Kyle Orton - He's no Gary Moeller

We direct you to this hilarious post at new sports site Deadspin for no other reason in that it's funny as hell. (Well, that and the fact Deadspin is our hero, but that's neither her nor there.) Apparently, Bears rookie QB Kyle Orton spent his bye week not studying his team's playbook but instead studying the proper production techniques of a bottle of Jack, right before he deposited what JD he had already imbibed into the nearest toilet stall.
Actually, we've known lots of people who went to Purdue (as Orton did), and this just reiterates what we've known all along: Purdue people can't drink for shit.

Let's play catch-up!

- The playoffs started. Lah-dee-frickin' dah. To recap day one's riveting action:
1) The Red Sox' pitch like Lindsay Lohan drives. 'Tis a frightful sight, dear citizens.
2) God, we hate the Cardinals. We realize that doesn't have any bearing on yesterday's game, but ... God, we really hate the Cardinals. Good to see Tony LaRussa took time out from trying to get everybody to adopt a fucking dog or cat to guide his team to this gutsy victory. God, we hate the Cardinals.
3) Yanks steal one from Anaheim Angels of Orange County/Los Angeles/Pacific Time Zone/San Adreas Fault/Western Hemisphere. Did you see Bartolo Colon's hair? What's up with that?
- Lest there be topless stripper referees or players given deadly weapons on the ice, you're going to have a hard time getting us all hot and bothered for the return of the NHL, especially once we learned they're showing the games on something called OLN. Ride that rocket, NHL. You guys are going places.
- Does Michelle Wie going pro in golf mean we don't have to wait for her to turn 18 now? Probably depends what state you live in. We'll keep our fingers crossed while legal gets this checked out for us.

Sports Cliche of the Week - Vote now!

It's that time again, sports fans, where we give you the chance for your voice to be heard. Send in your votes right away for this week's most gratuitous, canned or just plain ridiculous sports cliche.

A worthy slate of candidates awaits your dissemination:

1) Indian 1B Travis Hafner (who is a bad, bad man, by the way) on his team’s 8-0 pasting of the White Sox on Wednesday night helped them take 2 of 3 from the Pale Hose and move withing 2 1/2 games in the AL Central:
“We’ve been playing pretty well and hopefully we can continue to win games,” Hafner said. “Hopefully, that series at the end of the year means something, it would be pretty exciting.”

2) Meanwhile, last night White Sox outfielder Jermaine Dye was trying his darndest to spit-shine the turd that is his tcolossalollosal choke job after they dropped an extra-inning tilt to the Twins, allowing the Tribe to move within even closer:
“We’re just missing pitches. We’ve got to continue to battle and not put pressure on ourselves,” Dye said after Thursday night's crushing 4-1 loss to the Minnesota Twins in 11 innings. “We've got to play these games out and see where we're at,” Dye said.

3) Switching over to pigskin, Falcons coach Jim Mora Jr. discusses the possibility of playing this week without star QB Ron Mexico:
“I hope that he's OK. I think that he's OK,” the coach said. “If he's not, then we will go on. We’ll keep playing because there's nothing we can do about it.”


4) Back to baseball: After the YankeesÂ’ 2-1 win, coupled with the Red Sox’ bullpen-induced loss at Tampa Bay Wednesday night, thrusted them into first place of the AL East, Bronx Bomber catcher John Flaherty went all canned-quote on our asses when discussing the outing of Big Unit/Red Ass pitcher Randy Johnson:
“We got to where we want to be, but it doesn't change the focus of this team at all,” Flaherty said. “This is going to be a grind all the way out.”

5) And last, but certainly not least, in the nation's capital on his first road trip of 2005, Barry Bonds questioned why Congress, the media and fans continue to talk about steroids. **(Actually, this isn’t a cliche at all from Barry Bonds. We just highlighted this quote, in which he kindly suggests Congress stop looking into steroid use in baseball and concentrate on more important things, because it shows Bonds is either completely fucking clueless or has balls as big as his elephantine head)**:
“I think we have other issues in this country to worry about that are a lot more serious. I think you guys should direct your efforts into taking care of that,” the San Francisco Giants slugger said Tuesday before facing the Washington Nationals. “Talk about the athletes that are helping Katrina. Ask yourselves how much money y’all personally donated and have helped.”

Simply. Fucking. Stunning.

Vote throught the comments section. The winner will receive nothing but derision and mockery.

Thanks for playing!

Boxing, please go bye-bye

There's nothing funny about this story whatsoever, and even we wouldn't try to find a joke anywhere in this tragic turn of events. We're instead using this to start a campaign for something we actually take seriously here at Jock Scraps headquarters: Boxing just needs to go away in all its forms for good.

Mindfuck of the day: Billy Corgan knows more about baseball than you

When we saw this story teased on the Chicago Tribune's Web site, we were ready to tear into it, expecting to find a Cubs-related Q&A with former Smashing Pumpkins frontman and general weirdo Billy Corgan a comedic cornucopia of quotes and observations ready to be ridiculed mercilessly. Seriously, this is like having David Bowie break down the WNBA playoffs or Shakira prognosticate on the first BCS poll coming out.

Then we read it. Corgan knows him some fucking Cubs. It's quite depressing to find out some guy who used to write songs about aliens and probably did more heroin in the '90s than, ummm, we did knows more about our national pastime then we do. We're not sure if Corgan's got any tours planned for next summer, but if not, Jim Hendry needs to clear some space in the Cubs front office for this freak and make his first priority getting something in return for Corey Patterson.

Atlanta Braves fans do the Tomahawk Chop of Infectious-Disease Death

Men are disgusting pigs. No study is needed to prove that. Anyone who's ever braved the third-world trough urinals at Wrigley Field have seen just how far into the depths of human squalor a man is willing to go when he has to break the seal after 8 beers.

Studies apparently do need to be held, however, to remind us just how disgusting they can be from time to time.

That's why this story is so entertaining. We always knew Braves fans didn't give much of a shit about their team, but who knew that apathy spread to the pissers as well? Braves Fan ranked worse in a recent study of baseball-fan cleanliness, defined by taking all of 20 seconds to wash your hands after using the loo.

Of course, part of this could be explained by the fact that the majority of Braves fans come from Georgia, where running water and soap are so foreign and unfamiliar to locals they don't want to look stupid by admitting they don't know how to wash their hands.

Wired gets juiced

Computer-nerd bible Wired ran an interesting editorial from Mark McClusky on its Web site yesterday, essentially arguing for the end of steroids policing and testing in professional sports on account of its incredibly inefficiency and ineffectiveness. This being Wired, McClusky also pointed to the rapid and rather unchecked proliferation in product technology across the sporting spectrum and asked how different golfers using 460cc drivers and baseball players using EPO actually are.
Taking a libertarian stance, McClusky suggested letting the market and the technology take care of itself, assuming that things will just turn out fine.
What's our take on McClusky's interesting argument and theory, you're probably wondering?

Mark McClusky is obviously Barry Bonds' pen name. Nice try, Bar-roid, but we could smell that one coming a mile away.

Unintentionally arousing headline of the day

We got WAY too excited when we first glanced at this headline on ESPN.com, which we had unfortunately misconstrued as meaning Michelle Wie had finally turned 18. Alas, this was not the case; Wie is still a few weeks away from her 16th birthday, and plans to turn pro before her sweet 16. It's just not the same for us. At least we know when to set our "Countdown to 18" calendar to now.

Uncle Swann

You know, we've had this theory all along that Lynn Swann is actually a white guy with a really good tan, and ... well, this just validates that.

How else do you explain the picture of Swanny standing next to GW in this article on ESPN.com? We can't come up with anything else even remotely plausible. Give us your best guesses.


[AP Photo/Donna McWilliam, via ESPN.com]

Jock Scraps lives! (For now)

- What, you may ask, is so important that it finally dragged us away from our real work here at Jock Scraps World Headquarters to share with you, our loyal reader(s)? Baseball's red-hot pennant races? Another exciting weekend in college football or the NFL? Hockey starting training camp? Dan Klecko going Kevin Mitchell on some unsuspecting pedestrian?
Wrong on all counts! It's the WNBA Finals, ladies and gentlemen, and if you don't get excited for this, well, you must have no soul inside your cold, empty shell of a body.

The brass at WNBA headquarters still haven't figured out that the only way to get people to watch their dreadful product is to either 1) Force the losing team to make out with each other after every game, or 2) play the games in a pool of baby oil instead of a basketball court. We could tell you who's playing in this year's sure-to-be-historic tilt, but we know we'd lose any and all credibility with our loyal readers instantly. We're not walking that plank.

Bill Simmons, Menace 2 Society

No, we haven't been stranded on the roof of a New Orleans house the past week, waiting to be rescued, nor have we been stuck in the wreckage of a Biloxi casino blown three blocks inland by Katrina. But, like many people, we've been unable to peel ourselves from the TV, watching this heartbreaking story unfold over the past week. We've also done what we could by donating to the Red Cross, despite the fact we actually don't make any money, and we would urge you to do the same.

Anyhoo, on to the reason for this highly belated post:

We should have announced this right away, but we really don't like ESPN.com scribe Bill Simmons. We mean, we REALLY don't like him. He's a smug, pretentious smartass little wisp of a man. He's like the guy at the end of the bench of the best team in your league, the pasty white guy in short-shorts who never sees the floor except to shake hands at the end and slap his annoyed teammates on the back, yet gets to yell "Scoreboard" at everyone else. He has no discernible talent when he comes to writing; we assume he fancies himself a humorous columnist, yet we find pediatric cancer to have more comedic value than Simmons' pedestrian, predictable efforts.

Here's our latest reason to hate Simmons, as if we needed one: Billy unveiled his highly anticipated (did that sarcasm come through strong enough?) picks for the upcoming NFL season today. In a shocking departure from his usual blind, regional alliances and East Coast bias that taints his coverage of all sports, Simmons tabs the unlikeliest of teams to triumph - the Patriots.

Throw in some derivative movie-related crap, lots of compartmentalized writing, and too many bad jokes to mention, and you've got yourself a standard-issue Bill Simmons column. In fact, we thinks Simmons has three or four column templates on his computer, where all he has to do is plug in a few subjects, names and places and press "send." They're probably listed "Patriots column," "Red Sox column," "Celtics column," and "Make fun of Peyton Manning column."

By the way, we find it at least a little comforting - although not at all surprising - that we're not alone in wanting this schmuck to go the way of Trev Alberts.