UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

I had no intention of blogging today, but something happened today that got my juices flowing.

One quick-hitter:

- Man-Ram’s line today:  4 for 5, HR, 2 R, 3 RBI, and a triple away from the cycle.

I’m just sayin’.

(Jason Bay’s doing incredibly well too, and I heard Andy LaRoche hit a HR today.  Talk about a great three-way deal!)

- I am NEVER, EVER AGAIN stepping foot in 168 Supermarket…EVER EVER AGAIN.

No, I did not get my ankle snapped by a shopping cart.  In fact, I wish that my ankle was what was injured!

While in the shopping cart autobahn that is the produce section of 168 Supermarket, I was standing in front of my cart, putting away a few bags of stuff that I had just picked up.  That’s when some idiot rammed his cart into my cart, ramming my cart into…well…you know where.

(That sound you hear is the sound of fellow UngsungBlog male readers—all none of you—keeling over.)

(Tangent:  You know how Jackie Chan and other martial arts protagonists always get caught in out-numbered fight scenes?  Why doesn’t the protagonist just kick one of the guys in the balls?  If he were to do so, the other guys would just keel over in sympathy pain as well, no?  Then again, maybe our protagonist would keel over too.)

Worse, the guilty party gave me the death stare as he passed by my bent-over self, as if I had done something wrong!  If ever there were a situation where punching someone right in the g*ddamn face should be legal, that would be it!

(As an aside…I actually had to admit that my mom was right about something today.  That might have hurt more than the physical injury I suffered!)

- My aunt and cousin went fishing this morning around Mt. Baldy, and they brought back some fresh trout!

I wanted to steam it with some slices of lemon and some fresh herbs, but we had neither, so I went with a bit of melted butter, kosher salt, and a bottle of “Italian seasoning.”  A few minutes in my mom’s Flavor Wave oven later, and dinner was served!

Believe it or not, this was the first time I’ve ever eaten freshly-caught fish.  At least, this was the first time I’ve knowingly eaten freshly-caught fish.  Good stuff, and at $10/fish, it wasn’t terribly expensive either.

- I had a really difficult time navigating through sports web sites today, because of all the pictures of a grinning Diva Favre all over the place!

Later on today, we got to see a beaming Diva Favre as he walked from his just-landed charter jet into an SUV waiting for him.  If the pictures of his face on those web sites were vomit-inducing, that shot of him walking towards the car could have been a biological weapon of mass destruction.

And who the hell were these people that greeted Favre off the runway?  You people reminded me of the numbskulls standing outside the court house when Wacko Jacko’s “Not Guilty” verdict was announced, screaming at the top of your lungs when it happened.  Are you myopians that blinded by his stature that you will let him jerk around with your emotions for THREE STRAIGHT YEARS?  What the hell are you guys going to do next year, if (when?) he performs Act IV of “As Brett Favre’s World Turns?”  Carry him on your shoulders from the airport to Lambeau Field?  Tattoo the number “4″ on to all your chests?

Speaking of divas, if I hear just ONE interview with Deanna Favre, asking her about her tribulations during this offseason with her husband, I might just stab my eyes and ears out.

(ETA:  Week 1 v. Minnesota…Michele Tafoya, get ready.)

Also, to make Aaron Rodgers’ life even more miserable, apparently the Packers are going to have an open competition for the Packers’ now-vacant QB job.

(clears throat…)

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO “Aaron Rodgers is our quarterback??????????????”

Seriously, Packers, please release the guy.  Either that, or give him a gun to shoot himself in the face with.  Let’s face it; despite all of the pageantry and drama surrounding Diva Favre, he is clearly the better quarterback, and Rodgers has almost no chance of beating out Favre for the starting QB job!  Did Aaron Rodgers sleep with the wife of a high-ranking Packers’ official?

Check out this gem:

“Although we built this year around the assumption that Brett meant what he said about retiring, Brett is coming back,” team president and CEO Mark Murphy said. “We will welcome him back and turn this situation to our advantage.”

Are you kidding me?  You had to ASSUME that Brett meant it when he said he was retiring?  The tears, the hesitations…all that was just an act, wasn’t it, Diva Favre?

Please, Green Bay brass, trade Aaron Rodgers for a fifth- or sixth- round pick.  Otherwise, you guys are guilty of first-degree murder…of a career that never had a chance to take off.

Any time you can make T.O. look like a model citizen, you know you’re screwing up somewhere.  Diva Favre, you’re making Adam “PacMan” Jones look pretty good right about now.  Last year, I couldn’t watch SportsCenter because of all the butt-kissing of the New England Patriots.  This year, I won’t be able to watch because of all the coverage the Favre is going to get.

Congratulations, Brett Favre.  You have now surpassed Tom Brady as the most obnoxious player that I hated first out of professional jealousy, and then later hated because for being an idiot.

And I mean this last part with absolute sincerity:

Brett Favre, F**K YOU.  Stay the f**k off my television next year!  I will NOT watch a single game you play in next season, even if the final game you play happens to be the Super Bowl.  Please, I beg of you to throw three back-breaking picks late in a game, and then throw your teammates and the entire Packers organization under the bus.  THAT, I would tune in to.

(He’s already getting the double-middle-finger salute from my sister, and she used to be a HUGE Brett Favre fan.  And trust me, she’s cursing him out 10x worse than I am.)

Tags: 168 supermarket, aaron rodgers, andy laroche, brett favre, diva favre, fresh trout, injury, jason bay, manny ramirez, mt. baldy, produce section by Peter
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Sunburns are bad.

They’re really bad when they prevent you from sleeping.

Time to apply some more sunburn lotion.

(AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!)

No quick-hitters tonight.

- I got an email last night from Sprint.com, telling me that my next billing statement was ready to be viewed. I said to myself, “Oh great. I get to call Sprint CS again to get my 10% credit manually added to my account!”

That’s when I saw this:

Total Due by August 20 $31.77

OMG. Sprint added the 10% discount to my account AUTOMAGICALLY??? Whoa!

EDIT: WTF? Just a few minutes ago, I logged on to my Sprint.com account, and saw this:

Last Bill Amount $527.01
Adjustments/Credits $0.00
Recent Payments -$118.00
Total Due $409.01
Pay By August 18

Completely horrified, I clicked on “View latest bill,” and saw the correct amount due: $31.77. I then logged on to My Account through my cell phone, and saw that I owe $536.41, due on August 5!

Sprint’s customer call centers are closed right now, but you better believe that I am going to call them first thing tomorrow morning afternoon.

I love you, Sprint.

(Now, I’m just going to assume that this is an obvious error on Sprint’s end. However, we are talking about Sprint here…)

- Manny Ramirez is a Dodger, and the dividends are already coming in!

(Granted, one of his hits was a check-swing grounder, but still.)

The last time I saw a Dodger crowd THAT energized, we had another future Hall of Famer playing on our team: some guy named Mike Piazza. Geez, did you hear how loud the crowd got when Ramirez made a catch on a routine fly ball? And how about when he got his first hit, nearly taking out D’Backs’ SS Stephen Drew in the process?

I heard that the Dodgers sold somewhere around 10,000 extra tickets for the remaining games against the D’Backs once it was official that the Dodgers traded for Manny. Is anyone surprised by that? Did Frank McCourt not realized that trading for a big name was going to increase ticket sales?

(Sigh…what if the Dodgers had traded for C.C. Sabathia???)

As for the deal itself, I absolutely loved it. When the rumors about Manny coming to LA first circled about, I heard Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp’s names. Had the Dodgers dealt Matt Kemp, I (and a number of Dodger fans, I would imagine) would have been royally pissed. At first, I was sorta OK with giving up Ethier for Manny, but then it quickly became evident that another prospects—LaRoche?—would have been involved in the deal.

Naturally, when I found out that LaRoche was the only key prospect involved, I was filled with glee. Andy LaRoche had virtually zero trade value, thanks to the Dodgers’ terrible mismanagement of his career to date as well as the “emergence” of Blake DeWitt. To flip him and an inconsequential minor league pitcher for two months of a future HOFer, as well as at least one compensatory draft pick, AND the rest of Ramirez’ salary, one has to give some props to Colletti.

(On the other hand, one could argue that Boston REALLY wanted to get rid of Ramirez. I mean, they had to pay the Dodgers to take him, AND trade two of their own prospects, all to get a downgrade in Jason Bay?)

Dodger fans have to be elated by the fact that we know we’ll get two months of the maximum effort Manny; after all, he’s basically playing for one more huge contract. That’s just even more reason to be giddy.

Does Manny guarantee a Dodgers’ NL West victory? Not if they keep scoring one run against Arizona. However, you better believe that I am going to thoroughly enjoy every AB Manny has from here on to the end of the season.

I feel like a kid in a candy store…on Christmas.

Tags: 10% discount, andre ethier, andy laroche, Arizona Diamondbacks, billing errors, blake dewitt, C.C. Sabathia, los angeles dodgers, manny ramirez, matt kemp, sprint by Peter
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I have not yet recovered from Saturday’s Pig Roast.

(More on that later.)

Quick-hitters:

- You know that your blog is pathetic when a simple blog entry about a spammy caller-ID number doubles your blog traffic.

Not that I’m complaining…

- I didn’t get to play much Shot-Online over the weekend, mostly due to yesterday’s affairs.

I did, however, absolutely steal a win on a nine-hole match earlier tonight.  I was playing Hela, tied with my opponent on the final hole (a par 3), when I seemingly drove my ball into the water (my ball rolled on to the brown perimeter of the water, and not actually in it).

Even though it said I hit it into the water, I was not accessed a penalty stroke (apparently, you get relief if this happens, without being accessed a penalty).  On my next shot—just off the green—I thought I putted the ball much too hard, and the darn thing went in!

Needless to say, my opponent was incensed.  She got so mad that she didn’t even attempt her tying birdie putt, as her shot clock ran out!

- Quick thoughts about Diva Favre:

1) “‘It’s pretty clear — and this is what I told the commissioner — that they want me to go away, stay retired.’”

Do you blame them if this is true?  If you hadn’t jerked around with the team for three consecutive off-seasons, and the Packers still did this to you, then we have a different story.

2) “‘They would much rather see me in a Packers’ uniform, paying me $12 million to be a backup — which you know they really don’t want — rather than see in another uniform, no matter what they say.’”

The Packers wouldn’t mind seeing you in Packers’ gear, had you not jerked around with them a third time!

3) “‘Roger is willing to help but he has to be careful,’ said Favre. ‘I told him I could easily send in this letter [of reinstatement] but they really don’t want me there and it’ll be a big circus.’

Um…too late!

4) “According to Favre, Thompson asked him if he was interested in a trade. ‘Yeah, but not just to the teams you want me to go to,’ Favre said, relaying his conversation with the Packers’ GM.”

WTF?  If the Packers get a good offer, and he shoots the trade down, then that is his own damn fault, isn’t it?  Seriously, I would pay good money to see Favre in Oakland or Miami.  And for the record, I’m 99% sure that the teams the Packers don’t want him to go to are the Vikings and the Bears.

Somebody please call this guy a WAAAAAAAAAmbulance.

- So the Woodland Hills Kiwanis Pig Roast was this past Saturday, and my sister (still a proud Kiwanian!) and I arrived at the festivities at about 5PM.  About half an hour later, my partner in crime, Mr. Don Doner, showed up.

I call Mr. Doner my partner-in-crime because, for the past three years, we have been responsible for selling tickets to buy booze from the bar.  Every year, sales have gone up, and I think alcohol sales went WAY up this year, despite the cooler-than-expected temperatures.  More importantly, though, I attend this Pig Roast every year because I get to spend 2-3 hours with Mr. Doner.

You see, he is a counselor, and at the ripe old age of 1,000 (:P), he’s forgotten way more than I will ever learn.  Every year I’ve attended the pig roast, we talk about life, business, and philosophy, so much so that I treat the Pig Roast as a paid life lecture with a complimentary meal.

(Watching Mr. Doner charm the ladies—and the gentlemen too!—out of their money for booze tickets is pretty awesome too.)

As for the food:  roasted pig, roasted chicken (some people were complaining that the chicken was undercooked; my piece was cooked perfectly), potatoes, cole slaw (w/celery?), salad, beans, and a slice of cake for dessert, and I was stuffed.  The best part was, I got to take tons of leftover food home!  Too bad there was no left over pork…

(The chicken I took home turned out to be undercooked, unfortunately.)

I can’t wait for next year’s Pig Roast, and I’ll see you there, Mr. Don Doner.

- So the Dodgers got Casey Blake?  Awesome!

(Not really.)

So we traded a future catcher prospect (Carlos Santana) and a good pitching prospect (Jon Meloan) for a 35 year old 3B who can’t defend, hits only decently (though, compared to the rest of the Dodgers, he’s an All-Star!) and is a free agent at the end of the year?  Worse yet, speculation is that the Dodgers had to throw in Santana to get the Indians to pay the rest of Blake’s $2 million salary.  Really?  You’re doling out $118 million, and $2 million more is a problem?

That being said, I can’t fault Colletti for having to save money, even at the expense of an extra prospect.  What I CAN fault him for is EVERY OTHER FREAKING STUPID MOVE HE’S EVER MADE!!!  Juan Pierre for $44 million?  Jason Schmidt?  Andruw Jones???

(And I’m fully aware that I actually ENDORSED the deal late last year.  I must have been drunk that night.)

If I hear that Colletti traded away Kemp, Kershaw, and Billingsley for Mark Teixeira and money to cover his contract the rest of the year, I better hear about 200,000 Dodger fans chasing Colletti out of town.  Then again, Colletti doesn’t trade his best prospects, so I better expect an Andy LaRoche-Andre Ethier for Jack Wilson swap, with a third prospect being thrown in for the money issues.

Speaking of Andy LaRoche…what the hell did he do to get treated so poorly?  Did he make a pass at Mrs. McCourt?

Until next time!

Tags: andy laroche, blog traffic, brett favre, caller id, carlos santana, casey blake, diva favre, jon meloan, los angeles dodgers, pig roast, woodland hills kiwanis by Peter
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