The sports world is abuzz with the news that a Magic-Johnson fronted group broke the dang old bank in order to purchase the Dodgers for over $2 billion, which is a figure so absurd that it may as well be written like a comic strip character says cuss words.

“Yes  Mr. McCourt, and our counter-offer is #!%*& dollars.”

Anyway, it’s no secret by now that Magic Johnson, while not a billionaire himself, is a mega-entrepreneur and philanthropist. Already in 2012, he’s bought a baseball team and announced he’s launching a television network. What’s next, a chain of restaurants that are like Applebee’s, but with edible food? A series of Wal*Mart-style superstores? It’s almost like he’s some kind of business wizard. Almost like he’s … gathering spectacular assets.

Wait a minute. Wizard … gathering … Magic … I think we may be on to something here, ladies and gentlemen. In the spirit of Magic Johnson’s spectacular purchase, I am pleased to present the nerdiest sequence of jokes to ever appear on With Leather. It is my pleasure to present to you a very special type of card game: a collectible one.

Faithful readers, I proudly present Magic Johnson: The Gathering.
Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, when I suggested that Orlando Magic guard Gilbert Arenas should or at least could become the face of the NBA players’ resistance to the accusations that they’re to blame for the terrible contracts the owners gave them, I really wanted to throw together a sampler of his ridiculously stupid, T-shirt Hell-esque Twitter avatars that usually feature corny phrases like “Let’s play GI Joe – I’ll lay down and you blow the hell out of me.” But when I checked Arenas’ Twitter, something was awry.

For some reason, Arenas had deleted all of his Tweets, and it may or may not have had something to do with a little feud he had with stand-up comic Joe Mande yesterday. On his blog, Mande actually featured a collection of Arenas’ Twitter avatars, along with a pretty harsh takedown of the 29-year old guard and his suddenly disappearing Twitter.

My guess is, Gilbert got a call from his agent sometime this weekend, who said, “Hey Gil, would you mind deleting that tweet you wrote about how you kick women out of your bed when you’re done having sex with them? And the other one about how you want those women to drive themselves home after you’re done having sex with them, even if they might be drunk, because you’re too busy sleeping alone in your king size bed? Oh, and also the one about the box of stolen female toiletries you keep in your bathroom? Actually… just delete all the tweets you’ve ever written ever. Is that cool? Thanks, buddy.”

Mande also points out the obvious, that Arenas was suspended for a season for having guns in his Washington Wizards locker room. For good measure, I’ll add that Arenas may be the only player I can think of to have been served child support papers during a game. But that doesn’t seem to stop Arenas from treating Twitter like his own Adult Friend Finder.

Someone brought Mande’s essay on Arenas’ immaturity to Agent Zero’s attention and it resulted in a fun little feud between the guy who charges $5 to perform as a standup comedian and the guy who gets paid $20 million per season to pretend to be a comedian. Ultimately, Arenas quit Twitter. Again. I miss him already.

Read the rest of this entry »

Site note: The Dugout should be back today. Restocking new computers with programs necessary to create an esoteric baseball webcomic is harder than you’d think.

Sports

The Best and Worst of the Milwaukee Brewers First Half - Miller Park Drunk apes the Best and Worst of Raw format without my permission and makes me wonder if my sports news would be best reported this way. I’m not sure I could do this about the Indians. My Best would be “everything” and my Worst would be “nothing, shut up”. [Miller Park Drunk]

The Ridiculous Argument About What Is Or Isn’t A Sport - I thought this argument ended when you left high school and didn’t have to hear teen girls defend cheerleading. Apparently somebody thinks soccer isn’t a sport because they don’t like it, which is seriously a great qualifier for adults who use words. I don’t like celery, so celery isn’t a food! It’s a mineral! [A Slice of Bacon]

The Rock Responds to John Cena - CM Punk called some people in Australia “homos” and it necessitated an apology and a formal statement of regret from WWE. A major Hollywood Disney movie star cuts a 15 minute promo about how John Cena deepthroated a bunch of dudes in college (that is also transphobic, hateful toward fat people and the abstinent, and sort of racist) and nobody gives a crap. Because he’s cool! Yay the Rock! [The Wrestling Blog]

Kevin Love & Blake Griffin Square Off in an Intense Jenga Series - I am fairly confident that I could beat both of these guys at Jenga. And “Last Word”, if they know what that is. Oh, and Scattergories. [Smoking Section]

With Leather

@Storytime with Gilbert Arenas - A free Slurpee promotion from 7/11 becomes a call for racial equality. Did you know that if you live near a bunch of other races you can’t be racist? Did you know that athletes should probably not have Twitter accounts? [With Leather]

The 82nd MLB All-Star Game in Pictures - In case you missed it (and chances are, you did) relive the majesty and wonder of a mid-season baseball game that barely matters. The pictures are really cool, at least. [With Leather]

Whoops - Watch the biggest boob moment at Fenway Park since Roger Clemens retired. [With Leather]

A Look at Tour De France Crashes - Nothing makes French bike riding more awesome than dumping the riders into a ditch and slashing them mercilessly with barbed wire. Also, please view this gallery and see what cycling does to human legs so you will NEVER CYCLE EVER. [With Leather]

Not Sports

Diablo Cody is Polishing the Evil Dead Remake Script - I’m sure this won’t end with a teen girl pretending to be Buffy the Vampire Slayer against a bunch of rapist trees at all. Chances of a “barking up the wrong tree” joke have risen to 100%. Why are we letting Suicide Girls make movies, again? [Gamma Squad]

Real Housewives of the Bible - Slightly less sacrilegious than an episode of “Superbook”. At least this one doesn’t suggest that Original Sin could’ve been prevented if a boy from the future had just properly winded his Christianity robot. [Warming Glow]

The Kid in the Clover Grill - The companion piece to any of those stories where athletes are suddenly concerned about gay marriage, Jason Fry writes about the beauty of being able to change your mind. [Jason Fry]

Tom Green Invented Planking in 1994 - … you know, in case you need any more evidence to prove what you’re doing is dumb. Ten years from now some jerk on the Internet is going to put his ass on a Swedish guy and post it online like he made it up. [Uproxx]

While he’s not nearly as colorful in his opinions as Darnell Dockett, Orlando Magic guard Gilbert Arenas is undoubtedly one of the most entertaining athletes on Twitter (as I’ve occasionally pointed out) because his jokes are often far funnier on the unintentional scale than they are in his head. Since his return to Twitter, Arenas has already been fined by the NBA for cursing while invoking David Stern’s name, taken us on a blind date, given away a few billion pairs of shoes, and started a plank war with Dwight Howard. Needless to say, he gets the most out of Twitter.

But on Tuesday, Arenas offered us a glimpse at his serious side. What started as a trip to his local 7-11 for a free Slurpee on 7/11, became an exercise in civil rights. Because Arenas referred to the 7-11 cashier as “Muhammad”, he received a little backlash from his followers, causing him to defend himself with a diatribe about racism. For instance, did you know that if you’re from Los Angeles, you can’t possibly be racist? All that and more in this week’s @Storytime with Gilbert Arenas.

Read the rest of this entry »

Orlando Magic guard Gilbert Arenas Tweets a lot, in case I haven’t mentioned it before, and his 140-character thoughts usually fall somewhere between “LOL wut a jackazz” and “OK I’ll admit that’s pretty funny”. But on a few isolated occasions, when he’s not calling Orlando a state or planking in random places, he has been known to make a pretty good point, and two of his Tweets caught my attention yesterday.

rumor is DWill has a contract to play overseas if the lockout continues pass oct 1st…he aint the only one u know ya boy Agent has one also

all this overseas talk..and when we had to play preseason games over there everybody started complaining about the flts and food

By “flts” he means flights, I assume, and he makes an excellent point about the mindset of professional athletes. I knew some guys who played college basketball and after they graduated they went to play in Japan, Ireland, Turkey and Greece. A few of them did it for the experience, but mostly they all did it for the money, because these teams were offering as much as low 6 figures (considering conversion rates and living expense) to 22-year old guys who had no chance at making the NBA.

That’s important to keep in mind, because with the exception of Rudy Fernandez’s record offer from Real Madrid – which is more about bringing a star home and less about pillaging the NBA – the offers aren’t going to be as considerable as some players might think. That’s why this supposed mass exodus of angry and vengeful players isn’t going to be as large as some pundits expect, because it comes down to the difference between a comfort zone and culture shock. Basically, these players can make all the threats they want but after a few weeks they’d be Tweeting xenophobic rants that would haunt an Arizona legislator’s dreams.

After the jump, you can check out the latest in NBA-players-heading-overseas developments, as well as Arenas’ latest planking escapades.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well it’s official. As of 12:01 AM ET, the NBA is locked out. We knew it was coming so there was no shocking revelation, but it’s still a pretty empty feeling for fans when they realize that their favorite athletes aren’t going to be suiting up anytime soon. Especially NBA players since this lockout just looks so damn bad. Take the above image, for example. That was NBA.com at 12:02 last night, a clear sign to fans and players that the league means only business. Of course the site is almost back to a normal template, as opposed to “Baby’s First Blog”, but at the very least it was a brief message to everybody to get comfortable, because this thing isn’t going anywhere.

I woke up to an email from the Orlando Magic this morning, thanking me for being a season ticket holder and assuring me that they’re doing everything within their power to end this lockout soon. As I read it, all I could picture was Gilbert Arenas planking on a gigantic pile of money and Dwight Howard doing backflips off of jet skis. And, of course, the Magic charged me for my tickets today, so that was a good feeling. But as a fan of the game, this just sucks. For some reason I’m bothered by this lockout considerably more than the NFL lockout, and I think that it’s because I know that the NFL will get its sh*t together very soon and start operating business as usual. The NBA, though, is in some deep, deep crap. Like I wrote yesterday, the players and owners are $7 billion apart on a new CBA. Does anyone really think that Players Association President Derek Fisher and the NBAPA are going to roll over and give up the anchor-esque mid-level and max contracts that got us to where we are today? Hell no. So buckle up, friends. This thing is gonna get nasty.

In the meantime, as I love to do, I perused the Twitterverse to check up on some of the NBA’s bigger names and… well, there wasn’t as much chatter as I expected. But I pulled some of the better responses to the lockout from last night and this morning in case you missed it.

Read the rest of this entry »