Correction

We’re sorry, the following title as it appears – I CAN DO BAD ALL BY MYSELF – is a typo. It is actually listed with the Screenwriters Guild and IMDb as – I CAN DO BAD MOVIES ALL BY MYSELF. QED

In a related story, all the resale & thrift shops in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Van Nuys & Manhattan are out of womens size 23 clothing. Donations are needed. Thank you.

Pyrrhic Pressure

It’s been a season of win-lose here in Gritropolis. This, so pointedly captured by this weekend—on the court, on stage & sigh, at the movies.

Having a Pyrrhic victory may be fine for some. Not for me. Sure, that fat head no talent Tyler Perry, finally let a woman wear the dress. But his dreck came in number one at the box office. The one solace I have is that all people buying tickets for that movie have been tagged by Homeland Security, as no threat whatsoever to US intelligence.

While Serena Williams blew up at the US Open ( tennis ) for what she felt was an umpire’s wrong call on a foot fault*, Kanye West retained his title as Biggest Loudmouth in Music. Homeboy still believe he can hit that Beyonce groove thang, soon as the girl see he prettier than Jay Z. Or delusional that Taylor Swift has jungle fever & digs stupid guys. Either way, he on crack. One thing I know for certain—Taylor Swift’s videos are better than Tyler Perry’s. Watching hers only get you tagged by the local Fish & Game Commission. And that’s so they can call you for a donation.

If Serena can be fined an amount the equivalent of her tennis shoe allowance for a Grand Slam tournament (just kidding-I know she gets them gratis), why can’t that ahole Kanye get fined by the FCC. Why? for being an ahole in prime time. I bet  Mr. Obama’s backhanded smack of Kanye got more play than anything he might’ve said publicly about Joe Wilson (R-Rep. South Carolina). He probably just got an atta boy from Rush Limbaugh—ha ha ha ad infinitum. Times like these I wish James Brown was still alive to advise some entertainers. Not the sports James Brown. Or the other sports James Brown. Or one of the Steve Smiths. The late great King of Soul. Of course!

There’s more, but I like to stick to the headlines. I do feel compelled to inject a future story—Prince Fielder, the really talented & large (+ packing a few more lbs. than needed ) first baseman of your Milwaukee Brewers, is likely to be trade bait over the Winter. Team very interested resides in Boston. Since they are allowed to make any move & be praised for it by buttboys at ESPN, I can’t fight the power. It is true, they have gone too long without a big fat guy to play first for them, since Mo Vaughn left. And Pig Papi Ortiz admitted his ” protein drinks ” only enable him to do one thing well—hit v. the Yankees.

Speaking of baseball, who won the World Series? The season must have ended while I was on my retreat in Nepal, searching for the home of Deechen Lachman.** I had no joy finding it, though I did run into the Dalai Lama.† When I asked him if he knew her, he said vexedly—” she’s Australian, you moron.” If I’d have known the MLB season wound up early so ESPN could go football 24/7, I’d have asked the Dalai Lama about the WS. Hey! he was all ready pissed off, I had nothing to lose there. 

All I can get from ESPN is football f*gs, enabling gamblers with point spreads & injury reports & sucking up to coach. They are stat diligent to the point of being anal. I’m amazed they don’t do the Pop Warner games. Must be a licensing fee conflict. Or maybe the authorities draw an age line for boys locker rooms those bozo can invade. Why don’t I just Google? have I mentioned the page-load times for me & this old dial up here on the Copper Line yet this post? Oh look! there’s some mail from the Dept. of Homeland Security. . ..

* it was a bad call

** actor Dollhouse Fox-TV series

† I know I know—the DL is in exile in India

Bust A Cap in Yo Ass -The Sequel

Yeah I really can’t help myself. In that way I have total empathy with the individuals I’d like to excoriate. That would be whoever approved and subsequently permits major league baseball players to wear those lame, dumb ass hip hop style caps on the field. Absolutely zero excuse for players who adopt the style either. It’s officially the New Era 5950 cap, more like New Error. This is not the original model 5950, but a pandering perversion of it. Let me think why…oh, yeah M O N E Y!

Here’s a few reasons why they shouldn’t be allowed.

1. They make you look retarded

2. They come from a thug sub-culture, one that embraces violence toward women, police & lately—animals. . ..

3. Did I mention they look fucking retarded? ( so much for a pretense of civility )

Oh I wouldn’t want to dictate how anybody should dress themselves. That is, if they are in fact doing so. Much of this sub-culture gets off on sticking it to the man. The man, who is authority, doesn’t give a shit. The man is making money off you fools. The roots ( oops ) of this styling comes from poverty. Clothing is passed down from older brothers ( oops again ) and often larger than the recipient is. Though a few boys ( oh stop!) apparently got a sister’s, maybe aunt’s? clothes ( see Tyler Perry ). So, the hat resting on ears look is organic—still looks, you know what. The pants falling off thing from a decade ago? same deal. Very tasteful choice. Yet fitting ( ! ) if you extend the image, downward.

When I was a young teaching assistant, the trend among some kids was to wear their belts unbuckled & dangling. Now what does that most evoke? here’s a clue —it’s not the result of a big meal in the cafeteria. Some actors started using their mouth to emote non-verbally. If you aren’t sure what a lolling tongue suggests, go ask Mick Jagger. Michael Jordan was a flagrant tongue abuser on the court. Maybe I’m just envious. When I played in Little League, I was ridiculed for making faces while I pitched.* It’s all pretty puerile, if not febrile. Definitely infantile. Ile ( sic ), er um I’ll say. . ..

The worst part is the fat white dummies who have adopted this look too. What man are they sticking it to? oh yeah, me. Just like wearing gold chains, while playing baseball, you look stupid ( cough—gay ). Those grotesque chin beards are a whole other story. The cast of Moby Dick phoned, they want them back. Yes, stupid. But they are also repulsive. Again, it’s athletes aping ugly musicians. You kids need a designer. Hmmm hold on, most of them are… OK, just keep doing what you’re doing. You’re only young & dumb once. But don’t try to tell me it’s ironic. Unless the irony is, you think it’s attractive. Now pull up your pants.

* I had a .786 won-lost percentage. Of course in Little League that’s meh

Where Angels Fear to Tread w/ commentary by Chico Marx

“Hey! thatsa pretty fonny. You canta fool me boss. Thosa Transformahs ainta racists, theyah battlebots they donta race!” Chico Marx

Let me get this straight. There are some people upset about racism in the new movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The pervasive destructive disregard for life, property and national treasures, that’s okay? Not to mention the dogged possibility of damage to Megan Fox. And the veritable lake size puddles of oil they leave behind. I’d be an idiot of the same stripe as they are, to read as if I’d ever condone racism. But the superficial, knee jerk reactions of such people do nothing but actually pour some of that bot fluid on the flames.

They learned a big word once—stereotype. But they learned it in the context of an explanation with negative connotations. Am I even allowed to use negative? Stereotypes, as with the verbal equivalent, the cliché, exist for one reason—they are experiential human shorthand. If it waddles like a duck, we then see a duck, not some poor kid in a mascot suit. Unless of course, it is some kid in a mascot suit. Personally, I have seen just about every stereotype in real life, these jerkoffs complain about. It would be fine with them to have a white trash moron, an Italian mob goombah, a Jewish anything, but not a person of color who isn’t in Mensa? Could’ve been worse, they could’ve had Tyler Perry in drag Transformer. . ..

Bullshit. They are the people with the problem. It is so intense of a problem, they see racist in the use of the word people. In the Sixties, I was a second generation Italian, a teenager with long hair, a beard, wore sunglasses & drove a Corvette. If you knew anything about life before you were born or say, Heaven forfend, read a book, you’d know that was a set of characteristics sure to get you special notice by authorities. Luckily, I never did get any harassment. Because I was lucky and behaved myself, and never got caught the few times I power shifted, burnt rubber and wore a hundred miles off my tires. The only time was when a guy on my softball team, a police sergeant, advised me to be careful of the company I kept. He was right too. And I did. However, if you don’t think I got a taste of prejudice back then, you are culturally bereft. Sure, I had the ability  and the option to “clean up my act,” a popular phrase of that era. Oddly, even when I did, I was still the same iconoclastic individual. My attitudes and foibles were internal. Have some groups had unfortunate extra attention? the sad answer is yes. As always, I ain’t here to do an exegesis of race relations. Just to point stuff out. Did I look like a small time drug dealer though? you betcha. Was I? Nope and that rhymes with—okay, but just that one time. And I was drunk. . ..

But including a dumbass black character in a movie is anathema? What! there no stupid blacks? how do you explain Martin Lawrence? You obviously don’t listen to WFAN. While possibly not the only choice for a movie character, if it’s an urban scene, what fits more for the point it makes? an African American with GQ cover looks and two doctorates? or some street thug. All y’all are just hater players. BTW why are you even at that movie? oh—Megan Fox! Sexist ahole huh. Or just hetero and enjoying yourself. I’d say lighten up, but I’m no racialist, you get the picture. Maybe. . ..

“Ha hah ha. Shoo, everybody knows they gotta lottsa juice in Florida. They come frommah Noo Yawk for the sunny shine!” Chico Marx

Manny Ramirez, eagerly ( LOL ) awaiting his return to Mannywood and the Dodger lineup, has caught some new attention himself. This because he is a stereotype—of a ballplayer caught using performance enhancing drugs. Apparently someone he’s been associated with has a father who is a doctor. A doctor can write prescriptions for said PED. Voila! This conduit from outside the US, up into Florida and servicing predominantly Latino jocks, is now under scrutiny. Again may I state: Boston, you are hypocrites & phonies. Have a nice day.

Wowie zowie! God didn’t waste anytime with the dead celebrity trifecta. Banging them out like ARod in batting practice. Only God can do it in the actual games too. Yeah sure Alex has had some good at bats the last few days—90 games to go hombre. Sorry, got off track there. So, Farrah Fawcett, Ed MacMahon, and Michael Jackson are at the Pearly Gates. Saint Peter sees Farrah, looks at his big book and says—-” Angel! go right in.” Ed steps up. Peter says-” Heyo!—you have all ready won. Go on in.” Then he looks at Michael Jackson, looks at the book. Looks at Michael again, then back at the book,* he asks — ” Moonwalk, eh! you were an astronaut?” Michael squeaks, ” Uh yes. Yes I was. An astronaut.” St. Peter smiles, ” Welcome to Heaven.” St. Paul throws Peter a look.  Peter looks at paul and says – “Hey have you ever heard him sing She’s Out of My Life? The way his voice breaks at the end. That’s Heaven.”

*Take 2: St. Peter looks down at his book, looks at Michael Jackson. ” Oh dear, it’s Jackson. Whew–I thought they said Michael JORDAN. . ..”

Now if he can only keep his hands off the cherubs. Good night everybody! drive safely and don’t forget to tip your waitrons.

Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Program…

It is 12:55PM Saturday, on Memorial Day weekend! and both ESPN Radio & Fox Sports Radio are talking football. This is why I hate sports talk radio & why Bud Selig should be fired then executed. Bad bad bad job Bud. Those humps should be talking your sport—baseball. Wow, are you happy taking a back seat to that crap Bud, it’s MLB’s time of year for fuck’s sake. You should be locked in the trunk & a baseball bat should have been applied liberally by Joe Pesci.

Deplorable how those jock sniffers in the media ass kiss the NFL. They are a bunch of [deleted by the Women’s League for Blog Decency—sponsored by the NFL]

Bud Selig & his fellow stooges are Major League A-holes.

The Artless Dodger…

It seems Manny being Manny was aided and abetted by performance enhancing substances†[please see below]. All those clutch, drop the Yankees hits while with the Boston team, were bullshit. Now, while that city and its players enjoy the rewards their envy and hypocrisy continue to provide them, they need to admit they are phonies. If they can hate on and gloss the NYY as the evil empire, riddled with cheaters, then they themselves are surely the Weasel World of sports. Yankees suck? you m*****r f****rs suck and blow.

I have been watching, and for a short youthful period, playing baseball since 1956. I steeped myself in the game via what media was available then— TV, radio, books, magazines and baseball cards. It never seemed enough—sure baseball was talked year round—with friends. Nothing like the current media, carpet bombing 24 hours a day, seven days a week; pervasive and invasive coverage. Really, it’s too much. It encourages excesses and it gets them. From everyone involved.

Too much and yet the magpies who pass for talk show hosts on all sports radio outlets, discrete team owned tv, and networks like ESPN & Fox, turned a sycophantic blind eye to some tried and true practices. Amphetamines before games and shopping trips after—lining up groupies for stars. AND the last 20 plus seasons of slowly unfolding revelations of anabolic steroids and human growth hormones (HGH)usage by the big names of the big leagues.

It has resulted in the breeding of hack writers such as Selena Roberts (Sports Illustrated) who indicted the Duke Lacrosse team for party fouls at the rapist level before they were found NOT guilty*, to her present exposé book of Alex Rodriguez. These jock sniffing carrion eaters turn on you faster than a whirling dervish and they care not a whit if they are subsequently off the mark. The bullshit “court of public opinion” is the demographic they court. The lowest common denominator, once the exclusive stained and chawn turf of the National Enquirer, a newspaper no self respecting journalist would’ve been employed by when I was in J school, is catered to via sensationalism passing for reporting and writing.

It has also grown the barely literate radio talk host, most of whom have never read a book. If they have, it was about sports and no doubt, at the level of a fifth grader. Video games began cutting into the sports dollar heavily during the eighties and in some cases supplanted it for youth recreational time and bucks. The spawn of gamers are the announcers of today’s media. Dumb as rocks without the charm and personality. The majority of athletes, even less so. Easy to see how in this environment a clownish thug such as Manny Ramirez can thrive and pull the double-knit polyfiber over the eyes (and the limited intellect within their heads) of the feral media. One moment they are sucking up, the next, sucking the life out of their prey—the superstar, over paid and undereducated.

Major league baseball itself is led by a septuagenarian former team owner and used car salesman. He needs to step down; he never should have been there to need to do so. Baseball needs restructuring, it is at once archaic and contemporary, the new parts grafted on top of its decay, an aging Hollywood actor made of plastic. A Joan Rivers face, attempting to deceive the world into thinking she’s Megan Fox. A world moving so fast, it almost works—one because even if they had attention spans, most humans own the observational skills of two year olds.

No Boston fan will ever own up**—Manny ain’t theah prawblem anymore. I’m sure they’ll say he never got caught copping ‘roids down by the Charles River. He is however, the true face of the MLB, smug and bloated, and they only suspend him for 50 games? ha ha ha. Manny loves a vacation, he comes back well rested (pumped full of some new undetectable designer dope) for the stretch run and leads a slumping LA to the playoffs again. This is almost a strategic gift! Blow up baseball and bring the Dodgers back to Brooklyn—if you rebuild it they will come. But you won’t, you’re too fucking stupid. And so are your ugly, dumbass friends.

Did I mention beam me up, Simon? Simon! Theodore? ALVIN!!!**

__________________________________________________________________________

†  Ramirez tested positive for a  female(!) fertility drug HCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin. HCG is popular with some steroid users because it can mitigate the side effects of ending a cycle of the drugs. Going off steroids can stop testosterone production, decreasing sperm count & shrinking testicles. Manny apparently wants to maintain those big balls as well as cheat…

* Niether Roberts nor SI printed a retraction—creeps.

** Denis Leary, Doris Kearns Goodwin & Jonathan Schwartz might, but they are exceptions because they are exceptional.

** Simon Pegg appears as Scotty in the new Star Trek movie—Alvin & the Chipmunks reference 110% gratuitous, though a nuts connotation is implicit

Red This

A new book and a report came out this week. The book tells all the ” bad ” things the Yankees have done from their ownership on down to apparently any one in a third world country who wears a donated cap with the white interlocking NY & deals dope to 4 year olds. The other, published the payroll numbers of the team versus the Boston Red Sox expenditures for the same period. Big revelation is—Yankees spent a lot more to win 2 World Series than the angelic Red Sox. Careful all you chowdah come lately saints—the more popular you get, the more pimps in Argentina will be sporting that B.

The New York market, which is international, generates ( or did ) a lot of money, a lot being a technical term. It also costs more to do business & live there than most of the world. Boston isn’t far behind in COL. But, and believe me they know it, they are not New York City. They are also rife with provinciality, social conflict, corruption and a disproportionate amount of dumbass white guys. As Patrick Ewing, former NBA center & amateur economist once said- We make a lot of money. We spend a lot of money too. Bean counting in Beantown is just another way to say—

” New York Sucks!” [©1914-2009 Boston Fans Ltd.]

Hating the Yankees and needing to point out they spent more than you, is like picking on your brother the doctor. Or your brother the Yankee. If he makes more money than you do and spends more than you because he has it, you may choose to dislike him for it. But it is you who are the envious little jag off. Until you need a loan from him. Then, you are a hypocritical little jag off. The Major Leagues could not go a season without revenue from the NYY. I’d love to see Boston pick up the slack. Hold on, I might need my brother the doctor, I just laughed so hard, I hurt myself.

The holier than thou Yankee bashing by haters in the media is just pathetic. How about this one. The Bostons beat the Yankees in 2004. They call it the “greatest choke of all time.” Well, if the other team chokes, it means they beat themselves somehow and were incapable of winning. And you were the lucky recipient, being the other team. It wasn’t that you were so outstandingly good. Just good at taking advantage. Like stealing the wallet of a passed out drunk guy.  Which is the second most popular activity in Boston. First is hating the Yankees. Rooting for the Sawks comes in third. Even that depends on how well they are doing.

The Bled Sox made it back to the World Series in 2007. How many players from the hero-ick ( sic )04 were on that WS 25 man roster? Wait for it— 6. Nineteen people were no longer welcome in the pap-bull city. That is a 76% reduction!— only 3 seasons removed, literally, from their glory. Gee, golly. Wha hoppen Martha? Yet these petty and vulgar wannabes ignore that as they continue to revile all things New York Yankees. Here’s some simple reading <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/08/AR2007100801509.html&gt;. Facts is facts.

Oh yeah, how many players will be on the 2009 Rat Sox roster from their revered ( or is that a-dawesed—-they are still sorting that myth out ) 2004 bunch? Two. You could look it up. AND then shut up.

Vox Jox w/extra cheese

The abstract saw of infinite monkeys, given infinity to do so, who would randomly & eventually type out Shakespeare’s works, cannot be proved. Not by me any how. I also wonder, would that appear in contemporary English? the original 16th Century? or in basic monkey? Either way, I’d still only like the comedies. . ..

I know for sure what would happen if you gave say, 3 monkeys a broadcasting school. They’d turn out the clowns who end up as sports talk hosts. I just know there is a secret text these guys all have read to them. They all mispronounce the same words & have the identical world view. Sports is their entire life & their livelihood. Yet every chance they get, they state in very serious tones, sports is the toy box. Ha ha it’s not a real job. Do they get paid in Monopoly money? Seems to me when a 400lbs. lineman hits a quarterback, it feels seriously like real life. Plus if you decide not to show up for your not real job, you will not get paid. Really.

” Men, playing boys games “, is a huge favorite. When in fact, for the most part, it is older ( + fatter ) men drooling over younger men, who they live vicariously through, exploit & get paid to do it too. There are always exceptions in life. Sure, some ex-jocks are excellent commentators. Some, jock wannabes, are even better. But the need for the type has expanded exponentially with the success of all sports talk radio. Though it existed in both major & small markets for years, the summer of 1987, a small company named Emmis Broadcasting ( which means – truth in Yiddish ) took a huge risk, WFAN AM in New York went on air, making sports talk an around the clock format. It paid off; and then it took off. To say I didn’t listen avidly then & like it, would be a lie. Now we reap the whirlwind of the worst of its spawn, ESPN Radio & Fox Sports Radio. Yeah yeah, ESPN TV was on cable before FAN launched. Whole other beast. The Worldwide Leader in Being NFL & Boston Butt-boys didn’t get into radio until they saw what Mike & his ex, Mad Dog were billing in NYC. Even then, they waited for Disney dollars. And that’s the emmis.

Now, jock talk pollutes the commercial airwaves. Since the mid-seventies AM radio stations needed sports, any sports to stay in business. Big market operations competed for the pro teams. Regional settled for being on the network & getting area colleges ( and high schools!)—lots of fights there for the share of the ad bucks too. The latter eventually put me out of radio. I think collegiate sports should be for students, their families & staff. Not fat white guys in suits & ties. Or morons who can’t even spell university, spewing stats in the middle of the night, laying bets with gamblers. Leads to all kinds of nasty behavior. Namely, more of the same.

Am I bitter? yes. Do I understand? yes. Would I still hear sports talk hosts for the barely literate & limited intellects they are, even without the personal grudge? Oh yeah, I would. If I mispronounced a local name wrong, I got calls. Did I ignore them & continue to say the name wrong? No. Because I wanted to be right. I was even known to call up people to get it right. Even if it was just a public service announcement for a bake sale. And you need to verify that Connie Linkous is a real name, of a real person. Yes and yes. You could look it up.

Sports talkers don’t take criticism. Or correcting. They just continue to say words the way they like them said. Which is often the wrong way. They also never met a hackneyed phrase they couldn’t use ad nauseum. Then puke it back up & chew it again. You know, I admit I rarely used algebra since high school. But English? pretty much on a daily basis. Though I do like to employ the odd Latin saying. And French, I like French. Jock sniffers apparently think sports transcends precise speech. Not formal mind you, I am all for casual & natural sounding conversation. But pronounce the words correctly; especially if an amicus curiae sent an email with it spelled phonetically, you ahole.

Getting words jumbled up like Homer Simpson riding a donut high while on a 3 day drunk, is nothing compared to what sports talk radio does best. Taking the athlete they worshipped 24 hours ago & exposing him ( occasionally her ) as a loser. What they really mean is, how could he let us down—we are so hurt, and as they are warriors ( LOL ) they will understand why we must attack them, shooting from the hip, lip & bloated body parts from media buffets. Burp—now back to bashing the Yankees/A Rod. . ..

Being from the Bronx, the Yankees were not only my hometown team, they were the first sports entity I ever knew about. That was long ago and far away. The player I most revered & emulated, was controversial beginning to end. The only time I wavered, I was 13 and learned he not only smoked but drank beer ( and more as it turned out ). But just like I did with my father, it didn’t take long to forgive Mickey Mantle for his flaws. After all, all he’d ever done for me was deliver the goods. He was human, just like me. The hero part was my lucky bonus.

Mickey caught plenty of heat, sports talk radio was flexing it’s muscles in the early 90’s. When Mickey stood up & admitted he was dying, and that his self destructive choices were the kind he regretted and sincerely hoped no other would make. Not a chance on the latter Mick, but a lot of people respected you for saying it. I guess Alex Rodriguez was busy playing in the toy box that day. Around the horn, and voila! it was his turn in the barrel.

Men like Mantle & Alex Rodriguez are built larger than life. Then there are people with the ability & means to make them even larger. The overriding reason for that is not altruism. It is profit & to some extent, reflected glory. Humanity, especially the sports media, has the nasty habit of putting athletes on precarious pedestals. Then, like vultures circle, until the time is right to dive & feed.

The New York Yankees and by dint of that, their all star ( Yankees are his third team ), Alex Rodriguez, are the evergreen whipping boys of sports talk. Even after O.J. went from slashing his way down a football field to just slashing humans, the black athlete was sacrosanct. Until one day, Barry Bonds, a guy most of the jock media loved to hate, became indirectly responsible for two reporters getting jail time. They had some privileged info about illegal steroid production & suppliers, involving Mr. Bonds, and refused to reveal their source. Bingo—Barry be bad, open season on him. Then asocial thugs like Terrell Owens, Adam Pacman Jones & Plaxico Burress, ad nauseum. Old news, they have ” A Roid ” in their sights now. Along with that group of tables with all the food laid out on them. That’s more emmis w/cheese. . ..

Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes

We now know who will watch the Watchmen—anyone too smart to watch a dumbass dude in a dress. They are indeed super-heroes for knocking that db off his hook. The average IQ of ticket buyers for The Watchmen-119. Cumulative IQ for the previous box office leader-83.

Bust A Cap

Both the Major League Baseball teams from NYC are catching heat. Steroids? no. The stadiums? no, not this week. It’s patches. Patches? yes.

Let’s get the Mets out of the way first. The myopic and short-sighted, jockocracy, in their 12 year old boy way of using broad strokes, has roundly ridiculed the Mets new ballpark patch. They claim it looks ” just like ” the Domino’s Pizza box logo. Um, sure it is a 4 sided geometric shape, canted at about a 60º angle. But a moron can see the Met patch is the shape of a baseball game ticket, and elegantly simple in both color scheme ( not the Domino colors, for sure ) and graphics. Likely this eludes what passes for ” observant ” by jock sniffers. Maybe they were hoping for a patch in the shape of the new stadium? No, because, the Yankees did do something like that—a patch which appears on the back of their 2009 cap.

A cap, which other than the new Yankee Stadium commemorative, looks like every @#%&*! NYY cap since about 1929. Except for the one thing, the critics are too scared to complain about. ( BTW the Yankee patch also looks just fine. It is in the shape of the famous Yankee RF frieze. Ooooooh, but it’s on the back. Give me a fucking break. ) That thing would be what the official cap shape has devolved into over the last few seasons. The NewEra company manufactures most of MLB’s wear, the game cap style is the model 5950. It has adopted the hip-hop thug look. The one which most resembles a tin pot, once styled by Johnny Appleseed. A certain kind of player enjoys an oversized look & uncurved brim on their dome. Hey, they’re the pros. Lame look, though.

Why aholes with the common sense of a slow 2 year old, can literally reshape what was developed to be functional headwear for athletes who once played in the sun for 3 hours, is foolish. Most of them also wear jewelry and necklaces while playing now. It’s astonishing their accessorizing, would’ve not only gotten baseball players from my era extra wind sprints, after practice, but asskicked by the football players. And the chess club.

Look, if a segment of the population thinks they are sticking it to the man by wearing ballcaps sideways, fine. Their fashion sense, born of too large hand me downs from their big brothers ( except for Tyler Perry—he got his from his sister ), embracing their tight clothing budgets. But what are baseball players, who all make at least 350K USD ( upwards to 25+ million ) rebelling against? possibly bad patches! Manny Ramirez who is still unsigned as of this post, might actually be wearing his pajamas everyday this season, instead of on the field. You used to see baseball socks, now these jags have pants tailored to drape over the back heel of their cleats. It really looks stupid. Also, I guess it’s for guys like Manny who rarely actually do more than stroll. Maybe I was wrong about the mispronunciation of the word athlete. These guys are ath-uh-leets; a hole ( sic ) new breed.

AS for Manny, he’s still not feeling the love of a decent contract offer. He started out by stating just after the 2008 season ended— ” gas is up, and so am I. . ..” Did anyone point out to him, the price of gasoline had dropped? A lot. Or that there was a major economic recession? I’m not worried about Manny’s wallet, his agent is Scott Boras. Everybody in baseball hates him. Yet he still gets most of his players amazing contracts. Boras is concerned about deflation dollars in 2010. Manny has always wanted to skip Spring Training. Stay tuned LA. [ Manny has now signed for 2K9 Dodger $]

The sports commentators need to learn to target the real problems like Bud Selig not Alex Rodriguez. Or the ruination of on field utilitarian clothing for fashion statements ( and illiterate ones at that )! No, they are too chicken shit to bite the hand that feeds them. They may laugh up their sleeves at patches which look like fast food logos to their ill-trained eyes. But slap some free pizzas down and they’ll be there faster than you can say it.

It. . ..