Friday's links (brought to you by Diego)...

Looks like gray bush still has some game… The Recchi’n ball scored 2 goals last night in his debut with the Thrashers.

Speaking of Recch’s some people are upset that he dissed Pittsburgh by some comments he made last week… What did you expect him to say we were right and he is washed up?

(note from Diego: Mike Ditka just picked Dolphins to upset Ravens as his underdog pick of the week on ESPN radio… I’m not sure what coach was smoking, but he needs to send some Diego’s way. Too bad Big Snack will probably take them on his parlay sheet now)

It looks like the Pens will be relying on ole’ Danny S. between the pipes as the Flower is going to be out with an ankle sprain for the next couple months. One of Diego’s favorite players, the Tal-BOT aka Max Talbot, will also be out for a couple weeks.

(Pic from hockeygoalies.org)

Where is Tom Barrasso when you need him?

The Buccos signed 36 year old grizzled veteran Chris Gomez to a deal. Good to see the Bucco’s finally finding that last piece of the puzzle that they’ve been missing these last 15 years. Man I really hope Snack gets me Bucco’s season tickets for Christmas this year.

Rumor time

There are rumors circulating online that the Bucs are looking to acquire Mariners starting pitcher Jeff Weaver, maybe its because he pitched a 4 hit shutout against us June 20th. Let us not forget his record was 7-13 last year with a 6.20 ERA last year. Not to mention he comes with a 9 million dollar salary, no wonder the Bucs are interested.

More Jason Bay talk this week and now people are saying a deal could be in the works with the Padres, who have repeatedly failed to land a free agent outfielder this off-season. Catcher Michael Barrett is said to be involved, prospect Chase Headley’s name is coming up again, as is Xavier Nady. Only time will tell.

Random Ramblings

Tim Tebow is the man. Not only did he become the first sophomore to win the Heisman trophy this weekend, and he gets to hook up with hot coeds at Florida, but he also has a website dedicated to “Tim Tebow Facts”. If you’ve ever seen the Chuck Norris facts then you know what I’m talking about.

Diego’s movie pick of the week is No Country for Old Men. I checked out this flick last week and it is ruthless. It’s based on the book by Cormac McCarthy, and centers on a drug deal gone wrong on the prarie in Texas. Anton Chigurh steals the show as a sociopath who rolls around with captive bolt pistol (google it) and a shotgun equiped with a silencer trying to track down the missing drug money. Check this one out, you won’t be dissapointed.

Yes folks both Kennywood and the Meadows were sold to companies operating in Spain and Australia this week. People in Pittsburgh are acting like our small city is being taken over by foreign entities. It pains me to know that people in this town really are that ignorant as to think that Kennywood will turn into “one big taco stand”. Kennywood sucked anyway, its sucked for a lot of years, and if anything the sale will make it better because they’ll actually spend some money and put in some new rides to attract new customers. Instead of giving us the same crappy rides we’ve been going on since Greenfield day at Kennywood in the 1st grade. People in this town are so scared of change that it makes me wanna slap someone. I’ve heard, “are you gonna have to press 1 for spanish and 2 for english” and “they better not get rid of the fries for some rice and beans or there’s gonna be a problem” You closed minded yinzer’s need to find christ brah, and relax your precious Kennywood isn’t going anywhere.

Mitchell Report...

Here's a link to the report on MLB...Check it out, we'll have some reaction once we get to read it and see who all is involved...and look in the back, it has cancelled checks from people who bought the 'roids...Denny Neagle has like 10 cancelled checks...too bad he still sucked...

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Diego's Mitchell Report Ramblings (before the report)...

The much-anticipated Mitchell Report drops today at 2PM Eastern Time. This report has to do with the steroid scandal MLB has been facing the last few years. Why doesn’t the MLB relax and just sweep the whole steroid thing under the rug like they do in the NFL? After all, everyone knows that players are cheating in the NFL, (Shawn Merriman, Rodney Harrison, Marcus Stroud… etc) but no one seems really seems to care, or wanna do anything about it, I know it doesn’t bother me if players wanna take the juice. Besides MLB, chicks dig the long ball.

You may want to sit down to read this one… but Pirates president doesn’t expect any current Pirates players to be on the list of 60-80 players named on the Mitchell Report… I am shocked… simply shocked.

(Pic from art.com)

These jagoffs should be forced to take 'roids...

Another bombshell dropped today… Roger Clemens is reportedly listed on the Mitchell Report. The man is older then dirt, but yet still has every top team in baseball bidding, and willing to pay top dollar, for his services, with every passing year. Is it his natural god given ability? I think not. I know people like to talk about his extreme workout program in the off-season, but give me a break. Roger may have found the fountain of youth, too bad it comes inside a syringe that he sticks in his butt. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn half the Yankees roster is juicing, guess we’ll see at 2PM today.

(note from Snack...I'll have a post up right after the names are released, so stop back at PNA to hear our reactions to this reports)

Until lata...

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Pens suck...

Well boys and girls, we got our asses handed to us by the Flyers 8-2...It was horrible, but at least we kicked their asses in some fights...Props to Gary Roberts for beating the hell out of the guy who cheap shoted Big Georges...

Sid the Kid assisted on both goals, coming from Peter Sykora and Ryan Whitney...Sabby looked like crap, and Ty Conklin wasn't much better...It's ok though, we did win 3 of 4 on our road trip, and going in I didn't think we'd win one the way we were playing...

Wednesday is probably going to be a down day, as I have to go scoop Lil' Snack up from Dayton...fun, fun, fun...Hopefully Diego and crew can post something but it's more likely I'll just have a double post from Diego and I on Thursday...

Until lata on...

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Diego's Monday Morning Hangover...(Part 2)

Steelers 13

Patriots 34

So instead of stopping the Patriots run at history, we just became another notch on their belt on the way to perfection. I have to admit that when I first heard about Anthony Smith’s comments this week I thought it wasn’t such a bad thing, I mean at least we knew he wasn’t scared to go up against the big bad Patriots. I was dead wrong, not because we got beat on and Smith got burned repeatedly during the game…. But because all I heard all week, during the whole game, and after the game was nothing but Anthony Smith, Anthony Smith, Anthony Smith. Even Belichick managed to call him out after the game, geez the Patriots are kinda sensitive. Anyway you won’t have to worry about hearing about Anthony Smith again in this article at least, I am done with him, and he’s dead to me, time to move on to bitching about the game Sunday.

Wow that pretty much sucked huh? And by that I mean the Steelers all round effort on Sunday, as they were outplayed in every facet of the game except in running the ball, and that didn’t even matter since the Patriots didn’t even try to do that. I am not even sure where to start… I guess we’ll start with the defense because that’s where everyone thought we would have the advantage. The Steelers did not look like the #1 defense on Sunday, they tried to pressure Brady and it even worked a little in the beginning of the game, but regrettably our aggressiveness worked against us. We let up two HUGE plays for TD’s in the 1st half. The inability of the Lers to stop the big play ultimately led to their demise in this one, as our offense was forced to play catch up throughout the day.

The defense looked good on the 1st drive stopping Brady and company for the first time all season. However, the Pats came back and scored on 6 out of their next 7 drives (one resulting in a missed field goal). For the most part it looked as if the Steelers brought a five man rush, but they had trouble rattling Brady all day long. The failure to pressure Brady combined with the over aggressiveness allowed the Pats to gain the advantage. At one point of the game Brady actually threw the ball 35 straight times (brings back bad memories doesn’t it?) The spread offense and short, quick, dump off passes allowed the Pats to move down the field efficiently, and the Steelers had no answer (maybe we should trade for DeAngelo Hall in the offseason I know he’s got a bad attitude but at least the man can cover). Brady found Welker and Moss whenever he wanted to and he passed for 399 yards, dissecting the #1 pass defense in the league.

On offense the Steelers struggled to score points in the red zone and that cost them dearly. The inability to score TD’s added to the defect that the Steelers faced. Even though they were close at halftime, 17-13, the Steelers offense was outplayed as they failed to convert third downs and continued giving the ball back to the potent Pat’s offense. The low point came as the Steelers trailed 34-13 and had a first and goal inside the Pat’s 10 yard line. First play run to Dookie Davenport, no dice. Second play, some sort of weird running play to Hines, stopped again. Third down alley oop pass to Dookie Davenport, what did they expect to happen? Fourth down, and their last chance, and they call another gadget play, an end around to Hines Ward and that’s it folks game over for our boys.

Did I miss something? Did the Steelers have some sort of contest running where a fan gets to call plays for a series? How about a play action bootleg pass to the tight end (its not like that’s been working all year for us)? And not one but two gadget plays to Hines? I mean I like him too, but come on mix it up a little will ya? It really goes to show ya that we miss the big guy, Jerome Bettis, if he were still on the team is there any doubt that we score on this series? At this point I was so fed up I had to leave the room and start drinking heavily to ease the pain of this horrible game. Here’s hoping they get it together for next week, see you’s guys then…

Quickie for yinz...

Well yesterday was a sad day for Snack, as he saw White Marcus defeat him by 3 in fantasy football...Now all we can hope for is tanning shop Frank to beat the piss outta him...get em' cheif...

Now for some real news...

The Stache' must know his stuff, as he just signed three more high profile WPIAL recruits, including QB Tino Sunseri (son of famous Pitt player Sal Sunseri) from my old school, Central Catholic...why he would choose Pitt, seeing as we have about 34 QB's on scholarship, is a mystery to me, but hopefully he redshirts a year, cause I think he's gonna be a good one...the kid knows how to win...And what about the other two recruits you ask? They're two WR's who are six-feet-five and six-feet-six...I can definitely see the upside of having two huge kids like that...Plus we stole them from schools the likes of Miami, Florida and WVU...HAHAHAHA...Well played Wanny, well played...

The Pens are playing tonight on Versus at 7 PM agaisnt those tools from Philly..This could be a historic night, kinda, because only one other time have the Pens have swept a road trip 4-0 was in 1988...Not really important, but what is important is the Pens coming within 3 points of division-leading New Jersey...

And in other Pens news, Sid the Kid won the Lou Marsh Award, which is apprently a big deal to our Nieghbors to the North...My first thought was that it was an award named after Stan Marsh's Dad for taking a 9 Couric dump(please tell me you guys get the South Park reference), but apparently it's the sportsmen of the year award up there...Good work Sid...

In Steeler news, it appears Aaron Smith is done for the year...I know, I wish it were the other Smith too, that loud mouthed bastard...I don't know who's gonna fill in, but I sure hope they can do better then Nick Eason and Travis Kirschke...They're both older then my dad and I can see Jacksonville doing very bad things to them...

And finally, those hoopies in the West Virginia Band got in trouble for posting derogatory comments in their instruments...Wow, those poor bastards probably wrote "Bite me, Pitt" in their little horns and now theyre being disciplined...But, seeing as I hate everything about that state (other then legal poker games and, in two weeks, table games, of course), I think it's appropriate...I also think we should take this another step further, and have them all arrested for slander and/or harrassment depending on what the wrote...Maybe even hate crimes, seeing as they do hate us...

Until lata...and write some comments people...everyone wanted them, now we got them, and no one's made a comment besides my fat ass...I expect some funny shit guys...

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Diego's Monday Morning Hangover...(Part 1)

Well folks this was the weekend we’ve all been waiting for, too bad it didn’t turn out how we all expected it to. I’m not sure what it is about Pittsburgh sports, but it seems like their can only be one team on a hot streak at a time in this city, and this week it was the Penguins. The Pens got three wins this week, all of which coming in overtime, and all of which coming against opponents from western Canada. Kris Letang proved calling him up from Wilkes-Barre was wise as he provided the game winner in the shootout two games in a row. The Flower got hurt early in the week, but Danny S came in and looked impressive in his two starts leading Bob Erray to state, “maybe they shouldn’t tell Sabourin when he’s gonna play in future games.” The Pens have won 8 of their last 9 games making their record 15-12 for the season.

It is good to see the Pens finally getting their act together. It seems like the lines that Thierren has going now are meshing well together. I know coach T likes to mess around with the lines a lot, but apparently there is a method to his madness, as he seems to finally have put all of the pieces of the puzzle together. I especially like the fact he is giving Malkin and Crosby minutes on the penalty kill, as their hard work seems to be supplying the Pens with more energy and goal scoring chances. It is also nice to see Danny S stepping in and playing on a high level in goal. All these factors combined with the fact that Mad Max Talbot is back in the starting lineup, are adding up to more wins and more points for the once struggling Pens team. Next up we’re in Philly tomorrow night for a rivalry game with Flyers.

(Pic from viewimages.com)

Could he give Sid a few pointers in the shoot out?

Pitt 75

Washington 74

The Pens weren’t the only sports action on Saturday, we also were treated to a Pitt basketball game. The Panthers played the Washington Huskies Saturday afternoon, and after 7 games in the Pete, and 1 game down the road at the AJ Palumbo Center, this game would be their first true road game. This would be no walk in the park either, as the Huskies were sporting a 31 game winning streak against non-conference opponents at home (4 years and 5 days incase you were counting), which was the longest such streak in the Nation.

Pitt struggled a little in the first half of this one, but managed to keep it close thanks to 16 first half points out of point guard and team leader Levance Fields. Fields had a game high 20 points going 7 of 9 from the field. Sam Young and Mike Cook each contributed 14 points. The highlight of the game came off of a steal and fast break opportunity, on a give and go pass with Young and Fields, which resulted in an alley-oop slam-dunk from high-flyer Sam Young (37 inch vertical leap). Blair also came up huge on Saturday posting a double double with 16 points and 14 rebounds. He actually grabbed 14 of the 31 rebounds Pitt had in the game, and he also had 3 steals and 2 blocks.

The Huskies were led by guard Appleby who came off the bench and scored 18 (on 6 three pointers), including a couple three’s late in the game that kept his team alive. Forward Brockman played a big role for Washington, scoring 17 points and grabbing 12 boards, 7 on the offensive end. Washington, trailing most of the second half due to a strong start from Pitt, actually had a chance to win this one at the end of regulation. Huskies point guard Dentmon hit what appeared to be the game winning lay-up, after a Fields missed foul shot, which led to a celebration from the crowd. The play was close though and after what seemed like an eternity the ref’s made the right call and waved off the winning basket because the ball hadn’t left his hand before the clock expired, giving Pitt their 9th win of the season.

Pitt may have got lucky in this one, but the Washington Huskies looked like a pretty solid team, especially playing on their home court. It is good to see upperclassman Fields and Young having a solid season thus far. There were ramblings that Young was unhappy with his playing time last year as a sophomore, but luckily for Pitt he decided to stick around, and it is paying off as Young is putting up points in bunches. The biggest difference between this year’s team and last year’s is that we now have an outstanding athlete at the center position. The presence of DeJuan Blair allows Pitt to play more of a transition game, which we lacked with super slow white boy Gray, and that seems to favor all of those NYC guards on the team who like to run and gun. Losing big-man Aaron Gray definitely hurts, but so far Blair isn’t playing like a freshman; his hard work ethic is translating into better chemistry with the players who surround him. Pitt gets a week break before they see Oklahoma at home next Saturday afternoon.

Until lata...

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Carl's Pissed Again...

My body double is furious over the whole Michael Vick conviction and sentencing...Apparently dogfighting is a favorite pastime over in Jersey...and I thought all they did was chop bodies up, throw them into bowling bags and then go and get perms and tackey jewlery...Bada Bing!

Until lata...

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Steelers suck...

Well, as if you didn't know already, our Steelers got worked over pretty good yesterday by the Cheaters, 34-13...Don't worry, at least we didn't do anything stupid like guarentee a victory...Oh, right...

Our "Number 1 Ranked" defense pooped in the bed, alllowing Randy "pass that blunt" Moss and Wes "I look like I touch little boys" Welker to run free and make us look foolish...Oh yea, and who got burned on at least two of the TD's?...You guessed it, old loudmouth himself, Anthony Smith...This kid needs to learn to shut his mouth or else I'm sure he'll have Big Ben's size 15 up his ass...

More to come on this embarassing defeat in Diego's Monday Morning Hangover...

Here's to hoping we pull one out against the Shaguars next week...And here's to hoping our new comments forum that I supposedly linked shows up on this post...Make sure to drop us a line if it does!!!

Until lata...

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Quick update...

Well boys and girls, last night was a very exciting evening in sports, especially for your boy Big Snack...The talk of the town is obviously Pitt's narrow escape from Washington. They held on to win 75-74, and thankfully, instant replay cancelled a shot Washington sank as time expired...The last two games have been nail biters for the Panthers, but they came out on top in both, which can only help them down the line...

In other news, the Pens won 2-1 in another shootout...That makes it a clean sweep of the great Northwest, with the Pens beating the best Canada has to offer three times in a row...Kris Letang scored the winning shootout goal, again, winning his second in a row...Why don't they put this crazy bastard in the regular shootout lineup? He embarassed Bobby Luongo, who is one of, if not the best goalie in the league...I've never seen a defensemen treat Bobby with such disrespect...This kid is damn talented...

And finally, rounding out the Snack Trifecta, my old stomping grounds, the University of Dayton (a fine "academic" institution) beat those jagoffs from Louisville 70-65, keeping Petino from winning his 500th game...HAHAHAHA It's good to see those boys can still go on without their favorite bouncer/sports info person in their lives...I know how tough it can be to play when your not half kicked in the ass all week, and I lived to make sure that never happened with our boys in red and blue...I guess Little Snack has kept my legacy alive up there and has the hoopers on the right path...

Until tomorrow, when I'm writing about the Steelers big victory over the Cheaters...and Emmit Smith, go to hell...You sound illiterate and I hope you never work another day in this industry, you punch drunk, retarded prick...Good Day...

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