If you’re like us, your fantasy football expectations have already crumbled and exploded just four days into the season. Whether that’s been good or bad news, the time’s right to crack a beer and consider what else lies ahead this week including prime new opportunities to celebrate and swear off fantasy sports forever—usually on the same night.
With MLB pennant fever turning serious, other sports happenings range from the awesomely goofy, such as fun ballpark promotional nights in L.A. and Kansas City, to the potentially shocking—namely, the Oscar Pistorius murder trial verdict. There’s also a birthday of a pro golf great that comes with its own tasty way to celebrate. The tech world is entirely hyped up, too, as Apple has been teasing a major new announcement on Tuesday. That same night, Sons of Anarchy roars back on FX for its finally season.
Here are the fourteen best things to do this week.
ESPN Monday Night Football 2014 Kickoff: Giants at Lions and Chargers at Cardinals in Doubleheader
(September 8)
Season 45 of Monday Night Football kicks off at 7pm on ESPN with Eli Manning leading the Giants into battle at Ford Field in Detroit. Matthew Stafford and the Lions will be there ready, willing, and riled up to register their home turf season opener as a win. Immediately afterward, at 10:15, Philip Rivers and his Chargers cross the border to Arizona’s University of Phoenix Stadium for a showdown with Larry Fitzgerald and the Cardinals. We are ready for some football.
Michael Winslow at Zanie’s Chicago
(September 8)
Known (accurately) for decades as “The Guy Who Does Sound Effects From Police Academy,” funnyman of a thousand voiceboxes Michael Winslow first stunned audiences with his seemingly impossible vocal acrobatics in the original Cheech and Chong flicks. He then achieved true one-of-a-kind cult stardom as Sgt. Larvell “Motor Mouth” Jones in the slapstick law enforcement film series. Using just his voice, Winslow became a stand-up comedy legend by perfectly mimicking all manner of distinctive sounds including engines, storms, crashes, heavy machinery, artillery fire, barnyards and circuses full of animals, orchestras worth of instruments, and, in our favorite bit, the terrible dubbing of old kung fu movies. Michael is still at it, and you can marvel at the original human beatbox switch between hi infinite settings onstage at Zanie’s in Chicago.
Apple Announcement
(September 9)
Is it the iPhone 666? Is it a new undergarment device called an iJock? Will the ghost of Steve Jobs beam out of an iPad spook the proceedings? Whatever Apple is going to unveil at its annual new products press conference this Tuesday, the hype machinery has already been downloaded and launched on overdrive. Reports tend to predict at least one larger iPhone and an an iWatch gadget to wear on your wrist. In the weeks ahead, expect to see campuses everywhere flooded with pricey new doo-hickies.
Babe Ruth Bobblehead Night at Dodgers Stadium
(September 9)
Neighboring rivals the San Diego Padres head forth to play the Dodgers on Tuesday, and fans can each take home on of the most curious promo giveaways of the 2014 season: a charming bobblehead figure of Babe Ruth in a Dodgers uniform. The Babe, of course, is renowned for his superhuman transformation of the New York Yankees into baseball’s preeminent empire, as well as for stints on the Red Sox before and after his Bronx titan years. How, then, can the Dodgers lay claim to this superstar of superstars? Well, for a brief spell in 1938, the Bambino served as first base coach for the team in Brooklyn, although it was a decorative position only. He was instructed just to show up, stand next to the action, and not actually throw any signals or offer any advice. It turned out to be Ruth’s final gig in professional baseball, and now that indignity is immortalized for us all in wobbly novelty resin.
Sons of Anarchy: Final Season Premiere
(September 9)
Kurt Sutter, creator and spiritual overlord of FX’s supreme outlaw biker melodrama Sons of Anarchy, is promising that this final season will savagely pulverize all of the show’s previous onslaughts of madness, mayhem, and taboo-shattering brutality. It’s a mighty claim, but last year’s finale certainly set up a doozy of a downward spiral as hero Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) sets out to avenge the gory murder of his wife at the hands of Gemma (Katy Sagal), who is both Jax’s mom and the overall bitch queen supreme of the Sons of Anarchy motorcycle club. Celebrities on board for recurring roles throughout this farewell ride include Courtney Love, Malcolm Jamal Warner, Lea Michelle, and, as a Nazi-tattooed white supremacist, Marilyn Manson. Gentleman, start your engines of mass ass-kicking destruction.
The Black Keys in Louisville
(September 10)
Swagger-rock kingpins the Black Keys barrel their Turn Blue tour into Louisville’s KFC Yum Center. Riding high as the singles “Fever” and “Turn Blue” have scored even more radio airplay than their chief rival Jack White, the Black boys promise an evening of barn-burning down-tuned rave-ups. Cage the Elephant, who just released the, well, cagey black-and-white concept video “Cigarette Daydreams”, expertly perform opening act duties.
Happy 85th Birthday, Arnold Palmer
(September 10)
Golf titan Arnold Palmer turns 85 on Thursday, so raise a frosty pint of his namesake beverage to the man and his accomplishments both on the green and in your glass. The classic Arnold Palmer drink consists of half lemonade and half iced tea, which is easy enough to concoct yourself, as well as handily available pre-mixed in frosty cans from the Arizona company. Add some vodka to the brew and you’ve got yourself a Jon Daly cocktail. Arnold probably won’t mind if you toast him by sinking a few of those as well. Jon sure won’t.
The Doug Benson Movie Interruption: Maleficent
(September 10)
The Doug Benson Movie Interruption is a Cinefamily event that takes place at Hollywood’s Silent Movie Theater. At each happening, the namesake cannabis comedian screens movies and mocks them in conjunction with any number of his funny friends. The latest edition will take aim at Angelina Jolie’s Disney blockbuster, Maleficent. Doug never announces which wisecrackers will be joining him in joking, but previous panels have included Sarah Silverman, Zach Galifianakis, and Paul F. Tompkins. We won’t explicit advise anyone to smoke first, but it’s a solid bet that the microphones of Benson and his brethren will be coming away massively marijuana-scented.
Oscar Pistorius Verdict
(September 11)
Will the Blade Runner go down for the shooting death of his supermodel girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp or will South Africa’s legless Olympic champion strap on his signature bouncy appendages and bolt from the courtroom a free man? That’s the question to be answered Thursday, as the most sensational sports world murder trial since O.J. Simpson is scheduled to end. Pistorius maintains that he fired his gun into a door believing his home was being invaded. Prosecutors argue that he knew Steenkamp would be on the receiving end of those bullets. Even if he is acquitted of intentionally killing Steenkamp, it is expected that Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa will deliver a sentence on any number of lesser charges. A curious world’s eyes will be on Soweto come Thursday morning.
The Biggest Loser: Glory Days – Season Premiere
(September 11)
The Biggest Loser seems to heading into as many seasons as there are pounds that a typical contestant sheds in the course of NBC’s extreme weight loss competition. The gimmick for this go-round, titled The Biggest Loser: Glory Days, is that the race to drop fat and muscle up will go down between twenty former pro athletes who are at spectacularly obese distances away from their peak performance physicality. Among the big losers are Olympic gold medal winner Rulon Gardner, twelve-season NFL vet Antone Davis, ex-New England Patriot Damien Woody, and tennis champ Zina Garrison. The show’s Bob Harper will switch from traditional coach role to running the “Comeback Canyon”, where competitors who get booted off can train to regain a place in the contest. Even without the sports angle, hough, it’s fun to predict which beyond plus-size Biggest Loser honeys will end up the hottest once they sculpt themselves back down to bikini-friendly dimension.
Thursday Night Football: Steelers at Ravens
(September 11)
Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium hosts the Steelers against home team the Ravens for a potentially very interesting Thursday Night Football match-up. Yesterday, the Steelers mashed the Browns, while the Bengals mopped up the Ravens. The pressure is on Pittsburgh to keep that momentum steamrolling forward, while the Birds will be desperate to fly away with victory on their own turf.
All You Can Eat Seats
(September 11)
The Red Sox visit the Royals this Thursday and even non-baseball fans can belly up to enjoy the promo event at Kauffman Stadium that night: All You Can Eat Seats. Omnivorous attendees will be packing select seats on the Loge Level to pay a mere $40 to consume all the hot dogs, pretzels, nachos, peanuts, and sodas they can slide down their esophageal baselines into their ever-expanding mid-section home plates. It’s a perfect way to cap a week where other sports happenings incorporate Babe Ruth, The Biggest Loser, and, by surgary alcoholic confection association, Jon Daly.