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Every time you think athletes are pampered, rich and famous, remember that "regular" celebrities are even more pampered and even more famous (rich is debatable). Take, for instance, the comparison of Chipper Jones and Kelly Clarkson.

To those of us who care deeply about athletics, Chipper is immensely famous. More so than Clarkson anyway. But to the rest of the world, Clarkson >>> Larry when it comes to fame. And she let him know it the other night too. From ESPN the Mag outtakes with Kenny Mayne via LBS:

KM: Do you get recognized everywhere you go by now?

CJ: Funny story about that. Last year I was at the Daytona 500 with a friend and Richard Childress. Kelly Clarkson, who had sung before the race, came into the room. She walked my way, looking at me like she knew who I was, so I started to put out my hand. Then she pulls out a camera and asks me to take a photo of her and her friends. My buddy lost it. I'm from Daytona, so everybody knows me there. I was so embarrassed that I just wanted to go get a beer. Boy, was I put out.

That's like the time I tried to talk to Fantasia when she was in High Point and she totally blew me off. ("But I blog for a living! What's not to get?") Only if I was a successful baseball player and she was still famous for her American Idol run.

In other words, embarrassing, yes, but big deal? Absolutely not. That's why Chipper's laughing about it in the back page of an overly dramatic sports mag.

There's nothing that gets me worked up more than lazy sports writing. These days, the internet makes pesky things like "fact-checking" so easy that they can be done simultaneously with writing. Unfortunately, that's not always how things work. In his latest piece for ESPN the Magazine, Rick Reilly (with his, as he put it, "ridonkulous" ESPN salary), gives us this paragraph in regards to this umpire beaning incident.

It happened on May 31 in the Georgia high school Class AAA championship game. Stephens County was losing to Cartersville 9-1 early, partly because nine straight SCHS batters had struck out. The last ring-up so hacked off superstar shortstop Ethan Martin-who had just been drafted 15th overall by the Dodgers-that he threw his helmet in protest. But that figured. Martin and his brother, Cody, who was pitching, reportedly had been complaining about balls and strikes the entire game.

The emphasis is mine, because the draft was on June 5th, meaning it's quite literally impossible for Martin to have "just been drafted" because the game was six days before the draft. Now, I get that this seems like a small thing to be whining over. It's an easily glossed over nit that an editor should've caught and we should move on with our lives ... right?

The easy way out would be to mock Joe Morgan for getting another degree. And then mocking those that gave it to him even more. But that's really more of a job for someone else. Still, if you have ever watched him type in a chat or talk about certain aspects of the game, it is fairly humorous that Morgan is being granted bonus degrees from someone.

The baseball Hall of Famer and two-time NL Most Valuable Player received an honorary doctorate of humane letters Saturday from California State University, East Bay-the school where the Bay Area native earned his bachelor's degree after his 22-year playing career ended.

[...]'I've always felt that the quality of your life is directly related to the quality of your education,' said Morgan, who earned his bachelor's degree in 1990. 'If you continue your education, I believe you'll continue to improve the quality of your life.'

Now, more to the point of why this is actually a good thing; Morgan apparently returned -- and I was unaware of this -- to get his bachelor's degree after playing baseball for 22 years. He had no reason to; certainly he had made enough money over that time to retire. But he promised his parents he would get the degree and he followed up on that promise.

And now the university that gave him the degree decided to "further" his education in an honorary fashion. And when a famous alumni gives you over $150,000 in endowment money, you make sure that you give him publicity props. And that's especially fine as long as they are basing such publicity on his pre-announcing career.

Now that former Patriots employee Matt Walsh has finally come forward and said he did not tape the Rams' final walk-through practice before the 2002 Super Bowl, the Boston Herald is coming under increased scrutiny for its report three months ago that said someone on the Patriots had, in fact, spied on the Rams.

On ESPN Radio this morning, reporter Chris Mortensen suggested that the Herald reported that "scoop" not because the Herald had better sources than other media outlets, but because the Herald had lower standards than other media outlets.

"Other media outlets including ESPN, had this allegation and pursued this allegation for months, and it just didn't meet the standard in terms of what you needed to report it, and the Boston Herald evidently felt they had met the standard to report it," Mortensen said. "They need to come out and say, 'We stand by our story' or they need to have a retraction and apology and deal with the consequences of it, but certainly it's damaging to the Boston Herald at this point, especially if they stay silent on the subject."

By now, you've almost certainly seen the clip I've embedded above of Miguel Tejada being presented with his birth certificate by Tom Farley for ESPN's news magazine E:60. Tejada is clearly flustered in the clip and today he says that he's not at all happy with the way ESPN ambushed him and presented the clip:

Tejada said he believes his family was misled by ESPN, suggesting the network had indicated a camera crew that went to the Dominican Republic was affiliated with the Houston Astros. He also expressed displeasure with the way a recent interview was presented and the way it was conducted recently in Philadelphia.

[...]

"They called me about two days before the interview and told me it was going to be more about baseball," Tejada said. "When I got there, I thought it was about baseball and they throw me a 98 mph fastball inside."

Seeing as both the team and Tejada are shuffling this off as a non-story (I'm not so sure it is, but if the Astros don't care then there's no where else to go with it), I tend to believe Tejada here. That hasn't stopped ESPN from presenting the story as a "shocking revelation about Tejada's past." A Latin American player is slightly older than we thought he was! Wow! That is truly surprising and definitely doesn't happen all the time!

Pablo Picasso once said, "good artists copy; great artists steal." Well, ESPN the Magazine the Website employs some great freakin' artists. Their "Choose Your Own Adventure: Kobe Bryant" concept looks awfully damn familiar. I know, I know, we were admittedly inspired by the original Bantam Books series we read when we were kids, but that just means we're great artists, too! Fun!

Coming up with new ideas is hard. Like, really, really hard. Especially on a sunny Friday afternoon when you'd rather be outside lying under a tree next to one of those fake coyotes. So to help everyone out, we here at FanHouse thought we'd put together a handy little guide for the future:

I think we can all agree that in the 2430 Major League Baseball games played this season there will be a winner and a loser in each one. That's what history has taught us, anyway, and there's no reason to expect a rash of ties or other oddities to pop up and cause a different outcome. Unless you work for ESPN, that is.

Tim Kurkjian, Jayson Stark, Buster Olney and Steve Phillips all turned in projections that add up to more than 2430 victories over the course of this baseball season. I don't know what Keith Law is smoking but that nutjob actually sticks to the established norm and comes up with an average of 81 wins per team. Sadly none of them offered insight for why there will be so many more winners than losers this season.

There shouldn't be much more analysis needed to discover that these guys are just throwing out random numbers when faced with the ardous task of predicting records but Vegas Watch did a little more digging and found that one man is particularly unwilling to be confined by mathematical certainties.

Phillips is so absurd. Here's my favorite little stat from all of these: he has 14 teams winning 88 or more games. Think about that for a second- that's one team away from half of baseball.

Check them all out here but, please, don't use them for anything that might cost you money.

Earl Weaver is a classic, right? But that doesn't mean that he's also not, you know, still alive. I love Tony Kornheiser's bemused expression at Mike Wilbon's gaffe: "I think he's with us." And as Awful Announcing points out, Weaver is only 77 years old, not 88. AA said that Wilbon laughed off the mistake when informed after the show, but I'm guessing Weaver probably had a completely different reaction (that a few dozen f-bombs) were he watching from home.
Sorry, No Photos Previously on FanHouse:
ESPN Analysts Compare Joe Alexander to Other White Guys, Larry Bird and Jerry West

We discussed Prince Fielder's contract poutfest the other day, in which Prince made it clear that Prince isn't so happy about only making a renewed $670,000 after Prince's monster season. It's understandable: Everyone wants to be paid what they're worth, and 50 home runs is worth way, way more than 700k. What's not so understandable is Gene Wojciechowski's baffling column today, which makes it seem like Fielder is about to burn down Milwaukee's dugout:

Tomorrow, there could be another villain for Fielder. But for now, the renewed contract will do just fine. "He'll just use that as another chip," Gwynn said. "Who knows? He might be looking at 60 or 70 [home runs] this year." Good for Fielder. Costly, very costly, for the Brewers.

Wait a second. How, exactly, is the thought of Prince Fielder hitting 70 home runs good only for Prince Fielder and not for the Brewers? Prince Fielder plays for the Brewers. Confusing! I guess the innuendo here suggests that Fielder is sure to leave Milwaukee the minute he's able to, and maybe he will -- it will be tough for the Brewers to pony up the cash. But they're already said they plan on trying. So where, exactly, is the beef?*

*Hint: It's not in Prince's tummy! Get it?

Do you want to know why former Patriots video assistant, Matt Walsh isn't talking details about his role in Spygate publicly? The answer is legal maneuvering. His attorney wants a complete indemnification (protection against legal risk and costs) agreement from the NFL to protect his client from being destroyed with legal fees and lawsuits.

I'm here to break the news to you that the NFL will never to agree to that. To explain my thoughts* on why, I'm going to go all Roger Cossack on you.

As you probably know, Walsh, who worked for the Patriots between 1996 and 2003, has said that he has potentially damaging information to the Patriots. He won't say specifically what this information contains.

At the same time, he's been working as an assistant golf pro in Maui, and he doesn't want to spend his salary on lawsuits and lawyers. He may also be sipping cocktails out of coconut shells with umbrellas in them, for all I know. Point being: He wants to fess up what he knows, and he wants to keep his good life.