Sports Kabob – 3/31

Ladies and gentlemen (and especially ladies), welcome to the Sports Kabob, a skewered look at the world of sports and pop culture.

Here are the top stories:

Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Santonio Holmes denies hurting a woman who says he threw a glass at her in an Orlando nightclub
Holmes claims he couldn’t have assaulted the woman in question, since she was in the bathroom with Ben Roethlisberger at the time

Minnesota Twins outfielder Denard Span hit a foul ball that struck his mother in the chest in the first inning of Wednesday’s spring training game against the New York Yankees.
Span apologized profusely and said he was aiming for his mother-in-law

Joey Porter, 33, was arrested by the California Highway Patrol early Saturday in a Taco Bell parking lot in Bakersfield on suspicion of drunken driving. He also was accused of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.
Porter is the most famous person to get in trouble while looking for tacos since Sandra Bullock’s husband

A $100,000 offer from Texas Motor Speedway president Eddie Gossage to a radio personality to change his name to promote the track was a hoax, Gossage said Wednesday. Gossage and TMS officials sent out an official release Wednesday on speedway letterhead saying Dallas DJ Terry Dorsey had accepted Gossage’s offer of $100,000 to legally change his name to TexasMotorSpeedway.com.
Insiders knew that someone being paid to change their name to a NASCAR website had to be a hoax, since most NASCAR fans don’t even know how to use a computer

Major League Baseball is exploring the possibility of sending two teams to Italy for spring training next year or in 2012.
Baseball in Italy is baseball in the US, except in Italy there are far more wild pitches since the balls are so greasy

UTEP officials say former USC coach and one-time Miners assistant Tim Floyd will named the team’s new head coach
El Paso is known for it’s hot summers and desert landscape, meaning that Floyd is by far the shadiest thing in the city

Former UCLA coach Steve Lavin is the new head coach of St. John’s
Lavin said he only accepted the coaching position after St John’s agreed to pay him 50% of his salary in hair gel

The Arizona State football team began their first spring practice Tuesday with a coin flip to decide who gets the ball, but this flip had a twist. Instead of deciding who kicks off first, this coin flip decided who would be the starting quarterback first.
Of course, the coin flip had to be done several times since Kyle Williams kept dropping it

Louisville and coach Rick Pitino have agreed to a four-year contract extension that will keep Pitino with the Cardinals through 2017.
As part of his new deal Pitino will get a raise in salary, an increase in responsibility, and his very own table at the local diner to “do whatever he wants.”

Cuban defector Aroldis Chapman will likely start the season in the Cincinnati Reds’ farm system.
So with Chapman’s demotion, that means that the most famous person to defect from one side to another is still Ricky Martin

That’s all for this week, leave comments and remember this is Jarrett Carlen saying I’m looking already looking forward to the sequel to “Hot Tub Time Machine,” “Steam Room Space Rocket”

For more of my observations on the world of sports, as well as politics, entertainment and current events, follow me on twitter @JarrettGC.

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