Puppy Bowl Basic Info

• 2012 Puppy Bowl Date: Sunday, February 5th, 2012
• 2012 Puppy Bowl Time: 3:00 ET
• 2012 Puppy Bowl TV: Animal Planet
• Puppy Bowl Official Website: http://animal.discovery.com/tv/puppy-bowl/

Puppy Bowl Preview

This year’s Puppy Bowl, like all previous Puppy Bowls, is more than just a friendly game between puppies. It’s about the coming together feeling that staring at puppies for more than two hours gives to the American public.

Here at MSF we want to promote those feelings anytime we can, giving you, the reader, a chance to better yourselves.

3 Things To Look Forward To Seeing

1. Puppy Cam

This year’s Puppy Bowl has a lot of new and exciting features, including my personal favorite: the Puppy Cam.

For the first time ever, viewers will get to see exactly what the puppy players see, immersing the viewer into the action even more and giving a more personal touch to the Puppy Bowl that was missing from previous Puppy Bowls. It’s a step in the right direction for the Puppy Bowl and one that could totally revolutionize the game.

2. Hamster Pilots

The hamster pilots are back and are poised to give us the best aerial coverage of the game, making sure we don’t miss any of the action while looking cute and harmless.

3. Cheerleaders

Chicken and rooster cheerleaders will be on the sidelines cheering for our puppy friends as they battle it out in Animal Planet Stadium.

I love the change of now having chickens and roosters being the cheerleaders because it adds a layer to the game, giving the viewer plenty of action while not being to distracting. I don’t know how big of an impact the chickens and roosters will have on the game, but it sure will be fun to find out.

3 Potential Puppy Bowl MVPs

Though all the puppies are winners in my book, there are some players that stood out to me and have my vote for potential MVP of Puppy Bowl 2012.

1. Abilene

Abilene is my first pick to win the MVP award this season. Her expertise in scuba diving tells me she’s the best athlete in this competition and has the desire and determination to master a skill.

I expect her to leave everything on the field this year. She never give up even when the going gets tough and she starts feeling fatigued.

2. Calvin

Calvin likes to repair old cars in his spare time, and though that doesn’t make for the most athletic player, it sure does make for the most patient of all the players.

Putting a car back together is like coming up with a plan on how to dismantle the opponents. He knows exactly what goes where, and his strategic background could be the difference maker in this game.

3. Hunter

Hunter plans on going into politics, which tells me he’s a great manipulator, liar, and cheater; all things needed to win in this competitive league.

You may not agree with his tactics, but you can’t deny the results that may come because of the them. He’s sure to be the dirty player in this year’s Puppy Bowl.

Puppy Bowl 2012 Prediction

I am predicting a closely fought game this year.

I think puppies like Abilene and Hunter are going to have a very fast start, but whether or not they can sustain that high level of play throughout the whole match without becoming distracted by the will to sniff everyones’  butts will be the deciding factor in this year’s Puppy Bowl.

The most obvious example is the 30 for 30 documentary series, which is terrific and universally renowned for being so. But an even more ubiquitous example is the series of funny SportsCenter commercials featuring athletes that ESPN has been producing for 15 or so years now. These commercials rarely disappoint.

In this post, I’ll share with you my favorite current ESPN commercial and my favorite two from the voluminous archive of this series.

I am not a hockey fan, but every time I see the commercial with Steve Levy and Alex Ovechkin, it cracks me up.

Steve Levy: Hey, Ovie, what are you doing in the dark?

Alex Ovechkin: Nothing. Just…late night filings.

And then the innocent chuckle and subsequent expression on Ovechkin’s face when Levy leaves are priceless. Watch:

———-

As much as I like this one, it cannot compare to my all-time favorite ESPN SportsCenter commercial: the Y2K test ad featuring one of the greatest lines in the history of TV commercials, said by (who else?) Charley Steiner:

Follow me! Follow me to freedom!

———-

Steiner was also involved in another classic SportsCenter commercial moment, when ESPN “trades” Steiner to Melrose Place for Andrew Shue. That led to this line:

Hi Sidney. I’m Bobby. I’m the new pool boy. Want to rub some cocoa oil on my back?

Classic.

———-

You’re welcome for the free advertising ESPN. You are free to repay me by removing Matt Millen from all future broadcasts I am interested in watching.

What is your favorite ESPN commercial? Copy/paste links for embed codes below. This could be fun. There are definitely a ton of them to choose from.

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My dad and I first co-managed a team way back when we got online using dial-up and signed in through Prodigy. (Holy crap that sounds like a long time ago.) For what it’s worth, we won that league, and I’ve played fantasy baseball every year since.

While I am excited about the mainstream acceptance that fantasy sports have attained, there are still prominent segments of society (read: most women and assorted douchebags) who look down upon those of us who enjoy fantasy sports. I have heard these massively misinformed people refer to me and my fantasy sports loving kind as “losers”.

Well, for any guys out there who are questioning whether or not they should sign up this year, I’m here to tell you that fantasy baseball is not for losers. Quite the contrary. In fact, I bet fantasy baseball provides benefits that most of those condescending women and douchebags never even considered.

This post aims to set the record straight and ensure that you, my fantasy baseball playing brother, register proudly and confidently for your league(s) this year.

1. You don’t have to just live and (mostly) die with your crappy “real” team

If you’re a fan of the Cubs, Indians, Royals, Pirates, Blue Jays, and a handful of other teams, you already know going into the season that you have a greater chance of marrying Heidi Klum (and remember, she’s already married) than seeing your team win a World Series.

Having a fantasy baseball team gives you a reason to stay interested in baseball past the month of June, when you otherwise would already be lamenting the fact that you root for a loser…and questioning what exactly that says about you as a person (hint: that might be a loser). Plus, if your baseball fortunes rise and fall only with the fortunes of a crappy, hopeless team like ones mentioned above, it can make for a pretty salty summer for you and your loved ones.

More importantly, it isn’t just the MLB teams that enter the month of March with a fresh, positive feeling every year and dreams of September glory to come. You harbor these very same feelings, because it’s a new season for you too. And whether the Yankees or the Cubs are the “real” team you root for, only one of which has any prayer at a title, you have the opportunity win a title thanks to your fantasy team.

And really, at the end of the day, things don’t really change much for us guys whether we’re 7 or 37. We all just want to win a trophy.

2. It gives you at least one inalienable guy’s night

While I don’t think the founding fathers ever envisioned the word they made famous –  ”inalienable” – being applied to men and fantasy leagues, I can only attribute that to their lack of foresight.

Guys, I’m going to level with you: if you are with a chick who would come between you and your fantasy sports, run don’t walk to the nearest exit.

We all know that one of the most important reasons we love fantasy sports is for the draft. Whether it’s live around a big table with all of your buddies and some beer, or whether everyone congregates online (still with beer, of course), this is easily one of the most relaxing, entertaining, anticipated nights in the year of a dude.

Now look, I’m not saying cut the cord with your significant other if she gives you some grief about your draft. In most cases, a little bit of grief and guilt is to be expected. (And if in your case it is not to be expected, you should go out and by your woman flowers. Now. Stop reading this and bow down to your better half you fortunate fool.)

Fantasy draft night is one of the most important turf wars in any relationship. If your girl cannot understand the importance of this night to you, that should be a pretty conspicuous red flag.

And because this test is so important, it’s a great reason to play fantasy baseball. You need to know how she’ll react.

(By the way, one strategy to try if you are given some grief about draft night is to say this: “Fine, I won’t participate in any fantasy leagues, and thus won’t go to any drafts, if you don’t buy shoes all year.” She’ll be left speechless, obviously will have no comeback, and you’ll be well on your way to a peaceful night of drafting.)

(And one more hint: if you really want it to be a peaceful night of drafting that possibly even has a happy ending, and you’re more successful than 99% of us so you have some extra cash, give her some money to go shoe shopping. Yes, it always comes back to shoes.)

3. Productive procrastination

Most of us that play fantasy baseball are in our late 20s, 30s, or early 40s, and thus we have jobs. For most of us, this means trudging to our place of work every Monday through Friday (and sometimes Saturday) for whatever our particular daily 9-to-5 grind is.

During fantasy football season, you can get by without thinking about your fantasy team during the workday; you have all day Saturday to prep and get your lineups for Sunday. Fantasy baseball, however, is a different animal.

Baseball is played every day, and every day can have a huge influence on your fantasy standing. There is nothing worse than having someone who is sitting on your bench hit two home runs when he could have been playing because your normal starter was off that day. Similarly, it sucks to not realize a bench guy is going up against a pitcher that he has owned historically. So fantasy baseball requires daily attention.

And let’s face it: you are going to procrastinate at some point during the day. (Some of you may actually spend the entire day procrastinating, getting just enough done so that you’re not asked to leave immediately upon arriving to the office the next day.)

The best part about procrastinating by doing fantasy baseball research, hypothesizing trades, and setting your lineups, is that you actually accomplish something at the end of it. You may not have achieved anything worthwhile for work, but you can still have a sense of achievement. Try matching that by wasting a half hour on Twitter or blog hopping.

So instead of leaving the office feeling like a complete failure, you only leave feeling like kind of a failure. Over the long haul, that will do wonders for your self-esteem.

4. Networking benefits

The biggest and most important metropolitan areas in the United States have baseball teams. Some of them, like New York and LA, have two. If you are a businessman, chances are good that you will have to network and do business with other guys that you do not know in these large cities. And if you’re a fantasy baseball manager who does his homework, you’ll have the ability carry on in-depth, intelligent conversations about the local baseball team.

You might laugh when you first read this and think it’s ridiculous, but you shouldn’t.

Look, maybe you are Mr. Personality or your name is Greg Arious and you never have a problem striking up a conversation with someone you’ve just met, but if you’re like many guys you probably experience some awkwardness and choppiness when it comes to small talk. Being able to knowledgeably converse about the bullpen struggles, outfield platoon, or rotation woes of the local team immediately boosts your networking power.

Successful networking is all about finding common ground and establishing ease of conversation as quickly as possible. Researching for your fantasy baseball team arms you with the information power you need.

See? And you thought you were just procrastinating. It’s productive in more ways than one.

5. Fantasy baseball teaches you the concepts of successful stock market investing

That’s right, another business angle.

Seriously.

I’ve played in one league for going on about ten years now. Our commish works for a hedge fund. He and the other smart, “businessey” people in our league (remember, I’m just a basement-dwelling blogger) are always using stock market euphemisms to describe and analogize things that happen in our fantasy league.

And when you think about it, it makes sense.

Successful fantasy baseball managing requires picking the best players based on how they will perform tomorrow and in the futre. Their numbers up until that point are absolutely meaningless for the future success of your team. When it comes to working the waiver wire and trading, you want sell high and buy low.

Successful stock market investing, similarly, requires picking and buying the stocks that will perform above their current value moving forward and selling those that have peaked in value. All of the past upward trending is meaningless if you buy a stock and then it starts to drop, and vice versa.

When you buy and sell is of tremendous importance in both fantasy baseball and the stock market. You cannot become a successful fantasy baseball player without developing the kind of mindset required to invest successfully.

6. You get a 6-month panacea for boredom

The MLB Network and GameCast ensure that for six months out of the year, you cannot possibly have a night with nothing to do. Why? Because you always have the pleasure of tracking your fantasy players on a nightly basis.

Before last year, you could always count on your league’s live scoring system or GameCast to provide instant statistical updates. Now, with the introduction of the MLB Network and their live look-ins on the important moments of nearly every game, this ability to track your team in real-time has been, to use an unfortunate (but appropriate) metaphor, injected in the ass with Deca-Durabolin.

Never again will you have to go home at the end of a long day and lament the fact that there is nothing on TV and nothing to do. Even if you live alone, you won’t have to lament another night of useless boredom. Pop open a cold beer, sit in your recliner with a laptop, and turn on the MLB Network.

And if you juggle the job-wife-kid triumvirate, but every now and then get an evening or even just a few minutes of solitude, this will most likely be the most relaxing and enjoyable part of your night/week/month.

7. You can take pride in your war stories, championships

Remember three years ago when you agonized over whether you should drop injured Star Pitcher A to pick up unknown Pitcher B off the waiver wire, ultimately choosing Pitcher B because of some in-depth injury analysis / statistical algorithm (referred to in common parlance as a “coin flip”) you came up with?

Of course you do. Because Pitcher B went on to win 13 games, have an ERA around 3.50, and helped lead you to a fantasy championship while Pitcher A ended up going on and off the DL all year.

No one else may care but you and the other guys in your league (actually, they don’t really care either, but they occasionally humor you), but you know how ballsy it was to make that move and you know that without it you wouldn’t have that silly purple bobblehead on your dresser commemorating your title.

Well guess what? Those lonely, pathetic chumps who don’t play fantasy baseball never have the opportunity create such memories and tell such war stories. I know…I laugh at those losers too.

Ultimately, that’s the point: you don’t want to be a loser, or feel like one, and you definitely don’t want to allow yourself to become an angry, bored old man

And the way to combat all of this is to play fantasy baseball.

It may not get you chicks – in fact, it might even cost you the one you’re with – but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t make you a better, happier man.

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* – Loser picture credit:  Confessions of a She-Fan

* – Man and woman photo credit: Mars Venus Living

* – Networking photo credit: Here

And in my humble opinion, Facebook sucks.

Yes, Facebook has its positives. At one time it was a nice, organized, relatively private and controlled way to keep in touch with friends and family, share photos and events, and – in a much less garish way than MySpace – create your own little personal shrine to yourself on the web. (Narcissism rules!)

It is not that anymore.

I, of course, once actively used my Facebook account but deactivated it about a year ago. For those curious, yes, it has made my online life much easier and less cluttered. No, I do not really feel like I’m missing out on anything.

Many of you have asked why MSF does not have an official Facebook page, and it’s a good question. We probably should; but I’ve developed an even more severe disdain for what Facebook has become, thus keeping MSF off of it can be pretty accurately described as my own subconscious, irrational, traffic-debilitating act of petulant social media rebellion.

Anyway, I may or may not get around to getting MSF officially on Facebook at some point. Regardless, I highly doubt I’ll ever use it all that much personally in the future other than logging in once in a great while when I forget someone’s birthday or contact info, and then immediately deactivating again to prevent – among other things – being ‘facebook abused’, as the aforementioned video below sums up perfectly.

Video: Facebook Abuse by Man in the Box (warning: NSFW language)

While I am sure that some will find the snarky, caustic humor of Mike Polk (the “man in the box”) a little off-putting – especially those of you who fall into the Facebook stereotypes he lambastes – I think he’s hilarious. He’s also probably in his late-20s, early-30s, so he and I probably have a lot in common.

Regardless, “Man in the Box” has a pretty prolific YouTube Channel, so the rest of the these videos are embedded for you to enjoy if you want to continue procrastinating at work.

Video: Greg’s Lawsuit by Man in the Box

Video: Blooper Police by Man in the Box

Video: The One Upper by Man in the Box

For more, check out the Man in the Box YouTube channel. I just checked it out for the first time today, and this post was the result. So obviously it’s pretty entertaining.

Thanks for indulging in me in this off-topic respite from the sports world. The truth is, I work in social media…so I’m not sure my boss would appreciate an anti-Facebook rant on any of our other sites. Since he’s not into a Midwest sports, I figure I’m safe here among friends.

Now back to your regularly schedule procrastinating on other websites.

Kiffin works in a profession littered with insincere men who hop from one school to another, but ‘ol Lane stoooped a new low yesterday.

In 61 pathetic seconds, Kiffin verbally defecates on the school and fan base that hailed his arrival with such fanfare 14 months ago. And if you haven’t seen the video of Kiffin’s press conference, it really is priceless.

Here you go:

Video: Lane Kiffin Press Conference Announcing He Is Leaving Tennessee for USC (MSF’s Animated Interpretation)

Okay, so you might have guessed that the above video is not actually Lane Kiffin. (And yes, I did take a slight creative license at the very end of the video as Kiffin neither danced nor passed gas after he was done speaking at the press conference, at least not that I saw.)

There is, however, a striking figurative resemblance between the Kiffin we saw at last night’s press conference and the actor playing him in the video above. The fact that the clown sounds so much more sincere though should give away the difference.

Just in case you haven’t seen the actual video of Kiffin’s press conference and would like to compare, here it is:

Video: Lane Kiffin Press Conference Announcing He Is Leaving Tennessee for USC (Actual Footage)

(Note: The above video is from ESPN.com and they sometimes pull their videos down after initially making them available for embed. Please alert me, jerod@midwestsportsfans.com, if you come here and there is no video.)

Notice the similarities?

I didn’t create the animated video and call out Kiffin simply because he left Knoxville. USC is his dream job and college football coach movement is what it is, so ultimately I don’t think too many people would hold a long-lasting grudge against him for the move.

What I will always personally hold against Kiffin, and I’m sure many other Volunteer fans will as well, is him not even having the decency to sincerely thank Tennessee and its fans for giving him a lot of money and a lot of faith when his 5-15 career record as a head coach (in Oakland) should have inspired very little of either without some results first.

Look at this quote:

I really believe that this was probably the only place that I would have left here to go, uh, was to go to Southern Cal.

Way to throw the word “probably” in there Lane. So what it is? Do you really believe that USC was the only place you’d go, or do you probably, maybe, kinda sorta think that it was? You can’t really believe something and then consider it probable. Kind of goes against the definition of both words.

And how about this quote:

There’s so many people to thank so I’m just going to leave it real generic and say, um, I’m very thankful to all our Tennessee people and the way they welcomed myself and my family

Gosh, Lane. Be careful just how much appreciation you show to people who helped you out. Wouldn’t want to overdo it or anything.

I mean really? Why say anything at all if you’re just going to say that? Essentially what he’s saying is that he knows there are lots and lots of people who he owes a debt of gratitude to – so many, in fact – yet it is either not important enough to him or beneath him to actually take some time out of his busy schedule of lying-and-leaving to thank them.

Please Lane, stop with the sincerity. Honestly, it’s too much.

Anyway, what’s done is done and Lane Kiffin leaves one school in a cloud of NCAA trouble for another school in a cloud of NCAA trouble. At least he’ll feel at home. In the long run – though certainly not in the short-term – Tennessee will probably be better off finding a guy who doesn’t view Knoxville as a stepping stone to his dream job.

At one time, Tennessee was a destination job. It will be again, perhaps even for the next guy (Will Muschamp? Gary Patterson? Mike Leach?) to take the reins at Neyland Stadium.

But Tennessee fans don’t owe one iota of goodwill towards Lane Kiffin. He’s the one who got what he wanted and is apparently content to leave town without showing much gratitude to the school and fans that welcomed he and his family and his questionable methods with open arms.

Congrats on getting your dream job Lane. There was a way to take it and move on without shoving it in Tennessee’s face how little you care about their program and people. You just didn’t do it that way.

So don’t let the door hit you too hard on the backside as you scurry off to SoCal.

There is nothing as entertaining as football coaches going off:

With yesterday’s post I feel like I made a pretty significant deposit into the “serious sports talk” bank account that we like to maintain here at Midwest Sports Fans. And that can only mean one thing: it’s time to become a “real” sports fan for a moment and dabble in something juvenile, immature, and sophomoric.

Thus, it gives me great pleasure on this fine Wednesday morning to present you with the greatest name in the history of the NFL Draft:

That’s right. Dickless Riffle. A back out of Albright chosen with the 12th overall pick by the Philadelphia Eagles. (So…do you think when Eagles call T.O. “dickless” that they are really just paying homage to their old time second-round pick? No? Okay, me either.) I defy you to find another name that even comes close to packing the humor, irony, and complete ridiculousness of this one.

It should be noted that I looked for secondary confirmation of the existence of Dickless Riffle. However, all I was able to find was another website that had essentially just copy/pasted the Wikipedia table for the 1938 draft. So I’m trusting Wikipedia that Dickless Riffle is not just someone’s idea of a joke inconspicuously slipped into a random draft chart from the Early Era of the NFL, found only because of freak sports bloggers who research this stuff at 12:30 in the morning.

As you will see below, the genesis for this post was actually something legitimate and informative. We have created a table listing the #1 overall draft pick for every professional football draft since 1936. During the course of going to the Wikipedia page for each individual draft to get all of the information I needed for the table, I stumbled across more than a few interesting names. Without question, Dickless Riffle is the greatest.

How in the hell do you get a name like Dickless? I have to assume that it did not have the same context back then that it does now. Or perhaps his name was Richardfewer and he just wanted to shorten it. Or perhaps his parents really wanted a girl and simply could not accept the fact that little Dickless had man parts, so they gave him a name in hopes that it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It would make a great band name, don’t you think? Or a stage name for an effeminate male singer who wears tight pants and hits high notes with ease. I can see the marquee now: Dickless Riffle and the Morsels of Tenderness, like tonight at The Vogue.

And I’ve officially taken this too far.

Anyway, before we jump into the all-time list of #1 overall NFL draft picks, here are a few other names from the Early Era of the NFL that I thought were…entertaining:

• Bill Shakespeare (1936 NFL Draft – Round 1 – Pittsburgh Steelers)
• Dick Crayne (1936 – Round 1 – Brooklyn Dodgers)
• Pepper Constable (1936 – Round 8 – Philadelphia Eagles)
• Dick Plasman (1937 NFL Draft – Round 3 – Chicago Bears)
• Byron “Whizzer” White (1938 NFL Draft – Round 1 – Pittsburgh Pirates) — Is this guy related to Onterrio Smith?
• Kelly Moan (1938 – Round 7 – New York Giants)
• Dick Nardi (1938 – Round 8 – Detroit Lions)
• Dick Johnston (1938 – Round 11 – Washington Redskins) – one letter away from being the polar opposite of Dickless Riffle.
• Bill Daddio (1939 NFL Draft – Round 5 – Chicago Cardinals)
• Dick Farman (1939 – Round 16 – Washington Redskins)
• Dick Favor (1940 NFL Draft – Round 3 – Philadelphia Eagles) – The question becomes what is the difference between a Dick Favor and a Dickless Riffle? They sound like complete opposites to me.
• Cary Cox (1940 – Round 11 – Pittsburgh Steelers) – Umm…once again, the complete opposite of Dickless Riffle. But it would certainly help out with a Dick Favor.
• Earl Fullilove (1941 NFL Draft – Round 19 – Washington Redskins)
• Jack Hunt (1942 NFL Draft – Round 13 – Chicago Bears)
• Dick Wildung (1943 NFL Draft – Round 1 – Green Bay Packers)
• Bob Coutchie (1943 – Round 21 – Brooklyn Dodgers)

Yep, that seems like a good one to end on.

My goodness, who knew that the old school NFL drafts were such a rich source of humor? I had no idea. Anyway, I have to cut myself off there as actual work beckons.

Before I go, here is the all-time list of #1 overall NFL draft picks. My apologies for diverting so far off track from what this post was originally intended to be. But come on — Dickless Riffle? It was just too much ignore.

NFL Draft History: All-Time List of #1 Overall Picks

Buttons, you ask? What do buttons or a button maker have to do with sports?

Well, quite a bit actually — if you are sports-obsessed, creative, open-minded, and have a good sense of humor.

The genesis of this post actually came from a sports button I saw this past weekend. I was out on Saturday in downtown Dallas, the same night that Texas was taking on Duke in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. Now, as you might imagine, there is a pretty large contingent of Longhorns fans here in Big D, and they were out in full force on Saturday supporting their team. One such person, in the midst of head-to-toe burnt orange apparel, was wearing the button you see pictured to the right.

I was actually surprised to find a picture of it online. I figured he might have made it himself, but it looks like he ordered it — meaning there are probably plenty more krzyzewski krzucks buttons floating around (especially in Chapel Hill, no doubt).

But it got me thinking (dangerous, I know), what a great idea. Making positive buttons in support of your team or, what would be even more fun, making derogatory but funny buttons about the opposition or your rival. The possibilities are literally endless…but we’ll get to that in a second.

I looked around online for a bit to find some places where you can buy funny sports buttons. There were a few, but certainly the overall selection was limited.

What if, as an IU fan, I want to make fun of Matt Painter and the plaid-clad Paint Crew in West Lafayette? (I know that they wear black during games, but go to West Lafayette some time. Plaid as far as the eye can see.) How about a button that says Purdue basketball: 2009 Sweet 16 participants — Still Zero Banners or something like that. I couldn’t find one.

What if, as a White Sox fan, I want to call out the Chicago Cubs for over 100 years of futility? Curses are made to be broken — except in Wrigley. 100+ years and counting! I couldn’t find anything like that one either.

No, if you wanted to really get creative and go custom you’d have to do it yourself. The nice thing is, it does not seem like it would be all that hard to make some buttons.

Do a google search for “button machine” and there are 69 million results. Damn. Not wanting to spend too much time researching button machine products this post, I just clicked on the first one: American Button Machines. (It could be different for you…Google and their tricky geotargeting!) So let’s say I wanted to start my own little sports button making operation. What would it put me out to get started, as cheaply as humanly possible?

It appears that there are all different sizes of machines — 1 inch button machines all the way to a 3.5 inch button machines. I’m thinking 1″ would be a little too small for a sports button to be readable and have impact, but 3.5″ might be overkill. Conservatively, and hoping it was less expensive, I went with the 2.25 inch button machine. From the looks of it, you can buy just the button machine, a beginner button system, and a professional button system. I am certainly not a professional, but I have no other supplies on hand for button making. Thus, I clicked through to the beginner button system.

And here’s what I get:

• Free shipping (Whoo-hoo! More money for beer, err…flowers for my girlfriend I mean.)
• Free design CDs (Whoo-hoo! Free! Don’t know if I’d use ‘em, since the whole purpose would be for me to make my own button designs, but hey, it’s free!)
• 2.25 inch professional button maker
• All the necessary button supplies to make 250 buttons
• An adjustable circle cutter
• Instructions
• Price: $339.95

Not too shabby. Comes out to about $1.36 per button if I only make 250. The way I look at it, if someone was selling the buttons I described above, I’d easily pay $2-$3 for one. (Hmm…perhaps a business idea? Anyone want Midwest Sports Fans buttons to show off your love for our modest little piece of the sports blogosphere?) And if I want to make more buttons, I’d just have to dole out a little more cash for the supplies, but I’d have everything else.

So getting everything together to make the sports buttons would be pretty easy. Then it would just be all about coming up with funny ideas. And all that would really involve is grabbing a 24-pack of High Life and a handle of Jack, rounding up KVB and Ryan Russell (you remember them right? From when they used to post? Jackasses…) and then throwing ideas back and forth.

In fact, I bet I know what Russell’s very first button would be, and you can see it over there to the right. I found that one during my half hour scouring the Internet to see if there were any other funny sports buttons out there like krzyzewski krzucks. It clearly shows that Jesus holds the city of Pittsburgh in the same regard as people from Cleveland do.

Of course, Cleveland haters (and to be more specific, Browns haters) certainly can get their licks in as well as you can see to the left. Just in case the text is too small for you to read get glasses or a higher resolution web browser it says: “The only bowl the Browns will ever be in.”

Very freaking funny. But, as you can see, I am even willing to display ideas for sports buttons that disparage my own team.

And at the end of the day, that’s the beauty of it: sports buttons are another avenue for trash talk. Sure, you can make a “Go Browns!” button or something else positive and generic like that. But one of the best parts about sports is the endless banter and trash talk between friends of opposing teams. Wouldn’t it be fun, as a Browns fan, to sneak into one of your Steelers fan friend’s closets and pin a “Pittsburgh sucks” button on his most dapper dress coat? A couple weeks later you’d get a random phone call from your friend on the way to a work event cussing you out…and then you’d laugh about it over beers later.

If you need a little more help revving up the creative, trash-talking juices, below are some other funny sports buttons I found floating around on the web. There are a bunch of different places where you can buy these. Just do a little googling and I’m sure you’ll find out pretty easily. But don’t copy these, since that would be totally lame. Instead, refuse to be reined in by the limits of what is available and buy your own button maker. (And for the record, it doesn’t make a difference to me one way or the other to be who you buy it from, but hopefully the links out to American Button Machines help. Hey…they’re first in Google. They must be good, right?)

Other sports button ideas:

Show some love for our buddies over at Waiting For Next Year with a button like the one below (which, incidentally, is not from from their site, but very well could be.)

Are you a White Sox fan? What better way to show it off than with one of Hawk Harrelson‘s greatest catch phrases ever — “He Gone!”

And even better for a White Sox, a sports button that explicitly calls out Cubs fans for being exactly what they are: worse than hookers:

Feel like showing your kinship with Roger Clemens and all of the other cheating liars in baseball? A sports button like the one below would do just that.

Not a fan of students in East Lansing? Call them out with a button like this one (or make up your own and substitute in your rival school):

Cleveland Cavaliers fans, want to show off one of the most popular reasons for why LeBron should be the MVP over Kobe? I think this button pretty much says it all:

Okay, so you know that guy in college who thought he was cool because he was really good at beer pong?

And he and his best friend took to calling themselves “Team Diablo” because an exasperated and frustrated drunk dude one night said “How did you guys get so good? It’s like you made a deal with the devil!” after losing again and again?

Yeah, well being good at beer pong is meaningless and that guy was a complete tool. So give him the button below to mock him. He’ll think you mean it, but you’ll know the truth.

(By the way, and this is totally unrelated to this button description, but no one who knew me from college is allowed to comment on this post.)

The button below I am just posting because I saw it and I cannot imagine why anyone would wear it. Unless you’re ARod. For some reason he seems like the kind of guy that would pee in the pool. Anyone else think this?

And finally, the funniest sports button I found while perusing the web. And I post this one as an homage to KVB, who probably had something similar in mind when designing one of the logos for Flash Sports Tonight.

So there you have it — the fruits of my procrastination from work and desire to post something completely unrelated to March Madness.

Now the only question is, what are you going to put on your sports buttons? The comment section is wide open for ideas.

Who knows — I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to get the button maker system, but if I do maybe we’ll have a little content to see who can come up with the best sports button ideas.

And of course, the funnier and more trash talk-related the better.

Sarah Palin Wins Presidential Election, Barack Obama Third

After determining the Big-12 championship game participants, the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Sarah Palin to be the winner of the 2008 Presidential Election.

“Palin started with some important early victories beginning with her election as Mayor of Wasilla, and followed with decisive conference wins in the election for Governor of Alaska and the nomination for Vice President. Her only losses came against Katie Couric and Tina Fey, however considering her strength of schedule, the computers determined her season worthy of a true number 1.

When asked about the number 3 ranking for Senator Barack Obama, the BCS commissioner stated “Obama really only had 2 major victories. Those victories were over Hillary Clinton in the Primaries and John McCain in the general election. The BCS computers don’t consider head to head victories like humans do. Those victories are still only viewed as a single game with equal weight to other games.”

President-Elect Sarah Palin commented on her massive upset. “It was tough after those two late losses to Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson, but I defeated Romney for the Vice President nod, and he was ranked as the BCS number 2 in preseason.”

Romney, after the high expectations in the preseason, dropped out of the top 10 and ended up narrowly beating Senator Barney Frank to finish at 11. Senator Frank, who was unable to overcome the shattering losses to the Economic Crisis and Papa Bear Bill O’Reilly, was unable to remain in the top 25.

John McCain’s ranking of 5th has also come under question. The BCS commented “John McCain had a major loss to Senator Barack Obama in early November. If the loss had come earlier in the season, say September, McCain maybe could have recovered, however, similar to Texas Tech, McCain just lost too late in the season.

As expected, Senator Joe Biden finished in the number 2 spot, making him the Vice President of the United States.

For those who missed it, here is the replay of the crucial Franks loss to O’Reilly in week 7.

Authors Note- Obviously, none of this is true, but nevertheless, be thankful that the flawed BCS is only used for college football.