Growing up, the father of one of my best friends was a basketball and baseball coach, and one of his favorite sayings was, "You have to be smarter than the rock!" I always loved that quip. It's fairly obvious, but when coaching kids bears repeating.
When Roger Clemens went on the radio to speak about his alleged steroid use and reaction to a new book detailing his cheating behavior, he tried to give concrete reasons explaining why he wouldn't/couldn't have taken steroids.
One of the reasons was that heart disease runs in his family. His brother has it, his stepdad died from it, and...wait, what was that? Stepdad?
Oh, Roger. Roger Roger Roger. Apparently he's misremembered that marrying into a family doesn't make you blood relatives. By the way, he sticks with his original assessment that Andy Pettite still misremembers talking about steroids. Dude, seriously. I looked up misremembered on dictionary.com just to see if it existed. Holy oversized head, batman, it does. Seems it originated in the 16th century, and hasn't been used since. I'm guessing RC stumbled onto it trying to sound smart rather than recognizing the correct usage of a verb that popped up in 1525, but that's just my cynical nature. Or not.
Taking into account this is a guy who believes that heart disease runs in his family because his stepdad had it leads me to posit that he couldn't spell misremembers, let alone include it in a sentence that doesn't involve Andy Pettite or waffles; "I misremembered to put on the syrup and my waffles was dry. Like my steroids."
Maybe he thinks that saying something makes it so. If this is the case, he should really start a blog.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Mine!
Ok, I realize that last post was all on how exciting the Mariners are, how they're going to be fun to watch, how they resemble the 2001 team, blah blah blah, vomit, whoops.
Thanks for nothing, fellas. Ten seconds after my glowing review they decided to stop scoring runs, keep playing Silva and Beltre, and lose 6 straight. They had to come from behind win today just to get back to .500. Hilarious. Now stop with the practical jokes.
Perhaps I was a bit too eager with the praise. I think "starved for good news" was the actual culprit. I want this team to win. Not just play .500 ball, but win. Every game. All the time, for the rest of the season. Go 146-16. I'd be cool with this.
It got me thinking though.
I want the M's to win because I'm selfish. It's all about me in the end. They win, I feel good. They lose, I get mildly put out and grow weary of listening to them on the radio. No matter how old we are, we perceive the world as revolving around us, because really, we are all we know for certain. We can try to sympathize, empathize, supersize with those in our periphery, but if somebody don't treat us right, we get bent out of shape because hey man! it's us you're messing with.
We are ultimately the most important person in our lives. Maybe this changes when you become a parent, but my childhood experience tells me that isn't necessarily the truth. And when I do have kids, I'm gonna let 'em know that if daddy wants a sandwich, you better damn well go get him a sandwich or your self-involved behind might get re-educated on who matters more in this household. End scene.
But I digress. I'm selfish. I want to live in Eureka. Not the town in California. The fictional town with all the cool gadgets and perfect looking people and sheriff Carter. I want a talking house that beers me after a long day of snowboarding and lying on the beach. I want to walk around holding a deceptively tasty warm beverage and take in the sights while no one bothers me, though they eye me envyingly and admire my fashionable taste in fashion. And pecs.
It's not enough that I have a fridge and can put beer, or anything else I want in it just to drink it whenever I feel, I want an intuitive machine that can do it for me. I can't be bothered by the fact that much of the earth's population doesn't even have clean drinking water, let alone electricity. I grew up in America, where I deserve.
And because of this preposterous sense of entitlement, I feel that all my sports teams should win and that I should own a 27 car garage and my own airline instead of being grateful for what I have and all the opportunity in the free world. I am learning to smell the roses/coffee and appreciate all the things that we oftentimes take for granted.
This, however, does not mean that if I was given a choice between living in a smart house in Eureka or keeping my bevy of friends that I would choose you, my loyal reader.
Some lessons you can only take so far.
Thanks for nothing, fellas. Ten seconds after my glowing review they decided to stop scoring runs, keep playing Silva and Beltre, and lose 6 straight. They had to come from behind win today just to get back to .500. Hilarious. Now stop with the practical jokes.
Perhaps I was a bit too eager with the praise. I think "starved for good news" was the actual culprit. I want this team to win. Not just play .500 ball, but win. Every game. All the time, for the rest of the season. Go 146-16. I'd be cool with this.
It got me thinking though.
I want the M's to win because I'm selfish. It's all about me in the end. They win, I feel good. They lose, I get mildly put out and grow weary of listening to them on the radio. No matter how old we are, we perceive the world as revolving around us, because really, we are all we know for certain. We can try to sympathize, empathize, supersize with those in our periphery, but if somebody don't treat us right, we get bent out of shape because hey man! it's us you're messing with.
We are ultimately the most important person in our lives. Maybe this changes when you become a parent, but my childhood experience tells me that isn't necessarily the truth. And when I do have kids, I'm gonna let 'em know that if daddy wants a sandwich, you better damn well go get him a sandwich or your self-involved behind might get re-educated on who matters more in this household. End scene.
But I digress. I'm selfish. I want to live in Eureka. Not the town in California. The fictional town with all the cool gadgets and perfect looking people and sheriff Carter. I want a talking house that beers me after a long day of snowboarding and lying on the beach. I want to walk around holding a deceptively tasty warm beverage and take in the sights while no one bothers me, though they eye me envyingly and admire my fashionable taste in fashion. And pecs.
It's not enough that I have a fridge and can put beer, or anything else I want in it just to drink it whenever I feel, I want an intuitive machine that can do it for me. I can't be bothered by the fact that much of the earth's population doesn't even have clean drinking water, let alone electricity. I grew up in America, where I deserve.
And because of this preposterous sense of entitlement, I feel that all my sports teams should win and that I should own a 27 car garage and my own airline instead of being grateful for what I have and all the opportunity in the free world. I am learning to smell the roses/coffee and appreciate all the things that we oftentimes take for granted.
This, however, does not mean that if I was given a choice between living in a smart house in Eureka or keeping my bevy of friends that I would choose you, my loyal reader.
Some lessons you can only take so far.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Playing with small balls
I am seriously stoked about the professional hometown baseball squad right now. Perhaps because last year was the worst sports year for any city ever, meaning teams in this town can't get any uglier and we no longer have any decent expectations, or perhaps because they're just so darn exciting to watch.
When '09 spring training came to a close, a reporter was asked on the radio what she thought the difference was between last year's and this year's teams. She said the atmosphere in the dugout was poles apart from last year. In '08, the clubhouse tension was so thick you couldn't breath, and nobody, including the players, wanted to be there. This year, she said, people were getting along, having fun, respecting the manager, and learning.
On a side note, we also have Griffey. At the moment, I don't care that his batting average is -24 degrees. He's here, and though it hasn't completely sunk in yet, that's all that matters. Back to the column.
Wakamatsu didn't really spark my fancy when he was hired. I think I missed that announcement altogether actually. By about a month. Hearing him speak on "What we have to change to teach these guys about winning, blah blah blah," wasn't particularly inspiring. Sounded like manager talk, which is short for what had we had been hearing from McLaren, Riggleman, Hargrove, and Melvin.
(Good lord, I actually had to google a historical list of M's managers just to remember Melvin and Riggleman, who was the most recent coach. Dag, these guys were forgettable.)
However, Wakamatsu took this team and got them back to basics. I hate that phrase by the way, and it was one that I felt was overused this spring. But whaddya know, he's motivated them to sacrifice, steal, bunt, and so far, stash their egos. He's got them playing small ball, which was what the 2001 team did so brilliantly, until the playoffs.
Homeruns are cool and all, but they don't hold your attention like small ball does. Getting guys on base however you can and doing any manner of things to advance them is WAY more exciting to me, and it always has been. Even when I played little league. If someone's on, you don't know what the batter is going to do, what the runner is going to do, or what the manager is going to do, but you know with this team that they're going to do something.
That not only keeps fans in a perpetual state of anticipation, it drives the opposition nuts. Certainly the defense isn't lulled to sleep when the M's are at the bat, but they'll sweat through their precious beanies thinking about what's coming next.
And that, to me, is good baseball. Scratch that, it's great baseball.
When '09 spring training came to a close, a reporter was asked on the radio what she thought the difference was between last year's and this year's teams. She said the atmosphere in the dugout was poles apart from last year. In '08, the clubhouse tension was so thick you couldn't breath, and nobody, including the players, wanted to be there. This year, she said, people were getting along, having fun, respecting the manager, and learning.
On a side note, we also have Griffey. At the moment, I don't care that his batting average is -24 degrees. He's here, and though it hasn't completely sunk in yet, that's all that matters. Back to the column.
Wakamatsu didn't really spark my fancy when he was hired. I think I missed that announcement altogether actually. By about a month. Hearing him speak on "What we have to change to teach these guys about winning, blah blah blah," wasn't particularly inspiring. Sounded like manager talk, which is short for what had we had been hearing from McLaren, Riggleman, Hargrove, and Melvin.
(Good lord, I actually had to google a historical list of M's managers just to remember Melvin and Riggleman, who was the most recent coach. Dag, these guys were forgettable.)
However, Wakamatsu took this team and got them back to basics. I hate that phrase by the way, and it was one that I felt was overused this spring. But whaddya know, he's motivated them to sacrifice, steal, bunt, and so far, stash their egos. He's got them playing small ball, which was what the 2001 team did so brilliantly, until the playoffs.
Homeruns are cool and all, but they don't hold your attention like small ball does. Getting guys on base however you can and doing any manner of things to advance them is WAY more exciting to me, and it always has been. Even when I played little league. If someone's on, you don't know what the batter is going to do, what the runner is going to do, or what the manager is going to do, but you know with this team that they're going to do something.
That not only keeps fans in a perpetual state of anticipation, it drives the opposition nuts. Certainly the defense isn't lulled to sleep when the M's are at the bat, but they'll sweat through their precious beanies thinking about what's coming next.
And that, to me, is good baseball. Scratch that, it's great baseball.
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