i know im faking it pretty good

but my heart is breaking.

my whole life all ive wanted was for the owners of the cubs to spend a little money to get some decent players for my favorite baseball team.

this week they’ve decided to spend $17 million to get rid of the greatest cub ever.

$17 million. thats like 4 presidential inaugural balls.

sammy sosa hit 35 home runs last year in his worst season in over a dozen years. many who want him out say that he had such a miserable season because his body was deteriorating from not doing steroids any more.

(sosa has been subject to accusations for steroid use, but has always tested clean.)

many of the naysayers point to yankee firstbasemen jason giambi who became a burden to new york since he didn’t play last year for the bronx bombers due to his admitted withdrawl from steroid use.

sammy played 75% of the season last year and hit 35 home runs.

jason played 50% of the season last year and hit 12 home runs.

only fools compare giambi to sosa.

the financial benefit for the cubs “unloading” his salary? a mere $1 to $7 mil depending on how you do the math. either way it’s not much when you consider that we’re talking about a guy who hit over 550 homers with the cubs, and can easily change a game in an instant.

but don’t try to make sense of any of this, this is the chicago cubs we’re talking about here.

sosa is being run out of chicago like he caught some sexually transmitted disease while cheating on his wife.

which is interesting because when magic johnson admitted to catching the worst sexually transmitted disease while cheating on his wife, the city of los angeles comforted him with open arms and gave him a tv talk show and the keys to any starbucks, tgifs, and fatburgers that he wanted to buy.

so what does it tell you when sports fans of tinsel town are more generous to their fallen sports heroes than the once-lovable patrons of the friendly confines.

sammy sosa came to the cubs as an excuse-me superstar from the crosstown rival chicago white sox.

although gm larry hines believed in the dominican outfielder so much that this was the second time that he had traded for him, cub fans held little or no hope for the skinny scorpio who spent half of his first season with the cubs on the injured list.

doubt him all you want, the next year, 1993, sosa slammed 33 homers and swiped 36 bases to become the first cub to ever make the 30-30 club.

his reward? he was allowed to be signed by the Boston Red Sox during the strike sea

son of 1994, but it was overruled by the commissioners office because it happened in the forrest as a tree fell and no one heard it.

he re-signed with the cubs after the strike and hit 36 homers and stole 34 bases.

in 96 he hit 40 homers in 124 games and some griped that he was hurt too much.

in 97 played every single game and people griped that he only hit 36 homers. only?

so in 1998 he broke roger maris’s long-standing single year home run record. sammy slammed 66 home runs and drove in a ridiculous 158 rbis. sadly, an admitted steroid abuser, mark mcguire, hit 5 more home runs than our hero and reaped some acclaim.

but the national league named sammy the mvp of the league that season, and the cubs got into the playoffs.

the next year sammy hit 63 homers. the first time anyone has ever had back to back 60+ homer seasons. unfortunately mcguire hit 65 that year and tied him for that record.

in 2000 he hit 50, and in 2001 he became the first and only player to ever hit over 60 home runs in three different seasons, he hit 64, brought home 160 ribbies.

no cub had ever done anything like that before. not just the numbers, but the hope.

in any game that the cubs were behind, if sammy was due up anytime before the cubs had run out of outs, they still had a chance.

by trading sammy sosa to the baltimore orioles for a banjo player and two magic beans, and by giving baltimore millions and millions of dollars, the cubs are acting just like every team we’ve always hated. we’re making it about tiny amounts of money and bullshit soap opera whine fest revolving around who hurt whose feelings and who wants to wah wah wah the loudest.

poor cub fans, sammy disrespected us by not wanting to be at the last game, not wanting to deal with the misery of losing in the first season where the chicago fucking cubs were “supposed” to win the world series ever in their history.

poor cub fans, shocked that the latin superstar might be a little emotional about the meaningless game, and the team that he was the captain of, and how a large part of their failure was due to his low batting average, and declining skills.

poor cubs, forced to make due with 35 homers and the most deadly #6 batter in baseball. forced to consider the “distraction” that sammy sosa would be to the clubhouse this year or spring training vibe next month. how would they ever cope with their newly-dubbed cancer?

watching the cubs drop sosa like a hot potato for the measliest little scraps from the baltimore oriole system because of the possible turmoil that he would allegedly bring to the locker room makes you wonder if the cubs learned one fucking thing from the boston redsox who had a little cancer named nomah in spring training and on the team for most of the season, along with two choirboys named pedro and manny.

the red sox won their first world championship in 86 years with two-and-a-half cancerous distractions.

maybe they bring good luck.

cub fans celebrating the unceremonious dismissal of their greatest baseball player are being looked at by the sports world as completely insane ungrateful pouters who deserve another 98 years of drought.

sammy didn’t make $10 mil a year until his 8th year with the cubs, the tenth year in the majors. his production and contribution has been a bargain to chicago, and he brought pride and a new way to describe baseball on the northside: exciting.

and im sorry but people weren’t paying $20 to sit on a bleacher in left field before sammy sosa came to town.

this is not the way chicago has ever treated one of its great sports heroes.

they treat their gangsters better than this.

hell, they treat jerry springer better than this.

sammy sosa hall of fame superstar plus $17 million for a bagfull of shit and a mistake to be named later.

they’ve done it year after year, but this is incredibly creative, yes, virginia, the cubs have found a new way to lose.

mo + brett lamb + super jux + franklin ave

ok well your hero got a date

with the 23 yr old born again christian virgin who hasnt kissed a boy since highschool.

apparently shes never been on a proper date in her whole life.

how does that happen?

and again, let me reiterate, the girl is hot.

nice clothes, good body, great hair, pretty eyes, great personality. no visible scars. if she told me that she hails from swedish royalty i would believe it.

oh yeah, she has the cutest little hint of a swedish accent.

99. usa flight insurance

what will we do? hmmm. she says even if we do nothing it will be fun.

im thinking korean bbq (something you definately dont get in scandinavia), followed by some rock n roll karaoke, followed by a lengthy battle of truth or dare.

let me give some tips for the fellas out there.

tip #1 if you want to go on a date with a fine young woman, tell her that its a date. say, hey wanna go on a date? odds are she’ll say yes. im 111 years old. ive asked a few girls out on dates. im no puff daddy but rarely will a chickie pass up a chance to do something other than the same old same old on a friday night. so tell her whats up and that way everythings on the table.

tip #2 dont expect shit from her. firstly she owes you nothing, even if you pay for everything. secondly you dont deserve anything, no matter how big your ego is. be happy that youre out on the town with a hottie, enjoy what you have, dont dwell on what you think you want. do everything right and you’ll get yours. someday. from someone.

tip #3 pay for everything, have several plans, have a few options, have a good attitude, have a clean house to crash at fully stocked with everything including a second set of clean pajamas (because naked virgins walking around your house are cute, but it’s winter, be a gentleman).

tip #4 make a few great mix cds, have some logs chopped for the fireplace, have some cold bottles of purified water chilling in the fridge, have a few good movies tivoed.

tip #5 if she reads your blog, freak her out with a totally inappopriate gaping void illustration on the top of your post.

she just emailed me asking, “so what are we doing? how does this all work?”

i said, we’re going to eat, drink, and be naked.

which is a lie.

i rarely take off my beanie.

maizzy + happy birthday steph from southbeach!!! + moxie

coachella 05

saturday april 30

weezer, coldplay, bauhaus, cocteau twins, chemical brothers, wilco, keane, snow patrol, rilo kiley, doves, sage francis, raveonettes, bloc party, fantomas, secret machines, spoon, buck 65, and others

sunday may 1

nine inch nails, new order, bright eyes, gang of four, prodigy, black star, the faint, roni size, the arcade fire, dj krush, dresden dolls, the fiery furnaces, tegan and sara, stereophonics, futureheads, sloan, and others.

tickets are $80 for a single day ticket or $150 for a 2 day pass

full coachella lineup + danielle + leah has a new layout

when i go to trial

i hope people dress up like me and hold up signs supporting my innocence. i will hope that there will be both the young tonys with the fro and the olde tonys with the bald heads.

thnx

stayed up till 3:30am last night cuz im a dope.

this weekend i rented a brand new red mustang convertible. my little brother was in town. the rentacar place totally had my $10/day rentacar in stock but the guy looked at my paperwork and said, tony pierce?

i said, yeah.

he said, dude i love the blog. let me see if i have something else for you.

i was all, oh thats real nice but im not even 100% sure that im gonna see my brother this weekend and i dont have a lot of money, but i appreciate the thought.

and he said, yeah but its the end of the day, end of the week, and these cars are just going to sit here if we dont get them off the lot, so let me make you a ridiculous offer on one of them.

i said, does my $10/day car have a cd player?

he said yes, and we walked over to the mustang.

it shined in the sunset. its top was already down.

he said, how does $25/day sound?

i said, it sounds ridiculous.

as i was signing the paperwork i said, does it have a cd player?

he said, it has a six disc cd player.

and i was gone.

thank you enterprise rentacar.

picked up my bro saturday afternoon. drove through the valley with the top down and the sun on us. it was windy but we didnt care. had the heater on and the donnas blasting.

i took him to see the clippers and the golden state warriors at staples. we tried to get good seats from the scalpers but even though it was only 1/2 full they didnt have any decent seats. so we sat in the upperdeck and laughed at the kids.

had a good time. i have a good bro.

afterwards we drove down hollywood blvd. like the kids used to do back in the day.

it took us 15 minutes to go two blocks. he asked, is that how traffic normally is around hollywood?

i said, i wouldnt know. aint no traffic on the subway.

and even though im glad i dont have to deal with traffic, it was pretty nice dealing with a convertible.

and if my ship ever comes in i might have to test drive one of those mini cooper convertibles.

afterwards i gave the 91 year old lady upstairs a belated christmas gift. an electric blanket.

she nearly died. she said, i wish i had something to give you in return.

all around her apartment are 100 year old originial oil paintings by her mom.

she said, would you like a book? i said, sure. i took dylan thomas’s collected works. she said, would you like some sunflower seeds? i said, na. she said, take em. i took em. she said, would you like an ensure. i was all, nah. she said, a coke? i said, ok.

forgetting that she was an old lady and it meant that i would be getting a diet caffeine free coke. but i didnt care, i just wanted to get back on my computer and waste my life clack clack clacking. which i suppose is better than wasting my life in traffic.

raspil overdrive + paige taught me about canadian centralism + but she didnt tell me about milk bags

raymis got rockstars wives

making fan signs for her.

and right now andy dick is on rodney on the roq.

rodney is the very shy, older, mop topped godfather of modern rock, and secret weapon of kroq 106.7 fm here in los angeles.

dj who discovered all the great bands that mattered: ramones, blondie, talking heads, gogos, depeche mode, smiths, duran duran, etc and played them for all the little boys and girls of la and the valley.

andy dick sounds high and drunk and gay but has a young woman over at his house. he called in to rodneys show and theyre reminicing about some of the times that they hung out.

rodney has a high voice and always sounds like hes asking a question.

he begins most of his statements with anyway.

anyway that was the 5,6,7,8’s, the spazzies, and surfer rosa. and andy dick is on with us…

andy talks about how many kids he has and how he thinks about celebs and their kids.

rodney tells us that tom waits has a pretty daughter.

andy says i have three kids. did you know that?

then he says, how many kids do you have rodney?

rodney laughs, none.

andy says, that you know of. That you know OF!

rodney says, no no.

andy says, havent you met a lot of girls?

yes.

and didnt you have sex with a lot of them?

rodney sounds verrry uncomfortable. which is his normal inflection, but now he sounds reaaaly verrrry uncomfortable.

he says, yes.

andy says, well did you always use a rubber or something?

rodney says, yes, i think its that im just very shy. you know.

which is funny because since the late 70s hes been teaching

the kids

what good music really is.

andy dick has three kids

rodney on the roq has millions.

all because he was shy,

but not too shy to get on the mic.

so get on the mic mike cuz you know you eat shellfish

omg goodbye + sigh club (pictured) + a dirty girl in a farmhouse

beautiful girl was over my house the other night.

i have the greatest life.

all girls are different. unique in all their little ways, but sometimes someone comes around who’s different in big ways.

ive met born again christian girls, ive met bible thumpers, and yes ive met a few virgins.

i dont know why virgins are attracted to me, maybe because im gentle and funny and my ways are clumsy and therefore disarming.

with that said, i dont like to be with virgin girls because its never a quickie little hey lets romp and then a quickie little adios. virgins will remember you forever and they will hold you in a place of high reverence that you will never be able to live up to.

its one of those nice problems.

but a problem nevertheless.

theres also no future with virgins because you cant have a long term relationship with someone who has never gotten it on with anyone else, because what happens if you do decide one day that you want to marry her, what fool is gonna marry the only dude she ever banged?

no fool of mine.

and a lot of times when i meet virgins in their early to mid twenties theyre born agains, and i have my ideas about the bible. and i will say something like, why do you think there are no stories about unmarried people having sex, and no commandments against pre-marital sex between two unmarried people? and we’ll talk and i’ll be nervous because what if im wrong. i dont want to send someone down the wrong path.

but there arent any stories about unmarried sex being bad. and in my opinion the reason that adultry is frowned upon isnt because sex was involved but because a committment was broken.

i always feel selfconscious when i tell people that the biggest problem that people have is their fear of happiness. because since im usually saying that to girls who i want to get with, im obviously not the most objective speaker, and therefore probably not the most trustworthy voice.

and this girl the other day hadnt even kissed a boy since high school and for the first time in a very long time, someone came into my house and blew my mind without pushing everything off the coffee table.

and right then i wanted to see what every dude at her private college missed out on.

but it was three am and i was starving.

human landscape + vanmega + raspil

cubs blogs are outraged

at the dumping of sammy sosa

thecubsfan.com

Okay, first thoughts. Calm, rational, reasonable, emotionless THIS SUCKS THIS SUCKS THIS SUCKS THIS SUCKS THIS SUCKS THIS SUCKS THIS SUCKS thoughts, no problem

I refuse to believe some settlement could not have been worked out with Sosa this season. Yes, it would have been a distraction, but there are always going to be distractions during the course of a 162 game major league season. Plenty of teams have done fine with malcontents, and I don’t believe that would’ve been Sosa’s aim for this season

I know he walked out on his team.

I know he used a corked bat.

I don’t understand how this could’ve happened.

Would you trade the blue from the uniforms?

Would you trade Wrigley Field?

How could you trade Sammy Sosa?

From 1993 to 2002, Sammy Sosa was as much the Identity Of The Cubs as the Blue and Wrigley. Or at least the part of the identity which were not losers. He carried the franchise thru some awful, pathetic attempts at baseball teams, carrying the hope of the fans with him. Maybe the team wasn’t good enough to win over the course of the season, but any day, Sammy might change that for his team. And we all loved him for it.

Those days were perpetually warm, sunny and bright summer days. Today’s another moment in a typical Chicago winter’s cold, dim, and overcast winter.

holy cow baseball blog

Sammy to the Orioles

Hendry Acts Out of Desperation

With the Sammy Sosa trade all but complete, the speculation can now begin. Sorry, maybe I’m being too easy on Sosa, but I would rather see Sammy in the outfield than Jerry Hairston, Jr. That’s right, I said it. Sammy for Hairston is one of the most lopsided trades in recent years. The prospects being included are not even ranked within the Orioles top 5.

By dealing Sammy for Hairston, Jim Hendry has done one of the most hypocritical things I have ever seen. In essence, Hendry has traded one whiner for another. Jerry Hairston spent much of last year complaining about playing in the outfield rather than at second base, his preferred position. And yet, the Cubs expect Hairston to be their starting left-fielder next year. If Hendry wanted someone whining in the outfield, he could have kept Sammy and saved millions in the process

wrigley blues

Sosa Trade Leaves More Holes

I picked the wrong night to go to bed early. I had to wake up to the news and posting on other blogs of the pending Sosa trade for Jerry Hairston, Jr & prospects.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. With Alou and Sammy gone, the Cubs are letting 75 HRs leave the outfield. This WILL have an impact on the team.

1060 west

it just don’t add up!

with the sosa-hairston deal — that even SOUNDS like a joke — all but done, it’s time to settle into some analysis. cub fans, you may want to go get a cold one out of the fridge.

the upshot is that the cubs found themselves into a terrible corner — whether it was a player revolt or simply another pre-emptive PR hack job ordered from on high or both or neither — and must have felt they had no way out except to take the best possible deal.

unfortunately, when everyone knows you have to sell, you aren’t going to get much for bids. welcome into the fold, jerry hairston.

WHAT THE CUBS LOSE: an declining right fielder, sure — but one who declined to a .517 slugging percentage. i won’t sit here and tell you 2004 was a golden sammy year, nor will i suggest that sammy is only 36. but sammy had a bad year with some injury weirdness — and if he rebounds to even the midpoint of 2003 and 2004 for the orioles (where he’ll hit cleanup), he will put out 60 extra base hits, approach 100 rbi, and score 85 runs. it should not be overlooked that only sheffield, guerrero and burnitz hit more taters playing right in the majors even in a bad 2004 for sammy, in which he still offensively compared favorably to the likes of jacques jones, richard hidalgo, jermaine dye, shawn green and others. and they’ll pay most of his remaining salary — having waived the 2006 option, sammy’s a free agent after 2005.

so let’s put sammy in perspective — the cubs are losing a *big* bat. you can argue that, with ramirez and lee around, they can afford to lose some power and strikeouts.

WHAT THE CUBS GET: a second-tier leadoff hitter with a featherweight bat and two aging prospects. hairston might get on against both righties and lefties well enough, but speed is a problem — the kid stole 13 and was caught for 8.

a cub fan’s rants

No Julio?

Hendry must be smoking the pipe, man. And the wrong one at that, cause what is this I’m hearing? If I am the only one who reported Julio in this deal, than I am sorry, truly sorry for making an honest mistake, for I based it upon a Sports Ticker story, but wtf are they doing throwing Sosa away for next to nothing?

Hairston, Jr? What? A 28 year old with career numbers of .261/.334/.371?? With 26 HR and 160 RBI in his entire six plus year playing career? He’s fast, they say. So fast he stole 13 bases last year? Getting caught eight times?!? And we’re paying a “significant portion” of SamMe’s contract? I hear it maybe as high as $10 million. Sixty percent? Who the h*ll are these minor league players, cause this deal looks terrible on the surface. Awful. Embarrassing. Stupid. Asinine. Short-Sighted. Idiotic. Reprehensible. Crowd-Pleasing. Chicken-sh*t. Lazy.

Worse, it looks based on ticket sales. They were afraid their cash cow was out of milk. And Baltimore needed to compete in its new market vs. D.C. I know, we needed to move him, but we also needed to get something in return. OK. As I’ve stated, if he played the whole year for us in ’05, we pay him and he walks, so something is better than nothing. Well, there ya go, at least we got something. Can we make that into a T-Shirt?

Hey, At Least We Got Something!

and that’s better than we did with Maddux the first time!)

That, and I’m guessing Sosa decided he absolutely needed to leave town (wise) and cried and stomped on the clubhouse floor until stability reigned and Hendry gave him a one way ticket to 3rd place in the division. But Sosa for Hairston, Jr. just might go down on that list of Top Ten worst trades in the history of baseball.

oriole sammy image via ivy chat

tonys in the news

Tony Kiritsis, 72, found dead of natural causes

In ’77, he wired a shotgun around the neck of a mortgage company official, paraded him through Downtown, kept him hostage for days.

Anthony G. “Tony” Kiritsis held a shotgun to the head of Richard Hall on Feb. 10, 1977. After a live, profanity-laced television news appearance, Kiritsis released Hall. Kiritsis later spent 11 years in mental wards until his release in January 1988.

By Rob Schneider

indystar.com

January 29, 2005

Anthony G. “Tony” Kiritsis, who made national headlines when he wired a sawed-off shotgun around the neck of an Indianapolis mortgage company executive in 1977 and paraded him through Downtown streets, was found dead in his home Friday.

Kiritsis, 72, virtually held the city at bay for more than two days before ending the 63-hour hostage ordeal at his apartment. Found not guilty by reason of insanity, Kiritsis spent 11 years in mental wards until his release in January 1988.

On Friday, he was found dead at his Speedway home in the 1500 block of Mickley Avenue by an acquaintance, who notified police. The Marion County coroner’s office said Kiritsis died of natural causes.

Efforts to contact family members Friday were unsuccessful. It is unclear what Kiritsis had been doing since his release from custody.

The events of Feb. 8, 1977, elevated Kiritsis to an instantly recognizable household name as he talked repeatedly on the air with veteran radio newsman Fred Heckman of WIBC-AM (1070). Kiritsis also insisted on live television coverage of him reading a statement — all while his shotgun was still wired around the neck of Richard O. Hall, with whom Kiritsis was angry about a business deal.

The incident would forever change the way broadcast journalists cover such incidents and would lead to what some called “The Kiritsis Law” after he was found not guilty by reason of insanity. His acquittal prompted Indiana legislators to amend the law to provide for verdicts of “guilty but mentally ill” and “not responsible by reason of insanity.”

Kiritsis confronted Hall in his office at 129 E. Market St., angry about a possible foreclosure on land Kiritsis had hoped to develop. Kiritsis, who described himself as having been angry all his life, attached Hall to a wire noose bolted to the end of his shotgun and put his finger into a metal ring that was wired to the trigger.

He led Hall through Downtown Indianapolis, surrounded by police and horrified office workers, until he reached Washington Street and Senate Avenue. There, he commandeered a police squad car and drove to his apartment at Crestwood Village. Kiritsis contended the apartment was wired with explosives.

After negotiating with authorities, he left his apartment with Hall still wired to the shotgun, walked into the lobby of the complex and demanded that television cameras be turned on. In a profanity-laced proclamation, Kiritsis called himself a national hero.

The incident proved to be a “watershed” story for television, said Mike Ahern, who retired in December as the longtime news anchor at WISH (Channel 8).

Back then, local stations had just acquired the capability of going live with “mini-cams,” Ahern explained. “We honestly didn’t know what we were doing then; those cameras were so new.”

Ahern, who had been out to the apartment complex, was back at the station when the hostage ordeal ended. He remembers looking up at a television screen and watching as the face of John Wayne (on an awards show) was replaced by the ranting and raving face of Kiritsis.

Tom Cochrun, news director at WISH, was a news reporter for WIBC at the time and remembered wondering how Kiritsis’ tirade would end.

“Tony’s moods would vacillate from anger, rage and frustration, where he was screaming and yelling to where he was crying, and then he would laugh,” Cochrun said.

The station’s telephone lines were flooded with calls by people angry about Kiritsis’ foul language being aired, but Ahern was more worried about viewers seeing an execution in their living rooms.

“We didn’t know what to do. Our hands were tied at that point because Kiritsis had demanded live coverage. If we pulled the plug, who knows what would have happened?” Ahern said.

But the larger question is whether the station should have been plugged in to begin with, Ahern said. “Should we have gone out there ‘willy-nilly’ with our cameras running because we had these new toys in our arsenal?”

In retrospect, Ahern said, the answer is no.

“If that thing taught us anything, it’s caution and perspective and responsibility,” he said. “It taught us a lot about how vulnerable we can be in a situation like that.”

have you met tony + tonecluster + tony’s treehouse

you dont trade sammy sosa for jerry harriston jr.

i dont care how much money you’ll save.

winning the world series is not about saving money.

winning the world series is about having the best team on the field.

sammy sosa had his worst year last year in a very long time.

he hit 35 home runs in 126 games (20-30 fewer games than the other members of the hr leaders).

35 home runs made him #11 in the national league.

nobody has hit more homers than sammy in the last decade.

sammy is arguably the cubs greatest player ever.

in 2001 he hit 64 hrs, the third year in his career that he had over 60 homers. he also hit .328.

jerry hairston jr. was hurt last year and only played 86 games.

the year before that he was hurt and only played 58 games.

cub manager dusty baker allegedly says that he wants more speed on the cubs.

hairston’s best year was in 2001 when he stole 29 bases. sadly he only hit .233 that year. since then he swiped 21, 14 and 13 bases (’02, ’03, ’04).

he was hurt recently because of a broken foot.

the cubs want more speed so they trade sammy sosa for a guy with a broken foot?

fuck jerry hairston jr.

the cubs will also pay the orioles $10 million to cover most of sammy’s $17 mil contract. saving chicago $7 mil, which they will prossibly use to trade for and sign tampa bay’s aubry huff who will make about $6 mil this year.

aubry huff is a decent player. hes 28. last year he turned in his third consecutive good year (29, 104, .297). in 2003 he had his best year at 34, 107, .311

but the cubs arent trading for aubry huff. theyre trading for jerry hairston jr and two minor leaguers.

the cub reporter speculates that the cubs will trade either one of those prospects and some of their own to tampa bay for huff.

all i know is sammy is the best cub player ever, and if youre going to send him away, you get something back.

ernie and billy and ryno were all great, but sammy was a monster for over 10 years straight.

he was never busted for steriods despite the whispers

and although the corked bat incident was probably the most embarrassing moment ive ever seen, the likelihood that it truly was an accident remains good.

yes he was booed near the end of the season last year and showed up late for the last game, didnt play, and left the game early.

i’ll excuse that for a guy who hit 547 homers for me, and 574 in his career.

sure-bet hall of famers and their pride, and all that.

me, i blame dusty baker, who has been given solid teams and the best pitching in baseball and hasnt given me a world series.

i refuse to believe that managing barry bonds’ ego was less difficult than sammy sosas.

i know its blasphemy for anyone to ever criticize dusty baker, but wheres his ring as a manager?

didnt he have 4 guys with over 30 hrs on his team last year, and a lead-off hitter who nailed 25?

didnt he have proir and wood and only one game to win versus the fish two years ago to get to the world series?

and now am i to believe that now he’s going to recommend that the cubs trade away the cubs greatest player for jr. and maybe aubry huff?

fuck dusty baker.

fuck jerry hairston jr.

fuck the tribune corp who owns the cubs and is behind all of this tragedy.

when will there be manditory drug tests for owners

andy dolan + aaron’s baseball blog + a view from the bleachers

can you believe that people are still writing me

asking why i dont want ads on my blog?

ok, for the last time. i dont want them because im afraid of many things, the biggest being that i am afraid that it will change me. and worse, it will change this blog.

did any of you hear about all these scandals that are happening from the White House? the government is using your tax dollars to encourage journalists to pimp things like straight marriages, No Child Left Behind and the like?

well yeah it sucks that BushCo is taking our monies for their own propaganda.

but can you really say that if someone offered you a quarter million dollars to say “yay Bush” that you wouldnt take it?

i cant say that i wouldnt.

who cant use six figures for writing shit down?

or linking?

even if you dont actually need the money im sure you can find something to do with it.

i just dont want to get into that situation.

there are lots of situations i dont want to get into because i know what sort of sellout i can be if need be, or manwhore, or blogger.

best thing the xbi ever did was get me out of the office and into chopper one because if i was in front of a computer all day i would be posting a dozen times a day.

so no, i dont want the snowball of ads to roll into an avalanche. i dont need that sort of temptation because i will go to the dark side. i will do something stupid. i would be easilly manipulated by those with the deep pockets and its not that i would feel guilty later, but i would feel dirty.

and when i ever got to heaven the Lord would look at me and say, so we gave you talent, and an audience, and what did you do, you wrote down things that you didnt really believe in and took money.

we let you live during the age of information and you withheld information and instead spread propaganda.

and then He would punish me for squandering His gifts.

as He should.

me, i just want to have a firm handshake when i get up there, i want a quick tour, and i want to get fitted for my wings and fly over to the banana split ski slopes

and eat my way down to the rocky road riverbed.

and then introduce myself to the Playmates.

give to caesar whats caesar’s

my treasure is in the kingdom of heaven.

and i bet there arent any fucking ads up there either.

shane + chris j paul + sk smith