Let’s be honest– he didn’t really want to do it anyway.

Is it just me, or was A-rod way better when he was an adulterer instead of a divorcé-in-waiting? Any chance Warren Buffet can make a couple phone calls and get Cynthia Rodriguez back in the fold for the stretch run?

KABLAM!!!

but I love how millions of Americans just watched Barack Obama give a speech about how dire things are here in America… on their HD-f#@king-TVs. Funny, ’cause I don’t think our “brothers and sisters” in North Korea, China, Russia, the Middle East, Africa, and Central and South America enjoy the same luxury when it comes to watching their political candidates (And I’m pretty sure their votes don’t actually get counted on “election” day either, but who cares about meaningless sh*t like suffrage anyway). Though just like us, people in Japan, France, Germany, and England get to do it all the time. Wait a second– didn’t we basically rebuild those countries after WWII? What a f#@king coincidence…

Not for saving our season, ’cause nothing short of the entire Sox lineup going on the DL could do that. And no, not for single-handedly winning today’s game for us, ’cause I’d just as soon see that magic number of 24 dwindle down to 0 so I could go on with the rest of my life instead of giving even 5 minutes of my time to these games (and I’m not exaggerating– I tuned in for Pudge and Giambi’s at bats in the 9th inning and that’s about it). No, I’d like to thank you for sparing my favorite team from being the butt of yet another embarrassing trivia question. It’s been bad enough these past few years knowing that “the Yanks” are the answer to the question “Who is the only team to blow a 3-0 lead in a playoff series?”, and realizing that J.D. Drew will forever be remembered as “The player who won the MVP award in the last All-Star Game ever played at Yankee Stadium” just added insult to injury. So, it’s comforting to know that 20 years from now some announcer won’t be reminding us that the Sox swept the last series between these two teams in the Stadium.

Now all that said, if Giambi’s game-winner does go ahead and save the season (yeah, right), you won’t see me complaining. And I’m going out on a bit of a limb here, but check the Wild Card standings Sunday night. The Sox have 3 against Chitown coming up, and we’ve got the Jays. I dunno what it is, but I’ve got a funny feeling about this weekend…

1) I want to see Mike Mussina get 20 wins. As much as I’d love for him to get a ring, he hasn’t been as close to a ring as he has to a 20 win season and he deserves it. I mean the guy spends most of his career with Baltimore, who is a 4th place team almost every year, and still he racked up 18 or 19 wins a few times, but never 20. Then he comes to the Bronx and can’t get a ring or 20 wins with the Yanks?!

2) I want to see Randy Johnson get his 299th career win, and then never win a game ever again. He deserves to have that milestone within his 8′ wingspan and not be able to grasp it. Why the animosity? Because his near 7′ frame couldn’t hold the weight of the pressure that comes with playing in NY and his back sh*ts the bed. Though who’s to say the Yanks didn’t have it coming for signing a 40-something-year-old past their prime.

3) I would like to see K-Rod break, or at least tie, the single season save record. Being a Yankee fan and being in awe of what Mo does is a gimme; Mo is an artist and watching him is nothing short of amazing (save a certain 2001 blooper to left-center field that shell not be mentioned). But watching K-Rod with all of his tenacity and violent motion is pretty impressive considering he can find a strike zone that is a shoulder’s-width apart.

4) A Nationals pitcher — any one of them — pitch a perfect game so that baseball fans all over know that no matter how terrible you are, amazing things can always happen. And finally…

5) Carl Pavano get sued for $40 million dollars for giving his strap-on wearing girlfriend an STD and having to pay. You see, he is the biggest vag walking the face of the earth and has been the biggest pitching bust in NY since Hideki I-Robbed-You. You gotta figure any vag that stays that stale for that long is bound to develop something… just ask the next guy who nails Madonna and comes out with an itch. Speak of the devil, A-Rod’s been adjusting his cup a lot lately, hasn’t he?

The Youth Baseball League of New Haven Connecticut is teaching its kids all the wrong things. The co-ed league for kids ages 8-10 refuses to allow Jericho Scott pitch. Is it because he’s too old? No, he’s nine. Is he too wild? Nope, he hasn’t hit anyone yet, and according to his coach has excellent control. Is he throwing spit balls or carrying a nail file with him to the mound? Not that anyone is aware of. No, the league doesn’t want him pitching because he’s simply too damn good. What!? He can’t pitch because he’s too… good? That’s right. Under the guise that it’s dangerous for the other kids, the league doesn’t want Scott pitching because he throws too hard for the other kids. When Scott’s coach ignored the league and sent Jericho to the mound to pitch the other team forfeit the game.

I don’t believe safety is really the concern here. First off, if safety was such a concern for the league, none of the kids would be pitching because a line drive coming off of one of the aluminum bats they use right back at the pitcher poses a much greater danger than a 40 MPH fastball (his purported top speed). Also, the league is for 8-10 year olds. 40 MPH is fairly average for a ten year old pitcher meaning the league can’t be surprised someone in the league is throwing this hard, and I find it very hard to believe Scott throws much harder than the next hardest thrower.
My guess is Scott is simply a much better pitcher, mainly meaning better control with maybe a little movement on his pitches. And in the current age of making sure everyone feels good and nobody should be made to feel inferior, Jericho Scott was making kids feel bad when he would strike out entire teams. Basically, the league parents thought, “The kid is too good. He’s so much better than my kid he shouldn’t be allowed to play because it hurts my kid’s feelings to play against someone so much better than him.” And this isn’t the only example of such thinking, it’s all over the place now. If we keep up this attitude, we’ll see our medals total for the 2020 Olympics topping out around five while the rest of the world smokes us because they’ve kept their “competitive edge.” (Editor’s note: and for the record, China won 27… yes 27 of it’s Gold Medals in judged (subjective) competitions; the US only won 4 Golds in judged sports. Hmmm…….)

That’s fine though. The loss of competitiveness in the world is well worth it because of the wonderful lessons we are teaching our youth about facing adversity. When you are presented with a tough challenge, just quit. Don’t face it. Just give up. When you are confronted with a huge obstacle, don’t work hard to try to overcome is, just whine about how unfair it is that the obstacle is in the way and someone will remove it for you. It’s the way the real world works, they might as well learn it young.

Oh and don’t worry about how Scott feels. I’m sure he doesn’t think at all that somehow he’s done something wrong simply by being very good at something. That’s not how 9 year old kids think in those situations.

I played a lot of sports growing up and learned so much from my experiences playing them. Without getting into detail I’ve been pretty successful so far in my life. And that’s been after learning to work hard and succeed in adverse situations. That’s been after seeing something I wanted to be good at and working as hard as possible to be better than those around me. That’s been after learning (wrongly I guess) that nobody is going to remove obstacles for me and instead of complaining about difficulties I need to work hard to deal with them on my own.

Imagine if I had learned the lessons from my competitive youth sports that are being taught nowadays. Imagine what I could be right now if I had played youth baseball in New Haven, Connecticut. I’d be that guy at your office that is super successful and everyone loves to be around: the whiny, complaining douche who, while everyone else is working hard, just grumbles about how unfair it is that he has to do so much work and that, even though he has never put much effort into anything, he should be much further along in his career simply because he’s been there for enough years and that he’d be able to do as well as Bob if he were tall and good looking too.

Thanks to another sterling performance by A-rod. $252 million and a .246 batting average with runners in scoring position. I’m no math major, but that sh*t don’t add up.

Yes, you read that correctly. That’s two pieces in a row by none other than MFH himself. I know some of you were beginning to wonder what happened to me since I haven’t posted anything in two weeks. Well, despite the wishes of some of you I did not die in a horrific car accident or get beaten into a coma for wearing my Red Sox jersey in the south Bronx. Nor, despite the wishes of…well me, did I run off and marry Amber Heard and spend the past week and a half in Hawaii for our honeymoon. No, I have been preparing for my move to Rochester, New York – the big time. I never imagined all the time that would go into this move. Do you have any idea how long it takes to find a good mattress that isn’t two G’s? By the way, never pay sticker price on a mattress. Mattresses are like cars, once you suggest you are going to look elsewhere, suddenly there’s an unadvertised one-day sale going on that can get you hundreds of dollars off the mattress you liked, “oh and I’ll call my manager and see if I can get you free shipping.” You never have to pay the asking price on a mattress, it’s always negotiable. Just a friendly tip from your pal MFH. I’m nothing if not helpful.

Anyway, on to my thoughts:
Across the country on sports talk radio and in the sports sections of local newspapers there has been a lot of debate about whether Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympian of all time and/or the greatest athlete in these Olympics, or even the greatest athlete of all time. Most of what I have been reading/hearing are proclamations that at least one of the above is true. Luckily your good friend MFH is here to set all of these lunatics straight.

By now you know that Michael Phelps scored himself eight gold medals – more than anyone else in history. It’s because of this alone that countless talking heads are ready to anoint him the greatest of all time. I have a serious problem with this. Michael Phelps is a swimmer. A swimmer is going to have the most gold medals in a single Olympics because there are so many similar swimming events. I realize there are different strokes with different nuances, but if you’re a strong swimmer, you’re a strong swimmer. Was Phelps’ feat impressive? Of course, but he didn’t exactly win gold in the 100 freestyle and the 200 butterfly, then jump out of the pool and take gold in the men’s floor in gymnastics, then hit the track and win gold in the 100 meter sprint, the 400 hurdles, and the hammer throw, then win gold in Greco Roman Wrestling before helping the USA basketball team gain redemption with a gold medal. THAT would be a hell of an athletic feat. THEN I would be ready to declare Michael Phelps the greatest Olympic athlete of all time. However Phelps didn’t earn his eight golds in such a remarkable manner; he won his gold medals swimming basically two strokes over two different distances. Again, what Michael Phelps accomplished was a great feat and worthy of being celebrated, but it’s reckless to call him the greatest Olympian of all time simply because he won so many gold medals. Phelps is a great athlete and a tremendous swimmer, but he benefited from the fact that the Olympics provide so many comparable events in his area of excellence. Just like if the Olympics offered events in drinking volume without puking, drinking volume while maintaining normal motor functions, speed drinking while trying to maintain moderation, volume peed out during a night of drinking, most miles walked because all money was spent on alcohol so none left for a cab, most money game spit to a chick after having a few drinks, most asshole-ish comment made to a chick after drinking a few too many, and dumbest/most embarrassing thing said to a female after drinking a few more than a few too many, then your boy MFH would be a celebrated winner of eight gold medals.

As far as the greatest athlete goes, my definition of a great athlete involves a person’s pure athletic ability and would naturally imply ability in multiple athletic activities. It does not involve being amazing at one specific athletic activity. Most people consider bowling a sport. Is one of those fatsos on the professional bowling tour a better athlete than a three sport high school star because the bowler has accomplished more in his chosen athletic endeavor (after all, he is a pro)? Phelps may have won eight gold medals in these Olympics, but Carl Lewis was a better athlete in his prime. He is a gold medal winner in sprints and the long jump. Jesse Owens and Jim Thorpe are superior athletes. Even in these Olympics, Jamaican sprinter Usane Bolt was a better athlete. How impressive was he the way he absolutely smoked the field in the 100 and the 200, smashing the world record in each? The entire United States men’s basketball team is comprised of better athletes than Michael Phelps. Every athlete competing in the decathlon is a better athlete than Michael Phelps. Michael Phelps is definitely a great athlete– he is the most accomplished athlete in Olympic history. But Michael Phelps is not the GREATEST athlete in these or any other Olympics.

More random Olympic thoughts:
-Olympic boxing is borderline unwatchable. How do they score it? I tried to watch a good amount of it (it was on MSNBC constantly) but I have yet to figure out which connected punches count as a point and which do not.

-Female beach volleyball players are overrated in the looks department. They all have fairly nice bodies (what do you expect from world class athletes?) but the overall package is average at best in most cases.

-My colleagues have been all over the gymnastics judges for ripping off the American girls. Although it looked to me that our girls put forth better routines than the Chinese in many of those cases (through stuck landings and such) I, nor the rest of the SC writers as far as I know, are anywhere near experts in gymnastics. I don’t know the first thing about gymnastics scoring other than falling is bad. While watching (yes, despite my previous statements to the contrary I did watch this year’s girl’s gymnastics thanks to Shawn Johnson, Alicia Sacramone, and Nastia Liukin) we don’t have the eye to catch all of the little things that go on during the routine that the judges catch. I’m not saying the judges are completely without fault, I’m simply saying it’s possible that a lot of those little things that only they notice can make up for the one or two big things everyone notices.

-That said, at least half of those Chinese chicks are definitely younger than the sixteen year old age minimum. Three of them look like they are twelve.

-Does it make me a scumbag that I’ve got a slight crush on sixteen-year-old Shawn Johnson? Maybe it’s because I have the maturity of a teenager. It certainly doesn’t hurt that she’s a winner of four medals, including a gold in these Olympics. The closest I’ve come to an Olympic medal is a team gold in the Beer Olympics (which I accomplished twice –booyakasha!) Unfortunately there’s no Olympic event for being the coolest guy on the planet. If there were, you’d be reading the words of an Olympic gold medalist right now.

-The Redeem Team won. I don’t think anyone is really surprised. It feels good to have the men’s basketball gold back in its rightful place. All is right with the world. Now we’ll see global warming begin to reverse, the Iraq situation will settle itself, and people will quit caring about Paris f’ing Hilton.

I had some other interesting/humorous thoughts but I’ve forgotten them for the moment. I’m a little distracted as I am writing this by the pool at my new apartment complex in Rochester and there’s a smoking hot young woman right in my sightline…

I f$%#ing hate the preseason. Apparently I upset the football gods when I ran through the streets yelling after the Giants Super Bowl win in February because in the third game of the preseason big blue lost a key defensive player for the entire season. Osi Umenyiora tore the lateral meniscus in his left knee in the second quarter of Saturday night’s exhibition game. Of course it had to be Osi. It couldn’t be James Butler that went down for the season (man he sucks), it had to be the Giants’ only pro bowler from last year. Again, I f$%#ing hate the preseason. Repeating as Super Bowl champions wasn’t going to be easy as it was. Hell, making it out of the best division in the NFL and earning a playoff spot wasn’t going to be easy. Now, without Osi it’s going to be extremely difficult.

What do the Giants do now at defensive end? The immediate reaction from the media has been, “will the Giants convince Michael Strahan to come out of retirement?” Let’s end that speculation immediately. It’s very unlikely. Tom Coughlin’s two options are to start Renaldo Wynn, who they picked up out of free agency in the offseason, or move Mathias Kiwanuka back to his natural position, leaving the G-men pretty thin at linebacker. I think the latter is their best option, although far from ideal. Kiwanuka could be a beast at defensive end but I don’t know who is going to be able to step in at strong side linebacker. Of course this wouldn’t be as much of a worry if the Giants had drafted a linebacker with their second round pick like som eone on this site said they should in his Giants draft preview and repeated that they probably made a mistake by not doing so in his draft review. But we can’t change the past. We can only look to our Osi-less future and pray that Kenny Phillips is the safety the Giants think he is and Eli can play the entire season like he did in January and February. We’re also going to need to pray that the Osi injury is the last serious injury to a New York Giant this year because they really can’t afford to lose another starter. Yeah, I f$%#ing hate the preseason.

Supposedly we won the Gold in Men’s Basketball early Sunday morning/late Saturday night. Yes, pathetically, I stayed up to watch it, and no, I don’t have a life… at least as far as this past weekend went, thanks to a tetanus booster gone bad. But anyway, I was a little confused about something when I was watching the Medal Ceremony– did we actually win Gold??? ‘Cause if I’m not mistaken, I don’t think a “win” actually counts as one unless our collection of NBA All-Stars drops the other team by at least 20. That said, I’m not even sure a double-digit win was in the realm of possibility with the way that game was being officiated, so an 11-point “W” was probably as good as it was going to get. There must’ve some pretty heavy action on the Spanish team in Vegas because FIBA trotted out a team of Donaughy’s to ref that game. Our two best players — Kobe and LeBron — had two fouls apiece just five minutes into the contest and the bullsh*t calls kept coming right up till the final buzzer. I mean I haven’t seen anything that lopsided since Stewie Griffin’s head showed up on my TV screen at college. Though I will say this: it was pretty cool to watch Kobe and Co. celebrate like they won the NBA Championship. Good to see these guys care about representing their Country again.

Call me crazy, but I still don’t think this got the ref to change his call.

Here are the top nine comments made by NBC sports commentators so far during the Summer Olympics that they would like to take back:

1. Weightlifting commentator: ‘This is Gregoriava from Bulgaria. I saw her snatch this morning during her warm up and it was amazing.’

2. Dressage commentator: ‘This is really a lovely horse and I speak from personal experience since I once mounted her mother.’

3. Paul Hamm, Gymnast: ‘I owe a lot to my parents, especially my mother and father.’

4. Boxing Analyst: ‘Sure there have been injuries, and even some deaths in boxing, but none of them really that serious.’

5. Softball announcer: ‘If history repeats itself, I should think we can expect the same thing again.’

6. Basketball analyst: ‘He dribbles a lot and the opposition doesn’t like it. In fact you can see it all over their faces.’

7. At the rowing medal ceremony: ‘Ah, isn’t that nice, the wife of the IOC president is hugging the cox of the British crew.’

8. Soccer commentator: ‘Julian Dicks is everywhere. It’s like they’ve got eleven Dicks on the field.’

9. Tennis commentator: ‘One of the reasons Andy is playing so well is that, before the final round, his wife takes out his balls and kisses them… Oh my God, what have I just said?’

Thanks to Sarah T. for quotes.

Baby Techno Dancer

This little squirt’s parents have basically relegated him to a life full of fake tans, steroids, blowouts, and coke. Poor kid, never had a chance.

Thanks to Angie K. for the video.

That’s a gold-medal-worthy heinie if I’ve ever seen one.