Of all the people in the world, I think I’m the one least likely to overuse hyperbole. But this goal by the Maryland Lacrosse team is, in my opinion, the greatest scoring play in the history of sports.

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If you read my review last weekend, you may have noticed that I sort of glossed over the last article in this past week’s issue of Sports Illustrated. There were two reasons for that. First of all, my magazine came two days late and I was pressed for time, so I didn’t actually read the last article. I just said it sounded like an interesting book and promised to have more on the topic soon. And that’s the second reason.

Today, we speak with L. Jon Wertheim about the new book, “Scorecasting”, which he co-wrote with University of Chicago Professor Tobias Moskowitz. We talk about journalistic orthodoxy, well worn cliches, summer camp and secret names.

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There’s nothing better than logging onto Twitter early in the morning and seeing a multi-tweet rant from Kanye.  But, for sports fans, this comes close.

John Buccigross, who for my money is among the 2 or 3 best hosts at ESPN, went off on the Tampa Bay Lightning for complaining about a shootout winner, scored by Linus Omark last night.

Let’s run through the situation

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There’s an article in the New York Times today about professional athletes copywriting their nicknames or sayings. Darrelle Revis has a trademark on Revis Island and both TO and Ochocinco have various products with their various sayings.

The story got me thinking. None of these guys have great nicknames. In fact, no one has a great nickname anymore. Where have all the great nicknames gone?

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A little company called Statsheet, today announced their grand plans to automate the development of sports content, beginning with blogs. The founder of Statesheet states:

A blogger/writer’s internal script is pretty much set.  They generally don’t change or improve the quality or comprehensiveness of their content over time in a significant way, but algorithms can be upgraded continuously. The “voice” of the content can be improved.

Now this might hold true with some sports reporters, such as Bob Costas or Joe Buck, but I disagree that sports content doesn’t improve over time. I also find it hard to believe that an algorithm is going to come up with the type of truly witty, perverse and outright outrageous content for which I read sports blogs. If all Statsheet is going to do is produce short summaries of games based on statistics, it sounds more like a replacement for the AP’s sports desk.

We had a lot of fun, drank a lot of beers, and thank you for reading SportsCracklePop religiously periodically throughout the year. Here is a list of our our seminal moments and highlights of 2009.

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Many years ago, former Maple leaf and Ranger Tim Horton opened some donut shops in Canada. Then he died.

Many years later, the chain, by this time the largest in Canada,  decided to expand into New York.

That’s cool. We like donuts here.

What we may not like, though, is the fact that our elected officials have decided to turn the opening of a new donut shop into a major political event, especially considering what has been going on lately in this state.

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I’ve seen the future of hockey, and it lies on the banks of Lake Michigan.

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My friend asked me how I feel about Manchester City’s tempting 75 million Euros for the world’s best goalkeeper Gigi Buffon.

Yes you read that right. 75 Million Euros, which is more than $100 Million USD.

I honestly consider Gianluigi Buffon the best goalkeeper in the history of Soccer and while I am at it any other sport that requires the use of a goalie. The only other goalies to come close are fellow Italians Dino Zoff and Walter Zenga. By studying stats alone, we realize Buffon is #1 and there is no second. Any comparable, contemporary third still doesn’t cut it. He is not only turning 31 January 2009, but has been injured for a few months.

No matter, he is STILL a hot commodity.

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President Barack Obama. Take a step back and think about that.  It’s absolutely amazing.

Doesn’t it feel good to take part in Democracy? Well, good news. Election day may be over, but there’s still lots of great voting to do. We still need to crown the biggest douche in all of sports.

We’re down to the Final 4, and they are all very douchey.

The first matchup of the SemiFinals:

1. Bill Belichick vs. 1. Barry Bonds

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