Archive for August, 2007

Written by Josh Bard. Special to BostonMikeWorld.

Last night I watched my Red Sox lose to the Devil Rays, 2-1. My concern is hardly the loss, although I did stay up for the Yankees-Angels West Coast game which wasn’t decided until a Yankees four run 8^th inning well past midnight eastern time. Anyway, the game ended with a Jason Varitek fly out with two runners on base, capping an 0 for 5 night with 8 runners left on.

(Tangent 1: I know he’s our captain and a veteran and he’s been loyal… blah blah blah… but come on. We have a chance to win the AL East for the first time since 1995; let’s dismiss assumed hurt feelings like the Yankees are dismissing Jeter rumors. Varitek is batting .219 since the All-Star break. 0-5 with 8 left on?? The group of losers on “The Pick-Up Artist” has been more successful recently. If Varitek was critiqued by Mystery, lets just say he wouldn’t be leaving with a pendant.)

Meanwhile, burning cheek marks into the Red Sox dugout was Manny Ramirez. If you’re not familiar with him, he’s the Red Sox 11-time All Star, clean-up hitting, starting left fielder, who was given a day off by Terry Francona. With the game on the line in a pennant race, Ramirez, of the .313 career batting average and 489 career homeruns, was probably more interested in driving home than driving home the tying run.

Though it may sound like it, this, by no means is a knock on Terry Francona or Captain Tek. My biggest issue with the series of blunders is on the man with his hands in the sunflower seed and his head in the clouds, Manny Ramirez. Manny is a 15 year veteran. Manny is already considered a Hall of Famer. Manny is a fan favorite and a teammate favorite.

How can he not want to get into the game and help his team? If Manny knew the score of the game last night and decided he wanted to help the team, there’s no way Tito would deny Manny the pinch hit at bat. Because of this, we must assume that Manny didn’t care about helping the team win.

I’m not the kind of guy who wishes Manny wasn’t on our team anymore and I’m not the kind of guy who thinks Manny is lazy player or a lazy fielder. (Tangent #2: In fact I want to go ahead and give Manny a pat on the 24 for his fielding. Often criticized, Manny not only isn’t that bad, he’s pretty good. Consider the statistics compared to other current All-Stars:

Since 2002, Manny Ramirez has committed 26 errors in 714 games in the field, which is 1 error every 27.5 games. In the same time, Vlad Guerrero has made 48 errors in 760 games in the field, or an error every 19 games. Carlos Beltran, 36 errors in 849 games, or one every 23.6 games. You don’t hear Beltran and Vlad get ripped for their efforts in the outfield, yet Manny is always under the microscope in left.)

“Manny Being Manny” is now on officially licensed MLB sold shirts and perhaps even more embraced by Ramirez himself. According to Peter Gammons, Manny has dress shirts embroidered with a ‘MBM’ monogram. If it were up to me, I’d go with something like Manny Being Oblivious. Its not that I don’t think he tries to win; it’s just that I think after all is said and done, its just that: done.

On August 15th, with the winning runs on board, Manny struck out on a ball over his head to end the game. After the huge whiff Manny turned, unphased, and walked to the dugout, clubhouse and that was it. If the 36,000 plus at the Fens and others watching on TV had anything near the reaction as I did, it took them a few seconds to breathe and the exhale was all hot air. The ball was at his neck, he looked like an amateur, and yet no reaction, no frustration, almost no awareness of the situation.

This lack of spatial cognizance seems to happen a lot, and we usually laugh it off. Ha, Manny just went into the scoreboard to pee. Ha, Manny’s hair got in his eyes and he was picked off second. Ha, Manny is pretending his bat is a horse and is riding it to the batters box (don’t
tell me it couldn’t happen if he didn’t think of it himself).

It would just be nice if my #24 seemed to care as much about his career as other 24’s in the league do. Grady Sizemore dawns 24 for the Indians and is a city icon, yet that’s not important to him. “I just want to go out on the field and play. I’m not comfortable in front of the camera. I don’t like seeing this mug on TV,” he told Sports Illustrated. In contrast, Manny used his name to help a neighbor sell his grill on eBay.

Another admirable player in a 24 jersey is Miguel Cabrera. With stats that are reminiscent to Manny’s early years, Miggy has no ceiling right now. Stuck in the minor league that is the N.L., his name is garnering lots of MVP chatter. This week, Cabrera was late for a game and was subsequently benched, but manager Fredi Gonzalez let Cabrera play late because he was so remorseful. Sometimes I wonder if Manny even knows time.

Perhaps the most cathartic and cheer-worthy 24 is Rick Ankiel of the Cardinals. Recently Ankiel returned to the majors after a seven year hiatus, reworking his game completely for just one more chance. The former pitcher is now an outfielder batting .286 with 4 dingers in 10 games. In a summer full of depressing sports news, he was as refreshing to the slumping Cards as he has been to sports fans across the country.

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Written by Robert Sheftell. Special to BostonMikeWorld.

When it came time for me to decide on a major at Ithaca College, it was a no-brainer. Come to think of it, much of my academic career could be considered a no-brainer. I realized early on that 3.0 was my Mendoza line…anything below and I’m wasting Mom and Dad’s money, anything above and I’m a Roads scholar. (The misspelling was intended to be ironical).

With that in mind, I needed to find an area of study that would allow me to continue the carefree lifestyle to which I’d grown accustomed…

I’d always hated anything to do with math, and I was awful at science. Med school just wasn’t in the cards. I always liked history, but wasn’t big into reading when I was 20, so that was out. My brain has never been wired for foreign languages, but I have always done very well speaking English, although the reading thing sort of put the kibosh on that too. I thought that speech pathology might be a possibility but ended up nixing that idea because nothing annoys me more than listening to someone with a lisp.

(Sidenote: Is there any more ruthless crime in the English language that the word “lisp” has an ’s’ in it and that the word “stutter” has more than one syllable??? Seriously, swap the meanings and everyone would be able to communicate their disabilities.)

I tend to be dramatic, but to be a drama major meant to hang out with other drama majors, and I’m not really into that, ya know, scene. Sorry.

Same deal with sociology. While I respect the work that you people do I didn’t feel like spending 35k a year to be depressed. Is there anything worse than being at a bar and having some pale chick come up to you and tell you that the hot wing you’re about to eat is from an unethically treated chicken and that the $75 tab that you’re about to run up could be better spent saving whales or African kids?

Psychology interested me, but it would have probably taken me six or seven tries to pass a neurology class, plus the only way to make money on that one is to listen to people’s problems every day. And let me tell you something: Tony Soprano is not walking through that door. And if you expect him to walk through that door he’s going to be fat and old!
(P.S. Never date a psych major, under any circumstances. Just trust me on this one).

Art history seemed like it would be easy enough, however completely pointless. I seriously considered going into physical education and reliving my days of gym class super stardom, but if I was going to major in gym I should have just saved the money and gone to Cortland. (Writing insults about Cortland kids this far into an article without rhymes or pictures is like talking shit behind a deaf kid’s back. For this I apologize.)

After eliminating 95% of the majors at Ithaca it became clear that the only thing I was capable of doing was communicating. Problem was, the communications programs were all part of the prestigious Park School. I was rejected from Park when I applied to the IC, and you need like a 3.5 to transfer in.

Then, a miracle happened. Just as I was about to settle on “Outdoor Adventure Leadership” (yes, a real major), I found it. The loophole that would allow me to succeed at this fine institution: The Bachelor of Science Degree in Sport Media. By some twist of fate the Sport Media program, by all accounts a communications degree, wasn’t part of the Park School, but rather the School of Health Science and Human Performance (gym class).

I had discovered the perfect major. In class each morning we talked about whatever was on Sportscenter, debated steroids and sexism, and piled up credits 3 at a time. Some of my classes included Social Aspects of Sport, Sports Marketing, Sport Media Relations, and Sports Economics (where we learned about the salary cap and revenue sharing). I was in heaven.

I ended up graduating in just 4 years (another miracle, considering the over/under was 5.5) and went on to a successful career communicating sports.

That was a terribly long intro, and I apologize, but I had to set the stage. I recently received a call from the alma mater, asking if I would like to be a guest professor for a day during a summer course. I was shocked to get the invite, but certainly didn’t have anything better to do with my time (there is only so much NFL training camp coverage one man can do), so I graciously agreed. As I made the long drive up to CNY (Central New York for those of you who aren’t down) I couldn’t get the image of Donald Sutherland as Professor Jennings in Animal House out of my head. You know, as he hands Pinto his first joint and tells him there’s a “distinct possibility” that he goes schizo. That’s the kind of professor I wanted to be.

For the first time in my life I arrived on campus early for class. I assumed that I would spend the day talking about sports or blogging, maybe even pick up a protégé or two, basically just spend a few hours being impressive. When I got to the check-in table I was greeted by a polite woman with some awkward news. Apparently some big whig from the 4-letter network had shown up unexpectedly and agreed to teach the Sport Media class. I guess his son was looking at IC and they snatched him right out of the tour group…either way, I wouldn’t be needed. According to the polite woman they had tried to call me all morning but I never answered my phone (I check phone…yup, 6 missed calls…3 messages…my bad). I explained to her that I had been blasting the Bad Company Anthology since I hit the road and couldn’t hear my phone (which, ironically, has Feel Like Making Love as the current ring tone). I felt a little dejected, and was on my way to see if Moonshadow’s was still standing (after all, it was 3-for-1 Wednesday) when the polite woman asked me if I knew anything about history.

“Sure I do,” I said, still stinging from being replaced and hoping to somehow salvage the day. She went on to tell me that the guest professor for U.S. History 101 had called in sick and that they needed a replacement. Now, I was in a bit of a bad spot, because I don’t remember anything from Ms. Shmiller’s U.S. History class in 11th grade (her name was actually Ms. Miller, but she had a lisp. I didn’t like her very much and I certainly didn’t like her class. This may be the beginning of my intolerance for lisps).

I bullshitted my way through the next few minutes, and next thing I knew I was in front of 20 incoming freshman who were expecting to learn something about their forefathers. I had to think quick.

“Does anyone have any questions?” I asked, always more of a conversationalist than a lecturer.

“You haven’t taught us anything yet,” said a wise ass in the back. I couldn’t be mad, since I used to be that wise ass, plus he was right.

“To be honest,” I said, “I don’t know too much about history. I write about the NFL, and I was supposed to talk to a sports class, but since I’m here, I may as well do my best…”

And this is when the real BS began, it just came pouring out. I taught them first about how Bush barely beat out Gore. I went into detail regarding the fact that normally Frank Gore would be the #5 pick in a fantasy football league, but since it was a keeper league Reggie Bush was a little bit more valuable. They are both better than Clinton, however, since Portis only started half the Redskin’s games last year and they have a very good backup who will take away carries.

They learned about the adventures of Lewis and Clark, and how I was looking forward to seeing the Ravens-Colts game on December 9th. I predicted that linebacker Ray Lewis would have no problem shutting down Colts’ tight end Dallas Clark again.

My next lesson was about Alexander, Graham and Bell. It was the inconsistency of Shaun Alexander, Daniel Graham and Tatum Bell that caused my 6th place finish last year and I had to vent.

This was followed by a detailed lesson on football players with the same names as presidents. Before Bush and Clinton there was Regan Upshaw, former D-end for the Bucs, and of course the celebrated receiver Cris Carter. Then I went back and continued from the beginning…

There are 11 Washingtons in the league, but Ted is by far the biggest (listed at 375 lbs, which is generous), and 10 Adams’ including Sam (the tackle, not the brewer). Like the 3rd President, Shawn Jefferson is both a former Patriot and father to black children, while Giant’s veteran Sam Madison may be as old as James. The class was fascinated by the story of Brian Monroe, a 22-year-old punter out of U Miami. Monroe is currently trying to become the only black punter in the NFL (I forget most what I said next, since I was in the zone, but I vaguely remember “the Rosa Parks of 4th-and-long” coming out of my mouth).

The league has never featured a John Quincy Adams, but I figured that John Elway, Quincy Morgan and Adams Vinatieri and Archuleta would do the trick. As would Stephen Jackson, Marvin Harrison, Sean Taylor, Antonio Pierce and Ray Buchanon. Next was the MVP of the All-Presidential name team: offensive lineman Lincoln Kennedy (left).

I should have stopped the lecture right there, but how could I leave out Roosevelt Colvin, Brad Hoover, Larry Johnson, Ford Field, and the Cleveland Browns? It would have been criminal (speaking of which, there are no Nixons playing in the NFL).

I was all ready to continue, figuring I would start talking about the Great Depression (the 2 weeks after last year’s AFC Championship game) when another polite woman came in and told me that my time was up. Already!?! I was just getting started!

As the little freshmen scurried out of the room, not one of them stopped to tell me how much they had enjoyed the lecture (but I’m sure they were just late for their next class). Out of 20 students I hope that I made an impact on at least one, and no doubt it was the wise ass in the back who will someday take my job. Now was not the time to worry about that, however, since Moonshadows’ happy hour specials were just starting and I had all my leftover drink tokens in my back pocket.

Moving on is overrated.

For more Robert Sheftell, visit Moonshadow’s Tavren at 114 Ithaca Commons

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In the midst of packing for an Ithaca camping trip/wine tour/279 Penn reunion…We just realized that there is a Nascar event in Watkins Glen, so we need to split early to avoid redneck race traffic…No time for complete sentences, but theres a few things that need to be said before the weekend:

- Rick Ankiel is the man. Plain and simple. Not quite the modern-day Babe Ruth, but if you saw his meltdown 7 years ago live, you feel awesome today. ESPN radio’s Bob Valvano put his downfall in perspective: “Imagine your worst day at work. Then imagine millions of people watching live.”

For Ankiel to come back from that, in a new position, grind it out, and make it back to the majors is nothing short of a miracle. His home run last night in his debut Part II was just icing on the cake.

- I know I stunned the readers who like my Age of Love columns (pretty sure there was at least 2 of them) by not doing a live look or even a recap of the finale. Fact is, it was sort of anticlimactic. I thought for a while that Jen would make me look like a fool, and I was thanking my lucky stars that nobody took me up on my 100-1 odds on the 48-year-old beauty. In the end, however, the guy in his 30s chose the hot 25-year-old girl instead of Ms. Menopause. Shocking. The whole thing was cheesy, staged and predictable. Not a great end to a great show, but at least my pick (since episode 3) came through.

-Thanks to 5 bogeys and a double Graeme Storm has blown his lead at the PGA Championship. This means that John Daly, yet to tee off today, is your tournament leader at noon on Friday. If you thought Sergio was a lock to choke at Carnoustie, Daly might not even show up for the weekend if he puts up another 67.

- I need to quickly vent about Rescue Me. Annually one of my favorite summer shows, this season has been horribly inconsistent. They sprinkle in some hilarious scenes at the fire house, and the action scenes are great as always, but the story lines lack consistency, give up on themselves, and tend to make no sense. There are too many characters and subplots, and Tommy’s visions are getting weirder and weirder. I love Denis Leary, but it seems painfully obvious that he ignoring the best interest of the show and just trying to win an Emmy.

- Looking to grab a few too many cheap brews after work today? Theres a website for that.

- Are you sick of the fact that every time you see a smokin hot girl she seems to be with a douche bag? Theres a website for that, too.

Time to hit the road…206 West here we come.

Coming soon…

Yeah, I know, 25 counts of copyright infringement. Whatever. If we make it big I’ll change it.

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By Josh Bard. Special to BostonMikeWorld.

Now I don’t think it would be so cool. With every age there’s a reason that once seemed logical. Looking back, I was dumb, but I was younger and I’m smart now that it’s really not fair to compare. Today I am really smart, like really smart. I’d say I get about 2 out of every 5 Final Jeopardy answers in a given week (I said I was smart, not cool).

Here’s the breakdown through the years…

Age 4-5

Bouncy balls were fun. Getting dirty was fun. It didn’t matter if I won or lost, just how I played the game. Every season ended with a pizza party. Basically I was retarded; I was just in the dark. Let’s call these the Dark Ages and forget they ever happened.

Age 6-8

I used to want to be on baseball cards; in fact I think I used to only like sports because of baseball cards. How stupid is that? These were overpriced photos that were mostly boring and if you were lucky, unintentionally funny. Sometimes I got an insert card, what the hell did that even mean? Why would I want my picture in the hands of hundreds of other people? I don’t even like seeing my own picture now; I can never get the smile right. Maybe I could smile better if I was an athlete…

Age 9-11

Remember when athletes used to be cool? Remember when I didn’t know they were sleezeballs, drunks, egomaniacs, cheaters, wifebeaters, etc. Maybe it’s one of those things that’s cooler when you’re actually doing it… But then I thought about it and its kinda hard to justify the sleezing, drinking, cheating, wifebeating, and etcetera-ing… even if I am already drunk.

Age 12-14

By the age of thirteen I had just won the lottery called a Bar Mitzvah. More euphoric than winning ballgames was the feeling of having loads of money (read: enough for boxes of baseball cards, yeah I was still sorta into them). This was about the time that RBIs began to take a backseat to contract size. I was 14 in 1998 when the Red Sox couldn’t sign hometown hero, Mo Vaughn. He signed a 6 year, 80 million dollar deal with the Angels. Money mattered, trophies didn’t, loyalty didn’t.

Age 15-16

What does any guy think about in these years? I could be very PG-13 specific and anatomical but I might get a girlfriend who can read and if she sees me being crude it might hurt our relationship, so I’ll just leave it at “girls.” And since the jocks always got the girls in high school and I knew that Wilt Chamberlain was very ‘extracurricular,’ Chris Webber was dating Tyra Banks, Anna Kournikova was dating some hockey guy, and I had seen the SI Swimsuit issue with Phil Mickelson’s wife in a bikini (a watershed moment for any teenager), I was a man on a mission. I was only as far as high school math at this point in my life, but according to my calculations, I figured that I could probably turn a lefty lay-up and a 19 foot jump shot into a super hottie, or at least a solid 7. But I may have forgotten to carry a 2 somewhere in there. I think this is why I always carried a TI-83.

However I never figured out if girls wanted guys with good bodies and that athletes just happened to have those, or if athletes had good bodies and that’s why women were drawn to them. More recently I have realized that it doesn’t even matter because having a good body is really freaking hard. I like eating fried stuff and going to the gym is a lot of work. Plus did you know it takes way more than 45 crunches to get 6-pack abs? What’s up with that? You realize later in your life that there are plenty of jobs that don’t require rippling arms and pecs… or at least you realize there are fall back options.

Ages 17-18

This was a weird age. I think I still wanted the money, I think I still wanted the girls. I definitely wanted to be on TV and be famous so I could have the money and the girls. This was an era where my eyes were too big for my stomach. I wanted everything I didn’t have and didn’t want anything I had.

I wanted to move to a big city because I lived in a small town. I didn’t realize the agony of public transportation and how underrated shade is in the summer.

I wanted everyone to know me because sometimes even my friends called me by the wrong name. I wanted to be huge and have everyone know everything I do. In actuality, that’s what most athletes hate about being athletes. Woops!

I wanted to bypass 4 years of college because I hated high school classes. Who knew how much fun college would be not counting everyone who had seen Animal House? Old School wasn’t even out back then!! 4 years of lessons, that you can actually drink beer from a funnel and it’s pretty easy to sleep through Sundays, later I’d like to take a mulligan on this too.

And mostly I wanted to have no curfew because, well, I had one. And it was so early, and my mom didn’t go to bed til I was home. And that really sucked.

And now I’m 23 and I don’t want to be an athlete anymore really. I’ve felt this way for a few years now and am satisfied with calling these years the Age of Enlightenment. There are surely perks to being a professional athlete but these aren’t exclusive to athletes. You can be involved in sports without ever leaving the comforts of your resting heart rate (become a bookie). You can live lavishly without huge ups or leadership skills (become a Congressman). And you can’t buy happiness anyway… unless you’re in Nevada or Montreal. And the biggest lesson may be that any Joe Schmo can score the ladies without sporting tight bodies and accolades of any sort (Just go to any bar in America on karaoke night; find those drunk girls who are a little too into Kelly Clarkson’s lyrics; walk forward, and just say hi. Kelly and Jose Cuervo should do the rest.).

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I can’t imagine that anyone has been deprived of Barry Bonds coverage this week, or needs another reminder of how great Hank Aaron was. I have heard plenty of arguments about which of them deserves the title of “Greatest Slugger of All Time,” and it has baffled me.

Aaron was certainly a heroic figure, breaking a record that a lot of backwards people didn’t want him to break, and he did it with class and dignity. His best attribute was his longevity, playing until he was 42, but he never hit over 47 dingers in a single season.

Bonds has done it all in baseball, also playing until 42 (he had some help, but whatever). He has hit over .300 11 times, stolen 514 bases, won 8 gold gloves and 7 MVP awards. Yadda yadda yadda…like I said, you don’t need to hear more about Bonds. We’re just talking about being a great slugger, and while he now stands alone at 756, he is not the best power hitter ever. Take away his 73-homer season (in math we call it an “outlier”, in baseball we call it “the cream and the clear”) and he never hit 50 in a single season.

Bonds has been getting his props all week. Not here. I have decided to focus on the other member of the 700 club. The guy who has been dead for nearly 60 years. I’m going to put this next thing on a separate line, and I might even do it in bold so it will stand out.

Babe Ruth is the greatest slugger who ever lived, as well as the greatest, best, most statistically accomplished baseball player of all time.

There is absolutely no debate about this. If you disagree just wait about 200 words and you won’t anymore. Oh, and if I hear one crack about how he was fat and slow I swear I’ll stop this column and turn right around (he stole 123 bases, more than Lou Gehrig, Mark McGwire, Ernie Banks or Ted Willaims).

I’ll try and not bore you with numbers, and somehow put his accomplishments in terms so that fans unaware of anything that happened before 1998 will be able to understand. In terms of the greatest slugger of all time you just need to look at who has the best slugging percentage. Ruth finished his career at an all-time best .690, 56 points ahead of #2 Williams and .81 ahead of Bonds. He also owns best OPS (what most experts consider the most telling stat for a hitter) at 1.159, and had four 50+ home run seasons.

Now that I clearly established the Babe’s prowess as a slugger, its time to talk about why he is BY FAR the best player of all time. I will put this in modern-day perspective for all you fantasy baseball geeks with no appreciation of history. Imagine if Johan Santana left the Twins this off-season and went to their rival, say the Tigers, then went on to have a batting average 10 points higher than Todd Helton and hit more home runs per year than Alex Rodriguez.

Yes, you read that correctly, in Babe Ruth’s time has was the best pitcher, hitter, and slugger in baseball. His great seasons weren’t flukes either, since he would do the same exact thing the next year. In 1916 he won 23 games with a 1.75 ERA and then in 1917 won 24 with a 2.01. In his first year with the Yankees he with 54 dingers and batted .376, then belted 59 the next year and batted .378.

Don’t try and rebut with crap about how he played in a different era and there wasn’t the same competition. He was the best ever, hands down. Would the Bambino be as productive today? Sure.

Imagine him on ‘roids, it would be unfreakinbelievable.

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By Craig Juer. Special to bostonmikeworld.

Thanks to the emergence of one of the funniest Youtube.com sports clips I’ve ever seen, concurrent with my sudden participation in a men’s baseball league (henceforth referred to as the Wash-up Baseball League), one of my favorite phrases of all time has sneaked back into my vocabulary.

Up there with saying a girl “pulled the goalie” to refer to the cessation of birth control maneuvers, and my all-time favorite euphemism – social lubrication (i.e. mild intoxication) – ranks a terrific compound modifier with a distinct sports background: bush league.

Whenever I’ve gone a few months without using the term “bush league,” something happens that causes me to pause and think, “Wow, that action I just witnessed was completely amateur and unwarranted…how should I express my displeasure?” Then, once I recall that favorite term from my high school baseball [glory] days, I insert it into my everyday lexicon with tiresome frequency. (I quite often hold on to phrases that amuse me or make me think I sound intelligent and then deploy them at semi-opportune times. For instance, I try to pepper my everyday conversation with the word “seldom,” because I’m convinced it makes me sound wise. It takes a lot of mental stamina to go through life like this, by the way.)

The most recent instance that caused me to remember how much I like to describe things as “bush league” was this clip of a youth football play. I think it defines what it is to be bush league. Interestingly, if that had been the NFL, I’m not sure that I would call it a bush-league move. You see, in the NFL, the stakes of victory and defeat are very high. Each game is worth roughly one-tenth of a ticket to the playoffs. Therefore, if you’re smart enough to pull that play off and the other team is dumb enough to fall for it, kudos. Since seasons, contracts and careers can hinge so much on the outcome of an NFL game, it only makes sense to do whatever you can get away with to get by. Under those circumstances, a play like that stops being bush league and becomes savvy.

In a pee-wee football league, on the other hand, there’s nothing at stake except meaningless wins and losses. Which means that resorting to such trickery demonstrates only that your team has a better grasp of the rule book and a sharper knack for acting than the other team, not that it’s any better than football. And at the pee-wee level, what else is there to achieve other than being better than the other team? There are no other rewards than the satisfaction inherent in being better, so why shoot for the statistical victory rather than the meritorious one? (That creates an interesting paradox, however – if something is bush league because the league in which it occurs is a “bush league” and nothing really matters, then I suppose it’s no longer bush league; it’s just par for the course. The same goes for the WBL. When one of my teammates characterizes an opponent’s actions as “bush league,” I have to refrain from replying, “Dude…our pitcher warms himself up by smoking a cigarette. What kind of league do you think we’re in, exactly?”)

Even more amazing than the fact that I attempted to do research for this column is my discovery of a Wikipedia entry for “Bush League.” I can’t imagine the type of person who thought the world needed an authoritative guide to this idiom, and some of the examples are unusually obscure:

“In 2006, A.J. Pierzynski and Craig Monroe bumped at home plate after a Monroe Grand Slam. Apparently, the two initially considered the contact accidental. Later, Monroe is said to have changed his story, accusing Pierzynski of purposely bumping. Pierzynski referred to this change of tune as “kind of bush”.”

Then there’s this:

“”Bush-League Psych-out Stuff” is the title of a song by Minneapolis rapper P.O.S. on his album Audition. The song features Craig Finn of The Hold Steady.”

Thanks for clearing that up, stranger.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading the entry and was inspired to try to think up with some hypothetical examples of when the term “bush league” could be applied to real-life situations. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

1. Pointing out your buddy’s shortcomings in casual conversation with a female you and he are both pursuing. For instance, the two of you are chatting with a girl at the bar; under the guise of storytelling, you bring up the most recent incident in which he got drunk and urinated on his then-bedtime companion. This is an amateur move that you wouldn’t have to pull if you were better than you actually are, which I think is a good working definition of the term. You shouldn’t have an advantage over your buddy simply because he’s too classy to bring up your hidden flaws.

2. Checking out your 20 grocery items in the Express Lane while someone with 16 items languishes in the bottle-necked regular line. Don’t purposely stop counting your items at 14 and play dumb; you know full well you’re making life unfairly difficult for the guy who just came in to buy toothpaste.

3. Blaming your own fart on a girl. Most girls, though they’d happily dismiss someone else’s flatulence as if it were a hiccup, would rather fake their own death than admit to one of their own. Man, that’s bush league, especially if it somehow causes an eating disorder.

4. Buying a girl a drink on your buddy’s tab. Buying any drinks on someone else’s tab when they’re not looking, actually, is pretty bush league (or just flat-out stealing), with the exception being when someone asks you to “grab” them four upside-down pineapple cake shots and put it on their tab while you’re at the bar. Sorry, fancy pants, there’s going to be a service fee for that in the form of one draught beer.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. If you have any other examples of when the term “bush league” would be applicable in everyday life, please pass them along, especially if they are true stories. Additionally, any other sports-derived expressions that are particularly amusing would be appreciated. I don’t mean the obvious, like calling people “slugger” because you think it’s endearing, but things that aren’t commonplace. For instance, a few friends and I recently developed a verbal coding system for rating females based on field-goal kicking terminology. But that’s for another column.

For more Craig Juer, visit www.nvdaily.com.

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A great friend just pitched me a great idea. He told me about how people with jobs (who? what?) like to crap on company time. He also said that there would be nothing better than to punch in, check his email, and then have a nice page of fun sports info to print out and take to the bathroom.

So, being the great friend that I am, I proudly introduce The Morning Dump…five things that you need to know about before you start your day.

5. You need to know that Tim Wakefield recorded his 150th win in a Red Sox uniform yesterday. He trails only Cy Young and Roger Clemens on the club’s all time list. Oh, and after Friday night’s performance in Tampa Bay he has a 0.66 ERA in domes this year (he says that without wind he can put the knuck wherever he wants to). With Dice-K-Mania, Josh Beckett’s impressive start and Curt Schilling’s loud mouth, sometimes its easy to forget that every fifth day a Red Sox legend takes the mound. So what if he will finish his career as a .500 pitcher? The man has done more for the Sox in the last 13 years than anyone. (That includes Mo, Roger, Nomar, Pedro, Manny, Theo, Tito, Papi or Schilling).

4. You need to know that Barry Bonds did not make history last night in LA. Too bad, it would have been the icing on the cake at Dodger Stadium’s Steroid Awareness Day. Maybe Barry is waiting for tonight so he can hit 755 in front of the Commish, who will continue his “Herculean effort” in San Diego. Selig also said that people are “stunned that (he’s) still at this.” Wait, who exactly is stunned that the Commissioner of Major League Baseball has been spending his time at baseball games? Anyone?

3. You need to know who I think are going to be the 3 biggest sleepers of this fantasy football season. Any schmuck can say that Joseph Addai is going to have a big year, but I am going to dig deep and give you 3 guys to draft late, sit back, and wait for them to carry you to a championship. Here you go, thank me in December…

-Joey Harrington. Wait, did he just say Joey Harrington? Yes I did. New Falcons coach Bobby Petrino loves to throw the ball in an offense that will specialize in short passes. The addition of Joe Horn will help the downfield attack, while Alge Crumpler is a big red zone target with soft hands. Also, look for Warrick Dunn to break a few screen passes for big gains, racking up stats for this exhausted sleeper.

-Michael Turner. LdT’s backup has the skills to start, and if the consensus #1 pick ever gets hurt he will be one of the best fantasy players around. Norv Turner loves to run the ball, especially in the red zone. I anticipate Tomlinson needing a breather at the end of a long drive, leaving Turner to blast it in for 6. Trust me, he’s worth a late pick.

-Kevin Curtis. Donovan McNabb has made worse receivers look good. With the highly-overrated Reggie Brown as his main competition for touches, don’t be surprised if he puts up some decent numbers for a third fantasy WR.

2. You need to know that wherever you live, that you should move to Boston. Not sure if you heard, but its the thing to do. As Frank the Tank would say: “EVERYBODY’S DOOOING IT!!!” First Adalius Thomas, then Welker, Stallworth, and Moss. Jesus Shuttlesworth was next, with Big Baby right on his heals. Then this week KG punched the biggest ticket ever and the Sox got another lights-out closer in Eric Gagne. How about the 2016 Olympics in Boston? Anyone?

1. Finally, you need to know who got kicked off Age of Love last Monday. Down to 4 women, there was the usual cattiness, some salsa dancing, a date for tea with Megan (”I’m 21 and I don’t live in England. I know nothing about tea.”) and a special date with Jen, which included some serious 48-year-old canoodling.

Megan fell for Mark after her date, Jen fell for him after hers, and Amanda fell for him in the 2nd episode. Maria’s instinct is that he isn’t right for her, and she wants to go home tonight (deja vu).

Mark talked to all four women before making an elimination, which gave Amanda a chance to deliver the Pathetic Line of the Week: “Its not fun trying to fall in love by yourself.”

Maria finally comes through on her word, three weeks late, and gives herself the boot. On the way out Mark lets her know that she wouldn’t have been the one kicked off.

Mark then let the remaining three women know that he was going to take them all to Australia to meet his family THAT NIGHT! Everything was going fine until Megan hyperventilated in the terminal and had to go home (apparently she has a fear of awkward family situations on top of flying). Either way, we are down to 2…the cougar and the kitten, the MILF and the clingy obsessed 25-year-old.

NBC promised that the woman he chooses is not the one we’re thinking. At first I thought that this was an impossible promise to keep, but then I kept second-guessing myself over and over and realized that they’re gonna be right either way. I’M SO CONFUSED! Jen can’t win though, right??? I just don’t see it. Buuuut, NBC made a promise, so…I dunno, Amanda might just be crazy enough to pull a Van de Velde. You better tune in Monday at 9:00 PM EST, only on NBC.

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