Here are some of the highlights from the Sports Year in Weird, 2005:
Unexpected Hero of the Year
Outfielder Jose Canseco is one of the most spectacular knuckleheads in baseball history. Whether he was deflecting fly balls over the wall with his head, playing bumper cars with his then-wife on the streets of South Florida or blowing out his arm while pitching, Canseco consistently made news for the wrong reasons.
In short, he was the male Tonya Harding of his generation.
So no one could have guessed that he would author the most influential sports book of the year — Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Got Big — and force our national pastime to clean up.
Canseco named steroid abusers in the game, blowing the lid off a brewing scandal. He didn't intend to trigger reform; his book takes the curious position that steroids are actually good for athletes.
The book also offered an unsparing look inside baseball clubhouses. Did we really need the visual of Dr. Canseco injecting teammates with the "juice" in bathroom stalls? Yeech.
Naturally, baseball players and officials panned Canseco's literary effort and questioned his credibility. "History," one industry insider told the New York Daily News, "will determine that this is nonsense."
Guess again. Rafael Palmeiro's positive steroid test and the evasive "testimony" by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa before Congress subsequently validated Jose's claims.
Speaking of Palmeiro, he earned kudos for his impassioned speech before Congress in March, in which he emphatically denied Canseco's claims.
"I have never used steroids. Period," he told the panel.
That command performance earned him universal praise. Too bad he later tested positive for steroids himself.
Palmeiro tried to throw Baltimore Orioles teammate Miguel Tejada under the bus, too, suggesting that the banned substance came from a B-12 injection he got from Tejada's vitamin supply.
That excuse didn't fly. Although Congress elected not to pursue a perjury charge against Palmeiro, the Orioles sent him home, likely ending an otherwise storied career in disgrace.
Perhaps the neighbors in Moorestown, N.J., believed a beer commercial was being filmed, starring that fabulously egocentric "Leon."
Philadelphia Eagles receiver Terrell Owens, freshly banished from training camp for bad behavior, did some situps for the assembled media on his driveway at 40 Landing Court. The made-for-TV moment was part of his strange and futile campaign to renegotiate his seven-year, $48.97 million contract.
He believed that by shunning teammates, clashing with coaches and ripping quarterback Donovan McNabb, he could earn a lucrative new deal.
A series of bizarre incidents followed, culminating in an inflammatory ESPN interview with teenager Graham Bensinger, a locker room scuffle with former Eagle Hugh Douglas, a permanent banishment from the team and another news conference in front of his $4.39 million mansion.
This time, agent Drew Rosenhaus delivered a rambling, "Arli$$"-like address that sealed T.O's reputation as America's ultimate me-first professional athlete. His teammates and fellow Moorestown residents will be glad to see him leave the Greater Philly area.
"What started out being something relatively novel is no longer novel or interesting or anything we would like to continue," said neighbor Patricial Solecki, sick of seeing TV trucks on her street. "I think Terrell Owens' address is now a question on the standardized SAT."
Oddly enough, it's not Drew Rosenhaus. David Frost, who recently resigned as an agent certified by the NHL players association, was the target of a murder-for-hire scheme cooked up by client Mike Danton.
Danton is currently in a New Jersey prison serving his sentence for attempted murder. Danton, most recently with the St. Louis Blues, played junior hockey for Frost.
According to various reports — the most recent in a CBC documentary — many strange allegations arose during Frost's junior coaching tenure — players forced to dance in the nude at a team function, a player photographed taped to a bed, lots of strange stuff.
And don't get us started on the icky jailhouse phone discussions between Danton and Frost, which were taped.
Professional athletes have fun off the field. Women throw themselves at them in clubs, at the car wash, the produce stand, wherever. But for no-strings fun, many jocks opt to employ professional hospitality specialists.
Such was the case in October, when the Minnesota Vikings imported several of these specialists for a team function — a night cruise on Lake Minnetonka.
Unfortunately, players chartered two boats from the folks at Al and Alma's without disclosing the nature of this excursion. The crew figured the players brought their wives and girlfriends along for some drinks and hors d'oeuvres.
They were wrong.
Soon the servers felt like unwitting extras in a Snoop Dogg video.
"I think the first thing they noticed was some of the women that were on board seemed to be either changing clothes or undressing," recalled Stephen Doyle, attorney for Al and Alma's. "And then they went into a galley, and there were three of them in the nude that were changing clothes. That was followed by them coming out and some of them doing lap dances. ... That's where it started, and then it just progressed to just bizarre.
"These kids are petrified. They're afraid for their own safety. There are people doing sexual acts with toys in the middle of the floor. They're on a boat here, having to walk around and serve a drink, afraid to stop serving drinks because they're afraid that people will hurt them."
This capped an interesting year for the Vikings, who also saw the NFL bust coach Mike Tice for scalping Super Bowl tickets and running back Onterrio Smith for violating the league's drug policy. (Smith got caught with the "Original Whizzinator," essentially a fake penis used to cheat on supervised urine tests.)
That might be Oregon State's football team. First, two players on the squad, Jimtavis Walker and Star Paddock, were charged with attempting to pay a cab driver with marijuana because they were low on cash. Paddock allegedly offered to then pay with a credit card, but took back the card, shoved the driver and stiffed him on the $14 fare.
In an unrelated arrest, Oregon State player Ben Michael Siegert was caught with a purloined sheep. Police stopped him for speeding and found the 200-pound animal in the back of the pick-up truck. They also noticed he had been drinking.
(Here is an odd twist: The animal was part of a study on sheep homosexuality. No kidding.)
"I don't know anything about that," Siegert initially told the Corvallis Gazette-Times. "I'm from a city. I don't know anything about sheep."
Scott Harper, 18, wondered if the protective netting behind home plate at Yankee Stadium would bear his weight. So he leaped from the upper deck during a game against the White Sox.
The good news? The screen held. The bad news? Harper isn't Spiderman.
He was carted off wearing a neck brace after his awkward action, prior to being charged with trespassing, reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and other lesser charges.
"I've never seen anything like that before," White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. "I think that's New York, you know, anything can happen."
Among the runners up for this honor was Greg Gall, 31, of Cincinnati. On Oct. 30 at Paul Brown Stadium, the visiting Packers trailed the Bengals 21-14. Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre was trying to complete a last-second rally.
As Favre dropped back to pass from the Cincinnati 28-yard line, Gall swooped in like the Burger King mascot in that football commercial and stole the ball. He raced down the field in celebration until security guards finally tackled him
"It was a spur-of-the-moment decision," Gall told the Cincinnati Enquirer. "I didn't put any thought into it. I thought it would be funny. I didn't think I'd make it onto the field. I was just kind of running. I wasn't thinking."
This award goes to rugby fan Geoff Huish, 26, of Caerphilly, South Wales. According to the Daily Mirror newspaper, he told fellow drinkers at a social club that "If Wales wins, I'll cut my balls off."
Sure enough, Wales topped England 11-9 in Cardiff. Huish went home, severed his testicles and brought them back to the bar to show everyone.
He was then hauled off to the hospital for repairs. Police told the Mirror Huish had a history of mental problems.
And speaking of crazy people, William Lepeska was arrested on Jan, 30 after swimming across Biscayne Bay in search of Anna Kournikova's $5 million South Florida mansion. He was discovered three doors down from Anna's place, naked, at a neighbor's pool.
He screamed "Anna! Save me!" when cops hauled him off.
Major League Baseball players are a fragile bunch. Each year, many ballplayers are felled by strange injuries. For instance, Twins pitcher Terry Mulholland suffered a scratched eye when he rolled over on a hotel pillow and got attacked by a loose feather.
Cubs pitcher Mike Remlinger broke his left little finger when his hand got caught between two clubhouse recliner chairs. Yes, baseball is a dangerous game.
Along these lines, Colorado Rockies shortstop Clint Barmes said he suffered a broken collarbone during a fall on his apartment steps. Originally he claimed he was hurt carrying groceries up four flights of steps; he later amended the explanation and said he was hauling deer meat.
He got that meat from teammate Todd Helton during a trip to his ranch. He did NOT suffer the injury, he said, while riding ATVs at the ranch.
So Barmes left himself vulnerable to various "Bambi strikes back" jokes.
Was there a more compelling story than Ricky Williams' heroic return to the Miami Dolphins? You will recall that the star running back skipped the 2004 season to travel the world and live like a hippie. Then he missed the first four games of this season while serving an NFL drug suspension.
Ricky is "out there." For instance, Sports Illustrated reported that Williams spent six weeks in India as the attendant for Swami Sitaramananda, a Vietnamese woman he met after participating in one of her fellow swami's yoga classes at the California College of Ayurveda.
Here is one of the insights gleaned from that: "I tell the story of the frustrated monkey," Williams wrote. "He wanted some cookies so bad; he put his hand in the jar, grabbed a big handful. Then, when he couldn't get his hand out, he became very angry."
So what was the solution? "I told him to just let the cookies go," he wrote.
Deep man, deep.
One reason Williams returned was to pay his bills. The Dolphins wanted him to repay most of his signing bonus if he remained retired. Also, there was a paternity suit filed by someone named Cherie Clark.
Through an attorney, Ricky claimed he never had sex with Clark, but later acknowledged he'd been "kinda dating" her. Apparently, Cherie got "kinda pregnant" with Kekoa Blaze Williams.
At the Nasdaq-100 Open, French Davis Cup player Michael Llodra removed Ivan Ljubicic's belongings form his locker, removed his own clothes and wedged himself into the locker to await his buddy.
"I was shocked," Ljubicic said. "I didn't know what to say. I didn't know whether to laugh or, you know, look at people around me."
Carolina Panthers cheerleaders Angela Keathley and Renee Thomas traveled to a game at Tampa Bay on their own and had a little too much fun at a Tampa nightclub.
According to the police, witnesses claimed the two tied up a bathroom stall while having sex. Thomas, who has denied the toilet-tryst allegation, was accused of slugging a nursing student during the ensuing altercation.
That led to arrests, unflattering mug shot photos posted all over the place, dismissal from the cheerleading squad, late-night talk show jokes, litigation and offers to pose for a men's magazine, of course.
Samukaliso Sithole was emerging as a track star in Zimbabwe until it was discovered that she was a he. Or sort of a he.
During his trial for "psychological offense," Sithole told the court he was born congenitally deformed. A tribal healer gave him "female status," but the spell didn't work properly because his family didn't pay the healer's full fee, Sithole said.
Um, OK. Police later supervised a medical examination and gave him "male status."
The star-crossed boxer was accused of doing lots of odd stuff this year, but Kevin McBride's allegation that Tyson bit his nipple during the fight topped them all. The 6-foot-6 McBride won the fight after Tyson refused to answer the bell for the seventh round.
"I didn't realize it at first, but he had his teeth around it," McBride said. "I just felt a strange sensation and then realized what he'd done."
And, no, he didn't find the sensation pleasing.
"He could not get up high enough to bite my ears — good thing he wasn't a midget; otherwise, he would have bitten something else!" McBride added. "He was also trying to bite the thumb of his glove in the ring, and I just couldn't work out what he was trying to achieve by that."
Last year, Anna Benson, wife of New York Mets pitcher Kris Benson, caused a ruckus when she threatened to have sex with the entire team if she ever caught her husband cheating on her.
"I told him, cheat on me all you want. If you get caught, I'm going to screw everybody on your entire team. Coaches, trainers, players. I would do everybody on his whole team," she told Howard Stern on his radio show.
"Even the coaches?" Stern asked. "What about, like, the bat boys?"
"Everybody would get a turn," Anna pledged. "If my husband cheated on me and embarrassed me like that, I will embarrass him more than he could ever imagine."
The Mets put Benson on the trade block this winter, perhaps because Anna, a former "exotic dancer," had negotiated with Playboy for a pictorial spread. (The two sides failed to reach a monetary agreement.)
"We would never, ever have signed with New York if they had said they were going to trade us," she told the Daily News. "I was Miss (Politically Correct) for the Mets the entire time I was there."
Anna also criticized new Mets slugger Carlos Delgado, who refused to stand for the singing of "God Bless America" with his previous two teams as a political statement.
"How are they going to sit there and say it's so controversial when they sign someone like Delgado, who turns his back on our flag?" Benson said. "Playboy is all-American. Everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Cindy Crawford has posed. They didn't turn their back on the flag."
No, but they did fly their skirts at half-mast.
Former Oakland Raiders kicker Cole Ford was found mentally incompetent to stand trial for firing gun shots at the compound of illusionists Siegfried & Roy in Las Vegas. Cole told doctors he believed that a conspiracy between his father, Siegfried & Roy and others threatened to spread disease over the world.
Cole was just trying to put an end to it. The courts shipped him off to a psychiatric facility.
The NFL had to quit selling replica Atlanta Falcons No. 7 jerseys with the name "Ron Mexico" on it. Why?
A woman named Sonya Elliott sued Falcons quarterback Michael Vick for giving her herpes a few years back. In her lawsuit, she clamed Vick was tested numerous times for the disease under the "Ron Mexico" alias.
Once these details became public knowledge, smart alecks started ordering the "Ron Mexico" jerseys before the league put the slam on it.
During the NHL lockout, enforcer Peter Worrell was pulled over in Coral Springs, Fla., on a traffic beef. He had an unfortunate driving record; so he told police he was Andreas Lilja — a former teammate with the Florida Panthers.
Here's the problem: Worrell is a 6-foot-7 black man. Lilja is 6-3 and Swedish. The police were not fooled.
Later, Lilja and two other others playing in Sweden were kicked off that country's national team after a 22-year-old woman accused them of rape. Lilja and the others told police the sex was consensual.
And, no, Lilja did NOT return the favor by telling police he was Worrell.
In another Florida traffic stop, Baltimore Orioles pitcher Eric DuBose got collared in Sarasota County for drunk driving. When he struggled to recite the alphabet during the ensuing sobriety test, DeBose said: "I'm from Alabama, and they have a different alphabet." Source>>>
<---Back To Home Page
Concert Tickets, Sports Tickets, Broadway Tickets, Family Show Tickets
posted by ADMIN @ Sunday, December 18, 2005
<< Home