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Wide World of Balls

Statue of Limitations

Joe Paterno's statue was taken down, Jeremy Lin busted out of New York, and some baseball dude has a fake name.

Following sports is basically a full-time job. There are, like, three-million athletes out there playing god knows how many different sports, all with their different sets of rules and their stats, which involve thinking about numbers and averages and tons of math-y crap you shouldn't have to deal with because you graduated high school, goddamnit, and should be finished with math for the rest of your life. We get it, which is why we've got you covered with worldwide sports news. If it's not in here, it didn't involve grownups playing with balls. 

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College Sports
- Joe Paterno’s on-campus statue was taken downhere’s a look—and while there haven’t been a ton of protests, there’s been mucho whining. PSU’s statement is here, and his family’s is here. The judgment comes down today, and while it did not include a “death penalty,” AKA a nix on football for a year, the penalties may have been worse. (The only time the NCAA handed down a death penalty, in D1 football was to SMU, who got that in 1987 and '88, and took 20 years to recover.) Is it appropriate? Hard to say: The NCAA is a pile of dogshit, and like Dave Zirin argues, it's pretty much just a public relations thing. The games will still be on TV, but the players will be nerdier than guys from Chicago. Rough.

NBA
- Jeremy Lin bounced (back) to Houston, presumably to listen to Z-Ro, though it might have been to earn insane amounts of money. The Knicks let him go without so much as a kiss on the forehead, a stupid move considering they were built to win now. Lin told Sports Illustrated’s Pablo Torre, his old pal at Harvard, that he’d rather have stayed in New York. Of course, don’t you have to say that if you went to Harvard?

- Olympic basketball is-a-going (almost). They qualified, which isn’t a shocker, and beat Britain bad in an exhibition rout and won out against Argentina, though it was close. They’re real good at basketball, OK? Scottie Pippen hates them, but they’re going to win it all, and maybe even dunk over a giant dude.

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- Former No. 1 overall pick and bust/weirdo Michael Beasley has said that his weed problems are over. While it is, of course, completely logical that someone could smoke weed without a problem, but he’s pretty young and sports is kind of square, so I get it. It’s probably be good he quit, since playing NBA basketball is a pretty rough job. That said, no word as to whether he’s quitting cool haircuts, either.

Baseball
- Indians pitcher “Fausto Carmona,” is not really Fausto Carmona, but Roberto Hernandez, and is in fact three years older than Carmona’s purported age of 28. The age-fraud story broke last year, but was finally finalized last week since he got his visa, and was suspended him three weeks for lying about his age. Still, it’s not bad to be Hernandez: unsigned prospects who do the same get a year suspension, and he also said whatup to the fans and got three birthday cakes. Sweet!

Hockey
- Not much going on, except Scott Gomez, who is the worst because he sucks at hockey but gets paid so much money, pulled a Mr. Burns and won an SUV after hitting a hole-in-one at a charity golf tourney. Only thing is it was his own tourney. The fix is in? Natural born athlete? Hopefully both.

NFL
- Hall of Famer Bruce Smith has joined in on the lawsuits, suing the NFL for turning his brain into a thin and runny fish soup. He was one of the best ever, and is the 22nd Hall of Famer to go after the league for concussions. This is a real deal, but slowly becoming a real fucking deal.

Olympics
- That shit starts Friday. Look out for a guide here!!!!!

@samreiss_