Labor Day Links

-Want to bet on how many fantasy points Matt Stover will accumulate during a game? Now that Vegas is taking Fantasy Football bets, your dreams have been fulfilled. Pretty sure this is not a good idea. [MSNBC]

-First big game of the college football season, Cal vs. Tennessee, Smokey vs. Oskie fight to the death! Here's some point spread analysis for any gambling degenerates who are reading this. [Gooner's Guide]

-Charles Barkley thinks the 80's Celtics teams were ugly people who wore ugly clothes. In other news, Larry Bird has announced an endorsement deal with Just For Men, to pimp their new line of products for the Pubic Hair Moustache. [SLAM Magazine]

-Larry Dobrow's rankings of the best organizations in baseball. The Padres are ranked seventh. Yay, Petco still blows. [CBS Sportsline]

Everybody have fun killing brain cells this weekend!

Youtube Fun: Dan Marino has Super Bowl PTSD

Just messed up my lines, never won a Super Bowl, Terrell Buckley still gets to play football and I don't, AAAAAGGGHHHH!!!!!!

Oh well, I'll just give Collinsworth a purple nurple after the show and maybe get a cortizone shot.

Athlete Site Reviews, Part 1

This is the first installment of a potentially two or three part series of athlete website reviews from around the internet. We'll be covering sports accross the board such as football, baseball, the NBA, hockey, curling, greyhound racing and alligator fondling.

First up is Baltimore Ravens linebacker Bart Scott's website, http://www.madbacker.net/. I am assuming that he is not actually mad about anything, but that the title simply refers to his mad skillz.

Visual: 8/10. Love the grainy, Dracula-esque site design. His purple-eye logo rocks, too.

Audio: 7/10. Just a looped violin part, but it sounds creepy. Don't jump out of the screen and horse-collar me, Bart.

Store: 10/10. Cop your Madbacker shirts. For reals.

Photo Gallery: 9/10. Mr. Scott's football camp pictures are great. It took a lot of great police work by officer McNulty to keep Avon and his thugs away from the kids.

Overall Score: 8/10. Madbacker is not a great mad-time-waster, but it looks cool, and even has a section for his cell phone pics. But it is empty right now, burner phones are a b*tch.

Back on Top

The Padres are now one measly percentage point atop the NL West and it's time to start believing again...and believing in crazy pitching schemes:

"Manager Bud Black indicated for the first time Wednesday that the thought of having a 'bullpen day' --- where a series of relievers cover the start -- was a possibility, although that would be a late decision considering how the bullpen is used Wednesday and Thursday." (padres.com)

This is the best idea I've ever heard! I really hope they do it. Imagine David Wells hearing he's not taking on some sub-par Minor League call up, but the ENTIRE bullpen. Sounds perfect to me.

Arrrrrr you looking for a new place to get drunk?

Little Italy’s all kinds of trendy these days, what with its fancy condos and banners of Italian baseball players. There is one place, however that has steadfastly refused revitalization, and we’ll all the better for it.

It’s called The Waterfront, and it’s one of San Diego’s oldest bars. The walls inside are packed with pictures and artifacts from the city’s fishing industry (which was dominated by Italian tuna fisherman in the early and middle years of the last century) making it one of the few bars in San Diego that gives you both a real neighborhood, and real historical feel. They also have pretty good food; the burgers are great and the popcorn is free!

The place is a little too clean to be considered a dive (in my opinion) but it has a very friendly, come-as-you-are kind of atmosphere. The clientele is surprisingly working class for such a yuppified neighborhood, and the bartenders seem like they’d be as comfortable in front of the bar as they are behind it.

The bar’s layout is a kind of “L’ shape that makes it tough to navigate when crowded, and while there’s a fair amount of seating, you feel like your stool is in the way in a lot of spots. No one seems to get mad about it though, and people are good about getting out of you way (especially when you’re trying to carry three drinks).

Once upon a time, before the freeways came in and carved up the area, The Waterfront was actually on the waterfront. Nowadays you can’t really smell the salt air, even when you’re on the outside patio, but there is still an overwhelming sense of the nautical. It kind of makes me want to burst into a round of “What do you do with a drunken sailor?” whenever I’m there. That’s probably just be me, but you can sing along to Weezer and Violent Femmes covers on Wednesday nights when San Diego favorites Fever Crotch perform.

The giant, be-slickered fisherman on the roof makes The Waterfront hard to miss, and with the bar instituting pajama breakfasts on Saturday mornings this month, honestly why would you want to?

Name: The Waterfront
Location: 2044 Kettner Blvd

San Diego, CA (Little Italy)
Fun fact: The Waterfront has San Diego’s oldest liquor license.

State of Guinness: On tap, served in an American-style pint glass. The Waterfront’s Guinness tends to get that kind of coffee flavor to it that you’d expect more from the bottle or can than from the tap. The bartenders get your Guinness to you quicker at The Waterfront than other bars, which is nice, but I think the quick poor contributes to the slightly off taste.

Gingers is the Watchword

If you dig Pink Hat Nation, check out our sister blog, Gingers is the Watchword where we discuss all things pop culture.

C'mon...you know you want too...

The poor man's racquetball

Once upon a time I knew a lot about tennis. I took lessons with the Scituate Youth Center, and even won a round of a tournament. This remains my greatest athletic achievment.* This was circa 1993, which I've since been told was a kind of "Golden Age" of US tennis, when Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Monica Seles, Steffi Graff and all those guys were in their primes or coming onto the scene. My friends and I would jokingly grunt really loudly after we hit the ball in honor of our favorite stars. Apparently US tennis isn't as good any more, but I've decided I'm going to make a concentrated effort to get back into the sport anyway. I plan on watching as much of the US Open as possible this weekend. Maybe my support will single-handedly restore US tennis to the zenith it once aspired. And if not, at least I'll get to look at Andy Roddick and Roger Federer for a little while. Heyyyy!

* This victory was controversial because my friend Rachel had beaten everyone in our class to be named "Queen of the Court" and go on to the next round of the tournament. But then I came back from vacation and beat Rachel, effectively transferring the crown to the House of Malloy. Rachel felt it wasn't fair because she beat like 10 people and I'd only beat one. She was probably right, but I'm OK with it. I was knocked out in the next round anyway.

You'll Never Walk Alone

In an effort to drum up interest in American soccer, adidas (which someone once told me stood for All Day I Dream About Soccer - which makes no sense because it's a German company and they call it Fußballspiel not soccer - but I believed her because I am a moron sometimes) has complied theme songs for each of the MLS teams (enter the site to hear them all). It's a noble effort, but none of them really live up to the football (and by that I mean soccer) anthems sung around the world...and this is the problem with MLS in general. It's like the poor man's version of football (err...soccer). Like when NBC remade BBC's Coupling for American audiences and it was totally awful and lasted about 3 episodes...the MLS is the American version of Coupling.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Does the Barenaked Ladies rocking out for Toronto FC make you want to watch more MLS? Or maybe OK GO championing the Chicago Fire? I didn't think so...

The Weekly Weddle: Fitzgerald Crushing Edition

After week three of the preseason, it looks like Clinton Hart has earned the starting spot at strong safety, with E-Dub playing on third downs and nickel and dime packages. The secondary is struggling to gel as a unit, but new defensive co-ordinator Ted Cottrell (aka Tedrick the Entertainer) has yet to unveil his aggressive new blitz schemes that will include more action from the safties and cornerbacks. I honestly didn't catch much of the game, but Eric statistically led the team in tackles with five solo and one assisted. It seems that the Cards passing attack will be up a notch from last year, and there were numerous completions to the Anquan Boldin/Larry Fitzgerald tandem in which Eric helped limit the yards after catch.

Something that was not included last week is the definitive piece of Eric Weddle journalism, "Why not give Eric Weddle the Heisman?" by Doug Robinson of the Desert Morning News. It's also reminder about the radness of college football.

And finally, I somehow missed the San Diego Hall of Champions Luncheon, at which the guest speakers were Chargers GM A.J. Smith and none other than E-Dub, go figure! This is a great picture of Eric, A.J. and HOC founder Bob Breitbard posing with the bat Ted Williams used to hit .406 in 1941.

Happy Tuesday, and here's looking forward to the next preseason game, a Super Bowl preview between the Niners and Chargers!

Who Sold Their Soul to Satan?

Growing up in San Diego, the Chargers always, well, pretty much sucked. They had a few good years (1994, when they went to the Super Bowl for the first time, was pretty sweet) but for the most part, they were heart breakers. Same with the Padres. I don't really remember the '84 series (I thought sports were boring at that age...not enough singing and dancing) and, other than '98, the Padres were usually pretty forgettable. We had a bunch of stellar players through the 80's and 90's (Dan Fouts and Tony Gwynn come to mind), but most seasons, San Diegans didn't really expect much.

Now, it's so bizarre to have two, dare I say, really good teams. Both are ranked in the top 5 of ESPN's power rankings (say what you will about ESPN) and both are poised to have back to back post-season appearances. Even more bizarre is seeing Ladainian Tomlinson's face everywhere as THE guy in the NFL. He's a Charger for chrissakes! No one outside of SD likes the Chargers! And Padres Ace Jake Peavy is inciting jealously from Yankee fans, who snottily say to me, "We can't all have Jake Peavy on our team." Damn right, you can't. He's a ours. Jake struck out 11 guys last night for about the millionth time in his career and looks ripe for his first Cy Young. It's just all so weird.

SD has always been the place to go for weather and beautiful people, but now we have good sports teams, too? I feel like my head's gonna explode.