SI's 25 Toughest Athletes - Looks like the Swimsuit Issue is the Only Thing Worth Reading

After a long hiatus from days off, I finally have stumbled across one. So I thought I'd just gripe about some shoddy article. I've been pretty removed from sports life due to my career choice, and I've been doing light reading every night when I get home, but this Sports Illustrated article really has me worked up - or as much as I can get worked up on a Saturday Morning at 8:30. The article is named: Extra Mustard - 25 Toughest Athletes and is the most half-assed list ever constructed. Now I remember a few months back when Matt from WithLeather.com was at the ESPN SuperBowl bash at the Convention Center, and a certain ESPN writer commented on how bloggers and their shoddy compositions we're mediocre at best since there are no editors to help refine their works - AND that ANYBODY can write about something. Apparently SI's online sect has tried to mock the Cracked.com style of "Top -insert number and thing here-" lists and horribly failed. Let's look at who SI thinks is "tough"

1. Tiger Woods
2. Lance Mackey
3. Anderson Silva
4. Bob Sanders
5. Zdeno Chara
6. Steve Smith
7. Allen Iverson
8. Fedor Emelianenko
9. Floyd Mayweather
10. Chrissie Wellington
11. Chris Chelios
12. Olin Kreutz
13. Kobe Bryant
14. Marion Barber
15. Kelly Pavlik
16. Trevor Brazile
17. Aaron Rowand
18. Ron Artest
19. Kelly Gregg
20. Hayley Wickenheiser
21. Steve Hutchinson
22. Tony Stewart
23. Josh Beckett
24. Rafael Nadal
25. Joey Chestnut

Ok I'll give SI credit for about half of this list- Not gonna agree with the rankings but that's a whole different story. The first ten are admirable, they deserve to be on this list. However Trevor Brazile is on there for being "tough" and "tough enough" to be ranked 16th. This cowboy isn't a bull rider- oh no he's a roping champ AND has earned this distinction because he competes in more than one rodeo event AND won his fifth all-around title(?) with his main roping horse injured. Scratch him out and put down, say...BRETT FARVE who started for more consecutive games than any other player in the NFL. Oh yah and the season where he played pretty much with a bum thumb. Oh and when he played that game the night after his dad died. Yea, Farve trumps.

Two spots down we have the friendly, chivalrous Ron Artest. Let's just skip to the defining moment- The Pacer-Pistons Brawl. Yes Artest made this list because he punched a fan. Fucking Next.

Hayley Wickenheiser- Canadian women's hockey player. I have no problem with women's sports, women playing sports, women playing originally men's sports, but when you compile a "tough" list, non-body check hockey should not enter your mind.

Tony Stewart #22. I don't get NASCAR. Unless you're on fire for the final lap of the race and finish in the Top 10 don't talk to me, you drive in circles for your job.

Finally the grand finale of SI's list of ridiculous picks, Joey Chestnut. Yea the guy that won the hot dog eating contest this year. Read this sad spectacle of over dramatic journalism:

What makes him tough: Intestinal fortitude of the highest order. Aptly nicknamed "Jaws", this dynamo of competitive eating last year ingested -- among other things -- 8.6 pounds of asparagus in 10 minutes, 182 chicken wings in half an hour, 47 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes, and 103 Krystal hamburgers in eight minutes, living to tell each time.

Defining moment: Ending Kobayashi's six-year hold on the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest at Coney Island last year. Only one month after setting a world record of 59 ½ tubes of beef, sodium, fat and nitrates in 12 minutes, Chestnut inhaled 66 in the same span without reviewing any of them.

Old school match: Babe Ruth, who was renowned for gargantuan appetites that moved a teammate to say, "If you cut that fat slob open, half the concessions at Yankee Stadium would come pouring out."

First off, you're a competitive eater. You were that asshole in high school who picked on the fat kids, then they won the state fair pie eating contest, so to make their life more miserable you took up this hobby just so you could rub their face in it. This is ridiculous, And comparing Chestnut to Babe Ruth? Are you really a sports magazine SI? Oh let's not forget, this proud product of the Red, White, and Blue beat Kobayashi...when Kobayashi was competing with a torn esophagus. So if we're gonna give the "toughness" award to anybody, it should be Kobayashi, not this Irvine, California douche.

*quotes from SI.com

More after the jump...

Making it rain...

The main stories in the NFL right now happen to have been the Patriots undefeated season in progress, or even the Dolphins throughly defeated season, unfortunately in my mind, the main story for today is the sudden death of Redskin's safety Sean Taylor. After being shot in the groin, damaging a major artery causing significant blood loss. What the hell is going on in the sports world today? It hasn't even been a year since the Broncos lost a player to some idiot "Making it Rain".

Understandably some of these players have troubled pasts that follow them through their success into professional sports, and even after leaving the "hood" sometimes the hood follows them. Not to say this was the case in Michael Vick's conviction or "Hurricane Pacman", but Taylor was at assaulted at his own home by a guy who had apparently already broken in a few days before. Taylor, who had been making strides in his maturity, had become an extremely valuable asset to the Redskins during the past seasons.

I'm getting real sick of this stuff, it's one thing when I heard about Vick and his scenario at the airport/dog fighting rings, or Pacman in front of the strip club, even Tank Johnson...but aggravated violence towards athletes is just ridiculous. I hope that bastard gets caught and gets some type of medieval torture done on his ass. Probs something like water torture...who's raining now bitch?
More after the jump...

Can't Nobody Hold me Down...

So just after getting re-instated after being suspended for his less than stellar off field manners, Chris Henry is making noise all over again. Give the man a break, he's just fighting the man.


"The parking attendant states Henry went chest to chest with him....saying...."F-you....F-this....don't you know who I am?". The parking attendant states Henry then threw a five dollar bill onto the ground and said, "You better pick that up bitch"


Even though the police are not investigating this matter, it goes to show you that Chris Henry is speaking for all these stellar NFL athlete's by telling that meter maid that he's no punk bitch. Go get him Chris, if you decide to whoop his ass, atleast the Bengals will have beat someone down this year.
More after the jump...

The Pac-10 Debacle: Fans

Being a University of Arizona student, as well as a product of a University of Arizona Alumni. it is in my blood to cheer for the 'Cats. As it is with every other student who willfully attended this school. However it's fan's like the gracious copy of chief of our loathed "Arizona Daily Wildcat" Tom Knauer that make a bad name for Pac-10 fans across the nation. Coming from a school paper who's most popular articles are the "Police Beat" - a section dedicated to the most "campus relevant" reported crimes over the past few days, and the sudoko puzzles, Knauer and all his Wildcat glory, decided to crap on the UA student body.

"Untold numbers of ABC viewers saw at least the initial trickles of red slosh toward center field. Maybe they witnessed the whole, despicable flood - whose crimson, immense, rivaled that on the cheeks of more than a few grizzled upperclassmen, myself included, who lingered, dumbfounded, as people hurtled down the east bleachers.

I left the stadium as quickly as possible after the game, thoroughly humiliated by my peers, their na'veté being beamed to potentially hundreds of thousands (please, not millions) of televisions.

The whole scene was enough to strip away any personal satisfaction I got from seeing Arizona win in person for probably the last time in my four-plus years at Arizona"

This guy is a tool bag. Last time I checked Homecoming is always something to be celebrated, and if you win a football game with a team that has struggled throughout the year is another reason to celebrate. Combining the two results in an even bigger celebration. You know simple 1+1=2 meaning 2>1.

I guess Knauer's statements yield a newly enstated formula: Knauer+Fan-dom = bullshit.

See the lack-luster article here -
http://media.wildcat.arizona.edu/media/storage/paper997/news/2007/11/05/Sports/A.Farce.For.The.Ages-3078950.shtml

*note I realize I'm publicizing this ass bag, but it's better than getting fucked for plagarism
More after the jump...