sometimes i have more opinions than i know what to do with

I am reviving this space for a post of sports-related odds and ends I wanted to talk about and didn't have the venue for elsewhere. Perhaps I shall return permanently and write long odes to Jacob Stallings' emergence as not just a great pitcher's catcher but also a contributing member of the UNC baseball team's offense! Last night he walked four times!

• This week I wrote and discarded a very defensive post about the baseball team and their season, complete with statistics to back up the fact that we should have a better record than we do, because I decided that a) no one but shep. cared and I already spent last Sunday night figuring updated ERAs and BB/9 rates for all our pitchers and reading them to her in the living room in front of the ESPN Sunday Night MLB game and b) it was probably politically incorrect to refer to any of our outfielders as midgets even if two of them are in fact under 5'7".
  
  
• The Future of Quarterbacking at Carolina is also doing time this spring at DH and 1B for the baseball team, and John Shoop, Butch's O-Coordinator, is being very passive-aggressively bitchy about having to share Bryn Renner with Mike Fox. We, for two, are pro Bryn Renner playing baseball simply because he loves it that much, and as I said on Twitter a while back, in response to a discussion at the ballpark of how QB time would be split between TJ Yates and Renner this fall, if I run TJ Yates over with my car Bryn Renner will start all the time. Also, whenever I think about John Shoop, a coach on a team that's been far less successful than the baseball team historically, being passive-aggressive at Mike Fox's program, my head starts to hurt.
  
  
• Last night shep. and I both were pleased that Matt Harvey got the win against State, because he deserved it, and today we're going to the spring football game of our own free will, and I feel a little like I've been Stockholmed without realizing it.
  
  
• Mike Leake comes out of spring training to win the job as the Reds' fifth starter, making his MLB debut tomorrow against the Cubs, and while a lot of people seem to be scratching their heads over the naming of a 22 year old rookie an MLB starter, let me just say: y'all, we watched Mike Leake take Carolina's lineup apart not once but twice in the College World Series last year. The lineup that included #2 draft pick Dustin Ackley, who could seriously swing a toothpick at a change-up in the dirt and connect for a base hit. Leake was a scarily polished pitcher even last year, and Pat Casey has (well, had, I suppose, since he's now out at Arizona State) a reputation for grooming mature and well-seasoned players, so I'm not surprised that the Reds, who've struggled for the past, well, quite a while, are staking as much as they are on Leake -- a pitcher like this kid could be a franchise-changer, if only through the optimism his success would bring. Do I like the idea of that poor baby in Dusty Baker's hands? Not really. Does the idea of Mike Leake skipping the minors entirely surprise me? Not really.
  
  
• Newsflash: the Orioles are still trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. I'm mailing Mike Gonzalez back to Atlanta. Miguel Tejada is being useless in the 4 spot. No one is surprised by any of this. The Wiets was hitting .500 through the first three games, though!

the sort of post I'd never admit to making.

Nomar Garciaparra has a broken bone in his right hand, and the Los Angeles Dodgers' third baseman might not be ready for Opening Day.


Really, we don't need to talk about my not-so-secret crush on Thanks, Beautiful, harbored for years whilst he played in Boston and I pined from afar in New York? I mean, it's marginally embarrassing, especially when you think of his propensity for injuring himself. There's only so many jokes a girl can make about pulling one's groin, okay? But he's playing for my coach now -- Joe Torre and Thanks, Beautiful! together again, together for the very first time! -- so I can come out with my love, and make all the references to bringing him water I've ever wanted to make. I am on board with the 2008 Dodgers! I am ready, rested and prepared to do this shit!


UNLESS HE IS ONCE AGAIN TOO BROKEN TO PLAY. DAMNIT, THANKS, BEAUTIFUL. GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME.

"seriously, stop saying the Beast Fister!"

Some random things I'd rather talk about, as opposed to thinking about Bobby Frasor leaving during the second half of tonight's Nevada/North Carolina game with a torn ACL (three words, dear readers: oh. my. god. Or four; BRING ME ANOTHER DRINK.):

• Tyler Hansbrough's uncle, Sean 'The Beast' Fister. What. Okay, so maybe I'm actually twelve years old, and maybe I made many, many inappropriate jokes about alternative sexual practices every time the ESPN announcers said his name. Not that there's anything wrong with fisting, of course. I'm just saying, that is one big dude.
  
  
• Roger Clemens hiring investigators to discredit Brian McNamee, the dude who told George Mitchell he injected the tub of lard and 'roids with steroids and HGH on multiple occasions (while he was in Toronto, and again when he played for New York). My amusement at these shenanigans is never-ending; mostly because I can't stop thinking, maybe Andy Pettitte was around whilst Clemens was being shot in the ass with steroids! And then, maybe they kissed. Awwww. That's true love, baby.
  
  
• Mark Prior signing a one-year contract with the San Diego Padres. We love Mark Prior, here at WWTHD? -- at least I do, because I'm not a Cubs fan; however, I'm fairly certain Tyler Hansbrough would not love him because he's a big whiny bitch -- but we love the Padres more and man, San Diego, what are you doing? MARK PRIOR'S ELBOW IS MADE OF GLASS. WASN'T THAT PROVEN SCIENTIFICALLY AT SOME POINT? We discussed this acquisition tonight, over beer and roasted potatoes, and I think our feelings were best summarized when dex. turned to me and said, "remember, in high school, when your mom told you getting pregnant would ruin your life? I'm pretty sure Mark Prior is the Padres' teenage pregnancy." Truer words, my friends.
  
  
• TORN ACL. TORN ACL. TORN ACL. SEASON-ENDING SURGERY. TORN ACL. Alright, so Bobby Frasor is also made of glass, and I might be incapable of thinking about anything else until sometime well into 2008. I have here a straight razer and a bottle of gin, I stop cutting when the gin's all gone.

"That's why Andy McPhail's a GM, and I'm not."

The Orioles have finally pulled the trigger on something and traded Miguel Tejada to the Astros for five prospects. This is a considerably better return than the basket of dirty laundry I was willing to offer the Orioles (we here in the NC were then going to offer Tejada to the Marlins for Andrew Miller, who would look lovely on our couch, although probably not develop much as a pitcher while he was here), and it gives me hope in Andy McPhail.

I still don't want to see them trade Bedard, because I think that he and Jeremy Guthrie and Matt Wieters and Jake Arrieta are the kind of guys you can build a franchise on, but I also understand the need to sell high if we can get good young guys in return. I hope they work something out with the Cubs for Brian Roberts -- we could use a good, young, only-slightly-proven-but-got-a-lot-of-talent middle infield duo, hint hint, Theriot and Fontenot, if they unload Roberts -- and I hope they hang onto Bedard, but for the first time in almost ten years, I've got this feeling in my stomach about the Orioles, and it feels like hope.

Which is a good thing, because otherwise being a Baltimore sports fan is very hard right now.

Before I wrote this post, I had to lie down and breathe deeply.

It's no state secret that I loathe Tom Glavine, in large part because he "wrote" an autobiography called None But The Braves and then left Atlanta for more money (and there's some 1994 player's strike NL rep rage, too), and now that the Atlanta Journal-Constituion is reporting that Atlanta wants Glavine back, I don't even know what to say.


I think that Tom Glavine is a great pitcher, and I will also never forgive him for leaving Atlanta when he was poised to become one of the greatest franchise players of an era when there are not many franchise players left, and especially not many of Glavine's caliber. If the Braves take him back, I may just ... hate him even more, I guess. There's not anything I can do if the Braves want to go groveling back to Glavine, and I think that's what makes me the angriest.

In their defense, Yankees fans just get drunk at the Yard. They pee in the bathrooms like normal people.

Having been harassed in my home stadium -- as one of the few, the embarrassed, the pathetic, the Native Orioles Fan -- by fans of the visiting team (pre-2004 World Series, even! You stay classy, Red Sox Nation. And quit fucking peeing in our concourses when you come to visit!), the story of the Ladies ... being harassed and abused by fans in Cleveland doesn't surprise me. Saddens me, pisses me off, but doesn't surprise me.


Does guarantee that I'm done with rooting for Cleveland for the year, though, regardless of my love for fat starting pitchers who don't look like they should be able to walk to the mound, much less throw complete games. Rockies bandwagon, here I come. (Actual conversation had with my mother this week:

Mom: I'm rooting for Colorado! They're all so young and cute!
dex.: You have looked at Todd Helton, right, Mom?
Mom: Who?
dex.: *audible facepalm*
Mom: What? What? I saw them on TV, they're all cute! I promise!

My mom, ladies and gentlemen. My mom. She's on the same bandwagon as Wanda Williams, the woman responsible for the fact that, talent or not, Roy is responsible for having one of the prettiest teams in college basketball every year, I'm sure of it.)

We're not dead, we're just still avoiding baseball. The Tar Heels are off this week -- thank God, because concussion + Brandon Tate = more trouble for TJ Yates than usual -- so there'll be no Sacks Blog on Saturday, but hopefully dex. will finish a book sooner rather than later and give you reviews of John Feinstein's A Civil War (now with more irrelevant Coach K!) or Bissinger's Three Nights In August in some sort of timely fashion. A Civil War has to go back to the library next week anyway, so I better finish it.

the best thing I've heard all weekend.

dex.: The good news is, you survived to see another day.
shep.: I know, John Madden just told me.
dex.: The bad news is Roger Clemens is done forever.
shep.: ... wait, what'd you just say?
dex.: I had that backwards, didn't I? The bad news is you might face CC Sabathia again; the good news is the tub of lard and roids is done forever.
shep.: SO LONG, BITCH TITS.


To recap: the Heels won, the Chargers won, the Ravens won and Roger Clemens will probably never pitch in my stadium, in that wretched, beloved old ballpark in New York City where my heart lies, ever again. And Duke lost yesterday, and I got to chase drunk Red Sox fans out of World Beer Fest last night! Not too shabby, kids.

"The University of Richmond mascot is a spider."

I'm still kind of staggering from our nine hour drive home yesterday (thanks a pantsload, Richmond, you suck!) but I had to note that it was, in fact, Tom Glavine who shit the bed for the Mets yesterday. I've got nothing against the Mets in general -- David Wright and Jose Reyes, in particular, have been joys to watch this season -- but I loathe Tom Glavine with a fire so fierce that I can't even look at him on the TV. If he shows up on SportsCenter, we have to change the channel because otherwise I have rage blackouts and have to go lie down.


So I'm sorry that the Mets choked like little bitches, but the fact that Tom Glavine blew their final game of the season -- to the Marlins, no less -- is exactly what Mr. 1994 Strike NL Player's Rep deserved. Stick that in your playoff-less pipe and smoke it, Glavine, you douchebag.

In other news, we sat in front of an Orioles fan wearing a Notre Dame football jersey at the O's/Yanks game on Saturday night; in the middle of Danny Cabs' spectacular ten-run inning meltdown, I turned to him and said, "You're just not having a very good year, are you?" He said, very sadly, "Noooooooo." His buddy was in a USC jersey; that just seems cruel to me. Don't rub it in, Notre Dame fan's friend! Poor Notre Dame. I hope they go 0-12, it would be fucking hilarious.

Cities That Love Sports Too Much And The Greedy Team Owners Who Use Them.

Last Monday, watching the Ravens roll over like bitches in their season opener, I said, "I think I'm really going to put my back into being a Ravens fan this year." shep. sort of made the face, and my cat, who goes by the name of Billy Donovan around here, rolled over, lifted a leg, and started to lick himself, which really sort of sums up the entirety of being a Baltimore sports fan these days. When Billy Donovan won't back you up, you know you're in trouble.

It's hard to be an Orioles fan. I'm in the middle of a trial reconciliation with them, after eight years of bitterness, anger and Midwest living, and it hasn't been easy. They're bad. I mean, historically, legendarily bad, and not in terms of loss numbers, either. Thirty runs to Texas. Seventeen to Tampa Bay and then eighteen to the Angels. No-hit by a rookie. The worst bullpen in baseball and the best All-DL starting rotation. Injuries too numerous to count. And yet I continue to love them, because I am stupid and I am a Baltimore native and I enjoy having my heart broken over and over and over again like that.

Usually in September, I'm done with baseball. This year I'm still cheering for two game winning streaks.

And then the Ravens started off the season with three first-quarter turnovers, and Kyle Boller failed to throw a game-winning touchdown even given a fourth-down penalty blessing and getting to try three more times; instead of throwing a touchdown after seven downs inside the goal line with the game on the line, he threw an interception.

I think it's fate. I think I'm doomed to love teams that are phenomenally bad in excruciatingly creative ways. And I can't help myself. I'm going to put my back into being a Ravens fan this year, because I'm from the Baltimore: sometimes, losing's the only thing we know how to do.