SOUTH BEND, Ind.–Former Notre Dame wide receiver Jeff Samardzija, who was drafted by the Cubs last year, has decided to forgo his football career for a career pitching with the Cubs.

Samardzija’s Tommy John surgery has been scheduled for late August.

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Q asked me to do a 2006 All-Male Revue, which I thought was a strange request, so I asked him if I might be able to just do a Review of 2006. He reluctantly agreed, so here goes nothing (with much thanks to Wikipedia and its submitters for doing the leg work).

• January 2: The Ohio State Buckeyes defeat the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 34-20 in the Fiesta Bowl in what ESPN will later tell the public is the absolute most lopsided 14-point victory in the history of complete and utterly dominating blowouts.
• January 3: Twelve deceased coal miners and one survivor are discovered in the Sago Mine Disaster near Buckhannon, West Virginia in the United States. Samuel L. Jackson has an unhealthy desire to speak to the sole survivor, pictured here.
• January 4: Texas defeats Southern Cal 41-38 in the BCS National Championship Game. Southern Cal head coach Pete Carroll and quarterback Matt Leinart blame Reggie Bush for failing to push running back LenDale White two yards on a critical late 4th down possession.
• January 7: Embroiled in multiple scandals, former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay announces he will not seek to reassume his former post, but rather will assist Southern Cal head football coach Pete Carroll in recruiting new players.
• January 22: Kobe Bryant, used to forcing his balls through unyielding holes, scores 81 points in a single game, the second most of all time behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100. 72 of the 81 points scored contract herpes.
• February 5: Ben Roethlisberger wets the bed in Super Bowl XL in Detroit, so Notre Dame legend Jerome “The Bus” Bettis picks up the slack in his hometown and leads the Steelers to a win in his final NFL game. The Biscuit wonders what in the world caused Roethlisberger to have such a horrible game.
• February 8: The 48th Annual Grammy Awards are held. Kelly Clarkson wins 2. No one cares, but I have an excuse to post a picture of Kelly Clarkson.
• February 10: The Winter Olympics open in Turin, Italy, reminding the world once again that this is considered a sport.
• February 11: Dick Cheney shoots his 78-year-old friend lawyer in the face with a shotgun. Aaron Burr unavailable for comment.
• February 16: Kobe Airport, an offshore airport in Japan, opens for business. Immediately after the doors open, the airport is served with 12 paternity suits.
• March 3: The inaugural World Baseball Classic begins in Tokyo. Alex Rodriguez wraps himself in bubble wrap during the tournament.
• March 5: Three 6 Mafia makes history as they become the first African-American hip-hop group to win an Academy Award for Best Song and also become the first hip-hop artists to ever perform at the ceremony. Several journalists declare Notre Dame officials and fans racist for not attending the award ceremony.
• March 11: Slobodan Milosevic dies, making Mark May the Biggest Living Asshole.
• March 25: Half a million people in Los Angeles protest a proposed crackdown on illegal immigration. The Biscuit laughs and throws his illegal immigrant maid an individually-wrapped slice of Kraft American cheese.
• March 30: After Japan beats Cuba to end the World Baseball Classic, Alex Rodriguez emerges from his cocoon, sees his shadow, and doesn’t hit for six more weeks.
• April 8: The bodies of 8 murdered men are found in Shedden, Elgin County, Ontario. The loss of the 8 men halves the population of Sheddin. Local authorities blame Canada. Mark May blames Charlie Weis.
• April 9: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is removed from office after 4 months in a coma. Joe Paterno, head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions, is quoted as saying, “Four months? Phssssh. Amateur.”
• April 11: President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad confirms that Iran has successfully produced a few grams of 3.5% low-grade enriched uranium. U.S. would counter with its own enriched uranium supply, but U.S. President George Bush sold it in town for some magic beans.
• May 3: 9-11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, is sentenced to life in prison, making Mark May the Biggest Asshole Not Serving a Life Sentence.
• May 27: Notre Dame recruit Chris Stewart flaps his arms in South Bend, and a 6.3 magnitude earthquake strikes central Java in Indonesia.
• June 9: The World Cup begins in Germany. The American team misses its flight to Germany and fails to show up for its matches. Zinedine Zidane headbutts Marco Materazzi in the chest. For the fourth consecutive time, the World Cup is expected to spark American interest in soccer. America smiles politely at soccer, lets it crash on its hide-a-bed for a month, and then speeds it to the airport so it doesn’t miss its flight home.
• June 19: The Carolina Hurricanes defeat the Edmonton Oilers 4 games to 3 to win the Stanley Cup. Americans everywhere say, “So, what’s this soccer thing I’ve been hearing about lately?”
• June 20: The Miami Heat win the NBA Finals 4 games to 2. Dwyane Wade is named MVP. Americans everywhere say, “Hey, did you catch the Hurricanes-Oilers game?”
• June 23: In Miami, the FBI arrests seven men, accusing them of planning to bomb the Sears Tower and other attacks in Miami. Kermit is surprised that terrorists, unlike ESPN, recognize Chicago as an actual city.
• July 5: North Korea successfully test fires long-range Taepodong-2 missile. Chicagoans still call for Brian Griese to deliver nuclear warheads rather than Taepodong-2.
• July 9: Italy wins the World Cup over France 1-1. 1-1? What’s that, America? You say you miss Dwayne Wade?
• July 18: The SS Nomadic, built to serve as a service and repair boat to Titanic, returns home to Belfast with its smokestack tucked between its legs and a pink slip on its desk.
• July 21: St. Louis is hit by two major violent windstorms in a span of three days. Wind?! Pussies.
• July 23: American Floyd Landis wins the Tour de France. Americans are about to ask what happened with the Italy-France game, but then tour officials announce that he failed a doping test. Americans are surprised that officials couldn’t tell he is a dope.
• July 31: Fidel Castro, President of Cuba, temporarily relinquishes power to his brother Raúl before surgery. Cigar connoisseurs, shortstops keep fingers crossed.
• August 9: Maurice Clarett, ambassador of the Ohio State University, is arrested in Columbus after making an illegal U-turn and leading the police on a chase in a sports utility vehicle. He is finally stopped after driving over a police-mounted spike strip. Police say they were forced to secure a cloth around Clarett’s mouth after he allegedly spit at the officers and called them “nigga haters” during the arrest. According to Columbus Police Sgt. Mike Woods, the officers discovered a hatchet, a loaded AK-47 variant, a Hi-Point Pistol and two other loaded handguns in his vehicle along with an open bottle of Grey Goose vodka. The officers use Mace to subdue Clarett after attempts to subdue him with a Taser prove ineffective because he is wearing kevlar body armor. Unfortunately, Clarett’s arrest causes him to fail to deliver the body armor to tOSU quarterback Troy Smith prior to the National Championship game.
• August 10: London Metropolitan Police make twenty-one arrests in connection to an apparent terrorist plot that involved aircraft traveling from the United Kingdom to the United States. New TSA regulations are put into effect, permanently banning all liquids and gels, including but not limited to deodorants, colognes, toothpaste, and gel implants, in both checked and carry-on baggage. Biscuit cancels his plans to bring a stripper back from Vegas.
• August 23: In Austria, Natascha Kampusch manages to escape after being kidnapped eight years ago by Wolfgang Priklopil, who locked her in his cellar. Priklopil commits suicide by throwing himself in front of a train. Congratulations are extended to the new Biggest Living Asshole Pedophile, Mark May.
• August 24: The International Astronomical Union declares Pluto “not planet” and Chris Stewart “planet.”
• August 31: Edvard Munch paintings The Scream and Madonna are recovered in a police raid in Oslo, Norway, more than two years after they were stolen. Stolen Tyrone Willingham painting The Bubble Scream is still missing.
• September 1: Media says that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish will have a very tough time beating the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at home, calling GT a “very underrated team.”
• September 2: Notre Dame defeats Georgia Tech 14-10. The media calls Notre Dame “lucky,” as GT is a “very overrated team.”
• September 3: Andre Agassi retires after his final match in the U.S. Open. Tennis legend John McEnroe says, “The world of tennis will sorely miss that f@#$ing sh@$head.”
• September 8: Many members of the media pick Penn State to upset the #2-ranked Fighting Irish, saying that Penn State is a “very talented team with a great young quarterback.”
• September 9: Notre Dame annihilates Penn State 41-17 because, according to the media, Penn State is a “mediocre team with a young quarterback who gets rattled under pressure.”
• September 15: Spinach contaminated with E. coli kills one person and poisons over 100 others in twenty different states. In a poorly thought-out course of action, Americans call on Popeye to defend them from the outbreak.
• September 16: The Notre Dame-Michigan game is canceled after Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr injures his nipple nursing quarterback Chad Henne.
• September 19: Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand declares a state of emergency in Bangkok as members of the Royal Thai Army stage a coup d’état. The army announces the removal of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra from power. The Prime Minister’s former secretary declares that she will shave her head until Notre Dame wins a national championship.
• September 23: The Fighting Irish end Michigan State coach John El Smith’s career, scoring three touchdowns in the fourth quarter to overcome a sixteen-point third fourth quarter deficit. After the game, Smith sends his players to defend the field so that the Irish cannot plant a flag in it, as the Spartans had in Notre Dame Stadium the year before. As if the Irish would stick their flagpole in the Spartans’ field without wearing a condom, which are evil.
• September 29: U.S. Representative Mark Foley (R-FL) resigns after it is revealed that he sent explicit e-mails for several years to underage male pages. Old-fashioned Mark May uses good old pen-and-paper.
• September 30: Notre Dame continues restoring order to the universe by reminding Purdue that it sucks at football, administering a 14-point loss to the Boilermakers. Media personalities surprise the Irish faithful by failing to recognize the 14-point deficit as “one of the largest defeats in the history of modern college football.”
• October 7: Notre Dame defeats Stanford 31-10. The media reports that Notre Dame is racist for beating the team that once employed Willingham.
• October 10: Google buys YouTube for USD $1.65 billion and promptly renders it totally useless to pirates everywhere.
• October 11: New York Yankees Pitcher Cory Lidle is killed, along with his flight instructor, when his plane crashes into a building in New York City’s Upper East Side. The accident is the only hit the Yankees get in October.
• October 18: To honor Cory Lidle’s crash, Microsoft releases Windows Internet Explorer 7.
• October 21: Notre Dame squeaks past UCLA 20-17 on a 45-yard touchdown pass from Brady Quinn to Jeff Samardzija with 0:27 left in the fourth quarter. Quinn’s 304 YDS, 2 TD, and 0 INT against UCLA are declared “mediocre” next to Troy Smith’s 220 YDS, 4 TD, and 0 INT against Big Ten powerhouse Indiana.
• October 23: Jeffrey Skilling is sentenced to 24 years and 4 months in federal prison on charges relating to the financial collapse of Enron. His brother Tom forecasts a quarter century of golden showers.
• October 27: The 2006 World Series is canceled due to lack of interest.
• October 28: Notre Dame defeats Navy 38-14. The win is Notre Dame’s 43 straight over Navy. Tired of losing, Navy returns to South Bend and deploys a nuclear submarine into St. Joe’s Lake, leaving Gene Hackman in charge of the sub with Denzel Washington nowhere to be found.
• October 31: Veteran game show host Bob Barker announces his retirement from The Price is Right effective in June of 2007 after thirty-five years as host, fifty years on television, and ten years of kicking Happy Gilmore’s ass.
• October 31: U.S. senator John Kerry inadvertently calls American troops serving in Iraq idiots, causing both Democrats and Republicans to get up in arms. He later explains that he botched a joke meant to insult the intelligence of president George W. Bush. Democrats and Republicans are okay with that.
• November 3: Science predicts that 90% of maritime life forms will be extinct by 2048 after Charlie Weis goes on seafood diet.
• November 3: Ted Haggard resigns as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, after allegations of methamphetamine use and sexual relations with a male prostitute. The prostitute is later discovered to be named Mark May. So are the methamphetamines.
• November 4: Notre Dame blows out North Carolina 45-26. The media does not condone the use of the word “blowout” to describe the game, preferring the cliches “long, drawn-out battle” and “God I hate when Notre Dame wins.”
• November 5: Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death by hanging after an Iraqi court finds him guilty of crimes against humanity. Bob Davie and Tyrone Willingham are still at large.
• November 8: U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld “resigns,” just when America was starting to warm up to him.
• November 11: Notre Dame beats the Air Force Falcons 39-17. PETA is up in arms at Notre Dame’s insensitivity toward the Falcons.
• November 17: Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) makes racist comments to African American hecklers at the Los Angeles Laugh Factory. Mark May has apparently moved on to comedians.
• November 17: PlayStation 3 is released in U.S. The headline is accurate. One Playstation 3 is released in the U.S.
• November 17: Former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler dies, allegedly while trying to purchase the PlayStation 3.
• November 18: Notre Dame defeats Army 41-9. All those “Armed Forces Trophy” jokes ESPN has been making finally pay off. “They’re making fun of us because we have three service academies on our schedule this year!” “Making fun of us by using our schedule, despite the fact that we have a harder schedule than most conference schedules?! BRILLIANT!”
• November 19: Wii released in US, effectively ending ChisND’s status as a regular HLS reader.
• November 23: Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian KGB agent, is assassinated in a London sushi bar, possibly by the Russian Security Service, the FSB, or possibly because the sushi bar didn’t follow this simple guide.
• November 25: The Notre Dame-Southern Cal game is canceled after Southern Cal head coach Pete Carroll gets injured while trying to fellate himself. Southern Cal fans wonder why Carroll wasn’t satisfied with the job the media was doing.
• November 28, 2006: U.S. District Judge James Robertson orders the Treasury Department to change U.S. banknotes to make it easier for blind and visually impaired people to determine their denominations. The blind and visually impaired vocally praise the decision, not realizing that no one else is in the room with them.
• December 9: The Ohio State Buckeye quarterback Troy Smith wins the Heisman trophy despite not being the best quarterback in the country, largely for “overcoming the difficulty of being a scumbag thug with a pea-sized brain all of his life.”
• December 10: Orhan Pamuk of Turkey wins the Nobel Prize in Literature, narrowly beating out Mark May. Mark May declares the Nobel Prize Committee “racist,” and pouts for the rest of the ceremony.
• December 26: Former US President Gerald Ford dies at the age of 93 years. The cause of death was a flight of stairs.
• December 30: Saddam Hussein, former Iraq president, is executed in Baghdad. “Hey, is this Mark May? Well, I have some good news…”

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SOUTH BEND, Ind.–The Notre Dame football program has called a press conference scheduled to take place tomorrow, January 11, at 1:00 p.m. in the Guglielmino Auditorium.

In unrelated news, Fighting Irish defensive coordinator Rick Minter and special teams coach Brian Polian were seen in the South Bend Airport this morning purchasing Greyhound tickets. Eyewitnesses were unable to confirm whether either Minter or Polian actually had a tail tucked between his legs.

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TEMPE, Ariz.–As the final seconds of the Florida Gator’s 41-14 rout of the Ohio State Buckeyes ticked away, parapsychologist and psychologist Dr. Peter Venkman stood on the sidelines, patiently waiting for his chance to investigate the endzone where, earlier in the game, two phantom touchdowns had been sighted.

Back off, man. I’m a scientist.

Venkman had been called in to investigate by Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, who watched his Buckeyes defense successfully stop the Gators at the goal line on two different occasions, immediately after which the phantom touchdowns were sighted. Also, according to Tressel, a voice said, “Zuul.”

After the game ended, Venkman, who has been described as “more of a gameshow host” than a scientist, was allowed to study the field. Venkman whistled “Orange and Blue” while wandering the endzone. When asked for an explanation as to the whistling of the song, Venkman said, “They hate this. I like to torture them.”

Venkman then checked the endzone with a device that he called “technical,” before saying that he detected no paranormal activity readings in the endzone. Tressel asked, “Are you sure you’re using that correctly?”

Venkman replied, “Well, I… I think so, but I’m sure there are no phantom touchdowns in there.”

Venkman inspected the area surrounding the endzone, including the parts where the Buckeye players jumped out of their cleats and got fried right there on the field, but found nothing of consequence.

“What’s over there?” Venkman asked Tressel, indicating the opposite end of the field.

“That’s Florida’s endzone,” Tressel replied. “But nothing ever happened in there.”

“What a crime,” quipped Venkman, grinning at Tressel and nodding at the scoreboard.

Drs. Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddmore are expected to join the investigation later this week to confirm Venkman’s findings.

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NEW ORLEANS–As his LSU Tigers celebrated their 41-14 dismantling of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, head coach Les Miles took the opportunity in his post-game press conference to ask some important questions about the game of college football. HLS was lucky enough to get an early copy of the transcript of that press conference.

LM: Now, I know when you get the ball into the area where the team logo is, that counts for six points. Does one of your players need to be holding the ball in that area, or can you just wing it in there? Because Russell has a heck of an arm, you know.

PRESS: Your players need to be controlling the ball, coach.

LM: Okay, I guess that makes sense. What does it mean when the guy with the zebra shirt puts his hands way up over his head? Like he’s airing out his pits.

PRESS: Well, that means the team either scored a touchdown or kicked a field goal successfully.

LM: And the field goal is worth two points?

PRESS: Three.

LM: That’s right. That’s right. What’s worth two points again?

PRESS: A safety.

LM: The guy on the defense? Why does he get two points?

PRESS: No, coach, when a player is tackled, goes down, or goes out of bounds in his own end zone, that’s a safety.

LM: End zone! That’s it! I kept wanting to call it “Dead Zone,” like that show with the geek from those John Hughes movies. End zone! I should write that down somewhere.

PRESS: Coach, can we hear your thoughts about your team’s dominant performance over the Irish tonight?

LM: You can hear people’s thoughts? That’s freaking crazy! Do you ever watch that show Heroes? There’s a guy on there who can do that. Of course, I’m partial to the chick from Varsity Blues. Whoa, mama. So what if she can floss with jumper cables?

PRESS: No, coach, we’re interested in you telling us what happened in tonight’s game.

LM: We won. Didn’t you see it?

PRESS: Of course, coach, but we wanted to get some insight as to what went on in your head during the game.

LM: It wasn’t the Insight Bowl, it was the Sugar Bowl. Idiot.

PRESS: I understand, coach, but I was hoping you could tell us what went on in your head during the game.

LM: Well, I was wearing an LSU cap, and then they make me wear those big old earphones so I can talk to the guy who says, “Hut! Hut! Hike!” I usually just put on some MP3s, though. Eye of the Tiger is my favorite, because that’s our team’s whaddya-call-it. Did you see Rocky Balboa yet by the way?

PRESS: No, coach.

LM: Run, don’t walk to see that one.

PRESS: I actually asked what was going on in your head, not on your head.

LM: I don’t know what goes on in there. “I’m a football coach, not a scientist.” Did you ever hear that guy say that line? Star Trek. Good show. I don’t think he was a football coach, though. I think he was a warlock or something.

PRESS: Okay.  Well, thank you for your time, coach, and congratulations on the victory.

LM: Who told you what kind of underwear my wife wears?

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Coach Weis slid down your chimney and left you a gift a little early this year, nabbing four-star safety Harrison Smith out of Knoxville Catholic. Welcome aboard, Harrison!

Also, please tell me they’re inflating SAT scores, because the 1850 he scored gives me grade envy.

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LOS ANGELES–On behalf of HLS, I would like to extend a “thank you” to this large-handed lad for putting the “gat” back in the Notre Dame tailgater, to “Crazy Tom’s Emporium of Inanity” for pointing it out, and to just plain Tom for pointing it out to me. Are those rappity songs still using “gat” these days?

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TACOMA, Wash.–Tacoma resident Pete Costello has been pretending for the last twenty years that he is mentally retarded so that his mother could collect disability checks due to his “condition.” He and his mother are now being prosecuted for fraud after Social Security workers became suspicious.

Costello was able to pull off the ruse for twenty years by casting his annual vote for the NCAA’s Heisman Trophy, and lobbying strongly for clearly inferior football players. Costello was instrumental in obtaining Heismans for Jason White, Chris Weinke, Danny Wuerffel, and Gino Torretta.

Costello had also been a strong supporter of Ohio State quarterback Troy Smith. Costello had cast his ballot for Smith for the Heisman, for the Walter Camp Award, given to the nation’s best player, and for the Davey O’Brien Award, given to the nation’s best quarterback, despite Notre Dame quarterback Brady Quinn’s superior numbers on a far less-talented team. When questioned about his selections, Costello said, “What can I say? I’m retarded.”

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