Stalking Chase: An Admirer on Tracks

Dear Chase Utley,

Thanks for ripping twenty eight homers with your short, jerky swing. Your VORP is like that of John Lennon, there is only one.

It’s time for you to find a Hollywood publicist and a public vice. Spend your nights outside Philly’s finest strip joints with Stephen Jackson, firing automatic weapons into the air, slurping Grey Goose on the rocks and snorting cocaine off Destiny’s backside. Let your hair down Chase, we wanna see your dark side.

The way you flick those wrists makes me wonder if you’re into S&M.

-Locomotive

Favre Faxes Dulcolax Prescription

Quinn Contemplates 'Catching' Professionally

LBMS Book Club

The struggling American economy is slowly eliminating the high school sports landscape, leaving one Pulitzer winner in search of a new game, and a new breed, to exploit. That man is, of course, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter H.G. Bissinger.
Secular religions are fascinating in the devotion and zealousness they breed, and in Oregon, under-eight soccer has its own "rabid" hold over the faithful. H.G. Bissinger, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, enters into the spirit of one of its "most fervent shrines": Cedar Mill, an upper-middle class suburb in the comfortable confines of Northwest Oregon, where the Brockman D.D.S. Tooth Fairies have managed to compile the most smiles and least on-field urine stains in state annals. Indeed, as this breathtaking examination of the town, the team, its coaches, and its young players chronicles, the team, for better and for worse, is portrayed as the town; the communal health and self-image of the latter is minsinterpreted as being linked to the on-field success of the former. The 2007 season, the one Saturday Afternoon Orange Slices recounts, was not one of the Tooth Fairies' best. Bissinger's effect on the community--and the players--was explosive. Written with exaggerated style and unnecessary, borderline libelous, passion, SAOS offers an American snapshot in deeply blurred focus; the picture is not always pretty, but the image is hard to forget.

Country Singer Whispers Sweet Nothings in Dallas Goaltender's Earhole

File this one in the 'timely posts' section of your Carl Monday Memorial library, for we've recently come to discover that Dallas Stars backup goalie Mike Smith gave dome to a dude has a dude on his dome - and apparently it's supposed to be former Padres auditionee Garth Brooks. *Insert Brooks' song title pun and/or Brokeback joke here*

This is a special precedent Smith has set here. We can only hope it leads to Dominik Hasek stenciling a shirtless Eminem onto his old, sexually neutral red helmet when he once again pounces out of his retirement rocker.

Shaq Sentenced to Death for Rap Song

Handicapping the College World Series Final

The championship series of the CWS begins this evening in Omaha and pits the number four regional seed Fresno State Bulldogs against the number eight national seed Georgia Bulldogs.

Picking the winner is normally a quite easy task, as the the school with the tougher mascot has won every year since 1998 (Trojans over Sun Devils; in reality, a devil will corrode the soul of even the strongest-willed warrior, but USC happened to prevail in the baseball matchup ten years ago).

But considering this year features a battle of mascots of the same breed, an anomaly that hasn't occured in the CWS's 61-year history, we'll need to analyze the logos to uproot our answer.

Fresno State (above, left) pros: Bulldog assumes a strong, wide stance and yields Popeye-calibur forearms; compensates for jowels with chiseled body; pigeon-pawed, giving it a steady center of gravity; looks like the milky cousin of that demon dog from Ghostbusters.

Georgia pros: Battle-ready intensity, complete with prototypical Bulldog underbite; razor-sharp spikes on collar; cap, although erring on the circus-tent side looks-wise, implies a more advanced baseball capacity than it's nude-domed FSU counterpart; wrinkly (savvy); bloodshot eyes, possibly indicating rabies.

Fresno State cons: Cross-eyed, mouth agape; rounded, bulbous spikes on collar; bright-white teeth, smooth face, indicators of pampering, thus lowering kennel cred.

Georgia cons: No body; apparent cauliflower ear; red, blood-like substance above collar, evidence to decapitation as reason for lack of body; bloodshot eyes, possibly indicating the dog is high.

Consensus: Even though the signs point towards a Fresno State win, we can't rule out a mascot that has chomped at opposing players in the past. Georgia in three.