1. According to this article, there are 409 players earning a salary of $1M or more. That’s 54.5% of major leaguers. Equally interesting is that the average salary in MLB is $2.87M. Can we just get rid of the players union now? Can we dispense with the charade that this union is protecting the interests of some oppressed underclass? When half of the rank and file members of a union are millionaires, when the average salary of a union constituency is just a shade under $3M, we’ve got to pull the curtain back on this ridiculous notion that management is beating down on labor. Come on, I mean the minimum salary in baseball is $300K. That’s a little less than three times what lawyers and MBA’s make in their first year out of school. Enough is enough. Donald Fehr and Bud Selig have both outlived their usefulness.
2. I’ve been meaning to post about this for some time now. Brett Favre has simply got to go. And by go, I mean trotted out to a quiet field and shot like an injured racehorse. Who is he to say “what are they going to do, cut me?” What sort of arrogant stance is that? The Packers need to know if Brett Favre will be their QB in 2006. It’s a fair question to ask of the fat drunken slob that threw 29 INT’s and had a big hand in the Packers lost season in 2005. My vote is for the Packers to cut him. You can’t hold a team hostage even if you’re a three-time NFL MVP.
3. The Yanks lost a bad game to Oakland last night that has left me wondering if human beings are ever truly capable of learning from mistakes or if the saying “learn from your mistakes” is just a saying that we humans use to rationalize our inability to do so. Case in point, Joe Torre mismanaged his bullpen last night for what seems like the umpteenth time this century. With the score tied at 3 going into the bottom of the ninth inning, Clueless Joe replaced setup man Kyle Farnsworth (0.2 IP, 0 baserunners allowed) in favor of Scott Proctor who, among other things, had just flown to California after spending a few days in a Florida hospital with his infant daughter.
Proctor’s preoccupation with his daughter’s illness wasn’t the problem; the problem is that Proctor is simply not a good pitcher. Why bring him in? He’s 12th on the depth chart and only made the team out of spring training when Carl Pavano went back on the DL with bruised buttocks (not kidding). Joe could’ve chosen Mariano Rivera, Tanyon Sturtze, Ron Villone, or Jaret Wright or he could’ve simply kept Farnsworth in the game to start the inning. Instead he went with his worst pitcher.
When I think back to the 2004 ALCS and the 2005 season (including playoffs), I can count off about 15 games that the Yanks could’ve won had Torre not strategically flubbed the game away. It’s only the second game of the season so I’m not about to get all bent out of shape but it’s worth noting that with four former managers on Torre’s coaching staff (Lee Mazilli, Tony Pena, Joe Kerrigan, Larry Bowa) these types of mistakes shouldn’t happen.
4. A hearty “F-You” to Ken Griffey Jr. for passing Mickey Mantle on the all-time HR list. Mickey cheated on his wife, beat her senseless on numerous occasions, drank his internal organs into oblivion, had only the slimmest of relationships with his four sons, and died young. Despite all that, he’s a better human being and baseball player than the man they call Junior Griffey. Griffey’s a sullen, ungrateful baby. You may have taken Mick’s spot on the homer list but you’ll never be in his league you spoiled piece of crap.
5. It hurts me to see that Doc Gooden will be spending the next year of his life in a Florida state prison for violation of his probation. I have yet to realize why the American justice system views crimes of self-destruction (such as cocaine abuse) as punishable by time spent in the penal system. Do we really think that a year in jail will clean up a hopeless addict? Because there are no drugs in prison, right? Because, theoretically, a year away from his support network of family and friends will make him realize how foolish he’s been? I mean, there’s no chance that the opposite might happen, right? There’s no chance that depriving him of his dignity will send him further into his coke habit? I’m all for state-mandated treatment on the taxpayer’s dime. Hell, Floridians are paying for Gooden’s stay in jail so why not put the money to good use and put him in a rigorous drug treatment facility? What’s locking him up in a cage with violent criminals going to accomplish?
6. Just a quick point about the Duke men's lacrosse sexual assault scandal. Irrespective of whether or not the allegations are real, one thing remains certain – Duke University’s administration clearly doesn’t care as much about its lacrosse team as it does about its basketball team. If this happened to the men’s hoops team, you can be sure that it would’ve been swept under the rug. Coach K would’ve put his rat-like mug on the air, assuring us that he has a zero-tolerance policy on these types of things and that everyone was barking up the wrong tree. ESPN would’ve had a hastily-produced reality series focusing on the type of classy humanitarians that Blue Devils basketball players are and everything would’ve been hunky dory.
Let that be a lesson to all strippers in the Raleigh-Durham area: when choosing parties, the basketball party is a no-go; they’ll never believe you if something like this happens.
2. I’ve been meaning to post about this for some time now. Brett Favre has simply got to go. And by go, I mean trotted out to a quiet field and shot like an injured racehorse. Who is he to say “what are they going to do, cut me?” What sort of arrogant stance is that? The Packers need to know if Brett Favre will be their QB in 2006. It’s a fair question to ask of the fat drunken slob that threw 29 INT’s and had a big hand in the Packers lost season in 2005. My vote is for the Packers to cut him. You can’t hold a team hostage even if you’re a three-time NFL MVP.
3. The Yanks lost a bad game to Oakland last night that has left me wondering if human beings are ever truly capable of learning from mistakes or if the saying “learn from your mistakes” is just a saying that we humans use to rationalize our inability to do so. Case in point, Joe Torre mismanaged his bullpen last night for what seems like the umpteenth time this century. With the score tied at 3 going into the bottom of the ninth inning, Clueless Joe replaced setup man Kyle Farnsworth (0.2 IP, 0 baserunners allowed) in favor of Scott Proctor who, among other things, had just flown to California after spending a few days in a Florida hospital with his infant daughter.
Proctor’s preoccupation with his daughter’s illness wasn’t the problem; the problem is that Proctor is simply not a good pitcher. Why bring him in? He’s 12th on the depth chart and only made the team out of spring training when Carl Pavano went back on the DL with bruised buttocks (not kidding). Joe could’ve chosen Mariano Rivera, Tanyon Sturtze, Ron Villone, or Jaret Wright or he could’ve simply kept Farnsworth in the game to start the inning. Instead he went with his worst pitcher.
When I think back to the 2004 ALCS and the 2005 season (including playoffs), I can count off about 15 games that the Yanks could’ve won had Torre not strategically flubbed the game away. It’s only the second game of the season so I’m not about to get all bent out of shape but it’s worth noting that with four former managers on Torre’s coaching staff (Lee Mazilli, Tony Pena, Joe Kerrigan, Larry Bowa) these types of mistakes shouldn’t happen.
4. A hearty “F-You” to Ken Griffey Jr. for passing Mickey Mantle on the all-time HR list. Mickey cheated on his wife, beat her senseless on numerous occasions, drank his internal organs into oblivion, had only the slimmest of relationships with his four sons, and died young. Despite all that, he’s a better human being and baseball player than the man they call Junior Griffey. Griffey’s a sullen, ungrateful baby. You may have taken Mick’s spot on the homer list but you’ll never be in his league you spoiled piece of crap.
5. It hurts me to see that Doc Gooden will be spending the next year of his life in a Florida state prison for violation of his probation. I have yet to realize why the American justice system views crimes of self-destruction (such as cocaine abuse) as punishable by time spent in the penal system. Do we really think that a year in jail will clean up a hopeless addict? Because there are no drugs in prison, right? Because, theoretically, a year away from his support network of family and friends will make him realize how foolish he’s been? I mean, there’s no chance that the opposite might happen, right? There’s no chance that depriving him of his dignity will send him further into his coke habit? I’m all for state-mandated treatment on the taxpayer’s dime. Hell, Floridians are paying for Gooden’s stay in jail so why not put the money to good use and put him in a rigorous drug treatment facility? What’s locking him up in a cage with violent criminals going to accomplish?
6. Just a quick point about the Duke men's lacrosse sexual assault scandal. Irrespective of whether or not the allegations are real, one thing remains certain – Duke University’s administration clearly doesn’t care as much about its lacrosse team as it does about its basketball team. If this happened to the men’s hoops team, you can be sure that it would’ve been swept under the rug. Coach K would’ve put his rat-like mug on the air, assuring us that he has a zero-tolerance policy on these types of things and that everyone was barking up the wrong tree. ESPN would’ve had a hastily-produced reality series focusing on the type of classy humanitarians that Blue Devils basketball players are and everything would’ve been hunky dory.
Let that be a lesson to all strippers in the Raleigh-Durham area: when choosing parties, the basketball party is a no-go; they’ll never believe you if something like this happens.
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