Somewhere on the laziness scale between writing "Happy Birthday" on a Facebook Wall and taking the effort to lick a Christmas card stamp lies the act of handing out bulk Valentine's cards. Luckily for you and that special sports fan in your life, Jockular has made searching for these generic tokens of affection a bit easier by compiling the best athlete-issued Valentine's around.

"All of those were right except for mine!"

Liking a team is something that connects you to your friends and neighbors. Being a die-hard fan is something that makes you exactly the same as your most annoying friends and neighbors. This is how cities get their stereotypes, because a certain percentage of the town really is the same. For example, some people in Philadelphia really do get into being the most vicious and violent fans around, Lakers tickets are super expensive and people go to the games just to be seen there, and the entire city of Boston is exactly as it seems. How did you feel about your city's portrayal? Why don't you and your friends go have the exact same complaints about it?

The gym can be an intimidating place, what with all the grunting, weight dropping, and people who actually have the discipline to follow through on their commitments to get in shape. That said, not everything you see at your local health club will make you feel inadequate as a human being. In fact, certain strange sightings can make you feel downright superior. Here are some examples of enjoyable ridiculousness to serve as your incentive to get back in the gym if for no other reason than to laugh at others. 

Welcome to the Citibank Infernodome!

Did you know that at this moment, Greece is having terrible problems battling the rise of a fascist party that is replacing the police because the economy is so bad? Kind of hard to believe, until you see this video - and these are just basketball fans. Sports, sex, fascism - these are the things people turn to when their economy and government start to collapse. This is like Mad Max, Idiocracy and various World War II references we'd rather not make all rolled up into one. On the other hand, I bet that team is freakin' pumped.

Being turned in by your teammates like this must feel like a massive violation. But if these allegations are true, we don't really feel sympathy for anyone, whether they're the fingerer or fingeree. Lance may well have convinced the whole team to do 'roids with him so that it would be harder for them to rat him out, but take 'roids they did. Or eleven people are lying for some bizarre reason to destroy their entire team's accomplishment and their friend and leader. That would be way beyond fingering though. That would be f***ed.

I wanna be a baseball star! Now I wanna be a movie star!

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, you could have relived this child's entire sports career several times over. Don't worry, we're sure he'll find plenty of success as a fireman. No, an astronaut. No, a scientist. No, a racecar driver. No, a businessman. No, a video gamer! Yes. A video gamer.

If only real QBs were this articulate... (full convo below)

For political nerds, there's the Presidential Debates. For slightly less political nerds, there was last night's debate between Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly. But for the jocks out there...here's a totally fake Facebook trash-talk session between all the QBs in the NFL. It's so exciting, it almost makes you forget that their actual conversations are probably about boats and investment funds. Also, how much those replacement refs sucked. And how much Philip Rivers sucks.

It's just great to celebrate athleticism in talking out of your Irish butt.

Liam Neeson is known for many things; being Irish, being tall, being a terrific Shakespearean actor on top of film and "normal" theater, and of course the persistant rumor that he has the biggest member in Hollywood. His football knowledge, however, leaves something to be desired. But the combination of his attendance of a Jets game and having a new movie to promote landed him on SportsCenter, where he gave one of the most transcendant performances of awkwardness to ever grace the screen. In addition to cursing within 10 seconds of being on air, he admits to knowing nothing, then discusses being a boxer in Ireland, and finally responds to a question about Tim Tebow by saying it sounds like "ancient Arabic."

Class act, that Obama. But Romney showed real grit tonight. This is how politics is played.

Even though this video is very funny, it's also a little sad because it reminds us that our nation's politics would be way better if it could only rise to the very low bar of professional sports. You think Dan Patrick or even Stuart Scott would have let Obama and Romney walk all over their questions, or evade responsibility for the plays they made earlier in the season? With all the end-zone dances and night-club shootings, this is proof that our nation's leaders are less professional than our professional athletes.

Mark Cuban makes his money extorting people who don't want to see him dance.

Gangnam Style is the douchiest trend to ever hit the Interney, and Mark Cuban is the douchiest thing to ever hit Earth, so it makes sense that they would be a natural pair. Also unsurprisingly, since he is a gigantic lumbering beast, Cuban is awful at the dance. Fortunately, just like he did with his basketball team, he has enough money that he can hire hot dancers to obscure from all the sucking.

First, an obligitory display of minimal ethics: LeBron James is not really endorsing this heroin. These were found on a 19-year-old Philly drug dealer named Marlon Guess, as in "Marlon guessed it was a good idea to make his heroin brand way more noticeable than everyone else's." How much does LeBron go for? $750 for 140 packets (no, we have no idea how many "heroin doses" are in a "packet"). So that little baggie up there costs roughly $5.36, or about 1/56th the price of a pair of LeBron James sneakers. So how high does LeBron get you? Probably about as high as heroin.

I think I finally "get" American Apparel now.

Hazing. It seems like something that should happen at the beginning of baseball season. It also seems like something that should be private, and focused on team building. Most importantly, the people being punished should not be the paying customers of a baseball game. Nevertheless, the Tampa Bay Rays sent out their rookies yesterday dressed like slutty Skittles to sing the universally-despised "Call Me Maybe", and subjected Fenway Stadium to its harshest embarrassment since the entire 20th Century.

Call me embarrassed for everyone in Boston on this day.

Hey, we're not the kind of people who would randomly crap on the University of Minnesota at Crookston. We would only crap on the University of Minnesota at Crookston if we had a really good reason. Like a midfield logo mistake that makes everyone associated with that logo look about 5 yards dumber. The execution? Flawless. Spans 10 yards perfectly. Frankly, it's a little closer to the side closest to whomever was taking the picture, but we'll let it slide compared to the huge lateral error. This is just making everyone look bad, UM Crookston. I mean, c'mon, what is this, the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire?

Wow, nine straight batters? That's pretty impressive. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that all nine batters were vomiting uncontrollably, knowing their ball was being fondled by Dog Fister. They say he does it because he claims it gives him a better grip. No one has ever seen him do it, but let's just say there aren't anymore stray dogs hanging around the Tigers' ballpark.

After the botched ending to the Packers-Seahawks game this Monday, everyone in the country seems to agree that the NFL owners should cough up some dough and let the real referees get back to work. However, most people still feel like it must be hard for these amateur refs who were suddenly thrust onto the most high-pressure stage outside of the presidential race. Except for Wisconsonites, who are far more agreed on the need to murder replacement refs than they are on whether public employee's wages can rise as fast as inflation.

That crowd has the clearest diction anyone has heard in Baltimore since Poe's time.

Leave it to the city of Edward Allen Poe's fiction and the fictional Omar Little to find the most eloquent expression of our football rage. For the first few weeks, America was willing to tolerate a little indecisiveness from their new NFL referees. Since then, we have been greeted with the kind of officiating chaos rarely seen outside a suburban soccer rec league. And like murderous yuppie parents, America isn't going to let anyone take their precious 300-lb babies' points away. But like those same yuppie parents, we weren't able to phrase our anger with the crude purity of Baltimoreans. Get these losers out of the game, ya heard?

Replacement refs, the election, the economy. There are a lot of reasons the 2012 football season seems to be one of the most lackluster in memory. Is there still fire? Yes. Is that fire still in players' bellies? Hell yes, and it's time to come out. Let's hope the rest of the NFL follows the Saints' lead and the rest of this season finishes with a huge, explosive, gut-level bang. A smelly bang.

Scottie Pippen must have really needed the money. He can't afford chairs.

One of the perks of being a pro athlete is getting paid to endorse products for money and free swag. One of the downsides of being a pro athlete is getting paid to endorse weird products with low-budget, bizarre ads. Scottie Pippen is no stranger to this game, lending his name to Mr. Submarine sandwiches, the most prominent submarine sandwich chain to ever come out of Toronto. Since then, Mr. Submarine has changed it's name to Mr. Sub and it's motto to "More Than Enough", which are ironically, Pippen's motto and BDSM nickname.

Really great pickup on that grenade. Textbook release. Good hustle all around.

Obnoxious fans, right? Sure, there are still some throw-things-on-the-field traditions. Some schools throw toast on the field, some hockey fans throw squids or something (hockey! remember when that sport still existed?), and Iranians throw grenades. Way to buck stereotypes, Iranian soccer fans. The guy in the video picks it up and tosses it so casually he clearly just thinks it's normal litter, but when it detonates on impact, he calmly jogs off at the same pace he'd go back to a time-out huddle. It's a good thing he didn't kick it, or he'd have to go to The Hurt Foot Locker. Ok, we'll stop.

Utah fans win like they ejaculate: early and rarely.

Look, we get it. You haven't won in a while, you're really excited, and you can't quite wait for the other team to finish all the way. It happens. Especially when you've really, really wanted to beat the other team for a long time. You live near each other, you have similar interests, you have a love/hate thing going on, and you just want to pound the ball in their end zone. With a little practice, you'll be able to spill out onto the field right as the whistle blows for both of you. But seriously, three times in one night? You need some practice.

Yo, bro, you need a video? Because I've got a hell of a mouth.

Playing professional sports nowadays requires specialization. The best rain day receiver, the best running quarterback, or Tim Tebow.  Brian Cushing plays linebacker, a position where its hard to stand out and be seen. So he's opted to be heard, a lot. In high school, this was the guy screaming at nerds that they weren't pumped up enough at the pep rally before getting drunk that night and telling his teammates it was all about love. That being said, he's the best we've ever seen.

All great art requires sacrifice. Socrates gave his life to defend intellectual freedom. Beethoven went deaf rocking out too hard. Michaelangelo really messed up his back doing the Sistine Chapel. This man was kicked out of a baseball game for a virtuoso performance on the Air Skin Flutes. Sacrifice.

If you're a college football player, you're probably used to being the most important person anywhere on campus. Unless you meet a US Marine. If you're a business executive, you're probably used to commanding the attention of everyone in the room, unless a US Marine suddenly shows up. If you're an actor, people come up to you constantly and thank you for speaking to them with your roles, unless a Marine shows up in which case everyone should thank them for everything. And if you're a US Marine, thank you and please don't ever do this to us because just watching this .gif is terrifying.

There is nothing better than when the Onion convinces someone their stories are real. They convinced China a greedy US Senate was going to leave Washington D.C. for a city promising to build a retractable Capitol Dome. Politicians fall for them about once a year, three or four times during eleciton years. But oh so rarely does The Onion achieve the beautiful act of fooling just one person. The person the article is about. The person who should know, above all others, this is a fake articles. That is craftsmanship. Check out his chagrinned response:

Peeps got jokes. I hope he describes the next fakeout he sees as being "on Satire!"

Everyone is talking about an obesity epidemic, but no one talks about how many people are working out these days. It's just dangerous. How many people can really be trusted with physical strength? Construction workers, whose only artistic outlet is creating complex whistles and catcalls (some scholars think it's a form of poetry like the limerick), are but poor helpless kittens compared to the ferocity of the yoga-panted gangs going around and inflicting pain on them. Sure, don't believe us now. The last thing you will ever see is a pack of in-shape women jogging relentlessly after your flesh.

Don't look, but this guy is standing behind you right now.

Standing behind people on TV has been a proud tradition since people figured out the camera will just film any old face that walks in front of it. This is 90% of what makes the Today show work. It can be a little creepy, and a little fratty, but its all in good fun usually. This guy, however, hits the total creep trifecta: he makes way too much eye contact with not nearly enough blinking, he's standing way too close to everyone, and he looks like he might steal their jockstraps later. Worse, he clearly thinks he's awesome.

There are some things that just don't belong in baseball, like crying and steroids. Then there are things that don't belong in baseball, on a t-shirt, or in life — like a Nickleback shirt, for example. There is free speech in this country, and then there's inciting violence by wearing something that will make most rational people fly into an inchoate rage. Not even the ACLU is going to stand up for this shirt.

Some people may want to call it an "error" or a "glitch:, but we choose to call it "beautiful". Although soccer is oft lampooned as a sport of crying, skinny drama queens, the last time we saw meaningful male head-on-head contact in soccer was when Zidane forehead-kissed  Materazzi in the World Cup. Finally, we can say goodbye are the homophobic days of teabagging your opponent after a late hit in NFL Blitz, and prepare ourselves for the era of ferociously kissing your friend's avatar after he scores a goal that just makes you so... so... come here.

Come on! That was an unfair slide! I can't stay mad at you. Whoah, low touch!

Good pubic education requires a partner, and for many people in the Red Lion area that partner is Don Dimoff. Don Dimoff is an experienced pubic education communications manager. If you need the word put out that your pubic school is open for eager beavers everywhere, Don Dimoff is the guy who will market your pubis to the public. 

Think about baseball, think about baseball.... nope, not helping.

Baseball gets knocked for being boring a lot, and it doesn't help America's Pasttime's case that a man who is literally paid to talk about baseball and make it seem exciting falls asleep during a discussion of the playoff chances of his own team. This guy is a Yankees broadcaster talking about the Yankees' playoff chances and when he finally comes to, he has to ask the producer off screan what he was talking about. "Oh right, the Yankees." Baseball been berry, berry boring today.

Sports are sweaty, full-contact, and for the most part played with equipment that resembles either a penis, a testicle or both. Thus, it's no surprise that players can easily find themselves featured in the sorts of compromising images one would normally have to hack an iPhone to find. Here are some of our favorites. Enjoy them. You deserve it. 

It is impressive that she can sing with her nose taped up like that.

So, Arkansas had a bit of an upset recently when the No.8 Razorbacks were beaten by U of Louisiana-Monroe on 9/8. Seems like a time when a team would like to go home, lick its wounds, and build its pride back up. Then, something like this comes along. Something so powerful, so moving, it makes you want to forget about the Internet and football all at the same time.

We all know the usual stripper routine: someone runs out on the field, avoids getting caught for 10-15 seconds and is tackled and has a blanket put on them. A man, the crowd cheers. A woman, the crowd boos. We know the script. This man broke the streak (did you see what I blindlingly obviously did there?) by going all Thomas Crowne Affair and having a second part to his elaborate plan: a daring escape over wire fences (while naked) and then the big twist ending. 

The "Asshole" chant is the kindest form of mob justice.

Everyone's done something stupid and thought "well, I guess I'm the asshole here." Everyone, that is, except people within 1,000 yards of this man, who is and will always be the asshole in any situation. Even Hannibal Lecter was polite, and he probably never hit women before tying them up and eating their organs. There have definitely been worse people in history, but probably very few who were bigger assholes.

When you take a hardball propelled by a pro baseball player right above your left eye socket, you pretty much have three options: explode on impact, become a vegetable, or embody the kind of awesomeness that tequila companies need to invent a fictional character to convey. Brandon McCarthy, A's pitcher and A-list tweeter, may be taking a self-deprecating rout, but the awesomeness is undeniable - just look at the video of him getting flattened:

I love stealing plates! Aw, this one ain't got no fooood.

People sometimes say pitchers can't hit, or run, or slide into base. People sometimes say that the extremely obese are unathletic, or can't run, or are funny to watch jiggle. People sometimes say that anything can happen. Today, all of those things are true.

It's like being inside every awful sports bar in the country at once. Apologies in advance to Irish firemen. We realize there are other kinds of Jets fans. Irish policemen, for example.

The best part is the ref deciding to take a 'dignity lap' at the end.

Painting the principal's car. Putting a cow on the roof. Touching a boob. These are the fantasies of which high school is made, none of which would be complete without "nailing that smug-mouthed referee right in his fat dumb face with a 40-yard bomb." Unfortunately, the team pictured actually has a 31-game losing streak, so this actually is that QB's best chance to touch a boob, also, before the attention wears off.

Von Miller is an offensive linebacker for the Denver Broncos, and an offensive line drawer for his arm. Now, it should be noted we're not actually offended. This tattoo is awesome, and except for the fact that Pac Man is for some reason eating money (highly irresponsible), we think Von nailed it... whatever this is. But someone is going to be offended, that's for darn sure. The ghost is actually a "hater" in Von's terminology, which makes sense since haters always turn and run away when you start chasing them after eating giant pills that make everything flash color.

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When you look at someone's Fantasy team, you are looking into their soul. Their underinformed, unprepared, unlucky and unlikely-to-win soul. Does your friend talk about football all the time? Then he probably thought way too hard about it and picked obscure nobodies who are sure to "break out" this year. Is your friend the guy who sarcastically badmouths football while changing his bench every week? Look at his roster and his conflicted shame will become clear. Is your friend a moron? He will probably win. But if you're a more or less normal person (more or less) your roster may look something like this.

Ozzie Guillen is an inspirational figure who taught us that a Spanish-speaking immigrant from Venezuela can still be just as incoherent as someone born right here in America. The first Latino manager to win the World Series, this is not the first time Guillen has engaged in the proud American tradition of saying stupid things; he once praised Fidel Castro saying, "I love Castro...you know why? Because people have been trying to kill him for 60 years and that mother****er is still there." Now that's the kind of dumbassery the pasttime of America should be about.

It's that time of year again — the time when former jocks relive their glory days, normal people play a game because they are bored, and nerds complain that people are enjoying something that's not nerdy. It's bigger than ever, it's banned at work, it's something no one wants to hear about in polite conversation... it's Fantasy Fooball season!