FDH Lounge #152: June 28, 2011

By Rick Morris

It’s Hall of Fame Night in THE FDH LOUNGE (Tuesdays, 7-9 PM EST on SportsTalkNetwork.com).

After The Opening Statements of The FDH Lounge Dignitaries and This Week in The FDH Lounge, we’ve got a big thrill for motorsports fans like us: the defending (and two-time) winner of the Indianapolis 500, Dan Wheldon. Due to the peculiar economics of the sport, he’s actually without a regular ride at the moment! Think about that the next time you feel like you’re in a “what have you done for me lately” situation! We’ll catch up with Dan, who is also the 2005 IRL IndyCar Series Champion (having finished second in 2004 and 2006 and fourth in 2007-08, marking a remarkable five-year run in the top four at the end of the season) and explore his options through 2011 and beyond.

Next, we bring in the first of our two Hall of Famers tonight, this one from the world of baseball. Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry was one of the great hurlers – and characters – of the second half of the 20^th century and we’ll be talking about his career and his thoughts on the game.

The momentum continues – and then some – at the top of Hour Two with ½ of arguably the greatest tag team of all time: WWE Hall of Famer “Road Warrior Animal” Joe Laurinaitis! His brand-new book THE ROAD WARRIORS: DANGER, DEATH AND THE RUSH OF WRESTLING is an incredible look at the careers that helped change pro wrestling once and for all. We’ll work our way through as much of this unbelievable story as we can and possibly get a chance to chat with his son James also (yes, “Little Animal,” the Rams and former Ohio State linebacker!).

Then, our pal Fox 29 Philly sportscaster Joe Staszak joins us to break down the NHL Entry Draft and in large part, the most explosive elements of it: the Flyers’ trades of Jeff Carter and Mike Richards. We wrap as usual with THE FANTASYDRAFTHELP.COM INSIDER and our recap of the NBA Draft. Remember that PRO HOOPS DRAFTOLOGY 2011 and PRO HOCKEY DRAFTOLOGY 2011 are the only guides you need for your information on the key players in each draft.

As always, we urge you to watch the show live (or listen if you’re on dial-up), but if you can’t catch this as it’s happening, you can always catch the FDH archives 24-7 right here or catch us on iTunes.

Lounge on YouTube: Thurman Munson author Marty Appel

By Rick Morris

At long last, Lounge Lizards, we’ve broken the seal on The FDH Lounge YouTube channel! As we go along, we’ll be uploading classic segments from the history of our program (Tuesdays, 7-9 PM EDT on SportsTalkNetwork.com) and when we do, we’ll embed them here.

Up next: we speak with noted baseball author Marty Appel about his Thurman Munson biography.

Lounge on YouTube: 2010 MLB regular season review

By Rick Morris

At long last, Lounge Lizards, we’ve broken the seal on The FDH Lounge YouTube channel! As we go along, we’ll be uploading classic segments from the history of our program (Tuesdays, 7-9 PM EDT on SportsTalkNetwork.com) and when we do, we’ll embed them here.

Up next: The FDH Lounge Dignitaries review the 2010 MLB regular season.

Lounge on YouTube: ThisIsWhyYoureFat.com analysis

By Rick Morris

At long last, Lounge Lizards, we’ve broken the seal on The FDH Lounge YouTube channel! As we go along, we’ll be uploading classic segments from the history of our program (Tuesdays, 7-9 PM EDT on SportsTalkNetwork.com) and when we do, we’ll embed them here.

Up next: we break down the sweet wonder that is the ThisIsWhyYoureFat.com website.

Lounge on YouTube: The Pantheon (football & hoops)

By Rick Morris

At long last, Lounge Lizards, we’ve broken the seal on The FDH Lounge YouTube channel! As we go along, we’ll be uploading classic segments from the history of our program (Tuesdays, 7-9 PM EDT on SportsTalkNetwork.com) and when we do, we’ll embed them here.

Up next: The FDH Lounge Pantheon inducts its honorees for football and hoops.

2010 NBA Draft winners and losers

By Rick Morris

2011 NBA Draft Winners

1 Cleveland – Less than 12 months after He Who Shall Not Be Named booked, the next franchise player is in place? Unbelievable. And yes, draft “experts,” Kyrie Irving is a franchise player. Tristan Thompson is not a horrible pick, but he raises questions in terms of his offensive game and the team’s (temporary?) logjam at the 4.

2 Detroit – Joe Dumars gets saved from himself, just as Michael Jordan did with his second pick. Dear Romey, Hall of Fame players are can’t-miss drafters. Sincerely, Elgin Baylor.

3 Miami – We’ll skip the “Norris Cole … talents to South Beach” layup and simply note that he’s already a more legitimate 1 than anyone Miami had last year.

4 Denver – Sure picked up some nice forwards.

5T Houston – The flip side of our Phoenix assessment!

5T Washington – They picked up some nice complementary pieces for John Wall, not least of which a nice value in Chris Singleton.

2011 NBA Draft Losers

1 Sacramento – Kings could have had Jimmer at 7; instead they traded down three spots so they could pick up John Salmons’ bloated contract. Whatevs.

2 Phoenix – You took the wrong Morris!

3 Utah – Sorry, Utah, a soft Euro’s not going to help you more than Brandon Knight would have.

4 Charlotte – LOVE LOVE LOVE Kemba Walker, but Bismack Biyombo at 7? He’s Mutombo without the offense.

5 Portland – Why reach for Nolan Smith? Trade down, young fella.

Video Clips: Ryan Dunn

By Rick Morris

The point of this post is to celebrate the silly, mindless, necessary humor Ryan Dunn brought to the world through JACKASS and VIVA LA BAM. First, though, some necessary words about why we’re even discussing his life at this time – because it is over.

Roger Ebert is, unfortunately, not alone in his mean-spirited “neener neener neener” sentiments about Dunn and what caused his death (personally, I draw a straight line between Ebert’s behavior and his similarly-expressed thoughts on religion, but that’s another conversation for another day). Twitter and Facebook are full of this garbage.

When you look at what Ryan Dunn had and what he, through stupidity, threw away, isn’t that the greatest cautionary tale about drunk driving that could ever be told? I’m not saying that we owe him a debt of thanks – just the opposite and that’s why I’m not going over the top with “RIP Random Hero” sentiment. His actions also killed his friend Zachary Hartwell, a military hero and that’s incredibly hard to forgive. But to act like his final actions are glorifying a bad lifestyle or like people won’t get the message from said actions about drinking and driving – give me a break. Nobody is going to want to go out like Ryan did. And he paid the ultimate price for drinking and driving.

But to belabor the circumstances is incredibly cruel to those who are left behind. I’m not going to embed the Bam Margera crash scene video here, nor link to it, because it is incredibly disturbing, but it’s necessary to watch to understand the human impact. Ryan Dunn was his best friend and with them both as public figures, he’s got nowhere to hide as he processes the greatest shock of his life. For the sake of Ryan’s friends and family, can’t we show some humanity in their time of loss? Johnny Knoxville’s tribute to Ryan makes this all the more clear.

Now, back to the overall point here – celebrating the fun that Ryan brought us. Frankly, the majority of people I know don’t “get” JACKASS or any of the humor surrounding it. That’s fine, it’s not for everybody. As for me, it made me laugh and I don’t apologize for that. All of us need some mindless entertainment here and there to help us get through our lives and I guffawed endlessly at a lot of it. Make of that what you will. I also appreciated that Ryan seemed the most like a normal guy out of all of the JACKASS folks.

The funny thing is that a lot of people who have given me crap for watching Ryan and his buddies have ended up laughing when I’ve played them some clips. So even if you “don’t like that kind of stuff,” here’s betting that you’re going to be chuckling at some of these clips. RIP Ryan and Zachary.

BMX Tug of War

Butt X-Ray

Ass Kicked By Girl (dubbed in French for some reason, which just makes it funnier!)

Golf Cart Destruction (also in a foreign language)

Digital Bees (Dunn plays a bit role, switching the piñata with the beehive and then laughing from the side)

Golf Course Airhorn (Dunn’s not in this one, but it’s too epic not to include!)

Worthy Charity: Hands of Love

By Rick Morris

Any time we get a chance to flog a worthy cause here, we like to do so. Here’s one such entity.

Hands of Love is an institution trying to bring help to children in the incredibly isolated and poverty-stricken areas in Uganda. I alluded in passing on our program last summer to my brother Mike’s trip to the area and this promotional video for the charity was shot then. He is seen on here at a few different intervals, such as his attempt to teach the children how to do a high-five at the 1:38 mark.

We at FDH endorse this charitable institution fully and we feel that there is no worthier beneficiary for your efforts to help others. You can learn more about it here or here.

Hands of Love

FDH Fantasy Newsletter: Volume IV, Issue XXV

By Rick Morris

For the most part, we keep our fantasy content on our fantasy website and fantasy blog and keep this site for content on all subjects. It allows our readers to find specific content more easily that way. However, it has come to our attention that because our new fantasy sports newsletter is published on the older Blogger platform that our readers may be limited in their ability to subscribe to it. There does not appear to be a way to have content on the FantasyDrafthelp.com blog forwarded to an aggregate news reader -- however, we know that we have that ability here. So we will link to that newsletter each week right here when it is published. Here is this week’s newsletter.

2011 NHL Entry Draft prospect videos

By Rick Morris

We've started doing this feature for the past few pro sports drafts, NFL, NBA and NHL -- viva la YouTube! Being able to embed highlight reels of top prospects is just another slice of what makes this an incredible time to be a content provider.

Before the reels, two quick notes:

^ Our PRO HOCKEY DRAFTOLOGY 2011 is the ONLY resource you will need on Draft Day. Accept no feeble imitations!

^ One of the key figures in The 21^st Century Media Alliance’s production of this draft guide, our good pal Russ Cohen, is coordinating ongoing coverage of the draft from on-site in the Twin Cities for Sportsology and Card Corner Club. They’ll have constant written updates as well as podcasts with some of the key people involved in the big event. If you are a serious hockey fan, you need to be checking these sites all weekend.

Jonathan Huberdeau

Gabriel Landeskog

Adam Larsson

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins

2011 Pro Hoops Draft Surround

By Rick Morris

The FDH Lounge has joined up with our peers in The 21^st Century Media Alliance to bring you all of today’s draft action and analysis from every corner of the pro gridiron landscape. We’ve also got plenty of content, via Twitter, from a Who’s Who of the football world, proving that we are your online one-stop shop for all things pro football draft today. Also, if you haven’t already, you’ll want to grab PRO HOOPS DRAFTOLOGY 2011 to have with you during the event.

PLEASE NOTE: While the Cover It Live software may classify the liveblog as being in "Standby," it is continuously updating from a variety of sources, averaging several entries per minute during the height of the day's action. You need only to click the play button to view the continuous updates and follow what has already been posted at any time. We hope you enjoy.

2011 NBA Draft prospect videos

By Rick Morris

We've started doing this feature for the past few pro sports drafts, NFL, NBA and NHL -- viva la YouTube! Being able to embed highlight reels of top prospects is just another slice of what makes this an incredible time to be a content provider.

Before the reels, two quick notes, one good and one bad.

^ First, the good. Our PRO HOOPS DRAFTOLOGY 2011 is the ONLY resource you will need on Draft Day. Accept no feeble imitations!

^ Next, the bad. In the course of combing through to try to bring you these quality videos, I frankly had to wade through a ton of crap in the form of losers who are incapable of stringing together decent highlights without putting some crappy rap music in there. Memo to the wannabees inflicting this garbage on the world: nobody cares about your idiotic music bed with Three Six Mafia layered over the football action. Just grow up already. In an ideal world, we could watch all of these videos without any trace of music -- hey, we love music also, good music that is, but even good music with highlights is like dipping steak in chocolate sauce -- but you may want to mute these. Just saying.

Jimmer Fredette

Kyrie Irving

Enes Kanter

Brandon Knight

Kawhi Leonard

Jan Vesely

Derrick Williams

FDH Lounge #151: June 21, 2011

By Rick Morris

For a 151-proof Episode #151, THE FDH LOUNGE (Tuesdays, 7-9 PM EST on SportsTalkNetwork.com) “snacks on danger and dines on death.”

After The Opening Statements of The FDH Lounge Dignitaries and This Week in The FDH Lounge, we turn for a look at sports headlines (and maybe even some non-sports ones like Ryan Dunn) with a fellow member of The 21^st Century Media Alliance (with his outstanding Outside the Box Score and That NBA Lottery Pick sites) who has recently become an NBC Sports contributor, (largely through Off The Bench at this time), Ben Chew. We’ll plow through Rory McIlroy, the NBA Draft, the NBA and Stanley Cup Finals and anything else we can fit into the segment.

Next, we bring in John Ferguson, author of WHY FENWAY: EXPLORING THE RED SOX MYSTIQUE. His book perfectly highlights the elements that have made the first 100 years at that park some of the most memorable in sports.

The momentum continues – and then some – at the top of Hour Two with ½ of arguably the greatest tag team of all time: “Road Warrior Animal” Joe Laurinaitis! His brand-new book THE ROAD WARRIORS: DANGER, DEATH AND THE RUSH OF WRESTLING is an incredible look at the careers that helped change pro wrestling once and for all. We’ll work our way through as much of this unbelievable story as we can and possibly get a chance to chat with his son James also (yes, “Little Animal,” the Rams and former Ohio State linebacker!).

We wrap as usual with THE FANTASYDRAFTHELP.COM INSIDER and Fox Sports and SwollenDome.com fantasy columnist Mike Harmon (who also co-hosts the super-entertaining show FANTASY FREAKS on Fox Sports Radio Sundays at 10 AM EDT). We’ll address his thoughts on the implications of the Albert Pujols injury and potential flops in fantasy football this year.

As always, we urge you to watch the show live (or listen if you’re on dial-up), but if you can’t catch this as it’s happening, you can always catch the FDH archives 24-7 right here or catch us on iTunes.

PRO HOOPS DRAFTOLOGY 2011 is available!

By Rick Morris

Courtesy of The 21^st Century Media Alliance – specifically The FDH Lounge, FantasyDrafthelp.com, Sportsology and Card Corner Club – PRO HOOPS DRAFTOLOGY 2011 is now available. Check out these contents:

Page 1: Guide overview, Talent overview

Page 2: Flashback: Card Corner Club covers the 2010 NBA Rookie Photo Shoot

Page 3: The last great Dr.J-David Thompson ABA clash, Strength of draft by position, Links to highlight videos of top players

Pages 4, 8: Jason Jones domestic top player rankings/analysis

Page 5: The FDH Lounge Top 30 players in the NBA, Team needs, Blank mock draft sheet

Page 6: Jason Jones Euro player analysis

Page 7: Rick Morris Euro player analysis

Page 8: Jason Jones international top player rankings/analysis

Page 9: Rick Morris mock draft

Page 10: Correlation of top players to NBA titles

ENJOY!

PRO HOCKEY DRAFTOLOGY 2011 is available!

By Rick Morris

Courtesy of The 21^st Century Media Alliance – specifically The FDH Lounge, FantasyDrafthelp.com, Sportsology and Card Corner Club – PRO HOCKEY DRAFTOLOGY 2011 is available on your virtual doorstep. Here’s what it’s got inside:

Page 1: HOCKEY DRAFTOLOGY Overview

Pages 2-4: Mock Draft/Scouting Report of Top 30

Page 4: Links to top prospect videos, FDH Lounge NHL Awards picks, NHL

free agency overview

Page 5: Rocco Grimaldi: The draft’s most interesting player?

Page 6: St. John’s Fab Four could heat up the NHL Draft, Seth Ambroz &

Scott Mayfield audio interview links

Page 7: The Memorial Cup Experience

Page 8: The FDH Lounge Top 30 players in the NHL & Sportsology analysis

Page 9: Importance of top-level players

Page 10: Preview of ultimate fantasy hockey stat for ‘10-11 season

ENJOY!

Lounge on YouTube: Author Ryan Grim & the Drug War

By Rick Morris

At long last, Lounge Lizards, we’ve broken the seal on The FDH Lounge YouTube channel! As we go along, we’ll be uploading classic segments from the history of our program (Tuesdays, 7-9 PM EDT on SportsTalkNetwork.com) and when we do, we’ll embed them here.

Up next: author Ryan Grim discussing the Drug War with us and America’s forgotten history with drugs.

Lounge on YouTube: A receipt for homophobia

By Rick Morris

At long last, Lounge Lizards, we’ve broken the seal on The FDH Lounge YouTube channel! As we go along, we’ll be uploading classic segments from the history of our program (Tuesdays, 7-9 PM EDT on SportsTalkNetwork.com) and when we do, we’ll embed them here.

Up next: one of our FDH Lounge Dignitaries gets a receipt for homophobia.

Lounge on YouTube: Ziggy cartoonist Tom Wilson

By Rick Morris

At long last, Lounge Lizards, we’ve broken the seal on The FDH Lounge YouTube channel! As we go along, we’ll be uploading classic segments from the history of our program (Tuesdays, 7-9 PM EDT on SportsTalkNetwork.com) and when we do, we’ll embed them here.

Up next: Ziggy cartoonist Tom Wilson, who joined us in-studio.

Lounge on YouTube: Author Craig Nelson (moon landing)

By Rick Morris

At long last, Lounge Lizards, we’ve broken the seal on The FDH Lounge YouTube channel! As we go along, we’ll be uploading classic segments from the history of our program (Tuesdays, 7-9 PM EDT on SportsTalkNetwork.com) and when we do, we’ll embed them here.

Up next: author Craig Nelson discussing his book about the moon landing.

Lounge on YouTube: Chip Caray

By Rick Morris

At long last, Lounge Lizards, we’ve broken the seal on The FDH Lounge YouTube channel! As we go along, we’ll be uploading classic segments from the history of our program (Tuesdays, 7-9 PM EDT on SportsTalkNetwork.com) and when we do, we’ll embed them here.

Up next: a man who’s broadcast a lot of big baseball games, Chip Caray.

FDH Fantasy Newsletter: Volume IV, Issue XXIV

By Rick Morris

For the most part, we keep our fantasy content on our fantasy website and fantasy blog and keep this site for content on all subjects. It allows our readers to find specific content more easily that way. However, it has come to our attention that because our new fantasy sports newsletter is published on the older Blogger platform that our readers may be limited in their ability to subscribe to it. There does not appear to be a way to have content on the FantasyDrafthelp.com blog forwarded to an aggregate news reader -- however, we know that we have that ability here. So we will link to that newsletter each week right here when it is published. Here is this week’s newsletter.

Lounge on YouTube: Dominic "Uncle Junior" Chianese

By Rick Morris

At long last, Lounge Lizards, we’ve broken the seal on The FDH Lounge YouTube channel! As we go along, we’ll be uploading classic segments from the history of our program (Tuesdays, 7-9 PM EDT on SportsTalkNetwork.com) and when we do, we’ll embed them here.

Up next: the one and only Dominic Chianese, “Uncle Junior” from the Sopranos.

MLB power rankings for mid-June

By Rick Morris

NOTE: Rankings for start of June in parentheses.

TOP TIER

1 Philadelphia (1)

2 Boston (6)

3 Milwaukee (11)

4 Atlanta (8)

5 St. Louis (2)

6 Detroit (15)

7 San Francisco (9)

8 Arizona (7)

9 New York Yankees (5)

10 Texas (10)

11 Tampa Bay (12)

12 Cleveland (4)

13 Cincinnati (16)

SECOND TIER

14 Seattle (17)

15 Chicago White Sox (23)

16 Los Angeles Angels (14)

17 Florida (3)

18 Toronto (13)

19 New York Mets (20)

20 Pittsburgh (21)

21 Colorado (19)

22 Los Angeles Dodgers (22)

23 Washington (28)

24 Baltimore (24)

25 San Diego (25)

26 Kansas City (27)

27 Oakland (18)

28 Minnesota (30)

29 Chicago Cubs (26)

30 Houston (29)

BIGGEST RISERS: Detroit (9 spots), Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee (8 spots), Washington (5 spots), Atlanta and Boston (4 spots), Cincinnati and Seattle (3 spots)

BIGGEST FALLERS: Florida (14 spots), Oakland (9 spots), Cleveland (8 spots), Toronto (5 spots), New York Yankees (4 spots), Chicago Cubs and St. Louis (3 spots)

RANKINGS BY DIVISION – 1 POINT PER RANKING SPOT FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL TEAM, DIVIDED BY THE NUMBER OF TEAMS IN THE DIVISION, LOWEST SCORE IS BEST

1T AL East (12.8)

1T NL East (12.8)

3 NL West (16.6)

4 NL Central (16.67)

5 AL West (16.75)

6 AL Central (17.4)

RANKINGS BY LEAGUE

1 NL (46.07)

2 AL (46.95)

FDH Fantasy Newsletter: Volume IV, Issue XXIII

By Rick Morris

For the most part, we keep our fantasy content on our fantasy website and fantasy blog and keep this site for content on all subjects. It allows our readers to find specific content more easily that way. However, it has come to our attention that because our new fantasy sports newsletter is published on the older Blogger platform that our readers may be limited in their ability to subscribe to it. There does not appear to be a way to have content on the FantasyDrafthelp.com blog forwarded to an aggregate news reader -- however, we know that we have that ability here. So we will link to that newsletter each week right here when it is published. Here is this week’s newsletter.