Has the Whole World Gone CRAZY??


Let us be the first (and it would seem like the only) ones to say that we thoroughly enjoyed Pat Summitt’s appearance at the Florida-Tennessee game last night. Even though Deadspin, Awful Announcing, and The Big Lead, three blogs that we read religiously by the way, have all called it a letdown, we thought it was great for several reasons:

It showed school spirit

Not many schools have coaches that are as close-knit as the University of Tennessee. Bruce Pearl knows that it is in his best interests to align himself and his team with the much more famous, and much more successful, Lady Vols squad. That’s why he dressed up like an idiot and cheered at the women’s game last month. And this was her returning the favor. Hell, even Fat Phil was in attendance last night, picking his nose and sitting with Peyton Manning. How many schools have coaches that are that close and that supportive of their colleagues? The Buckeyes could learn a lot from the Vols. It wouldn’t hurt to see Coach Tressell-Vest at some basketball games cheering on Thad and his guys.

It showed a different side of Summitt

We don’t claim to know much about Women’s Basketball, but we know that Pat Summitt has an image of a bit of a curmudgeon. She is sort of like John Thompson in a dress. This display last night showed a completely different Pat Summitt. She showed that she doesn’t take herself too seriously to show up in a damn cheerleading outfit in her mid 50s.

What exactly did you expect?

Did you guys think that she was going to come out topless with her chest painted like Pearl was at the women’s game? I think coming out in a cheerleading outfit singing “Rocky Top” is about as much as I thought she was going to do.

And most importantly, it led, however indirectly, to a Florida loss, and probably the loss of their #1 seed.

WCT Baseball Preview of the Week

Baseball season is approaching fast, and we here at WCT can’t wait. In order to prepare for the upcoming season (and so that in October we can brag about how right we were in the spring) we will preview each division, and predict the order of finish of the teams.

Today: the spectacularly mediocre National League West

Los Angeles Dodgers – The Dodgers are the one-eyed man in the land of the blind that is, the National League West Division. Jason Schmidt, if he can stay healthy, will be the #1 starter and add some depth to the rotation when Brad Penny has his inevitable arm injury. The lineup enjoyed the addition of Luis Gonzalez, and the subtraction of J.D. Drew. Gonzalez has to feel rejuvenated now that he is out of Arizona. We see the Dodgers winning the division and losing in the first round again.

San Francisco Giants – The most underrated off-season signing was the Giants acquisition of catcher Bengie Molina. Molina, even though he looks he swallowed his brother Yadier, is solid both offensively and behind the plate. The most overrated off season signing was the Giants overpaying Barry Zito. Zito will benefit from a move to the NL, but he has been pretty average since winning the Cy Young in 2002. Look for the Giants to compete for the wild-card. (By the way, that was an entire team preview of the Giants without even one mention of their cross-dressing left-fielder. Take that ESPN!)

San Diego Padres – The Padres acquired Greg Maddux this past off-season, but we are not sure how much he has left. This team has one of the deepest pitching staffs in the NL, but they will struggle to score runs. They simply have no discernable run-producers in their everyday lineup, even by National League standards. Did you know that Brian Giles, the Padres #3 hitter most of last year, drove in 83 runs in 158 games last year? 83? He had a slugging percentage of .397 for crying out loud!

Arizona Diamondbacks – This team could actually be decent this year. The top of the starting rotation, with new/old D-Back Randy Johnson joining Brandon Webb, and Livan Hernandez, should be pretty solid. Johnson will likely have a better year after returning to the weak NL, and we expect Webb to have another pretty good year. The problem that will keep this team from competing will be their inability to score runs. Eric Byrnes annoys us. Why does everyone love that douche?

Colorado Rockies – This team flat-out stinks. Their roster is comprised almost exclusively of players who were complete failures on their previous teams (Kaz Matsui, LaTroy Hawkins, Javy Lopez to name a few). And many teams take failed starters and make them into closers, but seriously, who takes a failed closer, in this case Byung-Hyun Kim, and makes him a starter? The most interesting thing to involve this team this winter was the trade rumors involving Todd Helton. The Rockies openly shopped Helton to the Red Sox, but couldn’t get a deal done. Then after the rumors passed, Helton said he was “glad to be back.” What? This team tried to ship you out of town, loses 90 games each year, and has pretty much served as baseball purgatory since the franchise’s inception, and you’re glad to be back? Whatever man. Have a great year Rockies fans!

CLEVELAND BROWNS WIN the coin toss for the 3rd pick

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Hilarious Picture of the DayFrom left to right thats Ludacris, Prince, and Dave Chappelle sitting together at the NBA All-Star game.

Why is it that rules don’t apply to Roger Clemens?

He doesn’t have to go to spring training

We don’t know yet if he is going to play this year or not (and if so, for whom), but one thing we do know is that he will not be participating in spring training for the second year in a row. Why is he able to get away with this? Why is it that he can sit on his couch through March and April and field calls from teams ready and willing to throw money at him for two-thirds of a season of work?

Imagine if Brett Favre, instead of announcing his intention to return in ’07-08 on the Friday before the super bowl, went the entire off-season wavering about his intentions. Then in like mid-September, he announced that he was coming back, and ready to listen to offers from teams. Then lets say the Packers stepped up and signed him. He would then take a month or so to get into shape and ride into town on his white horse around week 6. Would we let this take happen? As it is, Favre was ripped for dragging out his decision last year. How would he have been treated if he missed all of training camp and a significant number of games?

He doesn’t have to go to road games if he isn’t pitching

People kill Barry Bonds for being a bad teammate, and rightfully so because this seems to be true. But at least he sits in the dugout on roadtrips when he isn’t playing. Why is it that Clemens doesn’t have to do this? He isn’t the only player in the majors with a family. Wouldn’t just about every player with kids like to just show up at games in which they are scheduled to start in, and spend the other days at home with the family? Not only that, but a lot of guys have pregnant wives and/or newborn or infant kids, and they go on roadtrips. Clemens kids are in high school and college! He has got a kid in the minors for crying out loud!

We realize that Clemens is a legend and has earned a lot of leeway. But enough has got to be enough at some point, right?

Its all I can Stands and I Can't Stands No More!

Mike Lupica is getting off scot free.

For those of you who do not live in New York or are not familliar with his brand of "journalism," let us fill you in. He is just as self-absorbed, cynical, and douchebag-ish as Jay Mariotti, but he only appears on the WWL once a week to Mariotti's five, so most people haven't caught on yet. Therefore he continues to be allowed to publish his weekly Sunday column in the New York Daily News and make outrageously off-base and meaningless statements. This has been going on for far too long and we can't take it anymore. His ramblings from this morning's column put us over the edge.

Exhibit A - Moronic arguments and baseless statements
"Michael Jordan, at the end, got paid as much by the Bulls for the past as he did for the present. And so should Mo Rivera, an even greater money performer than even Jordan ever was."

First off, the last time Jordan took a paycheck from the Bulls, it was the 1998 season and he was leading them to thier sixth NBA championship in eight years. So they weren't paying him for the past, they were in the midst of a championship run, and were paying him for the present. The Yankees on the other hand, haven't won a championship in six full years.

Second, between 1991 and 1998, the only years the Bulls didn't win the championship were the two years that Jordan didn't play the full season. Rivera however, while an all-time great performer in the postseason for the Yankees, has been at the center of two spectacular collapses in crunch time. The ninth inning of game seven of the 2001 World Series, and the ninth inning of game four of the 2004 ALCS. So to call Rivera a better money performer than Jordan is ridiculous.

And third, how can the closer, who pitches 2 innings max at the end of games after the rest of the team has already garnered a lead, be more important to his team than Jordan, who was one of five players on the court for his team, and played almost every minute and took every big shot?

Exhibit B - Meaningless statements

"The Knicks had four days off before they played the first game of their West Coast trip, against the Jazz. Then they didn't play the Lakers until the following Tuesday night.But when they got blown out the next night by Golden State - playing without either Baron Davis or Jason Richardson - we heard how tired the Knicks were."

We have no idea what he is even talking about here.

Exhibit C - Axes to grind

"The Knicks are covered as if the No. 23 - last year's win total, now matched - is more magical now than when Jordan wore it."

Again, for those of you who don't live here, Lupica hates Isaiah Thomas, and the fact that the Knicks are significantly better this year under Thomas than they were last year under Larry Brown really pisses him off. As a result, he makes bizarre comments like the above in the hopes that he can convince himself that there has been no improvement.

We really have no idea why we continue to read the garbage that he writes, its really not good for our blood pressure. But we also get genuine entertainment from his ignorance and the fact that a major newspaper in the largest market in this country is paying him for this.

The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue has officially become irrelevant.

When I was a kid the most exciting time of the entire year was when some kid would steal his dad’s SI swimsuit issue and bring it in to school. Then we would all huddle around his locker and ogle pictures of Kathy Ireland, Vendela, and Elle McPhereson, in bikinis. We couldn’t believe that for one week a year a magazine would actually send a complete issue of scantily-clad women to subscribers’ houses.

Then I went off to college and discovered that a new innovation had been created. The “men’s magazine.” Not quite GQ or Details, not exactly Men’s Fitness, or Men’s Health, and just short of Playboy, and Penthouse. Of course I am referring to the fraternity house shitter reading that is Maxim, Stuff, FHM, Blender, and whatever other clones of these magazines that have been spawned since I began this post 1 ½ paragraphs ago. These magazines do exactly what the Swimsuit Issue does, except they do it every month. And they do it with girls we recognize from movies, TV, and music. In other words, SI takes women who wear nothing but swimsuits for a living, and compiles pictures of them in swimsuits, and makes a magazine issue out of it. Maxim and others take women that men have been mentally picturing in swimsuits and underwear, and print pictures of them swimsuits and underwear. Brilliant.

And you have to believe that SI sees the writing on the wall. Why else would they devote so much of their issues now on stuff like bodypaint,

Strategically placed mp3 players

and give the cover to a Golden Globe nominated, Grammy award winning recording artist and actress?

That being said, the women in this year’s Swimsuit Issue are still ridiculously hot, from cover girl Beyonce,

to Marissa Miller,

to Yesica Toscanini.

And props to SI for having a music theme to the issue, which meant pictures on-location in our native Cleveland, OH at the rock and roll hall of fame.

Hooray for irrelevant magazines!

Have a good weekend perverts!

Pitchers & Catchers Have Reported!

And not a minute too soon

Excuses are like Assholes, They all Stink!

schadenfreude \SHOD-n-froy-duh\, noun: A satisfaction obtained from the misfortunes of others.

The ESPN/USA Today college basketball coaches’ poll was released yesterday, and as you probably know by now it was distinct from every other ESPN/USA Today college basketball coaches’ poll because of one simple fact: it did not contain Duke.

Make no mistake, the Dukies are smack-dab in the middle of a dreaded “down year.” Duke has lost four consecutive games, including losses at unranked Virginia, and at home to unranked Florida State. And if not for some questionable clock operation on January 25th, Duke could have easily lost at home to Clemson, and would be staring at five losses in six games.

In light of these events, the Duke apologists have emerged out of the woodwork with excuse after excuse as to why they are struggling:

They don't have a scorer

This to me is the most puzzling of all excuses. Why don’t they have a so-called “scorer?” Coach K is a pretty accomplished guy, don’t you think he should have had the foresight to say, “Hmm, we are going to need to score to win games. I think we should recruit a scorer!” Its not as simple as “they don’t have a scorer” it’s the fact that they haven’t done well in recruiting, especially compared to teams like North Carolina.

They are too young.

Bullshit. Ohio State usually starts two freshmen, and a third freshman (Dequan Cook) is third on the team in minutes per game. They are #2 in the nation.

North Carolina’s top four players in terms of minutes per game are Tyler Handsbrough (sophomore), Brandon Wright (freshman), Wayne Ellington (freshman), and Ty Lawson (freshman). Sophomore Danny Green and freshman Deon Thompson also play significant minutes. They are #4 in the country.

Again it comes down to recruiting. Kevin Durant is a freshman and is probably going to win player of the year. He could have gone to Duke, but he didn’t. Greg Oden could have gone to Duke, but he didn’t. Wright, Ellington, and Lawson could have gone to Duke, but they didn’t. As a result of the new NBA age limit, every good team is “young” this year, but only Duke is using this as an excuse. Duke used to have a clear recruiting edge over everyone else in the country and it appears as if this edge is disappearing.

Greg Paulus is killing them.

Well, you have a point there.

The Dead Zone...

This week begins what we call the “dead zone.” You know, the time in between the Super Bowl and the college basketball conference tournaments. Every blogger and wannabe blogger rushes to the keyboard to chronicle this malaise the second the Super Bowl ends, so we will spare you our version of that spiel.

Instead, we will make a suggestion as to how you can pass the time until the first week in March. This is Kim Kardashian. We have no idea who she is, where she came from, what she has done to become famous, or what her general story is at all. All we know is that she is smoking hot, and according to the good folks at The Big Lead she will have an internet sex tape released in the coming weeks. We will be spending the “dead zone” anxiously awaiting this tape from Ms. Kardashian.

Besides that, we will be feigning interest in regular season college and pro basketball (cheering for the Cavs on Friday and Sunday and Kentucky on Saturday night!), while keeping one eye on baseball spring training (pitchers & catchers report in 5 days!). This sex tape can’t come out soon enough!



Have a good weekend!

Pitchers & Catchers Report in 8 days!

We can't wait!

We’re sorry…

We’re sorry, we have nothing to say following the Super Bowl. We suck at picking games. Congrats to the Colts. Congrats to Peyton Manning for winning the big one and winning the Super Bowl MVP (by default).

And that halftime show KICKED ASS!

No Respect I Tells Yah, No Respect!







Sources close to WCT inform us that the Super Bowl will be played this Sunday, and we have been breaking this game down all week. One thing is for certain, we are sick and F-ing tired of the Rex Bashers. He isn’t a bad quarterback, he is an inconsistent quarterback. He led the league in games with a QB rating under 40 (5), but he was also second in the league (7, incidentally, tied with Peyton Manning) in most games with a rating over 100. So statistically, he is more likely to be outstanding this Sunday than he is to be awful.

Lets take a closer look at those five “awful” games. We’ll give him a pass on the 0.0 rating he had in week 17. It was a meaningless game for the Bears (and as he said, “it was new year’s eve” after all. His mind was obviously elsewhere). The other four were a 10.2 in week 6 against the Cardinals on Monday night (win), a 36.8 in week 8 at the Dolphins (loss), a 23.2 in week 12 at New England (loss), and a 1.3 in week 13 against the Vikings (win). These were four horrible performances in a seven week span in the middle of the year, and the team was able to pick him up and go 2-2 in those games. After that week 13 stinker, when his team needed wins down the stretch for home-field advantage he responded with a week 14 rating of 114.4, a week 15 rating of 104.3, and a week 16 rating of 80.4. In those games he threw 5 TDs, 0 INTs and the Bears went 3-0.

Not only that, but he had more touchdowns, fewer interceptions, and a higher rating for the season that Brett Favre, and a higher rating for the postseason than one Peyton Manning.

Even though our Friday T n’ A is exclusively Colts cheerleaders (the Bears have no cheerleading squad) we feel as though it is Chicago that is getting no respect from Vegas. As soon as Marlon Jackson intercepted Tom Brady two Sundays ago, and we knew for certain what the match up would be, we came up with what we thought the spread should be, Colts -4. When we saw that it was 7, we immediately thought that Chicago was the bet. We have seen nothing over the last two weeks to dissuade us from this. So unless Brian Urlacher gets caught trying to pick up a $40 hooker the night before the game, we think that the smart money is on the Bears +7.

Happy Friday everyone. Enjoy your weekend, and enjoy the game.