Professional athletes in all sports are finding it rather hard to stay focused on their performance and training this week with the all-important ESPY Awards just days away.
“I’m supposed to be getting ready for the season and studying my playbook, but to be honest, I just can’t concentrate – I’m so freaking excited about the ESPYs!” said Tennessee Titans rookie Vince Young. “I’m up for several awards and if I win even one it will be a dream come true for me. All athletes play sports in hopes of one day winning an ESPY. It would be the highlight of my career. I don’t even know how I would ever top it.”
Major league baseball commissioner Bud Selig said he received numerous requests from major league teams to extend the All-Star break through Sunday so players could concentrate on the ESPYs.
“I can’t blame them,” said Selig. “It’s a great idea. God knows I won’t be going into work until sometime in the middle of next week because I’ve got ESPY fever and can’t concentrate on anything else. I’d just be a waste in the office. But next year we’ll definitely give everyone off for ESPY week. It’s the right thing to do. Heck, maybe we’ll even get an ESPY for it. That would be so cool.”

CBS Sports reporter Lesley Visser, named the 2006 recipient of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award last week, has found the recognition to be both an honor and a huge stress.
“At first I was just blown away to be going to the Hall of Fame,” says Visser, “but then I realized I was going to have to pick a face to go on my plaque. It’s such a tough call – should I go with my pre-plastic surgery and botox face, the one I had when I worked my way up, or should I go with the tight, plastic, botoxed one of today, the one I was wearing when I got the call from the Hall? I don’t know how I’ll decide.”
Visser’s husband, broadcaster Dick Stockton, said his wife seemed oddly calm when she was first informed of the honor.
“I saw her on the phone and her face was completely calm, no movement at all,” said Stockton. “Just tight, shiny and rigid – almost like a mask. That’s kind of how she’s been for several years, though. Her face gives nothing away. But eventually after a few minutes a tear rolled down her cheek. At least I think it was a tear. I suppose it could have been a drop of silicone escaping from one of her cheek implants.”

Italy’s World Cup championship was marred in the moments after the title was secured on Sunday when several of the team’s players were seriously injured by celebratory hugging and back-slapping.
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The Baltimore Ravens organization placed its full support today behind the man accused of stabbing Ravens linebacker Roderick Green early Sunday morning in a suburban Baltimore bowling alley.
“The Ravens have a long and proud history of supporting stabbers and being an advocate for stabber’s rights,” said head coach Brian Billick. “It would be hypocritical and disingenuous not to support this man and vouch for his innocence just because he stabbed one of our own players.”
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Golf Digest continued on its quest this month to fix your slice by any means necessary with a featured cover story titled: “Fix Your Slice at Setup.” The piece marks the 12,974^th time the publication has tried to stop you from slicing the ball.
“Despite our best efforts it appears golfers are still not hitting the ball straight,” said managing editor David Tierney. “Sometimes we wonder why the 12,973 tips we’ve given in the past have not cured everyone’s slice, but hopefully this one will do the trick.”
The surefire slice fix featured in the August issue urges golfers to align their shoulders properly when addressing the ball.
“We’ve given this exact tip three or four hundred times before,” said Tierney, “but this time we tried a slightly different word order and changed the font. And if this tip doesn’t fix everyone’s slice, we’ll try again next issue and the next issue and the one after that. It’s pretty much all we have to write about.”

Nice work, people. Really great job. Barbaro is fighting for his life again and it’s your fault. Yes, yes – you wrote numerous him get-well letters in the days after his accident at Preakness, but then gradually your attentions turned elsewhere and you stopped. And now he could be dying. All because of your laziness and lack of compassion. You sicken me. And don’t start sending him letters now again. It’s too late. He knows you aren’t sincerely concerned. He knows who his true supporters are and you’re not one of them. That’s why when he dies you’re not invited to eat him with some duck sauce and a delicious egg roll on the side.

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