The Red Sox Offseason according to Me.

Well hello there MLB offseason.  I didn’t see you after the World Series where the Giants won.  Mainly because I was too focused on other things like Lebron’s explosiveness in Miami where they still can’t sell out an arena.  Or maybe the great shows like the League, Always Sunny, The Walking Dead, etc. were just too much to pass up.  To be honest, I was just too damn busy with work and stuff earning money for the holiday season.

So as of right now, I am a little concerned for the Red Sox.  Mainly because of the things that have occurred in the last 60 days or so regarding the team ownership.

1. Re-Signing Big Papi – I liked Big Papi when he was hitting home runs in the playoffs but there is no way that he is still doing it now.  We have to remember that there was a steroid era and that Ortiz might have been juicing and might’ve had a little extra kick.  I’m not so sure that there could be a rekindling of such a main aspect of the championship teams.  Ortiz just isn’t as good as a player as others out there.  I’m sick of hearing about how he is thought of as the best player in the clubhouse and is loved so much by pink hats and yada yada yada.  I don’t think spending the $12.5 Million on him was a good idea.  He plays a position that is meant for lazy people. 

2. Not Re-Signing Victor Martinez – Letting one of the only good hitting catchers go to a team that is in the Central is awful.  Did we just put our destiny in the hands of a guy who has a history of getting hurt, hiding those injuries, and then hitting only .248 after never playing a full season?  This being Jarrod Saltalamacchia.  And we didn’t want to pay an extra year and $12 M for a stud catcher WHO CAN CATCH A KNUCKLEBALL AND HIT FOR POWER?!?!?!?!  This might be the downfall for the catcher position on the Red Sox.  Oh, breaking news, we might be interested in Rod Barajas.  Jesus H. Christ.  I think I might throw up if I see him in a Red Sox uniform. 

3. Not knowing the Opening Day lineup like I used to – We paid for Bill Hall.  We paid for Mike Cameron to pass kidney stones.  We paid for players who I didn’t know existed.  If you asked me who was playing catcher after V-Mart and Tek, you would not get an answer.  We had 4 hurt catchers last year.  Our entire team was just an hospital ward last year.  Then we go out and say we want Rod Barajas.  I suspect we just like getting players from Texas.  Think about it.  Barajas, Salty, Max Ramirez, the list goes on.  Any more of this junk shipping over from Texas would lead to be an absolute garbage heap. 

4. Buying Liverpool FC and not buying Mark Teixeira – If money were an issue, which it isn’t, I could understand.  But this is why I don’t like the John Henry group right now.  It’s like they love to acquire things that will make them money, but they don’t want to buy players that will win championships.  The first thing wrong with their strategy is that John Henry has to approve everything before Theo makes a move.  Sickening.  It’s like there is nothing stopping them from becoming this group of buyers that are going to spread out their portfolio and then make money off of it.  I am not a baseball fan that was meant to be treated like a bottom-line.  Remember the days when you would go to any event near Boston and people would start a “Yankees Suck!” chant?  Do you think John Henry and Co. want us to start singing Liverpool’s fight/drinking song?  I don’t think so. 

Here is what we should do to throw off the Yankee’s entire season.

1. Offer Derek Jeter a Contract that the Yankees Won’t – I’ve been hearing this from Clark Booth and Shaughnessy, that they should just take a chance and offer Jeter the money that the Yankees won’t.  The Red Sox should make an offer for 3 years, $60 Million and then maybe toss in a player option for like $17 Million or something.  Throw incentives at him.  Give him the keys to the Jet/Helicopter/Speedboat/Whatever John Henry owns and bring him to a town that will love him because let’s be honest, every Red Sox player is just secretly jealous of Jeter because Nomar didn’t pan out like we all thought he would.  Also, there is no reason the Yankees shouldn’t be offering him bigger money since they just gave A-Rod a 10 year deal worth $275 million after he admitted to cheating with steroids.  The Steinbrenners will be the laughingstock of baseball if they let this happen.  I’m rooting for it.  To me, I think the Steinbrenners are Sonny and Fredo Corleone without Michael Corleone and Cashman can play Tom, the little errand boy who really has no control over anything.  This has to happen just to bring back all the fans that NESN and the Red Sox lost in the past season.  Screw Beltre, sign Jeter and move him to 3rd.  We could have the best middle infield in the history of the sport!  Just imagine it and pray to God that Theo and John let make it happen.

Things I should have blogged about in the last couple weeks that I haven’t….

Okay, so I haven’t been blogging as mush as I should have lately.  But here are some things that I need to get off my chest.

1. Kevin Love’s 30 points and 30 rebounds game – I was completely surprised when this happened.  I know not many people I know give a shit about Kevin Love, but after this, he is going to be a recognized power house.  He certainly doesn’t seem like a guy that will own the boards, but he is certainly going to do that.  I don’t see many people pulling down boards, but I didn’t realize that the last person to do this was Moses Malone, a Hall of Famer who was certainly no slouch or anything near it.  If Love continues to do work like this, I don’t see how he ends up getting a huge contract some time after the Lockout. 

2. The New Orleans Hornets are undefeated – I don’t know what is going on in the NBA right now, but here’s what I’m seeing: The Heat are as bad as I thought they were, the Hornets are the best team in the league, The Thunder aren’t as good as I thought they would be, and the Chicago Bulls are surprisingly good this year.  The Hornets being undefeated through 8 games is a bit weird.  I don’t know what’s different about them this year other than it seems like CP3 is playing for a contract.  A big one at that.  I didn’t see this coming at all and I don’t know how Chris Paul is going to do this all on his own.  Unreal.  The Celtics look great, but they are going to be hurting later on in the season because we have old people all over the place.  Hopefully Perkins comes back to full health and dominate the center position.  I just hope that when he does come back, we don’t end up with the guy that complains about every foul called on him.  Grow up Perk.

3. The Giants won the World Series and I don’t know any of the MVP’s or Award Winners – I don’t know about you, but I heard the Giants won the World Series and then I didn’t know who won the other awards in the MLB.  I have no clue who won the Cy Youngs, MVP’s, Rookie of the Years, or Golden Gloves, so I will go see who won what and then talk about them. 

(researching)

Ok, so I blogged about this at just the right time.  They haven’t announced them yet and over the next couple of days they will announce them.  I don’t have any particular favorites in this, but I would like to see who wins the ROY.  I know Jason Heyward is in the running for the National League, and there aren’t many people I can think of for the American League.  I don’t know anything that says that Pujols will win the MVP, but I wouldn’t mind seeing Joey Votto or Carlos Gonzalez win this year.  Votto was ridiculous this year. 

Ok, so I haven't blogged in a while and Halladay won the NL Cy Young Award.  I'm going to try and post this ASAP. 

I haven't seen a movie in a while, but I was able to watch some more of Ken Burns Civil War.  I haven't learned more things other than what I learned about in Ms. Whalen's class in 8th grade. 

On a lighter note, Dan Uggla was signed to Braves.  That team is going to be awesome.  Between the sluggers they already have, adding Uggla to the middle of the lineup is going to be great for home runs.

In Football news, The Patriots look to be the favorite in the running for the Super Bowl, but there is nothing that says they could win.  They still have a bit a way to go and there are plenty of things to work on. 

Donovan McNabb signed a contract that could pretty much screw him out of a job.  The worst thing that the Redskins did after signing Albert Haynesworth for $100 Million dollars, was deciding to go after coach Mike Shanahan.  Your team is pretty much in the toilet after going thru a terrible season.  You tryout 3 awesome running backs and decide on keeping Clinton Portis who then pretty much shits the bed and you have Ryan Torain who is okay, but not a 1000 yard running back that you had every year in Denver. 

That's it for now, I'm going to catch up on Hulu shows before I go nuts and forget to watch any of them.  In case you didn't know I love TV.  See you next time.

Heat can’t shoot or play D, but they can sure get RONDO’D!

Danny Ainge, Thank you so much for recognizing unbelievable talent when it was there staring you in the face.  4 More Years!  4 More Years!  4 More Years! 

Part 2 of Sports Financial Crisis: NFL

Here is part 2 of the sports financial crisis summary that I started.  The NFL, currently known as the National Football League, or as it has become recently, the No Fun League.  This league is run by Roger Goodell, who started out as an Intern in the NFL, only started running the league in 2006, taking over for Paul Tagliabue. 

Since the NFL was taken over by Goodell a few things have happened to the game that is creepily catching up on Baseball for America’s most beloved sport.  Although there have been more headlines made with the NFL in the Finance section of the newspaper now than before.  Obviously something is amiss when you make headlines that aren’t sports related but business related.  There also has to be a problem when you’ve started to cater to the pink hat crowd.  Not always a great thing to do when the majority of the your fans are overweight, beer drinking, barbequing men who love to drive trucks, tailgate and consume more chicken wings than normally allowed. 

As did last time, we will start off with a list of things that I see going wrong, or already had gone wrong with the NFL:

The 18 Game Season – There are these recurring ideas circulating the media about how the NFL wants to change their sport.  Change their sport so more people will watch and the NFL can attract more commercial coverage and more revenue.  Let’s talk about the idea of the expanded season to 18 games.  18 games, with 2 less preseason games.  As soon as that news came across the airwaves in the first few weeks of the season, NFL players were getting season ending injuries each day.  Sidelined and not getting any money, unlike the MLB where all the money is guaranteed.  There were some good arguments about this idea.  But there wasn’t any other details that came along with this idea.  Just an 18 game season.  No other news about more players on a roster, no details of another bye week.  It was almost laughable about how players were dropping like flies when Goodell brought this idea to the table.  As soon as the season started and player’s seasons were over, there was no mention of it.  It probably went away but there is no development on this 18 game season.

Blackout Rules – I don’t think many people know the NFL’s Blackout Policy.  If a team doesn’t sell out their stadium during a given week, the game is blacked out.  Economically, this doesn’t make sense.  The average cost for a football game to the fan is upwards of $420 according to the FCI (Fan Cost Index).  That’s not logical.  Considering what it costs to buy an HDTV, the Network Cable, and the homemade food without having to sit in traffic.  So let’s say I live in one of the cities where this happens (San Diego, Oakland, Jacksonville, etc.)  If I wanted to watch a Chargers game, and I even bought the Season Ticket Pass to watch any game on, I still would not be able to watch the game unless the stadium had sold out.  Meaning, that buying the HDTV, Cable package, and other crap that is advertised by the NFL so often doesn’t become worth it unless the stadium is sold out.  Now, usually this is a problem for fan bases that are not that strong for the teams.  Or it becomes a problem for fan bases that CANNOT AFFORD these kinds of ticket prices.  A friend of mine once asked my friend’s and I a question of whether I would be a fan of baseball if we couldn’t see the games but were able to see the score in the newspaper the next day.  I argued whether we would be able to see the box score or just the score.  He said just the score, and I said no I would not be a fan anymore because when you take away the action of the game, the timeline, the actual ‘what’ of the hobby or event and just post a result, it becomes the Lottery.  Think about that.  Lottery players, all they do is look for numbers in the paper.  There’s no listing of whether the 16-ball rolled over the 12-ball in the last drawing of numbers.  We only have numbers.  This is the danger that the NFL is playing with.  If fan bases are being subject to disenfranchising and are being pushed to liking the teams that only get shown on TV, then there eventually be a shrinking of the league, team-wise and fan-wise.  This past economic crisis only illustrates this point more.  How many Jaguars fans have had to watch their rivals play instead of their own team?  How many Raiders fans, who are undoubtedly the most committed group of individuals to ever attend a football game, have had to settle for watching San Francisco games because the Raiders game is blacked out?  The term Luxury starts to become more and more relevant when economic crisis hits the U.S.  What becomes luxury when it was considered a necessity before?  These are questions that Goodell needs to ask himself when making these policy decisions.  If the shit hits the fan (the fan that fills the seats) how will we be able to keep our product attendance at a continuously high level?  Not many Commissioners ask themselves that because there is usually no one to suggest this to them, but that’s why certain people have to do something. 

The New Hitting Rules – Since about when ever everyone started putting emphasis on the concussion, Goodell has made it a point to fine anyone that makes a destructive hit.  Now I have two theories on this and why it is in place.  The first time this happened was with 3 defensive players who were all pretty much doing well.  They just happen to make great hits (with the exception of Brandon Meriwether) and players who got those hits just happened to be on the ground for a bit longer than expected.  Think about how this commissioner has acted differently in the weeks prior to the season starting and week 6.  Complete turnaround.  I don’t get it.  I’ve never seen that happen in anyone.  Ever.  But one of my reasons for the new rules on hits to the helmet and the legs and hitting to hard is so that people have to WATCH MORE FOOTBALL to actually pick out which hits seem more destructive than others.  Before we were only watching the hits in slow-motion and now we are dissecting each hit like we’re all scientists and NFL coverage is the Zapruder film.  So not only are people watching more Football, but we have to rewatch more and more of NFL games. 

Now the fines that are given out to players could be more of a reason for the NFL to gain more of a monetary advantage in the upcoming CBA.  Obviously people are talking about a lockout and I figure Goodell is trying to rack up as much dough for the league in the short time he has until there is a stand still.  A couple thousand here from this guy and couple thousand here from that guy, and I can make the league an extra $1M or so.  Especially if the hit injures one of the players that “America” loves to much, like Brett Favre.  When Myron Pryor was given that fine for an illegal hit to the helmet on Brett Favre, two things went through my mind: 1) Roger Goodell is protecting people he should not be protecting, 2) I don’t think he knows that everyone liked that hit and that it took Favre out of the game. 

Thursday Night Draft – This last complaint is something that is directly related to the greed of the NFL and the office of Roger Goodell.  This past NFL draft took place, not on a Saturday where most men aren’t working and most football fans who are really into the Draft could get together and barbeque and shoot hoops, throw a football around and hang out…NO!  It had to take place on a Thursday Night during Prime Time.  Why, might you ask?  Because Roger Goodell wanted to take away from the big piece of the pie that is Thursday Night Must See TV.  I was working because I work on weeknights.  So not only could I not enjoy hanging around my friends and seeing their reactions to certain draft picks, I had to get the news from the computer that I was working on.  Drafts, unless they are like the NBA Draft which is Prime Time because it’s quick and there’s 3 rounds, should be a Saturday event.  The NFL Draft is 6 rounds.  That’s a lot of selection and there is only so much time people can give to watching it. 

I have spent a lot of time on this blog post so I hope you do read it.  I have been putting it off for a while but I have been busy with the rest of my life and that’s something that I need to get back onto. 

Song of the Day

Yeah I figured it’s time to bring out the Funk/Disco for this kind of day.  Randy Moss is abandoned, it’s Election Day.  I need to find something to do before going to work.

Things I Learned from Ken Burns and Not the Education System

I have recently begun watching Ken Burns’ Civil War on Netflix.  I figured its cheaper to watch a little at a time than go for one straight 10 hour series on DVD for $90.  Trust me, I’d love to buy all of his DVD’s but they are just a bit too much and I think I’d only watch them once. 

So I’d figure I’d share the facts that I am learning from this experience with my readers and I won’t try to spoil it for you if you haven’t seen this documentary.  I will probably keep this a rolling part of the blog seeing I don’t have too many of those things right now.  I try.  I really do.

Fact #1: The South Had a Better Constitution – Okay, so the South had it’s own Constitution that was very similar to the Current Constitution.  Only there were a couple things that I liked better in the Confederate constitution.  Like the Line Item Veto for the President and the 6 year term for a President.  That’s pretty much the only thing missing from the current constitution that would make any President’s job easier when assigning a budget.  I mean, I understand, what the argument was when they were deciding what the South had to do in order to take the loss.  Probably something like:

North - “Okay, if we beat you, you have to get rid of that Line Item Veto shit.  And we get only a 4 year President.  We don’t want someone to be in power for 12 years.”

South – "Deal.  If we win, we get to keep slavery.  And no touching of the hair and face.”

North – “Fine.  Let’s Rumble.”

It’s things like this that get me angry.  It just means that we have thought of the best possible solutions for this country but we decided to just ignore them.  I mean, the NFL had the AFL, and they ended up taking the ideas of the Challenge Flag, the 2-point conversion, amongst other things.  They had competition and it bred a superior league.  The NBA had the ABA, for which they took the Half-time show and 3 point line, thus breeding a superior league.  I mean, if the North had the South and did not take the Line Item Veto, then we deserve all the bad stuff.  I hate it.

The 6 year terms isn’t as bad either, but it puts the President on the same level of the Senators in the Congress.  Senators seem to have so much more power than everyone else.  I think if someone saw eye to eye in Washington, we’d be able to see

Fact #2: The Youngest Victim of the War was a 9 Year Old Boy – This just makes some of the older generations more bad ass.  I mean these kids were signing up to be drummer boys and flag holders for men who were out there to kill each other.  Talk about growing hair on your chest.  I mean kids nowadays are suing schools over being tagged too hard at recess.  This is absolutely the weirdest and most shocking thing I have heard about in this series.

Why there hasn’t been a miniseries about the Civil War, and every part of it’s time on HBO is beyond me.  Have it be like a Tom Hanks production made of like 15 episodes that are 2 hours long.  Go to the bone with this one.  I mean I like Band of Brothers, but this is our own country.  We could have so many different dynamic plot twists and turns to this one.  Like someone inventing a new bullet that kills a lot of Northerners so Lincoln has to change his strategy or the Battle of Antietam and its fallout.  This would be television gold.  We could cast half of Hollywood in this thing and everyone would have a subplot.  It would be that awesome.

That’s it for now.  I will continue watching Ken Burns Civil War and I will no doubt be delivering interesting facts from the documentary.  Travel on my friends.

The William Howard Taft Memorial Weight Loss Challenge! Let’s Get It On!

So, a bunch of friends and I are putting some money up to compete each other at a weight loss challenge.  Kevin Edelson, James Bucknam and I are some of the competitors and we’ve decided to put our money where are mouths are and put that McDonald’s in the garbage. 

Hopefully we can all get on a strict regiment of healthy food in this day of working weird hours and eating shitty food.  I know I’ve lost some weight since leaving college, and surprisingly kept it off too.  I mean, I eat more dogshit-like food than anyone else I know.  Just imagine what would happen if I ate healthy food and kept at the gym.  The results could be amazing!  That’s a great thought.

I considered trying out the P90X program, but I don’t think I have the time or skillset to do the eating/dieting portion of that program.  I could try the workout exercises and just eat healthier and hope for success.  But let it be known that Mark Robert Sheehan will be entering the Williams Howard Taft Memorial Weight Loss Challenge.  If you know Kevin Edelson and are curious into the weight loss challenge, then Facebook him and find out how to enter.  $25 a head.  Starts next Monday. 

DVD Review 10/31

Breaking Bad Season 1 – Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, Dean Norris

I just finished watching Season 1 of Breaking Bad from Netflix.  I had never watched it on AMC, but only heard good things about it.  I knew from the commercials it was about a chemistry teacher who starts to cook Meth with a fellow drug dealer.  Turns out, it has deservedly won a couple of Emmy’s for Bryan Cranston’s acting, as well as Aaron Paul’s acting in the supporting role.  The first season was really cool with all sorts of chemistry breakdowns and thematic developments. 

Walter White, is a high school chemistry teacher in the Albuquerque area.  He lives a boring life, has a wife and expecting another daughter on the way.  He has a son who is mentally disabled, who doesn’t seem to like his parents or anything really.  Walt goes out on a ride-a-long with his brother-in-law who works for the DEA and finds out what its like for people to be caught and arrested.  During one of the break-ins Walt sees a former student of his, Jesse Pinkman.  Walt finds out Jesse’s a methamphetamine dealer and cook after seeing him sneak out of a neighbors house.  Meth, of course, is very popular in the area and is a serious hardcore drug.  Being a professional chemist, Walt makes a deal with Jesse to become his cook and make a profit off of selling the drug on the streets.  Walt cooks, Jesse sells.  The first episodes show the transformation of Walt from a local nobody to a bad ass with so much power in his hands.  After in the first couple of episodes, we find out that Walt has lung cancer, stage 3A.  Walt doesn’t tell anyone for a couple of days and finally gets around to telling his wife, who has a nervous breakdown over it.  The family dynamic transforms a bit and Walt’s family gets closer to him.  There are so many scenes that are well done because of the situation that Walt is in.  Walt intends to use the money he gets from drug dealing to cover his costs of chemotherapy and medical treatments.  As it turns out, Walt cooks the top-notch meth, that many of the characters call “glass” and he is now among the ranks of making a high concentration of meth available to the public. 

Personally, I had no idea what to expect with the first few episodes, but I love this show.  The first season was only 7 episodes long because of the writers strike, but it did work out and was able to return for a 2nd and 3rd season and undoubtedly a 4th.  Bryan Cranston is awesome in the series, and Aaron Paul, who plays the drug dealer kid is more like a homeboy who tries to get comfortable working with a new person who he only knows through his old high school classes.  I really would recommend this show to anyone who likes dramatic shows that are suspenseful and drug induced.  No pun intended but this show is addictive as Meth.  I wouldn’t really know what Meth is like, but if it’s that addictive, than this show is addictive as well.  AMC has done it again. 

Now I’m going to check out the new show “The Walking Dead” on AMC, because as of right now the best shows are on AMC.  Should be a great season of television.