Maybe some shocking news for you out there that are NASCAR fans. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. has decided to leave the family business and pursue other opportunities. He decided it was best to leave the company his father built, Dale Earnhardt, Inc, that is run by his evil stepmother Lady Tremaine Teresa Earnhardt.

“At 32 years of age, the same age my father was when he made his final and most important career decision, it’s time for me to compete on a consistent basis and contend for championships now,” Earnhardt Jr. said at a news conference. “I believe I’d have my father’s blessing.”

So what does this mean for Dale Jr.? It means that he is a free agent and will be free to sign with any team he chooses. There is also the possibility of him starting up his own Nextel Cup team. He already owns his own Busch team, JR Motorsports.

Don’t worry 8 fans. Dale Jr. still plans to give it his all this season and hopefully get himself into the Chase for the Cup.

I would like to introduce Steve to everyone. He is a frequent commenter here at SOX & Dawgs and will be contributing articles to the site occasionally too.

Great feature on This Week in Baseball on practical jokes

In this past weekend’s edition of This Week in Baseball they had a great feature on practical jokes. Baseball is known for it’s practical jokes and jokers as much as anything else. It’s part of the rich history and lore. TWIB followed a few players around as they played jokes on teammates during Spring Training.

And here’s what they found:

Milwaukee’s Bill Hall bought a sprinter’s uniform off of Ebay and wore it under his regular uniform. When it came time for him to be timed in the 60-yard dash he pulled his baseball uniform off revealing the sprinters wear. Bill said he wanted to lighten the mood but also show everyone that no one was going to beat him in the dash.

Chicago closer Ryan Dempster and some other Cubs were seen putting another teammates Escalade up on blocks and putting the tires all over the stadium so he’d find them as he went into the locker room, men’s room, bullpen etc. Much to the chagrin of the Escalade owner. The classic was when he walked into the bullpen to see one of his custom rims and tires leaning against the tarp.

And finally Atlanta’s Tim Hudson dressing as the ‘ghost’ from Scary movie and hiding in Eddie Perez’ hotel room closet and jumping out when Eddie came in the room. Needless to say Eddie was a little freaked and about a half dozen teammates really loved it.

It was a great feature by TWIB and I hope they do follow ups through the season. If you want to read a good book that talks about life in a clubhouse and tells about a lot of the practical jokes that happen, go to your local store and get a copy of ‘The Bronx Zoo’ by Sparky Lyle and Peter Golenbock. It’s a classic about the 1978 New York Yankees and all the characters in the clubhouse. I know it’s still in print because I just saw it in my local Barnes and Noble in the baseball section.

[TWIB can be accessed by clicking here]

I am sorry but I know all baseball radio announcers are “homers” and very biased when it comes to his/her team. WCBS Radio’s, Suzyn Waldman could be the most annoying announcer ever after her display when Roger Clemens announced he was back with the Yankees.

After listening to this, answer this question.

Do you think she’s happy about having Roger back in NY. Oh BTW, she’s quite the looker. NOT!!

The annoying Suzyn Waldman.

(Boston Dirt Dogs)

Continue reading →

The Roger Clemens watch is now over. During the 7th inning stretch of the Yankees-Mariners game, he announced that he is returning to pitch for the Evil Empire. It will be about a month before he is ready to pitch in New York.

“Thank you all. Well, they came and got me out of Texas, and uh, I can tell you, it’s a privilege to be back. I’ll be talkin’ to you all soon.”

Honestly, the Yankees do need him more than any team in baseball right now. Their pitching staff has been decimated by injuries.

Friggin Yankees!

Update: The terms of the deal were announced. He will receive a prorated $28 million dollar contract for one year. So for each month, he will make $4.5 million dollars.

I guess it was about the money huh Roger.

If you’re Paris Hilton, you received some bad news yesterday. Paris was sentenced to 45 days in jail for violating her probation. The probation stems from when she was arrested last year for reckless driving. She had her license suspended and has been caught by the paparazzi driving her car while under suspension. She also failed to enroll in a court mandated alcohol program.She has to report to a woman’s jail by June 5th or face 90 days in jail. The judge also said she can’t pay for a cushier jail cell. So Paris won’t be spending her days in a country club jail. She will be just another inmate.

While she’s there, she will be fed three squares a day and even be able to gab on pay phone and watch television. My guess is she stays in her cell and writes more awful music.

In a new feature for SOX & Dawgs, I will give you a look at some of the blogs that I read on a daily basis.

Lizzy and Sooze from Babes Love Baseball were seen under the bleachers with John Kruk.

Jason from My Baseball Bias tells us about his new radio show.

Anthony from the Oriole Post shares his pictures from last night’s Indians-Orioles game.

J.D. from SporTech Matter tells us about how pissed off Dolphin fans were when they drafted Ted Ginn, Jr.

Peter from Peter’s Red Sox Forever tells us about Hideki “Darkman” Okajima.

Curt Schilling talks about his start on Tuesday and Papelbon’s blown save.

We all remember the movie ‘Rudy’ and the great speech Charles S. Dutton’s character gave to Sean Astin aka “Rudy” when he was thinking about quitting the football team. Well during last night’s episode of ‘My Name is Earl’, Dutton recreated that speech but this time it was given to Jason Lee’s character ‘Earl’.

[dailymotion 4AqAe9HyzDyQUdjkx nolink]

To me what made the scene was when the “dockers” came into the Mr Waadt’s office and wanted to buy appliances to help Earl reach his total of $5,000 in sales. It was just like the movie when the captains of the Notre Dame football team walked into Coach Dan Devine’s office and gave up their spots on the roster. Oddly enough, Astin was in the show as a salesperson and Mr. Waadt was played by Chelcie Ross, who played Devine in the movie.

This is the clip from ‘Rudy’.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=J_2vuIQ1f5M [/youtube]

If you want to read how the idea for the show was created, you can check it out here.

On a night when you have Daisuke Matsuzaka on the mound, you thought hopefully he doesn’t have that one bad inning. Well he did have that bad inning again. But his teammates picked him up, including Manny Ramirez, whose second home run of the game won it for the Red Sox by a final score of 8-7.

Dice-K really had no command in the first inning and it was evident by walks to the first three batters (Ichiro, Beltre, Vidro). He then got Raul Ibanez to ground into a fielder’s choice that scored Ichiro. He then hit Richie Sexson to load the bases back up. Jose Guillen followed with a two-run double which scored Vidro and Ibanez. The next batter, Kenji Johjima, reached base on a throwing error by Julio Lugo which allowed Sexson to score. Yuniesky Betancourt then reached base on an infield single that scored Guillen, making the score 5-0 before the Red Sox had even been to the plate. All in all, they scored five runs on just two hits and one error.

The Sox mounted their own five run inning in the bottom half of the second inning. Youk started it off for a walk and advanced to third base on a Mike Lowell single. The Captain, Jason Varitek, hit a single that scored Youk. Wily Mo Peña, who was 4 for 4 in the game, hit a single to load the bases up for Dustin Pedroia. Pedroia drew a walk that scored Lowell. Lugo then proceeded to hit a ground rule double that scored Varitek and Peña. Now only trailing by a run, Coco Crisp popped out to shortstop for the first out of the inning. With the chants of Big Papi going in the stands, he came up and hit a single that scored Pedroia tieing the game up at 5. Manny ended the inning by grounding into a double play.

Dice-K settled down a little bit by this point, retiring 9 of 10 batters he faced in the second through fourth innings.

Manny gave the Sox their first lead of the game when he hit a shot through the wind that was blowing in from left to give them a 7-5 lead.

Dice-K then ran into trouble again in the 5th inning. He got Vidro to fly out but then walked Ibanez and allowed a single to Sexson. Guillen then followed up with a run scoring single to make it 7-6 Sox. Dice-K got his fellow countryman, Johjima, to ground out to Youk at first base but it allowed the runners to move up. Betancourt hit an infield single that scored Sexson, knotting the score at 7.

At this point, the game was in the bullpen’s hands for both teams. Both of them responded very well. Unfortunately for the Mariners, their only blemish from the bullpen came when Chris Reitsma served one up to Manny that landed in the right field seats giving the Sox the lead.

Now you would think we would see Jonathan Papelbon come in and close the game out but no. Francona left Brendan Donnelly in and then brought J.C. Romero in to finish the game. After the game, Francona said Papelbon was ready but in his [Francona’s] eyes, Papelbon needed another day off.

You have to wonder if the pressure is getting to Dice-K or if he is just trying to do to much. It’s disappointing from a fan’s standpoint to see him have that one bad inning each night. Hopefully, he can work out the kinks with pitching coach John Farrell and pitch well when he faces Toronto next week.

Notes: Manny’s two home runs now gives him 475 in his illustrious career.

This one will give you a good laugh until you realize the real meaning.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6F7jJaUqFLY[/youtube]