The (Delayed) Link Train: Where We're Highway Stars

Apologies for the delay in this Link Train post; I was planning to run it last night as per usual, but life got in the way and prevented me from finishing it until now. I should hopefully have another one ready at the normal time tonight, and perhaps even a piece of my own before then if all goes well. As always, leave links for upcoming editions in the comments, or send them to me via Twitter, Facebook or e-mail.

Video Of The Day: Deep Purple - Highway Star



One of the all-time great driving songs, this song also was one of the first real hits in the hard rock/heavy metal vein (along with Led Zeppelin's Communication Breakdown and Black Sabbath's Paranoid). It's the first track from Deep Purple's seminal 1972 album Machine Head, one of the most influential hard rock albums out there. Moreover, it shows off Jon Lord's incredible use of the Hammond organ. If anyone ever tells you the organ has no place in rock, make them listen to Deep Purple for a while.

My Links:

- My weekly CFL column, The Whole 110 Yards, is up over at The Rookies. I break down the past week's action, preview this coming week's games, and discuss the ultimate CFL road trip and the brief existence of the Sacramento Gold Miners [The Rookies].

The Best Of The Intertubes:

Football:

- Instead of a doctor, Marc Bulger is going to consult Kurt Warner on how to return from injury more quickly. Dr. James Andrews must have been too busy with Favre [Sportress of Blogitude].

- My Rookies colleague Skating Tomato previews the Buffalo Bills' season. They are the Buffalo Bills, so I predict moments of brilliance followed by eventual soul-crushing defeat [Style Points].

- A nice Steelers Daily Six Pack from Frank Mineo, featuring Isaac Redman's celebrations, Jeff Reed's pranks, Mike Wallace's Madden workout and more [Behind The Steel Curtain].

- Oh yeah, and some guy named Favre did something [Vikings Throne].

Baseball:

- Bob Elliott has a good take on the Jays drafting nine Canadians, but only signing one (he is Tony Fernandez's son, though, which is cool). [Canadian Baseball Network].

- Michael Harrison weighs in on the Jays' failure to sign three of their top four draft picks [Blue Jays Way].

- Jeff Blair on how not trading for Halladay may keep the Red Sox out of the playoffs. [The Globe and Mail].

- Eyebleaf makes the valuable point that it's nice to see the Jays going over slot on their later picks, even if they couldn't get it done at the top [Sports and the City]. Personally, I'd rather see them lock up the top picks and then sign as many of the rest as possible, though.

- Oh, and the justification by J.P. Ricciardi on why he finally decided to start going over slot years after he should have started? “I think because everyone else was doing it.". I love that our general manager uses high school popularity contest logic to make baseball decisions. [Shi Davidi, The Canadian Press, via The Globe and Mail].

- Speaking of Ricciardi, Cam Hutchinson of The Saskatoon Star-Phoenix has a nice bit on him in his most recent sports humour column. "A woman in Norwalk, Conn., who spent $2,000 to stage a dinner to honour herself as 'Nurse of the Year' has been charged with reckless endangerment and criminal impersonation for pretending to be a nurse. In sports lexicon, this is comparable to J.P. Ricciardi masquerading as a MLB general manager." I firmly endorse this sentiment.


Soccer:

- Adam reviews Fox Soccer Channel's Champions League coverage so far [Avoiding The Drop].

- Jason Davis reports that San Antonio might be interested in an MLS team again. [Match Fit USA]

- Andy Hutchins isn't impressed with Bill Simmons' recent foray into soccer writing. I liked Simmons' piece and thought he made some good points, but Hutchins brings up some interesting ones as well. [The Rookies]


Basketball:

- Washington Wizards' centre Brendan Haywood made some rather stupid homophobic comments about Stephon Marbury on Hardcore Sports Radio Monday. [Transcribed by Tas Melas, Sports Radio Interviews].

- Kelly Dwyer has an excellent takedown of Haywood's comments [Ball Don't Lie].

- A fantastic take on the matter by Kevin Arnovitz, who explains what it's like to be a gay sports journalist and invites Haywood to discuss the issue with him [TrueHoop].

- Sarah has an interesting post on the subject as well, exploring the comments on Dwyer's piece [Hornets Hype].

- In lighter NBA news, Lang Whitaker has a good review of the first episode of Shaq Vs., which saw The Big Diesel take on Big Ben (Ben Roethlisberger). Samer Ocho Cinco also looked at this over at The Rookies. [Slam Online].

Hockey:

Brandon Worley looks at the question of if Tom Hicks' financial troubles will affect the Stars [Defending Big D].

Greg Wyshynski takes a look at the Sharks stripping Patrick Marleau of the captaincy [Puck Daddy].

Vance wonders why the Islanders have three expensive goalies and not much else [Bangin Panger].

Yankee Canuck introduces us to Vancouver's new prospect, Michael Ward [Nucks Misconduct].

That does it for today's links. As mentioned above, I should have more tonight. Thanks for reading, and be sure to send me your tips and links!