When you think “Socrates,”  I’m guessing your mind goes more toward the Greek philosopher and less toward a current minor-league outfielder.  But like his Hellenic namesake, Socrates Brito remains an enigma; is he ever going to be what the scouts think he can be?

In the case of our honorable mention, it just doesn’t work when a 300-pound lineman trucks a dude, stands over his body and shouts “Who’s your Mama?”

Previous Winner: Semen Pavlichenko, Russian Olympic Luger

The Bobby Knight Award for Achievements in Dramatic Public Meltdowns

• Winner: Stefanos Tsitsipas, tennis player (nominated by Tennis the Menace)
• Honorable Mention: Trevor Bauer, MLB pitcher (nominated by Frank Furter)

• Winner: Bevo, University of Texas (nominated by South Carolina Cock Soccer Supporter)
• Honorable Mention: Cocky, Jackson State University (nominated by Roll Tide Pods)

It was last New Year’s Day when just before the 2019 Sugar Bowl, Texas Longhorns’ mascot Bevo the Longhorn Steer broke out of his enclosure and tried to stomp on Georgia Bulldogs’ mascot UGA.  Say what you will, but that’s just great television. ESPN provided a different angle of the incident (2:11 of the video), but this was like watching NASCAR…everybody in front of their sets wanted to see some shit go down.

What Cocky the Mascot pulled wasn’t nearly as awesome as Woody Hayes running on to the field to slug an opposing linebacker, but it was still pretty goddamn awesome television.

“Unsportsmanlike conduct, Jackson State mascot for coming onto the field.”

This actually happened 😅 pic.twitter.com/jjBL12XCg3

— ESPN (@espn) September 1, 2019

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Previous Winner: Sister Jean, Loyola University-Chicago

The Budd Dwyer Award for Excellence in Career Suicide

• Winner: Antonio Brown, former NFL wide receiver (nominated by at least 20,000 different people)
• Honorable Mention:  Colin Kaepernick, former NFL quarterback (nominated by at least 10,000 different people)

These two mooks easily set the record for the most nominations we’ve ever received for a single award; their excellence in killing their careers “red-lined” the Obvious-o-Meter.

Antonio Brown is not just a guy who can’t get out of his own way, but I’m not entirely sure what ails this guy can’t be diagnosed and treated. What got him the award was a full body of work which took him from being a National Football League star with a career path that seemed surely headed for the Hall of Fame, to being traded, released, and signed by another team who subsequently cut him after a tenure of eleven days. What sealed the deal for Brown’s winning this award was taking to Twitter to blast former team-mate Ben Roethlisberger and to accuse the NFL of “targeted hate.” The best part is he’s created more shenanigans since then.  Even after this non-sense, the New Orleans Saints offered Brown a workout   The Saints asked him not to show up with an entourage to keep this from becoming a circus.  That’s exactly what he did, and that’s exactly what happened. The icing on the crazy cake is Brown then accused the Saints of holding the workout as a “publicity stunt.”

And there’s our segue.  What Colin Kaepernick pulled a few months back was really the “mercy killing” of a career that only had the faintest signs of life; it was really only being kept alive by a few lick-spittles in the media who kept waving his banner.  Once his collusion lawsuit against the NFL was settled, and it was clear his phone wasn’t going to ring, the NFL threw him a bone and offered him a workout. But then he jerked everybody around and changed the venue with less than two hours notice, and when it finally happened, he had his own entourage decked out in t-shirts promoting a message the NFL had already learned the hard way is a ratings-killer.

Either way, it was obvious Kaepernick used this a a publicity stunt to give one last middle finger to the NFL, and had planned all along to do so. That, coupled with the fact he demanded $20 million from the fledgling Alliance of American Football (the league’s capital expenditure probably wan’t much more than that) made it clear this guy wasn’t serious about football anymore.The upcoming re-boot of the XFL is never going to touch Kaepernick now, and it’s anybody’s guess if the next startup league looks at Antonio Brown.

In any event, you’ve likely heard the last of these two dilcues.

The Ed Hochuli Award for the Best Call

• Winner: Hakim Laws, hero and Philadelphia Eagles fan (nominated by Philadelphia Phreakdom)
  
• Honorable Mention: Rod Woodson (nominated by Mrs. J-Dub)

In a clip from CBS Philadelphia, Hakim Laws described the scene of a fire in West Philadelphia, where people off the streets stepped in to save children from the blaze. Smoke made it impossible for a family that was trapped in the building to use the stairs, so Laws teamed up with others to catch the children as the father threw them down.

“My man just started throwing babies out the window, we was catching them… unlike [Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver Nelson] Agholor.”

When it comes to a year in quotable quotes, NFL Hall of Famer turned Alliance of American Football broadcaster Rod Woodson said something I was afraid of, wasn’t ready to admit at the time, but I knew he was right. During a game between the Arizona Hotshots and the Salt Lake Stallions, the first half had ended and the coverage shifted to the TV studio, where the four-person crew including Woodson, former Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis, and host Alex Flanagan didn’t realize they were live.

This game was being streamed on the internet and was not on television per se, and Lewis made a comment made a comment about “being on television.” Flanagan told Lewis “you’re not on TV, you’re on Bleacher Report. It’s different.” At this point, Rod Woodson went full “Harry Doyle.”

“Nobody’s watching, nobody cares, nobody’s listening.”

Previous Winner: Ryan “Conor MacGregor” Fitzpatrick, then the quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Jason Sehorn Award for Being Completely Overrated

• Winner: Jim Harbaugh, head football coach, University of Michigan (nominated by Marty Sparty)
  
• Honorable Mention: Bryce Harper, Outfielder, Philadelphia Phillies (nominated Jorge in Georgetown)

Realistically, Harbaugh’s claim to fame as a football coach is a couple of good seasons at Stanford and being the only head coach who got anything out of Colin Kaepernick in the NFL.  But the nunbers he’s put up at Michigan speak for themselves. That link was posted before this most recent season started, so those numbers didn’t get any better. In fact, Michigan lost yet another bowl game by almost 20 points and chalked another “L” against Ohio State.

Then there’s Bryce Harper, who since living off the reputation of his 2015 MVP season fleeced the Philadelphia Phillies for $330 million, for which they a remarkably non-productive 35 homers, 114 RBIs balanced by 178 strike-outs in only 573 at-bats…a major reason why he only hit .260 and finished in the top ten in only one “slash line” category.

Previous Winner: MMA fighter Ronda Rousey

The Clinton-Nixon Award for Cover-Up Futility

• Winner: D.J. Cooper, former Ohio University basketball player (nominated by the Dubsism Awards Committee)
• Honorable Mention: Cardinal Ritter High School, St. Louis (nominated by Marvin Barnes’ Time Machine)

D.J. Cooper, a former Ohio University star who’s currently trying to make a career in Europe, finds himself currently under a suspension from the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) for providing a fraudulent urine sample to pass a doping test.  In order to join the Bosnian national team, Cooper was required to pass such a test. The good news is he did.  The bad news is he found out he’s pregnant.

According to RTV Slovenia. the urine sample provided came from Cooper’s girlfriend, and it tested positive for human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which is produced during pregnancy by the placenta.  While we don’t know what Cooper was trying to hide, the fact remains he’s now doesn’t have a job and has some “baby daddy” bills coming.

Who says basketball players always dribble before they shoot? <rimshot>

That was just a special kind of stupid, but what the coaching staff at Cardinal Ritter High School pulled ranks right up there.  They had a star running back named Bill Jackson who was suspended for the first game of the 2019 season because he had been ejected from the 2018 Class 3 State Championship Game.  But in that initial game of 2019, a freshman billed as Marvin Burks played, and Bill Jackson returned the following week.  The problem was photographs taken by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from both games clearly showed that “Burks” and Jackson had the same unique, identifying tattoos running down the right bicep and forearm.

On top of that, a video posted on coach Brandon Gregory’s Instagram account clearly shows Jackson wearing #24 as “Burks” leading the team through their pre-game huddle before the season opener, then shows another showing Jackson doing the same in his usual #4; the identifying tattoos plainly visible in both videos.

As a result, Jackson was suspended, Gregory lost his job, and Cardinal Ritter forfeited the entire 2019 season.

Previous Winner: Irish soccer team Ballybrack FC

The Charles O. Finley Award for Achievements in Cheap

• Winner:  The Alliance of American Football (nominated by the Dubsism Awards Committee)
  
• Honorable Mention:  The New York Mets (nominated by jerseyguy6526)

The departed Alliance of American Football figure prominently in this set of awards because it was fresh and innovative.  But it also hemorrhaged money, which is why after it suspended operations after it’s eighth week, it told all it’s players they had to pay for their own travel home.

But in the entire history of the New York Mets, there might not be anything more “Metsy” than leaving the production of a tribute to the 1969 “Miracle” Mets on the 50th anniversary of their winning the World Series to a group of interns.  This led to the club incorrectly including outfielder Jim Gosger and pitcher Jesse Hudson…who are very much still alive…in the “in memoriam” for those players who had passed away.

Previous Winner: The Oakland Raiders

The Joe Kapp Award for Being Run Out of Town

• Winner: Willie Taggart, former head football coach, Florida State University (nominated by the Seminal Seminole)
  
• Honorable Mention: Kevin Coyle, Dennis Erickson, Tim Lewis, Mike Martz, Rick Neuheisel, Mike Riley, Mike Singletary, and Steve Spurrier: The head coaches of the Alliance of American Football (nominated by the Dubsism Awards Committee)

At least when Willie Taggart got run out of Tallahassee, you could rest at east knowing he got paid.  Obviously After All, the pointy-heads in the Florida State fan-base started a GoFumdMe account which allegedly raises in the neighborhood of $20 million to buy out his contract.  Of course, these people are blaming Taggart for the fact he couldn’t win with the empty cupboard left by Jimbo Fisher when he skulked out of town.

But for the AAF guys, they thought they had guaranteed contracts until the league’s bank account ended up flatter than a pancake griddle.  It’s one thing to get run out of town; it’s another to show up for work to find the doors padlocked.

Previous Winner: Dwayne Casey, former head coach, Toronto Raptors

The Bobby Layne Award for Best Performance While Drunk

• Winner: Jason Nix, pitcher, San Diego Padres (nominated by RuPaul McCartney)
• Honorable Mention: Malik McDowell, NFL free agent (nominated by My name really is Jim Gantner)

Who hasn’t ended a night of drinking yourself retarded by getting dropped off at the wrong house by a ride-sharing service, not realizing you’re at the wrong house, getting caught in a doggy-door and almost getting yourself killed? Well, Jason Nix can cross that off his bucket list.

A woman in Peoria, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, called police after her husband caught a man entering their residence early Sunday morning, according to a police report…The husband told Peoria Police he was woken up around 3:30 a.m. when he heard sound coming from the doggy door located in his bedroom, the police report said. He said he saw a flashlight shining through the door that leads to the backyard and then noticed a man attempting to crawl through. Police identified the man as 23-year-old Nix in their report, and noted that his employer is the San Diego Padres.

The husband yelled for his wife to call 911 and give him his gun, according to the police report. His wife told police that she couldn’t retrieve her husband’s handgun, so she grabbed the Taser instead. The husband told police he kicked Nix in the face, then noticed another man’s arm reach in and try to pull Nix outside. Nix and the other man, whom police identified as Thomas Cosgrove, 23, started running away. Armed with his stun gun, the husband leaned through the doggy door, took aim and struck Nix in his back, according to the police report.

The husband told police that Nix fell down, according to the police report, and both the men then ran from the house on foot. Peoria Police say they found the two men several miles away and arrested them without incident.

Breaking into the wrong house is a great way to get yourself killed, but an even better way is to get drunk and fight with cops, like former Michigan State football player Malik McDowell.

The former Spartan defensive end was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks, but he never played a snap for them, as he is currently on the roster of the Michigan Department of Corrections on an 11-month contract for assault, resisting arrest, operating a vehicle,  and receiving and concealing stolen property.

Previous Winner: Michael Wells-Rody, just a guy

The Artis Gilmore Award for Achievements in Hair Boldness

• Winner: Mike Fiers, Pitcher, Oakland A’s (nominated by Bay Area Bae)
• Honorable Mention: Jarrett Allen, Forward/Center, Brooklyn Nets (nominated by Ben Hogan’s Heroes)

Mike Fiers went viral earlier this year for what I’m going to call the “cinnamon roll” facial hair.  But we also have give some ;love to Jarrett Allen for taking all the way to the namesake of this award; that’s the best “Artis Gilmore” afro I’ve seen since the American Basketball Association in 1974.

• Winner:  Aaron Rodgers, quarterback, and David Bakhtiari, offensive tackle, Green Bay Packers (nominated by Eau Claire All Ye Faithful)
  
• Honorable Mention: Brian Dozier, second baseman, Washington Nationals (nominated by the Dubsism Awards Committee)

There nothing wrong with having a beer at a sporting event, but as much as Aaron Rodgers is headed to the football Hall of Fame, he should know better than  to try to out-drink an offensive lineman, let alone doing so while you’re on live television.

As for Dozier, that can be summed in three words: “white guy twerking.”

Previous Co-Winners: “Big Al” Delia. Middletown, New Jersey Little League and Todd Frazier, third baseman, New York Mets

The Vasily Alexseyev Award for Plus-Sized Achievement

• Winners: C.C. Sabathia, former pitcher New York Yankees (nominated by the Unknown Blogger)
• Honorable Mention: Ty Sambrailo, Offensive Tackle, Atlanta Falcons (nominated by Montana Can Kiss My Butte)

If you ask me, in his final season as a major-league moundsman C.C. Sabathia cemented his place in Cooperstown as he notched both his 250th career win and his 3,000th strikeout.  There’s only been thirteen other guys out of the almost 20,000 who have worn a big-league uniform to do that.

1. Nolan Ryan (5714 K, 324 W)
2. Randy Johnson (4875 K, 303 W)
3. Roger Clemens (4672 K, 354 W)
4. Steve Carlton (4136 K, 329 W)
5. Bert Blyleven (3701 K, 287 W)
6. Tom Seaver (3640 K, 311 W)
7. Don Sutton (3574 K, 324 W)
8. Gaylord Perry (3534 K, 314 W)
9. Walter Johnson (3509 K, 417 W)
10. Greg Maddux (3371 K, 355 W)
11. Phil Niekro (3342 K, 318 W)
12. Ferguson Jenkins (3192 K, 284 W)
13. Bob Gibson (3117 K, 251 W)

In case you didn’t notice, all of those pitchers are in the Hall of Fame, and all of them were dominant in their eras.

It took a Hall of Famer to take this award away from Ty Sambrailo.  Usually, the “tackle-eligible” trick results in a lob to a big guy with taped-up hands standing alone in the end zone. But this was all about a guy whose number started with a “7” getting a chance to do some open-field running.

Previous Co-Winners: Gi Jeong Kim, South Korean Little League, and Ronaldo Vizcaino, Spanish Little League

The Jamie Moyer Award for Excellence in Geriatrics

• Winner: Zdeno Chara, defenseman, Boston Bruins (nominated by newbostonwillie)
  
• Honorable Mention: Vince Carter, Forward, Atlanta Hawks (nominated by Silver Screen Pass)