Some Happy Thoughts To Get My Feet Wet

You may have noticed that this place has been absent of my unrelenting wit for the past week or so. My hope is that you noticed I was gone one day last week and since then, you couldn’t help but long for my return. You’ve been going to bed each night tossing and turning, screaming out “Where is Happy? Where is Happy?” Well fear no longer, my precious, for I am back and better worse than ever. I am rested, rejuvenated, and ready to reclaim my spot as the 6th most popular contributor at Major League Jerk (ranking unscientific).

Now you’ve probably been asking yourself, “where has Happy been for the last 7 days? Has he been in New Jersey with some friends of his on a man-cation of debauchery and scandal?”

Oh, you weren’t asking that at all? You hadn’t even realized I was gone? That’s disappointing. Well it would have been a decent guess because I was in fact in Jersey. Sadly there were no scandals to speak of. There was plenty of debauchery though. By the end of the week, the average number of hours I spent sleeping each day came in at 2.7. It was one of those vacations where afterwards, you feel like you need a vacation. At the very least, I could use a new liver. Anybody got a spare? At one point in the middle of my trip, I may or may not have sent out a 5AM drunken email to the MLJ distribution list. I also may or may not have woke up a couple hours later and thought to myself, “did I send an email to the MLJ distribution list last night or did I dream that?”

/deleted from existence’d

But regardless of whether or not that did or didn’t happen, I’m back now and ready to talk some baseball. Who’s with me?

A quick note about New Jersey before I move on to other things: every single stereotype you’ve ever heard about New Jersey is 100% accurate. The women dress like strippers and the guys dress like douchebags. Every guy I saw while I was there looked like a brother of every other guy I saw. Did that make sense? I’ll explain. If you’re a dude and you live near the Jersey shore, there’s a 100% chance that you’re 5′5″, 200 pounds, you have no neck, and you spike your hair. There’s also a 100% chance that in the past week, you’ve been in 3 different fights with guys who look exactly like you. The first night I was there, I ended up in a bar in seaside called Hemingway’s. I was at the bar ordering some kind of whiskey concoction when I accidently bumped the arm of the stranger next to me. Oddly enough, this dude was 5′5″, 200 lbs, no neck, spiky hair, and a black shirt with weird writing on it (a Jersey staple I would find out about later). So after bumping his arm, I apologized. In response, he looked at me and said, “you’re not from around here, are you?” I confirmed that I wasn’t, then questioned him on how he knew that. Was it my Chicago accent? Nope. Was it my ridiculous height (5′11″)? No again, although that may have been the clincher. No the reason he knew I was from out of town was because I apologized for bumping his arm. Who the fuck knew that acting like a human being was reason enough to be considered an out-of-towner? My group ended up partying with that guy and his friends for the next 5 hours or so, all because I had the decency to apologize for making a mistake. Awesome.

Alright enough of that. Let’s talk some baseball, shall we? A lot has happened since you last heard from me. Some highlights and lowlights:

Milton Bradley got into a heated argument with Lou Piniella in the tunnel that leads to the visiting clubhouse at U.S. Cellular Field during the 6th inning of a game the Cubs would end up WINNING. Afterwards, Cubs pitching coach Larry Rothschild would blame a White Sox clubhouse attendant for leaking the story to the media. Everyone’s pre-season pick to be the best team in the NL is now 2 games under .500. Just a solid job all around, Boys.

Everyone’s pre-season pick to win the AL Central has now lost 4 games in a row and stand 13 GB of the Tigers. They’ve presumably given up on the season in June for the 2nd straight year. Even Cliff Lee couldn’t stop the bleeding on Tuesday as he gave up 11 hits and 7 ER in 3 IP. Eric Wedge will be sitting in the dugout with no pants on tonight just to see if even that isn’t a good enough reason for management to fire him.

Sports Illustrated took a poll of 380 players and asked them which manager they’d least want to play for. The top 3 ended up being Lou Piniella at 26% of the vote, Crazy Bones at 21%, and Tony La Russa at 10%. Each of those 3 managers has a World Series ring or 2. Do what you want with that information.

Lastings Milledge was traded again, this time from the Nationals to the Pirates. Said Pirates GM Neal Huntington afterwards, “we think Lastings just needed a change of scenery for the 4th time.” Honestly, he sucked on the Mets, he sucked on the Nationals, and he sucked for the Nationals’ AAA team. What else does this guy need to prove? The potential steal of the trade? Joel Hanrahan as a throw-in. Don’t let his bloated 7.71 ERA fool you. I’d find a spot on my team for a 27 year old reliever with a great K-rate. It’s just too bad for him that he’s going from the 30th best team in the league to the 25th or so. The poor guy can’t catch a break.

Interesting news about the Indians’ trade of Mark DeRosa to the Cardinals: just by going from the AL to the NL, DeRosa’s free agent score jumped over 6 points. He’s now just 3 points shy of being considered a Type A free agent rather than a Type B. A lot of other things need to happen for him to get that status (like the Cardinals offering him arbitration and him turning it down), but this is something fun to keep an eye on if you’re a loser like me.

Jason Marquis pitched a 2-hit CG shutout Tuesday night against the Dodgers, becoming the NL’s first 10-game winner. His peripherals are nothing to write home about, but I just wanted to point out a couple things: 1. he’s on pace for 21 wins, and 2. the Cubs traded him in the off-season for Luis Vizcaino, a relief pitcher who was just recently cut by the last place Indians. Titties in my face.

It’s good to be back.