The Prez on Little League Baseball

Little League baseball's greatest contribution to humanity is the movie the Bad News Bears. That flick has the most hilarious derogatory quotes off all time.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074174/quotes

But sadly......that is it. Without further Freddy Adu.....

The Top Ten Reasons Why I Hate the Little League World Series

10.New England teams are at a distinct disadvantage: Too much snow November-March.

9. Orel Hershiser-What a tool….a boring ass tool.

8. Little League parents are as bad show biz parents: Creating head cases nationwide. It is as bizarre as defending polygamy. Although, this situation became fodder for perhaps the funniest episode of South Park ever.

Randy: This is for what?! Arresting me for what?! I'm not allowed to stand up for myself?! I thought this was America! Huh? Isn't this America?! I'm sorry! I thought this was America!

TV reporter: How does it feel to be in the Colorado little league finals?
Stan: ...gay.

State Championship Player: Oh we are going down, we are going to get creamed.
Kyle: No. We are going to get creamed.

God I love that show.....

7. The Mercy Rule-Like it makes a kid feel any better that they had to stop playing in the 5th because the level of domination was so extreme. If your team is going to travel all the way to Pennsylvania to play baseball, you best bring it….

6. The line up for Dallas, Texas, “My name is Timmy Johnson, I play Center Field,…. and my Favorite player is Derek Jeter”. Your a Center Fielder kid, and you live in Dallas Texas. Go to a Rangers game. Say Gary Matthews Jr. is your favorite player or move to New York. Deal with it….Plus, Jeter sucks (penis) anyway.

5. Fake International Competition-Does bringing in a team from Europe that will get absolutely dominated by the Asian and Caribbean teams make up for the European continent’s dominance in Futbol? Don’t they understand all this dynamic does is push the Euro kids toward the beautiful game for good.

4. Freaks: One over sized dominating behemoth who pitches and hits like a major leaguer and the world title is in sight. More on this in a moment.

3. Fake Nationalism-Am I supposed to feel bad that a bunch of Ritalin addicted American kids lost to a bunch of Saki addicted Kama Kazi Japanese kids? Bitch please…..

2. Wall to Wall Coverage-This shit is ESPN’s third most bizarre infatuation behind poker and cheerleading. Put on more Soccer and Boxing on in the afternoon during these weeks, appeal to men…not pre-teens who will give up baseball for girls within in a year.

1. Commercialism and Greed (Obviously)- Leads to most of my angst. Danny Almonte was obviously three years older then the age limit. Now he is a minor leaguer some where and marrying a women in her mid thirties. You go Danny! Some of these kids playing now are like 5'11' 230lbs. Each of these geneic freaks becomes a regional hero, loads of media attention from national news outlets is heaped upon them, and they are inevitably disgraced for actually being a highschooler, while the team from Curacao are actually playing for a bag of grain. But the fact that Little League has become such a big business where the kids show boat regularly for the cameras and the way the media tries to market the event as and example of the purity of the game of baseball is a little bit evil. Like anything involving kids who play sports being put on a pedestal, this event reeks of parental exploitation. These kids are pimped out by their parents, their communities, and by ESPN. Watching these games simply lacks the satisfying happy ending.

Tanner Boyle: Hey Yankees... you can take your apology and your trophy and shove 'em straignt up your ass!

Strength and Honor Comrades.....

Thank God for Tiger Woods

“Doing the Bull Dance…Feeling the Flow….Working it…Working it…”-Kevin Kneeland, Happy Gilmore

On weekends like this I feel it is essential we stop and take a look around. The Red Sox have been absolutely destroyed by New York (Bring on the Off-season!), Connecticut is abuzz with “Pilot Pen” fever (…dear god), and the NFL preseason continues to put the careers of star players at risk for no good reason (Fantasy Drafts Aug 25-Sept 1). Needless to say, I have not read a sports page in a week.

With Connecticut politics downgraded to its customary spot behind stories about Tom Cruise, the new hot single by Crunk rapper X and a 10 year old murder case, I found solace in the effervescent manly commentary of Jim Nantz and the rest of the CBS golf crew. Now, the PGA championship is the disfigured step child of the four golf major championships, and golf can be boring as hell to watch, even when doing 20 other things at the same time. However, all this changes when Tiger Woods is playing up to form.

Watching Tiger is like seeing U2 in concert. You know that you are experiencing something at its absolute best, ….someone rising above the chaos to another level. Sure, I like rooting for other golfers. I think that the current generation of golfers is the greatest of all time. Commercially, the game is a peak, and practically every week different golfers step up their game. Watching Tiger and Chris DiMarco battle it out at the British inspired me to play the par three greens in Vernon everyday for a week. It did not help my game by the way. I still am an embarrassment to my family and my country when carrying a golf club at any time.

Watching Tiger cruise up the leaderboard on Saturday, and the anticipation of the possibilities the following Sunday morning is simply awesome. The PGA often allows for much lesser known players, like past champions Shaun Micheel and Rich Beem, to challenge the greats on the final day of play. Tiger won the title at Medinah in 1999 after almost blowing it to a surging Sergio Garcia. This year, atop the leaderboard with Tiger is Luke Donald, with Mike Weir, Geoff Olgilvy, and the aforementioned Sergio Garcia all within 4 strokes. All will challenge, and it will make for great theater.

Tiger Woods is the most dominant sportsmen of the post-Jordan era. Now there are certainly people who dislike him for this reason, and probably this reason alone. These haters are naive. Sure he doesn’t play in enough tournaments, but he is the fastest to 50 PGA tour victories. He will one day surpass Jack Nicklaus for all time major championships. More then anything though, his dominance has the ability to overcome the seedy and overly scandalized world of professional sports.


That is the appeal of Golf in 2006. No juicers.

Strength and Honor.

-The Prez

Summer Basketball Heaven

Wearing a red shirt on Democratic primary election day said it all. I am a moron. It was one thing to wear it, while it was another thing to brag about it under the moronic assumption democrats supported the “red states”. A brain freeze? Clearly..... but that morning and subsequent evening spent talking to friends, losing what little money I had at Mohegan Sun, and realizing I voted for Joe Leibermen and he didn't win was still one of illumination for my ever crumbling ego. The Red Sox began a free fall in KC, so I decided to expand my horizons and free my mind....

Luckily, Thursday night I found that redemption was spelled “GHPA”. No, this not a drug. It is the Greater Hartford Pro-Am basketball playoffs. Spurred on the notion of watching some excellent ball, the night offered up a unique view of New England’s rising star. That’s the city of Hartford for those of you not in the know.

The GHPA is in it ninth year, and has featured various players from the area including many of the UConn greats, like Ray Allen, Talik Brown, Hilton Armstrong, and Khlid El-Amin.

And of coarse the great Ryan Gomes.

After driving through two torrential down pours, I eventually found myself at the Fox Middle School, a venue far too small to contain all the energy on this evening. In game one, number 2 seed Liv Ya Life defeated Cambyland 107-94. Former UConn underperformer and traditional GHPA standout Edmound Saunders scored 29 in the victory. His dual with ECSU’s Charles “The Beast” Easterling was outstanding. Cambyland was out matched at the point and the wings, but were able to cut a 17 point second half Liv Ya Life lead to 3 late in the fourth quarter. With the overwhelmingly pro-Cambyland crowd in frenzy, Liv Ya Life proceeded to crush all hopes of a Cambyland victory with a torrid 12-2 run.

The big game of the evening pitted Club Blu, featuring the great Ryan Gomes, and players from Jackson State, URI, and Utep versus number 1 seed Jive Records, featuring three incoming UConn freshman Doug Wiggins, Curtis Kelly, and Jerome Dyson. Like the 05-06 UConn men, Jive Records was full of ridiculous athletes, as the warm up drills seconded as an unofficial dunk contest. At this point the gym was filled with an absolute mass of humanity. The rafters filled, viewing around the court went at least three deep. Despite Gomes missing the game due to injury, Club Blu seemed unfazed by defending champions Jive early leads. Kelvin Davis’s drive through the lane and subsequent jam over Kelly sent the gym into hysteria that stopped the game for three minutes. Davis finished with 32 points. By the middle of the second quarter it was clear this contest was going to be a dog fight, and that the eventual GHPA champion would probably be decided. Club Blu’s resolve was amazing, as they held a surprising 12 point lead at half time, despite being overshadowed by the flash of seemingly every member of Jive Records. Despite an offensive barrage to begin the third quarter, Jive Records flash eventually got the best of them as turnovers and defensive lapses were a huge dagger. While Wiggans (21) and Dyson (28) were a dynamic duo offensively, they each had great difficulty handling the bigger, more mature backcourt of Club Blu’s Jon Lucky(31) and Keith Corthan(27). Kelly poured in 25 in the loss.

Despite Gomes’s absence, Club Blu’s 128-122 upset of Jive was thoroughly enjoyable. I found that standing courtside, and by “courtside” I mean two feet on the court at times, the atmosphere had pushed the players to another level. The prospects of having 6-10 giants barreling into the crowd, diving for loose balls, and full length of the court ally-oops crescendoed into jubilation for the joy of victory and the agony of defeat. The constant beats that blared from the speaker and the resident hype man were an excellent soundtrack to the evening. The perfect way to lift one’s spirits while in a steamy gym.

The dominance of the 3 young UConn freshmen was evident from the beginning. This despite the fact that each is also participating in daily 2-3 hour scrimmages and practices on the Storrs campus. This bodes well for an upcoming season for the UConn men, with as many as nine new players factoring into the mix this season. The better these guys get at playing with one another the better before offical practice starts in October. The result against more mature players must improve, and lets hope they don't steal anything.

According to early reports this morning, Ryan Gomes could be in uniform tonight when Club Blu faces Live Ya Life in the first game of the best of three championship round. I know I’ll be there, with a few hundred Hartford basketball fanatics. Nothing moronic about that.

The Division Bell

For three days I lingered. Following a move to a town technically in western Connecticut,(OHH NO!) I was left with no power, no television, no internet. For a creature of habit like me the situation lent itself to episodes of paranoia reminiscent of Martin Sheen at the beginning of “Apocalypse Now”. With no mirrors to shatter I did have time to think, and read. The culprit this time was again my edition of Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States”. Zinn’s view of history is outstanding, and the text flows from one genuine moment of clarity to the next.


During the sections outlining the end of reconstruction after 1877, my mind wondered and I began thinking again about the big vote on August 8th. I had read in the newspaper that Ned Lamont had gone on the Colbert Report and done a great job. (I have since seen the clip. He was outstanding.) My focus has been on my big move, but my inability to decide who I will be voting for has me totally bewildered. My heart tells me that change is not only good right now, but a step in the right direction. However, my head tells me that the right direction is morally ambiguous, and that for anything new to happen the more sensible political party needs to take full control, and be united at that. The situation has garnered incredible national attention. CT has not been on the minds of political pundits and overall this politically important since the constitutional convention. But in the end I am lost. As I stated in my earlier debate blog, both guys do not seem genuine to me.


Each side has run a much different campaign. Lieberman’s running like it was 1978. Lamont’s push has come from blogs and other new media. But the sight of Bill Clinton stumping for “The Joe” throws everything for a loop. Politically, Joe is known for hating video games, running for VP, and condemning Slick Willy. So when Clinton stepped to the podium and said they had been great friends since 1972, I knew that Joe knows he is in deep shit right now, and that it again confirmed the fact that Clinton is the greatest politician since James Michael Curly. The man speaks, even while spewing bullshit, I find it changing my whole perspective on the issue at hand.


The true question here is whether or not Ned Lamont is George McGovern. McGovern spilt the party over the Vietnam war, and was correct, but it made for a bad candidate in the long run. The more sensible party has been stuck in a rut for over 26 years now. During this period the neo-cons have sculpted and manufactured a more disrespectful, dishonest, and dishonorable world. They have feasted off the inability of progressives to settle on anything. Now if Lamont wins on Tuesday and Joe runs as an independent, it could be disastrous. I don’t mean to be a fear mongeror, but if the more sensible party dominates in the Fall, it could lead to bigger victories in 2008. Having to spend money in CT to elect Lamont, although he will probably spend plenty of his own, will hurt the party in places were it can best be used, like in the south, where only NASCAR and Bar-B-Q seem to matter. Determining a clear candidate who can steam roll in November is best in the big picture. But Joe has proven more then once to be completely blind, blind to change….. blind to the people of CT…… blinded by power?

But as a guy who voted for Nader, I hate losing elections. I feel it for weeks afterward and this month should be about hope and optimism...... politically, professionally, and socially. Plus, I am still on the Malloy and Courtney bandwagon.

Screwing with November is like screwing with Uncasville. And if there are two things I hate to lose, it is money and my vote. With Power,Tv,and Internet back at my disposal, I am selling out for this one people, and why the hell not, I now live in western Connecticut anyway. On Tuesday, I’ll be the dude holding a Joe Lieberman banner. Being a senator from the North is like being a soccer player with one leg anyway. But lets hope that’s changing. Six more years of Joe? Couldn’t be any worse then the 6 weeks without Varitek……