The Barrister


jesus titty fucking christ I hate a lot of shit.

Sometime earlier this week, I was in some sort of stupid daze where I was happy about things. It must have been Easter and Jesus rising and the wonderment of reincarnation magic smiling upon my heart. 

Fuck Easter, by the way.

It's Wednesday now, so this is the shit you get. An ornery dude in his early 30s blogging on a pretty shitty website since everyone stopped writing on it, complaining about a bunch of shit that you, at best, have a cursory interest in because sports.

Let's get on with it.

I fucking hate Major League Baseball.

Actually, that's not fair. I like the sport. I enjoy watching with friends. I fucking hate that baseball has an interminably long season that people weirdly care about during the first few weeks - enough to rag on a guy for HANGING OUT WITH HIS BABY AND WIFE WHO JUST BIRTHED HIM/HER/IT - and then they tell you it's because they like summer and being outside and drinking and all, but then they watch at a bar and make you turn off playoff hockey and that sort of defeats their argument about the joy of summer. Have a fucking barbecue. The MLB season's length is arguably one of the stupidest things in sports, right next to our weird treatment of athletes who used performance enhancing drugs in an era when everyone used them, thereby giving them essentially no competitive advantage. No big surprise that Bud Selig and his Merry Band of Miscreants manage to get so much wrong. 

Listen ...  OF COURSE I'd like baseball more if I followed a team that was good, but the Mets are not so let's move past that. In the midst of my hate for the team I love, it becomes abundantly clear that the league could cut 50 games off the schedule and still end up with basically the same product except without TV and ad revenue and I suppose that those things are what it's all about. Still defending it?

I'm going to a baseball game this Friday and it's so bad that I am compelled to go to a two hour open bar before the game so I can be sure to (a) not remember a fucking thing about the endless nine innings I observe and/or (2) get kicked out for calling a security guard a fat taint and/or (iii.) take a nap sometime between the fourth and seventh innings. Baseball is fun because of getting drunk, being an asshole with your friends, and naps. That's what we're working with here. 

Go Mets.


I fucking hate the NHL.

This is another sport I love that is ruined by the corporate fuckup of league decisions and the absolute assbags who work there. You know, in hindsight it should have been a warning sign that Pat Lafontaine worked for the NHL since it is pretty apparent that the league is routinely run in a way that can at best be described as "lacking clearly defined standards which tend to alter the competitive and fairness aspects of the sport" and can at worst be described as "OH DEAR LORD YOU DICKS ARE AWFUL IDIOTS AND RUIN EVERYTHING FUCK OFF AND DIE".

It's the playoffs now. And while NHL HQ's marketing blitz likes to tell us that things get all awesome and shit "Because it's the Cup" and "History will be made," it's becoming crystal clear that the real theme of the playoffs has become "Hey you! Yeah you! Feel free to be as violent as you want! We'll probably let it slide if you're important to your team!!" Shit, we don't even really get fights in the playoffs, but that hasn't stopped players from committing those acts that pose markedly high risks of harm, and it certainly hasn't stopped the NHL from allowing many of those acts to go unpunished, particularly when those committing the acts are stars, or a member of the Boston Bruins... those assholes get away with all sorts of shit always. This is all justified under the umbrella of "not wanting to stifle the natural competition of the tournament" or some such nonsense. Because, of course, risking injures that might injure a player or ruin his ability to use his brain is nothing in comparison to losing the assailant to a suspension for any drastic period of time. 

The NHL sucks at understanding the simple concepts of justice in it's system of player discipline. The people employed by the league are seemingly more likely to make a decision regarding player discipline based on gut instinct rather than based on a logical assessment of conduct and the assessment of a penalty that serves as an effective deterrent. Worst of all, making the situation endlessly confusing for fans and players alike, the NHL truly lacks any sense of applying even-handed player discipline as it leaves some egregious acts unpunished and others receiving unquestioned bans. Player reputations play too strong a role in the determination of punishments for truly egregious acts, leaving Zdeno Chara unscathed for ball tapping an opponent and Brent Seabrook's suspension lasting only three games, while the bad guys of the league - the guys who are barely missed by their teams or its fans - are treated as "examples." It's no fucking wonder that Blues fans make light of Backes' injury when the NHL can't be bothered to find a suspension that meaningfully punished Seabrook for causing Backes' brain to get violently thrown about in his skull.  Besides, I'm sure Seabrook will really learn his lesson when Matt Cooke is suspended for the rest of the playoffs.

Fuck the NHL and it's enormous clown shoes.

I fucking hate Donald Trump. 

FUCK. I really don't know what got over me earlier this week when I had a momentary lapse into "you know what? Trump might not be that bad! At least he would keep the Bills in Buffalo!" Fuck me, and fuck Trump. 

Yes, his politics are abhorrent to me, but more to the point the way he goes about his politics are the most truly fucking bothersome thing about this man. He doesn't just hate President Obama - he bandies about that hatred as a badge of honor and makes a concerted effort to find the most absurd criticisms upon which to latch. President Obama isn't American and his Presidency is unconstitutional? Check. President Obama walks in an un-Presidential manner? Check. This asshole picks on everybody, all the while courting our fan base - fans based out of the City of Good fucking Neighbors - in his looming bid to purchase our football team. Just the other day, he called Arianna Huffington ugly - really, guy, you are fucking hideous - and then retweeted the comment from a fan about her not having a green card. 

GOOD ONE, SIR. YOU REALLY SHOWED HER.

This is the dude trying to buy our football team. Our "I don't care who he is and whether he's a good guy as long as the Bills stay and win a Super Bowl" refrain is all well and good. I, too, do not really care so long as both of those hypothetical, really impossible to comprehend things happen. But for fuck's sake, is this the guy who is likely to get us there? Does the universe truly reward us in such a roundabout way, still leaving a terrible taste in our mouth and, actually pining for the days of Ralph "Odious Taint" Wilson? This - a purchase by Donald Trump, the lovable douchebag who has invaded our social consciousness with a stunning brand of buffoonery masked as corporate acumen - is what we've been dreaming for. 

Fuck that. We should be able to do better, and if not, let's at least not pretend to be happy about it.


I fucking hate Jose Mourinho. 

I don't really have anything more to add except that he can blow me. Fuck that guy.

And in closing...

I fucking hate fat people who fail to realize their girth and mistake a small subway seat between two people for a square footage of area that can fit their fat ass, the comfort and personal space of their fellow riders be damned all to fucking hell (and yes, that includes me which is why I fucking stand most commutes like a gentlemen). I fucking hate the assholes who ride the commuter trains back into New Jersey with luggage and/or stroller and/or kids of any age while the rest of us are just trying to go about our normal lives. I fucking hate all the tourists that jam up my subway station between 5pm and 7pm every evening, christ the metrocard swiper is not that fucking complicated fuck. I fucking hate Fred Wilpon and Robert Kraft and Nancy Grace and Piers Morgan and Ann Coulter and creationists and birthers and the failure of law enforcement to properly investigate Jameis Winston allegedly raping someone and Episcopalians who left after Gene Robinson was elected and everything on the WB and that FiOS can't fucking fix by HD NBC Sports so I have to watch standard definition like a chump and that David Moyes was sacked and Vincent Tan and Jerry Jones and Rex Ryan and that Michael Vick lives while those dogs remain dead and every fan at MetLife Stadium and my bitch tits and that Nassau Coliseum will no longer be a place upon which I can urinate and that my teams are shit except for Liverpool they're fucking boss and Yankee fans. 

Christ almighty I hate Yankee fans.

The Barrister


I feel like writing, so will invent topics by musing on this hilarious world of ours and making jokes to keep me sane. And since I'm on a work/pleasure trip to Buffalo tomorrow and intend to have too much fun with the pleasure portion of my visit - i.e. anime porn, if you're interested - I won't be available much, and today it must be.

Firstly....

Bills training camp started, so a huzzah and merry almost football to you and yours. Professional catch and run ball is pretty great, except when it actually starts and we find ourselves enveloped again in an existential crisis of suck. 

Go Bills.

BUT THIS COULD BE THE YEAR. So they tell me; "they" being pretty much anyone willing to forget the past and start fresh, though for them it happens every year and EJ Manuel, by implication, sits in the same storied and shit-upon position as Trent and Fitz and JP and Robbie J and Bledsoe and even Levi Brown for a quick minute which tells you all you need to know about what it takes to be a Buffalo quarterback and ride the wave of foolish optimism that is being a fan of a Bills team with the shittiest wagons making the shittiest circle. 

Related: when the Bills circle their wagons, rumor has it, a parallel dimension of this world is invaded by Cybermen and it's all really terrible until Rose Tyler appears and remains smoking hot as she saves the motherfucking day. 

Whatever, have at the hope if you want to. It's sports. Have fun. EJ, jokes aside, is certainly less saddled with the cursed history of Buffalo football than the rest of us, so maybe he'll be fine. He's looked seriously good in these first few days of camp, if Buffalo sports writers are to be believed (they're not), but the stark contrast of his game when set against Kevin Kolb may be distorting everyone's perspective. 

Calm down, and as mentioned, supra, Go Bills. 

So we got drunk at a Mets game last week. They lost. We recorded banter. 

Honestly, we talk about enough bullshit with no real direction that I should probably give you some sort of road map but absolutely have no desire to be of such assistance. You'll love it all the same.

Appearances from, as usual, the Barrister and the Apologist, and guest spots from our friend who is a Red Sox fan and my buddy JB who split sometime in the 7th inning. Musical interludes from Jefferson Airplane, The Beastie Boys, Ozomatli, Walk the Moon and Radiohead. 

Oh, and we talk about my homie Rabbi Darkside (from Buffalo, by way of Brooklyn) who just came out with an album. Order that shit on iTunes now!


For the podcast, bitches, download here or here (choices!), hit the iTunes button below, or the stream from the player. Booyah.

The Deeg


What a busy week it has been at DGWU Sports! Between news of the NHL Lockout and our battles with the various personalities at WGR for refusing, as is their custom, to engage with viewpoints other than (a) their own, or (b) those of the mouthbreathers who call into WGR and make it their mission to express their vehement disdain for everything in the world, there was a LOT to discuss when we gathered Wednesday night. More shots were fired and kindling put onto the world of Buffalo sports media so that we can continue to watch it burn. Heh. Sports.

Oh, and there are those Buffalo Bills, too, which is actually where we started in segment one as we recapped the shit show that was Sunday with the Deeg. Bills @ Cardinals was by no means an enjoyable time, but recapping the fun times we had and the trainwreck of a game ended up being pretty fun/depressing/rage-inducing.

In segment two we welcomed Colin Bruckel, one of the founders of TheHosers.com, a site we have linked to for a while and which provides stellar insight about the legal issues surrounding professional hockey and, in particular, the CBA. Colin's assessment of the current CBA negotiations was as interesting and well-presented as any I've heard, and it is an understatement to say that we were lucky to have him on. I would note, however, that since our discussion took place before the NHLPA presented its own offers to the league (and before Bettman rejected them immediately), you'll want to keep an eye on his site for more hot legal takes. Or you could continue being ignorant and just keep listening to the superficialities of sports talk radio.

Segment three brings it back to our wheelhouse of inappropriateness and ill-conceived sports takes as we talk the USMNT's win on Tuesday, the NBA's new policy restricting pre-game celebrations, Apologist's suicidal ideations following the Orioles' elimination from the playoffs, and our predictions for the Bills/Titans game this weekend. I must add that we had intended to talk more about (read: make fun of) Shawne Merriman's return to Buffalo, but had to toss that to the back burner so we'd have time to talk about the more pressing issues of gloating about our intellectual superiority over talk radio hosts. It's a burden, really. In any event, I'm hopeful that Merriman's second tenure in the 716 will give us plenty of opportunities to point and laugh. 

Musical interludes this week are provided by Broken Bells, Gov't Mule & REO Speedwagon, as well as - of course - The Jambrones. 

Download here and stream below, or check out our Libsyn page or iTunes button below where you can get all of our archived podcasts and subscribe for future hot, aural takes.

The Barrister

Lost in the haze of last night's epic USMNT win at the Azteca was the circus, clown shoes shenanigans of Dusty Baker, as the Reds manager chose gamesmanship over common sense, and gave Mets fans another reason to hate his stupid, fat face. 

Up 1-0 in the second inning against my lowly Mets, Baker successfully prodded the umpire to instruct RA Dickey to remove two bracelets from his wrist. Two bracelets that had been given to him by his daughters before he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro last winter, and which he has worn in every one of his magical starts this season - not to mention his All Star Game innings earlier this summer. Dickey complied - how couldn't he - later conceding that, well, rules are rules. Dickey would go on to give up three homers and the Mets lost 6-1. 

Advantage DB, I guess.

The Barrister

A day removed from taking LeBron to task for being a gigantic shit burger (despite also being an incredible player), it seems fitting that I'd get to stay up for a late, west coast Mets game and watch the antithesis of that on the mound. In a league with no cap, there's this guy who makes $3.9 million a year - less than Derek "Tossed Salad Roy" and Ville "The Finnish Rusty Trombone" Leino - and who is, inexplicably, right now, the best at what he does. He's so dominant that hitters laugh when they swing at his stuff. Laughing, somehow, an appropriate response because the only other logical reaction would be a temper tantrum. And no one really wants that.

I kind of fell out of love with baseball during the steroids era, as many did, and when I got brought back in to watch my family rejoice at the 2004 Red Sox win, only to find some of its heroes - Curt Schilling, for example - to be humongous dicks, I grew wary again. Sure, the Mets have been an exception, but even that has been a marriage of convenience in a sense, offset by their awful play, sometimes tough to take fan base and felonious ownership.

I was tempted to title this post "The Hero Baseball Needed?" but thought against it because it probably would have shown my ignorance to many great stars across the league - ones who perform at a high level while also being eminently likeable. Dickey, though, is certainly the hero I needed in baseball. I said it earlier this season, and it's only becoming more true - this Mets team has got me going all in.

And Robert Allen Dickey is reason #1.

He's 12-1, his ERA is 2.15, he averages just under 9 strikeouts a game, and four years ago, few of us had ever heard of him.

Unlike some stars who get pulled into the hype machine of the Network, almost forcing us to despise the guy at the center of it all out of principle, there's nothing to not like about what we're getting out of R.A. He's, comparably, vastly underpaid, he's well-liked by anyone and everyone, and he licensed his image to be on one of the best tshirts ever made.

So, if you're on the fence about baseball and need a reason to watch and have, apparently, been living under a rock during his recent dominance, start watching the Mets every five games and see the best hitters in the game get straight up befuddled at what this 37 year old knuckler does.

The Outlander

Last Sunday I was lying on my couch, generally incapacitated from the type of Sunday hangover that comes but a few times a year ... or whenever your girlfriend leaves town for a weekend to visit family and you suddenly become indifferent to the amount of vodka you’re consuming during pre-gaming. My credit card was at the bar so my attempts to order pizza had failed, and my car was still at a bar from Friday so until after dinner I was stranded in the house. Luckily the Red Sox game was on, so I stared at it in the way negligent parents will throw on a Pixar movie to keep their kids quiet and distracted for a couple hours. From the start, something was different. On his first at-bat Youkilis got a standing ovation, which the TBS broadcast team referred to as “bizarre,” but I found completely logical in the context of trade talks heating up and Will Middlebrooks’ emergence at third base, and the resulting possibility that any game could be Youk’s last in a Sox uniform.

That David Wells passes for a television broadcaster in today’s pathetic media landscape is bizarre. The crowd reactions on Sunday were not. But I digress.

After a couple more standing ovations and a triple that could easily have been scored an error, Bobby Valentine lifted the former all-star to give him a chance to enter the dugout with all the Fenway cheers for himself, punctuated with a couple of curtain calls for good measure. While the broadcasters once again could muster nothing more than confusion, any reasonable fan could discern that Youk either had been traded or was about to be traded, but was nevertheless done in Boston. I knew I was supposed to feel something for a player that had been one of the best hitters in the league for so many consecutive years; certainly I knew my friends that rooted for the Yankees were happy to see him go after I spent years hearing how much they hated his “stupid face” in the way I hate Teixieira’s stupid horseface. But really all I could muster as he sank into the dugout and disappeared down the tunnel was one thought: It’s over already?

Don’t get me wrong, I loved his intensity, I loved his hustle and believe me, when you cheer for someone nicknamed the “Greek God of Walks,” you gain a certain affinity for watching four pitches land outside the strike zone. Sure there were injuries, yet he was dependable despite them in a way, where you knew if he was in the lineup, you would be getting his best. Maybe he was cursed by the era he played for the Sox, arriving just as the fan base started expecting a dynasty, just as anything short of a World Series championship became a massive disappointment for a city that was already beyond spoiled. He was clutch in his own way, coming alive in the final three games of the 2007 ALCS, hitting a bomb off CC Sabathia in game five, but still, those three games are remembered by me for JD Drew’s only big hit as a Red Sox and the Indians’ collapse. Sure, he played seventy-some games in 2004 but I think few fans would think of him as a member of that team. Which again leads to my bewilderment at how fast the time went.

In the movie High Fidelity, John Cusack’s character "Rob" is left by his long time girlfriend for another man. After a period of soul searching they get back together and while there is no longer that excitement, that crazy head-over-heels feeling, he describes things as “just…good.” In the end, for Rob, that was enough.

To me that was Youkilis. He never did anything that left me in awe, he never made me feel like the team couldn’t survive without him, but he got the hits, sparked the clubhouse, and - mercifully - never drove me to such frustration that I wanted to drive my car over a cliff. He was just…good. There’s nothing wrong with good. I loved Manny Ramirez, for instance, as he would do things that I still think about to this day. But I can also picture him having two errors in one inning of Game One of the 2004 World Series, leading me to unleash a torrent of obscenities from my mouth that gets me angry typing this eight years later. Now that - that’s love, with its highs and its lows. Youk, on the other hand, was dependable. Never flashy and never had moments that endeared me to him in that same, intense way, but I’ll always be thankful that he was on my team during that time. That - that’s comfort, complacency. But after being in that place with crazy highest-highs and lowest-lows love, one can really appreciate comfort and complacency. One can really appreciate just…good.

In a way, maybe he got screwed by 2004. If Dave Roberts gets tagged out in Game Four, the Yankees complete the sweep and, assuming the Red Sox get it done in 2007 as they did, Youk is remembered as one of the heroes of the organization, the guy with the clubhouse intensity that pushed the team over the Indians to reverse the curse after 89 years.

Instead you’ll have fans unable to remember his name 20 years from now, while at the same time will roll off “Mark Bellhorn” without difficulty. That sucks for him. And it's what sucks about feeling that feeling I had on Sunday about the time passing too quickly. I still wanted him to be able to do more, to get another ring, to hit that walk-off in the playoffs. To have that twilight, legacy-cementing moment that would ensure he wouldn’t be forgotten. Instead he’s in a White Sox uniform and now I’m left to define his career around one World Series and a myriad of relative disappointment, especially 2008 and 2011, years when those around him should have put the finishing touches on a dynasty and instead faltered against teams that never approached them in terms of talent.

Is that unfair to Youk? Of course it is. Fans, especially those who root for Buffalo teams, should appreciate great talent even when it comes on a team that doesn’t win it all.

Fair or not, watching him walk off the field on Sunday left me wishing, for a moment, that there was more time for Youk. There's no question he deserved it, but eventually time decided for him, assisted by a young third baseman hitting the ball all over the place and demanding a spot on the field, just like he did eight short years ago. And even if I never loved this player with the kind of passion - both highs and lows - with which I have loved the Red Sox greats of the past decade, part of me wanted Youk to have a chance to bring me there. A chance to prove that "just... good" can sometimes be more than enough.

Follow me on Twitter @MattyRenn

The Barrister


I can't claim to have anything major to say these days. I'm not inclined to get too worked up about the endless conversations about what blogging means and what it means in the Buffalo sports universe in particular. Shit, most of what I've written here in the past few months is far from relevant to the Buffalo sports scene, what with my general disdain for speculating about drafts and free agents and teams that are a few months away from playing games that count. By the time the Sabres season comes around, I'll have a baby boy to dote on and, I imagine, far less time to dwell on these bizarre loves of mine. So, needless to say, I'm having my fun now.

And that fun, right now, is New York Mets baseball. 

Last night, the DGWU Sports crew hit Citi Field for game two in this series against the Orioles. Game one, if you happened to be under a rock yesterday, was RA Dickey's second straight one-hitter. The former Buffalo Bison is pitching as good as anybody in the league right now, and better than the team's "ace," Johan Santana. As for Johan, he followed suit with a gem of his own last night, leading the Mets to their second straight shutout against Baltimore. Santana was in complete control through his six innings last night, and it was good to see following two less-than-inspiring outings which, in turn, followed his epic no hitter on June 1st. 

The Deeg had an absurdly fun time last night as we were thoroughly over-served and unsurprisingly giddy to have a chance to hang out again. Yachtsman stepped on a homeless guy on the subway, Scizz threatened the same guy with a round of old-timey boxing, and Apologist got over the loss of his Orioles by watching Lebron "Pool Boy" James pull off some heroics of his own. And me? I pretended to not know any of those clowns while barely containing my laughter. 

We're really good at this. 

Needless to say, live-blogging tonight seems to be an appropriate follow-up to those shenanigans since I'm probably still drunk and since these live blogs usually end up being an excuse for me to find infantile pictures on the internet and giggle like a moron. 

Again, we're good at this.  

Click through "read more" for the fantastic voyage.

The Barrister

If I'm being honest, my feelings on the Subway Series typically fall on the "hate it" side of the fence. A twice annual reminder of why my team isn't as good as their team is usually not my idea of fun, and even those seasons where the Mets have come out victorious against their cross-town rivals, it's usually set against the overaching reality that the Yankees have a shot at playoffs and beyond, and the Mets just don't. Like in 2008, when the Mets won the season series 4-2, including a sweep at Yankee Stadium...and the Mets were eliminated from wild card contention on the last day of the season by the Marlins. Again. Or 2004, when they swept at Shea and won the series, only to go 71-91 that year.

Living in New York, the Mets are the team you root for if you don't really mind a dark cloud over your head. They're who you root for if sports don't have to be easy for you, if you want to feel a sense of fulfillment by earning success through years of despair. That is, if you think your being a fan has anything to do with anything, which - as it happens - I narcissistically do.  Being a Met fan means that, even when you win, you gotta be ready to hear it from the Yankee fans in the room when they remind you of their many titles and how Jeter is God and how they don't even like A-Rod, as if that lends them more credibility (it does).

This season smells a little different, though. The teams step up the Subway Series in remarkably similar circumstances - the Yankees in third place in the AL East, a half game back of the surprising Orioles; the Mets in third, back a game and a half from the surprising Nationals. They each also sit in divisions with powerhouse teams in last place, further complicating their own prospects at an eventual postseason berth with the chance that the Red Sox and Phillies could suddenly remember how to play baseball again. 

And, lest I forget, they each have teams owned by rich men who made money by swindling middle-class investors.

What's that? Only the Mets are owned by dirty crooks? Oh. Bummer.

/cries in corner over Wilpon crimes
/considers argument that all sports team owners are crooks who swindle the middle-class
/cries more

Despite the similarities of circumstances, the Yankees and Mets of 2012 are still very different teams. The Yankees are squeaking by despite fielding a team of proven winners and more than their fair share of perennial All Stars, while the Mets are exceeding expectations with a team of nobodies and top guys on the DL, leaving a roster seemingly held together with duct tape, naive ambition and the magical, high-pitched tone of Terry Collins' voice. Add in a guy coming off the franchise's first no-hitter, and suddenly this series doesn't just seem like an opportunity to show up the big brother club from the Bronx, but a chance for the Mets to establish themselves - in the context of a very strong season - as the NYC team to watch this summer.
 
No matter what happens this weekend, I'm optimistic about the Mets this season, insofar as I had previously expected to give up on them in May and now actually think there will be meaningful games come August and September. But, if I have to walk into work on Monday to find a gaggle of cocky Yankee fans gloating about beating up on the Mets this weekend, things may get violent. You may disagree, but I don't think I'd do well in Manhattan Central Booking or Rikers Island ... so, if only for that, Let's Go Mets!

Maybe in the end, it won't matter much - as most Inter-League play most certainly does not - since the Yankee fans will still have those rings to point to with a disgusting level of arrogance and hair grease, and since the Yankees themselves will likely remain the darling of the NYC sports world until the Mets make an actual run at World Series again (and that, despite my optimism, is a long way off). But, for these few days, just maybe the Amazins can put together some solid wins and shut the knuckle-dragging front-runners up for a little while. In a City that seems to live and breathe baseball for the summer months, and is overflowing with Yankee fans falling over each other to pat themselves on the back for the good sense at following one the most successful teams in all of sports, that's certainly a nice thought.