Here’s a thought: If you’re going to do an article about the changing face of sports column writing four-years late with the angle being a mini-profile of ESPN’s Bill Simmons, arguably America’s favorite columnist (and New York Times #1 best-selling non-fiction author), you should probably be much more thorough on both subjects than the New York Times cared to be.

UNM junior defender Elizabeth Lambert was suspended indefinitely from soccer following the most some mean gamesladyship.  Anyway, safe to say that if I were to meet her in an ally I would run like hell in the other direction. [via]

San Antonio Spurs shooting guard Manu Ginóbili shut down a pesky bat with his bare hands during the Kings-Spurs match on Halloween night, which means that, Manu Ginóbili should be hired to take down Edward Cullen.  From the video evidence there is no indication that Manu took a flop to lure the bat in.  [via]

I know everyone’s been talking about Andre Agassi’s meth addiction while playing tennis, but how come no one has been talking about his power mullet in the early 90s actually being a wig?

Crazy, just crazy.  I mean the wig, not Agassi on meth.  Which, I suppose is just as crazy.  But man I loved that dude’s hair.  It was so zeitgeisty.  So indicative of his “rebel” image.

“I asked myself: you want to wear a toupee? On the tennis court? I answered myself; what else could I do?” But the wig began to disintegrate as he took a shower the night before the Paris final — “probably I used the wrong hair rinse,” Agassi writes. He panicked and called his brother Philly into the room. Together, they managed to clamp the wig together using clips and pins.

Agassi, 39, writes: “Of course I could have played without my hairpiece, but what would all the journalists have written if they knew that all the time I was really wearing a wig? During the warming-up training before play I prayed. Not for victory, but that my hairpiece would not fall off. With each leap, I imagine it falling into the sand. I imagine millions of spectators move closer to their TV sets, their eyes widening and, in dozens of dialects and languages, ask how Andre Agassi’s hair has fallen from his head.”

Whoa, I don’t know what’s more impressive — that 34-year-old American Meb Keflezighi won this race in 2 hrs. 9 minutes, becoming the first American to win this marathon since 1982 or that six Americans finished in the top 10.

“There were tears because you have visualized your dream and your dreams have become reality,” Keflezighi told the NY Times. “The other part as I’m running is Ryan. I know how proud he would have been of me.”

Ryan would be his close friend Ryan Shay, who collapsed during the 2007 Olympic time trial marathon on the New York course and subsequently passed away from a heart ailment at the ripe age of 27.

What do you get when you take six very talented footballers (Paul Wood, Paul Klein, Darryl Stewart, Tom Pett, Lewis Foster & Harry Adcroft) and create a giant game of Guitar Hero controlled with footballs?  The track is Kasabian’s “Underdogs,” which, um, could have been something better.

What bands will be playing the Super bowl in 15 to 20 years?

Well this is neat.  The medals for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver will be designed by Corrine Hunt, made from melted down electronic parts, are undulated to reflect the region’s topography and have an Orca-theme to them. 

“The Vancouver Olympics made a smart choice in deciding to use precious metals from old electronics. By salvaging medal materials from old products, the Olympic committee is saving perfectly good gold, silver, and bronze from ending up in landfills,” writes Ariel Schwartz. “ Because it makes no sense to mine for new gold when a single junked PC has more of the stuff in it than 17 tons of ore. And if the medals are promoted well, they could bring awareness to the cause of recycled scrap. With the entire world watching what happens at the Olympic games, there is no better venue to promote such an important–and easy-to-implement–solution to electronics recycling.” 

Word.  It makes for a good story, except that, according to the Ottawa Citizen, less than 1% of the metal used to make the medals came from recycled materials.

It all seems like innocuous fun, at first, and in the end the cameraman seems pretty stoked about the whole thing.  Me?  If that were me?  I probably would have Winnie the Pooh’d myself and never gone kite boarding again.  He gets some major air.  [via]

Tonight ESPN launches a series of documentaries, and I’m eager to tune in. 30 for 30 celebrates the network’s 30th anniversary by presenting 30 docs by 30 respected filmmakers. 

Produced by Bill Simmons, the lineup is fairly tight.  Well-done sports documentaries are hard to come by because often times the subject matter is just not interesting enough.  Here, Simmons has given his filmmakers the opportunity to explore less-familiar stories, or familiar stories with a new wrinkle.

“We were especially attracted to stories that resonated at the time but were eventually forgotten for whatever reason. Like the unique connection between Hank Gathers and Bo Kimble,” Simmons writes.  “Like Tim Richmond taking NASCAR by storm, disappearing just as quickly because of an “illness” (later revealed to be AIDS), then having his story covered up and dismissed. Like O.J.’s car chase, Escobar’s own goal and Jimmy the Greek’s career imploding in just a few sentences. Like the 2004 Red Sox winning four incredible games in four nights against the Yankees; even if the big picture theme had been beaten to death, the small picture theme (every remarkable twist from Game 4 through Game 7) had never really been told. We wanted people to say, “Wow, I forgot how (fill in a word: great, amazing, poignant, crazy, depressing, unbelievable) that was” or “I can’t believe I never knew that whole story.” We didn’t want to check off a laundry list of the 30 biggest stories from 1979 to 2009.” 

Barry Levinson, Albert Maysles, John Singleton, Barbara Kopple, Spike Jonze and Ice Cube are just a few of the directors who contribute. Tonight the series kicks off with Kings Ransom, Peter Berg’s piece about Wayne Gretzky being traded to the L.A. Kings.

The docs air Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN.  You can preview several of the movies and scope out the lineup here.

Tired of the unwinnable situation of Russian politics, arguable the world’s greatest chess player (at one time), Gary Kasparov has set his sites on a familiar opponent more beatable that Vladimir Putin: “Chess experts say that Mr. [Anatoly] Karpov will be the underdog in tomorrow’s contest, due to a spate of recent poor form. But Mr Kasparov, who retired from professional chess in 2005, admits his lack of practice could hinder him. “I have not played a serious game for five years, which makes me doubt that I will be capable of recapturing my instinct,” he told El Pais.” 

The two Russian grandmasters will play 12 rapid and semi-rapid games over four days in Valencia beginning tomorrow.  The matches will air online.

Possibly continuing a trend from just about every major news organization, ESPN rolled out ESPN Boston today.  There are no other cities to date, but it would seem like Boston or New York would be the logical places to roll this out. 

Of course, they have Bill Simmons participating, but also Peter Gammons makes an appearance and they’ve managed to poach Mike Reiss from The Boston Globe to be their new Patriots writer/blogger. 

It’s an interesting experience from ESPN and if any sports media company has the cache and wherewithall to put local sports sections out of business, they would be it.

From his 7-6 (3), 7-5, 7-5 semi-final match win in today’s U.S. Open against Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer called the shot seen above, “the greatest of his life.”  And let’s be honest, Federer has had a lifetime of great shots.