UGA Granted Number 1 Party School Status, Immediately Blows It On This Crap

Longtime friend of the blog, Beck is awfully proud of her Georgia Bulldogs. I've actually come into physical contact with a used glove of Thomas Davis. She even made an appearance in our vaunted comment section to let the world know that she was a proud alumnus of the number 1 party school in the country according to the Princeton review.

Fantastic, it is a very plausible explanation for the 70 tons of trash(including fecal matter!) that was dumped in Athens after their opener against South Carolina last year. Only a school that knows how to party to the max could drop loads like that.

But then, we are hit with the above video, "Party in the UGA". This is more embarassing than their former-AD getting caught for a DUI with a pair of panties in his fist. Still are a fan though, will be rooting for them in the SEC this year but for that song and production, there can be no forgiving.

video of shame via(via via)

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A Welcome To New York Facepalm

Moving to New York has been quite an experience. Not an a new one entirely as I have moved often over the last decade of my life and both my parents are from New York so I am familiar somewhat with the place. In fact, being originally from the north has led my sports allegiances to lie with teams in the New York/Connecticut (state of my birth) area. The first team I rooted for was the New York Mets. Some would call that a curse but when I was 5 going on 6 my grandfather and I were watching a little roller up a long first....BEHIND THE BAG! IT GETS THROUGH BUCKNER HERE COMES KNIGHT AND THE METS WIN IT! Sorry, I got a little carried away in memory land. The point of the story is that prior to the late 90s I never bothered with the Yankees. I even rooted for them in 1996 to beat the Braves. However in the past ten years I have grown to loathe them, as just about all non-Yankee fans do. This does not affect me too much, I spew Yankee hate and root against them at every turn. Now I live in the heart of Yankee fandom; I realize there are Yankee fans everywhere because they have the biggest bandwagon in the history of sport but now they are an everyday topic when it comes to sports. I thought I could accept this, until I started listeing to sports radio on hour long commute to and from work.

The Yankees fanbase is focusing on the offseason, which certainly is not a bad thing. Just because they have 27 titles (which they never fail to point out) does not mean they should not be thinking about free-agency and what to do with their expiring contracts. Fair enough. Yet all last week about 1 in every 3 Yankee calls (I also heard people out on the street saying this too by the way) were fans crying about Joe Girardi not winning AL Manager of the Year.

They backed their argument with a few reasons. Their first was that they won the World Series. What Joe Howyadoin does not realize is that it is a regular season award, not a post-season one. It just comes after the post-season because back in the old days when baseball was the king of the American sports scene it was a way to prolong baseball in the national landscape. Now that football rules it seems silly to prolong these individual awards but that is how MLB operates nowadays.

Next came the discussion of their record. 103 wins! The most in baseball. Fantastic and worthy of note, but again you consider that the Yankees have assembled a goliath payroll and their swallowing of high-priced free agents last off-season, they were built to win. They won only 6 more than the team that produced the AL MOY, the Angels. Girardi did a good job, but compared to Scioscia who operated with injuries, the death of one of his players, a bad start, and a payroll of $88 million less. With this collection of players, you have to be record-setting in wins to have done an award-winning job. Yet the result was the desired one, the team won the World Series even though Girardi's managing or sometimes overmanaging came into question.

I refer to this title for the Yankees as the Faust Title. The ownership, Cashman, and the fanbase were willing to pay any price to win. This goes beyond the $200 million payroll. The issue of the Yankees spending has been debated ad nausuem and while I agree if the Yanks have it and are willing to spend it, they are entitled. However, snatching up players by dangling suitcases full of cash in front of them is not exactly the highest attainment of sport. Think about the money the Yankees have thrown at players during their 6 year "drought" of championships.


**Before anyone goes up in arms about my Mets fandom I feel the same way about the Mets spending $150 million. Besides the fact that the Mets cannot try to win that way (cough Bobby Bonilla) they usually fail outside of Santana to get production. The way for the Mets to thrive is to develop their young talent (like they did with Wright and Reyes) and add smart if a tiny bit pricey free-agents in their need areas (K-Rod). Of course every now and again spending big market money is necessary (get Halladay please).**

Next this Faustian 27th title was also brought in care of two admitted and proven PED users. I do not pretend to think that any team that has had success in the last 10-25 years in baseball did not have users. However, if you like to take the stance of having a clean team, winning with integrity, and the tradition of all who wore the pin stripes, then do not be a hypocrit. When the steroid scandal broke, how many holier than thou Yankee fans were cursing those that would cast a shadow on the sanctity of the game. Now you have the title with two players that lied about their use and then got caught red-handed and gave pathetic apologies. Petitte never faced any punishment for his use, whether it was league imposed or by the media and public. It was interesting how the public quickly misremembered what Andy did. A-Rod is even worse in my opinion. Here is a man who signed the biggest contract in history and juiced his way to an MVP and a spot on the Yankees. He may have been unfairly unmasked as a juicer, but when he was, he faced no penalty other than in the court of public opinion. No fines levied, no contract money returned, no games missed. He jumped right back into the line-up after his injury and was prancing around the bases with the grace of a centaur.

I have accepted the Yankees have won the title and will win more in the coming years, but what I cannot is the attitude of a contingent of their fanbase. It is amusing hearing from the level-headed portion of their fans. They enjoy their team winning, yet they know that it is not as pure as the driven snow. It is time to put aside the fantasy, you no longer play in the house that Ruth built, and it is a simple game of monopoly and the Yankees have more dark yellow bills than anyone else.

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All Aboard the ACC Failbus

Typing this post is surprisingly easy with a foot in my mouth. For all the discussion of the ACC rising up to make themselves respectable this year, for all the posts about their match-ups with the SEC, and the podcasts and predictions, the ACC has reclaimed its position as the joke of the BCS.

The biggest disappointment of week 1 was of course Virginia Tech. This is not because Va Tech has the worst team or even the worst performance, but once again the conference had given the banner to the Hokies to ride into Atlanta and vanquish a top 5 SEC foe. The Hokies put up a valiant fight but in the end ironically it was their defense that let them down. Alabama scored 34 on Tech and by the end of the game ginger boy Greg McElroy was picking the defense apart. The Tide made great adjustments in the second half and against Bama's defense there was no way the Hokies could get swept up in a shootout. The chants of "SEC..SEC" in the crowd as the clock ticked down was a reminder that when it comes to football, the SEC has dominion over the ACC.

The Hokies are not alone in their ineptitude. NC State had a another deplorable performance against South Carolina, losing 7-3 last Thursday. Wake Forest had 4 turnovers against Baylor as the Bears avenged their opening week loss from last year 24-21. Remember how we mentioned Maryland as a possible sleeper on the podcast? They really had their stuff together as they lost by the slimmest of margins to Cal, 52-13.

But losses to other BCS conferences where not all the ACC had up its sleeve. Duke and Virginia, while both picked to finish at the bottom of the ACC, embarrassed the conference further by losing to FCS schools Richmond and William & Mary respectively. Outside of the Miami-FSU game tomorrow the conference went 4-6 in week 1 and those four wins were against Middle Tennessee,Northeastern, Jackson State, and the Citadel. Perhaps Catfish said it best, "When does basketball season start."

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Looking Good Oliver! Feeling Good Omar!

It does not bother me that the Mets have one of the highest payrolls in baseball yet find themselves out of the playoff picture. Nor does it grind at me that the Mets have taken a beating in the press and in the blogosphere despite losing 3 of their top 4 offensive bats in the lineup and added the 4th when David Wright got beaned in the head. I can handle the fact that the Phillies dug up Pedro and he waltzed into Citi Field and won yesterday. I can even stomach the unassisted triple play by Eric Bruntlett who had made two errors on the previous batters to get the tying run on first and only made the triple play because he was covering second because the runners were in motion. I accept that it is only the second unassisted triple play in Major League history to end a game.



After all I am a Mets fan and while I was born in time to witness the 1986 Championship, what has followed can only be described as exercises in futility sprinkled in with a few good seasons that ultimately came up short. If you are going to be a Mets fan and not jump ship and take the easy way out and root for the Yankees, your stomach builds up a titanium lining to become immune to such acts of atrociously vile fortune. There is, however one aspect of the Mets' season that I fine too much to bare, and that is Oliver Perez.

I do my best to stray into individualized player bashing, but today I will allow myself an exception. Perez has never been a consistent pitcher, but he did have a fantastic start in game 7 of the 2006 NLCS but the Mets lost that game due to a superior performance by Cardinals pitching. Last year Perez went 10-7 with a 4.22 ERA. Before this season started, the Mets needed starting pitching after shoring up the bullpen with K-Rod who has been good this year and J.J. Putz who is now injured as well. Omar Minaya turned to Perez, who had been decent but nothing special. Not only did Minaya turn a blind eye to possible health problems with Perez but he allowed the market to drive up his price tag. In the end, the Mets gave Perez a 3-year, $36 million dollar contract. Everyone was up in arms about the contract; the media, the fans, and even the statisticians. Is it hard to believe that Perez is a Scott Boras client? There are some who say Boras is good for baseball, especially when it comes to negotiating contracts for players in the amateur draft, but when he gets this kind of money for this kind of player in my mind it puts him more toward Bernie Madoff than Curt Flood.

Predictably Perez started out awful this season. The Mets blamed the problem on a knee injury and placed him on the DL where he would soon be joined by a host of Met players as the season began to fade away. He came back in July and actually got a win against the Dodgers, going 5 innings and giving up 3 runs. He has not gone over 6.1 innings since he came back, maybe this is to protect his injury or maybe because he is incapable. His last three starts were two no decisions where he only gave up 1 run and had 7 Ks in each and a win against Atlanta where he gave up 4 runs in 5 innings but still got the win. That brought us to yesterday where he gave up a two 3-run home runs to Jayson Werth and Carlos Ruiz, who was 0 for his last 23 against the Mets. All this leads to a $12 season which has yielded a 3-4 record with 66 innings pitched, a 6.82 ERA, and a 1.92 WHIP. In these economical times it is great to see someone is still able to get fast money. If one thing is true among the increased media coverage, increased criticism and delving into the lives of athletes it is that they are certainly well-compensated for it. So while the Mets flounder this season and will no doubt make some absurd offseason move and produce another ridiculous contract to attempt to keep up, Perez can laugh all the way to bank.

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Tyrese Should Know Better

After hearing about Tyrese Gibson altering the national anthem I immediately was reminded of an old SNL sketch called 'Comedy Killers' that appeared way back when the show had some of its greatest episodes. That week, the show was hosted by Roseanne Barr and this sketch was a Jeopardy-like game show for comedians in which they had to guess the inappropriate joke that would kill the room. This led the opportunity for Roseanne to address her infamous national anthem incident from San Diego. Here is part of the script from the sketch:

Chip Bodecker: Uh-huh. And I understand you have a doozy of a comedy killer story for us?

Lori Turkin: Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I'm pretty big down there in San Diego and everything. So, this one time, they asked me to come and sing the National Anthem at a Padres game?

Chip Bodecker: Uh-huh?

Lori Turkin: Anyway, I thought it would be sort of funny to do a wise guy rendition of it, you know?

Chip Bodecker: Uh-huh. And, did the audience like it?

Lori Turkin: No. No, they hated it.

Chip Bodecker: Did they laugh?

Lori Turkin: Oh, no. They just hated it.

Chip Bodecker: So, the National Anthem is a real comedy killer?

Lori Turkin: Well, in my experience, I'd have to say yes.

Nice that she could own up to it and put a comedy twist at the same time. You can read the entire sketch here since I could not locate the video. The whole sketch is pretty funny.

Now we turn to Tyrese, years later, who thought it would comical to change some words of the Star-Spangled Banner. Instead of saying "the flag was still there" he said, "Our Lakers were still there." Now aside from the patriotic implications, you are inserting a team (Lakers) into a spot in a song where an inanimate object (flag) is in the song. The story of the song is about how America withstood the bombarding of the British during the War of 1812 and how the American spirit prevails over a land of people who are free. What in the name of Kurt Rambis does that have to do with a basketball game.

I am not going to get all conservative redneck on Tyrese here, I just want to state how ignorant doing something like this is. Yes, this is America and you (supposedly) can say whatever you want, but this was a subject better left alone. The gall of him to assume he could just tweak something to play to a home crowd while he is promoting a movie, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It is one of those situations where it really has no value to anyone to do it, and it should be interesting to see how he responds. So far it has only been in twitter form. Considering he plays an Air Force Technical Sergeant in the Transformer movies, you would think he would develop some kind of patriotic understanding. From this picture though, it seems he was not in his right mind for this to being with, just look at the way he is posing in this picture as he sang:


















You should never look like you are trying to get a girl in the front row to sleep with you when singing your country's anthem. This of course will blow over in time, but it does not excuse the stupidity of Gibson in this instance. Just days after we observed Memorial Day, a day for all the men and women who have died so people like Tyrese can make millions and live in luxury and freedom, it was simply bad form. But at least he did not pull a Carl Lewis:

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If You're Going To Step In Front Of A Mother Taking A Picture, Be Ready To Throw Hands

It is really hard for me to pinpoint the best part of this story. Dropping alleged N-bombs for a woman crossing you path is fantastic because we certainly do not live in the digital age so I'm sure she wasted good film on the picture. Maybe it is the fact that it is two mothers in their 30s going after it mui tai style because one of them walked in front of a picture the other was taking. Perhaps it was the fact that the fight was precipitated by racial slurs being tossed out right after the picture-crossing took place. Big consideration must be given to the husband of the picture-taker, James Mela, because after he got knocked down by "several men" he got up and spit in Ronika Brooks' (the picture-crosser) face; not a wise move as Mela was taken to the ground and "stomped" again. But then I look to the fact that this happened in the children's playground area while a bunch of youngsters looked on.

However, after much thought my favorite part is the local reporter in the video below, Amy Anderson. The local reporter visual aid is always a classic and in this story, notice Amy holding a camera up and even taking a picture (with flash!) to illustrate how a picture is taken. Thanks Amy, I was having a hard time imagining what it would have looked like when Mela's wife attempted to take that photo of her child, now I know! I can completely understand and dissect the story in my mind now. CNN on line 2 for you Amy. Also please notice the advertisement for bail bonds during the video.




[via TBL]
Two charged in brawl at Kauffman [KC Star]

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