Author Archives: chappy81

About chappy81

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I'm a dude that just hit 30 years old. Pretty much like everything that is funny, insightful, and has to do with the Warriors, A's, and Raiders.
July 6, 2011

Field of Dreams 2

By chappy81

 

I’ve been waiting for awhile for some funny stuff to come out of the NFL lockout. And by funny I mean the players doing funny videos or commercials like Tim Duncan and  Grant Hill did for Sprite back in the day during the NBA lockout. Desean ordering “No Stings Attached” was probably my favorite line. The only thing I couldn’t figure out is why they deleted all these great scenes below from this short film. The Dwight Freeney breaking our toilet line is a classic that should’ve made the final cut!

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

July 6, 2011

The Story that Never Ends

By chappy81

Rodger Clemens and his never fading star is back in the spotlight. Just like the Barry Bonds trial, barely anyone cares from a fan standpoint. Our verdict was in years ago, and we could care less what his excuses were for doing steroids, but for some reason I care about this trial a little more than Barry’s trial. Maybe it’s because there’s two lockouts going, but I think it’s more because he called that original hearing at our (the tax payers) expense after being mentioned in the Mitchell Report. Rodger Clemens was probably one of the least important things we could’ve been worrying about during the 2009 financial crisis, but he forced his way into a hearing as he tried to deny a mountain of evidence brought against him. It was a completely unnecessary hearing that in the end made him look all the more foolish and more guilty. He could’ve sent out a statement or talked through his lawyer like his friend Andy Petite did when the Mitchell Report came out or even given up on his denials like President Clinton did with Lewinsky, but Clemens went the extra step to stay in the spotlight. Or maybe he just wanted to waste some of the tax payers money both of which are a travesty.

Now Clemens goes back to trial under different charges and not under his own will. ESPN unfortunately has picked up it’s coverage as the trial started. When the legal analyst comes on, I throw up in my mouth a little. This current trial is all because of his unnecessary hearing, that made the government realize he lied to them. If there’s one thing our law doesn’t take kindly to, it’s lying. He’s facing two counts of perjury,  three counts of false statements, and one count of obstruction of Congress, which adds up to six felonies. Strangely it’s the same amount of felonies Barry was charged with and dismissed from.

Do I care that Clemens took roids and had ass abscesses? No, and like all the other cheaters of the era I still think they should be in the HOF, but I hope the courts penalize him for wasting the courts time and money. This trial isn’t about his legacy, it’s about his arrogance, and his inability to live in a world where he isn’t a god among men. He wears his lies worse than Pinocchio, and was in a no win situation back in 2009, and looks to be in another un-winnable situation in 2011. I don’t see how he can win this trial, but just a day after Casey Anthony was acquitted, who’s to say it can’t happen for Clemens, but I hope this ruling makes more sense to everyone. Brian McNamee is no saint, but I hope the players testify that he made them aware of what they were getting injecting with by him…

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

July 5, 2011

Doin Reviews: Transformers 3

By chappy81

Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. I spent most of it sick, but still had a good time celebrating our independence. I don’t really go to very many movies in the theatre, but seem to usually hit up a few summer blockbusters since friends seem to like to go to them when it’s unbearably hot outside.

Overall Transformers: Dark of the Moon, was what you’d expect. 70% action, 19% cheesy LaBeouf/Duhmel acting, and 11% plot building, so if I have to give it a grade I’d give it a B. I liked the movie overall, and have been a Transformers fan since I was in diapers. The graphics were spectacular, so if you’re simply into action and graphics it’s a movie you should see, as Michael Bay seems to work magic with the green screens. The plot was actually decent as they used old school events from Roswell to a conspiracy theory of our reasons for landing on the moon before the Russians. I also enjoyed Sam Wikwikki’s (sp?) job hunt, and how he had the I saved mankind and still can’t find a job chip on his shoulder. His new girlfriend, Rosie Huntington Whitley formerly a Victoria’s Secret model, isn’t too hard on the eyes for a couple hours to boot.

On the other side of the coin though I thought it was excessively long  (maybe it was being sick), but my other friends also thought they should’ve shortened it by a good half hour of needless scenes. I totally understand the final battle between the autobots and the decepticons should be longer than all of the other fights, but it felt like the last scene lasted for half the movie. I’m sure the producers were strongly against cutting any of the million dollar CGI scenes that left the Chicago skyline decimated, but c’mon we all know who is going to win! The only other thing I hated about the fighting in the movie is that some of the robots spewed red blood-like liquid when they were struck or shot. Really!?! Robots spewing blood?!? Some spewed out a yellowish liquid when they were stabbed or “cut”, which for some reason makes more sense to me like it was some discolored ani-freeze. Personally I would’ve like to see the transformers just spew black oil instead of colorful liquids, because it seemed like they were trying a little too hard to make the robots look/be more human. If you need to get out of the heat for an afternoon, Transformers wasn’t a bad way to do it.

3 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Movies

June 29, 2011

Byrnes Being Byrnes

By chappy81

I was watching MLBTV on Monday and saw Byrnes lay out Harold Reynolds. I was hoping someone would put it on youtube because I’m way too lazy to do it, and that would also mean I’d have to make a youtube account. Luckily someone else uploaded the video. It’s funny that Byrnes takes his demonstrations as serious as when he was playing, and if you think for a second he wouldn’t plow over anyone in his way to get to a pop up, you probably never really saw him play…

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

June 29, 2011

All-Star Voting Makes Sense for the Most Part…

By chappy81

This morning I was checking out how the All-Star voting was going, and to my surprise there weren’t a ton of terrible choices on the ballot. It’s the final update until the selections are revealed, and since I’m much more of an AL guy, I’m only going to break down who I feel should be starting for the AL. In the NL I only see one real snub. Matt Kemp not being in the outfield is f***ing ridiculous, I mean Holliday and Berkman have had a nice season and all, but their seasons don’t even compare to Kemp’s triple crown numbers.

Catcher: Russell Martin (2,779,592 votes), Alex Avila (2,345,065 votes), and Joe Mauer (1,699,604 votes). Might be the first year in awhile we don’t have Joe Mauer starting for the AL behind the plate. Russell had a nice start to the season, and has rode the wave of Yankee voters. I’m torn because Avila clearly has better numbers than Martin, but he also plays third and first from time to time. Martin plays catcher every game he plays in. There aren’t any super standout catchers this year, so I’ll say the voters got it right…

First Base: Adrian Gonzalez (4,014,722 votes), Mark Teixeira (3,077,242 votes), and Miguel Cabrera (2,184,480 votes). You’d think first base would be a tough choice with so many stars manning the position. Not so much in this first half, as Gonzo has been going off since opening day. If he decided to sacrifice some of his average for power, he might be in the triple crown race. Hitting .357, with 16 homers, and 71 rbi’s might just be more offense than the A’s have had all season… My runner up for the position isn’t even on the list. I’d have Konerko as my backup above Tex and Miggy, because he’s been a guy on a mission to destroy pitching this year and has done it.

Second Base: Robinson Cano (4,724,816 votes), Dustin Pedroia (2,979,181 votes), Ian Kinsler (1,896,259 votes). For some reason I thought Ben Zobrist belonged on this list, but I guess he was only hot for a quarter of the season since his numbers didn’t look that good when I just looked at them. Cano easily has the best numbers of the AL 2nd baseman, and is also a gold glover in the field. The people made a solid and correct choice imo.

Third Base: Alex Rodriguez (3,735,406 votes), Adrian Beltre (2,935,373 votes), and Kevin Youkilis (2,724,286 votes). I think I’d actually take Longoria if he hadn’t been hurt for a month of the season. This is probably the toughest choice for me. The top three all have similar stats, Beltre has more HR’s and RBI, but A-Rod is hitting nearly 50 points higher, so I’d probably give it to the best fielding 3rd baseman, which is Adrian Beltre. I don’t feel like you could go wrong with either of these three candidates though.

Shortstop: Derek Jeter (3,392,128 votes), Asdrubal Cabrera (2,885,778 votes), and Elvis Andrus (1,971,514 votes). This is the first ridiculous selection. Not sure why Jeter was in the running in the first place, because he started the year worse than we’ve ever seen him play. Asdrubal on the other hand has had a break out year that nobody saw coming. If it weren’t for him, the Indians wouldn’t have had nearly as much success. This is the first eyesore in the AL lineup.

Designated Hitter: David Ortiz (4,237,043 votes), Michael Young (2,235,504 votes), and Jorge Posada (1,453,385 votes). Big Papi is easily the guy here. I would’ve had V-Mart in second place over Young and Posada. Actually, I’m not even sure why Young is on this list since he plays pretty much every position. Ortiz is the right choice though, he’s been mashing the ball all year long, and made people forget that they thought his career was over last year.

Outfield: Jose Bautista (5,263,846votes), Curtis Granderson (4,582,419 votes), Josh Hamilton (3,173,000 votes), Jacoby Ellsbury (3,051,675 votes) Carl Crawford (2,294,337 votes), Nelson Cruz (1,912,783 votes), and Ichiro Suzuki (1,912,062 votes). If you asked me a month ago I would’ve said Matt Joyce deserved to be on the team, but since I wrote about him at the beginning of the month he decided to come back to earth with a prolonged slump. I also wondered out loud why the Asian voters can get Yao into the NBA All-Star game, but can’t get Ichiro in. Ichiro doesn’t deserve it this year so it’s a good thing, but I will miss his pregame speech trying to fire up the AL team. Jose and Curtis are the obvious choices and having monster seasons, but Josh Hamilton as the third outfielder? He’s only played 42 of his teams 80 games. I’d take Joyce or Ichiro over Hamilton’s first half, because they played pretty much everyday. I think Jacoby Ellsbury deserves the third spot of all the guys in the top six in voting. All in all pretty good selections from the voters, and probably the most reasonable choices in years. Are more people paying more attention to baseball this year, because we might miss the first half of the NFL season? Maybe, and it’s reflecting in the voting…  

 

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

June 28, 2011

A Spending Spree, Starring the Warriors?!?

By chappy81

Making it Rain like Uncle Scrooge in Oakland!

When Peter Gruber and Joe Lacob bought the Warriors, it was a wait and see kind of deal in my mind. Being a Warriors fan over the past few decades you rarely know what direction they are going or if they even have a plan to begin with. It feels like the new owners DO have a game plan that we are finally seeing put together. Not a whole lot happened last year aside from them trading for David Lee during the off-season. At the end of this year, I figured I’d give them at least one more season to figure out how the NBA worked and what it takes to build a winner, then I’d start getting critical. I was pretty sure they weren’t planning on making big changes to the team since we are pretty close to the cap and won’t have money to sign a bunch of free agents heading into the lockout, but much sooner than I expected they made some big moves that really impressed me. They didn’t make a lot of moves that effect the on-court players, but in the front office we’ve been significantly strengthened, and seems to have some stability for the first time in god knows how long. All the moves led up to today where they bought a D-League team, the Dakota Wizards, and capped off an impressive pre-lockout flurry of moves that shook up our whole front office, and made Warriors fans like myself believe that the owners aren’t the cheap bastard we used to have.

Their first major move was hiring on Jerry West as our main consultant. I’m sure he didn’t come to Oakland cheap. It ultimately gave the organization instant credibility, and an amazing sound board to bounce ideas off. Their second move was hiring Mark Jackson to man the bench. Not positive if he’s going to be a great coach, but he seems like he’d be great at teaching Curry and Ellis how to manage games better, and be consummate professionals. I hope he’s the next Doc Rivers, but you never really can tell. I mean if you gave Doc Rivers the W’s roster, would he be able to bring them to glory? Probably not… Shortly after hiring Jackson, they acquired a top assistant in Mike Malone, who they somehow outbid the Lakers on. Does that mean he didn’t get along with Mike Brown during his time in Cleveland? I dunno, I guess you’d have to ask him.

Fast forward to the draft last week. It’s been awhile since we had a draft that didn’t have one mind boggling decision in it. Our picks made sense. Our previous owner would sell our picks for cash from time to time, which is why this years draft was so surprising. They actually bought the rights to Jeremy Tyler the 39th pick for $2M (a huge project that could be nothing or could be an All-Star), but the fact that they were spending money instead of just trying to make money during the draft was amazing to this longtime Warriors fan.

Today it was reported that they bought the D-League franchise, the Dakota Wizards. It seems like a great move, because the Warriors seem to be calling up D-Leaguers more than any other team, and have been very successful in doing so! They are now one of only four teams that have a “farm system”. Seems like a perfect place to let Tyler develop into a player, right? It will also keep Jeremy Lin busy instead of riding the bench in Oakland. Now they can sign players that they just want to look at. With access to their own team in the D-League that team can be run with the same concepts as the pro team, which will help them immensely when players are called up to the NBA because of injury or a player X sucking. They also can groom coaches whether they are assistants or head coaches. The team won’t be moving to Northern California until after the upcoming season, and if the Kings move, maybe Arco PowerBalance Pavilion wouldn’t be a bad site for the team!

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

June 23, 2011

Lebron Loses WWF Mashup

By chappy81

Nothing like a good ol WWF mashup to explain why the Heat lost. From Lebron fighting Riley and his teammates to Barkley and Stern, then Dirk walking away with the belt, can’t get more classic than this.

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

June 22, 2011

Excitement in Oakland, and His Name is Jemile Weeks

By chappy81

It’s been a little over two weeks since the A’s called up the 2008 #1 pick, Jemile Weeks. MCeezy already declared him his favorite current A’s player on facebook the other day, and I have to say I’d agree with that sentiment. Hopefully writing about him doesn’t jinx him like I did writing about Matt Joyce’s great year, but sometimes you have to risk it when you’re excited. It’s been awhile since one of our position player prospects caused this much stir on Athletics Nation (the best A’s blog). Yeah, there was excitement when Chris Carter was called up last year, but ultimately he didn’t do anything. Weeks on the other hand, has been tearing the cover off the ball. He hit three triples in his first week in the big leagues. He has been playing so well he has earned his spot as our leadoff man the past few games. He’s also seems to have taken our longest tenured A’s player’s spot, 2B Mark Ellis (11 years with Oakland), in those two short weeks. If we still had Geren as our manager, I bet Weeks would go back to the bench when Ellis comes off the DL today, but now that we have a competent manager, I don’t see Melvin taking the hot bat out of the lineup. He’s already given Matsui some confidence, and has shown that he will play the best players every night. How has Weeks earned that leadoff spot? By taking professional atbats and swinging at a very low rate of balls out of the strike zone. Translation; he doesn’t swing at bad pitches, and when he does swing he connects on 80% of pitches. So far the switch hitter is batting .362 with an OBP% of .400, .572 SLG%., and 4 steals to boot. To say he’s been our table setter over this current six game winning streak would be the understatement of the day. He’s had a couple of blemishes in the field, but that can be overlooked when he’s making more great plays than bad ones. Weeks has great range because of his speed, and even with this very short sample size, I feel he could win a gold glove one day if he continues to work on his fielding.

Maybe A’s fans are getting a little ahead of themselves with Weeks already saying that he is the next Reyes. I saw a comment yesterday that Weeks even hit a triple off Chuck Norris! All kidding aside, even though his small sample size has been great, it’s tough to see him being able to keep it going as well as he has. I’m sure he’s bound to hit a rookie wall at some point. Even if he does, I can’t think of a prospect that we’ve called up in the last four years that wasn’t a pitcher that I was this excited about! Maybe Kurt Suzuki, but it looks like we finally found a solid offensive piece, after numerous underwhelming prospects (Barton, Pennington, Carson, Watson, Crosby, Buck, Keilty, and many more). The only thing I’m cautioning myself for is that he has been hurt a lot over the three years in our farm system. It’s probably because he plays with reckless abandon, which usually results in an injury or two, but there’s noway you’d want to change that since that’s what makes him successful. Maybe he needs to learn something from Reyes as he said this year that he needed to learn when to go 110% and when to go 80% which is why he’s been a lot healthier this season. As of the moment, I’ve developed a Curry-like mancrush on Jemile, and he’s already paying dividends if you picked him up for your fantasy team!

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

June 21, 2011

Dubbing Up Your Tuesday

By chappy81

I was thinking of writing about Rory and his very impressive US Open win, but didn’t really watch much of it, so that went out the window. Is he the next Tiger or Arnie? I don’t really want to debate that since he has ONE major, compared to Tiger’s 14 or Arnie’s 7. Hell, why doesn’t anyone like to compare him to Gary Player? I feel like his 9 majors are the most overlooked of any of golf’s “superstars”. Lets wait until Rory wins each of the majors before we make comparisons to the all-time greats. It feels like comparing Lebron to MJ a couple weeks ago all over again. Anyways, I said awhile back I’d put up some reggae artists, but haven’t really come through on that. Since I called reggae the golf of sports awhile back, in that everyone plays/listens to it, but most don’t really know many artists/players. It seemed like a good time to revive the series as I start bumping more reggae with the weather heating up.

This Sizzla song is as close as you’ll see me listening to the Beanie Man or Sean Paul type of reggae. I’m more of a dub reggae fan, but once in awhile you break the mold. The one below is my favorite of his, and my second favorite song of his is, Give Me a Try.

14 Comments   |  tags: , , | posted in Music

June 16, 2011

NBA Mock Draft

By chappy81

Now that the season’s been over for a few days, I guess it’s time to do a mock draft! It’s been called a weak draft class by just about everyone, and I have no solid reasons to say it won’t be, but on the other hand you never really know until the guys start playing in the NBA whether they can survive or not. I mean all 5’6″ of JJ Barea started on a finals team afterall, so you never really do know. Looking at a bunch of other mocks online I’ve seen a lot of international players in the lottery, so I’ll put a few of those guys in mine as well. Pretty much every player in this draft looks like a crapshoot, so here’ show I think the lottery teams should draft, but it’s doubtful they will heed to my advice. It’s like thinking the W’s or Kings will actually get a top 3 pick…

#1 Cleveland Cavaliers – Derrick Williams, SF Arizona. Why would you draft Kyrie Irving when you already have Baron Davis!?! Ok, that question answered itself. Seriously though, DW is a beast. He’s the only player in this mock that I saw play live, and he truly looked like a man among boys. His tourney run was pretty impressive as well if you didn’t see all his dunks on the top ten plays maybe you should youtube them. Not sure what the downside is to drafting a guy with range, a post game, and the size of a PF packed in a SF body. Oh yeah, he plays above the rim too, I don’t see anything not to like.

#2 Minnesota Timberwolves – Kyrie Irving, PG Duke. Am I sold on Kyrie? Not really, and that probably goes back to him being hurt a lot in college, and not really seeing him play much. Wait till he runs into a meat wall like Dwight Howard, that’s going to cause a lot more pain than anything he experienced in college. You can insert pretty much any joke you want about the T-wolves taking a PG. Since Rubio probably won’t come here, and Flynn looks like a bust, so may as well pick another PG in Kyrie, the supposed can’t miss prospect. I feel like his career will be like Shaun Livingston’s, potential but injured all the time…

#3 Utah Jazz – Brandon Knight, PG Kentucky. The Jazz usually make smart decisions. While everyone seems to think Kyrie is hands down the best PG in the draft I feel like Knight is better. He feels like a more complete player from his above average jumper to the clutch gene he showed in college. Everything I’ve read says he’s a gym rat, so that’s another good thing about him. Having a 4.0 in college is another plus. He needs to work on his passing, but since I don’t think Devin Harris is the longterm answer in Utah, it would make a lot of sense to take him.

#4 Cleveland Cavaliers – Enes Kanter, C Turkey. He’s supposedly the biggest thing out of Europe in 10 years. Tough for me to judge how good or not good he is. He did put up 34 pts and 13 rebounds against team USA in a scrimmage last summer, and was finishing inside with the best of them. 7-footers with his skill set are pretty rare, so why not take him and pair him with Hickson and Varejao. If he turns out like Bogut, I’m sure the Cavs would be happy.

#5 Toronto Raptors – Kawhi Leonard, F San Diego State. The Raptors need help everywhere except SG and C. If Knight or Irving somehow falls to them, I’m pretty sure they would pick either of them, since Calderon digresses every year he’s in the league. I almost had them picking Kemba, but this team really needs someone that can play defense, and Kawhi can guard anyone from a PG to a PF. He doesn’t have a great shot, but they already have shot makers.

#6 Washington Wizards –  Jan Vesely, SF/PF Serbia. A guy I don’t really know anything about. Sounds like he’s a project though, and why not take a chance at 6 to possibly get a solid two way player. I read that he might be a poor man’s Kirilenko, so I guess that’s a good thing?!?I just put him here more because I have no idea what he brings to the table and it sounds like the Wiz really liked him after workouts. Plus, I could care less what the Wizards do.

#7 Sacramento Kings – Jonas Valanciunas, C Lithuania. Another guy I don’t really know much about. Sounds like he’s a project though, and why not take him at 7 when he could possibly be the best player in the draft. Sarunas Marciulionis  was one of my favorite Warriors growing up, and he was from Lithuania, so maybe he’ll be the next big thing out of that country. Since he is one of those “project” type players he can just sit behind Thompson, and Dalembert until their contracts are up while getting his learn on. I almost had them pick Kemba, but he’s way too much like Tyreke for that to work out imo.

#8 Detroit Pistons – Kemba Walker, G UConn. The Pistons need a lot of things. I don’t see Stuckey or Bynum working out in the long run, so you may as well bring in someone new at PG. Kemba was amazing in the tourney, and if he can make some of Detroit’s players passionate about basketball again, that’s a win, because they lack mental toughness, and Kemba clearly has that. I could also see them taking a SF to replace Prince who will be a free agent this summer.

#9 Charlotte Bobcats – Jimmer Fredette, G BYU. Michael Jordan will never be known for his greatness as a GM. He seems to like taking scorers over team needs. Maybe watching teach me how to Jimmer a few times and said what the hell, let’s take him, he can’t be worse than Morrison right?!? I’m sure he’ll compliment Gerald Henderson well in Charlotte.

#10 Milwaukee Bucks – Alec Burks, SG Colorado. This is probably who the Bobcats should’ve picked if they were going with a scoring guard, but that’s not how they roll. Burks is a perfect fit for the Bucks. They need someone to replace the never healthy Michael Redd, and Burks seems like he can fill it up coming off screens.

#11 Golden State Warriors – Bismack Biyombo, F/C Congo. Not really sure about him like a lot of the other foreign players, but he’s outstanding at protecting the rim. He put up a triple double with 10 blocks at the Hoops Summit in Portland. If the W’s are really committed to defense, this would be the guy to pick to show that they are making that commitment. Not sure I believe he’s the next Dikembe, but I’m onboard with them taking that chance on him! He’s got to be better than Biendris was last year (not saying much).

#12 Utah Jazz – Marcus Morris, F Kansas. I should’ve saved Jimmer for the Jazz, but it was too tempting for MJ to let him get past the #9 pick. Marcus is a very polished forward that can play the 3 or 4. I don’t see AK staying in Utah past this last year on his contract, so starting Morris and Millsap at the 3 and 4 is going to be tough for any team to guard. I think he’s a little better than his brother Markief, so that’s why the Jazz took him over his brother.

#13 Phoenix Suns – Tristan Thompson, F Texas. The Suns are looking for someone to replace Hakim Warrick, errr, I mean, Amare. I’m skeptical to think he’ll be the next Amare, but he’s got a huge wingspan and did shut down Derrick Williams in the tourney as well as one can shut that guy down. He’s super athletic, which is something that a player will really need playing with Nash.

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

June 15, 2011

Elephants and Seals

By chappy81

As always By will be covering the Giants and Chappy will be covering the A’s portions.

San Francisco Giants (38-29 1st place) Oakland A’s (28-40 4th place)

Three Up

Oakland A’s – They broke their 10 game losing streak against the White Sox in a comeback win. Unfortunately they went from second to fourth during that losing streak. We thankfully have a new manager (Bob Melvin) that I wrote about last week, so now I can’t work in any disses about the team overcoming Geren’s minimal coaching abilities. The new Bob has already started making the players do some infield practice before games, which is rare this day in age for any team to practice much infield work before games. The good part about this hire is he’s already proactive attacking one of our big weaknesses (A’s are ranked 27th in fielding with 51 errors). Now if he could only figure out some good drills to get them to hit! Bob Melvin seems to like keeping Matsui in the lineup everyday, which was something Geren couldn’t seem to do as he sat Matsui against lefties. Matsui even answered with a homer off a lefty last night. Hopefully this means Matsui will get comfortable at the plate knowing he’ll be in the lineup all the time. Andrew Bailey is finally closing games for us this season, too bad there aren’t any games for him to close. Scott Sizemore, who we got from Detroit, is already our best option at 3B even though he’d never played the position prior to coming to the A’s. Jemile Weeks was also called up when Ellis went on the DL, and has impressed me a lot more than Chris Carter did last year during his first MLB stint with three triples in his first seven games.

SF Giants – I just got home from a fantastic early dinner and as I type this, the G-Men hold a 5-0 lead against second place Arizona in the 5th.  I also see that Pablo “Panda” Sandoval has already left his mark on this game, bringing in the game’s first run.  Panda provides us with a much needed bat, at an absolutely desperate time.  It’s one thing that we lost Buster Posey for the entire season, but now Freddy Sanchez’s year is in jeopardy, and Freddy has been knocking in clutch runs all season.  I guess a positive we Giants fans can take out of all of this, is the fact that we’re still in first place, believe it or not!  And the reason why, is that the Giants epitomize the concept of team ball.  When someone goes down, the next person simply steps up and fills in.  I mean, we’ve had Nate Shierholtz hitting third at times, Nate Shierholtz people!  And now he has a few walk off base hits notched under his belt.  There’s a different hero every night with these guys, very similar to last season.  So if you’re an optimistic person, which I’m usually not, but if you are, you must be thinking we’re sitting pretty atop the division despite being dealt the worse possible hand you can be dealt.  Things can only get better from here, right?

Three Down

Oakland A’s – We have five starting pitchers on the DL, and Brett Anderson was that fifth starter to land on the DL. He’s avoiding Tommy John surgery, but it sounds like he might still have to have it down the road. I’m no doctor, but it doesn’t sound like these plasma injections do very much from other players accounts. We’ve called up some prospects mainly because of the numerous injuries. SP Graham Godfrey had an interesting way of getting called up the the big leagues, but we are really missing those starters that went down. Hopefully McCarthy comes back soon which seems likely. We’ve lost 13 of 14, and I might already be rooting for Seattle to take the division. (I’ll wait till the All-Star break, but it’s sad I’m already pondering picking who I want to win the division not named the A’s.) Daric Barton continues to digress this season. Not sure how much longer I can root for a guy that is in his third year, and having his worst season of those three years, he feels like Bobby Crosby all over again. Hopefully we are prepping Chris Carter or Michael Taylor in the minors to play first base. Maybe we should’ve hung onto Brett Wallace who is having a decent year in Houston…

Even Chriss Angel runs out of magic.

SF Giants – To the outsider looking in, you’d probably chuckle at the idea of being unhappy with a first place team.  But if you’ve been following the Giants closely like I have, especially these past two seasons, you know we win a lot, a lot of close games.  In unbelievable fashion at times.  How much magic do we still have at our disposal?  We’ve got to run out eventually right?  As long as we’re bottom dwellers in terms of offensive production, specifically scoring runs, and as long as our aces look like jokers on the mound (Tim Lincecum and Jonathan Sanchez), we’ve got reason to be concerned.  Hopefully Brandon Belt can get healthy and show us some of that bat we’ve all been told is coming.  The only consistent thing I can count on with these Giants, is Ryan Vogelsong giving up two runs or less every game.  The sad part is, some of those games are losses.

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

June 12, 2011

Congrats Kidd and Dirk!

By chappy81

Two guys that have paid their dues and deserved a ring. Now they can say they have one more than Lebron and tie Lil Bowow for the time being. Hats off to the Mavs for taking out the up and comers in OKC, the early season self proclaimed champs in Miami, and last years champs with a sweep in LA. There’s noway you can say they didn’t earn this championship, and finally broke the soft label. Here’s a couple videos that came to mind when the Mavs won.

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

June 10, 2011

Everyone’s Bagging on the Heat… Even this Guy…

By chappy81

I don’t feel bad for the Heat, because they did it to themselves, but it’s pretty amazing when guys like this are on the internet ranting about them. This guy was oddly funny.  Needless to say, I’m rooting for the Mavs, and would love to see Stern hand the Larry O’Brien trophy over to Mark Cuban. That would be the most exciting trophy ceremony ever. Hopefully this gives you a laugh to start your weekend.

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

June 9, 2011

Christmas Came Early, the A’s Fire Geren!

By chappy81

It’s no secret, MCeezy and I have been begging for Bob Geren to be fired for the better part of two years. Recently there’s been more of an internet buzz jumping on that bandwagon as he seems to make more and more questionable calls as the season went along. Finally this June 9th, the A’s made a move to get him out of town. It must have been hard for Billy Beane to fire his BFF Geren, but he finally sucked it up and made the much needed change. To say the team didn’t seem like they liked playing for Geren is the understatement of the year. Hell, I could barely figure out why he was making a lot of the moves he was, and I’m sure a professional player had just as hard a time making sense of his in game moves. Honestly it was like trying to figure out what happened to Lebron in Game 4.

Geren for the most part was a puppet for the front office like most of the A’s managers over the last decade plus. All his job really was supposed to be is relaying the messages from the front office to the players, and he couldn’t even handle that. When Fuentes said he never talked to Geren about his role in the bullpen, and former A’s player Huston Street said he was the worst baseball person he’s ever encountered, I think we all knew that he had completely lost this locker room. If that’s pretty much your only job, you should at least be talking to your players. The conspiracy theorist in me wants to credit the players for going on this current nine game losing streak playing as bad as possible in an effort to get Geren fired once and for all. They were in first a few short weeks ago, and now they are in dead last in the AL West 8 games out of first.

I don’t know a lot about our new interim manager Bob Melvin. He had a couple good years in Arizona going to the NLCS one year, but had a couple REALLY bad ones after. I’m glad they didn’t hire him on for good and are just trying him out for the rest of this year, so we aren’t stuck with him if he sucks too. He also had a stint with our AL West rival the Mariners, so he’s familiar with the division. I did read that Melvin grew up in the Bay Area near Palo Alto, and even played for the Cal Bears, so hopefully he has some A’s pride deep down. I hope they let him hire a new hitting coach, because that’s where we need the most improvement. Well, that and maybe a room full of hyper-barrack chambers to prevent all our guys from getting hurt like they have been.

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

June 8, 2011

Doin Reviews: After the Last Round

By chappy81

Wow, two boxing posts within two weeks is easily a record for Doin Work! This one doesn’t really have to do with any current boxers, and is merely a quick review of a documentary that one of my former college roomates made. I was in Santa Barbra over Memorial Day Weekend visiting my college friend, Pat Moyer. I’ve been bugging him to get me a copy of his documentary for a LONG time. And by long time I mean since 2008 when I went to SB to see the movie premier, but finally he remembered to give me a copy. I was impressed with the movie the first time I saw it, and thought he and Ryan Petty did a great job of showing what effects boxing has on people mentally and physically after they hang up the gloves. The second time I saw it I liked it more than the first or maybe it was so long ago that I kinda forgot how good it was. Anyways, long story short, I was able to grab a DVD from him, and after watching it, I thought since we had the blog it was as good as anyplace to get the word out about it.

The reason my friend Pat was inspired to make the documentary in the first place was because Denny and Phil Moyer are his grandpa’s brothers. Denny Moyer was the first ever light weight champion, and had a great boxing career. Phil was a little less successful, but was also a good fighter that held his own for quite some time. The documentary shows the ways the brain is damaged, and it takes you through the mentality of different boxers while they are in the ring, and what they are like after they retire. You could even call it a more brutal sport than MMA. There’s nothing crazier than watching Phil and Denny in a clinic walking hand in hand with bike helmets on. Their 90-year old father, Harry Moyer, is much more functional than his sons and tries to see if they remember him, which they seem to but you’re not entirely sure. Harry was their trainer and coach throughout their careers, and still has his head on straight. Phil and Denny were less fortunate, and the power of that footage was crazy. The documentary also follows other boxers, some that are still in the ring, and some retired. If you ever wanted a closer look into boxing without the Hollywood storybook endings like we see in Rocky I-X, this film is perfect for you.

The movie also has tons of great boxing footage (aka: devastating knockouts) that any fight fan can appreciate, and to top it off, all of the proceeds that are made from the movie go the the Retired Boxers Foundation. They haven’t had a mass release of the film, because they’ve had trouble finding a solid distributor, but for the moment, you can follow the instructions below and get a copy if you’re interested. The money being donated goes to a great cause, because just like the NFL, nobody takes care of older retired boxers.

 

To receive the film: 

Go to www.retiredboxers.org  and click DONATE  (upper left side of website under logo) on the homepage, then enter an amount of $15 or more.  If your mailing address if different than the one provided by PayPal, click ‘Add special instructions to the seller’ on the payment confirmation page and enter a new address. They will send you a free private screener right away. All donations are tax-deductable. 

We would also like to thank everyone for their patience with the film. We are still seeking distribution and hope to continue to build momentum with this project.

You will feel good knowing your donation as gone to help a good cause. Now go donate and enjoy the film! Ryan Pettey-Director -After The Last Round


11 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in Movies, Sports