I'm not the only one who thinks BB is full of it (to say the least)....

Google is soooo amazing. I think eventually there will be a way to hook up tiny electrodes to your brain and whenever you have so much as a passing thought, Google will take you to all available info. Earlier today, I posted about Barry Bonds and his problems fitting in....well....basically anywhere and everywhere. So I just now typed "barry bonds is full of shit" into Google moments after taking a quick look at Barry's personal web site and reading that he's a devout family man and suppressing the dry heaves; it was just a reaction...a passing thought.

Of course, there REALLY IS a web site called Barry Bonds is Full of Shit, though from the looks of it people have known about this for almost two years, as there's been no activity since 2004. Guess there is no use beating a dead horse. And with all the steroids used by Bonds that were originally intended for use by vets on horses, he may just be a "dead horse" way too young.

Does Barry Bonds have Aspergar's Disorder? (And if so, does it matter?)....

Working my way through the new BB bio by Jeff Pearlman,"Love Me, Hate Me". Also, recently read "Game of Shadows". Both books lead me to a question I can't believe no one in the national media has asked: "Does Barry Bonds suffer from a milder form of autism known as Asperger's Syndrome?".

Wait...damn...there actually IS a book that mentions Bonds name in it's discussion of "loners". Haven't read the book; the reviews are poor, but there is at least one writer out there who has made the connection between Bonds unbelievably boorish behavior throughout his entire life and a diagnosable medical condition.

According to Gillberg's Criteria for Asperger's Disorder there are six parts to the diagnosis: all six must be met.

1) Severe impairment in reciprocal social interaction: As for BB...well, duh. He has consistently displayed an "inability to interact with peers" and shown "socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior", as well as a "lack of appreciation of social cues". Ask Andy Van Slyke or Jim Leyland, his teammates at Serra High or ASU about that. Check.

2) All-absorbing narrow interest: Baseball has always been Barry's life, from the time he was old enough to swing a bat; Gillberg requires this one interest to be followed at the "exclusion of other activites" with "repetitive adherance". Check.

3) Imposition of routines and interests on self and/or others: Barry has always listened only to Barry. And gets away with it now because he is statistically one of, if not THE, greatest players in the history of the game. But he was always allowed to get his way from childhood on. As promising athletes so often are coddled, Barry is exhibit A. Check.

4) Speech and language problems: Now it gets tougher. For this criteria to be met, at least three of the following must apply:
a) delayed development
b) superficially perfect expressive language
c) formal, pedantic language
d) odd prosody, peculiar voice characteristics
e) impairment of comprehension including misinterpretations of literal/implied meanings
Physically, Bonds was an early developer. We do not know about his verbal skills though. No check.

5) Non-verbal communication problems (at least one of the following):
a) Limited use of gestures - Does giving the finger to the world count?
b) Clumsy/ gauche body language -
c) Limited facial expression - does a permanent scowl count as "limited"?
d) Inappropriate expression -
e) Peculiar, stiff gaze -
I say "check", because Bonds DOES have a peculiar, stiff gaze. Anytime anyone with such a freakishly large head looks at ya, it's feels "peculiar".

6) Motor clumsiness: Poor performance on neurodevelopmental examination. Well this one, i guess, won't apply...unless it's a late inning situation with men on base. THEN BB shows "poor performance", or at least has for a good part of his career.

So maybe four or five of the criteria of a very respected diagnosis tool; Barry, poor poor Barry, probably cannot be diagnosed with Asperger's Disorder. In my mind this is regrettable: it leaves him with no excuse/reason for Barry being Barry. Maybe he is just a jerk.

I'll leave you with a quote from Pete Diana, former Pirates team photographer back when BB was a member of the team: "Personally, I hope he dies." Wow; not much love there.

Vito Lives!!!!....for at least another episode.

Is "gay" the new "black" on tv/movies/books? By that, I mean does the homosexual character automatically get bumped off first by the manic serial killer on any slasher movie? Will any male actor whose role calls for being single, neat, interested in antiques, and driving a Volvo be meat rotting on a hook by the second act? When I was growing up, we always knew that any black guy, usually whilst providing comic relief...or at least attempting to, was gonna get the ice pick through the heart right quick by Jason or whoever the psycho killer was that week.

Now it seems as though it is politically incorrect to kill off African-Americans first. The practice was so commonplace that is was a national running joke. Gay people make much better targets.

In the last season of "The Sopranos", aired almost two years ago, Vito Spatafore, one of Tony's heftiest but also best producing captains, was ambiguously presented as being a closet homosexual. Meadow's then boyfriend saw what he assumed was the consummation of a sexual tryst (all right...blow job...) involving Vito "pitching" and an anonymous security guard at a building site early one morning "catching", to use Paulie Walnuts' euphamisms for oral sex. Vito, in several of the final episodes of that season, made what were, or seemed to be, sexual advances towards Finn, Meadow's bf. There was just a bit of leeway so that the viewer was not QUITE sure that this guy was gay.

In the current season, there is no ambiguity, no room for doubt. Last week Vito was seen in full leathered splendor (I read somewhere that it looked like one of Steve Guttenburg's outfits from "Police Acadamy: The Lost Footage") dancing with a John in a NYC gay bar by two Mafia hoods collecting protection money. Word spread like wildfire, and Vito knew he was in grave danger of being killed, as no self respecting capo would have sex with another man (at least outside of jail, as Tony helpfully points out to Dr. Melfi in this weeks episode: "they get a pass...there's no women..".) The episode ended with Vito in a hotel room, pistol by his side, and the audience is left to wonder if he will swallow a bullet now, or let someone else finish the job at some future date.

Come Sunday (or at least Wednesday morning, when I finally got around to watching the episode) the main question on anyone's mind was "Is Vito alive...or dead?" To David Chase's eternal credit, there is simply no way to predict what is going to happen on this show, other than that all characters will move unhesitantly towards moral bankruptcy (this means you Carmela and Meadow) from whatever mindset they enter the series. Turns out that Vito has hightailed it to the White Mountains. I recall that Bernhard Goetz also scrammed to NH after his subway shootings, committed back in 1984; do all New Yorkers think that the White Mountains are on the other side of the Earth? I guess that is beside the point: Vito needed somewhere to run and NH sounded good, at least short term. He even tried to locate some cousins in Peterborough (no dice thank god, because Tony and his minions woulda found him in about two days if Vito tried to hide out with some blood relatives, even those living in the wilds of Northern New England.) So Vito is alive and well, checking out antique stores somewhere in the Northern part of the state (he's apparently a "natural").

But you know and I know that Vito Spatafore is not long for this earth. How long before he gets a bullet to the brain? My guess: two weeks, tops. The Mafia do have their standards you know. Just like the Army, I guess.

Another reason that the REAL Miami is in Ohio, Dammit!

While the "student-athletes" churned out by the Miami school that most people are familiar with (the one in south FLA) continue to do embarrassing things on and off the field (Say hello to Kellen Winslow Jr.!!, here's Sean Taylor, Mr. Role Model, and others..lots and lots of others), my alma mater, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio seems capable of producing athletes that, if they are talented enough to make a name for themselves in the professional ranks, have a sense of perspective about themselves...or at the very least graduate and then avoid turning up as a mug shot on The Smoking Gun. Three Miami stars in the last two decades who have had good to great careers in the pros include:

(1) Ben Roethlisberger: (Bio at Wikipedia) Super Bowl Champ in just his second season in the NFL. After a redshirt year, he started for three years at Miami and by his junior/third year at the helm, the team finished in the Top Ten for the first time in school history. While a senior in high school, was recruited early by Miami, then had a great final year (his first season as a starting QB since the coach's son was a year ahead of him) which caused bigger name schools to offer him full boats, but to Big Ben's credit he stuck to his committment to Miami and signed a letter of intent. To be fair, he also thought he had a chance to start sooner at a MAC school than one in the Big Ten: little did he or anyone else know that the big guy would turn into a high first round pick four years later.

(2) Wally Szczerbiak:(Career Numbers) Similar to Big Ben, Wally was under recruited out of high school. I believe he was offered by the Big East's St. Johns University, since he was local, playing high school ball on Long Island, but chose Miami during the final days of the Herb Sendek era because he thought he might play right away in a less competitive league like the MAC. Again, in similar fashion to Ben, Wally started his career as a solid contributor to a good but not great team, and built himself up to the point that in his senior season, Wally led Miami (basically singlehandedly) to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament, and even the cover of Sports Illustrated. A lottery pick by Minnesota in 1999, Wally has been the definition of a "solid NBA starter" since he entered the league. He has had a few injury issues and is not considered a great defender at either shooting guard or small forward. But the one thing he can do, and do as well as just about any man on the planet, is consistently hit the 17 to 22 foot jump shot. Having been traded by the T-Wolves to the Celtics in midseason, Wally contributed some points to a very young team that seems to have a bright future. With Paul Pierce and Wally acting as veteran anchors, next season could be a strong one for the Celtics.

(3) Ron Harper: (Career Numbers)A small forward/shooting guard who played for five NBA champions and had a long, distinguished career in "The League", as they say....but oh, what might have been. Those of us lucky enough to see Harper play at Miami and in his rookie year with the Cleveland Cavaliers know full well that this guy could have been one of the best players in the entire NBA had he not seriously injured his knee early in his pro career, instead of being a more complementary player to first Jordan and then Shaq and Kobe. What we got was good, and good for a long while, but there could have been so much more!

But the real genesis of this post for me was a short article on si.com this morning about Rob Carpenter's son Bobbyan expected first round pick in this year's NFL Draft. Rob is one of the all-time great Miami running backs and a member of the school's athletic Hall of Fame: he played on several of the best teams in school history back in the '70s, was taken in the third round of the NFL Draft, then had a solid though far from spectacular career with three teams over nine seasons. And now that his son, who had a terrific career as a linebacker at Ohio State, is first round material and being pulled in a hundred directions, I'm sure, by agents, hangers-on and so on, dad Rob seems to be doing things the right way: allowing his son to live his own life away from what could have been a very imposing shadow caused by an ex-NFL player/father, but at the same time providing sane direction to his son's efforts at choosing an agent. Good on ya, Rob and Bobby! All Miamians are proud of both, though it would have been a tad sweeter had young Bobby chose to follow his Dad's footsteps in Oxford.....


Update:Young Carpenter was selected in the first round, 18th overall, by Bill Parcells Dallas Cowboys. A great day for the Carpenter's!

Just another lonely ol' night...

(1) Ever been on wordsmith.org/anagram? Great fun. I just typed in my name and got SEEN WEE JOY. Damn, that hurts.... It's like these computers can see into my mind sometimes, man. Dude..it's so surreal.

(2) Have you ever given food to a hungry neighbor, then checked the expiration date AFTER they returned the unused portion to you? Just happened: my neighbor asked for some mustard. I gave him my Grey Poupon that looked.......ok, though I knew it had been in the fridge a long while (I'm not a mustard guy, more of a mayo guy). Five minutes later, he returns the squeeze bottle and I happen to look at the label. It says August 2004! Yikes! Does this count as involuntary manslaughter? If so, can I get my own "Law and Order" episode made up right quick? I love that show...there's something very comforting about knowing that someone will die in the first five minutes and their killer(s) will be brought to justice in the time it takes to cook a pot pie. You know how the writers are always trying to keep that show "fresh" and "ripped from the headlines"? Well...I see Meatloaf playing me, and Micheal Richards playing my neighbor (to just randomly grad a name from completely out of the blue...). Not sure if there would be time for a love interest for my character, seeing as how I would be going to prison and all, but if Elizabeth Shue is available I certainly would have no problem with that.

(3) Reading "The Brothers Bulger" by Howie Carr...about one third through: Can't believe how corrupt Boston politics is/was/has always been. My Boston-raised Dad was a big fan of Mayor Raymond Flynn, but maybe that was because Flynn almost made the Celtics after graduating Providence; Dad loved sports even more than politics. And Will McDonough even gets mentioned in the book, though I have a feeling that Carr would have left his name out if the Globe's best known sportswriter was still alive and kicking, 'cuz he surely would have kicked Carr's ass. McDonough is not described as committing any crimes, just a person in the small town of Boston, Mass. who knew everyone worth knowing, including Whitey.

Making fun of mentally ill folks: Good AND good for you!!!

I'm talking mainly about the piece on HBO Real Sports from April '06 about Darren "Dutch" Daulton, ex major leaguer. Here's the message board for April's show. Daulton was the rugged heart and soul catcher for the first Phillies team in years to MATTER post Schmidt, Luzinski, et al. Behind Dutch, Curt Schilling, and Lenny Dykstra, this group of grungy, hard drinking outcasts took the Blue Jays to six games in the 1993 World Series before succumbing. Daulton was a guy who was known back in the day for playing hurt, being a standup leader, and for coming through in the clutch. He had a solid career, with several outstanding years with the Phillies then contributing to the '97 Marlins team that won it all as a kind of "last call" for him. Another thing I remember about the guy is the fact that he was (and still is), in this heterosexual's opinion, one good looking dude. Seem to remember pix back in the 90's of him and his wife, who was, not surprisingly, astonishingly good looking as well, going to A-list parties and such.

Fast forward 13 years, and it seems as if poor Daulton is living in his own personal hell: in the HBO piece he is interviewed and describes having out of body experiences, time travelling, something called "metaphysics" (I won't even bother to google it: if you want to, go for it...); just completely wacky stuff that anyone who has ever had dealings with profoundly mentally ill people knows can't be argued with. You, or in this case the interviewer, can only nod your head and hopefully try to move to safer conversational territory. It seems that Daulton has had several run ins with the law concerning spousal abuse, violation of protection orders, and the like: funny stuff maybe to the general public but I have a feeling that his ex wife is not getting too many chuckles out of being terrorized by a drunk guy on the edge of sanity. The suit interviewing Daulton seemed to take the stance that it was the man's drinking causing the wierd and certainly dangerous behavior, but I think that the drinking is the ex player's attempt to cope with whatever dark shit is going on in his head. A lot of mentally ill people self medicate with booze (ex: homeless folks getting drunk at sunup to quiet the voices in their head), weed, whatever to alleviate the symptoms of their core illness: mental health problems.

As far as Daulton, my current favorite sports website (seriously, it's awesomely funny....usually) had this to say. For deadspin, the headline was actually mildly restrained. But the reader comments show what great fun was had by many who watched the piece or have read any of the interviews with Daulton lately.

Oh yeah, the reason for the media onslaught is that Dutch claims to be writing a book, which I suppose it why he is opening himself up to national ridicule (although maybe not in his mind, but certainly someone close to him must be telling him how this looks) : trying to pull a Canseco and sell some books/score some cash. You know he has an agent or someone pulling the strings on this embarrassment. The whole thing, to me, stinks as bad as the fight promoters who let Jerry Quarry box back in the early '90s when he was almost completely incapacitated due to brain damage in order to make a couple of bucks; the scum. Daulton has, not surpringly, major money problems despite earning $25m in salary during his career and must feel that a book sounded like a good idea to earn some dollars.

I wish him the best. Not in getting any book published, not in getting ripped off in any more investment schemes by the filth of society (can you imagine burning through $25m (less taxes)?? that must have been hard!), but in getting a support system in place that will allow him to possibly get some insight into his illness(es). No sycophants, no agents, just maybe family or even a friend (does he even have any??) who will tell him straight out: "We care about you but you need help. When you're ready, we're here for you." Take care Darren Daulton and all the other less famous, less attractive, less telegenic folks in the U.S. who could use a friend to help them when they need it. Daulton's double edged sword here is that if he was not a formerly great athlete, his mental illness wouldn't matter to anyone not in his immediate family. Because he is still somewhat famous, he's now a national punchline. Too bad for him.

Sitting around waiting for the laundry to finish and the Sox game to start..

- My favorite network show right now is "The Office". It is just so spot on as far as office politics, the Peter Principle, and the whole "no one gets out of here alive" general malaise that pervades so many companies today. The brilliant original English version was something that I didn't think could be duplicated by American television, and after watching the very first NBC episode that stuck SO closely to Gervais initial episode, I had my doubts as to the show's future. But the writers, producers and cast have done a terrific job of creating their own awful, awful little world where small men like Micheal Scott supervise people whose IQs dwarf his, while he grovels and ineptly self promotes himself to his "on to him yet stuck in her own little slice of hell" boss, Jan. I've seen three of the cast's blogs: Pam's,B.J. Novak's, who uses his real name and is yet another Havaaad grad gone Hollywood apparently,and, of course Dwight's. It looks like Jenna Fischer, who plays Pam the receptionist, really does put a lot of effort into her blogging during filming, as is claimed by those associated with the show.

- I was thinking recently that with the low ratings drawn by "The Office" in its first two seasons, and the big hit that was "The 40 Year Old Virgin, maybe NBC could take advantage of Steve Carell's newfound movie stardom. I mean, we know that Micheal never actually had SEX with Jan, and appears a likely candidate to be a virgin just like the one he played in last summer's hit film, albeit with a better job and a better haircut. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Micheal had an Asia poster somewhere in that new condo he bought on the show recently. So I ask: why burn a great character like Andy Stitzer, stereo salesman? I say that Micheal Scott is the REAL 40 Year Old Virgin...so why not change the name of the show to something like "The 40 Year Old Office Virgin"?

Notes on attending the Final Four in Indy this past weekend...

I am just about to turn 40 years old, and for the past 30 years I have been a huge, massive, possibly psychotic college basketball fan: my first memory of the college game was Indiana's perfect season in '76, when I was only ten. Also, Rutgers was undefeated going into that Final Four (Jammin' James Bailey and Fast Eddie Jordan leading the squad.), the first Eastern team in a few years to have a national impact (not that I was aware of that at the time). Can remember watching May, Benson and Buckner finishing off whomever was their semifinal opponent and then going out in our driveway in Amherst, NH and pretending to hit every shot (no, obviously I was not pretending to be Buckner...I guess I thought I was Scott May.) For some reason, basketball was the sport I loved first, and, as it turns out, for the longest and with the most passion. Maybe it had something to do with not needing anything but a ball and the crooked, 9 foot 10 inch rim and backboard my dad had lovingly erected in our driveway some time before that spring of '76. Our driveway, which at the time seemed as big as a football field, has apparently shrunk significantly over the years, as I can remember visiting the old house on Fairway Drive back in the early '90s (we moved away in '84) and being shocked that one could take about three steps out of the living room and shoot a layup. You mean to tell me that all those 35 foot game winners I took when I was a kid that won the National Championship, NBA title, whatever were not even of free throw length? Ack, the agony of growing up!

Through the years I have collected warm and vivid memories of each and every Final Four, albeit through the filter of a television screen. I remember Larry Bird's 30+ point game against Depaul in '79 and his disappointing effort against Magic and MSU two days later (this was after Bird had been drafted by the Celtics, so the Boston channels showed a bunch of ISU games that season.....little did we know HOW good he would be..), the Doctors of Dunk in '80 ("the 'Ville is going to the 'Nap!"), the shocking ending to the NC State v Houston game two days after Phi Slamma Jamma had torched an outstanding Louisville team and been proclaimed as the greatest this and that ( a point guard who could at least hit the rim on free throws and they win that game easy.), 'Nova over the best college team I have ever seen in Georgetown, 1985, in Lexington (of course, their ballhandler was coked up, or at least claims...wonder if that helped him get over the disconnect of being guarded by MICHAEL JACKSON...(" oh my god...THE gloved one is guarding little ol' me!!"), the bitter disappointment of the '89 Seton Hall team being robbed of a deserved championship by a call that still stinks many years later (And I don't think that Rumeal Robinson ever hit another free throw in his basketball career....seriously. That's karma.), Duke's regional final against UK in '92 (not a FF game, but the most exciting college game I've ever seen.), Donald Williams (Donald Williams? Donald freakin' Williams?) winning it for Dean in '93, the great Kentucky teams of the late '90s winning two titles, and UConn's wins in '99 and '04 along with the Cuse's win in '03: the three of which made this Big East fan very happy!

And this year, 2006, I got my first chance to attend the sacred event. We had won tix in the lottery last summer, knew we'd be in the nosebleeds, but didn't care: WE WERE GOING! And fully expected UConn to be there, or at least 'Nova or Boston College, my other favorite teams. Well....they didn't get there. But hey: WE WERE GOING! LSU, Florida were there, their fans taking time out from spring football talk to go to or watch their school. Who cares: WE WERE GOING! George Mason, a school with no tradition located somewhere in, I believe, Virginia, was gonna be there? No matter cuz WE WERE GOING! Little did I know that, as Bob Ryan wrote in the Boston Globe, there was widespread discussion on Monday night among the media, post Florida victory, that this was the worst Final Four ever.

I do not know if that is true (going to have to give it some thought), but yeah, the games were not competitive aside from the first 18m of the Mason/Florida game. I mean, LSU played with the passion of Jim from "The Office" after he gets back from lunch and waits out the hours 'till 5pm/quitting time: they just looked like they wanted to be somewhere else. The way UCLA dominated that game fooled me into expecting them to beat U of F handily on Monday night: the Bruins were seemingly everywhere on Saturday; making steals and blocking shots, with Jordan Farmer making jumpers and drives whenever the 35 second clock was winding down. In the early game, Mason actually (IMO) was in the game mentally as well as on the scoreboard until they gave up the last 5 points of the first half. Then, of course, Lee Humphrey, from the relative safety of the RCA Dome's locker rooms about 100 feet from the basket, hit 3 3's to open the second half and that was it. Nothing to do for the approximately 200,000 George Mason students who had descended on Indianapolis but to hit the bars and get friggin' drunk (believe me, they did).

As far as the Hoosier Dome (much cooler name than RCA Dome, so I'll stick with it), man, they can't tear that sucker down fast enough! The new Dome is being built across the street and judging by the size of the hole in the ground that is there now, the new place is going to either seat 400,000 people, or will have a bathroom available for each and every ticket holder...I mean the footprint is big! They have until 2010 to get it up and going, so I suppose four years is enough time to turn the biggest shitload of dirt I've ever seen into a first class 21st century domed arena (which will then be demolished in 25 years after the Irsays and the NCAA and folks like me complain about how old and decrepit it it...such is progress.). But the current place has actual aluminum benches in the entire upper deck: for folks with the disease known as "Bigfatamericanassitis", six hours of sitting can be a wee bit uncomfortable. I was actually looking forward to the media timeouts in the second half of both games so I could stand and stretch my back and give my ass a break. And, not that it matters to us po' folks, but the Dome has just one row of luxury boxes: you know that the NCAA brass and CBS Sales staff glommed on to most of those, leaving just a few for the billionaires of the world to separate themselves from the riff raff (ah..that would be me and, presumably, you). Most new arenas and stadiums are basically 80% luxury boxes or preferred seating and 20% steerage/"loserville"/standing room. I expect Indy's new dome to follow that blueprint to a T.

The redeeming fact of the weekend, along with the fact that WE WERE THERE AT THE FINAL FOUR(!) was the unrelenting cheerfulness, helpfulness and friendliness of all the volunteers and most of the paid staff of every event we attended. Wow! Coming from New England where, as I said to someone today, if someone smiles at you really hard and says "Hey!" you think they are on drugs, want to sell you drugs, are going to kill you, or all of the above, it was nice to have some good old fashioned hospitality and cheerfulness! (Not that I don't think the people in Indy weren't all on drugs, same as I would have had I been back in New England, I'm just assuming their dealers are Phizer and Eli Lilly and so forth instead of the puerto rican guy down on outer Congress Street who wears that old crappy Brooklyn Dodgers hat.

All in all a terrific time. And I would do it again in a heartbeat....soon as they get rid of those damn aluminum ass pinchers!