Good Things/Bad Things

Drowning in alcohol/lack of self-awareness

Some of these things are good. Some of these things are bad.

Kit: Loves trashy TV, rocks a nose ring and forces her boyfriend to wear SC gear. In other words, she’s my sister. Kid could fake a Monet with an axepick and toothpaste if she felt so inclined. (Good thing)

The Real World: Las Vegas: Imagine if the Stones returned to Olympic Studios to make their best album 25 years in. Now add more sex, more drugs, more rock ‘n roll and a tiny little thing I like to call “Heather”. (Good thing)

Dick Vitale: Where’s Jack Kevorkian when you need him? (Bad thing)

Winn-Dixie: The guy who figures out a way to speed up food stamps redemption is doing God’s work. (Bad thing)

12 Facebook notifications: Seriously, f*ck off. (Bad thing)

The Strokes: Hope you still have that leather jacket. (Good thing)

John Smoltz: All those East Lake threesomes with Maddux and Glavine finally pay dividends. Body doubles Jim Furyk and Robb Hilson looking on with great anticipation. (Good thing)

TruTV HD: Better hidden than the Snickers-filled Easter egg. (Bad thing)

DVR: Some entrepreneurial digi-com major’s already devised a way to un-f*ck the new tourney configuration by syncing the finales of eight different games on four different networks to the final 2 minutes of “One Shining Moment.” Bravo, yet undiscovered young man. (Good thing)

The Lincoln Lawyer: Women waiting for Matthew McConaughey as shirtless antebellum legal counsel to be sorely disappointed. (Good thing?)

Mike & Molly: “America’s New #1 Comedy” by default. (Bad thing)

Tiger at the Masters: Already planted azaleas in my closet for good luck. (Good thing)

White girls: Over it. (Bad thing)

Aggressive walkers: Bro, this is a sidewalk, not the Autobahn. That leg brush was totally unnecessary. (Bad thing)

Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Ernie Johnson: Amazing how a new TV deal with Turner Broadcasting confers on NBA analysts an immediate and profound knowledge of the college game. (Bad thing)

The last time Chuck was good at college

The 1-16 matchup: Just give ‘em a damn bye. (Bad thing)

TruTV HD: Still. Flipping. (Bad thing)

Gator Basketball: Win, lose or tie, forever the Jermaine Jackson of Florida athletics. (Bad thing)

Presidential Bracket: Really? Disaster relief, pending economic meltdown and nuclear apocalypse isn’t enough? Prez really needs to spend 30 minutes with Andy Katz? To choose the winner of Wisonsin/Belmont? Really? (Bad thing)

Tournament Prop Bets: “Nantz lands overhand right on Kerr/takes Lord’s name in vain: -1500” quickest way to burn life savings. (Bad thing)

Pensacola Wedding: Whatevs. Open bar on the other side of six hours crammed into a car with Strokes and hot girls. Worse things have happened. (Good/bad thing)

Princeton Basketball: Still endearingly ignoring the “Black guys are more athletic” memo. (Good thing?)

The '50s are over, guys.

Tumblin’ Creek Wi-Fi: Urging the landlord to “take his time” only at the behest of courtesy. You, sir, give hanging apostrophes a bad name. (Bad thing)

Bob Huggins: So much more fun as a raging alcoholic leading an overrated two seed. <3 u, Huggie Bear. (Good thing?)

Rick Pitino: Was the bad karma for the white suits or the restaurant sex? (Bad thing)

Colonel Sanders

Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale: It’s been a long time, old friend. (Good thing)

The Slate Culture Gabfest: a bunch of driveling leftists introduce me to the finer things in life. Bi-partisanship at its finest. (Good thing)

The Project-In-Lieu-Of-Thesis: Didn’t dawn on me till page 45 of the final summary that the “Project-In-Lieu-Of” was just bullshittin’ me. (Worst thing ever)

St. Patty’s Day: You’re in college. The only difference between today and every other day is the grating celtic music. (Bad thing)

Oregano: the bay leaf’s retarded little brother. (Bad thing)

- Hilson

A long story about high school baseball pitchers

I know what you’re all thinking.

Bryan, you’re a no good, lazy loser, and you have abandoned us.

Well, technically you are at least partially correct. Me apologizing for long periods of absence has become so cliche on this site that I won’t even go there anymore. I’ve come to the easy conclusion that Hilson fuels this site, and I just get tossed in for the occasional change of pace. That will probably be the case as long as he’s taking one blogging class, and I’m swimming through the heavily contaminated water that is senior year.

Seriously, why is college senior year so awful and tedious? My high school senior year consisted of joke-worthy computer courses and “war history” classes that really just consisted of us watching “Platoon” and “Full Metal Jacket” over and over again. Did it cause me to majorly suck at my first semester of college? Sure, but I’d gladly take sucking at my first semester of post-post-secondary life if it meant Ethics and Editing could cease to exist.

Anyways, the fact that Hilson outnumbers my posts roughly 4-1 these days isn’t the point. If you check SC regularly, you already know that. The point is to show you all, my beloved Casualtists, just exactly why I have bastardized you.

When I’m not doing this or this or this, I have picked up the part-hobby/part-class assignment of covering high school baseball here in sunny Gainesville. As a sports reporting student, I am required to cover a beat for the entirety of the spring semester.

Since starting at Gator Country, I am now a beat writer for three UF teams (softball, men’s golf and women’s golf) on top of doing some football recruiting work and an upcoming Internet TV show. A sane person would make one of these sports double as his beat for class, except you know that sane person is not me.

Truth is, I enjoy covering the Buchholz Bobcats baseball team. As deranged as it sounds, it kind of feels like a break after a day of classes and homework.The atmosphere is fun, the parents are ridiculously helpful and the team is sick.

So it wasn’t as horrible as it sounds when I spent the better part of my spring break reporting and writing the 2,000-word feature story on what might be the best starting rotation in Florida high school baseball that you are about to read/skim through/ignore.

Do with it as you will, but I just wanted to prove that I’m doing a little more than sitting on a couch and drinking Busch Light all day.

—–

It’s a Saturday afternoon at Buchholz High School’s baseball field, and Joe Adel is dealing.

The 6-foot-7, 212-pound senior pitcher is using every inch of his overwhelming, intimidating stature to his advantage.  He’s utilizing a fastball that would give you an array of speeds in the low 90s if you were carrying a radar gun. The fastball is magnified by his height and release points, often causing the ball to hit junior catcher Kevin Krupp’s glove before the batter is quite sure what happened.

Adel takes a no-hitter into the seventh inning and picks up his second win in as many starts this season. He carries a 1.24 ERA and has registered 21 strikeouts in just over 11 innings of work.

Off the field, Adel is a humble jokester who is more likely to put an arm around you and help you find the players you need to interview in the postgame chaos than he is to brag about the talent that has led him to a college baseball scholarship at the University of South Florida.

When asked what he brings to the starting rotation at Buchholz, Adel quickly smiles and says that he “brings the good looks.”

But on the field, Adel is one of the best pitchers in the area. His aforementioned Saturday performance against Holy Innocents Episcopal, an Atlanta school on a four-game Florida spring break tour, is only different from his first two outings (the first coming in relief) in that he was not given a strict pitch-count limit.

Adel’s first two games were pitch-count limited because he moonlights as an all-county basketball player during the winter and had only recently rejoined the baseball team.

He chose South Florida over schools like West Point, Davidson and Harvard, because of his belief in Chuck Hernandez, the Bulls’ pitching coach and former major league pitching coach who once instructed Cliff Lee, Justin Verlander and Scott Kazmir.

“Chuck is the main reason I’m going there,” Adel said. “Most importantly, he can definitely develop me into a greater pitcher, and he believes that I can do that, too. That was huge for me.”

But just because Adel won’t pitch in the Bobcats’ next game doesn’t mean it will get any easier for their next opponent. That’s because joining Adel in the Buchholz rotation are two other pitchers who will be playing college baseball one year from now.

Their names are Ben Joseph and Jack Charleston, and together this trio might be on pace to win its second state championship. However, you won’t find their first state championship in the FHSAA record books or on the Buchholz trophy shelves.

“We’ve been together since seventh grade, and we won state in seventh grade,” Joseph said.

Their first title came wearing the red and blue of the Santa Fe Sluggers, a local travel-ball team, not the black and gold of Buchholz High School.

The Sluggers were together for about four-and-a-half years and featured some of the best baseball talent in the Gainesville area. All but one of the team’s alumni currently plays high school baseball in the Alachua County. The other Is Garrett Marshall, the Sluggers’ talented center fielder who moved to Georgia.

Five members of the 2011 Buchholz high school roster were on the 12-year-old Sluggers team that won a state title in 2006. Aside from Adel, Charleston and Joseph, current first baseman Graham Cason and current third baseman Austin Stone were also on the team.

Hugh Cain was the head coach of the Sluggers, but the team’s assistant coaches were more directly connected to the current Buchholz rotation. Doug Adel and Greg Charleston, the fathers of Joe and Jack, served as Cain’s assistants.

Adel and Charleston helped coach their sons from the time they were 8 until Jack started at Buchholz and Joe began high school at St. Francis Catholic.

“My dad first taught me how to play baseball and showcase myself and what I can do,” Adel told the Gainesville Sun in November. “He started a travel team and has always been there for me.”

The friendship between their sons went back even further than the 12-year-old Sluggers.

Adel and Charleston have been classmates since their preschool days at St. Patrick’s Interparish School. With birthdays only a couple days apart, Adel and Charleston occasionally had joint birthday parties as young children.

“They go way back,” Adel’s father said.

“Way back” is also when Charleston’s father, a former college baseball player and minor leaguer in the New York Mets’ system, began instilling long-term fundamentals in both young boys. He had Adel and Charleston starting every practice with long toss when they were 8 years old.

He focused heavily on mechanics at an age when most kids want to do nothing but play scrimmage games at practice.  First they played catch at 120 feet, then 220 feet, but their mechanics always had to stay the same.

Charleston’s father says that too many pitchers today are being coddled, and that’s the reason for increasing amounts of arm problems at the college and major league levels.

“You can’t take a day off of throwing,” he said. “When [Adel, Charleston and Joseph] come to a game, it’s a piece of cake. They have the stamina and arm strength to succeed.”

Birthday parties weren’t the only things that Adel and Charleston shared as youngsters. As the starting pitcher for the 8-year-old Pirates, Adel was limited by the local league on how many pitches he could throw.

This often meant switching out with Charleston in the middle of games which required the two to meet halfway, swap out gear and trot to their new positions where Adel towered over opposing batters. Adel never played catcher again after his time with the Pirates.

It’s a Friday night at Gainesville High’s baseball field, and Charleston is leaving batters perplexed.

The lanky right-handed senior’s 150 pounds barely fill the 6-foot-5 frame that he has recently sprouted. His thin lower body is deemed irrelevant when spectators see the low 90s velocity of his fastball, and what head coach Ron Brooks calls the best breaking ball on the team.

He wasn’t always a pitcher. In his days on the Sluggers, Charleston played everywhere and rarely pitched. He often played at shortstop or catcher during the 12-year-old state title run.

“Up until this year, I had no idea where Jack would be as a pitcher,” Adel’s father said. “He’s having a great season.”

Charleston works six innings against the Hurricanes, stretching his team-leading total to 14 innings pitched in three games. He strikes out four along the way.

Next season, Charleston will be taking his deceiving frame and three-pitch repertoire to St. Augustine, Fla., on a baseball scholarship at Flagler College, a school that started recruiting him as a junior.

“It’s good to know that I’m going somewhere where I’m wanted and needed,” Charleston said.

Joseph, the son of a rabbi who childhood coaches call Benjy, joined the group later. His family moved to Gainesville from Virginia when he was in the sixth grade. Once in Gainesville, he initially played for the Gainesville Bats, a travel team that Adel’s father called a rival even though he admitted that the Sluggers rarely lost to them.

After playing in a national tournament for the Bats in Cooperstown, N.Y., the same week that the Sluggers were also playing there, Joseph left the Bats and joined the Sluggers. Charleston had left the Gainesville Bandits, an older team that he was playing with, to join the Sluggers right before their trip to Cooperstown.

At Cooperstown, an ongoing summer tournament where 96 teams from all over the world come in and out on a weekly basis, Charleston had five home runs as the Sluggers finished 18th at the tournament. They lost to a team from Ohio that went on to win the entire tournament.

Now with a solid foundation in the future “Big Three” of Buchholz, the Sluggers headed back to Florida for their fall season.

While they didn’t have the best year as a whole, the Sluggers caught on when it mattered most: in a November tournament for the state championship. Charleston’s father described a group of players from various schools and cliques that didn’t always get along but pulled everything together when they needed to.

The Sluggers went 6-0 in a state tournament that began with group play.

Leading the way were Stone, Charleston and Adel, the three players with the highest batting averages in the tournament. Adel also started three of the six tournament games, and closed out the last inning of the Sluggers’ semifinal just before starting their match-up against the Sarasota Stealth for the championship.

After Joseph closed out the 9-5 victory that Adel started, the Sluggers had come a long way from their early days when a parent’s space heater once caught a dugout on fire on a cold night during the early parts of a spring season.

They were state champions.

It’s a Tuesday night at Buchholz, and Joseph is dominant.

At 6-foot and 195 pounds, Joseph doesn’t have the towering stature of the other two pitchers in the Bobcat starting rotation. But Joseph’s size hasn’t changed much since he was an overbearing righty on Cain’s state championship team.

“He had a full-grown body on a 12-year-old,” Adel’s father said.

Joseph brings more variety to the rotation by utilizing a cutter and a slider. He has a knack for throwing harder as the game goes on which fans don’t get to see on this particular Tuesday night as he is pulled from the game in the fourth inning after just 47 pitches.

The reasoning for his early exit is simple. The Bobcats are already ahead by 15 runs in a game where Jacksonville’s White High would only register one hit and have to call it a day after the fifth inning due to high school’s ten-run rule.

Joseph is maybe the most vocal about the Bobcats’ talent level this season.

“When we throw strikes, we’re not going to be touched,” Joseph said. “We’re going to beat ourselves more than other teams are going to beat us. If we don’t reach state, the senior class will be disappointed.”

That senior class is 13 members-strong and is led heavily by the five former Sluggers.

Joseph is the only man in the rotation who will not be staying in the state of Florida this fall. That’s because you have to go a little further north to find the Ivy League.

Some families’ traditions are high schools or timeshares in the mountains of North Carolina. But for the Josephs, the common bond is Yale University.

“My sister is a junior [at Yale] this year, my dad graduated from there in 1980 and his father graduated from there in 1955,” Joseph said.

Joseph chose pitching at Yale over baseball offers from schools like Duke and Tulane.

Five years after first coming together and winning their first championship as a group, Adel, Charleston and Joseph, seem bound to do something special in 2011.

It’s apparent around the ballpark whenever one of them is on the mound. Dads of freshman and junior varsity players stick around to watch even though their kids are begging them to go home.  The same dads nudge you and rattle off each pitcher’s attributes like a scouting report when you mention one of their names.

“I’d put this pitching staff up with anybody in the area,” Brooks said. “I’d put them up with anybody in the state for that matter. The only thing we’re missing is a left-hander.”

Greg Charleston has been around Buchholz baseball for six years. His oldest son, Stuart, played for the Bobcats and is now a pitcher at Florida State College at Jacksonville. He said that he has never seen a high school team with three pitchers that are this good.

“I never doubted that all three of them would have a chance to play after high school,” Charleston said. “It has been fun watching them.”

-Bryan

Protected: All I Ever Do Is Complain (Why Stop Now?)

Track-By-Track Review: R.E.M. – “Collapse Into Now”

Kings of Comedy

R.E.M. is a three-piece rock band from Athens, GA, that spent the first decade of its career pioneering the sounds of post-Ramones alternative music and adapting them for popular consumption. By the early ’90s, the band was one of the biggest on the planet – having traded in scrappy jangle-punk guitar songs for transformative adult pop, high-budget videos and lip service from everyone from Kurt Loder to Kurt Cobain.

After 1992′s Automatic for the People cemented both their superstardom and indisputable genius, the then-quartet experienced a brief, shockingly convincing turn as a distortion-drenched glam act, complete with shiny pants, massive guitar riffs and lyrical nods to T. Rex. Irreplaceable time-keeper Bill Berry’s late-1997 departure on the heels of a calamity-plagued touring schedule slung the band headlong into mid-career identity crisis, but the remaining members – Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck – have since carried on as a stagnant, occasionally brilliant trio once termed by Stipe “a three-legged dog.”

They’ve been accurately referred to as the American Smiths by no one, have zero contemporaries, and at last count, lay claim to no fewer than seven time-tested masterpieces. Their 15th effort, Collapse Into Now, comes on the heels of 2008′s revitalizing “come back” Accelerate. The following is a track-by-track review.

———–

1. Discoverer: I’ve already dedicated an entire post to this track, so I won’t beat you down with too many specifics, but suffice it to say this strutting slab of anthemic stadium-rock might’ve fit snugly amongst the screaming first throes of New Adventures in Hi-Fi (as a b-side to “The Wake Up Bomb,” but still). Buck introduces the pre-chorus with a deck-clearing riff paving the way for Stipes’ swaggering relational conceits and a shouted, one-word sing-along nicked from Talking Heads’ Remain In Light. A strong start and, with benefit of context, the obvious choice for opener.

2. All The Best: I scribbled “big monolithic block of generic rock noise” on a Men’s Warehouse receipt upon first listen, though I’m willing to back off that vitriol if you can find me a melody here. Subsequent plays reveal it a convincing minor-chord rocker compensating with energy what it lacks in chorus. I do like the bridge and the subsequent bursts of strangled, wirey guitars (via Scott McCaughey, not Buck, I presume), but I’d be hard pressed to pull from the band’s catalog another fast-paced rock ‘n roller this nondescript. Sounds a part with Accelerate’s title track, which at least had some typically spot-on Mills harmonies.

3. Uberlin: If I took my best post from last July, scrapped all the witty lines, tossed in a few oblique cliches and pasted the final product right here, this paragraph would be to the original what “Uberlin” is to Automatic’s “Drive“. The arpeggiated minor chords smell of retread, but it’s the inexcusable “hey now” hook so obviously borrowing from “Drive’s” “hey kids” refrain that ruins this track for me. “Uberlin” is the first of several explicit nods to the band’s past – self-reference only problematic if it fails to bring anything new to the party (which it doesn’t). Subsequently, I’m sitting here slogging through this perfectly tuneful, perfectly ordinary adult-contemporary elevator music when it’s hauntingly meditative predecessor is a mere click away. Final thought: Getting old’s a bitch.

4. Oh My Heart: Starting to think I liked Stipe better when I couldn’t understand what he was saying. More trite statements-of-purpose (see “Discoverer”) from a guy who’s long traded evocative Americana and obscurist pseudo-poetry for enunciated platitude. Pretty certain this a narrative sequel to Accelerate’s “Houston” – “The storm didn’t kill me/the government changed” line, for instance, picks up on that song’s “If the storm doesn’t kill me/the government will” – which I guess makes it something of a post-cleanup homage to New Orleans… Nola doesn’t deserve this. Buck busts out the mandolin, reminding me I should be listening to “Half A World Away“, yes, but also offering a pretty little counterpoint for the accordion in the chorus. Does that qualify as a compliment? How bout this: the chorus is an above-average recitation of the song title! Complete with Mills harmonies!

5. It Happened Today: The AllMusic Guide gives Collapse 3 1/2 stars, making it – according to AllMusic – one ill-defined star better than both Monster and Out of Time. Send hate mail, if you wish, to esteemed critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine at StephenThomasErlewineIsADipshit@Allmusic.com. Also, skip ahead to the part of this otherwise inoffensive glut of poppy jangle in which SC Logo inductee Edward Vedder engages in three-part harmonies with Mills and Stipe. I think my head just exploded.

6. Every Day Is Yours To Win: Harkens back to the sterile electronics of Reveal, but replaces that album’s since of experiment and delicate path-cutting with, well, a chorus reading as follows: “Hey-yah/I know”. Must be from the guy who can’t rhyme “here in the begin.” Deplore this track with the passion of seven Chinese bros (unless you’re Matthew Perpetua).

7. Mine Smells Like Honey: Only takes one exploding Mills harmony to remind me why I love this band. The first single’s popping chorus makes up for song title and pretty much every other transgression within a 100-mile radius with a surging blast of melody vaguely reminiscent of Document-era demo “Bad Day.” Wouldn’t make a best-of comp, but wouldn’t sound woefully out of place either. The dueling electric guitars – Buck plucking away, McCaughey ripping a busy lead in the right channel – jack up the standard pop song orientation, but I’m here for the vocal lockstep of Stipe and Mills, the rock canon equivalent of PB&J.

8. Walk It Back: Via Pitchfork: “‘Walk It Back’ alone is worth the price of admission here, a gorgeous and enveloping song that takes a step back from the album’s dense arrangements and gives Michael Stipe’s vocals room to resonate… it is quite possibly the best song that the band has recorded in nearly 15 years.” Suffice it to say none of this is remotely true, and in some cases – dense arrangements… really? – is the opposite of true. It would take way too long to list ALL the superior cuts from the last decade and a half (“Airportman”, “Lotus,” “At My Most Beautiful,” “Sad Professor,” “You’re In The Air,” “Why Not Smile,” “Daysleeper,” “The Lifting,” “I’ve Been High,” “All The Way To Reno,” “Beat A Drum,” “Imitation of Life,” “Summer Turns To High,” “Beachball,” “Leaving New York,” “Living Well Is The Best Revenge,” “Man-Sized Wreath,” “Supernatural Superserious,” “Hollow Man,” “Houston,” “Accelerate,” “Mr. Richards,” “Sing for the Submarine,” “Horse To Water,” “I’m Gonna DJ” and every track on New Adventures if we’re going back to ’96),  so let’s just call it inferior to the similar sounding “Electrolite” (which wasn’t that good to begin with) and agree the Pitchfork blurb must’ve randomly coincided with a Crack-4-Employees promotion.

9. Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter: Makes up in energy, melody, guitar havoc and wordplay what it lacks in title brevity. Truth is I couldn’t tell Peaches from a peach tree, but she fills the Kate Pierson-circa-Out of Time (read: quirky, high-pitched vox employed for harmony) with enough ballsy spunk for me to Google her. Turns out she’s hot. Like this cut. Shit-hot, in fact: a 100-mile-an-hour, break-neck rave-up that doesn’t even hit its stride till the torrid guitar heroics in the bridge. Now we’re getting somewhere.

10. That Someone Is You: In the punky power-pop vein of Accelerate’s “Horse To Water” and cramming its scant 104 seconds with enough lilting melody to cripple a lesser band’s entire catalog. I break into cold shivers when the 52-year-old Stipe kicks it up a full register in the chorus. And, I kid you not, he’s even saying something meaningful! About shaking complacency! Would’ve been a welcomed edition to any one of the last 14 albums. Indispensable, if way too damn short.

11. Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I: Who let in Buzzkill McGee? It’s no “Pocahontas” – still the reigning king of Brando-plugging acoustic ditties – but the chorus evokes the contemplative haunt of some of the better early-90′s compositions. Wouldn’t sound terribly misplaced on Out of Time or the Vanilla Sky soundtrack, or in an upscale Starbucks for that matter. Worthy on its own, though if sappy, affecting acoustic ballads binky your doormat, “Sweetness Follows” serves you better.

12. Blue: “Country Feedback” and “E-bow The Letter” meet in a bar. One tries to pick the other up. Patti Smith steps in to cockblock as “Belong” looks on. Arresting in its awkward resoluteness and bombastic atmosphere.

Final Verdict: A tuneful, lesser effort from a band whose brilliance still seeps through the cracks. Wouldn’t laugh if I found it in your record collection, and if I did, I’d ask you to play Green instead – which you obviously have. Because you’re a completist.

- Robbie

The Difference Between LeBron and Kobe

Fitting in every way.

Some would argue “wanting it more” is a false construct – that either every guy on a basketball court wants to win just as badly as his competitors or, alternately, that talent – in the end – prevails over all else anyway.

Maybe these people are right. Maybe when push comes to shove, “winners” – your Jordans and Magics and Robert Horrys – just possess superior athletic traits, exhibit one specifically heightened skill, or play with a group of similarly gifted talents who collectively display more physical aptitude than their opponents.

But LeBron James is a more talented player than Kobe Bryant and probably, too, every other human being that’s ever hoisted a 15-foot turnaround. He can jump higher, run faster, find a cutting forward with more precision than any. And for his adonis-like exploits, superior athleticism and nightly highlight reels, he has to show two trophies that say he’s the league’s best player and as many meaningful team awards as you, me, Maury Povich and Charles Barkley combined.

Kobe, on the other hand, has only one of the former and five of the latter – a skewed ratio most certainly speaking to the paramount abilities of his teammates, but also to a borderline-maniacal work ethic giving rise to stories of legend.

One such goes like this: Bryant, a 32-year-old five-time champion, misses all three of his shot attempts in the last 67 seconds of a 6-point defeat in Miami. He turns the ball over with 41 seconds left, hits the showers, and then takes to the court. Again. At 10:47. And spends the next 90-some minutes working his body into a frothing sweat with jumpers, post drills, free-throws and three-pointers.

Kobe heads to the showers – for a second time – as a crowd of 100 now-trespassing spectators clear the first rows in the first hour of the early morning. Flight for Dallas leaves today.

Now cynics have decried this act of oneness either a publicity stunt or a transparent attempt to sharpen a complacent champion’s will. To this, pundits pile on by “coming to the defense” of the event staff Kobe kept up passed its bedtime.

Never mind that event staffs work events as these PRECISELY to watch one of the ten greatest ballplayers of all-time create in real-time a million-hit YouTube sensation. These naysaying assertions, on their face, are clearly insane.

Kobe said he needed to tweak his game. He said it’s his job to work out the kinks. He is a champion. He is also, in his vows, correct. There seems to be a correlation between the two.

While LeBron celebrated on South Beach a break in his five-game losing streak, Kobe was honing an already perfected craft. During LeBron’s prep for “The Decision”, Kobe developed a seventh post move. And in the time it took LeBron to map out the parade route, Kobe changed his diet, shaved his head and added 20 pounds to the benchpress.

So there’s a difference between LeBron and Kobe. One is the kind of guy who runs harder in the final lap, rises before the sun, defies age with compulsion, makes a scene to make a point, doesn’t cry in the locker room, doesn’t Tweet, doesn’t celebrate prematurely, doesn’t rest on his laurels, doesn’t take his talents to South Beach or for granted.

The other is LeBron James.

- Robbie

Let’s Take Religion Out of Basketball

Gratuitous chastity.

In some respects, forbidding a college student from having premarital intercourse is like banning a politician from lobbying or a pitcher from throwing a fastball – sex isn’t a necessary part of collegiate life, but it’s certainly implied in the institution.

So that Brigham Young basketball dismissed sophomore forward Brandon Davies for an act most consider the triumphant finale to a successful night on the town appeals to counterintution at best and batshit crazy at worst. This latter reaction I rule out, as it implies backlash against the religious mores of Mormonism, which, as far as I’m concerned, is not a worthwhile point of debate.

Brandon Davies agreed to a BYU student honor code banning premarital sex. He admitted to said act with girlfriend. Rules are rules, even if they’re stupefyingly illogical. Davies violated a contract. He got – if not what he deserved - at least what he had coming.

What you personally think of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is irrelevant to this discussion because this discussion centers not around the merits (or lack-thereof) of organized religion, but instead on the unsavory relationship between religious institutions and the ubiquitous organization governing collegiate sports.

In short, the National Collegiate Athletic Association should not allow membership or representation from any college or university with religious affiliations – cult, mainstream or otherwise.

Sorry, I don’t want God in my jump shots. But more to the point, I don’t want the burden of supporting a product – specifically, NCAA-sanctioned sporting events – backing wholesale schools that outlaw sex or homosexuality or cursing or tabacco or f*cking tea.

This is America.

Regardless of the NCAA’s legal constitution (it is semi-voluntary), there is no question the association’s sprawling, hegemonic monopoly facilitates any and all interactions relating to collegiate athletics, be they consumer or participant. It is not government, but it is the de facto law of the land and, in many instances, regulating federally-funded bodies.

What BYU or Boston College or, for that matter, the mosque down the street do within the private confines of their respective institutions is none of my business – that is, unless the NCAA makes it my business.

Understand, then, that my issue is not with religion or with the governors of sport, but rather the thought of this ignoble pairing – per Brandon Davies – so comfortably in bed.

- Robbie

The Road to Wrestlemania XXVII: “Monday Night Raw” 3-7-11

Because this is what I do here these days.

You know the drill. Well, at least you should.

In commemoration of ME attending the Super Bowl of fake blood sport on April 3, I will be breaking down the Road to Wrestlemania on a somewhat regular basis. By somewhat regular basis, I mean, uh, whenever I feel like it. Tonight I feel like it which is to say I can’t sleep. So second on our journey is the 3-7-11 (Oh thank Heaven) edition of Raw. The episode was hyped for the return of Stone Cold Steve Austin to WWE television. Let’s do this.

Show opens with The Undertaker’s entrance

First, let me just say that I freaking love the slight tweak that Taker has made to his gimmick since returning. In case you haven’t noticed, he is no longer being dubbed as “The Deadman”. He is now “The Last Outlaw”. He still carries all the trademark appearances of The Deadman, except now he comes out to Johnny Cash and talks and moves like a real person during promos. It’s a combination of Deadman and American Badass, and it’s brilliant.

Anyways, Taker is obviously focusing on Triple H for their match at Mania. Basically, he came out to say that the match will be no holds barred, which is to say that it will be a professional wrestling match. Thanks Taker!

Taker continued to hint that this could be a retirement match by reiterating Triple H’s statement that he “will die” if the streak ends, and that Triple H will “die trying” if Taker wins. If Mania 27 is really Taker or Triple H’s last match, and I get to see it live, I might pee a little.

Randy Orton defeats David Otunga (AKA Mr. Jennifer Hudson)

So three guys (Nexus) beat the hell out of one guy (Randy Orton) for a solid ten minutes. After dragging his lifeless body from backstage to the ring, a member of Nexus (Otunga) manages to lose a match to Orton. IT’S STILL REAL TO ME  DAMMIT!

If you haven’t been paying attention, this is all to fuel the best undercard feud going right now. Orton vs. CM Punk is epic and you should almost certainly agree with me. Punk started the feud because Orton punted him in the head (WWE’s version of Orton killing you) two years ago, costing him to forfeit his world title. So Orton has now managed to punt three members of Nexus, leaving Punk with just one comrade with less than a month until Mania.

Christian defeated Brodus Clay

A returning Christian has become something of the odd man out in his love/hate triangle with Edge and Alberto Del Rio. Christian beats the large Brodus Clay fairly easily, but is then taken out by the man who was supposed to be his opponent, Del Rio. The last two times Del Rio has beat up Edge, there’s been a Christian save. But tonight, no Edge. Something tells me we have a post-Mania feud that Edge/Christian fans have wanted for years.

Sunny is being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame

I dedicate this moment to a young girl who once tried to get a 10-year-old Bryan Holt in trouble for bringing a magazine with Sunny bikini pictures in it to elementary school.

Take that, snitch.

Pretty sure this is the exact pic.

Eve defeated one of the Bella Twins to retain the WWE Divas Championship

GIRL FIGHT! Moving on.

Michael Cole promo leads to chaos (Kyle Rancourt’s head explodes)

So Michael Cole is out to announce who the guest referee will be in his match against Jerry Lawler at Wrestlemania. I feel the need to bring Rancourt into this because his opinion on Cole’s current role is true.

As he wrote earlier from his revolutionary Twitter account to my new and revolutionary Twitter account: @BryanHoltGC I’d rather watch a Vickie Guerrero sex tape than watch the WWE push Michael Cole as a major heel. It’s painfully bad.

Rancourt is right. Cole is over the top and cartoonish, even by pro wrestling standards, in his role as a dorky announcer turned dorky bad guy. He’s terribly douchey to the point where if I was a casual viewer flipping through channels, I’d almost certainly never stop at USA Network and watch.

BUT, the golden rule in pro wrestling is simple: Go with the crowd’s reaction. The live crowd’s have hated Cole for years, so WWE made him a heel. Little kids buy John Cena merchandise like Dickey Eklund buys crack, so WWE keeps Cena face despite the protests of everyone over 13.

While it may seem like it, WWE isn’t really trying to make Cole a top heel. They’re just trying to help create this giant jackass that you are interested in seeing Jerry Lawler knock around for eight minutes as a buffer between two real matches at Wrestlemania. And it now involves Stone Cold as the special referee with his never-ending supply of Keystone Light.

I’m pretty sure Stone Cold can make anything good. Maybe even a Vickie Guerrero sex tape.

I love that WWE is making nostalgia such a big part of this Mania. Is it a sign that the current roster can’t carry the biggest pay-per-view of the year? Probably. But it’s going to make me feel like I’m in fourth grade again, so I don’t really care.

Daniel Bryan defeated Sheamus

Poor Bryan and Sheamus. They were forced to be the first men out of the curtain after Stone Cold Steve Austin: A - Returned to Raw for the first time in a year. B – Hit the Stunner on JBL (who was making his first WWE appearance in two years) twice. C – Poured beer all over Michael Cole. D – Drank/spilled enough Keystone Light to drown the Carolina Cup.

On the bright side for Sheamus, he got a chance after losing to talk about his losing streak. He challenged Bryan to a U.S. title match next week, and promised that he will quit if he loses. Strange wrestling fact: losing is kind of good for your character if you’re given a chance to talk about it. Silent losses mean you’re about to get fired.

CM Punk beat R-Truth

Good. Somebody keep that skipping, rapping idiot off of the Wrestlemania card, please.

Thank you, Mr. Punk.

SNOOKI IS GOING TO BE ON RAW NEXT WEEK!!!

My level of excitement for this is both unhealthy and pathetic.

Dolph Ziggler defeated John Morrison

Vickie Guerrero is now banned from Smackdown and Raw. From the looks of things, an unlikely Money in the Bank ladder match is the only chance that either of these two superstars make a meaningful match on the Mania card. This is a shame.

John Cena’s response

Really, where do I start?

I can usually tolerate Cena because I understand that I’m not who his character is aimed at. But wow, this promo was worse than awful. It was memorably bad. It left me only hoping that whoever wrote the crap wasn’t being serious. It really felt like WWE was trying to make everyone hate Cena for at least one night.

He was almost constantly the only person chuckling at his own jokes. His lines were met with both boos and, even worse, silence. He is supposed to be on stage as part of one of the biggest feuds going in wrestling today, and yet he made the worst promo I’ve ever seen him make.

Everything about it was bad, from the cheerful opening to the almost comical insinuation that he is “2-0″ in verbal jabs at The Rock. Yes, they have yet to go face-to-face on television, but if that is what Cena seriously thinks he can use against the greatest promo of all time, then the eventual face-off will be an absolute embarrassment.

The idea of Cena even trying to go against Rock in a babyface-babyface feud is dangerous for business in the WWE. Unless they’re trying to make Cena a heelish parody of himself, they’re only making matters worse.

The Miz attacks Cena and cuts a promo

This was excellent and would have been more excellent had the crowd actually gone against him. The problem is that they had just heard the worst promo in years and were actually kind of happy to see Miz take out Cena.

But everything was spot-on by Miz. He needs to express the frustration caused by Rock/Cena dominating HIS title match. He needs to insert himself heavily into that feud. He did both seamlessly to close out Raw.

The line of the night was Miz telling Rock through the camera that he was going to “take your eyebrow,  your 45 catchphrases, your father, your grandfather, roll them up into a little ball and shove them straight up” …  Well, you know the rest. The People’s Elbow was sick, too.

Here’s what the tentative card for Wrestlemania XXVII is shaping up to look like after this week’s Raw:

WWE Champion The Miz vs. John Cena for the WWE Title

World Heavyweight Champion Edge vs. Alberto Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Title

The Undertaker vs. Triple H in a no holds barred match (possibly for retirement)

C.M. Punk vs. Randy Orton

Jerry Lawler vs. Michael Cole (with Jack Swagger) with Stone Cold Steve Austin as the guest referee

-Bryan

CNN Ticker Headlines

Now hiring: CNN copy editors

The following are actual CNN headlines running on The Situation Room ticker between 5-7 p.m. on March 7, 2011:

Warner Bros. fires Charley Sheen from “Two and a Half Men”

Charlie Sheen status still unclear.

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nevada) announces he will not seek re-election

“Ensign resigns” deemed too cutesy.

Stocks sink on investor ‘nervousness’

Better than investor ‘hemorrhoids’.

Discovery crew wakes to Shatner

Promptly shats in pants.

Android passes Blackberry as No. 1 on smartphones

Hilson regretting ’09 purchase of Research in Motion shares.

Phil Collins ready to retire from music

Everybody else ready in 1981.

McQueen denies designing royal wedding dress

Gown said to be inspired by “Bullitt“.

Steve Carell wraps last episode of “The Office”

More effective as ’08 headline.

Gas prices continue climb, up 34 cents in 13 days

On the bright side, more Tom Foreman reports from Texico station in Bumf*ck, Colorado.

‘Slumdog’ child star loses home in Mumbai fire

Porta-john said to be replaceable.

Oil prices hit $106 barrel

T. Boone Pickens seein’ dolla dolla bills, ya’ll.

‘The end is near,’ group warns.

co-sign

Gates visits Afghanistan amid tensions

Sorry, Afghans. Not the one with money.

Rape suspect claims ‘Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde’ personality

Or in modern terminology, ‘Sheen’

‘Angry Birds’ game coming to Facebook

Advantage: China

Mexico chief fired amid reports she fled

“You can’t fire me. I quit!”

Cyber attack hits French finance ministry, goverment says

Officials inundated with friend requests.

FBI, Secret Service duke it out on ice

Advantage: terrorists

Gergen combover fleas amid wind gust*

*not real

Vote now for your favorite iReports @ ireportawards.cnn.com

No thanks.

Obama brings back Gitmo military tribunals

Worst. Vacation. Ever.

Momentum grows for Libyan no-fly zone

Flies outraged.

Jeopardy! champ says Democratic senators asked him to run for office

Watson seeking New York junior seat.

- Robbie

Dear Heat Fans: There’s No Crying In Basketball

Pobrecitos

What happens when you assemble a basketball team with three good basketball players? Please answer logically. This is not a trick question.

Okay, here we go.

When you assemble a team with three good players, you end up fielding a 12-man roster… with three good players.

This is a mathematical certainty. It is grounded in fact. It is an inescapable, entirely limiting reality that cannot be masked by the synergistic talents of one of these three and the merely above-average exploits of the other two.

So I’m truly baffled – flummoxed even – by the local Miami sportstalk radio after the Chicago Bulls (a good team) sent the Miami Heat (a bad team with 1 great player and two good players) to their fourth straight loss and fifth in six games. It seems entirely rational to me – somebody who actually watches NBA basketball (as opposed to a Heat fan) – that teams who rebound and defend the paint pose serious and possibly irremediable problems to a squad whose best pure center (Erick Dampier) is widely regarded as the worst player in the league. I’ve maintained this not-novel stance – “defense and rebounding wins championships” – from day 1.

Subsequently, I don’t understand the call-in vitriol directed at Erik Spoelstra, or Eddie House or Mario Chalmers, or the collective mass grave that is Dampier/Howard/Ilgauskas. The Heat aren’t losing because Eddie House isn’t getting enough playing time. They’re losing because they have 9 Eddie Houses.

As far as Coach Spo’s concerned, I’m sure he’d like Joel Anthony to be ’01 Tim Duncan. But he’s not. And apart from building a time machine and overhauling the CBA, I’d say Spo’s shit out of luck on this front. He could tell LeBron James to stop jacking threes – which I’m sure he has – but it’s not like he has any say in the matter. When you’re nicknamed “King”, you don’t listen to guys nicknamed “Spo”.

In the cases of Chalmers, Dampier, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Mike Bibby, Mike Miller, James Jones, Juwan Howard, Anthony and the aforementioned House, said group collectively represents exactly what it appears to be in the now-permanently-scarred confines of this paragraph – namely, an aging bunch of NBA castoffs who, in most instances, would not crack the roster of a serious contender, let alone the starting lineup.

You know when consumer goods conglomerates dump underperforming brands to bolster the rest of their product lines? Well when you can’t spin off these duds, you’re the Miami Heat. And you’re f*cked.

So here’s something: shut up. Make me for a second believe you, the fan, didn’t really think this team would be able to contend without a shot-blocker, rebounder, front-court defender, point guard or bench. Trick me into thinking your woah-is-Heat charade is just that, and that you weren’t seriously – like SERIOUSLY – serious when you compared this team to the ’93 Bulls or the ’96 Bulls or the ’98 Bulls or any team with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen.

Cause that’s some crazy talk.

Let’s be clear: Pat Riley isn’t saving this team. LeBron isn’t saving this team. Jesus himself is not saving this team. Because this team isn’t a team. It’s three guys and a helping of warm bodies. And they can mope and they can cry in the locker room and they can promise to play harder and make more shots.

The Miami Heat can pretend like this is fixable. But it’s not. And as soon as we agree on these terms, we can all move on with our lives. Or at least with the teams that still matter.

- Robbie

Stuff That Should Not Exist

Die already.

The following is a list of things that should not exist or have been rendered obsolete in the year 2011:

Remix albums

Third-party candidates

Sports debate shows

Weird Al Yankovich

Yahoo! Search

Revisionist history

Kate Beckinsale vehicles

AM/FM radio

Director’s Cuts

Aluminum bats

Title IX

The Phoenix Coyotes

Industrial music

United States Postal Service

Book store chains

The Zune

MFA programs

Hard copies

Roman numerals

Ethanol

High-fructose corn syrup

Comic book movies

LeBron James’ three-point attempts

Late-night shows

Astroturf

Indoor baseball

Chillwave

Hustler Magazine

Slam dunk contests

Dr. Phil

The Gainesville Sun

$15 CDs

Loose-fit jeans

Margarine

The Rolling Stones

Briefs

Pencil sharpeners

Valentine’s Day

Guayaberas

Styrofoam cups

Network television

Micro vegetables

Sweet ‘N Low

Universal healthcare (jk, liberals)

Blogspot.com

America Online

Reference books

Floor trading

Teletubbies

Tampa Bay Rays

Paper weights

Pay walls

97% of weblogs, sports and otherwise

General Electric

Chlorofluorocarbons

Infomercials

Televised award ceremonies

Halftime performances

Big Gulps

Heavyweight boxing

Horse racing

Laugh tracks

Daylight savings

Nielsen ratings

Grey’s Anatomy

Encyclopedia Brittanica

MySpace

“unrated bonus material”

TV Guide

The KFC Double Down

Farewell tours

The Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame

Siegfried and Roy

Saturday Night Live

Greatest hits collections

Equine police units

Tanning beds

Boutique bowling alleys

Wide-mouth cans

GameWorks

Electric toothbrushes

Segways

The word “schadenfreude”

Nickelback

Dial-up

Pennies

9/10-cent gas prices

Landlines

Blimps

The British monarchy

Sequins

John Travolta’s pretense of heterosexuality

The Billboard Top 200

Prog rock

Tyler Perry films

Bottled red sauce

Plastic furniture casing

The Heisman Trophy

Happy Madison Productions

Reese’s Puffs cereal

Dayglow

Foods that end in “salad” (potato, pasta, tuna, etc.)

Imperialism

Fireworks

The Easter bunny

Parents who name their children “Dick” or “Ginger”

Auto-Tune

The metric system

Roller skates

Ab machines

Yellow Pages

Six-year Senate terms

Rice cakes

Pepsi Max

Celebrity basketball games

VH1

The last three seasons of Seinfeld

Chaffage

Every Queen album except Queen II

Brookstone

ESPN News

Multi-year engagements

Name-brand pharmaceuticals

Preseason polls

Beer commercials

Antennas

Plane crashes

Chalkboards

Wet dog food

Good Morning America

Myanmar

Mellotrons

Memoirs

The Princeton offense

Class rings

Tallahassee

- Robbie