As co-host of ESPN‘s daily SportsNation show Michelle Beadle is a delight to watch. She’s part goofy, part nerdy and full on funny and hot sports chick. She doesn’t seem stuck up, does stuff like eat hot dogs on camera, throws great first pitches and balances it all enough to make regular guys feel like they got a chance with her, and it’s all helping raise her profile.

Her star at the network and beyond keeps growing and the latest example of that is her appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. Read the full story

“Simple and plain, give me the lane, I’ll throw it down your throat like Barkley.” Nothing could F with that Chuck D line in 1987. A slimmed down but still round Charles Barkley was a rebounding and dunking machine and Public Enemy’s debut album Yo! Bumrush the Show was blowing up. It’s kind of amazing how much the rap game changed in the three years between Kurtis Blow’s “Basketball” and PE’s Rebel. Read the full story

Danny Granger’s run as the No. 1 Ugly American was short lived thanks to Floyd Mayweather Jr. dropping racist and homophobic bombs on and around Manny Pacquiao via UStream early this morning. The 41-0 Mayweather has used UStream to connect with his fans the last couple of nights, even calling a lucky few that posted their phone numbers on Twitter. That’s what started his rant this morning. The NSFW video below has the highlights. You can check out the entire show here. Read the full story

I said in a previous Sports Rap that athletes should stick to playing ball and let the rappers handle the music biz but as you know there are exceptions to every rule. The 1985 Chicago Bears and their “Super Bowl Shuffle” is one example.The beat is terrible and the rapping is worse, yet the song is a classic. So much so that Boost Mobile got the band back together in January for the 25 year reunion and actor and comedian Craig Robinson can recite the lyrics to this day. The bad news for Bears fans is the song also marks the end of their glory days. Read the full story

Ice Cube makes the first of what will be his many appearances in Sports Rap with the most famous sports inspired rap lyric of all-time: “It’s ironic, I had the brew she had the chronic, the Lakers beat the Supersonics,” from “It Was a Good Day.” The line doesn’t stand the test of time thanks to Clay Bennett moving the Sonics to Oklahoma City but it’s still the gold standard for rappers dropping sports into their rhymes. Read the full story

The Washington Wizards selected John Wall No. 1 overall with the hope that he starts a new era after Gilbert Arenas’ locker room gun “joke” embarrassed the team and the league. I spoke with the rookie guard at the Elite 24 event at Venice Beach for a hot second over the weekend. I was able to squeeze in questions about leaving the state of North Carolina to play ball at Kentucky, playing with Gilbert Arenas and Team USA. It sounds like the Wiz are in good hands. Read the full story

Athletes wanna be rappers and rappers wanna be athletes but more times than not when they crossover they end up looking more out of place than James Toney in MMA. The only way the union works is when both groups stay in their lanes. This means that the ballers play hard and screw up away from the game, and the rappers immortalize the feats/failures in song.

Sports Rap is our feature that focuses on emcees name-dropping players, teams, and situations from the sports world. Today’s song is the classic “Basketball” by Kurtis Blow. Read the full story