Caption This

Seriously. Just do it. Because God knows nothing else is being posted.

[via @bubbaprog]

For her birthday, Shlara gave GTB (well, me) a present

If you didn't wish Shlara a happy birthday over the weekend, you are a callous, hateful person. Or something. Anyway, I am 90% recovered from Winter Death Cold '14, and we are severely lacking in content around here, so as we await Day 12 of Gheorghemas, a gift, from the birthday girl herself:

Rex Chapman, Cal Cheaney AND Gheorghe? Blessed.

Yep, seems Shlara was cleaning out her parents place and found some retro Bullets swag, and I am more than giddy to frame these bad boys and place them in basement viewing room of Casa de Teej. Right next to the O.J. rookie cards and Nene/Strasburg bobbleheads.

Curious to hear what sort of stuff folks have displayed in their respective homes along these lines? I'm thinking Marls has a used Mackey Sasser jock on display, and perhaps rob a God Shammgod childrens small jersey on the wall?

WIZARDS WIN!

Ghita excite:

Necessary Les Boulez clip:


2-12 HERE THEY COME, MOFOS!!!!

2012 NBA Draft: The Gheorghe Pick

Last night, the NBA Draft took place. Lots of dudes were chosen. Go read about that stuff elsewhere. I only care about who was taken with the 30th pick for the sake of this post, AKA The Gheorghe Pick. The lucky winner? Just happens to be the guy with the best name in the draft: Festus Ezeli. The seven footer from Vanderbilt went to the Golden State Warriors with the final pick in Round 1.Good luck young man. May the spirit of Gheorghe guide you through the rigors of the NBA season.

Here's a complete rundown on all the ballers, and I use that term loosely, taken at slot No. 30 since 1980:

Why do I feel like we've posted this before? I think it's seeing Lampe's name...we definitely have mocked the Magic Lamp in this space before.

Gheorghe: Selection Sunday Filler

Igor emailed this highlight montage the other day, asking if I have ever seen it. Amazingly, the answer was "No." But I am glad he sent it along, because this is some Gheorghe Ghoodness. Watch it on loop as you prepare for the Selection Committee to stick it to Drexel at 6:00 p.m. ET and leave the Dragons out of the NCAA Tournament in favor of some middling bums from the Big East, Big Ten, or god forbid, the horrid Pac 12.

[H/T to BigPatrys15 for the video]

Gheorghe: The Week Finale

In what will come as precisely no surprise, we've run out of post topics for Gheorghe: The Week. Frankly, the excitement of it all has really taken a toll on our aging mindgrapes. We'll leave you with the best examples of what appears to be a criminally short supply of artwork featuring Gheorghe: The Man, and hope you'll stay tuned for GheorgheFest II: One for the Dumb.

Behind the Music

Gheorghe: The Week continues with a pair of first-person recollections of one of the great conflations of music and sport in recorded history. Back in the early 90s, Igor and I owned an interest in a pair of Washington Bullets season tickets. I can't really remember how we afforded them, but one of the great perks given to season ticket holders was a team video called 'You the Man'. It defies description, frankly, so you'll need to take my word for it (and view one of its two incarnations below). On at least one, and more like a hundred occasions, we'd return home drunk, pop the cassette into the VCR (Google it, Mark) and sing along with our Bullet buddies.

Many years later, in a quirk of acquaintance and coincidence, we realized that two of our favorite female FoG:TBs not only knew the makers of the video (and its sequel), they actually participated in the filming of these epics. Sit back in your easy chair and/or cubicle and let KQ and Shlara tell you a little story.

(Fade out, then slowly fade back in. Soft music plays. KQ enters the frame.)

When you work for a professional sports organization, you occasionally get some pretty cool gigs. Most of the time you get overworked and underpaid, but there are some moments that make it all worth the hell that is late night Capital Centre coupon distributions: "I need more Papa John's coupons at the Eagle entrance NOW!!" Getting to be part of the making of the Bullets "You the Man" video was by far one of the highlights of my short but storied career at Washington Sports and Entertainment. 

The song: I don't remember a lot about this part of the process, except that Dana Mozie and Jesse James did a helluva job with it. They had a little more trouble capturing the essence of the Caps theme song, but still very talented individuals. For a laugh, watch this earlier version of the You The Man video, then watch the Caps video. A slight contrast in enthusiasm?

Since my memory is a bit spotty, what with the weeks of planning, shooting, the 5 am train to NYC to edit the video for 15 hours and the 1 am return train, and the fact it was over 15 year ago, I'll share some of my favorite moments from the video: 

• The Price brothers look completely out of place. White point guards shouldn't dance. (Reminds me of PR guy Jim Delaney's story about getting on a team flight where Legs, Jimmy Mac, and the Price's were sitting in the back. Legs motioned to him, "Hey Jim, come sit back here with us in the suburbs")
• At :24, a really young Nolan Smith. Love him.
• Those scenes in the arena were filmed after (before?) a team practice. The fellas weren't too excited about it (ie completely pissed they had to do it), quite a bit of bitching and moaning if I recall (see Shlara's addendum) but they eventually got into it. Chris and Juwan were great, definitely the leaders, lots of ball busting. I didn't do a lot of player appearances, but anytime I worked with Juwan he was fantastic. Great attitude, great guy. Love his little break dance during the credits. I do seem to recall them all giving us a lot of shit about the song, the video, the script, etc. 
• Big Gheorghe's centerfold moment (1:02)
• A young Tim Legler (:56) before his teeth looked like Chicklets and hair looked like Jimmy Mac's (:59). Oh, and nice fist pump Jimmy.
• Jimmy Mac pulls off the slack jawed yokel look at 1:18.
• John Nash and Coach Lynam. They used to come into the office and sit in the sales pit and shoot the shit with the staff. We'd get the best inside stories, fantastic entertainment. Coach was hysterical. They'd often wander into our marketing office for a chat as well, as did Derek Smith, who would sit and chat for a long time. He was the best. Ever. (You also get a little glimpse here of how efficient we were at the office, when not watching the Caps accounting staff walk to the snack closet every 20 minutes.)
• Radio DJ's are dorks, especially when they feel the need to add an exclamation point to the end of their name. And wear mom jeans.
• 1:57. Can't remember why we were filming Big Gheorghe and Ahmad Rashad in what appears to be somebody's basement?  The Gheorghe/Ahmad—that’s footage from when NBA Inside Stuff (required Saturday morning viewing in the 90s) did a feature on Big Gheorghe. We think this was the same time as when were filming a commercial with Big Gheorghe. I don't even remember the original concept of the commercial, but Gheorghe struggled a bit with some of the lines, and we ended up just cutting a blooper reel of him trying to say "Call 301-NBA-DUNK."  Hanging with Gheorghe that morning was awesome - he was funny, chatty, engaging, had just gotten a new dog (Great Dane, natch), even let me try on his leather jacket. On me: the jacket brushed the floor, and the sleeves went past my knees and it weighed more than Rob.
• 2:02. The Caps. Possibly the highlight of the filming for me (outside of all the time spent with Tim Legler). Great guys: Brendan Witt (who was what, 18 at the time?), Olie the Goalie, and Ken Klee (my birthday buddy). Peter Winik was our awesome camera guy from NBA productions and was a huge hockey fan. (Oh the irony). So he was all giddy, we filmed the whole thing on the ice and the players let us play with their sticks (not nearly as dirty as it sounds) and taught us how to shoot the puck. They were laid back, down to earth guys and a lot of fun to hang around. I gained a lot of respect for hockey players that day.
• The other celebs in the video we were just lucky to catch at a game, and were all great sports about being involved. Sorry, can't remember any stories about that.

What you don't see on the YouTube version is the intro we added for season ticket holders, who all received a copy of the video as a gift. Yes, it was still VHS. That was a fun mailer to assemble. The premise of the intro was Legs and KQ/Shlara fave Calbert Cheaney walking out of the locker room after a game. They sit in the front row and say "what a great game" "yeah the crowd was really great tonight" "wow! these are great seats!" "yeah, and the fans that sit in them are the best blah blah" "yeah they are." (Tim turns to the camera) "from all of us at the Washington Bullets, thank you for your support!" Clearly, I did not write the script.

(Fade back in, with Shlara in frame. The final notes from the song quietly echo.)

We filmed the '94-'95 version - the first one - out in front of the Lincoln Memorial one day after practice, shortly after the big Chris Webber trade and Juwan Howard signing day that turned the franchise into a contender overnight. (It also sent my buddy Googs out to the west coast…sad day for Shlara.) Here’s what I remember—ALL of them complaining about getting on the fancy motor coach to go downtown, hating the sandwiches we got for them, grumbling about being asked to wear their Bullets gear and whining about the whole thing in general. The saltiest one was Scott Skiles—he thought the Bullets were a Mickey Mouse organization and didn’t seem to like anything we did, ever. But once we arrived downtown, and the music started playing and the crowd started gathering, they stopped yelling at me and lip-synched and danced and acted goofy, resulting in the best team music video of all time.

We had to re-cut the video in KQ’s first year due to trades. Since the song and video were such a big hit in Year I, we decided to go all out for an extended version and upgraded production values in year two.

And so you see it above, ladies and "gentlemen".....yooouuuuur Washington Bullets!

We'll be happy to open up the mic for questions.

(Fade to black to the sounds of "Muresan...You the Man, You the Man!")

GheorgheFest: A Story in Pictures

Gheorghe Muresan is 7'7" and 340 pounds. It's hard to imagine what that means until you actually see the man in person. And thanks to the Washington Wizards' dismal season and a well-placed FoG:TB, we got to do just that this weekend.

Worlds collided in a most improbably excellent way, as the far-flung G:TB community came together in the presence of Gheorghe: The Man for an evening of hilarity and unabashed fanboy glee. The sad sack Wizards recently offered deep discounts on luxury suites, kicking in a hefty food and beverage credit, free hats, and a visit from team ambassador Gheorghe Muresan. Our Doofus Overlord's pending nuptials gave us ample excuse for a gathering, and our friend and contributor Shlara reached out to her connections with the Wizards' management to nail the final details.

I confess to a degree of nervousness about the whole affair. I wasn't worried about anything we would do - despite our frequent bluster, we're a generally harmless bunch (the bouncer at Iron Horse may dispute this in the case of Marls). More to the point, though, I didn't want to ruin the image of Gheorghe I'd built up in my head over the years. The entire point of this blog has been to celebrate the joy and silliness in sports and life, based on our perception of a guy we'd seen on television. Shlara's known the big man for a long time, and I trusted her when she told us that he's a prince, but what if we got him on an off night? What if he disappointed us? What if Gheorghe was a standoffish dick? I really didn't want to rename this space Bryce: The Blog, or come up with a new slogan.

In the end, though, those worries were more than unfounded; they were absurd. From the moment Gheorghe entered our suite (and Oh. My. God. He is a mountainous human, broad in addition to tall, as the pictures in this post attest.) he was gracious, funny, kind, and generous. He patiently answered our questions about things serious and goofy, he cracked wise about his skill and grace, he talked about the game, his children, and all manner of other things. He seemed genuinely amused by our fondness for him (and took pictures of both the "GheorgheFest" banner Shlara made for the occasion and the cupcakes emblazoned with '77' that Teejay's fiance baked for us). He's a massive, enormous, prince of a guy.

As a result of combination of our age and the volumes of alcohol we consumed over an evening that didn't end for some of us until 3:30 in the morning, there are a few parts of the evening that we won't likely remember all that well. The 30 some-odd minutes we spent with Gheorghe are something we won't likely ever forget.

"No, Dave, you can't try to post me up."

Stairsteps

Yes, that shirt does read "now back to your regularly scheduled dipshittery"

 

Shlara and Ghita

Can't wait for GheorgheFest II.

Special Bonus Dipshittery:

Gheorghe wasn't the only celebrity we hung out with last night. To wit:

Words of Wisdom

A great man once said, "'tis better to keep one's mouth shut, and be thought a fool, then open it, and erase all doubt". And in the spirit of Honest Abe's humble admonition, we come today to rebut the youthful dipshittery of one Pat, known on Twitter as @suburbPAT.

Pat offered the world this nugget last night: #WorstBasketballPlayersEver Gheorghe Muresan

Rather than insulting the clearly misguided lad, we offer him some knowledge.

Fact #1: Gheorghe Dumitru Muresan played parts of 6 seasons in the NBA, starting 207 of the 307 games in which he participated. Anyone who starts more than 200 NBA games can clearly not be labeled the Worst Basketball Player Ever.

Fact #2: Gheorghe averaged 9.8 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks per game in his career. Not All-Star caliber numbers, to be sure, but certainly above league average in toto. Again, Pat (if that is your name), not the stuff of a WBPE.

Fact #3: In 1995-96, on his way to being named the NBA Most Improved Player, Ghita averaged 14.5 points, 9.6 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks per game. He led the league in field goal percentage at .584 (and did the same thing the following year, improving to .604), and finished in the top 10 in offensive and defensive rebound percentage. One could convincingly argue that he was one of the league's top 5 centers that season. You feeling me now, Pat?

If I didn't know better, I'd think that our friend Pat thinks that beauty is skin deep, that because Gheorghe looks a little different he must be some kind of incapable freak. We all know differently, don't we? We're all freaks in our own way, for sure, but our Gheorghe was a very capable freak on the hardwoods.

And now you know, Pat. Tell your friends.

Gheorghe is quite photogenic this week

Just days after we saw our namesake catching big ass fish comes this photo of Gheorghe in a spin class (that is what this type of aerobic exercise is called, right?)...

With Ray Lewis.

Where will our fearless hero be photographed next?

[h/t @PaytonWales]

G:TB Technology Hour

Let it never be said that our man Ghitza isn't cutting the edge. Here, in a candid moment captured by one of our numerous field agents, he's shown making a phone call on an iPad - even though such thing is said to be impossible. His hands are huuuge.

The Greatest Thing in the History of Ever

In our 4+ years here at G:TB, we've carved out a nice, if obscure, little niche celebrating the silly, sublime, and sub-popular. We've entertained dozens, though we've mostly entertained ourselves. Nothing in our thoroughly enjoyable blogging experience, though, prepared us for what we learned this morning.

A co-worker of mine is the daughter of Romanian immigrants (and a stunning Eurobabe, apropos of nothing). She knows of my love for all things Gheorghe, so in her. considerable kindness and wisdom (have I mentioned the fact that she's ridiculously hot?) she sent me a story today from the Gazeta de Cluj. A careful reading of the following agate type knocked us flat on our collective backsides, spasms of unexpected joy taking us on an extraordinary rendition to the innocence of youth. To wit:

Format NBA superstar Gheorghe Muresan tren cu local club parte U Mobiltelco înăuntru a prepara pentru un attempted întoarcere la American professional league. Muresan joc lui ultimul NBA joc pentru art.hot. Nou Jersey Nets înăuntru 2000 şi art.hot. league's Most Improved Joc înăuntru 1995-96. Denver Nuggets oficial Mark Warkentian, "El a trage cu cu mare touch. O mulţime de parte a putut află cameră înăuntru lor rotation pentru Muresan."

Courtesy of InterTran, that translates (hilariously, and frankly, stupendously) to:

Shaped NBA superstar Gheorghe Muresan has been training with local club side U Mobiltelco in prepared for an attempted return at American professional cradle. Muresan game him last NBA game for the networks of New Jersey in 2000 and was the league's Sample Improved Game in 1995-96. Denver Nuggets official Mark Warkentian said, "It always had glorious contact. Of series of commands could use a guy as it in their rotation."

It always had glorious contact, indeed. Boys and girls, listen very carefully: Gheorghe. Is. Coming. Back. And we're bursting with completely undeserved glee.

He just turned 37, but he's at least 10 years younger than Dikembe Mutombo. He was never in great condition, but he had a pretty complex experimental foot surgery a few years ago to alleviate the discomfort that caused him to retire in the first place, and if he's pain-free, he could give a team 15 minutes a night of competent offense, decent rebounding, and stationary defense. Dude led the league in field goal percentage twice, and averaged 10 points and 6 boards a game for his career. Keith Van Horn just got handed $4.5 million to sit on the bench and stare at the teased hairdos in the stands in Jersey. Why not Gheorghe?

This is, indeed, the greatest thing in the history of ever, and number two (a tie between cheese and the sound of sneakers on a basketball court) is well back in the distance. It's safe to say that we'll be tracking this development with some interest.

Holy Crap. You think we can get an interview out of this?

I applaud the effort Greg, but you're no Gheorghe

Looks like a new ESPN the Magazine spot is featuring Greg Oden at his uncharismatic best. What is up with that vacant stoner look in every faux ad?

Young man, this is how a big man makes an ad:

500 is a pretty big number...but then again I'm easily impressed

I guess it might not be too hard to imagine, given the amount of YouTube clips and random, short Drudge-stolen posts we've (OK, mainly me) done in the past, but you are actually reading Gheorghe: The Blog's 500th post right now. And really, what better way to say "We've given you 500 quality posts" than compiling the best of GTB, pasted below in no particular order. My raging hangover is actually making this much harder than you would think:

I would be remiss if I didn't begin at the beginning, as some donkey once said. And that means our mission statement. God bless Rob for starting this, and then letting me take the reins. It makes days like this a whole lot better.

I have actually "met" Gheorghe, and boy, was it awkward (reading that post, you would think I never took an English class in my life).

GTB is indeed a clearinghouse of nonsense, and these two recaps of my fantastic trips to the MCI (née Verizon) Center certainly fit in that category. Gheorghe writes the songs the whole world sings.

Sometimes Whit or Rob pop in, when not working at Misery Loves Company, and actually give you the loyal reader (Hi Mark!) quality content.

As the Madness approaches, it's always appropriate to have an intelligent Billy Packer debate, GTB-style of course.

YouTube is the greatest thing to hit the interweb since some funny dude known only as the Boston Sports Guy was discovered.

Jerry and Geoff (the Wheelhouse fellas) have gotten very frustrated with me in the past. But "news" articles like this need to be mentioned... it's my civic duty.

A lot has happened over the last 4 years for the men of Gheorghe... our boy Dennis just had a baby boy on Sunday, I got married not too long ago, Whitney has transitioned from the easiest job known to man to a nightmare gig (all at the same place) and Rob has somehow gotten shorter.

I have a well-documented (and unhealthy) obsession with super murderer O.J. Simspon.

The Washington Nationals came to town, and it has been a welcome reprieve to visit RFK instead of trekking to the STD capital of the world, Baltimore.

Hell, the Wizards have even gotten good since GTB began.

Rob got the sports moment of his life in 2004, at the expense of my beloved Yankees. Tough tough times.

We first learned of the joy that is Deadspin sometime in 2005, and eventually Will was even kind enough to link to us. We created a mini-controversey with this Sloth/Chris Shelton post, which apparently was a physical comparison many on the eBays were making.

Recently, the Washington Post made the excellent move to bump Mr. Tony in favor of the DC Sports Bog, which is required morning reading for sure, and father-to-be Dan over there has treated the boys of GTB kindly as we crusade for VCU in this year's march to the madness.

I have been hungover countless times trying to post things, and I think this pic perfectly sums up how I feel on those days (and today for that matter). And yes, that big goofy guy is indeed me.

GTB's buddies on the right-hand side of this page have grown over time, but Drunk and Stupid and the Wheelhouse and MLC have been here since the beginning. As has Michael Jack's utterly useless Hot Action.

Jim Rome, 1st Team Anti-Gheorghe.

All right, time to do 10 minutes or so of real work. Perhaps Rob and Whit will tack a few more favorites onto this list before the day is done. Frankly, I'm shocked we didn't make this list (I am 100% joking by the way...the guys on this list are fantastic).