High School Coaches are Asses

In case you haven't seen this, apparently a High School women's basketball coach in Texas has been fired for allowing his team to beat a school of "handicapped" girls 100-0.

I have very mixed feelings about this...first of all, and lets get this out of the way: the school is not for "handicapped" girls, at least not in the physical sense. And really not in the psychological sense, either. It has garnered a reputation for being especially good at helping kids with learning disabilities, such as ADD or dyslexia. So any story that you read that tries to heap on the sympathy for these girls is, in my opinion, a load of shit. It is true that the team is winless this season, and has been for the last four seasons, but you can't blame only being able to take seven shots in an entire game on a reading disorder. Shit, Jim Abbott only had one arm and he pitched a no-hitter.

But all that aside, it is still a pretty fucked up case. My high school in Pennsylvania was just large enough to force us to play in a division that included larger schools from Harrisburg, York, Gettysburg, etc...teams that were much, much, much, much, much, much, much better than us. I think our football team won 3 games the entirety of my high school career. I played soccer, and we would routinely get beat 8 or 9 to 0. But I rarely felt as though the other team was running up the score. Sure, they would get excited that they were playing shitty little Waynesboro Area Senior High and would score a pantload in the first half, but then the coach would settle them down, put in their shitty players, and then they would continue scoring at a much reduced rate. We sucked, but we realized it was our own fault - not theirs for having a bit of fun at our expense.

But 100-0?

How do you play four quarters of basketball and not allow the other team to score one point, while you are scoring a ton (especially for women's basketball), and not realize that you may be putting the pressure on a bit too hard? I mean, when I used to play my little brother when I was in shape and he was still like 10 or something, he would still score a point or two to my 21. You really have to be putting the pressure on to have the other team not be able to put up one point in four quarters.

So, when I read that the fired coach is completely unapologetic, and claims that his girls were playing within the spirit of the game, I have to respectfully disagree. Most high school coaches were players themselves at one point...and a great majority of them were failed players at some point. Otherwise, they probably wouldn't be coaching at a girl's school in the middle of Texas. I understand that most of them take their coaching responsibilities a bit too seriously. But it takes a special kind of ass-hat to not think that putting that hard of a beating on another team is within the "spirit of the game".

I dunno. Women's basketball sucks anyway.

A-Broad

While the northeast remains locked in an icy kung-fu death grip, this blogger soldiers humbly on, giving you narrow and one-sided opinions about two-day old stories that really no one should care about: Joe Torre basically called A-Rod out on everything everyone pretty much assumed about him anyway.

Which really doesn't make it any less hilarious. You have to love it when something comes to light from a credible source that basically confirms all of your suspicions about someone. So Alex Rodriguez had an uncontrollable obsession with Derek Jeter. So he tried to act like he was the shit to get everyone to like him. So no one liked him because of it. So his teammates and manager thought he was a pretty boy. Should we really hold that against him, or mock him incessantly without being there or truly understanding his point of view?

Absolutely.

/holds it against him
/mocks him incessantly

8-o!

So I'm obviously pumped about the Orioles locking up our premier player, Nick Markakis, to a six-year contract with a no-trade clause that will keep him off the damn free agent market for three years after he's eligible. And he seems happy about it - he actually made the claim that he can't wait to settle down here and that the "direction of the organization" was a key factor in his decision.

Awesome.

And then I saw the picture of Nicky at the press conference:


How awesome is that? He looks like a smart Jewish guy from a 70's drug movie, or like he could be one of the Greek's men from Season 2 of the Wire. Gotta love having the balls to rock that look for the biggest moment of his career so far.

Gow Ows!

Finally

Okay, okay, I know its been a long time since I've posted anything. But there hasn't been anything newsworthy to write about, and you know that if there is one thing this blog is about, it is posting only newsworthy, worthwhile items that are interesting to a wide and general audience.

Hence, I thought that today I would share with you the recently-announced rosters for the Chinese-Taipei World Baseball Classic Team:

CHINESE TAIPEI
PITCHERS: Hung-Wen Chen, Chi-Hung Cheng, Kai-Wen Cheng, Chien-Ming Chiang, Chieh Hsiao, Yu-Chi Hsiao, Po-Hsuan Keng, Chen Lee, We-Hua Lee, Yu-Cheng Liao, Ko-Chien Lin, Po-Yu Lin, Yueh-Ping Lin, Cheng-Long Lo, Chia-Jen Lo, Ching Lung Lo, Fu-Te Ni, Chia-Chun Tang, Chin-Hui Tsao, Sung-Wei Tseng.

CATCHERS: Chih-Kang Kao, Yi-Feng Kuo, Kun-Sheng Lin, Cheng-Ta Wu.

INFIELDERS: Chih-Hsien Chiang, Chih-Hsiang Huang, Kuo-Ching Kao, Yen-Wen Kuo, Bing-Yen Lee, Han Lin, Yi-Chuan Lin, Cheng-Ming Peng, Shen-Wei Wang, Chun-Shou Yang.

OUTFIELDERS: Chih-Yao Chan, Chih-Yuan Chen, Szu-Chi Chou, Cheng-Wei Huang, Cheng-Wei Huang, Tai-Chi Kuo, Ying-Chieh Liao, Che-Hsuan Lin, Wei-Chu Lin, Kuo Hui Lo, Wu-Hsiung Pan, Chuan-Chia Wang.

I would have never thought that Bing-Yen Lee would agree to play this spring. What a bitch. Updates to follow.

Scotchy scotch scotch scotch

I have always enjoyed good single-malt scotch, but I don't get to enjoy it very often. This is mainly due to the facts that: a. scotch is expensive and b. I don't have any money. So when I received a gift certificate to the local nice wine/liquor store, I knew immediately that I was going to turn that into a pretty nice bottle of old, smokey, peaty goodness.

So I got a bottle of 12-year Bowmore Islay single malt (on account of the extra-peatyness) and have been slowly - very slowly - enjoying it. Its the nicest bottle of liquor that I've ever owned, and I intend to enjoy it to its fullest, dammit.

So of course, the next step is to hop on the intro-net and research what makes a good scotch, what to taste for, how to taste it correctly, etc. All of which eventually led me to this page: The Scotch Doc.

I love it. This is a perfect example of what most websites used to be in the heady early days of the web (I'm sure he hasn't updated it in over 7 years). There is the standard menu frame on the left, the standard shitty color scheme, the standard rambling on about onesself, and the standard shitty photos. The guy is an absolute riot because he takes himself wayyyyyyyyyy too seriously, and because he is a self-described "twentieth century Renaissance man", and "redneck Riverbottom Okie".

So you can explore yourself because the page will undoubtedly make you laugh more than I ever could, but there is one page that I do actually enjoy - the "Scotch Doc" method of tasting scotch. He goes into explicit detail on the techniques of drinking scotch, and also offers a commentary on not using scotch to get drunk. While I'm not completely with him on that particular salient point, he makes a lot of sense, and says it pretty poetically:

"An understanding of the Scotch Single Malt Whisky has been proven to enhance, not only the gastronomical experience, but also the self-discipline and respect for the qualities of this unique spirit. The greater the understanding the less the abuse of this mysterious and complex alcoholic beverage. Knowledge begets appreciation, which begets respect, which begets a natural temperance. I know of no true connoisseur of the Scotch Single Malt Whisky that uses it to intoxicate himself. Such an action is considered an abuse by the connoisseur and an insult to this noble spirit. There are certainly more economical alcoholic beverages that can accomplish the objective of becoming intoxicated equally as well."

Okay, okay, I'm with you...

"Finally, our politicians, social scientists and well-intended, but sometimes misguided, organized protestor groups have proven to us, over and over, that human integrity and self-discipline cannot be legislated or forced upon anyone. What, then, IS the answer? Perhaps it lies in the realm of education. Could the true and full understanding of related outcomes of irresponsible behavior be a substantial part of the answer? I think so. If not, what are the other options. I can think of none. Having witnessed the moral and physical destruction of beloved relatives due to the abuse of alcohol, I have undertaken the educational approach to this international problem. My motto, "The intelligent appreciation of the Scotch Single Malt Whisky," could apply to the use of all alcoholic beverages. I profess that the Scotch single malt makes a wonderful companion but a vicious master. I still believe in the validity of the ancient Roman term, "abusus non tollit usum," which translates, "Abuse is no argument against proper use." This is, also, the message of "The Scotch Doc." "

Pretty heady stuff there, but I do love the last quote: "Abuse is no argument against proper use." Man, the Romans kicked ass.

Feeling the Dark Side's Power Flow Through Me

Well, it happened. I asked for - and received - an iPod for Christmas. This may sound like a pretty lame thing for a twenty-something blogger and tech nerd to be exited about writing about, but it is very nearly a watershed event in my life. Maybe not quite that epic, but I think it says something. Ever since our family got our first Packard-Bell 386 computer (complete with 2x CD-ROM drive and oooh 256-color VGA monitor), I have always been an ardent and vocal supporter of the "IBM" or "PC" style computer, as opposed to Apple stuff, like iMacs and iBooks and whatever else.

I'm a nerd, but I never reached the level of spurning Windows to use Unix or Linux or anything like that. But I certainly enjoyed the fact that I had mastered DOS back in the day - it was something I took pride in and knew that I had at least a basic level of understanding of what went on behind the scenes of all the pretty pictures and graphics in Windows. I think that was where my hatred of all things Apple began...it was not so much that I thought that it was a bad product or that it wasn't useful, it was that I believed it encouraged people to not think about what their computer was doing. It simplified things to the point of rediculousness. ONE mouse button! How the hell do you call up the properties menu? Is there a properties menu? What do you mean you don't know how to access your hard drive? It made me mad that people delighted in the simpicity of everything. They didn't have to know text commands to "cls" or "md FAVORI~1" or adjust COM ports to make your Sound Blaster (or equivalent) sound card work or make a boot disk or pound your keyboard in frustration when Doom said there was an IRQ error or any of the fun stuff!

But of course that was the point. People don't want to have to worry about that stuff. People don't want to have to worry about IRQ addresses. They want to hit a button, have a pretty picture pop up with a status bar to tell you that the computer is working on stuff, and then hit one big mouse button to play solitaire or whatever other crappy games they offered for the Mac. And there's nothing wrong with that. That statement is what took me 15 years to come to terms with. People want things to work right because they have enough other shit in their lives to worry about and enough other tasks taking up their time without having to worry about whether or not they'll get a Blue Screen of Death and have to reboot and rewrite that entire Christmas letter they just spent two hours they'll never get back on.

Now that I'm older and I have a real job and significantly less free time, I understand that. When I was a kid, I happily spent entire summers fucking with COM ports and memory allocation to make Duke Nukem 3d run well without having to listen to MIDI music. I have to admit, nowadays I get frustrated as all hell when my MLB 2005 game has a direct 3d error or locks up, because now I'm wasting my valuable free time fixing my computer, instead of enjoying it.

So, to bring things back to my original point, it is an event for me that I am excited about and thoroughly enjoying my Apple iPod. Just like the literally millions of other people out there with the same damn thing. I am now a statistic - there is absolutely nothing that distinguishes my iPod from any of the others out there. But I don't care. It is fucking awesome. Here's why:

1. It looks awesome.
2. It feels awesome - heavy enough to let you know its built decently well, but not obtrusive or bulky.
3. The interface is awesome. You push the buttons just hard enough and they immediately respond with a click and the thing does what you want it to do. Brilliant.
4. It holds ALL of my songs and still has room for more. All 98G of my songs.
5. It has games on it that don't absolutely blow.
6. It synched with my iTunes, charged, and worked perfectly the first time I used it.
7. It sounds pretty good.
8. I can manually drag and drop songs to and from it from Windows Explorer. Makes me feel like I retain a little bit of control over the damn thing.

So, call me boring or call me a bandwagoner or whatever - I've already called myself all of those things. I don't care. It is the bomb. Kudos, Steve Jobs. You did a hell of a lot better than Dell did when it tried to make an MP3 player.

And on and on and on

So here we are, a full six days after my last blog post wherein I stated my jubilation that the red sox were out of the bidding for Mark Teixiera. Turns out, they aren't. Turns out, they are still the favorites. That is, if you are willing to believe Buster Olney.

I used to like Buster Olney's writing - a bit dry, but he seemed to have a pretty good grip on things. Plus, he spent two years as a beat writer following the Orioles. But the last two weeks have really made me reconsider my opinion on him; and to be frank, most reporters for the major news outlets.

It has been a kind of perfect storm around here for the last two weeks - things have been slow at work, I am enthralled by the whole Teixiera pursuit, and rumors are flying around everywhere. I have an add-on to my Firefox browser that allows me to see every update to MLB Trade Rumors as it is posted. I am following every link. I am reading every forum. For the first time, I'm putting the pieces together.

And what I've found is that none of these reporters know dick.

And yet, they will all take the same half-second blurb or soundbite or e-mail snippet and spin it in the direction that their sports editor wants them to spin it, and while they're at it, add a paragraph or two that expounds on this statement based on...well, based on horseshit, basically.

The Olney column that I linked to above is a perfect example of this. The Orioles have not made one single statement about their offer to Tex since the beginning of last week, when MacPhail said that their offer was "flexible". That's it. No leaks, no rumors, no statements, nothing. And yet, Bad-boy Buster has been making the absolute clear statement that the Orioles are completely out of the bidding. Based on what, exactly? Similarly, he has been repeating and repeating that the red sox are the 'clear' front-runners. Again, based on what, Buster? If you have inside knowledge that no one else is privy to, I'm sure that your ass would be putting in bold print at the top of your page, "according to an inside source...". But you really haven't made a statement like that.

You're going off of the same bullshit, third-hand, expired information that everyone on the Intro-net has been hashing and re-hashing for the last week. The only difference is that you work for ESPN and you have the balls to report your gut feelings and opinions as fact.

This would typically be the kind of thing to really disappoint me, but I feel as though I'm not alone in feeling this way. Baseball and sports fans in general now have access to exponentially more information than was ever available in the past, and I don't think I'm alone in coming to the realization that some of these reporters are bullshit artists of the highest order.

So anyway, don't take these reporters at their word just because they work for a big newspaper or magazine or gigantoid sports media outlet. They can be just as lazy and full of bullshit opinions as the rest of us - its just now that we can call them out on it.