Brett Favre

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Margaret Thatcher beats out Oprah, Ozzy Osbourne’s Neanderthal roots, and a very special seeing-eye dog

FESCHUK: “It’s overreaction Sunday! Let’s all overreact based on what we witnessed last weekend.”

How American Idol has turned hollow celebrity into a worthwhile achievement

La première étoile: New York Jets. By acquiring Beautiful Brett Favre for a conditional draft pick the Jets have added a legitimate star pivot to their lineup who should revamp a dismal Jets offence that only produced four wins last year. Even if the team still sucks this upcoming season, management can at least cash in on Favre merchandise sales.

La première étoile: As baseball reaches the All Star break, the story of the season is, without a doubt, Josh Hamilton. The Dallas Morning News does a nice job of telling the tale of Hamilton’s battle against drug and alcohol addiction, to claw his way back into the major leagues. Batting over .300, with 21 homers and 95 RBIs, just two years after he was completely out of the game. We at Balls don’t often get teary over tales of redemption and the power of the human spirit, but, you know…sniff…we’re not made of stone either.

La première étoile: Dara Torres. The 41-year-old U.S. swimmer qualified to compete in her fifth Olympic Games this week by winning the 100-metre freestyle at the U.S. swimming trials in Omaha, Neb. And she ain’t going just to wave at the crowd. During her 24-year career she has won nine Olympic medals, including four golds.

Two minutes for … killing the King. The Green Bay Packers better start using another approach when it comes to dealing with Brett Favre. I know they’re sick of his constant speeches about retirement and the tears that follow, but they could use a little more class. With GM Ted Thompson telling Brett via a text message that he’ll talk to him after his vacation, you know something fishy is going on. It seems that they would be better served to tell the truth instead of just wasting everybody’s time and insulting the hell out of one of the best QBs of all-time.

Who’s got tickets? Toronto Argonauts at Edmonton Eskimos, 10:00 p.m., TSN. The Argos were listless last week against Hamilton but have finally started to deal with their quarterback situation by placing Michael Bishop on waivers. The Eskies won a thriller last week against Calgary but have some serious holes on defence. Prediction: Argos 31 – Eskimos 24.

Fun police: Is Ray Emery’s career as an NHLer over? I’ve been sitting here for 10 minutes trying think of a Canadian-born hockey player who’s gone to play in Russia and returned to have a somewhat decent career in the NHL. I can’t think of a single one, not including players who played in the Russian Super League during the lockout. Does anybody have a name? And is Eddie Belfour still playing in Sweden?

Extra bases: From the few clips that I’ve seen of Jermaine O’Neal, including a rather funny segment with the The Scores Cabral Richards, he seems to have his head on straight and has a real affable disposition to him. Hopefully he becomes the big man the Raps have always needed to go deep in the playoffs.

 

La première étoile: Marian Hossa. I’m not going to lie to you, I’ve hated Hossa ever since he wildly swung his stick and nearly plucked Bryan Berard’s eye out of its socket in 2000. B.B. was a huge clog on a blossoming young blueline corps whose eye injury drastically thwarted his career. Okay, I feel better after getting that off my chest. Yet by signing a one year, $7.45 million deal with Detroit yesterday the Slovakian sniper is destined to explode in the points department while playing alongside the likes of Datsyuk and Zetterberg. In doing so he will be able to manipulate the hell out of the market next summer and cash in on a huge deal. The only catch is that he needs to stay healthy, otherwise he just left millions on the table.