i would suspend my hero sammy sosa, of my favorite baseball team, the chicago cubs, for the rest of this young season.

a corked bat of any sort, especially one in the hands of the most loved player in baseball today shouldnt be tolerated any more than a locker full of kiddie porn.

because what it does is makes the public wince.

we want to trust our idols, especially in chicago, especially on the northside.

especially when our magic number is 121.

some might say that a corked bat is the same as a scuffed ball, or sandpaper in a pitchers glove.

we rooted for gaylord perry and his spitball, and we smile at ty cobb sharpening his cleats.

players cover their mouths with their gloves nowadays to prevent enemy lip-readers. cheating isnt cheating in baseball it’s playing.

if you dont get caught: good for you. if you do: nice try you old dog.

but even in baseball at some point you have to draw the line and a guy who is on pace to be the all time home run king has to hit all of those home runs fair and square.

it was your practice bat? fuck you.

and fuck you for having a corked practice bat.

if i was commissioner of baseball i would be saying fuck you a lot i have a feeling.

someone got a piece of paper, rolled it up, wrote dunce on it and put it on my sammy bobblehead on my desk.

the sammy sosa story is a great one. skinny outfielder who gets tossed from team to team until he bulks up and starts hitting the ball over the ivy of wrigley field.

latin hero who blows kisses to his mother, and hustles, and has a gun for an arm.

he took the cubs to the playoffs in 89 almost singlehandedly.

and broke everyones hearts with a ground out

against the devil rays of tampa bay.

i keep telling you about night games at wrigley.

and its evil.

sk smith + lago + dancing + joh3n

one particular young woman was having a problem with hecklers. one in particular who threatened her.

but before we get to that, is there anything better than corn on the cob?

shit man.

back in the olden days i worked for some big companies as a manufacturers rep.

what i had to do, basically, was to teach salesmen how to sell better.

i would help them sell everything better and in return i would ask them occassionally to sell my stuff better.

strangely, my company hardly ever asked me to have them sell the stuff better.

anyway, sometimes i would have to give demonstrations in the stores to the general public. i really liked those days because then i got to show the salesmen that i really could stand on their floors, in their stores, in their house basically and outsell their asses on any given sunday.

it helped that i had giveaway pens, and i could call myself the factory rep, but still, a box went out that door because of me and thats all sales is.

sometimes i would be giving a demonstration to one person and several people would gather and some heckler would say something smart as he walked past.

i would say, what was that sir?

only do this when people arent buying. if theyre buying pay attention to them. if theyre not argue with the heckler, this way your pitch is delivered when people arent looking.

thats just a twelve dollar cd player with a six hundred dollar price tag! he heckled.

what was that sir?

mummble mumble.

sometimes you could call them out sometimes you couldnt. hecklers generally arent used to losing the power struggle so if you get lucky they’ll repeat themselves or say something else stupid.

im sorry sir, this philips cd-i player not only plays mpeg video, kodak photo cds, over 125 interactive titles, but the audio is crystal clear with two hundred and fifty six times oversampling, created as you probably know from the inventors of compact disc technology, and the audio tape, philips electronics.

and since i see that the pioneer cd player next to you with eight times oversampling is being sold for $199 and all it does is play cds, then how much, if you were running philips, would you sell this revolutionary device for?

i would sell it for…

a thousand dollars? well thats what marantz cd players go for. some even more than that. marantz being philips high end boutique line. in fact the marantz model that has 256 times oversampling is listed at nearly three times the price of the philips cd-i. many people buy this just to have a hearty high end compact disc player that they can show their photographs on.

why would i want to see my pictures on tv?

well i dont know about you, but i have a huge

tv.

and sometimes im lucky enough to take a picture of a pretty girl.

i would rather look at the ladies on my tv with a beverage in my hand and my feet up–

why must you lie to the people?

i know, it sounds too good to be true–

philips didnt invent the cd player.

it’s funny, one of the most common misconceptions–

Sony!

is that sony invented compact disc technology.

always stay cool people. its your house. not theres.

but if you look at the patent, for ever dollar of royalties sony gets a quarter and philps gets seventy five cents.

and in this whole store, as great as it is, you wont find one sony cd player that plays photo cds, compact disc interactive cds, movies, and audio with two hundred and fifty six times oversampling.

but they make nice walkmans.

after you make the pitch you have to ask for the sale.

ask the heckler how many he’d like. tell him to try it and if he doesnt like it he can return it. tell him if he buys it now you’ll throw in comptons interactive encyclopedia absolutely free. it’s a three hundred dollar value.

i dont need an encyclopedia.

what is it that you need?

not that.

you sure have a lot of questions about it. i think you love it.

laughter.

i know i love. and im not ashamed. i even bought one for my mom. and i got a roll of film put on cd and i mailed it to her along with the cd player.

because i love my mother.

it helps if youre partly insane. it also helps if youre on salary and drive a company car and have nothing to lose if nobody buys a damn cd player.

one of the best ways to close a sale is to be quiet.

and abc you should always be closing.

so if no one says anything and everyone stays seated wait just a few more seconds than you want and if you still have the floor you really have the sale so what you do is say, mario, how many of 910s do you have in stock.

same as they did for months before you showed up. three. two, really. one has the box ripped open and is missing a remote.

three!

ive got three pga golf games, a treasures of the smithsonian cd, and a coupon for a free kodak cd, but i might have three. i’ll give those to the next three players that get sold.

at this point people will take action. they will either turn to their spouses and decide, or they will ask questions. if they ask questions say, if anyone wants one right now, mario will wrap one up for you, but i will be happy to answer your question. whats that?

and point at mario.

and keep the answers short.

the heckler will walk away and you will sell out. and then you will go home. and then any time you go back into that circuit city they will say there he is.

when hecklers show up on your blogs however, ignore them completely, delete their comments, ban them from posting, never reference them, and write down their ip address.

Earth-Info.Net

please dont make fun of me.

i wont make fun of you sammy, youre my hero.

it was a practice bat.

dude, youre preaching to the choir. im willing to say it was planted.

it was a practice bat that i use for batting practice for the kids to oooh and ahhhh before the game.

sammy, its cool, trust me.

if i knew it was my practice bat i wouldnt have used it.

bro, i couldnt care less.

this sucks so bad tony.

i know. im watching them saw in half your bat that you hit your 499th home run.

i want to die.

its just baseball, buddy.

its just my whole life. my whole reputation. my whole everything. baseball is everything to me. id be a busboy in cancun without baseball.

without blogger im nothing and you dont see me thinking about slitting my wrists when people say i cheat.

i didnt mean to cheat though.

if youre not cheating youre not trying, senor, you know that.

i am trying, and im not cheating. fuck!

what?

i just saw a kid wearing my tshirt walking down the street. i hate myself.

people still love you sammy. i still have my sosa bobblehead on the dashboard of chopper one and one on my desk.

you should throw those out.

why? are they corked?

even when im so very sad you can always make me smile tony.

thats very nice. do me a favor though, por favor, ixnay on the corked batsay, k?

done.

fuck people who show up for batting practice. theyre happy just to be watching batting practice. they dont need to see you hitting the warmup pitches into lake michigan.

i know. i know

and fuck this slump youre in, and fuck this goatee you have, and fuck whatever weird stress youre putting on yourself.

do you have any idea what youre talking about?

we all have pressure, bro, we dont have to cheat or lie to stay successful.

but i want to keep my goatee.

fine, if you keep the goat, lose the bad bats and learn to relax. your team is in first place even without your massive bombs.

yes, but for how long?

for as long as guys like carlos fucking zambrano keep pitching out of their minds-o

but i am the team captain.

yes and youre also the home run king. its math. put the home run king at the plate and let him swing, eventually home runs will appear. dont force it. do you force your poops?

sometimes.

ok stop forcing those too.

the pressure is insane.

sammy. pressure is in your head. its the devil. dont listen to the devil. listen to the angels. listen to the little voice thats trying to root you on. listen to the 37,000 fans who are rooting you on. all you have to do is put the ball in play. you have over 500 home runs. you know how to hit those. just hit the ball hard.

but what if i dont hit 50 this year?

dude, youre a Cub. we expect nothing of you. we’re lucky that you even play on our field.

i love you tony.

right back at you corky.

tim blair + brian + coyote meets bush + brian

did you watch that Miss Universe pagent last night?

i sure as hell did.

my attorney was over, we had thai. God i love thai food. first we watched American Juniors, then we drank beers and watched Miss Universe and I have to say that I called Miss Dominican Republic, Amelia Vega. she had me at hola.

eighteen years old is the new miss universe, la times, and i dont ever want to hear any more shit from you about the ages of the girls that i date.

she was smooth, she was classy, she was happy, she had it all.

i did like the legs of Miss Namibia and the cool class of miss japan (who got robbed and should have been in the top three) and i even liked Daisy Fuentes who is still hanging in there which is tough when youre standing in front of scores of hot women from around the world.

i liked the costumes, the evenening gowns, the sexshay introductions, and even the swimsuit competition.

i liked it all, la times, and i think you did too, but i wouldnt know because i dont pick up the paper any more because you lost me as a reader a long time ago and youve done nothing to get me back.

how come you didnt do what i did and have a picture or two or three each day on your cover introducing each woman? people like to see pictures of pretty women.

miss universe is still in high school. how cool is that?

dont young women need role models any more?

isnt a high school miss universe from a country that most people cant find on a map even somewhat interesting? i think it is. but then again, i also think you suck so maybe you dont care what i think.

you suck because you pretend that you are a local paper but youre really an international paper, and then something like the miss universe pagent shows up that couldnt be more international and i dont see special sections or color full page spreads, or wagering, or handicapping.

maybe you could have given the kids of los angeles a two week geography lesson as to where most of these countries are and have a nice map and a nice picture next to it. maybe this week you could tell the kids of la about the four runners ups countries.

do you only educate the masses about geography when we’re about to blow shit up?

maybe youre part of the problem.

quick: whats the capital of canada?

how fucked up is it that the kids of los angeles know what the captial of afghanistan but not the capital of canada, our neighbors to the north.

war shouldnt be the educator of everyone, peace and love should.

lets put these beauty queens to work.

your pal,

tony

la examiner + welch + big dump truck