In today’s podcast with his buddy Jack-O, Bill Simmons acknowledged that he hasn’t been that into this baseball season for a variety of reasons: the relative struggles of the Red Sox combined with his immersion in the NBA and NHL Playoffs. ESPN’s coverage, however, has not been representative of his interests.

Around the 52-minute mark:

Simmons: It’s weird because I really got into hockey the last 18 months or so–especially this year. Turning on Sportscenter–you always hear people complain about ESPN that ESPN buries hockey all the time–and it’s kind of true. I hate to throw a dart at the worldwide leader but you’ll go on SportsCenter to watch the hockey highlights and they don’t come on until like the 35-minute mark of SportsCenter. There was a day the other day, they were showing national league highlights of two teams that weren’t even .500 and they showed like three minutes of highlights from this game and then, like 10 minutes later, they showed the NHL playoff highlights.

Jack-O: I don’t want to be a corporate shill here but don’t they do that for a reason, though? I mean, they must know their audience, right?

Simmons: Well that’s the thing. I was thinking like there has to be some sort of real science to this and somebody must have determined that there’s indisputable evidence that there’s no reason that hockey should go within these first 20 minutes of SportsCenter unless X, X, and X is in play.

Perhaps it is true that the general American population cares more about a relatively insignificant baseball game than the NHL Playoffs–we definitely care more about Jonathan Vilma’s defamation of character lawsuit against Roger Goodell and the Mark Sanchez-Tim Tebow quarterback controversy than both.

Yahoo’s hockey blog, Puck Daddy, had a great discussion about ESPN’s lack of hockey coverage: essentially, it’s a chicken or the egg question. Is there no interest in hockey because ESPN doesn’t give it any attention or does ESPN not give it any attention because there’s no interest?

Or, might it be that ESPN gives more attention to regular season baseball highlights than NHL Playoffs because it has a TV contract with the MLB and not the NHL? As soon as ESPN stopped broadcasting the NHL, it almost entirely ceased coverage.

It’ll be interesting to see whether a potential big-market Stanley Cup between the New York Rangers and LA Kings affects ESPN’s coverage and whether future years will be different.

[A league source says] Orlando is prepared to trade him sooner rather than later.

The source said that when Magic team president traveled to Michigan last weekend to speak in person with owner Rich DeVos, the conclusion was reached that not only was it time for Stan Van Gundy and Otis Smith to go, but Howard, too.

Photo Credit: SoRaspy.com

This situation parallels where the Tennessee Titans found themselves two seasons ago when Vince Young and Jeff Fisher were feuding. Young, who had been given a number of second chances (which technically makes them third and fourth chances) was released and Fisher, whose message had grown stale in the locker room, was fired.

While one side may be more to blame than the other, neither Howard nor Van Gundy are absolved from guilt for this season’s deterioration on and off the court. (It goes without saying that it’s no bueno when a team’s best player asks the general manager to fire the coach and the coach discloses this information to the public.) The Magic will never be able to get better value for Howard than they are now–contenders would want him on their team from the start because team basketball is a fluid gelling process amongst teammates.

One reasonable possibility involves a trade with the Lakers where the Magic would get Andrew Bynum back. Perhaps Howard and Bynum will benefit from a change of scenery. (Or, maybe one or both will never fulfill their potential.) While Orlando may not be too excited to take on another mercurial center with otherworldly physical skills, it could be their best chance at starting over without having to completely rebuild, suffering through a miserable season or two of praying to the NBA’s ping pong ball gods.

Got no idea if this is true but if is it’s hilarious. Lawrence Taylor & his agent Mark Lepselter were told last night winning bidder for LT’s Super Bowl Ring was none other than Charlie Sheen!!!

Again, I have no clue if Charlie sheen was the actual winning bid but LT & Lepselter were told he was. If true, wow, so many ways to go here

— Jay Glazer (@JayGlazer) May 24, 2012

Just talked to @marklepster who confirmed they were informed it was Charlie Sheen but they are still trying to confirm it by Sheen’s people

— Jay Glazer (@JayGlazer) May 24, 2012

Photo Credit: technorati.com

The parallelism of this is perfect. The man who has to raise cash because he blasted through his fortune on prostitutes and cocaine sold his Super Bowl ring to someone who will one day have to sell off the ring for the same reasons or die trying.

Pretty please with sugar on top let this be true. Sports Rapport will keep you posted on any new information.

Update: According to Charlie Sheen, he did NOT buy LT’s ring. Via PFT:

There was a report from Jay Glazer of FOX that Taylor and his agent were told that Sheen was the buyer of the ring, which sold at auction for $230,401, but the man responsible for the Torpedo of Truth tour said that there was no truth to it.

“As much as I would be honored to own such an important artifact, I had nothing to do with the acquisition,” Sheen said, via [Dan] Patrick’s producer Paulie Pabst.

So there you have it. I’m not gonna lie, this sort of feels like we were robbed.

In today’s NY Daily News, Michael O’Keefe and Bill Madden report that the Yankees might be for sale:

[A]ccording to the sources, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the situation, the recent sale of the Dodgers to a group that includes NBA legend Magic Johnson is just one reason why the Steinbrenner family may be looking to sell the team, which experts estimate could be worth up to a stunning $3 billion.

“It would definitely be the right time for the family to sell,” said another baseball source familiar with matters involving the league’s owners. “The value of the team couldn’t be higher, but at the same time, it’s an older team in a division with younger teams getting better at the same time a lot of the Yankees’ core veterans are starting to go into decline.”

Photo Credit: New York Daily News

For what it’s worth, Hal Steinbrenner says that the Yankees are not for sale. (Shocking, I know.)

If some wealthy individual or conglomerate would actually pay $3 billion for the team, the Steinbrenners should take that money and RUN.

Allow me to explain.

Recently, the Dodgers sold for $2.175 billion (price quoted from the NYDN report)–at $3 billion, this would mean that the Yankees are worth 38% more than the Dodgers, which would seem to make sense considering that the Yankees have a brand new stadium, already have their own TV network, and a stronghold in domestic and international merchandising. It might be easier if they were just granted a license by the federal government to print money.

HOWEVER, the Dodgers aren’t worth $2.175 billion. If you recall, Dealbook told us that the Dodgers are a high-priced toy financed with other people’s money on questionable fundamentals:

Mr. Walter, along with his colleague Todd Boehly, Guggenheim’s president, appear to be living out a childhood fantasy using other people’s money, some of whom may not even realize it.

In addition to their own cash, Mr. Walter plans to use money from Guggenheim subsidiaries that are insurance companies — some state-regulated — to pay for a big chunk of his purchase of the Dodgers. Guggenheim controls Guggenheim Life, a life insurer, and Security Benefit, which manages some $30 billion, among others.

Using insurance money — which is typically supposed to be invested in simple, safe assets — to buy a baseball team, the ultimate toy for the ultrarich, seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Mr. Walters has been somewhat open in acknowledging that Guggenheim’s companies will be tapped, but the investor group has not disclosed how much of the purchase price is coming from individuals.

Dealbook continues:

“Paying $1.5 billion or $1.6 billion — I can get there. But anything after that is pure ego,” said a longtime sports banker who worked for a rival bidder for the Dodgers. “We’ve done the math. At that price, it just doesn’t make any sense unless you want to be the king of Los Angeles.”

So, yeah, if the Yankees’ value is derived from a formula using the Dodgers sale price as a benchmark, it would be dumb of the Steinbrenners–who, according to the Daily News report are not particularly interested in the baseball side of the operation–not to sell the team. They should find some affluent hedge fund director who wants what is perhaps the ultimate toy–the shiniest trophy–in New York City.

On Deadspin, Barry Petchesky makes the case for the Steinbrenners to keep the team:

And here’s the thing: the Yankees aren’t getting less valuable. The Daily News story wants to paint a picture of an aging team with an uncertain future, but the on-field product is the least of the Yankees’ assets. The brand is impenetrable, the stadium new, the merchandising strong, and most importantly, the TV deal is still laughably lucrative. The Steinbrenner kids are more into the business side than the baseball side? All the more reason to keep riding this horse as far as it’ll go. It’s very rare for the obscenely rich to decide, “You know what? This golden goose has laid enough eggs.”

Petchesky, though, is incorrectly assuming that the Yankees’ sale price would be determined by the franchise’s true economic value; at $3 billion it is not. Let’s say that the Yankees are worth 40% more than the Dodgers and, liberally, that the Dodgers are truly worth $1.6 billion. This would mean that the Yankees’ real intrinsic value is $2.24 billion, a figure that is significantly greater than their $1.85 billion Forbes valuation.

Petchesky’s “The Yankees aren’t getting less valuable” logic is what made real estate prices boom in the 2000s, internet stocks skyrocket in the 1990s, and tulips dominate the market in the 1630s. The Yankees might not get less valuable anytime soon but to expect their value to irrationally increase for perpetuity ignores economic fundamentals and the fact that baseball can reasonably be expected to lose market share to more exciting sports over the next few decades.

If the Yankees are sold for $3 billion when, as an operating entity, they are really worth $2.24 billion, the Steinbrenners reap a $776 million premium over what they would get if the team was sold to a rational investors. It’s like winning $776 million in the lottery because it’s pure luck that the family inherited an asset for which people would be willing to buy at significantly more than it’s actually worth.

As the great philosopher Kenny Rogers once sang, “You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run.” If they could actually get anything more than $2.5 billion for the Yankees, the Steinbrenners should take that money and GALLOP off into the sunset.

Deep Routes

- Yahoo’s Mike Silver caught up with Tom Brady Sr., who said that he would be “very hesitant” to let his son play football in the concussion era:

“No, not without hesitation,” Tom Brady Sr. said. “I would be very hesitant to let him play.”

Though things worked out for the kid who quarterbacked the New England Patriots to the fifth Super Bowl of his future Hall of Fame career last winter, the elder Brady believes any responsible parent should be reacting to the growing research linking head trauma and degenerative brain conditions with gravity and concern.

“Tommy did not play football until he was 14, because we didn’t think he was physically developed enough to play the sport,” Brady Sr. said of his now 34-year-old son. “It’s the same reason I wouldn’t let him throw a curveball until that age. I told him, ‘If I see you throw a curve, I will pull you right off this field,’ and he knew I meant it.

- On Grantland, Bill Simmons details six Staples Centers events from 74 hours–he went to five of them:

Looking back, one weekend story line stood out over the others, but that shouldn’t stop us from ripping through all of them for posterity’s sake. On Thursday night (Day 1), the Kings throttled the Coyotes and moved within one victory of the Stanley Cup finals. My daughter was happy because her favorite player, Anze Kopitar, scored a breakaway goal, dominated the game and did a bunch of Kopi things. In general, she loves attending playoff games because “the fans are louder” and “everyone tries harder.” (Look out, Shaq, I think someone is gunning for your “Master of the Obvious” title.) She really loved the last two minutes, when Phoenix couldn’t pull its goalie because the Kings were pressuring them so relentlessly. As it happened, the long-suffering Kings fans were standing, hollering, waving white towels and practically shattering the glass with their approval. It was all kinds of awesome. Every time I get worried about burning out on sports after four solid decades of giving a crap about total strangers, I find myself caught up in a moment like the last two minutes of that Kings game — when you’re embedded in the heart of 20,000 people basically losing their shit — and you think to yourself, Oh, yeah, that’s why I do this for a living. What a game.

- In ESPN the Magazine, Brett Forrest writes about soccer match fixing:

THE WORLD’S MOST popular game is also its most corrupt, with investigations into match fixing ongoing in more than 25 countries. Here’s a mere sampling of events since the beginning of last year: Operation Last Bet rocked the Italian Football Federation, with 22 clubs and 52 players awaiting trial for fixing matches; the Zimbabwe Football Association banned 80 players from its national-team selection due to similar accusations; Lu Jun, the first Chinese referee of a World Cup match, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for taking more than $128,000 in bribes to fix outcomes in the Chinese Super League; prosecutors charged 57 people with match fixing in the South Korean K-League, four of whom later died in suspected suicides; the team director of second-division Hungarian club REAC Budapest jumped off a building after six of his players were arrested for fixing games; and in an under-21 friendly, Turkmenistan reportedly beat Maldives 3-2 in a “ghost match” — neither country knew about the contest because it never actually happened, yet bookmakers still took action and fixers still profited.

- On Wired, David Wolman profiles master counterfeiter Hans-Jürgen Kuhl: (via Longform)

Kuhl’s intricate production process combined offset printing with silk-screening (see “How to Make $100″). The hardest features to forge with any level of sophistication are on the front of the note: the US Treasury seal, the large “100″ denomination in the bottom-right corner, and the united states of america at the top. Real US currency is printed on massive intaglio presses (intaglio is Italian for engrave). The force with which the presses strike the paper lying over the engraved steel plates creates indentations that fill with ink, giving the bills a delicate 3-D relief and a textured feel. Its absence is a telltale sign of a counterfeit. For Kuhl this was the most critical puzzle piece: how to create that texture convincingly without the benefit of actual engraving. “I had an idea,” he says, “and I was itching to try it.”

Quick Reads

- WSJ: In the UK last year, more than 1/3 of divorce filings contained the word “Facebook.” (via Rob Wile)

- Dealbreaker: Boxing Coach Eric Kelly Would Call Wall Street Clients ‘Nerd POS Miscreants’ Even If He Wasn’t Getting Paid. (via Dean)

- American hero Eugene Polley–who invented the first TV remote control–died at 96 this week.

- People who listen to loud music are more than twice as likely to smoke weed.

- The Pakistani doctor whose DNA work helped the US find Bin Laden’s work wasn’t received kindly in his homeland.

Food Porn

James Brownie Funky Jackhammer at Andy’s Frozen Custard (Evanston, IL) - brownies and creamy peanut butter blended with Andy’s Frozen Custard, filled with rich hot fudge.

$1 Chicago-style hot dog at Blarney Stone (Chicago, IL)

The lawsuit, Vilma v. Goodell, was filed in United States District Court in New Orleans. It says, “Goodell, speaking publicly about certain Saints executives, coaches and players, in relation to purported efforts designed to injure players, made public statements concerning Vilma which were false, defamatory and injurious to Vilma’s professional and personal reputation.”

…

The lawsuit contains a blanket denial of the league’s claims about Vilma’s involvement in bounty activities. It said that Vilma was not involved in establishing a bounty system and that he never pledged, made or received payments encouraging, or resulting from, hits that injured opponents. The suit also said Vilma never targeted a player in a way that would violate N.F.L. rules, and that he never paid or intended to pay $10,000 or any amount to knock Favre, Kurt Warner or any other player from a game.

Photo credit: USA Today

That Vilma was silent when the initial allegations came out and only offered this flagrant denial after he had been suspended for the season convicts him in the court of Sports Rapport opinion. It seems insane that the NFL would fabricate evidence in this situation: given that only four players (and just two current Saints) were suspended, I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that Goodell genuinely has the goods on Vilma.

CBSSports’ Mike Freeman reports that Saints players feel they are being “railroaded.“

For the past several weeks, some Saints players have contacted me, saying those accused in the bounty case, as well as the team itself, have been treated unfairly by the media (including by me). They spoke on the condition their identities were protected, fearing retribution from the NFL (in fact, Saints players said repeatedly that it can’t be overstated just how much people in that locker room right now fear the NFL).

So I listened as some as Saints players told their side. What they said was somewhat eye-opening.

The overall message is that the NFL really doesn’t have proof of a bounty system, and if it did, it would release that proof.

I can kind of sort of see the Saints’ point but if it had proof based on corroboration of anonymous sources, the NFL would NOT release that proof. Responding to Freeman’s piece on ProFootballTalk, Mike Florio gets at Vilma’s motive for the defamation suit:

The league continues to refuse to produce raw evidence of the existence of a bounty program, arguing that all witnesses should be given full protection from any disclosure of their names — a skewed, unrealistic interpretation of the duties that an organization owes to a whistleblower.  And that’s one of the reasons why Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma has sued Commissioner Roger Goodell for defamation.  Not only will Goodell be required, at some point, to prove that the accusations against Vilma are true by disclosing evidence of guilt, but Vilma’s lawyer also will be able to use the lawsuit as a vehicle to explore, to scrutinize, and to challenge the investigation.

Perhaps the league has plenty of evidence to support that there truly was a bounty system.  Until the league chooses to find a way to make enough of that evidence available to make the rest of us believe that a bounty system actually existed, suspicions reasonably will persist.

As I said before, if Vilma was truly innocent of these allegations, why did he not scream bloody murder when they first came to light instead of waiting two months to be punished for them?

If this suit goes to court, Vilma will have to testify under oath. If he is indeed correct that Goodell manufactured evidence and dishonestly made him a scapegoat, this would be one of the most fascinating sports stories of all-time. My guess, however, is that Vilma has gotten some bad advice by his legal team, perhaps more concerned with racking up billable hours than Vilma’s best interests. If Vilma lies under oath in a trial that he initiated, he is avoiding the lesson that pro athletes (and everyone else) should have learned from Roger Clemens: The best way to save on legal fees is to not lie in the first place.

Perhaps, though, Goodell and the league will opt to settle this lawsuit so they are not compelled under oath to reveal their sources of information. If THAT is the case, then Vilma should be applauded for his savvy if not his integrity.

One central theme that kept coming up in conversation at the convention–both in our booth and others–is that there isn’t going to be all that much variance in actual candy and snack products. Sure, there were some innovative items with bold flavors like the Icee Squeezes, milk-flavoring straws, and ketchup potato chips. By-and-large, however, the biggest differentiator for products was their packaging. Lots of people sell gum balls and licorice but Sahagian has built a brand on its unique packaging and is constantly defending its trademark against imitators.

With that in mind, I sought to find products which aren’t necessarily unique but are have package licenses from cartoons and video games, thus appealing to kids. From Duff Energy Soda to Angry Birds Fruit Snacks, find them after the jump:

1. Super Mario Crunchies & Gummies – Donkey Kong has a menacing look on his face. Hope someone brought bananas!

2. Mariokart Klik Candy Dispenser – One of the weirdest things about Mariokart is that I’ve never seen anybody play as Mario. On Super Nintendo, Koopa Troopa’s combination of speed and control is DOMINANT while on N64 you want to be Yoshi. Heeeeeeerrrrrrreeeee we gooooooooooo!!

3. Phineas and Ferb Pretzel Snacks – I have no idea who P&F are but I’m sure if I did I’d have something witty to say about them.

4. Avengers ‘n Dips - Step 1: Make a movie about comic book characters. Step 2: Profit.

5. Avengers Hot Cocoa Mix - I don’t know how y’all feel but I think it’s probably best to keep the Hulk away from caffeine. He’d start going crazy and peeing on the rug.

6. Hello Kitty Marshmallow Pops – Cats are sort of evil. Just saying.

7. Ninja Turtles Valentines – Do kids these days still watch/like the Ninja Turtles or are these intended for people my age?

8. SpongeBob Squarepants Krabby Patties S’more Kit – Remember when Republicans were mad that SpongeBob was so blatantly pre-gay? Whatever happened to that controversy?

9. Garfield Fish Candy – I have no idea what this entails but it looks gross.

10. Duff Energy Drink – Shouldn’t this label have been licensed to a craft brewery for some great beer?

11. Pac-Man Power Pellet Candies and Ghost Sours – Dying in Pac-Man is one of the five worst things ever. Those ghosts are such buzzkills.

12. Angry Birds Fruit Snacks – Angry Birds are EVERYWHERE! I’ve never played the game so that obvious statement will have to suffice.

A couple weeks ago, I was watching the Kentucky Derby and I got a text from my friend Dean. “I wish, during the four hours of pre-game coverage for this three-minute race, they would tell us who the horses’ owners are and how they got rich,” it read. “It would make it a lot easier to figure out who to root for.”

After being temporarily upset that he had not had that observation two days earlier when it would have given me time to write a CAPTIVATING piece on the subject, I wondered why this doesn’t exist.

Kentucky Derby Winner I’ll Have Another (Photo Credit: Guardian)

I know almost absolutely nothing about horseracing and don’t particularly desire to do anything about said ignorance. I went to the track once and I cannot describe to you how BORING it was. There was a race like once an hour, a huge status hierarchy among the spectators (neat, you have enough money that you can afford to lose a lot of it at the track, wear nice clothes, AND have a hot trophy wife decked out in a big hat), and I was hungover so I didn’t feel like drinking (which would have been the only redeemable part of the day).

Horse racing is fun for three days a year for the triple crown (and for the Derby it’s REALLY fun). The only bet I ever make on it is during my grandparents’ Kentucky Derby party. My methodology consists of looking at the betting slip for 10 seconds, picking the horse whose name I like best on my initial read through, and jotting it down quickly–the optimal strategy which enables me to get back to DOWNING hors d’oeuvres.

Perhaps picking the owner with the coolest American Dream story might be a better way?

After the jump, find the horses’ owners and, from what I was able to gather, information about their careers. I don’t really care at all about their racing histories–and you probably don’t either–just their business accomplishments. Some of these owners are SECRETIVE and have nary a Google trail. That being said, I was able to get at least a little bit on every owner except for one.

In order of pole position, the horses name are followed by their odds, trainer, and jockey (this information is from sportschatplace.com)

- Tiger Walk (30-1, Ignacio Correas IV, Kent Desormeaux) – Owned by Sagamore Farm. Founded in 1921 by Margaret Vanderbilt and given to her son Alfred G. Vanderbilt II for his 21st birthday and later sold to developer James Ward, Sagamore is now owned by Kevin Plank, CEO of Under Armour. Here is part of CNBC’s bio for Plank, a former special teams football captain for University of Maryland.

As chairman and chief executive officer of Under Armour, Mr. Plank oversees all aspects of the business. The company that recorded $17,000 in its first year of business, while then 23 year-old Mr. Plank was operating out of his grandmother’s basement in Washington, D.C., has since become a force in sporting goods and a Wall Street darling.  High percentage growth and brand strength has propelled Under Armour to yearly revenues in excess of $500 million.  Plank also works very closely on product creation and the marketing of the brand, including the award winning “PROTECT THIS HOUSE^TM” and “CLICK-CLACK^TM” advertising campaigns

- Teeth of the Dog (15-1, Michael Matz, Joe Bravo) – Owned by J W Singer LLC. It was NOT easy to find any information about this but here’s what I was able to track down. JW Singer LLC is owned by Eric Fein and his son, Harris. Eric owns EAM Land Services, a title insurance company in Syosset, N.Y (his horse racing bio is on that link, too). Here’s its (not particularly useful) company description.

- Pretension (30-1, Christopher Grove, Javier Santiago) – Owned by Kidwells Petite Stable, the stable of Irving Kidwell, who is involved in real estate and construction in Maryland. I can’t find much more about him but he’s 87 years old and has been struggling with his health this week.

- Zetterholm (30-1, Richard Dutrow Jr., Junior Alvarado) – Owned by Winter Park Partners and its breeder Anthony Grey. I literally spent like 10 minutes looking on Google–an eternity and this day and age–and cannot find ANYTHING about them. MYSTERIOUS!!!! If you can know anything about Winter Park Partners, pretty please with sugar on top drop me a line.

- Went the Day Well (6-1, Howard Motion, John Velasquez) – Owned by Team Valor International (TVI) and Mark Ford. TVI is owned by Barry Irwin, a horseracing lifer. I was able to find a cached Breeder’s Cup bio of Irwin:

Irwin was formerly a racing journalist, who left fiction writing in 1969 to become a staff writer for The Blood-Horse. He returned to his home state to write for and later edit the Thoroughbred of California and write the Southern California column syndicated in Daily Racing Form. He also hosted radio and television programs on racing … During that period, he became an owner and won with his first two starters. Irwin left the Form at the close of the 1978 Del Mar meet to become a bloodstock agent on a full-time basis. His company, formed in 1979, was Pacifica Thoroughbreds … In the decade after leaving journalism, Irwin bred, raced, syndicated, bought and sold several hundred horses, including It’s the One, African Sky, Moscow Ballet and Torsion … In 1987, he made another career change, forming a partnership with longtime friend Jeff Siegel and two other shareholders in Clover Racing Stables. Irwin and Siegel went out on their own in 1992 with Team Valor. They operated the business together until 2007 when Irwin bought out Siegel and renamed the stable Team Valor International. Siegel wanted to devote his energies to his position as an on-air host and analyst for Horse Racing Television. In their 21-year partnership, they won 170 stakes races and 21 Grade 1 races. … The stable has about 65 horses in training at any given time …Team Valor syndicates horses to multiple owners for a share in the expenses and profits. Each horse is a separate limited liability company (LLC), with its own federal tax number and bank account … Team Valor International partnerships annually donate one percent of their racetrack earnings worldwide and Team Valor itself matches that figure for The Race For Education, a charity offering college scholarships to the offspring of backstretch and farm workers … Irwin, a member of the board of The Race For Education, was honored by the organization in 2006 with its inaugural “Valedictorian Award.”

Mark Ford owns a horse training center (named after himself) in New York:

Scope of operation: Two hundred harness horses are stabled there, and many trainers operate out of Ford’s center, including Joe Anderson, Nat Varty and Carmine Fusco. About 60 of the horses are trained by Ford and his 20-person staff.

His barns also are frequently used by trainers and owners to locate horses while they prep for big stakes races at Yonkers, the Meadowlands or Pocono Downs. Among the horses that have been at Ford’s are Shadow Play, the 2008 Little Brown Jug winner, and Somebeachsomewhere, the 2008 horse of the year.

- Creative Cause (6-1, Mike Harrington, Joel Rosario) – Owned by Heinz Steinmann, who immigrated to the US from Switzerland when he was 16 years old. Pretty interesting story:

His father started the Holiday Hill (now Mountain High) ski resort near Wrightwood, CA while Heinz majored in hospital administration at UCLA and captained the university’s ski team. Although he took them to the national championships after an undefeated season, Steinmann never thought of skiing competitively for a living, although a love for the sport flowed through his veins. Taking over his dad’s ski resort was the closest he would ever come to that. While still in college, he met and married a girl he met from Studio City. Still happily married for 47 years, Heinz and Lora have 11 children and 36 grandchildren.

Steinmann bought his first horse in 1976 and would sell the ski resort in 1984. His CTBA profile linked above has more details about his exploits in horseracing.

- Bodemeister (8-5, Bob Baffert, Mike Smith) – Owned by Zayat Stables and Southern Equine Stables. Zayat Stables is owned by Ahmed Zayat, who was the subject of a 2010 New York Times profile:

A self-described entrepreneur, Zayat built a beer distributorship, Al Ahram Beverages Company, in Egypt, his home country. In 2002, Heineken bought the company for $280 million. Zayat remained chairman of the company until 2007, but by then he had become among North America’s biggest spenders at horse auctions.

Zayat bought his first horses in 2005. In 2006, he paid $4.6 million for a yearling he named Maimonides, after the medieval Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides, with the hope of promoting peace among Arabs and Jews, he said.

Soon Zayat’s horses were winning some of the most prestigious races in the United States. In 2008, Zayat Stables won nearly $6.9 million to lead all American thoroughbred owners in earnings, and in 2009, he campaigned Pioneerof the Nile, the runner-up in the Kentucky Derby.

Southern Equine Stables is owned by Michael Moreno. Here’s his professional bio:

Professional Background: Owns and runs Dynamic Industries, Inc. (DII) an oil and gas business based in Houston and Louisiana, as well as the Moreno Group LLC, which encompasses both DII and other companies … In 1998, Moreno purchased DII and under his leadership the company has transformed itself into a full-service construction company … DII has grown from a one dimensional offshore hookup company that employed 150 to a diverse and integrated full-service construction company with over 2,000 employees, working in excess of 4,500,000 man-hours per year, domestically and throughout the world … DII is currently operating and executing projects in Nigeria, Angola, Venezuela and Trinidad .

- Daddy Nose Best (10-1, Steve Asmussen, Julian Leparoux) – Owned by Bob and Kathy Zollars. Via Inc:

Bob Zollars is the co-founder of Huitt-Zollars, an architecture and engineering firm based in Dallas. The company, which has several offices throughout the United States, has completed projects ranging from office buildings to highways to bridges. Bob Zollars admits his engineering and entrepreneurial background come into play when racing horses. “In engineering, the discipline you’re taught, there are things that work and things that don’t,” he told the Courier Journal in April. “You start deviating from that and you can have disasters.”

- I’ll Have Another (5-2, Doug O’Neill, Mario Gutierrez) – The Kentucky Derby winner is owned by John Paul Reddam, who founded (I Lost Another Loan to) Ditech . Reddam sold the mortgage lender to GM in 1999. The former Cal State philosophy professor started the online consumer loan firm Cash Call in 2003. He is an avid Detroit Red Wings fan. Here’s a slightly dated but pretty detailed profile on his racing history.

- Optimizer (30-1, D. Wayne Lukas, Corey Nakatani) – Owned by Blugrass Hall. With an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion, Bluegrass Hall owner Brad Kelley is #764 on the Forbes billionaire list (#274 in the United Stated). In 2005, NY Times writer Nina Munk did all the research so I don’t have to–she saw him on that year’s Forbes List, couldn’t find anything on Google, and began to look into him:

The truth is, if you buy up 1.25 million acres of ranching land across southwestern Texas, Florida, and parts of New Mexico, as Mr. Kelley has done recently, you can’t escape attention forever. If you proceed to dedicate parcels of that land to wildlife conservation, as Mr. Kelley has also done, you’re practically crying out to be noticed. Eventually someone like Mr. Kelley, who’s spending millions of dollars conserving black rhinos, white rhinos, pygmy hippos, okapi, anoas, impalas, white-bearded wildebeests, Nile lechwe, Eastern bongos and Beisa oryx is going to be the subject of an article in The New York Times.

Later, Munk writes:

Here’s the business story: In 1991, when few wanted to be anywhere near the tobacco business, Mr. Kelley started a cigarette company from scratch. Called Commonwealth Brands, and established with a handful of employees in Bowling Green, Ky., it set out to undercut the big tobacco companies by producing discount “branded generic” cigarettes. In 2001, just 10 years after starting the company, Mr. Kelley sold Commonwealth to Houchens Industries for $1 billion in cash. By then, Commonwealth Brands was the fifth-largest cigarette maker in the country, with sales approaching $800 million. Its top brand, USA Gold, was, and still is, the nation’s eighth-best-selling cigarette.

Asked for the secret to his success, Mr. Kelley replied: “I like to think it was discipline and patience and avoiding pitfalls and working for the long term – a whole lot of corny things that’ll make me come off looking like an idiot in your article,” he answered, before adding quickly: “I’m sure as heck not Horatio Alger. There are a lot of people out there who are real smart and work real hard, and it doesn’t happen for them. I just happened to be the one that it did. Sometimes you get dealt a good hand.”

- Cozzetti (30-1, Dale Romans, Jose Lezcano) – Owned by Albaugh Family Stables, a Des Moines-based racing operation owned by Dennis Albaugh and his son in-law Jason Loutsch. Also containing his racing bio (once again, I honestly don’t really care), the Breeders Cup has Albaugh’s professional bio:

From a farming family, Albaugh’s older brother took over the family’s business, and knowing it wouldn’t support him as well, Dennis went to college, then for seven years, sold fertilizer, chemicals and seeds for a local co-op. In 1979, he started Albaugh, Inc., an agricultural chemical company from the basement of his home in Ankeny, a suburb of Des Moines. Though Albaugh barely turned a profit in the ’80s, today Albaugh, Inc. is a $33 million a year generic producer of agricultural chemicals, and Albaugh is listed by Forbes, Inc., with assets of $1.5 billion … Most of the company’s profit is generated from the manufacturing and sales of glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide … Company has sales in 48 states, 44 countries and has over 3,800 employees … Albaugh has also developed two housing projects in Ankeny and has served in leadership positions with the Ankeny Chamber of Commerce and Ankeny Businessmen’s Club

I’m not sure if it’s his primary occupation or not but Loutsch appears to own CycloneFanatic.com, an Iowa State fan site.

Deep Routes

- Drew Magary profiles Justin Bieber for GQ (never thought I’d see the day where Drew was connected with either of them…). Here’s Bieber’s brand new pimped out ride:

A bit later, someone alerts Bieber that West Coast Customs has arrived with his new Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van. So now he’s running out to the parking lot to give it a once-over. It took West Coast six weeks to trick out the van, and WCC founder Ryan Friedlinghaus is here to hand-deliver the keys.

The Sprinter is exactly the car that an 18-year-old with too much money would drive. The interior is lined with Alcantara. There are two reclining seats way in back, with bucket seats lining the driver’s side of the main cabin, as in a stretch limo. There are three hi-def TVs, a computer dock, and a fully operational recording studio along the passenger side. All that’s missing is a button that spews out an oil slick, Spy Hunter–style, to foil paparazzi. Bieber’s pals try to guess how much it costs. “Definitely not a million,” says someone. One of Bieber’s business advisers, a woman named Allison Kaye, isn’t wild about the new toy. “Oh, this just screams inconspicuous,” she says to Bieber. No response.

Everyone gathers around as Bieber tours the van. He is euphoric. So much so that he has decided to pledge his loyalty to West Coast Customs forever and to decry its rival, Platinum Motorsport. “Fuck Platinum,” he says. “Platinum can suck a dick, man. West Coast all day.” This is a different Bieber from the one who was imprisoned with me just five minutes ago. This must be the Bieber that Bieber would like to be all the time. His R-rated rant, though, draws a reprimand from Friedlinghaus. “I respect everyone’s business—it’s all love, dog,” he tells Bieber. “Dudes came from my neighborhood, you know what I mean?” Bieber is chastened. “I respect that,” he says. To atone, he invites Friedlinghaus and the entire West Coast Crew into his recording bungalow to listen to the new songs. “I’m 18 years old and I’m a swaggy adult!” he yells. “Come on, swaggy bros!”

- Also from GQ, Eric Puncher finds his doppleganger, i.e. someone who had the same philosophies in his early 20′s. Where Puncher married, had children, and became a college professor, Kyle is his 39-year old non-conforming counterpart:

I listened to one of his songs—a gorgeous number called “Look at What the Light Did Now”—that reminded me of an angelic-voiced Will Oldham. Then, as fate would have it, I found an Internet video of him singing a cozy duet with Feist. In the video, they’re staring into each other’s eyes, lounging in a rocky canyon somewhere with matching peacock feathers tucked behind their ears. They’re singing that same song about the light, and though it’s possible I’m reading into it, it seems pretty clear to me they want to fuck each other. This was the moment when he had me. It just so happens that Feist had become something of a deity in our house: Clem’s all-time favorite video clip was her guest appearance on Sesame Street, when she sings “1234″ while counting monsters and animals. I must have seen the thing over fifty times. Now, I like Feist; I think she’s plenty talented. But the act of watching her bounce around with chickens in sunglasses so many times had rendered her grotesque. Basically she’d become a Muppet. So this clip of her soul-singing with Kyle Field—both of them, judging from how long they keep their eyes closed after the song is done, in no state to do much counting—seemed the perfect inverse of my life.

- Tom Howard, co-founder of Y-Combinator incubated start-up Adioso, writes about the struggles his company has been facing in growing and therefore finding the funding needed to continue. This passage details the difference in opinion that he and his partner have over a potential acquisition (via LongReads):

To Fenn, an acquisition now had plenty of appeal. We could wipe away our debts, make our investors whole, relax for a few years in the cosy employ of another company, then go off and do something else. Also, having a successful exit on your CV would put you on better footing to raise funding for our next thing. “Like Dennis Crowley selling Dodgeball to Google,” he said. No, I thought, we are not Dodgeball, our suitor is not Google, and neither of us is Dennis Crowley.

To me it seemed like a mirage. Going to join a company would not be relaxing. The whole reason I started my own company was because I couldn’t stand working for or with other people, apart from the ones I chose myself. There was a lot that sucked about startup life, but it was never as bad as employee life.

- From there, I found Paul Graham’s Y Combinator dinner speech about “How Not to Die”:

When startups die, the official cause of death is always either running out of money or a critical founder bailing. Often the two occur simultaneously. But I think the underlying cause is usually that they’ve become demoralized. You rarely hear of a startup that’s working around the clock doing deals and pumping out new features, and dies because they can’t pay their bills and their ISP unplugs their server.

Startups rarely die in mid keystroke. So keep typing!

If so many startups get demoralized and fail when merely by hanging on they could get rich, you have to assume that running a startup can be demoralizing. That is certainly true. I’ve been there, and that’s why I’ve never done another startup. The low points in a startup are just unbelievably low. I bet even Google had moments where things seemed hopeless.

- In the New Yorker, Evan Osnos writes extensively about Macau, using a brilliant story-within-the-story to illustrate his broader points about corruption and the difficulties American businesses face in reconciling legality, ethics, and profits (via Longform):

Macau, whose population is half a million, feels like China amplified and miniaturized. It is animated by the same formula of ambition and speed and risk, but the sheer volume of money and people passing through has distilled the mixture into an extract so potent that it can seem to be either the city’s greatest strength or its greatest liability. A generation ago, Macau made fireworks, toys, and plastic flowers. Today, the factories are gone, the average citizen earns more than the average European, and the gap between the rich and the poor is vast and widening. Construction is ceaseless, and at night welders’ torches flare from scaffolding overhead. Underfoot, the sidewalks are littered with faces on discarded handbills that promise the companionship of “girls from every continent.”

Quick Reads

- An employee-owned strip club in San Francisco isn’t going to make it unless it gets bailed out.

- Alabama cracks down on illegal immigration, state’s farmers have to cut back on crop production. (via PourMeCoffee)

- Study: Being ‘Born-Again’ Linked to More Brain Atrophy. (via BobbyBigWheel)

- Virginia legislature blocks judge because he is openly gay. (via PourMeCoffee)

- “If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable,” Manny Paquaio says. “They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.” (via Bomani Jones)

Update: perhaps Paq, while still very intolerant, was misquoted?

Food Porn

- Went to San Soo Gab San on Saturday night. Korean BBQ with GRILLS ON THE TABLE, you guys. Here’s some BBQ Beef and Pork Belly Bacon–interestingly, while the PB Bacon looks better, it lacked flavor. The beef, though, was outstanding.

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Last week, I was lucky to fulfill every child’s dream and work a booth at the NCA Sweet & Snack Expo in Chicago. Working for Sahagian & Associates, who produce yards of bubble gum, licorice, and caramel corn as well as one-foot tubes of bubble gum, licorice, malted milk balls, jelly beans, taffee, and sour sweets, I spent most of my time on my feet.

While this was pretty exhausting for someone who usually spends all day typing nonsense into a computer, it was all worth it for the SAMPLES. Oh my God, the samples, you guys. Every candy and snack you can think of and thousands that you can’t were represented. This was the candy store for candy stores!!!!

It’s a good thing my doctor’s appointment and subsequent clean bill of health were the week before and not right now. BEATING THE SYSTEM!

Here’s a picture of the Chicago bean constructed out of Jelly Belly’s. If I devoted my entire life to it, I probably couldn’t re-create this.

After the jump, see the 15 coolest products from the convention, including milk-flavoring straws, bacon jerky, and mints packaged inside Nintendo controller.

INCREDIBLE SWEETS

1. Icee Squeeze - Ever hit 4:20 AM and crave a slushy but the LAST thing you want to do is shlep to the nearest 7/11? Don’t you wish you had them in your freezer? Well…..

2. Magic Milk Flavoring Straws - The straight up adorability of the cows on these labels makes you wonder why more people don’t have them as pets. Also, it’s probably a good thing that these straws didn’t exist when I was six years old because if they did, I wouldn’t exist and you wouldn’t be looking at them–my mom would have MURDERED me and no jury would convict her after my insufferable clamoring.

Photo Credit: grettajohns.blogspot.com

3. Dippin’ Dots Candy – The first time I ever had Dippin’ Dots was either at Noah’s Ark in the Wisconsin Dells or Typhoon Lagoon in Disney World. Despite the fact that I don’t remember, I totally could have definitively said one of them and YOU wouldn’t have known the difference. But I’m honest with y’all.

Photo Credit: select2gether.com

4. Nutella & Go – Let’s face it. Nutella is absolutely delicious but if you buy a whole container, you can’t stop yourself from putting that shit on EVERYTHING, mixing it with peanut butter all the time, or just eating it plain with a spoon when your sweet tooth comes calling (or maybe that’s just me and I’m projecting…). Perhaps realizing this, they’ve now given us a way to ration their sweet, creamy goodness.

5. Yummy Chow – I baby sat my friends’ adorable puppy this weekend and I think his facial expression when we went on a 4-mile walk on Saturday when it was 72 and sunny with a slight breeze (OH MY GOD ISN’T THIS AWESOME?!?!?!?!) was the same as the look on my face when I first saw and tasted these delicious treats.

TASTY SNACKS

6. Bacon Jerky - Does this even need an explanation? In case you’re wondering, it tastes better than it sounds. In related news, did I mention that my cholesterol levels WERE normal?

Photo Credit: Amazon

7. Jalapeño Poppers Cheese Curls – These are basically like Spicy Cheetos except better. I wonder if Chester the Cheetah feels threatened yet if his era of dominance is coming to an end. If he doesn’t yet, he should. And he will.

Photo Credit: outbite.com

8. Ketchup Potato Chips – Apparently, these are big in Canada. Not really my style but who am I to judge if they’re yours?

Photo Credit: lygsbtd.wordpress.com

9. Spicy Cajun Crawtators - Haven’t tried these yet. Not quite sure if I’m man enough for ‘em. Anyone ever had these? I’m sort of scared…

10. Jack Link’s Big Dippers – Do not, I repeat, do NOT mess with Sasquatch. He will tear your shit up!

Photo Credit: Ebay

COOL PACKAGING

11. Sahagian Yard of Bubble Gum - Here’s company founder Linda Sahagian holding up one of the tubes for proper perspective. How many gum balls do you think are in a yard?

12. Flip Flop Mints - It would be cooler if you could wear these, like the Reef flip flops with bottle openers on the bottom.

13. Nintendo Power Mints - One of the proudest moments of my life was when I beat Mario 3. Between stints of trying and giving up, it took me well over 10 years. IF YOU BELIEVE IN YOUR DREAMS AND TRY HARD (REAL HARD) THEY CAN COME TRUE!

COOL BECAUSE I LIKED THEM WHEN I WAS LITTLE AND HAD NO IDEA THEY STILL EXIST

14. Ring Pops – Has anyone ever successfully executed a marriage proposal with a ring pop? What woman wouldn’t want to walk around during her engagement with that huge rock? (Besides–and I’m just guessing–all of them.)

Photo Credit: candyandsnacktoday.com

15. Big League Chew – Sort of weird how the anti-tobacco mafia got all up on bubble gum cigarettes but left Big League Chew alone. You’d have thought they’d be a package deal, no?

Photo Credit: totalprosports.com

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