Monkey Butlers of the Week

Best Use of the Number Three: Cleveland Indians. The Indians, who had a player turn an unassisted triple play a couple of weeks ago, pulled off a rare triple steal on Tuesday night in the midst of an 8-2 win over the Chicago White Sox. It was the first triple steal in the MLB since 1987.

Worst Time to Bring a Dead Issue Back to Life: The NBA. By coming out on Wednesday night and issuing a ruling on the Derek Fisher/Brent Barry foul fiasco, they fanned the burning embers of an almost-dead issue and reignited the blogosphere and the airwaves. Everyone already knew it was a foul (except the Spurs), so why state the obvious? Methinks the NBA doth protest too much in its attempt to appear completely neutral in this whole Lakers/Celtics Finals possibility.

Worst First Pitch of the Week: Mariah Carey. See below. My God.



Oddest Resurfacing of a Former '90s R&B Group Member: Michael Bivins. Formerly of R&B supergroup Bell Biv Devoe (that girl is poisooonnnnnn), Bivins is now contributing content to TNT's broadband channel, TNT Overdrive. Uh, ok. Apparently he's just following the Celtics around and gushing about them. (Ed note: While we realize that Bivins started doing this a few weeks ago, we nor do we believe anyone else was aware of it until he showed up during Game 5 of the Western Conference finals last night in that ridiculous suit.)

Most Ridiculous Solution of the Week: The NBA. That's right, folks: the first two-time Monkey Butler of the Week winner, all in the same week too! This one's for the NBA's completely ridiculous decision to assess flopping after the fact and issue fines after video from games is reviewed. So ridiculous, so stupid, so dumb. Just take the leash off of the refs and let them call fouls on the floppers instead, ok?

Most Un-Earl Way to Evoke the Name of Karma: Sharon Stone. She recently made comments that the earthquake in China was caused not by plate tectonics but by karma for the way that China has treated Tibet over the years. China's response was to nuke Stone's privates back to the, ah, Stone Age. Actually, China's real response included their largest cinema chain banning all Stone movies from its cineplexes, which came not a moment too soon as it has spared the Chinese people the torment of having to sit through such bombs as Basic Instinct 2, When A Man Falls in the Forest, and If I Had Known I Was a Genius. I'm assuming that last one's not an autobiographical flick.

And now, your random non-sports related YouTube video of the week: