The Wrong LaRoche

If I start a new blog about adventures in baseball scorekeeping, I think I'll have to call it The Wrong LaRoche. Having the wrong LaRoche almost cost me this new opportunity.

I'll give you the deets quickly, because it's been a long last three days and I'm ready to go rest before going back to work tomorrow. So about a month ago, I saw a Craigslist ad (yep, Craigslist again...will this work out like my last job in Chicago or will it be another scam like "Shelley"?) looking for minor-league scorekeepers for the upcoming baseball season. Why, there's a minor-league team right here in my new city! They're the Memphis Redbirds, and I went to a few games last year. Good team (of course, since they're affiliated with the St. Louis Cardinals, who only won the World Series last year), great stadium, love the BBQ nachos, but I wonder why they refuse to stock lids for their soft drinks. I don't like flying critters in my Coke. Anyhow, I responded to the ad, and someone replied back with a two-question e-mail interview asking me what numbers correspond to the players on the field when keeping score and how to score a 2nd-to-SS-to-1st double play. Two very easy questions for me, and I tried to give a little flava in my answer by mentioning that my favorite DP is P-to-C-to-1st, the ol' 1-2-3 if you're scoring. He replied that it was his fav too, but he didn't see it at all last year. So I passed the first gateway and was sent to a website that gave me the details of the job, and I almost got scared off by the 17-question sheet that I had to fill out. But it paid $25 per game plus reimbursed parking, so I pressed on.

I was mailed a booklet and a couple of DVDs a couple of weeks later. The booklet described in 57 pages of detail what I'd have to keep track of when scoring games according to their specifics. Oh. My. God. This would be scoring a game in a fashion unlike any I've ever even attempted! I'm talking keeping track of every pitch result, every pickoff result, charting the field location of every single ball put in play, as well as the velocity and trajectory of the ball. And those are the basics! Don't even ask about what you have to do on complex plays, like when there's an out made on a base hit or there's an error on a fielder's choice, or when the defense shifts. Man, my head's exploding just thinking about it. One of the DVDs was the guy who runs this operation sitting at a webcam going over real examples of many various game situations. That DVD runs for over two hours. The 2nd DVD is of a game from a few years ago between the Giants and Pirates that they use as a test game. I had to keep score of the test game and send it in like I would a normal game, and only if that test game was scored as decent would I then finally be allowed as part of the Memphis crew of scorers. Well, I sweated and sent that game in last night, even though they provided a box score of that test game and it had a pitcher officially throwing two wild pitches, and my box score only showed one. The thing is, I went back and looked at my inning-by-inning chart, and I had the two wild pitches recorded. But I didn't even care to figure out what I did wrong. I was so exhausted that I just sent the thing in and hoped for the best.

The e-mail came this morning that my test game had been scored. The guy in charge started the first sentence with "You made two major errors and nine minor errors..." My heart almost stopped. I assumed that the wild pitch discrepancy would be some kind of fuck-up on my end. Where did these ten other errors come from??? Then I kept reading the sentence, and it said "...which is better than average for our test game scores." Really?? My eleven errors is actually considered kosher?? I couldn't help but smile as I skipped to the end of the e-mail, where the guy in charge welcomed me aboard and said that once I went into the software and checked off which Redbirds games I would be available for, he'd schedule me. Whoooo!! "I'm in! I'm in!" I said to my wife on the phone. I was ecstatic and also relieved.

At this point, I went back to the e-mail and read the errors that I made. The wild pitch thing was a major error, and it happened because there's a box that you have to check before the wild pitch gets put into the system, and I neglected to check this box the 2nd time, and that's why it never showed up in my box score. The other major mistake? I put the wrong LaRoche into the starting lineup. The Pirates had two brothers on their team, Adam and Andy LaRoche, and without thinking about the fact that Adam was too clumsy to play third base, I put him in as the starting 3B instead of Andy. Yeah, that's kind of a major mistake, starting the wrong guy. However many games I get to score, I'm fairly confident that I won't put the wrong fucking player in the lineup again. But I'm just psyched that I will get to score some games at all. I'm also intimidated at how much detail I'll have to keep up with. I won't be able to take a piss or get a bite to eat unless my wife comes with me to some games and feeds me while I scribble. But it's hard to complain because I'd be getting paid to keep score of a game. How awesome is that? I only wish they paid more so that I could make it a full-time gig. But hey, I may have to pull out those schmoozing skillz that my father instilled in me and make friends and cohorts along the way, and maybe I'll find my way up the chain into a serious-paying baseball executive role. Don't put it past me. I have a lot of failures in my past, but I've been known to come out ahead at times also. And with the cash flow getting a serious setback thanks to all the car trouble the last several months, I'm as motivated as can be to climb any ladders that I come across.

Catching Up

I'm chilling at home watching some Law & Order: CI, and I finally did the dishes last night, so I have an opportunity to write a blog post and catch up on some events in my life and outside of it that I haven't commented on. Not a whole hell of a lot is happening in my life. There's a shift of lifestyle that I've had to adjust to, now that my credit card balances spiraled so far out of control that I had to enter a debt consolidation program and cut out my credit cards entirely. My lunches are consisting of homemade sandwiches almost every day, and if I don't find a part-time job soon I'll be forced to really start cutting some luxuries out of my life. But I strangely don't see the whole situation as that big of a deal. Lots of people are trying to get by daily on a lot less money than me, due to car payments and trying to raise children and other expenses that I don't have to worry about. So I'll be fine. I've survived much worse shit than this.

Here are some current event topics that I wanted to make blog posts about but never got around to it:

The Psycho-Pussy Phenomenon. Within a couple of weeks of each other, former NFL QB Steve McNair and boxer Arturo Gatti were murdered by their respective lovers. (McNair's wasn't his wife, and Gatti's death by purse strap strangulation was ruled a suicide by the cops in Brazil where he was murdered, just for the record.) But I pause one second to gather my thoughts on why men who can get any piece of ass they want instead go for young and mentally instable ass, and next thing I know Jason Whitlock has a column out saying the exact same thing (via Deadspin, although I'm not writing an article here, so I don't know why the fuck I'm bothering giving credit for where I saw the column). Whitlock says basically what I was thinking when I first heard about both cases, which is, why in hell would an athlete with money and some fame choose to shack up with young women who don't know what they want in life because they haven't lived long enough, not to mention might be psycho? Having sex with hot, young chicks, that's understandable (although it would have been nice for McNair to decide he wanted a divorce before having sex with hot, young chicks, but in a way that's none of our business). But McNair had an entirely separate life away from his home living with the nut that shot him, going on vacations with her and everything, as if she's mature enough to make your second wife at the age of 20, and Gatti made some 23-year-old stripper his wife. Both men were in their late 30s, and mark my words, both were going to throw the girls aside in ten or fifteen years once they got too old for their tastes. I don't have a problem with that. But you never make one of those young girls your life partner. You're asking for nothing for trouble when you take a hot flame and try to mold her into a housewife. And I can't even get into the press coverage of the McNair story because it was so ridiculous. He was painted as this warrior and great family man who had this tragic thing happen to him. You know who doesn't have tragic things happen to them? Guys who don't fuck little girls and then cheat on them while sleeping in the same house with them and guns are lying around. Try to avoid those loosely connected situations, and still be alive today. See how easy that works?

RIP, Freak. Speaking of sexually confused people, the world's most famous pedophile, Michael Jackson, passed on, and honestly, my second reaction (the first, like everyone else, was "OMFG!1!! MICHAEL JACKSON DIED!!!1!!") was, "I hope he's happy wherever he is." Talk about a guy who didn't like the skin he was in from a very early age. It's hard for me to imagine what being Michael Jackson must have felt like. I like to think I'm the foremost authority on not liking yourself very much, but I've never tried to go from a black man to a white woman, I've never tried to get my nose surgically reduced so much that it looks like a cheese wedge, and I've never desired to fuck little white boys as a way to reclaim my lost childhood. This guy was in so much pain, I can't even fathom it. Only those closest to him could possibly know what went through that guy's skull on a daily basis, and we'll have to wait a year or two for the tell-all books to start coming out. And for what it's worth, I don't think there's a valid reason for fucking little white boys, and it's despicable any way you slice it, but I'm just guessing he did it because it was a way for him to live out his lost childhood; perhaps little white boys were the purest, most innocent form of humanity to him, moreso than little girls or grown humans. But I really hope more than anything that his spirit finds a way to be happy now that it's freed from his body. Someone making as much money as he did, showing his talent as effortlessly as he did should have had so much more fun during his time on Earth, yet no one seemed more tortured in his own skin than Michael Jackson. It was time for him to get off this planet, when you think about it. He didn't die too soon. If anything he died too late, before his desires and psychological issues led him to suck off little boys and ruin their lives forever. Oh, and I've been told that Michael's daddy is a damn fool, but since I've never once paid attention to anything he's said, I can't confirm that.

Support Your Local Indy Fed. About six weeks ago, while walking home from the Metra train on the last Saturday night that I had to work before I started my new shift of M-F, I noticed a small white cardboard sign shoved into the ground that said "Pro Wrestling Tonight," with an arrow pointing across the street at a lonely-looking truck company office. I was thrilled and confused at the same time, thrilled because who knew there was a venue in my neighborhood large enough to hold wrestling matches, and confused because, well, where could this venue possibly be?? I'm telling you, that truck company office is a one-flat storefront, so I knew it couldn't be in there...could it? I went home and decided to search around the internet for any wrestling events on the West Side of Chicago, and thanks to the upcoming events tab at this website, I was able to locate the address and next event of an indy league called the UWC. The address was exactly where that truck company office is. The next show was the very next Saturday after I saw that sign. The cost was $5. I decided to attend. It wasn't worth the $5. First, finding the venue was a trip because as I said, that innocent little office didn't appear to be where the event could be taking place. Well, if you walk along the side wall of that little office, you have to go back about two city blocks to where most of the trucks are parked, but eventually you come upon a building with a row of offices lined up in a way so that it resembles a row of trailers in a trailer park. I frightened the shit out of this 40-year-old white woman who clutched her purse as I approached her and asked was there a wrestling match taking place around here somewhere. "OH, yes," she cheerfully answered, relieved that I wasn't there to rape her, "right through that door." This trailer-park looking place was also a one-flat, so I was still wondering how there was a wrestling match happening here. "Is this the way to the wrestling?" I asked a fat white girl in black jeans. "Yeah," she answered sarcastically, "did my t-shirt give it away?" She turned to show me the UWC t-shirt she was wearing, which was impossible for me to see since I was walking behind her, so yes, cumbucket, the t-shirt that I couldn't see gave it away. Through a corridor, I came upon a small room that had a front wall with framed wrestling magazine covers and pictures of guys that you've heard of and therefore wouldn't be in attendance this evening. Then, around the wall, the rest of the room was empty except for a concession area to the left with food that I wouldn't be ordering and t-shirts and lucha masks that I wouldn't be purchasing. A middle-aged Latina woman took my money at the door at the front of the room, and I stepped through into a larger room resembling a section of a warehouse with about 50 or 60 flimsy folding chairs set up in rows and a rickety ring against the far wall that looked like it would fall apart if someone breathed on it. One wall had a small opening at the bottom resembling a mouse hole. The smell was strong, like people had been sweating and grunting in there for many days before I ever showed up. Less than half the chairs were occupied. I was the only brotha in attendance, although there was a black guy doing very annoying play-by-play over the house mike, and there were a couple of black guys wrestling during the show, and the one and only referee they had was black. I had to sit on two of the chairs at once because I didn't trust just one of them to support my weight. One single small camera on a tripod stood to the right of the ring filming the night's activities. Of the first three matches, one of them featured a wrestler in wrestler's gear--you know, trunks and pads and wrestling boots. Everyone else seemed to be in their street clothes or workout pants with no shirt on. The 350-lb. brotha who came out in a camouflage hoodie almost lost his gym shorts during his match, but thankfully for all of us he had shiny red trunks underneath covering everything up. All five matches were as painfully amateurish as you'd expect, with lots of blown spots and moments that left you wondering why some of these guys were even being allowed in the ring. During intermission, I asked the referee, who was outside on his smoke break, how often they have shows. "Every three weeks," he replied, then looked me up and down like a piece of meat and added, "But we do have training every Saturday!" Hell to the naw, I replied, or something resembling that. For the main event, the champ, a large white dude in a mask, stood in the middle of the ring while his manager and white-trash skank valet issued an open challenge, meaning they charged $5 for a show in which the title match had no advertised challenger. Five minutes before this, two heavy Latina women showed up and sat right behind me, and when the champ came out for the open challenge, they both immediately started booing him and shouting him down, so based on nothing more than this, I assumed that the man answering the challenge would be Hispanic, and he probably just showed up to the "arena" and dropped those two women off in his 1984 Chevy Caprice. I was right. Some fat dude named Will E. Bling ran out and fought with the champ for about five minutes before the champ's manager and entourage jumped into the ring and attacked Will, laying him and some other Latino who charged into the ring out with chairshots. The women howled in anger and shouted words too salty even for this blog, as if this were an actual mugging in the street. They were as entertaining as any wrestlers on the show. The next show after that, according to that Chicago wrestling website, was going to have nine matches but was going to cost $7 for admission. I almost swallowed my tongue when I read that. I didn't go back. That's not to say that I wouldn't someday check it out again just for the cheesy atmosphere, and also because I feel good supporting an indy fed that clearly needs the support, and also because if I ever got the guts to ask if they need an extra announcer or something, I may wind up breaking into the wrestling business after spending my entire life fantasizing about it. But I can't ever see myself in the ring despite my size. Too many bad things can happen trusting an amateur to protect you while you try moves that you're just not coordinated enough to do.

Chicago Sports In The Spotlight. It's fun to see our major league pro sports teams step up and go for the jugular instead of always waiting back and hoping things turn around on their own. The Bulls, despite their horrible draft picks a couple of months ago (Taj Gibson? What, we don't have enough mentally challenged spazzes loitering underneath the basket?), still have a chance to clear salary off their books and jump into the free agent pool after next season. That's the only way they're ever going to get Derrick Rose a supporting cast that can contend for a title, and they know it. Drafting turds every year isn't going to cut it. It may not look like it, but they are putting themselves in the best position to succeed. The Bears are about to fire up their first season with Jay Cutler as their quarterback, and I still can't believe they had the balls to pull off that trade. Cutler is without question one of the seven best QBs in the damn game, and we went out and got him. I'm not perfect with predictions, but I'm not always wrong, either. Prediction: Cutler will throw for 3,500 yards and 25 TDs. Prediction: WR Earl Bennett, who couldn't do much of anything last year for the Bears with Kyle Orton at QB but set records playing with Cutler in college at Vanderbilt, will go for 1,000 yards receiving. Prediction: The Bears will win the NFC Central and will have a really good run through the playoffs, falling just short of the Super Bowl. Prediction: The Denver Broncos, who traded Cutler here for Orton and some draft picks, will suck. Hard. And how about the White Sox going after former Cy Young Award winning pitcher Jake Peavy? I never would have thought the Sox would move that far forward to get an ace for their rotation, but giving up four pitching prospects was not too stiff for GM Ken Williams. Good for him. They don't trade aces every day in baseball, so huzzah for going after one and getting him. It's a strange deal considering Peavy is on the disabled list, and I didn't know you could trade guys on the DL, but I guess when you want someone that bad, you don't care if he's temporarily sidelined. Around the same time the Bears will be gearing up to start the season a month from now, Peavy should be getting set to lead the Sox into the last month and go after a pennant. I'm really, really looking forward to September. Makes me wish I was a sports columnist, because there would be no shortage of topics right now.

And Speaking Of Writing...While looking for part-time jobs, I came across a website called Examiner.com that was looking for columnists, but they wouldn't say how much they would pay. I applied anyway because I hoped that I could write for them and make some extra money, but I never expected that it would pay a lot because if it did, they would say upfront what kind of money they were offering. Well, I got the gig, and I am now the Chicago Long Distance Relationships Examiner. Sure enough, the pay is virtually nothing. They appear to give me a whole penny every time my page is viewed. There's no actual salary for my labor, so page views is the only way I will make any cash. Plus, they won't send me any money until my account grows past $25. At this rate, that will happen around 2013. Oh well. At least I will have a catalogue of writing that I can send a future employer if I want to get into freelance writing, and that catalogue won't have profanity or diatribes about wanting to murder ex-lovers.

Finally, How's The Missus? My fiancee is still searching for work, although she's having success doing volunteer work for nonprofit organizations, which could easily lead into paid labor if she impresses the right people. She visited here twice this summer, and the second time she was able to attend my dinner at ESPNZone that I won at the Sports Spelling Bee. We did it on Saturday, July 4, because I wanted my whole family there with me, and they agreed to be there with me on that day. I was very proud to have everyone there, including my fiancee. I looked over the scene a couple times--all nine of us, including my aunt's family and my uncle's family, except for my uncle's oldest son--and I imagined that this is what it will look like if all of them come down to Memphis for the wedding. It was a little emotional. It sounds strange, but I miss being the center of my family's attention. This happened all the time when I was a child. I'd have a play at school, or a part in some sort of assembly, or they would take me to dinner for some sort of academic achievement. And it was an occasion for my folks to tell me how proud they were of me and how much joy they took in my accomplishments. And the fact is, I ain't accomplished much since I grew up. I still don't want a celebratory dinner for getting my Associates degree because that's something that I shouldn't have done when I was fucking 33 years old. That should have been taken care of twelve years ago, but I was so immature that I avoided college at all costs. I don't think I should be celebrated for something that I put off so damn long. Anyway, my fiancee also went with me to the Sox game that I won tickets for, and that was really fun. They weren't just regular old tickets, they were tickets to something called the Jim Beam Club, and that got us free food, free drinks, free dessert, and a seat one level up from the ground right behind home plate. At one point I got up from all the food and headed out the door to go down to field level because I assumed that I had to go into the actual stands to buy a scorecard. (I like to keep score of the game.) The lady at the door informed me that no, I don't have to leave the Jim Beam Club to get a scorecard, they have them right there at the door. I gladly whipped out a dollar to pay for the scorecard, delighted that I didn't have to go searching for one. She told me the scorecards were complimentary. I then started wondering how I could break the news to my fiancee that I wasn't EVER LEAVING THIS PLACE. To top it off, it was Fireworks Night, and the Sox won, so you couldn't have made it a better night. The only down part about my fiancee's second visit was that I used most of my vacation time on her first visit, so I was going to work, coming home, eating the supper she prepared, and promptly falling asleep. So yeah, we didn't mess around a whole lot. We're both still getting used to each other on some levels. We're shy people by nature, so it's a battle to make that first move. I believe she thinks it's incumbent on me to be more forward since I have more experience, but I'm just not that guy. And she's definitely not that gal. I have a feeling we'll get more comfortable once she moves up here permanently. But after three and a half years of long-distance dating, we still are getting to know each other.

But hey, no excuses. I'll just have to get it together and do better next time. After all, I am the Chicago Long Distance Relationships Examiner. I'm a fucking expert! Right?

Hello? Anybody home??

Say Anything, No Matter How Moronic

Just a couple of tidbits I heard while listening to sports talking heads the past couple of days, which just reinforce how much I want to become a sports broadcaster if only to raise the intellect of the everyday banter:

First, during the NBA Draft coverage on ESPN Thursday evening, main booyah Stu Scott and the Seven Dwarfs doing running commentary next to him were yapping about the #3 pick about to be made by the Seattle, er, uh, Oklahoma City Thunder. Since the Clippers took Blake Griffin #1, and the Grizzlies took Hasheem Thabeet #2, Stu and the boyz assumed that Spanish PG flash-in-the-pan Ricky Rubio would certainly be the next pick due to all the hype around him. For a solid minute, which is a long time with gasbags like these, they did not mention the possibility of anything happening other than the Thunder drafting Rubio any second now. So NBA Commissioner David Stern sidles up to the mic and announces, "With the 3rd pick in the 2009 NBA Draft, the Oklahoma City Thunder select...James Harden from Arizona State." To which Stu immediately responds: "The Thunder liked James Harden all along." WHAT?!? You imbeciles just spent the last minute or two telling everyone how good Ricky Rubio will fit with the young talent of Oklahoma City, and three seconds later, they liked Harden all along? Stu, STFU, you retarded Cyclops. You know NOTHING. None of you know ANYTHING.

Then, just this morning, I woke up to some golf show on WSCR-AM, which I guess is what I fell asleep listening to last night, and I had the pleasure of hearing this exchange between two twits talking about great sports owners, specifically Bill Veeck:

Twit 1: "Is Veeck in the Hall of Fame or no? He should be."

Twit 2: "Charlie Finley is not in the Hall of Fame. Veeck died in '86 but was inducted in '91. That's a shame. I'd have loved to hear that induction speech."

Twit 1: "You can YouTube it, right? Everything's posted on the internet nowadays."

"He Took It In The Butt"

That was the headline in the Trentonian newspaper last week when Roger Clemens had his pristine name dragged into the steroids circus surrounding Major League Baseball. I just thought that was funny. I had one small thing to add to this, then I'll crawl back in my hole. I just watched Mike & Mike In The Morning, a sports talk show that also airs on TV, and they had callers commenting on whether they believe Clemens, who vehemently denies using steroids or HGH, or think he's lying like so many other ballplayers have when confronted with evidence. The very first guy who called said he was giving Clemens the benefit of the doubt, and so did the last guy who called, and I think the segment that I watched only had three callers. Mike and Mike wondered why they didn't hear this kind of benefit when Barry Bonds denied his intentional steroid use under oath before a grand jury a few years ago ("I thought it was flaxseed oil"). I have an answer--he did receive the benefit of the doubt, from a large number of black people. I remember all the polls that came out back then charting the racial divide among people who believe that Bonds was innocent. It was like 50 or 60% of all blacks polled, as opposed to something in the teens for whites. But hardly any of those blacks were taken seriously. Those polls were trotted out by sports talk people as some sign of the apocalypse, or worse, a sign of the bad role models those poor black people were choosing. But they didn't actually speak to those black people to find out why they felt that way. And here's Mike & Mike wondering why Clemens is being trusted and believed while Bonds wasn't. Um, I don't recall them taking calls from Bonds supporters, and neither did any other sports talk show I listened to. They didn't want to. He was a dirty black guy breaking the all-time home run record, and he didn't deserve supporters. But here's a bunch of white darlings loved by the media, like Clemens and Andy Pettitte and some little scrappy guys who would have never put up the numbers they did if not for juicing, and the media in general seem to be falling over themselves trying to cushion the blow and accept their word as bond. Makes me shake my head. And for the record, yeah, I believe they're all guilty, Bonds and Clemens and all the other idiots writing personal checks to clubhouse guys and putting "STEROIDS" in the memo line. I don't think they're conjuring up evidence to get back at any of them. I just think that some athletes are so addicted to winning at all costs and so used to getting anything they want any time they want that they believe that if they keep saying they're innocent, the whole thing will eventually go away. And for that, I think they're all floating turds, black, white, Latino, or green alien.

Signs O' The Times

A possible conversation taking place somewhere in Great Britain...

Chap 1: "I say old chap, of all the reasons David Beckham could have chosen to go to America, what do you think could have been going through his old bean?"

Chap 2: "I'm as befuddled as you are, my good man. Of course, he could become a bigger star perhaps if he were playing overseas. They need a star footballer over there."

1: "Oh, hogwash. The sport will never be big over there because they're too low-class to appreciate it. Their three most popular sports are all way bigger than football, or soccer, which is what they call it. And it's disgusting the filth that permeates their sports culture."

2: "Well, sure, there's all the hippity-hop and bling-blung and whatever, but maybe it's not so bad for footballers. Besides, it's not like all the sports stars in America are thugs and bad blokes, just a bloody few."

1: "Oh yeah? Tell me, what do you think is the big story in the major sports over there? What's the first thing you think of when you think of baseball news?"

2: "I don't know."

1: "I'll tell you, it's that gargoyle Barry Bonds about to break the all-time home run record. I mean, never mind the fact that the most home runs hit were by Sadaharu Oh in the Japanese leagues. I understand they only want to acknowledge the major league record. That's their style, you see, ignore the rest of the world and only point out your own achievements. But fine, let's say Hank Aaron is the home run leader. This Bonds guy is obviously unnatural, you can just look at him and tell he uses some sort of supplement that no one else uses because no one else looks like him! His hat size grew about 3 full sizes in 8 years! He's a walking pharmacy, I tell you, but their commissioner just throws his hands in the air and says nothing. And Bonds even testified to a grand jury that he used a steroid, but he says he didn't know what it was. Come on, you think anyone, much less a world-class athlete, puts something in his body and doesn't bloody well know what it is?"

2: "That doesn't sound very bright, no."

1: "And what's the first thing in your mind when I mention basketball?"

2: "Why, Michael Jordan, of course. Is he still playing?"

1: "No, he finally retired years ago for the 7th time. You haven't heard what happened with the basketball officials?"

2: "No I haven't."

1: "They're on the bloody take! They found a guy who was an NBA official for I believe 13 years, and they say he was involved in the Mafia and had gambling debts, and agreed to lower his debts by calling a boatload of fouls and making his games tilt over the over-under number. Can you imagine? Their commissioner had all these silly rules for the players like a dress code and such, trying to control them like he was headmaster, and meanwhile his officials are fixing the games! You wonder how many other things they will find when they investigate. I mean, what's stopping other officials from getting in on the action, or even players? Hell, the commissioner wouldn't know. He's busy keeping an eye on whether Shaquille O'Neal is wearing a bloody sportcoat!"

2: "That is indeed scandalous."

1: "And what about American football? What do you think is the biggest story there?"

2: "Oh, I know this one. It's that one guy who was 'making it rain' throwing money in the gentleman's club, and then one of his buddies shot a man and paralyzed him. Pity."

1: "That's old news, pal. One of their star quarterbacks was just indicted because there was a house he owned but never lived in, and they found it was a house where he and his friends raised dogs to fight for money. And when there were dogs that wouldn't make good fighters, they would just kill them as if they didn't deserve to live. I'm talking electrocuting them, shooting them, firing them down to the ground until they stopped moving--vile, disgusting things."

2: "Fancy that. I've never heard of such a thing. They would make the dogs fight for money, you say? There were prizes for this?"

1: "No, no, folks would bet on which dog would win. It wasn't like a league where there was a champion--this was all underground stuff."

2: "That's sickening."

1: "Now what do you think about Beckham going to the United States?"

2: "That he's entering the gates of Hades?"

1: "Exactly."

It Starts

Yes folks, you know spring training has finally begun when Kerry Wood finds a way to injure himself. Again. It's a rite of spring, as consistent as a sunrise.

God, I've missed baseball.

The Death Of The White Sox--Up Close And Personal

My uncle got tickets to last night's Tigers-White Sox game from a co-worker, and he gave them to me and a friend of ours who also works with him and who used to be a teammate of ours in a bowling league. For those who aren't aware, the Sox led in the race for a wild card playoff spot (best record in the American League among all teams who aren't leading a division) for most of the season, but have lost that lead to the Twins. Now the Sox sit about 5 games out of the wild card spot with 12 games left in the season, so when I listen to sports talk radio on my headphones during work, it's 20 minutes of Bears love for every 3 hours of Sox hate. It made perfect sense that free tickets popped up for last night's game because the Sox were swept 3 straight games over the weekend in Oakland, then came back Monday night to get a foot put up their ass by the first-place Tigers, who were still only 6 games ahead of the Sox, so technically the Sox could beat them and still be in the race to win the whole division...but instead, they got killed. So sports talk yesterday was full of death knell sound effects and gagging sounds. Yeah, sure, NOW Sox tickets are available to whomever wants them. No one else has called me all year saying that they have tickets.

Oh, did I mention that the game-time temp yesterday was going to be about 50 degrees?

I expected a sparse, negative crowd of vitriolic, disappointed guys mixed with a few asshole Tigers fans, but I was pleasantly surprised. The fans were die-hards, very enthusiastic and supportive, 38,850 still rooting for the only major-league team in Chicago, even though most of us realistically know that it's just not our year. But my favorite player, A.J. Pierzynski, made us feel like miracles are possible for one night, hitting a grand slam in the 4th inning that proved to be the only hit the Sox needed to win behind Freddy Garcia's one-hit pitching performance. (Freddy's looked high all season long, keeping with the marijuana theme that has followed him since reports came out that he toked with regularity during this past off-season, so he's the one pitcher who can throw two straight 1-hitters. I know, bad joke.) For one more night, the Sox Pride was out and in full force, and I was glad to be proven wrong in my assumption that the wake would be last night for the upcoming funeral. They aren't quite dead yet.

All we need is Pierzynski grand slams every night for the rest of the season. That's realistic, no?

Ah, Those Classy Cubs Fans

That's just part of the crap thrown on the field by Cubs fans after my favorite player, A.J. Pierzynski, jacked a home run to put the White Sox over the Cubs on Saturday. The local and national radio talk show guys said that there were blue and red jackets and jerseys and caps being thrown around as well, apparently by Cubs fans who quit being Cubs fans on the spot. Don't think I've ever seen that before, a group of fans spontaneously standing up at the team's stadium, stripping themselves of the colors, and walking out on the team forever. I was going to write a joke about the garbage on the field being outweighed only by the garbage they swallowed from their boyfriends' cocks that night, but I'll leave that out. It's hard enough on them rooting for a team that will never win. Suddenly, I actually feel a slight twang of pity for Cubs fans.

Sports Weekend

Some of my worthless thoughts on this past wild sports weekend:

• Michael Barrett is a bitch who should be shot in the head. Barrett is the Cubs catcher who blocked home plate while White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski tried to score during the Cubs-Sox game Saturday, and he got ran over because he wouldn't get out of the way. He then staggered to his feet, grabbed A.J., reportedly said "I didn't have the ball bitch," and sucker-punched him. I listened to this happen live on the radio while I worked, and I couldn't wait to get home to see the highlights because the national media on ESPN Radio doing updates made a big deal about Pierzynski going towards Barrett after he scored, which wouldn't make sense because the play was over. Sure enough, the replay showed Pierzynski stepping in the direction of Barrett and starting to bend down to pick up his helmet. Barrett grabbed his arm, stood him up, and punched him in the grill. Why? Well, he is a Cub, and they haven't shown any spark all season--really, all of their existence as a franchise--so maybe this was his way of trying to rally his squad to show how tough they can be. Or maybe he was embarrassed because A.J. jacked him up like a linebacker spearing a running back. Either way, there's gonna be some violence in a month when the Sox go to Wrigley Field, and I'm not even talking about on the field. I'm just disappointed the Sox couldn't complete the sweep yesterday and shut the Cubbies and their fans up completely. But that's nothing new. The Sox often take two of three games from the Cubs at U.S. Cellular Field because they get tight and start making dumb errors and choke away one of the games. I went to a Sunday Cubs-Sox game several years ago where the brooms were out for a Sox sweep, and they hit five homers that day and managed to lose. It's frustrating to outperform a AAA team in every way all weekend and manage to lose the last game. Hopefully they will take advantage next go-round.

• I admittedly don't know anything about steroids and the effects the drug has on the body, but I remember when the rumors about Mark McGwire were flying in the early and mid-90s. A lot of the speculation centered around McGwire's frequent injuries and how he must be juicing because his muscles are just too big for his tendons and bones, making his body more susceptible to freakish breaks and strains. The same was said for many other muscular players who kept breaking things, including Kyle Farnsworth, who, as a Cub a few years ago, kicked a fan (a wind-blowing device, not a human) in frustration and broke his foot. Barry Bonds looks like he's in a severe amount of pain any time he has to run hard. His knees reportedly have no cartilage left, so it's just bone grinding on bone at this point. But his steroid use is said to have started around the beginning of the millennium in response to McGwire's power numbers and popularity. Perhaps Bonds avoided freakish injuries by maintaining a healthy body all of his life while starting to juice at a relatively later age. Perhaps the knee cartilage would have worn away anyhow; he is in his early 40s, after all. I'm not sure if anything can be definitively answered as far as steroid use and its effects until some weird science lab steps forward and starts a long-term test using human "guinea pigs." Until then, it's just a lot of speculation. By the way, freak steroid injuries came into my mind after seeing Preakness favorite Barbaro break his leg in three places shortly after the race began. Who knows if steroids are the reason Barbaro won the Kentucky Derby by the biggest distance in forty years. But one has to wonder after seeing him crack his rear ankle like an egg.

• As one of Michael Jordan's biggest fans, I am officially afraid of what LeBron James may be on his way to becoming. There are very few guys that had his combination of skills, determination, conditioning, and savvy at his age. I wasn't watching basketball yet when Magic Johnson led the Los Angeles Lakers to a title at the age of 21 playing every position on the floor, but that's the comparison I'm hearing most. And Jordan wasn't near this good at this point in his career. LeBron almost took a pretty weak Cleveland Cavaliers squad and led them to a series win over the Detroit Pistons, who damn near matched the 95-96 Bulls' 70-12 regular season beatdown of the rest of the NBA and who were heavy favorites to win the title, much less their second-round series with the Cavs. LeBron has several things that MJ doesn't. He has the court vision to find open teammates, which usually develops at that young age only in future point guards. Jordan was too busy trying to win games by himself to work on finding open teammates. He has a body of armor, which allows him to take the ball to the basket and score on basically anyone living as well as give people headaches when he plays defense because you're not taking him to the post and bullying him around, so scratch that strategy completely. Most importantly, he already has a sense of how to play the game at an NBA level. Consider that Jordan didn't make his JV high school team, whereas LeBron has been touted as a future star since before high school. In this culture, it's possible to ignore all other aspects of an impoverished ghetto upbringing and become a student of the game as soon as you can dribble a ball. And that's partly because of Jordan and Magic and the popularity explosion of the NBA twenty-plus years ago. Whereas parents were more likely to take the ball away and try to guide their kids towards a different goal, now they're much more likely to encourage practice and playing as much as possible, seeing the riches potentially awaiting the next young baller and his peeps. And if you've read anything about LeBron's upbringing and his mother, you know why he is the latest product of that mentality of sweeping aside all other things and devoting oneself to basketball very early in life. And because the game is so much a part of who he is, that's why he could become the greatest of them all--there's never been anything else for him to concentrate on.

"Fuck The Cubs"

That was White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen's eloquent response to repeated questions about the Cubs-Sox series this weekend. Glad to see Ozzie's been listening to me tell my friends what the huge banner I'm going to put in right field at U.S. Cellular when I buy the Sox will read. Seriously. I said that years ago. It was going to be the perfect rallying cry for the new attitude the team would have under my ownership--to stop focusing on the crosstown Cubbies and start focusing on winning baseball. But since they are now playing winning baseball, I would just put the banner up to piss everyone off.

Ozzie also said that if the Sox were playing shit ball like the Cubs are now, there would be like 2,000 people at the Cell. I love how Cubs fans take that as a sign that they are true fans--because they come to Wrigley Field knowing the team sucks and the Tribune Company, which owns the Cubs, won't do anything to improve it as long as dumbfucks keep showing up at the park and giving the team money. I don't think fans stopped showing up for the Sox and kept seeing the Cubs when both teams were bad because the Cubs have better fans. I think it's because Sox fans, unlike Cub fans, don't like being screwed from behind. Hey, I call it like I see it. A manager who can't manage, a president and general manager who know their two best pitchers are extremely injury prone and yet don't acquire any help, and ownership who could care less...and they still draw 38,000 fans a game? They must love getting it up the ass in Wrigleyville. The more they get screwed, the more they come. They just can't stop coming and coming and coming over there.

All that screwing up the butt with no objections...makes total sense that the Cubbies play in Boys Town.

Priorities, Priorities

A couple of incidents where I wonder why I value the things that I value:

First, the reason that I am home today, Sunday, when my work schedule says that I should be at work, is because I used the one sick day that I have accrued by being at J.P. Morgan Chase for a month because I wanted to take part in the live fantasy baseball draft for the free online league that my friend "Jacob" and his friends and I have every year. I hated the idea of trying to rank every player in order of preference for a 12-team, 20-plus-round draft and letting the computer pick automatically for me because I always wind up with guys that I didn't want. I'm very glad that I was there live because I had the #1 pick and I was so proud to be able to click on Alex Rodriguez and take him live instead of getting home and seeing it later. Not the same feeling, not by a long shot. I was also happy to chat with the guys and Jacob's mom and girlfriend and talk shit with them. I think the best line this year occurred when someone drafted Alex Gonzalez. There are two different shortstops in the major leagues named Alex Gonzalez, and neither are All-World or anything, but one used to be a Cub and he sucked, so Jacob the Cub fan really hates him. So he says: "I hope that was the good Alex Gonzalez that got taken," and I said, "There's a good Alex Gonzalez?!?," and Jacob said, "Uh, there's a better one," to which I replied, "That's like saying one of my exes looks better than the other--they're still all crap." His girlfriend didn't appreciate that one.

The other measure of my priorities comes in the fact that I am once again planning a trip out of state to meet a woman from the internet. My aunt didn't like that idea, first obviously because of my poor track record with these encounters, but also because she isn't charging me rent to stay in the dungeon here and she wonders if I'm taking advantage of her by using some of my money to make this trip when I'm supposed to be saving up to get an apartment. I completely understand her feelings, but I'm actually not using the cash that I'm saving for the trip. I have always put those trips on my credit card, so technically, my actual cash flow is not affected at all. But my aunt knows that if she asks for money to help cover the costs of me staying down here, of course I would oblige. At least I'm not flying somewhere for a booty call. The woman that I am meeting is actually a virgin and prefers to wait until marriage to change that, so this connection is completely driven by our attraction to each other's spirits and personalities, and not our bodies. Hell, the most recent picture she showed me is a very conservative shot from four years ago, so I'm definitely not going there for the lust factor that has governed so many of my past poor decisions. This is about a potential soulmate and seeing if the spark and chemistry is as strong in person as it seems to be over the telephone. Of course, I have to wonder how much of it on my part is the soulmate factor, and how much is simply me prioritizing happiness and acceptance from a woman over everything else. And I have to hope that this does not turn out bad like all the other relationships I've had. No matter how much love and passion and caring I poured into the women in my past, I always came out hurt and heartbroken in the end. This should be different because my motivation is so different. Instead of looking for love and acceptance in the vagina of a woman, I'm sticking to matters of the heart and spirit, and so long as there's honesty and openness on both sides, whatever the outcome, it should be mutual and drama-free. And I'm at a place where I will not place all of the value and all of my joy on her shoulders, because I finally realize that I can't put that burden on anyone's shoulders. I am in charge of my happiness and joy from life. This lady, should she choose to accompany me throughout life, is only a potential partner sharing that joy, NOT the sole source of my future joy. As long as I keep that in mind and keep the pressure off of her, I anticipate things will go smoothly. At least, as smoothly as things can go between two shy, intense, passionate people who want a future with each other very badly.

Beat The White Sox If You Can, Survive...If They Let You!

I knew there was a reason why I've always loved A.J. Pierzynski and Ozzie Guillen.

http://deadspin.com/sports/baseball/why-we-cant-take-the-white-sox-seriously-161716.php

Barry Bonds Has Lost His Fucking Mind

I have no idea why he is dressed like that. Perhaps he wants to audition for Jamie Foxx's Wanda character on a revue of "In Living Color."

And to think I was actually looking forward to baseball coming back.

SOX ARE WORLD CHAMPS!!!!!

Anyone who knows me and has asked knows why I love the White Sox so much. In one sentence that doesn't nearly cover how strongly I feel about it: The Cubs cater to the rich, elite snobs who go to Wrigley Field to be seen and don't care for the little people, while the Sox were sending me free vouchers for games when I achieved perfect attendance and/or good grades in elementary school and always made me feel welcome when I went to their games. There's also the feel of actually caring about the game when I'm at Comiskey Park/U.S. Cellular Field, as opposed to the feel at a Cubs game of, "Wow, check out that hottie!" So it's many years of knowing that the Cubs are the more popular team in town only because the lowest common denominator of intelligence dictates that the trendy, more visually attractive franchise should be the more beloved. Any baseball fan knows that the Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1906 and that the Sox had not won one since 1917, so the factor of the Cubs going nearly a century without winning is canceled out. More people love the Cubs because they're sexier, plain and simple. And now look at them. All that money that the Tribune company can choose to spend bringing a winner to Chicago, and they don't because they know the park will be filled with dumbfucks every year no matter what. And they can't look any dumber now that the "lesser" team, the White Sox, are World champions of baseball. Cub fans have nothing left now. They would like to crucify Sox fans for constantly talking shit about them. My friend "Jacob" especially would give me hell for even thinking about the Cubs in the Sox' finest moment. The way I see it, being a Sox fan in this city is like being a black man in America: The other side cannot possibly know how it feels to be oppressed, looked down upon, sneered at, viewed as inferior, and openly hated and treated as a lower class for no other reason than fear and ignorance. So of course Cub fans don't understand how Sox fans feel. All is fine in their world, so long as the $6 beers keep flowing and the trendsters keep butchering the seventh-inning stretch and the beautiful, privileged people continue to treat the fuzzy Cubbies like lovable losers. Well, tonight the not-so-privileged shocked the world and won it all. That's why it's so special, because the Sox are the bastard kids that no one wanted to see succeed, and I can relate. The Sox are the group that embarrassed baseball with the fans attacking the Kansas City 1st-base coach a few years ago, and Disco Demolition Night, and building a ballpark in the shadows of the projects that no one wanted to go to because it was butt ugly, and I can relate because I feel like everything I do ultimately blows up in my face and embarrasses me. So yeah, this is pretty fucking special. For all the Cub fans and Wrigleyville hipsters and racists and supremacists and Nazis and feminists and thin chicks who would rather kill themselves than be a "fattie," and all other haters who think they're better then everyone else, I'll say it one more time so all of you motherfuckers can choke on it:

The Chicago White Sox are World champions of baseball. The ugly duckling just turned into a beautiful swan. Then it kicked a coach in the nuts, blew up some disco records, spit on Wrigley Field, and went to go party with the homies in the projects.

Happy Singles Awareness Day?

Just heard someone describe Sweetest Day, which is this Saturday, as "Singles Awareness Day," and that couldn't possibly be more accurate. I usually feel alone and desolate sitting here every night by myself, but tonight I feel downright sick, and Saturday is partially to blame. My family wants to drag me out of the house Saturday for some bowling outing, but not just any outing, a twosomes outing where apparently the couples showing up, in a twist, will have to team up with someone they draw out of a hat as a bowling couple. How cute. I haven't totally decided to go on this outing yet. The only thing worse than isolating myself in my apartment for Sweetest Day is being out among a bunch of kissy-face couples while I sit there, so I have to decide if the lure of bowling and seeing a few people I used to bowl with every Sunday is worth the pain of watching everyone around me enjoy life with a loved one, which it seems I will never get to do again. Melodramatic I know, but it sure feels like I'll never be with a woman again. Usually you're either kinda close to starting something with someone or actually in a relationship at all times; I don't feel like I'm even close with anyone.

You know the last time I spent a Sweetest Day with a loved one? Fucking ho-bag "Karen" two years ago. "No one ever gave me flowers for Sweetest Day," she wrote me in an e-mail the next morning, thanking me for a great time. I've been thinking about her again lately, wondering who she's fucking now, if she's giving him the same quiet little innocent girl act in bed or if she's actually making a sound with him during sex, whether I'm ever going to run into her again. The changing of the seasons from summer to fall may always remind me of her because that's when we started dating in 2003. At least I have not gone back to her fake Yahoo profile to see if she's updating it still. I've been tempted of course, but I feel like that part of my obsession is behind me, probably because I was so powerless to do anything while I watched her live her life. Unless I was going to go up to Wisconsin and do something about it, it did no good to stay abreast of her every move. I'm still curious, but it's not as bad as it used to be. The two-year anniversary of our first date passed several weeks ago, and I didn't even realize it. But I knew that with time the hurt from being screwed by her wouldn't sting so much. In five years, perhaps, I won't wonder at all who she's fucking. I'll always think about her, but I won't always care about her.

Very brief comment about the controversial call in Game 2 of the ALCS between the White Sox and Angels: The ump blew the call, the ball never hit the dirt, and it pisses me off because the Sox were playing so shitty those first two games that it now seems to the world like they can't win a pressurized playoff game unless the retarded umpires help them out. It wouldn't surprise me if they didn't win a game this weekend while they wait for another horrible call to take the pressure off. They haven't executed in eighteen innings of baseball so far in the ALCS, and they've wasted one and nearly two excellent starting pitching performances to boot, and now they get to play the next three games in Anaheim, where they have never played well. Oh well, it was a nice run. (The above passage can be interpreted by sports geeks only. If you're confused, it's sports, don't worry about it.)

Small piece of good news finally: I got a letter seemingly indicating that I will be receiving some assistance this semester and next semester from financial aid for my college classes. The letter said that the figures shown were "estimates," so I still don't know exactly what's going on, but I'm going to wait a couple more weeks for them to clarify what this "estimate" thing means, and if I don't hear from them, I'll go up to the financial aid office at school and try to get some answers. I'm having no problems at all with my two classes, and when I pass them, that will make 28 credits so far, or as Cassandra says, the end of my freshman year, which makes perfect sense because if it takes 120 credits for a bachelor's degree, then 28, give or take a class, is about one-fourth of the way through. And I'm so desperate to find something to be proud of in my pathetic life that I'm almost welling up sitting here thinking about being one-fourth of the way to a bachelor's. Maybe it's a good thing that I'll never get another date again--I've always gotten so nervous before meeting someone new, and if it worked out well enough that a wedding date would be set, I'd be so anxious leading up to that day that I might not make it. I'm an emotional mess when it comes to achieving my goals. That's how my desire works, always has. When I want something very badly, I can hardly handle receiving it or coming close to receiving it. The 1990 spelling bee saga--I labeled a 30-second video tape of the local news coverage of my city title win "My Greatest Achievement"--is a perfect example of how I handle succeeding at something that I badly want to succeed at. I'll talk about it in my next post.

Happy Kill-The-Injuns-Rape-Their-Women-And-Steal-Their-Land Day

CEDA is a government organization, and Columbus Day is a government holiday, so the offices are not open today, so I'm just sitting here at home watching sports highlights and wondering if those fumes from the construction next door are always that strong or if it's just my lucky day. I can't make up the missing work hours with overtime anymore, because CEDA has hired even more temp workers for an evening shift and for Saturdays and Sundays, so they made the announcement that overtime hours are no longer an option for anybody since theoretically they now have enough personnel that OT shouldn't be necessary, even if we want to do it. But OT means time and a half, so I'm not surprised that they outlawed it. Those of us in the main computer area that work the 8:30A-5P shift actually have to get up at 3:30P, when the 3:30-10 shift arrives, and move to a different area adjacent from the main area so that the new shift can all sit together. Whatever. I'm just pissed that I could have taken advantage of OT last Saturday and Sunday and chose not to because I was tired and I figured I could just do it next weekend. Now there is no more OT. Those six or seven hours at $15 per made for a nice little bonus in the regular weekly check. Oh well.

"Laurie" and I have communicated better lately, although it looks like nothing is going to happen between us for the forseeable future. She says she needs to straighten out her life first, and that she doesn't "feel it" with me right now, which I can't blame her for not feeling it after I almost hooked up on a booty call with a stranger a few weeks ago. Not much else to talk about here. She's dealing with her situations where she is, and I don't fit in her life right now. There's so much tension and nervousness in our phone conversations that I don't know if we would even make good friends right now. That could be because I can only talk to her when she's at work, since her cell phone is still not on. But since we're not getting together anytime soon, I'm not sure what we're going to talk about when she turns her phone back on. She e-mailed me telling me that she's going to be asking for my address so she can send me the money she owes me instead of having me come up there to Detroit and see her. Ouch. Nothing I can do about it, though. If she doesn't want to see me, she doesn't want to see me. She also told me that she's not stopping me from continuing with my life, meaning that I could go try to get with someone else, I suppose. But my heart's not in it. When I stopped seeing "Torrie" a couple of months ago, it was because I thought I was going to step up and build something with Laurie. Now that that's out, I don't want to go somewhere else. The thought of another relationship right now makes me sick (or is that the fumes??). The big 3-0 is looming in a couple of months. Right now, I feel like starting over and going from scratch in pretty much all aspects of my life, considering how badly I fucked up my 20s. That would mean no more internet hos, no more cross-country attempts at love, no more begging women to love me. I can easily see myself going six years without a date again, like I did from 1996 to 2002. It's not worth the aggravation, especially (most importantly, those who know me would say) if it's a situation where I don't feel good about myself and I don't feel that anyone with any respect for herself would want to date me, so I find myself dating someone that I don't like or respect. That's part of what made me go mad when "Karen" screwed me over--I felt like I was going out with a drunk, ugly, boring woman who was horrible in bed, plus she was dating me so she had no taste, but I stuck with it because she said she loved me and I wanted love so bad, but she was a lying skank all along.

I'll end this with a few words about the White Sox and their push for the pennant. I am so proud of them. I've been wearing this Sox ring that I bought after I first started working for CBOE in 1995, even though it's bent and no longer fits my ring finger because I keep getting fatter and fatter, so I'm wearing it as a pinky ring like I'm auditioning for the Sopranos or something. I've had to wash my Sox cap twice since they clinched a playoff spot a week and a half ago because I've been wearing it everywhere. I have a Sox jersey too, and it's personalized with my name and the number 00 (because I'm a big nothing), but my apartment is so messy, I can't find the damn thing. And yet I'm not bragging or talking about the Sox every second like I would be any other year. The reason? Simple: I don't feel I have the right to be yelling and screaming about them because I completely buried this team before the season began. I said they wouldn't be shit. I was very angry that they traded Carlos Lee, a powerful OF about to hit his prime, to the Brewers for a light-hitting 30-year-old guy who could run and a no-name RP for no other reason than Lee's free agent year was this year and they wanted to get rid of him before it became obvious that they were not going to pay him. I was very angry that they pretended that they couldn't re-sign Magglio Ordonez, another powerful OF who was actually their most consistent player the last five years, because the knee injury he suffered to end last season was just too questionable. A bunch of other teams were lined up with contract offers (Ordonez accepted the Detroit Tigers' offer because, with incentives, he could make more money there than with any other team), but not the Sox. Oh no, they couldn't risk signing a guy who might not recover from his injury. So who did they sign to replace him? Jermaine Dye, one of the most injury-prone players out there. But Dye's market value was very low, or, as I put it when the Sox signed him, "Do you really think Dye would sign with the Sox if there was a good team out there that actually wanted him??" And to top it off, they signed a 30-year-old Japanese guy named Tadahito Iguchi to play 2B for them. The guy had never played major league ball in his life. There's usually a big bidding war for good Japanese players that want to come to the majors, and you know if there was a bidding war, the Sox weren't going to be involved. But no one wanted the guy, so he signed with the Sox. So all of their moves this past offseason, in my opinion, were made because the price was right and they didn't want to spend the money, and that followed hiring Ozzie Guillen as their manager the year before because he had no managing experience and therefore would be cheaper than getting someone that, you know, actually managed in the majors before. I angrily responded by cursing them and vowing to not buy any tickets to any Sox games this year, which I haven't. I didn't count on their moves all actually working out. The skinny guy they traded Carlos Lee for, Scott Podsednik, led the majors in SB most of the season before his legs gave out, and he was a big-time catalyst at the top of the lineup. That offset the fact that Carlos did have the breakout season he was expected to have, making the All-Star team for the first time. This Iguchi guy seems to have a habit of hitting clutch opposite-field HRs when you least expect it, and he's a decent fielder, too. Dye shocked the world by staying healthy all year, and he had some huge hits as well. Ordonez couldn't come back from his knee injury until about a couple of months ago, making the Sox look like geniuses. And Guillen is absolutely fucking nuts, which is a good thing, because opposing managers have a hard time managing against him because they don't know what the fuck he's gonna do next. Clearly, having no experience works well for Guillen, because he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants and he doesn't have to have an answer for why he does it, just that he "had a feeling." This team really is just like the Boston Red Sox team that won the World Series last year. The Red Sox earned the nickname "The Idiots" because they didn't know why they did half the shit they did, they just knew that it worked. So who did the White Sox sweep in the first round of the playoffs this year? The Red Sox. The Idiots were swept aside by The Morons. And The Morons are too stupid to know better. They're not done yet. And while I might not be yelling about them at the top of my lungs, I am watching from afar with a great amount of Sox pride.