81 thoughts on “Cup of Coffee: 30 October 2013, Irrational Exuberance”

  2. I have a terrible confession. I only watched one baseball game in its entirety this year. And it wasn't even a Twins game.

      1. Yeah. Belgium. In French it's base-ball, which I find cool since that's how it was originally written.

      1. I did actively seek highlights to get a feeling of the new talent. And I of course had Dozier to lead the team in HR.

          1. Seriously, the people of this great state should rise up in active disdain for this franchise. That's what they deserve.

              2. Busted.

                I suppose I could come up with an elaborate response to that, but if you're explaining, you're losing.

                1. at least the Wolves haven't lost in their league championships four times in one decade.... 😉

                  1. Cold (very cold) comfort.

                    The one time the Wolves did make it, they lost to a team with four HOFers and they might have won if every guard on the team hadn't been hurt.

                    I find the Wolves misfortunes to be sad. I find the Vikings to be comical. Basically, the Wolves weren't good enough. The Vikings just choked.

    1. That article irritated me. Frankly, I don't care for the baggy pants look, and I prefer baseball pants the way that Kirby Puckett wore them. But what really gets my dander up is this idea that “Those baggy, ill-fitting pants are a sign of just how out of touch the M.L.B. is from the average American male, who has spent the last five years rediscovering the power of clothes that actually fit.”

      1) It's not "the" M.L.B. Who said that, some Buckeye or something?

      2) It's not like Lord Bud Selig issues commands that players must wear baggy pants--these decisions are being made by the players, who for purposes of fashion are average American males when they step off the field (except in the case that they aren't American, which is pretty common in "the M.L.B.")

      3) The last five years have been terrible, terrible times for men's pants. Even though I am 6 feet tall and 170 pounds, the plague of skinny jeans has made it nearly impossible to find jeans that fit me because I am slightly athletic and I have the audacity to possess thighs. Granted, I am no jeans connoisseur, and I typically get Levi's, but if I go into the store today and look for the same style, waist, and inseam of a pair of jeans I bought 5 years ago, they will be much too small for me. Thankfully, I typically wear slacks now and skinny dress pants have generally not overtaken the business world.

      1. No worries about skinny jeans when you wear cargo pants every day. (Can't wear jeans due to terrible wallet discipline.)

      2. Paul Lukas was on NPR yesterday addressing the burning question of "Do Modern Baseball Uniforms Dishonor Sport's 'Hosiery Heritage'?"

        Answer:

        So I think we're all used to what we grow up with and we develop a nostalgia for that. But by the same token, things are always changing. And I'm sure this look will change as well, and people will be pining, maybe - although I can't imagine it - people will be nostalgically pining for the current look. I think it's all a matter of what you're used to.

        But the one thing about baseball is we have these teams called the Red Sox and the White Sox for a reason. And when you don't even show the socks anymore, that's a pretty important change in the whole conception of what a baseball uniform is supposed to be, not just how it looks but what it's supposed to signify.

        1. I generally agree with Lukas on uni matters (except his unreasonable hatred of purple), but it's hard to take seriously a guy who wears stirrups and sannies as casual attire.

          1. I don't believe he typically does. Just for uniwatcher get-togethers and playing softball.
            Purple has looked worse and worse as more teams have done more with it.
            Old Vikings looked good, but gag me with purple pants on the new ones (even though they are an upgrade).

              1. That trend of the same color tops and pants is my new pet peeve. I know I shouldn't discriminate against ugly uniforms, but I do.

                1. It is horrible. You ever seen the Cardinals in all-red? [Shudder]

                  Except all-white looks good.
                  And all-black can be okay. I thought the all-black Jags with the black helmet worked well. (This was before they decided to make their uniforms boring, which was before this season when they decided to destroy any semblance of looking good.
                  All-black does not really look good without significant black on the helmet. Saints OK, Ravens OK, but there were some bad ones, maybe just college?

        2. I used to spend a good 10-15 minutes before each game making sure my stirrups looked just so.

          (I thought the Dave Cash look was money.)

          1. When I played Babe Ruth, our coach gave us about 15 minutes one day on exactly how to wear our uniforms. The stirrups were to be folded over the bottom of your pants and then the pants were to be pulled up so that the elastic bottoms were hidden from sight.

            We had never worn unis before that and it was pretty cool that we had them. Every kid on the club wore them the exact same way or the coach was on them. We weren't a bad club and we did look pretty good.

            1. One of my younger sister's boys played Little League (or whatever term it's called now) for the first time this summer. She said my nephew would put his uni on and spend a good 10 minutes checking himself out from all angles in front of a full length mirror. "Just like you used to," she added.

              Funny how important stuff like uniforms are when you are a kid. It might explain why every school is trying to catch up with Oregon football in that regard.

              1. Our uniforms were brand new. Thinking back, they were pretty ugly -- maroon tops and yellow pants -- but, man, were we ever proud of them. Prior to that we wore a t-shirt and blue jeans. To actually have a uniform and sanitary socks, our socks had to be all white, it was just the best.

                1. We got new togs when I was in Babe Ruth, too. Double knits, blue tops, white pants, with red, white and blue stripes on the sleeves, waist and neck. Not the coolest ones in the league, but they were a heckuva lot nicer than the baggy grey woollies I wore in little league. And they weren't the hideous Astros (in blue) knock off that one of the teams had to sport. Man, those were ugly.

                  Actually, the coolest uniform I ever got to wear were the varsity numbers at Mankato East. Looked just like the Pirates home whites. Sadly, the main memory I take away from those is the fact I never learned to hit a breaking ball.

            2. When I played Babe Ruth, our coach gave us about 15 minutes one day on exactly how to wear our uniforms.

              that's almost straight from the Vince Lombardi School of Winning.

          2. (I thought the Dave Cash look was money.)

            where is Mags to complain about this quip?

            Well played, Bootsy.

      4. I tried to buy a pair of jeans last year and my choices were skinny or baggy. No in between.

    1. I didn't realize an entire town couldn't handle anything more than ketchup. That's the only explanation for their made up problems.

          1. That's nothing, I lived in Cedar Rapids for three years, less than a mile from the Quaker and National Oats plants. Sometimes the smell of Crunch Berries was so strong I'd have to take a milk bath to get it off me.

            1. North Sioux City is the home of Interbake Foods, which produces much of the country's Girl Scout cookies. That was a very pleasant odor, but it made me hungry a lot of the time.

          2. J is a garlic fiend. On numerous occasions she's put so much garlic in pasta sauce it burns my mouth. Then she tells me to suck it up because I'm a garlic wimp. I've told her about their Garlic Festival and I really want to take her some day.

  7. So my kid ate a marble last night.

    He complained of it feeling like it was still stuck in his throat, so we took a trip to the emergency room. By the time we got to the x-ray the marble was already past his stomach, so now we'll just keep an eye on him for a while. Damn wiener kids.

    1. I almost got run over by Crunch this morning. I shit you not - he was riding a Segway in a bathrobe and tighty whities. He barely slowed to swerve through the doorway to the Ramp A skyway connection and stared at me with those lifeless plastic eyes as I walked past.

        1. Heh.

          It was only after I smiled and he sped away that I thought of how awesome a picture would have been.

    2. More Robson:

      Yes, as star cornerstones go, Dwyane Wade is dinged and aging, and Chris Bosh is a trifle soft, enigmatic and maligned. It’s a fascinating dynamic: The less help Lebron receives, the better he becomes to make up the difference. Sign me up for another round.

      Last night, the Heat blew the doors off the Bulls until a late comeback made it respectable. LeBron didn't have one of his great games offensively, but this club is going to be the biggest story in the league again. The Decision and its aftermath notwithstanding, there is no doubt that LeBron is the best thing to happen to this league since Jordan.

  11. I'm really excited about the season. I read this over at canishoopus in an article about Shabazz Muhammad. I think this is pretty true. For me, the NBA needs to be consumed in the context of the entire season and not game by game. When you think about what these guys go through, it's pretty amazing that they can play on a Tuesday night in Portland and then turn around the next night and hit it again in Oakland. And then two nights later in Phoenix. And so on.

    The other part of this is strength. And I don't mean that as a type of thing. I mean, does anyone still give a damn that Durant couldn't press 185 at the combine? Durant sure doesn't. The NBA scoring record sure doesn't.

    No, I mean this in the sense of 'weathering the storm', if you will. Knowing the NBA is a grown man's game and the other guys will beat you up and you being physically ready to deal with that.

    Recently, Michael Jordan did a fantastic one-on-one sitdown with Ahmad Rashad on NBA TV, and Ahmad asked him about the so-called 'Jordan Rules'. And the thing was, Jordan didn't argue or rant or question the sportsmanship to Ahmad. He actually put the fault on himself:

    "I was beat down by the physicality of what was happening. And I didn't have it [in me] to compete with them. That's when I started to build my body up, and gear myself up for that kind of beating. From that year on I became stronger and stronger and stronger because that became as important as anything else."

    The NBA is full of really big athletes. If you're out there on the wing, you've got guys like LeBron and Melo and Artest...guys who are 6'7"-6'8" and weigh 250 lbs...y'know, you've got to be ready to deal with that. Especially when you're the new guy, the veterans like to hit you, try to intimidate you and run you out. Sam Mitchell used to knock KG around in practice all the time. Cedric Ceballos decked him in his first game against the Lakers. The NBA beats you up.

    I think a big part of the 'rookie wall' is players who haven't built themselves up physically yet because they're used to an NCAA schedule of 1 or 2 games a week against college level athletes, and as the NBA year goes on, they just get tired. So the more together Bazz can get it physically, the more able he will be to take advantages of opportunities to compete late in the season.

    1. I think a big part of the 'rookie wall' is players who haven't built themselves up physically yet because they're used to an NCAA schedule of 1 or 2 games a week against college level athletes, and as the NBA year goes on, they just get tired.

      NCAA or Russian league schedule, not to name names..... (I remain confident Shved will be a solid NBA contributor based on his pre-wall play last year.)

    1. The wife could nevah do those 3D puzzles - for me took 45 seconds to zoom in. Not sure why.

      1. I could not do them until once I tried without my contacts in. Immediate success (with a Zima postcard I found on the street).
        My problem was that with my contacts in, I couldn't focus clearly enough on things that close to my face.

  14. we have a winner in the 'Injury of the Year' Award. Twins farmhand Mark Hamburger was in Venzulea playing ball, but is heading back home because of a triceps injury

    Mike Berardino ‏@MikeBerardino
    Just spoke w/Mark Hamburger. Said triceps issue was result of dehydration/sugar overload from drinking too much Pepsi down in Venezuela.

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