Isn't It About Time You Got Going?

The subscribers to the Studly Pastures know that there are a few folks in the realm of the universe that I am not quite fond of.

Peyton Manning.  Cole Hamels.  And the rest...

I hate those guys because I've always felt like they had a personal vendetta against me which, in turn, led me to have a personal vendetta against them.  Thus the cycle repeats itself and I never confront my weird hatred for random athletes.

But there's always one...alwaaaaaays one that can only be explained as the feeling you get when you meet your daughter's boyfriend for the first time and he's a total douche bag...but he also knows that he's a douche bag and he's so far gone into Doucheland that he's trying his damndest to get into your house and bang your daughter while also showing you how much of a douche bag he is.

I'm talking about Alex Rodriguez, kids.  The guy just doesn't take a hint unless it's something you can liquefy and inject into your ass and have your cousin and dealer take the fall.

He's so far gone that he came back to baseball.  HE CAME BACK.  That's like being told by the chess club, and you're the guy that beat Bobby Fischer (Google it before you judge), that we're good and we don't need you anymore because you took brain pills or some shit like that.  They annexed you and you decided, "Eh, I'll come back next year and everything will be just fine."  Everything you've done has been done in vain.  It doesn't matter.

That was your unvite, dipshit.  We don't want you here anymore and apparently a simple YEAR LONG BAN isn't enough to get through your chemically improved thick-skull.  The New York Yankees make press conferences about how 'he has to prove himself" and how they're 'taking it day by day'and it makes me want to vomit because they should have been rid of him a loooooong time ago.

I get it.  I scale over the Yankees current lineup and there's not a single person listed there that scares me and that's not exactly Bronx Bomber fashion.  So for good business we kiss and makeup with Rodriguez and plug him in at first base or DH because we need the money...er...the power.  Wait.  Do either of those nouns matter?  I'm starting to feel that they are interchangeable.

We were at 656 with Rodriguez.  He hit 657 tonight.  Does it matter?  Is anybody going to think he really passes Willie Mays at 660?  Really?!

Alex Rodriguez has felt, for the entirety of his career, that his personal gain is much more important than keeping intact the integrity of the game.  He made a choice, was called out on it, paid his punishment, and is now in the starting lineup of the New York Yankees.  Was that enough?  Absolutely not.  His reputation is beyond repair.  He'll never see the light of day of the Hall of Fame because the writers that vote for it are old school and they HATE anybody who tampers with the integrity of the game.

He's playing for a paycheck at this point.  There's nothing else he can accomplish.  The rhetoric he spits out about loving baseball and setting a good example for his children is what we call in the waking world utter bullshit.  He's a con artist.  I feel bad for his kids.

If he loves baseball so much why does he try his best to manipulate it's rules?  Or bend them?  Or cheat them?!

Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter deserved their send-offs.  Rodriguez deserves to be sent away and never thought of again.

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.

Transcending

You know what separates something great from something not great?

Repetition.

You do something enough and it becomes the new standard.

Even if you have the balls to do something original, what do the people want?  For you to do it again.

And even if you do something shitty, trust me, do it enough times and it becomes 'your thing'.  You'll be famous for it.  It's how people will know you.  Just ask a serial killer.

Derek Jeter is 1,000 hits shy of reaching the all-time hits record.  Even though I have vowed to never approve of anything Yankee related I have still, for some god-forsaken reason, felt this way: "Eh, I've always liked Jeter."  I like the guy.  Still, it is completely unreasonable for me to believe that he will touch the all-time hits record.  It's one of those records in baseball that took a real psycho to achieve.  Pete Rose is a sanctified piece of whacko and Derek Jeter seems like a nice guy.  You lose, Jeter.

I am a normal human being.  I get stopped in my tracks when I see breaking news on ESPN.  My eyes widen, I start drooling, and my ethereal tail starts wagging.  Then I see that Augusta has admitted two women to their club.  Really ESPN?  We all know that Augusta lives in a bubble that is forty years prior to our own.  Why should the reasonable, present-day public care that some bigots FINALLY decided that "okay, I guess we can allow TWO" should ever, ever be breaking news?  The Masters is only the The Masters because...they named it the Masters!  I wish I could hold a 'I'm fucking crazy contest' and pronounce myself the unanimous winner every year like they do!

Apparently the car racers are reaching their climax of the year.  I've always appreciated the way they do it too, as if it's New Year's Eve and we're counting down the races until the apple drops!  I immediately take that back.  This is not a NASCAR friendly blog.  I don't get it.  I won't ever get it.  And if you passionately care about it don't waste your enthusiasm on trying to get me to get it.  It won't happen and I would hate to dissuade you from something you care about so much.  The Chase?  Are you kidding me?  Is that preceded by The Flirt and followed with The Divorce?  For Christ-Bud-Heavy-Drinking-Sakes...

I wish I could get jacked for college football like some people do.  Unfortunately for me I cheer for a school that I actually went to.

Whoever the guy was that calculated that Mark Trumbo leads the MLB in home run distance needs to come and join the Studly Pastures.  I need that kind of statistical bullshit to make myself feel good too.

The EPL has started again and I'm not too concerned with that abbreviation because the only people who won't know what that stands for have already been alienated by my NASCAR hate paragraph.  I like the EPL but it's very similar to the NBA and that makes my blood boil.  Each year, the good get better, and the bad go and battle it out in a gladiator-like scenario.  Seriously though, the EPL and the NBA would be the same thing if we regulated the Wizards and the Warriors to the D-League last year.

Alright kids, I've depressed myself.  Enjoy.