The Worst Damn Sports GBLOG Period

In an effort to utterly confuse Kark Hungus, Those Aren't Pillows and The Wood Dog Blog agreed to post a running Game Blog of the Ichrio vs. Dice-K baseball game (on 4/11) that was hyped by ESPN and MLB all week. He is a Red Sox fan, I am a Mariner fan, so this made sense.
As the following email exchange shows, we agreed to start our gblogs at 3:45 for a 4:05 first pitch:

From: [Wood Dog]
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 3:56 PM
To: [Those Aren't Pillows Guy]
Subject: Glog

So when do we start our game blogs? 4:05pm first pitch? Or 3:45? If it’s 3:45 then I can include this email as part of the log. I hate the term “glog” by the way for “game log”. I am going to use “GBLOG”.

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From: [Those Aren't Pillows Guy]
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2007 3:56 PM
To: [Wood Dog]
Subject: Re: Glog

I would include this email in your GBlog if I were you. I'm still going to glog.That was I can start a subsite called Glogjammin.

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And so it began.

3:50 - I throw on ESPN II looking for some pregame. Yes, I work from home, in my basement, and I have the luxury to at times throw on the television during an important event and "work" with the game, err, event on in "the background". It never affects my work production in the slightest. [Editor's note: he is writing up this blog a week later on Thursday at 4:10pm, with no hint of work being done]. So I throw on The Deuce 15 minutes before game time and there is a sweet looking show called "NASCAR NOW". Oh, by "sweet" I mean "ridiculous". The two guys on the show are talking about the "Texas Bump" which I have to think is a NASCAR term that, like all NASCAR terms, is stupid. Then I realized what was really shocking me about the show. The two guys on the show were black, and then MY GOD, they brought on a WOMAN to discuss the sport too. Isn't NASCAR a "Redneck's Only" sport? Was I wrong about NASCAR? I realize that I don't care enough to look into this.

4:05 First Pitch. Ichiro is batting .111 this season. Dice-K is SOOO overrated. I don't think this is going to be the epic battle the fans from Japan were hoping for. Ichiro K's.

Did you know that Ichiro has a TV show back in Japan that he records during the off season? It's called "Ichiro Versus" and is supposedly an intellectual game show that, like all shows broadcast in Japan, has no real comparison in the U.S. I'm not sure if people realize how huge this guy is over there. He is like if Brad Pitt was also one of top players in the NFL big. When he came to Seattle, there was a $1 millon bounty offered by a Japanese tabloid for a naked picture of the guy. That's big.

"Ichiro Versus"

4:30 Grandparents are coming over for Chinese food, so I make the order. It's a strong order.

5:00 I go upstairs to let the grandparents in. Felix is pitching lights out. Oh yeah, not mentioned by ESPN is this "Felix Hernandez" guy who might be the best pitcther in the A.L.

6:30 I get a score update on the TV and realize Felix has pitched SEVEN no-hit innings. Gran' Lloyd is a huge M's fan, so I put my laptop on the dinning room table and tune in via slingbox. This is exciting. We are stoked.

6:40 The first batter we see dribbles one through the middle for a base hit. Somehow we totally jinxed it. Felix goes on to 1-hit one of the best lineups in baseball, in their dojo. Dice-K gets the loss, and Ichiro goes 0-4. ONE DAMN HIT. A dribbler through the middle is the difference in pitching a gem, and history. Oh well. The mu-shu was fantastic though.

Pay Rod

Alex Rodriguez will forever be on my list of baseball players I would rather see flattened by a steamroller, so I can better pogo-stick on their body, than see live a long happy life. Damn this guy though if he is not trying to win me over like he's won back the thousands of fickle Yankee Fans who would take him over Jeter in a heartbeat right now. Pay-Rod is on my fantasy team this year. Now, he was not supposed to be there at the 10th overall pick, but there he was, smiling his perfectly orthodontured smile, f-ing up the plan.

I wanted to draft Miguel Cabrera. He plays third base too, and he's younger, supposedly has more potential, and well, isn't A-Rod. I like Miguel Cabrera. He was the best player on my team last year. He is everything that is good in baseball. Miguel is Obiwan, and Alex is Darth. But there he was where he should not have been. Mr. $255 Million, available with the 10th overall draft pick. I just knew this was his swan song, his last attempt to totally screw with my life.

So what does he do? 14 games into the season he's hit 10 home runs, making A.L. history, has 26 RBIs, and is by FAR the best player in baseball, no question. And this doesn't even stress how CLUTCH his hitting has been. Like last night for example. Are you kidding me?

You can also tell that these are not "Chris Shelton" home runs (Chris is on the list too). You can see this performance continuing through the season. He has that same pretty, perfect swing he's always had (everything about A-Hole is "pretty", isn't it? I think that's why New Yorkers try to hate him so much), and he hits in the middle of the best lineup perhaps ever put together in baseball. Now I know he wont have 100 home runs and 300 RBI's this season, I mean, that would be silly. Right? (insert nervous laugh) But what if he wins this fantasy baseball season for me? What do I do? The pillars of my world are shaking.

Passover and Out

If you are feeling really well rested after this past Easter weekend, then you don't have a 2.5 year old. Overall, it was actually a very fun weekend, but this video pretty much sums up how I feel right now.

After three egg hunts I did come away wiser, as well as exhausted. I learned some things like don't EVER go to one of those public Easter egg hunts open to the general masses. Holy Christ on an egg. We went to the Seattle Woodland Park Zoo for their annual Easter egg hunt. Charlotte LOVES the Zoo, and it sounded pretty cool. Pet some bunnies, egg hunts, and arts and crafts... and hey, if we got bored, we could always go look at those poor bastard animals stuck in cages.

We drive up about 30 minutes before opening, along with hundreds of other families. I almost got in a fight with another dad who was actually cutting in line. CUTTING IN LINE AT THE FU#&ING Zoo?

"Dude, see that line?" (I point to the 500 or so people behind me)

Dude doesn't listen, and he tells the official Zoo Line Guy who could care less, "Hey, we are ZOO MEMBERS, and we are NOT happy about this line." I guess he figures his $40 a year membership fee bought him the right to be a prick to innocent Zoo Line Guys too.

"I am pretty sure we are ALL Zoo members, Dude." (I point to the 500 or so people behind me again). I was certain this was not a B.S.D. Zoo donor guy who had his name engraved on the carousel or anything, like he was implying through his air of entitlement. If you are cool or important enough to be above lines, you don't tend to get stuck in them, do you?

Dude looks at me, looks a the Zoo Line Guy, grimaces, puts head down, and continues to walk his family up to the next open admission window. "Good work honey," his lame yet supportive wife tells him.

At that point, I realize that this was Easter, I was with my kids, and this was supposed to be fun. I was not drunk, playing pool at the Savoy... I let it go. Later we saw the same dad trying to line up a picture of his kids, this was like a military mission for him "Suzy, you will STAND HERE. GUY you will SIT HERE, because you are too young to STAND. NOW SMILE!" I was sure that his kids and he were going to live out their next 18 years in misery, or sooner when the kids run away from home. This made me smile.

Inside the Zoo was no better than the lines outside. It was chaos. The toddlers were fenced in and fed plastic eggs by the garbage can full. The older kids hunted eggs in a HUGE arena set up like an equestrian ring, and did it to a CRANKED UP "Jock Jams" sound track. "ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?"

This one day, I think the lions look out of their cages and think "Fu#k, it looks dangerous out there. I hope these cages are secure."

Charlotte looks at the fenced in kids, and the patrolling giant duck, confused.

The Big Cat

There is a list of baseball players that I dislike. I keep this list of players locked away in the dark part of my brain. Now, I don't really hate them in real life, I guess, as I am sure that they are good people and all. I just can not necessarily guarantee that if I came across them in an abandoned fully functioning saw mill and they were chained to one of the logs about to go through that I would FOR SURE hit the "emergency stop" button on the wall.

Usually the guys on this list either screwed up the Mariners in real life (THAT part of the list is long, storied, and usually starts with Alex Rodriguez and includes a lot of other Yankees and Oakland A's, though it's tough to really hate the A's...) or they screwed up my fantasy baseball team either by being terrible for me, or being good for my arch rivals. My arch rivals have won a majority of titles in our league, and are managed by two guys I will again affectionately refer to as "Slim" and "Obnoxio".

In 2005, our fantasy league came down to the final week between A Damn Penguin Car (this was my team, and you can click here for the story of this team name) and the Moron Twins (Slim and Obnoxio's team). Entirely as a fill-in for another injured player (Cliff Floyd?), the Moron Twins picked up Frank Catalanotto for the last week or two of the season, and probably thought nothing of it. But as the holy gleaming smile of God Himself shines on these moron twins, Frank "The Big Cat" Catalanotto finished the 2005 season on an absolute TEAR. That final week of the season he hits .500, picks up an "AL player of the Week" and pushes the Moron Twins to another title. Good for him. Good for them. Frank "The Big Pussy" Catalanotto is forever on my list. I wouldn't go playing in any abandoned fully functioning saw mills, O.K. FRANK? Great story, right?

Oh no. That was but the prologue.

Recently, I finally got around to shipping Obnoxio his 2006 CBS Sportsline Fantasy Baseball Trophy (which I had thoughtfully wrapped in an old pair of my tighty whities for him) and just a few days later I received a package in return. It was addressed from Moron Twins HQ. And inside, there it was. Carefully placed in a crappy, light brown, faux-wood frame, was a printout of the 2005 "These are the Jokes" fantasy baseball league standings. And it's signed. "To Woody. Best Wishes! Frank Catalanotto". Son of a ...



(click the picture for a close-up)

And yes, it's real.