Put The Devil Back In It

I want to wallow in pity.

I want to embrace despair.  

Dark clouds have formed over St. Petersburg and Rays manager Joe Maddon has bolted for sunnier skies--wherever they may be--but it's not in Tampa.

Joe's gone, kids, and with his departure comes the arrival of days that old school Rays fans like me are still all too familiar with even despite the team's recent successes.  Those of you outside of my little bubble might find it a little difficult to understand why a manager leaving a team would be so devastating and heartbreaking to the fans when just a few months ago the same franchise lost their ace and didn't react as bad.

David was a gut-punch.  It knocked us to our knees, doubled us over in pain, but gradually it subsided and a lot of it had to do with the blind trust we had in our genius leaders.  They know what they're doing.  They'll get us through this.  It was that mantra that helped me keep my lunch down every time I saw David in a Tiger's uniform.

Then we lost Andrew Friedman to the Los Angeles Dodgers.  To the Dodgers!  They literally have enough money to buy and sell the Tampa Bay Rays about a dozen times over and still have enough left over to do it another dozen times or so and they poached the head of our baseball operations.  I get it, trust me I really do.  Big Money talks and everybody else shuts the hell up.  Friedman is the next big thing and he deserves to get whatever they are willing to throw at him.  I'm not mad at anybody directly I'm just pissed off at the whole goddamn situation.  I'm not even sure at this point at whether or not it's irony or coincidence that one of the poorest people in Oliver Twist is named Dodger.  I'll just take solace in knowing that he was of the Dickensian era and he probably died of typhoid.  

Friedman leaving sucked but we still have his protege, Matt Silverman, and he's been with us for a decade so that cushioned the blow just a little bit.  Instead of getting into a car accident where you fly through the windshield and then your own car rolls over you we just got into a car accident where we flew through the windshield and landed harshly on cement.  Still alive!

Then today happened.  David was a gut-punch.  I can live with Friedman leaving.  Maddon going is the death knell.  We've just reached the end of the Mortal Kombat fight and those red, bloodied letters just appeared on screen, "FINISH HIM!"  There's a very iconic part in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy where Sam asks Frodo if he remembers certain parts about their home during that particular time of year.  Because of all their trials and tribulations, going through Hell and back, Frodo tells Sam that he can't even remember the taste of strawberries.  Strawberries!  The very name elicits a cognitive motor response where you can't even define the taste of what a strawberry is other than saying it tastes like a damn strawberry!  But I get it.  Right now I can't remember what a strawberry tastes like either.

Why so glum?  It's hard to imagine that success is on the horizon, say, without the only man we've ever had success with.  Before we even delve into the four playoff appearances, the World Series appearance, and the multiple 90 win seasons, when I talk about success with the Tampa Bay Rays I am referring to simply winning and they couldn't do it before Joe Maddon.  We didn't win.  Ever.  And sure, we've had some great seasons and some really memorable experiences but what's going to happen next?  The future of the Tampa Bay Rays is like an alternative ending to Pretty Woman.  Julia Roberts lives a life of poverty and prostitution, spends a glamorous pampered week with Richard Gere, and then goes back to poverty and prostitution.  Roll credits.

Whoever said, "It's better to have loved and lost than to ever have loved at all" sounds like a pretentious dick that's dating the hottest chick in school.  It's probably why I hate vacations.  I don't want to spend three days at a Sandals resort and then go back to this hellish facade writing about why I care a 60 year-old man is making a career change.  Damn this Twilight Zone, damn it all!

Whew.

Okay.  I'm cool.  I just had to get that out.  

It's just so disheartening to constantly have expectations of what you presume to be the "right way" and only have it dashed to pieces.  It's like if at the end of A New Hope Obi-Wan turns to Luke and says, "You know, I reeeeeaaally have this thing I gotta do so I'm going to peace out.  Good luck with Darth Vader!"

I need a tub of chocolate ice cream, a Blu-Ray copy of The Notebook, and a solid forty minute cry session and after that I'll either be fine or ruined completely.

Don't float on, graceful swans, all is lost.

Something Rotten This Way Comes

It's kinda nice being the owner of the Studly Pastures because that generally means that I don't have to ever touch unicorn shit and can just make my employees pick it up.  But even from my pedestal I know that shit is shit--even if it's rainbow colored--and if you have to pick it up for too long you tend to get a little jaded about your job.  I've had plenty of good-natured ranch hands file their papers over the years because these little horned devils just won't stop fertilizing the yard.

Something stinks.  Literally.

If I was Joe Philbin, the head coach of the Miami Dolphins, and I wanted to keep my job I would have utilized my knowledge of the years I spent training Aaron Rodgers and used that to my advantage to defeat him last Sunday.  However, if I was the exact same guy and I wanted to get fired, I would have done exactly what he did last Sunday.

I've seen enough people try to get fired that I recognize it now almost instantly.

The man's had enough, and while I don't blame him, he's simultaneously tanking the one thing in the sports world that brings even the slightest of glimmers to my eye and it's driving me mad.

Why don't I blame Joe Philbin for trying to get fired from his job as head coach as the Miami Dolphins?  Because Joe Philbin is a nice guy, with a great football mindset, aaaaannnndddd he makes a great offensive coordinator because he can stand behind the scenes and call the shots and not have to be the face or voice of a franchise.  He's not a head coach and he got hired as a head coach and I blame him as much as I blame myself for not being a ladies' shoe salesman and I got hired once as a ladies' shoe salesman.  Live and learn.

Plus, I don't blame him because Stephen Ross, the owner of the Miami Dolphins, is an idiot and wouldn't know couth if it was his own mother telling him how much he sucked as a person.  See what I did there?  I was very uncouth on purpose because I have couth, dammit!  I'm couthful.  Stephen Ross is uncouthful.  He tried to hire a coach while he still had one on payroll and after that failed he settled for his silver medal, Joe Philbin, and now that that's not panning out he's trying to poach the same guy...AGAIN!

I'm being pretty discreet and I'm not sure why...it's not like I'm the goddamned Associated Press (cough, cough).  I'm talking about Jim Harbaugh and how Stephen Ross has had a hard-on for his khaki-loving ass for a few years now.  This is, apparently, one of those 'first love' kinda loves and it just sort of lingers on even after several girlfriends...I mean head coaches.

If I was Joe Philbin and I wanted to keep my job and every time I suffered a loss and had to give a press conference I would be succinct, bold, and very adamant about what went wrong, how it happened, and how I planned to prepare to make sure that it never happened again.  However, if I was the exact same guy and I wanted to get fired, I would treat EVERY press conference as the same and always say the same thing: "I have to do a better job."

"I have to do a better job."  That's not exactly the life mantra of a leader.  "I have to do a better job" leads me down two paths: One is that he's said it enough times now and it means that he simply cannot do a better job and it's time to go OR he really knows that he has to do a better job and chooses not to...SO HE CAN BE FIRED.  How much patience would you have that if somebody kept screwing up and his only explanation each and every time was "I have to do a better job"?  

At the end of the day it boils down to people with millions upon millions of dollars at their disposal and have absolutely no idea what to do with it.  Is there a book that exists titled How To Be Successful And Then To Stop Being Successful?  Joe Philbin should be hosting a fishing show on public access, Stephen Ross should be blasted into space, and the Miami Dolphins should have pulled a George Costanza and gone out on a high note back in 1974.  One undefeated season and back to back Super Bowl titles?  Yeah, take a bow, you're done.

The problem with not having anybody to pick up the shit is that it just keeps piling up higher and higher, eventually to the point where it suffocates you but you don't get the privilege of either Heaven or Hell, no you get purgatory.  The only problem with purgatory is that the whole goddamn thing recycles itself every three to four years and if you're skeptical you can go back to the beginning of this blog because I've been here longer than four years.

It's the Twilight Zone and the only thing worse than living in the Twilight Zone is knowing that you live in the Twilight Zone.

Solidarity

Anybody who keeps up with the Studly Pastures knows that I keep track of my readership statistics to get a better idea of who exactly is my target audience.

The tricky part is that there is no rhyme or reason to it.

This month, the country that's leading the way in most visits to the SP is...wait for it...France...of all places.  While I embrace the motherland and it brings a glimmer to my eye that they turn to the prodigal son for commentary on the decay of Western society I can't help but think that France is beating us.

Rodney Harrison was doing his best impression of somebody who has something to say last night during halftime of the Steelers and Panthers game and mentioned how he thought the Denver Broncos earned a "moral victory" for taking the Seattle Seahawks to overtime.  The only problem with that statement is that the Denver Broncos failed to get the actual victory.  Maybe I'm just an inconsolable loser when it comes to term but if anybody offered me a "moral victory" they would probably be punched directly in the face.

The most ironic thing, of course, is that the whole basis of a "moral victory" is that yeah, you lost, but you lost defending your principles.  Your principles!  The National Football League is a League of Shadows--they have no principles!  You cannot forsake everything good in the quest for the most dollar bills and still have "moral victories."

Roger Goodell is a puppet operated by 32 rich white men that have forsaken their principles.  If you see a video of a man striking a woman out of her shoes and your first thought is "Let's make this go away so it doesn't cost us too much money" then you are officially no longer on the same moral thread as the rest of humanity.  I lambasted Donald Sterling for holding people in the same regard as commodities and this is the same goddamn thing!  Goodell stood at a podium on Friday afternoon and not only tried to rationalize violence but also the process in which rich white men try to cover up violence so that it doesn't cost them money.  No accountability.  This is a common theme among kingdoms built upon pillars of bullshit.

Dollar, dollar bills, y'all.  The NFL is a rotten institution in the fact that 32 rich white men can pledge their full support to a shell of a man that TRIES TO COVER UP ABUSE!!!  It's so goddamn maddening that it's almost impossible to understand that this is actually happening in real life and not some shitty Lifetime movie.  My apologies to Lifetime but they really do exploit anything and everything that I'm sure they're just salivating over this whole facade.  By the way, Lifetime, Kevin Hart should play Ray Rice, Kerri Washington should play Janay Palmer, and Gary Busey should play Commissioner Goodell but don't tell him he's being Commissioner Goodell and have him just be Gary Busey.

I don't have any human children yet (my dogs could care less) but it has to be really, really hard to explain to them why the Ravens released Ray Rice--or why Adrian Peterson isn't playing anymore.  What do you tell the kids?  Hell, tell them the truth.  One day they will have to make a choice between being a good person or a bad person.  It's just so depressing that a lot of people, even people we try to like or admire, go with Option B.  Kids, stick to the comic book heroes.  They're the only ones that actually come through at the end of the day.

So kudos to you, France, for coming to your chosen one to receive your weekly report on why we suck so bad.  Hopefully this means that you'll open your doors to me once the NFL sends their goons after me.  The NFL shows no discretion.  The NFL will beat your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.  The NFL is the honey badger.  The NFL doesn't give a fuck.

Peace out, France.  Float on, you graceful swans.

League of Contradiction

Hey guys, I'm back from my annual trip to Scotland for the Unicorn Stud Farm Convention.  Some of the workshops can be a little tedious and most of the other farmers just simply won't shut the hell up about their farms but what can I say, it goes with the life!

I didn't miss anything, did I?

Oh.

Boy this whole 'Ray Rice domestic abuse cover-up by the NFL' really blows the pants off the Dolphins' bullying scandal last year, doesn't it?  Sorry, I just had to quickly reiterate that there are far worse things in the world.

For those of you that need the bullet points here they are: Ray Rice and his then fiance, Janay Palmer, went to a casino and got drunk, they got into a verbal and spittle argument, and then Ray punched Janay in the face twice, knocking her out and sending her flying into a handrail inside one of the casino's elevators.  Then Ray kinda dragged her around outside the elevator, not really knowing where to put her, and looking really annoyed by it at the same time.  Ray got arrested, indicted, married Janay a day later, and received a two-game suspension from Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL.

The two-game ban sparked outrage from anybody who gives a damn about the repercussions of domestic abuse and, hey, who knew, it turned out to be a lot of people.  Goodell came out and said he got it wrong and promptly offered harsher penalties to future offenders (including six games for a first offender and a lifetime ban for a second offender).

Then everybody held hands and sang kumbaya and put flowers in guns and shit like that until a ruthless media outlet known mostly for obtaining photographs of people wearing sweatpants and picking their noses went ahead and released a video of what happened inside the elevator that fateful night.

Now everybody loses their minds.  While I agree it's different to say, "Oh that guy hit a woman" and then you show me a video of a guy throwing hay-makers on a woman half his size and knocks her flying across an elevator, clear out of her shoes, and into a handrail then that tends to bring a little more emotion into it.  It especially brings more emotion into it when Ray Rice said he "had no choice but to hit her" invoking ideas of if she carried a chainsaw in her purse or was in fact capable of turning into a werewolf.  Thankfully the elevator video cleared it up that she wasn't wielding any sort of maiming weapon or that she possessed any sort of lycanthropic powers.  But the first video, of outside the elevator, that existed from day one of this whole mess.  We saw him dragging her around like a sack of stuff that he really didn't give two shits about.

Wasn't that enough?

Wasn't it enough after he told you that he hit his fiancee inside that elevator?  He was honest about it, knew he shouldn't have done it and was remorseful, and then pledged himself to her to try to spend the rest of his life to make it up to her?

There was your moment, commissioner.  You should have punished him right then and there and made him the shining example of your stance against domestic violence.  Suspend him for a year, fine him an exorbitant amount of money, make him take special counseling and give him the warning that if his name even pops up in a police blotter about spousal abuse that he'll never see a down in the NFL again.  It was that simple.

Roger Goodell and Co. didn't do that, however, because Roger Goodell is all about 'protecting the shield of the NFL' and it's statements like that, they make me just kinda sit back and stare off into no particular distance and say, "Holy shit, they're all in on it."

They're all in on it.

Goodell saw both videos.  So did the rest of the NFL executives.  He passed down a judgment that he thought was fair and let it be so!  But he didn't bank on the casino going bankrupt and out of business.  Now those security tapes are up for the highest bidder and that was TMZ.  Let's pause for a minute so I can remind all of you that the NFL is worth about 100 times more than TMZ and didn't even bother to cover-up their own cover-up because what's the worse that could happen to the mighty NFL?!

Now's a good time as any to also remind you what I think is the best word that describes the NFL: archaic.

The massive cover-up was already underway.  Goodell said not he, nor any member of his staff saw the inside-the-elevator tape, then added the caveat "to his knowledge."  The Ravens released on Twitter a disgusting tweet about how Janay regretted the role she played in the incident that night.  I agree with that simply that if I play the role of face to someone else's fist I'm probably going to regret it in the morning too.

After the inside-the-elevator tape went public the cover-up indoctrine was pushed aside for the shortest witch-hunt in history.  Ray Rice was released by the Ravens and banned by Goodell and the NFL for an indefinite amount of time--all because of something we already knew he did!  We didn't learn anything new on Monday morning when that tape went public but because it went public and John Q. Public could see that video now, and the horrific nature of it, now we really have a problem.

People like to be told something but they don't like to see it.  That's all right.  It's human nature.  You would rather be told your dog died than be shown a video of your dog dying.  It makes sense because most humans are compassionate individuals.  Roger Goodell is compassionate towards a logo.  He has to protect the shield!

Sorry ladies, you're just the means to an end where men get to play football and make money for Goodell's league.  I saw a woman today being interviewed on the news for wearing a Ray Rice jersey to the Pittsburgh-Baltimore game taking place tonight and she said she was wearing the jersey because she was a supporter of Ray Rice.  Now she could have been totally off of what I'm about to say but I'd like to think that what she meant by that was that Ray Rice was the scapegoat of  a lot of archaic dinosaurs that still don't get it.

Do I think two games was enough?  Of course not, don't be ridiculous.  I already touched on that.  I think he should have gone to jail, I really do.  But he didn't and that didn't really shock me because I'm 29 years old and I'm not fucking naive.  Roger Goodell never intended for that second video to come out and when it did he knew he was screwed.  But you don't get to the top without a few sacrifices!  Ray Rice is 27 and a dumb ass.  What he did was heinous and absolutely atrocious but should that define his life?  Should it end it?  I don't think so.

I'm not defending Ray Rice, I'm just a guy who finds the whole institution is a lot more corrupt and evil that we were lead to believe.  My parting words are to the commissioner himself: Sometimes to protect the shield you have to fall on the sword, you son of a bitch.

Godspeed, David Price!

I am in a state of remiss and for that I must apologize.

The Tampa Bay Rays decided to trade David Price in the Zero Hour of the Major League Baseball trade deadline and I sat there for a second, soaked it all in, and then promptly went to get drunk.

The conundrum that faced the Rays and the solution that they inevitably came to was not exactly how I would have dealt with the problem.  The Rays would, in due time, owe David Price a lot of money because he's a left-handed ace entering the prime of his career.  Due to the dichotomy of the MLB the Rays do not have a lot of money they can spend on one player thus the conundrum: trade him and get value now or keep him and compete this year.

A month ago I would have helped him pack.  The Rays sucked, you read it, right?  But then my resilient little team of never-say-die came back and they are right back in the thick of things.  The thick of things in this scenario is most likely a wild-card spot and that might even mean the second wild-card spot which would entail a must-win game for the right to travel to maybe Anaheim or Oakland or some really tough spot to win like that.  The point is that wouldn't do enough for a fan base like the fan base that the Tampa Bay Rays have.  Simply put just making it to an early round playoff exit wouldn't increase the fortitude, the payroll, or the fan-ship of a team like the Rays.  In essence, nobody cares.

And this breaks my heart.

In the days boiling down to the trade deadline I was very staunch in the idea that the Rays would keep David Price.  I understood that his value would never be as high as it would be right before.  I also understood that if the Rays kept him through the year he would garner no trade value.  But I also understood that our best chances for post-season success was with our best pitcher and the Rays should just go for broke.  Put it all on the line THIS year.  As a lifelong Rays fan I can honestly tell you that I would be okay if the organization decided to keep him this year in an effort to win the World Series.  Forget the speculated prospects, the money we will save, and all the other fiscally sound moves.  I want a banner...and not one of those stupid 'Participant' ones.  If Price left and we didn't win or get anything for him at least I would know we tried to actually win, dammit!

Sabermetrics isn't good enough for me.  Being just good enough to be competitive isn't cutting it anymore.  Johnnie Cochran once said, "If you ain't got the dough, you will never go!"  I'm just kidding, he never said that, but if he had he'd be exactly right.

Before the trade there was renewed energy in the team...I could feel it and I live two hours away!  Price was a Cy Young winner, a leader on the team, and a leader in the clubhouse.  He took his usual starting role the day before the trade deadline which is usually a sign that a player is staying put but he got roughed up by the Brewers.  I casually mentioned how much that would suck if that was his last start in a Rays jersey because I fully expected to see him in five days.

I was wrong.  David Price got traded to the Detroit Tigers in an almost 'Cold War worst nightmare' type of deal.  Hands wavered over the trigger button only to drop in the last second.  I'm not even going to go into length on the players that the Rays got in exchange for Price because, no, it's not enough.  They got David Price and we got Not David Price.  That equation is pretty simple.

Price will make his debut for the Tigers on Tuesday against the New York Yankees.

And this makes me sick to my stomach.

That's our boy and now we get to sit here and watch him play for a team in Michigan that doesn't truly appreciate him.  Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware that they're fully aware of who David Price is.  They know about his dominant year a few years ago when he was a 20 game winner.  They probably even knew he was leading the league in strike outs this year.  They know he went to Vanderbilt, school for nerds, and he's damn proud of it.

But they'll never look at him like we look at him.  We look at him and we just beam.  That's our boy.

The fact that the powers that be made it so that David Price couldn't be a Ray for life is something I'll have to deal with for a long, long time.  And I think eventually I'll get past it but today is a dark day and it's going to be dark for a little while.  I wish him nothing but the best and I miss him terribly.

I don't know if I'll watch his start on Tuesday.  It still feels a little personal to me.

It's completely against journalistic strategy to bring up an entirely new point at the very end of a piece you wrote but I like breaking the rules so I'm going to end on this:

Small teams end up being bad teams that end up celebrating by drafting good players that turn into great players just in time to hand them over to the big teams and the system feeds itself by chumps like me throwing peanuts at the television and consequently hating myself at the same time.

The good news is, kids, you don't have to pick your hero right away because the way the market shifts he might end up being your enemy.  You get to give it about six or seven years before you realize you're part of the problem and just go with it or you're like me and just not know what to do other than air your grievances on a blog that gets more international fame than ice cubes.  Seriously, they don't use them over there.

  

Big Hypocrite

Who here likes old school baseball?

Because I sure do.  Hell, if I'm a pitcher (and a damn good one too) and you're a hitter and you tag me for a couple of home runs in the playoffs you can rest assured you are going to get plunked the next time I see you.

It would be disrespectful for me not to hit you.  There have been too many great players in this great game that have understood how it goes and carried on anyways.  Nobody is bigger than the game and the great ones truly understand that.  Derek Jeter still goes to bed every night thanking his lucky stars that he gets to play short-stop for the New York Yankees, as his job, and then he proceeds to ravage whatever super model he wrangled that night.  Good for him and we all tip our caps to him.

It's an honor and a privilege to play the game of baseball and it's also a weird fraternity that has weird rules that date back before the invention of refrigerators.  Unless you are Shane Victorino who stands exactly on top of the plate while batting you have a few reasons why you were just hit by a ball thrown by the pitcher:

1. He's throwing erratically and it was bound to happen anyways.
2. You are Alex Rodriguez.
3. It's baseball, you should have seen it coming and that's why we make pads now, jackass.

There it is.  It's really quite simple.

Then you have players like David Ortiz who just really doesn't understand why he's the biggest hypocrite in baseball and if it weren't for Donald Sterling it would be all of sports.

The Tampa Bay Rays have an ace pitcher, his name is David Price, and he owns a Cy Young award.  They only give those out to the best pitcher of each league each year.  The Rays played the Boston Red Sox last year in the playoffs and David Ortiz hit two home runs off of David Price.  By the way, the Rays did not win that series.

The first time David Price saw David Ortiz this year he plunked him with a pitch to pretty much his ass region.  Clearly this was not trying to invoke injury as Ortiz has quite the padded posterior since he spends most of his time on the bench.  As a designated hitter he is only required to hit and not do half the stuff that everybody else on his team is doing.  This wasn't malicious of Price.  This was baseball.  This was 'you beat me pretty good last year now take your lumps and let's move on'.

Only Ortiz didn't see it that way.  He took exception to the beaning and when you are the King of Beans your voice gets heard by ESPN.  Ortiz said he no longer had any respect for David Price and that this game that children play on the regular in suburban parks with Popsicle breaks had now become 'war'.  War?  Really?  Have you seen war?  Because I feel like you haven't.  You wouldn't use that word for a baseball game if you knew what it meant.  A guy throws a baseball at your ass and it's a declaration of war?  No congress would ever substantiate that decree.

David Ortiz put on his tiara and little pink Tutu and yelled, "Mommy, that guy hit me!"

David Price came back and said, quite simply, that David Ortiz thinks he's bigger than the game--which is strange because you never really find a lot of pretentious behavior coming out of Boston...(cough cough)

Let's now flash forward to tonight's game between the Rays and Red Sox in which Ortiz was facing three-year man Chris Archer.  Archer started the third inning with a walk and a base hit to let two men on for Ortiz in a scoreless game.  Archer struck out Ortiz in the first inning with a change-up and I was fearful he would try it again in the third.  Alas, my fears came true when Archer threw the change-up and Ortiz sent it over the wall for a three-run home run.

Here's where I take issue:  Ortiz hits the home run, flips his bat, stands there and stares at the dugout, turns, and then leisurely trots around the bases as if he just hit the home run that cured cancer.  It's as if he almost forgot that he was in Tampa, in the third inning of a game that goes at least nine, and that his team was in last place and putting up their starting pitchers on the trading block as the hours ticked by.

Look, there's a lot of rules in baseball that are hard to follow and get misinterpreted as the years go by but I think it's pretty rudimentary that if you hit a home run and stand there and taunt the team that gave it up that you better be prepared for some sort of retaliation.

David Ortiz is ridiculous.  He expects the baseball world to bow to him while he pisses all over their backs.  It's ridiculous how brainwashed he has people too.  Even the great Carl Yastrzemski thinks that Ortiz is a better hitter than him and is only second to Ted Williams.  I just puked.

Yaz is obviously slipping in his older age and it makes me sad.  Yaz won the triple crown, he has 3,419 hits, 452 home runs, and oh by the way has seven golden gloves which they only give to people THAT PLAY IN THE FIELD!  David Ortiz shouldn't even be allowed to say Edgar Martinez' name without feeling ashamed of himself, let alone Carl Yastrzemski giving credit to someone who won't even appreciate it.

The rest of the game goes by without incident for some reason.  I didn't get it at the time but afterwards I can only imagine it's because we're going to let David Price do the dirty work when the Rays welcome the Red Sox back to the Trop in late August.  When interviewed after the game Archer just pointed to Price and said that he was right when he recognized that Ortiz thinks he's bigger than the game.  Ortiz simply just made fun of how little time Archer has spent in the major leagues...just like the classy guy he is.

For someone who boldly took the face of a city in the midst of a tragedy just a year ago to act the way he has this year is absolutely appalling.  I don't know about the rest of you but I like my heroes to not be cry babies.

David Ortiz is apparently okay with rules as long as they don't apply to him.  I'm okay with never letting David Ortiz see another pitch from any Rays pitcher again...so long as it hits him square in the back.  We'll have the pity party meeting him at first base.

Float on, graceful swans.

Five

July is always special to the Studly Pastures and this July we start our fifth year!

Five!  Booyah!  Take that, Google Ads!  You could have had some of this sweet five-year matured nectar but you ditched us for the classier stallion and you still probably made the right choice, you business savvy bastards!

Look, I never needed an Internet Trends Adviser to let me in on the biggest little secret on why the ol' SP isn't exactly the cream of the world wide crop.  I curse, I'm small-minded, I make broad accusations on wild theories that don't even make sense, I almost always reference pop culture in a sarcastic tone, I never really pay attention to true grammatical standards despite my natural journalistic background, and I write so sporadically that if you do read this blog you are probably just as surprised as my blog that a new posting is available.

What can I say?  It's been a hell of a ride.

I curse in my writing because I curse in my talking and I write like I talk.  Duh.  And I've never been too keen on there being words that one shouldn't say.  This is one I'll kick the soap box over for though.  I don't walk up to strangers in my everyday life and say, "What the fuck do you want?"  I would love to but it's uncouth.  I understand that there's a certain threshold of words that are widely accepted in social interactions.  With that said, now you're in my house, and the unicorns seem to respond to offensive language...bitches.

Besides, I don't know if I could come up with a curse word that would accurately describe the feelings of the fans of the Brazilian national team and it's mostly because I don't speak Portuguese.  I've had a favorite team be on the 'please sir, no more' side of a beating and I think I yelled some gibberish in utter frustration at one point but that's nothing like this.

This was on the world stage, on your home turf, in the semi finals, and in a sport where you've won the most world wide titles...and you got completely embarrassed.  Brazil was dissected, analyzed, and pinpointed for every weakness in the span of less than the time you could have switched over from some crap American day-time television.  Not even Judge Judy could have yelled fast enough.

Germany was textbook Germany.  They came out and methodically passed the ball and waited for mistakes and then took advantage of them.  What they didn't expect was a Brazil team that would show up already defeated.  There was talk before the match that the Brazilian nationals would have an excuse to lose without best player Neymar and team captain Thiago Silva playing in the match.  I guess the Brazilian nationals took that as an excuse to not even attempt to play the Germans.


And I guess I appear small minded because if you write about sports long enough you'll catch yourself writing about the same damn thing over and over and over...

When we started in Year One the biggest story of the summer was The Decision and where Lebron James would take his talents.  I painstakingly took the time to bunk or debunk every team and finally whittle it down to two choices: Miami Heat or Cleveland Cavaliers.  I inevitably picked the Cavaliers and was proven wrong a few days later.

Now we stand, four years later, on the bright and beautiful cusp of a new year...and yet again I'm forced to choose between whether Lebron James will play for the Miami Heat or the Cleveland Cavaliers.  Listen, if there's anything I've learned in the last four years and would like myself to know four years from now when we recycle this bullshit...it's simply this:

This kid is not Jordan.  He's not even goddamn Pippen.  He's Lebron James, he's selfish, and he'll do whatever it takes to keep that spotlight right on his receding hairline.  I hate attacking a man for his premature balding but he's forcing my hand!

James doesn't care about winning titles, or establishing legacy, or even being the best player of his generation.  He only cares about tv time.  How long did they talk about me on Sportscenter today?  The worst part is that ESPN is more than happy to oblige.  The greatest player to bridge the gap since Jordan is Kobe and the next to carry the torch is Kevin Durant.  Lebron is just going to wind up with a lot of people confused about how he carried himself.


Now!  About this broad accusations on wild theories, I have to say, I don't even know where that one stemmed from.

Bill Belichick and the rest of the higher ups on the New England Patriots knew that Aaron Hernandez committed a double murder and still gave him a pay raise.  They say that blood is thicker than water but that saying doesn't make sense in this day and age because money is thicker than blood.  In fact, you can soak up a lot of blood with cold hard cash and there's nothing that brings in more money by the truck loads than winning a Super Bowl.

Hell, even going to a Super Bowl these days will at least pave the streets with some sort of platinum knock-off.  I mean, what's your soul worth?  Are you even using it?

Is it so far off the oblivious path to suggest that a team that had already been found guilty of spying on other team practices in order to gain an advantage on the field that they wouldn't engage in other unsavory activities?

By the time the Patriots drafted Aaron Hernandez he was already a bargain basement deal...why not, right?  Why should it be on them that a double murderer would commit, wouldn't you know it,  a third murder.  What a dick.  He ruined everything.


Five years in and nothing has changed.  I'm the same, you're the same, and sports hasn't changed a lick.  I could have sold out two years ago and I stuck around for this shit...

Float on, you graceful whatevers.

Right In The Sugar Cubes

Kids, even though I command a stud farm for unicorns I have to admit that I do not know much about horse racing.

I do appreciate it though for being one of the few things other than a play place at McDonalds that I am just too big for.  Apparently I'm the Andre the Giant of jockeys and that helps me sleep at night.

I also know what the triple crown is and in case you don't it's winning a succession of horse races in a small amount of time which is particularly hard for the horses, not so much the jockeys.  It's so difficult to achieve that it has not been done since Affirmed managed to finish off the triple crown in 1978.  By the way, Affirmed spent one more year racing after winning the triple crown and spent the better part of the next twenty by making sweet love for profit.  Our human equivalent is Wilt Chamberlain.  Affirmed was mercifully euthanized after falling ill in 2001.  A lot of you are probably asking yourselves if Affirmed, a horse, lived a better life than you and you might even fall back on your children as reasoning enough.  No, stop right there, Affirmed sired champion racers as well.  This horse was really pretty something.

Affirmed was also granted one of the greatest honors of a race horse and that was being buried whole which only adds to my suspicion that dead horses actually do get turned into glue or low-grade dog food.

Damn you, Orwell.

Anyhoo, I bring up all that triple crown stuff because just like I alluded to in my last piece (and if you didn't read it don't even pretend to know what I'm talking about now) we just recently had another horse going for the glory.  California Chrome was the latest horse to challenge the triple crown and I really wanted him to do if only for the reasoning that everybody would shut the hell up about it.

Alas, Chrome came in a distant fourth in the final leg of the triple crown and while the rest of the world went back to reading their newspapers one man could not get over it.  I'm talking about Chrome co-owner Steve Coburn.

Coburn looks like Wilfred Brimley in a cowboy hat and since I always picture Wilfred Brimley in a cowboy hat he just looks like Wilfred Brimley to me.  After the race in which Chrome was denied the triple crown the media descended upon Mr. Coburn and he just went absolute nuts.

You see, kids, the triple crown is obviously three races.  In order to win the triple crown a horse must win all three races in the same year but in order to compete in a triple crown race a horse doesn't need to race in any of the other two.  In other words, if your horse isn't an immediate threat to the triple crown you can pick and choose which of the three races you want to race in.

Now before I can continue further, I must admit something more about myself.  I like a sore loser.  I like the guy who is beaten in something and is angry about it.  I'll be gracious in defeat tomorrow but right now I'm pissed off and it's going to show whether I like it or not!  See?  That makes sense.  That's the natural human psyche.

So when the media went to Steve Coburn and asked him about the race IMMEDIATELY after Chrome had came in fourth and was out of the triple crown it's only natural you are going to get the rantings and ravings of a pissed off dude.

I get it.  He called the other horses cheaters because they didn't race in the other races.  He cursed a lot.  He demanded that the rules be changed.  All natural responses from someone on the verge of history that just had the table cloth pulled out from under him.  You get a reprieve from that, Coburn, it's completely understandable.

But then he got to sleep on it.

And then he still came out and acted a fool.

Coburn, Wilfred Brimley's body double,  has the nerve to compare what happened in the race to himself, a six-foot-two man, playing basketball against a kid in a wheelchair.

WHAT THE HELL, MAN?  You slept on it!

Now before I have written this, Coburn has come onto national television (of course) and apparently apologized for his 'kid in a wheelchair' comments.  But I didn't listen to it because that was going to be the most in-genuine thing he's said all week so why even bother.  He doesn't mean it anyways.

What's his entire basis of his tirade?  He didn't like the fact that fresh horses were running in the Belmont Stakes, the final leg of the triple crown?  How convenient that you didn't make this a known thing before you were on the verge of history and were denied!

Listen, douchebag, you're not entitled to anything.  I know you probably envisioned yourself being played by Harrison Ford in five years in a heart-wrenching Disney movie about the 'horse that bucked the trend' but say goodbye to that sweet Mickey cash and get over yourself.  Champions are champions because they tested and beat EVERYBODY.  Muhammad Ali didn't fight the same guy over and over (although he could have) and he went after stronger and bigger opponents.  Why?  Because he wanted to make sure he was the champion.  And he was.

California Chrome is a fine horse and it's going to spend a fine life making lots of other fine horses but you're not the champion, Coburn.  The champion welcomes opponents, regardless of rest, and regardless of past accomplishments.

As far as your 'kid in the wheelchair' quote for that I can only hope he realized the err in his ways for liking his situation to that as a child confined to a wheelchair playing a game of basketball.  But he won't, and he doesn't deserve it because we're doing just fine without him anyways.

There are a lot of therapeutic treatments for children with cerebral palsy and other muscular and cognitive disabilities and guess what...a lot of them are from horse-back riding.  Turns out that riding on the back of a horse kinda trains the human body to react in ways that were shut down by certain cognitive diseases.  That's amazing and beautiful and outweighs anything a blowhard like Coburn has to say.  It's only fitting that the horses know it too.

You're always welcome to Studly Pastures, Chrome.

The Wa-Wa Cool-Cool

2007 was a weird time for me.  The Studly Pastures were just a twinkle in my eye, I was a junior in college, and the Miami Dolphins were mere months away from unveiling the 'wildcat' offense.  I sure hope that NFL Films locked away that footage.  It'd be a shame if those tapes were lost to the ages.

2007 is also the year that I adopted subtle sarcasm in my writing.

It was also the year that I started stretching the use of the word 'subtle'.

2007 was also the last year that the Tampa Bay Rays were a bad team.  I've been around since the start and they used to stink, like bad.  We threw a party when we came in fourth place for the first time in our history and that's not even supposed to be a joke but it sounds pathetic when I actually write the words.  2008 saw our first postseason berth and the dream lasted all the way to the promised lands--the world series.  2008 just so happened to be the same year that Cole Hamels traded his soul and forsake everything holy for a World Series title.  I hate Cole Hamels but that's not the point of this post.

Just a mere seven short years later, it appears our time in the sun is over, and the Tampa Bay Rays are once again bad.  Cue Rob Schneider, "Oh no, we suck again!"

The Rays manager, Joe Maddon, is probably a crazy person who just so happens to coach baseball but he's my kind of crazy so I dig what he's throwing out there.  He's been setting up a table full of different kinds of cologne lately because we've been 'stinking' so bad.

I'm not kidding.  Sex Panther made an appearance too.

For the last seven years, the Tampa Bay Rays have been my "I don't have a problem" excuse.  Everything else that I follow has been a colossal failure and a huge blemish on my otherwise pristine social standing but they've always been able to say, "Yeah, but he's a Rays fan."  Boom.  Forgiven.

And now the underdog has finally gone under and it's a sad, sad time to know me because I will not stop bitching about it.  All kidding aside, will my heart strings retain their elasticity after all this wear and tear?


But you don't have to be a Rays fan, or a baseball fan, this time of year.  You can like horse racing and be one of those gullible jerks that fall for the triple crown threat every year.

Look people, there hasn't been a triple crown winner since 1978.  1978!  That's the year that Kobe Bryant was born and he was born in late August so he's never seen a triple crown winner either so make sure you point that out to him when you see him.  2007 is also the last year that Kobe Bryant was the NBA scoring champion.

California Chrome is the 13th horse since Affirmed to win the first two legs of the triple crown...and I'm picking him to finish it.  The thirteenth horse?  Come on, this streak needs a little reverse luck, doesn't it?  June 7th, look out, California Chrome will complete the triple crown and simultaneously be delicious.  (And that's a Great Depression joke.)  Horse meat is a bit tough though and you might need something like Sprite (Kobe) to wash it down with.

And the PETA calls started...now...


Last night I stubbed my left pinkie toe on the side of my bed and I'm not ashamed today to admit that it hurts terribly.  My dog, sensing that I'm injured, came over to lick the wound and the contact hurt even more.  Either it's broken or I'm a huge baby.  Huge baby status aside, I'm still willing to walk without the aid of a cane or a hover-round.  Which, by the way, who are they kidding with those advertisements?  The first place I'm going if I'm suddenly mobile is not the Grand Canyon.  I'm getting more pudding.

The point of the toe story is do you sacrifice something for the greater good?  If you're injured, and severing something will relieve that, at what point do you make that decision?  In other words, kids, how long will David Price be a Ray and how long will I keep my left pinkie toe.  These are great questions that need further pondering.  I'll be in my pondering machine.

Float on, graceful swans.

King Crowns and Crab Legs

For the first time in a long time, kids, I don't even know where to start.

I guess for the sake of all media we're bound to start with Donald Sterling and how he used to own the Los Angeles Clippers.

If there's one thing that I have no tolerance for, and saying 'I', I also hope to include the genuine American public as well because that's where I make my home and that's where I have no tolerance for bigotry or racism or supremacy or whatever the Hell they call it these days.

No tolerance.  In fact if we've gotten to the point where we communicate on a regular basis, exchange a few anecdotes every now and then, maybe even talk about our personal lives a little bit and you go and say something racist in jest...well...I've just shut down.  My immediate reaction is strictly brainwaves.  My brain goes into immediate 'How do I phase this person out of my life' protocol.  The physical response is a deep sigh and my head kinda tilts down like I've just been deactivated.  You know what I mean.

I've read the transcripts of the Sterling tapes.  I've heard the Sterling tapes.  I've seen the punishment wrought by the NBA and new commissioner Silver.  The immediate response is to stand up and applaud Silver...but that damn brain of mine just won't stop there.

For those of you that don't follow the NBA this is Silver's first year as commissioner following the Evil Sith Lord, David Stern.  So already off the bat we have a first-year commissioner that's following one of the most controversial commissioners in the history of the NBA and he's faced with an owner that's being accused of racism.

I hate to get all Star Trek V: The Final Frontier on you, but Kirk asks, "What does God need with a spaceship?"  And I'm just sitting here wondering what a white racist wants with an NBA team.

Here's the biggest thing that I had a problem with Mr. Sterling and his elocution to his girlfriend over the phone is that I felt, over many things, is that he made himself a Pharaoh.  I feed them, I clothe them, and they only have what they have because of me.  That's the gist of his speech.

In case you aren't getting the gist of my speech, in essence, Sterling saw human beings as commodities that he had bought and used to try to win in a sports game.  At that point and juncture we wave bye-bye to you because you represent all that is wrong with the world and I mean that wholly.  As far as being human, you failed miserably, and I can't wait until you're banned from the Earth and not just the NBA.

And that's all good and makes sense in mankind logic.  But did Silver do that to make himself popular in the eye of the public?  Ehhhh...probably.  And are the owners going to follow suit and oust Sterling as owner of the Clippers?  Yep.  Why?  Because that makes us all happy.  It's not enough that this guy has been a poison for years but he always had money.  NOW all of a sudden when the media eye is on us we focus on morals.

How ironic.



Now we turn our heads, ever so slightly, to Jameis Winston.  If you're not familiar with Jameis he's the latest recipient of the Heisman Trophy and the quarterback of the National Champion Florida State Seminoles...and he can't stay out of the news.

You all heard last year when he was involved in a sexual assault case that was eventually dropped because there wasn't enough evidence to go to trial and it also helped that the guy in question was uber-popular.  Look, I wrote an article last year about Johnny Manziel acting a fool all over the place because he had already adopted the playboy lifestyle before he got paid and it looked bad for him.

Listen to me, this is something COMPLETELY different.  Jameis Winston is officially on "Eh, we're kinda afraid of him" after he's been on the "Definitely going number one" list for a year.

Mr. Winston was recently cited, in Tallahassee, at a grocery store, for not paying for thirty-two dollars worth of crab legs.

WHAT?! 

You have no sense in your head to not get yourself in trouble over stealing some crab legs when in about a year and a month you can literally bathe in crab legs and dry yourself off in crab legs?!  By the way, when you get out of the tub you can step on crab legs too.

$32.  That's pathetic.

What we have to understand is that even though he's a Heisman winner and also quarterbacked the National Champion team is that he's not rich yet.  He won't be rich for another year.  I understand some NCAA players get hungrier than their stipends or scholarships allow.  That's why they don't eat crab legs.  They eat what they can afford and look forward to the day when they can buy crab legs and not bat an eye.  Jameis Winston apparently takes what he wants whenever.

That's a huge red flag, not only as an NFL prospect, but as a person.  If I could talk to him I would just look him in the eyes and say, "Come on, dude!"

Siiiiiggggghhhh...see you kids after the draft next week.

Who's The Other Guy?

Is it something I said?  I mean you could tell me and I wouldn't get upset.

I was just going over notes left for me by the Studly Pastures research team (cough) and it turns out that readership is down--like way down.  Let's say it's so down that if we were a company that was built on turning a profit that I would have resorted to insider trading a few months ago.  Our stock is bleeding faster than a stuck pig and I've never understood that reference other than I guess you have to bleed the pig before you cook it otherwise you get really bloody bites of pork.

They've even gone as far to say that Latvia hasn't been around in months and I'm especially hurt about that.  We had a great thing going, Latvia, and you're just going to toss me aside like some cheap blog floozy.  It makes me wonder two things: where the Hell are Latvians going to get their American sports banter if not from me and why did they ever stumble upon me in the first place?

Who knows how this wacky internet thingy works.  I type words that only I can see and press a button and suddenly every entity in the universe can see them too.  That's either incredible technology or the Devil's work and I haven't decided which one it is yet or if it's both.

After I crunched the numbers left for me by the research team (cough) I started trying to find some sort of correlation between the lack of readership and the content of the post.  That search proved to be moot because all I concluded was that I was consistent across the board with genius observations and hilarious banter on American sports.  That much was clear.

However a senior ranking adviser from the creative department (cough) discovered an abnormality in what kind of music I listen to when writing a post.  For most of the last year I've been listening to classical music because I love classical music and it makes me relaxed and put at ease.  Well that's exactly the opposite of what the Studly Pastures is about.  We're loud, we're abrasive, and we don't do serene.  No more classical.  It's time for some other classical.  I'm writing tonight to the sweet sounds of the Electric Light Orchestra station on Pandora and it's time for some real thoughts.

First off, if a closer comes into a ninth inning with a two-run lead and loses the game he should be demoted or at the very least docked in pay.  Your job is to close the game, the very nature of it is in your job title for crying out loud!  If I'm the cab driver and you hop in the backseat and tell me where you are going and I say okay and immediately gun the gas pedal and drive into the first light-post I see there's going to be consequences and repercussions!  I understand that the job is a high-stress atmosphere.  There's never thousands of people watching a cab driver's every move on television but I guess my beef is truly with the lack of ownership.  If you give up a walk-off grand slam to lose the game for your team when everything that went wrong was truly your fault the very next thing you should do is answer for it.  I want to hear you come out and say, "Well I sucked complete balls tonight and I'm really sorry that I didn't do my job and even beyond that I found some twisted way to make doing my job seem more heroic than it really is.  I guess I shouldn't have walked out to the mound and immediately crapped my pants and then proceed to chuck that crap into the stands.  I am really sorry about this and can only hope you show mercy."

If that happened I might be a little more forgiving.

Second of all, the NFL Draft is barreling towards us which is always a very exciting time for me here down at the Studly Pastures.  I get really worked up about it and always refer to it as NFL Holy Day and everybody wants to know who is going to go number one overall.  Well last year an offensive tackle went number one overall and that's always boring but before him the last four number ones were all quarterbacks, which is considered the most important position on the team.  In fact you'd you have to go back all the way to 2006 to find when the last defensive end was taken number one overall and that was when the Houston Texans took Mario Williams over Reggie Bush.

I don't know if Johnny Manziel, or Blake Bortles, or Teddy Bridgewater is going to be great in the NFL and maybe they all will be.  But I do know this about the NFL and the Houston Texans: getting pressure on the quarterback is very vital and they already have a specialist in J.J. Watt.  Get another one!  Use the number one draft pick on Jadeveon Clowney.  The history of the Houston Texans number one draft picks is David Carr and Mario Williams.  David Carr is probably in some sort of veterans hospital and Mario Williams is still playing in the league in Buffalo.  Granted, those both sound like Hell on Earth, but at least Williams is still getting a fat paycheck.  Take the freak defensive end, create awesome pass-rushing defense, get anybody later in the draft who can throw the ball to your own team more than the other one.  There's the formula, don't disappoint me Houston.

Thirdly, and I'm so surprised that's a word, is that we've been together a long time, you and I, faceless entities and I worry that we're just not ourselves anymore.  Let's promise each other something right here and now.  I'll try harder and so will you.  It's not that tough.  You could always use a little information and a good laugh and I could always feed my narcissism.  It's win-win for the both of us.  Let me know what you think, my office is always open.

By the way, if you see Latvia, tell her that you saw me talking to Estonia.  That ought a do it.

Float on, graceful swans.

The Big 100th Post Celebration To End All Other 100 Post Celebrations!

This, my dear faceless entities, marks the centennial post of the Studly Pastures.

It's sort of ridiculous to think that 99 times before this I have tried to involve you in some sort of love and appreciation for something sports related but in a few months we are celebrating our five-year anniversary and I guess the word 'pathetic' would be better suited.

I  know I like to reserve the anniversary posts for self-imposed love fests but this is the 100th for crying out loud!  This is a benchmark!  Years from now when I write post number 756 we'll get to sit and argue whether or not I have to write 763 posts to consider myself the all-time leader or if 756 is good enough because I did it the right way and didn't disrespect the game by cheating.  But we'll all remember that it took me five years to get to 100.

100 posts.  That means I'm just one dalmatian shy of a snazzy new fur coat.  Which, by the way, makes Cruella De Vil the absolute worst of the Disney villains.  Anytime you see a litter of puppies and think to yourself, "Hmm they would make a nice outfit", you have deep psychological issues that you need to get worked out stat.  Plus nobody uses that cigarette extender anymore, you pretentious wench.

Three nights ago I posted my disdain over the lack of offense by the Tampa Bay Rays thus far.  It seemed like every time I put the game on the most ridiculous thing would go in favor of our opponent.  On Thursday, we hit into a triple play.  A triple play!  How nuts is that?  There have been 692 triple plays since 1876.  There are 30 MLB teams and each of them play 162 regular season games and over the course of the last 138 years there has only been 692 triple plays and I saw one on Thursday night.  So I posted that I was done with watching baseball and haven't watched more than two minutes the last two nights.  The Rays record the last two nights?  2-0 outscoring the Yankees 27-6.  I won't watch another minute this year if it means we win the World Series.

Speaking of baseball, 100 is cool and everything but I think we might put too much emphasis on numbers.  For example, 500 home runs was the number for the longest time.  If you hit 500 home runs you already had your ticket to Cooperstown and the baseball Hall of Fame.  After the steroid era and finding out that 75% of our heroes cheated their way to 500 we've gradually moved away from our love of numbers.  Albert Pujols hit his 500th home run the other day and you probably just learned that from me and I only know because I love watching PTI.

If I write 500 posts and 200 of them are not funny or witty, and another 150 were ghost-written by somebody that I've employed because of my huge ego, and then another 50 were just articles I've already written that you've forgotten about because it's been awhile...then where are we at?  The Hall of Fame?  Not a chance.

See, the steroid era changed baseball like the internet changed the art of writing.  You have to do more, you have to be original, and you have to make sure that whatever you do, you never take anything not prescribed by a licensed doctor.

I've always tried to do this rare thing with the Pastures and that's try to make sure I know what I'm talking about.  Both the NHL and NBA playoffs are going on right now and that's all I have to say about that.

Kids, tomorrow is the Boston marathon and I'd like to ask you to whatever you are doing tomorrow to sit back and just take a second to be proud of mankind.  Tomorrow is more than just some race that some ridiculously skinny person from a foreign county is going to win.  It's a slap in the face to oppressors, terrorists, and anybody or anything that wants to create havoc and interfere with our way of life.  It's great to be an American, and I'm proud to be an American, but the Boston marathon attracts more than Americans and they're going to show up in droves tomorrow to prove the resilience of human beings.

A marathon in itself is a testament to strength and resolve.  It's a battle of endurance and a battle of wits as you power on through the miles.  The ability to run just over 26 miles for no greater purpose than just to do it is a perfect example of the human spirit.

Obviously last year the Boston marathon was marred with tragedy by some people who thought they could change the landscape of the human mind but yet again they were completely wrong.  Tomorrow is going to the be the biggest Boston marathon ever.  Sure there will be more security but it doesn't really matter.  There's no feasible way to ensure the safety of thousands of people over 26 miles and they all know that and they don't care.  They're gonna run.  They're gonna run for last year, for this year, and for all the runners in the coming years.

Isn't that beautiful?  They were BOMBED last year and they still don't care.  This is their thing and nobody is ever going to take it from them.

To all the runners tomorrow, I salute and thank you, for once again proving that in the face of adversity we humans come out stronger and better.  We will persevere, that's assured.

100 posts in.  I think I can stick around a little longer.

Float on, graceful swans.

Bombs Away!

Kids!  We're now past three months into the year and like most things that have twelve of something this marks the end of the first quarter of 2014.  A quarter into a new year and yet there are still little hiccups that we just can't seem to look past and for that I'm looking at you TSA agents of LAX!

Look, I'm sure it's no picnic to be a TSA agent at a major airport in this day and age.  Any time you have to deal with a large percentage of American public you're definitely going to have to handle a few whack jobs.  I can remember taking a flight a couple years ago and standing behind a disheveled looking man in full fatigues with a hard metal case as his only luggage and thinking to myself 'worst terrorist ever.'  It's never easy to look at a stranger and tell them to take off their shoes as you wave your magic wand all over them and oh by the way, if it beeps, I have to touch you.

On the flip side, however, it's no picnic to have to fly.  You have to stand in line after line just to reserve the right to sit in a metal tube for four hours while you either have to A) listen to a baby express their inability to understand why their ears are popping, B) sit next to the sleeping guy that just forsake everything he knew about personal space, or C) get the old lady that's pinpointed you for her entire life story--and she's old--really old.  Flying gets progressively better as you reach the legal drinking age but they don't take cash so come prepared.

It's all a big headache and like most big headaches the situation exacerbates itself the more and more you behave like a dick.  San Francisco 49ers pass rusher extraordinaire Aldon Smith was detained yesterday at LAX when he decided to go ahead and behave like a dick.  One of those little hiccups we still can't get away with after the first quarter of 2014?  Yeah, we still can't flip out in an airport and carry on about how we have a bomb.  Who knew?

Aldon has had his problems in the past and it's landed him in trouble with the law and in rehab as well but as soon as you start combining the words 'bomb' and 'airplane' now the FBI has to get involved and well, dammit, you're just a big ol' bag of dumb, aren't you?  Didn't Ben Stiller teach you anything?

Look, Aldon, I know it's no fun to have some minimum wage employee tell you to take off your shoes and belt like you're being processed for some sort of harvest and you have to remove all your unnatural goods like some weird husk and wouldn't you know it you just got picked for 'additional screening.'

I get it.  I feel the same way as you.  'Additional screening' is the 2014 politically correct way of saying 'we don't trust this large black man about to get into a metal tube with a lot of other (white) people.'  As a large black man that would irk me too.  However, I'm not a large black man, and standing behind that weird, creepy guy wearing the fatigues with the funny suitcase pretty much cleared me of any wrong-doing because the law of averages states what's the odds of TWO potential terrorists standing right beside each other in line at the airport...and 9/11 hasn't taught us anything!

You can't say bomb in an airport...unless you mean it.  Everybody knows that.  It comes right after, "Don't run with scissors" and it's right before, "Don't go swimming until thirty minutes after eating."  And that last one is a bad example because that's a myth.  No one has ever been in the ocean, about to plummet into the abyss, and thought to themselves, "Why did I have to have that last chili dog?!"  Nope.  It's always "Why did I get drunk and drift out into the rip current?!"  And that, kids, is a lesson for another day.

It would be simple for the 49ers just to release Smith and move on with their lives but the NFL is a complicated beast and Smith is a proven commodity--a proven commodity that's especially valuable in today's NFL.  He can rush the quarterback and can do it very well and that's hard to just wash your hands clean of even despite his misfortunes.  But he's already been a nuisance with his past transgressions and he's already been to rehab--so what's next?

Maybe Aldon Smith did just have a really bad day and some jerky TSA agent pushed him to his breaking point.  And maybe Aldon Smith has some deeper rooted issues that need to be worked out by professionals.  I don't know anything about that but I do understand the NFL from a business standpoint and if I was a high ranking member of the the 49ers organization I would start shopping Aldon Smith immediately.  There are plenty of teams that forsake normal human rationale for the ability to play football.  Sell him now before that ceiling drops even lower.

Hell, see what New York will pay up for him.  The Jets embrace crazy like it falls out of the sky.

It's hard just to 'give up' on somebody but after you've stuck your neck out multiple times and have had the axe come down each and every time I think you're perfectly within the statue of limitations to distance yourself from that person.

Godspeed, Aldon Smith.

The Last Stand of Peyton Manning

Faceless entities!  Now is the time to repent for our misgivings and bad tidings.  I'll start the bidding war with my opinion on reality shows and that is that I don't much care for them...any of them.  It's all a crock of shit that makes Webster redefine the word 'reality'.  If it's scripted, or there's parameters, or amateur actors...then it's not reality.  Reality happens in a flash--in an instant.  Scraps of reality can be captured or recreated to invoke human reaction but the fact remains is that reality is a fleeting subject that is both rare and often fabricated.

How about that?  We're living in a world where reality isn't real anymore.  Happy birthday to anybody born today.

Well kiddos, it's now March which means it's time to talk about professional football because free agency has opened and Denver is acting like a disgruntled girlfriend.  It turns out that Denver didn't really handle that crushing loss in the Super Bowl very well and they're lashing out by buying everybody they can.  They signed Aqib Talib to a 57 meulllioooonnnn dollar contract and former Cowboy DeMarcus Ware to a 30 meulllioooonnnn dollar contract to 'bolster their defense'.

Good for them.

On the surface it looks like John Elway woke up and realized that Peyton Manning was a ticking time bomb and that if you were the last one holding him...well then...kaboom.  Elway had the luxury of retiring after winning two Super Bowls in a row and I'm sure he wants Peyton to go out on top.  The unfortunate circumstance of the whole thing (and one would even go as far to call it ironic) is that it's obvious you can be the greatest quarterback of your generation but not reach the pinnacle until the pieces around you fall into place.

Elway was blessed.  He got Terrell Davis.  I know two things about Terrell Davis.  He wore braces in the NFL and he was the Second Coming in running back form.  I'm not going to bother to look up his stats or how long he played in the NFL because I'd like to be ignorant and just assume he played two years and dominated both of them and that was that.  But I'm not that naive.  He actually played six years and is the Denver Broncos leading rusher of all-time, which is more telling than anything else.  He played SIX years.

I know Peyton Manning has won a Super Bowl already but in today's NFL he is mostly compared to some guy named Tom Brady that is considered his contemporary and has won multiple Super Bowls but also has children with different mothers.  Tom Brady has three rings: Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, Fran Tarkenton, Boomer Esiason, Warren Moon, and Dan Fouts have a collective ZERO rings.  Where's your messiah now?

Apparently there's no price tag on another ring for Peyton Manning.  The thing that comes out though about every number and every dollar is very telling...this is the last stand of Ol' Top Heavy.

If Peyton doesn't win the big salami in 2014/2015 he'll retire and his forehead will finally be used as the world's biggest projector screen.  Vonnegut would say, "So it goes," but I have a few more choice words than that.  The final stand of Peyton Manning is also the mortgage of an entire NFL franchise.  The amount of money that the Denver Broncos are doling out is going to catch up with them and soon some other names are going to be departing.  That adds up to pressure and even more weight on the shoulders on our dear sweet Peyton.  You don't have to be a scholar of the sport to recognize how Peyton performs under pressure.  In layman terms, "notsa so good."

Peyton does have one thing working for him, however, and that's this is the Twilight Zone after all.  The ridiculous moves that the Broncos are making will pan out and Peyton will get his second and final ring and ride off into the sunset on a very unfortunate horse that doesn't understand weight distribution.  Don't worry, faceless entities, I'll stand here in loyal defiance and object to everything Peyton related.

This is still a sport, even in the Twilight Zone, and not even the Yankees can buy happiness.  Well...sustained happiness for the most part.

In reality, I'd like to think that Peyton is humbled in the same fashion that all the non-Super Bowl winning quarterbacks I mentioned are.  They wanted one, just one, and were denied.  Peyton wants a second one.

Screw him.

This Water Cooler is the Water Coolest!

We're back and it's been recently brought to my attention that we're not supposed to take it anymore.  So for those of you that have been still taking it you can go ahead and not take it anymore.  Thank you.

I'd like to consider myself a fair guy.  I don't think I have unreasonable expectations where I hope that my favorite sports team doesn't do anything to completely embarrass me and if and when that happens I won't just spray cologne over it and pretend it's not there.

The Miami Dolphins have spent the better part of the last year trying to convince us it was just a cold sore and now we finally have admission that it's full blown herpes.  Joe Philbin seems like a nice enough guy to buy sweaters from but when you let your own employees harass each other in a myriad of ways and don't claim ownership of that then one of two things should happen.  The first is you're lying and should be fired.  The second is you have no control of your own employees and should be fired.

However, the Miami Dolphins embrace the lifestyles we have here in the Twilight Zone and let Philbin go out there in his nice, non-confrontational button down shirt and swear that from now on we really, really won't let people treat other people like they're not actual human beings.  Good on them.

Okay faceless entities, a proposition: I will write the Studly Pastures until the Miami Dolphins win a Super Bowl or I meet my untimely demise.  So the deal is that unless I die or the Dolphins win the Super Bowl, the SP will continue on.  You game?  You actually have no choice.  I've already decided.  The last post I ever write for the SP will be the Dolphins' Super Bowl victory or something really stupid because I died shortly after that.  It's the ultimate game of internet chicken.




Enough about that crap, let's talk about some Olympics crap.  It seems to me that for some reason before the last three days that Americans thought we could beat Canadians in hockey.  Really?  I know most of you like to brush off Canada little-brother style but if there is one thing that they nailed down and really made 'their thing' it's hockey.

I know here in America we have to concern ourselves with trivial things like keeping the rest of the world in order but in Canada they don't have that problem.  They just sit up there and play hockey until we tell them to do something.

In all seriousness though, our national women's hockey team choked and in further seriousness, I was hoping I would never have to mention women's hockey.  Two goal lead, third period, and closing minutes...and you lose?  I'm not insinuating that this wouldn't happen to men because I watch American soccer and it happens all the time but come on!  You'se had 'em!  You'se had 'em!!!

It's okay, girls.  The World Cup is five months away and the Summer Olympics is two years away and the word 'Canada' will be irrelevant for all of that.




Finally, I have to end with Derek Jeter.  The Yankee short-stop is retiring after this upcoming season and to me that's the right decision.  Jeter announcing his retirement is like a race horse being put down after breaking it's leg...except the horse is pulling the trigger.  Jeter is showing something rare in athletes like him that have spent most of his career in the spotlight and in the center of attention: the ability to know when it's time to walk away.

Somewhere on a farm in Mississippi, Brett Favre is re-enacting the entire plot of Necessary Roughness--the movie, not the show, have some class.

Jeter will always be for me that iconic athlete that I miss because I knew I was getting old.  Ken Griffey Jr. was the man when I was a kid but he was injury prone and didn't have the staying power.  Jeter has had his fair share of injuries but it wasn't until recent years that injuries really got to him.  Even as a Rays fan it's hard not to see Jeter at short-stop for the Yankees.  After going through the fanfare last year with Mariano retiring it should be safe to assume that the Captain will get the same treatment.

I can only hope that in his last at-bat he's pulled for a pinch-hitting Bernie Williams.  That'd be amazing.  I love baseball and I love the fact that I care about a rival teammate retiring.  Sigggghhhh.



I guess in a way, kids, I have announced my own retirement.  One way or another, the Studly will end either with my death or a Miami Dolphins Super Bowl victory.  I wish Vegas would calculate these odds for me because I could walk out my door tomorrow and get hit by a bus but the Dolphins can't win the Super Bowl tomorrow.

So I guess the only thing left to do is live life to the fullest, right?  In the immortal words from Robert Loggia from Necessary Roughness, "YOU TEAR THEIR F****** HEADS OFF AND SHIT DOWN THEIR NECKS!"  "Let us pray."

Float on, graceful swans.

Slow Progress Is Still Progress

Hello, faceless entities that I do so enjoy, and welcome to another installment of that thing that's uber-popular overseas and easily dismissed in the States.

I'd like to think I do more for you than just kick over my soap box and jump on top of it but my voice is just so darn velvety that I guess I'm just like the rest of these schmuck bloggers so how can I lash out at you for not labeling me any different?

Because I am!  I use big words to tell dirty jokes!  I relate to the poor and the rich while staying so deliciously middle class!  I have an educated background that I choose to ignore and just spew random verbs and nouns together to get a cheap laugh from someone I've never met!  What?!  WHAT?!

So I don't know if you heard but there's a guy named Michael Sam (one love for my two first-names people, where you at?) who decided to tell the world that he's gay.  Good for him, I wish him all the luck, and I hope he finds the man of his dreams.  Eh?  What's that?  Oh because he's an NFL-draftee hopeful, and a great pass-rusher from the SEC we need to talk about this more?  Siggggggghhhhh.  Didn't we do this in The Great Divide?  I'm pretty sure we did.  But okay...I guess...

Saying the Michael Sam announcement isn't a big deal is the same thing as saying that any pivotal moment in any human civil rights movement wasn't that big of a deal.  This is a huge deal because we're getting ever so closer to this not being a big deal at all and that's the ultimate goal.  Jason Collins broke the barrier with his announcement but he's 35 and hasn't played an NBA game since he came out and likely won't again at this point but I hope I'm wrong.  Sam is different.  He's leaving college for the NFL the year after being named SEC Defensive Player of the Year.  He will be drafted and he will play in the NFL next year.  Sure, there's been gay football players before but they haven't come out until after they retired.  Sam is the first to announce he's gay before starting his NFL career.  Monumental?  Check.

Sam's announcement has been met mostly with sincere admiration of his courage and acceptance by athletes of all walks of life.  There has been little detraction but that just brings me to Jonathan Vilma.

Vilma, as far as I know, isn't a bigot--or even an asshole maybe!  He's just a guy voicing his opinion like the rest of us and he said some things before his camp got to him and made him backpedal and say some PR things instead.  Basically the gist of what Vilma said was how he was supposed to act if a player that was openly gay happened to glance over at Vilma while he was changing or getting out of the shower.

Jeez, I don't know, Vilma.  He would just have to resist the temptation I guess!  I thought I was the only one around here who thought the sight of my naked body was irresistible?  I guess Vilma and I have something in common after all!

Michael Sam said he was gay, not a sexual deviant.  I work with women everyday and I have yet to get a sexual assault charge.  Granted I've never showered with any of them but if it was acceptable to have a uni-sex shower at my work I think things would work out pretty smoothly.  Okay that's a terrible example...but the point remains the same.  We're all professionals in a professional atmosphere and our personal life choices don't affect that.

Vilma's words were the template for any athlete that's ever had a concern about a gay person in the locker room.  Isn't that always the first words out of an ignorant person's mouth?  "Well shoot, how am I gonna shower with them?"  It's okay Adonis, that just leaves more hot water for you because all gay athletes take cold showers as a coping mechanism for working in the Sexiest Place on Earth.

There's going to be more than just this, I can guarantee it.  Hell, I run into idiots every single day of my life and I'm not even a public figure.  But the good news is that Michael Sam appears to be one tough guy and the other good news is that he's going to get drafted into the right locker room too.  The front office that looks at his stats and realizes how valuable a pass-rusher is instead of looking at his dating record and bedroom tactics is going to draft him.  I love the management team of Green Bay and Baltimore and wouldn't be surprised in the least bit if he goes to either one of those teams.  He'll get in the right situation, he'll find his version of a Pee Wee Reese, and the rest will eventually fall in line.

And I hate to get all Forrest Gump on you guys but that's all I have to say about that.

Float on, you graceful swans.

Rocky Mountain Low Is Too Cliche

Well, well, well...here we are.  It's the day after the Super Bowl and I've come a-collectin'.

I'd like to say that I've correctly predicted the Super Bowl winner the last two years but last year all I kinda said was that the Baltimore Ravens would make the game and for some reason never really came to any sort of end with that.  Eh.  Half a point?

But I definitely said that the Seattle Seahawks would win it all this year and wouldn't you know it...they did!

Sure I said that they would be playing the Houston Texans but that just goes to show you how much of a crap-shoot this thing really is...you could peg anybody in there really.  What's that?  A lot of you thought that the Denver Broncos would make it to the Super Bowl too?  Well fine!  I'll just go stand in the Stupid Corner with everybody else that makes ridiculous statements as if they're premonitions that don't come true to allow enough space for the rest of the world that loves to decree themselves Nostradamus incarnate!

Actually I won't.

I am just like the rest of you (not really, because I really do study the history of the game, but for all intensive purposes I am just a man who can't predict the future) and maybe it was my blind hatred for Peyton Manning but I knew deep down in the very hearth of my gourd (that's a saying) that Lil' Top Heavy never stood a chance in this game.  But it wasn't even just him it was the rest of his horse-loving, Coors Lite drinking, mountain skiing yahoo gang as well.  They were screwed the minute Richard Sherman managed to deflect everyone's attention away from the fact that Colin Kaepernick is a terrible quarterback.

I'm not even going to invoke the Weather Defense either.  Look, the NFL lucked out completely in the fact that it was a clear-sky balmy 50 degrees for the game because Roger Goodell is the arch-villain from Die Another Day.  I'm still against cold-weather Super Bowls because the Devil always collects his due and I don't want the best thing ever to become a farce of itself because of a blizzard.  I'm getting ahead of myself here though because the thing that I've always known, and assumed that others knew but was proven wrong this past week, was that blizzards don't just affect Peyton Manning...they tend to get to the other players on the field too.

Peyton Manning can't play in cold weather.  What?  Why?  Is he out there in board shorts and a mesh tank-top?  Is he the Heat Miser?  (Which now I'm mad at myself for never, ever referring to Peyton Manning as the Heat Miser because Eli makes the peeeeerfect Snow Miser)

Just stop!  Weather doesn't affect ONE person or ONE team and this is coming from a life-long Miami Dolphins fan.  The Miami Dolphins still to this day think that they have some sort of home-field advantage in August and September because it's way too friggin' hot for somebody not from here to perform well.  We've gone forty years without a championship, folks, and it's looking more and more each day like we can't blame the damn weather anymore.

The collective body of sports enthusiasts seems to suffer some sort of temporary Alzheimer's whenever we are treated to a great offensive team.  "Wow, look at all those points!"  "Wow, they can score on anybody!"  "THIS IS THE BEST TEAM EVER!!!!!"

I must be the only one living in the Twilight Zone that knows that I'm actually living in the Twilight Zone because I've heard all of this before.  I heard it in 2002 for the Oakland Raiders, again in 2007 for the New England Patriots, and once again this year for the Denver Broncos.  The thing that all three have in common?  They lost the Super Bowl to a really, really great defense because that's what the best offense in the league does...they lose to the best defense.

I wasn't planning on Seattle playing Denver in the big game because I thought Denver would have Denver'ed out in one of the earlier rounds of the playoffs.  I thought at the time that Houston would have been a more intriguing team for Seattle to face in the Super Bowl because I thought Houston had a comparable defense--at least in the front seven...okay...maybe front four!  I also failed to realize that Houston had the emotional stability of a 16-year old girl on Junior Prom Night.  That's right...Junior Prom Night.

Seattle's defense this year was absolutely amazing.  They didn't just stop other offenses...they smothered them.  Offense in the NFL is all about timing and rhythm and the mark of a great defense is being able to disrupt that timing even if just for a second longer.  Things like being able to get to the quarterback quickly and knocking wide receivers off their routes are tools that tend to get this job done and Seattle utilized both of those things last night.

The Seattle win was inevitable and the blow-out was just the cherry on top.  Do I revel in the fact that most of the world is targeting Peyton Manning for this loss?  Yes, of course I do!  What kind of question is that?  I loathe Peyton Manning and his suffering is my life force.  I just gained ten more years!  To pin the loss on Peyton is moronic, like I've mentioned in this post, but I'm going to allow it.

So, thank you, Seattle.  Enjoy the title and I hope it's not as fleeting as I hear it is.  I only mention that because, you know...the whole forty years thing and if I was writing this in my forties I would have to really sit back and reflect on some of the choices I've made and how the Hell I've gotten here...I'm going to eat these words in twelve years, aren't I?

All that's left for Peyton is to retire and pitch a sit-com to CBS where he and Dan Marino have to move in together after their respective football careers are over and open up a pizza joint together.  Peyton, of course, will play the smart guy and Dan will just be the guy who gets all the chicks.  Then the cycle will have completed itself and hopefully by then I'll be dead.

Float on, graceful swans.

Gay Olympics

On February 7 the 2014 Winter Olympics will kick off in Sochi, Russia, despite several hitches in the gait, if you will.

For starters, there's a bunch of security concerns and several American competitors have told their families to stay home for fear of a terrorist attack.  In fact, Al-Qaeda (which has become the Westboro Baptist Church of terrorism and just can't let a single event go by without a terrorist threat) has already warned about possible attacks at the games.

This was only taken into concern when the first athlete arrived at the airport and said, "Oh shit, we're actually doing this in Russia?"

All kidding aside, outside of their prisons, security is pretty lax in Russia just because if you do something you're going to go to Russian prison and that normally is enough to have ne'er-do-wells rethink themselves.  FUN FACT: Some Russian prisons have bear-dogs as guards.  BEAR...DOGS.  They're basically dogs the size of bears that also look and act like bears...so bears.  Their line of defense is bears!  How ridiculously crazy is that?!

Of course a symbol of peace and friendly competition would be a target for terrorism...of course.  Look, potential terrorists of the world, leave the games alone.  Isn't it enough that they have to be in Russia?  Besides, bombing the Winter Olympics is like trying to assassinate the Vice President--what are you doing?  I mean, our best Winter Olympian is Shaun White and he pretty much spends his time drinking Red Bulls and smoking marijuana...of course, you could say that about our best Summer Olympian too but that's not the point!  Nobody thinks you're tough for beating up the smallest kid in school and that was the note that my mom always used to put in my lunch box just in case I got beat up that day.

Keep in mind, before we head to my next segment, that I have a large readership for some reason in Russia.  I know I joked about it a couple of posts ago but it's actually true.  I think they like my no-nonsense approach to hard-hitting topics.  With that said...

The other major issue revolving around the Sochi games is that Russia doesn't seem to care for gay people all too much.  Homosexuality, that's still a hot button issue?  Huh.  Weeeeirrrrd.  Anyways, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law back in June that's basically a ban on propaganda of "nontraditional sexual relations" so no 'under the covers' or 'lights off' stuff, kids.  Many people take this as discrimination against gays but I think Ol' Pooty just had a bad run in with a tranny at a Russian vodka bar.  Grudges don't die easy!

But wait...there's more!  Most of the countries that are attending the games aren't nearly as narrow-minded as our snow-blind friends to the East and have come out (zing) against the Russian law.  The United States is even sending our own resident lesbian and sports icon, Billy Jean King, to represent us and act as an ambassador of sorts.  And Ol' Pooty better watch out because the USA doesn't send in the Notorious B.J.K. unless we're ready for an all out knock 'em down, drag 'em out war!  Not even bear-dogs will stop the Notorious B.J.K!  FUN FACT: Billy Jean used to re-wire her tennis racket with the tendons of defeated opponents.

But wait...there's more!  Facing the criticism and deciding to do a little damage control, Putin said that people of all walks of life, even gays, are welcome into his country for the games...so long as they don't talk to any children.  It's funny because I have the same policy for Jehovah's Witnesses.  Come on in, have some tea, but don't look my son in the eye, you propaganda spewing S.O.B.!

I guess Ol' Pooty thinks that for some reason that gay people are endowed with either hypnotism or mind-control or can just really sell another person's butt-hole.  I have never seen this to be the case but, hey, you don't become the President of Russia without doing a little research, right?  Why should world famous athletes get the chance to talk to children?  It's not like anybody's ever had an impression on a youth before, especially people that children look up to.

Sigh...but wait...mere's thore!  I guess Sochi has a mayor too and he's come out (zing) and said that his city is 100% gay-free, so no worries to anybody that suffers from a gay allergy.  "We don't have them in our town," Anatoly Pakhomov told the BBC.  Was that a box on the latest census or is it a simpler approach to  just go door to door and pull your pants down and go "Huh?...huh?"  If they take the bait then they are quickly whisked away in a train to some sort of camp where we can later...oh...my...god...

Quick question: When Sochi signed up for this did they know that men's figure skating was an event?  There's nothing gay about men wearing tight, colorful clothing doing ballet on ice!  Float on, you graceful swans!

Hey, I guess if anything, Russia sure is doing a helluva job getting people to tune into the Winter Olympics.  I've always loved the Olympics and I think it's a wonderful concept.  And if blogs, and myself, were around in 1936 you can guarantee that I would have been all over the Berlin Summer Olympics.  Jesse Owens taught the world a valuable lesson: bigotry and prejudice never succeed.  You can stand on a pedestal and yell as loud as you want, Putin, but nobody cares.

Well I gotta go lay down now because that last line just resonated with myself.  Enjoy the games, kids.  Peace and friendly competition and as always, float on, you graceful swans!