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August 5, 2005YO LA TENGORob: An umpire in a Little League game in Methuen last week ordered one team to speak only English after the coach yelled instructions in Spanish to his pitcher from the dugout. The umpire said that he was concerned that the coach could yelling illegal instructions to his players. Like what? Is he going to tell his pitcher to balk? In actuality, the umpire just has a chip on his shoulder about people not speaking English, so he made up a rule on the spot. The Commissioner of Little League Baseball has apologized to the team, and confirmed that kids are allowed to speak any language they want on the field. I don’t know if that’s good for their development though. How do they expect to make it in baseball speaking Spanish all the time?
Jeff: The umpire should have forced the team to speak in nothing but Eckersley-isms. Halama cheese, walkoff, jimmy jack, slop, and all the other alcohol-induced gibberish that came out of his mouth. Also, moustaches and dyed mullets should be required. I understand most Little Leaguers can't grow their own moustaches, so the stick on variety will be included with the uniforms. Could you imagine what seeing a team like that would do to the psyche of the Korean team in the Little League World Series? They wouldn't stand a chance. Unless, of course, they all dressed up like little Kirk Gibsons.
Rob: Speaking of Korean teams, what's going to happen in the World Cup? Will each team be allowed to speak their own language, or will they all be forced to speak Esperanto, so as to not give any one team an advantage. Hey, you know what just occured to me? How the fuck does Bobby Valentine manage in Japan? He can't possibly speak fluent Japanese, can he? Huh, I never thought of that until just now.
Jeff: He does speak some Japanese. I saw him meeting with the press one time and it was really freaky hearing it coming out of his mouth. One thing that won't work there is the old eye-black moustache trick. Nobody in Japan can grow a moustache like that.
LOWE DOWN DIRTY SHAMERob: I thought the Derek Lowe story was just a local thing until I tuned in for the last ten minutes of PTI yesterday and heard Wilpon say that something, I don’t remember what, was “hotter than Derek Lowe’s love life.” I guess that while a professional athlete cheating on his wife isn’t exactly a man bites dog story, it is kind of interesting the Lowe’s been doing a reporter with Fox Sports Net who covers the team. That’s kind of interesting. It seems like pretty bad form to let the guys you're covering cover you.
Tim McCarver: Wait, what's that? Derek's sleeping with the media now? That's fantastic!
Rob: Derek Lowe, Tim.
Tim McCarver: Oh.
Jeff: The reporter, Carolyn Hughes, really fucked herself over with this one. It's hard enough for a woman to break into sports reporting, and she flushed her career down the toilet for a dumbass like Derek Lowe. From Lowe's perspective, Hughes is much hotter than his wife.
Jeff: And aside from her decision to enter into the relationship, she has to be smarter than Trinka, who seemed borderline retarded whenever she was interviewed on air. So it seems like an upgrade. Unfortunately, Trinka's already under a lifetime contract and it's going to cost Derek quite a bit of money when he negotiates the buyout. I understand Lowe's desire to upgrade an important position like that, but there's no way he'll keep the value to production ratio he got before making the move.
Juan Gonzalez: Yeah, those lifetime contracts are a bitch.
Rob: Well, no one told you you had to sign up for four of them. It seems like a bad move for a professional athlete to get married young, or, say, ever. I rememeber once reading about Troy Aikman saying that Drew Bledsoe was lucky that he married his wife before he came into the NFL because that means he knows that she loves him for who he is, not for his money or his fame. I'm sure Drew could've told him right back that he's lucky he's not married yet because now he can have the good sense to have any future Mrs. Aikman sign a pre-nup. When you think about the fact that Uncle Sam takes half of what any athlete makes right off the top, and then half of that is at risk if your wife finds out what you do on the road, suddenly player's salary demands don't seem quite as outlandish.
Eddie Murphy: Half!
Jeff: How does that work when you're Juan Gonzalez? If you're giving four women half, you're losing twice as much as you're taking in every month. Or maybe it's half of what you have left. That kind of sucks for the fourth wife, who's only getting an eighth of what the first does, but she probably knew what she was getting into.
MUSICAL CHAIRSRob: The NHL is back, but if you're looking forward to rooting for your favorite players, you might be out of luck. Between all the guys who were schedule to hit free agency last year, all the guys who are hitting it this year, and all the guys who got their contracts bought out, there are a whole mess of hockey players changing teams. Do you like Peter Forsberg? Well, good for you if you live in Philadelphia. However, the Philly fans better not get used to having Jeremy Roenick around. I guess all this is sort of good for the NHL in that it's getting them in the news and creating a buzz, but won't it be kind of hard to lure local fans back when they won't recognize the team on the ice? All I know is that the Bruins will probably need to do a little bit better than Brian Leetch if they plan on drawing some attention away from the Red Sox and Patriots in October.
Jeff: The only way the Bruins will be drawing any attention way from the Red Sox or Patriots is if they sign Manny Ramirez and Tom Brady to play for them. Brady might be able to skate, but I'm nearly 100% certain Manny Ramirez has never been out on the ice. Still, I'd watch him try.
Rob: I think Manny has it in him to be a two-sport superstar. You just have to be okay with him taking pee breaks in the penalty box and occaionally not bothering to touch up on icing. How do you say, "It's just Manny being Manny" in French?
Jeff: I don't know, but if those hockey games are in Methuen, it wouldn't be a problem.
MUSICAL CHAIRS PART DEUXRob: Seriously, it was all I could do to muster up something to say about hockey. Please don't ask me to talk about the five-team NBA trade.
Jeff: Antione Walker got traded away again. If he comes back to the Celtics later this year, he and Danny Ainge will be the modern day Billy Martin and George Steinbrenner.
Rob: Antoine was one of the four Celtcis I could recognize on the street. Now I'm down to Paul Pierce, Gary Payton and the white guy.
Jeff: I might recognize Ricky Davis, but if I saw someone who looked like him on the street, I'd try to stay in a well-lit area and avoid eye contact.
FOR THE BIRDSRob: Things were looking so good for the Orioles. They spent most of the first half of the season on top of the AL East looking down on the Yankees and Red Sox. Rafael Palmiero got his 3,000th hit. The MVP award was going to be a toss-up between Brian Roberts and Miguel Tejada.
Diamond Donovan Douglas: They started out a house of fire, but now they’re just a house of shit.
Rob: That’s for sure. Toronto’s looking a lot better than the O’s at this point, and that’s without Roy Halliday. Reality pretty much caught up with the Orioles. With Bedard hurt, they weren’t going to ride Bruce Chen and Sidney Ponson into the playoffs. The corpse of Sammy Sosa isn’t helping them out, and the rest of their bats cooled of and/or got suspended. I’m not sure Lee Mazzilli deserves to take the fall for all that, but from everything I’ve read, he was kind of a sucky manager anyway, so I guess the Orioles’ tank-job provided as good an excuse as any for the front office to fire him.
Jeff: I don't understand. Lee Mazzilli was a Yankee, and as such, according to color commentators everywhere, knows the secret Yankee formula for winning baseball games. Did he lose it? Was it contaminated by those years with the Mets? Was he unable to complete Step 1, "Pay the best players at each position whatever they want to come to your team?" Whatver the cause, someone had to take the blame for the Orioles' inactivity in the free agent market, their injury problems, and their inability to plug those holes in the trade market.
Jim Beattie: Sounds like the manager's fault to me.
Mike Flanagan: I agree.
Rob: See, if you look at it one way, you could say that the team was playing over its head, and Mazzilli was getting the most out of these guys.
Mike Flanagan: Yeah, you could say that, if you gave a crap about Lee Mazzilli. Do you?
Rob: Well, no, not really.
Mike Flanagan: Of course not, nobody cares about Lee Mazzilli except for the Guidos at Yankee Stadium. Fuck Lee Mazzilli, fuck him in the ear!
Rob: Wow, Mike Flanagan is a lot more profane and belligernet than I ever imagined him to be.
Mike Flanagan: Wanna make something of it, bitch?
CRANK YANKEERob: Jason Giambi’s July resurgence has led to speculation that he’s rediscovered his old secret to success. Or, to put it more euphemistically, he’s jamming needles full of steroids into his ass again. I’m not so sure. Earlier this season he was just looking bad at the plate, and I don’t think steroids would help him regain his swing. Plus, it would be really, really stupid to start using again after everything that’s happened in the off-season.
Rafael Palmeiro: Jason Giambi will NEVER use steroids again. Ever. Period.
Rob: Anyway, some fellow with apparently a lot of time on his hands has been calling around to media outlets claiming to be Randy Levine’s assistant and telling them that Giambi has tested positive for steroids. The Yankees have denied this, pointing out that Randy Levine’s assistants are all women. I wonder if they’re hot. But that’s beside the point. What I’m most surprised about is that every paper and channel this guy called actually bothered to check up on this. With the state of reporting these days, I’m amazed no one just ran with this story.
Rafael Palmeiro: Dan Rather would NEVER report a story without verifying his sources. Ever. Period.
Jeff: Giambi hit another two homers last night. One barely snuck over the wall, but it was enough to beat that fat piece of shit, Bob Wickman, and blow a save for my fantasy team. That's 16 homers since the beginning of July, after he hit only 5 in the first two months. He's never had a streak like that in his career, so I can only conclude that he's not back on the steroids, but on something much more powerful.
Rob: Maybe he's on Gummiberry Juice. Remember how Gummiberry Juice made the Gummi Bears bounce around, but if humans drank it, it made them super strong? No? How come no one remembers that besides me?
Jeff: I don't remember that, but I do remember the song. |
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