If you think you've seen all the angles of the Nyjer Morgan fight/meltdown, well, think again. Have you considered the Japanese perspective? This does beg the question, why was a Japanese broadcaster calling the Nationals-Marlins game? There is much better stuff on Japanese TV than this! MXC anyone?
From the category archives:
Douchebag of the Week
The 2010 Baseball Season Preview magazines are starting to appear on magazine racks across the country. Why plop down $10 when your own Dr. Douchebag serves up his take on the 2010 Cubs. Originally written right after the last out of the 2009 season with a recently added postscript.
The final-game loss ended the Cubs’ disappointing and miserable season in fitting fashion, and now it’s time to start pointing fingers, assigning gold stars for effort and performance, and also to look ahead to the offseason that will prepare the almighty Cub for the glorious assault on the trophy with all the flags on it in 2010. “Wait ’til next year, miserable Cub fans! Wait ’til next year!”
First of all, as agonizing and disappointing as the season’s been, the surprising thing is that this season wasn’t actually as bad as it seems. Yes, the Cub sucked for long periods, and failed to run away with the division in the way everybody predicted, but even so, they won more games than they lost, and the pitching staff was great.
The pitching staff was great. Ted Lilly, the only Cub all-star, and the only Cub who deserved to be an all-star, was dependable all season. Randy Wells was a great surprise for everyone, and it will be exciting to see him take the mound again next year. His rookie season not only saw him tied (with Lilly) for the most wins by a Cub pitcher, it also saw him go through just about every single thing a pitcher can go through, and emerge to strike out ten batters in his final start of the season. He pitched like a Cy Young winner in his first few starts, and got absolutely nothing in run support. He got hammered a few times, and always shook it off to throw well in his next start. He seems like the real deal. Okay, Zambrano was even more of a nutcase than usual and Harden was Harden, but Dempster was solid without being spectacular, and the bullpen was solid, despite the flakiness of Kevin Gregg, the early struggles of Marmol (who, as closer saved 11 of 11 chances) and the presence of Aaron Heilman. Gorzelanny and Grabow were good acquisitions. Both this season, and looking forward to 2010, the Cub looks more or less in place pitching-wise, given a few adjustments here and there. More ->
The Doucebag of the Week is either: The Detroit Tigers or Steve Stone. See the Chicago Tribune article Chicago Cubs do their best to kill Milton Bradley trade rumor More ->
Has it really come to this? A Cub player is the Douchebag of the Week?
Douchebag of the Week is the soon-to-be-canned MLB Network anchor Matt Vasgersian. Apparently trying to top his dropping of the f-bomb, Vasgersian attempted to make humor of a situation where a player is carted off the field by a full EMT response team. Nice ...
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Douchebag of the Week was founded in honor of the two guys who stood in front of me in Murphy's Bleachers on September 20, 2008, cheering for the Cardinals on the grounds that they had tickets for Sunday's game, and they wanted to be there to see the Cubs clinch. If you were really a Cubs fan, you would've learned a long time ago that the baseball world doesn't revolve around you. Neither does the real world. This is what we call "real-life applications of the lessons learned from sports."
Thanks to SoulAssassins.com for the fabulous photo.
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Douchebag of the Week is the guy who lit his hat on fire as the Cub bowed out of the NLDS last year. Watch! --as lets his hat burn. Marvel! --at the high fives he distributes to the Dodgers fans around him. Swoon! --at his douchebaggy grin. Consider! --kicking his ass if you ever see him at Wrig-A-Lee.
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Douchebag of the Week was founded in honor of the two guys who stood in front of me in Murphy's Bleachers on September 20, 2008, cheering for the Cardinals on the grounds that they had tickets for Sunday's game, and they wanted to be there to see the Cubs clinch. If you were really a Cubs fan, you would've learned a long time ago that the baseball world doesn't revolve around you. Neither does the real world. This is what we call "real-life applications of the lessons learned from sports."
Thanks to SoulAssassins.com for the fabulous photo.
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The Douchebag of the Week is this guy, because I suspect, in his post-championship hangover fuzz he's muttering, "Take that, Mitch Williams." Oh, you're nursing a grudge for Mitch Williams? "Mitch Williams blew the World Series." Another perspective might be, "Joe Carter won the World Series." Yeah, that's right, Joe Carter. You know, the guy who hit 396 career home runs, none of them with the Cub, by the way. Oh, Mitch, you asswipe, you gave up a home run to one of the best home run hitters of his era. Oh, Mitch, without you and your 46 saves in 1993, we would've won the World Series. Never mind that the Blue Jays were the best team in baseball for those two years. Never mind that you slander Mitch with pretty much every sentence of your entry. Never mind that you invoke steriod-pumped "true Philadelphia athlete" meathead Nails Dykstra, who was born in California, to prove that Mitch is a jerk. Seriously, haven't you noticed that part of sports is that one team wins and the other loses (except in communist Europe, where soccer can end in ties; but even there somebody wins the league at the end of the season and trophies are decided with penalty kicks)? And haven't you noticed that baseball is, um, a team sport? [team sport link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball] So it's kinda not really Mitch's sole, assholey fault, really. Or if he made a mistake, maybe it was just one mistake. What about the batter who ended the top of the ninth? If that asshole had just hit a home run, the Phillies might've won. Or if Terry Mulholland had just pitched a no-hitter, then that jerkwad would've stayed in the pen where he belonged. Oh, sorry, we're not talking about logic, are we? We're talking about finding a scapegoat and then nurturing a tumorous hatred for fifteen years. Sorry, I forgot, you're a douchebag. An honorable douchebag mention to "anonymous", who pulls the c-word, under the cloak of anonymity. Mitch Williams held his hand up (he didn't necessarily need to). Anyway, one of my many (and not a particularly early, Mister 1993--oh yes, I'm pulling an "I'm older than you and have suffered longer than you" douchebag move of my own--I've got a PhD in it!) Cub memories is Mitch Williams getting the save in Montreal that clinched the pennant for the 1989 Cub. I don't really remember finding time to "forgive" Mitch, Rick, Ryne, Mark, Andre, Greg, Scott, Mike, Luis, Shawon and the rest. It's probably because there wasn't really anything for me to forgive them for; I'm not better than them, they probably felt worse than I did, and anyway: it's part of why we pay attention to sports, you douchebag.