Larry Brown Sports

The Manti Te’o fake girlfriend story may have gotten old by now for many of us, but that hasn’t stopped people from using it to make money.  The Florence Freedom, an independent baseball team in the Frontier League, will be holding a giveaway that is not actually a giveaway on Thursday evening — it’s more like a joke.

As you can see from the photo above that Darren Rovell passed along, the Freedom are giving away Lennay Kekua bobblehead dolls to the first 1,000 fans who arrive at their ballpark on Thursday. Since Kekua didn’t actually exist, the box is empty and simply has her name on it.

Te’o has already had to hear it from airline companies, hotel chains and the San Diego media, so we might as well keep it going until we see what he can do in the NFL. The bobblehead giveaway is a pretty clever idea, but nothing is going to beat Maxim’s latest Hot 100 list that took the ultimate shot at the former Notre Dame linebacker.

Floyd Mayweather Jr. and his family just live a much more lavish lifestyle than the rest of us. The undefeated boxer threw his daughter Iyanna a big birthday party on Saturday night to celebrate her turning 13 on Monday. Naturally, Mayweather brought in nothing but the best for his girl. He noted on Instagram that singer Justin Bieber and actor Kevin Hart showed up for the party. We wouldn’t be surprised if the two even performed there.

During an episode of “All Access” before his fight with Robert Guerrero, Mayweather was shown spending some quality time with his daughter (the fact that cameras were recording it all didn’t ruin the intimacy of the day did it?). He took her to the movies and rented out the entire theater so that it would be private. The whole theater. When you’re a part of The Money Team, this is just how life is.

Below is a photo of Iyanna with Hart:

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If you are a pet/dog lover, this video will make you melt.

The story of Ricochet the surfing dog was featured on SportsCenter on Sunday night. Ricochet is a female golden retriever born into the “Puppy Prodigies Neo-natal & early-learning program” with the intention of becoming a service dog for a person with a disability. Early in life, she could help pull down zippers on a person’s jacket, pull a laundry basket, and do much more. But at 16 weeks, Ricochet stopped responding to the training and didn’t want to do more. One video says she was dropped from the program because of her instinctual fascination with chasing birds. However, Ricochet and her trainer finally found something she could do well — help people surf.

They began setting up fund raisers where Ricochet helped people surf by standing towards the back or on the sides and balancing the surf board. Her first fundraiser was with a quadriplegic named Patrick Ivison, and she helped raise $10,000 for him.

In the SportsCenter feature video, Ricochet can be seen helping three people with disabilities surf: Ivison, a young boy with brain damage from a fatal car crash, and a boy with autism.

Below you can watch a 2009 video of Ricochet that has amassed over four million views on YouTube:

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Ray Rice did.

Rice posted the above picture on his Facebook page on Sunday with the caption: “y’all catch the Preakness yesterday?”

Hilarious. His photo had over 11,000 likes and nearly two thousand shares on Facebook at the time this was posted.

If you’re wondering whether a football player can actually beat a horse in a race, I present you with this.

Singer Miguel jumped off the stage at the Billboard Music Awards on Sunday night and landed directly on a woman’s head, nearly crushing her. The ill-advised moment instantly went viral for obvious reasons.

First off, did you see how badly Miguel demolished her? The poor woman’s head disappeared after Miguel banged it directly into the stage, crotch-first. Not to mention that he took out a second woman with a kick to the head. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

Secondly, Miguel somehow managed to land a textbook leg drop on the woman. You cannot teach a better leg drop than that. When Vince McMahon brings new wrestlers into the WWE, I guarantee you he shows them this clip.

The best part of the whole ordeal was the immediate memes of Miguel’s stage jump fail and a top-rope WWE move:

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Charmin put together one of the best billboard ads we have seen. The toilet paper company decided to get in on some advertising action with NASCAR and placed this giant billboard outside of the Charlotte Motor Speedway for Saturday’s Sprint All-Star Race.

Does it get better than that?

According to Auto Week, this billboard is about 30 by 40 feet and faces Highway 29, which is the main highway facing the speedway. Charmin was also planning to hand out samples of its ultra strong product.

In addition to advertising at the All-Star Race, Charmin has a two-race deal with NASCAR and will also have ads up at the Coca-Cola 600. Their deal includes the billboards and signs on pit road, like this one:

Charmin ad campaign along pit wall. #nascar twitter.com/bobpockrass/st…

— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) May 18, 2013

Very well done, Charmin, very well done.

Photo: Twitter/Tripp Mickle
H/T Darren Rovell

A man who was planning to dribble a soccer ball from Seattle to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup died on Tuesday after being hit by a car just 14 days into his trip.

42-year-old Richard Swanson was walking down highway 101 in south Lincoln City, Ore., when he was hit by a car from behind around 10:00 a.m. Tuesday morning, according to The News Guard. He was transported to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. The driver stopped after hitting Swanson and was cooperating with police.

A father of two adult sons, Swanson lost his job as a graphic designer last year and had trouble finding another job. In a video posted on the site where he was chronicling his trip, the Seattle native explained that he was bummed out and thinking about what he wanted out of life. He said one thing he wanted to do was see a World Cup. So without having too many responsibilities like a job and kids to raise, he decided to sell his house and make the trip to Sao Paulo for the 2014 World Cup.

“Screw what happens, I don’t even care,” Swanson said of the plan, via Dirty Tackle. “As crazy as the idea sounds, that idea spurred on to the next leg of ‘Well, since I’m going to the World Cup, I should honor it by dribbling a soccer ball.’ Which even makes the trip even more crazy.”

On the about page for his website, Swanson wrote:

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