This is my Royal Rumble recap

But you already know that.

Sunday night was my second favorite fake sporting event of the year. No, I’m not referring to the Pro Bowl, a game that embarrassed itself to even lower levels than usual last night. I could write a post about how much I think the Pro Bowl sucks and shouldn’t exist, but I think that’s been beat to hell pretty well today. There is a need to address the pants that some of the NFL’s finest [who felt like going to Hawaii] were wearing. What’s next? Stirrups?

But as you can tell by the title, this isn’t a post about fake football. It’s a post about fake bloodsport. Yes, there is a similarity between the two. Most stop caring about both in roughly the fifth grade.

Last night was the Royal Rumble, and while it is getting some mixed reviews around the Internet today, I thought it was pretty awesome. Here’s why:

Edge defeated Dolph Ziggler to retain the World Heavyweight Championship

Title matches usually aren’t given too much of an emphasis at the Royal Rumble due to the fact that the event’s namesake match does the heavy lifting in selling the show.  However, this match served as the opener and offered the best action of the night.

I almost wanted to see Ziggler win this match simply because I really enjoy this feud and would like to see it continue until Wrestlemania. However, I’m a little biased in that area as I am going to Wrestlemania this year. Edge’s win combined with the result of the Royal Rumble match makes it look like this feud is over which is too bad.

But plenty good came out of it. The Kelly Kelly interference was out of the ordinary as it wasn’t anything that had a set-up to it, and Edge’s use of Christian’s finisher to end the match will bring speculation that a Christian return is coming sooner than later, possibly as a feud for Edge if he loses the title at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view.

Also, people can pan the lack of originality in Vickie Guerrero’s banning of the Spear all they want to, but it made the crowd ridiculously hot for that move last night. And that’s something that the WWE failed to do with Edge’s signature maneuver going into Wrestlemania 26.

Gratuitous Kelly Kelly

The Miz defeated Randy Orton to retain the WWE Championship

The question going into this match was whether or not the WWE trusted the most successful “Real World” cast member of all time to carry its most prized belt into the most important stretch of the pro wrestling year, the “Road to Wrestlemania.”

They do.

By beating Orton, Miz seemingly ends a feud that has gone on for a couple of months and moves on to a program with John Cena based on his actions in the Rumble. Once again, The Miz beat Orton in an unclean finish when members of the new Nexus invaded and essentially handed him the victory.

For those complaining about Miz never winning clean, get over it. Miz is never going to win clean. His gimmick is that he’s a weak champion and there’s nothing wrong with it. I’ve read people saying that all WWE is doing is making it look like the title should be on someone else. And that’s the truth.

It makes me think back to when I was a little kid, and I hated Ric Flair because he always “won” matches in the most ridiculous fashions. As a young viewer, it frustrated the hell out of you and made you beg your mom to buy the next pay-per-view so you could see someone, anyone beat him. That’s called good business.

The most pleasant accident in WWE right now is this underlying feud between Cena and Miz that has gone on for almost two years. What began as the squash of a comical figure has turned into a legitimate possibility to headline April 3 at the Georgia Dome and that is a huge tribute to how far The Miz has come in that time.

Eve defeated Natalya and LayCool to win the Divas Championship

Uh, cool moonsault?

Not too much to talk about on this one as it did little more than serve as a buffer between the two larger title matches and the Rumble. Something tells me Eve won’t exactly have a very lengthy title reign.

Alberto Del Rio won the 40-man Royal Rumble match to earn a title shot at Wrestlemania 27

It speaks to the anticipation of Triple H’s return that his failure to appear at the Rumble trumped the surprises of seeing Booker T and Diesel in a WWE ring again, or the fact that an upstart won a match that’s usually dominated by veterans.

If there was one thing that everyone could agree on going into the Rumble, it was that it would be the night for Triple H’s return. But it didn’t happen because, well, Vince McMahon is brilliant.

We know he’s coming back before Wrestlemania, and we know that his return is something that we’re excited about seeing, which is why Sunday night was all about leaving the fan wanting to see more. They’re going to milk Triple H’s return for as much as they can. They’re going to do the same with Awesome Kong’s WWE debut. They gave us just the slightest taste of Booker T and Diesel that made us want to see them again.

During the most important television time of the year for WWE, it’s genius work.

But aside from the personnel surprises, it is newsworthy that Del Rio won the Rumble if for no other reason than McMahon is usually unenthusiastic about letting fresh faces main event his biggest show. Del Rio will main event Wrestlemania just over seven months after his WWE debut.

Does he deserve it?

His performances leading up to Wrestlemania, and his in-ring work at the big event will answer that question. The former MMA fighter does provide a fresh main event face, a concept that we have seen more and more in the WWE’s recent youth movement.

Del Rio’s victory likely leads to a title match with Edge, a program that both should be able to carry well for the next couple months.

As far as the Rumble match as a whole, it was very enjoyable. It told a number of great stories and was broken up into separate pieces that made the largest Rumble ever easy to digest.

I especially enjoyed the transition from the very serious, Nexus-dominated portion of the match to the brief-but-fun Hornswoggle show. The Hornswoggle portion has caught tons of heat on the Internet today to which I say that the Internet needs to shut up and stop taking entertainment so seriously. John Morrison also took HBK’s trademark “skinning the cat” to a whole new level with this little maneuver:

WWE’s only job is to appeal to the casual fan, and they did so very well last night. The live crowd loved the Rumble and that’s really all that matters.

Tyson Kidd is hopeless anyways. He deserved to get beat up by a leprechaun.

Anyways, good show. Can’t wait for Mania.

-Bryan

Aerosmith, In The Laundromat

Aerosmith fan Julia Roberts

This post best read loud.

Sweet Emotion

Looking square into the vacant chasm that is the space between Steven Tyler’s nose and chin, it’s easy to forget that the new Idol judge’s group of smack-pushing sleaze rockers was once upon a time an indomitable force over the FM airwaves. I share this insight with you now not to celebrate the upcoming 10th anniversary of Just Push Play or even rail against the vastly overrated hockey arena anthem “Dream On,” but rather to emphasize the undeniable, unadulterated perfection of Aerosmith’s 1975 hit “Sweet Emotion.”

Not gonna bog you down with technical specifics (though I’m more than capable of faking profound knowledge of strings, frets and theory). Just suffice it to say that this song represents in a lean 3-minute blast all the things that make me want to relive the Seventies as either a roadie for Foghat or Matthew McConaughey’s big-block Chavelle piloting character in Tim Lincecum biopic “Dazed and Confused.”

Speaking of things Zeppelin, “Sweet Emotion” grooves with more effortless, cocksure swagger than anything that fossilizing group was churning out in ’75 (besides, of course, “The Rover“) – and, in terms of equivalent human movements, best replicates the motion your hand makes when you stick it palm-down out the window of a moving car.

If you’re reading this post in a moving car, stick your hand palm-down out the window to see what I’m talking about. I’ll wait…

I really love how Bahstonian Steve sings “shakin’ yo azz” in the last verse, as if the very core of his existence boiled down to enunciating the words “shaking,” “your” and “ass” with all the detached charisma of the one black kid at your otherwise all-white private school who doesn’t follow the dress code, but skates by because your dorky, suspenders-rocking principal doesn’t have the balls to call him on it and because he plays four different positions for the football team.

Un momento, por favor. I think this guy’s trying to steal my laundry… Yeaaa… Nope.

Close call. See, in the last couple of months, a few of us clothes cleaners have – by chance – come across the one defective (read: rigged) washer that only requires five quarters instead of the usual six. We’ve since each claimed this piece of laundering machinery as our own, but under the unspoken premise that our little coup-de-quarter is still a relative secret. We’re like a tight-knit fraternity of tight-wads. Anyway, long story short, it’s hard to tell whether a dude’s just checking to see if the buck-twenty-five washer’s empty or if he’s legitimately trying to jack your 510 super skinnies.

As much as I’d like to describe for you Aerosmith’s second and third best songs (“Toys In The Attic” and “I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing” “Sick As A Dog,” respectively), unfortunately we’ve come to the point in the night when some bro in the Impala out front starts pumping The Chronic at ungodly volumes. And you know what would happen if I’m caught writing about Aerosmith on this street cred-bereft Apple product? I’d get a knife pulled on me, probably by the little man in the Spike Lee get-up auspiciously nodding his head in the corner.

In conclusion, then, I’m perfectly aware that this post will be dismissed by critics upon its 2011 release, but reassessed as a “seminal, if misunderstood work of dizzying artistic heights and perverse beauty” probably some time within the next 30 years, but certainly after my death in 2079. Until then, I was just kidding about “Dream On” being overrated.

- Robbie

A Friday Night Clearinghouse

The Thursday night crowd.

This post was originally entitled “The Night Indiana Basketball Jumped Shark,” but I really have no desire to slave over 500 workmanlike words on a subject as irrelevant to society as Hoosier basketball. However, I also have little desire for a potential employer to come face-to-face with the phrase “Another Flaccid Johnson” – however exceedingly clever it may be –  in the rare chance that he or she stumbles across this website before Monday.

So I’ll leave the Indiana shpiel at this: any multiple-time NCAA champion that allows its fans to storm the court upon defeating an overrated, 24th-ranked Big Ten opponent should be immediately ordered to vacate a title under the threat of Death Penalty.

If you’re nodding your head vigorously, please visit fellow Hyperbole Connoisseur Kyle Rancourt at the incendiary weblog KyleRancourt.com. Tell him Hilson sent ya.

Now I’ll write about whatever crosses my mind in the 37 minutes left before I’m kicked out of Starbucks. Clearly, Fridays are lonely nights for graduate students in the 352, especially when the preceding Thursday nights play out like… well, a night on the town with a group of girls who either A) have boyfriends B) want girlfriends C) just want to be friends or D) collectively represent groups A, B and C.

Usually I’d revert to bullet points here, but this girl sitting across from me is a total smokeshow, and I really don’t want to look like a lazy ass in front of her. Fully fledged paragraphs to follow.

girl sitting across from me/gratuitous smokeshow

Let’s talk about Herschel Walker, a man both directly responsible for my father’s underwhelming academic tenure at UGA and the third best thing to ever come out of Athens, Georgia (sundresses, R.E.M.). Herschel’s claims to fame are many: he won the ’82 Heisman, altered the trajectory of William Bates’ existence, invented college football, etc. But what he’s doing in mixed martial arts at the age of 48 – namely, disfiguring people – may very well be the man’s crowning ach… Okay, nevermind. But it’s pretty damn impressive. And what’s more impressive is that few sports talkers gave the proper reaction when Hersch announced he’s thinking NFL comeback (that reaction being “dismissive laughter”). Would I put a future in pro football past Thirty Four? Of course. But that we’re even discussing it testifies to the guy’s athletic legend.

I watched roughly 13 minutes of Bulls-Magic tonight before the depressing pangs of spending my Friday night watching Bulls-Magic became unbearable. In these 13 minutes, I watched Dwight Howard eviscerate an overmatched, undersized Carlos Boozer – a feat suggesting offensive prowess that’d been, up until now, completely lost on me. Excuse my ignorance, but I really had no idea Dwight stocked a 15-foot bank shot in his surprisingly expansive arsenal, or for that matter, the consistent work ethic to punish defensive post players without the ball. This probably goes without saying, but I overuse the phrase “this probably goes without saying.” Also, as a fan of Stan Van Gundy not being disposed to a working microphone come May, the Magic really scare me.

I cede these remaining three minutes to the admission that I just 24 hours ago compared a girl at favorite G-Ville watering hole The Top to a ’68 Topps Nolan Ryan/Jerry Koosman RC (one of which is in my closet). Though in a relatively fuzzy state of mind at the time, I quite clearly made a revelatory analogy and one, too, that I’m comfortable standing behind even without the benefit of multiple Dogfish Heads in your – the reader’s – system. Here’s my thinking: this girl – who I see every week, btw – is incomparably beautiful (brunette, huge Persian-looking eyes, dark skin, probably from some country I’ve never heard of… basically a classier, more alternative, smarter, smaller version of Kim Kardashian).

Now I swear on Travis Henry’s kids’ lives this girl smiled at me multiple times over the course of the night, and not in a “hey, you should probably stop staring at me, it’s rude” kind of way, but in a “hey, you should probably buy me a PBR” kind of way. And you know what I did to requite this display of affection? Nothing. Obviously. Because if I had done something, you wouldn’t be reading this at all. Point is, there’s no value in owning a ’68 Topps Nolan Ryan/Jerry Koosman RC. You’re not gonna sell it. You’re not gonna bring it to trade shows. It’s just gonna sit in your dank closet and taunt you from afar. It might as well not exist.

And on that note, I bid you sweet dreaming. Cross your fingers I land a job in Miami. If I’m constantly surrounded by beautiful women, better chances I’ll eventually grow a pair.

- Robbie

Just Another Flaccid Johnson

RIP

Some headlines are cheap – meant to generate traffic and drum up short-lived interest in a noun otherwise incapable of differentiating itself from the pack.

A newly humble Chad Estebán Ochocinco knows not about such shallow displays of self-pimping, and so the legendary (in his own mind), soon-to-be-Ex-Bengal will reportedly drop his moniker fantástico in the interest of… well, landing the favor of one no-nonsense Hoodied Darth Lord.

This change of name, as you know, is a great loss, not just for the sports blogosphere and 8-year-old Mexican school children aspiring to be black, but for self-aggrandizers everywhere and, perhaps most troubling, America’s oft-vibrant sense of egotism.

It would be one thing if Ochocinco’s reversion to plain ol’ Chad Johnson stood an isolated one-off. The occurrence, however, dovetails with a confluence of similarly startling turns of unabashed meekness that together suggest one thing: the era of me-first Straight Cash Homies is coming to an end.

Just this week, gaseous liberal pundit Keith Olbermann ceded his cable talk throne, a slew of penny-pinching art house films crashed the Oscar noms, and not one virulent Tea Partier hollered “YOU LIE!” Tuesday night from the exceedingly passive aisles of Congress.

We’ve even exiled our loudest, orangest reality stars from the bright lights of the Jersey Shore.

Johnson, a man who just days ago challenged his coach to a steel cage match, unfortunately symbolizes a sweeping epidemic eating away at our collective cojones – one reframing civility as something other than the last refuge of the boring.

So I ask plainly: what the f*ck is going on?

Ronnie, perplexed

To what can we ultimately attribute this transcendent personality’s backslide into unassuming normality, and of greater import, how do we as a people counteract this baffling trend toward humility?

Addressing the first question is simply a matter of armchair psycho-analytics: the Artist Formerly Known As is quite clearly dabbling in the performance-enhancing art of reverse psychology. After three seasons of underwhelming statistical output and equally unimpressive end-zone celebrations, Johnson is obviously trying to recapture the hungry spirit of the visionary twenty-something who Irish jigged his way into the hearts of fellow narcissists and the film rooms of opposing defenses.

Johnson, in effect, is attempting to reposition himself as the underdog – essentially recreating all the major plot devices of Rocky IV, only this time, Apollo Creed is Esteban Ochocinco.

Still, where Chad Johnson was a football player, Ochocinco was an entertainer, and it’s but a sad commentary on our increasingly chutzpah-free culture that an individual blessed with such unhinged audacity has to scale back his dynamism in the name of “collective effort” or “team” or any other antiquated concept favoring the wheel over the cog.

Such tacit admissions of inferiority speak volumes to this country’s loss of mojo. We are dealing not with a fad, but a far-reaching scourge of hubris manifesting itself – in addition to the above cases – in our international pussyfooting (troop withdrawals), feeble Twitter apologies (speaking of Mojo…), and flagrant displays of non-partisanship (I’m sure they exist, but thankfully, I can’t think of any).

To rephrase the second, more pressing query, then, would be to ask how we go about fundamentally reviving a besieged sense of ethnocentrism. The unavoidable truth, of course, is that those with the answers are those, too, no longer themselves.

- Robbie

Is Blake Griffin Black? Is He White? Does It Matter?

Better question: Is Blake Griffin human?

*Saddles up.*

Back some time ago, before SC was still delicately testing the bounds of its mildly offensiveness, our very own Bryan “The Balls of This Operation” Holt touched on a topic in one of his Week In Reviews that I’m not particularly fond of discussing: race.

Bryan eventually succumbed to both my overreacting and merciless bitching by yanking the paragraphs in question. Since then, our Black fan base has multiplied exponentially.

Thanks for reading, Jonathan.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, white TV blowhard Skip Bayless would basically rehash the deleted passages of the SC archive (with, per usual, less tact, less forethought, more bluster, and a particularly unsettling caveat) to black TV blowhard Rob Parker several months later, and over the traditionally PC-choked, Kumbaya-caroling airs of ESPN no less.

Bayless said, and I’m paraphrasing, he takes more pride in rooting for Blake Griffin because he’s half white, and that it would be nice to have at least one white superstar in the NBA to cheer for. The discussion then turned to other prominent African American persons of mixed descent – Jeter, Tiger, Obama – before Parker thought it necessary to clarify that skin color, hair and facial features often determine the extent of one’s perceived “blackness”. (Thanks, Rob, because up until now, I just went off of vertical leap and hot sauce consumption.)

An exercise in oxygen deprivation.

The attrition of personal emotions and inevitable hardening of skin that results from existing a year in the blogosphere (SC is directly responsible for the erosion of my social capital and the thickening callouses on my heart) means that I’ve no doubt changed my tune on such matters or, at the very least, the willingness to discuss them. Still, I cringe whenever a straight-laced, middle-aged Caucasian dude publicly favors another white guy specifically because he’s white.

Skip Bayless doesn’t speak for the Afrobutterfly, or, I think it’s reasonable to conclude, most of my generation and the ones to follow. Neither of us live in a “colorblind” society, but to ignore the enormous cultural disconnect between a 59-year-old from Oklahoma City and the millions of young adults comprising the core of his audience would be to overlook a multitude of gen-y-specific phenomena and their corresponding macro effects.

For the most part, the transcendent sports figures people of my age grew up lionizing were black. Jordan, Junior, Emmitt, Shaq – these are the guys I wanted to be when I was 10, and though the full list of idols also includes the likes of Greg Maddux, nobody in my peer group actively aspired to be a deadpanning golf geek with a 88-mile-per-hour fastball. Is this observation definitive of anything? No. Of course not. But it does attest to change: a lot of the white kids who grew up on Griffey also grew up on hip-hop and also turned out in droves to elect Barack Obama (who, by Skip’s thinking, is the 44th white president).

For Bayless, then, to say what he said – pitted against a Black commentator and symbolic of the entire White, male perspective – strikes me as pertinent to nothing and borderline archaic. Sure, I think it’s neat that Kevin Love leads the league in rebounding, but because he’s an athletically-challenged fat-ass, not because he’s paler than a slice of Wonderbread (hell, the kid’s the nephew of a freakin’ Beach Boy… Love is to white people what Gainesville Green is to weed).

I’m not claiming there aren’t intrinsic reasons to pull for someone of a similar background, but the oft-cited notion of “relatability” is totally bogus: I can’t relate to Blake Griffin any more than I can relate to Dikembe Mutombo, or, for that matter, Kevin Love or Casper the Friendly Ghost.

Skip Bayless isn’t a racist. He’s just an attention-starved gasbag. But it’s worth reiterating that the fundamental notion of taking pride in a white athlete primarily because he’s white comes across – at least written out – as a stance of racial preference, and one I’m not willing to endorse. I love Tim Duncan. I love Dirk Nowitzki. Yao is the tits, and if Cherokee Parks was better at basketball, I’d probably like him, too.

Back to the original question: Is Blake Griffin “black”? I don’t know. I don’t really care, and until somebody can convince me otherwise, I don’t see why this is a particularly relevant topic of discourse, especially for two old-hat newspaper guys on a show once titled Cold Pizza. Excuse the flaws in my admittedly limited logic and give my white-kid perspective some leeway as well, but do consider the point. With apologies to Skip, Larry Legend ain’t walking through that door. And that’s just fine by me.

*Dismounts from high horse.*

- Robbie

Guess What? Sam Shields Is A Hurricane.

Sam Shields, 180 degrees later.

Sam Shields recorded an interception, a sack and a forced fumble Sunday, and this all before he picked off Caleb Hanie for a game-clinching birth to the Super Bowl with 47 seconds left on the frozen grasses of Soldier Field.

This is odd not because Sam Shields enrolled at the University of Miami as a wide receiver, or because he was heralded as the second coming of The Playmaker by not-too-misguided message board junkies, or because he had declining reception totals in each of his four years at Miami, or because he was arrested for marijuana possession in the interim between his senior year and an NFL Draft in which he was not selected.

This is odd because Sam Shields, just a little over 12 months ago, was not good at football.

Shields was pegged a disappointment in his second year at Miami, a bust his third year, and the modifier to every expletive by the time his good-riddance graduation rolled around. Though he showed flashes of promise as a wet-eared cornerback, he was more often the butt of every go route, the very apotheosis of “alone on an island” and, perhaps most dishearteningly, symbolic of a lost era for UM football.

From day one, he was the fastest man on the field – capable of rolling out of bed and clipping 4.3 in sweats. But after a rookie campaign in which he was named an honorable mention for Freshmen All-America, Shields’ blinding quickness was neutralized by slippery hands, the depth chart’s glass ceiling and – one can only assume given the number of similar cases – a dearth of competent coaching. Shields, if anything, was a casualty of Randy Shannon and his rotating cast of hapless offensive coordinators.

Miami: refuge of the underutilized.

So how did we get here? How did we get to a point in which a special teams gunner turned 11th-hour DB turned NFL Draft dodger would become the last Hurricane standing in a post-season that also included the likes of Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Reggie Wayne, Devin Hester, and Jonathan Vilma? How is Sam Shields, of all people, the first rookie to ever get a sack and two picks in a single playoff game?

Great question, and one Shields himself doesn’t have an answer for.

“I never thought of this,” he said in the days leading up to the NFC Championship, adding, lest there be any notion to the contrary, “It’s crazy.”

College teammate and current Detroit Lion Randy Phillips says Shields “hung in there,” which is at once an understatement and, really, the only three-word combination that can begin to make sense of Shields’ reality-defying turnaround. In fact, the junior receiver was not a castoff from his own side of the ball, but instead the recipient of an offer he could’ve refused, but didn’t.

Wesley McGriff, Miami’s defensive backs coach from ’07 to the onset of the Golden Era, doggedly encouraged Shields to switch positions going into his senior year, insisting that his future protege was a “big-time cornerback wasting [his] time at receiver.”

These kind of things happen in Remember The Titans, not at major FBS universities (unless, of course, said university employs Randy Lennard Shannon).

Shields, quite obviously, has busted his ass ever since – at a seemingly unfruitful ‘Canes Pro Day, as a free agent looking from the outside in on a 53-man roster, as a hotshot nickelback playing behind only a future Hall of Famer and his Pro Bowl counterpart. He’s never won a championship, not even in Pop Warner. He didn’t intercept his first pass – college, pro or otherwise – until Nov. 7. Now he’s 13 days away from playing on the biggest stage in organized football. Why? Because Sam Shields – unlike me and thousands of others – never gave up on Sam Shields.

- Robbie

(all quotes via The Palm Beach Post)

Maybe It’s Not So Bad After All

Stick with me here...

I haven’t written about my beloved Tampa Bay Rays in 101 days. And for good reason.

To put it simply, this off-season has felt like death. Not a surprising, gone-in-your-sleep, heart attack kind of death. Anyone who follows the team knew it had to come. It’s been more like a slow, cancerous destruction.

We knew Carl Crawford was gone. We knew, for better or worse, Carlos Pena was gone. Most assumed Matt Garza would be traded by July at the very latest. But few prepared for the realism of actually seeing any of this happen.

I had the posts ready. I was prepared to write farewells to Crawford and Pena and Garza, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it when I saw the news.

The additional losses didn’t exactly pack an element of surprise either. Once the tornado was over, the Rays managed to lose nine players to free agency and two players to trade.

Some of the losses will hurt (Crawford, Rafael Soriano, Joaquin Benoit, Grant Balfour, Jason Bartlett). Some of them will not (Dioner Navarro, Randy Choate, Brad Hawpe, Dan Wheeler).

And it’s certainly difficult to fault any of these players for their decisions unless your the biggest Rays homer ever.

As Chipper Jones once said, ““When kids are in the backyard playing pretend games of baseball against their pretend buddies, it’s 3-2, two outs, bases loaded and they ain’t in Ted Turner Field [or Tropicana Field]. They’re at Yankee Stadium [or Fenway Park or Wrigley Field].”

Of the 11 players who left St. Petersburg, five will take the field for the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox or Chicago Cubs next year. All will make substantially more money than the Rays could afford to pay them and play to crowds in large markets that actually give a damn about them. There’s no one to blame, it’s just the way baseball is.

Just the way baseball ... (blah).

Andrew Friedman is the most brilliant general manager in baseball, but sometimes simple financial issues make his genius only slightly more effective than the gate that keeps boys from going upstairs at Sarah Palin’s house.

In return, Friedman gets what can only be described as a developmental orgy.  The Rays, known for being kings of the draft, will have 10 draft selections before the second round and own a startling 12 of the top 93 picks in the draft.

Due to their trades which involved Garza, Bartlett and struggling Triple-A outfielder Fernando Perez, the Rays acquired a total of nine minor league players. Two of the minor leaguers are pitchers (Cesar Ramos and Adam Russell) who should help fill the void in the Rays’ bullpen this season.

It has been said that Russell could be the reliever getting primed for a run at Soriano’s vacant closer spot.

But just when you got ready to throw down your cowbell and write this group off as “rebuilding,” Friedman got a little footloose on us.

Enter Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez.

Now I know, I know. Damon and Man Ram are old, washed-up and nothing like the idiots that took shots of pregame Jack Daniels on their way to breaking baseball’s most infamous curse in 2004.

Guess what else I know … It doesn’t matter.

Sure, if the Rays were getting the 2004 editions of Damon and Ramirez, this would be crazy news that would probably have the Rays a couple of bullpen spots away from an AL pennant. But that’s not reality, and when you’re a team whose payroll has been forced down to Pirate-like figures, you don’t have time to work in any way other than reality.

The reality is that the Rays lineup was absolutely anemic for a large portion of 2010. Carlos Pena, yes the same man that the Cubs will pay $10 million next year, batted .196 last season and struck out 63 more times than he hit. The Rays haven’t had even average production from a designated hitter since, well, ever.

Friedman thought he found something with Pat Burrell who turned out to be one of Friedman’s biggest mistakes since taking the job in 2005.

Combined, Ramirez and Damon will make $1.75 million less than Burrell did in 2010. Excuse me, they’ll make a combined $1 million less if Damon some how earns the $750k “attendance incentive” that’s in his contract. Basically this is Friedman’s way of telling Scott Boras, “Okay, you want to sell me this 37-year-old based partially on popularity? Let’s see him fill up baseball’s dreariest stadium.”

From a lineup perspective, these signings can only help. Even if these two are nothing more than shells of their former selves. Ramirez is an upgrade over a DH unit that had been watered-down to the level of Rocco Baldelli and Willy Aybar by the end of 2010. Damon is certainly nothing close to Crawford in left field, but he is a pleasant surprise for those of us who were dreading the return of Justin Ruggiano.

I could go into further statistical breakdowns, but that’s already done far too eloquently here and here.

To paraphrase both of those articles, this is a good thing. The Rays really can’t lose here and those are the kinds of situations that a team with limited means has to put itself in.

And if nothing else, it has the potential for fun. Imagine Ramirez and Joe Maddon in the same dugout. Think about Damon’s take on Maddon’s infamous themed road trips.

There are obviously no guarantees. I’ve gotten excited over this team for far more promising reasons before and received the ultimate result of disappointment. We were going to make another run in 2009. We were destined for a World Series in 2010.

But it has seldom felt as refreshing as this random hope that I have right now.

Last season felt like an ending, but it doesn’t anymore. There’s a rotation full of some of the most talented young pitchers in baseball, a lineup with a few fun story-lines (and Evan Longoria) and a bullpen that’s going to be auditioning young prospects all season.

Look on the bright side!

I’m not sure if I have expectations, but for the first time this off-season, I just looked to see when pitchers and catchers report. The thought of spring training excites me, and I think that just might be a good start.

-Bryan

Operation Get This Man an SC Shirt

The greatest homeless man in America. Yes, greater than Canseco.

No, this has nothing to do with sports or music or light beer commercials or any of the other things that we typically discuss here at Gainesville’s favorite Internet watering hole.

It’s about a homeless man.

I’m sorry. Unless you want to read 750 words about high school soccer or the definition of journalistic objectivity, it’s the best I can do right now. Trust me, it’s worth it.

And I know what you’re thinking.

“Bryan, which member of Gainesville’s excessively expansive homeless dude community are you talking about? Is it the Gainesville Rasta? Is it Squirrel? Is it the guy that tried to sell you Zantac bars at the ATM tonight?”

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

While Gainesville is plentiful with cardboard signs, sketchy Vietnam vets and drug addicts, none of them hold a candle to the man that’s simply known in Tampa as “Florida Avenue Dancin’ Man.”

On any given day in the 813, you can drive down Florida Avenue (duh) and see him in action. And the show changes almost every day. Sometimes there’s a cane, sometimes there’s a creative sign, sometimes he’s rocking the finest sports coat the nearest thrift store offers.

He dances from the time the sun hits pavement until his jurisdiction is only lit by street lights and nearby John Adcock Stadium. He dances past fast-food restaurants and fancy car lots and run-down motels that were strictly built for harlots and drug deals.

Summer and winter. Rain or shine.

The honks of cars only entice him, making his steps higher and faster. He’s even recently expanded his territory to Nebraska Avenue (speaking of hookers) and revealed his “given name” (Michael McKinney). And his popularity has earned him an imitator and an occasional sidekick.

Now as usual, the mission here is not nearly as sweet as you might think. After all, this is SC, not Oprah.

I’m not looking to pass out money or get him a job bussing tables at the Cuban Sandwich Shop.

And he might not accept it anyways. A couple weeks ago after stopping at a red light, my cousin called to inform me that the hobo Michael Jackson was handing out dollars to stopped cars. Reverse psychology, much?

No, my mission is simple. Get Florida Avenue Dancin’ Man a piece of Florida’s latest fashion craze, the SC T-Shirt.

The journey will be documented here on this very site. Whenever I get to Tampa and reward him for his awesomeness with 100 percent pre-shrunk cotton, Casualtists will know with visual evidence.

Maybe he’ll throw it on over his John Lynch jersey and provide the greatest marketing ploy that we have ever seen. Maybe he’ll throw it away. Maybe this will somehow get him the fame that that “golden voice” bastard that still hits the crack pipe and beats his family doesn’t deserve.

Seriously, I had a nightmare the other night that Ted Williams somehow got invited on a road trip that I was on and it was freaking terrifying.

Okay, so maybe I left something out.

[A quick Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office search tells us Mr. McKinney has three DUIs (bike?) and cocaine and marijuana charges, so technically he's no different than Williams, BUT DAMMIT THAT'S NOT THE POINT!]

Who knows? Who cares?

After all, FADM only dances because “God tells him not to be lazy,” and maybe because of a little booger sugar, too.

Let the mission begin.

-Bryan

Bad Beer and Tight Jeans: An Analytical Deconstruction of Two Competing Paradigms

Some dude from the Atlantic

Because “great taste, less filling” is a lie straight from the pit of Hell.

I have thick skin… Wait, let me rephrase that: I don’t have thick skin. I have very thin skin – not when it comes to topics of politics, religion, music, or sports (i.e. things that matter), but certainly on issues of personal branding and, of course, style. Needless to say, I take umbrage at bad commercials, especially bad commercials that mock my sense of cool and, above all, bad commercials that mock my sense of cool whilst plugging shitty beer.

I submit to you the following:

Now, Miller Lite is primarily known for two things: a bad product and worse commercials. So it comes as a surprise to no one that MillerCoors would unleash on the unsuspecting public such a putrid piece of meathead-baiting fodder.

The advertisement in question adopts the en vogue “Man Up” Palinism in a transparent bid to coax you into A) the misogynistic derision of skinny jeans and B) drinking beer that tastes like piss. Neither of these things sit particularly well with me because, as an open-minded, culturally progressive college student, I spend a considerable chunk of time wearing ill-fitting pants and buying alcohol.

Look, I’m no beer elitist. In fact, I’ve been known to subsist for entire weeknights at a time on PBR tallboys alone. But those in glass houses should not throw stones: a commercial for light beer framing tight jeans as wussy strikes me as both entirely hypocritical and the very apex of irony… like Joe Camel allotting a 30-second PSA to tell me Skoals kills.

Please.

Nevermind the commercial’s erroneous portrayal (the belt’s gotta go, the sneakers gotta go, and if you’re over 30 and still favor this a sensible fashion choice, you’d better be either A) better looking or B) in an emo band). Logistical issues are besides the point. To discuss the obvious – that endorsements for substandard products, by nature, appeal to the least common denominator (i.e. the mentally incapacitated) – would be to pass on a critical teaching moment, and more, a discussion of the pros and cons of both skinny jeans and light beer.

Let’s do this. But let’s do this rationally.

First we’ll tackle light beer, a beverage I’ll suck down in the company of Bryan Holt and people of his ilk. There exists no other conceivable scenario in which I’ll drink light beer. I drink light beer, as all self-respecting male twenty-somethings do, solely to make friends and improve relationships. It is an oft-inexpensive vehicle for cavorting with blond AD Pi pledges in loud places in which one only need nod his head, fake a laugh and smile frequently to secure digits and a weekend date. At this – as a means to an end – light beer does indeed suffice (pro).

Still, it tastes like the inside of a toilet bowl (con). And it is in no way manly. Lumberjacks are manly. Crew cuts are manly. Lions eating gazelles are manly. Doc Martens are manly. The Allman Brothers are manly. “Reign In Blood” is manly.

Bud Light is not manly. It is American (pro). It is not manly.

Apart from its mass appeal as a social lubricant, bad beer also possesses that rare quality in which it tastes EXACTLY like nothing else on the planet. In other words, Miller Lite has a monopoly on tasting like Miller Lite and not like Natty Light or Busch Light. And should – on the rare occasion, probably late, late, late at night – you crave this specific flavor of shittily produced beer, said shittily produced beer will quench your thirst and desensitize your palette like only that specific brand of beer can. In this regard, each respective variety is like a McDonald’s hamburger: not the best hamburger by any measure, but the only hamburger capable of filling that bi-pickled, onion and ketchupped, generically-produced foodstuffs niche.

Finally, light beer sponsorships inject a faint whiff of much needed controversy into the marketing mix of otherwise dull-as-wallpaper professional race car drivers.

Kurt Busch: Drinkin', Drivin', Winnin'

Pro.

We turn now to a subject on which I can speak authoritatively… The pitfalls, then, of rocking Levi’s 510 Super Skinny are two-fold. These are, in order of discomfort, a dearth of “breathing” room and, of course, the problematic phenomena in which your unstated intentions of appealing to leather-toting alt chicks are confused for unstated intentions of appealing to leather-toting alt dudes.

(Obligatory PC disclaimer: not that there’s anything wrong with that)

Like cheap beer (except more expensive and more tasteful), skinny jeans create an avenue for talking to women. These are, admittedly, a different sort of women and – judging by the only opinion here that counts (mine) – generally far more attractive. If boot-cuts land the attention of the girl next door, 510s land the tatted-up hipster queen who’s probably got a serious drug problem, but at 11:30 on Thursday night just looks like a CK runway model.

Alexis Krauss, of international buzzband fame

Pro.

Skinny jean wearing also proves more socially responsible than bad beer drinking. You cannot, for instance, wear too much of them, then get into a car and run over your neighbor’s shih tzu (you could technically, but such an occurrence would have seemingly little to do with your choice of pants). A newly washed pair, however, may temporarily cut off circulation in your legs, inducing momentary paralysis of the lower extremities.

Some dude being emo.

In addition, the ankles on a high-quality pair of tight jeans do not stretch, making the overly-exacting chore of dis-panting a logistical impossibility in the early recesses of the morning (when one’s ankles may or may not be prone to swelling). This procedure is so difficult, in fact, that my friend Emily once proposed the ingenius, though morally questionable, web practice of video-taping drunken hipsters attempting inebriated escape from the grasps of their constricting pantlegs.

Con (and pro).

The preceding discourse should make it abundantly clear that the question of tight jeans versus light beer is not simply a matter of preference, but instead speaks to how one fundamentally views the world. This dichotomy is one of paradigms and core philosophy and, as follows, acts a proxy for all material conflicts: Midtown vs. Downtown, classic rock vs. punk, Celtics vs. Lakers, Bryan vs. Robbie.

For my part, I will say this: the next round of IPA is on me, and, aesthetically speaking, I’m open to switching things up… As soon as she stops looking.

Blake Griffin is taking over my entire existence

I woke up this morning thinking about Blake Griffin. When I stumbled out of bed for coffee, Blake Griffin. On the bus to campus, Blake Griffin. On the walk to class, Blake Griffin. My brain’s default home page is set to Blake Griffin and all the bookmarks read BLAKE. I am now sketching “BLAKE GRIFFIN” on my folders, on my hands, on the back of six Post-Its jammed three at a time into my front pockets. I have managed a stick figure with red hair hitting his head on a rim-like sphere. I can think clearly only of Blake Griffin – everything else is a blur, a whiz of periphery, a jumble of white lines and black dots of which I can only make out the following: these things are not Blake Griffin. I am singular in existence. I am a Griffinite, a Griffophile, a Griffter. And I am starting to fear that things are not okay.

At approximately 11:47 in the evening, just a night ago, I stated aloud – with nobody in earshot, possessed by some otherworldy hubris – that Blake Griffin is going to the Hall of Fame. I am sure of this. I am sure of this like Tyler Hansbrough is sure that if he was 30 pounds heavier, five years younger, born with springs in his leg, and the hands-down most riveting player in professional basketball, he too would be Blake Griffin. I am consumed with Blake Griffin. I am consumed with Blake Griffin like a fat man is consumed with a 20-piece McNugget meal with extra barbecue sauce and a honey packet for good measure. The L.A. Clippers are my 20-piece McNuggets. Blake Griffin is my McDonald’s. Blake Griffin is my Wal-Mart. Blake Griffin is all things to me.

And so my thoughts are few. I think only of 47 points. Only of 14 rebounds. Only of 19 for 24. Only of a 21-year-old’s pinpoint bank shot. Only of 27 straight double-doubles. I think of what Charles Barkley might’ve been like with the body of LeBron. I think of what God might’ve been like if he’d played at Oklahoma. I think how the Clippers will be good. I pause. I wait. Then I think again, yes, the Clippers will be good. I am not certain where this goes. I am not sure how this ends. I am not positive of anything other than Blake Griffin.

I am positive of Blake Griffin. And because Blake Griffin has boxed-out the rest of my non-Blake Griffin existence, there is but a lone musing left in my exceedingly reductionist, Griffin-throttled mind: what on earth will this young madman do next?

- Robbie