The Hot Corner: Roger Clemens, Bryce Harper, The Bachelorette

 

The hottest topics for the week of May 13, 2012 …

Andy Pettitte's return to New York turned ugly when Justin Smoak went yard to give Seattle an early lead. (Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

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