Somewhat Manly Nerd

- Johan Santana still owns.

- C.C. Sabathia still sucks in April.

- The Mets bullpen is capable of holding a 1-run lead for 3 1/3 innings, something I’m pretty sure they weren’t able to do once the entire 2008 season.

- Hanley Ramirez is an absolute beast who deserves to be watched by more than 4,000 people per game.

- Ken Griffey Jr. just looks better in a Mariners uniform. And plays better, apparently.

- The Tigers are on their way to another embarrassing season, keeping pace with the performance of their home city’s industry.

- Cliff Lee was obviously a fluke.

- God punished MLB schedulers and Red Sox fans for forcing the Rays to start their season in Boston, even though they beat them for the pennant last season.

- I have a massive East Coast bias. Or at least an “East of the Mississippi” bias.

- My fantasy teams fucking suck.

Unrelated college basketball-related note: Obama was right.

Perhaps I could’ve come up with a more clever title…

The first game of the 2009 MLB regular season was played by the Braves and Phillies, the two teams I want to lose most. And it was announced by the three men I least want to hear. Yet I loved it, because it was FUCKING BASEBALL, HOLY SHIT. The rest of the year is total garbage compared to the seven months in which major league baseball is played. So it’s probably a good thing that it constitutes more than half of a year, or else life would pretty much suck.

I felt dirty enjoying Braves home runs tonight. Last year apparently sealed the deal for me wanting to see numerous Phillies die in a fire even more than Chipper Jones. But seriously, how far did that McCann home run go? That shit was destroyed. Oh, and seeing Derek Lowe dominate for 8 innings was wonderful; I can’t wait to watch Oliver Perez do the complete opposite later this week. Sigh. My last comment on tonight’s broadcast would be that ESPN displayed OPS for hitters the first time around, and then it disappeared. I really thought some progress had been made. I should have known it was too good to be true.

Tonight was definitely not the true beginning of baseball season, though. Tomorrow is Opening Fucking Day, in which just about every team is going to be out there for the first time. The entire day will be filled with games that mean just as much as the last game of the season (I want this to get through to sportswriters’ heads). Johan Santana, C.C. Sabathia, Tim Lincecum and Roy Halladay are taking the mound. Best day of the year? I think so.

Bear McCreary – Prelude to War

I may have posted a gif of Admiral Adama puking to convey my thoughts on the series finale of Battlestar Galactica, but the show was still fuck-amazing for at least two and half seasons, with smatterings of brilliance thereafter. This piece of music too epic for television immediately sends me back to the intense moment of the series which it scored, spinning camera and all. In what other television show are you going to get frantic strings contrasted with overwhelming, awesome percussion? Shit, I am so going to buy the entire overpriced Blu-ray set when it comes out. Yes, I am a fucking nerd.

- I bought a moleskine notebook just so I could call it overpriced and overrated. The Mac of (writing) notebooks, if you will.

- Breaking Bad is the best show on television right now. Have I said this already? Too bad.

- I am worse than Morty Seinfeld when it comes to hot deals. Steam = Wizard Tip Calculator.

- If you don’t remember when Facebook was for college students only, you’re part of the problem.

- I only hear good things about Friday Night Lights, but I can’t get over my aversion to ever watching another minute of high school football (dramatized or not). Twenty movies was enough. I don’t want…your life.

- I would like to see a movie where the princess isn’t attractive.

- This is where we come to the consensus that Wish You Were Here was Pink Floyd’s best album.

- The MLB regular season not starting until April 5th is the current bane of my existence. I now hate the World Baseball Classic.

- College basketball gets worse every year. I am qualified to speak on this due to me not watching a minute of it in regulation this year (damn 6OT game).

- There is something immensely entertaining about Patrick Warburton dropping an F-bomb. I only wish he was allowed such an opportunity in Seinfeld.

- I now personally know someone with a Kindle. That makes me feel stupid by association. And I bought a Blu-ray player.

It needed to be done. SNL is still good for Digital Shorts creating memes.

Credit goes to Darko over at GAF.

The following is a trailer for Where The Wild Things Are, a Spike Jonze-directed adaptation of the children’s book. You know, I’ve heard about this movie for a while, and so many people seemed to be looking forward to it. I thought it was just because of some Spike Jonze worship or some similar hipster crap. After watching this trailer at work, I decided to finally google the book, and now I feel like an idiot. Granted, I never had any emotional attachment to the book, but I’m pretty sure we (and by we, I mean pampered suburban white kids) all recognize this cover:

But this is about all I remember. Apparently it only contains ten sentences anyway.

I just don’t think much of my childhood was spent reading. I was either playing videogames or playing baseball until I got hit in the face and started crying. That shit was awesome. As is the trailer after the jump:

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THE BATTLE OF ASIA

I love using ESPN banners.

Korea vs. Japan = Yankees vs. Red Sox. I would say Mets vs. Phillies, but they can’t manage to make the playoffs at the same time. Not that either MLB rivalry is comparable, considering those involve a few states, not entire  nations. (Red Sox Nation doesn’t count, cockbags.)

But really, the World Baseball Classic final between Korea and Japan was probably the most intense, well-played, emotional baseball game I will see for six months. Amazing defense was on display. Perfect bunts were executed. Helmets exploded. Thundersticks were utilized excessively by a sellout crowd. Guys ran into walls. Opportunities were blown. Leads were choked away. A legend came through in the clutch. It was everything a baseball game should be, with the added drama of two nations who have hated each other for longer than they have played baseball. This game alone has made me pine for a time when the WBC is actually an international tournament on the scale of the World Cup. A time when the United States manages to finally take it seriously. A time when every round consists of at least a best-of-3 series, and the MLB season actually takes a backseat to the WBC every four years. Maybe Bud Selig has accomplished something here.

Case in point: I was glued to my seat at 1 AM in the morning watching Ichiro manufacture an insane at-bat to win the game for Japan. The dude fouled off a pitch that bounced in the dirt and one that was almost at his head. When he finally got a pitch down the middle, he slapped it right back from whence it came. It was fucking awesome. Sure, first base was open and the South Korean manager probably should have walked him, but I think some sort of Asian pride came into play there. Maybe I’m just a ignorant asshole, but that’s what I thought — and I liked it. It made the entire tournament come down to a moment straight out of a script I could have written as a 10-year-old. As a result, Ichiro’s legend only continues to grow. Most Americans love him, so I really can’t imagine how much of a national hero he is in Japan at this point.

So while it was great to see David Wright pull his own mini-Ichiro a few games back, I would have definitely preferred to see it happen in the FINAL. We better send the best talent we have available in four years. I don’t want to see the 2013 equivalent of C.C. Sabathia staying back in southern Florida. Not that he would’ve made a difference, since he sucks in the beginning of the year anyway. I am just jealous seeing Japan once again take this tournament. And Korea finish ahead of us again.

Ok, I’m going to take a step back here. This is never going to be the World Cup, at least not in the foreseeable future. There are only four legitimately great international teams: USA, Cuba, Korea, and Japan. I was about to include the Dominican Republic, and then I remembered they lost to the Netherlands twice. So yeah, not a very big lineup to create a truly worldwide tournament. Oh well. I enjoyed this iteration of the WBC way more than I thought possible, and for that I am grateful. Now the MLB season needs to start tomorrow. I am not joking. MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Derek Jeter is fucking awful. Full stop. I can’t believe I drafted him in fantasy baseball, even if defense isn’t considered. Watching him play shortstop in this World Baseball Classic has been amazingly painful. How do Yankee fans stand a full season at this point? Maybe he plays better on Official Yankee Sod? I was legitimately horrified when he was put out there AGAIN while Jimmy Rollins was slotted as the DH. Did Davey Johnson not learn from the last game? I thought that maybe this year the USA team was starting to take this tournament somewhat seriously, but the managerial decisions tonight made it blatantly obvious that they are not. Roy Oswalt was left out as long as he was because he needed the work. The fact that he was allowing the game to be put out of reach had no bearing on the situation. Behind 6-2 to Japan? Who cares?

The simple truth is that every single other country takes this much more seriously than the U.S. and that’s just pathetic. If you’re going to participate, try your best to win. I’m not saying to send players out there if they’re hurt, but Jeter at SS plus Adam Dunn in RF does not equal a good defense. And leaving pitchers in so they can reach their pitch count only emphasizes how much of a joke this tournament is in the eyes of the U.S. team. As a result of bullshit like this, Japan is once again going to win this tournament, like I predicted a few posts ago. This is like when the USA basketball team was consistently losing to other countries in international competition. The other teams’ fundamentals were better, and they were more much emotionally invested.

I don’t want to hear the injury arguments. I really fucking don’t. Guys get hurt in spring training just like they do in the WBC. It’s just a lot easier to get angry at a glorified exhibition tournament than at a untelevised spring training game. If they’re not ready for “full-intensity” games yet, why don’t they get to spring training earlier? These guys are only getting paid millions of dollars to play a game for a living. I think they could manage showing up a couple of weeks earlier than the other players to prepare to kick the shit out of other countries. I understand it’s baseball and that one game isn’t a reasonable indicator, but that last inning was fucking disgusting.

/TommyLasorda

…I still think the Fangraphs idea is the best way to do this crap.

I can’t think a better way to waste four hours of a weekend than totally fucking up two fantasy baseball drafts. One head-to-head and one roto. In the post-draft assessment, I think I’d be better off if I could switch the two teams around. I really should just wave the white flag in the roto league. I had no idea about the 1250 innings limit until someone brought it up in the draft chat, and by then I had already shoved a multitude of starting pitchers up my ass — something I should have done in the head-to-head league. So basically, I read up on some fantasy baseball strategy over at The Hardball Times, and then proceeded to apply it to the wrong league. I am awesome.

You’re only going to want to read on if you want a round-by-round breakdown of my failure.

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