If you’re ever in the vicinity of Michael Irvin’s belongings you should maybe not touch his hall of fame jacket. The former Dallas Cowboys receiving great was so excited about receiving his hall of fame jacket he refused to take it off when his wife wanted to do it like they do on the discovery channel. I of course am not talking about shark week, though that the idea of Michael Irvin getting eaten by a great white is an image I would love to have burned into my memory bank. Anyway, they allegedly got nasty with his hall of fame jacket on. I wonder if his hookers got the same treatment.

NFL Hall of Famer Michael Irvin on Wednesday chuckled as he told us about the tradition of championship players spending time with the Stanley Cup: “I remember when I was inducted into the Hall of Fame and they gave me my Hall of Fame yellow blazer. I wore it for two straight days. Finally my wife was in bed and said she wanted to make love but that I had to take the coat off. I refused and kept the blazer on because I wanted to perform like a Hall of Famer on the field and off.” -Chicago Tribune

I wonder how his wife gets through those nights. She probably closes her eyes and imagines he’s Steve Young.

The cast for Season 9 of Dancing With The Stars was just announced, and among the more sportish contestants were NFL Hall-of-Famer Michael Irvin, former Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin, mixed martial artist Chuck Liddell and pro snowboarder Louie Vito. And also, that crazy guy from Iron Chef America is on there, too. But the most Whiskey Tango Foxtrottish choice of all has to be former U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay:

How did it come about? “I know it will sound stupid, we just asked him,” Green tells EW. “We usually throw a few Hail Marys every season to people we don’t think are gonna say yes, but we think, oh, why not ask him. Occasionally, they come off. As it turns out, Tom DeLay likes to do a bit of the Two Step, he likes dancing with his wife. His daughter is a country dancing champion, I believe. He actually really enjoys dancing. via.

Damn government, always has its hands in everything, even quasi-reality shows that I could care less about, and I only qualify it that way because these has-beens do more on the show than sit in a house and think of ways to kick out the black guy. Let’s see if DeLay can avoid indictment this go-round. But wow, this show will have been on the air for nine years? I swear I haven’t been ignoring it for more than five.

The Dallas Cowboys organization has become an increasingly ridiculous shitshow over recent weeks and months (and, uh, years).  The season began with the team seemingly more concerned with the cameras than practicing during Hard Knocks on HBO, and ended with people showing up whenever they feel like it and players not respecting coaches and the general back-stabbing and bitchiness you don’t see outside of sororities.

So, obviously, what the Cowboys need is… another reality show!  Hosted by Michael Irvin!

The show… will feature twelve amateurs who will move to Dallas and compete against one another to earn a shot at a spot in Dallas Cowboys training camp next summer and potentially a spot on the team. [...]

The twelve contestants, including six wide receivers and six defensive backs, will be broken into two teams, overseen by notable former Cowboys coaches and players. Guest judges will appear along the way including other former players, coaches, media personalities and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

Naturally, Irvin will need a catchphrase when he dismisses contestants.  The early favorite is, “I’m sorry, but I have to cut you.”  Then he breaks out his scissors and STABS THE GUY IN THE NECK!!!  Ratings GOLD baby!

Former Cowboys wideout and Hall of Famer Michael Irvin — a man known for his playmaking abilities, and also for attempting to murder a teammate by stabbing him in the neck with scissors — narrowly avoided a carjacking when the suspect, a Cowboys fan, recognized Irvin.

Irvin, who was driving a new, white Range Rover, said a truck followed him to a stoplight. “I was looking in my rearview, and I saw this black truck flying up behind me,” he said.

The passenger rolled down his window and pointed a gun at him… [Then] “He put it away, because he recognized me. He said, ‘Hey, Mike Irvin, what’s up? Mike Irvin, man, we are big Cowboy fans,’” Irvin said. [...]

Then the carjackers said, “Hey, would you like to buy some drugs?”  And Irvin was all, “WOULD I?!?!?”

He said his pistol-packing fans sped off after several minutes. [...] “‘I’m a huge Cowboy fan’ — it never sounded so sweet before like it did last night, even coming from him,” he said.

Aw, that’s heartwarming.  Dallas has the best fans in the world.  They won’t even shoot or rob former players.  Well, as long as they won playoff games, anyway.  Sorry Romo.

Pacman Jones, likely bound for reinstatement into the NFL following a yearlong suspension for his role in a strip club shooting that led to a bouncer's paralysis (the suspension exacerbated, no doubt, by his extensive arrest record for various things like spitting on women), appeared on Michael Irvin's radio show yesterday.  FanHaus has the highlights:

• Jones talks about his extremely rough childhood and admits that "It's getting to the point where it ain't no time for slip-ups right now…"
• Jones admits that visiting a strip club the night before meeting with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (a meeting that was to decide Jones' NFL future, by the way) was "a bad decision … it was one of the dumbest decisions I've ever made." [...]
• Despite sitting out last season, Jones says he's good for two wins a year all by himself.
• When asked if he's done with strip clubs, Jones offered this: "I cannot say ever, ever … But I can say they won't see me [in strip clubs] for the next three or four years."

I fuckin' feel that, man.  I'm a recovering addict myself.  I haven't been to a strip club in over a year.  I won't go to one tonight, and I probably won't go tomorrow.  But the thought of not going into one for the rest of my life?  That's terrifying.  I mean, there are NAKED WOMEN in there!  And they'll rub against me if I give them money!  And I have money!

…Ah crap.  So much for not going to a strip club tonight. 

With Leather editor/patriarch Matt Ufford is in Arizona for Super Bowl festivities.  He will file daily reports from Arizona until at least Monday, February 4th.

My conversation with Rick Reilly was really the highlight of the ESPN party.  (I mean, besides all the hot young tail.  Obviously.)  After that, it was just your typical party — what do you do, where are from, blah blah blah.  A cute Filipino girl stuck her freezing hands in my armpits to warm them up, which is the first time I haven't had to pay for that. 

Then the lights went on and talk turned to after-parties.  I was sober and thinking about going to bed, but I was too curious to see what ESPNers do after hours.  Maybe I'd see Chris Berman doing blow off a hooker's ass.  Maybe Erin Andrew deep-throats bananas as a party trick.

What I got was Bill Simmons and a Real World cast member at a hotel bar.  After last call.

Oh yes, Simmons and the Real World.  I didn't recognize the RW guy — I haven't watched the show in ten years, and all the dudes look pretty much the same any more anyway.  But apparently he's an actor now, and the two were having an LA sort of conversation when I introduced myself.

[A disclaimer here: I don't have any kind of animosity towards Simmons.  I used to read him religiously before I found sports blogs; now I don't read his work at all.  I'm more interested in his role ushering in a generation of bloggers than I am, say, denouncing him or calling him the Urtard or putting a bounty on his hands.]

And so I joined in the conversation — hey! I've been to LA! — and we all got along very nicely, me being the genial guy that I am.  Then came the questions about my occupation.  I'm a writer.  What kind of writer?  A sports writer.  Who do you write for?  Blogs.  Which blog?  With Leather.

"Oh," Bill said, "that's a good one."

"Oh.  Well thank you."  (Note: Sooooooooooo glad I didn't mention Kissing Suzy Kolber.)

"All of this is off the record, by the way."

And, well, that kinda sucked.  Because I'm not out to get anyone, and if I could share the conversation we had, he might come off as looking like a cool guy.  I told him not to worry, I'm way more interested in writing about athletes and hot chicks than I am sports writers, and that I'd only written about him once, when he donned the spandex suit for NBA Live '08 [Ed. note -- after checking the archives, I was mistaken about that.  Also, that image by 289 was hilarious.]

So the conversation rolled along, we'd be enjoying ourselves, and he'd express an opinion or dish some dirt about a fellow ESPN employee, then look at me and say, "Don't write about that, either."  I understand: he wasn't being a douche so much as we was trying to protect himself from possible fallout, but c'mon man!  Give me something!

And that's when he said, loudly, just as I was making my exit, "Is that Michael Irvin trying to steal liquor from the bar?"

Sure enough, there was Irvin, dressed all in black at the far end of the bar.  I can't say what his intentions were, but to me, he appeared to be leaning over the bar and casing the joint. When Simmons spoke, he looked up with a hand-in-the-cookie jar kind of look, then broke into a warm smile and headed over to us.  He embraced John Walsh — the elderly, bearded albino whose behind-the-scenes work brought SportsCenter to prominence — then greeted us with handshakes and smiles. 

I can see why it took ESPN so long to fire him: the guy is impossibly likable.  And he likes coke and hookers!  I should have asked him for tips on body disposal.