Every so very often, the wide, wide world of sports collides with the much more narrow and boring world that we actually live in. The nature of these intersections are as remarkable and astonishing as they are contrived, coincidental, or completely fabricated. Reader discretion is pretentious.The Texas Rangers have offered 38-year-old future Hall-of-Famer Sammy Sosa a non-guaranteed contract, giving him the chance to make the team in spring training. Sosa made his Major League debut with the Rangers in 1989, but was
traded away a month later, only a few short months after
Dubya had become managing general partner of the ballclub. Sosa hit the first home run of his career while wearing a Rangers uniform and then went on to hit the 587 others for teams not run by future Presidents. Fifth all-time in career home runs,
Sosa hit 64 homers as recently as 2001, but has been away from the game for the past two years after
earning receiving $17 million in 2005 while hitting only 14 home runs with a .221 batting average. If the pattern follows Dubya to the capital, his successors in the White House will withdraw troops from Iraq once it's far too late and the situation is a total embarrassment.
Despite just forming an exploratory committee on Tuesday, Sen. Barack Obama was ready to announce that his home state's Chicago Bears would defeat the American sweetheart New Orleans Saints in Sunday's NFC Championship, saying, "I am happy for New Orleans. I think it's a wonderful story for their city, but this fairy tale ends when they come to Chicago." Meanwhile, the cohesive entity known to all simply as "Brangelina" can be assumed to support their New Orleans Saints counterparts in the matchup,
having recently bought a
fixer-upper in the Lower Ninth Ward $3.5 million, six-bed mansion in the French Quarter, and of course, being saints themselves. Regardless of who wins the NFC Championship on Sunday, ask John Kerry and he'll tell you that they're only going to lose to
Manny Ortiz and the New England Patriots two weeks later in the Super Bowl anyway.
The NFL has rejected Britney Spears' offer to appear in a Super Bowl commercial for its NFL Network, citing through a source that, "She's too much of a train wreck. Besides, we already have Paris Hilton." The spot involves "an eclectic group of celebrity friends" attending Cincinnati Bengal receiver Chad Johnson's Super Bowl party, including Hilton, LL Cool J, and Martha Stewart, as well as hopeful participants
Alien Janet Reno and Predator. Aside from Spears, it seems as though whether you're a multi-billion dollar corporation, a millionaire playboy, or a hundredaire undergrad, you may need to reevaluate your standards when Paris Hilton is deemed acceptable. However in the end, the entire discussion may be moot because if the advertisement
accurately represents the NFL Network, no one will see it anyway.
