Quick-Post: Just in case you thought I was kidding

Just in case you thought I was kidding about no one giving a shit about Duke winning the National Title outside of Durham, NC (and Dickie V's house), check out this picture:

(From: Deadspin.com)

On the left is the Charlotte newspaper cover from last years UNC title. On the right is yesterday's cover from Duke's title. That's a whole lot of not giving a shit. (When you get beaten out by a warning about high pollen count, you know no one cares.)

Quick Post: That was lame-ish

Just a quick-post today, 'cause I am under the gun at work.

I took in the National Championship game at a bar last night, and I have a couple of thoughts.

1. Butler was oftentimes sloppy with the basketball and frequently got lost on defense. Their intensity seemed to get them out of a comfort level to the point that they seemed to be playing frantic. This lead to a rather chaotic performance, and the game seemed to lack any real flow to it as a result. However, during spurts in the 2nd half where Duke seemed destined to pull away for good, that frantic energy kept the inevitable "FINNISH HIM!" moment from occurring. Kudos to Butler for bringing the energy, even if they didn't seem to know what to do with it.
   
2. That was both a great and terrible exposition of college basketball. You always want title games to be close, (don't kid yourself, that last shot was a good look for the situation, and I thought it was going in) but the lead-up to the ending was sluggish. I'll keep my mouth shut since I liked the numerous lead changes, and the game ended up being engaging (Almost missed the end in the bathroom. CBS threw me a change-up in terms of time-out length).
   
   (That was almost the most famous image in sports history)
   
   
3. Watching the game at a bar with a live Bluegrass group is a good idea.
4. When I woke up this morning, I realized one thing: Had Butler won, it would've been one of the most famous victories in American athletic history. But, since Duke won (boooo), no one gives a shit. Butler gets a lame pat on the head, and the entire country (besides Durham, NC and Dickie V's house) moved on before they even had their morning coffee. Shame, that.

Quick Post: Sox Win! Only 161 to go!

That's not too bad of a way to start the season! A 6-0 thrumbbing (combination of thumping and drubbing) of the hated Indian sure feels nice. Paulie gets an opposite field home run, Alex "I go to" Rios adds another, and Buehrle might have made the defensive play of the year on the first day.

(woot. From: SouthSideSox)

Just saying, but the last time Mark Buehrle won an opening day start was 2005 over the very same Cleveland Indians and Jake Westbrook (also a shut out). Sox won the World Series that year. Just saying.

The Rockies also won, I think. (What, the Rockies are just what distracts me as I wait for White Sox baseball. I have never denied this)

Glad to have you back baseball!

Monday Grab Bag: Baseball's back!

It's official, spring is here! Onto the bag...

Opening Night vs Opening Day: Baseball has allowed the season to open on a Sunday night since 1994; last night was no exception, with the WS champion Yankees going to Boston. This move was originally made to accommodate their contract with ESPN. Prior to '94, baseball had always started in Cincinnati (where professional baseball was born) in the sunshine of a Monday afternoon. Regardless of ratings, attendance, or other factors, this is the wrong way to start the baseball season. 28 fan bases could give a rats ass about the game cause there team isn't in it, and (because of history which, I'm constantly reminded, is such an integral part of the game) Cincinnati should always be the first team to take the field every year. This isn't football; baseball is much more of a provincial game (fans in other cities don't like other teams) with a history that is as much a part of the game as whats being played on the field. I know that this is an argument made in vain, money and the such will always take precedence over common sense, but I will keep hammering on this every opening day because I'm sisyphean like that.

ESPN Coverage: When I saw that the opening night game would be "the best rivalry is sports" (*wretch*), I immediately began rolling my eyes in anticipation of the event. None-the-less, I couldn't escape the terrifying grip of the ESPN production team in Bahhhhhsten. Besides the fact that these teams will play 17 more times this year, or that Fenway has been around since 1912, "The Worldwide Leader" proceeded to treat the even like there has never been anything like this before. It was almost as if they had just discovered Fenway was still around. They even mentioned the stupid Manny going into the monster during a game story 5 times (by my count). He's not even a Red Sox anymore, and that happened years ago! ESPN even did a piece on how the Green Monster changes the game, and talked ad nauseum about how hitters would need to change their swings, as if they'd never seen the place before. There are at least 81 games played in that stadium every year, and the Yankees visit at least 9 times every season. EVERYONE KNOWS HOW TO HANDLE THE "MONSTER." The announcers even mentioned somebody keeping score, as if it's some antiquated custom that other fans of other teams aren't knowledgeable enough to understand, and noted that only in Boston and New York would you find fans who would do such a thing. My dear sweet Lord.
(Holy Shit! When did this stadium get here! How could they possibly handle the "Monster?")

Calm down ESPN; in the words of Earl Weaver, "This ain't a football game, we do this every day." You'll have plenty of more opportunities to shove RedSox and Yankee cock down our throats over the coming year. For the good of us all, can someone start a national network to compete with these fucks? (FSN, and its half-assed attempt, doesn't count)

The game itself: Since I root for a team not named the RedSox or the Yankees, I was only marginally interested in this game. After C.C. Sabathia (who's on my fantasy team) left, I turned it off and watched some Top Gear re-runs. I think Boston won, or something.... 161 to go boys, congratulations, you win a cookie.

White Sox Predictions: While I'm on the topic of baseball, I figured I'd jot down my predictions for the season. I fully expect a roller coaster ride this year. The deficiencies with the offense were only partially mended over the off season. GM Kenny Williams properly diagnosed the problem: too many solo home runs, and not enough sustainable offense. However, he missed the mark on how to go about fixing the problem, settling for the Mark Teahen's and Andrew Jones' of the world. The pitching staff, with additions to both the rotation and the bullpen, should be formidable. Overall, I expect the team to win about 85 games; thankfully in the AL Central, that may be enough to get into the playoffs.
(That's good intensity, Peavy. Now, save some for the season. From: the Trib)

Final 4: Sparty failed to win me $500. Oh well. I'm still excited for Butler to be in the final (If they win, I get $40. If they lose I get $20. Either way... MONEY!); the very nature of a Horizon League team making the national title game is fun in of itself. Imagine if they won: that lame late-night Sports Illustrated commercial offering you a championship retrospective magazine (individually numbered!) along with a season highlight DVD and a basketball....for the Butler Bulldogs; their 15-year old coach heading the Disney World Parade; their own intro shot for SportsCenter. Interesting things can still happen in the world of sports, and you don't have to play for one of the big boys to play for a championship. This is good for the sport, and good for the fan. Go Butler!

(The Bulldogs will need a healthy Matt Howard (concussion) if they have any hope of beating the Blue Devils. From: ESPN)

Donovan McNabb Trade: Really, the Redskins? Wouldn't have guessed that.... Jimmy Clausen just lost a lot of money. I was almost positive that Redskins Owner Dan Snyder had fallen for the "Notre Dame pedigree, with NFL instruction" crap. While I don't think that this makes them the front runner for the NFC title like many are talking about today, this certainly does help out the Redskins. I have to ask, why would the Eagles trade him in division? Now you've got pissed off Donovan F. McNabb playing you twice a year until he retires. Seems like a weird move to me. Anywho, hope the Eagles fans enjoy Kevin Kolb, cause there's no turning back now.

Hawks Clinch Division Title: Briefly, I touched upon the struggling Blackhawks last week. They had just finished losing 7 of 10, and had begun showing signs of weakness. Since Monday, they won all 4 games they played and wrapped up the division crown. Well, so much for struggling, I guess. I hope this is the level of energy and excellence that I can expect come playoff time, cause anything less than a berth in the Western Conference Finals would be a massive disappointment. It was the Hawks first Division Title since winning the old Norris division in '93. Keep it up boys, the spirits of Eddie the Eagle, J.R., and Chelly are looking down upon you right now (Wait, they're still alive? I always figured they died after leaving Chicago.)

(Gotta keep it up, boys! From: The Trib)

Happy Monday!

Friday Beer Post: Sink the Bismarck part 2

A while back I talked about the most alcoholic beer in the world: Sink the Bismarck from Scottish brewers BrewDog. The story of the beer, and the brewers, was so unique that I figured a tasting would be necessary. Over a month ago, I ordered a bottle. Heck, how often do you get the chance to taste a 41% ABV quadruple IPA?

Arriving at my house, after haranguing the post office into delivering it to me, I took note of what BrewDog had sent me. A plain box from their Tokyo beer style housed the precious bottle. It was encased in 12 feet of bubble-wrap, and neatly wrapped in brown paper. Someone had even taken the effort to hand-write "41%" on the paper in sharpie, I guess to remind you why you went through all the trouble to purchase this. As a shipping industry insider, I took a peek at what they had listed the beer as for customs purposes. "Yeast Samples for Analysis." Well, I guess I was about to "analyze" something...

(Seriously? A sharpie? This bow is a nice touch, however.)

Unwrapping the bottle, I discovered something rather plain. The bottle was mostly non-descript, and reminiscent of their other varieties of beer. If you saw it on a shelf somewhere, you would more than likely over-look it, unaware of what's actually in there. In all honesty, after over a month of waiting, I had expected some sort of fanfare. Perhaps a choir of angels singing the beers praise as I took up the bottle. I guess, in reality, all a bottle of beer can do is sit there until you drink it.

(It doesn't hover or anything...)

Since the bottle contains something with the same alcohol content as a bottle of whiskey, I invited a friend over to help me sample to goodness. With a simple pop of the top, and a light pour, we were off. We initially marveled at the carbonation of the beer (with the high alcohol content, how could bottle conditioning yeast survive?), and the fact that it briefly maintained a head (about 1/2 an inch). Dark golden brown/red in color, the beer had a very pungent bitter hop, alcohol (duh), and sour fruit aroma. Maybe a little spice? Forgetting to waft (like I was taught in high school chemistry), the first sniff of the beer was almost enough to knock me on my ass.

At $127 per 330ml bottle (after tax, shipping and conversion to US$), this needed to be one hell of a beer... and it certainly was. The first sip took my breath away, literally. The first thing you taste is the back end of the hop (like an uber version of Green Flash). The flavor was very reminiscent of the time I tasted a raw hop pellet. There was not much of the fruity/floral hop character to the flavor, mostly relying almost entirely on the hop itself (it was postulated that they probably use American hops). As I swallowed the first sip two things occurred. First, almost all of the moisture in my mouth disappeared; the beer had an extremely dry finish. Second, the beer gave me a very comfortable warm feeling, much like a whiskey, in the center of my chest. Overall, the flavor reminded me of a sour apple mash, with a heavy resinous hop flavor and a little hint of dark chocolate and caramel up top.

It's not easy to compare this beer to another. The most direct comparison I could make was to 26% ABV Sam Adams Utopias (When you talk about beers with this much alcohol content, there are very few to compare to). A few years back at the Great American Beer Festival, I was able to get about 6oz of the mythical Utopias, and enjoyed what I tasted. Compared to StB, Utopias was much thicker (almost viscous), sweeter (very strong dried fruit taste with honey and caramel), and lacked the carbonation present in the Scottish offering. However, by the very nature of the brewing process, Utopias is in a different league than StB. Utopias is brewed using traditional brewing methods, and StB gets around the limitations of those methods through a process where they freeze the batch and pour off the un-frozen (and more alcoholic) excess four times.

(Utopias is famous as much for the process as it is the result)

The only conclusion we could make was that BrewDog had accomplished something remarkable. While we mostly figured that it couldn't really be called a "beer" per se, the ingenuity required to push the boundaries into the unknown was plain to see. You certainly wouldn't want to drink too much of this in one sitting, but everyone who tried it was impressed both by the engineering and the result. To be brutally honest, I was expecting something awful and undrinkable; that the brewers would've been too caught up in the process and forgotten the result. But, the "beer" was not only drinkable, it was kind of good! An impressive effort all around. You don't get to try something like this every day, and I was happy to have taken the shot in the dark to taste it.

Happy Friday!

Quick Post: Cubs Tax is dead

The much derided "Cubs Tax" that would've made fans of other teams pay a tax on tickets for the cubs to stay in Arizona is dead. "Support has died for funding a new Chicago Cubs complex in Mesa by charging a ticket surcharge at every Valley stadium that hosts Cactus League games."

As always, Fuck the Cubs

link

Baseball is only a metaphor for Baseball

It's easy to wax poetic about baseball (A little too easy...). Over the 141 years of organized, professional baseball, writers have found millions of metaphors in the National Pastime. Metaphors for war, metaphors for peace, metaphors for sex, Metaphors for American History (I took a class in college all about American history through baseball), metaphors for father/son relationships, metaphors for life, etc. The mysticism of the sport is so overwrought with "deeper-meaning" that some say we can "better see ourselves" in the playing of a game. And that's crap.

In my favorite baseball movie, "Mr. Baseball," Tom Selleck portrays washed up former star Jack Elliot who has to play in the Japanese leagues to both keep his career going and get his shit together (Look for Frank Thomas playing the role of the young phenom taking his job!). The movie is about personal redemption and a whole fish-out-of-water thing. In one of the pivotal scenes, Elliot is talking (drunk) to his manager about the nature of baseball and says "Baseball is grown men getting paid to play a game." Later he goes on to opine "Baseball is a game, and games are meant to be fun." Selleck says them each so matter-of-factly. The whole movie is matter-of fact; baseball is reality, not fantasy. I've always found something important from those two phrases. 1) Baseball is a business built on the frivolity of grown-ass men getting paid millions to dick around for 162 days a year, for my amusement (dance monkey, dance). 2) Under no circumstances should you take it too seriously.

It's for those reasons that I hate movies like "Field of Dreams" and portions of "Bull Durham." Particularly "Field of Dreams;" the game is espoused as a timeless driving force, dragging the country along through the dark times (James Earl Jones' soliloquy at the end makes me gag), and with the power to fix a destroyed father-son relationship and grant you a life-long wish. It's such a drawn-out boring pile of sentimentalist crap (Although the message of "if you build it, they will come" has some real-world applications). The people who enjoy that are the same people who go to Wrigley Field hoping it will "connect" them to their youth. It's sad really.

I love movies like "Mr. Baseball," "Little Big League," and "Major League" because there is that definite sense of frivolity. They understand that "Baseball is a game, and games are meant to be fun." When you pile crap like the weight of the world on its back, then baseball is just some esoteric ivory tower horse-shit. Baseball will not explain the meaning of life to you, and it's not a doorway to your past. It's a game, with a long a storied history. Anymore than that, and you just take the fun out of it.