Just Stupid ….
Posted: June 27, 2010 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: 25 years, 4 decades, A-Fraud, A-Rod, A-Roid, Argentina, Ashton Kutcher, blackout, Blue Jays, CBP, Dallas Braden, Dodgers, England, FIFA, G20 summit, Germany, Ghana, Halladay, Independence Day, Jeter, Jeterholic, Joe Torre, just stupid, Mexico, MLBTV, Moyer, PED's, phillies, Punk'd, Rangers, Texas, Toronto, Uruguay, USA, World Cup, Yankees, young and stupid 12 CommentsWhat a weekend already, it’s almost the end of the month, July will be here
in the next few days and Independence Day celebrations will be upon next
weekend. All that to come and we still have this weekend to finish, the staring
role being out in Los Angeles and the headline hungry A-Rod, I am sure the media
make more of it than is there, I am sure we all add to the snowball effect of
hyping up a situation when it really is no big deal. It is difficult to look the
other way when it involves A-Rod, because lets face it, it’s probably not so
innocent, in fact it’s probably far from innocent.
Sports Illustrated,
got suckered like so many, way back in 2004 hailing A-Rod as the greatest player
in baseball, stating things about how Jeter should move to 2nd and let the superior
player take up at Short Stop, had someone then said, well it’s A-Roid not A-Rod,
they would have said you had sour grapes, you were a Rangers fan or even a
die-hard Jeterholic, the chances of agreeing with you were as slim as A-Rod
telling the truth to Katie Couric when she asked him point blank if he used any
PED’s, of course he said no, they all do.
He can give it but he can’t take it, ask Ashton Kutcher who punk’d him, ask
Dallas Braden who he dished it out too and finally ask his ex-wife who showed
her thought via a t-shirt at a ballgame. Now it’s Joe Torre’s turn, who A-Rod once
said he preferred playing under Joe than the Rangers organization chose to
ignore Joe at Dodgers stadium this weekend, when it was obvious others wanted to
say hi to Joe, A-Rod was uncomfortable when he got within 10 feet….
…..I didn’t set out to bash A-Rod, it just snow-balled out of
control, it’s just that A-Rod does so much and then denies everything, I am sure even when
he is in his 70’s he will still be saying “I’m young and stupid”
as someone I am sure has already pointed out, getting 1 out of 2 right is okay,
and trust me your not young anymore, and besides you lost that claim when you
chose to father children, I am sure you probably tried to tell everyone, you
didn’t know what you were doing then, the only thing left right now is to see who’ll claim the first use of
A-Fraud and A-Roid.
For those that have been following the FIFA World Cup, you must
have heard by now that the USA is a Ghana from the tourny, beaten by the little
country in Western Africa, a country which is younger than the USA, but one
where the kids play football barefoot from about 3 years old. I have to say I
have found out since being here that the knowledge of international geography in
the United States is somewhat appalling, so here is a map of the world with the
USA and Ghana indicated….
….this is the beauty of the FIFA World Cup, it doesn’t matter
how big you are or how much money you have, it’s a game of skill and talent that
comes about from practice. I am sure some pundits will tell you how the USA was
robbed and should be going through to play Uruguay, but I am here to say, the
USA was lucky to even go to extra time, Donovan almost missed the penalty kick,
which after the USA coach had made a big thing in the press of players that fall
down, there was a lot of it going on from the USA team during the 2nd half of
this game, especially near and in the penalty area. All in all Ghana out played
the USA and deserved the win, congrats to them.
England met with Germany, which is probably the biggest rivalry
between 2 countries in this sport, the young German players showed poise and
maturity, which had been promoted as being the advantage England should have
enjoyed. Germany advances to the next round and will meet the winner of the
Argentina v Mexico game later today. The biggest disappointment of this World
Cup was the over hyped Wayne Rooney who was a total non-issue regardless of who
England played. There wil be those who would say that if the goal England scored
had been allowed then they would not have left the defense so wide open as they
threw caution to the wind to try and win, that unfortunate is the name of the
game and crying won’t change the result, demanding rules change to accommodate
your teams needs is not how sports should be played. The England team will have
to endure the return home and suffer the full weight of the media,
Germany get to advance, well done to them.
The Phillies were on the road in Philadelphia, weird, road grays
at home, even the broadcasters changed locations, yet what of the dug out and
bull pen, why didn’t they change places, one of the mysteries we have to live
with like the rest of the G20 summit. Still not sure why all those countries
spend all that money to tell each other how sucky the world’s finances are
today.
In Philadelphia, we had a weekend that saw….
…. Halladay take game 1 and Moyer take game 3, which put Moyer
over 4,000 innings pitched and the pitcher with the most homers hit off him, I
guess we’re going to see something every time he pitches now, so good and bad
records will be set, since he has pitched in 4 decades and is into his 25th year
in the majors.
It’s the end of inter league play as the Phillies head for a 1
week road trip closing June out in Cinci and opening July in Pittsburgh. I now
get a week of calling MLBTV to tell them I’m not in the blackout area for these
2 clubs, oh joy.
Strasburg Hyper Interest Tension Syndrome
Posted: June 25, 2010 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: ADD, Astros, Blue Jays, Carpenter, ChiSox, Donovan, fired manager, football, gay, Hughes, hype, Landon Donovan, Lincecum, Marlins, Moyer, phillies, Rangers, soccer, Strasburg, Toronto, USA, Washington, Wolf, Year of the Pitcher 9 CommentsI am trying to understand what makes a pitcher good, great or just very
useful in the rotation to a team hoping to compete for the ultimate prize. There
are some guys pitching that I like, some are my favorites, not because of who
they are or what they can do, but just because they impressed me with something
they did, it may have been small, it may have been huge, but at the time to me
it seemed significant enough to make me believe that this guys is okay and
worthwhile having around any ball club.
There are only 4 current pitchers that fall into the category, in no specific
order are Jamie Moyer, Phil Hughes, Chris Carpenter and Randy
Wolf, as I said
none of them jump up and scream Cy Young, but if anyone has never heard of one of
these guys then, I think your missing something.
It seems some believe this to be the year of the pitcher, with the shut outs
starting to grow, the no hitters and the perfect games all having enjoyed a
growth this season already, there could be some truth in the statement. So, I go back to my original thoughts of what
makes a good, great or one of a kind pitcher and how soon can you tell what the
guy will be, by now you probably can see where I am going, Strasburg, you’d be
right.
We had hype around Lincecum back in 2007 and he has appeared to fill almost
all the hype the media placed on him, my personal opinion, his Cy Young
achievement, at least last year (2009), was awarded to the name and hype, he didn’t
deserve it, there were other pitchers more deserving, in my opinion.
Some people say wins and loses, mean nothing, it’s all about the other stuff,
well here are some other stuff, which guy would you want.?…
….since this ‘year of the pitcher’ isn’t going to go away, I think we need
to know a
few of the ailments that will definitely surface towards October. It could be the
player, but with the way people are acting I think it could also be fans that
suffer, we already have things like ADD, yes the real thing ‘Attention
Deficit Disorder’,
or for the sports fans, it’s those who can’t follow real football, soccer to
those who have no desire to grasp a sport that the majority of the world’s
children understand and play from about 2 or 3 years old.
There is a NEW one about to strike the world of baseball it’s the Strasburg
Hyper Interest Tension Syndrome, yes you can
tell the baseball fan who is suffering, the day after the Washington
Nationals send Stephen Strasburg to mound, these guys will be paying
too many visits to the little boys room, we’re not sure if it’s due to the
excessive food and drink or a need to find relief from the tension.
Sports the lighter side:
The Marlins fired a manager that was actually doing
his job, but feel they found someone more suited and are considering offering the position to the USA’s national soccer
coach, they said, “if he can find 23 guys in the USA that can play
football that aren’t fat f-cks then he must be able to find 8 players and
someone who knows how to pitch in the Marlins club house that will play baseball
for peanuts”.
The Phillies go on the road to Philadelphia and play the Toronto Blue Jays,
this will be the hardest road trip the Phillies have ever made, if they win
it’ll be unfair on the Jays, if they lose everyone will have them back in a
‘anti-hot’ phase.
The ChiSox have a 9 game winning streak and the Rangers have an 11 game
winning streak and the Rangers get to play the Astros for 3, so it’s possible we
could have a 14 game win streak by the time the weekend is over.
The
USA soccer star, I use the term loosely, Landon Donovan, is trying to force his
ex to get back with him by spreading rumors of their pending reconciliation and
blowing fake kisses to her via TV, I mean, dude you look really frickin gay, why
would she want you back.
Corporate Domination ?
Posted: June 13, 2010 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: BoSox, Boston, Charlie Manuel, Chuck, Corporate Domination, corruption, FIFA, financial persuasion, Global Public Relations, Ibanez, inter-league, interleague, Philadelphia, phillies, Red Sox, Scott Gulbransen, sony, Sony Online Entertainment, USA, video games, World Cup, Yankee Stadium, Yankees 7 CommentsThe
Phillies v BoSox ‘Demolition
Derby’ turned out to be just that, Boston
demolished the Phillies in the first 2
games, the Phillies did however manage to
scrape out a win on the final day, by way of a Raul Ibanez homer and some
inventive base running by Jayson Werth.
The crowd continued to express the desires to ‘Beat LA’ even
though they were referencing a different sport. The Phillies
get a day off, before heading to Yankee
stadium, Charlie Manuel managed to play switcheroo with his starting
rotation so that Halladay and CC match up, not sure if this was
all Chuck’s doing or if there were any financial or other compensations
involved. Did I just infer that there may be some kind of bribing going on,
naaaa, I would never do that, but Sony Online Entertainment might
or at least that’s how I read it, might infer that money should make a difference
to official controlling bodies of sports.
How about a headline “World Cup Needs America, Like It Or
Not”, is this just someone trying to encourage the development of a
sport, or encourage the involvement for financial gain.
This head line was the headline of a blog post from the “Senior
Director of Global Public Relations” for “Sony Online
Entertainment”, yep way to go with the public relations there ‘Mr.
Big Shot’ actually I don’t know the guy, he may be a very nice person and
his name isn’t really Mr. Big Shot, it’s Mr. Scott Gulbransen,
and some of what he says maybe perfectly true, but it’s the end of his post that
my concern is with, he says:
“With a global recession, Americans and their wallets –
including the large television networks – throw more money at the
tournament than everyone else combined. FIFA and the World Cup
increasingly need American interest and money to keep the expensive show
afloat. Yes, it might be the world’s most popular sport, but America is
its richest and most important benefactor.”
This is why players of the sport stay in this country to play the game, so
they can benefit from all the big bucks that are invested so readily and easily
into the sport. (note the sarcasm).
I would probably agree that most Americans are going to say, ‘yeah and what’s
wrong with that statement’, to someone who was not born here, who has
experienced how people have over the years perceived Americans, this does
nothing more than play into the typographical role of the rich arrogant American
who believes throwing money at it will get them preferential treatment, the same
way a lot of Americans have seen the Yankee
organization. The humorous part of this post was the closing statement, where he
said:
“For once, this non-soccer fan will be rooting for our US
team to kick some arrogant international soccer booty. Even if that
means I have to wake up at four in the morning to watch it.”
Something like this from an everyday person, would probably be excusable,
even laughable, after all it is a free country with freedom of speech, but let
me remind you this came from someone claiming to work for what could be
considered a very large global corporation and their job is high up in global
public relations for that corporation, so to me this sounds more like a gripe
from a company that wasn’t able to ‘BUY’ it’s own way, or even rights to a FIFA game, say World Cup 2010.
Yes my post also sounds like a gripe, but I am not associated with a large
corporation, my post will not receive preferential promotional treatment from a
website that seems to pay attention to the bigger names, now it’s grown, and
honestly it just goes to show that corporate is in the belief that it can buy whatever
or into whatever it wants whenever it wants. You can read the
full post from the man from Sony Online Entertainment here
…or…
click
here to see my review on how the World Cup and 1876 get linked
World Cup Kicks Off ….
Posted: June 11, 2010 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: 2010, Dirty Tackle, England, FIFA, flag, football, FoxSports, Go Forth and Multiply, Rooney, soccer, South Africa, St George Flag, St. George, USA, Yahoo Sports 12 CommentsYes this is still a baseball blog, yes you are still on MLBlogs, but it is my
blog, and since Foxsports decided to cancel and remove my FoxSports blog, I
might add without any notice or reason, I can only think or believe that they
didn’t not see eye to eye with my views of them or their coverage of sports, and
as I told them, quite honestly they can ‘go forth and multiply’.
Which leads me into the next segment nicely, because, as most of you know the
FIFA World Cup starts today, for the most part the game that is being
highlighted by the American media is tomorrow, USA vs. England. It is this that
links to my message to FoxSports, the media here in America seems to be finding
ways to convince itself that it can easily win the game against England, now
okay, it may not be very popular here, but outside of this nation everyone knows
that America and it’s population believes it is the greatest in the world at
everything, lets face it they even recreated the world atlas so that America was
in the center, where as the rest of the world use the zero hour timeline as the
center. Anyway I digress, a recent post by ‘Yahoo
Sports Dirty Tackle’ is telling us that the referee’s for the World Cup have
learned all the English obscenities in an effort to send off England players,
hence giving the USA team the advantage. Okay all those non-knowing football
people, (that’s soccer to those uninformed people, yes football is played
with your feet), when a referee sends you off (ejects you) you are
not replaced by another player.
I think Yahoo Sports is trying to convince itself that just maybe this year
football (soccer) in America may start to pay dividends, because they also want
us to believe that WAG’s are going to somehow cause the England squad to play
badly. This time Martin
Rodgers for Yahoo Sports is trying to convince us, just one problem Mr.
Rodgers, Victoria Beckham
is not really a WAG and your slide
show depicting 15 woman who apparently are going to party so hard it’s going
to knock their men off their game, well check it out Mr. Rodgers, because out of
15, there are actually only 4 of women associated with actual England players, 3
of them the players aren’t even at the World Cup, there is a U.S.A. players
girlfriend, and the rest are from other European teams, hint just cause the
player plays for an English Premier club doesn’t mean they are English
playing for the England team.
Maybe that’s the problem with Ryan Howard, his girlfriend, reportedly his new
contract
allowed him to do a trade of his own, he allegedly traded in the
‘Eagles Cheerleader’ for a ‘Victoria’s Secret’ model. Well wouldn’t you upgrade
something if you got his contract.
Saturday
we will find out if the distractions that Yahoo Sports claims will have an
effect on the England team. I did notice that Yahoo Sports doesn’t reference the
insider claims that the U.S.A. team may target Rooney (England
striker) in an effort to either injure
him or get him banned, since he is known to have a temper which is quick to come
to the surface.
Other effects could be the fact that back in England there has are some
people intent on making it hard to
show support for the team and display the St. Georges flag, due to
claims of it being
offensive and possibly incite anger and violence from people who aren’t English,
personally again those people can ‘go forth and multiply’ , a national newspaper is giving away the
St
Georges flag free with every copy of it’s newspaper tomorrow, only in England
though.
Those that are into the FIFA World Cup enjoy and show support for your team
at every opportunity, for those that aren’t into the FIFA World Cup, ‘WTF are
you doing reading this far down this post’….. GO
ENGLAND!!!
Full Moon or Just Weird….
Posted: May 15, 2010 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: 1970's, A's, Angels, Arizona, Astros, Athletics, Atlanta, Baltimore, Beckham, Blue Jays, BoSox, Braves, Brewers, Canada, Cardinals, Chicago, ChiSox, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Colorado, D'Backs, Detroit, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Earthquakes, England, Evil Empire, FIFA, Florida, Giants, Houston, Howard, Hung Parliament, Hurricanes, Indians, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Mariners, Marlins, Mets, Milwaukee, mini-soda, Minnesota, Moyer, Nationals, Nats, New York, Oakland, Orioles, Padres, Philadelphia, phillies, Pirates, Pittsburgh, Rangers, Rays, Red Birds, Red Sox, Reds, Rockies, Royals, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, sith, St. Louis, Tampa Bay. Boston, Texas, Tigers, Tornados, Toronto, Tribe, Twins, USA, Utley, Victorino, Vulcanoes, Washington, White Sox, Wolf, World Cup, Yankees 10 CommentsThe weather in Colorado wasn’t quite the weather one would expect for May
time baseball, so we still have one make up game to play after splitting what
turned out to be a 2 game series with the Rockies. Roy Halladay didn’t get
his
homecoming/birthday win, I am sure the weather being the weather he and all the
Phillies players are happy to see Colorado disappear as their plane
climbed to
altitudes worthy of leaving Colorado.
I started this post on May 11th, then changed it and changed it and on May
13th got a little further, it’s now an hour before game time on the 14th, so we
are going to change some of the future, present and past tense expressions so
that I can keep most of the post, at least the next 3 paragraphs, after that we’ll try
and jump to current thoughts and hopefully have this posted by
midnight or early Saturday morning.
The Phillies have arrived in Milwaukee for the weekend and a 3 game series
against the Brewers, at Miller Park, a stones throw from the
Harley museum, a
hop skip and a jump from Chicago or a good 9 to 10 hour drive from me, and yet I
am still not going, sigh!
The first game tonight sees Jamie Moyer take the mound for the Phillies, on a
little extended rest, and a former
Phillies favorite Randy Wolf for the
Brewers. This will either be a pitchers duel in slo-mo or a home
run derby, neither guy has dominating stuff, but when location is close to
perfect either can be un-hittable, unfortunately if they are missing their spots
or if the offense is on key then the ball will be flying everywhere and we could
see, if not both one team hit double digits in runs or at least hits. I guess
this we will see before the nights out, since they are due to start in about
55 minutes at 8:10 pm (EST) or to those 24 hour clock buffs, 20:10 hrs (EST) or
if your adventurous and dealing in global military time then 00:10 hrs Zulu, or
if you were being military and local to the game it would be 19:10 hrs Sierra.
Not sure how I got onto time zone ramblings then, but there does seem to be
some things that just aren’t right with the world as we think we know it.
The
British elections ended in what can only be described as a ‘hung
parliament’,
not going to explain that one, so google it, but make sure you read the right
answers if your really that interested, cause there are some US American takes
on what it means that are not very accurate.
Some US sports analysts, on the upcoming FIFA World Cup, think that
David
Beckham has been aligned with the England team to help them defeat the
US squad.
Guys, Beckham is one of the best England players to have graced a soccer field,
if not for his injury, he would more than likely be on the England squad as an
active player, his presence alone will help the team, however, I am not sure his
purpose is to give England an advantage over the USA on June 12th, because quite
honestly if they can’t beat the USA, then they don’t deserve to be in the
tournament.
More natural disasters have occurred in the first 4 months of this year than
I can remember, with earthquakes, tornados, hurricanes and volcanoes all causing
more than enough destruction to last us the year.
Even baseball has some freaky things still going on even as we come to the
end of week 6 of the season, so tell me how do these things happen and it not
cause us to wonder if something weird is happening this year to everything.
How does the St. Louis Cardinals get swept at home by the
Houston Astros, who
had this seasons worse start of the year, when they went 0 – 8 and ended the
first 10 games 1 – 9.
The Los Angeles Dodgers managed to scrap together enough wins to reach .500
and still could drop below .500 before the weekend is over, as they play 3 in
San Diego.
The New York Yankees are playing second fiddle to the
Tampa Bay Rays, who
have the best record in baseball at 24 – 10 as they finish the week out at home
to Seattle.
The New York Mets, Florida
Marlins, Atlanta Braves are all left in the dust
as they trail the Washington Nationals, who
have managed to match the Phillies
with 20 wins at the start of Friday, and while the Mets
and Marlins go at each others throats the Nats
are in Colorado hoping for no postponements.
Chicago looks as though it has a double curse, with the White Sox struggling
to have as good a record as the Cubs, who themselves are one of the few teams
living up to expectations, or down to them.
The BoSox, but for the O’s would be the laughing stock of the
AL East, except
they have been making an effort and are now above .500 and a good weekend could
make them challenge for 3rd place, if Toronto continues to suck at home,
especially as the Texas Rangers are in town and riding high a top the
AL West.
Well it’s almost game time so now I’ll watch the Phillies and
Brewers, before
completing this post….
It
came closer to a home run derby than a pitchers duel in slo-mo, with 3 homers from
the Phillies and 3 homers from the Brewers and it all started in the first
inning with 1 on and 2 out Howard hit a bomb deep to give the Phillies a 2 run
lead, after the Phillies scored again to
make it 3 – 0, it was the Brewers turn with
3 home runs in
one inning off Moyer to tie the game up, after that the Phillies never
looked back with Victorino on fire in the lead off spot and Ibanez and Utley
both going deep the Phillies took this first one by a final score of 9 – 5. We
do it all over today on Fox and tomorrow on ESPN, but they won’t be wearing the
70’s uniforms. The only one who really looked at home was Moyer, who actually
made his major league debut against the Phillies when they were still wearing
this uniform.
AL-QAEDA Threatens FIFA World Cup….
Posted: April 11, 2010 Filed under: Dailies | Tags: al-Qaeda, Astros, Cape Town, England, FIFA, football, MLB, phillies, Roy Halladay, soccer, South Africa, Sports, sweep, USA, World Cup 4 CommentsLast week, al-Qaeda’s North African network released threats upon the FIFA World Cup event this June in South Africa. The primary target as indicated by the threat is the scheduled game between the U.S.A. and England in Cape Town.

The threats appear on al-Qaeda-linked websites. A statement said: “How
beautiful would the game between England and the USA be when broadcast
live
from a stadium full of spectators – when the sound of an explosion
rumbles
through the stands. The resulting death toll is in the dozens and
hundreds –
Allah willing.”
They have also vowed to target a full array of facilities that is known to be utilized by supporters during this tournament, from hotels to car parks. They are also claiming to have explosives that will be undetected by the security scanning systems.
This type of threat against a World Sporting event is pitiful and should be prevented at the source.
Back to Baseball
On a happier note Roy Halladay takes the mound today, as the Phillies attempt to sweep the Astros and keep them as the only team in the MLB without a win.