BG Breaks His Legendary Silence On the 2010 Dodgers

Shameful

Worst season ever. I really don’t want to say anything bad about the franchise that made me love sports but I hate everything about this season and now, thanks to a few ill-advised trades, I might end up hating future seasons as well. If you want a rundown of these despicable moves just click to this ESPN link, it’s as good as any other. The smell emanating from the Dodgers right now is probably the worst thing you can smell in professional sports–a mix of desperation *and* incompetence. If McCourt thinks he’s losing the team in the offseason and he’s going to go down firing, that’s fine; just go out with some noise. Trade for Dan Haren who has a fairly club-friendly contract for the next few seasons, not for Ted Lilly who is a rental. Trade for Soria (another great contract) instead of Dotel. Trade for Ludwick instead of Podsednik. The pieces the Dodgers acquired are not guys that put you over the top–these are the types of players you trade for when you are UP by eight games and want to shore up your squad for the postseason, not when you’re DOWN by eight games (and fading) and also mortgaging your future in the process. If you really wanted to add somebody, try adding some impact pieces (not this rice pilaf that you just took on) BEFORE your season has been blown to bits and never, ever throw good money (or prospects) after bad.

Here is a smattering of text messages I got on the days leading up to the deadline:

Greg: Scotty Pods? Where is he going to play.

Jason: The Riot?

My Dad: The should have traded away Broxton.

Look McCourt and Colletti–I know you guys are hamstrung financially. I know you entered the 2010 amateur draft intending to punt your first round pick to you wouldn’t have to pay a signing bonus. I know you’ve spent less money in the international draft in recent years than anybody else. I know your farm system is not what many in the industry consider to be strong (and just got a lot weaker). You have a certain left fielder who isn’t doing your team any good this year named Manny Ramirez–other teams might want him, maybe you should have looked at spinning him into a prospect or two? No? Don’t like that plan? Make too much sense? McCourt and Colletti, you are both terrible/horrible at your jobs. In the immortal words of George Constanza, “Well, I wish I could say the same, but I must say, with all due respect, I find it very hard to see the logic behind some of the moves you have made with this fine organization. In the past twenty years, you have caused myself, and the city of New York Los Angeles, a good deal of distress as we have watched you take our beloved Yankees Dodgers and reduced them to a laughing stock, all for the glorification of your massive ego.”

And that’s it, my friends. I’m not going to another Dodger game (note: Spring Training doesn’t count. Spring Training is still in play) until these boobs are out. I will watch on TV, I will pay attention, I will bleed blue but you are not getting another nickle of my money, Franky. Choke on it.

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No Comments by BG / July 31, 2010 / Posted in: Uncategorized

Tagged: Boycott, Dodgers, Frank McCourt, MLB

Week in Review: Report tabs WCBias Happiest Place in the Blogosphere

Flat, gloomy, and we're still stoked. What!?

So that my friends is Morro Rock today.

Flat as can be. Not a soul out. Nothing but Fresno on the fogged-in beach.

Crappiest, unstokable day in quite some time. But are we upset about it? No, ’cause there isn’t anywhere else we’d rather be than this side of the 101.

Life’s just better/happier on the West Coast — even during flat spells (heck, worse comes to worst, we’ll go battle batrays with our snorkle cam). Don’t believe men? Research proves it.

The Westside is the best side, according to Twitter. And we all know Twitter runs our A.D.D., 140-character-limit world these days.

According to a study by researchers from Northeastern and Harvard, Tweets from the West Coast have shown our segment of the population is happier than the other three quarters of the country.

Why, you might ask? We could only speculate it has something to do with the combination of The Stoke, Lakers and Mannymania. All of which means WCBias.com must be the happiest place in the blogosphere. Disneyland’s got nothing on the Bias. Heck, the West Coast even has Disneyland on lock, too.

Let me serenade the streets of L.A., from Oakland to Sacktown
The Bay Area and back down, Cali is where they put they mack down …
Gimme love!
- Pac

Other random news from the week that was …

A couple of nerds were involved in a pen stabbing at Comic-Con in San Diego. The attacker reportedly wore a blue Harry Potter shirt. Guess the plot’s set for Colors 2: Comic Relief.
Bud Selig reports that testing for HGH is under way in the MINOR leagues. Elsewhere, MLB, NBA, NFL, PGA, NHL, NCAA continue to bury their heads in the sand.
Saw a little glob of oil at The Rock today and it reminded me of the mess in the gulf. Also reminded me of some classic BP ads from back in the day: “It’s time to think outside the barrel.” Brilliant. We should have BP copywriters contribute to the Bias.
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Joe Torre undecided about managing in 2011. In other news: Don Mattingly undecided about managing in 2011 … and number of trips he’s allowed to the mound in an inning.
It’s not as good as Ryantific and BSlim’s chipotle red ale, but the bitter LeBron James beer is back in Cleveland.
And if that doesn’t do it for you, there’s always the $500 stuffed squirrel ale.
Double take of the week: Chuck Liddell doing Lipton Brisk ads? Random. Come on Chuck. How about Coors Light “Cold as Iceman” or something. You’re better than that. Or are you any more?
A week late … remember that crazy week I wrote about the New York Yankees? Yeah, got even crazier with the death of The Boss the next day. Talk about a jinx. Shortstop Derek Jeter recalls George Steinbrenner.
Speaking of death. People who die are starting to haunt Facebook users as suggested friends. Which reminds me of my next blog idea — to schedule a post 50 years from now that lists the Top 50 people I hate. No. 1 on that list, myself. Luckily I live on the West Coast, so I’m too happy to do anything about it right now.

- Sent from my itBeFlatPhone.

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2 Comments by Slim / July 25, 2010 / Posted in: Surfing

Liquid Image Snorkel-Cam Review: BG vs. the Bat Ray

Eric, notice the Matuse wetsuit. Classy.

Due to an extreme lack of surf, I decided to bust out the Liquid Image Explorer blahblahblah snorkel this weekend. Eric from my softball team and I charged down to Hammond’s to see what we could see. The answer: not much. I did however see a pretty big bat ray that I swam right over the top of, visions of Steve Irwin dancing through my head. I was in about 7 or 8 feet of water and visibility was about five feet so of course I didn’t see the ray until it was about 4 feet from me (what fishologists call THE KILL ZONE) and of course I screamed like a little girl. Luckily I was underwater so there was nobody to laugh at me.

The camera itself is sort of a mixed bag. First of all taking a picture when the camera itself isn’t eye level is a challenge–there’s a semi-complicated double-X viewfinder that you see out of the mask that theoretically allows you to line up your shots so they’re at least sort of centered but most of the images I ended up with were just fuzzyass blurs, which isn’t too dissimilar from my normal point-and-shoot pics, so maybe there’s a lot of operator error involved. Probably. Anyway, with visibility the best it had been in months (but still less than ideal) only about half the shots came out which probably isn’t a terrible success rate for a first time user (unless you count the Blythe River Trip, but I’m not sure I do). No, I didn’t get any pics of the Bat Ray but it wasn’t cos I was a girl and flipped out and swallowed a whole mouth full of water but because I was out of storage on the internal card…I think I was able to get about 45 images before the FULL indicator popped on. You can add in a memory card which boosts the capacity to probably like a million photos or somewhere in that neighborhood (this also does video but I’m saving that for a future review).

Also as an aside I cut the sleeves (well, half the sleeves) off of an old full suit to make myself one of those cool half-sleeves that all the kidz tell me are the rage these days. I am working on sewing a dirty seam or two with some nylon thread for this weekend’s project but that is a boring story now that I realize what I am typing.

Sea Monster's Eye View

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1 Comment by BG / July 21, 2010 / Posted in: Uncategorized

Tagged: Bat Ray, Fishology, Product Review, Snorkel, The Ocean

Is Good Defense Enough for The Hall of Fame in Baseball?

So I’m watching the White Sox game on the tube the other day, and Sox announcer Ken “Hawk” Harrelson says that former Giant (not to mention former Indian, Mariner and Ranger) Omar Vizquel is not only a future Hall of Famer but a first ballot HOF’er. And that got me thinking.

First of all, it got me thinking how many screws loose Hawk Harrelson must have. Because there’s no way Vizquel makes it as a first ballot Hall of Famer. With a career .272 batting average and just 79 all-time homeruns, I’d say he probably doesn’t have much of a chance to make the Hall at all, except that he does have 2,739 hits, and 3,000 usually gets you a ticket to Cooperstown.

But, of course, Harrelson wasn’t thinking about offense, which raises an interesting question: Is defensive prowess enough for Hall of Fame induction?

Naturally, two players immediately come to mind here: Brooks Robinson, of the Orioles, and Ozzie Smith, of the Cardinals.

I wasn’t really of age when Robinson played, but I’ve seen the film reels, including that oft-played one where he throws a guy out, off balance, while seemingly about five feet past the third base foul line. (See it at the 1:30 mark here.) The way people describe Robinson, that was the type of play he made on a routine basis, which warranted his induction.

Again, I wasn’t really there. so I have no frame of reference. But I was there for Ozzie Smith, which I can speak to.

First of all, Ozzie never was a huge prospect to begin with. In fact, his time playing college ball at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, was so unremarkable that a photographer from the local paper couldn’t even find a photo of him in a Cal Poly uniform from the paper’s archives. (Ok, he did find one — from a scrimmage Smith played AFTER his college days were over.) But in the pros, he quickly made a name for himself not just doing flips on the way to the infield, but for making dazzling plays on a routine basis.

Ozzie never hit more than six home runs and only hit over .300 once (.303, in 1987). Career batting average: .262.

So clearly, these guys made it on the basis of defense. After all, Ozzie won 13 Gold Glove awards. Robinson won 16.

Since Vizquel has won 11 Gold Gloves, maybe there is an argument that he should be a Hall of Famer like Smith and Robinson.

But not really a good one.

Because while Robinson and Smith are known for their defense, you can’t discount what they did offensively. Robinson, for example, hit 20 home runs or more on six occasions, 90 RBI or more on four occasions. And while Smith never put up gargantuan numbers at the plate, his offense was the perfect kind for St. Louis, which had a stadium built for speed and pitching. (Ozzie stole 57 bases twice in his career. )

Vizquel had one very good season at the plate — batting .333 in 1999. And he did steal 40 or more bases twice. But he didn’t impact his teams offensively the way Robinson and Smith did.

Besides, the standards for the Hall of Fame should be pretty strict. While “Wizard of Oz” Smith and “the Human Vacuum” Robinson were arguably inducted almost entirely for their defense, they are — and should be — exceptions. Because if you’re only playing half the game, that’s not HOF material.

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1 Comment by Pembertonian / July 12, 2010 / Posted in: MLB Playoffs

In a class of our own

So finally got me a (hand me down) iPhone last week, along with the slick WordPress app that I’m currently using to write this post.
In a way I feel like I’m cheating — posting from a phone, on my couch. I also feel like mobile is dumbing down our writing. 140 characters is becoming the norm. Spelling, grammar, punctuation are going out the door.
But after watching the home run derby tonight, I realized we’re no longer against cheating or taking shortcuts.
Take Big Papi for example. It wasn’t long ago David Ortiz was a reported PED user. On Monday he was a home run derby champion, hitting 11 bombs in the finale.
Not once during ESPN’s broadcast were PEDs mentioned, even when Boomer was asking A-Rod about home run production in MLB this year. Woulda been a great time to pose the question, but instead both ESPN and now the general baseball public have accepted PEDs and are doing the same thing we did in the 90s and early 00s — turning a blind eye to the dark underbelly of the game. Bobby V even went as far as to call Ortiz a “class act” on the way out.
So, instead of spell checking this post on my PC, or adding missing hyphens and other proper punctuation, I’m going to settle for the shortcut and steal my kicker graph from the great Ron Bergundy.
Keep it classy Papi. Keep it classy.

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No Comments by Slim / July 12, 2010 / Posted in: MLB

Tagged: david ortiz, ESPN, home run derby, MLB

Week in Review: N.Y. State of Mind

What a crazy week.

It started with the Fourth of July, which we spent in Cambria watching the waves and fireworks at Moonstone Cove. Both were sick. Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my board or get a piece of the waves.

Although a day later we got the stoke.

Then, on Wednesday, we headed up to Oakland to take in the New York Yankees-Oakland Athletics game.

Great ballgame. Got to see Reggie hang with Ricky, and Jeter with A-Rod. All in all it was a good night.

Cap that with all the LeBron drama, now he and the Miami Heat are being hated on like the New York Yankees, and the death of longtime Yankees announcer Bob Sheppard – the only Yankees employee never criticized by George Steinbrenner. He was the gold standard of PA, and he will be missed.

I was lucky enough to visit the old Yankee Stadium in 2004 for our one-year anniversary. The Yankees were in Anaheim, site of today’s home run derby (which will be without Yankee Robinson Cano), during our trip, but because they were out of town we were able see a lot more of the stadium (including the locker room and press box) during our tour.

I’ve included a shot of the view from Sheppard’s “office,” which I must say might have been the best gig of all time. Consider the lineup of the first game he ever called, which included eight Hall of Famers: Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Johnny Mize, Yogi Berra, and Phil Rizzuto for the Yankees, and Ted Williams, Bobby Doerr, and Lou Boudreau for the Boston Red Sox.

His first game was also the debut of Mickey Mantle – not a bad guy to come into the profession with. If only we were all so lucky.

On Saturday, to cap it all off, picked up a NY Yankee Gnome at Ross and got to crack the bottle with Ryantific on one of our finest homebrewed batches of beer – a chipotle red ale that’s as good as any other batch we’ve brewed thus far.

WCBias Brew, coming to a store near you.

All in all a good week. Let’s hope this one is half as solid.

- All pics by the Slim one.

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1 Comment by Slim / July 12, 2010 / Posted in: MLB

Tagged: fireworks, surf, yankees

ESPN’s Salary Crunch: Just in case you wanna feel like crap, and hate LeBron some more

ESPN just made us hate LeBron James even more.

Meet the Salary Crunch, an EastSidePN.com feature that “breaks down statistics from his 2009-10 season and the playoffs to help translate his full salary” and pisses off all us poor fans who can’t even afford to attend an NBA preseason game.

The app allows you to enter your sorry wages and see just how long it takes King James to reach that figure, in terms of stats like games played (although games plural won’t come into play here as you’ll see by my entry), points, rebounds and assists.

Then it goes on to kick your dog, letting you know how long it would take YOU to make LeBron’s annual salary – which is reported to be $110.1 million over six years with the Miami Heat. Yeah, I feel real sorry for LeBron and that paycut he took to play in Florida, where there’s no state income tax by the way.

Well, us here in Cali have state income tax, and I won’t be making $80,000 this year. But that’s what I entered into the Salary Crunch for shame and giggles.

Here’s what it returned:

LeBron James makes $80,000 after the following…

.38 games
11.24 points
2.86 rebounds
3.2 assists

You will need to work 229.38 years in order to make LeBron James’ annual salary!

Thanks ESPN! And thank you LeBron for making us dislike you even more.

Good to know he’ll make what I’d dream of making in a year in less than a half of basketball this season.

And if you want to feel even better about yourself, ESPN allows you to compare your salary to some other beloved athletes such as former Raiders QB JaMarcus Russell, who doesn’t even have a job right now, was arrested for possession of freaking sizzurp (Triple Six Mafia would be proud), and still made that $80,000 in .19 games for the Silver and Black.

Aight, that’s enough whining. I’ve gotta run. I’ve got 229.38 years worth of dough to make up.

No worries. Just found an online gig that pays $15 per blog post. If my math’s correct, that’s only 1.22 million blog posts to reach LeBron’s 2010-11 salary (minus bonuses and endorsements of course)! One down, only 1,223,222.333 to go.

- Sent from my iPoor.

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3 Comments by Slim / July 11, 2010 / Posted in: NBA, Uncategorized

Tagged: ESPN, LeBron James, salaries

Live Show Review: Bad Astronaut at Velvet Jones

So I went to a Joey Cape show last night and a Lagwagon concert broke out. Music is of course very subjective but it’s safe to say that if you don’t get a renob from Joey Cape, Lagwagon or Bad Astronaut then you are retarded. The last time I saw Lagwagon was at the House of Blues in Anaheim like 5 years ago and when my hotmail account blew up (yeah, that’s right I still have a hotmail account. I access it using Lycos on my PalmPilot, it’s tight) with news of a Bad Astronaut acoustic tour it was like, “hellz to the yeah” around my apartment. So Josh and I went last night, it was radical. Here is the easiest way to keep everything straight in your head: Lagwagon = punk, Bad Astronaut = indie punk (I mean, they have a cello so how punk can they be, right?), Joey’s solo stuff = either acoustic versions of Lagwagon or BA songs/other ballads. Everybody on board? Yeah, thought so.

Joey started off playing 2 or 3 Lagwagon tunes by himself, along with Going for the Bronze (sick video) off his new solo record (with his iPod playing backup, which is funny in a “Flight of the Conchords” type of way) before having his old school bandmates (Chris Flippin sighting!) come up and rip through 2 Lagwagon tracks with a destructive, full sound. It was bodacious. I mean these are my favorite songs of all time basically—Making Friends, Twenty-Seven, Wind in Your Sails, To All My Friends…these are jams, man (and that last link I have probably played 50 times AND it’s the same shirt that Joey was rocking at the show last night. WARDROBE CHECK, JOEY.). Boom. It’s nice that no matter how many times I’ve heard these songs (and judging by the insane amount of sing-alongingness I’m not the only one) they still are amazing. Far too often Lagwagon gets unfairly lumped in with other skatepunk like NoFx, the Vandals or Pennywise but their sound is so much more mature, boasting not only Joey’s fantastic vocals but also his vocals and non-linear song structure; the man is nothing if not prolific and repetitive “verse-chorus-verse-bridge-chorus” isn’t going to float his boat. Nor should it yours.

After Joey finished up his set he was joined by the rest of Bad Astronaut along with many disclaimers that this was the first show they’d ever played and (up until 3 days ago) had never even rehearsed before. And while the transitions between songs were a little haphazard that’s a tiny, small price to pay for some amazing tunes. Joey constantly joked about the challenges of relearning all the Bad Astronaut songs and for a guy who probably has released over 300 songs with all of his various endeavors (Lagwagon, BA, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Playing Favorites, solo stuff) that is a lot of chord progressions to keep straight. This was the first stop on this (way too) short tour and if you are able to catch the shows south of here I highly, highly recommend it. I mean it took ten years just for this one tour to take place so hit them up if you at all can. I give this show four renobs up.

Cell phones take the raddest pictures

Who Wants to Play Bass?

Bass, Lead Guitar, Rhythm, Cello, Synth, Drums. Yep, that's Bad Astronaut.

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No Comments by BG / July 9, 2010 / Posted in: Uncategorized

Tagged: Bad Astronaut, Indie Rock, Music, Punk Rock

If the pinstripes fit, wear ‘em – LeBron, Miami Heat are the new Yankees

So New York didn’t get LeBron James, but Miami will get a taste of New York when King James comes to town next season.

I made the random Yankees-Heat parallel to Ryantific earlier today before the announcement, and after James made it official tonight I think the fuzzy analogy started to make sense.

(I also went up to the Yankees-A’s game in Oakland on Wednesday, so Yankee Haters are fresh in my mind.)

Bear with me a moment while I try to explain.

So when Amare Stoudemire announced he was New York bound, and Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh announced they were teammates in Miami, I thought, “OK, that leaves LeBron in Cleveland.”

But the more I thought about it, and learned from Ryantific that no contract numbers had been released by Wade/Bosh and that Jim Gray had landed an exclusive interview, the more it made sense to me.

Miami had encouraged Wade and Bosh to make their announcements a day earlier so that they wouldn’t be overshadowed by James’ hour-long special.

Here’s where the Yankees parallel begins.

Wade, like Yankees SS Derek Jeter, has played his entire career with the same team. He brought a championship to town. They’re the Jordans of their sport, literally, even sporting MJ’s elite brand in recent years.

They are the captains. The towns they play in and teams they play for are theirs.

Bosh? Well, he’s the second-fiddle free agent the Heat picked up because he was the best-available player. Think Bobby Abreau, and most recently Nick Swisher (an ex-Athletic who Oakland fans really rode hard on Wednesday, even though he nearly went for the cycle … and then was voted into the All-Star game) or Mark Teixeira.

Then there’s James, who in Miami and everywhere else in the country will never been a real Miami member. Just like Alex Rodriguez will never be a real Yankee. A-Rod went to New York for one reason, even gave up his true position to do so, for a championship … and a boatload of dough.

Same thing LeBron is doing, minus the dough depending on who you believe. And people are going to hate him for it, particularly in Cleveland where they’re burning his jersey and doing all sorts of crazy stuff just like Seattle did when they lost A-Rod. Only Cleveland cares a lot more because of the curse. Seattle really doesn’t care about anything other than brewing good coffee. And they sure don’t care about the NBA enough.

Two other reasons to make the LeBron-A-Rod comparison, and for Joe Fan to hate on them both? Athleticism and capitalism. Both have more talent than anyone in their respective sport (thanks in part to performance enhancers, but that’s another story), and more money for that matter, too. And all the talk about LeBron taking a pay cut to go to Miami is crap considering the lack of a state income tax in Florida, on top of the added endorsements he’ll be bringing in with more exposure and victories.

Power + money + confidence/cockiness = hatred by fans. Just look at Barry Bonds. Look at what Kobe went through in Los Angeles.

But what makes some of that hate go away? Championships.

See: Kobe Bryant, going from the outhouse to the penthouse in the eyes of LA fans after winning back to back titles, without Shaq.
See: A-Rod. I saw a dozen people with A-Rod jerseys in Oakland the other night. I had seen A-Rod jerseys before, I had just never seen anyone (even die-hard Yankee fans) who didn’t like him enough to wear one, especially in Oaktown. But after winning a championship last year, sure enough.

Bonds, however, who never won that title, is still arguably the most hated man in sports.

That was until tonight, when Kings James may have dethroned the now retired Bonds as the most hated man in sports.

Not that you can blame the guy. Who wouldn’t want to leave Cleveland for South Beach (really L.A. East if you think about it). It’s the playa lifestyle, with more beaches, bikinis, bars and booze than you can shake a pimp cane at. AND, they’ve got DWade, who – when healthy – is the best all-around player in the game next to Kobe. Add Bosh and you have a formidable three-headed monster that rivals the Lakers and is probably favored in the East over the aging Celtics.
Will they be better than the Lakers? Tough call. Right now, I, Vegas and much of the country (according to polls on ESPN) say no.

Will they be better come playoff time, when injuries and chemistry make or break teams. Could be. They’re young (all three were drafted in 2003 as underclassmen, or in LeBron’s case, as a prepster), talented and hungry. And any questions about their chemistry may have been answered back in Beijing in 2008, when they first started talking about the possibility of playing together.

Maybe he follows the same path as A-Rod and goes another season or two without a title, but at some point you figure if LeBron and DWade can stay on the court, The King is going to win his ring.

But winning in the court of public opinion, that’s going to take some work.

Time to bring back the pinstriped kicks, LeBron.

If the shoes fit, wear ‘em.

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1 Comment by Slim / July 9, 2010 / Posted in: NBA

Tagged: LeBron James, Miami Heat, yankees

LeBron James not making any friends (outside DWade and CBosh)

How many "Heat is on" headlines will I read Friday?

Not sure if you heard the news, but LeBron James is going to Miami.

Not Los Angeles (sorry Lambo). Not New York (sorry Slim). Not Chicago (sorry Pembertonian, and 68% of our readers who voted in the LeBron poll). Not Cleveland (sorry … umm, we don’t know any Cavs fans here at the Bias).

But I do know someone who isn’t too happy about LeBron’s decision, and it’s a breath of fresh air to finally hear Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert say what I suggested last month … that LeBron gave up on his team during the playoffs.

“He quit,” Gilbert told the AP. “Not just in Game 5, but in Games 2, 4 and 6. Watch the tape. The Boston series was unlike anything in the history of sports for a superstar.”

You think that was bold, wait until you read Dan Gilbert’s Open Letter to “Cleveland, All Of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers Supporters Wherever You May Be Tonight,” where he goes off on James’ “several day, narcissistic, self-promotional buildup” and “cowardly betrayal,” and even goes as far as to claim (in all caps):

I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER ‘KING’ WINS ONE

Sounds like Gilbert’s been drinking whatever Ron Artest has been drinking of late. Lay off the crazy juice, Gilbert. Leave that stuff for The Champion.