Now let me welcome everybody to the wild, wild west, a state that's untouchable like Elliot Ness
The track hits your eardrum like a slug to your chest, pack a vest for your jimmy in the city of sex.
By the way, that means I'm in Los Angeles for work. Which also means I couldn't attend nor watch the Gopher game last night, but it looks like the Gophers went with their standard operating procedure of sucking for the majority of the game and falling behind to a far inferior opponent, and then turning it on in the second half to cruise to a win that looks a lot easier than it really was. That's all well and good, but if they are still doing that crap once the Big Ten season gets underway it's going to get ugly in a hurry. Maybe Nolen can fix all that, maybe not. We're going to find out.
- No real exciting meals to report. Well, actually I had one of the best burgers in the history of burgerdom last night at a place in Hollywood called Lucky Devils. Kobe Beef burger (medium) with lettuce, onions, and some kind of home made secret sauce. Outstanding. And the rosemary garlic fries were out of this world. Although I think Elk, who I am out here with, made the best call of the night (besides the restaurant) going with the Diablo burger, which was a spicy version of what I had. I had a chance to try their hot sauce and it was really, really good. I should have ordered that.
Later in the evening we hit up an establishment called the Pig and Whistle for a couple after-dinner drinks and ended up having one with a Michael Jackson impersonator - unless it was really him and the whole "death" thing was a sham. Stranger things have happened. Or not really, I guess. That would be pretty strange. In any case it was a bit of an unusual occurrence. But now I'm in the room with nothing but a few Coors Light silos to keep me company, so let's see what things are going on.
- Jesse Crain to the White Sox, huh? And Guerrier to the Dodgers, but that doesn't interest me nearly as much since Crain is going to the most hated rival in the world. They pretty clearly overpaid, but Crain showed just enough in the second half of last year when he started using that slider all the time where I'm pretty nervous to be facing him in the division. Will he give up tap measure home runs? Of course. But the first time they bring him in to face the Twins in the 8th and he shuts them down 1-2-3 I'm going to die a little inside.
- And speaking of free agents, this Cliff Lee to the Phillies thing is really unfair. I know the Giants won the series this year with a combination of insane pitching and Buster Posey and that's it, but the Phillies actually have an offense. Howard is going to hit 40 bombs, Victorino has developed into one hell of a hitter, and Utley and Rollins are great hitters for their positions, even if they were a bit off last year. I know Werth is gone, but it doesn't really matter who plays left or center or third or whoever the hell their catcher is. And their only going to have score 2-3 runs a game to win most of the time, and they won't even need a bullpen because Halladay and Lee are just going to pitch complete games every time out anyway. Halladay, Lee, and Oswalt are all in the top 14 in active complete game leaders, and that includes ancients like Tim Wakefield and Jamie Moyer. Actually, Halladay is 33, and amongst pitchers 33 or younger they rank 1, 5, and 6. Ridiculous and basically just unfair. The over/under for their season wins is going to be like 110.
- Oh, and if the Twins trade for Joe freaking Blanton and his Nick Blackburn-like career 1.34 WHIP I'm going to drive down there and maim somebody. Why make a trade for a fifth starter when he's worse than whoever you call up from triple A? Come on geniuses, don't be stupid.
- Of course, this is not my first time in Los Angeles for work. Prior to this I was introduced to the weirdness of everybody in the city trying to get a movie produced, and before that I was lucky enough to become good friends with Larry David and learned a little about women. L.A. is weird, but I always have a good time. Plus, I was in a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode that time with my good friend Larry. You can actually see my bald spot in the scene. I'm famous.
- Interesting week in college hoops so far. Three teams who I don't think anybody was super sure what to make of (Louisville, Tennessee, and UNLV) all went on big runs early, picked up huge wins (Louisville over UNLV, Tennessee over Pitt, and UNLV over Wisconsin and Va Tech), got themselves highly ranked (Tenn #7, UNLV #20 , L'Ville #20) and then all crashed and burned this week. Louisville got beat at home by Drexel, Tennessee got beat at home by Oakland, and UNLV by Santa Barbara. But no real worries, because they're all still better than Gonzaga who is an absolute nightmare right now. They're going to end up scrambling to even sniff an at-large bid.
- In case you're wondering what's going with the world's worst shooting guard, Scottie Reynolds was picked 13th in the first round of the NBDL draft by Tulsa, who then immediately shipped him off in a trade to get of his stink. Since play began he ranks 19th in scoring (behind guys like Pat Ewing Jr. and Roderick Wilmont), and 19th in assists (behind guys like Curtis Stinson and Luke Jackson). Nicely done.
- Speaking of the NBDL draft, other picks of interest:
First Round: Alan Anderson (Mich State like 100 years ago), Robert Vaden (UAB), Magnum Rolle (LA Tech - love this guy).
Third Round: Lawrence Westbrook (averaging 7 pts, 2 rebs, 2 asts per game with Maine)
Fourth Round: Derek Raivio (Gonzaga, the living clone of the Professor)
Fifth Round: Daniel Horton (Michigan, this guy sucked)
And that's it. Every year I think there's going to be a bunch of funny in this draft, and every year it turns out I've only heard of a handful of guys. And I know way too much about college ball to not know who this many guys are. So where are these guys coming from? Some secret basketball concentration camp? This is bullshit.
- John Shurna tonight: 28 pts, 4 rebs, 2 assists, 3 steals, 3 blocks, 1 turnover. That's 64 fantasy points, baby. And guess whose got 'em?
- Shelden Williams is still in the NBA? What the hell? The guy's offensive game rivals Miles Tarver and his defensive game is what I imagine Blake Hoffarber would look like if he was taller and blacker.
- You ever just sit around wondering who the top scoring Big Ten college basketball players would be in a Bi g Ten fantasy league (pt = 1pt, reb = 2 pt, assist = 3 pt, block or steal = 4 pt, turnover = -2 pts)? Well wonder no more. The top ten in our league:
1. Jon Leuer, Wisconsin
2. Darius Morris, Michigan
3. Trevor Mbakwe, Minnesota
4. Jordan Taylor, Wisconsin
5. Blake Hoffarber, Minnesota
6. Draymond Green, Michigan State
7. Jared Sullinger, Ohio State
8. JaJuan Johnson, Purdue
9. Demetri McCamey, Illinois
10. E'Twaun Moore, Purdue
It's worth noting I have none of those people, and also - not coincidentally - I'm the only team that's 0-2 thus far. Also props to Snacks, Bogart, Snake, Dawger, Elk, Grandslam, and Optimator. I sent an email one random morning asking if anybody wanted to do fantasy Big 10 hoops, and by that afternoon we were in round 3 of the draft. Nice work, gentleman.
- By the way, yes, that's Blake Hoffarber at #5. He's having a hell of a year. 14.8 points per game (13th in the B10), 4.9 assists (3rd. THIRD!!), 3.5 rebounds (39th), and 1.7 steals (5th, and wow) all while shooting 40% from three (leading the conference in both makes and attempts) and turning it over just 1.6 times per game despite being the defacto main ball handler. Actually, he's been efficient enough on offense to rank #63 in kenpom.com's offensive efficiency ranking, which may not sound that great but keep in mind there are 340-some teams and this ranking includes all those dudes from smaller conferences who dominate. In terms of Big Ten players, he ranks behind just Jon Diebler, John Shurna, Jordan Hulls of Indiana, and Jordan Taylor. Combine fantasy points, which shows he's putting up numbers, and efficiency rating, which shows he's, well, efficient, and you could make a case for him to be behind just Taylor as the most valuable player in the Big Ten this year. I can't believe I just typed that sentence. I'm now going to pull my fingers off with bolt cutters. Which I just happen to have here in the hotel room.
Showing posts with label Jesse Crain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jesse Crain. Show all posts
Friday, December 17, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Game 1 - Yankees/Twins running Diary
I just finally got the baby to sleep (for how long who knows, stay tuned) but I'm just now able to put some thoughts down on virtual paper here for your game 1 Yankees v. Twins matchup. We're in the bottom of the second, and here is what I have to say so far:
- I really hate sac bunting in the first, especially with the second batter of the game. If the pitcher just doesn't have it early, you're giving him a free out. Plus, there's that whole thing about how sac bunts don't really help you very often, which has been statistically proven.
- Liriano pees his pants when Marcus Thames is up.
- Sabathia intentionally throwing at Thome because of that one time when they played together in Cleveland and Thome didn't invite him to a BBQ party at his house.
- If Cuddy was saving it for the playoffs this year, I'm ok with that. Although he owes us about 10 more based on his play all season.
- So that's where we stand. 2-0 Twins, Liriano looking mostly good. Sabathia just struck out Valencia who did an awfully good impression of someone who has never seen a slider before. CC looks good, I have a hunch he's on tonight, but after intentionally beaning Thome because he slept with his wife he made his one mistake to Cuddy and luckily he was able to take advantage, so Liriano needs to keep this up and keep the Twins ahead because I don't think they're going to get much more.
- Tonight's drink of choice: Three Philosophers beer. To be followed by Coors Light.
- Double for Hardy, which proves that all of you who questioned me when I said the Twins had the advantage at shortstop can now suck it.
- Slower Vince Coleman swings like a girl - again. Inning over.
- So I had the most fantastically interesting dinner last night. We went to Vincent with work, the kind of thing I desperately miss with my new job, since if you pay way to much attention here you know I used to get fancy dinners all the time (along with a lot of fun travel) that I don't anymore, so I was really looking forward to it, and I ended up trying several things I'd never had.
We opened with appetizers both comforting (baked camembert) and exotic (escargot), and I did end up trying the snails, which was my first time ever. They basically drenched them in a garlic butter sauce (to mask the taste) and serve them boiling hot (to mask the texture) which leads to me to ask why exactly people eat them at all, but I tried them and other than being hot they were fine. Of course, I mostly tasted garlic butter, which I think was the point. Back to the game, more about the meal later.
- Leadoff walk to Gardner. This, frankly, sucks, and Liriano is doing that thing where he looks scard to throw a strike, nibbles nibbles nibbles, and walks a bunch of guys. At least Jeter's up, this is a double play waiting to happen.
- OMG throw a strike asshole.
- Base hit Jeter. First and second nobody out and I want to cry. That's the second 0-2 count he's had where he's allowed the runner to reach base. I can't help but feel like we've got the bad Liriano tonight.
- Two fly outs and a K of A-Rod that left him looking absolutely silly. So maybe we have the good Liriano, although I'm starting to suspect they are one in the same.
- TNT just let us know Sabathia and Orlando Hudson are good friends dating back to 1999 when they were teammates in the Sally League. I wonder what color skirts they wore and who baited the hook when the went fishing. Base knock, Hudson.
- Mauer grounds out with Hudson running and slides into first like an idiot (but is out), but noone of that matters because O-Hud ends up taking third like Jake Taylor on a bunt. Brilliant play. I guess Hudson skirt is the color of rocket fuel and veteran savvy. And he just scored on a wild pitch, 3-0 Twins. I'm starting to feel good and I hate it.
- Ron Darling, one of our announcers tonight, "Along with throwing, giving up passed balls has been a big weakness of Posada this year." So what, exactly, is left? I know. I bet he always invites Sabathia to the BBQs at his house.
- Favorite text so far tonight, courtesy of Snacks, "I will commit murder at a twins game someday due to bathroom etiquette rules."
- Liriano gets Thames out. Everything is coming up Millhouse.
- Great inning for Liriano, which brings me back to my great meal. The next course I had was a poached eggs with a salted cod puree, bell peppers, and little slices of some kind of sausage. I'm not usually an egg fan, at all, but the other option for this course was a pureed soup of root vegetables, and I do not like pureed soups, so I went with this. The accompaniments were good enough to offset my usual distaste for egg, and I thought it was quite good, although not very exciting. More coming up.
- Here's an idea - the Twins sign Carl Crawford for next year, trade Kubel or Delmon for a pitcher, and outright cut Cuddyer. Who's in?
- Next course I was really tempted to go with the white fish, because there's nothing more I like than a really well cooked piece of fish (other than maybe properly cooked, rock-salted prime rib with a well seasoned au jus) but I just couldn't bring myself to pass on the wild boar because, really, when am I going to have wild boar again? It was pretty good, stringy to be sure and the closest taste I can come up with to it would be beef jerky (which is not remotely an insult) but overall quite good and I'm glad I had it. Also came with brussel sprouts which I had also never tasted, and these were pretty outstanding. I don't know if they were just good plain or if it was the squash puree mixed with them, but I was impressed.
- 1-2-3 for Liriano including a couple of strikeouts and he's back to looking sharp. I'm really glad I didn't jump in my car, drive to Target Field, hop the fence, run on to the field and tackle and/or choke Liriano whilst yelling "They can't hit you asshole!" Not that I was contemplating it. Barely even warmed up the car.
- Oh, and FYI - I'm chatting with a Yankee fan as I watch, and if he's any representation of that team they are really, really down on this year's squad and don't feel remotely confident. As in, win this first game and the fans, if not the team, will curl up and die faster than a snail in a boiling vat of garlic butter. My biggest concern is who pitches the 8th. That inning is going to make or break this game.
- Easy inning for Sabathia, and through five these are a couple of good pitching performances, although nothing compared to Halladay's no-hitter earlier today. Which, incidentally, is what the announcers for this game just talked about for that entire half-inning. So, to recap, three idiots who get paid handsomely to do a job I could do much better, just spent an entire inning talking about a game that was already over. Brilliant. And I know everybody thinks they could be a better announcer than the actual announcers, and most of you are wrong, but I actually could be better. I'd be the next Jack Buck (NOT Joe) crossed with a little Vin Scully and a dash of Keith Olbermann back when he was good combined with Brad Pitt's looks and Brad Pitt's body.
- Texeira double here in the top 6 with one out. It's still 3-0, and now I'm terrified Liriano is going to walk A-Rod because he's scared to set up the 3-run, game tying HR. Seriously, if that happens this is a sweep. No way the Twins could survive having the momentum yanked out from under them like that.
- Indeed, he walks A-Rod (although I'm pretty certain that ball four was a strike). Game all set to be tied here. Full expecting my heart to be ripped out.
- Base hit by Cano, 3-1. I don't think I can do this. Might have to just change the channel for a while.
- Strikes out Thames, which has to be huge pyschologically since that guy hits everything Liriano throws, and hits it a ton. Now it's Posada, and Franky is at 97 pitches so you know Gardy's hair trigger is getting itchy.
- Old man time with a base hit to score one, now 3-2 Twins, runners on first and second for Granderson, who should probably strike out on 3 pitches. Christ, guy has no clue where the strike zone is anyway.
- Granderson off the wall. Yanks lead 4-3. I'm done. Fuck this.
- Oh my sweet christ Sabathia walked in the tying run after walking Valencia on four straight pitches. How can that possibly happen? And with two outs after having struck Valencia out twice already. Just throw it down the middle and odds are he pees his pants.
- Tied heading to the seventh, just waiting to see if it's Guerrier or Crain who loses the game. In the meantime, I'll tell you about my dessert. I went with the Nutella crepe with vanilla ice cream and I have to tell you this might have been the best thing I've ever eaten. I had never had Nutella, but I know it's popular in certain places, and it was certainly popular with my mouth last night. The warm chocolatey crepe combined with the cold vanilla ice cream was perfect, and I'm not a dessert guy at all. No chance I would have ordered it on my own if it wasn't part of our Prix Fixe menu. And I'm damn glad it was. Outstanding.
- Crain on. Hopefully he'll be the Nutella Crepe in my garbage can of my life.
- Now I'm done for real.
- I really hate sac bunting in the first, especially with the second batter of the game. If the pitcher just doesn't have it early, you're giving him a free out. Plus, there's that whole thing about how sac bunts don't really help you very often, which has been statistically proven.
- Liriano pees his pants when Marcus Thames is up.
- Sabathia intentionally throwing at Thome because of that one time when they played together in Cleveland and Thome didn't invite him to a BBQ party at his house.
- If Cuddy was saving it for the playoffs this year, I'm ok with that. Although he owes us about 10 more based on his play all season.
- So that's where we stand. 2-0 Twins, Liriano looking mostly good. Sabathia just struck out Valencia who did an awfully good impression of someone who has never seen a slider before. CC looks good, I have a hunch he's on tonight, but after intentionally beaning Thome because he slept with his wife he made his one mistake to Cuddy and luckily he was able to take advantage, so Liriano needs to keep this up and keep the Twins ahead because I don't think they're going to get much more.
- Tonight's drink of choice: Three Philosophers beer. To be followed by Coors Light.
- Double for Hardy, which proves that all of you who questioned me when I said the Twins had the advantage at shortstop can now suck it.
- Slower Vince Coleman swings like a girl - again. Inning over.
- So I had the most fantastically interesting dinner last night. We went to Vincent with work, the kind of thing I desperately miss with my new job, since if you pay way to much attention here you know I used to get fancy dinners all the time (along with a lot of fun travel) that I don't anymore, so I was really looking forward to it, and I ended up trying several things I'd never had.
We opened with appetizers both comforting (baked camembert) and exotic (escargot), and I did end up trying the snails, which was my first time ever. They basically drenched them in a garlic butter sauce (to mask the taste) and serve them boiling hot (to mask the texture) which leads to me to ask why exactly people eat them at all, but I tried them and other than being hot they were fine. Of course, I mostly tasted garlic butter, which I think was the point. Back to the game, more about the meal later.
- Leadoff walk to Gardner. This, frankly, sucks, and Liriano is doing that thing where he looks scard to throw a strike, nibbles nibbles nibbles, and walks a bunch of guys. At least Jeter's up, this is a double play waiting to happen.
- OMG throw a strike asshole.
- Base hit Jeter. First and second nobody out and I want to cry. That's the second 0-2 count he's had where he's allowed the runner to reach base. I can't help but feel like we've got the bad Liriano tonight.
- Two fly outs and a K of A-Rod that left him looking absolutely silly. So maybe we have the good Liriano, although I'm starting to suspect they are one in the same.
- TNT just let us know Sabathia and Orlando Hudson are good friends dating back to 1999 when they were teammates in the Sally League. I wonder what color skirts they wore and who baited the hook when the went fishing. Base knock, Hudson.
- Mauer grounds out with Hudson running and slides into first like an idiot (but is out), but noone of that matters because O-Hud ends up taking third like Jake Taylor on a bunt. Brilliant play. I guess Hudson skirt is the color of rocket fuel and veteran savvy. And he just scored on a wild pitch, 3-0 Twins. I'm starting to feel good and I hate it.
- Ron Darling, one of our announcers tonight, "Along with throwing, giving up passed balls has been a big weakness of Posada this year." So what, exactly, is left? I know. I bet he always invites Sabathia to the BBQs at his house.
- Favorite text so far tonight, courtesy of Snacks, "I will commit murder at a twins game someday due to bathroom etiquette rules."
- Liriano gets Thames out. Everything is coming up Millhouse.
- Great inning for Liriano, which brings me back to my great meal. The next course I had was a poached eggs with a salted cod puree, bell peppers, and little slices of some kind of sausage. I'm not usually an egg fan, at all, but the other option for this course was a pureed soup of root vegetables, and I do not like pureed soups, so I went with this. The accompaniments were good enough to offset my usual distaste for egg, and I thought it was quite good, although not very exciting. More coming up.
- Here's an idea - the Twins sign Carl Crawford for next year, trade Kubel or Delmon for a pitcher, and outright cut Cuddyer. Who's in?
- Next course I was really tempted to go with the white fish, because there's nothing more I like than a really well cooked piece of fish (other than maybe properly cooked, rock-salted prime rib with a well seasoned au jus) but I just couldn't bring myself to pass on the wild boar because, really, when am I going to have wild boar again? It was pretty good, stringy to be sure and the closest taste I can come up with to it would be beef jerky (which is not remotely an insult) but overall quite good and I'm glad I had it. Also came with brussel sprouts which I had also never tasted, and these were pretty outstanding. I don't know if they were just good plain or if it was the squash puree mixed with them, but I was impressed.
- 1-2-3 for Liriano including a couple of strikeouts and he's back to looking sharp. I'm really glad I didn't jump in my car, drive to Target Field, hop the fence, run on to the field and tackle and/or choke Liriano whilst yelling "They can't hit you asshole!" Not that I was contemplating it. Barely even warmed up the car.
- Oh, and FYI - I'm chatting with a Yankee fan as I watch, and if he's any representation of that team they are really, really down on this year's squad and don't feel remotely confident. As in, win this first game and the fans, if not the team, will curl up and die faster than a snail in a boiling vat of garlic butter. My biggest concern is who pitches the 8th. That inning is going to make or break this game.
- Easy inning for Sabathia, and through five these are a couple of good pitching performances, although nothing compared to Halladay's no-hitter earlier today. Which, incidentally, is what the announcers for this game just talked about for that entire half-inning. So, to recap, three idiots who get paid handsomely to do a job I could do much better, just spent an entire inning talking about a game that was already over. Brilliant. And I know everybody thinks they could be a better announcer than the actual announcers, and most of you are wrong, but I actually could be better. I'd be the next Jack Buck (NOT Joe) crossed with a little Vin Scully and a dash of Keith Olbermann back when he was good combined with Brad Pitt's looks and Brad Pitt's body.
- Texeira double here in the top 6 with one out. It's still 3-0, and now I'm terrified Liriano is going to walk A-Rod because he's scared to set up the 3-run, game tying HR. Seriously, if that happens this is a sweep. No way the Twins could survive having the momentum yanked out from under them like that.
- Indeed, he walks A-Rod (although I'm pretty certain that ball four was a strike). Game all set to be tied here. Full expecting my heart to be ripped out.
- Base hit by Cano, 3-1. I don't think I can do this. Might have to just change the channel for a while.
- Strikes out Thames, which has to be huge pyschologically since that guy hits everything Liriano throws, and hits it a ton. Now it's Posada, and Franky is at 97 pitches so you know Gardy's hair trigger is getting itchy.
- Old man time with a base hit to score one, now 3-2 Twins, runners on first and second for Granderson, who should probably strike out on 3 pitches. Christ, guy has no clue where the strike zone is anyway.
- Granderson off the wall. Yanks lead 4-3. I'm done. Fuck this.
- Oh my sweet christ Sabathia walked in the tying run after walking Valencia on four straight pitches. How can that possibly happen? And with two outs after having struck Valencia out twice already. Just throw it down the middle and odds are he pees his pants.
- Tied heading to the seventh, just waiting to see if it's Guerrier or Crain who loses the game. In the meantime, I'll tell you about my dessert. I went with the Nutella crepe with vanilla ice cream and I have to tell you this might have been the best thing I've ever eaten. I had never had Nutella, but I know it's popular in certain places, and it was certainly popular with my mouth last night. The warm chocolatey crepe combined with the cold vanilla ice cream was perfect, and I'm not a dessert guy at all. No chance I would have ordered it on my own if it wasn't part of our Prix Fixe menu. And I'm damn glad it was. Outstanding.
- Crain on. Hopefully he'll be the Nutella Crepe in my garbage can of my life.
- Now I'm done for real.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Five Game Lead.
Home from the hospital and watching the end of the Twins game. Might as well put some thoughts down on paper (as it were). We're in the top of the seventh, Twins up 7-5 with a runner on first and one out.
Just got a text from Snacks: "Wow chris sale is fucking nasty, not looking forward to seeing him for the next 20 years." Agree with the nasty part, and I'll assume 20 years in hyperbole. Follow up text "Or he could be the next Mike MacDougal." Also possible. I don't know if he's projected to end up a starter someday, which is what I'd bet on, but let's hope the Sox ship him out in a trade for Manny Ramirez or something. He made Joe Mauer look silly, and that doesn't happen often.
- Jesse Crain is in, and man has he turned a corner for me. It wasn't long ago I would cringed at him coming in here, but right now I'm pretty happy he's in for this high leverage situation. Don't let me down Jesse. Everybody I know named Jesse just ends up disappointing me or letting me down and I just don't like any of them. If you know anybody named Jesse, they probably suck, am I right? Don't be like that Crain, don't be like that.
- Strikes out Konerko who did not, in fact, Konork one. Inning over.
- Justin Morneau commercial here, where he's drinking any size softdrink from McDonald's for just a buck while lifting weights with a bear. Do McDonald's any size soft drinks for a dollar cause symptoms similar to a terrible concussion? Dizziness? Disorientation? Bloating? Who hasn't felt that after eating (and, presumably, drinking) at McDonald's? Has anyone investigated this?
- So I'm pretty happy with the Trevor Mbakwe news (he's back on the Gopher squad) and you should be too assuming you're not an old white guy who hates any black player who has ever had a minor scrape with the law, deserved or not. If nothing else this proves that Mbakwe is slippery enough to work his way out of an obvious frame job by some kind of anti-Minnesota cabal. Something Royce White couldn't manage. Worth mentioning.
- Sale walks Kubel. Guess he's not that good afterall.
- Tall, throws 97+, and wild as hell. He could end up the next Randy Johnson. Or the next Odalis Perez.
- Knock for Cuddy (suck it Snacks). He hit that ball as slow as one can and still get it through the SS/3B hole, but it's still a hit. Guys a stud.
- Strikes out Thome on 3 pitches and made him look silly. If nothing else, Sale has a future as a LH specialist, although I suspect he's going to embarrass some Twins as a starter for years to come.
- Wait, Brett Favre is coming back to QB the Vikes? How do I not know this? Why isn't there any media coverage of something this big? An embarrassment of epic proportions for the media here. Like when Torii Hunter dove for that ball Mark Kotsay hit.
- Scott Linebrink in. So the Sox bullpen has Linebrink, Santos, Putz, Thornton, and Sale? Holy god does that sound good. Too bad they suck.
- Delmon with a hard hit ball to first for an out which moves the runners up. I'm stunned right now that Bert isn't extolling his virtue for "sacrifing" himself to move the runners along.
- One thing I would post about if I was doing a 6 things post tonight is how BYU is leaving the Mountain West. Having Boise move in seemed to legitimize the conference (football wise), but then having Utah leave neutralized that move, so I guess BYU figured they weren't ever going to get a BCS bid this way (note: try being good first) so they are taking this step. Although this means the rest of their sports are apparently moving to the WAC, which kills their basketball team. Now I understand football makes the money, but BYU in hoops could basically pencil themselves in for an NCAA bid every single year, and now they are moving to a conference where it takes an absolute incredible season to get a bid (ask Utah State). About the only upside I see here is that when I attend my semi-annual USU game I get a shot at seeing BYU. Although I fail to see how that helps the Cougars. Maybe they feel pretty good about throwing off the shackles on a conference affiliation. Next is throwing off the shackles of an oppressive religion. Baby steps, I suppose.
- Quentin (who I still thinks looks like a retarded Cartman) laces a hit to center. AJ now up with nobody down. And you know what? I have no idea why people boo A.J. when he comes to Minnesota. The guy played his heart out when he was here, has nothing but good things to say about the Twins organization if you listen to him when he's on KFAN, and is just a gamer, which white people seem to love. The alleged Delmon Young play which isn't a controversy although people seem to be trying to make it one? When asked about it AJ said, "He had no other play and it's part of the game" or something similar. You want me to say it? Fine. I love A.J. Pierzinski. And I love him even more now because he hit into a double play.
- We might be heading towards a Capps appearance here. That makes me far more nervous than bringing in an acquired at the trade deadline closer should. Oh and I saw earlier today on Twitter (follow me @downwithgoldy) that the Nationals called up Wilson Ramos after he had a solid few weeks at AAA. Man, if he ends up becoming a star, I won't care at all because the Twins are winning the World Series this year.
- First and third now after Hudson and Mauer hits. Makes Mauer 4-5, with a HR and a double. Pretty good night. He's been about as hot as anybody since the break. Do you realize how good this lineup would be if Morneau hadn't gotten whacked in the head? Or how good it is without him? Snacks made an interested point last time he was drunk and rambling; getting Morneau back basically just takes Thome out of the lineup. Do ou want Thome out of the lineup? I sure as hell don't. Maybe Morneau will clear waivers and they can trade him for Dan Haren.
- Kubel grounds out because he sucks and that's why I traded him. Capps in. Breath being held.
- Text from Snacks: "I feel like Capps blwing saves now will benefit the Twins so Crain is doing it in October." I don't even know what to say here. Poor kid has an obsession with Jesse Crain that borders on the creepy. Also, I'd assume he means "doing it in October" as saving games, but really. Jesse Crain in the 9th in a one run game against the Yankees in the playoffs? I can't imagine anybody likes that idea, not even Crain lover #1.
- It's the Final Countdown. Bu-du dah dah, buh-dah dah dah dah, dah-du dah dah dah, the Final Countdown!
- One out. Easy. Omar Vizquel should retire.
- Jason Repko in right to replace Kubel. Good. Game needs more Repko.
- Double by Beckham. Terribel terrible terrible pitch. Right down the middle. Seriously, if we rate Rauch as say a 7.0, Capps is a 7.1. Ugh.
- Base hit by Pierre. One run game. Ugh.
- Ramirez somehow misses on an absolute meatball and grounds out to third base. Tying run on second, two away. I really really really hope nobody was expecting Joe Nathan when they traded for Capps. If you were you are an idiot and should stop watching baseball. Giving up Ramos for him was just terrible.
- Konerko grounds out to first, Twins win and are now up 5 games. Wrap this one up, it's over. Looking forward to getting swept by the Yankees. Good night everybody.
Just got a text from Snacks: "Wow chris sale is fucking nasty, not looking forward to seeing him for the next 20 years." Agree with the nasty part, and I'll assume 20 years in hyperbole. Follow up text "Or he could be the next Mike MacDougal." Also possible. I don't know if he's projected to end up a starter someday, which is what I'd bet on, but let's hope the Sox ship him out in a trade for Manny Ramirez or something. He made Joe Mauer look silly, and that doesn't happen often.
- Jesse Crain is in, and man has he turned a corner for me. It wasn't long ago I would cringed at him coming in here, but right now I'm pretty happy he's in for this high leverage situation. Don't let me down Jesse. Everybody I know named Jesse just ends up disappointing me or letting me down and I just don't like any of them. If you know anybody named Jesse, they probably suck, am I right? Don't be like that Crain, don't be like that.
- Strikes out Konerko who did not, in fact, Konork one. Inning over.
- Justin Morneau commercial here, where he's drinking any size softdrink from McDonald's for just a buck while lifting weights with a bear. Do McDonald's any size soft drinks for a dollar cause symptoms similar to a terrible concussion? Dizziness? Disorientation? Bloating? Who hasn't felt that after eating (and, presumably, drinking) at McDonald's? Has anyone investigated this?
- So I'm pretty happy with the Trevor Mbakwe news (he's back on the Gopher squad) and you should be too assuming you're not an old white guy who hates any black player who has ever had a minor scrape with the law, deserved or not. If nothing else this proves that Mbakwe is slippery enough to work his way out of an obvious frame job by some kind of anti-Minnesota cabal. Something Royce White couldn't manage. Worth mentioning.
- Sale walks Kubel. Guess he's not that good afterall.
- Tall, throws 97+, and wild as hell. He could end up the next Randy Johnson. Or the next Odalis Perez.
- Knock for Cuddy (suck it Snacks). He hit that ball as slow as one can and still get it through the SS/3B hole, but it's still a hit. Guys a stud.
- Strikes out Thome on 3 pitches and made him look silly. If nothing else, Sale has a future as a LH specialist, although I suspect he's going to embarrass some Twins as a starter for years to come.
- Wait, Brett Favre is coming back to QB the Vikes? How do I not know this? Why isn't there any media coverage of something this big? An embarrassment of epic proportions for the media here. Like when Torii Hunter dove for that ball Mark Kotsay hit.
- Scott Linebrink in. So the Sox bullpen has Linebrink, Santos, Putz, Thornton, and Sale? Holy god does that sound good. Too bad they suck.
- Delmon with a hard hit ball to first for an out which moves the runners up. I'm stunned right now that Bert isn't extolling his virtue for "sacrifing" himself to move the runners along.
- One thing I would post about if I was doing a 6 things post tonight is how BYU is leaving the Mountain West. Having Boise move in seemed to legitimize the conference (football wise), but then having Utah leave neutralized that move, so I guess BYU figured they weren't ever going to get a BCS bid this way (note: try being good first) so they are taking this step. Although this means the rest of their sports are apparently moving to the WAC, which kills their basketball team. Now I understand football makes the money, but BYU in hoops could basically pencil themselves in for an NCAA bid every single year, and now they are moving to a conference where it takes an absolute incredible season to get a bid (ask Utah State). About the only upside I see here is that when I attend my semi-annual USU game I get a shot at seeing BYU. Although I fail to see how that helps the Cougars. Maybe they feel pretty good about throwing off the shackles on a conference affiliation. Next is throwing off the shackles of an oppressive religion. Baby steps, I suppose.
- Quentin (who I still thinks looks like a retarded Cartman) laces a hit to center. AJ now up with nobody down. And you know what? I have no idea why people boo A.J. when he comes to Minnesota. The guy played his heart out when he was here, has nothing but good things to say about the Twins organization if you listen to him when he's on KFAN, and is just a gamer, which white people seem to love. The alleged Delmon Young play which isn't a controversy although people seem to be trying to make it one? When asked about it AJ said, "He had no other play and it's part of the game" or something similar. You want me to say it? Fine. I love A.J. Pierzinski. And I love him even more now because he hit into a double play.
- We might be heading towards a Capps appearance here. That makes me far more nervous than bringing in an acquired at the trade deadline closer should. Oh and I saw earlier today on Twitter (follow me @downwithgoldy) that the Nationals called up Wilson Ramos after he had a solid few weeks at AAA. Man, if he ends up becoming a star, I won't care at all because the Twins are winning the World Series this year.
- First and third now after Hudson and Mauer hits. Makes Mauer 4-5, with a HR and a double. Pretty good night. He's been about as hot as anybody since the break. Do you realize how good this lineup would be if Morneau hadn't gotten whacked in the head? Or how good it is without him? Snacks made an interested point last time he was drunk and rambling; getting Morneau back basically just takes Thome out of the lineup. Do ou want Thome out of the lineup? I sure as hell don't. Maybe Morneau will clear waivers and they can trade him for Dan Haren.
- Kubel grounds out because he sucks and that's why I traded him. Capps in. Breath being held.
- Text from Snacks: "I feel like Capps blwing saves now will benefit the Twins so Crain is doing it in October." I don't even know what to say here. Poor kid has an obsession with Jesse Crain that borders on the creepy. Also, I'd assume he means "doing it in October" as saving games, but really. Jesse Crain in the 9th in a one run game against the Yankees in the playoffs? I can't imagine anybody likes that idea, not even Crain lover #1.
- It's the Final Countdown. Bu-du dah dah, buh-dah dah dah dah, dah-du dah dah dah, the Final Countdown!
- One out. Easy. Omar Vizquel should retire.
- Jason Repko in right to replace Kubel. Good. Game needs more Repko.
- Double by Beckham. Terribel terrible terrible pitch. Right down the middle. Seriously, if we rate Rauch as say a 7.0, Capps is a 7.1. Ugh.
- Base hit by Pierre. One run game. Ugh.
- Ramirez somehow misses on an absolute meatball and grounds out to third base. Tying run on second, two away. I really really really hope nobody was expecting Joe Nathan when they traded for Capps. If you were you are an idiot and should stop watching baseball. Giving up Ramos for him was just terrible.
- Konerko grounds out to first, Twins win and are now up 5 games. Wrap this one up, it's over. Looking forward to getting swept by the Yankees. Good night everybody.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Random Thoughts while watching the Twins
I once again have the opportunity to watch an entire Twins game with sound, and once again am going to take advantage while blogging whilst watching. I won't be doing a live blog, since those seem to always end up boring lately and it's hard to get excited about the Mariners, but I'm sure some game or announcer related things will sneak in here. I don't know. I don't know if there's time. I gotta go to Home Depot later.
- First, it seems pitching a perfect game has become easier than your sister after a couple glasses of Boone's Farm. On the heels of Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay's perfectos, Armando Galarraga pitched 8 and 2/3 perfect innings before having it broken up by an infield it, and according the radio the guy was only safe thanks to a bad call by the umpire (I haven't seen the replay, but I'll assume the umpire was probably racist). And the list of guys with perfect games is so weird. Out of the 20 perfect games, you have some that don't surprise you. The Hall of Famers: Sandy Koufax, Cy Young, Addie Joss, Jim Bunning, and Catfish Hunter and soon to be Hall of Famers: Randy Johnson and Roy Halladay (if he can keep it up). Then there are guys with electric stuff you don't really surprise you: David Cone, Dennis Martinez, and even Mike Witt - the fact that they were unhittable for one day isn't a huge shock.
But then the rest of these guys. Throw out Charlie Robertson because I've never heard of him and the two guys who did it in 1880 because the rules were all kinds of fucked up then, but Len Barker? He only won double-digit games twice and never posted an ERA under 4.80. Don Larsen? You would never had heard of him if he didn't toss that perfect game in the World Series. He never won more than 11 games in a season, and spent most of his career as a reliever.
The weirdest part is the sheer amount of soft-tossing lefties who achieved perfection: David Wells, Tom Browning, Dallas Braden, Kenny Rogers, and Mark Buehrle. That's as many nancy-boy southpaws who have done it as Hall of Famers. It's just so weird. I'm not taking anything away from the achievement, any way you look at it, it's still only been accomplished 20 times, but the list is mind-boggling. Apparently Brian Duensing is more likely to toss a perfecto than Felix Hernandez. So weird.
- I just saw the replay. That was a bad call. I was also just reminded that Griffey Junior announced his retirement today. Man was that guy good. And since I am pretty sure he was never using anything performance enhancing (other than Mr. Burns' Nerve Tonic, which is not on the banned list) I can't help but wonder what would have happened if he had gone on the Barry Bonds diet.
Griffey played until about 30 years old before he started getting injured all the frickin' time. At that point, he had hit 438 home runs with a batting line of .296/.380/.568, giving him an OPS+ of 147 in 7,319 plate appearances. At age 30, Bonds had hit 292 homers with a line of .286/.398/.541 for an OPS+ of 158 in 6,038 plate appearances. Pretty close to equal. So let's say Griffey stays mostly healthy and got as many at-bats as Bonds after age 30, and hit home runs at his same pace. He would have ended up with 831 career HRs. And if he hit the Balco diet and hit them at the rate Bonds did after age 30, he would have ended up with 908.
I know it's a pretty useless exercise and uses a ridiculous amount of assumptions and conjecture, but still kind of fun to look at. One thing is clear: Griffey should have used the roids. Burnsie's Tonic just couldn't quite cut it.
- Matt Tolbert somehow got a hit. Dick: "The Twins have some speed on the bases." No, he's white and "gritty" and "scrappy." That doesn't make him fast. And he promptly tries to steal and gets thrown out by 8 feet. Beautiful. Gardy's fascination with that guy might be the worst part of him as a manager, and that's saying alot.
- Now Punto walks, and Dick wants him to steal too. What's this guy's fascination with stealing? He would have thrived down in New Orleans after Katrina.
- Milton Bradley just stole third without a throw thanks to Kevin Slowey paying zero attention to him. That's your go ahead run with only one out in a 0-0 game here in the bottom of the fifth. I know Milton Bradley's crazy. Like Carl Everett crazy, but I love his game. I bet you didn't even know that in 2008 he led the league in OBP and OPS, and that he's broken a .400 on base percentage three times. But he doesn't steal a ton of bases (career high of 17, hasn't hit double digits since 2007, and the two he stole in this inning just tripled his season total) so nobody cares that he gets on base all the time. He's like the anti-Vince Coleman, but you probably like Coleman better because you're a moron. Thanks for ruining baseball.
- Oh, and he scored on a sac fly, so his heads up steal of third probably just won the game for the Mariners - who, I'll remind you, I claimed were a sleeper World Series contender. I'm so dumb.
- Since the M's are basically out of it already, I wonder when they'll deal Cliff Lee. He's on the hook for $9 million this year, but he's a free agent after this season. If the Twins tried to acquire him (LOL) I'd assume they wouldn't be looking to add payroll in the amount and length he'd be asking for, so it would have to be a half-year rental sort of deal. Which I would be fine with, depending on what they are asking for. I'm not sure what exactly I'd be willing to give up - haven't really thought about it - and I'm sure somebody else would be willing to offer him more + a contract (I'd bet he ends up a Met), so it's really just a pipe dream, but since they won't end up making a big trade deadline deal, pipe dreams is all I got.
- They just showed the Galarraga replay again, and man, I don't like the guy or anything but that really sucks for him. Maybe even worse, apparently the umpire admitted after the game that he blew it. I'm sure that makes Galarraga feel a lot better. Ugh. Just a terrible situation. And if Miguel Cabrera isn't a terrible terrible terrible fielder and let's the second basemen get that, we aren't even discussing it and are instead trying to figure out why there are so many perfect games this year. He was probably drunk.
- By the way, I just want you all to know that Matt Wieters fucking sucks. It's like he's purposefully going out of his way to intentionally hurt me. I'm shifting all my love to Stephen Strasburg, who, by the way, will be making his first big league start June 8th, which is only six days away. I will be flying out to Washington for the occasion.*
- It's still 1-0 Mariners and we're now in the 7th. The good news is if they can get Lee out of the game (doubtful) Seattle's closer is David Aardsma, who in no way should be a closer and is the kind of closer you can rally against in the ninth. Just like Jon Rauch. :sadface:
- Cuddyer dinger. Tie game. Suck it, Cliff Lee. And Snacks. I know you hate the guy with everything you have, but I can't enable this anymore. There's no reason to hate him, guy can mash. Sure, he chases the slider down and away all the time, but it's small price to pay for the power he brings.
- Oh hell yes. Cuddy is leaving the team for bereavement because his father-in-law died (that's not the hell yes part) and Danny Valencia will be called up. Thank god we finally get to see this guy play. I'm sick of hearing about him without seeing him. And what happened to Luke Hughes? And Trevor Plouffe? Why do they keep recycling Tolbert and Casilla instead of giving one of these guys an extended look? And just cut Harris. Oh wait, you geniuses signed him for two years even though you only had to sign him for one. For such a successful and well run organization sometimes these guys are dumb as shit.
- Valencia's stats at AAA this year: .298/.350/.380 with no homers and 34-13 BB/K ratio. I could not be less excited. Sounds like another slapper. It's almost like they draft these kind of guys on purpose. Seriously, the draft is in like a week and I expect them to go off the board and get a guy whose bio reads:
PROS: Scrappy. Tough. Gritty. Hustles. Dives a lot. Slides into first to show his hustle despite all the evidence that it's a dumb play. Can play multiple positions. Regularly invites teammates over for a barbecue.
CONS: Can't hit. No idea of the strike zone. Gets an extra-base hit once a month. Makes terrible base-running decisions. Is either short and white or short and ethnic. Definitely short. Is a "Gardy" kind of guy.
- Slowey lets the first two batters get hits in the seventh, but gets out of it with a double play (started by Tolbert!) and a pop-up. We got a ballgame here folks.
- Apparently they've given up. Leading off the 8th, Punto attempted to bunt and ended up striking out and then Span did bunt and was thrown out by Lee on a pretty nice play. I guess they've decided they can't hit him. If only it was Aardsma out there.
- I've come around on the Celtics/Lakers final. I'm pretty fired up for it. Definitely rooting Celtics here. Even though I hate all Red Sox fans and most Patriot fans (but definitely all Red Sox fans), I have no problem with the Celtics. I grew up a Laker fan because I hearted Magic Johnson and hated the Celtics and Bird because I had to, as I've gotten older I appreciate the Celtics more and more, and I'm rooting for them because I hate Kobe and still love KG and definitely love Ray Allen. I've also learned to appreciate Michael Jordan. I hated that guy and considered him nothing more than a high-scoring ball hog who managed to win. But after watching a new generation of ball hogs who suck (I'm looking at you Tracy McGrady) I have to give Jordan some props. He's still just the fifth best player ever, but that's higher than I used to have him.
- I think Jesse Crain has a new curveball. That thing is pretty nasty. No way he had that pitch before, I would have noticed. And he put Seattle down 1-2-3 in the 8th. Pretty sure that's never happened before.
- Sweet! Aardsma is in to face Mauer/Morneau/Cuddy in the ninth. This probably will end up not even being a save situation for Rauch.
- Four pitch walk to Mauer. Looking like a Morneau 2-run dinger here.
- Or a wild pitch and a Morneau ground out to move him to third (look at that Twins baseball! Giving up his at-bat to move a runner up!) So now we have go-ahead run on third with one out for Cuddy.
- And he hits the ball as hard as you can, but right at the shortstop who is playing in. So it's up to Kubel. All he does is win games. Or strikeout. Also a big fan of the pop-up.
- Fly out. Shit. And apparently this has turned into a live blog of the game.
- Guerrier goes 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth. And I am getting way tired. Stupid west coast. And I hate traveling out there, every single sporting event is done by 8pm. When you're out there alone and have nothing better to do than sit in a hotel bar and watch sports, that really puts a bit of a damper on things.
- Twins lose. Excellent base-running by the Mariner guy. I'd write more on that play but I'm really tired. Suffice it to say, that call to ruin the Big Cat's perfect game wasn't the only bad call tonight.
* = No, I'm not.
- First, it seems pitching a perfect game has become easier than your sister after a couple glasses of Boone's Farm. On the heels of Dallas Braden and Roy Halladay's perfectos, Armando Galarraga pitched 8 and 2/3 perfect innings before having it broken up by an infield it, and according the radio the guy was only safe thanks to a bad call by the umpire (I haven't seen the replay, but I'll assume the umpire was probably racist). And the list of guys with perfect games is so weird. Out of the 20 perfect games, you have some that don't surprise you. The Hall of Famers: Sandy Koufax, Cy Young, Addie Joss, Jim Bunning, and Catfish Hunter and soon to be Hall of Famers: Randy Johnson and Roy Halladay (if he can keep it up). Then there are guys with electric stuff you don't really surprise you: David Cone, Dennis Martinez, and even Mike Witt - the fact that they were unhittable for one day isn't a huge shock.
But then the rest of these guys. Throw out Charlie Robertson because I've never heard of him and the two guys who did it in 1880 because the rules were all kinds of fucked up then, but Len Barker? He only won double-digit games twice and never posted an ERA under 4.80. Don Larsen? You would never had heard of him if he didn't toss that perfect game in the World Series. He never won more than 11 games in a season, and spent most of his career as a reliever.
The weirdest part is the sheer amount of soft-tossing lefties who achieved perfection: David Wells, Tom Browning, Dallas Braden, Kenny Rogers, and Mark Buehrle. That's as many nancy-boy southpaws who have done it as Hall of Famers. It's just so weird. I'm not taking anything away from the achievement, any way you look at it, it's still only been accomplished 20 times, but the list is mind-boggling. Apparently Brian Duensing is more likely to toss a perfecto than Felix Hernandez. So weird.
- I just saw the replay. That was a bad call. I was also just reminded that Griffey Junior announced his retirement today. Man was that guy good. And since I am pretty sure he was never using anything performance enhancing (other than Mr. Burns' Nerve Tonic, which is not on the banned list) I can't help but wonder what would have happened if he had gone on the Barry Bonds diet.
Griffey played until about 30 years old before he started getting injured all the frickin' time. At that point, he had hit 438 home runs with a batting line of .296/.380/.568, giving him an OPS+ of 147 in 7,319 plate appearances. At age 30, Bonds had hit 292 homers with a line of .286/.398/.541 for an OPS+ of 158 in 6,038 plate appearances. Pretty close to equal. So let's say Griffey stays mostly healthy and got as many at-bats as Bonds after age 30, and hit home runs at his same pace. He would have ended up with 831 career HRs. And if he hit the Balco diet and hit them at the rate Bonds did after age 30, he would have ended up with 908.
I know it's a pretty useless exercise and uses a ridiculous amount of assumptions and conjecture, but still kind of fun to look at. One thing is clear: Griffey should have used the roids. Burnsie's Tonic just couldn't quite cut it.
- Matt Tolbert somehow got a hit. Dick: "The Twins have some speed on the bases." No, he's white and "gritty" and "scrappy." That doesn't make him fast. And he promptly tries to steal and gets thrown out by 8 feet. Beautiful. Gardy's fascination with that guy might be the worst part of him as a manager, and that's saying alot.
- Now Punto walks, and Dick wants him to steal too. What's this guy's fascination with stealing? He would have thrived down in New Orleans after Katrina.
- Milton Bradley just stole third without a throw thanks to Kevin Slowey paying zero attention to him. That's your go ahead run with only one out in a 0-0 game here in the bottom of the fifth. I know Milton Bradley's crazy. Like Carl Everett crazy, but I love his game. I bet you didn't even know that in 2008 he led the league in OBP and OPS, and that he's broken a .400 on base percentage three times. But he doesn't steal a ton of bases (career high of 17, hasn't hit double digits since 2007, and the two he stole in this inning just tripled his season total) so nobody cares that he gets on base all the time. He's like the anti-Vince Coleman, but you probably like Coleman better because you're a moron. Thanks for ruining baseball.
- Oh, and he scored on a sac fly, so his heads up steal of third probably just won the game for the Mariners - who, I'll remind you, I claimed were a sleeper World Series contender. I'm so dumb.
- Since the M's are basically out of it already, I wonder when they'll deal Cliff Lee. He's on the hook for $9 million this year, but he's a free agent after this season. If the Twins tried to acquire him (LOL) I'd assume they wouldn't be looking to add payroll in the amount and length he'd be asking for, so it would have to be a half-year rental sort of deal. Which I would be fine with, depending on what they are asking for. I'm not sure what exactly I'd be willing to give up - haven't really thought about it - and I'm sure somebody else would be willing to offer him more + a contract (I'd bet he ends up a Met), so it's really just a pipe dream, but since they won't end up making a big trade deadline deal, pipe dreams is all I got.
- They just showed the Galarraga replay again, and man, I don't like the guy or anything but that really sucks for him. Maybe even worse, apparently the umpire admitted after the game that he blew it. I'm sure that makes Galarraga feel a lot better. Ugh. Just a terrible situation. And if Miguel Cabrera isn't a terrible terrible terrible fielder and let's the second basemen get that, we aren't even discussing it and are instead trying to figure out why there are so many perfect games this year. He was probably drunk.
- By the way, I just want you all to know that Matt Wieters fucking sucks. It's like he's purposefully going out of his way to intentionally hurt me. I'm shifting all my love to Stephen Strasburg, who, by the way, will be making his first big league start June 8th, which is only six days away. I will be flying out to Washington for the occasion.*
- It's still 1-0 Mariners and we're now in the 7th. The good news is if they can get Lee out of the game (doubtful) Seattle's closer is David Aardsma, who in no way should be a closer and is the kind of closer you can rally against in the ninth. Just like Jon Rauch. :sadface:
- Cuddyer dinger. Tie game. Suck it, Cliff Lee. And Snacks. I know you hate the guy with everything you have, but I can't enable this anymore. There's no reason to hate him, guy can mash. Sure, he chases the slider down and away all the time, but it's small price to pay for the power he brings.
- Oh hell yes. Cuddy is leaving the team for bereavement because his father-in-law died (that's not the hell yes part) and Danny Valencia will be called up. Thank god we finally get to see this guy play. I'm sick of hearing about him without seeing him. And what happened to Luke Hughes? And Trevor Plouffe? Why do they keep recycling Tolbert and Casilla instead of giving one of these guys an extended look? And just cut Harris. Oh wait, you geniuses signed him for two years even though you only had to sign him for one. For such a successful and well run organization sometimes these guys are dumb as shit.
- Valencia's stats at AAA this year: .298/.350/.380 with no homers and 34-13 BB/K ratio. I could not be less excited. Sounds like another slapper. It's almost like they draft these kind of guys on purpose. Seriously, the draft is in like a week and I expect them to go off the board and get a guy whose bio reads:
PROS: Scrappy. Tough. Gritty. Hustles. Dives a lot. Slides into first to show his hustle despite all the evidence that it's a dumb play. Can play multiple positions. Regularly invites teammates over for a barbecue.
CONS: Can't hit. No idea of the strike zone. Gets an extra-base hit once a month. Makes terrible base-running decisions. Is either short and white or short and ethnic. Definitely short. Is a "Gardy" kind of guy.
- Slowey lets the first two batters get hits in the seventh, but gets out of it with a double play (started by Tolbert!) and a pop-up. We got a ballgame here folks.
- Apparently they've given up. Leading off the 8th, Punto attempted to bunt and ended up striking out and then Span did bunt and was thrown out by Lee on a pretty nice play. I guess they've decided they can't hit him. If only it was Aardsma out there.
- I've come around on the Celtics/Lakers final. I'm pretty fired up for it. Definitely rooting Celtics here. Even though I hate all Red Sox fans and most Patriot fans (but definitely all Red Sox fans), I have no problem with the Celtics. I grew up a Laker fan because I hearted Magic Johnson and hated the Celtics and Bird because I had to, as I've gotten older I appreciate the Celtics more and more, and I'm rooting for them because I hate Kobe and still love KG and definitely love Ray Allen. I've also learned to appreciate Michael Jordan. I hated that guy and considered him nothing more than a high-scoring ball hog who managed to win. But after watching a new generation of ball hogs who suck (I'm looking at you Tracy McGrady) I have to give Jordan some props. He's still just the fifth best player ever, but that's higher than I used to have him.
- I think Jesse Crain has a new curveball. That thing is pretty nasty. No way he had that pitch before, I would have noticed. And he put Seattle down 1-2-3 in the 8th. Pretty sure that's never happened before.
- Sweet! Aardsma is in to face Mauer/Morneau/Cuddy in the ninth. This probably will end up not even being a save situation for Rauch.
- Four pitch walk to Mauer. Looking like a Morneau 2-run dinger here.
- Or a wild pitch and a Morneau ground out to move him to third (look at that Twins baseball! Giving up his at-bat to move a runner up!) So now we have go-ahead run on third with one out for Cuddy.
- And he hits the ball as hard as you can, but right at the shortstop who is playing in. So it's up to Kubel. All he does is win games. Or strikeout. Also a big fan of the pop-up.
- Fly out. Shit. And apparently this has turned into a live blog of the game.
- Guerrier goes 1-2-3 in the bottom of the ninth. And I am getting way tired. Stupid west coast. And I hate traveling out there, every single sporting event is done by 8pm. When you're out there alone and have nothing better to do than sit in a hotel bar and watch sports, that really puts a bit of a damper on things.
- Twins lose. Excellent base-running by the Mariner guy. I'd write more on that play but I'm really tired. Suffice it to say, that call to ruin the Big Cat's perfect game wasn't the only bad call tonight.
* = No, I'm not.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
I Think We're Alone Now (Live Movie Blog)
Alright, it's time. I know I haven't done a live movie blog in a while, and I figure it's time to break it out again. I'm sitting here with some Red Stripe and looking for something to watch and it's time to break out the big gun. Yep, we're going with "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus." I've been sitting on this since I Tivo'd it in January because the title is just too perfect and I'm afraid I'm going to be let down. Then again, with a title like that it might also be the type of flick that doesn't take itself seriously, and that would suck too. I don't want to rip on self-aware crap movies, I want ones that actually think they're good. Let's find out what we have here together.
- Looks like we're getting started in the great frozen north which is where I'm guessing someone is going to thaw out a giant prehistoric shark. But more importantly, the opening credits inform me that our leads are Deborah Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas. Yes, that Debbie Gibson. Also yes, that Lorenzo Lamas, but you probably knew that part.
- They just showed a giant sheath of ice sliding off a glacial wall, which basically guarantees that they are going to end up blaming global warming in some way for this. Great. Nothing like getting a political statement from a crappy B movie, especially considering the science they usually use in these is less accurate than your average Delmon Young throw to the plate.
- On on mother effing cue, they show us a school of Hammerheads allegedly swimming around in Alaskan waters. God damn it, people. Hammerheads are tropical. I'm almost positive they only shark you'd find in Alaskan waters is the Greenland Shark. Why not just show some Greenland sharks? Lazy stupid morons. At least attempt to get it right. I know I'm a nerd, but even a minimum amount of research would tell you that you would never, ever, ever find a hammerhead anywhere near Alaska. It just makes me so mad.
- We're two minutes in. Two minutes. And now they show us reef sharks and manta rays. In Alaska. Frozen Alaskan waters. Reef sharks, manta rays, and hammerheads. How about you just toss in a tropical coral reef or the Loch Ness monster. At this point you've already destroyed your credibility. This is almost as bad as that goblin shark movie.
- Huh, Debbie Gibson is actually a halfway decent actress. She doesn't have much to work with here already. For example, some army guy dropped some kind of sonar bomb into the alaskan ocean and it's forcing this bunch of whales to start ramming glaciers. Uh oh and oh noes they rammed so much ice so effectively that they freed both a mega-shark and a giant octopus who were frozen in their endless struggle through eternity. I am going to go ahead and assume these are the titular creatures. Heh, titular.
- Oooh, and right away the giant octopus attacks an oil drilling platform and crushes it to death. That is a really, really big octopus. Also to the best of my knowledge no giant octopus like that ever existed. I can't confirm for sure since I'm just a shark nerd and not an octopus nerd, but based on this movie's complete disregard for factual scientific science I'm going to assume they made that all up.
- They just found a dead whale basically bitten in half and the guy who is going to turn out to be the stuffy professor who never believes there's a giant shark says it was killed by a boat propeller. Based on the size of half of the whale, the boat would have had to the size of Rhode Island to have propellers that big. Also, the whole "it wasn't a shark it was a boating accident" thing was already done by Jaws, and every other shark-related movie since. At least be original in your crappiness.
- Debbie Gibson just jedi mind-tricked some security guard so she could get into some random giant tent and examine the dead whale body. Damn what the rules say! She's a rebel. She's also singing to the whale "I Think We're Alone Now."
- Some asian with glasses is yelling at some other asian with a goatee.
- Oh for the love of god. The giant shark just lept out of the ocean to grab and eat a plane. I don't even know where to start with this. First, the plane had just broken cloud cover which means the shark jumped a minimum of 5,000 feet in the air. Second, the shark was at least 5 times longer than the plane, despite the fact that the biggest estimate for a Megalodon would put it at about a quarter of the length of a 747. Finally, why the hell would a just de-frozen shark jump up in the air and grab a plane when it has had no learnings that plane = food. Plus, a shark that size wouldn't be interested in people because sharks need to eat high amounts of fat from like whales and seals and stuff, and I am pretty sure metal isn't high in fat content.
- I take it back. Debbie Gibson is not a good actress. She should stick to posing in playboy. Google is your friend.
- Now the asian guy with glasses is meeting with Debbie and her mentor science guy who is being played by a guy who reminds me of the guy from Cocktail and has the same accent. Remember in that movie when Elisabeth Shue took her top off? She was awesome.
- So Asian guy thinks the thing killing stuff is an Octopus, while Debbie and Cocktail guy think it's a shark. OMG THEY'RE BOTH RIGHT! TWO PRESHISTORIC CREATURES UNLEASHED UPON THE WORLD SIMULTANEOUSLY!!
- I was going to write about something else that just happened but then, just now as predicted, Debbie gives us this "The Polar Ice Caps are melting so rapidly, maybe this is our comeuppance." THANK YOU MOVIE! I WILL NOW REPENT MY LIFE AND BUY AN ELECTRIC SCOOTER AND COOK MEALS OVER AN OPEN FLAME! YOU HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE!
- This is a really god-damned stupid movie.
- The shark just killed a navy battle ship, but they couldn't be bothered to show anything to us because they're stupid and cheap. Instead it would show the shark swimming, kind of, in some of the worst CGI I've ever seen (comparable to Etch-A-Sketch) and then cut to some army guys in a room that was shaking. Do that three times, then cut to head army guy yelling "noooooooooooooo" and then fade to black. Thanks a lot. That was super entertaining. I hope Aquaman shows up and kills everybody dead.
- Asian guy with glasses just now compared the two creatures to Hurricane Katrina. I can't decide if that's offensive, and since I'm not affiliated with and really wasn't affected by the hurricane, I'm just going to chalk it up as being unfunny instead. Which once again proves that asians aren't funny.
- Shocking. Military guy wants to destroy the creatures, while the Sciencey people want to study them. Just like every animal destruction movie ever. And did I really say Debbie Gibson was a good actor, earlier? I need to be gut-punched.
- Do you think Wilson Ramos is more like the next Johnny Bench or the next Mickey Cochrane? Nevermind, I'm being silly. He's the next Matt Wieters. Who, by the way, has 3x the home runs of your precious Joe Mauer. Since HRs are the only really viable way to evaluate a hitter, I'd say it's clear Wieters is tops. Other than Ramos.
- Asian guy is now telling some sob story about how he has always wanted to be a marine biologist ever since he saw a dolphin get killed in a net when he was a kid but his family all wanted him to follow in his footsteps. I didn't catch what it was they wanted him to be, but I'm going to assume ping-pong player. And now he's humping Debbie Gibson. Clearly she's pretty easy if that story worked. Eww Debbie.
- Since we're talking about studs, guess how many AL third-basemen have a better batting average than Evan Longoria? Zero. Guess how many have a better OBP. Zero. Guess how many have a better SLG. Zero. Plus, he'll steal your girlfriend. Such a pimp.
- Some fighter guy like Maverick or Goose just got slapped out of the air by an octopus tentacle, which means I guess nobody learned anything from the plane that got eaten by the shark earlier. Also, since I'm sure you want to know how awesome it looked, it was a screen of a plane, then a shot of a tentacle, then the guy inside the plane with red flights flashing and him yelling. Then they cut to the people in the big ship running this whole operation and they were all sad. This movie rocks.
- Nice pony-tail, Lamas.
- I still don't get the switch from Sci Fi Channel to SyFy Channel. I mean, you're basically going to get two reactions - either irritation or indifference, so what's the point? Not really seeing an upside here. This is the worst marketing decision since they eliminated Crystal Pepsi.
- For a movie about a giant shark and a giant octopus (which doesn't and never has existed) there has been a stunning lack of footage of said monsters. And not the good kind of tension building keeping the monster hidden like in Jaws, the bad kind. Like that one time I accidentally watched a male model show - The girls never came! The girls never came!
- They're doing something with pheremones to attract the monsters or something, but for some reason these pheremones are a glowing fluorescent green, like the ooze from TMNT. Oh my god! Maybe it is the ooze, and when the octo and shark meet up and fight they'll break the container and the ooze will spill everywhere and create a giant Shark/Octopus hybrid! That would be the greatest thing ever! Please let this happen. Or at least turn Lamas into some human/shark creature. He'd probably be more articulate.
- I've never watched a movie that utilized shaky camerawork more often. It's worse than the Blair Witch Project. More like if the Blair Witch Project was filmed by Michael J Fox. Or any movie, really.
- Sweet jesus. The shark somehow disappeared from the radar of the navy battleship which is currently attempting to shoot it with torpedos. We've already established this thing is at least 200 feet long. Nice radar. Must be american-made. Oh, there is is. It ate the ship, and then it ate the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm assuming we're not in Alaska anymore, but with the fact-finding and accuracy we've seen in this movie who the hell knows. I'm guessing it'll go after Big Ben next. Not Roethlisberger. He'd probably hump it while it tried to get away.
- The new plan is to drop nukes into San Francisco Bay (the shark) and somewhere in Tokyo that I don't remember (the octopus) in order to "avoid a global catastrophe." I don't even know where to begin.
- Awesome. Now they are going to try to get them to fight and kill each other instead, because "Sharks and Octopi are natural enemies." Good lord. This seriously puts every other one of these movies to shame, even that one with the Baldwin brother. Don't worry, I'll be back with another one after this. I have something called "Mega Piranha" waiting for me. Hard to get a better title than that.
- I'm really sick of fantasy baseball. Our pitchers just keep getting Greinke'd. First off, we have Greinke, who has a 2.27 ERA and zero wins. Then tonight, Cole Hamels goes 8 innings, gives up 1 run, no win. Last night Mike Leake pitched a gem and got nothing. It's not fair. We have the best team by far (Wieters AND Longoria) by are just 2-2 because of cheaters and cheating and bad luck. We should be 5-0, even though it's only been four weeks. Yep, we're that good.
- By the way, I really wanted to like V, but I just couldn't get into it. I feel like I'm insulting my childhood. Then again, a certain recent remake of a certain awesome classic kind of destroyed it already. Unfortunately, I can't elaborate.
- I see Wilson Ramos is 0-3 with a K right now tonight. I know a little bit of regression to the mean is inevitable, but if he doesn't end up hitting at least .500 this year, I think you have to consider his season a failure.
- I'm thinking Gardy should have stuck with his unbreakable routine and brought in Rauch to finish the game. Oops. (I'm getting back to the movie, I swear).
- $20 says this movie ends with another message about the evils of global warming.
- Debbie and Asian guy just had a really touching conversation via video computer phone. He's apparently in Asian now which I guess makes sense, but they're in love or something which doesn't. And their romantic talk involved some quote from my guy Julius Caesar, but it was a pretty gay one. The whole thing was awful. Kind of gave me a hankerin' for watching Anakin and Padme.
- Mmmmmmmmmmmm.....Padme. Remember in the second movie how the somehow manages to rip her shirt just perfectly to get some nice mid-riff action? I couldn't decide if that was awesome or stupid, and I still can't decide. I know I didn't complain though.
- I quite literally have no idea what is going on anymore, but Debbie Gibson just punched some dude out (unfortunately not Lamas. or the Asian guy) and then somebody said "Ice Wall! Right Ahead!" which I think was supposed to be an homage to Titanic. This is pretty surreal. But not in a good way in the least.
- So the Shark and Octopus are fighting, just like in Debbie's master plan (as natural enemies are wont to do), and they're actually showing the fight. Sort of. They're also using the shaking camera manuever, and when they do show them it looks like something I could create in the bathtub using Wonderbaby's toys pretty easily. And she doesn't even have an octopus.
- How do they keep losing the creatures on their radar? This is about the fourth or fifth time. Way to keep going back to the same plot device over and over again. And, speaking of, we now have more shaking cameras. I really can't stress enough how prevalent this has been. This movie is as predictable as a Jesse Crain outing. As shaky, too.
- The octopus from Super Mario just squeezed the asian guy in half, but $50 says he shows up again because he and Debbie are in love and we need a happy ending to get us all through the day and our pathetic lives. Also I'm betting we aren't getting any TMNT ooze ending, which is a total bummer.
- I think they're looping the footage from the octo/shark fight.
- And the two creatures actually managed to kill each other, which is obviously super realistic. And there's asian guy to give us a little more Anakin-level banter in case you needed a little more. Just fantastic. I've seen a lot of crappy movies, but this is the worst. Other than Jumper.
- And we're set up for a sequel, because some old guy just gave our heros a file and said "here's something else" or some similar line. They better not be in Piranha. I can't take it again.
- Well there you have it. I hope you enjoyed this, because I sure as hell didn't, and I'm once again questioning why I keep doing this to myself. It must be for you, because I love you. Seriously, though, if I have to choose between a Giant Shark and a Giant Octopus, I'm going with crab juice.
- And just so this night isn't a total loss, here is a picture Snake snapped of a guy who was sitting near us at the Twins game we went to on Monday. I'm not even going to go with any commentary, I think it speaks for itself.
- Looks like we're getting started in the great frozen north which is where I'm guessing someone is going to thaw out a giant prehistoric shark. But more importantly, the opening credits inform me that our leads are Deborah Gibson and Lorenzo Lamas. Yes, that Debbie Gibson. Also yes, that Lorenzo Lamas, but you probably knew that part.
- They just showed a giant sheath of ice sliding off a glacial wall, which basically guarantees that they are going to end up blaming global warming in some way for this. Great. Nothing like getting a political statement from a crappy B movie, especially considering the science they usually use in these is less accurate than your average Delmon Young throw to the plate.
- On on mother effing cue, they show us a school of Hammerheads allegedly swimming around in Alaskan waters. God damn it, people. Hammerheads are tropical. I'm almost positive they only shark you'd find in Alaskan waters is the Greenland Shark. Why not just show some Greenland sharks? Lazy stupid morons. At least attempt to get it right. I know I'm a nerd, but even a minimum amount of research would tell you that you would never, ever, ever find a hammerhead anywhere near Alaska. It just makes me so mad.
- We're two minutes in. Two minutes. And now they show us reef sharks and manta rays. In Alaska. Frozen Alaskan waters. Reef sharks, manta rays, and hammerheads. How about you just toss in a tropical coral reef or the Loch Ness monster. At this point you've already destroyed your credibility. This is almost as bad as that goblin shark movie.
- Huh, Debbie Gibson is actually a halfway decent actress. She doesn't have much to work with here already. For example, some army guy dropped some kind of sonar bomb into the alaskan ocean and it's forcing this bunch of whales to start ramming glaciers. Uh oh and oh noes they rammed so much ice so effectively that they freed both a mega-shark and a giant octopus who were frozen in their endless struggle through eternity. I am going to go ahead and assume these are the titular creatures. Heh, titular.
- Oooh, and right away the giant octopus attacks an oil drilling platform and crushes it to death. That is a really, really big octopus. Also to the best of my knowledge no giant octopus like that ever existed. I can't confirm for sure since I'm just a shark nerd and not an octopus nerd, but based on this movie's complete disregard for factual scientific science I'm going to assume they made that all up.
- They just found a dead whale basically bitten in half and the guy who is going to turn out to be the stuffy professor who never believes there's a giant shark says it was killed by a boat propeller. Based on the size of half of the whale, the boat would have had to the size of Rhode Island to have propellers that big. Also, the whole "it wasn't a shark it was a boating accident" thing was already done by Jaws, and every other shark-related movie since. At least be original in your crappiness.
- Debbie Gibson just jedi mind-tricked some security guard so she could get into some random giant tent and examine the dead whale body. Damn what the rules say! She's a rebel. She's also singing to the whale "I Think We're Alone Now."
- Some asian with glasses is yelling at some other asian with a goatee.
- Oh for the love of god. The giant shark just lept out of the ocean to grab and eat a plane. I don't even know where to start with this. First, the plane had just broken cloud cover which means the shark jumped a minimum of 5,000 feet in the air. Second, the shark was at least 5 times longer than the plane, despite the fact that the biggest estimate for a Megalodon would put it at about a quarter of the length of a 747. Finally, why the hell would a just de-frozen shark jump up in the air and grab a plane when it has had no learnings that plane = food. Plus, a shark that size wouldn't be interested in people because sharks need to eat high amounts of fat from like whales and seals and stuff, and I am pretty sure metal isn't high in fat content.
- I take it back. Debbie Gibson is not a good actress. She should stick to posing in playboy. Google is your friend.
- Now the asian guy with glasses is meeting with Debbie and her mentor science guy who is being played by a guy who reminds me of the guy from Cocktail and has the same accent. Remember in that movie when Elisabeth Shue took her top off? She was awesome.
- So Asian guy thinks the thing killing stuff is an Octopus, while Debbie and Cocktail guy think it's a shark. OMG THEY'RE BOTH RIGHT! TWO PRESHISTORIC CREATURES UNLEASHED UPON THE WORLD SIMULTANEOUSLY!!
- I was going to write about something else that just happened but then, just now as predicted, Debbie gives us this "The Polar Ice Caps are melting so rapidly, maybe this is our comeuppance." THANK YOU MOVIE! I WILL NOW REPENT MY LIFE AND BUY AN ELECTRIC SCOOTER AND COOK MEALS OVER AN OPEN FLAME! YOU HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE!
- This is a really god-damned stupid movie.
- The shark just killed a navy battle ship, but they couldn't be bothered to show anything to us because they're stupid and cheap. Instead it would show the shark swimming, kind of, in some of the worst CGI I've ever seen (comparable to Etch-A-Sketch) and then cut to some army guys in a room that was shaking. Do that three times, then cut to head army guy yelling "noooooooooooooo" and then fade to black. Thanks a lot. That was super entertaining. I hope Aquaman shows up and kills everybody dead.
- Asian guy with glasses just now compared the two creatures to Hurricane Katrina. I can't decide if that's offensive, and since I'm not affiliated with and really wasn't affected by the hurricane, I'm just going to chalk it up as being unfunny instead. Which once again proves that asians aren't funny.
- Shocking. Military guy wants to destroy the creatures, while the Sciencey people want to study them. Just like every animal destruction movie ever. And did I really say Debbie Gibson was a good actor, earlier? I need to be gut-punched.
- Do you think Wilson Ramos is more like the next Johnny Bench or the next Mickey Cochrane? Nevermind, I'm being silly. He's the next Matt Wieters. Who, by the way, has 3x the home runs of your precious Joe Mauer. Since HRs are the only really viable way to evaluate a hitter, I'd say it's clear Wieters is tops. Other than Ramos.
- Asian guy is now telling some sob story about how he has always wanted to be a marine biologist ever since he saw a dolphin get killed in a net when he was a kid but his family all wanted him to follow in his footsteps. I didn't catch what it was they wanted him to be, but I'm going to assume ping-pong player. And now he's humping Debbie Gibson. Clearly she's pretty easy if that story worked. Eww Debbie.
- Since we're talking about studs, guess how many AL third-basemen have a better batting average than Evan Longoria? Zero. Guess how many have a better OBP. Zero. Guess how many have a better SLG. Zero. Plus, he'll steal your girlfriend. Such a pimp.
- Some fighter guy like Maverick or Goose just got slapped out of the air by an octopus tentacle, which means I guess nobody learned anything from the plane that got eaten by the shark earlier. Also, since I'm sure you want to know how awesome it looked, it was a screen of a plane, then a shot of a tentacle, then the guy inside the plane with red flights flashing and him yelling. Then they cut to the people in the big ship running this whole operation and they were all sad. This movie rocks.
- Nice pony-tail, Lamas.
- I still don't get the switch from Sci Fi Channel to SyFy Channel. I mean, you're basically going to get two reactions - either irritation or indifference, so what's the point? Not really seeing an upside here. This is the worst marketing decision since they eliminated Crystal Pepsi.
- For a movie about a giant shark and a giant octopus (which doesn't and never has existed) there has been a stunning lack of footage of said monsters. And not the good kind of tension building keeping the monster hidden like in Jaws, the bad kind. Like that one time I accidentally watched a male model show - The girls never came! The girls never came!
- They're doing something with pheremones to attract the monsters or something, but for some reason these pheremones are a glowing fluorescent green, like the ooze from TMNT. Oh my god! Maybe it is the ooze, and when the octo and shark meet up and fight they'll break the container and the ooze will spill everywhere and create a giant Shark/Octopus hybrid! That would be the greatest thing ever! Please let this happen. Or at least turn Lamas into some human/shark creature. He'd probably be more articulate.
- I've never watched a movie that utilized shaky camerawork more often. It's worse than the Blair Witch Project. More like if the Blair Witch Project was filmed by Michael J Fox. Or any movie, really.
- Sweet jesus. The shark somehow disappeared from the radar of the navy battleship which is currently attempting to shoot it with torpedos. We've already established this thing is at least 200 feet long. Nice radar. Must be american-made. Oh, there is is. It ate the ship, and then it ate the Golden Gate Bridge. I'm assuming we're not in Alaska anymore, but with the fact-finding and accuracy we've seen in this movie who the hell knows. I'm guessing it'll go after Big Ben next. Not Roethlisberger. He'd probably hump it while it tried to get away.
- The new plan is to drop nukes into San Francisco Bay (the shark) and somewhere in Tokyo that I don't remember (the octopus) in order to "avoid a global catastrophe." I don't even know where to begin.
- Awesome. Now they are going to try to get them to fight and kill each other instead, because "Sharks and Octopi are natural enemies." Good lord. This seriously puts every other one of these movies to shame, even that one with the Baldwin brother. Don't worry, I'll be back with another one after this. I have something called "Mega Piranha" waiting for me. Hard to get a better title than that.
- I'm really sick of fantasy baseball. Our pitchers just keep getting Greinke'd. First off, we have Greinke, who has a 2.27 ERA and zero wins. Then tonight, Cole Hamels goes 8 innings, gives up 1 run, no win. Last night Mike Leake pitched a gem and got nothing. It's not fair. We have the best team by far (Wieters AND Longoria) by are just 2-2 because of cheaters and cheating and bad luck. We should be 5-0, even though it's only been four weeks. Yep, we're that good.
- By the way, I really wanted to like V, but I just couldn't get into it. I feel like I'm insulting my childhood. Then again, a certain recent remake of a certain awesome classic kind of destroyed it already. Unfortunately, I can't elaborate.
- I see Wilson Ramos is 0-3 with a K right now tonight. I know a little bit of regression to the mean is inevitable, but if he doesn't end up hitting at least .500 this year, I think you have to consider his season a failure.
- I'm thinking Gardy should have stuck with his unbreakable routine and brought in Rauch to finish the game. Oops. (I'm getting back to the movie, I swear).
- $20 says this movie ends with another message about the evils of global warming.
- Debbie and Asian guy just had a really touching conversation via video computer phone. He's apparently in Asian now which I guess makes sense, but they're in love or something which doesn't. And their romantic talk involved some quote from my guy Julius Caesar, but it was a pretty gay one. The whole thing was awful. Kind of gave me a hankerin' for watching Anakin and Padme.
- Mmmmmmmmmmmm.....Padme. Remember in the second movie how the somehow manages to rip her shirt just perfectly to get some nice mid-riff action? I couldn't decide if that was awesome or stupid, and I still can't decide. I know I didn't complain though.
- Ok, so if you're going to make a movie with two giant sea creatures, and advertise in your title that you have two giant sea creatures, do me a favor and have some kind of a special effects budget so most of the time you can show the creature instead of just shake a camera and when you do show it it doesn't look like it's out of Super Mario Brothers. Seriously, the octopus looks just like this:
- I quite literally have no idea what is going on anymore, but Debbie Gibson just punched some dude out (unfortunately not Lamas. or the Asian guy) and then somebody said "Ice Wall! Right Ahead!" which I think was supposed to be an homage to Titanic. This is pretty surreal. But not in a good way in the least.
- So the Shark and Octopus are fighting, just like in Debbie's master plan (as natural enemies are wont to do), and they're actually showing the fight. Sort of. They're also using the shaking camera manuever, and when they do show them it looks like something I could create in the bathtub using Wonderbaby's toys pretty easily. And she doesn't even have an octopus.
- How do they keep losing the creatures on their radar? This is about the fourth or fifth time. Way to keep going back to the same plot device over and over again. And, speaking of, we now have more shaking cameras. I really can't stress enough how prevalent this has been. This movie is as predictable as a Jesse Crain outing. As shaky, too.
- The octopus from Super Mario just squeezed the asian guy in half, but $50 says he shows up again because he and Debbie are in love and we need a happy ending to get us all through the day and our pathetic lives. Also I'm betting we aren't getting any TMNT ooze ending, which is a total bummer.
- I think they're looping the footage from the octo/shark fight.
- And the two creatures actually managed to kill each other, which is obviously super realistic. And there's asian guy to give us a little more Anakin-level banter in case you needed a little more. Just fantastic. I've seen a lot of crappy movies, but this is the worst. Other than Jumper.
- And we're set up for a sequel, because some old guy just gave our heros a file and said "here's something else" or some similar line. They better not be in Piranha. I can't take it again.
- Well there you have it. I hope you enjoyed this, because I sure as hell didn't, and I'm once again questioning why I keep doing this to myself. It must be for you, because I love you. Seriously, though, if I have to choose between a Giant Shark and a Giant Octopus, I'm going with crab juice.
- And just so this night isn't a total loss, here is a picture Snake snapped of a guy who was sitting near us at the Twins game we went to on Monday. I'm not even going to go with any commentary, I think it speaks for itself.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Tuesday Talkings (mostly Twins signing talk, plus a little racism)
With no Gopher game until the weekend I should probably figure something else out to blog about this week. I also haven't done the random writing whatever strikes my fancy post in quite some time. The perfect storm!
- First off, don't forget to play this awesome time-waster of a game. It's basketball on the computer, so it's like basketball for white people. So far since I posted yesterday it's been played 45 times and I'm still the champion. I'm like the Blake Hoffarber of fake basketball. Try to beat me, I dare you. Come on, you're really not all that important at work, trust me. Just don't forget to put in a nickname so you can claim credit for your pitiful score.
- Speaking of basketball for white people, there's some not-at-all-rednecky guys trying to start up a basketball league for white people. According to the league's founder, "Moose" Lewis, "people of white, American born citizens are in the minority now" and the whiteys only league is a league "for white people to play fundamental basketball, which they like" rather than a league like the NBA which is just "street ball" played by "people of color."
This guy is a genius. A likely sociopath, but a genius all the same. Are you telling me you wouldn't want to watch a league where Blake would be an athletic superstar? Or watch Kirk Penny take David Grim to the hole? And imagine someone like Ryan Anderson in that league? He'd be like the white Larry Bird. Granted this idea is about sixty years too late, but who says we can't turn back the clock? Look at John Travolta or Julio Franco.
Credit given to With Leather, which is where I saw the story and also where I ganked that sweet image from above.
- Ok, with news from 1950 out of the way now we can get to the real important stuff: all those Twins' signings today. In case you missed it, the team signed all 8 of its arbitration eligible players today. Let's look:
- Brendan Harris, 2 years/$3.2 million. Interesting that Harris got two years on his deal, and it's good for him because he gets about a $1 million raise over his salary last year. I'd feel a lot better about this if he was the team's #1 utility guy but you know that's going to be Punto. Since Gardy refuses to play Harris at second and Hardy is hear now the Twins are now paying $1.6 mil per year for either a backup utility player who will get 250 at-bats which sucks or for their starting third baseman which sucks because that means Harris is the starting third baseman.
- Carl Pavano, 1 year/$7 million. That feels like an awful lot to pay Pavano, but if he stays healthy he's good for 200 innings and although his ERA was high last year it probably shouldn't have been because his secondary pitching stats were all pretty solid and his xFIP (Fielding Independant Pitching, sort of a way to attempt to quantify what you would expect a pitcher's ERA to be based on his secondary stats) was a nice 3.96. Fangraphs actually pegged his estimated value at $16.5 million last year and estimates it will be $13 million this year. Seems high, but if he stays healthy and pitches like he did last year that $7 million will be a steal.
- J.J. Hardy, 1 year/$5.1 million. Pretty much a no brainer after picking him up for Gomez and the Twins probably saved a little money by not going to arbitration. Even in a down year, and last year was way, way down, he's probably worth more than $5 million, so this is a good deal for the Twins.
- Matt Guerrier, 1 year/$3.15 million. Heath Bell just signed a 1-year/$4 million deal with the Padres, and it's hard for me to believe Guerrier is worth anywhere near what Bell is. But then you look at the numbers: 2.36 ERA, 0.97 WHIP, a league-leading 79 games and 76 very good innings, and I suppose he is worth quite a bit. A classic case of passing the numbers test but not the eye test, and since I'm a numbers guy I have to approve of this one, even if his middle name is Olson.
- Delmon Young, 1 year/$2.6 million. If he has that breakout season $2.6 million is a steal. If we keep saying "if he has that breakout season" over and over again, eventually those "low-salary" seasons are going to add up to a whole lot of wasted time.
- Jesse Crain, 1 year/$2 million. $2 million for a player who hasn't been good since 2005? I still have no idea why they offered him arbitration. Let him go and I almost guarantee the Royals would have signed him, then the Twins get to light him up 18 times or whatever. Win/win.
- Francisco Liriano, 1 year/$1.6 million. Good thing they didn't give him an Evan Longoria deal after that hot start in 2006, huh? Still, similar to Delmoney, if he does come all the way back $1.6 is a steal. Expect fluff pieces about how good Liriano's looked to start flooding in all spring training. Oh wait! They've already started (scroll down a bit, the actual article from pioneer press is already in the archives).
- Pat Neshek, 1 year/$625k. Pretty good living for never pitching, no? Is he ever coming back? Is he even still alive? Did he change his name to Clay Condrey and start pitching overhand?
- I feel like I should probably apologize to Andy Rautins. I know somewhere on this stupid blog I called something like "a shooting specialist who can't shoot" and although that might have been true in the past (37% field goal shooter his first three years) it certainly isn't anymore and he's a huge reason the Cuse are 18-1 and a viable national title contender. He's increased his shooting percentage to 46%, including 41.7% from three (#2 in the Big East amongst players with at least 100 attempts), and he basically runs the offense for the Orange in the halfcourt. Perhaps most telling, he's averaging the same amount of points as last year in the same amount of minutes but is taking 1.5 less shots per game and has upped his assists from 3.0 per game last year to 5.1 this year, good for fourth in the Big East. That, my friends, is how you take the senior year leap. Eric Harris did it. Travarus Bennett did it. Damian Johnson is trying to do it. And Lawrence Westbrook can go to hell.
- Finally, I've read two very disappointing books in a row ("Pirate Latitudes" by Michael Crichton which I would give a 1/10 and "Altar of Eden" by James Rollins which I would give a 5/10 but usually his books are at least an 8 so that's why it was a bummer) so I'm think I'm going to branch out and give this book a roll. I'll keep you posted, but it sounds pretty interesting. Plus I am a pretty big fan of sports gambling. Biggest downside here is that it could make me want to quit my job, leave my family, and move to Vegas. Or is that the upside?
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Twins v. Gay Sox
Hey folks, with the Twins making a run at the stupid little Tigers, I figured I might as well tackle doing a blog of tonight's tilt against the hated White Sox. Of course, it's a little difficult because Mrs. W is actually in control of the remote on Tuesday nights on account of The Biggest Loser about fat people crying a lot, I think. So what am I to do? I'm streaming the game using Stream Torrent. What's Stream Torrent? I have no idea, but it means I can watch the game. I might be downloading several different viruses which are stealing my identity as we speak, but dammit I can watch the game.
- Span out tonight with a mild concussion, which sucks but is probably a best case scenario after getting hit by a projectile moving 90 mph in the melon. Gomez in and, is Gardy's style, plugged right into the spot of the guy he's replacing. He hasn't been playing much lately, but the improvement he's shown this year gives me hope.
- And right off the bat he shows why I'm starting to have faith in him, drawing a walk. I'd be willing to bet Gardy goes with a bunt here with Cabrera.
- Nevermind, Cabrera unloads on one for a 2-run home run in what must be just his second or so homer since joining the Twins. That moron PA spent an entire segment this morning discussing if the Twins should re-sign Cabrera after this season. No, of course they shouldn't. He'll be 35 next season, and will probably get at least $3 million a year to give you the exact same skills you are already getting from Brendan Harris, only more ethnic. And you could resign Harris for half or a third what you'd need to get Cabrera. You'd probably like that, racist.
- Yet another Kubel double (that guy is better than Jesus at hitting, FYI), a Cuddy single, and a sac fly by Delmon and it's 3-0 Twins already. I just checked and the Tigers are winning 1-0 in the fourth. Come on Cleveland.
- A lead off walk to Podsednik, one of the worst hitters in baseball history and a notorious hacker who never walks. This is a less than inspiring start for Mr. Manship. Although I was expecting the Twins to need about six runs tonight anyway, so my world hasn't been exactly rocked.
- Sure enough, pillow-biter Pods steals second, moves up to third on a grounder and scores on a grounder. I wish I had sound right now, because I'd be willing to bet that the Hawk is extolling the virtues of small ball right now and holding up the Twins as the ideal of that philosophy, despite the fact that they rank 13th in the majors in homers, 19th in steals, and 20th in sac bunts. Note: that's not small ball. Note2: small ball is for girls and queers.
- Just having Matt Tolbert in the lineup makes me physically ill. It must be terrifying for Danks to get to the end of the lineup and have to face that Harris/Tolbert/Punto bottom of the lineup (Harris is DHing for some reaosn that I can't come up with). It's like the old Yankee teams, who were forced to trot out Tony Lazzeri, Joe Sewell, and Bill Dickey at the end of their order.
- A nice 1-2-3 second inning for Manship with no balls particularly hit hard. I literally can't remember if I've been impressed by Manship or not. Like, seriously, somehow I can't remember watching him pitch, even though I know I've seen him multiple times. Odd.
- I just found out Placido Polanco (Det still up 1-0, now in the seventh) is a free agent after this year and the Tigers might not sign him. How good would he look in a Twins uniform? Based on his last contract (4 years, $4.6 million per year), his age (34), his production (declining), and the economy (toilet), I'd be they could get him for 2 years, $8 million. Think about it.
- Alex Rios just parked one about 10,000 feet to make it a 3-2 game. There is no way 3 runs are going to hold up with Manship pitching. And now Scottie Podsednik just got on base - again. I'd be willing to bet he hasn't been on base twice in the same game more than three times this year.
- Two run home run for David Beckham. 4-3 White Sox. Is Manship really all we have as an option here for a pennant drive? I'd rather toss Liriano out there. Incidentally, just how far has Liriano fallen that I have to explain I'm not kidding that I'd rather have him than Man "look at how far that ball goes the other way" ship.
- Two more singles, and I get my wish, here comes Liriano. Actually, my wish was that somebody could pitch decently tonight. That's also a lie, my real wish is that Sarah Michelle Gellar would show up on my doorstep in a babydoll nightie with a bottle ofchampagne vodka, feathered handcuffs, some sort of edible body lotion, and a bucket of chicken wings.
- While I was typing that Liriano got out of the inning. Now Cuddyer, the next Morneau, leads off the inning with a double. They need to get him home to tie it up. Delmoney, Harris, and Tolbert don't fill me with confidence.
- Delmoney with an infield hit on a Baltimore chop-style hit, which reminds me in a lot of ways getting rid of the metrodome is going to suck. Not just because the Twins are more comfortable there than any other team, what with the roof and the baggie and all the other intricacies, but because of the mental advantage they have over the Sox and the Tigers. Players don't say much, but Ozzie Guillen, the Sox announcers, and the fans on both sides are all convinced they can't win in the dome, and the records bear that out. Make no mistake, the Twins will be giving up a significant home field advantage next season and beyond. They should be able to make up that difference, however, by spending more on free agents. Ha ha. I'm kididng of course. Their won't be any additional monies spent to bring in talent.
- Harris gets the run home by grounding into a double play. So it's tied at 4-4, but that wasn't exactly awe-inspiring. Also, Jason Bartlett probably goes yard there. Just saying.
- Mrs. W made Caramel-Apple Banana Bread tonight, and it's becoming increasingly clear to me that she's not all that bright (hi honey) because she is complaining that all she can taste is the banana. There are clearly strong apple and caramel flavors, and the banana taste is actually quite minor. I guess not everyone can be the kind of banana bread connoisseur I am. I could be a banana bread sommelier, no joke. Oh, you're having the filet mignon au poivre tonight? Let me recommend the banana bread with either walnuts or macadamia nuts. Grilled Salmon with Asparagus? You'd probably have a good time with the cream cheese banana bread. Although everyone knows banana bread with chocolate chips is the best, right?
- In case you're wondering, suddenly my internet feed isn't working. According to the always exciting yahoo gametracker, the Twins managed to take the lead after a Cabrera walk and a Mauer double. By the way, it seems the national media is ALL on board with Mauer definitely being the MVP. We'll see. I trust the national media less than I trust The Todd around a burrito.
- Also I want to mention here that it appears Dawger and Super Sioux Fan (and baby Dawger) will be coming over to the W casa on Sunday for a little Vikings/Twins/food day. And also probably my murder. If SSF does kill me, somebody throw out the shoe box under my side of the bed. Don't open it. Just throw it out.
- Liriano walks Beckham with one out (internet feed is back). This guy is still so afraid to throw a strike. It sucks, and this is the exact same thing that happened to my dad in the early 70s. Hot shot prospect gets hurt, career never the same - or in his case, over. If the pattern repeats itself Liriano will one day be a math teacher with one child who is a lawyer and another who is a drunken blogger. Geez, dad. Sorry.
- I think I see why he hates throwing strikes, because he just threw one and Konerko Konorked it about 400 feet. Luckily the wall is at 401 so it's just a double, but it's still 5-5 and both Liriano and my self-esteem are in the toilet.
- The TV claims Liriano just hit 95 on the radar gun. I call so much bullshit, like Zack Morris talking to Belding levels here.
- Jessie Crain on his way to the mound. That's always the answer.
- Ok, he got the last out. Also that necklace is fabulous.
- Cuddyer with ANOTHER home run. Talk about rising to the occasion. This is incredible. Looking at home runs only. Which as we all know are the most impressive thing about baseball.
- I think my internet feed is messed up. It looks like Matt Tolbert just went yard. That can't be, can it? Weird how this feed is still running fine, but made somebody else look like a weiner with giant nostrils. Never really seen that before.
- Cabrera just made a play going to his right and doing that gay Jeter jump throw. That better be on sportscenter as a great play, and then replayed for years. We also should start calling Cabrera "the Captain" and a "True Twin", as well as maybe consider giving him an MVP as like a lifetime achievement award.
- 1-2-3 inning for Crain as we roll to the 7th. Think about that. What are the odds?
- Tiggers won. Can't afford to give this one away.
- Mijares out to throw the seventh. I assume this means we'll see either Rauch or Guerrier in the 8th. I also want to use this space to admit that Matt Guerrier has had an awesome year and I didn't realize it. WHIP of 0.91, ERA 2.18, and 70 innings in the books? That's Paul Quantrill like, man. I mean that is straight up awesome. And I wrote this right before he is probably going to pitch an important 8th. Good on me.
- Shocker! Fatties are crying on The Biggest Loser. Fatties. Are. Crying.
- KUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUBELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!
- We're going with Guerrier here. Hopefully the DWG jinx is no longer in affect.
- First batter is Konerko. He konorks one over the fence. DWG jinx looking strong. Still 8-6 Twins.
- Mrs. W just told me Sarah Michelle Gellar had a baby today. Freddie Prinze's baby. For both of these reasons, let's substittue Christina Aguilera in my dream scenario above.
- No runs in the 9th for the Twins. Nathan in. 61 innings this year, 81 strikeouts, 39 hits. Holy god.
- That was deceptively easy. Twins win again. With the Tigers win, they remain 2.5 back. The one big thing on the Twins side? The Tigers are on the cover of SI. I don't believe in curses (other than the Curse of King Tut, the Curse of the Billy Goat, and throwing salt over your shoulder if you spill it), but I think it's pretty obvious the Tigers are screwed. Just keep winning twinkies, just keep winning.
- Span out tonight with a mild concussion, which sucks but is probably a best case scenario after getting hit by a projectile moving 90 mph in the melon. Gomez in and, is Gardy's style, plugged right into the spot of the guy he's replacing. He hasn't been playing much lately, but the improvement he's shown this year gives me hope.
- And right off the bat he shows why I'm starting to have faith in him, drawing a walk. I'd be willing to bet Gardy goes with a bunt here with Cabrera.
- Nevermind, Cabrera unloads on one for a 2-run home run in what must be just his second or so homer since joining the Twins. That moron PA spent an entire segment this morning discussing if the Twins should re-sign Cabrera after this season. No, of course they shouldn't. He'll be 35 next season, and will probably get at least $3 million a year to give you the exact same skills you are already getting from Brendan Harris, only more ethnic. And you could resign Harris for half or a third what you'd need to get Cabrera. You'd probably like that, racist.
- Yet another Kubel double (that guy is better than Jesus at hitting, FYI), a Cuddy single, and a sac fly by Delmon and it's 3-0 Twins already. I just checked and the Tigers are winning 1-0 in the fourth. Come on Cleveland.
- A lead off walk to Podsednik, one of the worst hitters in baseball history and a notorious hacker who never walks. This is a less than inspiring start for Mr. Manship. Although I was expecting the Twins to need about six runs tonight anyway, so my world hasn't been exactly rocked.
- Sure enough, pillow-biter Pods steals second, moves up to third on a grounder and scores on a grounder. I wish I had sound right now, because I'd be willing to bet that the Hawk is extolling the virtues of small ball right now and holding up the Twins as the ideal of that philosophy, despite the fact that they rank 13th in the majors in homers, 19th in steals, and 20th in sac bunts. Note: that's not small ball. Note2: small ball is for girls and queers.
- Just having Matt Tolbert in the lineup makes me physically ill. It must be terrifying for Danks to get to the end of the lineup and have to face that Harris/Tolbert/Punto bottom of the lineup (Harris is DHing for some reaosn that I can't come up with). It's like the old Yankee teams, who were forced to trot out Tony Lazzeri, Joe Sewell, and Bill Dickey at the end of their order.
- A nice 1-2-3 second inning for Manship with no balls particularly hit hard. I literally can't remember if I've been impressed by Manship or not. Like, seriously, somehow I can't remember watching him pitch, even though I know I've seen him multiple times. Odd.
- I just found out Placido Polanco (Det still up 1-0, now in the seventh) is a free agent after this year and the Tigers might not sign him. How good would he look in a Twins uniform? Based on his last contract (4 years, $4.6 million per year), his age (34), his production (declining), and the economy (toilet), I'd be they could get him for 2 years, $8 million. Think about it.
- Alex Rios just parked one about 10,000 feet to make it a 3-2 game. There is no way 3 runs are going to hold up with Manship pitching. And now Scottie Podsednik just got on base - again. I'd be willing to bet he hasn't been on base twice in the same game more than three times this year.
- Two run home run for David Beckham. 4-3 White Sox. Is Manship really all we have as an option here for a pennant drive? I'd rather toss Liriano out there. Incidentally, just how far has Liriano fallen that I have to explain I'm not kidding that I'd rather have him than Man "look at how far that ball goes the other way" ship.
- Two more singles, and I get my wish, here comes Liriano. Actually, my wish was that somebody could pitch decently tonight. That's also a lie, my real wish is that Sarah Michelle Gellar would show up on my doorstep in a babydoll nightie with a bottle of
- While I was typing that Liriano got out of the inning. Now Cuddyer, the next Morneau, leads off the inning with a double. They need to get him home to tie it up. Delmoney, Harris, and Tolbert don't fill me with confidence.
- Delmoney with an infield hit on a Baltimore chop-style hit, which reminds me in a lot of ways getting rid of the metrodome is going to suck. Not just because the Twins are more comfortable there than any other team, what with the roof and the baggie and all the other intricacies, but because of the mental advantage they have over the Sox and the Tigers. Players don't say much, but Ozzie Guillen, the Sox announcers, and the fans on both sides are all convinced they can't win in the dome, and the records bear that out. Make no mistake, the Twins will be giving up a significant home field advantage next season and beyond. They should be able to make up that difference, however, by spending more on free agents. Ha ha. I'm kididng of course. Their won't be any additional monies spent to bring in talent.
- Harris gets the run home by grounding into a double play. So it's tied at 4-4, but that wasn't exactly awe-inspiring. Also, Jason Bartlett probably goes yard there. Just saying.
- Mrs. W made Caramel-Apple Banana Bread tonight, and it's becoming increasingly clear to me that she's not all that bright (hi honey) because she is complaining that all she can taste is the banana. There are clearly strong apple and caramel flavors, and the banana taste is actually quite minor. I guess not everyone can be the kind of banana bread connoisseur I am. I could be a banana bread sommelier, no joke. Oh, you're having the filet mignon au poivre tonight? Let me recommend the banana bread with either walnuts or macadamia nuts. Grilled Salmon with Asparagus? You'd probably have a good time with the cream cheese banana bread. Although everyone knows banana bread with chocolate chips is the best, right?
- In case you're wondering, suddenly my internet feed isn't working. According to the always exciting yahoo gametracker, the Twins managed to take the lead after a Cabrera walk and a Mauer double. By the way, it seems the national media is ALL on board with Mauer definitely being the MVP. We'll see. I trust the national media less than I trust The Todd around a burrito.
- Also I want to mention here that it appears Dawger and Super Sioux Fan (and baby Dawger) will be coming over to the W casa on Sunday for a little Vikings/Twins/food day. And also probably my murder. If SSF does kill me, somebody throw out the shoe box under my side of the bed. Don't open it. Just throw it out.
- Liriano walks Beckham with one out (internet feed is back). This guy is still so afraid to throw a strike. It sucks, and this is the exact same thing that happened to my dad in the early 70s. Hot shot prospect gets hurt, career never the same - or in his case, over. If the pattern repeats itself Liriano will one day be a math teacher with one child who is a lawyer and another who is a drunken blogger. Geez, dad. Sorry.
- I think I see why he hates throwing strikes, because he just threw one and Konerko Konorked it about 400 feet. Luckily the wall is at 401 so it's just a double, but it's still 5-5 and both Liriano and my self-esteem are in the toilet.
- The TV claims Liriano just hit 95 on the radar gun. I call so much bullshit, like Zack Morris talking to Belding levels here.
- Jessie Crain on his way to the mound. That's always the answer.
- Ok, he got the last out. Also that necklace is fabulous.
- Cuddyer with ANOTHER home run. Talk about rising to the occasion. This is incredible. Looking at home runs only. Which as we all know are the most impressive thing about baseball.
- I think my internet feed is messed up. It looks like Matt Tolbert just went yard. That can't be, can it? Weird how this feed is still running fine, but made somebody else look like a weiner with giant nostrils. Never really seen that before.
- Cabrera just made a play going to his right and doing that gay Jeter jump throw. That better be on sportscenter as a great play, and then replayed for years. We also should start calling Cabrera "the Captain" and a "True Twin", as well as maybe consider giving him an MVP as like a lifetime achievement award.
- 1-2-3 inning for Crain as we roll to the 7th. Think about that. What are the odds?
- Tiggers won. Can't afford to give this one away.
- Mijares out to throw the seventh. I assume this means we'll see either Rauch or Guerrier in the 8th. I also want to use this space to admit that Matt Guerrier has had an awesome year and I didn't realize it. WHIP of 0.91, ERA 2.18, and 70 innings in the books? That's Paul Quantrill like, man. I mean that is straight up awesome. And I wrote this right before he is probably going to pitch an important 8th. Good on me.
- Shocker! Fatties are crying on The Biggest Loser. Fatties. Are. Crying.
- KUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUBELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!
- We're going with Guerrier here. Hopefully the DWG jinx is no longer in affect.
- First batter is Konerko. He konorks one over the fence. DWG jinx looking strong. Still 8-6 Twins.
- Mrs. W just told me Sarah Michelle Gellar had a baby today. Freddie Prinze's baby. For both of these reasons, let's substittue Christina Aguilera in my dream scenario above.
- Guerrier gets it done. Either get a couple more or let's just hope the suddenly mortal Nathan doesn't F this up.
- No runs in the 9th for the Twins. Nathan in. 61 innings this year, 81 strikeouts, 39 hits. Holy god.
- That was deceptively easy. Twins win again. With the Tigers win, they remain 2.5 back. The one big thing on the Twins side? The Tigers are on the cover of SI. I don't believe in curses (other than the Curse of King Tut, the Curse of the Billy Goat, and throwing salt over your shoulder if you spill it), but I think it's pretty obvious the Tigers are screwed. Just keep winning twinkies, just keep winning.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
No this Blog is not Dead.
No, we aren't dead. Some brain dead jackass asked me this weekend if this blog was going to die, and the answer is no. As I've mentioned in every post I've made this month, although admittedly there haven't been many, I'm swamped at work and with weekend things going on all month. I promise once we hit August things will pick back up. Of course, it wouldn't hurt if one of the other contributors on this site would like to toss up a post or two. I know Dawger is dying to talk Twins. Anyway, I do have a little bit of time tonight, so I'll make a couple quick comments.
- I should probably go ahead and start with the British Open, since the winner is my arch enemy, the uncalcuably gay Stew Cink. Make no mistake, he got lucky and it probably shouldn't count. Think about it. How hard is it to beat an old man? An old man who has already played 72 holes in four days in the freezing cold and wind and rain? Most guys Watson's age would have been out by hole 11. Hell, most guys Watson's age would have woken up the morning after the first round and been unable to get out of bed and have to use that clicker thing or whatever it is that the "I've fallen and I can't get up" lady advertised. Seriously, what was it? A clicker of some kind? A phone? Wow, I can picture the lady but I don't remember the product. Is that good advertising or bad?
Anyway, I had originally planned to call Watson a choker, but now that I think more about it I'm guessing he was just a bit tuckered. Although there isn't much more disappointing than thinking you are watching the story of the year (at a minimum), but instead you get some bald-headed, gigantic sloth freak sneaking in the back door and stealing that 59-year-old leprechaun's gold. Crying shame.
And Ian Poulter should be ashamed of himself for that performance. From a solo 2nd last year to dead effing last this year. And he was even playing well going into this tournament. I have no clue what happened, but I'll never trust that dandy again.
- Speaking of advertising, Kmart's advert for lay-a-way is for a blow up shark. I mean, I like blow up sharks as much as the next guy, but are we really doing lay-a-way for them? I thought that was for poor people who can't afford a love seat, not average suburban white couple who need lawn water toys. I might have to look into this.
- In what has become a Twins' tradition, your favorite team needed help at a position and went out and signed the oldest, cheapest option available; this time giving a minor league contract to 39-year old second basemen Mark Grudzielanek.
I actually think is a pretty good idea. Minor league contract means no risk - probably the biggest reason they made the signing, but even last year Grudzy put up some decent numbers (.299/.345/.399) - not much for slugging the ball, but it's basically what Luis Castillo gave them that one year he was here all season (.296/.358/.370). And it wasn't a fluky season either - Grudzielanek has hit no worse than .294 in his last six seasons, and hasn't hit lower than .271 since his rookie year way back in 1995. No major risk here, especially when the Tolbert/Casilla/Punto trio is doing nothing but making outs at a prodigious rate. If he can still hit anywhere near his career average and isn't a total stiff in the field (major questions due to a late ankle injury last year that has had him sitting out almost a full calendar year), he's a major upgrade. Of course, since this is a Twins' signing, I'm going to fully assume that they essentially signed Steve Lombardozzi (the current, 48-year-old version).
- Since we're chatting about Twins' busts, how about a little Jesse Crain update (who I have pretty much completely forgotten about)? He's thrown twelve games down in Rochester so far, compiling 17 2/3 innings and a 2.55 ERA and 1.19 WHIP. Toss in a 22-8 K/BB ratio, and I'd say thus far the experiment with Mr. Seashell Necklace has been a success. Expect to see him up again soon, especially with the Twins' bullpen in full on implosion mode. I'm sure with the bullpen blowing leads and giving up monster home runs, Crainsy is feeling pretty left out.
- I'm trying to muster up the energy to give a crap about the most recent T-Wolves trade, but it's hard. I dig on how Kahn has come to town with a "Let's start this garbage over" mentality, because that was definitely what was needed. Madsen is little more than a crowd favorite, which means a white jackass who hustles and has no talent. He will be missed by drunken idiots with more money than sense only. Telfair and Craig "the Manatee" Smith, were able to put up ok numbers on a crappy team, but I'm pretty sure that was their upside. Telfair will be little more than a career backup, and Smith will eat himself out of the league as soon as he signs his first non-rookie contract (book it).
So by not losing anything, the Wolves automatically win this trade. Getting Q Richardson back isn't going to really add much to the team in terms of win, but it at least gives them a big-time shooter to replace Mike Miller. Plus, with $9+ million in salary coming off the books next off-season he adds a little bit of flexibility to any off-sesaon plans that little munchkin has cooking in his little brain.
Not a monster improvement, but a very good little trade. Although I will miss watching the Manatee cross mid-court on less than half his team's possessions.
- The Onion is almost always a guaranteed laugh, but this might be my favorite of all-time, "Derek Jeter makes easy play look easy."
- Another funny link: Ed O'Bannon is suing the NCAA for use of his image. I'm not even 100% sure what this means, but it makes total sense that O'Bannon would need money. The best thing he could do is shoot some sort of anti-early entry warning video. I know he didn't leave school early, but he's a great warning for guys who are great in college that they might not quite pan out as pros. Him, Shawn Respert, Adam Morrison, Randolph Childress, Pervis Ellison, Marcus Fizer, and George Lucas can get together and teach a class on dissapointing people.
- Lastly, you should know that WonderbabyTM is already the most advanced in her gymnastics class and might have to be moved up to the more advanced class. That's right, guess who is the only one in her class who can hang from a bar? Yep. Her teacher/coach/volunteer/weirdo loner cat-lady person already said, "She's really advanced. A real natural athlete." Hopefully this will translate to non-gay sports like basketball andsoftball baseball, but if she ends up in the Olympics, so be it. She'll be the Michael Phelps of gymnastics, but without the weed and overall douchiness.
I'll leave you with a picture of her showing off her skills:
- I should probably go ahead and start with the British Open, since the winner is my arch enemy, the uncalcuably gay Stew Cink. Make no mistake, he got lucky and it probably shouldn't count. Think about it. How hard is it to beat an old man? An old man who has already played 72 holes in four days in the freezing cold and wind and rain? Most guys Watson's age would have been out by hole 11. Hell, most guys Watson's age would have woken up the morning after the first round and been unable to get out of bed and have to use that clicker thing or whatever it is that the "I've fallen and I can't get up" lady advertised. Seriously, what was it? A clicker of some kind? A phone? Wow, I can picture the lady but I don't remember the product. Is that good advertising or bad?
Anyway, I had originally planned to call Watson a choker, but now that I think more about it I'm guessing he was just a bit tuckered. Although there isn't much more disappointing than thinking you are watching the story of the year (at a minimum), but instead you get some bald-headed, gigantic sloth freak sneaking in the back door and stealing that 59-year-old leprechaun's gold. Crying shame.
And Ian Poulter should be ashamed of himself for that performance. From a solo 2nd last year to dead effing last this year. And he was even playing well going into this tournament. I have no clue what happened, but I'll never trust that dandy again.
- Speaking of advertising, Kmart's advert for lay-a-way is for a blow up shark. I mean, I like blow up sharks as much as the next guy, but are we really doing lay-a-way for them? I thought that was for poor people who can't afford a love seat, not average suburban white couple who need lawn water toys. I might have to look into this.
- In what has become a Twins' tradition, your favorite team needed help at a position and went out and signed the oldest, cheapest option available; this time giving a minor league contract to 39-year old second basemen Mark Grudzielanek.
I actually think is a pretty good idea. Minor league contract means no risk - probably the biggest reason they made the signing, but even last year Grudzy put up some decent numbers (.299/.345/.399) - not much for slugging the ball, but it's basically what Luis Castillo gave them that one year he was here all season (.296/.358/.370). And it wasn't a fluky season either - Grudzielanek has hit no worse than .294 in his last six seasons, and hasn't hit lower than .271 since his rookie year way back in 1995. No major risk here, especially when the Tolbert/Casilla/Punto trio is doing nothing but making outs at a prodigious rate. If he can still hit anywhere near his career average and isn't a total stiff in the field (major questions due to a late ankle injury last year that has had him sitting out almost a full calendar year), he's a major upgrade. Of course, since this is a Twins' signing, I'm going to fully assume that they essentially signed Steve Lombardozzi (the current, 48-year-old version).
- Since we're chatting about Twins' busts, how about a little Jesse Crain update (who I have pretty much completely forgotten about)? He's thrown twelve games down in Rochester so far, compiling 17 2/3 innings and a 2.55 ERA and 1.19 WHIP. Toss in a 22-8 K/BB ratio, and I'd say thus far the experiment with Mr. Seashell Necklace has been a success. Expect to see him up again soon, especially with the Twins' bullpen in full on implosion mode. I'm sure with the bullpen blowing leads and giving up monster home runs, Crainsy is feeling pretty left out.
- I'm trying to muster up the energy to give a crap about the most recent T-Wolves trade, but it's hard. I dig on how Kahn has come to town with a "Let's start this garbage over" mentality, because that was definitely what was needed. Madsen is little more than a crowd favorite, which means a white jackass who hustles and has no talent. He will be missed by drunken idiots with more money than sense only. Telfair and Craig "the Manatee" Smith, were able to put up ok numbers on a crappy team, but I'm pretty sure that was their upside. Telfair will be little more than a career backup, and Smith will eat himself out of the league as soon as he signs his first non-rookie contract (book it).
So by not losing anything, the Wolves automatically win this trade. Getting Q Richardson back isn't going to really add much to the team in terms of win, but it at least gives them a big-time shooter to replace Mike Miller. Plus, with $9+ million in salary coming off the books next off-season he adds a little bit of flexibility to any off-sesaon plans that little munchkin has cooking in his little brain.
Not a monster improvement, but a very good little trade. Although I will miss watching the Manatee cross mid-court on less than half his team's possessions.
- The Onion is almost always a guaranteed laugh, but this might be my favorite of all-time, "Derek Jeter makes easy play look easy."
- Another funny link: Ed O'Bannon is suing the NCAA for use of his image. I'm not even 100% sure what this means, but it makes total sense that O'Bannon would need money. The best thing he could do is shoot some sort of anti-early entry warning video. I know he didn't leave school early, but he's a great warning for guys who are great in college that they might not quite pan out as pros. Him, Shawn Respert, Adam Morrison, Randolph Childress, Pervis Ellison, Marcus Fizer, and George Lucas can get together and teach a class on dissapointing people.
- Lastly, you should know that WonderbabyTM is already the most advanced in her gymnastics class and might have to be moved up to the more advanced class. That's right, guess who is the only one in her class who can hang from a bar? Yep. Her teacher/coach/volunteer/weirdo loner cat-lady person already said, "She's really advanced. A real natural athlete." Hopefully this will translate to non-gay sports like basketball and
I'll leave you with a picture of her showing off her skills:
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Breaking News All Over the Place!!!!!!!!11!!!1
Ok, so not so much breaking news, but news worth a little chat nonetheless. Three little nuggets:
1. Sammy Sosa was on steroids. Wait. Wrong file. That's not in my "breaking news" file, that's in my "no shit, sherlock" file. Everybody already knew this, didn't they? The only guy more obvious than Slammin' Sammy was Bonds.
You gotta respect a guy who is willing to cheat in all kinds of different ways, though. Not only did he bring the roids, but if you recall he was busted using a corked bat, too. He might as well have just gotten an aluminum bat that was painted like a wooden one. That's genius, actually, scratch that. It's like playing Madden and using the rewind button if you throw a game-losing interception, but then hitting the reset button too. And claiming it was an acccident.
I'm glad Stammerin' Sammy finally got outed officially though, since apparently there were some people who didn't know. Never liked him. His whole joyful act when McGwire broke Maris's record was the phoniest thing I had ever seen until Kobe and his teammates celebrated their new NBA title as if every single one of those guys wouldn't have shanked Kobe in the kidney if they thought they could get away with it.
2. The Twins finally did to Jesse Crain what they should have done to Matt Guerrier last year, and shipped Jesse Crain down to AAA when Glen "Perk" Perkins came off the DL. Crain has been an absolute nightmare this season, sporting an ERA of 8.15 (397th of 415 pitchers with at least 10 ips) and a WHIP of 1.92 (385th) and basically has made Guerrier look like Juan Berenguer. Ideally, he will spend his time in Rochester fixing whatever is wrong with him and get back to his 2005-2006 form, although it wouldn't surprise me if we don't hear from him again (Hi Jack Cressend!).
Of course, Crain hasn't been in the minors since 2004, so I'm assuming this is pretty humiliating for him and maybe it will motivate him to get in gear. Although when a guy sports a chin warmer and a sea-shell necklace like some kind of outcast frat boy who just got action for the first time from a 250 lb. drunken behemoth in cancun who just puked, I'm guessing he doesn't have a lot of shame left in him.
3. Finally, the big news we have all been waiting for. After a lengthy battle for his services, which I'm assuming involved a lot of money under the table, free cars, and copious amounts of willing and available trim, your hero and mine Travis Busch has signed on to attend (and apparently play basketball at) Colorado State next season (due to his hustle, he was granted a waiver and doesn't have to sit out next season and becomes eligible immediately.)
What? How did this happen? I thought he was going to fall down a lot and be scrappy for a D-2 type school like Winona or Metro State, but now all of a sudden he's heading not only D-I, but to a team in the Mountain West? It's not exactly a power conference, but it's not the Summit League either. I know they lost there ball-hoggy scoring point guard guy so they need scorers, but I don't think Mr. 2.6 points per game is really the answer here. Actually, I'm pretty sure a 6-3 (yeah right) 210 lb. power forward is the answer to anything, unless the question is "Who can dominate at the local YMCA adult pick-up?"
Do you remember just a few years ago Colorado State had three seven-footers? And now they are going to bring in a six-foot power forward who couldn't guard a black guy to save his life (he should do ok against BYU and Utah). It's pretty clear Tim Miles has run that program into the ground, or whatever is below the ground; Magma - I don't know, I'm not a geologist, all I know is these quotes from Miles really speak for themselves:
I swear I didn't make either of those up, although they are damn close to what I would write if I was making them up - but with more references to falling down. When reached for comment, Devron Bostick said, "He do b hustlin."
Also I'm very sad that Austin Daye stayed in the draft, I hit a home run at softball last night, Jason Kubel is still awesome, and this food on a stick thing at the State Fair has got to stop. I just saw a show that profiled the Rueben on a stick and Spaghetti and Meatballs on a stick. Ridiculous. Just knock it off. Although I also learned that the Meat Raffle was invented in Minnesota. Awesome.
If you're lucky I might have a US Open preview tomorrow.
1. Sammy Sosa was on steroids. Wait. Wrong file. That's not in my "breaking news" file, that's in my "no shit, sherlock" file. Everybody already knew this, didn't they? The only guy more obvious than Slammin' Sammy was Bonds.
You gotta respect a guy who is willing to cheat in all kinds of different ways, though. Not only did he bring the roids, but if you recall he was busted using a corked bat, too. He might as well have just gotten an aluminum bat that was painted like a wooden one. That's genius, actually, scratch that. It's like playing Madden and using the rewind button if you throw a game-losing interception, but then hitting the reset button too. And claiming it was an acccident.
I'm glad Stammerin' Sammy finally got outed officially though, since apparently there were some people who didn't know. Never liked him. His whole joyful act when McGwire broke Maris's record was the phoniest thing I had ever seen until Kobe and his teammates celebrated their new NBA title as if every single one of those guys wouldn't have shanked Kobe in the kidney if they thought they could get away with it.
2. The Twins finally did to Jesse Crain what they should have done to Matt Guerrier last year, and shipped Jesse Crain down to AAA when Glen "Perk" Perkins came off the DL. Crain has been an absolute nightmare this season, sporting an ERA of 8.15 (397th of 415 pitchers with at least 10 ips) and a WHIP of 1.92 (385th) and basically has made Guerrier look like Juan Berenguer. Ideally, he will spend his time in Rochester fixing whatever is wrong with him and get back to his 2005-2006 form, although it wouldn't surprise me if we don't hear from him again (Hi Jack Cressend!).
Of course, Crain hasn't been in the minors since 2004, so I'm assuming this is pretty humiliating for him and maybe it will motivate him to get in gear. Although when a guy sports a chin warmer and a sea-shell necklace like some kind of outcast frat boy who just got action for the first time from a 250 lb. drunken behemoth in cancun who just puked, I'm guessing he doesn't have a lot of shame left in him.
3. Finally, the big news we have all been waiting for. After a lengthy battle for his services, which I'm assuming involved a lot of money under the table, free cars, and copious amounts of willing and available trim, your hero and mine Travis Busch has signed on to attend (and apparently play basketball at) Colorado State next season (due to his hustle, he was granted a waiver and doesn't have to sit out next season and becomes eligible immediately.)
What? How did this happen? I thought he was going to fall down a lot and be scrappy for a D-2 type school like Winona or Metro State, but now all of a sudden he's heading not only D-I, but to a team in the Mountain West? It's not exactly a power conference, but it's not the Summit League either. I know they lost there ball-hoggy scoring point guard guy so they need scorers, but I don't think Mr. 2.6 points per game is really the answer here. Actually, I'm pretty sure a 6-3 (yeah right) 210 lb. power forward is the answer to anything, unless the question is "Who can dominate at the local YMCA adult pick-up?"
Do you remember just a few years ago Colorado State had three seven-footers? And now they are going to bring in a six-foot power forward who couldn't guard a black guy to save his life (he should do ok against BYU and Utah). It's pretty clear Tim Miles has run that program into the ground, or whatever is below the ground; Magma - I don't know, I'm not a geologist, all I know is these quotes from Miles really speak for themselves:
"We are excited to have Travis join us. He is a person who values education, he's got a dynamic personality, and he is a relentless basketball player. He will be a great fit for our program."
"I expect he will step out of his role of a complementary player and into a leadership position on our team. He's got the tools and work ethic to make big things happen for Rams basketball"
I swear I didn't make either of those up, although they are damn close to what I would write if I was making them up - but with more references to falling down. When reached for comment, Devron Bostick said, "He do b hustlin."
Also I'm very sad that Austin Daye stayed in the draft, I hit a home run at softball last night, Jason Kubel is still awesome, and this food on a stick thing at the State Fair has got to stop. I just saw a show that profiled the Rueben on a stick and Spaghetti and Meatballs on a stick. Ridiculous. Just knock it off. Although I also learned that the Meat Raffle was invented in Minnesota. Awesome.
If you're lucky I might have a US Open preview tomorrow.
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