Now They Just Give Hooligans a Uniform
Newcastle, which finished third in the Premier League last season, was looking to add a bit of bite to its midfield, so it signed England’s Lee Bowyer to a four-year deal.
And Bowyer is likely to bite, or elbow, or even step on somebody’s head. He has one of soccer’s worst disciplinary records -- once picking up 14 yellow cards in one season -- and has been banned, suspended and fined.
He will miss the Magpies’ first six European matches because of a UEFA suspension for the head-stamping incident.
Off the field, he’s a real charmer. He underwent rehabilitation after testing positive for marijuana in 1995, was fined in 1996 for a fight in a London fast-foot restaurant and was eventually cleared of a charge of beating a teenager in a street fight in Leeds in 2000.
Obviously, he should have been a striker.
Trivia time: Who is the lowest draft pick in NHL history to score more than 1,000 points?
Psyche buster: Former rider and team manager Cyril Guimard, who guided Greg LeMond, Bernard Hinault and Laurent Fignon to Tour de France victories, sees no end to Lance Armstrong’s domination.
“Many of his potential rivals have lost before they even begin because they think Armstrong is on another planet,” Guimard told Bloomberg News.
On criticism that the other top riders just follow Armstrong and don’t attack, he said, “It’s rubbish.... If they could, they would, but Armstrong’s team sets such an intense pace, it’s difficult to get away.”
Only in New York: Headline in the New York Post after the Mets traded Roberto Alomar: “End of an Error.”
Headline in the Daily News after the Yankees completed a sweep of a half-dozen games from the Mets: “Six in the City.”
Update: In case you were wondering, William “Refrigerator” Perry’s quest to win the Fourth of July hot dog-eating contest in Coney Island fell short. He dropped out after eating four.
Rail-thin Takeru Kobayashi -- the Michael Jordan of wiener wolfing -- won for a third consecutive year, downing 44 1/2 dogs, finishing his franks at a rate of one every 16 seconds.
Update II: Estonia won the world wife-carrying championships for a sixth year in a row.
Margo Uusorg, carrying his partner Egle Soll upside down over his back, her thighs squeezing his neck and her arms around his waist, completed a course that included a three-foot-deep water hazard and two log hurdles in less than a minute.
Uusorg says the carrying technique frees his arms to help with balance. Said Soll: “It’s not so bad. But you don’t see much.”
Impressive debut: Fernando Valenzuela Jr., the Padres’ 10th-round draft pick, hit two homers and drove in six runs in his first game for the Class-A Eugene (Ore.) Emeralds.
Trivia answer: Dave Taylor, the 210th overall selection when chosen by the Kings in 1975.
And finally: New “Monday Night Football” sideline reporter Lisa Guerrero, talking to the New York Times about her many scantily clad magazine layouts: “I’m 39. If some 18-year-old thinks I’m hot, then I embrace that. It’s awesome.”
-- John Weyler
