Update on Clay Buchholz: The Smittblog Was Way, WAY Off About Him

According to this young lady and Clay's dad, Buchholz ain't doin to bad for himself.
So 'member when I wrote that short ditty about how Clay Buchholz is weird looking and probably won't get any ass (the title of that post was actually "Clay Buchholz Ain't Gonna Be A Real Hit With The Ladies")? Well, it seems young Clay has proven me wrong. WAY wrong. It seems Clay has found himself a lady friend. A young woman entrepreneur named Erica Ellyson:

Buchholz's dad confirmed to WZLX yesterday that his boy has spent some quality time with the 23-year-old centerfold.

"I know he's met her, gone out with her, but I don't know if you consider that dating . . . but hey, a boy could do worse," Skip Buchholz told 'ZLX's Karlson & McKenzie yesterday.

Apparently Erica also spilled the beans - somewhat - to Howard Stern the other morning, telling the satellite shock jock that she was sleeping with someone on the Sox.

"It doesn't surprise me any," said Clay's dad. "Last year up in Boston he was dating a Victoria's Secret model, so he's moving up the ladder . . . . I mean, he's got pretty good taste."

As the gents from Baseball Musings point out, I don't know that I necessarily agree that taking on a Penthouse Pet over a Victoria's Secret Model is a step "up the ladder," unless that is the "odds of getting genital warts" ladder.

Regardless, kudos to Clay. I'm sure he's well aware that if he weren't a baseball player he'd be getting his STD's from the buttfugliest hog that Beaumont, Texas had to offer.

Matt Walsh Is A Sick Bastard

You know what would be hysterical? If you stuck this sharp metal object in someone's bed and hoped that they sat on it! Actually, that wouldn't be funny at all.
For better or worse, we're going to learn a lot about the Patriot's former video lacky Matt Walsh in the coming weeks and months. But if some of the stuff coming out about him now is any indication, he's welcome to crawl right back in that hole from whence he came.

This week the Boston Globe (a periodical which clearly is going full speed ahead with pro-Pats propaganda mode) came out with a feature about Walsh by one of its lead investigative reporters. Most of the stuff in the article referenced items that had been floating around the newswire over the last couple of weeks. Taped conversations, shady behavior and other incidents that don't portray Walsh in the most positive light. But there was once incident highlighted in the article that makes him sound like a pretty fucked up and sick kid:

"In developing a portrait of Walsh, a personable sports lover now working as an assistant golf pro in Hawaii, the Globe also learned that he has exaggerated or misrepresented elements of his online biography, and that he was dismissed from the Springfield College golf team in 1995 after he played a dangerous prank on a woman."

"According to the alleged victim, a woman who was dating Walsh's roommate, Walsh was so miffed that she and his roommate might spend time on his bed while he was away that he booby-trapped his sheets with a stainless steel, six-pronged blender blade.
The woman, whose account was corroborated by Walsh's former roommate, said she vividly recalls being startled and slightly injured when she sat on the knife-sharp object. She said the episode forever changed her view of Walsh, whom she had known since high school and Walsh's roommate had considered his best friend since childhood."

So fearing his best friend was going to make out on his bed, Walsh booby trapped it with a potentially lethal metal instrument? In what world does that qualify as a "prank"? That's not like Saran Wrap on the toilet seat or short sheeting the bed, that's fucking sadistic shit. Essentially what Walsh is saying with this prank is: "Dude, I'm serious this time. If you bang your girlfriend on my bed tonight you're gonna fuckin pay. I'm going to leave a sharp metal object in the bed that is capable of slicing your dick off." And that was just his revenge for lying in his bed! Imagine what type of shit he's capable of to get back at the dude who fired him for being a devious fuck?

Too Good To Pass Up

This has nothing to do with anything except that it is f'n hysterical. Fred & Sharon couldn't be more Canadian and they seriously want to help you videotape stuff. I could watch this video about 700 more times before it got old. It's like an SNL sketch except funny.

Girardi Says Play Hard Later. For Now, Play Like A Pussy

Shhh! Don't bother Mr. Matsui! It's only the preseason.
I don't want to spend too much time on this because I can't believe anyone in their right mind is on the same side as Joe Girardi on this issue but it's at least worth a mention.

So on Saturday, Yankees' rookie catcher Francisco Cervelli was trying to coral a throw home when DEVIL Ray 2nd baseman Elliott Johnson came home and just leveled him. Cervelli lost the ball, Johnson scored and Cervelli broke his wrist. Pretty intense for a pre-season game but shit happens and you have to expect aggressive hustle plays during Spring Training when players have to do whatever it takes to stand out. Sadly, that's not how Sour Joe Girardi.

When interviewed about the play after the game, Girardi was bullshit:

"I think it was uncalled for, it's spring training and you are going to get people hurt and we got Cervelli hurt," Girardi said of Johnson... "I am all for playing hard but I don't think it's the time to run over a catcher in spring training."

Not entirely finished, Girardi then blamed Rays Manager Joe Maddon for not having control of his guys

"I have always known you don't do it," Girardi said of instigating home plate collisions in games that don't count.

"I know kids are playing aggressive and playing hard and that's the way you want them to play. But if it happens too much maybe you should mention it.

"It's one thing to get hit by a pitch or twist an ankle running the bases. But to run over someone, I don't understand it.

Since the incident, I haven't heard one person come out in defense of Girardi's stance here (even Yankee homer Michael Kay called Girardi out on his radio show today). So I guess there's really no argument here that Girardi is in the right. I mean, what the F did you want Johnson to do? He's a kid dying to make a team on an organization FULL of young upstart players who are all likely more talented than he is. He has to do EVERYTHING better than the other guy to get noticed. If he's sprinting home and then pulls up at home plate so as not to injure the catcher, he loses all credibility and no matter how he explains it to the coaches, he's f'd. If he slides in feet first, he risks injuring himself. If he tries some weird acrobatic move, he looks like an asshole who doesn't know what he was doing. Taking out the catcher was the right move because it showed he instinctively knew what to do in that position and it showed just how bad he wants on that team. If anyone is to be blamed it's that idiot catcher who got himself hurt. Get in position and catch the fucking ball, pansy. And Joe knows that. He was a fucking catcher for Christ's sake.

I thought the flagship of Joe Girardi's makeover movement was to add a new sense of "toughness" to the Yanks. I guess that only means when he says so or when the lights are on or on national tv or maybe only in October. What we know now is that for about the next month, you can rest assured the Yanks won't give their best effort. They'll simply half ass it. I'm sure that won't roll over into the regular season.

I Hate IO Digital Cable

The person who made this horrible commercial should be drawn and quartered. It's on TV every 15 minutes and features one of the most annoyingly contagious repetitive hooks in the history of television. It's the equivalent of a jazzed up version of the Sleepy's jingle in terms of degree of unpleasantness. If you want to know what it's like to watch my cable programming package, leave this page open on your computer and every 10 minutes or so play the video. An hour or so into the madness you will develop a desire to kill someone, likely the gentleman singing the song in the video. You have my blessing to follow through on that desire. Please.

Welcome To Beijing! Please Keep Your Lungs Closed At All

Aside from the overcrowding, oppressive government social programs and suffocating pollution, Beijing doesn't seem half bad.
Other than those years when a political crisis forces some country to bag out of the Olympics in protest, the Olympics are supposed to feature the world's best athletes. Winning gold in an Olympic event usually means that you are the best in the world. But what if instead of the best athletes in the world showing up only those who don't care about doing irreversible damage to their lungs showed. Well, that's what's going on in Beijing right now.

Today, Haile Gebrselassie, the world record holder in the marathon announced that he will not compete in the marathon in the upcoming Summer Games because he is fearful that the poor air quality and because, well, he likes being alive. Organizers fear that this is just the tip of the iceberg and if the world record holder bows out it's only a matter of time before others follow suit in other marquee events. So instead of Mike Phelps and Asafa Powell, you get Cheech Marin and Joan Rivers. They are the only people who have consumed enough smoke in their lifetimes to withstand the shock to the the system that the Beijing air represents. While those events would be funny, if more world record holders pull out of this Olympics, this thing is going to turn into a joke. It'll be no more a spectacle of the World's Best Athletes than your local high school track meet. And all in the name of appeasing the New World Order. Makes sense, I mean it would have sucked to run in the clear air and crystal skies of Toronto or Paris anyway.

Clay Buchholz Ain't Gonna Be A Real Hit With The Ladies

Is it me or does Buchholz look like Doug Flutie (played by Rich Hall) in that SNL episode when Bishop Desmond Tutu busts the arm off Flutie's Heisman Trophy. Good gravy that is not a flattering photo.

The Belgian Twaffle

Kristof Ongenaet's coast-to-coast 3 point play was a momentum changer and possibly season saver.
If you didn't watch the above play or haven't watched the Syracuse this year you can't possibly understand the utter absurdity that the above photographs represent. Hanging on that rim is Belgian native and JuCo transfer Kristof Ongenaet. He of the 5 second set shot, the floor presence of a Madame Tussaud exhibit and the incomporable EuroHawk hairdo he kicks (it's like a tapered mullet in the rear cut tight on the sides with a texture that seems to lack treatment of shower product). Prior to 3 weeks ago, Ongenaet, while not a liability, didn't exactly add much to the team on either end of the floor other than a warm body and 5 fouls to give on a team that desperately needed both. In that capacity, Ongenaet was a genius. He didn't turn the ball over and he was always good for a hard foul here and there. Lately something has different has been happening.

Ongenaet had a double-double at halftime of the Seton Hall game and has grabbed 8+ boards and played 30+ minutes in almost every game down the stretch. He also gets the 2-3 zone. He is, arguably, the most consistent defender on the wing of the zone only rarely getting out of position. He is versatile enough to scare the deep threat and strong enough to defend the post. On offense he never holds the ball for longer than 2 seconds and is neither a threat to drive or shoot but he is ALWAYS moving. He occupies a defender (or two) and is really the only player who understands the soft spots in zones. Plus he kills the offensive glass. He's either tapping the ball out (or in) or grabbing an extra board in a key spot. He easily leads the team in aggressive / hustle fouls. In terms of basketball smarts, Ongenaet is light years ahead of most of his inexperienced teammates. That's why it was so frustrating to watch him play. You put his brain (and guts) in Donte Greene's body and you have the best player in the game.

For all of these great qualities, Ongenaet doesn't have the confidence to do much with his unique skillset. He can pass and he can drive and he can shoot and he can dunk, he just doesn't. And really, he doesn't even try. In Ongenaet's defense, Syracuse has enough offensive bravado to spare. He's a grinder and in that role he has probably exceeded expectations. Ongenaet is neither asked to nor is he required to provide a spark. But holy shit did he provide a spark on Saturday.

With Marquette making a run early in the second half of Saturday afternoon's game, Ongenaet got loose for the business end of an alley-oop in the halfcourt set. A showing of athleticism so out of character that I literally fell out of my seat at the bar (I was a few deep). But what happened next was the play of the year for Syracuse basketball and perhaps the spark they need to get themselves into the tournament.

With the crowd still buzzing from The Twaffle's alley-oop throwdown, Marquette quickly moved up the floor to try and catch 'Cuse snoozing. As his nature, Ongenaet was already back on D having beaten just about everyone back into position. Marquette's Lazar Hayward was flying towards the hoop when Ongenaet wrenched the ball right from his hands and started up the floor the other way. He quickly crossed over at mid-court and now there was no one between he and the hoop. But Hayward was not going to let this fly. As Ongenaet approached the lane, Hayward was right on his hip pocket and in decent position to deny the shit out of the lanky Belgian as he try and meekly lay the ball on the glass. That's when the unthinkable happened. Ongenaet was flying at the rim with reckless abandon. He rose, and rose and with Marquette's Hayward sharing the same breath, he throws down a two-handed jam while getting violently hacked from behind. His fingers grasp the rim for as long as he can must but with the shared momentum of his acceleration and the added shove of Hayward are too much and he goes flying under the rim in an awkward tumble and smacks his nose on the floor, blood everywhere. The Dome erupts. The bar is in a frenzy. Most of the people in the bar aren't even really watching the game and certainly weren't 'Cuse fans (most were early arrivals for the Duke - N.C. game) but they are screaming at the top of their lungs as the replay rolls across the screen over and over again. It was outstanding.

After that play, Marquette didn't stand a chance. They never came closer than 8 the rest of the way. The team seemed to have a new swagger and the players seemed inspired by the guts of their Euro Grinder. Their reaction was the same as ours: Where did that come from? The kid has never shown that type of athleticism and maybe he doesn't really possess it but he did at that moment and it changed the game and perhaps the season. It's not too often you get to say that about a play or a player. But the Twaffle had that moment and given his drive and his rising confidence, here's hoping he's got more in him.