Strike One

Let's start this week on a light note.

An Amstel Light note.

Amstel Light, of course, is what beer drinkers drink right before they admit they've got a little girl trapped inside them - so you can imagine the widespread surprise when a receipt from the Boston Bruins' Stanley Cup parade afterparty on June 18 at the MGM-Foxwoods Casino surfaced earlier this month, totaling a whopping $156,000 and including one lone Amstel Light. According to the Canadian Press, the itemized bill also included 136 Bud Lights and a 30-liter bottle of Ace of Spades "Midas" champagne, which goes for a literally ridiculous $100,000.

A story by the Canadian Press about the controversy opens with the line: "There has been much Internet speculation about which member of the Boston Bruins ordered an Amstel Light during an expensive night of celebrating with the Stanley Cup."

The speculation in question, at least in part, no doubt refers to coverage by Deadspin.com, the online sports site that's now a household name thanks to Brett Favre's penis. While the Boston-centric affiliate of barstoolsports.com posted pictures from the party - a surprising number featuring shirtless NHL guys dancing on the bar (kind of a homo-erotic Cowboy Ugly vibe) - Deadspin.com really drove home the Amstel Light angle with its headline, "The Search For The Pisswater-Drinking Boston Bruin Is On."

Amstel Light announced Tuesday a plan to honor whichever Bruins player it was that ordered the beer - offering to provide free Amstel Light on Canadian Independence Day or the Fourth of July, should they come forward.

As Barry Petchesky of Deadspin so accurately points out, "Boy, are they going to be redfaced when it turns out it was Brad Marchand's hooker."

Strike Two

Well-known-sportswriter-turned-bizarre-shouting-head-TV-semi-personality-turned-embarrassed-former-somebody Jay Mariotti is back in the news this week, ordered to stand trial in Los Angeles on charges he stalked and assaulted a former girlfriend. This happens to be the same girlfriend involved in an incident with the sportswriter last year, for which Mariotti pled no contest to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge. A preliminary hearing on Tuesday, presided over by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Windham, found plenty of evidence stacking up against Mariotti, so a trial was ordered on one felony count each of stalking, corporal injury to a spouse or cohabitant and assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury. Two additional misdemeanor counts of disobeying a domestic court order were also thrown in for good measure.

According to reports in the Beverly Hills Courier of what led to this latest debacle for Mariotti, the former Chicago Sun Times columnist allegedly confronted his former girlfriend (read: got all up in her grill) at a restaurant last Sept. - on the very same day he'd pled no contest to the aforementioned misdemeanor domestic violence charge. THAT charge was the result of a previous run-in with the same women at club in Santa Monica. For pleading no contest, if I'm following the rap sheet map key correctly, Mariotti was ordered to serve three years probation, perform 40 days of community labor and complete a 52-week domestic violence class. Mariotti has also been accused of grabbing the women outside a restaurant in Venice in mid-April 2011, ripping out a chunk of her hair in the process and grabbing her cell phone.

If we're to believe the charges standing against him, Mariotti is a very angry little man.

Of course, as anyone who's ever seen Mariotti on TV can attest, most of his interactions seem to be loud, frightening and completely delusional - kind of like getting shouted at outside a Venice cafe, even for those simply watching from home.

Honestly, the most baffling thing about all of it is how Mariotti ended up with a girlfriend in the first place.

Strike Three

The world's 17th-ranked golfer, one Tiger Woods, said this week from the AT&T National golf tournament at Aronimink Golf Club in Newton Square, Pa., that he won't play again until he's fully healed from a left knee and Achilles injury. This makes any chance that Woods will compete in the upcoming British Open, roughly two weeks away, all but obsolete. Woods's next victory in a Major will be his 15th, but since that whole infidelity-slash-Perkins-waitress scandal, his play has turned to shit. This latest injury proclamation, centering on his historically janky left knee, only adds to growing speculation that Woods will never return to his old, dominant self.

Reporters questioned Woods on the decision for some time, and in his characteristically boring demeanor (the kind of boring that can only be achieved from hours upon hours of whacked-out Ambien sex) the golfer insisted that, while he's rushed back from injury in the past, he's determined to take a different approach this time and fully heal.

Sadly, no one asked Woods about whether chicks dig the beard and mustache he's grown.

DUMB JOCK OF THE WEEK

This week the coveted Dumb Jock of the Week award goes to oft-ridiculed wide receiver Terrell Owens, he who longs for reality television fame and has an unnatural affinity for spandex. Owens's agent, the equally unlikeable Drew Rosenhaus, told ESPN's SportsCenter earlier this week that - unbeknownst to the media - Owens tore his ACL this offseason and had surgery to repair it in April. Rosenhaus said Owens - who will be in his 16th year in the league if he plays next season (he'll be a free agent) - has no intention of retiring, and expects to be on the field by August.

Rosenhaus also denied a report by ESPN's Chris Mortensen earlier this week speculating Owens had hurt the knee while filming his VH1 reality TV show.