The hottest topics for the week of May 13, 2012 …
Great Scott! It’s the middle of May and the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves are all leading their divisions. Who set the DeLorean to 1997?
Reality check: Early Cy Young front-runner Jared Weaver got clobbered by the Texas Rangers (defending American League champs) following two wins over the Minnesota Twins (may not actually be a Major League Baseball team).
Trial of the century: Brian McNamee says that he first gave Roger Clemens steroids in 1998. Clemens’ lawyer claims that clearly McNamee misremembers mis-injecting Roger’s mis-butt.
Necromancer: Andy Pettitte returned for the Yankees this week and lost to the light-hitting Seattle Mariners. He looked like he’d really lost his stuff. Might be time for him to un-mis-remember Roger Clemens’ phone number.
Mentally retired: The St. Louis Cardinals retired Tony LaRussa’s jersey. He was joined by dozens of players and personnel who helped him throughout his career – with the notable exception of Rangers’ manager Ron Washington who gave him last year’s World Series.
Japanese American: Heavyset pitcher Brad Penny was released by the Softbank Hawks after just one start. Penny says he is weighing options from major league teams. His waistline says he is weighing a lot.
Fender bender: Boston’s David Ortiz was in a minor car accident and now Carl Crawford is out for another month.
Self-inflicted: Bryce Harper hurt his own face after smashing a bat in the dugout. Gus Frerrotte called afterwards to console him. … Don’t you remember, as a Redskin, he banged his head against the wall after a TD and then got a concussion or something? … Well, I do!
Throwback, throw up! Can we please just stop the throwback uniform thing now? The typography on them is painful, awful kerning and way too much tracking. Am I right? Really, just me? Don’t leave me hanging, fellow graphic design nerds.
Extra Innings
Lucky sevens: Both Los Angeles basketball teams won their game sevens, despite having had 3-1 series leads. It was exciting enough to cause L.A. fans to cancel their botox, body waxing and colon hydro-therapy appointments.
All over the world: Lakers’ lunatic Metta World Peace says he will not shake hands with James Harden. As a clarification, he’s considering another name change to Maybe World Peace.
Women’s sports: Man City won the Premier League with a final game that was quite thrilling – except for all the soccer being played.
Role models: Britney Spears and Demi Lovato have joined Simon Cowell’s singing competition, “The X Factor,” where they will mentor young, aspiring pop stars. “This is a great idea!” said cocaine dealers everywhere.
Hungry, hungry hippo: For exclusive photos of Jessica Simpson’s newborn baby, People magazine paid $800K … in donuts.
Love, actually: The new season of “The Bachelorette” brings us Emily Maynard – a lovely girl who’s looking to find the perfect guy to make her life complete with the kind of spellbinding love that can only be found between a soulless fame-hungry media whore and one of the 30 listless jarheads a television show dumped on her lawn.
Contributors: Eliza Bayne, Zach Pennington, Justin Workman, Stephen Arenholtz