A whole lotta football...

The Score may have lost the English Premier League, but they've got Italy's Serie A coverage this year, starting with a pair of games today in Udinese and Genoa at noon, and Roma hosting Cesena at 2:45pm. Me, I'm an AC Milan guy insofar as Italy goes but man are they ever an old squad.

Starting September 7th on GTV - Gaming TV - Gabriel Morency returns to TV with Richard Garner riding shotgun in a mostly gambling related show that will appear at 6pm weeknights. Am sure their old buddy at The Score, Cam Stewart, is thrilled. GTV appears in 5.4 million Canadian homes, a million less than The Score by way of comparison. Nice work on Morency's part. There's talk of a U.S. TV show soon too. 

Saturday night at BMO Field with TFC hosting Real Salt Lake at 7pm.  A dozen guys in a limo leaving a pub after Manchester United's 12:30 tilt with West Ham United to head to Toronto. What could go right here?  Not much I figure. Can't wait. Will be at The Brazen Head in Liberty Village if you're around. About 4ish I'd guess.

Call it the Curse of the Expos, if you will, but the Washington Nationals are paying for the karma of how they ended up in D.C. with brutal teams, and now the introduction of Stephen Strasburg to Tommy John Surgery after blowing out his arm last weekend.  Turns out the body isn't a fan of throwing 90+ off-speed stuff.  Speaking of, Aroldis Chapman should be making his Cincinnati Reds debut shortly.  Scouts are saying he hit 104mph on the gun this week with his fastball and a 91mph slider.  Here's a look at more of baseball's fallen phenom's.

Hard not to figure why CONCACAF - the regional soccer governing body - might have shady officiating, when you hear its President is on the take and involved in scalping tickets.  Very classy.

Pretty freaky videos of female tennis players in super slo mo.  More accurately, females, and Serena Williams.

Check out these pics of MLB managers when they were players.  Joe Torre looks bad ass with those 'burns.

Driving is chore enough for some.  But how about mixing in masturbation and watching porn on top?

It isn't often you see a professional sports team openly mock another one, but after Panama's Arabe Unido made a mockery of the game, manhood and anything one should have pride in, Toronto FC, via TFCTv, couldn't resist.  This is awesome, though it would have been better with the Benny Hill theme music (Yakety Sax) methinks. 

At tomorrow night's Toronto FC game, you can donate to Pakistan relief, and MLSE and the Canadian Government will match your donation.

Quickly here...

Quick one today as work made me, well, work. 

Nice to see Pete Rose weighing in on Roger Clemens, saying that he would be best served to come clean.  I'm sure the Rocket is thrilled to hear Rose coming off as the honest one in that pair.   Both should be in the Hall of Fame, in my book.  It is about baseball fame, not about the Hall of Nice Guys.  That, and if they let Ty Cobb in, they've lost the ability to play on guys morality.

Average attendance in Europe's four biggest soccer leagues for 2009/10:
Germany: 42,441
England: 31,150
Spain: 27,699
Italy: 24,603

Total payroll by league for 2008/9:
England: 1.90B
Italy: 1.34B
Spain: 1.15B
Germany: .98B

Revenues for 2008/9:
England: 3.35B
Spain: 2.27B
Italy: 2.16B
Germany: 2.15B

Top Paid player:
Spain: Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid, $17.1m
Italy: Samuel Eto'o, Inter Milan, $13.8m
England: Emmanuel Adebayor, Manchester City, $11.2m
Germany: Arjen Robben, Bayern Munich, $7.2m (31st highest paid in the worldy)
From: ESPN The Magazine, Aug 23 2010.  Yes, I typed that all out, just for you.  Cannot believe that Adebayor is the highest paid player in the EPL, especially a guy who is three or four down the depth chart at the moment.

Speaking of soccer, UEFA President Michel Platini says that video replay is not needed.  Platini, you're an idiot.

Check out this soccer commentator get brained.  Amazing.

RM returns by at 2pm this afternoon...

The fix is in, TFC on wrong side

Not sure if Jose Bautista has ever used PED's, but in light of all the conversation this week, hard not to laugh at this screen capture from a couple nights's ago.  If you haven't figured it out, look at the advertising behind him.  Last night's, his Blue Jays were on the wrong end of an 11-5 curbstomping at the hands of the New York Yankees.

It all seemed set perfectly.  A reputed so-so team, albeit on the road, hosting Toronto FC in Champions League play.  To make it better, the hosts goalie was named Jose Calderon.  Surely the Reds would score at will, no?  Nope.  In a game that was officiated so badly WWE officials would be red faced, TFC were 1-0 losers.  I have read Declan Hill's book called "The Fix" and quite honestly, after what I saw last night, he might be ready to add a chapter.  Nobody can be that inept, can they?

Tweets Bill Simmons, aka "The Sports Guy" on Chris Bosh not playing for the U.S. national team this summer:"I'm OK w/ Chris Bosh skipping out on Team USA, he didn't need any more big game reps. The 2003 NIT, 1 Olympics + 11 playoff games is enough."  Awesome.

Philadelphia Phillies starter Cole Hamels went 102 batters and 372 pitches between runs scored in support of him by his Phillies.  Ouch. 

A great career retrospective on Roger Clemens, from the fine folks at The Sports Pickle.

With UFC legend Randy Couture set to face former heavyweight boxing champion James Toney this weekend at UFC 118, here's a peak at the top 10 freak fights of all the times.  Toney, if you've yet to see, is taking smack talking to some impressive levels ahead of this one.  Seems positively annoyed that few are giving him a big chance in this one.  If he gets off a punch, sure.  If Couture gets in tight and gets him down, he's cooked.

Detroit Tiger Johnny Damon was placed on waivers a couple days ago and claimed by his former team, the Boston Red Sox, a team and city that as recently as last week he disparaged in an interview on The Michael Kay Show.  So with a chance to join a playoff contender, what did Damon do?  Weigh his options, and value his legacy as a Yankee far greater, says Lee Jenkins at SI.com, as he declined a move to Boston.  Well played, JD. 

The San Francisco Giants are .000944881889764 games out of the NL Wild Card position with 35 to go.  No, seriously.

Real Madrid and Barcelona have five of the world's seven highest paid soccer players. 

Bonus picture.  Check out a member of the U.S. Army Rangers - their elite crew - parachuting into the Texas Rangers game last night. Those pesky flag poles!

There's a Tiger on the loose!

Manchester City throttled Liverpool 3-0 yesterday in English Premier League play.  If Fernando Torres doesn't get healthy and find his game real soon, they're in for a horrible season.  Oh, and key midfielder Javier Mascherano refused to play yesterday.

Roger Clemens rejected a plea deal that would have saw him get no jail time in exchange for pleading guilty.  Call me crazy, but I think he actually believes he didn't take the spike.

Now this is good stuff. The Bleacher Report has put together a list of the 100 hottest athletes of all time.  Hard to believe they missed anybody when they went that deep.

If the Philadelphia Phillies didn't already regret dealing Cliff Lee, I'm sure the fact that one of the prospects they had sent back - Tyson Gillies - getting popped for cocaine possession, has them regretting it.  As for Lee, ESPN's Colin Cowherd put it out there yesterday that Lee is a New York Yankee next year.  Thanks for getting on board, Cowherd, been saying it here for months.  Lock, or I'll retire this blog permanently.

Speaking of the Yankees, they started five players last night with less than two year's major league experience.  All three relievers out of the pen were homegrown, too.  So much for the fools who think they only buy players. It was almost still enough to beat the Toronto Blue Jays.  Jose "The Question" Bautista hit his 40th home run and after staring down and spitting in the direction of David Robertson before circling the bases over the course of 30 seconds, can pencil himself in for a rib shot before too long.  Funny though that he made the jabbing motion of a needle when he got to the plate though.  Bautista took exception to an Ivan Nova pitch sailing high and well over the plate - near his head, in his estimation - to which both Jays commentators replied it was accidental.  Strange rage then, no?  What could cause that?

Is there a worse guy that gets tonnes of air time than SportsNet's Jason Portuondo?  The only name he gets right consistently is his own.

The Texas Rangers passed the torch around for an almost-no hitter last night against Minnesota.  Starter Rich Harden took it 6 2/3 before handing it off to the 'pen and they went into the 9th before Joe Mauer busted it up.  Also impressive?  Twins starter Kevin Slowey was working a no hitter through seven before being pulled.  See, this is what winning teams do - the right thing, not what they think will help them sell the odd ticket the next night like desperate teams do.

Tiger Woods is officially divorced.  Somewhere, Roger Clemens, LeBron James and the OHB are celebrating their push from the top headlines.  Okay, not OHB.  Here are seven pick-up lines to try on Elin Nordregen now that she's available again.  As for Tiger, how many whores do you figure he taps now?

Caroline Wozniaki won the Rogers Canadian Championship yesterday.  I only say this to introduce pictures of her in a bikini.

As if Dancing With The Stars didn't get big enough ratings, The Situation has joined on for the coming season.  How's that going to play with his GTL routine?

The picture today?  Sloan of Entourage fame (aka Emmanuelle Chriqui), if you didn't know.  What a season this year.

Weekend wrap

Damien Cox at the Toronto Star asks the question most would rather not contemplate, and that is whether Toronto Blue Jays feel good story Jose Bautista, who never in his career hit more than 20 homers but is about to double that this year, might be getting a little help of the pharmaceutical variety.

Lou Pinella announced that yesterday would be his last game managing, and the Chicago Cubs sent him out on the wrong end of a 16-5 loss to Atlanta. 

The Yankees final 13 games are against the Rays, Red Sox and Blue Jays, which will make things interesting. For the Rays, they play four in The Bronx from Sept. 20-23 and then their final 10 games are against bottom-feeding Seattle, Baltimore and Kansas City. So the Yanks probably had better have some cushion with 10 to play if they are going to win the division.

Who is the key witness in the Roger Clemens perjury case?  Clemens old buddy, Andy Pettitte. Funny reading that neither Clemens nor Brian MacNamee were found to be credible witnesses. The Sports Pickle says Roger Clemens will enter prison in a Red Sox cap.

After yesterday's win, the New York Yankees are a surprising 12-0 this year with A-Rod not in the lineup. Helps that MVP candidate Robinson Cano seems to go wild everytime he hits in the four hole. He had a mere 6 RBI yesterday.

Toronto FC were pounded 4-1 by the New York Red Bulls at home on Saturday, ending their much hyped unbeaten run at home.  They're in real tough with ten games to go for an MLS playoff spot.

I don't know what inflation has been since 1992, but surely the Pittsburgh Pirates spending $2 million more on their payroll this year than they did in 1992 isn't keeping pace.  But hey, they're profitable as hell.  Who cares about the 18 years of losing baseball?

They may have announced nearly 40,000 in attendance Thursday at the Rogers Centre for the Indianapolis Colts and Buffalo Bills pre-season game, but word is it was half that. Guessing the NFL didn't have this in mind when they booked the "Bills in Toronto" series. The attendance woes aren't confined to Toronto. The Tampa Bay Bucs fell in line with the Lightning and Rays in drawing sparse crowds as they barely had 30,000 show up to their Saturday game vs Kansas City.

Another wild weekend of English Premier League action with Chelsea winning its second straight by a 6-0 scoreline, this time over Wigan. Arsenal hammered Blackpool, also by a 6-0 score.  Newly promoted Newcastle United also joined that parade, with a shocking 6-0 win over Aston Villa. Manchester United and Fulham played an entertaining 2-2 draw. Up today at 3pm on TSN2 is a Liverpool visit to Manchester City. Should be a great one.  Hilites of the weekend's action here:
<a href="http://msn.foxsports.com/video?vid=9467e988-9112-41b8-9f11-0016873e1559&from=IV2_en-us_foxsports_articles" target="_new" title="Super Sunday Pus: Man Utd frustrated">Video: Super Sunday Pus: Man Utd frustrated</a>