Random Notes, Vol. 3

Word to your mother. Since the recent birth of our newest cast of characters, my 2 week old daughter who will be known as Arg, not much time to hit any topic hard enough to tickle your stereotypical taste buds. Add in the mandatory NFL preview upcoming, my suicide pool to get going (be looking out for that email), and possibly commishing one of my fantasy football leagues (Editor’s Note: calm down, LB, your boy stepped up and is going to commish. Stop whining!), and you get yourself another dose of random notes. The third coming of random notes is brought to you without their permission by Amtrak, who is currently schleping a couple of friends of ours up and down the East Coast visiting friends. Here I come to save the day! (Reference???)

- Is it me, or are LeBron’s PR guys purposely trying to piss off Cleveland without reservation? Full page article in newspaper thanking Akron for all it’s done for him? Awesome. Never acknowledging Cleveland in the article? Stupid. Loved the guy who went to the Indians game with a LeBron Miami Heat jersey, too. He was on ESPN the next day claiming he didn’t mean to draw any attention to himself. Yeah, neither did that chick back in the 80s with the monster jugs who used to run onto baseball fields to kiss the players.

- In other “I didn’t think that would draw attention” news, Brett Favre is back annoying the football world, though I don’t think many people are paying attention outside of ESPN. Hilarious comment from him, though, and I paraphrase, “I didn’t think my waiting so long would draw so much attention.” Dude, where have you been the last three years of your bulls**t? I love how even the mention of it draws a million cameras everywhere. Personally, I hope he stays away, just to F Minnesota for catering to him for so long. Philly fans might be disappointed cause they could have gotten more from Minnesota than Washington for McNabb, but if you ask me, this is better for the Iggles cause Minnesota with Favre is clearly a better team than they are. Not that the Iggles are making the Super Bowl this year (but maybe, just maybe next year), but still.

- Extremely sad death in the world of sports recently, with the passing of James Gammon, aka, Lou Brown, the manager of your Cleveland Indians in Major League. This set off a chain of emails between my buddies with some awesome Major League quotes. Definitely a Top 5 sports movies of all time. Very disappointed that a YouTube search didn’t yield an English version of Rick Vaughn entering the game, though. If someone could post that, I would be much obliged.

- Random sports trivia, plucked from the pages of SI: Which Hall of Famer is the only player with the exact same number of hits both at home and on the road, with 1,815 each way. If you get this without Google or having read the SI article, many freaking props to you. But here’s something a little more gettable with a Google… Ty Cobb is the all time hits leader for my beloved Detroit Tigers. Who is #2? Answers at the end, my friends.

- Throwing its name in the “is it a sport?” debate, the federal courts in Connecticut ruled that, for the purpose of Title IX, cheerleading is not considered a sport, as Quinnipiac University attempted to eliminate women’s volleyball and keep cheerleading to stay in Title IX compliance. Per my definition, cheerleading is a fringe “not a sport,” though Fah’s wife disagrees. In his ruling, the judge described cheerleading as “too underdeveloped and undefined” to be a sport. For what it’s worth, the ACLU fought on behalf of volleyball, so I guess they think cheerleading isn’t a sport, either. So next time cheerleading is brought up in your “sport/not a sport” debate, feel free to use judicial precedent to argue against it.

- Can you believe NFL preseason starts next week? Me neither. Can’t wait. Well, I can’t wait for the real season, since NFL preseason is a big waste of time, but just thought I’d mention it. Real cute that the NFL charges season ticket holders the same amount for those games, by the way. Incidentally, can you imagine what would happen if the NFL locks out after this year? I am not kidding, I would not be shocked to see a small spike in the suicide rate and divorce rate in this country as drunk, angry males desperately seek ways to release rage upon the world. Iggles fans will just go tailgate and fight each other in the parking lot, so Philly is safe.

- Still a hot MLB season going on, with 5 of the 6 divisions all having races within 1-1.5 games between first and second place entering Saturday, 8/7 action. Good stuff. Potential sleeper World Series: Giants vs. Rangers. This would also be known as the “Fox’s Worst Nightmare” Series. More likely: Ys vs. Phillies, though don’t count them Giants out. When they score, they are darn near unbeatable.

- In another semi-MLB related rant, I was watching the Phils last night, and the announcer kept talking about how the umpire was “giving the pitchers the outside corner” that night. This is common speak in baseball announcing, but for whatever reason, this one is now bothering me… I mean, the corners are a part of the plate, the plate is part of the strike zone. Of course the umpire is giving them the corners! Can you see a postgame press conference with an umpire saying, “yeah, I didn’t feel like giving them the corners tonight.” I’m over it this morning, but for some reason, I spent a good five minutes thinking about that and telling the wife about it. She predictably could have cared less.

- Tim McCarver gave us a preview of his playoff announcing gems during the Red Sox/Ys game the other day. Jorge Posada stole a base, which they then looked up and discovered it was the 17th in his 16 year career. McCarver: “That’s just over one per year. It’s rare that we say Jorge Posada stole a base.” Sigh…

- Arg still hasn’t picked her fave sports teams, but she has a University of Michigan cheerleader bear sitting at the top of her changing spot downstairs, so she’s got that going for her. I think my mother-in-law hid her “little tiger” hat cause we couldn’t find it earlier for a trip to the park. Lucky for me, Arg was a big baby and eats like a horse, meaning she’ll be growing into those Tigers onesies real quick. Let’s take a quick pause while I go hide her Phillies onesie and bib…

- K, I’m back. By request from my dad, I now bring you the average salary of a first or third base coach in baseball: $175,000. At least, that’s the best I could find on Google, I have no idea if that’s accurate. He wanted me to do an entire post on that, by the way. I asked how he thought I could expand on that, his response, “you’re the blogger.” He’s now the first one to acknowledge me as such, so that made me feel pretty good. By comparison, US Senators and Reps make $174,000 (and are way overpaid), teachers make $40-45,000, executive chefs make $50,000, and carpenters make $36,000. So there you go.

- Tiger Woods is finally likely to lose his world’s #1 ranking this week, as he is darn near last wherever they are this weekend. PGA tournament is next weekend, and there is no way he can be the favorite. He is also at risk of not qualifying for the Ryder Cup, meaning they would have to use a captain’s pick on him. Anyone who thinks this guy is anywhere near what he used to be hasn’t been watching golf. And Tiger, spare us the “my personal life has nothing to do with it, it’s my swing” bull crap. He truly may be done. Which is sad in some way, cause we are missing out on seeing a historically great athlete in his prime and watching a record go down. All because he couldn’t resist “the life,” and couldn’t be happy with a Swedish model/nanny for a wife, billions of dollars, and two kids. If the rest of us can be happy living happy, normal lives, and you’re a rich person who loses what you had cause you were a d-bag, then you deserve what’s coming to you.

- Quiz answers: Stan “The Man” Musial is the player with exactly the same amount of hits at home and away. And the Detroit Tiger who is #2 all time in team history for total hits… Mr. Al Kaline.

Logical Betting will be on a brief hiatus while we work on our NFL preview, set up the Suicide Pool, and prep for fantasy football drafts. Keep on sending the suggestions along. Once the NFL season gets going, gonna try and get to one Reggie sent a few weeks back and finish off one from our man Jeremy. If I can track down my friend to podcast the sports loyalty, we’ll hit that, too. In the meantime, be well and remember, life is too short to drink cheap booze.