Welcome to the Page 2 Power Rankings
In the hierarchy of human needs, the desire to rank things rests somewhere between food/water/oxygen and changing the channel when Spencer Pratt appears on television.
In other words, probably around No. 18 or so.
Dante did it with sins and hell. Mel Kiper does it with NFL draft prospects. The Pentagon does it with chains of command, VH1 does it with "Hottest Hotties" and now we're doing it, too: deciding on a weekly basis which individuals, ideas and items in sports and pop culture are mas macho, determined by an utterly arbitrary and totally subjective set of criteria that might or might not factor in to our final tally.
Here's what we're looking for:
Ubiquity: How omnipresent is the person or thing in question? As inescapable as Brett Favre shoulder updates? Only on C-SPAN? Or somewhere in between? Exposure is power.
Intrigue: Is something or someone interesting? Can the story capture us? Or will we quickly move on to collect our plastic bags at the far end of the grocery checkout aisle?
Amusement: Is the item fun? Funny? In modern American life, if something didn't entertain, it didn't really happen.
Absurdity: We don't have a soft spot for the ridiculous -- it's more like a giant, red bull's-eye.
Without additional ado, we present the inaugural Page 2 Power Rankings:
1. Puppet LeBron
Pull strings to initiate postgame handshake
| Ubiquity | Intrigue | Amusement | Absurdity | Trending |
| 9 | 6 | 8 | 9 |  |
Credentials: Lil' Penny reincarnation becomes spiritual heir to decathlete Dan O'Brien when Cavaliers fail to reach NBA Finals; in wake of columnist/talk-radio sportsmanship fatwa issued against actual LeBron, puppet alter ego now frantically faxing résumé to ventriloquists, Children's Television Workshop and automotive crash testers.
2. General Motors
Official car company of the Phoenix Coyotes
| Ubiquity | Intrigue | Amusement | Absurdity | Trending |
| 10 | 9 | 2 | 3 |  |
Credentials: Government takeover proves ongoing Escalade-based bailout funded by sports and rap worlds simply not enough. Long-term solution? Build Chevys the country still cares about: namely, cars and trucks that turn into 30-foot-tall talking robots.
3. Roger Federer
No Nadal, no problemo
| Ubiquity | Intrigue | Amusement | Absurdity | Trending |
| 6 | 8 | 5 | 1 | |
Credentials: Wins French Open, captures career Grand Slam, ties Pete Sampras' all-time record of 14 major titles. … Not ringing a bell? OK, fine. He's the white guy in those Tiger Woods shaving commercials. Better?
4. Tiger Woods
Give him the Glengarry leads
| Ubiquity | Intrigue | Amusement | Absurdity | Trending |
| 9 | 6 | 6 | 2 | |
Credentials: Wins tournament. Fails to walk on water. A mixed week.
5. Angelina Jolie
We ran a photo -- why are you reading this?
| Ubiquity | Intrigue | Amusement | Absurdity | Trending |
| 9 | 6 | 10 | 6 | |
Credentials: Beats Oprah (No. 2), Woods (No. 5) and Kobe Bryant (No. 10) to claim top spot on Forbes magazine's annual list of most powerful celebrities. Checking in at No. 49? President Barack Obama, which shows that when you're talking power, personal access to nuclear launch codes < the cover of InTouch.
6. Orlando Magic die-hards
All seven of you
| Ubiquity | Intrigue | Amusement | Absurdity | Trending |
| 4 | 7 | 9 | 10 | |
Credentials: Days after an Orlando newspaper's public-service story answers (and, ahem, poses) the question "Why are the Magic playing the Los Angeles Lakers?" Dwight Howard says his future with the team depends on fan support. Translation: Superman lands in Los Angeles, 2013. (Oh, and Tiger is a Lakers fan. Sorry).
7. Empty gestures
Nothing ventured -- but still angling for some sweet, sweet gain
| Ubiquity | Intrigue | Amusement | Absurdity | Trending |
| 10 | 5 | 8 | 10 | |
Credentials: Shaquille O'Neal Tweets that he's rooting for Kobe Bryant in the NBA Finals. Magic guard Mickael Pietrus vows to ditch his Bryant-endorsed shoes for the series. Rod Blagojevich wishes it were him, not his wife, eating tarantulas on reality TV. Money-bleeding YouTube announces plans to premiere an actual theatrical movie, with an exec stating, "We're more than just dogs on skateboards." Oh, and if a Brazilian butterfly flaps its wings just so, all of this might somehow make a difference. (Note: In YouTube's defense, the site also features cat puppets playing piano. Touché, haters!)
8. The Twitter
No dogs, no skateboards, lots of Shaq
| Ubiquity | Intrigue | Amusement | Absurdity | Trending |
| 15 | 0 | 7 | 12 | |
Credentials: Most important form of human communication since French miming featured on the cover of Time. (Previous cover subject: Ricky Martin.) Tweetin' also embraced by NASA, which plans a "TweetUp" meeting of bloggers and Twitterers -- and yes, such a word exists, we checked -- for August space-shuttle launch. Tony LaRussa not invited.
9. Vince Young
The Madden Curse is a harsh mistress
| Ubiquity | Intrigue | Amusement | Absurdity | Trending |
| 6 | 9 | 8 | 7 | |
Credentials: Play-me-or-trade-me comments betray stunning ignorance and immaturity. Doesn't Young know the best way for a disgruntled quarterback to get what he wants is to mow lawns, send text messages to ESPN, dither over secretive surgery and let others do the talking?
10. The ivory tower
A place to get your learn on
| Ubiquity | Intrigue | Amusement | Absurdity | Trending |
| 2 | 6 | 9 | 10 |  |
Credentials: Academic inquiries find that: (A) NBA referees show home-court bias, (B) the athletic demands of marching band are similar to those of playing football and (C) Derrick Rose did not cheat on his SAT. Future studies to conclude that: (A) superstars get the calls, (B) the intellectual demands of reading a Cover 2 are similar to those of solving Fermat's Last Theorem and (C) the real killers are on a Miami-area golf course.
11. Bryce Harper
The next Brien Taylor LeBron
| Ubiquity | Intrigue | Amusement | Absurdity | Trending |
| 6 | 10 | 5 | 8 | |
Credentials: If the teenage baseball phenom can jack a 570-foot home run at age 15, just imagine how far he'll blast the ball with the help of big league "supplements."
12. Our future Chinese overlords
We, for one, welcome them. And their Yuan. Mostly the latter.
| Ubiquity | Intrigue | Amusement | Absurdity | Trending |
| 5 | 8 | 7 | 4 | |
Credentials: Cleveland Cavs reportedly will sell a 15 percent ownership share to a Chinese investment group; meanwhile, the United States Olympic Committee is losing Bank of America, Home Depot and GM as sponsors. Do the math. (And really, we already sell China T-bills by the supertanker load, so why not sell them some space on the front of our "USA" jerseys, a la the Phoenix Mercury?)
Also receiving votes: Alex Rios' five-strikeout game, which was impressive, considering he's not a pitcher; the high school running back who taunted Nick Saban (Page 2 has joined the recruiting chase); Charlie Brown's first pitch, which at least didn't get hammered into the cheap seats; Costa Rica's soccer team, which thumped the United States harder than Kobayashi whipped Joey Chestnut in pizza eating.
Never receiving votes: Jon and Kate plus eight tabloid magazine covers; Kimbo Slice fighting anyone for money anywhere (unless it's Jose Canseco, and then it's No. 1 with a bullet); Dwight Howard's post moves, since they don't actually exist; the "Land of the Lost" movie, which was about as needed as "NFL Draft: The Musical!"
Patrick Hruby is a columnist for Page 2.
