Today's list for 205 is one of those classic Dumb Guy hypotheticals: who would you want to have relations with throughout history? I went partly from personal lust, partly from societal responsibility (you, yes you, could save the Beatles), and partly from the dream we all dream of -- being the very worst soul in Heaven. Enjoy the blasphemy!
Now, which of the following points amazes you the most about our man's indie ball comeback...
1) Jose Lima is still employed to pitch at any level
2) Garry Templeton (yes, of "If I'm not starting, I'm not departing" fame)is employed as a baseball manager
3) Lima is still married to a woman with a Show-level rack
4) The presence of Mrs. Lima ensures that Mr. Lima will continue to be more than blog-worthy for the foreseeable future
5) Long Beach, CA seems to be the repository of all of Teh Crazy in the sporting world
The MoonDog sees the light of content sports blogging, rather than going for the easy poon traffic. I'd like to support him in such an endeavor, and it's nice that he's going back to the salt mines of content writing... but, um, friend? No one twisted your arm and made you chase the poon for all that time.
To be clear -- I don't much care if someone pays the rent with titty. It's not my choice, but I've worked for people who've gone that way, and my day job in advertising sometimes touches consumer categories that aren't any cleaner, as it were. We all have our own choices to make, and for the most part, it's just not worth getting all indignant about it.
But when you entitle your quasi-farewell "The Evolution Of..." um, well, ok, but you might want to (a) step outside into the cool air and let your head swell down a little, and (b) delete this thing in a few months, if the heat of lower site stats makes you reconsider your ways. But what the hell, you've gotten over a dozen sports blogs to link to this, so what the hell do I know...
Continuing in the Poon, Jason Giambi's post-baseball plans involve it. Just so long as he doesn't get in front of a camera.
You know the economy is going bad when someone dares to question the almighty power of a successful mens college basketball coach. Don't you people understand that Jim Calhoun is doing the Lord's work, and should never be questioned? PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE ECONOMY BEHIND THE CURTAIN!
And just to make the universe stop and point to two college basketball stories in the same calendar year, take a look at the work of one Craig Robinson, aka the First Brother In Law. That family is having a year, my friends.
Chimpanzee Rage from the great Deuce of Davenport with today's priceless moment from the police blotter. Playing special teams for the Colts, surprisingly, will not keep you out of jail...
Also from the Chimp, do not miss this latest reality television show, also known as the life of 95% of Iggles fans from Kensington. Personally, I'm still more of a chess boxer, but as soon as they mix all three of these into one Overlord Game where your pocket aces get split by a pool cue to the head and a submission hold... well, grease me up, Lunchlady Doris!
Pool Poker and Pain promo
Today's search engine sources of traffic for the site (and these are always absolutely true): Fred Bevill (Hi, Fred!), aka the lispy Heartland Poker Tour color analyst, and Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie Penis. I'm proud to be a blogger!
The Gray Lady weighs in with an in-depth piece on American Indian boxers. Keep this in mind when you hear about someone overcoming adversity; adversity is a high school dropout mom, fighting for a better life for her kid at age 18. Someone buy the rights to this for "Million Dollar Baby 2: Electric Boogaloo."
Just to give Steeler Fan an even bigger stiffy for their Super Bowl winning quarterback, there's this: he did the whole thing with broken ribs. I think he just passed Terry Bradshaw for All Time Favorite Steeler QB Ever.
When even the President takes a potshot at you, because your popularity ratings now look a lot like those Wall Street bonus bastards... well, everybody knows, A-Rd. everybody knows. (Me, I know that I like the Sin City Poon. A lot...)
Blogfrica Con! I had this idea in 2007. Along with everyone else. Kudos to HHR for actually making it a reality. If, well, kudos is the word. (Watch for my panel, "Pennies A Day: How To Write and Write and Write a Relentlessly Unpopular Sports Blog.")
Sports Media Journal interviews outgoing ESPN ombudsperson Le Anne Schreiber in a podcast. You have to love Blogfrica for, well, caring more about the ethics of the Lemur than the Lemur seems to...
Moneyball, The Movie, starring Brad Pitt. I love the book and the author, but... Who would they have gotten had the A's, um, actually won anything?
It's time to cozy up with a cult, America. If it ends winter, I'm ready to take bids on my soul.
And finally, a link you'll really like... odds on the next SI swimsuit cover model. Titty *and* gambling? No one will link to that!
Oh, you think that we want a good game? That's so adorable! No, let's face it folks, once you've entered the exciting life of writing about sports, your priorities change in ways that can hardly be imagined... in that we know that once this game is over, we've got weeks of bloghole to fill without the thing that you people actually care about. (SPRING LEAGUE, NFL! THINK OF OUR CHILDREN!)
11. Post-game rioting and/or drunken video. The thrill of victory is only matched by the sloppy, sloppy tears of your enemies' defeat, folks. And I hate to break it to you, Steeler Fan, but since no one in America actually knows a Cardinals Fan, that just means that Neutral Fans are kind of hoping you go down, and that you've finally got enough Web cams to tell the world how sad you are. It's really the only thing that's keeping Ohio Football Fan's head out of the oven right now. (That, and the fact that they can't afford to pay the utility bill.)
10. Wardrobe malfunction. Let's face it, folks -- any kind of nip slip, especially if it's accompanied by a skillful censorship from the mainstream media, is just Pure Gold to us in Blogfrica. Some of us are still living off those images, especially with foreign countries cracking down on porn domains. Bring it on, mammary glands!
9. Kurt Warner or Troy Polamalu loses and renounces their faith. It's only logical, isn't it? Guys, if you're going to give all faith and credit to your Messiah in moments of triumph, all I'm asking for is equal time. If nothing else, put on the hair shirt and detail your all-too-human weakness that caused the Lord to deliver such a crushing lesson to you and your poor teammates.
8. Pregame arrest. Everyone thinks that we're rooting for the Hooker Bust, but that's just getting greedy. We'll gladly take someone going off their meds and wandering the streets like a crazy person, while everyone pretends it isn't a distraction. That works just fine.
7. Matt Leinart Drinks. Is anyone else reading the inevitable puff pieces over how the Cardinals' resident trustafarian has Grown Up So Much by picking splinters out of his ass, as, well, tiresome in the extreme? We don't have time for yet another studious NFL understudy. Matty occupies a very select role in the NFL as the biggest slacker/disappointment in the league. We can get the Good Teammate Bad Back Up QB anywhere. Chug, Matty, Chug!
6. Ref conspiracy. Nothing quite extends those good old traffic numbers as the whole "The Game Is Fixed" / "You Guys Are Whiners" debate, otherwise known as the only thing that people now think about Seahawks Fan. Let's get Tim Donaghy on this. We've got a city to trash.
5. Gambling meltdown. This one ties into the ref conspiracy wish, but if the money swings on the spread back and forth in this last week, from 7 points to 6.5, and then the game winds up hitting that 7 point bump exactly... preferably with some highly questionable ref work and/or a coaching decision... well, that would more or less take care of February for us. Keep this in mind, Mike Tomlin, especially if you're driving for the game winner late. Jeff Reed is not acceptable.
4. Obama Pop In. With the approval ratings for the new President still in that happy He's Not The Old Guy place, and his willingness to go outside the usual broadcast network suspects for his media jones... well, let's go, Mister President! Take a tour of all of the major sports blog sites. Or, um, just this one. We'll ask all of the questions that need to be asked, such as, "Why can't I gamble on this game legally?" and "No, seriously, why can't I gamble on this game legally?"
3. Blimp terror. Every year, the difference between the people going to the game and people you don't want to die in a horrible death grows. (At least for Eagle Fan.) And if you are not feeling this, please go look at more Media Day highlights. And people wonder why the most universal political thought in our fractured national landscape is this: the media sucks.
2. Springsteen insanity. I want a 60-second monologue that goes nowhere, some kind of not funny at all banter with Clarence Clemons, and then, just when the powers that be think that it's all over, a freaky shadow phallus with the guitar. Bring it, Boss!
1. Poon, poon, poon. From the Lingerie Bowl to the Go Daddy Spank Spank Spank ads, to the HD cheerleaders and the blog-ready groupie porn, we don't *need* no stinking wardrobe malfunction for cheap clicks. Remember, girls, it's not exploitation if you exploit yourself. Also, that we so respect your personal choices, especially when you get us sweet, sweet traffic. Poon on!
I'll level with you, Dear Reader... I've been watching *way* too much televised poker recently. It's all part of, oddly, trying to get in better physical shape and reduce down to my college weight (I'm less than 10 pounds away, but those are, of course, the hardest). I also play enough poker, for enough money, to want to Not Suck So Much At It. So, well, there you have it.
My method is to set up my weights and exercise bike in front of the Man Space Television and use the coursing, low-level hatred that my brain generates for much of this drivel to power through my workout. It might be taking years off my life from the bile and blood pressure, but hey, at least I'll leave a tough old man corpse. That's all that any of us can hope for, right?
Anyway, the new poker viewer might not know which of the literally half-dozen active poker series on television to watch. So consider this scouting report a kind of public service. Only, as you will see, without the service.
Each showed is ranked from 1 to 10 blood vessels in your head, one being a mild amount of stress, 10 being a full "Scanners" style meltdown. Please note that while these shows may make you slightly more versed in poker vernacular, the resulting brain cell loss will more than make up for any gain you might get to your game.
Poker After Dark (NBC)
PAD is a single table set where top money players play in a controlled set, with small piles of chips and obscene bricks of cash. The vibe is like a home game, provided your home game has crazed millionaires in it, and armed guards at the door to watch over the cash that, in all likelihood, is coated with enough cocaine to kill a horse.
Level of play: Expert to the point of meta. The people who play PAD have made the decision to spend their lives at poker tables, as if this was in any way healthy or sane. (Note: I didn't say it wasn't lucrative.) So the play is fast, players are frequently calling each other's hole cards out loud, and if you want to play these people after watching PAD, you are out of your freaking mind.
Watch for: Poker train wrecks like Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow freaking out after, horror of horrors, they don't win. Greek tragedy ain't got nothing on Hellmuth getting re-raised, and I think they like to keep Matusow around to see if he'll eventually become homeless and/or violent. Someone, for the love of God, has to stop Hellmuth.
Wacky Fact: People track PAD "championships" as if it were not, well, a fairly small achievement to be the last person standing in a small table, no matter how good the competition is. The championship trick is just getting invited.
Obnoxiousness: Potent. NBC has spent its money on the at-table talent, and since there's nothing but lifers at this table, there isn't more than two or three unused oxygen atoms in the room. So your commentary, if you can call it that, is usually left to basic points that anyone with eyes and a mild amount of poker experience can see. ("Ferguson's trying to accumulate chips." Wow, thanks.)
PAD gets its Smack It In The Face Moments from the players trying to "make good TV", which generally involves watching Hellmuth barter for insurance like a complete pussy on pots in situations where the math is out there and obvious. Someone, for the love of God, Stop Hellmuth.
Titty Factor: High class. PAD features post-wipeout interviews with losing players, as done by the "If you have to ask, you can't afford" stylings of Leeann Tweeden; she's classy, and knows just enough about what's going on at the table that the players look her in the eye. Besides, these are lifer poker players. They'd much rather talk about cards and how crappy the guy is who just beat them than to make a move on the help.
Overall rating: 5 Blood Vessels. Oh, and if you're watching this thing at 2am on a weeknight without the use of a DVR, You May Have A Gambling Problem.
Heartland Poker Tour (SNY and syndication, one presumes)
The HPT takes you to all of those places that you wouldn't go to on a bet to show you that, by gosh and by golly, poker is played in the hinterlands, too! The vibe is two steps up from public access, and final tables are usually mixes of Web players who can barely shave against old bluffers who can barely stand. Luckily, thanks to the healthy lifestyle of a pro gambler, the kids can see what they'll look like in ten years. Yeah, you're right. Four.
Level of play: Highly variable, but tighter than you might imagine. You watch HPT to hear the hosts sing the praises of some rank amateur as he catches cards early, then turn on him like a cheap suit when he runs cold and makes a badly timed bluff. The fact that they are seeing the hole cards makes them very, very smart.
Watch for: Perhaps the most craptastic theme song ever sets the tone. Then you get nonstop pimping for the crappy casino du jour, all the way down to specific callouts for the restaurant, spa and, I'm sure at some point, individual Native American hookers that re-enacted the Trail of Tears in the luxurious executive suite 30 minutes before airtime. You normally have to go to the downmarket rooms in Atlantic City or Reno to get this kind of pure flopsweat.
Wacky Fact: Like all of these shows, the hosts make a big deal out of the money being made by the top finishers. However, given the expense of entering these things, this payday is going to have to cover a lot of blank shots to be the kind of Manna From Heaven that the announcers are making it out to be. But hey, getting five figures is well and truly Life Changing, especially if your life isn't worth that much. We're getting that double wide, honey!
Obnoxiousness: Fairly high, as the color commentators are clearly studying at the altar of Norm Chad, only without any kind of actual talent. (And Norman's not exactly waking the ghosts of Edward R. Murrow, kids.) HPT is also big on calling out goofy pre-flop card combination and repeating them. "He's got 9-5 off-suit, the Dolly Parton hand!" Ha Ha Ha Ha! And he's folding it, because that's a crap hand that really doesn't need to be named! Let's all chuckle some more at your lame and often repeated joke!
Oh, and the fact that the color commentator (Fred Bevill) talks with a lisp and, in moments of "humor", talks about playing poker while wearing a diaper? That's just special. Short bus special.
Titty Factor: Oh dear. All I can think is that the producers must not know about HD, or have some deep-seated fascination with make up, because HPT's women look like they put it on with the Homer Simpson Cosmetics Shotgun. HPT's gets a small nod for the help's willingness to appear on camera in bathing attire (dammit, these hotel rooms aren't selling themselves!), but in terms of eye candy, it's more Big League Chew than sweet dark chocolate. If you catch my drift.
Overall rating: 6 blood vessels. You know how people who live near the oceans in the US have this sneering condescension towards flyover country? It's not all unjustified.
World Poker Tour (Fox Sports, presumed syndication)
The WPT occupies the same space to ESPN's "World Series of Poker" that, say, the old CNN "Sports Night" occupied to "SportsCenter" -- a clear second place finisher that tries to do different things, but is so dreadfully un-hip as to just seem more than a little sad. Which is a shame, really, as it's got some things going for it. Basically, you're watching the last two hours of edited highlights from a large scale tournament, starting with a final table of six players. Eventually, There Can Be Only One. Original, no?
Level of play: Some of the best on television, and it's not hurt by the fact that the WPT isn't afraid to show what the game is really like at this level -- which is to say, a ton of hands that never get to a flop, let alone the river. The winning players also bring home enough money that you'll see some of the upper crust players at these final tables.
Watch for: The wild, manic depressive swings of false drama when someone takes a pot. It's like the WPT hosts are being paid by the exclamation point. They also *live* for the quirky occupation amateur player. I saw an episode the other night with a 59-year-old funeral director, and I'm pretty sure they had to declare the broadcast booth a hazmat area from the amount of jizz joy this seemed to provoke.
Wacky Fact: When they get to the final heads up, they trot out the best skanks that the local casino has to offer (costuming helps here, but not enough) to shower the table in not really enough bundles of cash to be all that impressive. They also give the winner a set of World Poker Tour chips because, for heaven's sake, you wouldn't want to win hundreds of thousands of dollars without getting a version of the home game. Finally, they make the winners toast with long neck bottles of Budweiser, which is high comedy when you see some Internet pre-pube or Euro high roller have to fake his way into drinking that. You may have just won hundreds of thousands of dollars, champ, but you're still surrounded by morons. Congrats!
Obnoxiousness: Quite high, as the commentators really are that far over the top. And while their production might be more true to life, the breathlessness over a pre-flop fold really does make you want to hurt someone. Finally, since the money is good enough, you actually have big crowds at the rail at these events, which might be the worst thing to ever happen to poker. If you're spending your life cheering on people who you are not related to at poker championships, you might have a bigger life problem than even the people spending their lives at poker tables.
Titty Factor: If you've seen HPT, you've seen WPT, only with a slightly more international tilt, which is to say that the hostess will not be wearing leopard trailer park prints. It won't make you regret your HD coverage as much, but you also won't get superfluous bikini shots.
Overall rating: 8 blood vessels, if only for the hosts. Seriously, they are that bad.
High Stakes Poker (Game Show Network)
Like Poker After Dark, but want to see it with more of a cheesy casual setting, cash all over the place and preening announcers? You're in luck!
Level of play: Meta fast playing with strong undercurrents of personal abuse. Something to keep in mind with these cozy little pro shows is that you're much more likely to see a female face or two, and they're also much more likely to do well. One suspects that this is because the top female players just don't have the time to spend working their way through the hyper-patient big tournament shows, but let's face it, folks... if you're playing poker for a living, you've got the time to spend, regardless of the presence of ovaries.
Watch for: Nasty in-fighting towards black sheep players, more cash than you see outside of a drug runner's car trunk, and wildly tired announcer in-fighting. It's also, perhaps, the clearest window into the world of a high stakes cash game. It also gets some major props to the fact that the players are actually buying in, so when you see someone take a bad beat, that's their own money leaving them -- rather than some arbitrary and inflated amount of chips.
Wacky Fact: Since it's just a cash game, there are no trophies, no bracelets, no hostesses and spectator theaters; you know this is, at least, a different show. It's also just plain freaky to see that much cash being tossed around without anyone seeming to, you know, sweat freaking bullets over it, or to watch players re-buy for a mere $100,000 more. It's very easy, in watching poker on television, to divorce yourself from the reality that people lose money while gambling; HSP makes that very, very clear. Good times!
Obnoxiousness: Almost off the charts, especially in a bad economy. I keep expecting to see bank presidents show up with bailout cash. At least when they play with chips, it seems like a game that I could play, rather than the poker equivalent of Marie Antoinette and her court. But at least it's different from the rest of this motley mess.
Titty Factor: Almost non-existent, unless your idea of action is a fat guy in need of support, or a woman who might have been solid twenty years in real time, or three years in poker time, ago. Besides, she knows you're lying.
Overall rating: 9 blood vessels. That view into How The Other Side plays comes at a terrible, terrible price.
Best Damn Poker Show (Fox Sports)
Want to watch bad poker and a worse reality television show, all at once? Then put your dignity in a blind trust and come on down to the abuse of Hellmuth and Annie Duke!
Yes, it's "Survivor" Poker, as The Poker Brat (psst, Phil! That's not a compliment!) and the only female player who will be seen on HD willingly watch a bunch of neophytes try to get on the "teams" of either player. I'd tell you more about it, but I'm still having blackouts.
Level of play: A weak home game, especially at the early levels as the true non-players gets weeded out. If you want to see truly erratic and inexplicable play that *doesn't* work, this is your show.
Watch for: The extraordinary amounts of pain that being near Bad Poker seems to cause Hellmuth and Duke, followed by their less sincere but still eviscerating "You're Out" monologues to the worst players. Watching someone nod and smile while being told they suck is just shadenfraudey fun. Also, if you are a very bad player, this might be the speed you need to learn something. Your first lesson might be to try breathing through your nose.
Wacky fact: Everything but the poker here is excruciating, and the poker is also, well, excruciating. It's like a netherworld of dumb. Watch this long enough, and I think you forget how to use the remote.
Obnoxiousness: You have a show that gives Phil Hellmuth the complete mouth job to his ego. Remarkably, he's less over-the-top than Duke, who really seems to be trying to be a bigger bitch than Phil. It's kind of fascinating, on a scientific level; think of it as the "Metal Machine Music" of televised poker.
Titty factor: Your choices are Duke or nothing, at least in the single episode I was able to watch before smashing my head into a wall. Go with nothing.
Overall rating: 10. All-in. Quads on the flop. I can't give you much more, Captain! My head's breaking up!
World Series of Poker (ESPN)
Probably the only poker show that 90% of the general public has ever seen, and just like everything else the Lemur does, incredibly destructive to the event that it covers. Play that funky slide riff, white boy!
Level of play: Wildly variable, and actively awful for routine players. The biggest problem with WSOP is that it's edited purely for theatric purposes. So if you see someone make an awful misread and go into a pot as a 4-to-1 underdog, you are more or less even money to see them suck out on the river, then dance around like Jonathan Papelbon on meth, like they did a good thing... because the Lemur is in no way interested in televising poker. They are interested in televising spectacle.
Watch for: The worst bad beats this side of dominatrixes working a Republican convention. You've never seen so much runner-runner, single out suckouts. You also get to see the dregs of humanity that have someone scrapped their way into a massive, big money tournament; the first few days of their bigger events are more or less indistinguishable from people who dress up in costume to go watch games.
Wacky fact: Norman Chad has ex-wives! Waka waka!
Obnoxiousness: Other than when Chad's trying too hard and the Suck-Tastic Highlights, the Lemur actually keeps things in check. They also get a major plus from actually calling Hellmuth (yes, him again! He's very special! Just ask him!) on his crap. Sidebar features are kept to a tasteful and not too terrible minimum, and they did, after all, pioneer the art form, as it were.
Titty factor: Almost nonexistent, because the Lemur is serious. Also, they are, let's remember, owned by Big Mouse.
Overall rating: Five blood vessels, if only for the production values that make you cringe less than anyone else in the field. But folks, please, stop encouraging bad players to dance around like people with ADD. We're not asking for too much, are we?
Because, dammit, some of you are young enough that this will help you.
GORBACHOV: THE MUSIC VIDEO - BIGGER AND RUSSIANER from Tom Stern on Vimeo
And because some of you are convinced I'm a crazy lefty, so let's just go all the way. Plus, there's titty.
OK kids, it's time for something seamy. (And if you're the guy who wrote me, I really hope you were drunk e-mailing.)
As I've written before, I host a monthly poker game in my Man Space. The game has been going for about a year now, and since I'm relatively new to the area, it's been very hard to get a full table. We've got about a half dozen semi-regulars, but I'd rather it were closer to a dozen, so that we can have a full table for Texas hold'em, which is what we play.
So after many, many months of trying to cajole friends and coworkers to make a big commute, I've started to work online boards -- Craigs List, Facebook, and a poker social page -- in the hopes of finding those last few players. Sometimes it's worked, sometimes it's been a little off. When it's the latter, we just don't invite people back. Not hard.
Now that you've got the set-up, here's the seamy.
I get an email from a guy asking if he join the game and bring his girlfriend.
I say that's OK, so long as you don't sit next to each other. (We had a couple of guys who might have been mechanics one night. It wasn't absolutely clear, but we didn't invite them back. Ah, the joy of house games.)
He replies:
> Sounds pretty good. Not 100% positive she will be down with the gambling but maybe. Would be more for fun for us. So hopefully the bets would be kept small. I would have to tell her I knew you in advance since she would think meeting someone off here is crazy. But im sure we could come up with something on that end.
> Are the guys all cool and respectful. I mean I know if she is the only girl and everyone is drinking guys will be looking at her checking her out and flirting that's cool with me long as everyone's cool.
I say, sure, we've got wives and kids, we're mostly harmless. (Yeah, I know, I'm lying. But not too badly.) He replies:
> Oh ok sounds good. As I said I know she will get checked out being the only girl and she is a flirt who shows cleavage so im sure she will be flirting. Dirty language is not a problem she wouldn't care about that at all. I would only drink a beer or 2 she might drink more, she likes mixed drinks and we would bring what she needed.
> I think it will be easy for me to come up with something to tell her as far as how we met.
I'm getting a little put off at this point, in that I like to play cards rather than soap opera, but I reply and give him a little more rope. He uses it.
> so your right in [place withheld]? and she can sit across from me right.
> guys ever talk sex at the table?
I didn't reply at that point, as I'm pretty sure he's trying to fulfill some kind of kink, and don't really want to wash up his spunk.
My regulars, of course, are wildly in favor of having them over... because, being guys, they are convinced that she's a hot stripper. You have to admire their optimism, right?
I do the resolutions thing, and it's your task to see which ones are legit. Or, you know, just click and giggle.
Saw "The Spirit" with friends this evening, and Oh, My.
If you're looking for anything beyond visual spectacle and Good Dumb Fun, stay very far away.
On the other hand, if you can handle Eva Mendes and her absolutely perfect ass, so much so that it becomes a plot device... or Scarlett Johansson's magnificent chest, complete with loads of fetishy fun in Geisha, Nazi and Wicked Scientist costuming... and that's not even counting a very large amount of emergency back-up poon from at least three other A-level hotties... well, to quote the movie, "They are just equipped."
Oh, and it doesn't hurt that Samuel L. Jackson is having a very good time, and the fantastically funny "AND THAT'S FOR MUFFIN!" vengeance line from the hero will stay with me for, oh, the rest of my life as What To Say Before A Futile Attack.
Anyway, go see it, on a screen worthy of Mendes and Johansson's, um, talent. Yes, that's right, talent...
Just because the Yankees are spending like drunken sailors in a time when everyone else in baseball is thinking about cutting the Big League Chew back to Bush League Gristle, does not mean anyone outside of your perverted fan base likes you.
At all.
Or feels sorry for you, since you have to compete with those Big Bad Meanies with Money.
You see, your team... isn't poor. By any measure of the imagination.
Nor are your players Lovable Downmarket Guys Who Just Try Real, Real Hard. In that, well, damn near every team in baseball has those guys. It goes along with the ever-increasing whiteness. (Shh. Baseball's talent is getting better and better and better and so long as we keep saying this and ignore the fact that the truly explosive guys are getting few and far between, along with stolen bases, triples, and defensive highlights that are really all that breathtaking, WE'LL ALL BE JUST FINE.)
Nor is it, you know, possible to see your team play at home for the sake of those of us who enjoy going to different parks for less than a mortgage payment. Though that experience, to be fair, is less than appealing, given that you're surrounded by Red Sox Fans. Just like at damn near every other stadium in the country, really. It's so much fun to be in your world! Really it is!
So, um, the Yankees making you feel all inadequate about your $150 million-plus payroll? I can see some upside to it. Maybe you'll jack up your seat prices again so I can hear your fans cry even more about it. Perhaps you'll go make some panicky free agent signing of your own -- I bet Manny would come back if you only paid him so much that he'd never, ever quit on you like a dog. Again. He can play first since David Ortiz is aging very fast, with nagging and persistent injuries. (Gosh, it'd be a shame if people, you know, drew conclusions from that sort of thing.)
And in the best-case scenario, the Rays win the division again, and your little Coke and Pepsi border war ends up in two 85-win clubs that miss the wild card to Central Division Team Runner-Up. (Yes, I know, the World Series ratings would suck, because it's your world. But only, shh, when you're winning...)
In hours, my companions find the cheesecake photo of McCain's new VP pick.
Forget everything I just wrote, vote for titty!
I tried to brighten the day over at the Fortress of Pillows Philly blog by telling my True Life Sportswriter Poon Story. The connection to the area was that the poon in question were those fine and fit fillies from Villanova. Those guys over there are taking the Flyers being down 0-2 pretty badly.
Full details, a bigger image, and an additional booty shot, all at the click. (Like you weren't going to go look?)
11. Your man-crush for Vince Young can not be contained
10. Aw, c'mon... everyone else is doing it... it's not fair...
9. You've already got last year's list open -- so how much more time will it take to update it, really?
8. Just can't get enough Microsoft Excel in your life
7. Your Dungeons and Dragons session is off this week (the Dungeon Master is preparing for Pennsic)
6. Determining the proper place to slot Brady Quinn could take weeks
5. You've found yourself watching Arena Football, and want to do something more productive
4. Your free Yahoo league's only available live draft is in late June
3. You want to make sure you've got Larry Johnson on your team before the catastrophic knee injury
2. You are a baseball fan in Chicago
1. You Have No Life
(Bonus: Top justification for writing this post... attracting Google searchers who are doing draft research. Welcome, suckers! See you next time, when you are searching for titty!)
