On October 25, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Portfolio: “Fantasy Islands” will be released in hardcover format for those of us who did not find this year’s swimsuit issue to be plentiful enough. The book is a collection of behind-the-scenes pictures and stories from this year’s shoot, or, if you’re more blunt like me, it’s another reason to publish a ton of photos of Brooklyn Decker, Chrissy Teigen, and Hillary Rhoda, among others.

And I have absolutely no problem with that at all.

It’s the ultimate supermodel yearbook. Join the four photographers whose work was featured in the 2011 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue on a behind-the-scenes account of their travels, revisiting their experiences through never-before-seen images and exclusive commentary.

In all honesty, I don’t care about what the four photographers have to say. No disrespect to them, but the only way I would read it would be if it looked like this:

“DUDE! DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE! I SAW BROOKYLN DECKERS BOMBS TODAY! KAPOW!”

Seriously, that on every page and I might read the content. Otherwise, just give me the pictures and let me drift away to a land in which I, too, can be a mediocre professional tennis player.

Speaking of pictures, the great minds at Dickism went ahead and dug up some of the new Brooklyn Decker images and they’re pretty much everything my tired eyes could have ever hoped for. Enjoy some Decker for yourselves and have a great weekend.

Read the rest of this entry »

[header photo by way of Amanda Rykoff]

Links

A Short Time Ago In A Stadium Not Far Far Away - The only thing Jason Fry of Faith and Fear In Flushing knows more about than the New York Mets is Star Wars, so it is super awesome that he got to be a Stormtrooper for the Mets. Read about his story (he’s the one in the picture). [Faith and Fear]

Twitter Reacts To The News That Basketball Star Glen Rice Allegedly Banged Sarah Palin In 1987 - This is a great follow-up to yesterday’s article on With Leather for two reasons — one, it’s funny, and two, it gets the Tea Party yahoos googling “Sarah Palin Glen Rice” shuffled off to a different section of UPROXX. [UPROXX]

Six TV-Inspired Video Games That Were Nothing Like The Shows That Inspired Them - I remember playing that Home Improvement game and thinking it was one of the dumbest things ever. Somebody should make a King of Queens game where you have to drive post-apocalyptic battle cars. [Warming Glow]

The 15 Best Singing Performances In Non-Musical Films - Do the Country Bears count? What about “Don Henley as a Country Bear”? Because that was pretty amazing. [UPROXX]

Christina Hendricks Would Still Like To Be Wonder Woman - I would like for Christina Hendricks to stop smoking, get a part of her body other than the boobs in shape and display some sort of athleticism anywhere ever before getting to be Wonder Woman. [Gamma Squad]

AKNITomy: Amazing Knitted Dissected Animals - This is cute, and is the only way dissection should be done. The only thing I ever dissected was owl poop, and I didn’t get much farther than OH GOD THAT IS BONES. [Gamma Squad]

Awesome Mash-Up Alert: Twilight Plus Slapshot - Awesome mash-up idea alert: Slapshot plus anything. [Film Drunk]

Tyler Perry Tops Forbes’ List, Proves There Is No God - Mr. Brown is pretty funny, but no, not “millions and millions of dollars” funny. [Smoking Section]

Behold, the Greatest Book of All Time - This is number two all time, right behind The Bluest Eye. I’m gonna guess they have similar plots. [Buzzfeed]

Amanda Seyfried: ‘I can’t believe nobody wanted to see Megan Fox and me hitting it’ - I did, I totally did, I just didn’t want to sit through 45 minutes of Diablo Cody dialogue to get there. I checked out somewhere after “honest to blog”. [FARK]

20 Other Anticlimactic ‘Star Trek 2′ Confirmations - “Deep Space Nine will not appear, and we will continue pretending it didn’t exist, except in video packages about how we’re ahead of our time when it comes to gender and race relations.” [Moviefone]

Internet Browsers as Pretty Ladies - what [Unreality]

I have a lot of respect for Buzz Bissinger. The guy wrote Friday Night Lights and, despite his inflammatory remarks toward Will Leitch in 2008, I applaud the guy for at least making the effort to speak his mind. That same style of eloquence was on display yet again in Twitterland, where he responded to Bret LaGree, who trolls around as “@Hoopinion,” regarding a comment made about Buzz’s latest book involving LeBron James. Read the rest of this entry »

The Blind Side, that one football movie that I’m trying like Hell to not see, was nominated for an Oscar in the “Best Picture” category. Hey, was there an “Absolutely Nothing Like The Book” category? Because I say it would be a shoo-in for that. If you haven’t read it, the book took a critical and analytical look at how football teams valuate talent, specifically at the offensive line position. The high school and college journey of Ole Miss guard Michael Oher–now with the Baltimore Ravens–was sort of the personification of that. But all the good stuff was ripped out of the film adaptation, leaving a Sandra Bullock vehicle that’s been garnering critical acclaim.

Sandra Bullock is so thoroughly unspectacular that you couldn’t possibly have an opinion about this. Remember that South Park episode where the boys get diagnosed with ADHD and put on Ritalin, and the next thing you know they’re at a Phil Collins concert? Sandra Bullock’s movies are like that. –FilmDrunk.

So it’s not a consensus. If anyone has seen it, drop us a comment about it. If you haven’t, then tell us how terrible it is, anyway. If Sandra Bullock really wants that 90 minutes of my life, she can pry them out of my cold, dead hands. Uh, so to speak.

With the door seemingly closed on the George Steinbrenner Era, it seems appropriate for a review of the Tampa shipbuilder’s time at the helm of baseball’s most storied team. George: The Poor Little Rich Boy Who Built The Yankee Empire promises “an exciting and compelling story well told,” and by and large, it delievers. And this is coming from a guy that would have celebrated in the streets had Al-Qaeda decided to crash a couple of planes into Yankee Stadium in April, in a manner of speaking.

Golenbeck’s well-researched book chronicles Steinbrenner’s days as a spoiled little ass growing up in Cleveland, his antics in the Air Force and as an assistant football coach, and ultimately his forays into sports ownership. Steinbrenner’s dickish ways were first on display as owner of the Cleveland Pipers of the old ABL, but would assume a more prominent stage in 1973, when he would lead a group of investors to buy the New York Yankees from CBS for $10 million, a paltry sum when one considers what the landmark franchise is worth today.

The meat of the book begins here, as Golenbeck chronicles Steinbrenner’s relentless tormenting of players, managers, and front office staff alike. The Billy Martin saga, The Dave Winfield contract, and his two suspensions from Major League Baseball are laid out–by the people that were there–in a way that may shatter your image of the guy that was so lovably parodied on “Seinfeld.” Golenbeck’s subject is nowhere near lovable, and the evidence might blow your mind. Read the rest of this entry »

Another sports website has obtained a copy of the book, Blowing The Whistle: The Culture Of Fraud In The NBA, written by former NBA ref Tim Donaghy. The book exposes some of Donaghy’s personal dirty laundry, including how he decided to bet on certain NBA games during his tenure there. But one of the lighter anecdotes in the book involves a bet that referees would make to see who could hold out the longest before calling the first foul of the game.

During one particular summer game, Duke Callahan, Mark Wunderlich, and I made it to the three-minute mark in the first quarter without calling a foul. We were running up and down the court, laughing our asses off as the players got hammered with no whistles. The players were exhausted from the nonstop running when Callahan finally called the first foul because Mikki Moore of the New Jersey Nets literally tackled an opposing player right in front of him. Too bad for Callahan-he lost the bet.

I became so good at this game that if an obvious foul was committed right in front of me, I would call a travel or a three-second violation instead. Those violations are not personal fouls, so I was still in the running to win the bet. The players would look at me with disbelief on their faces as if to say, “What the hell was that?”

Seriously, read the whole thing at Deadspin, and here’s hoping that the book actually sees the light of day. I mean, everyone knows that outcomes are fixed in the WWE and they seem to be doing pretty well. Besides, I’m pining for the day that Kevin Garnett finally smacks Bruce Bowen in the head with a steel chair.