Y'all, we recorded this four nights ago but then a whole hit load of life happened and fuck you for asking. But seriously. Work, a mass of yard work, summer hangouts and loads of Lagunitas chased by spliffs. Here we are. 

It's the offseason of most things we talked about so nothing is all that out-of-date apart from some baseball talk - the Mets swept those Nationals shut the front door. Delightful. Life filled with delight. 

Podcast featuring rants about Russ Brandon, Tom Brady, born-again Bills fans, Uber-less Buffalo, our plans for Week 1 tailgates and a few other things that I can't remember since I haven't actually listened to this and just hastily tossed in some musical selections without worrying about the propriety of taking on American Methodists, among others.

Good to be back, kids. 

Music by way of Bleachers, Oddisee, Fitz and the Tantrums, and Priory. 

Download here or here. RSS here. iTunes below and a streaming boxey box below that. Old podcasts, and there are a bunch of them, available at deargodwhyussports.libsyn.com or the Deeg Podcast Industries tab at the top banner. Gooey gooey aural goodness.

Go Bills.

The Barrister


There's a certain hesitancy necessary in a moment like this. It's beyond pessimism or skepticism, softer than those two states of mind; it indicates a readiness to dive in head-first, yet with a deliberate recognition that this is how people get hurt. 

You've seen this movie before.

To be a fan of a team so thoroughly steeped in historical disappointment is a tricky proposition, requiring a steady hand and guarded heart. To be a fan of a team of a team like that while accessing joy and hope and excitement - those things we generally seek when we choose to be a fan of anything - is difficult. You have to know when to give a shit, flipping that switch from "this team makes me drink, whatthefuckever" to "omg I love u so much."  Choosing that moment has massive implications for your blood pressure, social life, bar tab and the respectability of your #hot #internet #takes, so you don't want to fuck it up even though you totally will.

When it happens, you aren't even really making a choice, you're just conceding defeat; conceding that the team we love, despite being a regular ball of douche with regularity, maintains the ability to dominate your consciousness so fucking completely. 

I've long known that the reason I adore the Mets so stupidly - the Mets, a team that I chose and continue to choose despite the long list of reasons not to - is that it's a team that feels like home. 

Without a doubt, loving a squad like the Mets is so fucking Buffalo.

And now, just when the Sabres and Bills seem to be turning respective corners (albeit on different timelines), the Mets have astonishingly found themselves in a position where the future holds undeniable promise. Like the Sabres and Bills, the improvement playing out before my eyes seems precarious, yet assured; too good to be true, yet affirmed by clear, objectively positive signs of progress.

So, then, the choice remains to be made, and it's a question of how we respond to the varied competing narratives, both personal and communal. 

The Mets are the best team in baseball. But it's only April. They have the best player in New York City and what may be the best starting rotation in the majors. But. They're. The. Mets. And, fuck you, it's April. They've made me as happy this month as any Mets team has since 2006, but to what end? What does choosing hope get me, if not just the near certainty that disappointment is around the corner?

It gets me this. 

An April to remember. An April that creepily resembles the April that year the Bad Guys Won. An April to wonder whether the franchise can grasp success again and this time not so quickly permit it to vanish. 

Sure, the "it's way too early, they don't give out trophies for April" crowd is ABSOLUTELY right, but only if you're talking about whether it's time to start hoping for pennants and rings and even playoffs. But that's not all there is; especially not for a season as interminable as that of Major League Baseball. It's not too early to enjoy the goddamned delightful spectacle that has been the April 2015 New York Metropolitans. They are a presumptive contender, a surprising story of the first month of the season and a squad with a depth of talent that should cause baseball's top teams considerable difficulties series-to-series. 

It's not breathless optimism. It's deliberately choosing to revel in the unmistakable joy this team is giving, right now. 

Without a doubt, the Mets could lose the magic that they have found at any moment, but fuck if I'm going to let the inevitable sorrow of sports ruin the improbable greatness they can bring. 

Let's Go Mets. 

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.

We gathered to chat about sports and stuff. Bills. Jokes. Dance music. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. America.

It's been too long. 

Music by way of White Panda, Dr. Ooo and Ellie Goulding. That's right. 


Download here or here. RSS feed here. Stream below. Subscribe on iTunes below. Let us hit you each and every way possible. It won't hurt after a few minutes.

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 Barrister


Wow. Weekdays suck. I started my week with a crapload of work all jammed together like the Buffalo News Sports staff trying to ride an elevator together, then followed it with a bunch of exhaustion, and now the week is almost done and I figured I'd scrap together a few thoughts to impart to you before the weekend. Why? Because fuck you that's why. 

Join me. And imagine me saying that in as non-creepy was as possible.

The Barrister

Fuck. Yes.

We'll probably have some sort of hastily slopped together piece on the nonsense that is the Bills on TNF tonight at some point later this afternoon. But, frankly, I'd be a shitty Mets fan and human being if I didn't take a moment to breathe this great news in here at the Deeg.  RA Dickey. Cy Young.

I am pretty used to sports disappointing me. This is a Buffalo problem, of course, but is also a sports problem more generally. These games we love rarely provide the kind of joy we're looking for - the kind that comes with championships and being able to walk into work with the "my team is the fucking best" rushing to roll off your tongue. Sports are built on the majority of teams and players and, by extension fans, falling short with "there's always next year" as the sole remaining brightside. This is, as an aside, why the NHL lockout hurts us as much as it does; the loss of a "next year" looms large for teams and fans who haven't had much by way of success and who realistically need every chance they can get to win it all. Even though our stake in a CBA is infintesimal, we can't help but feel cheated out of a season of opportunity (however slight) to set everything right with a championship.

I'm not sure I really have an opinion as to how much days like this can make up for a season like, say, the Mets had this year. Lord knows that I don't feel a whole lot better about the four consecutive Super Bowl losses the Bills handed us just because Jimbo and Thurman and Marv and Ralph and Bruce are in the Hall of Fame. In fact, it almost makes me angrier - especially with Ralph being there, since he's a vicious turdburger - since I'm forced to come to terms with what should have been with a team lucky enough to have some of the best players there ever were. Certainly, there's little joy in walking into work saying "Jim Kelly is a Hall-of-Famer" when the instant rebuttal to that will make me break out into a cold sweat and hives.

After all, the Mets were bad this year. Sure, they were good at one point - very good, in fact. But, they were terrible in the end, in the only way that really matters. Their season was only positive when compared to the prevailing wisdom about what kind of season they should have had when writers were making their predictions in March. In the midst of their craphole of a season, of course, was Robert Allen Dickey and his twenty wins. He averaged nearly a strikeout per inning pitched, he won nearly two thirds of the games he started (only six of them being his losses), and - with a team of, basically, losers - he managed to keep his ERA to a low 2.73. He was the reason to watch the Mets down the stretch, when playoff hopes were in the toilet and Johan was long-since placed on the IR.  In the season where the Mets had their first no-hitter EVER, Santana's win on June 1st became a distant afterthought to the kind of season that Dickey put together.

Now, he has a Cy Young.

Dickey wrote, in the piece I linked to above, about how this isn't just an award for him, but that it's for his family and his team and his fans - all of whom supported him during the recent years of his improbable journey from apparent bust to All-Star and Cy Young winner. This is the typical thing to say when you win an award like this, and more often than not it does little to lift my spirits following a season like the one we just had. Yet, with this guy - this success story arising out of failure, this player who inexplicably inspires me in a universe of sport I so often find disheartening... with this guy, and this award, I'm loving today.

So, Bills - do your worst, as I'm sure you'll do. Dickey's going to have me smiling for a while yet.

The Deeg

First of all, if you haven't checked out Scizz's Bills/Pats preview - DO IT.

Ok, moving on...

Last night, the DGWU Sports Crew gathered at The Barrister's apartment to record another gem for your ear holes. After a slow week of written content at the site, it was nice to sit down and discuss all the many goings on in the sports world. Don't lie - we know you're excited. 

Our first segment was almost exclusively devoted to debriefing the Bills game in Cleveland last weekend, as well as our thoughts about Buffalo's two delightful, injured running backs. Segment two gave us an opportunity to look ahead to the game this weekend against the Patriots as we were joined by the Deeg's Buffalo correspondent, The Outlander. That's right - steaming hot takes spit all the way from the 716. Outlander stayed for the third and final segment while we talked Dickey's 20th win, the Orioles' playoff hopes and the tire fire that is the the Boston Red Sox. We close out with a brief discussion of our plans to #OccupyBridgeport for an AHL game this fall. More on that to come in the next few weeks...

As always, the CrapTastiCast is brought in by the musical vomit of the Jambrones. Additional interludes include Kansas, Seal (I KNOW! AND YOU'RE WELCOME!), and Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross.

Stream below, subscribe on iTunes, download here or here, or check our podcast page at Libsyn.

The Barrister

If you’re a sports fan, weekends can be a magical/utterly depressing time as you get to enjoy/loathe your teams without the burdens of work (presumably), only to have Monday come around with your outlook on the week unreasonably shaped by how things played out. When the Bills beat the Pats last September, work was great, if very hungover, on Monday morning. Anything seemed possible. On the other hand, when the Sabres drop a back-to-back against the Leafs over a weekend (I’m sure it’s happened at some point, probably several times), Monday feels like garbage. Everything is lost.

Living in New York City helps with this a bit, since I can blend in with the plebeian masses and keep my more hideous sports allegiances hidden for a few days if need be. But, pathetic, emotionally-wrecked mess of a human that I am, I tend to wallow a little.

This weekend was a mixed bag, with the Mets winning a pair, the Bills looking like a hot turd sandwich with a side of miscommunicated routes, and both Liverpool and the Red Bulls leaving two points on the pitch with depressing draws. All of which is to say that I’ve certainly felt worse on a Monday, but, as you'll see after the jump, I still don’t feel at all close to good.

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.