Sunday, August 22, 2004

Rock Me Amadeus

Thanks to ManDingo for picking today's Blog title..

The annual softball game we’re apart of took place on Saturday afternoon. This was for Cork’s family reunion, so it’s always good times for them to invite me. The night before, the rain was bringing it down, so we didn’t have much hope to play. With everyone coming from all over, we decided to play anyways. They’ve been running the annual softball game since 1982 and I’ve been part of it for the past few years. Any way to get some ball played, I’m always interested. We get to the field in the ghetto of Wallace, WV and it’s pretty much a downright mess. Left/centerfield is like a 30 foot pond literally. We fixed up the infield as best as we could and raked over some wet spots. It didn’t help much though, but ball is ball and we were ready. This is the first year that they didn’t have enough for complete rosters. We ended up running 7-on-7 I believe, with the pond and a shot to the leftfield creek being a ground rule double. Cork and I were on opposite sides, so there was a win to be had and neither of us wanted to lose. Cork had all the mashers on his team. A few of these guys went a good 6’5” or so. I run to my spot in right/center and know I’ll have to run down a lot of balls. I personally would rather field than bat. Nothing is better than running down some hard to get fly balls and getting the other team fired up because they originally thought it was going to be a hit. I ran down a few nice balls, so I was proud of myself for that. I just wish I had some more action out there. At the plate, I went a whopping 4-5. With the balls wet and the field a mess, it was tough to really plant yourself inside the homeplate box and square around. Thus, 3 of my 4 hits were bunt quality, but a hit is a hit. I ran out all of my infield hits and had to use the speed. Fear the speed. Everyone was falling all over the place and by the time we were done, we were all a muddy mess. My crew ended up winning 17-14 in a game with horrible conditions, but we couldn’t have had anymore fun.

After the game, we roll to the food part of the night. You can’t go wrong with some good home cooking, especially from this group. I loaded up on some hot dogs, macaroni salad (mmm, quality stuff), peaches, and a cupcake. Some good cooking to be had here, so I got my feed on. I just like hearing the stories at the reunion each year, especially from Cork’s Uncle Ernie and George. These guys are all over their old school baseball trivia.



I’m not going to waste much time today talking about the US Basketball Team. If you live in a cave, they got beat on yesterday by Lithuania 94-90. I guess that’s not a beating, but it was still rough. Sarunas Jasikevicius was unbelievable. He was busting 3’s in our faces all day long, to the tune of 28 points, and 3 three-pointers in a row in the 4th quarter. The bad part is that we were actually guarding them out there this game, yet still got bombed. Lamar Odom (who has been playing as well as anyone on the team) was guarding Jasikevicius in the 4th. Odom is about a foot taller than this whitey and whitey drains a few in his eye, gives him the gangsta stare, does his pimp walk, and basically laughs at Odom. Ouch. Richard Jefferson led us in points though, imagine that one.

That brings me to another tidbit that I liked, courtesy of none other than The Boston Sports Guy (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/simmons/index). He was discussing chicks Gymnastics with a buddy and it went something like this:

Besides, what's the thought process behind pushing your child to such a sport?
My daughter's a little on the small side ... maybe we should push her toward gymnastics. This way, she'll look like a hobbit for the rest of her life; she won't menstruate until she's 25 years-old; she won't be able to eat ... EVER; she'll never meet anyone other than tiny, non-menstruating gymnasts who look just like her; she'll have a decent chance of being socially dysfunctional because she spent 15 hours a day in her formative years with a pommel horse and high bars prominently involved; and as an added bonus, a frightening Romanian will become the dominant father figure in her life. Also, she'll suffer from chronic knee problems for the rest of her life. And we'll make this gamble just in case she defies million-to-one odds and wins a medal some day, which she can hawk off some day to pay her bulimia/anorexia bills as an adult. This sounds fantastic! Sign me up!




I just got done drafting for the A#FL Fantasy Football Draft. This is one of the big #basketball fantasy leagues and I’m always excited for it. It’s a keeper league and last year we had 20 guys in it. This year, after dusting off the dead weight and the guys who chose not to be in, we roll with 14, which should be competitive times. We keep 3 guys each year and this year I kept Marc Bulger (QB-Rams; WVU boy), Dre Johnson (WR-Texans), and Stephen Smith (RB-Panthers; due to get injured). mIRC draft for this bad boy tonight and it was a good turnout. Who all is in the league you ask? Rahl, Cork, The Bootyologist, Dack, Duce, Neon, TyLaw, Goathead, Bono, TMac, Blahah, ManDingo, Walz (The Commish; WV boy), and myself. We have two #basketball football leagues this year, with most of us being in both. BOFTH! Now it’s time for me to run down my crew for all of you grasping onto your seats so tight in anticipation. You’re like, “Tell us already! We’re dying to know!” I know, so I won’t let you hang too much longer. Onto my draft for the Cincinnati Celts (my team name; we use defunct football team names for this league):

1. Marc Bulger: STL (QB)
2. Dre Johnson: TEX (WR)
3. Stephen Smith: CAR (RB)
4. Marvin Harrison: IND (WR)
5. Drew Bledsoe: BUF (QB)
6. Chris Brown: TEN (RB)
7. Jeff Wilkins: STL (K)
8. Antonio Gates: SD (TE)
9. Emmitt Smith: ARI (RB)
10. Ty Calico: TEN (WR)
11. Jason Witten: DAL (TE)
12. Artose Pinner: DET (RB)
13. Dave Terrell: CHI (WR)
14. Kevin Johnson: BAL (WR)
15. Chicago Bears (D)



I guess starting tomorrow I may start waking up halfway early. That’ll be a shocker. Today was another Wal-Mart trip. This time I went versatile and went to a different Wal-Mart than the one I most frequent. The insanity!! Oh my! This one is in the rugged streets of Fairmont. I had to load up on blank CDs and school supplies. Yep, I’m always stocked up with enough supplies for myself and the kiddies. I hate rolling into another teacher’s class and they don’t even have pencils or something. Come on, get with it teachers. So I play it safe and carry along my own getup. I freak out if things aren’t organized. Oh well, that’s just me.

Rapper: Fat Joe – Song: Dat Gangsta Shit – Album: Don Cartagena

Recognize my presence, this rap game specialized with legends
I drop shit niggaz try to memorize in seconds
You criticize me, still visualize the lessons
and when I wish to put aside the questions
before they find out, who's the realest
Who done spoke without one joke about the illest
shit that ever happened, in this rappin beyond rappin
Joe the God it ain't so hard to start clappin
but I lay low, create flows, for the pesos
Now we got extra hoes, wantin to chase shows
I take foes, and break em down to minerals
We went from street corner thugs to white collar criminals
Individuals, with no peace on the quest
The iced out, piece on my chest, from the East to the West
Never sleep in a sweat, keep the heat with the vest
Ready for the 'casian blazin gettin deep with the best
The police wanna test my strategy, got half of the world
mad at me, but very few challenge me
Perhaps you will be the first to approach this, lyrical dope shit
Cartagena will bring the chrome like explosives

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