Random Thoughts On A Sunday Morning Updated To 11-24

[DeadShot]

Some of the things Yankee4Life sayd are quite accurate. Indeed, Yankees are they most overpaid, underachieving team in the majors. I have seen people criticizing my Yankees and I am fine with it, thats because its their opinion. I believe that when a rival team supporter criticizes your favourite team, so be it because its their opinion. We should all respect one another;s opinion.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 5-18

...It doesn't seem to matter if Mozilla releases a new version of their Firefox browser because one thing you can count on before you start it up for the first time is that Adobe Flash is going to crash at some point.

...I don't know if the Yankees are the unluckiest or the most unconditioned team I've ever seen in a long time but I am getting fed up with finding out someone on the pitching staff won't be pitching for awhile due to some sort of injury. C.C. Sabathia's gone now for fifteen days, which should actually help come to think about it. Who the hell really knows what's going on with Michael Pineda and Ivan Nova's going to be watching HBO for the rest of the year. We are in the middle of May and three of the five Yankee starters have fallen off the map. By the All-Star break so will the rest of the team.

...Don't tell my wife but I have been madly in love with Misael Morgan for awhile now. I think if we were the last two people on earth I might have a chance with her. But if that doesn't happen, forget it!

...A lot has been made in the media about the St. Louis Rams drafting Missouri defensive end Michael Sam and the reactions that people have had about it. Not everyone was happy about it and I get it. I'm not gay and I have no understanding of that lifestyle but that is how Sam is and that's really all anyone needs to know about this. There were some things I didn't like about this and it had nothing to do with whom Sam decides to spent time with when the doors are closed. As long as someone came out supporting Michael Sam everything was just fine but if anything was said that wasn't supportive of him that person was treated like a pariah. As a nation we tend to look down on countries like North Korea with their smothering human rights practices but as the months and years go on we are losing one of our biggest freedoms of all and that's the right to say what you think. People in that country already know what that's like but we are learning fast. Miami Dolphins cornerback Don Jones was fined and suspended by the team because of comments he made about Sam on Twitter. His suspension consists of not being able to participate in all team activities until he completes educational training for his Twitter comments. The Dolphins went on to say that they were "disappointed" in the comments that Jones made. The hell they were. They were disappointed and upset because they had to do some quick public relations work because one football player had the cajones to post something that a lot of other players felt the same way about. Right or wrong I agree with Jones. The last thing I want to see on TV is two men kissing. That's why I've never seen Brokeback Mountain. Two women are a different story. But that's Sam and that's what he's about and I'm fine with it. People should lead their own lives. But not everyone approves and the people who oppose it should be able to freely say it and not have to worry about going through sensitivity training or apologizing twenty times. That's what our freedom of speech is about, to be able to speak your mind. It sounds so simple but like most things around us we will only miss it when it's gone.

...And then, maybe there's still hope:

...I pay as much attention to Charles Barkley as I do to Red Sox fans who get upset, but last week if I had the chance to I would have shook Barkley's hand. When Barkley was asked about the women in San Antonio, Texas during a recent NBA telecast last week he could not contain himself and decided to have some fun. He described the women there as a "gold mine for Weight Watchers" and that San Antonio was a place where "Victoria is definitely a secret." All this was tongue-in-cheek and was meant as a joke and if you don't believe that then here is a webpage that you can go to so you can see for yourself. After Barkley said all this the usual happened. People got upset, they wrote letters, they called the network and told them to make Barkley apologize and in most cases they get their way, but not here. More often than not the offender parks themselves in front of the camera the first chance he gets while looking like a kid who who just caught playing hooky and apologizes and asks for forgiveness for their "insincere" remarks. Barkley? Hell no. He told them he was only joking around and if they were waiting for an apology hell would freeze over. Who knows, maybe hell did freeze over because someone did not retreat from what they said just because other people didn't like it. Way to go. At least someone can speak their mind.

...A husband and wife team that run a Christian outreach group in Daytona Beach, Florida were fined $746 by the police because every Wednesday they went to a local park and along with volunteers fed homeless people. The reason for this is that there is a city ordinance that bars individuals from serving food in public. Along with the fines the group was also banned from the park for life. This must be Daytona Beach's way of combating crime. Muggings, shootings and drug activity still go on but they sure as hell got the feeding homeless people situation under control.

...During a soccer match in Genoa, Italy between Napoli and host Sampdoria a woman interrupted play as she ran out on the playing field wearing only a big smile and a very small bikini. Like everyone else that does this sort of thing she ran around for awhile but it took her some time to be caught because the security people were fighting each other for the right to tackle her to the ground.

...Kim Kardashian and her no-talent fiancé Kanye West will be getting married in Florence, Italy later this month. All I want to know is what the Italians did to them that got them so mad that they decided to get even with them by getting married in their country?

...Vegas oddsmakers has Germany, Portugal and the Netherlands as the early favorites as the country where the divorce will take place.

...Red Lobster sold for 2.1 billion dollars! Must be nice to have that kind of cash lying around. I just hope the new owners don't take away those hot cheesy rolls that they give you before the main course comes.

...I saw a video on youtube about a guy that had no arms but still was able to play table tennis by holding the paddle in his mouth. I've got two arms and once I hit the ball so hard that it broke in two (ok, so it was kind of cracked before I hit it and all I did was finish the job) but this guy was more than holding his own and if I played against him I'd lose every time. It's impressive what some people can accomplish when they really want to do something.

...Law students at the University of California, Davis (which is west of Sacramento) have submitted an application to practice law to the State Bar of California on behalf of a man named Hong Yen Chang, who they claim was denied his chance to practice law solely because he was Chinese. This by the way happened way back in 1890 and these students want to do something about it now. Better late than never I say. Summer break's coming so they need something to occupy their time. Chang's application was turned down by the California Supreme Court because of a law at the time called the federal Chinese Exclusion Act and that barred Chinese natives from obtaining U.S. citizenship and California law prohibiting noncitizens from practicing law. I'm no lawyer but I can see why his application was denied all those one hundred and twenty four years ago and if Chang were around today and wanted to practice law it would not be an issue at all. He was given a wrong deal because he was a victim of the times that he lived in and nothing can be done about it now. You can not re-write history by campaigning to California's State Bar to give a posthumous law license to a man who has been dead eighty-eight years now just like you can't fix all the other injustices that happened over time to others. This is why when I hear about things like this going on I write it off as a huge waste of time.

...I've been playing a lot of High Heat baseball recently ever since Trues made a place in the download section for High Heat 2004. I've been alternating between the '02, '03 and '04 games with the 2003 edition being my favorite. There was one thing about this game that it didn't take me long to notice at all after playing just a few. Back when Mvp 2005 first came out we had threads in here that were about how bad the announcers were in that game and that Krukow and Kuiper were the worst part of it. They weren't kidding. Those two got annoying very quickly especially with those 'Big Boy' comments. But the two announcers that are in the High Heat games are no better. Every ground ball base hit is a "SMASH!!" and they seem to give up on the starting pitchers way too early. In one game I got my first two batters on via singles (smashes) and the announcer says "he's being pounded." After two batters? Next game, same thing although it was said this time in the second inning after I drove in two runs with an RBI double. It took OTBJoel years to finish his Legends of the Booth mod for Mvp. If he were to do the same thing for High Heat it would take him a month.

...David Ortiz must have been burning the phone lines at the MLB offices in New York because the ball that he hit in Texas last week off of Yu Darvish during his no-hit bid that was originally ruled an error has now been changed to a hit thanks to the constant crying and complaining he did. I knew that Bud Selig and everyone that works for him are more than willing to do back flips just to make Ortiz and the Red Sox happy but to be willing and then actually changing a rule that was clearly in the rule book just so the call can be in his favor is pathetic.

...And people in here and people that I know at home wonder why I have a white-hot hatred for that guy. The guy gets away with everything. He complains about his contract all the time and the media hardly says anything. Years ago when that report came out about the 103 players that took steroids he was on it but only Alex Rodriguez's name was made public. At the first game at Fenway Park after the Boston bombing they asked Ortiz to say a few words to the crowd - a crowd that included many small children- and during his speech he swore and nothing is said about it. Even the FCC said it was ok. Can you imagine Rodriguez addressing the Yankee Stadium crowd and saying "F***?" We would still be hearing about it. This is why I can't stand the guy. It has a lot more to do than the uniform he wears.

...Patriots fans had a pretty bad week too last week when Aaron Hernandez was indicted for the murders of two men in a drive-by shooting in July of 2012. This means that Hernandez is now charged with three murders and for the first time since he was arrested last year they are starting to believe that he won't be returning to the team.

...Finally, the Boston Bruins, the National Hockey League's classiest team. After their game seven choke against the Montreal Canadiens last Wednesday night they will be spending their off-season perfecting the water bottle toss and toning up on their poor sportsmanship skills.

...What a week!!!

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 5-25

...You got to love the Dutch. They are making immigrants in their country learn the language and pass a culture test during the first two years they are in the Netherlands and if they don't they got to leave. What an idea. Can you imagine if they did that in our country? Arizona would lose 80% of their population.

...While I'm at high fives to the Chinese too. This doesn't happen a lot so they better not get used to it. China loves the XP operating system so much that they have now banned Windows 8 from being installed onto any computer in that country. 50% of China's desktop market uses Windows XP and the reason behind the ban is that they wanted to ensure computer security there ever since Microsoft stopped supporting XP. You got to love anyone that can tell Microsoft in so many words to go to hell without actually saying it.

...I read an article that said that in one year's time kids eat more then ten pounds of sugar from breakfast cereal alone. That got me kind of curious because even though I am not a kid like most people I have cereal from time to time and it was here that I found out that one of my favorite cereals, Kellogg's Honey Smacks has 56% sugar by weight. No wonder why this tasted so good. Years ago this same cereal was called Sugar Smacks and all Kelloggs really did was remove the word "sugar" from the outside of the box while changing nothing inside of it. Sugar without Sugar Smacks? Unheard of. I haven't had this cereal for about a year and a half but it's not because I didn't want it. It's just that it's never been on sale. Now it's always going to be in the back of my mind every time I see it and I am never going to be able to buy it again.

...At least Cheerios and Rice Krispies got good reviews. I love those two cereals but at the same time I'd be hard pressed to pass up Count Chocula.

...The Customer is always right, Dept: A woman who was having breakfast in a Burger King restaurant down in South Carolina threatened to "shoot down the place" because she felt her cinnamon roll was not fresh enough. People like this woman really know how to keep their priorities straight. The other two women that were with her didn't say much because they were too busy polishing off their sausage, egg and cheese muffins to look up and take notice but as soon as their friend stuck her hand in her purse and acted like she had a gun they told her to hold on with that kind of talk because they weren't done eating yet. After employees threatened to call the police did they all finally leave and they made sure to take the cinnamon roll that caused all the commotion in the first place. Stick it in the microwave for ten seconds. Works wonders.

...Come to think of it something like this happened to me once except that there was no drama involved. It was a few years back and I was at a McDonalds and I bought a coke, fries and a double cheeseburger. When I placed my order I asked them not to put pickles on the burger and they said it wouldn't be a problem. When I sat down the first thing I did was open up the burger to see if they took the pickles out and sure enough they were right there like they were waiting for me. All I did was take them out and set them to the side. With an attitude like that I'll never be newsworthy.

...There seems to be a problem these days with schools as they seem to look the other way when bullies are involved even when the parents go to the teacher or administrators to report the problem. And the zero tolerance policy they have towards them looks great on paper but carrying it out and doing something about it is another thing. But as soon as a parent stands up for their kid and deals with them first-hand then just watch how quick they act. There was this mother in Santa Rosa, California who is now facing charges because she grabbed a twelve-year-old boy by the throat when she confronted him about bullying her daughter. The school took photos of the red marks on the boy's neck before calling the police, who in turn arrested the woman on a charge of felony child abuse. Arguments can be made pro and con about this but the way I see it is this is a mother protecting her child because the school won't. I don't have kids myself but I know I'd do the exact same thing except maybe squeeze harder.

...I'm no fan of tattoos. I'd never get one and I don't feel that I am missing out on anything because I don't have one but now if you ever need to be fitted for a crown you can have your tooth tattooed to anything that you desire. No thanks. I can hardly sit through a teeth cleaning without squirming off the chair.

...If the Yankees have any chance this year in winning the American League East Division they should try their best to stay out of Chicago because they seem to be snakebit every time they play there.

...Lately I have been forcing myself to go out for walks in the evening so I can build up more strength in my knees. I do it at night because it's finally starting to get warm around here but it still cold enough at night for people to stay outside on their porches or decks to pass the time away. It was during one of these walks that I started thinking about the times I spent with my friends on these cool nights that kept everyone inside and the things that we used to do then would never be tolerated today. We used to play a game where we had let's say six people. We'd split them up and one team would stay in one place for five minutes while the other guys would run off to God knows where with the goal of getting back to the agreed upon area. Sometimes I wonder to myself why I even think of something like this that happened those many years ago. Anyway, we would hide on top of garages. There was a set of houses where you could easily jump from one garage to the other until you covered all five of them. Picture some kids doing that now. We would hide inside of garages too. We knew the people who never locked their garage and we would open the doors and hide from the people who were looking for us. There was this old guy who always kept his unlocked and he had an impressive collection of tools that we never touched. Hiding out there was one thing, stealing was another. Give that a shot today and see how fast someone will press charges. I remember one kid who hid in a dog house in someone's backyard. It took us an hour to find him because while he was hiding he fell asleep in it. Maybe this was the beginning of my knee problems because if you got back to the safe area without being touched you were ok but if you were spotted you would be tackled to the ground before you got there and that happened to me a lot. And here I am, years later doing my best to walk in the same cool night with no one around remembering a time not so long ago when it was the easiest thing to do.

...Last week police from sixteen countries raided 359 homes and arrested eighty people suspected of peddling virus software believed to have infected hundreds of thousands of computers. The software was called "Blackshades" and it is a dangerous piece of malware that can let you control other people’s computers by recording keystrokes, having access to private information like credit card numbers and even being able to see you without your knowledge via your computer's webcam. Blackshades was very popular as it generated more than $350,000 in sales and along with the storage drives that were seized the FBI also confiscated quantities of cash, illegal firearms and drugs. This wasn't reported where I live but that doesn't mean that someone doesn't have it or is affected by it. The FBI even managed to arrest the owner and operator of this organization and I'm sure that as soon as he was picked up people started to get nervous because it probably won't take him long to start singing a few bars.

...There's a lot of unrest going on in Iran right now and this time it has nothing to do with blowing something up or chopping off someone's head. Those fun activities have been put on hold right now after the scandalous way an Iranian actress named Leila Hatami conducted herself at the Cannes Film Festival when she went up and greeted the head of the festival by giving him a kiss on the cheek. As soon as the Islamic republic's deputy culture minister was revived with smelling salts after witnessing this on television he went off on Hatami and accused her of maligning Iranians with her actions. It's a good thing she didn't shake his hand and wink at him too. The deputy culture minister continued to denounce her as he went on to say that "Iranian woman are the symbol of chastity and innocence" Yeah, sure they are. Buy them a few drinks and they're like anybody else.

...Lawyers representing the family of guitarist Randy California, who has been dead for seventeen years now, are suing to try and prevent the release of the Led Zeppelin IV reissue when the time comes because they want to make sure that the guitarist's name is given a writing credit on 'Stairway to Heaven.' This song is now forty-three years old and the family claims since California's death in 1997 it has taken this long to save up enough money for an attorney to take their case. Wouldn't you think that if the claims by this family were strong enough some lawyer would have taken the case because of a potential multi-million dollar settlement? Something doesn't add up right here but the only thing that does is someone trying to lay claim to this band's signature song before the album is remastered and re-released to the public.

...In an effort to keep her family from learning she had dropped out of school a twenty-two year old woman phoned in two bomb threats because she believed by doing so the graduation ceremonies at her school would be canceled and her relatives would not notice that her name was not on the list of graduates. That is what usually happens to someone when you haven't been at school all year. The girl's mother gave her thousands of dollars this year to use for school and was unaware that she was using the money to buy tokens on Google Play. The two bomb threat calls were traced back to the girl's cell phone number. Police will always admit that their job is made so much easier when crimes are committed by people like this who have their brain turned off when they are doing them.

...Stephen Drew is back with the Boston Red Sox after signing a one-year ten million dollar contract. This signing made the Fenway Faithful happy while the rest of baseball couldn't care less. Drew signed for four million dollars less than what Boston offered last year. I don't know what other skills he has besides playing baseball but after he retires he should never think about becoming an investment counselor.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 6-1

...How do you like this? The length of an average major-league game is 3.14 hours, up by about 4 minutes and 20 seconds since last season. That's thanks to instant replay and in years to come it is only going to get worse.

...When the Yankees and the Red Sox heard about this they just laughed and shrugged their shoulders because this was the average time it took to complete their games ten years ago.

...The Major League Baseball season is two months old now and a lot of eventful things have happened ever since the first Opening Day pitches were thrown out across the country. Promising rookies, some teams off to surprising starts and some others going in the wrong direction. This season has all the markings of being a pretty good one. But when you consider everything that has occurred so far probably the most insignificant and laughable one was the signing of Manny Ramirez by the Chicago Cubs to be a player-coach for their AAA team in Iowa. The Cubs are already having enough trouble this year as it is without signing someone like Manny to be a coach for their top farm team but just like all the other mistakes this team has made I suppose they just could not pass up the chance to make one more. Ramirez' job will be to work with and mentor the young Cub minor leaguers and play occasionally. He'll also be talking to players about the severity of taking PED's. That might be his saving grace because this will be the only part of the job that he knows something about. No one knows more about fundamentals and team work than Ramirez. I can just imagine what he'll be teaching those junior Cubbies.

1. When you hit a home run make sure you stand at home plate and admire what you just did. It's always about

you.

2. When you are out on the field just worry about your next at-bat. It's the pitcher's job to get the opposition

out.

3. When the manager gets on your case and expects you to hustle all the time and do things like run to first

base don't be afraid to fake an injury until he moves on to something else. And if he keeps it up and
doesn't let it go just demand to be traded.

4. Never be afraid to pick a fight with a teammate. Just make sure he is smaller than you.

5. Don't think twice about charging the mound while a pitcher is in the middle of his warmups even if you are

on the on-deck circle because you never know what is going through his head.

...The Atlanta Braves have an infielder by the name of Chris Johnson who is more famous for throwing temper tantrums than for anything that he has done out on the field. Try to picture Bryce Harper here but with no talent and just as much of selfish and explosive temper that he has. This is his third team since he broke in the major leagues back in 2009 and from Houston to Arizona and now to Atlanta all he has done was leave a trail of broken bats and equipment during his six years in baseball. With an approach to the game like that the next team he'll be playing for is the Red Sox.

...The Red Sox and the Rays got into a little skirmish down in Tampa last week because Boston threw a fit when a Tampa runner took third base on defensive indifference. The fact that they had just given up five runs and were on their way to lose again had nothing whatsoever to do with it. When the teams met out on the field David Ortiz was there with everyone else but he wasn't angry or pounding his chest or acting like he was going to go after someone. He just stood there like he was waiting for a bus. Fast-forward to last Friday night's game. Same two teams but this time the game was in Boston and the same thing happened. The Rays and Red Sox walk toward each other near the home plate area but this time Ortiz runs out of the dugout. This time he's mad and he's pointing at the Rays. He wants to fight all of them. He'll show them. And then he'll fight the state of Florida when he's done. I find it amusing to see how brave he gets when he's in Fenway Park.

...Back to the Palin's, Dept: I talk about politics in here as much as I talk about the health and well-being of the Boston Red Sox, which should give you an idea how much I talk about politics in here. But every time Sarah Palin says something that she thinks is so intelligent but really isn't she ends up giving me a good laugh and that's how she is able to make occasional appearances in the random thoughts thread. It certainly isn't because she has anything interesting to say. Palin suggested to President Obama that he should threaten Russia with nuclear war because of the current crisis in the Ukraine. Yeah, that'll work. And to think this woman was almost the Vice President.

...A true test of patience is talking to a person who is hard of hearing.

...I was watching a video last Thursday where an alligator was walking around at an outlet mall in South Carolina. He was corralled and caught before he made it to the food stand and taken away. Not even an alligator walking around loose and care free stopped some women from doing their shopping. I'm not afraid to admit that I'd be on top of roof screaming my fool head off.

...The Arsenio Hall Show was canceled last week despite the show being renewed for late-night syndication. Who says that TV executives don't always know what they are doing?

...I have never been one to pass up a massage but then again I have never been to the Philippine Islands either. They have a zoo there that offers free massages for anyone who wants one. The catch is that you get rubbed down by four giant Burmese pythons that the zoo insists is therapeutic and calming for the people who have them. I'd feel calmer if I were having a root canal without the novocaine. Before you get the massage the zoo gives you some pointers on how to behave around these reptiles. For those who do not do the smart thing and run away when you have the chance you are asked not to shout for help or breathe too heavily because if you do you might upset the snake and you will then be squeezed to death. These are the little trade-offs you have to expect when you are getting something for free.

...The grief on Richard Martinez' face when he was talking about his son Christopher last week after he and five other people were killed in Isla Vista, California by a lunatic who apparently had a grudge against the world was hard for me to watch at times. I empathized with the man and shared his anger and his sorrow like any other human being would but what made me even more angry was knowing that whatever Mr. Martinez said about having stricter gun control and when he called out Congress because they did nothing following the Newtown school shootings in 2012, I knew that nothing he was saying was going to make any difference. What happens when a tragedy like this takes place? Grieving parents and relatives are shown on TV over and over. Articles are written that say "this can not continue" but it's eventually dropped it until the next time it comes up. People get mad at the National Rifle Association because they're the ones that argue that it is the right of every American to own a semi-automatic weapon. The NRA has no need to respond to these criticisms since they don't last long anyways. They just sit back and wait for everything to settle down and it's back to business as usual until the next guy gets a gun in his hand and shoots some more people because a girl didn't smile at him. Six people died that day. The oldest was twenty-two-years old. Twenty children died in Newtown, Connecticut. There were two crimes that day. Elliot Rodger and his outlook on life that made him do what he did and the easy way that he was able to get his hands on three guns. If Richard Martinez spoke about this for the rest of his life nothing still would be done.

...Last Tuesday, Jared Remy, the son of Red Sox broadcaster Jerry Remy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of his girlfriend last year and was sentenced to mandatory life in prison without parole. The murder of this twenty-seven-year-old woman could have easily been avoided had Jared's last name had not been Remy because if it were anything else he would have been behind bars long before he had the chance to stab her four times in succession. Jared Remy has been in trouble his entire life and his parents did nothing to help him except for getting him high-priced legal help, which did nothing to stop his abusive patterns. There is a very well-written article that a writer from the Boston Globe wrote about how Remy got away with an astonishing amount of crimes and assaults with literally a slap on the wrist and all along the way his parents were there to foot his bills and keep him out of trouble. Jared Remy may have been the one who murdered this woman but if Jerry Remy and his wife had not enabled him and made all his legal troubles constantly disappear, he would have already been behind bars instead of being at that woman's apartment that day and if that were the case a woman named Jennifer Martel would be alive today.

...Before a crowd of onlookers, a twenty-five-year-old Pakistani woman was stoned to death by her family outside a courthouse in what was called an "honor" killing because she married the man she loved and the family objected to it. It's bad enough that this took place but it should be no surprise to anyone that it did since these people are nothing but a bunch of savage animals and I don't like saying that because it's an insult to animals. But if there is a better description of what these people are it escapes me at the moment. The family was upset because they promised her hand in marriage to one of her cousins since the guy was having a very hard time hooking up with someone from eHarmony. Instead the woman went out and married someone she was in love with and according to the family by doing that they "dishonored" them. Leave it to a Muslim to justify killing someone for a reason such as this. What even makes this worse is these people that included her father, her brothers and the cousin that she was supposed to marry did this to her with the knowledge that she was carrying a child. The entire crowd that pelted her with bricks got away when the police arrived with the exception of the father, who was trying to get a few more licks in. Police apprehended the father as he was trying to get away but it was unclear if they were going to detain him so he could be charged with murder or if they just wanted to take his bricks away so they can give it to the next guy.

...And it goes on. In Qatar, a small Arab country located in western Asia, they have started a campaign using posters, passing out brochures and using social media to ask visitors to wear modest clothing in public. Modest clothing to these people means they don't want to see your legs or your shoulders or your arms. At least your hands are not required to be covered up but give them time. The fact that this country is trying to make their visitors walk around in designer bed sheets all in the name of Islamic custom is not what really stands out here at least for me. It's their country, which is my nice way of saying who gives a sh**. But the fact that they get visitors is what surprised me. Who really wants to take the chance to go there? Unless you want to see something get blown up first-hand or watch and old-fashioned hanging where some unlucky woman gets strung up because she smiled at someone or something felonious like that, I see no legitimate reason to take a chance to visit the part of the world where killing is done because they believe their religion tells them to. They may not hang 'em in Detroit but they do enough shootings and killings every day to keep things interesting. And it's so much closer than Qatar.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 6-8

...During his annual Turn 2 Foundation dinner in New York Derek Jeter said that he would like to be a major-league owner after he retires and has no interest at all in managing. The reason for this is that he wants to call the shots and not have to answer to someone. You know, kind of like how it's been for him the past ten years of his career.

...The Astros made a pretty dubious move last week but there is a good chance you missed it because after all it concerned them. Not even their own fans pay attention to the moves they make so why should anyone else? For reasons that only made sense to them they signed minor league first baseman Jon Singleton to a guaranteed ten million dollar contract and this is all before he has played a single game in the major leagues. Where do you start? This guy is only hitting .267 with 14 home runs and 43 RBI. Remember, this is Triple-A ball and he got this huge contract, this gift, even though he has less than 450 at-bats for Houston's top farm team. This is also the same guy back in spring training who admitted he was a marijuana addict. He was suspended at the beginning of last season for fifty games for his marijuana use and there was also a time last year where Singleton went AWOL and no one in the Astros organization knew where he was. Just like what he was smoking he went up in smoke. Singleton has stated that even though he is a marijuana addict he has stopped using it and -wait for it- that is why he started to drink heavily. And he got a ten million dollar contract. He isn't worth it, but then again, the Astros aren't known for their wise decisions.

...The first thing I thought of was that this guy is in the wrong organization. Now if he was with the Rockies or Mariners he could do both things that he likes to do legally and that's playing baseball and getting stoned.

...Did anyone see that replay of Marlon Byrd swinging and missing against the Mets and breaking his bat in the process? The announcers were saying that Byrd's bat may have been broken without his knowledge but it still take someone pretty strong to do something like that. Bo Jackson busted up a broken bat over his helmet once when he was with the Royals but he also broke a bat over his knee after he struck out as a member of the White Sox, something I still think is more impressive than what Byrd did.

...Yeah, but she can say it, Dept: V. Stiviano has already had her fifteen minutes of fame and now whether she wants to or not she is getting another fifteen minutes. The racoon-faced former girlfriend of Donald Sterling has now been caught on tape saying derogatory things about African-Americans when she was auditioning for a reality show a few years back about gold diggers that was never picked up. Among the things she said during the try-out for the show was that she didn't understand black people because you give them a little bit of money and they don't know what to do with it. This sounds to me as questionable as anything Sterling said. It's too bad for her that this show never got off the ground because this would have been the easiest job on television that anyone ever had. She's already been driving around in expensive cars and living in a million-dollar apartment that she got Sterling to somehow pay for. And if I had to take a guess to how she got him to pay for it I would only need one. But where is the outrage, the finger pointing, the long, thoughtful articles about what she said? Someone must have forgotten to fill in CNN about this because they haven't covered this. But Sterling was on for days. In my opinion both are wrong but if you condemn one person the other should be looked at the same way.

...People in Germany love their beer so much that they want it wherever they go. Last week I found out that the McDonalds restaurants in that country serve beer. Can you imagine if they did that here? It would take two hours to go through the drive-thru.

...The Los Angeles Clippers sold for two billion dollars just like the Dodgers did a few years back. It is an insane amount of money to pay for anything and it got me wondering how many billions it would take to buy the Yankees?

...It's been over a week since David Ortiz was hit by a pitch thrown by Tampa's David Price and he still won't let it go. I hope that the next time he digs in and crowds the plate against Price that he gets hit in the mouth instead of the back. Maybe that will quiet him down for awhile.

...When I hear about stories like this it bothers me that I am not even shocked anymore. It's almost like I'm numb to what's going on. I'm talking about those twelve-year-old girls who lured one of their friends, also age twelve, into a wooded area near Milwaukee and stabbed her nineteen times and left her to die because they wanted to dedication and loyalty to a fictional internet character made famous on websites dealing with stories about death and horror named "Slenderman." Sounds like a guy you'd love to see part of your bowling league. The good news out of all this is that the girl is now in fair condition despite being stabbed all those times and the two girls that did it are going to be tried as adults and will be charged with first-degree attempted homicide. I'd love to see how the defense attorney is going to defend these two psychos and you can be pretty sure the internet is going to be blamed for this because somehow the internet managed to corrupt these two young and innocent minds by forcing them to read horror stories and to steal their mother's kitchen knife to try and kill a girl that they considered a friend. Good luck with that. Those two must have already had a few screws loose long before they learned how to send an e-mail all by themselves. I hope these two spend a long time behind bars or at least until they are old enough so they aren't looking for babysitting jobs.

...After learning about the treatment that his nine-year-old autistic son had been receiving on the bus he takes to school each day from one particular kid, a Bay Area man escorted the boy on that same bus last week and asked him to point out the kid that has been bullying him. Bullies can not resist picking on an autistic kid the same way a woman can not resist a purse sale. Once identified the angry father walked up to his son's tormentor who, in a matter of seconds found out how the receiving end felt when being pushed around by someone bigger than them. The man grabbed the eleven-year-old boy by the hair and pulled him out of his seat and shoved him against the window and let him know in no uncertain terms what would happen to him if he were to hear that he bothered his son again. For his actions he was arrested and charged with child abuse and bodily injury to a child and is in jail pending a $50,000 bond. While he's in jail they ought to feed him steak and potatoes and give him the best lobster caught in San Francisco because it's about time these kids who push other kids around just to make themselves feel better get knocked down a few pegs. It sounds nice to tell your kids to "turn around and walk away" or "just ignore it" but how many times does that actually work out for the kid who is being picked on? I'm not suggesting that the fathers across America join together to beat the snot out of every school bully but in this case it could be that the abuse that this autistic boy was being subjected to was enough for his father to accept.

...I really didn't know if I was going to be able to write my random thoughts this week because early last Monday morning I started to feel really cold and I began to shiver and couldn't stop. I went back into bed and got under every blanket I could find in the house but that didn't help me one bit. I had a temperature of 104.7 and when it gets that high that is what happens. If there is one thing I am an expert on it would be fevers. I always got these high ones so I know what it's like when they start and how you feel when your temperature starts to go down, It's like someone turned the heat on in your house to 90 degrees because you sweat it out in a hurry. After a trip to the doctor that same day I had to have blood work on Wednesday and then I had to go for an ultrasound on Thursday. The more I deal with people in the medical field the more I don't understand them. When they called my name to go and get the ultrasound they looked at my wrist band where all the patient information was printed out on. Name, date of birth, social security number, etc. But the woman who walked me back there must have been one of those people who does not believe what she reads because she made me tell her everything that was on the wrist band while we walked to the examination room. The entire walk from the waiting room to the exam room took literally less than thirty seconds. Once we got in the room and before we got down to business she shuffled around a few papers and then looked up at me and asked me to state my name and month, day and year I was born once again just to be sure that someone who looked just like me did not jump in the room and throw me out so they can have an ultrasound instead of me. Serves me right for getting sick.

...It won't happen to me, Dept: Sometimes you have to wonder what it takes to get through to people. The U.S. has warned their citizens about the risks of visiting North Korea and even if you go there as part of a tour group it does not mean you won't be arrested for jaywalking and be sentenced to twenty years hard labor. I decided to listen to the warnings out of Washington and I immediately canceled my plans of flying there to watch a charity basketball game the next time Dennis Rodman visits. But some people just do not get the hint because a man by the name of Jeffrey Edward Fowle made himself the latest headache of the State Department because he is now the third U.S. citizen to be held there. Fowle was arrested for committing unspecified acts inconsistent with the purpose of a tourist visit. They're unspecified because North Korea hasn't come up with a good reason yet and whatever they dream up and accuse him of he has it coming because he shouldn't have been there in the first place. Go ask Kenneth Bae how the food and maid service has been since he's been a guest over there. Going there is just as risky as sticking your hand in the wide open mouth of a lion and being surprised when he bites it off. You know it's probably not a good idea but you do it anyway.

...I was saddened to hear about the news of Don Zimmer's death. He's literally been around baseball ever since I was introduced to it and that's probably the same for everyone here. The first time I really paid attention to him was when he was named the Red Sox manager and naturally because of that I hated him. Every time the camera showed him in the dugout he had tobacco in his mouth. I never forgot that. On the ABC telecasts Howard Cosell always used to call him Zip. I can still see the sad look on his face after the '78 playoff game. Eventually Boston fired him and he moved on. He was always a survivor. He was a big part of the Yankee dynasty in the late 90's and I really think they suffered when he left the team in 2003. R.I.P.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 6-15

...Tomorrow in Bridgeport, Connecticut Pete Rose is getting the opportunity to return to the dugout and manage one game for the Bridgeport Bluefish of the independent Atlantic League. Since the Bluefish are not associated with any team in baseball they did not have to seek out the permission of Major League Baseball before they offered Rose this one-game opportunity. Rose said he took this opportunity because he loves baseball, a fact that was never in question anytime his name was mentioned. His problem was betting on the wrong horses and the wrong baseball teams. Willie Upshaw, the former Toronto Blue Jays first baseman is the manager for all the other games on the Bluefish schedule. I wonder if all he has to do for this game is to keep Rose's coffee cup filled and to tell the press what a wonderful job he did?

...A manager of a Family Dollar store in Saginaw, Michigan was fired last week after observing some customers in the act of shoplifting and when he called 911 to report the theft they asked him to go outside to see if he could get the woman’s license plate number. When he went out to the parking lot to get the information for the police the women in the car saw him and figured out what he was trying to do and before he had a chance to finish they got out of their car and confronted him. It's right here where the store manager took matters into his own hands and it ended up costing him his job. The argument between the people lasted for about two minutes and the only stolen item he was able to get back from the women was a can of Febreze which he then promptly sprayed in the car in a fit of anger. It's a good thing these people didn't steal a can of Raid. The fired store manager explained later that the police in this section of town that this Family Dollar is located in do not show up when you call 911 and the only thing that they did in this instance was call back later to see if they had everything under control. Losing your manager's job at a place like that isn't the end of the world because you can make nine dollars an hour someplace else with a lot less responsibility. But if there is one thing to take out of all this it is the knowledge that if you are even in the Saginaw area and you need to pick up a few things and you are a little short on funds, just drop by this store and load up with anything you want and the cops will never catch you because they won't even show up.

...I saw something similar to this a few years back when my wife and I took one of our dogs to the local Petco so he could pick out a new toy to bring home with him. While we were walking back to the car we saw four people that we learned later on were members of the same family coming out of the Factory Card Outlet (now called Party City) and the reason why we paid attention to them was the way they walked out of the store. Every few steps they kept on looking over their shoulders like they were trying to sneak away from someone so they could leave them behind while they drove away. We were just about to get in the car to go home when all hell broke loose. Two people from the store came out and pointed to them and yelled at them to stop. As soon as they said that they took off running to their mini-van and unfortunately for those store employees those people did not have that far to run. The family of Bonnie and Clyde made a clean getaway and I don't know if they were ever caught because the police were only a minute behind them. I later learned from one of the guys that took off after them that this family was going from store to store in this small outlet mall stealing whatever they can get their hands on.

...A father on the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i got himself in some pretty hot water with a judge because of the way he chose to discipline his kid. Dad had to go to his son's school because he had to pick him up because the school was sending him home for the day for doing something wrong and when he got there he was naturally curious as to why he had to come and pick him up. While they were in the car he kept on asking him about it but his son refused to respond. Finally the father had enough of his little act and stopped the car and told him to walk the rest of the way home. You know, like they do on TV at times. When he let him out he was only about a mile away from home. For doing this he had to stand in front of a judge and explain his actions and the judge, to put it mildly, was not sympathetic. She sentenced him to one year's worth of probation, a $200 fine and he is forced to attend a child parenting class for a misdemeanor charge of second-degree endangering the welfare of a minor. All this for making the kid take a walk. All this time I knew something was terribly wrong during my growing up years because every single day without fail my parents would make me walk to school.

...The only regret I have about the Manny Machado bat throwing incident is that he didn't do it against the Red Sox.

...I can't imagine how much pressure Mariano Rivera, Jr is going to be under now after the Yankees drafted him. If he can be half as good as his father the Yankees are getting a good one.

...Where I live the name Tom Golisano is very well known. In 1971 he founded Paychex, a company that offers payroll and payroll tax services which in turn made him a billionaire. He's had many interests such as owning the NHL Buffalo Sabres for a time and also running unsuccessfully for Governor of New York three times. He has contributed a lot to charity including a three million dollar grant to the high school I used to attend and part of that grant allowed the school to purchase laptops for each one of their students. Now at the age of seventy-two and three times divorced already he will be getting married again, this time to forty-year-old former tennis star Monica Seles, a woman who was born two years after he founded his company. Some people never learn. Seles is a millionaire already but there's always room for improvement when you hook up with a billionaire. One look at Seles these days again confirms that one of the first things to desert you as you age is your vision.

...A man who drove a cross-country trip with a dead woman in the passenger seat will not face charges for failing to report her death immediately since there was no foul play involved and that he thought he had forty-eight hours to report her death because that is what he read on the internet. When he arrived home he was asked by the medical examiner if he was uncomfortable driving all that way knowing there was a dead body in the car the guy replied that he was fine and that the ride was pretty quiet since the woman kept to herself for most of the trip.

...The New York papers have been running daily articles on the Life and Times of Derek Jeter because they don't want anyone to forget for one day that this is his last year as a Yankee, as if we can forget it. They never have a hard time coming up with a new angle to kiss his backside but last week when they said that Jeter showed Cano what it means to be a leader they went a little bit too far. If there is any truth to that at all then Captain Wonderful did an awful job because whatever words of wisdom he passed on to Robinson Cano it must not have been worth remembering. Cano may be a lot of things but a leader isn't one of them.

...Hey, the World Cup started! I know this because ESPN has been talking about this non-stop and they're giving it a lot of coverage to try and fool people to think they actually care who wins. And I never would have paid attention to this at all had it not been for that Brazilian girl wearing blue who sang in the opening ceremonies.

...A man in Arizona after having four or five too many drinks in one night went out in his backyard last week to get some air and while he was out there had a confrontation with the moon because he didn't like the way it was looking at him. So he ran back in his house and grabbed his handgun and started firing at it but his shots missed by a few hundred thousand miles. Give him credit, he tried. For his attempt to shoot the man in the moon he was charged with felony counts of unlawful discharge of a firearm, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and for trying to out-drink a bar full of people with tequila shots. He'd have been ok if he just did what Ozzy Osbourne did and just bark at it.

...It is never easy to hear about a ballplayer unexpectedly dying the way Bob Welch did last week. Even though I may not have thought about him for years (not counting Total Classics games) the news still came as a shock to me. I didn't realize that he was in the big leagues for seventeen years. I do know when his rookie year was because the replay of him striking out Reggie Jackson to end game two of the 1978 World Series was shown quite a few times but a lot of people do not know what happened a split second before Welch threw his final pitch to strike out Jackson. Bucky Dent was the runner on second base and with a 3 - 2 count he took off on the pitch. As he took off he caught Jackson's eye and when you are trying to hit a 95 mph missile from a hard-throwing rookie you need all the concentration you have. Jackson ended up striking out and in the replay you can see him being upset with himself. He was, but he was also upset about the distraction caused by Dent. But this was back in the days when the Yankees played like the Yankees and they won the next four games to win the series. Jackson faced Welch two more times that series and got a single and in the deciding game back in Los Angeles he got his revenge on Welch. In the seventh inning with New York leading 5 - 2 Jackson again faced Welch. This time with one runner on first base, Welch threw another fastball to Jackson and Jackson turned on it and deposited it in the right field bleachers to make the score 7 - 2 and that's how the game ended. R.I.P. Bob Welch.

...Also R.I.P. to former Pittsburgh Steelers coach Chuck Noll who died last Friday at the age of eighty-two. Noll is the only coach to win four Super Bowls and he did it with the powerful Steeler teams back in the 70's. What I remember most about Noll is that he called Raiders strong safety George Atkinson "part of the criminal element" in the NFL after Atkinson hit Lynn Swann in the head with his forearm in the first regular season game of the 1976 season. Atkinson filed a two million dollar defamation lawsuit against Noll but lost. Noll was a hard guy to beat even off the football field.

...Finally happy Father's Day to all the dads in here. I hope you have a relaxing and enjoyable day!

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 6-22

...One thing that has always impressed me about the Japanese players who have come over to the United States to play is how respectful they are towards everyone and the more I learn about that culture I realize that this is something that is deep-seated and it's something that every country can learn from with ours being at the top of the list. Since it is almost impossible to watch ESPN now without having some kind of coverage about the World Cup they showed a short clip on the Japanese fans cleaning up after themselves by picking up and bagging the trash that was in their area of the grandstand after they saw their team lose to the Ivory Coast. The Japanese people have a quiet grace about them. Can you imagine the Fenway Park fans picking up all the empty beer cups after a game? Neither can I.

...But these Japanese fans stick out like a coffee bean in a bowl of rice when you compare them to the other soccer fans that are down in Brazil now. I don't know if those people couldn't wait for the World Cup to begin so they can watch their national team or just to have an excuse to riot in the streets, set vehicles on fire and assault fans from other teams just because there's nothing better to do. They're having so much fun that they may stay behind in Brazil after the last game is played instead of going home.

...What's up with Justin Verlander? Before all he had to do was throw his glove on the mound and he'd beat you. Makes me think he may be hiding an injury.

...Athletics starting pitcher Drew Pomeranz broke his right hand when he punched a chair last Monday night in Oakland after giving up eight runs to the Texas Rangers. Who says Kevin Brown can't have all the fun?

...Is it too much to ask that the next time Yasiel Puig does his hot dog bat flip that he ends up breaking his nose?

...jetBlue Airlines showed last week that the safety of all their customers outweighed the needs of one when a flight attendant refused to let a mother take her little girl to the bathroom when the plane they were on was delayed on the tarmac at JFK in New York. The three-year-old girl was not lying because when she was told she could not go to the restroom she went right on her seat. When her mother stood up to try and clean her and the seat off she was told to immediately sit down and when she didn't the stewardess reported it to the captain and the aircraft was turned around due to the plane having a "non-compliant passenger" on board. When something like this happens the airport security comes on board to take away the passenger (s) so they can start having their fun with them. As luck would have it an off-duty pilot was sitting two seats in front of where this occurred and saw for himself how ridiculous the situation was being handled and convinced the crew to let her stay. Part of the deal was that the child be given nothing to drink since she already shown she could not hold her Kool-Aid. The airline said and did all the predictable things that companies do when they know they screwed up when they contacted the mother to apologize and admitted that "no one should have to go through that" followed by "we sympathize with what happened to you and your daughter." And in the end it was money that closed the case and made everyone happy. The family received a fifty dollar credit for their flight and jetBlue donated $5,000 to any charity of the family's choosing. Everyone won except a little girl who was not allowed to use a restroom and was humiliated because of it.

...What I want to know is what the airline told the next person who had to sit in the urine-soaked seat?

...Has anyone ever noticed that when you have to be someplace that you have never been before and are not really sure where it is that you always hit some kind of construction along the way?

...It must not have been a good week last week to be a three-year-old little girl either in the air or on the ground. At a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Mississippi a woman was asked to remove her grandchild from inside the restaurant because an employee told her that the child's scars were scaring other customers. The right side of this little girl's face is paralyzed after being attacked by three pit bulls and since the attack has a hard time swallowing. Even though the people at KFC had no way of knowing what happened to the little girl they still wanted her gone because of how she looked and whether it was someone who worked there or another customer who complained about it, it made no difference to the girl, who understood immediately why she was asked to leave. Just like the airline incident with that other little girl, KFC immediately got in touch with the family to try and repair their image but this cost KFC a lot more than it did jetBlue because the airline hid behind procedures and increased safety issues to explain why they acted so callous. To make this whole mess go away, KFC ended up donating $30,000 to the family to help pay for the little girl's medical bills. That's a big chunk of change to consider when all the little girl really wanted was some mashed potatoes.

...I love going to 7-11 to get my coffee fix because I think what they have there is just as good as what Dunkin' Donuts has and cheaper the cost. Plus, 7-11's closer to my house and that's another thing in its favor. One night last week I was sitting around watching a movie and before I knew it I put it on pause and was on my way to get another twenty-four-ounce cup. The store was practically deserted when I got there but it was around 11 p.m. so that really wasn't out of the ordinary. Just one other guy and myself were there. I got my coffee and a couple of bananas and went up to pay for them. The other guy was already there and had his items on the counter and was waiting for the cashier to ring them up. There are times in our lives when we wish we had did or said a certain thing when we look back on something that happened to us and I've got a memory bank full of them. But for the guy ahead of me this was not one of those times. He was waiting patiently to pay for his stuff and get out of there but the cashier was busy doing something else, namely text-messaging someone on her phone. And it wasn't a quick message. She was typing so much you'd have sworn that something as long as the Bill of Rights was being sent to someone. Finally, and mercifully, she was done and she set her phone down and began to do her job. While she was ringing up the items the guy turned around at me and smiled but did not say a word. It was the way he smiled that told me that something was up. When the girl finished putting everything in bags she said to him "that'll be $17.50 please." The guy puts his hand in his pocket and I figure he's getting his wallet out. Instead, he grabs his phone and then he starts to text message and if looks could kill he'd of been on the floor and never would have got up again. I didn't see the guy outside after I paid for my coffee but I wish I did because I wanted to tell him that was one of the funniest things I've seen in my life. Maybe I'll go for more late night coffees from now on.

...At a party in London two teens were trying to have sex together on a balcony when they suddenly fell six stories to their deaths from the cropped ledge. Afterwards the people that were interviewed by police could not understand why they were out there in the first place since the room they were in had a king-sized bed. I suppose we will never know whose idea it was to go out there but I hope for their sake it was worth it, at least up to the time they fell.

...Last Thursday was the conclusion of a two-day auction of everything that was included in the Pontiac Silverdome, the former home of the Detroit Lions. If there was a kitchen sink in that stadium it would have sold too but they did end up selling a bunch of bathroom sinks, which is probably the next best thing. More than twenty-five complete bathrooms were sold and each of them included the sinks, soap dispensers and urinals. The leftover toilet paper was thrown in for free. Most of the bathrooms will be installed over at Comerica Park this week while the Tigers are on the road and the remaining will be installed during the All-Star break. The Tigers management realized that their fans have to wait in long lines for their food and drinks at the ballpark, so by purchasing all these extra urinals they will assure their fans of never having to wait in line behind someone when nature comes calling.

...To his credit Alex Rodriguez has had a pretty low profile so far this season and if this is by design or by coincidence, no one really knows. After dropping the two cases he had against Major League Baseball back in February, the only remaining suit he kept pursuing was the one against the Yankees team doctor and the New York-Presbyterian Hospital about not informing him that he had a hip injury when he went for a MRI during the playoffs against Detroit two years ago. All the right things were said by Rodriguez's lawyer after this announcement was made when he told the press that his client wanted "no legal distractions" so he could prepare for the 2015 season. He neglected to say that any legal distractions that his client may have had were brought on by himself. Unless there are no other lawsuits that Rodriguez still has ongoing that he forgot about he can gladly go back to doing whatever he was doing before and stay out of the media's eye because we'll have enough of him come next February.

...Last Friday night Hope Solo, the goalkeeper for the United States women's soccer team was arrested in her suburban Seattle home and is being held without bail on two counts of domestic-violence assault after she repeatedly hit her sister and seventeen-year-old nephew during a family gathering. Solo was so bombed out of her mind that she swore later that all she saw were soccer balls where everyone's heads should have been and then began kicking them away from her. Her sister and nephew were the two unfortunate ones that she got to first as she tried to kick both of their heads away from her goal but instead of making the save she just gave both of them a headache they won't forget.

...I had no idea that four years ago doctors found cancer in one of Tony Gwynn's salivary glands and how sick he was during the first few months of this year. All I knew was that he was enjoying his job as the head baseball coach at San Diego State University. So when I logged onto this site last Monday morning and I read where a few people were talking about his death in the shoutbox it really was a shock for me because I did not realize things were that bad with him. He was one of my favorite players and it was very easy to respect him because of the kind of person he was and that he played his entire career in San Diego. San Diego is such a beautiful city but being a small-market team but they have habitually had a hard time keeping their good players and that is still true today. But not Gwynn. He stayed and he was loved for it. If there was one guy you could point at to say was a victim of east coast bias it would be him. How else would anyone explain someone with a lifetime .338 batting average and who was a fifteen-time All Star and won eight batting titles not getting a lot of national coverage? Imagine if Gwynn had been a Yankee. He'd of had the type of attention that Derek Jeter has had his whole career. I am just glad he was around long enough to have the honor of being inducted into the Hall of Fame. R.I.P.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 6-29

...San Diego Padres reliever Alex Torres became the first major league pitcher to step out on the mound wearing the brand new protective cap that was made available for pitchers this season. It's a bulky looking cap and if you haven't seen a picture of it yet try to picture a small child trying to wear a hat made for an adult. Torres was a member of the Rays and was in their bullpen the night Alex Cobb was struck in the head by a line drive that he never saw off the bat of Eric Hosmer of Kansas City. That memory has stayed with him ever since and even though he has been in thirty games this year without the aid of the protective cap Torres finally decided that it was time to use it. Sure it looks odd, but so did batting helmets when they were first introduced back in the day. I only hope that Torres' cap is never tested.

...Remember the name Yasmani Tomas. He's the next right-handed power hitting outfielder from Cuba that has defected from his country with the intention of breaking into the major leagues. He's still got some legal things to hurdle through so we won't see him on a big league roster until next year. I can't wait to see what his bat-flipping talents are like.

...Francisco Cervelli's been back with the Yankees for about a week now and he has miraculously managed not to get hurt yet.

...Former New England Patriot tight end Aaron Hernandez was taken to a nearby hospital last weekend for undisclosed reasons. Truthfully I don't even want to know why. What really stuck out for me here was that Hernandez did not beat up or kill anyone en route to the hospital.

...Summer time is officially over a week old and that means plenty of town, church or fireman's carnivals to go to. I make sure I go to one at least once a year because they have some of the best lemonade and pizza I've ever had. And while you'd never get me on any of those rides without a fight it is <ahem> always nice to take a stroll around the grounds to make sure that my eyesight has not failed me. I bring all this up because of an article I read about a festival that is held in southern China every year in a town called Yulin. The people in that province have just completed their annual dog meat festival, a traditional festival that goes on once a year. When they eat a hot dog at this thing they really mean it. Animal rights activists have been going there for the past few years to put a stop to it but they've met with very little success. The killing and eating of dogs is part of the daily diet there but it increases during this celebration and according to these activists they estimate that 10,000 dogs are killed for the festival alone. If any of you reading this are dog owners like I am I understand if you feel a little sick right now. All of a sudden I'm not hungry. Not even for pizza.

...An Albuquerque, New Mexico bus driver was fired from his job after surveillance cameras caught him in a sex act with a woman during a layover stop after someone walked past the bus while the two were negotiating the fare. That's the reason why the guy was fired, because some busy body felt they had to tell someone. Can't blame the guy really. There's only so many crossword puzzles you can do on your break before you get bored with it and want to to do something else.

...In what will probably be the last time he will go someplace where he shouldn't be at, a teenage boy found the mummified body of a man hanging in a closet after he decided to go exploring in what he thought was an abandoned house. The deceased was a man that has not been seen since 2009 and the coroner's office said the reason why the body had a hardened, leathery appearance was because the tissue had dried up and because of the cold and dark conditions that the home was in it was preserved that way. That explanation meant nothing to the kid who still refuses to get near any closet in his own home and for the rest of his life when every time someone gets on his case for not hanging his coat up he's got a good reason why.

...The Oakland Athletics desperately want and need a new stadium and they've been saying that for years now. So why have they engaged in negotiations on a new ten-year lease to remain in the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum? I don't understand that at all. This is like me volunteering to spend an extra week down at my in-laws when everybody knows I wouldn't spend an extra hour down there.

...A federal lawsuit was filed by prisoners in Texas over the soaring temperature in the state prisons that they claim killed twelve prisoners in the last three years. My first reaction was if they didn't get convicted of a crime in the first place they wouldn't have to worry about this. The lawsuit is asking for the temperatures to be set to eighty-eight degrees and that is what they consider acceptable for "cooler" temperature. I can't imagine how hot it is in there, especially in southern Texas when the thermometer is consistently over one hundred degrees daily. The union that represents the guards in these prisons even lent public support to the suit and this is what really made me think twice to what these people are looking for. Forget trying to sneak in a file for one of these guys. What they really need is an electric fan.

...Anytime Serena Williams loses in a tournament I consider it great news but when she gets eliminated at Wimbledon that's even better.

...As incredible as it may seem this is not the first time a small child has been left in a car for a long period of time and has died because of the heat. Since 1990 twenty-two children have died this way in the Atlanta area alone and now with this little boy last week it is now twenty-three. It makes you wonder to yourself how you can leave a kid in your car but it is probably as easy as forgetting your lunch or your hat or your jacket. I'd have to say it was about ten years ago that the same thing happened to a couple in one of the midwestern states. The father thought the mother was going to take the baby to day care while at the same time the mother thought her husband was going to do it. The baby was left in the car only to be found later. In that case no charges were filed against the parents. However in this instance the father is being charged with felony murder and child endangerment since the police are not sure if the father really knew the kid was back there. It remains to be seen if the police are right but even if the man is acquitted of these charges he's going to suffer for the rest of his life anyway.

...There was a big outcry last week over some soccer player from Uruguay named Luis Suarez, a guy that I have never heard of until a few days ago and and I would have been happy if it would have stayed that way too. Uruguay's in Brazil participating in the World Cup and in their latest match against Italy this Suarez guy bit one of the Italian players on the shoulder for no reason at all. The Italian player, a man named Giorgio Chiellini, showed great restraint after being bit because it is customary to return the favor by kicking the person in the general area that is covered by a protective cup. Since the match was almost over when this happened the referees did nothing and I think I understand why. They could have been next.

...Because of people like this guy I have a good reason why I hate soccer but to be fair I have hated this game long before I heard of Luis Suarez. I think this game is just as boring as being forced to sit through an opera or having to look at some kid's kindergarten graduation pictures. I think the real reason why I dislike soccer so much is that youth soccer programs across the country attract more kids than any other sport except basketball. All you got to do is drive around where you live this summer and you'll see kids in shorts kicking a white ball around instead of kids wearing double-knit uniforms trying to hit a baseball. But oddly I have no problem playing soccer on my PC. Go figure.

...One more about this soccer crap just to show how nuts it makes some people. An NBA prospect named Joel Embiid, who is from Cameroon got on his twitter account and congratulated Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo (this guy I actually heard of and Sabugo gets the credit for that) for what he did in the U.S. - Portugal match that enabled the Portuguese to tie it in the final moments of play. All of a sudden because of this statement he was put down for being "ungrateful" because he was living here in America and he openly gave props to the guy that helped break the hearts of U.S. soccer fans everywhere. All one hundred of them. This guy's only been in the country a few years and isn't even a citizen so you can't blame him for not knowing that there are a lot of people around here who enjoy complaining about every little slight, real or imaginary. Take the Cuban players who are in the major leagues now. Do you think they support this country? Hell no. They just haven't said anything yet. One guy on CNN actually said that Embiid "insulted everyone" in this country. All this guy did was congratulate a soccer player. It's not like he burned the flag or something like that. I wish they would have asked me how I felt about this because I wasn't insulted at all. That's because I couldn't care less

...It sure was a damn shame that the Yankees did not have a game scheduled on Derek Jeter's birthday because they could have found a way to honor him then. Poor guy, he's been virtually ignored by everyone in his final Yankee season.

...I got my copy of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2008 in the mail on Friday and the first impression was complete frustration on my part and then when I thought I couldn't get frustrated any further I found out that I was wrong. The game installed fine and runs very well on my machine. That's not the problem at all. The problem is that I don't know what I'm doing and I was forced to close the door in my computer room while I was attempting to hit the ball off the tee or putt because my dogs had no idea who I was yelling at. All they saw was me in a chair hollering at something in front of me and this game gave me a lot of reasons to do that. I yelled at Tiger Woods himself, the trees to the left of me, the trees to the right of me, the sand traps and the water and also Daflyboys, who raved about this game and got me so curious about it that I went out and bought it last week from Amazon because I trust his judgment - although I do draw the line on MLB 2K12. It's not his fault I suck. But I have to admit between all my lousy shots and the practice holes I played I saw the potential in this game and I figure that with a lot of practice I will be able to enjoy it a lot more. I played this game for around fifteen minutes before I cried uncle and turned it off because I knew the Yankee game was coming on later that night and to make matters worse they were playing Boston and that alone is enough to get me going. There's a good chance I will never be as good in this game as I am in Links but I am going to have fun trying. Now all I got to do is figure out how to add some new courses to the game. Even that looks hard.

...Finally, enjoy your Fourth of July holiday!

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 7-6

...I look forward to the Fourth of July holiday every year even though I am no longer in school and my summer vacation days are long gone. I knew when the Fourth rolled around I still had two months of summer vacation left and I always tried to cram in as much fun as I could But as much as I love this holiday that is how much my dogs hate it. Someone in the area has been shooting off fireworks every night since the 28th of June and every boom, bam and pop that goes off the dogs hear it and in turn I have to hear them and when they start barking it sounds like we have a full blown kennel in my house. Fireworks are illegal here in the State of New York so these people probably get their noisemakers from Massachusetts or some other place that doesn't care what you buy.

...Whomever thought of that ad campaign that has those puppets dancing around in the DirectTV commercials should be fired.

...Many years ago on Saturday Night Live there was a sketch where Bill Murray and Jane Curtain were playing a couple who were entertaining a guest in their home played by John Belushi called "the thing that wouldn't leave." In it, Murray and Curtain kept on dropping hints to Belushi that they were tired and wanted to go to bed but the oblivious Belushi never picked up on it and kept on thinking of other things to do just to stay longer, which drove Curtain into hysterics. I was reminded of this because of that live-in nanny in California who was fired from her job because she wasn't doing any work and refused to leave the house after she was told to go. When the police were called to the home they said they couldn't help them at all because the nanny had established residency there and in California that meant they must go to court to get a person like that evicted from their home. The family said they ran a background check on this woman but obviously it was not thorough enough because if they had actually done their homework they would have found that this woman was on California's Vexatious Litigant List which means she files lawsuits as often as a fat guy who orders pepperoni pizza. I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to have someone in your house that you can't get rid of but I were them I would have tried to think of a few ways to make it as hard on her as I could so she had no choice but to leave. To hell with that "established residency" crap. That's their home.

1. I would set my alarm for 3:00 am and then start playing a recording of barking dogs that I would play over and over and during the day I would play a couple albums worth of Iron Maiden. I think when she hears Bruce Dickinson sing "Run to the Hills" on The Number of the Beast album four or five times she will do exactly that.

2. I would only keep the bare necessities in the room that she is occupying. That means no sheets on the bed, no pillows, no television and no hangers for her clothes

3. I would turn the hot water off when she was going to take a shower.

4. I would make her purchase rolls of toilet paper at a time. Twenty dollars a roll should be fine and none of those two-ply brands either.

5. I would make her buy her own food and not store any of it in the refrigerator. In fact, I'd put a lock on the refrigerator and also restrict her from going into any other room in the house including the laundry room. If she wants to go there it will be twenty dollars for a load of clothes and another twenty for using the dryer.

...Oh those Zany Pakistanis, Dept: Every time I talk about something that happens in the Middle East it always seems to put the people who live there in a bad light, which is hardly my fault. All these people do is find reasons to kill each other in the most horrific ways and it never seems to bother them. Where else can you stone a pregnant woman to death who just was married moments before and then have people look at you like you did something wonderful? In Pakistan they have no idea what 'Love thy Neighbor' is about but they can tell you four or five quick ways to kill the guy down the dirt road in case you're interested. I need no further examples to make me change my opinion of them of being a country of barbarians who have no respect for anything but last week they gave me another one. A young couple got married but the girl's family did not give them their blessings and did not approve of her getting married. After they were married the bride's father and uncles lured the couple back to the girl's village with the ruse of giving them a wedding gift, probably his and hers rifles or a set of explosives that they can use just in case they see an American walking around. This turned out to be a fatal mistake for the newlyweds because as soon as they arrived they were ambushed and tied up and just so they really understood how upset the girl's family was towards the wedding they cut both their heads off in what was called an honor killing. It was the least these loving relatives could do. I think the life expectancy of a woman who gets married in Pakistan must be at least fifteen minutes. After the beheading the family had a little party and then turned themselves into the police even though there were no witnesses who saw them do it. The father and uncles remained in jail until the weekend and were released on Saturday and the fact that two more weddings happened to be scheduled that day had nothing to do with it. One of these days I may hear something that comes out of this country that is borderline humanitarian but I highly doubt it.

...Alfredo Aceves has been suspended for fifty games for violating some kind of banned drug under baseball's minor league testing program. This will in doubt be the end of his Yankee career for the second and final time. He probably wanted the rest of the summer off and this was the easiest way to do it. Why not? It's not like anyone's going to miss him.

...Bryce Harper returned to the Washington Nationals lineup last Monday night after missing almost two months because of a torn ligament in his left thumb. But before his first game back he was not too happy about playing left field because he thinks he should be in center field an no place else. He went on to point out where everyone in the lineup should be playing and he didn't understand why manager Matt Williams' lineup was not exactly the same as his. The odd man out in Harper's lineup was Denard Span, who has been playing a more than adequate center field during Harpers' absence. Harper's only been in the majors for two years now but already has the attitude of a ten-year player who's had everything handed to him. If anyone wants to know why a player like Mike Trout is liked and respected by fans and this guy is not it's because Trout goes out and does him job and doesn't try to do anyone else's.

...But leave it to the ever-knowing David Ortiz to outdo Harper. Ortiz said last week that the reason why the Cubs haven't won is because they play a lot of day games. Why? Because he's talked to a lot of friends of his that played for the Cubs over the years like Alfonso Soriano and they told him that is how it is. That was his first mistake right there, listening to Soriano since he was one of the main reasons why the Cubbies have not won in recent years. Soriano spent 6 1/2 years in Chicago and never got his uniform dirty once. How Ortiz got it into his head that he can give other organizations advice on how to do things is unclear but since he's been telling the Red Sox how to run their team for the past half dozen years or so it must be second nature now.

...Last Friday was the 75th anniversary of Lou Gehrig's famous speech at Yankee Stadium where he told the crowd that he was "the luckiest man on the face of the earth." And now seventy-five years later what most people remember about Gehrig is that he has a disease named after him. There's never even been a ballpark named after him. Not even at Columbia University where he went to college. This was one of baseball's greatest players and the lack of recognition that has been given to him has always bothered me. Gehrig's disease did not define who he was. It was the man's character that did that.

...It's not the fact that the Yankees are a terrible hitting team. I see that every game and I can deal with that. Almost. But what really bothers me is what Brian Cashman plans to do about it in the form of a quick fix. October may be a month full of pressure and excitement but to me July is just as tough because Yankee fans have seen over the years how willing they are to trade a young prospect so they can have another thirty-six-year-old player on the roster. And everything is pointing to that happening again because these guys have not hit all year and if you try and find out why you'll hear a new excuse every day. I know I am getting concerned a few weeks before the trading deadline but this is the reason why I do not want the Yankees to make a trade for Chase Headley to play third base or for them to give up and if they add more All-Stars it won't change a thing.a lot of prospects for David Price. Now with C.C. Sabathia probably out for the season and with his career on the line I have a bad feeling that we will see a deal that brings Price to New York. The way I see it this team isn't good enough.

...An Ohio man lost his job last week and was arrested and faces up to six months in jail all because his eight-year-old son decided suddenly that he wanted to go out and play instead of going to church. When the church van arrived to pick up the kids for Sunday sermon, all the kids piled on and somehow one boy was left behind thanks to him hiding in the backyard. Once the God Squad motored off the boy decided to go to the Family Dollar store half a mile away from home where someone noticed that he was walking around the store by himself and hanging out in the candy aisle. The police were called and when they asked him who was with him and where he lived he replied "no one" and "I don't know" respectively. As soon as the child told the police that he didn't know where he lived that is when the trouble for his father began because it gave them cause to arrest him for negligence of a minor. It's just amazing to me that the word of an eight-year-old is believed a lot more than anything his father said later on since children who are caught doing something that they shouldn't be doing never try to lie their way out of it. Someone at the Family Dollar recognized the kid and the police brought him home at the same time the ride from the church dropped off the other kids from services. The way I see it the church is to blame for this because whomever is driving this van should have known when they got to this house there were a certain amount of kids getting on and when there was one less they should have asked why. The only good thing that happened was that Dad was fired from his job at McDonald's because the story of the incident was published on the front page of the local newspaper and it depicted him as a negligent father and McDonald's does not want that kind of person taking your drive-thru order. It's good because he left this job behind and got another one. Every time I hear about stories like this it makes me get on my knees and thank God that I never had kids.

[Jim825]

FYI - fireworks are illegal in Massachusetts as well. You have to go to New Hampshire ("Live Free or Die") to buy them.

[Yankee4Life]

FYI - fireworks are illegal in Massachusetts as well. You have to go to New Hampshire ("Live Free or Die") to buy them.

Don't go confusing me with the facts now, ok?

Thanks for reading.

[Jim825]

Don't go confusing me with the facts now, ok?

Thanks for reading.

Part of my job here is to keep the Massachusetts-bashing to a minimum....

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 7-13

...The All-Star Game is this Tuesday in Minnesota and unless you haven't been paying attention or have just been waiting for the NFL training camps to start you are already well aware of this especially since they have a habit of hosting this shindig every year at this time. It also should not come as a surprise to anyone that the fans once again showed why they have no business being within ten feet of an All-Star ballot. Baltimore's Matt Wieters has not played a game since the tenth of May and he must have been just as shocked as the rest of the other American League catchers when he learned he was elected as the starting catcher. But since he's still on the mend Kansas City's Salvador Perez will step in for him much to the surprise of the experts in the stands who have probably wondered where the hell Wieters has been all this time. These same amateur Tony Larussa's also voted for Derek Jeter as the starting shortstop for the American League as he beat out Alexei Ramirez by 600,000 votes even though Ramirez has put up better numbers across the board then Jeter this season. Jeter deserves to start in this game as much as I do. Just about every shortstop in baseball has put up better numbers but because this is his final year he got elected by default but I don't think that's going to stop some people for voting for him next year.

...At the same time I am not going around fooling myself saying that I would do a better job than the average Joe in the stands. I'd probably do worse. I stopped voting many years ago because I would vote for no one but Yankee players. There have been many Boston Red Sox players over the years that have deserved to be voted in but I would stick my hand in a food processor before I considered giving them my vote and that has worked quite well for me because I have grown quite fond of having both of my hands with me at all times.

...There are many times when I watch someone interview Joe Girardi on the YES Network or read an interview that he has done in the New York papers when I have to stop and say to myself that this guy is full of sh**. When the Yankees released Alfonso Soriano last week he said it was a tough day for him and when he said that I had no trouble believing him. It's never easy to let a player know that he has been let go. But then he said that Soriano had "been a great Yankee." I realize he was trying to be nice and diplomatic but what the hell did Soriano ever do to be referred to as a great Yankee? Who knows, Girardi probably told Eduardo Nunez the same thing when he was released.

...And this is where smart teams like the Red Sox avoid mistakes. I never thought for once that Soriano was going anywhere near Boston last year when there were rumors of him being traded out of Chicago. Say what you will about them but they avoid the overpriced veterans as much as they can and that is something I wish the Yankees would learn how to do.

...A Yankee fan who fell asleep during a nationally televised game back in April is filing a defamation lawsuit for ten million dollars against the Yankees, Major League Baseball, ESPN and ESPN's two announcers that worked the game that night, John Kruk and Dan Shulman. This happened in the fourth inning of a Red Sox - Yankees game so it's understandable why the guy fell asleep. The game was 2 1/2 hours old at that point and he couldn't take it anymore. I nod off during these games all the time but no one sees me because I do it at home. He is doing this because of the "unending verbal crusade" that he had to endure with names like "stupid, fatty and unintelligent." The problem is that the Yankees, MLB or any associated with ESPN never said anything like that about him. The remarks this man is talking about is what online commenters said about him and that had nothing to do with the broadcast. One of the funniest parts of this lawsuit is that it blames Major League Baseball for using a picture of two men kissing to imply that this sleeping fan was gay. The problem is MLB had nothing to do with it because it came from a website called Not Sportscenter, a parody site that is pretty damn funny - even though I was sorry that I clicked on that link. You would think that a lawyer who would agree to take the case would know this already but they must be pretty sure they can squeeze money out of somebody. Maybe then he can bring a pillow with him the next time he goes to a game.

...Mötley Crüe, one of my favorite bands, is calling it quits soon and they are doing it the right way. Because there are so many bands that announce that their current tour is their final one and then change their mind, the members of Mötley Crüe signed a "cessation of touring agreement" which will prevent them from playing live again after this tour is completed. These guys were and still are good. Check out 1983's Shout at the Devil if you want to listen to a great album. Thanks for the memories!

...It's Shocking, Dept: There's a monthly newspaper that comes out in New York’s West Village called The West View News that ran an article last week about President Obama entitled “The N----r in the White House.” The writer of this article is an old white guy that looks like he'd be very comfortable wearing a bed sheet but believe it or not the article is actually pro-Obama. Maybe so but I think there could have been a better way to put it.

...It's not easy being left handed especially when you are used to doing things a certain way. So, when my keyboard began giving me problems (keys sticking, space bar not working sometimes, etc) I knew I had to look around and get a new one. I've had a left handed keyboard for about sixteen years now and I am so used to it I can not go back to the standard keyboards that are used in just about every home and workstation. If I could life would be a lot easier for me and I would have saved a hell of a lot of money on my next keyboard purchase. That being said I only had to part with $103 to get what I want.

Take a look at what a $103 keyboard looks like.


...A waitress who worked for the Texas Roadhouse restaurant in Findlay, Ohio was fired from her job recently because she felt that a tip she got from a customer was not enough, so she ran to her Facebook account and complained about it. That would have been the end of the story but the customer saw what she wrote there and then printed out a screenshot of her post to show her employers and they in turn fired her on the spot. Good! I was waiting for this to happen because I was fed up with these kind of people that feel they have to run to the internet and whine because something happened in their lives that they didn't like. Your tip wasn't as much as you think you should have got? Too bad. At least you got a tip. And now because she couldn't resist slamming the patron on Facebook it cost her her job. Now she can go on there and cry about being unemployed. Let's see if that will make the news too.

...No offense to anyone here that uses Facebook but some of the people on there like that waitress are total idiots and I don't know if Facebook had a part in it or that it just came natural to them. Whatever it is these people feel they have to be on Facebook just to catch up on what's going on around them - even when breaking into a house. A homeowner in St. Paul, Minnesota came home to find that his home was ransacked and that his credit cards, cash, and a watch were missing and for some reason a pair of wet sneakers and pants that did not belong to the homeowner were left behind. When he checked his computer to see if the thief accessed anything on it he found something startling. The thief must have taken a break when he was robbing the place because he pulled up his Facebook profile and forgot to log off after he was done. Something must have caught his eye that he wanted to lift. Armed with this information it didn't take long for the police to grab him and arrest him and if he is convicted he faces up to ten years in prison and $20,000 in fines. They just don't make criminals like they used to

...Brazilian fans are blaming Mick Jagger for their country's embarrassing 7 - 1 loss to Germany in the World Cup semi final game because they believed that by him being in the stands brought bad luck to their team and the fact that his son was with him wearing a Brazil shirt did not help at all. Brazil had to find someone to blame for their embarrassing showing even though Jagger was no where near the Brazilian goal when the Germans scored five goals in the first thirty minutes of play that in all effects sealed the game. If by any chance Jagger actually is a jinx to professional sports teams then I hope he's also a baseball fan and buys season tickets to the Red Sox games for the next ten years or so.

...Joe Magrane, bless his heart, will probably not receive any warm greetings the next time David Ortiz sees him but that's the price you pay when you have the nerve to say on television what everyone else in baseball including Red Sox fans, already know about him. Magrane said that Ortiz may have gotten a "free pass" in MLB's Biogenesis investigation last year because he had been on a list of players who tested positive in a 2003 MLB survey testing. Ortiz' reaction was typical of him whenever the press fails to kiss his needle-tracked behind. He went nuts and responded with a swear-filled tirade that immediately makes one think that he was protesting a bit too much since he kept on denying that he has done nothing wrong. He said that during that 2003 testing he was never told what substance he was tested positive for which is just as believable as Congress agreeing with the President about anything. You name it, Ortiz took it and still does because everyone in baseball who is in their late thirties is swinging the bat like they are fifteen years younger. Well, Barry Bonds did and we all know how innocent he was to steroid charges. Ortiz gets really mad when someone gets near the truth and if you can see past his transparent angry and upset act that he puts on he knows everyone is on to him too.

...Did anyone see what Rays outfielder Kevin Kiermaier did last week in a game against the Royals? He hit a line drive so hard that it went through the laces of Eric Hosmer's glove, who was playing first base at the time. After the game it wasn't reported anywhere if the laces on his glove were already loose but even if they were that was one hell of a shot. Usually I don't spend any time talking about this kind of stuff because I'm too busy providing this website with the best up-to-the-minute David Ortiz coverage anyone could want but what Kiermaier did was very similar to something I did years ago. Well, almost. If you've ever played any level of baseball you know what it means when a ballplayer says they are "zoned in" at the plate. This is exactly how I was when I was hitting when this happened. If I saw a pitch at eye level I would hit a line drive. Same for pitches around my ankles. They threw it, I hit it and I didn't understand how the hell I was doing it. During this stretch I hit a screaming liner at the second baseman and the ball was hit so hard that I knocked the glove off his hand when he tried to catch it. In my mind's eye I can still see it. The feeling of knowing that you got all of a pitch is rare and after the play was over I was just glad it hit his glove and not him because he'd still have the markings of the ball on him today.

...I wonder if the same basketball fans in Cleveland who wanted to string up Lebron James for leaving town four years ago are the same ones who are welcoming him back with smiles on their faces?

...A Happy Birthday Dylan Bradbury on Monday, wherever he is.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 7-20

...Even with the presence of Bud Selig in Minnesota last week, baseball showed once again that they are the only sport that really knows how to have an All-Star Game thanks to all the young talent coming up and the way they said goodbye to Derek Jeter, who will go down as one of the game's greats and again managed to deliver when all eyes were on him. I chose to focus on the positive things about those few days in Minneapolis instead of what wasn't done right or not at all...Mike Trout continued to impress fans with the way he plays the game while proving that by being a young player in the game does not mean you have to walk around acting entitled and arrogant all the time, something that Bryce Harper and Yasiel Puig still need to pick up on... The American League won, not that it's going to matter to the Yankees because come World Series time they'll be watching two other teams with much more talent then they have fight it out for the title...Every year you always read about some player who does not want to be at the game but when you look at the faces of the ones who are there you can tell how thrilled they are to be there...Did you notice that the game itself took three hours and thirteen minutes to complete? That's outstanding considering the game was broadcast on FOX because those guys love to sneak a few extra commercials to advertise anything that they show on that network and for all the substitutes that came in the game? At the 3:13 mark in a Yankee - Red Sox game you won't even be a the seventh inning stretch yet.

The bad? As I said before Bud Selig was there. I was hoping that the guy would have caught a cold or something and had to remain home. The guy always has the same miserable look on his face after finding out that someone took his parking spot. If you ever want to know what a bureaucratic stuffed shirt is, now you know. The term was invented with him in mind. The guy must be a scream at parties because he has the personality of a wet rag... And those are his good points...At least he's retiring but before that time comes we are stuck with him. He hinted that because next year's game will be held in Cincinnati, Pete Rose may have a role to play in it despite his lifetime ban from baseball. What's he going to do, knock over Ray Fosse when he's not looking? Go in both clubhouses and take some stuff from the players so he can sell them at his next card show? Other than that Rose should be as welcomed there as an IRS audit...But the worst thing about the game was that nothing was said about the life and death of baseball great Tony Gwynn who died of cancer almost one month before this game was played. Not a word. Not taking away anything from Jeter but they had the camera on him even when he was adjusting his hat. I think that MLB and FOX should be blamed for this because during the pre-game hoopla MLB could have had a moment of silence for Gwynn and sometime during the telecast someone should have said something in Joe Buck's earpiece to remind him to mention Gwynn but it never happened...If west coast baseball fans view this as a snub can you blame them? I think if Gwynn had been a Yankee they would have prepared a video highlight of him to be shown on Target Field's scoreboard and on TV.

...A substitute teacher in rural western Pennsylvania was arrested last week for having sex with two of her eighteen-year-old students and serving them beer at her home while her husband was out of town. According to the police the teacher invited two of her male high school seniors over to her house after the last day of school and gave them a few beers and then had sex with them. The final exam that those kids had must have been hard as all hell and this was her way of making up for it. And the next day with the intent of earning a bit of extra credit, one of the students returned to her house for more beer and more sex. Before their private summer school sessions started the teacher sent nude photos of herself to her two students and of course that is what did her in. As soon as she told them to keep it to themselves and not let anyone else know about it that's when the nude photos were forwarded to other people and it was only a matter of time after that that someone blew the whistle and private school for those two students came to an end. Even though the police admitted that sending the photos to the students was not a crime because they were both eighteen at the time and considered adults, the teacher was arrested on a technicality since the students had not yet officially graduated. She just wanted to make sure that they did. Every time I hear about something like this happening it really makes me mad. Furious, really. Why couldn't something like this happen to me as soon as I got out of high school? What the hell was the matter with those two guys, screwing up a perfect setup? It just goes to show that women are not the only ones who can't keep a secret. I know damn well I would have kept my mouth shut. Damn right I'm jealous.

...I've never once been a fan of social media and I don't feel I am missing out on anything because I am not on Facebook and Twitter like everyone else seems to be but now I think I've finally figured out why I've avoided it all this time. It seems to me that these places have become an extension of high school for the people that use it. Take last week for example. A rookie point guard for the Miami Heat named Shabazz Napier had to explain himself after it was discovered that he "unfollowed" Lebron James on his twitter account and when that happens to some people they consider that an act of war. Napier quickly pointed out that he doesn't even know how to work his Twitter account yet and that he hasn't even been on it nor did he have anything to do with following or unfollowing anyone. I hope that the first thing he does with his twitter account is close it because that will be the best thing for him to do. I may have been wrong when I compared social media to high school. I should have said elementary school.

...To counter the spying that has been going on in their country the German government is considering the use of manual typewriters for sensitive documents to replace computer keyboards. This does make sense because the only way someone can see what you are typing on one of those old manuals is to be looking over your shoulder. If they do go to this it is going to be a big adjustment for the people that use them. People who are fast typists on a keyboard will be a lot slower on those heavy manual ones. It is a lot to get used to. When I went to radioman school in San Diego we had to use something similar to a manual typewriter and looking back on it now I can say without a doubt that I much prefer my computer keyboard. Another way that they can consider doing is to keep on using the computer keyboard but not have any internet connection. It's not lost on me that with all the technological improvements we have made to make our lives easier we may be forced to go back to an old, outdated piece of equipment just to regain our privacy.

...Confessions of a Garden Raider, Dept. A friend of mine owns a memorabilia store where he sells baseball cards and souvenirs along with video games for just about every console system ever made. He does a good business and every year when my birthday rolls around he lets me come down to pick out something for myself. So that's where I was last Monday afternoon and even though he lets me do this I make sure I don't take advantage of it. It's not like I'm going to grab a Mickey Mantle autographed photo and say thanks a lot. But I did get a 1998 Derek Jeter card that was worth about two dollars and I called it a day. As I was getting ready to leave, two people that I grew up with when I was a kid walked in the store and I ended up staying there a few hours more, much to the dismay of my wife who was impatiently waiting at home because she wanted to go out to dinner. While we were rehashing old stories I knew it was only a matter of time that someone would bring up the famous garden raiding stories that I can now freely admit to because so much time has past I had a hand in. I really had no choice because it was my job to hold the flashlight. I'm sure I should try to explain before I go any further. Where we grew up there were a lot of people who had some pretty nice gardens that had some of the nicest tomatoes and cucumbers and peppers that we had ever seen and that was just fine with us because we happened to be big fans of what they grew. At the same time these people were so protective of their gardens they wouldn't let anyone go in there or even near there except themselves. For a time we thought nothing of it but then we got to noticing that the tomatoes at one house were pretty big just like the cucumbers someplace else. Someone got it into their head that they wanted to see for themselves if the tomatoes tasted as good as they looked but in order to do that a closer look was needed but it would have been easier for us to get into the White House instead of those gardens. There is a lot of truth to the saying that says necessity is the mother of invention because that's just what happened here. Maybe we didn't actually invent anything but we did come up with a foolproof plan, which was just as good.

When we saw that the people were out on their front porch or not at home, one of us would throw a baseball in the garden and leave it there. Then we'd walk over their house and knock on the door to let them know that our ball was there and we did not want to go in there ourselves to get it because we didn't want to take the chance on stepping on something. The people never got mad at that and then they'd escort us to the backyard to retrieve the ball and while they were doing that they could not help themselves but talk about their pride and joy. They'd point out this and that and then walk to another part of the garden and point out a big cucumber that was almost ready to pick. While all this was going on the kid would memorize where the guy was pointing and then he'd say thank you and leave after he got the ball back. I think you now have the idea what happened next.

Since there were four of us we would split up in groups of two when it got dark and we would split up to do the job. We'd jump the fence and one guy would go in the garden and one guy would stand watch and hold the flashlight and when we were all done we would have the best of the best from the gardens on our street. Keep in mind our garden hopping took place in the '70's and if we were caught in anyone's yard at night the worst that would have happened is our parents would find out. Today someone would shoot you and then tell your parents.

The owners of the gardens had eagle eyes because when the next day rolled around they knew that some of their crop was missing and to our credit we got away with it for three years before we decided to stop because that is when some of the people put floodlights in their back yards to catch the poachers.. Sure I feel guilty about it now but you see life in a different way through eleven-year-old eyes. Funny thing though, every tomato I've had since then has not tasted as good as the ones I had when we were doing this.

...That had to be my longest random thought in the history of this thread.

...Even though Dan Uggla had eighteen million dollars remaining on his contract with the Atlanta Braves, the team still released him last Friday mainly because he has hit only .175 since the start of the 2013 season for them. The only question I have is what took them so long?

...At a pro-am golf tournament a Packers fan asked Green Bay linebacker A.J. Hawk if he would tackle him because he thought that would have been a great idea. Hawk did, but he didn't put his all into the tackle because if he did the guy would still be lying on the fairway. If this is his idea of fun I hope he never has the opportunity to meet Mike Tyson because he might ask him to take a poke at him and with Tyson he just might.

[GoRedSox34]

Mike Trout is amazing! Clearly the best player in the MLB. It's been that way for 3 years now.

But I think characters like Puig are necessary in the game of baseball. I don't want to see a league full of robots. There's always been arrogant / flashy guys in this game

[Yankee4Life]

But I think characters like Puig are necessary in the game of baseball. I don't want to see a league full of robots. There's always been arrogant / flashy guys in this game

Ok, I see your point.

Thanks for reading.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 7-27

...Thursday is the dreaded trade deadline and there is plenty of time between now and 4:00 p.m. on the 31st for the Yankees to pull something stupid out of their hats. I always have faith in them that they will.

...Every summer without fail I get the urge to try a water slide. I have seen a few of them and it looks like a fun thing to do but I have never been on one. It's not that I have never had the chance to go on one and truth be told I could have had at least a dozen rides on those things by now but the sad truth is that I am scared stiff to even try. I've seen little kids doing it and besides getting wet they none of them were worse for wear but I have never been able to push myself to climb those stairs to see for myself and it's because I am not too fond of heights. I bring this up now because in two weeks I am going to have another chance but knowing me when this summer is over I still will be wishing for the same thing.

...The Chicago Cubs are suing two jokers who have been dressing up as the Cub mascot outside of Wrigley Field for the past seven years. These guys call themselves "Billy Cub" and besides dressing up as the furry Cub mascot they have been selling knock-off Cubs merchandise online. Around ten days ago the guy wearing the mascot costume was in a bar and a man came up behind him and took off the head off his costume and Billy Cub turned around and started punching the guy out with a vicious set of rights that has not been seen by anyone wearing a Cubs uniform since Carlos Zambrano was there. There is no way the Cubs should lose this lawsuit but these are the Cubs so you shouldn't expect them to win anything.

...Former Mets pitcher Tom Seaver said on MLB.com last week that when Derek Jeter is eligible to be elected to the Hall of Fame for the first time in 2019 that he should get in unanimously because he "plays the game properly and respects the game and his predecessors and that he's done all that playing in a big city and has no marks against him." That may be true but when I first read the criteria that Seaver is basing his opinion on I immediately thought of one guy that this describes too: Lou Gehrig. He's been in the Hall of Fame for many years but there were some people who didn't vote for him and when you think of someone who played the game right you have to think of the Iron Horse. And then you can bring up players like Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson who can safely be described in the same way but still did not get in unanimously. Lastly, if Babe Ruth didn't get 100% of his votes then no one will. Not a bad sentiment Tom but you have a better chance of making a comeback then Jeter has getting in with every writer voting for him.

...Last Tuesday, I had to go to a funeral for an uncle of mine who died at the age of ninety-six from natural causes. It was hard to see him in his final days because I kept on thinking back to how he was. The man was a master carpenter and he was so skilled at it that he had his own shop at the age of thirteen when he was living back in Sicily. In later years he came to America and married my aunt and in 1957 built the home that they lived in for the rest of their lives by himself. The man continued working as a carpenter up to the age of ninety-two and I don't know if there are a lot of people around that can say they worked at their job for seventy-nine years straight. Sometimes I wondered why he kept at it so long but he just loved doing what he did best and the man was good. It would take me those same seventy-nine years to build one thing. Riposa in pace zio Pietro.

...Whoever the first person was that first said that you only see your relatives at weddings and funerals was absolutely right. Some of these people I have not laid eyes on since the last person in my family died a few years back and I am just fine with 95% of them.

...It did not escape me that the day before the Red Sox were to travel to Tampa Bay for a weekend series David Ortiz made sure to fake a back injury during his last at-bat against the Blue Jays. The only thing I didn't expect was that he actually played considering how he gets the jitters when he faces Price.

...The Internet finds out everything, Dept: Last month a girl named Breanna Mitchell, a recent high school graduate from Alabama posted a selfie of herself smiling in front of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp and as soon as some people on the internet saw what she did she made herself the newest object of scorn and ridicule but in this case I have to admit that she had it coming. Her actions were described as disrespectful, selfish and abusive and those were just some of the nice things. But as much as she was maligned, some people managed to find humor about it by photoshopping her photo next to other tragic events such as the World Trade Center bombings and the Hindenburg disaster. Even with the bad publicity this airhead received she still does not regret what she did. Personally I can't wait to see what place she visits next.

...The last time I saw so much imagination used in a series of phony photos was back when the Cubs fans were giving Steve Bartman hell back in 2003.

...I really enjoy listening to Keith Olbermann's sports commentary's on ESPN.

...Robert Newhouse, a fullback who played for the Dallas Cowboys in the seventies and early eighties died last week after a bout with heart disease. Newhouse was in the NFL before Earl Campbell got there and he was one of the toughest people to bring down when he was protecting a football. In those days before DirectTV's Sunday Ticket the Cowboys were on television every single week and you had no choice but to be familiar with every single player on that team and every time he had the ball Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier would go nuts over him. What I remember most about Newhouse from watching those games is that because his legs were so big he had to have specially made pants made for him and when they showed him on TV I could see what they meant. He had legs that looked like they belonged to someone fifty pounds bigger than he was. But that's how all the Cowboys were back then, bigger than everyone else and they made sure everyone knew it.

...When Kendrys Morales was traded back to the Seattle Mariners last Friday the person who was probably surprised the most about the trade was Morales himself. He was going back to the same team that he could not come to terms with during the last off-season and held out so long this year that his first game back this season was earlier this month. And now he goes back to Seattle. If anyone can figure this one out please feel free to explain in here.

...Maybe some of you have seen the revival of an old 2009 Red Sox dynasty on the main page this week. That's because one of our older members here (not in age but in how long he's been here) returned last week and after almost four years of being away started up again right where he left off. We used to have a lot of dynasties going on years ago and rookie_rick's Red Sox one was one of the most popular and detailed ones we had and I have to admit that I would sneak in there when no one was around to check out what all the commotion was about from time-to-time. Even though this means the current Red Sox fan membership increases by one I'm glad he's back and I hope he stays around.

...The World Cup has been over for two weeks now and the Brazilian government is trying to figure out a way to let about 160,000 Argentines know that it's over because they still haven't left the country yet. It's not hard to understand though because who the hell wants to live in Argentina? Before the World Cup the number of women outnumbered the men in Rio de Janeiro. Knowing that, I'd stay too.

...Wrong house, wrong time, Dept: An eighty-year-old man came home last Tuesday and walked in on two people who were busy at the time robbing his home and if there is one thing about burglars it's that they hate being disturbed when they are working and they let him know how much as they beat him and threw him to the ground where he broke his collarbone along with other injuries. When the man and woman team of burglars decided that the old man was down for the duration they resumed their duties of relieving his home of his valuables. It was right around this time that this old man showed these two people that they broke into the wrong house. While both people were occupied trying to break into the man's safe the homeowner was able to get up and go into another room where he had a gun and he then returned to confront the two people who were still trying to get the safe open. He then fired at the suspects who took off faster than a mouse who discovers that he is in the same room as a cat. They took off through his garage and the man continued to chase them, firing and hitting the girl who eventually died. The man was caught some time later and was arrested and charged with five felony counts including the murder of his accomplice and is jailed on $1.25 million bond. When the homeowner was asked how he felt about the incident and the shooting of the woman he said that he had no regrets and that he did what he had to do. Indeed he did. I'm hoping that the Los Angeles District Attorney sees it the same way because he has to decide if charges are to be brought against this elderly homeowner. I'd like to think that there should be no way this man is charged for murder here because he was defending his home but with the way the law is I think this guy is in as much hot water as the male burglar.

...Tell us how you really feel, Dept: A Cleveland Browns fan traveled to the grave of Art Modell in Maryland just to have the opportunity to urinate beside his grave. Modell died two years ago and was responsible for taking the Browns out of Cleveland in 1996, something that some fans clearly have not forgiven yet even though they got a new team three years later. These are the kind of stories that when people hear about them they immediately put down the person who did it and then when they are alone or with friends that they can trust they have a laugh about. Not all Browns fans would do this but this guy took it to the extreme. When Walter O'Malley, the man who tore out Brooklyn's heart died in 1979 I am sure there were many Dodger fans who wanted to do this to his grave or even worse so while you may not approve of what he did you can understand why. At least I do. I'm not a Browns fan but I didn't need to be to realize that Modell talked out of both sides of his mouth. When Al Davis was threatening to leave Oakland in the early eighties Modell got upset and remarked that he would never do the same thing to his team but in 1995 that's just what he did.

...And if all you are waiting for is for the police to catch up with this guy you'll get your wish. He posted what he did on Youtube and that means that there is going to be someone that watches it that knows him and won't hesitate to turn him in. And if they need any more help identifying him all they have to do it check out the guy's right arm because it is heavily tattooed with Browns logos. Nice way to cover your tracks pal.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 8-3

...Alms to the Poor, Dept: The Boston Red Sox managed to turn the Trade Deadline Day into "Help out the Red Sox Day" because they somehow managed to get rid of a bunch of pitchers that they didn't want and the one that was actually worth something kept on saying to anyone that would listen that he would be "very open to return to Boston" after the season is completed. Despite all that the Oakland Athletics were the only team to buy into Boston's tale of woe and they agreed to send right handed Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes to Fenway Park for the rights to have Lester for two months. If Lester goes back to Boston in the off season there should be an immediate investigation held. But they weren't done. They send over paid John Lackey to St. Louis so Cardinal fans could see first hand how bad he really is. Everybody that the Red Sox wanted to get rid of they did and they found teams more than willing to help them out. Even the Yankees lent a hand by taking Stephen Drew off their hands. The only guy I can think of who is going to be excited about this trade is Michael Kay...What I want to know is how some teams can make these trades and other teams like the Yankees can't. You can't tell me if Austin Jackson was a Yankee that he would have been involved in this trade because if he played for New York they would be asking for a lot more...That's a funny thing by the way. People put down the Yankee farm system but when it comes time to talk trade they suddenly get very greedy...After everything settled down I took a look at the Detroit roster and those guys are going to overpower you with pitching every single day and when you will be very tough to beat. The only team that can even get close is Oakland and I anticipate a very interesting October between these two teams...Maybe it will be a good thing that the Yankees won't be in the playoffs this year (I'm predicting this right now) because Brian Cashman can sit down and see how these two teams built themselves to be the best in the American League and it certainly did not do it by signing people like Carlos Beltran and then hoping he could play like he was 24 again.

...Going into the first game of the Rangers series last week the Yankees had lost two in a row to a superior Blue Jays team and when they got to Texas they pretended to give Yu Darvish a good fight but then decided screw it and put their bats away in the fifth inning and called it a night. They've made a habit out of playing these same kind of games for a couple of years now so it was really nothing out of the ordinary. But instead of talking about losing their third game in a row the next day, the newspaperman had to point out that Derek Jeter, by collecting three hits, moved past Carl Yastrzemski for seventh place on baseball's all-time hits list. Who gives a *#%^???? I'd of been happier reading that he hit a sacrifice fly and that the Yankees won. I know it's not his fault because he's not the one writing the articles but they are using Jeter's last year to cover up a lot of things about this team and the main thing is that even with Tanaka not getting injured and Teixeira not getting hurt for the 10th time in the month of July this team has more holes than a moth-infested closet.

...The Yankees designated Jeff Francis for assignment after appearing in only two games and pitching a grand total of 1 2/3 innings. Makes me wonder who he pissed off to get the boot so quickly. With the Yankees it could be something simple like mistakenly parking in someone else's parking spot.

...I can go years without thinking about Carl Yastrzemski and this week I find myself a reason to write about him twice. Talking to the Boston Globe Yaz said that he thought David Ortiz was the second-best hitter in Red Sox history behind Ted Williams. He even put Ortiz ahead of himself because Ortiz had more power than him. And this was a guy who played with Jim Rice, a man no one ever considered an easy out at the plate. I'm no Yastrzemski fan but I still find it disturbing to see his mind go this late in life.

...I find it almost beyond belief that a lot of people do not pull over to the side when the police or the fire trucks or ambulances need to get by when they have their flashers on. Isn't this one of the first things you learn when you are taking the course to get your driver's license? I wonder if these people are thinking that all the vehicles with the flashing lights are on their way to lunch and they are in a hurry because they don't want to be late?

...We got a new puppy about a month and a half ago and last Tuesday morning the vet called our house to let us know that the dog had to have a prescription for some pills to clear up a minor thing that they had discovered and that meant a trip to the vet for me to pick them up. When I got there I saw a woman standing out in front of the building and I could see that she was crying and I knew that meant only one thing and it didn't mean that she was there because her pet had to get her nails trimmed. I asked if if she was ok and she could hardly talk but I made out through the tears that her sister was inside with her cat and she had the cat for sixteen years and it was on its way out and probably was not going to survive the day. I stayed outside with her for a few minutes before I went in to get the pills and when I came back out to go home she was still standing in the same spot just as upset. She thanked me for taking time out of my day to check on her but this little piece here isn't about what I did and how I spent a few minutes out of my day to see if a stranger was ok. I've always believed that working in an animal hospital has to be one of the toughest jobs to have and just seeing the look on that woman's face and imagining what she had to be thinking because she knew when she finally composed herself and went back inside she would have to say goodbye to her cat and go home alone. I just happened to be there to witness this but the employees there must see this scenario repeat itself over and over too many times. I don't know if I'd be able to handle it as well as they do.

...Did anyone hear about that seventeen-year-old kid in India who went through a seven hour operation to have 232 teeth removed from his mouth? The kid had a swelling on the right side of his lower jaw and when he went to get medical help for it and they discovered that was suffering from a condition known as complex odontoma, or more commonly known as a sore mouth. I couldn't imagine having that many teeth and having them all removed at once. I have a hard enough time when one tooth is removed from my mouth since I'm the world's worst patient when I'm sitting in a dentist's chair. When I'm in that seat everything scares me even when the dentist comes in and says hello because I know the novocaine shot isn't too far behind.

...Last week Amazon announced a new Kindle Unlimited service that will allow you to read up to 600,000 books on any device such as the iPhone and Galaxy smartphone provided that you have a Kindle app installed on it for $9.99 a month. As an added bonus you get three free months at Audible.com. Even though I am a speed reader ( I finished Stephen King's 11-22-63 in one day ) I don't see myself signing up for this because as much as I enjoy reading I think the only way to take advantage of what Amazon is trying to sell here is by spending half your day reading the Kindle and I have no intention of doing that.

...Proving that she is still as delusional as ever, Sarah Palin launched The Sarah Palin Channel, a subscription-based online network that promises you a direct connection with the Queen herself along with no media filters. That's the diplomatic way of saying that no one from the press that does not agree with her will not be part of this channel but she is allowing all like-minded people like herself to join for $9.95 a month or $99.95 a year. If this channel makes it for an entire year I will be very surprised because her habit of quitting is bound to come up and there will be quite a few people out ten dollars when they try to access a website that folds up in the middle of the month. Palin is going to oversee all content posted to the channel so if you ever want to see anything that comes directly from you, you had better agree with whatever she says. She's trying to sell this as a "community" but it sounds more like a cult.

...The Colorado Rockies messed up on the spelling of shortstop Troy Tulowitzki's last name on a T-shirt promotion that they held recently at Coors Field. It's kind of hard to understand since he has been playing for the Rockies since 2006 and by this time they should be used to the spelling of his name. Can you imagine how bad they would have butchered it if Jarrod Saltalamacchia were on the team and they had a promotion for him?

...Troy take two: I guess Troy Tulowitzki was just taking in a game at Yankee Stadium last week and not looking at his new home ballpark. Sometimes things are exactly what they seem and not what the press wants them to be.

...In an obvious effort to appease their female viewers ESPN has suspended Stephen A. Smith from appearing on radio or TV this coming week because of his comments about Baltimore running back Ray Rice's wife when he insinuated that she may have provoked her own beating. Whether that is true or not is between Rice and his wife. I'm no fan of this guy, in fact I go out of my way not to watch anything on ESPN when Smith is on it but I think that what he said here was just as full of hot air as anything else he says. I knew something was going to happen to him once Michelle Beadle, who was only hired by ESPN because she looks good in a tight skirt and a tight sweater and not for her knowledge of sports, complained about it on Twitter. As soon as she was done with that ESPN felt they had to do something to shut her up, although you'll never get them to admit that. Rice was wrong for what he did and it was not a nice video to see and that is where the focus should be and continue to be concerning this and not about a commentator who enjoys making flagrant comments and who has a long history of doing so.

..Last week an armless man threw out the first pitch at a Kansas City Royals game and he did it so well that many people with two arms that have tried to do the same thing in the past may have wished they could have done just as well when they were on the mound. I know I would and I never got the chance to be out there. But as much as I would like an opportunity I would not want to do what this hot-looking Japanese girl did last week during a pre-game ceremony before she threw out her first pitch. The woman's name is Rina Takeda and she is an actress and a martial arts expert which means she can dazzle you with her smile and good looks while kicking your teeth in at the same time. She's also very proficient at breaking ten blocks stacked on top of each other without giving herself a headache. All I'd settle for is throwing a perfect strike to the catcher.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 8-10

...Not that it's ever going to happen but I have tried to picture Andrew McCutchen in a Yankee uniform minus that long hair and I just can't do it.

...To be fair he would look a lot better than does now with Ozark mountain beard he's been sporting for the Tigers. He looks like the idiot I always knew he was.

...Go Jon, Go, Dept: Jon Bon Jovi has been rumored to be among the top contenders to purchase the Buffalo Bills after the death of Ralph Wilson earlier this year. Even though Bon Jovi has repeatedly stated that he would not want to move the team out of Western New York and even went as far as penning an open letter to the fans in The Buffalo News that he is committed to making the Bills successful in Buffalo, the fan base does not believe him because it was reported that he was scouting out possible stadium sites in Ontario as recently as last weekend. You should keep in mind that he is (1) not the owner yet and (2) the Bills have played regular season games in Toronto since the 2008 season so if you think that these people are putting the cart in front of the horse you are exactly right but in this case the horse isn't even there yet. To get his attention someone thought of the idea to "ban Bon Jovi music" and like a lot of dumb ideas this one also caught on and consequently sports bars and radio stations in the area are now refusing to play any of his songs. Bills fans are a strange lot so it doesn't surprise me that this idea was picked up on. I've been in sports bars where groups of them would be around the big screen TV screaming at the team and emptying out pitchers of beer faster than the waitresses could bring them over. These people would go crazy and start pounding one other on the back and hugging each other when they made a three yard gain. The first time I witnessed this I had to ask the guy next to me if I missed something and he told me no and to just hang around the next time Buffalo kicks off and they tackle the opposing team's return guy. That's when they really lose it. I normally do not like to see any team leave and go to a new city because I still recall how upset I was when the Raiders left Oakland after the 1981 season and I don't even live there. But I would make an exception with this team because around here we are forced to watch all eight of their road games and usually when there is a decent team visiting Rich Stadium the Bills don't sell out and we get blacked out. And when you talk about front-runners you had better not forget these fans. When they were winning back in the 90's and were going to four straight Super Bowls you couldn't turn around without seeing a Buffalo hat or jacket or sometimes even a Bills painted car or house. But either they all died or moved away or they raised the prices on all Bills gear by 75% because you don't see their stuff anymore. Do what you got to do Bon Jovi.

...Not too long ago a nine-year-old Minnesota girl walked into a police station and proceeded to turn in her parents for smoking, growing and selling pot. The police later said that she was very upset to have to come there to tell them this but she felt she had to, which is the mantra that has been heard from every snitch since Judas Iscariot opened his mouth for thirty pieces of silver. What's done is done but all this kid got for what she did was a pat on the back from the police and into foster homes for the next nine years and for the parents their grocery bill is going to go down and from now on they'll have to learn to hide their stuff a lot better.

...When I saw those pictures of seventy-one-year-old Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones with those hot girls last week the first thing that I thought of is that some people really know how to live.

...A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a fanatical Cleveland Browns fan who traveled to Maryland just to pee over the grave of former Browns owner Art Modell, who did the unthinkable by taking the Browns out of Cleveland after the 1995 season. The idiot could have got away with it had he not filmed what he did but then where's the fun in that when you can't show the entire world how stupid you are? He got away with it longer than I expected but last week after checking the tattoos on his arms to the video and making him take a urinalysis, the police charged a sixty-one-year old Franklin, Ohio man with disorderly conduct in a cemetery, which is a misdemeanor. Because he was unable and unwilling to hold his bladder he could be facing up to two years in jail and a $500 fine. I think the next time he considers pulling a stunt like this he should leave his video camera at home.

...One thing I hate about doctor's offices besides having to go there is when I am waiting for them to call my name so I can go back there it never fails that someone else will come in ten or fifteen minutes after me and will check in and be seen before I am.

...I can do without Yasiel Puig and Albert Pujols but to choose between them Pujols would be the lesser of two evils because as lazy and overrated as he is he doesn't hot dog it at all out there. In that department Puig has him beat hands down. There was a play in last week's Angel - Dodger series at Dodger Stadium that showed how Puig, however talented he can be at times, does not belong out on the field. With Pujols on first base a fly ball was hit out to center field where Puig was playing and Puig strolled under the ball slower than an old man walking in the park. Pujols, who is not known for his speed made it into second base without a problem and that must have given Don Mattingly in the Dodger dugout a slow burn after seeing that. When you watch people like this play the game you have to wonder where these players stopped learning the fundamentals of the game.

...As much as I despise players like Puig I can't stand Mark Teixeira even more and because he's a Yankee that makes him a thorn in my side. I'm tired of reading about this guy's long list of injuries. His wrist, his knees, his back, his other wrist, a stomach ache, a stubbed toe, a sore pinky and a runny nose. And that's all this year. And before last Monday's game with Detroit for the first time ever he begged out of the lineup with dizziness and light-headedness which in a way was very surprising since I always suspected there was nothing between his ears in the first place. I have little patience for players like this who play like All-Stars before they become Yankees and then when they get here and are paid an insane amount of money (23 million for this winner) they shut it down and could care less who notices.

...Eric Kearney, who is a Democratic state senator from Ohio, wants the Cleveland Indians to drop their name and Chief Wahoo mascot because he says it is racially insensitive and blah, blah, blah. It must have been a slow day in the state capital in Ohio since he had to bring this up. Between the clamoring to change the name of the Washington Redskins and the Indians it must make voters happy that their elected officials have nothing else to do except see that professional sports teams change their names because they don't like it.

...The New York Mets gave away a W.B. Mason collectible truck last week to their fans before a game against the Giants but instead of having the Mets logo on the truck they had a Phillies logo on it. Picture the Red Sox having a Dustin Pedroia T-shirt giveaway and they mistakenly give out Derek Jeter shirts instead. That's how big of a mistake this was for the Citi Field faithful. Probably the same people who printed out the misspelled Troy Tulowitzki T-shirts were responsible for this too.

...Gene Simmons of Kiss is one of the few celebrities to come out in public in support of Donald Sterling and because he did I am very curious to see how much grief he is going to get for it. Simmons made it clear that he did not support what Sterling said but rather that he should have been let off with a fine because what he said was in private. That's just about what I said in here when this all first happened but since I am not a celebrity I didn't have to explain myself. Simmons explained that all people make racist rants or off-color jokes in private and if you care to admit it or not that is true. Keep your ears open the next time you are at a party or a holiday gathering. It can be as innocent as someone re-telling a joke that they heard at work that they thought was funny. There isn't a person alive that wishes they can take back some of the things that they have said. I wonder how the Clippers players felt about Sterling before these tapes became public. There's a good chance not all of them had wonderful and kind things to say about him but the only difference here is that no one was recording them so it could be used against them later.

...Singer Marianne Faithfull claimed last week that it was her boyfriend, who main source of income was being a heroin dealer, was responsible for the death of Jim Morrison of the Doors. She explained that he went to see him and that the heroin that he gave Morrison was too strong and it ended up killing him. As any Doors fan will tell you that is how died so what she is saying here adds nothing to the speculation of how Morrison died. While Morrison did take heroin I highly doubt that her boyfriend had anything to do with it because if he had there would be no way she would keep this a secret for forty-three years. Women just can not do something like this. By a strange coincidence she has a new album coming out next month so that could explain why she decided to share her big secret with the world because she needs all the publicity she can get.

...Carl Crawford said in a radio interview that his playing time in Boston was "a scar that would never go away" and that he made a huge mistake in signing with the Red Sox and that right now he wants nothing to do with Boston. All of a sudden he just became my favorite Dodger.

...I was happy to see that Johnny Manziel is wearing #2 for the Cleveland Browns. I was worried that he was going to take Bernie Kosar's #19.

...The Yankees lost 3 - 0 yesterday afternoon to the Cleveland Indians to break their modest three game winning streak. It got to be too much for them to take so Corey Kluber had no trouble at all notching his thirteenth win of the year. He struck out ten Yankees in six innings of work while only giving up four hits. You would think that would have been the story of the game but incredibly it was Derek Jeter who stole the show with a sixth inning single that put him past Honus Wagner for sixth place in the all-time hit category. I think that's great and I also hope Jeter gets a lot more hits before this season comes to a close on September 28th in Boston. As much as I like the guy his sayonara season has taken over every Yankee game this year even the ones he is not playing in and it is overshadowing everything. And as much as I dislike Alex Rodriguez I think if Jeter had said he was going to retire next year instead of this year, Rodriguez would have been able to return with a lot less attention on him. Who wants to pay attention to A-Rod when Derek Jeter just hit his 50,000th foul ball in Fenway Park? Maybe he'll get another parting gift.

...The Lays Company, which usually knows a thing or two about potato chips have two new flavors of chips out now that no amount of money can make me try. Bacon, Mac and Cheese potato chips. You won't need a fork when you have this but maybe have some Pepto-Bismol nearby and Cappuccino flavored potato chips where you have to supply your own whipped cream. Thanks anyway but I'll still to regular flavored or the barbecued ones like always.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 8-17

...When those twenty-four people were stuck on that roller coaster at Six Flags in Maryland last Sunday it just confirmed to me that that is the reason why I never go on those things because besides being afraid of falling out I was also terrified of never being able to get off.

...Pardon me while I record this, Dept: A group of exotic dancers picketed topless last week outside the New Beginnings Ministries church in Warsaw, Ohio because for the past eight years they have said the members of that church have been harassing the girls that work their and videotaping the license plates of the customers that visit their club so they can post them on the internet for everyone to see. Because judges denied two injunctions that would have prevented the church protesters not to gather outside of the nightclub's parking lot, the club's owner decided to save the church goers a trip and brought his girls, minus their t-shirts to the front of the church so they can see what it was like to have someone picket them. That may have been the last thing that the church wanted to happen because the girls spent more time posing for pictures and signing autographs than holding up signs. I wonder why.

...Probably because she feels she does not get enough attention as it is, Kim Kardashian is releasing a book of selfies which be be available in April of next year for $19.95. The name of the book is called Selfish which also can double as the name of her autobiography. This book will be 352 pages long unless she continues to take more self photos and in that case there will be a second volume.

...Another woman became the victim of being stoned to death by a crowd in Syria last week because she was accused of being an adulteress. Jihadi fighters brought the woman and to make sure she didn't do anything to spoil their fun they placed her in a hole in the ground to await her punishment. As soon as the W.B. Mason truck arrived with the large pile of stones that they pre-ordered for the festivities the soldiers started showing off their throwing arms to the public and since they engage in this practice every few weeks they rarely missed their target and woman mercifully did not suffer long. About one hundred yards away from where the woman was killed the man involved in this affair of the heart had to answer for his part in this as he was beaten with feathers and sent home without supper.

...I don't know if this is true or not but knowing the Yankees it would not surprise me at all to learn that it is. Kate Upton told Michael Strahan when she was guest hosting on Live! with Kelly and Michael that the Yankees would not let her wear any Tigers gear (no hat, no jersey, etc) while sitting in the Legends seats at Yankee Stadium. I understand that they are the most expensive seats in the stadium and they the closest to the field but having her wear a Tiger hat as she takes the game in will have no affect on the outcome of the game at all because the Yankees make sure they lose without any outside help.

...A former postmaster general recently wrote a letter to the current postmaster general to complain about the Post Office allowing the Harry Potter characters on postage stamps. He argued that the stamp program "should celebrate the things that are great about the United States" and I have no problem with that but the financially-strapped Postal Service has sold over $100 million dollars worth of these stamps and that's something you can't ignore. This makes me laugh because here's this guy complaining about movie characters on a stamp but has said nothing about the recently released Janis Joplin stamp in their Music Icons series. All this woman ever did was drink whiskey like it was water and bang everyone that said hi to her. This woman he leaves alone but he goes after Harry Potter? :D

...Tattoo You, Dept:I had to go to a family picnic last week by myself because my wife was out of town visiting her mother. She's always the lucky one. I spent a few hours with people that I have not seen since the picnic we had last year and if luck is on my side I won't see them again until next August. Don't take it that I dislike being there, it's just that I have nothing in common with them and they really don't know me or a lot about me. Let me give you an example. Back in 1991 one of my cousins got married and I was asked to be in the wedding party. So I did. That year at the picnic one lady -a relative mind you- asked me how my wife was. When I informed her I was not married she insisted three times that I was and said that she remembered because she was at my wedding. I told her if you were you were the only one there because I am not married. She had me confused with my recently married cousin and we don't even look alike. And no, she does not have Alzheimer's. She's still alive and kicking today and making the same mistakes.

Enough of that. On to last week.

I got there and I immediately hung around with the same group of people that I always talk to. They're the ones that know I've had a disability retirement for the past five years now. Everyone else thinks I'm still working. These are the relatives that enjoy talking about sports and could care less what movie was on the Lifetime Channel that night or even what channel that network is on DirectTV. I also didn't mind going because my niece was going to be there and now that she is nineteen I don't see much of her and after I did I kind of wished I didn't. She asked me to come over and she then proceeded to show me that she got a tattoo on her right leg. When people say they could have knocked someone over with a feather that is what they could have done to me. I didn't even know she was interested in those things but when you are that young and you see everyone else doing it you just tend to go along with it. I personally can not stand tattoos and I wish I knew how this craze started. When I was nineteen the two types of people that were associated with tattoos were motorcycle gangs and sailors and I found out a few years later when I joined the Navy how much of a stereotype that was because during all the time that I served in San Diego and Pearl Harbor I did not know of one person that got tattooed. Sure I saw them but it was only on occasion. Lord knows what they look like now. When my niece asked me how I liked her tattoo I replied that I liked her other leg better.

...There is a saying that is always heard on television that goes something like this: no matter what kind of crime was committed the person that did it will make some kind of mistake which will lead to his or her downfall. And that's how the television bad guy is caught, he leaves behind a clue and he gets caught and everything gets wrapped up neat and clean in sixty minutes. In real life every criminal is not caught but every so often they follow the TV script whether they mean to or not. A nineteen-year-old Minnesota boy was visiting his father in Wisconsin back on July 29th when he was tragically murdered when he was shot in the back of the head. Up until a few days ago the police had no leads as to who was responsible for pulling the trigger until they received help from none other than the killer himself after he recorded and uploaded a rap song detailing what he did and how he did it. Some people will do anything for fame. Well, he's got it now. The victim's family is never going to forget him.

...When I saw that picture of the seven-year-old boy holding up a man's severed head the first thing I thought of is if he is encouraged to do something like this at this young of an age how dangerous is this kid going to be when he is older and is on his own?

...No Thanks for the Memories, Dept: Last Tuesday was the twentieth anniversary of the work stoppage that lead to the cancellation of the 1994 baseball season. It officially died and was put to rest on September 14th of that year. From someone who saw it all happen I still do not understand after all these years why they had to go on strike for even one day. For the first time in my life I went through an October without watching playoff baseball. Baseball may be a summer time game but there is nothing like watching it in the fall especially when your team is playing and so much at stake. The greed of the players and the owners took that away from everyone and to this day I know of people that do not feel the same way about baseball as they did before this happened. I should know, I'm one of them. I don't care about baseball as I once did. I used to plan my fall vacations around the World Series because I wanted to watch all the games and not worry about how late they ended and not have to worry about waking up early for work the next day. I went years without missing a game when the Series was on but now I could care less. Who knows, if there never had been a strike I would have even tuned in during the three seasons the Red Sox were playing but as it turned out I found other things to do and when the games run late I find something else to do to pass my time. Two years later the Yankee run began and it was fun to watch them be at the top of their game again but not even that overshadowed the selfishness that both sides showed in 1994.

...I am on my own this week as my wife is away visiting her mother because she had a second knee replacement surgery and now she's re-cooperating in a nursing home before they let her go. I couldn't tag along because I had to take care of the dogs and we had no place to keep them if we were both going to be staying with her for hours on end. Someone had to do it and I made sure I did not crack a smile until she pulled out of the driveway and took off.

...Last Friday night the Tigers had 10,000 Miguel Cabrera bobbleheads that they were giving away which had Cabrera holding his back-to-back American League MVP awards from 2012 and 2013. As far as bobbleheads go this one looked pretty nice except for one thing. Cabrera won his Most Valuable Player awards for the Detroit Tigers, a team that has been in the American League since their first year in existence in 1901. But on the bobblehead that was given away they identified him as the National League MVP. Well, they were close. They could have said the Pacific Coast League. The people that made the bobblehead apologized and took "full responsibility" for the error. Of course they did. Who else are they going to blame?

...It was so sad to hear about Robin Williams dying last Monday because it came as a huge shock. I knew he had substance abuse problems and that was about it. This guy was a comic genius who became one hell of a dramatic actor. The first time I ever saw him was on a Happy Days episode where he appeared to Ritchie Cunningham in a dream sequence. He was so good that they immediately gave him his own show (Mork and Mindy) and her never looked back. The only thing that got in the way of his success was him and I find that sad. R.I.P.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 8-24

...Have you ever watched those martial arts fight scenes in the movies? I see these guys beating each other up with anything that is nearby. An iron pipe, a chain, a metal chair. You name it and they use it on each other and they keep going. If that were me and I got hit with a pipe I am either waking up in an emergency room with a headache that will last a month or I won't wake up at all. It sucks getting old.

...David Ortiz hit his 400th home run as a member of the Boston Red Sox last week putting him in the company of Ted Williams and Carl Yastrzemski as the only Red Sox players who have hit that many home runs as a member of the Red Sox. What an honor. I mean he really earned that didn't he? <wink> <wink>



There you go. Now we are back on track.

...I have been on the search for a new mouse for the past couple of weeks and Amazon is usually the first place that I look at because they have a lot of them. I neglected to mention that I was looking for a decent left-handed mouse to go with the keyboard that I bought. I expected to pay high but not this high. &#36;399 for mouse? For that amount of money I can buy me a top of the line tablet or a Playstation 4. Thanks, but I'll pass.

...If there is one thing that the Yankees and the Red Sox have in common it is that when something goes wrong they immediately look for someone to blame and when they do that that person always ends up getting fired. I am almost expecting this to happen to Yankee hitting coach Kevin Long because all year long this team has done nothing at the plate and since they are supposed to be the Bronx Bombers this is totally unacceptable. When the Yankees get six or more hits a game it is reason to break out the bubbly. It is not Long's fault that this team is not as good as they are on paper and that is exactly what I think Long's going to get. A pink slip.

...For the month of October only Microsoft will be shipping a special version of their Xbox One console system. What makes this so special is that the casing on this will be white. The console still will have a 500 MB hard drive, just like the black model, and will not have any other special features. It will still cost you &#36;399.99 -no deals here- but for an extra &#36;100 you can buy one with 1TB of storage. I saw pictures of this and it does look nice but if I had to drop some money to get an Xbox One I would be sure to get the black model because the only way items around your house stay white for a period of time is if you don't touch them and you may as well forget that with something like this.

...I wonder how Oakland Athletics fans feel, who by now are thrilled to have someone like Jon Lester on their team, repeatedly say that he would be thrilled to go back to Boston after this season is done? How do you cheer for someone like that when you know in a few short months he's getting ready to screw you?

...Stupid comment of the week goes to Magic Johnson when he was talking about the possibilities of Los Angeles getting an NFL team within the next two years. His pipe dream is to have the Raiders come back to town "because that is where they belong." They called Los Angeles home for only twelve years and the last few years that they were there people were leaving in the third quarter but according to this guy they belong there. Idiot.

...This is a big week for console football fans because on Tuesday Madden 15 is going to be released for Xbox One, PS4, Xbox 360 and PS3. EA promotes the hell out of this game every year and this year they made a video that is around 3 1/2 minutes long and you don't even see anything from the game until 2 1/2 minutes go by. All that time is filled up with dancing and singing - you know the things you usually do when you are playing a football video game. People will gladly pay seventy dollars for essentially a roster update and maybe some new animations thrown in and EA knows this going in. I'm jealous and envious in a way because I wish they felt the same way about their baseball game when they had it just like their football franchise.

...In case you have not seen this video you can see it right here.

...Last week Microsoft said that they were seriously considering changing the name of Internet Explorer, their highly criticized Web browser. Their view is that a name change would end the negative perceptions that have been associated with the browser. If they do this I don't see how this is going to fix anything because the bugs, security problems and outdated technology are still going to be in the browser no matter what they want to call it. If you put a new coat of paint on the outside of a house and then ignore what has to be done on the inside you're only fooling yourself. That's what's going on here.

...What's this? The Red Sox sent all-world outfielder Jackie Bradley, Jr. to their Triple-A team in Pawtucket. They finally realized in mid-August that he can't hit major league pitching which was something that every other team in baseball knew since Opening Day.

...Browns rookie quarterback Johnny Manziel flipped the bird at the Washington Redskins out of frustration while he was running off the field during Cleveland's second preseason game because he was doing everything he should not do to impress the Browns coaching staff. With an attitude like he has he should have been drafted by the Patriots because at least on that team he would have fit in.

...Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon got a lot of heat last week because he criticized the hometown Tampa Bay Rays fans for cheering Derek Jeter consistently during the recently completed three-game series that the Rays hosted. Granted there are a lot of Yankee fans down there and most are transplanted New Yorkers who moved down to Florida to escape the snow but Maddon does have a point. All the guy is asking for is for the Rays fans to come out and root for their team and if you read between the lines he is also telling the crowd to stop kissing Jeter's a&#36;&#36; every time he sticks his head out of the dugout.

...And that right there is the only thing that bugs me about this guy. I appreciate that Derek Jeter is a great ballplayer and I'm happy he played for the Yankees all these years but I just can not bring myself to treat him like a God like the press has done virtually since he's been in the major leagues. He's just a ballplayer. The Yankees did just fine before he got there and they'll survive after he's gone.

...In case you were not alive and kicking back in 1989, today marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the lifetime banishment from baseball that Pete Rose accepted from then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti. I remember watching the live feed on CNN when Giamatti began his press conference with these seven words. The banishment for life of Pete Rose... I didn't know if I should cheer or laugh and thinking back I probably did both. I was convinced at that time Rose knew exactly what he was doing and nothing that has happened after all this time has changed my mind. Even though he only held the post for six months Giamatti was a hell of a commissioner. The latest out of Rose is that he did not read the "fine print" when he signed an agreement to be banished for life because he thought he'd only been suspended for a season. Pick-up lines that you hear in bars are more believable then this because the document that Rose signed those many years ago was only a four-page one and it clearly stated that he was being banned for life. I just hope that the new commissioner of baseball does not believe what Rose is trying to sell here because the only person he has to blame is himself for this mess and not a misunderstanding a quarter century ago.

...Nick Swisher underwent surgery on both knees last Wednesday and because of that his terrible 2014 season (.208 avg, 8 HR, 42 RBI) will come to an end. This does him a big favor in a way because if the Indians do manage to make the post season he will avoid another October where the only thing you can count on him doing is walking back to the dugout after striking out.

...I am waiting to see if there is any complaining about the Red Sox signing Cuban defector Rusney Castillo to a seven-year, &#36;72.5 million deal but I know from past experiences that there will be none. Had the Yankees signed this guy to this huge contract there would be quite a few members of the media who would only be too glad to point out to everyone how the rich get richer. Can the Sox use this guy? Probably. But the reason why he's going to be wearing a Red Sox uniform for the next seven years is because Boston wanted to keep him away from New York.

...A woman visiting the zoo in Madison, Wisconsin climbed over a fence just so she could plant a kiss on a giraffe but as usual with these human and giraffe relationships, things went sour fast. The giraffe returned the kiss and then decided that she was not his type and then proceeded to turn around and kicked her in the face, which in giraffe body language means get lost. Not counting her broken heart, her injuries were non-life-threatening but she was cited for harassment of zoo animals and was fined almost &#36;700. Well, maybe it was best for her. It never would have worked out in the end.

...Of all the MLB games that were played last week the one that really stood out for me was last Thursday's game between the Tigers and the Rays where Tampa Bay beat former teammate David Price 1 - 0 even though Price only gave up one hit. The collective opinion on the Rays after the Price trade was that they lost another quality player and that they were done. If there is one thing that I have learned after watching this team for the past few years is that they are tougher than they look and that there is no quit in them and I credit that to Joe Maddon. I have always wondered if Tampa Bay had the money that the Yankees have and how good they would be? A team that has brains and knows how to use them that also has the money to get things done? Good thing for the Yankees no such team exists.

...Finally this week I want to wish a very happy birthday to Jim825. Actually it is tomorrow and if you take a glance at his screen name -Jim825- you will see for yourself why he has the 825 as part of his online name. If you have been around here for even a little while you've seen for yourself the huge impact Jim has around here. He's a big part of Total Classics and you have him to thank for the easy installer that is included in those mods. And there is not a question about the modding of the game that Jim can not answer. He's an excellent member of the staff and a good friend and I have appreciated getting to know him after all these years here. I have no doubt his family feels the same way about him although I doubt his wife has never asked him about installing multiple mods on her computer. Happy Birthday Jim and have a good one!

[raidersbball20]

The Kim K thing makes me think of the hobbit/photoshopping episode of South Park which was hilarious.

[Jim825]

Y4L - Thanks for the kind words. And you're right about my wife. I can't remember her ever asking me about multiple installations of a Total Classics mod.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 8-31

...Today's the waiver deadline in baseball and that means it is the last opportunity for the Yankees to pick up a washed-up outfielder for this year.

...A week ago today I went to a retirement party for someone who I used to work with and I was able to see some people that I haven't seen since the last one I attended three years ago. When I was working I had myself convinced that once I walk out those doors for the last time I'd never look back and in one regard it's true. I've never been back to my work place since the day I cleaned out my desk and locker and that was five years ago. I never had a party in my honor when I left because no one (including myself) knew I would be retiring. I retired via a disability and that meant that literally I was there one day and gone the next and I couldn't do anything about it. I'm just happy they think well of me to invite me to these things.

...But before I close on this I have to let you know about a story that a wife of one of my ex-coworkers told. She was in the hospital recently and before she came out of the anesthesia she said she had a near-death experience. While I was listening to her tell us what she saw I could tell that this woman was no kook who was trying to manufacture a story like this for reasons known only to her. She was a religious person and what she saw from her glimpse of heaven made her wake up with a smile on her face and no one that she has told this to has doubted her yet. This includes me. I have heard many stories similar to what she told that day and they were all from sane and rational people and not someone who spends twelve hours a day watching The 700 Club.

...A blue lobster was caught up in the state of Maine last week by a fourteen-year-old girl and her father while they were hauling lobster traps. The odds of catching a lobster of this color is one in two million so if this kid knows what she is doing she should run to the closest corner store and purchase a lottery ticket. The lobster was donated to the Maine State Aquarium and they will make sure that anyone who is in the mood for a lobster dinner leaves this particular one alone.

...Personally I don't care what color they are. Blue, yellow, orange, green. Give me a chance and I'll eat all of them. Pass the butter.

...I was considering sending an ice bucket challenge to David Ortiz but I figured once he found out what I had in mind he would never respond. I wanted to personally stand above him and drop a dozen blocks of ice on top of him. Anything for charity, right?

...Maybe I am missing something but I don't understand the problem that some people are having when they found out that Burger King bought Tim Horton's. I get why McDonald's was upset because they probably wanted to buy Tim Horton's themselves. Part of the deal also includes a plan to change the new firm’s nominal headquarters from Miami, Florida to Oakville, Ontario, where Tim Hortons is based. If they do that Burger King/Tim Hortons would be subjected to Canada’s far lower corporate tax rates and when you consider that Burger King paid $89 million in taxes on $1.1 billion in revenue this deal makes perfect sense. But because they are leaving the U.S. to go to Canada there are some people who are protesting this move and are swearing that "they will never have a Whopper again." Right. These are also the same people who don't have to worry about paying an eighty-nine million dollar tax bill. Every time I hear about some boycott going on I give it a week before it folds up and dies. That's what will happen here.

...Check my I.D. Dept: I must have a twin somewhere and if I do I feel bad for the guy. One day last week I was at the grocery store picking up a few things and while I was waiting in line to check out the person behind me tapped me on the shoulder and told me that he was sorry to hear about my brother. I was going to reply that "he had it coming" or "it serves him right" but I could tell that this guy was sincere and I let him know that he had the wrong guy and that I didn't even have a brother. He apologized for the confusion and I am sure that when we went our separate ways we were thinking just about the same thing. He probably couldn't wait to get home to tell someone he knew what happened and I immediately thought of the first time that someone mistook me for someone else. But that was over thirty years ago.

Back in the late seventies and early eighties a group of friends and I used to hang around a burger joint because they had a Pac-Man machine there and we would try to get our names on the top ten screen they had there. I rarely made it on there and the few times that I did I was quickly replaced by someone else. It wasn't for lack of trying especially with all the quarters I put in it. One night we were there and this time we actually ordered something which almost put the owner of the place in a state of shock. While I was waiting for my order I had a spare quarter and I decided to play the game and while I was playing it I was distracted by a lady who was watching me very attentively. I didn't know who she was but just as I ended my game she came up to me and told me why she was looking at me. She said that I reminded her of her son who died in a car crash back in 1970 and she just wanted to let me know that. I didn't get a chance to talk to her that much except to say that I was very sorry because my order was ready and that was something that I have always regretted. I wish that I would have spent more time talking to her because I noticed her watching me even after I sat down. I never saw her again.

...Last month an uncle of mine died in a nursing home at the age of 96. He was there for the last year and a half or so of his life and from what my cousin told me the people there took wonderful care of him. On Tuesday there was a memorial mass for him and the other eight people that passed away last month and earlier this month and it was one of the most unique masses I have ever attended. There were four hymns that we sung during the mass but each time we sang them one of the residents there kept on singing the wrong song even though pamphlets were passed out to everyone before the ceremony began with the song and lyrics on it. Looking at the pastor I could tell he was even getting confused and he probably knew these songs by heart. There is a part of the mass where the priest/minister/preacher asks the congregation to be thankful for their blessings but maybe because it was such a small crowd the pastor decided to do this part a little different and I'm sure when it was over he regretted it. He asked the group of twenty-five people what they were thankful for and the same guy who didn't know what song was being sung started thanking everyone that he knew in his life - or at least that's the way it seemed. The mass started at 10:30 am but the way this guy was going I thought we were going to get out of there at 4:00. He got on such a roll that other people were joining in too. Finally the pastor told him that he'd talk to him after the service and that made the guy so happy that he kept quiet for the rest of the service. It was quite an experience for me and you could tell by looking at the faces of the people that live there that this was more than just a memorial mass. God bless them.

...A pediatric nurse from San Diego got himself into a very bad situation last week and if what the media is reporting about this is true no one is ever going to see him again unless you happen to be a prisoner. Whether this is true or not this registered nurse is looking at federal charges for repeatedly molesting a two-month-old baby that was placed in his care at the beginning of this month. The FBI said they captured video evidence from his home to prove he was molesting the infant and they did not go into any detail to inform the media what they saw. I don't know if that's good or not because in these situations you always imagine the worst. If there is one thing to hold on to about this is that this happened to the baby at such a young age. At two months old you don't remember anything and I really hope there is no lasting scars for this kid to have while he grows up. As for that nurse as soon as he settled into his comfortable cell he will be getting a different set of scars. That's another thing I don't even want to imagine.

...My favorite football league, the Legends Football League, is going through their playoffs right now and things are starting to get really hot. This is a woman's seven-on-seven league and they play their games in the spring and summer. This league used to be called the Lingerie Football league but don't let the name change fool you because they still wear the good stuff. There are ten teams in this league and I don't know any of these players by name. I just know them from how they wear their uniform and how it fits on them. There's this one who plays for Los Angeles, well never mind. You get the idea. If you want to check out both the games and the players they have an official Youtube channel you can go to. Fair warning though, the NFL will never look the same again.

...It should come as no surprise to anyone who has driven there but according to an insurance industry report Boston is home to the worst drivers of any U.S. big city. I realize that this has nothing to do with the Red Sox in any way but if I hear about anything that puts down that city then I am going to write about it. ^-^

...Things we learned this week, Dept: When watching Jesus Montero play baseball never give him an ice cream sandwich because he's partial to hot fudge sundaes...The Angels are trying to win the A.L. West and the instant replay people in New York are doing everything they can to make it happen...And there were some people that actually gave the President a hard time because he wore a tan suit the other day. What the hell, I thought it looked good. I'd wear it.

...Yesterday the Rams announced that Michael Sam has been waived and did not make the team's final fifty-three-man roster. They released this statement yesterday afternoon so there really hasn't been any negative reactions yet - or at least as far as I have seen. Coach Jeff Fisher stressed that this was "a football decision only" but I am just waiting for someone to write an article accusing the Rams of stringing Sam along all this time. Can he play? Probably, but not up to NFL standards. Even though none of them will ever admit it I can't help but wonder how many Rams players were happy Sam didn't make the final cut?

...Finally, have a wonderful Labor Day holiday weekend. Didn't it seem like yesterday when it was Memorial Day? <sigh>

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 9-7

...The week prior to Labor Day was very cool with temperatures much lower than normal for late August. But on Labor Day last Monday that all changed. It was a perfect summer day with the thermometer reaching eighty-five degrees with a light breeze thrown in as a bonus. I think it was summer's way of reminding us what we were leaving behind.

...And of all teams to have the Labor Day holiday off it had to be the New York Yankees. They haven't done anything all year. It just didn't seem fitting.

...Open your Wallet Wide, Dept: Today is Derek Jeter day at Yankee Stadium and from now until the end of the season the Yankees will wear a patch of Jeter's final-season logo on all player hats and uniforms. Special baseballs with the Jeter logos will also be used today and the uniforms used in the game and throughout the rest of the season will be sold by Steiner Sports. When you think of Steiner Sports just think expensive and then multiply it by ten. That's how overpriced this company is. They have an exclusive autograph deal with Jeter and because of that they have sold more than two hundred Jeter-signed products which includes game-used jerseys that sell for $25,000. I am considering buying two. And in a move that is certain to alienate Jeter fans who do not live in New York City, the New Era Cap company is selling a three-cap box of Jeter hats for $150. The catch is that you can only buy them at Yankee Stadium or official Yankees stores. That means if you have been a big Derek Jeter fan for a long time and happen to live in Nevada, you can't have it. Since these three hats are only priced at $150, they want to get you in the store so you can get a few more things to go along with that. But if you really want a hat and don't mind spending the money for it you can get a white leather fitted hat from New Era for only $99.99 and when you wear it out in public it's guaranteed to be stolen. I'll be watching the ceremony for as long as I can stand it while switching between the NFL games that are on today. I just think that no matter what the Yankees say about him (all good of course) and what they give him, they secretly have to be counting down the days until he goes because the sad part is he has done nothing this season - a fact that not even Steiner Sport can cover up with one of their overpriced items.

...The Seattle Mariners suspended Jesus Montero for the remainder of the 2014 season after he charged the stands to go after a team scout when he was on a rehabilitation assignment. Of all the predictions you can make for this coming off-season the easiest one would be having the Mariners getting rid of this guy. He's a Robinson Cano without the big paycheck. Lazy and unmotivated.

...Holy **** how the Oakland Athletics fell apart!

...I understand that people make mistakes and sometimes those same mistakes are overlooked. But when you are putting so much time and effort into making a game and spending a lot of money advertising its release, it really is inexcusable. How else could EA Sports explain making Cleveland Browns rookie linebacker Christian Kirksey one-foot-two inches tall in the game when he is actually six-foot-two? Quite a difference. And to make themselves look even worse they have Kirksey as a member of the Tennessee Titans instead of Cleveland. At least they got him in the right conference. Again, mistakes are made. But this bad? Kirksey's a rookie. This is the first time he's in the Madden series. How can you screw up a new player like that? It's laziness that is the cause of this happening because someone didn't double-check their work and if this was in any way intentional -with EA you never know- this was the wrong way to get attention onto this game.

...Doesn't it seem strange that with all the innings Masahiro Tanaka pitched in Japan over the years he never got hurt but his first year in the American League he can't even make the halfway mark?

...I read an article last week about Jackie Bradley Jr., Boston's future multiple Triple Crown winner, Gold-Glover, All-Star and first-ballot Hall-of-Famer. It said that his demotion to AAA Pawtucket in the International League may have had more to do with his inability to hit major league pitching since that part was clear to everyone. When it was Bradley's turn at bat the other team would take bets amongst themselves on how many pitches it would take for him to make an out. Usually it was one or two. Another reason for his one-way ticket to Rhode Island was that Red Sox coaches and players were frustrated with Bradley's stubbornness with the coaching staff because he was unwilling to work with coaches to fix his swing. Well, there's the problem right there. He got a little too ahead of himself. He started acting like a typical self-centered Red Sox player before he actually had a solid footing on the team. The entire team is like that but the others know how to hide it well enough before they actually start contributing. Once they start doing that then all bets are off. Someone just forgot to tell Bradley that's how things are done on that team.

...Last Tuesday Dunkin' Donuts opened their first store in Southern California and people were lining up for blocks just to be the first ones in when the store opened up at 5:00 a.m. that day. One guy who had nothing better to do was waiting outside the store since Sunday just to be the first one in and he was rewarded with a year's worth of free Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Their coffee is not bad and for those of you who live in Southern California and did not wait in line to get in because you had to work or had a life, let me give you the heads-up on this place because we have them all over where I live. These people make assembly line donuts. Same size, same everything. Once you had a Dunkin' Donuts donut you are not going to have the urge late at night to go and get one. They are entirely forgettable. They'll do in a pinch if no other donuts are around but it is not hard to find a better donut someplace else. Again the coffee is fine but you can say the same for coffee you find at corner stores too. I wonder how that guy who waiting in line since last Sunday and all through the Labor Day holiday feels now after he had a few of their donuts?

...I got to thinking about the theft of those celebrity nude photos last week where people like Kate Upton and Jennifer Lawrence and many others had their privacy invaded when someone stole their personal photos and were spread across the internet. These photos were not meant to be seen by the general public. I sympathized with everyone that had their accounts compromised but at the same time I have to wonder why any of them would store photos of that kind on the internet because as the old saying goes where there's a will there's a way and someone found a way. I'm not saying that these women should not have photos of themselves like this. It's clear that these were taken by or meant for their boyfriends or spouse. But what they should have done and I hope this is what they do now is not to have any of these photos online anymore. How about putting them on a flash drive and keeping it in your home instead of trusting iCloud or a service like that?

...But leave it to Conan O'Brien to find humor in this. On his show he showed more "private" photographs of celebrities that were as he described "really embarrassing and could ruin careers." He then showed a picture of Kim Kardashian reading a book and Guy Fieri eating a healthy salad. The joke was of course that these were obviously doctored pictures because Kardashian avoids books as much as she avoids Walmart.

...Paul McCartney signed a letter last Monday to ask Scottish voters choose to remain part of the United Kingdom in a vote on independence which will be held later on this month. I had no idea a vote like this was taking place and what it would mean for Scotland if they are declared independent and since this has nothing to do with what is going on here I am not that interested in the outcome. The only reason why this caught my eye is because we had a member here some years back (MarkB) who was from Glasgow, Scotland and what I remember about him is that he did not like politics in Scotland and since this had something to do with Scotland I wondered how he felt about this? Mark lives in Australia now and works in the computer field and kills crocodiles in his spare time. Whatever you are voting for Mark, I'm with you.

...Cuban ex-president Fidel Castro escaped from his rubber room last week and accused the United States and Europe of war-mongering and also compared the military alliance representatives of NATO to the Nazi SS. Not even his brother Raul, who is currently running the country, knew the reason why his eighty-eight year old brother made these statements but he just nodded his head and smiled anyway. These days Americans could care less what is being said out of Cuba just as long as they keep sending ballplayers over for major league teams to sign.

...The San Diego Padres honored outgoing baseball commissioner Bud Selig with a dedication ceremony of the Selig Hall of Fame Plaza at Petco Park, which will be an area that will serve as a home to the Padres Hall of Fame. Why name it after this windbag? Why not Tony Gwynn or even Ted Williams, who was born in San Diego? Well, if they're doing this I hope the put a statue of him there as well so all the pigeons in San Diego can take aim on it while they're in the area.

...Former Miami Dolphins guard Richie Incognito was cleared by the NFL to return to full active status as a player but as of right now he is a player without a team but that can change soon because his agent says that there are "at least five teams" who are considering signing him. Dallas would be a perfect fit for him because at the rate their players get into trouble no one is ever going to know if Incognito starts harassing minority players again for a long time.

...With all the publicity the Dallas Cowboys got just for signing Michael Sam to their practice squad, there was another team last week that quietly added a player to their own practice squad under different circumstances. Devon Still, a defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals, did not make the final cut to start the season with the team but Still wasn't really expecting to because his heart was not in the game. He has a little four-year-old daughter who was diagnosed with stage 4 pediatric cancer back in June. With that on his mind at all times he was unable to give football his 100% commitment and that's why Cincinnati cut him. But after they did that they quickly added Still to the practice squad and that meant he would continue to get medical insurance, a weekly paycheck and less travel throughout the season. This is such a nice story of what the Bengals did for this guy and for his little daughter but it still wasn't big enough for the media to focus on because they were too busy chasing around Michael Sam as he attempts to stick to his second NFL team.

...Finally, welcome back NFL. Maybe. I think. For those of you who have DirectTV today is going to be a free preview of the NFL Sunday Ticket so with baseball being on and all these NFL games this should be a good afternoon for sports. The Oakland game is down in New York and they'll be playing the Jets in the Meadowlands. What else is there to watch?