Wednesday's A.M. Hot Clicks
RIP Ultimate Warrior
The Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan (1991)
On Sunday I watched The Ultimate Warrior get inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Last night the wrestling legend passed away at the age of 54. The Camel Clutch Blog and The Masked Man have good pieces on the Warrior's legacy (though The Masked Man wrote his a few years ago, since The Warrior was rumored to have died in 1991). We interviewed him in January upon the release of 2K Sports’ WWE 2K14. There will likely be more to come on this story. For the time being it's hard to believe that the same man who gave this great speech on Monday night is no longer with us.
BatKid Rides Again
It's only April but baseball may have already had its Moment of the Year as Miles Scott (a.k.a. - San Francisco’s BatKid) threw out the first pitch of yesterday's Giants home opener. The five-year-old cancer survivor arrived on the field in a signature Lamborghini and was walked to the mound by Matt Cain, who caught the pitch.
Mason Plumlee > LeBron James
It's not very often that Mason Plumlee gets the best of LeBron James, but that's exactly what happened at the end of last night's Heat-Nets game. Down a point, James received the ball with five seconds left and a clear lane to the basket. James went for the dunk, Plumlee went for the block and the rookie bested the veteran as the Nets held on for a one-point victory.
Lovely Lady Of The Day
Wednesday's A.M. Hot Clicks
It seems like every week there is another athlete rumored to be making an appearance in the Entourage movie (Thierry Henry being the latest). All this does is take attention away from the movie's real star, Emmanuelle Chriqui, who is today's LLOD.
JaMarcus Russell Update
The former No. 1 overall pick was spotted devouring a steak at an Outback. ESPN draft expert Mel Kiper, meanwhile, is still trying to pretend that his glowing 2007 scouting report on the former LSU quarterback never happened.
Two GIFs You Must See
Mets pitcher Bartolo Colon threw seven shutout inning in a 4-0 win over the Braves Tuesday night and celebrated by showing off his belly fat in the dugout. And if that GIF didn't get your morning going, perhaps this one of LSU coach Les Miles kissing a pig will.
From the SI Vault
Wayne Gretzky :: Getty Images
On this day in 1987, Oilers center Wayne Gretzky recorded seven (yes, seven) points in a 13-3 victory over the Kings to pass Jean Beliveau as the all-time playoff scoring leader. SI has been covering Gretzky since he was a 16-year-old prodigy. Here's an excerpt from E.M. Swift's 1978 profile of the future legend:
"More than 7,000 people -- the largest hockey crowd of the season in Canada's capital -- came to the Ottawa Civic Center one night last month to get to the bottom of a 16-year-old wunderkind who plays for the Sault Ste. Marie ( Ont.) Greyhounds. His name is Wayne Gretzky. That's with a Zed-K-Y, please. The immigration guy fouled it up when his grandfather came over from Russia. In Peterborough the next night, the same thing happened: largest crowd of the year even though the last-place Greyhounds provided the opposition. The night after that, it was the same story in Hamilton: first sellout of the year for a Junior A game, and in a blizzard to boot, everyone out getting stuck in the snow to see some kid called The Great Gretzky, whom every paper in Ontario has hailed as the next Bobby Orr since he was eight years old, 4'4" and 70 pounds.
Gretzky is not just another star of the future. He is there, Canada's answer to Steve Cauthen and Nadia Comaneci, one of those rare youths who leapfrogs the stage where they speak of potential, whose talent is already front and center, which, incidentally, is the position he plays for the Greyhounds. Gretzky is only a rookie in the Ontario Junior A Major Hockey Association (OHA), a league in which the players range in age from 16 to 20, but he has exploded onto the Junior scene like no one since Guy Lafleur -- and before that Orr. If Wayne Gretzky were never to play another hockey game, thousands of Canadian kids would remember him into their dotage. He is the stuff of their dream—that, lacking size, lacking strength, lacking speed, they, too, can somehow make it."
Odds and Ends
Father Time is catching up with Derek Jeter, as you can see in this play yesterday ... This is what Adam Scott ate for his Masters dinner ... The 20 funniest NBA dunk faces of all time ... Celebrities and their historical doppelgangers... NBC is now asking viewers to come up with sitcom ideas ... It might be a good idea to change your internet passwords today ... Bloody Mary potato chips are a thing that exists ... An oral history of Heathers.
Halfcourt Shot of the Day
A Kings fan wins a car.
Surprise of a Lifetime
Fourteen-year-old piano prodigy Daniel Clarke Bouchard performs on Ellen, then gets to meet his hero, Kings’ netminder Jonathan Quick, after the performance.
Best High School Goal Ever?
Norman (Okla.) North High School's Mauro Cichero scores a bicycle kick goal after consecutive headers. (HT Bob's Blitz)
Joey Votto is The Mountie
Joey Votto appeared on Intentional Talk yesterday and dressed up like a Canadian Mountie.
