STRANDED AT SECOND BASE

“Culling the thoughts that occur when you’re standing around waiting for something to happen”

Image is everything, right?

Andre Agassi overtly exercised us with that mantra while subliminally tantalizing us with an enviable mullet-toupee.

Ask Michael Vick or Tiger Woods the importance of image in this golden era of sports, where the line between gold medal and Golden Globe Award is as blurred as ever.

First came LeBron James' new Nike commercial this week in an effort to repair his public image. Now King James has launched a new personal website. David Butler II-US PRESSWIRE

Or visit the freshly-launched www.lebronjames.com — the most recent phase of LeBron James’ re-branding effort. The one necessary after a destructive summer for his once wholesome image.

Up until now, we didn’t have a credible resource to find pictures of James (2008 Gold Medal) canoodling with Charlize Theron (2004 Golden Globe for “Monster”).

Or get a chance to meet and get recipes from Brandon Taylor, LeBron’s personal chef.

P.S. LeBron loves lasagna.

LeBronJames.com, however, is not all vanity and a difficult horizontal scroll bar.

There’s plenty of shouting out to his admirable charity work with underprivileged kids.

The site is simple, yet hip — and definitely self-centered. It’s the typical professional athlete website.

What does an athlete truly need a website for? A “.com” never won anyone an NBA title. A Twitter account can’t wear a championship ring.

Rings. That’s what LeBron’s maligned move to Miami was all about, right? That’s his new supposed mantra.

Or as LeBron so eloquently Tweeted recently and re-posted on his website’s fashion page (that’s correct, his website has a fashion section):

“U are what u wear”

ATHLETES AND THEIR UNIQUE WEBSITES:

www.PeteRose.com/

Premise: I want back in baseball…please buy something.

www.AndreAgassi.com

Premise: I will enlighten you…please buy my book

www.JoseCanseco.com

Premise: Domain expired in September and is available. Quite possibly the product of someone who couldn’t pay their bills.

Also available: www.sammysosa.com and www.markmcgwire.com.

Perhaps the public has spoken.

.

Kinsler Takes Road to Dorado

October is traditionally a month reserved for football at Tucson Canyon Del Oro High School, home of the defending Class 4A-1 state champs.

If you ask the esteemed alumni of the Dorado’s baseball program, however, they might say otherwise.

When Ian Kinsler took the field on Wednesday night for Game One of the 2010 World Series, the Texas Ranger second baseman became the fourth CDO grad in six years to potentially earn a Fall Classic ring.

(more…)

There are ticking time bombs scattered in the cities harboring many professional sport franchises.

They sit like a singing elephant on a street corner. No one really wants to acknowledge it. And when they do, they often do so in self-deprecating tones.

These bombs — the pent-up frustration of a metropolis’ insufferable championship drought — have been known to flip over a car or two upon detonation.

And yet, they cannot be defused by simply snipping the red wire. Or is it the blue?

The fallout of the 2004 bomb the Red Sox set off in Boston rained fallout of widespread relief, divine thankfulness and a newfound tidal wave of chowdah-accented arrogance.

Bombs such as these lie just beneath the psyche of a city and fester until a guy — a bayou-born-and-bred boy, really — like New Orleans Saints’ cornerback Tracy Porter sneaks up from behind one of these weapons of mass deprivation and uses all 186-pounds of his 5-foot-11-inch frame to smack it with a ball-peen hammer.

And a city explodes.

(more…)

There are ticking time bombs scattered in the cities harboring many professional sport franchises.

They sit like a singing elephant on a street corner. No one really wants to acknowledge it. And when they do, they often do so in self-deprecating tones.

These bombs — the pent-up frustration of a metropolis’ insufferable championship drought — have been known to flip over a car or two upon detonation.

And yet, they cannot be defused by simply snipping the red wire. Or is it the blue?

The fallout of the 2004 bomb the Red Sox set off in Boston rained fallout of widespread relief, divine thankfulness and a newfound tidal wave of chowdah-accented arrogance.

Bombs such as these lie just beneath the psyche of a city and fester until a guy — a bayou-born-and-bred boy, really — like New Orleans Saints’ cornerback Tracy Porter sneaks up from behind one of these weapons of mass deprivation and uses all 186-pounds of his 5-foot-11-inch frame to smack it with a ball-peen hammer.

And a city explodes.

(more…)