- I loves me a good conspiracy theory, so you’d better believe I’m down with it when the agent for Minnesota pitcher Francisco Liriano is alleging that the team is refusing to called him client up to the big leagues because it wants to keep him from accumulating the valuable service time that would qualify him for free agency. Agent Greg Genske has asked the players’ union to investigate why Liriano remains in Triple-A Rochester despite his 7-0 record and 2.73 ERA in his past nine starts. “I think that Francisco is dominating down there,” Genske said Thursday. "The club concedes that as well. We're a little frustrated he hasn't been called up.” As a bit of back story, Liriano isn't some kid who has never succeeded at the Major League level and is just being a big baby. He was selected to the AL All-Star team during his rookie season in 2006 and finished the season 12-3 with a 2.16 ERA and 144 strikeouts in 121 innings before arm problems prematurely ended his year. He then had Tommy John surgery on Nov. 6, 2006, and missed all of last season while recovering. He thought he back to his normal level of play coming out of spring training this season, but went 0-3 with an 11.32 ERA in April and was sent down to the minors. Now he’s found his stride and should be back in the big leagues, but the team isn't calling him up. Twins GM Bill Smith said the decision to keep Liriano at Triple-A has nothing to do with keeping him from accruing the three years in the big leagues that qualify a player qualifies for arbitration. Liriano currently has two years and 45 days, so you can see why his agent might be suspicious. Even though the Twins have been one of the best teams in baseball in the first half of the season, they can’t in good conscience defend not calling up Liriano. Yes, their young rotation that has exceeded expectations, with guys like Scott Baker, Glen Perkins, Nick Blackburn and keeping the Twins 1½ games behind the White Sox in the AL Central race. One man in the rotation who isn't pulling his ample, ever-growing weight is veteran Livan Hernandez, who is 9-6 with a 5.44 ERA and is on pace to become the first pitcher since Phil Niekro in 1979 to allow more than 300 hits in a season. Rather than bringing up their most talented pitcher and one of baseball’s best young arms when he’s pitching his best, the Twins are electing to keep him in freaking Rochester. They could open a spot in the rotation or put him into the bullpen, but so far they’ve chosen neither. Right, because why would you want a guy who hasn't allowed an earned run in his past three starts and has 24 strikeouts and three walks during that same span.
“The kid's doing great. He's doing fantastic. I'm really happy for him,” Smith said. “I'm confident that he's going to make a big impact on this club in the near future.” In other words, when you can squeeze an extra year out of him before he’s eligible for arbitration and you’d have to pay him what he’s worth, Bill. Thank you, Greg Genske, for providing this great conspiracy theory to chew on, I don’t even care how much merit it has. Bring up Francisco! Bring up Francisco!
- Today brings bad, bad news for desperate, past-your-prime, gossiping middle-aged women everywhere. The more myopic among this group may have thought that their beloved TV show Desperate House-tramps would go on and on and on. As the series heads into its fifth season this fall, it’s still scoring well with the aforementioned demographic. However, show creator and executive producer Marc Cherry revealed at a recent meeting of the Television Critics Association that his most popular show will last only three more seasons. The seventh season, which would air in 2010-11, will be the swan song for the primetime soap opera. “I love working with these gals (the cast), but the idea of letting anyone take the show over from me kind of makes me sad and sick to my stomach,” Cherry said. “Let’s go out while people still like us.” Hey Marc, I don’t like you now, nor do any non-gay, non-whipped dudes out there. Can you just do us a favor and go away right now, save us three more years of incessant promos hyping your overrated show? That’d be super….
- A booming economy should be a good thing for a country, right? Theoretically, the answer would be yes eight days a week. In practice, a thriving economy has proven to be a big problem for Russia in that it has created an equally thriving illegal sex trade in the country. Women and even children are being kidnapped and forced into prostitution or enticed to come to Moscow by offers of an education or good job before being forced into prostitution by local gangs. The women line up at various pickup points around Moscow each night, as many as 30 of them lines up on streets in order of their price for the night. Yes, these women are organized like t-shirts on the discount rack at TJ Maxx, lowest to highest in price. Why not just slap color-coded shirts on them as well, like the color-coded tags at the thrift store indicating which items are on sale today? I know prostitution is demeaning and dehumanizing as is, but do you need to compound that even further by lining the hookers up by price? How do you decide where along the price continuum a woman falls anyhow? Her age? Weight? Number of previous partners? Are there some women who are cheaper in a 2-for-1 package deal? As it turns out, the cost falls between $100 and $700 on a given night. Russian police readily concede that human trafficking is going on for the purpose of sexual slavery, but say they don’t have the resources to combat the detestable practice. Thankfully, an organization called the Angel Coalition exists and it is working feverishly to help free and rehabilitate women and children from forced prostitution. This is a great group and one you would do well to support. Just try to imagine the state of those they are trying to help and you absolutely cannot help but feel sympathy for them. The image of these women, lined up on a street corner with 30 others in high heels and brightly colored miniskirts, being forced into having sex with creepy weirdos is just disgusting, period.
- Believe it or not, “Mamma Mia!” is a bad movie. Many fans and critics have seemingly gotten so wrapped up in the fact that a movie musical with big names in its cast has been made that they’ve paid no attention to the movie itself. Ironically, continuing to pay no attention to the movie itself is probably the only way you’re going to enjoy this stink-bomb of a film. Meryl Streep, Christine Baranski and Christine Walters have had some great acting performances among them, but this is not one of them for any of the three. For a movie set on a sunny, remote Greek island, this is a remarkably depressing film. No, not the plot; the movie itself. The plot is, of course, a girl getting married and three of her mother’s former lovers showing up at the wedding with each of them potentially being her father. Not a great plot, but it could work with good writing, singing and choreography. Unfortunately, this movie features the music of ABBA, one of the biggest blights on the history of music. Swedish pop groups from the ‘70s whose music is bad even by dance/techno music standards should be buried and forgotten, not revived and featured in major motion pictures. I don’t even know a better word to describe ABBA’s music than bad, because that just encapsulates every song they’ve ever done. Their lyrics are lame, their beats synthesized and artificial and their melodies soft, sorry and lacking any edge at all. Taking that bad music as a foundation and adding sloppy, unprofessional choreography that looks like a gaggle of drunken sorority girls stumbling home from a Saturday night party during an earthquake all but assures a bad film. So guys out there, a word of warning: if your wife, fiancée or girlfriend tries to drag you to see this movie, stand your ground. I know most times you cave in and give her what she wants, but I promise you that this is one occasion where standing firm will be the wisest possible choice. Your significant other will thank you once she realizes how terrible this movie really is.
- Sometimes in life you actually do get what you deserve. Take noted hooker/aspiring pop music legend Ashley Dupre, the skank at the center of the prostitution scandal that forced former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer to resign. After numerous escapades with Spitzer, Dupre was revealed to be his tramp of choice when police busted the prostitution ring that employed her and the case went to trial. Dupre attempted to use her newfound infamy to launch a singing career despite the fact that her voice actually makes Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson look like accomplished, world-class vocalists by comparison. Her flameout of a musical career was followed by her next desperate grasp at holding on to her 15 minutes of fame: a lawsuit against “Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis for allegedly using footage of Dupre when she was only 17 in a GGW video. That suit has since been dropped by Dupre, who either got the attention she wanted out of it or ran out of money to pay her legal fees. Now Dupre is the one being sued, with the plaintiff being a New Jersey woman who claims that Dupre used her lost driver’s license to create a false identity for her “Girls Gone Wild” appearance. Amber Arpaio, 26, claims that she lost her license and that it later showed up when Dupre flashed it in the footage she shot in one of the GGW trailers in Miami Beach. At the time Dupre was 17, but the license she used bore Arpaio’s name and showed her to be in her 20s. According to the suit, Apraio doesn’t remember exactly when she lost the license (hard to believe) and she also doenst know Dupre. That isn't stopping her from suing Dupre for an undisclosed amount because of what she calls defamation and invasion of privacy. The suit was filed in U.S. Distrcit Court in Trenton and a similar suit was also filed against “Girls Gone Wild” founder Joe Francis. Like I said at the start, sometimes when you’re an attention-starved slut who uses a false identity, works as a hooker and then tries to make money off of your sluttiness, you get what you deserve….
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