Do It!!!! Eat Me Now!!! I'm Right He-UHHHH!!! EAT ME!

As L.A.'s baseball squadrons struggle to stay alive (do the Phightins represent the best threat based on their strong series at new Yankee Stadium earlier this summer and the fact that they play the Blues Brothers theme after wins?) it's worth remembering that California is facing an even bigger loss, yes, Governor Arnold Schwarzanegger will soon be leaving office.

Many will boo him as he leaves, blaming him for the state's woes in lieu of the 'girly-men' who doze in the state legislature. Far more importantly, many tabloids have attempted to capture unflattering pictures of Arnold aging ungracefully and looking fat. Fuck that noise. Look at the man! He's 62! He looks fantastic!
And peep this picture of a breakfast he was recently served. Healthy....and hilarious!!!
Thankfully, we have Arnold's cameo in T.M.F.A.A.O.A.T.G.M.F.F.I.A.R.C.H.A.T.E. to look forward to. Oh? What is T.M.F.A.A.O.A.T.G.M.F.F.I.A.R.C.H.A.T.E.? The Mother Fuckin Alpha and Omega Aka The Greatest Mother Fuckin Film In All Recorded Cinematic History Aka The Expendables. Or, put another way, The Cannonball Run of action movies. Sadly, it appears this film will now not be coming out until August 2010.
With T4, The Expendables, and the stewardship of the biggest state in the land under his belt, maybe Arnold can get to work on the one movie that could top T.M.F.A.A.O.A.T.G.M.F.F.I.A.R.C.H.A.T.E.............Conan.........the King.

Trim the Fat.

FACT: Fat NFL coaches never win. Ever.

Rex Ryan can keep shoving twinkies down his throat (and stick them where the sun-don't-shine) and watch his defense get gashed on the ground.

And if Woody Johnson has half a brain, he opts out of the new Meadowlands Stadium and builds a retractable roof stadium in Flushing Meadows for his reckless and weak quarterback. Who knew throwing spirals was such a rare skill?

Let It Be

On a blustery January afternoon in Savile Row, the Beatles performed live on top of their Apple Studious building for the first time in four years. Today, on an equally nasty October day, Mike Francesa and Chris 'Mad Dog' Russo will hit the airwaves -the ones people actually listen to- together at 1 PM live from Yankee Stadium.

Only 4 Teams Play in New York City.

New Jerz, so close....yet so far. I aint crossing that river unless there's a damn good reason.

The New York Post's Mike Vaccaro's highlighted the Sporting News' list of the best American sports cities this past Sunday. NYC placed 6th, behind Titsburgh, Ill-Will-y (R.I.P.), Beantown, the Shy, and the City of Compton (it's where it takes place). L.A. should only outrank such sports towns as Hotlanta or the M.I.A. No doubt, this town loves its Lake Show, but when the "low point" over the past 50 years of the Lakers were the highly-entertaining Nick Van Exel-Eddie "Butter"Jones-Cedric "Ball-O" Ceballos-Vlade "Feta+Marlboros" Divac years, well then, they are an easy bunch to love. (I highly recommend peeping the video linked in the previous sentence. Moreover, hard to say which NBA Live 95 team was more G, the Lakers, or the G-State Warriors of Chris 'T.O." Webber, Chris "Oh You Got A" Gatling, Latrell "It Aint Hard to Tell" Sprewell, Chris "Derek Jeter Stole My Haircut" Mullin, Billy "Oh No" Owens, and Tim "Sold My Soul to Pat Riley" Hardaway. Man, you know what, PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO. MORE IMPORTANTLY WATCH THIS ONE.)

So, other than L.A., I can't see much justification for placing New York much higher. Vaccaro deads the Shy and the Detroit (#10 on the list) for including outlying areas like Evanston and Ypsilanti, yet only four of New York's 9 (10 if you include the Red Bulls) play within the city limits. Moreover, Vaccaro contradicts his anti-suburb-inclusive-point when he states that, since 1996, New York teams have won 8 titles versus Boston's 6. First, his math seems off by one. Second, if you subtract the two Cups won by the Jersey Devils and the one Bowl won by the Jersey Giants, we are left with the four titles won by the Yankees.

Nitpicking aside, New York will always suffer on these kind of lists because New Yorkers cannot unite behind any one team in any sport. No team, not even the Yankees, especially the Yankees, can speak for New York. The only team that can come close is the Knicks. They haven't been relevant since 2000. Plus, the Bucktown Nets now seem that much closer to reality.

I suppose a more important question is why we can't support a united New York, as in, why shouldn't we support any New York team when it faces a team from another city? I know my answer, it's because Hov rocks Yankee fitteds aka the Yankees suck. Your answers?

Thanks to sportslogos.net for the source logos.

LazyNDaLaz Dayz

This could be a portrait of any newsprint sports columnist in America. It is Bill Dwyre.

One of the hardest parts of leaving New York is losing access to the New York Post. Now, the LA Times is a perfectly fine newspaper, perhaps even underrated when considering the generally weak state of big city dailies today. The paper does hard news well. But a man cannot exist on trouble in Tehran and investigations into water-main breaks alone. A man needs a lively and light-hearted sports section. Internet sites/blogs cannot compete against the big newspapers in hard news, but it's easy for them to outshine a daily's sports and entertainment sections which are mostly based on opinion and conjecture. As youngster Freddy Coups points out, sports blogs have made sports sections near-irrelevant, and he has since dropped his daily newsprint habit.

Sports Guy has highlighted the reasons why the big papers can't compete, what with their union rules and ties to longstanding writers. Hence, we get the cavalcade of chumps that hog the columnist pages of our nation's dailes. A typical example is Bill Dwyre of the LA Times. This past Friday, in the wake of the Angels' 2nd win against the BoSox he wrote of how the Angels were erasing their hex against Boston's cop-looking corps. Already we have the overdone chump angle of "curses." Not content with this chump point he exhumes poor Donnie Moore to make his belabored point.

"Now, so sadly, figuratively and sordidly, every Red Sox victory since [1986] had seemed like another nail in Moore's coffin."

Figuratively? Thanks, Dwyre, I thought that after Game 1 of last year's ALDS, Yooooouuuuuuullllllk held the flashlight while Tacoby Ellsbury dug up Moore's grave while Terry Francs held the nails betwixt his teeth.

Sordidly? I guess if the above scenario were true then yes, but, well, now I'm just confused. Let's just leave it at that this column is FUCKED, and shows just how awful a sportswriter can be when he tries to get grandiose in illustrating a stupid point.

We can get lazy opinions on any sports blog. What we need is investigative writing, or writers who actually leave their seats to write a story, like Jerry Crowe's column today on Wilt Chamberlain's super-sexy house.

Our sports pages need to change quick. they need to heed the advice of 3-6 Mafia and get "CrazyNDaLazDayz."

That Whiskey Wind......

Our pal, and lover of Gang Green, Al K. Mza checks in with another recipe sure to make your Sunday more sultry:

As the weather gets colder, is there any drink better than a dram of fine whiskey to warm the soul? Only when combined with the greatest of all instant desserts...the poundcake.

Ingredients:
One package Poundcake
Scotch, 2-3 shots to taste
Ice Cream optional
The best scotch to use here would be one with heavy fruit flavors and very little smokiness for a toffee like finish on top of the cake.

Slice and warm the poundcake, splash scotch shots over the top. Let soak. Finish with a scoop of ice cream.
Enjoy the game with the rest of the bottle.

Lessons

You're never too old- or too washed-up- to stop learning. I'm gonna pass on his book, thanks, I'll stick to the wisdom of the Wu-Tang Manual.

Wait, he has another book?!?!

*pic credit to upnorthtrips, a fantastic site best experienced via rss feed.

Robbbbbed

Actual O.G. Tigers Logo

Zoinks!

The Official Rules of Major League Baseball, Rule 5.09(a):
----
The ball becomes dead and runners advance one base, or return to their bases, without liability to be put out, when --
(a) A pitched ball touches a batter, or his clothing, while in his legal batting position; runners, if forced, advance;
----
Would it have been a cheap hit by pitch? Yes. Was Inge's jersey as billowy as the undulating rolls of fat that make up Oprah's thighs? Yes. But without the rule of law then it's all just gussied up "Running Bases" isn't it?

Why am I so worked up about le tigres? Well, as a fervent citizen of the A.M.F.S.B.T.M.F.Y. Nation (Any Motherfuckin Squadron But The Motherfuckin Yanks), I felt that the Tigers represented the bigger threat in the first round than the perennial-pinstripe-punching-bag- Twinkies. Fuck. Yanks-Rocks. Yanks in two. Fuck.

Props to Chris Creamer's Sportslogos.net for the source logos and to the MLB Network for the highlight.

The Annals of ill Design

'Twas peeping the video for Kool G. Rap's "On the Run," as is my wont, when my wig got split by the image of Kool "ridin around with ten kilos inside my trunk G" in an ill pre-radical-mid-1990's-grill-makeover Beamer (possibly an M5) with even iller early 1990's New York State license plates.

Simple. Stark. Iconic. The opposite of the muddled, dull-colored current plates with its cheap attempt to pander to all corners of the state. The kind of plate perfectly appropriate to the anonymous Toyota and Ford sedans of today that makes us all feel like we're traveling businessmen renting from Hertz' economy class.
Both plates, of course, must bow down to the true orange and blue plates of the late 70s/early 80s. The kind of instantly recognizable yet understated plate that suited the era's boss-ass cars.
Have you ever thought that G. Rap is one of the most influential and skilled MCs of all time and a pioneer and master of Mafioso rap/street/hardcore content? Not only does DJ Polo know so (when I die bury me in the 'lo!) but you can cold lamp comfortably knowing that such an assertion is backed by 15 Wikipedia citations.

Good Sports All Around

Ushers and fans alike giggled at the poster I brought to yesterday's season finale -a Titanic deck chair victory over the putrid Houston Astros. Of course, a few Daniel Murphy diehards objected to his inclusion, but I expected them. One usher warned me "they (the Coupons) would go crazy if you went behind home plate," but Astros batters were flailing at Nelson Figueroa so quickly the game ended in a blur. The biggest surprise had to be a stadium photographer willing to capture the poster, but I can't imagine the Coupons command much respect or loyalty from even the lowest-level employee.

Further Proof

Further proof that the 1960s Mets uniforms were not cream-colored as sported by Al Jackson. It's like George Costanza's failed scheme with the Yankees, you can't go home again. The only way to truly recreate the old-timey look would be with flannel unis, felt lettering and knee-high knickers.

How to Look Good While Losing.

According to the New York Daily News, the New York Post, and most importantly, Uniwatch, the Mets will adopt a cream tone for their rarely used home pinstriped jerseys. Their uniforms were already scheduled to undergo a major upgrade next year with the removal of the D.O.Z. ads/"Inaugural Season!!!" patch from their sleeves.

Now, while I may be old enough to remember SportsChannel, the bullseye subway token, A&S Plaza, and Abe Hirschfeld's bizarre Post takeover, I'm not old enough to have seen the 1960's uniforms in the flesh. However, a dollop of photo research implies that those uniforms were not cream, but the same stark white the team rocks today.





















What is obvious to us uni-fiends is that no color change can recreate the look of yesteryear, owing both the vast difference in jersey material and photographic technology. We look back on baseball's past through pictures taken on film, which radiate warmth and color's vitality more vividly than digital cameras, as evidenced in Sports Illustrated's vault and excellent sites such as That's My Boy. Coincidentally, Mariano Rivera looks like a robot on this week's SI cover.

Anyhoo, here's my attempt at what next year's unis may look like in cream, using a Pantone shade similar to that used by the San Francisco Giants for their cream home uniforms.
















My two cents is that cream may be better suited to the pinstripe-less jersey. On the broader canvas the cream color would be far more noticeable.





















But what do I know? I think the 1970's era Chicago White Sox shirt-and-shorts look was absolutely brilliant. Well, not necessarily the shorts, but mos def on the shirts. Can't understand for the life of me how pros play everyday in the summer heat in such heavy jerseys.
Thanks to Chris Creamer's Sportslogos.net and Si.com for the source photos.

Facing his Waterloo?

Mangini abdiquant à Cleveland
(Mangini abdicating at Cleveland)

Wellington at Cleveland

With both national and local media banding together like English and Prussian forces at Waterloo, is Mangini facing his last stand at Cleveland Browns Stadium? Can Marvin Lewis and the Cincinnati Bengwads finish off Napoleon Mangini's return from exile? Or will newly promoted field general Derek Anderson fend off the assault and keep Mangini's clandestine regime intact? Tune in this Sunday, 1 PM on CBS!

When's the last straw?

Fred Coupon: Is it Jeff Wilpon and Omar Minaya attaching a congratulatory letter to the pitching rubber from CitiField the night Mariano Rivera got his 500th career save?

Make no mistake, I WILL get ejected from this Sunday's home finale.

Biz: or wheeled off in the Madden ambulance.

I might as well just set up a google news alert right now.

Fred Coupon: another insult:

http://www.stubhub.com/new-york-mets-tickets/mets-vs-astros-10-4-2009-721497/

What happened to the 45 cent tickets? This is a football sunday! There'll be 1500 people there!

Biz: why would a pepsi porch seat cost $125?

Bryan: It comes with a Pepsi

***

Time to cheer ourselves up, and what better way than to relive the magic of Frank Wycheck, Music City Miracle Worker and fantasy stud tight end?

Taste of Leather

Had the super-sexy photoshop of Rex and Sanchez posted at Withleather.com. Try to keep it in your pants upon viewing.

K.o.N.Y.

Schoolly D, with strong support from Larry (aint tryin to hear that laurence noise) Fishburne.

I Used to Get in Ohio

Thought I'd take this opportunity to provide a little consolation for the fans in N.E. Ohio as well as provide a sample of a p-shop project I'm working on. And another great opportunity to link to this.

Rex & Mex: NY's Newest Heartthrobs

You've probably heard how desperate the Titans are for a win after getting nipped by a combined six points in each of their first two contests. You've also no doubt been made aware of the 'swagger' Rex Ryan has brought to a previously vanilla Jet defense. One tidbit that'll be mentioned during the broadcast is the link between the head coaches of both teams, as Jeff Fisher began his coaching career under Buddy Ryan's wing in Chicago and Rex Ryan is, well, Buddy's son.

A quarterback comparison shouldn't be surprising either, as you have seasoned vet Kerry Collins' emotional return to the Meadowlands, where he used to fumble snaps at a record setting pace but enjoyed some great seasons with the G-men and of course, rookie Mark Sanchez's third career start after two solid games. Both quarterbacks will operate under similar gameplans that involve tossing screens to their respective play-making backs, Chris Johnson and Leon Washington, though Kerry still has a cannon and may test the Jets' secondary in one-on-one coverage, especially if the Titans pick up the Jets' blitz. But considering how uncomfortable Tom Brady was in the face of the Jets' myriad of blitzes and coverages -Rex picked up his dad's practice of constantly rotating defensive backs- how will Collins respond, especially after struggling against Rex's Ravens in last year's Divisional Playoff game?

As for Sanchez, can he keep threading needles on third down to tight end Dustin Keller and receivers Jericho Cotchery and Chansi Stuckey, often relying on tough YAC to move the chains? It's just two games, but Sanchez has shown the ability to slide around the pocket, much like Ben Roethlisberger -the QB who can make the most out of any broken play- and Tony Romo, but his play fakes need a lot of work -he should practice breaking hearts when he goes out about town.

So will the Rex and Mex train keep rolling or get derailed by they testy Titans? I don't buy the match as a 'letdown' game for the Jets, because as cathartic as last week's victory over New England was, the Titans aren't some chump squad to be overlooked. They were the best team in the AFC last year and still feature plenty of talent on both sides of the ball. They can win on their own merit, but not this week. J! E! T! S! JETS! JETS! JETS!

***Added Bonus*** Our pal Al K. Mza will be checking in from time to time with recipes for treats during Sunday action. If you ask him now, he's starving. Here's his first contribution:

Going with the green theme of green shoots, green economy and gang green. Fall is still around and before we stuff ourselves with wings and beer, the following recipe is a literal gutcheck.

Cucumber sandwich
take cucumber. slice.
place on buttered toast.
eat

fancy version -- add sliced tomatoes.
foodies version -- israeli cucumber and heirloom tomatoes, irish butter, and mint leaves (still can make about 20 sandwiches for less than $10!)

Red Alert! Part II

Sound the air raid siren in Cleveland. Get under the desk, Frowner! If you thought the last Cold War was something, just wait till July 1st!

The United Nations of Baseball.

The International Olympic Committee, in part owing to anti-American attitudes, recently removed Baseball and Softball from the Summer Games. Their main reasoning was that the sports are not 'international' enough and that the sports are dominated by a precious few. Hogwash. Poo-Poo. Pish-Posh. Ridiculoso. Nyet.

Soccer aka Football is often regarded as the most international of sports. It is played by nearly every country on the face of the earf. Yet soccer's champions come from only eastern South America and western Europe. There is no soccer powerhouse in North America (sorry Mexico). There is no soccer powerhouse in Africa. There is no soccer powerhouse in Asia. And, well, the Australian team has a great name, the Socceroos. Teams from North America, Africa and Asia are afterthoughts. Moreover, when you get down to brass tacks, the sport has been largely dominated by teams from just three countries, Brazil, Italy and Germany.

Baseball, like soccer, is played on every continent. At the start of this year's World Baseball Classic, and full credit to Bud Selig for pushing the tourney through, a legitimate case could have been made for Japan, South Korea, the United States, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic or Venezuela winning it all.

While the emergence of the WBC an Olympic baseball tournament becomes unnecessary. Still, Olympic Baseball was taken very seriously by the non-U.S. teams and its loss will be a serious blow to fans and players alike in countries like Cuba, South Korea and Japan. Part of the appeal of the Olympics is watching sports like Field Hockey and Team Handball. Baseball's international development will be hurt by the loss of Olympic exposure. And at a base level, baseball deserves full respect as a true international sport.

Softball loses out on its marquee championship. Softball players, with no real professional league, had only one opportunity every four years to shine. Softball at its highest level is a fierce, entertaining sport and nothing like its slow-pitch after-work cousin. They deserve a chance to get their shine on.