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Editor's note: To view the entire gallery of Alyssa Roenigk's experience with Red Bull & Ryan Dungey, click here. This was originally published on Journey to the Edge of Sports.

Last week, I had the pleasure of spending two days at Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernardino, Calif., riding dirt bikes with the Red Bull crew and a few members of the media. Because there’s no better way to learn and understand a sport than to try it yourself, many companies and magazines in action sports hold ride days throughout the year, be it in snowboarding, motocross, skateboarding or surfing. They invite the media to come out and gain a better understanding, improve their skills and have fun. I’ve been to a few motocross ride days and have ridden dirt bikes a handful of times while at athletes’ homes reporting stories. But last week was special.

I moved up from a 125cc bike for the first time. I went trail riding. I did a few -- OK, more than a few -- things that scared me, and I learned skills I didn’t think I’d ever have the opportunity to learn. I got a bit banged up. And I had so much fun. These days are one of the many things that sets action sports apart from other sports. And they are a wonderfully humbling way to put into perspective just how gifted the athletes we cover truly are and how hard they work.

At ride days, the athletes do more than ride. They instruct, and offer tips and encouragement. Red Bull athletes Ryan Dungey and James Stewart came out on Day 1 to do just that, then gave interviews to preview the upcoming outdoor season. After Friday’s riding session, we toured the X Fighters freestyle course and spent time with the freestyle athletes, who thankfully did not feel the need to hand out lessons.

Then we parted ways, went home and altered our eBay alerts to include “used dirt bike.”

Sydney. Athens. Beijing. London. Rio. Tulsa.

Wait. What?

One city doesn’t belong, right? If you’re a member of the Tulsa 2024 Olympic Exploratory Committee, though, your answer is that all six cities are equals.

Yes, Tulsa, Okla. -- the second-largest city in the state, home of the WNBA’s Tulsa Shock and host of the 2013 Bassmaster Classic -- is considering making a bid for the 2024 Summer Games.

"I see this as a great opportunity, I really do,” said Tulsa’s mayor, who probably has a name like Dewey Bartlett. Oh. His name really is Dewey Bartlett. Anyway: "If we come off looking a little lighthearted on it, so much the better, but we are serious about putting our name out there."

Good for them. Tulsa should be an inspiration for smaller cities and towns across America. If Tulsa thinks it can host the world’s biggest event, why can’t your town too?

Submitting an Olympic bid takes a lot of work, however. Many towns don’t have the resources or time to write a bid. Not a concern. Playbook has developed an Olympic bid template any town in the United States can use to make a run at the 2024 Games.

Print it out, tweak it here or there for your town’s specific features, and send it in.

Best of luck to your town, and best of luck to Tulsa too! (Let’s just hope the USOC and IOC gives our small towns a fair shot and doesn’t just automatically give the bid to some huge metropolis like Oklahoma City.)

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It was challenging rooting for the Mariners in their early years.

Well, actually, with seven last-place seasons in the past nine years, no postseasons in the past 12 years and no World Series EVER, it’s still challenging to root for the Mariners. But at least the Mariners wear uniforms and caps that aren’t a total embarrassment.

That’s what made those early years particularly challenging. The blue-and-yellow double-knits weren’t any worse than the other late '70s and early '80s uniforms throughout baseball, but the upside-down yellow trident on the cap should be considered a Class A fashion felony. The trident was meant to look like an M for Mariners, which it did, but an upside-down trident is regarded as a symbol of bad luck (the prongs are supposed to point upward).

I’m not sure whether the upside-down trident has always been a symbol of bad luck or just since the Mariners made Al Chambers the No. 1 pick of the 1979 draft. Either way, the look was so embarrassing I could never bring myself to wear even a giveaway cap.

Thus, I was delighted when the Mariners changed to a more respectable classic style in 1987 that dropped the trident. And ever since, Seattle has had pretty decent uniforms (except when the M's briefly wore teal alternate jerseys -- I hate teal), so that even when the Mariners lose, we can still wear their caps and jerseys in public.

Unfortunately, Seattle’s stadium is now crowded with young hipsters wearing the trident caps and jerseys. They think this makes them hip and cool in an ironic way, just as they think drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon does (even though today’s PBR has nothing to do with its once glorious past but is instead contract-brewed at Miller facilities). Instead, these caps and jerseys just inspire painful memories in fans old enough to remember when they were worn on the field by the likes of Mario Mendoza, Bob Kearney and Salome Barojas rather than by young fans standing in line for beer.

I’m not alone in this pain. Astros fans and Padres fans must feel the same way when they see their local hipsters wearing their team’s old rainbow and chocolate-and-mustard monstrosities. Although at least they can recall some good teams that wore those particular jerseys some seasons.

Worse yet, this trend isn’t limited to just hipsters. The current Orioles actually wear those white-paneled, '70s-era farmer caps as part of their official uniforms. And don’t make me bring up Chief Wahoo.

That’s the thing about uniforms and fashion, though. Everything is cyclical. No matter how bad the style is (leisure suits), no matter how much we cringe when we see it (Zubaz), eventually nostalgia will take over and a younger generation will bring it back into fashion (white tank tops). Given enough time, ugly will eventually become cool. And be slapped on a cap and sold in a team store for $34.95.

Of course, not all retro looks are bad. "Mad Men" has helped inspire a slight rebirth in the hat as a fashion statement, and that’s a good thing. Similarly, the Twins' TC emblem and the old Minnie-Paul handshake logo along with the Brewers' MB mitt are welcome nods to the past. I even get a bit of a smile when I see the 1970s red Red Sox cap, although it also brings back memories of Bucky Dent (nostalgia, after all, derives in part from the Greek word for pain).

And at least the ugly-to-cool cycle provides you with an argument the next time your spouse wants to clean out the closet of all your old T-shirts and replica jerseys. But honey, all-powder blue jerseys and pants with elastic belts are hip again!

But let’s just hope the White Sox shorts don’t ever become retro cool. They looked bad enough on athletes. Imagine having to see them worn by somebody chomping down on his or her third order of garlic fries and nachos.

On May, 23, 1980, Oakland A’s pitcher Rick Langford threw a complete game against the Texas Rangers.

The A’s lost that day, 3-1, as Langford gave up three unearned runs in a 1-hour, 56-minute duel with Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins.

Five days later, Langford went the distance again, beating the Royals.

Six days after that, on June 3 he pitched a third straight complete game, this time going 10 innings vs. the Indians.

He then pitched another complete game. And another. And another.

By the end of June, Langford’s complete-game streak was eight.

Through July, it was 14 -- including a 14-inning victory.

After five more complete games in August, he was up to 19.

Over the first 12 days of September, Langford went the distance against the Yankees, Orioles and Royals. Langford, who wore No. 22, had thrown 22 consecutive complete games.

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On Monday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs following a crushing Game 7 loss to the Boston Bruins. Despite carrying a 4-1 lead late into the third, the Leafs collapsed under the weight of a last-minute Boston surge and ultimately succumbed to their divisional foes in overtime.

It was unfathomable. One analyst’s estimate pegs it as the kind of thing a fan might experience once every 4,757 years. To watch the game was to be in a state of disbelief. And rightfully so. Because what we saw Monday wasn’t real. It wasn’t the result of honest competition between equally advantaged opponents.

It was an inside job.

Proof of deliberate sabotage has been piling up all season long, and the patterns clearly indicate a systematic campaign by the Maple Leafs organization to undermine the team’s success.

Don’t dismiss this as a conspiracy theory. It’s the truth -- if it weren’t, you wouldn’t be reading about it on the Internet. I’ve uncovered NUMEROUS pieces of vaguely coincidental evidence that, when presented in a misleading fashion, UNDENIABLY proves that treachery has been afoot.

Let’s examine the facts:

• Earlier this year, the team made "The Harlem Shake" its new goal song. But why would you make your goal song a song that nobody in their right mind would ever want to hear? Because the team knew it would keep the players from ever wanting to score goals. And it sort of worked. At the end of the regular season, they’d been outshot more than any other playoff-bound team in the past decade. Clearly, they were too terrified to score.

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Over the weekend at The Players Championship, Tiger Woods and Sergio Garcia publicly traded barbs, with fighting words such as, "He’s not the nicest guy on tour," and, "It’s not really surprising he was complaining about something." Shots fired!

OK, so the rivalry isn’t exactly 2Pac-Biggie. Or even Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O’Neal. In fact, it makes the Lindsay Lohan-Amanda Bynes feud seem like an intense rivalry.

But sadly, it’s not even the lamest exchange of words between athletes. We took to Twitter to revisit the worst athlete feuds of all time. Or at least since 2006, when Twitter was created.

Darnell Dockett vs. AJ McCarron

After appearing in the stands of the BCS National Championship in January, Katherine Webb undoubtedly received thousands of creepy tweets. But it was the one from Darnell Dockett that aggravated Webb’s boyfriend, Alabama QB AJ McCarron. Dockett tweeted his phone number to the SI model/celebrity diver/pageant queen/Super Bowl correspondent/national treasure (for another two minutes, anyway), then all hell broke loose:

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The protocol for home and road uniforms on the baseball diamond is simple: The home team wears white and the road team wears gray.

Or at least that's how it was until 1963 -- 50 years ago this season. That's when Kansas City Athletics owner Charles Finley decided to try something new: He dressed the A's in green and gold.

Finley was quickly labeled as a nut (and not for the last time), but he turned out to be a chromatic visionary. Baseball uniforms exploded with color in the 1970s. Even the road uniforms got colorful, as many teams started wearing powder blues instead of road grays. To get an idea of just how colorful that era was, take a look at the 1979 National League All-Star team portrait -- yowza!

There were two reasons for all that color. The first, whose potential Finley was quick to recognize, was the rise of color television. There was no point in creating colorful uniforms in the black-and-white TV era. But as more and more Americans made the switch to color TVs (I remember when our family got our first one in 1973, and we were fairly late to the party), teams wanted to take advantage of the new medium. And for better or worse -- probably a bit of both -- many of them did.

The second color-enabling development was the transition from flannel uniforms to polyester stretch-knits, which began with the 1970 Pirates. By 1973, all 24 MLB clubs had made the switch. The new fabrics allowed for a much wider range of color possibilities.

These same two factors -- color TV and synthetic fabrics -- also contributed to an explosion of color in civilian clothing. So baseball uniforms were actually just mirroring what was happening in the larger worlds of apparel and fashion.

The crazy clothing fashions of the 1970s eventually subsided, of course, and you may think MLB uniforms eventually returned to normal too. But did they? On a recent Wednesday, 10 of the 30 MLB teams were wearing solid-colored jerseys instead of white or gray, and that's pretty standard nowadays. Granted, the wacky design flourishes from the ’70s are gone, but the color from that era remains. Sometimes you even get a game that's color versus color.

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Nick Saban is “the devil himself.”

Those are the words of Tim Davis, Florida’s offensive line coach, at a Gators booster club meeting Tuesday night.

Davis is not alone in believing the Alabama head coach is the Prince of Darkness. Vanderbilt head coach James Franklin called Saban “Nicky Satan” just four months ago.

It might be easy to ignore these statements as the rantings of the insane, but Davis and Franklin are well-known, highly-respected men in their states. Like our nation’s congressmen, it’s unlikely these men would just start spouting nonsense about someone they don’t like.

The possible Satan-Saban connection at the very least deserves further investigation. Why do opposing coaches keep discerning similarities between the source of all that is evil in the world and the most successful active college football coach? Take a look.

• SATAN and SABAN are exactly the same word except for one letter. What is the one letter that changes SATAN to SABAN? The letter "B." Another name for Satan, "Beelzebub," starts with B. As does "blood." Same with "Bieber." Suspicious? It definitely is if you're a Florida fan.

• Satan is said to reside in the hottest fires of hell. Nick Saban resides in Tuscaloosa, Ala., which has an average daily high temperature in July of 91 degrees. And when you factor in the humidity? Hellish.

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It was the “shush” heard 'round the world.

Yankees closer Mariano Rivera shushed fellow reliever Joba Chamberlain before Saturday’s game. Minutes later, Chamberlain told Rivera: “Don’t ever shush me.”

Yes, it was that bad. Things got crazy. One minute we had a regular pregame between the Yankees and Royals. The next we had the biggest shushing-related scandal between pitchers who aren’t good enough to be starters in baseball history.

The hammer then came down on Chamberlain. Hard. He was universally chastised for his loud-talking ways and for daring to tell a Yankees legend to not shush him.

Chamberlain was a loose cannon! Chamberlain was not exhibiting the class befitting a Yankee! Chamberlain should be traded or released posthaste!

Talking loudly to your family and then getting annoyed that you’ve been told to shush is simply not something a true Yankee can do. No. No way. It is something with which we will not put up.

What can a Yankees player do? Any of the following.

• Get linked to performance-enhancing drugs.

• Admit to taking HGH.

• Wear a gold thong under your uniform.

• Take obscure performance-enhancing drugs.

• Sweat all over a piece of baseball history.

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It was a terrible episode of "Raw" last night, with only the six-man elimination match between Team Hell No and John Cena versus The Shield and the closing segment featuring Triple H and Brock Lesnar worth praising.

Everything just seemed off about the show, from the camera work to the announcers to the stumbling promos, and it seemed like the crowd was completely dead until Daniel Bryan and The Shield picked up the pace in the elimination match and brought it to its feet.

With Dolph Ziggler out, they were definitely missing the athletic spark that only the “Show Off” can deliver, and it felt like there was a definite lack of star power, especially with the continued absence of CM Punk.

And with Ziggler’s ladder match being canceled at Extreme Rules, it eliminates the bout I was looking forward to the most, replacing it with a number one contender’s match between Alberto Del Rio and Jack Swagger. I don’t know what’s worse, not having Ziggler on the pay-per-view or knowing that the champ is going to be stuck continuing to feud with one of these two crowd killers instead of moving on to someone like Daniel Bryan or even Brock Lesnar.

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Some fans no doubt are insulted, offended and angry that we seeded their teams’ uniforms so low or that the jerseys they proudly wear or display on their wall were eliminated from the bracket quicker than a spouse would toss them from the closet.

But take heart, fans.

Most uniforms look good these days, so a low seeding does not mean they are ugly, just that they aren’t quite as sharp and good looking as some others.

I mean, it’s not like any of today’s uniforms compare with these, the 10 worst of all time.

10. 1916 NY Giants: There have been plenty of bad uniform ideas over the decades -- yes, the scrambled eggs on the bill of the 1969 Seattle Pilots caps -- but this design was simply inexplicable. The 1916 Giants actually wore plaid uniforms.

Yes, I swear to God -- plaid uniforms! At home and on the road! Christy Mathewson must have been sooooo relieved when they traded him to Cincinnati that summer.

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Hey, you know how we sometimes run contests to have Uni Watch readers reimagine a team's uniforms?

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is running a similar contest of his own. Only the stakes are a bit higher: The winning submission in Cuban's contest will be used as the Mavs' new uniform for the 2015-16 season.

That’s the word that came down on Cuban's blog this afternoon. In typical Cuban fashion, his tone wasn't exactly all rainbows and unicorns. Here's the key passage of his blog post (with assorted grammatical errors cleaned up):

"Who will own your design [once you post it to Cuban's blog]? The minute you post it, the Mavs will. If you think it's horrible that the Mavs own your design, do not post. If you think it's cool that the Mavs could possibly use your design and you will have eternal bragging rights, then post away. If we really like your design and you, I may even throw in some tickets. If we don’t use your design, it will still be here on this site for now and ever more for you to glance longingly at."

In other words, Mavs fans should be grateful that Mark Cuban is benevolent enough to let them attempt to redesign his brand for free. Of course, other teams have done this (the White Sox, for example, did it in 1981, which you can read about here), but they did it with an air of fun and celebration, not an air of thinly veiled contempt. Also, sports branding and licensed merchandise weren't nearly as a big a business in 1981 as they are now. In other words, Cuban will reap a lot more profits from his fans' design work than the White Sox did three decades ago.

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The NBA and NHL allow only 16 teams into their playoffs. It’s an exclusive club.

But not as exclusive as the club of playoff fans. There are only nine kinds of playoff fans. Here they are.

---

The Freak-Out Fan

Every twist and turn of a playoff series propels this fan on an emotional roller coaster.

Lose a game? “[Head coach] should be FIRED after this season! And the roster needs a major overhaul! Trade them all! What a bunch of chokers. They can’t win when it matters! I’m so sick of this team!”

Win the very next game? “There is no team that can beat this team when they’re playing at their best! No one! This is going to be the year they win it all! I love these guys!”

The Freak-Out Fan’s mood is dictated by his team’s fortunes for the entirety of its playoff stay, whether it lasts one week or two months. A win has the Freak-Out Fan acting jovially with friends and family and productive at work. He believes the world is full of possibilities! A loss will see him turn surly and depressed, snapping at anyone who annoys him (which will be everyone).

Pity the Freak-Out Fan’s dog. During bad games it hides, fearful of a sudden and unprovoked kick to the ribs. Good games aren’t much better, as the dog’s naps are frequently interrupted by its owner’s shrieking screams of joy. One day the floor is strewn with pieces of a broken glass or vase that was hurled at the wall; the next, the house is tidy with everything in its place, fresh flowers on the table. The Freak-Out Fan’s dog thinks its owner is insane.

In a different life, the Freak-Out Fan would be a terrible head coach whose emotional swings would destabilize his team. In yet another life, he would be the highest-rated sports talk radio show host in the city.

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What makes a good baseball uniform?

That question is as old as baseball itself. And the answer -- assuming there really is a definitive answer, which is debatable -- has changed and evolved over the years. At one point, for example, most teams didn't have logos on their caps, an approach that now seems ridiculous. And for a while, many teams were wearing powder blue on the road, instead of gray.

But we live in 2013. So what constitutes a good baseball uniform now? Here are some thoughts:

1. The cap. You need a cap. That may seem obvious, but keep in mind that the baseball caps weren't invented to keep the sun out of the players' eyes or to help tell the teams apart. They were invented because a gentleman in the mid-1800s would never appear outside with an uncovered head. Now that we're in a more casual, sunglasses-equipped era, why should a player have to wear a cap on a 95-degree afternoon (or even an 88-degree evening)? Why should the players in the dugout have to wear caps, or the players in the bullpen?

Because the cap is the anchor of the uniform, that's why. You're on a baseball team, you wear a cap, period.

And what should be on the cap? A few teams have the team nickname (A's, White Sox) and a few others have a logo illustration (Indians, Orioles), but most teams use the initial(s) of their home city: NY, SF, C, W and so on. All of these approaches are fine by me.

Meanwhile, don't forget the underbrim, which, as its name suggests, is the underside of the brim. Back in the day, it was green. Then it switched to light gray. Nowadays it's black. No contest there: Green is the way to go.

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Mother's Day is here. But it's hard to find a card that expresses your true thanks for all that your mom did for you.

Playbook can help.

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