Archive for September, 2007

the notorious millersville 9

September 28, 2007 at 1:09 pm · Filed under life, news, sports

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i wanted to bring some more attention to this millersville university football sex-assault scandal. it has been covered by the associated press and a few other outlets but, not really in a critical sense. first some necessary background. things i’m not writing about first brought to my attention this thebiglead post which unearthed some type of sex scandal at a pennsylvania D-II or D-III football school. a week or so later, i brought this to the attention of my sports editor and a few sports writers and they said, “well, ya know, millersville did suspend 6 players for today’s game!”(this was a saturday night). after that, the ball was off and rolling, so to speak. i contacted thebiglead and he/she/they confirmed it with this post. the story ran a short fade route though, the girl who was allegedly assaulted refused to press charges of any kind. nine total players – five starters – were suspended. these players missed approximately one and a half weeks of practice and two games. from this article:

Yet it remains unclear exactly how thorough the university’s investigation was. School officials declined to say whether the university interviewed the female student, any potential witnesses who attended the party or staff at Lancaster General Hospital, where the student sought treatment.

The university ordered the players to turn in their uniforms and have no contact with the team on Sept. 13 after Lancaster City Police notified school officials of the reported sexual assault.

The players, whom the university has declined to identify, sat out two games: Millersville’s 19-10 win against Lock Haven on Oct. 15, and its 45-0 loss to Indiana University of Pennsylvania on Saturday. But they were allowed to remain on campus and attend classes during the investigation.

The sexual assault was said to have occurred at an off-campus apartment leased by a football player at Hershey Heritage Village the night of Sept. 2. The complex, in Lancaster Township, is patrolled by Lancaster City police.

my point here is: 2 weeks, that’s it? there is no question that a sexual-assault happened. the only question is how many of the players were involved first-hand in the assault? it seems though, that millersville is happy to just put this event behind them and carry-on, business as usual, like it never happened. then yesterday, this story ran. the headline indicating that the players need time to “heal.” you’ve got to be kidding me, right? no, sorry, i am not. head coach joe trainer made this mind-boggling comment:

“I’m extremely proud of how the kids handled the distraction,” Trainer said. “Taking the focus away from football can be unsettling. Finally, the focus is back on football.”

and this:

Trainer told the team the fact that they are football players brought more attention to the alleged incident.

“Unfortunately for our situation, it’s front-page news,” Trainer said.

“We continue to remind our guys that we are always in the spotlight, and there’s a certain segment of the population that want to see athletes fail. Athletes come under fire, and problems are put under a microscope.”

um, do i need to comment on how ignorant and utterly disgusting these comments are? a distraction? you deemed a handful of your football players allegedly sexually-assaulting a female student a distraction? sorry for the f—— distraction coach. we as in the general media, hope to not let it happen again. don’t let me forget to remind anyone that this case would still be going on if the woman decided to press charges. these players are only innocent because a case like this could only proceed with a witness’ testimony. we hate to put the spotlight on 5 or 10 football players that sexually-assaulted a 19-year-old woman. god forbid that gets any media attention! i’m disgusted by this whole situation. just coach joe trainer’s comments alone, make you wonder who he feels the actual victim is? the assaulted girl or the players? hopefully, this whole distraction does not further affect millersville’s sputtering football team. i’d really hate that. in four games, they still have not scored an offensive touchdown. go marauders!

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two hole-in-ones, on same hole, in same round

September 21, 2007 at 11:13 am · Filed under news, sports

holeinone-sm.jpg “Cinderella story. Outta nowhere. A former greenskeeper, now, about to become the Masters champion. It looks like a mirac… It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole!” –Carl Spackler

thomas brady (not the qb) and dennis gerhart had a pretty good day thursday. playing a round of golf at the forsgate country club in newark, nj. brady stepped up to hole number seven and stroked a 6-iron on the 179 yard par-three. it landed on the green and rolled about thirty feet before dropping into the hole. next up was gerhart, who grabs a five-iron, not to be outdone, and lands his ball on the green, rolls about twenty feet, and also into the hole, on top of brady’s ball.

neither of the men had ever made a hole-in-one before. according to golf digest, the odds of a single golfer (no mention of handicap) scoring an ace are about 5000 to 1. the odds of two players in a foursome doing it are 17 million to 1. no mention of whether these odds take into account the fact that the hole-in-one was on the same hole. all i know is, if i were thomas brady or dennis gerhart, i’d start playing the lottery, immediately. bastards.

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newsflash: floyd landis is a dope…r

September 20, 2007 at 2:56 pm · Filed under life, news, sports

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well i’m sure as you’ll hear a million times in the next few days, floyd landis has been found guilty today of doping…to absolutely no one’s surprise. he receives a parting gift of a two-year ban from cycling and blah blah blah…he’s guilty. sadly, i could not care less about floyd landis and more importantly, cycling as a whole. oh yea, those guys are in great shape, i’ll give them that. but all they do is ride a bike up and down some friggin’ hills, why should i care, much less, be remotely interested in the sport? so, sorry floyd, you’ve been found guilty of something you probably did, but adamently deny and yet…whooooooooo cares? maybe if you *cough* your manager hadn’t pulled some shady ass shit by threatening, nay blackmailing greg lemond, karma wouldn’t have to bite back so hard. which reminds me of a lyric by the rapper common, “karma’s a bitch and i heard that she bites.” that is all.

update: new link on floyd

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barry bonds is right about something

September 20, 2007 at 2:15 pm · Filed under news, sports

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marc ecko is an idiot. at least that’s what barry bonds says. marc ecko recently purchased barry bonds no. 756 home run ball for a whopping $752,467. he plans on letting the public decide what to do with said ball here, giving them three options. a) send it directly to cooperstown, b) brand it permanently with an asterisk or c) send it to outer space. i really couldn’t care, because if marc ecko has 750 g’s to just throw out the window, then more power to him, but…that does make him an idiot. +1 barry bonds! this just leaves me asking the simple, succinct question: why? why not just give the money to a few charities and not look like an asshole? why not just stay completely out of this and design some more baggy clothes, or whatever it is that you do. anyway, it’s not my money. but personally i wouldn’t give away something that cost me $7.50 much less a controversial baseball rumored to be worth much less than the paid price.

“He’s stupid. He’s an idiot,” Bonds said. “He spent $750,000 on the ball and that’s what he’s doing with it? What he’s doing is stupid.”

Ecko did not directly respond to Bonds’ comments Wednesday, but said in a statement he would make Bonds a custom T-shirt that says, “Marc Ecko paid $752,467 for my ball, and all I got was this ’stupid’ T-shirt.”‘

zing?? go make some more clothes buddy. you’re going to need to, you just wasted 3/4 of a million dollars to make an extremely lame point. genius.

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why the phillies bullpen is horrible

September 6, 2007 at 3:02 pm · Filed under phillies, sports

charlie-sheenthumbnail.jpg “throw ‘em the heater ricky!”

so here’s a blog post with some substance. i’m from lancaster, pennsylvania in case anyone was wondering. it’s about an hour from philly, so we have a plethora of philly sports fans in the area. i hate philly sports. however, i don’t mind the phillies so much anymore. i’m not a fan, just more of a well-wisher. i only became a “well-wisher” recently. i work with a bunch of philly fans and following the phils just kind of rubbed off on me i guess.

to begin, last night the phillies were beating the braves 8-2 in the eighth inning. after a few flukey hits and blunders in the field, the braves came out with the win 9-8. seven runs in two innings. as bad as it sounds, if you had the opportunity to watch, it was worse. the sad thing is, the phils are a pretty talented team. utley, howard, rollins and rowand and as blasphemous as it seems, you could even throw patty burrell in there lately. he’s on fiyah! until utley broke a bone in his hand, i really think he had to be in the top three for national league mvp. but as good as your lineup and defense can be, if you can’t sneak a few key pitches by some batters, you’re skewered. their starting rotation has pretty much been crap all year with the exception of cole hamels (and kyle kendrick). adam eaton, freddy garcia and jon lieber have been horrendous this year. i don’t even have the words for freddy garcia this season. eaton’s starts range from mediocre to flat out pathetic and jon lieber is like the face of mediocrity in major league pitching. they picked up kyle lohse off of the reds a month or so ago and he’s actually had some high quality starts. but anyway, despite the fact that they’re pitching roster is a mix between wash-ups and minor league pseudo-prospects, they’ve managed to hang in the wild card race. they swept four freakin’ games from the mets about a week or two ago and now this latest debacle. they have an offense, they score plenty of runs, they’re shitty starting pitchers can even manage to keep them in most games. but the bullpen, oh my god, the bullpen. this is what the phillies pitching roster looks like. let me just list three names that regularly still appear in major league baseball games. antonio alfonseca, tom gordon and jose fucking mesa (not his actual middle name).  the phillies closer is brett myers. let me tip-toe here. brett myers is not horrible, but he’s also not good. ok, i’m done tip-toeing. that was fast. myers has 1.5 to 2 effective pitches in his repertoire. a fastball and a 50/50 curveball. let me start on the fastball first because if any phillies fans are reading this, they’re saying, “this guys a jackass, brett myers’ curve is sikkkk.” no it’s not. his fastball consistently reaches the low nineties, but the problem here is, he overthrows his fastball re-li-gious-ly. he gets pissed, he overthrows, he loses accuracy. the problem with overthrowing, besides losing accuracy, is this. when you overthrow, it makes your arm motions more easily distinguishable. as a pitcher, you want to be as deceptive as possible. so you keep your arm speed relatively the same no matter what pitch you’re throwing. that’s one of the main reasons why johan santana’s changeup is so nasty. yea it moves, but even on tv, it looks like a fastball until the very last second. the curveball. i’d say about 60 to 65% of the time, myers has a pretty nasty hook. the other side of the coin, it’s either nasty or it’s a hanger. myers has a loopy curve. it has a little bit of a hump in it before it starts to break. i had the same problem in high school. it doesn’t help when he doesn’t have an effective third pitch. he might have a third pitch, i’m not sure, but either way it’s not good enough. you can’t be a closer or a reliever and just be working fastball and curve. you’ve got no out pitch with a left-hander. if you’re fastball doesn’t have movement or if you don’t throw a sinker, you need a changeup to keep lefties honest. here enlies the main problem with the phils bullpen. gordon: fastball, nasty curve, maybe a split? not sure. alfonseca: fastball and changeup. myers: fastball and curve. jose mesa: fucking garbage. i’ll tell you, the only guy i like coming out of the phils bullpen is j.c. romero. he’s a sweeping left hander with low-nineties velocity and a nasty slider. so what do the phils typically do with him? he pitches to about one left-handed batter per game, then they yank him. my point in all this nonsense. you need a closer who either has: high-nineties fastball, nasty changeup, or a mix of a fastball, splitter, and change. you can’t go into close a game with just a flat fastball and a huge bending hook. they’re too different and there’s no chance in mistaking one for the other. a good left-handed batter will eat a right-handed pitcher’s curveball for breakfast if you have no other pitches to mix speeds with. myers and gordon, closer and set-up man, throw primarily fastballs and curveballs. the prosecution rests, for now.

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my blogging quagmire

September 6, 2007 at 1:38 pm · Filed under life, movies, news, sports

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so today, i officially come back from my blogging vacation. i wasn’t on vacation per say, i just didn’t feel like blogging; or writing about something that some other blog has already smothered. but i’m gonna be better! as the musician beck once said, “things are gonna change, i can feel it.” ok, not exactly an awe-inspiring, greatly motivational quote to say the least, but it whistled through my ears and i thought i’d make it fit. it has been brought to my attention by my legions of faithful readers that i don’t post enough anymore. and by legions of faithful readers, i mean specifically my brother and my girlfriend. i have two readers. yay. this quagmire is not your ordinary quagmire. this quagmire is a three-headed quagmire. first, i’m not that fond of writing. i compare this to if you’ve ever kept up a gym regimen or if you’re a regular johnny distance runner, it can be hard as hell to motivate yourself to run or lift on a regular basis, but once you get the blood pumping, once you get the gym/running clothes on, once you tighten up the laces, there’s no turning back. this is exactly how i am with blogging, or for that matter, most things in life. i hate getting started. but once i do, i tend to enjoy. second, i’m not that creative when i’m at work for some reason. but at night, when i’m sitting and watching tv or lying in bed, that’s when the ideas come. all sorts of ideas. funny ideas for away messages for instant messenger, creative blog posts, things i should do or check out while i’m at work, fantasy football team names, yea, you get it. i think about weird, dorky shit when my mind wanders. however, when i get in to work that next day, that’s when the problem starts. it’s like work mistercellaneous and nighttime mistercellaneous share a split mind or something. i get to work and start tearing apart all my “good” ideas from the night before. they seemed like “gold! jerry” just some 9 hours prior, but i get to work and start thinking, “man, that’s not going to work, that’s not really that funny, i really don’t feel like it” and so on and so on. either that, or i completely forget about them altogether. things don’t seem as funny, creative and feasible while i’m at work. well there’s that and the fact that i sit between an associate editor and a news editor in a newsroom that is constantly buzzing. i can’t think and listen at the same time. honestly, i can’t do it. and when someone’s talking while i’m thinking, i can’t turn off my ears. i get distracted easily, no very easily. i can’t read a book unless i’m laying on my stomach on my bed in the corner of my room. that way i can’t be distracted by anything and nothing can possibly enter my field of vision. third, i actually have a lot more going on at work now then when i started this blog five or so months ago. i only really blog while i’m bored and at work. once i get home from work, i don’t really allow myself to get back on the computer. i sit in front of a computer all damn day at work, when i get home, it’s my time. anyway, yea i’m busier at work, so i have less time to blog. that’s the third, smaller, more attractive head of my three-headed quagmire.

as for fantasy football, i’m in three goddamn leagues. even if i was in one league, i wouldn’t blog about who i picked for my fantasy football team. does anyone actually want to read when a good time to pick thomas jones or willis mcgahee is? what about the gamble that is warrick dunn and jerious norwood? everyone blogs about their fantasy football team and nobody fucking cares. just draft your team and keep your amateur opinions to yourself, for once. that’s how i feel about that.

the mariners blow. they’ve lost something like 11 out of their last 12. and anyone who is a mariners fan cannot be surprised by this. they’ve overachieved for about 3/4 of this season. they’re not that talented. saying their pitching is questionable at best, would be the ultimate compliment. i won’t even go into the fact that they’re starting pitchers can’t last long enough to keep their bullpen fresh. who hasn’t heard that piece of wisdom 25 times so far this season.

superbad was a really funny movie. a little sophomoric, which means it was right up my alley. it gave me the “old school” feel. by that i mean, when it comes out on dvd, it just seems like a movie you’ll be able to watch the shit out of, much like “old school.” “where did you hide the alcohol danny ocean, up your butt?” friggin’ superclassic.

oh shit. i almost forgot. i did go on vacation. my girlfriend and i went to newport, rhode island for a couple days. we had an awesome time. the end.

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