Jocks v. Nerds

The nation (and the Nation) breathlessly watched as Rocket mowed down the Toledo Mud Hens yesterday and proclaimed himself ready to play for his last-place employers. Good times.

After the game, the press conference turned mean and nasty when some reporter (I'm really annoyed than several seconds of research did not reveal his or her name) brought up the fact that Rocket is not universally adored. Quoth Rock:

"If you want to be negative be negative. I'm not a negative person," he said. "You be negative as much as you want. If I stink and I don't pitch well out there, I know I stink. I don't need you tell me that. I have pride in what I do. I'll pull my heart out and set it right there [pointing to the table] for you to see it. When I perform, I've done it. I got that from my mother so if you want to write and these other people want to write negative...everything has to be negative these days. There always had to be a negative. I've always been positive in my life. It won't end. I don't want to be around negative people. So I won't associate myself with those people. So if it makes you feel good to write negative stuff then go ahead but you've never been in the arena. Never been in this arena to understand what it's like. Keep that in mind. People read your column and associate things with me that are not true. I'll answer it as honestly I can so that 10-year old when he reads about won't assume things. You can tell how passionate I am about it. Ok?"

First of all, if you've seen the clip, Rocket starts to get a little misty, pounds the table and bolts. Real Leave It To Beaver stuff. I get the feeling that Rocket wishes he could go back and play in the Fifties, when ballplayers called their managers "Skip" and reporters knew their place. Of course, he'd prefer to take a tackle box full of pills from the Bay Area with him in that time machine, but that's neither here nor there.

What really gets me about this little outburst is that Rocket played the "you've never been in the arena" card. It's as old as he is, maybe older, and that's really old. Every jock who's ever lived has had this feeling. They get better and better, and they receive nothing but adulation and bullshit praise. And then one day some hack, a fat idiot who gets winded climbing the steps to the press box, criticizes them, and they lose it.

Listen, Rock. You're not some fireballing rook in need of Kevin Costner's advice. You've been around the block and you know how this works. You're making $28 million of George Steinbrenner's money for half a season's work. George has never "been in the arena" either, but you resepct what he does, right? Over your career you've earned more money than the GDP of India. And the reason you've banked so much is the fan interest you've created, interest that has been fed by the media you blasted yesterday.

Most of us that write about sports are failed athletes. If we were good athletes we'd still be playing, because that's fun. Writing is work. Even the bullshit that I spew here takes time, Rock, and talent. And a little shot of smack, just to get me through the dark times. It ain't a fuckin' walk in the park. I know you work hard, but that scribe you dissed yesterday does too. After all, he traveled to Scranton to watch you pitch in the minors. And Scranton blows mega-balls.

If you don't like it buy the newspaper--you can afford it. Then you can run whatever "positive" stories you like for all the innocent 10-year-olds out there. Until then deal with it, old man.

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God Bless Ted Nugent

Jesus, I love this country.

Not in the “Love It Or Leave It” nationalistic madman sense, but I really have a deep appreciation for how awesome America is. Sure, our leadership is a mess, and we don’t care about anything of substance, and we have a million problems.

But you can turn on just about any shower faucet in this country and hot water comes out. You can turn on most any TV and find out if your baseball team won a game, and what laws Ron Mexico is currently in violation of (hell, I was in Mexico and I had no idea until Cecil gave me the heads-up). And we have vast quantities of readily available, affordable food that will give you a solid bowel movement the next morning.

Don’t get me wrong, I love me some travel, expecially the international jet-setting my lofty financial setting affords me. But when it comes to the business of being a sports fan (and pooping), I’ll take the good old U.S. of A.

This gives me the opportunity to also say Fuck Canada. My virulent bias against that nation knows no bounds, and I’ve held back long enough. Canada, I hate you and all you stand for. Even if my stupid government lacks the balls to engage in the easily winnable war to overtake your vast resources, I am launching verbal salvos via the House of Georges’ weapons of ass destruction. No longer will your ham/bacon and God-awful music go unpunished.

Enjoy your draft coverage—I’ll remain on the sidelines and leave it to the experts.

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Thank God The Masters Is Over

I suppose we need to wrap this bad bitch up. The Masters Invitational has concluded, and the final round showdown between Booze and Slinger-Re was somethin' spesh. The big surprise is not that Booze prevailed 62-64, but that Tiger Woods did not perform the heavy lifting for this band of heavy drinkers. No, that was left to John Rollins and Rory Sabbatini. To the highlights:

We were all square through five, when former Masters champ Mike Weir dropped a birdie on the sixth hole. Slinger-Re extended the lead to two strokes when both Retief Goosen and David Toms birdied the seventh. Booze took a stroke back on the eighth with Rory Sabbatini’s ridiculous birdie putt, and the fellows went to the turn with Slinger-Re up one.

At the tenth, Toms snared another birdie to push that lead to two strokes. But Booze’s John Rollins took one back on the tough par-four 11th. Both sides parred the 12th, and Tiger Woods tied the score with his eagle on 13. Shockingly, this was Tiger’s only best-ball score for Booze.

Stewart Cink contributed a birdie to the Boozy effort on 14, his only score. This gave Booze his first lead of the day. The two finalists matched scores until 18, when Rollins notched another birdie to give Booze a two-shot win.

The young man took home a couple of bills, assuming any of you deadbeats pay up. Back with more later on everyone’s favorite topic, the Boston Red Sox. By the way, did anyone notice that Zach Johnson’s face is all fucked up? I think his mom fed him applesauce burritos with a slingshot when he was an infant.

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Other Magazines (and by magazines I mean anything but) the HoG Hates

To say enough already redefines understatement. What is not understated is how fricking sick and tired I am of seeing pukefaces like this guy (gay manshades always a must) playing flippin' cards on flippin' television. What. The fuck. Seriously. Please. Make it stop.

I enjoy "Everyone Loves Raymond" reruns about 65,000 times more than even thinking about cards on television. In fact, there are many, many things I enjoy watching on television more than professional poker. If ever there was a better lead-up to a top ten list, I've not yet found it.

Top Ten Television Programs Better Than Poker

10. Star Trek

I've never once seen an episode of this epic program. Even in the days when I inhabited the splendid canyons of the small Colorado town known as Glen Haven, and our television could pick up a fuzzy Denver news station and a Laramie, Wyoming channel that loved to air Star Trek (my roommates -- three girls, two guys, believe it or not -- would gather 'round every evening for back-to-back Trek episodes), I would hole up in my room and not smoke the non-illegal contents similar to secret compartments of a certain Atlanta Falcons quarterback's water bottle, and listen to music. I will go to my grave with pride having never seen an episode of this show and it is far better than cards on television. Even when money's involved.

9. Golf

I used to have a hard time with golf being on television, especially, when as a kid, I'd want my Pops to shoot hoops with me or take me to the batting cages and he would rather watch golf. Talk about a sedative. Since being swirled into the conglomeration of "sports" a la Every Sport Possible Network, the amount of televised golf enraged me further. And I still don't watch it. Probably never will. Even if Lefty's and Tiger's wives spread marshmallow fluff all over each other's labias, and then cleansed one another while their husbands chipped and putted, I wouldn't watch it. Okay. Maybe I would. But I would so not like it.

8. Dawson's Creek

I don't know what this show is, who was on it, when it was aired, or what it was about. But it winds up in a lot of punch lines and, therefore, is way better than cards on television.

7. Curling

This, and I use this term loosely, sport is so totally gay. But at least they move. Do poker players ever even get up to piss? I think your entry fee must include a bucket to urinate in. Maybe they should get these athletes hammered before the matches. Then maybe there'd be some fighting or debauchery or something. I'm not sure if curling is ever on television when not featured in the Olympics, but it'd be a sure-fire guarantee to be more interesting than geeks with shades exchanging chips.

6. Womens Sports

Give me one of 'em, give me all of 'em. WNBA, NCAA women's hoops, fast pitch softball, women's hockey, I don't care. I'd have to train myself to sleep with my eyes open to count it as watching, but it would rule. Sleep totally trumps cards on television.

5. Sex & the City

There're two things I know about this show: a) chicks talk about banging and get banged on it, and b) chicks get together to watch it, thus freeing up the man from familial obligation. If that ain't better than nerds playing Hold 'Em, I don't know what is.

4. Scrambled Church Programs

You know those channels that always have hard-to-hear/see religious broadcasts? Sure you do. They're in that string of channels you always blast past to get to something real. I'd much rather get my fuzzy God on than watch poker on ESPN.

3. Soap Operas

Nothing spells awful broadcasting better than an early afternoon of television. But if you're watching a soap, you at least know you're not doing what you're supposed to, i.e. work. That, by default claims precedence over broadcasting a high-tempered match of cards.

2. The NBA

The number one source for ruining sports, the ideals of today's youth, the concept of a college education, and Kevin Harlan stomps out cards in a head-to-head match.

1. Arena Football

Not only is this actually, retarded as it might be, a sport, it's far more entertaining than watching people waste their lives at a hexagonal table. And when I say entertaining, I mean specifically for the blind/hearing impaired.

What a perfect segueway to my next thing of hate.

What better to embody a great concept ruined than the AFL. What was wrong with letting the NFL have its Europe league and not watching all that great Canadian football? This league licks sweaty sac. Perennially. I'm not interested in ignoring a good idea like offsides. I couldn't care less if each team scores 50 points. And I certainly don't give a fuck if the freaking wall hurts. Shut the fuck up. Stop wasting space in my newspaper. Please. Act like the plague and die quickly and in mass numbers. Wait. What's that you say? A former Kansas City Chief owns the Brigade? Well, maybe I should not be so ignorant. Maybe I should go support his club since he used to play for the best franchise in the nation. Who is it? Oh. Right. Captain Ass Clown. Sure. I'll support him and his enemy ring-laden fingers. Just as soon as I get done scouring my retinas with a rusty stainless steel scrubber.





Surely, lone reader must be thinking, there can't be room for any more hate in you. Oh, but there is, lone reader. There is. And it's this pig of a woman:

I beg you. Please. Die. Well, not really. We wouldn't actually want anyone to die. That would be awful and inhumane. Instead of dying, how about moving far away, as in to the proverbial ends of the earth, where you will no longer taint, alter, or ruin things the rest of the world considers funny. Because you, Miss Lampanelli, are the antithesis of funny. For those of you not interested in stereotypical, generalized, offensive statements, please turn your head for the following lines. Or just skip the entire paragraph that follows.

I've been watching stand-up comedy for a little over 21 years. I watched Ellen deGeneres on stage before she could legally drink, I think. I listened to the, how shall I put this, unique voice of Judy Tenuda. I stayed tuned in to the two or three times that Rita Rudner graced a stage with her presence. I've watched the waves of the new comediennes come and go on Comedy Central. I've clicked on their links on the Internets. And I'm far from an expert on this bit, but suffice it to say that women, as comics, are not funny. Forgive me. There's no other way to say that. But it's the cold, hard truth. God, the cliches are coming out of me like PBR shits. For real, though. I gotta give it to them for continuing to try. They deserve props for that. I'm a believer that women can do anything men can. With an asterisk, that is. Perhaps I will see the day when I experience gut-busting laughs like the ones good comedians (and by good comedians, I include only those with testicles -- unless LL has male genitalia, which she might -- in which case I'll rephrase to include those that appear to be men) deliver. But I doubt it. Gravely.

But Miss Lampanelli is the newest thing. And she embodies everything not funny. In her latest CC special "Dirty Girl," she did make one funny. It was a crack about a certain ethnicity's tipping habits. After the joke, she went right back into her universe of non-funny. And I'm here to tell you that she must go. Away. Now. Having said that, lone reader, I will now close the chapter of hate. For today.

As soon as I'm done voicing one last beef. This is total and complete horseshit. I too can craftily create good places to rub one out when not within the comforts of my own home. I like free burritos. I can coach basketball. What the fuck? Just when I didn't need to hate any more, I have to add a crappy Mexican restaurant chain to the list. Christ. Forgive me. I'm done. And I must now go pay hard-earned dollars for a flippin' burrito. Maybe the beans won't be too runny, and Zach Greinke will be there. With his special-mouthed girlfriend. That could totally cleanse me of hatred.

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Ron Mexico Jerseys Don't Get You Free Wi-Fi in the ATL Airport

Mirroring the sentiments of my colleague, today holds no time for bullshit. Lucky for sports fans, every other day of the year does. In a brief layover en route to Cancun to attend a wedding of one of the future Mrs. Bankmeister's friends, I offer these kind sentiments.

As the always-lame National Bitch Association's season drags the holy term professional through another muddy season, hoops chatter orbits around the Mayor of Homoville. I really enjoy continuing to hear about what a "team" effort last year's 81-point outing was. And how it was totally better than Wilt's hundo. Thrilling. Seriously. With the draft around the corner (I think the four-letter network starts coverage tomorrow), NHL playoffs on the horizon, and Opening Day drawing nearer, I really hope that Dr. Douche Bag's L.A. crew makes a real streak out of these recent wins. 'Cause I be needin' me a Kobe fix like nothin' else.

In other entirely pounded-into-the-ground news, Papelbon won't start this season for the Beantowners. Who flippin' cares? Bullpens and rotations mix it up all season long every year. Make the announcement. Move on.

Tubby Smith will mark the third black man to take up residence in the state of Minnesota; New Mexico -- do they actually have sports in the Land of Enchantment -- got a new coach; Tony LaRussa agreed to help David Wells "seriously cut down on his alcohol consumption"; Royals' hurler Zach Greinke is legitimately crazy (I especially love the parts where he talks ad nauseum about Chipotle, his girlfriend's "special mouth", and Justin Timberlake); the Big XII remains represented in the tourney; and Matt Schaub is a Texan. Yes. A Texan.

For real. Nice work passing on Reggie Bush and Vince Young so that you could afford to pay David Carr more undeserved American dollars. That's some stellar business. Who's steering that ship? HoG has its ideas. Meantime, I'll have another tequila. Salud. Read more