CONGRATULATIONS, NEWS!

YA DONE IT AGAIN:

Armless man gets 5 years for driving

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. (AP) — A man with no arms and one leg who wouldn't stop driving despite a long list of traffic violations was sentenced to five years in prison Friday on felony driving and drug charges. Michael Francis Wiley, 40, also was sentenced to 15 years of drug offender probation. He pleaded no contest in June to the charges.

"I'd just like to say I know what I did was wrong," Wiley said in court Friday. "I am truly sorry your honor. I am."

Wiley taught himself to drive after losing both arms and a leg in an electrical accident when he was 13. He has already spent more than three years in prison for habitually driving without a license, kicking a state trooper and other charges.

He once had a valid license, but it has been suspended several times since 1985, according to his attorney. He starts the car with his toes, shifts with his knee and steers with the stump of his left arm. He turns on the lights with his teeth.

The Mets new field is nostalgic... but for the wrong team!

The Mets are getting a new stadium to replace the decaying and dated Shea Stadium. And like most stadiums, the new Citi Field will be dripping with nostalgia and romance of the "good old days" of baseball.

While I am all for nostalgia, look at the new stadium's design. It's nostalgic for Ebbets Field and the Brooklyn Dodgers... not the Mets!

The Mets aren't post WWII, 1950s Baby Boom nostalgia!
They are the swinging 60s!


They are the high flying 80s! And who was higher than Doc and Straw?












Hildy was never here!
But Oscar Madison wrote from the press box!






You are pining for the Dodger Sym-Phony?
Well did the BEATLES ever play Ebbets Field?

There are 50 year olds who have no memory of Roy Campanella and Pee Wee Reese... but have a lot of memories of Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman.

They didn't stay up nights listening to Red Barber and Vin Scully...
But they did listen to Ralph Kiner, Bob Murphy and Lindsay Nelson.






The lean years have nothing to do with Wilbert Robinson and everything to do with Lee Mazzilli being their only All Star!

Shouldn't the stadium reflect the nostalgia most people have of the team?

How long will it take New York to get over the Dodgers splitting town?

Seriously, it's been 50 years!

Imagine you were passionately married to a woman. Most of the years were really lousy but you romanticized them in your memory.

Suddenly she winds up leaving you for a glamorous new guy in California. It devastates you, especially because she is clearly much happier, having better years with her new guy than you two EVER had.

So you marry the first girl who comes along and she seems downright homely at first... but she's faithful, more stable, comforts you when things are bad and still manages to give you some great years.

When it comes time to build a new house, what do you do? Would you build a shrine to that two timing wife who left you? Or honor the wife who stood by your side?

GET OVER THE DODGERS AND HONOR THE METS!

In honor of Pedro Martinez...

... possibly my favorite Red Sox of all time.

Who I still miss...

THE MAGIC NUMBER IS 45!

WHO SHOULD I ROOT FOR? Part 1: THE NL CENTRAL

August is a really fun part of the baseball season... the pennant races are forming in earnest, the trade deadline has passed so the teams are, for the most part, set and head to head match ups between contenders have added weight.

This is also time for a fan like me to adopt a team in each race that I don't have any real emotional attachment to.

With almost every race a tight one (with the exception of the A. L. East where my Red Sox have a full week's lead on the Yankees) I need to pick the teams I am rooting for.

Mind you this isn't who I am predicting will win. Just who I've borderline arbitrarily decided to cheer on.

Today we start....
WITH THE NATIONAL LEAGUE CENTRAL

The teams:
THE MILWAUKEE BREWERS and THE CHICAGO CUBS.

First Criteria: Number of former 2004 Boston Red Sox on the roster. Neither team has any. Nor are there any future Hall of Famers in need of a ring!

Also neither team had a good movie about them as both Rookie of the Year and Mr. 3,000 stunk.

Better move on to another criteria.


Second Criteria: Whose fans have suffered more?
Now I know I am supposed to just type in "The Cubs! They haven't seen a World Series, let alone win won, since 1945. They haven't won since 1908! It's been nearly 100 years! I remember as a Red Sox fan how great it was to get the monkey off of our backs! Think of 1969! 1984! 2003! They've suffered enough!"

But it is not as cut and dry as that. Follow me on this one...
Yeah it's been almost an entire century since the Cubs won a title... but it's only 4 years since their last division title. And this would be the 7th winning season in Chicago since Milwaukee put a team above .500 on the field. There are 14 year old kids in Milwaukee who have never seen a contender in their lifetime.
The Brewers haven't played a post season game since 1982. The Cubs have played 25 post season games since then... and if they had been able to hold leads against the Padres and Marlins, they'd have TWO pennants.

Milwaukee has one World Series title... but it belongs to the Braves.
Plus Chicago has seen the Bears and Bulls win it all...
In Milwaukee you have to drive all the way up to Green Bay to see a recent winner.
I'll say it.
EDGE BREWERS

Third Criteria: Which Manager would you rather see win it.
Not even close!
Lou Piniella has been everything advertised... funny, arguing, brawling... who wouldn't want to have him in the dugout and the post game interviews. Plus winning in Chicago might put him in Cooperstown... and we all want to hear that speech!
I wouldn't recognize Ned Yost if he came into my house in full uniform.
EDGE CUBS

Fourth Criteria: Which team had the better in dugout brawl?
The Brewers had a good one, but the Cubs meant an ace was reborn!
EDGE CUBS

Fifth Criteria: Which city had the cooler high school rebel?
Chicago's Ferris Bueller was cool, but he only for one movie. The TV spin off was unwatchable. Yeah Milwaukee's Arthur Fonzerelli eventually jumped the shark, but he gave us years of cool before hand.

EDGE BREWERS





Sixth Criteria: Which Stadium Is Nicer?

Miller Park seems nice... but please! This is Wrigley Field we're talking about here!




EDGE CUBS










Seventh Criteria: Best Between Inning Rutual
Singing along to "Take me out to the ballgame" was awesome when you were singing with Harry Carey. Less awesome when you listen to Ozzie Osbourne warble through it. But Sausages Races are always cool... nothing beats adults dressed as sausages in an athletic activity.












EDGE BREWERS


Time for the tie-breaker... the criteria that will determine which team I'll be rooting for down the stretch of the NL Central race!





TIE BREAKING CRITERIA: Which team has the better homer radio announcer?

Oh Ron Santo is great alright! Listening to how sloshed he gets during the game and how he is basically cheering and not announcing... he must be a God for Cub fans who are too drunk to know their team is losing.

But come on! We're talking Bob Uecker here!
Uke kicked butt in the old Miller Lite ads (I must be in the front row!) and what announcer hasn't mimicked his "Juuuuust a bit outside!" line from Major League.

Plus let's see Ron Santo do 5 seasons of Mr. Belvedere!

EDGE BREWERS!


So there you have it!
I'm putting on my old Cecil Cooper hat and rooting for the Brewers!

Besides, Cub fans... you don't want to lose that identity of lovable losers, do you?

GO BREWERS!!!

Can you imagine how awful Jim Leyland's lung's must look today?

Things must look brutal inside the lungs of Jim Leyland, the chain smoking manager of the Tigers.

On July 23th, the Tigers matched their biggest division lead of the year (2 games over the Indians). They had a .608 winning percentage, second only to the Red Sox, and were on pace to win 98 games and cruise to the playoffs.

Since then? They are 2-11. They haven't won in the month of August yet. They have fallen 1/2 a game behind the Indians (who are in a free fall of their own, losing 7 of 10) and allowed the Twins to creep back into the division race and could fall behind the Mariners and Yankees (!!!) as early as tomorrow. The cruise to defending the American League pennant could mean a 3rd place finish for the Wild Card.

Their pitching is battered, their once proud bullpen is a mess and Gary Sheffield has probably accused Jackie Robinson's widow of racism.

And Leyland puffs away... hoping that his dreams of World Series redemption don't go up in smoke as well.

Take your time hitting #756 Barry!

Barry Bonds hit home run number 755 today, and I for one hope he takes his sweet time hitting the record breaker.

No, not because I don't like Barry. I actually DO like Bonds and think the whole steroids mess is bigger than Bonds and bigger than we'll ever know. But I covered all of that before.

No, I want it dragged on for selfish reasons.

Selfish reason #1: I like the idea of every major newspaper and news bureau in the country sending people off to cover the Giants. I like that reporters who Bonds wouldn't wipe a Kleenex on and who have been writing anti Bonds articles for years now have to cover this terrible boring old lifeless team day in and day out.

The idea of Bill Plaschke or Bill Madden following the ups and downs of Randy Winn and Kevin Correia everyday while terrific pennant races are going on cracks me up. I don't want it to stop.

Selfish reason #2: Because of Barry, the Giants are must watch TV on FSN Bay Area or appointment radio on KNBR. Even my wife, who doesn't follow baseball and calls Bonds "The Fat Cheater" watches when he is at bat.

Selfish reason #3: The inevitable disappointment when Fred Lewis comes in to pinch run for Barry. My wife and I were watching a game the other day. When Lewis came in, she couldn't believe it.

"Why is he coming out? Why isn't he going to keep playing?" She asked. Here she was complaining that "the big fat cheater" was coming out.

When Lewis comes in, you can hear the televisions around the Bay Area turning off.


Selfish reason #4: I love hearing the KNBR promos leading up to home run #756. They play the theme from The Natural while replaying clips of Bonds home runs. In light of what we now know, I think "The Natural" might be the wrong label for Barry.

Selfish reason #5: I like the idea of Bud Selig dragging his tired colluding ass across the country.

And finally
Selfish reason #6: Why else would you watch a Giants game this year?

I mean other than seeing how they'll blow another Matt Cain lead or if Zito will lose again... what's the point?

After #756, the Giants will have lower ratings than the Yankeeography for Hideki Irabu.

So take your time, Barry.
This is too much fun to end now!

As a father of twins, hear me out on this one

Beware of the Twins.
I'm not talking about my two boys... although I need to always beware when I take them outside that one tends to run towards danger in one direction while the other finds danger in the opposite direction.

Taking care of my kids can be like Superman choosing which missile to stop in Superman 1.

But I digress. No I'm talking about the Minnesota Twins. Back in March I predicted them to win the Central Division.
As recently as Friday the 27th of July, that looked like a horrible prediction.

They had fallen back to .500, were 9 games out of the Central lead and sliding on a 5 game losing streak.

And then they shipped off their starting second baseman, Luis Castillo, packing to the Mets for prospects.
The team was waving the white flag for the season.

And now a week later... they are only 5 back in the loss column of Detroit and Cleveland. And they have 8 games left with Cleveland and games left with Detroit.

They are angry because management gave up on the season.
And they are talented, with Santana, Mauer, Hunter, Nathan and Morneau all still cashing checks.

Angry talented teams are dangerous.

And the Twins haven't been playing earth shattering baseball.
It's just that the Tigers and Indians have been really rotten.

The Tigers looked like they might repeat as AL champs, but not after dropping 8 of their last 10.

And with the Twins win over the Indians today, the tribe looks vulnerable... ESPECIALLY with their lousy bullpen. (Remind me why they didn't go after Gagne or Dotel!)

Remember how badly the Indians stumbled at the end of the 2005 season, costing them a playoff spot after they couldn't beat the Devil Rays nor White Sox once in the last week?

Remember how the Tigers cost themselves the division title after being swept by Kansas City of all teams?

If those two teams repeat their el foldos from the last two years, you may see Minnesota sneak back into the dance.

And the Twins may just overwhelm their opponents.
As a father of twins, I know... don't take your eyes off them for a second!