Starters suck in the 1st inning..

Or at least that is what Mike Francesa would have you believe. Here is the first post on our blog about this man, and I GUARANTEE you it won't be the last. He is truly the icon of misinformed stubborn arrogance in sports talk radio, and he threw out a gem today on my way home from work. It's important to note that I heard this within 2 minutes of turning on the radio.



Topic: Speculation as to who will pitch for the Rays in tonight's abbreviated Game 5. I gather from the tone of the conversation that David Price has either been annointed by Francesa as the best choice or that there is some reason to believe that he will be taking the ball.

Bear in mind that this whole transcript is paraphrased, but you'll get the idea:

Caller: "Why don't the Rays start Garza instead?"

Francesa: "2 reasons. One, starters can sometimes be prone to being wild early. It may take them an inning or two to settle down, and the Rays can't afford that because this will be a 3 inning game. Garza is a starter, so this could happen to him. The second reason is that Price is a lefty with electric stuff."

Where to begin...

Well, Mike is half right here. Price is a lefty and his "stuff" as people like to put it is "electric." I prefer "nasty" but whatever. Mike could've easily said, "Price is nasty," and hung up the phone on this dude, and he would've been fine. But of course, he gets on his proverbial sopabox and blathers on about how starters have a tendency to suck early and settle down as the game goes on.

First of all, this is basically going to be a normal game, only a lot shorter. The score is tied, and most of the pitching staff on either team are available to pitch. Mike is treating this like we never had the two day break due to the inclement weather, and Price STARTING this game is the equivalent of bringing him in from the pen in the sixth inning of a normal game. It's clearly not.

Secondly, Mike is also saying that starters suck in the first inning of work or whatever. So the flip side of that is that relievers don't need that first inning of work to settle in, they can just come in and be right on from the get go. Mike must not watch much baseball, because as we all know, a reliever is just as likely to get his fucking tits lit in his first inning of work as a starter. Probably more likely in fact, because I have a pretty strong conviction in me that says all middle relief pitchers suck at baseball. More on that some other time.

Last of all, and this is probably the best part. DAVID PRICE IS A FUCKING STARTER!!!!! Yes, I know he's come out of the pen for the last part of the regular season and the playoffs. In fact he has only started one game in the big leagues against nine total appearances. However, the bulk of his career has been in the minors, in which he has appeared in 19 games. He started......wait for it........19 games. So Francesa's stupid ass would have you believe he's basically a relief pitcher now, despite the fact that next year there is not a chance in hell that this kid isn't dead smack in the middle of the Rays rotation.

So there you go, Francesa trying to make something out of nothing, instead of just saying "Price is a lefty," or "Price is better than Garza," or "Price is better looking than Garza" or fucking anything of the sort he chose to talk about how starters (meaning Garza) would have a tendency to suck in the first inning of a game. Then he suggests a different starter would be a better choice. Then he swigged some of his lukewarm Diet Coke and ate Veal Parm and took a shit on the air.

Are you serious?

Carlos Pena just tried to bunt for a basehit.

He bats cleanup.

He hit 31 HRs this year.

He should be benched for the rest of the World Series and fined $75,000.

BTW: We reserve the right to comment on things like this as well.

The Hank Aaron award for being a decent player in a huge market with alot of drunk, brain-dead fans goes to...

ARAMIS RAMIREZ!!!!!!! Actually, he won the Hank Aaron Award for "The best offensive player as voted on by the fans." I can't even begin to describe how ridiculous this is. I will often try to back up certain arguments with cold hard numbers, but for something this ludicrous its not even neccessary. There were so many more productive players than A-Ram this year in the NL listing them here would take me over a week if I worked straight with no breaks. Ok, that's a bit much I suppose, but if anyone can honestly say that Aramis Ramirez was more productive than Albert Pujols this year, I would...I don't know what I would do honestly. Probably just say "Dude, are you serious?" For the record, the AL winner was Kevin Youkilis, which....whatever isn't awful I suppose. But the bottom line is you need to play in a big market to win this stupid award, and have a lot of fiercely loyal and fiercely retarded fans who vote for you 8000 times each while eating brats. Doubt you'll ever see a KC Royal win this pile of shit.

This is my first 'BIG' blog post

As I sit and wait for game 4 of Tampa v. Philly, I'm writing this, my first post of a blog my friend and i have started. The main reason for this blog is just getting some of our frustrations out for others to see (possibly).

I also want to allow you to know that we are both Mets fans, and feel very passionate about our team. Now thats not to say we are going to be pro-Met in everything we say. We are gonna be as unbiased as possible, about every team or athlete. I also want to say that this won't be strictly about baseball. I'm guessing the majority will be, but as I'm sure you all well know. People say stupid things about many other sports, but we will mainly focus on baseball.

When/if this inevitably comes up - WE KNOW, this looks like a total bite off of one of our major influences. That being the amazing guys over at Fire Joe Morgan. We only hope to one day be on their level. They have inspired us with some of our baseball belief structure, but this blog will be as original and as unique as we can possibly make it.

Let me now let everyone in a little more closely as to what we will be writing about. As you can tell, this blog is clutch. That being said, we plan on pointing out the pointless. We want to try our best to exploit some of the dumbest things we hear on a regular basis. Based on our location in the states, sports talk radio station 660 WFAN will be one of our biggest targets. Every analyst on ESPN is always a great threat to say something completely ridiculous. And we'll dabble in some newspaper/online articles. And this goes for any sport, not just baseball.

I could go on with this forever, but we both separately wanted to reach out with our own introductions. We hope we can get together a nice following and maybe reach out to some people that might enjoy our views. We look forward to some good, sometimes unclean fun

Cheers

Hello...

So, here I am writing my first ever entry on my first ever blog. I have been reading blogs for a few years now, and was always interested in the process. I also wanted to become a blogger, but could never think of a topic to write about that was interesting. I mean, lets be serious, no one cares about my personal life or the countless lame details that go along with that topic.

My buddy and I decided to start this blog to speak about our interests. We basically started this thing for our own selfish reasons, mainly to have a place to vent our opinions on certain subjects (more on those in a bit) and laugh about them. However we would certainly welcome anyone who agreed with the little things we have to say, and welcome even more people who disagreed with the things we had to say and felt the need to email us and tell us how stupid we are for having such opinions.

Now that we have taken care of why this blog exists, lets get down to what we will be writing about. My buddy and I are pretty passionate sports fans, passionate meaning our moods will change depending on the finish of a professional athletic contest. I don't equate "passion" to how many games you attend live or how much lame crap you have with your favorite team's logo on it. I believe a passionate fan becomes happy when his team wins, and pissed off when his team loses, plain and simple. The majority of the posts on this blog will probably center around baseball, as it is my buddy and I's favorite sport, with the other 3 "major" sports all a good distance behind. For whatever it is worth, we are both Mets fans, and root for them "passionately."

That being said, since we follow the Mets closely, we also read alot about them in the newspapers, and hear alot about them on sports talk radio, and watch alot about them on ESPN and all of it's ripoffs. Now this is not a Mets blog by any means, we don't discriminate when talking sports. We are here to examine all of the stupid, ridiculous things that people say about sports. The amount of subjective, misinformed dreck that comes from people's mouths and word processors about sports in general is truly mind-blowing. Newspaper writers submit "articles" that somehow make it past editors which contain no facts, just lines and lines about old-timey mystic crap that can never be proven or verified. Words like "clutch", "swagger" and "gamer" are considered four-letter words by my buddy and I; and will always drive us crazy.

Real quick, we just want to take the time here to say that this blog would never exist if it wasn't for another blog. That blog is firejoemorgan.com. Gentlemen who write for that blog are far more witty than I could ever hope to be, and if our blog at all emulates their style, that is only because we admire them as writers and sports fans and human beings who are not idiots.

So, while FJM focuses (but doesn't limit itself to) written articles, my buddy and I will probably focus more on radio/television with a smattering of journalism. We will point out how retarded these "professionals" are, and also take the time our to ridicule callers to our local, beloved sports talk radio station WFAN 660 in New York. It should be good fun for all. I don't know how much we'll post, but trust me, we have alot to say, and hopefully you'll laugh along with us; or at the very least read us.

Those who have ever read Bill Plashcke from the LA Times, or Kevin Kernan or Steve Serby from the NY Post, or Dan Shughnessey from the Boston Something can certainly agree that these morons will oftentimes try to create something out of nothing. They may do this to sell papers, or they may do this because they are stubborn, brain damaged idiots. We will certainly give them their due, as well as Tim McCarver, Mike Francesa, Joe Beningno, TJ Simers, Michael Smith, Mike Wilbon, and anyone else who is paid to bring informed opinions to you the public, but instead go about fulfilling their own agenda through retarded double speak or just out and out thick headedness. (People who aren't paid professionals, well, we'll make fun of them too.)

So that's it in a nutshell. Game 4 of the series is on now so I'll be off to not only watch the game, but laugh at what a moron Tim McCarver is, and get aggravated at what a douchebag Joe Buck can be. Cheers to all, and hope you enjoy what we have to say.

~Jean-Pierre