I hate Jeff Pearlman

Once again, Jeff Pearlman has written an article berating Barry Bonds for doing something positive. This guys acts like he not only knows Bonds, but that Bonds also slaughtered his family. I think my thoughts are best represented in the email I wrote Pearlman promptly after reading his article:

"No matter what he does, he's wrong. He can't win with you. I read your Page 2 article on espn.com. The link to it had this description: "Barry Bonds planned to wear no. 42 on Sunday to join in the honoring of Jackie Robinson, further proof that this man just doesn't get it." I'm not sure if you wrote that, but I'm sure if Bonds did not plan on wearing no. 42, you would have written a similar article with the description, "Barry Bonds did not plan on wearing no. 42 on Sunday to join in the honoring of Jackie Robinson, further proof that this man just doesn't get it." I'm surprised you didn't blame him for the rain that washed away the games today. I'm sure you could have come up with something like "Barry told the public he would honor Jackie Robinson by wearing no. 42. But since he's simply an evil man, he decided he needed a way around it, because in reality, he actually hates Jackie Robinson. So he used the powers that his evil performing-enhancing drugs gave him and summoned a rainout." Seriously, with the bullshit you write about Barry Bonds, I would not have been surprised to see that in there.

Here's a man, one of the greatest baseball players of all time, who wants to honor one of his heroes, and you come up with a way to make that a bad thing. Even if his track record in regard to race and sports is not great--although I've heard about plenty of times Bonds has lent advice to black rookies--he is in fact trying to honor Jackie Robinson. This is what he currently wants to do. The quote you used--the one he told mlb.com--what more do you want? It's easy to say he's not being sincere. In fact, it gets you a paycheck. But whats more logical is to assume he is being sincere, because who wouldn't be sincere when saying something like that? It's Jackie Robinson, for christ's sake. What he said was fact: "You just can't underestimate the impact Jackie had on this game." But it's Barry Bonds, so obviously there's something deceptive or wrong or evil about it, right?

It's time to move on, Mr. Pearlman. We know you don't like Barry Bonds. But enough with making him out to be worse than Hitler. You say "he has treated his black baseball forefathers like Aaron not as legends to be honored, but as stepping stones in his own maligned assault on the record books." As far as I'm concerned, this statement alone ruins your credibility. Bonds has shown nothing but respect for Aaron. If you say he treats Aaron as a stepping stone, you also should write an article claiming Cal Ripken considered Lou Gehrig as a means to personal gain. Barry Bonds not trying to erase Hank Aaron from the record books. He's simply hitting home runs. He's trying to win baseball games. He will pass Aaron on the way, and you can bet on him showing nothing but respect at that time, even though Aaron will be showing disrespect by not being there. So when the guy goes out of his way to show respect Jackie Robinson, just let him be. The next thing you write about Barry Bonds should be an apology.

-Mike Meade"

Here and there

A few things:

I feel as though this blog hardly ever gets read. I know this for a few reasons. 1) the pathetic ticker down at the bottom of the page. 2) the lack of comments. 3) I still am observing copious amounts of girls wearing hideously large sunglasses that make them look like Kim Jong Il if he went to the beach and needed his glasses to be shaded. If this blog was read like scripture like I secretly wish it was, there would have been huge-sunglasses-bonfires by now. But it makes sense that no one reads this blog, because it hardly ever gets written in. That being said:

Baseball season is upon us. Thank god. Unfortunately, my Giants are sucking more than Chipper Jones does in the back of a gay bar. After every Giants loss, I get in a remarkably bad mood for a good few hours. Luckily, sense baseball season is unnecessarily long, there is ample time to turn it around. The question is, how likely is it that they will turn themselves around into a contending team? I still have a good amount of optimism, but not nearly as much as I did before the season started. On the plus side, Barry hit two more home runs yesterday, leaving him 18 shy of Hank Aaron. My former 948 Cedar (aka CTU, aka The Hatch) housemate Matt has claimed for a while that if Barry gets reasonably close, he would take a crowbar to his knees. I doubt it will happen, but just be alert, Barry. The best way to avoid it would be to hit 19 home runs tomorrow, because I doubt Matt would be able to get to Pittsburgh on that short of notice.

Other than the slow start for the Giants, life is pretty good these days. I've found myself in mostly good moods. I do have a ridiculous amount of work remaining in the final month of school, but in a month, for better or for worse, it will be over. I've got an engineering internship in San Francisco lined up for the summer, which I'm fairly excited about. It's not my dream job, but I put a lot of time into landing an internship this summer, so it's nice that my hard work paid off. What else? Me and five of my best mates here will be moving into a nice suite closer to campus next year, which should be fun. One of them is talking about building a kegerator, and if anyone is gonna follow through on something like this, its him, so I'm pretty excited about that. I think we could do about a keg a week if we share a bit.

Oh, I wanted to write about this a few weeks ago. Has anyone played polo? Like, with horses? If you think about it, that's a pretty sweet sport. Man and beast working together and all? It's like a Midi evil battle scene, except instead of impaling each other with huge swords, they try and knock a ball into a goal or some shit like that. Anyway, I had the thought, so I thought I'd share it with you all (no one). Good day.