- Father Time will ultimately win the battle, but Ichiro
Suzuki isn't making it easy on him. The seemingly ageless outfielder. Who
reached 3,000 hits this season, becoming the 30th player in major league
history to do so, will be back with the Miami Marlins next season after the
team picked up his 2017 option this week. Suzuki is baseball’s unofficial
all-time hit king, having racked up 1,278 hits in nine seasons of professional
baseball in Japan, and is 15th on the all-time hits list for Major League
Baseball with 3,030 hits. At the age of 42, he batted .291 in 143 games and
playing that many games at his age - let alone doing so with a National League
team where taking it easy as a designated hitter most of the time isn't an
option - and being that productive is another amazing feat for a dude who has
made a career out of accomplishing what seems impossible for even the best
athletes. His unorthodox, running-through-the-batter’s-box swing has remained
the same as he’s aged and Suzuki is still a competent outfielder in a league
where a lot of guys make a living as subpar defensive players simply because
they swing the bat well. Age usually means a drop-off for players, but anyone
thinking Ichiro will be a shell of his former self next season is probably in
for a big surprise. Keep swinging and keep defying the clock, I…….
- Being a dining hall worker at Harvard probably isn't the
most enjoyable job. You’re making close to minimum wage, you’re surrounded by a
bunch of rich, entitled students whose families are worth a sh*t-ton of money
and those students will most likely go on the earn six-figure salaries or more
for the rest of their lives after graduating. Serving them meat loaf, mashed
potatoes and dinner rolls and knowing their car is worth more than you’ll make
in a year likely doesn’t feel good….so here’s to the dining hall workers at
Harvard who have gone on strike over wages and health care benefits. This
underpaid uprising started after months
of negotiations by the dining workers' union, Unite Here Local 26, and Harvard
administrators, failed to lead to a new contract and saw dozens of workers
picketing at the Ivy League school in the morning. According to the union, the
university's health care proposals are unaffordable to the workers, but the
school contends that the workers already receive generous wages and benefits
when compared to other food service workers in the region and that changes to
health plans are "modest." The strike forced the temporary closure of
some Harvard dining halls, but others remain open and the university says it
has a contingency plan to make sure that all students are fed. Yes, because
these poor Harvard kids can't just ask mommy and daddy to send them a few
thousand dollars to make a run to Whole Foods to stock them up for a few
weeks…….
- Kid Cudi went to war with Kanye West, but it appears the
Cleveland rapper is fighting a much tougher foe than the egomaniacal
rapper/fashion designer/attention whore that is Mr. Kim Kardashian. Kid Cudi,
a.k.a. Scott Mescudi, revealed that he has entered a rehabilitation center
after suffering from "depression and suicidal urges.” He recently made
headlines after calling out Drake and former mentor West in a series of tweets
and West claimed to be hurt and that he had essentially given birth to Cudi’s
career. He later offered an olive branch to Cudi, calling him his
"brother" and the "most influential artist of the past 10
years.” Cudi posted a statement on Facebook in which he describes feeling
"ashamed" about his struggles with depression, before promising to
"be back, stronger, better." It was a real, raw moment that erased
the line between public figure/entertainer and human being. “It's been
difficult for me to find the words to what I'm about to share with you because
I feel ashamed. Ashamed to be a leader and hero to so many while admitting I've
been living a lie,” he wrote. “It took me a while to get to this place of
commitment, but it is something I have to do for myself, my family, my best
friend/daughter and all of you, my fans." Later, Cudi said he’d checked
into rehab the previous day and that he was “not at peace.” He claimed he would
have harmed himself had he not checked into rehab and described himself as “a
damaged human swimming in a pool of emotions everyday of my life.” Maybe some
day all of this will be material for a very real, raw album that connects with
fans on a deeper level, but for now, it’s about a troubled guy who needs to get
his mind right……..
- It was…..murder. This one has all the makings of a great
crime novel, but instead it’s a story about one man’s murderous quest to own a
rare copy of "The Wind in the Willows." According to prosecutors, Michael
Danaher plotted for months to kill book dealer Adrian Greenwood and steal his
$64,000 first edition of Kenneth Grahame's 1908 children's classic, which could
be a movie or book plot - or simply the delusional scheming of a subpar
criminal mind who decided that a book worth $64,000 was worth risking him
ruining the rest of his life. Believe it or not, the plan didn’t go off without
a hitch and Danaher is now accused of stabbing and beating Greenwood, who was
found dead at his Oxford home in April. It’s a tale borne out of financial
trouble for Danaher, who was in deep fiscal waters and allegedly targeted
Greenwood after seeing the book for sale on eBay. Despite a mountain of
evidence against him, Danaher’s defense is that he killed Greenwood, but only
in self-defense. Prosecutor Oliver Saxby argued otherwise in an Oxford court,
saying that after Danaher killed Greenwood, he walked away from the bloody
attack almost unscathed, "as cool as you like, he helped himself to that
first edition of 'The Wind in the Willows,' and Adrian Greenwood’s phone, and
his laptop and his wallet." Those words paint a chilling image as well as
a prosecutor who just might aspire to turn this tale into a great crime novel
some day and pad what’s probably a relatively paltry prosecutor’s salary with a
little extra revenue from being a best-selling author whose book gets turned
into a feature film and stars Benedict Cumberbatch in the leading role……..
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