Undead Earl Woods does not approve

By now you have all seen the bizarre venture into uber-creepiness that is the new Tiger Woods commercial in which he stares into the camera while being questioned by a voiceover of his disappointed and apparently recently exhumed father. While we can all sit back and judge whether or not Tiger and Nike are wrong for exploiting the words of the golfer's late father, one thing is abundantly clear, poor morals just don't fly with Tiger's pappy. So in a sports world so rife with depravity, we can't help but wonder who else zombie Earl Woods would like to give a good, stern talking to...

BEN ROETHLISBERGER

"Ben, I am more prone to be inquisitive, to promote discussion. Are you sure forcefully groping women at every bar in the continental United States is the best follow up act to your 2009 Super Bowl victory? It seems to me that while you have not been charged with any crimes, you clearly are what some might call 'a bit handsy.' Regardless of the degree of your incidents or even of any guilt, you have officially replaced Kobe Bryant as the punchline in every athlete/sexual assault joke. I have also seen several mock Steelers #7 jerseys that read 'Rapelisberger,' 'Roethlisrapist,' and even the unoriginal but surprisingly amusing 'Rapey Raperson.' So my advice to you Ben, is to stop treating local watering holes like your own personal pap smear mobile and quit while you are marginally ahead."

CHAN HO PARK

"Mr. Ho Park.. or Park. Wait, is it Park or Ho Park? Whatever. Anyway, I am more prone to be inquisitive, to promote discussion in order to uncover the mystery of why you chose to share your bowel issues with the media at large. Now I can see that whether it was your less than stellar outing or your game worn underpants, runs were an issue that day. However, I would like to extend to you the friendly suggestion of avoiding using a grisly case of diarrhea as part of any on-camera explanation. Sure, we have all been there. I've dealt with the Hershey Squirts. I've endured the green apple splatters. I've even fought off the vicious fudge dragon from the fiery depths of ballon-knot canyon, but personally sir, well I keep it to myself. So the next time a physical ailment hinders your performance on the mound, why not just call it a rough day and spare the world an unnecessary look into your own private poo-poo platter."

NY JETS

"I am more prone to be inquisitive, to promote discussion, because I want to understand why exactly you're snatching up the league's most morally debased players like hot cakes. Is it the pressure to live up to the riveting 2008 edition of HBO's Hard Knocks? Because let me tell you, that's just not going to happen. Did you see that season? That's just plain good television. Anyway, despite the possibility of solid cable programming, I simply cannot understand the motivation behind the signings you have made. Is it the hope that signing Antonio Cromartie will get you a head start on the athletic crop that is his small army of illegitimate children? Or is it the possibility that adding Santonio Holmes lands you a player willing to throw a glass in the face of a referee after a blown call? And most perplexing of all, why then did you sign good guy LaDainian Tomlinson? Was O.J. Simpson not available for your 3rd down back slot? In the end all I can say is this, you had better win. Because if you send out a bunch of amoral jackasses and still lose... well then you're just the Washington Wizards, and nobody wants that."

The BALLS that must've took

Here at Errant Balls we admire few things more than a big giant set of balls (metaphorically speaking of course), and this week in sports was a true testament to epic ballery. Between carry-on firearms, facing the media to apologize for slinging more bologna than Oscar Meyer, trading franchise players to in-division rivals, and everything else that went down it was hard to even keep up with all of the balls going around. Not for a lack of trying though, so here's a nice little recap of this week in "the BALLS that must've took!"

"Sir, are you positive you wouldn't prefer to check this bag?"

Hats off to Cleveland Browns defensive tackle Shaun Rogers who had the gumption... no the audacity... nay, the straight up BALLS to carry a cocked and loaded handgun in his carry on bag at Hopkins International Airport.

Shaun, in this case, honesty is the best policy. In the dangerous and unpredictable world we live in a bit of paranoia and caution is understandable. I doubt anyone would be complaining about your weapon if there were hijackers, or God forbid snakes on that plane. So our advice is this, if you're going to lie about why you had the gun, don't say you "forgot" you had it. Refer to the Dave Chappelle rule of thumb here and just go with a good old "I'm sorry officer... I, I didn't know I couldn't do that."

"I just want to apologize to my colleagues for having to answer so many questions about my wayward penis."

A round of applause is due to Tiger Woods who sat himself and his giant balls down at Augusta and offered a rousing "my bad" to the media on hand. In the face of an upcoming weekend sure to be filled with vicious sniping and heckling from the notoriously unruly Masters crowd ("Your lack of ethics and integrity may have permanently damaged your large-scale marketability... ya JACKASS!"), Tiger stepped up to the podium and performed admirably.

After what can only be described as one of the most epic wiener-romps the world has ever seen, it can't be easy to admit that "yeah, maybe I shouldn't have done that." Well really Tiger what you shouldn't have done is gotten married. Look at Derek Jeter, he's thrown more junk than the NYC sanitation department and he's on pace to be the next mayor, but I suppose that's neither here nor there. So in the end, we offer a golf clap to you and your balls for facing the filthy, filthy music.

"We can't let Kevin Kolb rot on the bench forever, he could be the next Koy Detmer!"

Congrats to the Philadelphia Eagles brass, whose collective balls are are so incalculably enormous they couldn't even see around them when they accidentally traded their franchise quarterback to an in-division rival. I'll admit though, on some level you have to admire the nonchalant attitude of "Sure he took us to five NFC championships and a Super Bowl, but f*ck it. Washington, you take 'em."

Of course, only time will tell if this was a genius move or an epic failure driven by men blinded by their own uncontrollably huge balls, but suffice it to say that it is not exactly common practice to hand a rival your best player. In any case, bravo to the Eagles for sacking up and throwing caution (and reason) to the wind. And in the mean time, I'll just assume this was a foregone conclusion once you found out Donovan McNabb didn't know you could tie in football.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

- Butler Bulldog Gordon Hayward, who despite looking like a 6'8" version of Encyclopedia Brown, had the onions to take two game-winning shot attempts that narrowly missed.

- The CBS execs that decided to have former American Idol contestant Jennifer Hudson sing this year's version of "One Shining Moment." Traditionally performed by the now departed Luther Vandross, it took some real balls on CBS's part to switch the artist in spite of the obvious likelihood of a smooth rhythm and blues haunting from Big L himself.

- Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Mark Buerhle, for disregarding the strong possibility of smacking himself in his own tremendous beans with his glove and in turn, locking up the ESPY for Play of the Year on opening day.

Ten Bold Predictions for the 2010 MLB Season

After a lengthy hiatus that included a bit of experimenting with hallucinogenics and a trip to Tibet to really "find themselves," your Errant Balls are making their triumphant return stateside just in time for the start of 2010 baseball. And, in keeping with the proud and rich tradition of this haphazardly put together, grammatically reckless and brazenly fruitless blog, we're here to bring you our annual edition of bold predictions for Major League Baseball!

- Slugger Alex Rodriguez will once again have a statistically magical season and playoff run fueled by a golden-haired muse. This year... Macaulay Culkin.

- Prince Fielder will establish himself as the Chad Ochocinco of MLB, one-upping his controversial 2009 home run celebration by slugging a beer whilst smoking a cigarette as he rounds the bases.

-Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington will earn himself a five game suspension for trying to snort

the chalk foul line on his way to an early season mound visit.

- Off-season acquisition Melky Cabrera will lighten the overall mood of the Atlanta Braves, showing teammates how to pass time in the dugout by cheering jubilantly and chewing paper cups.

- Often fickle Dodgers outfielder Manny Ramirez will continue his annual tradition of demanding a mid-season trade, this time pointing to his preferred destinations as the San Francisco Quakes from the 1991 NES hit Roger Clemens' MVP baseball or the Bad News Bears.

- Tigers 3rd baseman Brandon Inge will land himself an additional $5M thanks to a contract incentive that nets him $100 each time someone refers to him as "scrappy."

- Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen will be contracted by the U.S. government to serve up a tirade so unimaginably profane it will kickstart the nation's ailing economy.

- An investigation will be launched into possible steroid use by Phillies All Star 2nd baseman Chase Utley based on suspicions that the feds will refer to simply as "a mean case of Giambi hair."

- The impending senility of Yankee owner George Steinbrenner will rear its ugly head when in a rare public press conference he refers to new Yankee outfielder Curtis Granderson as "black Derek Jeter."

- At some point, following some inexcusable fielding error somewhere, some guilty player will react by staring at his glove in complete bewilderment as if searching for some kind of obvious structural flaw in the webbing.

Our balls may be errant for some time...

To our throngs of loyal readers (8 people qualifies as a throng right?),

It is with great sadness and very little writing skill that we announce Errant Balls will be on hiatus for some time as the staff (me) focuses on another writing project.

We look forward to a triumphant and marginally heralded return in the spring of 2010... see you then!

- Errant Balls

Yankees-Angels game 4 recap

The Yanks came back strong from their first loss of the postseason and put up 10 on the helpless Angels. But don’t let the score fool you, this game certainly wasn’t lacking in the entertainment department. Here were my favorite moments…

- Scott Kazmir making the decision early on that since he couldn’t find rhythm or consistency, he would just pitch as slow as humanly possible. I see the logic, hoping the ump might get distracted by something in the crowd in his downtime, then in a panic call a strike he didn’t see. The downside though, was that the first four innings of this game ran just under 4 hours.

- 3rd base umpire Tim McClelland beginning his stellar night of complete ineptitude by calling Nick Swisher out for leaving early on a tag up in which he clearly had not. Though to be fair, maybe McClelland was just setting the world right being that Swisher had been called safe on a pick off at second moments earlier, when he was clearly out and should not even still have been on the base paths. In any case, umpiring has reached the summit of Mount Useless this postseason.

- Tex finally picks up a hit, then A-Rod drives him in with yet another home run. Following the game a jubilant Rodriguez would slap Reggie Jackson and demand he hand over the rights to the Mr. October monicker.

- Jorge Posada somehow advancing only from second to third on Robbie Cano’s booming double to center field. Although Torii Hunter did pull out the old school “pretend to catch it when it’s twenty feet over your head” move in center field, I see that one showing up on the next And 1 Mixtape.

- After getting a fresh coat of white-out put on his finger nails in the dugout, Jorge Posada swipes them under Nick Swisher’s nose causing the outfielder to pop up in his seat. Have we just discovered the secret to Nick Swisher’s happy-go-lucky “high on life” attitude?

- Perhaps setting the bar for most retarded 30 seconds in playoff history, Posada and Cano find themselves both at third and in a moment of epic stupidity, decide neither of them should go back to the bag as Angels catcher Mike Napoli tags them out. But hold the phone, who’s the 3rd base umpire? Tim McClelland, who only calls Posada out because that crafty Cano just put his foot on the bag and acted nonchalant, and that was more than enough to convince McClelland he’d been there the whole time. Playoff umpires… best of the best.

- Kendry Morales absolutely blasts a neck high Sabathia fastball into center to start off CC’s first tough inning, prompting Tim McCarver to temporarily back off his theory that Sabathia could pitch 80 more innings if necessary.

- A dominating 7th inning by Sabathia has McCarver and Joe Buck not even talking about the game, but rather sharing stories that explain why CC is not only an amazing pitcher, but possibly the greatest man alive. In commentator terms, this is the baseball equivalent to “Favre-ing” someone.

- A-Rod adds a single and another run for good measure. Anyone else starting to think Kate Hudson has a detailed ’stats-to-sexual favors’ formula that has Alex filling up the box scores?

- Chad Gaudin is inserted in the 9th inning to close it out in the Yankees’ “sorry we haven’t used you in 127 innings” moment.

- McCarver and Buck point out that it is the 99th birthday of the voice of Yankee Stadium Bob Sheppard, saying he is affectionately known around the old stadium as the “voice of God.” Seems a bit overdone, but in all fairness Sheppard was hanging out with God back when everyone just called him “Jerry.” In all seriousness though a well deserved happy birthday to a man the fans truly miss having around.

- Yankee skipper Joe Girardi reveals that A-Rod and CC will start Thursday's game 5... alone... on short rest........ blindfolded.

- I give all the credit in the world to Pat Sajak, who is still going strong in the 9th and refuses to leave early. The longtime Wheel of Fortune host needed only to buy one vowel to complete his postgame reaction puzzle: S-H—T!

- Gaudin throws his hat in the ring for heir to Mariano’s throne with a 1-2-3 inning. See you in the next complete blowout Chad!

- A final shot in the commentator booth reveals Joe Buck’s oversized head snapping back and dispensing a giant Pez candy for Tim McCarver’s postgame enjoyment.

Ten Bold Predictions for the 2009 NFL Season

After an extended hiatus, your Errant Balls are ready to make their triumphant return. To my loyal readers, I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or displeasure this may have cost the four of you. It was never my intention to alienate my loyal base, but when it comes down to it there are just a few things that can get in the way of blogging mostly drunken, while sometimes slightly humorous weekly articles completely absent of progress or profit. But I digress.

What's important is that Errant Balls is back, and just in time to fill you in on my generally heinous, yet not entirely impossible predictions for the 2009 NFL season... Enjoy!

- The Jets new hotshot rookie quarterback will cost Chris Berman a hefty fine from the FCC when the ESPN host refers to him as Mark "Dirty" Sanchez in his week 3 highlights.

- Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman will avoid further trouble when he explains his little domestic mishap wasn't meant to be a violent act, but was in fact a social commentary on the sad state of today's entertainment industry... then, God willing, he will find Tila Tequila and finish the job.

- In an effort to make light of their reputation for trouble with the law, the Cincinnati Bengals will take a page out of the 1985 Bears book and create a hit rap video known as "The Shawshank Shuffle."

- Raiders owner Al Davis will once again make headlines when he trades Oakland's 2011 and 2012 first round picks to the Patriots for the heart of a ritually sacrificed Himalayan mountain goat.

- The Philadelphia Eagles will enjoy a dominant season thanks to their offseason acquisition of the dynamic Michael Vick, who will run the "Wildcat" offense flawlessly, as though he has already had years of experience as the general in charge of an organized, yet chaotic, animal-centric scheme.

- Rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford will struggle mightily after being handed the keys to run the Detroit Lions. He will avoid harsh scrutiny however, when it is pointed out that the Lions were assembled by General Motors.

- The Colts will draw an unusual amount of delay of game penalties, when super pitchman Peyton Manning tries to maximize his profits by squeezing live endorsements in between audibles at the line of scrimmage.

- Much maligned Tennessee Titan Vince Young's mental stability and quarterbacking ability will once again be called into question when he throws himself off a highway overpass, only to be intercepted by a pickup truck full of packing peanuts passing below.

- Cowboys owner Jerry Jones will suffer his second public embarrassment in the new Cowboy Stadium, when a week six shot of him on his tremendous, but too-low jumbotron reveals he jots his game notes down in a Hello Kitty spiral notebook.

- The Minnesota Viking's signing of fickle QB Brett Favre will eventually backfire, when a devastated Favre leaves the team at mid-season upon realizing the artificial turf in the Metrodome is completely un-mowable.

Bold MLB predictions for the second half

With baseball's second half officially under way, it's time to start speculation on what we'll be looking back on at year's end.  Who will make an unlikely run to the playoffs?  Who will fall apart?  Whose greasy hair product will cost their team dearly?

Well here at Errant Balls, we say "why wait?"  Sure you can sit back and actually watch the 2009 season play out.  OR, you could put your trust in an unresearched and shoddily put together blog that may or may not be written from a Blackberry while watching the recently released Blockbuster DVD of Watchmen.  Let's just put it this way, one will take a whole lot less time, and isn't that the American way?  

So read on, and believe every word of it, just so we don't have to say "I told you so" in November...

- Following a 5 game losing streak that kills their chances in the Central division, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen will say something so crude in his post game conference, that an appalled Andrew Dice Clay watching at home will faint where he stands.

- The Phillies signing of veteran Pedro Martinez will eventually ruin their chances to repeat as World Series champs, when slugger Ryan Howard is lost for the season after slipping on the excess drippings of Pedro's Soul-Glo in the locker room and severely tearing his ACL.

- Manny Ramirez will again be suspended for violating the terms of the league's substance abuse policies when he tests positive for the birth control pill, Purina Beggin' Strips, and three times the legal limit of Elmer's non-toxic all-purpose paste

- In an unprecedented effort to "boost their farm system," the Pirates will trade infielders Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson, along with the rights to their home stadium PNC Park before the July 31st trade deadline.  The once proud franchise will subsequently be relocated to a suburban Pittsburgh-area high school field for the remainder of the season.

- Orioles manager Dave Trembley will make a sad attempt at alleviating yet another losing season in Baltimore, promising fans at the season's final home game that at the very least he can find them exceptionally low prices on off-season hotels and airfare.

- Previously thought to be on the DL for only a few weeks at most, Mets manager Jerry Manuel will deliver the sad news on August 1st that the team's collective dignity is officially lost for the year and will require off-season surgery.

- After 23 different All-Stars hit the 15-day DL in September, the stock of energy product manufacturer Phiten USA will plummet after it is realized that exposure of 5 months or more to their popular necklaces can cause severe and uncontrollable bouts of diarrhea.  

- The Yankees will play out the remainder of the regular season failing to beat the Red Sox, but will somehow win the division and avoid them in the playoffs en route to winning their 27th World Series.  Hal Steinbrenner will declare the 2009 season an unabashed failure and immediately fire manager Joe Girardi.