Hindenburg Wednesday

Fred and I had a whole new idea and "thing" planned for today and we were pretty excited about it. It wasn't anything that was revolutionary or was going to change anything major on the blog or in anyone's life, we were just thinking of different ideas for the blog. Actually, let me say Fred was thinking of new ideas, so I don't really know exactly what he was thinking, but I am sure it was great given the source material we were going to take it from. The problem is that real life has gotten in the way.

Fred apparently moved out of his mom's basement (against my wishes and counseling against this move using real life examples of how going outside and interacting with humans is scary) and got a real job, so his job and my job has prohibited us from carrying out our potentially monsterously awesome plan that would push daily traffic into the double digits. Basically, short story long, I have nothing prepared and ready to present to the class today. This is like the blogger version of being caught with your pants down (please no jokes about computers, bloggers, and pants down that are distasteful, out of our 7 readers, 4 of them are actually toddlers learning to read because we don't use big words and are the blogging version of a Curious George book) and being the OCD blogger that I am, I always like to post things.

Basically you are stuck with me today discussing various events around the sports world...

-I was going through the archives, as I often do to either cringe or laugh at my own old jokes, and noticed what I was talking about one year ago yesterday. Peter King and Brett Favre's insistence on not staying retired.

You can pretty much take everything Peter wrote and just insert the work "Vikings" in there and it can be an up-to-date article. I can't believe we are talking about the same things as last year...actually I can.

I can still feel the anger I was writing with at the time. Sadly, that anger has been turned into the recognition that Brett Favre will never leave me or the world alone with this retirement talk. The words I write about him today are the sad realization of this.

Feel free to ignore the sentence that says Brian Brohm and Matt Flynn could be good quarterbacks or backups in the NFL...there is no proof of that, though I still believe it, so that is a little bit embarrassing. I can't believe Brohm is sitting the bench for the Packers and Josh Freeman is going to start for the Bucs this year. What's the world coming to?

-Bill Simmons has the cities for his book tour on his Twitter. He also keeps linking his damn book with every mention of the tour. We get it. We don't need a freaking link to the book everytime you mention it. The link to the side of the screen and the other 900 links you have included are sufficient. You have a book coming out and you want us to buy it because you have quit writing free columns for ESPN and think we should have to pay to hear your pro-Boston stances and pop culture references. Consider the message received.

Book Tour: Bos NY Phi DC Tor Chi Den LA SF SD Sea Por Phx Aus Dal. Possibles: Det Cle Mil Min Cha Hou Atl Mem LV.

If he comes to Charlotte, I would debate whether to go or not and report back. It seems pretty desperate since I probably have better things to do, but it would almost be hard to turn down.

Also, is he ever writing another column for ESPN again? Or is he just sticking to the podcasts for the foreseeable future? It's not that I miss him so much, its just that without Easterbrook and Peter King my main targets are very absent right now.

-I have always had a soft spot (he has several soft spots in his belly---badaboom!) for Bartolo Colon and now I know why. I always thought that it was because he was fat and still pitched fairly well and that was the reason I liked him. I have a new reason.

Chicago White Sox pitcher Bartolo Colon is scheduled to make a minor league rehab start for Triple-A Charlotte on Thursday.

Problem is, the White Sox don't know where he is.

I would recommend they check either the Fox and the Hound restaurant in downtown Charlotte because they have good appetizers or the strip club on the corner near Bank of America Stadium. It seems like a place where Charlotte athletes hang out and get arrested at. Otherwise, maybe he is dancing at the Coyote Ugly bar downtown...if he is dancing at Coyote Ugly, I would like for someone to email me pictures. I would love to see that.

Regardless, I love the fact the White Sox can't find him to pitch tonight. In real life, this is not so funny, but I always love it when an athlete goes AWOL...especially fat athletes, it makes you think they may be eating a lot of food somewhere.

-Anybody still want financial advice from Lenny Dykstra?

Dykstra, 46, has no more than $50,000 in assets and between $10 million and $50 million in liabilities, according to a petition filed Tuesday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Central District of California.

He's such a douchebag I think he deserves this. the article also mentions that there are currently 20 lawsuits related to his financial magazine, The Players Club. Anyone who invested in his magazine has great potential to be an idiot. I don't like it when bad things happen but sometimes bad things happen to bad people...or at least annoying douche-like people.

-In a story that should be so completely obvious, there is a rumor that Steve McNair had other girlfriends.

You mean the guy who couldn't stay faithful to his wife and 4 children also could not stay faithful to his mistress? Who saw that coming? I wish the media would let this angle drop. He had an affiar or two, that makes him an asshole but doesn't mean he should die. Find me an athlete that doesn't have an affair or claim they would never have an affair, and that athlete's name is not Doug Christie, and you have found yourself a liar.

-Remember the failed stolen base by Derek Jeter that caused the Yankees to rally 6 innings later? Now there is a new controversy...was Jeter safe or out? More importantly, who cares?

If Jeter steals that base, there is no way the entire Yankee team is inspired by his success to mount a rally six innings later. We have to remember this. If the Yankees wanted to win, Jeter had to be thrown out in the 1st inning.

Remember yesterday's uproar as a result of that ump telling Jeter he was out because the ball beat him to the bag? Well, that's not what he said he said:

[Crew Chief John] Hirschbeck spoke to Foster on Tuesday and got a different version. Here's what Hirschbeck said Foster told Jeter at the time: "The ball beat you, and I had him tagging you."

We have to get Derek Jeter's side of this before life can go on. It's bad enough Jeter got thrown out attempting to steal a base, when calling a strike against Jeter or calling him out on a steal attempt is against MLB rules, but when the umpire possibly, maybe misses the call? Only a hanging or other public execution of that umpire will suffice as punishment.

With all the media in and around New York, and all that goes on around there, is there nothing better to talk about?

There is no way the umpire missed that call as badly as the home plate umpire missed the strike three call that got Manny Ramirez thrown out of the game last night. The ball looked a foot outside to me. Of course, I am torn because I support anything that gets Ramirez off the field so no one can talk about him, specifically ESPN. That didn't stop ESPN from running the highlight of him being thrown out immediately as it happened of course...they probably did not show any highlights of the game, because after Ramirez is thrown out, the game is clearly not interesting anymore.

-I generally try to avoid talking about pop culture, and try to avoid talking about things like I am still disappointed the band Marah semi-broke up, but I have to make one exception for the Michael Jackson circus. This is a sports blog and I will immediately regret bringing this up, but I have to get it off my chest.

I was never into his music. I think it was great music but I just never really got into it. I understand the circus that is going on as well when he died. He was a big deal to many people. What irritates me is they take his 11 year old daughter to the stage at his memorial service, this is a girl who has rarely if ever shown her actual face in public, and surround her with family members so she can talk about her dad. It felt so exploitive to me...to take an 11 year old girl and have her talk about her father just to satisfy the hunger for real emotion at the service.

I think it 50% irritated me because I thought they were using her as a photo-op and a way to get people talking about the memorial. The other 50% irritation was the sight of Jackson's family who apparently had done absolutely nothing to make sure the people around him, even after all of his legal problems, were not taking advantage of him and had his best interests at heart. I realize he was his own person but I felt like if they had really cared for him and his children, they would have tried to make more efforts to get his life under better control. They were at the memorial for their own publicity in my mind. I think there was even a red carpet. Sorry to talk about pop culture but that's just my opinion.

-I am also 95% sure if the Cubs ever win a World Series those fans are going to be twice as obnoxious as some people think the Red Sox fans are and they will also probably be 5 times as prevelant in baseball parks. Everyone will be a Cub fan. They are annoying me now and they aren't even winning games or playoffs series' yet.

We'll do better tomorrow...