Did Josh Beckett Go Golfing After Asking to Skip a Start Due to a Minor Injury?

CBS - “Beckett said he had a little thing going on [pain-wise] before his start that Sunday [in Chicago] and that probably got aggravated at one point during the 126 pitches,” Hardy said. “At one point he said, which I found surprising, that it was a surprise to him when Bobby Valentine came to him and said he was shutting him down and he was not going to make his next start on Saturday. Believe that if you want to. Whether that is the case or not, is it a good idea to go out and play golf? It’s not the most taxing of pursuits, I’ll be the first to admit that, but you know what? You use your shoulders and you use your back. There are a lot of guys who can’t play because they have bad shoulders and bad backs.” 

This can't be true, right? I mean he can't be this dumb...After everything that happened down during the stretch last year, he can't have possibly went and just pulled this could he? 

By and large I gave Josh the benefit of the doubt coming into this season. Last season happened, who knows how much of it was true, and how much it affected things, but it happened. I wanted to believe he'd come into this season ready to kick ass...NOT ready to call out of work to go golfing with a few friends...That's a bullshit move. 

Look, everyone fakes it and calls out sick from work once in a while, it happens. Should it happen when you're being paid millions of dollars to throw a ball? Maybe not, but I can let it slide, I'm not perfect in that arena...But you've got to know the rules. Like when I call out sick, I'm not hitting up the popular lunch spots around the office or going out for drinks at Happy Hour with all my co-workers that just filled in for me for the day. I'm sitting my ass at home, watching horrible television involving Wendy Williams and her two Christmas Hams-for-thighs, maybe catching a Gilligans Island repeat, and napping. I know the rules. I can't get caught doing something fun on a day where I checked out for mental health purposes. 

Same goes for a pitcher. If you were faking it or exaggerrating a nagging injury, you gotta just rest, you cant go out there and hack a round of 18 and expect no one to notice and be upset...and if you aren't faking it? Well that's even worse.

Bottom line, Beckett's going to catch A TON of shit for this, and all of it is deserved. Every word. That's an insulting, punk move.

 

Is This the Most Ridiculous Merril Hodge Tie Yet?

I'm going to say, emphatically, yes...But I'll tell ya something else...I kinda dig it.

Sure it looks like what I'd look like if I threw on a tie from back in my high school days, but you know what, he's pulling it off. He doesn't look self-conscioius about it, he looks like a man who's confident in highlighting his chest-to-naval area. Just putting it prominently on display. He's got nothing to hide behind some tie. I respect that. 

I also like the idea that he's trying to single handily usher out the era of the skinny tie...I hate the skinny tie. I don't have the requisite BMI to pull it off. I'm not fat, but nothing looks weirder than a dude rocking a skinny tie with a slight case of the love handles...that's probably what happened to Merril's colleague here. Probably came on set with a skinny tie and got mocked relentlessly into taking it off, only explanation as to why he's rocking that super-awk look he's got going on.

Investment Advice from Two NBA Draft Lottery Hopefuls

So...Good luck to whoever drafts Thomas Robinson...I'm sure he won't be asking for advances on his contract after a couple of months, seems like a real fiscally sound young man. 

Look, I'm not gonna hate on him too much, he's a kid about to come into a LOT of money. But when you got one guy saying he's gonna buy his mom a house, right after you just told the fellas at TMZ that you're gonna buy an ice'd out rolex, maybe you wanna come back with something a little different than "gonna buy my sister some gucci's." Not good looks homie. 

Maybe consider hiring a financial planner...like a real one. Someone with proper licenses, who wears a suit and tie to work, drives to a  real office and has real co-workers...What I'm saying is not one of your childhood friends. Just a thought.

Josh Hamilton Clubs Four Home Runs, I Contemplate Sports "Imagine If's?

You know what's so fun and captivating about Josh Hamilton? He's an active, living answer to one of those great "imagine if's..." sports discussions. He's a walking testament to what we missed out on as baseball fans early in his career. Yes, you still wonder what it would have been like to see 20-25 year old Josh come up, the stats he'd have, highlights we missed...but I think what makes him pretty cool is that he by and large answered all the questions about what his career would have been like, what his potential was...simply put, when healthy, he's one of the 2 or 3 best hitters in baseball in any given season. 

He's absolutely amazing. It sucks that we missed out on those early years, and it sucks that he's going to consistently miss more games than others year in year out because of all the wear and tear he put on his body, but you can't help but marvel at the things he's able to do. He's easily one of the most exciting players on the field today. And it's cool, as a sports fan, to have that answer. I think about other "imagine if's...," and it's usually a case of a career being cut down early, or a trajectory changing injury, basically something that derails a career...A Len Bias type thing, or what would have happened if Nomar's body never broke down, where would Griffey's stats have ended up if he didn't have so many injury plagued years in the middle of his career...They're questions you usually can't answer, but that's not the case with Josh. He's the reverse case of all those guys. He's a guy who got derailed before he ever started, and then somehow hopped back on the track. He's basically the Benjamin Button of sports "imagine if's." 

It's not really a video, its just bad ass picture

All that's left now is figuring out where he'll fit in historically. Obviously his counting numbers, the rbi's, the runs, the home runs, they're never going to properly display his talent level due to his delayed start and lingering injury issues that'll presumably plague him as long as he plays. But lets say he plays at a high level for the rest of this season and the next 3 (bringing him to age 34)...He's at 132 HR's right now...lets pencil him in for 30 more this year, and a conservative 30 more each of the next 3 seasons...Now we're up to 252. Now pencil in 3 more years of moderate-to-All-Star production, say 25 hr's each. Put's us in the range of 325 home runs, and I think we're being conservative. Is he a Hall of Famer at that point? He's got a career avg over .300 right now, I wouldn't expect that to dip too much, based on my projections, his 6-7 year peak would make him one of the most dominant players of his generation...I like to think he'd get the benefit of the doubt if that's the case. 

For now though, I just enjoy every highlight this guy gives us, it would have been a tremendous shame if his talent was never properly displayed, players of his caliber that can do the things he can do just don't come along that often. For once an "imagine if" has been answered, and as a fan, I'm thankful.

Reality TV Finally Convinces Woman with "Gunk Holes" For Ears That She May Want to get that Looked At

First off, I'm sorry guys. I'm sorry you had to see that. But I saw it, so you're sure as hell going to see it. In the course of rummaging the corners of this internet for the blog, I occasionally come across some gross, wild, and plain old unsavory shit. I take the bullet with like 99.5% of that stuff, but every now and then you come across something that you just don't want to be alone in seeing...and in this case, that was this woman's inner ear canal, or as the Doctor narrating so properly called it, "her gunk hole." 

 Now, since I watched this whole thing, not just this clip, I'm also privy to the fact that, this has been going on for years...Her ears have been swollen, oozing, and flaking out enough skin that her car is visibly covered in her dead flaky skin, and yet, it took a reality televsion show being in town for her to go get it checked out...Was there no village doctor all these years? Did it not concern you that your ears, and I quote, "Smelled Like Athletes Foot?" Why are you waiting for a production crew and their camera's to roll into town to take care of this? 

 Bottom line, if anyone, anywhere, ever, describes their ear as flaking or oozing, or god forbid, both...For the love of god, don't wait years on the off chance that some TLC-like television show sends a reality tv doctor to you small hamlet.

Weather In Boston is Like...

Every      frigen       day.   Every day! 

I wake up, throw on Fox 25 News, and there it is, either Kevin Lemanowicz or Cindy Fitzgibbon greeting me with a dreary, grey, rainy, 5 day forecast. 

If I ever see Ned on the way to work I'm gonna really know somethings up.