STARGELL/ORTIZ COMPARISON

Subjective similarities:

Nicknames: Willie “Pops” Stargell

David “Papi” Ortiz

Both are wildly popular in their adopted hometowns. Stargell was the emotional leader of the Pittsburgh teams of the 70s, the most popular player that brought the city a long-awaited championship. Ortiz does the same thing in 2004 with the Red Sox. Both have been valued as the best “clutch” hitter of their generation.

Both are/were massive, lumbering lefties

Stargell: 6’2” 225 lbs.

Ortiz: 6’4” 230 lbs.

Ortiz came into the league at the age of 21 to a small market team. Stargell came into the league at 22.

Stargell’s best season came as a 31 year old in 1971:

.295/48/125/.398/.698

Ortiz’ best season to date (2005) is pretty comparable

.300/47/148/.397/.604

Stargell's year was a little better because he slugged .248 over the league average.
Papi was just .177 over the league in 2005...

Stargell didn’t have the benefit of the DH, and therefore was more susceptible to nagging injuries. He never played more than 145 games in a season. He also never had the benefit of playing with a dominant slugger like Manny Ramirez.

That said, barring injury, Ortiz will ultimately be remembered as the greater player. He has another 8 seasons or so to surpass Stargell’s statistics and he plays in the second biggest market in baseball.

On the other hand, in 1996, at the age of 28 (Ortiz is 29 now), Mo Vaughn went for .326/55/143/.420/.576, a significantly better season than Ortiz’s 2005 campaign. Mo was another giant lumbering lefty (6’1” ???) who flamed out at the age of 34, before he could reach important career milestones. Mo had hit 190 HRs by the age of 29. Papi hit 177…

Supplies...

I signed on to teach another year at Republicanalia High School of Mary. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Actually, more accurately, I made them an outrageous proposal that I couldn't ever imagine them accepting, and they more or less accepted it. So, next year, I will receive my normal raise, but will be teaching 2 less classes. More importantly, this new schedule means I only have to be at work every other day (we have block scheduling).

What will I do with my newfound free time? In theory, I will spend most of that time in coffeeshops in Topanga Canyon (I plan to move out of Hollywood at the end of the summer), finishing up el novelo. In reality, I will probably spend most of my time sending out fantasy baseball trades. When the season ends, I might start screwing around on myspace or maybe I'll update my blog more often. What's become clear, though, is that art is a luxury afforded to kids with trust funds. I didn't really think that was particularly true until I left Columbia and realized that I was one of TWO people who planned on getting a job. The rest of my classmates are still in NYC, living in the same UWS apartments, hacking out pages of their bad short story collection and eating bad Donkatsu at Cafe Swish. (for 9.50!)

Do I begrudge them their leisure? Of course. I am as petty as they come. At least once a day I curse loudly at those idiots whose parents believe in their talent enough to stake them to a responsibility-free mid-twenties. Do I begrudge my parents for not giving me a similar deal? Surprisingly... no. Why the fuck should they pay for me to romanticize myself in the context of New York City?

At the same time, working drains the writing impulse. I think whichever French writer was right: writing comes from boredom and dissatisfaction with the surrouding world. When I come home from even an easy day at work, I'm too exhausted to do anything but watch TV. Some of this I blame on my insane commute (50 round trip miles a day) and my dislike for Los Angeles. But, at the same time, there's no job I could possibly have in New York which wouldn't require longer hours and a similar subway commute. And there's certainly no job I could have in New York that would pay me a livable wage to work 10 days a month...

thoughts on American Idol and diet re-try

I generally don't approve of widescale mockery of autistic people and there's nothing that genuinely makes me more uncomfortable than delusional people (perhaps the better way to put it would be: people who are delusional about pop singing), so its surprising to me that I'm such a fan of American Idol. It's become abundantly clear that the show's strategy these past two seasons has been to pick autistic/low-functioning people out of the crowd, encourage them to "be themselves," so that they will eventually humiliate themselves in front of 11 million viewers. The guy last night in Denver who sang "If I only had a Brain" and had invented the "cosmic coaster" was clearly autistic (did anyone doubt the fact that he hadn't lost a chess match in three years? I didn't...), as was his compatriot in the yellow checked suits. And while I don't have a moral problem with the show's exploitation of what the free world calls mental handicaps, I can't really say that I find it very funny.

I suppose it has everything to do with the spirit of the joke. The Farrelly brothers make fun of retards in every movie, but at the core of the jokes you can detect a lot of affection. Same with South Park. (an example of an overly affectionate comedy about retards is "The Ringer" which is absolutely horrible...) With American Idol, the joke is always the handicap of the auditioner and while it's very funny to watch Ben Stiller get kicked in the balls by a retard, it's not very funny to watch Simon Cowell berate someone who clearly has some problems. And again, none of this is moralizing or even disgust, it's more disappointment that the show's "funny" moments are actually just cruelty.

That said, I watched every minute of the first two episodes. The fat black lady they had on is the best singer they've ever had. I had to rewind her on TIVO and watch it like three times just to get the full effect. I never thought they'd have anyone as good as Fantasia, but this lady has the potential to dethrone the illiterate soul queen from High Point. I also found myself getting unreasonably emotional over the 25 year old from McLeansville, North Kakalaka and the fact that he gave up his rock dreams to take after two ugly fat children....

Oh, and I'll be reinstating my old plan to lose weight by grossing myself out by writing out everything I eat on this blog... So.... Here goes....

3 pieces of crusty, stale blueberry layer cake from the teacher's lounge
2 plates at Indira's 8.99 Indian Lunch Buffet (I mostly ate Okra...)

funny stuff...

http://www.ratemyteachers.com/schools/california/west_hills/chaminade_college_prep_school/jay__kang

huh?

one last try

Because of the allergen concentration in Western Washington and the unfortunate effect it has upon my sinuses, I have decided to kick start my blog. Hopefully, this time it will be more of a sustained effort. I blame the last sputtering out on my bankruptcy--after going up $1000 in a week, I caught a bad run which decimated my bankroll. So, perhaps the ticket will be to treat this, as others do, as a running journal of thoughts and impressions and not as some tutorial on how to play poker. And I've read enough literary blogs during the past week of house arrest to understand what they really are: forums for literary groupies, not the type who follow around writers, but the types who follow around editors/agents: a shameful act.

I've been bandying this list around for a couple weeks now, trying to perfect it, at least in my head, and not because I believe in lists, but more because this, if nothing else, seems to be an issue that needs to be sorted out. So, here it is in annotated form...

Top 10 NBA players of my remembered lifetime
-meaning from MJ's first championship and forward, because as much as I want to remember the Celtics glory years, all that remains of those seasons is my memory of an "ACs Power Club" poster which hung on my closet door.

1. MJ- Best memories: a) the flu game in which MJ put up something like 34 and permanently estranged Scotty Pippen by refusing to pass the ball in the last two minutes of the game. b) the double-clutch reverse against the Lakers, which is only topped by Dr. J's windmill whirligig scoop, a shot which was performed before I was born. c) Reggie Miller shoving MJ in the chest in the last seconds of a playoff game, getting the foot of space he needed before burying a game winning shot.

2. Shaqapulco- I'm more of a fan of Shaq's public persona than I am of his game. Back in the Lakers early championship runs, when the babyhook was money, Shaq was probably the second most unstoppable center of all-time, behind Wilt. Now he has trouble getting the ball and seems to fade in the second half of big playoff games.

3. Hakeem- Which was more unstoppable: the late Jordan fade-away or the Dream Shake?

4. Groundhog Day- There's something despicable about top-tier college players who stay in college all four years. I always feel as if they (and here I'm speaking directly to all big white stiffs who stay in college, ahem, Eric Montross, Nick Collison, etc.) are risking their livelihood to make good with that group of white asshole sportswriters, who, themselves, never got over their days at Sigma Ep. I'm not convinced that this is the case with the Big Fundamental, but something kept him at Wake for that final year, despite the fact that Tony Rutland was the second best player on his team. Now, any black kid who wants to leave college early has to hear about how much better Tim Duncan got during his senior year in college. Fucking garbage. Anyone with a prayer of the first round should declare for the NBA draft. Just don't hire an agent if your name is Shavlik Randolph.

5. Mailman- Tough to argue with the numbers, tough to argue with "The mailman doesn't deliver on Sundays." I imagine, in twenty or so years, that Mailman will be given the same reconsideration that Wilt is enjoying now. People will look at his numbers and forget that when a Jazz game was on the line, nobody in the Delta Center wanted Karl to be anywhere near the ball. I still will never forget the shock I felt when I actually saw Malone bang in a 15 footer in the last seconds of a play-off game. But its tough to argue with the career averages...

Actually, 5 is enough for now. I will also post some new photos, and even perhaps, change my template, which is dreary and hard to read.

massacre at the commerce

I've been in LA for the past week, trying to assess whether or not it is a livable city for a broke, lazy twenty five year old. (Verdict: perhaps...) I'm not allowed to drive, but on Thursday I did manage to make it out to the Commerce to play a little $200 restricted 2/3 NL Hold 'em.

I got to the Commerce at 11:30 AM and my ride wasn't going to be able to pick me up until 7 PM. Which really is a horrible way to enter a casino because even if everything goes well and you go up early, chances are that you're going to give away most of your stack at some point during the 6.5 hours. If you go down early, you don't have that option of just getting up and calling it a bad day. But, I was willing to overlook both of those potentially disastrous conditions because I've been riding a bit of a good streak as of late and didn't expect either of those things to happen. As I saw it, I would tighten up and wait to bust out the bad degenerate gamblers at the table.

I tried the $100 table first because there was an ungodly line for the $200 and on the third hand, I was dealt AK u on the button. The guy two seats to the left of me raised the pre-flop bet to $20 and I re-raised him to $40 total. He was about a 40 year old balding guy in a cheesy granite button up, which would make you think he would be an experienced player, but once the bet got back to him, he started shaking uncontrollably. I remembered my Caro's book of tells-- uncontrollable shaking usually means the guy has the cards-- but I hate that book so much that I decided to go the opposite way and put him on a middle pocket pair. For some reason, I was convinced of this even when he re-raised the bet to $80. I went all-in and asked, "Do you have aces?" He nodded and flipped them over. Ten minutes into my day at the Commerce, I was down $100 and already on tilt.

As I was yelling at myself to calm down, I got dealt a bunch of marginal hands-- K-10 s, KQ, KJ and kept missing the flops. Slowly, I got ground down to about $40 left in my original buy-in and decided to buy back up to $100. ABout two hours later, I was still at $100. A new $200 table opened up, so I went back to the ATM and took out another $100.

The $200 table was a lot better--less old gamblers, more crafty young Korean kids who all played the same style of poker. I steadily built my stack up to $440, meaning that I was about $80 above my initial buy-in. At this point, if I had a car, I would have gotten up and left. What I should have done was go play 3/6 Omaha until my ride arrived... Anyway, I started playing poorly shortly after I built up my stack because this hideous kid to my right kept questioning all my plays. He succeeded in getting me slightly on tilt, at least enough for me to massively misplay a hand for $200 to some equally hideous Samoan guy who had just sat down at the table. Back down to $200, I picked up AQ of spades in the cut-off position and raised to $20. The guy to my left raised to $60, a bet that was called by the crazy Asian man to my right. I thought about it for a while and stupidly called, hoping that I had two overcards to jacks. The flop came 9 spades 5 clubs 7 spades. I stupidly bet $100, not thinking that any hand worth a $60 raise would be overcards to the flop, and winced when the guy to my left raised it to $200. The crazy asian man threw in all his chips and I was pot-committed enough (about $50 in chips left, drawing to either 9 or 12 or, at best, 15 outs with two cards left...) to call. The turn was the 4 of hearts and the river was the two of clubs. The kid to my left, of course, flips over Kings and I took a very long walk, down $360 on the day.

My ride called to say that she was stuck in traffic and wouldn't be able to get to Commerce for another hour, so I called my bank and confirmed that my daily withdrawal limit was $500 and bought back into a $100 table on super-duper-duper-duper tilt. So bad that I announced it to the table, saying, "Hey guys, I'm on tilt, so call any all-in bets I make." My ride called to announce her arrival just as I was throwing my last $12 pre-flop with AQ. I got six callers and missed everything, losing finally to a pair of 8s.

Daily losses: -$460
Total semi-semi pro earnings: $487