a shallow thought

So I was driving down Street Road in Warminster this afternoon, and I couldn't help but notice two things that were affixed to the back of the Nissan Maxima that was tooling along in front of me: a license plate frame that reads, "Jesus Loves You," and one of those bumper stickers from Geno's Steaks that says, "Joey Vento of Geno's Steaks Says, 'This is America, When Ordering Please Speak English.' " Does that mean Jesus really only loves people who know how to say "Wiz wit"?

what would crash think?

"Well, I believe in the soul ... the cock ... the pussy ... the small of a woman's back ... the hangin' curveball ... high fiber ... good scotch ... that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap ... I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a Constitutional amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet spot, soft core pornography, opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve, and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days. Goodnight." ~ Crash Davis, Bull Durham

Bill Conlin's column, in today's Philadelphia Daily News, brought to mind Crash Davis, played by Kevin Costner, and his unforgettable speech to Annie Savoy, played by Susan Sarandon, in one of the great baseball movies of all time. Conlin, after all these years, and after a long-winded history lesson he no doubt thinks impresses us at the start of his piece, has reached a different conclusion: He believes the time has come for the National League to adopt the designated hitter, if only because American League teams better take advantage of having that extra bat in the lineup. (No word on Conlin's take on the works of Susan Sontag, or the cock ... the pussy, etc.) There's something to be said for Conlin's position, given many of the points he makes, but I wonder if he would have bothered bringing it up at all had Yankees pitcher Chien-Ming Wang not injured himself circling the bases the other day in Houston. What Conlin also ignores is how much strategy is removed from the game when pitchers are forced to bat, to say nothing of the fact that the DH can also be viewed as a gimmick to prolong the careers of aging sluggers incapable of fielding a position. It's also a boon for for the players' union, which benefits greatly from the additional roster spots afforded to all those extra hitters. It may be the way of the future, at least given how the game is now being played in the AL, but there's just something unnatural about it. Part of being a baseball player is having to do everything there is as a baseball player: hitting, fielding, baserunning. That for the last 35 years half of the major leagues has played the game one way, while the other half has played it the other, is the only real scandal here. Crash, where have you gone, buddy?

no joke: watch the real world tonight

Keep your eyes peeled for winged pigs: the life of kings is asking people to watch television tonight. Not just any television, mind you, but MTV. And if that weren't ridiculous enough, to be even more specific I want you to watch that silly reality show called The Real World, which comes on at 10 p.m. EDT. No, gentle reader, I haven't lost my mind, though I do realize this request goes against just about everything I hold near and dear. Rather, I'm doing this for a group of friends in a local band called Pawnshop Roses, whose ballad "All the Way Down" will play tonight during the show, perhaps even as one of the program's brainless drunk chicks loses one of her heels while staggering home not long after some douchebag made her cry because he walked off with some other broad he picked up at some meathead bar right after he tried to drink a shot of Jaegermeister off her midrift. Or something. Seriously, the boys from PSR are a good group of dudes who play good rock 'n roll. Guitarist Kevin Bentley told me Sunday he had always dreamed one of his songs would be on MTV. Tonight, it will be. Check it out.

pensblog has some fun with sykora's called shot

This is just too fantastic for words, courtesy of the pensblog:

matt leinart likes to party. why is this an issue?

"Leinart speaks about party photos"

Saw the headline and had to read the story, which was published today in the Arizona Republic.

OK ... Lemme see ... Matt Leinart, a 24-year-old, good-looking quarterback for a professional football team, was ... OK ... lemme see now ... hang on ... photographed partying with young girls and ... hold up ... just a minute here ... wait, what? ... really? ... he also was pictured holding a ... wait for it ... this is shocking, horrifying stuff .... a beer bong?!?! Oh, the horror! The horror!

Don't believe me? Go here.

It's enough to make one shudder for the future of the republic (no pun intended).

Not because of what Leinart did, of course. Nope. No way. Bear with me, 'cause it's just a hunch, but I'm willing to bet my ability to read that Leinart is not the first multi-million-dollar athlete who likes to party with chicks and get wasted. That he has to answer for this and have his judgment questioned by "older," "wiser" types who no doubt have never had any fun in their lives is mind-numbingly stupid. You'd think, based on the breathless coverage, and on this browbeating delivered by Arizona Republic columnist Dan Bickley, that Leinart had killed someone -- or worse. All because he was doing something every red-blooded American male would otherwise want to do if he were in Leinart's board shorts. Look, I realize we're a long way from Joe Willie Namath, whose Mark-Kriegel-authored biography fantastically contains an entire chapter called "Booze and Broads," and whose exploits in and around New York City in the 1960s will always represent the gold standard of true bachelor cool. "He walked off with Jagger's girls," Kriegel writes. "He spilled drinks on Sinatra." I also realize athletes' actions are under greater scrutiny than ever before, that they constantly run the risk of getting in greater trouble than the rest of us because of their fame and fortune. But still: Why does the flip-side have to be that they're not entitled to any fun at all? Why does the revelation that they are having fun somehow imply that they're shirking their duties, as if they should all be studying their playbooks on Saturday nights and making sure to be at the gym by sunrise the following morning? Why does Matt Leinart have to answer for anything in this instance -- other than a handful of in-depth questions about why I wasn't invited?

and they say romance is dead...

Not so in Ann Arbor, Mich., where a high school boy asked a girl to the prom by getting some friends together to moon her with the question. And she accepted. Kind of brings a tear to the eye, no?

happy 25th anniversary to the great lee elia rant

Twenty-five years ago today, April 29, 1983, then-Chicago Cubs manager Lee Elia made history when he totally lost it during a press conference after another disappointing early-season loss. Elia directed his wrath at the Chicago fans who came out to day games (Wrigley Field in those days still did not have lights) and at the city's media (of course) for their criticism of his players. This, gentle reader, is truly the stuff of legend. I gotta say, for the last few years at work, we've occasionally queued up Elia's tirade on YouTube just for laughs. (Could you imagine covering something like this in the era before the Internet? How would you write it up?)

Elia's rant is guaranteed to brighten your day, and I'm pleased to share it with you now. No need to thank me. Just sit back and try not to pee yourself.



Happy Anniversary, Mr. Elia. And thanks again, you f***in' c********r.

UPDATE: Jay Mariotti has a pretty cool column in the Chicago Sun-Times that asks Chicagoans to forgive Elia.

50 bucks!?! for a stinkin' t-shirt!?! what the %&#@!!

Now that I've shamelessly declared myself to be the Pittsburgh Penguins' unofficial Pain-in-the-Ass Bandwagon Captain, I figured it was high time to be as thoroughly obnoxious as possible by strutting around Philly in some fancy Penguins gear. Tooling around the Pens' web site, I came across this T-shirt, which I could see myself rocking around town -- until I saw the price tag. Eff that.

penn relays photo journal: protests?

It wouldn't be an event on an Ivy League campus without a good old-fashioned protest, right? This was taken this afternoon on 33rd Street, just across the street from Franklin Field:



Upon closer inspection, however, it was discovered these student-agitators were in fact raising money to fight malaria. Oops. My bad. Though I still reserve the right to make fun of them for making signs that were impossible to read from more than two feet away.

that's a $300 fine for the rest of us, plus costs...

But not for the Philadelphia Parking Authority, it seems. Boy, do I hate the PPA.

some jokes just tell themselves

The horrors of global warming have struck again: Seems an Earth Day celebration in Western Canada was wiped out by a blizzard, according this story in the Edmonton Sun. Where's Al Gore when we need him to fight the good fight?

philly's hottest flyers fans? sheesh.

Don't you just love radio stations? Don't you just love the way they reach for the lowest common denominator when it comes to all things already low-brow? Don't you? DON'T you? Brace yourself, gentle reader, for WMMR's Philly's Hottest Flyers Fan contest. I have to agree with Philebrity that this "makes Philly feel like the meth-y backwater your momma raised you in." Or at least the one you moved to after college, if you're the life of kings. Anyway, Philebrity's advice that natives not send word of this, um, "contest" to any out-of-town friends rings true: While I certainly agree that Philly women, on the whole, tend to be far better-looking than those in Pittsburgh, the next time one of my jerk friends takes the conversation too far about how many stump-toothed mongrel hillbilly chicks he thinks there are in my hometown, I can always quickly shut him up by directing him back to this. Thanks, 'MMR. Rock on.

why they say you shouldn't sh*t where you eat...

...because you might wind up like this. Sheesh.

the ukranian army is on the march...

...at least if this is to be believed. As you were, ladies.

the mike tomlin iron city parodies

You know those Coors Light commercials that pretend to be press conferences with NFL coaches and regular beer guys asking questions? A few jokers in Pittsburgh have done send-ups of them for Iron City Beer using Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, and the utter yinzerness of them is hilarious. The three clips can be viewed here, here, and here.

the bird boy

This story is absolutely amazing. I can't even comment on it.

the great kyle kendrick prank

This is an all-timer, if only because of the tremendous cooperation of so many to pull it off so convincingly. What a world we live in, that something like this can get done and then replayed on the Internet over and over again. And Bill Conlin, the Philadelphia Daily News' grand ol' ball scribe, weighs in with the humorous details of a similar gag on another Phillies player from the early 1970s, when technology was far more primitive. A final thought: Does anyone else think Phils pitcher Brett Myers, who finally reveals the gag to Kendrick at the end of that video, is a total jackass? What a handjob.

let's hear it for the semicolon!

The New York Times has a little fun with a forgotten bit of proper punctuation today, thanks to the work of an enterprising and intelligent marketer in the city's transit agency.

valentine's day ... yawn

Whether you have a special someone or not, Valentine's Day stinks. If you're a dude, you're expected to "do something special" for your girl today because, well ... it's just what you're supposed to do. If you're a chick, even if you claim to be sophisticated enough not to care, you really do. And if you're not with anyone, the constant drumbeat of cupid and hearts and flowers and candy can make some of the weaker spirits among us feel like there's something wrong with them. To all of which I say: Phooey. And good for Nancy Gibbs of Time magazine for eloquently agreeing with me. Happy Thursday.

another reason why the ny post is the best paper in america

Just look at this video they made. Outstanding.