Tickets ($5) are now on sale for Saturday, Sept 13th where Gilbert Arenas, Magic Johnson and other celebrities will be playing a game at the Verizon Center to help raise money for the local homeless. It would be great if Street Sense fielded a team and put on an And-1 type show, but I doubt that happens. I wonder if they serve alcohol at a homeless fundraiser event?
Not sure where to start on this. Oh, I know. The guest list. The website conveniently changed. When I bought my ticket..this was the guest list: Wizards players Brendan Haywood, Etan Thomas, DeShawn Stevenson, Gil, and Twan
Current and former NBA players Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, Vince Carter, Kevin Durant, Bobby Simmons, Robert Horry, Sean Singletary, Tony Massenburg and Chris Bosh
Craig Littlepage, Athletic Director from the University of Virginia (Roger's alma mater)
Other invited guests include Alonzo Mourning and Jalen Rose
DC Mayor Adrian Fenty
OK...trivia...who didn't show? If you answered EVERYBODY...then you were correct. Carmelo has been in Beijing for a week. I am still baffled to how Mayor Fenty no-showed...he must have been hanging with Marion Barry. Brendan Haywood? Come on. You should be in town practicing.
SO...the entire guest party was: Etan Thomas, Andray Blatche, Lavar Arrington, Javale McGee, and Roger Mason Jr.
I asked Etan if he received the massive "Get Well" cards that the Wiz put out on the concourse last year for all the fans to sign. He laughed and said he did. I mentioned if he remembered my note where I wrote (to my defense I was hammered and it was early in the season) "Get well soon...please don't leave us with just Brenda." He laughed. I asked him his thoughts on how JaVale McGee was coming along and he had nothing but amazing things to say. Of course he's going to give a positive response but he truly seemed sincere the kid has skills.
I talked to Blatche for a bit. I mentioned being disappointed the Wiz didn't make a run at Elton Brand and he quickly replied "That means I'm out of a job." Fair enough...but make a damn a 5 footer! I asked AB if Nick and Dom were still living with Gil and he mentioned Dom is living near him and that it's just Nick with Gil. That's definitely a good thing considering all of their maturity levels.
With the party being at Lucky Strike, I got to bowl with Blatche and Lavar. As Blatche and I were eyeing each other about to roll...I said "$100 a pin right". which I thought was creative...and he replied, "Already heard that." Dammit. I bowled the ball between my legs and landed about 7 pins daring him to match...he tried to match my between the leg bowl but it was not good. Yeah, I'm a rockstar.
Talking with Roger, he plans to stay in DC during the offseason and holidays. I asked him if I could rent his house while he was in San Antonio, but no dice on that one. I could have really taken advantage of that rap studio in there.
So a full-blown brawl between the Detroit Shock and LA Sparks, in all places The Palace at Aunurn Hills, is causing quite a storm. Several news sources are stating the cause as a hard foul that snowballed into a skirmish. Ahern happened to have an intern at the game and after some post-game interviews, we have a stat NOT in the box score, which we see as the real cause as the fight:
* 22 out of the 24 players (and 1 ref) admitted they were PMS'ing.
The LPGA has quite a few hotties now, and like the tennis female stars, they're now modeling in bikinis. Check out the link below for all the fantastic pics, including Kim Hall who is pictured above.
So the Washingtonian came out with a list of the best bloody mary bars in DC. I love when prominent magazines hire schmucks to do what could be amazing articles. I have found that bloody mary quality is actually an objective thing. You taste a good one, every one agrees. The only curve ball are the people that somehow prefer Clamato juice...I like to call them novices.
Now, my problem with the Washingtonian is that they ranked Clyde's rather 'so-so'. I am fine with that for their average bloody, but how did this guy not hear/try/see the Bloody Maryland?! It's loaded with extra goodies including Old Bay around the rim and a jumbo shrimp on the side. A picture of the Bloody Maryland was actually my cell phone wallpaper...before I smashed it against an alley wall in San Diego (different story). How many bloodies have you had where your brain sent a message "Take a picture of this!". I'm guessing ZERO.
I digress. This Washingtonian piece reminds me of that one prominent newspaper that had their writer (71 year old Jewish man who wrote about politics) travel the country ranking America's best ballparks. He constantly degraded the stadiums that were too rowdy. Pathetic. Anyway, the point of this story is get your ass to Clyde's and have a Bloody Maryland.
Note: The bloody pictured has bacon it which I regrettably have not tried but am curious to.
I was given a lead by a faithful reader: "Abe Pollin's best and worst trait: Loyalty". He let Wes Unseld sit in the GM chair way too long. He held onto Susan O'Malley in the front office WAY too long. He refused to recognize the statehood of Wyoming in 1890, claiming, "Anything over 43 states is too many," adding, "Dividing the Dakota Territory in '89 was a huge mistake...splitting it in two was like splitting my heart in two."
Abe may be loyal to a fault and it could be at play in the dealings with Gilbert. We at the Inquirer still think the Wiz need Gilbert back--but not at $125 million. God, would he be a dick if he took all that money. We would NEVER be a contender while he was here if he was eating up that kind of cap space. Until proven otherwise, we will have to hope and pray that Gilbert intends to carve out some space for the franchise to make this team into a genuine contender in the next 2-3 years. Add to that the increasing age of ol' Abe--seriously, he has to just say "F' it, let's blow through the luxury tax threshold" one of these years right? I mean, what is he saving his money for at this point?
Flavor of the day: Josh Smith. He will cost us. We would have to work the sign and trade with Atlanta most likely. Josh Smith is 6'9", 22 yrs old, and he is the youngest player to 500 blocks. If we had him, Caron could move to the 2, and Smith and Twan could work the 3 and 4. Deshawn and Blatche would work off the bench. Check out these plays by Josh.
If we didn't make any move other than signing Gilbert, here is the starting 5 we should go with:
1 Gil 2 Caron 3 Twan 4 Blatche 5 Brenda
Deshawn and Nick Young first off the bench, with Etan backing up the big man, and Dom Corleone polishing the glass for 3 and 4 minute stretches. However, we all know Eddie hates playing 2 bigs so DeShawn would start for Blatche.
Any chance Gilbert is doing some recruiting? Maybe offering to share his pie with a baller out there looking to come to DC and put something together? Probably not if he's knee-deep in rice patties in the Phillipines.
Anyone interested in going to this? Click the image for the details, but in short, it's at Lucky Strike in Chinatown, Tuesday, July 29th. $150 which includes drinks and food. Proceeds are going to the National Kidney Foundation. Guest list includes:
# Wizards players Brendan Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson # NBA players Carmelo Anthony, Allen Iverson, Vince Carter, Kevin Durant, and Chris Bosh
Gil, Twan, Jason Campbell, Moss and Portis are expected to show up as well. Silent auction will be going on as well, and I'd imagine it would be a nice spread of stuff for the average sports fan given the guest list. Some of the kidney patients (children) that this charity helps will also be there.
So Chief Zee beat out the Vikings mascot barely and now is somehow getting pummeled by the awful Ravens one. Vote now! Use 2 browser windows to vote (IE and Firefox) as well. You can clear your cookies and keep voting but that's going a bit overboard.
So the new Wiz dance team was selected and by the looks of it, when Ahern does our our NBA Dance Team rankings, the Wiz will easily be in the bottom 5. But ALAS, the Wizards are allowing the fans to vote for the last spot, and one of the 2 is a super hottie. So get your votes in for Alicia Green now. Click the image above for the details or text "WG1" to 91270. No charges apply for this.
Contest ends July 3rd....and you can vote once a day!! As my friend Casey pointed out, if we lock in Gil for $124MM AND have a horrible dance team...our season will be miserable all around. We NEED Alicia to save us!! A-L-I-C-I-A!
