These were the exact things 30-year old Ryan Ward from Toms River, NJ, decided to do.  However, it didn’t come without a cost.  Ward faced one year in jail for theft-by-deception charges, but plead guilty to lesser charges of disorderly conduct after checking himself into an alcohol rehab facility for treatment.  He was fined $2,518 and was placed on two years’ probation.

PHOTO CAPTION: Joba or not Joba?

What first got him in legal trouble was an Aug. 1 encounter at a bagel shop in which Ward asked employees “Do you know who I am?” and pointed to a photo of Chamberlain in a newspaper. They gave him free bagels and a bottle of water.

Other impersonations followed. Eventually, at least a few watering holes got wise and banned Ward from the premises. Then in October, he was arrested again, this time for yelling and carrying on while sitting on a bench outside a bar while intoxicated.

The irony of this story is the end result of impersonating Joba Chamberlain lands you in the same exact place the real Joba Chamberlain most likely is, in an alcohol rehab facility for treatment of a drinking problem (and on probation).  If you remember, back in October, Joba was arrested in Lincoln, Nebraska for allegedly driving under the influence, speeding and having an open container of booze in his car.

The lesson learned here?  If you have a really fat face and love to drink booze, don’t impersonate Joba Chamberlain, it will cost you.

PHOTO CAPTION: This could be Michael Merritt.

According to police, officers spotted Merritt rolling a marijuana cigarette in the car at 1 a.m.  Come on Michael, you should know professional athletes need to make sure those marijuana cigarettes are pre-rolled before going out.  Rolling one in the wee morning hours is very suspicious.

The officer reported that he saw Merritt put a cigar-shaped object into his mouth. He ordered Merritt to get out of the car and spit it out.  Cigar-shaped?  Marijuana cigarette or marijuana blunt?

According to the police report, Merritt said, “All this for a little bit of weed?”

Officers said they found 3 grams of pot in a bag in Merritt’s shoe and 1 gram of pot in the joint.

Merritt was booked and later released on $250.

PHOTO CAPTION: The single-most, entertaining human being on planet earth, with knowledge of every situation.

Stephen A. Smith writes on this blog:

“Michael Phelps………..

“Someone asked for my opinion on this matter, so I’m giving it: LEAVE THE KID ALONE.

“In no way am I condoning his apparent pot-smoking tendencies. But the man is fresh off of capturing 8 Gold Medals — after spending four years dedicating himself in unfathomable ways, depriving himself and making sacrifices most of us wouldn’t even think about. So after capturing Gold eight-times over in Beijing, and all the fame that come with being an Olympic Champion, Phelps, just 23 years old, by the way, went out and had a good time.

“Yes, it was wrong. But it’s forgivable. Everyone deserves a break sometime.

“Let’s give Phelps one.”

Honestly, could Barrack Obama have said it better himself?

PHOTO CAPTION: “I piss excellence!”

OTR isn’t going into detail about what happened, you can read it here.  In summary, a urine sample from Barry Bonds which was taken in 2003 tested positive for PEDs.   And PED doesn’t stand for Pissing Excellent DNA.  It stands for ‘I cheated and my MLB records mean nothing.’

The Roughriders are a Canadian Football team in the CFL.  Canadian football is similar to hockey where 11 players per team play on a grass field and try to score by running or passing an oblong ball into zones which are at each ends of a field that is a 100 yards or so long.

PHOTO CAPTION:  Sorry Eric Tillman, she’s way too young for you.  You can look, but don’t touch.

Tillman is 51 years old.  Again, the girl was 16.  51 divided by 16 is three with a remainder of three indicating that Tillman was over three times the age of the girl he sexually assaulted alleged to have sexually assaulted.

Parker was suspended for the first two games of the 2008 season when he was arrested last April on weapons and drugs charges. Preston sounds like an assload of fun to hang with.

Back in 2006, Parker was arrested for trying to steal DVD’s from Best Buy, but had the charges dropped after paying $200 in court costs and agreeing to enter a diversionary program. Whoever runs that diversionary program might want to re-think some of its strategy. I think now is a good chance to crack open the mission statement of the program and really think about tweaking it.

The woman told police she woke up at 1 a.m. Tuesday and found a man she knew as “Mike” sitting on her bed. “Mike” demanded that she repay the $200 she owed him and then raped her when she said she didn’t have the money. Which is really what he should have done. If she didn’t have the money, the logical next move is to force yourself onto to her. Makes a ton of sense, Dave. Especially when you got charged with the same thing back in September. Plus, you were already on probation for sexual assault at that point. Wow.

Photo Caption: “We need you in the second half, so don’t go raping any broads on the way to the locker room.”

This clearly isn’t an isolated incident. It’s a habit. And people thought smoking cigarettes was a problem. Christ.

We’d rather just shut it down than to run a boring, poorly updated blog, which is what OTR is starting to become.

We can’t thank all of our readers enough. You guys have all been great and we had a ton of fun playing with everyone. Maybe we’ll do it again some day. We could have just let the blog die slowly and not update it, but that’s not fair to anyone. We thought we would give OTR a proper burial by at least letting everyone know that we are calling it quits.

Memorial services will be held Sunday, December 21st at 2 PM at the Lodi, NJ YMCA.

You can send thoughts and regards to MPerry_77@hotmail.com and MicahW@feverpitchmedia.com.

Happy Holidays to all of those in OTR land!!

He was pulled over for speeding in Hanover, NJ which is right by the team’s training facility.

The 31-year-old Ellis was “uncooperative” and refused to supply the officer with all of the necessary paperwork, and was found to be in possession of marijuana and arrested, according to the police report.

PHOTO CAPTION:  Shaun Ellis was so high at training camp that he ate half of his jersey.

He was also issued a summons for possession of drug paraphernalia, as well as motor vehicle summonses for speeding, failure to keep right, failure to produce a valid registration card and driving without insurance before being released.

Total Turd Points: 6 points 

Shaun could be sentenced to life-in-prison if convicted.

What did he do? Pressed charges.

That’s right, he is pursuing assault charges. If this broad has a habit of doing this, then good for him. We aren’t fans of hitting anyone and we don’t like when women hit guys and invoke the “it’s ok to hit you because I know you can’t hit me back.” So he shouldn’t hit you back. But you shouldn’t have hit him in the first place. Enjoy your night in jail.

He also says that he was with Burress Friday night at Applebee’s. The interviewer, Andy Adler, was clearly caught off guard by this information. Was Hixon with Burress at the club? There are rumors that there was a third Giant (possibly Derrick Ward) present at the club with Burress, but it’s not known who it was. Interesting.

As to the first part of this posting, Burress has not returned phone calls from several members of Giants management since the shooting. Is he socializing with Hixon and other friends while ignoring the people that just gave him a ton of money and have been putting up with his crap for this long?

Could be nothing, but it’s our job to stir the pot. Here we are stirring the pot. Here is the interview as transcribed by moi off my DVR:

Andy Adler of Fox 5 NY: “It has been a seamless transition, now have you spoken with Plaxico Burress? Have you conversed with him at all?”

Domenik Hixon: “Yeah, uh…”

AA: “..In the last couple days?”

Hixon: “We went to the Knicks game and everything.”

AA: “I’m not talking about the last couple weeks, I’m talking about the last couple days.”

Hixon: “Ummm, uhhh, Yeah, I did ummm…Friday night we were at Applebee’s eatin’ hanging out.”

AA (clearly surprised): “Oh so you were there? You were there on Friday night when he accidentally shot himself in the leg?”

Hixon: “I’ll say I was at Applebee’s with him.”

AA: “You guys haven’t spoken since?”

Hixon: “No.”

“As we allege in the complaint, Mamma.com entrusted Mr. Cuban with nonpublic information after he promised to keep the information confidential,” said Scott W. Friestad, Deputy Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. “Less than four hours later, Mr. Cuban betrayed that trust by placing an order to sell all of his shares.”

“We are aware of the situation with Kareem,” Coughlin said. “I spoke to him this morning. He is extremely remorseful. The legal process will take its course, and the league will handle this matter. Nobody will be harder on Kareem than Kareem himself. He is very conscientious and has been a first-class citizen since he arrived here with our organization.”

Despite the arrest, he will still start Sunday against Baltimore.

Actually, it’s ok to call him Shirley because that’s his name. Former Fresno State Bulldog and current (surprise!) Cincinnati Bengal Jason Shirley has been found guilty of drinking and driving and hit and run. On October 8, 2007, Shirley backed his car into an apartment building and then drove off. In liberal California, they frown upon that sort of thing.

Shirley was sentenced to 30 days in an adult work offender program and was told he could serve that sentence apres le season.

This is the fourth time in five years that Johnson has been accused of assaulting a woman. He is facing discipline from the NFL for violating the Personal Conduct Policy, which does not include permission to spit drinks in women’s faces.

Vick got sentenced to a one-year, suspended prison sentence. Also, he got a fine of $250 for DUI, another $250 fine for evading police, and a $30 fine for driving on the wrong side of a divided highway.

So, the natural question is: Only $30 for driving on the wrong side of a highway??? We think that’s pretty unsafe.

Well, that was enough for his teammates to keep repeating it in a mocking way. Apparently, Shaw told them to knock it off, but Peterson couldn’t help but get one more in there.

So, Shaw stomped him like a narc at a biker rally and just cracked him.

It’s unclear at this point how long the suspension is for.

Chamberlain will most likely be benched for the rest of the post season.

Chamberlain could face 20 years in prison and up to $500,000 in fines according to Nebraska state laws.

PHOTO CAPTION:  The only person in the world that has a bigger head than that is Barry Bonds.

After the arrest, Joba was taken to Cornhusker Place Detox in Lincoln where he enjoyed stuffing his face with glazed donuts with the other police officers, which is the normal protocol.  The donuts help absorb the alcohol.  Many suspect Joba intentionally got arrested so he could eat the donuts.

Joba is an African name that means “He who loves stuffing donuts in fat face.”

Though no charges were filed (surprise), the NFL ruled that this alcohol-related incident violated the terms of his reinstatement as well as the league’s Personal Conduct Policy. Pacman will be suspended for a minimum of four games without pay.

What could be worse is that this incident could also violate the terms of his probation stemming from the Las Vegas strip club shooting in 2007. He better pray that no one in Vegas takes a good hard look at this incident and cross references it with his probation terms.

Many people have called this stint with the Cowboys Pacman’s second chance, but in reality it’s more like his sixth or seventh.

Does anyone remember the beginning of Raising Arizona? When Hi keeps getting arrested and put in front of the parole board? I feel like that’s what Pacman’s meetings with Goodell are like. Here is the script, but I changed the names:

ROGER GOODELL
Got a name for people like you, Pacman.
That name is called recidivism.

JERRY JONES
Ree-peat O-fender.

ROGER GOODELL
Not a pretty name, is it, Pacman?

PACMAN
No Sir, it sure ain’t. That’s one
bonehead name. But that ain’t me
anymore.

ROGER GOODELL
You’re not just tellin’ us what we
wanna hear?

PACMAN
No Sir, no way.

JERRY JONES
‘Cause we just wanna hear the truth.

PACMAN
Well then I guess I am tellin’ you
what you wanna hear.

ROGER GOODELL
Boy, didn’t we just tell you not to
do that?

PACMAN
Yessir.

ROGER GOODELL
Okay then.

“We’re trying to determine all the facts,” Goodell said. “It’s clear there was some type of an incident. We want to understand all the facts and once we do understand the facts then we can make a judgment from that point. But at this point right now it’s just making sure we understand exactly what did happen.

“I don’t think there’s any misunderstanding about the position that Adam has put himself in with respect to all of the behavior. And I’ve been very clear with him about the fact that it cannot reflect poorly on himself, the team or the NFL, and that there were certain things that I expected of him. And I think he clearly understands that. I guess I would tell you that I’m disappointed that we’re even discussing this at this point in time. But we’ll have to wait for the facts and understand exactly what happened before we make any determinations.”

We’ll bet Goodell was so pissed off when he heard about this that he did something wild and outlandish like snap his pencil…..with ONE hand.

The team plans no disciplinary action.

Ed Werder of ESPN said this morning that Jerry Jones was “furious” about the situation. I guess someone calmed him down.

We just don’t see how Pacman didn’t violate any agreement. A mirror was broken, he was visibly intoxicated and he didn’t pay his bar tab.

We get visibly intoxicated a lot, and we never break mirrors (unless someone says that Brett Myers sucks) and we almost always pay our bar tab. But, maybe for Pacman this is a typical low-key night out.

Good.

The story is that Williams and his group (including Javon Walker, whose arms Williams tragically died in) got into an altercation in a club with Clark’s group on New Year’s Eve 2006/07.

Clark then got into an SUV an pumped 15 bullets into Williams’ rented limo, with a bullet striking Williams in the neck and killing him.

At 61 years old, OJ is probably never going to see the light of day. A kidnapping charge brings up to five years, while an armed robbery charge is 2-30 years. Expect the judge to max out his sentence since he, you know, already got away with murder once.

Before becoming a murderer, OJ Simpson played football.

That’s right, police are still looking for Ambiorix Burgos after he hit and killed two women with his SUV.

“The investigation indicates that Burgos was the driver of the (vehicle) that hit the women,” Taveras said in a statement, adding several witnesses identified Burgos as the driver.

We’re sure the Mets were thrilled to learn of this latest public relations disaster.

“We are extremely disturbed by the reports regarding the player’s potential involvement in the hit-and-run accident that unfortunately killed two women in the Dominican Republic,” the Mets said in a statement. “We take this matter very seriously and have begun an internal investigation to ascertain the facts. Our thoughts and sympathies are with the families of the victims.”

Translation: He sucks anyway and we can easily cut him.