Stool Samples

Red Carpet-Mania is sweeping the land.  It’s the vogue thing to do and quite frankly, we see no reason not to jump in on the fun.  Not only has Fox Sports announced the return of the Red Carpet special for the ’08 All Star Game, NBC has revealed that last year’s half-hour Kentucky Derby red carpet show will return – with an additional half-hour and the network’s very own poor man’s Ryan Seacrest:

NBC's Kentucky Derby coverage will include an hour-long red carpet show, up from the half-hour for last year's first-ever Derby carpet show, that will be hosted by Billy Bush, of the NBC-owned Access Hollywood. Expect lots of funny hats. - USA Today

Seeing as we are one of the levels in the beacon of sports journalism and sports entertainment, we are happy to announce that live right here, in two weeks, we will hold the first ever Stool Samples Red Carpet special.

All your favorite personalities will be here, along with a few other surprises.  Don’t miss out on this once and a lifetime chance: get your tickets today!

Crap that actually came from somebody's mouth
"That would just be diarrhea of the mouth. … Let's just talk about the sport we're assigned to cover." – Billy Packer, on his refusal to discuss the NBA during NCAA broadcasts

This is one Billy Packer viewpoint that we completely agree with.  Shhh; don’t tell anyone.
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"Kansas knows what it's like to be in an overtime championship game." - Billy Packer, referencing the 1957 triple overtime championship game between Kansas and North Carolina

Laugh all you want, but you’d be surprised how many of the players from the ’57 team are still playing for the Jayhawks.
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"I hate bloggers… worst development in media business.  Anyone can be a blogger.  No credentials required, just spouting off their opinions… Our wives could go on and do it if they wanted to.  I know they're not going away but I wish they did." – Murray Chass, New York Times

This coming from a ‘baseball purist’ on his way out of the New York Times.  A little bitter, aren’t we Murray?  And since you don’t have first class cooking credentials, you’re not allowed to comment on the strip steak you just ordered.

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”(Ben) Howland is a concocter of plays. Calipari is a collector of players.  I'm picking a now-healthy UCLA to defeat Memphis today because, all things being equal, the play always beats the players.” – Bill Plaschke

This isn’t notable because Plaschke was proved wrong by the outcome of the game, but by his simple notion that John Calipari doesn’t know how to coach - and because of the arrogant manner which Plaschke is so certain UCLA will win.
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"A lot of look guys look, but they don't see."- Jay Bilas

Per the orders of Mike Krzyzewski, Bilas ingrained this idiom in his mind at Duke to keep at ease while showering with teammates. 
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"Ending the half with a punctuation mark!"- Dick Enberg
 
When he reaches his 90s, Enberg will describe a similar sequence as ‘ending the half with a symbol’.
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"The answer is: take it off.  Get rid of it."- Verne Lundquist, on a game clock discrepancy
"Late at night, I favor that myself."- Bill Raftery
 
This from the man whom we documented last week as saying one player likes “to bang you on the inside” and who a year ago, we documented as saying Mike Conley, Jr. can “jerk it with his right or left hand”.  We’re beginning to think Mr. Raftery is playing a joke on the viewing public with a consistent barrage of sexual innuendo. 
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"Quick and hard by (B.J.) Raymond."- Bill Raftery

See above.
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"Everybody loves Raymond, right?"- Bill Raftery
 
Sure it’s not on the network anymore, but that doesn’t mean the CBS parents don’t appreciate or take note of the corporate synergy.  If it’s enough to keep Raftery spewing innuendo, we’re all for it.
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"(Chris) Long is not a prototypical edge rusher, but he's a disruptive force with rare versatility and  a motor that never quits."- Todd McShay, ScoutMaster Extraordinaire

Don't underestimate the power or predictability of a good motor.  It can work wonders in all facets of life - even for the people who don't have one.
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”Former NBA star Charles Barkley was depicted breaking free of neck and wrist shackles on the cover of Sports Illustrated.  Dennis Rodman graced the cover of Rolling Stone with horns poking out of his forehead and his red tongue hanging out.” – Megan K. Scott, AP

Charles Barkley was advocating the advancement of black children to get past the notion that they can only succeed if they play basketball or other sports.  Dennis Rodman is a professional weirdo.  Neither of those covers appealed to our race senses.  We’re weird like that, we suppose.

Media Rant -Apparently some people like Bill Plaschke
The traditional sports media exists in its own little world.  A great number of “classically trained” journalists (as Rick Reilly recently referred to his counterparts), happily set up residence amongst their peers in this world, wearing their media passes, making multiple trips to the press box buffets and looking for outlets to express their negative attitude about the growing non-traditional sector of the sports media (please note that those clichés were written from our parents basement.  Two can play this game).

One of the perks of this world is the awards.  Awards such as the Sports Emmys continue to ignore the public’s opinion and lavish their spoils on the safest and easiest choices year after year. The same can be said of the Associated Press Sports Editors awards.

Case in point – the award for “Best Columnist for 2007” for papers with circulation over 250,000 was the Los Angeles Times’ Bill Plaschke.  This marks the third time in four years that Plaschke has won the award.   We only have one issue with the selection – no one seems to like him.

Of all the “big name” columnists in the newspaper world, Plaschke is amongst the best at triggering the ire of regular sports fans – and not in a good way.  Ironically, word of his award came to JSF’s attention just days after we fielded a 1200 word enraged e-mail rant about a recent Plaschke column.

He is even more notorious amongst bloggers and his role on Around the Horn has thrust him into elite company as a loudmouthed talking head, alongside Jay Mariotti and Woody Paige.  That takes talent.

As a way to honor Plaschke’s award, we turned to those hated internet writers to get a general feel for his work:

Is Plaschke the most overblown prose artiste in the business, or what? In the corner...around the hotel table...in the corner... I swear, I think Plaschke believes he is the walking embodiment of James Earl Jones's character in "Field of Dreams." People will come, Bill. People will read. People will vomit. – FireJoeMorgan.com

I am so sick of Bill Plaschke's faux-etry. Bill Plaschke is Tim McCarver with a keyboard. Bill Plaschke is that annoying girl at the party who's somehow both dumb and pretentious and keeps complaining that "the mainstream media is too surface-y." Bill Plaschke sucks at metaphors. Otherwise, I think he's okay. – FireJoeMorgan.com

Unlike many of his high-profile sports columnist brethren, by all accounts, Plaschke is a very nice guy. That's why we're sure he will end up in Heaven, albeit in a special wing for overwrought, flowery, self-indulgent writers such as Mitch Albom, Woody Paige and anyone who has ever written novels involving talking unicorns – Deadspin.com

Columnists that like to write in single-sentence paragraphs are nothing new…but this penchant for repetitive sentences is made so much worse by the fact that you know…that Bill Plaschke turned this in and thought it was brilliant. Or at least pretty good. It is not either. – Eamonn Brennan, AOL Fanhouse

I'm sure Mr. Plaschke is a nice fellow, but if this award stands for anything, it stands for just how far the standards of print journalism have fallen. Plaschke does one thing well, and that's the occasional tear-jerker column about, I dunno, swimmers with rickets or something. The majority of his opinion work consists of columns with those single-sentence paragraphs refreshingly clear of coherence or insight. And often fact. – shysterball.com

Congrats, Bill.  At least your peers in Media Land love your work.

Stool Samples is written by the cofounders of the sports humor site, JoeSportsFan.com, Josh Bacott and Pat Imig.  They swear all this stuff is real.  Email them at info@joesportsfan.com