Three Quotes for Bucks/Hawks (Which Is now outdated) and Some Other Stuff

(ED NOTE: I started writing this on Wednesday. Obviously it is now totally outdated, but could apply to a game 7 win. Also, Salmons just bricked another jumper.)

To summarize the rather shocking win by the Bucks over Hawks last night, here are three quotes that I received via Blackberry Message from my wise younger brother (and I'm paraphrasing):



1) "The Hawks should be fucking embarrassed. They have no excuse.": This is true. On paper, the Hawks should have swept the Bucks. They have the three best players in the series. The Bucks might have one all-star caliber player. The talent difference is monumental. The Hawks just don't seem to care.

2) "Scott Skiles is the best coach the Bucks ever had.": What he has done the last week has been nothing short of amazing. This collection of cast-offs and corpses has no business even being in the playoffs, much less being on the verge of winning a series. What is going to happen when Hammond's plan comes to fruition in 2011 and he has some actual talent to work with? Basketball (at least this week) appears to be back in Milwaukee, and it is thanks to Skiles getting the most out of the best Hammonds could do. Lets just hope he doesn't wear out his welcome.

3) "Fuck the Hawks": Agreed. Josh Smith is a prick.

OTHER THINGS

-The Brewers are not playing well. At all.

-Beer Review: "Moon Man No Coast Pale Ale" by New Glarus. Pretty fucking good.

Can't You Smell That Smell?

Oooohh that smell...Can't you smell that smell? Ooooh that smell. The smell of death surrounds yooooou!-- Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Actually, that smell is burning human flesh. Because Trevor Hoffman exited the bullpen on consecutive days and did his best gas can routine. And burned down Miller Park twice. Either that or it is Hoffman's rotting carcass. Either way.

I'm in full on panic mode. Am I overreacting? I dunno. Did I overreact to Gagne a few years back? How about Turnbow? I have a sneaking suspicion he is done.

Could he turn it around? Sure. I would be willing to bet he has gone through stretches like this before, in his 73 year career. But he wasn't 163 years old when he went through them. Sometimes, you just can't do it anymore.

The solution? I think we start with giving him "some time off" away from the closer role, to see if he can get anyone out in the 6th or 7th. If he can, then I have no problem putting him back in the 9th. But at this point, he may have already cost us a playoff spot (assuming we periodically don't just forget to hit, and assuming Soup doesn't magically "earn" his spot back). Give someone else a shot.

The reality? Macha will not let anyone else close unless Melvin puts Hoffman on the DL with some type of mysterious ailment. Macha is extremely old school, and treats veterans with WAY too much respect at times. I just can't fathom how much worse it can get. I mean, say what you want about Turnbow, at least he had a high 90s fastball (although he rarely got it over the plate). Hoffman hardly even throws his change, and when he does it is not a strike. Then he grooves a 82 mph fastball over the middle of the plate, and it lands 450 feet away.

Just not happy at all.

Online Video Greatest Hits, Deer and Birds

Two GREAT videos from yesterday. First one I can't embed, but it is Greg Zaun and he is throwing like that catcher from Major League 2. Perhaps he should memorize issues of Playboy?

Second, Bango.




The Bucks game was GREAT last night. I love jumping on the bandwagon. I would totally go to Game 6, but the game starts at 6, and I have to work until like 4:30, and I live 2 hours away with little to no traffic. So it ain't happening. And unfortunately you can't DVR live games. Brandon Jennings is good. Also, this is some hard hitting sports analysis.

Finally, stop reading now if you don't care about anything that happens in the state of Nebraska, specifically in the Big O.

Dana Altman's 15 year run as a demigod in Omaha is over. He is off to Oregon to be fired in two years. Meanwhile, the Jays hired away Iowa St. coach, and former Northern Iowa coach Greg McDermott. I'm not even sure the stench from Dana's final dump was gone. It was literally like 20 hours after he took the job in Oregon. Is it a good hire? I dunno. He was good at UNI. Not so good at Iowa St. But he is from the area and has seen the other side, and realizes that it is better to win at a mid major and make a little less money than go to the Big 12 and lose. CU knew who they wanted I guess, since they interviewed nobody else. Contrast this to UWGB who took over a month and conducted a dozen interviews before deciding on the guy that is already there. Also, wanna know why Creighton is seemingly always decent and UWGB is good once every 10 to 20 years? McDermott is going to make $1.1 million (and can point at any chick in Omaha and a rich booster will order it done) and Wardle in GB is going to make $200k and has to battle A-Rodg and Ryan Grant's brother for chicks.

I Obviously Can't Be Trusted

So yesterday, against my better judgment, I went shopping with my wife. I don't much enjoy shopping, but there are worse things I could do. Plus, I was convinced by going out to eat afterwards. My wife (and most females I imagine) need to try clothes on before they buy them. So much of the shopping trip is spend lingering outside her dressing room waiting for her to show me what it looks like. Everything always looks good, and about 10% of the time she believes me. The act of lingering near the dressing room is always a little awkward for me because there is never a comfortable place to sit/stand, and I'm usually the only guy around. I won't go into the area if there isn't a place to sit, but if there is a place to sit, I'll do it. So last night we are at Ann Taylor. I'm saying the name of the store because I'm bitter. There was a comfy chair literally right in front of her dressing room, facing her dressing room. While I was waiting for her to show me stuff, I was also staring at my Blackberry checking out the latest draft results and NBA scores. And then it happened...One of the lovely (and by lovely I mean fat, wrinkly and old) associates at Ann Taylor came up to me and fucking asked me to leave because it "makes some of the women uncomfortable". First of all, I was obviously there with my wife. Second, there are fucking doors on the dressing rooms. Third, its not like the caught me on my tiptoes peering over the top of the door of some strange dressing room. Fourth, there was no sign or anything. Fifth, I was jacking myself off through the pocket in my pants, its not like I had it out and was shaking it at strangers.

I was fucking livid. It took every bit of good sense I had to not cause a scene by either a) telling my wife to get her shit and get out of here. b) tell the lady to fuck herself.

The bottom line is that people at Ann Taylor hate men, and my wife is no longer allowed to shop there.

NBA

The Bucks kicked the shit out of Atlanta last night. I kind of wish I would've went now. The crowd was AWESOME. I fully expect to lose in 5, but it was fun to watch. It was also fun to watch the Thunder kill the Lakers.

BREWERS

I really, really hate the Cubs. There is nothing more annoying than being down 4 in the bottom of the ninth and it sounds like you are on the road. I just hope some FIBS got a good beatdown in the parking lot afterwards or got their Lexus SUV broken into.

I Sympathize With Big Ben

Hello everyone. I'm back from my two week suspension for violation of the Internets' Personal Conduct Policy. Hopefully I'll be around a bit more from now on. That assumes I can keep my head on straight, and stay out of college bars in Millegeville, GA. I want to thank my teammates: Bear, Sports Bottle, Twinkie and Loaf Cobra for picking up the slack and leading the team to victories in my absence. I hope the Steelers have similar success when Ben is gone.

PACKER DRAFT REACT

Going in, I wanted a tackle, a corner, an outside LB and a safety. And possibly a RB. Anything else is fine to fill in our picks. I was mildly thrilled with Bryan Bulaga. He fills an immediate need, can hopefully start when Chad Clifton or Tauscher gets hurt, and since neither is a guarantee to be around next year, gives us a starter to plug in for the next 10 years or so. Bulaga was alleged to be going in the top 10, so I felt pretty good about getting him where we did.

What happened afterwards was a little different. Not that I've heard of every player in this draft or anything, but when you have a bunch of guys available that you know are pretty good, and fit positions of need, I can't stand when we take a guy I've never heard of. Round 2 was an absolutely classic Ted Thompson move by taking Mike Neal. I suppose it never hurts to have another D-lineman, but this was not a big need compared to the things listed above, and this appeared to be a huge reach. Round 3 actually looked like a pretty good pick. Everywhere I saw had Morgan Burnett as a 2nd round pick, and we certainly needed a safety. Round 5 it was back to classic Thompson, taking a TE even though we have 3 pretty decent ones on the roster, and a likely future Pro Bowler in Finley. I think if you are going to take someone at a position where you have a bunch of guys already, you should probably take a dude that is GUARANTEED to be good. The last Round 5 pick, I guess we took a guard. Fine with that I guess. Colledge is a douche, and is now officially expendable. Not exciting at all. I dunno. In Ted I trust, I'm sure it will work out.

In other news, why didn't we trade for Leon Washington? Seattle gave up nothing to get him. He is exactly what we needed. He is fast, can catch, can return kicks.

Finally, moving the draft to Thursday was genius. I legitimately forgot that the NBA playoffs were even happening. NFL is king.

BREWERS

What a roller coaster. I was looking for something tall to jump off of last Saturday after we lost to the Nats. Then we nearly blew last Sunday after a 10 run first. Then we DESTROYED the Pirates, and we were for sure going to win the World Series. Then Soup pitched. The best quote I read this morning reads as follows: "...The more important question is how long the organization will continue to trot Suppan to the mound every five days. He no longer has the stuff to be an effective big league starter, and it is becoming borderline irresponsible for Ken Macha and Doug Melvin to stick by the veteran simply because of his salary." Amen.

THE FUTURE AND STUFF

Tomorrow, my wife and I (who LOVE kids :)) are babysitting for my 3 year old twin nieces. I'm sure nothing terrible will happen.

Since Roger Goodell screwed me out of getting hammered with my second family today by moving the draft to Thursday, I have to look forward to Shit In My Eye as the next out of body drinking experience. I am going to guess that I will get drunk.

You are on notice that the OJSFA Owner's Meeting will take place at the Days Inn on Washington St. in Green Bay next Saturday. BYOB. Watch your emails.

I received my San Diego Padres/Washington National tickets in the mail today. Going on a mini-vacation at the end of May, and am going to check out Petco. And probably drink a margarita or ten. I hope to (Sports Bottle's) god, Strasburg gets called up and starts for the Nats.

DVR ALERT!!!!!!

Games 3 and 4 of the Bucks/Hawks sweep. Not that anyone other than my brother will watch anyway.

Brew Crew Hangover 4/10

So I got my first real taste of the 2010 Crew. And I have to admit that I was fairly satisfied. I didn't have any obvious beef with anyone in the lineup last night. Everyone did something good. Not everyone produced results (see Greg Zaun smoking two balls that were right at people), but all in all, a pretty good performance other than the end result.

I'm chalking up last night's loss to being unlucky. It really is pretty hard to point to one play that cost the Brewers that game. I suppose McGehee's bobble of a double play ball cost them a run, but he also possibly saved a run with a diving stab earlier.

The unluckiness brings us to Trevor time. He isn't going to be perfect all year. There are going to be games where he bounces a pitch halfway to home plate and something called Nick Stavinoha (sp?) is going to close his eyes and golf one over the left field wall ala Vlad Guerrero(h/t to my brother for the Vlad reference). It sucks but it happens.

So I actually came away with more optimism than negativity last night, which is unusual for me. With all that said, if Hoffman continues to get knocked around, I'm going to be a little worried. I'm not sure I'm confident in LaTroy Hawkins to close games if need be (although he was pretty clutch last night).

One last thing. Any idea why Ryan Braun was wearing a mouth guard? Is he trying to protect his investment (his pearly whites) because he grinds them? Is he going to market them? I don't' believe I've ever seen that before. What are the chances of you getting hit in the face and losing your teeth? I did actually see it once in high school, but I can't imagine the chances are very good. But I digress.

Today is another day. Go Brewers.

Got RIT of 'em

So I was all excited to get home from work at 8 p.m. last night and fire up the DVR for my second UW hockey game since the last time they were in the Frozen Four in 2006. And then they kicked the shit out of something call Rochester Institute of Technology. They won 8-1. Not much of a game. Bucky plays for the National Championship on Saturday. Good times. Should have put $10 on them in Vegas. Damn.

Hey Twinkie, where was the Fighting Sioux? According to my perusal of Yahoo!, they were busy agreeing to no longer exist. There, there buddy. I went through this with my high school (the Indians) in or around 1989. You will live. I personally think that the Fighting Sioux is less offensive than the Indians or especially the REDSKINS on the racism scale, because it is concentrating on one tribe, who is native to the area. I also saw that while William & Mary is allowed to keep the name "Tribe", they had to change their mascot from a Native American feather to a Griffin. Which doesn't make any sense at all.

In other, non-college hockey related news, the Brewers took advantage of a rather messed up system that screws young talented baseball players (and which the NFL should really look into, although the NFL screws older players) by signing Yo to a 6 year 42.5 million dollar deal (or a 5 year, 30 million dollar deal if he sucks/or wins a Cy Young). While they are paying him more than they need to this year (if you include the bonus $1.75 mil v. $450k), if he pitches anywhere near a number one starter, they are going to be coming out well for the rest of the deal. He certainly would've gotten a huge raise in arbitration for all three years, and a deal far surpassing that even if he is average (we are paying Wolf and Suppan $22.5 mil combined) for the final two years. This is muy similar to the Braun deal. GREAT job by the Crew. Now cue the elbow tendinitis and inner ear infections. Looking forward to seeing Brewer baseball this weekend. "Big" series against the Cards this weekend, with two games on National TV.

I laughed out loud when my first J.J. Hardy Twins highlight was him grounding into a double play. Get used to that Twins fans. (Then I looked up his stats and saw he is hitting .313 with 2HRs. Well fuck you, it won't last).

Finally, SIX DAYS until my working for $3.00/hr ends, and my pay gets bumped up to my usual $6/hr.

Day = Ruined

C'mon. There is ZERO justification for this. Brewers, don't even pretend that you have a good reason. He was terrible last year. You opened up "competition" in the spring, he was terrible again. He lost the "competition". And yet he is still going to be trotted out there every five days. For a team that doesn't seem to mind spending some money to stay competitive, they obviously don't mind spending it to lose either.

I realize this was let out this morning. I just didn't have time to read it until now. I'm angry. I have three games scheduled so far this season. I bet he pitches two of them. FUCK.

Playoffs and Rumors

First, I caught the fourth quarter of the Bucks game last night. It seems like it has been 50 years since they have been in the playoffs, although it has only been like 4. Congrats to them. I look forward to those 4 nights in September, or whenever the playoffs start. I really don't see them doing much. Kurt Thomas is pretty decent at least as a rebounder and defender, especially since he is 73. But he gives you nothing on the offensive end. He is a less athletic Ben Wallace. You can win a few games with him as your center, but unless you also have LeBron/Kobe/Durant/Jordan, you probably aren't going very far. But who knows?

RUMORS

I heard a rumor that baseball started. I only know this because of the Milwaukee Brewer app on my Blackberry and because of MLB.com. If I had to rely on television, I would not know. Because today will mark the 3rd time in 3 games I have been unable to watch the game because a) I have a job, and b) they didn't show the only night game of the series outside of Milwaukee. I go through this every year with FS Wisconsin. Every year, they don't show a few early Brewer games to show some late season Bucks games. This season, I have far less of a problem with it (since the Bucks are good). But do they only have one set of cameras? Trust me, I can watch a Brewer game without Telly Hughes and Craig Coushon if that is the problem. Anyway, I was mildly upset that I didn't get to watch the Crew win last night. So if you are wondering why there hasn't been any Brewer posts, that is why. It is hard to get a good feel for the team by watching stick figures stare at circles for nine innings. Friday I look forward to seeing my first game of the season.

OTHER STUFF

I just finished watching the Reggie Miller v. New York Knicks 30 for 30. It was awesome. I forgot how great those series were, even though the NBA was in the start of its descent (before its current resurrection). Remind me again why the Bucks signed Anthony Mason in 2001? If you saw the highlights again of Reggie Miller's famous 8 points in 18.7 seconds, you would see how terribly fucking stupid Anthony Mason was. Not only did he throw away the inbounds pass on the second three pointer, but he committed an egregious foul on the best FT shooter in the league (maybe Mark Price was better?) in a tie game for no reason. Anyway, check out 30 for 30 if you haven't yet.

Ouch. And Thanks For Coming.

I was actually looking forward to a Bucks playoff run. I had considered shelling out some money to go to a playoff game. And then this happened. And I'm not sure how the Bucks are going to compete. They will get to the playoffs. But I doubt they will win a game without Bogut. I don't think Amare Stoudamire intentionally pushed Bogut. I've watched the replay like the Zapruder film, and didn't see a push that would've caused the fall. If David Stern thinks different, he should suspend Amare for a long ass time.

Dancing With The Devil

IN BASKETBALL

I hate to do it. I mean, I REALLY hate to do it. But I have to root for Duke on Saturday. All of my brackets are basically completely trash. The only thing I have to gain from any bracket is one at work, where if Duke wins, somebody has to buy me lunch (surf-n-turf, fo sho). This is like rooting for the Yankees or rooting for a hurricane to take out Haiti the day after they clean up from an earthquake. Or something. Just know that I can't stand Duke, but I like getting free food more.

ON "GOOD FRIDAY"

I am clearly being discriminated against at my workplace. Everyone in the office is a staunch Catholic but me. Everyone is going to church today, but me. Normal "business hours" are 8:30-4:30. Although I generally work much more than this. Today is something called Good Friday. I would ask either Sports Bottle or my brother what that stands for. And the bosses in all of their genius and reasoned forward thinking, and consideration for all other religions/non-religions, have decided to close the office from 12 to 3 so that they can go to church. So my options are to drive 35 minutes each way to sit at home for an hour. Or, sit here and surf the Internets (which I was going to do anyway). I guess I sit and pretend to work and then hope they feel bad and send me home at 3. My guess, they will be all full of religious fervor and stab me in the heart with a wooden cross after drowning me in holy water doesn't work (because I have gills).

I'm not sure what the point of this was other than I'm going to hell.

I Would Absolutely Be Fired If This Occurs

96 Teams.
Games occurring on the following schedule.
Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun-TUES-WED-Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun-Sat-Mon.

MY. (Sports Bottle's) GOD.

SIX STRAIGHT DAYS OF NON-STOP HOOPS?!?!?!?

This is the greatest/worst plan ever.

It might be better than the Get Together.

And North Carolina would have gotten in with a 11-23 record!!! (or whatever it was).