In What Universe Do the Knicks Have the Assets to Get Carmelo Anthony?; Also, unappealing Spam commercial; and Dreary Looking Public Plaza for Brooklyn Nets' Barclays Center

Take a look at the Knick present and future. Exciting, eh? I think they've got that 8th seed ON LOCK.

Peter Vescey keeps regulating shop with his blistering column on Melo's future in Tuesday's Post.

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The Knicks simply don't have the required assets. The nerve of those Nuggets (and other concerned parties) to exact something of value in return!
"If the Knicks had their first-round draft picks, Carmelo already would be at camp scrimmaging with them," a rival team executive said.

Donnie Walsh's reckless decision last February to turn over the team's 2012 prime real estate (protected 1-5 through 2015; if not conveyed by then to the Rockets, it translates into two seconds) optimistically to amass enough cap space to entice two mega free agents unexpectedly has come back to haunt the Knicks before the team president could finish his first term of office. What was the rush? Rod Thorn waited until late June to accrue more space for the Nets -- the dumping of Yi Jianlian, for instance.
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 This proposed plaza in front of the future Barclays Center in Brooklyn looks like a lovely spot in which to contemplate life's meaningless and nothingness. But hey, as long as it gets built and opens.
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No doubt, Spam's a hard product to advertise, at the very least this commercial shies away from unappealing close-ups. Spam Up!

White Wizzard The Latest....(and Greatest?) Savious of Metal? Met-al.

Most Excellent tunes, even more excellent videos. White Wizzard is the band, they talk a big game that's f'sure, but "Over the Top," is required viewing.

Apple Juice+Honda Civic+Jazz=The Ultimate Wackness.

Biz-Man Ray's Forest Hills Tornado Photos----The Remix

Biz took some amazing photos of the Forest Hills tornado last week; I've remixed some of them. I've also included my personal fave of the pics he took, one of an ill-looking Station Square.

Hector:  And you're sitting at home doing this shit? I should be earning a
  medal for this. Stop fucking around and be a man, there ain't nothing out
  here for you...

ZORO:    Oh yes there is...this! 

 You can't stop the prophet.

 Defend Q-boro.

Shoulda bought a Chevy.

It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under...

-woop-woop- That's the sound of da police.

The storm accomplished what Howie, Edotage or Biz never could.

Tarnation, It's A Tarnadah!

Last Thursday, a "macroburst" tornado hit the Killa Hillz. Ish was NO JOKE. Nobody smiling.






Damn. Meanwhile, the jerks who already razed their trees to create monstrous concrete yards were sitting pretty. Well, still ugly, actually, but you see what I mean.

King Felix for Cy Young and Johan Can'tana for 2nd in 2008! Also, Kenny Loggins Will Heat Your Home This Winter for Free

The only drama in the A.L. this season seems to be over whether the Cy Young should go to C.C. Sabathia or Felix Hernandez. C.C.'s got 20 wins for a team that slept-walked through this season while Felix has only got 12 for a team almost 40 games under .500. It seems like it should be widely accepted, for many reasons, that wins are a terrible stat to judge a pitcher by. But I guess it's not since C.C.'s got a lot of support, despite Felix' lower E.R.A., higher innings pitched, more complete games, lower W.H.I.P., and well, let's just say Felix is better in every pitching category save wins and pinstripes worn (which could be rectified soon I suppose).
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 In 2008, Johan Santana went sported a 2.53 E.R.A. and finished third, third, in the National League Cy Young voting. Brandon Webb won 22 games that year, the only category he bested Johan in. Santana was a beast that year, highlighted by his complete game shutout on the penultimate day of that pitiful Met season. He should have been neck-and-neck with my boy Tim Lincecum for the award itself that year not staring up at Brandon fucking Webb. Sure it's bitter of me, but it'd be nice to see a Met win an award once in awhile.
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Winter is nearly upon us, if you're worried about your heating bill fret no more. Simply place this Kenny Loggins album in the center of the room you wish heated and feeeeeeeeeel the glow.

Frownie Always Wanted to Open a Fish Restaurant Called Just for the Halibut; Also, Satchel Paige Pitching for the Kansas City A's Alongside Segui and Tartabull; also Berba first man to score hat-trick for Man United against L'pool in many a moon.

Puns+Shitty Food=Rispekt.

F.C.K.F. stands for Fried Chicken Kebabs Fish. Fuck.
Here's an interview with a brilliant graphic designer who has made a career out of making dozens of iterations of cartoon chickens, the subject of a new book called "Chicken: Low Art, High Calorie."
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Via Uniwatch, this amazing photo of Satchel Paige from 1965. At the supposed age of 58, Paige signed on with Charlie O. Finley's Kansas City Athletics. He started and pitched three innings on September 25, 1965 in an eventual loss to the Boston Red Sox. As part of the fanfare, Finley arranged for Paige to rest in a rocking chair in the bullpen before the game attended to by a nurse. In his three innings, Paige only surrendered a hit against a decent Sox lineup that included Carl Yastrzemski and Tony Conigliaro.

 Of further note, the A's that game featured the fathers of two semi-prominent future New York baseball players, Jose Tartabull, daddy of Danny and Diego Segui, pop dukes of David. Weird, eh? Biggupp props to baseball-reference.com for their box score database.
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Finally, my latest for epltalk.com, a historical nugg on the last Man United player to score a hat-trick against L'pool.

The 1970's: The Golden Age of Every Pop Culture Genre

It's Friday, you've reached the end of the internet. You're out of pieces to read, your go-to rotation of sites is as exhausted as Big Pelf. Panic sets in. It's only mid-morning, and the balance of the day yawns before you.

 We've all been there. Here's a fantastic piece by Todd Van Der Weff of the A.V. Club that will occupy minutes-upon-minutes of fun, a tour of the great sitcoms of the 1970s. All in the Family, Taxi, Barney Miller, Good Times, and Sanford & Son just some of the jewels that emerged from funky times. For me, Barney Miller stands out as a lost and underrated classic. Abe Vigoda slays, and the opening theme song features and impossibly funky bass-line. The video excerpts chosen for the piece are killer, I highly recommend the WKRP in Cincinnati scene where Loni Anderson (Burt always had good taste) and Herman Hesseman almost get down.

The twin beauties of growing up in pre-internet age were syndication and a handful of channels on the teevee. Thus, a young coachie had no choice but to peep all these classics on channels 5, 9 and 11. Today, in the internet age, we have access to everything yet nothing unites us, pop-culturally. These great shows already lived on far beyond their time, but the time when they are remembered is already drawing to a close. Inevitable.

The piece also covers a couple of lost gems, like Bridget Loves Bernie, about an Irish Catholic who falls for a Jewish cab driver. Freddie Coups should keep an eye out for his alma mater P.S. 6 in the intro where the Bridget character works. In this clip, wait for the 1:44 mark for the "Zoinks! Sitcom Premise" moment.

You Aint Messing with My Doogie

Rafael Nadal Completes Career Grand Slam; Es El Rey de Reinas; El Maestro del Melbourne, El Centro del Corte de Centro, y Popa del Paris

 Rafael Nadal, at only 24 years young, completed a career Grand Slam by winning the 2010 U.S. Open over a game but frail Novak Djokavic last night. Fred Perry, Don Budge, Rod Lever, Roy Emerson, Andre Agassi, and Roger Federer are the only other men to have won all four Grand Slam Tournaments in their career.

A major asterisk, though, for my main man Jimmy Connors. In 1974, Jimbo won the Aussie, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, but was barred from entering the French Open because he had signed up with the fledgling World Team Tennis League. Moreover, Connors is the only man to win the U.S. Open on all three surfaces that it has used; grass and later clay in Forest Hills and then hardcourt in Flushing Meadows.

Does Nadal's achievement cheapen R-Fedz' same Career Slam, achieved last summer at Roland Garros?To quote John Starks, "No question." But for my lucci, I'd take Federer at his height and in his pomp. To paraphrase my man S-Boomz' thought on R-Fedz from Saturday night, his game is too beautiful to live. It's remarkable that Fedz reign was as long as it was, what with his one-handed backhands and exquisite netplay. Modern tennis, with its increased speed, power and insane world travel eats its stars. In doing so it robs us of marquee match-ups. Without longevity, tennis must constantly produce new stars as the current ones flame out by 25, and because that is impossible its popularity suffers.

 I watched last night's match online through the U.S. Open web site. They used a different camera angle than the tradish 3/4 angle on CBS. The stream was much lower to the ground, almost putting us at eye level with the players and made for much more exciting viewing. For all the changes to teevee technology there have been almost none with the camera angles with which sports are televised.

 That's Rafa Nadal's sister. Que Bonita.

I went to the Open on Friday with Pop Dukes and Coups, got to see Rafa, Fedz and Bryman's gurrl Venus practice up close as they all practiced side-by-side outside Arthur Ashe. They're all metronomes.

My main man Jimmy Connors, I still own his replica metal-framed racket. In 2005 I attempted a Connors-esque haircut, which is pretty much the same haircut John Ritter rocked on Three's Company, but for me, it was bad company.

 On the Billie Jean King United States Tennis Association National Tennis Center grounds (that's a mouthful!), there's a bizarre statute of a tenny-playing dad with his kids. The dad looks a lot like George H.W. Bush, no?

 When they reminisce over you. Or, Killa Hills, 11375.

Finally a note on  Arthur Ashe Stadium. I heard gasbag Dick Enberg repeatedly refer to this dump as a "grand arena." It is a high-school football stadium expanded to 23,000 seats. From the outside it's horrific, what with the grotesquely exposed seats of the upper tier and the watered-down Camden-Yards motif on the halfway built facade except it's not even brick but tile. What is it with the modern trend of exposing the backs of the seats rather than have the facade reach the top? And, of course, there is no roof. Tradition-bound Wimbledon has a roof at Centre Court. Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne has a roof. The French are installing a roof at Roland Garros. What's the holdup? The Open is a cash cow. This is the third year in a row that the Men's Final was postponed to a Monday. On the broadcast we heard that, once again, the Open was not prepared for a postponed final and so most services were lacking. Big Dood was there all day and reported that nary a drop of beer was to be found. That's no way to enjoy the tennis.

If Arthur Ashe had a roof from day one the Nets could have been balling it up all these years in front of full houses. The Isles could be skating there, avoiding bankruptcy or worse at the Coliseum. Billy Joel would have someplace to warble in the winter. Helen Marshall could give a series of speeches where she'd explain what exactly her job is and why she is paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for it.

Meet the 2011 Mets, The Same as the 2010 Mets aka B.O.H.I.C.A.

Let's take a guess at the 2011 Mets and see if we can get pumped.
C: Josh Thole
1B: Ike Davis
2B: Luis Castillo (perhaps sprinkled with .200 hitter Ruben Tejada)
SS: Jose Reyes
3B: David Wright
LF: Jason Bay (considering the Met history with concussions, Ryan Church, David Wright, Bay, etc, shouldn't the team be trailblazers and mandate that they all use the new Gazoo-type helmet that will protect players significantly better? Bay suffered his in the field, but still)
CF: Carlos Beltran aka Carblows Blowtran
RF: Angel Pagan
Rotation:
1. Johan Santana aka Blowhan Can'tana whenever he returns next spring, certainly not in April.
2. Jon Niese
3. Mike Pelfrey aka Big Fucking Pelf aka Fucking Big Pelf
4. R.A. Dickey; who has, at the very least, earned a shot at starting again next year but really, how can he keep this up?
5. P.P. Scrapheapo (the P.P.  is for poo-poo)
Closer: Bobby Parnell?
Manager: Someone cheap yet able to energize the chump fan base aka Lee Mazzilli
Sprinkle a couple of retread reclamation bench players and there you go. Not much to get pumped for, eh?

The Price of Apathy

I don't know about you, but yes, I save my ticket stubs-to everything. Baseball, basketball, movies, even museums -for the prices they charge, I figure I should have some keepsake. During a recent trip back home, I discovered my piles of stubs, loosely organized by year. They're a nice reminder of happier times, better teams and one's travels. I've been to two Expos games over two separate seasons, and they lost to the Marlins each time -and the one Habs game I attended was an unconscionable loss to the Panthers. Also included was a memorable Red Sox-Phillies tilt at the Vet, my first experience with Philadelphia and its portly, surly denizens. There were fun croo trips to Fenway, the Jake and PNC as well. But all those stubs only account for a small portion of the total collection.

Then there are the Mets tickets. Some good times (99-01), some bad times (02-04), with a slow chronological buildup in volume. The optimism of 2005 led to a build-up, as I attended close to ten games. I rode the wave in 2006 to the tune of around fifteen games, as well as my first two postseason tilts -the memory of Sean Green botching a routine fly ball by the fence still haunts me to this day. Unfazed by a terrible end to the postseason, the Mets had me, as I went to over 20 games, including one of the first Phillie statement games in which Carlos Beltran let a ball sail over his head for a Jimmy Rollins triple. Mercifully, I was not at that fateful final game, but my buddy Mike was, and this poor guy had to endure not only Beltran's hypno-job at the plate in Game 7 in 2006 but also Tom Glavine's bid for the all-time poop the bed moments in sports history in 2007. By 2008, I was already a little more cautious, but still attended around ten games. I was there for the last pitiful out at Shea, a Ryan Church ball that appeared to tie the game for a nanosecond but landed harmlessly in the glove of the center fielder. Suffice to say, I wasn't particularly thrilled at the onset of the postgame tribute to the ballpark -why it wasn't held before the game still baffles me- but I eventually warmed to the sight of the greats, including my late 90s heroes. Mike and I went down the ramps for the last time, slowly taking in the ballpark and wondering how many times we'd see the team in the new ballpark 20 feet away.

The rest is history. I don't need to chronicle the 2009 Mets or the plethora of deficiencies at CitiField. I went to around five games last year and four so far this season. The impromptu "hey wanna go to the ballgame tonight?" is dead. Maybe its because I'm older (24, going on 25, that rounds to 30!). Maybe it's the end of the $8-15 ticket. I do know the team's thoroughly mediocre play has to contribute, especially when it starts to compound on itself. This year's team will finish with around 75 wins. Next year might top at 81. Maybe they'll win 85 in 2012. I'll still be watching the games, but I am certainly not forking over the cash to sit in obstructed seats in an a shopping mall trying to pass itself off as a ballpark. And I'm certainly not the only one. Mike -two years my junior- hardly goes to games anymore, and the cameras on SNY don't lie. It's too bad the practice of gate counting went the way of the separate league offices, because I'd love to have the real attendance numbers, not the ticket-dump inflated numbers we see today.

So what are the ramifications of this? Ballpark revenue isn't the bottom line for an owner, but it offers a glimpse into the marketability of a team, as people who go to games probably buy caps and shirts to wear while attending them. And if fewer families are attending, what happens to future generations of children during their formative years? How do you build generational bonds with your fans to keep the juices -and money- flowing? You've got your work cut out for you, Jeffrey Coup.

Give Us Something, Anything.

 Another lost season for the Mets, but does it have to to be completely lost? Can't we get a glimmer of hope for next season? First start this past Saturday for Jenrry Mejia, and surprise, it sucked. What's on tap for 2011? More mediocrity, more meaningless games by the break.

Still waiting for a homegrown Met pitcher to be halfway decent (fuck you Big Pelf).

Of Minnows and Men: Euro 2012 Qualifying Preview

Got a preview of some of the opening matches of Euro 2012 qualification up at EPLTalk.com, including the battle between ancient non-rivals Ireland and Armenia.

Darryl Strawberry Left His Heart in Los Angeles

But now he's living in Chelsea, for only $5,300 a month! Also, he's 48 years old. Why'd he move to New York? To open Strawberry's Sports Grill, in Douglaston, one of those rare places where you can get a burger and watch the big game on a big flatscreen.