THE OFFICIAL JOE SEZ BLOG-O-RAMA

WHERE CUBS FANS RULE, AND SOMETIMES DREAM ABOUT SLIPPING EXLAX INTO THE CARDINALS' GATORADE.

TWO REALLY BIG BALLS. NO STRIKES.

· Joe Sez, News · , , ,

IRAQI-SHOE-THROWER

I do believe the entire Texas Rangers pitching staff has just seen their careers flash before their eyes. Why?

Muntadhar al-Zaidi — reporter for Baghdadiya Television; right handed; excellent velocity; decent control; deceptive delivery. And he’s a free agent. Well, technically he’s currently an incarcerated agent, but I think you know what I mean, my friend.

Alright, alright. He was throwing shoes, not baseballs. And that is a girly thing to do, I grant you. But hey, the Rangers already pitch like a bunch of junior high cheerleaders, so you can’t really use that against this guy. And just try throwing a shoe compared to a hardball. No way you can control a size 10-1/2 as well as the horse hide, my friend. Plus, there was some serious cheese on those things. At least the first one. I gotta think he took a little off the second one to try and throw Bush’s timing off, but he ducked that one, too. Behind a podium, I might add.

So I figure you put this guy on the mound in Arlington — where guys can’t hide behind large, immovable wooden objects — and the Rangers just improved their team pitching stats by about 20%.

Think about it, Texas.

First of all, you could sign him for something like a couple of showers a week. And it would only take one field trip to Texas before he’d be itching to put his name on the dotted line. One look at those Lonestar state debutants and (schwing!) hello big hair, good bye burka.

Second, he’s totally fearless. Totally. I mean the guy stood up in a room surrounded by gun-toting Secret Service agents and chucked his shoes at the most powerful man on the planet; a guy who could train 400 ICBMs on his little patch of sand and push the magic ‘disappear’ button. Given that, do you think A-Rod stepping into the box with the bases loaded and the game on the line is gonna mean squat to al-Z? I think not, pallie.

Third, he’ll challenge hitters. I mean before he even started his wind up — before he was hardly out of his crappy little folding chair — this guy barks “This is a farewell kiss, dog,” at the President. (I think that’s what he said. My Arabic is a little rusty.) A trash talkin’ Iraqi; you gotta love it. And announcing it was coming is just so totally psycho. You gotta think this bozo is good closer material. Anyway, the only challenge the Ranger staff throws up now is makin’ it through the bottom of the third, so closer or not, this guy deserves a look.

Joe

I DIDN’T DO IT. NOBODY SAW ME DO IT. YOU CAN’T PROVE ANYTHING.

· Joe Sez, News · ,

ROD-BLAGOJOVICH

Hey there, ballot boxes. I expect you’d have to be dead to have missed all the stuff flying around about our august, soon-to-be-wearing-an-orange-jumpsuit governor Roddy, and the lovely and oh so eloquent Mrs Roddy. Of course, that’s not sayin’ much, since dead people have been part of Chicago politics forever. I’m just sayin’.

But can we cut the crap already, and drop the use of the word ‘allegedly’ from the Blagojovich story? That’s like sayin’ Bartman didn’t cost us the Series cuz it wasn’t proven in a court of law. It was on tape, pal. Bartman did it. You saw it. I saw it. Friggin’ Hellen Keller woulda seen that. And Blago? His I’ll-make-you-an-offer-you-can’t-refuse back scratching has been preserved in full Dolby digital glory. Along with the supporting, delicate and poetic demonstration of the english language by that *%@# Lady Macbeth — as so perfectly anointed by the Trib.

Honestly, part of me doesn’t blame her, cuz who can talk about the Cubs without dropping a few well-deserved F-bombs? It ain’t easy. I know, personally. But holy friggin’ crap! She’s only a grill and 7 pounds of bling away from being a rapper with that mouth. Hell, she could even teach Lou a few things about how to communicate with umpires.

Anyway, I get all tingly inside knowing that Blagojovich will be making some new friends in the Big House, and that they’ll be giving him the same treatment he’s been giving us. And I don’t think this morning’s meeting with the preacher contingent is gonna do much to save his sorry ass, or otherwise keep if from it’s eventual fate. Supposedly it was all sugar and spice with the Reverend Acree and a couple of other men of the cloth, who requested an audience for the purpose of comforting the governor’s wife and kids. I could be wrong, but I think the Mrs would have been more comforted by meeting with Luca Brazzi, where the discussion was centered on which of the Tribune’s editorial staff was gonna get whacked, and in what order.

The really sad thing is that this is sort of a trend in Illinois. I mean, when this dirt bag moves into cell block 8, he’ll be the 4th governor outta the last 8 that’s done time. In other words, it’s easier to end up in prison as governor of this state than if you murder someone in this state. At least it seems like it. I’ll tell you one thing, it’s certainly easier than it is for the Cubs to make the Series. Now that, my friend, is sad.

All that said, from now on, whenever I get down on my Northsiders for stinkin’ it up, or for jacking up ticket prices during the playoffs and then layin’ turds on the diamond in return, I’m gonna think about Blago, and toilet mouth, and all the other A-holes since Honest Abe — the last (allegedly) honest politician we had. Cuz compared to those guys, our ballplayers are saints. (Not the White Sox, though. They suck.) But the Cubbies are friggin’ holy water by comparison; hundred year drought and all.

Joe

NAMES IN A BLENDER.

· Joe Sez, Spring Training, The Playoffs ·

Was it just me, or did anyone else (besides Phillies and Rays fans) feel that even if you used the $27 million microscope at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory you wouldn’t have found one fly speck of drama in this year’s Series?

I kid you not, this was one anti-climactic Fall Classic, was it not? I mean, tip of the Joe Schlombowski lid to the Phils (though, personally, I thought Dick Cheney would appear in drag on Dancing with the Stars before Phily would win it all). And that Cole Hammels guy. He was Mr. Nastypants, I’ll give him that, pallie. But if a rain delay is the defining moment of a not-exactly-down-to-the-wire showdown, well, ’nuff said. Wake me when it’s over.

Which brings me to the point of this diatribe. What the hell do we do to get us through to mid-Feb when pitchers and catchers report to spring training?

Alright. I admit football will help. But as I’ve pointed out before, as fun as football can occasionally be, it is vastly inferior to the one, the only, the true America’s pastime — baseball. One need not look any further than ice fishing — the single most uneventful activity on the planet — to see my point. Ice fishing, in which a group of men sit around telling jokes, smelling each other’s farts, and risking 1) severe frostbite; 2) maiming oneself with a gas-powered ice auger; and 3) losing one or more fingers to an angry pike or walleye, was invented right smack in the middle of football season. It’s like somebody made a bet that since football is so damn boring (Army went a whole game this season without throwing a single pass), nobody could possibly come up with something even more boring. And since soccer already existed, voila, the guy lost the bet and ice fishing was born. (In fairness, ice fishing does have its moments. Like when there’s a warm spell and somebody’s Dodge Durango is converted into a U-boat.)

So Joe, you ask, what else can get me through to spring without me turning into a raving lunatic? Lord Stanley’s Cup? I think not. (Why they ever named a championship after a crotch protector is beyond me.) But here’s my answer, pal. I’ll give you two things, three if you’re a fly fisherman. If you fly fish, just keep tying flies until the icicles melt and you’re good. For the rest of you, here goes: 1) The SI Swimsuit Issue (whoever thought of this should get a MacArthur Genius Grant); and 2) a little game I call Names-In-A-Blender.

Here are the Official Joe Schlombowski Names-In-A-Blender rules: You take the name of anyone you love or despise, say Alfonso Soriano, and you combine his name with someone else you either love or despise. Say Scott Boras. You put those two together and you get ALFONSO SOR-ASS.

Here’s one you’ll like. You put Kerry Wood together with Alonzo Mourning and you get KERRY MOURNING-WOOD.

Staying with that theme for a minute, mix Chien-Ming Wang with Long John Silver and you get CHIEN-MING LONG WANG.

Put Derek Lee together with someone else who screwed the pooch in October and you get DEREK LEHMAN BROTHERS.

Felix Pie plus Mike Holtz of the Dodgers gives you FELIX PIE-HOLTZ.

And my personal favorite: Kosuke Fukudome with Alex Rodriguez gives you KOSUKE FUK-U-A-ROD.

Once you run out of Cubbies just keep going through all the other sports. Mix it up with the names of a week’s worth of Howard Stern guests, and throw in the NY Times Op-Ed columnists for good measure. If all else fails, go to the Yellow Pages.

With any luck, Names-In-A-Blender, a deck of cards, the Home Shopping Network and a couple dozen cases of Old Style should get you to at least Groundhog Day no problem.

Godspeed.

Joe

MANNY BEING SATAN.

· Joe Sez, News, The Playoffs · ,

MANNY-BEING-MANNY

Regarding Manny’s whereabouts next year, I quote … “I want to see who is the highest bidder,” Ramirez said after the Dodgers’ NLCS loss to the Philadephia Phillies. “Gas is up and so am I.”

What a friggin’ a-hole.

I grant you, he’s not alone. Everywhere you turn you got guys hitting a buck-75 going to arbitration cuz they think they’re lightin’ the world on fire. But, exxxxccuuuuuuuusse me! This guy was basically asked off the Red Sox by his teammates because he couldn’t be counted on. He made it crystal clear that he didn’t want to play for Boston anymore by dogging it, and pretty much treated Epstein, the owners, the rest of the team, and the fans the same way a baby treats a diaper. Well let me tell you Manny, you are not well-loved when your team dumps you but pays the remaining $7 million on your contract while you play for someone else. That pretty much says it all. In fact, it says you’re not just a garden variety a-hole, you’re a large, economy, only-available-at-Costco sized a-hole; with a capital ‘A’ and a ‘hole’ you could drive a cement truck through.

I know all you Dodgers fans could give a crap cuz you wouldn’t have made the playoffs without him, and he was a big part of why you kicked our asses for sure. But I’m sorry, someone who doesn’t care about anything except money is either my first wife, my first wife’s brother, or a self-centered, selfish S.O.B. of gargantuan proportions. Like I said … Manny.

Oh, I might mention that none of those three can play left field worth a damn, either.

So while your average fan — the guy driving a cab to pay the rent, or selling insurance for 20 years, or doing whatever to scrape together the money to send the kids to college — is cutting back with the way the economy is and all, we got Manny being Satan, making it harder for Joe Fan to afford the occasional game with the kids. Nice. Thanks a lot, ‘Gas is up and so am I.’

But there is a bright spot in all of this; and that’s the recent rumblings of Hank Steinbrenner on the subject of acquiring Mr. I-play-hard-if-I-feel-like-it. Which is to say he’s definitely interested in Manny. So you gotta figure the guy’s gonna end up on a team like the Yankees — if not the actual Yankees — where money grows on trees. Which means that you Yankees fans might have to decide, do I wanna make the mortgage payment this month or go see a couple ball games? Especially in that new ballpark. I mean the potential acquisitions of Ramirez and Sabathia (who they’ll also try to nab) in combination with the price of the new House That Ruth Didn’t Build is gonna be like the financial version of the perfect storm. And right on the heels of all this other crap that Wall Street and all those fine, upstanding, never-knew-a-thing-about-it shysters in Washington just laid on us. Anyway, if there are any fans (besides White Sox fans) I’d like to see pay a higher price for their allegiance to their team, it’s New York’s. No question.

So I hope Manny gets everything he wants from whoever thinks that gas is worth $25 million a gallon. But whoever that is had better hope that he uses all 4 gears, instead of just first and second like he did in Boston last year.

Joe

DARLING, LOVER, SWEETIE PIE.

· Joe Sez, The Playoffs · ,

Here’s reason number 2,727,891 why I hate the Mets:

I’m sitting here watching the Sox and Rays in the 4th, when the plate umpire has to punch out because of an injury. So now we got a delay in the game until the crew chief figures out what to do. But it’s not like the guy was carried off on a stretcher. He just strolls over to the Rays’ dugout on his own power. So … Just give another ump the gear and let’s go already! Nope. Gotta call the blue off the field, like the safety of the free world hangs in the balance.

Anyway, while all this is going on, we’re treated to the analysis of the TBS announcers, including former Met, Ron Darling. (Nice last name, pal.) Well, you know where the conversation goes, right? How it’s gonna be really difficult for the pitchers to sit there for an extra 5 minutes while the umpires are grabbing a sandwich or two in the clubhouse, deciding who’s gonna call the rest of the game. Of course the resident expert, Darling, chimes in, explaining what a hardship it is for a pitcher in this situation — like the unbearable 5 minutes he’s having to endure is gonna totally unravel his mojo.

So Love Muffin (I like that better than ‘Darling’) tells about how when he was playing, he was scheduled to pitch one day but it got postponed for one reason or another. But you know, he had to say goodbye to the family and … arrrrgggghhhh … go allllll the way to the ballpark … uuuuggghhhhh … make arrangements for comp tickets and … get this … since he pitched the next day, he had to go through all that TWICE!

Oh my God.

Good thing you could pitch, Darling, cuz if you’d had a real job you wouldn’t have lasted 15 minutes. Just the kind of guy you want in a fox hole with you.

When I hear crap like that (in addition to wishing I was within choking distance) I figure it’s a window into the world of the person who said it. Like the fact that he didn’t get to ‘play’ when he was expecting to defines adversity for the guy. What happens when he gets a hang nail … 911 and an ambulance to the ER?!

Remember Lou Gehrig, the “luckiest man on the face of the earth” while staring death straight in the eye? (I grant you, he was a Yankee not a Met. But to me, all ballplayers from New York are the same. Which, by the way, explains a lot about the Giants and the Dodgers.) So like I was sayin’, New York ballplayers went from playing-everyday-while-dying-of-cancer tough, to Mr. get-me-a-tissue-the-sky-is-falling candy ass. If that doesn’t summarize why the Mets suck, I don’t know what does.

Joe