Have you been keeping up with the Roger Clemens trial? Of course not, because it’s incredibly boring. So boring, in fact, that two jurors have now been dismissed for falling asleep during the trial.

It’s clear that the American justice system needs more razzmatazz to keep jurors awake. And there’s no better place to look for tips than where Clemens comes from: the world of sports.

Presession introductions -- Right now the defendant, defense attorneys and prosecutors just walk into the courtroom and sit down. Boring. They should dim the lights, bring out a spotlight and pump up the Michael Jordan-era intro music: “At 6-foot-4 ... from the University of Texas ... he’s accused of perjury ... ROOOOOO-ger CLEMMMMMMM-ens!”

Cheerleaders -- Courtrooms are full of suits: regular and pant. They could use some sex appeal. Cheerleaders would give jurors some skin to look at and help everyone stay fired up about the proceedings. “Give us another E! Give us an N! Give us a C! Give us yet another E! What’s that spell?! EXCULPATORY EVIDENCE! YAY!”

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Anyone around to see the Oklahoma City Thunder's postgame news conference Monday night might have taken in the following sight:


Now, glasses aren't new to the NBA. We've been seeing them since the George Mikan days and on through Kurt Rambis. And current stars didn't just start wearing "nerd glasses" yesterday. But this hipster headwear seems to be peaking at the moment, so much so that the South Florida Sun Sentinel's Dave Hyde just had to find out what was going on.

"I don't know what the statement is," Dwyane Wade, who wears them occasionally, told the columnist. "Everybody wants to look smarter than what they are, I guess. I don't know."

Whatever the reason, we've got photos:

The NBA Glasses Gallery

Hey, what? Megan Fox has sports ties? And we're not just talking about when she and her husband Brian Austin Green show up at a Lakers game like above?

Fox, who turns 26 today, was a dancer as a child growing up in Tennessee before moving to Florida. She then got into swimming and modeling.

We're talking about Fox's role in the "Jennifer's Body", a comedy horror film in 2009. Fox portrays a possessed cheerleader who kills her male classmates, with her best friend trying to stop her.

The movie cost $16 million to make and brought in about $31 million.

Here's some of the great dialogue:

Jennifer Check: You're such a player-hater.
Needy Lesnicky: And you're a jerk.
Jennifer Check: Nice insult, Hannah Montana. You got any more harsh digs?

And...

Needy Lesnicky: I will finish you if I have to.
Jennifer Check: OK, you can barely finish gym class.

And...

Colin Gray: They're showing Rocky Horror at the Bijou next Friday night.
Jennifer Check: I don't like boxing movies.

The third installment of the "Max Payne" series is out now. And thanks to video game publisher powerhouse Rockstar Games, fans can finally shoot bad guys in slow motion again. We talked to Rob Nelson, Art Director on "Max Payne 3" and he tells us what to expect from the new game and how soccer plays a pivotal part in the story.

Fans haven’t played as Max Payne since 2003 in "Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne." Was it Rockstar’s plan to wait nearly 10 years to resurrect the MP franchise?

It wasn't a strategy. Games take a very long time to make and it takes a lot of people as well. We always intended to come back to Max, but we couldn’t start until we had a team free to do it. And by the time we had the time to do it, games had become much more complicated to make. That’s why this game has collaboration between so many of our studios. It fluctuated at various points, but I would say there were no less than a couple of hundred people working on this game at one time. We’ve been rolling on it really steady for the past 3-4 years and that’s just in terms of full on production.

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The Drew League has been a summer basketball league in Los Angeles for nearly 40 years, but it exploded onto the national scene last year during the NBA lockout when stars like Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James made appearances in games.

The league begins play again Saturday, and one of its biggest celebrities isn't an NBA star. Compton-bred rapper The Game is owner/player/general manager of two teams in the league, and while the rosters change frequently, they often feature NBA players such as his friend and fellow Compton star DeMar DeRozan. His entry last year, Go HAM, lost in the finals.

Game (real name Jayceon Taylor) is a longtime basketball player, and wears his West Coast roots proudly, even getting the Dodgers' L.A. logo tattooed on his face, explaining simply, "I felt like I was the face of L.A.. So I went to the tattoo shop and put L.A. on my face."

Growing up, he had his share of legal trouble, falling into gang-related crime. He has had a controversial career as a rapper, starting "beefs" or feuds with everyone from Jay-Z to 50 Cent to Eminem.

Now 32, he's seemingly mellowed, and is back on the music scene with a star-studded mixtape, "California Republic," which features Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne, Pharrell (with production by The Neptunes), Trey Songz, Drake and Rick Ross, just to name a few. His Drew League teams begin play this weekend.

Game talked to Playbook about his effort to recruit NBA stars to the league, why he released the mixtape, and that face tattoo (and if he thinks Magic Johnson should get one):

You get a lot of credit for reviving the West Coast rap scene. Do you take it as your responsibility to take the Drew League national, too?

Yeah, man. I told them last year ... I was such a menace growing up. I played basketball, but I had a bad vibe. I would fight or I would just get mad and play unruly when I was younger, so I promised Dino [Smiley] who's been running this league for 35 years -- longer than I've been alive, man -- that if he let me in the league, that I would take it from something that was regional to something that was recognized in all 50 states and even overseas. He gave me opportunity, I reached out to my NBA buddies, and we made it happen. In the championship game, even Kobe came out, so I think it was a real good look. LeBron played. It's a great league, man.

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Danica Patrick had a disappointing NASCAR Sprint Cup race debut at Daytona, finishing 38th. She hasn’t won a Nationwide Series event in 33 tries, with only one top-5 finish. And she didn’t exactly tear up the IndyCar Series, either, with one victory in 115 races.

Even so, she continues to be an extremely powerful marketing personality, trailing only legendary drivers Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon and John Force in the name-recognition metric known as the Q Score.

That helps explain Thursday’s announcement that she would become the first female member of the Coca-Cola Racing Family. She also became the first member of that group to be associated with a sole brand: Coke Zero.

According to the Q Score Company, 76 percent of people in its annual poll were familiar with Patrick, much higher than the 48 percent average for all active and retired race car drivers. The figure is also a solid increase from the 69 percent of people who were familiar with her in last year’s poll.

Enough of those people ranked her as one of their favorites to earn her a positive Q Score of 19, again much higher than the average for all active and retired drivers, which is 13. Last year, her Q Score was even higher at 22, but the president of the Q Score Company, Henry Schafer, said that should not be much of a concern.

“Her growth in familiarity outpaced her appeal,” said Schafer, “hence the slightly lower Q Score this year. This is not a significant drop and still keeps her positive Q Score above average.”

Patrick also rates high among women athletes with at least a 40 percent awareness, behind only Shawn Johnson, Anna Kournikova, Kristi Yamaguchi, Peggy Fleming and Maria Sharapova.

Patrick has one thing those women don’t have, however: She’s part of a sport where fans are fiercely brand-loyal. According to a study by Taylor, 61 percent of NASCAR fans from ages 18 to 35 will buy a sponsor’s product if it is the same price as a competitor’s product. Fourteen percent would buy the sponsor’s product even if it were more expensive.

The combination of Patrick’s appeal and her being part of a sport in which fans in a key demographic are brand-loyal makes her a marketer’s dream.

“She’s an extremely appealing figure for Coke Zero because she basically represents everything the brand does,” said Sharon Byers, Coca-Cola’s senior vice president for sports and entertainment. “It’s one of our biggest growing brands. Her appeal to young adult men is the exact consumer base that we want to connect.”

Patrick, who will race in her second Sprint Cup Series race this weekend at the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway, has already proved to be a successful spokeswoman in her well-known endorsement deal with GoDaddy.com. The Web domain registration company reported that within 15 minutes of its first Patrick ad during the 2011 Super Bowl, domain registrations jumped 466 percent over the previous year. This year, the company set a Sunday sales record and also broke its one-day mark for mobile website traffic following the airing of two Super Bowl commercials featuring Patrick.

Patrick’s other endorsement deals include Nationwide Insurance, Tissot, Chevrolet, Peak Antifreeze, William Rast clothing and Hot Wheels.

Go ahead. Try to find a final day of a sport -- in America, or in any country -- more dramatic than Sunday, when the Barclays Premier League in England wrapped up its season in a most astonishing fashion.

For a recap of Manchester City's dazzling comeback to steal the title from Manchester United, go here. For a new twist on the most epic of soccer/football mornings/afternoons, artist Richard Swarbrick created some fresh illustrations on his website, and was gracious enough to share them with Playbook Visuals:

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