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In the magical place I work, we have no dress code. Well, mesh shirts and cock rings are frowned upon, but outside of that, they trust us to make sound wardrobe decisions. Jeans or shorts, and t-shirts are the garments of choice for me. What's my point? Well, I have this Chicago Bears t-shirt (pictured) that I occasionally wear to work. But it's a strange phenomenon. Everytime. I mean EVERYTIME I wear this shirt, at least one person looks at it and feels the need to say, out loud, "DAAAA BEARZ!" That's one person, minimum. Usually at least three. It's cute. In the same way rhinoceros attacks are cute. I get it, it was a funny skit. Let's move on. Every time I walk by the chubby girl who blew half of my company's finance department, I don't blurt out "FAAAT WHORE!" do I? No. I giggle quietly to myself and I picture them picking the remnants of a ham sandwich out of their pubes. But I keep it to myself.

Anyway, Bears are 1-1. I can't tell you how annoyed I was that we lost to the fucking Chargers, yet the Patriots defeated them soundly. Rex needs to learn how to handle that blitz, although his checking down seems to have improved. Big test this Sunday against the Cowboys. Their soft secondary should prove quite essential in the Bears plans of scoring touchdowns via the pass via Rex's arm via Bernard Berrian's hands. So if Rex can't produce, I will start to worry. I'm also glad the game is on NBC. One, because I think they do a relatively good job of covering the game. But also, because I don't live anywhere remotely near Chicago, nor do I have Direct TV (yet). So if I want to watch Bears games, I'm at the mercy of the networks, which sucks the fattest one you can imagine. Although ... if any Bears fan out there knows where I can watch a live stream of the game online and would like to fire me an email, that would be wonderful. Purely in theory though.

What has made my sweatpants bulge ferociously of late is that sweet, cuddly little Bears defense. In fact, for fun, let's recap the "running backs rendered useless" list.

LaDanian Tomlinson ... check.
Larry Johnson ... check.
Marion Barber III ... should be fun.

Granted LT is LT and still scored two TD's, but you know, whatever. Of course, the loss of Mike Brown makes me want to weep into my Gary Fencik replica jersey. But, sadly, this is nothing new. So, Danieal Manning, it's your time to shine sir. Alright, should be a good game on Sunday. Add as much clarity to the "who is the best team in the NFC" question as any Week 3 game could do. Bears are not good offensively. Yet. It will get better. Soon. My prediction ... Bears 31, Cowboys 10. That's right. 31-10. Hopefully.

Labels: Bears

Being the seventh son of itinerant peach pickers, it's needless to say that finances were constantly tight when I was a kid. It was used books, canned generic string beans (albeit French cut), Go-Bots, Hunt's ketchup and Mello Yello (how I longed for the sugary goodness of Mountain Dew). Along with these domestic bootstrapping efforts, came many more PawSox games than Red Sox games. And, I admit, over the years I came to love that decrepit old stadium in that dying mill town. Chock full of it's amateur oil portraits of old stars, endless supply of souvenir cups commemorating baseball's longest game and it's cigarette man billboard that was constantly in disrepair. I still have occasional, fond nightmares of that armless behemoth razing my childhood Little League field.

Anyway, there was a silver lining to my frugal childhood, as back in the day triple-A was actually a stepping stone in the progression to the majors rather than a place to stash old veterans, Americans returning from the Japanese leagues or those Bull Durham idols just not able to make that final leap. I remember feverishly praying that Rick Lancelotti would one day get his shot at Boston glory and cursing Lou Gorman to damnation each year that the Sox sent him down in spring training. Still, I was able to see a lot of young players learning how to adjust their cups, dribble chaw on their uniforms, glare at umps, ignore kids looking for autographs and generally grow into being a big league player.

Of course more often than not, the Sox would rather trade them for Larry Anderson, Mike Boddicker or Jeff Suppan than actually use these budding gems, so it just warms my cockles to see the Pawtucket pipeline gushing talent this year. Pedroia (sometimes it's easy to forget he's a rookie), Buchholz, Ellsbury, Moss, Cash. Okay, Cash might be a wee stretch and I might be jumping the gun on Moss. And Gammons would disagree, but Dice-K and Okijima are rookies, too, even if they never tasted the fine culinary establishments in Pawtucket.

Obviously, everyone was giddy over Buchholz's no-no, but his previous start against the Angels was almost as impressive, given the Orioles tendency to fold more easily than the Michigan defense (along with Greg's eclectic rooting tastes for the Bears, Yanks, and Celtics, there is also Michigan).

It would be nigh silly to consider keep Manny on the bench in favor of Ellsbury, just think of all the great pitches Papi would see, but I don't think you'd get many complaints about letting him steal at-bats from Drew as long as he keeps raking (Drew has to be hurt right? Cora has a better slugging percentage. Cora!)

Pedroia has more than delivered. It could not have been easy stepping in and starting at second base, especially after his April and May, but he has consistently shown himself to be a real pest and the guardian of Trot's dirt dog image.

Dice-K and Okijima have both earned their keep and I think Dice-K will continue to improve, but it can be brutal to watch him pitch. Glorious one inning, flat, batting practice pitches the next. Still, he's young and that consistent command could develop. At the worst he's a front end starter and it's hard to imagine the Sox with this type of lead without either of these imports.

For such a baseball rich town, it's not often that we get to see rookies come up and truly contribute (exhibit - Ramirez, Hanley). We hear about them and discuss them endlessly for years, but rarely see the end results in a Boston uniform. Every few years, we might see a rookie burst fully formed onto the scene, such as Nomar or Papelbon, but it's been a long time since the Sox have had a rookie class that truly added some value. Looking back at ye olde baseballreference.com, I think '87's group of: Burks (oh how I loved him -- I always thought there was a rule that the Red Sox couldn't steal bases before Burks), Jody Reed, Todd Benzinger, Sam Horn and Mike Greenwell are the next closest thing.

So while I wonder if Ellsbury has to shave once or twice a week, it's nice just see the Sox future on display in Boston, actually playing for our team. The only thing sweeter would have been getting the chance to catch a few games at McCoy first.

Labels: baseball, mike d, MLB, Red Sox

Noticed these for sale on Amazon the other night. I imagine they're quite popular with both University of Illinois sororities AND Chicago-area trannies. Either way, they're the panties that say, "SURPRISE!!!"