Baseball

Bless You, Random Vandal

If you follow my Twitter feed, you know that the one team I truly, deeply hate is the Florida Marlins. There are other teams I dislike at various times for various reasons, but the Marlins are the only one who incite in me a white-hot burning rage.

Why? I delineated many of the reasons in this piece, so it seems pointless (and blood pressure raising) to do so again. But one cause I just glanced over was their owner, Jeff Loria, who I daresay could out-douche George Steinbrenner at The Boss’s infantile height.

Loria is the man most responsible for choking off the Expos at the root so they could move out of Montreal. Granted, he couldn’t have done this if Bud Selig et al weren’t so keen on making it happen, but the fact remains that he, more than anyone else, destroyed that franchise. (For some arcane reason, this move also necessary to allow the current Red Sox ownership to take over. It is a complicated tapestry of deceit.) He picked a needless public fight with Joe Girardi (who has done just fine for himself elsewhere), and fired another good skipper in Fredi Gonzalez, thereby serving up the next manager for a division rival (the Braves) up on a silver platter. He keeps his payroll at poverty levels (by baseball standards) and bullied Miami into building him a new stadium, only to be revealed as a lying scumbag who puts MLB revenue sharing money into his own pocket.

He has a huge man-crush on Hanley Ramirez to the detriment of his other players, despite the fact that shortstop’s tantrums and lack of hustle have increased at the same rate his performance has declined. He is also the kind of person who would buy his team the largest–and therefore best!–World Series rings ever when they came out of nowhere to win a title in 2003. And quickly returned to nowhere, as he dismantled the team piece by piece. Take a big steamy gawk at this thing and tell me this man should own a baseball team. Go ahead, I dare you.

That is why I have taken particular delight in this altered entry on Loria’s Wikipedia page. Bless you, random vandal. You are truly doing the Lord’s work. (Hat tip to @jameskann whose tweeting alerted me to this.)


YouTube Comment of the Week

YouTube Comment(s) of the Week: News!

The vast majority of my YouTube collection is made up of random ads. I don’t think there’s anything particularly special about most of them; I’ve just placed them there because I found them on old VHS tapes and want to preserve them for posterity in a new format. I realize the impulse to do this is perhaps a form of OCD, autism, or full-blown mental illness.

However, in so doing, I’ve found that there are people out there people who even more trainspotty than me, folks who can recall exactly what aired when on TV throughout the ages, right down to all the ads, and are very eager to tell me in the comments (especially if I’ve gotten some detail wrong). For some reason, this is particularly true for local news ads/clips. Perhaps because the personalities from local news usually endure longer than those seen in national ad campaigns, or they evoke a sense of community. It’s also possible these folks are just bonkers.

Here’s an example: A promo for CBS-2 news with a “health” bent, followed by a comment from someone who knows exactly where some of the footage originated.

The same commenter made another appearance on another news-related YouTube video of mine. This was a montage of terrifying local news teasers from the 1980s, but this commenter was still able to isolate one moment in the video and not only identify the source, but tell me when it aired.

As a bonus, here’s what another wag had to say about this video.

Baseball

Bud Selig: I Am the Worst

I am the worst. The absolute worst. Oh my god, you would not believe. I am just a shitty person in every conceivable way. Think of a way a man can be terrible and I will guarantee you that I have done it or am doing it as we speak.

Children scatter when I walk down the street. Flowers wilt. Dogs growl. You feel a chill in the air that you can only feel when in the presence of a horrible, horrible human being.

When you’re this awful, it’s hard to do things that reinforce your awfulness. People come to expect you do the the worst thing at all times. That’s when I pride myself in digging deep and finding new ways to turn people’s stomachs.

Not allowing a team to wear hats in tribute to 9/11 first responders because of MLB’s lucrative contract with New Era? That’s pretty bad. But demanding a player who dared defy it take off his cap posthaste, midgame, even though he only wore it in the dugout? That’s the kind of mind-numbingly bureaucratic horse-shittery that only a true scumbag could pull off. And to top it off, I make one of my cowering lickspittles take the fall for the decision. Yes, kneel before me, Joe Torre! Who knows where you might be if not for my criminally lax steroid policies?

And I do this all while doing nothing to fix the many ills that actually plague the sport for which I am the supposed caretaker. It’s the 21st century and my stupid sport that I hate and can’t stand doesn’t use instant replay, yet I pretend to be concerned with caps? That is some weapons-grade horse-shittery, if I do say so myself.

I wake up every day, look myself in the mirror, and before it cracks in disgust at having to reflect my hateful image, say to myself, “Today I will be the worst me I can be.” Then I set something in the yard on fire and blame it on the neighbors’ weird kids. On the way to work, I try to hit as many squirrels with my car as possible. My record is 12. I once hit at least one squirrel on five consecutive blocks. I’m like the Joe DiMaggio of killing small animals! And when I get to work, I see how quickly I can make my secretary cry.

I eat poop. Constantly. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Midnight snacks, too. Not always my own, either. Whatever I can find. I am that disgusting.

Hoping I’ll retire due to old age so someone not hideous can run baseball? Never gonna happen! I have used the Dark Arts to prolong the usefulness of this withered husk of a mortal shell. I am constantly protected by two hulking demons, who remain at my side at all times. Only those as wretched as me can see them! I will outlive you, your grandchildren, the pyramids themselves!

I am fucking terrible and can not be stopped! Ever! Play ball, you brainless insects!

A potentially explosive collection of verbal irritants