“Guns have nothing to do with the culture we live in!”

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On Saturday, Beckham's team won the MLS Cup in what was his last match with the Galaxy and possibly the last in his playing career.

Becks threw up a celebratory fist pump after the match was called.

Image by INFphoto.com

And celebrated with his team and family.

Image by INFphoto.com

Image by INFphoto.com

Image by INFphoto.com

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Thank you, Vogue Germany . The world needed this today.

Dressage

Laughing At Potentially Dangerous Falls

Car Circlage

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Louisiana Tech has the most explosive offense in the country, but you won't be seeing them during bowl week.

Image by Victor Calzada / AP

The Bulldogs of Louisiana Tech are 9-3, boast the most prolific scoring offense in the NCAA, and came within two points of upsetting SEC powerhouse Texas A&M in October. Tech scored 51.5 points per game in 2012, and racked up nearly 7,000 total yards. Yet, the Bulldogs won't be going to a bowl game -- not because of any NCAA sanctions or bans -- but because the athletic director gambled on getting Louisiana Tech into a better bowl and lost.

On Friday night, the Bulldogs were invited to participate in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport, Louisiana, in a proposed matchup against rival Louisiana-Monroe. Tech's AD, Bruce Van De Velde, thought the Bulldogs were worthy of a bigger bowl, so he told Independence Bowl representatives to give his school some time to test the waters.

According to CBS Sports, both the Heart of Dallas Bowl and the Liberty Bowl were possible choices. A representative from the Independence Bowl notified Van De Velde that a final decision needed to be made on Saturday, but he needed to wait until Sunday to hear back from the other bowls.

Via: jacksonsun.com

Van De Velde rolled the dice and waited until Sunday, but no other bowls came calling. When Northern Illinois was selected for a BCS bowl over Oklahoma, it sparked a chain reaction which led to the selection of Big 12 school Iowa State over Louisiana Tech in the Liberty Bowl. Oklahoma was projected to play in a BCS bowl as an at-large selection, giving the Big 12 two teams in BCS bowls (Oklahoma and Kansas State). When Northern Illinois bumped Oklahoma out, it opened up an extra bowl slot for the Big 12, which has a tie-ins with the Heart of Dallas Bowl. The Heart of Dallas Bowl snatched up Oklahoma State from the Big 12 and Purdue of the Big Ten. The Liberty Bowl chose Big 12 team Iowa State, sticking with a power conference despite the team's 6-6 record. When Van De Velde tried to go back to the Independence Bowl, he found Lousiana Tech's spot had already been filled, by 8-4 Ohio University. Since the Western Athletic Conference only has one guaranteed bowl tie-in, which went to WAC champion Utah State, Louisiana Tech was left without a game to play in.

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Goodnight sweet Prince Fielder-looking shortstop.

Last week, we brought you photos of Derek Jeter taken in Miami that appeared to show the Yankee captain looking a little softer than we're used to seeing him.

(INFphoto.com)

Then we decided to have a little fun with Jeter's new look.

(INFphoto.com)

See more here.

Well, the Captain went to the MLB Network to make clear that the Miami photos were just bad angles.

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D'awwwwwwww.

Whoa, I don't care what that headline says. That is one big puppy. It's the size of that woman's torso! That's the perfect-sized dog for a big guy like a basketball player.

OH MY GOD, there's a giant trying to take that puppy!

Oh, phew. That's just Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. I should have known.

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Nineteen months after online poker was shut down in America — and players started selling account balances to each other in a Wall Street–style shadow market — there are a lot of people still waiting for their money.

“To win at poker you have to be patient. This almost feels like a game of poker within the actual game,” says Daniel “Jungleman12” Cates. The problem? “In this game, I have no idea what to do.”

Cates is 23 years old and has won approximately $7 million in his career as a poker pro. For the last 18 months, though, 80% of Cates’s bankroll — and around $145 million belonging to more than 100,000 other players — has been held in limbo by the United States Department of Justice. (Cates is currently being staked by a fellow pro.) On April 15, 2011, a day that has been dubbed "Black Friday" in the poker community, the DOJ shut down the American operations of three major sites: PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Ultimate Bet.

PokerStars had enough money in reserve to quickly pay off its American players, allowing them to withdraw whatever amounts they had in their accounts. But Ultimate Bet and Full Tilt both lacked the funds to make players whole. Ultimate Bet was a ghost ship of a site, mired in corruption, cheating scandals, and other problems. It basically vaporized — along with its customers’ cash. Full Tilt had also been badly mismanaged but was beloved by players and ran on superior software.

Anticipating that Full Tilt’s money problems could be resolved, players quickly began buying account balances from other players. Those whose stakes (and net worths) were mostly tied up in Full Tilt needed cash; their better-capitalized peers gave it to them in exchange for the rights to whatever money was returned by Full Tilt and the DOJ down the road. Transactions were conducted via Twitter, e-mail, and a popular poker-oriented chat board called twoplustwo.com. Says Dan Fleyshman, former CEO of the site victorypoker.com: “The price on the dollar scaled down as things went on [with no resolution in sight]. It started at 85%. Then it went down to 30 or 40%.” Says Rich Ryan, a senior staff writer and producer for PokerNews: “By September of 2011, people were selling their Full Tilt account balances, via Twoplustwo, for as little as one cent on the dollar.” In typical poker-player fashion, most of these deals, regardless of the sums, were completed without contracts.

In January of this year, Full Tilt and the DOJ worked out an arrangement in which the DOJ took ownership of Full Tilt with the intention of selling it to raise funds to pay back American players. Seven months later, on July 31, PokerStars purchased Full Tilt from the DOJ. Businessweek estimated that the transaction would make $547 million for the U.S. government. At the time, the DOJ vowed to reimburse Full Tilt’s U.S. players; Stars said that it would take responsibility for returning $184 million to non-American customers.

PokerStars followed through on its end of the deal and recently relaunched the Full Tilt site outside of the U.S. In an announcement to Americans, though, this was their ominously bureaucratic-sounding and detail-free advice for recouping funds: “file petition with the DOJ through a remission process which will be administered through the DOJ.” Says Cates: “Initially, I thought this was good news. But unfortunately, the DOJ hasn’t told me or anyone anything. They don’t even answer e-mail.”

According to Steven L. Kessler, an attorney based in New York City who specializes in forfeiture law and is representing high-stakes pro Adam Webb's attempt to recover nearly $59,000 in this case, it's business as usual to make seized funds difficult to recover. “Any forfeiture case is about fund-raising,” he says. “In one of its publications [the 'National Asset Forfeiture Strategic Plan 2008–2012'], the government talks about bringing in $2 billion in forfeitures and returning only $700 million.” Recouping Full Tilt funds will be “a long, drawn-out process to the point that you will need to be out five or six or seven figures for it to be worth pursuing. The system is set up so that you are discouraged from going after your money. There is the cost in terms of emotion, time, effort, and cash. You can do the claim yourself, but the discovery process will require you to show tax returns and bank statements. ... It's virtually impossible to do without an attorney. Plus, look at what you’re exposing to get back what belongs to you. You have to wonder if it will turn into a tax case.” He adds that PokerStars administering its own payment, in a simple and straightforward manner, was an anomaly. “I am surprised that they let PokerStars do it that way,” he says.

In a statement issued on Nov. 14, John Pappas, executive director of Poker Players Alliance, an online-poker lobbying and support group, said that he believed “completion of a claims process is a long way away.” Attorney Kessler believes that none of the money will be paid out before the DOJ receives all $547 million Poker Stars is paying it, and that won’t happen until 2015.

Nonetheless, the seeming inevitability that there will, eventually, be a repayment process has lifted the market for Full Tilt accounts. There's no question that the U.S. government has the money to make the reimbursements, and the DOJ recently announced a search for a claims administrator to consider petitions for refunds. Former VictoryPoker CEO Fleyshman says 70 or 80 cents on the dollar is a reasonable price.

In light of all the uncertainty, it’s a good bet that Alec “Traheho” Torelli has the best possible attitude about the Full Tilt contretemps. “Because it’s something I can’t control, I haven’t spent a lot of time worrying or tracking the progress,” says Torelli, who won his first million before turning 21 and has about $30,000 stuck on Tilt. “You get happy and sad and it creates so much emotional volatility. Right now, as far as that money is concerned, I am in the exact same situation as somebody who’s been obsessing over it, and I probably have an extra 200 hours that I devoted to more productive things in my life.”

These shoes are ugly and stupid and I hate them.

Source: pbs.twimg.com

Air Jordans are the bedrock of sneakerdom. Few, if any, sneakers have had as much of an impact on the fashion and athletic world than Jordans. They're a titanic product with global reach and the weight of history behind them.

IT DOESN'T MATTER. The new XX8s look like something Robin Hood would wear to a funeral. Tom Brady should promote these. They're the ugliest sneakers I've ever seen. They look like they're made of lycra, and the little shiny patches above and around the sole, which are they only things that even qualify them as sneakers when the stupid hood is zipped up, are weird scabs that look dumb.

When you zip down that S&M cover-up, the situation doesn't get any better.

Via: instagram.com

Have you ever wanted sneakers the color of nuclear runoff? Have you ever wondered what aliens wear when they hoop in the Andromeda Galaxy? Do you wish that you could blind your opponents with the neon green disease that is your feet? Then boy do we have the shoes for you! Aside from the basic absurdity of ever picturing these things on an actual basketball court — yo, dude, pass me the ball, I bet that now I'm wearing the Venom suit I'll be able to dunk — I also can't really imagine people wearing them on the street. They're basically high-top booties with purple soles.

Who knows, though. It's not like they're any worse than their namesake's style.

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These totally real, not-at-all-fake drawings and musings were discovered in a trash can outside of Rex Ryan's office this weekend.

After Mark Sanchez was benched this weekend, he had to do what any good benchwarmer does: Carry the clipboard.

Image by Al Bello / Getty Images

Luckily for you, BuzzFeed Sports has exclusively obtained Sanchez's "notes." These are totally real, and were definitely not made in Photoshop.

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Nike released ugly shoes. Twitter responded.

Today Nike introduced the new Air Jordan XX8s. The Internet was less than impressed.

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After the Lakers' Sunday night loss to the Magic, Kobe once again took the opportunity to talk to reporters about his teammate, Pau Gasol.

Gasol struggled in the Lakers' 113–103 loss to the Magic. So much so, in fact, that the tall Spaniard was benched in the final minutes of the game. Pau was disappointed. Kobe wasn't empathetic.

Image by Associated Press / AP

Kobe went on to say, "We're not going to lose him. That's just not going to happen. I've been around him long enough. I know how to deal with him."

You have to love Kobe. He's a dick, but he's a glorious dick. And like all glorious dicks, there is a boulder of truth at the center of his dickishness. Gasol has struggled with his new role in Mike D'Antoni's fast-paced offense. The new system doesn't afford Gasol many opportunities to post up (where he's more comfortable), and should he want to begin getting those crunch-time minutes he's been losing under D'Antoni, he'll have to find a way to play more, in a word that the Lakers new coach likes to use, "dynamically."

But Pau will find a way to do it. Kobe will make sure of that.

H/T Dave McMenamin at ESPN LA.

This man should be required to wear a microphone at all times. Thankfully he was wearing one for Monday Night Football, because he's hilarious and insane.

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Cleveland continues to entertain itself, because the pro sports teams sure won't do it.

Episodes of Browns Red Zone with Jim Donovan, Doug Dieken, and Tony Grossi are probably as lively as funerals. Shouldn't it be called Browns Stuck At Midfield? Anyway, this week, a caller asked the most pressing question of the day.

To their credit, the Browns Red Zone crew then attempted to field a question about the Browns' ability to sack everyone. Also, did the host just confirm that Doug Dieken does in fact have the biggest cock on the set?

Is Big Doug Dieken really Mike D'Antoni? Is Kobe Bryant in on this? Yes.

H/T Barry Petchesky at Deadspin.

It's hilarious, insane, and for a good cause.

Kevin Love directed his Timberwolves teammates in one of the weirdest PSAs the world has ever seen.

Source: youtube.com

Relive all of the greatest moments over and over again forever.

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33-year-old journeyman Erik Compton survived Q-School and secured his PGA Tour card for the second year running. This is how you beat long odds.

This is Erik Compton. He's a professional golfer still seeking his first PGA Tour win, and he's lucky to be alive today.

Image by Scott Halleran / Getty Images

When Compton was nine years old, he was diagnosed with viral cardiomyopathy, and waited three years for a heart transplant.

Via: youtube.com

The transplant transformed his body and Compton struggled with his weight, but he found solace on the golf course.

Via: youtube.com

Eventually, Compton would become one of the highest-ranked junior players in the country, and starred at the University of Georgia before turning pro on the Nationwide Tour.

Via: youtube.com

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The world isn't big enough for one Andrei Kirilenko. But can you tell the difference between famed economist Kirilenko and famed weird NBA player Kirilenko?

Yesterday The New York Times ran a story that featured a study by economist Andrei Kirilenko, and I thought to myself, Hey! There's a basketballer in the wilderness of Minnesota with that very same name. What a coinky-dink! (My inner monologue is written by Leave It to Beaver writers.) So let's see if you can tell the name doppelgängers apart.

Proof that Matt Barkley should have gone pro last year.

One of the oddities of college football bowl season is that each bowl gives its participants a lavish gift basket as a celebration to end the season. According to NCAA rules, each bowl is allowed to award up to $550 worth of gifts to 125 participants per school (but if you give a player a free tattoo in the offseason then DEATH TO YOU!).

Not all gift baskets are the same, though, and some bowls give out much better swag then others. We've rounded up the winners and losers.

The BEST Bowl Gifts:

R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl - East Carolina vs. Louisiana-Lafayette.

Beats by Dre! This is a practical gift that nearly every football player will use.

Players in the New Orleans Bowl will also receive a Fossil watch and an Oakley backpack.

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It may be time to add more people to the Independent Olympic Athletes.

President of the International Olympic Committee, IOC, Jacques Rogge from Belgium (left), and IOC Director General Christophe De Kepper, from Belgium (right).

Image by Keystone, Jean-Christophe Bott / AP

According to the Associated Press, the International Olympic Committee has banned the Indian Olympic Association and nullified the results of the association's recent elections over government interference in the election process. The committee had warned India that it must hold independent elections (not ones under India's sports code) to its Olympic association or face sanctions. India didn't listen. India is facing sanctions, which include the following:

• An end to funding from the IOC (approximately $90,000 a year).
• Indian officials will be barred from Olympic meetings and events.
• Indian athletes will not be able to compete for India at the Olympics for the length of the ban, though they will be able to compete under the Olympic flag as "Independent Olympic Athletes."

Image by Richard Heathcote / Getty Images

It's unlikely that this controversy will spill into the next summer games in Rio, but it could very well affect the few Indian hopefuls who were planning on competing in Sochi, Russia, in 2014.

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Colin Kaepernick's dad is the coolest NFL dad.

This is Rick Kaepernick.

This is Rick's son, Colin. Colin's the starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers and one of the most exciting young passers in the league.

Image by Stacy Revere / Getty Images

Rick Kaepernick is a cheese executive. To be more specific, he's the Vice President of Operations for Hilmar Cheese Company, based out of Hilmar, California. Prior to working at Hilmar, he worked in the dairy industry in Milwaukee, making him and Colin Green Bay Packers fans — aka Cheeseheads — until they had a reason to be otherwise, that reason being the 49ers drafting Colin in 2011.

This is Colin's enormous turtle, Sammy. How do we know that Colin has an enormous turtle named Sammy? Because of Rick.

Source: pbs.twimg.com

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Brett Bielema is leaving Wisconsin on the doorstep of its third consecutive Rose Bowl for Arkansas, which has been in the BCS once. Didn't he know the Big Ten just added Maryland?!?!?

In a move that has shocked college football fans and made non-college football fans thankful that they do not have a hobby that gets them really worked up about the career-driven relocation of a middle-aged, flat-topped man named "Brett," Wisconsin football coach Brett Bielema has apparently decided to ditch the Badger program, which is on the verge of its third straight Rose Bowl, for Arkansas, which is on the verge of not playing in a bowl at all this year because they went 4-8.

The success gap between the two programs this season is wider than usual but not an anomaly; while Wisconsin has won 175 games in the last 20 years, been to numerous Rose Bowls and established itself as a Big Ten power, Arkansas has won 139, and its high-water mark probably came when it made its single BCS appearance in the Sugar Bowl after the 2010 season. It lost that game, then a year later fired the coach who got them there when he got in an accident tooling around on a motorcycle with a young female athletic department employee who was not his wife. And while Wisconsin is at this point the B1G program best positioned for future success after Ohio State and Michigan, Arkansas clearly trails SEC rivals Alabama, LSU, Florida, Texas A&M, Georgia, Tennessee, and Auburn in prestige pecking order. Meanwhile, the Big Ten's BTN cable network is raking in the dollars. Wisconsin and its conference are not suffering for national exposure or resources.

In light of this disparity, initial reports have speculated that Arkansas must have backed the proverbial money truck up to Bielema's driveway. The linked article also mentions that Arkansas has superior "football facilities," which always comes up in these stories: Apparently, a good life tip is that if you need to persuade a football coach of something, you should do it in the midst of a lot of really sleek-looking treadmills. The point is, Arkansas might not have the credibility of Wisconsin, but they want to, real bad.

And in light of this ambition, the Big Ten's recent decision to add Rutgers and Maryland can't have persuaded Bielema that the conference was going in the right direction. Bringing in those two middling-to-awful East Coast schools gooses short-term cable-subscriber numbers, and that might fool advertisers for a little while, but it hasn't fooled the fans who have been justifiedly bemoaning the move's diluting effect on their emotional connection to their team's schedule and rivalries, and it doesn't look to have fooled Bielema. If you're a person who wants to succeed at the highest professional level and you happen to be a football coach, where would you rather work — the conference that just added Texas A&M to a lineup of stacked, historic programs, or the conference that added Maryland, incoherently calls its divisions "Leaders" and "Legends," recently tried to move the Michigan-Ohio State game off of the last weekend of the year, is run by athletic directors whose idea of a bold coaching hire is someone who had a few OK seasons in the MAC, bleeds talented assistant coaches, and has generally become a synonym for self-defeatingly fraidy-cat, punt-from-your-opponent's-30-yard-line football?

Brett Bielema, for all the old-fashioned connotations of his haircut, is not terrified of risk — last season, for example, he brought in Russell Wilson as a fifth-year senior transfer and handed him the team's offense, with spectacular results. He probably saw the writing on the wall, and that writing says, "the people in charge of the Big Ten and its football programs don't seem to understand how college football games are won or why fans like college football." Today's news might be a much-needed kick in the ass to the people in charge of what was once one of America's greatest sporting institutions, but only if they understand this: Brett Bielema didn't leave Big Ten football — Big Ten football left him.