If Every American Mails Peyton Manning $1, I Think He Might Finally Retire

Peyton Coverage = Anti-Eugene

Hey there, friend.  You’re probably wondering what I’m doing right now (8:16 pm PST) I’m currently watching 30 Rock, and Kristin Schaal is guest starring as a new page.  Seeing her reminded me of Bob’s Burgers, a show near and dear to my heart.  One of my favorite actors on that show is Eugene Mirman.  I just love Eugene Mirman!  I think he’s hilarious.  I literally cannot get enough of Eugene Mirman.

My adoration of all things Eugene is the opposite of how I feel about all this Peyton Manning coverage.  In fact, there are many opposites between Eugene Mirman and the Peyton Manning coverage.  This might be easier if I just compile a list of all the opposites that exist between these two.

Eugene Mirman               Peyton Manning Coverage
-Funny                            -Not Funny
-Overweight                    -Not Overweight
-Comedian                      -Not Comedian
-Russian Heritage           -No Russian Heritage

NEED I CONTINUE?

Look, here’s my point.  The media has been speculating on Peyton’s future for a while, but the attention has really ramped up in the past couple of weeks.  It’s incessant.  I really don’t think I need to say anything else because you know what I’m going to say.  Sports media’s obsession with all things Peyton must be put to a stop!

This is why I propose the Peyton Plan: If you, me and Rick Perry combine our efforts, I am convinced that we can persuade every American (even you, infants!) to donate one dollar to Peyton Manning.  This combined value of $312,953,322 should be enough to convince the beleaguered quarterback to hang up his cleats for good and put an end to ESPN’s blather.  Once again we will be able to turn on the TV without fear of hearing about all 22 NFL teams who might take a risk on Peyton Manning next season.

So, dear reader, will you join me in implementing the Peyton Plan? Together, I believe we can make a difference!  We will prevail!

ARRGG>WOOF

L-O-I day is dead, but we’re all left wanting…Sark’s “WOOF’S” echo in the distance, and the single 4-stars and multiple 3-stars we have pale in comparison to the 4- and 5-stars that have sadly diarrhea’d into the fax machine of the UW hopper. The rein of Pirate Leach, however, changes everything. Super-steals like Sam Jones & Gabriel Marks,  and the retention of Taylor Taliulu show that CML is willing to flex his muscle whenever and wherever he needs to. Though it’s a Top 50 recruiting class, at best it doesn’t mean douche-crotch performance; I swear, we’re in bowl games this year and taking 3 of the next 4 Apple Cups is a hopeful chance…..not because we have better kids but because I know for a fact UW kids will take a frat level of mental and physical abuse to the point where they become the guys who either flame out and “smush a bush” or play like Jeremy Stevens and “eat rape for dinner”. So, here’s believing we can appreciate good news and coast to a hopeful 10 bowl bods in a row thanks to the Pirate Leach…….ARGGHHHH

All hail PIRATE LEACH!!!

Oh Hai! I’m fresh off my monthly va-jazzling, but there’s no doubt it has been a while. Do you care? Of course you do, no doi. And so, I am here to announce STUFFANDTHINGS is back!! Thanks for being patient, and though I know only my Grammy and Pops care, you should know that there has been a major relocation of our HOMEBASE..and by HOMEBASE I mean the laptop on which I type right now. It has traveled far, without permission, and sometimes I think it might strangle me in my sleep….. but that’s so super ridiculous – if anyone strangles me it will be my loser wife. So here we are, outside Orlando…but I promise I still have perspective on Seattle sports! Well, at least as much as the half-ass fans that live there..BA-ZING!!!!! Go Sounders right??? They are the best! Kicking and passing and shit…. you’re all total fucks. Yup. We’re back.

You’re welcome.

Are the Mariners Forreal?

Dawson weeps for all M's fans

Well, the Seattle Mariners are on their way home from Minneapolis, where they were publicly beaten and humiliated by the Minnesota Twins for three whole days.  It was like a domestic violence case where everybody in the neighborhood knows what goes on behind closed doors (where did she get that black eye?) but nobody wants to get involved.  In today’s game, Francisco Liriano had his way with them for seven innings, racking up 11 K’s.  The M’s left with no dignity, no runs, 2 hits, 2 walks, and FIFTEEN STRIKEOUTS!

It’s no secret that the Mariners have rewritten the definition of “suck” this season.  We rank last in the majors in team batting average, home runs, RBI and hits.  Our bullpen’s ERA is 4.53, good for 12th in the AL.  Just for a frame of reference, last year’s bullpen ERA ranked 3rd in the league.  And unless I’m mistaken, the team’s motto has been officially changed from “Believe Big” to “Only (x) Days Left Until Football Season Starts!”

Let’s recap some other highlights from this season:

• Felix got tricked into signing a five-year deal (sucker!)
• Griffey came back for another magical season, only to learn the hard way that people who wear adult diapers are too old to play baseball
• the team went through DH’s faster than Griffey went through adult diapers
• Chone Figgins began a four-year-long crime spree, during which he is expected to steal $36 million from the team.  And oh, yeah, HE ATTACKED OUR MANAGER IN THE DUGOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• the M’s acquired Cliff Lee, which, combined with Felix at the top of the rotation, ensured that fans would pay attention to at least 40% of the team’s games (until they traded him away in July)
• Erik Bedard kept his pulse going at a murmur (I seriously thought he was dead for a while)
• The team went 6-22 in the month of July.  That is not a misprint.  We won just over 20% of our games.

With so many things going wrong this year, it seems as though choosing one single thing to pick on would be difficult.  Nope, it really isn’t.  The absolute worst part of this team is the hitting, or lack thereof.  My brother summed it up pretty well the other day, when he said, “I’ve forgotten what a good offense looks like.  Whenever the M’s score more than 2 runs in a game, I think something along the lines of, ‘Holy crap, the M’s scored 4 runs today!  That’s SO MANY RUNS!  How could a team ever be fortunate enough to score SO MANY RUNS?’ ”

As silly as that statement might sound, it’s a pretty accurate account of how we all feel about this anemic offense.  And it’s not like the hitters don’t know they suck.  They talk about it all the time, in every post-game interview.  2010 is being called the Year of the Pitcher, but if you were judging by the Mariners’ offense, you might guess that this was the Dead Ball Era.

And how do you think the pitchers feel?  Those poor, accursed souls have to go out there every day and pitch with the full knowledge that if they give up as many as 2 runs over 6 innings, there’s no chance in Hell of them getting the win.  So, as a result, each starting pitcher has the full weight of the team on his shoulders during every single start.  You don’t think this weighs on them over the course of the season?  Look at Doug Fister.  This guy was a real stud at the beginning of the year.  Then he got that “shoulder strain”.  Now, he is but a shell of his former self, unable to look in the mirror, let alone net a quality start.  And Ryan Rowland-Smith?  I loved that guy before the season started!  I expected him to have a Vargas-like year.  Instead, the Thunder from Down Under has struggled to find the zone all season.  He has zero self-confidence when he pitches.  And now some “injury” has pushed him to the 15-day DL.  Are we really buying that story?  Come on.  How much longer can this guy have?  There could be any number of reasons why these two young guns have been struggling, but I find it much easier to simply blame our crappy offense.

So, Seattle Mariners fan, what does this mean for you?  Should you give up on your team altogether?  HELL NO!  Imagine that you’re a typical parent and the Mariners are your teenage son.  He’s been a good kid for most of his life, but he’s always had a little trouble fitting in.  For most of his childhood, he was the kid with the really fun birthday parties!  (In this analogy, birthday parties represent awesome M’s players: Edgar, Griffey, Johnson, etc.)  All the other kids loved going to these birthday parties, but it wasn’t enough to make him one of the cool kids.  So he became bitter and rebelled during his teenage years (2004 season-present), turning to sex, drugs and rock and roll.  Subsequently, his grades quickly slipped and the people who were his friends quit hanging out with him.  Now, as his parent, are you just going to cut your losses and give up on your son when he needs you most?  Of course not!  You’re going to help this confused young man get the help he so desperately needs.  You’ll be there to protect him and tell him that you still love him, despite all the poor choices he has made over the past several years (Sexson, Beltre, Silva, Johjima, etc.).  You’ll look to the future, ever hopeful that he’ll come out of this rut and that you weren’t a total screw-up as a parent.

Most importantly, know this: you are not alone!!! Although it might feel like you’ve been abandoned in a solitary pit of despair, there is an entire fan base of people just like you; good people who are sick of the state of our beloved baseball team!  Now you’re probably saying to yourself, “But what can we do?  We’re just weak, little, insignificant fans!”  Oh, you stupid, stupid person.  Believe it or not, there is one thing we can do to to help ourselves out of this soul-crushing rut.  Just follow these simple instructions, and you’ll be feeling better in no time!

1. Contort your face into a look of exasperation and hopelessness.
2. Open your hand and extend it in front of you, palm facing toward you.
3. Gently lay your hand across your face.

Congratulations, you have just completed the facepalm!  With enough practice, you will be facepalming like a pro in as little as one week.*

*Please note: the facepalm will not help the Seattle Mariners attain a winning record, nor will it get them any closer to the playoffs.

Jean-Luc Picard, Captain of the USS-Enterprise and inventor of the facepalm

Today In Movie News!

THIS JUST IN!!! Canuck’s defenceman and ruptured testicle recipient has agreed, in principle, to play “Adult Butters Leopold Stotch” in an, as of now undated, live action South Park summer blockbuster movie.

In similar news, local Seattle radio host Dave “Softy” Mahler has been rumored to be the leading candidate for the role of “Adult Eric Cartman”…….Softy could not be reached for comment.

Romeo=Me,Juliet=Hockey…….Except We Can Be Together

Dear Hockey,

             I know that we have never been close, but I used to play you in the street when I was a child. I was pretty decent, but cars always came and we would have to stop playing and that was super annoying. Though I am now far-removed from those halcyon days of my youth, with a pothole-filled road in my rear view I have reached a state of enlightenment that only comes with age and experience. I have been awakened to the possibilities of becoming a fan of you (not a player, because that would be devastating for all involved and I’m pretty sure rollerblades have a weight limit).

I am becoming a man who is evolving into a devotee of what you bring to the table. I have learned to appreciate some of your finer points, from the tranquil grace of zamboni breaks to the savage artistry of your bone-rattling hits…..also I like the punching of other dudes in the face…superb. I guess my purpose in writing you this letter is to provide a mea culpa of sorts. I have been burdened with the guilt of spurning your advances for so many years that my love affair with you in recent months has seemed almost bittersweet. BUT NO LONGER……Hockey, I love you! I am not saying that this is forever but it is for now; and maybe that’s good enough. I hope we are at a place where we can spend time together, getting to know each others’ strengths and faults, and exploring what could be an epic affair that tests the limits of space, time, and the love a man can have with a sport. Until those fat cats in Washington get their crap together, we obviously can’t be “together” in the eyes of the world, but that is of little consequence…..we know what we have and what this could become.

So, I come to you on bended knee, Hockey…..won’t you take me in your gentle yet robust arms and hold me close? Show me all your secrets and allow me to love you in spite of my past neglect of you. Also, if you could make the Canucks win Lord Stanley’s Cup that would be pretty cool of you……

With a love that cannot be measured with any known equation,

JackElliotsMoustache

P.S. Your brother Lacrosse is a total douche…please don’t bring him to my friend’s birthday party this weekend.

What to do With Fister, Snell, and Vargas ? or !

As it stands currently, the decision of which pitcher gets replaced in the Mariners starting rotation when Cliff Lee comes back will be made April 30th, which just happens to be the day of his first start. Going into writing this post, I wanted to show why Doug Fister should be the one who loses his spot, because everyone is so high on him right now…..as it turns out, it is one tough task to discount The Fister.

The choice Wak will have to make is between Doug Fister, Jason Vargas, or Ian Snell. On the surface, it’s a no brainer: Ian Snell has had a much tougher time pitching this season, so we send him to the pen so as not to lose him. Digging in a little deeper, this may be the right call based on more than just a surface level glance. I am going to go out on a limb and assume all three guys would struggle in unfriendly ball parks (with Vargas most likely being a little more successful),  so I am going to base my thoughts on how they do and will pitch in Safeco.

 Doug Fister is truly built to pitch in Safeco Field. The guy is a ground ball pitcher, and with that defense behind him in a bigger than average park he has been and stands to be very productive at home. The starts he has had this year have been fantastic, and I think it has made this decision all the harder. He is a tougher nut to crack projection-wise, because his big league body of work is just too small a sample-size to really gain any substantial information from.  Moving on to Snell and Vargas….. These two are similar statistically: they both give up more fly balls than ground balls, they throw similar pitches at a similar frequency (with Vargas having the benefit of a true “out pitch”), and they both project to win about 8 games this season. Snell has more heat on his fastball (and in my opinion has a higher upside), but is more volatile. So, based on these facts I choose……crap.

I have truly failed in my intention of presenting a clear-cut pitcher to drop. I have no more idea what to do than I did an hour ago. If I were in a situation where I had to make the call right now or someone would shoot my cats, the cats would die; not just because I couldn’t make a decision, but because I WOULDN’T make a decision – those little bastards just love to pee on the carpet and on my clothes, so go ahead, shoot ’em. A friend much smarter than I suggested a sort of “rotating door” starter position, where the right guy for the job is called in based upon the opposition…. and that works for me. As she said, the Mariners are all about “outside the box” thinking, so why not? I know I was only going to focus on how they would do at Safeco, but the idea of the flexible rotation has me daydreaming of home-game-only pitching Fister, who relies so heavily on our fantastic defense and on Safeco field which helps him out a ton, and while on the road, choosing between Vargas and Snell based on the opponent as a temporary solution. All in all, this is an awesome problem to have, because we’ll be plugging Cliff Lee into the rotation and getting to see the monster that is the best one-two-punch in baseball start to devour townspeople and what not.

Of course, we will most likely be revisiting this when Bedard gets back, so this about as temporary as temporary gets. To conclude this arduous journey, I have accepted the idea that was presented to me before I really even starting looking into it. Sweet waste of time.

Also, to anyone out there who might know someone who is into the whole “make a decision or I shoot your cats” type of thing, please have them email me….. those jerks have got to go.

First Post of 2010! I Win!!

For those of us fortunate enough to experience the first 6 innings of Doug Fister’s amazing pitching performance, we can count ourselves ROBBED! Robbed, dear friends, of an all-but-guaranteed complete game no-hitter…..robbed of this by none other than S&T writer Double L. Allow me to tell you a story of betrayal……
 

[**A quick note: Before we navigate the perils of space and time to prove that Double L screwed everything up, it will greatly enhance your reading journey to have an accurate picture of what I look like. Imagine if George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio had a baby, then that baby somehow made a baby with the baby of Brad Pitt and Ewan McGregor…..and when THAT baby grew up it had a baby with Tom Selleck (for moustachey goodness) and was also all super-ripped and had like, laser eyes and, ummmm, robot hands and stuff……well that would be me. Also, I have the tail of a lion. So now that you have the proper frame of reference, let’s travel back to yesterday…a simpler time…**] (Our time travel will be aided by the coolest homemade  compilation of Back to the Future screengrabs known to man…and it’s FRENCH….Retour Vers le Futur indeed!!!)

 
After cleaning up the house at the request of my lovely roommate (wife), I grabbed a delightful beer and landed my awesome ass on the couch just in time to catch the last few innings of the game. Watching Fister work fastball after fastball to the lowly Orioles lineup was both fun AND exhilarating. That’s when it happened……the ding of the iPhone text message…the name “Mollin Mennett” (name changed to protect stupid Collin Ben….dang it) appeared with an ominous message below: “DOUG EFFING FISTER!”…..Within three seconds of reading this message, Nick Markakis drove a ball right back up the box into center field breaking up the no-hitter. Lucky for our own Double L, he wasn’t in range of my laser eyes…or whatever awesome power I gave myself in the above description which I am too lazy to revisit in order to stay consistent….because if he WAS within range I would have toasted his brains via his rectum (Rectum? Damn near killed’em! …..er, sorry). As ANY baseball fan knows, you get passed the 5^th inning with a no-no, you DON’T TALK TO ANYBODY for fear of jinxing the outing. Well looks like Jerky McAss-Hat missed the memo. This is why the blame falls squarely on his dainty, lady-like shoulders….right where the straps of his training bra sit. I know you all are as livid as I am, so I am taking this opportunity to give you a voice to speak out against the atrocities committed by Double L. Use the comment section to call him all sorts of names and draw dirty pictures of him and John Goodman together……..have at him, for he RUINED THE NIGHT.

(PROOF BELOW)

The M’s are Doin’ Work

In case you haven’t heard, the Mariners have been doing some work so far in this baseball offseason.  Today they finalized a deal that sends 3 minor leaguers, who are decent but not all that good, to the Phillies for Cliff Lee.  CLIFF FREAKIN’ LEE! Two years ago he won the Cy Young and this year, he not only was almost as good during the regular season, but he absolutely dominated a ridiculous Yankee lineup in the World Series.  And Lee is cheap, earning only 9 mil this year.  He is a free agent at the end of the year, but teaming him with Felix Hernandez gives the Mariners the top 1-2 punch in the Majors this year, if not beyond.

And in order to make the push for the playoffs, the M’s last week signed Chone Figgins to a 4 year $36 mil deal.  As much as I hate Figgins because of his time with Angels, I’m quite happy he’s coming to the M’s.  He’s one of those players that teams love to have and hate to play against, being a bit of a pest.  But I mean that in a good way.  Having him and Ichiro at the top of the lineup gives them two of the best table setters in the business.

In addition, with the Mariners signing Figgins and the Red Sox signing John Lackey away from the Angles, the Halos are certainly going to be hurting. The Mariners might even be the favorites to win the AL West right.  How awesome is that?

The question is what happens now?  The M’s probably still need to add at least one more bat.  There has been some talk of Adrian Gonzalez of the Padres, which would be incredible.  But there are other options if the team doesn’t want to give up the prospects that is would require to get the first baseman.  As is stands, the Mariners have added at least 7 wins to their true talent level in the last few weeks and, if you are an M’s fan, you have to be ecstatic.  Next season is going to be awesome.  Maybe there will be more tickling.

Football Embarrassment Video Thursday/Friday

I once saw a man throw the top of one of those Crate and Barrel heavy glass candles at someone over a Randall Cunningham themed argument…….so I may don the ol’ bullet-proof attire from now on……..the man is a menace…suck it Jendro!