'08 in the N.L.

N.L. East
1. NY Meth
2. Illadelphia Phallus
3. Atlanta Racists
4. Washington Generals
5. Florida Firesales
This division is the most cut-and-dry. Santana will come in third in the Cy Young voting to the one-two punch that is Jake Peavy and Chris Young.

N.L. Central
1. NorthSide #1 Threats
2. Cincinnati Style Chili
3. Milwaukee Favre-Missers
4. St. Louis El Caminos
5. Houston Padre Offcasts
6. Piss-burgh Bream-Haters
I’m going out on a limb by picking Cincy to finish second but I stand by it.

N.L. West
1. SDMFPs
2. Arid-zona D-Bags
3. Filthy Fuckin’ Dodgers
4. Denver Luckies
5. The Bottom of the Bay
Good pitching beats good hitting. Luckily, the Pads have great pitching and everyone else in the division has good hitting at best. This year they have an offense that can actually score a few runs per game and that’s all it’ll take. World Fuckin’ Champions!

Bring on your best arguments. The A.L. edition will follow soon enough.

Scott Rad

Maybe I came off a bit cold in my assessment of Scott Speizio the other day. I'm not trying to bury him; I've always liked the guy, what with him being in a metal band and having the blood red soul patch/ wisdom patch/ ball tickler/ whatever they're calling it these days thingie. The Qualified Substance Abuse Professional in me is sure he can get his shit together. Maybe we'll need a stretch-run utilityman and he can dye his gine-duster navy blue... Anyway, writing about him made me think I should write something about the greatest ballplayer/ musician/ skater/ entrepreneur of all time, Scott Mo'fuggin Radinsky.

Nevermind that he was a filthy Dodger for a few years, dude's a badass. Not only has he pitched in more Major League games than any other Jewish man, kicked cancer's ass, founded a landmark skatepark and museum, he's the lead singer of Pulley- one of the finest pop-punk bands in all of the lands. Breathe in the goodness:

Spring Training

Its been long overdue and after a long hiatus I am back and ready to talk padres baseball, so lets get to it. As everyone knows spring training is a good time for pitchers to refine their stuff and hitters to get a look at live pitching.
There are three particular battles that I am looking forward to see how they shake out. First is how many rule 5 draftees will make the roster. I think that all of them have a chance to make the squad so it will be interesting to see them battle for open spots.
The second thing that I am eager to see is who will win the 5th starter position. There is a grip of guys vying for the last starting pitching spot and I believe that it will be Germano until Prior is ready to come back, but I hope it is one of our younger guys Leblanc, Inman or Geer just to see how they can do against major league hitters.
Lastly, Hairston vs. Headley. Ultimately I think that Headley will just do too much in spring training to sit on the bench its nothing that Hairston will do wrong its just Headley is the real deal and his bat will not allow him to be sat or platooned in left.
Here is to the battles of spring training.

The Textbook Definition of Irony

Scott Spiezio got released by the Cardinals today as the result of an incident last December in which he got hammered, crashed his Beemer, fled the scene and topped it all off with beating the hell out of his neighbor. Obviously, that's no good and thank goodness he didn't kill anyone. But here's the part that got me:

Asked about Spiezio’s release, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said, “I think it’s a consistent message about what the team represents.”

Saaaay Whaaaaat?!?! Tony probably would have kicked his neighbor's ass if he could have managed to stay awake. I guess they're required to finally take the hard-line approach after TLR's escapade and what happened to Josh Hancock, but the last thing I'd expect to hear it called would be "a consistent message about what the team represents", especially coming from the lips of a man who got to keep his job under such circumstances.

Bonds To Another Bay? Good.

Lately, with all of the decent players snatched up, people have been left to speculate where Barry Bonds is going to work this year. Word around the campfire has him going to Tampa Bay- much to my delight. It's the best case scenario. His "legacy" would be tainted even worse than it already is, what with his 3000th hit coming up guaranteeing that history won't be able to forget that he went out with the only pathetic team that would have him. This would be even better than him retiring or playing in Japan because in either of those instances he can play the "Feel sorry for me; I got blackballed" card. If the no longer devilish Rays pick him up, there will be one happy guy in West Virginia reveling in watching him struggle through one last, pointless season. I heard some idiot on the ESPNs saying that signing Bonds would automatically turn the Rays into a contender. It makes perfect sense because that's what he's been doing for the Giants, right? Right? Where do they find these people?

The Kinda Bad and The Very Good

First off, I'd like to apologize to our readers (both of you!) for the long hiatus. I've had a lot of irons in the ol' fire and thepadfather hasn't wanted anything to do with sports in general since- well, you know... Anyway, here's what I was gonna say:

Our plans were set. This summer was definitely the summer that we were gonna pack it all up, kiss this hellhole goodbye, and take up residence in San Diego County. This was still the official plan until last Saturday- at which time an old acquaintance of mine offered me the vacant room in the tattoo shop he co-owns. Oh fuck yeah! This opportunity is the culmination of every bit of dreaming I've done since I was five years old. The plan has now been revised to bump the move back a year until I'm at the next level and fully established. I never thought I'd be so stoked to not be moving to San Diego. Life is good...

ESPN Classic is garbage and here's why...

A few weeks ago, Suddenlink rearranged some of the channels and I was uber-stoked to find out that now we get ESPN Classic. My joy was about to go straight down the toilet in a hurry. It had been some time since I'd had Classic and, dear God, the years have not been kind. Why the hell don't they just call it The Poker Channel? Seriously, I enjoy taking everybody's money at the poker table just as much as the next guy, but when it comes to watching it on TV, fuck that shit straight up and down. When they're not airing that shite or Arliss, the actual classic sporting events they do manage to wedge in are season-specific. Right now, all they're showing is basketball since football season is (practically) over. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like it would make much more sense to air sports in their off-season. By doing what they do, Disney forces its various arms of ESPN to compete against one another in an all-or-nothing proposition. If somebody's a college basketball fan, they'd be a lot more likely to watch a classic game if it wasn't up opposite a live basketball game. Being a baseball junkie, right now is when I jones most to see some baseball, but by the time they get around to airing classic baseball, I'll have real games to watch. It's not rocket surgery, people; give your consumers what they want when they most need it. Then again, what should I expect from a company that relies on Eduardo Perez for intelligent analysis?

I can see why you miss this guy...

Bip was basically Joey Cora with an ego problem. Look at those fuckin' wristbands; why not just get two from Hot Topic that say "I ♥ Me"? That's a good case for Paul Lukas: the rise and fall of the portrait wristbands. Only a select few players like Bip, Bonds, Sheff and Piazza had them for only a couple of years in the early-mid nineties, but they disappeared just as quickly as they arrived. With the technological advances, imagine how awesome they could make a wristband these days. Nike would have to invest in orange thread solely for the purpose of rendering Brian Giles's face... Anyways, here's the Bip card:

picks

New York vs. Green Bay
Green Bay 28-17
San Diego vs. New England
Brain says 31-21 N.E
Heart says 27-24 S.D

It's tomorrow now...

Now that you mention it, I’ve got a card of the last real outfielder K.T. swiped out of someone’s back pocket; it’s an old-school jim-dandy of Jimmy Ballgame. Heck yeah, I’m calling him Jimmy Ballgame; it’s been too long that’d I’ve had to admire him from afar. Worst case scenario, I feel privileged to see a legend in his twilight- like Mets fans in ’73 or Brewers fans in ’76. Personally, I think he’s still got enough of his historic range and glovework as well as sufficient offensive prowess for two more productive seasons. At any rate, here’s the card:

One, that’s one of the fugliest got-dang unis I’ve seen in my short, miserable life. Two, Jimmy Ballgame doesn't sound badass enough… let’s brainstorm this… J-Ed… Jim Ed… Jimmy Ed… Jimmy Edge- yeah! From now on, James Patrick Edmonds will always be Jimmy Edge to me. Yep; that’s all it takes…

Slow news day...

...so here's an old baseball card I found of our fearless leader in his 'stache rockin' days:

...and, yeah, I'm definitely gonna milk these baseball cards as time-and-spacefillers whenever there's nothing noteworthy to type about. A new card goes up each day K.T. doesn't get us another real outfielder and probably that day too, if I've got one of him. And to answer your second question, thepadfather, yes. Yes, there are Bip Roberts cards.

Got any corner outfielders?

That's what K.T. wants. The fact that we need another real outfielder isn't newsworthy at all, but it's good to know that he's acknowledging the problem- going as far as to conclude the chat with "I now need to go find a corner outfielder for you all." The rest was classic non-answers to fairly basic questions. A platoon of Bard and Barrett? Ugh. I hope somebody out there takes Barrett and some Triple-A arms off our hands for an outfielder. The Pirates still seem like the most logical candidate for that sort of deal...