The best inspirational sports stories are the ones that take a sharp turn, right at the end.

A 77-year-old liquor store owner is in critical, but stable, condition at University Hospital after police say he was shot in the eye during an armed robbery Wednesday night.

The victim — Thomas Dotterer – not only owns the liquor store, he is also a baseball coach at Christian Brothers Academy and a member of the Syracuse Sports Hall of Fame.

Earlier, police mistakenly told NewsChannel 9 that Dotterer was listed in serious condition. (via News Channel 9)

How great is that? The guy gets shot in the eye and the info that he’s “in serious condition” is a mistake.

Listening to him talk is wonderful. He speaks candidly about the value of optimism, how all things happen for a reason and how to deal with such a violent, life-altering moment of cruelty. Then, in maybe the best swerve in local interview history, a guy who has a bruised, bandaged hole in his face reveals that BEING SHOT IN THE HEAD WITH A GUN AT HIS FAMILY’S LIQUOR STORE wasn’t the worst thing that happened to him this week.

I’ll let you discover that for yourself. Video is below.

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An unsportsmanlike conduct call turned into for-real unsportsmanlike conduct during a game between the West Park Saints and Miramar Patriots in West Park, FL, on Saturday. I’ll let the US News set the stage:

After he threw the flag, [official Andrew] Keigans turned around an bumped one of the players and moved the player to the side to talk to one of the other referees, the report said.

The assistant coach, who disagreed with the penalty, barged the field and confronted Keigans as he was held back by head coach Antonio Lane, the report said.

Because the assistant coach left the sidelines and entered the field of play to confront Keigans, the head referee decided to end the game, the report said.

If you read that blockquote or looked at the picture at the top of the post (or skimmed and watched the video before you read this), you might’ve stood up in your computer chair, pointed at your screen and shouted “RACE THING!” This is normal.

It’s what most of the Internet is doing. One side points out that there were four refs, three black and one white, and the black assistant coach went sprinting-and-slapping at the lone white guy. One side points out that while prejudiced people attribute this to “typical savage behavior” (their words, not mine), there is a country full of white people (Canada) who go nuts and have bloody riots at pee-wee hockey games every day. Others still point out the arrival of RICK RO$$ as a peacekeeper in the clip, because that is hilarious.

The truth is that this fight is not about race. It’s about how stupid you are for letting a convicted felon coach your little league team. Turns out the guy doing the assaulting isn’t someone racist folks assume is a criminal, he’s an actual criminal. Whoops!

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If you weren’t aware, MMA fighter Renzo Gracie is a Gracie Barra Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt and a two-time ADCC Submission Wrestling World Championship gold medalist. He is not the guy you want to mug on a Thursday night in New York City.

Unfortunately that’s what happened, allegedly, and Renzo added insult to the injuries you assume he dished out by live-blogging the entire thing on his Twitter account, @Renzo_Gracie_BJJ. I say “allegedly” because the tweets are thorough but don’t provide a lot of context, so depending on your point of view, one of two things happened:

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UFC legend Ken Shamrock punching a woman in a California mall because he thought she was a man is the most ‘Family Guy’ thing a real person has ever done.

Her name is Melinda Garcia … she weighs 120 pounds … and tells TMZ there’s NO WAY Shamrock could’ve confused her for a man. In fact, she claims Ken is straight up LYING about the fight.

We broke the story … Shamrock claims he was breaking up a girl-on-girl brawl in a mall in Modesto, CA earlier this month when someone jumped on his back. Shamrock claims he believed the person was a man, so he took “him” down. Turns out … “he” was actually a “she.”

But Garcia claims it’s all BS … claiming Shamrock didn’t actually break up the original fight, but rather screamed at her to do it … which she did. (via TMZ Sports)

Harry Knowles elipses and RANDOM CAPITAL LETTERS aside, this is one of those stories that turns into a men versus women thing where half the people online don’t think a woman should be punched even if she stabbed you in the heart because women are the “fairer sex” and the other half doing the annoying “make me a sandwich” thing shitty assholes do because women aren’t people and nobody reports the most basic truth: you should try really hard to not hit anybody.

Of course, nobody gets punched these days without jumping on the Internet to tell everyone about it, so who knows what really happened? The wrestling fan in me wants to think Shamrock did the valiant thing in breaking up a fight, then “snapped”, punched himself in the head a few times and just started belly-to-belly suplexing everyone in the mall. As for the whole “I thought she was a man” thing, I could see where Shamrock would get that (she kinda looks like Tom Haverford), but the average person wouldn’t make that mistake. Hell, when I saw her picture I thought Ken Shamrock had knocked out the main character from Just One Of The Guys. That’s clearly a woman masquerading as a man, Ken.

The best part of the story is the text message exchange Garcia sent to TMZ, which is not only straight out of Texts From Last Night, but outs her sister as “Hoochie” to the entire world:

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"Looks like it breaks to the right and my caddie is nailing my wife."

Detroit. Baltimore. Compton. Waterbury. It feels like we can’t even go one day without horrifying news of violence from America’s most dangerous cities, but those maniacs in Connecticut are once again making our golf courses more violent than they should be. Rudolph Hermstadt (above), a 37-year old local phenom, apparently got into a fight with his 41-year old caddy in the clubhouse after a round at the East Mountain Golf Course.

Damn it, man, when I say give me the big dog, you give me the mother f*cking big dog!

Police say Hermstadt was captured on a surveillance video choking and punching 41-year-old Jeremy Eterginio of Prospect inside the 19th Hole Cafe at the East Mountain Golf Course on July 22.

Hermstadt told the newspaper the fight stemmed from an argument over Eterginio’s relationship with Hermstadt’s fiance.

He says Eterginio is no longer his caddie or his friend. (Via the Hartford Courant, H/T to Fark)

It’s not the punching of my face or the choking me to death that hurts, it’s that whole not being your friend part. Sometimes the heart is the most vulnerable part of the body.

What I want to know, though, is how pathetic a man must feel to be a 7-time city champion and recent winner of the Mayor’s Cup and find out that his wife is banging his caddy, who is older and presumably not as good at golf. That’s gotta give the other fellas in your foursome some deadly sh*t talk at the tee box.

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I think we all need to take a seat, maybe form a circle and just relax for a few minutes. We get a little bit too crazy about sports sometimes, and we tend to overreact toward athletes and media analysts for their decisions and/or opinions. I mean, take Twitter, for example. Have you seen the horrible verbal venom that is spewed at famous people on that “social media” site on a daily basis? Hell, I’m as guilty as the next guy for making cracks at some athletes, but I’m talking about the violent threats.

It’s really getting out of hand, and it’s been spilling out into our stadiums and arenas now, ruining the idea of fun competition for everyone. What the hell’s the point of going to a game or a bar these days if you constantly have to look over your shoulder and wonder if someone is about to stab you? Sports are supposed to take our minds off the really sh*tty things in life and provide hope and inspiration. Instead, we have people slaughtering each other in the streets.

Everybody calm down and let’s remember why we’re here in the first place… to hope that the other team loses and pray for people to be fired. That’s what sports are all about, dang it.

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