I spent three and a half years writing Dugouts for AOL FanHouse, and only a few topics were taboo. One was the FanHouse Fantasy Girls. I could more or less slander MLB players on a regular basis, but I couldn’t have an ill-dressed stripper reading box scores. I also wanted to make fun of the writing style of Terence Moore.

But do you think they’d let me do that?

Even in a Dugout?

Uh uh.

I don’t think so.

But the most taboo topic of all was Jay Mariotti, the former Chicago Sun-Times columnist and ESPN personality who joined FanHouse in 2009 to write judgmental pieces about athletes who commit spousal abuse and beat the sh** out of his own girlfriend. I wanted to do a Dugout about Tony Reali awarding Jay points for convincingly dragging around his girlfriend by the hair, with Woody Paige getting all jealous and writing “beat wife” on his chalkboard. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it?

No. Uh uh. (sorry, Terence.)

The good news is that Jay won’t stop being a creep, and now I’m not working for the people who helped kill WCW so I can say whatever I want. Mariotti was in court on Wednesday and plead not guilty to three new felony charges: stalking, corporal injury on a spouse or domestic partner, and assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury. The Los Angeles Times said if he’s convicted, he’ll face up to five years in state prison. His lawyer says they are “complete fabrications.” Who to believe, who to believe.

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In a situation that calls for both 1,000 and zero jokes, Washington Redskins defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth has been officially charged with misdemeanor sexual abuse for ordering food at a hotel, then paying for it in the grossest possible way. According to the U.S. attorney’s office, there is government evidence showing Haynesworth sliding a credit card down the front of a server’s dress and fondling her breast. As a former food server, I can confirm that this is not Hospitaliano.

A grand jury returned an indictment on Tuesday, and if convincted, Haynesworth faces a $1,000 fine and up to six months in jail. From the AP report:

Haynesworth’s attorney, A. Scott Bolden, called the charge disappointing and regretful and said it would be a difficult case for the government to prove. Haynesworth is innocent and several witnesses would vouch that the alleged conduct never happened, Bolden said.

“We maintain his innocence, and now the fight begins,” Bolden said.

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Washington Redskins owner David Brent

Update: Dan Snyder is maybe not the nicest and coolest guy to ever run a football team.

In his latest public relations masterstroke, the Redskins owner (who may as well be Mr. Potter from “It’s a Wonderful Life” at this point) has ordered The Washington Post to change the name of its “Redskins Insider” blog because they don’t have a contract or pay the organization to use the name.  The famous blog that covers the Redskins will be refferred to as “Football Insider,” at least until The Insider sues them and they end up as “Sport Blog.”

Yesterday, The Post’s Paul Farhi provided an explanation:  The Redskins, who have been at the forefront in creating their own multimedia operations, have been aggressive in policing the use and misuse of their “brand” by others.  How do you solve this problem?  By Googling “Wasington+Redskins+fans” and emasculating all four of the links that pop up.  This is especially tough news for Native Americans, who will now have to co-opt “honky” as their racial epithet of choice.

Ask fans of any sports team that has ever existed, and they will tell you invariably that their owner is crazy and the worst, and that they will never win a championship until said person is fired.  I’m as guilty of this as the next guy, but at least I can rest comfortably knowing Larry Dolan will never barge in on me in the middle of dinner and sue me for wearing an Indians hat without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball.

The Daily Mail recently posed the question: “Is El-Hadji Diouf the most hated man in soccer football?” And while I hate all non-American soccer players equally, there’s a strong possibility that the answer is a resounding yes. Recently dealt to Glasgow Rangers from Blackburn Rovers and seen in the banner image spitting in someone’s face, El-Hadji’s own teammates don’t even have the greatest things to say about him:

‘El-Hadji’s a bit of a character, a bit of a live-wire. I don’t really know what to say about him. He is a pretty colourful character,’ added the 25-year-old [Phil Bardsley], who is hoping to win a third Scotland cap against Northern Ireland in the Carling Nations Cup tomorrow night.

‘Off the pitch, he is actually a decent lad. It’s just on it that you want to give him a clip round the ear now and again.

‘I can understand why punters give him grief and opposing teams want to kick him. But if you forget all that, then he’s a decent player, as well. (Via The Daily Mail)

And while that’s not a terrible indictment of character, it’s sure not a pat on the back. So why then, Burnsy, are you bringing this fella up by offering up some vanilla quotes from a guy you’ve only barely ever heard of? Because the awesome people at the Something Awful Forums have put together one of the most inspired collections of GIFs we’ve seen in recent months. The initial GIF is after the jump…

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Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers may have trounced the Atlanta Falcons 48-21 on Saturday, but it’s his pregame behavior that is earning him A**hole of the Week awards from many sites around these here interwebs. In a news report aired by WBAY-TV in Green Bay, Rodgers was shown ignoring the autograph request of Jan Cavanaugh, a cancer patient wearing pink Packers gear, at the airport as the team was preparing to leave for Atlanta. Even worse, Cavanaugh had just driven directly from a radiation treatment for the sole purpose of grabbing some autographs. Yeesh.

When I first broke got wind of this story, it was told to me by my friend in a bar, as he glossed over Mike Florio’s soapbox rant at Pro Football Talk. And I said to myself, “Probably just another case of this guy stirring the pot and throwing gasoline.” Then I pulled up the video and thought, “Hoo boy, Aaron. That ain’t good, dude.”

Video and thoughts after the jump…

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Video is popping up everywhere of the brazen Miami Heat “fan” who wore his brand new LeBron James jersey to Wednesday night’s Cleveland Indians game at Progressive Field. From what we originally saw, this humble and inconspicuous young man was trying to find his seats in the left field bleachers with his girlfriend, when the crowd reacted poorly to his choice of attire. He was then removed from his seats, thus creating the world’s most polarizing argument since evolution vs. creationism – How dare they remove him because of his clothes?

It turns out that this gentleman, Matt Bellamy, was probably in the wrong seats, and he had probably been in the wrong seats in various sections of the stadium. Shocking, we know, that after all of this he was possibly just looking for attention. Cleveland Frowns blogger Peter Pattakos caught up with Bellamy in the concourse and filled in some background information, and Bellamy is everything we expected.

Paint a picture of the new face of bandwagon fans, Cleveland Frowns:

One underreported fact about Bellamy is that he was wearing a Buckeyes hat. He told me that he was born in Lakeland, Florida but moved to Sandusky when his parents divorced when he was 11. Wendy confirmed that they were from Sandusky. Bellamy also said he worked in a factory in Sandusky (Ed. – queue Tommy Boy jokes).

Wendy also told me that Bellamy had a four-inch scar on the back of his head from having been mugged and pistol-whipped somewhere in Sandusky. When I asked him why he wore the jersey, he told me that he’d live down in Florida if he could figure out a way to make it happen, and understands why LeBron would do the same. “[Eff] the haters,” he said.

First, the Ohio State hat clearly gives him away as a fake Heat fan. If he were a real Heat fan he would have been throwing up the U hand signs, repping the Miami Hurricanes like a true South Florida street-tough, suburban white kid.

Second, as I live in and sadly understand Central Florida and its people, if he is a Heat fan, he became one in 2006, and spent the last three years telling people that he was a Cleveland Cavaliers fan because it was the cool thing to do. And I’m also willing to bet that in the 2008-09 NBA Finals he told people, “I’m from Lakeland, I’ve been an Orlando Magic fan my whole life.” Then again, he probably owns a Kobe Bryant jersey, too.

I heaped praise at his young lady friend yesterday for being so seemingly cool during this mess. Sadly, it turns out she can only take so much.

(Plenty of pictures available at Cleveland Frowns.)