Sports

Doctors Warn Watching World Cup Highlights Causes Failed Drug Tests

1 September 2018

The United States General Toxicology and Cancer Group from the National Institute Health released a statement late Thursday in which they warned that those requiring regular drug testing, possibly as a condition of employment or having been mandated by the courts, should avoid watching even highlights of World Cup games in which the Russian National Team participated.

“Honestly, if I had to take a drug test for any reason in the next six months, I would completely avoid watching highlights from these games – the potential costs are just too great,” an unnamed member of the NIH group commented.

Another doctor, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed this initial analysis, stating, “Just one look at winger Artem Dzyuba is enough to fail all five panels of a standard urinalysis test.”

For those that may have been unwittingly compromised by the sheer toxicity of your average Russian, doctors recommend watching replays of the Saudi National Team.

“If you need to clean yourself up quick, just watch the defensive highlights from their first group match; it’s enough to make anyone sober up and walk a straight line.”

NBA Considering Rule Changes for 18-19 Season

25 August 2018

Meeting in a shadowy, Manhattan boardroom, where over three decades ago they had last met to agree on going forward with plans to genetically engineer the marketing entity America has come to know as “LeBron James”, the NBA Board of Governors reconvened Thursday to discuss possible rule changes for the 2018-19 season.

According to league sources and our colleagues at ESPN, “some of the expected changes will involve resetting the shot clock after an offensive rebound to 14 seconds from 24, simplifying the clear-path foul rule and expanding the definition of the ‘hostile act’ to more easily trigger instant replay.”

However, while these changes were expected by various team officials and league experts, some extra, non-expected alterations have also made it onto the preliminary list, causing concern among traditionalists of the game.

WikiLeeks has gained exclusive access to the circular disseminated by the league yesterday and can report on the following controversial proposed changes to the game:

Introduction of the Non-Human “6^th man”

NBA ratings have increased in recent years, with the annual playoffs becoming a popular national fixture. However, in capitalism, there is always room for improvement. According to our colleagues at Forbes, the average age of an NBA viewer is relatively young at 42 years of age – much lower than the NFL (50) or MLB (57… However, data may be skewed as MLB viewing is reportedly being used by the elderly as form of assisted suicide.).

Let’s be quite honest; the demography of this older, whiter generation doesn’t quite gel with the usual intersectional background of your average NBA player. So, what to do? According to league officials, in order to mitigate these demographic viewing disparities, the answer is to introduce some sort of non-human extra player to increase entertainment for the general public. This sixth man could take many forms – a golden retriever, an adolescent werewolf, a wrestling bear named Dewie… One can almost see the number of family season tickets disappearing in a whirlwind of sales.

Keeping the “Magic” Alive

For several decades, in his various capacities as broadcaster, pundit, and general manager, Magic Johnson has positively been one of the greatest ambassadors for the league, recently using an imperious curse to ensure this summer’s capture of the league’s genetically engineered titan, LeBron James. However, according the Board of Governor’s yesterday, the NBA is prepared to drastically ramp up the magic – and we’re not just talking about Johnson. While still in its nascent stages, the NBA plans to release several “magic” pieces of merchandise in thecoming

year.

From “magic water” – which we are told allows a team to play far beyond its capacity and may even result in the gross elongation of the radial and ulnar forearm bones – to “magic shoes” – in which a young player attempts to procure a pair of Nike Blazers from a power line and experiences a shock of electrocution that, in turn, allows him to play at championship levels while additionally performing as a hip-hop artist – to “the Magic Bullet” – a device that shreds and processes various foods while adorned in the retro colors of the Washington DC Bullets (who are now called… wait for it…. the Washington Wizards), the Magic Bullet is perfect for your next barbecue, family dinner, or personal celebration of Gheorghe Muresan.

Actually Giving a Shit for the First 2/3 of the Season

In the seminal 1980 film classic Airplane!, when a young fan visits the cockpit to see his hero, All-Pro Center and certified corporate pilot Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, little Joey offers the following sentiment to his sporting hero:

“I think you’re the greatest, but my dad says you don’t work hard enough on defense. And he says that lots of times, you don’t even run down court. And that you don’t really try … except during the playoffs.”

We are glad to see that, like the timeless nature of satire itself, some things never seem to change.

 

America’s Parenting Debate: Letting your kids play football vs. Bringing back industrialized child labor

18 August 2018

As the summer months begin to wind down, the temperature slowly cools, and the days begin to get shorter, many parents face a difficult decision: Should I let my kid play football (American, for our international readers) this autumn?

The answer to that question continues to divide parents in America, often echoing the socio-economic and cultural divisions that define our nation. Perhaps, however, some context is needed.

Fifty years ago, playing football was as American as apple pie, (the illusion of) free trade policy, and the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. For countless young men, it was viewed as something of an essential rite of passage into American adulthood, participation in which indicated that the individual was neither homosexual nor communist enough to be denied employment and/or the vote by his fellow peers. To a certain extent, one could even argue that the national pastime of football transcended race and economic class more than any other American activity in an extremely repressive era.

However, fifty years later, as scientists, players, and parents begin to fully understand the physical effects of playing football on the brain, many kids may be denied their place on the field this fall. Perhaps most notably, the New York Times produced a report last year in which, of a total of 111 brains examined from former NFL players, all but one exhibited signs of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE). Developed as a result of repeated, blunt force trauma to the head, CTE can result in long-term depression, dementia, and suicide, evidenced by the deaths of several high-profile players in recent years.

Karen Strymbolzski, commonly known in her community as “Divorced Karen” due to her militant pride in having taken half of her ex-husband’s estate after making her marriage unquestionably untenable, firmly states, “I would rather get ‘Long Live the Patriarchy’ tattooed next to my ex-husband’s name on my ass than let my adopted son Bartleby take part in these chauvinistic displays.”

When questioned about whether allowing Bartleby, age 15, to play football might have positive benefits, such as increasing his self-confidence, making new friends, and/or furthering his continuing integration into American culture, Divorced Karen was unequivocal in her denial.

“I will put him on a fucking plane back to fucking Taipei before I let him be infected with the inborn toxicity of the other vagrants… I didn’t adopt a goddamn Asian kid because he was likely to throw a tight spiral.”

When WL pressed this line of inquiry even further, Divorced Karen was unyielding.

“Listen, you talking repository of phallic trash, all racist jokes aside, I want to be very clear about this: Bartleby, with his gentle, compassionate soul, will never play a game that engenders violence.”

Fair point, Divorced Karen.

However, we couldn’t help but wonder aloud, what about developing other qualities gained through physical activities and sport, such as resilience, work ethic, and loyalty?

“Bartleby drinks a glass of soy milk with every meal and I personally examine Bartleby’s chakras every morning… Both his body and his aura are strong. Like me, however, it’s very important that Bartleby never be dependent on another man.”

Divorced Karen’s answer, which is making waves throughout her community, is to have Bartleby visit and work at a “manufacturing facility” operated by some members of his birth family in Taipei. Thus, following Divorced Karen’s announcement concerning her plans for Bartleby at her “militant, second-wave feminist” monthly book group, given the choice between allowing one’s child to play football and working in a Chinese sweat shop, which would parents choose?

For most American parents, the decision is a difficult one. On the one hand, “Chinese Prison Labor” doesn’t exactly sound like the typical, formative experience for growth. On the other, no well-meaning parent wants their kid to turn out like Aaron Hernandez… So it’s a push, right?

Like Divorced Karen, who spent most summers at an all-girls summer camp and briefly owned a horse in her youth shortly before necessitating it’s sale through an outright refusal to personally care for the beast, economist Percy Orminder sees nothing wrong with her intended experience for Bartleby.

“In some rural societies, 90% of the children work. On the continent of Bartleby’s birth, just under one out of every five children are forced into labor before age 14, often in some of the most dire conditions and at the expense of their education. For young girls, the consequences can be even worse,” Orminder said.

“However, unlike American parents, for whom recreational choice is a luxury, most parents in developing countries don’t really enjoy that privilege; it’s either the factory or a loss in household income… I’d say the real cause for concern is that American parents care so much about whether their kid should put the jersey on or not, they forgot about the exploited little hands that stitched the jersey together in the first place.”

Unlike Orminder, however, Divorced Karen had more immediate outcomes in mind for Bartleby.

“Well, after Bartleby’s ‘internship’, we certainly won’t be having any more lazy ass B+’s in spelling or ‘Seems sad in class, doesn’t socialize well’ notes on our report card,” Divorced Karen snarled at her adopted son, giving him a final, withering look as the soon-to-be laborer buried his head into his Nintendo DS.

 

 

Longform: Remembering When Lance Armstrong Single-Testicle-ally Destroyed American Sport

30 August 2018

The year was 1999 and it was simpler time in America. Slick Willie had the economy in the black for the first time in three decades. Gas was $1.15 a gallon and Americans were jamming to the super-chill tunes of Shania Twain, Third Eye Blind, and Savage Garden. Al Gore’s internet project was really starting to take off and the FDA gave an increasingly flaccid baby boomer generation a reason to continue “rising” everyday in the form of new, little blue pill.

Indeed, friends, it was a truly remarkable time to be alive – and that year, America fell in love with a wiry, uniballing Texan who had just finished an improbable return from metastatic testicular cancer to win his first Tour de France.

Armstrong’s meteoric rise represented a perfect storm (or as the French say, “l’grand surrender”) of several factors:

1) Bored, imperialistic Americans, coming off back-to-back World War wins, a minor hiccup in southeast Asia, and victory over Communism, needed a new game to dominate.

2) Lance was boys with Matthew McConaughey, dated Sheryl Crow, and was bringing glory to that most American of institutions, the US Postal Service, by completely dominating a bunch of Europeans in spandex.

3) As a society, we just absolutely fucking craved plastic wristbands… and also, Beanie Babies.

As many know, the rest was like a montage in your average sports film: Lance dominating with badass interspersed footage of Dubya touching down on an aircraft carrier, H2 Hummers, clips from 2 Fast 2 Furious, and that era’s soundtrack (I’m thinking we go with Oops! I did it again! Maybe NSYNC’s It’s Gonna Be Me? Fuck it. Who Let the Dog’s Out for the win.).

Lance followed 1999  with another championship in 2000.

Then he won again.

Then again.

And again.

Lance ultimately won the Tour every year from 1999 until 2005, when he announced his retirement. By the time of his exit from the sport, Lance’s annual exploits were as definitively ubiquitous to that time and place as H2 Hummers, JLo’s backside, subprime mortgages, and the War on the Terror.

In those cheery, early days of waterboarding and the Patriot Act, Lance’s singular domination of the sport represented something that an increasingly divided country could get behind. And indeed, we delighted as these pacifist, sexually fluid European socialists were forced to get (and, ultimately, stay) behind Lance each summer somewhere before the Arc d’Triumph.  As such, if you weren’t wearing a $20 Livestrong band in 2003, you were almost certainly a Muslim sexual deviant sporting a “Viva Chavez” t-shirt. Similarly, when Armstrong started wearing his desiccated testicle in a leather pouch around his neck during the 2005 Tour de France, we couldn’t help but do the same.

Making an appearance in 2004’s Dodgeball: An Underdog Story, a movie that went on to sweep a record-setting fifteen Oscars the following year, Lance seemed to sum up the quintessential American dream:

In an era when all stood against us, from the United Nations to Death itself, Lance put America back on top, sacrificing his one important family jewel for our collective immortality.

Of course, as in the financial sector, telling cracks were beginning to show in the seemingly otherwise unblemished American facade.

In 2004, footage emerged of Armstrong pulling up along rider Christophe Bassons in a race and threatening to “split his newborn infant in half and slurp the growth hormone directly from that little fucker’s pituitary gland.”

In 2006, he broke up with singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow, disappointing many. From the dizzying highs to these new lows, every day had, indeed, become a winding road. At the same time, questions began emerging in the French Press about how much coffee to put in and how long to ideally steep the brew, in addition to whether or not Armstrong was using performance enhancing drugs.

As it turned out, the small taste of testosterone Armstrong received due to his recovery from cancer proved to be like Jeff Session’s conception of one marijuana toke: an irreversible Pandora’s Box immediately effecting  a lifetime of hopeless dependence. By the time of his second Tour championship, Armstrong was slinging back daily cocktails of testosterone, cortisol, EPO, and John Kerry’s tears just to get out of bed in the morning.

Publically, Armstrong maintained the image of a champion. Privately, Armstrong was becoming known for increasingly erratic incidents, as when he held the Postmaster General hostage in his Washington office until the cyclist had received sixteen kilograms of Corticosteroids, an eighth of PCP, and a six pack of Lone Star Beer from USPS employees.

Like Goubert and Parker on defense with their team down by two and 3.5 seconds left, the French Press incessantly harried Armstrong. Following his own failed test in 2006, teammate Floyd Landis claimed that he had “injected Armstrong everyday”, often times using a mortar and pestle to grind up fresh stem cell matter for Armstrong to then smoke from a glass pipe.

During Bush’s second term, allegations of illicit performance enhancement continued to plague Armstrong, ultimately dampening an attempted return to sport in 2010. A year later, following an initial report stating “It is against the interests of corporate sponsorship and this institution’s funding to corroborate media accusations of illicit drug use,” the United States Justice Department opened a federal investigation into Armstrong’s affairs.

For the next two years, Armstrong’s life could loosely be described as a slow-motion replay of the sinking of the Titanic, in which not even the women and children made it to the lifeboats – the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) opened an investigation that eventually convicted Armstrong of the “most sophisticated and successful doping programme in world history.” Armstrong was stripped of his titles, his sponsorships, and burned in effigy by peasants throughout rural France.

 

 

Without question, the cantilever brakes of Armstrong’s cycling career had eminently failed and, like a rider plunging over the side of some Pyrenean cliffside, America could not look away from the inevitable coming gore.

Facing the inevitable collision of a lifetime of aggregate fallacies with the unquenchable public thirst for the blood of their fallen heroes, Armstrong did the most desperate, yet, potentially most American thing one in his position could do; he went on Oprah.

In January of 2013, an episode of the day time talk show aired that shook America.

To begin, Armstrong was brought out naked and muzzled in a wheeled dog kennel. He was subsequently paraded in front of a studio audience that proceeded to pelt him with human excrement and rotten vegetables for over ten straight minutes. Following this humiliation, the terrified and now excrement-covered Armstrong was brought out of the cage on a leash.

With Oprah taking Armstong’s lead and roughly jerking him to his feet, Armstrong was then forced to run a gauntlet composed of Floyd Landis, Sheryl Crow, Armstrong’s ex-wife, and his ex-USPS teammates. Each member of this party, armed with a weapon of their choice, savagely beat the dazed and weeping Armstrong as he attempted to navigate the gauntlet, falling and soiling himself in the process several times.  

In the end, we all saw the inevitable coming:

Donning a black hood, Oprah summoned forth a similarly hooded Dr. Phil to the stage, who, pulling a ceremonial Swiss halberd from the wall, asked Armstrong if he had any last words. Of course, at this point, America got the breakdown it was looking for and, with the crowds continuing jeers and echoing laughter swirling around him, Armstrong fell to his knees, begging Dr. Phil to stay his execution through heaving sobs.

From the darkness of the hood, a response emerged:

“No matter how flat you make a pancake, it’s got two sides!”

With Dr. Phil having dispensed with what can only be assumed to be yet another indecipherable, moronic colloquialism, Oprah nodded solemnly and the head of the halberd crashed downwards toward the floor.

The crowd’s screams reached the height of ecstasy as Oprah raised Armstrong’s head to the crowd, his eyelids still fluttering and twitching as the media tycoon bared her teeth and slammed her fist against her breast in a ritual display of triumphant strength.

Now, it’s 2018 and several years have come and gone since Armstrong’s public execution.

Months after President Obama put Armstrong’s head on the spikes of the White House gates and sent his arms and legs to all four of corners of the contiguous United States for display, the public began slowly to forget about Lance Armstrong.

Today, five years after that fateful taping in O! Studios, Chicago, many American youth are not even aware of how to ride a bicycle. Indeed, most cannot recall a time when, unencumbered by the burdens of today’s world, Lance Armstrong and, by default, America, ruled the world.

Little League Pitcher Sets Record, Throws 32 Consecutive Wild Pitches

16 August 2018

Alexander Skitt, a twelve year old pitcher from Portage, IN, set a Little League record late Tuesday by throwing a thirty two straight wild pitches in a quarterfinal loss at the Great Lakes Regional Qualifiers for the Little League World Series, allowing 28 runs in the process and condemning his team to an early exit from the annual tournament.

The achievement of this dubious honor, which horrified parents from the opposing team referred to as “the physical manifestation of a complete and total collapse of the pre-adolescent psyche”, has led many fans and parents to question why exactly Skitt was left in the game so long.

The coach of the Portage Pioneers, Randy Scaat, who also happens to be young Skitt’s stepfather, defended his decision to keep his stepson in the game, noting, “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but we’re from the Midwest; this kid’s gotta suck it up and toughen up.”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a parent from the opposing team commented, “You pretty much saw the slo-mo, time-lapse destruction of this kid’s ego on the field… On the one hand, witnessing the psychology of the incident was amazing. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that this constitutes a violation of the Declaration of Human Rights… This kid might have PTSD.”

Another parent shared in this horrific fascination. “Jesus Christ. It was like watching an opera. The first five to seven pitches were filled with uncertainty and confusion – why couldn’t he hit the strike zone? What was going on? Could he get it together? It was both puzzling and fascinating.”

“As the runners continued to fill and circle the bases, you could see the inexorable pressure grow, and the next ten or so pitches saw the pitcher and his teammates descend into the most frantic state of panic and fear I have ever seen at a children’s recreational sporting event.”

“It looked like fucking Dunkirk in 1940 – kids were willing to do unspeakable things to get themselves off that field… but nothing worked; that pitcher just continued to bury each pitch in the dirt on either side of the plate,” another parent chimed in.

“After that, I think you could easily say that the final ten or so pitches were just blind rage. The kid was clearly on the brink and, when the second baseman said something about his performance on a previous Social Studies test, the pitcher just absolutely fucking lost it out there, screaming at his teammates, his coach… everyone.”

According to spectator reports, the final ten pitches sailed irregularly in any direction – many of them eclipsing the backstop and flying into a mosquito-filled marsh behind the field. With the final pitch, Skitt allegedly gave forth an animalistic bellow toward the heavens and launched the pitch straight into the sky, in what 62 year-old local umpire Jim Stetson said was a clear attempt to “give the Old Man Upstairs some old-fashioned chin music.”

Fortunately, as the young pitcher continued to scream skyward, our Creator displayed his omnibenevolent nature and brought the errant pitch straight back down upon Skitt’s head, rendering him quite fortuitously unconscious.

Coach Scaat, defended his position to have left his pitcher in the game, stating, “Look, this kid’s future is pretty bleak: He’ll indebt himself to attend some ‘top notch Midwest academic institution’ like Ball State, transition that into a typical low-paying blue-collar job like me, maybe knock up some chick, pick up an opioid addiction…. You know, Rust Belt shit, baby…. But long term… it ain’t look good; best he learn now.”

Quietly sipping on a lukewarm Keystone Light, still dressed in the unbuttoned uniform of his Portage Pioneers, Scaat continued to stand by his decisions, claiming in conclusion that “no boy of his was gonna be a pussy” and “if (Skitt) wanted dinner that night, he better get his skinny ass into the marsh and fish all them balls out that he threw in there like a dumbass.”

Allowed only limited comment by his stepfather/coach as he prepared to enter the marsh, Skitt quietly stated that he, “Only wanted to go to McDonald’s for dinner, go home, and play XBox – and there was no reason for Joey to make fun of his Social Studies grade.”

WL Sports Update: Wenger Enjoying Retirement

18 July 2018

Only two months removed from the tumultuous end of his 22 year reign in charge of Arsenal Football Club, one of England’s premier sporting institutions, Arsene Wenger is happily enjoying retirement and says claims his only regret “was not leaving Arsenal sooner.”

WikiLeeks Sports Division caught up with Wenger on a private beach on the island of Martinique, where Wenger is enjoying a well-deserved holiday with a group of close personal associates. Famed for his record of titles at Arsenal, bookish demeanor, and rigid insistence on fielding the absolute minimum of English players in his First XI, Wenger’s mood during the brief interview was decidedly laid back and casual compared with his uptight, touchline countenance.

Donning a loose, white linen shirt and Robinson Les Bains swimsuit while casually lighting up a 6 inch hash spliff as the midday sun lazily glanced off his Cartier sunglasses, Wenger claimed “he no longer was beholden to Stan Kroenke’s miserable rat race” and “finally could be the man he always dreamed of being.”

“Waking up at 4 AM to feed Sanchez’s dogs their gold-laced feed… Applying horse placenta to Van Persie’s ankle every single day… Mon dieu! How could I miss it?” Wenger laughed.

“Of course, I am wishing Emery all the best; he certainly has his work cut out for him, but it is a strong squad with Auba and Lacazette” said Wenger, cavalierly ashing his spliff on the ground as two scantily clad women belatedly emerged from Wenger’s bungalow and scurried into the sunlight of the French Caribbean afternoon.

As we continued our discussion amidst several rounds of Cristal Brut, Wenger waxed poetic about fluid passing strategy, his future plans for transnational business enterprises, and the near-universal hatred of Samir Nasri. With the champagne flowing and a steady supply of hors d’oeuvres on offer, it was almost easy not to notice that, by the time sun set, our party had grown from just the two of us to a party of several dozen beautiful women, muscular local men, and members of Wenger’s entourage.

“What does the future hold for Arsene, you ask?” Wenger rhetorically asked with a good-natured chuckle.

“The short answer, mon ami, is cocaine.”

Leaning quickly over to rail a .75 g line of cocaine and then grabbing one of the women from beside the pool, Wenger raised his sailor’s cap to the assembled crowd and said with a wry smile,

“Bon nuit, my friends. Drink deep this night and love one another.”

With a low, graceful bow and muted sniffle, Wenger and his chosen woman disappeared into the darkness as the mirthful sounds of laughter and revery followed them into the darkness of the night.