Last year, a raffle to support a small-town Illinois little league team raised only $10. This year, the people involved in that raffle have upped the ante by offering cookies and lemonade, and holding a yard sale. Wait, no, I’m sorry, they’re auctioning off an AR-15 assault rifle and a 30-round magazine.

This is a raffle you’ll want to win, because Atwood, Ill., is overrun by a bunch of drug-smuggling pirates, and sure, your stealth melee attacks are important for sneaking into outposts and turning off alarms, but eventually you’re gonna want to stand on a tiger cage and blow everybody away. That’s what little league baseball is all about. Little league baseball or FarCry 3, I keep getting those two confused.

“We could have went with a basic shotgun or something simple,” said league commissioner Steven McClain. “But obviously it’s not going to draw the attention, not going to draw the volume we’re hoping to make.”

…

Helping the struggling baseball program seemed like a no-brainer. The [Atwood] armory sponsors a team and knows the need for money was great.

“All that money collectively goes towards paying for shirts, hats, gloves, field maintenance, umpires.” (via Illinois Homepage)

They’ll find even more money if they search all the treasure chests in the area.

My favorite part of the story is that the woman who runs the place where they use weapons to raise money for causes is named CHARIDY BUTCHER:

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In case you were wondering, this is how a person starts a story about how their husband was swallowed into the Earth and almost murdered by God during a round of golf.

Friday, March 8, 2013, was the first nice day we had seen in St. Louis, Mo., in several weeks. It was a great day to get back out on the golf course and get geared up for the spring golf season.

Delightful! The man on the right is Mark Mihal, golfer, golf enthusiast and co-founder of GolfManna.com, the best golf site ever if you’re wandering the desert and want to know fantasy picks for the Honda Classic. Mark was golfing at his usual spot in Waterloo, Ill., on Friday with a group of buddies, and all-in-all things went pretty well, except for the fact that a sinkhole suddenly appeared beneath him and tried to drag him to Hell.

Here are the pertinent details:

[Playing partner Mike Peters] could hear Mark moaning and ran in the direction where he had been standing just a few seconds earlier. It was immediately clear what had happened; the ground had caved in and Mark had fallen into the earth – 18 feet underground.

“I felt the ground start to collapse and it happened so fast that I couldn’t do anything,” Mark said later. “I reached for the ground as I was going down and it gave way, too. It seemed like I was falling for a long time. The real scary part was I didn’t know when I would hit bottom and what I would land on.”

Mark landed in mud at the bottom of the sinkhole, which was approximately 10’ wide.

They tried lowering a ladder into the hole, but Mark had dislocated his shoulder and couldn’t climb. Fellow golfer/SUPER FRIEND Ed Magaletta volunteered to spelunk down into the hole with a length of rope, tie it around the injured Mihal and (spectacularly) use his own sweatshirt as a sling. Mihal spent about twenty minutes in the hole but escaped with only bruises and a bum shoulder, and you can read about the entire ordeal here.

The best part is that I had to use that picture from The Simpsons Movie because Mihal’s wife already made the best reference:

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Photo credit: Antioch Police Department

On Wendesday, we shared with you the story of a Catholic high school baseball coach who pretended to be a lady on Facebook to get naked pictures of his players. Now, according to U.S. law, here is a thing that is basically the same: an Illinois high school special-education teacher got caught smoking pot under the bleachers during a sectional wrestling tournament.

Can we call that “Potfishing?”

As [Peter] Mulloy lit up his “one-hit” pipe, however, an off-duty police officer sitting in the stands smelled the strong scent of marijuana and went to investigate.

Beneath the spectators, the officer found Mulloy smoking weed and confronted him before calling police in Antioch, the Chicago Tribune reported. (via NY Daily News)

The 50-year old Mulloy (who clearly understood the best way to enjoy sectionals … ask anybody who’s seen an episode of ‘Glee’) was arrested and charged with “possession of cannabis and possession of drug equipment” and released on a massive $120 bail.

He goes back to court in March. Pete, if you’re googling your name with your head in your hands and come across this, I’d like to suggest the following excuse: “Your Honor, I was depressed about the International Olympic Committee removing amateur wrestling from the 2020 Olympic Games, and the beauty of this local Illinois wrestling tournament combined with the hopelessness of these kids’ sports futures gave me great anxiety. Also, I was using the one-hit pipe for tobacco, like Miley Cyrus and literally everyone else ever who has been caught with a pipe or bong.”

If that doesn’t work, enjoy your lifetime in prison, because we are super weird about drugs.

[h/t to Vince]

Here at With Leather, the Illinois state football playoffs are the most important thing in the world. The list goes Illinois state football playoffs, family, the economy, Kate Upton outtakes, world hunger. Rockford Boylan High was looking for a second round win against Oak Park Fenwick High en route to their third consecutive Class 7A state title, but down by seven with 10 seconds left in the game, it looked like all hope was lost. What happened next was the stuff of legends, and thankfully myself and Ashley Burns were on hand to provide commentary. At least I think that’s us. I don’t remember being in Illinois, but … well, whatever.

In a play that gives you an Al Bundy-level of high school football glory, Boylan’s Peter Cimino returned a punt 90 yards for a dramatic, come-from-behind touchdown with no time left on the clock. Boylan lined up for two and pulled off an amazing 22-21 victory. It’s every bit as great as it sounds.

All the while, the two guys calling the game went through an experience I can only describe as the MY GOD IT’S FULL OF STARS moment from 2001: A Space Odyssey in high school football form. You have never heard two more excited guys. They don’t know what to say so they just start saying sports stuff. DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES? DO YOU BELIEVE IN MIRACLES. DO YOU. DO YOU BELIEVE IN THOSE MIRACLES! YES, YES I DO BELIEVE IN THAT. BLEARGHHHH MIRACLES! It’s infectious.

My only complaint is that the 2-point conversion is a little anti-climactic. Can we teach the guy manning the JVC Slim Cam how to shoot an endzone dive in slow motion?

[via Prep Rally]