Gheorghe: The Blog is Exhibit A for how sports addicts like ourselves have embraced the computer age, but you can still find each of us with our faces buried in the local paper's sports section on any given morning. Or afternoon, or evening. There's still an aesthetic to reading the print editions of newspapers, and I'll often do so even after I know most of the previous night's results.The jonesingest among us sports geeks derive especially great pleasure from the Scoreboard page, a section nearly void of prose and composed exclusively of statistics, standings and tables of simple fact reporting. There is beauty in every subsection, but a glance at Transactions is usually a quick confirmation of some moves we know, some eyebrow-raising ones we didn't, and some information too trivial even for us. Good stuff. And on some days, there is fodder for terrible, horrible rim-shot inducing one-liners quietly kept to ourselves.
Usually kept to ourselves. Today's Transactions consist of three entries. Here we go.
TRANSACTIONSSpeaking of one-liners, does every small-to-mid-sized newspaper's sports section have the weekly or semi-weekly column by the veteran sportswriter where he issues a smorgasbord of snippets followed by his own snidely sarcastic follow-ups? My paper's guy is particularly horrible, and I want to ask: if I dedicate some blogspace into ripping him apart in gory detail -- and providing better jokes for each of his -- is that pathetic or justified? He's really been getting to me lately, and today's tripe is pushing me over the top.
Baseball
Major League Baseball
MLB-- Suspended OF Juan Valdes (Cleveland) for 50 games for violating the Minor League Drug Prevention and Treatment Program. (Who knew caffeine had been added to MLB's list?? Ba-dum-pum.)
American League
DETROIT TIGERS-- Activated LHP Andrew Miller from the 15-day DL. Optioned RHP Zach Miner to Toledo (IL). (Where he really belongs, don't you think? Ba-dum-pum.)
KANSAS CITY ROYALS-- Placed OF Mark Teahen on the 15-day DL. Purchased the contract of RHP Billy Buckner from Omaha (PCL). (Too . . . many . . . jokes . . .)
Posts
12 comments:
you're talking about molinaro, right? if so, it's not only justified, it's damn near constitutionally required. how that no-talent hack gets paid real american dollars for the punchbowl turds he sends reader-ward each week is one of the great mysteries of our time.
Yep, you got it. I had a couple of martinis with a couple of Pilot writers one night (wishing they'd get me a job) and they didn't quite defend him, but they didn't quite agree with my assault on "Moli" (or "Mollie" or "Molly," not sure how the abbreviation is spelled). I see a new recurring feature on one of our blogs -- Flogging Moli.
excellent - another good idea for a recurring segment that we can fail to follow through upon. i'm all for it. sadly, the washington post is an actual quality newspaper, so i don't have a similar source of material.
I've been a Mark Teabag fan for ever...
Can I just mention how fucking atrocious Philly sports talk radio is? Driving home from the Burr nuptials yesterday, I was subjected to the most ridiculous bunch of mouth-breathers to ever call an AM station...and just so you know, if Milton Bradley does indeed end of dead in the near future, have the police immediately contact Sal from Darby.
Hold the phone...the Reds are only 6.5 back in the NL Central race?
i'm in philly at least once a month, and i long ago quit listening to that dreck. the lowest human life form is philly sports talk caller, which is only slightly lower than philly sports talk host.
We can't pretend that every Joe First-Time Caller Long-Time Listener from places like Staten Island to Southie to Albuquerque (Isotopes, baby!) exudes little morsels of genius with every semi-solicited, two-bit opinion . . . but yeah, Philly's got the worst.
did anyone notice this little alarm bell in the comments from mlc a few days ago?
"MVu said...
Hello,
We would like to invite you to our new social network for sports fans,
FantasySportsMatrix.com (FSM). We are launching in a few weeks and would be delighted if you took part in our private beta testing program.
If you're interested, please visit our site and submit your email address.
Cheers,
Michael Vu
CTO/Founder
www.fantasysportsmatrix.com
...a social network for sports fans."
I'm gonna go ahead and vote against the "Flogging Molly" recurring bit for G:TB.
Kind of figured you would. You tend to find his type of stuff funny. Not that there's anything wrong with it.
And for the unenlightened, here's a recent sampling:
"So long, SoCal: Talk about your Sports Illustrated cover jinx. Sophomore Emmanuel Moody was 1 of 3 Southern Cal tailbacks featured on the front of S.I.’s regional edition of the college football preview. A week later, Moody announced he’s transferring to another school. What’s his problem? Was he hoping for the cover of Newsweek?
More laundry: This year, NFL teams will be penalized 5 yards every time a player spikes the ball after a play that doesn’t result in a score. I was wondering how the league would manage to make games last even longer; it didn’t disappoint. [Ed. Note: This from a guy who has bemoaned the selfish celebrating for a decade.]
Timetable: Looking for a local angle in the Michael Vick case? How’s this: Old Dominion will be playing football – kickoff scheduled for ’09 – before Vick returns to the NFL. [Ed. Note: You mean, a local angle beyond Michael Vick being from Hampton Roads?]
Major downgrade: What do you think new Falcons coach Bobby Petrino is thinking while he keeps his fingers crossed that Joey Harrington can run Atlanta’s attack. Petrino took the job expecting to drive an ’08 Lexus, and here he is sitting behind the wheel of a ’71 Pinto. [Ed. Note: the print edition had "behind the wheel"-- and then you change pages. I wagered $5 aloud that it'd be a Yugo or a Pinto. I won $5 off myself. Not that it was a tired joke or anything.]
Beijing surprise: According to Time magazine, the Chinese will sterilize panda dung to remove the odor before turning it into Olympic souvenirs. And this is the country we trust to make our children’s toys. [Ed. Note: here's the right punch-line, dummy -- 'Oddly, this will be the only Chinese export safe for children to put in their mouths.' Or something, anything like that.]
Group think: It may have come to your attention that the people in charge of producing college football rankings operate with a herd mentality. That was proven again when the first Associated Press poll featured the same teams – all 25 – as the USA Today coaches rankings, albeit in slightly different order. But, then, the first rule of ranking teams has always been 'follow the script.' [I don't even have a snide comment here, just a frustrated groan. Ugh.]"
And it goes on... week after week, year after year (since I was in high school) without improvement.
Dear Lord, make it stop. Or make me stop reading it. But it's like a train wreck.
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