GRANTLAND.com: The Triangle

"This week, Manchester City and Italian striker Mario Balotelli made headlines by declaring, ‘I will not accept racism at all. It's unacceptable. If someone throws a banana at me in the street, I will go to jail, because I will kill them.’

"I suppose some people might blanche at Balotelli's invocation of violence here. But in a world where UEFA fines Man City more for being a few seconds late returning to the pitch at halftime than they do Porto for their fans racially abusing Balotelli and City teammate Yaya Touré, and at a time when the family of English winger Theo Walcott have announced they won't be attending the tournament for fear of racially motivated attacks, I find it actually kind of reasonable.”

"I nominate the three refs from last night's Heat-Celtics game. You know, the guys who called three times as many fouls on Pierce as Wade and LeBron combined, missed Rondo getting hit in the face, missed Wade kicking KG in the balls, and called nearly twice as many fouls on Boston than on Miami last night. The only thing they didn't do was hit Rondo over the head with a chair. I hate everything."

“I nominate Nicklas Lidstrom, for several reasons. He was unquestionably the greatest defenseman of his generation. He belongs at the very top of the discussion for the greatest European player of all time. And because, this morning, he announced his retirement from the NHL after 20 seasons.

“But mainly, because it gives me an excuse to repost this clip of a young Lidstrom getting taken to school by Wendel Clark, leading to the Mike Foligno overtime goal that helped delay the eventual Red Wings dynasty by half a decade. Wooo! Eat it, Red Wings fans!

“(Looks over last 20 years of NHL playoff history; lays down in a corner and cries softly.)”

"[I nominate] Yankees catcher Russell Martin, who shouted "Laz Diaz is a dick! Write it down!" to the media after the umpire wouldn't let him throw new baseballs back to his own pitcher. After the two argued about strike calls early in the game, Diaz apparently told him that throwing the ball back was a privilege he had to earn. The ban lasted from the second inning to the end of the game. Man, I hate umpires. I officially agree to pay Russell's inevitable fine, as long as it's under $10."

“Yay for Red Sox semi-prospect Lars Anderson, who put a hole in the scoreboard at Triple-A Pawtucket's McCoy Stadium with a home run this past week. That came shortly after Giancarlo Stanton broke the scoreboard at the new Marlins Stadium with a home run of his own. The last time we saw this sort of concentrated breaking was when breaking-the-supports-of-basketball-hoops was a brief thing for Shaquille O'Neal during his rookie season in 1992. We want it to extend to other sports, though. What if Rob Gronkowski spiked the ball so hard that he put a hole through the uprights and caused them to fall onto the turf? Yeah. That has to happen."

"When Girardi was about 8, he said, a train near his mother’s family’s home derailed, and one of the cars broke open, emitting numerous cartons of Cap’n Crunch.

'We had so much Cap’n Crunch over the next year it was amazing,' he said, ‘and to this day, I still like Cap’n Crunch. It’s rough on the roof of your mouth, though.'”