This is one of the weirdest things I've seen in not just NASCAR, but in all sports: Sunday night's Coca Cola 600 was briefly delayed when a rope holding one of Fox's cameras snapped, injuring ten fans and damaging three cars.

What ended up happening was that the camera system, which was used during the Daytona 500 and last week's All-Star race, has three ropes controlling it and that the drive rope (which is what moves the camera) snapped for an unknown reason, causing it to fall to the track and cause all of the damage.

If you'll indulge me, I'd like to tell you a quick story. If not, the bottom of this post has the video you are looking for.

My senior year in high school, I befriended a relocated Japanese student. The reason I did so was because well....he's awesome. 

It didn't take too long for that opinion to spread. Almost every week for a year, I would receive invites to parties and they seemed to always include a strong request to bring my new friend. Why? Because he was awesome. So much so, that I think the trajectory of how much and how quickly he became beloved by the high school could have actually made him our Homecoming King (not that anybody really gives a shit now, but back then....sure), if he became more social a year earlier.

Happy Memorial Day!  What better way to celebrate this great holiday than a collection of some of the best sportscasting bloopers in television history.  Our friends at Huffington Post Sports put this mashup together with more than a few of our favorite clips.  From Boom Goes the Dynamite to announcers losing their voice to anchors getting hit with flying soccer balls to Chris Kamara and more.  

Enjoy your holiday and keep fighting like beavers, America!

All Times Eastern

College Baseball
NCAA Baseball Championship Selection Show -- ESPNU, noon
The Road to Omaha: NCAA Baseball Championship Preview -- ESPNU, 6 p.m.

College Lacrosse
NCAA Division I Championship, Philadelphia, PA
Syracuse vs. Duke -- ESPN, 1 p.m.

English Championship
Final
Crystal Palace vs. Watford -- beIN Sport, 9:55 a.m.

Remember last month, when Rays reporter Kelly Nash took a self portrait on Instagram and nearly got beaned by a home run ball in the process? Brewers reporter Sophia Minnaert didn't get nearly as lucky as Nash did, as on Saturday, she actually ended up getting hit by a ball while on camera.

Before the third inning on Saturday, Minnaert was giving the Fox Sports Wisconsin audience her report when she was hit in the right hand by a ball out of nowhere. Her mic went flying, and Minnaert looked stunned for a second before picking her mic back up and continuing her report., eventually getting some kudos for Milwaukee's commentary team in the booth

It's pretty amazing that Minnaert didn't get hurt, and I'm surprised we don't see this happen more often. Thankfully, everything worked out well for her.

[SportsGrid]

All year long, CNN host, Arsenal supporter, and former Fox Soccer contributor Piers Morgan has whined, complained, griping, grumbling, and crying about Arsenal selling star striker Robin Van Persie to rivals Manchester United.  As one would expect, RVP was a key figure in United winning the title once again.  In fact, he led the league with 26 goals this season.  In between his ranting at Arsene Wenger and the Arsenal borad, Morgan took repeated shots throughout the year at the man he dubbed "Van Pursestrings."  A brief selection from the season...

What a sickening betrayal of Wenger too - the man who stood so loyally behind @persie_official through years of injury. #VanPursestrings

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) August 15, 2012

With every goal #VanPursestrings scores for United, another little piece of me dies inside. He's slowly killing me.

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 13, 2013

Van Pursestrings scores on my birthday? Thanks again #IvanTheTerrible #WengerTheSeller

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) March 30, 2013

I'm actually trembling with fury. #VanPursestrings

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) April 22, 2013

This is like waiting to see a girl who cheated on you walk out with the men she cheated with - and be expected to cheer. #VanPursestrings

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) April 28, 2013

I just threw up. Literally. #VanPursestrings twitter.com/piersmorgan/st…

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) April 28, 2013

Morgan's tweets became quite the entertaining sideshow throughout the season as some players (like Man United's Rio Ferdinand) even taunted him on Twitter with the hashtag #Tears4Piers becoming something of an established trend.  

Finally, the man at the center of it all - Robin Van Persie, got his jab in at the melodramatic host of Piers Morgan Live.  RVP sent Morgan a signed photograph of himself kissing the Premier League trophy.

'Piersy my man, thanks for all the support! You made this day even more special! All the best, Van Pursestrings.' twitter.com/piersmorgan/st…

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 24, 2013

Side 2: 'Great to be a champ.. so many #Tears4Piersy ' twitter.com/piersmorgan/st…

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 24, 2013

Well played Mr. Van Persie, well played.

All Times Eastern

Australian Rules Football
North Melbourne Kangaroos vs. Adelaide Crows -- Fox Soccer Plus, 1 a.m.

College Baseball
ACC Championship, Durham, NC
North Carolina vs. Virginia Tech -- ESPN2, 1 p.m.

Big Ten Championship, Minneapolis, MN
Indiana vs. Nebraska -- Big Ten Network, 1 p.m.

Big 12 Championship, Oklahoma City, OK
Oklahoma vs. Kansas -- Fox Sports Net/Fox College Sports Central, 2 p.m.

Conference USA Championship, Houston, TX
Southern Mississippi vs.Rice -- CBS Sports Network, 2 p.m.

SEC Championship, Hoover, AL
LSU vs. Vanderbilt -- ESPN2, 4:30 p.m.

Andrew McCutchen is one of the brightest stars in baseball, and the Pirates are actually doing a pretty good job at marketing him. Recently, McCutchen interviewed TV chef Anthony Bourdain for a segment called All-Stars with Andrew McCutchen, something that will likely be a nice time filler during Pirates notebook programming and during rain delays. Sure enough, the team had a rain delay in Thursday's game with the Cubs, and aired most of the interview on Root Sports.

The interview itself wasn't really deep or insightful in any way, but McCutchen at least showed off his personality, and wasn't terrible while asking Bourdain questions. Perhaps the best part of the interview was Bourdain talking about ballpark food, and what changes he'd make if he were a team owner.

This is at least worth a watch, and hopefully the series continues with McCutchen interviewing other luminaries making stops in Pittsburgh. At worst, he's making himself some more future money in endorsements and media career.

[CBS Pittsburgh]

The news of ESPN's hundreds of layoffs this week staggered the sports world. How could the leading media company in all of sports, and maybe even in all of media, cut almost 1/6th of their workforce? How could a company that spends billions of dollars (yes, that's billion with a "B") on rights deals just for the privilege to televise games not have anymore room for a senior staffer in the accounting department? How could one of the laid off employees drive by the new multi-million dollar digital center and not think there was something in this picture not adding up?

Perhaps what isn't adding up is ESPN's longstanding invulnerability over the sports world. ESPN's value has been placed in the tens of billions of dollars. Forbes even remarked, "The reality is that there is not another media property in the world worth as much as ESPN because no media asset delivering content generates close to as much money." And truth be told, as cold-hearted as it seems, the washing out of veteran highly-paid employees with younger (i.e. cheaper) alternatives to maximize profit is nothing new for corporate America. In fact, ESPN posted job listings for many new positions this week, presumably including ones that had just been filled days earlier, and announced a high-profile hiring of southern sports radio personality Paul Finebaum. ESPN isn't hurting for business.

However, one of the reported reasons for ESPN needing to slash dollars from its payroll is the humongous rights fees the network has dished out to the NFL, college football, and other sports in recent years.

During an edition of College Football Live on Wednesday, the topic of discussion was Johnny Manziel (of course), the reigning Heisman Trophy winner. Anchor Joe Tessitore was talking about how people need to focus on Manziel's on-field ability as opposed to "the big event, and celebrity, and VIP-ness."

Say that out loud. VIP-ness isn't a thing. VIPenis...well, that certainly is something. I'm sure that is indeed very important, but I don't know how much of a thing his off the field status really is. I'm thinking MVP-ness would have rolled off the tongue a little better, and I'm stunned we haven't seen this happen before in the era of using non-descriptive superlatives to describe players.

H/T Gamedayr