- This is going to be absolutely hilarious. There’s no other way that the New York Mets hiring Rickey Henderson as the team’s hitting coach can play out other than intense, prolonged, off-the-charts unintentional comedy. Rickey is an absolutely priceless gem, a mix of arrogance, self-promotion, goofiness and brashness that has produced more memorable moments than I have time and space to recount. The funniest Rickey story came when Henderson was playing in Toronto and approached notoriously quiet and reclusive first baseman John Olerud in the locker room. Olerud was well known for wearing a plastic batting helmet in the field instead of a baseball cap like every other player, and Rickey took notice of the oddity. He walked up to Olerud and said, more or less: “I used to play with a guy in New York who wore a batting helmet like that in the field.” To which Olerud replied, “Yeah, I know Rickey, that was me.” Rickey has never been the best with names, but how utterly classic that he played with this huge, unique white guy wearing a batting helmet in New York and wasn’t able to remember that same guy when they played together again. Of course, Rickey is also famous for the day he broke baseball’s career stolen base record and with former record holder Lou Brock in attendance, treated Brock with about one one-millionth of the respect he deserved. Upon stealing the record-setting base, Rickey ripped the base from the ground, held it aloft over his head and declared, “Lou Brock was a great player, but today……..I am the greatest of all time.” Thanks for the humility, Rick. Now this guy who can’t remember people’s names and is one of the most glory-hungry showboats ever is going to be the hitting coach for a team in NYC?
- Thanks for joining the party, China. Seeking to restore confidence in its exported products, the Chinese government has banned diethylene glycol, a thickening agent in antifreeze, from use in toothpaste. There have been multiple scares with toxic toothpaste coming from China in recent months, necessitating recalls and creating a minor panic in places where the toxic toothpaste was distributed. Weirdly, most people aren't down with using a product containing an ingredient that can cause kidney failure, paralysis and death. Diethylene is sometimes used as a low-cost substitute for glycerin, a sweetener commonly found in toothpaste and food products. However, I think we can all agree that spending a little more on glycerin as opposed to diethylene glycol is preferable to a death-causing toothpaste any day. Zero points for the Chinese for doing something they should have done years ago. It shouldn’t take a major international outcry and health scare for you to do the right thing, jerks.
- I’m remiss for not mentioning this yesterday, when the memory of Tuesday night’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game was fresh in my mind: Tim McCarver is an idiot. The man is a walking, (barely) talking billboard for the onset of dementia, yet FOX keeps trotting him out there to broadcast major sporting events. Examples from Tuesday night’s game include McCarver explaining to us in the top of the 2nd inning that a catcher cannot practice his swing while he's on the field catching………umm, thanks for the brilliant insight Tim. Also, he marveled at Alfonso Soriano’s home-run power despite weighing only 160 lbs., apparently electing to ignore the fact that Soriano is listed at 180 lbs. Then late in the game, FOX showed a fan in the stands wearing an exaggeratedly grotesque pirate costume, complete with a giant mask front with a Gene Simmons-esque tongue hanging out. McCarver took a good five seconds to react to the shot at then started laughing in this weird, disturbing, mentally unstable chuckle, leading to an awkward exchange with broadcasting partner Joe Buck, who covered by jokingly asking if it was difficult for McCarver to make a salient baseball observation while looking at the man in the pirate costume. No Joe, it’s just difficult for McCarver to make a salient point, period, baseball-related or otherwise. Maybe for the playoffs, FOX will team Buck up with a more competent, sane and intelligent partner, perhaps Knut the Polar Bear Cub from Germany or Bozo the Clown. Either way, I can't take any more McCarver.
- I shouldn’t have to tell people that if and when you strike a pedestrian with your car and that person becomes lodged in your windshield, you need to stop the car and get the person out of the windshield. After all, it’s not like hitting a bug that splatters and leaves a tiny spot on the glass; people tend to leave large, bloody holes in the windshield when you hit them. My main man Steve Warrichaiet of Green Bay, Wisconsin doesn’t seem to be aware of this protocol, because when he struck two pedestrians with his vehicle and one of them became lodged in the windshield, he continued driving home. Not surprisingly, the man who was lodged in the windshield died, while the second pedestrian, a woman, is in critical condition. You may recall an incident a couple years ago in Houston where a nurse hit a hobo with her car, drove home and left the hobo there to suffer and die while she went inside to have sex with her boyfriend. At least Warrichaiet didn’t emulate that performance, but that’s probably because he was drunk at the time and likely went inside and fell asleep. I hafta ask, though, did no one try to get Warrichaiet’s attention when they passed him on the road? “Hey, yo, man, you know you’ve got a man lodged in your windshield.” People gesture and shout when you leave your blinker on or if you have a tail light burned out, how does no one notice a dude lodged in a windshield? And I know Green Bay residents are well-known for loving their alcohol and being able to hold their liquor, but if you’re too hammered to deal with the situation when you strike two pedestrians with your car, then clearly you should not be driving. The legal limit may officially be .08, but I think we can all agree that “Too Drunk to Help a Guy Lodged in My Windshield” is also an acceptable standard for determining one’s capability to operate a motor vehicle. So for future reference, if you strike a pedestrian, hobo or otherwise, with your vehicle, the proper response is: A) Drive home, leave the person in the windshield and go have sex with your boyfriend/girlfriend, B) Drive home, leave person lodged in your windshield and go sleep off your bender, or C) Stop car immediately, remove person from windshield and call 911………yes, C is the correct choice, well done!
- Remember that thrilling 8-4 season that the University of Oklahoma football team put together in 2005? Really? You do? If you think you remember that season, I’m sorry to tell you that you’re dead wrong because as of yesterday, that season officially did not happen. The NCAA has forced OU to vacate its results from 2005 as a part of the punishment for rule violations involving former players Rhett Bomar and J.D. Quinn. Bomar and Quinn were found to have been paid for time they did not work at the Big Red Sports and Imports car dealership in Norman. The players and their supervisor at the dealership, Brad McRae, engaged “in a deliberate scheme to deceive both the employer's payroll system and the university's employment monitoring system in an attempt to violate NCAA rules of which they were real aware,” an NCAA report stated. Quinn and Bomar were both suspended from the team before last season and have since moved on, but OU is still bearing the weight of their indiscretions. Oklahoma must erase its wins from the 2005 season and will lose two scholarships for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, the NCAA said Wednesday. And some of you still doubt me when I say that to be a top-notch, powerhouse college football program you need to stock your roster with cheats, criminals, rule breakers and miscreants……….
- Not sure how many of you caught the series premiere of the new ABC Family show Greek, but I watched parts of the pilot and it was surprisingly watchable. I didn’t see enough to give a definitive verdict, but the show will re-air Friday on ABC, so I’m going to give it a watch all the way through and suggest that you do the same. ABC Family has in the past been a repost of older shows from networks like the CW, WB and ABC, which was fine by me because it gave me a chance to re-watch old episodes of Smallville, Gilmore Girls and Everwood. However, the network has begun focusing more on developing its own original programming, leading to crappy shows (Lincoln Heights), good ones (Kyle XY) and other mediocre ones. Greek looks like it might be the best of the bunch, so tune in or set your DVR for ABC tomorrow at 9 p.m. and see for yourself. The normal air time for the new episodes will be 9 p.m. Mondays, so watch and see what you think.
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