Sports

They do like Mondays

JASON O'BRYAN — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:57:49 GMT

ESPN defends its AstroTurf
Monday is a hard sell.

Heightened anxiety

MATT TAIBBI — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 17:56:46 GMT

Sports blotter: "Attack of the seven-foot tall driver" edition
Look, it’s not easy being seven feet tall.

TALL TALE: Seven-foot high-school hoops star Anthony DiLoreto was the alleged getaway driver in a hare-brained bank robbery.

Short on brains
Look, it’s not easy being seven feet tall. If you are seven feet tall, there’s only one socially acceptable thing you can do with your life: play basketball. Creative thinkers might scheme their way into careers in pro wrestling, action movies about Vikings, or porn, but basically it’s basketball or nothing.

One career the seven footer should absolutely not consider, however, is bank robbery. The thing about bank robbery is that it’s usually done under the cover of darkness, or via a tunnel, or in daylight while masked (the mask being worn to protect one’s identity).

And here’s the thing about identity: ordinary-size people can protect theirs just by wearing masks, since there are a great many ordinary-size people (hence the term “ordinary”). But if you’re seven feet tall, a mask doesn’t help you that much. Because the police already have a lot of information when the witness begins his statement by saying, “Well, he was seven feet tall. . .”

That brings us to the story of Anthony DiLoreto, a seven-foot-tall high-school basketball star from Minnetonka, Minnesota, who was due to play for Cal Poly next year. On August 16, he and a 16-year-old accomplice allegedly attempted to rob the Bremer Bank in Danbury, Wisconsin. Police say DiLoreto was driving the getaway car, but got confused when he didn’t see his buddy come out. So he went into the bank and spoke with an employee about opening a student account. He took off after this, stopping for gas — for which he didn’t pay — before returning to the scene of the crime. When he heard sirens nearby, police say, DiLoreto got cold feet and headed home for good.

His partner, meanwhile, had allegedly done the deed, getting away with about $1000. Not seeing his ride, he fled the robbery on foot, and was eventually apprehended by police, apparently trying to walk the 100 or so miles back to the Twin Cities. The kid admitted to the crime, and told authorities he had been with DiLoreto. Police found our hero at home a few hours later.

DiLoreto was charged with being a party to an armed robbery and being in possession of a short-barreled shotgun. Cal Poly seemed willing to let him enroll as planned, but for now the youngster has put off his college career to focus on his legal troubles.

Death of a hoop dream

MIKE MILIARD — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:37:08 GMT

Mario Hornsby Jr. was senselessly gunned down in May. Now his father is trying to make sure his death was not in vain.
This past fall, Mario Hornsby Jr., then a senior at Springfield Central High School, wrote an essay for English class.

This past fall, Mario Hornsby Jr., then a senior at Springfield Central High School, wrote an essay for English class. In neat handwriting on ruled paper, with a couple minor spelling errors, he took stock of his relationship with his father, Mario Hornsby Sr., and his responsibilities toward his mother, Monique, and younger brothers, Drevon and DeAundre.

Just last year I noticed a change in my father’s demeanor. He started to get moody and lathargic. So my first thoughts as a man was to drop out of school and get a job to ease the load of my parents. My father, knowing the power of education, told me to continue school and get a job part-time after school. . . . I always listened to my father’s advice, and it paid off. Now I’m a promising student with a great job, that’s going to suit up for the Central Golden Eagles basketball team this year. My father influenced my life in a great way; he made me a great man who can handle a bunch of tasks. It’s funny, because I was going to be another stastic on the drop-out list, but now the sky’s my limit.

Slideshow: A life cut short: Images from the life of Mario Hornsby Jr.

“When I read that letter, it just took me out,” recalls Hornsby Sr. now. “You really don’t know what’s happening in your kid’s life until you get something like that.”

This past fall, Hornsby Jr. started to turn his life around. For most of high school, he was a poor student whose report cards were litanies of D’s and F’s. But senior year, he somehow orchestrated a minor academic miracle. That first semester, his GPA skyrocketed. He made the honor roll. And, having never before played more than a couple of JV basketball games, his newfound confidence and leadership qualities led to his being named captain of the boys’ varsity team.

Then, thanks to the intercession of a helpful coach, something was on the horizon for the hugely popular 19 year old that only a few months earlier would’ve seemed unthinkable: college.

Right about now, Hornsby Jr. should be practicing his jumper, and gearing up for a preparatory year at Brandeis. But he never got to trade the chipped paint and cracked cement of Springfield’s violent Mason Square for the tree-shaded lawns of Waltham. He didn’t live to see his high-school graduation.

A life cut short

PHOENIX STAFF — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 20:28:42 GMT

Images from the life of Mario Hornsby, Jr.

Mike Miliard looks at the story of Mario Hornsby Jr., a Brandeis-bound basketball player who was gunned down in Springfield.

Photos courtesy the Hornsby family

Revenge of the toad

MATT TAIBBI — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:40:45 GMT

Sports blotter: "Irabu!" edition
Some sports-crime stories aren’t funny in any way — they’re just plain violent and tragic. But every now and then you get a story that’s just pure fun.

Flat-out awesome!
Some sports-crime stories aren’t funny in any way — they’re just plain violent and tragic. Others are too emblematic and telling, revealing awful things about our crass, media-obsessed society. And still others — DUIs of aging linebackers, for instance — just aren’t that interesting. When there’s nothing but stories like these to write about, it makes for a depressing week for the author of this column.

But every now and then you get a story that’s just pure fun. Like the one that came gift-wrapped in the New York Post this past week, under the headline DRUNK HIDEKI IRABU ARRESTED FOR ASSAULTING BARTENDER. It’s always great when Yankees get in trouble, but it’s particularly delicious when it’s a famously high-priced former Yankee import, washed up and drinking away the sting of a failed career back in his home country — while an ocean away, Daisuke Matsuzaka, in his nibbling way, is mowing down the American League, going 15-2 this season for the Boston Red Sox.

You basically know the Irabu story already, but here are the details, which are terrific. It seems the “Japanese Nolan Ryan” (yeah, right) spent a long night drinking in a bar in Osaka and then, when he went to pay, had his credit card rejected. Enraged, Irabu (who was once called a “fat pussy toad” by George Steinbrenner, back in the days when the Boss was still great and terrible and ambulatory) threw the bartender against the wall, pulled his hair, and smashed at least nine bottles of liquor. (It is assumed the credit card didn’t cover those, either.) Cops later showed up and learned that Irabu had drunk 20 mugs of beer in the bar.

Irabu was a Yankee during that franchise’s most recent golden age, and actually owns two World Series rings (from 1998 and ’99) despite not doing much to earn them. And . . . well, who cares what happened from there? The only reason I’m even continuing this tale is to segue into the current plight of the Yankees, at last count around 10 games out of first place. Which is really embarrassing for a team with a $200 million payroll. Did I mention they’re 10 games out of first place?

Anyway, give the fat toad 10 points for bartender abuse. Have another doughnut, loser!

Tiger trap

MATT TAIBBI — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:37:28 GMT

Sports blotter: "Walking in Memphis" edition
There are a lot of famously troubled college sports programs out there, the majority of them football teams.

Teach me, Tiger
There are a lot of famously troubled college sports programs out there, the majority of them football teams. Most of America knows that the Florida State Seminoles team, in its heyday, was once called the CrimiNoles; there isn’t a shop owner on the panhandle who wouldn’t move his finger toward the alarm button if he saw an FSU player drifting through his aisles. There were the problems with the University of Miami football team, and Maurice Clarett helped shine a light on a similar record of iniquity in the Ohio State Buckeye football program.

There are, however, some college basketball teams that have legacies of their own that are no less striking. Perhaps chief among those is the University of Memphis hoops squad, a group that has always had a reputation for, shall we say, generous academic standards, as well as a touchingly high degree of tolerance for talented ballplayers with checkered pasts. Over the years, the Memphis Tigers have seen quite a bit of trouble with the law, with some of their players continuing their unfortunate records even after leaving school and making it to the NBA.

What makes Memphis striking is that many of their arrested players are also their most prominent performers, even if their offenses are sometimes minor — as in the case of recently drafted Joey Dorsey, who was hauled in for traffic violations in 2006, or onetime Conference USA player of the year Antonio Burks, who was arrested on a failure-to-appear charge that same year. Now, the school has seen trouble hit their current squad. In fact, the team even appears to have a favorite arrest spot in downtown Memphis — the Plush Club on Beale Street. In 2007, Sean Taggert and Jeff Robinson were arrested for “inciting to riot” after a fight at the bar, and earlier this year junior forward Robert Dozier was arrested for hitting his ex-girlfriend there.

There have been numerous others, of course, but the relevant name this week is a Tiger from the past — Vincent Askew, a star for Memphis who went on to play in the NBA. On August 14, the 43-year-old Askew was arrested on felony charges as he was apparently caught soliciting sex from a 16-year-old girl in Florida. Askew, who was interviewing for a coaching job at a high school in the Miami suburb of Pinecrest, had told the girl he was recruiting players for the team. Apparently he did this bit of recruiting in a hotel room, naked.

Olympian anti-heroes

MATT TAIBBI — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:57:11 GMT

Sports blotter: Olympic edition
Greetings, Olympic sports fans!

Greetings, Olympic sports fans! You are out there, aren’t you? NBC Universal sure hopes you are. Because if you aren’t, and you decide to spend the next three weeks watching anything except the hammer-throw quarterfinals, heat six of the women’s 4-x-400 relay, and profiles of the Hungarian dressage team, there are going to be some TV executives committing suicide. Well, assisted suicide, maybe. If you’re a Nielsen viewer, there might even be a camera in your house — and if it catches you switching to Greatest American Dog during the trampoline semifinal, an animatronic chain will yank a pin from a grenade crammed in the mouth of whichever NBC marketing executive promised a 17 share to the suits upstairs at 30 Rock.

Beijing 2008: Special issue: China, Tibet, and the Olympics

So, lives are in your hands. No one is telling you what to do, but think twice before you turn on Don’t Forget the Lyrics!, or any other non-Olympic programming for that matter, next week. Besides, it’s not like the Olympics are completely boring. True, the actual sporting competitions have lately taken a back seat, drama-wise, to the question of whether terrorists will strike during the Games, or whether the budget can be managed by the IOC without two dollars out of every three ending up in mysterious accounts in Antigua, or whether Chinese guards will bayonet free-Tibet protesters along the torch route, or, indeed, whether NBC will be felled by yet another disappointing ratings showing. But that’s not to say the athletes aren’t providing some sordid entertainment themselves.In fact, just like regular athletes, Olympians frequently rack up ugly arrests. Who can forget these anti-heroes of sports-crime?

The lover’s lane rapist
This was a recent one, actually. Alvin Henry was a one-time Olympic sprinter, a New Yorker who ran for Trinidad and Tobago. He went to the 2000 Olympics in Sydney on the T&T 4-x-100 team, but never actually ran in the Games. He returned to America, however, and did some running there. This past month, Henry was arrested 16 days after a rape in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, when the victim identified him while riding around the park with police. Henry had allegedly raped the woman at gunpoint and was a suspect in numerous other sexual assaults dating back to 2003. The unknown serial rapist had been called the “Lover’s Lane Rapist” because he frequently targeted women he had seen having sex with their boyfriends in the park — he told one of the victims he had taped her in the act. “I knew something wasn’t right with him,” Henry’s cousin told New York papers.

Chicks who kick

NEELY STEINBERG — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 20:46:17 GMT

The other kind of Celtic dance
I’ll admit that cheerleading teams have always irked me.

Return of the U

MATT TAIBBI — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 21:35:09 GMT

Sports blotter: "Plant City, indeed" edition
Remember the days when the University of Miami dominated college football?

’Canes blowing again
Remember the days when the University of Miami dominated college football? For a four- or five-year stretch there, there was “The U,” and there was everyone else. They racked up ungodly numbers and had other teams beaten and humiliated before the season even began.

And that was just in the sports-crime department. In the days when Miami was almost always a lock to be the preseason number-one team, when 59-0 ass-whippings of top-20 opponents were nothing to write home about (are you listening, Syracuse?), and coaches like Butch Davis and Larry Coker each year flooded the NFL with skill-position stars on both sides of the ball, the U was also racking up arrests with the best of them.

The school was constantly in trouble for one reason or another: if it wasn’t a Pell Grant scam that cost the program more than 30 scholarships over three years, it was promising linebackers James Burgess and Jammi German getting rung up on battery charges, or star cornerback Antrel Rolle getting busted in a bar fight, or all-world recruit Willie Williams setting the unofficial sports arrest record before even arriving on campus.

Then came a pair of school-wide humiliations: the notorious “7th Floor Crew” incident (in which a group of U players recorded a controversial, more-than-unusually-lewd rap song) and the celebrated on-field brawl with Florida International. During these past few years, Miami has fallen in the college rankings, while its arrest rate appears to have fallen off too. That is, until now.

This past week, former Miami quarterback Kenny Kelly — the architect of the Canes’ 9-4 campaign in 1999, in which they beat Georgia Tech in the Gator Bowl — was busted on felony drug charges. Kelly was nailed for possession of marijuana of more than 20 grams, and purchase and solicitation to deliver marijuana.

Kelly actually represents the marriage of two different sports-crime institutions, as he dropped out of football following Miami’s 1999 season to pursue a professional baseball career in the minor-league system of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, at one time the arrest leaders of the baseball world. Kelly made it to the bigs briefly in two separate runs — once in 2000, and once in 2005, playing sparingly for the Rays, Reds, and Nats. His best year was in 2005, when he went 3-for-9 for the Reds. Those three hits helped lift his career batting average to .286, which is likely where it will stay, now that he appears to have washed out of pro sports. At the time of his arrest this past week, Kelly was a quarterbacks coach for Plant City High in Florida.

Fight club

JONATHAN SEITZ — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:03:28 GMT

Why Bostonians can’t get their smackdown fix
It’s Saturday night and I’m looking for a fight.

Quentin "Rampage" Jackson

It’s Saturday night and I’m looking for a fight. More specifically, I’m looking for the UFC86 pay-per-view, a July 5 Mixed Martial Arts showdown between light-heavyweight champion Quentin “Rampage” Jackson and up-and-comer Forrest Griffin, but it doesn’t seem to be on anywhere. What’s it take to see someone get their ass kicked around here?

The UFC will occasionally broadcast one of its fights on cable — usually on Spike — but most of its live fights are offered exclusively on PPV. While you can purchase those fights from your cable or satellite service for about $45, bars offer an opportunity to see the action at a cheaper price ($5–10 covers are the norm), as well as a group experience that you don’t get with your couch and a bag of Doritos.

For a time, UFC PPV events were shown regularly at Hooters in Boston and at the Good Time Emporium in Somerville. Unfortunately for MMA fans (as well as admirers of skimpy orange short shorts), the Hooters went of business this past year, while the Good Time Emporium’s lease ran out at the end of June. Some bars, like the Sports Depot in Allston, do still occasionally host fights for a $5 cover, but of the scant five locations in Massachusetts that showed UFC86 (according to a list on the UFC Web site), the closest one to Boston was in Malden.

Unlike residential PPV sales, a bar wishing to broadcast a UFC production must deal with Joe Hand Promotions, which handles all commercial UFC sales in the US. A contract with Joe Hand, which provides the right to show the fight as well as materials to promote it, ranges anywhere from around $1000 for most bars, to upward of $10,000 for casinos and other large establishments. Most charge a cover to make up the cost, but even then, some can’t handle that kind of up-front commitment for a fight that takes place on a Saturday.

The fights tend to sell better in suburban areas, rather than in big cities, says Hand. “People aren’t going to sit in a bar [on a Saturday] to watch a sporting event. It’s more of a date night, or a movie night.”

That makes sense. At the Dockside, located near the end of the Orange Line in Malden, UFC events are shown monthly and the crowds have always come out, says manager Larry Dennehy. Even on the barbecue-and-road-trip-heavy Fourth of July weekend, UFC86 actually had the Dockside filled almost to capacity.

Bad times for kickers

MATT TAIBBI — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:05:50 GMT

Sports blotter: "Not so high on the hog" edition
Here’s a depressing-ass story that tells you everything you need to know about the life of a retired mediocre athlete.

Snap judgment
Here’s a depressing-ass story that tells you everything you need to know about the life of a retired mediocre athlete. Anyone out there remember Tony Zendejas? So-so kicker for the Rams, Oilers, Falcons, and Niners in the ’80s and ’90s, once went 17-for-17 in a season. Now 48 years old, he owns a sports bar in Los Angeles County. And he was arrested for rape this past week.

It seems some woman came into Zendejas’s bar back in January, drank a cocktail he handed her, then woke up groggy and sore in a motel some time later. She talked, cops investigated, and this past week Zendejas was charged with one count each of rape by use of drugs, rape of an unconscious person, sodomy by anesthesia or controlled substance, and sodomy of an unconscious victim.

It’s been an ugly few years for NFL kickers, especially ex–Rams kickers. In June 2007, former Rams punter Rick Tuten was busted for dealing hot flat-screen TVs in Ocala, Florida. It turns out Tuten was buying stolen goods, particularly electronics and recreational vehicles, and reselling them.

Zendejas faces up to 15 years if a jury ends up serving him the whole meal. And he’ll deserve it, too. Give him 90 points minimum — plus an extra five for being a kicker.

Chop chop chop
Jacksonville Jaguar Matt Jones represents one of those ideas that never felt quite right. Sure, there have been plenty of athletic college quarterbacks drafted by canny NFL teams who subsequently converted them into quality wideouts. Hines Ward and Antwaan Randle El come to mind, as does Drew Bennett. Even Seneca Wallace is okay. All those guys had one thing in common, though — they were lowish draft picks. Nobody picked them in the first round and gave them huge money to play a position they had never played before at any level above high school. Nobody was crazy enough to do that.

But they did it for Matt Jones, an oversize good ol’ boy who broke the SEC record for career QB rushing yards while at Arkansas. Jones stood 6-6 and had 4.4 speed — not to mention the silliest white-man hair on an NFL draftee since Brian Bosworth. NFL GMs drooled over him as the future white-trash version of Randy Moss, but Moss could catch a football and actually run routes. Jones was just sort of big and could run fast in a straight line. And, as it turns out, blow coke in the offseason.

Lemon laws

MATT TAIBBI — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:53:22 GMT

Sports blotter: "Go Dawgs" edition
The University of Georgia Bulldogs football team has a fun fall to look forward to.

LEMON TO LEMONADE: University of Georgia D-lineman Michael Lemon became the seventh Bulldog to be arrested this offseason. But, hey, they’ll still likely manhandle the SEC this fall.

Gone to the Dawgs
The University of Georgia Bulldogs football team has a fun fall to look forward to — it’ll probably be the number-one team in the polls when the season kicks off, and may very well manhandle the SEC this year. But the 2008 campaign is getting off to an inauspicious beginning, thanks to a series of arrests.

Most recently, the school took a hit with the arrest of defensive lineman Michael Lemon, a strongside end from Stratford Academy in Macon who was expected to be a rotation player this year. Lemon was arrested and charged with two counts of battery, one of them a felony, in connection with a campus fight that took place in Athens on June 28.

In that incident, Lemon allegedly broke the eye orbit of his victim, a UGA student named DeMarius Jackson. Georgia suspended Lemon from the team indefinitely as a result — the second such transaction coach Mark Richt had to pull this past week. Offensive lineman Clint Boling, who was busted earlier in the spring for a DUI, was given a two-game suspension.

But that wasn’t the only off-the-field news involving UGA football this week. Police also announced that they were dropping charges against yet another defensive end, Jeremy Lomax, who had been arrested for carrying a concealed weapon and speeding in June.

Lemon is the seventh Bulldog arrested this offseason, following offensive guard Justin Anderson (simple battery), defensive back Donovan Baldwin (DUI), fullback Fred Munzenmaier (underage possession of alcohol), and offensive tackle Trinton Sturdivant (simple battery), as well as Boling and Lomax. Despite the spate of arrests, Richt doesn’t think his team has a problem, telling reporters that the amount of effort his club is putting in in the weight room is a testament to its superior character.

“I’m extremely excited about what the vast majority of our team has been doing on a daily basis this summer,” Richt said.

Meanwhile, across campus . . . it seems that the school’s basketball squad is also having its problems. Senior Bulldog guard Billy Humphrey, Georgia’s second-leading scorer in 2007–’08, was kicked off the team after being arrested for a DUI, his third bust in 18 months. Humphrey had already been on probation as a result of an alcohol-related arrest and for the seemingly silly charge of having a butterfly knife in his room (the latter charge he shared with teammate/roommate Mike Mercer, who was kicked off the team this past season).

Collective effort

NEELY STEINBERG — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:04:01 GMT

So what happens next?
Making money watching Tom Brady? Sign me up!

PUNT? Professor Thomas Malone (standing) coaches CCI student researcher Jason Carver through the first quarter of play.

Making money watching Tom Brady? Sign me up!

That’s what I thought to myself, after seeing a June Craigslist post entitled “MIT will PAY you to watch football.”

“Think you know something about football?” the ad said. “Then come to our lab, watch a game, and see how well you can predict what the teams will do.”

The invitation was issued by MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI), whose broadest mission is to conduct research on how new communications technologies are changing the way people work together. CCI is the first university-based research center in the United States to focus specifically on the study of collective intelligence, a bafflingly oblique discipline that studies, among other things, how people think and function en masse toward a common result. Understanding those dynamics can help you to predict everything from elections to Wall Street trends.

The theoretical forecast models used by collective-intelligence experts are sometimes called “prediction markets” — a set of algorithms, for example, based on past performance, by which a computer might predict air-travel volume. (In nearly every election when they’ve been used, prediction markets have been more accurate than polls.)

But people sometimes know things algorithms don’t. A computer might have predicted accurate air-passenger stats for September 9, 2001, but would have failed miserably, using the same prediction market, a week later. Meanwhile, any fool with a heartbeat could have easily foreseen a major decrease.

But what’s that have to do with football?

The core research question in CCI’s football experiment seeks to answer how people and computers can join forces so that, collectively, they act more intelligently than any person, group, or computer has ever done before.

Those taking part in the MIT experiment watch a video of a college football game (no Tom, to my dismay), which researchers periodically pause so that subjects can participate in a prediction market to forecast the next play. In addition to people, computer “agents” (developed by wiz-kid Jason Carver as part of his master’s thesis) also participate, basing their predictions on previously transcribed data about identical game conditions (e.g., first down, 10 yards to go, etc.) and simple rules for determining what a football team is likely to do in different situations.

Caged cat

MATT TAIBBI — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:27:14 GMT

Sports blotter: The end of Chris Henry . . . or is it?
“Sports Blotter” fans are already well-versed in the career of former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry.

More Bengal fun
“Sports Blotter” fans are already well-versed in the career of former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry. He’s one of the most diverse sports-crime performers in the land, and one of the very few to have scored the rare Grand Slam of sports offenses: gun, weed, DUI, and underage booty. Still, mundane as it may be, this latest incident can’t go without comment — it’s just too much fun.

The once-promising deep threat, who was kicked off the Bengals earlier this year in the wake of still more legal problems, is facing an assault charge for allegedly punching a man in the face and throwing a bottle through his windshield. Amusingly, Henry’s defense in that case is that it was a matter of mistaken identity — he thought the victim was somebody who owed him money.

Anyway, when Henry showed up at court for juror selection this past week, more hilarity ensued — his SUV was repossessed! Or, rather, it almost was. Henry’s a bit behind on payments, apparently, but since he parked in a private lot, the lot’s owner kicked the tow truck off his property before they could rip Henry’s ride.

Henry subsequently told Cincinnati reporters that the incident was a “misunderstanding.”

Incidentally, anyone who’s followed Henry’s arrest history will notice that perhaps no athlete in recent times has been unluckier — according to him, that is. Henry was accused of a sexual assault in 2006, but when he maintained his innocence, police dismissed the case and considered filing charges against the victim for submitting a false police report. He squeezed out of a DUI some months later when the police breathalyzer used in his arrest was found to be faulty. Henry would later reportedly fail a court-mandated drug test (he allegedly tested positive for opiate use), only to have the state of Kentucky reverse the finding. Then, in June 2007, he and then-teammate Reggie McNeal were accused of beating up a 16 year old in Florence, Kentucky — but police couldn’t find any corroborating evidence and that charge, too, was dismissed.

They were probably all misunderstandings. Why not? Who says a guy can’t get unlucky 10 or 11 times? “Presumption of Innocence” might as well be on his business cards.

New Mexico

MATT TAIBBI — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:04:50 GMT

Sports blotter: "Marcus Vick and more" edition
According to news reports, Lavender was drunk and disorderly on the streets of Cincinnati on April 6 when cops asked him several times to move away from an intersection.

Marcus Vick

Early candidate . . .
For the Dumbass of the Year award, that is. The nomination goes to Xavier point guard Drew Lavender, who this past week had his trial postponed for a priceless offense that I somehow missed back in April. If you watched the NCAA tournament this year, you probably remember this guy — he’s the gritty 5-7 guard who helped Xavier make it all the way to the West Regional final. Lavender is a real pest on defense; it’s just too bad he isn’t that bright.

According to news reports, Lavender was drunk and disorderly on the streets of Cincinnati on April 6 when cops asked him several times to move away from an intersection. Lavender “refused until apprehension,” at which point he was searched. When searched — you guessed it — he was holding a bag of tree. Cops then hit him with the more serious possession charge. Note to jocks: when carrying illegal drugs, if police ask you to walk away from them, do it! Standing your ground and arguing with them, to the point where they start shoving hands in your pockets, is probably not your best strategy.

Lavender’s attorney is filing a motion to suppress this week, so the case is put off for now. In the meantime, give him 23 points: one for the actual marijuana offense, five for the D&D, and 17 idiot points. And if he gets convicted, I’m adding 10 more of those.

Speaking of dumb . . .
Quick Vick family update: they were in the news again this past week, only this time it wasn’t Michael but baby brother Marcus. The younger ex–Virginia Tech star has already bounced out of the NFL for a) sucking and b) repeated off-field transgressions. But he still had time to get his act together and make another run at the Show. That isn’t looking particularly likely now, after he was arrested yet again, this time for charges of DUI, misdemeanor eluding police, reckless driving, driving on the wrong side of the road, and driving on a suspended license. A bicycle cop in Virginia saw Vick involved in an “altercation” with a young woman, and when he tried to intervene, Vick sped away, forcing cops into a short chase. He was eventually caught and slapped with the various charges.

Gimme some truth

JAMES PARKER — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 20:39:59 GMT

In praise of Ultimate Fighting
Can it be a coincidence, I ask rhetorically, that we have all of a sudden become very interested in watching highly trained men smack the shit out of each other?

VIDEO: Kimbo Slice vs. Sean Gannon

Judgment night for Doomsday: Roxbury-born fighter John Howard is climbing the ranks of mixed martial arts, one chokehold at a time. By Jonathan Seitz.

If America were a prescription medication, the TV spot would go something like this: a 70-year-old man running down the beach pulling a kite imprinted with the word ASS. A small child at the wheel of an SUV, his sandaled feet dangling over the pedals and a can of Red Bull in his hand. A Dalmatian puppy, expectant-eyed, barking joyfully into its cell-phone headset. Soaring hosannas of lite metal, and then the slogan: America. Because your comfort means everything. Finally, as the imagery climaxes with a montage of lake views, skydivers, apple blossoms, and smiling post-coital women, a low voice, talking very fast: “America is not for everybody. If you have a strong commitment to reality, ask your doctor before taking America. Possible side effects of America include: road rage, depersonalization, free-floating anxiety, compulsive blogging, gas, hives, and addiction to Internet pornography.”

This is a dangerous year for America. Next year will be worse. But look at us — spaced out by the everyday, lightheaded with triviality. Can it be a coincidence, I ask rhetorically, that we have all of a sudden become very interested in watching highly trained men smack the shit out of each other? In choke-outs, elbow strikes, and roundhouse kicks to the head? Behold the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Octagon — the caged canvas, with blood spatters by Jackson Pollock, around which bazillions of Spike TV viewers are ringed in distantly baying terraces like a coliseum made of bong smoke. Is this the temple of the end? I say no. There are those who will tell you that Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), or Ultimate Fighting, is a symptom of imperial decline — Jessica Simpson on steroids. I tell you that, far from being a symptom, it is the beginnings of an antidote.

Judgment night for Doomsday

JONATHAN SEITZ — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:31:27 GMT

Roxbury-born fighter John Howard is climbing the ranks of mixed martial arts, one chokehold at a time
Two men circle the middle of a 24-foot-wide, black chain-link cage in Allston’s Wai Kru gym.

Gimme some truth: In praise of Ultimate Fighting. By James Parker.

Two men circle the middle of a 24-foot-wide, black chain-link cage in Allston’s Wai Kru gym. One is holding up a set of pads, while the other attacks him from every possible angle, not just pounding punches, but also kicking with his feet, jabbing with his knees, throwing his elbows. The attacker is named Doomsday, and though he is unleashing a furious assault, his face remains a luchador’s mask of serenity.

Sure, it’s just a twilight training session — Doomsday’s second of the day in his grueling regimen — but the good-looking grappler is such a dynamic force that even a workout commands attention from onlookers. John Allan, Doomsday’s manager and trainer, as well as the owner of the gym, prowls around the two combatants like a free-floating electron. Every few seconds he screams out a direction — “High knees!”; “Punches!”; “Sprawl!” — and Doomsday follows, sending a staccato series of slaps, pops, and slams that reverberate off the low ceilings of the gym and die only when they hit the wrestling mats on the floor. There are a dozen or so people in the gym for a wrestling class, but all their eyes are on Doomsday.

After two and a half rounds of training, the fighters leave the cage. Allan straps a tow rope to his charge’s waist and hands the other end to the sparring partner, who tries to hold the fighter back as he lumbers across the mats. “Still fighting, still fighting, still fighting . . .” chants Doomsday, barely audible from exhaustion. He finishes his last rep and crashes to the floor. For a few minutes, he lays motionless, breathing hard, drenched in sweat.

Then he gets up for more.

John “Doomsday” Howard is a 25-year-old Boston-born Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter. During his four-year career, he has accumulated a 9-3 record, with his two most recent wins coming after he dropped from 185 pounds to the 170-pound welterweight class. One of those fights was a trial for the International Fight League, which he won in dramatic fashion. His next challenge, a fight for the Ring of Combat welterweight title, takes place this week, on June 27, in Atlantic City. While MMA is bogged down by the confusing number of competing organizations that govern it, Doomsday remains Boston’s brightest hope in a brutal sport that, of late, has earned unprecedented levels of attention.

VIDEO: Throw some C's on it

PHOENIX STAFF — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:11:21 GMT

2008 NBA Champion Boston Celtics celebrate

Streetball spectacle

NEELY STEINBERG — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:28:37 GMT

The other end of the court

STREETBALLER Astro launches for a dunk while PG-13 confirms

This past Saturday, while Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and Ray Allen were practicing their jump shots at the Staples Center in La-La land, in the opposite corner of the country, albeit at a less glamorous venue and without a movie star in sight, PG-13, Astro, 4-D, and a bevy of other renowned streetballers gathered at Durfee High School in Fall River for the second game of the 2008 Celebrity Streetball Remix Tour.

The Durfee High gym is a substantially smaller venue compared with UMass-Amherst’s 10,000-seat Mullins Center, where the Tour held its first event, in December. That show featured such crowd-pleasers as Special FX, recent winner of the Shaq/Slam Dunkman contest, as well as acclaimed streetball player and ESPN darling The Professor. At that gathering, streetballers were pitted against former UMass players; at the June 14 showdown in Fall River, streetballers went head-to-head with each other, playing the first half of the game “for show” and the second half “for real.”

Streetball, a commercial outgrowth of the urban pick-up-hoop scene, is characterized by comedic stunts and acrobatic slam-dunks. Aside from entertainment value, one of the genre’s primary tenets is philanthropic giving, whether it’s donating money to the communities where events are held, or visiting local YMCAs and community centers with messages of hope and positivity. The Durfee High match-up featured former players from the AND1 Mixtape Tour and the Ball4Real Tour — nationally recognized streetball teams (both have been featured on ESPN’s Streetball reality series) that travel from town to town, playing in either exhibition matches or competitively against local talent. Sweetening the court were some current athletes from iKeepItLocal, an elite group of young freelance streetball players who hire themselves out to promoters hosting competitions or tours.

Not that I’m a basketball aficionado or even really qualified to comment on hoop talent, but it should be evident to even the most neophyte fan that the skills these athletes possess are mind-bogglingly impressive, on par perhaps with the masters of on-court chicanery, the Harlem Globetrotters. In fact, the fabled team from 125th Street might want to carve out some spots on its roster for a few of the Remix Tour’s players.

More from Tyson

MATT TAIBBI — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 19:55:28 GMT

Sports blotter: "Yikes" edition
One of the things about being a non–Pacific Islander guy with a giant tribal tattoo on your face is that people are forever questioning your judgment.

MAD MIKE: He’s been called a hit man in the ring, but now a witness has testified that Mike Tyson put up money to order revenge killings of two New York drug lords.

Cash money witness
One of the things about being a non–Pacific Islander guy with a giant tribal tattoo on your face is that people are forever questioning your judgment. In that sense, it’s hard not to sympathize with Mike Tyson. Ever since he stopped whupping ass in the ring — which by now feels like about 40 years ago — Tyson’s been in a constant race to keep his reputation from plummeting through the floor. His civilian career has been filled with drugs, violence, and other lowlights, but the worst of all might be happening just now.

In a very weird twist of fate, Tyson was named by a witness in the trial of Brooklyn mobster Abubakr Raheem as a conspirator in a murder plot to execute a pair of well-known drug lords — Damion “World” Hardy and Edward “Taz” Cooke, heads of the so-called Cash Money Brothers gang. If that name sounds familiar to you, it’s because the gang stole it from the Wesley Snipes hood film New Jack City.

This is a confusing story, but the outline of it goes something like this: Tyson was upset about the shooting death of Darryl “Homicide” Baum, who had been Tyson’s bodyguard in 2000. Baum was shot two weeks before Tyson beat up eternal tomato can Lou Savarese; when Tyson won that fight, he dedicated it to Baum. It was Baum, however, who allegedly shot rapper 50 Cent nine times about a month before Baum was killed — and when Baum was killed, Fitty wasted no time gloating over his death (“I put a hole in a nigga for fucking with me/ . . . He got hit like I got hit, but he ain’t fucking breathing”).

Now, the upshot of all of this is that it was allegedly the CMB who ordered the hit on Baum. This reportedly irked Tyson, who — according to a witness named Dwayne Meyers — put up $50,000 as part of a bounty on Cooke and Hardy. According to Meyers, Tyson was joined in pitching in to the pot by Muhammad Nur, another noted gangland figure and fellow friend of Baum’s. When asked why Tyson would put out the money for a hit on “Taz” and “World,” Meyers said, “He was close friends with ‘Homicide.’ ”