Please Pass the Soap

It started with Joe Torre saying Angels' rookie Howie Kendrick was a "good-looking young man." It escalated in slightly bizarre fashion when Rangers' manager Buck Showalter said his rookie right fielder Nelson Cruz had "a good face."

And now, courtesy of Vikings' head coach Brad Childress, we have reached a new stratosphere. Welcome to the next level:

"Running backs usually get better the warmer they get, the more feel they get for the game," says Childress. "They can kind of get lathered up a bit. In a perfect world, that's what you do; you lather a guy up."

This one very nearly leaves The OCC at a loss for words.

But not quite.

First off, this is not meant to be a discourse on the merits or pitfalls of lathering a guy up. People may lather others or not lather as they please.

However, what is completely unacceptable about this is that it represents the trend that many professional coaches nowadays are seemingly unaware when they're speaking in innuendo. Sure, it's understandable what Joe Torre meant with his comment, and while Showalter's "good face" comment was strange and...well, mildly disturbing, you kind of expect Buck Showalter to say creepy things like that. At least in both cases you can kind of see how Torre and Showalter didn't realize that their comments might be misinterpreted (or properly interpreted, as the case may be).

But please, just once more, take a look at what Childress said:

In a perfect world, that's what you do; you lather a guy up.

He had to have been aware of the strange sexual connotation here, right? I mean, I suppose it's possible that Childress is a former bath house attendant who is so desensetized to the notion of lathering that it actually didn't cross his mind he was saying something absurd. But unless he's far more mature than this particular writer (a distinct possibility), the likelihood is that he knew exactly what his comment might mean if left in even slightly juvenile hands.

So assuming that Childress was aware of what he was saying, why did he do it? Was he just messing with the media and seeing if he could get his filthy double entendre into the local paper? Did he walk down into his kitchen the following morning and high-five his 17-year-old son after showing him what Dad managed to sneak past the local beat reporters?

Or, perhaps it's just that the world of sport has become so oblivious as to its own loaded lingo and terminology that we hardly even flinch anymore when a coach or TV commentator mentions deep penetration into the opposing team's defense or says that a guy is getting a blow on the sidelines.

I mean, there are probably many people out there who would read this post and cry foul over the overanalyzing and misinterpretation of Brad Childress' words. And that's a shame. If you can't and aren't inclined to laugh at stuff like this...well, you have clearly come to the wrong place, and I will have to ask you to leave immediately.

But now I've gone and gotten myself all worked up.

Or should I say lathered?
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• Remember that scene in Starsky and Hutch (Owen Wilson-Ben Stiller remake version) when Starsky (played by Stiller) breaks out his bad ass sports car and Hutch (Wilson) says to him, "Your stock just went up in my book, my friend." Well, here's a little Your stock just went up in my book, my friend to Titans' rookie RB LenDale White, who has vaulted significantly upwards in the standings of celebrity USC alum NFL rookies with the news that Snoop and Warren G. are expected to be in attendance to watch him play in San Diego this weekend.
  

• This is not really sports-related, but it's pretty amusing: Scenes from Jean-Claude Van Damme's Bloodsport edited to be a Mentos commercial. Thanks to reader jimmyrad for passing along (incidentally, jimmy also provided the tip on the Childress comment, so it's a big day for him here on the site).

• Lastly -- and it's a shame to eulogize their season in a footnote, but that's essentially what they are right now -- the Braves' run of division titles offically came to an end this week. Had a brief moment of laughter on Wednesday picturing Bobby Cox pulling out the Jake Taylor "There's only one thing left to do...Win the whole fucking thing" speech from Major League, but that quickly lost its luster when Los Bravos went out and got swept in a doubleheader. If there's one consolation to this -- and it's a lesson Mets' fans most likely will learn soon enough -- first-round playoff losses are really depressing.