To Come...
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Final Thoughts on Lebron
So I have made my return to talk about Lebron, and I feel I have given it enough time to sort everything out. To recap, here is what we know:
1) Lebron decided to waste an hour of our lives with "The Decision" on ESPN, with Jim Grey's corpse.
2) He spurned Cleveland for "South Beach" (hint: the Heat play in the slums of Miami, not South Beach)
3) He received a lot of sh*t from the media for this.
The natural reaction is "Lebron made a huge mistake, is still a child in an adult athlete's body, and is now one of the biggest a-holes in sports". That is exactly what I thought after his decision was made - but over the last few weeks I've changed my tune a little bit.
Why is that? For three reasons:
1) He was playing in Cleveland, which by all accounts is one of the worst major cities in America. I believe Forbes just named it their #1 most depressing city (or something like that), and according to my boy Joakim Noah, "nobody ever takes vacation to Cleveland". Who wouldn't want to leave here? Hell, Art Modell had a loyal following of Browns fans and still up and left the place. "South Beach" isn't perfect by any means, but anyone who tells you they would rather live in Cleveland is a Marv.
2) This isn't the 80's or the 90's. You don't have to do it by yourself. If Lebron wants to win championships, why not team up with two of the other top picks from his draft class, get a bunch of solid role players to take the league minimum, and cruise through the league? Sure, he will never have a legacy like Jordan did, but he will still have titles - right? And let's say Lebron has a real confidence - whereby he is happy with himself and he doesn't care what other people think. That's real.
3) This is the biggest reason of all and holds the most weight. It seems as if during the Celtics playoff series, the team dropped the bomb on Lebron that they knew Delonte West was banging his mom. Everyone on the team except Lebron and Z knew about it, and they weren't telling him. This had been going on for months. Would you want to return to a team that all knew one of the players was banging your mom? I wouldn't. That alone is enough (in my eyes) for him to leave.
I'm sure more things will come out as the NBA season nears in October - but I say give Lebron another chance. If Wade, Bosh, and him begin to embrace the a-hole images they've built over the past few weeks - it's fine to root against them. Just know that Lebron had his reasons to leave, even if his decision to do an hour-long special on ESPN was a poor one.
1) Lebron decided to waste an hour of our lives with "The Decision" on ESPN, with Jim Grey's corpse.
2) He spurned Cleveland for "South Beach" (hint: the Heat play in the slums of Miami, not South Beach)
3) He received a lot of sh*t from the media for this.
The natural reaction is "Lebron made a huge mistake, is still a child in an adult athlete's body, and is now one of the biggest a-holes in sports". That is exactly what I thought after his decision was made - but over the last few weeks I've changed my tune a little bit.
Why is that? For three reasons:
1) He was playing in Cleveland, which by all accounts is one of the worst major cities in America. I believe Forbes just named it their #1 most depressing city (or something like that), and according to my boy Joakim Noah, "nobody ever takes vacation to Cleveland". Who wouldn't want to leave here? Hell, Art Modell had a loyal following of Browns fans and still up and left the place. "South Beach" isn't perfect by any means, but anyone who tells you they would rather live in Cleveland is a Marv.
2) This isn't the 80's or the 90's. You don't have to do it by yourself. If Lebron wants to win championships, why not team up with two of the other top picks from his draft class, get a bunch of solid role players to take the league minimum, and cruise through the league? Sure, he will never have a legacy like Jordan did, but he will still have titles - right? And let's say Lebron has a real confidence - whereby he is happy with himself and he doesn't care what other people think. That's real.
3) This is the biggest reason of all and holds the most weight. It seems as if during the Celtics playoff series, the team dropped the bomb on Lebron that they knew Delonte West was banging his mom. Everyone on the team except Lebron and Z knew about it, and they weren't telling him. This had been going on for months. Would you want to return to a team that all knew one of the players was banging your mom? I wouldn't. That alone is enough (in my eyes) for him to leave.
I'm sure more things will come out as the NBA season nears in October - but I say give Lebron another chance. If Wade, Bosh, and him begin to embrace the a-hole images they've built over the past few weeks - it's fine to root against them. Just know that Lebron had his reasons to leave, even if his decision to do an hour-long special on ESPN was a poor one.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Potshots: Mark McGwire
Let me start this off by saying that I do, in fact, like Mark McGwire. But do to an influx of emails and texts from friends (even STL Cardinals fans) about how McGwire "is an asshole", I decided to take him on in another Potshots exclusive.
Before I dig into the guy, let me state a fact: McGwire and Sosa saved baseball. Anyone who disagrees with this is a moron (sure, post 9/11 games at Yankee Stadium did a lot to help too, but that was years later). Look at hockey - although it was never as popular as baseball was in the United States, it is still struggling to come back from it's lockout year. And, to top it off, the sport has two of the best young players ever in Sid the Kid and Alex the Barbarian. Yet, they still can't return the sport to where it was before (unlike McGwire and Sosa).
So what's my point? McGwire deserves at least more consideration for the Hall of Fame (25% of the vote? Really? It is the hall of fame, right? Who was more famous from 1995-2000 in baseball? No one). But in the end, he does fall into that category with Sosa, Bonds, Clemens, Palmiero, and ARod - great players, but total assholes.
Let's attack some of what McGwire has said -
"I wish I never played in the steroids era"
Well thanks Mac. I hope this is a total lie. What would you rather be doing - putting up drywall, or paving parking lots? Your intelligence is equivalent to that of a half retarded person, so I guess a life of manual labor would be better than playing baseball. Asshole.
"The only reason I took steroids was for health reasons"
This is a joke - right? While you did have injury concerns prior to taking 'roids (according to you at least. Canseco begs to differ), your power numbers went up considerably post 1994. Something like going from a HR per 14 AB's to a HR per 7 AB's. You might have been taking them to increase your durability, but guess what - your "gift" in hitting HR's was nearly doubled by the roids as well. Asshole.
"I took steroids on and off for my entire career"
What does this mean? You roided out with Canseco, quit for a season, realized how much you sucked without them, and then started up again? I'd bet my life that "off" is either: (a) cycling off them for a couple of weeks (you know, the old four weeks on, two weeks off cycle) or (b) one or a very limited portion (less than 20%) of his career he was clean. Asshole.
"I don't remember the names of the steroids that I took"
Well, I actually believe him here. He has the IQ of something between a person with down syndrome and a crack baby. I doubt he could spell "steroid". Did anyone see the official statement that he released in writing? It looks like he originally wrote it, and his lawyers attempted to edit it (over ten times at least), but eventually said "fuck it, there's nothing we can do" and released that trash to the general public.
"I never talked about steroids with other teammates"
Yeah, right. And Clemens was never at a party held by Jose Canseco (even though there is a picture of him at said party). Clearly Mac, you and Canseco were butt buddies, but not in the traditional sense. You probably had roid parties on a daily basis that were followed by trips to the local Oakland ghetto where you paid to beat up cheap hookers. Speaking of Canseco - I wish I could have bet on the facts in his steroids book. At the time people were calling HIM the asshole / liar / etc. But now look at him. He's the nostradomus of the steroids era. All hail Canseco.
Before I dig into the guy, let me state a fact: McGwire and Sosa saved baseball. Anyone who disagrees with this is a moron (sure, post 9/11 games at Yankee Stadium did a lot to help too, but that was years later). Look at hockey - although it was never as popular as baseball was in the United States, it is still struggling to come back from it's lockout year. And, to top it off, the sport has two of the best young players ever in Sid the Kid and Alex the Barbarian. Yet, they still can't return the sport to where it was before (unlike McGwire and Sosa).
So what's my point? McGwire deserves at least more consideration for the Hall of Fame (25% of the vote? Really? It is the hall of fame, right? Who was more famous from 1995-2000 in baseball? No one). But in the end, he does fall into that category with Sosa, Bonds, Clemens, Palmiero, and ARod - great players, but total assholes.
Let's attack some of what McGwire has said -
"I wish I never played in the steroids era"
Well thanks Mac. I hope this is a total lie. What would you rather be doing - putting up drywall, or paving parking lots? Your intelligence is equivalent to that of a half retarded person, so I guess a life of manual labor would be better than playing baseball. Asshole.
"The only reason I took steroids was for health reasons"
This is a joke - right? While you did have injury concerns prior to taking 'roids (according to you at least. Canseco begs to differ), your power numbers went up considerably post 1994. Something like going from a HR per 14 AB's to a HR per 7 AB's. You might have been taking them to increase your durability, but guess what - your "gift" in hitting HR's was nearly doubled by the roids as well. Asshole.
"I took steroids on and off for my entire career"
What does this mean? You roided out with Canseco, quit for a season, realized how much you sucked without them, and then started up again? I'd bet my life that "off" is either: (a) cycling off them for a couple of weeks (you know, the old four weeks on, two weeks off cycle) or (b) one or a very limited portion (less than 20%) of his career he was clean. Asshole.
"I don't remember the names of the steroids that I took"
Well, I actually believe him here. He has the IQ of something between a person with down syndrome and a crack baby. I doubt he could spell "steroid". Did anyone see the official statement that he released in writing? It looks like he originally wrote it, and his lawyers attempted to edit it (over ten times at least), but eventually said "fuck it, there's nothing we can do" and released that trash to the general public.
"I never talked about steroids with other teammates"
Yeah, right. And Clemens was never at a party held by Jose Canseco (even though there is a picture of him at said party). Clearly Mac, you and Canseco were butt buddies, but not in the traditional sense. You probably had roid parties on a daily basis that were followed by trips to the local Oakland ghetto where you paid to beat up cheap hookers. Speaking of Canseco - I wish I could have bet on the facts in his steroids book. At the time people were calling HIM the asshole / liar / etc. But now look at him. He's the nostradomus of the steroids era. All hail Canseco.
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