Monthly Archives: April 2011

April 11, 2011

Masters, Manny, and a Beat-down in Pittsburgh

By chappy81

Charl was given his green jacket signifying that he is the Master of the Universe, yet the storylines don’t seem to surround his four birdie finish. I’m not one to push golf onto anyone who can’t stand watching guys read putts for five hours, believe me I understand why it would be boring, but this weekend was one of the most exciting finishes we might see in any major for awhile. When there were about 8-10 holes left to play for the leaders, the CBS crew couldn’t even figure out who’s shot or which players they even wanted to show because there were so many people atop the leaderboard. We didn’t see a whole lot of Charl during the day, but did get a lot of Tiger shoved down our throats. Tiger looked great for the front nine, and it looked like he had some of his swagger back busting out his fist pumps. Unsurprisingly to me that seems to be the topic of conversation today on whether Tiger is indeed back or not. It’s tough to say when he missed critical putts down the stretch that he usually would’ve made during his domination days. Regardless of whether he’ll be as dominant as he once was, he’s relevant again. The other story was about how Rory McIlroy caved to the pressure, and was one of the only people to shoot over par on Sunday. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t win, but more so that he caved, and he seemed to give up after his triple bogey on the 10th. He’s a 21-year-old, so I wouldn’t worry about him. It’s like last year when Dustin Johnson choked away a lead on the final day at the US Open. I’m sure he’ll learn from what happened, and his skills aren’t disappearing. All in all, I think golf is healthier than it’s been in awhile. I’m not going to go all Geno Auriemma and cry if you don’t care about golf, but this past Sunday was a finish that I feel like any sports fan would’ve enjoyed.

Manny is retiring… Lots people go to Tampa to retire, and Manny doesn’t seem to be the exception to that rule. I’ve always loved then loved to hate Manny depending on which team he was playing for. I guess the bigger deal about his retirement is if he’ll make it into the HOF. All along I’ve been for the steroid era players getting into the HOF. It’s an era, and whether there was cheating or not, you have to acknowledge the best. Baseball has always had the worst HOF setup in my eyes. The snubs feel ridiculous, and most of the time those who are snubbed were “bad” character guys. I feel like the HOF is a popularity contest that nobody really wins in unless you were a classy person on and off the field. Personally all I care about is what was done on the field, cheating or not, he was still one of the greatest. With that said, I’d put Manny, Clemens, A-Rod, and Bonds in. Who cares if I or anyone else doesn’t like them as people they still were amazing players that carried baseball for two decades.

Apparently, safety in stadiums is an issue… The MLB League passes are free for everyone for the first week of the year, and I’ve watched a lot of teams I probably won’t see for the rest of the year. One common theme seemed to be empty seats in stadiums. I’m not sure if it’s the cold weather across much of the country or if it’s a correlation that fans no longer feel safe bringing their kids to the ballpark after the Dodgers incident. Whatever the case, this recent video from a Pirates game was insane. Dude was either completely wasted or just can straight up take a hit. The rent-a-cop billy clubbed him three times and he didn’t even flinch! This might be the most excitement the Pirates fans have all season…

24 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Sports

April 8, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

We sometimes neglect our teams in writing posts since we follow them so closely that we feel like everyone probably already knows what’s going on with them, in reality, that’s probably not true. Now that we have a Giants fan in the mix in By, I figured it would be fun to do an overview of our two favorite bay area teams from our homer perspectives. I’ll be writing up the A’s portion and By will be doing the Giants portion for this season.

Oakland 2-5

San Francisco 3-4

Three Up

Oakland A’s – Our starting pitchers have picked up where they left off last season, and by that I mean dominating the first six innings of their games, and only giving up two earned runs or less in all but one appearance. The new offensive guys (Dejesus, Willingham, and Matsui) in the heart of the order aren’t producing much, and unfortunately the other guys in the lineup are doing what they did last year, which is leaving runners in scoring position. They have had the lead at one point in every game this year, but can’t seem to keep it for too long in most cases. We still seem to have a heavy handicap in the home run department, but we seem to be getting more guys on base than last year, so there’s a little hope on the horizon. They’ve been close in every game late, because of that great starting pitching. If it weren’t for them thinking they were playing soccer to the tune of kicking 9 fielding errors, they could easily be .500 on the year. Somewhat concerned about this start.

San Francisco Giants – This is simple.  One, Lincecum, Sanchez, Cain, Zito & Mad Bum.  A solid bull pen, and the game’s real life version of Rick “Wild Thing” Vaughn to close it.  I’m not worried about a 3-4 start.  Perhaps I’m being a little generous when mentioning Zito in that list, but I can’t uninclude him when he’s rockin’ the new ‘stache.  Two, we have a group of loveable guys who all play hard together and get along with each other.  Yes, Aubrey Huff in the outfield scares me, but the young studs in Buster Posey and Brandon Belt in our every day lineup more than make up for it.  Do not sleep on Miguel Tejada, by the way.  And three, we are still the defending champs.  This season is (now) seven games in for the Giants.  I’m not worried about a 3-4 start.

Three Down

Oakland A’s – Their bullpen is already injured like it’s mid-season. It was supposed to be a heavy strength for the team coming into the season, so far all we’ve been left with is blown leads. Balfour and Fuentes our big acquisitions in the pen this off-season both blew saves in their first tries as Athletics with Bailey on the DL. Their fielding was never a problem last year, but with 9 errors in only six games this year they are dead last in that category. Their last two games in Toronto that were errorless, and same with the day game in Minnesota today, so that has me feeling like it was just a little early season rust. Hopefully that’s the case. Maybe all the talk of needing to upgrade at third got to Kouz’s head as he’s tied for the team lead with three errors. Lastly the A’s have been terrible with runners in scoring position this season only logging three hits when that chance arises.

San Francisco Giants

1)  We got smoked by L.A.

2)  Duck the Fodgers.

3)  We haven’t produced runs consistently, spoiling some good outings by our starting pitchers.  Add to that, our bull pen hasn’t looked as crisp as they did during last season’s historic playoff run, so I guess there’s some cause for concern there.

3a)  It would be nice to have Cody Ross back.


5 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

April 8, 2011

Spoof NBA Lockout Ads

By chappy81

Last off-season in the NBA it was all about the big time free agents, and where will they land. This off-season will be all about Billy Hunter vs. David Stern, and how long the lockout will last. It seems like it could get even uglier than the NFL’s lockout and probably will miss more games. As I’ve said before with the NFL lockout, I’m all for it if they lose some fans and some revenue. Nothing puts a billion dollar league in their place like losing fans. I ran across this video of a few spoof lockout ads that we could see in the near future when the war really heats up. Ok, probably not, but we know it’s going to get ugly. The ad that had Stern saying “he knew where the bodies are buried” had a very interesting story to it during all-star weekend and this article by Adrian Wojnarowski is a must read if you haven’t heard the story.

7 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Comedy, Sports

April 7, 2011

Slow Out Of The Box

By mceezy

There’s quite a few surprise teams here in the first week of the MLB season, like the Orioles and Royals, but let’s focus on the negatives here. There are four teams that are playing downright ugly baseball to start the season. It’s not hard for us A’s fans, since we’ve had the privilege of witnessing 10 errors in the team’s first 4 games. Fortunately they were able to scrape out a 2-1 victory today to pull back up to 2-4. The Giants were able to do the same by beating the Padres pretty handily, though Brian Wilson had a shaky debut. 2-4 ain’t pretty, but to me, it’s a whole lot better than 1-5, or even worse, 0-6…. No one expected the Rays to be contenders this year, but no one thought they’d be this bad. Even fewer people thought the Red Sox would be this bad. I’m loving it of course, but I’ll hold back from piling it on until the season’s over and they DIDN’T make an improbable run into the playoffs. Obviously they’re off to the most disappointing start, but which team here has the most reason to panic early on?….

8 Comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Sports

April 6, 2011

Color Me Purple The Nuggets are in the Playoffs

By chappy81

At the beginning of the season we made predictions on how we thought the Western Conference would shake out. By and I swung and missed on a few picks like the Clippers, Jazz, Warriors, and Rockets, but we were right about the easy picks aka the top 5 teams. I guess I did write that I wished I included Memphis on the predictions a month into the year, but that’s a moot point. Anyways, the season is nearing it’s end, and the playoff teams seem set, except for seeding. Seriously though, does it look like anyone will beat the Lakers in the west? I can’t say I feel like anyone will beat them, not even the Sonics who I feel like could beat them, but won’t. We all know deep down that the Lakers will be in the Finals no matter who they are matched up against in a week and a half.

The real reason for this post was that the Sportschump was very adamant that we were horribly wrong for leaving the Nuggets out of the playoff picture. They secured a spot a few days ago, and look like they should be the #5 seed. I’m sure he’d be the first to admit that Denver has made the playoffs in a different way than he or anyone expected (without Melo), but nonetheless he was right and I was wrong. The Nuggets have been a very interesting team this season since the Melo trade. It’s weird seeing a team actually use 10 of it’s players every night. Especially since all are getting significant minutes in a guess who’s playing tonight game of musical chairs. Karl goes with the hot hand. If you’re playing well, you play 40 minutes. If you struggle, you’re only playing 15-20. It’s something you rarely see in the NBA, which makes them the anti-big three. They are all about the team over the individual. It’s a good reason to root for them in the playoffs, but if they end up playing the Sonics in the first round I guess I won’t be on that bandwagon…

9 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Sports

April 4, 2011

Rooting For Ryo This Year…

By chappy81

The Japanese sensation Ryo Ishikawa made a very nice tribute to Japan’s earthquake relief fund for the rest of the current PGA season. The 19-year old is from one of the hardest hit areas in Japan, and while his family was all in the states when the quake struck that doesn’t mean he has forgotten about his countrymen. He said today at a Masters interview that he’d be donating all his tour earnings to the relief of his country. Last year he made a little over $2M, and showed that he will be a force in the near future once he gains a little more experience. I think this generous donation will make me lay off on the jokes when I see him. He usually wears some of the ugliest clothes around, but maybe that’s Yonex’s fault for making those clothes…

If you couldn’t tell, last year I was a huge Dustin Johnson fan, and pretty much rooted for him to win any event that he was in. I’m not abandoning my boy DJ, but with the selfless act that Ryo has decided to put forth, I can’t help but start rooting for the guy to win every tournament or at least make a lot of top tens. I’ve never had a million dollar earnings year, but at the age of 19 I don’t think I’d be able to give it up like he is. To go along with his nice gesture he’s also donating $1,200 per birdie to charity, which will be a very nice chunk of change by the time the year is over considering he gets a few per round. Rarely do I write about things that are good in sports, and this is clearly one that should garner more attention than it does in the national media.

9 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Random, Sports

April 1, 2011

Dubbing Up Your Friday

By chappy81

With opening day for baseball, and the weather hitting the high 80’s and low 90’s over the last couple days in LA, I found myself busting out the reggae music. I’m not sure why, but every year I seem to listen to a lot more reggae during the summer than the other months in the year. Maybe it’s the whole kick back and chill outside by the grill attitude that summer brings. Whatever the case, I thought I’d share with our readers my favorite reggae DUB band 10 Ft. Ganja Plant. It’s strange that of all my friends I can only think of two that really listen to reggae as much as me. I’m kinda glad it’s not mainstream like hip-hop. It’s like following the golf of music, everyone kinda likes playing it, but most people don’t know much about it or the bands. This Born Free track might be better served for a holiday like the 4th of July, but it’s my favorite track of theirs, and the lead singer sounds a lot like Bob Marley. Plus, when I was in little league our baseball coach used to play reggae for our batting practice to try to give us some riddim mon. If you want me to keep posting reggae artists that you probably haven’t heard, let me know. If not, this could be a one and done with the reggae posts.

9 Comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in Music