Jim Thome’s back was aching, his toe was throbbing and his quad was cramping, turning his pursuit of 600 home runs into a painful endeavor that made him wonder if he would even reach the milestone before season’s end.

I’m not going to write anything like that, but I’m happy to put up something here about every good-hearted man’s favorite rosey-cheeked, corn-fed baseball player roped his 600th dinger (or tater, if you will) during Minnesota’s Monday night game at Comerica Park in Detroit. The ball sailed over former teammate Delmon Young’s head and into the stands, capping off a 20-year stomp to the milestone and seven years of Dugouts with capital letters. Jim now enters the official twilight of his career, which will mostly involve pinch-hitting and having to listen to people rationalize why he doesn’t deserve to be in the hall of fame.

Another important part of Thome’s post-600 lifestyle, apparently, will be the nonstop f**king of ladies. Bet you didn’t want that image in your wistful retrospective. According to CBS’ elder statesman (I’m assuming) C. Trent Rosecrans, NuVo condoms have sent 600 samples of their product to the Minnesota Twins to commemorate the event. Also, to reveal that nobody from NuVo condoms has ever watched baseball.

From their full release:

Jim Thome(notes) has reason to celebrate today after hitting his 600th homerun last night versus the Detroit Tigers. As a congratulatory gift for Thome’s incredible feat, NuVo sent the Minnesota Twins 600 condoms. NuVo hopes this offering to the team will help keep the Twins players and their partners safe during their celebrations. The Minnesota Twins aren’t the only people that the NüVo team is looking out for — NüVo has already distributed over 200,000 free condoms this year alone. You can always hit a home run with NuVo Condoms!

I like the idea that a condom company assumes that sports celebrations involve rampant, unprotected intercourse. Man, Yankee Stadium must look like Caligula.

“God said, ‘Go out and multiply.’ He did not say, just have two or three kids,” Pacquiao preached.

That’s the reason congressman and World’s Best Boxer Manny Pacquiao is opposing a bill that encourages the use of contraceptives and family planning in the Philippines. As this blog does not have a liberal agenda~ I will note that his stance is favored by the Catholic Church and that 80% of Filipinos are Catholic. God, an omniscient being who most favors early-90s African-American mother Bébé, could not be reached for comment.

In another interview, Pac Man explains why if he’s gonna eat it, he’s gonna eat everything.

“It’s sinful to use condoms and commit abortion. My parents were poor… they had four children, it was very difficult but we persevered.”

I’m not sure how much of that perserverence involved Filipino venereal disease, but Manny did run away from home to become a boxer after watching his poor dad kill and eat the family dog, so I won’t dispute the guy. You’d think the struggles of being poor and dealing with thinned-out resources would encourage someone to NOT have babies, but I’ve lived in the American South too long to believe in reason. I just think you’ve got to be in a weird place to have sex with a woman, finish inside of her, and then get disappointed when you don’t get her pregnant. That is some kind of crazy awesome Duggar Family fantasy life.

[H/T Larry Brown]

Good news for people looking for that special Olympic souvenir: There’s a block of about 5,000 condoms that were snatched up by a collector, who’s hoping to turn a profit with them at an upcoming auction. And just in time for Christmas.

100,000 condoms were distributed during the games, with this guy somehow ending up with 5% of them. His wildly optimistic plans for getting laid fell short, and now you can have these condoms for a mere 5,000 yuan ($730) minimum bid.

The auction, very tastefully named the “Exceptional Auction of China Sport Collection,” will take place November 29th. With each condom possibly going for just 14 cents, that’s a great value. –AFP, via Sports Rubbish.

Honestly, I hate condoms, and I think women do, too. If she really wanted to feel that level of rubberized protection, she can go out to the driveway and hump the tires on my Hyundai. They have extra treads, you know, for her pleasure. And also for superior handing in wet conditions. Same thing, really.

A Chinese company called Elasun has rolled out these clever Olympic-inspired ads that combine the little sporty stick figures of the Olympics with condoms and the ill-translated phrase "Sports make you health".  I like them.  They imply that sex is a sport, or that sex is everywhere we look, or maybe that the Olympics are just all about fucking.  I dunno, I didn't really think all that hard about it.

The Sydney Morning Herald Olympics blog has the rest of the ads, plus this nugget of information:

Speaking of prophylactics, Reuters reports that the phrase "avoiding pregnancy" has become a euphemistic way of saying that you're going to avoid the Olympics. In Chinese, "bi-yun", means contraception. "Ao-yun" means the Olympics. So bi-yun in the context of the Games is a sort of double entendre meaning avoiding the Games.

Now if they can just tell me the double entendre for avoiding the clap at the Olympics, I'll be all set.  I'm guessing it has something to do with the Mandarin word for "Vietnamese hooker."

[The Sporting Blog]