were on the feet of the guy who hit the winning three pointer with 8.5 seconds left? Give you a hint, it wasn’t the guy who is owned.
RELATED: More fallout from Lebron’s comments.

The box score above, apparently the offical one posted on Yahoo sports last night, was sent in by alert reader Lee. Notice why NBA veteran Robert Horry didn’t play.

-Wow, sports television actually gets it right for once. Unbearable windbag and ego-maniac Joe Theismann just got kicked to the curb on Monday nights and was replaced with Ron Jaworski, an analyst that actually knows that his job is to discuss football, not to talk about how wonderful he is. Jaws in, jackass out.

-Have you seen the end of the Division II basketball championship? A team called Winona, the defending champs, were up 7 with 45 seconds to play. Winona had won 45 games in a row. The end of this is absolutely unbelievable. Click here if you haven’t seen it yet.

–It’s still not as incredible as this.

An in-depth investigation by Sports Illustrated writers turned up something so shocking, so unexpected that you have to read it to believe it. There are apparently, get this, STEROIDS IN WRESTLING!!! I knoooooow!!!! Unbelievable. Next up, this modern day Woodward and Bernstein is going to go undercover to see if there are any steroids in World’s Strongest Man Competitions. Hey guys, you should also do some in-depth coverage of strip clubs. I have a sneaking suspicion, call it a hunch, that you might turn up some nose candy.

In honor of Duke losing I have to post this, the funniest music video ever posted on YouTube. Seriously. Warning: This is not safe for work. (My buddy Mark pointed me to this on Withleather.com) Oh, and I picked Winthrop. I am a genius. My prognostication powers are ungodly. Ladies love me, girls adore me, I mean even the ones who never saw me.

Alright, so I’m gonna write about the early games as they happen. LIVE!!! Holy cow, the future is here. (Btw, I totally stole this idea from D-Mac, but there is nothing he can do to stop me.) Here goes:

12:41: Why is our game Georgia Tech vs. UNLV? In 1990, this would have been an AWESOME game, but now I really don’t care. I wanna see North Texas, who is beating Memphis 17-11. I did wanna see UVA, but that game is a blowout, 33-14.

12:45: Do you ever notice that this is the pre-eminent sports tournament of the year, and the stands are always completely empty for the first round games? Can someone explain that to me?

12:50: I’m glad that they’ve got the 2nd whitest black man* in America in the studio, Greg Gumbel. I think he has the all-time record for most hours spent in front of a television camera without ever once saying something interesting or informative. I’ve gone to the NCAA on Demand feature on Cbssportsline.com to watch North Texas and Memphis. It’s like watching a game on Youtube, but this Tech-UNLV game sucks.
*Bryant Gumbel is number one. Michael Jackson recently slipped to third.

12:53: Bill Raftery just said, his voice progressively rising, “His derriere has the presence, the power, the prowess to take it to the tin.” Bill Raftery, by the way, is my favorite announcer in all of sports. I’m not kidding. I love that guy. HE KICKS BILLY PACKERS SORRY ASS!!!!!

12:58: I wish Bill Raftery was my grandfather.

1:03: I wish Billy Packer was Dimeo’s grandfather.

1:04: I bet Billy Packer eats at Applebee’s all the time.

Continue reading “Liveblogging the tourney” →

Here’s the highlight reel following that epic 1987 game between Indiana and Syracuse. I’ll never forget that game, with Steve Alford and Keith Smart vs. Rony Seikaly and Sherman Douglas. Give it a minute to start after the Hoosiers cut down the net. As for my favorite NCAA moment, I dunno, it might have been when Bo Kimble shot those left handed free throws and Loyola Marymount went on that improbably run to the FInal 8. I hate Laettner (who should have been kicked out of that game), and I have no love for NC State either, so I don’t really care about that one. Another game I remember was the West Virginia-Wake Forest game from a couple of years ago. That’s one of the best I’ve ever seen. And that Kentucky game where that guys three pointer hung on the rim for like 5 seconds. Any tourney memories you have?
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Two more days, people. Two more days. But a quick complaint. What does everyone remember about last year’s final four? George Mason’s improbable run. I remember a ton of people saying right after that that the mid-majors were going to start getting the respect they deserve. Well, last year the mid-majors got 8 at large bids, this year they got six. They got less a year after one of them went all the way to the Final Four!!! Apparently the NCAA wants to lessen the chances of another Cinderella story. Uh, isn’t that what makes this whole tourney so great
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