Burpin and Putin

I object to shenanigans (tm) being declared without providing justification.  I agree that something stinks about this, but I'm not really sure what I don't like about it.  It most likely is a variation on "WTF is Kraft meeting with Vlad Putin for?!?"  The obvious implication is that Kraft is getting something in return from him, but what?  I'm less concerned about him getting a ring.  It's not like it cheapens the value of everyone else's rings or something... winning three out of four Super Bowls does that.  (Sorry, couldn't resist.)  I just want to know, in the name of full disclosure to all Patriots fans, what kind of devil's bargain Kraft has made.  Stoli on the rocks available at Gillette Stadium concession stands?

Also, if Peyton really wanted to tap into the alleged karma void, he would change his name to Putin Manning.  But that won't happen.  After all, he seems perfectly satisfied winning dodgeball games on Battle of the Gridiron Stars.  Why mess with success?  (Peyton, consider yourself slapped.)

Instant Karma, Episode II- Attack of the Clowns

Ok, so the Pat's owner gave one of his superbowl rings to Vlad Putin. I'm calling shenanigans right now. And declaring that the Patriots end their run this year. Will Peyton Manning be the beneficiary?

Ainge Misbehavin': Gerald Green Edition

Humina humina humina humina humina...

Pardon me if this post is long and rambling, but the Gerald Green thing is slowly sinking in. There was a point last night, shortly after the McCants selection, when I realized we were going to get Green. To say I was happy would be like saying John Holmes had a big dong... it doesn't come close to accurately describing the situation. And as a side-benefit, the Celts drafted a guy named Green. Perfect. This is one of the times when the whole David-Stern-orchestrates-in-favor-of-big-market-teams thing works in my favor, and I have no choice but to shut my yap about him.

Anyway... Oliver Miller-sized shout-out to Danny Ainge. This guy was Boston's whipping boy for over a year before getting something right... and pretty much every single thing has gone right. Ainge's return from the depths has been unprecedented in the annals of Boston Fan Abuse. After the 03-04 season it was as if he was given a Range Rover as a Christmas gift from his wife, then lost it in a poker game. Now it's June 2005, and not only has he regained the Rover, but he's now got a Hummer, a Ferrari, and the Batmobile, not to mention a mansion in Newport to keep them in. THAT is how far back he has come from the screwedness he put us into.

These last two drafts by Ainge should be studied for the next 20 years by playoff teams looking to score value. How do you make the playoffs two years in a row and come away with no fewer than FOUR blue-chip players? Even if he doesn't work out, to get a guy like Green, a reigning McDonalds All-American, at #18 is a ridiculous steal. Sure, luck factored into it... but he could have stuck to his guns and taken some shitty Euro or a retread like Julius Hodge, just like everyone else did. It's not like the ten teams in front of the Celts had guns to their heads, with someone barking "Draft McCants! Draft Joey Graham!" at them. They had every opportunity to take Green and didn't. But they should have. Sometimes it takes the smart guy to make you see who's dumb.

The question now becomes what to do about the glut at the 2 and 3. Depth is no longer a problem... the thing now is they need more from the classes of 2003-04. Al Jefferson, Tony Allen, Delonte West and Kendrick Perkins specifically must emerge, because if they don't take control of the rotation, nobody will. Pierce has made it abundantly clear that he's not interested in leading this team, so one of them will have to.

In closing, some thoughts on the specific on-the-court improvements the Celts need...

1. Jefferson needs to become a reliable source of offense in order for that to happen. The conditioning he does this summer will help his stamina against NBA bodies, which should alleviate the inconsistency. If he's good for 15 ppg, consider yourselves warned.
2. Delonte West ought to become a decent point this season. Last year he was stunted by PG depth and injury, but he's a good passer and solid shooter from 3, so I'd expect him to establish himself. The question is whether he's ready to run an offense. That's what will decide the 05-06 season... if he can run the offense, I think the division is locked up for the foreseeable future... but if not, I've got some bad news for you: Gary Payton ain't walkin' through that door. Tiny Archibald ain't walkin' through that door.
3. Kendrick Perkins is ready to take Mark "Monkey Butt Nugget" Blount's place in the rotation. He rebounds, and he's a mean bastard... this team could use some teeth. If your starting center is gonna be a big stiff, it might as well be a mean stiff, right? I'm assuming, of course, that Raef LaFrentz gets injured this year.
4. Tony Allen is going to see his minutes return with the departure of Antoine Walker. But between Pierce and Davis there's nowhere for him to go, really. He might as well just be greased lightning off the bench. I feel bad that the playoff experience didn't go so well for him... Reggie Miller wiped his ass with him, and he got benched for the series. Not the most confidence-inspiring coaching decision from head coach Corky "Doc" Rivers.

A visual tour of my NBA draft night experience

My reaction to the Knicks drafting Channing Frye:
















My reaction to the Kurt Thomas- Q Rich trade:
















But hey, it was still a more enjoyable experience than being Bret Boone, having to pretend I'm not interested in some sweet Ichiro salad:

Quick Mid-Draft Thoughts

1. 1. Milwaukee/Andrew Bogut: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
2. 8. New York/Channing Frye: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
3. 13. Charlotte/Sean May: This just in: the Bobcats just doubled in weight!
4. 18. Boston/Gerald Green: W000000000000000000000000000000000000000t!!!!!

Trade Proposal

Keith Bogans to the Bucks for whatever other shit they have lying around. This has to happen.  The Bogut & Bogans Show!  Tall lanky Aussie and undersized stocky Xavier McDaniel wannabe... it's the odd couple!  Imagine the attention they'd get!  They'd be the biggest fish-out-of-water NBA comedy team since Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles.

One catch... I'm serious about that.  Why?  Because if they don't draft Marvin Williams, Milwaukee beat writers will need a story to write about the draft other than "League Hires First Mentally Handicapped GM."

White Shavlik

So long Duke, hello NBDL!
It's Knicks or bust for me tonight.
C'mon Isiah, gimme a chance!
If you like me like me, check this box: c

Love,
Shavlik

In Honor of Tony Womack

I think Sean Connery said it best in Michael Bay's seminal action extravaganza The Rock:

"Womack! Why am I not surprised, you PIECE OF SHIT???"

Best quote in the movie. NOBODY screams "Womack!" like Connery. Not even Brian Cashman. It'll take him months to get the inflection down... I know this because I tried. I've gotten pretty good at it. Womack!!!! Hehehe. Someone at WFAN should cut that quote and play it whenever their hosts come back from commercial.

Just how bad is Tony Womack?

Old and busted: Neifi Perez.
New Hotness: Tony Womack.

For a startling analysis of how Womack can submarine a team, check this out.

Bogut that doobie

Why am I very afraid for the Bucks, and very glad the Hi-JKnicks didn't score the #1 pick? When you're lauded for being able to dribble 80 ft. without bouncing it off your foot...

from ESPN's Andy Katz:
"On the court, Bogut dispelled some knocks on his athleticism by dribbling the length of the court without fumbling. He also went through the hour-long workout without a water break.
Bogut is hardly soft, and he plays the post with force and tenacity. He did tire a bit near the end, leading to a few missed free throws, and some doubts afterward.
Bogut: "I just can't hit free throws."
Babcock: "You know what? That's the least of your worries."
Bogut: "No, it's not."Babcock: "You know why? Because that stuff you'll improve on. Just takes a little work. What do you think the issue is?"
Bogut: "It's mental, man.
Babcock: "No, it's not all mental, it's not all mental." "

7 strategies for highly effective stadia

So I read this morning from Gammons that the Phillies' Citizens' Bank Ballpark has the highest home/road run split in the majors, tied w/the legendary Coors Field (aka Neagle's Tombstone). I've been arguing for a while that the Phillies big problem (besides the curse of William Penn) is that pitching at home is impossible, which leads to corner-nibbling pussies afraid to throw a strike. Nice to have it confirmed by two authoritative sources, Gammons and Manny Ramirez, who hit a positively Knoblauchian grand slam yesterday to cap a brutal sweep of the Phightins.

Clearly, the Phillies don't know as much about stadium design as the Padres, who took a page from Gitmo when it comes to treating opposing relief pitchers. Relief indeed.

This week the Junkees head to Baltimore to hopefully, sweep, thus putting the AL East race out of question for good.

MLB Heavyweight Champion

I was late to discover this, seeing as we're three months into baseball season, but tonight I stumbled upon the MLB Heavyweight Championship (right-hand sidebar, scroll way down). The premise is to determine who would be the MLB champion if the title were decided boxing-style: if you beat the champ, you get the belt. For example, the World Champion Boston Red Sox lost their belt to the Yankees in the first game of the season. So at that point, the MFYs were the "champion." Of course, the Sox reclaimed their belt on their way out of town, but promptly lost it again to Toronto in the next series. Then Toronto lost the belt to their next opponents, and so forth. The Blue Jays, coincidentally, are the current "champion," having regained the belt today by knocking off the Nats. This means the ultimate champion will be from the American League... so the Sox still have a chance to repeat.

Anyway I thought this was neat. Better than writing about how Braden Looper deserves to have federal agents raidin' his pooper. I mean, does he realize that he's supposed to get people out????? The Mets need a closer, stat. I hear they have a good relationship with Tampa's front office... maybe they can hatch a David Wright/Danys Baez trade! Just like the Kazmir-Zambrano trade! Say, whatever happened to Kazmir?

We've got ourselves a ballgame, folks

Who needs pitching when you have 86 years of mojo wrapped around your dong?

Baltimore	42	29	.592	--	Lost 1	6-4
Boston	41	30	.577	1.0	Won 4	9-1
NY Yankees	37	34	.521	5.0	Lost 1	7-3
Toronto	36	36	.500	6.5	Won 1	5-5
Tampa Bay	25	47	.347	17.5	Won 1	5-5

Tick tock... tick tock...

Karolina Sprem

That's not a typo, ladies and grems. That's her name. Does she keep her winnings in a Sprem Bank? Does she grunt in pain on the court, or does she let out a Sprem Wail? I wonder if her bedsheets have traces of Sprem on them. And for your amusement, I present to you an eyeful of Sprem.

AL vs. NL update

As an addendum to my long-lost post on the relative strength of the AL vs. the NL:

As of last night, the AL had only four teams with sub-.500 interleague records: the Devil Rays at 3-12, and three others at 7-8.  Meanwhile, the NL had ten teams below .500.  On the whole, the AL is beating the living shit out of the NL, with only one team (except Tampa) unable to hold its own.  It's not proof of my original theory, since individual teams are entitled to streaks, but it's powerful evidence at the very least.

In your face, Chas Budnick!!!

If your last name is Cabrera....

it's a pretty safe bet that you're detined for the major leagues. With that in mind, I give you the next great Cabrera, due to hit the pond sometime in September. What this guy is doing in triple A (where he's 5-0 with a freakish 52-7 K/BB in an unimaginable 37 IP, and oh, by the way a 0.97 ERA- thanks Gammons) I have no idea... Time will tell if he can be this year's K-Rod, but suffice it to say that, should the Junkees stubmle into the playoffs, I want no piece of the Tribe.

Issue #1: Skip Useless

Is there a worse sports columnist than Skip Bayless? He's the Sean Hannity of the sports world. And I want him brutally horsewhipped.
Who's coming with me?

NBA Finals? Meh.

Having watched only intermittently until the fourth quarter, I haven't got a lot to say about Game 5... but if I did, I'd have the title covered: "Ben Wallace Balls." Unfortunately the Pistons lost, so I might have to switch to my runner-up, "Vino Ginobili." Unfortunately, you need to be familiar with Italian wine, sex toys, and NBA basketball to understand what I'm talking about, and how many people have those three skills? Not many. (Take-home lesson: I'm awesome.) Actually, I do have a few big thoughts.

1) Big Shot Bob. Good god. 13 points in the 4th quarter?!? A statue-of-liberty jam over Rip Hamilton? The 3 with a man in his face with 5 seconds left in OT? Horry will never get a plaque, but he deserves some kind of recognition in the Hall. A permanent exhibit... stick all of his game-winning shots in a pile, and put a little card on each ball with the date, opponent, and final score. That's how many big games were decided on his shot. He's in rarefied air with this clutch shit. Jordan and Miller are the only two guys who would hit that shot every time like Horry does. Wow.

2) I just heard Al Michaels say that Chris Webber is in the Palace tonight... he sure is, and he's wearing Duncan's uniform. I'd been skeptical of the whole what's-wrong-with-Duncan story that's been developing over the last few weeks, but after watching this game I'm not sure there's another conclusion to draw. The numbers are up, but good lord... missing 3 of 4 free throws? Blowing the tip as time expired in the fourth? The turnover when Big Shot Bob passed off to him in OT? Zoinks, yo. Those free throw troubles have come up and bit him in his Virgin Islands, haven't they?

Speaking of which, it's interesting to me that Shaq still can't live down his free-throw rep, while Duncan's only marginally better and yet is perceived totally differently. I think it's just as big a weakness with him as with Shaq... why not just hack him (as the Pistons did late) and take your chances at the line? He shot 67% during the season.

3) Does Billups realize he has teammates? He keeps calling his own number. It's working, though, so maybe it's not a problem. And I can't truthfully say he ought to pass off to Ben Wallace instead. I'll shut up now. Good game.

Gays Being Gay Is Gay

Dear Jurassic Carl,

Oh, Carl.  You're actually entitled to so much of this rant... you could have accused the media of making something out of nothing.  I mean, who gives a shit what you think about most of this crap?  Wrigley Field sucks?  Fine!  Jose Canseco is an angry, bitter ignoramus?  Probably true!  99% of baseball fans are morons?  Guilty as charged!  Hell, I probably come up with a list of 100,000 Phillies fans that would prove your point for you.

But why, oh why, did you have to say that "gays being gay is wrong"?  Sigh.  Now we're back in the land of the dinosaurs.  You probably could have said it a different way, and come off no worse than, say, Mitt Romney.  But if you can't be more eloquent than "gays being gay is wrong," you probably shouldn't be talking to a national magazine about it.  Not even Maxim, the journalistic equivalent of Rollergirl.  Maxim will enthusiastically portray anybody with sympathy, no matter how abhorrent they are, as long as he/she is in favor of enormous tits.  (But not nipples!)  If, in a hypothetical Maxim interview, Osama bin Laden was to suggest that, underneath the hard-line Muslim facade, he was a "bread-and-butter ass man," I suspect Al Qaeda would find a new ally in America.

Anyway, back to you, Carl.  Ironically, the real story of your statement isn't your neanderthal views on gayness... it's that you had gay teammates.  You never played with Mike Mussina!  Who could it be?  I'm fascinated.  Time to play a little Oracle of Baseball with Jurassic Carl... at least a couple of the 437 people on that list are gay!  I've got my fingers crossed for Hideki Irabu and Orestes Destrade.

And The Best Supporting Actor Oscar Goes To...

My only sports-related thought of the evening relates to Tom Brady's chameleon-like performance in the Farrelly Brothers film Stuck On You. The movie was OK (it had its moments) but one of the nice moments, in retrospect, was watching Lawyer Milloy digitally enhance Cher's butt on a monitor, to the delight of Brady's multi-pierced, facial-hair-covered character. He really morphed into the role... I'm a huge Pats fan, and I didn't even know it was him until the credits. All I had was this vague feeling like, "those guys are nobody... and yet they seem familiar..." Little did I know that behind those facial piercings and that goofy Vanilla Ice beard stood a two-time Super Bowl MVP.

The movie was pretty dumb, but it still had its moments. It got better as it went along, and by the end I'd had a few belly laughs. Unfortunately, Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear got only one of them. When your comedic leads don't get any laughs, it doesn't matter how well the conjoinment is executed... it just doesn't work. At least the Farrellys improved on their quarterback situation. ("What about Brett Farv-re?")

Heathcliff Lives; Chavez Sucks

It was an evening of impressions. I just watched Chad "The Chief" Cordero do his best Heathcliff Slocumb impression, coinciding with a dead-on '90s Red Sox impression by the Angels. Down 1-0 in the 9th, the Angels loaded the bases with no outs on two singles and a walk. But Cordero got out of the inning with two strikeouts and a harmless pop-out that was too shallow to score the runner from 3rd. Cordero at least has an excuse... he got the save last night, so he's probably tuckered out. What excuse do the Angels' five best hitters, plus Bengie Molina, have? All Molina had to do was lift the ball over 250 feet out, and he couldn't. Of all the Molinas, I think Alfred has the best bat. (Then again, when we last saw Alfred Molina, he had four robotic utility arms and lifted a nuclear reactor off the ground. So maybe he really could outhit the Molina brothers.)

I also caught the end of Mets/A's, where Eric Chavez showed us just how much Troy O'Leary gametape he's been watching of late. Chavez came up in the 8th with the game tied, two out, runner on 3rd. The Mets brought in an anonymous rookie lefty to face him, and this rookie (with mediocre I-have-a-career-because-I'm-a-lefty numbers) threw him a two-strike slider that was about a foot off the plate, and low. Naturally, Chavez swung. Memo to Billy Beane: Miguel Tejada has four home runs in his last 10 games.

Finally, I spent most of the night doing my best Brodie Bruce impression, leading the 2009-10 Boston Bruins to a 21-0 victory over the dastardly Montreal Canadiens. Joey Bananas had four goals, for what it's worth. Jose Theodore sux!!!1!

Testing The Email Post-A-Matic

Up until a few hours ago, I was soooooooooooo excited about my new car. Unfortunately, tragedy struck... I broke my clavicle while driving it to lunch. Um, I mean, while carrying some groceries. Um, I mean deer meat.