Before there was Keith the bleeding lefty, there was Keith, SportsCenter mainstay. From 1992 to 1997, Olbermann was one of the go-tos for ESPN, before he was sacked there unceremoniously.
Here's a few of Keith's best clips from that era, including the report on Bret Favre entering rehab (where he's talking so fast he almost seizes) and a Boston Market commercial where he invokes the term ooie-gooey (sp.)
With no insider’s knowledge of what this report will entail, my prediction is that either you’ll hear a great deal about Brooke Leavitt…or ESPN will miss completely.
Leavitt is one of three women who in 2004 started the Kansas City Roller Warriors league, which started its fifth season earlier this Spring.
Like her cofounders – Eanna Johnson and Mandy Durham – Leavitt works a day job (she’s a librarian) and practices and competes with her team The Knockouts on the side. Unlike the other competitors, she does this all with only one arm. At the age of 3, Leavitt lost her right arm from the elbow down in a school bus accident.
When the League launched in 2004, Channel 9 News in Kansas City profiled Leavitt. This video shows the early days when league members practiced on a basketball court in the Roanoke Community Center with pile-on cones outlining the track. One of the anchors even refers to roller derby as the ugly stepsister of Saturday night World Championship Wrestling from the 60’s.
Along with The Knockouts, today the Kansas City Roller Warriors consists of four teams – The Black Eye Susans, Dreadnought Dorothys and The Victory Vixens make up the other three. Leavitt’s team name is Dirty Britches – some of her other teammates include Princess Slay-ya and Hunt Her Ass Thompson.
The rules of roller derby seem pretty straightforward. Each team has a jammer; and if you’re not a jammer then you’re a blocker. The object of the game is to get your jammer passed the other teams blockers, while stopping their jammer from passing your team of blockers.
The first match took place on March 19, 2005, check it out here:
An All-Star Team - that included Leavitt - from the league competed and won the Women's Flat Track Derby Association National last September in Austin, TX.
Check out the 2007 season re-cap video here and go to www.kcrollerwarriors.com to learn more about the league.
And be sure to watch SportsCenter on Sunday when they’ll be looking at roller derby’s resurgence in place around the country such as Austin.
Up until about 1 p.m. I was having a complete bogey of a day...because I decided to go to the DMV this morning...because I'm a schmuck.
Then, I received an early birthday package from my good pal Hillary at Fitness Magazine, which included:
After pummeling Stallion for a while, I was good. Before that though, I was livid. The DMV wouldn't let me exchange my Connecticut license for a New York one because I didn't have with me proof of birth. Because w/o a birth certificate or passport in hand, you're presumed to be a hologram in the eyes of these dingos who work there. Proof of birth? OK, fine. Pinch me, rock me in the face if you want...in fact, why don't you call my mom and let her tell you what a bastard I was at age 15, I'm real dammit!
So now I've got the old man spending eight bucks to overnight me a birth certificate. Hard earned money he could spend on that Corona light he seems to enjoy so much...oh, and I get to go back to the DMV tomorrow...which is my actual birthday!
With this current sad state of affairs I'm dealing with over here, I decided to post links to what I perceived as the worst stuff going on around the sports blogosphere today:
I just watched Manny fly out to end the game as the Red Sox lost to the Angels 7-5.
By watched I mean I followed the little Web 1.0 dot travel on my screen to deepest part of ESPN.com's graphic representation of Fenway Park.
Not knowing whether or not Manny actually just missed a home run - and inevitably did his little ridiculous pose at the plate - or if some mouth-breathing coder (or whatever you call the person who makes the gamecasts hum) is playing with me is really bothering me.
The Red Sox would have still be been down by a run, but it's killing me!
