Inside the wacky world of the kickball world championships

From ESPN's Jemele Hill:

To say this ain't fifth-grade kickball is like saying Malcolm Gladwell is just a little bit smart. At your average rec league tournament, you do not see a team from New Mexico playing in green wigs as if they're straight out of a Dr. Seuss book or doing a team dance that's a cross between the Macarena and the stanky leg. You do not see men big enough to have played college football wearing bumblebee costumes (complete with antennae and wings) and feather boas. You do not hear the national anthem sung by a man who makes William Hung sound like Luther Vandross. You don't have a couple getting married in their kickball uniforms after their team -- which has a name that can't be mentioned here -- was eliminated from the tournament.

I played in a kickball tournament in New Mexico a few years back -- we made it out of our group, but lost in the first elimination game. In that game, we had a player ejected and a near-fight -- not joking. Kickball is serious business.

Highlights from the USA - Honduras game

The United States of America vs Honduras game happened Saturday night, but odds are that you didn't see it. Why? It was on closed circuit TV only in the United States. Yeah, dumb.

But here are the highlights from the best game you never saw, unless you watched it on an internet stream.

Get pumped for 30 for 30

ESPN is doing something crazy for it's 30 year anniversary -- doing 30 sports documentaries about 30 sports stories in the past 30 years.

And if this doesn't get you pumped for it... then there's something wrong with you. The first one airs on Tuesday October 6,so set your DVRs.

What can make toddlers fighting with giant foam fingers even funnier?

Having ESPN boxing analyst Teddy Atlas call the action.

Usain Bolt visits ESPN HQ

Usain Bolt goes to Bristol, Connecticut and races ESPN employees. Hint: the world record holder in the 100 meter and 200 meter dash won.

Steve Nash Vitamin Water informercial (starring 50 cent and the Slumdog Millionaire guy)

If you haven't seen the other Steve Nash YouTube videos, I recommend looking them up. And if you're wondering why 50 Cent is in this video, read this; 50 Cent made $400 million off selling Vitamin Water to Coca Cola.

And I have to say, while many in the media think that Shaquille O'Neal is the funniest basketball player out there, Nash seems to make the funniest commercials. And, yes, Shaq is an overrated athlete when it comes to comedy.

Man catches foul ball; gives to daughter; daughter throws back

Damn.



There goes her share of the inheritance.

NYT Mag explores Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are"

I have a feeling that this is going to be a great movie that is a tremendous flop at the box office.

But this sounds intriguing:

“It’s in the visual language of, like, some sort of fantasy film, and it is a fantasy film to some degree,” [Spike Jonze] acknowledged, “but the tone of it is its own tone. We wanted it all to feel true to a 9-year-old and not have some big movie speech where a 9-year-old is suddenly reciting the wisdom of the sage.” He hadn’t set out to make a children’s movie, he said, so much as to accurately depict childhood. “Everything we did, all the decisions that we made, were to try to capture the feeling of what it is to be 9.”

And just for the hell of it, here's Jonze's video for the song Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, with some bonus footage at the beginning and end:

Somebody call Ron Burgundy! Video of US' first baby panda

Lacrosse brawl!

Lacrosse did something bigger than college football -- a bigger brawl. While the Oregon-Boise State "fight" was only one punch and a player being restrained from pulling a Ron Artest and going into the crowd.

But this lacrosse brawl, which Deadspin says "lasted ten minutes, resulted in 173 penalty minutes, and led to ten players (including both back-up goalies) getting tossed" definitely topped that.

What caught me is that, like hockey, there is a ritualized, traditional way of doing this. Two guys challenge each other, shed pads, gloves and then proceed to grab onto each other's jersey and attempt to punch the other guy in the face as hard as possible.

All while a ref stands there and watches it go down, only intervening when the fight goes to the ground or one player is too badly hurt. It's bizarre -- imagine if you saw this go down in, say, college basketball.

Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day trailer

Check it out:

Steve Nash (@the_real_nash) plays pickup games in China

This is a cool story. From ESPN's Ric Bucher:

Local park custom is that you buy a $3 entry ticket and wait for your number to be called to play, which Nash dutifully did. But the crush to play with and against him was so overwhelming that, through the help of a bilingual Chinese native, Nash organized a knockout 3-on-3 tournament, going undefeated while alternating teammates.

He was dressed in costume for the start of the pick up session, with "a bandanna around his head, wearing a pair of clear goggles, brown cutoffs and knee-high soccer socks." They recognized him anyway.

And there's video (thanks to Google Translate, I figured out how to embed it):

How Darrell Hammond is making money post-SNL

Darrell Hammond is no longer on Saturday Night Live after being the longest tenured SNL cast member ever. So how is he making money now?

Apparently like this:

Oregon football player punches Boise State

Here's the video from ESPN:



And here is the response from the player who threw the blow (then, after hearing something from a Boise State fan, had to be restrained from entering the stands):



Clearly, the Boise State player said something to piss off LeGarette Boule (the Oregon player). But the retaliation for whatever the Boise State player said was far worse -- and now Boule, after the first game of his senior season, will miss a significant portion of his final college season due to suspension.

Kevin Eulls should be your hero today

I just heard about this on SportsCenter.

High school football player Kevin Eulls potentially saved the lives of numerous people on a school bus with his actions when a girl pulled a gun:

Surveillance camera footage on the Yazoo County school bus on Tuesday captured 18-year-old Kaleb Eulls tackling the 14-year-old girl while the children evacuated the bus.

He managed to wrestle the .380 caliber semi-automatic handgun from her, Yazoo County Sheriff Thomas Vaughan told CNN.

So why did I hear about it on SportsCenter? Well, Eulls is "a 6-foot-4, 255-pound high school senior and star quarterback who has verbally committed to play for Mississippi State University after he graduates."

According to SportsCenter, Eulls said he was willing to risk his life to save the lives of any of the other students on the bus -- including his three sisters.

And then, amazingly, they all continued on to school.

Watch it:

Fan made trailer for Ferris Bueller's Day Off

This is pretty cool, even if the first song ("Shimmy Shimmy Ya" by Ol' Dirty Bastard) is incredibly misplaced in one of the quintessential 80s movies of the time.

Perseid meteor shower video

Cool stuff. Via Bad Astronomy:

Basketbrawl

Uruguay vs Mexico in what was essentially a scrimmage:

Top ten plays of the weekend

Just about all baseball. Since it is, you know, the offseason for everything else, but here are SportsCenter's top 10 plays for the weekend that just ended.

The Shins - Turn on Me (Video

A pretty damned good video. Check it out.