Larry Brown Sports

Don’t be alarmed — the images above are not from The Wizard of Oz nor Nacho Libre. Those are actual promotional giveaways the Angels plan to hand out this season.

On January 6th, I read about the Angels’ plans to give away these unique products in Jimmy Traina’s SI Hot Clicks. Back when I first found out about the giveaways, we didn’t have pictures, but now we do. And aren’t you glad we know what the lucky fans in Anaheim will be taking home this season? I sure am. Heck, I’m about to buy tickets to snag one of those bow-tied Teddy Grahams as we speak. And if you thought the sweet giveaways ended there, you were wrong. Here are the three best and unique giveaways the Angels have this year, plus many more:

+ Wrestling Mask May 10th vs. White Sox (pictured)
+ Angels Rally Monkey Chia Pet Aug. 23rd vs. White Sox (pictured)
+ Angels Gumball Machine Sept. 24th vs. A’s

They also have a messenger bag giveaway, a kids troll, a Mothers Day sun hat giveaway, three bobblehead giveaways, and your standard blanket, hat, and calendar giveaways.

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Dominique Wilkins was made out to be the victim in a fan attack that took place following the Hawks-Magic game Wednesday night, but it turns out he was anything but innocent. As we wrote late Wednesday evening, the Human Highlight Film was attacked by Rashan Michel, a former NBA referee who says he’s owed around $13,000 by Nique for unpaid suits. We were dying to get video of the incident and figured there had to be one, and of course the crack staff at TMZ hunted it down. Here’s what they caught, courtesy of Black Sports Online:

Friends, that is what they call a stiff right hand. No surprise it resulted in this heavy black eye for Michel:

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Two Western Hills High School baseball players have been kicked off their team after allegedly killing baby chickens in a superstitious act aimed at turning their success around on the field. This is not a joke. The report hit the Associated Press after initially appearing in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and SI web producer Andy Gray called it the oddest story he’s seen. I wouldn’t call it as strange as I would disturbing.

Anyone who follows baseball and watches sports movies know that sacrificing chickens has deep cinematic ties. In Bull Durham, they needed to sacrifice a live chicken to take the hex off Jose’s glove. In Major League, Pedro Cerrano was looking to sacrifice a live chicken to give him more power for the team’s game against the Yankees. And even in real MLB, we’ve seen two acts of voodoo superstition recently (see this and this).

Western Hills High coach Bobby McIntire is pretty convinced the movies inspired his players for their alleged acts. “Baseball is very superstitious, and I assume [movies like Major League and Bull Durham] are where they got it from,” McIntire said.” Duh, do we really think a few teenagers could have come up with this idea on their own? And what’s wrong with these kids? Couldn’t they have just done the sensible thing and headed to KFC or Popeyes or something?

Things could be getting a lot rowdier at Fenway Park in the Summer of 2011. Baseball fans all around the country love to complain about having to buy $9 beers at the ballpark, but that doesn’t stop them from pounding a dozen of them on a warm summer evening. Sometimes there’s nothing more refreshing than an ice cold beer on a 90-degree night — except maybe an ice cold Jack and Coke.

According to the Boston Globe, the Red Sox have moved to expand the sale of mixed alcoholic beverages throughout the ballpark by their home opener on April 8. Currently, hard liquor is only served to fans with upper-level premium seats.  Naturally, the mayor of Boston, Thomas M. Menino, is not enthused.

What do you think?  Is this a good idea or what?  On the one hand, these drinks will probably go for upwards of $10 a piece.  From a business standpoint it’s genius, but would it turn the ballpark into a 21-plus environment?  I can’t tell you how many news specials I’ve seen about Fenway Park and how the behavior of fans is getting out of hand.  One would have to assume this would make things worse.

That being said, I’m all for it.

Cameron Diaz took a time out from her busy popcorn feeding schedule to promote her upcoming movie, Bad Teacher. Extra was there to quiz her about the movie, and also asked if the rumors she wanted to make a romantic MLB comedy movie with boyfriend Alex Rodriguez were true.

“I don’t know where these things come from,” Diaz laughed. “It’s absolutely not true. I don’t write. Wow, when did I become a writer?”

The rumor came from a British tabloid, which is about as reliable as a rock star on a tight schedule. It’s no surprise that she denied the rumor, not only because most people don’t divulge their future plans, but also because the rumor sounded pretty ridiculous to begin with. Though the way A-Rod’s ego is, I’m sure he’s trying to talk his way into a supporting actor role. That wouldn’t be surprising.

RELATED: Compare all the girls A-Rod has hooked up with

This just in: Colin Cowherd has a big mouth. The thing that is particularly special about it is that Colin Cowherd knows Colin Cowherd has a big mouth. That’s what makes this so fun.  CBS should consider adding this little embarrassing moment to their sitcom about the life of Cowherd, because those of us who are annoyed by him might actually tune in when that episode airs.  The SportsNation gang decided to play an early April Fools joke on Cowherd earlier this week, and the result was fantastic.  Check out the video of Brock Lesnar punking Colin Cowherd, courtesy of Around the Octagon:

No wonder The Undertaker is trying to bait Lesnar back to the WWE and Big Foot Silva wants to send him there.  He obviously still does the pretending thing pretty well.  Seeing Cowherd crap himself like that was probably one of the most entertaining minutes I’ve ever experienced.

Are you sick of meaningless regular season NBA and NHL games and tired of hearing about the NFL lockout?  Perfect.  So are we.  Fear not, my friends — that smell you’re smelling is baseball season.  It may be long, but it gives us something to do for more than half the year.  On Wednesday, Doc Brown broke down all 30 MLB teams and gave you his playoff predictions.  That means it’s Del’s turn.  It’s nice to have these picks and predictions in writing because, frankly, the season is so long even we might not remember what we had to say before it started.  Here are Del’s predictions.

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Kobe Bryant sure has come a long way since the days of Eagle, Colorado when he became an untouchable figure in the world of endorsement deals. Since then, he’s left Adidas for Nike and developed an entire Black Mamba brand, even starring in a mini-movie for the swoosh. Recently he’s done commercials for Guitar Hero and he did an ad for Turkish Airlines that caused a rift within the Armenian community. Hopefully Kobe’s latest effort, a commercial for Smart Car in China, will go over with less controversy. Here’s a video of Kobe’s Smart Car commercial as seen at The Lakers Nation:

Who knew that Kobe could be such an effective pitchman? Although he does do one thing really well — play the role of the killer.

A report published Wednesday evening alleges that Willie Lyles told a Texas A&M coach in 2007 that he had to pay at least $80,000 to land Patrick Peterson who was one of the top rated defensive backs coming out of high school. Peterson became a star at LSU and is considered to be a likely top-five pick in the NFL draft, but this story is less about him and more about Willie Lyles.

Lyles’ name should be familiar to you because he’s the proprietor of Complete Scouting Services, a recruiting service that was paid $25,000 by Oregon a few weeks after highly touted running back prospect Lache Seastrunk committed to the school. The amount of money Oregon paid for the services renders seemed absurdly high and like something that should not have cost more than $5,000. Many people suspected that the $25,000 to Lyles’ company was a way of disguising a payment issued to the trainer for helping to steer Seastrunk to Eugene.

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Jeremy Lamb may not be the most media savvy player in college hoops, but the young freshman might just be the difference between UConn winning its third national championship and going home as just a Final Four participant.

The Huskies have won nine straight postseason games and will face Kentucky in the Final Four Saturday for a shot at the championship game. One of their most valuable players this tournament has been Jeremy Lamb, who’s supplemented the stellar play of Kemba Walker. But before we go further talking about Jeremy Lamb, we must flashback to 1984 to understand how this story has evolved.

Lamb is the son of Rolando Lamb, a former VCU guard from the 80s who hit a game-winning shot in the tournament to defeat Jim Calhoun’s Northeastern squad in 1984. When Calhoun, the UConn coach since 1986, first called Lamb as a recruit, he had no idea that his father was Rolando. Upon finding it out, he told the elder Lamb that he owed him something — his son as payback for the shot in ’84. Rolando delivered, and Jeremy attended UConn and has become more meaningful for the Huskies than anyone could have imagined.

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