The door has pretty much closed on this Yankee offseason and it looks like we're about to go an entire year without a major league free-agent signing. Cashman hasn't exactly been standing around with his dick in his hand but these last two winters have certainly left something to be desired. I'm not saying the Yankees need to go out and sign Justin Upton just to sign Justin Upton but if they can get a decent return on Brett Gardner, whether it's in the form of young minor league starting pitchers or major league infield depth, I think they need to pull the trigger.
Justin Upton is not a great player by any stretch. He strikes out a ton and he's limited defensively but he hits fucking BOMBS. Plus he swings from the right side, is extremely durable, is four years younger than Gardner and is going to cost WAY less than everyone projected he would two months ago.
I've never been the biggest Upton fan so this is probably more about me wanting to get rid of Gardner than anything else. I love Brett but there's a carbon copy of him playing in centerfield. We need to balance this lineup. Sure Upton's game encompasses many of the flaws of the 2015 lineup. He's a guy who's probably going to be challenged by good pitching but so was Gardner for the last 3 months of the season. I won't be doing backflips if Cashman pulls this off but it would be a nice, sexy transaction that would take everyone by surprise and remind us all why being a Yankee fan is so great (most of the time).
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Transcripts of over a month of text messages between drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo showed the capo was less interested in making a movie about his life than he was in flirting with the actress.
The transcripts published Wednesday by the newspaper Milenio — and confirmed as authentic by a federal official — showed that Guzman's main concern was getting face-to-face get-togethers with Del Castillo, and that he didn't even really know who Sean Penn was.
Penn has acknowledged that he tagged along for the Oct. 2 meeting at a mountain hideout originally set up by Del Castillo.
"What's that actor's name?" the account identified as Guzman's writes in one message. He later asks his lawyers to tell him what movies Penn has appeared in. Even when Guzman dedicated a video statement as an "exclusive for" Del Castillo and Penn, the drug lord stumbles over Penn's first name, pronouncing it "SAY-ahn."
The federal official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he or she was not authorized to be quoted by name, said the dozens of texts were authentic. Many expressed admiration and a longing for the next meeting, more than concern about the purported movie project.
"I'll tell you, I am more excited about you than the (movie) script," Guzman wrote to Del Castillo. He identified her identified in his chat or text account as "ermoza," a misspelling of the Spanish word for "beautiful." ''I'll take care of you," he adds.
How relatable is this guy? El Chapo is you. He is me. He is every guy who's ever seen his life progress stagnate because he can't shake a chick. It doesn't matter if your the most powerful criminal on the planet or the average Joe secretly wearing the same two pairs of chinos to work every other day, hot girls get you off your game. Kate comes into his life and suddenly Chapo doesn't see a drug kingpin with zillions of dollars when he looks in the mirror anymore.
Now he just sees Joaquin, the flabby middle-aged guy who's sex drive isn't quite what it used to be.
This is pretty good news for Sean Penn cause now he's off the hook. The greatest trick the media ever pulled was convincing us that the allure of a pristine actor like Sean Penn drew El Chapo out of the bushes and into the hands of law enforcement. He got caught because he was chasing Del Castillo and he didn't care. Said he knew that cops were on their tail and just kept after it. Rules apply for every guy. If there's a .01% chance of getting laid you're obliged to risk anything and everything to make it happen, global warrants notwithstanding. He didn't even know who Sean Penn was. Chapo probably thought he was the fucking camera man and dismissed him like Shooter McGavin.
Sean: "Hey Chapo, it's great to meet you. I've got some wonderful ideas for where we should...
Chapo: "Hey, you know what would be great? If I could get a Pepsi....
YAHOO - After bursting onto the major-league
broadcasting scene in 2015, Jessica Mendoza is about to become a fixture on
ESPN's flagship baseball broadcast.
ESPN is making some significant changes
to its announcing teams for the 2016 season and the biggest news is
that Mendoza is joining Sunday Night Baseball on a permanent
basis. Aaron Boone is also a new addition to the Sunday Night team, while
Dan Shulman remains as the play-by-play voice.
Mendoza, a longtime softball star
for the U.S. national team, had worked the Women's College World
Series (a role she'll
continue to fill, at her request) and received a few other
assignments on the network before getting the opportunity to be the first woman
to sit in as an analyst for a major-league game broadcast on ESPN last
August. She then stepped in
for Curt Schilling on Sunday Night Baseball for the final month
of the 2015 season when he was suspended. She was also on the call for the AL
wild-card game.
The rest of ESPN's reshuffle goes as
follows: Schilling takes Boone's spot on the Monday Night broadcast and former
Sunday Night running mate John Kruk returns to Baseball Tonight.
John Wildhack, ESPN's executive vice
president for programming and production, said of Mendoza in a statement:
"Jessica made history in 2015, and most importantly, showed she
belonged in a prominent role on ESPN’s MLB coverage. Her stellar analysis and
undisputed credibility, combined with the instant chemistry she formed with
booth-mates, made it clear she has earned this spot on Sunday Night
Baseball going forward."
Mendoza impressed us with her knowledge
and passion for baseball during her handful of appearances in the booth last
season and it only stands to reason that she'll get more comfortable as she
calls more games. She's still going to have to deal
with unwarranted negativity because she's a woman – just take a
look at Twitter or remember the Atlanta radio host who ranted
against her in the postseason.
But she's already proven she can handle
that.
I don't think this is a big deal but I'm sure there are plenty of assholes who do so I just want to say this - if you can't handle the Sunday Night Baseball package because a chick is in the booth then you're a fucking moron and you're probably not even that into baseball to begin with.
The Sunday Night broadcast team STINKS. Curt Schilling mumbles and babbles the whole time. John Kruk look like he doesn't even want to be there. Half the time I'm pretty sure he cuts out after the 7th inning and nobody even notices. She's not a former player (no matter what ESPN tries to tell you) so her insight is limited but that doesn't mean she's going to ruin the broadcast. She clearly eats and sleeps baseball and despite what you bozos at home think, she knows more than you do. Also the bar is set really low throughout baseball for broadcast teams. Pretty much every booth stinks outside of SNY. Just don't be annoying and I'm onboard. If I can watch the game without being distracted by how awful you are then you're doing your job in my book.
I have hardly any experience working in the media so you should take my opinion with a grain of salt but if I had one piece of advice to offer females breaking into the sports broadcasting world it's to just have a sense of humor. Girls make guys nervous and for guys sports is about relaxing, being entertained and participating in vaguely sexist commentary. I listen to the Around the NFL podcast every week and they have chicks on all the time talking about football and it works because they're knowledgable and they aren't afraid to laugh at themselves. If she can do that it should be a good booth to listen to.
The real story here is Aaron Boone making his way to the booth on a permanent basis. I don't even know if he's any good or not. I'm so drunk in nostalgia every time I see his face or hear him talk my mind turns into mush.
PS - This is Aaron Boone imitating Joe Torre's walk. Sneaky one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
Alan Rickman, the British film and theater actor, has died in London at the age of 69, according to U.K. media reports Thursday.
His death was confirmed by his family, the Guardian paper said. Rickman had been suffering from cancer.
Rickman is known for a number of roles, including that of Professor Snape in the Harry Potter films. He also starred as Hans Gruber, the villain in the Bruce Willis vehicle “Die Hard,” and as the Sheriff of Nottingham in 1991’s “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.”
What sad news to wake up to. Celebrity deaths don't often hit me hard very but this one absolutely does. Hans is probably my favorite movie character of all time and make no mistake, this is Hans Gruber we're talking about. We aren't mourning fucking Severus Snape. I don't even know who that is. I watched like two of those movies and couldn't pay attention because I couldn't wrap my brain around why Hans was in a dirty robe and not a John Phillps suit. If you're throwing up RIP SNAPE posts today that's pretty much all I need to know about you as a person. GTFO. Hans Gruber should be unanimously inducted into the movie villain hall of fame and Snape shouldn't even be on the fucking ballot.
So it looks like ARod has decided to try and follow the same path as many legends before him by putting out his own line of sports apparel. The only problem is I don't think anybody has any idea what this logo is. I'd gather it's supposed to be the followthrough on his swing but it also may be him fly-fishing. I'd say it gets an F but that doesn't mean I'm not all in on it. If he's wearing ARod Corp regalia this season then so am I. You can find me at the basketball courts this summer. I'll be in the tank-top with a picture of a guy swinging a lasso.
Those two pictures of his daughters are laugh out loud funny. The way he exploits them on social media to project this image of a hardworking single dad is unrelenting. They're in every fucking picture with him. A-Rod's the type of guy that brings his daughters to an adult dinner party. That should be the logo. A silhouette of the sisters Rodriguez. It's all so thinly veiled, so phony, and yet he's more likeable now than he's ever been. Literally makes no sense.
CNN - As millions of refugees flee the bloody chaos in Iraq and Syria, English builder Andrew Drury is preparing to make the opposite journey -- for a vacation. Drury, 50, has a route traced out across the Kurdish-held territories, which runs close to the frontline with ISIS. "It's a difficult question -- how much risk to take?" he ponders. "You can go right up with the Kurdish troops fighting beyond Mosul. I want to see the Yazidis again... to see if the tribe I met are still alive."
The Englishman has fond memories of Yazidi hospitality from a previous stay, during a previous war. It was one of his favorite trips.
For more than 20 years, Drury has led a double life. He's a husband, father and the owner of a successful construction company in rural Surrey, a short drive from London. But his passion lies in visiting the world's most dangerous destinations, and his appetite is insatiable. The flame was lit on a safari trip to Uganda, which took a strange turn when Drury accidentally crossed a border into war-ravaged Democratic Republic of Congo, and was forced to flee a machete-wielding farmer. Since then, the builder's travels have taken in downtown Mogadishu and the insurgent heartlands of Afghanistan. He says he's dodged Russian soldiers in the bombed out ruins of Chechnya, infiltrated a Ku Klux Klan militia, played golf in Pyongyang and stayed with a former headhunting tribe in Myanmar.
"It's risk and reward," Drury explains. "The reward is that you see more, and you learn more. We're not born to do nine to five jobs. You have to explore a little bit and try to understand the world you're living in." There's an element of thrill seeking, Drury admits, but his attitude has changed over time. At first he would travel with a cousin and the two would dare each other to take risks. But in recent years he has traveled alone, and become closer to local communities.
He's now the sponsor of a basketball team in his favorite city, Mogadishu, and returns to watch it play. Drury enjoys getting behind the headlines and takes every opportunity to set the record straight, as he sees it. "People in England think Somalians are all gang members and drug dealers... not the people I know," he says. "They are loving people who do their best and put their life on the line for you."
It's moments like this that I think about how sick I am. Because I know this guy is going to get murdered. It's a matter of when, not if. And when it happens I won't bat an eye. He'll get captured somewhere on the Syrian border trying to start up a roller hockey team of displaced refugees and he'll get killed on live tv. And I'll just sit there like "of course that happened." I won't feel bad. I'll have no empathy because I can't identify with a guy who takes vacations in the war-ravaged areas of the Congo. Find me a guy who gets killed sitting on his couch watching MLB network because a truck drove into his living room. I'll go to that guys funeral and eulogize him. But I can't care about everyone who get's murdered by a machete-wielding legume farmer because they chose to leave America. You made your bed.
PS - I found this picture fascinating
These three guys are from the last headhunting tribe on Earth (had to google Headhunting and it's exactly what it sounds like). Just consider that there are actually people in the world that live this way. There's someone holding a camera phone in front of these three and they haven't the slightest idea what's going on because everyday of their lives is like fucking Apocalypto. And I'm a little disappointed by these outfits. You'd figure a headhunter would always be in some kind of cool bearskin garment that rides up their ass and barely covers up their dicks but it looks like they just run around cutting people's heads off in old Champion athletic shorts.
Pretty much the least surprising news ever but now it's official - Aroldis is going to close and fucking Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances are going to be pitching the 7th and 8th innings of baseball games. It's getting a little redundant but it can't be overstated how truly outrageous this situation is. The decision for Chapman to close was never in doubt. He's the best relief pitcher in baseball and has been for the last four seasons. American League guys haven't really had the privilege of watching him since he came into the league but all you have to do is watch this guy throw one pitch and you'll fully understand what we're dealing with here.
All indications are that the suspension isn't going to be lengthy. It's still unclear but we shouldn't be looking at anything in the vicinity of 50-60 games. We're talking maybe a couple of weeks off while it's still freezing out and then sixty-plus innings of dousing opposing hitters with premium gasoline. All we've got to do now is figure out entrance music.
