Who wins? Not the audience, that’s for damn sure. It looks like Shaq did a little airbrushing to give the illusion of a six-pack, whereas Barkley just seems to embrace the fact that his body looks like it was piped out of a pastry bag, even after Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers, or whatever he’s been promoting during the playoffs.

I would treat this video like a tanning bed. That is, make sure your eyes are protected and don’t overdo it. Frankly, once is too many times.

Hat Tip (or blame in this instance) – [The Big Lead]

This rivalry knowns no bounds.

Manny Pacquiao, in an interview with famed teen magazine National Conservative Examiner, laid into Obama for his defense of gay marriage. Like many Filipinos, Pacquiao is a devout Catholic, even travelling with a pastor in his entourage. Manny’s exact words to the right-leaning magazine were:

“God only expects man and woman to be together and to be legally married, only if they so are in love with each other. It should not be of the same sex so as to adulterate the altar of matrimony, like in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah of Old.”

Boom.

Unfortunately, this comment still trails Mayweather’s racially insensitive (and confused) comments that he’s going to force Manny to “make some sushi rolls and cook some rice,” but I wouldn’t stroll too far from your news feeds, people.

This thing’s just heating up.

Hat Tip – [Yahoo!]

(Again, we’re really sorry we don’t have more context for this video. Oh well.)

Walk off steals are rare. So rare that I don’t think I’d ever seen one. Also so rare that I think this baserunner may have had to cheat to successfully accomplish his. I know that you’re not allowed to run off the baselines to avoid a tag, but you are allowed to shimmy and whatnot. It looks like this mystery runner walks (runs) a fine line between the two, but since this wouldn’t be a newsworthy clip if he was called out, I stand by the ump’s decision.

Usually when there is a controversy over boys and girls playing on the same team, we’re talking about a girl who wants to play on a boys team. That was the case last week when we told you about the ultraconservative Our Lady of Sorrows Academy in Arizona, which forfeited a championship baseball game because the opponent had a girl playing second base.

But sometimes the controversy surrounds a boy who wants to play on a girls team. That’s the story we have for you today out of Smithtown, New York.

Earlier this year, a group of officials in Suffolk County, New York, ruled that, after two seasons, 13-year-old Keeling Pilaro would no longer be allowed to play on the Southampton High School varsity girls field hockey team. The reason: he was getting too good.

Pilaro lived with his family in Dublin, Ireland, until two years ago, which is where he picked up his love for field hockey. When his family moved to New York state he had to apply for permission from Suffolk county’s mixed competition committee in order to play on the girls varsity team. And permission was granted. But last year Keeling notched 10 goals and 8 assists and was named to the all-conference team. So the same folks who gave him permission to play two years ago revoked their permission, arguing that he was now too good and would have “a significant adverse effect” on girls’ opportunity to participate in school sports.

Obviously, Keeling and his parents appealed the decision. After all, the kid is 4’8″—he couldn’t possibly be that good. And on Tuesday they got good news: a new 40-member competition committee had decided that he would be allowed to play on the Southampton varsity field hockey team—for this season, anyway.

“I was jumping up and down; I was so excited when I heard,” Pilaro told a reporter after hearing of the decision. “I can play!”

Yes you can. Have fun, kid.

Hat Tip – [Fox Sports]

Why it’s…it’s…kind tasteful! Who the hell greenlit this design? I thought Super Bowl rings were supposed to be fourteen different colors and have neon and strobe lights on them. Oh well.

An earlier representation of the ring was made available by Steve Weatherford, the punter for the Giants, who tweeted a pic of the ring on Eli Manning’s hand. This most recent pic also appears to match the ring that was in a Clint Sintim tweet a few months back.

The Super Bowl championship ring reportedly has 1.36 carats of ice and 1.11 carats of sapphires, all on a 30 mm white gold ring. Ok, so 30 mm isn’t THAT tasteful, but come on. These guys are huge. The ring has to look proportionate to their giant bodies.

Considering this was the Giants’ second Super Bowl win in five years, it appeared that ownership scaled back the design a little bit for this victory lap. The first ring was a little more iced out with 1.5 carats of diamonds, but didn’t have the sapphires. Take a look at the very classy “11 straight on the road” engraving.

Hat Tip – [The Victory Formation]

The Game: St. Louis Cardinals @ San Francisco Giants

The Pick: Cardinals -105

The Reason: Jaime Garcia takes the mound for the St. Louis Cardinals tonight, and he will pitch against the San Francisco Giants’ Madison Bumgarner.  Both pitchers have been reasonably effective this season, with Bumgarner taking a larger advantage in ERA (2.80 over Garcia’s 4.09). Garcia’s ERA, however, is inflated by his above-average batting average on balls in play (BABIP), which is .342.  This would indicate that he is due for a lights out start to regress toward the league average in that category, and the Giants offense is one that will definitely give him that opportunity.  Look for Garcia to pitch well and the Cardinals to come out with a win at home.

The Game: Arizona Diamondbacks @ Colorado Rockies

The Pick: Rockies -102

The Reason: The ageless wonder Jamie Moyer pitches for the Colorado Rockies tonight at home against the young Patrick Corbin of the Diamondbacks.  Both of the teams are 2-8 in their last ten, so neither of them have any real momentum coming into this game.  Moyer has pitched reasonably well all season long, with a 4.66 ERA that is really inflated by a .341 BABIP.  Corbin’s ERA on the season is no better at 4.50, with no real inflation from his BABIP.  One of these teams will come alive tonight, and the Rockies will be the one to do it.  Look for Moyer to earn the 269th win of his career at home.

2012 Record: (84-89-10), This Week: (0-4), Last Week: (3-5-2)

No, I’m talking about Charles Barkley’s use of a shake weight during the halftime show. Totally uncalled for. And the funny thing is, this isn’t the first time Sir Charles has picked up a shake weight and given it a jacking during an NBA broadcast. We’ve seen this before.

In case you missed it, here’s an animated GIF version of the, uh, incident:

Gonna haunt you in your dreams, isn’t it?

Hat Tip – [Big Lead Sports]

Let me set it up for you. Dodgers versus Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium, top of the 9th, home team ahead 3-1, nobody out, Miguel Montero at the plate, 0-2 count. Montero slices a pop-up out beyond third base into foul territory in shallow left field. Justin Sellers is the only guy on the field with a shot at catching it, and he takes off in hot pursuit. You don’t think he’s going to get there, but at the last second, looking over his shoulder, he extends his glove in front of him and makes a beautiful basket catch.

Then he plows over the padded railing and into the first row, taking out the few Dodgers fans who didn’t leave in the top of the 8th to beat traffic.

Check it out:

Not bad, huh?

Hat Tip – [Big League Stew]

It’s always seemed to me that baseball wives of the 1950s and 60s, in addition to being beautiful, were so classy and dignified when compared to the baseball wives of today. But I kind of figured this was probably a false perception—chalk it up to black and white still photography and the mystique of “the golden age” of baseball.

Now I’m not so sure. Here at Total Pro Sports we recently did a list of the 50 hottest MLB WAGs of 2012, and for every two guys married to their high school sweethearts, there’s at least one dating or married to a porn star, Playboy Playmate, or lingerie model. So maybe the gals were “classier” back in the day. I mean, there’s no way everything was as perfect as it looked in the pages of Life magazine—the divorce rate then and now is probably about the same—but if nothing else there was a little more concern seeming wholesome.

So today, let’s take a look at some of the classy “dames” ballplayers used to marry back in the 1950s and 60s, shall we?