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The Night I Opened For Fancy Ray McCloney

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As you all know, for our second anniversary (after the cruise) I decided to do five minutes of stand-up at Rick Bronson's House of Comedy. I don't think I would have had the courage to do this without my wife. My entire family  (including my parents) also came to watch. I'm blessed that they gave me my adult sense of humor and appreciate it.

The video is below, but first, a few highlights:

1. There were 13 guest comedians for open  mic. The closer (Chris Knutson, who was pretty good) was actually the headliner the entire week. I was supposed to go second, which was great. Have someone open, then get up and off the stage before I get too nervous. Well, the first person didn't show. So I was surprisingly called right away. Yikes.

2. The first few guys who followed me were horrendous. One guy was about 70 and just told dirty internet jokes (and he had a lisp). One guy just sadly talked about how awful he was sexually. No jokes, just him berating himself. One guy I'm sure was higher than a kite and kept having to read his cheat sheet to remember his jokes.

3. As mentioned, Fancy Ray was there. For those who don't know who he is, he's a sort-of local celebrity who used to do late night commercials for local sex shops. He also had his own cable show where he interviewed people like Oprah (!). His entire act is him being famous for being famous. He was pretty obnoxious, but then he spent two minutes picking on my dad in the front row. He asked my dad if he had seen him on TV. My dad shook his head, and Fancy said it's probably because he watches too much internet porn. He then said my Dad looked like a 70's swinger who never got laid. Lots of laughs at our table for that.

4. Funniest guy of the night was Brandon Riddley. He had a five-minute bit on how awful his aunt's peanut butter was when he was a kid, and how it almost ruined his life.

5. Favorite one-liner of the night. "So last weekend I hosted a party. The theme was Alien vs. Predator. Only it had a twist. It was Illegal Aliens and Sexual Predators. Wound up just being a mustache party."

6. There was one obnoxious drunk kid in the crowd. He volunteered that he had just had a DWI and his ex-girlfriend's mother was there driving him around. Unfortunately, comedians kept egging him on and this weird relationship and the kid wound up heckling later comedians.

6. The emcee, Greg Coleman, was fantastic. He's in the picture above. He made everyone feel welcome and was pretty funny. He opened the evening with a few jokes, including one where he was convinced he had HIV as a kid, because he misinterpreted some lyrics from an Ice Cube song. I tell you this because it explain my opening joke. Enjoy. (Slightly NSFW due to adult humor and one four letter word)

httpv://youtu.be/8GiRMiKWAZE

WGOM Half-Baked Hall

Half-Baked Hall: 1902 Election Results

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Before we get to the results, I want to shout out to Scot at Coffeyville Whirlwind for profiling our electorate. Awesome stuff.

We had an excellent turnout this time with 24 voters chiming in. Let's welcome AMR and Can of Corn to the ranks!  And I'm confident in saying that their presence affected the outcomes. We'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not that's a good thing.

Continue reading Half-Baked Hall: 1902 Election Results →

WGOM Half-Baked Hall

WGOM Half-Baked Hall: 1900-1902

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So after some discussion we decided that we do not want the same players on the ballot indefinitely, even if they don't fall below 25%. Here are the reasons:

1. Some players likely will not change much. For example, it appears about 35% of voters feel that Comiskey deserves to go in because of what he did outside of his playing days. This will likely stay rather static.

2. For players close to the 75% threshold, the pressure of falling off the ballot will likely generate more discussion.

3. We felt it will be more fun if players are judged against their contemporaries.

Therefore, the MAXIMUM number of times a player can be on the ballot is SIX. This is ballot number five. When it's a player's last turn on the ballot, it will be made clear.

Three years per ballot isn't standard, but so far it's how things are falling. 1903-1905 only has seven eligible players, so there may be more years on the next ballot if we have the regular amount of people fall off.

Due Date: July 7. I'm going on my honeymoon on July 11, so I hope to post results on July 10.

Continue reading WGOM Half-Baked Hall: 1900-1902 →

WGOM Half-Baked Hall

WGOM Half-Baked Hall: 1897-1899

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I don't know about you, but I felt the last ballot was a huge success. Not only did we elect two new members (including our first hitter!), it seems the voters are getting a bit more confident with their voting. We were able to drop plenty of also-rans and are able to add 14 new players to the ballot without topping 30! There are only five players remaining from the original ballot (White, McCormick, Cummings, Orr, Jones). That's a great turnover and should keep things fresh.

Half of the new crop (including most of the superstars) comes from 1897 alone. Had they had a Hall of Fame back then, 1902 would have been an interesting year for the BBWAA.  This ballot is lopsided towards the hitters with 20 to choose from.

BALLOTS DUE: June 9

Returning Players to the Ballot

Voting History

Player Spreadsheet

New Pitchers
Frank Dwyer
Bill Hutchinson
Silver King
Sadie McMahon
Jack Stivetts

New Hitters
Cap Anson
Roger Connor
Buck Ewing
Mike Griffin
Bill Joyce
Denny Lyons
Ed McKean
Bid McPhee
Mike Tiernan

 

WGOM Fitness

Triathlon

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First triathlon of the year tomorrow in Simsbury (kayak, hill-run, then bike).  They sent out a possible flood warning, so the river part of the event could be iffy.  Supposed to do nothing today but I'll probably do an easy ride on the bike portion of the course.

Next weekend NBBW and I are doing the Cooperstown Sprint Triathlon.  We will incorporate visit to HOF and an olde-tymers game on the same weekend - should be fun.

Here is a clip on the Tarahumara:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnwIKZhrdt4.

Also I am getting addicted to the TED series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0byYFXjRJM

At page 572 in Gravity's Rainbow.  I was carrying it when I went to the beer cave earlier this week - dude at the counter was raving about it and other Pynchon works.

 

 

WGOM Half-Baked Hall

WGOM Half-Baked Hall: 1894-1896

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I'll let you all in on a little secret. After the last vote I commissioned a focus group to try and tweak the rules to make this process a little more enjoyable long-term. I'm sure the tweaking isn't finished, as we want this process to be fun, not laborious. We're hopeful that the changes will make each new ballot more interesting as well as allowing us to speed through the years a bit faster.

Changes Now In Effect

1. Name change!  This was unanimous and suggested by CarterHayes.  Perhaps it will also put less pressure on people to vote "correctly." Big thanks to hungry joe for making the changes.

2. Daneeka's Ghost has created a voting history spreadsheet. A link to it is below. It's pretty amazing. Hopefully this spreadsheet along with Brian's will help people with their voting process.

3. Threshold to remain on the ballot has risen to 25%. If this had been in effect for the previous two elections, we'd already have seven fewer people around.

4. You can only use your Maybe vote on 25% of the ballot. For each ballot I will provide you with a max number.

5. After three times on a ballot, players will no longer have a Maybe option next to their name. They deserve a firm answer after 2-3 months of thinking about it.

Other Discussion Points

Some proposed limiting the number of times someone can be on a ballot. Majority decided that it's too early to place such a restriction, but this may be revisited if some players stay on for a while with little movement.

Discussion occurred regarding skipping around eras. Majority decided to keep things going chronologically for the sake of continuity and keeping the ballot more of an organic process.

Some thought that once we reach the 20th century, there will be fewer people remaining on the ballot year after year. Some felt the opposite, as views will be more entrenched as voters will be more confident, forcing us to kick people off after a while. We shall see.

1894-1896 Ballot

I am only listing the new people below. I went just over 30 people for this ballot to keep things moving. I'm hopeful we'll have many people fall off after this one and things will become a little saner.  There are 24 returning players and 9 new ones.

Returning Players to the Ballot

Voting History Spreadsheet

Brian's Player Spreadsheet

New Pitchers
Ice Box Chamberlain
John Clarkson
Tony Mullane

New Batters
Pete Browning
Oyster Burns
Charlie Comiskey
Jack Glasscock
Tommy McCarthy
Monte Ward