Manny Ramirez asked the Oakland Athletics to release him from his minor league contract on Friday, and they obliged.

“It looked like he was down there for a while and I think he wanted out,” A’s manager Bob Melvin said. “He wanted an opportunity, if we weren’t going to do something, to go somewhere else. It is what it is. Certainly we wish him the best.”

“Manny believes he has demonstrated that he is ready to return to the major leagues,” Ramirez’s agents, Barry Praver and Scott Shapiro, said in a statement. “However, given that the Oakland Athletics could not give Manny any assurance that they plan to promote him in the immediate future he asked for his release. Manny thanks the A’s for providing him with this opportunity.” (via Chron.com)

As straightforward as that seems, a helpful YouTube upload reveals that desire and opportunity had nothing to do with it — Manny Ramirez, posing under the name “Manny Rodriguez”, was making the Sacramento Rivercats less wholesome and giving them cancer with his dreadlocks. Just like Lance Armstrong The Bike Guy! A local 69-year old fuddy duddy reports:

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"I was thinking maybe after this we get some coffee and listen to Lady GaGa."

Being a sports-minded guy, I found myself wondering how long it would be before a professional athlete had a problem with President Barack Obama’s recent declaration that he believes same sex couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples when it comes to that whole getting married thing. The answer was 2 whole days.

For the past year, boxer and Filipino congressman Manny Pacquiao has been studying and practicing the lessons of the Bible as the result of a dream in which he claims he was visited by God. On Friday, in response to Obama’s comments, Pacquiao took a break from training for his upcoming fight against some guy who still isn’t Floyd Mayweather, Jr. to cast people to hell.

In his statement on Obama’s endorsement of same sex marriage, Pacquiao said, he calls on societies to fear God and not to promote sin.

He quoted Leviticus 20:13 “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.”

“God only expects man and woman to be together and to be legally married, only if they so are in love with each other,” Pacquiao quoted the Bible.

“It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of Old,” he continued. (Via Digital Journal)

I don’t know if any other notable athletes have reacted to Obama’s comments because I really wanted to dig a hole in the ground and bury my head with the hopes that nobody would say anything. This is obviously an incredibly sensitive issue and people on both sides have strong emotional investments in the ultimate decision of the lawmakers, so I’m going to choose my next words wisely as to not start a massive flame war…

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Next Media Animation’s latest video is easy their most accurate, succinctly explaining the NBA Lockout situation to foreign audiences and stoned people on the Internet by having commissioner David Stern (wearing a blazer with a big “STERN” on the back) avenge the death of a cubist man representing the Detroit Pistons franchise by breaking into Derek Fisher’s house with a chainsaw, cutting in half a pizza Kobe had baked with LeBron James and scaring LeBron so badly he travels to China and loses at basketball and is emasculated by a communist panda. Stern is then free to get married to a hairy guy in a Time Warner Cable wedding dress. Taiwanese animation is such a better educational tool than Twitter.

In all seriousness, and as per usual, this video is f**king hilarious and insane. I’m not sure why Stern looks like Mr. Burns, and I think the only truly accurate moment is a salary cap causing LeBron’s head to burst into flames. We should cancel the rest of the season and just have Next Media Animation animate the games.

[h/t Sportress of Blogitude]

That’s not a guy in a spandex bodysuit, it’s a robot. I promise.

Sports

The Best and Worst of ACW Queen of Queens - I try to keep pro wrestling coverage on With Leather mainstream and infrequent, so in case you’re the type who wants to read more, head over to TH’s The Wrestling Blog and read my extremely, extremely truncated Best and Worst of this weekend’s awesome Anarchy San Antonio show. [The Wrestling Blog]

Hermes Franca’s Statement From Jail - Hopefully his statement is “I look like Hermes from Futurama in a wig”. Maybe he committed sexual assault with a limbo? Regardless, he reads like MMA’s Sammy Sosa, and that’s always fun. [Cage Potato]

John Calipari: College Basketball’s Frank Abagnale - “The people of Kentucky have embraced our family as one of their own and we love being here and there is no other place we’d rather be.” Kentucky embracing your family can only lead to horrible things, just so you know. [Pineriders]

Minor League Team Wears Twitter-Themed Jerseys - The IronPigs are the team that accidentally line-drived the Phillie Phanatic in his neck, so of COURSE they’re the team that mocks up and wears Twitter jerseys. I hope one of the players had to play an entire double-header with @HOTBOY69Z on his back. [SBN]

Not Sports

The Chick from Doctor Who Likes to Party - Man, who knew a drop dead gorgeous, famous actress would like to get plastered and f**k around without consequences? I hope we get a “Hipster Doctor Who Loves Looking Like Frisky Dingo” follow-up story. [Warming Glow]

Warner Still Planning Green Lantern Sequel - Of course they are. I’m the nerd who waited in line for a midnight showing of all three Spider-Man movies and even I’m sick of all these comic book things. Give me an Inhumans movie (preferably written by me) and maybe something about the Silver Surfer that doesn’t involve Jessica Alba, then stop making them forever. [Film Drunk]

8-Bit Fashion - I think Ufford said it best when he wrote “Want to look stupid?” after this link. I would add “Want to get stomped by an Italian day-laborer? Wear these clothes, hold a turtle, and walk around in the sewers”. [Gamma Squad]

The Best Celebrity Twitter Reactions to New York’s Gay Marriage Bill - New York Giants receiver David Tyree was forced to give back his Super Bowl victory and the East Coast of the United States has plunged into a Hellish anarchy, but check out what celebrities on Twitter thought about human beings being treated like humans in real life. [Uproxx]

Former New York Giants receiver David Tyree once helped win a Super Bowl by pressing a football into his head as he fell down. In a first paragraph that will hopefully get me a job writing for CNN (or at least the Sporting News), Tyree is now holding something else to his head: the promise that gay marriage will lead to a state of lawlessness. Okay, that sounded catchier in my head. If the New York State Assembly approves a same-sex marriage bill, Tyree is promising anarchy.

In an interview with Food Network show “NOM”, Tyree “casts down his crown” and “stands up for marriage” because that whole giant part of the Bible where it says you should love people and stop judging people isn’t as important as saying stupid things on the Internet.

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