I'll Stir Fry You In My Wok

T.G.I.P.

The problem: A crappy, underachieving team. The cure: Pittsburgh Pirates. Good for the Astros winning not one, not two, but three straight games. Bad for the Astros they can’t dominate any team not named Pittsburgh. Houston is now 10-3 against the Central Division’s last place team. And miracle of miracles the ‘Stros trail the Reds by just 3.5 games. Yawn. Sweep the Brewers and we’ll see where you’re at on Friday. The important thing is that Willy Taveras’ hitting streak is now at 30. Incredible.
Thank you Jeriome Robertson. Thank you Cleveland Indians.

--Since the Padres got rid of Vinny Castilla their 3rd basemen have combined for a .182 average and have more errors (10) than RBIs (8).

--Ryan Howard has been just a little hot and now has 47 HRs, but just 16 doubles. That’s the same as fellow sluggers Willy Taveras and Aaron Miles.

--I’m not sure who the best manager in baseball is (I just know it’s not Phil), but I wouldn’t mind playing for Tampa Bay’s Joe Maddon. After a road loss on Friday the team got back to the hotel and Maddon came up with a Madden ’07 tournament on 360. He also talked about making it a year-long tournament next season with one game in each city.

--For whatever reason Barry Bonds still gets walked and over the weekend got his 100th free pass. Thirteen seasons in his career Barry has received 100 or more walks. He now holds the record for most 100-walk seasons along with the Babe. By the way, only Bobby Abreu has walked more than Bonds this year. Morgan Ensberg is 9th among Major Leaguers in free passes.

--Quick who leads the Majors in ERA? I’m sure you said Florida’s Josh Johnson at 2.87. Chris Carpenter is the only other starter under 3.00.

--Five ML players have scored 100 runs or more thus far. Four of them come from two NL East teams. Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran rank 1st and 4th. Chase Utley and Jimmy Rollins rank 3rd and 5th. The other guy in the top five is Cleveland’s Grady Sizemore.

--Eric Byrnes has more extra-base hits than Alex Rodriguez?!

Almost There

Three preseason games in and the Texans are one game closer to the Sage Rosenfels era. Okay, that probably isn’t happening next week or the next or the next or even the next. But maybe, the week after that. I know Sage is going up against 2nd and 3rd teamers, but he looks like a legitimate NFL quarterback. David Carr does not. To me it’s as simple as that, but I also would have drafted Reggie Bush so what do I know? I know that it took David until the second quarter to complete a pass to a wide receiver. I know that Kubiak believed in Carr and Domanick enough to pass on Vince and Reggie. I’m not the biggest Domanick fan in the world and he’ll never play 15 games in a season, but cutting him?! When healthy he’s the most talented guy they have, but I guess Kubiak can just wave his magic wand over a rookie or a second-year back and they’ll turn into Terrell Davis. We’ll see.

--Lots of teams have had their share of problems with their running game. Taking a look around…Minnesota’s Chester Taylor has 29 carries for just 81 yards (2.8 ypc), Chicago has yet to run for a score and Thomas Jones has 3 yards on 4 carries, Indy’s Joseph Addai 21 carries for 32 yards, Arizona’s Edge has 7 carries for not one, but, oh wait, yeah, one yard and finally Dallas’ Julius Jones 2.8 ypc.

--Jeff George?! Really?!

--The Colts signed Jonathan Wells.

--Because your fantasy lives depend on this information…Denver’s Cedric Cobbs leads in preseason rushing yards. Green Bay’s Greg Jennings in receiving yards. New England’s Matt Cassel and Dallas’ Tony Romo in passing yards.

Quick Hitters and Random Thoughts

--I knew when I first saw it that Martin Landau/Bob Ryan’s house was the home of the one and only Robert Evans. Apparently the show wanted him to do a cameo, but for whatever reason Evans didn’t, but he did allow his home to be shot for Ryan. Evans is angry with the show because he thinks Ryan is based on him.
The ultimate battle of cool.
Firing Ari the same night he takes home the award for Outstanding Supporting Actor is real nice Vince and Eric. Real nice. I know Weinstein didn’t get Vince, but we need to remember how great Ari is/was…

--The Emmys have come and gone, unfortunately without me watching them. I’ll just assume Conan O’Brien was great as host. Stupidly Lost (last year’s winner) wasn’t even nominated, but 24 won Outstanding Drama. For reasons I can’t fathom Sopranos was nominated for that. Jack Bauer/Kiefer Sutherland also picked up Outstanding Lead Actor. Outstanding Comedy went to The Office as it should. Ari/Jeremy Piven took home Outstanding Supporting Actor. Before that Jeremy Piven walked the red carpet and owned Billy Bush. Outstanding Supporting Actress went to someone from Will and Grace and not Jaime Pressly and that’s just wrong.
Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Series wrongly went to The Daily Show instead of The Colbert Report. The gentlemen put aside their Geraldo differences to present the Outstanding Reality Competition Series. Although I think The Colbert Report was robbed this is The Daily Show at its best…
If it wasn’t Jon Stewart breaking that down then it should have Jim Lampley. I think this gets my Green Screen Challenge vote.

--Not that I’ll be watching, but I’ll take Chris Jericho in Celebrity Duets.

--The WWE released the man, the myth, the Angle. The two sides agreed to this last Friday and that’s a very good thing. Angle, “I need my body to reheal and rehab, I have done this for too long without a break. I haven’t been able to really enjoy my life. I haven’t seen my family, I’ve had problems with medication - I’m just fried physically and mentally.” Take your time.

--This is one terrible, horrible, no good very bad way to go…39-year-old Charlie Pasley and his father were working on the roof of Charlie’s mobile home last week when they were attacked by bees. Not just any bees, but those serene, gentle Africanized bees. The father was stung about 100 times before rushing inside and jumping in the shower to get the bees off. Charlie, on the other hand, stayed outside and tried to fight the bees with a water hose. Three hundred stings later the bees won the fight and Charlie paid the ultimate price. Turns out underneath the mobile home was a 2 feet wide, foot-long hive whose honeycomb weighed 70 freakin’ pounds and was home to roughly a quarter of a million bees. How do you not notice that?

--There’s a MyDeathSpace.com?!

--Tony Danza’s wallet? It’s the one that has “BMF” on it.

--Roy Jones Jr. vs. Peter Manfredo?!

--I don’t know if I’ve ever seen more blood come from one cut than the pints Bam-Bam spilled on last week’s Ultimate Fighter. Can’t wait for Ortiz/Shamrock III. I’m sure Shamrock will last at least 60 seconds this time around.

--Because you won’t click on a better two-minute Ricky Gervais concert while you’re on this site…

--It only took a couple of weeks after she ummm… did number ummm…dropped the kids umm…took a umm…oh I know…crapped on the carpet, but Flava didn’t give Somethin a clock on this week's Flavor of Love….that’s bad…you knew that, right?

--Bravo to CSI for giving Kevin Federline a chance to flex his acting muscles. He should be great.
--I feel safe in saying Find Me Guilty will be Vin Diesel’s best performance ever.

--There is no doubt John Mark Carr is a sicker. And no doubt he didn’t murder JonBenet. This psycho wanted Johnny Depp to play him in a movie and described how Willy Wonka is "very similar to my personality except for the fact that Willy Wonka did not know how to treat children, he had no knowledge of how to be around children." And you do? Throw the freak in jail and let’s be done with him.

Questions, comments or if you’re still wondering why that guy picked Reggie Bush with the 8th overall pick in front of a guy like Ronnie Brown or why you just saw Kevin Jones go 5th overall...