Well, Joe Theismann, I — I never knew you felt this way.

Via: Stephen Lovekin / Getty Images

Joe Theismann, above, is a former NFL quarterback and current NFL commentator who, out of nowhere, decided recently to express his belief that LeBron James would be a great NFL quarterback if Joe Theismann could train him. This would have been odd enough on its own, but Theismann also chose to express said belief in a hilariously weird manner.

Is this something that anyone is talking about? No. Nobody is talking about whether LeBron James would be a great NFL quarterback. That is weird. Why would we be talking about that? Anyway, not only does the story have a strange, untethered sense of unreality — it also makes Theismann sound a tad obsessed with LeBron's body. Which, not that there's anything wrong with that. Excerpts from the ESPN story about Theismann's comments are below; my completely not real interpolations of these quotes follow.

When Joe Theismann watches LeBron James play basketball, he sees a potential NFL quarterback.

Why doesn't he see a basketball player?!?!? Is Joe Theismann tripping on hallucinogenic "shrooms"?

"I would love to work him out and also serve as his agent. I'll go wherever he wants this summer."

...

"Who wouldn't want to coach LeBron James? He's the most physical specimen we have in professional sports," he told the NFL Network. "He could do, I think, anything he wanted."

What a physical specimen, Joe Theismann thought, as Joe Theismann sat in his car with his binoculars, watching LeBron James suit up to ride his bike to the Miami basketball arena. Such a specimen, Theismann thought. So physical. Joe Theismann thought LeBron James reminded him of a Greek statue, except without any parts broken off, and moving.

Theismann said the biggest thing the NBA's reigning MVP would have to work on is his footwork, which he said is the "most important element" to throwing the ball accurately at the NFL level.

Wait, what? What about the part where you throw the ball with your arms?

He also wonders whether James' hands are too big to wrap around the football.

Joe Theismann looked through his binoculars as LeBron James groomed the hedges in his front yard. Look at the size of those hands, Joe Theismann thought. They are very large. They are so large, they might be too big for a football. They are so large, they might be too big for [REDACTED].

THIS POST HAS BEEN CANCELED BY NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION

HAVE A NICE DAY

Jeff Bauman, who survived the Boston Marathon bombings, threw out the first pitch at tonight’s Boston Red Sox game.

Red Sox's David Ortiz and Jarrod Saltalamacchia applaud as Boston Marathon survivor Jeff Bauman and Carlos Arredondo, who helped rescue Bauman, take the field to throw out ceremonial first pitches before the MLB interleague baseball game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.

Via: BRIAN SNYDER / Reuters

Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman.

Via: Elise Amendola / AP

Jeff Bauman acknowledges cheering fans before throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at Fenway Park.

Via: Elise Amendola / AP

Jeff Bauman throws out the ceremonial first pitch.

Via: Elise Amendola / AP

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The best sporting event on TV last night may, inconceivably, have been a May baseball game.

Baseball games this early in the season rarely register on the radar of non-diehard fans, especially when both the NBA and NHL playoffs are still in full swing. To get someone to change the channel to baseball at this point in the year, you'd need, let's say, a special match-up between rivals, involving multiple dramatic historical storylines, and a nailbiter of a thrilling conclusion. Last night's Subway Series game between the Yankees and Mets was exactly that.

Via: RAY STUBBLEBINE / Reuters

The game was hyped for plenty of reasons: Mets phenom/savior Matt Harvey was pitching his first game against the Yankees, while legendary Yankees closer Mariano Rivera was bidding farewell to his crosstown rival. (Rivera is retiring at the end of this season.) The Sandman was even given the honor of throwing out the game's ceremonial first pitch to longtime Mets reliever John Franco.

Via: Kathy Willens / AP

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In the Miami Heat’s Game 4 loss to the Indiana Pacers, LeBron James sinned, and was judged accordingly — by the BASKETBALL GODS.

Late in the fourth quarter of last night's Eastern Conference Finals Game 4, LeBron tried to draw a foul in the lane on David West by flopping like a fat, stupid seal.

LeBron, the world's best player in the same way that the sun is the biggest thing in the solar system, stirred up some controversy earlier in the week by saying that he's not opposed to flopping. (At the same time, he insisted that he himself is not a flopper.)

Of course, he's right: yeah, flopping is annoying to watch, and not the most above-board tactic ever practiced, but players have an obligation to do whatever they can to win — that's what they're being paid pornographic amounts of money to do.

But LeBron also ended up putting his body where his mouth is with this particular instance of acting. He pops off David West like a startled cat, throwing himself to the ground belly-first. West, for his part, tries to match his enthusiasm. And for their part, the refs — who did not have a great game overall — recognized the gamesmanship and swallowed their whistles on this particular play.

Don't worry: those whistles came back up soon after.

With a minute left, LeBron fouled out of a playoff game for only the second time in his career on this "illegal screen." Was the play a foul? Eh — maybe, technically, yes; he isn't set and he does clip Lance Stephenson slightly. But you can see by the way that Stephenson shakes it off and keeps moving around LeBron that he didn't think anything of it; this type of entanglement happens dozens of times in an NBA game. The fact that LeBron was called for it as his sixth foul in the last minute of a playoff game speaks to one of two things: either the refs felt like exerting their power a little bit, or LeBron was being karmically punished by the Gods of Basketball, a dozen bearded, obscenely tall titans who preside over the sport and pull strings to ensure justice and destiny are always fulfilled.

Not that I believe in the Gods of Basketball, or anything. Definitely not. Speaking of which, here is a picture of the Gods of Basketball.

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Ain’t no celebration like a spelling bee celebration, cuz a spelling bee celebration has an indeterminate denouement.

If there's one thing the Scripps National Spelling Bee — which got started this morning — is known for, it's spelling. And if there's two things, it's spelling and bombastic celebrations. Look at these kids go wild!

1994: Ned G. Andrews

Damn, Ned, why you gotta do 'em like that. Show some grace, son. Show some grace.

1996: Wendy Guey

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Dude… anything you want to talk about? Can I buy you a Sno-Cone?

Cam Newton is the starting quarterback for the Carolina Panthers and one of the league's marquee up-and-coming players. And during an offseason press conference, Cam was videobombed by one of his linemen, Jordan Gross.

Solid 'bomb, but what's most interesting here has nothing to do with Jordan Gross's antics. Look at Cam Newton's face. Cam Newton is rich and famous, a rising star. So why does he look... so sad?

:(

And he doesn't get any cheerier over the course of the videobomb.

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Sports entertainment in its truest form.

Gimmicks are encouraged.

A Yankees affiliate showed up on opening day in Yellow Taxi Cabs.

Source: i.imgur.com

They're prepared with Mario Brothers in case the game sucks.

Source: i.imgur.com

Batdogs > Batboys

Source: i.imgur.com

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Cat boarding could save our country.

There's a new sport. It's the greatest sport. It's called cat boarding.

Source: youtube.com

It involves cats, skateboards, and the world's first Perpetual Motion Machine. (lol just kidding those are impossible, this is just a GIF.)

Here are the three steps to cat boarding. 1) Take a cat.

2) Put the cat in a box and put the cat in a box on a skateboard.

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The out WNBA star opened up to ESPN about being a gay female athlete, and the misconceptions others may have about her.

When she opened up:

Source: espn.go.com

When she showed off her boarding skills:

Source: espn.go.com

When she talked fashion:

Source: espn.go.com

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Somebody might get in trouble for this.

According to a Redditor, this "typo" appeared in his school's yearbook...

That's the sort of nickname that sticks with a kid for his whole life. Oh well. Way to go, Home Run Hitler!

That’s what you call picking yourself up and dusting yourself off.

Quincy Pondexter was a surprising key playoff contributor for the Memphis Grizzlies during the playoffs. But the Grizzlies were swept by the Spurs this week, meaning that Pondexter's offseason has begun.

Via: Danny Johnston / AP

How did he decide to spend it? Well: first, he posed his followers a question.

The best part about this is that he doesn't even know who won Miss Tennessee, nor can he be troubled to use Google.com — it's an internet search engine — to find the answer. Fortunately, Twitter works very well when you have 38,000 followers.

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BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL BASEBALL

At the top of the 8th inning in last night's Twins-Brewers game, with two outs, what looked like a regular errant pop fly became something more. Something DANGEROUS.

Twins outfielder Chris Parmalee started tracking the ball and sacrificed life and limb to go over the dugout wall and make the catch. Somehow, he caught the ball without breaking his entire body.

The fact that a gate colliding straight with Parmalee's midsection — and the immediately falling down a flight of stairs — doesn't keep him from making a difficult catch probably shows why he's a professional baseball player.

Just look at his feet waving in the air. He's basically upside-down.

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In a post-industrial America where the only people who can afford tickets to sporting events are corporate executives who specialize in outsourcing, every team is still all about grindin’ out that manual labor.

Via: Adidas

If you were to try to figure out the state of the United States economy by listening to professional athletes and coaches and the fans and commenters who follow them (there's no reason you would do this, but let's go with it), you would probably picture something off a Soviet propaganda poster: a nation of simple, honest folk, of clear mind and strong constitution, who rise at first light to put in a day's hard work as coal miners, construction workers, and diner waitresses. Such is the preponderance of "blue-collar teams," which inevitably play in "blue-collar cities" for "blue-collar fans," in the rhetoric surrounding major sports in this country.

To wit: the official Indiana Pacers "Blue Collar/Gold Swagger" fan T-shirts above. These shirts have been ubiquitous on Pacers playoff broadcasts this post-season. Almost all the fans you see behind the game's announcers and in close-up replays are wearing one. But the Pacers aren't the only team in basketball that represents the salt of the earth. "You cannot out-blue collar this team," Miami Herald columnist Greg Cote recently wrote approvingly of the Pacers' Eastern Conference Finals opponents, the Miami Heat. Over in the Western Conference Finals, the Spurs (who have a "blue-collar mentality" per the San Antonio Express-News) just beat out the Memphis Grizzlies (a "blue-collar team" per starting guard Tony Allen).

It's not just pro basketball. College coaches brag about how blue-collar their teams are, like Michigan State's Tom Izzo during this year's NCAA Tournament. (Izzo has oxymoronically called Michigan State a "blue-collar university.") There are blue-collar baseball teams and blue-collar football teams — one of the dancers from Dancing with the Stars told the Green Bay Press-Gazette that Packers wide receiver Donald Driver's background with a "blue-collar team...from a blue-collar town" would serve him well on his appearance on the Los Angeles–based celebrity ballroom-dance competition.

Most ridiculously, Kobe Bryant once called his 2011 Lakers a "blue-collar team" who "fight and scratch and claw for everything." Kobe Bryant also once appeared in a Los Angeles Magazine spread wearing this:

The accompanying article noted that he'd arrived to the photo shoot in a helicopter. Kobe Bryant is not blue-collar.

More to the point, none of these people are blue-collar. They are pro athletes who have chauffeurs and nutritionists and such. Most of the fans in the arenas watching them are probably not blue-collar either, in the sense of working with their hands or performing other physical labor. For one, there just aren't that many blue-collar workers anymore: Half as many Americans work in manufacturing now as they did in the 1970s, for example. That doesn't mean it isn't still possible to make a decent living in a blue-collar job, but probably not a nice enough living to afford the $955 ticket that will get you on TNT behind the announcers in Indianapolis' Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Meanwhile, the current fashion in building and promoting the arenas and stadiums that teams play in is to play up the luxury factor; everything is premium state-of-the-art this and black-leather Wi-Fi-enabled that. Buy into the Krieg DeVault Club Level at a Pacers game and you're guaranteed your own "dedicated service staff member."

Why all the blue-collar talk among well-to-do fans watching rich players in fancy arenas? The non-charitable interpretation would be that lawyers, middle managers, and coddled athletes feel guilty about making money without doing hard work in the traditional sense and are eager to seize on any chance to associate themselves with physical labor and self-sufficiency. The athletes might be especially self-conscious because many of them grew up in actual blue-collar families. For one unusual example, take Yao Ming, who said the following about his basketball fortune in an interview with the Chinese government's Xinhua news service: "I could be called capitalist with so much money 30 years ago, but in fact I earned the income through hard labor work, so I am still a blue collar." The more positive interpretation is that the "blue-collar" vs. "white-collar" distinction is outdated and that even though you are employed by a law firm, network-administration contractor, or health-services company, you can still put in an honest day's hard work and self-actualize by interacting meaningfully with the physical world in other areas of your life (exercising, cooking, hiking, building your own lawn mower, recreational freestyle lumberjacking). And you can still enjoy and identify with values such as teamwork, toughness, and tenacity exemplified by athletes who didn't begin their lives with chauffeurs or nutritionists, and who spent considerable time in dusty-floored gyms running wind sprints and doing dribbling drills before they made it to the spotlight.

Which of those two interpretations you tend toward on a given day has a little to do with how you feel about the future of America and a lot to do with how much you are rooting against the team claiming working-class credibility at that particular moment. The one thing that's certain is that the people in the Krieg DeVault Club Level and all the other Armani-sponsored luxury sections are ridiculous. Get out of your stupid money boxes and watch the games with the rest of us, you snobs. This is a blue-collar country.

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How to pass time during America’s favorite pastime.

Baseball is the national sport. Unfortunately, at times, it can also be a painfully slow sport to watch. And while some of us are perfectly content with a bag of peanuts and a scorecard, others need a little more than that to make the game more exciting. So with that in mind...

Mound Ball

All participants put a dollar into a hat (or empty cup) at the start of every half inning. The game begins with the top of the first inning belonging to the person closest to the aisle.

At the end of the half inning, a player from the fielding team or the umpire will toss the ball towards the mound; if the ball stays on the mound, the person collects the money. If the ball doesn't land on the mound, the hat is passed onto the next person and everyone throws in another dollar.

At the end of the game, any money remaining in the cup is returned to the players equally.

Via: Mark J. Terrill / AP

Predict The Pitch

This one's pretty self-explanatory. Before the pitcher throws the ball, you have to guess what pitch it will be (fastball, curveball, slider, etc.).

If you're in a particularly boastful mood, you can get more specific with the pitches and call the location ("fastball, low and away").

If you're rich, this can be a betting game. If you're poor it can be a way to act like you know a lot about baseball.

Via: Ray Stubblebine / Reuters

Guess The Pitch Speed

Before the pitcher throws the ball, you have to guess how fast the pitch will be, as noted by the speed tracker in the stadium. If your stadium doesn't have a speed tracker, then your team is terrible at baseball, and you should leave immediately.

Note: All guesses must be in MPH; this is America.

Via: Tom Szczerbowski / Getty Images

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If the Dos Equis guy had a baby with an inquisitive puppy, that baby would be Mario Balotelli.

Meet Mario Balotelli.

Super Mario, as he is commonly called, is an Italian soccer star, currently playing for AC Milan and the Italian national team. Known for his spirited antics, odd nature, and general distate for discipline, Balotelli has lived quite the life, and at the tender age of 22, he is already the most interesting man in the world.

So let's take a look into that life...

Via: Claudio Villa / Getty Images

November 2008: Becomes the youngest Inter Milan player to score in the Champions League.

Balotelli was 18 years and 85 days old at the time.

Via: New Press / Getty Images

November 2008: Accuses his biological parents of "glory hunting."

In 1993, the Balotellis, an Italian foster family, adopted Mario Barwuah. 15 years later, Mario's biological parents tried to get him back, but he believed they only wanted him back because of the prominence he had gained.

(The picture above is Mario with his biological mother Rose and brother Enoch.)

March 2010: During an interview, Balotelli pulls on an AC Milan shirt (a cross-town rival at the time).

After receiving heavy criticism from fans, Balotelli posted an apology on the club's website.

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I thought this was America, people?

This week, news surfaced that a nameless WCC school punished a member of their women's golf team for washing her car on campus using university water and a university hose to rinse off her automobile.

Source: cdn77.psbin.com

The news stemmed from a tweet by the University of Portland men's basketball coach Eric Reveno, who appeared to be quite flummoxed by the situation and the NCAA in general.

Source: @CoachReveno

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It’s mentally punishing, physically demanding, and definitely not for everyone. You may also love it one day soon.

Via: SrA James Richardson/USAF/MCT

The news didn't make the top of SportsCenter, but the most important development in the sports world yesterday might have been the honchos at Oakley sportswear's decision to sign up Rich Froning to augment its stable of celebrity athlete endorsers, which already includes Ichiro, Bubba Watson, and Alex Ovechkin, among others. Never heard of him? That'd put you in the great majority of humanity and, frankly, Oakley probably doesn't care all that much. In fact, Froning isn't even an athlete in the traditional sense of its meaning. He competes, yes, but more than anything he trains. Froning is a CrossFit competitor, which means he's on no team and you won't see him on network TV any time soon, but he's the best this increasingly popular multi-discipline training regimen has ever seen, and if one of the biggest sportswear companies on the planet think that a few words from him can pay dividends, that makes this the defining moment in CrossFit's 13-year history.

Even if you haven't experienced CrossFit for yourself, you probably know someone who has done it or who has raved/complained about its awesomeness/difficulty. It's a series of various athletic and training maneuvers, and the idea is to mix these various permutations into workout bursts. It's fitness (Fit) defined and measured across (Cross) numerous activities. It sounds innocent enough, but just watching a CrossFit workout, free of any previous first-hand knowledge, can be downright agonizing. It's grueling, and not for everyone, but those who do it are loyal converts, spreading the word of rope climbs, clean-and-jerks, and modified pull-ups out of thousands of accredited gyms across America.

It's that growing group to whom Froning could be a legit star. Now, I'm not an unhealthy person, but I've reached that 32-year-old threshold where pains pop up where they never did and some requisite rest period in between workouts feels more mandatory than optional. So to see Froning, who, as the first-ever two-time men's winner of the annual CrossFit Games, has been deemed the Fittest Man on Earth™, engage in one of his Workouts of the Day (WOD), as they're known in CrossFit parlance, is an exercise in vicarious pain the likes of which I've rarely felt.

Source: youtube.com

You clearly can't argue with the results, and you can't help be awed by what these CrossFitters can accomplish, very much in he same way you see Miguel Cabrera mash a baseball from every conceivable pitch location. That WTF wonderment feels applicable here, and if CrossFit is to make that mainstream leap to athletic acceptance or even casual name recognition, Froning could be the man to get it there.

So sure, whatever Oakley is paying Froning is likely a small cut compared to the myriad sports endorsement deals that bombard us every day, but at least this isn't infomercial athletics. Yes, there's capitalism and hundreds of millions in new gym memberships, people buying at-home workout gear, and lucrative broadcast contracts on the line here, but the CrossFit Effect is decidedly real and it's a movement still getting bigger by the month.

Moreover, it's not going anyway, not as long as there are people like Froning or Chris Spealler of Park City, Utah, who does 106 CrossFit-style pullups here just because he can and perhaps he's trying to convey the idea that, hey, maybe you can, too! Just get up on that bar and start going, pal.

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You tell ‘em, kid.

Here is a child who knows how the world works. He gets it. He understands that how to pursue happiness, and he's going to do it even if the man tries to keep him down.

Source: youtube.com

This kid has a bright future.

The frontrunner to be New York’s next mayor is in the closet about the fact that she doesn’t really care about baseball.

Via: Bebeto Matthews, File / AP

Christine Quinn is New York City's city council speaker, probably the second-most-powerful person in the city's government after the mayor. She's running for mayor herself this year. And this New York Times report on Quinn's upcoming memoir leads off with an abhorrent piece of information: when Quinn began dating the woman who is now her wife, she abandoned her lifelong Mets fandom for the Yankees at the woman's request. Some questions about this:

1) What kind of person demands that their romantic partners root for the same baseball team as them?

2) Like, if you're such a big fan of a team that you couldn't stand to live with someone who didn't root for them, wouldn't you also be disgusted by someone who was clearly not a sports fan at all, i.e. someone who would give up so quickly on their alleged team?

3) Why would someone running for mayor of New York admit that she had given up on a team with a huge number of fans in that city?

And most perplexingly,

4) Why do politicians who don't care about sports continue to pretend tepidly that they do, when there is no upside (if you're not really a fan there is no way you're going to be able to fake it enough to get actual cred for it in the way that George W. Bush did with baseball and Barack Obama does with basketball) and there is so much downside to being exposed as a charlatan? Does anyone really believe that Christine Quinn is now a Yankees "fan" in any real sense? Why are politicians so afraid that people will think they're weird for not liking sports? 40% of Americans don't consider themselves sports fans and it's not like those people are ostracized by their family members and co-workers. Christine Quinn is an openly gay woman who's written a memoir that includes admissions that she's had problems with bulimia and alcoholism. But she can't admit that she doesn't really care who wins baseball games.

It's 2013. In the spirit of the Gay Straight Alliance, it's time for those of us who are sports fans to have the courage to say we're ready for a leader who isn't.

h/t Joe Coscarelli

Unless you want to be truly “explosive.”

Sure, it feels cool to crush a few reps of a heavy load.

But what if you ate lunch right before?

Or just a little snack, really?

Even like, a bite of a Cliff Bar?

Source: youtube.com

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