Hey, remember when white people rioted over the O.J. Simpson verdict? You don't? Oh, right, nobody actually rioted. Nobody threatened to shut down a city.
Twelve people-supposedly-like-you-and-me (though statistically likely to be a bit dumber) will sometimes come to really goofy unexpected conclusions. What on Earth anyone else is supposed to do about this is beyond me. Except maybe to pay the publicity whores the "hey look at me!" tax.
Aside to Barack Obama: Hey, tired of being smeared by your association (tenuous or not) with various lefty kooks? Now's your perfect opportunity; you know exactly what to do and whom to rebuke.
(In no particular order)
Radio interviewers who take way too much time (and too many words) to ask an athlete a question, especially when the second half of the question is all but giving the guy's answer for him. He's already taking time out to talk to us listeners, why make him wait even longer to open his mouth?
People at large restaurant tables who are too busy with whatever conversation they're in to recognize the name of their main course when the harried waitstaff brings it out. "Santa Fe chicken? Santa Fe chicken?" And then just when the waitstaff are about to give up, Mr. Talky finally gets a clue. "Oh yeah, that's mine."
1. Google "Frank Thomas" pillow fight site:youtube.com -- you will see my favorite baseball promotional ad ever.
2. One of the Related Videos will involve Lyle Overbay -- click on that
2a. Another Related Video somewhere in there will involve Torii Hunter -- this doesn't relate to the post at hand but you should watch that as well
3. One of the Related Videos to the Overbay promo will bill itself as "bouquet catch of the year." It really isn't, though it's not bad.
4. The videos related to that take you into "I want that minute of my life back!" territory.
Anyway, welcome back.
Dear Sesame Street,
Please make this happen, if it hasn't already:
"A-B-C-D-E-F-G, H-I-J-K-L-M-N and O!"
"A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H, I-J-K-L-M-N-O-P-Q!"
"The Padres' Greg Maddux will make his second attempt at joining the elite 350-victory club against the Giants."
--photo caption on Yahoo! Sports' MLB front page
I hear if the season goes especially well for him, later this summer he might get to take a crack at joining the elite 360-victory club.
Here's some business news, with a topical Onion chaser.
Greg is probably right: Nothing in this series will measure up to Tarzan Boy.
That said, if dancing Rick Astley needs a mate with a flexible neck, you know where to send him.
Quoting Joe Sheehan:
"I discovered yesterday that the Yankees don’t play on Labor Day, which seems silly. Looking deeper, it appears that MLB is continuing to kill the tradition of holiday baseball. There are 11 games on Memorial Day, just five of them in the daytime, one of those in Toronto. Labor Day features 10 games, eight of them during the day.
Everybody plays on July 4, but that’s only because it’s a Friday. Six of those games are scheduled for the daytime, although a handful of others have late-afternoon or early-evening starts, presumably to allow for fireworks.
I’m sure there are reasons for this trend, but you would think that an industry that so desperately tries to connect itself to its past in some ways would embrace the idea of an American pastime on American holidays, baseball in the sunshine on a Monday afternoon as a means of kicking off the summer or ending it."
I realize Monday and Thursday are both frequent travel days for teams, but having that many teams miss a major holiday is outrageous.
(Fun Labor Day schedule quirk: When the A's had their 20-game winning streak in 2002, they began a series against the Royals on Labor Day, but took the Tuesday off.)
Inaugurating a new series, inspired by this article. When someone sent that out at work, I took a stab at finding ten Rickroll successor candidates in two minutes. It was pretty hit or miss.
So the ground rules:
1. Whatever I link to has to have received actual radio airplay (or TV, but it must be a song, or pose as such).
2. I promise it won't be "OK Go" or any existing stupid meme, nor anything NSFW.
Without further ado, here we go.
Part 2 might be tomorrow if I remember to link something.
I'd forgotten about this until now, but during Friday's Cardinals-Giants game, Dave Flemming cited as evidence of Troy Glaus's struggles the fact that he was recently replaced in a double-switch for the first time in his major league career.
I remember hoping someone reminded Flem that there's a better explanation for why that particular double-switch was Glaus's first. On further review I suppose it at least shows that Glaus was highly thought-of in 2005.
"Only an idiot" would publicly call out the people he's hired to make his company succeed. If they're not doing what you want them to do, fire them; either way, nobody cares what you think.