Saints head coach Sean Payton has three things laid out neatly on the desk in his office before every game: The laminated play sheet with the catalogue of plays the coaching staff plans to use in the game. The red flag he’ll use to challenge officials’ calls. Two neat stacks of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum. Each stack will contain five sticks, one for each drive of each half. Payton will not take the field until he has stashed the sticks into his pocket. He breaks out a new stick to start each offensive series. If the Saints enjoy more than five drives in a half or the game goes into overtime, the equipment staff keeps a reserve supply in a tray behind the bench. The Juicy Fruit is Payton’s lone game-day superstition, and for him, it’s every bit as important as the play sheet. Although he scoffed at the notion that the Saints might have been a team of destiny last season, he’s a devout believer in the juju of the Juicy Fruit. — New Orleans Times-Picayune
Pro boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. showed off his jewlery collection to Media Take Out. Mayweather has a $2 million watch. He wears a $100k belt buckle. To carry around all his cash, he has a wallet worth $50,000. — Media Take Our
She has been compared to Kim Kardashian, and now Reggie Bush’s new girlfriend could be mirroring the reality TV star in more ways than one. RadarOnline.com has learned that sexy Latin singer Mayra Veronica has been offered more than $1 million to make a porn film. “The amount is exceedingly tempting,” said a source close to the situation. “Mayra has dabbled with racy shots, but has never done any fully nude pictorial, much less a video.” — Radar Online
Given the sexually explicit video of Brandon Spikes making the rounds on the Internet, Reebok has decided against finalizing the marketing deal it had proposed for the rookie linebacker. Terry Watson, who represents the Pats second-round draft pick, confirmed that Reebok had turned away from his client. Spikes may face disciplinary action under the league’s personal conduct policy. — Boston Herald
Golfer Tiger Woods‘ secret divorce settlement may be so expensive that he had to mortgage his home to pay for it! Official records that just popped up in Martin County hint that Woods will have to pay ex-wife Elin Nordegren $54 million by January 2016 — or risk losing the house he spent five years building. How do I know? The philandering golf-club swinger took out a $54 million-mortgage last Wednesday, two days after his quickie divorce was finalized in Panama City Aug. 23. Woods, the mortgage shows, used the Jupiter Island property, Sand Turtle, to secure the loan — which means that Nordegren could end up with that Motel 6-style crib if he doesn’t pay up. — Palm Beach Post
Among all the NFL games in the 2010 season, which begins next week, Buffalo is home to four of the five with the lowest-priced tickets, according to SeatGeek.com, which analyzes the prices of second-hand ticket transactions. The average ticket price for one of the Bills’ games is a league-low $85.01—that’s less than one-third of the $265.29 average price for a New York Giants ticket. The New Orleans Saints, fresh off their first Super Bowl victory, have the second-priciest seats at $240.83 and the New York Jets, who will christen a new stadium this season with the Giants, are third at $225.68. — Wall Street Journal
Most Expensive Avg. Ticket
Vikings at Saints (9/9)……………$372.39
Vikings at Packers (10/24)………$359.67
Cowboys at Giants (11/14)……..$349.85
Panthers at Giants (9/12)……….$322.69
Least Expensive Avg. Ticket
Browns at Bills (12/12)…………..$41.87
Lions at Bills (11/14)……………..$49.44
Rams at Lions (10/10)……………$50.28
Patriots at Bills (12/26)…………..$55.17
Source: SeatGeek.com
Apparently a top former WWE Star, named The Violator, is now homeless. The web site Media Take Out has pics, taken yesterday in Hollywood. — Media Take Out
Skiing bad-boy Bode Miller was spotted chatting up “Gossip Girl” beauty Katie Cassidy and her friend at the US Open on Tuesday night. Onlookers say the Olympic gold medalist “seemed to hit it off with Katie, they were sipping Ty Ku cocktails and talking closely while in a private box.” Cassidy was earlier linked this year to LA Kings hockey star Jarret Stoll, while he was last seen dating model Amanda French. Miller’s rep confirmed he was there but declined to comment further. Another source said that Bode ended up exchanging numbers with Cassidy’s girlfriend instead. — NY Post
Phillies Ryan Howard and Chase Utley have secured spots in the “Guinness Book of World Records 2011,” due out Sept. 15. Howard, whose picture appears in the book, has the record for “Fewest Games to Reach 200 Career Home Runs.” (He did so July 17, 2009, in his 658th game.) Utley captured the “Most Home Runs in a Single World Series” by hitting five against the Yankees. — Philadelphia Daily News
Don’t start rolling out the welcome mat for Tiger Woods just yet. Though Us Weekly reported that the horny golfer had moved into an apartment downtown — pinpointed by the Daily News yesterday on Hudson Street — real-estate sources say it’s either wishful thinking or a stunt pulled by a landlord to promote his building. “No way Tiger would live there,” one broker told The Post. “It’s an ’80s conversion, run-down, with leaky ceilings.” If it really was Tiger who was spotted moving boxes in from a BMW, brokers say he might have been helping a girlfriend. “It would have to be a mistress he doesn’t care about.” Another broker said, “If he does live there, it means his wife took every penny he has and he’s at the end of his rope.” Non-real-estate sources are equally skeptical and point out that Woods has always gone out of his way to avoid the city and stayed on his yacht, The Privacy, when the US Open was played at Bethpage. “He hates it in New York,” said one observer. “Why would he come here when he needs his privacy more than ever?” — NY Post
Kid Rock’s red-white-and-blue résumé is about to get a baseball entry. The rousing, patriotic “Born Free,” the title track from the Detroit rocker’s upcoming album, has been enlisted by TBS as the official marketing theme for the network’s Major League Baseball postseason coverage. Turner Sports has created a 2 1/2 -minute video for the song, which intersperses baseball footage and scenes from Rock’s recent concerts at DTE Energy Music Theatre. That full-length video will debut Friday on National CineMedia’s 14,600 movie screens, including Star and Cinemark theaters in metro Detroit. Clips from the video will be repurposed for commercial spots across the Turner networks, including TNT and CNN. The song will be integrated into the game presentations on TBS, which will air the playoffs starting Oct. 6. “Born Free” was “the perfect track” for a baseball campaign, a Turner Sports executive said in a statement. — Detroit Free Press
Rays manager Joe Maddon will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Lafayette College today in an on-campus ceremony; he plans to wear his BRayser and allow the school to auction it off. — St. Petersburg Times
If Frank McCourt retains control, the Dodgers could get an immediate cash infusion from Fox Sports. The Dodgers’ television contract with Fox expires in 2013, and McCourt has considered launching a team-run cable channel, similar to the highly profitable channels run by the New York Yankees (YES) and Boston Red Sox ( NESN). However, McCourt has discussed a long-term extension with Fox, in which he would abandon the plan for a Dodgers channel in exchange for a front-loaded deal that could significantly increase the Dodgers’ annual revenue from television rights, according to three sources briefed on the discussions but not authorized to talk publicly about them. The deal could be structured so McCourt could cash in without waiting until 2014. — LA Times
“Salsa and Stars with Ozzie Guillen & Friends” gala will be at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 13 at River East Arts Center. The event will help raise funds to serve families and children in crisis — in both Chicago and Venezuela. — Chicago Tribune
The Upper Deck Co. claims NetSource Technology, Boss Entertainment Products and Gary Munoz owe it $1.5 million for trading cards, in San Diego Superior Court, Vista. — Court House News Service
That Indianapolis Colts star Dwight Freeney will host the opening party at new West 14th Street sports bar Snap on Sept. 20. — NY Post
On Tuesday, August 31, 2010 President Barack Obama delivered his second address from the Oval Office to declare the end of the American combat mission in Iraq. The address was carried live from 8:00PM to approximately 8:20PM on 11 networks. The sum of average audience for those networks was 29,232,689 viewers. The networks carrying the address were ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, TEL, UNI, CNN, CNBC, CNTRC, FOXNC, and MSNBC. Viewership to last night’s address was down 9% from his address on the oil spill on June 15, 2010, and down 28% from his speech to the country where he announced a strategy for U.S. involvement in Afghanistan on December 1, 2009. — Nielsen Wire
A defective valve on a Super Soaker water gun made the “ammo” reservoir explode, and its “shards of plastic flying at great force” tore a man’s iris, leaving him with irreversibly damaged vision, the man claims in Federal Court. Addison Nemmers sued Hasbro for product liability. “The packaging for the Super Soaker XP-20 states, inter alia, ‘Built-in safety valve prevents over-pressuring,’” according to the complaint. But Nemmers says that wasn’t the case. The gun’s water reservoir is pressurized by a user-activated air pump. “Over-pressurizing the water reservoir can cause the reservoir to explode, causing a risk of serious injury to the user and others in the vicinity,” according to the complaint. — Courthouse News Service
One of the BBC’s marquee sports events is under threat after thousands of journalists, technicians and other staff voted emphatically in favour of industrial action in a row over pensions. Television and radio coverage of the Ryder Cup, golf’s headline event in which Europe clashes with the USA over three days, will be hard hit by the strikes when the tournament starts on October 1. The potential loss will come as a big blow to golf fans and to the BBC as a whole which has already lost a number of big sporting events, namely The Ashes, in recent years. The corporation only won back the rights to show the Ryder Cup from Sky this year. The event is staged bi-annually with the next month’s event to be held at Celtic Manor in Newport, Wales, for the very first time. The 2008 tournament, won by the USA for the first time since 1999, attracted nearly 1.2 million viewers on Sky Sports. But the event is under threat after members of the National Union of Journalists and the technicians’ union Bectu backed walkouts by more than 9-1 in protest at ‘punitive’ changes to the staff pension scheme. — Daily Mail (U.K.)
A Long Island special education teacher has revolutionized big-league play-calling with BoomGuard, a simple device that shields coaches’ mouths from potential lip-readers. Inventor Ramone Ward remembers the autumn Sunday in 2005 when it came to him: for all those NFL coaches holding laminated play cards over their mouths and running from cameras to protect their secrets, there had to be a better way. “Someone was going to make a lot of money,” he says. “And I decided that was going to be me.” Less than five years later, Ward’s award-winning BoomGuard device is building a steady following in multiple professional and high school sports, including auto racing and football. — Boom Guard
Dancing With the Stars announced its new lineup of contestants this week, now the gambling odds have been posted. Get your bets in now!
Here they are from our friends at BoDog.com.
Dancing With the Stars – Odds to win Season 11
Brandy 3/1
Jennifer Grey 7/2
Audrina Patridge 6/1
Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino 7/1
Rick Fox 15/2
“The Hoff” David Hasselhoff 10/1
Margaret Cho 10/1
Michael Bolton 10/1
Kyle Massey 15/1
Kurt Warner 20/1
Bristol Palin 20/1
Florence Henderson 25/1
Jets QB Mark Sanchez was in the crowd to see teen heartthrob Justin Bieber’s show at Madison Square Garden last night, according to WFAN. Morning host Craig Carton “reported” that Sanchez was in the crowd at the packed arena to see the 14-year-old sing. Earlier this year the Jets quarterback danced and sang along to “I’m Every Woman,” with Tina Fey and Bieber on Saturday Night Live. — BenMaller.com
Gossip columnists are linking Jay Cutler with “Hills” starlet Kristin Cavallari. We asked Cutler on Tuesday if he’s ready for the Tony Romo-like spotlight. “I won’t get into that stuff like he does. That’s going to be … all of that stuff is on the backburner,” he replied. But a Bears QB and a Hollywood reality star is huge news, right? His enigmatic response: “It’ll be interesting.” — Chicago Tribune
ANGIE HARMON and her hubby, former NFL star JASON SEHORN, are suddenly packing up and selling their luxury San Fernando Valley home of four years because, as he moaned to pals: THE DAMN BULLFROGS ARE DRIVING ME CRAZY! “Jason and Angie love that house – and so do their three little girls,” said a source. “It’s in a gated community, but a small creek runs right outside their master bedroom, and the constant croaking of bullfrogs, especially during mating season, just made him nuts. Jason told us, ‘I’ve put up with it for years, but I just can’t take it anymore.’” The house went on the market for $3.9 million. — National Enquirer
MediaTakeOut.com learned that Natalie Nunn from Oxygen’s BAD GIRLS CLUB is dating 49ers Pro Bowl TE Vernon Davis. — Media Take Out
Jamie Little, the only pit reporter for ESPN/ABC’s coverage of the NASCAR Sprint Cup series, and racing executive Cody Selman are getting married Dec. 11 in San Diego. They sort of met five years ago, when Selman got run over on a pit road and suffered a broken leg while working as a tire changer during an IndyCar series race in Fontana, Calif. As Selman was carted away on a stretcher, Little was on the scene reporting the news. Three years later, when Little needed to interview Kyle Busch, she had to go through Selman, who had risen to the position of Busch’s manager. Near the end of 2008, while at a party, Little and Selman started chatting about non-racing topics, “and POOF! The rest is history!” she told me by e-mail Tuesday. They are getting married a week after NASCAR’s postseason awards show in Las Vegas. They will honeymoon in Australia.
Keith Olbermann was showing off a new brunette girlfriend at Monday night’s Yankees game. The bombastic MSNBC commentator was spotted by our spy “with his arm round the woman, who looked a lot younger than him, in her early 30s. He was taking pictures of them together on his cellphone and chatting to her throughout the game,” causing some fans to speculate, “She must have been secretly wearing earplugs.” Olbermann split with his much younger WNBC reporter girlfriend, Katy Tur, more than a year ago. — NY Post
ESPN’s Mike Soltys offered this update on the on-air future of Around the Horn panelist Jay Mariotti, who was recently charged with felony domestic abuse: “At this time we have no set plans to use him.” Don’t bet he’ll return to the show. — USA Today
Disney may have a winner in “Secretariat.” Two back-to-back Hamptons screenings of the Diane Lane-John Malkovich movie had horse lovers cheering on the 1973 Triple Crown winner all over again. Among the paddock powerful were polo stud Nacho Figueras, jumping champ Joe Fargis and longtime rider Candice Bergen with daughter Chloe. The unsaddled set included Jeff Zucker and son Andrew, Bill McCuddy and daughter Lilly, Patrick Demarchelier, and one guest who upstaged the whole crowd — Secretariat great-grandson Rare Prince, who stood regally outside the Goose Creek screening room for photo-ops. — NY Post
Andy Roddick has wagered his good friend Justin Gimelstob $10,000 that he will not be able to complete the New York City Marathon in November. At the time of the bet, Gimelstob had never run farther than three miles. The loser of the bet will write a check to the winner’s charity — the Justin Gimelstob Children’s Fund for children with cancer and blood diseases, or the Andy Roddick Foundation for education. Even Gimelstob, now a board member of the Association of Tennis Professionals and a commentator on the Tennis Channel, has to acknowledge that Roddick may have made a shrewd bet. Not only has he never been a distance runner, but at 6 feet 5 inches and more than 200 pounds, and with a chronic bad back and overactive sweat glands, Gimelstob, 33, is not the prototypical marathoner. He is a breakdown waiting to happen. — NY Times
While Clemens, 48, enjoyed cloudless Carolina skies and pristine, manicured fairways, his lawyers were probably poring over the massive number of documents prosecutors turned over in U.S. District Court in Washington on Monday – the beginning stages of the former Yankee’s perjury and obstruction of Congress case. Clemens pleaded not guilty to six counts in what is sure to be a lengthy, complicated legal process for the seven-time Cy Young Award winner. Just for starters, prosectors handed Clemens’ lead attorney, Rusty Hardin, a 34-page master index to evidence on 12 computer discs. In the hearing before Judge Reggie Walton, Hardin referred to “voluminous” scientific evidence he will need to test. According to one defense attorney familiar with such cases, Clemens’ lawyers will be buried in documents for the foreseeable future. “When you get the discovery in a federal case, it can be overwhelming,” the lawyer said. “The discs can contain thousand of pages of material. As you’re going through it, you’ll come across things you’ve forgotten about, where the defendant literally says, ‘Oh s—. I forgot about that.’ You can spend three months on meaningless stuff, but you have to go through it all. And the government can keep investigating.” — NY Daily News
Mets closer Francisco Rodriguez picked an obscure Bronx lawyer, Chris Booth, to defend the fiery fireballer against charges he assaulted his father-in-law last month — and it was a smart move, say local court-watch ers. Booth — who started as a busboy and then waiter at Mario’s, the iconic eatery on Arthur Avenue — is highly regarded by prosecutors and judges. Mario’s owner Joe Migliucci, who’s married to Booth’s mother, Barbara, told us, “The kid is a real diplomat and a gentle man.” — NY Post
Phillies reliever Ryan Madson and wife Sarah have gone green. The couple has hired Main Line’s Caledonia Renovations to make the Wayne home they bought in April more eco-friendly. The couple and their kids won’t move in until work is done, which Caledonia’s John Kelly expects to take about 10 months. “We try to keep as much of the existing house there and build from the platform as we can,” said Kelly, whose company is re-insulating the house using soybean-based spray foam, installing energy recovery ventilators, a geothermal heating and cooling system, a groundsource heat pump and energy saving lighting, among other energy-efficient improvements. — Philadelphia Daily News
Sedo has sold the domain name Angels.com for $200,000 according to the company’s updated sales feed. The domain name is currently pending transfer. Earlier this month I pointed out that the domain being listed for auction presented another chance for Major League Baseball to pick up the domain name. Major League Baseball tried to get the domain name through a UDRP filing earlier but failed. At the time the seller wanted $300,000 for the domain. At $200,000, I’d be shocked if MLB didn’t buy this domain. Angels.com is one of just 7 team names that the league doesn’t own. It passed on a chance to buy Athletics.com at the DOMAINfest auction, but don’t be surprised if they come to a deal on that later. The league forwards the domains to its MLB.com web site. — Domain Name Wire
As a student at Arizona State, NBC’s Al Michaels was sports editor of The State Press, and took delight in fooling the big newspaper in town. He created a fictional baseball player from a remote high school and phoned in phony results to The Republic. We published them (until the ruse was discovered), and he laughed (still does). “I made up a guy named Clint Romas, and called The Arizona Republic, and had this phony guy in like four box scores,” Michaels said. “Then they gave me the Walter Cronkite Award, and Walter is there, and I’m going, ‘Wait a minute . . . I’m the guy who created this farcical thing with The Republic.” … <!–nextpage–>”I’m registering for classes as a freshman, standing in registration line hoping to get the classes I want, and I start to talk to the guy standing in front of me,” Michaels said. “He says he’s there to play baseball. I say, ‘That’s interesting. I’m here to broadcast sports, major in radio and TV, and hopefully end up doing baseball games on campus. That guy was (future major-league star) Sal Bando. “And somewhere in our storage area in Los Angeles, on a reel-to-reel tape, I have myself announcing a football game, and the cornerback for the Sun Devils was Reginald Martinez Jackson.” — Arizona Republic
The question of where Ben Roethlisberger faces a civil lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault — in Reno or Lake Tahoe — is before the Nevada Supreme Court, which already has arguments from his attorneys and is expected to receive briefs from his accuser’s attorneys Thursday. A 32-year-old woman filed suit against the Steelers quarterback last year in Reno, claiming that he assaulted her in July 2008 at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, where she was employed as a VIP hostess. — Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
