Pardon The…Interminible Vacation

Parents, do all you can to encourage your children to grow up to be sports columnists and host their own evening talk shows, because they will be paid top dollar to work like three months a year.

Admittedly, Pardon the Interruption is probably our favorite show.  Allow us to re-phrase: Pardon the Interruption is usually our favorite show.  But watching the show lately, and its endless parade of fill-in hosts, has been a disaster.  Tony Kornheiser went on vacation somewhere around April we think, and we were treated to week after week of Wilbon and fill-in Dan LeBatard.  Then the show was inexplicably off the air for a week in favor of a second daily airing of “NASCAR Now,” only to return with both TK and Wilbon both gone yesterday!

This program was great because the chemistry that had developed between Wilbon and Kornheiser made it interesting TV.  Now it has degenerated to the point where they put on a crusty old sportswriter from Boston, opposite a guy who is most famous for having a brother who played professional tennis like 20 years ago.  Are there really that many ESPN staffers on vacation in late July?  Was Pete Sampras’ brother busy?

Something really has to be done.  Wilbon and Kornheiser’s ESPN duties, as far as we can tell, consist of showing up and arguing about sports for 30 minutes.  They need three months off from that?  We understand that Mike and Tony have earned the right to take vacation, but is there anyone in broadcasting who gets as much vacation as these guys?

Oh well, in a way we guess we should consider ourselves lucky.  Their selection of fill-in hosts could be worse:

Last Week in Baseball! – Trade (yawn) Deadline!

If you are like us, you grew up loving “This Week in Baseball” and Mel Allen.  Here at WCT, we have “Last Week in Baseball!”  Please don’t sue us FOX! 

The wild card, while good for baseball teams and fans, is bad for people who like to see a lot of blockbuster trades.  Most teams (16-18 out of 30 by our count) think they are still in contention for a playoff spot and are not willing to trade their big-name players.  And the teams that are completely out of it are bereft of talent anyway, so they barely have anyone that any team would want to trade for.  Mark Teixiera might go, to the Braves according to Peter Gammons, and some team might get duped into trading for Jermaine Dye, but other than that, we don’t see any big trades being made.  But we’re bloggers, so what the hell do we know?

Now, onto the LWIB notes!

 - The 500 home run club had 16 members in 2000.  Now it has 21, and Alex Rodriguez, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, Gary Sheffield are all closing in.  That would mean the club would have added nine members in less than eight seasons after having added 16 members in roughly 120 seasons.

 - We woke up this morning to find that the Arizona Diamondbacks have overtaken the Padres, and have tied the Dodgers for first in the NL west?  That’s a mistake, right?  Does your paper say that too?? 

 - A-Rod, as great as he has been, has been extremely streaky.  He had the month of his life in April, with a 1297 OPS, but fell back to earth with a 783 in May.  Then he jumped back up to 1269 in June, and dropped to 877 in July.  He does not have a hit since hitting his 499th home run on the 25th and is batting only .222 for the month.

 - We can’t beleive this is actually happening: the Cubs have cut the deficit down to one-half game in the NL central! Although to be fair, the Brewers deserve some of the credit, after losing three of four to the woeful Cardinals, and going 10-15 for the month of July.  Carlos Zambrano,  after a pedestrian-at-best 6-5 5.38 ERA start, has gone 8-2 and lowered his ERA to 3.65.  And as if that wasn’t enough, he is batting close to .300 at the plate!

 - The Padres’ offense, after being clowned in a previous LWIB post, bludgeouned the Astros pitching for 18 runs on Sunday.  The power of the WCT reverse-jinx lives on.

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Its our blog dammit, so we are going to talk about our favorite team every week – The Lofton signing certainly made us feel nostailgic, and it was nice to see him get a standing ovation in his return, but we’re not sure what this addition will mean to the success of the Tribe in the playoff chase.  Lofton is 40, not used to playing corner outfield positions, and will be in a platoon with Jason Michaels for the most part.  Why does it seem like the Indians face Johan Santana every freaking time they play a series against the Twins?  With a four-game series coming up in the Metrodome, they will undoubtably see him again next weekend.  By the way, the end of Sunday’s game was an absolute clusterfuck. 

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How about tha…er…I’ll be goddamed! - That move over to the National League sure isn’t helping Mike Maroth any.  He has given up 10,7, and 6 earned runs in his last three starts and is winless as a Cardinal! Yikes!

Death, Taxes, Our Book of Scrap.

Another lazy week for us here at WCT, so once again we are piggy-backing off of epic carnival godfather (more on that coming soon!) Our Book of Scrap, who never dissappoints.

 OBoS has been all over the NBA cheerleader auditions, and this week he brings us his “coverage” of the Wizards tryouts!

 

 

Nobody beats the Wiz!

Are You Starting to Beleive Us Now?

Are you starting to beleive this little prediction yet?

Well, maybe we got it wrong. Maybe the Indians will keep backing up like a NFL Cornerback and gift wrap the AL wild-card.  If they keep losing games when their ace pitcher holds one of the best hitting teams in baseball to one goddam run they’ll be out of the playoff race before you know it

Last Week in Baseball!

If you are like us, you grew up loving “This Week in Baseball” and Mel Allen.  Here at WCT, we have “Last Week in Baseball!”  Please don’t sue us FOX! 

This week, we go straight to the LWIB notes!

 - Something has to be done about the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.  I don’t know if contraction is the answer, or if the league office should force free agents to sign there, but they are not a viable Major League team.  Watching them get their asses absolutely handed to them by the Yankees this weekend was a disgrace.  In the last two games of the series New York scored 38 runs.  Think about that.  Thirty-eight runs in eighteen innings.  

 - All three races in the NL are looking really close and will probably come down to the last weekend of the season.  Should be quite a September in the National League.

 - For the most part we consider ourselves baseball purists, but we are now officially in favor of instant replay.  After watching the umpires disallow an obvious home run in Boston on Saturday, we have seen enough.

 - The New York Mets are winning with smoke and mirrors.   Its so weird.  They don’t really hit, they don’t really pitch (yes, they have the third best ERA in the NL, but check out the names on their starting rotation) but they keep winning, and remain atop the NL East.

 - At least one player on every Major League roster has Young Jeezy’s Go Getta as his entrance music.  Its really getting out of hand.

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Its our blog dammit, so we are going to talk about our favorite team every week - The Tribe called the dreaded “players only meeting” after Saturday’s 8-6 loss to the Texas Rangers.  Do you think the meeting consisted of the other 24 guys just yelling at Cliff Lee for an hour?  Who knows.  Anyway, it was a good weekend in Texas (pending tonights outcome, up 5-0 as we write this) but the schedule gets much tougher this week with four against Boston and three against Minnesota.  Are we bad people because we will be cheering against a cancer survivor on Monday?  Whatever.  Don’t judge us.

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How about tha…er…I’ll be goddamed! – Yankees rookie Shelley Duncan (Shelley??) hit his first three home runs as a big leaguer during the weekend beat-down of the Double-A-Rays!  They won’t all be that easy kid!

O-ver-rate-ted! Clap! Clap! Clap-clap-clap!

Tomorrow, the second most overrated male athelete in this world (but he’s gaining on you, Mr. Roddick!) will maybe take to the pitch (?) for the Los Angeles Galaxies, or whatever.

That, and our weekly duity to provide pictures of nearly nude women to you, the valued reader, got us to thinking: who are the most overrated women in the world?  Here is our top 5:

 5. Posh Spice

This was a lay-up.  And apparently, American T.V. viewers agree.  Our Book of Scrap once compared her to a scarecrow, probably the most accarate description of this hag we have ever read.

4. Mandy Moore

She was somewhat cute as a 15-year old teeny-bopper singer way back when, but it has been all downhill since about 1999.

3. Jenn Sterger

Ugh.  Raise your hand if your are not sick of this chick.

2. Angelina Jolie

Yes, she has tremendous DSL, and yes, she seems to be the dream woman of every red-blooded American woman with bisexual fantasies, but ever since this chick married Billy Bob Freaking Thorton, we have felt that the elevator didn’t go all the way to the top.  Some find that sexy, we just don’t ever want Thorton’s sloppy seconds.

1. Maria Sharapova

The queen of overrated women.  In our opinion, all discussions of overrated chicks should begin and end with her.   We find nothing sexy about this woman that an entire generation of young men drool over.

So there you have it.  We are fully prepared to get the NFL Adam treatment from all of you Sharapova-lovers.

Have a great weekend perverts!

This is What We Call Lazy Analysis

Maybe we are just being paranoid Cleveland fans, but the following bit of “analysis” from Tim Kurkjian this morning on “Mike and Mike”  really wrankled us -

“I have to see the Indians make the playoffs before I’ll beleive they can do it.”

What did these teams all have in common - ’06 Tigers, ‘05 White Sox, ‘04 Red Sox, ‘03 Marlins, ‘02 Angels & Giants?  All of these teams were “unproven” when they either went to, or won the World Series.

If Tim had had some actual analysis as to why he didn’t think the Indians could make the post season, if for example he had said -

“Their pitching rotation lacks consistency and depth”

or

“They have a dearth of reliable bullpen arms outside of Betancourt and Borowski”

or

“Trot Nixon couldn’t hit sand if he fell off a goddam camel”

we would have been able to live with it.  But to say they can’t make the playoffs this year because they haven’t made the playoffs recently is stupid.

WCT Hearts Ryan Garko

We just wish it didn’t always take ninth and extra inning heroics to beat the Kansas City Royals and Chicago White Sox of the world…

Last Week in Baseball! – Trade Deadline Approaching

If you are like us, you grew up loving “This Week in Baseball” and Mel Allen.  Here at WCT, we have “Last Week in Baseball!”  Please don’t sue us FOX! 

We’re heading into the last two weeks of the month, and the July 31 trade deadline is approaching.  This week we take a look at some of the contenders and what they will be shopping for in the trade market. We are only considering teams with above .500 records (sorry Oakland!).

Boston Red Sox - Not much.  Their rotation isn’t great, nor is it deep, but its good enough to get the job done.  We guess they could use a bat, and it has to be slightly unnerving that David Ortiz has a bad knee and Manny Ramirez isn’t having the kind of year that they are used to, but otherwise they are pretty much set.

New York Yankees – We can’t imagine that they have money to spend on another high-priced guy, or prospects to trade who aren’t already playing key roles on the team or on the DL.  At some point they have to reach their financial limit, right?

Detroit Tigers – Nothing.  When Fernando Rodney and Joel Zumaya get back this team is going to be scary.

Cleveland Indians – Nothing.  Wow, we can’t remember the last time that the Indians came to the trade deadline and didn’t really need anybody to help them down the stretch.

Minnesota Twins – This team needs starting pitching in the worst way.  Johan Santana is almost unbeatable after the all-star break (41-4 since 2003.  That is not a typo. Forty-one wins, four losses) but he can only pitch every fifth day.  Would you want Carlos Silva, Boof Bonsor, Ramon Ortiz, and Scott Baker pitching important games for you?  We wouldn’t either.

Los Angeles Angels – A big time run-producer.  Vlad Guerrero has 78 RBI and no one else on the team has more than 52.  The Angels are very vulnerable because they have a team full of table-setters and only one bona fide RBI guy.

Seattle Mariners – Starting pitching, and maybe a bat.  Don’t know if any of those will be available for the M’s, or if they have anything to trade, but this team needs help, and they may overtake the Angels if they get it.

New York Mets - Pitching, pitching, pitching!  If they don’t trade for pitching because they refuse to give up Lastings Milledge, they are morons.  They cannot go deep in the playoffs with the staff they have right now, and they have no idea what they will get out of Pedro Martinez if and when he returns.  They may not even hold off the Braves and Phillies.

Atlanta Braves - The Braves have lacked starting pitching depth to challenge the stagnating Mets.  If they add a starter (Jose Contreras maybe?) there is no reason they can’t pass them.

Philadelphia Phillies – Starting pitching (seeing a pattern here?).  They have no depth in their rotation and their (surprisingly) great offense can only carry them so far.

Milwaukee Brewers – Not much.  The Cubs are coming on strong, but the Brewers should be able to hold them off.

Chicago Cubs – They are actually in pretty good shape to compete for the central.  Who would have thought that Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis would provide pitching depth? Or that Ryan Dempster would have a 1.01 WHIP and be a stud closer?

Los Angeles Dodgers – Good as is.  Our pick to win the NL pennant right now.

San Diego Padres – A run-producer, or hitter of some kind.  San Diego has a .243 batting average and a laughable .314 OBP as a team.  That is beyond awful.  Even though they have the NL’s best pitching staff, their inablility to hit will probably be what keeps the Padres out of the playoffs.

Arizona Diamondbacks – Hitting.  When Eric Freaking Byrnes leads your team in basically every conceivable offensive category, you need help.

* * * * *

Its our blog dammit, so we are going to talk about our favorite team every week – we really hope the signing of Travis Hafner does not signal that the team has given up trying to sign C.C. Sabathia.  And speaking of Carsten Charles, what the hell has been wrong with him the last two starts?

* * * * *

How about tha…er…I’ll be goddamed! – Caught the Devilrays-Yankees game today.  Tampa Bay had Greg Norton as their DH.  Greg Norton is batting .178 this year.  In other words, Norton was in the lineup SOLEY FOR HIS HITTING, and he is batting .178.  Unbeleiveable.

Out of Office Reply…

WCT is taking some well-deserved vacation for the next couple days. 

If you have come in search of T&A, here is a picture from Jessica Biel from the next Adam Sandler soon-to-be-on-DVD suckfest.

 

See you next week!