Rules To Live By

one big holiday

2008-04-25T03:15:00.015-04:00

made it to fenway wednesday night for the first time this year and even though the flu-ridden sox lost to the o.c. angels there were several times when a notepad and a pen would have come in very handy - luckily i had both... and given the fact that wasn't a typical april night at the ballpark, e.g. 40-something degrees and dropping with people everywhere crushing hot chocolates as opposed to watery beer, the experience was much more enjoyable - i'll bet all seven of you would be ok in an infield grandstand seat when its still 75 after the sun has set, no? good times were had by all, even the couple in front of us who were asked to move at least three times because they were occupying someone else's seats yet still managed to not have to leave the row... so let's get on with it then, yeah?

6:34 - relatively quiet on the T for rush hour on a game night, though getting on the red line in cambridge at this time vs. jumping a green line train bound for kenmore square at park street isn't exactly a fair comparison... very much looking forward to being knocked down by some goon in a papelbon jersey while simultaneously suffering a claustrophobia-induced panic attack in a few minutes... good times!

6:53 - arriving at kenmore 10 minutes before the first pitch is a nice sneak preview of going to grab a beer or hit the head at fenway: a crapload of people (one wearing a trot nixon jersey!!!) all fighting tooth and nail to get to the same place everyone else is going only without resorting to violence... not that i condone this sort of thing, but what would happen if say, the trot lover kicked the guy trying to squeeze past him on the staircase then laid a forearm shiver into the back of the dude in front of him who's not actually moving? would everyone just keep shuffling along? would there be a full-scale, every man for himself riot in which pink hat wearing fans started wildly swinging their studded purses and nine-year olds broke free from their parents and began biting? does anyone think of this stuff but me?
(by the way, we're getting there at the time when the scalpers are starting to get that "uh-oh" look in their eyes... at least they have a celtics playoff game to work in an hour before heading off to "scalpers night" at the glass slipper...)

7:08 - through the turnstiles, into the beer line, six pitches into the game and the angels lead 1-0... i understand that jon lester took a hit by voluntarily pitching on short rest because dice-k came down with the fenway flu, that the angels are very good and that it's just one run... but no matter how hard i try to convince myself, the guy just doesn't inspire a lot of confidence... i grant him the benefit of the doubt in that he's still very young and had his development hindered due to his illness last season and i want very much to like him not just because of his comeback from the cancer ordeal but because he has loads of potential and is going to be counted on to be a big part of this team for years, but he always seems to pitch just well enough to lose... don't think i buy the assertion that he could be another andy pettitte, a) because pettitte was much better already at a similar stage of his career, b) because even when he was young, pettitte was a prototypical crafty lefty whereas lester seems stuck between being a power guy and a finesse guy and c) because lester isn't friends with roger clemens and doesn't do steroids...

7:33 - no place where you can get wicked, bordering on inappropriately close to complete strangers (and benjah) than the grandstands at fenway...

7:37 - i may have hallucinated this, but it appears there are now beer vendors at fenway... people coming to your seats with beer at the ballpark instead of fans having to miss 2-3 inning stretches of games due to having to get up and wait in line has been such a foreign concept for me for so long that i haven't quite known what to do when one strolls past my seat in places like wrigley field and shea stadium... thankfully, i won't have to face such circumstances as they seem to be patrolling only the high-roller sections near the field - ah progress...

7:52 - in two innings, julio lugo has made two great defensive plays and driven in the first sox run with a ringing base hit up the middle... he's smack in the middle of an impressive hitting streak at this point, averaging something in the .450 range over a 10 or 11-game stretch... now before anyone thinks julio might be growing on me, i might as well mention that in the top of the third, he drops a routine popup... even when the guy is going well he still manages to suck... the red sox have had some limp shortstops in my time, but i can't think of any who made complete sucktitude look as easy and routine as julio... with julio, booting ground balls right at him, grounding into key double plays and generally looking like he has no clue looks like an art form - i sometimes imagine ted williams' hitting prowess being akin to julio's sucking prowess... oh and did i mention that the sox still owe him two years and $18 million after this season?

7:54 - at least six of the people sitting near me think julio's not that bad... i probably wouldn't either if this was little league and everyone else on the team also couldn't hit or catch or throw...

8:01 - lester celebrates the sox cutting a run off of the angels' lead by giving it right back on a base hit to someone named eric aybar, who appears to be even smaller than dustin pedroia... in the fifth, not quite half an hour later and approximately 54 seconds after the sox cut the l.a. lead again, he serves up a mammoth homer to gary matthews, jr., matthews' second of the evening... lester isn't pitching that badly... he's also not pitching that well... this is a recording...

*on a totally unrelated note, there is a fan at this game wearing a t-shirt that says "balls models" which of course is the name of the modeling agency in "zoolander" run by maury ballstein... if the sox had hit seven consecutive home runs at some point during the game, this t-shirt still would have been the coolest thing i saw all night...

8:43 - scoreboard says the celtics are lighting up the hawks down the street at the fleetcenter in game 2... everyone raise a $7.25 cup of bud light to the celts...

8:51 - big papi turns on a jon garland meatball and crushes a homer into the 10th row of the bleachers next to the visitors' bullpen in right... it's not terribly timely to say this in the aftermath of his 0-for-6 on friday night against tampa and subsequent two-game respite, but i think the guy is coming around... look, it's obvious he's not fully healthy, that his knee has not completely recovered from the surgery he had in the winter... i think that as long as this post-surgery pain lasts, he will not be the big papi we're used to at all... but even if that lasts all season, he is such a great hitter that he will learn how to make the proper adjustments and still be able to be all-star level productive... it's already happening - the dismal 3-for-43 start was symbolic of his learning how to deal with the discomfort and react at the plate accordingly... now that he's started to get it, he's hitting homers and driving in runs at a much more papi-esque pace (he hit another absolute bomb the next afternoon)... here's hoping that this break he's on doesn't last much longer...

9:12 - the return of craig hansen, who looks much more like the tough, intimidating guy he was purported to be when drafted than the scared, absolutely no confidence looking kid he's been since two summers ago... he gives up a solo homer to casey kotchman in the sixth (more unfortunately, just minutes after papi's homer tied the game) but he's looked mean and nasty, working quickly, challenging guys and snapping off sliders the way he's always been expected to... i'm fairly certain theo and his peeps share this sentiment but given how (sigh) mediocre the sox pen has looked thus far, it sure would be nice if hansen is able to cultivate this new persona and help out by summertime...

9:26 - j.d. drew ends the seventh by grounding into a 4-6-3 double play... i'm not going to rag on drew because of how money he was last fall when it really mattered and because he got off to a reasonable start this year relative to last... but i will say that it felt as predictable as the sun coming up...

9:45 - mike timlin comes in and gives up an insurance run... feels lousy to be down on timlin after what he's done the last five years but let's face it - he's 75 years old! sooner or later, someone might want to inform him and the sox of this...

9:55 - jed lowrie - who looks like a player - bounces into a double play to end it... as mostly negative as the tone of this little diary is, it's only because of the outcome of this particular game and not because i feel particularly down on the team... the current losing streak isn't quite at the alarming stage with the pitching being as good as it has (clay buchholz has silly good stuff) and half the team being hurt or sick, not to mention the fact that the (devil) rays are actually decent this year... naturally, there are things that they need, but it's so early, they have ample time to get them...

and the negativity also has nothing to do with the night at the ballpark which, as usual, despite the crowds and the prices and some of the accommodations being more suited to 1912 than 2008, was absolutely awesome... there may be more bandwagon jumpers than ever these days, but it still felt like the crowd was on every pitch, reacting to each morsel of the game... the weather was so awesome it felt like midsummer in april... the atmosphere was perfect and even though the game ended in a loss pretty much everyone around us seemed to share the proper perspective on the state of things (except for the fellow who called sportsradio the next day and ripped francona for using lester even though he volunteered and the sox only other option was julian tavarez for the fourth time in five games)... maybe if was 40-something degrees and dropping with people everywhere crushing hot chocolates as opposed to watery beer, it would have been a bummer - but i doubt it...

we live again

2008-04-23T15:51:00.007-04:00

a day late on this but i needed to put it out there that the bruins - yes, the bruins - must be commended and applauded for their performance against montreal in the playoffs, which came to a disappointing end on monday night... as anyone who knows me is aware, i hate the bruins, less because of anyone actually on the team or behind the bench and more because of the way the ownership and front office skinflinted the team into mediocrity throughout my formative sports watching years while showing no commitment to anything except selling hot dogs and $8 sodas in plastic yellow souvenir cups... well, i rooted for them and heartily so through the series against the habs mostly because they had no business doing anything but getting swept due to the complete and total mismatch in talent and class, yet they displayed more heart and grit and determination than i thought was possible and it was those three characteristics that allowed them to make it to the verge of a huge upset... although they didn't finish the job, they deserve so much credit for putting themselves in position to do it... i know it's a bit odd to be backslapping anyone after a first-round playoff loss, especially here in championship-ville, but the bruins pulled a lot of people out of the woodwork with their play over the past couple weeks and maybe, just maybe, made pro hockey a relevant activity around here again... we won't know more until the fall when the new season starts - which means that the powers that be have not quite six months to sabotage everything, AGAIN... but for now, it's safe to say congrats, b's - didn't know you had it in you...

oh and by the way, since this wouldn't be a post on this site without at least a little teasing of the spoked B, i give you this photo - thanks to awful announcing for bringing it to my attention... and also - to the imbecile who called sportsradio yesterday and proclaimed he was, "disgusted," with the bruins on monday night because they, "lost their heart," let me remind you, smartguy, that if it weren't for their heart, they never would have been there to disgust you in the first place... their heart is what carried them to the brink of a gigantic series win... good to know that the first time i listen in weeks, i hear the same style brain surgeons still patrolling the airwaves - what a comfort...

you're the good things

2008-04-20T15:30:00.015-04:00

finally... dunno know about all four of you, but for me, waiting for the celtics playoff run to start has been arduous to say the least - it hasn't just been the past six months of regular season time killing, it's been roughly three years, or the last time the celts played a meaningful springtime game... and how can you not eat it all up? my first favorite team is an absolute, nationwide darling, getting the kind of press and love that is routinely reserved for teams like the lakers and spurs and suns... everyone - more or less - loves them to sweep atlanta starting tonight, then slightly sweat out the cleveland/washington winner before dispatching the flip-switching pistons en route to a dream, '80s-style title bout with the lakers (accordingly, that's exactly how i have it in my nba.com playoff pool bracket)...

anyway, now that i've gotten the prediction part out of the way, i need to take a moment to reflect on all this attention being showered upon the celts... i think the first time i saw the new gatorade commercial - the one where kg is deified as power ranger warrior who sweats sugary sports drink - it really hit me just how important and significant this team is... there's no way that the hype machine has exploded over the celtics the way it is now since those golden-hued days of the mid-80s, when larry bird ruled this town... when the celts made it to the eastern conference finals under jim o'brien before antoine walker put on 50 pounds back in 2002, it was fun and exciting and all, but no one really gave them much credit thanks to the presence of jason kidd in his prime on the other side of the series, the presence of shaq, kobe and phil jackson in pursuit of a three-peat on the other coast, and the fact that kenny anderson was the celtics point guard, tony battie manned the paint and vitaly potapenko was the team's third highest paid player... that series was pretty much a lost cause even though the celts were on the winning end of the biggest comeback in nba playoff history in game 3... the celtics played a pretty ugly style due to their personnel (your basic run down the floor and shoot a three-pointer regardless of game situation, shot clock or any other variable sort of thing)... there was a feeling of inevitability about that team - it was great to feel excitement about them after so long, especially so soon after the rick pitino debacle... but everyone knew that even though they made it farther than anyone not seriously disturbed could have fathomed, it was only a matter of time before the ride came to an end... the evidence was in the coverage - can anyone name a single commercial/tv spot/iota of publicity surrounding that team? except for antoine's adidas, "employee no. 8" ("i make baskets") ads, which i think arrived well before that season, i certainly can't... the celtics made it all the way the the nba's final four in 2002, yet still seemed to be the mystery guest that no one really wanted to sit next to at the table...

which leads us to this season which, the 2005 campaign notwithstanding, is the first time anyone has ascribed any playoff expectations to the celtics since before the original big three were gray and old... of course this has been a foregone conclusion ever since july 31, 2007 - the day kg arrived... now we have commercials and billboards and interviews and espn sunday conversations everywhere we look, a set of circumstances that has been the norm all year long... 38-year old sam cassell joins the ranks and has 73 articles written about him in a month... big baby davis gets a mohawk and its the lead item in a newspaper notebook... leon powe goes from being the last guy on the bench to the sixth man and has tommy heinsohn refer to him as a superior offensive force... big papi, dustin pedroia and mike lowell sit courtside for an 8:30 p.m. playoff game even though they have to be at fenway at 7 a.m. the next day due to marathon monday... and of course, pierce, garnett and allen rule the world...

over the past seven years, as the patriots have risen to the top of the ranks and the red sox have shed their demons to become the best and most popular team in baseball, it's felt at least slightly bittersweet due to the celtics being a step or two behind... now that they enter the playoffs carrying a similar cache (can't quite call it the same cache until they win) all feels right with the world... sure, we won't know the outcome for another couple of months and as talented as the celtics are, a lot will need to go their way for a 17th banner to be raised... but it's just the feeling, the genuine anticipation of something great being so close that's what's so cool... it could happen again, for the first time in 22 years... and it says here, it will.

parting of the sensory

2008-04-08T15:42:00.017-04:00

i'm so taken aback from seeing curtis leskanic, dave mccarty and brian daubach (brian daubach??!!) represent the 2004 world champs and BILL BUCKNER getting a standing ovation and crying on the fenway mound that i've decided my only recourse is to provide you, fair reader(s) with a spring-infused set of rules - so here goes...

Rule No. 1 - about 10 days until the nba playoffs and yes, the celtics are still the best team in the league... i've occasionally worried throughout the season that what was going on around the garden was all a dream and that one morning i'd wake up and the celtics would be 24-53 again and any publicly aired scuttlebutt would again revolve around the chances of getting the first pick in the draft, whether or not al jefferson was capable of growing up to be an elite big guy and what the odds were on paul pierce walking into the locker room one night with a 12-gauge shotgun and opening fire... thankfully it's all real and with the first-round matchup with the sub-.500 hawks looming, it's almost time to really begin to assess whether or not this team can do something amazing... i'm still of the mind the toughest task facing them is detroit (cleveland and lebron's bad back are no longer in the conversation), though the pistons are currently operating in neutral, doling out frequent nights off to certain guys and losing at home to the ungodly knicks... i wonder if it's wise to push my luck given all of this sweetness that's been going on since the day of the garnett deal, but i am hoping for a couple of things: 1) that they don't just beat detroit, they punish them - the pistons' cool arrogance, their misguided, collective belief that they can flip the switch whenever, wherever and against whomever they want and succeed really bugs me - luckily this attitude has failed them miserably in the playoffs the past two seasons, 2) that sam cassell does something really important at some point, not to justify his signing (although he has not appeared to fit very well since he arrived) but because he has already authored a few big playoff moments in his career and to see him dial up another while wearing celtic green would be outstanding, and 3) that if they get to the finals, they play the lakers - anyone over the age of 30 who grew up here and says that matchup wouldn't be the epitome of appointment viewing has obviously been smoking crack... oh and also, my new favorite non-big 3 player is leon powe, or, as kg referred to him when he first got here, "security"... not only is leon a classic overachiever but he's always working, making things happen for the team and himself and just basically being the kind of guy you'd hope every bargain, young reserve could be... i'll probably delve more deeply into the celts when the playoffs actually arrive, but it's certainly safe to say today that they're a big-time favorite...

Rule No. 2 - tough to have any real feel for the sox yet, eh? eight games and a 457,000-mile road trip will do that to ya... easy to see thus far that a couple of guys not named papelbon or okajeemer need to step up in the bullpen (not so sure about david aardvark and brian "skeletor" corey, though again, it's just been eight games)... also, dice-k has been truly awesome save for the first two innings in tokyo - if he pitches close to this for the better part of the year, he'll win 18-20 games and earn the right to be known as a co-ace... all he needs to work on right now is that mullet - i felt like it was the 1989 home opener watching him out there today and accordingly, i put on some parachute pants during the third inning... i find it difficult to believe that big papi will hit .103 with an ops under .500 all season or that world series mvp mike lowell will go much longer without a single rbi (though he will not duplicate last year's numbers by a long shot - mark it, dude)... all we really know right now, after eight whole games, is that the orioles and current league mvp front-runners aubrey huff and luke scott will not win the al east, the tigers will win a game sooner or later (and probably still contend for the al central) and that bill buckner is not such a bad guy after all... he probably never was despite his portrayal as the spawn of hell for the past 20+ years for having the temerity to make an error on a grounder when his knees were so shot, he shouldn't have even been on the field... i was pretty fed up with the ceremony (it all seemed slightly clumsy, no?) before buckner's entrance thanks in no part to the presence of daubach, a former replacement player, a self-made first baseman and all-around good guy who had some nice moments for the sox from 2000-2002 but was nowhere near the 2004 series (unless he was in the stands, as st. louis isn't far from his hometown of belleville, il) and hadn't been seen by sox fans since the entire tampa bay team tried to behead him in that beanball game back in 2000 when pedro drilled the leadoff guy (i believe it was gerald "ice" williams, referred to as a "punk" by that master of charisma and personality dan duquette) and then threw a no-hitter for 8.2 innings... don't want to get all over the dauber though - it wasn't his fault that the disciples of dr. charles steinberg in the pr department invited him to the party... no, the buckner thing erased pretty much all of the oddness that happened prior and was really quite touching, especially when he had to wipe away a tear during the ovation he received while standing on the mound... give the sox a lot of credit for that one - now can we please stop with all of these extracurricular things and just play? oh and by the way, sox staff - please don't ever show tom werner and wally dancing together ever again ever, please? if neil diamond really is coming here to sing "sweet caroline" this summer, werner and wally shaking it needs to be banned, along with that sparkly, sequined sox jacket neil was wearing - i beg all of these things of you, please...

Rule No. 3 - if anyone hanging around a major league ballpark needs steroids these days it's steven tyler... seriously, when did he have a sex change operation? i know aerosmith hasn't done anything good in at least 20 years but really, man...

Rule No. 4 - the nhl playoffs start tomorrow and the bruins are in - i know this only because of kevin dupont's full-page preview in the paper... apparently the b's are playing arch nemesis montreal which has only beaten them all eight times the teams met this season and something like 11 or 12 straight since last year... i also heard that the night after the bruins clinched, all they had to do to avoid the eighth seed and a first-round series against the canadiens was win their final regular season game against the golf course bound sabres... like all bruins teams we know and love, they instead chose to play the "happy to be here" card and subsequently rolled over and got shut out, assuring them a meeting with likely the only team in the east that they can't beat... i sure will be glad when there's more space for baseball, basketball and pretty much anything other than bruins news in the paper in about a week or so... at least the powers that be are guaranteed two more nights of beer and hot dog sales...

Rule No. 5 - it's masters time which doesn't just mean another season of losing major tournament bets is upon me, it means that watching golf on tv is about to become appointment-worthy for the weekend... i'm fascinated to to see tiger play, as always, especially because of all the grand slam talk swirling about... every year during masters week, the topic of tiger and his capability of winning all four majors comes up - only this year given that he's been playing better than at any time in his career other than in the summer of 2000... look, i'm not going to pick against the guy - in fact, he's probably going to win for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that all the other players are so scared of him - but as great as he is, can anyone really be expected to win every major in one year? even the greatest player of all time? so much goes into every one of them, from the course to the conditions - the biggest reason tiger lost to zach johnson (??!!) last year... if he does it, i won't be surprised, not in the slightest... but i think i need to see it to believe it's actually possible...

Rule No. 6 - it's supposed to be 70 degrees tomorrow so i'm going to have my own little masters and hit up fresh pond for the second consecutive day... like what would happen if i played in any real tournament let alone the masters, the string will stop at two consecutive days since i could never make the cut, even if i was wearing mitt romney's magic underpants... but really, who cares? it's golf, man, for the second straight day in early APRIL... and that's a beautiful, beautiful thing...

new english

2008-04-05T03:27:00.006-04:00

really did mean what i said about multiple uniforms and the blue jays and the blue jays' multiple uniforms... but what they rolled out in their home opener against the sox last night earns them a shred of respect from their most outspoken critic - me... yeah, sure, they look like pajamas, but i'll be damned if they aren't some of the coolest pajamas i've ever seen...

oh and by the way, it's nice to see that someone at the mothership is not just reading this outstanding, finger-on-the-pulse-of-everything blog, but following my lead as well...

i turn my camera on

2008-03-30T21:50:00.021-04:00

i'm so confused - is tonight opening night? is tomorrow opening day? it definitely feels like it, but technically it's neither, as we all know... whatever, i'm going to to stick with my man joe morgan, easily the most insightful, articulate and prepared tv analyst in the sport, who said on the espn telecast of the braves/nationals game, "i only recognize tonight. this is the opening of the baseball season in america," (thanks, Awful Announcing!). well then since the red sox aren't really 1-1 since joe morgan doesn't recognize japan (and why do i feel like he couldn't find it on a map either?), we'll treat tuesday night as the real, true, recognized opener and i will pontificate on the upcoming season (which didn't really start until this braves/nats game started - got it?)...

not too interested in making a whole truckload of predictions as it's the obvious, easy tack taken by every other baseball writer out there since the beginning of time... also, even though i read the sports illustrated baseball preview, there's no way i could possibly call what's going to happen in any of the non-al east divisions other than that the giants, padres, cardinals, pirates, reds, astros, marlins, nationals, a's, rangers, royals, twins and white sox all have no chance to win the world series... the orioles and rays have no chance either, though the rays appear to be on the upswing (and the o's, for a change, suck)... the blue jays aren't going to win it either, but i've definitely read a few people who seem to think they can somehow win the division... this would appear at first glance to be the severe head injury mode of thinking given that it's been 15 years since toronto was really any good and every year, something unforeseen happen to derail the train usually involving the pitching staff... also, they have new uniforms this year for at least the eighth time since joe carter hit that walkoff series winner against curt schilling's phillies... why do so many teams have to have so many uniforms? why can't they all just be like the sox and the (gulp) yankees? the biggest perpetrator of the too many uniform crime is probably the mets, who seem to have a different jersey to wear for each day of the week, home and away... i don't think there's really anything clever or funny to say about this as it's just distracting and annoying and reeks of ADD and should be outlawed at once...
but i digress... the blue jays latest new uniforms are lame but have nothing to do with why they will not win the al east... while the majority of the supposed pundits seem to like the sox - even most of the new york writers, according to gordon edes, enough folks like the blue jays to make me scratch my male-pattern balding head... as there have been for the past few years, there are injury concerns aplenty with the jays, starting with who else but a.j. burnett... burnett, who once threw a no-hitter for the marlins despite nine walks, who signed a 5-year, $55 million deal with the jays prior to 2006 yet has been on the dl four times already since then and missed time in the spring due to fingernail problems, is the key to the toronto staff and that could spell trouble... twice in nine years has he pitched 200 innings, once has he made 30 starts and never has he won more than 12 games (he's also never finished a season more than three games over .500)... why is there any reason to believe that anything will be different this season? and if it isn't, that puts even more pressure on roy halladay, staff ace, who is certainly one of the best pitchers in baseball but has had little to no support since his breakout season in 2002... there are young arms on the toronto staff who look promising but one - casey janssen - is already out for the year... the other starters, dustin mcgowan, shaun marcum and jesse litsch, ooze potential, but what does that mean? the blue jays also have a closer (b.j. ryan - what's with all these initial-named pitchers who can't stay healthy?) coming of major arm surgery who still isn't ready despite being on the shelf for nearly one calendar year, a center fielder (vernon wells) who is a supposed superstar but is coming off a miserable season that also happened to be the first of a huge new contract, a third baseman (scott rolen) who was the team's big acquisition in the off-season yet has been a shell of his former mvp-caliber self due to injuries for the past three years and is already out a month, and three other starters (frank thomas, shannon stewart and david eckstein) who are all on the other side of the hill... other than that, they look like champs-in-waiting...
now contrary to what all seven of you think, i didn't set out to write an anti-blue jays rant here (ok, maybe i did) - i just don't see how they can make the playoffs, especially out of the al east, unless everything breaks right and the sox and yankees each have major injuries all year... the jays have a lot of talent, some interesting pieces and a seemingly bright future, especially if halladay holds up and guys like aaron hill and alex rios continue to develop... but this year? not a chance! we'll get to see them this weekend when the sox hit skydome (it will always be skydome - not the rogers centre - in all its anachronistic glory) and those games won't mean much given how early it is... but down the road, when it gets hot and the games are more meaningful, toronto will undoubtedly take its rightful place - third...
so who does that leave? well the sox and yanks, naturally... both teams have questions, mostly based around (surprise!) pitching, though the sox lineup is far inferior to the yankees virtual all-star team... but i'm still going with the sox (again, surprise!) because for the yankees, in addition to having to worry about injuries (andy pettitte), old age (pettitte and mike mussina) and lack of balls (chien-ming wang), they also have to worry about lack of experience much more so than the sox, who may not have a more reliable rotation from top to bottom, certainly have the advantage as far as being there when it counts most... oh yeah, and they are also the defending champs and the yankees haven't won anything in nine years...

who knows, anyway? as i said before, predictions are easy and also riskier to make in baseball than in any other sport and for all i know toronto will win the world series thanks to the mvp-like performances of guys like a.j. burnett, b.j. ryan and vernon wells... we'll revisit in six months and if i'm wrong, i'll admit it - even though i won't be...

the act we act

2008-03-24T00:12:00.016-04:00

the sun rises, the sun sets, lou gorman eats lunch and the sox are front-page, above-the-fold, 64-point font headline news... naturally, this being march and not june, august or october, it's for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with baseball...
it's too obvious to start this discussion with japan as it is currently next to impossible to last five minutes without seeing a photo or video of someone involved with the team bowing or wearing a kimono (hello!)... no, i want to start with the boycott thing from last wednesday because i'm wicked current and love writing about stories that broke five days ago and have likely been ingested and forgotten... well, except for people like wallace matthews, the yankees beat guy for newsday, who late last week wrote a column that may well have set a new standard for solipsistic self-righteousness... look, the team was looking out for their coaches and that's all it was... everyone knows that the role of the coach/manager/assistants is less important in baseball than in any other major sport but these guys know how important their staff is on a daily basis - drilling them, playing shrink, providing positivity and consistency... they live with these guys for almost eight months of the year and while the players are the ones making billions of dollars, some coaches are making less than a few bartenders i know... to be promised a $40,000 stipend and then have the promise revoked must have been unthinkable to a coach who barely clears that amount in yearly salary... whomever was at fault - the player's association, MLB - matters not... what matters is that the players, while openly acknowledging the fans who may have been forced to miss out, took a stand as a unit to ensure that their guys got what they were promised... contrary to what people like matthews - who listed the yearly salaries of several of the red sox highest paid players in his piece for no apparent reason - think, the threatened walkout had nothing to do with what the players make and completely to do with protecting the financial interest of those who make infinitely less than they... it was a strange, but ultimately satisfying move by the sox roster, who will never be accused of not being united on all fronts - not such a bad attribute...
and by the way, wallace - to compare the red sox trip to japan with the yankees' visit to virginia tech last week is irresponsible, self-serving and, quite frankly, stupid... of course the yankees did not take an appearance fee to visit the virginia tech campus and play an exhibition game there in the aftermath of last year's tragedy - the red sox, mariners, dodgers or toledo mudhens would not have either... so bearing that in mind, do you think the yankees didn't leverage themselves a crapload of money and perks when they opened the season against tampa in tokyo in 2004? do you think mike mussina, who is still complaining about that trip four years later, behaved honorably back then? (by the way, if anyone can direct me to a single complaint lodged by anyone invloved with the sox, who matthews calls "shameful" in his piece, please feel free to do so)... the japan trip and the virginia tech visit are apples and oranges, wallace... they couldn't be any more different... i'm just some scrubby local writer and i can see that - you are a columnist at a major, daily metro in the biggest media market in the world - that should be enough of a reason for you to get a clue...
and i'm spent - that took a little more out of me than i expected... well anyway, enjoy waking up at 6 a.m. the next couple days, sox fans - i know i will... gonna put together a quasi-season preview later in the week, so we'll see all six of you then - word!

sugar pill

2008-03-17T14:48:00.012-04:00

so it's st. patrick's day, 2008, which seems like a good enough day to get back in the game, i think... so, in honor of the ncaa tournament, the sox impending title defense, the celtics pure awesomeness and the test said awesomeness is about to endure, the bruins falling apart like clockwork and the fact that i won't be ingesting a single drop of booze today on the biggest drinking day of the year, let's embark on the first set of rules of 2008, shall we?

Rule No. 1 - the ncaa tournament is the best sporting event of the year, every year... just watching some of the conference tourneys over the weekend reminded me (as if i needed to be reminded) that the intensity level, the passion and the will, no matter who is playing and how good the teams are is impossible to match... of course, the super bowl or a particularly good nba or mlb playoff game features much of the same, but those events involve professionals making millions and millions of dollars and as easy as it is to become emotionally invested in the players and the teams, you know somewhere in your head that they have a good chance to be back in a similar scenario somewhere down the road... most of the kids playing in these hyper-important college hoop games will never play organized basketball again once they graduate - to many of them, the endgame is right there in front of their faces... watching georgia and that big, slow kid named dave bliss manning the pivot yesterday, getting by less on athleticism and talent than on sheer force of will as he snatched rebounds from and blocked shots by arkansas players stronger, quicker and faster than he, basically putting his sub .500 team on his back for the fourth time in three days knowing all the while that a loss would mean the end, is what this time of the year is all about... and that was a silly conference tourney final... what will it be like for bliss and his boys on thursday when they're a 14-seed and have to play No. 3 xavier, a team some of the "experts" are picking to make it to the final four? i have no idea and that's the beautiful thing? no one knows a thing about which upsets are going to happen where and when, or what games will come down to a desperation heave or which team (if any) will pull a george mason from two years ago and beat the likes of michigan st., north carolina and connecticut and make the final four as an 11-seed? i can't wait to find out...
Rule No. 2 - It's way too early to predict what kind of season the red sox are going to have, which means that it's also way too early to worry about them... sure, when one of the most newsworthy items of spring training concerning your favorite team is the release of the backup catcher, things are likely just fine... but i haven't forgotten that we live in boston and that means people go bananas over beckett's back spasms or colon's getting bombed by the yankees in an exhibition game (by the way, is it too early to start referring to colon as el guapo II?)... look, other than feeling concern about waking up at 6 a.m. to watch "opening day" from tokyo next week, is there really anything to worry about right now? sure, the depth of the pitching staff might be a problem down the road, five hugely important guys (lowell, beckett, youk, okajima and papelbon) had career years last year, making the chances of them doing it again seem slim and there are a couple of other minor issues... but look at the positives: lugo, coco, manny, drew and dice-k were all down to varying degrees relative to their career numbers last year and the team still won the whole damn thing... plus, there's always papi, now healthier than ever and primed to do his thing, papi styles... and don't forget the manager, only the best man for the job this franchise has ever had, no matter what any morons on sportsradio say, and now being paid accordingly... there should be nothing but optimism right now, folks - and besides, who in the hell isn't psyched to hear jerry remy say matsuzakar and okajeemer direct from the press box of the tokyo dome?
Rule No. 3 - the celtics are awesome, there's no way around it... i've been as critical of the team and the coach and the GM as anyone over the last three years, but really, how can i possibly say anything negative now? it sure helps to have future hall-of-famers, all-stars, former all-stars, great, unselfish role players, experienced veteran bench guys, recent pickups with gigantic balls and amazing young talent at your disposal, isn't it? doc rivers looks like the coach of the year with this cast that soon-to-be executive of the year danny ainge has assembled, a statement i wouldn't have made at any point during his time here before now for fear of being institutionalized... ray allen out a couple games? so what? defending champion spurs up 20 in the first half at home? who cares? lose to utah at home by 18? blip on the screen... look, i'm not going to anoint the celtics as champs-to-be just yet - i still worry about detroit despite its penchant for thinking it can flip the switch at any moment and succeed (newsflash: it can't) because of the experience factor in the playoffs, and i worry perhaps even more about cleveland thanks to that pretty good guy they have who led his team of flotsam to the finals last year... that being said, if boston returns to the finals for the first time since 1987 and wins banner 17, i've reached the point where i won't be surprised in the slightest, a somewhat frightening thought, but at the same time, a rather comforting one...
Rule No. 4 - the bruins suck... don't let the possible playoff berth (which they are naturally trying their damndest to fritter away) fool you... i've said it before and i'll say it again - the boston bruins will never, ever win a stanley cup as long as jeremy jacobs owns the team and that's very sad considering how great a sport hockey can be and how much the team used to matter around here... so when they lose in five games to ottawa or montreal in the first round or don't make it at all, don't say i didn't warn ya...
Rule No. 5 - this blog is fuckin sweet and if anyone reading stays with me, you will see why... i'm through with these long, long stretches of not writing on here - i'm back and i'm in it for the long haul so i hope you visit me again - cheers!

spilled milk factory

2007-08-20T19:53:00.000-04:00

ok, so who's worried? admittedly, it settles the nerves somewhat to see our boys put up five runs in the first two innings against their nemesis scott kazmir, especially with bobby kielty batting third and kevin "tango and" cash behind the plate (though there was that comforting air of familiarity when j.d. drew and his 45 rbis grounded to second with the bases loaded to end the second inning rally)... but the same problems that have been plaguing this team since the beginning of june when they began this nearly three-month run of mediocrity, still plague them today... there is no consistent clutch hitting, last week's couple of late-inning comebacks and tonight's big first two innings notwithstanding... their two big free agents, counted on so much from the moment they signed, continue to be two of the biggest busts in recent memory... their middle of the order, while slightly more productive than say, a month ago, is still not nearly the mortal lock it once was... and now we can add a french-canadian relief pitcher, heralded as the last piece to the world series puzzle upon his arrival, being completely useless, himself single-handedly responsible for three games in the standings over the last 10 days (not to mention the fact that according to my buddy benjah, his roots as a Quebecois naturally make him a savage, not to be tamed by anyone)...

oh i've been paying attention... just because i haven't brightened up your lives with a column for a couple weeks doesn't mean i've lost track of the team... so bearing that in mind, i'm here to report to anyone who will listen that everything is going to be fine... don't get me wrong - things certainly feel ominous, especially with the yankees not slowing down despite their schedule toughening from the tray of cupcakes they feasted on for the first couple of weeks following the all-star break... and the two series the sox and yanks have left, beginning with the three-game set in new york next week, suddenly appear to be crucial whereas a month ago they seemed to be a formality... but it's all good, and for that, we have the denizens of baltimore and tampa, also known as red sox nation south and red sox nation further south...

now the yankees have to play the orioles and the devil dogs as well, but they also have to play the angels and tigers on the road, the mariners and the blue jays, who give them fits... plus, despite last weekend's debacle at camden yards (which would have been a three-game sweep if not for the afore-mentioned, french-canadian savage), the sox play the o's (and tampa) better than they play anyone... two more series with baltimore and three (the current one included) with tamper means nine or 10 wins for the red sox... in fact, with this series going on right now followed by four games in chicago against the putrid white sox while the yankees are in anaheim tonight and detroit over the weekend, the lead may be a lot more comfortable by the time the first pitch is thrown in the bronx next tuesday...

honestly, a lot of things have to go right for the above scenario to play out... but bearing that in mind, the red sox sure do have things lined up well for the coming week... if they have a six or seven game lead by the time the yankee series rolls around, i think even the most irrational, crackheaded worriers (like the guy who called sportsradio today to proclaim that with doug mirabelli disabled, tim wakefield should be taken out of the rotation - just hours before wake pitched seven shutout, four-hit innings to cash) will have to take a deep breath and kick back - for a few days at least...

ok before i go, there are just a few other quickies i want to discuss:

- if this is how drew is going to perform for the remainder of his five years here, how long will it take before he is dumped, a la edgar renteria, with the sox picking up most of his salary for him to play elsewhere? another year? a half a season? and can anyone even imagine the collective feeling of suck if he comes to the plate in a crucial situation in a playoff game?

- i'm not as down on julio lugo as i once was, but i still can't figure out why theo epstein loves him so much... he obviously isn't as bad as he looked in june during his infamous 0-for-3,546... but he's really not very good, as his inability to consistently field ground balls hit right to him will attest... and also, why does he feel like backing out of the box without time having been called, just in time for the pitcher to throw an 86 mph fastball right down the pipe for a strike so much?

- that guy who said wakefield should be benched without his binky dougie to guide him despite his unbelievable career numbers against tampa (he's still undefeated at the trop) may be the same stooge who thinks francona should be fired for changing the lineup from time to time and knows "people in baseball" who think he's a laughingstock... i don't listen to nearly as much sportsradio as i used to, but i must be blessed considering i seemingly hear this genius every time i turn it on... he is so dumb, he makes fred smerlas and steve deossie sound like MIT astrophysicists...

- fearless prediction No. 1: asante samuel will report to pats camp (without a new contract) by the end of next week and not miss a game this year... i know it means fall is here, but i so can't wait for the NFL...

- apologies to those who have already heard me tell this doozy, but now that he's going to jail, will michael vick learn to like it doggystyle?

- it's all over down in tamper with the sox beginning their huge, 10-game road trip with a 6-0 win... and to make it even more satisfying, remy and orsillo had a seemingly game-long giggle fit about a mouse running around in the booth that scared the shit out of orsillo... it's really going to suck, as it always does, when we are subjected to the likes of chris berman, joe morgan and tim mccarver come playoff time...

- why is rob zombie's "halloween" remake coming out on aug. 31? shouldn't it come out, oh i don't know, maybe some time around halloween? and while we're at it, why is there a rob zombie remake of "halloween" anyway?

- fearless prediction No. 2: i will make the playoffs in all three of my fantasy football leagues and win the super bowl in at least one of them... why? because i fuckin rule, that's why...

thanks for reading - another new column coming sometime later in the week...

merchants of soul

2007-07-31T23:47:00.002-04:00

i don't know where to begin... to say that the events of the last two days have been enough to make a person's head spin would be an understatement to the utmost... i guess that even though we're in the midst of baseball season and approaching the stretch run, the red sox getting eric gagne, the best relief pitcher in baseball for a stretch earlier this decade, to support their suddenly shaky bullpen is not the biggest headline... nope, it's the celtics - the celtics - making the most noise, and in the middle of the summer no less... i guess when you make the biggest trade in the history of your league, you get dibs...

i know i complained about the celtics trying to trade for kevin garnett earlier this summer when the rumor first came to light... and when the idea was reintroduced a couple of days ago, i scorned it again, not believing that trading five players and two draft picks for one guy ever, no matter who that guy is, could be deemed good business... then i watched the press conference this afternoon - ok, i've been convinced... now before i go any further, i'd like to note that a) the celtics are not winning the championship this year, b) if they don't fill out the roster with a couple other veteran, role-type guys, they will still be hard pressed to do too much damage in the playoffs, c) if any of the trio of pierce, allen and garnett get hurt and misses any significant time, the celts are toast and d) it may all not matter anyway if the head coach doesn't step up in a way he's yet to thus far during his tenure... there, now that the negatory stuff is out of the way, let's get to the positive... it's KG, people! one of the greatest players of the past 20 years is now a celtic! sure, he's about three years older than we'd like and yes, he's never won anything despite his immense talent and i know,thanks to the extension he signed, he'll still be here making $17 million in five years when he can't move anymore... but the prospect of having three star veterans, all great players in their own right, all of whom have never had teammates this good and this hungry and all of whom would sell their left nut for a chance to win after so many dismal, meaningless years of losing, is more than enticing, it's genuinely exciting... and when was the last time the celtics were genuinely exciting? two years ago when they got antoine walker back, won six in a row and made us poor saps believe they could actually do some playoff damage? nope... in 2002-2003 when it was pierce, antoine and a bunch of scrubs shooting 52 3-pointer's per game? nope... go all the way back to the 80s if you want to see a celtics team that stoked such excitement, such anticipation - and these guys haven't even played a game yet... part of the beauty of the deal is the fact that all three of them can kill another team in a different way - garnett down low, pierce taking the ball to the basket and allen shooting 3's... further, all three of them are so desperate to be good that there won't be any reason to worry about anyone stepping on anyone else's toes... those youngsters who are left from the roster purge - all three of them - will only benefit from having such skill and leadership all around them...and while it's sad to see al jefferson and ryan gomes go (so much more al than gomes), pierce is right when he says that you need veterans to win in this league and without making this deal, the celtics would be a low playoff seed in a bad conference which may be better than they were but wouldn't be any more than mediocre and barely relevant... there's still work to be done... but damn is this going to be interesting - and fun, too... and if you don't believe that, just look one more time at that photo up there...

it's funny, but the red sox appeared to be a bit of an afterthought today, at least until they lost to the lowly orioles while the yankees were slicing the lead back down to seven... but what they did was pretty amazing too... they got the best relief pitcher available - and one who had a no-trade clause to boston and was insisting on being a closer wherever he went - for a No. 4 starter, a fourth outfielder and a 16-year old kid... the fact that the yankees weren't even in the mix is stunning in itself, but the fact that sox, now needing bullpen help more than ever, could get such an important guy for so little is astounding... and while gagne will be gone after the year and kason gabbard certainly has the make-up to be a legit winner in the big leagues, if you have a really good team, a team that could potentially win, you have to do what you can to make it better - as long as it's within reason... as badly as the red sox need another bat right now - and tonight's game, papi's resurgence notwithstanding, was irrevocable evidence that they do, and fast - trading wily mo pena and two from the group of manny delcarmen, craig hansen and justin masterson to the white sox is not within reason... offensively, the red sox need to hope that manny stays hot, papi can finish the year, lowell and youkilis don't disappear in the second half as has been their proverbial custom, and that j.d. drew will wake up from his coma and do something, anything... a waiver deal for another bat would sure be nice too... but this isn't time to complain, it's time to exhale... the red sox had arguably the best bullpen in baseball before this deal - now, there's no argument...

oh yeah, the patriots are five days into training camp and the first preseason game is just over a week away - and, i'm spent...

o fortune, how you mock me...

2007-07-18T18:40:00.000-04:00

ok, i'm back from a work-related swamping and i have a lot on my mind... apologies in advance to my buddy sheriff for the fact that there could be a lot more negatory here than not... and by the way, isn't that headline classic?

- has anyone seen manny? when he's not playing a really deep shortstop at fenway, he's holding up the entire red sox offense... i'm aware of the fact that he's been hot lately and is showing signs of being the manny we all know and love with the way he's been crushing line drives the other way lately... still, he's not close to on pace for his usual .310/35/110-type season - in fact it looks like he won't get close... and for all the debate about why the sox are having so much trouble scoring runs lately and why they've been so piss-poor in one-run games, the answer is pretty simple: it's manny, who, as estimable globe baseball writer gordon edes pointed out recently, has a lower OPS than dustin pedroia... yes, the facts that j.d. drew and julio lugo have both been awful (though lugo finally has started to do something), that it took coco two months to get going and that big papi has a torn meniscus are all important, palpable reasons for the mediocre offensive numbers since june 1, the fact that manny is having a similar season to guys like jose guillen or jacque jones is key to understanding the conundrum... when manny doesn't hit, ortiz gets pitched around and that sets off a chain reaction throughout the whole lineup... the bottom line is, if manny doesn't start being manny, the offensive struggles are going to continue and that will only put more pressure on a pitching staff that has looked far more mortal in recent weeks... not that i'm worried or anything...

- by the way, i heard my buddy from last week on the radio again today - you know, the one who knows all the "baseball people," who "laugh" at francona for not using the same lineup every day? he naturally took the sky-is-falling approach to the fact that the sox got crushed by the kansas city boils last night while the yankees were winning again and subsequently cutting the division lead to eight games by saying something like that if the sox lose three of four to the white sox this weekend and the yankees keep winning, it will be a full-on pennant race, yet screaming bloody murder whenever the poor hosts tried to tell him that things could just as easily go in the opposite direction... i don't like sportsradio nearly as much as i used to, mostly because i'm older and the sound of grown men screaming at each other hurts my ears... but it's guys like my loud-mouthed pal from today and last week who keep me coming back for more... don't underestimate the power of pure, unadulterated stupidity to provide a good, hearty laugh...

- as we close in on patriots training camp, there seems to be some sentiment that the team not signing asante samuel to a long-term deal and the possibility that he may hold out in response is a catastrophic thing... well, folks, i'm here to bring you in off the ledge... it's not that big a deal... first of all, he's not going to hold out a) because he's not dumb enough to leave $7.8 million guaranteed on the table, b) because he will leave himself more vulnerable to injury which could crush his chances to get a mega-contract from anyone next year and c) because he has to know that if he plays and plays even close to as well as he played last year for a team that could very well win another super bowl, he will increase his chances of cashing in down the road... there's a guy at a certain bar i've been known to frequent who loves to have me educate him about the pats and recently he was telling me that it would be a huge mistake for the team to not sign samuel for whatever he wants and that not having him next year would be a huge blow... this is so wrong for so many reasons that i don't know where to start... first off, in the brady/belichick era, the team has given in to exactly two, count 'em, two guys - brady and richard seymour... they don't pay anyone, ever, and all it has gotten them is three titles, two other playoff appearances and a league-wide reputation as a top-notch, one-of-a-kind organization... remember three years ago when samuel was a rookie and he and randall gay were the starting corners with troy brown their chief backup? well, they won the super bowl that year and that was with a team that was not nearly as stacked from a talent perspective as this team would appear to be... not having samuel would be a bummer but does anyone who has watched the team at all for the past six years really think it would be a season-breaker? remember last year when they wouldn't pay deion branch and their top two receivers were bug-eye caldwell and jabar gaffney (who they signed off the street halfway through the year)? well, they missed going to another super bowl by 2 minutes with that crew... as long as brady and seymour (to a much lesser extent) are there, everything will be fine, with or without samuel, branch, willie mcginest, damien woody, lawyer milloy, ty law, or anyone else they've said goodbye to as opposed to paying them like stars... the quarterback and the team are the stars in foxboro and it's worked out just great thus far...

- there's probably a lot to be written/said about the michael vick story, but i'm not interested in any of it - a person so despicable doesn't deserve my time or yours... if he's proven innocent, i will gladly take back such a damning statement, but until then, he's officially entered the pantheon of biggest douchebags in sports... at least we won't have to read/listen to all the suckups rave about how he's one of the greatest players in the history of the nfl just because he can run fast and throw a ball 80 yards in the air while standing still with no one near him... before yesterday's indictment, he was simply the most overrated player in the league... now he's the most disgusting, overrated player in the league...

-the british open starts tomorrow for all you golf fans out there... it's the least accessible of the majors because it's on tv at the break of dawn and because there just aren't a lot of courses in this country where the average duffer (like me) can experience the kind of hideous conditions they routinely get on the scottish coast... but that's what makes it so cool as well... watching someone like tiger woods try to conquer 40 mile per hour wind gusts, rain falling sideways, pot bunkers, mounds of gorse and even english cuisine (not remotely joking about that last one - ever had a meal in the u.k.?) is watching him in the most hostile of hostile environments... major golf tournaments always wind up being a mind game - whoever has the mental wherewithal to persevere is likely going to beat whoever does not (hello, lefty!)... so when you add the kind of elements that a place like st. andrews, royal lytham or this week's site, carnoustie, offer up, it appears that much more difficult... i can't wait to watch - and by the way, i got tiger over the field...

- it was somewhat eye-opening to read this story about yao ming and how the chinese government is ripping him for not being at national team practice because he had the temerity to get married and visit a bunch of special olympics kids... made me feel pretty good about where i am... but then i saw this and remembered that while we don't have it that bad, it's getting worse every day - and it's not even war-related... it's all about the cash money, right bushy?

- loving the new records by interpol and spoon... interpol, a band i've always liked, but thought took themselves way too seriously, have really lightened up on their new one, "our love to admire"... takes a couple songs to get going but by the fourth and fifth tracks, "the heinrich maneuver," and "mammoth," they're rocking out and sound more like they're just having fun being rock stars and less like they have to convey some deep, emotional need to anyone... spoon is just spoon, making their way through your basic rock/rootsy/alt-country stuff with a lot of whimsy and bells and whistles on the unfortunately titled "ga ga ga ga ga"... i was recently accused of forgetting from whence i came given my aversion to buying the new records from (the artist formerly known as) chris cornell and smashing pumpkins... on the contrary - i remember whole-heartedly from whence i came given the fact that i still routinely listen to the great stuff those guys recorded when they were meaningful and interesting and not so played out and old... i've not forgotten anything, i just think i've adapted to the times and the two records i just mentioned are prime examples of that...

- good to see the old, shitty julian tavarez back - gotta love that he can't hold a two-run lead against the boils... luckily kason gabbard is on his way to the hall of fame so that should solve that problem...

- golfing in the morning - ah, heaven awaits...

rules of the week

2007-07-09T19:12:00.000-04:00

we may well be immersed in the lamest week of the most boring month on the sporting calendar, but finding something about which to write under such circumstances is easy pickin'... log onto to any site (espn, fox, SI) or go to any major metro paper and you'll find dozens upon dozens of pieces that guys in my chosen profession keep in their top desk drawers all year, every year, only to pull them out this week, do a bit of polishing, and voila! - instant column... i'm talking about the old standby, the mid-season awards/report card column, in which the writer gives every player on the team he/she covers a letter grade, or, on the national scale, guys like jayson stark and ken rosenthal and jon heyman hand out awards for performances given so far... it's so easy, so effortless, so time-efficient... it would be that simple for me to sit here and write that so far this year, j.d. drew gets a C-, youk and okajeemer get straight A's and lugo gets an F... easy, easy, easy... so bearing that in mind, i'm going to buck the trend and write a traditional rules column, consequences be damned... so without further ado, here are the rules of the week...

Rule No. 1 - if you're whining/bitching/complaining/calling the radio to whine, bitch or complain about the red sox, please stop, like now... today i actually heard someone call WEEI and rip terry francona for not using the same lineup every day... his logic, though he wouldn't confirm this when pressed by the hosts, was that even though lugo sucks and needed to be moved from the leadoff spot, coco needed to be hitting near the bottom for the first two months and being moved to the top appeared to at least slightly invigorate the seemingly pulseless drew, it didn't matter and they'd all have come around and been fine and be ahead by 30 games instead of 10 if they'd been left alone and subsequently not had to worry about where they'd be hitting on any given day... when dale arnold correctly informed this astrophysicist that thus far, francona is the manager of the year in the AL (hands down, i might add), the guy laughed out loud and wondered how anyone could make such a claim regarding a guy who is "laughed at by other baseball people," for not providing consistency in the lineup (i'll ignore almost all of the ludicrousness of such a statement except for the part about these so-called laughing baseball people - does this guy know a lot of current or former ballplayers? do they hang out drinking bud light drafts with him at fitzy's tap in lynn on a monday afternoon at 1?)... look, the point is not to trash this moron, who can't seem to grasp the fact that the baseball season lasts six months and every decision/action/reaction is exponentially less important than would be during, say, a 16-week football season, but to state as clearly as possible that things are ok with the sox, they really are... in fact, things are better than ok, things are pretty damn good... for a team with their apparent problems (little punch from the middle of the lineup, a horrible leadoff hitter, lousy free agent signings on offense, no discernible trustworthy guys in the bullpen after papelbon and okajima - though manny delcarmen seems to be coming along nicely), they sure have played pretty well... a piece - or two - may well need to be added in the coming weeks, and even though they can likely play .500 the rest of the year and still make the playoffs, it would be nice, not to mention confidence inspiring, to see them perform a little better and with some more consistency... that being said, who's going to challenge them? the yankees and their woeful pitching/comatose manager (it was excellent to see joe torre use scott proctor, currently on pace for about 752 appearances, for an inning yesterday in the midst of a 12-0 win...)? the blue jays and their ongoing inferiority complex? the orioles and their complete and total lack of the slightest idea how to build and maintain a team? the devil rays and their recent 11-game losing streak? no, no, no and no... so sit back and relax, sox nation... don't get complacent, don't lose your fire and don't stop caring... but please, please stop complaining - it's embarrassing...

Rule No. 2 - because this wouldn't be the world famous RTLB site if i didn't get just a bit cynical, i will say that even though he's better now than he was a couple months ago, i have absolutely no confidence that drew will do something when at the plate in a key situation... when he fouled out with the tying run 90 feet away yesterday, my initial reaction was that i would have been shocked if he had gotten a hit... even sox broadcaster joe castiglione, whose despair when sox hitters don't come through in the clutch is palpable ("swing and a pop-up), sounded less saddened than he did outraged when drew's weak swing ended the game, and that's saying something for the even-keeled joe... so what do the sox do? well, they continue to wait him out... nothing, with the exception of figuring out why david ortiz is suddenly no longer a power hitter, is truly urgent at this stage (see above)... but just the same, the sox better hope he soon starts doing a little better than .225 with runners in scoring position... they can't use him in the leadoff spot too much, a) because coco and/or lugo if/when he gets right has to hit there and b) they are paying him his, ahem, exorbitant salary to hit fifth and protect manny and papi... i'm not going to give up on drew at this point and not just because we're stuck with him for five more years (unless his arm magically separates from his shoulder socket)... i think that sooner or later this year and during other, more regular intervals over the course of his contract, he will produce big-time and help the team win... i can, however, see what got people going about his demeanor in the other cities in which he's played... the guy's so smooth, both at the plate (even when he's grounding out to second) and in the field (the play he made to hold tampa's carl crawford to a single at the game i went to on the fourth was an outstanding defensive play), that it's understandable to assume he isn't busting it the way he should be... everything looks so easy for him that he appears the same when he's crushing a double into the right-center field gap as when he's fouling out to third to end a game... still, i wonder whether or not his immense talent has hindered him at all throughout his career... i'm sure he knows better than anyone how talented he is and how easily the game comes to him... and bearing that in mind, who's to say that such knowledge hasn't kept him from working as hard as he possibly can to become great? for such a skilled player, drew is as far from a great player as it gets... i'm not saying he sucks or that he doesn't work hard... i'm just surmising that perhaps he's done a little bit of coasting from time to time when breaking his ass would have been the more prudent course of action... regardless, it would sure be sweet if the sox could get more than .258/6/33/.759 out of him, wouldn't it?

Rule No. 3 - look, the all-star break sucks... we don't have to deal with one in football, basketball's is a relief and really, who gives a shit about hockey? but in baseball, it's a huge bummer... baseball is the only sport that is played every single day, thus making the attachment/withdrawal factors for nerds like me infinitely higher (side note: this probably applies even more to fantasy baseball players - a group to which i belong - particularly the ones willing to buy a blackberry if for no other reason than to be able to check his team's stats anywhere, anytime, like my buddy scotty) ... and the counter programming - the home run derby, the all-star game, the best of remy and orsillo's giggle fits - just adds weight to the symptoms... by thursday afternoon, hours before the sox resume the schedule at fenway against the blue jays, i'll be practically gouging my eyes out to see some real baseball that actually means something (and no, the all-star game with it's ham handed, "this time it counts," slogan, is not real)... anyway, it would be a waste of time for me to call for the elimination of the all-star break... so i guess there's no rule here really - just pray that i and those of my ilk make it through the next couple of days in one piece...

Rule No. 4 - today is July 9... patriots training camp starts july 27... i'm not a math major or anything like that, but i think that means that in 18 days it will - at least sort of - be football season... football season - HALLELUJAH.

Rule No. 5 - anyone read anything into the photo above? it's pretty simple, actually - papi is the man...

big papi is good - a rules to live by exclusive

2007-07-05T01:09:00.001-04:00

so a buddy of mine whose opinion i value greatly has been reading the rules of late (at least someone is) and claims that i have a tendency to focus too much on the negative... this occurred to me as i sat down to write about david ortiz, his current slump and why it could irreparably harm the team if he doesn't get out of it soon... so instead of write what everyone who has watched a sox game in the last month or so already knows, i will instead take a different route...

i'll be an optimist instead... please forgive me if whatever follows is cut off abruptly at some point - it's just my head exploding...

watching the highlights of the fourth of july matinée against the devil rays with my dad and brother during the annual family cookout, an interesting point was made... after the clip of big papi's first inning strikeout, a K as ugly as it gets, given the end result (the bat flying into the 25th row, likely knocking out the teeth of a card-carrying, pink hat-wearing member of red sox nation) and the pitcher (the immortal edwin jackson, he of the 1-9 record and the 7.26 ERA), the old man said, "man does he look bad right now - he looks like lugo..." having been roughly 75 yards away from papi when this happened, i'm here to report that yes, he looks really bad right now, and no, he doesn't look like lugo (who, by the way, may be on the verge of actually doing something quasi-productive at the plate)...

but the metaphor is well taken... sure, papi is hitting .307 (as opposed to lugo's .192 - still 14 points higher than doug mirabelli, thank god)... but there are connections to be made... lugo was stuck in an 0-for-33 until tuesday and had gone an ungodly 19 days without a hit... big papi has not had an extra base hit in 55 at-bats, a stunning statistic which, relatively speaking, is somewhat similar to lugo's plight... ortiz also has not homered since june 20, a span of 12 games, and has not homered at fenway, his personal house of badass, since - deep breath now - april 21... april 21!!! that's 31 home games!!! having seen what ortiz has done for the past four years, such numbers are borderline incomprehensible...

now remember, this is the column where i officially offer my services as an optimist... bearing that in mind, i can state in all certainty that i'm not the least bit worried...

here's the thing - the guy very well may be hurt... when you are as good a hitter as big papi, you don't go as cold as he has in the power department because you miss your old hitting coach... something was wrong with his hamstring back in late may, he missed a couple of games and when he came back, with the exception of two games against the yankees at fenway and a huge night out in oakland, he became the world's biggest singles hitter... maybe he rushed back from the hamstring thing too soon... maybe he needed to go on the dl back then but would probably have to be in traction somewhere to agree to such a move... and maybe he hasn't been right since... a power hitter like papi gets much of what he needs to belt monster home runs from from his legs... you got bad hammys, quads, ankles, what have you, your power just isn't there like it is when you're 100 percent healthy...

so what's positive about this? the fact that the team can afford to let him rest a bit if for no other reason than to see if his health is indeed the issue... in case you've been asleep the past two and a half months, we're now halfway through the season, and the sox have a double digit lead in the AL east... this lead has been built while a) manny has been having the weakest statistical season he's had in a decade, b) curt schilling has been mostly ineffective/injured, c) julian tavarez has held down a regular spot in the rotation, d) no one in the bullpen not named okajima or papelbon has been consistently reliable, e) the team's two marquee free agent acquisitions have ranged from mediocre to atrocious and f) ortiz has, well, not been big papi...

are there any better reasons for optimism right now than those? the red sox are leading a charmed life and while the cynic in me has been bracing for all of these flaws to catch up with them, at the halfway mark of the year, it just doesn't look like its going to happen... schilling goes on the dl? team doesn't miss a beat... manny looks like any other guy? team doesn't miss a beat... lugo threatens to take futility to new highs/lows? team doesn't miss a beat... ortiz slumps as bad as we've ever seen him slump? so far, with a couple of minor hiccups, team doesn't miss a beat... so give him some rest then, perhaps? i'm not suggesting he get benched - far from it... as of right now, there are four games left before the all-star break... does he really need to play in all four of them? give him tonight and one of the games in detroit over the weekend off... ask/encourage him to not play in the all-star game next week (it's not like the sox won't be well represented without him)... maybe even squeeze him into an MRI machine over the break and get a true read on whether the legs are really the problem... the point is, that so much good fortune has shined on the red sox that they have the luxury of being cautious with big papi, as they've been with schilling and, to a slightly lesser degree, papelbon... they can afford to take a bit of time and see if they can get to the root of the problem... there's three months and 79 games left until the postseason, and as we all know, that's when papi kicks the most ass - when the games really mean something...

or maybe he'll see something while watching video before tonight's game, go out and go 4-for-5 with a homer and six rbi, not miss any time and wind up finishing .320-37-110 while leading the sox to the best record in baseball and their first AL east title since 1995... would you be surprised? i wouldn't...

rules of the week

2007-07-01T22:37:00.001-04:00

tardy on this week's rules - it's been a rather shitty week to say the least... anyway, if you're reading, it's probably tough enough for me to get you to even care about what i'm writing let alone how my week was... so without further ado, here are the rules of the week...

Rule No. 1 - i don't know, i just don't... ray allen coming off major ankle surgery? i mean, he's been a star, a great one - but is he the answer? i kind of hope there's something more afoot... anyway, these two guys look pretty happy, don't they? maybe they know something i don't... well, danny and doc - here's my faith, please don't stomp all over it... man i'm getting nervous and breaking out in the sweats and not because it's 137 degrees outside... ok, i can't think of a rule - time to move on...

Rule No. 2 - julio lugo, the 4-year, $36 million shortstop for the boston red sox, has the worst batting average (.190) of any regular player in all of major league baseball... he has no hits since june 14, when he was 1-for-4 against colorado... he was allowed to bat for himself in a huge, possibly game-winning situation in the eighth inning against seattle last week, and naturally didn't get a hit despite being ahead in the count 3-0, then had the temerity to throw a tantrum when he was pinch hit for in another big spot in the 11th... oh, and after being inserted as a pinch runner at second - representing the tying run - with two outs in the eighth and kevin youkilis at the plate against texas on saturday, he was thrown out trying to steal third, ending the inning... having been a die hard red sox fan since the age of about 4, i've seen more slumps and more free agent/trade busts than i can count... i am also prone to hyperbole, as many who know me will attest... bearing all that in mind, i don't think i've ever seen a player in a bigger slump, and unless things turn around dramatically for lugo and fast, i don't think i've ever seen a bigger free agent bust... everyone knows that this all could have been avoided if the sox had just re-signed the lovable, indispensable orlando cabrera after the world series in 2004 (cabrera wanted to stay and could have been had for less than what lugo is being paid), but that's old news... what's not old news is that lugo, who now seems to be in a platoon with alex cora at short, has to play if he's to have any chance of breaking out of this... and that, given what we've seen so far, is a very risky proposition as the season progresses, the games get more important and the pressure mounts... not sure what the rule is here, maybe that theo epstien should be forbidden from signing/letting go of shortstops?...

note: by the way, the headline of a fantasy baseball column on si.com read, "is it time to drop lugo?"... i hereby nominate everyone in my league, my mom, and the cleaning crew at the applebee's on hancock st. in quincy to take over the writing duties from this brain surgeon - it was time three weeks ago, dude!...

Rule No. 3 - a real bummer that youkilis didn't make the all-star team... five sox did make it, all deserved it (except manny) and another, hideki okajima, is nominated for the internet vote final spot on the roster... but who on the sox, other than beckett and papelbon, is more deserving than youk? the guy was arguably the most important factor in the sox' play during april and may while they were building their double digit lead in the AL east... his numbers (.326/9/43/.918) are excellent... he just set a red sox record for most consecutive errorless games at first base... he's hit pretty much everywhere in the lineup, he's always busting it and he has gigantic balls for knowingly wearing that goatee on his face... youk is one of this year's victims of the all-star selection system, which requires that every team, even the shittiest ones, have to have at least one guy on the squad, like it's a kickball game in gym class or something... it also hurts him that with the game in a national league park, david ortiz (a mortal lock) was on the ballot as a first baseman and not him... and maybe he'll wind up making it anyway as a fill-in (lord knows they'll need to find one for manny)... but he should have been there right off the bat... youk's an all-star, ya'll...

Rule No. 4 - there's tons of humor sites that should be perused pretty much daily and my new favorite is cracked.com... the specialty seems to be lists which gives readers the chance to check out topics like this and like this... it really is worth a shot - but remember, whether you dig it or not, the real goods can always be found here... enjoy 'em all, lads and lasses!...

green with envy, or nausea?

2007-06-26T20:32:00.002-04:00

it's funny, but as i sit here and sweat like some sort of farm animal and like it - come on now, it's nice and hot two, maybe three months of the year around here and cold and shitty all the rest of the time - i sort of can't believe the hold that basketball has taken over the local sports discussion... shouldn't people be talking more about the sox and how good they seem to be? or the pats and how with training camp less than a month away, they look like the odds on faves for another ring? or how sad it is for arsenal fans everywhere that the magnificent henry has been sold to barcelona (ok, that was a blatant shout out/plea for readership to two specific buddies and my english second cousin who has season tickets to all gunners games)?

nope... it's nba draft or bust this week, much to the chagrin of my handful (if that) of readers who can barely stand it when i talk baseball... moreover, it's what the celtics are going to do - a topic that on the surface appears to have as much relevance as paris hilton's disdain for her orange jail jumpsuit... but the celts, a team whose annual futility is threatening to soon make them as much of a laughingstock as the bruins, are buzzworthy right now... truth be told, a lot of the buzz surrounds what they can possibly do to completely screw up this time around, as they've becoming so adept at screwing up over the last 10-15 years or so... but at least people are talking about them and that - for a moment anyway - makes me feel ok about my very first favorite team...

all right, that moment was fleeting... in all honesty, it seems hard to muster the faith that danny ainge will make the right move by the celtics... if he does, i'm also skeptical that doc rivers will be able to make it work... the bottom line here is that with a little less that 48 hours left until the draft and with the celtics in full-on panic mode for over a month now thanks to openly tanking the second half of last season in an effort to get one of the first two picks in this draft, then not getting a chance at either, one of two things is going to happen... either a) the celtics will trade their first round pick (no. 5 overall) and the best of their wealth of young players for kevin garnett, easily a first ballot hall-of-famer who is perilously close to the top of the hill and is not signed beyond next season, or b) they will draft the chinese kid who won't be ready to contribute anything meaningful for at least three years, then trade paul pierce (if his head hasn't exploded first) and continue to completely suck for the foreseeable future...

there are upsides and downsides to both possibilities... if they draft yi jianlian and trade pierce, rivers won't last the season... look, he's a nice guy, the press loves him and he seems to be a good pal to a lot of the players... but does that matter all that much? he hasn't won consistently, has never proven that he can and has gotten significantly worse record-wise since he got here three years ago... plus, it doesn't matter one iota if he's nice to reporters and a big brother to all the tykes on the roster... all that matters is that he wins and that the young guys get better and outside of al jefferson, who would have improved if i was the coach given his talent, who really is that much better than when doc took over? answer: nobody... no garnett trade equals another year of being lucky to win 25 games and doc being fired sometime before valentine's day...

if they make the deal for garnett (or get jermaine o'neal from indiana without trading jefferson or get andrei kirilenko from utah, both of which seem unlikely), the upside is that they will immediately be a playoff team and in the eastern conference, which is like the minor leagues, just making the playoffs could mean big, exciting things (though that is far from a given)... the downsides are that jefferson, who looks like he could be a great, important player down the road, not to mention the fact that all the other young guys except trick-or-treater gerald green have pretty much already reached their ceilings, will be gone... also, garnett will not necessarily be on the team for more than one year and if he isn't, it makes the potential deal not just bad, but unconscionable, given jefferson's enormous talent and the possibility that whomever goes to minnesota at no. 5 could wind up being pretty good...

so there you have it... i'm on record here as saying that i wouldn't do the deal, that garnett is an all-time great but will only help so much, that jefferson is too important down the road and that a lesser deal that won't cost as much is the way to go... i've heard/read several opinions in the last couple days from people in basketball whom i respect say the exact opposite - that the celtics must do whatever it takes to get the deal done... i'm not so sure... one thing that i am sure of, however, is that whatever decision ainge makes, it will a) be interesting, b) be dissected in print, on television and on the radio 200 times over, and c) likely prove at some point in the not-too-distant future to have been completely and totally wrong... and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the current state of your boston celtics... go green!

rules of the week - 6/22/07

2007-06-22T18:41:00.000-04:00

with all due respect to bill maher, a person far more entertaining than myself whose "new rules" segment on his friday night hbo show is an absolute riot, i think i'm going to make this a regular feature of this new and improved blog thingy... we'll make it a weekly thing, i'm thinking right now, and if there are any suggestions, feel free to chime in... user-friendly shit is what you get here at RLTB, folks... so without further ado, and because it's friday night and i want to go out, here are the rules of the week...

Rule No. 1 - anyone who is feeling pangs of stress concerning the red sox should probably stop, take a deep knee bend and breathe... it's slightly alarming that a different guy seemingly comes up with a new injury by the day (lowell, drew, schilling, etc.), but if any team is equipped to handle some temporary losses in personnel, it's boston... there's a whole lot of depth on this team, both on the bench and in the minor leagues, plus it helps that there is that double-digit lead in the standings over the suddenly flailing again yankees... it's late june now and the dog days of july and august are approaching... if ever there is a time when a team can be careful with its guys (especially 40-year-old pitchers, gray-haired third basemen and injury-prone rightfielders) it's now... there's no need to rush anyone at the moment and worrying is not only bad idea jeans, it's the opposite reaction that the average fan should have... on the contrary - you should be psyched that this extra rest for some of these guys, particularly the older ones, can only help how sharp they are come playoff time... don't hate, be happy...

Rule No. 2 - thank god kevin garnett said he didn't want to play for the celtics and ixnayed the idea of being traded here from the equally woeful minnesota timberwolves... for starters, this would have been dumb for boston because for at least the fifth time since 2003 when danny ainge took the GM job, it would have been a change of course in the team's longterm strategy... when a team changes course once in five years, it's understandable, twice, it's explainable, five times, it's irretrievable evidence that the folks making the decisions are morons... and secondly, garnett, who used to be my favorite player in the league and is still somewhat of a binky, is past his prime, has never won anything, would have cost two potentially all-star caliber players as well as a high lottery pick and an expiring contract that would be more useful if moved later, makes $25 million a year, and was no guarantee to stay longer than through next season... other than that, it was a great idea... furthermore, who's to say the celts would have been all that much better with him? yes, they'd have two all-stars in garnett and paul pierce, and yes, they'd likely make the playoffs in the putrid eastern conference, but so what? making the playoffs is nice, but what's the goal here? to build a winning, sustainable nucleus that can grow up together and compete for titles for years, or to lose in the first or second round for a couple years before garnett leaves, pierce is over the hill and it's time to start rebuilding all over again? i'll take option A... stay the course for once, danny - don't keep changing your mind...

Rule No. 3 - hockey sucks, at least in boston... the bruins, who have been at best irrelevant and at worst an embarrassment for several years now, just hired their third coach in barely a year, and naturally, all signs point to him being a stiff... the guy has been fired by two other teams in the last four years, including last season by new jersey with just three games left in the regular season despite the fact that the devils were already in the playoffs and would have home-ice in the first round... seems a little fishy, doesn't it? anyway, i'm not going to rehash the litany of idiotic things the bruins have done over the last, oh 15 or so years, mainly because i don't care and neither should you... i'm just here to point out yet again that this once proud, winning and extremely popular team continues to operate in the dark ages, continually screwing up, failing to be competitive yet raising ticket, beer and hot dog prices like it's their job (oh wait - it is)... it's a shame because hockey can be really awesome, especially live and in person... but i wouldn't go to the fleetcenter to watch the bruins if you paid for it and got me drunk, and that's saying something... boycott the bruins - it's for your own good...

Rule No. 4 - the best movie i've seen so far this summer is "knocked up" and it's kind of not even close... the same guy - judd apatow - who created the tv shows "freaks and geeks" and "undeclared," produced "anchorman" and made "the 40-year-old virgin" made it and it's a logical extension of the former... like "the 40-year-old virgin," there is some treacly, sentimental stuff down the stretch but the rest of it is so funny that the lame stuff is almost entirely forgiven... if you watched either of those tv shows, you'll recognize some of the casts of both, you get to gaze upon both katherine heigl and leslie mann in all of their gloriousness for two hours and, you get another perfect role for the wildcard - mr. paul rudd... hey, how could you doubt him after lines like, "you look man-tastic," "i've jacked it three times since i've been here," and "you know how i know you're gay? you macrameed yourself a pair of jean shorts," in "the 40-year-old virgin?" there's more where that all came from in "knocked up"... do yourself a favor and see it...

Rule No. 5 - golf is good... and bearing that in mind, i sucked it up, dragged my ass up to woburn and got myself a new set of irons, the cleveland launchers... they are heaven... they are bliss... they will likely help me get my average score down to the low triple digits (hey, small victories)... i love them... so i guess that the only rule i can impart here is rather obvious and that's to hit 'em straight...

that's all for now, folks... enjoy the weekend, go sox, and be good... more to come starting next week...

the coco show - starring willie harris as coco...

2007-06-21T00:23:00.000-04:00

it dawned on me recently about coco, maybe even before this little hitting show he just put on down in atlanta... it actually sort of hit me like a bolt of lightning in the form of a ridiculous, morning-after-too-many-beers headache... and when i realized it, i even felt a little bit sad, not because i wish any ill will on the guy, but because when you think you're sure of something for so long, you feel a slight sense of loss just for a moment, like that much of your general intelligence quotient on the topic has just been yanked right out from underneath you...

it dawned on me recently that coco isn't that bad...

sure, he's made grounding out to second seem not just routine but damn near artistic... and yes, his throwing arm isn't just worse than johnny damon's, it's worse than my grandmother's - and she passed on a couple years ago, god bless her... and furthermore, he's not remotely the dynamic, offensive sparkplug, lead-off guy the sox thought they were getting when they traded for him last offseason, then signed him to a three-year extension the day after he broke his finger, an injury that should have healed in four weeks but instead derailed his entire 2006 season (and at times has appeared to even hinder his game this year too)...

in actuality, coco is a defensive wizard - the guy makes obscenely difficult catches on at least a weekly basis - who can kind of hit sometimes while even sprinkling 5-9 homers a year... he's a late inning sub, a pinch runner, a defensive replacement anywhere in the outfield... and that's ok, goddammit, it is...

the thing is, we were sold a bill of goods on coco... nobody in the red sox organization came out and said it, but he was seen as the ideal replacement for damon when he signed with the yankees... such hype was written and discussed in the papers and on radio, and no one came out and tried to defuse any of it...

he also got a $3 million raise and the starting centerfielder/lead-off guy spot handed to him, even though in four previous years with cleveland - just two as a full-time player - he was the No. 2 guy and he played left... needless to say, when he went from .300 with 16 homers and 69 rbi in his last year with the indians to .264 with eight homers and 36 rbi in his first year with the sox, the locals started frothing at the mouth...

things had been equally hideous this year (despite the woman who always comes to the bar on saturday late afternoons when i have the game on the radio and says regularly, "oh coco is doing so well this year," even though i correct her, telling her that he actually sucks every time) until recently, as he's gone on a seven-game hitting streak with three homers and five rbi, raising his average 26 points in the process... whether this hotness will last is not the point - the point is he's not just another guy who shriveled under the pressure of playing in boston (i'd be more apt to believe that if he'd ever been more than just decent in his previous career stops before his subsequent dropoff, a la renteria), it's that he's just not very good... some guys put up nice numbers as part-timers then wilt when asked to play every day before reinventing themselves as serviceable, utility guys later on... coco would be a perfect fourth outfielder on this team - he could be to the outfield what alex cora is to the infield - which is why unless he's part of a package for a much better guy or swapped for an even better utility man, i've changed my mind regarding his trade status - it says here the sox should keep him around... sure, go out and get another outfielder by the trade deadline - preferably one who can play pretty much every day - to go along with the bullpen help they so direly need... but keep coco - give the guy a chance to do what he does best at least for the rest of the year...

and besides that, having coco get hot and stay hot makes the getting-worse-by-the-day julio lugo look even more horrifying, which in turn makes the prospect of getting rid of him so he can concentrate solely on his other job as a counter man at the porter square dunkin donuts look more realistic... plus, having a guy on your favorite team impervious to ridiculous - yet creative - sports nicknames like oscar villarreal "disease", john "the tongue" coutilangus and clinton "rigor" portis because his own name is in itself ridiculous - yet creative - is sort of fun...

anyway, bear with me folks, as i work on building this back up... it's been awhile, so i need to mess around with some things, reteach myself all the tricks on how to spruce this shit up, and get back sharp with everything else... but thanks for reading, nonetheless - this should be the first of many, so keep up the good work...

umm...

2007-06-20T01:30:00.000-04:00

i think its time i start writing again...

well of course i'm half-hebrew, but the children are three-quarters mick catholic

2005-11-11T15:27:00.000-05:00

running short on time this week, my pretties, which is sort of a shame given the multitude of noteworthy topics... i could be like all the other blowhards on espn and give my two cents on t.o. but frankly, i'm so sick of the story, i'd rather scoop my eyeballs out with a plastic spork than rehash all the tawdry details... beyond t.o. (yes it's true, there is life beyond t.o.) it's nice to see the celtics playing spirited ball (even though i still think they barely eke out 35 wins) and paul pierce pretending to be positive about his situation... it's nicer still to see the bruins continue to stink and i'm quite curious to see what imbecile the red sox hire to be their next gm... oh yeah and those carolina panthers cheerleaders... i don't think i've ever been more excited to see mugshots in all my years until i actually saw them... man, did you catch the schnozz on the one on the right? if she's the one planning on posing for penthouse, i'm cancelling my subscription...

and oh yeah - the pats... that game made me want to drink... it was a realization game, ya know? the whole heart of a champion thing was just a ruse - the pats are not remotely as good as the colts this year and sadly, even if everyone on defense (except rodney, god bless him) gets healthy and starts playing, it may just be the same case... i've never seen belichick appear so ready to throw in the towel so quickly (the two fourth downs - one in the first quarter??!! - and the onside kick)... seriously, it was like he was capitulating before the game even started... "hey let's go for it on fourth-and-four from our own 42 because if we don't get it and you get the ball right here, it will be just as easy for you to score as if we punt and pin you inside the 10..." never seen anything like it from him... everyone on d either sucked or wasn't getting any help... and then there was poor tedy, who looked like the adrenalin had worn off and he was playing in his first training camp contact scrimmage... if i had a nickel for every time he got wiped out at the line of scrimmage within seconds of the ball being snapped, i'd be rich... just a sad, sad game, folks... sad...

still, the nfl is a league of redemption, ya know? anyone who's ever watched football knows that one week means nothing to the next week... how else could a team like the 49ers lose 52-17 one week, then beat a one-loss, division leader the next? the pats will get back on track against the woeful dolphins this week and truthfully, i think they're only in danger of losing two more games all year (at KC in two weeks and at buffalo on dec. 11)... the playoffs are another story altogether, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it... right now, i'll only say that even though the colts will lose at least two games before its all said and done, they're probably going to win the super bowl, and seeing peyton manning hold up that trophy while all the media sycophants get on their knees is not a sight i'm not looking forward to in the least... i sincerely hope you aren't either...

on a more pleasant note, we posted our best record of the year last week which could mean that a) i'm finally getting the hang of this point spread thing, b) i got intesely lucky or c) see b... either way, i'm looking to keep it rolling so without further ado (and with my usual reminder not to take one iota of this seriously), here come this week's picks...

new england (-3) over MIAMI
it may be somewhat naive to take the pats giving anything at this point, especially in miami, where brady plays worse than anywhere... but somehow i get the feeling that he and the other veterans who aren't hurt are so pissed at the utter humiliation of monday night that they'll came out and look as good as they have all year... plus, even though the defense stinks, and miami's coach nick saban knows belichick as well as anyone save for parcells, the dolphins' starting qb is still gus frerotte... enough said...

kansas city (+2.5) over BUFFALO
bills may be coming off a bye and at home, but i saw them play two weeks ago and believe me, they can't stop anyone with an even average offense... the chiefs, despite losing priest holmes and having trent green looking more and more like drew bledsoe every week, are better than average, especially after last week's win, one of the ballsiest one's i've seen in a long time, thanks to coach vermeil, who i think only went for it on the last play of the game so he'd have an excuse to cry before the tv cameras no matter what happened... turn the red light on and watch the waterworks begin!

washington (-1.5) over TAMPA BAY
boy are the bucs bummed... three weeks ago they were 5-1 and looking like legit contenders... now, they're staring the wrong legendary qb's son, their prized new back is already damaged goods and they can't stop anyone on defense... the redskins bounced back nicely from the whitewash loss to the giants against the depleted eagles last week and should win this one relatively easily...

san francisco (+13) over CHICAGO
ok, the bears are good, the niners are awful and the game's in chicago... but 13 points?? for the bears??? with their rookie, fifth-rounder at qb and their top back probably out with bad ribs??? not a chance... they win, but not by that much...

NEW YORK GIANTS (-9.5) over minnesota
surprised the vikes could keep it in their pants after last week's big division win... they're still pretty bad, though, and now that the nfl has peyton manning a virtual lock for the super bowl, don't you feel like maybe eli is "destined" to get there too?

arizona (+4) over DETROIT
worst game of the week by about 27 miles... kurt warner may be a shell of himself but the pathetic joey harrington is just a shell, period... think anyone on the lions wants to lay it all out there for such a stiff who seems to have no heart? me neither... take the cards, but hold your nose...

JACKSONVILLE (-6.5) over baltimore
jags still too young to count on as they can't stop playing down to their opponents' level (see last week against houston)... but with or without fred taylor (and that's another without this week), they should still handle the putrid ravens, who welcome back all-world bust kyle boller for yet more proof that coach billick screwed up again...

houston (+18) over INDIANAPOLIS
i've never seen a spead this big in a pro game and even though the colts are quite capable of beating it, i just can't see it... how do they get up for this game against such a bad team after what they did last week? answer is, they don't.... indy is way to good to actually lose - they could beat the texans blindfolded - but houston should have a little spirit (maybe) and cover...

carolina (-9) over NEW YORK JETS
who is it this week, herm? brooks bollinger? vinny t.? your cousin steve? it doesn't matter who plays qb for the jets, they stink and the panthers are probably going to the super bowl (unless the league sabotages them in order to get an all-manning matchup)... i'm just wondering when people are going to start calling for herm's job, as he is easily in the top 5 of biggest fraud coaches in the nfl...

denver (-3) over OAKLAND
if i hear one more "expert" talk about how jake plummer is mvp material because he hasn't thrown too many picks this year, i will vomit... the guy gets 200 yards rushing from his backs every week and the defense is actually pretty good for a change... and for that, he's an mvp candidate??? hello, he sucks!! regardless, the broncos will win this game easily as the raiders, who looked like they may be turning a corner until they gave up that unbeliveable last minute drive to lose to the chiefs last week, are done with a capital D-O-N-E...

st. louis (+7) over SEATTLE
rams are getting all their injured guys back for this one, are playing well under their anonymous interim coach, are coming off a bye, and have owned seattle in the past... that'll be just enough for them to cover... seahawks finally look like they get it and shaun alexander is a monster...

ATLANTA (-9.5) over green bay
i feel worse and worse for brett favre every week, especially now that he's got a running back named samkong gato or something... seeing him lose to charlie batch - who hasn't played in four years - last week must have been pretty painful for him... now this week, he'll have to watch his pack get bombed by the falcons and thier ultimate fraud qb michael vick, who said he's always been a great passer after the first decent game he's played all season last week... i'll give the guy some credit cause his teams win, but i still think they'll never WIN until he consistently learns to throw... this week, against poor favre and the pathetic pack, it won't matter...

CLEVELAND (+8) over pittsburgh
browns won't win, trust me... but they're a bit better than they've been, they're at home and the steelers are still starting charlie batch... closer than you might think, but really, who cares about this game other than people in both cities and joe theismann, who is currently preparing to put you all to sleep with tales of how the steelers are the greatest team since whoever he covered last week...

dallas (+3) over PHILADELPHIA
monday night, in philly... mismatch? yeah, maybe for the cowboys... look, the eagles did the right thing getting rid of looney toons t.o., and it is brave (yet predictable) to hear donovan mcnabb talk about how the team will be able to come together and rise above this mess... but i don't buy it... philly still can't/won't run and are down their biggest weapon in the passing game to boot... plus, the d - usually so tough - suddenly kind of stinks... parcells and the boys smell blood... sayonara, eagles...

last week: 9-4-1
season: 36-45-3

you see, bob, it's not that i'm lazy, it's that i just don't care

2005-11-04T19:27:00.000-05:00

that's right, people... we don't care... fuck the nba and theo-gate and the herald vs. the globe and and high school football players appealing league mandated suspensions for dirty play in district court and all of that shit... we don't give a rat's ass... why? because it's goddamn football season, that's why... and if we needed any more proof that this is where our focus should solely lie, we give you two - 1) taking in a big, nationally televised sunday night game against buffalo at gillette last weekend, and 2) the game of the year (at least until january) coming up monday night, against the ultimate fakers, the colts...

first, let's harken back to a week ago sunday... it was a gorgeous day and a surprisingly mild night (although you wouldn't have known it from looking at the captain, who seemed to think she was on an expedition seeking the abominable snowman in antarctica rather than at a football game - although to her credit, when i got slightly chilly, she loaned me her, gulp, pink scarf)... a sore throat all weekend did not deter me and in the company of the dogg and his lovely bride, the four of us drove down to foxboro, ate some great food, drank some hearty beers and made our way into the stadium, where we would hunker down and watch what quickly became one of the worst football games i've ever seen...

by halfway through the second quarter, with the pats unable to get out of their own way on either side of the ball, being gashed by a backup quarterback named kelly (first name, not last) and generally looking closer to the lynnfield high pioneers than the two-time defending super bowl champions, i actually cheered when the home team did something as mundane as stopping the bills on third down... i screamed without thinking, "ok somebody please do something!!" which drew a laugh from some folks in my section but was not intended as a joke at all - rather it was an impassioned plea for my boys to simply exert their will for i don't know, five minutes, and send these imposters from upstate new york back to niagara falls...

it wasn't happening right away... the pats even fucked up a clock situation at the end of the half, forcing adam into a much tougher kick than he should have had to make, and he missed, leaving buffalo up 3-0 at the break... the captain and i had some nasty french fries at halftime and were barely back in our seats when brady led a sterling, pats-esque drive to finally get his boys on the board... sadly, it was short-lived, as it took the bills about 6.3 seconds to unmask duane starks as the fraud he is for the umpteenth time this year and get back on top... but then something completely noteworthy happened...

naturally, it was tedy bruschi... the ovation when he took the field for the first time since his stroke was deafening (even though the captain and i were still on the 3-mile walk to our seats up top) and i figured, oh that's nice, he'll play 20-30 snaps and take a hot shower and thank god he didn't keel over on the field... but it was so much more than that... he played over 90 percent of the defensive snaps... he made at least 10 tackles... he was everywhere, causing havoc and providing the only semblence of normalcy on the porous new england d... it's not like this wasn't happening in the first half - it was... but when the bills went up 16-7 and it was the fourth quarter and the collective consciousness inside gillette was throwing up in its mouth, bruschi's spirit seemed to almost take over... the pats went on a drive, got a big break on a great catch by branch and pulled to within two on a dillon td plunge... then, just two plays into buffalo's next drive, bruschi caught someone on the left side of the bills line looking where he shouldn't have been, which allowed colvin to dart in, sack the qb, cause a fumble and recover it all in one fell swoop, deep in buffalo territory... three plays later, everyone was screaming and jumping, the captain could suddenly move in her 64 layers, a blinding light flashed from the sky and the pats led 21-16, ultimately the final score...

things were slightly touch and go the rest of the way... the pats had to come up with a couple more stops on d which is always a challenge this year, but with bruschi out there, they did it... there are other guys who haven't missed time playing for the pats this year who have just as many rings as bruschi... but how many of them represent what a champion is any better? brady? anyone else? nope... it's like despite the multitude of problems, the ones all the analysts who hate the pats keep bringing up as they laugh about how the colts will finally break the spell on monday, having bruschi back out there signaled something... you could feel it coursing through the stadium... that life, that swagger, that certain 'i don't know what,' was back... and that's why peyton manning will fall to 0-8 in foxboro on monday... count on it...

ok, on to the picks, which i should remind everyone are for recreational purposes only and if you use them for any reason otherwise, god help you... and also, hi, mom... sorry i cursed a little more in this column - i was slightly fired up, i guess... so here goes...

NEW ENGLAND (+3) over indianapolis
i say that manning is throwing his hands in the air looking like someone just took his pail and shovel away sometime in the middle of the second quarter... close game, pats win in the end and if you don't believe it, see above...

MINNESOTA (even) over detroit
the fun of this dogfest is guessing which team's coach gets fired first... it'll be tight, but the vikings take that one too... man does this game suck...

san diego (-6.5) over NEW YORK JETS
jets still using someone's great uncle at qb, plus chargers have revenge factor for playoff game coach gave away last year... this one could be a blowout...

tennessee (+3) over CLEVELAND
this is an 'i just don't care' game not just because both teams are terrible but because you can't count on either to do what you want... having said that, i'll hold the brownies dropping one to houston last week more deserving of being picked against and take mcnair, all of his rookie wideouts and the titans...

KANSAS CITY (-4.5) over oakland
man did i miss the boat on the raiders last week... i called them an embarrassment so naturally they go out and paste 35 points on tennessee and win going away... maybe they aren't so bad... therefore, the reasonable conclusion is that they will lose this game by at least two touchdowns...

chicago (-3) over NEW ORLEANS/BATON ROUGE
i'm never, ever, ever picking the saints again... plus the bears are in first place... who knew?

cincinnati (-3) over BALTIMORE
give the ravens credit - they probably should have beaten pittsburgh and ben roethlisberger, aka THE MOST INDISPENSIBLE QB IN ALL OF FOOTBALL last week... they played way over their heads in a national game, though, and they're on a short week with their two best defensive players still out, their coach about to be shitcanned and their star running back still stewing... bengals are too good to overcome all that...

carolina (-1.5) over TAMPA BAY
i really wanted to like the bucs this year, even after their qb was lost for the year... but they got rolled by the niners last week... coming off a bye... the niners, dude!!?? panthers take control of the nfc south in this one...

houston (+13.5) over JACKSONVILLE
jags killed me last week in choke-esque loss to the severely undermanned rams, which is one reason why i can't possibly see them covering such a big spread even at home and even against the awful, happy-to-be-here texans... they'll still win fairly easily, though, as houston will suffer the letdown of all letdowns due to actually winning a game last week...

atlanta (-2.5) over MIAMI
don't get on the dolphins bandwagon yet, folks... they may have won big on the road last week, but gus frerotte is still the qb and my drunk regulars could get together and beat the saints at a moment's notice... plus, in case you haven't heard, michael vick is the GREATEST PLAYER IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS... take the falcons...

new york giants (-11) over SAN FRANCISCO
giants are rolling - the whiteout of the redskins was the most impressive win by anyone all year... the niners are a fly on the windshield of the new york express (and god does it kill to say that about a team i despise so royally)... big win for the g-men...

seattle (-4) over ARIZONA
first kurt warner, then josh mccown, then kurt warner at qb for the cardinals... that coach dennis green is so sneaky isn't he? green aims at president of the fraud coach club yet again in this one - hey denny, i'll play qb and get my ass kicked for a fraction of the millions you're shelling out for these stiffs, honest!... i can't believe the spread's only four in this game - seahawks could win by 30...

pittsburgh (-3.5) over GREEN BAY
steelers would probably be a bad pick against anyone else given charlie batch is starting at qb and he hasn't played in four years... but these are the packers and the combination of brett favre's fake spike/10-yard run/underhand toss last week and coach mike sherman walking out of his press conference and cancelling favre's because some poor schmuck's cellphone rang says all there is to know about the sad state of green bay...

WASHINGTON (-3) over philadelphia
things just got worse for the eagles, who finally suspended loud-mouth T.O. indefinitely today... don't be surprised if philly doesn't win 2 more games all year the way things are going right now... skins bounce back from humiliation last week and take crucial division game...

last week: 5-9
season: 27-41-2

starwarstrashcompactorphobia setting in

2005-11-02T15:00:00.000-05:00

this was supposed to be different... i was all set to write this glowing piece about my sterling experience at gillette on sunday night, complete with kudos to the amazing tedy bruschi, tid-bits about the game and the tailgate and enough good-humored jabs at the captain and her 'nanook of the north' get-up worn in relatively mild temperatures, to make even the biggest hater crack a slight grin... but now i'm distracted, like everyone else around these parts is, by theo-gate...

there's no need to rehash the whole bloody saga and all the unseemly details... let me say then that the situation just sucks and the truth is, no matter what you hear on the radio or read in the paper from any of the so-called experts, no one really knows why it happened... i don't even think theo knows for sure, which was made painfully clear at his press conference earlier today, where he and john henry said more without saying anything than anyone i've ever heard around here this side of bill belichick...

this much we know: theo should have been signed up for at least 4-6 years immediately after the team he assembled won boston its first championship in 86 years last october... that the bosses, e.g. larry lucchino, tom werner and henry chose to wait it out of course proved to be a deadly decision - one they will regret, i think, for as long as they are involved in the day-to-day operations of this baseball team... thank god henry, in about the only bit of the press conference that made any sense, admitted that he "blew it"...

but what about theo? does he realize what he's actually doing? i'm not trying to suggest that he thinks he's bigger than the team and that this will come back to bite him in the ass someday, although it certainly might... what i mean is, how could he wait until the last possible second to make such a decision? he claims that his "affection for the red sox does not end (today)," and said that "he will remain on the job for several days... to ensure a smooth and stable transition"... hey, thanks, man... surely, the fan base that is paying the highest average ticket price in baseball will look on those words fondly while ownership scurries around with egg on its collective face trying to find someone willing to be the yes-man theo wasn't going to be and the team sits in a state of complete flux while its free agents (damon) get offers from elsewhere and its stars who want to be traded (manny, wells) chalk up another reason to get the shit out of this black cauldron...

man, the euphoria from last fall feels like it happened before the dinosaurs... look, the bottom line, i think anyway, is that both sides shit the bed here: the sox by waiting, low-balling and leaking what should have been iron-clad, entrusted information to the press, and theo himself, through his timing and by being so vague in his rationale (not that it's his responsibility to tell us anything) as to seem simply impetuous... anyone who wants to blame shaughnessy for his silly column on sunday - a piece that couldn't have come at a worse time but a) had to be written because of the source material it included, and b) was simply a case of the the writer being the messenger and was hardly the reason for theo's decision - can do so, but that's the short-sighted, quick-trigger reaction... at the end of the day, the fault lies at the feet of all the principals involved... take sides if you wish, but don't forget that either one could have stopped this nonsense dead in its tracks well before the breaking point was reached...

ok, i'm going to breathe deeply, promise myself i will keep my theo-gate reading and listening to a minimum from this point forward and begin to prepare for friday's picks column, which will include all that this one does not... until then, lates...

we'll get it fixed, honey... it's on my list of things - right after we get TiVo...

2005-10-28T17:04:00.000-04:00

just got done listening to some balding, stuttering, blithering idiot on espn discussing how the pats are done because their defense was lousy before the bye, how bruschi's return will mean nothing either emotionally or on the field, how they won't even make the playoffs let alone win a game and how peyton manning is god...

don't these douchebags ever learn??

fine, i'll admit for all the constant naysayers out there that things still look less than perfect despite all the things the pats have going for them this week... how do we know how effective/helpful bruschi will be? is corey dillon going to pick it up? will their totally depleted secondary be able to stop anyone's passing game? all this shit is up in the air and the pats aren't close to the sure thing they've been the last two years (hell, one more loss and they'll match their total since 2003 coming into this year)... but to just assume that they are finished at 3-3, tied for first and with the iron of their schedule behind them is ignorant...

on a couple other topics, gotta give props to the white sox for being this year's version of the red sox... they just got every break (and it helped them immensely that houston left 437 runners on base in the four games)... gotta hate on former 2,000 yard rusher jamal lewis, who spent the offseason in prison for his part in a drug deal and now has been quoted as essentially saying he isn't giving his all because he's in the last year of his contract... look, the ravens suck anyway, but what do you think if you're the coach or the management or a teammate? what a team guy... also, that guy todd bertuzzi, the vancouver hockey player who maimed that poor kid from the avalanche a couple years ago and was punished with a 10-game suspension or something not even remotely appropriate given what he did, played in his first game last night... if i was this guy, not only would i donate like $1 million to the avalanche player's favorite charity, i'd kiss the ice every time i played or practiced forever given the fact that i should have gotten 10 years for assault... seriously, i can't even look at this guy, even though i'm suddenly enjoying hockey (except the bruins, of course) for the first time in a long time... i wonder why?

i think i'm gonna be a waiter for halloween... hope you all don't get too wasted or have too much of a tummyache from eating too many twix bars... and, it appears i'll be at the big bruschi return game sunday night in foxboro - thus, as your faithful servant, i'll have a full report on the experience and the sight of #54 back on the field coming early next week... now, on to the picks... oh joy...

NEW ENGLAND (-9) over buffalo
all the reasons why the pats will romp (bruschi, seymour, dillon all back, coming off a bye, brady owns the bills who stink, etc.) outweigh any reasons why the bills could win... feel bad for buffalo, even while you're looking for a spoon to dig your eyeballs out with due to having to listen to joe theismann and paul maguire call the game on espn...

NEW YORK GIANTS (+2.5) over washington
giants found something in that comeback over denver last week that not many teams have and that's a special qb... eli manning is the goods, painful as it is to say... i'll bet he wins more titles than his brother too... and this week, the giants may be playing a tough division game against a great defense, but the emotion due to the loss of their longtime owner during the week combined with all this newfound swagger will carry them...

CINCINNATI (-9) over green bay
anyone think brett favre wishes he'd just called it a career after the pack got routed by (gulp) the vikings at home in the playoffs last year? i'll bet he does, especially now that he's down to third-stringers at back and receiver... benagls bounce back from bad loss to steelers and crush green bay...

chicago (+3) over DETROIT
two teams playing for first place in the division and both are at .500... yullchh... lions are better with jeff garcia at qb and are at home but they still pretty much stink (they barely beat awful cleveland last week)... the bears run the ball down your throat and have an awesome d...

CAROLINA (-7.5) over minnesota
i'm surprised the vikings didn't celebrate their last second win last week with a boat trip with a bunch of drugs and hookers... they may need another restful, relaxing pleasure cruise after they get routed by jake delhomme, steve smith and the panthers...

TENNESSEE (+1) over oakland
i may have been wrong about kerry collins, norv turner and the raiders last week, but really, who wants to take them two straight weeks, especially with this game on the road?... the titans aren't even that good but the raiders are such an embarassment, i wouldn't be surprised to see them think all they have to do is show up and subsequently lose by 30...

arizona (+9) over DALLAS
cowboys still can't put anyone away and drew bledsoe still is just as likely to piss a game away as win it, both evidenced last week in the loss to seattle... but arizona really stinks and the game is in big d, so the cowboys should hold on even though it'll be close...

cleveland (+2) over HOUSTON
the texans are winless and the favorites... truly unbelievable, even against the lousy browns at home... houston has to win someday, but not this week in the worst game of the season so far... they will top the astros entire output in the four games of the world series, though...

NEW ORLEANS (-2.5) over miami
saints sort of closer to home, playing this game in baton rouge... they are truly horrible and get no breaks, ever, which isn't a recipe for winning very much... but miami is getting worse and gus frerotte may be the worst quarterback in the nfl (11-25 for 127 with two picks and benched last week against the awful chiefs defense at home)... saints win, but don't get on their bandwagon or anything...

JACKSONVILLE (-3) over st. louis
you may be wondering why i'm picking against the rams at home after coming back to win from 17-0 down last week... because it was against the saints, that's why... jacksonville has a good defense and is likely going to the playoffs while st. louis will be missing its qb and two top receivers and also bans its hospital bed-ridden coach from calling the locker room at halftime... take the jags...

kansas city (+6) over SAN DIEGO
chargers are 3-4 and could be 7-0 if they knew how to finish games... that goes directly to the coach, marty schottenheimer, who has proven beyond the shadow of a doubt over his last 20 years of coaching that no one is better at blowing games that should be won... that said, the chiefs don't have enough defense to stop all of the chargers' weapons and the home team (which will likely be done with another loss, especially in the division) will squeak it out...

SAN FRANCISCO (+11) over tampa bay
this one's tough because the niners gave up 264 points last week and are starting their third qb of the year in this game... but the bucs, while good, are starting a virtual rookie at qb themselves and are on the road... they win, but not without a fight from san fran...

DENVER (-3.5) over philadelphia
the broncos are kicking themselves about blowing it against the giants last week... the eagles are as lucky as it gets as they should have lost to the chargers but won on that blocked field goal... look, the game's in denver, the eagles refuse to run the ball even a little and have division games the next three weeks... not sure donovan mcnabb will be able to hold up throwing on every play in this one...

PITTSBURGH (-10) over baltimore
as if the ravens weren't bad enough with no qb and a running back who admittedly dogs it, now their two best defensive players are out and thy're on the road... this one could get ugly and fast...

last week: 4-9-1
season: 22-32-2

"there was jock itch on my finger"

2005-10-21T13:23:00.000-04:00

frustration is the name of the game... on one end of the spectrum, it was sunday, corey dillon was in uniform and it was announced he would start against denver... then, he stood on the sidelines, watched patrick pass and amos zeruoue take all the snaps and stood silently as my espn team was crushed due to his absence (actually, my team in that league is so bad, i would have been crushed anyway)...

on the other end of the spectrum, the captain and i went 12 for 14 last week, our best weekend of the year - even better than week 1 when we were winners (and thank god, that pool is just straight-up picking or else i would have been out of a job weeks ago) ... all that kept us from ultimate paydirt was shitty tommy maddox throwing the ball to the other team in OT for the steelers and control-freak, ego-maniac tom coughlin putting a rookie in at the goal line against dallas instead of his all-pro starter, followed by the inevitable fumble... the result? a perfect week by some other dude who probably picked his winners based on which cities he's vacationed in and an excruciating loss... seriously, 12 out of 14 is more than solid, it's prescient... and then to lose to someone who had a perfect day? bullshit...

of course, i may just be complaining about all this in order to keep myself from bitching about what's really on my mind, e.g. the pats being so un-pat like (some of the shit a couple players have said this week may get them cattle-prodded by the coach - thank god for the bye week), roger clemens getting to go for another world series (by the way, it says here the pick is white sox in six - how the hell is houston going to score enough runs to win???), the hubub about the nba dress code (paul pierce's claim that he's an entertainer and therefore should be able to do, say and wear what he wants as if he was axl rose, liberace or madonna takes the cake - just shut up and wear a frickin suit, man!!) the continued fallout from the vikings' love boat cruise (i'm telling you, they could care less that they stink because they can still fly strippers and hookers in from other cities whenever they want - good times!) the fact that the bruins suck despite claiming to be the masterminds behind the new salary structure (which, naturally, still hasn't kept them from being total skinflints)... that new movie with robert downey, jr. and val kilmer that came out today... gotta see it - downey rules, of course, and i read something today that said kilmer is as good in it as anything since (drumroll) 'real genius'!!??!! awesome, dude... oh yeah, and the title of this column, not just a crass remark, but an actual quote from an aquaintance of mine describing bar rot... priceless... and one more thing: welcome back, tedy...

but i digress... we're all here for picking purposes (well, at least i am)... i actually had a winning record last week (thanks to a tie vs. the spread) and i expect to improve on that this week... still, i again wouldn't recommend taking one iota of this seriously... so, with that in mind...

new orleans (+3) over ST. LOUIS
god, what a stinker of a game... either team could win something like 45-42 or 10-9, but the rams will probably squeak it out even though their qb is out and their interim coach looks like a '70s porn star... the saints always find ways to lose close games they should win, just like this one...

GREEN BAY (-2) over minnesota
if the vikings don't fire mike tice after this one, i will be permanently convinced that the new owner was on the sex boat and tice has photographic evidence... packers, who will be 2-4 after the game, are the favorites to win the pathetic nfc north, i say...

indianapolis (-16) over HOUSTON
of course i was wrong about the colts being two touchdown faves last week (even after they fell behind 17-0 - it was the rams for christ's sake!) so i'll go against one of my personal rules which is to never take a team giving more than 10.5, and say indy beats the worst team in the league by at least four scores... and if houston coach dom capers doesn't get fired after this one, my guess is that the texans' owner was on the sex boat in minnesota too...

pittsburgh (+1) over CINCINNATI
bengals are for real, but can they beat a tough division rival that needs the game quite yet? i say no, though it will be close... and even though i hate the steelers, thank god for their fans that tommy maddox will never play another game for them... i'm sure i'm not the only one he cost last week...

san diego (+4) over PHILADELPHIA
the eagles win close because their home, they had a bye, the chargers are flying cross-country and drew brees isn't the same guy on the road... but this one could further expose philly as for unreal this season... sooner or later, mcnabb is going to fall apart with the amount of injuries he has and the fact that knowing this, they still have him throw 100 times a game and don't even try to run is beyond me...

MIAMI (-1.5) over kansas city
playing tonight due to hurricane wilma... dolphins are decent at home and kc defense stinks... plus, short week favors miami cause they didn't have to travel... keep your fingers crossed for florida, especially the southwest coast...

CLEVELAND (-3) over detroit
man, is it tough to pick cleveland giving points over anyone... but they're home and detroit, despite being in first in the pathetic nfc north, are a sad, sad team... no qb, wideouts all hurt or suspended for getting high, runner doing absolutely nothing and defensive guys about ready to mutiny against strangely, suddenly incompetent-seeming coach... just doesn't make sense, but it is what it is... cleveland isn't that good, but the dysfunctional lions make them look positively pats-like...

san francisco (+12.5) over WASHINGTON
niners show some life, only lose by 10 or so... i don't care about this game at all, so i'll ask this: remember in 'high fidelity' when john cusack says to the little guy, "i will now sell five copies of 'the three EPs' by the beta band," and the little guy says, "do it," and cusack turns up the volume on 'dry the rain' and everyone starts kind of dancing and talking about it and he just grins? such a great scene...

SEATTLE (-3) over dallas
well, the cowboys are due for a comedown and on the road against the tough (strange to use that adjective about seattle) seahawks, it will happen... by the way, hear about the seattle corner who got his skull fractured in a bar fight last weekend and then the coach subsequently banning any player, coach or staff member from hanging out in the most historic area of the city as a consequence? what would mike tice have done?

buffalo (+3) over OAKLAND
bills and their journeyman qb (and my starter in 2 leagues this week) further get into an afc east dogfight by humiliating the ghastly raiders in oak-town... let's add norv turner's name to the endangered coach list, shall we? man has he gotten nothing out of the talent on this team... although, having to depend on fat, out-of-shape, over-the-hill warren sapp on defense hurts...

baltimore (+1) over CHICAGO
let's see, both teams have stout defenses and horrible offenses... truth is, the bears have a better shot here, but the ravens need it more since the bears can go 6-10 and win the (everybody!!) pathetic nfc north...

tennessee (+3.5) over ARIZONA
can anyone take arizona ever, especially giving points? the cards' supremely arrogant, ridiculous, overrated coach dennis green taking himself and his lousy team WAY too seriously by not announcing his starting qb till gametime makes them even more laughable... watch the titans - they're getting better and their coach, jeff fisher, is a good one...

NEW YORK GIANTS (-2) over denver
the giants absolutely killed me last week with eli manning looking like he just wet his pants on the 50-yard-line in dallas and coach coughlin outsmarting himself... well this week, they're back at home against denver, who starts 5-1 every year then falls off the map... this year's fall starts this week and if you don't believe it, look at how close the broncos came to blowing that 25 point lead against the pats in the fourth quarter last week...

ATLANTA (-7) over new york jets
even though curtis martin will probably run for 300 yards on the lousy falcons defense, the fact is the jets qb is still 65 years old and that just won't cut it...

last week: 7-6-1
season: 18-23-1

resurrection blvd.

2005-10-14T19:06:00.000-04:00

there's no logical explanation... it's not as easy to decipher as watching some former power hitter in baseball suddenly lose 25 pounds then hit .230 with 12 homers following the approval of a new steroid policy... seeing a bunch of scrubs who looked like there was nothing left in the tank as recently as last winter are tearing it up, making life heavenly for their teams and their fantasy owners... to wit:

drew blesdsoe - here's a guy we know all too well in these parts... in the final game of the season last year for buffalo, all drew had to do was beat the fourth-string pittsburgh defense at home and his team would be in the playoffs... so naturally, as has been his custom in big games since practically the beginning of time, drew shit the bed, threw multiple picks, lost a couple of fumbles and watched his team get summarily booted from any postseason shot... the bills were so furious that they kicked him to the curb in favor of a second-year guy who has since been benched... drew's old coach bill parcells was the only one to show any faith, bringing the statue to dallas to lead the cowboys... i laughed my ass of when i saw that crawl on the bottom line, and continued to laugh all through the preseason, and even after he led the 'boys to a big week 1 road win over the chargers and everyone in my fantasy league scrambled to sign him... well, after five games, dallas is 3-2, it crushed the eagles of all teams last week, and drew is 98-159 (61.6 percent) for 1,351 yards with 10 touchdowns and only three picks... his rating is 102 and he's the leading passer in the nfc... no, fans, it isn't 1994, and you aren't having another flashback... he really looks this good... i think the other shoe will eventually drop, and drew will remind us who he really is before the season is out... but for now, what he's doing is hard to ignore...
trent dilfer - won a super bowl in 2001, got fired anyway and was a rarely used backup for a bad team for the next four years... now, he's the man in cleveland for romeo crennel and the revamped browns and he looks great... dilfer sports a more than respectable 91.5 rating and has clearly had an effect on a young, rebuilding team that realistically should only go 4-12 this year... this week, he gets to play baltimore, the team that sent him packing after he led it to a title and has had one shitty qb after another ever since... personally, i hope he throws 5 scores and the browns humiliate the ravens and their unbearable, know-it-all coach brian billick... don't be surprised if dilfer's leadership skills and experience allow the browns to steal a couple extra wins...
the washington redskins - so these guys haven't made the playoffs in seven years, mostly because of an owner with a short guy complex who thinks spending money and running the show like fantasy football is the way to win... last year it seemed like he finally figured out that wasn't the way to go so he brought back hall-of-fame coach joe gibbs, who won three rings with the 'skins... it seemed like everything was set to turn around last season, but that was until the games started and washington's offense looked like a tractor pull on a weekly basis... no real big changes were really made this year and it looked like the redskins would stink again and the game had passed gibbs by... but their qb mark brunell (another completely out of the blue resurrection) has been playing like he did in the late '90s for jacksonville, the defense is stout and suddenly, washington is 3-1 and gibbs looks like a genius again... granted, the 'skins could well be 0-4, as each of their games could have easily gone either way... but they've gone the washington way and the redskins, almost inexplicably, are well set up for the playoffs...

anyway, i could name more - there are several... but i have to (gulp) make picks... as usual, don't take a word of this seriously, and if you're actually going to make wagers, please, please, please, i beg of you, don't use any of what you're about to read as a guide... so with that in mind...

BRONCOS (-3) over pats
man, does this suck... i don't think i've picked against the pats since the second week of the 2003 season... but even though tom brady would rather gouge his eyes out with a soup spoon than lose and plays like it, i just can't see a win... no one (except the pats, of course, on the intentional safety play two years ago) wins in denver, even with jake plummer quarterbacking the broncos... sadly, the pats fall this week, but then comes the bye and after that, we'll see a lot of winning from the champs...

new york giants (+3.5) over DALLAS
see above on the cowboys and their offense (terry glenn is another legit resurrection guy) and the defense is better than last year... but the big win over the eagles last week will cause a let down and the giants, who are WAY better than i thought they were, are coming off a bye... cowboys could lose this one by double digits...

carolina (+1) over DETROIT
injuries on offense for the panthers and the lions are coming off an impressive home win... but as long as joey harrington (who looks more scared than anyone pro athlete i've seen in a long time and will be playing without at least two of his top 4 wideouts - who he can't hit even when they're healthy) is at the helm for detroit, they aren't going to win much, especially against a top defense like carolina...

atlanta (-5.5) over SAN ANTONIO/NEW ORLEANS
the saints, who are the most inconsistent team in the nfl (as much talent as any team but capable of looking equal parts horrible and great at any time), are in one of their awful stretches right now, as evidenced by their 49 point loss to previously winless green bay last week... god do they stink, and their best weapon on offense, deuce mcallister, is out for the year with a ripped up knee... mike vick may not play again for atlanta, but it doesn't matter - falcons win...

CHICAGO (-3) over minnesota
both teams stink, but the bears are at home, have a good defense and weren't plagued by reports of a massive orgy on a rented boat all week... things just get worse for the vikings but hey, at least some of them got laid by a bunch of hookers and strippers...

washington (+6) over KANSAS CITY
the afore-mentioned 'skins are one two-point conversion from being undefeated... the chiefs are coming off a bye, were humiliated at home two weeks ago after blowing an 18-point lead to philly, and have to win this week... they pull it out, but washington covers...

cincinnati (-3) over TENNESSEE
bengals finally lost last week but are still the better team here... give the titans credit for winning a couple of games and playing so tough despite having the youngest team in the league and a quarterback who gets hurt every week... but there's too much firepower on the bengals for the inexperienced tennessee defense to contain...

PITTSBURGH (-3) over jacksonville
steelers will be missing starting qb and no. 1 receiver but they don't lose at home (except to the pats)... defense is so tough and jacksonville, despite being much better, still isn't at the point where a) it can win on the road, or b) can put the game on the shoulders of its quarterback and pull one out...

cleveland (+5.5) over BALTIMORE
ok, the disgusting ravens (21 penalties, two player ejections for hitting referees last week) will win a close one because at 1-3 and at home, they're absolutely deperate... but, as i said before, here's hoping trent dilfer runs it up on his former team and the coach who let him go for nothing...

miami (+5.5) over TAMPA BAY
the dolphins get ricky williams back this week which means what? that they'll lose by a field goal, but everyone will probably smoke some really crippy bud after the game... tampa and its defense at home will be too tough for the up-and-coming dolphins... if cadillac williams plays for the bucs, they could even cover...

BUFFALO (-3) over new york jets
even though the bills' journeyman scrub qb kelly holcomb is only slightly better than their pseudo-rookie/soon-to-be journeyman scrub qb jp losman, he'll be enough along with the defense to hold off the jets in orchard park... the luster of bringing back 94-year-old vinny testaverde will have worn off by the time this game rolls around for the destined-to-be 6-10 jets...

san diego (-2) over OAKLAND
the raiders are home and coming off a bye, but really, it's impossible to pick them against any team that is at least remotely decent on offense... the oakland d is so awful, drew brees, ladanian tomlinson and antonio gates could all have career games this week... plus, never trust oak-town qb kerry collins or coach norv turner, especially in a game that may look winnable to them...

SEATTLE (-9.5) over houston
the seahawks are pretty good, they are playing at home and the texans are the worst team in the nfl... that's all that needs to be said...

st. louis (+13.5) over INDIANAPOLIS
i hate the rams - they're terrible and they have no chance to win this game... but the spread feels too big for some reason... st. louis could step it up for their sick coach mike martz, although they may not because i keep reading that everyone hates him... meanwhile, the colts keep rolling on their collision course with the pats and another loss in foxboro on monday night, nov. 7...

two weeks ago: 7-7
season: 11-17

nice man purse...

2005-10-11T22:48:00.000-04:00

wow, writing about how much a-rod sucks made me want to dust this classic off... hope he didn't get any dirt or anything on that bag - it looks expensive...

yabba-dabba d'oh!

2005-10-11T21:48:00.000-04:00

i'm just trying to pick up the pieces from the last few days, you know? minding my own business, thinking about football and the sox losing and the yankees losing too, and being psyched to see a hockey game for the first time in years and all this other shit and i can't stop coming back to how depressing it is to see fred flintstone and barney rubble in this new, freakin pathetic midas commercial with these voices that may as well be charlton heston or jerry remy or my next door neighbor, for all they sound like the real thing... man, it's so depressing... i mean i realize the company has to keep trying to make money and it's only a commercial - it's not like there's any new episodes of "the flintstones" or anything but wouldn't it be nice if the new fred voice was even a slight approximation of the real thing? i love that cartoon, and now whenever i see some rerun on cartoon network, i'm gonna think about how awful his voice sounds in the new midas commercial while he's getting slurped by dino or barney's getting his ass kicked by bam-bam...

but i digress... i'm kind of disappointed in myself for not making my picks over the weekend... i was feeling pretty distressed about the red sox getting swept by the white sox on friday, plus i'd just sat through one of the all-time worst high school football games, so instead of coming home and making my selections, i drank several glasses of maker's mark, rendering any productivity in a realm other than stumbling, slurring words or passing out completely impossible...

it's probably good that i didn't embarrass myself further in the picking department as it smelled all week like a sub-.500 effort was the only possibility... but one thing i did notice was that i would have taken the pats and been right... everyone was picking against them (naturally) due to the drubbing at the hands of the chargers last sunday and all the injuries on defense and the offensive line... and granted, the defense really looked awful - the falcons' backup quarterback looked like johnny unitas... but they made just enough plays and just happened to have that guy tom brady, aka, the best player in the nfl, as well as the best clutch kicker ever, adam vinatieri, so i was right on that one after all... it's funny, but the pats, as if we should expect anything any different, are still the masters of removing distractions and ignoring adversity and winning when they have to... if they had lost sunday, which would have been two in a row, they would have had to win in denver this weekend or be 2-4 going into the bye - a lousy position to be in... so of course, they won, climbing on brady's back... the pats may not win their third super bowl in a row this year, but they are still the model sports team of the last several years in the way they conduct themselves, the way they motivate each other and the way they win every game they have to win... it's pretty damn remarkable...

the win, along with the yankees' loss last night, took a bit of the edge off of the red sox losing... there really isn't anything to say about the sox that you don't already know - they weren't the same team as last year, there wasn't enough pitching, damon, nixon and varitek were all cooked, if it weren't for all of big papi's theatrics, they probably wouldn't have even sniffed the playoffs, etc... so it was easy to get over, especially after the hangover wore off... so instead, let's just comment quickly on the yankees, the worst team money can buy... it so figured that a-rod sucked in the series, in particular last night (that double play in the ninth signified completely why big papi should win mvp instead of the fraud)... the guy is a numbers guy, period - polished and phony as his purple lip gloss... put him somewhere important where his team needs to feed off of him and forget it, you get 2-15 with no homers and no RBI for the series... and when you add to that randy johnson sucking in the very game they got him for, pizzaface matsui being invisible, bubba (or billy bob, as the captain so hilariously called him - harharharhar) crosby having to play center field in an elimination game and wiping out sheff on that collision play in the third, mussina not coming up big in a big game, AGAIN, cano being supremely talented but utterly too lakadaisical and not being able to properly bridge to rivera, the yanks were done... it will be interesting to see who's back for them next year... i'll wager that joe torre is gone, a byproduct of feeling like he can't go any further with what he has and the fact that steinbrenner will probably fire the gm... still, you have to hand it to jeter... i can't stand him but he's so damn good - the homer to cut the lead in the seventh and the leadoff hit to bring the tying run to the plate in the ninth were both so utterly predictable, anyone who's ever watched a baseball game couldn't have been surprised... and hats off to bernie williams, who hopefully will put himself out of his misery and retire... i probably have more respect for bernie than any yankee other than jeter (and from the title teams, paul o'neill)... he was always the classiest guy out there and when he was in his prime, as scary good as it gets...

ok, i'm worn out... i have to say, it will be nice to be able to relax during the week sports-wise and save all the energy for sundays for the foreseeable future... on the tv and movie front, you all should check out "my name is earl" with jason lee on tuesday nights - hilarious, although i heard jason, one of my all-time favorites, has turned to the dark side of scientology... and if you like a good, short, tension filled movie, see "good night, and good luck" about edward r. murrow, the most famous journalist of all-time, taking on senator joe mccarthy during the communist witch hunts of the 1950s... it's pretty much a docudrama but it's as taut as a thriller and it looks so awesome because it's in black and white... good shit... and with that i'm out... new column coming later in the week in which i will further humiliate myself with more football picks... until then, lates...

7 and 7s mostly just suck

2005-10-04T22:52:00.000-04:00

i'm getting better, in microminiscule increments...

i went 7-7 this week which under certain circumstances is a tasty beverage but when picking football games, is the definition of mediocre... it may be a three-game improvement, but it's basically akin to getting to getting a shitty score on a standardized test like the sat or something, paying like a grand for a course designed to improve your score then doing like 40 points better... maybe i should start setting point spreads for high school games... i'll take masconomet -28 over lynnfield this friday night...

it's still baseball season as well... how can i be expected to possibly follow everything going on in the nfl right now when i'm forced to ride the red sox october roller coaster again? on sunday, the sheer misery brought on by the patriots' disgusting loss to the chargers was somewhat tempered by the fact that the sox were clinching a playoff berth just a couple channels over... that and the fact that i went to bed at 6:30 a.m. sunday morning and wouldn't have known the difference if i was in nigeria...

so anyway, i'm going to reserve further comment until later... i'm still coming to grips with those innumerable topics/distractions like how the pats can bounce back this week in atlanta, whether the sox will win by more or less than 7 runs tomorrow in the aftermath of today's rout at the hands of the white sox, how matt clement can simultaneously look like abe lincoln's great, great, great grandson and derek lowe after a long evening of drinks and hookers on sinatra night at lucky's, how bad the new al pacino/matthew mcconaughey gambling opus will be and subsequently how quickly it will be gone from theatres, if it's really going to continue to feel like june in these parts throughout october, how hideki matsui's face can look so much like a pepperoni pizza and if my new experiment - ceasing to title my posts with movie quotes (unless it's necessary) - will work, among other things...

ok, so that's all for now... i bid you all a fond adieu and a rich, happy new year... stay tuned for more, sooner than you think... lates...

i'll teach you football... i'll teach you anything, just don't eat me

2005-10-01T19:38:00.000-04:00

so i'm a bit late for this week's picks a) because it's been a trying week and an even busier weekend so far, b) i'm still in total baseball mode and c) because i'm rather embarrassed that i got only 4 out of 14 right last week... oh well, at least i'm secure in my other picking job (at least on a week-to-week basis), so without further ado, here we go with this week's picks (home team in CAPS) for week 4 with some more commentary/analysis to come later...

PATS (-5.5) over chargers
injuries really hurt pats but other than lt, san diego isn't that good and pats will have pulled together even more after last week's huge win

broncos (+4) over JAGUARS
j'ville - and its awesome D - wins the game close as denver can't get quite right after short week so far from home

BENGALS (-9.5) over texans
cincy has that flavor of the month feel, but houston - despite coming off a bye and firing its o-coordinator - just stinks

TITANS (+7) over colts
is this the week manning and the colts O finally busts out? i say probably, but home team plays tough, keeps it close

CHIEFS (-2) over eagles
kc is so tough at home and philly is just too banged up to beat a good team away from the crib

BUCS (-6.5) over lions
tampa and cadillac williams are for real and detroit, which has won like 2 road games in the last decade, is currently self-destructing yet again

GIANTS (-3) over rams
even though they got rocked last week, the giants are on the upswing and does anyone really think st. louis can beat a decent team outside on the road?

SAINTS (pick) over bills
sloppy saints will be jazzed for their first "home" game in san antonio against supremely overrated buffalo

REDSKINS (-2) over seahawks
this is a tough one (both teams are totally mediocre) so we'll play the percentages and go with the home team by a field goal

jets (+7) over RAVENS
ravens win due to defense and NY qb woes, but baltimore's so bad as well, look for something like a 7-6 final

FALCONS (-6) over vikings
there, now that the vikes got that first win at home against another crappy team out of the way, they and coach tice will return to the land of the lousy

RAIDERS (-3) over cowboys
oakland, which has looked as good as an 0-3 team can, has to win and playing road-weary dallas at home helps the cause

49ers (+2.5) over CARDINALS
residents of mexico city get to watch two of the league's worst teams in what could be the season's worst game

packers (+7.5) over PANTHERS
carolina wins a close one at home as it just keeps getting worse for brett favre and company

last week: 4-10
season: 4-10

i was first team all-state... i can put the ball anywhere i want to - i'll make it rain out here

2005-09-23T13:41:00.000-04:00

so after all of my meticulous research i've determined the following: it's too soon to know a goddamn thing except that a majority of teams in the nfl absolutely stink... what do we really know after two weeks? the cardinals, texans, ravens, niners and vikings are bottom of the barrel... but lots of other teams are threatening to join them...

take the broncos and the chargers... their game last week was like a race between the two coaches, marty schottenheimer and mike shanahan, to see who could throttle himself fastest... sadly, it took until the final 10 seconds for a winner to emerge but, like the old, reliable choker that he is, marty squeezed hardest...

then there's the seattle seahawks, who, in their home opener, raced out to a 21-0 lead, got outscored 18-0 in the second half and had to rely on a late michael vick hamstring pull (get used to seeing phrases like that all year, dear friends) then celebrated like they'd just toughed out the nfc title game...

the cowboys, who could have and should have beaten sorry, no-account washington with their eyes closed, let the skins beat them deep twice in the last four minutes, inexplicably tried to throw the ball in the waning minutes instead of running out the clock and subsequently had to rely on drew the statue to lead a last second comeback... even worse, when the redskins finally won, a bunch of players doused over-the-hill/used-to-be-genius coach joe gibbs with gatorade and gibbs, who only has three super bowl rings, jumped up and down with his boys like he'd just won american idol... sad, sad, sad...

shit, even the pats were horrible - it was painful to watch dillon dancing behind the line of scrimmage and brady get eaten alive by the panthers blitz... but so what... the truth is, we won't really know anything - except that a) it's going to start getting cold soon, b) the red sox are in big trouble, c) anyone who rushed to sign drew the statue to their fantasy team after the first couple weeks WILL regret it and d) the blaze thinks that football is a metaphor for latent homosexuality - until at least week 5 or 6... i know, i'm not breaking any new ground here in the slightest, but shit, that's all we can really say after 2 damn weeks... will the bengals stay this explosive? doubtful... are the bears really as good as they looked against detroit? hardly... is peyton manning going to look so impotent all year? i hope so, but probably not... does chad pennington really suck this bad... well, um... yeah...

anyway, we'll know more after this weekend (including whether or not i still have a job picking games), but still not enough... so just try to stay patient, y'all... and try not to laugh too hard when the "experts" like merrill hoge, sean salisbury and those two fat guys on espn act like they know more than you... you know what? they don't...

ok, here are the picks for week 3 (home teams in CAPS)... any of you who are actually planning on gambling and even remotely using my "wisdom" as a guide, may god be with you...

pats (+3) over STEELERS
bounce back day for the toughest team in the nfl against a team they know how to beat

RAMS (-6.5) over titans
st. louis is pretty lousy but they always play well at home and the titans don't quite have it yet

EAGLES (-8) over raiders
big spread but eagles are at home and oakland d is putrid

BEARS (+3) over bengals
finally cincy faces a good d and comes back to earth

jaguars (+2.5) over JETS
two qbs, same alma mater, one tough and on the rise, the other with a weaker arm than swifty

saints (+4) over VIKINGS
road dogs win again as sorry vikes move one week closer to fraud coach mike tice getting shitcanned

panthers (-3) over DOLPHINS
miami is on the right track but i saw the panthers last week and they're just too tough

COLTS (-13.5) over browns
forget the huge spread, this is the week the colts finally get right on offense

BILLS (-3) over falcons
michael vick will play which likely means at least 3 turnovers against ferocious bills d

bucs (-3.5) over PACKERS
man is it sad to see brett favre go out like this... coach sherman will be next one gone after tice

cardinals (+6.5) over SEAHAWKS
awful cards won't win but how can anyone like seattle giving that many points against anyone?

cowboys (-6.5) over 49ERS
'boys lucky to have bounce back game against one of the worst teams in the league

CHARGERS (-5.5) over giants
chargers have to win or season's pretty much done - even marty the choker won't screw that up

BRONCOS (-3) over chiefs
kc is for real and i don't like denver at all, but the broncos are a near lock at home on monday night

that's all, folks... until next time... lates...

it's sort of an anti-pep rally... we're trying to show that football is just a cryptofascist metaphor for nuclear war

2005-09-22T01:13:00.000-04:00

i just don't get it... i spent over a month not writing here so that i could study football and truly understand the inner nuances and characteristics of this season... i figured hey, i may as well try to learn as much as i possibly can because if the red sox choke (gulp), i'm gonna have to channel my energies onto another avenue...

now, we're well into preperations for week 3 and i'm frickin perplexed... i go from winning my pool and taking 2 out of 3 fantasy matchups (with the third a wicked close loss) in week 1 to more wrong picks than right (and double secret probabtion from the captain) in the pool and two of the worst fantasy teams on record in week 2... ahem, could somebody explain please?

it all starts, naturally, with the pats... they were bound to play shitty sooner or later and in charlotte against a hungry team that can't lose 2 straight at home, they shit the bed... the defense was ok, but brady had one of his poorer games, dillon can't run, the line is a mess, the special teams are atrocious and again, there are about 47 injuries in the secondary... what does it all mean? probably that they'll beat up the overrated steelers on sunday, that's what...

seriously, where's the logic? if you think it's hard to understand how the saints could be playing in new jersey against the giants and have it be called a home game, try figuring out some of these teams, like, say, the giants... they were excruciatingly awful last year - every decision they made after week 8 was wrong, they limped home at 6-10 and brought back pretty much all of the same people... so of course, they're 2-0 (wisely, i've picked against them two straight weeks)... or the vikings?? people who said losing randy moss would help them are clearly on crack - now they look like they'd have a tough time against lynnfield high... and it doesn't help that their coach shouldn't even be coaching those same pioneers let alone an nfl team... my bet is he's shitcanned before halloween...

the redskins (no tds in their first 116 minutes of the year, two in the next 4 and a huge upset win), the bears (rolling 38 points with a fourth-rounder at qb??), the ravens (the same amount of punts, 10, in two games, as points) and the train wreck packers, who will also have a coach out of a job within the next month and have brett favre (who by the way once was great and now is TERRIBLE) looking like he's about 72 years old, are all contributors to the confusion... it's to the point where i'm so flummoxed, i may just have to say fuck it, not watch games on sundays and just like wait tables instead (uh... wait a minute...)

but you know what? it's ok... it's football, baby... there's nothing like it... things rarely go as planned in the nfl (except of course the pats being the best team but that's a whole other column) and all the expert insight, wasted hours watching the nfl network (the best channel on tv during the season, by the way) and late night phone calls to your buddy in chicago trying to convince him to please trade you a wide receiver because you drafted javon walker, won't change it... it really is the one of the best times of the year, even if it means it will be freezing outside in a matter of weeks, whether you can figure the whole thing out or not... but if you can't, like me (at least not yet), trying to understand it just makes it all the more exciting...

thanks for sticking with me during the long hiatus, folks... i'm really going to try to be on here more often... check back soon for what to look for in games this weekend... and with that, i bid you all a fond lates...

they're in the computer... it's so simple!

2005-08-16T00:03:00.000-04:00

"welcome to sportscenter, i'm dan clueless...this just in to the espn news desk... we're going to go live to sal get-a-life who is standing outside a men's room in the philadelphia eagles locker room at the team's training camp in bethlehem, pennsylvania... sal, what can you tell us about this latest, breaking story on t.o.?"

"well, dan, it appears t.o. has a bad case of the shits because he had three grande chalupas at taco bell for lunch today... he's been in there for over an hour and there's not telling when he might emerge to tell his side of this most controversial story... dan..."

"sal, that's just stunning... what did donovan mcnabb and eagles coach andy reid have to say about these shocking developments???"

"dan, there was an eerie silence coming from both donovan mcnabb's locker and the eagles administrative offices, perhaps suggesting further proof that the team is just fed up with t.o.'s shenanigans and only interested in distancing themselves from the entire, sordid situation... back to you, dan..."

"sal get-a-life, we'll return for more info on this latest, most astounding chapter in the t.o. saga later on in sportscenter... thank you sal... coming up after the break, the yankees... why gary sheffield's flat tire on the brooklyn/queens expressway on the way to the stadium this afternoon could spell the end of the season for the bombers... also, we'll head out to the city of angels where shelley suck-up will file a report on kobe and phil getting reunited... why does their passing each other in glendale mall and only stopping to chat for 4 and a half minutes mean certain trouble for the lakers despite the fact that the season is over two months away? more after this..."

i'm tired of the fantasy, because it doesn't really exist... and there are never really any surprises, and it never really...

2005-07-19T18:33:00.000-04:00

the next word of the quote (from "high fidelity") is 'delivers...' but i beg to differ because i have FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO PUT FUCKIN PHOTOS ON THIS THING!!! therefore, i will celebrate accordingly - see above...

and besides, this is about 200,000 times more interesting than anything i've ever written here, right?

a lot of people go to college for seven years... i know - they're called doctors...

2005-07-16T20:12:00.000-04:00

it really is extraordinary... people tell me they find baseball boring, especially in the middle of the regular season - even if they like it... ok, fine, i'll admit it - pretty much all regular season games, especially at this point of the year, aren't exactly frickin must see tv...

but i'm telling you, the sox and the yanks - they transcend everything... so many issues, storylines, plot twists and character flaws become exposed for all to see more frequently and more graphically when they play each other... maybe i should be used to it after this long, but i don't think that will ever happen...

for starters, it's the reactionary gene prevalent in all breathing members of red sox nation... this town is as reactionary as it gets as we all know, but when the yanks are on the docket, it's heightened, as if that's possible... shaughnessy writes a whole column about how they lost saturday's game because of a baserunning snafu, neglecting to mention the hideous starting pitching performance that put them in a 6-run hole, the almost home run by papi that would have changed things drastically, or the amount of men left on base... second-guessing to the nth degree...

it's the way the two teams play each other... every damn game has to be in some way out of the ordinary... thursday its schilling's triumphant/horrifying return, friday its a 17-1 beatdown, saturday it's fateful stuff (that ball papi hit went 420 goddamn feet and was an out!!!) and tonight was bad luck at the worst time (to go from bases loaded with no one out and two runs home against rivera to the game being over in the span of 2 pitches is quite a little mood swing, no?)... seemingly every game they've played the last three years have been like that... the red sox won't play say kansas city a game like any of these twice, EVER...

it's the atmosphere at fenway for a game... sox games i've been to at yankee stadium are always exciting, always packed, always more intense than any old game and always less magnetic by half than when the teams play here... thursday night, we saw the sox blow leads of 4-0, 5-2 and 6-5, watched sheffield and a-fraud play like the hall-of-famers they are, witnessed another go-ahead, late-inning homer by papi and even saw bellhorn strike out twice, all before the real shit started... when schilling walked out to the pen in the sixth, he got a standing o for the entire way... when he warmed up in the eighth, he got a huge round of applause... when he came in the game in the ninth with the score 6-6, i felt like i'd been teleported straight into the playoffs... fenway was shaking down to its roots... flashbulbs were going off as if it was the frickin oscars... it felt like john wayne or steve mcqueen or some other great american movie hero was returning home after a long mission... and then he took the mound, threw 7 pitches and was behind 8-6... in the span of three minutes, fenway went from the most ebullient i've ever seen it to a mausoleum... between grumblings that the great schilling-as-a-closer experiment was already a failure after one outing and others blaming the whole thing (and the kennedy assassination) on millar and bellhorn, you could hear a pindrop... think that shit ever happens, has happened or will happen against anyone else ever, especially in the middle of july? nope...

about the only thing not at a boiling point was the fenway faithful's reaction to yankee fans... i heard myself called a traitor a couple of times for being with the captain in all her yankee garbed-glory, was asked how i could possibly seen in public with someone in a yankee hat and shirt at least once and may have heard a couple people say "nice shirt!" or something else equally clever to her in passing... but it was otherwise civilized, a far cry even from just a year ago at this time... amazing what the greatest comeback/chokejob and a championship will do for the fans, eh?

i guess the point is it all just never ceases to floor me... i'll bet nothing i've written is even remotely surprising to anyone who has ever seen, heard or read anything about a sox-yanks game... but there i was, at least once during each game of the weekend, whether i was at fenway or in front of a tv, utterly stunned at what was happening before my eyes...

man, thank god they have the division rival d-rays coming in tomorrow...

quick sidenote: the t-shirt purveyors are finally starting to smarten up a touch... witness shirts recently spotted from both vantage points...
SOX - instead of the witty, imaginative 'jeter swallows,' we now have 'jeter drinks wine coolers'
YANKEES - (courtesy of the captain) on the front, in sox-style lettering, 'there was no curse,' and on the back, with the B logo smack in the middle, 'the red sox just sucked for 86 years'

not bad, eh?

they'll be looking for us at maury's, but they won't be looking for... not us

2005-07-08T00:51:00.000-04:00

so i'm thinking about some things...

- played golf yesterday and on the fifth hole, i hit my tee shot right and through a very narrow strip of trees and onto the rough of the parallel hole... well, i got to it and saw that i had a window through which i could hit the ball and if i hit it good, there was tons of room for it to go down the fairway and put me in good position for my approach to the green... well, i grabbed my 3-wood, lined it up and swung... the sound was the most beautiful you want to hear on a golf course when you strike the ball - just total, perfect contact... everything felt right as i swung, hit the ball and followed through... and the ball hit a tree and bounced back behind where i had initially played from... tough game, ya know?

- so the sox are in first place by 3 full games and everyone's acting like they're in the frickin basement... sure the yankees are surging, there's big problems with the bullpen and some of the players are pissed that clement and timlin didn't make the all-star team... but come on, folks, they're still in first place! last year at this time, they were hovering around .500 and LISTLESS! and i know it's still only july and all, but even if they weren't where they are, it would be too early to freak out... everyone in that clubhouse should shut up, remember what got them to the promised land last year - a lot of which was togetherness and chemistry - and just play... that and count the minutes till the all-star break starts after sunday's game... lord knows they need it...

- separate sox note: schilling as a temporary (and i stress temporary) bullpen guy is a great idea... he can get himself back into shape out there so that come august and the stretch drive, he'll be starting again... plus, it's gonna be sweet to watch him get the save against the shitty yankees in the first game after the break next thursday...

- was watching the first "x-men" last night and i kept thinking that even though its a good, entertaining movie, the sequel was way better... just like "spiderman-2" and "batman begins" it's a case of sequel being stronger than original... it's like the first movie in a comic book series has to spend so much time explaining situations and introducing characters that some of the excitement is sucked right out... which is why i think i'm going to pass on "fantastic 4"... it looks kinda cheesy anyway...

- also on the comic book movie tip, next summer we'll get "x-3" and "superman returns," in 2007, there's "spiderman-3," another new "batman" and, if its a hit, a probably a sequel to "fantastic 4"... let's hope these are all more like spidey2 and less like "daredevil"... man, can you believe jen garner not only married affleck, she's knocked up with his kid? sometimes you really have to wonder...

- oops, almost forgot... rodriguez and frank miller are already working on a sequel to "sin city" which was only one of the two or three best movies i've seen in a long time... WOO-HOO!!

- i can't believe i'm about to say this but (gulp) here goes: derek jeter not being on the all-star team is the worst snub of all... look, i hate the guy and his team, but, as my man bill simmons said earlier, he's just a guy who should automatically make it every year no matter how he's playing or how good his team is... i probably respect him as much as any player i've ever seen and believe me, i feel like bleeding out my eyeballs for thinking that way about a yankee...

- pats training camp starts in 3 weeks... football, baby!!!

- if anyone who reads this is interested in seeing some extremely cool artwork, you should check this illustration friday thing out... me, i can't even draw a stick figure and even if i could, i still haven't figured out how to post pictures on this thing... but two of my favorite people, the captain and the fabulous chacha, each do a piece every week which has led me to not just see their stuff, but plenty of other stuff too... check it out - it's awesome...

- can't stop reading about what happened in london yesterday (one of the bombs went off four blocks from where i lived when i was over there)... but that's beside the point... it's just proof positive that this shit can still happen anywhere at any time and that's pretty scary... thank god the casualties and damage were not as severe as sept. 11, but even so, that doesn't make what happened all that easier to handle... i could state a grand, sweeping political opinion here, but i'll spare you - all i'll say is that the deepest thoughts go to the people who experienced it... courage, bravery and the steadfast belief in what's good will hopefully carry them through... and with that, i'm out... lates.

go to school, joel... learn something...

2005-07-01T01:29:00.000-04:00

ok back in business and rarin to go thanks to the second quote from "risky business" in four posts... by the way, could anyone have imagined back in fuckin 1983 when that movie came out that tom cruise would turn into such a freakshow?

it's music day folks, so without further ado, i say please go buy or download the new foo fighters record, "in your honor"... it's actually a double disc with disc 1 comprised of typical foos rock-out type stuff and disc 2 being chill, quiet, mostly acoustic, kinda experimental stuff... i was a bit wary when i picked it up - the most recent records by weezer, dave matthews and queens of the stone age, three of my favorite all-time groups, are all not as good as they should be/have been in the past, so i figured it wouldn't be a surprise if the foos, also an all-time fave, pulled the same shit...

but its not even close... the first disc is excellent, bordering on vintage... howling, screaming, rockin shit... the opening track, also called "in your honor" sets the tone - it begins with a scream but still has somewhere to build to, then sustains a steady pace until a pause that yout think is the end, but actually is just a quick break so our lads can recharge and kick the shit out of the next minute or so...

it sets a tone, ya know? side 1, track 1's are so damn important because they can make or break the tone of the whole record... that's why when jack black says john cusack's suggestion of the top 5 track 1, side 1's is too obvious in "high fidelity," he's missing the point... it may be obvious, but its also critical... the best track on the record doesn't have to be the first one... but the hookiest, most relevant one should be...

anyway, it goes on and stays solid... the single, "best of you," is a really good song and it's not even in the top 5 on the record... there isn't a weak link in the bunch but a couple of examples of top level stuff are "doa," "end over end," no way back" and "resolve" - the best in addition to the title track... they're all pretty traditional rock songs that will prbably sound like something you've heard before, but the energy makes them different...

and the mellowness of the second disc is the right companion... its just chillin after you just rocked out for a good 45 minutes at a show or something like that... there's some stuff there that's a little precious and maybe even too experimental ("virginia moon" is a bossa nova duet with norah jones??!!) but, especially if you listen to it right after the first disc, it's settling... my favorite tracks are "on the mend" and "razor" and there are some cool guests like john paul jones and josh homme too... so get it - it's only $12 even though it's a double record... worth every penny...

ok, i could write about asshole pitchers who beat up cameramen and break fingers and toes punching/kicking things when they suck or my girl jennifer garner being married and knocked up by everyone's favorite free-falling actor, ben affleck, or how the sox aren't going anywhere without a major bullpen blood transfusion or how even though it's barely the 4th, "batman begins" is the best movie of the summer or how the celtics are set up to be great in 5 years but will probably stink for at least the next 3 or even the discovery of mad cows in texas (where else, right?)... but its been a while since i've been here and i'm out of breath...

i will, however, quickly note that earlier today on hbo 6 or something, "risky business" and "the girl next door" were aired back-to-back... this means 2 things: #1 - some executive at hbo must be reading this site, and #2 - that same executive is obviously both extremely intelligent and deserving of a raise thanks to #1... lates.

it is as the french say, that certain "i don't know what"

2005-06-21T00:07:00.000-04:00

totally abstract and somewhat nebulous... it's impossible to imagine clutch in terms of numbers or figures... but we know it when we see it, don't we?

it was just so prevalent this past weekend, particularly sunday... the whole idea of coming up the biggest when it matters most... if you can do it, whether it's circumstantial or a habit, you'll be remembered as such... if you can't, you're a choker...

first it was the u.s. open... retief goosen, one of the five best players in the world, goes into the final round up three... he's already won the thing twice so we know he isn't easily betrayed by his nerves... plus, given the fact that the opens are played on the hardest courses, we know that no one is going to move up that much... all he has to do is shoot even par, maybe +1 and he wins again... it was a "what more do you want" type situation... a no-brainer...

so what happens? he makes nine bogeys and a double, doesn't make a single birdie and shoots 81, just good enough to finish in a tie for 11th... it was a choke of epic proportions, one of the biggest gag jobs ever in the history of championship golf by a great player (greg norman at the 1995 masters will always be no. 1 on that list)...

it was stunning, not just because of the huge numbers but also because of the type of guy goosen is... he was so good up to sunday and so good when he won the previous two times, that he was breathlessly described by writers, tv guys and ahem... me, as bloodless, without a pulse, unflappable, what have you... the guy's expression never changes no matter what... to me, going into sunday, he was the ultimate clutch player... but now what? will what happened haunt him? will he shit the bed every time he has a lead in the final round of a major for the rest of his career? and perhaps more pertinent to my point, how does what he did relate to what clutch is and what it isn't?

you could even say that tiger woods choked too... he had two huge chances to get close enough to put pressure on the eventual winner, michael campbell, that probably would have done him in... but even the greatest - tiger - blew it, missing a semi-easy putt badly on 16 then three-putting from 10 feet on 17... campbell, who dropped a couple of bombs on the back side, made every shot he needed to make, and steadily shot par with no flash at all, had never been in such a situation... does that make him more clutch than tiger? or even goosen? sunday, it did...

then there's robert horry, or big shot rob, his perfectly assigned nickname... horry had no points with one second left in the third quarter of game 5 of the nba finals... but he buried a three-pointer at that very instant, cutting the detroit lead to 1, and taking back a bit of momentum for his spurs that they'd squandered earlier in the quarter - always a bad thing, especially on the road... horry then went on to score 18 more points in the fourth quarter and in overtime, including the game-winning three with 5 seconds left... he single-handedly took the game over, drilling three's, getting putbacks on offensive rebounds, driving to the rim and playing stifling defense...

horry does this all the time - it's kind of his thing... here's a guy without a single nerve in his body, especially in the most important games and situations... he's been hitting ENORMOUS shots in the playoffs and finals for years... he has 5 rings, 2 with the rockets and 3 with the lakers and will have his first with the spurs tonight after they win game 6, entirely because of what he did on sunday... this guy is so clutch that a) his own coach said after the game that they kind of save him during the year so he'll be tip-top in the playoffs and b) various people who write and talk better than i (and make a shitload more money too) were today engaging in debates over whether he belongs in the hall of fame...

it's a good question... all he does is ensure huge wins... when he misses, it's stunning... he's the definition of clutch - coming up biggest when it matters most... a no-brainer...

his teammate, tim duncan, arguably the best player in the league and armed with two rings, scored 26 points and had 19 rebounds... he also missed something like 7 foul shots in a row in the fourth quarter and totally gagged on a wide-open putback that would have won the game in regulation... does that make him a choker? what about rasheed wallace, an important guy for detroit aho's been known to come up large in big games... he left horry open for then winning 3 in ghastly fashion... does he join goosen, tiger and duncan on the gag reel? in general, of course not... on sunday, yep...

and here's where the murkiness lies... some people like horry, michael jordan, david ortiz, tom brady, etc. just know when the stakes is high and subsequently what to do, period... some people like duncan, tiger and goosen have given clutch performances, are unquestionably great, and just could have had better days... some people like campbell may have been just good enough... the bottom line is that there's no across-the-board answer... you either have clutch or you don't... you can't teach it or measure it... it just is... lates.

hi, i'm a pet psychaitrist, i sell couch insurance and i'm test-marketing positive thinking

2005-06-16T22:14:00.000-04:00

back to sports - seems like the right way to go... it's all because of those identity-challenged red sox... one minute, they suck, the pitching's for shit and they can't get out of their own way and the next, they're great, the pitching kicks ass and they've won four straight with another cupcake coming in for the weekend...

it's the season, folks... it doesn't matter what happens from one week or day to the next... forget world series wins, if they lose a couple in a row, they suck and the manager should be strung up above the state house and if they win a couple in a row, they're going all the way again...

it's so subjective... they lost all those games last week on the road, where they haven't been good in forever, to two teams who are legit playoff contenders... and three of the four straight wins were at home, where they're world beaters, against the reds, who have to be one of the worst professional baseball teams i've seen in a long time - we're talkin devil rays bad, ya know? suddenly, against some truly odious pitching, manny starts to hit, millar is on one of his patented streaks, edgar's doing things and even bellhorn is only striking out twice a night... look out, '27 yankees!!

anything can happen... just look at the bombers... the captain's favorite team just swept a series... they must be all fixed, right? wrong - it was against pittsburgh, who comes here this weekend... the pirates are not quite as bad as the reds, which means they suck... anything less than 2 out of 3 for the sox will be a HUGE disappointment... the yankees beating up the pirates doesn't mean they're any good, it means they played a team inferior to them in a meaningless series at home in mid-june (even though it feels like late october outside again, ya know?) the sox sweeping the pathetic reds was nice and all and it was certainly good medicine, but what does it really mean? answer: nothing...

in mid-august last year, the sox were still treading water, barely over .500 and they went on to win... things change - it's not so goddamn black and white... shit, they were only down 3-0 to the yankees in the lcs before they came back, so even in october, in the playoffs, you can't read anything for real... no one will truly be able to assess this team at least until september if not the end of the season... no matter who pitches well and who hits between now and then, we've been shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's no gauging anything until the end is near... they aren't as bad as they've looked at their lowest points and they aren't as good as they've looked the last four days... they're somewhere in the middle... and for now, in mid-june, that's ok...

couple quick notes - first, anyone who appreciates fine art needs to see this piece my dear friend the fabulous chacha did on her site for her illustration friday series... it's really beautiful... check it out...

also, legend asked me to name a couple more good bad movies in the spirit of the last post... so, off the top of my head, i came up with david lynch's "wild at heart," "the golden child" with eddie murphy, tim burton's "mars attacks" (not only made bad on purpose, i think, but one of the best of the good bads...), paul verhoeven's "showgirls' (classically good bad!), "medicine man" with sean connery and the doctor from "the sopranos," "the edge," that movie where anthony hopkins and alec baldwin fight the killer grizzly bear together and finally, in a hopkins double-dipper, "hannibal," easily one of the greatest good bads ever if for no other reason than the scene where he eats ray liotta's brain while liotta sits at the dinner table looking like he just drank a couple bottles of booker's by himself... anyone who feels like adding to the list, please feel free to do so... lates.

i have a trig midterm tomorrow and i'm being chased by guido the killer pimp

2005-06-14T00:59:00.000-04:00

so i could discuss the suddenly resurgent sox or the more-boring-than-tom cruise-nba finals or even how the hot, sweltering weather makes me feel...

but fuck all that - i have a plan, dammit... recently, hbo has featured a movie caled "the girl next door" in heavy rotation on all its channels... well, i had remembered hearing about it when it was in theatres and being somewhat intrigued by the premise so i watched it the other night... and you know what? it sucked, and i loved it...

which brings me to my point - how does a good, bad movie happen anyway? for the most part, its just a freak occurrence since most movies are either good, bad or even worse - decent but instantly forgettable... they're rarely completely awful but still a lot of fun, ya know? and the whole thing's got me thinkin...

so this movie "the girl next door" had to have been a disaster from the minute they started shooting it... it's biggest problem is that it wants more than anything in the world to be a new "risky business" for whatever letter labeled generation we're in now... this means that everything that happens from the opening frames is completely derivative, which equates to all of the filmmakers having neither a shred of credibility or originality in their entire bodies...

there's the lead kid - the bookish, nerdy guy with the bookish nerdy friends, who's going to georgetown if he wins a scholarship (not unlike acing the princeton interview in "risky business") and has never had one iota of fun in his life until his big interview/important scholrship dinner when he runs a whorehouse/trips out on ecstacy... there's the lead girl - here a porn star instead of a hooker - who falls in love with him, gets him to loosen up, is blonde and just looks generally scorchingly hot on all occasions... there's even guido the pimp, here a porn "producer" who is very protective of lead girl...

it goes on... there are the clueless parents, the evil faculty, the money-making scheme involving the other hookers/porn stars and so forth... the score even sounds eerily like the risky score at critical moments...

yet there's no edge, no balls, and worst of all, no courage of its convictions... "risky business" examined prostitution from a detatched stance, giving us characters who were hookers and pimps, but so what? it did not even remotely judge any of its characters on the basis of what they did, it simply watched them exist... there was no moralizing or glamorization at all...

"the girl next door" sensationalizes porn and the industry but backs off when it comes to the lead girl, who just wants to be loved and is miserable and horrified by her profession... basically, it's a teen movie with an R-rating, like "she's all that" or "cruel intentions" with boobs... every other porn star, director or producer in the movie is having the time of their life, except for her... the filmmakers just don't get that you can't have it both ways... even the big sex scene at the end has been totally sanitized for the viewing pleasure of the several million 15-year-olds in iowa or missouri who snuck in... in "risky business", they do it on an L car in chicago while tangerine dream's score plays - it's a terrific, sexy scene... in "the girl next door" they do it in the back of a limo after the prom while some david gray song that i heard in a jc penney jewelry commercial a couple weeks ago plays... it bears more resemblence to something you might see in an episode of "7th heaven" than in one of the seminal movies of the 80s.

but i loved it... even though i'd seen them all before, the characters were interesting because of the way they were played... the lead kid, an actor named emile hirsch, was totally natural and funny and carried the movie... the producer was timothy olyphant, who plays the sheriff in "deadwood" and was the drug dealer in "go"... he's incredible, totally stealing every scene he's in and being hilarious then freaky/sketchy from one minute to the next...

the girl is named elisha cuthbert... i remember her from a small role in "old school" (luke wilson's one night stand) and i think she's on the tv show "24" which i've never seen... but this shit has to put her in a new dimension, not because of her acting, although she deserves credit for actually kind of seeming like a real porn star a few times, but because of her presence... elisha immediately enters the pantheon of most ridiculously, stunningly, amazingly, gorgeously hot women in the movies... shit, i might even see that horror movie she has out with paris hilton just to get another look at her... the bottom line is that now she has an honest to goodness future as mrs. jmg...

it's also funny, mostly thanks to the producer and the kid who plays the lead's porn-obsessed friend... and the soundtrack, although it features tons of songs heard before in better movies (eliot smith's "angeles" from "good will hunting," satchel's "suffering" from "beautiful girls," bowie and queen's "under pressure" from you name it and filter's "take a picture," from that hp printer commercial, etc.) is top-notch (it even makes good use of the who's "baba o'riley" and echo and the bunnymen's "the killing moon")...

man, this is long - i need an editor (i'll accept applications starting now)... i guess my point is that every time i see a movie that i know is terrible and love it anyway, i can't figure it out, so writing about this particular instance might help... it's so infrequent, i think the last time it happened was 3 years ago with "gangs of new york," a martin scorsese movie that was was one of the biggest messes i've ever seen but totally knocked me out anyway...

it's all gotta be based on our own inner, subjective viewpoint, ya know? maybe if the actors had been different or the character of the friend not so funny, i just would have seen it for all its flaws and hated it... but who knows? maybe i don't even have a point... yeah, that's probably it... you know what? forget it... if you haven't already...

but see "the girl next door," if for no other reason than for elisha... man, is she a burner... lates.

i'll have a bloody mary and a steak sandwich and a... steak sandwich

2005-06-07T23:15:00.000-04:00

ok, it's time to get back to basics here, folks... it's a new week and my mind's a little less cluttered so without further ado, let's get right into one of my favorite things, the random thoughts note...

strange going for the sox right now... they'd won at least two games in their last three series before hitting st. louis last night and now, after two really lousy losses, they look disinterested, lazy and just plain bad... renteria's reverted back to his pre-yankee series self too... the poor guy - every time he screws up, either at the plate or in the field, it just kills them...
saw the new star wars and after initially loving it i indulged in much deliberation before deciding it was just ok... the writing and acting still sucks and the actual, official turning to the dark side by the kid was too quick and not very convincing... but a) it looks like "citizen kane" compared to the first two prequels and b) being able to witness the advent of darth vader actually happen lends a lot to the movie just by virtue of what it represents to the whole series of movies, old and new... by the way - best scene, bar none, is when the emporer truly becomes the emporer... that and every close-up of natalie portman...
haven't done knucklehead awards in a while, but the honor for the whole damn month has to go to redskins safety sean taylor... this guy is a real treat... hey sean - go to practice, talk to your (three-time super bowl champion) coach and leave the frickin guns at home, ok?
anyone else love what's hapenning to the yankees right now? man, do they suck... every time i think the red sox have problems, i think about the yankees and my day brightens... $205 million, man... to me, what's more interesting than whether or not they get turned around is whether or not torre or cashman get fired or quit before the end of the year...
watched the sox episode of that "queer eye" show since forests have been felled in order for some of our local hatemongers to wax poetic on the topic in recent days... the bottom line is it was totally harmless... there were a couple laughs, mostly surrounding millar pretending to be a flaming queen, but other than that, i just didn't get what the big deal is... in fact, the most interesting thing about it for me was that the whole thing was done to raise money for a bunch of kids who lost their little league field due to hurricane charley last summer and the team was from port charlotte, which you see a fair amount of in the show... it's strange, i've never been to port charlotte but i feel as though i know it like the back of my hand...
pistons or spurs? spurs or pistons? it's like they're the same team...
if you have hbo, you should watch "entourage"... it's damn funny, it's only a half an hour long and the entire first season is on demand... if you have any affinity at all for jeremy piven, one of the funniest actors out there, that's even more reason to watch... couldn't have been more perfectly cast...
about the title of this drivel - it's a line from "fletch" and me and the big man and grandpa were discussing the pantheon of all-time funniest movies the other night... they said for them, a movie like "fletch," though hilarious, doesn't belong quite in the same boat with "caddyshack" or "animal house" or the like... i said i thought it did because even now, having seen it 2,354 times when it's on TBS at 4:30 a.m. and watch at all, i still laugh so hard that the tears start flowin... it was also the last really good movie chevy chase ever made... man, that's kinda sad...
doesn't it figure that the sox are going to play the cubs in wrigley field for the first time ever this weekend and nomar won't be there? good thing he's leading the NL in all-star votes after playing just 14 games... then again, i shouldn't be surprised - millar's second in the voting for AL first basemen...

hey before i go, i just want to give a shout out to everyone for their kindness last week... you all know who you are - thanks... more to come soon... lates.

look i gotta pee but i'd really like to continue talking about this conversation...

2005-05-30T22:41:00.000-04:00

on friday night, after billy mueller watched the final strike sail past him, me and the blaze hightailed it for the exits, not wanting to be subjected to watching the yanks celebrate, especially considering the magnitude (at the time) of the loss for the sox... and even though it was may 27, the most fabulous day there is, all i wanted to do was log on here and vent about what i'd just witnessed...

but then a calm came over me... "there's two more games in this series," i told myself... "let's wait and see what happens next..." this, and the fact that i was on the 4 train followed by a crosstown bus on my way to a bar with three beerpong tables convinced me that waiting was the best policy... and you know what? it was the best decision i could have made...

look, that loss on friday was horrible - one of the worst of the year... 5 straight hits in an inning and only one run scored? one of the most egregious basecoaching errors i've ever seen? the immortal robinson cano being the hero of the game? sheff's homer exiting our atmosphere in about 1.2 seconds? the big unit pitching like some stiff for the brewers and still getting the win? the dump known as yankee stadium? seriously, it was hell on earth for a good couple of hours...

but then in the car on the way home on saturday, the big man and i found ourselves pumping fists and high-fiving left and right... it was a record setting offensive performance, the exact opposite of the night before in terms of emotion... hit after hit after hit... christ, even manny did something... it was, as my man bob ryan so eloquently stated, a laugher, something the sox needed more than even a ceremonial shot of jack daniel's... i mean it was poetry... those sycophants who call the game on yankee radio threw in the towel in the fourth inning and even though their banter for the remainder of the game was the pinnacle of idiocy, the circumstances still made it a pleasure to listen... that, combined with last night's romp (renteria, papi and manny a combined 9-for-9 in the fourth inning?!?!) and it was a proven theorum yet again... it's a goddamn marathon, ya know? and jimy williams, god bless him, was wiser than anyone ever gave him credit for being... these guys can find one of the most bizarre ways to lose to the hated archrival one night and instead of jumping off a cliff (or posting a note dripping with frustration and animosity on this fabulous website) you just wait till the next damn day and watch them smash records, break scoreboards and win going away...

now i know i'm not inventing any new, scientific formulas here... in fact, i'm sure i've even written something along these same lines just a short time ago... but honesty is the best policy and i'm telling ya, there's no other way to go about a discussion of this past weekend in the bronx...

i could talk more about the atmosphere at the stadium, e.g. the goombah who was about ready to string up the two youthful red sox fans who got up and screamed thinking extra bases when a renteria fly ball out left his bat in the first inning on friday night... or the half-hearted "boston sucks" chants that were so short, so piss-poor, they made the hideous "yankees suck" chants that some sox fans even try to start at college graduations or any other formal or informal gathering around here seem downright inspired... or the fact that there are two main reserved section 34, row e, seat5s in the left field bleachers, with no distinction bewtween which is which... or i could even get into tonight's game (which i was also at - ugh...) as proof positive that the sox have an alarming tendency to take the yankees more seriously than anyone else and to subsequently blow their collective load when playing them which naturally leads to garbage efforts like the one at fenway earlier this evening... but i won't (although there's a whole other column to be found in some of the new yankees suck-style t-shirts i saw, among them "JETER DRINKS WINE COOLERS," "A-ROD SLAPS BALLS," and (gulp) "I BANGED SHEFFIELD'S WIFE, TOO." but i won't... instead, i'll just keep reminding myself that its only the end of may, there's four months to go, getting too up or down about a single game or stretch of games at this point is a waste of time and that i finally have a link to one of the greatest sites ever, awfulplasticsurgery.com, on the right-hand sidebar... WOO-HOO!...

until next time... lates.

when you're slidin into home and your shorts are full of foam...

2005-05-26T23:17:00.000-04:00

renteria... renteria...

nah, he's playing better of late... its the rest of the team that scares me... but fear not, gentle beings... i, your faithful servant, will be there in person at yankee stadium in the bronx tomorrow night on the greatest day ever known to man, may 27... there, with my trusty sidekick the blaze sitting right next to me, i will file a full report on the evening's proceedings - will manny get a hit? will millar finally be benched? will the big unit stymie the sox or will his recent struggles continue? will the sox keep looking like a AA team on the road, as opposed to the world beaters they appear to be at home?

personally, i think they're in trouble... they've not only let the 8 game cushion they had over they yanks completely disappear, they've fallen into fourth place, ahead of only the devil dogs... nuthin's workin right now, not the hitting, the starting pitching or the bullpen... and they're gonna need wake to be the stopper - the same wake who has strangely resembled the pitcher who has at least one stretch of 5 or more starts in which he STINKS every year over the last couple weeks... it's still to early to panic... but it sure ain't that much fun watching these days... maybe i'll be too numbed by enough $8 yankee stadium beers to notice if anything bad happens...

so stay tuned... all the coverage you need is coming soon!

ps- still 34 minutes to get those ipods, new phones, trips to hawaii and large monetary awards... i'll even except them past midnight tomorrow... just the kind of guy i am... lates.

what's the score? nuthin, nuthin... who's winning? the bears...

2005-05-24T18:04:00.000-04:00

well, it's been a few days since i've written so naturally, i've been all rarin to go... but this goddamn weather! it's like late october, ya know? and all i want to do is crank up the heat (which even if its just for one day, will surely raise my gas bill by 423 percent) and not get out of bed... seriously, who needs this? it just ain't conducive to good quality creativity...

so anyway, due to this recent bout of weather-inflicted writer's block, i will leave you all, my faithful followers, with some links to peruse and discuss amongst yourselves... and i promise to redouble my efforts to find some inspiration and give you all something to be proud of sooner rather than later!

first, you have to see this one, mostly because it's written by one of the foremost baseball writers ever and was printed in the new york times... oh yeah, it's completely absurd and will make you laugh out loud too!

here's a good conversation point for movie lovers like the blaze, the shaft and the hairy guy from nyc... agree or disagree?

think potentially being able to cure alzheimer's and other horrifying diseases would be good? don't tell the president or he might try to have you executed for having free will and thinking for yourself...

even though some might say he's got a bit of a skewed perspective, one can always count on my man deano to speak some semblence of the truth, right deano?

finally, we have some of the coolest stuff i've seen on the web in quite some time (discounting qmov)... some of the skaters who work for dc shoes, a personal favorite brand of the captain and the fabulous chacha, have apparantly learned how to make some of the sickest hoop moves you've ever seen... i'm serious, this is worth checkin out whether you dig skating or not - hit this and the follow the instructions in the middle of the screen...

aiight, gotta come with some more substance.. it will be done and it will be done soon... until then, lates.

from what i hear, you couldn't hit water if you fell out of a fuckin boat

2005-05-20T01:33:00.000-04:00

it's time for your favorite segment, kids... the knucklehead of the day!!!

on this glorious knucklehead day, we're going to change things up just a touch... instead of naming nominees, we're just going to give out the frickin thing right off the bat because this week, we have two knuckleheads whose actions have earned each of them status in the pantheon of knuckleheadedness, and will be recognized as such...

first winner is onterrio smith, running back for the minnesota vikings... onterrio was a nominee last week due to his unfortunate run-in with airport security over possession of the now world famous whizzinator... well today, our man was informed that he will be suspended by the nfl for the entire upcoming season due to his third positive drug test... this guy has to have set some sort of land speed record for stupidity with this one... see, he didn't show up for a scheduled drug test and in the nfl, not showing up is the same thing as testing positive... perhaps he didn't know this rather important piece of 411, which in itself is ridiculous, but it goes even further... not showing up tells me that he knew he'd fail anyway, which means that he made a decision on some conscious level to say F this and keep getting reefed, thereby screwing his team out of his talent and himself out of a couple million bucks... it's people like onterrio who make certain tree stumps look like nobel prize winners...

onterrio's compadre is kellen winslow II, tight end for the cleveland browns... kellen found out today that he has a torn acl in his knee and will miss the entire season because he was trying to do jumps and wheelies on his kawasaki special in some parking lot... this guy, who in the past has publicly anointed himself a "soldier," a "warrior," and "the chosen one," due to his immeasurable talent, tried the crotch rocket stunts even though a) he missed 14 games last season as a rookie due to a knee injury and b) has specific language in his contract noting that injuries caused by motorcycle accidents could give the team the right to take away some of his signing bonus money... what makes kellen's behavior even more knuckleheaded is the fact that his father, kellen I, is in the hall of fame, perhaps the best tight end in nfl history and was a modicum of class and dignity as a player... maybe kellen II was sick the day they taught common sense at the university of football...er, i mean miami... one thing i will say in favor of kellen II - he may be an idiot, but he's just the most recent in a long, distinguished line of idiots who played for the hurricanes... you're not alone in the miami chapter of the knucklehead club, kellen!!

one more quick thing, y'all... if you like baseball and you like star wars, even just a little, you should read this... you'll get a chuckle for sure... enjoy your weekends... lates.

ugh... it smells like a used diaper... filled with... indian food!

2005-05-17T15:23:00.000-04:00

honeymoon's over...

the first checkpoint of the baseball season is a little over a week away which most likely means that sox fans have to stop sitting around all crack-faced about last year... nope, it's time to start caring again, sadly...

i wanted it to stay like last october forever... i don't mean waking up at 5:30 a.m. every day of the yankee series in a cold sweat - probably because i'm often still awake at 5:30 a.m. - i mean the euphoria that was oct. 27 and the week and a half leading up to it... but it's time to get serious... the sox are coasting... and the yankees (gulp) are playing like the yankees again...

yep, it's true... if you haven't been watching or paying attention, the bombers have won nine in a row now... granted, all those wins have been against shitty teams like oakland and seattle... but the sox have lost 3 of 4 to the a's and mariners and what was an 8 and a half game cushion over the $200 million team a couple weeks ago is down to 2 and a half...

now there isn't much surprise to this, ya know? every year, the sox start better, whoop the yanks in april and then go into cruise control while ny lurches ahead in the al east standings... the yankees were so bad in blowing it last fall and then in their first 30 games this year that it actually looked through the rose-colored glasses that this season would be different... but it's not... sox open up a series in the bronx on the greatest day of the year, the 27th, and it's pretty likely that by the end of the long weekend, ny will be in front in the standings...

the sox have been kinda fun this year so far - those 2 walk-offs in a row last week reminded me of the playoffs - but there isn't a lot of urgency... manny's on pace to hit 42 bombs and the 400th was cool, but he's lost at the dish sometimes - i've never seen anything like that from him anyway... the way he let that poseur yabu k him last night while they were rallying in the eighth was just plain bizarre... the new shortstop, who will be very good when its all said and done, is killing them at least twice a week both in the field and at the plate... trot's hurt again, and even though he's ripping it up now, why should anyone think he's not headed back to the dl for the 37th straight year?... and the closer has gone from being a slammed door to a human angioplasty...

listen to the radio, and the shut-ins have been awakened... they're all coming out their cocoons after a merciful early season hiatus to complain about renteria not bunting while down by one with a man on first, nobody out and with manny and papi coming up in the ninth on sunday (frickin idiot!) among other things... yes, they're losers, these basement dwellers... but the fact that they're awake and calling again by the thousands is a significant reason why last year is last year and this year is now...

another reason is the fact that the yankees are now hitting and sort of pitching at the same time - a bad combo... christ, even bernie, who is 73 years old and can't walk or lift his arm over his head, hit a game-winning granny last night off your favorite and mine, the immortal j.j. putz... some of what they're doing - tino on fire (which would be a better movie than that garbage with denzel that's on hbo everyday), solid bullpen work and a whole day without giambi being the lead story on sportscenter - won't last... but who out there thinks the yanks aren't gonna be there till the end? if you don't, please stay away from me the next time i bet on anything... and the way things look right now, it's not a lock that the wild card will come out of the east... sure, the orioles will fall apart cause of the pitching and aren't really a threat, but look at the twins and the white sox... one of those two very easily could finish better than the second placers in the east...

this is not a panic post... i'm not that worried, honest... i'm just not as blissfully blithe as i have been up to this point... watching last night really made me want to write this... bad team they should crush practically trying to give the game away and they still lose... long season, can't win em all - believe me i know... but for the first time, during that game, i felt slightly uncomfortable with what i was seeing... then they showed old man bernie's slam from seattle and it all came together...

ok so this is long - real long... hope you got through it (and notice how i didn't rip the yanks, i just talked about them, right chacha?)... i just didn't see any other way around the topic - why it's time to start caring when the sox lose/play like shit... agree or disagree? you decide... lates.

thank you for a wonderful evening... it says balls on your forehead...

2005-05-13T23:07:00.000-04:00

there's no justifiable explanation... the sox starting pitcher tonight is named jeremy gonzalez but it's not spelled jeremy, it's spelled jeremi... a crime against nature, like three mile island, night ranger and gigli, i say...

from now on, why don't we just switch everyone's name ending in y to i? billi... tommi... casei... actually, we might be onto something with that last one...

thankfully, jeremi's third cousin by marriage, wiki gonzalez, is playing in the same game for the mariners... and it could be worse - jeremi's name could be nasty fernandez or even filthy ramirez... small victories, folks... enjoy your weekend... lates.

aristotle was not belgian, the principle of buddhism is not "every man for himself," and the london underground is not a political movement

2005-05-11T23:21:00.000-04:00

yes folks, it's time for knucklehead day here at casa jmg and that means you, my faithful followers, are about to be introduced to a few knuckleheads before one of them ultimately gets voted KNUCKLEHEAD OF THE DAY!...

ok, the first knucklehead has to be the president, right? guy signs off on $81 billion package to finance the wars in iraq and afghanistan... now i'm not gonna get all preachy or political here because most of you would stop reading... but if reagan was the great communicator and charlie chaplin was the great dictator then bush is the great jackass...

knucklehead no. 2 is onterrio smith, running back for the minnesota vikings... our boy onterrio, who has already been suspended by the nfl twice for drug policy violations, was recently detained at an airport for carrying an elaborate drug-test-beating contraption also known as "the whizzinator"... i hear onterrio's was pink, but you can get them in all colors, shapes and sizes...

our next knucklehead is macaulay culkin, for no other reason than the fact that a) he is macaulay culkin and b) home alone sucked... still, he'll never reach the level of michael jackson on the knucklehead-o-meter...

the no. 4 knucklehead is former peabody firefighter john brophy, jr.... brophy got shitcanned last week for sleeping through a 911 call to the firehouse regarding a sick child, then also not answering three follow-up calls... naturally, brophy is appealing this decision by peabody's mayor, saying the punishment does not fit the crime... buddy, you're a frickin fireman - your job is to respond to 911 calls, a.k.a. EMERGENCIES, not sleep through them!... and yes captain, i was reading the peabody weekly news online, thank you very much...

our final nominee tonight is james toney, who whomped chelsea's own johnny ruiz at madison square garden for the wba heavyweight title a couple weekend's ago, but tested positive for steroids shortly thereafter and will subsequently be stripped of his crown as well as suspended 90 days and fined 10 g's... this one kills me... with things the way they are regarding steroids in sports right now, how could this guy, or anyone who has anything to do with him, be stupid enough to do/allow something like this? did they think he wouldn't get tested? it's like admitting you're guilty ahead of time... what a bunch of fuckin morons! harharharharharhar...

ok, that's all the time we have on tonight's edition of knucklehead day... the voting for KNUCKLEHEAD OF THE DAY begins right now... i choose the boxer and the president in a hotly contested tie... lates.

good luck with your layoffs, all right? i hope your firings go really, really well...

2005-05-10T00:15:00.000-04:00

you're all psyched because i'm not going to talk about the pathetic celtics who aren't worth the energy expended by my fingers... woo-hoo, no more celts!!

but there are some things i'm curious about... like why the nfl won't let the new coach of the 49ers wear a suit and tie on the sideline out of respect to his father, who coached the niners 30 years ago... the league says he can only wear "league-sanctioned" apparel like that jedi master sweatshirt belichick always wears... same guys who wouldn't let jake plummer wear pat tillman's number on his shoulder pad last year because it violated the league-wide uniform code... there's really nothing more to say beyond the fact that the league, the biggest money-making pro sports league in the world, has no patience for those who dare not drink the kool-aid... it's kind of sad isn't it?

anyone had the lays chips in the can, pringles-style? they're good, but i can't imagine pringles ever putting any kind of their chips in a half-full bag that you can smell the grease from before you even open it... which i guess means more power to pringles, right?

there's actually hockey going on right now... the lowell lock monsters, the team i used to cover, is in the ahl semifinals against the providence bruins in a best-of-7 and the series is all tied up with game 3 in lowell on wednesday... you all probably forgot hockey even exists (i did for a while), but this is kind of cool... the people who run the team in the front office are way cool, the coach is a great guy and most of the players who are still there from when i was around them are all right... i still don't know what a lock monster is 3 years later, but the mascot is 9 feet tall and called louie, if that helps... anyway, i hope they win...

mike judge, the dude who created beavis and butthead and the milton cartoon that spawned office space, has a new movie coming out this summer... it's got luke wilson and takes place in the future and that's all i know, but i would probably go if was about some guy reading the phone book... you want a good laugh? click this...

the yankees have won three straight, thereby making them the odds-on faves to win the world series again... it's as if all those terminal problems that had completely ruined their season 4 days ago never even existed, right? good thing the sox built that 6-game cushion, even if they do have a player named cla...

and also, as the fabulous chacha mentioned in her last note, hats off for a moment for the clubhouse kid who died the other night... just an awful story...

finally, i just want to make a quick mention of the hairy guy from nyc... he's angry at me right now because he thinks i owe him money or something (can't imagine where he came up with that idea) so i want to give him a little bit of free publicity by directing you all here, to this pretty damn cool site... he'd do it himself, but he's having his back waxed right now and none of you can possibly imagine the sheer physics of that activity... and that, as they say, is that... viya con dios, celts... lates.

the man has only one look, for christ's sake - i feel like i'm taking crazy pills!

2005-05-07T18:17:00.000-04:00

it's really all making me feel a little like mugatu, ya know?

it's on... Game 7 in just a few... the ultimate in sports - win and move on, lose and go home... as has been the theme all along, i have no idea what's going to happen so just sit back and enjoy, ok? we'll talk again soon...

oh yeah, almost forgot... if we get bad news in a few hours, at least we have this to cheer us up... lates.

here's my advice to the rest of you: take dead aim on the rich boys - get 'em in the crosshairs and take 'em down

2005-05-06T14:12:00.000-04:00

the dogg thinks there should be a little bit more diversity in the content of this here site, folks, and you know what? he's probably right... so i'm going to indulge him... just not right now...

classic last night... our green boys, the ultimate trick-or-treaters if there ever were any, pull one out in the most improbable of fashions despite pierce threatening to retire the pantheon of knucklehead moves... anyone who watched that game ever see a so-called "superstar" do something so irretrievably stupid? and then the taking his jersey off and twirling it over his head as he's being escorted off the court?? he told the press, "i was just trying to rally the troops together, man." oh yeah, and he said this with his head and jaw wrapped in an ace bandage like he'd just gotten his wisdom teeth out... pierce should thank his lucky you-know-whats that the celts won, otherwise he'd forever be a member of the boston sports persona non grata circle, ya know? he should take the whole team, coaches included, to the capital grille tonight and even buy perk the juvenile delinquent an extra ice cream sundae (perk is only 20, wink-wink) for making him have to sit on the bench crying after the two missed foul shots...

and ya know what else? antoine deserves most of the credit... lots of guys stepped up - gp played good d on reggie even though it cost him legs in OT, big al was a monster and i'm convinced he will be an all-star in 3 years (and doc's quote about how last year he was playing against billy and tommy in mississippi was priceless) and ricky really stepped up with energy and smarts... but antoine, who looked like he was single-handedly trying to torpedo the team in the first half, carried them down the stretch and in OT... he must have missed 5 layups in the game, had 8 turnovers, needed 26 shots to score 24 points and didn't get to the line once... he also had the tv guys up in arms over his demeanor and body language in the first half... but when it mattered, he was the man... played 50 minutes, hit a couple HUGE shots in the end (the 3 with 18 seconds left was a) one of the ballsiest shots i've seen in a playoff game in a long time, and b) should have been the winner if it hadn't been for the pugilistic pierce) and really got down and defended when he needed to - a near miracle when one considers the fact that he's so slow and un-athletic that guarding the side of a building is tough for him...

antoine is like the whole team, personified... which celts will show up? which antoine will show up? for him to do what he did in the second half last night, especially on the heels of the previous 3 and a half games, was astonishing... that game was mystifying - i dare anyone to come up with another nba playoff ballgame - or series, for that matter - like it... i'm still not quite sure i believe the celts won... and the pacers were so complicit in the result, too... reggie, for all the great things there are to say about him, blew it last night... horrible shot at the end of regulation and couldn't even get open at the end of OT... amazing...

it goes on... no one has ever seen anything like this series, not even my man bob ryan, who, after mercifully not calling pierce a punk, wondered today, "who knows what to believe or what not to believe with regard to this series?" i sure as shit don't... if you know what's going to happen in game 7 tomorrow, why don't you let me know how i can find you so i take you with me to buy a mega millions ticket later, ok?

so dogg, i'll try to comply with your request asap... but i just couldn't today - not after that game last night... damn, i still can't believe it... lates.

hey, i recognize you - didn't you play the retarded quarterback?

2005-05-05T18:29:00.000-04:00

i'm lost... i give up... celts by 30... no, no, pacers by 10, no, i mean celts in a tight one... or not... or definitely... i don't know what's going to happen... no one in their right or their wrong mind does... if there's any logic to this madness, it's that the celts lost a game that looked a lot more like a monster truck rally on tuesday, so they're bound to win tonight... and if there's anyone else out there like me who just wants it all to be over, i know what you're going through... stop the madness!!!

anyone see bronson today? no-hitter into the seventh... he's good, folks, he really is... i recall someone whose opinion usually depends on what the opposite of everyone else in the room thinks telling me recently that he stinks, that he'll go .500 this year, and all you need to do is look at his career record to see that's all he is - a .500 pitcher...

what this person failed to mention is that his .500 career record is in less than 30 starts meaning that no truly accurate gauge can be made on him yet, and that he now hasn't lost a decision since last summer... but other than that, he stinks... now if only someone, anyone, could get a hit with men on base... still, it's pretty cool to think that no one, not even manny, is hitting except damon, the ace and the no. 2 are hurt, the closer has been a basket case until four days ago and the big free-agent signee needs to throw 125 pitches to get through 5 innings and the boys are still 16-12, 2 and-a-half out of first and 5 up on the laughable yankees, who seemingly are about to be like "scanners" and see some very expensive exploding heads...

oooh, yeah... i forgot i promised the fabulous chacha that i woudn't spend too much time ripping the yanks... it's too bad cause i was about to get on a roll... well at any rate, time to crack a beer and watch game 6... surely there will be something noteworthy to write about after that... and by the way, here's a heartfelt thanks and adios to dave chappelle... he's done, bitch! lates.

why don't you call me some time when you have no class?

2005-05-03T16:29:00.000-04:00

Game 5 in 3 hours... i can't make a prediction, i just can't... this team is the ultimate trick-or-treat, jekyll and hyde, never know what you're gonna get outfit i've seen in quite some time... the ass-whoopin they laid on the pacers on saturday was out of this world, but if you think that means anything come 7:30 tonight, i've got a bridge to sell ya... i'm not going to flip-flop... i picked them to lose and i'm sticking with it... but to have reached this point in a 7-game series and not have the foggiest idea what will happen next is unfamiliar territory for me... the only thing i can think of off the top of my head is that the last time they won in a blowout - Game 1 - they barely showed up 2 nights later and lost Game 2, aka the giveaway game... with that in mind, i guess they'll lose tonight... but don't quote me on it, please...

true to my word, i hit up the range a couple hours ago... man, it was great... i got nervous upon feeling a twinge in my back on my first swing in almost a year, but then everything flowed nicely, and considering i'm the biggest duffer this side of al czervik, it was a great outing... everything feels good when you're swinging, even if you suck and are lucky if 6 of your 237 balls go where they're supposed to like me... i'm serious, it's scary how bad i can be - if you don't believe me, ask dogg, the big man or tha benjah - but i don't care... i love it, and i'll be damned if i don't get out there at least a half dozen times this summer... i think i need 2 or 3 more trips to the range and then i'll be ready for at least the nine at pine meadow... anyone interested? i'll tell ya right now, it's gonna take at least 4 hours to play nine, but every minute will be worth it!

anyway, i'll leave ya with a couple head-scratching headlines - a truly weird one, at least to me, and one which observes yet another complete knucklehead, who falls into the long line of other complete knuckleheads that just don't get it...

its a beautiful day, boys and girls, just beautiful... the clubs were swingin, the celts and sox play later and all is right with the universe... enjoy it, would ya? sweet... lates.

my grandmother always used to say, "why buy the cow when you can get the sex for free?"

2005-04-30T19:25:00.000-04:00

ok, you're in luck... i can't bear to talk about the celtics anymore... it's become boring/depressing... in about 3 hours, they will be down 3-1 and i just don't want to think about it... at least until tomorrow...

so that's that... it's a celtics-free zone... it's pouring rain outside - has been all day... i'm one of those freakshows whose mood is sometimes affected by the weather, but not today... i was liberated last night, that's why... it feels kind of strange, almost anti-climactic... but i can't seem to get this shit-eating grin off my face... maybe it's because i will now have even more time - at least for a little while, to sit here and preach to all y'all... anyway, there was even a cake that said good luck from a really good bakery... i was embarassed, but i still ate a couple pieces... all in all, i'd say the exit went quite smoothly...

its weird when you walk away from something voluntarily how good you feel about it... are you really that convinced that you're onto bigger and better things? it's going to be interesting how it plays out, that's for sure...

ok, i'm wandering into "i had eggs for breakfast today," territory now and i swore to myself that would never happen on this site, not once... so i hope you all are enjoying your weekend and thinking good thoughts... remember these things: family guy is always funnier when the baby or any of the charcters voiced by seth green have big roles, the new records by the foo fighters, weezer and even audioslave (even though their first single sucks) are all going to be good regardless of the fact that none of them are playing at bonna-ROO, the baseball season is only a month old and the red sox and yankees will still meet again in the playoffs and finally, there are fewer sights more comforting than walking into someone's kitchen at 2:45 a.m. and seeing a two-gallon jug of knob creek more than half-full...

ps- tomorrow's the first day of may which is not only the month of my birth (i'll take an ipod, a new car, $73,000 or a 3-week vacation in hawaii if anyone's wondering), it's also the first real month of golf season... i'm going to the range this week, on the first nice day... and on that tip, if you like golf, you should check out this site... someone told me the design is pretty sweet... lates.

i'm an earth sign, she's a water sign - together we made mud

2005-04-29T04:37:00.000-04:00

goodbye, antoine... it's sad to see you go - again... may your next destination be prosperous, may you realize that sometimes, jumping is necessary in basketball, and, for the love of pete, may you please, for all that is sacred, grow the fuck up? thanks, buddy... have a great career... lates.

I want you to remember this face - this is the guy, behind the guy, behind the guy

2005-04-28T15:34:00.000-04:00

man, the C's are in trouble... look, they're schizo, ok? they seem to have some sort of mental block that keeps them from understanding what works and what's successful from one game, or even one quarter, to the next... Game 1: running, forcing the tempo, great ball movement, energy, defensive intensity, exuding confidence... Game 2: none of the above...

why? it's not that difficult to sustain a mental edge like they had in Game 1 against a team as transparent as the pacers... everyone in the building knew exactly what indy planned on trying to do in Game 2 and the celts let them get away with it anyway... the pacers needed to get off to a good start, slow things down to a crawl, and hope that reggie was getting the calls... not exactly nebulous, abstract concepts here, folks... but the c's couldn't stop it... now for a short while, it looked like it'd be ok... the celts stayed in the game despite doc not allowing the rooks - so good in Game 1 - to get going, and in the third quarter of a close game, pierce, in all of his truthfulness, took over... he was transcendent in the third (17 of his 33) and he gave the c's a lead they still had with 4 minutes left in the game...

but all of the bad decisions/luck/karma came back to bite 'em in the collective ass... ricky, who was having one of his worst games, foced one too many... soft raef reverted to useless form... blunted was just that... and doc, who refused to play big al and marcus even for just 2 minutes at the start of the fourth, just to change the tempo and give antoine and pierce a quick rest, had to watch as the tired legs of his stars got the best of them... did you guys see antoine on that huge layup he missed with a buck and a half to play? everyone knows i have a better vert than antoine, but come on... he had two open looks from 2 feet and neither was close... pierce's misses were all front-rimmed - translation: no legs under him... and gp, god love him, can't guard an ice cream truck... he got beat on those two drives by anthony johnson because he got screened off and the celts were too tired/slow/full of themselves to rotate... but if anyone thinks he's not a liability on defense in crunch time, i got a bridge for ya...

and that was it... a giveaway of the first-class variety... now they have to win at least once on the road against a team that has more mental toughness, more experience and understands EXACTLY what it needs to do to win... it could get ugly, folks... doc ain't gettin fired no matter what, but losing this series changes everything... if the c's lose, there'll be no antoine next year, that's for sure... why would danny-boy want to pay him if he can't lead the charges out of the first round? because he sparked a 10-game run in february? please... and then we go back to pierce the pouter, which will do wonders for the youngsters, not to mention blount, who apparantly will only try if someone literally holds a briefcase full of money under his nose...

so here's the totality of it all... if the celts lose tonight, its over... they'd have to win 3 of 4 with 2 more on the road... what on god's green earth is there to suggest they can summon that kind of consistency? answer: nuthin... if they win tonight, i still think they ultimately lose the series because of that whole consistency, mental edge thing, but it will sure be tough for them to blow it... and the pick? pacers (-3) tonight... god love reggie and leg kick...

ps- anyone hear the new weezer single? if you listen to the radio you have because its played every 47 seconds... but so catchy... nothing but love for weezer... i hope the new album is longer than 22 minutes cause if its not, spending the $12.99 will be rough... but i'll do it anyway... enjoy the game, buds... 31 and a half hours to freedom!!! lates.

nobody makes me bleed my own blood...

2005-04-27T20:07:00.000-04:00

so schill and wells are both disabled... well if they're both still there in july/august, then we can worry... but for now, even though we should expect a bunch of 12-10 games, its better to get them healthy when the season's still young, don't ya think? what happens now isn't nearly as important as what happens in a few months - which is why a-fraud's display last night is nothing beyond an example of how good a hitter he can be, period... no need to worry about schill and wells...

what we should be worried about, though, is the fact that katie holmes is dating tom cruise... doesn't she know he's gay??? stop the insanity!!!

more on the celts to come prior to Game 3... lates.

if your manner of speech is any indication of the workings of your mind, then it's a wonder you can even tie your shoes

2005-04-25T16:13:00.000-04:00

allow me to digress just a touch so that i can examine a phenomenon that i can't stop coming back to... on friday night, fate brought me, your faithful servant, to a college party... this in and of itself was a bit bizarre as i'm not in college nor have i been since the roaring 90s... also bizarre was being probably the third oldest person there next to the big man and legend, but i could handle it because every time the captain and i go to concert, it seems the only ones older than us are the parents who've been coerced into accompanying their children...

what was weird, to me anyway, was the fact that later on in the evening, after a few beverages had been consumed and while i was openly mocking the wasted kids (e.g. everyone there), i heard from a distance the record "under the table and dreaming" by the dave matthews band... now i'm not ashamed to admit that i'm a big fan of said group - to a point... things get touchy for me with dave and the boys after their third record, "crash"... plus i saw them before they were the biggest band in the world in a small venue, then also saw them play a stadium after they were the biggest band in the world, which was not terribly fun...

but i'm digressing again... the point is, i went into the room in which the record was being played and examined the contents... everyone listening/singing along to "best of what's around" was not a millisecond older than 22... which means that when the record first came out/i was first listening to it, the oldest person in the room was in grade school...

i find this fascinating even though i'd bet that you don't... sure, i listened to the beatles and the rolling stones and even (gulp) def leppard, among other bands when i was in college and never even thought about it... and if i hadn't gone to that party on friday, i wouldn't be thinking about it now either... and you know what? if you're asking yourself what in the hell my point is, the answer would appear to be I HAVE NO IDEA! i just think its funny that those wasted kids were so into that dave album instead of some more current shit like the white stripes or modest mouse or something else that rolling stone told them was cool... or, i'm just coming back to one of my favorite topics to obsess over - the fact that i'm getting old...

oh well, sorry if i wasted your time... the party was sort of lame, but i saw some truly entertaining sights, not the least of which was several young women pissing off of a third floor balcony simultaneously... oh those kids today...

i'll leave you with a joke, complements of one of the funniest guys i know, young james:
what's got nine arms and sucks? def leppard! harharharharharharhar...

stay tuned for another diatribe about my beloved celts, who, contrary to rofo's opinion, are going to lose tonight... lates.

i was born to rub you... but you were born to rub me first

2005-04-24T16:59:00.000-04:00

what i forgot to tell you all was that they would win Game 1... honest...

well i didn't see the game because i had to work so that i can afford to sit here and preach instead of stand out on the street and beg for crack money... but what i read and was told didn't surprise me... when the celtics have the right amount of energy, play defense and just generally have everyone doing what they're supposed to in at least a moderately accurate fashion, they're pretty good... they can sustain pierce and antoine shooting for shit and get away with it... plus the pacers just weren't ready for what was coming... remember o'neal, has only played in like 4 games since his inhury and is still getting his timing back... the pacers are flawed in a lot of ways and most of them were exposed last night... but who wants to bet that carlisle won't make the proper adjustments? plus, the celts will come out tomorrow night thinking that their mere presence guarantees victory because of how easily they won Game 1 and will subsequently lose... sorry to be so down on my boys in green... i just don't believe it yet... i want them to win, i really do... i just don't think they can, plus i'm sure there's a little subconscious thing going on in my coconut that would rather see them lose now than get vaporized by detroit in the next round... we shall see, right?

apologies to those who thought they might be going blind reading the post that was written in red a coule days ago... the captain informs me that red on black is a definite no-no and she (almost) always has great taste so i promise it'll never happen again...

the sox just put up a six spot in the eighth at that warehouse down in tampa hot on the heels of two bench-clearing fights, so i better go see if there's another brawl in the offing... stay tuned for more... lates.

tiny salmon chasing that impossible dream

2005-04-23T14:05:00.000-04:00

it's such a bummer... you want your favorite team to win... you hope that they can get everyone on the same page, overcome the obstacles and exert their will...

and then you remember that your favorite team is the celtics...

deano was nice enough to let me rant about the celts on his site a couple times earlier in the season so he knows what i'm getting at... i mean honestly, what about this team inspires confidence right now, at this very moment, less that six hours before the opening tip of game 1 against the pacers?

these guys are SO vulnerable in this matchup... any number of things can happen that would completely sabotage the celts' chances of getting out of this mess... for starters, reggie miller, indiana's conquering hero, its el cid, could blow up at the most clutch of times on a variety of occassions, as he's been prone to do oh i don't know, 1,000 TIMES ALREADY IN HIS CAREER... i wouldn't put it past him... he's always been a drama queen and now, with his retirement close enough to touch, he could decide to average 27 points per game in the series, and bury ridiculous trey after ridiculous trey... just like he's always done... he's lost on defense - it happens when you're pushing 40 - and whoever gets to take hime one-on-one, whether its pierce or davis or hell, even tony allen, will have their way... but anyone who's ever watched nba playoff ball knows that reggie will produce at least a couple of daggers... i just hope that's all he's got...

indiana also has the "shock the world" thing going for it... any patriots fan knows exactly what this is - supposedly not having the horses to keep up, right? with all the shit the pacers have been through this year, from the brawl to the suspensions to the injuries to the bad r&b albums to the ongoing insert-foot-in-mouth disease (thank you, jermaine o'neal), it's a near miracle that they made it this far and aren't already out on the golf course... and that's what the celts have to be afraid of... why would the pacers want to go home now? they've come this far after everyone wrote them off six months ago... their coach, one mr. carlisle, is the coach of the year in the nba and if you don't agree, find me one guy in history who got more blood out of a frickin boulder let alone a stone than this guy did this year... you think he doesn't know how to get the most out of his boys in this setup? you think the amount of strats and schemes he's had to come up with this year just to stay competitive aren't coimng out of his arse by now? carlisle is THE MAN and, sadly, he can coach our own doc (god love him) under the table...

and we haven't even gotten to the celts yet... if they run, run and then run some more, they can win... but this is the playoffs now, ladies and gentlemen, and running in the playoffs just don't happen... celts get bogged down in a halfcourt game, they're dead, that's D-E-A-D... who's going to guard o'neal? antoine? please... i love him like a little brother, but he can't guard a salad bar... mark blount?? maybe if he forgets about that killer bag of dizzy-dank that's sitting in his freezer he has a shot... pierce would love this because he hates to run, has been resisting it all year and would get at least four more shots per game... but he'd be the only one... halfcourt, slow-down game means less touches for our most explosive guy (ricky), more triple screens for reggie to run around, more chances for antoine to dribble too much and turn it over and more "man, i could be golfing in orlando right now," looks from doc on the sideline.

i could go on, dear followers... i have an unlimited word count (with rollover!) on this thing... but i'll spare you... i won't get into how after the vets in the starting lineup and ricky, the celts average age is roughly 16 and if any of the youngsters have to play big minutes for any reason, its over, how raef lafrentz is softer than a charmin double roll, how GP hasn't been able to play defense all year, how the celts have a knack for thinking that if they're better on paper, all they have to do is walk onto the court and they'll win and then they lose by 30... i'll spare you all of it... what i will say is that its been an interesting year, and if danny-boy decides to pay antoine, can somehow get rid of either raef or blunted so that big al and perk the juvenile delinquent can play more, and was right about marcus banks cause GP's out the door, we'll have ourselves a pretty good team next year - one that could actually get out of the first round... but this year, it ain't happenin... i said it before and i'll say it again - pacers in 6...

happy passover everyone - may your people's next exodus from an oppressive, hateful land be bountiful and hearty... lates.

well with your bad knee, you shouldn't throw anybody

2005-04-21T14:48:00.000-04:00

someone asked me last night that if there's a movie called "spaceballs" and a movie called "hot shots," why isn't there a movie called "spaceshots?" i thought about it and responded by asking why there isn't a movie called "hot balls?"

but twisted timmy (totally twisted in a good way!) said there probably is. next time i'm at the amazing store, i'll check and get back to you all...

so now a-fraud says to those paragons of purity at the new york post that he wants to be a yankee for life. what he didn't mention was that a) he expressed this feeling about 3.2 seconds after the red sox signed tim wakefield to his extension - an extension that exemplifies wake as one of the ultimate team-first-me-second guys in all of sports, and b) that he's going to be a yankee for life even if he didn't want to be because he's got 6 years and $150 million left on his wow-the-rangers-owner-has-a-crack-problem contract!

is anyone else getting just a tad sick of this guy? i mean, even if he didn't expose himself as the be all end all of cowards, cheaters and phonies last year, i'd be tired of it... hey a-fraud, do us all a favor and shut your cakehole, ok?

all right i have to stop because i promised the fabulous chacha that i wouldn't make this into a yankee-hater-only site... lucky for me, the nba playoffs start in a mere two days which is great because 1) playoff nba ball is infinitely more entertaining than regular season nba ball and 2) it'll give me even more ammo to fire at my "i love them so much i hate them, or, vice versa" celtics, who, by the way, are going to lose in the first round in 6 games...

it's only a matter of a couple days before i really know how to use this thing... if i have any incriminating photos of you, watch out!

carnys... you know - circus folk

2005-04-20T04:09:00.000-04:00

i'm convinced froboy is one of them... froboy, tell us who you are!!!

before i go any further, i must give credit for some of the wording from my last post to my dear friend hector longo, the fabulous patriots beat writer for a local newspaper you may have read... he was the first one i heard describe the baseball regular season as one long exhibition and when i wrote that before, i was not remotely aware that it was he who put that particular phrasing into my head... thanks, hec, and sorry for forgetting you...

don't fret, faithful readers... tomorrow (or later today for some) will be here soon and with that will come more exquisitely written gobbledy-gook by me...

and keep the comments coming... and if you're going to be like froboy and not identify yourself, at least give me a hint... i think that's a fair agreement, don't you?

it's earlier than you think

2005-04-19T13:46:00.000-04:00

let me get this straight... the yankees, those pillars of integrity and virtue when it comes to baseball, whose third baseman makes more money than about five entire teams, are now "back" after boss steinbrenner's angry (but extremely well-timed) statement on sunday following their sweep at the hands of the orioles shook them out of their slumber... they scored 19 runs last night (the same amount they scored in the final game they won last year before committing the greatest collapse in pro sports history, by the way), including 13 in the second inning, their most in one inning in 60 years...

has anyone noticed who they were playing? the devil rays (one of the teams with a cumulative payroll lower than a-fraud's salary)!!! me and benjah and rob and andy all drunk could put up 19 runs against that staff! yet all we hear leading up to the game are the so-called experts breathlessly telling us how this team is done for and all we hear after the game is that they really are the yankees and they're going to win the world series...

has anyone looked at a calendar? today's date is April 19... the orioles and their pitching staff led by... wait, i don't know anyone on their pitching staff except for julio jorge or jorge julio or george julius or whatever his name is but anyway, the orioles are in first place in the AL East... who thinks that the mighty o's will win the division? can i see a show of hands?? and if you do, can you promise not to be within 5 miles of me when i buy my mega millions tickets later?

in case anyone forgot, the red sox were barely at .500 in JULY last year and went on to win the world series... it may have taken such a miracle to convince me of the following sentiment but i sure do believe it: we are all observing one giganticly long preseason! nothing that happens from two weeks ago until sept. 1, maybe aug. 15, means a damn thing... if the bombers have gone 10 straight games without a quality start or are hitting .217 with runners in scoring position on one of those dates, we can talk... until then, the yankees and their $200 million payroll and all-stars at every position will still be the yankees and probably win the division and play the sox in the playoffs yet again...

and then they'll lose... again... probably in a manner representative of someone putting his hands around their collective necks and squeezing... hard.

yikes!

2005-04-19T04:53:00.000-04:00

warning - the following material may be inappropriate for those over the age of 45... please use discretion!

http://homepage.mac.com/sthompson/iMovieTheater13.html

rather be lucky than good, or good than lucky?

2005-04-19T04:31:00.000-04:00

so what is luck, anyway? is it getting whatever you feel like having all the time - your dream job, dream car, dream house, dream girl? is it the ability to drivethrough a speed trap on a deserted road at 4 a.m. doing 80 in a 45 and not get pulled over? is it tony clark's double off keith foulke in game 4 somehow defying physics and bouncing over the right field fence or the patriots winning the super bowl three times in four years?

i'm bored with these questions... i don't know what the fuck luck is, all i know is some people have it and some people don't and other people get to really experience it on certain few-and-far-between occasions which probably makes it cooler, you know?

ok so i promise that all of the posts won't be like this one, which is to say pretentious and slightly maddening... most of what you read on this spot will be about sports... its just that i think i've just come to a major decision and it's all making me feel a little pretentious and well, mad...

so just to prove that this is all being done in good faith, i will now attempt to leave you with a link to something rather hilarious - if i can figure out how to get a link on here without the help of my webhead buddies who are asleep right now because they work normal-people hours... so here goes - apologies if it doesn't work... everyone have a good day... i'm going to bed...

http://homepage.mac.com/sthompson/iMovieTheater13.html

Greetings and Salutations

2005-04-18T18:29:00.000-04:00

So this is it - after succumbing to the pressure, i've finally decided to indulge my inner need to write all the time and start one of these up... this is just a hello, how are you type posting - the more meaningful yet still mostly frivolous stuff comes later... and, as boring as this thing might look now, soon enough i will have my compadres who use this site teach me how to make it all look better with all of the various features... in the meantime, please feel free to share any thoughts you may have on my many thoughts - remember, i'm the most neurotic person any of you know, so that should never be discounted when pondering one of my postings... so with that, i bid you all adieu until the next time, which probably won't be too long from now... i'd like to leave you with thoughts of peace and happiness and a very special birthday greeting to my dear friend jennifer garner, who hits double 3's today - i told you leaving that rich, powerful actor for some broke freakshow like me wouldn't be easy, darling, but i'll be damned if we can't make it work... salut!