About 9/10 of you have already either heard or seen that Mark Buerhle threw a perfect game today.  If you didn't know that, well, SURPRISE! It happens about once every eight years in baseball, so it's history.

In the 9th inning of this perfect game, though, Dewayne Wise (put in CF for the 9th inning) made this perfect-game saving catch to record the 1st out of the innning.  I don't think there was any doubt in anyone's mind after this play that a perfect game was meant to be thrown on this day by Mark Buerhle of the Chicago White Sox.

With the win and the Tigers atrociously repetitive 2-1 loss, the White Sox are now tied for 1st place in the Central Division with the Tigers.

The two teams' opponents this weekend?  Each other.  Four games.  Tigers vs. White Sox. Dragons. Two of them. It's going to get weird.

White Sox and fans, enjoy the perfect game while you can because you're about to head into Detroit to face a bunch of hitting machines...oh wait.  I'll get to that in a later post.  For now, enjoy the catch that now trumps Curtis Granderson's walk-off saving catch earlier this season.  Nice grab, Wise man.

UPDATE: Here's the video until it is taken down by the MLB Video nazis:

[hype]

There’s been so much talk about this video being confiscated of Lebron James being dunked on. Well it finally came out and I saw it for the first time last night on Sportscenter and was very, very disappointed. I was expecting some huge facial with Lebron’s face in between the legs of the dunker and a Jordan tongue hanging out the mouth of the youngster but all I saw was Jordan Crawford, of Xavier University, sans facial, with Lebron at his side.

Now yes, the King does lazily jump in an attempt to block Crawford but he’s coming in from the side on help defense and gets there when it’s clearly too late.  I would consider it being posterized because he was close enough to be in the frame, but I don't think I consider this dunk a "facial" since he wasn't head on with Crawford.  Either way, kudos to the kid for "dunking on” Lebron.

The fact that the dunk wasn’t even that bad makes me wonder why Lebron made such a big deal out of this by having Nike confiscate the tapes. Nike claims its common practice and they don’t allow any videos to come out of the camp but I think we all know that’s a crock of BS. This would have been a news story for about 24 hours had they just let it come out, but instead it’s dragged on for weeks. Grow up Lebron, everyone gets dunked on at least once in their career so get over it.

[Hype]

I was looking at ESPN earlier today for a little more information on the Ben Roethlisberger sexual assault allegations and, to my surprise, I found nothing.  Not even a titter.  No mention of it whatsoever, on the front page or NFL page.  Apparently Big Ben and the fact that he will be in a TV show with Shaq and Albert Pujols is much more newsworthy than a huge sexual assault lawsuit.

When you have Super Bowl quarterback involved in a lawsuit, it's probably worth mentioning on the news source that is tabbed as the Worldwide Leader in Sports.

Now, it was brought to my attention that ESPN has a policy against posting civil complaints with no criminal proceedings.  Check out this tweet from Jemele Hill an ESPN columnist and reporter:

After a long discussion with my fellow law school friend, this basically means it's a civil matter between two private people right now and ESPN has a policy against reporting this type of information.  As my buddy mentioned, athletes probably get sued all the time, so would it really be worth it to mention every single one of them?  That'd basically be giving anyone who sues an athlete their fifteen minutes of "fame," and make ESPN a courtroom docket of lawsuits.

If the government decides to step in and bring criminal charges against Big Ben, then ESPN will most likely report it.  Right now, this is nothing more than a civil lawsuit brought forth by one private party (Andrea McNulty) against another private party (Ben Roethlisberger).  Until it escalates, I don't think we'll be seeing any Big Ben news on ESPN.  I don't necessarily agree with it given how this particular lawsuit has blown up amongst all the other media outlets, but that appears to be the case here.

This is one of those circumstances where you see it, laugh your ass off, and, as your laugh trails off, you say "I wish I thought of that."  Then, almost immediately after, wonder how the hell someone was able to get away with bringing in an inflatable penis to a nationally televised event.

Well, one woman did think of it, got it in, and it made for a pretty hilarious video clip and story at The American Century Championship at Lake Tahoe on Sunday.

Big ups to Busted Coverage for busting out this inflatable penis coverage.  I had to post the YouTube video myself, for D4L readers, of NBC mentioning Michael Jordan's stroke, instantaneously followed by a giant inflatable penis bobbing over his left shoulder.  Classic.

I felt as if someone wrote some, and I emphasize some, pretty decent jokes for Samuel L. Jackson, but he was the wrong guy to present them at the ESPY's on Sunday night (taped earlier).   There was the awful zinger about Kobe potentially dunking on Lebron and Nike having the videos being confiscated, a cheesy Danica Patrick "what a catch" comment, uber-cheesy Venus/Serena Williams win a lot of tennis tournaments joke, and, probably the worst of all, was Jackson's introduction to the show where he went down the front row and took his own picture with some of the celebrities, while they sat there with blank stares wondering if that was really Samuel L's grand entrance.

There were some decent opening moments, though.  For example, talking about Phelps being able to smoke his competition in the pool, applauding Mark Sanchez for leaving USC and taking a pay cut to play in the NFL, and even the played out "what a black man can't enjoy hockey?" crack gave me a good chuckle.  Those were pretty good.  Although, my smile quickly went to a frown when ESPN flashed this ill-advisedly fashioned douche on the screen:

Tebow looks like Jim Tressel's gay son.  That's what I'd call a triple no-no.  Daddy's not happy:

Anyway, I didn't exactly love Samuel L's obligatory "denigrate anything that has to do with Detroit or the Lions" joke, either:

"Matthew Stafford is here," Jackson said. "Once you actually play for the Lions, they stop inviting you."

We just went 0-16 and that's the best you could come up with? Child please.

Overall, a pretty decent ESPYs as there were a lot of great moments in sports in the past year.  I give Samuel L. Jackson a generous B- and the overall show a B+.

Lastly, what's a little Samuel L. Jackson commentary without this famous NSFW clip:

Chicago's professional sports teams are floundering right now.  And we can see why from the events that have transpired the last 30 hours.  First, the NHL's Blackhawks allow their leading scorer in the playoffs, Martin Havlat, to sign with the Minnesota Wild for a mere $5 million a year.  They basically insulted the guy with a pathetic one-year offer, forcing him to turn to other teams for more appropriate deals.  Then the Hawks decide to spend more than $60 million (twice the total amount it took the Wild to sign Havlat) on Marian Hossa.  Mind you, it took Hossa 7 more games than Havlat to reach his identical playoff point total of 15.  

To make matters worse, the NBA's Bulls did not put a contract on the table for their four-time leading scorer, 25 year old Ben Gordon.  So Gordon flew to Michigan and agreed to terms with the Pistons instead.  No big deal.  This is just a guy who was on the NBA All-Rookie team and was Sixth Man of the Year in the NBA just four seasons ago, has averaged over 18 points a game in his five seasons despite playing just over 30 minutes a game, was 6th in the NBA in 3 point field goals last year, was 7th in the NBA in scoring two years ago, has only missed 12 games in 5 seasons, and whose numbers all go up in the playoffs.  His clutch-ness (kind of similar to Carl-ness) is his best asset-  he has been counted on to take and make shots down the stretch for the Bulls since he was a rookie.  And most of the time, he hits the big shots.

I have to mention that one Chicagoan commented that Ben Gordon was a "terrible defensive player" and that the Bulls were actually relying on Derrick Rose and not Gordon to lead them in upcoming years.  Well, the stats don't tell a very pretty story for Bulls fans if these things are true.  You see, over the entire 2008-'09 season, Ben Gordon averaged more defensive rebounds, more steals and more blocked shots than Derrick Rose, and in fewer minutes a game.  Ouch.  

A commenter, Soccerlover wondered on a Detroit Tigers post why Detroit4lyfe has not written anything about the USA soccer team's impressive march to the Confederation's Cup Final vs. Brazil, which took place Sunday afternoon.  I've decided to dedicate a post as my reply.  **Click Read More**

Tonight the show "Superstars" will air on ABC at 8 PM EST.  It puts the best athletes from different sports against one another in a series of Gladiator/Survivor-like competitions.

NFL Live on ESPN gave a sneak peek of the show today and the clip they showed was Buffalo Bills newest WR, Terrell Owens struggling to get through the ropes portion of one of the "athletic" events.  While Terrell Owens struggles, supermodel teammate Joanna Krupa (hot) is shown waiting in the wings and complaining about Owens' struggles.  Krupa could not start running through the obstacles until Owens finished and as I mentioned, he had a rough time doing so.  When Krupa finally got her chance to go and crossed the finish line she stiffed Owens high-five and bitched about Owens' epic failure with the ropes.

Owens let's Krupa's bithiness roll right off his back and even tries to pep his team up afterward.  Krupa took exception and goes off on him saying, "Let's go?  You're the one that fucked up." Owens could only look on in disbelief.

Normally when you see someone confront T.O. you see him bark back.  However, this is TV, so I don't believe for a second that Krupa gets the best of T.O.  Either way, it's a great move by T.O.'s PR team nonetheless (And Krupa's for making her look even hotter).

Here is a 16 second clip of Krupa bitching at T.O. and then a preview of the show. If it looks like something you're interested in, then watch it tonight on ABC.

This is long overdue, but there was a lot of discussion the last week and a half or so surrounding a piece written on the blogosphere about Raul Ibanez and the possibility that he's using PEDs.   JRod from Midwest Sports Fans wrote a piece trying to explain Raul Ibanez's amazing start to this season, his first year with the Phillies, and speculated that it could be due to the usage of steroids.  After all, is there anyone in this era we should fully trust as being clean?  Surprsingly, I thought A-Rod was clean. Busted. I thought Manny was clean.  Busted.  I'm sure there are oodles of clean players in the league, at least I'd love to think so, but the truth of the matter is steroids is prevalant in this era and it appears that in the MLB and its fans nowadays, it's guilty until proven innocent and not the other way around.

Anyway, JRod caught a lot of flack for his piece because some little Mainstream Media guy ran and told his mommy (Raul Ibanez) on him.  JRod was then invited to be on ESPN's "Outside the Lines" where he attempted to defend himself, yet MSM once again tried to make him out to be some average joe who lived in his mother's basement with a pea for a brain.  Watching the show, it seemed as if ESPN was just happy he was able to find a nice pair of slacks to wear to the taping.  No respect in my opinion.

Obviously, I disagree with how blown out of proportion this whole ordeal was.  I don't like it one bit.

Akecke of The Nine Commandments was kind enough to volunteer and write a guest piece that I think says exactly what I was going to say, puts it perfectly.

For the record, since this whole crap went down, Raul Ibanez has struggled.  In his last 22 ABs he has 11 K's and just 4 hits (.182).  He does have 2 HR, but only 4 RBIs.  Since June 2nd his AVG has dropped 28 points, from .340 to .312. He just recently went on the DL with a steroid induced groin injury.  Not much of a sample size, but I'm just saying.  Click "READ MORE" after the comments link.