Football '15 Week 1: Here We Go Again.

       I was all ready to root for the Steelers to clean the Patriots clocks Thursday evening, because even as an unabashed Brady apologist, I would like to see a little karmic retribution for them.  Then I watch the pregame show and got reminded why I hate the Patriots haters in the first place.  They gave the softball lob to Tony Dungy to talk about all the "new" spygate evidence and he sits there and starts pontificating.  Now, Dungy likes to portray himself as this holy man of god above all reproach, even though his list of sins and failures is long and luxurious.  He's such a "man of god" he allowed his sons to become junkies through his absentee fatherism and one of them killed themselves.  His early-aught Colts teams were constantly out-hustled and out-muscled by the Patriots in ways that had nothing to do with stealing signs or game plans and all the Colts could ever do is whine about it and demand rules changes.  Oh, and one of those rules was for golden boy Peyton Manning to be able to handle and control his footballs before the game, you know, the rule that led to the entire Ballghazi debacle.  Not to mention those Colt teams pumped crowd noise into their moribund stadium all the time and only won their one Super Bowl because of that.  But oh no, Tony Dungy is such a good man and Bill Belichick is such a scumbag. 


Two other teams were charged with major rules violations in the off season but because it was the Browns and the Falcons - two teams that have never won anything ever - no one even cares.  But because the Patriots win, everyone jumps on them and calls them out for every perceived infraction when every team and coach would look just as awful and devious if they were put under the microscope the way the Pats are.  Hell, after the game, the Steelers couldn't stop making fools of themselves, blaming New England for hacking their headphone communications and Big Ben  - another paragon of virtue if there ever was one - decided that a simple defensive shift was cheating.  Seriously, if it weren't for paranoia there would be no emotion for the Pats at all.

       It comes down to the fact that in a business where multiple billions of dollars are at stake, there are no rules except the ones you can get away with breaking.  So once again, fuck everyone and their short-sighted homerism and misguided misunderstanding of how pro football works (and has always worked).  I hope the Pats rip through the league again 16-0.   I hope Brady throws for 6000 yards and 60 touchdowns and every week Giselle brings her supermodel friends in for multiple post-game orgies.  Of course, I'd then like the Saints to beat them in the Super Bowl, but that goes without saying.  What it comes down to is, maybe everyone should look at their own team and wonder what they are or aren't doing to win and leave the damn Pats alone.

3000 Little Asterisks.

       I have popped in from my long blogging sabbatical to observe Alex Rodriguez's 3000th hit.  The title of this post is a bit of a lark since only the hysterical fundamentalist baseball doofuses want to slap asterisks on things.  See, I like to place Alex Rodriguez in the same category I put Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds.  No, not steroid users, but truly terrible human beings that have been properly hated since day one of their careers.  If you are a wise baseball fan, you should have seen through A-Rod's act since the moment he got called up and given him the infinite scorn he deserves. 

Oh sure, you can respect him somewhat as a player in and of itself.  It is hard to look at his 1996 season and not regard him in some awe.  How Juan Gonzalez got voted the MVP that year and not A-Rod is one of the true mysteries of a process that goes out of its way to mystify.

A-Rod has always struck me as the kind of guy who is so extremely talented and yet so bitterly insecure about it all that he has to shout "look at me! look at me!" in such an awkward manner as to make you get a concussion rolling your eyes at him.  He could have been the Jordan of baseball if he had just let his play speak for itself, instead, well, yeah that stuff happened. Over and over again.  I never looked at his steroid use as anything sinister, merely as just another attempt to stab at his own self-doubting demons and placate his own eternally deflated ego.  His other crimes against humanity are the rare double money-grab, the Texas force-your-way-out-of-town dance, the disrespecting of both the Red Sox and Mets in all that professional catastrophe, eventually getting traded to the Yankees, and then when everything went inevitably wrong generally never owning up to anything.

So what can you make of A-Rod now?  Well, if he is really playing clean, here at (nearly) age 40, then it becomes blatantly apparent that he probably didn't need PEDs at all.  And that is such a fitting epitaph for a player who has put up such mesmerizing numbers yet been such a horrorshow of a human being.  A-Rod doesn't have a fan base to call his own, no style to call his own, and no legacy to speak of.  The worst part of all that is, he did all of this to himself.  And hell, in the end he wanted to be like Jeter so bad, he even had to slug a homer for this 3000th hit.  If he didn't fall asleep on a bed of half a billion dollars every night, you could almost feel sorry for him.

Football '13 Week 20: Championship Week. (Here We Go Again)

       You probably think that little parenthetical statement is about Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning but sadly, it is not.  It seems that this year is following the exact same pattern as last year in terms of my blogging - I got off to a good start at the new year but then got the flu and then during that sickness get very very depressed.  It happened last year and it would seem it is happening this year.  I have been sick as a dog all of the last week and instead of following up on my Hall of Fame rants, I have been dormant and feeling terrible.  Well, I am gonna try to work through that shit this time around.  Please bear with me while I do.

Unfortunately, there is not much to get worked up about in my world about these football games.  We have all been through Brady vs. Manning in the playoffs before and I don't see how anything that happens in this game changes either one's legacy.  Tom Brady is what he is.  Peyton Manning is what he is.  And neither one of these teams is as good as either of the NFC offerings, especially on the defensive side of the ball.  Plus, the last time I checked, there is 21 other players on the field and they might have a bit to say about what happens in the game.  

The team I hate least of the remaining teams is the Patriots, but as I have stated before, while all my New England living made me love the Red Sox, the same never happened to me about the Pats.  I don't root for Tom Brady but one can't help but respect him, though no man in the NFL has more haters than Tom Brady.  I guess that is why I want to side with him - Tom Brady has a whole swath of football fans who need to just shut the hell up.  I mean, a restaurant in Denver had this sign up outside completely forgetting that if that is true, he is no doubt wearing the panties of the Brazilian supermodel he just got done banging who happens to be his wife.  Rough life, that Tom Brady.

The late game is the San Francisco 49ers vs. the Seattle Seahawks and well, let me just make this point: I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, fucking hate the 49ers.  As a counterpoint: I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, fucking hate the Seahawks.

My hatred for the Niners is decades old.  I hated them when they used to play the Giants and hate them now when they play the Saints.  My anger toward them is an old spouse.  The Seahawks, on the other hand, is a new found hatred (much like all their bandwagon fans).  I never had an opinion about the Seahawks but then four years ago the Beast Mode run happened, now I can't stand them.  I can't stand Pete Carroll, I can't stand Russell Wilson, I can't stand the aforementioned Beef Moe, and I certainly can't stand every single player of their defense.  My anger towards them is a torrid new affair. 

When these things come to a head, what usually happens is you go back to your wife.  I cannot measure my complete and utter dislike for these teams with existing technology but the one little thing that I would enjoy watching for two weeks is people pick apart Colin Kaepernick the way they do individually but on the national stage.  Much like Tom Brady, Kaepernick has haters - and why do they hate him?  Because he has tattoos...the horror!  Because he wears his cap backwards on the sideline and during interviews...oh the humanity!  Most of these haters?  50-year-old-plus white male sportswriters.  It would be hilarious if it weren't so sad.  So it would be very pleasing to hope that a few of these dinosaurs will say something so awful and racist during the Super Bowl bye week that they lose their jobs.  Yup, I guess I am rooting for schadenfreude.

Football Week 9: Monday Night Edition.

       Tonight is pretty much it for my Saints.  If they win, they can at least dream of making the playoffs, if they lose, well, they may as well tank the rest of the season and get themselves a decent draft pick.  This will probably be my statement/lament for the rest of the season.  I would like to see them rally after pretty much every roadblock has been put in their way this year.

       Tonight they play the Eagles, probably my second least favorite team.  Actually, I hate the Cowboys fans the most and the Eagles actual players the most, so we can quibble over where that would place them on my overall hate-o-meter.  A few years ago, there was this fan in the Superdome stands.  For me, it was love at first sight (they even put her in Maxim magazine after her fame swept through the interwebs).  Anyway, if you are out there, Heather, my offer of marriage still stands. 

        Needless to say, with all going on the last week or so here after Sandy, I have not had time to scan new pages and I do not have any more Saints cards scanned.  So I will have to pick a page and find some vague tangential connection.  Ahhhh, here we go:

Like I said, I hate any player who suits up for the Eagles.  Well, here are four players who are pretty damn despicable no matter what uniform they wear (and most of them now wear the uniform of their state's DOC).  Lawrence Phillips took a boatload of talent and threw it all away in a series of domestic disputes and then got a long stretch in the pokie after an assault with a deadly weapon.  Somehow, Pacman Jones is still in the league and not in prison, proof that if you are a viable player, the NFL will always look the other way.  Not only has Jones shot up more than one(!) strip club, he ruined a fantastic nickname like 'Pac-Man' forever.  Maurice Clarett was both impetuous and well armed - to the tune of getting kicked off a national title team in college and then going to jail for armed robbery.  In there he also flamed out in the NFL without ever playing a regular season snap; hell, he never even suited up for a preseason game.  I also read that he has been trying to clean up his act.  I'll believe it when I see it.  Last but certainly not least is the immortal Rae Carruth.  Rae showed flashes of talent for the Panthers for a couple of years, but then he ran into a problem, he got a girl pregnant.  His solution to this problem was certainly creative and unique: he decided to have her killed in what looked like a carjacking.  Classy guy.  He'll be in prison until at least 2018, and really, how he escaped the gas chamber for that one, I will never quite understand.

Not shown: Mark Chmura, OJ Simpson, Lawrence Taylor (though he soon will be), Jim Brown, Donte Stallworth, Leonard Little, and Ray Lewis.  Also not shown, tonight's starting quarterback for the Eagles, the worst of the lot, Michael Vick. Since I love dogs more than any person on this planet, I cannot reiterate my hatred for him enough and I will not even try.

The Littlest Tribute: Larry Wayne Jones.

        I am not afraid to use the word hate.  Seems people shy away from using it, but you can't have white without black, up without down, right without wrong.  I can see not wanting children to use the word, since they are not in full control or understanding of their emotions but as a (sort of) grown up, I can and will use it.  I hate Chipper Jones.

This may be the only Chipper I own. Anybody want it?

I am not here to praise Larry but to bury him.  Earlier this year, it was announced that this would be his last year.  Teams have given him going away gifts and last week, the Braves gave him a night - fittingly against his favorite whipping boys, my Mets.  I didn't always hate Chipper; I started off completely nonplussed about him, I mean, he was not even on my radar.  The only thing I knew of him was his ridiculous name.  But sometime in the mid to late 90's, he started to homer in seemingly every game he played against the Mets.  His Braves began winning every single NL East title and summarily ousting the Mets from the playoffs.  Every Mets fan worth his salt started call him Larry and hating his guts...and pretty much the rest of him too.  For the last 15 years, he has destroyed everything I hold dear while putting up numbers that will assuredly put him in the Hall of Fame.  And for that, I hate him.  I purged all of the Chipper cards I have, selling them on eBay and sending them off to any Braves fan that will take them.  I will not even give him the satisfaction of a full sized card or font for this post.  You have to feel very strongly about someone to hate them as much as I hate Larry Wayne Jones.  But, goddamn it, do I respect you.  And that is the last semi-nice thing I will ever say about the matter.  That and it will be nice to never have to face you again with the game on the line.  Of course, with the Mets luck, your son Shea will develop into a superstar and prevent the Mets from winning the World Series from 2030-2040 or so.  Did I mention how much I hate you, Chipper?