GEORGE IS GETTING UPSET: DETAILED TRADE ANALYSIS RIGHT HERE

With Patriots training camp heating up and the fan base expecting an undefeated season, we wondered if Boston wonder kid Theo Epstein might make a move to return his first place Red Sox to the forefront of the local papers and the airwaves of talk radio. We assume the situation must have become even more untenable once the Celtics acquired The Big Ticket from Minnesota. And we think we may have assumed correctly. From the man who brought you the signings of J.D Drew and Edgar Renteria, we now get the trade of three prospects in exchange for the two-month rental of reliever Eric Gagne. This to a team with the best bullpen in baseball. Makes about as much sense as letting Pedro Martinez and Derrick Lowe go and replacing them with Matt Clement.

-- Tony 2 Hours

BLIND ITEM: GUESS THE ATHLETE WITH THE HOOKER ADDICTION

Interesting item buried at the end of this Daily News gossip column today:

Which unlikely sports celebrity will soon be gracing a fitness magazine cover as part of a back-room deal to keep certain damaging hooker allegations out of a different publication?

Naturally, we have no idea, but what throws us off especially is the phrase "unlikely sports celebrity." We're not quite sure what that means, in this context. Is it even an athlete? Since we are not the type to throw out baseless rumors, we're not going to try to sully anyone's good name by taking a guess (ahem); but if you are so inclined to do so yourself, let us know who you think it is in the comments.

HOW DARE THEY INSULT VICTORIA LIKE THAT

As you may have already realized, we're pretty big fans of Victoria Beckham. So when we saw that some site called Uber.com had Beckham's "Coming to America" as one of their Top 10 Worst Celebrity Reality Shows . . . well, we had no reaction; we have never seen the show. But this little commentary was just uncalled for: "Cancelled [sic] immediately after Victoria Beckham discovered that everyone might soon realize she was ugly and pretty uninteresting."

Now that is just plain wrong. Look at that picture right there, Uber.com, and take it all back.

[link via Extra Mustard]

BROOKE BURKE IS FROM HARTFORD

We did not know that Brooke Burke was born in Hartford until just a few minutes ago. Being from CT ourselves, this makes us oddly proud. Anyway, she posed for Razor Magazine recently, and at age 36, is still looking incredibly soaw.

THE BROWNS WILL NOT BE VERY GOOD

With the 2007 NFL season upon us, we thought we'd offer our little projections for each team's total wins, using the over/under lines posted by our favorite sportsbook. Helping out in the projections will be our copy of Pro Football Prospectus, the fine book from the guys at Football Outsiders. Up next, the Cleveland Browns.

We are feeling bad for the Cleveland Browns faithful already and the preseason has yet to even begin. You see, while Cleveland drafted three very good players this past April in Joe Thomas, Brady Quinn, and Eric Wright, they also sacrificed next year's No. 1 pick in their haste to trade up and select Quinn with the No. 22 overall pick. Now, we are not Brady Quinn haters around these parts, and if FO thinks he will be a very good QB (and they do), then we will tend to agree. The problem is that we don't think Quinn will be of much use this season, and that Cleveland will once again be dreadful; and if that's the case, they'll be shipping off a Top 5 pick in next year's draft to the Dallas Cowboys, which is going to set them back even further. (We're not sure any of that made much sense).

Vegas has the Browns at an over/under of six wins; FO projects them for 7.6. We are surprised by these numbers, to say the least. Cleveland plays home-and-homes with Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore: we think they go 1-5 in those games. Road games at NE, NYJ, and ARZ are three more losses right there. We see the only two "sure" wins as home against HOU, and on the road against OAK. Anyway, this preview is boring the hell out of us, so we're saying the Cleveland Browns go 3-13 next year and hand over the No. 1 overall pick to the Cowboys.

Vegas: 6.0 wins
Football Outsiders: 7.6 wins
Getting Soaw: 3.0 wins

WE FEEL ANDY RODDICK'S PAIN

This past Saturday, we headed down to Bleecker Street for lunch to try out this seafood place we were hearing good things about. We decided to go for one of the Happy Hour specials -- 6 Blue Point oysters and a glass of red wine for $8 -- and we were having a fine time. We are inexperienced oyster eaters, however, and when the various sauces arrived, we tried every one of them with great fervor: horseradish, Tabasco, and this purple onion and vinegar concoction. This proved to be a grave mistake, for we have a temperamental stomach; one hour later we were back at our apartment, our head in the toilet, cursing ourselves for being such a reckless eater.

We relay this tale to you only after hearing about Andy Roddick's latest problems. On Saturday, Roddick was playing in the semifinals of something called the Indianapolis Tennis Championships when he lost to unseeded Frank Dancevic. Roddick's "excuse" for the loss? He ate some bad fast food the night before and wasn't feeling very well. We can totally relate with Roddick here. After our oyster disaster, we had trouble even going down for our afternoon nap, and would never wish that experience upon anyone.

UM, YEAH . . . IT'S JUST A GAME

There are no asinine jokes to make here, because this is just sick and twisted:

A New York man has been charged with beating his mother to death with a barbell after losing his temper while watching a baseball game on television. . . .

His father Fred Fischman shouted at him to stop, but Anthony punched him in the face and threw him to the ground, according to the criminal charges.

When Anthony's mother, Maria Fischman, 61, tried to intervene, prosecutors said he stabbed her once in the head with a knife before chasing her into a bedroom where he struck her several times with the nine-kilogram barbell.

We think that's called taking the game a little too seriously.

[link via Fark]

SHAMELESS GISELLE POST

Sometimes we hate our job, and today is one of those times. So here are some pictures of Giselle from Maxim, just to ease our pain.

THE NBA IS MORE FUN TO TALK ABOUT THAN IT IS TO WATCH

We are pretty casual NBA fans. While we appreciate the start power certain players bring to the table -- Kobe, LeBron, Wade, Duncan, Carmelo, etc. -- we think the overall product is watered down because there are far too many teams in the league. And for this reason, we find ourselves rarely going out of our way to watch any particular game, even during the playoffs: if we're flipping through the channels and the Suns and playing the Mavs, then sure, we're watching for a bit.

The thing is, we always found it far more interesting to talk about the NBA than to actually watch it, and by talk, we namely mean talk about trades, even if they never happen. So our ears perk up when we hear the latest "news" that these Kevin Garnett/Al Jefferson trade talks are back on. (We guess Boston isn't so bad a place after all). Clearly, the Celtics are willing to sacrifice their young players for the opportunity -- say, a three year window -- to win now. KG, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen would make an interesting trio, especially in the pathetic eastern conference. As for the T'Wolves, grouping Jefferson with Randy Foye, Craig Smith, rookie Corey Brewer and Rashad McCants (we still have hope!) would give them some hope for future successes, we suppose.

HOT GOLFER WINS FIRST TOURNAMENT

Natalie Gulbis has been soaw pretty much her entire life; now, she's winning golf tournaments, too. Gulbis won something called the Evian Masters to notch her first LPGA Tour title on Sunday. This is the same woman who has posed for FHM and who onced released a calendar that was so "provocative" that the USGA refused to sell it at the 2004 U.S. Women's Open. The AP report yesterday led with this: "Natalie Gulbis finally can be known for winning, too." Now, let's not get too carried away.

WE HEAR JAKE LONG IS A GOOD PROSPECT

With the 2007 NFL season upon us, we thought we'd offer our little projections for each team's total wins, using the over/under lines posted by our favorite sportsbook. Helping out in the projections will be our copy of Pro Football Prospectus, the fine book from the guys at Football Outsiders. Up first, the Oakland Raiders.

We still remember the Vegas line from last season's Week 1 game between the Oakland Raiders and San Diego Chargers: SD -3 1/2. It goes without saying that we now regret not jumping all over that one, as the Chargers rolled 27-0. Of course, not many people could have predicted how historically bad the Raiders offense would be in 2006, which scored 20 or more points in a game only four times all year. That's what you get for putting a former bed and breakfast manager in charge of drawing up plays. The defense, to their credit, was very good -- FO ranked them as the 9th best unit in the league.

Vegas has the Raiders at an over/under of five wins for the 2007 season. Gone from the team are Art Shell and Randy Moss, and in comes new head coach Lane Kiffin, No. 1 pick JaMarcus Russell, and fellow rookie Michael Bush. They have home-in-home games with Denver and San Diego, and get the Colts and Bears at home, with Jacksonville on the road. That's seven losses right there. Throw in road games at Miami, Green Bay, Tennessee and Minnesota, and we can see the Raiders easily losing 11 games. Football Outsiders projects them with 6.5 wins, which we think is generous. We think the Raiders will once again be picking in the Top 3 come the 2008 draft, and see them finishing at 4-12, Warren Sapp's miraculous weight loss be damned.

Vegas: 5.0 wins
Football Outsiders: 6.5 wins
Getting Soaw: 4.0 wins

ESPN'S PROGRAMMING DOES NOT AFFECT IT'S NEWS COVERAGE: NOPE, NOT AT ALL

Picking on ESPN is far too easy these days, and that's not what we're about here at GS. (Until Stuart Scott sends a text message; then we're totally all over it). But like many people, we can't help but sometimes feel that the Worldwide Leader is pushing their programming down our throat. Case in point, this screen grab from the .com on Sunday afternoon: NASCAR's Allstate 400 as the main story, and the "ArenaBowl" with prominent placement above all the day's news headlines. Far be it for us to question the importance of those two sporting events -- hey, some people really like NASCAR! -- but we have to wonder how much influence ESPN's programming contracts have over their news coverage.

As most people know, ESPN acquired a minority stake in the AFL back in December, and is now back in the fold with broadcasting NASCAR races. This naturally causes a curious conflict of interest for the Four Letter, and it perturbs us just a bit when we see this in action. But hey, the Sabercats and the Destroyers deserve their day in the spotlight too, we suppose, even if nobody is watching.

JOSE CANSECO WILL RUIN ANOTHER BASEBALL PLAYER'S CAREER

Jose Canseco is a man of honor and integrity. In his first book, he alleged that Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro used steroids. Now, the man who once tried to run his wife over with his car is continuing his truth crusade in a new book, this time taking aim at Alex Rodriguez:

Canseco told Boston radio station WEEI that he had “other stuff on Alex Rodriguez that will be coming out (in the new book)” . . . In the interview, Canseco called Rodriguez a "hypocrite" who "was not all he appeared to be," WEEI reported.

We are fascinated by these new allegations. Jose Canseco cares only about the sanctity of a game that he himself treated with so much respect, of course. We see him as the obvious successor to Bud Selig one day, really.

MIKE VICK GOT . . .

Ron Mexico is headed to the dog pound. Once a poster boy for both Nike and Reebok, Mike Vick finds himself without his name to sell or some cerebral to get soaw, as the two sneaker giants have decided to avoid any controversy in the media by removing his jerseys off their retailers' shelves. We're pretty stoned ourselves right now. We find this entire episode uninteresting. Vick is awful; top five overrated players in the game. All we've remembered of his career is that Powerade commercial. Now that was awesome.

WE TRIED TO TIE THIS INTO SPORTS. WE FAILED. WE'RE POSTING IT ANYWAY

50 cent lost his card at age 12 - to a 22 year old, no less - and had this to say about it:

“It went well. . . . I spent a night at my friend’s house, and his sister had her friend staying over, too. So I started to touch on her. I was a horny little dog, and I got away with it.”

That is tremendous. Now, rumors have surfaced that he and our favorite #2 girl, Jessica Alba, might be huuuling. We are very jealous of this man's life. Yes, one time he was shot in the face and almost had his life cut short, but we'd take that same abuse to spend five minutes with this girl (not that we'd need the full five; give us thirty seconds and we'd be a happy man) in a heartbeat. Of course, this is just speculation and nothing to take too seriously, but for now let's give the man the benefit of the doubt: it's more fun that way. Also, we wonder what Ciara has to say about this.

-- Bagger

BARRY BONDS ONE AWAY, HEIDI KLUM STILL AMAZINGLY HOT

Heidi Klum is in her mid-30s, has three children, and is still one of the top 10 hottest women on the planet, as seen in her recent nude Arena Magazine photos.

Barry Bonds is 43, has a cartoon-sized head, and is probably the best baseball player of all-time. Okay, the lame, forced comparisons between these two stop there. Of course, as everyone knows, Bonds is one home run shy of tying the career record of 755, after belting his 20th of the season in last night's 12-10 win over the Marlins. Personally, we are having a tough time bringing ourselves to care about this whole home run chase too much. And it doesn't really have much to do with the steroids angle, even though anybody with a pulse realizes that Bonds used them. No, it's because as it is with all records, whenever this moment comes, it will lack all the suspense that make true sports moments memorable -- everybody knows it's coming eventually, and when it does for Bonds, we would not be surprised if we weren't anywhere near a TV to watch it happen.

MAY WE HUMBLY SUGGEST MICHELLE TAFOYA'S REPLACEMENT

Excuse us if you have already heard of Ines Sainz, but we had not until today, and now we are in love. Apparently, Ines is a sports reporter for Mexican TV Azteca, and attended Media Day at the Super Bowl in January.

There is no reason she shouldn't be on the sideline for ABC during Monday Night Football, we feel; there is no telling what kind of pick-up lines Joe Namath would have in store for her if, you know, he were ever allowed back on a sideline again.

MANNY RAMIREZ CAN HIT THE BALL FAR

When he's not listing his gas grill for $4,000 on eBay, Manny Ramirez is hitting the ball very far. Sure, he sometimes forgets to motion Coco Crisp to slide into home on a play at the plate, rarely runs hard out of the box, and disappears into the Green Monster to take a leak on occasion, but when he's on, he's been one of the best right-handed hitters of all-time. Last night against the Indians, Ramirez jacked two home runs (Nos. 16 and 17), including a 481-foot shot, the third-longest in Jacobs Field history.

Also, birthday boy Alex Rodriguez will go for #500 tonight against the Orioles, even if he may have already hit it on June 28th. (Strange). If Alex is in celebration mode, we hear there are many fine gentlemen's clubs in the greater Baltimore area, chock full of the burly type, should you have any interest in meeting him out to offer your heartfelt congratulations.

JEREMY SHOCKEY KNOWS HOW TO TALK TO THE LADIES

We have been to a strip club less than ten times in our life, and we guess, at age 25, that is somewhat pathetic. There is just something terribly depressing about walking into one of those places, looking around, and seeing dozens of drunk old men with their chins on the bar, angling for a better peek of a girl who wants nothing more from you than a dollar bill. (Not that we're judging). We suppose if we were professional football players, though, a night at Scores would be a tad more interesting, especially if we were Jeremy Shockey:

Jeremy Shockey and several teammates were happy guys when they reported to the Giants training camp yesterday, following a night of cavorting with strippers at Scores West Side. . . . "Jeremy is the coolest," said Scores dancer Devin. "He complimented me on my new boob job, which makes me a 36D."

If only we could think of such flattering things to say to strippers, we imagine we wouldn't feel so awkward becoming aroused the next time we got a lap dance.

VICTORIA BECKHAM DOES NOT CARE TO WEAR A BRA

No news to read here. Just Victoria Beckham in a parking garage, looking incredible, as always. This whole David Beckham playing in LA thing is working out quite nicely, we think.

ONE POSSIBLE THEORY ALL THESE WRITERS KEEP LEAVING SI

The Big Lead does a fine job keeping abreast of all the latest media rumblings; most recently, they learned that NFL scribe Michael Silver was leaving Sports Illustrated to write for Yahoo Sports. Silver is just the last writer to fly the SI coop, following Jeff Chadiha and Steve Rushin, among others. We were reading through some of the comments of that TBL post, when this one gave us pause (and made us chuckle): "seriously, how many actual writers would love to write for SI and they give a whole column to some broad because she has big tits."

We all know who that broad is, of course: FSU "cowgirl" Jenn Sterger. (We have a buddy who once asked her to be his "friend" on MySpace; he did not receive a reply). Yes, Sterger is still writing for SI.com, and we guess at this point, we better start calling her an actual columnist (shudder). We don't mean to pick on her, because it's a great gig and we're sure she's having a good time doing it, traveling from stadium to ballpark and back, all on SI's dime. Nope, we're not jealous at all. But her musings sometimes leave us with much to be desired, such as her take on this whole Mike Vick saga:

I think these athletes forget how fortunate they are to do something they LOVE for a living. They get paid to play a game, to represent a city, to represent fans, and to be a role model.

We think Ms. Sterger forgets how talented these athletes actually are, and that they earn their positions based on merit, as opposed to, say, a nice rack. And this cannot reflect too well on SI among those in the "industry," and might be a reason all these writers keep leaving for other places; or, maybe they're just tired of sharing the masthead with a guy who writes about his colonoscopy.

WE WOULD . . . CAROLINA ARDOHAIN

After the completion of the unmitigated disaster that was our Soaw of the Week poll (17 votes!), we have a winner: ladies and gentlemen, may we present to you Ms. Carolina Ardohain. Carolina outlasted fellow hottie Lucy Pinder by a count of 12-5, an achievement she can now add to her resume to go along with Victoria's Secret model, TV host, and for once having been quoted as saying: "I never drink alcohol, and never take drugs. For fun, I dance. . . . I dance on tables, I'm not shy."

Not to disappoint loyal reader Tim, but we could not find much other biographical information on Carolina. Suffice to say, she is this week's Soaw of the Week, and would totally destroy last week's winner (Heidi Montag) in a vote if we were so inclined to put one up.

PEANUTS HERE: KEN GRIFFEY JR. IS STILL AWESOME, THE BREWERS ARE TOAST

Ok, in our personal effort to start following baseball more closely, we present this installment of our daily "feature," lamely titled "Peanuts Here." (We'll see how long this lasts).

Like a lot of people our age, Ken Griffey, Jr. used to be our favorite player when we were growing up. From 1996-1999, we don't ever remember seeing somebody whose play excited us so much. We often wonder now what could have been, had he not been injured so much with the Reds and all. Alas, there is no use in that; we shall look to the present! And last night, Griffey popped his 588th career home run in Cincinnati's 10-inning, 6-5 win over the Brewers.

The Brew Crew, sadly, have gone 13-15 since June 23, and we are not pleased to report that their Cinderella season may be coming to an abrupt halt. Yes, even though they're still leading the NL Central, we think they're toast. The Cubs trail by just two games, and are poised to take over first place anytime soon, unless Carlos Zambrano forgets to take his medication again. (Yes, they got killed last night). For some reason, we want to see the Cubs in the World Series. We feel bad for them, almost, and we think this is their year, and that they deserve it.

THE THIRD OLSEN TWIN: MIKE COMRIE IS A LUCKY S.O.B.

Mike Comrie plays for the New York Islanders. He is also an heir to the Brick Warehouse forture, whatever that is. Not bad, eh? Well, he's also doing Hillary Duff, who is quite hot.

Sources tell us that the twosome have been hot and heavy since a wet weekend of jet skiing in Idaho.

Something about that sentence is just weird. Anyway, we don't know Comrie's dating history, but this is quite a score for him, although we always have trouble distinguishing between Hillary Duff and Carrie Underwood, for some reason, even if they look nothing alike. Sometimes we just get confused.

UPDATE: We now know a bit more about other girls Comrie used to bed, thanks to The Big Lead. We say Duff is a step down from Kristin Cavallari, but we nitpick here.

STRAY-ROD AND GLAVINE ARE ONE AWAY FROM HISTORY

Alex Rodriguez is awesome. The star who prefers muscular women now needs only one more home run to reach 500 after a monster shot in Kansas City last night. A-Rod will have a chance to reach the milestone tonight against Jorge De La Rosa (who?), who A-Rod hit his 400th home run off of (oh, that De La Rosa) in 2005. As huge fans of any thing A-Rod, we can’t wait to see him become the youngest of 22 players to reach the 500 plateau, even if his lips are purple.

As for that other New York team, Tom Glavine (who lives in Greenwich!) is one win away from 300 after the Mets' win against the Pirates last night. Glavine hasn’t done anything to help our fantasy team (ed. note: we hate talking about fantasy teams) and we personally saw the interview with Willie Randolph where he didn’t seem to give two shits about Glavine’s 299th or whether he reached 300. If Willie don’t care, Getting Soaw don’t care. (Well, except in this case).

IDEAS WE WISH WE THOUGHT OF

Winning the Turnover Battle has churned out a doozy: their NFL Rookie (Cheerleader) Preview. They take a look at six rookie cheerleaders, plus the entire Houston rookie squad. While WTB pegs Lauren Gardner from the Broncos as their favorite, we are partial to Andrea from the Texans, even if our co-worker just caught us uploading her picture to this post.

DEION SANDERS TAKES US INSIDE MIKE VICK'S HEAD

You thought Clinton Portis and Emmitt Smith had some interesting ways to defend Mike Vick's dogfighting allegations? Well, Deion Sanders laughs at their simplicity. Amazingly, someone at the South Florida News-Press thought it was a good idea to let Prime Time pen an op-ed piece, in which he comes to a, um, curious defense of the Falcons' star quarterback.

What a dog means to Vick might be a lot different than what he means to you or I. Hold on, don’t start shaking your head just yet. Listen to me.

. . . some people enjoy proving they have the biggest, toughest dog on the street. You’re probably not going to believe this, but I bet Vick loves the dogs that were the biggest and the baddest. Maybe, he identified with them in some way.

I believe Vick had a passion for dogfighting. I know many athletes who share his passion. The allure is the intensity and the challenge of a dog fighting to the death. It’s like ultimate fighting, but the dog doesn’t tap out when he knows he can’t win.

As far as we can tell, Deion was not being tongue-in-cheek, and was in fact 100% serious. The best part about this, to us, is picturing Deion sitting down at his computer to write this mind-numbingly insane op-ed. We mean, it's not like he just shot off from the hip; presumably, he actually put some thought into this, considered it worthy, and passed it off for all the world to see. Frankly, we are hoping now more than ever that we will have NFL Network on Time Warner Cable this season.

[link via FanHouse]

WE THINK CURT SCHILLING MAY HAVE A POINT

We have to admit, we kind of like Curt Schilling. We don't care for the Red Sox so much, but we admire Schilling speaking his mind when it comes to "important issues" in baseball. We understand he may rub some people the wrong way, but really, it's a lose-lose situation for athletes in this position. If they remain bland and apolitical, they get slammed for not speaking up (see Jordan, Woods). If they decide to offer their opinion on such matters, well, they are told to just shut up and play ball. For this, we sympathize with them, and it's why we don't mind Schilling calling out Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire:

"If someone wrote that stuff about me and I didn't sue, am I not admitting that there's some legitimacy to it?" Schilling said on the "Costas Now" program. "It goes to the Mark McGwire thing in Congress. I mean, I'm a huge Mark McGwire fan. But I just always thought it was very simple: If you did something and someone asks you if you did it and you didn't do it, you say no. Any other answer than no is some form of yes, isn't it?"

We mean, he's right about this, isn't he? We think he has a point. And we have to disagree with Deadspin's criticism that Schilling is only tough on steroids when talking to the media, as opposed to when he's under oath, or sitting in front of Congress. Now, Will, we know you like to get "cheeky" and all, but can you really even compare the circumstances here? We think not.

Finally, Bonds has already shot back . . . at Bob Costas, the one who interviewed Schilling: "You mean that little midget man who absolutely knows jack … about baseball, who never played the game before?" Sigh. When massaging the cream and clear onto his skin, we fear Barry Bonds must have also acquired the Joe "Only People Who Played the Game Can Talk About the Game" Morgan disease.

PEANUTS HERE: RYAN HOWARD IS BETTER THAN WE THINK

Ok, in our personal effort to start following baseball more closely, we present this installment of our daily "feature," lamely titled "Peanuts Here." (We'll see how long this lasts).

For some reason, we were under the impression that Ryan Howard was having somewhat of an off year. Forgive us, for we are idiots: Howard is projected to finish with 49 home runs and 146 RBI, which would have to make him MVP in the NL, right? He led the Phillies to their fifth straight win with a walk-off, two-run home run in the 14th inning, to give Philadelphia a 7-5 win over the Nationals. The Phillies are only five game back of the Mets, and two games out of the wild card. Nothing would make us happier to see them face off against the Cubs in the playoffs.

[thanks to The 700 Level for the picture]

THEY TOOK MY SON!! MICHAEL RETURNING TO LOST

If we had a "Top 5 TV shows of all-time" list, Lost would certainly make the cut (on the back end, mind you, but still). Even with the sinking ship that was 95% of Season 3, all was redeemed with that fabulous season finale; we do not think we have seen a better one for any show, ever. The one main character missing from S3, of course, was Michael, who we last saw (we think) motor-boating away from the Others' dock after betraying his friends. But now he's back, when Season 4 starts back up, oh, sometime after the Super Bowl. We totally expect him and Rousseau to get it on.

[link via Fark]

SCOTT OLSEN WILL RESIST ARREST AND PITCH A FEW DAYS LATER

Apparently the Florida Marlins have no qualms about pitcher Scott Olsen kicking police officers, getting stun-gunned, driving drunk, and getting arrested this past Saturday, because Olsen will start tonight against the Diamondbacks and remain in the rotation for the rest of the season. This is the same Scott Olsen who was suspended by the team for getting into it with teammate Sergio Mitre earlier this month, and fined for making obscene gestures to fans in Milwaukee, also earlier this month. Sure seems like a swell guy.

Now don't get us wrong: we are all for the whole innocent-until-proven-guilty thing, and allowing the law run it's course; we just don't think "due process" applies here, and the Marlins should sack him for a few starts. You know, he did try to beat up a couple of cops only four days ago, after all.

BIG BEN MAY BE TAPPING THAT HOT CHICK FROM HEROES (NO, NOT THE 18 YEAR OLD, PERVERT)

There are two shows we need to catch up on before TV season kicks back into gear this fall: The Wire (Season 4; anybody have a release date?) and Heroes. We have seen the first two episodes of Heroes, and we are mildly intrigued, even if that Asian kid bothers us. One actress we don't recall seeing in those first two episodes, however, is Missy Peregrym. We will have to keep an eye out for her, though, as she appears to be getting close with Ben Roethilsberger:

It seems that Big Ben has gotten himself a lady friend and they've recently been seen taking in a Pirates game together. Missy Peregrym was on Heroes and while we don't know jack about the show, we know that we like what we see.

We like what we see, too. Watch out, though, Big Ben: Matt Leinart could very well swoop in, knock her up, and stick you with the child support payments.

[link and picture via Extra Mustard]

THIS IS JUST RIDICULOUS

The Boston Red Sox have their own team barber, and he goes by the name of LMontro. He lives at the Brookline Holiday Inn during the season, and even travels with the team (though he pays for his own flights and hotels) on the road. Not surprisingly, David Ortiz "recruited" LMontro to work "exclusively" with the Sox. And how did LMontro get his first big break?

While working at a barbershop in Miami, LMontro saw an ad on television for the World Baseball Classic, which was about to be played in Orlando. "I said, 'Yo, there are going to be lots of guys there who need barbers,"' he recalls. "I rented a car and drove there with my clippers."

Inspiring perserverance, we must say; if only we had so much motivation to cut hair, we too could take in $1,000 a cut, which would help us pay for our Hummer with Louis Vuitton seats, gull-wing doors, and a satellite dish on the roof.

PEANUTS HERE: DICE-K IS AWESOME

Ok, in our personal effort to start following baseball more closely, we present this first installment of our daily baseball "feature," lamely titled "Peanuts Here." (We'll see how long this lasts).

We found this ESPN headline to last night's Red Sox/Indians game a bit curious: "Matsuzaka solid in matchup with Sabathia." Mr. Dice-K pitched seven shut-out innings, allowing four hits, striking out five, while throwing only 98 pitches against one of the best teams in baseball. We would say that performance is more than "solid," though we are nitpicking here. The Sox won, 1-0, as "Walks" Matsuzaka (we like that name) outdueled C.C. Sabathia, keeping Boston 7.5 games up on the Yankees. That's all we have to say about that.

[we don't know where With Leather got this picture from, but it is awesome]

LEINART GETTING FLEECED FOR $30K A MONTH?

Matt Leinart wants the world to know he's not a deadbeat dad after all. In an "exclusive statement" to People Magazine, Leinart defends himself from Brynn Cameron, his baby mama who had said she's done 99.9% of the parenting with their son Cole, and who had (curiously) sounded surprised at Leinart's Hollywood lifestyle. Leinart's reply:

"I don't know if Cole's mother is motivated by anger or by financial gain," he adds, "but it is my sincere hope that one day we will be able to effectively co-parent our son who we both love very much."

Turns out that financial gain is to the tune of $30,000, the amount Brynn wants Leinart to fork over every month; so we assume it's not so much the anger. As TMZ points out, that seems like a bit much for a girl who's still living with her parents, no? No matter, we have faith Leinart will be able to get through all this, and remember to use a prophylactic the next time he finds himself intimate with, say, Paris Hilton.

WAIT . . . NBA REFEREES GET PAID HOW MUCH?

Unlike most other people, this whole NBA/gambling scandal doesn't really do much for us. Yes, it's like a story straight from the pen of David Chase: gambling, organized crime, "rogue" insiders, the FBI; we understand the intrigue, believe us. The thing is, though, what happens after this whole thing plays out? Tim Donahgy resigns, David Stern holds a press conference promising to look into it, games that Donaghy worked are re-evaluated to see if any were effected, and then the whole thing goes away and nobody remembers this guy's name three years from now.

And then all this fuss over nothing. We don't know; we just don't care all that much about it. Also, we're terribly bored by the NBA: like many, we haven't been true fans since Michael Jordan retired. So that probably has something to do with it.

No, what intrigues us most is finding out how much money NBA referees make. Entry-level referees make $85,000 per year . . . $85,000! To work what, 60 games a season? Is anybody else stunned by that figure? Donaghy was pulling in over $200k, plus playoff money; um, he must have been in some very, very serious gambling debt if that salary wasn't cutting it for him. We would gladly take the abuse from the likes of Ron Artest and Rasheed Wallace for that kind of change. Sigh. We are in the wrong career field, we're afraid.

WHO SHOULD BE SOAW OF THE WEEK?

Silly us. We experimented with our little "poll," failing to realize it's tough to vote on the attractiveness of two generally random girls without seeing any pictures. So forgive us. We'll keep this post on the top until Thursday Tuesday night; or maybe we'll delete it before then, when it bothers us. Lucy Pinder on the left; Carolina Adrohain on the right.

THE FIRST AND POSSIBLY ONLY HOCKEY POST YOU WILL EVER SEE ON THIS SITE

We're severely addicted to gambling on the NFL; we simply cannot get enough. The first "week" of this season will feature a Thursday night game, a full slate of games on Sunday, and two Monday night games, and we will try to watch as many plays as humanly possible. Unfortunately, we live in an apartment in Manhattan, and thus cannot get the NFL Sunday Ticket from DirecTV. So this leaves us with no other option than going to a sports bar to watch an untelevised, out of market game. If the NFL were like the NHL, though, they would be doing their fans a huge service and offer their games online.

The National Hockey League (NHL) has tapped NeuLion to power its new online video portal, which will offer live hockey games and is scheduled to rollout at the start of the 2007-08 season.

The new NHL Integrated Video Portal will be available via NHL.com and all of the 30 club sites. It will deliver live game content, video features, behind-the-scenes footage and game highlights that are viewable in multiple video windows or full screen.

A gimmick to attract a floundering fan base, or simply the kind-hearted benevolence of the NHL in action? Tough to decide. Either way, we're setting the over/under for paid subscriptions at four.

[Link via Fark]

BARRY BONDS' MISTRESS LETTING IT ALL HANG OUT

<This is (we think) Kimberly Bell, former mistress of Barry Bonds. Imagining what she looks like naked? Well, you only have to wait until November's issue of Playboy hits the stands to find out, because she'll be baring it all. Also, she'll be giving an interview about her supposed 10 year relationship with the Giants slugger:

"If I had more self-esteem when I was younger," she said, "I wouldn't have been caught up with such a rotten man."

You see, we are far more entertained by this than we are by Bonds chasing the career home run record.

BECKHAM'S CHOICE: VICTORIA OR LINDSAY

David Beckham lives a tough life: he makes hundreds of millions dollars to play a sport in LA that nobody watches. He's married to Victoria Beckham, cheats on her with even hotter women, and seemingly gets away with it. And now, Lindsay Lohan has made it her goal to bed Beckham as well.

Lindsay . . . reckons she has the charms to tempt the new LA Galaxy star away from POSH.

She has set herself a deadline of December, knowing that Victoria is away on tour with the Spice Girls this winter.

Must be nice.

MARCUS ALLEN, PLEASE STOP CREEPING OUT KIMBERLY WILLIAMS

Marcus Allen is smitten with June 2007 Penthouse Pet Kimberly Williams. He's buying her flowers, cooking her dinner, and calling her over 15 times per day. Uh-oh. Now Kimberly is creeped out:

"He started to send me these terrible text messages. 'Where the hell are you, Kimberly!' . . . It's really scary . . . Things got really bad after I did the Howard Stern show. He got very upset that I got nude on the show. Hello! I'm a Penthouse Pet . . . I told him he needed to calm down . . . But he got even angrier."

Apparently, Allen is a also a regular at the Playboy mansion (tough to blame him on that one) and has a MySpace page (inexcusable for a man his age) with many girls thanking him for "lunch." This cannot end well.

UPDATE: We have been unable to find Marcus Allen's supposed MySpace page. Anybody know where it is? This is making us think Kimberly may have stretched her story just a bit now; not that we care, though.

JESSICA ALBA: GOOD MORNING

We toyed with the idea of doing a baseball round-up thing this morning, we really did. Then we came across these pictures of Jessica Alba -- No. 2 behind Jessica Biel, we feel -- posing for GQ, and we forgot all about that idea. There's always more baseball tomorrow, right?

THE TIGER AND THE BEAR DISAPPOINT

We here at Getting Soaw like to pull for the underdogs, yet we still find ourselves fans of Tiger Woods, if you can call someone who never watches golf a "fan." We enjoy seeing Tiger come from behind and win, set new records and win, or just plan dominate and win by eight strokes. But over the weekend, he was just not very good or exciting (ed. note: not that we would know; we spent Sunday afternoon watching "Everything Is Illuminated," which was terrible).

Anyway, if Woods doesn't play well, who's going to watch golf? Certainly we aren't. We don't know if we should be more disappointed with Tiger's play this weekend or that we found out Bear Grylls wasn’t really roughing it. We can only hope that Tiger pulls a Stella and gets his groove back, and that Bear will prove the haters wrong and somehow spend a week someplace new and dangerous, and survive. May we humbly suggest Hamsterdam.

SERENA WILLIAMS BARES IT ALL; WE'RE STILL NOT BUYING JANE MAGAZINE

We're not too privy to this whole "lifestyle" magazine industry, so we've never heard of Jane magazine. But when Serena Williams poses like this for them, we suppose it's worth a post. She looks less . . . muscular, we think, and this is a good thing indeed.

[thanks to Leave the Man Alone for the picture]

GETTING SOAW MOVIE ROUND-UP

Huge weekend at the box office for Adam Sandler and that fat guy who yells a lot. The two stars of "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" brought in a cool $34.8 million, proving what this blog seems to show on a regular basis: gay is clearly in this summer. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" came in a close second, bringing in $32.2 million. Expect those numbers to go even higher though, once Emma Watson's (future soaw of the week) 30+ male fan base goes to the theater for the second time without the kids and with extra butter on the popcorn. Rounding out the top 5 were movies about hairspray and crossdressing Scientologists, robots from the 80's, and what we think is a talking French rat.

NO FOOTBALL UNTIL SEPTEMBER? LOOK! LINDSAY LOHAN!

Ostensibly, this is a sports blog (we think). But during the summer, we're quite bored with the general sporting scene. We appreciate the occasional baseball game, and start to follow MLB action more closely as the season progresses; it's just hard to get worked up over a team's 118th game when they still have 44 more to play. As for golf and tennis, we'll watch the final rounds of the majors if any of the big names are still involved. Are there any other summer sports we're forgetting? (Even though the NBA playoffs are six months long and run into the summer, they don't count). You see, we're huge football fans, and there hasn't been a meaningful game played in over five months, so forgive us if we're a little restless. We just received our copy of Pro Football Prospectus in the mail today, and the first preseason game is only two weeks away, so we're getting a little excited.

To help pass the time, though, why not check out these new photos of Lindsay Lohan in a bikini? There, that's better.

YANKEES BEAT UP ON D-RAYS, STILL NOT MAKING PLAYOFFS

Our roommate was kind enough to give us a ticket to Friday night's Yankees/D-Rays tilt. Sure, we were about five miles away from home plate, but any seat is always a good one; unfortunately, we had tried the "fisherman's platter" for lunch earlier, and had to leave the game in the 5th inning due to stomach complications. (Also, our friends ditched us).

Anyway, it was quite the weekend in the Bronx, at least for the Yankees: .408 average, 49 runs, 62 hits, and 11 home runs. Shelley Duncan -- the next Shane Spencer! -- got in on the action, hitting three home runs, while receiving just as many standing ovations from the always gracious New York crowd. Alex Rodriguez upped his career home run total to 498, and was also beaned by a pitch Saturday afternoon, which caused him much consternation. Seriously, who else saw the clip of A-Rod squirming around in pain like a little girl? YES did him no favors, showing Derek Jeter and Robinson Cano mocking him in the dugout. This went on for about five minutes or so, and even if we weren't cerebral at the time, we still would have found this incredibly entertaining. Anybody got the YouTube clip?