Friday Morning Fracas: 8-15-08

Happy Friday, dear readers. Hopefully you've got the day off. I, however, do not. I'm pretty stoked about that, too. Before returning to the grind, I've taken the liberty of compiling a few links to a few stories, few of which matter, most of which are entertaining in some form or another. At least to me. Enjoy.

There are but a few lug nuts left on the RoyalsMobile, and I sense that the series that opens today against the Yankees could be one of the ruts that make the wheels come fully off. The Yankees aren't playing terrific baseball, and the rest of the regular season schedule doesn't appear to be too tough for KC, yet that seems to matter little. Granted, I'm secretly happy that it's the middle of August and I'm feeling this way, as opposed to the middle of May. It's not a lot of fun to watch the Royals continue to struggle against the tougher teams in the bigs. It's even less fun to watch them get clobbered in a series sweep, one in which they net two total runs. Two. Could it get less fun than that? You bet. Try four consecutive homeruns in the sixth inning of the series finale. Sweet times.

But the least fun of all, is listening to a pinhead White Sox fan (a writer no less) make up some stupid shit about the Royals. Like, oh, I dunno, John over at Bugs & Cranks. His nonsense here. And by "stupid shit," I mean the lead paragraph.

All that aside, it will in fact be time to get out the bandwagon gear, and my rootage will stick to the middle part (Sorry, Cecil) of the country. Also, our womanbloggercrush Sooze thinks that CC will beat out BWizzle for the NL Cy Young.

(Steal Your BrewFace link courtesy of With Leather)

Kissing Suzy Kolber's Big Daddy Drew publishes a column called Balls Deep every Friday over channel Deadspin. It's almost always an original topic, and certainly always a great read. Yesterday's Piece, "The Hater's Guide to the Top 25" is no exception. Pretty darn good topic, great read. Only for once, I found myself at odds with BDD. I come from a Notre Dame family, thus by default I love the school, and its sports programs. Do I closely follow them every year? No. Am I aware that there is a shitton of ND haters out there? Painfully. Now, I know that the impetus here is humor, but come on:

"Oh, what I would give just to watch Touchdown Jesus burn… BURN TO THE FUCKING GROUND, and to have its dying embers be put out by gallons upon gallons of stale horse urine, and to see NBC terminate its contract with the school, and to have the school fall into a terrible downward spiral, even go bankrupt. I hate them randomly and without motive, which is what makes hating them all the more delightful. God, you fucking suck, Notre Dame. You and your big, fat, white, arrogant orca of a coach. Eat shit. Eat shit and die."

Trust me: I see some funny in there, that kind of funny that stings a teense because it's your team being made fun of. I do find it odd, however, that a guy that jokes frequently about his own fatness can only come up with fat-guy jokes for Charlie Weis and the football coach of my other favorite college:

"13. Kansas

I think we all know Mark Magino far prefers the Sugar Bowl to the Orange Bowl. I once heard that, while waiting for an appetizer, the coach consumed every pack of Sugar In The Raw at his table. Then he ate the busboy."

The Big Lead leads us to You Been Blinded, who has a story about Joe Torre asking Manny Ramirez to cut his hair. Please. Make it stop. I'm begging you.

The Kansas City Star's Joe Posnanski, a.k.a. the Human Word Machine, has been in ill. In China. Covering the Olympics. Odd, unfortunate combo says I. What rules, however, is his unfaltering ability to continue to produce and produce and produce. Like this post, for example, wherein he talks about the misconception of baseball players padding stats, Phil Collins, and the Chinese government monitoring the GoreTubes, all in one post. Amazing.

Finally, Awful Announcing has officially disturbed me by linking to this video that has officially shattered everything associated with my foundation as a human being.

That said, I must bid farewell, and set out into the world, to once more, attempt to understand it.