I'd like to introduce you to my new favorite baseball team...

Ladies and gentlemen, I now present to you these guys. They're called the Royals. I know you probably don't know what a Royal is, or have ever met a Royal fan before, but here you go...a living, breathing, Royals fan.

You see, I used to follow the Braves growing up. Chipper Jones was my idol and always will be my idol. I don't remember many seasons playing baseball where I didn't pick #10 for my jersey (cheaply made t-shirt that I had to give back at the end of the season). The thing about the Braves is, they gave me one World Series, and a whole bunch of great regular seasons that ended up in disappointing playoff performances. I only have enough energy to follow one team like that...

Yes Peyton. Curl up in the fetal position and wish to die. That's what I do every year
come playoff time.

Anyway, the Braves fell off my map a few years back, and after I decided on Northeastern for college, I became a Red Sox fan. I got my World Series after being a fan for just a couple years, and enjoyed all the rioting and tit-flashing that came with it. Being in Boston for their first World Series was definitely an exciting moment, but the following year all Red Sox fans took to baseball the same way they took to football...all out "we're superior to you because of the team we like" attitude. That was Strike 1.

Then came Strike 2: quite possibly the biggest tool I've ever seen in baseball. If this guy were a Yankee, I can only imagine the nicknames, the signs, and the shirts that would be made. He bought into his own hype more than anyone else, and I'm pretty sure you know who I'm talking about...





Ok, I went overboard with the amount of pictures, but if you Google image search him, so much douchiness comes up you can't really help but be taken in by it. Also, Vista is completely incompatible with the amount of douche on the page and I've had to restart my computer 4 times because of FDE's, Fatal Douche Errors. As much as I hate Tom Brady, I feel that he deserves every ounce of credit he gets. Papelbon on the other hand is a good pitcher with a highly bloated ego. He's also a douchebag.

Anyway...it all came crashing down and I realized how much I hate everything about the Red Sox. Jerry Remy getting all the play while Don Orsillo is frankly much better to listen to. Celebrities in the booth. Celebrities in the stands. Jacoby Ellsbury. Curt "Curt-mudgeon" Schilling. 90% of of all Boston college girls in Ellsbury shirts two weeks after he was brought up. Theo Epstein. And on top if it...

Fuck both these guys. Seriously.

On a side note...ten things that are funnier than Jimmy Fallon.

1. Genocide.
2. Requiem for a Dream.
3. Maya Rudolph.
4. Chris Brown beating up on Rihanna.
5. Those commercials with Sarah McLachlan where they show sad dogs and cats and she sings "Angel" and I cry even though whenever they show commercials of starving children in Africa I just get annoyed and change the channel.
6. NFL booth reviewers NOT reviewing the highly questionable final play of the biggest game of the season.
7. This show I watched last night where this ultra traumatized kid retold the story of how this bear ate his mom's face off.
8. People who caused the economic crisis having vast amounts of money.
9. Ben Folds - "Brick"
10. Plane crashes.

Now that that's off my chest, I spent some time thinking about who my team would be. After some thought, I narrowed the search down to:

Colorado Rockies
Texas Rangers
Washington Nationals
Kansas City Royals

Colorado's a nice young team in a small market. I've got a boner for Chris Iannetta, and am pretty sure he's going to have a monster season. Clint Barmes, Troy Tulowitski, Ryan Spilborghs, Jorge De La Rosa, Ubaldo Jiminez. I'm pretty sure the combined MLB experience between all of them is less than 20 years. However, they let Holliday and Taveras go in the offseason, and it just didn't feel right.

Being that I'm moving to Texas in just a couple months now, I figured I should get a Texas based team. I wouldn't root for the Cowboys, ever, I don't give a shit about the Stars, or the Spurs, or the Rockets, and the Astros just aren't my style. The Rangers seemed like a nice choice. A very deep outfield which includes what could be a monster year for David Murphy if he stays healthy, everyone's favorite "I used to do lots of drugs but now I don't" story in Mr. Josh Hamilton, Marlon Byrd, Nelson Cruz, Brandon Boggs...and a guy that if he studies his old game tape and remembers how to play baseball, could come back with a bang. That man is Andruw Jones. Then once you get to the infield, dudes like Chris Davis and Ian Kinsler make for a pretty solid infield. Their only problem is, once you get past Kevin Millwood and Vicente Padilla, their pitching sucks. So bad. They were still the pick though.

I thought about the Nationals. My best friend was telling me to root for them because no one else will. They're a bunch of douchebags for the most part, and not that good either. I like guys like Elijah Dukes and Adam Dunn, who are total assholes, but can get the job done. Still though, I'm not into the rest of the team and they just didn't spark my interest enough to keep thinking about them.

Then came the Royals. Mike Aviles. Fwap fwap. Billy Butler. Fwap fwap. Brian Bannister, Gil Meche, Zach Greinke, Kyle Davies. Fwap fwap fwap fwap fwap fwap. An outfield rounded out by Jose Guillen, Mark Teahen, David DeJesus, and now Coco Crisp? FWAP FWAP FWAP FWAP. I haven't even started on Mike Jacobs, Alberto Callaspo, Alex Gordon, or Miguel Olivo. I haven't even mentioned their dynamic closer Joakim Soria, who I like even though I hate closers.

This team is winning the AL Central. I wanted to jump on their bandwagon before everyone else (so I can tell people that I was totally a Royals fan three months before they were). This is a brilliant young team, and they're only going to get better. If Kansas City's front office plays their cards right, these guys ought to be hanging some flags up in their stadium pretty soon.

Therefore, I am now a diehard, blue and gold til I die (or the team trades away all their young stars to make cap room), Kansas City Royals fan. My hat's in the mail, my Kyle Farnsworth jersey is being custom ordered (because even Kyle Farnsworth doesn't have a Kyle Farnsworth jersey), and I'm getting a Royals tattoo on the small of my back.

Friday Pic O' tha Week

To continue with the tradition that I just made up 5 minutes ago, here is the Start Playing Leon Powe picture of the week. These pictures will represent something awesome in the world of sports that I hijack from some other site on the internet. Enjoy!

Celtics vs. Clippers 2/25/09

Nothing like a live NBA experience to break up the work week. No Garnett (and Scalabrine) meant more Leon. Since I'm swamped at the office, seriously, I'm going to list my 10 favorite things about the game in no particular order. Oh, and since I don't own a camera and my cell phone is from 1988, I don't have pictures. What a blog!

1. RED PANDA ACROBAT!

2. Sitting in the Premier Level area (thanks Mike) and not being able to afford anything on the menu. Great view of the game though.

3. How many different Celtics shirts/jerseys/jackets people were wearing. To the jersey t-shirt that had "Chief" and the dub zero on the back, to the 350lb. Irish dude wearing a Pierce jersey with no shirt on underneath. Even the little girl with the pink 2008 championship shirt was cute.

4. But none of those compare to the guy in my section wearing an authentic MICHAEL JORDAN WHITE SOX JERSEY! Speechless...

That went well...

5. The sequence of Zach Randolph slamming his shoulder into Leon, Leon flying to the floor, Randolph dribbling over his prone body, then the ref calling a foul on Powe. You can't make this stuff up. It's one thing to watch the refs on TV and complain. But you really don't know just how awful the officiating is until you have good seats at a live game. Unbelievable. Anyway, Leon was a trooper last night grabbing nine boards and defending a guy with at least three inches and 75 bills on him. Randolph had his way early on but Leon really buckled down in the second half. Plus Leon's only field goal was a MONSTROUS alley oop dunk. I mean, he really got up there. But Leon, seriously, work on your free throws dude.

6. Baron Davis fouling out and proceeding to bitch at the refs for a good 45 seconds straight but not getting a technical with less than two minutes to play.

7. The French kids sitting next to us flipping out and trying to take pictures of Adam Sandler who was sitting courtside. Next to Marcus Allen which was quite the odd pairing. Also, Sandler was shaking hands with people at halftime and seemed like a pretty likeable guy. Too bad he hasn't made a good movie since 1996.

8. Knowing that the game could have been over if Pierce hit a wide open three following a sick block by Leon. It would have put the Celtics up by 12 with 8:42 left. Trust me, even with that much time left, Randolph was getting tired, Eric Gordon couldn't hit the water if he fell out of T-Pain's boat (He finished with 4 points. Gordon, not T-Pain.) and Camby and Davis were inconsistent all night. But Pierce bricked it and the Clip, to their credit, hung in there and forced Pierce back into 2006 mode at the end of the game where he just dribbled at the three point line for about 10 seconds, then drove towards the foul line and launched an off balanced jumper. Which he also missed.

9. As Rondo drove the length of the court with five seconds left, Big Baby whiffs on setting a screen but pops out to the three point line anyway and holds his hand up motioning that he's open while Rondo proceeds to dribble the ball out of bounds, ending the game.

10. Realizing that out of the 15 total wins the Clippers have this year, I was there for two of them.

Buccaneers Release Brooks, Dunn

Montgomery, Gentry quoted as "happy to still be employed".

Save a horse, ride Jason Witten.

Hey ohhhhhhhhhh.

P.S. check back soon for an actual post that took time. It'll be good, I 64% promise.

Edit: I also just realized that I'm pretty sure it's Big & Rich and not Montgomery Gentry that did "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy". The point is, the song sucks, so do the Cowboys.