The adorable, hand-scrawled letter you see above was splashed on the screen during last night's Sunday Night Football broadcast and was written by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick when he was in fourth grade. It's a motivational letter in which young Kaepernick lays out his plans for the future with surprising accuracy. He nailed the height prediction (Kaepernick is 6-foot-4) and was just a bit off on the weight (he is listed at 230 lbs.) And of course, there is the fact that he is currently throwing rockets as the starting quarterback for the 49ers, who do not suck.

We're not sure what became of the friends Kaepernick listed at the end of the letter, but we're just going to assume that Jason is an astronaut, Kyler is a fireman, Leo is an explorer, Spencer is a fighter pilot, Mark is a pro skateboarder, and Jacob is a doctor who fixes Koalas and also races go-karts.

Yesterday's New York Times has a thorough and thoroughly unsettling story about two members of Ohio's Steubenville High School football team who stand accused of raping a drunk and unresponsive 16-year-old girl during a night of partying in August. Maybe most unsettling of all: The girl may never have learned of the night's events had they not been so diligently tweeted, YouTubed, and Instagrammed.

The boys—Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, both 16 years old—were arrested Aug. 22, 11 days after the alleged incidents. They are currently awaiting trial, which is scheduled for Feb. 13. The girl is not a Steubenville High School student; according to the Times, she attended "a smaller, religion-based school."

Here's how the Times reconstructs the night in question, based on testimony from a preliminary hearing:

At the parties, the girl had so much to drink that she was unable to recall much from that night, and nothing past midnight, the police said. The girl began drinking early on, according to an account that the police pieced together from witnesses, including two of the three Steubenville High athletes who testified in court in October. By 10 or 10:30 that night, it was clear that the dark-haired teenager was drunk because she was stumbling and slurring her words, witnesses testified.

Some people at the party taunted her, chanted and cheered as a Steubenville High baseball player dared bystanders to urinate on her, one witness testified.

After the second party, the girl "needed help" walking, per the Times. She vomited outside and remained in the street, topless, according to one witness. Another recalled Mays and Richmond holding her hair back.

Afterward, they headed to the home of one football player who has now become a witness for the prosecution. That player told the police that he was in the back seat of his Volkswagen Jetta with Mays and the girl when Mays proceeded to flash the girl's breasts and penetrate her with his fingers, while the player videotaped it on his phone. The player, who shared the video with at least one person, testified that he videotaped Mays and the girl "because he was being stupid, not making the right choices." He said he later deleted the recording.

The girl "was just sitting there, not really doing anything," the player testified. "She was kind of talking, but I couldn't make out the words that she was saying."

At that third party, the girl could not walk on her own and vomited several times before toppling onto her side, several witnesses testified. Mays then tried to coerce the girl into giving him oral sex, but the girl was unresponsive, according to the player who videotaped Mays and the girl.

The player said he did not try to stop it because "at the time, no one really saw it as being forceful."

At one point, the girl was on the ground, naked, unmoving and silent, according to two witnesses who testified. Mays, they said, had exposed himself while he was right next to her.

Richmond was behind her, with his hands between her legs, penetrating her with his fingers, a witness said.

"I tried to tell Trent to stop it," another athlete, who was Mays's best friend, testified. "You know, I told him, ‘Just wait — wait till she wakes up if you're going to do any of this stuff. Don't do anything you're going to regret.' "

He said Mays answered: "It's all right. Don't worry."

That boy took a photograph of what Mays and Richmond were doing to the girl. He explained in court how he wanted her to know what had happened to her, but he deleted it from his phone, he testified, after showing it to several people.

Some photographs taken that night did escape into social media. The one below was captured by the crime blog Prinnified.com; it shows two boys holding the incapacitated girl by her wrists and ankles:

Prinnified also published a YouTube video, since deleted, in which a former Steubenville High School baseball player named Michael Nodianos apparently talks about the accuser and refers to her as a "dead girl." The site also published a screenshot of tweets that party attendees (including Nodianos) had sent out about the girl:

That last one was retweeted by at least four people, one of them Mays. Nodianos also tweeted, "Song of the night is definitely Rape Me by Nirvana."

The girl learned what had happened later, through the detritus of the night's activities still floating around social media and through subsequent newspaper coverage.

That there was much local coverage at all seems like a small miracle, based on what one source familiar with the Steubenville media told us. The source knew of one instance in which a higher-up ordered a local reporter not to touch the story, apparently out of deference to Steubenville's beloved football program.

Mays, a quarterback, and Richmond, a wide receiver, weren't allowed to play this year. But the school's head football coach, Reno Saccoccia—who testified as a character witness on behalf of Mays and Richmond—decided not to discipline any of the other players who testified to witnessing the assault until there were only two games left in the season. When pressed on this by the Times, the coach became combative:

Saccoccia, pronounced SOCK-otch, told the principal and school superintendent that the players who posted online photographs and comments about the girl the night of the parties said they did not think they had done anything wrong. Because of that, he said, he had no basis for benching those players.

[...]

Approached in November to be interviewed about the case, Saccoccia said he did not "do the Internet," so he had not seen the comments and photographs posted online from that night. When asked again about the players involved and why he chose not to discipline them, he became agitated.

"You made me mad now," he said, throwing in several expletives as he walked from the high school to his car.

Nearly nose to nose with a reporter, he growled: "You're going to get yours. And if you don't get yours, somebody close to you will."

[NYT]

We don't know really know what the hell is going on with this pigeon, which crashed Sunday's Chiefs-Raiders game by landing right in the middle of the action and absolutely refusing to give a shit about the 22 large men that were stomping around it. Maybe the pigeon was sick and disoriented, or wounded and unable to fly away? Or perhaps it had simply grown tired of its mortal coil, and was seeking a glorious Viking death among the warriors of the gridiron.

Regardless of its motivations for being there, the pigeon put on a captivating show. It comes inches away from getting stepped on a handful of times, plants itself right on the line of scrimmage at the the 2:10 mark, and charges directly into the scrum of players trying to leave the field at halftime at the 5:34 mark. Eventually, the pigeon is captured and put into a bucket by two members of the grounds crew. We assume that it is currently waddling through a buffalo stampede.

via Shutdown Corner

Last night, Syracuse men's basketball coach Jim Boeheim earned his 900th career victory when his team defeated the University of Detroit Mercy 72-68. After the game, though, Boeheim seemed to have the tragedy in Newtown on his mind, as he ended with some spirited words about gun control. Boeheim asks why anybody would ever need an assault rifle with a 30-round magazine and wonders what the hell this lunatic is talking about before declaring, "This is about us. This isn't about the president or other people down there. We need to make them understand, somehow, that this needs to get figured out real quick."

This video comes to us courtesy of Animal New York, and it features Takeru Kobayashi, everyone's favorite eater in exile, wolfing down 12 hot dogs in 60 seconds. In slow motion. It's pretty gross. Although we must admit that the musical score does add a certain artistic flair.

[Animal New York]

We're just going to assume this takes place in Russia, because everything crazy happens in Russia. Anyway, you're going to go into this video expecting to see lots of carnage and cow guts and death, but you are not going to see that. Instead, you are going to see a gigantic truck full of live cows roll over, and then you're going to see those cows spill out onto the road ever so gingerly before getting up, seemingly unharmed. Like we said, mesmerizing.

h/t Brian Floyd

The year in sportswriting is almost over, which means that it is time to start making all kinds of "best of" lists. All the cool kids are doing it. We'd like to make a list too, and we'd like your help compiling it. Were there any pieces of sportswriting that you came across this year that you found particularly well written or inspiring? If so, share them down in the discussion section with a short explanation about why you enjoyed reading them so much.

Last week, Major League Baseball renewed its partnership with StubHub, making the service the official secondary ticket marketplace of MLB. The New York Yankees are not very happy about this, and have decided to strike out on their own, creating a partnership with Ticketmaster.

As we've told you before, StubHub has been terrible for the Yankees' bottom line. With no price floor (this new agreement does have a negligible price floor of $6 including processing fees), in place to regulate ticket prices, StubHub users are free to sell Yankees tickets far below face value, and they have done so in droves. Now, one might think that the Yankees would see this situation as a lesson in supply and demand and go about making adjustments to their ticket prices. For instance, the team could stop selling tickets at an expensive flat price for every game, and institute dynamic prices that vary from game to game.

Not so! Instead, the Yankees have decided to tighten their grip on the market rather than adjust to it in their new deal with Ticketmaster. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the team will institute its own price floor through Ticketmaster, which fans will be directed to via Yankees.com when they want to resell tickets. Sellers will be told that they cannot sell their tickets for less than a certain dollar amount.

In all likelihood, this plan will not work out very well for the Yankees. For one, nothing can prevent ticket holders from selling their tickets on StubHub anyway, they will just be directed by the team to use Ticketmaster. Even if sellers do follow instructions and use Ticketmaster, the price floor is likely to alienate buyers and lead to a lot of fans passing on tickets all together. It's hard to imagine the Yankees current merry band of old guys being enough of an attraction to push fans to pay higher ticket prices.

[WSJ]

What's up, ladies? You see that handsome mug up there? That belongs to Gregg Zaun, former catcher for the Toronto Blue Jays and various other MLB teams. Pretty goddamn sexy, isn't he? Pump the brakes, though, sister. Don't think that you can just walk right up to him and expect to get a piece of what the Greggster has to offer. He only accepts A+ talent.

You wanna be in the Zauntourage? Lose the attitude and some weight, too, while you're at it. You are seriously bumming Gregg Zaun out.

Our pals at The Classical are running a three-part oral history of the late and beloved blog, Fire Joe Morgan. It includes gems such as this:

MS: Bill Conlin wrote us and sent us pictures of his condo in Florida.

DK: It was not the greatest condo.

AY: And he's an old guy. It was like, this is kind of sad.

DK: It was weird.

Parts one and two are already posted, so go read them right now.

This hasn't been the best week for Tim Tebow. His Jets team was eliminated from playoff contention after suffering a humiliating loss on Monday Night Football, he was leapfrogged on the depth chart by third-stringer Greg McElroy, and now he has reportedly split from girlfriend Camilla Belle. Us Weekly has the scoop:

After less than two months of dating, the New York Jets quarterback and actress Camilla Belle have called it quits, a source tells Us Weekly exclusively.

Explains the source of Tebow, 25, and Belle, 26: "It just didn't work out."

Tebow and the Push actress were first spotted bowling with pals at Latitude 30 in Jacksonville, Florida on Oct. 30. "They were grabbing kisses and holding hands...They were having a great time together," a witness said at the time of the Hollywood beauty and Tebow, a devout Christian who has said he plans to remain a virgin until marriage.

Tough break, Tim. If it's any consolation, I am watching Push (serioiusly) at this very moment, and it is a fucking dreadful movie.

[Us Weekly]

Very few details are known at this time, but according to the Syracuse Post-Standard, the Syracuse police department and district attorney's office are investigating Roger Springfield, a former sportscaster and current director of media properties and productions for the Syracuse University athletic department.

It's unclear what Springfield is being investigated for, but it appears that police were tipped off to something by officials from the university:

[District Attorney William] Fitzpatrick said today the investigation was touched off by SU officials who contacted law enforcement officials recently.

SU officials have been "very cooperative," the DA said.

The Post-Standard is also reporting that several marked and unmarked police cars were seen outside of Springfield's home on Dec. 12. The paper was also told by the SU senior vice president for Public Affairs that Springfield is no longer employed by the university.

If you know anything else, be sure to send us a tip.

[Post-Standard]

Yesterday, Howard Beck of The New York Times wrote about the impending return of Amar'e Stoudemire to the New York Knicks. Most of the story is about the problems that Beck foresees coming along with Stoudemire's return, but buried within it is this bit of information:

This past summer, the Knicks offered Stoudemire to nearly every team in the league - "available for free," as one rival executive put it. But they found no takers because of his diminished production, his health and his contract, which has three years and $65 million remaining (counting this season) and which is uninsured against a career-ending knee injury.

In February, the Knicks wanted to send Stoudemire to Toronto in a deal for Andrea Bargnani, a person briefed on the discussion said. But the proposal was vetoed by James L. Dolan, the Garden chairman, before it ever reached the Raptors (who would not have made the deal anyway, team officials there said).

Well, that's not very nice! The proposed Bargnani trade is actually less embarrassing than it sounds, as Bargnani was having a decent year before the all-star break last season. But "available for free" as recently as this summer? That's pretty cold, and not the kind of thing that is going to make Stoudemire's return to the Knicks any easier. Stoudemire has said that he would be open to coming off the bench when he returns, but it's hard to be a team player while also feeling unwanted. So enjoy the renaissance while it lasts, Knicks fans. Things could get ugly very quickly.

[NYT]

This story from the New York Daily News' gossip blog would make you feel bad for Kris Humphries if there wasn't something so undeniably hateable about him (it's mostly his face). Apparently, Humphries was trolled by two DJs at an NYC night club (the same one in which Tony Parker got his eye gouged during the Drake-Chris Brown melee) this Wednesday when they wouldn't stop playing Kanye West songs. In case you weren't aware, West is currently humping Kim Kardashian, the living RealDoll that Humphries was once married to for 72 days.

Humphries' anguish was apparent Wednesday night at WIP, when he arrived to let off steam after a tough loss to the Knicks, but was left fuming after consecutive West songs blared in his ears.

"He was trying to talk to every girl in there and was getting turned down by every girl he spoke to," an eyewitness tells Confidenti@l's Marianne Garvey.

Our source, who watched Humphries foul out until 4 a.m., says deejays Chuck Barrett and Scram Jones played a list of West's tunes, and by the time they got to "Mercy" and "Clique," Humph was on fire.

Burn! But Humphries wasn't just going to take that shit laying down. Seeking revenge, he sprung into action in hilariously impotent fashion:

"He took a bottle of Patron that he didn't pay for, put it in front of his crotch and dumped the entire thing on the floor, because he was wasted and tired of Kanye songs," says the source. "Not only was he acting like he was peeing the bottle out, he insisted on staying."

You've been put on notice, New York City DJs. You mess with Hump, and Hump will pretend to piss Patron all over the floor of the club. You don't want any of that.

[NYDN]

Judging from the picture at the right, Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving had himself a pretty great Christmas. Irving tweeted the photo on Christmas day before deleting it and going into a totally inept mode of damage control:

Ah yes, the "Internet," always taking control of our Twitter accounts and tweeting out photos of us hanging out with @VuhJynaSaurus. That "Internet" is a real bastard. Despite Irving's panicked response, his wife seemed to take the whole situation in stride:

Merry Christmas!

h/t Jimmy

We aren't just dick jokes and cock shots. We also do our best to publish as much quality, longform sports journalism as we can. Here are the best long stories we published this year, which you probably didn't have time to read.

How To Not Be The Biggest Asshole In Media: 4 Lessons I Learned From Meeting Jay Mariotti And Reading His Awful Book

"You want page hits?" he said, as if he had an idea of what that term meant. "I'll get you page hits." Read »

How ESPN Ditched Journalism And Followed Skip Bayless To The Bottom: A Tim Tebow Story

The story of how ESPN fell in love with Tim Tebow is really the story of a breakup, between ESPN and the business of reporting the news. Read »

Is An ESPN Columnist Scamming People On The Internet?

"Please contact Sarah Phillips from ESPN.com at Sarah.Phillips34@gmail.com. She is creating a sports humor site and I believe you would be great for it! Thanks." Read »

How The Song "Seven Nation Army" Conquered The Sports World

Eight years after reaching No. 1 on Billboard's alternative rock chart, the riff-turned-anthem is ubiquitous and seemingly inevitable, an organic part of global sports culture. Read »

Where Would The NHL Be If Bain Capital Had Bought The Whole League In 2005?

If you were to build a league from the ground up, it would probably look much like what Bain would have come up with-central control, with franchises located only in anchor cities. Read »

The Making Of "Homer At The Bat," The Episode That Conquered Prime Time 20 Years Ago Tonight

"Homer at the Bat" felt vaguely forbidden, like an animated addendum to Ball Four. This was the side of the sport we never saw. Read »

"Cut Back To A Wide Shot. Open The Skull": The Faces Of Death Guy Looks Back

It's hard to appreciate the impact now, at a time when death porn, like porn-porn, has become so easily made and even more easily procured. Read »

Geno Auriemma, Mr. Women's Basketball

The male coach in the woman's game is like an immigrant in a new country, where different codes apply and mistrust comes easily. "Reverse sexism," Geno calls it. "There is a perception that men are trying to steal their game." Read »

"Pain Is A Gift, And Other Notes From A Terrified Father During A Seven-Week-Premature Birth

If you love something so much that the idea of losing it could bring you to a whole new dimension of suffering, well then that love is a blessing. Read »

How Fred Gaudelli Turned NBC's Sunday Night Football Into The No. 1 Show On TV

Football is getting more nuanced, and fans are getting smarter. This is the broadcast that follows both trends. Read »

Who Is The Blurry Guy In This Photo, And Why Did Manny Ramirez Steal His Pants? The Long Baseball Life Of "The Machete"

Manny got up, walked over to the condo's table, and grabbed his car keys. "Don't drive this one," he said, jangling the keys to his black Impala. "Drive this one"-the white Mercedes. Read »

Democracy In The Raw: The WWE Comes To Post-Revolutionary Egypt

"Fuck you! No! Yeah! Yes! No! Fuck you!" shouted a moppy-headed 6-year-old boy, in English. He bounced up and down behind me. His father, a pilot, had paid multiple times the average monthly salary of his countrymen for prime seats. Read »

The Big Buck Hunter Is The Hunted: Stalking The Chance To Play For The Video-Deer-Shooting Championship

Michael Jastrzembski got no press. He didn't show up at the championships. Nobody had ever even seen Michael Jastrzembski. Read »

Uncivil: How Paul Finebaum Keeps The SEC's Dixie Aroused

Listening to Finebaum's show is a lot like watching Maury or Jerry Springer. An educated onetime journalist plays tickled ringmaster while crazies holler. Read »

What The Best Pitcher In Baseball Taught Me About Prep School, Socrates, And The Art Of Not Selling Out

No one ever told me I could grow up to be like R.A. Dickey, which is why I wanted to grow up to be like R.A. Dickey. Read »

Boom Or Bust: 48 Hours At Leadville's Treacherous Ultramarathon

They come to a fragile place built on fads and bubbles-from silver to molybdenum to distance running-to run a race that is ultimately about creating and sustaining your own unburstable bubble of hope and willpower. Read »

How Joe Redner Invented The Lap Dance, Built A Strip-Club Empire, Became A Model Citizen, Fought For Your Rights, And Beat Cancer

If the Constitution protected nudity in movies, he concluded, why not naked dancing, too? "Dance is speech," he says. "It's been speech since the beginning of time. Indians around the campfire. Ballet. Interpretive dance." Read »

There Is No Best Player In The NBA: The Problem With The Basketball Hero Industry

Basketball wants heroes, not effective interactions. Read »

Howard Schultz Gave Out $3.50 Starbucks Gift Cards: An Insider's Notes On The Shabby Death Of The Seattle SuperSonics

The demise of the Sonics was a slow implosion, and I watched it up close. Maybe I was too close, because it's only now dawning on me-four years after the Sonics became the Thunder-what really happened to our team. Read »

"Motherfuckin' Shit! Take Your Ass Home!" Or, Why The Baltimore Orioles Matter

Over the years, fewer of the ticket-holders have been Baltimore fans and more and more have been Red Sox and Yankees fans, who have come to treat Oriole Park as an auxiliary home field. The Orioles are there to get beaten. Read »

How To Build A 21st-Century Bullpen With Failed Hitting Prospects And A Radar Gun

Broken-down position players: the new market inefficiency? Read »

Don't Say "Colt 45" Or "Pearl Necklace": How To Avoid Being Busted By The Facebook Cops Of College Sports

The lesson, as always: There is money to be made in college sports, so long as you're not playing them. Read »

Twenty Citizens' Worth Of Blood Flowed Through Him: A Medic Confronts The Open Wounds Of Afghanistan

This spotter was odd in that she was female, and that she was approximately 6 years old. She pointed at the Marines and talked into a hand-held radio, and every time she talked, the rounds got closer. I heard myself say out loud, "Someone needs to smoke that little girl." Read »

Feet In Smoke: A Story About Electrified Near-Death

Like a lot of people, I'd always assumed, in a sort of cut-rate Hobbesian way, that the center of the brain, if you could ever find it, would inevitably be a pretty dark place, that whatever is good or beautiful about being human is a result of our struggles against everything innate, against physical nature. My brother changed my mind about all that. Read »

Last week, we told you about former Lions offensive tackle and current ESPN NFL analyst Lomas Brown admitting to intentionally blowing a block in the hopes that his team's quarterback, Scott Mitchell, would be knocked out of the game with an injury. Brown's plan worked. Mitchell left the game with a broken hand after being hit during the play that Brown left him unprotected.

Now Scott Mitchell has become aware of Brown's shenanigans, and he is pissed. Here's what he had to say to USA Today Sports:

I was floored by that revelation. I had Lomas in my home. I fed him dinner. I gave him and other offensive linemen gifts. I'm dumbfounded that he would do such a thing. I mean, people get hurt playing this game. People have died playing football, and for him to allow someone to take a shot at a teammate, that's crazy.

[...]

That was my first year in Detroit, so Lomas barely knew me. If he had a problem with me, he could have come to me, man to man, and said so. Be a man about it. But to mess with someone's livelihood like that, to mess with their family and their health, that's reprehensible.

Mitchell certainly has a point. Trying to actively injure a teammate is always a dick move, as is bragging about doing it years later. Then again, acting like a dick seems like the best way to stand out and get noticed at ESPN, so maybe Brown is just being a savvy media personality.

Previously: The Lions' Lomas Brown Says He Deliberately Let QB Scott Mitchell Get Injured In 1994

[USA Today]

At first, there doesn't seem to be anything all that special about this article on ESPN's Soccernet. It's not much more than a standard game recap, until you get to this part:

In the first-half, Tottenham resembled a male teenage virgin who has a girl in the palm of his hand but can't summon the courage or conviction to make the killer move that will see them over the line.

Then, one goal later and Spurs are suddenly notching them up like an in-prime Rod Stewart once racked up blondes.

Um, gross. It's bad enough when a soccer article forces the reader to think about a teenage virgin having sex, but inserting the image of this guy humping a cavalcade of blondes into our brains is just unnecessarily cruel.

And who the hell makes Rod Stewart references anymore? Who even still thinks about Rod Stewart, let alone the prodigious number of ladies that he used to bed? If you're going to mix pop culture and sports, try to pick something that is at least somewhat culturally relevant. It's not like the bar is set all that high these days.

h/t Andrew

[ESPN]

We sang, we sought a very special autograph, and we smoked some weed. Here are the best stunts that we pulled in 2012.

What Happens When A 35-Year-Old Man Retakes The SAT?

There are many shitty things about being a grownup. You have to make money. You have to do taxes. You have to show up for your bail hearings. It's all really fucking annoying. But one of the few upsides of being an adult is that you NEVER have to take the SAT again. Read »

Are New York's Most Exclusive Restaurants More Eager To Seat Jeremy Lin Or Eli Manning? Deadspin Investigates

We called 18 of New York's most exclusive restaurants, with one of us posing as an assistant to Lin and another as a representative for Manning. Read »

What's It Like To Sing The Anthem At A Baseball Game? The Story Of One Man's Perilous Fight

It's very awkward singing in front of people. Singing leaves you so vulnerable. People could laugh at you. They could punch you in the face. They could pull your pants down and tie a handkerchief around your dick. Read »

Our Drew Magary Applied For A Spot On Chopped; This Is His Application

I dropped every goddamn thing (even my baby) and filled out the application as quickly as I could. Read »

What Is The Grantland Book Good For? A Deadspin Investigation

Why take a collection of internet posts and re-publish them on heavy paper stock set between two lavishly designed covers? What's the use of a book like that? Read »

How To Make A Pipe Out Of ESPN The Magazine's Stupid Weed-Panic Issue

That's right: You can smoke your pot right off Mark Schlabach's prepositions. Read »

The Time I Tried To Get Tim Tebow To Sign "The Origin Of Species"

Kids are pushing and screaming. Parents are pushing and screaming for their kids. Steakheads who should know better but clearly don't are pushing and screaming for themselves. Read »

Uni Watch got its hands on the designs for the new batting practice hats that each of MLB's 30 teams will be unveiling in the coming months. Some of the hats are great, like this one, which brings back the A's old elephant logo. Unfortunately, the Atlanta Braves' hat looks like this:

That's the old Chief Noc-A-Homa—get it?—mascot. He is captured here in mid-shriek as he watches either a Braves home run or the forcible uprooting and assimilation of his culture.

[Uni Watch]