BRISTOL, CT – ESPN, cornerstone of respectable sports media that it is, has succeeded in maintaining a level of support for recent phenom Jeremy Lin that accurately represents Americans’ appetite for poorly disguised stereotyping. This success can be attributed to ESPN’s recent decision to take on analysts specializing in commentary that has just the right amount of political correctness.

Said one of the new ESPN employees, “Lin was a perfect candidate because, well, let’s face it, he’s really only slightly above-average for the NBA. Yeah, he’s hit a few clutch threes and won a few games, but it’s pretty clear that people are only interested because he’s Asian. So we started covering him like he’s the Second Coming of Christ after only three good showings. Ridiculous, right? Wrong. The fans are always right. Even if they’re blatantly wrong.”

The director of ESPN’s new department spoke about the importance of the Lin phenomenon in helping the fledgling department gain legitimacy.

He commented, “This whole situation has proven that there is a place for the type of morally questionable commentary that our department promises to provide. The fans have jumped on Lin like a mother after her kid makes his first doo-doo in the potty. You wouldn’t congratulate an adult on graduating from diapers, but hey, he’s just a toddler. The fans’ thinking is similar; they wouldn’t go wild if, say, Stephen Curry hit a few clutch shots,  but hey, Lin’s just an Asian.”

One difficulty the department has run into is maintaining just the right amount of ambiguity in their thinly veiled comments, such as the hint of a reference to Lin’s ethnicity in the headline ‘Chink in the Armour’. Some other headlines the analysts have  published include ‘Kobe Rapes the Competition’, ‘Tony Parker and the Spurs Surrender to the Hornets Yet Again’, and ‘Scalabrine Out Due to Ginger Pectoral Muscles’.

Despite such difficulties, the new department will continue to address the demographic that has apparently just realized for the first time that Asians can, in fact, be good at basketball.

INDIANAPOLIS – NY Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw unenthusiastically scored a touchdown on Sunday to win the Super Bowl. Bradshaw, who reluctantly crossed the goal line in the biggest game of his life, unwillingly become a team hero.

“I saw I had a hole up the middle,” explained Bradshaw, “but then when I got near the goal line I was like, ‘nah, not feeling it today.’ But I guess I scored the most important touchdown of my career anyway by accident. Oh well.” Bradshaw tried to slow his momentum but tumbled over the goal line for the undesired game-winning score. “Next time I’ll have to be more careful,” he lamented, “if there is a next time. Who knows how many more chances I’ll get to not score a touchdown in the Super Bowl?”

Bradshaw’s teammates stood behind the beleaguered rusher. “Yeah, it must be hard for Ahmad,” said quarterback Eli Manning, “but I’m glad he was able to take one for the team and score that touchdown. I know he’ll have to suffer through all of the fame and glory of being a Super Bowl hero, but hey, you take the good with the bad.”

Bradshaw’s troubles continued at the post-Super-Bowl party, where he accidentally scored with a cheerleader.

NEW YORK – Rex Ryan, the controversial head coach of the NFL’s New York Jets, showed a flash of humility last Sunday when he decided to finally eat his words and recant on promises for a championship season. In an exclusive interview with The Flipside, Ryan tucked his napkin into his shirt and began to chow down.

“I’m the one to blame here,” Ryan said between mouthfuls. Criticism from the local media arose when, once the Jets’ playoff hopes were finished, Ryan opened the spice cabinet and brought out some salt and butter.

Gang Green’s season was officially over with a loss to the Miami Dolphins in week seventeen. “I’ve tasted da feet…I mean, defeat, before…but this was a tough one to swallow,” the coach remarked. “They…I mean, it…left a pretty bitter taste in my mouth.”

At one point in their 2011 campaign, the Jets were 8-5 and on the cusp of being one of the NFL’s elite. Unfortunately for them, Ryan was on that cusp with them, and it subsequently cracked and collapsed.

Some members of the New York faithful are even blaming Ryan for throwing in the towel before the Jets were out of contention. Ryan, however, asserts he did not throw in the towel, brandishing a barbeque-and-ketchup stained napkin as he chewed his salted words: “I have it right here. Clearly not thrown in.”

“Once again, I apologize for letting down my team and the fans,” concluded Rex as he stuffed his face with three years’ worth of words. The Jets will look to wrestle their way out of adversity next year with a big 2012 season. With the 1,500 pound Ryan on their side, it’s tough to imagine them losing.

EVANSTON – Northwestern football coach Pat Fitzgerald has recently been brought into police custody and is being charged with five separate counts of altruism and humanitarianism. Eyewitness reports claim that Fitzgerald allegedly helped rake leaves, walked old women across Sheridan Road, and donated funds to local schools on multiple occasions. These chilling discoveries have shaken the entire student body. “I just can’t believe it,” says Bill Jeffries. “You get an impression of a guy who represents your school for years, and all of a sudden your opinion changes drastically.”

Head basketball coach Bill Carmody saw one of the acts occur in 2002. According to the grand jury report, Carmody caught Fitzgerald selling cupcakes to raise money for AIDS awareness. Upon seeing the illicit treats, Carmody got on the phone with his father to tell him what he had seen. “Pat and I had gone back a ways and I never expected to see this kind of shocking behavior from him,” said Carmody while under witness protection.

The Evanston police department is complaining about all the protests occurring downtown, saying that students have flipped over cars, urinated in mailboxes, and chucked Hecky’s pulled pork all over the windows of local establishments. “This is just unbelievable,” says ardent football fan Bo Bice. “Northwestern became bowl-eligible this weekend and you’re telling me they’re going to take Pat away?!”

Despite the number of charges leveled against him, some news sources believe that Fitzgerald will be found guilty of numerous other acts of humanitarianism. CNN news anchor Husky Blitzkrieg commented on the state of the sports union: “I am shocked and appalled that Fitzgerald would disgrace college sports in this manner. Henceforth, the legacy of Northwestern football will no longer be defined by mediocre success but rather by the monstrosities of one man’s actions. The school will go down in infamy for this. Thank God that other collegiate sports administrations are run by men of extraordinary character.”

In other news, students and local media are beginning to question where Morty Schapiro was when all the acts of humanitarianism were occurring; rumors of a cover-up are beginning to circulate heavily.

THE MOON – Baseball’s most successful franchise won its seventy-fifth straight title (and seventy-seventh overall) last week, defeating the Galactic League champion Boron VI Green Stockings of the Luciferin Galaxy. This year’s Series was played on Earth’s moon for only the fifth time after the Moon League won the All-Galaxy Game in a dramatic 4-3 nail biter. It was Starlin Castro IV who hit the go-ahead 1,091 foot homerun in reduced gravity to give the Cubs the 2161 title.

The Cubs’ great seventy-five year run all started when (then) Major League Baseball finally integrated the game with human clones. The Cubs were allowed to play a clone of Jackie Robinson for the first time in 2074; the franchise never looked back. The Ricketts family, owners of the Chicago Cubs, bought the patent on human cloning in 2080, which has prevented other teams from using cloned players.

“People told my family that we had no right to buy the patent, that anyone should be allowed to use it to bring back loved ones who have since passed on, but we didn’t listen,” Steve E. Ricketts, great-great-grandson of Tom Ricketts, told The Milky Way Flipside. “We promised a World Series title to Earth-Chicago and this was the only way to give it to them. Trust me, we tried everything else.”

The 2161 Cubs, which consists mainly of Babe Ruth, Albert Pujols, and Starlin Castro clones, defeated many powerhouse teams before clinching title number seventy-seven. They defeated teams on HGH, teams consisting of mainly robots, and teams consisting of silicon-based life forms.

“We’re no match for carbon-based life forms, that’s for sure,” explained Boron VI third baseman A117N Thompson. “Especially cloned carbon-based life forms.”

In related baseball news, the St. Louis Cardinals, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, and Miami Marlins all failed to reach the playoffs again. The last time any of these pathetic Earth League franchises won the World Series was in 2011.

CHICAGO – Rumors began circulating today that the NBA lockout may soon be lifted, reminding fans across the nation that professional basketball still exists. If the meetings between league officials and the players’ union continue to progress, the 2161-2162 season will be salvaged and NBA games will take place for the first time in 150 years.

The lockout began in 2011 and was expected to last for a few months. However, talks broke down between the two sides, and season after season was canceled, forcing players to look elsewhere for employment. Many got jobs as high-school basketball coaches, others were hired to “reach shit on the top shelf.” LeBron James, the league’s most prominent and polarizing star at the time of the lockout, shocked the country when he decided to attend Northwestern University as an undergraduate in the fall of 2030; he claimed to have chosen the school because “it didn’t have a fourth quarter.”

With all of these players passing away decades ago, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would really care about the NBA. Media analysts say that even if the league makes its return this winter, it will have a tough time competing with major-market sports like hover-NASCAR.

Still, legal representatives of both the players and the league will meet again today to discuss things like a minimum salary for robots and dunking on zero-gravity courts. “It’s nice to see everyone cooperating and working towards bringing professional basketball back on top,” said NBA Hall-of-Famer Earvin “Magic” Johnson, who’s still alive for some reason.

In related news, Brett Favre spoke to reporters Monday about another potential NFL comeback. The 192 year-old Pro Bowl quarterback recently retired for the 40th time.

EVANSTON – In a shocking turn of events, boxing icon Joe Frazier finally succumbed to his injuries sustained from liver cancer this past Monday. Although many know of his exploits on the canvas, few are aware that the 5’11” champ was hell-bent on “taking out cancer”. Shortly after he retired, and against the direct advice of many professionals, he began a campaign to “beat cancer the only way I know how: with my fists”. Frazier became notorious in certain hospital circles for attempting to destroy labs containing cancer samples. Occasionally this would include patients as well, usually without the consent of their families.

After his arrest in 2008 following the destruction of a wing of Johns Hopkins Medical Center, he turned his attention to other forms of cancer. In early 2009, he was photographed stomping on specimens belonging to the crab genus “Cancer”, and reports have surfaced from people who claim to have seen Frazier throwing rocks at the “Cancer” constellation. Whether he hit it or not remains unknown, but astrologists have claimed that “odds are slim, but knowing Smokin’ Joe, who knows.”

For three years, cancer would allow these assaults to continue, but no longer. Police details remain sketchy, but early reports indicate that one of cancer’s heavier hitters, liver cancer, broke into Frazier’s home on November 4th at around 6 in the evening. Wielding a heavy piece of pipe engraved with the words “Live[r] Let Die,” the tumor managed to destroy several of Frazier’s belongings before the fight broke out. As mentioned, the details of the confrontation are not fully known, but Frazier took several blows to the abdomen before the growth escaped. He was rushed to the hospital, but has just recently succumbed to his wounds. Doctors have described it as “cancer”, but from what this reporter has seen, the cause of Frazier’s death also includes blunt trauma, blood loss, and, for some reason, jaundice.

LOS ANGELES – While on an archaeological dig in Turkey, Kobe Bryant discovered the key to David Stern’s chastity belt. “Now that we have this key at our disposal, the lockout seems like a joke,” said Los Angeles Laker Derek Fisher. “All we have to do now is find Stern’s keyhole, and we can mount better negotiations.”

Stern is still standing firmly erect with the owners on the lockout issue as of now. “Look, I understand Mr. Bryant has discovered some sort of key, but I’m not biting just yet,” said Stern through mouthfuls of gold-encrusted caviar flakes. “If the lockout belt is going to be unlatched, Mr. Bryant will need to bring something else to the table in these negotiations. We need to stop with the prenuptials and get this relationship back on track. Put a ring on this finger.” Beyonce Knowles refused to comment, despite having recorded the best video of all time on the subject.

Having made an impulse purchase of a dozen diamond rings in 2003, after meeting a 19-year old pawn dealer in Eagle County, Colorado, Bryant was well prepared for this response. “I kind of expected this reaction, but I’m not sweating. The Black Mamba always finds a way to slither into the underbrush.”

Other NBA players are not quite sold on the new negotiation tactic, now being referred to by Metta World Peace (née Ron Artest, really) as “Please the White Man.”

Recently, humility advocate LeBron James met with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, to discuss the possibility of playing an entirely new sport. “I think I’m taking my talents to South Wales,” stated the athlete. Sandy Brown, general manager of the South Wales Fencing team, was thrilled to hear the new announcement. “We couldn’t be more excited to have to Tiger Woods come play for us.”

The following afternoon, paparazzi captured an image of Delonte West passionately embracing Kutilda Woods, Tiger’s proud mother.

While no final solution has been reached between the two bickering parties, ESPN NBA Analyst Jhadi White made a poignant point about the state of the basketball union: “It’s like the Civil War. Bryant plowed the fields of ole’ David E. Lee’s untamed turf. But we don’t have a Dominatrix Court House situation yet.”