Go Aaron Rogers Go

I have despised and loathed Brett Faarvreerrverrervre for well over a decade now, and all my cries of how overrated he is has been met with scorn at best, feces at worst. Damn capuchins. however, it appears as though not all in the media are against the dislike of brettski: This news piece places the dude in a better, clearer light. not straight up unabashed hatred, no, but tasty all the same. lord, am i sick of this story.

in fact, i'm going to make these "Go Aaron Rogers Go" posts as a way to chastise overdone sports stories.

so let it be written, so let it be done.

i hope the jets lose every game.

The Mets Like Eating Putrid Aborted Fetuses

The New York Mets suck my balls.

I shall elaborate re: ball sucking.

Johan Santana is amazing, correct? Correct. The best pitcher in baseball? Correct*. Has the best pitch in baseball, featuring a devastating changeup, right? Correct…I mean right. Let’s check his stats:

Fifth in NL ERA (2.85), Seventh in NL K’s (135), Fourth in IP (161), Seventh in WHIP (1.16), and Fourth in QS (17).

So why, OH WHY in the name of Lee Corso’s merkin, is this man only 9-7? Reason = The Mets. The Mets are sucking his balls, and they’re using teeth.

As of today, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, this was the sixth time in 24 starts this season that Santana came out of the game with a lead and failed to win. SIXTH TIME, and in four of those, the collapse came in the ninth inning. That means your boy, my boy, Johan “I gots the Donkey Sausage” Santana would be 15-7 if his bullpen wasn’t the equivalent of a coked-out grandpa in a grenade juggling competition—unpredictable, shaky, and in general a bad idea to look at. Look at this, for his first 21 starts this year in terms of earned runs allowed:

0-1 ERs - 7 times
2 ERs - 5 times
3 ERs - 5 times
4 or more ERs - 4 times

Really? 17 times in 21 starts he gives up under four runs? And the Mets can’t seal the deal? Can’t score runs?

More facts on why the Mets suck and Johan doesn’t? Of course! A small sample size to give you a taste: during a 6 start period from early June to early July, the Mets scored only 11 runs for Santana. That’s 40 innings of work. Want to know how many runs Santana allowed? 11. Four of those came in one pretty crappy start, but during that game the Mets scored…drumroll please… one run.

So there it is. The Mets acquire the best pitcher in baseball to aid them in contending in the NL East, to add some juice to an already solid staff, to conquer the demons from the end of last season’s collapse, and what do they do? Squander him. Blow him like a barracuda.

To own him in fantasy is to hate the (now lower case because I despise them so) new york mets.

"......i can't believe i miss minnesota"

* - not quite discounting Brandon Webb, Jake Peavy, Carlos Zambrano, or even Cole Hamels or Tim Lincecum. But still - it's JOHAN SANTANA, man!

Oh Dear God

Emergency update: Brett Favre is a New York Jet.

This boggles the mind, scrabbles the mind, connect fours the mind, and then will probably monopolize the mind for the foreseeable future.

Go Aaron Rogers. Go.

Who are These People? Mark Fidrych?

What the dace is up with major league pitching this year? I mean seriously now: what the dace?! We’ve got Jeff Francis swallowing the dead raccoon who ate a load of turds, Rich Hill devolving into a larva, Erik Berdard stewing in a jug of rotten buffalo fetuses, and there’s Scott Kazmir.

The Kaz has done nothing of redeemable value for anyone, the Rays, his fantasy denizens… Heck, I even heard he left his wife and kid alone in the department store and went to gobble on some barbequed donkey sausage. WTF! For the first month of the season this dude was eating hitters’ lunches nonstop, tossing the horsehide like it was a hummingbird sneeze; he was untouchable. And now? Now he can’t even make it five innings, can’t even finish a start without walking 4+, can’t win a freaking game. And the Rays expect to win their division? With this? Bollocks. BALDERDASH!

I declare Shenanigans on Scott Kazmir and his lack of pitching. Where’s Victor Zambrano when you need him?

***

This Brett Farverevrer nonsense needs to just end already. This man is a selfish prick – just let the Packers move on already! Has he even seen the episode of Seinfeld when George realizes that it’s best to leave on a high note? Didn’t Brett have his “Good night, everyone!” cry-fest already? Maybe he’s not content with being the retired fake best quarterback ever when he’s cruising the Wisconsin scene for sorority tail and painkillers. Way to put your team, the one that acquired you and made you a king, on the spot there, Bretty boy. You douche. I hope Aaron Rogers wins the MVP for the next nine seasons.

***

My fantasy football draft is on August 31^st. Seeing as how when I research for X amount of hours I still do terrible, and whichever unfortunate soul I draft in the first round criminally underachieves, I’m just not chomping at the bit to start up this year. In fact, I refuse to read any fantasy football pieces until the day of the draft. I won’t buy a magazine until August 31^st, nor will I compile a list of players in any particular ranking. What’s even more frustrating is that in our draft lottery I wanted a bottom three pick (we do a snake style drafting system), and what do I get? The first pick. So now, be wary if you draft either LaDainian or Adrian Peterson—one of them is going on my team and subsequently underachieving/getting seriously injured.

***

Does anyone else love Mark Reynolds of the Arizona Diamondbacks? You know exactly what you’re getting with this dude: for a week or two he will be atrocious, missing everything, running poorly, making outs left and right, and then for several days at a time he’s Babe Ruth; he KILLS the ball and steals bases and in general garners more extra bags than a Beverly Hills teenager in a Gucci store (yes, horrible metaphor, I know, but it’s early. It’s so, so early!). And he’s dreamy. …What?

Olympics METAL! Wah-wah!

Starting up a big-boy grown-up job after working at a camp can certainly put a damper on a blogging schedule, that’s for dern sure.

First things first, though: Olympics, Josh Hamilton, Pudge Rodriguez, Kobe Bryant, Mike Beasley, Craig Jones, Erik Bedard, Marion Hossa, the Dark Knight (not sports, certainly, but my gosh, man!), Darren McFadden, Mike Martz, Brett Farvevrer, Anna Kournikova, Portland Trailblazers, and Cliff Lee. Movers? Yes. Shakers? Of course. Things that should be of interest? Naturally.

***

Over this little hiatus (yes, another one) the Detroit Red Wings pilfered two rather helpful contributors to the Pittsburgh Penguins in Ty Conklin (backup extraordinaire) and Marian Hossa.

Conklin gained renown this season for coming in when MA Fleury went down in net and essentially set up a giant panda in front of the crease; no one could beat the guy for stretches it seemed. He was like a menacingly fat child guarding a box of Twinkies.

Hossa is, outside of ‘Rik Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk, the best two-way forward in the NHL. Dude’s a dynamo—watching him tear up the ice, forechecking, backchecking, going on the offensive, plotting in the neutral zone, and then scoring oodles of goals, it’s always been a pleasure, and now I get to watch the dude from my team’s perspective. Am I excited? Does a hobo ride the railways? (A Boxcar Hobo is being referenced, not the Hitchhiking Hobo or the Alleyway Hobo. Durr.) Can you even imagine him on a line with either of the aforementioned two-way Wings? OR BOTH?? Oop, just shat myself.

***

Cliff Lee cannot stop pitching well. I realize that in the past he has shown himself to be a reliable pitcher, if not an up-and-comer, for the Indians; dude went 18-5 in Aught-Five for the Native Americans. His middle name is Phifer. But what he’s doing now? He’s not pitching out of his mind, he’s pitching out of FDR’s sealed and mummified anus right now (completely random and inexplicable. Get it? Good job). Plus, I thought starting the All-Star game would affect him negatively, but no, the Lee train keeps right on rolling.

***

Also recent, Francisco Liriano was (FINALLY) called up to the Twins. After eating the lunch of pretty much everyone in the International League, Liriano and his agent AND the throng of Minnesotans sick of second place began to question out loud the validity of keeping Mr. Lightning-In-A-Bottle in the minors. After Livan Hernandez went his 14^th straight start of throwing marshmallows instead of baseballs, Twins GM Bill Smith takes the scales off his eyes and notices the destruction left in Liriano’s wake an calls him up. Good decision? FREAKING DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH (with an emphasis on the heavy-breathing “H.” Go on, try it. “Hhhhhhhhhhhhh.”).

***

Oh, and the Olympics are starting soon. I’ve never been big on them ‘Lympics, but I’ll give it another go. Maybe USA basketball won’t suck a donkey choad this time. MAYBE.

ESPN sucks, apparently

One of the most asinine jokes of my generation has become the mockery of Mtv: "How can there be a music television that doesn't actually play any music?" It has become a tired cliche because, honestly, it's painfully true. Mtv's lack of music videos that aren't being played from 2 am to 5 am makes it a shadow of its former self, ripe with opportunities to be chastised mercilessly. That's all well and good (any network that features "the Hills" deserves something between "Cancellation" and "Death by Capuchin!"), but another major network is beginning to stumble away from its intended origins. It is losing itself to the hyporcitical "Special Programming" and ignoring more and more the basis of what it covers.

Having said that, allow me to now say that ESPN sucks it righteously, blows a donkey, and all in all produces the program equivalent of public access featuring drunken children skate boarding.

It didn't happen overnight. In fact, one could almost say that is started when Sportscenter lengthened from a smart, tight half-hour to an hour long segment with more storylines. That seemed fine, but soon the smart broadcasters began slinging out hellacious catch phrases (featuring a disturbing lack of dignity... and humor), the storylines overtook the highlights, and viewers began to have polls to vote on. Then ad space became available DURING THE SHOW, with beer companies sponsoring stupid interview segments, a statline only the insomniac could enjoy sponsored by a car they'll never drive, and movie stars hawking their wares all while trying to fain interest in questions that kind sorta almost ties their movie to sports.

Naturally, with all the good poll questions tackled (but really, are there any good poll questions to be asked? Ever?), inane questions involving the rash judgement of any one or any team became the feature. Essentially, the day ESPN died was when it asked "Who's Now?" That bass-ackwards, mentally retardesque dip into depravity was only topped by, naturally, Mtv's hideous choice of reality programming. Stuart Scott, who seems to disregard actual sports journalism now, asks questions about an athletes SOCIAL impact in parties, movies, etc. With that segment ESPN announced that it cared more about appealing to the Pop Culture zealots than catering to its sports niche. Right now taking in any sort of ESPN is like crapping through your bathing suit to get to the toilet: you can see the sports, you can almost reach the sports, but not without going through a complicating middle man.

***

Sooooo, Pistons - Celtics, eh? I wonder which team America will root for. America loves Boston. America LOOOVES BOOOSTOOOOONN!!! BAMERISTON LOOOVES MASSACHUSA!!!! No, really, I'm quite fine with how this is going to play out. The Pistons will show up, face off against an exhausted Celtics team, win in 6, and then everyone will complain about how boring the NBA finals are going to be... As if the last 2 minutes in any basketball game ever were riveting (time out..... foul..... shooting... rebound...foul ....timeout.... timeout.... foul..... ).

***

Should Roger Clemens be demonized the way Barry Bonds has? Yes. Is it a racial thing? Probably, at some level that nobody would like to admit to. Should both of them be in the hall of fame someday? I think that yes, the earlier parts of their careers (aka the Not 285 lbs. part) should definitely be enshrined, but their "aided" stats should really be asterisked or altogether forgotten... which is sad because those stats are reDIRKulous. DICronculous. CRONlucurlic.

***

Honestly, which team would take Gary Sheffield's corpse? (We all know the real Gary Sheffield died in an Atlanta Braves uniform, right?)

The Haze

First post in how long? Good lord. Embarassing.

Justin Verlander is not actually bad at baseball. This is a common misconception with the average baseball fan; his numbers are lacking, and his performance of late leaves something to be desired. However, this sad-sack donkey-hole job of hitting, fielding, and pitching that the Detroit Tigers have been up to lately can taint the entirety of this kid's perception. The same can also be said of Miguel Cabrera, Jeremy Bonderman, Magglio Ordonez, and (to a recent extent) Curtis Granderson. I know these are good ball players. You know they are good ball players. It's just that, and I firmly believe this, they are embroiled in a schnide the likes of which haven't been seen in... well, they kinda seem to be setting a new precedent right now.

Verlander has had ridiculously good luck his first two seasons, playing for teams that may or may not have influenced his stats and performance a skosh. Now that the whole team is bogged down it seems to be easy to start panicking and entering that "HOLY HELL! START TINKERING! TINKERINGS!"- mode. I swear on a stack of grandmothers that all this will require is some patience. Verlander doesn't actually suck. The Tigers don't actually suck. I'd present statistical backing right now, but this is my first post back in over a year and I'm quite lazy.

***

I honestly hope that the Hornets make it to the NBA finals this year to represent the Western Conference. I know the popular prayer is for a Lakers/Celtics brouhaha for the season's climax, but watching Paul, West, and Chandler attacking Chauncey Billups, Tayshaun Prince, and my boy Theo Ratliff over seven games would be...well, I was going to say "a gritty gutfest!", but chances are it'd be a slowed down, angry, violent series, sans over-saturation by the grueling, drooling media monster.

***

Lord, I am terrified of the Penguins. Sidney Crosby, though man-tasic, is a force of nature. Gino Malkin seems to be the cow dropping on your car after Crosby's hurricane, and Marian Hossa has been playing things too under the radar. He's in a contract situation, how could he not want to give the performance of a lifetime?

And speaking of, if you were Hossa, wouldn't you play for much less for the chance to play with the Cros? I mean, I'm not saying he should take league minimum; he's way too good for that. It would behoove him to take below market value, though, assuming he wants to win Cups and pile up lifetime stats.

***

This is Cliff Lee and his family. Now, just by looking at this picture, wouldn't you picture him as some guy working for Saturn? I mean, his family is too adorable and he just....he just looks like a guy. Actually, I think I loaned him a buck at an airport over the holidays. Hey, Cliff! Don't worry about the dollar! You are helping my fantasy teams too much!