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| Articles about Desperation |
| More Desperation from Jim Inhofe | | 2008-08-08 20:22:07 | | Jim Inhofe is an absolute embarrassment to the State of Oklahoma. His cranky sound bites are fodder for the Daily Show and the Onion, his voting record is abysmal, but worst of all is his apparent contempt for the intelligence of his constituents. This week, he's calling on Oklahomans to send him their gas receipts so that he can forward them on to Harry Reid.
The idea, apparently, is that high... | | By: Poli-Think | | |
| | Future Desperation | | 2008-04-29 00:00:00 | | Burnt fur menace
abusing nasal passages
Reared by the mad giggle
of a cook with sadomasochistic issues
I draw my curtain and pray
The evening bakes my face
through an accordion palm
Hollow BBQ metal pong
a screech and a hiss
I could've sworn also a bark
Aromatic torture waffed
into sleeping-folk vents
Inhaled death by BBQ
Where even pets can't hide... | | By: GotPoetry - News for Poets. Place to Write. | | |
| | Tuesday Morning Headlines of Desperation/Open Thread | | 2007-10-22 14:06:36 | |
I cast a very wide net searching for today's headlines. A fine piece of sports journalism
It's really an opinion piece from the newspaper of Western Illinois University. But they published more than the big three combined today.
From the Western Courier:
When I first heard he was interested in buying the Chicago Cubs from the Tribune Company, I was not very excited. Cuban's name conjures up images of his fanatic rants at Dallas Mavericks games, where he overstepped his position as owner and criticized both coaches and players.
On the other hand, he has helped turn the Mavericks around from a perpetual last place team into a contender. Even though the Mavericks have not won a championship with Cuban at the helm, they have improved dramatically.
After the Cubs choked in the postseason yet again, I am beginning to think Cuban is the right answer for the Northsiders. He brings passion to a team lacking just that, and aside from Big Lou, the Cubs looked dismal in the playoffs. They hit 45 home runs in the month of September and were looking very good going into the postseason. What did they do instead? Choked on some mediocre pitching by the Diamondbacks. They were jumping on every pitch that came across the plate, playing like amateurs, playing like … the Cubs.
Some people have doubted Cuban would be able to become a real Cubs fan. As we all know, the only way to become a "true" Cubs fan is to be indoctrinated through a ceremony that is appropriately called "blood in and blood out." There are some street gangs who practice this as well, but where do you think they learned it?
Cuban is OK with this. Even though he is from Philadelphia he said, "If all this goes down ... if you cut any part of my body, you can see Mavs blood and you can see Cubbies blood coming out."
That is just the sort of enthusiasm I am talking about. Forget the past. There are no more goats or Bartmans or curses that we could possibly survive. 2008 is the new 1908. BELIEVE!
Boy, am I casting a wide net today
At least it's not another fluff piece from Carrie.
From The Christian Century:
The Chicago Cubs have done it again. After winning the National League's central division, they were swept aside by the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Cubs have not won a World Series since 1908 and have not even appeared in one since 1945. Cubs fans are the brunt of bad jokes. We learn to respond by quoting St. Paul: "Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope."
On the day after the Cubs made the playoffs, Barbara Wheeler, president of Auburn Theological Seminary, an avid Yankees fan, looked me in the eye and said, "I want to extend my condolences." "Why?" I responded, "We just won the division." Her rejoinder: "I'm extending my condolences in advance for what you know is going to happen next."
She was right. We lost three straight. In fact we never even made it interesting. At such times one asks oneself why one cares so much about baseball-cares enough to spend time at the games, keep score, follow games on television and read about them in the paper.
In Take Time for Paradise: Americans and Their Games, A. Bartlett Giamatti argued that "sports represent a shared vision of how we continue, as individual team or community, to experience a . . . care so intense, so rare, and so fleeting that we associate their experience with experience otherwise described as religion."
Sports do create community, as Giamatti pointed out. The joy of victory is shared joy, and when you lose you are part of a community of grief. People who are reluctant to pass the peace in church turn to one another in Section 421 at Wrigley Field and high-five their neighbor in response to a home run or a well-turned double play.
Amen.
All you ever wanted to know about Scott Boras, and more
Did you know he was once a Cub farmhand? And a real farmhand?
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
So where does the scourge of the negotiating room come from? Try a farm in Elk Grove, Calif.
Boras fit his daily chores
in at his father's farm 40 miles south of Sacramento - yes, he milked the cows - around a dedication to baseball that would earn him a scholarship at the University of the Pacific, where he roomed with future USC football coach Pete Carroll.
An all-stick/no-glove infielder, Boras rose to Class AA with St. Louis and then the Chicago Cubs before knee injuries forced him out of the game in 1978. He had earned a degree in pharmacology and enrolled at McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento while supporting himself with a night job at a hospital.
Boras caught on with a Chicago firm litigating for major drug companies, and he might be still there if the Cubs' drafting of prospect Shawon Dunston in 1982 had not caught his attention. Dunston's $135,000 signing bonus as the No. 1 pick was roughly the same as what Rick Monday had been designated when he was the first pick in 1965.
"These people were not represented," Boras said. "The [Players Association] washed their hands of it. They'd walk in and be told they're getting what the guy got last year."
So in his spare time, Boras scouted the talent in the 1983 draft, settled on a couple of guinea pigs - pitcher Tim Belcher and infielder Kurt Stillwell - and said if they would stick with him, he might earn them some money. Belcher and Stillwell wound up going No. 1 and 2 that year, and Boras got owners' attention by declining Minnesota's $125,000 offer for Belcher and advising him to sit out the year.
Belcher settled for $150,000 with the Yankees but the change was permanent. Signing bonuses rose 21 percent in 1984, and teams have ever since had to weigh Boras into the equation when figuring a draft pick's signability.
ARod's situation compared to Maddux in '92
I'm not sure it's a fair comparison, as even the author states, Maddux was only 26.
From nytimes.com:
The 1992 Chicago Cubs finished with a 78-84 record. The best thing they had going for them was Greg Maddux, 26, who won his first Cy Young Award that season. But Maddux left as a free agent to sign with Atlanta, where he won three more Cy Young Awards and a World Series.
In Maddux's place, the Cubs signed closer Randy Myers for $3.8 million and starter Jose Guzman for $3.5 million. They also added starter Greg Hibbard for $1.425 million.
The Cubs improved by six games, but they were up and down for the rest of the decade and the management team who let Maddux go was soon fired.
The significance to the Yankees is the agent who represented Maddux: Scott Boras. Could a doomsday scenario follow for the Yankees if they choose to take the money one star player might make and distribute it to a few others?
That is certainly one option for the Yankees if they let Rodriguez go. For now, they want to re-sign him, because Rodriguez is a terrific player who helps them win. But the one concrete news item to come from the Yankees' two-day Tampa meetings is that the team stood firm in its position on A-Rod.
"Yes, I can reaffirm that," said Brian Cashman, the Yankees' general manager, as he left Legends Field. "If Alex Rodriguez opts out of his contract, we will not participate in his free agency. That is accurate and that is definitive."
More nervousness from Reds country
They've got a few more months for the anxiety to build.
From the Coshocton Tribune:
Homer Bailey should do plenty of "limbering up" exercises this offseason.
With Dusty Baker now managing the Reds, the team's prized pitching prospect will need all of the flexibility he can muster to make it through next season.
It should be known that I'm not opposed to Baker getting the job. He's a proven winner who knows how to manage big-name players (e.g. Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa). Perhaps most importantly, he garners the players' respect and relates with them. Those are traits that shouldn't be overlooked.
But let's face it. If he ruins Bailey - or ace Aaron Harang and No. 2 starter Bronson Arroyo, for that matter - the way he did Mark Prior and Kerry Wood in Chicago, or Jason Schmidt in San Francisco, there won't be enough change in the Reds' piggy bank to go out and buy another quality pitcher.
Reds' fans, while irascible sorts, aren't numbskulls. Most knew Baker's history with mishandling starting pitchers before he was hired. More importantly, they know the Reds' history with young pitchers. Names like Basham, Gruler and Howington are famous for the wrong reasons - because their careers were cut short because of too many pitches in the minor leagues.
If that happens to Bailey, or minor league phenom Johnny Cueto, it's hard to tell what sort of backlash will take place.
If management has anything to say about it, Bailey's work will continue to be under close surveillance.
Bailey, 21, was limited to modest pitch counts in the minors, much like all of the team's young pitching prospects. The Reds' former managers, as mandated by the front office, treated him much the same. He was pulled after less than 90 pitches with a two-hit shutout in the works against San Francisco in September - a testament to their dedication to protecting him.
But they can't afford to do that next year.
With a rather thin free agent market expected, Bailey will need to hold down a spot in the rotation for the Reds to compete. Suppose he develops into the ace that many foresee, much like Prior did in his first full season as a rookie with the Cubs. Will Baker have the guts to rely on his bullpen in a close game, rather than squeeze another 20 to 25 pitches out of Homer?
Two words: Burning question.
... | | By: A League of Her Own | | |
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