Stool Samples

For an active Major Leaguer, Eric Byrnes sure gets around a lot.  While former all-pro media whore Curt Schilling is all but silent these days, Byrnes has arguably jumped past Schilling in the ’08 rankings.  Sure, Byrnes’ activities are often pointless, if not stupid, but we’re really starting to take note of the fact that he loves him some television face time. 

In the past, Byrnes has appeared as a studio analyst for MLB on FOX telecasts, ESPN’s Baseball Tonight, appeared on an episode of the awkwardly terrible EOE game show Teammates – hosted by Stuart Scott – and kayaked across McCovey Cove with his baseball-searching dog Bruin during last year’s All Star festivities.   All the while he’s reappeared in various roles on The Best Damn Sports Show Period.

A week ago Saturday, Byrnes etched a new chapter in his book of whoring, when he “starred” as Detective Brock Storm in the FOX Saturday Baseball segment “Byrning Heat” (see how they did that?).  Joined by teammates O-Dog (Orlando Hudson) and Connor Jackson (Chaz Lightning), the three tried to get to the bottom of how and why some of the lesser known players have thrived thus far in ’08, while viewers at home were left wondering who, how and why FOX decided the segment would be funny. 

The only redeeming quality was the fake mustaches the three wore, but it still wasn’t enough to make us realize we were wasting our time.

For the record, Byrnes appeared on Best Damn Sports Show, Period a week ago.  And of course, we’re not joking. 

Crap that actually came from somebody's mouth

"(Blake DeWitt) literally came out of nowhere." - Joe Buck

Before you throw your arms in the air and shake your head, know that DeWitt appeared out of thin air in Joe Torre's bedroom during the first week of Spring Training, after Torre met with a witch doctor and meditated for 17 hours in nothing but candlelight.

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"When was the last time you could get a cold frosty one for two bits?" - Mike Shannon, Cardinals radio play-by-play man

Sitting through the typical Shannon broadcast often leads one to surmise he has been drinking nonstop since that era.

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"I think the Easter Bunny made the schedule." - Shannon, on the odd baseball schedule

See?

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"Juan Pierre is having a fabulous year." - Joe Morgan

Yes, a .281 average and .669 OPS is fabulous.  For $9 million a year, your team can experience this fabulousness!

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"It's easier for a hitter to watch film of a pitcher than it is for a hitter to be watched on film by a pitcher." - Joe Morgan

Studies show that 36% of pitchers have trouble hooking up their VCRs and DVD players hindering their ability to watch film of hitters - verifying Morgan's sentiments.

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"There are two things that really affect your swing: your legs and your hands." - Joe Morgan

Don't forget the eyes, Joe.

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"I feel like (Jeff Kent) either has an argument, or he doesn't." - Jon Miller

We feel like 19 years of working with Joe Morgan is starting to get to Jon Miller

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The Top 5 Stupidest Quotes in Jemele Hill’s Column

When Page 2’s Jemele Hill penned a recent article crafting bizarre arguments in an attempt to make a case for why the NBA needed a Pistons-Spurs final instead of the more exciting Lakers-Celtics option, we figured the only way to truly do the piece justice was to rank the stupidity that was littered throughout the column.

5.) "As an NBA fan, there is nothing more irritating than when the league's credibility is challenged by cockamamy conspiracy theories. The biggest NBA conspiracy theory going right now is that the league is trying to make a Boston-L.A. Finals happen, because it would mean insane television ratings and a return to the time when the dominance of those two franchises overshadowed everything else in sports. .. But if it's Pistons-Spurs, the NBA Finals will be conspiracy-free."

Once we saw that the premise of the column was that the Pistons-Spurs would be better than a much-hyped Lakers-Celtics series not because it would be the superior series, rather because it would be “conspiracy-free”, we probably should have just stopped reading. 

4.) "If you love teams that win because of their commitment to team basketball, root for Pistons-Spurs."

Hasn’t the entire season for the Celtics been a testament to setting aside ones ego for a larger cause?  If we’re not mistaken, the trio of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce even appeared on ESPN The Magazine’s cover with that very concept in mind (On November 5, 2007 to be exact).

3.) "If you're sick of seeing basketball dominated by And-1 wannabes, root for Pistons-Spurs."

Rumor has it that Kobe Bryant tried out for the And-1 tour but got smoked by The Professor and didn’t make the cut.  Seriously, Jemele, at no point when you were comparing the freaking Celtics and the Lakers to And-1 did you stop to think this might be a bit ridiculous? 

2.) "If you're someone who grumbles that NBA players don't play defense, you should root for Pistons-Spurs (although Boston may play the best defense of the remaining playoff teams)."

Keep in mind that parenthesis was all Jemele, meaning that she concedes that the Celtics are the best defensive team in the playoffs, but still somehow manages to make an argument that if you’re a fan of defense you should root for the series that will guarantee that said team is eliminated.  Makes perfect sense.   

1.) "I anticipate the crybabies will complain that the Spurs and Pistons are boring to watch …The ones who claim they love underdogs, but won't give the Pistons or Spurs a chance…."

This is where she cranks up the crazy a notch to fit the column agenda.  Those fans who love underdogs, should be rooting for the defending champions to face a team that Hill herself describes later in the column as “maybe the closest thing the Eastern Conference has had to a dynasty since Jordan's Bulls.”

Perhaps, as crazy as it sounds, the concept of a Finals that pits a team that was dead last in the NBA in 2007 versus a team that was ousted in the first round of the playoffs a year ago, is the matchup those fans who want to see underdogs are pulling for.  Just so happens that those teams are named the Celtics and the Lakers.

Media Rant: Cubs the Team of Destiny

Hey did you hear?  The Cubs are like soood the team of destiny.  After their impressive come from behind win over the Rockies a week ago Friday afternoon at Wrigley, the flood gates for destiny talk officially opened, or we should say, re-opened. 

Roman Madrowski of the Chicago Sun Times has seen this before and said it before, and to him, it bears repeating: 

I think it was like June 25 of last year, and I think it was a wild win over the Rockies when I called the Cubs a team of destiny in this blog. It was the type of game you point to in October as proof of something special. Was today's Cubs win over the Rockies along the same lines?

Last year was different because after that wild win, the Cubs were still around .500.  This season they have the best record in baseball and are supposed to win. But still, they've won so many games they should have lost. That usually bodes well in the big picture.

A team of destiny? Who knows. One hundred years of being a team destined to disappoint has a lot of momentum, but maybe this year is different.  Maybe they're not a team of destiny, but they sure are a scrappy bunch.

To be fair to Roman, at least he steered clear of the full destiny label, but it sill makes us wonder how a writer can write about the same thing when last year disproved his ridiculous theory that originated from zero percent fact.  Just like the 2001 Yankees battling after 9-11, the 2002 Cardinals battling after the deaths of Jack Buck and Daryl Kile and the 2003 Cubbies, the ’08 version is a team of destiny.  You may call them whatever you want, Mr. Madrowski.  If it makes you happy.    The majority of Madrowski’s readers appear to be on the same page:

At least Roman didn’t stretch so far as to correlate Chicagoan Barack Hussein Obama’s chance at winning the presidency of the United States of America; Michael Levy of the Britannica blog did that for him (and no, Levy is not “the Encyclopedia Britannica guy”):

Perhaps that 2008 marks the centennial of the Cubs’ last World Series title has made some among us–particularly those like me who suffer from delusions–believe that this is a year of destiny. We grasp at anything. For example, there was this Chicagoan more than a year ago who entered a contest for the most powerful job in the world and who was given long odds to defeat the dynasty that had held sway over his party for the past decade and a half. - Michael Levy

Hey, at least Levy is privy to the fact that he’s delusional.  The Cubs might very well win it all, but it won’t be due to supernatural forces. 

Stool Samples is written by the cofounders of the sports humor site, JoeSportsFan.com, Josh Bacott and Patrick Imig.  They swear all this stuff is real.  Email them at info@joesportsfan.com