Best Sports Stories Of 2007

I've often expressed my aversion to random list-making. Recently I've been all fired up about VH1's "100 Greatest Songs of the 90s", which has mostly been a ridiculously non-sensical list. I realize people ostensibly voted for the selections, but they make no sense with respect to what the popular music landscape was like in the 1990s. How could you not have a single song from Boyz II Men, Ace of Base, or Garth Brooks on the list? And if you argue it shouldn't be based on pure album sales, but artistic merit, then where is the Wu-Tang Clan or Nas? I watched this last week and just thinking about it still riles me up.

Nonetheless, I'm breaking my "no-list" rule at the end of the year, to bring you my favorite 2007 stories. I have no good reason for breaking the rule other than that I am doing it. Today, my 10 favorite sports stories of 2007.

10. "I'M A MAN!! I'M 40!!!!!"

If you're a sports fan, you might be tired of this Mike Gundy clip, but it still cracks me up, even now. For the unfamiliar, the Oklahoma State head football coach is furious with a reporter's negative column regarding one of the players. Angry that a child (a 22-year old "child"...who has a mother...a mother of children...) could be criticized in the newspaper, Gundy decided to lash back. There's nothing I can say that hasn't been said. Enjoy.



9. Michael Jordan Paints the Town Red

Someone basically walked me through how Michael Jordan hooks up with women in different cities. I've always read that the NBA is just this hotbed of anonymous groupie sex, which totally makes sense, but this all took on new dimensions when I learned exactly how someone like Jordan executes this. It's not the kind of thing I'm going to put directly in the blog, because it's of course all hearsay, and I don't want any trouble. But if you're interested (and, um, you actually know me), ask me separately. This is a GREAT story by the way. A GREAT story. I really want to emphasize the word GREAT, and would put it in 28-point font, but I don't want this page to look like a tacky MySpace.

8. Roger Clemens Goes Down In Flames

I'm so rarely right about anything that it feels especially fantastic to be right about his HGH use. I do feel bad for his children though, who all have names starting with the letter "K" (because a "K" signifies a strikeout in baseball, and Clemens has a Jupiter-sized ego, in case you don't follow sports but are somehow still reading this.) Their names are "Koby" and "Kacy" and "Kory". When they are much older, and people have forgotten about Roger Clemens, people will ask them, "Hey man, I've been meaning to ask you - why do you spell your first name like an idiot?" And instead of pridefully answering, "My father was the greatest pitcher of the modern era so I had to endure ridicule and misspellings my whole life", they will probably just cry like little babies. I wouldn't worry too much about them, though - at least they are filthy rich, which makes them swell people in my book! (FYI, the median wealth of "swell people" in my book is pretty high. But it's just a coincidence. No causation, as the social scientists like to say.)

7. Lamar Odom Makes The Play Of The Year

As a Lakers fan, no player is more frustrating than Lamar Odom. But then he makes incredible plays like these, and you remember what he is capable of.


6. Peyton Manning And The Kumars

Someone leaked these photos of Peyton Manning attending some Indian girl's Sweet 16 birthday party for $200,000 in cash, which led to a number of thoughts.

1.) Awesome.
2.) There is nothing Peyton Manning won't do for some extra cash, which is awesome. He's a "swell person" in my book, that's for sure.
3.) What kind of 16-year old girl wants to spend the money to get Peyton Manning? Why not Justin Timberlake, or Usher, or Hanna Montana?
4.) I love that even though he could have shown up wearing literally anything, Peyton Manning decided to wear a suit. He's just such a professional. You can't look sloppy for some random Indian girl's Sweet 16 party.
5.) I bet Peyton asked for all the attendee names in advance, and studied for like 3 days to make sure he could pronounce all those Indian names correctly. Don't want to look silly at the party or anything. Gotta make a good impression.
6.) You'll notice that Cedric the Entertainer is also at this party. That makes more sense, you know how 16-year old Indian girls love Cedric the Entertainer. That demographic pretty much drove the ticket sales of "Code Name: The Cleaner".
7.) Wow. Awesome.

5. Stephen Jackson Gets A New Tattoo

Basketball fans know Stephen Jackson as the incredibly talented and mentally tough Warriors swingman who likes to shoot guns at stripclubs and punch spectators in the face. Readers of this blog may know him as Leo's pick for "most likely athlete to be arrested for a homicide". Well, Stephen Jackson got a new tattoo this summer which should assuage Leo's completely irrational fears.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Stephen Jackson reported to the Golden State Warriors' training camp Monday with a new tattoo covering much of his chest. With a church window as the background, two praying hands are inked on his sternum -- and they're holding a gun.

Yes, this is the same Stephen Jackson who will miss the Warriors' first seven games under NBA suspension for pleading guilty to a felony charge of criminal recklessness after firing an awfully similar gun into the air at an Indianapolis strip club.

"I pray I never have to use the gun again," Jackson said in explanation.

4. DrunkAthlete.com

The Jordan picture comes from one of the great developments of 2007, DrunkAthlete.com. It's pretty much just a set of pictures of drunk professional athletes. Sometimes they're not really drunk, like the Michael Jordan picture posted above, but there's some fantastic material on there. Like Steve Nash giving his mating call to the ladies.

3. Last Comic Standing: Phil Jackson

Phil Jackson is on pace this season to set some kind of coaching comedy record. Between his ridiculous interviews, his complete flaunting of league guidelines, his awesome red bow tie, and his league reprimand for cheap homosexual jokes, I now declare Phil Jackson my hero.

The Spurs made 13 3-pointers in their 107-92 victory on Tuesday night, and Jackson was asked if too much penetration was leading to open outside shooters.

"We call this a 'Brokeback Mountain' game, because there's so much penetration and kickouts," Jackson said. "It was one of those games."

Here is Master Phil mocking his own up-and-coming star, Andrew Bynum.



2. Kwame Brown Isn't Invited to My Next Birthday Party

The story in a nutshell (linked above): A random guy was walking past a bar with his 2-by-2 foot birthday cake (cost: $190) when Ronny Turiaf of the Lakers exited the bar. The man asked Turiaf to pose for a picture with him, and Turiaf agreed. Before the picture could be taken, Kwame Brown exited the bar, grabbed the cake, and threw it at this random guy, covering him in his own birthday cake. Then Kwame Brown ran into a white limousine and left the scene, while Lamar Odom's bodyguard started to beat up the cake-covered guy until Odom intervened and stopped the whole thing.

All of this led comedian Phil Jackson to quip, "Well it's natural that the cake would slip from Kwame's hands." I was talking to Justin about this - pretty much everytime a broadcaster talks about Kwame Brown in a game, they always bring up his "really small hands" or "Kwame has those tiny hands" and "sometimes he struggles to catch passes in traffic because his hands are disproportionately small". Seeing as how hand size is anecdotally joked about as evidence of...other body part size, do you think this infuriates Kwame Brown? It's a nonstop assault on his very manhood. I think that's why the whole cake thing happened. He has excessive aggression due to the perceived implications of his often-noted "miniscule hands".

1. Ballers With Randoms

The title of this Flickr album pretty much says it all. Ballers with randoms. And let me tell you, it is an absolute GOLDMINE of comedy. Technically, this wasn't really a "sports story" in 2007, but it really should have been. I'll post a few pictures here, but you need to click the link above and see this in its entirety.