Crown Royal invited Assistant Editor Rocky Rakovic to experience auto racing with the Royal treatment. He was given a pit pass, a ride in the pace car and shadowed the race’s Grand Marshal. Oh yeah, Rocky had never watched a race, doesn’t much like cars and is content on taking the subway to work. Here’s his first dispatch:
I received a call from the Crown Royal people inviting me to the Dan Lowry 400 at Richmond International Raceway. “Who is Dan Lowry?” I asked. Turns out he’s a regular guy. In the sport (I’ll call it a sport until I confirm or deny it’s “sportiness”) where advertising is king, Crown Royal bucked the trend by giving their naming rights away to a Regular Joe, or in this case: Dan. Dan Lowry won a contest in which he had to write a 50-word essay about his favorite experience with Crown Royal. To give you a feeling of how long that essay was the introductory paragraph to this post is longer. I was promised full access to the race and their cabinet of Crown—I’m in.
-I’m not a “car guy,” I don’t salivate over the new Audi or—hold on let me ask a coworker—Bugatti. I don’t feel the need for speed. I barrage the Crown Royal people with idiotic questions: ear plugs? How fast does the pace car go? Not to sound weird, but what do I wear? The answers: Yes. Fast. And khakis. I’m totally out of my element; I haven’t worn khakis since third grade.
Dave Golokhov, host of Hardcore Sports Radio (Sirius 186), has some questions for the Minnesota Vikings:
Just prior to the NFL draft, the Minnesota Vikings acquired Jared Allen from the Kansas City Chiefs. It seemed like a good deal: Allen is the NFL's reigning sack leader. But he also has had three DUI charges. The impressive 15.5 sacks he amassed last year were totaled in only 14 games because he missed two games because of his issues with alcohol.
Remember, the Vikings have had some issue images. This was the team whose players were involved in the sex boat cruise in 2005. This is also the team that signed wide receiver Koren Robinson to a three-year, $12.4 million contract in 2006, only to release him within months after he registered another DUI.
Robinson isn’t the star Allen is, but Vikings majority owner Zygi Wilf has been so adamant about bringing in clean players that it is surprising that Allen's history didn't serve as a deterrent. If you recall, Wilf sent out a 77-page pamphlet to all of his working bees regarding player conduct after the Love Boat scandal in 2005.
Four of the first five draft picks in this year's NFL draft—Jake Long, Chris Long, Darren McFadden and Glenn Dorsey--were on last year's Playboy All-America team. Overall nine Playboy All-Americans were selected in the first round; a total of 15 selected in the first two rounds; 22 were selected overall. With two underclassmen who elected to stay in school, that means that only two players from our team were not drafted. Both of those players have already signed with NFL teams as free agents.
The Mets got Rickrolled yesterday. I’m glad that their front office has the same sense of humor as the Internets and will be allowing the fans to vote live. According to Mets Blog tonight during the eighth inning, they’ll play "Never Gonna Give You Up," followed by "Living on a Prayer" on Wednesday, "I’m a Believer on Thursday," "Movin’ Out" on Friday, "Sweet Caroline" on Saturday and "Build Me Up Buttercup" on Sunday.
C’mon- Bon Jovi belongs to Jersey, “I’m a Believer” was in Shrek, “Sweet Caroline” is the Red Sox song and though “Buttercup” is a perfect sing-a-long/karaoke choice, Rick Astley is classic.
Dave Golokhov, host of Hardcore Sports Radio (Sirius 186), answers one of the timeless questions:
What is worse for the single male: the tease who leads you on or the girl that rejects you cold turkey?
Wise men have been debating that for years but the truth is that although the crude chic might rip off the band aid promptly and painfully, at least she saves your time and heart.
The Oakland Athletics and the Minnesota Twins are baseball's version of the tease, which is why they are the worst franchises in the sport.
Did you happen to catch the exciting end to the UCLA/Texas A&M NCAA tourney game? Me neither. But I saw all I needed to see in two YouTube clips. The first video is from bitter Texas A&M fans who believe that A&M’s Josh Sloan got fouled taking a shot with six seconds left -- but the refs didn't make any call. The second video is a clever rebuttal to the first, but it’s not from UCLA fans. You gotta love in-state rivalries.
Talk about a double dinger. Perhaps the new Baseball Preview issue of Sports Illustrated will once-and-for-all settle whether being on that cover is a curse.
On the front of the mag, not only do they have six young studs (the Brewers’ Ryan Braun, the D’backs’ Justin Upton, the Rockies’ Troy Tulowitzki, Red Sox Jacoby Ellsbury, Clay Buchholz, and Nat Ryan Zimmerman), but each one is holding a cover on which he also appears.
With that kind of extra bad mojo working, you would expect at least one of them to get decapitated by a fastball this season. We’ll keep track.
Jonathan Littman continues his coverage of the case against Barry Bonds:
SAN FRANCISCO – Nothing much happened Friday in Courtroom No. 10, which is not the way Team BALCO was hoping its centerpiece perjury case against Barry Bonds would go. For the second time in a month, lead prosecutor Matthew Parrella asked the judge for more time to consider the government’s options in its effort to put Bonds behind bars for allegedly lying about steroid use.
Judge Susan Ilston seemed taken aback, but she consulted her calendar and granted Parrella’s request to return June 6 for a status hearing, meaning that filing the new indictment will take even longer than that.
The government’s move did not appear to be a vote of confidence in the biggest performance enhancement case in history. Three weeks ago, Ilston ruled for the defense, ordering the government to fix its confusing and ambiguous indictment – or start all over.
Last week we invited you to participate in the selection process for the Playboy Preseason All-America Football Team. We’ve heard from a few of you but not enough of you. If you don’t yell out your favorite players at your favorite school, I don’t want to hear from you in the fall when we publish our team in the September 2008 issue of the magazine.
I know that no Florida fans were paying attention last week because I inadvertently left off one of the premier quarterback in the nation. Oops! Tim Tebow of Florida is a returning Heisman Trophy winner, a lethal combination of passer and rusher, doing each for over 1,000 yards last season. By the way, Tebow is the first sophomore to ever win the award. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s the pick for our team this year, but he certainly has to be given serious consideration.
Let’s quickly run through some of my favorites to make the team at running back this year...
For the first time in the 52-year history of the Playboy Preseason All-America Football Team, we’re inviting you to participate in the process. Every week or so, we’ll talk about a different position on this year’s coming Playboy All-America football team. I’ll rundown my favorites to make the team. You chime in with your thoughts.
Our goal is to select the player at each position on offense and defense, as well as a place kicker, punter and return man, who we think will be the best in the nation. We limit consideration to Division I student/athletes with at least one year of college eligibility remaining.
The selected players will be assembled in early May for an awards weekend, team photo and to create material for our College Football Preview television show. The team along with our Top 25 predictions for the coming season will be published in our Pigskin Preview in the September 2008 issue of the magazine.
I’ll give you more history and information about past Playboy All-Americas in the coming weeks but for now, let’s start things off by trying to decide who the best college quarterback will be next season. Here are some of the players on my board:
Sam Bradford – Oklahoma (6’5”, 213 pounds, sophomore). Bradford set an NCAA record for freshman last season with 36 touchdown passes and led the nation in passing efficiency. Matthew Stafford – Georgia (6’3”, 237 pounds, junior). Stafford has already passed for over 4,000 yards in two seasons.
Dave Golokhov, host of Hardcore Sports Radio (Sirius 186), is asking, what the puck?
The BCS may be the most enigmatic, money-grubbing power rating systems in sports but at the very least it now has some company. To non-NHL fans, let me introduce you to the three-point system.
Winning an NHL game (regulation, overtime or shootout) nets you two points in the standings while losing in regulation gets you zilch. But if a game is tied after regulation, both teams are awarded one point. In other words, if you lose in overtime or in a shootout, you still gain one point. How ridiculous is that?
Could you imagine two major league baseball teams moving up in the standings because a game has simply reached extra innings? Or in basketball, two NBA teams that sweat it out for 48 regulation minutes receive half a win just because they didn't lose in regulation? Originally, this system was introduced to avert ties and conservative play in overtime, but now it is worse since teams now use the guarded approach late in the third period to secure at least one point.
Playboy Contributing Editor Jonathan Littman (jonlittman@earthlink.net) brings us the latest on the Barry Bonds case:
SAN FRANCISCO -- The judge in the Barry Bonds perjury case slapped the government hard Friday, directing prosecutors to redraft their flawed and ambiguous indictment and ordering the unsealing of Bonds’ grand jury testimony.
The hearing was called to determine whether Judge Susan Ilston would grant Bonds’ motion to dismiss all or part of the five-count indictment. After hearing brief arguments from both sides, she ordered prosecutors to either drop some of the charges or start from scrap with a new set of counts.
Ilston showed little patience for the prosecutors’ argument that ambiguities and duplicity in the counts should be heard at trial. Accusing Bonds of lying multiple times in each count, she explained, was piling on. “The government needs to choose,” she said.
Barry Bonds sure had his blood and urine tested a lot for a guy who said he wasn’t juicing. But then again when all is said and done maybe Barry Bonds didn’t deny taking steroids.
Today’s unsealing of the 152-page grand jury transcript in the celebrated Bonds’ perjury case cut like a double-edged sword. There seemed to be damning evidence against the slugger, but equally sticky problems for the government in potentially succeeding at trial.
The government detailed an extraordinary list of nearly unpronounceable drugs Bonds is alleged to have taken, and listed numerous tests that appeared to show the slugger has tested positive for a number of banned drugs. Yet the transcript does not appear to allude to a single test where the government might have Bonds’ urine or blood.
Dave Golokhov, host of Hardcore Sports Radio (Sirius 186), is aiming to stir up some trouble.
Here's a rumor that I'm going to start: the San Diego Chargers should trade LaDanian Tomlinson.
For starters, they just proved that they can go in to Indianapolis and win without him. They also nearly triumphed in New England while he stood on the sidelines.
If they keep their backup, Michael Turner, the tandem of Turner and Darren Sproles immediately becomes a top-notch one-two punch at running back and more a more versatile attack than using Tomlinson alone. And if you look at the last three Super Bowl Champs (New York Giants, Indianapolis Colts and Pittsburgh Steelers), all three had two-man rotations at running back opposed to one workhorse.
Running back is the cheapest commodity in the NFL. Runners like Ryan Grant and Selvin Young were undrafted rookie free agents who had major impacts on their teams last season. By acknowledging that running back is the easiest position to replace, inherently Tomlinson can not be one of the best players in the league because he plays one of the least valued positions.
On the flip side, though, the Chargers are really close to a Super Bowl – maybe one or two players away – and they can trade Tomlinson for almost any player in the league or any draft pick to get that missing piece. They would be trading from a position of strength to fill one of the last leaks on a very talented roster.
Plus the move will save them some cash. Considering they had nine Pro Bowlers this year and 11 last year, the salary cap figures to be a looming hurdle as their burgeoning stars get closer to the end of their contracts.
Crown Royal invited Assistant Editor Rocky Rakovic to experience auto racing with the Royal treatment. He was given a pit pass, a ride in the pace car and shadowed the race’s Grand Marshal. Oh yeah, Rocky had never watched a race, doesn’t much like cars and is content on taking the subway to work. Here’s his first dispatch:
Dave Golokhov, host of Hardcore Sports Radio (Sirius 186), has some questions for the Minnesota Vikings: 
Four of the first five draft picks in this year's NFL draft—Jake Long, Chris Long, Darren McFadden and Glenn Dorsey--were on last year's Playboy All-America team. Overall nine Playboy All-Americans were selected in the first round; a total of 15 selected in the first two rounds; 22 were selected overall. With two underclassmen who elected to stay in school, that means that only two players from our team were not drafted. Both of those players have already signed with NFL teams as free agents.
Dave Golokhov, host of Hardcore Sports Radio (Sirius 186), answers one of the timeless questions:
Did you happen to catch the exciting end to the UCLA/Texas A&M NCAA tourney game? Me neither. But I saw all I needed to see in two YouTube clips. The 
An even worse curse?
Jonathan Littman continues his coverage of the case against Barry Bonds:
Last week we invited you to participate in the selection process for the Playboy Preseason All-America Football Team. We’ve heard from a few of you but not enough of you. If you don’t yell out your favorite players at your favorite school, I don’t want to hear from you in the fall when we publish our team in the September 2008 issue of the magazine.
For the first time in the 52-year history of the Playboy Preseason All-America Football Team, we’re inviting you to participate in the process. Every week or so, we’ll talk about a different position on this year’s coming Playboy All-America football team. I’ll rundown my favorites to make the team. You chime in with your thoughts. 
Dave Golokhov, host of Hardcore Sports Radio (Sirius 186), is asking, what the puck?
Playboy Contributing Editor Jonathan Littman (jonlittman@earthlink.net) brings us the latest on the Barry Bonds case:
Barry Bonds sure had his blood and urine tested a lot for a guy who said he wasn’t juicing. But then again when all is said and done maybe Barry Bonds didn’t deny taking steroids.
Dave Golokhov, host of Hardcore Sports Radio (Sirius 186), is aiming to stir up some trouble.