Carnival of Madness

I mean, didn’t he? Last night? Because he sold out a football stadium where he gave his speech, that means he won? Kinda like the New England Patriots won the Super Bowl before they even went to Arizona and before they played in the playoff games, everybody, even me, was saying they’ll win the Super Bowl. We all remember how that turned out.
Then there’s John McCain. He’s been declared dead more times than Lazarous. Last year, his campaign was tanking and he ended up firing his head campaign dude. The new guy, I guess, brought him back from the brink of going broke and got him to win New Hampshire and then run away with the ticket. Now, he’s got himself probably the best VP candidate anyone could possibly want. Sarah Palin was even mentioned as a VP candidate for Ron Paul, which says a lot about her and certainly raises my opinion of John McCain. John McCain is the New York Giants. There might not be much of a chance for him to win, but he does have that chance and he’s seemed to raise his chances a great deal. A young, smart, interesting person is exactly the kind of VP McCain needs. Young because McCain doesn’t look like he’ll last four years…

Still not gonna vote for him, but it is becoming very tempting. Gonna have to do the debates and he’s gonna have to look smarter than not only the last Republican guy to run for president, but smarter than Obama; which shouldn’t be too hard. He picked that crazy dude Biden to be his VP….

Then there’s the Pirates. Crappy on the field, but that’s to be expected these days. There’s the whole Pedro Alvarez thing. Basically, after drafting and getting him to agree to a contract, he was a no show for about 10 days and then the Pirates put him on the restricted list. His agent is fucking around with the Pirates and using him to get the signing deadline pushed back to the day before the next draft again and he’s using technicalities to do it. Meanwhile, all the other 28 teams that signed their picks, have them playing baseball already while the Pirates are losing out again, of course…

Today I went and picked up the paper for Mom and I looked at the top headline and it said “Clinton Rallies Faithful”. I’ve been thinking about that for a few hours now. Faithful? Really? Probably, the Dubuque TH thinks of the faithful as meaning the true believers of the Democrat party. I thought it seemed like more of a slight against them. You really need faith to believe anything either Bill or Hillary or anyone who gives a speech this week or any time between now and election day tell ya.

But there was something else about it. Faith is defined as

strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.

So it seems almost as politics in this country is a religion. There are two main religions: Republicans and Democrats. If you question either of their leaders too much (the two guys attempting to become the government leader), the “faithful” will come after you. If you think that voting for either of them is a waste of time, both sides will tell you how important it is because they know you will certainly vote for their guy. And of course they will say what they can to get elected without bothering to prove anything they say.

I’m not playing their bullshit game. I’m staying home, I’m going to Hardees for lunch or maybe Pickle Barrel Subs. Either way, not thanks, not interested, have a good one.

Speaking of bullshit, I found this video last night:

Typical politician. People are too stupid to possibly understand the complexity of the federal budget unless they went to an Ivy League school and got a Masters degree or Doctrine in Economics. So unless you are educated about the economy by the government and their minions at big colleges, you can’t possibly ask questions about it or point out inconsistencies in their economic themed rhetoric. And this guy is a Democrat, so he’s all for the little guy, in which the little guy is too stupid to understand economics so he’s there to save us from ourselves.

I will say one thing about spammers, they’ll never give up. Check out this one I just got and it makes me wonder, who’s falling for this exactly:

Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket number 001768432463 with serial numbers FTS/8070337201/06 and drew the lucky numbers 15-22-24-48-50-37(30) which subsequently won you 1,000,000.00 (One Million Euros).from the SPAINISH national lottery.The draws registered as Draw number one was conducted in Madrid Spain on the 23rd AUGUST 2008.find below the details of the Claims Agent and contact him with the following details for verifications:1.FULL NAME,2.FULL ADDRESS,3.NATIONALITY, 4.AGE,5.OCCUPATION,6.MOBILE/TELEPHONE NUMBER,7.DATE OF WINNING AWARD, 8. SEX,9.TOTAL AMOUNT WON,10.BATCH REF.,NUMBERS

NAME: Mr Albert Thomas (Claims Agent)
AGENT EMAIL: albertthomas19@hotmail.com

Thanks,
Mr.George Simmons
Spanish Promo Announcer

As per their request for that inofrmation: 1. No. 2. No. 3. Awesome. 4. 1098 5. Sex Machine. 6. No. 7. Today. 8. yes, a lot of it. 9. You mean how much you’re stealing from me? 10. whatever.

Well, about half way through the game tonight, Denny Bautista was ready to warm up a bit on the mound before the inning started when Ryan Doumit was no where to be found. Doug “Obi-Wan Eye-Chart Mint-Cabbage” Mientkiewicz ran out behind the plate and played catcher while Raul Chavez got his gear on. There was speculation by the Brewers announcers (who are great announcers compared to the two morons announcing the Cardinals games) that Doumit was hurt again and that suddenly the Pirates are without the two best offensive weapons: McLouth and Doumit. McLouth has been out sick since Monday. Well, the good news is that Doumit is not injured. The bad news is that he probably has whatever McLouth has.So it’s not like the Pirates aren’t bad enough already but now, it would seem, everyone on the team will get the flu. I’m sure it’ll only be caught by the good players: Nate, Doumit, Paul Maholm, Matt Capps, manager John Russell. Luis Rivas won’t catch it. The LaRoche brothers won’t catch it. Zach Duke will not catch it. Steve Pearce will take it back to the minors to make Andrew McCutchen sick as well.

Pirates at Brewers tonight. It’s pretty much the same game as I went to on July 6th, except that I’m not there and neither is Bay, Nady, Marte and McLouth. Basically Duke starts. The Pirates take an early lead and then Duke, Bautista and Burnett let the Brewers walk all over them. Ugh, ugly game. Maybe tomorrow will be better, but I won’t see it because the Brewers are only broadcasting the game on a local station. Fucking stupid. I just saw Adam LaRoche walk back to the dugout after striking out looking at a pitch way low and outside. He looks pretty bummed out. I can’t blame him. This team is pretty depressing. They’re still shitty.Not much else is going on. That’s about it…

Anyways, I was thinking about the big problem baseball has with the fact that there are more home runs and big hitters in baseball today than there were 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago. I think the solution to this is simple. Just raise the mound some more. Back in 1968, the big problem was pitching, they had pitchers going out there and just running the game. Why? Because the mound was too high. Then in the 90′s along came weight lifting and year round training and suddenly every hitter in baseball is having an easier time. If they’re worried about there being too much offense, just raise the mound and make it a little easier on the pitcher. They’ve changed the game before and they’ll change it again. They built smaller ballparks to get more offense, they’ve allowed players to put on armor when they go up to bat, they’ve looked the other way with steroids, they’ve made the balls in a way that makes it easier to hit them, they’ve had umpires shrink the strike zone and they’ve basically done all they can to make it easier for hitters.Then there’s Bob Nutting, the cheap owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates. According to Dejan Kovacevic at the Post-Gazette:

They were all very excited Saturday, including Bob Nutting. And he didn’t say “ever.” He said in all current sports. … People can be emotional, and the Pirates were very, very satisfied with how that draft turned out.

Wow, Bob Nutting was excited about a new baseball player? And was so stoked that he called the Pirates management team the best in sports right now? I’m starting to believe he really does want to win and isn’t just holding on to the team for the profits. I don’t think the Pirates management are the best in baseball, the Rays, the A’s and the Twins are probably all better. But it’s nice to see management excited about something other than more money.

The Pirates did got it done tonight. They signed the big guy, Pedro Alvarez, to a $6 million minor league contract. Considering everyone was saying that his “advisor” Scott Boras would demand a $9 million Major League contract, this really shows what the Pirates new management group is made of: smart people. Anything before about 11:30 tonight probably would have resulted in the Pirates spend more than they needed to. Of course this ends the first year for the Pirates new management. They’ve gone through the first off season, draft, trade deadline and draft signing deadline, they can relax for a few minutes and let it all hang out. Grab a few beers and take a day or two off. The only thing left before the first of September are the waiver-wire trades, but I don’t see a big deal coming up in the next few weeks. All that’s left now is aboutTheir second rounder Tanner Scheppers is going back to school now. His torn labrum was too serious for the Pirates to offer more than slot money for him. Damn shame, but not serious. They will get the 3rd pick in the 2nd round next year as compensation. Maybe they can draft two healthy pitchers in the 2nd round.

It’s all good for now, ya know, until the Pirates that suddenly can’t hit take the field against the Mets tomorrow night.

Tonight’s and last night’s games sucked. The Pirates finally have some pitching, their starters are going 6 or 7 innings every night lately, but it seems that the bats have gone cold. Sure they traded away their two biggest bats in Bay and Nady; but Nate McLouth is still with the team. He had seven home runs last month and this month? Nothing. Ryan Doumit is in a slump as well. Adam LaRoche usually only bothers to get a hit with nobody on base. Andy LaRoche and Brandon Moss aren’t doing much so far. Steve Pearce shouldn’t be in the majors, he’s just plain terrible. Then there’s Jason Michaels who isn’t really playing enough, he’s good enough to play full time. Both Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson aren’t playing at their best level. It just sucks.In other news, there’s 60 minutes until the signing period for the MLB Draft ends. Still got to sign the 2nd overall pick, Pedro Alvarez. There’s still buzz about the injured, but very talented 2nd round pick Tanner Schepppers. They’ve taken care of the later rounds, including signing a 6th round pick who said he was going to college. A 20th round pick who fell because of his money demands and a few other hold outs. Mostly the 5th round pick who demanded lots of money and then ended up signing for slot money when he realized he wouldn’t get that much money next year.

And on February 6th, the big birthday for me, I’m going to St. Louis. Originally, I was gonna go on November 1st when the Pens were in town, but that’s just a terrible time to go because of work. Going in February will give me time to relax a bit and hang out for a while. I’ll be seeing the Blues-Avalanche game instead. Those tickets go on sale tomorrow. Of course, if the weather sucks as much as this past winter, I might miss out on it. I just don’t think there’s a good chance that it’ll snow a foot on the same day two years in a row. And this’ll be a cheap vacation. Just pay for gas and my game ticket. Staying at the Hotel Jennie. Free couch to crash on, free internet, no breakfast though. Gonna bring a box of Honey Bunches of Oats with me.

I’m confused by the title of the website Fire Joe Morgan.com. Why the hell would they want ESPN to fire him? What the hell would the guys there do without him?

It reminds me of what the Joker told Batman:

Kill you? I don’t want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, you… you complete me.

If not for Joe Morgan, there would be no firejoemorgan.com. And if ESPN actually fired him; which I doubt it would, we would be without those fantastic “joe chats” and all those stupid things he says in any given week during the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball games. He’s just too much fun…like Batman.

Exactly.