According to rule 10.17 of the MLB rulebook, a Win will go to a starting pitcher whose team assumes a lead while such pitcher is in the game or during the inning on offense in which such pitcher is removed from the game and his team does not relinquish that lead. Such pitcher must complete either five innings of a game that lasts six or more innings on defense or four innings of a game that lasts five innings on defense.

So there you go. That’s a win. All those words up there. Who talks like that?

You know I can’t help but think that if they weren’t called Wins and Losses, the people who still use them would have moved on from them a long time ago right along with the rest of us. Instead, we hear people say things like, “the object of the game is to win, so give me a pitcher with the most wins over a pitcher with the highest C.L.A.P. any day,” or some shit like that. Which of course is silly because based on the definition I pasted up top, they’re a completely arbitrary set of rules that really have nothing to do with whether or not a pitcher’s team won or lost. If a Win was called by any other name, nobody would mention them. But since they were given a name that people associate with a team’s overall success, they’re still treated with high regard even though the rules given to a pitcher’s wins and losses do not equate evenly to a team’s wins and losses.

I don’t think we’ll ever convince the higher-ups to get rid of them completely because they’ve been counted for over a hundred years now. Plus the 300 benchmark for Wins is still pretty cool. So here’s what I propose: we change their names. And since I’m the person mentioning it, we’re naming it after me. From now on, a Win will be called a Happy and a Loss will be called a Sad.

Hey did you see that Jake Peavy is on his way to 20 Happys?

This could work*. Read the rest of this entry »

/Rant

Good news, your favorite NBA team just traded away a valuable role player. In return, they got a guy who hasn’t played all year because he either sucks too much at basketball or because he blew out his knee a few years ago and can’t run anymore. Or perhaps both of those.

Right now, I’m hoping that my favorite team, the Chicago Bulls, somehow manages to convince another NBA team to accept a trade for Kirk Hinrich or John Salmons. At worst, both Hinrich and Salmons are solid rotation players on a playoff team. In return for Hinrich and Salmons, I’m not hoping for a player or players that would help the Bulls win games, necessarily (at least not this year). No, I’d be willing to accept any player just as long as their contract expires at the end of this season. Such is life for an NBA fan whose favorite team isn’t the Cavs, Magic, Celtics, or Lakers. This is the landscape that David Stern and the NBA Players Association has provided me. I’m not rooting for my team anymore; I’m rooting for contracts. I realize that my team can’t compete with Cleveland once the playoffs begin, so I’m willing to accept it if they essentially give away one of their starting guards, a guy I’ve been rooting for since 2003. And you wanna know the best part? No team wants him.

In today’s NBA, Jerome James is a more valuable asset to a non-contending team like the Bulls than Kirk Hinrich. By the end of this season, Jerome James will have played exactly 4 games in the last 3 years. In that timeframe, he will have made roughly 17 million dollars. I watch every Bulls game on television and I couldn’t even tell you what Jerome James looks like. Yet he’s more valuable than Kirk Hinrich, their starting guard who plays over 30 mpg. Nowhere but in the NBA could a situation like this exist. Let me try to think of an example.

Thinking…

Thinking…

Nope, can’t think of one.

This system is complete bullshit.

/End Rant

Sunday morning, I received a text from a good friend of mine that said “Gaines Adams dead?” It even came with a question mark, which I found to be an odd choice of punctuation for a text like that. But I digress, whatever that means. I got the text at the exact same moment that Adam Schefter was appearing on my television screen to deliver the news; Gaines Adams was dead at age 26. It’s a sad thing, ya know? All indications are that he died from a previously undiagnosed enlarged heart, which really sucks. But this post isn’t going to be a sappy tribute to a man we hardly knew. I know when someone dies suddenly, it’s traditional for people to say how sad they are and how this “puts things in perspective”. But that’s all a lie. Nobody gives a shit. If they did, we wouldn’t need to put things in perspective. We’d be nice human beings all the time rather than only being nice when it’s convenient and expected. So instead of all that, I’m going to give you my real immediate thoughts upon hearing the news, unabashed and unfiltered, tact be damned. Some of these thoughts are me trying to be funny in the face of tragedy (and failing more times than not), while some of them are probably moreso an expression of frustration that I continue to follow a team in the Chicago Bears that can’t seem to catch a break. So here they are, my immediate thoughts after hearing that Gaines Adams died of an enlarged heart: 

“Crap, what a waste of a 2nd round pick.”

“Well at least they’re getting rid of some of their dead weight.”

“What a coincidence, Dusty Dvoracek was arrested for assault on the same day that Gaines Adams was arrested for cardiac.”

“I wonder if Jerry Angelo will have to terminate his contract.”

“Seriously though, his teammates all say he was a sweet man with a big heart. Almost too big actually.”

“He’s dead on the ground, dead on the ground. He’s looking like a fool all dead on the ground.”

At this point, I started to feel a little bit bad. What kind of human being was I? Couldn’t I take something as tragic as Gaines Adams’ premature death seriously? The answer was no, I could not. For my final thought had me imagining the following conversation between Jerry Angelo, Lovie Smith, and Rod Marinelli during training camp:

Jerry Angelo: “Here’s a list of players we’ll be inviting to training camp.”

Rod Marinelli: “I haven’t heard of half these guys, and the guys I have heard of are way past their prime.”

Lovie Smith: “Most of these guys never had a prime.”

Rod Marinelli: “This guy here is dead.”

Jerry Angelo: “Cross him off then.”

I’m going to hell. But at least I’m honest.

R.I.P. Gaines Adams

The following dialogue has nothing to do with anything, but I thought it was good enough to share with you fine folks on a Wednesday afternoon. At lunch today, I went to a local pizza place for some za* by the slice.

* The establishment I went to calls it “za”; I do not. Believe me, I try very hard not to be That Guy.

Here’s the conversation I had with the Dude At The Register, whom we’ll call DATR for the sake of saving space and my own energy:

Me: “I’ll take a slice of pepperoni and a medium Coke to go please.”

DATR: “Okay. You know you could also get our #1 meal for $5.95. It includes a medium fry as well.”

Me [thinking]:

Me [more thinking]:

Me: “Sure, what the hell.”

DATR [ringing it up]:

DATR: “Okay, that’ll be $9.09″

Me [handing DATR a $10 bill without thinking]:

Me: “Wait, $9.09? You said $5.95. How much is the tax?”

DATR: “Oh the $5.95 is for the meal, but the meal deal only includes cheese pizza, not pepperoni. So it’s $9.09 for everything included separately.”

Me [standing there in silence]:

Me [more silence]:

DATR: “Did you want to change your order to cheese?”

Bless him. It’s clear to me now that DATR will never have a job that requires him to do more than work a cash register at a pizza joint.

If you are part of a household that goes through milk pretty quickly, it should be your civic duty to buy the gallon with the closest expiration date to the current date while saving the newer gallons for us folks who take longer.

Requiring us to mix 2-cycle oil instead of using straight gasoline to operate a friggin’ snow blower is a scam that even Charlie Ponzi would be proud of.

If I was ever a contestant on Wheel of Fortune, I just know there’d be a puzzle with a well-known phrase that everyone in the world has heard of except me, causing me to buy another vowel as the audience groaned. That kind of public embarrassment isn’t worth the potential for a few thousand dollars. Uh, I’d like to solve the puzzle: that’s the way the bookie stumbles.

Did you ever think that maybe Bing Crosby was just being racist? He’s dreaming of a white Christmas? Just like the one’s he used to know? Hey, just consider the times, that’s all I’m saying.

It is not possible to listen to the rest of what someone says if in the middle of what they’re saying, they use the words “mute point”. This is not speculation, this is scientific fact.

If I worked at a cemetery, I’d ask to work first shift and then brag to the overnight guy that he was nothing special. Think about it.

When I was a kid, I used to think that the logo for Titleist said “Fitleist”. I just hope I never called it that in front of anyone.

I think I may have had the same problem with Walt Disnep. Oh I was a smart one.

I hope I never get astigmatism, but I suppose just one would be better than two or three stigmatisms.

Google maps doesn’t know where my house is. If you type in my address, Google maps takes the liberty of changing it to a house on the other side of town. You have no idea how much trouble this has caused me.

Whenever somebody asks me if I want to participate in a holiday raffle, what they really end up asking me is if I’d like to donate some money.

You know things have changed in your life when you make plans to get together with friends after work on a weekday and people end up leaving by 9 o’clock.

I have 5 outstanding Evite invitations right now. I can’t wait for some of these parties/events to get here so that I can delete some of this crap from my inbox.

I wouldn’t call myself a prima donna, but I would call myself a Pre-Britney Spears. Meh. Okay one more.

Isn’t it funny that they’ll rate a graphic video game with an “M” for Mature? The people who play it are usually in their late 20’s or early 30’s and there’s cartoon violence involved. There’s not much that’s mature about that, no?

Alright on that note, remember that you should always treat strangers with kindness because you never know if that was only a 1st impression.

Last summer, a friend of mine invited a handful of his closest friends to fly out to Jersey to visit his family, who have a couple houses on the Jersey shore. It was being billed as a guy’s weekend of drunken shenanigans. Of course I was in. Prior to this trip, I was never made aware of the kinds of people who live and hang out in this part of the country. Even looking back, I’m not sure how this kind of information escaped me in the first 30 years of my life, but I had no idea that the entire region was filled with guys who are no taller than 5′2″ and who all weigh at least 200 pounds. When I got there, it was a complete culture shock. Dudes wearing Affliction t-shirts and gold chains and hanging out in packs. Up until then, I had never even heard of Affliction t-shirts, yet here I was, surrounded by them. Read the rest of this entry »

Going to my Happy place

Have you ever noticed that golf is a harder sport to play for people that are bad at it? I realize that seems obvious, but hear me out. After hitting from the tee, a good golfer gets to hit their 2nd shot from the fairway. The grass is trimmed low and the ball is easy to find. Anybody could put a decent swing on the ball in a circumstance like that. A bad golfer, on the other hand, has to walk through a fucking forest to find their ball, and then they have to dodge a dozen trees or so with their approach shot. What’s that all about? I can’t think of any other sport that penalizes players for being bad at it the way golf does. Although I think it would be a cool little wrinkle to baseball’s rules if every time a batter got two strikes on him, he’d have to face the next pitch with a bright light shining in his eyes. Who’s the best 2-strike hitter in baseball? Nobody.

That is why when I become rich, I’m going to open up my own golf course and cater the course to my own abilities. Picture yourself standing on the first tee box. You look out towards the direction of the flag. Is it bright green as far as the eye can see? Hell no. Oh my goodness, what has he done? That’s right, he reversed that mother-fucker. Straight ahead is nothing but trees and off to the sides is well-kempt fairway.

You got a wicked slice? Come to my course, you’ll be fine.

You hit the ball straight and far? Good luck finding your ball, Asshole.

We recently had a staff meeting* in which it was made clear that Major League Jerk and any entity within MLJ, Inc. would not be taking a formal stance or opinion on the whole Josh Hamilton situation reported over the weekend by Deadspin. It was also made clear within that staff meeting** that the entire subject is weak and has no business taking up valuable real estate space on the MLJ home page. I tend to agree, which is why I’m not going to use this time as an opportunity to pile on. But I think the subject still gives us all an opportunity to discuss something important and relevant.

Most of what you’ll read on the Internet will talk about how Josh has fallen off the wagon. You’ll hear people ask questions like, “how can he put his wife and family through that again?” and “why would he go and risk his career like that? I would do anything to have what he has.” To me, this is a rather naïve point of view. Few people know what Josh deals with as an addict on a daily basis. For instance, did you know that Josh has hired someone to follow him around to make sure that he never takes a drink or shoots up or whatever it was that he used to do? You might then ask where this person was during the night in question when the pictures were taken, but that’s beside the point. The point is that he needs someone to follow him around in the first place.

We all know that Josh is a recovering heroin addict and a recovering alcoholic, but we never think about what that really means. For a guy like Josh Hamilton, it means that he can never have that drug again. Having it AT ALL means he’s no longer recovering. Can you imagine what kind of hell that is?

Take me as an example of a differing point of view. I enjoy an occasional beer in the evening when I get home from work. Some evenings, I will enjoy a couple of them. And on some weekends, I will enjoy myself some Jack Daniels and Coke concoctions. Of course I don’t have a problem with alcohol (at least that I am admitting to), so it’s okay that I occasionally enjoy these things. Josh Hamilton, on the other hand, isn’t allowed to touch the stuff. If he does, he’s right back where he started. Having one sip of alcohol can throw him right back into the ditch he’s worked so hard to crawl out of. So whenever I read about a recovering addict falling off the wagon, I try to put it into perspective by comparing their situation to my own. For me, I would hate it if I could never again have a beer. So what is it like for Josh, who has an addiction to it? I can’t even imagine.

He owes me nothing and he owes you nothing. So rather than judge him for whatever it is that happened that night, I’ll instead wish him the best that he can make it through another day without it happening again.

* We didn’t really have a staff meeting.
** Seriously, what’s a staff meeting?

When you look like a douche but you’re good at pitching, people will call you colorful. But when you look like a douche and you can’t get 3 lousy outs to close the game, you’re just a fucking douche.

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? Read the rest of this entry »