Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Stankeyeus Randomus
Here's a quick recap of some stuff, mostly unrelated to baseball, that went on over the weekend.
-Family Guy made it's triumphant return to network TV after a four-year hibernation. The episode, a delightfully sacreligious farce in which Peter and Lois stumble upon a secret copy of The Passion of the Christ 2: Crucify This , wasn't as brilliant as some of the early shows, but it was just so soothing to see Peter, Brian and co. back on the air again. The line "Let he who is without sin kick the first ass" might be my favorite quote in TV history.
-Here's a fun little story featuring a piece of scum who should be hanged in a public square. No, really. If you don't know who Ahmad Chalabi is, you damn well should, and you can read up on this charlatan here and here. I try to stay away from the political soapbox here on Stankeye, but there are just certain people and things that I can't resist going off on. Chalabi duped a bunch of naive neoconservatives into initiating this goofy war in Iraq and now he's making with the anti-American sentiment because it suddenly fits his agenda. He fancies himself an ally, but no reasonable person can say that Chalabi is anything but an enemy of this country.
-Former pitcher Tom House (better known as the guy who caught Hank Aaron's 715th home run ball in Atlanta) admitted today that he and a bunch of teammates used steroids...in the late 1960's and early '70's. As John Perricone has been hammering to death on OBM, use of performance enhancers is nothing new in baseball or any sport. Only when a media-despised figure such as Bonds starts setting records do we get the pulpit-bashing from sportswriters.
-Oh yeah, and the boys in black and orange have won six straight, thanks to a sweep of the hapless pirates and a thrilling win over Arizona last night. The team's pitching is looking absolutely gawdawful, but the offense has been picking them up.
Jason Schmidt's velocity is down, so let's hold our breath and pray it isn't due to some undisclosed injury, just early season kinks. His inability to hold a 7-2 lead is less than encouraging, though Felipe shouldn't have let him start the seventh, as Schmidt was clearly gassed. The bullpen did its usual crappy thing, with Tyler Walker giving the Giants community heart palpitations with his brink of disaster performance in the 10th before miraculously getting Shawn Green to fly out with the bases loaded, on a 3-2 count no less.
Lest I forget, Mike Matheny continues to prove me and just about every other cynical Giants fan wrong by not embarrassing himself at the plate early on. He has three home runs already, including last night's grand slam off of Russ Ortiz, and his .800 OPS looks rather shiny. Of course, this is a man with a .633 career OPS, so let's not mess ourselves just yet, but Matheny's early-season swinging is putting a lid on my mouth for now.
It's Rueter v. Halsey in Round 2 tonight. Woody pitched pretty well in his last start, and he's been decent (4.30 ERA) at the BOB over his career, but at this point I'm just not confident in predicting anything better than a 5-inning-and-out start for Rueter. The Giant offense should be able to chew up on Brad Halsey, though, so look for another 8-7-ish ballgame tonight.
-Family Guy made it's triumphant return to network TV after a four-year hibernation. The episode, a delightfully sacreligious farce in which Peter and Lois stumble upon a secret copy of The Passion of the Christ 2: Crucify This , wasn't as brilliant as some of the early shows, but it was just so soothing to see Peter, Brian and co. back on the air again. The line "Let he who is without sin kick the first ass" might be my favorite quote in TV history.
-Here's a fun little story featuring a piece of scum who should be hanged in a public square. No, really. If you don't know who Ahmad Chalabi is, you damn well should, and you can read up on this charlatan here and here. I try to stay away from the political soapbox here on Stankeye, but there are just certain people and things that I can't resist going off on. Chalabi duped a bunch of naive neoconservatives into initiating this goofy war in Iraq and now he's making with the anti-American sentiment because it suddenly fits his agenda. He fancies himself an ally, but no reasonable person can say that Chalabi is anything but an enemy of this country.
-Former pitcher Tom House (better known as the guy who caught Hank Aaron's 715th home run ball in Atlanta) admitted today that he and a bunch of teammates used steroids...in the late 1960's and early '70's. As John Perricone has been hammering to death on OBM, use of performance enhancers is nothing new in baseball or any sport. Only when a media-despised figure such as Bonds starts setting records do we get the pulpit-bashing from sportswriters.
-Oh yeah, and the boys in black and orange have won six straight, thanks to a sweep of the hapless pirates and a thrilling win over Arizona last night. The team's pitching is looking absolutely gawdawful, but the offense has been picking them up.
Jason Schmidt's velocity is down, so let's hold our breath and pray it isn't due to some undisclosed injury, just early season kinks. His inability to hold a 7-2 lead is less than encouraging, though Felipe shouldn't have let him start the seventh, as Schmidt was clearly gassed. The bullpen did its usual crappy thing, with Tyler Walker giving the Giants community heart palpitations with his brink of disaster performance in the 10th before miraculously getting Shawn Green to fly out with the bases loaded, on a 3-2 count no less.
Lest I forget, Mike Matheny continues to prove me and just about every other cynical Giants fan wrong by not embarrassing himself at the plate early on. He has three home runs already, including last night's grand slam off of Russ Ortiz, and his .800 OPS looks rather shiny. Of course, this is a man with a .633 career OPS, so let's not mess ourselves just yet, but Matheny's early-season swinging is putting a lid on my mouth for now.
It's Rueter v. Halsey in Round 2 tonight. Woody pitched pretty well in his last start, and he's been decent (4.30 ERA) at the BOB over his career, but at this point I'm just not confident in predicting anything better than a 5-inning-and-out start for Rueter. The Giant offense should be able to chew up on Brad Halsey, though, so look for another 8-7-ish ballgame tonight.
