Bring Back the Stein

If it's still up by the time I have posted, I will say that the author was either brilliant or one of the above.

I promised to rent a fire truck when his contract expired and I still aim to do that.

Dawson's flaccid career got a bolt of Viagra by playing his glue-factory years at the sewer that is Wrigley Field. His HOF chances were further helped by a whiny fan base. (Jim Rice anyone?) However, I will gladly make a trade with the baseball gods for a Dawson in the HOF, versus a Ron Santo.

Great move. Gomez has a ton of upside and genuinely has five tools. Hardy merely makes grown men behave like "Glee" watchers.

Another notable fact: The average OPS of NL All-Star starters was .843 (.899 if you don't count the pitcher). That means having Suppan on the mound is essentially like facing the NL All-Star starting lineup every game...without the pitcher's spot!! Also, something that will really put the awfulness of the starting staff into perspective for those who don't like ERA. Of the 67 NL pitchers who pitched at least 100 innings, 4 of our starters appear in the bottom 7 slots for OPS against. Truly one of the worst starting staffs ever put onto a baseball field. I'm printing this out and bringing it to Thanksgiving for my stepfather/Suppan apologist.

I have had swine flu the last few days, which is apt preparation for a Suppan start.

I challenged a friend, the former Onion editor and a graphic designer, to come up with a...graphic response...to Ryan Braun's t-shirt line. Here is his hasty rejoinder: http://alturl.com/8oxo or maybe this works better: http://2726098744667548140-a-1802744773732722657-s-sites.googlegroups.com/site/kaportfolio/tees/herpetee-/herpetee.jpg?attredirects=1&auth=ANoY7crwTpl7aRI-CyKbPxLfv5ozuy6VgYcWOV93a496f_m0cBnQ1Mk0rY1TKHpMQRL3305iBnfftXJHDBBNo3rAFUVA11nFdupHKYEN3JJ3L0kYxlqFDB7PQ7syWjAyIAiHg9kGuaA8AGTSI-uR5gpVSfqN7cnBRHVtcz921t_XtTt0LmTI_wNbIgnDw79JNZ83TpYNlAw298RD4mC3d-HNeBneQfzxkA%3D%3D

He IS fun to watch. Even a play he didn't make-throw was off line-showed range that had been lacking before.

I've begun to look at this Brewers season the way I look at my lousy golf rounds (which are most of them). Take the few good shots for the next round and be entertained. This season's done. There could be a flareup with the candy schedule coming up, but then cold reality should set in. I can see being double digits out by the second week of September. Of COURSE I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd also like to shoot par. Neither I see happening.

It was still poor baserunning in that spot.

Boy, I hope some of the posters here aren't in h.r. Using a bunch of high-profile instances to draw a sketch of the mental health of someone who surely will be mentioned as among the greatest Brewers ever? The g.m. and the clubhouse see this man day-in and day-out and all have said-repeatedly-that he is the rock upon which the Brewers will be built. If he was one half the goony-eyed hysteric portrayed here, people, either from the front office or the team, would have thrown him under the bus. But that has not happened. In fact, the incidents that are arrayed within the bill of particulars against Prince (on a Brewers fan Website no less) happen with much more frequency than any of us know. Nine times out of ten, they are handled internally. He is the victim of some bad luck in that there was footage. But ask any minor- or major-leaguer, this STUFF HAPPENS ALL THE TIME. Yes, even to the great Pujols. It is NOT an indication of anger-management issues. In fact, given all he's been through, including continued provocations about his father, of whom he has made clear he does not wish to speak, I'd say this 25-year-old is well ahead of the curve. The moment the Suppan contract expires, I hope they pull a fleet of Brinks trucks up to Prince's house and dump off extension money.

This is a bizarre construction. I've been in plenty of press boxes: Have you seen the awful Hawaiian and golf shirts worn there? This group of mostly fat men even wear...shorts, and comfort-fitting jeans. Why is wearing Fubu substantially different? I've also seen Witrado on the job and he conducts himself...like every single young sports reporter I've ever seen. Callow, cocky, maybe a bit insecure. It IS heady to be in his position. He's not a great writer and I disagree often with his analyses, but saying "he's a jerk" and other ad hominem isn't a winning argument.

Here here. Thank you, MLB network, for freeing me.

The incident motivates me to watch and see what happens tonight, which likely will be nothing. I agree with a poster above that it's outrageous to acknowledge intent. It's just something you don't do outright. Oh, and I don't think baseball is the sport where provocations fuel success. Beer league softball, maybe. My only wonder in all this is whether Mota's head would have been separated from his body had Prince caught up with him.

As for the substantive questions, Macha can do little with a rotation that's bunk and vets that are batting below their career averages (other than where they hit). I just don't feel this season, and I certainly don't want to trade the farm for the puncher's chance. Therefore, when I'm honest with myself, I'd rather go to this gangrenous end with the Aw-Shucks clear-eyed dignity of Macha than some of the other options. He's our morphine.

Nobody knows his troubles. Really. My heart breaks for a guy who has become something of a laughingstock when he so uncomplainingly changed positions, when he did great damage in recent years to some of our divisional rivals, when he slapped some eye-popping leather. It's sort of like seeing a once-proud man flailing and drunk at the end of the bar. I'd really like him to work something out, or at least come back to respectability, for his sake and for the team's sake.

I know, I know, some people aren't interested in what other people find racist and think all this stuff is no big deal. Thinking about these things is difficult, especially for people who come from the dominant culture. My outrage, at any rate, had as much to do with how gross Wrigley Field has become. To see these lameass t-shirts laughed at just accentuated that point to me - and to the group of out-of--towners I was with, I should add.

When I lived in Lakeview, I took some friends from Milwaukee's south side (where I grew up) around town. It happened to be during Pride weekend. There were dudes holding hands, as gay men are wont to do, and a few backless chaps, but we didn't linger around that scene for too long, only as long as it took us to get to the Gingerman or the Wrigleyville Tap (RIP). Anyway, I didn't think anything of it until I heard back from other friends in Milwaukee, who acted as if I had inserted these guys into a Studio 54 coke orgy. They saw crime and promiscuity where I saw, well, Lakeview. And maybe they were right, since everything depends on perspective, I guess.

Like I said, I'm aware of the history. Let's just agree that if anyone tries to sell these around Miller Park, there'd be enough people with the good sense to throw them in the river. Or at least I'd like to think that.

After my shoes had been vomited upon, after the rooftop Disneyland where I watched the game blared "Sweet Caroline" over the National Anthem, but before I directed a group of blitzed-out 20-somethings who looked at my ballcap and told me that Prince Fielder indeed was a fatass the wrong way on the Red Line, I encountered the vendors selling t-shirts with the legend above. I'm not interested in the etymology, since there is one and it includes Ozzie Guillen's laughing at his insertion into this joke, because this is on its face a racist joke. I was with a friend from the Deep South, who knows a thing or two about racism when he sees it, and so he got into it with the vendors. What animates the joke is the stereotype of Hispanics as gardeners. What makes the joke all the more appalling are the passing crowds of fat white dudes driven in from Linolnshire guffawing on Sheffield at the very notion. Would "Ankiel Mows My Lawn" tickle their jiggling jowls so much? The vendors know their market, though. They know their market. And so it goes at shameless, soulless, joyless Wrigley Field, where you would not know there is a recession and where I have almost - almost - ceased to be surprised at the obscenities I will have seen. This time it was to a building where I had watched games more than a decade ago on rickety wooden bleachers. Now, to the tune of $165 per entry (I didn't pay for mine), it has been transmogrified into something unspeakable. Imagine if a Dave & Buster's raped a bad martini bar and it would approximate the miscarriage of a place. All-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink, freezers-full of ice cream snacks, plasma screens at every turn and all done with the fake brio of cheering on the Lovable Losers (Oh, the Cubs and the city wet their beak at this trough). The all-you-can conceit roared to its logical conclusion by about the 6th or 7th inning, when the real vomiting began. It didnt much matter to the crowd, though, since they weren't watching the game to begin with, only making sure they got their fill of riblet sandwiches, pulled pork, Italian beefs, cheesburgers, Chex mix, pinot grigio, whatever. The Let-Them-Eat-Cakeaters are more deserving of the guillotine than the gonfalon. I will hear no more fake nostalgia about Bleacher Bums and have them try on, lamely, the working-class hero mantle. No, not when my laminated pass still has bile upon it.

Wow. You said you looked forward to his column. Beside the way you took apart everything he wrote, that should at least get his attention owing to the rarity of the sentiment you express.

When the Cubs come to town, before they take the field they should do a mash-up from "Un Chien Andalou," showing the eye being cut by a razor. I have no idea what it has to do with anything, but it's the most repulsive film image that came to mind. And it finally justifies taking those two film classes.

Okay, it would have been funny if J.J. accounted for all three outs in an inning. Only a little bit.

I'm glad I talked myself out of turning the teevee off.

(For those flipping with the Favre thing on HBO, the Joe Buck show looks wretched from the onset.)