Random Thoughts On A Sunday Morning Updated To 7-28

[GoRedSox34]

exactly one more week until the 10th anniversary of the release of MVP Baseball 2005 - the greatest sports video game of all time

[CCH3900]

exactly one more week until the 10th anniversary of the release of MVP Baseball 2005 - the greatest sports video game of all time

God I can't believe it has been 10 years.

Time sure flies thank goodness Sony has kept the liscenced MLB sim game alive since 2K stopped caring.

Oh by the way, I'm BAAAAAAAACK, lol

[Yankee4Life]

Oh by the way, I'm BAAAAAAAACK, lol

Welcome back!

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 2-22

...For the original members of this website Tuesday, February 22nd 2005 was a day we were looking forward to for months because that was the day that Mvp Baseball 2005 was released and shipped by EA Sports to video game stores everywhere and the rest, as the saying goes, is history. It wasn't until the very next day that people in here were able to get their hands on the game and some of us to this day have still not been able to let go of it. I had a day off from work two days later so I made a bee-line straight to Gamestop and happily paid $29.95 for my own copy of what would become video game heaven. It did not take long for the modders to take care of the first problem that a lot of people were reporting and that was the choppiness issue in the game. The reviews were genuinely positive and besides the aforementioned choppiness the main complaint was that people couldn't find it in the stores at first. Initial impressions of the game can be found by looking at this thread right here. The only regret that I have about this game is that EA lost the rights to continue making baseball video games that very same year to 2K sports. I sometimes imagine what these guys would have done had they been able to mod a few more years of EA baseball releases. This will always be the best game I ever owned. Ten years. It just flew.

...Similarly 2K sports released their first baseball PC game on March 3rd, 2009 with MLB2k9. I highly doubt when 2019 rolls around anyone will look back fondly on that game or any of the versions that followed it. ***

...Last Tuesday Alex Rodriguez posted a hand-written letter of apology to the Yankees, major league baseball, the player's association and the fans for his actions that lead him to be suspended for an entire season. Skeptics out there -and there are many, myself included- have been saying that this apology means nothing and they won't ever believe a word he says. That's fine. I do think he made the right move by penning this letter of apology instead of having a news conference because after watching enough of these player press conferences where they apologize for something each one gets phonier and phonier. I did this...I'm sorry...I didn't mean to hurt anyone...any questions?....goodbye. He's going to get booed no matter what and especially in Yankee Stadium but baseball fans have short memories. Selective ones too. If he starts hitting the ball like he knows he can the boos will start to die down. If he starts hitting some game winning home runs they'll die down even more. He'll start hearing cheers again from people who dismissed this apology he made back in February. And if it turns out that he is a major contributor to help get the Yankees back to the post season and has a productive October like he had back in 2009 you'll see the cheers drown out the boos. Hell, I'll be one of the people cheering if this happens. I just want the Yankees to win because it's been hard watching them over the past two seasons because it seemed at times they were more concerned about keeping Captain twenty-million happy than winning games. He's done his apology. Let the sportswriters say what they want. Now I want him to take out his frustrations on a whole bunch of innocent baseballs.

...The Yankees home opener is on April 6th and Derek Jeter will unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) will not be in attendance because he will be out of the country. The first thing I thought of was what will Michael Kay do now? He'll bring his name up three or four times every inning if he is there or not. It's probably a good thing that he won't be attending because the camera would be on him more than the game and the Yankees don't have to fall over themselves to keep him happy.

...I am all for anything that speeds up the pace of a baseball game and it will be interesting to see if the new rules that are going to be put in place this season will work or if they will tossed aside after awhile. What they really need to do is try these rules out first in Boston because if it works there it will work anywhere because the Red Sox deliberately try to make the games longer and longer each year.

...Justin Verlander says he has put on twenty pounds of muscle this off season with the hope that this will in turn help him be more successful this coming year because 2014 was the second-worst season of his career. Well, good luck. He's a good pitcher and has great taste in women. I have to give him that. But from what I've seen at least ten pounds of that muscle went right to his head.

...The Red Sox posted pictures of Fenway Park last week as it was covered with seven feet of snow. Since the pictures were taken there's a chance that there is more there right now and that's not necessarily a bad thing for them because they know if they wanted to they could get rid of all it in one day. How? Easy. All they need to do is invite a few thousand people to come in the ballpark. Maybe have David Ortiz there as a meet-and-greet guy. He can make some snowballs for the kids. With all the hot air those people from Boston have a couple thousand of them in one place will get that snow out of there in a hurry.

...At least this time major league baseball can't blame Alex Rodriguez for making them look bad. They're doing it all themselves. It must be slow in the commissioner's office right now before spring training officially gets under way because baseball is suing a finance website called Wallethub over the use of their logo which happens to be a W. I had no idea that baseball owned the letter W and now I want to know who owns the other twenty-five alphabets. The lawyers for baseball claim that Wallethub's use of that letter in the alphabet will confuse the hell out of fans of the Washington Nationals and Chicago Cubs. For the Nationals, they have a curly W on their hats and home uniforms and for the Cubs they use the W on a giant blue flag that they wave outside of Wrigley Field after a Cubs victory. The Cubs only won forty-one home games last year so this flag was rarely seen. Wallethub's use of the W looks nothing like the Washington version or the W on the flag that the Cubs use. It's a plain white block-style letter W with a green background.

There you go.



I can clearly see how Nationals and Cubs fans would think that this website has something to do with their team. Anyone who thinks that probably couldn't tell the difference between a Ferrari and a UPS truck. If baseball really wants to go after someone they should try Walgreens. I'm sure you've seen their logo. It's practically a dead ringer for the Nationals and even my wife who knows very little about baseball pointed that out one day last summer when we were driving around.



That's Walgreens. But baseball's going after Wallethub. I wonder how much it is to own an alphabet? I'd like to buy a vowel.

...Every time I see one of those Duck Dynasty guys I imagine some barber who would be willing to do anything to get them to sit still for a haircut.

...Proving once again that there is a buyer for anything, someone paid over $1,500 for the cast that Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III briefly wore last year after dislocating his ankle. Money well spent. Whomever bought that thing better put it in a glass case or something because if that doesn't happen that cast will clear a room awfully fast.

...Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen underwent surgery last week to remove a growth from a bone in his left foot and is expected to be out for eight to twelve weeks. Perfectly planned. Now he misses spring training. How the hell do you not notice a growth on your left foot? Just like Josh Hamilton he didn't want to have his off season fun time interrupted by having surgery and since this will get him out of spring training, even better.

...Police discovered that surveillance video taken from a bus showed that the car driven by Bruce Jenner that was involved in a fatal accident in Malibu, California was caused by Jenner. How do you like that? He may not be a woman yet he sure as hell is driving like one.

...It was so cold around here last week that Niagara Falls was completely frozen. That didn't stop people from visiting there even though the temperatures were below zero. Those people are extremely courageous or out of their mind. Take your pick. But at least one of them took a good photo of all that frozen water.



...Pass the lies and hold the sugar Dept: Last Friday morning I fought -6 degree temperatures to attend a breakfast with a bunch of people that I used to work with. It's something we do every three or four months just to catch up with each other. Some are still working and others, like me, are retired. The breakfast did not start out too well for me because I told them I would get there a little early to get us a table and I did just that except that I went to the wrong restaurant to wait for them to arrive. (There are two breakfast spots on the same stretch of road where I live with similar names and I happened to choose the wrong one. This is something I'll never live down.) I look forward to these meetings because no matter what job you have or what job you have now your co-workers are the most important part of your stay there. They brought up stories that we have been telling for the past fifteen years and they get funnier each time they're brought up. Some were about me but a lot of them weren't. The one that they enjoy telling over and over about me is my famous "altercation" with a nun. There's an old saying that there is a nugget of truth in all talk and that's exactly what this story is based on. Truth plus a healthy mixture of imagination.

I was getting ready to go outside and right before I was about to open up the door to go someone called my name and I turned around and I bumped into a lady and when I say "bump" I am even exaggerating a bit. I turned, we barely made contact and that was that. It's not like she lost her balance or was knocked into a wall. I quickly said excuse me and I apologized to her and she smiled and said it was no problem and then we both went our separate ways. That would have been the end of it except someone saw what happened and he happened to know who the woman was. She was a nun at one of the nearby Catholic grammar schools. A couple days later he happened to see her and he mentioned that he saw what happened and the woman said I was very nice and apologetic to her. Now comes the part where the story got fabricated and because of that, grew wings. The guy that knew the nun came into work and asked me about it and told him what happened but he said to me that the nun told him I banged into her without saying a word and kept going. As the years have gone by I have progressed from banging into her to knocking her down, kicking her and doing it all over again. I'm sure the next time this story is told I will have had cleats on and I will have done a dance on her. A healthy imagination is good even if the story's about you. Am I looking forward to the next time I hear this story? You bet. There's nothing like good co-workers. I had them when I was working and I have them here now.

***The views and opinions expressed in the random thoughts thread this week concerning a certain baseball video game are those of the writer himself and do not necessarily reflect the views and position of the website itself. Any assumptions made by any individual are not reflective of Mvpmods.com.

[Peter Griffin]

You got a real bargain, you will never see a copy below 50 bucks again.

[Gordo]

Maybe Walgreens should go after the Nationals.....they've been around longer!

[DJEagles]

Been a long time, but thought I would pop by and see how MVP Mods is making out! Looking forward to Spring Training, can't wait for some Blue Jays Baseball. I am a realist though, I think they have a better team than last year, but I am cautiously optimistic that they can make a run at the postseason. There are still some holes that needed filling, but I am hoping they will be able to do it internally.

Regardless, baseball's back and so am I....LOL!

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 3-1

...It's March 1st! This is the first day of the new year that I look forward to. Even though this day looks exactly like any day in January or February, this week spring training games begin and if that doesn't make everything all right nothing will. The games start up on Tuesday but the Phillies actually start up today against a college team and against the Yanks on Tuesday in Clearwater, Florida. Here we go!

...And we're off, Dept: Michael Saunders, the new Blue Jays left fielder that the team acquired from Seattle in the off-season won't be playing in Toronto anytime soon or anywhere else for that matter. He tripped in a sprinkler hole while shagging fly balls in the outfield last Wednesday and will be out until the All-Star break with a torn meniscus. And I bet everyone thought Mark Teixeira was going to be the first one to go down.

...Some Yankee fans are mad at the club for not signing nineteen-year-old Yoan Moncada, the latest Cuban superstar that the Red Sox ended up signing for a $31.5 million signing bonus. There's more too. They have to pay a dollar-for-dollar tax to Major League Baseball because they exceeded their international amateur bonus pool. But what's sixty million dollars to them? No one's going to criticize them for what they did. This is a huge risk for someone who is not ready to play in the major leagues this season or probably the next. The Yankees were in a can't-win situation. Sign him and face the complaints that they can buy anything they want. Don't sign him and they're being "cheap." The potential for this guy is limitless but not for sixty million.

...And Drew Smyly brought up a good point about this. He said it wasn't fair that a nineteen-year-old Cuban prospect gets thirty million dollars to sign and the best nineteen-year-old in this country would only get 1/6th of that because amateur players in the U.S. are subject to the first-year player draft process. That means that there is only so much money that major league teams can give to draftees. And who can argue with that? Part of the reason why Moncada got so much money is because where he came from. Major league teams think that anything that comes out of Cuba is a guaranteed winner.

...Phil Hughes has really come a long way. Provided that he doesn't get hurt in spring training he is going to be the Twins opening day starter when they begin the season in Detroit on April 6th. This never would have happened to him when he was on the Yankees because they would have brought up a pitcher from AA ball to take the mound before him.

...People who live in Alaska finally got an alternative to drinking the long, cold nights away when their state became the third state to legalize recreational marijuana. That's all they need up there. They already have more worthless drunks then they know what to do with. Now with this law passed they'll have just as many stoners too.

...This means the next time Sarah Palin says something that makes no sense at all she will finally have an excuse.

...For one day last week the temperature jumped up into the high twenties but after that for the rest of the week it came to its senses and remained in the single digits. But that one day when we got a break there were people walking around out there with no coats on and their windows down in their car. This is what life has been like living in a freezer.

...I don't get it. An American blogger by the name of Avijit Roy who was an outspoken critic of Islam was hacked to death in Bangladesh after a speaking engagement about his latest books by assailants with machetes. His wife was injured in the attack too but is expected to survive. This guy was told that they would kill him if he came back to Bangladesh since that is where he is originally from. After all the things that these people have done lately did he actually think for one second that they were bluffing?

...New commissioner of baseball Rob Manfred said last week that it is a possibility that baseball can go back to a 154-game season. I don't think that's a bad idea at all but the owners will probably fight him on it until the idea is quietly dropped. The players won't. If they were told they were going to get the same amount of money and have to play eight less games you won't hear any of them objecting.

...ESPN continues with their Michael Sam obsession as they reported last week that he got himself a new job outside of the NFL. My guess was that some florist shop hired him to make arrangements but I was mistaken. He got hired as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars. Shows how much I was wrong.

...I was as surprised as anyone in here last week that the movie Birdman was named Best Picture at the Oscars last week and maybe even a bit more surprised because I had never heard of the movie until it was brought up in the shoutbox by the others in here the next day. The only thing that I can see that is certain about the movie that wins this award each year is that no one understands how it happened or why.

...Khloe Kardashian and two of her sisters along with her little baby were involved in a car accident in Montana last week that they blamed on snow that kicked up from a passing truck that made her unable to see. She supposedly hit a patch of ice and crossed into oncoming traffic before landing in a ditch. That's the official story that they told the police when they got there anyway. The truth is this is exactly what happens when you try to take selfies when you are driving and these three are just dumb enough to post the pictures online for everyone to see.

...At the end of the 2012 season B.J. Upton bolted Tampa Bay and signed a five-year, seventy-five million dollar contract with the Braves and for the Rays it was money well saved. Upton hit .208 for Atlanta last year and believe it or not the year before he was even worse. So, what to do? He decided to inform everyone that he wanted to be referred to from now on as Melvin Upton, Jr instead of B.J. If it were me and my name was Melvin Upton, Jr I would do my best to keep that information to myself. Extra batting practice over the winter and watching films of himself hitting the ball when he was more productive at the plate would help Upton even more as he tries to be the player that he once was when he was in the American League. No matter what he wants to be known as now he's going to have to wait to see if this works for him because he is going to miss the rest of spring training because of inflammation in his left foot. By the time he is ready to resume baseball activities the season will have already started. And that's good news for the Braves because no matter what he says his name is now they can't help but looking at a seventy-five million dollar mistake.

...Does this mean if Miguel Cabrera has a bad year he'll change his name to Mike?

...C.C. Sabathia rumbled into spring training last week thirty pounds heavier than he was last year. His excuse was that his 2014 season was cut short because of his injury to his knee and he felt that it was because of all the weight he lost. Yeah ok. Sabathia's final appearance for the Yankees last year was in the middle of May. He tried to come back from his injury but was shut down in July. From the looks of him he knew where every Sonic and Dairy Queen drive-thru was within twenty miles of his house. For the past few years Sabathia has been terrible and that is with or without the added weight. I expect nothing more of the same this season.

...The Yankees are going to be retiring the numbers of Andy Pettitte (46) Bernie Williams (51) and Jorge Posada (20) this season and will all receive plaques in Memorial Park this year along with former coach and player Willie Randolph who will just be getting a plaque. As good as all these three players were I don't think any of them deserves to have their number retired. Pettitte was a hell of a pitcher for the Yankees but he left the team after the 2003 season to play for the Astros for three seasons and the Yankees sure could have used him during those years when their pitching was so thin that they were throwing rejects like Kevin Brown, Javier Vazquez and Jaret Wright out on the mound. Williams was a good player too and a good outfielder but look at some of the other outfielders in Memorial Park. Ruth, Mantle, Dimaggio, Maris and Jackson for example. How does Williams compare to that? And don't get me started on Posada. Of all the Yankees during their dynasty years of the late nineties this guy I hated the most. One of the selling points that got Posada's number retired was that he had five World Series rings. Well, yeah but look closer to what he did to earn his first one in 1996. He played in eight regular season games and did not make an appearance in the post season. For that he got a ring. Talk about picking the right door on The Price is Right. Pretty soon with all these numbers the Yankees are taking out of service I can't help but wondering that they'll be the first team to start using triple digits.

...The Cleveland Browns unveiled new logos last Tuesday and being in an area with a lot of Browns backers I was kind of curious to see what they would come up with. For all the hype they ended up giving the fans nothing. They made the orange color brighter because they said it matched the "passion of the fans and of the city." I wonder how many people are actually going to buy this load of crap? Sorry, forget I said that. Browns fans will buy everything that has the brighter orange on it. The next thing the Browns will do is dye the grass a darker color of green and call it a major stadium improvement.

...My wife went to visit her sister in Texas last week and like all the other times she has gone there I had to stay behind and watch the dogs. Someone had to do it and as usual I made sure not to have a smile on my face until I dropped her off at the airport and I was driving home. It would have been nice getting out of the weather for a little while but I would rather deal with the cold than be stuck watching two women shop all day and watch re-runs of Law and Order at night. When she came home last Wednesday night and told me about all the things that they did I will admit I only half-listened because there are so many times you can fake being excited when a women gets something on sale that they got for more than fifty percent off. Just when I thought I heard it all again she told me about a movie theater that the two of them went to that ended up sounding like some bed-and-breakfast. This theater had plush reclining seats and they supplied them with a pillow and a blanket so they can enjoy the movie as comfortable as they could. You could also order drinks (regular and alcoholic) and dinner that someone would bring to your seat. And if that wasn't enough to rope you in the popcorn was free. I'm satisfied when I go to the movies when the popcorn is fresh and the butter is still hot. If they gave me a pillow and a blanket I'd be down for the count before the previews were finished and I'd have to go back to see the movie from the beginning to see what I missed.

[DJEagles]

...actually, Saunders is due back in mid-April, and can be taking some at bats come mid-March.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 3-8

...It was kind of hard last Tuesday watching baseball for the first time on TV because at the same time the Yankees and Phillies were playing to a 5 - 5 tie there was another storm coming down outside my window. It's hard to be in a baseball frame of mind when you haven't seen a blade of grass since December. Sure, winter's going to end just like it does every year as the calendar moves forward like we all know it will but it's hard to watch your favorite team pitching and hitting and running and sliding when all you're doing is lifting and throwing snow. This coming week we are supposed to get a break and the temperatures for a couple of days are predicted to be in the forties. That should make a few people pass out from shock. If this ends up happening my baseball fever will finally start to kick in.

...I have never been on Curt Schilling's side and this goes back to the days when he was in the Orioles farm system and I had a chance to see him live and in person. But setting aside that he played for the Red Sox and that he wore a phony bloody sock to inspire his team eleven years ago, what some people have been saying about his seventeen-year-old daughter last week crossed the line and then kept going. All Schilling did was congratulate his daughter for being accepted into college to play softball and that's when some people on twitter said they were going to "welcome her" to school next year in their own special way if you get my drift. It did not take long for the messages to become more suggestive and vulgar and Schilling understandably was upset. I don't know what he can do legally to go after these people but I wish him nothing but luck. There are some things you just don't say and it shouldn't matter who you are and what you do.

,,,Down for the count, Dept: On Thursday I had to go to the dentist to have some much-needed dental work done on myself that I had been putting off as long as possible. For the past few weeks I have had a dull, aching pain in my lower left tooth, a pain that I usually get when I find out relatives are coming over for an extended stay. I arrived there a few minutes before my 8:00 a.m. appointment and I told them that I was there because a filling fell out and that's why I was having this occasional pain and sure enough after an X-Ray was taken they found out that was the case but instead of just being able to fill the tooth again and send me on my way they said I had to have a root canal or if I didn't want to do that they could extract the tooth. The price of a root canal was north of eight hundred dollars and to get rid of it all together was around two hundred. Since I am fiscally responsible and also was acutely aware of my surroundings (another way of saying that I am terrified of the dentist) I chose to have the tooth erased from existence. The dentist that I go to is a nice guy. He's patient and kind and lets you know exactly what he is going to do. It's not his fault that I almost pass out before I sit in his chair. I don't know why but I've always been that way. My niece turns twenty on the last day of this month and when she was a little kid my sister made it off limits for me to talk her daughter about going to the dentist because she didn't want me to scare her. Much to her credit this approach worked because today that same kid can go into a dentist's office and not feel anxious and rattled like her not-so-brave godfather. The tooth took over an hour to come loose. It was like a fish that didn't want to be reeled in from the water onto the boat. When it was all done I staggered out of there, paid my bill and went home. I think I would have been in less pain had I been mugged in a backlit alley than I was after the novocaine wore off.

...Leonard Nimoy's death last week reminded me of all things a baseball trip that I took with my cousin and three of his friends to Toronto in the early 1980's. This was back in the days when you didn't need a photo ID, a birth certificate, a passport and three letters of reference to enter Canada. All five of us piled into a car to catch an afternoon game between the Blue Jays and the Oakland Athletics. The ride up to Toronto was fine and full of eager anticipation of the game and what seats we would be able to get when we got there. Toronto had a last place team that year and their was no chance that this game was going to be a sellout. The only time Exhibition Stadium was sold out was when the Yankees were in town or when they were giving something away and that's why we were confident of driving all that way to see a game without having tickets. The game itself was a good one and Oakland came back to win it in the late innings and after the final out we packed up and headed home. This is where Nimoy comes into the story. While we were driving home on the QEW (the Queen Elizabeth Way) instead of talking about the game one of them brought up Star Trek. As soon as that happened I knew I was in for a long ride home. I was. The four people I was with were 95% Star Trek fans and 5% baseball fans and giving them 5% was being generous. These guys quoted Star Trek episodes word for word. An argument began because one guy thought a certain episode was "the greatest" and the others didn't. Spock seemed to be the favorite character for all of them because he was mentioned more than anyone else. It was three hours of Star Trek hell and I learned more about that show than I ever cared to know. One year later they went on another baseball trip to Toronto. I had a good excuse as to why I couldn't go with them. I was already three thousand miles away at boot camp in San Diego.

...If any of you guys feel left out of all the fun New England has been having with their record snowfall this year there's some good news for you but of course it's going to cost you. Some idiot in Boston is packaging up snow in water bottles and is shipping it across the country for $19.99. People who live in the northeast part of the country unfortunately can not take advantage of this great deal because while the snow that is outside on their lawns and driveways may not be Boston snow it is in fact snow and they don't need any more of it. So if you live out in Los Angeles and have never experienced snow now is your chance. Or if you are a transplanted New Englander who lives in a warm weather area that misses this yearly reminder of home sweet home for some reason, there you go. However, for $19.99 there are no guarantees that the snow will not turn to water before the FedEx guy delivers it to your door but if you really want to throw your money away there is a more expensive option that will cost you eighty-nine dollars and that will give you six pounds of snow shipped in a Styrofoam container. This comes with a guarantee that the snow will not melt. With six pounds of snow you can make a midget snowman or enough snowballs to pick off your neighbors and cars that pass by your house. Use your imagination and have fun!

...Oh, and if you do end up ordering this and you see that some of your snow is yellow return it immediately for a full refund.

...Every time March 5th rolls around each year it reminds me of John Belushi who died on this day back in 1982. When you think of unlimited talent and a senseless way to leave this world you have to include Belushi. The guy was one of the best and I still miss him.

...Toronto Blue Jays pitching prospect Daniel Norris has quickly become one of my favorite players. He's twenty-one-years-old, lives in a van and sleeps on the beach with a great view of the ocean. He also throws a 96 mile and hour fastball and is left-handed. That figures. Good for him. He lives his life the way he wants and is getting the most out of it. How many of us can say the same thing?

...Good for Sean Penn for telling the uptight politically correct people where to get off.

...The debate last week about whether a dress was white and gold or blue and black just goes to show that you can't take anything that you see on the Internet seriously. Take for example that "free the nipple" campaign that is going on now. I have no idea how that started and at the same time was unaware that the nipple was being held against its will. The things I miss. I think if these people really want to make a big splash for their cause they'd have Kate Upton publicly support them by displaying hers. If that happens the internet really will break.

...People like Lloyd McClendon irritate the hell out of me. I don't like anyone that plays the race card and I certainly have no use for anyone who does it to make himself look like some sort of crusader. McClendon has it in his head that he is "carrying the torch" because he is currently the only black manager in the major leagues and if you read between the lines of what he's saying he implied that the other recent black managers in baseball were fired just to get rid of them. Not even close to the truth. The Reds fired Dusty Baker in 2013 because they finally figured out what the Giants and the Cubs already knew: that he was a terrible manager. Bo Porter got fired in Houston because he had lousy teams and they didn't win. How many white managers has the same thing happened to? Answer: a lot. And Ron Washington wasn't even fired. He resigned because of personal reasons. So McClendon is left and he wants the world to know about because if he ends up getting fired like every other manager he can pull out this excuse from his back pocket. He also had to throw in his observation of the lack of black players in the game and while it may be true there is certainly no conspiracy behind it. Black players have been in this game for over sixty years now and they have thrived and made the game better along the way. If kids today decide they would rather play football or basketball it may be unfortunate but it's their choice and no one is locking them out of this game. They just chose to do something else. McClendon should spend his time trying to get his team ready for the season instead of reminding people that he's a black manager and a representative of the black race. The fact is most black people probably don't know or care who he is and if he really wants to carry the torch for them he should get out of baseball and follow the paths of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr instead of shooting his mouth off and playing it safe while writing out lineup cards.

...Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said last week that when the Yankees get around to retiring Derek Jeter's number the "captaincy should be retired with it" and no one from this point on should be considered for the role of Yankee captain because Jeter was “so perfect” filling that position. This was just about the time I heard enough because I realized Cashman was serious. I'm not saying that Jeter didn't deserve to be the Captain or that he was a good or a bad one but to say that no one from this point on deserves a shot to be the team captain sometime in the future is ridiculous. Who knows if there is another worthy Yankee captain out there right now somewhere? Or maybe he hasn't been born yet. To say that to this unknown kid that he can't be captain is wrong just because his name isn't Derek Jeter. When does the bowing and scraping to this guy going to end?

...Now if this is Cashman's way of saying that no one on the Yankees current roster could be captain he's right. Somehow Captain Mark Teixeira does not have the same ring to it. I think if this is what he really meant to say he could have done a better job.

...It's that time of year again. Turn your clocks ahead one hour tonight. It's just another sign that spring is really on it's way.

[Jim825]

Some idiot in Boston is packaging up snow in water bottles and is shipping it across the country for $19.99.

I've got to disagree with you on this one. Anybody who can actually MAKE money from all the snow we've been getting here is a genius in my book! I only wish that I had come up with this idea.....

[DJEagles]

Daniel Norris is a class act. I can't wait until he makes the big club .

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 3-15

...Pablo Sandoval showed everyone last week that fitting into his new team in Boston was going to be no problem at all. All he had to do was tell everyone that it "wasn't hard at all" to leave the Giants because of the way San Francisco general manager Brian Sabean talked to his agent. Have you ever noticed that ballplayers are the most put upon and overly sensitive group of people you've ever seen? They want you to grovel to them while at the same time hand them a one hundred million dollar contract and if they don't think you are bowing and scraping enough they'll find another team to do it for you. They love him now in Boston basically because he hasn't been there yet but he'll learn quick enough that those front runners have no patience at all.

...It is such a nice thing that people are doing for the man who lost his wife only hours after she gave birth to quadruplets. They have already raised over $330,000 for him to help raise his four kids and more money continues to come in. That's an impressive amount raised and he's going to need every penny for his brand new little army but no amount of money is going to give him a decent nights rest for the next couple of years.

...I am still having a hard time believing that Jon Lester plays for the Cubs now.

...The quickest way you can get a light to turn from red to green is before you leave your house make a sandwich and wrap it in wax paper. When you're at the light try to open up the sandwich. Before you can get the sandwich out of the wax paper the light will have turned green. Works every time.

...This one is Dept: I am amazed at what people think they can get away with these days in an age where video can be recorded so discretely and uploaded within seconds if you desire to. That's exactly what happened to a fraternity at the University of Oklahoma that is no longer in existence because someone had the sense to record some of their frat boys singing a racist chant as they were taking a bus ride somewhere. What happened after everything hit the fan and splattered all over the wall was not surprising at all. The university severed all ties with the fraternity giving a reason of "zero tolerance" for matters such as this. Zero tolerance is another way of saying let's wrap this up as fast as we can and distance ourselves from these people as quickly as possible. And then the speeches and online articles that expressed "surprise" that something like this could happen here in anno domini 2015. What these people don't realize is that no matter how good of a speech you give or how well you write about how wrong this was it's not going to change anything. Fifty years from now another incident will pop up someplace else. And it's going to happen one hundred years from now. It's also probably going to happen a year from now. It's how some people are. There's a difference between writing how you want things to be and the way things really are. It's called fact and fiction.

...But this one isn't, Dept: Anything that ESPN's Stephen A. Smith says either makes me shake my head or laugh at him or both. The latest bit of nonsense out of him is that he implied that Philadelphia Eagles head coach Chip Kelly is <shhhhh> a racist because of some recent roster moves that the team made and because of those moves he believes that Kelly does not want black players in his locker room. Considering the fact that 68% (or more than 2/3rds) of the NFL players are black Smith's logic once again escaped me. But that's how it is these days in the media. All you have to do is mention or just imply that magic word racism and you'll make headlines. This is something that Stephen A. Smith knows all too well because he's made a career out of it.

...Last week I wrote about the experience I had at the dentist and now over a week later I finally am starting to feel a little bit better. It's not that I have a low threshold for pain (well I do, but not this much) but part of my gum had to be cut in order for the tooth to be pulled. I ended up getting three stitches that day and it didn't hurt a bit because of the novocaine but once that wore off all bets were off. I ended up getting a prescription for something called hydrocodon-acetaminophen and while I can't pronounce it I can tell exactly what this oblong-shaped white pill does. You take two and before you know it you become a little bit dizzy, loopy and tired. For me it was mostly tired. I slept ten hours without even knowing it and it would have been more if the dogs didn't have to go outside. Luckily I only had to take them for a few days because my jaw was starting to feel a lot better on its own. Good thing. I didn't want to sleep away the rest of the month.

...Somehow I don't think the Detroit Lions are going to miss Ndamukong Suh as much as people think they will.

...Every time Brooke Shields name comes up I can't help of being reminded of something that she said some years ago. "If you're killed" Shields said, "you've lost a very important part of your life." Read that again. She actually said this. Thanks for the pearls of wisdom Brooke. Wow.

...Last week the Coast Guard had to rescue a man after he tried to walk from Detroit to Canada across Lake St. Clair, which borders the United States and Canada. Fortunately for the man the Coast Guard spotted and caught up to the guy about one and a half miles from shore and when rescued he was suffering from hypothermia and was disorientated because before he was picked up he was walking in circles after losing his compass an hour or so before the boat picked him up and he didn't know what direction to walk in since he was standing in the middle of a lake with nothing around him but ice. What the hell did he expect to see out there, a hotel? I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that alcohol was the reason why he decided to make this trip because a stunt like this always sounds like a good idea when you are talking about doing it in the safety of some bar. Then after he sobered up he saw where he was and that's when the panic started. Good job by the Coast Guard. Now this idiot's on dry land. That means he can think of another stupid thing to do.

...Seattle police and the Seattle Mariners are looking for the person who threw an egg at a woman who was standing outside a bar because he hit her in the head and knocked her unconscious. The egg struck her behind the ear and she collapsed to the ground and was taken to the hospital for observation and later released. The police are looking for this individual to arrest him for what he did and the Mariners want to find him because you got to have a pretty good arm to knock someone out with just an egg and they want to see what he can do with a baseball.

...I read an article last week about an IT guy in Texas who goes dumpster diving and he states it nets him an average of $2,500 a night. I'd love to make that much a night but I am going to have to just keep looking because there's no way I am going to jump into a dumpster and look through garbage. With my luck I'll have a hard time getting out and then while I'm in there I'll discover that a family of rats was there first and therefore they'd get first dibs of everything there.

...I almost hate to bring up Kanye West again in this thread because he is such a no-talent loser. He's a legend in his own mind and he makes such an easy target to tear down. To be fair to him this time it's not his fault that I'm bringing his name up this week. Some people on e-Bay got the bright idea to sell air from one of his recent concerts. It was originally listed for $60,000 but was removed because apparently the seller sobered up. It's now re-listed for the more reasonable price of $3,500 and to sweeten the offer the seller is including a hat along with the bag of air. In all likelihood I am missing something here because who the hell is going to spend that much on a baggie filled with air? Does it come with a certificate of authenticity? It should also come in a sealed glass case so you can look at it all you want without touching it and that way when your friends come over to see what you spent thirty-five hundred dollars on at least it will look good. For those of you who can't put together that amount of money to buy that air I have an idea. Grab a few of your favorite zip lock bags and head to the closest steam room or sauna near your house. Fill the bags up with the hot air you get from there. It will be the same hot air you'll be shelling out $3,500 to.

...Stop the presses, Dept: For the past few months now I have been having daily protein drinks and while I am far from an expert on this stuff I have found out through trial and error that any of the flavored protein drinks out there (decadent chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, etc) taste terrible. My favorite has quickly become this one that I get from Amazon that comes unflavored and to me that tastes the best. Packed with twenty-five grams of protein you can't go wrong. My problem was that when I mix this with milk I can never shake it up well enough because I don't own a blender. Then after searching Amazon for awhile (which is something that I have been doing a lot of lately) , I found something called a BlenderBottle that I bought from there that shakes up the powder like it was in an actual blender. That's what the web page said it does but since I am naturally skeptical I didn't believe it but I decided to take a chance and buy one of the twenty-ounce ones because the price was reasonable. It only took me one time using this to see that this actually works and now that I have been using it for the past two weeks I don't know how I could have lived without it. Imagine, a product that actually lives up to its advance notice. Who would have thought that was possible?

...Part-time Yankee first baseman Mark Teixeira is concerned about the playing condition of Yankee Stadium because two soccer games are scheduled to be played there before the Yankees travel north to open the season on April 6th. It could be that the field will be a little beat up before the Yankees arrive but this shouldn't bother Teixeira at all because by the time May gets here he'll be on his first sixty-day disabled list stint.

...A soccer player from Michigan was sentenced to eight to fifteen years in prison last Friday for fatally punching a referee to death during a recreational league game last year. Recreational as in amateur. As in it's just for fun and you aren't getting paid to run around in those silly looking soccer uniforms. It's unsure if he will be serving his time here though or anywhere for that matter because the man is from Lebanon and since he still is not a United States citizen he could be deported back there and if he does he may not be looking at eight days in jail let alone eight years. In Lebanon it's understood if you go a little crazy during football matches and if someone ends up dying that's ok provided that it doesn't interrupt the game.

...What I can't get past is that these guys were amateurs and if you get worked up that much there is something wrong with you. I used to be on a softball team with one guy who I swear had two different personalities. Away from the baseball field he was one of the nicest guys you'd want to meet. But the on the days we had our games you could throw that out the window. He would get so worked up about the game that you couldn't even talk to him. "I'm getting ready" he would say. Getting ready would be punching his glove, twisting and pulling on his hat and pounding his bat on the dirt. And good luck getting near him when he was doing that. As soon as the game started he would get on the umpire right after the first strike was called against our team or the first bad call, whatever came first. He knew how to channel his inner Billy Martin and Earl Weaver better than anybody and just like those two legendary managers he was thrown out of many games. But he never got violent with anyone or the umpire. That's why he's a free man today.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 3-22

...Last week began with Pete Rose sending a formal request to new baseball commissioner Rob Manfred to be re-instated into major league baseball because hey, twenty-five years is enough when you're guilty. Besides that, he has an entire new line of official Pete Rose memorabilia he wants to sell but he can't do it unless he manages to get his ugly mug bronzed at Cooperstown. The commissioner said that he will listen to Rose's request because it's part of the obligations under the major league constitution to do so and furthermore he will give this matter his "due diligence." That's the polite suit-and-tie way of saying go to hell. That being said I hope Rose gets all the due diligence that's coming to him.

...The beyond-annoying Taylor Swift posted a picture of her leg last week after her cat gave her what looked to be a three-inch scratch on it. Can't be too hard on the feline though because the cat probably was forced to hear one too many of her songs until she just couldn't take it anymore.

...Bristol Palin is back in the news after she announced that she had gone out and got herself engaged. That kind of stuff happens in Alaska too. Who knew? I thought all she did was get drunk at parties and punch people out while reminding people what her last name was. Her fiancé is no slouch either. He's a U.S. Marine veteran who received the Medal of Honor in 2009. Well, best of luck to them. Especially to him. I got a feeling that after two or three months of marriage he'll want to go back to the middle east for an extended tour of duty.

...What the hell is going on over in India? Last week they raped a seventy-one-year-old nun because she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when a group of men decided to rob a school. When they entered the school and demanded money the elderly nun stood up to them and told them to go and that's when they let her have it. That country may be dirt poor but they sure know how to develop rapists. If I were a woman and I had to go there for some reason I would be afraid to get off the plane and I only would unless I had a team of body guards. Can you imagine if some of those guys over there were turned loose in the Playboy mansion? They'd have a stroke. Maybe that's what they should have anyway because of what they did to that nun.

...There's a new book that came out that's about a woman who takes a year off from her marriage to sleep with strangers. She's frustrated that she can't have a kid and her husband went off and got himself a vasectomy when she was out complaining someplace and when he did that she decided to go on her year-long quest of anything goes. And from what I read in the book review anything did go and it was a very fast year for her. Monday through Friday she was out doing God knows what and on the weekends she would return home to her husband. Either this guy was whipped beyond belief or that he treated the weekdays as a vacation. If hookers ever decided to start their own farm system they probably wouldn't stray too far from what this woman did.

...For those of you who were around this website around three years ago you may recall me bringing up something that happened near where I live that created a lot of national attention. It was when those middle-school students were verbally harassing a school bus monitor near the end of the 2012 school year. You can see exactly what those kids did to her by watching this ">youtube video right here. The reason why I am bringing this up three years later is because one of the kids that took part in the abuse of that school monitor is now in high school and apparently has not learned anything after all this time. This time it wasn't a bus monitor but instead it was a special-needs student. The three kids trapped the boy in the bathroom and forced him to hold his crotch while drinking urine from the toilet. What a sense of humor this kid has. And he's only getting worse. One of the excuses people made three years ago was that the kid was only twelve. Now they're saying he's only fifteen as if that's supposed to explain everything. The only thing that is going on now is that there is an online petition to expel those three kids from school because all the school district has done so far is talk about zero tolerance while shuffling a few papers. At least the town of Greece police are doing something about it. They charged the three amigos with misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child. One of them also was charged with a felony count for recording the incident. One of the mothers of the kids that were arrested said that the entire incident was blown out of proportion. She was serious too. I don't know what is going to end up happening because the school district is being very secretive about what they are going to do but if they take the attitude of kids being kids and think that if they send them to some counseling they are going to be making a huge mistake because before this little bast*** gets out of high school he's either going to pull another stunt on someone who can't defend themselves or someone's going to kill him.

...Two female tourists from California were arrested in Rome for carving their initials into a wall at the city's ancient Colosseum. They also took a selfie to record what they did. It gets better. After they were arrested they apologized for what they did and they did not realize that was they did was such a serious thing. Of course it's not. Maybe they'll build another one in a few years. Wait until the Italians find out that Amanda Knox was the ones that sent those two there.

... A thirty-two-year-old woman was arrested in Florida last week because she got naked and sat outside a Dunkin' Donuts as a dare. She told the police that she was doing this as part of a pledge to a dance troop. This sounds like something more a sorority would pull instead of a dance troop but she did it so I guess she's in. She was charged with indecent exposure and after appearing in court she was released on her own recognizance. Of course she was. One can only imagine how many pictures were taken of her.

...I challenge her to repeat what she did at another Dunkin' Donuts. There's one about a mile from my house and if she needs directions I can help her out with that.

...The Toronto Blue Jays probably can't wait until spring training is over because it has not been a good one for them at all. First they lose one of their star pitchers for the year and along with some other nagging injuries that they've had to deal with they now have one more thanks to outfielder Kevin Pillar. Pillar sneezed so hard that he suffered an oblique strain and is out of action for ten days. The same thing happened to Sammy Sosa eleven years ago but he was a shell of a player at the time. He would have got hurt had the guy next to him sneezed instead of him. Fortunately for Pillar he should bounce back before March is over provided he stays clear from the cayenne pepper.

...In a move that is sure to win him the Husband-of-the-year award, Kanye West (there's that name again in this thread - sorry) posted eight nude photos of his wife Kim Kardashian on his twitter account last week. Now if anybody else did that to his better half they'd be in the doghouse until hell froze over. Not this guy. When she found out about what he did she was thrilled and thought what he did was "cute." In case you haven't seen the pictures for yourself they are pretty tame as far as Kim Kardashian is concerned because this time she has her hands and arms strategically placed to make you want to see more. What for? A five second search for nude shots for her will fill in the blanks nicely. I get it. These people crave attention. It's like a drug for them. But she has a kid now and there are rumors that she wants to pop out a few more. No matter how many kids she ends up with they better have some pretty thick skins because after she is old and grey and the camera doesn't love her like it once did, schoolboys will be printing out photos of her famous backside and handing them to her daughter to get signed. What a family.

...I wonder what goes through the minds of actors when they are watching TV and an advertisement comes on and the voice-over announcer says that the testimonials in this commercial are from "real people" and not actors. I know what he means, but still.

...Derek Jeter's in Japan right now for an upcoming charity baseball game he is participating in with former teammate Hideki Matsui. The game is for the benefit of the survivors of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. On Thursday he attended a sumo match and ran into a bit of bad luck. One of the wrestlers flat out never heard of him but fortunately the other one did, but just barely because he thought Jeter was a catcher. I'm surprised Jeter didn't take the first plane home.

...The season is still a couple of weeks away but that hasn't stopped Major League Baseball from talking about the last day of the season already. They announced that they scheduled every game on the final day to start at the same time to maximize the games that day in the event that multiple meaningful games go down to the wire. Ok, fine. Great idea. But the season flies by as it is. There's no need to talk about the last regular season game yet.

...Never mind with the end of the baseball season. How about fixing the beginning of it now by starting the season in Cincinnati with a day game that started before any other game on Opening Day? That was another tradition that they had no problem killing either.

...So the Mariners reassigned Jesus Montero to their AAA club in Tacoma? Who didn't see that coming?

...ESPN the Magazine conducted a poll among major league players recently and one of the questions they asked was who did they think was the most overrated player in the game? Forty-one percent of the votes were cast to Bryce Harper of the Nationals. I think the players were being generous. It should have been double that amount.

...A woman in Iowa last week took a shower last week to help ease the severe stomach pains that she was having and while she was in there she gave birth to a baby girl. When the woman's husband found out what happened in there he told her that showers were now out of the question and that she would have to take baths from now on.

...There's a guy down in North Carolina whose neighbors have been complaining about him for years because he stands naked at his front door several times a week. He doesn't do anything but stand there but that's more than enough for them. They've even gone as far as taking pictures and videos of him to show to the police but the police have told the homeowners association that what he is doing may be annoying to them, they can not bring charges against him because he is doing it on his own property. The cops did say that if his twenty-something year old daughter decided to step in and stand by the door for awhile they would come down right away to investigate.

...Say what you will about this but it's a sure-fire way to avoid all door-to-door salesmen.

...Good for Ashley Judd for going after another bunch of idiots on Twitter for the nasty things that were said to her when she was tweeting during a Kentucky NCAA tournament game. They let her have it with every vile comment they could think of and none of them had anything to do with the game itself. And people that know me still look at me funny when they ask me why I am still not on Facebook or Twitter. I have no intention of having direct contact with people like this.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 3-29

...No Fooling, Dept: Burger King announced last week that they will be releasing a limited-edition fragrance of a grilled beef burger-scented cologne that will only be sold in Japan on April 1st. Burger King swears that this is not an April Fools joke. They are only making one thousand of them and they are calling it the "Flame Grilled" fragrance. It will only cost you five thousand yen or if you want to pay in U.S. money it'll run you about forty dollars. I'll pass. The first guy that sprays this stuff on him will have every stray dog in the neighborhood follow him home.

...Hmm, C.C. Sabathia should buy a few bottles so he can spray it on himself before he goes on the mound. With the smell of burgers all around him maybe he'll pitch better since he hasn't done anything so far this spring. Just a thought.

...I have not pulled any April Fools jokes in a long time ever since I hid one of my wife's favorite stuffed animals and it almost got thrown in the garbage by mistake. That was it for me. But I was part of a good one many years ago and one that was so good that it should have been an April Fools joke but we did it in February.

One year the parents of a kid in our neighborhood took a vacation to Florida and that is all we were hearing out of him even though he wasn't going. About a month before they left his parents were drilling it into him that no one can be at the house, no parties, no noise, etc, etc. Even though an adult was going to be staying at the house he still said it. That's when one of us had a great idea. If there weren't going to be any parties there at least we could make it look like there was one. This guy always came up with good ideas. It was me. The plan was for the four of us to gather as much beer cans and cigarette butts from our houses and save them. This was back in the seventies. People weren't listening to the surgeon general yet. We put the collected beer cans in a plastic bag behind a garage and saved the cigarette butts in baggies in our house. The night before his parents came home we all went inside early and went to bed but not before setting our alarm for one o'clock in the morning. His folks were coming home on the redeye at 3:00 a.m. and we had to get ready. We gathered the beer cans and bottles (there were about twenty-five) and placed them all over the front lawn and porch and on top of the car roof. Then we sprinkled the cigarette butts all over the driveway and porch. Imagine what that looked like. Now imagine what the kid's father thought when he saw it. I could only imagine too because I was home in bed when they got home just like everyone else was. When we were questioned about it our parents swore we were in the house all this time.

The other major prank I was a part of happened one year when another family went to Florida, this time for the February recess vacation week. That meant the kids went too. Back then most of the garbage cans that people used were made out of aluminum and the week that those people were in Florida we had a pretty bad storm. Someone (not me this time) came up with the idea that it would be pretty funny if we'd take their garbage cans out of commission for awhile and place all five of them on top of their garage roof. Now as all of you who live in the snow areas can attest to once it gets dark people stay inside and rarely come out until morning. That's when we went out and a couple of guys climbed on the garage and a few others tossed up the garbage cans and that is where they stayed until the snow melted almost a month after they returned home. The kid that thought this up was a real Eddie Haskell type. He even went to talk to the lady of the house to tell her that he saw "some kids from around the block" on our street one day and maybe they were the ones that did it. Truth is, some kids from around the block were on our street. They were on their way to the movies.

...Poor Pete Rose. He's doing his best to try to get back into baseball and now former teammate Tony Perez is backing him 100%. Perez was known for his big bat and ability to drive in runs. Other than that, nothing. That includes having a brain in his head.

...The Family that fights together, stays together Dept: In an impressive display of unity a mother, a stepmother and other relatives of a twelve-year-old boy that was being bullied for the past two months. After continued attempts to the school to have them do something these women walked into the school cafeteria one day last week and confronted the two girls that were harassing their son. Aside from some pushing and shoving it wasn't much of a confrontation but so far the results have been positive - the kid has been left alone. As usual the school was no help at all. They said they were following protocol by interviewing each of the students and people that were witness to the bullying but that doesn't seem to hold a lot of weight when you stop and think about it. This kid's been going through this for the past few months. Faster interviews are conducted in Washington every day. It's too bad that these people had to resort to this because now they have to worry about facing charges for dealing with those two kids their own way. Schools continually look the other way when someone has this happen to them. It's a miracle that parents don't handle it this way more often. And if they do, good for them.

....In a spring training game against the Angels last Tuesday, Prince Fielder of the Rangers stepped up to the plate and immediately noticed that the Angels put the shift on against him. I'll show them Fielder said to himself and that is exactly what he did. He dropped a perfect bunt right where the third baseman should have been playing and easily beat it out for an infield single. I think the Yankees should lock Mark Teixeira in a room and make him watch a video of this play two or three hundred times until it becomes clear to him that he is allowed to hit the ball to the left side without having anything held against him.

...Another week and another idiot says something on twitter that ends up biting him faster than he can find the delete button on his computer. A college baseball player after learning that Disney is planning on making a movie about the life of Little League World Series star Mo'ne Davis fired off a tweet calling the decision a "joke" and also called the fourteen-year-old a "slut." I wonder if he thought that no one would notice? Well, they did and Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania wasted no time in telling him to take his glove and go home. This young girl could have remained silent but she forgave him and asked his school to reinstate him on the team. They said they'd take it under advisement. That means it could go either way. I'd have him publicly apologize to her before considering anything.

...Before I go on let me ask everyone in here who spends time on twitter. Has anybody ever benefited from one of these tweets? What I mean is does anything good come out of this social media outlet because all twitter seems to do is suck out all the common sense that people have and leave them with nothing except what gets them in trouble, fired or kicked off a baseball team.

...Jarred Cosart could identify with this. Because of what he wrote on twitter, Major League Baseball is now investigating him for his possible ties to gambling. It's bad enough people say stupid things on there but you also have to worry about who you say it to - even in a supposedly private one-on-one conversation. That's what happened to Cosart when he was talking to an online gambling expert. For some reason that guy decided to make that private conversation public and now Cosart has the baseball suits from New York anxious to talk to him. There's no proof yet to say he did or didn't gamble but since it was on twitter it was enough for baseball to look in to.

...Moving on...

...If at first you don't succeed, Dept: It took them awhile but the Somerset County (Pennsylvania) court system finally got their man who skipped out on jury duty eleven times in the past two years. He was arrested in the courthouse when he was there attending a child custody hearing and the judge presiding the case said it was ironic that he managed to show up for this and not any other time. Well, maybe so. What I find almost unbelievable is the amount of times this man was called for jury duty and that he is only thirty-two years old. With luck like that he should play the lottery.

...Michael Sam, who is one of the most famous busts in NFL history keeps on making news in his attempt to win a roster spot for next season. Last week he said that gay athletes play in the league whether he's a part of it or not. Yeah, maybe so. Trouble is they can play. Sam can't.

...Maybe William Shakespeare had people like David Ortiz figured out when he wrote Methinks thou dost protest too much over four hundred years ago. That was his way of describing someone that keeps on denying something about themselves to the point where you start to think they actually did it. There have been whispers and accusations about Ortiz using steroids ever since he joined the Boston Red Sox in 2003. After spending parts of six seasons with the Twins where he did absolutely nothing, he became a legitimate home-run threat and elite player overnight after joining Boston and has been a fan favorite there for twelve seasons, partly because those people have such low standards. With all the success he's had there he has still had to constantly defend himself from steroid accusations and last week he "wrote" an article on Derek Jeter's Player's Tribune website entitled The Dirt where he addressed these allegations. This time the words were right from him and as Jeter himself promised, they were unfiltered. Big deal. Who could tell? Just like in every article there's been about him and this subject he was defiant, he constantly swore and went to great lengths to explain that everyone was wrong about him and if you didn't get the message from him the first time he said it he made sure to go over it a few more times in the article. I have another saying that I think is just as appropriate here for Ortiz. Better to remain silent and be thought a cheater than to speak out and remove all doubt.

...You know who Ortiz sounded like in that article? Lance Armstrong.

...Talk about avoiding a bullet that had your name on it, right Amanda Knox?

...Finally my thoughts are with the families of the victims from last week's Germanwings crash where the co-pilot purposely locked the captain out of the cockpit and crashed the plane into the French Alps. Why is it that people who are so intent on committing suicide always seem to manage to bring others along with them when they finally decide to do it?

...And yes, the first thing I thought of when I heard about this was the damned Muslims struck again.

[DJEagles]

I'm a 39 year old man, married with three kids, responsibilities, a career and I like to think I've finally "grown up"....but dammit, if I don't get excited for Wrestlemania every frigging year. I don't watch the WWE like I used too, heck, not at all most weeks. There's something about Wrestlemania though that makes me turn it on and watch all 4 hours. My wife thinks I'm crazy, but I can't help myself. brings back memories when I was a kid....Hogan, Savage, Steamboat, Big Bossman, Demolition, etc....I loved it when I was a kid.

Can't wait for Opening Day. I am optimistic, but not overly confident that the jays will claim a playoff spot this year, but I can't wait to see some of the young kids play.

[Yankee4Life]

I'm a 39 year old man, married with three kids, responsibilities, a career and I like to think I've finally "grown up"....but dammit, if I don't get excited for Wrestlemania every frigging year. I don't watch the WWE like I used too, heck, not at all most weeks. There's something about Wrestlemania though that makes me turn it on and watch all 4 hours. My wife thinks I'm crazy, but I can't help myself. brings back memories when I was a kid....Hogan, Savage, Steamboat, Big Bossman, Demolition, etc....I loved it when I was a kid.

I watched the very first Wrestlemania in 1984 when I was still living in Hawaii. I saw it for free. Roddy Piper was my all-time favorite.

Thanks for responding in this thread. I always say that when others throw their two cents in it makes for a better read.

[DJEagles]

Even though I haven't been around here much over the past few years, but I always pop in on Sunday mornings to get a dose of your weekly Sunday morning insights.

[Yankee4Life]

Even though I haven't been around here much over the past few years, but I always pop in on Sunday mornings to get a dose of your weekly Sunday morning insights.

That's very nice to know DJ. Knowing stuff like this makes what I do in here worthwhile.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 4-5

...Here we go! It's what we've been waiting for ever since the Giants wrapped up their World Series championship last October. Baseball is back and if those three words don't bring a smile to your face nothing will. Tonight the season opens up at Chicago's Wrigley Field as the Cubs host the Cardinals on ESPN at 8:00 p.m. eastern time. You're going to want to tune into this game because this will be one of the few Sunday Night games that do not feature the Yankees or the Red Sox. The very next day is when everyone else joins the party with fourteen games scheduled. The Blue Jays and Yankees start it off at 1:00 p.m. and the final game begins at 10:05 p.m. with the Rangers visiting Oakland. And if you are a DirectTV customer you get a free preview all week (April 6th - April 12th) of the MLB package. Good news for me and bad news for my remote. After this awful winter Opening Week could not have come any sooner.

...I am really looking forward to this upcoming Yankee season. While I am not going to even try to guess how good (or bad) they'll be one thing that we don't have to worry about is going through another farewell tour. I bought the MLB Audio package for $19.99 so I will be all set this year as I'll be able to enjoy myself in here and yell at the Yankees all at the same time. I'm ready, I really am. I've been training all winter for Opening Day by screaming at photos of David Ortiz and hitting him with pitches in my Mvp exhibition games. Now it's time to see this murdering SOB get his and I'll be cheering for the first pitcher to hit him with a pitch. Let's go!

...I pay as much attention to what goes on with the Milwaukee Brewers as I do with my next-door neighbors and how many times they take out their garbage. But I do like that little mascot they have named Hank the Dog. That ballclub gave him a lot of love last year when he walked in their training facility malnourished and half-dead. It didn't take long for the Brewers and their fans to get attached to him and they gave him a home and he's a happy and healthy dog because of it. As a dog lover this story was a happy ending. To top it off over the winter Hank won the Dog of the Year award. I was surprised. I thought my dachshund was a shoo-in.

...Boston Globe reporter Dan Shaughnessy, the man that David Ortiz referred to as "the reporter with the red jheri curl" in his article on Derek Jeter's Player's Tribune website responded to him with an article that he actually wrote in the Globe last week as opposed to Ortiz' ghostwritten piece that was made with his blessing with a few swear words thrown in here and there to make it sound authentic. Shaughnessy addressed everything that Ortiz brought up and made him look like the lying, whining, selfish and overbearing athlete that he is. It really wasn't that hard to do because telling the truth is something foreign to this guy. You've heard that saying two ships that pass in the night? That's how Ortiz is with the truth. He never gets close enough to it to actually know what it is.

...I've been pretty active in the shoutbox for the past few days because I have been watching some videos of MLB The Show 15 that someone has been posting on Youtube and these short video clips have not put that game in a good light. In fact if I were a PS3 or PS4 owner I would avoid purchasing this game no matter how tempted you may be to get it. One video had a batter hit a foul ball down the third base line and the umpire signaled that it was foul but the batter must have decided that the ball was really fair and he ran around the bases for a home run. Another video showed a triple play being made that never should have happened. The batter tried to bunt but he popped it up and the catcher caught it. This by the way was the only legitimate out of the play. Then the alert catcher threw the ball to second base because the runner was just standing between second and third base doing nothing. It looked like he was waiting on an ice cream truck. The shortstop then threw the ball to first base because the runner there was standing between first and second waiting for the same ice cream truck. Triple Play! Hey, at least the graphics are good. That should count for something, right?

...Ervin Santana signed a four-year fifty-five million dollar contract with the Twins over the winter and was projected to be their number two starter but not for awhile. That's because baseball is giving him an eighty-game ban for testing positive for the steroid Stanozolol. Stanozolol by the way is one of the few steroids that Alex Rodriguez did not take. Maybe next time. So Santana's going to miss half the season. So what? Who's going to miss him? He also had to throw in the fact that he didn't know how the Stanozolol entered his bloodstream or when it happen. He should ask David Ortiz. He hosted a lot of wild parties down in the Dominican over the off season. There's more steroids at Ortiz' house than there are M&M's.

...Some people are questioning the Angels about why they are so upset that Josh Hamilton was not suspended by Major League Baseball after relapsing again with drugs and alcohol over the off-season. Wouldn't you? This worthless piece of sh** is making twenty-three million dollars a year and the team has no idea when he'll be back. He hasn't played in one spring training game and they still have to pay him. And people still wonder why they are upset over this decision. While Hamilton is still on the injured reserve list or whatever list they put him on, if he decides to visit Colorado or Washington during this time he will fail every drug test for the next five years. It's legal there and he knows it.

...With the season about to start we have been getting more people signing up on the site and when that happens the phony accounts increase too. Trust me, I know. I see it first hand. I decided to compile a short list of some of my favorite phony account screen names here to show everyone. Keep in mind that I did not make up any of these names.

1. Mybackupaccount (I got to say this is my favorite.)
2. Accountnumber2 (In case he forgot his first one.)
3. Letmedownload (This guy made so many and was caught so many times he started to wear down after awhile.)
4. Secondaccount12 (Followed by thirdaccount12. It figures.)
5. Random1account (The same guy who made accountnumber2 made this one.)

...It's the twentieth anniversary of Hardball 5 by Accolade and because of that I was playing a few games every day last week. For a game that came out in 1995 they did a pretty good job. Now I'm a huge fan of Mvp '05 but check out this screenshot. These guys let you save instant replay shots in a game made years before the Mvp series came out. I'd love to have EA explain this. Accolade closed up shop in 1999 and that's too bad because they made some really good games.

...Derek Jeter intends on opening up a restaurant in the Tampa International Airport called The Players' Tribune Bar & Grill. He plans on making it a sports lounge that will serve an upscale menu. One of the dishes they plan on serving there will be something called a "Jeter Burger." How original. A hamburger. Something like that should really make it upscale. Other possible dishes to be introduced will be Posada Enchiladas, Pettitte Pulled Pork and Rivera Rump Roast. As an added bonus the customer will be provided with an iPad so they can read Jeter's media site The Players' Tribune. If the meal doesn't make you sick the website will.

...I was surprised to see a letter from Verizon in my mailbox last Monday especially since I bought out my contract last December and am no longer a member there and as I told them back then when I did my buy-out I had no plans on joining their network ever again. So you can understand why I was curious to find out what they wanted from me now.

Dear Customer,
Your Verizon Wireless statement is now available for viewing online. Our records indicate that all wireless lines on your account have been disconnected. Your current statement is $0.00. While you can still view and pay your disconnected account online using My Verizon, you will need to log on using your user name rather than your former Verizon Wireless phone number. Please note that any future bills will be sent to you in the mail.

Sincerely, Verizon Wireless

So what Verizon did here was send me a letter that my account is still disconnected and that I owe nothing, just in case I was wondering about it. Oh well, they are the ones that paid the postage.

...A twelve-year-old girl from Boulder, Colorado was arrested last Monday for poisoning her mother twice because she took away her iPhone. A few weeks ago the girl made her mother a smoothie and poured some bleach in it. Her mother noticed the smell of bleach coming from her smoothie but she assumed her daughter just washed out the glass and there was still some bleach left in it. She drank the smoothie and it made her sick for awhile but she recovered. Then last week the same bleach smell was coming from a carafe of water in her bedroom and this time she asked her daughter about it and she told her that she was trying to kill her for taking her iPhone. I would not want to imagine what could have happened to this woman had she taken away her daughter's internet access too. The girl was arrested on two charges of attempted first degree murder. I don't even have to follow what happens here because I already know. The junior psycho is going to receive counseling and then after some time passes she'll apologize to her mother and everyone else for doing something she didn't mean to do. No matter what that mother isn't going to forget. If I were her I'd put a padlock on her bedroom and never allow her daughter to fix her anything to eat or drink again. And by the way when she's eighteen? There's the door. Use it.

...Damned if Burger King was being on the level all this time. Last week I wrote that they were releasing a new "Flame Grilled" cologne in Japan on April 1st. Many people thought it was the makings of an April Fool's joke but sure enough last Wednesday that cologne was sold at the fast-food chain's stores and by that evening the entire supply was sold out. Six months down the road if they announce they will be selling French Fry body wash and shampoo we probably should take them at their word.

...There was a rockslide in Columbia about a week ago and after the landslide a humanlike scar appeared on a hillside that some are saying is the face of Jesus Christ. Some landowners that live near the formation are now charging two thousand pesos (around seventy-nine cents in U.S. currency) for anyone who would like to see it in person. For a couple thousand more pesos they'll let you stand right by the cliff so you can have the chance of getting hit on the head by a falling rock just like they did.

...Try as I might I can not stay up to watch late-night TV. I've tried to but before long the next thing I am aware of is the sun coming up the next day. Just once I'd like to watch the Jimmy Kimmel show because just based on the youtube clips of his show I'm missing a lot.

...It's true that when you get older you get more tentative and cautious about doing things. At least that is how it is with me. Especially after I read where dozens of riders were stuck at the top of the famous Cyclone rollercoaster at Coney Island on the first ride of the season last Sunday. The cars stopped at the ride's eighty-five foot peak and the passengers had to be escorted down steps by park personnel. I wasn't even there and I got queasy. Not too many years ago I used to spend a lot of my summer days down at the amusement park and when we purchased all-day ride passes we were in heaven. There's a famous ride there called the Jackrabbit that I once went on ten times in one day. Now I can not even walk past the damn thing. That's because I am not that comfortable with heights. I wasn't back then either and every time I rode on that coaster I never took my hand off the bars and when we started the descent down my eyes were always shut. But at least I did it. Now you couldn't bribe me with a new car to get on that ride just one more time.

...Finally, Happy Easter today to all of you.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 4-12

...If Opening Day wasn't everything that you were anticipating it would be then baseball just isn't your game. It was exciting last Monday with all those games on and there wasn't even a rain-out and with a big thanks to DirectTV they had a free preview of games last week so there was enough baseball to go around for everyone. Some quick observations about seeing baseball again for the first time in months:

The two highest-priced pitchers during the off season (Jon Lester of the Cubs and Max Scherzer of Washington) both started opening day for their respective teams and both lost although Scherzer looked a lot better.

For one game Jason Heyward didn't look like the slug he was all of last year.

Matt Kemp traveled ninety miles down the freeway from Los Angeles but didn't forget his bat as he went 2 for 4 with 3 RBI in his first game with the new-look and much improved San Diego Padres.

There were almost two no-hitters. Cory Kluber of the Indians lost his in the sixth inning as Houston beat Cleveland 2 - 0 at home. Signing Kluber to an extended contract could be one of the best moves the Tribe has made in years. And in Oakland Sonny Gray lost his in the eighth inning against Texas but managed to win the game.

There were three blowout games on Opening Day with the visitors winning two of three. The Rockies shocked everyone including themselves by scoring ten runs and shutting out the Brewers in Milwaukee and the Red Sox hit five home runs in an 8 - 0 victory over Philadelphia. Watching part of the Red Sox game I could not help but notice that the Boston players couldn't help themselves as they had to rub it in and dance in the dugout to taunt the Phillies. Make the target on your back even bigger and then when you get drilled you wonder why. At least the Royals made their fans happy with a 10 - 1 win over the White Sox. It would take the Royals about eight games to score ten runs of of Madison Bumgarner so they should take these kind of games while they can.

The next time Jeff Samardzija hits Lorenzo Cain make sure he hits him hard enough so he doesn't start yapping right away. *&#^ Kansas City.

Masahiro Tanaka had two good innings for the Yankees but when Edwin Encarnacion hit that two-run home run in the third inning to make the score 5 - 0 Toronto you almost could hear the channels change at once from the DirectTV customers over to the Tigers - Twins game. The Yankees had three hits the entire game. Now if that doesn't remind you of last year nothing will.

It figures Joe West would have had to been involved in the worst call of the day. He called out Minnesota's Torii Hunter on a check-swing to end the game and Hunter was justifiably furious. West probably had to use the restroom.

Finally, the Giants were the Giants and Madison Bumgarner was his typical self. San Francisco won 5 - 4 over Arizona and Bumgarner pitched seven innings of six hit ball for the victory. This guy doesn't get the publicity of Clayton Kershaw. He just gets the championships.

Baseball showed that it can get along without Derek Jeter. Very well I may add.

April 6th was one hell of a day wasn't it?

...The Yankees have already lost a pitcher for the season to Tommy John surgery and it isn't Masahiro Tanaka. A prospect named Ty Hensley that many people with good reason probably never heard of mainly because he has already missed an entire year back in 2013 and has only pitched in sixteen pro games, none above the short-season Class A level. If this guy makes it up to the big leagues it will be a miracle.

...And if Tanaka goes down with this (and I am crossing my fingers that he doesn't) this is what is going to happen in Yankee land. They'll panic. Instead of watching what other successful teams do in similar situations when a key injury happens (and I'm talking about the Cardinals and Giants here) the Yankees will immediately react. They'll go after someone's ace and let that team have whomever they want. New York's getting the pieces back in place to have a better team in the next couple of years but they still would have no problem if they had to start rebuilding all over again.

...Bob Costas has a plan to shorten the regular season to 154 games and to increase the playoffs by a few games. On paper it looks like it could easily be implemented but I highly doubt it because of two things. It comes from an outsider and it makes too much sense.

...Beer here, Dept: I was looking at a statistic last week about the price of beer at every Major League ballpark and you'll never guess who came out on top of everyone else. At $7.75 the Red Sox charge you the most and give you the least but that's nothing new because their fans have been treated like that since the beginning of time. Next year they'll probably raise it to ten dollars for a twelve-ounce can and no one at dear old Fenway will say a word unless they run out.

Here's the stat so you can see for yourself that I am not making it up.


...Last Monday a judge in New York City granted permission for a woman to serve her husband divorce papers through a Facebook message. It's because that every attempt she has made to contact or find her husband has been unsuccessful and the only place that she knows where he is is on Facebook. This must have been one hell of a marriage. The woman went as far as hiring a private detective and the only place they found him was online with his Facebook account. Talk about the ultimate un-friend.

...One week ago today on Easter Sunday a man shot himself at the buffet at M Resort Spa and Casino in Las Vegas. People take these things seriously. My wife and I went to one at a racetrack/casino place once and we started having a conversation and the people behind us made us stop So naturally the first thing I thought of was that the guy saw the line and didn't want to wait. Either that or the fat guy ahead of him took all the crab legs and they weren't bringing out any more.

...That'll show him, Dept: From Mexican food to jail all in one night. Some people really know how to keep things interesting. Or crazy. Take your pick. A woman was having chips and salsa one evening last week with her boyfriend and when she discovered that he ate all the salsa in their house she grabbed a pen and stabbed him in the groin. I hate it when that happens. Not satisfied with just that she walked over to his TV and threatened to knock it on the floor. Before she was able to go through with that the man grabbed the TV because as everyone knows it's much cheaper to go out and get a few more jars of salsa then getting a brand new TV set. While the guy was putting the set back where it belonged the woman went out to the kitchen and grabbed a knife and cut him in the stomach. This was all over eating all the salsa. Who knows what would have happened had he finished off the chips too. Figuring the guy got what was coming to him she packed up some of the leftover chips and put them in a baggie and left the house. Police caught up to her when they pulled her over on the highway and was charged with felonious assault and criminal damaging. And after all that she still didn't get her salsa.

...In an obvious public relations move that they will ever admit to the National Football League has hired its first full-time female official. On one hand there is no way she can do a worse job than the men that that NFL already have filling those positions. But with all the negative publicity the NFL received with the way they handled women-related issues involving its players this was the solution? She's not a big woman and she is far from petite but judging from the photo of her if I said she was at least one hundred and thirty pounds I would probably be exaggerating. Over the years watching NFL highlights I have seen referees and officials get flattened by players with the worst being when a receiver bowls over one of them when they are running out or being shoved out of bounds. I can not imagine this happening to this woman. You'd have to call a doctor or the next of kin and not necessarily in that order.

...A woman from the Bronx was arrested last Friday for attempting to get married for the tenth time since 1999. Talk about a glutton for punishment. It's not that her trips down the aisle have been unlucky for her. She's been doing this by design. In 2002 she got hitched six times in six different towns. It must have been hell trying to keep up with all her wedding anniversaries. Taking one look at her it was not a surprise to me that she was a plus-sized woman. Anyone would be if they were eating wedding cake non-stop all these years. She was arrested on felony fraud charges at the state supreme court in the Bronx and faces four years in jail if she is convicted. And if she does end up serving time she is going to need a room for herself on family visiting days if all ten husbands decide to show up at once!

...A two-year-old was accidentally served sangria at a Texas Roadhouse restaurant in North Carolina last week and because of this mix-up the little girl received her first hangover in her young life. The family was there for a birthday celebration and a cranberry juice was ordered for the child but somehow she was given the sangria instead of the juice. It's a good thing she didn't chug it down all at once because after a couple of sips she announced that it "tasted funny" and began to stagger around and kiss everything in sight. Now we know what kind of drunk she's going to be when she gets older.

...I could not believe this when I read it but apparently McDonald's has contracts to serve food in eighteen hospitals across the United States and doctors do not like it. Not only can hospital visitors pick up a Big Mac before they go and see a patient the patient can also order meals delivered right to his room. I don't blame them for being upset. I can picture some guy who has to have open heart surgery ordering up some McNuggets and a few cheeseburgers to calm his nerves. While we don't have a McDonald's at the hospital nearby where I live there's enough junk food you can buy there to keep anyone satisfied. I doubt if the doctors are going to be able to anything about this because McDonald's is paying the hospital top dollar to camp out there. If they can just ban patients from ordering off the dollar menu while they are there maybe they'd be satisfied. Good luck.

...I'm a big Kate Upton fan ever since she made a name for herself as a popular Sports Illustrated model and not for two obvious reasons. <wink wink> So I was a bit surprised when she said that she was very unhappy with the famous "Cat Daddy" video that was released on Youtube three years ago. According to her that video of her dancing around in that barely-there bikini was not meant for the public to see. If it wasn't she should have told the lucky SOB who was filming it to keep the video for himself and not make copies. She may not have been happy about this but personally I was thrilled.

...DirectTV has been forced to stop airing the Rob Lowe commercials that advertise the satellite company because of a complaint by Comcast cable because Comcast is saying that some of the things in those commercials are misleading. I don't have Comcast but I have heard horror stories about them. They're like the Walmart of cable. If this is the best Comcast can do to DirecTV then those guys have nothing to worry about.

...R.I.P. to former Giants, Athletics and 49ers broadcaster Lon Simmons. Simmons was a Hall of Fame broadcaster that I am sorry to say I did not get the pleasure much to listen to but when I was able to it was a real treat to pick up a game that he was doing at night during the summer. The Bay area has been blessed with great broadcasters like Simmons. Bill King and Russ Hodges come to mind along with Jon Miller. R.I.P.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 4-19

...Derek Jeter and all the overhype that was associated with him are gone now but some Yankee fans don't want to let that go. Didi Gregorius had a tough first home stand in New York as he was booed by some of the idiots in the crowd every time he didn't get a hit (the captain would have!) or didn't make a play (the captain would have - no wait, he wouldn't have. But still... Yankee fans are supposed to be some of the most knowledgeable fans in the game but sometimes they seem to forget it.

...A group of University of Wisconsin students have completed a Rice Krispies cereal treat weighing more than 5-1/2 tons. Weighing in at over eleven thousand pounds they are hoping their work gets them into the Guinness World Records. Considering that they used 9,000 pounds of marshmallows, 5,500 pounds of Rice Krispies and 900 pounds of butter they had to be pleased with their results. That thing was so big that C.C. Sabathia and David Ortiz could both have as much as they wanted without fighting over the last piece.

...Welcome to the Family, Dept: An alligator that weighed four-hundred pounds was hauled out of a Southeast Texas pond because of complaints that it was being very aggressive to the kids there that wanted to swim there. You think? What the hell were those kids thinking? If I knew there was an alligator in the pond I was going to be jumping in I'd be looking for the nearest swimming pool. The alligator was captured and transferred to a preserve with over four hundred alligators that serves as a tourist attraction. What the hell are these people trying to preserve? Shoot these bastards. Just imagine if someone forgot to shut the gate just once. They'd have a tourist buffet.

...Last Friday New York City firefighters spent hours trying to get a seven-hundred pound man from his sixth-floor apartment into an ambulance because he was having difficulty breathing. They had to use a rope-and-pulley system to get him down all six floors and it took ten fire fighters to lift him up into the ambulance. By that time they all must have been praying for a fire. They had to do this because neighbors of the man said he was unable to walk because of leg problems and it was the second time in a matter of months that firefighters had to remove him from the building this way. What I want to know is after he gets out of the hospital how is he going to get back up those six flights of stairs? When that day comes that will probably be the time those guys really pray for a fire.

...Some rapper named Kelly or is it Nelly was pulled over by the Tennessee Highway Patrol (they must have loved that down there) and arrested after they found five rocks that tested positive for meth, as well as a small amount of marijuana, drug paraphernalia and a few guns on a bus that he was on. So it was obvious that he was busy during this little road trip. Naturally Nelly told the police that all that illegal material was not his and he wasn't associated with it. Why would he lie? I'm sure all that stuff is standard issue for every tour bus.

...Practice does not make perfect, Dept: After serving six years in jail for robbing a bank back in 1999 a forty-seven-year-old Cleveland man was arrested last week for attempting to rob the same bank again. He probably figured that with after six years of in-house training from the experts in jail he could pull it off this time. Apparently those stories about people learning how to be better people while in prison are a bit overdone. 

...Sometimes when a crime is committed you can sometimes understand why they did it even though you'd never consider doing the same thing yourself. Take for example someone knocking off a jewelry store. He's probably got diamonds or expensive watches on his mind. Again, something nice to have but I wouldn't take that road to obtain them. Or when someone robs a bank. Willie Sutton, the famous bank robber once said when someone asked him why he robbed banks that "that is where the money is." Yes it is  but when I go to my bank I only withdraw what is mine. I'm honest and besides, where am I going with two bad knees? They'd be on me before I got to my car. So now maybe you can understand my reaction when I heard about the theft of $70,000 worth of bull semen from a farm in Minnesota. What the hell are you going to do that and that much of it besides? Now the farmer has to build up his stock all over again. I'm sure the bull won't mind at all.

...Right before Easter a woman from Oregon went into Walmart to purchase a gift for her child and she thought she found the perfect one in the clearance section for her. When she brought the toy home and started to assemble it she discovered that some parts were missing and when she looked in the box to see if they were there she found three bags of marijuana stuffed inside the bottom of the box. Presumably that was for the kid when she got a little bit older. That's what I like about Walmart. You can get anything there.

...Not in Kansas anymore, Dept: The state of Kansas is preparing to pass a bill that would stop recipients that receive welfare to stop them from using the money they get to pay for such things as psychics, tattoos, massages, spas and cruises, just to name some examples. In other words spend your welfare money on food for your family. You want those things? Pick up the want-ads. The only way I'll get to go on a cruise is if I go on welfare and that won't be happening any time soon. This makes so much sense that I wonder why every state in the union doesn't follow it.

...Last Monday Kim Kardashian and Kanye West dragged their kid to Isreal to have her baptized in a ceremony at the historic Cathedral of St. James in Jerusalem which is right near where Jesus himself was baptized. The Kardashians must have paid off somebody pretty well to do this because when you think of families with good Christian values these people aren't even close.

...Maybe it is because I am not on Facebook or social media but I do not understand why people feel the need to take pictures of what they are eating and post them for everyone to see. I know exactly what a steak looks like or a hot dog covered with all the fixings. I don't need to see yours. Enjoy it and keep it to yourself.

...If they don't do anything else during this off-season for the NFL at least the Cleveland Browns can tell their fans they put all their efforts into the new uniforms they will be wearing when the season starts in September. It would have been nice if they could have managed to put some decent players in them at the same time but Browns fans are used to not having that.

...The world according to Curtis, Dept: Jackie Robinson day came and went last week and all the recognition and remembrance of who Robinson was as a player and mostly as a man was covered in detail all day on the MLB Network and rightfully so. Curtis Granderson used that day to complain about what he sees is a big problem in baseball, namely that there is a shortage of black players in the game today. Not too long ago C.C. Sabathia was crying about the same thing. He's another ****ing moron if you ask me. And Granderson is just as bad. If these two would have opened their eyes instead of their mouths they would see that baseball is more racially diverse than the two other most popular sports in this country, football and basketball. There are white players, black players and Hispanic and Asian players and just a quick glance at the rosters would have told them that. There's a reason why nothing happens and the media doesn't make a big thing about it when someone brings this up and talks about it like it was the first time they ever noticed it. It's because they have no grounds to stand on. No one is keeping black people out of the game except for black people themselves. If a black kid wants to try out for his high school baseball team he can. No questions asked. And if he's good enough he makes the team. The coach isn't going to tell him to get lost and go pick up a basketball. That kid I am talking about has every opportunity as everyone else but if they do not want to play baseball and have no interest in it because they like something else better than it is their choice and all the whining and crying by people like Sabathia and Granderson can't do anything about it. 

But he wasn't done. He must have had a lot of time off last week. Granderson also said that Little League player Mo'ne Davis should be compensated to help pay for her college education since she is a "person of color" because people want to see her and talk to her because of everything she did in last year's Little League World Series. I love it when people who have millions of dollars in the bank try to get other people to foot the bill for something that they should not be required to do. This guy made sixteen million dollars last year for hitting .227 and he's going to get another sixteen million this year. If he is really that concerned about her education one check from him would fix everything in a hurry.

...April 15th was tax day in this country, the deadline for filing Income Tax Returns to the federal government. That's one thing Aaron Hernandez will not have to worry about ever again because a jury decided that he will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole because he was found guilty of murder in the first degree for the 2013 shooting death of Odin Lloyd. Like him or not that is a tough thing for anyone to be facing especially when that person is only twenty-five-years-old. Pretty soon he won't even be mentioned in the press anymore and will become a distant memory unless he does something noteworthy in prison. He'll be going to a fairly new one that's about forty miles outside of Boston and as a maximum-security prison goes it is not a good one. 90% of the population there are locked in their cells for nineteen hours day. That's something that I can't even imagine. Here's someone who would have earned another Super Bowl ring back in February had his life taken a different turn. Now the only uniform he'll have for the rest of his life is a prison one. Talk about the quintessential example of throwing it all away.

...ESPN suspended reporter Britt McHenry for one week after a video of her insulting a towing company clerk was posted online as she commented on the woman's job, education, teeth, and weight while reminding her that she has a college education and is on television. I don't know if she is a good reporter or not because I don't watch ESPN but just from the look of her I can tell why she was hired by them to be in front of the camera. She's tall and good looking with long blonde hair and she knows how to fill out a dress very well. That right there tells me all I need to know about how she got her job and how she's going to keep it. She's already brought out the worn and tired I-regret-my-actions statement and she'll put a sad face on the next time she's on camera and that's all ESPN really cares about. That, along with higher ratings all around and shorter dresses for reporters who look like her. 

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 4-26

...This should be an interesting week. I am looking forward to this Thursday the 30th because that is the day RBI Baseball 15 is supposed to come out for the PC. I want to finally see for myself how good or bad this game is.

...Willie Nelson is planning on introducing his own brand of marijuana to capitalize on his life-long association with pot. "Willie's Reserve" will be grown and sold in Colorado and Washington, where recreational pot is legal. Of all the celebrity endorsements out there this is one where I have no trouble believing the guy behind it is one hundred percent behind the product. Nelson went on to say that he is going to work with the best growers in Colorado and Washington to make sure his product is the best on the market. I bet he will. He'll go as far as sampling each shipment to make sure of it too.

...David Ortiz received a one-game suspension for arguing about a strike call in a game against Baltimore last week. He was thrown out of the game from having a tantrum and throwing his equipment and what was most surprising about this was the game was played in Boston and the umpires still threw him out. And just as startling he received criticism for what he did and this time it didn't come from me first. Orioles broadcaster Jim Palmer applauded the umpires for finally throwing this hothead out of a game and Ortiz got upset at Palmer because he thought he "was one of his guys" which is something I highly doubt because Palmer played the game clean. Even Chris Russo, a guy I usually can not stand, was all over Ortiz on his daily show that is on the MLB Network. That's not saying much. I'd agree with Vladimir Putin if he saying bad things about Ortiz.

...That didn't take long, Dept: There's already been complaints about how Hanley Ramirez is playing left field for the Red Sox especially in Fenway Park and how he is loafing out there. My question is why is this even being brought up? The Red Sox and their fans already should have known this before they even signed him. This guy was lazy during his years in the National League and he's going to be the same way now that he's in Boston. They simply better get used to it.

...The NFL released their 2015 schedule last week and the first thing I do is to check what the Raiders have up against them this time around. The second thing I do is check out the Thanksgiving Day games and once again football fans that day will be getting screwed so make sure you have dibs on a comfortable chair wherever you are going to be because these games are going to be bad. The early game is the Eagles visiting the Lions. The Lions always do their best to make the game as boring as they can and they always succeed. The middle game has the Carolina Panthers visiting Dallas. Another who-gives-a-sh** game. Put some money on this one. The Cowboys will win because they are going to get a controversial call in their favor. Finally the night game has the Chicago Bears visiting the Green Bay Packers. I admit this one looks like a good game but with the 8:30 p.m. start on the east coast people will be so stuffed on turkey that they won't be awake for it.

...AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd made a surprise guilty plea on charges of threatening to kill and drug possession at the opening of his trial in New Zealand last Tuesday. Rudd had previously denied all allegations against him before this but as soon as he learned that the band wanted him to accompany them on their latest tour he changed his mind. And they say Malcolm Young was the one with the dementia.

...A Pakistani man and his father have been arrested and charged with murder after setting the son's wife on fire for leaving the house without asking his permission. Before I go on read that sentence again because I am still having a hard time coming to grips with how inconceivable a reason this is to do this to someone. Never mind the fact that you shouldn't do this in the first place but the logic involved in making these people do this is demented to say the least. What kind of thinking makes someone resort to doing something like this only because the woman went out one day to visit her sister without first asking her husband if she could? Can you imagine if this happened in our country? We'd never have a divorce problem anymore. All the wife's got to do is go to the supermarket without you knowing about it and the next thing you'd be doing is picking up some kerosene. But this really happened and it happened to a woman who was only twenty-five-years-old and because of an innocent visit to her sister she received burns to eighty percent of her body. She mercifully died of her injuries not long after she was set on fire. I can not imagine the pain this poor woman was in or being that kind of person that had no trouble doing this to her.

...FOX Sports hired Pete Rose as a guest analyst for the MLB on FOX pregame show on FOX and FOX Sports 1. If someone had to hire him it figures it would have had to be these people because FOX is as bad for baseball as Rose is. Don't worry if you are not totally familiar with Rose's impressive statistics on the back of his baseball card. He'll be sure to remind everyone of how many hits he got and how many batting titles he won until you'll be able to recite it in your sleep.

...And don't get any ideas that baseball is softening with their stance on Pete Rose by allowing him to participate in the 2015 All-Star Game festivities in Cincinnati on July 14th. They are doing it because they don't want the rednecks in Cincinnati to riot before the game gets under way. Who are they kidding?

...When Johnny Manziel left rehab recently he made sure to apologize to everyone, even the cab drivers just in case he didn't tip them enough. He also apologized to the entire Browns organization and to the fans that he let down. Not really though. Browns fans knew he was going to fall on his face so they weren't really let down.

...A Burger King employee was arrested for selling meth out of the restaurant while working the drive-thru window and when she was on break she sold them out of her car. She did everything but deliver them to your house. The management at the restaurant became suspicious when no one was coming into the place to place their order and instead would wait patiently in their cars to go around through the drive-thru. Then when one person was coming back three times a day to wait in line just for a small coke they knew something was up. When the police arrived they searched her car and found scales, plastic baggies and five grams of meth and just like that another promising career in the drug trade came to an end.

...Competitive eating has always been something that has been sort of fascinating to me. It's not that I ever wished I was able to do it (although I can knock off two bags of popcorn pretty fast) but just reading about what some of these people can do is amazing. It's like when they have that hot dog eating contest in the summer. There's always a skinny Japanese guy who empties out an entire supermarket full of them and if he doesn't win he gets pretty close. Last week they had another eating contest down in Texas and this time it was a woman who came away with the five-thousand dollar grand prize as she ate three seventy-two-ounce steak dinners in a shade under twenty minutes. If you're keeping score that's over thirteen pounds of meat. I saw a picture of this female vacuum cleaner and was surprised at what I saw and then at the same time not really. If you were expecting the winner to look like Honey Boo-Boo's mother you would have been wrong. The winner, a woman named Molly Schuyler is a tall, thin woman who looks more at home in front of a Ceasar's salad and a yogurt than three steak dinners. But that's not all she put away to win her five grand because she had to put away three steak dinners and not just the steak. That meant she had to eat three baked potatoes, three shrimp cocktails, three salads and three rolls in order to win. She turned down a fourth steak because she was sick of the taste and not because she was full. If I ever went out to dinner with this woman I would insist she pay her own way.

...A man visiting Florida from England was thrown into jail for one day and fined five hundred dollars for urinating in the ice machine in his hotel because he was so drunk that he could not find his room. And he wouldn't have because he was on the wrong floor. Besides, with all he heard about Florida before he got there he probably figured this was something people did all the time.

...As if I needed something to confirm my low opinion about Florida before I finished up my posts for this week an idiot down there happily obliged me. Then again what else would you call an eighteen-year-old kid who captures a four-foot cottonmouth snake and after catching it kept it in a pillowcase and when he let the snake out of its confinement he tried to kiss it? I wouldn't exactly say this guy is Harvard material. The bite was so severe that he was in critical condition when he was taken to the hospital but fortunately for him doctors there are expecting him to make a full recovery. That's good news for him. When he gets out he can go find an alligator to make out with.

...A kid in over in the state of Washington wanted to ask a girl to the school prom so he strapped fake explosives to his body by wearing a vest filled with paper-tube props to look like he had a bomb attached to him. The kid did not have a bomb and had no intention of hurting anyone because he held up a sign that said he was "da bomb" to impress the girl to get her to say yes. The good news for him was that the girl said yes but the bad news is that he won't be able to attend the prom because the school suspended him for five days. Whatever happened to going up to a girl and just asking her?

...Bernie Williams formally and officially retired at a news conference before the Friday night Mets - Yankees game at Yankee Stadium. Big deal. Williams' last year in the major leagues was back in 2006 and he's retiring now? His bat retired three years before then. You could tell the guy was pretty old because not even the Yankees were going to sign him to a free-agent contract. That's because Carlos Beltran is already taking up enough dead space on the team.

...If Josh Hamilton does find his way back to the Texas Rangers how many of us here would have ever expected it? And how are those fans going to react to him if and when he gets there? This is the same guy who said not long after he signed with the Angels that Dallas was always a football town first. For some reason the people there got upset with that comment. The Angels are reportedly supposed to eat $65 million of the $83 million still owned to Hamilton. They'll do anything to get rid of this bum.

...I did not watch the Bruce Jenner interview with Diane Sawyer on Friday night because I am not interested in watching train wrecks but I could not avoid all the articles about it on the internet the next day since they were all over the place. I think the funniest one was about his ex-wife Kris Jenner when someone pointed out that she had "no comment" on the interview. Either she was upset that someone else in her family was getting more press than she was or that she was worried that when he finally gets done with his transformation he will end up looking better than her.

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 5-3

...I don't want to jinx any of the pitchers in the Major Leagues right now except maybe the pitching staff of the Boston Red Sox but Tommy John surgeries have been way down this season and I think that that along with the lack of rain-outs we have had this year this has been the best news of this young season. There's been a couple of no-name pitchers that have gone down but other than that lady luck has been with the pitchers so far. Although I am sure if you ask Adam Wainwright or Brandon McCarthy they would look at me like I was nuts. See you in 2016.

...Masahiro Tanaka on the other hand could be a different story. Last Tuesday the New York Yankees placed him on the fifteen day disabled list even though they expect him to be out much longer because he was diagnosed with a mild Grade One strain of his right forearm and tendinitis in his right wrist. He's lucky his shoulder wasn't sore because then they'd have to cut the whole arm off. As cautious as the Yankees are I don't see him coming back until around the All-Star Game. Maybe David Price was right when he said that his injury was from pitching in that thirty-four-degree day in Detroit the other week. No matter what the Yankees are that much more vulnerable, and it didn't take long for that to happen.

...If C.C. Sabathia has a sudden turn-around for the remainder of the season we may be able to thank Krispy Kreme for it. Maybe this is why he was so good in Boston the other night. Those guys had a promotion last week where if you bought a one dozen donuts you would get another dozen for free and they will match you dozen-for-dozen. I can not go into a Krispy Kreme myself because I don't trust myself in there. Those glazed ones they have are so good you can knock off a half dozen of them before you know they're gone. Those guys should watch it though because with the money that he has he can put them out of business in one day.

...If the Yankees had to play in Baltimore that day they played the game where no fans were allowed in instead of the White Sox, Alex Rodriguez still would have found a way to get booed.

...Just when I begin to take a couple of steps back to try and see Red Sox fans as just people who happen to like a team I can't stand, one of them does something to make me re-think my opinion and just like that I'm hating them all over again. You can blame a son of a ***** named Mike Shuster for this because he's the guy who caught Alex Rodriguez' 660th home run ball that he hit into the Monster Seats at Fenway Park on Friday night. Part of the reason why he wants to hold onto the ball is out of spite because that pinch-hit home run gave the Yankees a 3 - 2 victory and part of it is to see how much he could squeeze out of Rodriguez. MLB.com interviewed this guy and he was talking about how lucky he got to catch the ball because he's a Red Sox fan and that he came to the game ten minutes late because of his job. The guy looked like a homeless bum and his job must have been holding up a sign at a street corner that said "Will Work for Food." No where in the interview did he say what he was going to do with the ball but he made sure to tell the newspapers that he had no intention of returning the ball. Even the Red Sox themselves tried to offer him things for the ball but he said no. If he thinks the Red Sox would have done the right thing and give the ball back to Rodriguez he is not much of a fan because they'd hold it for ransom too. I'm glad he hit that home run and he hit it at the right time because it helped win a game. But it's too bad it happened in Boston. He would have had a better chance getting the ball back had he hit it someplace else. Then again, what else should you expect from that fanbase?

...Well, it's official now and it's still a little hard to believe but Josh Hamilton found his way back to Texas and is a Ranger again and the Angels couldn't be happier about it. They wanted him gone so bad that they paid a division rival, a club that they face nineteen times a season, sixty-three million dollars for the next three years to go and play for them. And what did the Angels get in return? The Rangers have to give them a player to be named later or cash considerations. In other words do what you want just as long as you take him. Give the Angels a player with two broken arms. They'll take him. Or throw a few bucks at them before the season's done. That'll work. Or if the Rangers don't even want to go that far the Angels will let them off the hook with an I.O.U. that they would never been too concerned about collecting.

...Tell us how you really feel, Dept: A blogger at SB Nation who covers the Angels was permanently relieved of his position as lead Angels blogger after a blistering post about Josh Hamilton. The post was quickly removed but not before someone was able to capture it for posterity. This guy held nothing back. He called Hamilton a "coddled hillbilly" which if you think about it is true. You could just feel his hatred for Hamilton in every word he wrote. I think he was removed from SB Nation because he held nothing back when he went after Hamilton and they were worried that Hamilton would sue. This just goes to show all of you who think I am over the top with my hatred of David Ortiz. I'm not even in this guy's league. And in case you're wondering I don't want Ortiz or anyone else to die a violent death. I'd rather see him spend the rest of his life in a maximum security prison with no possibility of parole.

...A fan in Wrigley Field had to be hospitalized last Monday night when rookie infielder Addison Russell swung at a pitch and the bat flew out of his hand and hit someone that was sitting a couple rows behind the Cubs' on-deck circle. The fan is ok now and even though it has been almost a week now he probably still has a pretty bad headache. When I read about this I immediately thought of an incident involving Cory Snyder at Silver Stadium almost twenty-nine-years ago. Snyder was playing for the Maine Guides then and after a tough at-bat where he ended up popping out he threw his bat in the direction of the visitor's dugout. Unfortunately for Snyder that is not where the bat ended up because the pine tar from the bat stuck to his hand and the bat went flying into the box seats behind the Guides dugout and it cut an old woman's lip and broke the nose of her granddaughter. So on one at-bat Snyder ended up going 2 for 3. 

This was a perfect opportunity for a lawsuit and these women did not let it go by. They pressed charges and Snyder was arrested and they ended up filing a 2.3 million dollar lawsuit against him. Fortunately for Snyder these two greedy cows didn't receive anything when a judge dismissed the charges during the 1986 off season. 

...A Catholic school in Michigan dismissed a twelve-year-old girl who was diagnosed with leukemia and because of that was not able to attend school regularly. They said they had concerns about her attendance and academic performance but according to her mother she was on track to pass all of her classes despite being so sick. That's the part that puzzles me. It's not like the kid is staying home because she can't put the Playstation down. This is a tough disease for anyone to fight especially for someone this young. And nothing against Catholic schools but those places make you pay through the nose to go there. I'm surprised they are turning away money. Somehow I think this kid will get back in there. It makes no sense keeping her out for reasons like this.

...Pedro Martinez has done his best to re-invent himself ever since he was able to sneak into the Hall of Fame this past off-season. You can argue that he had a great career and won three Cy Young awards but the fact remains that he only won two hundred and nineteen games. Divide that number up over his eighteen-year career and that's about twelve games a year. But what is done is done. Pedro's got a book coming out because I have no plans on reading about the world according to a hotheaded headhunter. I did read an excerpt on the book where he said that his biggest regret in baseball was throwing Don Zimmer to the ground in the 2003 playoffs. When he did it and for a long time afterwards he couldn't care less about what he did to Zimmer but in the book it's now the thing he regrets most. Amazing. Well, at least this book will sell in Boston. I just wouldn't count on it any place else.

...I got e-mails periodically all day on Friday from the Oakland Raiders website telling me who they chose in the draft and they also gave me the opportunity to purchase the jerseys from all the new draftees. They're always thinking of me.

...For some reason Roots, the miniseries which aired on ABC television in January of 1977 and was one of the most successful miniseries' is going to be remade and will air sometime next year. The original series earned thirty-seven Emmy nominations and they took home nine of them. This remake has almost impossible shoes to fill and they'd probably do a better job re-airing the original series. I wouldn't mind because I never saw it when it was on back then since I was too involved in mid-term exams.

...Proving that the Chinese have nothing else to do except make crappy imports, they are mad at Katy Perry because she wore a sunflower dress during her performance in Taiwan and they so serious about it that they may ban her from playing in China. The Chinese think that by wearing that dress Perry was making a political statement. That's because last year protesters occupied Taiwan's parliament in response to trade agreements with China because they thought that China had too much influence and the sunflower was used as a symbol of what the protest was about. The end. So, now she can get banned for wearing a yellow dress. While they are at it China just might ban sunflowers too.

...The stepchildren from a woman who died in an automobile crash involving Bruce Jenner sued him for wrongful death, claiming they have suffered enormous damages. Enormous damages? Never mind you lost a loved one. Write us a check and we'll be ok. These people will end up getting money from Jenner's insurance company. They'll offer them something that they can live with so they don't have to go through an expensive trial and possibly a large settlement. And when it's all over they'll make Jenner take a driving course with a trained female professional so he can learn to apply his makeup and drive safely at the same time.

...Things have been quiet on the Bill Cosby Accusation Tour for awhile now but last week it started up again when an actress who appeared on the final season of The Cosby Show came up with some new allegations against him. It's nothing that you haven't heard before. It's just someone else saying it. But this one had to add that Cosby gave her a death threat because the last time she saw him he told her he didn't want to see her anymore and she was "dead to him." Pretty terrifying all right. Buy another lock for your door. I don't know if Cosby did anything that is being said about him but these people accusing him of it are anything but believable. 

...The next thing we'll see is women coming forward saying they were scared for their lives because they watched his show for all eight years it was on. 

[Yankee4Life]

Updated to 5-10

...Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn  are no longer together after they confirmed last week that they have mutually agreed to end their three-year relationship. Where does the time go? Woods said that he hasn't slept for three days since he and Vonn broke up and I believe him. He's probably making up for three years worth of lost time as he chases down every blonde bimbo around him.

...The defense for Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is doing everything they can to make the jury feel bad for him but they seem to realize that it is a lost cause. They went as far as flying in an aunt from Russia, who by the way may never return home now after she learned we have hot and cold running water here along with sliced bread. She tearfully explained on the witness stand that as a young boy he cried when a character in the movie The Lion King was killed. If that doesn't make you reach for the closest Kleenex box nothing will. The same kid who cried for a cartoon character's death still has not shown a bit of remorse from what he and his brother did in 2013. Why this trial is still going on is something that makes no sense to me.

...Major League Baseball had the Dowd Report and the Mitchell Report and now the NFL has the Wells Report. That is a two-hundred-forty-three-page document that confirmed what everyone outside of Boston already knew. The Patriots deflated their footballs so their quarterback Tom Brady could have a better grip on the ball and what is just as bad Brady knew about all about it, which is something that Brady has been denying all this time. As someone who has hated all Boston sports teams for his entire life this is nothing new to me and not surprising in the least. Boston teams would go as far as sending their own mothers down the river if it meant a better chance to win a championship and then try to look innocent while they're doing it. I love you and all Mom but I really need to win this game. Nice knowing you. Brady's got nothing to worry about in Boston because they'll never turn on him. These are the same people who have been worshipping David Ortiz for years now with his constant steroid abuse. You think deflating a football will matter to those people? They won. That's it. Go deflate every football you see Tom just as long as you win on Sunday. That's all we care about. Go inject yourself with as much juice as you want Papi. Just as long as you keep hitting home runs. What a sports town that place is. Their motto should be "Cheating allowed - and encouraged."

...What a lousy week it was for Boston sports fans. And what a lovely week it was for me. Even though I seriously doubt anything bad will happen to everyone's favorite quarterback Tom Brady it was still nice to see the media report the truth about him. And to top that off, ESPN fired columnist Bill Simmons, who was probably the worst sportswriter ever to sit in front of a keyboard. Simmons could not write an article without bringing the Yankees into it somehow and always in an insulting way. Even if they had nothing to do with what he was writing about I would always find a Yankee reference in it. An article about the Alaskan Iditarod? He'd find a way. The Masters Golf Tournament? Why not? That guy had one running joke and it finally went stale.

...Finally, the Red Sox have not been pitching well all season so they fired pitching coach Juan Nieves because they had to have someone to blame. This of course is supposed to fix everything.

...If this sounds like a criticism of Minnesota Twins outfielder Torii Hunter, it isn't. He is in the twilight of a very good major league career and all people seem to want to bring up is what he says off-the-field because he has his own opinion on things and because they happen to differ from what the politically correct crowd sees as acceptable, he gets in trouble. Hunter is the guy who said a few years back that having an openly homosexual teammate would be tough to deal with and would be difficult and uncomfortable. Does anyone honestly think that Hunter is the only ballplayer that feels that way? Hunter was the only one that said it out loud and because of that he's looked at in a bad light. Now before the big Floyd Mayweather - Manny Pacquiao fight last week he got himself in trouble again for rooting on Mayweather and saying that what he does in the ring is strictly business and what he says outside the ring has nothing to do with him. Go ahead, find something wrong with that. If you can't let me help you out. Mayweather has a history of domestic violence and that is what the offended police - you know, the people that live and breathe to find something wrong with everything that someone says? Gotcha Torii! We're going to say you don't care he beat a woman.  How could you? That's what they turned this into. All Hunter did was show support to the boxer that he wanted to win the fight. It had nothing to do with condoning his personal behavior.

After Hunter made that post on twitter he quickly deleted it but it was too late. Someone already saved it. That is one thing he should have never done. Keep it there and that's it. Because as soon as he removed it he had to go through the exhausting chore of trying to explain himself and apologizing for something that didn't need apologizing for. How many apologies do sports stars and celebrities have to make on twitter before they realize the best thing for them is to not be there. And that's what he did. He said he was done with twitter. Good for him. Now he can have his own opinions and avoid the aggravation.

This is what has me worried about the Mvpmods twitter account. I am not suggesting that what happened to Hunter is going to take place here. But I'm not positive because who really knows for sure? This is social media at its most dangerous. There are too many people out there who sit back and wait for someone to say something so they can quickly construct the mountain to place on the molehill. Just because this is a baseball gaming website does not mean we are not subjected from the worst that twitter has to offer.

..A family from Austria went to Cuba last week and visited Cuba’s Jardines de la Reina archipelago where they saw a small eight-foot alligator in the water and the tour guide, who must have something against Austrians, told them it was OK to snorkel with the crocodile because it was so small. I don't know about you but an eight foot crocodile is enough to keep me out of the water. First the father jumped in and started swimming around with it and because dad did it his two sons had to jump in too and it quickly turned into a photo opportunity with a reptile. Luckily for them nothing happened and they were able to get out of the water with all their arms and legs where they should be. This is probably the only time I would have felt bad for a crocodile because if it would have started biting everyone around it it would have been hunted down and killed. They posted the pictures online and got their fifteen minutes of fame but all it did was to tell everyone that they were idiots. Lucky, but idiots just the same.

...The Mars company, which makes M&Ms, Snickers and Twix, came out last week in support of recent government recommendations to limit sugar intake and label sweets with the amount of added sugar they contain. In other words they wanted to inform consumers to not eat that much of their product. Great, now I find this out.

...Prince released a tribute song called Baltimore on Saturday in remembrance of the protests over Freddie Gray's death in that city. It's too bad though. Not that he wrote a song about this but it's too bad that he's the one that wrote it because no one listens to his stuff anymore.

...A Michigan woman, who probably should be in line for the dumbest reason to be put behind bars, has been sentenced to three to seven years in prison for opening fire at a McDonald's restaurant after workers twice failed to put bacon on her burgers. What happened was she went through the drive-thru in February of last year and ordered a burger with bacon on it but as she drove away she discovered that they forgot to put bacon on it. So she complained and she was offered a free meal for her trouble. That should have been it but apparently the people that work at that McDonald's must not be too bright because the next bacon cheeseburger she was given was missing the bacon too. That's when she decided that enough was enough. She went outside and began firing at the building and luckily for everyone concerned she didn't hit anyone. I guess it's safe to assume Mcdonald's couldn't get an order right if their lives depended on it.  It's a good thing she didn't go to Wendy's and order the Baconator. Who knows what she would have done if they forgot her bacon in that thing.

...What is it with these fast food places that make people nuts? If you've ever been into a Burger King you know they serve breakfast up until a certain time and then they switch over to the burger menu for the rest of the day. I've been in there before when I've just missed breakfast and since I think it is too early to eat a Whopper I just get a coffee or an orange juice and leave. There was this guy in Connecticut last week who just could not accept that he could not have his sausage and cheese croissant sandwich when he ordered it twenty-five minutes after they stopped making them. After the cashier told him this he told her that he felt like pulling out an uzi submachine gun and shooting up the restaurant. Soon after that the police were called and they felt like charging him with first-degree threatening and second-degree breach of peace. What's the problem here? Don't they have Denny's in Connecticut? They have all-day breakfasts. If he would have went there he wouldn't be needing a lawyer right now.

...During the Tampa Bay - Montreal Canadians playoff series in Tampa a fan was arrested on second-degree misdemeanor charges for carrying his gun into the facility. It would have been a felony charge but the guy who owned the gun had a concealed weapons permit for it. He said he didn't mean any harm by it because he was just going to fire off a few rounds in the air when the Lightning scored a goal. You have to keep in mind that this is Florida. This kind of stuff makes sense down there.

...Then again fans in the Boston Garden bring in knives, shivs, corkscrews, broken glass, razors, etc, to root the Bruins on. And if they happen to win, even better.

...In a little more than a month now Jurassic World is going to be out. If there was one movie made for 3D it is this one.

...Bryce Harper hit three home runs in a game last week against the Marlins which meant that he finally was able to beat Mike Trout at something. After three mediocre seasons Harper finally had one good game. If anyone thought this guy was obnoxious before he hit these home runs just watch how he's going to be after he hit them.

...If looks could kill, Dept: If there was one person on this earth that I could kill it would be Rachel from cardholder services. Well, maybe I wouldn't kill her myself. I'd send her to Syria and spread a rumor that she's a Christian. That will be the end of that. This broad leaves messages on my phone letting me know that she can help me lower my credit card interest rate. One call is enough but this woman gets around faster than the flu. One day she is calling from one area code. The next day, another one. I don't pick up the phone anymore so I hope she takes that as a sign we are breaking up. I'm not sure if any of you have come across her yet but these calls are a scam and they are illegal. There is a website called NoMoreRobo that will help you deal with these type of calls and what's best about this is it's free. I can't use this service right now because this is not available in my area but as soon as it is I am jumping on it. I just feel bad for the people they fooled with this.

...Sometimes you really have to wonder about some people's luck. There was a woman last week who made it on to The Price is Right as a contestant. She went as far as winning her pricing game and was able to meet host Drew Carey and she went home winning a sauna and a treadmill. It's no shame winning these two things. I mean I certainly wouldn't turn them down but the woman that won the treadmill is in a wheelchair and does not have any legs. She's going to get as much use out of that treadmill as a bald guy would if he won free haircuts for a year.

...Finally, happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there. Wether your mother is with you or not just thinking about her shows you care.