There was a time when Barry Zito was the best pitcher in baseball. That time was clearly not earlier this week.

Edited to add timing.

This couple was furious about the “pagan noise” and “cleavage” on display. Way too sexy!

Image by LEON NEAL / Getty Images

Dennis P. & Rosemarie Mitchell sent the following letter to the Duluth News Tribune regarding this year's Olympics. They were very upset. The original letter is in bold. BuzzFeed Sports' FireJoeMorgan-style commentary is in plain text.

We’ve enjoyed past Olympic openings and closings, and some of the sports.

Fair enough. Who likes all the sports? Nobody. You know why? Dressage.

But the quality of the past two or three Olympics has been a great disappointment.

You can't blame these people. They're right. The way NBC covers games is—

The entertainment of this latest Olympics was dark, loud, sexualized with scanty clothes and revealing cleavage on women, and with disturbing pagan noise. Connecting children, beds plus frightening villains made one think of pedophiles.

... Wait. What?

The black and red colors of sex and violence dominated most of the closing. The nuns were obviously there to mock Christianity while one could only think of Satan being glorified.

Obviously. When Monty Python brings out nuns Christianity is about to be mocked. How come? Because everyone knows Eric Idle is a satanist. (You know what they say about Idle hands.)

The comical entrance of the queen was one of the few bright spots.

Dennis P. and Rosemarie Mitchell are fine with a stunt man dressed up like an octogenarian jumping out of a plane, so long as he's not dressed like a nun. Because Satan.

Past Olympics had spectacular bright, cheerful and family-style entertainment but the English seem to have put teens who worship Satan in charge. It was disgraceful and we suffered through them hoping for some improvement.

I'm pretty sure the Mitchell's worldview was rocked by those DateLine and 20/20 reports on teenage satanists from the late '80s and early '90s. The fact that there was rock and roll at both ceremonies only confirms their suspicions.

Some of the clothes the competitors wore also reflect the sexualized entertainment.

Oh no.

The male swimmers look unprofessional with their hip-huggers trunks stopping just above their pubic region, as also the women’s track and volleyball with their underwear-bikinis.

First, I'm just going to set aside the interesting sentence structure above ("as also?") before my brain explodes. Yeah, how dare these athletes possibly compete in clothing that has been scientifically made for optimum performance? What would the Mitchells rather have them wear? The fencing gear would probably cause a bigger splash in the pool so I don't think divers would love the change (also the electronics in those suits would probably fry Tom Daley alive as soon as he hit the water, but hey at least Dennis wouldn't have to see the outline of his balls). As for the runners, I bet the couple Mitchell loved seeing that woman from Saudi Arabia. Not a lot showing there. Of course they also probably think she's a godless heathen who hasn't yet accepted Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior, but at least her ass isn't hanging out. Amirite?

All are offensive and degrading. These styles are also now worn in our schools and colleges, which no one seems to have objected to.

I wouldn't say no one. For instance there's this really obnoxious couple in Minnesota.

The girls’ gymnastics also are sexualized in their swimsuits and are too tight around the buttocks plus partially expose their butts.

Two thoughts. One, swimsuits? Two, I don't think they know what "plus" means.

We had enough with all the sexuality which took away any enjoyment to watch so we only watched the entertainment.

I have no idea what this means. Except a pretty boring life in the bedroom for Dennis.

Rio Di Janeiro has nothing better to offer with more dark juvenile entertainment and women parading around sexually, displaying cleavage and little talent.

Actually they're probably right on this one. The only problem is the Mitchells seem disappointed about this. I couldn't be more pumped. After all if any city knows how to throw entertaining parades and ceremonies...(NSFW).

Dennis P. & Rosemarie Mitchell

LINK: Read the original letter here.

Even Olympians like Nick Symmonds love the beer mile.

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Source: tmz.com

Could the royal keep up with the Olympian? Why is Ryan Lochte wearing pants in a pool? If they're both drunk does the race even count?

(Getty/Jason Merritt) (Getty/Pascal Le Segretain)

Image by Jason Merritt / Getty Images

Step One: Identify The Participants

That's Lochte splashing people like a douche.

Step Two: Clear A Path In The Pool Of Drunk People

Step Three: Stretch

Lochte is wearing pants. I'm not sure why.

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The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency swiftly responded to Armstrong's announcement Thursday that he would no longer challenge the agency. Here's why he stopped fighting.

Image by Mike Hutchings / Reuters

Image by Francois Lenoir / Reuters

Image by  Francois Lenoir / Reuters

LINK: See Armstrong's full statement here.

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Everyone's favorite hockey underdogs are all grown up.

Gordon Bombay — Emilio Estevez

EMILIO! Charlie Sheen's brother has definitely been the quieter of Martin Sheen's two famous sons. After the Ducks he made cameos in movies like Mission Impossible and TV shows like The West Wing, but his biggest projects since his hockey days have come in the past few years. 2006's Bobby and 2010's The Way was written and directed by Estevez. Both films received mixed reviews and also featured performances from Gordon Bombay.

Image by Charles Sykes / AP

Charlie Conway — Joshua Jackson

Joshua Jackson has had the most consistent career from youth to adulthood of any child star I can think of. As a kid he had The Mighty Ducks franchise. As a teen he had Dawson's Creek. As a young adult he had moody teen thrillers like Cruel Intentions and Skulls, and as an adult he has Fox's Fringe. That's crazy impressive. Way to go Charlie.

Fulton Reed — Elden Henson

Fulton had a big role in Ashton Kutcher "thriller" The Butterfly Effect, but has since been relegated to bit parts. He has worked consistently since the Ducks, though, appearing in projects like Grey's Anatomy and Deja Vu.

Goldberg — Shaun Weiss

Everyone's favorite goalie was a mainstay of kid comedies like The Mighty Ducks and Heavyweights. He's continued acting, and has since been seen in Freaks and Geeks, MTV's Undressed, and Drillbit Taylor.

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There are no out male athletes in the major league sports world today. But among pro ballers, the straight part of the gay-straight alliance is finally getting itself off the ground.

Image by John Gara/Buzzfeed

“If he’s sucking cock, he’s getting his ass kicked.”

New Jersey Devils winger Cam Jannsen said those words on an internet-radio talk show on July 12. In context, they were less sinister than they were crass; regardless, they reinforced the most pessimistic assumptions about homophobia in professional sports.

In a culture of increasing acceptance toward out individuals, in which the movement toward marriage equality sometimes appears unstoppable, sports remain one of the last frontiers of homophobic attitudes. Although the prevalence of gay sports leagues and gay sports bars go a long way toward proving that you don’t have to be straight to be an athlete — the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance, for example, counts more than 700 softball teams across the U.S. and Canada in its 44 affiliated leagues — the major leagues are another story.

There has never been an out athlete in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association or the National Hockey League.

Wade Davis Jr., the former NFL cornerback who is one of the few out gay athletes even to come out after their professional careers ended, sees the impact of anti-gay sentiment in his current work at the Hetrick-Martin Institute, which helps lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth between the ages of 12 and 24. “Most kids who I’ve talked to who are gay who play sports just don’t say anything,” Davis told BuzzFeed. “There are kids who stop playing sports because they’re out.”

Davis felt the same way while in the NFL and NFL Europe during the early 2000s, remaining in the closet until his football days were over. But times have begun to change. Prodded by activists, the four major American professional sports leagues are getting teams and players ready for the reality of out major league athletes.

Jannsen’s comments weren’t meant to suggest that gay men deserved to be assaulted, but to describe the way hockey players would use any available personal information to badger an opponent (the phrase “sucking cock” had been used first by the radio show’s host). Still, the standalone quote spread quickly as seemingly crystal-clear evidence of blatant homophobia among athletes. By the next morning, Janssen had apologized and pledged to eliminate that type of language from his vocabulary. Released through the Devils’s media operation, his mea culpa mentioned one activist group by name: “I would also like to take this chance to express my support for the work the You Can Play project is doing, and for the gay community in general.”

The quick response, the apology and the support “for the gay community” all were notable, but the reference to the You Can Play project statement highlighted what’s quickly become one of the most effective efforts to change the sports world’s mindset on LGBT issues.

In addition to being a scout for the Philadelphia Flyers and a law student, Patrick Burke is one of the three founders of You Can Play. Along with his father, Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke, Patrick is invested in LGBT issues because his brother Brendan — who was also involved in the hockey world and wanted to work for the NHL — was gay. Brendan died in a car accident at age 21 only a few months after publicly coming out, and Patrick and Brian have taken up his cause. You Can Play began in earnest in March 2012.

The Cam Jannsen incident illustrated how integral of a role You Can Play already has in turning professional sports into a safe place for LGBT issues. Burke told BuzzFeed that he first saw the video of Janssen’s comments around 5 p.m. that evening. Immediately, he emailed the Devils and told them he could help. Within the day, Janssen would call Burke three separate times. The next morning, Janssen’s apology was made public, including that formal statement of gratitude toward You Can Play.

Change has already arrived. In 2006, Sports Illustrated polled professional athletes and found that 80 percent of NHL players would welcome an openly gay athlete, and Burke estimates that number now at 90-95 percent. However, reaching that ultimate goal — an out player in professional sports — is still a ways off. Burke says that he’s been told by people he trusts that there are major league athletes who are out to select groups of their teammates, but that's as far as it goes for now.

Those working on the issue say that, in order to create an environment where a gay player would be comfortable, the NFL, NHL, MLB and NBA — and, perhaps more importantly, their players — need to take a public stand. As Hudson Taylor, a Columbia University assistant wrestling coach and the founder of Athlete Ally — another organization working to address LGBT issues in sports — told BuzzFeed, “If coaches and league officials and players become vocal allies, then that becomes a very easy place for a player to come out.”

One of the leagues taking direct action today is the NBA.

At this year’s NBA rookie camp, which concluded on Monday, attendees heard something that past first-year players hadn’t: A message about the importance that athletes play in creating a safe environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people — including, potentially, their new teammates.

The “ally training” presentation was a joint production of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and Athlete Ally. Aaron McQuade at GLAAD, who helped prepare the presentation, said, “There’s also an open invitation for any of the league’s players to contact us anytime, off-the-record, with any questions or concerns about how to deal with certain issues.”

Kathleen Behrens, the NBA’s executive vice president for social responsibility & player programs, called the “straightforward” effort launched this year at rookie camp an important and necessary step.

“We’ve always included a session and discussion with our players on cultural awareness and understanding,” she told BuzzFeed. “Given our role in the [Gay, Lesbian and Straight Eduction Network’s] ‘Think Before You Speak’ campaign and some unfortunate instances we had of players using homophobic slurs, we thought it was best to be a little more straightforward with our players in this area.”

One of those instances came in 2011, when Kobe Bryant, one of the most visible athletes in the world, called a referee a “fucking faggot.” Bryant later apologized and was fined $100,000 by the league. Only a month later, Chicago Bulls center Joakim Noah yelled “fuck you, fag” to a fan during a game. New York Knicks star Amar’e Stoudemire called one of his critics a “fag” on Twitter two months ago.

Specifically, Behrens noted, “Working with GLAAD and Athlete Ally gives us a chance to not only say ‘don't say this,’ but hopefully to give our players a better understanding of the challenges LGBT kids are facing and the role we can play in ensuring that sports, schools and playgrounds are a safe haven for all kids.”

McQuade explained that the video presentation was focused on the idea — prominent throughout pro-LGBT sports work — of creating allies among straight athletes.

“First, we defined the word ‘ally.’ We then explained why NBA players should strive to be allies, touching on their status as role models, their ability to impact young people, and a frank talk on the problems that can arise from using anti-gay language,” he detailed. “Finally, we gave players some tips on how to be allies, from the basics (watch what you say) to participating in things like Spirit Day, up to and including partnering with organizations like GLAAD and Athlete Ally to spread a message of respect and inclusion.”

GLAAD’s McQuade has been heading up the media watchdog group’s involvement in sports-related issues, observing to BuzzFeed that “leagues, teams and athletes hold the same cultural status that [traditional GLAAD observation subjects like] networks, studios or celebrities do — in some cases perhaps even more — and have just as much potential to make the world a safer place for LGBT people.” Said McQuade: “There are dozens of outlets dedicated to nothing but sports, and those involved with the sports world are some of the most active and influential in social media.”

Meanwhile, the sports world is even less gay-friendly now than the military, which post-DADT is filled with out members. Army Brigadier General Tammy Smith recently became the first out general. That’s part of why Taylor says changing attitudes within the sports world is important for LGBT advocates — but also why it can be so difficult.

“Our athletic community isn’t going to be everything that it should be until we have a critical mass of straight allies who are vocal supporters,” Taylor said. “I’ve been a wrestler my whole life, I was raised as an athlete, and I think I was taught a very narrow conception of what was masculine or what was required of me to be a successful athlete,” he added.

Calling the NBA’s inclusion of LGBT issues in rookie camp “an enormous statement,” Taylor said, “I think it sends a very clear message to the closeted athletes in the professional sports world, as well as closeted coaches and athletes in college and high school, that an organization like the NBA not only supports them but is willing and ready and actually doing something to advance LGBT equality and inclusion in sports.”

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This is uncomfortable.

Megan Lochte made waves in London, by being an attractive woman sitting on Ryan Lochte's lap. TMZ published a photo of them with the headline "Breaststroke, Anyone?" Then everyone realized that it was Ryan's sister and immediately agreed to forget that we had temporarily turned our Olympic douchesweetheart into the creepy incestual Luke Skywalker that George Lucas made us deal with in Empire Strikes Back.

Turns out, there were other, way more disgusting reasons to ignore Megan. For instance, she's a horrible racist. This interview is from shortly after she returned from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and in it, she seems to really be enjoying a certain epithet for Chinese people.

Note: We've been asked to remove the video, so instead enjoy what was previously thought to be the most embarrassing video associated with the Lochtes.

Source: youtube.com

A Sampling Of Lochte's "Insight" On China:

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Okay, it all is. But the strategic and psychological aspects of the game often get lost in a haze of numbers. We've employed an ace from Football Guys, the web’s smartest and most hard-core fantasy football site, to provide some draft-day tips for your mind, head and brain.

Image by John Gara/Buzzfeed

The foundation of a good fantasy team is preparation and clarity in your player rankings — but preparation is nothing without the mental qualities of agility and tranquility on draft day. Here, guidelines for drafting like a ninja gymnast: flexible, sneaky, calm but alert, and ready to execute acrobatic decapitations.

Prepare Constantly For Disaster

Although there maybe wasn't a Plan B for these guys by this point. "Is it never put water on a blimp fire or always put water on a blimp fire?"

Source: upload.wikimedia.org

As information becomes more free and swift-travelling in the fantasysphere, it is becoming more difficult to count on being able to land a specific player in a specific round. Your plan A might be Matt Ryan in the sixth round at quarterback, but would you call an audible if Tom Brady fell to you in the second? Michael Vick in the fifth? By walking through these scenarios before they happen, you’ll avoid the panic of improvising. Not knowing what to do when an expected pick is sniped is the primary cause of “going on tilt” and losing your focus. Envision your perfect successful draft, but also envision failure — both before the draft and during it — and make notes on what you might do if you don’t get what you want.

This is also where tier-based drafting can be your Xanax. List your targets in groups of players you consider to have roughly the same value; when the last guy in one tier is nabbed right in front of you, it's time to move to a different position of need.

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…Is probably something like changing an iconic blue, avian logo into a red dragon. This is what happened to a century-old Welsh soccer team's supporters as British soccer, once ultra-parochial, keeps going global.

In boxing, there is a fighter in the red corner and one in the blue corner. In politics, there are red states and blue states. Red and blue are the colors of rivals — Red Sox and Yankees, Michigan and Ohio State, Manchester United and Manchester City.

For over 100 years, the Cardiff City soccer club were on Team Blue. Their jerseys were blue. Their nickname was "The Bluebirds." But when the cash-strapped club recently accepted a $160 million investment, they also accepted a big change: this season, their emblem is a red dragon, and they'll wear red at home. (Their away jersey remains blue).

The brand overhaul was an essential condition of a cash injection by Malaysian billionaire Vincent Tan. When news of his demand leaked in May, fans reacted furiously, and Tan was ready to pull the plug on his purchase of a stake. But with Cardiff approximately $32 million in debt and losing $1.6 million every month, the club's board ultimately chose to save themselves by accepting the money and the re-brand.

To this day, says Tim Hartley — chair of the Cardiff City Supporters Trust, a fan group — "the reason for changing to red and changing the badge has never been explained,” he says. “We don’t understand why the investment was partly dependent on the change of color.”

One can easily read between the lines in Cardiff City's statement on the new uniforms, though: “The color red is widely recognized as being synonymous with Welsh culture and heritage. The color also holds strong spiritual significance in Asia, where it is seen as a symbol of power, prosperity and good fortune.”

The team's away kit remains blue, but the home laundry is red.

Global appeal: English soccer is all about it these days. Some Saturday and Sunday games are now played at 12.45 pm GMT instead of the traditional 3 pm, allowing hundreds of millions of fans in Asia to watch live and still go to bed at a reasonable hour. But far more radical proposals are on the table. It will be a long time before promotion and relegation are abolished, but such a "breakaway" by a top group of teams is considered an eventual possibility. And the "39th Game" — an extra game that would be added to each EPL team’s fixture list and played in the Middle East, Asia, Australia or the US — is a real likelihood.

This season, 11 out of 20 Premier League teams are foreign-owned. Most of the prime candidates for relegation — the bottom three teams in the EPL get demoted to the second-tier Championship league, whose top two squads are then promoted, as is a third decided by a playoff — will be British-owned teams, while many of teams pushing for promotion from beneath are foreign-owned. It’s possible that 14 foreign-owned teams could start the 2013-14 season. And 14 is the magic number needed to pass any vote on Premier League rule changes, which could mean that practices like the 39th Game could become reality.

Teams (and indeed the whole EPL) ignore the imperatives to think globally at their peril. The league is currently by far the most popular in the world in terms of both revenue and viewership. Sport Markt, a German consultancy, found that fans of EPL teams worldwide accounted for 70 percent of the total global soccer fanbase of 2.3 billion people. EPL games are beamed into 643 million homes globally and the league generates £500 million ($800 million) each year from its foreign broadcast rights.

According to a survey performed by Kantar, Manchester United, the world’s biggest sports team, has 659 million supporters worldwide. 325 million of those fans are found in the Asia Pacific region. Cardiff’s entire population is just 325,000, so even a small share of the Asian market would massively boost Cardiff’s coffers.

Stefan Szymanski, a University of Michigan professor who co-wrote Soccernomics, believes that many teams are at serious risk of being left behind in this new phase of economic expansion.

“To be a club that makes it into EPL is the biggest prize in world sports,” he says. “It would be worth moving heaven and hell to get into the EPL. There’s no other soccer league to compare. It’s becoming a global league, the first truly global league in history.”

The financial rewards of playing a single season in the EPL are enormous —promoted teams can expect to earn at least £40 million ($64 million) from the EPL’s TV revenues alone. Teams in the Championship, like Cardiff, urgently need to make the leap for reasons beyond pride alone.

From an economic perspective, at least, Cardiff's beleaguered fans are ahead of the curve in soccer's scramble for Asia, fighting for a share of that enormous and still-developing market, and the cash windfall that might finally push them up into the Premiership. And so far this season, Cardiff are unbeaten in red. But they did lose an away game wearing blue.

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Nepal will host the groundbreaking games in October. See photos from the LGBT community's first training session.

More than 200 LGBT athletes from 17 Asian countries are slated to compete in the festival on Oct. 12.

Image by Niranjan Shrestha / AP

Here, members of the Blue Diamond Society, Nepal's only gay rights group, practice at Dasarath stadium in Katmandu on Sunday, Aug. 26.

Sunilbabu Pant, head of the Blue Diamond Society.

Image by Niranjan Shrestha / AP

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Warning: May cause spontaneous desire to achieve greatness. Corporal Todd Love isn't going to let something like losing all but one of his limbs slow him down.

The Spartan Race is an international obstacle course that challenges participants to push themselves beyond their limits. Which is exactly what Corporal Todd Love chose to do as part of Team E-X.T.R.E.M.E., an eight member group that signed up to run the Beast, the most brutal of all Spartan events.

Over a span of five and a half hours, 22-year-old Love covered 10.5 miles of muddy, rugged terrain and completed over 75 obstacles with minimal help from his team.

The corporal had been preparing for the challenge ever since he began to recover from the explosion in Afghanistan in 2010 that left him with only one of his natural limbs. Love said he set out, "…to push [myself] in all things physical, proving that overcoming obstacles isn’t just something you attempt, it’s something that you embrace."

You can read more of his incredible story here.

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File under: Things that must happen!

Last night, LeBron James couldn't sleep. I don't know if it's a good thing or not that I know that, but thanks to Twitter, I know that LeBron was the only person at his house awake last night. And after initially dealing with his insomnia by unpacking his bags and opening some packages that had come for him (seriously, do we need this much access to celebrities and athletes?), he decided to open his Twitter feed up for questions.

Most of them were the typical, boring questions we've grown to expect guys like LeBron to answer, but two stood out.

The first was, "Where did your hairline go?" Now that he's silenced all of those fourth quarter and "Lord of No Rings" jokes, the only consistent laugh people are getting at LeBron's expense is at his quickly vanishing hairline. So it was fun to see LeBron join in. Well, as fun as watching a multi-millionaire with insomnia answer boring tweet questions can be. Says the king, "Man I have no idea! If u find it, let me know and we'll go pick it up 2gether." Well played LeBron.

The other fun question should immediately put the gears of Hollywood in motion.

Source: @KingJames

I say this as a LeBron hater (Cleveland born and raised), but this guy was born to hang out with Bugs Bunny. LeBron is naturally charming and charismatic in a way that Jordan never was. Jordan was engaging and intense, but LeBron is actually funny. (See his ESPY hosting job, for example — can you ever imagine Jordan letting himself be the joke like this?) So someone better have a sequel idea ready.

What's that? Do I have an idea? If you really want to know—

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Kobe is one of the greatest players of all time, but nothing he does is original.

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Realized that you can follow the English Premier League and La Liga without hurting your favorite NFL or college team's feelings? Here, some intermediate-to-advanced concepts that will help your soccer fandom leave you just as bitter and emotionally ravaged as our own brand of football.

Robin van Persie, newly of Manchester United, celebrates.

Image by Shaun Botterill / Getty Images

A lot of Americans watch soccer. You’re actually allowed to say that now because, well, it’s true. More and more people are tapped into the success, failures, and frustrations of the U.S. National Teams. ESPN went all out with their 2010 World Cup and Euro 2012 coverage. And Twitter is punch-drunkenly active early every Saturday morning when the English Premier League kicks off. You’re interested; now it’s time to get to know the game on a deeper level so you can act like a good sports fan by complaining about your useless [expletive] players and brain-dead team management.

My team is playing a 4-4-2. Two forwards! Why aren't we scoring more?

The 4-4-2 is the formation everyone played in high school, and it dominated pro leagues in the '90s and aughts. But as the game’s evolved, the formation’s been overrun by other more efficient systems. Still, for some (including people who get paid to coach soccer), the thinking wrongly goes: Two strikers! More goals! Put plainly, the best soccer teams do not play a 4-4-2. More than half the Premier League, the MLS, and the English national team do, but that does not change the previous sentence. Successful teams don’t play 4-4-2 because successful teams found more efficient ways to use the entire field — dispersing players into more than three horizontal lines — and exploit the 4-4-2’s weaknesses by overloading the midfield and employing hybrid-type players who play between levels.

Across Europe, the best teams tend to play with only one defined striker, in either a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-3-3. The most prominent teams — Barcelona and Spain — aren't quite the right ones to look at; Spain doesn’t even play with one recognizable striker, while Barcelona has Messi, and complaining about not having “a Messi” is like being angry you don’t live in a moon compound. In a way, though, Spain/Barcelona are less outliers than they are extreme examples, a culmination of what’s been happening with soccer for the past 10-15 years. No longer do strikers play offense, defenders play defense, and midfielders do both. You might have heard that the Dutch pioneered the approach, called “Total Football,” in the seventies, but it never achieved such widespread acceptance/success until recently. Now, everyone does everything — even goalies — and at the same time, the roles have become more specialized. If your coach is consistently deploying a 4-4-2 and still playing lumbering center-backs who only break legs and kick balls into the press box, your team is probably getting passed by.

One of the soccer world's most notoriously lumbering center-backs is this pile of lumber.

Source: static2.publicphoto.org

So the best soccer pros are like five-tool baseball players?

Kind of, but it’s more like what’s happening in basketball. Players like Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Garnett, LeBron James and Kevin Durant have undermined the distinctions that once divided big men into small forward, power forward, and center categories. The strict definitions for positions in sports are disappearing, and it’s all for the better. Offenses are harder to stop, defenses are more creative, and games play out in new ways. [Your team here] needs to stop living in the past.

How does this play out in soccer?

Players are getting more amazingly versatile every year. The strategic concept of, say, a defender making an attacking run while a midfielder moves back to cover his spot isn’t new, but what today’s players are doing goes further than positional interchangeability. What they’re doing is positioning themselves in spaces that might have seemed “wrong” to observers twenty years ago, because they didn’t fall within the strict defense-midfield-or-striker definitions. Now, like LeBron running the Heat’s offense from a posted-up power forward spot, the best players have the all-around and specialized skills to flourish in these areas. Take Sergio Busquets, of Spain and Barcelona. He never scores and never even really sets up any goals, but he sits between the midfield and defense and breaks up attacks as well as anyone. He’s also the pivot between offense and defense. Watch this video (and maybe turn off the sound), and see how many times he makes a simple-looking pass or turn that diffuses pressure and allows an attack to continue — sort of like an outlet pass. Having someone like Busquets, rather than strictly defensive midfielders like Nigel de Jong or Mark Van Bommel (sorry, Dutch fans from 2010), will make it easier to watch your team.

Further up, every good team, it seems, has at least one player, an attacking midfielder, who gets the ball to awkward positions between the opposition’s midfield and defense — through dribbling and off-ball movement — which creates openings and new angles. Think of how Chris Paul and Steve Nash dribble in circles, going in and out of the paint and holding onto the ball for long periods in a way you’d never recommend to a young point guard, in order to open up passing lanes. Mesut Ozil — and Messi, because he’s the best at everything — are the best in the world at this. Attacks become predictable without players like Ozil getting into strange positions. You create goals by creating chances, the thinking goes, and not by just putting a bunch of goal scorers on the field. The 0-0-11 doesn’t even work in FIFA 2013, coach.

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McKayla Maroney isn't the only one who has a perfect second-place scowl.

Earlier today, Andres Iniesta won the UEFA Player of the Season award over Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, who both tied for second.

As you can see from this screencap — provided by SoccerByIves's Ives Galarcep — Cristiano Ronaldo was not happy. Dare we say — he was not impressed?

MCKAYLA HOW'D YOU GET THERE.

As you can see, this isn't the first time Cristiano Ronaldo has been unimpressed. Here he is, thinking that there are a full five guys on that team Diego Maradona isn't running past right here.

Image by Steve Powell / Getty Images

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The FBI released its file on Joe Paterno last night. Amidst the creepy, violent threats (and the horrible context that led the records to be requested in the first place), a fruitcake bandit provides a moment of levity.

The material Joe Paterno and his staff turned over to the FBI during his Penn State tenure included the wrapping from a mysterious fruitcake.

Two Penn State players, according to an FBI memo, ate the cake, believing it had come from one of their high school coaches. After speaking to the coach, they realized it had not, and reported the incident to Paterno. According to files (which did not contain any material on the Jerry Sandusky case), it seems the mystery of the fruitcake was never solved. (The players were OK.)

Among the rest of the material are some disturbing death threats, like this one.

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Brazilian Gabriel Muniz has amazed his friends, family and Barcelona with his awesome soccer skills, despite the fact that he was born without feet

Source: youtube.com

The American tennis star announced his retirement on Thursday.

Image by Chris Trotman / Getty Images

Nine years after he won the U.S. Open, Andy Roddick announced Thursday that he'll retire after this year's tournament. "I just feel like it's time. I don't know if I'm healthy or committed enough to go another year," he told reporters.

Roddick plays Bernard Tomic tomorrow night. While he's won 32 career titles, his only major title was earned in Flushing Meadows.

Kent State's Andre Parker recovered a fumble. This is usually a good thing. But then he took it 65 yards the wrong way.

Let's set the scene. Here are the relevant parties: Kent State is punting to Towson, and Andre Parker is at the top of the screen.

Towson's returner just slightly miffs the punt as he tries to avoid it, meaning that it's a live ball.

Parker grabs it on Towson's 6-yard line, putting Kent State in easy striking distance. But then... he makes a strange decision. He runs the wrong way.

Next, the Towson players make a strange decision of their own — they tackle him. Obviously, they were caught up in the action, but if they had just let him run, it could've been a safety.

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