Larry Brown Sports

Let’s be honest. With the Kings in the Stanley Cup Finals, a lot of people in the L.A. region who haven’t a clue about hockey or the Kings are jumping on the bandwagon (driven by Enter Your Favorite Hollywood Star Here).

And while Conan O’Brien isn’t jumping on the Kings bandwagon per se, he showed he obviously has no grasp on anything NHL- or Kings-related when he tried to make a topical joke about the team in this tweet sent Friday:

The @LAKings are playing the @PhoenixCoyotes? I wonder which city that shouldn’t have a hockey team will win.

— Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien) May 25, 2012

Not bad, Conan — if it was sent a week earlier. The Kings, of course, disposed of the Coyotes on Tuesday, making Conan’s tweet outdated and useless. Knowing Conan, he’ll probably joke that an intern will get fired for letting him send that tweet. If Twitter was fair game for Conan’s Fan Corrections segment, the tweet would probably be the subject of a hefty portion of viewer submissions.

The Kings’ Twitter account, which has been on a roll these playoffs, was none too amused by O’Brien’s failed attempt at a joke and fired back with a joke of its own:

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In a skit that has been more than a long time coming, “Saturday Night Live” finally decided to take on the task of ragging on ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. They couldn’t have nailed it more perfectly. As you can see from the clip above, SNL’s Jay Pharoah had Stephen A.’s mannerisms and accent down perfectly. I’ve literally been waiting almost five years for SNL to make fun of Smith for acting like every NBA superstar is his closest friend, and the writers were all over it.

“Chris Bosh and I are like soul mates. We have showered together. We have fed each other seedless fruits for more times than I can remember.”

Absolutely perfect. There’s no way a guy should be able to say things like this and not be made fun of on national television. Bravo, Pharoah — A+ execution.

Tuesday night on the “Jimmy Fallon Show,” Jimmy decided to play a trivia game called “Wax On, Wax Off” during which you get $100 right for every correct answer you give and a portion of your chest hair waxed off for every incorrect answer. The lucky contestant was Jets offensive lineman Nick Mangold. The categories included such simple topics as “Lithuian Prime Ministers” and “Advanced Particle Physics.” If Nick is some sort of closet genius, he may have had a shot at keeping some of his chest hair. Unfortunately, a random audience member was chosen to answer the questions for him. The results looked painful. If you’ve always wanted to see a 300-pound man get their nipple waxed, be sure to watch Part 2 as well.

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On Thursday, we shared a report with you from the NY Daily News that claimed the Jets were still among a handful of teams being considered for the 2012 edition of HBO’s “Hard Knocks.” Given the fact that the Jets made for great television two years ago and have now added Tim Tebow to the mix, you would be hard pressed to find a better team to feature on the show this season. Unfortunately, it’s not going to happen.

According to the NY Daily News — yes, them again — the Jets are not in the running. An HBO spokesman would not comment on whether or not New York has officially been ruled out, but the NY Daily News cited “TV sources” who say it is no longer in the cards. Our question is how did this happen so quickly?

The most recent NY Daily News report says that there was “speculation that considering the multiple story lines the Jets will have going into training camp, Tebow’s arrival among them, they were the front-runner to star.” Does that mean they just assumed Gang Green was a finalist because the cast they have would make for great entertainment?

From the look of it, the NY Daily News played the media. One day they say the Jets are in the running and the very next day they’re out of it, both times without confirmation from anyone from HBO. If they were looking to create a short-lived buzz, they accomplished their goal.

Photo credit: Ed Mulholland-US PRESSWIRE

The day has finally come. We know you have all been anxiously awaiting the day that a major television network would announce their plans to feature Rob Gronkowski in a reality dating show, and that highly-anticipated day has finally come. According to the Detroit Free Press, the Gronk and Ndamukong Suh — along with several b-list celebrities — are set to star in a Fox celebrity dating show called “The Choice,” which premieres June 7.

For those of you who are familiar with NBC’s “The Voice,” the dating show will follow a similar format with blind auditions and spinning chairs. Instead of picking singers, the celebrities will blindly choose a date after receiving three rounds worth of information.

Other stars who are scheduled to appear include Mike “the Situation” Sorrentino from MTV’s “Jersey Shore” and Rob Kardashian, as in the brother of the Kardashian sisters. I think I speak for all of us when I say I’d be disappointed if Gronk doesn’t steal the show. Based on some of the hilarious comments he’s made this offseason and the amount of fun he had campaigning for the cover of Madden ’13, we expect nothing less than a show-stopping performance from Gronk week in and week out.

H/T Eye on Football
Photo credits: David Butler II-US PRESSWIRE, John David Mercer-US PRESSWIRE

Eli Manning knew this was coming. Any sports figure who makes an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” has to be prepared to hear about it from their teammates. Manning got mixed reviews for his performance over the weekend, but for the most part people seem to think he was pretty funny and handled it well. Naturally, the Giants were awaiting Manning’s arrival at their practice facility Monday morning so they could have a little fun at his expense.

According to the NY Post, a few teammates told Eli he looks good in a dress as a reference to a skit where he dressed up in a bright yellow dress and wore a blonde wig. Others threw bananas at him to needle him about the sexting skit where a picture of Manning was shown holding a banana in front of his crotch.

“All good-hearted,’’ Manning said. “They all say they got some good laughs out of it so that is always good.’’

Manning also said that some of the “SNL” cast members were amazed that he wasn’t nervous and that, while it was a great experience, he wouldn’t want to have to do it every week.

“Everybody was very nice, very helpful and I told them from the get-go I said “Guys, remember I’m a football player, you have a lot of actors and stuff on here, I need help, I need guidance, don’t be afraid to say hey, this is what we want you to do in this skit,” Eli explained. “I’m looking to be coached here.’ They understood that, they were very nice and helpful.”

He certainly didn’t kill it like Peyton did a few years back, but nobody expected him to. Peyton’s a better actor, but Eli has one more Super Bowl ring. Low blow? Unnecessary? My bad.

When you’re feeling down after your team has been knocked out of the playoffs, there’s only one way to pick yourself up: hanging out with Mini-Me. That’s what Mavericks guard Delonte West did on Saturday after his team’s season-ending loss to the Thunder in Game 4 of the playoffs.

“Me and mini-me @vernetroyer …partin last night….he told me…imma wild boy…imma imma wild boy!!!” West tweeted.

Delonte is the same guy who thinks it’s totally normal to stick a finger in the ear of an opponent, so should we be surprised that he also was hanging out with Verne Troyer after a playoff game? Of course not — the guy is just completely unpredictable. You never know what you’re going to get from him.

Eli Manning hosted “Saturday Night Live” and put together an impressive performance on Saturday. His Little Brothers sketch (seen above), was probably the highlight of the program. Similar to older brother Peyton’s United Way sketch, this one featured Eli working with young kids. Eli, who was picked on by his brothers growing up, started a club to protect little brothers from their big brothers, and the results were pretty hilarious.

Eli also mocked Brett Favre’s sexting in another sketch. This one took place in a court room setting, was quite a bit longer and not as funny, though it did have its moments. The video is below:

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As you have probably heard by now, the music injury lost a legend on Friday with the passing of Adam Yauch. Yauch, who went under the stage name MCA, was a member and founder of the famous hip-hop group the Beastie Boys. He had been battling cancer since 2009.

With their most popular days having come in the 1980s and early 1990s, there are likely a lot of players currently in Major League Baseball who grew up listening to the unique sounds of the Beastie Boys and watching their whacky music videos. As you can see from the video above, the Mets decided to pay tribute to Yauch during their game against the D-Backs on Friday by using Beastie Boys songs as their at-bat music. It was a nice gesture from the team to honor a musician that probably influenced the middle school wardrobe of a Mets player or two.

Since the movie “Moneyball” first came out, reviews have been very mixed. Some casual viewers like it while others thought it was nothing special. Former A’s manager Art Howe was unhappy with the way the movie depicted him, and other baseball people find it to be inaccurate. Nationals GM Mike Rizzo is one of those people.

According to Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post, Rizzo gave the following reason for boycotting the movie: “It depicts baseball people as dummies who sit in a room and spit tobacco and say stupid things.”

L.B. already gave you his take on the Best Picture-nominated film, and I agree with most of his analysis. The movie intentionally neglects to talk about superstars like Miguel Tejada and Barry Zito and has some factual inaccuracies. That being said, I disagree with Rizzo that it makes baseball people look stupid. If anything, I thought it was the exact opposite.

To a general audience, Billy Beane is depicted as a badass who defied the odds and put together a winning team when everyone told him he was insane. Not only was he depicted as a visionary, but scenes like the one where he puts Jeremy Giambi in his place make him look like the man. By leaving out names like Tejada, Zito, Eric Chavez, Mark Mulder, and Tim Hudson, the makers of the film made it look like Beane put together a playoff team with literally no stars. So he spit some tobacco — big deal.

What Beane was able to accomplish in 2002 was truly remarkable, and I think the movie did a good job — perhaps even too good — of showing that. Sure, it made trades and transactions sound a lot more simple than they actually are, but those things are a must for cinema value. I’m not really sure how Rizzo got the impression that it makes baseball people look like idiots.

H/T Hardball Talk
Photo credit: Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE