Shooting From The...*YAWWWWWWNNNN*

I'd be lying if I said that it didn't get a little bit tiring, constantly having to defend New York sports from the tyranny of the Keebler Elf Leader. Luckily for me, he actually picked a new topic for Sunday's Shooting from the Lip! Something he's never bitched or whined about!! The New York Knicks!!! Hooray!!!!

Also, we have another mention of Lupica's friends. He sure does seem to have a lot of them, doesn't he? Must be hard for him to remember all of their names and birthdays, not to mention his busy schedule of being a centerpiece in circle jerks all over the tri-state area. Well, before you shed a tear, let me assure you that none of Lupica's "friends" actually have names... because they don't fucking exist.

There is a Knicks fan I know, a big one, who happened to be in London this week.

Bullshit Mike. Who'd you bump into? Spike Lee? He wouldn't risk his street cred to talk to your midget ass! Don't even fucking lie to me. There are like 17 Knicks fans (including myself) in the entire world right now. You didn't find one of them in London.

The last time he attended the NBA draft in person was the night the Knicks traded away Marcus Camby and Nene, did all that and got Antonio McDyess' knee in return.

Yeah, that was a bad fucking trade. But now I know it's not Spike Lee, because there's no way he hasn't been to a draft in that long.

But the guy was sure interested in this one, and sure that he didn't want the Italian kid, Danilo Gallinari.

Of course your imaginary Knick Fan friend doesn't want Gallinari!! If he did, then you'd have no vehicle in which to drive this shitty article up the ass of the 17 actual Knick fans who give a shit.

The guy said that he had stayed with his team through everything, through what has become the worst era in Knicks history, stayed with them through Isiah Thomas, but that if Donnie Walsh drafted the Italian kid, he was done with the Knicks, that's it, goodbye, he'd wait to see if the Nets ever actually made it to Brooklyn.

This Knick fan sounds a lot like Mike Lupica, doesn't he? Lets be serious here. You're a Knick fan (one of the 17) and you've been through season after season of embarrassing, frustrating losses. You've been through Isiah Thomas, Eddie Curry, Larry Brown, Isiah Thomas, Starbury, Lenny Wilkens, Herb Williams, Isiah Thomas, Alan Houston's knees, Antonio McDyess's mummified corpse, Isiah Thomas's sexual harassment suit, Nate Robinson attacking Malik Rose in the shower and Isiah Thomas... and you're gonna quit on your team because they draft a guy that you don't like? Before you ever see the guy play a fucking game?

If this was actually said by a "Knick fan", and not made up in the dwarven brain of Mike Lupica, then whoever this "Knick fan" is... is the worst excuse for a bandwagon fan in the history of bandwagon fanhood. The Knicks haven't even HAD a bandwagon in at least 10 years... and this guy's just jumping off it now?

Speaking of riding dead horses, they just loaded Eight Belles into the starting gate at Belmont for the 1st race. Velazquez thinks he can get one more good run out of her.

He doesn't play any defense, and if we're ever going to get good again in my lifetime, we're eventually going to have to play some defense, right?

Did D'Antoni make them play defense in Phoenix? How'd they do out there? Oh, that's right. Better than the Knicks. And how do you know how much defense Gallinari plays? WE'VE NEVER FUCKING SEEN HIM IN THE NBA!!!!!

The drafting of the Italian kid - and that's if Walsh and D'Antoni are right about him - is the start of the team's extreme makeover.

Because what's a Mike Lupica article without some reference to Reality TV?! Extreme Makeover - Knicks Edition!

The Knicks aren't just the worst team in town, they are the one furthest from being something.
I think the Mets are fucked a lot more than the Knicks, no offense Met fans. The Knicks have some young guys that have shown improvement with Nate Robinson, David Lee, Renaldo Balkman, Wilson Chandler, and now Gallinari. They've got Marbury's expiring contract as a massive trading chip.

Lupica's boyfriends, the Mets, pillaged their minor league system for Johan, who already looks like he doesn't want to be here. Oliver Perez and Aaron Heilman also can't wait to get the fuck out of town. Beltran plays baseball 5 years older than he is. Castillo's locked up for 4 years. That team is basically "David Wright or Bust!" for the foreseeable future... and by the time they can do something serious to fix that, David Wright's probably going to want out too. But at least Reyes can dance... when he's not prompting the manager to threaten to cut him.

***

But Bill Clinton was here the other day and seems to be almost as big in England as Jerry Lewis is in France.

More important than the reality TV reference, is the veiled shot at guy who hasn't been the President in 7 1/2 years. Got any good Reagan jokes? How about Lincoln! Lincoln jokes are a gas!!

There's this sausage they sell at Wimbledon called a Dutchee and it's pretty good.

Mike Lupica loves the sausage.

Not bratwurst-in-Milwaukee good, but close enough

I mean, really fucking loves the sausage. Rather than pasting the rest of this, just trust me when I say that he goes on for another half a page about the sausage. How they poke it with a needle to make sure it's ready to be stuck in your mouth. How slow the line is. How he was as excited as a virgin on prom night about wrapping his lips around some big, hot, thick, juicy, British Sausage...

Bondy would have been a lot more impressed about my soccer knowledge if my 6-to-1 bet on Turkey against Germany had paid off, I can tell you that right now.

If any Turkish people are reading this, please note than this is the reason your team lost! Mike Lupica bet on them. I don't know how hardcore you guys are about soccer, but if you want to assassinate somebody for causing the loss to zee Germans, you should target Mike Lupica. He cursed them.

What part of "contract year" is Oliver Perez not getting so far?

The part where he's supposed to win games when his offense doesn't score any runs. If you had ever actually WATCHED a baseball game, you'd understand what I mean.

Who would have thought at the start of the season that Mike Mussina would come back and pitch the way Mets fans want Pedro to pitch?

Mike Mussina's ERA+ is 104 right now. That means he's basically league-average. He's got 10 wins because his team scores runs. That's not to say that he hasn't pitched well, but the bottom line is that he's not chasing a Cy Young or anything.

If Mussina was pitching for the Mets, he'd be 6-10 instead of 10-6, because the Mets don't have the offense to get a guy the win if he gives up 4 runs. And Lupica would bitch about wanting Pedro.

Red Sox fans have probably forgotten all that "Nancy Drew" stuff on J.D. from last season by now, I'm guessing.

Why? He's still a fucking faggot. And he's on pace to miss 28 games this season. He's currently played in 71/85. People call him "Nancy Drew" because he's softer than a newborn baby's ballsack! Not because he can't hit.

Twelve-year-old Shannon Hamilton, from Albuquerque, N.M., won the third go-round's ranch rodeo at the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer, and set the 2008 roping record in the process.

Welcome to the latest installment of "Using Don Imus's Charitable Deeds to Justify the Fact that He's a Fucking Racist!!"

I'm just hoping the Rev. Al doesn't have any problem with that.

Rev. Al doesn't have a problem with that. Rev. Al has a problem with Imus going on the radio and screaming racial slurs and stereotypes about black people to boost his fucking ratings. Unless you really believe that he was implying that "Pacman was unfairly targeted." Are you that stupid? I didn't think so. I'm not either.

They're not nearly as interested in the Subway Series here as you might think.

I wouldn't think that people in London give a shit about the Mets or Yankees. They have their own sports to worry about.

I had heard London was expensive. What I didn't know was that I was going to need a summer job when I got home.

Don't worry little boy. I'm sure the Daily News will set you up with a paper route to make extra money.

What?! You're a 53 year old man?! Can't they get you some growth hormones or something?!I guess you could be a chimney sweep! Maybe Santa needs help making the toys!!

6/22 Shooting From The Lip

I don't even have the energy today to dissect the soft, careful critique that Lupiduck wrote about the Mets and Willie. All I'll say is that the story has been covered from every imaginable angle, including Willie Randolph writing his own perspective on it in the New this week. So just when every possible angle of coverage has been exhausted, here's Lupica to write another page and a half about it. Nothing new. Nothing controversial. Nothing smart. Just the same garbage you've already read. The clock now starts on how long Lupica will continue to talk about the Willie Randolph firing. We're taking bets. The under is September 2011.

I hope the Knicks go for Joe Alexander of West Virginia, just on his nickname alone: Vanilla Sky.

Drafting players based on their nicknames is a terrific way to get a top-flight player. I can see it now!!

David Stern: With the first pick in the 2008 NBA Draft, the Chicago Bulls select Nathan "The Best Most Awesome Player in NBA History Better than if Michal Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain had a Baby Who Was 17 Feet Tall and made of Titanium" Jawai!!

Mel Kipper, Jr.: Wow, so the Bulls go a different route with Jawai! I really thought he was a late first rounder. He doesn't have a lot of upside potential, but I don't know. With a nickname like that he's almost got to be successful, doesn't he?

And another thing. Vanilla Sky was a Tom Cruise movie. Am I detecting a bit of short-bias from Lupica here? Tom Cruise is short, Lupica is... well... shorter. These midgets are starting to stick together.

I can't be positive about this, but I think Ray Allen just made another 3.

The reason he can't be positive, is because that would involve actually watching sports, which would interrupt Lupica's busy schedule of American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, Living Lohan, Denise Richards: It's Complicated and, of course, Celebrity Circus, where Mike Lupica is pulling for his cousin Wee Man.

My man Bob Ryan, Boston Globe, has said for years that Paul Pierce was the most gifted offensive player the Celtics have ever had, and Ryan turned out to be absolutely right.

Welcome to the latest episode of Lupica: My Man! Does it ever get less homoerotic? Nope.

Just for the record though, lets look at this for a second.

Paul Pierce, The Best Offensive Player in Celtics History: 23.1 PPG, 1 NBA title, 0 MVPs.
Larry Bird, The Piece of Shit Prick with a Bad Back: 24.3 PPG, 3 NBA titles, 3 MVPs.

Bob Ryan is a complete fucking moron. He's always been a complete fucking moron. And he's also short. So again, midgets fucking sticking together!!

Phil Jackson did so much scribbling during timeouts in Game 6, I thought he was making diary entries.

And yet Phil Jackson is an 11x NBA Champion, and has won 9 of those trophies as a coach. He's recognized as one of the 10 best coaches in NBA history. So I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that whatever he was scribbling was pertinent to trying to win a basketball game.

I'll tell you one thing that Phil Jackson WASN'T writing. Checks to the refs. Doc Rivers and the Bookies had already taken care of that.

Or starting a to-do list about finding players who don't think playing defense is some sort of parttime job.

It's hard to play defense when one team is being called for hand-check fouls while the other team is allowed to throw closed fists at Black Mamba's head without a whistle.

The Yankees really are in the middle of one of the softest interleague schedules in the history of the known universe: Astros, Padres, Reds, Pirates.

Compared to the Mets, who played the Rangers, the Angels... the Colorado Rockies... and the Mariners. The Angels are tough... but that's not exactly a buzz-saw until the Yankees get to town.

Michael Jordan does not let his team lose the way the Lakers did the other night and neither does LeBron James, and that's that.

Which is why the Cavs beat the Spurs for the NBA title last year!! Because LeBron refused to let his team lose... wait, what? The Cavs got swept in that series!? Then what the fuck is Lupica talking about?

Give me the first pick and I pick LeBron every time.

Didn't we already discover in this very article, that Lupica drafts players based on nickname, so all this tells us is that he think "King James" is better than "The Black Mamba." Give me the first pick, and I'd take Nathan "The Best Most Awesome Player in NBA History Better than if Michal Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain had a Baby Who Was 17 Feet Tall and made of Titanium" Jawai.

Imagine the howling, from sea to shining sea, if the Celtics had ever quit playing on Doc Rivers the way the Lakers came to a complete screeching halt in Game 6.

You mean kind of the way the Celtics quit on Doc Rivers 10 games into the 2007 season?

Make me see "The Love Guru."

Please go see "The Love Guru." It was the worst piece of shit I ever watched... so you'll probably love it. Plus you can support the work of fellow gnome, Vern Troyer. But this is a weird random statement... even for you. What are you trying to segue into?

Speaking of Sen. Clinton: Where's her husband these days?

How could I not see it coming... this was a segue into a CLINTON JOKE!! Very classy of Lupica to keep beating the dead horse. Hey Mike... she's out of the race. She walked away. Shouldn't you be bashing Barack Obama and John McCain, while touting the candidacy of Hervé Villechaize (aka Tattoo from Fantasy Island)?

An Enough-Lupica-Style Fantasy

Just to show how much we love our readers, and that we listen to you guys, and that we're here to entertain and amuse you guys at the expense of people who piss us off, I'm going to delve into the fiction genre with Mark's idea. Plus it's a really cool idea. For the record, the following is an act of fiction and any similarities to events that have happened... or may *cough-hopefully-cough* happen are purely coincidental.

It was a loud, rambunctious night following a Yankee win over the Chicago Cubs in Game 7 of the World Series, and quite a scene was unfolding across the street from the Ballpark in the Bronx at Billy's, as members of the Yankees television and radio broadcast teams came out in public to join in the celebration. The bar was packed to the gills, when suddenly, in through the front door came Daily News Columnist and Short People's Society President Mike Lupica and his Yankee Friends (a blow-up doll in a Red Sox t-shirt and a Teddy Ruxpin bear.) He headed over to the group of Yankee Broadcasters which included Michael Kay, Suzyn Waldman, Ken Singleton, John Flaherty and John Sterling for an impromptu Sports Reporters-style debate.

As the conversation grew louder and louder, with Mike Lupica climbing onto a table so that his child-like person could be both seen, and heard, the bar began to empty. Real Yankee fans spilled out into the streets to continue their celebration away from the nauseating combination of Kool Aid and criticism.

The group continued their discussion, oblivious to the now-empty bar, so oblivious in fact, that they failed to notice the behemoth-like man in head-to-toe black who had just slipped in through the front door, a ski-mask covering his head, a Louisville Slugger in tow.

"A team with a payroll of exactly $209,157,892.77 should win the World Series every year!" proclaimed Lupica, as he stomped angrily on the bar.

"But oh my goodness gracious!! The only thing that could make this night any better was if Roger Clemens were here!" squealed Waldman!

Lupica screamed, "ROGER CLEMENS USES STERO...." but was unable to finish his sentence, as the dark figure had stalked across the room and swung that mighty wooden bat, knocking Lupica off the bar about 70 feet to the back wall like he was a hanging slider.

"Enough is enough...you guys are all hacks" said Lupica's assailant as he began swinging wildly at Michael Kay's oversized head, which exploded much like a watermelon at one of those shitty Gallagher comedy shows.

Ken Singleton tried to flee the scene, but to no avail as the mysterious figure hurled a baseball, hitting him in the back of the neck and killing him with nothing short of a Joba Chamberlain fastball.

Now it was Flaherty's turn, as Waldman and Sterling cowered behind the former major leaguer, but as the black-hooded man bludgeoned Flaherty something terrible happened! The bat broke!!! However would he manage to kill Waldman and Sterling now!?

Alas, not one to be stopped by a mere broken bat, the man lifted Waldman by her ankles and proceeded to beat John Sterling to death with her melon-fucking-head, also killing Waldman.

He then stalked over to Mike Lupica, who was just regaining consciousness, looking up at the man who would surely be his executioner....

"Wh... why... are you... doing... this.... oh, and by the way, what was Jason Giambi really apologizing for anyway? He never said.... uhhhh... ohh... the pain...." mumbled Lupica through his broken jaw.

The figure stood proudly, looking down at Lupica as he pulled off his hood to reveal a familiar face... it was...

BOBBY MURCER!!!

"I did this because a true Yankee can only listen to your bullshit for so long before he's gotta do something about it. I got a fucking tumor from listening to those assholes for all those years!" said Murcer, "But don't worry... you'll live to tell about this."

Murcer then stomped down on Mike Lupica's skull, crushing it under his powerful foot!!

"NOOOOOT!!!" screamed Murcer in his best Borat voice!!

As the last gasp escaped from Lupicas lungs it formed the word, "Hiiiiilllllllllllllllarrrrrryyyyyyyy.....yyy...."

The End....

I Love Being Proven Right....

Did I tell you guys yesterday that Lupica has a fucking Roger obsession? Did he prove me right? I swear to fucking Christ, if this arrogant little prick isn't the most predictable force in ignorant sports journalism, I'll be fucked by a gorilla.

I don't know what I find more disgusting. The idea of Roger Clemens having sexual relations with a 15 year old girl...

Or the image of Mike Lupica masturbating furiously to pictures of The Rocket every time some new fact comes out in this page, as he moans things like, "Oh yeah Roger... you naughty boy. If you keep being so naughty I'll be as cool as Mitch Albom!!" and spraying his little dwarven seed all over his word processor.

Without even reading this article, I'm sure of three things.

1) Lupica will make a reference to politics, most likely the Clintons.
2) Lupica will make a reference to Jason Giambi.
3) There will be some obscure reference to pop culture from 25 years ago that nobody gets, but it will nevertheless become a central concept of the column.

So here we go...

So now he comes out with an apology about nothing, an artless, pathetic combination of lawyering and agenting that makes Clemens sound like Bill Clinton saying he did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinksy.

And here's item number 1 on the checklist.

Bill Clinton didn't have sex with that woman. He let her hold his cigar. Does this really have anything to do with Roger Clemens? Nope.

This is the kind of apology that Jason Giambi originally gave when his testimony about using steroids, offered in front of the BALCO grand jury, was leaked to a newspaper.

Bingo! That's two out of three!!

For the six thousandth time Mike, everybody knew what Giambi was apologizing for. His confession to a Grand Jury was leaked to the papers. Giambi's vagueness was for the purpose of protecting the three years and about $60 Million that remained on his contract. And Giambi never really "lied" about taking drugs.

Clemens is lying about doping. And lying about screwing a 15-year old. And probably lying about 7,000 other things. And he was vague because he doesn't want to get sued. Regardless, this situation is very fucking different. You're the only one who doesn't understand that Mike.

There is a book that Dan Jenkins wrote called "Baja Oklahoma," and in it Jenkins lists his 10 stages of drunkenness. And the last two could apply to almost anything, to being drunk with power or celebrity or ego or even being President of the United States. On Jenkins' list No. 9 is invisible and 10? No. 10 is bulletproof.

I don't want to brag or boast... but "Baja Oklahoma" was published in 1981. That makes it roughly 27 years old. Now lets see if it becomes a recurring theme in the article. All we have to do is skip to the end...

He still thinks he is bulletproof. He's not. He must have thought that once he started swinging away, nobody else would swing back. That's not the way it works.

Emphasis is, of course, mine. Stage 10 of drunkenness according to Dan Jenkins' 27-year old book comes back again. Roger thinks he's bulletproof. That's stage 10!!!! Woo hooo!!

Here's my question. What in fucking hell do these 10 stages of drunkenness have to do with Roger Clemens? Is Lupica suggesting that Clemens is drunk?

Well, that would be the most reasonable explanation so far for why he started sticking it to a 15-year old girl.... guys do some crazy shit when they're drunk.