Top 10 takeaways from Vicente Padilla saying Mark Teixeira would be better off playing a woman's sport

10) Padilla believes Teixeira should make 70% of what he currently makes

9) Given that Teix kind of owns him, Padilla must fantasize about being dominated by women, along with the men

8) Padilla owns Teix in his fantasy league, and wants to give him fuel for a better second half

7) It's great that this has flared up, because those Yankee - Red Sox games really deserve more media attention

6) Padilla believes that his masculinity, rather than his incompetence, is the reason why he doesn't get to stay with a team more than a year or two

5) Latino players in MLB are really excited about having a well-spoken and respected player like Padilla represent them

4) Since Padilla has been teammates with 24% of all current MLB players, Teix must be the femmest of the femme

3) Poor Michael Young and Frank Francisco are wondering just why the hell they had to get their names dragged into this

2) Padilla is planting the seeds for a future Foxy Baseball league where he owns a franchise

1) Baseball pitchers are, on a per capita basis, the dumbest athletes you will ever hope to interview, and as such, Blogfrica's best friends

FTT Movie Review: The Bad News Bears

Second Place My Ass

New to Netflix Instant, and finally, it's the original subversive 1976 version with Walter Matthau, Tatum O'Neal and Jackie Earle Haley, and the curious thing is just how well it's held up after 35 odd years, and what's completely been left behind. In its day, the film had serious heat for its foul-mouthed little kids (Chris Barnes as Tanner Boyle, the Billy Martin-esque over-the-top racist pepperpot, is the true star on this front), and hints of undereaged drinking and sexuality (O'Neal loses a bet, and has to go on a date, in an attempt to get Haley on the team in the first place).

I remember, as a child, desperately wanting to see this movie, and eventually getting my way with a televised version that censored some of the language. It also completely entered the vernacular and public consciousness, with references in my Little League and MLB broadcasts, and assuming you are of a certain age, it's pretty much impossible to have not seen this. But its the casual points of the movie, little plot or lifestyle points, that I mostly forgot at the time.

Such as the train wreck moment, and heart of the film, where the antagonist's son and pitcher gets slapped in public, then purposefully takes a 4-base error on a held ball to stick it to his father.

In a movie filled with era incongruities (O'Neal's character not being able to take ballet classes with kids, Haley and O'Neal riding on motorcycles without helmets, Matthau driving around a convertible filled with kids while drinking and not wearing seat belts the obvious alcoholism of Matthau, and the racial and homophobic insults)... there's still nothing more over the top than a coach hitting a kid so hard that he goes to the ground, then walking back to the dugout like nothing horrifying has happened. It's hard to remember an era where hitting your kids was a good idea in public, let alone in a well-attended event with dozens of adults on the premises. And then once the kid leaves the field, dropping the ball rather than handing it over, and walking off into the parking lot, presumably never to see his father again... and the dad just turns the page, along with every kid and spectator.

Anyway... BNB is an honest 100-minute time capsule that's refreshingly free of sports movie tropes like slow motion, over the top camera theatrics and special effects, and with an actual moral center that still holds up. Watching Matthau become a "winner", then come back to his senses and avoid the winning at all costs ethos... it works. And it always well. So the movie is still worth a spin, even if it's not as over-the-top revolutionary as it once was.

Oh, and like nearly all movies that go to sequels, it's completely fine to just ignore the second and third movies. Please.

Top 12 reasons why Ray Allen left the Celtics for the Heat

12) Couldn't resist seeing how hard the fan base turns on him for daring to, well, put the chance to win over money

11) Only way to get out of those irritating ESPN ads

10) After getting dangled at the trade deadline every time Danny Ainge got an itch, somehow lost his loyalty to the Celtics

9) Florida's lack of income tax means that the huge pay cut he's taking to go there, instead of staying in Taxuchusetts

8) Somehow didn't take the signing of Jason Terry as great sign for his playing time

7) Actually noticed that he wouldn't have played at all in the playoffs if Avery Bradley hadn't gotten hurt

6) Like so many other retirees, could not resist Florida's siren call of 3pm dinner buffets, shuffleboard, and using the unbearable heat and humidity to make his the eventual embrace with death to seem nice by comparison

5) If Mike Miller can hit wide-open threes and get a ring while gimping around the court like a third-rate zombie, really feels he can too

4) Like everyone else on the Celtics, up to and including Rajon Rondo, has a real problem with Rajon Rondo

3) Even thought he hasn't been a UConn Huskie for 16 years, still has an unblinking hatred for all things Syracuse, which meant the team's draft of Fab Melo and Kris Joseph was just the last straw

2) Kevin Garnett smells like onions and feet, and punking him is the dream of just about every pro player

1) Despite the revisionist history of Celtic Fan, actually played for a franchise before this one, and as such, is aware that there are other teams and fan bases that care, win games and everything

Top 10 takeaways from Carl Crawford being the target of a racial slur

Making Friends

10) It all serves as an excellent reminder that, dollar for dollar, your best heckling opportunity is a minor league rehab assignment

9) Now that New England Fan has played the race card, Crawford is sure to become a sympathetic figure

8) This kind of thing happens a lot more when you don't get on base while getting wildly overpaid

7) Give the man his due; he knows how to sell tickets

6) We all need to ignore the fact that this kind of thing happens an awful lot in Boston, as they kind of hate it when that gets pointed out

5) Tampa Fan is just loving every part of this, really

4) Crawford's return to the majors, with similar distractions and problems, is imminent

3) To be fair, lots of other fans just gave him grief for being a terrible player

2) If you are still holding out hope for his fantasy league relevance, your team has been out of contention since May

1) If MLB had an amnesty program for contracts, Crawford would have been out of town with bells on

Point Guard Rodeo

Leading off your NBA coverage today is the fact that point guards are being swapped around like pot luck casserole right now. Steve Nash to the Lakers, Jason Kidd to the Knicks, Jeremy Lin signing an offer sheet for the Rockets, Deron Williams staying with the Nets...

And, well, I get it. Without a good point guard, teams are hard to look at, and with so many flat out studs out there in prime locations -- Chris Paul, Rajon Rondo, Tony Parker, Russell Westbrook are your top tier and all went deep in the playoffs -- it seems warranted.

But let's look further. Here are that starting points on the NBA champions in this century

2012: Mario Chalmers
2011: Jason Kidd, drawing Social Security
2009 and 2010: Derek Fisher
2008: Rajon Rondo in his pre-known phase
2007: Tony Parker, also the Finals MVP, in the LeBron meltdown Cavs year
2006: Jason Williams -- no, seriously -- and the last twinges of Gary Payton
2005: Parker again
2004: Chauncey Billups, Finals MVP
2003: Parker
2000, 2001 and 2002: Fisher

So the last four titles are won by teams with caretakers, despite the game and rules changing to make things easier on them. With the exception of Rondo and Billups, all of these guys seem like defensive liabilities. And the guys that put up the big numbers -- I'm thinking Nash, Williams, Paul, and before that Gilbert Arenas, Allen Iverson, Baron Davis, Sam Cassell, Stephon Marbury -- never, ever win.

So what gives?

Well, it's pretty simple, and on some level, it works like boxing: a good big man beats a good little man. And also this: basketball statistics are just a hard thing on many levels, since the public falls for counting stats, and it's not that hard to accumulate those without really doing too much to make your team win.

So congrats to the guys who got paid. I like to watch beautiful ball, and without good points, your chance of delivering that go way down. Maybe the rule changes eventually take things over, and the degradation of centers keeps pushing point guards to the fore.

But right now, having a good or even great one wins you nothing.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled shopping spree.