Like that scene with the awesome Regina Spektor song in 500 Days of Summer. Your expectations for the Morning Links: 12 links to galleries of Kate Upton, possibly with a Kate Upton video at the top. Okay, 11 links to galleries of Kate Upton and one about MMA. Reality: That lady can only do so much in a weekend, so you have to read about angry, heavyset soccer parents in Iowa and 11-foot tall Chinese guys.

Sports

Yao Ming: Expectations Vs. Reality - Outside of the Taiwanese Animation recap we haven’t said much about the retirement of Yao Ming, because “he was a nice guy who did pretty well at basketball” and “you guys don’t comment on posts featuring actual sports news” are hard to express in 350 words. [Smoking Section]

#Podcast: The Chris Kluwe Interview - @PUNTE continues his run of talking to real sports folks about real sports things by talking to the Minnesota Vikings punter. My New Year’s resolution now is “talk to somebody who plays for the Houston Texans, or at least knows somebody who does. Possibly one of the cheerleaders”. Who am I kidding, definitely one of the cheerleaders. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

Hitpost Will Make You a Sports Reporter - So will getting an editor position at a popular sports blog because you made a funny webcomic, but don’t tell anybody. [Uproxx]

Olympics In The Deep South: A 15-Year Retrospective Of Atlanta’s Summer Games - 15 years later and about 10 after I found out, and I’m still jealous of Jon Bois for going to the Kurt Angle Olympics. He won a gold medal with a broken freakin’ neck! [SBN]

With Leather

The Chained Heat of Iowa Softball - If you didn’t read this because 1) it was Friday, 2) the story was a day old or 3) it is about preteen softball, you’re missing out on a great example of lookism and a video featuring Thora Birch and Christina Ricci before they were dragged onto the Hollywood F and D-teams, respectively. I miss you, Thora. Be in movies I don’t have to buy at Wal-mart to see. [With Leather]

The Great Foul Ball Debate - Last week’s best feature, still making me angry well into Monday and only slightly hurt by Burnsy not being able to recognize a developmentally-disabled guy. [With Leather]

Bynum’s Life is a Flagrant Foul - Parking across a crosswalk and a handicap spot is bad, but at least he didn’t forearm shiver any child-sized people in the parking lot. As recommended, I’m permanently associating the “Andrew Bynum” and “assholes” tags. [With Leather]

Tim Pawlenty Is The ‘Miracle On Land’ - Don’t care about politics or magical hockey stories? You should still read this, because I make the closest thing I’m ever going to make to a good political joke. Usually I just type “Obama? More like NO-bama! Keep ‘The Change’!” and stare at my monitor until my brain farts and convinces me that’s an okay thing to put on the Internet. Also, SMDH @ Tim Pawlenty. [With Leather]

Not Sports

Comic-Con Photo Diary: Part One - New professional goal: be cool/good enough that my bosses send me to places like Comic-Con to do things like photo diaries. Sure, I’m taking 200 pictures at the Round Rock Express game, but nobody’s paying me to do it. [Film Drunk]

Corgi Cosplay for Comic-Con - Keep your skinny girls trying to pass themselves off as hot by wearing dumb clothes, give me cute dogs. Arguable point: outside of Halloween and young adult mixers, only animals should be put in funny clothes for our amusement. [Warming Glow]

Super Fun “Where the Wild Things Are” Tattoos - I was going to make fun, but 1) Where the Wild Things Are (in book and movie form) is great and 2) I have a Charlotte’s Web tattoo, so who am I going to make fun of? [Gamma Squad]

Adult Swim’s Never-To-Be-Aired-On-TV “Black Dynamite” Pilot’s Online Premiere - In a better world, the Black Dynamite cartoon will get four season and be hilarious. Also in that world, cooler people appreciate “The Venture Bros.” and “Tom Goes to Mayor” never existed. [Adult Swim]

A few things, because this worked well on the wrestling post.

1. Don’t be afraid to leave us a comment. I don’t troll the commenters, I actually want to hear what you have to say and interact with you. Creating a community of sports fans at With Leather is one of the best ways to differentiate us from the +1 Dens and gargling bitchfests of other sports blogs.

2. Follow us on Twitter @WithLeather and like us on Facebook so you don’t miss anything, or follow ME on Twitter @MrBrandonStroud for Nickelodeon jokes and sh*t you don’t care about.

3. Click these links, because hey, they’re here.

Sports

Just in Case: The 2011-2012 NBA Schedule Released - Highlights include the Miami Heat being awarded the NBA Championship at the BEGINNING of the season, just to make sure, and “Cleveland Cavaliers” with quotes around it playing a Cub Scout rec-team in January. The Cub Scouts are going to kill them. [Smoking Section]

When Neck Still Mattered - Green Bay Packer Sam Shields decided to get a gigantic tattoo of his own Super Bowl ring on his neck. I think it’s a great idea. I won 2nd place in my 5th grade science fair and have had the ribbon tattooed on my neck since I was 11. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

Duke Roufus Talks About Pat Barry and the Future of His Gym - Including this for three reasons: 1) we need more MMA coverage on this pro wrestling and Kate Upton website, 2) Maggie Hendricks is great, and 3) whenever somebody talks about the future of their gym I imagine them as Cutty Wise, standing in their doorway making bug-eyes at some petulant 14-year old who would rather shoot Snoop than box. [Cagewriter]

Why Can’t NBA Players Be Aerophobic? - An opinion piece about why NBA players playing overseas would be a bad thing. If I was an NBA player, my response to this would be “lol I’m rich, gonna go get a million dollars to play pick-up basketball for two months in Prague, smell ya later”. I wish I was an NBA player :( [Pineriders]

With Leather

The Best and Worst of Raw 7/18 - With over 100 comments and counting, I’m doing my very best to create and nurture a community of sane, level-headed wrestling fans who just want to enjoy their dumb show and not have to explain to to everyone, much less the other people who watch it. If you don’t like wrestling, click through and look at hot muscular girls in their underpants. [With Leather]

This is the Greatest Collection of Kate Upton Pictures You’ll Ever See - If you still haven’t clicked this, do it just to read the comments section, where a guy is convinced that Kate Upton, super hot magical woman Kate Upton, is a “chubber”. Hilarious. [With Leather]

In Case You’re Wondering, Michael Jordan Is Still Michael Jordan - One of the best comments we got for this story was a retweet that added “if you didn’t think 48-year old Michael Jordan couldn’t dunk, kill yourself”. Man, if I killed myself for every misconception I’ve felt I would’ve perished in the womb. [With Leather]

Chris Kluwe Is The Voice of Reason - The most controversial thing ever said by a punter (outside of With Leather) is now an online phenomenon, and Lockout or no we should spend the next five months watching NFL players compare dicks and lengths of piss on the Internet. [With Leather]

Not Sports

Amazing Spider-Man Trailer Leaks, Goes First Person POV - You know what would make Spider-Man better? Making it be exactly like Twilight. You know what would make the Twilight Spider-Man movie better? Making me play Mirror’s Edge for 20 minutes while it’s on. [Gamma Squad]

Call James Cameron, They’re Planning a Captain Planet Movie - Hopefully they’ll get the guy from Sugar Ray to play Captain Planet like I’ve been joking about since I found out what “Sugar Ray” was. Donald Glover with a flat-top as Kwame NEEDS TO HAPPEN. [Film Drunk]

Fun with the New Two and a Half Men Ads - To date, the only thing remotely resembling fun I’ve ever had with “Two and a Half Men”. [Warming Glow]

The 10 Most Bangable Celebrities on the Planet - I really hate the word “bangable”, but Alison Brie made the list so I’m sharing it. People who did not place, but should’ve: the girl from Paramore, the Chickbusters, the drugged-out 30-year old Taylor Momsen is pretending to be, Mia Tyler (no, seriously), Julie from “Growing Pains” (still), Aubrey Plaza (specifically in Funny People), Scarlett Johansson (all versions). [Pajiba]

[header photo credit to Cody Duty]

Heading into the weekend, there was a good feeling in the sports world that the NFL Lockout was so close to lifting and that we wouldn’t have anything to worry about. Expectations were so high that the World Wide Leader was reporting that teams could have been negotiating with and signing undrafted free agents and their own free agents as early as yesterday, while others even believed that the lockout could be completely over by the end of this week, thus sparking the greatest, most bombastic free agency period in professional sports history. Turns out that was all a big bunch of poop. You can thank Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Vincent Jackson and Logan Mankins for that.

For starters, Jackson and Mankins, who both sat out for most of last season due to failed contract negotiations, have their own specific demands:

Yahoo! Sports has learned through multiple sources that the agents for wide receiver Vincent Jackson(notes) and guard Logan Mankins(notes) have requested that their players either become unrestricted free agents when the lockout is over or that they receive $10 million each as part of the settlement. (Yahoo!)

Manning and Brees, though, want to make sure that they can never be given the franchise tag. Manning just received the Colts’ tag in February before the lockout began and Brees would most likely receive the Saints’ tag after this season when he becomes a free agent.

Read the rest of this entry »