on: carrot top called

Great pick by the Bulls,

if he can write another
"Straight Outta Lynwood"

on: every morning I wake up a little happier he's moved on

Oden or Durant?

Who cares? MY storyline: which

mook drafts McRoberts?

on: "big ticket" + travel plans = punny title

Garnett to Suns? Celts?
Bulls? Perhaps Solomonic
solution needed

chris and nancy benoit

I was gonna mock Tank Johnson in this space this morning, but then I found out about the horrific details of the Benoit family murder-suicide and I don't really have it in me.

His ECW stint was a little before my time (before I followed ECW, really) but when I started watching Chris Benoit in WCW (his second stint) he quickly became one of my favorites. Here was a guy that was ready to take Bret Hart's mantle as the best technical guy in the game, with a wicked mean streak to boot, and the whole Kevin Sullivan / Woman angle was a classic as well (and makes yesterday's events all the sadder).

To have one of your favorite wrestlers of all time die young is sad, though unfortunately, all too common (as fans of Eddie Guerrero, Bam Bam Bigelow, Brian Pillman, Owen Hart et al. will attest). But to have him go out in a way that's just so heinous, killing his wife and kid as his last acts on earth... I just don't know what to think. In a way, I almost wish he had ODed.

Just very, very sad... from a huge fan, all my condolences to Benoit's family and friends.

(Mixed feelings aside, this is after Benoit's title win at Wrestlemania 20, still one of my favorite moments in wrestling. A little over three years later, both these guys are dead. Sad business.)

on: he doesn't play in MLS, by the way

Alexi's still high,

but Feilhaber's filthiness

tiene golaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazo

on: god save the commissioner (the Sex Pistols cover, of course)

Miami tix rot

in Scotland Yard, Do(u)lphins fans

shafted yet again

on: Sammy's numbers

from second place

to cork, trades, hearings... steroids?

and now, six hundred

on: Alexi also thinks the snozzberries taste like snozzberries

Of course! MLS,

Premiership, same thing! It's... wait,

you're just high again

on: pato!

tiger toppled by

demonseed of Marlboro

and Michelin men

on: I'd probably shoot about a 140

winter in Oakmont:

deceptively warm now, but

snowmen forecasted

on: an alliterative chicago cubs... poem

brawling Barrett brings

'barrassment by battering

both batterymates

a public apology re: WNBA poetry

We here at DSH pride ourselves at being the world's go-to blog for the intersection of athletes and poetry. Our scooping at the hands of DC Sports Bog with today's piece on some of the WNBA's finest poets is inexcusable.

We promise to redouble our efforts to make sure that whenever a women's basketball player pens a verse, you'll hear about it here first.

Our humblest apologies to you, the loyal reader.

on: what, the Ducks and Spurs weren't enough excitement for you?

from a boring spring

at last, a real happening:

Lunar Verlander

on: liveblogging is not a crime

Coming to you live!

This college baseball haiku

is alread- [feed lost]

on: and if you say "not enough action" about the wrong one of these, I will bitch-slap you

two whackings last night:
the one at the gas station,
the one in Texas

on: skating alone

Jubilant, these Ducks,

to take the happiest lap

while Bettman fiddles

DSH is taking the day off tomorrow (gotta burn off that paid-time-off!) We'll be back on Monday.

on: I like to think I've shown amazing restraint this playoff season

Cup could get lifted

tonight: good, 'cause I'm thisclose

to "knucklepuck" jokes

on: ALL-PRO FOOTBALL COVER CURSE STRIKES AGAIN

Elway: shot through heart
Rice: vicious foxtrot mishap

Sanders: eaten (grue)

on: Sunday is for waffles

build a dynasty,

or play in the Mouse's shadow?

Billy just woke up

on: DSH loves NSB

coryza! clevis!

and more words I'll never use,

linguistic land mines

DSH hopes to get its shit together next year and find a way to get a press pass to the Bee (which, we'll admit, probably means attempting to do so earlier than one week prior). We're also a little disappointed that New Jersey couldn't keep its one-year streak of championships alive, though our congratulations certainly go to Evan O'Dorney for tackling "serrefine" and taking down the prize. (By the way, did it seem to anybody else that there were a lot of words about swords this year? Every time I looked up they were asking the kids about some implement of death or another.)

Our biggest moment of the day, though, was watching Samir Patel take his fall. We here at DSH found ourselves rooting for the kid even through an appeal that was, as Shonda Rhimes put it, a bit "icky". (I'm always a bit shocked that the Bee isn't more litigious than it is. All those parents, all those kids, reasonably direct access to the judges... I hope security is tight.) Not sure you can blame the kid's parents for taking a shot at a technicality, especially when Patel showed grace coming off the stage and taking his loss. I'm tempted to send the kid my old, worn-out, grade-school era Dan Marino jersey as a show of solidarity, except I'm not entirely sure he knows who Dan Marino is. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that most of the kids on that stage know what a football is. I do know that losing sucks, even for a Face Of The Department like Patel. Lots of bright young spellers coming up through the farm system, though, and besides, ABC can just transition him to "the agony of defeat" clips, right after the ski jumper.

But to return to "icky" for a second... are we watching the glorification of smarts or just smart-sploitation? Is the Spelling Bee a good thing? Or are we just reminding the fat kids you can get on TV by eating a lot of hot dogs? Certainly there's an argument to be made that these kids are too young for primetime pressure, but I've always thought that it comes down to the reasons the kids are getting involved. If their parents are shoving them into it, piling on the pressure, locking them in their rooms with a chair and a dictionary then yes, that's not good. Doesn't that hold true for anything? I knew plenty of Soccer Parents growing up, too, and we can agree that it's not the fault of the sport but of the overbearing moms and dads who, for whatever reason, are ruining the experience.

If it's about the kids, though, if it's about spellers going out there because they like to compete but they can't get around on a fastball... because they're more comfortable with Latin roots than jump shots (god knows I was)... because maybe they LIKE being on national TV... then I don't think we need to rest uneasy tonight because we're watching them. And playing drinking games to their misspellings. And betting on them.

Okay, maybe not betting on them.

There are a lot of kids out there who deserve to be on the cover of the newspaper for what they're accomplishing but are getting pushed out by 'roided sluggers and starlet tramps. If a euonym can get them there? Probably not the worst thing in the world.

Finally: dotted schwa! Don't mind if I do.

Update: A discussion I had with the inimitable Rob Iracane, fellow lover of all things ath-linguistic, reminded me: ESPN actually did right by the Bee this year. They were smart in going with Chris McKendry and Robin Roberts for the brunt of the play-by-play duties and leaving Mike and Mike to do the occasional commentary, on which they were solid. Even Stuart Scott managed to dial back the b-o-o-y-a-h a bit for his turn on the sidelines. You don't normally see the words "ESPN" and "restrained" together in a sentence... not outside of court documents... but their coverage of the Bee was, dare I say it, respectable?