Random Thoughts
1. You’ve got to love Mike Tice. Nobody is ever going to say that this guy isn’t a disciplinarian. In light of the Vikes' recent orgy, Tice has turned to draconian measures. The Vikings will “no longer allow players to be late to meetings” and will start prohibiting jeans and T-shirts during road games and "eventually coats and ties will be required." I don’t even think Stalin would have gone this far. In all seriousness, Tice has to be fired before the Vikes' next game right? I am actually starting to feel bad for him. The only humane thing to do is terminate him.
2. The following point was brought up on the message board a few weeks ago and I couldn’t agree more. Right now the best radio personality in Boston is Josh Miller. Miller has a segment with Michael Felger on the Drive every Tuesday afternoon. It is GREAT radio. It’s actually shocking to me that WEEI didn’t get him first. I’m guessing they had no clue he was this good.
3. File this next random thought in the Breaking News category. Apparently a new study has revealed that losing a little weight can do wonders for your sex life. So says Duke University psychologist Martin Binks, who presented a study at a meeting of The Obesity Society showing that shedding a few pounds can improve things in the bedroom by making people feel better about their bodies.
What a shocker! Did this guy get paid to figure out that attractive people bang more than ugly people?
4. I love Anheuser Busch as much as the next guy. After all Bud is a proud supporter of Barstool Sports. However, even I am having a hard time keeping a straight face with this next story.
ST. LOUIS --Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. said it will quit marketing a drinking game called "Bud Pong" after discovering that some people were imbibing beer during the game instead of water, as directions specified. A New York Times article Sunday described players using beer instead. "It has come to our attention that despite our explicit guidelines, there may have been instances where this promotion was not carried out in the manner it was intended," Anheuser-Busch spokeswoman Francine I. Katz said in a statement Tuesday.
I wonder if the reporter who wrote this story for the New York Times has been given the Pulitzer yet? I mean this is some hard-hitting investigative research. It takes a special reporter to discover that Beirut is played with beer and not water.
5. If this next random thought isn’t the best story of all time, I don’t know what is. In OKLAHOMA CITY a man got a prison term longer than prosecutors and defense attorneys had agreed to -- all because of Celtics great Larry Bird. The lawyers reached a plea agreement Tuesday for a 30-year term for a man accused of shooting with an intent to kill and robbery. But Eric James Torpy wanted his prison term to match Bird's jersey number 33. "He said if he was going to go down, he was going to go down in Larry Bird's jersey," Oklahoma County District Judge Ray Elliott said Wednesday. "We accommodated his request and he was just as happy as he could be.
If anything I think this proves that there is a problem with our judicial system. How can a man who thinks like this be behind bars? He can’t be all bad, right? If I was the judge the second this guy asked for his jail sentence to match LB’s uniform number I would have thrown the case out the window.
6. If I was in charge of sports marketing at Boston College I would try to hunt down and murder whoever is responsible for continually featuring Syracuse on ABC every Saturday afternoon. BC has an uphill battle to begin with trying to make people care about college football in this pro sports dominated city. The last thing they need is for ABC to showcase arguably the worst college football team in the history of modern civilization every single freaking week. Anytime I watch Syracuse on offense I honestly reevaluate why I even like football to begin with. It makes me want to take up sewing or something.
7. Sticking with college football it was a real bad week for the Superfans.
First they got bitch slapped by Virginia Tech on Thursday Night football and then they got unceremoniously dumped by Notre Dame from the Irish's schedule starting in 2011. The Irish claim that the reason they are replacing the Superfans with Rutgers is because BC trashed Notre Dame’s field and locker rooms after beating them in 2002. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that this excuse is total bull crap. The reality of the situation is that the risk of losing to BC far outweighs the gain in beating them. And the way the Irish has struggled with the Superfans recently they might as well schedule Miami instead. At least the Hurricanes bring national prestige with them. It’s like a Heavyweight champion signing to fight an unranked fighter who is tough as nails. What’s the point? Dropping BC from the schedule is a smart business decision for the Irish. And the Superfans have no right to complain about it because they’ve already proven by their bolt to the ACC that college football is all about business.
8. I think it’s safe to say that Kelly Kawposki’s title as the only Saved By the Bell cast member to have post Bayside High School success will remain intact after watching Slater on ESPN Hollywood. I thought he’d be able to handle the step up from Animal Planet, but I think he just looks overwhelmed.
9. According to the New York Daily News Lil' Kim bounced checks to the crew that helped shoot her music video last month before she reported to federal prison to begin a year-and-a-day sentence for lying to a grand jury. Lil' Kim has vigorously denied that the bounced checks were her fault and instead blames the production company management for the fiasco. The New York Daily News has said that they will print a retraction if Lil' Kim can get “Little Jerry Seinfeld” into the ring one last time.
10. Can you believe that MLB is complaining about these new Got Milk commercials that make fun of the steroids scandal? The television ad for the California Milk Processor Board talks about a player getting pulled from a game "after testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance." In the next scene, a coach pulls a carton of milk from the slugger's locker. In response to this ad MLB released the following statement. “"There is nothing humorous about steroid abuse. I would think that the California Milk Processor Board and their advertising agency would know better regarding an issue that threatens America's youth."
MLB has got some SERIOUS BALLS to complain about this commercial. They’ve sat and done nothing about steroids for the past decade and have only started to do something because the government has forced them to. For MLB to criticize the Milk people for not caring about Steroids is like fur manufacturers criticizing PETA for not caring about animals.
11. Saw II is currently out in the movie theaters. I feel like if you’re really lucky you can still find the original playing in movie theaters. This has to be the fastest sequel in the history of movies. Maybe the fact that they only took 2 days to film it explains the negative star rating. Is this just my imagination?
12. Just as a warning, I want to let everybody know that I love Making the Band III and will probably have many random thoughts about it in the future. I don’t care that it’s the same exact thing as Making the Band II. There is something captivating to me about Diddy telling chicks that they better be able to dance and he’s not going through this shit again.
13. 1510 the Zone is dead. I’m not going to confirm or deny that their decision to sack the Barstool Sports Radio show was what led to their demise although I’m sure that hit in the ratings played a part. Regardless, mark this down as the first company on our list of “companies to stay in business longer than” that we outlasted. Hey Boston Sports Review, we’re coming for your ass next!
14. Apparently with 1510 the Zone finally going out of business ESPN Radio has taken it upon itself to carry on the torch of horrible programming. I was stuck in my Astrovan dropping off copies of our 25 Sexiest Magazines. My only solace was that I was planning on listening to ESPN Radio the whole time to keep updated on all the NFL action. Things were going according to plan until 2pm when ESPN Radio switched to Northeastern Hockey. Northeastern Hockey! This instantly brought back bad memories of 1510 cutting out of “Around the NFL” in favor of NASCAR. And look where that got them. How the hell is Northeastern Hockey on ESPN Radio? Are they trying to alienate their listeners? I’d say the over/under on the total amount of people who listened to the Northeastern game was 1 and I’m going way under. After all anybody who can get the ESPN signal and wanted to listen to this game would have gone to it instead. I just hope this isn’t a sign of things to come for these guys.
15. Strange Patriots game against Buffalo. In light of Tedy Bruschi’s return, I expected the Pats to come out flying and just obliterate the Bills. But for the first time in 3 years I’m beginning to get real worried. The defense is just in shambles. We can’t stop the run and we can’t stop the pass. It’s like the defense is playing with 9 guys because Freeman and Starks flat out suck. Corey Dillon looks like he is still hampered with a bad knee or ankle or whatever it is. We have no 3rd down back. I was working under the impression that the bye week would really help us get healthy and back to form but it didn’t seem that way last night. Don’t get me wrong I still have us beating the Colts and winning the Super Bowl, but I haven’t decided whether I’m going to put my money where my mouth is yet.
16. Before last week’s Pats game I hadn’t made up my mind about Mike Mularkey as a coach. But after watching him challenge Daniel Graham’s catch at the end of the first half after having the entire 2 minute warning to watch the replays, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to take him seriously. That may have been the worst decision I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It was so asinine that it prompted Mike Patrick to make an equally asinine statement which was that “maybe Buffalo doesn’t have anybody in their booth looking at replays.” As absurd as this sounds I’m not sure there can be any other explanation. I mean how could anybody who saw that replay think Graham didn’t cleanly catch that pass? It just makes no sense on any level how that play was challenged. I guess it will just go down as one of life’s great mysteries.
17. Atlanta Falcons cornerback DeAngelo Hall had his "just did it." And that's the problem. Hall, a Reebok endorser, wore Nike shoes during the Monday Night Football game against the New York Jets. Then, according to Sports Business Daily, a industry trade publication, Hall appeared on Tuesday's Fox Sports Net's "Totally Football" show with a Virginia Tech hat that had a Nike logo on it. Hall played football for the school. "Effective immediately, DeAngelo Hall will no longer be a Reebok endorsed athlete," said John Lynch, Reebok's vice president of sports marketing, in a statement. Why you ask? How stupid can you be? I know how Reebok feels. I had to fire a Barstool Sports girl for drinking a beer other than Miller Lite at a Miller Lite Ms. Barstool Contest. The bottom line is that El Presidente and Reebok don’t pay our people the big bucks to support competitors.
18. A big story lately has been that Sheryl Swoopes has come out of the closet and admitted she’s a lesbian. "My reason for coming out isn't to be some sort of hero," Swoopes, a forward with the Houston Comets, says in an article with ESPN the Magazine. "I'm just at a point in my life where I'm tired of having to pretend to be somebody I'm not. I'm tired of having to hide my feelings about the person I care about. About the person I love.”
Umm, Sheryl who were you hiding from? I know that as a rule I assume that 97% of female athletes in team sports (not including soccer) are lesbians. I think I would have been more surprised had you said you were straight. Doesn’t everybody feel this way?
19. The big story of the day yesterday broke late and it broke hard. As I’m sure everybody knows by now, Theo Epstein turned down a 3 year extension with the Red Sox at an estimated 1.5 million dollars per year. As the late Teddy Serandis would say, WOW! First of all, I must admit that my mother is the one who broke the news to me. I think this is the first time she’s ever broke a big sports story in her life and I could tell she was excited about it. Second, I don’t blame Theo at all. As I’ve been saying from the second this new ownership group took over it’s clear that they are a bunch of slimy weasels. Larry Lucchino is nothing but a greasy used car salesman. Tom Werner is a joke and John Henry looks like he is the bad guy from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I can’t imagine what it must be like to work with these guys on a daily basis. I’m sure Theo will get similar money somewhere else in the future and he won’t have to worry about Lucchino, that snake in the grass sabotaging him. This just proves once and for all that Lucchino puts his own self interests ahead of the team. Money wasn’t an issue here. Luccino’s ego was the issue. The fact that Lucchino just couldn’t stay out of the spotlight forced a young bright GM out of town. Anything that goes bad from here is on his head.
20. My favorite part of this whole Theo Epstein saga is that according to the Boston Herald Epstein had come close to agreeing to a deal Saturday evening but had not officially conveyed acceptance of it. On Sunday, he began having serious misgivings about staying on. A leading contributing factor, according to sources close to the situation, was a column in Sunday’s Boston Globe in which too much inside information about the relationship between Epstein and his mentor, team president and CEO Larry Lucchino, was revealed -- in a manner slanted too much in Lucchino’s favor. Epstein, according to these sources, had several reasons to believe Lucchino was a primary source behind the column and came to the realization that if this information were leaked hours before Epstein was going to agree to a new long-term deal, it signaled excessive bad faith between him and Lucchino.
Reader Email
Email #1
You could not be more right about Josh Miller. The first time I heard him I was SHOCKED that he was a professional athlete. My shocked subsided when I realized that he is a punter. He has a good sense of humor and his radio demeanor makes the monkeys on WEEI sound like, well, monkeys. A few more guest hosts like him and my dream of a WEEI-free universe may become reality.
Russell J. Smith
I wonder how ESPN Radio found him? I mean how is it possible that both WEEI and 1510 let him slide to ESPN Radio? Well I guess 1510 wasn’t in the market for his services but I bet somebody got fired at WEEI. He is clearly the best radio guest in Boston by a landslide. The only problem is that I can’t get ESPN’s signal unless I stay in one specific spot in Boston and pray to the lord of radio fuzz.
Email #2
I am a self-professed DVR fanatic. I can't remember the last time I have watched a show during its regular broadcast time. Actually having to sit through commercials is now completely unacceptable. In fact, I spent a weekend at the in- laws a few weeks ago without a DVR and I was about to kill everyone in the house. That said, there is one completely infuriating aspect to the DVR experience, and to make it even worse, this scenario plays out most often when you are taping sporting events. I just experienced this again first hand with the Contender rematch. I set up the DVR to tape the fights, but the college football game on ESPN ran an extra hour into the Contender rematch and the DVR stopped recording in the 3rd round of the Brinkley-Bonsante fight. I missed the end of that fight and the entire mora-manfredo jr. rematch!!!! We can clone a human embryo but we can't make a DVR smart enough to keep taping if your show runs over the allotted time?
Scott H
Great point. This is truly a major flaw of DVR. I ran into the same exact problem you did with the Contender rematch. Luckily ESPN replays everything at least 50 times so I was able to catch it the next time it was on. I also have a hard time believing that scientists can’t create a DVR that has the ability to record as many things at once as your heart desires and still allows complete freedom of clicker use. I mean if we can put a man on the moon we can certainly tape more than 2 things at once right?
Email #3
El Presidente, Nothing infuriates me more than when the sports world latches onto a word or phrase and absolutely bludgeons it to death. Case in point is the word “surreal”; is this now obligatory in every post- game interview? Apparently, these days, if you win your JV field hockey quarter-final match, you’ll find yourself smack-dab in the middle of a goddamned Salvador Dali painting. The new one now (and although I’ve never watched the ESPN Hollywood, I’ll bet A.C. Slater is throwing it around like nobody’s business) is “sexy”. Yesterday, Sporting News Radio informed me that the Packers/Vikings wasn’t a very “sexy” match up. No kidding, huh? I’m no homophobe, but is there any reason why a sportscaster would ever feel the need to describe a football game with 22 dudes kicking the crap out of each other as “sexy”?
Jim Portland, ME
I hate to totally switch gears on you here Jim, but I noticed you were from Portland, ME. How would people say Portland stacks up in terms of cool under rated towns? I’m a HUGE Portland, ME fan. I don’t think it gets enough credit around here. There are great bars and I feel like ME chicks are easy. They get very impressed by us city slickers. if I went up to the Old Port and started telling chicks that I may be able to get them on the cover of a major metropolitan newspaper, I’d have a line of chicks outside my hotel room door.