Bryce Florie, the former Red Sox pitcher whose line drive to the face injury in 2000 remains the most gory sports injury I have witnessed live on TV (wasn’t watching the Theisman game), will need 15 stitches due to what is being called a “sleepwalking accident.” Poor guy. He was just trying to make a comeback, and now he has two of the oddest injuries in the past few years–Jeff Kent’s “motorcycle washing” notwithstanding.
This is the funniest thing I’ve read all week–a take-off of SNL’s “Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer” sketch, but about steroids in sports. I may have to pay a little more attention to Patrick Hruby’s work in the future.
Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball, has a piece in this week’s Sports Illustrated refuting the many, many “baseball insiders” who dismissed the book without reading it, and then proceeded to applaud ideas that have been shown to not work.
Within the piece, Lewis discusses Joe Morgan’s idiotic quotes claiming that Billy Beane wrote the book–something both Aaron Gleeman and I have bitched about at length. While I’m not going to say Joe Morgan is stupid, being unable to figure out who wrote the book on which you’re commenting certainly undermines any arugments you have against the ideas in said book–especially if you admit to having not read it.
But how did Lewis know about Morgan’s stupidity? Is he a regular chat session participant on ESPN.com? Or did a certain Boston-based blogger alert him to this last June?
That’s right: I’m Lewis’ source for the Morgan quotes. Including my presence in a photo of the famous Kirby Puckett homer (# 11 in the link) in Game 6 of the 1991 World Series (I’m one of a row of little white blobs WAY in the background), I have now (sorta) been in Sports Illustrated twice–and used parenthesis in this sentence three times.
If you haven’t read Moneyball, click on the link on the right, and buy it!
Oliver Willis and I have come to the same conclusion on polygamy–provided it’s among consenting adults.
And no, I don’t think that’s the next step on the “slippery slope” that people are worried about if gay marriage becomes legal. I’m fine with consenting adults (both of which are operative words here) being able to pretty much do what they want within the privacy of their own homes, provided it doesn’t hurt anybody. And if my gay friends (or my gay roommate) wants to marry someone of his own persuasion, why not? Likewise, if people in “open marriages” or whatever are all cool with sharing, why not?
In related news, Rosie O’Donnell actually made a coherent point on the subject: spousal privilege is not a part of civil unions. Therefore, to ensure equal legal rights, gay marriage is necessary.
You wanna know what’s funny? When a professional hockey player gets injured by slipping on ice.
Somebody operating from a computer in the Wellesley College network googled “Jeremy Wahlman wrong,” and I want to know who!
The competing paper sends its star reporter, Rick Holland, on an undercover “sexpose” to a massage parlor (who then got on TV and said something to the effect of “the receptionist looked promiscuous”). Yeah, I met Conan while I was writing for my paper, but did I ever get to participate in an undercover prostitution sting? NO.
Here’s an excerpt from the email I began sending to my friends, before Hotmail decided it wasn’t going to work anymore. Those with names J-S in my contact list will be getting the full version soon enough.
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I got a call from Gotuit Media (http://www.gotuit.com), a company I had applied to back in August. They had kept my resume on file (I didn’t know companies actually did that), and they were interested in interviewing me.
Within a week, I was hired. I have now been at Gotuit for about 10 days, and, in the words of McDonald’s, I’m lovin’ it.
See, Gotuit is an on-demand media company. Basically, they take TV shows and sporting events (mostly sporting events) and edit them either into a highlights package or a table of contents or what have you, depending on the show (obviously, there are no highlights during a home improvement show like there would be during hockey).
People whose cable companies subscribe to this service (Time Warner so far) are then able to look at these packages any time they wish. Say you missed the football game Sunday - you could punch a couple buttons on your remote control, and you’ll be watching a 15-minute highlights package. Say you only want to see the touchdowns. You can do that, too. Say you have Tom Brady on your fantasy team (as I did last season), and want to see all of his big plays. There you go.
Needless to say, getting paid to watch hockey and college basketball is about as close to a dream job as I could get. My only hope now is that Gotuit is able to sign similar contracts with the NBA, NFL, and MLB. And maybe allow beer consumption during work. Did I mention I never have to be there before noon? And that they have free soda and chips?
So yeah, I’m sticking around in Massachusetts for a while to see if this technology will take off. Right now, it’s offered free to cable subscribers in Maine (apparently Portland is some sort of national cable company testing ground), but the plans are to take it regional - and then national - eventually.
Unemployed people or people from the Sports Journalism Institute (you know who you are): they are looking to HIRE. Want a job in sports? Live near Boston? Have a car? Talk to me.
I got an email from my aunt in January of 2003, telling me to go to the Washington State Attorney General’s webpage to fill out a claim for settlement from a CD price-fixing case. Anyone who bought CDs between 1995 and 2000 was eligible. So I filled it out, not really expecting to hear anything again.
It may have taken 13 months, but the checks are in the mail. I got mine, worth $13, yesterday, but I’m not going to spend it on music.
Here’s another link with some details of the case.
Oh yeah. And I’m blogging again.