Jon Papelbon, like many in Red Sox Nation, just can't stop talking about ManRam, and compares him to cancer. Now, this is where the media fails me, really. What kind of cancer, Paps? Breast, which makes you use funny pink bats? Ass or dick cancer, like what so many people wished on you when you did your spasmodic dance routines? Heroic Jon Lester Cancer? Details, man, details. (And yes, the sound you heard was the Bad Tooth squealing with delight that another 5,000 words on what the Paps-Manny Feud Means, and what would happen if, heavens to all heavens, they actually met as adversaries on the field of combat. I feel faint.)
The real jersey purchase of our times: making your own. Screw you, jersey price gougers. Note also the Very Male Way of referring to sewing as DIY. Balls malesy DIY, oi oi oi!
In reviewing my fellow members of Blogfrica this morning, these small points that don't add up to a full bite. Consider it your continental breakfast of FTT, and the continent is Antartica, given that continental seems to mean "prepared without heat."
> "I can still hit if somebody wants me." - Mark McGwire, on the tenth anniversary of the greatest baseball moment of the Steroid Era that no one will admit to still remembering fondly
Um, Mac? To the great majority of the populace, thanks to your love of the junk, you could now never hit. No one wants to remember what you were like as a player, the good times in Oakland early on when you and fellow pariah Jose Canseco ruled MLB like a merry fraternity, or the later years in St. Louis where Tony LaRussa rode you back to Genius Status.
When players in the future pass you on the all-time home run list, there won't be a loving montage to your memory. Instead, they'll mention it in passing and with shame, and move on to the umbrella promotion in the upcoming 3-game homestand.
Oh, and in your last year in 2001, you hit .187, albeit with 29 home runs. I'm thinking that in your current condition, you'd be fortunate to get half of either number, and that's assuming you can pass the drug tests and fit in a uniform.
So, um, yes, you can technically still hit... only less good then, say, Cecil Fielder, Fred McGriff or Bob Horner. You know, like other guys who are not going to get jobs in MLB. (And about a tenth as well as Barry Bonds, who will also never play in MLB again.)
> Shawne Merriman to undergo surgery and go on IR
Wait, wait, wait... shouldn't he get five or six more opinions first?
Oh, and in further news, it takes two working knees to play well in the NFL, even if you are extremely talented. (Merriman had two more tackles than a dead man in the Sunday loss to Carolina, neither of which prompted a spasmodic dance routine, otherwise known as a sack.)
In related news, the bigger issue is that the Chargers were also without MLB Stephen Cooper, who led them with 179 tackles last year, for (drum roll please) testing positive for a banned stimulant. He'll miss the first four games of the season, and become another player in the list of Charger defenders who have missed time over banned substances. In Cooper's absence, the Panthers controlled the game with over 100 yards of rushing in the first half, and outgained the home team en route to their win.
Is anyone else noticing a pattern here in SoCal? And to be completely fair, if that pattern existed for one of the historically hated teams in the NFL (i.e., Patriots, Cowboys, Raiders, etc.), wouldn't their PR suffer more than those happy go lucky Lightnin' Bolts?
> Tampa beats Jon Papelbon in Boston to keep their lead in the AL East
That gives the previously struggling young club a game and a half lead in the division race. Unfortunately for all of us who dream of a Fox Armageddon Non-Major Market MLB Playoff, the Sawx still have a six game lead over Minnesota, a 7-game lead over Toronto (who knew?), and an 8.5 game lead over the Yankees for the wild card.
So your AL playoffs are shaping up as Boston vs. Anaheim in the first round (possible revenge for the Angels, though I think they'll lose yet again to Boston), and the Central survivor (the White Sox or Minnesota) vs. the Rays. There are still 20 games to go in the season, but you'd be surprised how often a game and a half lead will hold up with that much time to go.
By run differential, the Sawx are clearly the best team in the AL... but that's not how you play the games, and other than Jon Lester, there isn't a Boston SP that really looks like a playoff hammer this year. Yes, Dice-K Matsuzaka wins a lot of games, but his WHIP is very high (1.36) for a top tier pitcher, and his playoff history is not good.
After that, you've got a mix of the questionable (Paul Byrd, Bartolo Colon, Tim Wakefield) and the overrated (Josh Beckett, currently sporting a 5.56 ERA). If Dustin Pedroia wasn't giving them a ridiculous year, the offense wouldn't be all that scary either; Mike Lowell reverting to his career norms and David Ortiz's injury woes are making them pretty ordinary. A first round exit is not out of the realm of possibility, especially now that New England Fan is convinced that God has turned his back on the region in the wake of the Greatest Tragedy in Sports History, aka the Brady Injury.
> Vince Young is hurt, and also might be insane
After being diagnosed with a knee problem that will keep him out for up to a month, Young was unaccounted for over four hours. Depending on who you believe, he was also driving around with a loaded gun and thoughts of suicide, and talked about retiring in preseason.
Now, some very large chunk of me wonders, as I always do when the player getting the remarkably bad publicity is a minority member, if some of this is overblown. Lord knows that in my town of Philly, there are people with irrational hatred towards Donovan McNabb, aka the best quarterback in franchise history, for reasons that make a fellow go hmm. It's also not as if Nashville is the hotbed of tolerance.
But I suspect there's more smoke than racism here. Remember, Young's Wunderlic score in the combine got leaked, and it was remarkably low for a quarterback (though extremely good for a houseplant). He was clearly the worst quarterback to get snaps for the Titans last year, and when you consider that the other guy getting time was Kerry Collins, that's saying something. His decision making was questionable at best, and he only really looks comfortable when the game goes into sandlot scramble mode. He may be mobile, relatively fearless and gutty -- heck, for all I know, he might still turn into Steve McNair, which was clearly the plan here all along -- but it's also quite possible that he'll be a head case flameout.
Ed Note and update...Young's mom (!) says he isn't interested in playing football any more, and even if he changes his mind or the report isn't true, I'm not sure how you come back from that. The Titans have signed Chris Simms to back up Kerry Collins, and the scary thing is, their QB situation might be better right now. Let's just say that I'm not very concerned with the Titans making it back to the playoffs this year...
Startlingly, they caught the guy. (For non-clickers, he was a 34-year-old assistant who responded to a termination by trying to burn the school down. That'll show 'em! That'll show 'em all!)
And that brings us up to today's main FTT sponsor. This forehead smacking moment is brought to you by Swingline Staplers, who remind you that when you take someone's Swingline, you may be burned to death!
Remember, for the stapler that men go to prison for, it's Swingline!
A man, facing me but obscured by the seat, two rows away in a solo seat, so that only the top of his head and his shoes are visible.
He spends the 40+ minute trip rocking his feet back and forth and arching the tips, as if he was (a) engaged in slow spasmodic dance, (b) engaged in a medical condition, or (c) engaged in a personal condition.
I'm going with (a), since I also saw headphones. But you never really know...
Sometimes it takes making a routine tackle look like skydiving, and sometimes it takes being an accessory to murder... allegedly.
But Brian Dawkins and Ray Lewis have one thing in common that cements their leadership status -- they've got their pre-game entrance down so well, it makes national television broadcasts.
What about the other teams, still alive in the playoffs, that do not? FTT, as always, is here to help.
1) Peyton Manning Is Lord of the Dance
Showing their stunning cohesion and choreographic courage, Manning leads his offensive teammates on to the field en masse, high-stepping all the way to a martial beat. Moving his dancing blockers in a way that leads many color analysts to point out that if Peyton hadn't been in football, no one would ever heard of Bob Fosse, Peyton sets the tone for this week's slap fight with Brady and the Patriots. Loser buys the tights!
2) Borging With Belichick
As any Pats will tell you, usually at a volume level that's 20 to 30 points past screaming, The Pats are not so much a football team as they are a single-minded 45-man weapon for the greatest genius of this or any other age, Bill Belichick, to wield to his will. As the Pats take the field, make sure to look at what they're doing from the blimp's eye view, where the overhead pattern is revealed to be a perfect use of feng shui, chi, and EST. Within ten minutes, you'll have joined the cult and become a potent apologist for their cause!
3) Rexy's Razzle Dazzle
In a final and ultimately successful attempt to send Bear fans straight into an insane asylum, Bears QB Rex Grossman is a one-man Broadway show in this homage to the musical "Chicago." Pay special attention to the awkward half-participation of wideouts Berrian and Muhammad, who have to sing back-up, or fear Rex freezing them out in the game for Desmond "Big Mama" Clark.
4) Reggie Bush Leads The Saints' Jazz Funeral
Shrugging aside concerns that he's starting things off on the wrong note, The Savior of New Orleans leads the team into battle with a full brass band playing "Just A Closer Walk With Thee." After bringing the Saints back from the dead, ruining the season for countless over-reaching fantasy sports nerds, and making Hurricane Katrina a distant memory (well, um, no)... is there anything Reggie can't do? Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez!
(Chargers defensive end Shawn) Merriman, nicknamed "Lights Out," did a spasmodic dance to celebrate each of his NFL-high 17 sacks. Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers said he saw some Patriots pointing to the scoreboard, mimicking the dance and stomping on the Chargers' logo at midfield.
"I think what got LT, and I was right there, was just a little of the taunting," Rivers said, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. "Hey, celebrate -- we'd have been sprinting on the field, too, I guarantee you. But it was a little finger-pointing and I don't know where it came from."
OK, where to start with this...
1) Of course the Patriots are classless scum. They beat the Eagles, after all. And they're from Boston, home of the Celtics, as well as the Derek Lowe Red Sox that ended my A's year when Eric Freaking Byrnes and Miggy Freaking Tejada forgot to touch home plate. It's in the drinking water. (Along with the bitterness I feel for having so many of my teams go down at the hands of these guys. You employ Danny Ainge the player, you deserve Danny Ainge the GM.)
You think that teams that have won this thing are going to behave any better than those that didn't? Dream on. (And by the way, for the record, post-game trash talk is not taunting, it's gloating. I respect the in-game stuff a lot more than the post-game. Have the stones to call your shot.)
Having said that, any Patriots fan that thinks this is just part of the Vast Media Conspiracy to make Peyton Manning look more sympathetic... may be right. I think I speak for a lot of America when I say this next week's match-up leaves me with no good outcome to root for.
2) "Spasmodic dance", AP? Kudos. I think I've got my team name for next year's fantasy team right there. Either that or L'il Sean Salisbury.
3) And the big one, however, is taunting. Few things in the National Football League (extra points to anyone who starts talking about the National Baseball League on air, especially if they can use the word Baseball once every ten seconds) then the matter of Taunting. Let's see, we employ people to try to kill each other, we celebrate the most violent moments, we denigrate players that don't react well to the physicality... but don't you DARE TAUNT them. That's just not nice!
You might wound their feelings, contribute to low self-esteem, or create a culture of people who... who... who... TALK TRASH! (I'm sorry, I'm a little overcome right now with Thoughts of The Children. Please, discuss amongst yourselves.)
I talk trash in my fantasy league. I do it because it amuses me, and because it helps to remind me that it's a freakin' *game* that I shouldn't be taking too seriously.
I suspect those motivations are common, along with the fun of watching some Too Serious Person having smoke pour out of their ears when you dish some out. (A shame, but most of the folks I play with no longer take it personally.)
There's a phrase for people who take trash talk with thin skins. It rhymes with Crybabies Who Are In The Express Lane To Beatdown City.
So Mr. Rivers, if you don't want them doing Shawn Merriman's dance, audible out of the bad 2nd and 4 pass calls by giving the ball to the MVP. Mr. Tomlinson, if you don't want them dancing on your logo, commit a false start penalty when your idiot coach wants to go for it on 4th and 11 in the first half. And if it really offends you that it happened, use it as the motivation you’ll need to get the #1 seed again next year.
And when you play that game, try to do it with a coach that wears a headset on the sidelines, and doesn't work playoff games with both hands wrapped around his throat.
P.S. Andy Reid, for the record, coaches playoff games with a thumb up his ass. He puts it there with two minutes left in every half. We’ve learned to live with it, because it’s less painful than the foot he puts in the Skins, ‘Boys and Giants’ asses just about every year…
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