The Spanish players will each receive their weight in beer from sponsor Cruzcampo after winning Euro 2008 at Austria and Switzerland in June. Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina will be the happiest after tipping the scales at 95.6 kilograms (211 pounds). Villarreal winger Santi Cazorla is the lightest player on the squad at 70.4 kilograms (155 pounds).

The grand total? 1,742 liters for the 23 players on the roster – the equivalent of 5,200 bottles.

This is almost as sweet as the deal for the North Koreans, who were paid their weight in 14-year-old girls. And to think my uncle did time for having that same idea. No wonder he always had so much candy in his glove compartment.

[Machochip, via FOX Sports]

We close the book on the rain-soaked, freaky-ceremonied Euro 2008 tournament with a final round of congratulations to the Spaniards.  Inarguably the tourney's best team, Spain's European title will only add to the expectations piled on the shoulders of Cesc Fabregas and Fernando Torres at the 2010 World Cup.

And if a World Cup title means more Spaniards dancing around in their underwear and spraying champagne on each other, then I'd like to get in line for the bandwagon now.  Because if there's one thing I love, it's tight-bodied, champagne-soaked soccer players celebrating in their underwear.  Listen, it's not gay; they're just celebrating each other's athletic prowess.  Surely we can all appreciate that.

[The Sporting Blog] 

Euro 2008 – In capturing the country's first Euro title in 44 years, Spain vanquished all their long-held curses: winning on June 22, then winning with the unlucky yellow jerseys. Yesterday, in a game that was billed to be open and fast-paced, it turned out to be a fairly stolid affair almost entirely dominated by the Spaniards. Fernando Torres got the game's only goal with a forceful drive through Philipp Lahm, then deftly flicking it over German keeper Jens Lehmann. The German's Michael Ballack, whose status was questionable coming in, had to leave just before half with a bloody cut on his head. His injury prevented him for bolstering an anemic German attack. He'll just have to keep getting used to finishing second. Lehmann, who was tormented by Torres throughout the match and was a bit fortunate to only have given up one goal, announced his retirement afterwards. I hear they like retired Germans in Argentina.

MLB – The Cubs and the White Sox have now traded homefield sweeps in the same month. The Sox completed theirs at The Cell last night with a 5-1 win in which all their runs coming via the long ball. The all-time series remains tied at 33-33… The Nats have become quite proficient at getting wins in the walk-off variety, if not wins in general. Yesterday, it was Ronnie Belliard hitting a two-run homer in the bottom of the 12th to give the Nationals their eighth final at-bat victory of their 18 home wins… The Angels hold the Dodgers to three hits and actually win this time!…The Rays took two of three from the Pirates and the Red Sox dropped another to the Astros as Tampa leapfrogged Boston into first in the AL East in advance of the three-game set between the teams beginning today.

Assorted sports I scarcely care about – 19-year-old InBee Parks wins U.S. Women's Open… Kurt Busch wins rain-shortened Lenox Industrial Tools 301

The Russians are pulling out all the stops to win today's Euro 2008 semifinal over Spain, even if that means offering up two young devotchkas to each enterprising soccernaut who manages to score a goal. And failing that, former KGB agents gunning down the Spaniards. Whichever works.

Russian Euro 2008 players have been promised two gorgeous girls for each goal they score.

Wealthy socialite Pyotr Listerman was filmed making the offer to star player Andrei Arshavin, 27.

Listerman, known for setting up rich Russians with wives, said: “For each goal I’ll present two beautiful chicks. Watch the guys react.”

Well, if based on this Pyotr's reputation, these women are expected to be wedded, then it might not have the intended effect. Those Russian brides are so grubby. I shouldn't have ordered six of them. And what does an assist get you? A couple vital organs? Don't scoff. That Russian black market keeps them remarkably well maintained.

College World Series – Fresno State captured the school's first baseball national title and (the nation's capacity to BELIEVE *swoon*) became the lowest seeded team to win an NCAA tournament title. The school hadn't appeared in the CWS since 1991 and lost 12 of their first 20 regular season games to open the season. So's you know, Fresno State's only other national championship came in softball in 1998, so way to draw even with the ladies. Steve Detwiler homered twice and drove in all six of the westward Bulldogs' runs in the deciding game of the Finals. Fresno's prolific run will certainly be the talk of the sporting world for as long as a college baseball non-scandal can be (O/U: 18 hours) but the run clearly brought some more interest with the CWS hitting its highest attendance mark ever.

EURO 2008 – Lightning must have hit the transmitter or something. Turkey will never get into the EU with gaffes like this. A break in the feed during the second half of the semifinal match caused the whole world, even the parts of it that care about soccer, to miss a few critical moments of Germany's 3-2 win over the Turks. Lucky for you, FanIQ has the highlights, replete with interspersed footage of raging celebratory bonfires. Hmm. I didn't know Germany was part of College Park.

MLB - Sorry you have to take a backseat to the college game, decidedly undramatic regular season professional baseball. Joba Chamberlain picks up his first decision of the season (New York had been 4-1 in his previous starts) and it's a positive one, as Joba leads the Yankees by striking out 7 in 6 2/3 to a 10-0 win over the Bucs… Jesus Flores saved all his offensive output for his final at-bat, lining the game-winning single into right center to seal a Nats 5-4 win over the Halos…Interleague play continues to be a bizarro world where the Royals are good and they have more wins than any other MLB team. Hamburgers also eat people there, so avoid concession stands. Not like Mike Scioscia hasn't cleaned them out already anyway…The second Cito Gaston era in Toronto is not off to the roaring start that, well, no one predicted. Still, the Blue Jays dropped to 2-3 under him, the latest loss coming courtesy a Jay Bruce sac fly in the top of the 10th to give the Reds a 6-5 win. 

The Portuguese got bounced from Euro 2008 by the Germans in the quarterfinals late last week, at least partly because the sport's most talented striker, Cristiano Ronaldo, couldn't find the back of the net.  Probably because he was injured so badly on this play.  WARNING: this video shows an extremely graphic injury that only a European soccer player could hope to survive. 

Do you think he'll be okay?  I hope he can find the courage inside himself to learn how to walk and screw hookers again.  Absolutely horrific.

[Sports Hernia via Sporting Blog] 

EURO 2008 -  Oh, the drama of nil-nil.The Spaniards foiled floptastic Italia in shootouts to reach the Euro semifinals for the first time since 1984, when they met Oceania in a heavily surveilled contest.The crestfallen Italians will return home to their mothers,to whom they'll pledge to move out of the house before they turn 35. 34 is she keep-a nag-a so much. Spanish keeper Iker Casillas rose to the occasion, stopping two penalty kicks and tipping out a last-minute scoring chance by Antonio Di Natale.

MLB – The Cubs completed a three-game sweep of the crosstown White Sox with a 7-1 win Sunday highlighted by a commanding outing by Ryan Dempster, who improved to 9-0 at Wrigley this year. Aramis Ramirez homered four times in the series, including two yesterday. No, these Cubbies won't be deterred by an injury to Carlos Zambrano. It only goes to prove THERE'S NO WAY THE CUBS WON'T WIN IT ALL THIS YEAR! NOT EVEN ME OR MY JINXING CAN STOP THEM!…In other sweepings, the Angels brought out the brooms against the Phillies, dealing Philadelphia its fifth loss in a row. Meanwhile, Francisco Rodriguez picked up his league leading 30th save of the season, putting him in good position to make a run at a single season record people don't really care about…Mark Teixiera has an okay day at the plate, homering three times (with at least one coming from the right and the left side)and driving in four runs in the Braves' 8-3 win over the Mariners…The Red Sox get a Kevin Youkilis walk-off homer in the 13th to avoid being swept by the Cardinals and handing a quarter-note of humility to riding-high Massholia. Oh, who'm I kidding. A Cards sweep would be noted with a mention about revenge for the Sawx wicked 2004World Series sweep of the same Redbirds. Just thinking about that makes…oh great, now my ears are bleeding.

College World Series – Fresno State advances to meet Georgia in the finals. You might be inclined to describe them as a Cinderella team until you remember even a pumpkin couldn't survive living in Fresno.

Lemmings are indigenous to northern climes, which is a lesson government officials in Switzerland learned this week when they had to change the color of the safety vests worn by the country's railway workers because some Dutch fuckwits followed them onto the tracks thinking the workers were fellow fans. Hey, what's that horn? Never heard a noisemaker like that befoOOAAAHHHHHH!

Switzerland's national railway has told its workers to stop using their normal orange reflective vests after confused Dutch soccer fans started following them on to the tracks.

A railway spokesman said the changed strip had been prompted by an incident in the Swiss capital Berne when a group of Netherlands supporters followed a worker on to the lines after mistaking his uniform for their traditional orange dress.

The Dutch being cool with the drugs and prostitution stuff, they must have figured the railroad tracks were a reasonable place to find something to their liking in another country. Usually that's were I go to view all the cool dead bodies. Maybe they wanted to be the dead bodies. They're into that kind of experiential stuff in Holland/Netherlands/Stupidcloggyville.

The Swiss are typically a peace-loving bunch, providers that they are of cheeses and chocolates. But they're not averse to letting other nations duke it out, as evidenced by a Swiss television station running the subtitles of the Nazi version of the German national anthem before Deutschland's Euro 2008 match against Austria. Hey, what's an Anschluss between friends?

Both the Nazi version and the present-day one come from the same song, Das Deutschlandlied composed by August Heinrich Hoffmann in 1841 from music by Austrian composer Joseph Haydn.

Used in its entirety as the national anthem from 1922, the Nazis once they came to power only sang the first verse while post World War II Germany sing just the third verse, and not the lines that inadvertent viewers were treated to on Monday which included "Deutschland Deutschland uber alles".

Ouf. Who's working in their production department, Jemele Hill? Or maybe just a stray Nazi sympathizer who hasn't been tracked down yet. They didn't all flee to Argentina, you know. Ever think about that, Simon Wiesenthal? I expect your finest milk and honey for the tip. Yours truly, an obedient goy who, even though he has paintings the Nazis stole, totally isn't a racist. 

MLB — No chance of me having the patience to write a wrap-up of last night's games, but I'll at least give a New York-centric update: the Mets won in 10 innings — without Billy Wagner blowing a save.  I didn't realize there was another way for the Mets to go to extra innings… Alex Rodriguez homered for the fourth straight game as the Yankees beat Jake Peavy and the Padres to take their 6th in a row.  They also signed Sidney Ponson, so that streak will be over soon enough.  As will the unlimited buffet in the clubhouse.

Euro 2008 — The last two games of group play (heh… "group play") set all the quarterfinal matchups.  Sweden needed a tie to advance, but the Russians beat them 2-0 to set up a quarterfinal match with scary-good Holland… The Spanish benchwarmers woke up from their siesta long enough to rally past Greece 2-1.  Spain will face the hated Italians in the final game of the quarters… Other matches in this round will be today's Portugal-Germany tilt and Croatia versus Turkey (tomorrow).

SITE NEWS — Yes, yes: that's a new URL you see, although the old one will redirect here.  With Leather's still the same site, though, so don't expect any changes for the worse, like highbrow humor or well thought-out arguments.  Thanks for your patience while we work out the inevitable glitches, bitches.