National Football League

The Sports Playground

Published Oct. 15, 2010 10:12 a.m. ET

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Strange

The NFL asked Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) to stop using footage of Randy Moss (above) in a campaign ad without permission. The ad features Moss in his previous stint with the Vikings, when he famously fake-mooned Lambeau Field fans after scoring a touchdown. The ad compares this to what corporate special interests are doing to America.

Diss

Former Mets outfielder Jeff Francoeur took a swipe at his previous team when talking to the New York Daily News about reaching the playoffs and returning to New York to face the Yankees with the Texas Rangers: "I always wanted to know what it was like to play meaningful baseball in New York, and I'm going to have the opportunity."

Hard to believe

TheOffside.com has photos of a soccer fan in Colombia who had his favorite team's jersey applied to his skin as a shirt tattoo. Felipe Alvarez's torso now bears the thick, vertical green stripes worn by the Atletico Nacional team. The tattoo includes a No. 2 on his back to honor murdered club legend Andres Escobar.

Web gem

TailgateAdvice.com has come up with what it says are the perfect beers for each NFL team. The pick for the 49ers is Prohibition Ale, "since the 49ers have had a ban on winning for the last five years, the only logical beer was Prohibition Ale."

Oddly

Brad Rock of the Deseret News, after a TV commentator referred to Utah's offensive "trickeration" in its 68-27 football victory: "Which, of course, led to the waxification, dispatchification and humilification of Iowa State."

Weird

Talk-shot host Craig Ferguson, on Secretariat getting his own postage stamp in 1999: "And coincidentally, he was also the glue on the back of it."

Fail

A Wisconsin company called Perfect Timing Inc. had some bad timing with the release of its 2011 Cleveland Cavaliers calendar -- featuring LeBron James on the cover. The calendars were printed before James' decision to skip town. The $14.95 calendars have been updated in some markets with cover shots of Mo Williams, but many still sit quietly on Cleveland-area shelves, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.

Quote of the day

First-year Notre Dame football coach Brian Kelly, on what it was like to lead his team out of the tunnel at Notre Dame Stadium for the first time: "For a moment there I thought about the historical significance of running out of that tunnel. For a moment. After that, you're trying to get the heck out of the way so you don't get run over."

Short shots

Alabama spent $97,327 to send its champion football team to the White House in March to meet President Obama. Sports Illustrated reports that $3,329.95 of that went for lunch at Chick-fil-A.

The Yankees' Nick Swisher hit his 26th home run on the same date the past two years: Sept. 8. Both were walk-off blasts.

With Tiger Woods nearby for the Ryder Cup, a Welsh brewery was selling a beer with a sexy woman on the label called "Tiger Would."

Leury Bonilla played nine positions for Double-A West Tennessee in a late-season game, starting in center field and ending on the mound.

Marisa Miller, a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, Santa Cruz native and big 49ers fan, was hired by the NFL as its official spokeswoman for this season, the Hollywood Reporter says.

U.S. national soccer team star Abby Wambach mishit a ball in warm-ups before a game with China. The ball sailed into the crowd and hit an unsuspecting man, causing him to drop the hot dog he was carrying to his seat.

Sports writer John Feinstein's weekly segment for ESPN Radio in Washington was interrupted when the car from which Feinstein was calling in was sideswiped.

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