Blogs With Balls Radio, Episode 21

This week’s Blogs With Balls Show on the JoeSportsFan Radio Network is now available.

Download Episode 21 here, or subscribe via iTunes.



Lucas has long been an advocate that the future of sports blogging lies in content producers adopting more than just the written word and dabbling in audio and video. We kick off the week talking a little about some folks who do the latter quite well.

Our ballsy blog of the week belongs to our good friends at The Global Sports Fraternity who did an absolute phenomenal job creating original, entertaining content at the Super Bowl in Miami.

Most notably, GSF's Henry Lowenfels gave Lions QB Matt Stafford the business at the Gatorade Fitness Lab.



We'd be remissed talking video if we didn't mention our BwB videographers and editors Ben Eckstein and Rob Baker, as well as the great work done by Wondershot Productions (who gave us the BwB opening/welcome video).

Our favorite ongoing use of video-that-should-be-its-own-TV-show is from our podcasting partners at Joe Sports Fan, who this week brought us the return of The Softball Guy.

An Exclusive, Emotional Interview with Softball Guy from JoeSportsFan.com on Vimeo.

Our guest this week was a panelist at Blogs With Balls 1.0 in New York and winner of the inaugural Blogs With Balls Charity Poker Shootout, Adam Best.


Best is the co-founder (with his brother Zach, a web designer) and senior editor of the FanSided.com sports network as well as the site that launched the network, Arrowhead Addict.

What sets FanSided apart from its competitors is the family-like business approach that Adam has taken to advancing it. Adam talks about the progression from blogging on his Chiefs site to creating the original make-up of FanSided as an NFL blog network to one encompassing multi-sports and housing 135 different sites. He taps into the importance of forging strategic partnerships, like he has with Yardbarker.com/Fox Sports and CBS Sports.

He also recently launched FlickSided.com, a site dedicated to his other passion - film.

This week’s links of interest:

• FanSided.com
• Arrowhead Addict
• FlickSided.com
• @adamcbest
• @FanSided
• @FlickSided
• The Global Sports Fraternity
• @TheGSF
• Joe Sports Fan
• @joesportsfan
• @thesoftballguy
• Beryllium Pictures
• Kabimba Media
• Wondershot Productions

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The A-Roid Cocktail: Part 2 of 2

Last week, I took a performance enhancer of my own. Casting aside the level playing field presented to me, I opted for the opportunity to elevate my own situation above those I count as friends and colleagues. I speak of course of my sneak preview of the A-ROID COCKTAIL. In short, it is definitely a game changer.


Concocted by Bonfire's in-house mixologist Heather, and surely designed to be ordered in the company of Yankee fans, it is $11 of pure cruelty, and a credit to this year's Red Sox menu. Thankfully you do not have to listen to Madonna while imbibing. But I'll be honest - it was so good I would have lip synced to "This Used to be My Playground" over and over.

The bartender Paul was a great guy ("Senior Bartender by age" he says) who was kind enough to suffer my inane questions like "What would you Serve A-Rod himself?"

"I don't think he'd be too happy with anything I serve him."

His answer was well-played even if it was a trick question. A-Rod would never be allowed in the establishment.

In order to make the experience as authentic as possible, I initially enlisted my cousin Vicky to come to the bar to administer the shot while I looked away and became distracted by something else. When that plan fell through, I saw the opportunity presented to me. I realized this beverage was less about the experience of taking it, but more about the personal confession to follow. I had to look my wife in the eyes and apologize for taking tequila shots and spicy tomato juice from a syringe. The only way to do that was to lean on the shoulders of the kind of people A-Rod did. And I had them in my back pocket. Literally.

On one hand, it's extremely tough to admit mistakes.
But on the other hand, it feels great to take a shot of tequila.

It was the support of Derek and Jorge that got me through such a difficult time. I even found a brief bit of solace in that I didn't wait several years before my name was part of a report linking me to something I repeatedly denied over and over while taking on huge contracts that weakened the organizations at the time I was with them, before discarding them for the next, more lucrative victim of my dishonesty. That's the kind of behavior that will turn a man's lips purple.

All of the Sox-themed drinks (the Green Monster, the RBI, and a Dice-K themed sake drink) will be available to the Fenway Faithful throughout the Sox season this year, not just on game days. Paul said he expects this drink to become popular around the Yankees games, and wouldn't be surprised to see a few syringes "being autographed." Not that he suggested it, but to those autograph-seekers at Fenway, I recommend gingerly handing (throwing) the syringe to (at) the Yankee dugout personnel (A-Rod) while politely requesting an autograph (Hey Mr. April, you forgot to take yer medicine!!! You SAAACK!)

In the end, it comes highly recommended. I'm looking forward to sampling the entire Red Sox Menu, and maybe contributing some ideas of my own. In fact today I began working on a "Clay Buchholz" idea - A drink with a name impossible to spell, that would be amazingly delicious the first time only, and every time after it's so bad, you wonder if it's worth trading for half-eaten nachos.

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Have You Gotten Your BlogsWithBalls Tickets Yet?

HHR Bobblehead Theatre Webisode 1: LJ Goes to Therapy

Training Camp Postcards, Part 8 of 8: AFC West

As you may or may not follow, SI.com has dispatched "10 writers to report on the 32 NFL training camps across the country" and is featuring their reports throughout August in their Training Camp Postcard segment.

Here at HHR, we prefer to look at actual postcards sent by players to their loved ones, as opposed to Peter King drivel.

Today, we take a look at what's going on in River Falls, WI(Chiefs), Napa Valley, CA (Raiders), San Diego (Chargers), and Englewood, CO (Broncos).

To See the Complete Parts 1-8, Click Here.

Jason Klye, LB, CEO

As if a sports story from Men's Vogue wasn't an obscure enough post for you, Inc. Magazine spotlighted Panthers' linebacker Jason Kyle's foray into the boardroom in this month's Finance section.

Recently, Kyle, a 13-year vet, partnered with consulting company Arizona Bay to develop a company called Pro Player Connect, "an online hub that would connect professional athletes with local sponsorship deals, promotional contracts, and free and discounted promotional gear" capitalizing on the sports endorsement industry "worth nearly $1 billion and has only recently begun migrating to the Web."

According to the article, "Pro Player Connect has attracted some high-profile investors--football veterans Vinny Testaverde and Christian Fauria, as well as NASCAR driver Michael Waltrip."

It is refreshing to see athletes, like Kyle and former Chief John Alt, drifting away from the post-career broadcasting or coaching roles and using their contacts and financial resources to not only develop income for themselves, but to create similar avenues for their contemporaries.

Alt, according to his bio at Performance Health Technologies, "currently serves as Investment Consultant through Linsco/Private Ledger, the country's largest independent brokerage firm. Mr. Alt's primary responsibilities include working with professional football players to assist them with their investment and estate planning needs."

And you thought Lenny Dykstra had cornered the market.