He did all that for one lousy joke...

Posting the trailer for Paper Heart (comedienne Charlene Yi explores if there is such a thing is love, she's the girlfriend of Michael Cera, who does his whole awkward-cute routine that has already started to wear thin) can actually be justified here. It's a stretch.



How do you justify putting this on a sports blog? Well, comedy is a collaborative enterprise, just like sports. It only works if everyone buys in. That clip also spins off into how grateful one should be for everyone Judd Apatow family of performers. And there is a YouTube clip that's surfaced of Seth Rogen, circa 1996 (he would have been 13 or 14 years) doing stand-up comedy in Vancouver. He jokes about playing rugby, so that justifies a bit more.



Also, do you remember that Vanity Fair spread last month on the New Kings of Comedy. There was the one picture of Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Jason Segel and Jonah Hill (AKA the obnoxious one in Superbad).

Lord, I apologize, but the immediate point of reference was a 1997 Sports Illustrated feature on baseball's new breed of slugging shortstops. In hindsight, it revealed that Alex Rodriguez was always shallow and mindless:

" 'C'mon with me to New York, DJ,' Rodriguez says. He has been trying all evening to persuade Jeter to fly with him the next morning to an awards show, having failed at dinner with his A material: " 'Cindy's going to be there. Cindy Crawford!' "

(That wouldn't have been so apparent if you were about the same age and only a couple years' removed from having a Cindy Crawford poster on your bedroom wall.)

That article mostly focused on A-Rod, Derek Jeter, Nomar Garciaparra and, wait for it, the Blue Jays' Alex Gonzalez.

Jonah Hill is Alex Gonzalez. Please consider the stretch made.

Some great ideas were hatched in that mancave

I Love You, Man was semi-funny. Your assignment today is to slip "frosty-haired chode" into conversation, and refer to any daunting task as "selling the Ferrigno house."

Incidentally, up top is the trailer for Year One with Jack Black and Michael Cera. It's Harold Ramis, so it should be good (and yes, Hank Azaria and Christopher Mintz-Plasse play Abraham and Isaac, theologians take note).

A classic case of guy on the ground

Nine weeks until Judd Apatow's I Love You, Man opens. Incidentally, J.K. Simmons really is a household name for being that guy who's in all the movies.

Related:
Must Watch: Hilarious Red Band Trailer for I Love You, Man (FirstShowing.Net)

'Laugh and wince' -- sounds perfect

The film geek sites have mentioned this already, but it's new to us: The film Big Fan premieres at Sundance. It might not be a sports movie per se, but it's directed by Robert Siegel, who wrote The Wrestler, and it stars Patton Oswalt of Lewis Black's The Root Of All Evil fame.

"Oswalt, one of our favorite comedians, stars as a hardcore New York Giants fan who runs into the team's star quarterback at a strip club, whereupon misunderstandings and violence ensue. The film was written and directed by Robert Siegel, a former Onion writer who also penned one of 2008's best films, The Wrestler. The Sundance blurb says the film 'will make you laugh and wince at the same time,' which is one of our favorite things to do." -- Film.com

A sports movie doesn't have to be about athletes. Game 6, which came out about three years ago, was a perfect example. Please say this will be coming to the Toronto International Film Festival.

Related:
Sundance 2009 - Six Movies to Look For;
A Patton Oswalt vehicle, a David Foster Wallace adaptation and a new teen sex romp from the director of Superbad (Film.com)

Snark break ...

Hey, let's be cynical bastards ...

It would be ironic if Canada lost the World Junior hockey gold medal to Sweden. In Sweden, there's a chance a promising hockey player might actually serve his country. In Canada, we just have them do a photo op at a military base.

Senators owner Eugene Melnyk, who claims residency in Barbados, which allows him to avoid paying taxes that support the Canadian Forces, had some nerve to participate in that PR stunt.

The holidays are wonderful. The little ones can barely sit still, giddy with anticipation, waiting for the magical day could arrive sooner. They keep begging for a taste, please can I open just one gift ... but enough about the Toronto media waiting for Brian Burke to make his first trade.

Trading Carlo Coliacovo and Thomas Steen didn't count? Saying the Double-B had nothing to do with that is like actually believing Oswald acted alone.

More headlines that cannot be written: "Rebuffed due over race, Gill re-ups with Buffalo."

Former CFL quarterback Khari Jones is the new quarterbacks coach for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. He never would have got that job in Winnipeg!

Another headline: "Canadian Idol-ed for a year." ... but please, don't waste your creativity on the old joke, "So-and-so was so distraught, he couldn't go in for his shift at 7-Eleven." It's not only trite, but you end up looking like you remember some of the winners' names.

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• Here's an early look at I Love You, Man — Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Jason Segel.
  
• The Belleville Bulls added more scoring punch, picking up Brandon Mashinter from Kitchener, and managed to get two relatively high draft choices coming their way.
  
  Mashinter was one of the overage players that the Kingston Frontenacs could have picked up at the start of the season to complete last season's Ben Shutron trade. Instead, GM-for-life Larry Mavety took Yannick Weber, whom everyone knew would be in the AHL.
  
  So please avoid any comparisons with the Bulls and Kingston Frontenacs. Only one of them is still an Ontario Hockey League team.
• Ottawa's own Tyler Holmes, who plays offensive tackle for Tulsa, was recently named to the Conference USA freshman team (the things you miss when you're on vacation).
• OK, so the Canadian Blog Awards voting didn't turn out as well as it could have -- but it's not like this site got less votes it its category than Paul Wells did in the pundit class.
• Last but not least, there is a second Barry Sanders Jr. highlight video:
  
  

So much for catching the afterglow of Blue Monday

Having to leave before the game is over is a reality in the sports media.

Far be it, then, to say that on Blue Monday, at least one Canadian media outlet was Steve and Eydie playing a concert in upstate New York while Woodstock was happening less than a mile away:

"I was sent a note that Rogers Sportsnet was there early to get some footage, but left before the game ended. Then, they called frantically looking for footage of the end of the game. I watched Sportsnet and TSN this morning and there was no video evidence of the win. Both made mention of it." -- Big Man on Campus

Here's hoping this and this, shot by one of Out of Left Field's contributors, Mike (it's just the one name, like Cher), turns up on Sportsnet Connected's Inbox feature.

One more time, let's see the celebration, after the jump:



It's hard not to love We're Not Worthy Guy salaaming on the midfield logo. He's partying like it was 1992.

Again, and this can't be stressed enough, it's standard for videographers and newspaper photographers to leave early so they can edit and file their images. That being said, it doesn't take a Minnesota Vikings fan, though, to know that 17 points is never enough, no matter how hapless your opponent.

Rob Pettapiece, whose Waterloo Warriors were on the wrong side of OUA football history, had a great reaction to the use of the closing scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin: "Well, at least Waterloo gets to play the part of Catherine Keener."

If that's the case, then Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin isn't the only hot granny in the news this week!

(That's obviously meant to satirize the viewpoint that anyone's attractiveness, female or male, has anything to do with whether he/she is qualified to a do a job. I apologize for not making this clearer and showing a little more class.)

WHAT'S THE FREQUENCY OF T.J. FORD FORCING UP BAD SHOTS?

A later links package than usual. Sorry, but someone was tired and that King of The Hill where Hank and Peggy play on the same softball team was on last night.

• That R.E.M. line about how, "Withdrawal in disgust is not apathy," applied to watching the Raptors against the Orlando Magic in their playoff opener yesterday.
  
  Less than five minutes in, Orlando was shooting 7-for-7 and had opened a 10-point lead. T.J. Ford had already belched up a couple of bricks. There was no point in watching much more. There's always next season.


• Did Tim McCarver really draw a parellel between a baseball manager and the Confederate generals from the Civil War? Yes, he did.
  
  Apologies for not getting to this sooner, but it did happen on the broadcast of a National League game, which isn't real baseball.
• Slate, which would argue with an echo, seems to have a winner with their 10 Dumbest Trends in Sports series. Neal Pollack's passionate plea to "please stop the meaningless sports rankings, power polls and 'MVP races' " is a tough act to follow.
  

  The Internet demands frequently updated content, and lists and rankings are incredibly easy to put together and require no original thought. There's no need to come up with a new idea every week: Just shuffle a few teams or players around, write a one-sentence caption, and you're ready to publish. Maybe people really care about this stuff, and sports sites are simply fulfilling our desire to assign rankings ... I'd prefer to think we're getting our sports fix from these columns because nobody bothers to writes about anything else.

• Cracked's "How To Make Your Own Judd Apatow Movie" is worth a read. It doesn't take away from the enjoyment of Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
  
  Kristin Bell's titular character would have easily fit in among the females at a certain upper-crust Ontario university.

• The NHL trying to squelch the Detroit Red Wings' octopus tradition. It's a total about-face from last year, when the New York Times did a light-hearted feature story on Al Sobotka, the designated octopi picker-upper.
  

  "The N.H.L. has hardly considered penalizing Sobotka.
  
  "Frank Brown, the league's vice president for media relations, said: 'Every so often, an octopus slips out of someone's hands, and Al is right there to take care of the matter. And he cannot be blamed if, as it tries to break free from Al's grasp, the octopus lifts Al's arm and twirls itself in the air.”

  The Times went to town on the NHL for its ignorance, especially that claptrap about matter flying off the octopi and sticking to the ice. (Who knows, maybe the NHL is trying to pander to the Red States where they've banned teaching science.)


• There's been a post percolating for weeks about one of the great Canadian sports conundrums.
  
  Tons of hockey-loving, hoops-indifferent sports fans go gaga for March Madness. They get on the bandwagon when a team such as Davidson goes deep into the tournament. The same folks, however, completely check out of following major junior hockey once the local team is knocked out.
  
  It's pretty much the same vibe -- young players, full of piss and vinegar, laying it all on the line. They don't seem tainted by commercialism, since precious little of the proceeds of that commercialism gets shared with them. Yet no one in hockey-mad Canada cares much outside of the communities whose teams are still alive. You'd have to hunt around on the three sports networks' websites to find anything about the playoffs in the Ontario, Quebec and Western leagues.
  
  The small thinkers who run the major junior leagues, though, probably believe there's they need to play four best-of-seven series to determine a league champion. That's when teams make their money and that's what the NHL does.
  
  The Belleville Bulls are up 2-0 in their OHL semi-final series vs. John Tavares and Oshawa with Game 3 tonight. There's plenty of 613 rooting interest -- Kingston native Josh Godfrey on the Soo Greyhounds; Ben Shutron of Orleans with the Kitchener Rangers -- but see how far a conversation about the OHL playoffs goes with anyone.
• Taylor Hall is awesome.
• Entertainment Weekly included Friday Night Lights' Dillon High School among the best fictional high schools. Where's the Degrassi love?

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

NO REASON TO GET YOUR SOX SOAKED

The daily baseball post ... Jays in the sandwich game vs. the Texas Rangers ...

• The past two Tigers-White Sox games have aided the argument for baseball playing fewer games with more scheduled off-days.
  
  It never ceases to amaze that baseball forces teams to play in April when the weather can reduce the game to a farce and put players at physical risk. It's not right for a game that requires such hand-eye co-ordination and precision.
  
  Friday, Dontrelle Willis hyper-extended his right knee when he slipped pitching on a rain-soaked mound. Now he's on the disabled list.
  
  The conditions were fit for neither beast nor ballplayer again today, which played a part in Justin Verlander losing his grip on a pitch and plunking Orlando Cabrera in the back of the head during the eighth inning. (Cabrera wasn't injured, but people walk away from car crashes, too.)
  
  Seriously, why not cut back to 140-145 games and start two weeks later? There would be more open dates to reschedule rained-out games.
  
  The Tigers, now 2-10, could certainly have used a later start.
• Cox Bloc referred to Jays shortstop John McDonald as "Johnny McGlovin" a couple weeks ago. Did they not see the movie? It's one name -- like Seal.
  
  (Sorry, someone is protective of his pop-culture reference.)
• Toronto Sun baseball writer Bob Elliott has joined the blogosphere. Elliott's Top Canadians Eligible For '08 MLB Draft (canadiandraft08.blogspot.com) picks up from the site he used have at SLAM! Sports.
  
  Elliott is also planning to launch canadianbaseballnetwork.com within a few weeks. No other sports journalist with Elliott's profile spends as much time tracking the up-and-coming Canadian baseball talent. Without him, we wouldn't know that the Jays are high on an infielder, Carter Bell, who is the namesake of two former Jays all-stars. With that name, how could they not be interested in him?
• Stephen Brunt hit it out of the park with his Saturday column on Jose Canseco's Vindicated:
  
  

  "In all of the denials, the scapegoating, the lying, the hypocrisy, the phony Hall of Fame moralizing and the political opportunism, baseball made a 'certifiable nutcase' credible, raised his stock and cast him as an honest whistle-blower — which is quite the feat."

  Canseco is a grotesque, but in a morality play, it's often a grotesque who is responsible for exposing a society's ills and hypocrisies.
• A figure of interest from the Simcoe Reformer days, right-handed pitcher John Axford, got his first win of the season on Friday for Brevard County, the Brewers' Florida State League team (high class-A). Axford struck out six over four-plus innings, although he walked four and had a couple wild pitches.
• Here's the article where ex-Jays third baseman Ed Sprague admitted using andro during his playing career. There go his Hall of Fame chances (hey, wait a second).

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

IT LOOKS LIKE AN OTTER...

It only figures that Seth Rogen would be part of yet another take on the "I'm F'king Matt Damon" phenomenon. For the sarcastic schlubby guys who view Seth Rogen as a less a man than a god, it kind of redeems his turn as as an Academy Awards presenter.

(Not safe for work unless you have headphones or really easygoing colleagues.)

SCREW THAT, WE'RE CALLING YOU McLOVIN...

McLovin (AKA Chris Mintz-Plasse) steals the show at the Maxim Super Bowl party ...

Enjoy him now, before Hollywood chews him up and spits him out, the way they did with Stephen (Flounder) Furst and Curtis (Booger) Armstrong.

IT WAS A DIFFERENT TIME... NINETEEN NINETY-EIGHT!

By the time Forgetting Sarah Marshall drops on May 30, 2008, there will be some movement to go right ahead and make Judd Apatow the Grand Benign Dictator already.

This is the role that's been waiting for quote, unquote up-and-comer Jason Segel ever since his criminally underrated supporting turn almost a decade ago in Dead Man on Campus, which itself was criminally underrated. (OK, so maybe it only seems that way if you happened to be in university and were generally ambivalent about it back in 1998.)

UP AT 6... "SCOLARIED" ... IN OTHER WORDS, RON BURGUNDY IS NO LONGER THE BALLS

Someone's been watching too many Entourage reruns...

• Seeing the teasers for Will Ferrell's upcoming comedy Semi-Pro and reading comments at Yahoo! Sports -- fairly typical sample is, "Oh, now he's the 1970s basketball player in Flint, and not the 1970s newscaster in San Diego? -- kind of begs the question if he's been Scolaried.
  
  Scolaried, as defined by the L.A. Times' J.A. Adande, is the state of being "left behind by someone considered an equal at one time."
  
  Judd Apatow will have three Ferrell-free hits on his hands by the end of this calendar year, since Walk Hard, starring Mike Honcho himself, John C. Reilly, looks like a sure bet. Amy Adams, who played Ferrell's love interest in Talladega Nights, just got catapulted into stardom thanks to Enchanted (should have been for Junebug, but oh well). Steve Carell and Seth Rogen are both bankables, although you'd only notice that Rogen was in Anchorman if you've seen it 35 or more times (uh, according to what a friend says).
• There's no point describing what goes on when Pierre McGuire and Gord Miller broadcast a game that Sidney Crosby is playing in: The Coming Crosby Backlash was already covered off almost a year ago.
• Housekeeping item: Good friend and regular contributor Neil Acharya is contributing to The Score Forecaster; his first post is up today.
• There's a primer on Tim Lincecum up at Hardball Times. It's nice, as a Jays fan, to picture him getting ground-ball outs off that changeup he developed last year.
  
  It's still damn hard to part with Alex Rios, though. He's a much better player than Delino DeShields was when the Expos swapped him for a young Pedro Martinez back in 1994.

THE WRONG KID DIED...

Rotten Tomatoes has a good article up on Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story. Basically, any time there's a new Judd Apatow movie coming out, life stands still.

SARCASTIC CANADIANS WHO ARE UGLY AS F--K BY TRADITIONAL STANDARDS NEED A TROJAN HORSE

Seth Rogen gets his big starmaking vehicle with Ottawa's Jay Baruchel riding shotgun -- a switcheroo from their days on the late and lamented Undeclared.