Filed under: baseball
I ususally could care less about the Home Run Derby (or the all-star game as a whole for that matter), but there are some good stories coming out of last night.
First, recovering drug abuser and token “heartwarming story of redemption about a white guy” Josh Hamilton set a record for most homeruns in a round (28 on only 38 pitches) and absolutely MASHED balls out of Yankee stadium. The guy pitching to him was a 71-year old batting coach, who had to be exhausted. Video below.
The other story, which i’ll always love, is that asshole Yankee/Met fans booed Chase Utley of the Phillies during his introduction (conversely, Yankee Derek Jeter got a standing ovation a few years back…when the game was in Fenway.). So how did Chase respond? By saying, “Boo me? Fuck you.” loud enough for ESPN cameras to pick it up. Congrats Chase, you’re my hero.
Filed under: Lindsay Lohan, Phoenix, baseball, myspace, seeing red az, sexual harrasment
Corey Hart – member of the IAmWright fantasy baseball team – was selected to the all-star game last night. When his teammates found out they mobbed him with open beers at his press conference. Seems fun right? Bet his 2-year old daughter didn’t think so.
We had our first good monsoon last night in Phoenix. Thunder, lightning, wind, flooding. All the classics. Here’s hoping for about 15-20 more of those before Halloween.
Lindsay Lohan has apparently designed her own line of leggings…one of the pairs has built in knee pads (for gardening?). As WWTDD points out, “Way to be subtle Lindsay…”
Male Cheesecake Factory employees are suing the company after they were allegedly sexually harrased…by other dudes.
I really, really, really, never, ever, ever want to have a daughter.
Sam made me aware of the existence of this conservative (to put it nicely) Arizona blog. He said it helps him to be balanced. It helps me lose weight because i friggin puke every time i read it… What makes it even better is that whoever writes it (naturally such drivel is written anonymously) refuses to allow my comments. I have been polite, i haven’t used profanity but in my own cynical and sarcastic way, i have attempted to be a dissenting voice (or a voice of reason) on some of the posts. Not a single one has been approved. Only the biggest of douchetards would write 4-5 posts a day anonymously and only allow comments that suck up and agree completely. EAD, guy. (Ed. Note – If the author reads this and would like to discuss with me, or find out what EAD stands for…email me at adammack(dot)wright(at)gmail(dot)com.)
When i was a kid, i played Little League. I wasn’t great, but i wasn’t bad either. I never made the all-star team, i never practiced during the off-season, i wasn’t as good as the majority of my friends. During my final year, i got beat out of my favorite position (catcher) by someone younger than me (Justin Arnold). I was relegated to the bench, where i would have never gotten into a single game if it hadn’t been for the mandatory league rules that stated that every player got to play for 6 outs and one at-bat. The result of only playing two-innings a game and never seeing live pitching was that i got progressively worse and less confident, so when i did get a chance to play, i sucked worse than i had before. Eventually i quit completely, having never made an all-star team.
Now, some might look at this as anecdotal evidence that this little league made the right decision when deciding to cancel it’s all-star game. But i disagree completely. I wasn’t great at baseball, so when i quit, i started playing hockey, which i was pretty good at (and still play as an adult). I started getting into computers, which kind came in handy when they started controlling our lives recently. I read books. I became smarter than all (ok, most) of my friends who were playing baseball 4 nights a week and not getting their homework done. I found ways to cope and deal with it. These kids can too. We have to stop coddling all these kids’ self-esteem and self worth. Kids need to find out that they’re just like any other group of people…a few winners, and a whole lot of losers. It’s life. Handle it.
(However, now that i think about it, given my semi-permanent struggles with anxiety, inadequacy, cynicism, attention span, confidence and depression, maybe there is something to this after all. Little did i know it started way back then…fucking Little League! It all makes sense now! DAMN IT!)
Hope everyone had a good 4th of July weekend. Did you know that the 4th of July is a day where we celebrate America’s independence from British rule? Because a guy in front of me at the post office last week didn’t. This guy is talking to a teller at the UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE (!!!) and asks if they’re working on Friday. The lady says, “Haha…no, it’s Independence Day.” And the guy — i shit you not — says, “I don’t understand why we get the day off…we shouldn’t have been over there in the first place.” Really guy?!? Over where? I’m not sure if he was being sarcastic and trying to get a rise out of a postal service worker (not advisable) but the look on my face must have been amazing. I couldn’t make this up if i wanted to… moving on.
Last week, i almost made it 400 miles on a tank of gas. Seriously. I went 383 miles on exactly 14 gallons of gas. I have a 14.5 gallon tank, so i could have made it, but in the end it wasn’t worth the risk of running out of gas just to see the dial click over. I drove to Vegas and back which gobbled up 2 tanks of gas over the weekend (but hey! still cheaper than flying!) but made it between 370-390 miles on those tanks as well thanks to freeway driving. This next tank, i’m making it 400. For those of you wondering how this is possible, there is some serious credence to these anecdotes of filling your tires up (less friction, more roll) and coasting everywhere. I’m amazed at how far my car will coast at a decent speed with zero acceleration. When i get off the freeway on the way to work, i can coast almost a mile to the next light and nobody around me is any the wiser. Seriously, try it. Even if you don’t drive stick, just click your transmission up to neutral and roll for a while. The more time you spend at low RPMs, the better gas mileage you get. Genius right? Oh and also, don’t go over 70. Ever. At all. I’ve noticed that my mileage gets completely shot to hell at speeds above 65. Weird, but true.
This is kind of me these days as my team has lost 2 in a row and fallen out of first place: Fantasy Baseball Owner Rips Team in Media
Fun with presidential candidate word association. I wonder how far down “asshole” was for McCain.
Obama will receive the democratic nomination at Mile High Stadium, which reminds me how much i miss football.
Google apparently has issues with its daycare. So that’s 2,797 good things and 1 bad. Ah, how we love to see the mighty fall.
It’s time for the Running of the Bulls again. And as you know, i always root for the bulls.
Jim Carrey found one way to outsmart the paparazzi.
This is a pretty awful story… Did she have health insurance? Could that have played a part?
Last night, in a single-A baseball game, a pitcher that can throw with both arms (a switch pitcher?) faced off against a switch-hitter. The results? Hilarity:
Thanks to SportsbyBrooks for the story.
Filed under: Ayn Rand, Golf, McCain, Spencer Pratt, U.S. Airways, baseball, dbacks, economics, elections, male sexism, myspace
Sorry for another link dump, but there’s a lot going on today that deserves commentary…
Would McCain drop out of the race as a bait and switch?
Apparently Myspace is launching it’s “2.0″ version this Wednesday. They’re getting killed by Facebook and Bebo, but –as i’ve been saying forever — nobody is making any money.
My DBacks are playing terribly. I’m not sure why, but they need to get it together.
The U.S. Open was amazing yesterday — and this is coming from a guy who pretty much despises golf (and played 36 terrible obligatory Father’s Day holes this weekend. For those of you who don’t have to — or don’t want to work today…the playoff is streaming here.
U.S. Airways has announced that it will join the insanity and start charging for checked luggage, and non-alcoholic beverages. Why not just raise ticket prices across the board? Oh, because fewer people can afford to fly and then you couldn’t screw them after they’ve already booked the ticket? Got it.
I always thought this commercial was a funny exaggeration…now? Not so much.
What really chafes me about this airline deal is that they’re openly bending us over, but when they declare bankruptcy in a few months, it’ll be our taxpayer dollars that bail them out again. It’s times like this that i wish Ayn Rand was in charge of the Fed. (If you haven’t read her, her main point is that businesses that don’t adapt deserve to go out of business and will naturally be replaced by businesses that do it better, smarter, more efficiently…even if it causes some mass unemployment/hardship/etc.) This country is definitely having it’s “Who is John Galt” moment right about now…
When i was in college, i took part in a lot of discussions relating to race and gender portrayals in the media. Many of these discussed the role of women in commercials, whether it be the stay-at-home mom making bagel bites or experiencing the joys of a new mop or the beer commercials that make attractive women love you as soon as you open a Bud Light. But lately, i’ve noticed a new breed of commercial, one that portrays the man as absolutely retarded in any social or purchasing situation. The dad is the doofy idiot who is uncool to his children unless he’s buying them something or he’s in constant need of correction from his wife or he’s the beer swilling moron who has to buy his wife something expensive to make up for his obvious shortcomings. How is this acceptable? Or is it just that the men have been so bad to the ladies for so long that we have to sit idly by and take this retribution for a while? (i can’t find these commercials online but the one’s that come to mind are the Toyota Truck commercials, the Verizon mosquito commercial, etc. You know them when you see them.)
And just so we end on a happy note, i just found out what a “Spencer Pratt” is, but apparently he is another semi-famous person who is an absolute waste of oxygen and David Letterman pretty much tells him as much on his show. Enjoy.
I played catcher in little league…but not as well as this kid.
(Also, kudos to his parents for getting him out there. The kid wanted to play and they didn’t try and protect his fragile little feelings…they let him get out their and earn his knocks like kids should. Good for them.)
Filed under: China, Gas Prices, Phoenix Copper Bikes, Spurs, alcohol, bad parents, baseball, basketball, drinking, green, personality issues
I finished another tank of gas last night…this time i traveled 373 miles on 14 gallons for 26.6 mpg. It was a little less than last time but still 3-4 mpg better than i was getting. I’m finding myself glancing down at the odometer more and trying to stretch my miles, almost like a personal challenge to do better and better each tank. My goal is a 400 mile tank…i’m pretty far from it right now, but i think if i coast to a few more lights, i can do it. At first i was worried that driving slow would piss people off (having been a fast driver, slow drivers pissing me off is still very fresh in my memory) but then i realized, “Hey, since when do i give a shit?” So we’ll see how it goes.
You know what else saves gas? Bicycles…keep up the good work Sam.
I think this is the child of the guy who posted the comment on my Gun Control post…
How the F–K do you move 12 million people?!? I guess when your population is over a billion, it’s all relative.
I hate the Spurs with all of my heart. The RiverWalk is a sewage canal…that’s right, i said it.
Great story last night out of baseball where 24-year old Red Sox pitcher and cancer survivor Jon Lester threw a no-hitter.
I’m going to Rocky Point this weekend for some R&R and when i get back from having a Corona permanently attached to my right hand, i’ll be attempting to have my 2nd annual spring detox. For a few months anyway, i’m going to get back after it and see if i can’t shed some weight for the summer, work a little harder at a few goals and improve on some behaviors and relationships that need some work. It did wonders for me last year and i learned a lot…time for a refresher course on those lessons. Of course, i’ll be chronicling the entire thing here right up until i fall off the wagon at this (video of last year here). Wish me luck.
I can’t be certain when this started, but i blame Stuart Scott. As far as i can remember, the first guy with this type of nickname was A-Rod. You know the guy with the purple lips:
and the questionable sexuality:
But when that nickname caught on, they started calling everyone this…anyone who’s last name ended with Rodriguez instantly became “blank”-Rod (including Ivan Rodriguez which sounds a little bit like an Apple brand sex toy to me…) and it expanded from there to J-Roll (Jimmy Rollins), Dice-K, Co-Jack (Conor Jackson) and even K-Rod, even though the guy’s first name is Felix. (yea, i know, K stands for strikeout…still stupid.)
It’s worse in basketball where we have T-Mac, C-Webb, D-Wade, R-Jeff, Q-Rich, J-Rich, J-Kidd, J-Ho, J-Will and J-Chill…
This has proliferated to a point where last night at the Diamondbacks game, i heard someone call Justin Upton, J-UP. That’s the dumbest thing i’ve heard since someone predicted that by 2008 we’d have a woman or a black man as president, i mean, yeah right. (Ed note: Whoops.)
What happened to the great nicknames? The Admiral, Primetime, The Mailman, Clyde “the Glyde”. How about George “The Iceman” Gervin or Frank “Big Hurt” Thomas or “Magic” Johnson?!? His nickname was so good that the casual fan probably doesn’t even know his real first name… How about “Tiny” Archibald or William “The Refigerator” Perry or Dr. J or the Splendid Splinter…i mean, these were good. And they took some creativity.
(I do have to give credit to whoever annointed Ryan Braun as “The Hebrew Hammer”. I love my Jewish fantasy players.)
Taking the “a-rod” way of giving a new guy a nickname is lazy, a disservice to the player and definitely Needs to Die.
