Monthly Archives: January 2011

Amazin Avenue, Baseball

Amazin’ Avenue Annual’s Potent Lineup

AAACover.jpgI’m contributing a few pieces to the Amazin’ Avenue Annual, a Mets-centric stat-friendly companion to the upcoming baseball season which should be out by March 1 (in both print and Kindle-y versions). I was already excited about this, but I got doubly-triply-quadruply excited when the outside contributors were officially announced yesterday, and it’s a fearsome lineup indeed.

Who, you ask? Why, Ken Davidoff from Newsday. Deadspin editor emeritus WIll Leitch. SNY blogger/sandwich enthusiast Ted Berg. Greg Prince and Jason Fry from Faith and Fear in Flushing, my favorite Mets blog I don’t write for.

But best of all, the book will include Joe Posnanski. Yes, that Joe Posnanski, the best baseball writer there is by a country mile. SI.com scribe, author of The Machine, and, again, the best baseball writer there is. His blog posts are always a treat to read, in spite of–actually, because of–their enormous lengths. Kinda like what Bill Simmons would be like if he dialed down the douche from 11 to 0 and excised the Karate Kid references.

Knowing that I’m going to have work in the same book as Joe Posnanski is at once humbling and terrifying. It’s like living on the same street as a famous architect; you feel like you have to keep your house in tip-top shape if Frank Lloyd Wright is just down the block.

So if my prose won’t get you to purchase this tome, I hope some of the aforementioned heavyweights will. And also Joe Posnanski because JOE POSNANSKI. C’MON ALREADY.

In conclusion, Joe Posnanski.

Sean from Massapequa

Sean from Massapequa: I’m Done

Frequent Scratchbomb contributor Sean from Massapequa returns to recap the Jets’ disappointing loss in yet another AFC championship. I was a little nervous when I couldn’t get in touch with him right after the game, but his shift supervisor told me he was just taking his semi-annual one month paid vacation.

seanfrommassapequa.jpgI am done with this team. Absolutely done. Finished. Kaput. Ceased. Ended. Drawn to a close. Terminated. I’m so angry, I bought a thesaurus just so’s I could find new ways of sayin “done,” which is what I am.

You give so much to a team. You wear all their gear that your buddy who works at Modell’s threw in the backa your pickup. You go to every damn game, through thick and thin, good weather and bad, so long as your other buddy can sneak you into the Meadowlands through one of the service entrances. You go through the trouble of splittin your neighbor’s cable line so’s you can get Sunday Ticket.

And for what? Just so’s they can rip your heart again and again, and one or two further times. The time has come for me to say, enough. No more. That is all. I’m through…Sorry, but ever since I got this thesaurus, I can’t put it down. It’s quite riveting.

I ain’t no fair-weather fan, neither. Me and this team go way back. Me and my old man used to drive out to Shea every Sunday and whip empty airliners of Stoli at the opposing QB, and if necessary the Jets’ QB. Dad was never prouder of me than the day I brained Don Maynard with a D cell. And If dad couldn’t get a ticket, he’d fake a limp and say he was a wounded vet, and the ushers would just wave him in. That’s where I learned the value of hard work.

I know I said I was done in 1983, when the Jets couldn’t do a damn thing against those pretty boy Dolphins. I know I said I was done in 1986, when that pretty boy Gastineau roughed up Bernie Kosar. I know I said I was done in 1998, with all those damn turnovers in Denver givin pretty boy Elway his last hurrah. And I know I said I was done last year, when that pretty boy Peyton Manning took down that pretty boy Sanchez.

This ain’t like when I said I was done with the Mets after 2006, and 2007, and 2008, and 2009, and 2010, and how I plan on sayin I’m done with em after 2011. This is gonna stick, brother. The Jets bring me nothin but pain, and I don’t need that in my life no more. I can’t walk back into work and face my loudmouth Giants fan supervisor. Thinks he’s so high and mighty. God damn choir boy only got caught fakin a workman’s comp injury twice

On second thought, I bet I could claim Jets fandom as a crippling condition and get some time off for that. Or at least some scrips.

No! I’m stickin to my guns. I’m done and that’s that. And if the Jets don’t draft a big time receiver this April, I’m gonna beat Mike Tannenbaum with a shovel on fire.

Football

Rex Ryan Laments Blown Opportunities

Thumbnail image for rex.jpgYeah, it definitely hurts to get this close and not make it just one step further. And for two years in a row now. But what’s really gonna keep me up at night is how much trash talking we coulda done.

That’s what got us here, from Hard Knocks all the way through the win against the Patriots. We just talked smack about everyone and everything, morning, noon, and night. Then we face the Steelers and all of a sudden we don’t say anything. Not a peep. That’s what killed us–we got away from our game plan.

But I don’t blame my players. I put this all on me. I had so many insults ready to go, both overt and veiled, and I didn’t use them. I took a cue from Wes Welker and wrote up a whole buncha press conference responses, all of which used the word “rape” in them, but then I thought that would’ve been in bad taste. I gotta hand it to Mike Tomlin and his team–I never would’ve thought anything was in bad taste a week ago.

And even if we didn’t go for the obvious digs at Roethlisberger, there’s so many petty details we could’ve shit-talked about. Like, “hey, what’s up with Polamalu’s hair?” or “your stadium is named after ketchup!” Maybe those seem like little things, but hey, little things win championships.

We coulda done it over-the-top, black-hat style and insulted the entire city of Pittsburgh. Maybe we could’ve downplayed the accomplishments of the labor movement. Maybe we could’ve mocked steel, maybe? “Iron, carbon, chromium, what kinda dumbass fuckin alloy is that?” Then maybe the Steelers would’ve been driven insane with rage and made a buncha mistakes. Oh well, guess we’ll never know what mighta been.

The only thing we can do is work harder. Develop better insults in the off season. Find new and creative ways to be dismissive of your opponents. Draft some athletic loudmouths out of college. And above all, never, ever stop talking. Because talk is cheap, and who wants to pass up that kinda bargain?