Captain Steroids, aka Barry Bonds, just found out that the San Francisco Giants will not be bringing him back in 2008. Captain still wants to play, tho. So can we assume he'll be a Yankee? I really don't see how he could end up in the N.L. with those brittle knees. So where could he end up? It'd have to be a place where the ball flies out, so that counts out Oakland and Seattle. The White Sox are too cheap & have too much salary locked up already, so they're out. The Angels? How about the Rangers? That's where steroid users go to die. Maybe Tampa Bay Rays (who I call the Tampa Bay Ray Romano's ) who are trying to make a splash with their new and leaked (tee hee hee) generic computer company logo and wordmark. Maybe put some of them Christian anti-Satan fans in the seats now that the evil "Devil" has been safely dropped from the team's name. But they still went with the devil ray logo, which makes no sense. Tho he would never sign there because he wants a World Series ring for his fat steroid infested fingers. Baltimore? Oh I'm sorry, Peter Angelos, "The Orioles". They're good at over-paying mediocre players. Toronto? Is the Big Curt still DH-ing there? Minnesota, Kansas City don't have the money either. Detroit? They already have a steroids user at DH. Cleveland has Hafner at DH. Bonds will be a Yankee.

I found out one of my favorite New England Clam Chowders (CHOWDAH!!) has an ungodly amount of saturated fat per 8 oz serving (18g / 90% daily allotment) so I'm going to have to re-think about that clam chowder lovefest I have going on with Panera Bread right now. New England Clam Chowder is one of my favorite foods. Why? I can't explain it. I like Manhattan Clam Chowder too, tho some people say it's red because it's the blood in the water that they gather from the East River (tho I've heard otherwise). A warm bowl of Chowdah and oyster crackers, and I'm one happy mf-er.

Heh, this middle aged hefty blonde broad was on "1 vs 100", said she was a New York Yankees fan on a baseball question, and people booed her loudly. God how I love baseball.

I turned this on right when Ray Romano was doing his "my wife can't stand me" bit again. What I don't like about this year's Emmy's:

• Ryan Seacreast, are you f'ing kidding me??! What a lame-ass host.
• People cheering a show.
• Jeremy Piven winning another Emmy.
• Shows on Premium Cable winning Emmy's where like 20% of the population has seen it
• Anything to do with "Ugly Betty"
• Tina Fey (had to leave the room to vomit) (who btw is in a crappy commercial for crappy American Express credit card, which is not accepted at most locations)
• Random trivial quotes scrawling across the Tv.com screen
• Acceptant speeches
• Writers who say "Uuuhhhhh…" over and over
• Jersey Boys? Oh god.
• More Sopranos sh*t??
• Blech, internet Emmy. Al freakin' "stiff two by four" Gore gets an Emmy??
• Man, Stephen Colbert & Jon Stewart are the only highlight in the boring 3rd hour.
• Ugly Betty, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!
• OOOOOOOOOH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
• An Emmy to 30 Rock!! Cancel the ceremony! Cancel everything! **falls to knees** NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooo………….
• Okay, Emmy's mean squat. There is no way in HELL 30 Rock had a better season than The Office. No way. Not possible. Or this confirms what I always assumed: everybody gets to win it once. Blech. And one more Sopranos turd to top the turd sundae. Very few funny bits, and Hugh Laurie's bit was unmemorable, but at least Conan got an Emmy. Plus there was a lot of weird technical difficulties, with lines and jokes cut-off, which apparently was due to the censors. Boo! Last year's Emmy's were much better. This is a dark, dark age for comedy, and all the lights in the house have been turned off.

Adding yet another impression to my vocal chords; either to the joy or annoyance of the world; is astronomer Jack Horkheimer. He's that old eager guy with the mustache and really bad toupee in southern Florida who does those 5-minute astronomy bits on PBS, known as 'Star Gazer'; usually spouts out rhetoric while sits on the rings of Saturn. It used to be "Star Hustler" but they had to change the name 'cause it lead internet users to porn sites. I have to say, Jack really loves his stars and planets, and I sound a lot like him, which I find comical, at least in a crazy old man way. I usually catch Star Gazer before or after 'Jeeves and Woozer', a early 1990s project by Hugh Laurie and his homosexual friend Stephen Fry. And I have to say, my British accent sounds a lot like Hugh Laurie himself, at least more on pitch if not less on pronunciation.

Speaking of accents, one of my favorite things, if not the favorite thing, was how Dana Carvey did so many impressions on Saturday Night Live. I'd have to say from aside Jerry Seinfeld & Larry David, Dana Carvey was my biggest comedic influence, even if it never lands me an acting or vocal job (tho I did do some bits in school). I try to pick up people's speech patterns, regional slang & pitch and try to duplicate them as closely as possible, plus I also have the range of going pretty high to pretty low as Weezie Jefferson . That one took about a decade of practice before I stopped choking after doing it.

But there's some voices I just can't seem to get down right, which includes Dale Gribble of King of the Hill. Rush Limbaugh is another. The Janitor on Scrubs also has a voice that's difficult to replicate, at least for me. Hugh Laurie's Gregory House is another I just can't do. If I had to pick a few favorite own impressions, it'd be Dr. Kelso on Scrubs ( "God DAMN IT, Cox!!" ), Hank Hill, Rocky & Bullwinkle, sports announcer Keith Jackson, Yakov Smirnoff, Dana Carvey's pretentious snob from 'Waikiki Hockey ' & 'Lyle the Effeminate Heterosexual' (one of my all-time favorite SNL sketches), Julia Child with inspiration from John Goodman on a cooking bit he did on 'Roseanne', and of course, Rip Torn & Jeffery "Hey nowwwwww - Hank Kingsley" Tambor from The Larry Sanders Show. Which reminds me, it saddens me that SNL's Bill Hader didn't get much screentime or many impressions in last season. I was really hoping he'd blow the doors off their hinges like Carvey did. And finally, as Jack Horkheimer would say...

"Keep looking up!"

I **** (pun intended) you not. Some stupid zoo in Cincinnati is making paper out of elephant poop . I saw this on the news and I saw the zookeeper handling the poop with his bare hands, just fiddling around with it like it was Play-Doh or something. And if that wasn't stupid enough, the zoo's gift shop is selling the elephant poop paper in the form of journals, stationery and greeting cards: all for $15 per 6 sheets. I studied ink, paper and book manufacturing in college, and I don't have to tell you that's an absolute horrible value. I spent hours and hours in Estimating c'lass where we had to figure out the cheapest way to sell paper in bulk, based on size, rate, weight, quality, etc. There was like 800 calculations and formulas & it sucked. Also part of the proceeds goes to some elephant conservation in Africa, which I find putting any money towards saving any animal as a complete total waste of time and money.

Geez, more rain and severe weather due in the Chicagoland area today with 100 degree heat index. 3 months ago, we were in a drought phase, and now we're in a flooding phase. It is raining every day and it's to the point where I have to mow the lawn every 4 days. And in the world of Meteorology, the most expensive costly weather-related occurrence is flooding. I once heard a phrase: "In the end, the water will win over all." Perhaps, but maybe not. I watch people on the news filling up bags with sand to fight against the flood waters, and some places there's over a thousand bags surrounding the building and I'm thinking, "geez, couldn't they make the bags a little bigger? Seems like a pain in the ass for all that work on small bags." Enough with the rain! It's almost Fall, growing season is almost over & we don't need the rain anymore. And let this be a lesson to never buy land near a river. And everybody lives in a flood zone. Everyone.

I really hope the St. Louis Cardinals win the N.L. Central because well, the Cubs suck and the Brewers are just too young and inexperienced. You know everyone talks about how the Cubs are a 1st place team and how they spent over $400 million in the past year to "keep their 'great' core of players", but the thing everyone seems to forget, that they're still just a .500 team! If that's what it takes to win a division, then that's just another example of why I don't favor the unbalanced schedule. You absolutely cannot have an unbalanced schedule if you have uneven divisions, Wild Card and completely yearly-random interleague play. If the Cubs do somehow make the playoffs, which I hope they don't, they will get crushed by a superior team.

And for all you youngsters out there who think tattoos are so wonderful and all, after watching a segment on the news, a recent survey taken by employers said that 85% of employers disapproved of applicants who had tattoos & it would hurt their chances of getting a job. Personally, I'm not a fan of tattoos, and I think they look tacky & ridiculous. I never understood this obsession or love of tattoos. If you like a design, that's what t-shirts are for.

Update: Yeah, looks like that Zambrano contract is really paying off already: Zambrano hurt his wrist swinging the bat today in SF. He gave up 4 ER in 5.1 IP and fell to 14-10.

As much as I can't stand Phil Rogers and his writing and insights (tho there is a reference from a highly rated MLB official input), tho he really isn't writing anything; more like summarying; there is indisputable data that backs me up that proves Carlos Zambrano's huge contract was a bad idea. These names are dropped in the bucket: Kevin Brown, Mike Hampton, Denny Neagle, Darren Dreifort, Wilson Alvarez, Alex Fernandez, Chan Ho Park, Carl Pavano, Ben Sheets, Pedro Martinez, Bartolo Colon.

If you read this 7 days later when the link expires, here's the gist:

In the 10 seasons spanning 1997 through 2006, 24 pitchers signed and completed contracts of at least four years as free agents or prospective free agents. They combined to experience 38 diminished or lost seasons of a total of 107—more than one down year for every two good ones.

Only nine of the 24 could be judged as representing good deals for the signing teams.
Another group of 10 pitchers is more than halfway through deals of four-plus years. Seven of those deals have gone bad.

Unfortunately for the Cubs, the odds drop when you go to the short list of pitchers with deals for five-plus years. Zambrano becomes the 12th active pitcher with one of those. Even though only two of the current 11 are in their later years (Hampton and Mussina), there is already reason for buyer's remorse in six cases: Hampton, Kevin Millwood, Chris Carpenter, A.J. Burnett, Barry Zito and Kei Igawa.

Nineteen teams currently have at least one contract of four-plus years that came through free agency or was done to keep a pitcher off the free-agent market. Zambrano became the 29th of those. The value of those contracts is $1.56 billion—an average of $53.7 million.

"They've been such a disaster," the MLB official said. "When you find out why teams keep doing this, can you tell me? We have the data. If anybody thinks the Zambrano deal is a slam dunk for the Cubs, they're wrong."

And the Cubs, of course, like other teams, think they'll be one of the lucky ones. And keep in mind, basically none of the aforementioned pitchers has any real temper issues, maybe ranging from a scale of 1 to 3 of 10. Zambrano on the same scale is about 37 with good odds to injury himself via bunching a wall. While the old dinosaur Roger Clemens finally evened up his record at 5-5 yesterday, still not justifying his 2007 $28,000,022 salary. You're telling me some Triple-A guy couldn't have gone 5-5 in Clemens place for a one-millionth of that salary? If only one team in your sport can pay such a salary for a guy who only shows up when he feels like it, then your league has serious problems. Teams like the Yankees and the Cubs are bad for baseball, and they're ruining baseball for teams in Pittsburgh, Tampa, Cincinnati, etc.

It just doesn't make any sense for teams to keep giving these huge contracts to starting pitchers. I am more convinced than ever that MLB needs to put a hard salary cap in place.

Well that lunatic Carlos Zambrano of the Cubs signed a 5-year, $91.5 million contract. I was really hoping he'd leave town, because I am really sick and tired of his stupid antics and his fist pumping, his screaming at teammates while on the field, his stupid celebrations on the mound, breaking his bat on his knee, and his barking & helmet slamming after getting out as a batter. There is no person who annoys me more in Chicago sports than Zambrano (tho Phil Rogers & Mike Downey are a tied close 2nd). I was really hoping he'd end up on the Mets or some other National League team. Is he worth $18.3 million a year? Absolutely not. But that's what the market is at right now; vastly over-paying pitchers who really aren't worth it. Nobody learned anything from the contracts of Denny Neagle, Mike Hampton nor Jason Schmidt. But the Cubs / Tribune Company doesn't care. They just spent about $396.5 million dollars in the past year! I'm sure it's well past $400 million, actually. Very reckless. They don't care, because they won't be footing the bill, once they get sold soon. And some stupid rich idiot, who most likely will be a Cubs fan, will buy the team & end up paying for it. The Cubs have proved time after time that they're absolutely the worst value when it comes to payroll (at least the Yankees make the playoffs, the Cubs do not & routinely finish well out of 1st place) and the fans will be the ones who ultimately end up paying for it (expect mass ticket increases).

How could anybody support this team? It really makes you think what kind of a person would support such a franchise. Rumors have that the Cubs are worth over $1 billion, and some say that estimate is low. Gee, I wouldn't have thought teams who haven't won anything in the past 99 years would be worth so much (overrated completely). And who did they spend all this money on? An obviously hurt Derrek Lee who has baggage, Aramis Ramirez, prone to injuries & who quite possibly is the worst 3rd baseman in the league, and Carlos Zambrano, who has no control of himself & is prone to mental breakdowns and will injure himself if necessary. Oops, I forgot about Alfonso Soriano, whose on the DL right now. That as it may be, you still have no left or right fielder (Jacque Jones should NOT be making $8 million a year to suck & rot on the bunch), your middle infield sucks, you have no catchers, a shakey closer and no bullpen, and iffy starting pitchers. Yeah, money well spent indeed.

And would you have believed me that on August 17, Derrek Lee would only have 16 homers? Wrist not bothering him my ass. And the St. Louis Cardinals have made a comeback in the Comedy Central division, now only 2 games behind the Cubs for 2nd place and 2 ½ games behind the Brewers, and the Cardinals are in town for a weekend series. Kick it in the ass, Cardinals!! Beat those stupid Cubs! As crazy as it seems, it looks like the Cardinals will repeat as Central champions. The Brewers are just too young, too inexperienced, and Ben Sheets is about as reliable as a Tour de France rider. The Cardinals have playoff experience and have Mark Mulder coming back, which should be a huge boost. The kind of boost that's a division maker. I think the Cardinals will be representing the Central division in the playoffs this October.

Cubs suck – word to your mother.

During my daily rounds of reading on the business of the sports world, I came across this article 'An empty feeling' about complaints of the Arizona Diamondbacks (or "D-Backs" officially, or D-Bags unofficially) being in 1st place for a while and fans not showing up / not packing the place. Well excuse me! This trend isn't exactly new. When a team hits 1st place in a long baseball season, we don't all just automatically drop whatever we're doing and head down the to ballpark!

After some initial research, $10-$15 for the crappiest seats in the house, with even somewhat tolerable seats ranging from $25 to $35, and anything closer ranging from $50 to $90 to $100 to $180 and parking will cost you anywhere around $10.

"Alas, attendance is a tricky subject in Arizona. Clearly, we're different out here, living in a place that would be inhospitable without air conditioning, and many bad decisions have been made based on conventional sporting wisdom. And even with the slight increase in warm bodies, the numbers are truly embarrassing."

Again, with a trip to the ballpark costing an arm and a leg amongst sitting hours in traffic, it's not exactly a picnic. And don't even bother showing up to the park hungry or thirsty.

"We'd all love to play in front of a huge crowd," Diamondbacks catcher Chris Snyder said. "But it's different here. You've got to prove yourself here."

You can prove yourself until your ass bleeds, but it still doesn't change the fact that there's much better entertainment values out there, not to mention 3 other pro teams, tho that's really stretching it with the Football Cardinals. If the Diamondbacks were smart, they'd use some of that money to buy up some theatres, malls, bars and shut them down!

More broadly, the lukewarm reception to the 2007 Diamondbacks has shed light on an uncomfortable subject: Is professional baseball a losing proposition in Arizona, the way it seems to be in Florida, the other spring training host?

Oh this again. Of course it is. Putting baseball in Phoenix, St. Petersburg & Miami were horrible decisions. Not to mention the team plays in the N.L. West, which has been a garbage division for a while now. And this article mentions some fans are staying away because of the new color scheme. You gotta be kidding me. The old purple, copper, teal and black was ungodly ugly and 1990s-ish. But buying the 2001 World Series was the worst thing they could have done to that team's fan base. They should have learned that from the 1997 Marlins. But no, they panicked. It'll take time before the area embraces the team. You need to play some more seasons, get a rival or two going, and get in some real pennant races. Otherwise shut up and play.

Something I don't pay much attention to… the baseball draft…..the signing deadline is this Wednesday, or teams lose their picks and they become free agents or go back to school. But there is one thing I do pay attention to, and that's when cheap teams get high picks and then go the other way. As HeyStu will probably write in his next Tuesday article, The Kansas City Royals selected high school 3rd baseman Mike Moustakas, whom A-hole and overall Douchebag of the Planet evil agent Scott Boras has been touting that Moustakas "is the best high school hitter since Alex Rodriquez."

"Oh ****!," said the Kansas City Royals. Your # 1 pick got compared to the baseball player with the most overpaid contract ever. Rumors have it he'll want around $10 million to sign. More rumors says Moustakas is intent on going to USC after the Royals ignored him the past two months. Now this is interesting. Do you take the money and sign with the Royals, knowing you probably won't ever see the post-season, or do you go to school and get an education? Logic says "take the money, idiot. You'll be set for life. You go to college to get jobs like that." There's always the possibility of injuries in college, flunking out or lacking general intelligence to where you can't earn a degree. But what if I'm the Royals? Do I bother essentially wasting all that huge money to the point that some snot-nosed high schooler would be the 2nd highest Royal on the payroll? And this being baseball, where you can't trade draft picks.

There is certain wisdom behind not signing # 1 picks. As I recall, the White Sox used their 1997 # 1 on a certain crud-pitcher by the name of Jeff Weaver, who demanded something about $5 million, which was completely ridiculous at the time. Time passes, Detroit picks him at # 1 in 1998, and so on forth to a crummy career. The Royals could use that money saved on Moustakas and fix up the team. Ignoring your # 1's outrageous demands is a free "Get-out-of-Hell" card, and given the hit-and-miss nature of # 1 picks, it probably won't hurt the team via attendance in the future, tho it does look lazy and like you're screwing over your fans. Should baseball invoke a 'best interests for the game' clause? If they really could, there'd be a salary cap to stop the Yankees in their quest for the first $300 million payroll. And judging by the revenue reports on the new Yankee stadium, it's quite possible and realistic.

Man, after watching Steve Stone call the Indians / White Sox game last night, I was in a pretty good mood, despite them losing 2-1. I'm about to go to bed, then I see this **** of Bonds breaking the record. Boooo! Booo!! Blasphemy!! Cheater!! Liar!! Steroids!! Asterisk!

No matter what anyone says, Hank Aaron is still the legit homerun king. And there is only one issue here: Bonds said, under oath, he took the Cream and the Clear. Doesn't matter if he did it "unknowingly" (which is a whole lot of bull), he still took it, and judging by his pics, most men in the late 30s don't suddenly balloon up and grow a full hat size.

Yeah Barroids, live it up, because now you're big ego, after all its McGwire envy, you got your precious revenge, at the expense of your health and MLB & sport's (was) most cherished record of all-time. Guess what, nobody cares about the HR record anymore, and we're waiting for A-Rod to break it, which he will before he hits 40 years old.

Yes, I'm angry. I'm very pissed off. But part of me matured, realizing it's just a silly sports record, and thanks to Bonds, it's one less piece of Americana to care about. Bonds is everything that is wrong with sports and competition. And what's worse, is the criminals he's associated with still have not exposed their information to incriminate Bonds. At least Selig wasn't there. That counts for something. Talk amongst yourselves. Express your outrage, then we'll ignore the whole matter until A-Rod gets close in about 7-8 years.

Barroids just broke Hank Aaron's all-time homerun record. Sad. It's the end of all sports records.