America's Team - Not Messiah's

Wherever Cubnation goes, they take over. Wrigleyville north in Milwaukee, Wrigleyville west in Arizona, Wrigleyville south in Florida, and Wrigleyville east in D.C. Most verbiage categorizes the growing popularity of Cubnation to WGN. The fact is GN has televised less than 20% of the Cub games for the last several years.

Cubnation exists, is a fact and is very intimidating to the "home" team. So it was D-Lee, who revealed that Messiah is said to have added to the myth that Cubs fans only come to Wrigley to drink beer and look at women. According to the Ring Lardner of Politics, Cubs fans don't really know anything about baseball. Messiah claims that real ball fans are at Comisky.

First and foremost, if this flap gets any traction, he sure to lose some votes. Second, a completely asinine thing to say as the Cubs are having a great season. Simple fan attendance extrapolation shows that when a team wins it draws more fans. Hardcore fans can only be counted to show up for loser, shitbag teams with nothing to offer ie. Reds, Pirates. Pre 2005 Sox attendance was horrible, when they started to win they doubled their fan base. Are these real fans or bandwagon types. When the Sox lose again, their attendance will drop.

Win or lose Cubs attendance is always high. They are all real fans, who spend real money to watch the Cubs and really hot women. Another contrary indicator is road game Cubnation. They aren't coming to Wrigley, yet they still come like no other team has ever seen. Perhaps Messiah should stick to preaching-though I GUARANTEE he'll be at Wrigley throwing out a ball at the World Series.

Logan Tom

And there is Logan Tom. She came to me @ the last Olympics -or rather, in the hype of the 2004 Athens games. Logan was one of those girls who are in terrefic shape and like the world to notice. So, Logan was first spotted in 2004 magazines in poses like the ones shown here. Bless her. After seeing such pictures, I just had to check out the team. When I caught her in action, she was far sexier as an athlete than as the sexymodel the ads were dipicting her as.

She's very different than Giu Jingjing, but just as sexy. Tall, sleek, and that maddeningly tomboyish look about her, I instantly feel inlove w/ her. When the womens volleyball team started to play this year, I tried to catch all the games.

Logan is different now. Four years @ that age really change people. She's now longer haired - not a plus - but she's still that slim, slender, and sleek athlete I fell for four years ago.

And I wait to cheer for her in London.

queens

It's over, isn't it?

Olympics have a long time to go this summer still, but I mourn none the less - my new favourite, Chinese diver Guo Jingjing's Olympic career is over after winning another Gold medal. and for me, it was only just starting.

Never heard of her before this week - I didn't pay as much attention to the Athen's Olympics - but when I got 'wind' of her, I had to watch her compete. She's a superdiver and superfamous in China with several golds already. i came on board as she went for a last in her last olympic competition. She won.

But what really got me going was this little bow she did after every dive. NBC didn't cover it each time she did it, but it really got me going. Again - this is a deeply competant athelete, in the biggest games of her life, and has trained for years and years to win. This quest for athletic glory is what I should be concentrating.

Yeah yeah yeah. And I am a man. Love to watch her compete, root for her, all that. And all I can concetrate how wonderfully submissive that bow is. A great dive, hundreds of millions of people watching, and her, in that tite bathing suit, dripping wet, and that little bow. um. It's - as far as I know - totally unique in diving.

As far as I know, it's totally unique.

Four Homers

Written by Lazers

I did a bit of research to follow-up on the “4 consecutive homers” stat and found the following (note: teams have hit 4 consecutive homers only 6 times in MLB history):


JD Drew was involved in 2 of the 6 times (‘07 Red Sox and ‘06 Dodgers).
The ‘61 Braves did it but still lost the game.
For 2 of the 6, the same pitcher gave up all 4 homers (‘07 Red Sox off of the Yankees’ Chase Wright; ‘63 Indians off of the Angels Paul Foytack).
The most prolific quartet was from the ‘64 Twins- those players hit 138 homers that season (Tony Oliva, Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall and Harmon Killebrew).
The least prolific quartet was from the ‘63 Indians- those players hit only 35 homers that season (Woodie Held, Pedro Ramos, Tito Francona and Larry Brown).
Pedro Ramos of the ’63 Indians was a pitcher. He hit 3 homers that entire season.
The ’06 Dodgers hit the homers in the bottom of the 9th inning to tie the game against the Padres. After allowing 1 run in the 10th, the Dodgers scored 2 in their half of the inning to win the game.
The ’64 Twins hit their homers to lead off the 11th inning.

The full slate:
’61 Braves vs Reds (Eddie Mathews, Hank Aaron, Joe Adcock and Frank Thomas).
’63 Indians vs Angels (Woodie Held, Pedro Ramos, Tito Francona and Larry Brown).
’64 Twins vs A’s (Tony Oliva, Bob Allison, Jimmie Hall and Harmon Killebrew).
’06 Dodgers vs Padres (Jeff Kent, JD Drew, Russell Martin and Marlon Anderson).
’07 Red Sox vs Yankees (Manny Ramirez, JD Drew, Mike Lowell and Jason Varitek).
’08 White Sox vs Royals (Jim Thome, Paul Konerko, Alexei Ramirez and Juan Uribe).

Major League Records

Luckily, I was able to drag myself out of the house -wow- that early to actually do something I was planning. And then it turned out kooler than I thought. Plus, they will be recording the events of my day in the history books. And I just showed up.

It was to the Sox game, and the impportant thing is is that they won. With no Minnesota game, the lead went up to a full game (and some percentage points - they mite come in handy late in the season). Extra nice because of all the terror about the pitching staff after Jose Contrearas' season ending injury, they topped two shutouts and a no hitter into the seventh with another great start - this time Lance Broadway with a strong five and a third, allowing two runs in the first that better defense would have taken care of.

And finally, extra extra nice because there were not one but two seperate major league records happening in front of my eyes. Carlos Quentin extended his record of consecutive games being hit by pitch to six straight games. He's been hit by pitch twenty times so far - nice way to buck up the on base percentage. He's been so good all year it's nice to hear the MVP chatter about him. If the Sox win the division, his steady play will probabley be the major factor in that.

And then there were the four straight homers. I've seen three straight before - who hasn't, if they've gone to as many games as I have? The first homer was waited for - the Sox were leading only 3-2 (although it did seem that the team had it all in hand -nice confidence) and needed to put the gam away. it's nice to see Thome hitting the ball so well the second half of the season. And then Konerko hit the next - again, swell to see him produce anything. He had three hits. After ramariez's shot, people started to call for a fourth. And then after Uribe's fourth and final 'in a row' shot, i was really hoping for a fifth strait homer. At this point, I thought that the record was five in a row - and I wanted a second straight record set in the game I was @. I didn't realise that four was it and I already had it.

nice to relax @ a game in two regards. First, the Sox won early in the day -it was a 1.05pm game. There was to be no wondering all day what they and Minnesota were doing - it was all done. And accomplished. Pennant Race it is.

The second was that this was the first game in several years that I went to by my self. I used to go to maybe 10 Sox games a year by myself and just vegg out watching the game. I used to do so many things by myself - very very many so much so that I thought that my solitudeinal actions seemed one of the indicators of my wandering mind. But I'm different now/ and I'm glad that ...... well, solitude is great many times. You don't have to talk to anyone, sit near anyone, do anything, just stare @ the field and root....

I needed it. To the Sox game Monday nite - $8.50 tix !! - and then maybe to anther day game next Wednesday.

The reigning expert

Kop me up to loving the olympics. every four years. Yes, a lot of it marketing, but then again - am I not a sports fan and enjoy the competition? I am, I find.

So, there I was , snickering @ myself constantly for watching sports I would never in the nirmal run of play. Women's water polo?? There i was watching -and being into -the USA -China match. But, oh, it gets worse. The Argentines -v- England in womens field hockey? Thrilling. And when the USA mens gym team were down to the final event, this expert knew thatthe USA had clinched bronze because I realised that the Germans would never be able to get enough oints on their final routine.

Some expert I am, huh?. But I find that every Olympics, I suddenly become super interested.

I blame the marketing. It's done well.

What, me, notice??

Admits to being a bit of a sexist.

Admits to checking out the derrieres of the women's beach volleyball players.

Admits that they are fantastic.

Admits to being lucky to be alive.

volleyball, beach, womens

Black Sox Faction

Professor Grif

Kenny finally got his guy. He's been persuing Grif for years and finally added him to the Sox. I do not note this as a major trade. The Sox basically picked him up for free. Although nick Masset was a good pitcher and the bullpen will be thinned out because of his loss, he wasn't a team changer. And Danny Richar is last years experiment to try and develop a replacement for Juan Uribe - already done w/ the superior basball player Alexie Ramirez.

To me, Grif is replacing Konerko. Konerko has show no signs of beaking out of his - well, two year -slump, and that dead area needed to be addressed. Paulie was on his way to duplicating his great erformnce of a few years back when he hit 18 hr and had 65 rbi over an entire eason. Make no bones about it, that was where he is headed. I was sick of his and Thomes slow starts - but Thome has come out of his slump nicely.

I feel good about Swisher on first instead of Konerko. When Paul was on the DL earlier, the Sox went 13-7. So, the Sox are basically replacing one slow righty power hitter with another slow lefty power hitter. The difference is, Grif is having a decent year. Konerko is having a disaster of a yar.

Not a bad trade. W/ the starting pitching above all now beginning to be the main focus of concer, the additionof Grif was a suprise. But, I'll welcome him here. And though were not expecting 56 hr's from him - it'll be better than 18 with 65 rbi.