Previous Co-Winners: Kobe Buffalomeat, Offensive Tackle, Illinois State University, and Easton Stick, Quarterback, North Dakota State University

We can only hope that “Semen” doesn’t mean the same thing in Russia as it does in English, because we simply can’t imagine going through junior high school with a name synonymous with spooge.  Meanwhile, what are the odds that a 20-something college hoopster never heard the 50-year old song stylings of his namesake?

Here’s hoping this helps.

The Bobby Knight Award for Achievements in Dramatic Public Meltdowns

• Winner: Serena Williams (nominated by Tennis the Menace)
• Honorable Mention: Benoit Paire (nominated by Tennis the Menace)

• Winner: Sister Jean, Loyola University-Chicago
• Honorable Mention: Chip the Buffalo, University of Colorado

Previous Winner: Cosmo the Cougar, Brigham Young University

Let’s be honest.  There’s really no denying that during Loyola-Chicago’s “Cinderella” run during last March’s NCAA Basketball Tournament that Sister Jean became far more than the team’s chaplain; she became America’s most favorite mascot since the San Diego Chicken.

She also managed to do that without any buffoonery.  That was supplied by the idiot sideline reporters who seemed shocked that a woman in her 90s could still be lucid and know more about basketball than 50 of those microphone-wielding blow-dries combined.

But for sheer bufoonery, we really have no choice but to honorably mention Colorado’s Chip the Buffalo, who tried to blow off his own Rocky Mountain oysters with a t-shirt cannon.

The Budd Dwyer Award for Excellence in Career Suicide

• Winner: Jemele Hill (nominated by The Unknown Blogger)
• Honorable Mention: Former Washington Nationals’ pitcher Shawn Kelley

Previous Winner: Former high school football coach Jim Sharkey

The ratings have spoken, and that’s precisely why ESPN exiled race-bating piece-of-shit extraordinaire Jemele Hill from SportsCenter to a website that gets less readers than this one.  To be fair, Hill is just the face of ESPN’s collective “Jonestown” impression; the Kool-Aid has been flowing in Bristol for quite some time; that’s the mentality that can’t understand why nobody watches a network which slanders it’s own audience.

Meanwhile, former Washington Nationals’ reliever Shawn Kelley discovered why behavior that isn’t tolerated in Little League is still a bad idea in the bigs.  After gave up a completely meaningless ninth-inning home run in a game in which the Nationals had a 23-run lead, he slammed his glove into the mound and death-stared his own manager. The next day, the Nationals designated him for assignment.

The Ed Hochuli Award for the Best Call

• Winner: Ryan “Conor MacGregor” Fitzpatrick, Quarterback, Tampa Bay Buccaneers (nominated by The Seminal Seminole)
  
• Honorable Mention:  This guy from the Baltimore Ravens Marching Band  (nominated by Baltimoron)

Previous Winner: The University of North Dakota

You can say what you will about Ryan Fitzpatrick as a signal-caller, he made the call of the year when he showed up at a post-game presser dressed as MMA rock-star Conor MacGregor.  Speaking of “rock stars,” there’s no way we could not mention this guy from the Baltimore Ravens Marching Band playing PERFECT air drums to Rush’s “Tom Sawyer.”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1039270596570492928

The Jason Sehorn Award for Being Completely Overrated

• Winner: Ronda Rousey (nominated by Fed Up)
  
• Honorable Mention:  Clay Matthews, Linebacker, Green Bay Packers (nominated by Vic the Viking)

Previous Winner: Joe Flacco, quarterback, Baltimore Ravens

I suppose, every Hall of Fame needs it’s “Joe Namath;” the person who is in because their celebrity rather than their talent.  We all know Namath is in the Football Hall of Fame more for wearing panty-hose on television and guaranteeing a Super Bowl win than anything he ever did on the field, and now Ronda Rousey is getting into the MMA Hall of Fame for being little more than the sport’s biggest celebrity.  Rousey rose to prominence by beating the shit out of soccer moms, then the first time she took on a “real” fighter, she got her shrub kicked up to the roof of her mouth and promptly retired.

While he can still make a hell of shampoo commercial, on the gridiron Clay Matthews has been largely living off a reputation built years ago.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s still a reasonably decent linebacker, but he’s still getting treated like the dominant player of yesteryear, despite the fact he’s rumored to be near the end of his days with Green Bay, either through his impending free agency or retirement.  The bottom line is he’s 32 years old, the injuries are starting to add up, and he hasn’t had a season with a double-digit sack total since 2014.

The Clinton-Nixon Award for Cover-Up Futility

• Winner: Irish soccer team Ballybrack FC
• Honorable Mention: Karl Ravech, ESPN Baseball reporter

Previous Winner: The National Football League

We’ve all had a day where we didn’t feel like going to work; it was just better for everybody for you to sound sick for 30 seconds while calling your boss than it was trying to endure eight hours at the office without strangling somebody. It just so happens that Ballybrack FC collectively had a day like that.  But it’s pretty hard for a soccer team to call in sick, so they faked the death of one of their players.

A lower-level Irish soccer team apologized Tuesday for faking the death of one of its players in an apparent attempt to avoid an upcoming game.

According to Raidió Teilifís Éireann, a public broadcasting service in Ireland, Ballybrack FC falsely told officials with the Leinster Senior Football League that one of its players had died in a “traffic accident” on Thursday night. The league subsequently postponed Ballybrack’s game on Saturday and held a moment of silence for the player at all of its other games over the weekend.

Then the league discovered that the player, Fernando LaFuente, was in fact alive.

My favorite part of this story: nobody bothered to tell the “dead” guy he was supposed to be dead, which meant the whole time he was “no longer with us,” he was actually playing video games on-line.

But when we talk about bad cover-ups, we have to talk about that thing on Karl Ravech’s head.  That toupee is almost criminal.

The Charles O. Finley Award for Achievements in Cheap

• Winner:  The Oakland Raiders
  
• Honorable Mention:  The Seattle Mariners (nominated by Loose on the Palouse)

Previous Winner: The University of Tennessee

As far as the Oakland Los Angeles Oakland soon to be Las Vegas Raiders are concerned, I understand they spent eleventy bajillion dollars for “Chucky” Gruden, but since then they fired general manager Reggie McKenzie, traded away Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper, and through other moves they’ve amassed almost $70 million under the cap for 2019. Now, all signs point to them spending this money given they have so many holes to fill and a hoard of draft picks, but you can go to a Wal-Mart on the day after Christmas and see all kinds of bad decisions being funded with a plethora of gift cards.

It certainly seems like something similar might be happening in Seattle.  The Mariners have the longest play-off drought in Major League Baseball, and they had a promising start to 2018, but then things went sideways, and the “fire sale” was on.  Since then, a slew of guys got tickets out of Seattle, including pitchers James Paxton, Alex Colome, Edwin Diaz, James Pazos, and Juan Nicasio, catcher Mike Zunino, second baseman Robinson Cano, and shortstop Jean Segura. With the exceptions of taking on “bad” contracts from the Mets in Jay Bruce and Anthony Swarzak in order to get our from under Cano’s gargantuan deal, these were all deals designed to shed payroll and acquire young talent.

But in either case, as the song says, “Only Time Will Tell.”

The Joe Kapp Award for Being Run Out of Town

• Winner: Dwayne Casey, former head coach, Toronto Raptors
  
• Honorable Mention: Paul Molitor, former manager, Minnesota Twins
  

Previous Winner: Greg Schiano

To make a long story short, Casey lost his job because he couldn’t do something nobody else could; beat the LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA play-offs. But Casey probably ends up better-off in the long run as Toronto may be the most dysfunctional franchise in the NBA this side of the Atlanta Hawks.

Molitor’s problem in Minnesota is the fact that the Twins and their fans always have expectations that outstrip reality.  When the Twins made a surprise run the the American League Wild Card in 2017, the thought became the Twins were now a perennial play-off contender.  That wasn’t the case and Molitor got run out of town for a net difference of seven less wins in 2018.

The Bobby Layne Award for Best Performance While Drunk

• Winner: Michael Wells-Rody, just a guy
• Honorable Mention: Alexander Ovechkin, Wing, Washington Capitals

Previous Winner: Baker Mayfield, former quarterback, University of Oklahoma (now a member of the Cleveland Browns)

One of the great things about Kentucky is it’s mellifluous manna known as bourbon.  I’m a big fan, so much so that I completely understand how too much of it can lead to doing some really stupid shit.  Our winner just found that out.

A Georgetown man was arrested after police say he mounted a horse at Churchill Downs and tried to ride out onto the track during Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup racing.

Kentucky State Police said in an arrest citation that Michael Wells-Rody, 24, “was manifestly under the influence of alcoholic beverages” when he “snuck into a restricted area he was not authorized to be in” and took off on a horse.

Thanks to the level of gentility in Kentucky, this guy just got arrested, unlike the guy who tho tried to climb onto a Philadelphia police horse during the Eagles’ Super Bowl parade and wound up with some dents in his brain courtesy of a weighted flashlight.

When it comes to our honorable mention, is anybody really surprised that a Russian guy spent three solid months legally intoxicated after he won his first Stanley Cup, especially since he used it as a giant beer stein?

The Artis Gilmore Award for Achievements in Hair Boldness

• Winner: Robert Johannson, Norwegian Ski Jumper
• Honorable Mention:  Juan Salazar, Spanish Little Leaguer

• Co-Winners:  “Big Al” Delia – Middletown, New Jersey Little League and Todd Frazier, third baseman, New York Mets (nominated by Mrs. J-Dub)
  
• Honorable Mention: Matt Hamilton, U.S. Curler

Previous Winner: Odell Beckham, Jr., Wide Receiver, New York Giants

“Big Al” was kind of a big “Delia” when he turned his Warholian “15 Minutes” into ten days in August at the Little League World Series.  Combined with Todd Frazier, who was there to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Toms River, New Jersey winning the Little League World Series, these two guys from the Garden State became kings of the Keystone State.  We’re pretty sure they did all that partying with no booze…at least we have no evidence to the contrary, even though “Big Al” looks like he’s going to know his way around a scotch in the future.

The same can’t be said for U.S. Olympic Curling gold Medalist Matt Hamilton. From the day they hung that medal around his neck, Hamilton went on his own Ovechkin-like bit of rink-based revelry.  Hamilton lived the dream, complete with hanging out with his football hero Aaron Rodgers, using his gold medal as a ball marker during a Pro-Am golf tournament, wining and dining Hollywood moguls to make a curling movie, all while downing enough libations to float a moderately-sized naval vessel.

The Vasily Alexseyev Award for Plus-Sized Achievement

• Co-Winners:  Gi Jeong Kim, South Korean Little League, and Ronaldo Vizcaino, Spanish Little League
• Honorable Mention:  Jace Chamberlin, California State University-Fullerton baseball

Previous Winner: Wayne Shaw, Goalkeeper, Sutton United

This marks the third straight category in which the Little League World Series gets a nod, which shouldn’t surprise anybody as this is rapidly becoming one of the premier sporting events this country has to offer.  What should be surprising is that we are now getting players in something called “Little League” are tipping the scales in the neighborhood of two-and-a-half bills.

The upside to all this is those big Little Leaguers grow up to hit walk-off dingers like Jace Chamberlin.

The Jamie Moyer Award for Excellence in Geriatrics

• Winner: Mike Smith, jockey
  
• Honorable Mention:  Essam El-Hadary, goalkeeper, Egyptian men’s national soccer team