Here’s English team captain John Terry stretching with his buddy Frank Lampard prior to a friendly with Spain. Something about this suggests something other than stretching to me, but I can’t quit put my finger in it. ON it. I said “on” right?
Archive for February, 2009
12
Feb
09
Such Close Teammates
12
Feb
09
Got a Light?
Can you believe the Winter Olympics are only a year away? I feel like Beijing just ended and yet, here we are getting ready for the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. Of course, since weed is tacitly decriminalized, with coffee shops and all in Vancouver, it doesn’t surprise me, but it does delight me, that the new torch for the games looks awfully similar to a joint. Or maybe it’s just me…
Far be it from me to actually accuse Bud Selig of doing something wrong, but when I read things like this from ESPN, I start thinking that Bud isn’t the wisest wizard…
Commissioner Bud Selig is considering his options. While Rodriguez can’t be disciplined for testing positive, it’s possible baseball could try to punish him for acknowledging steroid use from 2001-2003.
Selig told USA Today on Wednesday afternoon that he is “just heartsick” about Rodriguez’s admission and would not rule out punishing him or adjusting baseball’s record book. Selig told USA Today he “had put a bulletin out” about the illegality of steroid use in 1997, even though MLB had no drug testing at that time.
“It was against the law, so I would have to think about that,” Selig told USA Today when asked about possible action against Rodriguez. “It’s very hard. I’ve got to think about all that kind of stuff.”
Sure, it was against the law, but until MLB starts suspending players for their DUIs or hitting their wives or other crimes, you can’t just pick and choose which laws are suspension-worthy offenses. But it’s nice that Bud is “heartsick,” not enough to have done anything about the rampant steroids problems in the 90s when he could have avoided incidents like this, but still, it’s good to know he at least has a heart. I always just assumed there was an empty black hole in the middle of his chest.
While I have been incredibly impressed with the manner in which the MLB network has approached the A-Rod news, MLB itself has been woefully inept in handling this situation. Bud Selig has presided over a period of baseball with RAMPANT cheating and did nothing to stop it, while in the process increasing baseball’s revenues and lining his own pockets with an exorbitant salary. Just as A-Rod would never have come forward and admitted his transgressions if the SI story never existed, Bud would happily just ignore everything that happened under his reign with steroids, except Congress and the newspapers love to keep bringing it up. Unfortunately for Bud, now the greatest home run hitter of all-time, one of the greatest pitchers of all-time and the best current player in baseball are all associated with steroids and cheating and all of it happened under his watch. But sure, let’s start punishing players arbitrarily now, particularly for testing positive on a test that was collectively bargained to be non-punitive. Good luck with that.
12
Feb
09
Please Watch Friday Night Lights
You wouldn’t know it, because NBC never markets it, but Friday Night Lights is back and is as great as it was the first season. The writing is excellent, the acting real and honest and the overall package is compelling. It airs Fridays at 9 pm, watch it. PLEASE. Need more reasons than that keeping it on the air will provide me with happiness in an otherwise despair-filled world? Remember, Minka Kelly is on the show. Sure, she’s Derek Jeter’s paramour currently, but that’s only because she hasn’t met me yet. Although, anyone who was with Jeter needs to be tested, a lot.
Also, NBC does the absolute WORST marketing of their shows. Ben Silverman, HIRE ME, I know how to actually get people to watch the several quality programs you have, instead you seem content to drive people away. The fact that 30 Rock and FNL are not being watched by everyone in America is a failure on NBC’s part and one that I can fix. DO IT IT NOW!
Anyhoo. Minka, you fine, call me!
Sure the big former Mets player news today is the revelation that Roberto Alomar has AIDS, was raped as a teenager and is now being sued, and while that story is interesting and crazy, I’m not here to talk about it right now. Instead, I wanted to point out some of the information excerpted from Darryl Strawberry’s upcoming April tome. For example, to highlight the partying ways of the 80s Mets, he (or more accurately, his ghostwriter) says that “We were the boys of summer. The drunk, speed-freak, sneaking-a-smoke boys of summer. [An] infamous rolling frat party . . . drinking, drugs, fights, gambling, groupies.”
For the Mets, beer “was the foundation of our alcoholic lifestyle. We hauled around more Bud than the Clydesdales. The beer was just to get the party started and maybe take the edge off the speed and coke.” Ah the good ol’ days.
The most difficult part of being a Met then was that you had to go out and “tear up your best bars and nightclubs and take your finest women . . . The only hard part for us was choosing which hottie to take back to your hotel room. Lots of times you . . . picked two or three.”
The action with the ladies wasn’t limited to just on the field though, Strawberry talks about how team members picked out girls from the stands for quickies. He once watched a pitcher take an extra friendly fan to a private room for oral sex: “I was jealous. When I saw her heading back to her seat, I gave her a sign. She smiled, turned right back around, and met me in that same little room . . . I had to be quick and run back out on the field.” Talk about sloppy seconds right! Also, I don’t know if I should be impressed with her technique that she was able to quick enough, or disappointed in Darryl for not having better stamina, after all, he was a highly conditioned athlete…
That’s not all the fun being held, often during the games. Another incident happened when “I was in the clubhouse, having one last quickie with this cute little Florida girl. Charlie Samuels, the equipment manager, came in and caught us. He just stood there shaking his head while I finished up.” That’s great, but um, Charlie, what are you doing STANDING THERE WATCHING DARRYL GET HIS GROOVE ON. C’mon Chaz, give the guy a little room and privacy right? Sure there’s a game going on but Darryl’s gotta bust a nut first, I think we can all respect that…
[NY Post]
Minor league sports always have the best promotions, like this one from the Milwaukee Admirals of the American Hockey League who are presenting a “Don’t Be Like Mike” night on February 19.
Any graduate of the DARE program can get into the game for $2 by bringing their graduation certificate to the Admirals’ office or the Bradley Center box office.
Also, anyone with the name Michael, Phelps, Mary Jane, Cheech, Chong, Weed – or Wied – can get a $2 ticket as well. Those who have won an Olympic gold medal also get the discount.
The Admirals will give away a weed wacker signed by the team as well.
If Milwaukee scores with 4:20 left on the clock in any period, one fan will win a season ticket for next season.
The team also is providing a document shredder at the DigiCopy information table outside Section 225 “so fans can bring any embarrassing or incriminating photo to be destroyed,” according to a news release.
Road TRIP!
[JSOnline via The Big Lead]
Seriously, they have been taking down Shea for MONTHS, this place was a dump, how hard is it to swing a wrecking ball? Get it done!
It’s a common problem, something that happens to me on a nearly weekly basis, you wanna play hockey but you’re already dressed in your bathing suit, what are you to do? Well, some enterprising students at the University of Colorado-Boulder have created a solution, an underwater hockey club; one of only three such clubs in Colorado, the students of the CU Underwater Hockey Club play weekly games in the on-campus pool.
“I think quirky things fit well in Boulder,” said club president Tyera Eulberg, a graduate student who established the student group in August. Of course the kids like the quirky things, they have celebrations like this and they are in Boulder! It’s either this or street luge, and that requires much more equipment.
The game uses a heavy lead puck on the floor of the pool that is handled with small sticks, with the players wearing only bathing suits, water polo headgear, flippers and a snorkel. Two teams of five battle underwater, 3-dimensionally to try and score at the opposite ends of the pool. Playing in water provides its own set of challenges, not least of which is that you have to hold your breath while handling the puck, which makes breakaways more difficult but does lead to an emphasis on teamwork.
Besides the silly little sticks they use, this game looks like it is pretty damn fun. However, I want to see real sticks being used, or at least something that looks more impressive than a paint smoother. Regardless, I’m glad to see that this game is getting underway because with rapidly advancing global warming we may need to change the whole NHL soon enough…
10
Feb
09
Snoop Knows How to Party
Snoop Dogg was in Tampa for the Super Bowl and to coach his Snoop Youth Football team and to enjoy the Super Bowl. After the game, Snoop enjoyed himself partying it up with some of the Steelers and their hangers-on. Also, call me crazy but I think Snoop might be, shhhhhh, high… Look at his eyes, I think he might have tried weed for the first time! I wonder if Snoop is ever turned away from a party or if he can just show up anywhere at any time, after all, how do you say no to Snoop?
10
Feb
09
Ichiro Wants a Cy Young Too
Ichiro Suzuki is a man of many talents, we’ve seen his rifle arm, his prodigious on-base ability, his profanity-laced inspirational speeches and in the WBC, we might just see Ichiro the pitcher. In 1996, during the Japanese league All-Star game, Ichiro came in to pitch, originally to Hideki Matsui but they took Matsui out and put a pinch hitter in instead; Ichiro came in throwing gas, hitting 90 mph on his first warm-up pitch!
Now, Japan’s WBC manager, Tatsunori Hara has hinted that he might use Ichiro in an emergency situation in the late innings if necessary. Skipping batting practice, Ichiro took to the hill, throwing 56 pitches, mixing in fastballs and forkballs, supposedly his fastest pitch hit 92 mph on the gun, although, ever the perfectionist, Ichiro said he wants to throw even a bit faster. I just hope now that one of Japan’s games goes late so we get a chance to see this, because frankly, it’d be dope.
Kayaking can be fun, although I always find myself getting annoyed at the water that seeps in and stays stuck in the bottom of the boat. That confined tight leg space can be a bit uncomfortable too. Some guys from Alaska’s American Ocean Kayak Fishing Team evidently feel differently and decided to up the ante a bit and use their kayaks to go shark hunting.
Sounds reasonable to me, after all, I love chasing killing machines in a fragile fiberglass kayak that is easily tipped over. The team paddled into the middle of a group of salmon sharks–weighing in at about 1000 pounds and 9 feet in length–about 300 of them in total and then started hunting.
“We are all experienced anglers and kayakers so either as a whole or individually, we felt confident in our personal abilities and limits,” said the captain, Chris Mautino.
“The sharks were concentrating on feeding on the Pink Salmon and I really don’t think they gave us a second thought,” said Senor Insano. “We slow trolled the bait behind the kayaks with the rods laying across our laps … Our biggest concerns were staying upright in the kayaks and keeping from getting tangled up in the gear and pulled over as well.”
Yeah, my biggest concern when trying to hunt sharks in a flimsy craft is not getting ate, but then that’s just me… Of course, I’m not silly enough to try and be in that situation in the first place…
10
Feb
09
Down We Go
Hey you’ve got some time to kill, so why not watch this video of a pretty awesome mountain biking descent. No one crashes, so that’s disappointing, but instead there is a really long, really windy, pretty damn dope course for these guys to go down, and I don’t even LIKE mountain biking. This track is in the Alps and must be darn high for such a long descent. All I know is that I don’t like my balls rattling around that much unless I’ve paid someone to do it for me…
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