Thought from Nationals Park

If there's a sadder phrase than "pinch hitter Alex Cora", I've
certainly never heard it.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Welcome back, FJM!

Rather than start a blog called Fire Howard Bryant, I'm going to point out some of the myriad problems with this article. It is only that I feel comfortable that my blog will not generate more than three or four hits on this piece of garbage that I can do so in good conscience. (In true FJM style, his words are in italics, mine are not.)

Barry Bonds, baseball's all-time home run leader and from 2000 to 2004 easily the most dominant player since Babe Ruth, will wake up Thursday as a convicted felon.

Or a cockroach, if Kafka was onto something. Maybe even a porpoise. That'd be totally cool.

A San Franciso [sic] jury convicted him of obstruction of justice.

If only they'd been given rice-a-roni.  It was not a San Francisco jury.  He was tried in the Northern District of California, so that means there were people in the jury panel from Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Salinas, Oakland, Eureka, San Jose.  But, obviously, the jury's potential residence in a large city makes it very different. If this were one of those god-forsaken Petaluma juries, they'd just be off their rocker and Bonds would be an untainted legend of the game.

Roger Clemens, arguably the game's greatest pitcher, faces the possibility of a similar fate.

I think if you argue that Clemens is the game's greatest pitcher, you are arguably an idiot, but fine, he was a great pitcher. 

Seven times a Cy Young Award winner, Clemens will go on trial this summer for lying to Congress.

Once, twice, three times a Cy Young winner...uh...this sentence has been brought to you by the Commodores.

I've missed this season.

It's kind of remarkable how out of the loop actually going to games
has left me. I've managed to see two total, when if I'd gone to no
games (and had been at home), I'd probably be up to at least six.

In the meantime, the Orioles are 3-0, the Rays (who the O's swept) are
0-3, the Red Sox are 0-3. I'm now waiting for the light rail at BWI,
so I'll surely be witnessing the end of this streak against the
Tigers.

The Reds managed to sweep the team that was supposed to surpass them,
even though the Reds started someone with mono in game 3 and trailed
by 3 in the ninth in Game 1.

Chicago was interesting enough, we covered a lot of ground, saw some
friends, and managed to not blow through much money -- which is of
some significance at the moment. I got back this morning and began
this circuitous journey. Since the game is during the day and during
the week in Baltimore, parking would be a nightmare (my standby garage
that's normally $10 is $26, I think?). Plus, I've already had my car
parked at BWI for over 72 hours, so I'm paying for four days anyway.
So I had to take a 4:40 am train to Midway, fly to Baltimore, take the
shuttle bus to the daily parking garage to drop off my luggage, take
the next shuttle bus back to the terminal, then walk the length of the
terminal to the light rail (since I've never taken it before and had
no idea where it was -- and was about take the other regional rail).
After the game ends (at rush hour, conveniently enough), I'll have to
take the train back and then drive to DC.

Let's just say I'm really committed to seeing a game I'm marginally
interested in seeing.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Live from the Friendly Confines...

Wrigley Field is no Fenway Park. It's a wonderful place, mind you, but
it doesn't generate the sheer stadium envy that Fenway did.

Admittedly, the 50-55 degree temperature difference between when I was
at Fenway (last July 3-4, both days checked in north of 90, but were
comfortable at Fenway) may have made part of the difference, but
there's a lot that's lost by having the bleachers separate from the
stadium.

It's somehow even colder than yesterday's foray to Nationals Park and
the rain seems to pose more of a threat to the game (though for a
second day in a row, I'm inadvertently under cover).

We'll see how the game goes. It's about as dull an affair as you can
muster with Dempster going against Kevin Correia. It's the kind of
game that makes you grateful to have the legendary Fausto Carmona on
your club.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Marathon curse

Well, last year, I had several issues --

1) what to eat? (Didn't matter, definitely had digestive issues even
before the race)

2) Which shoes? I went with the older new balances, they were probably
a good choice.

3) Knee brace or not? I'd started having knee pain a week before the
marathon. I used it, it was a good choice, so much so that I was
half-tempted to keep using it even after my knee was fine.

This year, they've added logistical stress (the metro opens an hour
before the race starts -- not nearly enough time to get there and even
think of stretching or using a nasty ass runners' portapotty. And
then...

1) What to wear? It's going to be cold, but every time I decide I'm
going with something, the forecast changes. I was planning on pants
and long sleeves since it was supposed to be 34, wind chill of 29. Now
it's supposed to be 39. Ugh. Shorts, I guess? I've done that before
(at least for a drizzly awful half)

2) Shoes? The stress fracture has me concerned, though even that
doesn't actually give me an answer, since it's split whether it's worn
out shoes that are worse or newer shoes (in this case, shoes that
haven't ever been worn off the treadmill). I'm going newer, there's
some rough terrain on this course.

3) What kind of pace can I handle? This I'll never know. Most
legitimate runners can tell their speed, they know their pace, what it
feels like. I run on treadmills all the time, I have no clue. I don't
know how fast I'm going, I don't know whether that corresponds to how
winded/tired I get (it usually doesn't, unless I'm trying for real
speed -- 5ks under about 19:40, 6 minute miles, etc.)

4) Can I go from crippled to marathon in three months? I damn well
better. Otherwise, tomorrow's going to be a long stroll in Anacostia,
because I know I can go 18 miles.

These things aren't rational, I know that. But it's a rare opportunity
to learn things about yourself. And it's a rare chance to really
prove things to myself. Let's just hope I prove myself right.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Well, let's just say it's not a bestseller.

So I bought The Baseball Project's new album, vol. 2: High and Inside today on amazon mp3. I'd gotten their first album from the Bear Public Library and found it was pretty much ideally suited for me, with a couple songs that were among my favorites because they mixed good melodies with lyrics that were both witty and informed like, for instance, Harvey Haddix, which includes the name of every pitcher who's ever thrown a perfect game and included more than a dose of baseball trivia (like, for instance, mentioning the origins of Yo La Tengo, Denny McLain, and Minnie Minoso in a song.

So it's clearly aimed at me.

Perhaps with more laser-guided precision than I anticipated, though. I bought it on amazon mp3, and amazon was so helpful as to tell me "Customers who bought this music also bought:" and three of the seven things identified were things that I owned. Now, given that Peter Buck is in The Baseball Project, it would only make sense that it'd be R.E.M. albums, etc. Hell, Ben Gibbard and Craig Finn guest on the album, so obviously Death Cab for Cutie and The Hold Steady will be on the short list.

Nope.

1) Old 97's: The Grand Theater, volume 1

Ok -- well, clearly the person who bought both these just bought everything that had a volume number on it. I expect that World Book Encyclopedia, volume "L" will be next.

2) Mumford and Sons - Dharohar Project

Ok, given that Mumford and Sons would be playing in my own personal Abu Ghraib prison, I think this "same word appears in both things" might be the key here. The word project appears in both. Alan Parsons, you're next.

3) The King is Dead - The Decemberists

Well, that is actually the last thing I bought from amazon mp3. Odd. The two will not be appearing on the same pandora radio station ever, but fair enough, they're both hyper-literate dork music.

4) The Old 97's - Mimeograph (EP)

Uh, really? So, of the 7 things listed, I own 3 and bought all of them from amazon mp3, and I doubt that two of them sold more than say, 500 copies.

5) Blessed - Lucinda Williams

Yeah, so in other words, no one has ever bought this before.

6) Going Out in Style - Dropkick Murphys

This one makes a modicum of sense, they're uber-Boston-y, I've read that this album is very Red Sox heavy.

7) Bella - Teddy Thompson

I don't know who this is.

How Terry Cashman didn't appear on this list is beyond me. But I suppose I bought "One Stop Along the Way (the Ballad of Johnny Bench)" from ITunes. So that must be why.

Stamford

Stamford died this morning. I know it's for the best, but I miss my friend, even in his worst state. I just wish I had his ability to take an awful situation and find positives in it. He lived more than 15% of his life shut in our bathroom because he couldn't control his back half and use the litter box, but up until Sunday, if I went in, he would 1) make a spirited effort to escape and then 2) start purring as if there wasn't a happier cat in the world.

There was so much wrong with the whole process. I'm furious with the veterinarian's office, who failed to give us test results last week when they were supposed to, failed to respond to six phone calls and two emails trying to get them this week, and then when I just drove in person to confront them (and took Stamford with, knowing that at this point, it made no difference what the results were), they assured me someone had called Sarah's phone on Tuesday and left a message. That message? That there was a problem with the blood work and they needed to draw blood again. So despite the purpose of this test being to ensure there wasn't a non-FIP cause, something that could be eliminated (if not reversed), they allowed his condition to get exponentially worse so that even if they found he was just absolutely laden with parasites, I'd have had a hard time not going forward.

Not only did they not call with the "we screwed up" news, but then today, they took him away to sedate him and put in the catheter and it took so long that by the time he got back to us, we think he had already died from the sedative alone. We don't know for certain, but either way, it's just frustrating. They sent in a vet tech to tell us he was very riled up and that's why it was taking so long -- but he hasn't been riled up in days -- and if he were, I'm not sure how you'd tell, given that he had no use at all of the back half of his body and wasn't particularly strong with the front end anymore. Each night this week, I felt like there was at least a 50-50 chance he wouldn't live through the night -- and had reached the point that I sincerely hoped he wouldn't, so he could end his suffering without me having to be the one responsible for his death.

The other cats weren't upset with me when I got home -- I expected them to find the return of the empty carrier concerning, but they seemed more concerned for me. Now, I wonder if Stubbs expects to see his brother, as he's spent all day and night in the window looking out, but it may just be that the weather is nice.

I know this is going to be hard for me, I'm not particularly gifted at dealing with anything sad, but I think the saddest thing for me is that I don't know of anything that shows that we had Stamford. Now that I've cleaned the bathroom, it's like he never existed. There's nothing left of Stamford's short life but a Christmas stocking, a white towel that got put in his carrier after one of his vet visits (because he'd peed in the carrier on the way over there), and precious few pictures (the result of me being lazy and never having reason to know it'd be over so quick). I don't know why it matters, I certainly am not going to forget him, but it upsets me.

I now promise to move on to posting vapid shit in the near future to satisfy the whims of all 10 people who ever stumble across this.

It's ending soon.

Stamford is going to die by no later than Friday. Just typing that kills me, but it's true -- my most fervent wish is that he'll die sometime in the next day or two so I won't have to play a part in it, but I know it will come to that. When we got back from New York (by way of Delaware, where we moved the last of my possessions from my apartment of five years into storage), he'd lost all remaining use of his back legs and couldn't even balance to stand up. This morning he was having trouble even propping his front end up.  He's fought for a long time, far longer than anyone thought he could, but it would require a miraculous and lengthy history of wanton malpractice to save him now (meaning that the vet would have to notice that they'd just missed something in test after test after test and he'd been completely curable with a shot or a pill all along).  Having called around to pet cemeteries, it doesn't seem I can bury him for under $3,000. (This only adds to the frustration we've experienced on the house search -- we put an offer in a week ago that was over asking price and didn't even get a call back to tell us it was rejected for another offer.)

So I'm not sure what to do. I don't believe in cremation. I think the idea is absolutely awful and I recoil at the thought, but I also have no place to bury him and even I can't justify spending $3,000 for such a place just because of my irrational fear of cremation (this should be noted by anyone ever making funeral arrangements for me -- although I respect that my first choice -- being placed in a glass tube like Lenin -- is probably out of the question for me, cremation ought not appear in your playbook). Part of me wonders if I could just go deep into Rock Creek Park and find someplace, but I have no doubt I'd manage to compound my current miseries by getting arrested for doing so.  So I'm out of ideas and can barely hold it together to get through the week anyway.

Lists: Sporting Venues

The end of March can't come soon enough. March has been a month of missed opportunities and general frustrations.  Plus, the end of March means baseball, which is a major plus. I have tickets to the Opening Day game in Washington on March 31, then the next morning I'm flying to Chicago to go to Wrigley Field on Opening Day, and then Monday I'm flying back into BWI, which puts me in Baltimore in time for the Orioles' home opener on April 4. So, in all, three games in five days in three cities. Admittedly, I've done this before -- in 2008, I was at the first ever game at Nationals Park, then saw the Nationals playing in Philadelphia the next day and then went to the Orioles' second game the next day, but this crosses another stadium off the list in Wrigley Field.

I don't know whether I'll get to all 30, but it's definitely something I keep in mind when I make travel plans. I'm actually more alarmed at the number of non-MLB venues that I've made it to, considering that my level of interest is so emphatically lower. Hell, I've been to two MLS stadiums.  So here's the list, with the disclaimer that I only count a venue at which I've seen the home team playing a game (for instance, although I've attended concerts and Wizards games at the Verizon Center, I've not seen the Caps, so for NHL purposes, I've never been there). I'm organizing them in order of frequency of attendance.

Thus far:
MLB:
Philadelphia - Citizens Bank Park (more than 40)
Washington - Nationals Ballpark (about 10?)
Cleveland - Progressive Field (5)
Kansas City - Kauffman Stadium (probably about 5)
Boston - Fenway Park (2)
Cincinnati - Great American Ballpark (2)
Colorado - Coors Field (1)*
New York Mets - Citi Field (1)
New York Yankees - Yankee Stadium (new) (1)
Pittsburgh - PNC Park (1)
Detroit - Comerica Park (1) (added 6/30)
Chicago - Wrigley Field (1) (added 4/1)
Toronto - Rogers Centre (1) (added 7/1)

Former MLB:
Cincinnati - Riverfront (12?)
Washington - RFK (1)

MLS:
Philadelphia - PPL Park (2)
New York - Red Bull Stadium (1)
Washington - RFK Stadium (1) (added 6/11)

NBA
Philadelphia - Wells Fargo Center (probably about 10)
Washington - Verizon Center (2)
Denver - Pepsi Center (1)


NFL
Baltimore - M&T Bank Stadium (1)
Cincinnati - Paul Brown Stadium (1)

NHL
Philadelphia - Wells Fargo Center (at least 5, probably more)
Buffalo - HSBC Arena (1)
Colorado - Pepsi Center (1)
Columbus - Nationwide Arena (1)
Los Angeles - Staples Center (1)
Washington - Verizon Center (1) (added in April)

EPL
Chelsea - Stamford Bridge (1)
Fulham - Craven Cottage (1)


Coors Field gets asterisked because it was pouring rain and we only stayed for a couple of innings (the game was ultimately rained out after 6, it ought never have started, if I'm willing to leave a game because of weather, it's safe to say you are not experiencing conditions in which a sporting event should not be played).

Favorite sporting venue (venue itself): Fenway Park. It's the kind of stadium in which baseball should be played. Yes, there are obstructed views left and right, but it's intimate, it's ramshackle, and it's charming. It's the antithesis of Yankee Stadium, which is my least favorite sporting venue (and not by a small margin).
Favorite sporting venue (culinary): Progressive Field wins. The food is actually nothing special, Cleveland doesn't exactly have a local cuisine that begs for a prominent role at the ballpark. But they have two things no ballpark should be without -- brown mustard and quality local beers. And it just happens that Cleveland has Great Lakes Brewing Company beer in the center field batter's eye pavilion, which is my favorite. So long as you're there at midseason, everything is at its best (my experiences with the opening day cooking were underwhelming). (Rogers Centre wins some major points for their BBQ Chicken nachos and Alexander Keith's, though the absence of any other Canadian beers is disappointing).
Favorite sporting venue (gameday experience): I love PPL park. You can tailgate right outside the stadium, the food and the beer selections inside are astonishing, the only bad seats are those that are reserved for the Sons of Ben anyway, so you're safe with anything else.

I'm not sure what my next stop is as far as stadiums that I really want to see. I should make it to Madison Square Garden for a Knicks or Rangers game someday, but after Wrigley, Dodger Stadium is really the only other stadium I think of as a must-see. If I were an NFL fan, obviously Lambeau Field would top the list, but football stadiums lack any sort of significance, they're just functional.

Jimmer Fredette insists he has been suspended from BYU basketball team

PROVO - As reports circulated that Brandon Davies had been suspended from Brigham Young's basketball program for having premarital sex with his girlfriend, NCAA scoring leader and BYU guard Jimmer Fredette insisted that he, too, was facing any number of potential suspensions and would likely be kicked off BYU's team and stricken from its record books.

"I'm not proud of what I've done, but with my brother Brandon suspended for his disregard for the moral code, I would be a hypocrite if I continued to play for BYU," Fredette said, adding "I can't go into detail, but I have indulged in a great many suspendable offenses."

BYU's honor code requires that students must remain "chaste and virtuous."  When pressed for details on how he failed to live up to this honor code, Fredette hesitated.

"Obviously, I'm extremely embarrassed to let my teammates down and we all make mistakes, so I don't know if I should say anything. It was, I mean...they...they were all pretty hot.  You know how, uh, when you grab a woman's breast... it feels like... a bag of sand?" Fredette added.

Fredette was quick to add that he was embarrassed about his numerous offenses, but could hardly be blamed, because he'd fallen under the influence of a hard lifestyle.

"All the women, they were really hot.  But I can barely remember it, because I had drank so much.  I was drinking a case of O'Doul's like every night.  And I was, uh, mixing vodka in with my Caprisun.  Sometimes it's hard though, it's hard to get the straw in the pouch when you're so hammered," Fredette insisted.

Despite Fredette's insistence that he faces myriad disciplinary actions, BYU has not announced any suspensions for Fredette.  Indeed, BYU basketball coach Dave Rose denied that Fredette faced any suspension.

"Everybody who comes to BYU, every student if they're an athlete or not an athlete, they make a commitment when they come.  A lot of people try to judge if this is right or wrong, but it's a commitment they make. It's not about right or wrong. It's about commitment. Jimmer's shown that commitment.  He's a model player and a role model, I haven't even seen him look at a can of Coke in his four years here. And girls? Whee golly. Let's just say it's a good thing he's scoring a lot on the court," Rose said.

Rose expected no disciplinary action would be needed toward Fredette.

"And he calls himself Jimmer. He's got a real name, a name that's at least pubescent, and he calls himself Jimmer. Yeah, I think if the NCAA would allow it, he'd be able to play for BYU for another decade or more," Rose said.

KU forward reinstated after triple murder

In other college basketball news, University of Kansas forward Blake Cole was reinstated to the team after Coach Bill Self concluded that the triple murder to which Cole confessed Thursday did not violate KU's honor code for athletes.

MLB allows Red Sox a 41-man roster

Well, try as I might, I just cannot see how this is an acceptable contract under Major League Baseball league rules. Andrew Miller, the once-promising Tigers prospect who flamed out in Florida, has signed a minor league deal with the Red Sox. He could have gotten major league contracts from the Pirates and Indians of the world, but he's with the Red Sox.

That's something baseball can't fix. People will take less to win, just the same as the Heat loaded up on decent veteran players who decided to take 50% or greater pay cuts to play with Wade/James/Bosh.

Miller's contract, on the other hand, is not the same thing.  But the contract he has with the Red Sox is egregious and unfair to the game.  If the Red Sox put him on the major league roster, he gets $1.3 million.  Fair enough. If he then gets sent to the minors, because he can no longer be optioned, he would have to be designated for assignment and, therefore, made available to all teams.  But in this case, it's different. If he gets DFA'd and someone claims him, he has an option for $3 million that vests for 2012.  In other words, the Red Sox have a ready-made 41-man roster, because they can take him off the 40-man at will, so long as no one feels interested in paying $3 million for a player the Red Sox deemed unworthy of playing in the majors.

That MLB allows this kind of provision defeats the entire purpose of being designated for assignment.  The 40-man roster is supposed to make it so that teams like the Red Sox will occasionally have to lose off 26th men that might prove to be solid roster pieces -- or even starters -- for lesser clubs.  Instead, it will just make the rich richer -- players will sign these poison pill contracts with the teams they don't want to leave -- the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Phillies -- but the Indians? No way.  Bud Selig needs to exercise his authority to act in the best interests of baseball and void the contract.

Life in DC

Today is actually a weird day for me. I'm not used to having spare time, I've had none of it since I moved here, really. I'm in my office for at least 12 hours every day (admittedly, since it has a gym, I'm not always working 12 hours -- or, more typically, I am working 12 hours, but some of those are at home), commuting takes at least another hour, cooking and buying groceries have taken a lot of time. I've had to trek to and from my old apartment with considerable regularity, my first weekend here was spent at the DMV, etc.

But now my wife is gone to Iowa, I don't have much work to do (and am not motivated enough to do it now), and I lack the motivation to hike down to Georgetown to see Cedar Rapids, since 1) it's not worth driving because it's only a mile or so, 2) I don't want to deal with the ludicrous winds by walking, and 3) I just have a hard time going to movies or any non-sporting events that actually have a set time. I have a very DVR attitude toward things, if they can't be done on my schedule, then it's not worth me going, even when my schedule could have accommodated going to the movies at any of the five times it was playing today. I would still have had to make that decision, and I make decisions for a living. I don't do that in my spare time. And, of course, since I now had a weekend to spend at the Verizon Center without feeling guilty at all, it's Disney Princesses on Ice all weekend. Every weekend this month, the Wizards are home. The one weekend I know I can go? Disney Princesses on Ice. Two shows today. Given that my life's goal list starts and ends with "don't appear on a sex offender registry", I figured I'd sit that one out.

Not much new

My wife tried to get Stamford into the Iowa State vet clinic, since she got invited to be a guest lecturer in Iowa and was flying out anyway. He might have been able to go so they could see what they could find out, but his vet's office never called Iowa State. I'm not terribly optimistic there is anything that can be done, but I am frustrated that an entire office of 10+ veterinarians couldn't pick up the phone on an urgent matter that may be life and death.

He's pretty much stopped eating, though, admittedly, it's hard to tell. He was never a big eater and it's hard to track the dining habits of three cats -- the other two were easy to tell, since they are both fat. That makes it easier. But we're now giving him the cat supplemental milk for kittens who were weaned too early. He clearly likes the taste of it, but he still has to be force-fed. It makes me feel bad to have to do it, to impose my will on a creature who's giving up on survival and actually has the mental focus to just not eat, but part of me still has a shred of hope. He's seen so many veterinarians (these aren't as second opinions, I'm not vet shopping, he's just had to go to vets in two locales and to two different 7-day 24-hour veterinary ERs, but once he tested positive for the feline coronavirus, every veterinarian just determines that anything that's wrong with him is FIP. Every symptom in the world except good health is a symptom of FIP, and in fact, good health is a symptom of it too.

This is a hard time.

So Stamford (the kitten with a vast array of health problems) has been defecating and urinating outside his box for a couple of weeks now. His vet just said it was probably a stress reaction to having a new cat in a very confined area (when I moved, I brought my cat to join the two kittens, who'd already had to live with him for considerable periods of time, but with more rooms and opportunities to separate themselves in my apartment). So, after he continued to get worse and worse about it, we got him cat prozac -- which is, apparently, human prozac, but it's mixed to supposedly taste like salmon.

Well, last night, I found out it was likely all in vain. I took him to the ER at an all-night veterinary hospital because he's having issues with his back legs. He doesn't look balanced, he has had increasing difficulty jumping, and the one time I saw him go to the bathroom in the living room (not in his box), he was just walking along, and all of a sudden, it was like his back end just twisted.  I didn't even realize he'd pooped, but my wife could smell it immediately. It was like he didn't even know what he was doing.

The bad news is that it seems that he doesn't. He has no idea.  Given his feline coronavirus and the wildly varying symptoms of FIP, the veterinarian thinks that he's experiencing primary FIP infection and it's causing neurological symptoms, which have explained the progression in his loss of ability to use his back legs.  In short, she thinks he's going to die in the very near future.

I've spent thousands trying to keep him alive.  It has really been more than $2,000 at this point with all the vet bills. Most people would be glad to have it end, no more wiping up urine every time I need to use the bathroom, no more trying to squeeze in trips to the vet in between 14 hour work days. Not me. I just want my friend. And that, apparently, is what I can't have.

50 book challenge

Back when I was on livejournal, in those distant distant past days, my friend Ryan got me intrigued at the so-called 50 book challenge, wherein people read (unsurprisingly) 50 books in the span of a year. At the time, I'm sure I'd read somewhere between one and five books the prior year, since I was prone to just starting tons of books and never finishing any of them. Since it became a quasi-competitive thing, I've had no such problem. This year, even though I no longer regard it as a particular challenge, it's going to be much more of an uphill climb. Moving, starting a new job that involves far more work, certain other complications (the subject of which will be clearly revealed when you see the books I've finished) and the time that it takes just because I actually see my wife have all limited my reading. So I'm at a mere 5 books for the year, though I feel as if I'm simply forgotten something that I read.

January (3)
Black and Blue: How Racism, Drugs and Cancer Almost Destroyed Me by Paul Canoville
Home Buying For Dummies by Eric Tyson and Ray Brown
Tips and Traps When Buying a Home by Robert Irwin

February (3)
Mortgages for Dummies by Eric Tyson and Ray Brown
The Damned United by David Peace
The Quitter by Harvey Pekar

Chief Wahoo's Trail of Tears has updated!

Yes, this was the blog I was actually intent on keeping current, so much so that I sponsored some baseball-reference.com pages. Then I got busy and the Indians did not. Whoops. Anyway, here's the link.

With malice toward []one, with charity for all, ...let us strive on to finish the work we are in, ...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

It's not often that malice toward others will increase someone's esteem in my book. (depending on whom you ask, it might be extremely often, but it's certainly not just often). But in this case, Mark Buehrle's got a hall of fame vote from me.

Accurate Perception Syndrome

So I'm trying to get a psychological disorder that I've discovered (and named after myself, of course) into DSM-V when it comes out. DSM-IV launched Asperger's, autism, and ADHD into the realm of super popular diseases. I think I should do the same for cynicism.

TK's Disease or Accurate Perception Syndrome is a crippling psychological disorder that is associated with a bleak worldview and the belief that whatever foods will help keep you from becoming obese will ultimately give you cancer, and those things that don't give you cancer will give you heart disease or an increased likelihood of being hit by a bus or shot by a tea party activist. It, like life, is invariably fatal.

Bill Belichick Summoned to Roger Goodell's Office to Explain Academy Award Nominations

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has reportedly requested a face-to-face meeting with Bill Belichick after his film NYJ Walkthrough 12/3/10 received 3 nominations for Academy Awards last week.  

NYJ Walkthrough 12/3/10, a 98 minute film of a final walkthrough of a game plan by New York Jets players and staff, which received nominations for Best Picture, Best Cinematography and Best Supporting Actor, has garnered near-universal acclaim in the cinematic community as a visceral portrayal of futility and despair.  The film, which was shot from the stands at the Jets' practice facility, was rumored to be intended for Belichick's personal game preparation, but has instead become a dark horse to triumph in the Best Picture category over films like The Black Swan and The King's Speech.

Belichick has denied comment on the film, stating only "I have not seen the film, i had no role in its making, and I was operating under the belief that the NFL permitted the conduct that the Academy suggest I played some role in. I would decline any Academy Awards that were given to me."

Heralded cinematographer and fellow nominee Roger Deakins (True Grit) rejected Belichick's response as false modesty.

"I've seen few videos that so captured the grace of Right Red 42 and the weaknesses in D'Brickashaw Ferguson's ability to pick up a right end stunt. It was moving. The gravitas of it all was so much that it looked like the Jets could barely even get the ball moving. It was as if Belichick's film just had a paralyzing effect on them, like the Patriots saw everything coming and the Jets saw the futility of the game," Deakins said.

Chicago Sun-Times film critic Richard Roeper was among the critics who lauded Walkthrough's single-hidden-camera framing. 

"The single-camera shot is relentless.  It takes the intensity of Hitchcock's Rope and says 'listen, if you're going to have nothing but 8 minute shots, we're going to have a single shot that bears down on the same spot on the field for 98 minutes.'  And the eerily silent soundtrack really harkens back to Von Stroheim," Roeper said.

LaDainian Tomlinson was alarmed to hear of his nomination as Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of an aging, broken-down running back refusing to concede the inevitable.

"I'd like to thank the Academy, but that's a bunch of shit," Tomlinson said. "I'm as fast as I ever was."

Uncredited executive producer Rex Ryan claimed full credit for releasing the films to theaters in New York and LA against Belichick's wishes.

Ryan said, "I knew this could really appeal to the [expletive deleted] public. I mean, millions of [expletive deleted] people watched the  [expletive deleted] Pro [expletive deleted] Bowl. Football sells."

Former Browns and Jets Coach Eric Mangini agreed that the film was worthy of Roger Goodell's attention, but believed the meeting would do nothing to allay Belichick's cinematic career.

"Of course [Goodell]'s calling Belichick in, he probably wants to congratulate him. I mean, this is Roger Goodell, and it's not like Belichick celebrated a touchdown. He'll be fine," Mangini said.

Fun with homonyms

Listen, the hair is bad. I will grant you that. But this is a mockery. In competition with Michael Vick and Ben Roethlisberger, Tom Brady is named NFL Offensive Player of the Year.  Not even close. He's nowhere near as offensive as they are.

There may be posts in the pipeline, but the move has sapped me of my strength and the solitude that led me to post things in the first place. We'll see. Things that might be discussed: my response to the Academy Award nominations (which I started a week ago), why fantasy sports no longer hold any appeal to me (I certainly haven't grown up), my top Onion Articles, and my top songs and albums for years from 1960-2009 (it takes me a while to catch up, sorry).