Pictured here is yesterday’s cover for the New York post (click for larger). As you can see, it claims USA WINS 1-1, with the sub-headline “Greatest tie against British since Bunker Hill” — no small feat given the War of 1812.

Now, the New York Post isn’t exactly a bastion of journalism; it once cited The Big Lead as a source. But the predictable puns in its headlines give the paper a sort of classless charm, like your mom after a couple margaritas. And, to the paper’s credit, it likely references the famous “Harvard Beats Yale 29-29” headline, a point completely missed by Mediaite and countless others.

You would think if any country in the world would understand trashy rags with tacky headlines, it would be Great Britain, home of the Sun, the Mirror, and other filth. Nope. Here are some ACTUAL reactions to this headline from England fans:

This reminded me of the ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ banner headline of the Chicago Tribune back in 1948.  How very embarassing… and it’s not soccer.  It’s FOOTBALL!!!

And the US was playing ENGLAND…not BRITAIN! [source]

Actually, the DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN headline was incorrect because it was premature and presumptive. Perhaps if the New York Post had printed this paper before halftime with the headline ENGLAND WINS 1-0, then it would be like the Chicago Tribune. But that, amazingly, is the LEAST bitchy of the Brit responses:

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After Brian Cushing became, oddly, the two-time AP Defensive Rookie Of The Year, more more attention is being given to why the AP’s revote was rushed (or even held), and why the voters couldn’t decide upon to supplant him. Let’s be honest, this re-vote was an attempted coup by the writers against PED use. And that coup was a disaster, both in terms of logistics and PR.

The AP has copped to organizing this effort, which makes sense to me. Surely if one of the writers had done so, there would have been a better push for someone to supplant Cushing for the award. But the whole process just felt wrong from the onset, and nobody has summed that up better than Tom Curran, who actually changed his vote to Cushing on the re-do:

In casting my “re-vote” in favor of Brian Cushing, I wasn’t condoning or excusing his use of PEDs. The vote was cast as a protest of The Associated Press demeaning its own process of by allowing for do-overs.

The deadline for voting was in January. When the deadline came, I used the available information and made a decision. The information told me Brian Cushing had a more impressive rookie season than the Bills’ Jairus Byrd.

It’s now the middle of May. If I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn’t have voted for Cushing. But there’s a deadline for a reason. What if, in the re-vote, Byrd was given the honor. Then in June, we came to find he lost a PED appeal in March? Have another re-vote? And when does the window on re-votes close for good? I believe it closes at the deadline. That was in January.

Curran continues: Read the rest of this entry »

There has been speculation about the contract situ with ESPN’s Chris Berman, he of the immodest combover and haughty swampass. In what we’d call a “walk year” for any athlete, Berman allegedly is being courted by the NFL Network and DirecTV. Uh huh.

Berman, right now, is The Man at ESPN. He’s been there forever, probably knows everyone, and seems to come and go as he pleases. His value, I’d argue, would be significantly less than it is at the network where he has worked over the last 30 years. Would he be willing to be The New Guy at an arguably less mature operation? I doubt it.

I chalk this up to smoke and mirrors; Berman wants more money from ESPN, who might finally be willing to reduce his on-camera role and make way for some of its younger talent. I don’t expect him to leave that anchor chair at NFL Prime Time unless he does so in the back of an ambulance.

Our latest media snafu comes from the Polish-language newspaper of Olsztyn, which Wikipedia tells us is the 21st-largest city in Poland. I guess the Poles like their sports news a bit creepier than we do stateside, as they included Pedobear in their Olympic preview.

The Gazeta Olsztynska published an image showing the bear alongside genuine Olympic mascots Quatchi, Sumi, Miga and Mukmuk to illustrate a feature about the Games. –The Telegraph.

I wonder if it’s just a slow news day in Olsztyn. Here’s another crack story that the Gazeta has been working on [translated via Google]

The surgery on the street in Olsztyn Dworcowa the toilet things disappear. Soap and toilet paper disappear after a few hours. I still need to complete the tap knobs, handles mount, and even mechanisms cisterns. See movies!

If they did this in America, the blogs would be totally out of business. I could only hope to see Domo in spring training, or for the Stanley Cup Final telecast to get Rick Rolled, or for the word “FAIL” to flash onscreen during every crash in NASCAR. Remember back in the day when people actually said to each other, “You are the weakest link…goodbye”? That’s where FAIL is now. It’s wanky rhetoric that should be uttered exclusively by old British women. And maybe reality shows involving The Legend of Zelda. Not that I know of that happening anyplace. Thanks, Cooter, for the heads-up.

Today is an especially dubious day for Tiger Woods. Oh sure, his life didn’t necessarily fall any further into the commode. There were no additional sponsorship dumpings (so far) or any more garden-variety skanks that came forward with tales of Tiger’s derring-do (so far). No, today was the 19th consecutive day that Tiger Woods news made the front cover (not the sports page cover) of the New York Daily News Star Times Post. The last event to make the tabloids front page 19 straight times? The 9/11 attacks. Those were a pretty big deal, obviously, but The Fall of Tiger Woods certainly makes his one of the most dubious stories of all time, not just the decade, whatever the hell we’re calling it. So, uh, put ‘er there? covers via NY Post Archives.

Big ups to sexy reader Alexander, who sent in this unfortunate screencap of SI.com earlier this morning. The cracked windshield on the face of a man who just died from falling out of a pickup truck is probably the last thing anyone wanted to see, especially the people that run that fine website. And really, there’s nothing that they could have done to prevent such a random confluence from happening. Except for, you know, keeping those damn ads in the sidebar windows where they belong.