I just learned a little too much about Jonathan Papelbon's locker room rituals

Found this little nugget about Jonathan Papelbon this morning, from a Red Sox beat reporter...

The Yankees were in town and players were scarce, save for a few pitchers sitting on the black leather couches assembled in the middle of the room. Manny Delcarmen was one, Clay Buchholz was another. Jonathan Papelbon, in practice gear, was around too, fiddling with the DVD player hooked up to a nearby flat-screen television.

He was up to something, I could tell. When he popped in a disc he made a Bill Murray face. (If you've seen Papelbon's mound stare downs, you know it probably isn't easy for him to be deadpan.)

... it shouldn't have surprised me when I noticed the Hustler Video logo pop up on the TV. It did, though. I figured I was seeing things. The title screen appeared. It looked like an SI swimsuit edition video, with lettering similar to the magazine's masthead. Oh, I though. Bikinis. This won't be too weird. Then the actresses came on screen.

Literally.

What I saw that day defied physics. It was fantastically filthy. From where I was standing, about 10 feet away, it looked like an open fire hydrant. In retrospect, I should've known. There's a reason they named the movie Squirts Illustrated.

(Can you imagine Papelbon asking a clubbie to make a porno run? Yeah, I need three tins of Skoal mint and the widescreen edition of Squirts Illustrated. Here's 100 bucks.)

Wow.

And where else on earth would you have grown men looking over the shoulder of a man watching porn? A baseball locker room. That's where.

Now that being said... here's what you should know about Papelbon...

Curt Schilling once said of Papelbon in Sports Illustrated, "He's not exactly a charter member of Mensa," and many baseball fans would probably agree with the assessment. I prefer the characterization provided by Esquire's Chris Jones, who recently wrote, "Papelbon's not stupid. He just hasn't acquired professional mechanisms, an understanding of consequence: He says all the dumb things most of us probably think but keep back."

Well I mean, at least he isn't fat like Carlos Silva.

Papelbon might be on his way out of Boston

See the guy to the right? That's Daniel Bard and he has been ridiculous so far.

Bard surrendered zero earned runs in July. He hasn’t allowed an earned run in 14 straight innings. Over that span, the league is hitting .089 against him. He has struck out a preposterous 14.8 batters per nine innings and his strikeout-to-walk ratio is truly astonishing for anyone, let alone a pitcher who throws 99 mph regularly. It’s 23 TO 0.

And with current Boston Red Sox closer Jon Papelbon making every save adventurous, along with some not-so-popular comments about becoming a New York Yankee if he didn't get the right pay day from the Sox... we could be looking at the future right here.

And the support for Papelbon has been waning, at least on Internet comment boards...

Bard should be the closer and Papelbon either a reliever or starting pitcher as his saves are a russian roulette death or life experience. - Posted by mascmen7

The smart move would be to make Daniel Bard the closer for the foreseeable future as long as he is this effective. Jonathan Papelbon just has not been as effective overall this year as he has been in the past. - Posted by Wambo

It will be fun to watch Bard go against Papelbon in a couple years when the Sox play the Yanks. Any doubts as to on which team each pitcher will play? - Posted by Nomptnet

My question becomes, what song would Papelbon run out to (it's "I'm Shipping up to Boston by Dropkick Murphys right now) in a Yankee uniform?

Other people that should get their own muppets

Kobe Bryant and Lebron have their own muppets, what's stopping other people from getting their own commercial muppets?

(And by the way, I still can't get over how Kobe's muppet looks nothing like him and doesn't sound like him at all. It's not even wearing a Lakers jerseys)

1. Jonathan Papelbon - Not only could it dance to Flogging Molly but it could also strike out muppet A-rod, which would actually just be a sack of crap on a stick.

2. Stephon Marbury - Steve and Barry's may have gone out of business but their pitchman lives on since he has his no defunct shoe logo tatooed on his skull. A muppet of equal craziness has to be made. Although somebody should probably put a tracking device on the thing so it doesn't go bat crazy and start ripping people's throats out.

3. Adam Morrison - You wouldn't see this muppet out on an NBA court though.

4. Mark Few - Actually, the real life Mark Few is about the size of a muppet.

5. Jose Conseco - It could just walk around accusing everyone of steroid use, and it's crowning moment would be when it outed the Olson Twins for using PEDs.

6. Pacman Jones - Muppet strippers are much cheaper than real strippers.

7. Peyton Manning - with a permenant "Manning Face" ... thank you Bill Simmons for coining that term.

8. "Press Box Hot" Female - it doesn't take much to make a homely muppet right? Thank you Bill Simmons for coining the term press box hot.

9. Casey Knopik - This strange little muppet would chase around squirrels and hike up muppet sized mountians. Which are actually just large trash cans covered in felt.

10. Katy Perry - Is it possible they could give her more cleavage than the real life Katy Pery in her Vegas song music video?

The good and bad of yesterday's sporting events

THE GOOD - The Red Sox showed some fight against the Tampa Bay Rays who drubbed them on Saturday, 14-5, and has pretty much owned them so far in this regular season. On Sunday, Jason Bay (surprise surprise!) doubled off the Green Monster in the bottom of the eighth to drive home Big Papi to take the 4-3 lead and then Papelbon shut to door on the Rays in the top of the ninth for his eighth save.

THE BAD - The Lakers, even with Yao Ming out, blew their game against the Houston Rockets, 99-87 in a game that Los Angeles came out looking flat and uninspired. WHERE WAS THE BLACK MAMBA? 15 points? Seriously Kobe? Thanks for ending my streak on ESPN's Streak for the Cash.

THE GOOD - Seattle beat the Twins 5-3 to get back to .500. And look at this, we have a Ken Griffey Jr. sighting as he hits his third (WOW!!!) homer of the season. I can just hear the FSN call now

"Griffey Homers on Mother's Day! My oh My! Have you seen anything so spectacular! This is amazing folks! Wow! A home run! By a Mariner! We haven't seen this in weeks! We actually have a highlight we can use! Maybe Angie Mentink will stop using low cut shirts to get ratings now that we have actual highlights!"

THE BAD - The Sounders FC tied the LA Galaxy. While it certainly isn't a loss, LA hasn't been fantastic this year and it would have been nice to get a win over this run-of-the-mill club. Next up FC Dallas - the worst team in the league. They better score enough goals to get fans a Chalupa.

THE GOOD - Glen Davis' game-winning shot over the Orlando Magic to tie up the playoff series 2-2 was fantastic and equally up there on the unintentional comedy scale.

Ask Celtic fans who they'd draw up a game-winning shot play for and I would guarantee you that only Davis' mother would have penciled in Big Baby into the equation. This led to him almost running into a 13-year old who had court side seats during the post-game celebration and the weirdest post game interview where he just didn't use sports cliches, he murder them, bagged them and spit them back up in what I would like to call the Mona Lisa of sports cliched interviews. It was like he was reading from a cue card held by Kevin Garnett.

Oh and Doc Rivers' celebration after Davis' shot pushed the unintentional comedy scale through the roof. I've never seen an NBA Coach immitate Mark Madsen until last night.