Just stop playing ...

I can't recall a more miserable September for my favorite sports teams:  Red Sox and Braves are inventing new ways to lose, UGA is not what I would call having a good start to the season, Falcons lost their opener (but did win their next game so that's good), Furman ... who cares and then it just dawned on me -- our hockey team is in Winnipeg.  Not that I actually care about hockey, I just figured, might as well combine as many bad things into one.  I even lost a game the other night on NCAA 2012 ...

All of these sports failures are dragging me into depression. Sure am glad I got that sports betting thing under control back in my twenties. Also glad I will be MIA next week so I don't have to visually watch Boston and Atlanta complete their EPIC FAIL.

At least I'm not as angry as this guy:

Oh Nevin ... me thinks crossing Luther was a bad idea

One would think that after you were arrested for involvement in a 900 million dollar Ponzi scheme, you'd be quiet and maybe go into hiding. Not Mr. Nevin Shapiro ... he decided to expose 72 members of the University of Miami football team for NCAA violations. And then he decided to go even further and make comments about Luther Campbell ... yeah, even though he had a reality show and seems nice, I would never cross the former lead singer of Two Live Crew.  Good luck Nevin Shapiro - I bet your prison time is going to be a blast.

Story on ESPN

PLEASE STOP THE MADNESS

Dear Red Sox and Braves owners, managers and players,

I apologize for watching you in late August / September and potentially being some sort of cosmic reason for the recent slide that can only be describe as an EPIC FAIL.

For the love of all things holy (and unholy), please stop one of the largest collapses in sports history. Do you want an ESPN 30 on 30 about how you both fell apart? We want to watch LeBron fail, not the Braves and the Red Sox.  Please ... please ... please get it together.

For the Braves players, I went to hundreds of games in the 80's when I would go home with 3 or 4 foul balls because no one was at the game.  Win a couple of games for that kid who loved Dale Murphy and vividly remembers cheering for Pascual Perez and Raphael Ramirez. During the 1987 season, I watched every single home game -- even the one against the Astros when there were 400 people at the game. For the record, I had more people at my 21st birthday party.

I can relate to your struggles because I played the game of baseball and know how times are tough, the game is decided by inches and its not as easy as everyone thinks (to this day, I hate a lot of stupid fans and always wanted to punch the shit out of the fan that screamed, 'THROW STRIKES." But, as my college pitching coach so eloquently told me during a mound visit, "You best unf*ck yourself and figure out a way to win." Sounds harsh but sometimes, that's what works.  Here are some quick fixes: Kimbrel - try the outside corner and Bard - try throwing your slider away from the sweet spot of the hitter's bat.

But seriously ... suck it up and win. Second place is the first loser ... well, in this case second place is the wild card, but you get the point.  JUST WIN, DAMN IT, WIN!

Sincerely (a fan who really needs you guys to win so things will be ok in life),
Jed Eckert

Going left doesn't mean things are better

HA ... you thought that was a political comment, but its not.  I'm referring to the Left Coast where I spent the last 4 days.  I'm not going to say this was the best trip of my life because ... it wasn't. In fact, I'd have to admit that this trip ranks up there with one of the more disappointing (from a fun perspective) trips in my life.  Granted, I was out there for work, but I was hoping that I could mix in a bit of fun.  Some of the "low" lights:

• Bugs like me ... in two cases, I had a bug in my beer. Yeah, I'm sure they add protein, but that's something I reserve for saying on a Summer evening at 3 AM when I'm sitting on the porch intoxicated, not indoors at a restaurant 
• Hair is not a good garnish -- yup, I had a steak that had a really long, nasty, dark hair in it. I still don't feel very well. 
• When I think of bad traffic, I didn't think of Portland but I will moving forward. One evening, we decided to go to the North Face outlet and a 20 mile drive took 90 minutes.  It was also great to have three back seat drivers in the car making some fun, witty remarks the whole way. Sure am glad I learned patience when I moved to Europe or there would be a few co-workers hitch hiking back to their hotel in Portland. 
• Rain -- I was expecting rain, but not expecting the bulk of it to occur during our event.  Nothing says super fun like working outdoors in the rain. 
• Sat Nav and Verizon -- neither seem to work in Portland ... especially Verizon. In fact, my Droid not-Incredible decided to delete my address book again ... for the last time.  It almost has a horrible accident in the ATL airport but fortunately, I realized that you can't return a phone in pieces.  Bring on the Samsung INSERT RIDICULOUS PRODUCT NAME that arrives tomorrow. New phones mean lots of fun! 
• US Women's National Team -- they were staying in our hotel and we saw Abby Wambach hanging out in the lobby. Also saw Alex Morgan ... Yeah, nothing really to say there other than we saw them ... pretty sure they were making a trip to Nike.
• Speaking of Left -- saw James Carville on ABC this morning talking up how the White House should panic ... he job hunting or what?
• And to stay political -- nice press conference anointed one. I watched it on the plane and all I could do is think, "phenomenal leadership."  Let's create a larger divide amongst the people because that's how you create compromise -- through huge gaping gaps. I'm starting to think the administration wants open revolt in the streets? But don't get me wrong, the Republicans are idiots too. Let's face it, the rich can pay more money but there are more clever, creative ways to get their money that Obama trying to force it on them. This really feels like Forced Healthcare Debacle Part Deux.  Does he really think his Bilderberg friends are going to like this approach?
• Jet lag -- it sucks ... almost think West Coast jet lag is more miserable than European jet lag.
• The one positive thing ... the hotel had Transformers 3 on demand ... yeah, that's right. For 3 hours I was able to escape and enter a world of pure stupidity ... and I quote Optimis Prime, "You may lose faith in us, but never lose faith in yourselves!" .... epic

This is pretty much the only football I saw in Oregon this week

But watching Auburn lose was pretty much the greatest thing I've seen all year ... Let's just say everyone here in Oregon is more than pleased that Auburn lost ... and they refer to the former Auburn QB as Scam Newton as well.  Gotta love it when hatred brings complete strangers together.   

Never thought I'd see this on CNN

A good watch from earlier this week.  James is an entertaining personality and despite the fact that he's not a huge fan of Obama, I'm still surprised by the article ... PANIC ... maybe Obama will hire Morrisey as a political advisor.

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