• Brett who? Oh, Brett Favre. Yeah, I’ve heard of him before. Sports Illustrated’s Jeff Pearlman weighs in (with a glorious intro) on Favre’s recently announced return to football.
• The SEC has been doing some waffling of their own recently, going back and forth about whether to allow the use of social media by fans at their games. Adam Ostrow of Mashable has done an excellent job covering the story as it has unfolded.
• You may remember the media firestorm ESPN set off with its (lack of) coverage regarding the Ben Roethlisberger civil suit. New ESPN ombudsman Don Ohlmeyer addresses that decision and provides some answers in his first column.
• One way a sports story is guaranteed to get my attention every time is to show me as a fan something that I normally don’t have access to. Seeing how athletes operate beyond the playing field is one of the most interesting parts of sports for me. Greg Bishop of the New York Times did just that in his article on the players’ lounge at the Rogers Cup tennis tournament in Montreal.
• To end, a video by the New York Times that all you fellow NBA nerds will appreciate. Commissioner David Stern heads to a Harlem barbershop to talk hoops with columnist William Rhoden and the locals. Not visually stunning, but the content is worth your time.

• As this site has noted before, the New York Times can be spotty in its sports sports coverage now and again. But this video on the dice-powered game of ABPA baseball is the kind of quirky piece that the internet is great for.
• The New York Times’ Magazine rarely misses the mark. I check each weekend in hope of a new sports piece, and today was rewarded with Ron Berler’s story about the alarmingly high number of arm surgeries young pitchers are undergoing. If you follow sports closely enough you’ve probably read similar pieces about youth sports injuries over the past couple of years, but Berler’s piece distinguishes itself by focusing on a specific type of injury, then building the characters and story out from it.
• This final link is to an article from the most recent issue of Sports Illustrated. It is written by Gary Smith. It is entitled “A Gift From Africa.” It is about Mpho Gift Ngoepe, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ young South African prospect. And, simply put, it is the best sports story I have read all summer.

• This excellent Outside the Lines video story is titled “Carry On.” It’s about two high school friends with an unbelievable story, and that’s all I’ll tell you. Go watch it. Also, be sure to check out the new beta player on the site’s video section — pretty cool.
• That last video had me scouring around the site for more, and I came across an older E:60 piece about freestyle soccer. The story is much more about the visuals than emotional depth but cool nonetheless.
• Not all has been good for ESPN.com lately, though. A writer for Indianapolis Colts blog Stampede Blue blasted the network for the way it handled the Ben Roethlisberger civil suit.
• All who saw the Mark Buerhle perfect game certainly saw the highlight of Dewayne Wise’s amazing catch in the 9th inning as well. New York Times writer Tyler Kepner dug a little deeper into the story.
• To end, Henry Abbott of TrueHoop delved into how Yao Ming’s potential season-ending injury might affect NBA wallets in China during a time when the league is already taking a financial hit.

• You may have heard about this Erin Andrews thing. In a mold-breaking move, I won’t lead with a link to a story about her. Instead, lets start off with Mike Stachura’s article from Golf World about the big role technology played in Tom Watson’s British Open performance last weekend (found via Bill Simmons’ twitter update).
• Speaking of Bill Simmons, if you didn’t read his last filing, you may be surprised to learn that he will no longer be writing his ESPN: The Magazine column. He’ll still be producing in various mediums online, and occasionally turning in non-column work for the mag, but he won’t be in print in the same capacity. Jason McIntyre of The Big Lead e-mailed Simmons to get the details.
• Now the Erin Andrews thing. St. Petersburg Times TV and media critic Eric Deggans delves into the current culture of sports media that may have enabled this whole mess.
• Dan Levy of The Sporting Blog took an interesting look at the LeBron James (kind-of) dunk tape overhype that hit the web last week, focusing on the fact that both websites airing the two tapes paid for the rights to do so.
• Lastly, at the Sports Business Journal, Bill King wrote a behemoth of an article highlighting various examples of the shifting sports journalism industry titled “No news is bad news.” It’s a little more of doom and gloom, and you may not finish it in one sitting (I’m still picking away between other tasks), but it will certainly leave you more informed.

• First off, an article from the hardest working tight tight end in the journalism business: Chris Cooley. Filling in for Peter King as the “Monday Morning QB,” Cooley lays out his idea for a way to reduce incorrect calls in games. He calls it Smart Football. Hopefully Roger Goodell is reading.
• Another SI.com post. I have been linking to quite a few articles recently about the development of new statistics and how teams are using them. Not everyone is impressed with all these stats though, especially Norman Chad. Another thing Chad’s unimpressed with? The WSJ’s sports page.
• But, as much as Chad dislikes the Wall Street Journal’s sports page, I find myself checking their section daily, often times with good results. For example, this interesting article by Reed Albergotti about an increase in marathon participation due to the slow economy.
• Nestled among the Watson and Vick news today was ESPN’s announcement they will be opening three more local sites to accompany ESPN Chicago. It’s no shock–lots of people saw this coming the moment the Chicago site launched. Among these was Dan Shanoff, and now he sees trouble for local sports outlets.
• Lastly, over at Jim Romenesko’s blog at Poynter, news that nearly three quarters of 200 bloggers surveryed in a study put on by Penn State don’t think they’re rivals to actual sports journalists. The survey is full of interesting stats and worth a glance.

Enjoy the reading.

• At Slate, Charles Pierce took a wrote about the fan reaction to Manny’s return from his 50-game suspension and what it says about baseball in this hyper-sensitive (post?) steroid era.
• There’s been a lot of talk about this Tiger/Federer who’s better debate since Federer won his 15th Slam at Wimbledon. Joe Posnanski’s is by far the best I have come across.
• Progressive statistics have become a major focus for professional teams. This article by the NY Times‘ Alan Schwarz is the latest installment. It’s an introduction to a new way to analyze baseball players’ efficiency in their movement on the field.
• To end, another Twitter in sports article (in another four part series no less). ESPN’s Brian Bennett comes at it from a high school athlete’s perspective, though, and touched on a few interesting points.

Happy reading.

• Jockipedia. Excuse me? Yeah, Jockipedia. This weekend, Richard Sandomir of NY Times‘ introduced us to Jockipedia — a site dedicated to centralizing every athlete and league’s social networking pages. If this site fills out (few athletes have full profiles yet), it will surely become one of the first places I hit any time I’m looking for athlete information.
• We’re still in the midst of learning the details about Steve McNair’s sad death, but while those work their way to the surface, give Michael Lombardi’s tribute a read. Quality praise from someone knowledgeable enough about the finer points of the game to know.
• Here’s an article from 10,000 Words about the 10 ways to improve online sports journalism (thanks to all those who gave me a heads up on this). What I found most interesting about this post was that none of these ideas struck me as ground breaking. That’s not to say that the article is base (or that I am of superior intelligence), though. Rather, I think it speaks to the progressive nature of sports journalism in utilizing the full capabilities of the internet.
• Nieman Journalism Lab put together an excellent four-part series on the topic of a sports media that is so often working for the leagues it is covering. My favorite of the four parts was the third installment, “When the league owns the network — and pays the journalists: A new set of ethical questions arise,” but the entire series deserves your attention.
• Lastly, a piece that a good friend and colleague of mine, Lia Calabro, wrote about the 2009 Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. The event is one of the strangest things I have ever seen in person and she captured it brilliantly. Also, while we’re at it, a little shameless self promotion (that term has become absurdly cliche since Twitter’s popularity boom by the way): check out the video piece I put together from the same event.

Enjoy the reading all.

• To begin, some YouTube fun. These two videos of minor leaguer Josh Womack have been floating around all over the net, but on the slight chance you haven’t seen them yet, here is a baseball player’s answer to Tiger Woods/the Nike Freestyle commercial (well, maybe that’s a little exaggerated, but still). Videos one and two.
• The NBA Draft is one of the best events for a basketball fan, but usually one of the worst for journalism. What exactly are you going to write about an event that is literally people having their names called–especially when its potential story lines have been tread into the hardwood weeks prior to the actual night? Most sites/writers either do a running journal on the night’s occurrences (Googling “NBA draft live blog,” for example, returned 29,000,000 hits just now) or give each team grades on their selections post-draft. Despite the journalistic overkill, there were a few pieces that I found worthy of sharing. The first is a humorous piece by Ty Hildenbrandt where he bestows fake awards to the players. I know, it’s not a groundbreaking idea, but his is well executed and made me laugh out loud early in the morning a few times.
• The second comes from, somewhat surprisingly, Deadspin. They asked a body language expert to analyze the handshakes of 20 different players, with an accompanying slideshow. Gimmicky and fascinating.
• Darren Rovell  lists the salaries of the lottery picks in the draft, but more interestingly, sheds some insight into the salaries of these players’ agents as well. Hint: they’re not what you might think.
• One more draft link. If you followed the night, you know that David Kahn, the new President of Basketball Operations for the Timberwolves, caught flack for drafting point guard after point guard. It quickly became a self-perpetuating joke about the Wolves’ continual failings as a franchise. Celtics blog Reds Army offered a different perspective on Kahn’s thought process, though, and I’ve got to say, it seems plausible.
• Stepping away from the draft, Seth Davis wrote about a side effect of the college basketball coaching carousel. Many of the pre-coach swap players try to transfer (rather than risk being cut from the team in some cases) — but not all of them are granted permission to do so. It’s a worthwhile glimpse into the big business that is D1 basketball.
• Lastly, a second link from Deadspin (I know, I’m a little amazed too). Deadspin can be pretty nasty to both athletes and journalists, few moreso than Rick Reilly. I’ll be up front, I’m not a huge fan of Reilly’s current stuff either. I think the majority of his ESPN.com work is formulaic and corny (then again, who am I?). But regardless of whatever Deadspin and I agree upon about Reilly, there is little question that he possesses writing chops. In homage to this fact, Tommy Craggs lays out five excellent Reilly features from before his back page days at Sports Illustrated. I haven’t made it through all of them yet, but they’re on my short list. They should be on yours too.

• Jon Wertheim is a busy man. Between writing non-tennis features for Sports Illustrated, releasing a book, tweeting like a champion, and now jet-setting out to England for Wimbledon, it’s a wonder he still has time to file regularly at SI.com. But, he does, and the story he wrote last week on the place of grunting in tennis is a must-read.
• If you haven’t heard of FLYP magazine, your eyes haven’t been opened to the possibilities the internet allows creative thinkers. Utilizing a gorgeous layout and a fully interactive experience, FLYP could very well be the direction that magazines head in the next few years. Need an example? Here’s a cool story from their latest issue (did I mention it’s free?) about a guy who’s snagged over 4,000 baseballs from pro games.
• Here’s a gem from perhaps the hardest working NBA blogger in the business, ESPN’s Henry Abbott. I’ve fallen a little behind on TrueHoop this year, but posts like this one analyzing the Laker’s Final’s victory through the lens of cycling team time trials will bring me back.
• You’ve probably seen this Times Magazine piece on Rafael Nadal by now, but this is your reminder to give it a read if you haven’t done so yet. Yeah it seems prescient since Nadal withdrew from Wimbledon on Friday (the story hit the web early–before that announcement came), but I was more interested in the minute details Cynthia Gorney unearthed, like the fact that Nadal’s devastating top-spin forehand averages 3,200 rpms compared to Sampras and Agassi’s 1,900 range (and Federer’s 2,700). A dearth of reporting went into this piece.
• Here’s a nice father’s day piece Sally Jenkins wrote about her Dad, Dan Jenkins, and his leap into Twitter. Jenkins covers golf for Golf.com. He’s almost 80. And after following him all weekend as he updated from the dreary Bethpage Black, I can second everyone else’s claim that he twitters like he was born with a smartphone in hand.
• Sticking on the Twitter theme, MinnPost.com’s BrauBlog gives a behind-the-scenes look at how various journalists handled Kevin Love’s goodbye McHale tweet.
• To end, an excellent gallery of some superb shots by photographer Dylan Coulter. Happy Father’s Day all.

That said, I do read a lot. So, starting today, Box Score Beat will give you a weekly post (bi-weekly if the content demands) listing the best sports pieces I come across called “Just Do It.” Why Just Do It? Beyond the memories of neon colors and Barkley vs. Godzilla Nike ads. You know why. Just click the link. Watch the video, read (or print out and read on the subway like I do) the piece, click through the pictures. Just do it. You’ll be better for it. The best thing any sports fan can be–writer, fanatic, casual or otherwise–is informed.

If there are pieces I missed, throw them in the comments. Don’t hoard the good reading; be a good teammate. It’s hard enough to deal with one Terrell Owens in the world.

All that said, here is the first Just Do It. Most of these stories are current, but since this is the inaugural list, there are one or two I read prior but think they’re worth a look if you haven’t seen them yet. No more words. Enjoy.

(Full Disclosure: I am interning at Sports Illustrated.com this summer, and therefore spending lots of time on the site and working through the Vault for one reason or another. Naturally, I’ll be reading a lot of SI stories. Also naturally, SI turns out a lot of good ones, so there will more than likely be a few showing up in list. Do with that knowledge what you will.)

• Roger Federer’s French Open win released the floodgates on some quality tennis writing. But the best of it may have been the re-emergence of David Foster Wallace’s story for PLAY Magazine from 2006, “Federer as a Religious Experience.” I didn’t read this in PLAY (RIP) when it first ran, but rather put it on “to read” list a few months ago after a good friend turned me onto the website New York Review of Magazines. There, I found an excellent piece on the short-lived PLAY. In it, some backstory is given on Foster Wallace’s reporting process for the piece, including a mini-meltdown that triggered a 3 a.m. phone call from England.
• I was navigating through the Vault the other day when I stumbled on Curry Kirkpatrick’s beast-of-a-story on Deion Sanders, ‘They Don’t Pay Nobody to be Humble.’ You should trust me and just click the link, but for those non-believers, here’s an excerpt I enjoyed.
  

  What all the button-down NFL earthlings should do is sit back, relax and let Sanders, 22 going on 14, have fun. Let him swing and sway. Let him shuck and jive. Above all, let Deion be on. Let him get the ball in his hands and play. Of course, he’s an act. Of course, he’s two people. He’s even got two languages, street and smart. Nobody could be so blatantly ridiculous au naturel. On this point, Deion is right-on.

• Another piece of excellence from the Vault, this one from 1957: “Basketball’s Underground Railroad” by Richard J. Schaap (you may know him as Dick). If you thought high school basketball talent-evaluators with with “allegiances” to specific colleges were a new thing, well, Schaap’s got news for you. Read it for both the history lesson and the classic writing style.
• This is a little late seeing as how the Nuggets were eliminated by the Lakers last round, but Tom Friend put together a great read on Chauncey Billups entitled “The Disposable Superstar.” It’s a nice step away from a potentially campy, predictable story. It’s worth scanning through the site for a look at the glorious Billups/KG picture if nothing else.
• I’m always excited to read a mainstream sports story about someone I somehow know nothing about, and Jon Wertheim provides just that in his story about former Detroit Lions quarterback Jeff Komlo called “The Wrong Turn.” It’s an athlete-gone-wrong story but far from your typical fall from grace. It reminded me of an early 90′s crime movie: blousy polos, wind-swept dirty-blond hair and a strange tendency to violence that you just can’t quite understand.
• Lastly, a quick-hitter from The Sporting News featuring a great Stan Van Gundy quote. In it, Van Gundy speaks out against the NBA age limit, making a hell of a point. The piece also gives a glimpse of the well-guarded future of basketball statistics.