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When they travel for their upcoming road trip to Milwaukee and Detroit, the Pirates intend to show their support for the Penguins' playoff run by wearing Pens sweaters. But utility infielder Brandon Inge went further.

Inge arrived for this afternoon's game against the Cubs not only in a Mario Lemieux sweater, but in a helmet, pads, gloves, and roller blades. He even goofed off by pretending to play goalie in the clubhouse.

Somewhere, a Yinzer is wishing it was a Tom Barrasso jersey. That way, Inge would be ready in case Tomas Vokoun falters.

[Twitter]

h/t to Not Smizik's Blog

Everything about this story stinks like shit.

Back in March, James V. Palmieri of Syracuse, N.Y., had severe diarrhea. His roommate, David Utt, asked him to turn on the bathroom fan to keep his poop smog from infiltrating the rest of the apartment they shared. Palmieri, 59, found the request objectionable; he thought Utt, 62, could have been more sympathetic to his plight. So what did Palmieri do? He threatened to "crap all over the house, the bathroom and my car," according to what Utt told police.

The Syracuse Post-Standard published both the police report and the complete victim's statement. Let's let the newspaper take it from here:

Palmieri got into his pajama bottoms, then went outside, Utt told police. Utt was suspicious because Palmieri doesn't smoke.

During the night, Utt discovered Palmieri had defecated "all over the floor in the bathroom and in the hallway near the bathroom," Utt's statement said.

"He clearly did this deliberately," Utt said.

The next morning, Utt opened the door to his 1997 Lincoln and saw "that Palmieri had, in fact, defecated over the back seat of his car, on the leather seats," a police report said.

Palmieri was charged with second-degree harassment and fourth-degree criminal mischief, and his case is still pending in the courts. He and Utt are no longer roommates. Their breaking point? The Post-Standard explains it best:

Utt had to drive the feces-laden car because he had to get to a doctor's appointment that morning, he said. When he got home, he gave Palmieiri five minutes to start cleaning it all up.

"How does it feel to be (expletive) on?" Palmieri asked, Utt told police. Then Palmieri punched him in the face, Utt said.

Have your own roommate horror story? Tell us about it in the comments.

[Syracuse Post-Standard]

Photo credit: Fussypony/Shutterstock

Koji Uehara came on in the eighth inning and retired the White Sox in order. He was a little fired up when he returned to the dugout, where Shane Victorino got caught looking.

[MLB]

College Football Live's Joe Tessitore aroused attention today by stroking Johnny Manziel's total package.

h/t to Mike M.

Per USA Today's Mike Garafolo, 49ers receiver Michael Crabtree tore his Achilles during organized team activities yesterday. A source also told Garafolo that Crabtree will soon have surgery, and that the injury could be serious enough to keep Crabtree from playing this season.

The Niners haven't yet commented on the situation. Two reasons for Crabtree to be hopeful: The Ravens' Terrell Suggs and the Bucs' Da'Quan Bowers both tore their Achilles last spring but eventually managed to play last season.

[USA Today]

Photo credit: Associated Press

The court battle between Mario Williams and his ex-girlfriend over a $785,000 engagement ring has reached the "Mario Williams had to hold a press conference to deny he considered committing suicide" stage.

Late last week, the lawyer for Erin Marzouki, Williams's ex-fiancée, released a series of text messages Williams allegedly had sent Marzouki back on Nov. 11, the day the Bills played a road game against the Patriots:

Among them:

• “I took 3 hydrocodones this morning and no one knows. I’m going to take 2 more on the plane and fade away.”

• “No money in the world should leave me with suicidal thoughts.” And: “I need to go back n my shell. There’s no telling what Ill do to myself at this point. I’m sry Ill disappear from now on.”

The messages had been deleted from Marzouki's phone, but just to show how ugly this has become, her lawyer told the Buffalo News a forensics expert was hired to retrieve them. Which, in turn, put Williams in the awkward position of having to explain the darkest contours of his relationship drama during a 10-minute press conference after yesterday's practice.

Williams admitted he sent the texts but said they were "blown out of proportion" and were taken "completely out of context":

Regarding suicidal thoughts, Williams said: “In my situation, I’m completely fine. I’ve never had any inclination of anything that even myself would notice.”

Never in moment of anger did you suggest you might kill yourself, he was asked? “In a moment of anger, I talk about everything, I tell you that,” he said. “And I don’t know who would say they don’t. So that answers your question.”

Asked again later on if he had suicidal thoughts, Williams said: “No, no, no. Like I said, in the heat of battle, in the heat of ups and downs, things like that, you just come to somebody who you think you can just vent to, and whatever comes out comes out.

“I think that’s just a way of venting out, but obviously that’s the wrong person to vent to,” Williams said of Marzouki. “It’s just something that I wouldn’t tell anybody else – as far as venting – than the person you love or whatnot at the time.”

Williams explained the hydrocodone—a pain medication—as something he had been prescribed for the wrist injury that plagued him for much of last season.

It was Williams who filed suit to get the 10.04-carat ring back from Marzouki. The suit says she broke things off in January and never had any intention of marrying him because she only wanted his money. Marzouki has filed a countersuit that says Williams frequently broke up with her and that he told her she could keep the ring when they finally split for good. The couple got engaged in February 2012, but they had been together for more than five years.

So where does this case go from here, with neither Williams nor Marzouki willing to blink first? Well, it depends.

[Buffalo News]

Photo credit: Getty

It (sort of) looks that way, according to Zachary, our tipster. But it's tough to be sure. That pose you see above is certainly Gronk-like, but dude's also wearing a shirt with buttons, and we can't tell whether he's also wearing Zubaz. Another photo shows dude drinking from a bottle of water, which only adds to the intrigue.

Zachary says these photos were taken Sunday at a bar in Manhattan's Flatiron District. That would be the day before Gronk was scheduled to have more surgery on his forearm at a hospital in Boston.

Adds Zachary:

I arrived at 5 and left at 8:30. The photos were taken at 6pm and probably 7pm. He was there when we arrived and still there when we left.

Then again, Gronk's surgery wasn't until Monday afternoon. It's the Summer of Gronk. All things seem possible, especially Sunday Funday.

The man in charge of USA Basketball once owned the Suns and the Diamondbacks, the WNBA's Mercury, and the arena league's Rattlers. He was also responsible for bringing the NHL to Phoenix. But if you were to say something nasty to his mom, Jerry Colangelo wasn't always above behaving like some beer-soaked barfly in Sahuarita.

It's been 20 years since the Suns got to the NBA finals in their first season after trading for Charles Barkley. But that run had added significance for Colangelo. Born and raised in the Chicago suburbs, he began his front-office career with the Bulls before taking over as the Suns' first GM. He later bought the team in 1987.

In an interview with the Arizona Republic's Paola Boivin, Colangelo described how his worlds collided when he and his family were in attendance for Game 4 of the finals at Chicago Stadium:

He was sitting with his son, Bryan [fired today as GM of the Raptors], when he heard a commotion behind him where his wife, Joanie, and mother were.

“What’s going on?” Colangelo asked.

“The guy behind us told your mom to shut up and sit down,” Joanie said.

Colangelo was livid and told the man to apologize. He wouldn’t. Colangelo sent his wife and mother away from the seats.

“You don’t want to do this, Mr. Colangelo,” a security guard told him.

As the game ended, the fan gave Colangelo the finger. Colangelo leaped over a row of seats and grabbed him. He got a punch in before security pulled him away.

“It’s a Chicago story,” Colangelo said, smiling.

The man who owned the seats had let someone else use them that night. He would later call Colangelo to offer an apology. The pre-internet 1990s were weird.

[Arizona Republic, via BDL]

Photo credit: Associated Press

Vanessa Bryant's Instagram sometimes can be a valuable source of actual news. Today, it featured an image of these four photos, which were taken yesterday at a barbecue.

We know that's Vanessa and Kobe. We know that's Matt Leinart and a woman named Stephanie. We know Stephanie hosted the barbecue, but that Stephanie is not dating Matt Leinart. We know that's some other couple. And we know that's a mini pony. But that's all we know.

[Instagram, via @psamp]

"Looks like we're going to extra innings." That's what Greg Brown, the Pirates' TV broadcaster, said as soon as Russell Martin made contact on this fly ball to shallow right-center. But Brown should have known better. Because it ain't over till the Astros have finished tying all of their shoelaces together.

The gif you see here shows rightfielder Jimmy Paredes and second baseman Jake Elmore colliding, which allowed the ball to drop and the winning run to score. Elmore said the crowd was too loud (at PNC Park!) and that he couldn't hear whether Paredes had called him off. As we've seen so many times since the start of last season, this is what the Astros do. But let's back up a bit, just to set the scene fully for tonight, since comedy is always best understood in context.

Houston led this game 4-1 in the fifth. Chris Carter, who would later be replaced by Paredes, dropped a routine fly ball in the sixth that resulted in a three-base error and led to a run. Pittsburgh then tied it in the eighth when Pedro Alvarez's 462-foot homer landed in the Allegheny River on one bounce. In the ninth, the Bucs had Travis Snider on third and Andrew McCutchen on first with one out. For some reason, Pittsburgh chose not to have McCutchen try to steal second. When Brandon Inge bounced meekly back to pitcher Edgar Gonzalez, Snider wisely didn't break for home. But when Gonzalez turned toward second to start the double play, he dropped the ball. Everybody safe. Bases loaded. Still one out.

Gonzalez got Neil Walker looking for the second out. Up came Martin. He worked the count full before popping that ball into the Pittsburgh sky somewhere between Elmore and Paredes. It would land like an anvil falling on Wile E. Coyote. The Astros are now 20 games under .500.

[Full video at MLB | gif via @rtjr]

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Weekend's here. Your weekend crew will be, too. Hope yours is swell.

BREAKING: Wind.

h/t to Huge Ma

The Titus Young story has officially gone from funny to sad to worse.

The Press-Enterprise of Riverside (Calif.) is reporting that Young's ex-girlfriend obtained a restraining order against him last week. The order, which was granted May 8 by a judge in Riverside County, requires the former Detroit Lions receiver to stay at least 100 yards away from the woman, who is also the mother of Young's 8-month-old son, Titus Jr.

“He would say things like, ‘I understand why O.J. killed his wife.’ He says, ‘We’re always gonna be a family and I’m always going to be his,’” the restraining order request states. “He got mad and yelled at my neighbors and tried to fight multiple people that he doesn’t even know.”

[...]

Young’s ex-girlfriend said she called police because Young would repeatedly wait outside her Moreno Valley home, and that he threatened and harassed her.

“Titus Young Sr. has been clinically diagnosed with a mental disorder and I am afraid of what he is capable of doing,” she wrote in the restraining order request. “He also has been in a mental help facility more than once and still believes that he does not have a problem.”

The woman also said in her request for the restraining order that Young frequently talks to himself and goes for long walks without coming back. And while it's been widely reported that Young was arrested three times in a week, a fourth arrest has now been confirmed. A few hours before his DUI and first burglary arrests, Young allegedly tried twice to rob a gas station some 55 miles away in Laguna Hills. The Detroit Free Press says Young attempted to steal candy, cigars, and a bottle of water. His ex says that during those thefts Young was holding his son, whom he had taken without telling her.

[Press-Enterprise | Detroit Free Press | Larry Brown Sports]

Somebody took the time to make an infographic of every uniform and hat combination the Pirates wore in 1979, their last World Series championship season. It's black and yellow and yellow and black and black and yellow all over. [@AnthraxJones]

h/t to WHYGAVS

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Enjoy your evening.

[Reddit, via Bob's Blitz]

This video of Viktor Troicki's meltdown at the Italian Open goes on for four minutes, but be sure to watch it from beginning to end. It just keeps getting better and better.

Troicki had already lost 6-1 in the first set of his second-round match against Ernests Gulbis. He faces a break point at the end of the first game of the second set when the umpire rules his backhand bounced out of bounds. And away we go.

What begins with an argument quickly escalates when the umpire bounds off his chair to run over and point to the spot in the clay where he says Troicki's ball landed. Troicki disagrees. He doesn't curse, and he doesn't throw anything, but Troicki does spend the next three minutes basically telling the umpire he's "wrong" and threatening to quit the match before finally enlisting the cameraman to walk over and film the spot where Troicki says the ball bounced. A replay at the very end of the video shows that Troicki seems to be correct. His protest gets him nowhere, but who cares? It's the anger that counts.

Eventually, the match resumes. Troicki winds up losing 6-1, 6-1. This time, anyway, he couldn't blame the ball boy.

[Busted Racquet]

Jeremy Affeldt admits it: In 2010, he literally was an overpaid relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants.

Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle took the time to read the book Affeldt had published last month. In it, Schulman found a story about a two-year, $10 million contract extension Affeldt signed before the 2010 season. Affeldt's previous deal called for him to make $4 million in '10. But when the extension was drawn up, the Giants made a clerical error that noted he was to get $4.5 million. Both he and the team signed it without noticing.

Affeldt got three opinions saying the contract was ironclad and he could keep the extra $500,000, from the Players Association, agent Michael Moye and even Giants assistant general manager Bobby Evans.

Affeldt recalled Moye telling him, "You know what? As your agent I've got to tell you that legally you can keep it. As a man who represents integrity, I'm saying you should give it back."

And that's what Affeldt said he did, redoing the contract with the $500,000 excised.

This past offseason, Affeldt and the Giants agreed to a three-year, $18 million deal. Affeldt believes he got that contract in part because he had been straight with the team three years ago. See! Honesty does pay!

[San Francisco Chronicle]

Photo credit: Associated Press

Here's something positive for you: A 21-month-old western Pennsylvania boy is likely still alive because of some quick thinking by a group of college baseball players who went for a late-night food run.

The Millersville (Pa.) Marauders, a Division II team, were in Johnstown, Pa., last week for their conference tournament. Sometime after midnight, as Tuesday night became Wednesday morning, seven players walked to a local convenience store for some snacks. It was raining. As they neared the store, a car pulled up. The vehicle's occupants were screaming. A man got out. He was holding a small child. The child looked "limp," according to Zach Stone, Millersville's third baseman.

Dave Pine, 20, a catcher, said, "He was screaming and yelling, 'My son is choking! He's having a seizure! Somebody help!' "

The man was Shane Norman. The woman he was with was his wife, Megan, who is eight months pregnant. The child was their son, Braydin, a toddler. The Normans, who live in Johnstown, which is about 65 miles east of Pittsburgh, were rushing Braydin to the hospital because he had a temperature of 104.3. Along the way, the child had a seizure. He became unresponsive.

“He was real stiff, taking a seizure,” the mother said. “He ended up vomiting and choking on it. … His head was thrown back and his eyes were in the back of his head. He had gone limp and quit breathing.”

Megan Norman said that she started to dial 9-1-1, but in her haste to help her son, she dropped her phone and never completed the call.

Megan Norman started giving Braydin CPR on the ground outside the car. The players came over to help. Tyler McDonald, a redshirt sophomore third baseman, had learned CPR in high school. He told Shane Norman to remove his jacket and to place it under Braydin's head to open his airway. He also instructed Megan to move Braydin's tongue so it wouldn't prevent him from breathing. Stone grabbed the boy's arm to check for a pulse and to see if Braydin could squeeze it. Pine called 911.

The other players—Evan King, Tyler Orris, Dan Stoltzfus, Tyler Thomas—huddled around to keep the rain from falling on the mother and child. Within minutes, Braydin opened his eyes. Megan would say later the players' assistance "made all the difference in the world."

Shane and Megan Norman said they had learned CPR a long time ago, but that in their panic they had forgotten some of the details. The players stuck around with the family until an ambulance arrived, doing what they could to distract Braydin to keep him calm. Just before Braydin was loaded onto the ambulance, Thomas slipped a Millersville baseball bracelet onto the child's wrist. It was the only clue that later allowed the family to remember who the players were.

The doctors were able to get Braydin's condition under control. They told Shane and Megan a virus had caused his temperature to spike so suddenly. On Friday, the family went to the ballpark. A few of the Millersville players saw them standing near a fence along the first-base line. The players came over to greet them. Photos were taken. Braydin would later be given a signed baseball.

Millersville's coach, Jon Shehan, had not been told what happened until he saw all the fuss.

"I said, 'Who are you getting your picture taken with?' " said Jon Shehan, of Ephrata, who is the father of two small children, including a son about Braydin's age. "I don't think they understood what they did, and how significant it's going to be for that little boy's life. They were surprisingly humble and nonchalant."

[Johnstown Tribune-Democrat | Lancaster Online]