The toughest place to play in all of sports

You think that Cameron Indoor Stadium is hard to play in with their Cameron Crazies? Think again. The Big House in Michigan? Hell, Appalachian State won there. Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks?

Nope. None of those are even close to Mexico City's Azteca Stadium. The 100,000+ seat stadium, the fifth-largest stadium in the world, is so impenetrable that the United States has never won a match there. Ever.

ESPN's Bill Simmons attempted to let you know what it was like last week when the United States played Mexico in a World Cup Qualifying match that was a must-win for Mexico:

You can't even call it just a hostile environment; it's more primal than anything. I have only attended two other games in which the crowd's collective loathing was palpable -- Game 6 of the 1986 NBA Finals (Boston fans heaping hatred on Ralph Sampson, who had punched two Celtics in the previous game) and Game 5 of the 1987 Eastern finals (the same treatment for Bill Laimbeer, who had decked Larry Bird the previous game) -- and neither approached USA-Mexico. Michael Vick could crash a PETA rally and get a friendlier reception than the Americans did at Azteca.

Amazing.

ESPN columnist attacks Twitter after ESPN social media ban

ESPN really doesn't like social media. After their ban of Twitter, a columnist on their site decided to blast Twitter.

Isn't that timing weird...?

Don't mess with Prince Fielder

Prince Fielder, the All-Star first baseman for the Milwaukee Brewers, got hit by a pitch in the 9th inning of a game where his team was being destroyed by the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was in retaliation for his pitcher hitting the Dodgers' star Manny Ramirez.

Fielder, however, took it a bit personally. From the Associated Press:

When the game ended, Fielder charged through the underground tunnels at Dodger Stadium to the door of the home clubhouse, shouting obscenities with many fellow Brewers trailing behind. Several security guards and teammates Bill Hall and Casey McGehee prevented Fielder from entering the locker room in search of Mota.

"He ran over there, and they weren't going to let him in, and everybody came back," Milwaukee manager Ken Macha said. "I don't know if you can restrain Prince. I don't think I can. I don't think there's anybody else out there who can."

England gets more Orwellian -- UK government to put cameras in people's homes

This is just plain scary, from the Daily Express across the pond:

The Children’s Secretary set out £400million plans to put 20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision in their own homes.

They will be monitored to ensure that children attend school, go to bed on time and eat proper meals.

Private security guards will also be sent round to carry out home checks, while parents will be given help to combat drug and alcohol addiction.

Umm, wtf?

Orly Taitz's meltdown is epic

I almost feel bad for her.

I know that everyone has already seen this, but it's worth watching again just for the utter insanity of the clip.

ESPN banning Twitter for most instances

The Worldwide Leader in Sports, ESPN, is like a lot of companies these days. Seemingly every person on their staff has a Twitter account. I follow about a dozen of these folks to find out the latest about sports news, including their RSS feed Twitter account.

But now ESPN has decided that all this Twittering by their reporters isn't a good thing and has banned tweeting except for cases where it serves ESPN's interests.

Ric Bucher, who covers the NBA for ESPN and ESPN.com, said in a Twitter post today that the sports giant is prohibiting Twitter posts that don't serve the network. Bucher has more than 18,000 followers on the site.

I caught the tweet by @RicBucher.

Here it is:

The hammer just came down, tweeps: ESPN memo prohibiting tweeting info unless it serves ESPN. Kinda figured this was coming. Not sure wh ...

He followed up with a tweet that says,

My guess is I can still tweet about my vacation/car shopping, etc. Which I will do, if I can. But the informal NBA talk is prob in jeopardy.

In other words, there is no longer any reason for me to follow ESPN personalities for scoops on sports news.

Rap song about Twitter: "Hit me on Twitter"

And no, it isn't one of those jokey, "I'm a guy who can't rap, isn't it funny!?" rap songs. It's an actual rapper (Mista F.A.B.) telling people, "Hit me on Twitter."

Listen to it.

Modest Mouse music video directed by Heath Ledger debuts

You can watch the animated video for the song "King Rat" over at MySpace.

Ledger directed part of the video and the rest was finished by his company, The Masses.

G.E., News Corp muzzle Olbermann and O'Reilly

So says the New York Times at least.

For years Keith Olbermann of MSNBC had savaged his prime-time nemesis Bill O’Reilly of the Fox News Channel and accused Fox of journalistic malpractice almost nightly. Mr. O’Reilly in turn criticized Mr. Olbermann’s bosses and led an exceptional campaign against General Electric, the parent company of MSNBC.

It was perhaps the fiercest media feud of the decade and by this year, their bosses had had enough. But it took a fellow television personality with a neutral perspective to bring it to an end.

At an off-the-record summit meeting for chief executives sponsored by Microsoft in May, the PBS interviewer Charlie Rose asked Jeffrey Immelt, chairman of G.E., and his counterpart at the News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, about the feud.

Weird.

I can't even describe this story in a headline

Via @m_ruth, a story otu of a soap opera. If it was based in New Mexico:

A black bear in Espanola touches off an odd series of events leading to an animal control officer being arrested, accused of battering an underage girl.

There are four main characters in the story: A large black bear, an animal control officer, and his two unsuspecting girlfriends.

And, since it's from a TV network, here's the story in video form as well!