Patrick Willis obviously listens to Kenny F*cking Powers.

Kenny Powers isn’t perfect. I know, I spit out my Mountain Dew and bourbon when I wrote that, too. But it’s true. He’s a man who has made mistakes after tasting legend status, and he’s paid the greatest price for his arrogance in taking his God-given talent for granted. America, though, is about second chances and stories of redemption. That’s why when some people see Kenny as a man who hates foreigners, the truth is that he just loves American and feels “that America is the best country and the other countries aren’t as good.” Patriotism, indeed.

As Kenny continues his baseball renaissance and his climb back to the top, where he will wear the Scream mask all he wants, he has been given the unbelievable honor of becoming the first ever Mother F*cking CEO of K-Swiss. And his appointment is already changing the lives of thousands of professional athletes and millions of aspiring athletes. For once, thanks to Kenny Powers, his incredible motivational speaking ability and his opus, K-Swiss Blades – you’re f*cking in.

Hearing Kenny speak and feeling his words attack my ears like a bulletproof tiger, I can see how San Francisco 49ers linebacker Patrick Willis was inspired to chase down that slow ass animal and tackle it with his bare hands. That got me to thinking, aren’t there some athletes out there that could have used a guy like Kenny F*cking Powers years ago? You bet your Double D’s.

Last Friday, I was farting around on the Internet when I decided to check out celebrity birthdays, and I was pretty shocked to learn that it was actor Rainn Wilson’s 46th birthday. I would have never pegged him for anything over 37 or 38. Then again, I forgot my own age just a few weeks ago, so I guess I’m not the best when it comes to guessing ages.

Then I stumbled across these images of former tennis player, “Biggest Loser” trainer and girl who had music video sex and real sex with Enrique Iglesias Anna Kournikova in the latest issue of the Russian magazine Tatler. I don’t know what kind of content Tatler publishes – it’s not related to the famous Tatler magazine in London – but from this feature on Kournikova, I am guessing it has something to do with retiree beachwear. Kournikova is only 30-years old – which is strange because I feel like I’ve been worshipping her for decades – but she’s looking a little… tired. And by tired, I mean in her 40s.

Hopefully, these images are just the product of a strange new Russian fad that takes incredibly attractive, leggy blondes and makes them look like they’re attending Kentucky Derby pool parties. If that’s the case, then well done, comrades.

(Via Yeeeah!)

Welcome to another installment of Wild Card Wednesday, as I try to cram together all of the awesome, random things that we’ve been missing out on in favor of the big stories and half-naked Marisa Miller…

At some point on Sunday, Houston Texans quarterback Matt Schaub hurt his foot and now it looks like his season is over. I’m sure that the Texans won’t completely give up on Schaub until a doctor does something cool and drastic like slam his glasses down and yell, “Damn it, I’m not God!” In the meantime, the second coming of Matt Leinart is upon us, and somewhere there’s a Jacuzzi not being boned in.

Last night, Houston tight end James Casey Tweeted the above image of a local Hooters showing support for the new QB. Unfortunately, after calling the Hooters, I learned that they ran out of space and it should have read: “Hey Leinart, we believe you gave us all gonorrhea.” OK, I may have made that up. But would you bet against it?

I’ve got my fingers crossed for you, Texans fans. God knows this would be my response to losing Schaub…

(Images via Getty, the AP, and Celebslam.)

ESPN analyst and legendary angry dude Bob Knight congratulated his most prized pupil, Duke coach Mike Krzykewski, after he became the all-time winningest coach in NCAA men’s basketball history last night with his 903rd career win. Coach K spent the rest of the night reviewing the personal lives of every assistant coach he has ever employed.

Knight also raised a few eyebrows, as people wondered if he was drinking beer at the analyst table. I’m surprised that people never wondered this before.

Shaquille O’Neal hit a Barnes & Noble in New York City to promote his new book, “Shaq Uncut: My Untold Story,” in which he throws everyone he’s ever met under a bus before he telling the story of how he defeated the Moon God to save Empress Four Titties.

On Monday, Shaq teamed up with some U.S. soldiers to help out with their Toys for Tots campaign. Later, he told everyone how Kobe Bryant used to actually steal toys from children and give them to rich adults as presents.

God bless Joe Paterno, indeed. I read that he sold his house to his wife back in June for $1. He must have been really hard up for money, because I can’t think of any other reason in the world why someone would transfer his property to another person.

Speaking of Marisa Miller, she showed her support for veterans with this special Harley Davidson photo. She’s a nice person.

Even worse, their team name is the Fightin’ Crazy Bitches.

David and Victoria Beckham attended their son’s soccer practice in L.A. when they noticed the paparazzi did as well. I bet he gave them a piece of his mind. Or maybe he…

Put on a show!

Yeah, gotta lose that $6,000 sweater, Dave.

Aw, this family is full of love. And money. A sh*tload of money.

Aw damn it, who let Pitbull in here? Stupid Miami Marlins uniform release parties.

Here are the five Marlins players who weren’t traded last season debuting the team’s new uniforms. I don’t think they’re as bad as the rest of the Internet has made them out to be. They’ll be a lot uglier when Albert Pujols is wearing one, though.

Here’s the Marlins’ new stadium, already at capacity.

We take a quick break to appreciate my new favorite GIF.

(Via Imgur)

Anna Kournikova was apparently told that she will not be asked back as a celebrity judge for the next season of “The Biggest Loser” after the other judges and contestants accused her of being too mean. She’s a hot, wealthy blonde. They should be happy she didn’t throw hot coffee at the fatties.

Czech soccer players threw their coach, Michal Bilek, in the air to celebrate their fifth consecutive trip to the European Championship, unlike when they throw the coach into a pit of starved children if they lose.

Hey boys, don’t forget about Zhou Lulu and the girls!

Oh hey, Gina Carano. I didn’t see you standing there at the UFC on Fox heavyweight championship. You look very nice.

*faints*

And there’s Laura Prepon taking a break from literally nothing.

Super fan Mandy Moore! GRRRRRRRRR MY LOVE FOR UFC IS LIKE CANDY!!!

Those seats are reserved for Mickey Rourke’s cockatoos.

I have never known what Sophie Monk does nor have I cared.

Tito Ortiz and his pet leather duck.

Finally, it’s a goat on a surfboard. Why? BECAUSE IT’S A GOAT ON A SURFBOARD.

You wouldn’t normally think of Match.com as a place to go for sports news, but here we are: The online dating company has polled their 20 million-plus members to find out which U.S. cities have the highest number of female baseball fans. This is the kind of thing Baseball Reference should be doing. I don’t need to know how many pitchers have tripled in the 8th inning since 1972, I need to know that if I walk into Progressive Field wearing a Ryan Garko jersey I can walk out dating something besides myself.

So who topped the list? If you’ve been staring at that picture of Anna Kournikova in the header, you should already know.

So where are the hot beds for ladies who love baseball? We looked up the top 10 cities for baseball crazed gals and we found that our community has some serious baseball fans! In fact, nearly half of the women in St. Louis are baseball fans according to their Match.com profile. Even in our 10th ranked city, the Twin Cities metro, over a third of the women are fans of the boys of summer.

That’s not a huge surprise. Everyone I’ve met from St. Louis who wasn’t one of Nelly’s St. Lunatics has been awesome. Milwaukee, Fresno, Cincinnati and Worcester fill out the top five, which seems to have been decided upon based on the cuteness and strength of their closest team’s most popular player. So no, if I tried to pick up girls at the Prog it wouldn’t work — I’d have to travel 40 minutes south to Akron, Ohio (#9) where “the women of The Tribe are showing their support”. I wondered where they were doing that. Most of the women I know in Cleveland assume the Indians suck whether they’re in first place for three and a half months or not.

Akron comes in just behind Des Moines, Iowa, referred to on the list as the home of the movie The Field of Dreams. That’s probably my third favorite baseball movie, behind 61 Home Runs and Eight Of The Men Are Out.

[via Match.com]

I wanted to post this up to remind anyone who’d forgotten (or worse, who hadn’t signed up yet) that our one night only free fantasy baseball contest happens tonight featuring a Who’s Who of Uproxx showdown between me, Burnsy, Punter, Matt Ufford and basically everybody except Robopanda. C’mon, Robopanda, get in the game!

Draftstreet.com has been generous enough to set up a $300 cash pool, and if you’re one of the top seven finishers you get a piece of it. If I finish any lower than 152nd this time I’m going to just write Draftstreet a check and an apology note.

It’s totally free to sign up for and takes about a quarter of a second to set up, so hey, if you like the site, give it a try. We’d really appreciate it. And if it’s successful enough, you’ve got a better chance of these Anna Kournikova in braided pigtails and baseball clothes playing sports header images.

Good luck, everybody! We’ll announce the winners on Monday.

Gorgeous tennis-nobody turned gorgeous regular-nobody Anna Kournikova is set to return to American consciousness (and, no doubt, to every men’s magazine known to man) as a “sports trainer” for the next season of “The Biggest Loser.” It’s the perfect job for Kournikova, who is both super-fit and a colossal loser.

Her bio on the announcement tells the story.

Anna Kournikova has been playing tennis most of her life, first debuting at the 1996 U.S. Open, aged only 15-years-old. She was voted ESPN’s hottest female athlete in 2002 and made People magazine’s list of the ‘Most Beautiful People in the World’ in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2003.

Notice how they jump straight from “she debuted in tennis” to “she was found to be extremely hot during the following years” without any accolades or accomplishments between them. Since they didn’t mention it, Anna also ranked just behind Martina Hingis on the list of tennis-related things I masturbated to in the 1990s.

I think she’ll do a fine job on the show, but she’ll need to add a testicle and a crate of horse tranq if she’s going to be anything like Jillian Michaels. Jillian left the show to concentrate on starting a family, which is gonna be hard, because I’m pretty sure she had her vagina removed to make room for an extra quadricep.

[H/T Off the Bench]

The St. Louis Cardinals have reclaimed first place in the NL Central thanks to a six-game winning streak, which included a four-game sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers to start the second half of the baseball season. The Cardinals are now a half-game up on the Cincinnati Reds, who are also playing great baseball right now. Some might claim that St. Louis has found its balance of power hitting and precision pitching that was expected of the Cardinals coming into the season, but I say: “Blah blah blah, Anna Kournikova is still a hot piece of sexy wonderful.”

Anna threw out the first pitch of Saturday’s Cardinals/Dodgers game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and the Cardinals went on to win 2-0. Kournikova plays for the St. Louis Aces as part of the World TeamTennis organization, which is basically like extreme tennis. So it includes a DJ between plays, coed play and high-fiving. Kournikova’s other female teammate is former No. 1 women’s player Lindsay Davenport (not pictured, because she’s not Anna Kournikova), who has been limited in tournament play since having a kid a few years ago.

Kournikova, of course, was a disappointing professional tennis player and never won a Grand Slam title, but she skirted by on her angelic looks so we forgive her for angering women’s tennis purists. She’s also married to Enrique Iglesias, who willingly creates crap like this:

I’m sorry, I just needed that painful reminder that life isn’t fair.

More images of Anna’s Cardinals appearance at Busted Coverage.

This has been everywhere already, but it’s still Anna K in a catfight at some thing in New York Las Vegas, so that stays fresher than other bits of news like that one guy with the fake nose dying. From yesterday’s Page Six:

Kournikova and her pals were partying at Lavo after attending the Hardbat Classic table tennis tournament when a woman at the next table “threw a drink at Anna. She felt Anna was invading her space,” our source said. Kournikova “sprung into action” and starting screaming at the woman and shoving her. “It was a big fight,” the spy said.

Whatever. Hollywood Tuna had some images of Anna K entering the event. I guess expecting someone to get their clothes ripped off was wishful thinking on my part, but that’s really the only reason anyone cares about Kournikova. This won’t qualify as sports news next time. Unless she gets her clothes ripped off. That’s always timely.

I mean…she’s in Haiti…buying condoms…did I miss something? It must feel good to the natives when one of the ten dumbest white girls in the world saunters into town and tells you how to live your life. YOU DON’T OWN ME! But, um, I am for sale. Name your price, baby.

WEEKEND PICKS are coming. Keep your birka on.

These are some behind-the-scenes photos of Anna Kournikova’s photo shoot for something or other.  I’ve never understood the reasoning behind that.  Why do we need photos of photos being taken?  I see a photo, I can figure out on my own that a photographer was there.  I really don’t need to see everything that goes into a sexy photo shoot, with all the makeup people and lighting and whatnot.  Just the tits, ma’am.  Just the tits.