LESAProject

We, as fans of many various sports, tend to put our athletes on pedestals.  “Oh, they wouldn’t do that! They’re athletes!”Athletes are just like the rest of us. They make mistakes.Steve McNair’s death has done plenty to highlight this fact.Football fans know McNair for his tenacity and leadership. They remember the good times and bad times through his career, and how he never gave up.Outside of football, however, there appeared to be another side of McNair.I’m not here to gossip about what McNair did outside of his marriage or what kind of person he is, because, honestly, I’m doing exactly ...

For all those bored at work today—whatever day “today” might be—I’m here to help.   A couple weeks ago, I wrote about the 10 great sports books, and it got some pretty good feedback. This week, I’m trying something a little similar—10 great pieces of sports writing.   Here are a couple of disclaimers before I start the list:   —This was originally going to be a slideshow, but for some reason, I was unable to put links on slideshows (or just unable to figure out how to do it). I wanted to provide links to all these articles so people could just click them and ...

I have written Internet journalism for over a year now. In that time, I have published stories on topics that I believe to have been ignored by the mainstream media. Why do I do that? I do believe that many in the mainstream media are hindered by forces that do not affect a blogger, such as a paycheck and adherence to the authority of those who give them that paycheck (ex, newspaper companies and advertisers). At the same time, those in the mainstream have more training in their field and are therefore less likely to make costly mistakes yet are more timid to cover a ...

I have written internet journalism for over a year now. In that time, I have published stories on topics that I believe have been ignored by the mainstream media. Why do I do that? I do believe that many in the mainstream of media are in hindered by forces that do not affect a blogger, such as a paycheck and adherence to the authority of those who give that paycheck (ex, newspaper companies, and advertisers). At the same time, those in the mainstream have more training in their field, and are less likely to make costly mistakes, but more timid to cover a controversial subject.  ...

My parents are redoing their basement.  That meant getting rid of the stuff I stored down there.  I threw most of it away, all but kept a few keepsakes.  One of which was a ticket stub to an old Baltimore Oriole game. When I stashed it with the rest of my keeper goods I didn't pay much attention to it.  I just knew it was a ticket stub and, being a pack rat, I like to keep my stubs. So I took a couple of boxes of newly found old treasures home with me.  That is when I ran across the ticket ...

When celebrities or well-known sports figures pass on, the media is quick to hop on the story and get as many details as possible. First, they attempt to gain information from the police and do some investigative digging to try and find out the scoop on what happened. Then, they turn to friends and family, looking for something they can put in quotations on the front page. Watching the recent media circus around Michael Jackson's unfortunate death left me appalled and ashamed of every person holding a microphone or pen and pad. His body was recorded being transported from the hospital to the ...

Seventy years ago today on July 4, 1939, New York Yankees legend Lou Gehrig made one of the most famous speeches in sport's history with his "Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth" speech. In this speech, Gehrig told fans at Yankee Stadium he was grateful for the great career he had, and for all of the support he got from everyone around him during his life. But, Gehrig also told everyone that he was now retiring as he had gotten Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (or ALS), which is a disease that kills people by shutting down the neurons that go to the brain, ...

America stands on a new frontier. July 3, 2009, marks the date of the first known cross-species eating competition. The showdown occurred at the Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Coney Island Boom-A-Ring in Coney Island, New York. Three Asian elephants conquered three humans from the Major League Eaters organization by eating 505 hot dog buns in six minutes. The humans only ate 143. Minnie, Bunny, and Susie weighed in at over nine tons while the humans only brought approximately 600 pounds to the table. Human competitors were listed as Juliet Lee, Gravy Brown, and Eric “Badlands” Booker. On the heels of this ...

Warning: This article is not intended for closed-minded people who have already made up their minds about the issue and are not prepared to budge from their position.  It contains scientific analysis, conjecture and pure speculation. Sub-Warning: At just over 5000 words, this is one of the longest articles you will find on this site.  Before reading any further, please take a moment to study the picture that accompanies this article.  What do you notice?  If you said "Three horses completing a jumping race without their jockeys," then you can move to the head of the class. This picture really is ...

On Tuesday night, the damp crowd at Yankee Stadium was eagerly waiting for the start of the game after a 50 minute rain delay. Michael Kay, Paul O'Neill, and Ken Singleton were announcing the game for the YES network, and as they were talking, the camera shots seemed to be avoiding shots of the field. Kay eluded that the Yankees had something special planned for the first pitch.  To honor Mariano Rivera for notching his 500th career save the other night against the Mets, the closer was going to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. The crowd roared with delight and ...