Help me out here.

Jon Heyman is doing a funny, I think. Regarding the A-Rod+Madonna thing (which is evidently consuming my life), he has this to say:

Dominating the pages of the New York tabloids is the reputed hookup of the Material Girl (Madonna) and baseball's Material Man (Alex Rodriguez). However, the latest distraction doesn't seem the be affecting the Material Man's on-field performance so far. It should be interesting to see if the MG has All-Star tickets.

No, it shouldn't be interesting. But more importantly, I'm curious about "Material Man". Heyman's evidently proud of it, because he used it twice. Is that a reference to A-Rod's big salary? Is there any other (funnier) explanation that I'm missing? I'm going to guess that there isn't, because that would be just the kind of thing I could see Heyman chuckling to himself about for many minutes after thinking of. Horrible sentence, sorry.

Somewhere across the Atlantic, an obscenely wealthy man steps out of the batter's box and sniffs the night air.

The Vegas odds of America seeing Serena Rodriguez jumped from 1300:1 to an impressive 17:2 after SI.com made this picture the front page.

I'M HANK STEINBRENNER

I JUST CAUGHT MY DICK IN MY ZIPPER! OW! I'M GOING TO SUE THE CREATOR OF ZIPPERS AND DEMAND THAT ALL PANTS BE EQUIPPED WITH BUTTONS! YES, I SUPPOSE I COULD HAVE JUST WORN SWEATPANTS, OR I SUPPOSE I COULD HAVE JUST DONE MY ZIPPER UP MORE CAREFULLY BUT FUCK YOU, YOU CANNOT FATHOM THE PAIN AND EMBARRASSMENT OF BEING 4 GAMES OVER .500 DESPITE MISSING THE BEST HITTER IN THE GAME FOR A MONTH!

Fighting the in-joke battle on every front...

How's about I share a quick little anecdote? I imagine I'll someday resume my epic rambles, but for now I'm sort of enjoying not having to do that. Also, I am trying desperately to get the mother of all embedded posts off the ground, but it just keeps crashing and burning like so many of these...



Why can't all embedding be that easy? Ah well, soon all will be fixed, hopefully.

Anyway, I was chatting on the phone with my brother last night. I know, this isn't exactly on the same level as seeing Kenan Thompson in a Fat Albert shirt (although I once sat across from Richard Kind...on a bus!), but there's a moderately amusing punchline at the end of this.

My brother is a sophomore in high school, and apparently his American history class was split into groups to present on various decades. His group was assigned the 1920's, and because my brother also likes to pretend he can write (except he might actually be able to), he handled scripting duties for a skit all about the roaring twenties. The very first thing he put in was a moving scene featuring our thirtieth president, Calvin Coolidge.

I won't bore you with lots of facts about Silent Cal (unless it turns out he's also the highpoint of New Mexico, of course), but suffice it to say they're worth looking into. Other than the whole silence thing, he was also sort of a sadistic bastard who did nothing to stop the Great Depression but managed to never get blamed for it. Also he was president for a majority of the twenties, which explains his presence in my brother's skit. My brother tells me that Calvin Coolidge begins the entire epic skit with this moving entrance:


Coolidge: Ya betta ask somebodddaaaaaaaaayyyyyy!

And you can be damn sure this will be preceded by a door motherfucking flying open. Hell, that was my first note to him when he told me his plans. He put it in there because, well, fuck high school, and nobody in his group has yet asked him to remove it. So, today, somewhere in America, a bunch of high schoolers were unwittingly treated* to what I'd like to think is the most random Marmalard reference of all time. I mean, seriously, Calvin Coolidge? Everyone knows Andrew Johnson was way more the Marmalard of presidents.

This is truly a planet of the apes, indeed, Christmas or otherwise.

*I wish I could say "wittingly", but we're talking about a bunch of sixteen-year-old high school dipshits here. So you just know they're all a bunch of ESPN featured commenters.

Dizzying Highs, Terrifying Lows

Creamy middles. I just cracked open SI.com and--for a glorious, fleeting moment--thought that it had gone R-rated:



My thought process was basically "Shit King! Shit King Pete Rose! Whoa! Baseball Shit King!? Wait....oh." In my opinion, the letters s-h-i-t, with whatever intervening punctuation, can only ever spell one thing.

Anyway, we all know that Pete Rose could never be a Shit King, what with guys like this around. Hey, I think I just realized the natural progression of eating contests.

L'Homerisme

So there's a solid article on the Canucks' website about 2006 first-round draft pick Michael Grabner. The headline on the main page is

A Career Changer for Grabner

From there we get:

Manitoba rookie forward Michael Grabner wanted a hobby in the middle of the season. Well, maybe “wanted” is over-stating it. He really needed it.

Hmm. Bored in Winnipeg. Shocker.

He had a lot of free time since Moose coach Scott Arniel was cutting into his minutes. He had to find something to stimulate some growth, since he had wasted down to 171 pounds from his normal weight of 185.

Uh huh. Mesmerizing.

This is the part of the tale where your typical hotshot prospect invests in a good video game system, or maybe buys a new car.

I guess.

Grabner took a different route. He joined a gym near his Winnipeg residence. After all, what could be better after a regular practice and lifting session than doing a couple more hours of cardio and weights?

Oh. Wait. So...you mean he joined a...a gym? Like...a place to work out? Yes? And Michael Grabner is an inspirational 12-year-old boy who had his arm amputated after a lawn tractor accident? No? He's a professional goddamn athlete whose only real job is to maintain his physical fitness? That merited an article? That's the first thing visitor's to the site will see? For a team that just hired a new GM? Really?

[Deep Belly Laugh]

BWAAAAAAAAAA HAAAAA HAAAAA HAAAAAA HAAAAAAAA.

SI.com's Extra Mustard page (whose purpose I can't figure out) tells funny jokes. They compiled a list of the 25 toughest athletes. My initial reaction was that it should probably place various martial artists in the top 100000 spots with a sprinkling of football linemen, rugby scrum guys, marathon runners, hockey players, and iqiruktuk...um...iqiruktukers.

So, the envelope please (come on Eckstein, come on Erstad)...

1	Tiger Woods

What makes him tough: Otherworldly talent, determination and focus that enables him to dominate his sport at 64 PGA wins and counting, including a recent streak of seven in a row. No one is better at sealing the deal when the heat is highest.

Seriously, what the fuck are you even talking about? I know it's a stupid "look at us!" article (they come close to saying so themselves), but still. Why even bother, at this point, continuing? You placed a golfer first. You got some 'splainin:

Defining moment: Winning by 11 strokes at Bay Hill in 2003 despite the ravages of food poisoning that made him greener than the winner's jacket at August and blowing chunks in the bushes between shots. He finished at 19 under. A mortal golfer would have been six under - as in feet.

Uh huh. So there you go. The long-sought toughness equation: Bad Shrimp+Putting=INTENSITY.

Anyway, for hysterical reference, here's #2:

2	Lance Mackey

What makes him tough: Caginess and steadfast refusal to quit in the face of throat cancer (2001), hostile terrain and 40-below temperatures. He did the impossible in sled dog racing -- win the 1,000- mile Yukon Quest and 1,100-mile Iditarod within a month - not once, but in two straight years, most recently this year on frostbitten feet that hadn't fully healed after the Quest.

Putting aside the fact that his athletic achievement amounts to depending on dogs, the man had throat cancer and then stood for days on frost-bitten feet. And placed behind "walking around and vomiting".

They at least came to their senses and included Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester. Oh, my bad. They picked Josh Beckett. Because he talks trash.