To some, Michael Vick probably seemed genuinely contrite in the press conference that followed his guilty plea today. Don't believe a word of it -- he's just trying to get out of jail.

As much as I despise the mob-like self-righteous outcry that highly publicized scandals usually create, in Vick's case consider me firmly on the bandwagon. I have a 9-month-old rescue dog named Ginger, and she's the sweetest creature I've ever laid eyes on. She's also a pit bull. When my fiancée and I found her, she was four months old, and one of her ears was sliced in half -- apparently, some asshole was trying to make her more "fight ready" but then wimped out. (And, for the record, she's never tried to bite another dog's throat out.) We like to think that her old battle scar adds character.

Unlike Vick's dogs, who will most likely be put down because all they've been trained to do is kill. Ginger's one of the lucky ones. When Vick gets sentenced on Dec. 10, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he gets at least a few months in the clink.

It's a funny old game, baseball. You can be a last place team and, on any given night, your bats could explode for... oh, I don't know... 30 RUNS! What? What?! My eyes: they exploded. I am without eyeballs, right now. The shock was too great. I really need to go to a hospital.

Last night, the Texas Rangers turned the opening game of their double-header against the Baltimore Orioles into a blowout by NFL standards. I thought I was reading a football score when I saw the result flash across the ticker on ESPN, last night. Twenty-nine hits? Texas is the first baseball team to score thirty runs (again, that's 3-0) in 110 years.

The linked video is actually the ESPNNews highlights of the game, but it's only appropriate. The studio anchors really put into perspective the absurdity of this blowout with observations such as, "24-3. So the Orioles are down three touchdowns here..." Hell, Texas hit two grand slams for crying out loud. Not even in the chintziest Disney sports movie will you see something like that.

Cripes! Imagine you're Baltimore, in this scenario. You're at home playing in front of possibly the most demoralized crowd in the history of organized sports. You still have another game to play immediately after this one. Trailing 30-3 in the bottom of the ninth, you look to the manager who offers an inspiring battle-cry of, "Okay, boys! We're only down 27 runs. We can pull this one out!"

The irony in all of this? Baltimore actually led 3-0. Remember, Texas is a last-place ball club. Oh baseball, you so crazy.

In his first major league at-bat more than 17 years ago, José Offerman smacked the ball out of the park. But that won't be the swing that defined his legacy as a baseball player. On Tuesday night, during a minor league game in Bridgeport, CT, the 38-year-old two-time All Star (1995, 1999) lost it after getting hit by a pitch and charged the mound. And oh yeah, he brought his bat with him? A few seconds later, Bridgeport Bluefish catcher John Nathans (who had tried to restrain Offerman) was knocked senseless with a concussion, and pitcher Matt Beech had a fractured finger, all courtesy of Offerman's accurate, compact swing.

Despite having made tens of millions during his 20-year career, Offerman had recently signed a minor-league contract with the Long Island Ducks to prove that he had enough left in the tank to make it back to "The Show." Now he's been arrested and charged with assault. Somehow, we don't think he'll be getting that call from Brian Cashman any time soon.

A slew of impressive goals on this day, Wednesday August 15th, but none will resonate quite like this one.

He came. He saw. He sat on the bench. Then he played for 20 minutes and sat on the bench some more. Then, finally, upon his first start for the Los Angeles Galaxy, David Beckham put one in the back of the net. And it was in signature fashion.

In the 27th minute of LA's North American Superliga match against fellow MLS side DC United, Beckham tees up a free kick and, wouldn't you know, that sucker had some bend on it.

I've never been one to believe that athletes owe the fans anything outright other than an honest effort. Even if he's getting a bazillion dollars a year, like Beckham, and fans are paying through the nose to see him, he's under no obligation to risk aggrevating his injury. So for anyone out there who is tired of hearing ill-informed skeptics criticize Beckham for his lack of playing time since arriving in the States, you finally have something to retaliate with. Your position might sound something like this: "See, if he rushed back to play, he wouldn't have been able to score a cracker like that!"