Archive for June, 2007

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Odds and Sods

Thursday, June 7th, 2007

(If every CSI show can pimp a song from The Who, I should be able to borrow an album title without getting crucified.)

Let’s play catch-up.

So what happened last Friday on my wife-and-child-free weekend? Four bars on Friday adding up to eleven hours of fun for me but an extremely boring post for Canon Fodder. Most of my entries read as follows:

“11:05 – First beer.”

“1:00 – Bleu cheese nachos.”

“1:17 – Fifth beer.”

“5:29 – ??? beer.”

Riveting stuff. I could probably extrapolate a slew of stories from my notes and produce a Homeric tale of epic proportions, but reader feedback has shown shorter posts are more preferable. Ask and you shall receive, or in this case, not receive as I’ll attempt to be more succinct.

A quick synopsis of Friday, Saturday and Sunday: I drank a lot, staggered into and out of half-a-dozen bars, attended a luau-themed wedding reception and didn’t get a lick of writing done. Most of my sports watching consisted of mere glimpses up at whatever game was playing. (Way too much women’s softball and arm wrestling for my liking, but either was preferable to poker.) The wife and kid arrived home safe-and-sound on Sunday night (but not before another delay on the tarmac and an additional extra hour trapped on a plane with a pair of toddlers for no apparent reason). As I said, riveting stuff.

But a ton of stuff did happen in the world of sports last week that I didn’t take the opportunity to touch on. Here we go…

Carlos Zambrano and Michael Barrett of the Chicago Cubs got into a dugout scuffle that carried into the locker room and resulted in multiple stitches for Barrett.
It brings a whole new meaning to the term “battery mates”.

Sticking with the Cubs, Lou Pinella was ejected on Saturday and later suspended for an argument with an umpire.
It’s only June and the Cubs are coming apart at the seams. Does anyone believe this guy could handle the pressure of managing the Yankees as he was so commonly thought to be heir apparent?

A little more baseball: Roger Clemens’ first start for the Yankees was bumped back until the weekend when New York travels to Pittsburgh due to a “groin” strain.
Are you telling me the Pinstripes weren’t eager to have Clemens work his first game kinks out versus an American League lineup? Expect another mysterious ailment to befall the future Hall of Fame pitcher if his turn in the rotation comes up on a roadtrip to Boston. I’m no conspiracy nut, but I think the rumors of Clemens’ cowardice have some merit and I believe the Yankees realize their savior is mortal. What are the chances Cashman signed Clemens to distract the media and fans from the Yankees last place position in the standings and buy the team a bit more time to turn things around?

LeBron “King” James led the Cleveland Cavaliers through Detroit and into the NBA Finals.
Now we’ll be inundated with LeBron versus Duncan stories because of their conflicting styles. My prediction? The Spurs and their “boring” (unless you actually enjoy watching teamwork and an unselfish superstar making everyone around him better) style over the Cavs in six. LeBron will win one game alone on talent, and another because of some hometown officiating but there’s nothing to make me believe they can overcome a polished team like the Spurs. One more title will cement Tim Duncan’s NBA legacy and the torch can be passed to LeBron next year.

Tank Johnson of the Chicago Bears has handed an eight-game suspension for violating the NFL’s new conduct policy.
Let’s hope he doesn’t spend all this newfound time on his hands hanging out with Pacman Jones. On the bright side, Michael Vick’s probably going to get a lot more than just eight games at home so he can keep Pacman company when Tank goes back to work. (Moral of the story: play with guns and thugs but don’t mess with PETA.)

The Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup over the Ottawa Senators in five games.
(I’ll attempt to write this without sounding bitter as Ducks happen to be the team that knocked my beloved Red Wings out of the playoffs.) Hockey of the lowest common denominator. That’s the only way I can describe the way the Ducks play. Grind, hold, grind, hold, cheap shot, grind and hold some more. I’m willing to believe goalie J.S. Giguere is a wonderful guy and loves puppies and helps old ladies across the street, but in hockey terms, this guy is overrated. Way overrated. I don’t even believe he’s the best goalie on his own team. Now I’ll have to endure the rest of his career hearing how he’s a Stanley Cup winner. And I don’t even want to talk about Chris “Elbows-Up” Pronger getting his name engraved on the most precious trophy in all sports. The only aspect of this whole debacle I’m happy about is Disney’s influence (the former “Mighty” in the team nickname) will be left off the cup. (Okay, I’m done being bitter.)

The MLB draft is being shown live on ESPN this year.
Though I’m happy to see the coverage, how long will it be before folks realize this isn’t the NFL or NBA draft where players can immediately impact their teams? At best, a small percentage of these players being drafted will have so much as a cup of coffee in the big league. Sorry boys and girls but you’ll forget about these first round picks long before they ever lace-up the cleats for your favorite team. That’s just the way baseball works.

New Zealand is headed to the America’s Cup.
Though yachting is technically a sport (I think, maybe), there’s no way I’m going to cover it no matter how much of it my wife forces me to watch. It’s just a bunch of rich guys on boats. I can see the same thing in a rap video with the additional benefit of some booty-shakin’ thrown in. In other words, it’s a bunch of people I’ll never associate with doing something I would never care to do. (Sadly, I wonder if it’s getting better ratings than the NHL on Versus.)

I’ll cut it off here lest I offend my readers with short attention spans. Pop in tomorrow when I should have another new post. If you like what you’ve seen, keep stopping by and pass the word about Canon Fodder on to friends. Have a question or comment or even a biting criticism? Send them my way at jeff@canon-fodder.com.

Posted in Canon Fodder, Jeffrey Petts, MLB, NBA Finals, NFL, Stanley Cup | No Comments »

Into the Heart of Darkness

Tuesday, June 5th, 2007

I had the wife and kid to the airport at 7:10 pm. Five minutes to unload and exchange a few kisses and then…

…FREEDOM!!!

(To put this into perspective, it wasn’t quite the Mel Gibson as William Wallace being gutted like a trout cry of “FREEDOM!!!” as much as Aretha Franklin’s “FREEDOM!!!” refrain during “Think” in The Blue Brothers.)

Oh, what the heck. Let’s roll the tape. Musical interludes are fun.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=QVImeWXWck0[/youtube]

(Don’t you feel better now? Admit it, you do. Everybody loves The Blues Brothers.)

So I’m just pulling onto the expressway when the bat phone rings. A coworker spotted yesterday’s bat signal and answered the call. He would be waiting at an old haunt of mine from back in my most epic of drinking days. I was going to begin my weekend with a step into the past. The Salty Dog was beckoning.

The Salty Dog. The building is shaped like a big boat. Kind of like Noah’s Ark. The beer is cheap; four types of draft beer and no other options available. The barmaids are scantily-clad and will do shots if you’re buying. It’s small. Twenty patrons and you’re facing standing room only. It’s dark. Very dark. Remember the scene in This is Spinal Tap when Nigel Tufnel is explaining how the band’s amplifiers go up to eleven? No? Here’s the clip:

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=AhVWJgIzftE[/youtube]

Well if the Salty Dog has lights on dimmer switches, they go down to -1. “But why not make zero absolute black?”

“Because our lights go darker.” That’s the Salty Dog in a nutshell. To be fair, the darkness probably is a benefit because the place is a pit. The barmaids will never be confused with those found at Hooters. Utter darkness and alcohol bring these beer matrons up to average at best. If the girls start looking good, it’s time to stop drinking and call for a ride because you’re in no shape to be doing anything let along operate a motor vehicle. At that point you’ve gone beyond beer goggles and slid all the way to being pronounced legally blind.

Needless to say, the Dog isn’t somewhere you aspire to go; it’s the place you end up. Back in the day I ended up there a lot. Were it not for nostalgic purposes (and being a glutton for punishment), I wouldn’t have been there Thursday. With a $1.50 beer in hand and two Detroit teams facing Cleveland teams (Cavaliers versus Pistons in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals and the Tigers visiting the Indians in a battle for the top spot in the AL Central) I settled in for an evening of drinking and sports watching.

Gary Sheffield was tossed for throwing the knob of his broken bat in the direction of the umpire. It took three teammates to keep a very-agitated Sheff from getting at the official. Considering their bench was already thin because of injuries to Brandon Inge and Carlos Guillen, this doesn’t bode well for the Tigers.

Fifteen minutes later Antonio McDyess was dismissed to the showers for a flagrant foul on Cavalier forward Anderson Varejao. The biggest difference between the two instances is how Sheffield was ejected instantly (for seemingly nothing) while NBA officials debated tossing McDyess for almost two minutes before showing him to the door for what was a blatant violation. It was only the first quarter and the Pistons were down their best bench player. If Cavs pulled out a close road victory, this foul would loom large.

(And, of course, it did. King James led the Cavs to victory in overtime crushing the Pistons’ will so much they offered only meager resistance in Game 6 and lost the series. On the bright side, the Tigers split their four-game series by taking both games on Saturday and Sunday so the weekend wasn’t a total debacle for Detroiters.)

In the midst of my beer and sports orgy, I kept receiving calls from the wife. They were still sitting on the tarmac. My wife, her pregnant friend, a two year old and my eighteen month old daughter ended up sitting locked in a plane on a runway for three-and-a-half hours for a flight that normally takes less than two hours. I felt bad for not being there with them. Then the Tigers came up to bat and another beer was delivered so I forgot my family’s woes until the next phone call.

The bat signal also led to a few other phone calls serving to set Friday’s agenda. Beers at a local brewery at 11 am. Dinner with a hockey teammate. An invitation back to the Salty Dog for beers in-between. Friday was shaping up nicely if I decided to skip out of work.

This continued until around 11 pm. I opted to pull the pin on the evening so as to make a half-hearted attempt at going to work on Friday. Destination: home.

My brother works the afternoon shift and knew the wife was headed to New York so come midnight, he was on my doorstep. The Pistons loss was complete. The wife finally took off. My brother and I discussed our up-coming fantasy football league for the next three hours complete with a visit NFL.com for statistics and the creation of four Excel spreadsheets. It was the first week of June and we’re already getting prepared for fantasy football. (It’s because of moments like this one I’m glad to be married because if I were single, stuff like fantasy sports would absolutely own me.)

2:30 am – The wife and kid touched down at LaGuardia more than seven hours after I dropped them off at the airport. Thank you, Northwest Airlines.

3:00 am – My brother headed for his home though there was another phone call to discuss how our dedication to our fantasy league is bordering on a sickness.

3:30 am – My wife and daughter were safe in their hotel room in Manhattan. I was due at work in four hours and in another bar in less than eight. Day One was in the books and Day Two was looking promising.

Does Canon Fodder tickle your fancy? Keep checking in and passing it on to friends and family. Have a question or observation? E-mail me at jeff@canon-fodder.com.

Check back tomorrow and I’ll attempt to wrap the whole weekend that was.

Posted in Canon Fodder, Drinking, Jeffrey Petts, MLB, NBA | No Comments »

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