“Hey man, wanna go to the Yankees game against the Padres with me?”
“Definitely! Hey you know what will make us totally awesome and show everyone how much we care about baseball?”
“Bring an American flag to aimlessly hold when they do ‘God Bless America’!”
“You read my mind! Lemme just change into my lucky pot leaf shirt and I’ll be good to go.”
“I love weed!”
“Where are we going again?”
Of course, this isn’t the first time weed and sports have overlapped…
Baseball should institute a rule that upon the death of a team’s owner, the team must be sold. Sure, a family member could then opt to buy the team but it would not be a slam-dunk. Generally when people buy baseball teams, they do so with an intent to present the best product on the field and to win a championship, (nod, Sam Zell).
However, like most rich kids who inherit money, the people who generally inherit baseball teams squander them and become whiny and irrational. Take for instance Hank Steinbrenner who said recently, “The bottom line is that the team is not playing the way it is capable of playing. These players are being paid a lot of money and they had better decide for themselves to earn that money.”
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love the upcoming dysfunction that Hank will sow upon the Yankees. I of course want to see the Yankees fall apart and see their owner make his players’ lives miserable. As my friend Mattraw, a Yankees fan said, “All these years waiting for Steinbrenner to become senile, and now we’ve got to deal with another 40 years of his asshole son? Great.”
Hank Steinbrenner has this entitled bullshit attitude that is completely unwarranted. George Steinbrenner took his family’s struggling business and made it back into a success, and in the process earned himself a massive fortune. Hank Steinbrenner has done essentially nothing in life. He’s been a failure generally everywhere and while Hal, his brother has at least been marginally successful in horse racing, Hank has no real accomplishments to speak of. Now that his father is in poor health and has ceded control to his sons, Hank is the man in charge. So far, he’s managed to be a complete asshole. Nice!
The reason why I suggest baseball teams can’t be bequeathed is that for the initial owner, the team is everything, for George Steinbrenner he lived and died by the Yankees, he made them his team. For Hank, who is just a spoiled rich kid who has gotten his way throughout his life, he has done nothing to earn this position as owner. It seems that George Steinbrenner agrees because up until he divorced Steinbrenner’s daughter, Steve Swindal was the heir apparent, because he actually earned the right to become the owner of the team through experience, knowledge and dedication. After the divorce Hank and Hal became the heirs out of necessity, not merit.
The fact that Steinbrenner, who loves the Yankees franchise more than anyone would NOT want to give his team automatically to his sons says more than anything else. They were the last option and it has become pretty clear why.
Sure the O’Malley family ran the Dodgers generally well for over 50 years, but they are the exception rather than the rule. If baseball made a rule that after an owner dies the team be put up for sale it would be extremely radical, and dangerous possibly. But is having Hank Steinbrenner in control of the most famous franchise any better?
As far as I can tell, the only time that a team has been bequeathed and been run well was by this guy:
But they didn’t even win the game at the end! That said, Billy knew a shitload more about baseball than Hank ever will.
Now I get that as a player agent, one’s responsibilities includes putting the best possible story forward about their client, but sometimes it just gets ridiculous. For example, Carl Pavano, owner of a 4 year 39.5 million dollar contract, and possessor of a 5-6 record in only 19 games played–for those of you counting that’s nearly $8M a win–and constant DL contributor has an agent who clearly is blazing on some serious drugs. According to Tom O’Connell, “Carl’s a 1-2 starter, those guys don’t grow on trees. Those guys are very rare, 200-inning guys are very rare in this game, and they’re the ones that make the money. And he did it two years in a row, before he got hurt, and I’m sure he’s going to do it again.”
For the record, the last time Pavano pitched 200 innings was 2004, the first time he threw 200 innings was 2003. Isn’t it more likely that he is NOT going to throw 200 innings ever, since he only did so in 2 of his 9 seasons? Are we allowed to base all future opportunities based solely on what we did 4 years ago? If so, my 2004 life-stats were pretty decent, and I’d like all future employers to only look at my work from that year as opposed to anything afterwards.
Unfortunately for Pavano, baseball is a numbers game, there are stats on everything, and generally, stats and numbers don’t lie. The story the stats tell about Pavano is that not only is it unlikely that he ever pitches 200 innings again, it is unlikely he’s ever a consistent major league starter ever again.
Now, let’s look at the other part of O’Connell’s ridiculous statement, “Carl’s a 1-2 starter…” Uh, since when? Yes, in 2003 and 2004 Pavano had dope seasons, unreal seasons, but those seasons are more a statistical aberration rather than a sign of consistent ability.
Let’s face it, after dating Alyssa Milano very little worthwhile has happened for Pavano. The chances of Pavano coming back and being an efficient starter for an entire season are probably about the same as Barry Bonds and Bud Selig making a travel buddy flick together.
So while I appreciate the dedication of his agent, those comments have to be some of the stupidest and unintelligent about baseball I’ve seen for a while.
That said, I expect to see the Asstros throw a 6 year 100 million contract at Pavano this off-season while he continues his 19th year of rehab sessions.
Frankenstein Duncan doesn’t think he did anything wrong with his slide and doesn’t understand why he was thrown out. The money quote, “I go out there and I try to play the game the right way, I told [Girardi] what I was doing, how the play went through my eyes.”
Well, did the play go through your eyes this way?
Because that’s you sliding into Akinori Iwamura’s junk…
Over-eager uber-douche Shelley Duncan started what became sort of a brawl yesterday in a game between the Yankees and the Mephistophelian Rays when he, for no good reason, slid spikes up into second base. Duncan, who came up last year and showed all the exuberance of a kid straight after eating 37 pixie sticks and shooting up some ‘roids–not to say he does or is even rumored to do steroids, because that isn’t the case–was best known last year for being overly excited to punch his teammates in their forearms the moment they did anything noteworthy.
"Maybe later we can slam together other parts of our bodies..."
Duncan also earned notoriety last season when a 10 year old Red Sox fan asked for his autograph and he signed it “RED SOX SUCK, Shelley Duncan” so obviously there are few limits to his douchebaggery. Shelley is like that overly drunk guy at the party who keeps punching his passed out friend on the couch to wake up and mumbling about playing quarters or else his friend is a total pussy. Continue reading ‘Duncan Chasin’ Waterfalls’
The Slanch Report has started an online petition asking the MLB Network to air the Dock Ellis no-hitter he threw on June 12, 1970 against the San Diego Padres. The moment was a seminal piece of baseball history and is certainly worthy of being rerun.
Please join us in this cause and sign the petition below so we can all share in this special and fantastic moment of baseball history. THANKS!
SIGN THE PETITION HERE! AND PLEASE TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND PASS THIS ALONG!
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