Here is this week’s crop of Mid-Week Grades. As we always do, we’ll break these down on the award-winning WGEM SportsCenter program around 8:20 a.m. on Wednesday. If you’d like to submit a grade, text us at 217-617-9437 or email at sportscenter@wgem.com:

A — David Faircloth. Who? This poor guy had to lug around Sergio Garcia’s bag during the Wyndham Championship. Garcia fired his old caddie after the PGA Championship and needed some help in Greensboro, N.C. Faircloth got the gig. Garcia, much to my chagrin, wound up actually winning the tournament for his first victory in eons. I’d hate to have to pick up after Garcia for four-plus days, so this guy certainly earned his keep.

B — Pop Tarts. I’ll admit that I’ve never been a fan of the breakfast pastries, but my kids have devoured them over the years. The folks at Kelloggs will be releasing college-themed Pop Tarts this fall. Sadly, we won’t be able to bite into a Quincy University, Culver-Stockton or John Wood Community College Pop Tart. Heck, we won’t even be able to eat an Illinois or Missouri one. The only schools who have signed up so far are Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina. You’d have to think other schools will follow suit. What better way to enjoy breakfast than to bite into Truman the Tiger some day?

C — Roger Clemens. The former Cy Young Award winner is back in the news. He’ll go to the mound for the first time in five years on Saturday when he takes the mound for the Sugar Land Skeeters of the independent Atlantic League. Clemens will go to battle for Skeeters manager Gary Gaetti — I’m not kidding. At 50, Clemens is thinking about making a comeback. Some see this as a dress rehersal for a possible return to organized baseball next year. I’m calling what it is — a publicity stunt. How dare Clemens upstage “The Human Fireball,” Ted Batchelor?  I hope a few guys on the Bridgeport Bluefish get some hits that they’ll be able to tell their grandkids about one day.

D — Notre Dame football. The Irish haven’t even blown their first game this season and they’re being laughed at. The Irish will wear a special jersey for their Oct. 6 jersey against Miami in a game set to be played at Soldier Field in Chicago. Instead of keeping with their traditional garb, the Irish will have a hideous look, which includes a two-toned helmet that has the famous leprechaun on one side. More than half of the helmet is gold. The uniforms are a bit different, too. Why mess with a classic?

F — Melky Cabrera. We could start with the fact that the San Francisco Giants outfielder and All-Star Game MVP got busted for using a performance-enhancing drug and received a 50-game suspension. Then we could look at the player’s failed attempt to try to hide his crime by creating a website that touted a fake product. Cabrera was going to point to the website as a defense. Just plain dumb.

It’s the last group of grades before all of the kiddies out there head back to class for real. If you have a grade that you’d like to submit, please text WGEM SportsCenter at 217-617-9437 or email us at sportscenter@wgem.com. As always, we’ll gnash these over around 8:20 on Wednesday’s edition of the award-winning local sports talk radio show.

A —U.S. Olympic team. The popular opinion going into the London Olympics was that the U.S. was going to finally get passed by China in the medal count. Not so fast. The U.S. collected more hardware than anyone else, taking in 104 medals, 46 of which were gold. No one won more gold than the Americans either. From the pool to gymnastics to judo the mat to the ring to the track to the basketball arena and places elsewhere, the Americans flexed their muscles. Now the U.S. Olympic Committee’s task is to build another dynamite group of athletes for the Rio Games in 2016.

B — Rory McIlroy. The one-time Pepsi Titan Little People’s Golf Championships participant continued to show that he’s the next big thing in the world of golf with his eight-stroke win at the PGA Championship last weekend. That gave him major titles in two straight years and has elicited comparisons with Tiger Woods, who didn’t win his second major until he was a bit older than McIlroy. That talk is a little premature though. When McIlroy has all four major titles on his mantle at once, that’s when we can start to compare and contrast the Woods and McIlroy eras.

C — Denard Robinson. I don’t mind people who have confidence in their abilities. Some may label them cocky. Heck, I’m pretty confident in what I can do and have even been called cocky myself. The University of Michigan quarterback, however, may be a bit delusional. For some reason, Robinson thinks he could beat Jamacian sprint star Usain Bolt in a 40-yard dash. Robinson thinks that Bolt is a slow starter, which would allow him to win a short race. After seeing Bolt absolutely crush people again in London, I can’t see him losing a sprint of any distance to anyone.

D — Washington Nationals. The team with the best record in baseball — yes, I’m talking about the Nats — are ready to shut down their top pitcher, Steven Strasburg, once he hits between 160 and 180 innings. The Nationals’ brass says they’re not going to change their plans no matter where the team is in a playoff chase. They want to protect Strasburg’s arm after he had Tommy John surgery late in the 2010 season. I can understand being cautious, but shutting him down for the season during a spot in which the team has never been seems odd.

F — Chad Johnson. Don’t know that we should be surprised that Johnson — formerly known as Chad Ochocinco — went out the way he did. He was released by the Dolphins over the weekend hours after he was arrested for having a fight with his new wife. Johnson’s been a loud mouth during his pro career, but he’s never been a law breaker. Who knows if Johnson will ever play in the NFL again.

It’s time to get a look at the grades. As we always do, we’ll chew over these on Wednesday’s edition of the award-winning WGEM SportsCenter program around 8:20 or so on ESPN 1440. If you have something in the sports world (or life in general) that you’d like to give a grade to, shoot us a text at 217-617-9437. Here we go:

A — Ben Kohles. I’ve given Quincy’s Luke Guthrie plenty of pub in this spot this summer — and rightfully so. Thanks to Guthrie’s quick rise in pro golf, we’ve gotten to know Kohles’ name. Unfortunately, Guthrie has had to play second-fiddle to Kohles. The University of Virginia product became the first golfer to win his first two starts on PGA Tour-affiliated circuits. First, he beat Guthrie in a playoff in Ohio. Last week, he bested the web.com Tour field in Omaha by three shots. Not a bad start to a career.

B — Alex Morgan. I basically put her in here for the benefit of show host Josh Houchins. First off, Morgan is a heck of a soccer player. Her header at the end of extra time during the Olympic semifinals capped an exciting 4-3 victory over Canada. Secondly, Morgan is a very attractive person. It’s no secret that sex sells. She is the most marketable of the U.S. women’s soccer players. Now they need to win the gold to help get the U.S. women’s soccer team some momentum back that they lost with last year’s World Cup loss to Japan.

C — The 2012 Prospect League season. Neither one of our area teams — the Quincy Gems and Hannibal Cavemen — did much of anything. Both finished with winning records — Quincy was 34-26 and Hannibal 31-29. But neither was a factor when it came to the Prospect League’s playoff picture. There were a few individual standouts, but I don’t think we’ll look back at these teams and gush about all of the talent and pro players each produced.

D — Penn State trustees. Would someone tell the people of State College, Pa., to just kindly shut up. Still simmering over the fact that the NCAA gutted their precious football program, the trustees are trying to appeal the NCAA’s decision and may go to federal court to get it overturned. Just stop it. The trustees’ move comes on the heels of the Paterno family’s attempt to appeal the decision as well. Sadly, it’s going to be a long time until any of this goes away.

F — Stephan Feck. While watching some Olympic diving over the weekend (on tape-delay, of course), I tweeted that I wished the belly flop was part of the divers’ repertoire. While Feck didn’t do a belly flop, the did manage to pull out a rare 0.0 for a dive. Seems that the German diver came a little unhinged during a dive in the 3M springboard event and wound up landing in the water flat on his back. He probably would have scored more points by doing the old Nestea plunge.

The Mid-Week Grades welcome August. Pretty soon the kids will be back to school and pigskins will fly through the air on the weekends. And maybe it will cool off a bit. We can only hope. If you’d like to turn in a Mid-Week Grade, text WGEM SportsCenter at 217-617-9437. We’ll break these down around 8:20 on Wednesday’s program.

A —Trade deadline. Maybe it’s because I’m always working on a deadline, but I love it when trade deadline day nears. All kinds of crazy stuff happens. This year’s Major League Baseball trade deadline didn’t disappoint. You had one huge name move — Ichiro Suzuki going from Seattle to the Yankees. There were a bunch of other guys who had to change teams, too. I actually like what the Cubs did, getting rid of a bunch of guys for some prospects. If a few of the young kids work out, the Cubs will be sitting pretty in a few years.

B — Missy Franklin. She might be the only amateur still participating in the Olympics. That’s a stretch, but the 17-year-old Colorado high schooler is leaving a lot of money on the table. Because she’s an amateur, she’ll have to bypass $100,000 in bonuses for her gold medal win. There’s also a ton of endorsement money that could come her way after her outstanding showing in London, but she’ll have to give up her amateur status first. She says she wants to swim in college. She’s been than me. I’d take the money and swim.

C — Atlanta Braves. With the team being one of the hottest in the National League, you’d think they’d get a higher grade. They’re in the middle here because they had to go to some drastic measures on Monday night. The Braves’ 8-2 win over the Marlins on Monday was the team’s first Monday win of the season. Heck it was their first Monday win going back to last August. The team pulled out all the stops. The Braves wore their pants up — old-school style — and credited Chipper Jones’ new Twitter account with reasons for the streak being over.

D — Olympic timers. South Korea’s Shin A Lam was one second away from reaching the gold medal match in Olympic fencing. With so little time, there was virtually no way for Germany’s Britta Heidemann to win the match. Unfortunately, the timekeeper erred and allowed extra time as Heidemann scored two points to win the match. To make matters worse for Shin, she had to stay on the floor for nearly an hour as the match was protested. She broke down crying during the wait and was ultimately ruled the loser. She also lost the bronze medal match, too, going from a sure medal to going home empty-handed.

F — NBC/Twitter. Consider them the tag-team champions of the world when it comes to denying someone free speech. The two teamed up to shut down an account of a Los Angeles-based journalist who had been critical of NBC’s decision to tape delay events at the 2012 London Olympics. Twitter says it banned Guy Adams, a reporter for the England-based Independent, for publishing the email address of an NBC executive in charge of the Olympic programming. The move has people on the Internet steaming. Adams’ speech wasn’t hateful. He was merely expressing an opinion and letting others know how to contact NBC if they had the same problem with the networks’ coverage.

Another week, another batch of grades. I’ll be away from the WGEM SportsCenter studio when these are rattled off on Wednesday. Join in with show host Josh Houchins as he looks over my offerings. He’ll do that around 8:20 on Wednesday’s program on ESPN 1440 and wgem.com. If you have a grade you’d like to submit, please do so at 217-617-9437.

A — NCAA and Penn State. A tip of the cap first to NCAA President Mark Emmert for coming down hard on the Penn State football program. The sanctions levied by the NCAA against the school for its handling of Jerry Sandusky were perfect. The school gets hampered in the process, but it doesn’t affect the current players and the teams that Penn State was to play. People in State College, Pa., can still make a living off the football team’s games, even if the Nittany Lions won’t have the same powerhouse program. Penn State should also be commended for not fighting the NCAA on this one. Taking down the Joe Paterno statue a day before the NCAA laid down the law was also a good move.

B — Chicago Cubs. The team did just one thing right in its weekend series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Prior to taking the field in the bottom of the first inning on Sunday, the starters ran on to the field and clicked their heels. It was done as a tribute to Ron Santo, the team’s legendary third baseman who was being enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame that day. Not one of the Cubs players ever saw Santo play a game. All they knew him from was being the team’s radio guy. For them to think about him and do a tribute to him was pretty cool.

C — Amar’e Stoudamire. When we last heard from the Knicks’ center, he was busting his hand against a fire extinguisher. He’s trying to spend his summer vacation getting better. He’s enlisted the help of Hakeem Olajuwon to teach him a thing or two about posting up. And the lessons aren’t cheap. Stoudamire is supposedly paying “The Dream” $50,000 a week for a two-week tutorial. The $100,000 price tag isn’t so steep when you consider that Stoudamire is making just over $20 million a year. At least he’s trying to get better, but at what price?

D — Adam Scott. All he had to do was make a few pars coming in Sunday and the Claret Jug would have been his. Scott is on the short list of Best Players to Have Never Won a Major. He looked like he was going to take his name off that list until a string of four straight bogeys cost him a chance to be named the “Champion Golfer of the Year.” Instead, Ernie Els wound up with the jug thanks to a timely birdie on the 72nd hole. You have to wonder what this will do to Scott moving forward in his career. Losses like this are tough to swallow.

F — Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Jefferson High School. Guess school boards aren’t the only people who can make dopey decisions when it comes to firing coaches. The principal at Jefferson, Chuck McDonnell, decided a change needed to be made in the school’s softball program. Nevermind that Larry Niemeyer, the school’s softball coach, is the winningest high school softball coach in the country. Niemeyer, is the owner of four state championships and some 2,089 wins in 52 seasons. Last week, Niemeyer found out that he was no longer welcome on the Jefferson bench. “(McDonnell”s) comment was that the school needed a change in philosophy in the softball program,” the 74-year-old Niemeyer told the Cedar Rapids Gazette. “What do they want to change to? Losing?”  A great quote.

After a two-week break, my version of the Mid-Week Grades are back. As always, I’ll talk these over with WGEM SportsCenter host Josh Houchins around 8:20 a.m. on Wednesday’s edition of WGEM SportsCenter. Listen in on ESPN 1440 or wgem.com. Here we go:

A — Luke Guthrie. If he got an “A” for a top-20 finish in Memphis, I have to give him another for a top-5 at the John Derre Classic, right? Guthrie’s Sunday charge was neat to follow through Matt Schuckman’s Twitter feed. It was nice to see Luke get some TV time right at the top of Sunday’s broadcast on CBS. How impressive is Guthrie’s start? He’s earned $242,672 in two PGA Tour starts. It took fellow Quincyan D.A. Weibring 118 starts to match that. D.A. had a solid PGA Tour career, winning five times, and amassed nearly $4.8 million in earnings. That’s a tough act to follow, but Guthrie looks to be up to the challenge.

B —Mike Trout. I realize the Angels rookie really deserves an “A” for all that he’s done to help turn that team around after a dreadful start. He’s a candidate to not only be the AL Rookie of the Year, but he’s also emerging as a legitimate MVP candidate, too. (Although Josh Hamilton will be hard to beat.) I stumbled across this Yahoo story, which should make Yankees haters happy. Seems the Yankees had their eyes on Trout, a New Jersey kid, and were hoping he’d slide to them late in the first round of the 2009 draft. Instead, the Angels grabbed him with (get this) a compensatory pick they received for the Yankees’ signing of Mark Teixeria the previous year. Trout played at Yankee Stadium over the weekend and lit the place up, going 7 for 14. He had three doubles and stole four bases.

C — My slow-pitch softball career. My run as a slow-pitch softball player in the Quincy Park District is over. Since 2006, I’ve been a member of the Herald-Whig Demons/Tappe’s TapOuts/Second String Music Second Stringers. We’ve had our good times (winning the Thursday night Division V title in 2007) and our bad (slumping to a 4-8 finish this season in a hybrid Division III/Division IV league). I’m just glad I got out of the game before I got hurt. I went out on my own terms, even though I missed my last ever game. Sadly, slow-pitch softball as a whole is dying a slow death.

D — Dream Team vs. Redeem Team debate. For the better part of a week, we’ve had a debate about which team is better — the 1992 Dream Team or the 2012 Redeem Team (a dopey name if you ask me). There really is no debate. The 1992 team had the top 11 basketball players in the world on it. Thanks to injuries, this year’s U.S. men’s basketball team doesn’t even have the best 12 players in the NBA on it. Maybe if Dwyane Wade, Derrick Rose and Dwight Howard were available, we’d have something to talk about, but we don’t. The Dream Team was unlike any other team ever assembled. No men’s basketball team will ever match its greatness.

F — The Penn State saga. I’m not affected at all by the school’s decision to leave up the statue of Joe Paterno. I’ve never been to State College, Pa., and probably will never go there. In due time, I’m sure the school eventually will wise up and take down the state of Paterno, the man who helped enable a child molester to roam freely around his football program for decades. The Paterno family wants to dispute what was in the Freeh Report. Just let it go. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to continue hearing about this for years to come as the school gets sued by Jerry Sandusky’s victims. And who knows what the NCAA or Department of Education might do to the school.

Welcome to the first furnace blast of the summer. Today’s not supposed to be as bad as tomorrow when it’s expected to get into the triple digits in the Tri-States. That should be fun. Here’s this week’s edition of the Mid-Week Grades. As always, we’ll break these down on the WGEM SportsCenter program around 8:20. Please listen in on ESPN 1440. Here we go:

A — LeBron James. To the surprise of no one who has listened to me warble on the last seven months, I’m happy with the Heat’s championship. I went out on the extreme limb in December and said that LeBron would win his first title this season. Even when the Bulls were rolling, I never wavered. LeBron was fantastic in the finals, earning Finals MVP honors. All of the jokes of him never winning and not being a closer can be put to rest now.

B —College football. It looks like everything is in place for a playoff to start. Good riddance to the BCS. A four-team playoff is better than no playoff at all to me. Yes, there will still be some bickering about a team that might get left out. This will be a cash cow for all of the schools involved. It will be a great thing for fans to watch, too.

C — U.S. Olympic Trials. I know there are spots on the Olympic team up for grabs in the various trials, but I just can’t get into them. The Olympics, I can get into those. Seeing who is going to make the team, not so much. Maybe this would be different if I were a big track or swimming guy, but I’m not. Different strokes for different folks I guess.

D — The Williams sisters. The days of dominance in the women’s tennis world for Venus and Serena look to be finished. After Serena was knocked out of the French Open in the first round earlier this month, Venus was a first-round victim at Wimbledon on Monday. The sisters have dominated women’s tennis for the better part of 15 years. They’ve won 20 Grand Slam singles titles between them and have teamed up to win 12 Grand Slam doubles titles. They plan on playing in the Olympics in London next month, too. You wonder when they’ll figure out that the clock has hit midnight for them. (I fully expect Serena to go out and win Wimbledon now after this.)

F — Tony Parker. Why anyone would hang in a club where Drake or Chris Brown would congregate is beyond me. Yet the San Antonio Spurs guard was at a joint called the W.i.P Club in SoHo on the same night that Drake and Brown scuffled. Parker wound up getting a shard of glass in his eye. He may miss the upcoming Olympics and his long-term future is in doubt. Pretty hard to play basketball when you can’t see.

Welcome to summer — at least my desk calendar tells me that summer starts today. Here are your first grades of the summer. We’ll yap about these on Wednesday’s edition of WGEM SportsCenter. If you have a grade, send it to us at 217-617-9437. Listen in on ESPN 1440 or WGEM.com.

A — Dale Earnhardt Jr. You have to give credit where credit it due, and Junior deserves his due. He snapped a 143-race losing streak on Sunday with his win at Michigan. I’ve killed Junior for living off his father’s legacy. Not many drivers with that long of a drought stay employed. But Earnhardt looks like he’s finding his groove with Hendrick Motorsports. He’s second in the points standings and has been Hendrick’s most consistent driver this season, which is saying something with former Sprint Cup champs Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon sharing garage space with you.

B —R.A. Dickey – Who doesn’t love a knuckleballer? Everyone, I guess except the guys trying to hit them and the poor sap behind the plate with the oversized mitt. The Mets knuckleballer has been on fire as of late. He’s tossed two straight one-hitters becoming the first pitcher since Toronto’s Dave Stieb in 1988 to accomplish that feat. Dickey has tossed 42 2/3 scoreless innings in a row and could break the Mets’ record of 49 straight in his next start.

C — One-day contracts. LaDanian Tomlinson is the latest athlete to sign a one-day contract with the team which he was best known (the San Diego Chargers) and then immediately retire. Sure, it’s a feel good story and he gets one last press conference in front of “his people.” But why do the hokey contract signing? No one is going to say, “Oh, yeah. Didn’t LaDanian Tomlinson finish his career with the Chargers?” No, his last game was with the Jets. I’ve vowed to go back and sign a one-day contract with the Galesburg Register-Mail since that’s where I got my start in journalism.

D — Joe Amendola. Who, you ask? He’s the guy who is trying to defend former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky in his child molestation trial. Amendola on Tuesday said that the trail is like a soap opera. When pressed which soap opera it was like, Amendola first went with “General Hospital,.” Then for some reason he changed his answer to … wait for it … “All My Children.” You can’t make that up.

F — David Nalbandian. I bet the tennis player will think twice before he has another temper tantrum on the court. Over the weekend, Nalbandian got upset that he was losing a match in a warmup tournament for Wimbledon. He proceeded to kick an advertising board under one of the line judges and the board popped up and gashed the judge in the leg. Nalbandian was kicked out of the tourney and forced to forfeit his $57,000 or so in prize money. He was also fined and placed under investigation for assault by London Police for his actions.

Another Wednesday, another batch of grades to hand out on today’s edition of WGEM SportsCenter, which can be heard weekdays from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. on ESPN 1440 or at www.wgem.com/sports. If you’d like to chime in, text in a grade to us at 217-617-9437. Here we go:

A — Luke Guthrie. Another easy one to move to the head of the class. The Quincy native was solid if not spectacular in his PGA Tour debut at the FedEx St. Jude Classic in Memphis, Tenn. He finished in a tie for 19th place. He’ll tee it up again at the John Deere Classic in a month. A good move by the Quad Cities’ PGA stop. Have a feeling this won’t be the last time that Guthrie gets an A. Also have to give an A to my guy, Matt Schuckman, whose work via Twitter and on whig.com took those of us who couldn’t be there and put us all on the course.

B — Los Angeles Kings. Some St. Louis Blues fans may still be a little bit bitter about seeing the Kings hoist the Stanley Cup. Of course, the Kings knocked the Blues out of this year’s playoffs in the second round. The Kings’ triumph also means that the Blues are only team of the “second six” teams that joined the NHL that hasn’t won the Cup. The Blues showed this year that they’re better, but winning the Cup is an entirely different thing.

C — Armpit tattoo lady. I guess I’ll grade the tattoo a bit higher for originality. According to the Puck Daddy blog on Yahoo, there’s a woman out there somewhere who has a tattoo of Luc Robitaille inher right armpit. Even better, she grew her tattoo a beard for the playoffs. I wish I was making this up..

D — Horse racing. Just when we were all ready to get really excited about watching the horses gallop, I’ll Have Another pulled out of the Belmont on the eve of the race. I’ll Have Another could have been the first Triple Crown winner since 1977, but instead retired because of an injury. As a result, few outside of the hard-nosed horse racing fans cared about the race. I honestly couldn’t tell you which horse won. I’ve already forgotten. Had I’ll Have Another pulled off the Triple Crown, the sports world would still be buzzing about the accomplishment.

F — Boxing. Can we be so sure that it’s not fixed like pro wrestling … or the NBA? Manny Pacquaio — and nearly everyone else who watched his fight Saturday against Tim Bradley — thought he had rung up yet another victory. Not so fast, the judges said. Instead, the judges awarded the fight to Bradley in a split decision. The decision had Twitter popping and it’s still being talked about. As a kid in the 1970s, boxing was a huge sport. Stars like Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard were as big as the biggest stars in the NBA, MLB and NFL. These days, who knows who the champions are. Outside of Pacuqaio and Floyd Mayweather, I couldn’t tell you a boxer’s name if they walked right past me on Quincy’s Maine Street.

It’s Mid-Week Grades time. I’m going to give everyone who doesn’t make an attempt to get out to this Saturday’s McDonald’s/Herald-Whig Classic an “F.” The games start at 5 with the girls and the boys follow at 7:15 at QU’s Pepsi Arena. Tickets are just $5. If you have a grade for this week, make sure to text the award-winning WGEM SportsCenter program at 217-617-9437. We’ll break these down around 8:20 during Wednesday’s program.

A — U.S. Open qualifying. Name any other sport that the common Joe can play for a major championship. The United States Golf Association — along with the Royal and Ancient in Europe — allow the every day player to tee it up with a chance to compete in their Open championships. A couple of great stories sprung up from U.S. Open qualifying earlier this week. Casey Martin, the one-time PGA Tour pro turned Oregon men’s golf coach, made the field. You remember Martin, the guy with a leg disease who sued the PGA Tour for the ability to use a cart. Then there’s the tale of Dennis Miller, a golf pro from Youngstown, Ohio. Miller thought his final putt had come up up short — along with his Open dreams. But then as he was walking to tap in his putt, the ball dropped in the cup to sent him to the Olympic Club next weekend

B  — Joe Maddon. The Tampa Bay Rays’ manager may be is the coolest manager in baseball today. Is ability to punch the buttons and pull the knobs correctly has made the Rays into a power in the AL East alongside the Yankees and Red Sox. He can keep things fresh for his players, too. Last Saturday, Maddon posted  his lineup with each of his players assigned the name of a famous rapper. Any time you can work Flava Flav, Ice Cube and Vanilla Ice into a baseball lineup, you’ve won me over.

C — Old pro wrestlers. I love me some 1980s WWF wrestling as much as the next guy, but it’s really kind of sad what’s happened to some of the “stars” of that era. These guys will do anything for a buck. Deadspin this week found a website dedicated to Virgil, the old wingman of the “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase. Seems that Virgil goes from convention to convention signing things, and that he’s quite lonely. Then there’s George “The Animal” Steele. He recently chewed the cover off a baseball before throwing out the first pitch at a Rochester Red Wings game. It’s too bad  these guys couldn’t live out their days with a little more dignity.

D — Pablo Sandoval. The Kung Fu Panda is having a heck of a time these days. First, he has a little legal issue dogging him as he’s being investigated for a sexual assault. Then there’s the issue of him being overweight again. Giants manager Bruce Bochy has told Sandoval that there’s no room for him at first base and that third base is his position. He’s one of the better hitters in the National League and has been all All-Star. You hope he gets his act straight on and off the field soon.

F — Kurt Busch. NASCAR’s bad boy just keeps putting his foot in his mouth. He’ll have the weekend off after telling a reporter from the Sporting News the probation NASCAR put him on earlier this season “refrains me from beating the (expletive) out of you right now because you ask me stupid questions.” Seems that few want to be associated with the one-time Sprint Cup champion. Penske Racing dropped him last year and is driving this season for the little-known Phoenix Racing team. How long until he bullies his way all the way out of the sport all together?