Monponsett Is the Illest

ESPN.com - NCF - Paterno: 'The black athlete has made a big difference'

   If anyone would know, it would be Joe the Boss, who has been running the Nittany Lions since before I was born. I'm pretty sure that Joe spends some time with young blacks, so it's not like when Duxbury High used to play urban schools in tournaments and we'd be like, "Wow... they're really fast." 

   Joe's probably right about the general aspect of scoring going up with the introduction of the black athlete, although that Forward Pass thingy might have something to do with it. 

    Even if there was a brief period where black WRs were introduced into the NFL and ran wild over the slower whiteys playing defense, the introduction of the black cornerback should have smoothed out the Bell Curve.

   Besides, if he only has to outrun a white free safety, a white WR looks just as fasterer as Moss does running away from Duane Starks... provided the coach is willing to call a Forward Pass play.

 

   Never underestimate technological advances or innovations... like the Forward Pass. Modern science, agriculture, medicine, and industry upped the average human life expectancy from 40 to 77 in no time at all (to a historian). Every time you see that fridge in the kitchen, give it a great big hug.

   There isn't a sport that isn't totally different than it was in 1921. I'd love to see the 1927 Yankees play the 2004 Red Sox, for reasons that have nothing to do with race. It'd be a helluva game.

   Would today's AFC All Pro Team stomp the smaller 1925 Bears like Sasquatch? Would Eddie Shore knock out all of Wayne Gretzky's teeth? Would Kobe smash his testicles into George Mikan's face while hook-dunking on him?

   The answers are yes, yes, and yes. 300 pounds moves 180 pounds backwards quickly pretty much every time, evil is evil, and I saw Kobe s*** on 6'10" Dwight Howard so hard last year, Dwight could have won a civil suit.

   Scoring is up in hockey, too. I can pretty much assure you that this fact has nothing to do with some plantation owner in 1795-era Virginia buying the biggest Angolan off the slave ship.

NFL Pioneer’s Honor: “Better Late Than Never”

    Any scoring spike would probably be tied to Knute Rockne's Forward Pass more than Fritz Pollard, who was the the NFL's first black head coach (1921).  Pollard coached the Akron Pros, and his crazy-dumb overdue inclusion to the Hall of Fame finally came earlier this year.

   Pollard- who must have been an amazing man- also led Brown from Rhode Island to their only Rose Bowl. Pollard played against George Halas in high school, if you want a better visual. George would never hire Pollard, or even schedule games against Pollard's team.

   The NFL had a very early desegregation, depending on if you consider "from the moment it was born" to be early. Pollard and Rube Marshall were the only two black dudes on teams that joined the NFL when it was formed in 1920.

   Between 1934 and 1946, blacks were not allowed to play. After Pollard in 1921, the next black head coach was Art Shell in 1989.

   He also played professional football for the Pros, Milwaukee Badgers, Gilberton Cadamounts, Hammond Pros and Providence Steamrollers. In his own way, he may have been cooler thanJackie Robinson. He was coaching a team before the Great Depression.

   The first black Quarterback to play in the NFL was the splendidly-monikered Willie Thrower (above), who would be a bad guy to walk across a bridge with. He played for Halas' 1953 Bears. His name is funny in the way that it's funny that someone named Crapper invented the toilet.

   Marlin Brisco (below) was the first black to start at QB, for the 1968 AFL Denver Broncos.

 

   The inaugural black QB drafted in the first round was Tampa's Doug Williams, who also snagged the first Soul Super Bowl in DC. The first NFL black starter was Jim Harris, of- I think- the Rams and the Bills.

   During Vietnam, sergeants on the grenade range told recruits to throw the grenade "high and hard, just like a football. You white guys, throw like Unitas... and you black guys, throw like Harris." 

ESPN.com - NFL - T.O. agrees: Eagles would be unbeaten with Favre

   Bringing it back full circle, TO wants a white quarterback?

   OK, I think TO is more concerned with things like Health and Talent than skin color, and he is not alone in his thinking. Michael Irvin recently said that Philly would be undefeated if Brett started there.

   Donovan is not a lot unlike Favre- a scrambling QB with a cannon of an arm- and it would be an interesting switch. Favre is at the end of the line, but he deserves better than what Green Bay is trotting out beside him. Donovan would be pissed, but this is TO's fantasy.. not his.

   TO rules. He's what you want on the field- a superior athlete who delivers big every Sunday... but he has this Funny Side that manifests itself in touchdown dances, crazy quotes to the media, outing gay teammates, and criticizing the guy who is literally the hand that Feeds him. He's the duck and  the sauce. 

   We all have an evil twin in us, and only rarely does he have a huge head and crazy elephantine hands.

"Stop cryin'...or I'll pop you another one!"

 

Why Women Rear The Young

Oh, the things I get in my email....

How many men does it take to open a beer?
None. It should be opened when she brings it.
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Why is a Laundromat a really bad place to pick up a woman?
Because a woman who can't even afford a washing machine will probably never be
able to support you.
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Why do women have smaller feet than men?
It's one of those "evolutionary things" that allows
them to stand closer to the kitchen sink.
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How do you know when a woman is about to say something smart?
When she starts a sentence with "A man once told me..."
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How do you fix a woman's watch?
You don't. There is a clock on the oven.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
If your dog is barking at the back door and your wife is yelling at the front
door, who do you let in first?
The dog, of course. He'll shut up once you let him in.
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What's worse than a Male Chauvinist Pig?
A woman who won't do what she's told.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I married a Miss Right.
I just didn't know her first name was Always.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Scientists have discovered a food that diminishes
a woman's sex drive by 90%.
It's called a Wedding Cake.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Why do men die before their wives?
They want to.
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Women will never be equal to men until they can
walk down the street with a bald head and a beer
gut, and still think they are sexy.
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In the beginning, God created the earth and rested.
Then God created Man and rested.
Then God created Woman.
Since then, neither God nor Man has rested.

And I Quote...

 

Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is eighty percent of being a successful hitter. The other twenty percent is just execution.
Hank Aaron

 

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.
-Muhammad Ali

 

I'm not comfortable being preachy, but more people need to start spending as much time in the library as they do on the basketball court.

-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Less than a foot made the difference between a hero and a bum.

-Grover Alexander

 

I got a hundred bucks says my baby beats Pete's baby. I just think genetics are in my favour.
-Andre Agassi

I'll play first, third, left. I'll play anywhere - except Philadelphia.

- Richie Allen

I never met a man I didn't want to fight.

- Lyle Alzado

My way of joking is to tell the truth. That's the funniest joke in the world.
- Ali

I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.
-Ali

The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.

-Ali

I throw the ball ninety-two miles an hour, but they hit it back just as hard

Joaquin Andujar

I like my players to be married and in debt. That's the way you motivate them.
-Ernie Banks

Somebody hits me, I'm going to hit him back. Even if it does look like he hasn't eaten in a while.
-Charles Barkley

Proper preparation prevents poor performance
- Charlie Batch

I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did.
- Yogi Berra

Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many men on the field?
-Jim Bouton

If a tie is like kissing your sister, losing is like kissing you grandmother with her teeth out.
- George Brett

Show me a guy who's afraid to look bad, and I'll show you a guy you can beat every time.
- Lou Brock

Whenever the occasion arose, he rose to the occasion.
- John Brown

In politics, a lie unanswered becomes truth within 24 hours

-Willie Brown

I'll do whatever it takes to win games, whether it's sitting on a bench waving a towel, handing a cup of water to a teammate, or hitting the game-winning shot.

- Kobe Bryant

And I want to say anything is possible. Comma. You know.

- Frank Bruno

I wouldn't ever set out to hurt anyone deliberately unless it was, you know, important - like a league game or something.
-Dick Butkus

Hitting is an art, but not an exact science.

- Hall of Famer Rod Carew (he converted)

One advantage of bowling over golf is that you never lose a bowling ball.
-Don Carter

Pro-rated at 500 at-bats per year, my 1,081 strike-outs would mean that for two years out of the fourteen I played, I never touched the ball.
- Norm Cash

 

Nobody roots for Goliath.

-Wilt Chambelain

We take the shortest route to the puck and arrive in ill humor.

-Bobby Clarke

Baseball is a red-blooded sport for red-blooded men. It's no pink tea, and mollycoddles had better stay out. It's a struggle for supremacy, a survival of the fittest.

- Ty Cobb

He slides into second with a stand up double.

-Jerry Coleman

 Any time Detroit scores more than 100 points and holds the other team below 100 points they almost always win.
-Doug Collins

Experience is a great advantage. The problem is that when you get the experience, you're too damned old to do anything about it.
-Jimmy Connors

Bravery is believing in yourself, and that thing nobody can teach you.

-El Cordobes

Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional.

-Chili Davis

If you step on people in this life, you're going to come back as a cockroach.

-Willie Davis

Well what's wrong with ain't? And as for saying 'Rizzuto slid into second' it just aint natural. Sounds silly to me. 'Slud" is something more than "slid." It means sliding with great effort.

-Dizzy Dean

A champion is someone who gets up when he can't.

-Jack Dempsey

I don't recall your name but you sure were a sucker for a high inside curve.

<SPANCLASS=BODY>-Bill Dickey

The pitcher has to find out if the hitter is timid, and if he is timid, he has to remind the hitter he's timid.

-Don Drysdale

Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best.
-Tim Duncan

Baseball is like church. Many go, few understand.
- Leo Durocher

God watches over drunks and third baseman.

-Leo Durocher

I believe in rules. Sure I do. If there weren't any rules, how could you break them?
- Leo Durocher

I really believe this team has a lot of potential - whether it's this year or in years to come, I don't know.
-Brett Favre

I would rather beat the Yankees regularly than pitch a no hit game

-Bob Feller

I didn't begin cheating until late in my career, when I needed something to help me survive. I didn't cheat when I won the twenty-five gamesin 1961. I don't want anybody to get any ideas and take my Cy Young Award away. And I didn't cheat in 1963 when I won twenty-four games. Well, maybe a little.
-Whitey Ford

I know Koufax' weakness. He can't hit.

- Whitey Ford

I want to keep fighting because it is the only thing that keeps me out of the hamburger joints. If I don't fight, I'll eat this planet.
- George Foreman

 bet some of you feel sorry for me. Well don't. Having an artificial leg has its advantages. I've broken my right knee many times and it doesn't hurt a bit.
-Terry Fox

When I go out there, I have no pity on my brother. I'm out there to kill him.

-Joe Frazier

One thing you learned as a Cubs fan: when you bought you ticket, you could bank on seeing the bottom of the ninth.

- Joe Garagiola

I don't know if it's how I speak or what it is about me that presents that sort of label, but I don't know how many times I have to be out in public with a girlfriend to stop that from being said.
- Jeff Garcia

There is no room in baseball for discrimination. It is our national pastime and a game for all.
- Lou Gehrig

Pro football is like nuclear warfare. There are no winners, only survivors.

- Frank Gifford

A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.

-Wayne Gretzky

There are some similarities between boxing and skating. Both require power and grace.

- Tonya Harding

After 12 years, the old butterflies came back. Well, I guess at my age you call them moths.

- Franco Harris

Otto Graham once said that I had 9.1 speed and 12-flat hands

-Bob Hayes

Reverse every natural instinct and do the opposite of what you are inclined to do, and you will probably come very close to having a perfect golf swing.
- Ben Hogan

It's hard being black. You ever been black? I was black once-when I was poor.

- Larry Holmes

Never get married in the morning - you never know who you might meet that night.

-Paul Hornung

All hockey players are bilingual. They know English and profanity.

- Gordie Howe

I had some friends here from North Carolina who'd never seen a homer, so I gave them a couple

-Catfish Hunter

My favorite NASCAR driver is always either the bad guy or the underdog.

- Bo Jackson

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.
- Michael Jordan

I'm like an expensive menu... you can look but you can't afford!

- Anna Kournikova

 I said I believed in drug testing a long time ago. All through the sixties I tested everything.
- Bill Lee

Every time I look at my pocketbook, I see Jackie Robinson.

- Willie Mays

I don't know whether I prefer Astroturf to grass. I never smoked Astroturf.

- Joe Namath

I haven't reported my missing credit card to the police because whoever stole it is spending less than my wife.
- Ile Natase

 

Snow!!

  I got my greedy little hands on a pic of the first snow of the year for Cape Cod. It snowed for about 5 hours, and put a coating on everything. The old timers say that an October snow on the Cape is a harbinger of a bad winter.

   Of course, it will be 68 degrees today, and I'll probably be wearing shorts at some point... gotta love New England.

 

I wish I took this pic, but... c'est la vie!

 

  That's not what we're talking about this snowy morning. We're here to talk about a different sort of covering- the NBA's new dress code.

   David Stern and his friends in the NBA have basically decided that young black men can't be trusted to dress themselves.

   You see, kids... clothes do make the man. You can be honorable, work hard, say your prayers, honor thy parents, give tirelessly of yourself to charity, and play harder than anybody in the NBA... but unless you wear a suit while you're doing so, you're basically a thug n*gger.

     It's almost funny. The NBA has generated billions of dollars by exploiting a game that is America's blackest sport... but they get upset that the players dress like young black men.

   IMHO, the prior dress code- where people on the same team wore the same uniform during the games- was good enough for me. A guy who has problems with Carmello Anthony dressing like a 20 year old kid on a plane... well, he's the one with the problem, isn't he?

   If I wear a Lakers uniform to Wall Street, no one would buy stocks off me. That makes sense. If LeBron James wears an LT throwback on a team flight... it has no effect whatsoever on how he does his job.

   The  NBA gives a lot to the kids who play in the game- you really can't be in the NBA anymore without making a million dollars in a year or two. But... they ask a lot of the players.

   No one else in America would have the cojones to claim that they "owned" 12 blacks, but the NBA owners are in that rare air. They can ship these kids around the country- and even out of the country- on a whim.They can find them to be guilty before a trial, and they expect them to tolerate fan assaults with a smile.

   And those millions of dollars? That is simply the end result of the free market, which states that Team A can pay Player A whatever it takes to get him from Team B. If any owner tells you that he's paying those millions to support blacks, you have my permission to laugh in his face.

   The only conceivable argument for this rule is that people are turned off by Black Dress. I'm sure that SOME are... but again, that's just racism. These people see black dress as wrong, and they see the three piece suit as right. Taking the time to get to know the guy under the hoodie just requires too much effort.

   Look at it this way... Shaq can wear a "Stop Snitching" shirt while he hands out piles of Katrina relief aid, and the babies will still drink the milk. Likewise, that pot Clifford Robinson was smoking last year got him just as high in his suit as it would if he walked around in nothing but a thong.

   The LA Lakers sold out every game- with a fat waiting list- while Kobe Bryant was being tried for Rape. He eventually paid the girl to shut up... and he paid the wife he cheated on to shut up, too. He did all of this in a 3 piece suit.

    If the LA fans sold out the Staples Center every night with an admitted philanderer and rape case settlement monster (who has plenty of money to rape again) sitting on their bench... do you think that they'll be turned away if Kobe is wearing sandals?

   Adolf Hitler never appeared in public without wearing a neatly-pressed military uniform, while Jesus dressed in rags. More harm has been done by men in three piece suits than by all the Crips dressing like Allen Iverson in the world, ever.

   I wish the black NBA players would stage a walkout, and we are suddenly left with two leagues- the White Guy NBA, and the hopefully burgeoning And One Tour... and they should refuse to come back until David Stern starts dressing like Flavor-Flav.

   Imagine David Stern trying to make Ron Artest stop visiting those flood victims because he's not dressed like an accountant? Ron is, in Stern's view, an animal... but I don't see Stern and his three piece suit down in Louisiana, talking to those igger-nays who probably deserved it anyhow... because they don't wear suits.

"Go against me, dawg... you're making a mistake"

   I was working in Boston, Halloween, 2003.

   Due to the forty mile commute each way I had, I used to occasionally take the water shuttle from Hingham to North Station (the old Boston Garden). This didn't save me much money, but a boat is faster than a car in Boston's gridlock. When I broke my leg, it became my primary means of getting to work.

   I didn't work at the Boston Garden, so I had to hoof it the rest of the way. This involved going behind the old Garden, and down a wharf to the general area of the Nashua Street Jail. It was a decrepit wharf, and no one really goes back there for anything, except to cut through. Even in a cast, this isn't as bad as it sounds- it took me maybe 10 minutes. 

   Not too bad at all, most mornings... the evenings were a different story, though.

   The wharf behind the old Gahhhhhhhhhden is about one or two hundred years old... maybe 300, even. It is utterly decrepit, and not really safe for walking on- for a variety of reasons. It is behind an abandoned factory as well, and is as lonely a place as exists in this huge, cramped metropolis.

   As I hobbled down the pier with the setting sun that evening, Halloween was only on my mind as a "gotta get home before 6, or I'll get egged for having no candy to give out" kind of concept. New England starts getting dark in the 4s around late October, especially on a cloudy day. I'd say, off hand, that no spookier region exists in America than New England.

   While the Causeway Street pier isn't exactly Salem, it was 10 minutes between me and any sort of light... and I'm not the toughest person in that city. With two gargantuan abandoned buildings and a subway running nearby, no one could have even begun to hear me scream.

   It wasn't unusual to see people passing me on my shortcut, but I knew these two were going to be trouble just by the way they zoomed in on me. For some reason, I was more pissed than scared. I was half the size of either of them, and I was on crutches.

   What's worse, we had the wharf to ourselves for this little dance. No one was going to perform a rescue here.

    I bet that a serious, semi-honorable crook like Whitey Bulger would have killed both of them had he witnessed this mugging. I taught in their neighborhood, I was hurt, I was small.. but it seems that there is no honor among theives these days, because I was about to get stomped like one of those flaming dog bags that kids leave on the steps of people who don't hand out candy on Halloween.

      In fact, this was looking much like trick-or-treating taken to that next level... direct physical extortion, with either a beating- or a bum rush off the side of the pier- as both the Trick and  the Treat. Still, I was more pissed than scared- I can fully recall my final thought before the mugging being along the lines of "those SOBs aren't getting my wedding ring."

   I probably should have just handed over the cash, but I have this problem with Impulse Control. I started fishing in my purse, subtly sliding off the wedding ring as I did, letting it drop into the mess at the botom. "No need to whale on me, boys... here's the cash, let's all be cool here..."

   But instead of money, I came out of the purse with pepper spray. SSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS... right in his beady little eyes. I then braced my hands on my crutches, and swung my good leg as hard as I could... Night In The Ruts.

   This guy caved in like the Colorado Avalanche, and I was starting to feel pretty good about my chances of maybe even MAKING a little money off this encounter.

   Then I saw this big fist...then I saw the setting sun briefly... then, WHAMMM, right on my back. I took a few kicks before the more decent of the two stopped the beating and took my purse. He tore through it (missing the hidden ring, btw), and came out with two dollars.

   He screamed down into my face, as mad at my lack of street smarts as he was at the pepper spray that he was wiping out of his eyes. "Are you from the suburbs!!! This purse doesn't even have f******* credit cards!! Why in the name of the saint did you fight two grown men for two dollars?"

   I coughed out some blood, and rolled over onto my side. It took more effort than I thought it would to finally lift my head. To be honest, I was just happy that they hadn't thrown me off the wharf. I would have sank like a bad stock.

   "I thought you were after the $500 in my skirt pocket." 

 

http://journals.aol.com/johnmscalzi/bytheway/entries/4977

Weekend Assignment #83: Tell us a scary Halloween story... that happened to you. What I'm looking for here is a story where you were spooked or scared by someone or... something... in or around Halloween (or, alternately, a story where you spooked the heck out of someone else). Please note I don't want stories in which you or others were genuinely in danger -- I'm talk about you getting one big BOO! moment, which, after you were able to get your heart back into your chest, resulted in you saying something along the lines of "Don't do that!" to whomever was giving you a spook. A fun frightening, in other words.

Extra Credit: The song "Monster Mash": Fun or lame?

Lame... so lame it limps.

Blog Worth

My blog is worth $20,323.44.
How much is your blog worth?

Joe at Magic Smoke can explain this better than I can... but somebody at AOL owes me $20,000, and I'll bust every head in Dulles until someone writes me a VALID check.

A Completely Specious Look at Your Blog's Value

A Russian Nesting Doll Of A Woman, Storm Pics, and Bahk-street

   Manomet Beach, Plymouth, MA... not far from where the Pilgrims settled.

   I almost bought this house.... no joke... on Manomet Point. It was a 5 bedroom colonial, hardwood floors, 2 fireplaces, panoramic ocean views, nice schools, between Boston and the Cape... $40,000. No, I didn't miss a zero, and yes, this is Massachusetts.

   What the realtor didn't mention is that the house is right on the edge of a 100 foot cliff. Two of my steps off the porch... SPLASH!

   No insurance company will take it, and the local news sends a cameraman down for every storm- to catch it falling into the sea on video, for our enjoyment.

   Still... 40 grand is 40 grand.

 

   The blur on the left side of the picture is me getting SOAKED by a wave hitting the seawall 20 yards down. The term "downwind" applies to this situation, but I didn't figure it out until I had been puddled.

   Life is a tale told by an idiot, and occasionally photographed.

(Wednesday note: The cameras weren't there for a house..... some kid actually got killed bodysurfing at White Horse Beach.)

WHDH-TV - Boston - Coast Guard searching for man missing after body surfing

 

  

 

 

 Need to renew that laugh?

   These two pictures are of the same golfer, Christie Kerr. She dropped 80 pounds, once she started exercising.

   By the way... if you have to start exercising to lose 80 pounds WHILE you're playing as a pro... Golf is a hobby, not a sport.

 

 

 

   I've been directly insulted for the differences between the two pictures I've used between 1998 and 2005, but this is that whole next level (and sort of a reverse Me).

   I got a new hairdo and gained 20 pounds. This woman looks like she burst- Alien style- from the stomach of the fatter golfer. Simply put... you could make a third golfer from the excess fat drawn from Christie Kerr, 2002 or so.

   Christie was on the Today Show (see the benefits of me having cable?), and they showed her basic workout, which looks like that of a boxer. The slowly expanding Katie Couric no doubt passed this interview off to Matt Lauer. 

The best part about this interview was the way it was shoved in between:

- Uma Thurman's movie about banging a college kid

- a book push about why older men want to date younger women... conducted between Couric and 2 female authors who never once mentioned the words "better-looking."

Quote of the year, from Couric (who, I might add, is a millionaire widow):

"When you commit to dating younger men/women, you should essentially divide your age by two, and add 7."

 

If you need something even more stupiderish to laugh this stormy morning...

Two chinese kids lip synching backstreet boys. The best part is either the matching Yao Ming jerseys, or the guy- who seems completely oblivious to the mauling going on behind him- playing Counter Strike... It doesn't get more Chinese than that.

Yao Ming's No. 1 fans, from Lush Factor's page... may work better