Those are vegan links, by the way, which is why they look like they were freshly squeezed out of a dog’s butt. I’m Brandon Stroud, and for those of you who don’t know me, I’m your editor and paradigm-shifter at With Leather. I co-created The Dugout and have written everywhere from the Village Voice to Deadspin to X-Entertainment.com (not a porn site, I swear). “What makes you qualified to run a sports blog?” you might ask. Well, I don’t eat meat, my favorite hobby involves watching men pretend to fight in their underwear, and my favorite movies are either cartoons or Roman Holiday. So I guess the answer is “f**k if I know.”

If you’re going to run screaming away from me, here is a collection of Internet-style hyperlinks to other paragraphs of interest. The most important link is the Acknowledgements of Punte, who made this site awesome for two years. I know it’s the post below this one, but I’m linking it anyway. Josh, you’re an awesome guy and will be missed, even though you’ll still be writing here regularly-to-semi-regularly.

Sports Links:

Sports Cards For Insane People: Score’s Early ’90s ‘Dream Team’ Subset - Jon Bois is one of the funniest guys on the Internet, and I’m not just saying that because I lived with him for a year and have been writing Dugouts with him for seven. Jokes about baseball cards, Casper Van Dien and Watchmen, as only Jon can deliver. [SB Nation]

Regress to the Meaningful - Jason Fry regularly accomplishes a scientific impossibility — making the New York Mets interesting, compelling and philosophically important. If the sports-o-sphere is a baseball team, Fry and Greg Prince are our Maddux and Smoltz. Or, to put it in Mets terms, our Doc Gooden and somebody else who pitched for the Mets when they were good. [Faith and Fear]

Read the rest of this entry »

The terrificly named Shane Bacon usually saves his attention for the golf world, but today he drops in to give us the poop on the game within the game. As the Colts are the favorite in this year’s big game, so does Peyton Manning’s place in corporate commercial lore loom over Drew Brees. While Brees’ team may not prevail, what about his image? Read more of Shane at Dogs That Chase Cars. And this will be it for today. Since my flight to Vegas was canceled, I’m off to catch a train to Boston. Don’t ask.

There is one thing and one thing only still interesting about “Sportscenter” — the commercials.

Long ago, when ESPN decided to run fake MLB interviews, keep Stuart Scott in my life and use touchscreens (poorly) to give us news, the “must watch now” craze of “Sportscenter” waned, and we were left with one piece of the show that is still entertaining.

Surprisingly, Sunday will bring together two of the best commercials ever made on the network, and it involves both team’s quarterbacks. One? A premier spokesperson for sports, raking in more money than a Bill Gates charity with his spots in commercials. The other? A lesser known plugger, but still someone that seems to speak well in front of a camera, almost destined to one day be in the booth with a crusty, 90-year-old Chris Berman.

Sure, some of the oldies are must-see advertising, but Peyton Manning (the best athlete-actor ever) and Drew Brees (my sleeper pick for Saturday Night Live athlete host next season) are involved in some of the classics.

The underlying question that I’m making up for this post is, which one is better? Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t know if she’s using her real name these days, but The Stater Wife has been scouring the eBays for some time. Today, she indulges us with a WL guest post to bring her special brand of thoughtfulness. See more of her work at Black and Gold Tchotchkes.

As of right now, we are less than 72 hours away from Super Bowl XLIV and I want you to remember just one thing going into these final moments before kickoff.

Don’t be the a-hole at a Super Bowl party.

Are you a Vikings fan who just watched your best shot at a Super Bowl in thirty years get pissed away with yet another gunslinger-INT? A Chargers fan stuck with Norv Turner? Some random chickadee Mark Sanchez put his penis in? Upset that this isn’t “your” weekend?

No one cares about your pain and suffering. Do not be an a-hole this weekend. Read the rest of this entry »

They call him The Chief around these parts, but he belongs to no tribe. He has no teepee, no trail of tears. He's a man of his own conviction, his own volition, contemplating, disseminating and even occasionally agitating the likes of Stokke, the occasional chokee, or even those who get down in a game of Hokey Pokey with jugs in your mugs and no hair you-know-where, while all the thugs and dem mugs take tugs at your derriere. Shit, they don't care, and neither does Ufford, he's much tougher, don't require no buffer, the man even serves as his own fluffer but now he's gone gone to the Caribbean like an amphibian; no time to stay or play he's got to…whoa, did I just throw in something about a fluffer?

Anyway, if Exhibit 2,391 That Punter Is A Little Fucked In The Head up there tells you anything, it's that Ufford is on sabbatical for the rest of the week. He's been wanting to take a Caribbean vacation for some time, but didn't feel the need to make a big deal out of going to Turks and Caicos while the rest of you assholes are shoveling snow off of your cars. So I'll be your substitute for the rest of the week. Kind of like Sweet n Low, without that whole cancer thing. – Monday Morning Punter