As you probably know, I’m a huge baseball fan. HUGE!! So this website I’m about to show you will probably bore you to tears. Or put you to sleep. Or make you want to urinate on my Xanga. I wouldn’t recommend that though, as it is on a website which you are reading on your computer so pissing on it would entail you pissing on your own computer.

http://retrosheet.org/

So there is the site. Its probably the most comprehensive listing of professional baseball games available, going all the way back to 1871! I was even able to look up the box score from the first games I went to, which was a double header at Wrigley Field between the Cubs and Cardinals on June 13, 1986. I always remembered the score of the first game, a Cubs loss 1-0. I always remembered how game two ended, with a Thad Bosley pinch hit single in the bottom of the 10th with the Cubs winning 1-0. Upon seeing this site, my memory was slightly off. The Cubs did lose 1-0 in the first game. And Thad Bosley did win the game in extras with a pinch hit single. It was, however, the 11th inning and the final score was 3-2.  Still it was neat to go back and relive that day.

What I found even more interesting was the original rule book from 1871. Sure, a lot has remained the same. But, as I’ve learned previously, there are some things that are dramatically and drastically different. I’ve read a lot about the history of baseball, so much that I sometimes think there isn’t anymore I can learn. But, I learned something last night when I read this. Everybody knows that when the 3rd out is made, the batter who comes up next when the team comes to bat again is the batter who bats after the last guy who made the out. But, that wasn’t exactly the case back in 1871. The best way to describe this rule, which was very significant, is to use the Cubs line up as an example. So you need to know that the first 4 batters in the Cubs line up on a typical day of late is Kosuke Fukudome, Ryan Theriot, Derrek Lee, Aramis Ramirez and Milton Bradley. If this were 1871, this was how game was played (although it wasn’t always played like this, it appears there was much inconsistency within the games). Fukudome gets a base hit and is on first base. Theriot makes an out, Fukudome remains on first. Lee makes an out, Fuk still on first. Ramirez comes up and grounds to the shortstop who throws to 2nd to get the force out on Fuk. In today’s game, the next hitter for the Cubs would be the 5th place hitter, Milton Bradley.  But in 1871, the Cubs next batter when they come to bat in the bottom of the second would be Ryan Theriot, the reasoning being because he is the batter after the player who made the last out, which in this case was actually Fukudome since he was forced at second. Ain’t that crazy?

Speaking of baseball, I’m tossin around an idea for my vacation. I’m up in the air as to what I want to do. I came up with an idea of driving and going to 5 games in 5 different cities on 5 consecutive days. The 5 cities would be (and I don’t know the order yet) Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. I think its a great idea, but gonna be tough to pull off both physically and financially. Still, I’m always up for a good challenge.

Bad news people. I think I might be starting to mature. Or at least my tastes. See for years and years I’ve been a big sugar eater. About 12 years ago when I was spending valuable unemployed time wasting away at Denny’s, I used to order coffee (or decaff if it was too late in the night) and load it up with 3 sugars and 3 creamers. Now keep in mind these were those tiny ass Denny’s coffee cups. Really, there wasn’t much to them. Jt and Dave used to think I was crazy for putting so much sugar and cream in my coffee. Nowadays I still put a lot in, but not as much. I’ve noticed the taste of too much sugar. Come to think of it, I was never a big coffee drinker in the first place, at least not until I started working 1st shift some 5 years ago. Now I drink it every day. And love it. I still am a rabid sugar eater, I eat all the so called sugar cereals. But, my sweet tooth is not nearly as strong as it once was. I never eat donuts. I do eat candy but don’t crave it the way I used to. Hell, 5 years ago (and as I even documented here on Xanga) I ate Cookie Crisp with Hershey’s Chocolate syrup on it. Its not to say I wouldn’t do that again, but I don’t know that I would have thought of it at this point.

And its not only sugar. When I was a teenager I used to love Pizza Hut. Now I think its worse than shit on a stick. Ok, so I came to that realization years ago. For the most part, I also don’t eat fast food anymore. It doesn’t even taste that good to me anymore. When I was growing up I never liked seafood. Now I love it. When I was a teenager I didn’t care too much for Chinese food. Now I love it.

I have read that throughout a person’s life their tastes change. When you are a kid you are a picky eater. When you become an adult you aren’t as picky and eat many things. When I was a kid, I wouldn’t even eat pizza. Now its among my favorites. I’ve heard that once people get old, they don’t like a lot of things. Is it possible that I will morph into somebody who doesn’t even like chocolate? I shutter at the thought.

Still, it might make my eating life even easier. I always said if I could have one superpower it would be to have the power to eat whatever I want without the health consequences that come with such recklessness. Maybe as I age that won’t even matter. Maybe all of a sudden I will be liking things that taste like shit or have no taste. You know, like tofu. Or…………I dunno, something else that has no tastes or tastes bad. Maybe it will make me even healthier.

I’ll always have my beloved Rold Gold pretzel rods though. I think its safe to say I will never stop loving those.

I’ve got the day off today, which gives me the chance for a rare mid weekday post.

I was at the gas station the other day and there was another customer there and I noticed something odd. Let me break it down why this guy was odd:

• He had a pick up truck.
• He was wearing a NASCAR t-shirt (Matt Kenseth I think, however I’m not a NASCAR fan).
• He was buying Budweiser.
• He mumbled when he spoke.
• He looked like he could use a shower.

So you might be saying to yourself “what is odd about that?” And sure, there is nothing odd about that at all. But, let me throw this into the mix. He was black! Now of course its perfectly ok for anybody to do any of the above. What makes it different is that those are all things that are associated with southern white guys. To put it bluntly, Rednecks. Or Hillbillies. Or Trailer Trash. Or White Trash. Whatever you prefer, the thing is that it is associated with white guys. So that begs the question, can a black person be a Redneck? Certainly if they can then this guy was one.

Friday I went to the Cubs game with some of Mark’s friends. Its funny, we always seem to hang out when he goes out of town, so we have gotten into the tradition of me sending him a picture of them. As for the game, the seats were pretty decent. Here is a crappy pic from my crappy camera phone:

See good seats, bad pic. The picture really does it no justice. The Cubs won and everybody was happy.

I’ve got a couple of friends who live right next door to each other. They are so close that they even have a gate that connects the backyards. We frequently have parties at their houses. About 3 or 4 people in our group of friends have July birthdays and every year we have a party at one of the houses. This weekend we had a weekend long party between the two houses. Unfortunately it poured on Friday night so we were stuck inside. Yesterday though, the weather was great. They also happen to live within walking distance of a water park. I met some other friends there and spent the afternoon going down waterslides and whatnot.

While I was gone, my brother and another friend decided to play catch with a softball right in front of my car which was parked on the driveway. Well, my brother never seems to know his own strength. He also is not very accurate when he throws. The combination resulted in my brother hitting my car with the softball leaving behind a pretty healthy dent. Even though my car has damn near 100,000 miles and is 8 1/2 years old, needless to say, I was none to happy when I discovered it. We tried to pound the dent out from the inside of the car, but its at a part of the car that we are unable to reach to push out. Everybody was suggesting that I buy one of those suction dealy things to pull it back out.

After much drinking, I passed out uncharacteristically early for me about 1am. For the second Sunday in a row, I woke up early this time about 7:30 in the am and once again went for a walk, this time through a small forest area with a pond. I sat on a bench staring out at a few ducks swimming the pond, a moment of great peace and tranquility for somebody who was tired and slightly hungover.

That’s all you get for now.

We here at the Mafia have decided that going forward a God damn form will be needed for all fuckin’ whackins. Please fill out the following form and allow 6-8 weeks for processing before being contacted for a potential sit down about having the sonofabitch whacked. All questions are required to be answered honestly, failure to answer honestly could result in you being fucking fitted for a new pair of concrete motherfucking shoes. Please fill out the following form taking note to answer every fucking question.

“Name”:

Non-tapped phone line you wish to potentially be contacted on:

Address of  home in which you live in and that will be burned down to the ground should you fail to fucking pay:

Are you a fuckin’ rat:        No       Fuck no

Name of person you wish to have “eliminated”:

Is the person you havin’ whacked a fuckin rat:     YES             NO         I took a sacred oath not to tell nobody nuthin’!

Is the person you havin’ whacked a made guy:     YES             NO 

If he is a made guy, do you have a really good fuckin’ reason for orderin’ the hit and do you have the required form stamped and dated by a Godfatha. Keep in mind that failure to get approval to whack a made man will result in your own whacking:    YES   NO     Too scared to answer

Where do you want the whackin to take place:       At the sonofabitches home       At the opera       Comin’ out of an Italian restaurant

How would you like “it” done:    Shot in the mout’       Shot in the head       Shot in the chest       First shot in one knee, wait 20 minutes then shot in the other knee, wait another 20 minutes before being shot in the head, mout’, chest and groin

Seriously are you a motherfuckin’ piece of shit rat:       I said no the first time       How could you even ask me that after all I’ve done for you

How many times do you want the piece of shit shot:                12       15       31       Everythin’ you got and than another fuckin round

How would you like the body disposed of:        Properly       Left in the back of a meat truck       Cut up and thrown in a dumpster       Buried in the endzone of Giants Stadium       Weighed down and dropped into the bottom of the fuckin’ ocean       Head sent via US mail as a warning to others

Are you upset that Jon and Kate broke up:       Who cares       It’s about time, I bin bangin’ that broad for a fuckin month!

Do you swear to never tell no one nuthin’:       Yes       Please shoot me anywhere but the face

Legal mumbo jumbo (and by legal we mean the Feds better not find out shit or else): If you dare tell anybody shit, than yous will be the ones gettin’ the fuckin’ whackin, you understand? Failure to pay the fuckin money ta-day will result in fuckin broken legs. If you don’t pay after dat, then you are gonna get fuckin whacked, you hear? No doin’ some stupid shit like makin copies of this form. No emailin’ this form. No talkin’ about this form. If anybody asks, we are in waste management. If anybody else asks we are in construction and we are doin’ this “thing” for you. If anybody else asks tell us who and we’ll “take care of ‘em”. Don’t contact us, we’ll contact you. Oh, and you better not say fuckin shit!

                                

Signature (to be signed in blood):

                                                                              

Form FU666j8675309

  
This our suite. Through that door on the left is the little bedroom area with 2 double beds.

That’s the view from our room, we had a great view of the John Hancock building, which is the world’s largest cock.

 
My sister in law put pink nail polish on my middle finger for some reason. It doesn’t show up in the pic.

House of Blues was right next to Dick’s Last Resort

That is me and my brother’s mother in law in our hats.

My friend Don and I.

Everybody sitting at the table. Well, except me.

Mark’s sister in law, not the one celebrating the birthday.

Everybody dancing.

This is a giant sculpture of the famous American Gothic painting. When I was a kid, I used to think of it is the Ma and Pa painting.

Last night for my brother’s (Mark) sister in law’s (Mandy) 30th birthday, we went to a place some of you might actually be familiar called Dick’s Last Resort. There are something like 10 or so Dick’s across the country. Let me explain the concept to you. Its a bar/restaurant place in which the wait staff is rude to you. I know it sounds crazy, but it is actually a pretty good time. We go every year (not for her birthday, but just to go). This year though we got a hotel in downtown Chicago so that nobody would have to drive after drinking for 6 hours. We stood at the “fabulous Omni Hotel” and when I say “fabulous Omni Hotel” you might recognize it because that is what Oprah says at the end of each show because it is where her guests stay when they are in town. We live about a half hour from downtown Chicago in the southwest burbs (that’s a half hour without traffic………….with traffic, its like 2 weeks) so we didn’t need to get a hotel, but we thought it would be cool so nobody has to drive. As is my understanding, the only rooms the Omni has are suites. We got a suite which had 2 double beds, a separate living room type area with a sofa couch. We also had 11 people, which lessened the cost of the room considerably.

To save money on the $50 valet, we stuffed 11 people into one Ford Pinto. Or it might have been 11 people into 2 SUVs, which probably makes more sense. We left shortly after 2 in the pm. For some reason, traffic was a motherfucker much of the way there which sucked because I was one of 4 smaller sized adults stuffed into the back of a Saturn Vue. Honestly it wasn’t really all that uncomfortable, however it took us over an hour to get down there which was probably about as long as you want to be stuffed like that.

Since I was the one who got the room, I was let out first so that I could check in. The staff at the hotel was very friendly and welcoming. I know that’s usually how its supposed to be at hotels, but they were even so much more friendly than normal hotels. They were even understanding when I asked for 9 keycards (I mis counted, otherwise we would of had 11!) as they told us we could have as many as we wanted.

The room was not as big as we thought it would be, but just big enough. We hung out in the room drinkin and snackin for a couple of hours when we first got there. Mandy brought a single sized air mattress and the four of us who were stuffed in the back of the SUV pretended to all sleep on the air mattress together. There will be a picture of that on tomorrow’s post though.

We finally headed to the bar about 5:30ish. It was about a 15 minute walk. For a Saturday night, it was not very busy. Sure, it filled up later, but never stood full for very long, which sucked because they had a decent band playing cover songs. Our waitress was a fun girl who had many rude things to say to me, which included called me a douche bag. I gave it right back to her though, pretending to be in love with her. Because of my personality, I can really fit in well at a place like Dick’s.

The staff at Dick’s make paper hats for people with goofy sayings or insults on them. Mine said “God, I wish my other testicle would descend” to which I thanked the waitress for not telling the truth about how neither had descended. Other hats in our group said “I’ve had more guys in me than a urinal at Yankee Stadium”, “First porn star,” “I haven’t had any since Nixon was in office”, “I farted and a gerbil came out”. There were a group of college kids at the table next to us. One of the guy’s had a hat that said “I only cum on Saturdays” and the guy next to him had a hat that said “Saturday” with an arrow pointing down.

As the night wore on, we all started dancing to the music. Even my other brother and sister in law, both notorious non dancers, got up to dance a couple of songs. The band ended at about 12:30 and the waitress brought us our rather large bill. Next to the total she wrote on the bottom “Holy Shit!”

I didn’t want to go back to the hotel room yet, but everybody else was tired and wanted to go back. I tried in vain to talk everybody or at least a few people into going to another bar. I found  myself back in the room trying to go to bed at 1:30 in the AM.

As for sleeping arrangements, because I was one of the last people to get back to the room, I had to sleep on the floor. I was in between the two beds, which had Mark and his wife sleeping on one and her parents on the other. Her dad snores like a motherfucker. It meant that I was unable to fall asleep. Also for some reason, the motherfuckers that built the hotel decided to  build it with a hard fucking floor! Imagine that.

After trying for several hours to sleep, I got up about 7 and walked around downtown Chicago, most notably the world famous Michigan Ave, also know as the Magnificent Mile. On the way out of the hotel, I ran into the valet from the previous night who was just off work. He recognized me and awkwardly said hi. Call me crazy but by the way he was talking to me, I got the sense he was hitting on me. He was kinda cute and I probably should have made a play for him, if nothing else I could have gone back to his place and slept since I was unable to do that at the hotel. I had never been up and about in downtown Chicago so early on a Sunday morning. All was quiet and peaceful with the world. When I was walking around I thought about how I was going to describe the walk in my post. As with most times, I always come up with better words then and forget them by the time I post. I walked around and snapped a few pics before heading back to the hotel about 7:45ish.

I did manage to take a little bit of a nap this afternoon, but I’m still pretty damn tired and hungry. Tomorrow I will post pics. In fact, I’ve decided to make it an all pic post, something I’ve never done before.

By the way, something funny happened with this post. I wrote the title and hit enter by mistake before I wrote the post. I actually got a comment on a post that I had not yet written. The title was just that good!

So is anybody else bored to absolute fucking tears at these Sonia Sotomayor hearings? Sure, its important shit, but when I turn Air America on in the morning on the way to work they are playing the hearings. And if there is one thing that is more boring than watching the hearings, its listening to them on the radio. And they are on CNN all day and we get to listen to Senators blather on endlessly with questions. They really should air them late at night when people have trouble sleeping.

Don’t tell my insurance company, but I never check my blind spot when driving. There, I said it.

My mother used wire cutters to cut her toenails. That should come as so much of a relief to you that you will sleep better tonight.

My problems with making coffee have been well documented right here on Xanga. For example, on Christmas Day of last year I managed to kill two coffee pots. I have had one problem after the other making coffee but now I think I’ve finally managed to…………..well not perfect it, but at least to make it drinkable and kinda good. Good news though, the whole story is about to be told for the whole world to see. Their is going to be a movie about my coffee pot murdering and my coffee making problems. Its going to be called Pothead and Alfred Hitchcock is coming back from the dead to direct it.

 

……..if you aren’t a baseball fan. Or read it anyway. Its going to be all about baseball.

As you probably know, tonight was the 80th Major League Baseball All Star game. You’ll notice that I didn’t say 80th annual. In fact you will never hear it called the 80th (or whatever number they are on) annual MLB All Star game. This is because for a few years in the 1950s and 1960s, Major League Baseball felt the need to play two all star games each year as a way to raise money for the former player’s fund, as opposed to just paying the players more money. But hell it was the 50s and 60s, players were paid poorly and treated like shit by the owners. Nowadays the players are grossly over paid and there is no need for two all star games, just the need for one game because of the dumbest rule in all of sports.

Thanks to a stupid panicky move by Commish Bud Selig, home field advantage in baseball’s most important series, the World Series, is determined by the team that wins the All Star game. The All Star game is supposed to be a meaningless exhibition game. At least, that was it was intended to from the first year in 1933 all the way until 2002. That was the year the All Star game came to Selig’s home town of Milwaukee. The teams tied and at the end of 13 innings (or was it 14 innings?) they had no pitchers left and Selig declared the game a tie. After that he wanted to make the game important so he smoked a really fat blunt and came  up with this half baked idea of awarding home field advantage in the World Series to the league that wins the All Star game. Wait, I should correct that. Selig is not nearly cool enough to smoke a blunt. I’m sure he came up with the idea while having his mind altered by trying on pair after pair of new glasses.

So the All Star game has become the most important game of the year. Players who will not play in the post season help to determine who has home field advantage. And who helps to choose these players? Why, the fans of course. This means that fans can stuff the ballot box (or the websites) with votes for undeserving players in hopes that putting a bad player on one of the teams helps to give their league (and hence their team) home field advantage during the World Series. So instead of teams playing their asses off to get the best record in baseball to get home field advantage, MLB uses a game that has no bearing on the rest of the season as a way to potentially punish the team with the best record in the sport. Basketball and hockey uses the team with the best record to determine home field advantage. And the rest of home field advantage in baseball’s post season is determined by the team with the best record. But baseball fucks this up.

So what is the solution? Well me and 83% of major league baseball players (according to a Sports Illustrated poll) along with countless fans believe that the home field advantage should go to the team with the best record. The Commish wants the All Star game to mean something. Well there is a way to accomplish both. The team with best record gets home field advantage, but if those teams have identical records, then the tie breaker is the winner of the All Star game. Only I will take it a step further, unlike the Commish, who has no tie breaker in place should the game wind up tied again or rained out. My tie breaker would be the league that had the better interleague record. If by some off chance that is a tie, then the head to head record against common opponents is the tie breaker. If they have had no common opponents or their is a tie in that, then they all have a cocksucking contest and the first team to finish wins.

As luck has it though, home field advantage in the World Series has not been an issue since 2002, the year before this bulllshit system started. The American League has won every All Star game since then. And no World Series has gone 7 games since then. The National League has won the Series 3 times since then. The AL has won 3 times as well, each time in a sweep, making home field advantage a moot point.

So what about this year? The game was in St Louis and if I wasn’t a complete idiot, I would have driven the measly 4 1/2 hours and gone to the damn game. The game is always fun though. This year before the game they had a ceremony honoring the “All Stars Among Us”, ordinary everyday people who have done great things in their communities. As the ceremony ended, the players all walked up to the ordinary people and shook hands with them and got their urine samples to be used to cover up the players steroid use. It was a nice touch.

Next President Obama came out and threw out the first pitch. On his way off the field he handed out another $100 billion dollars in bailout money, this time to the Cubs.

Once the game started it was a quickly played game filled with commercial after commercial about prostates and boners, just what you want to hear about during a game featuring players who have lost their testicles and shrunk their cocks to steroid use.

In the end, the American league won again, once again giving them homefield advantage in the World Series. 

I was in a discussion with my crazy cousin the other day about the media. Now I’ve never been big on the media. I used to not watch much of the news, but now that we have a tv in our breakroom at work, I find myself watching CNN on breaks and lunches (that is, if the Cubs game ain’t on, after all a guy has to have his priorities). Also if I’m watching a game at home I will click on CNN during commercial breaks just to see if there is anything big going on. I also mainly get my news from Yahoo!, The Daily Show, Bill Maher and David Letterman. Oh, and an old relic called the newspaper, in particular the Chicago Tribune. People think that one can not get their news from comedians such as Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, but I beg to differ. While they may be comedians and some people might call them irrelevant, they do still dispense some sort of news if nothing more then to just make fun of it. But, they are comedians, and they are what they are; they also should not be your only source for news.

Some of my my frustration with the real news is that they spend so much covering things that don’t matter. They make things like who the latest sleezbag to be dippin his dipstick in the STD colony that is Paris Hilton. The seem overly concerned with Jon and Kate and their unfortunate 8 kids then other more important topics. They also seem to be obsessed with negativity and fear. They love to scare the shit out of people, just like politicians. Fear. Watch the news or else you wont know about the tornado headed your way. Watch the news so you can be safe from the outbreak of flu caused by the farmer in Kentucky that had sex with his cow. If you don’t watch, you will die! DIE!!! DIEEEEEEE!!! Yes people, its that serious.

Of course, nowadays the big three networks (ABC, CBS and NBC for those of you who were born before 1900) still have their nightly evening newcasts, but in addition to them you have three 24 hour round the clock all news channels. Because they are 24 hours a day, they have way too much time on their hands. So much that in addition to covering the 2 weeks leading up to Michael Jackson’s funeral in which they say everything humanly possible about the man, they also cover his seemingly endless funeral. And its not just enough to televise the funeral, they also need to provide analysis of the funeral. That’s right, analysis of a fucking funeral. At some point when you have to analyze a funeral, you have passed the point of news and slammed right the fuck into a full fledged entertainment circus train.

But they still cover politics and although they try to say they are non biased, of course they are all biased in their own way. Let me explain how.

• FOX News- They Report. They Decide. They also claim to be fair and balanced. Yeah, as long as the balance weighs heavily on the right.  In case you didn’t know, FOX News is pretty much an extension of the Republican party, created some 13 years ago by Rupert Murdoch because the rest of the media was “too liberal”. That right there is a clue that they are Republicans. Also, Dick Cheney insists that when he stays at a hotel, when he walks into his room the tv has to be on FOX News. And if Dick Cheney believes in it, than surly its evil.
• MSNBC- You probably have no problem recognizing MSNBC, its the network that is always nearly fainting at the mere mention of Barack Obama’s name. They believe that at the end of his terms in office, Obama will rightfully rise back to Heaven to serve at the side of the Lord. Then again, I don’t believe in God. But they believe in Obama. No truth to the rumor that they are changing their name to MSNBO.
• CNN- While the other networks have their biases towards political parties, CNN has a VERY heavy bias, only not towards any particular party. They are heavily biased towards themselves. They LOVE themselves much in the same way the high school cheerleader stares in the mirror all day in love with the beauty that is reflected back. If you ask CNN they have the best political team on tv. They also have the best coverage of any event or news story. Also they love to go on and on about their wonderful technology. Live on hologram from Grant Park, its Wil.I.Am. Here is live coverage with our mega tiny camera of Paris Hilton’s pussy as it is being plowed by another random stranger. And here is our touch screen, oh, our wonderful touch screen detailing all the different cities and states Lindsay Lohan has been muff diving. Nobody has coverage like us. Look at us, we are the best me, me, me!! Did I mention me?

With networks like this, is there any wonder why I turn to comedians? Then again, the 24 news networks coverage is pretty comical, even if unintentional.