Maurice Clarett: The Blog Lives

Reporting from the Jock-o-Sphere.

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Still responding to U of M t-shirt salesman?

When athlete blogs began to take shape about a year and a half ago, some in the media debated the idea that athletes would no longer funnel thoughts, ideas and quotes through them; athletes would just say everything on their own terms and on their own blogs. By and large, this hasn't really been the case. Rare is the athlete that shuts out the media in lieu of his blog. Unless you don't have media access at all. Maurice Clarett doesn't. He's still locked away in prison. And he's blogging.

"There's no need to talk to a reporter these days," he writes. "I am my own newspaper. I am my own editor. I am my own censor. I am able to put things into the proper context. I am able to control the content and I am educated enough to accurately express myself."

Well, Clarett isn't exactly blogging. According to his mother, he's phoning these in to relatives, who post them for him. And though Clarett might not be the shining example of an athlete controlling their message through their voice and their voice alone, he is doing it.

We wonder if he'll be able to blog, and keep our interest when and if he's rehabilitated. Negative attention is still attention.

He's not in jail, but Curt Schilling is still writing. Over the weekend, Schilling told the Orlando Sentinel, "Absolutely I'll come back," he said. "The challenge would be in a place like Tampa Bay or Chicago."

Schilling started hearing too much "Curt is coming back!" talk for his liking, so he took to his blog to set the record straight.

"I have said to no one, including myself, that I am definitely coming back, because it's not true," he writes. "However if I did, the Cubs, and Tampa, were they to need a starting pitcher for the 2nd half of the season and into October, would be 2 situations I'd be very interested in."

"Little 'misquotes' lead to news that really isn't news. First off a team has to want you to make anything of this sort work. I love Joe Maddon, always have, and I'd play for Lou Pinella in a heart beat."

This is exactly the type of thing Dan Shaughnessy worried about.

Last week, Devin Harris hit one of the most ridiculous half-court shots you may ever see. If you didn't see it live or on SportsCenter, you surely saw it on the Web. Well, Harris took to the Nets' blog Sunday to tell you that he too, could not believe what he saw:

"It's still unbelievable," he writes. "I've seen it a billion times and can't fathom what went on, can't put it into words. I actually tried the shot a couple more times and didn't come close. I don't know how I still made it. That was a very weird, weird game. But fun."

"I didn't look at the replay the first couple of times. But as the week continued, I'd turn on TV and there it would be. They were comparing it to other halfcourt shots around the league, and there's been a lot, around the world."

"It's good to be getting YouTube hits for a positive reason."

You like pizza, I like pizza, we all like pizza. Is there a dish as universally loved as pizza? Perhaps not.

But competitive eater Pat Bertoletti really ramps it up a notch. His nickname is "Deep Dish" and well, I'll let him continue to explain:

"A coked out Pat O'Brien has a better shot at keeping it together than I do when dealing with getting my pizza fix," he writes. "I haven't called any strippers while on blow, looking for a good time and to split an 8 ball with, so I got that going for me. But I am a crazed mic dago when it comes to that sauce and leavened base. I would order 3 large from 3 different places and hope they would all show up at once. You could count by looking into the illegal immigrant driver's eyes how many people they thought these pizzas were going to feed. Never more than one."

Make sure to check out that post; Bertoletti lists his top 10 pizza joints from around the States.

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This didn't work out too well.

The Bucks mascot, Bango, was injured during the All-Star game. He fell threw the hoop.

Charlie Villanueva thought it was all part of the act. Until he realized it wasn't. Bango, he is sorry:

"To be real, I first I thought this was all part of the show," he writes. "I was actually laughing my butt off. And laughing pretty loud too, LOL, but then I saw poor Bango rollover as he fell, here I'm now thinking he was seriously hurt. The LOL stopped. Man, I hope you feel better soon Bango. Since I've been apologetic during this blog post, I'll apologize to you too for laughing. And I'll also apologize to you again for eating a reindeer-dog during our preseason trip to China, while in Alaska during our layover. I meant to apologize to you much earlier regarding the reindeer-dog incident, but I never came around to it. So sorry for eating one of your cousins, lol, it tasted pretty darn good though. Anything tastes good with some ketchup on it."

Twitter Watch

As Twitter continues to make its march to the mainstream—Did Barbara Walters kill it yesterday morning?—we're here to chronicle athletes' tweets:

Gary Payton had hot sandwiches in his lap yesterday. No later updates about burning himself.

Chris Bosh had the Raptors over for dinner this weekend.

Nick Swisher called into Best Damn Sports Show last night.

Shaq, with his eyes closed, trying to sleep. How's that for as close as you can get?

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