With the success of the first installment of the With Leather Awesome Celebrity Baseball Fan Tracker last week, I decided that we had to explore the darker side of famous fans. And hoo boy, are there some seriously embarrassing celebrity fans out there. But in fairness to the good fans out there, a lot of them – motions upward with eyes – are just fake fans, using our beloved national pastime as a chance to extend their 15 minutes a few more seconds.

As mentioned in the previous post – updated maps forthcoming – I don’t want the burden of being the ultimate deciding factor in putting together this thorough directory of which famous d-bags and dolts love which baseball teams. So I want you to make your recommendations in the comments for celebrities that I’ve missed, and I know that there are plenty.

But I also urge you to speak out in defense of any actor, musician, politician or generally famous person who I may have slighted by labeling an embarrassing fan. With the NBA and NHL playoffs ending in a few weeks – and they’re both already over for me – we’re in for a long summer. Let’s spend it creating productive dialog, shall we?

Read the rest of this entry »

Forbes magazine today released their annual The World’s Most Powerful Celebrities, a top 100 list that ranks stars based on press coverage, social media buzz and whose agents paid Forbes the most money to put them on a list. At the top of this year’s 100: Jennifer Lopez, who was settling nicely into obscurity as that lady on Eric Cartman’s hand in an old episode of ‘South Park’ before ‘American Idol’ rocketed her back to prominence. Former American Idol winner Taylor Hicks also made the list, coming in at number 4,544,022 between Burnsy and the golden voiced homeless guy.

Tiger Woods managed to hang on as this year’s highest ranking sports celebrity, coming it at number 12. The only other sports guy in the top 25 was LeBron James at number 15, despite Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal coming it at numbers 2 and 3 in “Press Rank” behind Lady Gaga. I don’t know how much of this list is based on math and how much of it is based on people at Forbes trying to name 100 celebrities, so bear with me.

Here’s a full list of the sports personalities who ranked this year:

Read the rest of this entry »

Or, “AAAAH PAT KELLY”.

What you’re looking at is New York Jets center Nick Mangold appearing on a special celebrity edition of ‘Wax On, Wax Off’, wherein he lets persons from ‘Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’ rip the hair from his enormous baby-body as punishment for someone else’s incorrect trivia answers. Unfortunately for Nick, he’s got one of the guys from Coheed and Cambria (not really) answering questions about Lithuanian Prime Ministers so his poor chest ends up looking like a Man-o-Lantern.

Video is below, but it may not be suitable for the faint of heart or fuzzy of boob.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the most embarrassing moment to happen to him since he tried to teach Jesse Katsopolis how to play basketball, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was scolded by ‘Jeopardy!’ host Alex Trebek for asking “What is X” when the question we were looking for was “what is G, you old creep”. Apparently Jeopardy is a family show, and “what is the back of Linda Lovelace’s throat” has never been an answer. Who knew?

You can check out video of the moment below, and don’t worry, it wasn’t shot on 8 MM film.

Read the rest of this entry »

The people behind the website CharityBuzz operate under the philosophy “Do Good, Live Well” and with that one belief, they have helped raise more than $60 million by auctioning off special event packages that involve some of the biggest names in entertainment and sports. In fact, here are a few of my favorite auctions that I found after checking out the site:

• Meet Michael Douglas and Morgan Freeman and compete in Michael Douglas Celebrity Golf Tournament in Atlantis (and then marry a girl 30 years younger than you)
• Receive golf lessons from Butch Harmon (leave me alone, I love golf)
• Visit the Fox NFL set and meet the crew (how about I pay to not do that?)
• Spend 5 nights in a luxury hotel before attending the 2012 Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, and have lunch with an Angel (!!!!!!!!)
• Spend a day in Los Angeles with Tesla founder Elon Musk (at first I thought that was the band Tesla and I was ready to take out a loan)

And perhaps the most intriguing CharityBuzz sports auction currently under way involves bidding on the opportunity for your kid to play catch with Brett Favre. Currently at $4,250, this package – pun really f*cking intended – is valued at $10,000. For your dollar, Favre will come to your kid’s school or practice field and teach him (or her, liberals) how to pass for 70,000 yards, 500 touchdowns and 8 billion interceptions, as long as you live in or near Sumrall, Mississippi.

It sucks that you either have to live in or be willing to travel to Sumrall, because I’d be interested in winning this auction just to pay a line of local kids to drill Favre in the nuts with footballs.

Read the rest of this entry »

"Hey you kids, get off my damn lawn!"

With less than 10 minutes to play in the 4th quarter of last night’s Game 2 matchup between the Miami Heat and Indiana Pacers, Dwyane Wade got a little pissed. Pacers guard Dahntay Jones seemingly went up-and-down on Wade (I knew a girl in college who mastered that) but the Heat star wasn’t too pleased that the refs didn’t call a foul. So he stood there and let the Pacers score.

As Mario Chalmers brought the ball back down, the Pacers forced a turnover and Wade was pretty much fed up. He sprinted after Darren Collison and jacked him in the back for a flagrant-1 and the title of the Dirtiest Player Not Named Metta World Peace. The Pacers went on to win Game 2 78-75, impossibly stealing one on the road, and they celebrated as such.

Just another thing that pissed Wade off.

“I heard they wanted to be like the Dallas Mavericks, in a sense,” Wade said. “I saw their little celebration at the end of (Game 2). I don’t know if they didn’t expect to win, but every night we go out on the court, we expect to win.” [...] “They say their identity, they say they want to be like Dallas,” Wade said. “So they celebrated like Dallas, I guess.” (Via Slam Online)

I understand that the guy’s going to be a little ticked when he feels like things didn’t go his way, even if he did, you know, miss a chance to swing the final score in his team’s favor. But whereas LeBron James never felt comfortable with the role of a villain, it seems like Wade has just fully embraced it and added, “F*ck it, we’re turning this up to 11.”

Read the rest of this entry »