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A St. Louis-born Missouri Tiger, righty Max Scherzer was drafted by the Diamondbacks with the 11th pick in 2006, making him Mizzou's first first-round pick. Scherzer debuted with Arizona but was traded to Detroit in December 2009. Last season, the 28-year-old logged career highs in wins (16) and strikeouts (231), behind only teammate Justin Verlander in the American League, and his 11.1 K/9 innings mark led the AL. Scherzer is off to another solid start this year, with a 5-0 record and 0.99 WHIP through May 20.

What is the most unusual item in your locker?

An 18-inch ruler. The reason is, I run the clubhouse [betting] pools, and I always use the back of a lineup card to make all the pools. And you have to have a ruler to draw all the lines.

What question are you asked most?

The most non-baseball thing I get asked is about my eyes. One is brown and one is blue. Everybody is fascinated by them. Even Prince [Fielder]. When he came into the locker room, he was sitting there, staring at my eyes with this dumbfounded look on his face.

Which pro athlete would you never want to change places with?

Being a running back in the NFL does not sound like my cup of tea. I think I’ll stay on the mound and pitch every five days.

Who is one person you’ve met but wish you had more time talk to?

Shooter McGavin [Christopher McDonald]. I think he’s the best sports movie character. I saw him at an airport once when I was in college, but actually sitting down and having a conversation with him would be hilarious.

If you could go to dinner with one person, who would it be?

I grew up in St. Louis, and if you grow up in St. Louis, you instantly become a baseball fan and a Cardinals fan. My baseball idol growing up was Ozzie Smith. So he’s the guy I’d love to meet.

What is your must-have item on road trips?

My iPad. I’ve grown addicted to it. Every time I go on a road trip, I have to have it. Just surfing the Internet or playing games on there seems to pass my time pretty well.

What is next on your vacation wish list?

I got to go to the Grand Canyon for the first time recently, and I wanted to do a float trip down the Colorado River but didn’t have time. So that’s one of my next things to do.

Who would you want to play you in your biopic?

I don’t know how he’d do it, I don’t know if he’d look like me, but my favorite actor is Edward Norton.

What is the most embarrassing music you have to admit to listening to?

Taylor Swift. I don’t know why, but when she’s on the radio, I keep it on. I don’t know why, but I keep finding myself listening to Taylor Swift.

What is most your irrational fear?

Snakes, though that is rational, right?

What’s the worst purchase you ever made?

My 5-wood. I tested it out, bought it, went to the [driving] range, and I couldn’t even hit it, so I threw it away. There went 250 bucks.

What do you like best about your job?

This is a dream job. This is what I wanted to do ever since I was a little kid. Plus, for the 130 games a year that I don’t pitch, I get to sit in a front-row seat and watch Major League baseball. Being able to watch it and play it every single day? That’s the thing.

Baseball anarchy.

That’s what Rays manager Joe Maddon says is an encroaching threat.

Maddon claims crew chief Gerry Davis told him during the Rays’ 3-1 win over Baltimore on Sunday that he would have changed a ground-rule double to a foul ball if video replay showed the ball was foul, even though replay is only to be used for home runs.

“That is baseball anarchy when you make stuff up on the field like that,” Maddon said.

Sounds ominous. No one wants anarchy, except maybe that kid in your high school algebra class who always listened to Rage Against the Machine and wore that Che Guevera T-shirt he got at the mall.

What would anarchy look like in Major League Baseball? Strap in for a descent into hell.

It would be a league where some teams are rich enough to pay whatever they want for players while other teams don’t even try to put a competitive team on the field.

It would be a league in which large market teams circumvent revenue sharing with massive, billion dollar local TV deals.

It would be a league in which teams would use $2.4 billion in public funds to build a new stadium, and then gut their roster to field a hopeless AAA-quality team.

It would be a league in which cheaters are always ahead or drug tests, while those who are caught can escape penalty on a technicality.

It would be a league in which some of the greatest players in the sport’s history don’t make the Hall of Fame.

It would be a league in which umpires would ignore video evidence simply to show their objection to video replay.

Dear god. What a nightmare. Let’s hope baseball never gets there.

Jersey No. 81 wasn’t bad for Art Monk, Carl Eller, Tim Brown, Dick “Night Train” Lane, Jackie Smith, Roy Green, Andy Robustelli or Terrell Owens.

Each was an NFL star, and several are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So, No. 81 isn’t hexed.

Unless, of course, it’s being worn in San Francisco, where a parade of 49ers pass-catchers (specifically wide receivers) has mostly bombed in the nine seasons since a disgruntled Owens -- then one of the NFL’s finest receivers -- was shipped to the Eagles in a trade after the 2003 season.

Almost four years ago, the Sacramento Bee’s Matt Barrows wrote about “The Curse of the Bambin-t.o.,” documenting the failures of Niners who had tried (unsuccessfully) to fill T.O.’s cleats. Since then, several more names have been added to the list.

According to numerologist Scott Petullo of Las Vegas, the No. 81 can be tricky. If a player’s other numbers in his personal chart (birth date and time, location, etc.) align with it, there’s no problem. But if they’re off kilter, No. 81 can be a killer.

“The No. 81 represents circumstances that do not endure,” says Petullo. He says it can be wonderful for a time, “but it doesn’t last. It suddenly wipes out, disappears.”

If that’s the case, then plenty of life charts spelled doom for those who’ve worn 81 since Owens. Consider:

Rashaun Woods: The Oklahoma State star was taken with the 31st overall pick of the 2004 draft. After catching 293 passes for more than 4,000 yards and 42 touchdowns in college, he caught seven total passes in two seasons with the 49ers and was traded in 2006. After trying his hand at pro bass fishing, he’s now a high school coach in Oklahoma.

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Last week we reported that Mark Cuban was asking Mavericks fans for new uniform ideas. Now we have an exclusive first look at the designs that have been submitted so far, some of which are pretty good and some of which are, well, interesting. Let's take a look at some of the more notable ones (all images courtesy of CrowdSpring; click images to enlarge):

1. If you're looking for a really busy, complicated design, this one is pretty intriguing:

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2. Prefer something simpler? You could do a lot worse than this skyline-based concept:

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If you’re reading this, chances are you like sports and grew up dreaming of becoming a famous star athlete.

Unfortunately, that didn’t quite work out for us.

We’re stuck watching in the stands while the famous star athletes are out on the field. Yet the desire to get on TV still burns for many sports fans, and just because you’re not in the pros doesn’t mean you can’t get your 15 minutes of fame.

There are 13 ways we fans can get our faces on TV during a game. Here they are.

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Make a sign using the network’s name

It’s the tried and true method of getting your face on TV during a game. Be it ESPN, ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX, if you have a sign promoting the network that is even vaguely related to the game being broadcast and rated PG-13 or lower, you will be televised.

Should you do this? Yes, but pulling it off is harder than you think. Some network names are hard to make into a sign, leaving you with something like this:

Everyone
Says we
Play like a … uhh …
Nuts, I can’t think of anything.
2 bad.

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Be a celebrity

Famous people always get on camera at sporting events, for better or worse.

Should you do this? Should you be a celebrity? Oh, definitely. The hours are great and the pay is even better. You really should have done this before, though. You’ve been missing out.

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Be an attractive woman

If you are an attractive woman, the camera will find you in the crowd. Facts are facts.

Should you do this? Your call. Only 51 percent of the population is female, and only a percentage of that percentage is true camera bait. That means a large percentage of us would need to undergo surgery ranging from minor cosmetic work to a major sex change procedure followed by cosmetic work. Is it worth all that when you can just spend five minutes making a sign that uses a network’s letters in it? Again: your call.

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What does an alcoholic, pill-popping alligator who returns to military service have in common with Jose Canseco?

Well, nothing. That is until Dan Ryckert, author of "Air Force Gator" and its newly released sequel, "Air Force Gator 2: Scales of Justice," stumbled upon the author, reality star, celebrity boxer and retired baseball player volunteering to write the novel's foreword.

It gets weirder.

In November 2012, Ryckert released "Gator" a book that even he claims to have "the dumbest f---ing plot." The story follows a military alligator pilot who is searching for his missing partner in the Middle East. On New Year’s Day, Ryckert put aside his work on "Air Force Gator 2" (which takes place eight years after the first book) to goof around on Twitter. He sent a tweet to Jose Canseco and called him an idiot. This was not a particularly unique moment for Ryckert, because he's sent multiple tweets through the years to the former baseball player. However on this day, for reasons we may never know, Canseco replied.

@danryckert how many copies of Air Force Gator did you sell dan?Let me know if u need help mine made the NY Times Best Seller list

— Jose Canseco (@JoseCanseco) January 2, 2013

 

A stunned Ryckert instantly responded, and the former outfielder replied with an unsolicited offer to write the foreword for "Gator 2". Ryckert accepted the offer, but because Canseco is known for incoherent ramblings and bizarre statements on social media, the author had no idea if he should actually believe the offer.

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Editor's note: To view the entire gallery of Alyssa Roenigk's experience with Red Bull & Ryan Dungey, click here. This was originally published on Journey to the Edge of Sports.

Last week, I had the pleasure of spending two days at Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernardino, Calif., riding dirt bikes with the Red Bull crew and a few members of the media. Because there’s no better way to learn and understand a sport than to try it yourself, many companies and magazines in action sports hold ride days throughout the year, be it in snowboarding, motocross, skateboarding or surfing. They invite the media to come out and gain a better understanding, improve their skills and have fun. I’ve been to a few motocross ride days and have ridden dirt bikes a handful of times while at athletes’ homes reporting stories. But last week was special.

I moved up from a 125cc bike for the first time. I went trail riding. I did a few -- OK, more than a few -- things that scared me, and I learned skills I didn’t think I’d ever have the opportunity to learn. I got a bit banged up. And I had so much fun. These days are one of the many things that sets action sports apart from other sports. And they are a wonderfully humbling way to put into perspective just how gifted the athletes we cover truly are and how hard they work.

At ride days, the athletes do more than ride. They instruct, and offer tips and encouragement. Red Bull athletes Ryan Dungey and James Stewart came out on Day 1 to do just that, then gave interviews to preview the upcoming outdoor season. After Friday’s riding session, we toured the X Fighters freestyle course and spent time with the freestyle athletes, who thankfully did not feel the need to hand out lessons.

Then we parted ways, went home and altered our eBay alerts to include “used dirt bike.”

Sydney. Athens. Beijing. London. Rio. Tulsa.

Wait. What?

One city doesn’t belong, right? If you’re a member of the Tulsa 2024 Olympic Exploratory Committee, though, your answer is that all six cities are equals.

Yes, Tulsa, Okla. -- the second-largest city in the state, home of the WNBA’s Tulsa Shock and host of the 2013 Bassmaster Classic -- is considering making a bid for the 2024 Summer Games.

"I see this as a great opportunity, I really do,” said Tulsa’s mayor, who probably has a name like Dewey Bartlett. Oh. His name really is Dewey Bartlett. Anyway: "If we come off looking a little lighthearted on it, so much the better, but we are serious about putting our name out there."

Good for them. Tulsa should be an inspiration for smaller cities and towns across America. If Tulsa thinks it can host the world’s biggest event, why can’t your town too?

Submitting an Olympic bid takes a lot of work, however. Many towns don’t have the resources or time to write a bid. Not a concern. Playbook has developed an Olympic bid template any town in the United States can use to make a run at the 2024 Games.

Print it out, tweak it here or there for your town’s specific features, and send it in.

Best of luck to your town, and best of luck to Tulsa too! (Let’s just hope the USOC and IOC gives our small towns a fair shot and doesn’t just automatically give the bid to some huge metropolis like Oklahoma City.)

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It was challenging rooting for the Mariners in their early years.

Well, actually, with seven last-place seasons in the past nine years, no postseasons in the past 12 years and no World Series EVER, it’s still challenging to root for the Mariners. But at least the Mariners wear uniforms and caps that aren’t a total embarrassment.

That’s what made those early years particularly challenging. The blue-and-yellow double-knits weren’t any worse than the other late '70s and early '80s uniforms throughout baseball, but the upside-down yellow trident on the cap should be considered a Class A fashion felony. The trident was meant to look like an M for Mariners, which it did, but an upside-down trident is regarded as a symbol of bad luck (the prongs are supposed to point upward).

I’m not sure whether the upside-down trident has always been a symbol of bad luck or just since the Mariners made Al Chambers the No. 1 pick of the 1979 draft. Either way, the look was so embarrassing I could never bring myself to wear even a giveaway cap.

Thus, I was delighted when the Mariners changed to a more respectable classic style in 1987 that dropped the trident. And ever since, Seattle has had pretty decent uniforms (except when the M's briefly wore teal alternate jerseys -- I hate teal), so that even when the Mariners lose, we can still wear their caps and jerseys in public.

Unfortunately, Seattle’s stadium is now crowded with young hipsters wearing the trident caps and jerseys. They think this makes them hip and cool in an ironic way, just as they think drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon does (even though today’s PBR has nothing to do with its once glorious past but is instead contract-brewed at Miller facilities). Instead, these caps and jerseys just inspire painful memories in fans old enough to remember when they were worn on the field by the likes of Mario Mendoza, Bob Kearney and Salome Barojas rather than by young fans standing in line for beer.

I’m not alone in this pain. Astros fans and Padres fans must feel the same way when they see their local hipsters wearing their team’s old rainbow and chocolate-and-mustard monstrosities. Although at least they can recall some good teams that wore those particular jerseys some seasons.

Worse yet, this trend isn’t limited to just hipsters. The current Orioles actually wear those white-paneled, '70s-era farmer caps as part of their official uniforms. And don’t make me bring up Chief Wahoo.

That’s the thing about uniforms and fashion, though. Everything is cyclical. No matter how bad the style is (leisure suits), no matter how much we cringe when we see it (Zubaz), eventually nostalgia will take over and a younger generation will bring it back into fashion (white tank tops). Given enough time, ugly will eventually become cool. And be slapped on a cap and sold in a team store for $34.95.

Of course, not all retro looks are bad. "Mad Men" has helped inspire a slight rebirth in the hat as a fashion statement, and that’s a good thing. Similarly, the Twins' TC emblem and the old Minnie-Paul handshake logo along with the Brewers' MB mitt are welcome nods to the past. I even get a bit of a smile when I see the 1970s red Red Sox cap, although it also brings back memories of Bucky Dent (nostalgia, after all, derives in part from the Greek word for pain).

And at least the ugly-to-cool cycle provides you with an argument the next time your spouse wants to clean out the closet of all your old T-shirts and replica jerseys. But honey, all-powder blue jerseys and pants with elastic belts are hip again!

But let’s just hope the White Sox shorts don’t ever become retro cool. They looked bad enough on athletes. Imagine having to see them worn by somebody chomping down on his or her third order of garlic fries and nachos.

On May, 23, 1980, Oakland A’s pitcher Rick Langford threw a complete game against the Texas Rangers.

The A’s lost that day, 3-1, as Langford gave up three unearned runs in a 1-hour, 56-minute duel with Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins.

Five days later, Langford went the distance again, beating the Royals.

Six days after that, on June 3 he pitched a third straight complete game, this time going 10 innings vs. the Indians.

He then pitched another complete game. And another. And another.

By the end of June, Langford’s complete-game streak was eight.

Through July, it was 14 -- including a 14-inning victory.

After five more complete games in August, he was up to 19.

Over the first 12 days of September, Langford went the distance against the Yankees, Orioles and Royals. Langford, who wore No. 22, had thrown 22 consecutive complete games.

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On Monday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs following a crushing Game 7 loss to the Boston Bruins. Despite carrying a 4-1 lead late into the third, the Leafs collapsed under the weight of a last-minute Boston surge and ultimately succumbed to their divisional foes in overtime.

It was unfathomable. One analyst’s estimate pegs it as the kind of thing a fan might experience once every 4,757 years. To watch the game was to be in a state of disbelief. And rightfully so. Because what we saw Monday wasn’t real. It wasn’t the result of honest competition between equally advantaged opponents.

It was an inside job.

Proof of deliberate sabotage has been piling up all season long, and the patterns clearly indicate a systematic campaign by the Maple Leafs organization to undermine the team’s success.

Don’t dismiss this as a conspiracy theory. It’s the truth -- if it weren’t, you wouldn’t be reading about it on the Internet. I’ve uncovered NUMEROUS pieces of vaguely coincidental evidence that, when presented in a misleading fashion, UNDENIABLY proves that treachery has been afoot.

Let’s examine the facts:

• Earlier this year, the team made "The Harlem Shake" its new goal song. But why would you make your goal song a song that nobody in their right mind would ever want to hear? Because the team knew it would keep the players from ever wanting to score goals. And it sort of worked. At the end of the regular season, they’d been outshot more than any other playoff-bound team in the past decade. Clearly, they were too terrified to score.

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Over the weekend at The Players Championship, Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia publicly traded barbs, with fighting words such as, "He’s not the nicest guy on tour," and, "It’s not really surprising he was complaining about something." Shots fired!

OK, so the rivalry isn’t exactly 2Pac-Biggie. Or even Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O’Neal. In fact, it makes the Lindsay Lohan-Amanda Bynes feud seem like an intense rivalry.

But sadly, it’s not even the lamest exchange of words between athletes. We took to Twitter to revisit the worst athlete feuds of all time. Or at least since 2006, when Twitter was created.

Darnell Dockett vs. AJ McCarron

After appearing in the stands of the BCS National Championship in January, Katherine Webb undoubtedly received thousands of creepy tweets. But it was the one from Darnell Dockett that aggravated Webb’s boyfriend, Alabama QB AJ McCarron. Dockett tweeted his phone number to the SI model/celebrity diver/pageant queen/Super Bowl correspondent/national treasure (for another two minutes, anyway), then all hell broke loose:

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The protocol for home and road uniforms on the baseball diamond is simple: The home team wears white and the road team wears gray.

Or at least that's how it was until 1963 -- 50 years ago this season. That's when Kansas City Athletics owner Charles Finley decided to try something new: He dressed the A's in green and gold.

Finley was quickly labeled as a nut (and not for the last time), but he turned out to be a chromatic visionary. Baseball uniforms exploded with color in the 1970s. Even the road uniforms got colorful, as many teams started wearing powder blues instead of road grays. To get an idea of just how colorful that era was, take a look at the 1979 National League All-Star team portrait -- yowza!

There were two reasons for all that color. The first, whose potential Finley was quick to recognize, was the rise of color television. There was no point in creating colorful uniforms in the black-and-white TV era. But as more and more Americans made the switch to color TVs (I remember when our family got our first one in 1973, and we were fairly late to the party), teams wanted to take advantage of the new medium. And for better or worse -- probably a bit of both -- many of them did.

The second color-enabling development was the transition from flannel uniforms to polyester stretch-knits, which began with the 1970 Pirates. By 1973, all 24 MLB clubs had made the switch. The new fabrics allowed for a much wider range of color possibilities.

These same two factors -- color TV and synthetic fabrics -- also contributed to an explosion of color in civilian clothing. So baseball uniforms were actually just mirroring what was happening in the larger worlds of apparel and fashion.

The crazy clothing fashions of the 1970s eventually subsided, of course, and you may think MLB uniforms eventually returned to normal too. But did they? On a recent Wednesday, 10 of the 30 MLB teams were wearing solid-colored jerseys instead of white or gray, and that's pretty standard nowadays. Granted, the wacky design flourishes from the ’70s are gone, but the color from that era remains. Sometimes you even get a game that's color versus color.

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Nick Saban is “the devil himself.”

Those are the words of Tim Davis, Florida’s offensive line coach, at a Gators booster club meeting Tuesday night.

Davis is not alone in believing the Alabama head coach is the Prince of Darkness. Vanderbilt head coach James Franklin called Saban “Nicky Satan” just four months ago.

It might be easy to ignore these statements as the rantings of the insane, but Davis and Franklin are well-known, highly-respected men in their states. Like our nation’s congressmen, it’s unlikely these men would just start spouting nonsense about someone they don’t like.

The possible Satan-Saban connection at the very least deserves further investigation. Why do opposing coaches keep discerning similarities between the source of all that is evil in the world and the most successful active college football coach? Take a look.

• SATAN and SABAN are exactly the same word except for one letter. What is the one letter that changes SATAN to SABAN? The letter "B." Another name for Satan, "Beelzebub," starts with B. As does "blood." Same with "Bieber." Suspicious? It definitely is if you're a Florida fan.

• Satan is said to reside in the hottest fires of hell. Nick Saban resides in Tuscaloosa, Ala., which has an average daily high temperature in July of 91 degrees. And when you factor in the humidity? Hellish.

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It was the “shush” heard 'round the world.

Yankees closer Mariano Rivera shushed fellow reliever Joba Chamberlain before Saturday’s game. Minutes later, Chamberlain told Rivera: “Don’t ever shush me.”

Yes, it was that bad. Things got crazy. One minute we had a regular pregame between the Yankees and Royals. The next we had the biggest shushing-related scandal between pitchers who aren’t good enough to be starters in baseball history.

The hammer then came down on Chamberlain. Hard. He was universally chastised for his loud-talking ways and for daring to tell a Yankees legend to not shush him.

Chamberlain was a loose cannon! Chamberlain was not exhibiting the class befitting a Yankee! Chamberlain should be traded or released posthaste!

Talking loudly to your family and then getting annoyed that you’ve been told to shush is simply not something a true Yankee can do. No. No way. It is something with which we will not put up.

What can a Yankees player do? Any of the following.

• Get linked to performance-enhancing drugs.

• Admit to taking HGH.

• Wear a gold thong under your uniform.

• Take obscure performance-enhancing drugs.

• Sweat all over a piece of baseball history.

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