Last month, With Leather briefly celebrated the joy that was the Brooklyn Nets PR Twitter account, a fun oasis in an otherwise dry and arid NBA social media scene. That account was responsible for the epic deadpan you see in the header, and for other, totally asinine statistical gems like this:
Sadly, that beautiful voice has been silenced.
By way of our friends at Big League Stew comes a fantastic idea — getting a “World Champs 2011″ tattoo on your chest when your favorite baseball team has just blown two one-strike-and-we’re-out opportunities in Game 6 of the World Series. Everything’s bigger in Texas, they say, including the embarrassing life choices.
A brief explanation (not really) from the BLS tipster:
My friend had this done before Game 7. Maybe you can show the world how big of an idiot he is, or just a die hard fan.
Their report wonders aloud whether or not the guy originally got his Dallas Mavericks championship when the Mavs went up 2-0 in 2006 and whether or not the “world champs” tag is applicable to a team that just won North America’s baseball championship, but after looking at this guy’s quarter-chest and seeing it plastered with corporate logos and designs you’d see on inspirational ribbons at the Dollar Tree, yeah, I’m gonna go with “idiot”. Or maybe he’s the local sports fan equivalent of the guy from Memento and gets sh*t like this tattooed on himself so he can remember it in the morning. He should carry around a Polaroid of Ron Washington with “don’t believe his lies” scribbled at the bottom.
My favorite sports team having a racist logo and my favorite pro wrestler murdering his family has taught me well of the dangers of sports tattooing. If you really want to show your support with an impulse buy, Academy Sports has a huge rack of TEXAS RANGERS WORLD SERIES 2011 shirts on clearance right now, and they come with the added bonus of being able to take them off.
Major League Baseball missed out on a marquee Justin Verlander/C.C. Sabathia pitching match-up in game one of the ALDS because of a botched weather forecast, then suffered through two rain delays in the fifth inning of Saturday night’s ALCS game one in Texas. Commissioner Bud Selig and team representatives went into discussions about Sunday night’s ominous forecast and, not taking into consideration that it has rained exactly one time in Texas since 1985 and that was Saturday, postponed the game about five hours before the first pitch.
Texas Rangers president Nolan Ryan, a guy who I’m sure has kept cattle from herding off a cliffside during a thunderstorm at least once in his life, explains the call:
“With the forecast that we had … we didn’t want to experience what we did last night; and with the forecast for this evening, it appears that it’s going to be duplication of what we saw last night,” Rangers president Nolan Ryan said. “I think the one thing we’re concerned about is the integrity of the game and not [putting] either team in a situation where possibly the elements could affect the outcome of the game.”
By the time the game had been scheduled to start, the weatherman was calling for a “mostly cloudy” night with a 10% chance of rain. No rain had fallen for three hours, and there was no rain in the area an hour later. The grounds crew left a sad, dry tarp on the diamond as the reality sank in — Major League Baseball had just postponed a playoff game because it might have rained. At no point did Justin Verlander speak up and explain that God was just trying to tell him to knock it off.
I’m sure there was a lot going on behind the scenes. I’m sure the MLB didn’t want to inconvenience FOX Primetime by making them play old episodes of This Week In Baseball or re-runs of The Fresh Prince like TBS does when it rains too much, and sure, when you’re playing a string of important games you don’t want your guys trudging through mud and soggy grass. At the same time, one of the enduring images of sports is warriors battling the elements, powering through snow and torrential rain to prove their might, and what does it say about modern day baseball when dark clouds make two entire teams and a league go “welp, pack it in, too dangerous”?
Anyway, take a look at a few shots from the non-event, and compare/contrast them to Hurricane Katrina pictures at your leisure.
