Captain Obvious and the Early Tuesday Grab Bag
Are you like me? If so, congratulations for ripping off one of Parkes's jokes for at least the fourth time.
Oh, and hey, what's this strange hollow feeling we're getting on a Blue Jay-less Monday night? I really thought we fucking hated having to suffer through watching this team waste game after game with their pathetic offense, but I guess I'm realizing that, well... what the hell are we supposed to do with ourselves here with no fucking ballgame on?
(Oh yeah. Drink.)
That Thing About Captain Obvious From the Title
According to Jamie Campbell, the Jays need a cleanup hitter.
Holy shit! You fucking think?
Yes, apparently as much as good ol' small ball is "fun to watch", the Jays really ought to be waving their magic wand and producing a Barry Bonds Manny Ramirez. Thanks for the fucking insight, professional baseball expert.
Sabathiaftermath
No thanks to Sportsnet, I'm now-- again-- clear on the particulars of the Sabathia trade. For a while there this afternoon the channel had been inexplicably omitting Matt LaPorta from their rundown of the deal-- which kind of seemed curious and wrong, and for a while there made it sound like the Cleveland professional baseball team might have got a little bit fucked to death by Doug Melvin and Gord Ash. So, Mark Shapiro is now slightly redeemed in my mind.
Anywho, our own little darling AJ Burnett is, of course, among the next tier of pitchers who will be targeted by teams who are desperate for an arm-- and if you ask me, more intriguing than speculating on the package of players the Jays might be able to get back for him is dreaming of the possibility that we'll get to follow AJ down the stretch as he tries to keep his shit together under the searing glare of a pennant race with a team that isn't a giant sucking black hole.
I mean, by mid-August, what else will there be to do?
Quickly
Not sure if anybody noticed, but Casey Janssen is just about ready to be cleared to start throwing again. Fucking eh. Jordan Bastian does some typically stellar work in getting the details.
I heard one of Wilner's callers pissing and moaning about the loss of Troy Glaus's huge, powerful, veiny, maple-coloured bat. Well... I know it's not the be-all stat or anything, and that the Jays could definitely use more of the slugging side of it, but one would do well to point out that through July 6th, Glaus is rocking a 116 OPS+, while Rolen is a 117. Oh, hey, I just did.
Oh yeah, and the Yankees are looking at Victor Zambrano. No, seriously.
Pointless, Dated Tennis References Anyone?
Hey, so apparently that Wimbledon men's final was a little epic. Since it was a tennis match that didn't involve Jelena Dokić (or basically any of these), you'll forgive me for not figuring that out until much later-- oh, and yes, I said "these". I'm objectifying, for fuck sakes.
Anyhow, I hadn't really been thinking about tennis much until I started seeing the Nadal / Federer highlights, to be honest, but today-- I'm not ashamed to admit-- I clicked on a couple of tennis articles...
Which included this little gem by Damien Cox about Daniel Nestor. Like I say, I don't read tennis articles very much, so maybe they're always full of absurdly poor attempts at describing the vast number of slightly-above-mediocre Canadian tennis players through history, but this struck me as a little odd...
"Many good ones have tried and come close, from Glenn Michibata to Grant Connell, from Carling Bassett to Helen Kelesi, but Nestor is the first Canadian to ever capture a Wimbledon title."
From Glenn Michibata to Grant Connell?!??!? That's like only two steps! (Zongggg!) I know Canada doesn't exactly have a long history of excellence when it comes to tennis (OK, I'm actually just guessing), but for fuck sakes, at least mix up the four names you've got there! From Michibata to Connell? Whoa! Can physics even possibly define a distance that great?
Non-Baseball Regrets That Nobody Else Cares About, As a Transparent Device For Mentioning Albums I Like, Thus Possibly Upping the Score's Cool Factor (But Only Among People Who Like Older Music-- i.e. Old People)-- Also, Lee Hazelwood-- Quite Frankly Because That Glenn Michibata Thing Kind of Went a Long Way For Nothing And I Don't Really Want To End With It
I stopped in at Bluestreak Records in Peterborough on the weekend-- which continues to be my favourite record shop ever-- with not enough money, and for some reason I can't quite figure out, I went with a couple nice old copies of Hüsker Dü New Day Rising and Gang of Four Entertainment! instead of spending the same amount on an original copy of the fucking Electric Prunes Underground. Yeah, yeah, I know what most of you are thinking: Stoeten, what the hell is wrong with you!?! Well... I guess I screwed up.
I also regret not being able to get Lee Hazelwood's "Forty". but for other, more obvious reasons. (What? No you're gay.)
Late Addition!
Hey fuckfaces who ride TTC buses. . . Newsflash: air conditioning doesn't fucking work if you open up all the goddamn windows. I know it seems counterintuitive to take a seat on a hot bus and not open the window, but for the love of fucking fuck, use your head! Not only are you letting all the cold air escape, you're forcing the A/C to keep running to try and compensate, which is going to burn those things out way faster, and in a few years you'll find that a fuckload of the current fleet of TTC buses will no longer have any A/C at all. You stupid fucks! All of the new TTC buses have air conditioning. All of them! And even if you can't hear it going, if it's thirty fucking degrees out, you're pretty safe to assume that it's on.
And other fuckfaces on the TTC who know all of this: it's really not difficult to "subtly" say something like, "Excuse me, this bus is air conditioned, so do you mind closing that fucking window before all the cold air escapes you goddamn moron." Or maybe something a little more tactful. Regardless, why the fuck would thirty people just sit there sweating their sacks off on a sweltering bus because they're afraid to politely explain to somebody the concept of air conditioning?
Posts
25 comments:
Jelena Dokic?!?!? You better be kidding Stoeten.
And that site had no love for Bethanie Mattek, which is fucking BS:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-479729/Tennis-star-serves-treat-mesmerises-ballboy.html
Grant Connell was the #1 doubles player in the world at one point, and he reached the Wimbledon finals three times.
Victor Zambrano? honestly, this is just getting pathetic!
Yeah Stoeten never wastes an opportunity to stick his own cock in his mouth. Then he has to mention some ass sweat filled obscurer than thou little record shop in Shitterborough. The cherry on top is him waxing rhapsodic about Husker Du.
You know I lived the 80's when fatfuck was was watching Knight Rider. Husker Du was a "comic book guy" kind of band. The pressure to like them from "I know Burt from Vortex" types was extreme but ultimately they sucked ass. Husker Du was a sign that you needed to get out more. They're the indie version of Rush fans
"Stoeten does have a horsecock. I wish I could have it in my ass"
- - anonymous
"I know Burt from Vortex" types...classic. I live across the street from Vortex so I know exactly the kind of guys you're talking about...as well as Burt....I guess that makes me one of those guys....er, never mind.
A bit of unmanly jealousy there from anonymous number uno!If you have to write gay comments anonno can you please do it elsewhere this is a family site.
That's a great pic of Janssen's delivery in Bastian's article.
It's crazy that he sometimes hits the ground with his hand on the wollow through.
AJ on the block? It seems that idiot Hendry is ready to get fleeced by Beane. Harden? That makes no fuckin sense. The Cubs want to win it all? When 2080? Harden is brilliant but he makes AJ look like Lou Gehrig! Aj is pitching for a contract and has an incentive to give 125%. Harden? His only incentive is to hit the DL when he gets a hangnail.
The Phillies seem like maybe a better fit to me than the Cubs-- though I'd love to see AJ have to deal with the pressure of pitching for the Cubs. Or maybe there is none, because it's just expected that they'll lose.
sadly, the impending rumor fenzy is pretty much the most exciting thing going on with the team right now. I just hope JP can do better than Ronny Cedeno or this Donald cat from Philly. Blairsy seems to think the asking price is 2 prospects, let's hope we don't sell low.
On the Rolen vs Glaus topic, I saw an interesting note when I was checking my fantasy team.
Glaus has the highest fielding percentage as a 3B in the majors, and Rolen is 2nd. However, Rolen's zone rating is way higher than any other 3rd baseman's in the majors.
Well, it's not an error if he can't get close to it . . . but Glaus really wasn't a terrible fielder-- especially considering his physical limitations-- and it does get lost sometimes that he was going out there all the time in pain, and even volunteered to play shortstop. Nothing against Troy, really. I do like Rolen better, though, even if this lineup is dying for some Glaus-like pop.
Would they have a couple more wins if Glaus was here and not Rolen? Interesting question, Stoeten. Possibly-- though I shudder to think of that left side defense if they had been rolling out Glaus and Eckstein this whole time.
the link to those tennis chicks was the smartest thing you guys have posted all year.
Well, sometimes windows are opened because of the horrendous smell some people emit. And also, sometimes the whole bus is so fucking cold with the blasting AC, people open the windows to balance that out.
Oh, and Stoeten. Before lusting after lovely Serb girls, you should know that some are fucking bat-shit crazy. Or their relatives are:
"Jelena Dokic's estranged father has been reported to have threatened to kidnap his tennis star daughter and to kill an Australian as revenge for her returning to Australia."
Crazy!
I'd like to chime in an the a/c update to the post to say that I am sitting here in my office in a large corporate office building with a runny nose and cold hands because the facilities wizards have the a/c cranked to meat locker levels. WTF?
Everybody bitched and whined about what a long cold winter it was and what a shitty spring we had and now that we have a little heat, there isn't enough freon (or electricity) in the world to keep the sweethearts who don't like to sweat happy.
First, this post was worth reading to just to see that pic of Ana Ivanovic...Good lord, I had no idea.
Second, and in response to the hysterical fact that the Yankees are eyeing Zambrano, a much less hilarious 'rumour' for Jays fans is what the Red Sox are apparently pondering.....Working out Barry F'n Bonds...Given the recent struggles of Manny and Ortiz (who won't be back for a while...at least at the level fans expect) this may be a scary experiment that the Red Sox could be bold enough to make.
Jays Fans should brace themselves for the impact the Red Sox could have on the second half. A pitching staff as productive as Jon Lester, Dice-K, Wakefield and Beckett are only going to get better....with Clay Buchholz
This from Jeff Blair's latest:
"Ricciardi said.
"We think the fact that we have two players at Double A who have already moved quickly — Brett Cecil and J.P. Arenicibia — means we know how to identify a player who is capable of moving through the system quickly." "
Ricciardi aparently doesn't understand sample sizes.
Or track records.
As in, his own.
Ryan, I'm not sure why Bonds to Boston is such a big deal for us during this waste of a season.
Joanna, sometimes a little crazy is good. Also, as far as the bus goes, that dude's smell isn't going to get any better by making the bus a sauna.
Daryl, I completely agree about how fucking nuts people go with air conditioning, but thirty degrees on a stinking bus with a bunch of racial stereotypes, when alls we need to do is close up the windows to be comfortable? That I'm not into. But yeah, people are wearing sweaters in my office. It's ridiculous.
Ridiculous, just like my g/f naging me to seal the a/c unit in the window so that she can turn it on, yet she sleeps with a duvet!
Stoeten, the reason I point it out is simply this....the Red Sox offense is anything but sterile. JD, Lowell, Pedroia the Destroia, Youk to name a few are lighting up pitching around the league while their pitching staff (outside of recent bullpen struggles) is dominating. You guys talk about how the Jays can’t keep both parts in sync (batting and pitching)…well, the Red Sox are a team that does this. We might not be the only team that has this problem of everynightonesidednessitis but we haven’t done anything to fix the problem.
My point, which is clear to all Jays fans including yourselves, is that our offence is pitiful. We can talk about what we looked like on paper all year, but the fact is we’re not hitting. Because of WHATEVER reason we can speculate about…it doesn’t matter. Even a team with a potent lineup will ponder about adding another bat. I don’t care about the Red Sox payroll or the fact that they eat, sleep and breathe baseball during the summer, I care about how well they can put a team together. The reason you’re sick of hearing Bonds’ name isn’t solely because of our standings at this point of the season, its because of frustration from this team and management to stick with the pieces we’ve got until things even out. Unfortunately, in baseball, things don’t always even out. I know our numbers are historically brutal right now…but outliers ARE outliers for a reason. Shit happens and it “sucks being a jays fan” right now…because we continue to think our lineup won’t remain outliers. I don’t blame JP for being an optimist about his players, I don’t blame him for the pressure and politics surrounding his job (which includes not getting Bonds), and I sure as hell don’t blame him for any injuries we’ve had. But we can’t do this every year anymore. We can’t get hyped up early and not give a crap halfway through because we’ve struggled and call it a year. Watching players continue to hit out of slumps is baseball, but it’s also knowing when to find more suitable replacements for the time being, at least. You can’t sit on the bench and come out of a hitting slump…but you can’t win with 8 slumping bats and the one player who has a hot game every other day either.
Clearly, I’m frustrated too ha but hearing Bonds’ name with the Red Sox lineup is a smart move that I envy and am very interested in seeing it all play out. Might not be a big deal, but it’s not a little deal to me either.
In that sense, sure, I agree entirely. I was thinking more along the lines of the implications on a potential stretch run, against the Jays, which obviously isn't happening.
But also, I'm pretty sure Bonds would have a job by now if it was ever going to happen. Yet, the Sox being in need makes it a lot more interesting, because they're one of the few teams that likely feel they have the power to tell the commissioner to go fuck himself.
Umm, I think Bud wouldn't feel flipped off at all. Bonds going to the Red Sox does a couple of real positive things for him:
1. Eases off the tension and the bad publicity over calls of collusion, at least legally (they don't have a real case but according to the majority of media and common sense, they should. Hard to prove a negative)
2. If Bonds is going to sign, it'll only hype up a Trade Deadline with a field that doesn't look very good to begin with.
3. With the way the Yanks are playing, a Red Sox/Yankee meeting in the playoffs looks unlikely this year. However, a Red Sox/Rays series would look so damn tempting that I bet Bud Selig is polishing off the many busts he has of himself in his house while listening to Big Pimpin'....We already have the Peter Gammons story done...Rays thought about him, Red Sox got him (I can picture the shitty collage right now).
Like I said, I'm interested in this story.
Husker Du was a really good band. Bob Mould mellowed in the 90's with Sugar, but was still awesome.
Fugazi's 'Waiting room' or Alice in Chains 'Would' could be great intros to your podcast.
Go McGowan Go.
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