Saturday, April 18, 2015

Q: Homework or Playoff Hockey? A: Playoff Hockey.

I have to write a final paper for my Capstone class that's due on Monday, and trust me, I'm working on it... Oh yeah, and there's a movie that I need to have completed by Wednesday, but believe me, I'm thinking about it. There are even more finals to mention but right now I can hardly focus on a single thing. All of this work that must be done, and you know what, readers of Blake's Bellyaching? There's something more important than doing homework on a Saturday: playoff hockey.
 
Now I'm going to work my tail off for the next two hours so that this afternoon at 3:00 PM, I can get comfortable at the bar in Ruben James, enjoy a few cool 22 oz. Budweisers and watch some St. Louis Blues hockey on a screen wider than a city street:


Putting off the only work standing between me and a bachelor's degree: because it's the cup.


Alex Rodriguez, Alex Rodriguez, Alex Rodriguez

The man hit two home runs. That's right, count 'em, two.


Alex Rodriguez has quickly re-emerged as a fan favorite and an essential cog in the New York Yankees' lineup just two weeks into the baseball season. In last night's 5-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays in the first game of a three game series, Rodriguez hit two home runs and drove in four of the Yankees' five runs in the game.

The maligned slugger has been ridiculed and has had his reputation dragged through the mud over the course of 2014, but as this season begins to pick up pace, it seems that every night I'm finding it easier and easier to FORG1V3 A-Rod. After all, he's the only batter on the roster right now who can claim that he is earning his bloated salary... cough cough, Carlos Beltran...

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

The Irony of Jackie Robinson Day

Look, I love baseball, and I am a proponent of just about everything that the sport does to promote itself, but I'm going to take a soapbox here and spout off about one of baseball's silliest practices: Jackie Robinson Day.


Of course I believe that integration in baseball was a good thing, and people of every race and ethnicity should be able to play our national past time without question. I am not speaking against civil rights, but I am speaking against the primitive way that Major League Baseball chooses to honor Jackie Robinson's legacy every year. During today's games, all players across baseball will wear the #42 on their jersey, and somehow this is special because that particular uniform number has been retired from use throughout the sport.

Major League Baseball may have the best intentions, however the actual practice of everyone wearing #42 is confusing and foolish. In my opinion, Jackie Robinson Day is transparent pandering to a society fixated on race relations. I am aware that some people may interpret my sentiments as closeted racism, however I am merely stating the fact that Jackie Robinson Day is overkill. Robinson's number has already been retired across the league forever - isn't that a grand enough gesture to honor his legacy?!

If the Los Angeles Dodgers wanted to wear a patch and hold a ceremony, that would be amazing and I would hope to see them do that every year. However to have every player on every team wear identical uniforms, it kind of smacks in the face of the whole notion of integration - as a matter of fact it feels something like nouveau fascism. Woah, that's ironic.

Puck Drop at The Stanley Cup Playoffs



To follow up on a post I made just yesterday: The Stanley Cup Playoffs start tonight! There are eight games slated for today and tomorrow listed below as well as where you can look to find them on television. If you plan on watching any or all of these playoff match ups, please tell me, because otherwise I'm going to have to go watch at a bar, and I'm honestly getting very sick of that.

Wednesday April 15
Ottawa Senators at Montreal Canadiens 7:00 PM (NHL Network)
New York Islanders at Washington Capitals 7:00 PM (USA Network)
Chicago Blackhawks at Nashville Predators 8:30 PM (NBCSN)
Calgary Flames at Vancouver Canucks 10:00 PM (USA Network)

Thursday April 16
Pittsburgh Penguins at New York Rangers 7:00 PM (NBCSN)
Detroit Red Wings at Tampa Bay Lightning 7:30 PM (CNBC)
Minnesota Wild at St. Louis Blues 9:30 PM (NBCSN)
Winnepeg Jets at Anaheim Ducks 10:30 PM (CNBC)

Catch all the action this week to see who advances to the next round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs! 

Let's Go Blues!

Blake Points and Laughs at Red Sox Fans

Oh, baseball is back. The crushed red brick of the infield, the rolling green grass of the outfield, and the little white chalk line that divides the man from the little boy... or in this case, the man and some middle-aged buffoon who manages to break a cell phone and spill a beer in less than five seconds.


THE ENTIRE .GIF: 
>>> http://i.imgur.com/SZ61xzQ.webm <<<

One of the great things that baseball seems to embrace unlike any other sport is its relationship with the fans. Crowd shots are a necessary break away from the monotony of the "action" on the field at baseball games. The candid antics of the fans in the stands offer viewers a lighthearted distraction and water cooler fodder all at once. At last night's Red Sox game, some bumbling Bostonian helped create one of the most hysterical .gifs I've seen in a while.

The guy is so excited by the sensation of touching Shane Victorino that he blindly and wildly flails his arms, thereby knocking the phone out from a woman's hands. After Victorino graciously returns the cell phone to the young lady, the moron responsible for the gaffe begins flailing his arms again, only to punch the underside of a $10 beer into a different woman's face.

This goon made my morning, and while it may have been a colossal clusterfuck for those involved, it made for a great ten-second comedy short.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Top-Selling NBA Jerseys


The NBA announced their top-selling player jerseys from the 2014-2015 season and I was both disappointed and surprised to learn that Denver Nuggets center Jusuf Nurkić was not among the top five...

Not really though, because the Nuggets are terrible - the day that Nurkić is the person who people think of when they think #23 is the same day that the Nuggets actually win a title, and that's never gonna happen, my friends.

The actual list of top five jerseys looked like this:

5. Derrick Rose, Chicago Bulls
4. Kevin Durant, Oklahoma City Thunder
3. Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers
2. Stephanie Curry, Golden State Warriors
1. LeBron James, Cleveland Cavaliers

I suppose the story to be told here is that a lot of silly people felt the need to get new LeBron James jerseys after he left Miami. People root for that guy for no reason, and I guess it makes sense; people like watching giants who take four steps to dunk. Not me, though.

As for the other guys, Steph Curry is an exceptional shooter and I'm not surprised to see his name up there, and the same can be said about Durant for that matter. Beyond that, however, I don't know, because Kobe Bryant is about to retire and Derrick Rose is never healthy. "People spend their money on the stupidest things..." says the guy who owns an array of questionable jerseys including Blues defenceman Jay Bouwmeester to former Panthers defensive back Captain Munnerlyn.

Topps Tries To Pass Off the "First Pitch" as a Baseball Card

Times are clearly tough in the trading card industry, and Topps, one of America's most recognized baseball card producers is trying out a new gimmick to sell a few extra packs: Celebrity endorsements!


Consumers now have an added "incentive" in collecting this season's series of cards, because aside from the players on the 32 professional clubs, children and grown nerds alike will have the chance to collect a set of fifteen celebrity first pitch trading cards.

Look, while I understand that it is becoming more challenging for trading card producers Topps to come up with new and innovative concepts, I don't believe that this latest effort is worth the paper it's printed on. There is absolutely no intrinsic value to owning a Biz Markie Oakland Athletics card or a Tom Morello Chicago Cubs card, even for the sake of novelty. This idea is trash and it makes me wary of buying Topps cards because I don't want to spend my money only to find out that three of the twelve cards out of my pack are celebrities making awkward throwing motions.


My message to Topps is simple: Thanks for trying, but don't cheat your customers out of real cards.

Me, My Dad, and the St. Louis Blues

Every now and again, I like to watch hockey, and when I watch hockey, I like to watch the St. Louis Blues. I could try and talk about hockey as if I knew anything about the sport, but I don't, so I'll just say this:

When my father was a boy he lived in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. He's 53 now and been a fan of the Blues since their inception in 1967. He has fond memories of seeing Blues games at the St. Louis Arena when the team was first founded, and the franchise means more to him than just any other team because of the association that it has with such a formative and happy time in his life.

The St. Louis Blues are one of the most consistent NHL franchises in terms of making the playoffs, earning playoff berths for 25 consecutive years between 1980 and 2004. The Blues have made the playoffs almost every year in their existence, but despite all this regular season success, the team has never won a Stanley Cup.


People have weird reasons to root for particular teams, and for me, the reason I root for the St. Louis Blues is so that someday I can watch my Dad celebrate his favorite hockey team win their first championship. In a sense I live vicariously through him; his love for the Blues mimics mine with the Panthers, and just as much as I want to see Carolina win their first title, I want to see my Dad celebrate his St. Louis Blues winning theirs.

This week the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs begin, and the Blues will face off against the division rival Minnesota Wild in the first round. When the puck drops on Thursday night, I will be watching and rooting for Blues, and rooting for my Dad.

This Just In: "Dave Gettleman is Amazing"


This time I'm not the only one saying it. Rotoworld released an article this week ranking Panthers General Manager Dave Gettleman as the ninth-best GM in the National Football League. Gettleman jumps up from a #14 ranking last offseason after the Panthers made the playoffs for a second consecutive season in his tenure. The entire article can be seen here, but these are the top ten according to Rotoworld:

10. Mickey Loomis, New Orleans Saints
9. Dave Gettleman, Carolina Panthers
8. Jerry Reese, New Jersey Giants
7. Steve Keim, Arizona Cardinals
6. Mike Brown and Marvin Lewis, Cincinnati Bengals
5. John Elway, Denver Broncos
4. Ted Thompson, Green Bay Packers
3. John Schneider, Seattle Seahawks
2. Ozzie Newsome, Baltimore Ravens
1. Bill Belichick, New England Patriots

Six of the top ten listed have won Super Bowls as General Manager - it's just a matter of time until Dave bumps that number to seven.


"Oh, you're gonna make me blush..."

The Yankees "Forgot" About Alex Rodriguez


There's a stipulation in Alex Rodriguez's contract with the New York Yankees that the slugger is to be paid bonuses for achieving specific "milestone" statistics, namely home runs. Apparently the Yankees believe that if they make no mention of Rodriguez's chase of Willie Mays' historic 660 mark, then they can avoid paying the troubled behemoth athlete.

Rodriguez has hit 655 career home runs, however in a release that the Yankees PR office distributes to the press box before every game, the team made no mention of A-Rod nearing the historic home run tally, while citing other upcoming "milestones" like Didi Gregorius' 200th career game... Hmm...

The Yankees are not nearly as clever as they think that they are and when Rodriguez inevitably hits that 660th home run, they are going to have to own up to their contract and pay the man. As someone who was in attendance for Alex Rodriguez' 600th career home run, it would be disgraceful for the team to make no mention of an even greater milestone. For God's sake, he hit 600 in the bottom of the first and they had the T-Shirts printed before the Yankees went to play defense!
The Yankees can afford to pay Alex Rodriguez, they will pay Alex Rodriguez, and they're not going to avoid anything by not mentioning it.

The Panthers Sign Charles "Peanut" Tillman

The Carolina Panthers have signed free agent defensive back Charles "Peanut" Tillman to a one year contract. Tillman had spent the first twelve years of his career playing for the Chicago Bears where he earned two trips to the Pro Bowl and a Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award for his charitable efforts off the field.

When he is healthy, Tillman can be one of the most explosive turnover generators in the National Football League. With 42 forced fumbles and 36 interceptions to his credit in his career, Tillman also recorded over 75 tackles each season in which he played nine or more games for Chicago.

Tillman injured his right triceps in 2013 and the injury kept him sidelined for the remainder of the season. In 2014 "Peanut" re-injured his triceps, ultimately resulting in his departure from the Windy City. Tillman now comes to Charlotte hoping to revitalize his career under the guidance of head coach Ron Rivera, who served as the Bears' defensive coordinator in their appearance in Super Bowl XLI.

Credit GM Dave Gettleman with another amazing low-risk signing with potential for an outstanding return on his investment. Speaking strictly as a Carolina Panthers fan, he's going to be amazing, and I can't wait for that first chance to see "Peanut" punch the ball out while wearing black and blue.

R.I.P. March Madness

Well I clearly have no idea what I am talking about. If you wagered any money at all based upon the predictions that I gave when the NCAA March Madness tournament began a few weeks ago, well then you're an idiot, because I am not a professional sports journalist and I don't think I watched a single game of college basketball last season until the tournament began (with the exception of one or two Syracuse games).
For those who forgot or are too lazy to scroll back through the archives, here was my Final Four prediction from March 16, 2015:
 
Final Four
Midwest Champion 1 Kentucky def. West Champion 1 Wisconsin
East Champion 5 University of Northern Iowa def. South Champion 2 Gonzaga
 
National Championship Game
1 Kentucky def. 5 University of Northern Iowa
 
None of this was right. I had the correct match-up in one game, but I did not pick a single winner here. Wisconsin shocked the nation and handed Kentucky their first loss of the year, which knocked off my champion. Gonzaga was defeated by the eventual tournament winner, Duke University, who I did not predict would make it to the Final Four. University of Northern Iowa was a foolish choice, but I like their uniforms and I figured that there was going to be some strange Cinderella story, however, that team was Michigan State, and UNI was bounced from the tournament in the Round of 32, so my bracket was essentially decimated after only two days of play.

All in all, I had no idea what I was doing with my bracket, and it shows...

Planned Obsolesence is a Dirty Trick

As I write this sentence, I can hear my computer struggling to churn out the words that I prompt to it. My HP Pavilion dv6 laptop is old, and it’s very clearly on its last legs. Certain programs are now unusable for reasons that go beyond my comprehension, and streaming video causes the system to freeze, giving me no recourse other than to force shut down this beast.
Aside from the inconvenience of having my computer throw in the towel mere weeks before I am able to cross the finish line of my undergraduate collegiate career, there are other things that I miss out on, like sports, for instance. Sports are an integral component to generating content here at Blake’s Bellyaching, and now unless I go watch ESPN at a bar with the sound off, I’m out of the loop.

I don’t know quite what I’m reaching for here, but I miss being able to watch sports on my computer. These days I’m spending entirely too much money at restaurants when I could be watching baseball on my couch, and it’s all because HP designed this computer with the planned obsolescence so that an incoming college freshman would be buying a new system in three and a half years. I have a Slingbox connected at home that has gone unused for three weeks now and that is unacceptable! I WANT TO WATCH BASEBALL!


The New York Enigmas

It’s simply astonishing – the Yankees lose every time I watch them play.

For anyone who has read a few of the posts I’ve made in this blog it should have at least been hinted at by this point that I am a pretty big fan of the New York Yankees.

Last Monday, I went to ESOX, a bar in downtown Burlington, where I watched the Yankees lose on opening day to the Toronto Blue Jays by a count of 6-1. The following night, I missed my chance to see any of the action, and the Yankees notched their first win of the season in a 4-3 victory over the Jays at Yankee Stadium. When I saw the highlights, I felt elated that they had won, but also felt cheated because I had just watched the Yankees shit the bed the day before.

This past weekend when the Boston Red Sox came to New York for their first series of the season, I was able to see two of the three games played. The Red Sox first won a 19-inning marathon on Friday and then slaughtered the Yankees 8-4 on Saturday. Later that night when I was asked about the team I simply replied, “it’s okay, it’s early in the year,” behind a wry and bitter smile, but on Sunday night, when I had work to catch up on, the Yankees won 14-4!

This is the narrative that has plagued my Yankee baseball viewing for all of a week now, and it’s getting real tired real quick. Whenever I see a game, the Yankees lose, and if I forget to even check, they likely win on some freak play. I’m convinced that somewhere in the world there is a sadist with the power to manipulate baseball scores, and they clearly have beef with me. I love watching baseball again and I wouldn’t trade this game for anything, but Jesus – can I watch the Yankees win a fucking game? Please?