Could someone explain to me when it became fashionable for idiots on the radio and television to start calling extra innings "overtime"?

Basketball, football, hockey, soccer, bad minton have "overtime" but baseball DOES NOT!!!

Just like in the movie "League of Their Own" where Tom Hanks said "There's no crying in baseball" someone needs to tell these IDIOTS that there is no overtime in baseball.

Oh Yeah, one more thing.  It isn't HOME BASE either it is HOME PLATE.  Good Lord is anything about the game sacred anymore?

Alright, I'm not the biggest Danica Patrick fan in the world.  But I've seen the video now several times of her and fellow female driver Milka Duno's "confrontation" (I use that term loosely).  All I have to say is if this were real racing (i.e. NASCAR), Duno gets the beat-down of her life.

Other than the fact that Patrick has a history of getting upset, I don't understand the flack she's taking here.  If you know anything about racing, you take one look at the video and you can immediately tell that Patrick is in the right.  Danica pulled up on her, not once, but twice because she had the obviously faster car.  Duno went into the corners and turned down on Patrick.  It's a technique known in racing as "blocking".  And it usually pisses off even the best-of-the-best of drivers.  But in this case, Danica was nice enough to back off the first time it happened in order to keep from wrecking them both.

The second time it occured is when Patrick became angry.  And even when Danica finally made the pass, Duno drove down on her a third time and almost clipped her back wheels.  To compound matters, and what's most egregious, this was PRACTICE!  To borrow our good friend Allen Iverson for a second, "Practice?  You're talking about practice?  Not a game.  But practice?"

That's right Allen, we are talking 'bout practice in this case. 

On top of everything, Danica never even raised her voice when she went to Duno's pits to talk to her, unitl Duno threw a towel in her face.   If that's NASCAR, somebody gets her ass beat right then and there.  And I don't mean Danica.

So to recap:  Duno tries to block Danica, not once, not twice, but three freaking times, in PRACTICE, then throws a towel in Danica's face when confronted about the "bush league" tactic, and Danica comes out the bad guy (or girl, whatever)?  I don't think so.

I was never a fan of NSYNC but I have to give props to Justin Timberlake hosting the 2008 ESPY's last night.  He was brutal on a couple of athletes but I found him spot and and very funny.

Here are some highlights...

1.  Making fun of how much David Beckham has improved the US view of soccer.

2.  Making fun of Paul Pierce's supposed knee injury during the NBA Finals.

3.  Putting his hand up in Mario Chalmers' face to show the Memphis nation how to guard a shooter.

4.  Shooting free throws without looking, hooks, bounces and other ways in which he made it as he slammed Memphis.

5.  Constantly drawing attention to Aaron Rodgers that Favre might be coming back.

6.  Making fun of Eli Manning saying he won a Super Bowl and finally saw a woman naked.  Manning's woman looked rather pissed about the whole thing.

7.  Victoria Beckham either had a stick shoved up her butt all night or too much botox in her lips to show any type of facial expression. 

8.  Danica Patrick looked pissed that she didn't win anything but she is pretty much used to that feeling.  Maybe she should have gone up on stage and thrown a temper tantrum like she did against Milka Duno.

Anyone else have any to add?

With the summer heating up, so are things here at GSI.com as we start our new series, Hottest Athletes (female):

VICTORIA VANUCCI

Date of birth: 14 March 1984 ( 24 years old )
Birth place: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Sport: former tennis player

Bio: Victoria started playing tennis at a very young age. Right after turning professional, however, a shoulder injury suddenly stopped her career. Well, her tennis career.

Luckily (for us) she decided to become a model afterwards, with several appearances on magazines like Maxim and Playboy. Though she no longer plays sports, she still qualifies in our book!!!

Vanucci dates professional tennis player David Nalbandian, also from Argentina. 

MORE PHOTOS 

Things heated up between White Sox and Cubs fans this past weekend:

I think I witnessed two of the stupidest things with regards to sports this weekend and I have to say that I'm dumber for it.

The pre-game to the Euro Cup Finals was without a doubt something only someone high on crack or drunk out of their gord could have come up with.  A bunch of dancing balloons to represent the teams with loser's wearing old fashioned wigs was simply too much to watch.

Second is the show on ESPN where so called manly-men have their dogs chase a mountain lion up a tree and then proceed to shoot the thing.  Talk about having to make up for coming up short in the bedroom.  I mean what kind of sadistic loser does it take to kill a helpless animal that is cornered in a tree?

Our guy Ryan Parker pays tribute to female reporters, especially Fox Sports' Charissa Thompson...

With the off-season leaving both college and football fans alike craving for something to talk about, Yahoo.com recently had a topic that is sure to stir up some coversation as they looked at the coolest football helmets ever. There are no concrete qualifications for this list; it rewards the traditional and the iconic, as well as the goofy and the peculiar.

Interesting enough the Cincinnati Bengals' helmet came in at No. 7 on the All-time coolest list:

Unfortunately for Bengals' fans though is once again they get beat out by the Steelers (No. 1 on the list):

CLICK HERE to see the complete list. 

Adam Bartel wrote a good blog about the Spelling Bee that was covered on ESPN which caused me to wonder if any of the geeks and home schooled bozo's even knew what ESPN stood for let alone a ton of the other acronyms.

I think next year, since ESPN is a sports channel they should have an Acronym event for all of those kids to see if they know what things like;

ESPN

ERA

RBI

LPGA

PGA

NFL

NBA

MLB

YAC

TD

INT

You get the picture.

Otherwise move the event to some Lifetime channel because spelling a word isn't a sport and most of those kids probably haven't talked to the opposite sex unless they were dancing around in their Barney outfits for a post Bee celebration.

There's a Web site that gives well-known facts about Chuck Norris. Here's just one for example: Chuck Norris is suing Myspace for taking the name of what he calls everything around you. Well in honor of the tri-state's very own local legend-in-the-making, Jay Bruce, we should come up with some Jay Bruce facts. It's absolutely ridiculous what Bruce is doing. He just jacked another HR tonight.

Here's my Top Ten Jay Bruce facts...
--The Cincinnati Reds are going to change their name from the Reds to the Bruces to honor Jay Bruce, providing he allows them to do so.
--Curveballs don't break toward Jay Bruce, they break away from him, out of fear of him.
--Jay Bruce doesn't swing his bat. The ball merely flies (FAR) away from him.
--Jay Bruce doesn't steal second. Second base comes to him.
--Jay Bruce doesn't commit errors in the field. Official score keepers know better than to rule any play he touches an error.
--Jay Bruce didn't choose to wear the #32 jersey, the jersey chose to be honored by being worn by Jay Bruce.
--The Reds do not need to rename GABP to honor Jay Bruce because Jay Bruce is already a Great American and it's HIS Ballpark. 
--The warning track is going to have to be renamed because no one warns Jay Bruce without consequences.

--Jay Bruce doesn't have to call "I got it" in the outfield, it's a given that he's going to get it.

 --The Hall of Fame is going to have to close because it's not truly a Hall of Fame until Jay Bruce gets enshrined.

Back in 1984, I got invited to participate in the school spelling bee, which was a pre-qualifying tournament for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.  This wasn't normal for a 6th grader; generally only the junior high students got tabbed to be in the bee, so this was big for me.

I studied for weeks, practicing spelling words that I knew, even at that age, I would never use in normal conversation ever again.  Hours upon hours of deciphering the etymology of words, how languages affected the way they might be spelled...yeah, I know this sounds like the kind of life that an 11 year old should live.  But I was ready; this was my destiny, I was going to shock the world!

Well, I shocked the world alright.  First word?  Affiliate.  A-F-F-I-L-L-I-A-T-E?  Yeah, not so much.  First word, and I'm out.  But, at least I know I have a record that will never be broken.  To this day, I hate that word - I had to spell check it just to make sure what the right spelling was.

Why am I relating this story?  Well, ever since ESPN decided that the Bee was fantastic entertainment, and felt the need to plaster their network (and ABC) with a solid week of coverage, they've been having all their high profile talent associated (not affiliated) with the event.  And if my little 11 year old hormones had any inkling that getting to the finals might mean that I would be the kid on the right side of this picture:

I'd have probably studied a lot harder.  Who needs sleep when you're 11 anyways?

When you think about all of the professional sports in the world there are certain "Cry Babies" that are hard to stomach most of the time and take away from the enjoyment of the sport.

Here are some of my biggest "Cry Babies", who are your's?

1.  Danica Patrick - the woman acted like a 2 year old with diaper rash when she was run into in the pits and knocked out of the race with 29 laps to go.  It was unfortunate but it happens in racing and her act of getting pissed off every time she thinks she was treated poorly is getting old fast.  I get bumped more on I-75 South bound at rush hour.

2.  Lebron James - The dude acts like he is fouled on every play and really throws a tantrum if he misses a shot as if it isn't humanly possible for him to actually miss a shot without someone making contact.  He yells, waves his arms, pouts and acts like a child over and over again.  The refs need to slap a few "T's" on him.

3.  Tim Duncan - Has this man every committed a foul that he was called for?  Not according to him with the way he acts when he is called for one.  Apparently he is the only player in the NBA that isn't capable of committing a foul.

4.  Tony Stewart - Enough said about this giant pile of goo that constantly complains when other racers give him a dose of his own medicine.  He needs to be driving the Pampers car instead of Home Depot.

5.  Willie Randolph - Would someone please stick a pacifier in his mouth?

In minor league sports, you hear all the time about post-season games being moved around because of a previously scheduled event.  Sometimes it's a speaker, sometimes the circus is coming to town, and (as was the case with the Cincinnati Marshals a couple years ago) sometimes the players just can't get off work.

This, however, might be the craziest one I've ever seen.

English Premier League soccer club the Manchester City Blues found out this past week that they had earned a spot in the prestigious UEFA Cup tournament (basically European soccer's version of the NIT, except it lasts the whole season and is way more important), and would host their home leg of a first round series on July 17th.  Sounds great, right?  Well, not so fast.

You see, Bon Jovi is scheduled to play at Man City's home field, the City of Manchester Stadium, on June 22nd.  Since soccer stadiums in Europe have almost exclusively grass fields, and concert staging tears up the grass pretty badly.  Man City's management didn't see this as a big problem, since they weren't expecting to qualify for the UEFA Cup, and could repair the field in time for the start of the EPL regular season in mid-August.

However, with just 25 days between the events, the groundscrew is going to have to do some serious scrambling to get it ready in time for the game.  Already the team is looking at alternative venues.  The most likely location, according to The Guardian, is Huddersfield's Galpharm Stadium.  Sadly for Man City, that stadium's capacity of 24,500 is barely half of that of the Blues' home pitch.  In soccer, European cup games are incredibly valuable, since they bring in a tremendous amount of revenue that can be used to purchase more talented players.

So, the lesson here is, never underestimate your team's ability to perform at the highest level.  You never know when it might come back to bite you if you do.

Remember roller derby, from way back in the early 80's?  That, along with Australian Rules Football, was about the only programming that ESPN carried during its first few years on cable.

As time went on, however, ESPN grew to become the premier sports network in the world, while roller derby went the way of parachute pants.  But somewhere along the way, some enterprising businesspeople realized that, if you put a bunch of women in sort of skintight outfits, get them in rollerskates, and have them fly around a track aiming to knock the living daylights out of each other, you can get people out to watch the show.

So this Sunday, during the Sportscenter morning and late night shows, ESPN is going to be airing a segment on the popularity of women's roller derby (or rollergirls, as they're now called).  In the segment, I've been told that members of the Cincinnati Roller Girls club are going to be interviewed and featured (if they don't end up on the cutting room floor).

If you haven't been to one of their games before, I highly recommend checking a game out.  The crowds are nuts (not to mention about 75-80% female...though sometimes that's not all it's cracked up to be), and the players throw themselves around with no regard for their safety, despite getting paid absolutely nothing.  And, as Tom Gamble on the 2 Angry Guys noted a few days ago, Sadistic Sadie...mmm...where was I again...

Anyways, I'll be curious to check the piece out, it's worth a few minutes of your time to catch it on Sunday.