Friday Afternoon Three Dot Lounge

"This is Lee Hamilton, and I AM bleeping brilliant!"

What's a blog without any "dot, dot, dot" posts?

...I think Aaron Rodgers should take over for Brett Favre. With Leather agrees.

...Cla Meredith dressed as Ricky Bobby for Halloween. I think it's more clever marketing to build the East County fan base. Pictures of Jake Peavy getting drunk with co-eds, too. Thanks to Gaslamp Ball

...What do they NOT sell at Target?

...America doesn't get to see enough Cricket. Wonderful game. But as a purist, I am completely against Inter-Zonal play.

...Is there a better voice for San Diego sports than Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton? Was that a rhetorical question? He's back on the air, Sportswatch starts at 3:00 PM on XTRA 1360 AM.

"Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, Rancho Beach, Ridgemont, Chula Mesa, Easter Island, SHOW ME YOUR LIGHTNING BOLT!"

Enjoy the weekend, people.

DUDE, where's my links?

Fantom of the Thunderdome

-Oregon takes on Oregon State this weekend in the traditional Civil War game. One man's cry: Bring back the Platypus Trophy! Sign the petition here.[The Oregonian]

-In light of the Patriots near loss last weekend, ESPN "anal cyst" Emmit Smith thinks he know how to beat them. The secret is a good running game and the ability "masturbate the ball down the feel." It's almost sad that this is funny. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

-Adam Rank is THE Big West hoops blogger, and he recaps UCSB's upset of UNLV on Tuesday. That's right, Ole bitches, let the tortilla tossing and couch burning commence! [AOL FanHouse]

-Sean Taylor memorial t-shirts for sale, all proceeds donated to charity as specified by the Taylor family [Bucktown Tees]

-Both the Royals and Blue Jays will bring powder blue back to the diamond in the form of updated alternate uni's. I'm guessing this will eventually turn into a "Kurk Gems" topic. [Home Run Derby]

Thursday should be the new Friday.

Mommy, does Santa ever Ghost Ride?

"I would like to thank de Elfs for dehr fun-TEST-ic vork. Cully-four-knee-ah haas de best, most experiece Elfes in de world. Go Chah-gah GO!"

Tis the season to be annoyed. Whether you're shopping, travelling, receiving useless gifts or interacting with friends and relatives you have little to no interest in, chances are you will use New Year's to erase the pain of December via binge drinking and possibly casual sex with a stranger.

But the season is all about GIVING, right? So in this spirit of slightly disingenuous charitability, PHN present Part I of your Hot Stove Shopping Guide, 2007. Yes, we know these guys already do the whole "mogul" thing and can buy whatever the hell they want, but if we the fans give to them, they'll give back to us. Right?

George Steinbrenner, aka "The King of Del Boca Vista"

Owns: New York A-Rods

Closely Resembles: That rich uncle who drives an expensive douchbag sports car at the age of 50 and is on his 3rd hot wife. Yet every Christmas you get a card from Save-On with a $25 gift certificate to the Coffee Bean. And you TOLD him Starbucks was right next to your work. He is Scrooge meets Pacman Jones.

Asking Santa for: World Series rings. Not cause he cares about baseball, they just make him look like a bad-ass around the DBV community. Eat it Morty!

What to get: Anything you already have of value that is in it's orginal packaging. Take it to Barnes and Nobles and make the vounteer PTA mom wrap it for free. Fuck this guy.

Ted Turner aka "The ATL-ien"

Owns: Atlanta Braves, Hannah-Barbara cartoons, all forms of matter and energy.

Closely Resembles: The guy in your family that never actually shows up for the holidays because he's busy climbing the Himalyas or saving Darfur. Makes you fell like shit because he's more active at 65 then you've ever been. Your whole family likes him because his main gift is cash.

Asking Santa for: Knowledge of the vast outer reaches of the universe and new life forms. These could be untapped markets for World Championship Wrestling and re-runs of The Nanny.

What to give: CD-ROM with a Powerpoint containing that bad idea for a TV show you've been grinding on for, like, five years. Lesbian Crackhead Zookeepers? Sounds like a hit, get that blond chick from Three's Company on the phone! No, the one AFTER Suzanne Somers!

John Moores, aka Newman from Seinfeld

Owns: San Diego Padres, shady computer companies, hotels/developments that attract douchebags and Texans, Dave Winfield.

Closely Resembles: Guy in the family that EVERYONE knows is next in line for a nervous breakdown. Also sends out the "I own a TON of porn" vibe. Spends more time on his model trains and ship in a bottle building than his baseball team.

Asking Santa for: Love, compassion, a profitable quarter. Supremacy over Frank "Kramer" McCourt in "Risk: A game of world domination played by two men who can barely run their own baseball teams." Carlsbad is NOT weak!

What to give: Collectible shit that weirdos use to replace the need for human interaction. A Time magazine from 1937 or Craig Biggio game-used toenail clipper would do nicely.

Nintendo, aka "Giant Home-Run Happy Fun Ninja Show!"

Owns: Seattle Mariners, patent on technology that uses Italian plumbers to convert bricks into currency.

Closely Resembles: The ONE company in the world that possibly has your dream job of getting paid six figures to play video games and eat pork rinds.

Asking Santa for: Americans to acquire a taste for fried octopus dough-balls. More Thundersticks, too.

What to give: Offer your humility and most sincere gratitude, and like a quiet stream your reward shall be returned tenfold.

Arte Moreno, aka Montoyo Santana

Owns: Los Angeles/Chatsworth/Murietta Angels of Anaheim/Fullerton/Irvine, several third world countries.

Closely Resembles: Every character that James Edward Olmos has ever played. He's a silent bad-ass with tons of cash, and nobody in the family asks where he got it from. Uses "Real Estate" as a blanket term for his various clandestine pelt smuggling and arms manufacturing operations. It's part of a business model designed to keep beer prices low. Refuses to trade highly touted prospects because, "Once you're in, you're in for life." Will go Little Puppet on you in a second.

Asking Santa For: The Angels to be considered a multi-national corporate entity based out of an island in the Caymans. Another Tecate.

What to give: Your undying loyalty. You don't get a choice, by the way.

Happy Holidays from PHN to you. Yes you, personally.

RIP Sean Taylor

Crappy day to come out of a blogging slumber. Redskins safety Sean Taylor has just passed away, two days after taking a bullet in the leg from a burglar at his South Florida home. Just a really gruesome situation, compounded by the fact that he leaves a wife and son behind.

As if Darrent Williams' murder and Kevin Everett's near-death hit during a game wasn't enough sobering news from the NFL this season, to see one of it's best young players go out like this is absolutely terrible. If there's any lesson, it's that you never know when it's going to be you, so live life to the fullest and all that good stuff.

Friends and family place flowers on the doorstep of the Taylor home in Palmetto Bay, Florida.

Sean Taylor, Pro-Bowl safety, dead at 24.

Happy Thanksgiving!

With all the giving of thanks, pre-holiday planning and post-turkey naps, we haven't found a lot of time to write about the sports world lately. The fun-loving Puritans who started Thanksgiving intended it as a day of repenting, so all of us Pink Hatters beg your forgiveness and promise to do better in the coming weeks.

The Asterisk Era

After all the speculation, the booing and the best selling books, a grand jury apparently found hard evidence that Barry Bonds did steroids and since he said he didn’t in a courtroom, he’s been indicted for perjury. A guilty verdict could land him in jail for up to 30 years.

The B man will probably never see the inside of a gray bar hotel, and honestly I don’t think he should. I am a baseball purist; if I didn’t root for an American League team and worship at the altar of David Ortiz, I would hate the designated hitter rule. I wish more pitchers went the full 9 innings and it bothers me when guys don’t run out ground balls. So naturally I can’t stand that so many guys did/do steroids, and used their help to break some of the most hallowed records in the game. But the thing is, more and more evidence is coming out that everyone was doing it. Juiced up hitters were being celebrated for slamming homeruns off juiced up pitchers who were being celebrated for somehow getting better after their 37th birthdays. In real life “everyone was doing it” isn’t an excuse, but in sports it almost is. If 80 percent of your opponents are using something to get an edge and you’re not …well, there’s a fine line between being noble and being a chump is all I'm saying.

Barry Bonds is a jerk and it’s a shame he had to be the one to break a record set by one of the classiest guys to ever play the game. He deserves the public scorn he’s earned. But jail time for cheating at a game? I think our courts have more important things to do.

At Least Jake Can Win Something Post Season

Jake Peavy has officially unanimously won the CY Young award. This should really come as no surprise as he lead the NL in wins, ERA and strikeouts. Now, maybe next year, he can win a playoff game. That would be a pleasant surprise.

Kakkoii!* But maybe not.

It was announced today that the 2008 MLB season will begin in Japan with a game between the Boston Red Sox and the Oakland A's at the Tokyo Dome. The part of me that loves the Olympics and went to all three San Diego games of the World Baseball Classic thinks this is a really cool idea. The part of me that doesn't want my team to start the season with two 13-hour flights kind of hates it. I've heard the players aren't too jazzed, but ballplayers whine about everything. I guess we'll just have to see.

*According to about.com, kakkoii means "cool" in Japanese. Apologies to any Japanese speakers if I'm wrong.

Boltin' the Colt .... in's

The other two citizens of Pink Hat Nation got the day off for Veteran’s Day (just another reason you should get a government or quasi-government job, kids) so I’ll take it upon my hard-laboring self to say, “YAY CHARGERS! TAKE THAT PEYTON MANNING!!”

Though the Patriots are my one true love when it comes to the NFL, I like to flirt with the Chargers since I’m living in their city, and yesterday they pulled off a much needed win against the “mighty” Colts. Actually, the Chargers defense pulled off a much needed win; their offense did everything they could to cough up the game. After going up 23-0 in the first half, the Colts put up 21 in the second and despite 6(!) Manning interceptions, the Chargers couldn’t get anything else done. Luckily, Adam Vinatieri shanked a field goal late in the 4th quarter and the Colts couldn’t catch up.

So now the Chargers are 5-4. Best in the West! Erik Weddle had a decent game, so expect more (and better) analysis from Dave later this week.

Chinga Te, El Maddon!

As many of you know, there is a long, star-studded list of NFL players that have fallen victim to the so-called "Madden Curse." From Garrison Hearst's grizzy ankle fracture in the playoffs to Shaun Alexander's injury-riddled, underachieving season in 2006, he who adorns the cover of the famed EA sports video game basically gets screwed. Any if we had known about this, we wouldn't have even bothered with an election:

Say Chowder!

With this year's cover boy, Vince Young, clearly immune to any kind of bad fortune (I mean, the guy wins basically every game while throwing for 60 yards and two interceptions), the curse had to befall another unfortunate individual.

And this past week the Madden Gods struck down Chargers defensive end Luis Castillo, who glossed this year's first edition of "Madden Espanol," where everything from game menus to announcing is in Spanish. Last week against the Vikings, Castillo tore tendons in his right ankle, and is expected to miss six weeks, if not more. The struggling Chargers need all the help they can get, and now who knows if they have the manpower to even make the playoffs. At least Chiefs running back Larry Johnson looks like he'll be hanging out with Jay-Z for the rest of the year instead of playing NFL Football due to injury, so the Bolts (believe it or not), are still in the driver's seat when it comes to the AFC West.

EA Sports, if you're reading this, here are some suggestions to for next year's El Maddon cover: Brett Favre, Tom Brady, Bill Belichik, Al Davis, Champ Baily. ALL Latino, swear to god.

Instant hit

For the first time, Major League Baseball is going to consider something the rest of us have wanted for decades: instant replay.

It’ll only be used to address so-called “boundary calls:” when there is a dispute over a ball being fair or foul, if its hard to tell if it got out for a home run or just bounced off the top of the wall, if a fan interfered, etc. It won’t be used for balls and strikes, even though the only good thing (if you can call it that) to come out of FOX’ playoff coverage was the “Fox Trax” feature showing us just how often home plate umps are off.

One of my favorite things about baseball is the inherent unfairness of it all: the blown calls, the total reliance on flawed human beings. But I’m still in favor of this. The biggest argument against instant replay in baseball has always been that the games are long enough as it is, and it would be ridiculous to use IP for every pitch. But using it for foul balls and homeruns shouldn’t take any more time than it already does for the manager to run on the field and kick up dust in protest, and you’ll get the right call more often. I say let’s got to tape!

It finally happened

You knew they were out there. Watching. Waiting for the right time to strike. The Pink Hats have invaded Jack Murphy.

Memo to all bandwagon SD fans: If I catch anyone out there wearing a pink Weddle jersey, I will personally get Arnold to hunt you down on a horse with Tom Arnold a la True Lies.

"Go Chah-juh, go!"

Where is the love?

When Michael Jordan’s Bulls were dominating the NBA in the mid-90s, we were told we were witnessing the greatest basketball player in the history of the game. And we probably were.

When the New York Yankees won a record number of games in 1998 and went on to win 3 consecutive World Series Championships … OK, a few fans bases called them the Evil Empire, but for the most part, writers waxed poetic about the perfection on the field.

When Peyton Manning and his offense was blowing the doors off teams with scores like 49-14, 41-10, 41-9 and 51-24 in the 2004 season, it was literally called a “work of art.”

So why are this year’s Patriots a-holes?

I’m a Patriots fan so I can’t really analyze this objectively. I’m hoping one of our other contributors or faithful readers can. It feels like any other time in history you had a dominating team, they got applauded. But today, pundits seem angry with the Patriots, finding fault with their success. As a longtime Yankee hater, I understand that fans tend to hate a perennial winner, but even national sports writers and commentators are getting in on this.

Is it “camera-gate”? Is it Bill Belichick’s prickly personality? Is it the confusing feelings American men get when they look into Tom Brady’s dreamy blue eyes? I just don’t know.

What I do know, is that somehow the Patriots are “classless,” even when before each game they say glowing things about their opponents and talk about how hard they are preparing to face them, while their opponents (like the Redskins two weeks ago) say that they see chinks in the Patriots’ armor and are going to beat them. I know that when Peyton Manning puts up 41 points on a team it's historic; when Tom Brady does it it's "piling on." I know that a sport that prides itself on toughness is essentially asking the Patriots to go easy and show mercy to their opponents. I know some of the people who are calling the Patriots’ character into question are saying they expect some other opponent to take a “cheap shot” at Brady one of these days. Yeah, that’s real classy.

As a fan, camera-gate was embarrassing. But now, with the league watching the team like a hawk for any hint of impropriety; with other players salivating at the chance to bring the villains down, the Patriots are still blowing through games. And somehow this is a bad thing. I just don’t get it. Someone please explain it to me.

I got some figures and quotes from this column. But I was thinking all this before I read that, I swear!

Marshawn's Greatest Hits (Vol. 1)

The city of Buffalo has been dumped on over the years for their bad/choking sports teams, and the verdict over at Rumors & Rants is is that Buffalo reigns supreme as "America's Biggest Sports Loser." Even off the field, ex-Bills running back(and former University of Miami star) Willis McGahee slammed the Buffalo scene, implying that places like Applebee's and Dave & Busters are not suitable establishments for an athlete of his caliber.

While South Beach it's not, NEW Bills running back Marshawn Lynch proves that there are few places in America more happening than Buffalo in this ESPN "Mayne Event" segment that a Rochester fan put up on youtube. Usually, I think these segments are contrived and boring, but this is one of the few that's entertaining, largely because Marshawn gets to be Marshawn.

There is no better ambassador of Hyphy to upstate New York, and without further or due, we present both his latest, and greatest:



The Mayne Event. This guy must have an S load of tickets.




Gettin his swerve on in celebration of a big win over Washington. Homeboy tried to Ghost Ride the Whip, but it's hard to put maintanance carts in neutral, apparently.




Ladies of Buffalo, cop that rookie card!

Hope you enjoy, and happy Thursday everyone.