Good Ol’ Chipper Jones

One of prized possessions.

By: Matthew Kohl
Email: virtualsportsman@gmail.com
Twitter: @virtuallymatt

Baseball will sorely miss Chipper Jones. In one player you had one of the ten best third basemen in history, arguably one of the top three switch hitters in history, an MVP, a World Series Champion, an eight time all-star, a batting title winner, a surefire Hall of Famer, and one of the few players who had no problem taking a lower paying contract to stay and help his team. The Braves really had a top tier guy with Jones and they were lucky to have him and keep him for 19 seasons. Just ask Todd Van Poppel.

The MLB was lucky to have him as well. With all the performance enhancing what-have-yous and ugly ugly UGLY things going on in baseball and professional sports in general in the last 20 years, players of Chipper’s ilk are a heavenly shining light of hope for a game slowly losing public interest to other less classy endeavors. Jones’ retirement makes professional baseball a little less comfortable and a lot less polished. I’m not saying that baseball needs spotless players who keep a Clark Kent lifestyle and share his sense of truth, justice, and yada yada yada, but I cannot stress enough that it’s becoming harder to find those types in the sea of douchebaggery that seems to have invaded professional sports. When a juiced up ass like Alex Rodriguez is paid more than a consistently productive stand up player like Chipper Jones, it means that there are many misplaced priorities in the sport.

I had said in a previous article that my first baseball team love was the Atlanta Braves. I literally began following baseball in a serious way in 1990. It may be just a coincidence that Chipper Jones was the first overall pick in the 1990 draft, but baseball is a superstitious beast. Who am I to say it wasn’t fate that the beginning of my interest in baseball wasn’t destined to parallel the start of such an auspicious career? I’m pretty sure at this point that I’m coming off like a Chipper Jones super fan, but to an extent I am. Jones started playing for the Braves organization at the time when my baseball senses were at their highest. This, like many, was when I was a child with  rookie cards and all and it didn’t hurt that TBS broadcasted every single Braves game into my living room. How else does a kid from Illinois get to name Tom Glavine as his favorite pitcher of all time? It sure as hell wasn’t from watching him play with the Mets. I’m a huge fan of what I can see and I saw more of the Atlanta Braves between 1990 and 1999 than any other team in baseball. I felt the sting of loss in 1992 and the immense joy of victory 1995. I still consider myself lucky to have been able to see a decent amount of Chipper’s MVP season in 1999. After that cable got a bit too expensive.

After that I was forced to watch the Cubs.

I continued to follow as best as I could, but to be perfectly honest I lost track of the man for a while. I was surprised to find him still there when I heard he won the NL batting title in 2008. Then when I came back to baseball for good a few years ago I found he was still waiting for me. He was still in the same uniform and he was still great. It’s hard to imagine another player doing the same thing in this era of big dollar free agents and inflated egos. I assumed a solid consistent player like ol’ Chipper would seep through the cracks and decline as his career went on but he hadn’t.

Chipper Jones IS a Hall of Fame player. In the truest sense of it. When his name hits the ballot in five years, there won’t be any doubt about his chances. There won’t be any questions about his character. No one will be saying “he’s just getting in because there’s nobody worth voting for this time.” They won’t wait until he dies to say yes.

There will be no asterisk mentioned.

I’m hoping he won’t be the last player we can say those things about. Let’s face it. If there’s a question about a player, then the Hall of Fame shouldn’t be the answer. I hope sports writers will think of Chipper Jones just a little bit when they vote for the 2013 inductees. It’s a high bar to set, but it’s worth raising our standards if it means we get to keep the integrity of the game of baseball intact.

We can call this new standard “The Chipper Line.”

Episode 019 – The Absolutely Worst Swear Word In The History Of The World

Find us on iTunes

www.99sportsproblems.com @sportsproblems

• 00:05 – HORALE MANG!
• 00:44 – Sad Girl
• 01:15 – Propers
• 02:50 – Weekend Round-Up
• 04:35 – Tittlebrooks
• 06:15 – Facebook Questions
• 08:27 – Luke Gregorson knowledge
• 21:04 – “It Begs The Question, What Kind Of Drugs Is AJ On?”
• 22:00 – Sam Hurd, via Jared S. Hopkins
• 24:24 – Chewing Tobacco Is The Devil
• 27:10 – Breakage
• 27:43 – Anybody Got A Wet-Nap?
• 28:10 – Bears
• 31:00 – Well That’s Professional/Texts From Mom
• 36:46 – White Sox
• 42:35 – Raul Goes All In
• 45:40 – Cubs
• 51:36 – “We Need To Sell This Shit.”
• 53:22 – The Absolutely Worst Swear Word In The History Of The World
• 57:10 – Canadian Can’t Go To Canada
• 59:00 – Exit
• 1:01:21 – Bye Bye

www.99sportsproblems.com @sportsproblems

Episode 018 – Rigor Mortis Is A Motherfucker On A Pussy

Find us on iTunes

www.99sportsproblems.com @sportsproblems

• 00:03 – “Hey it’s me it’s Andy it’s mah birfday”
• 00:24 – Propers
• 03:00 – Andy listens to stupid shit at a baseball game
• 06:56 – Current pitchers that could survive in a 4-man rotation
• 12:39 – Baseball video game talk
• 14:40 – Mike Lovendahl and the Bears
• 15:40 – “We almost had a professional segue”
• 19:30 – Breakage
• 20:30 – Bears talk
• 26:00 – Where is Bill Cartwright now?
• 30:10 – Dusty Ventura
• 34:10 – The Year of Kenny
• 40:10 – South Side Face
• 42:48 – “Why do I know this much about Dan Johnson?”
• 44:15 – Breakage
• 45:00 – Cubs callups
• 50:40 – Talking about the Cubs rebuild
• 1:01:00 – Top Ten Rec League Douche Moments
• 1:07:57 – “What are you talking about Randy? He’s…6…”
• 1:12:25 – “Basically Randy is a raging fucking cunt”
• 1:15:50 – The douchiest story ever told
• 1:19:20 – Bye Bye

www.99sportsproblems.com @sportsproblems

Chicago’s 43rd Annual Gay Pride Parade

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This is coming on the heels of a very unfortunate Amar’e Stoudamire moment. One day, a brave soul will step out of the closet while still in a sports uniform. While I like to think that day is close, it’s hard to imagine in the current climate anyone willing to subject themselves to the pain that would ensue in the aftermath of coming out.

Chicago is a unique city, what it is at heart is a loose collection of towns that comprise the idea of “Chicago.” Localized parades here are pretty famous, none is quite the spectacle that the Gay Pride Parade is. It’s loud, it’s queer, it’s fun, it’s fabulous. Here are some images from the day.

Episode 016 – The Ballad of Mudbone

[audio http://awmr01.podbean.com/mf/web/tm8rv/Episode_016.mp3]

iTunes Linkage

• 00:35 – Andy fucks up
• 02:30 – First place White Sox
• 09:00 – Giving Seattle fans some Chicago love
• 10:30 – Young Guns
• 15:40 – Lucky Dog
• 16:50 – Concussion talk
• 23:20 – Bears Talk
• 27:37 – Raul’s summer beer advice
• 31:48 – NBA Jam and BJ Armstrong, Where are They Now
• 37:26 – The Cubs are indeed, awful
• 39:00 – Because I’m Mexican
• 43:50 – “I fucking hate softball”
• 46:40 – Top Ten Individual Seasons
• 01:04:07 – Origins of Mudbone

The Bag Skate – Da Bears O.T.A.ing, the Cubs Sucking, the Thing Known as American Idol

by: Tony Leva
email: tonytrucker1969@gmail.com

Bear Down, bitches!!

This week, the Bears are ensconced in their first Organized Team Activity (just a fancy term for practice) with plenty of new personnel and coaches. Mike Tice has taken over for the tyrant known as Mike Martz as offensive coordinator and Jeremy Bates has been installed as the passing game coordinator. Bates is a good friend of Bears QB Jay Cutler and has always worked well with him. That’s a far cry from the adversarial relationship Cutler has with Martz. Listen closely at the 0:24 mark. This says it all about their relationship…

Martz’s system was never a good fit for Cutler’s strengths, which include being mobile and being smart enough to read a defense and change the play at the line. Martz’s offense did not include audibles and frowned upon the QB moving out of the pocket. Tice and Bates have said they will allow Cutler to have plenty of input into the playcalling, which is a great thing. When your QB hates the system and the coach who stubbornly insists on running it, even when the franchise QB is getting mauled while running it, replacing the coach is a no-brainer. Cutler took more sacks and hits than any QB in the NFL the past two seasons. Check my math, but that sucks.

As for the new personnel, we haven’t added the offensive linemen we needed, but if Gabe Carimi comes back healthy, the line will improve by his addition. But the big additions are to one of the worst WR corps we’ve seen in forever, which is saying a bunch considering the Bears have never had much of a top-flight corps to begin with. All-Pro WR and legit asswipe Brandon Marshall has a great history with Cutler from their Denver days and have already expressed their joy at being reunited. 2nd round draft pick Alshon Jeffery is another big-bodied WR who should pair nicely with Marshall. This bumps Devin Hester down to play in the slot and Earl Bennett, Cutler’s recent favorite target, to play as the 4th WR. An actual, legit NFL WR corps. I may wet myself.

The defense was bolstered in the draft and the core guys, Urlacher, Briggs, Tillman and Peppers, should have enough left to give us a chance to have a top-10 defensive unit. Well, with good health we have a shot. The window is closing on the effectiveness of these guys so we need to take advantage.

Football season can’t get here fast enough, since the Cubs blow ass right now.

Perfecting the Art of Suck

As things went from piss-ass shitty to fucking unbearably craptastic for the Cubs, the buzz has been about bringing The Riz up to fix the offense, cure cancer and convince Kate Upton to do a sex tape and upload it for free. Or something along those lines. As much as I can’t wait for The Riz era to start, he won’t do any of the aforementioned stuff all by himself. He’ll help when he gets here, but the service time issue is the greater concern. They’re going to wait until June sometime to bring him up and delay his free agency eligibility. Fine with me.

There is so much wrong with this team that I don’t know where to begin, so let’s focus on a few positives for now.

Starting Pitching

The starting pitching has been really good for the most part. Matt Garza, Ryan Dempster and Jeff Samardzija have all been about as good as could be expected, with Samardzija exceeding any expectations anyone could have had for a converted reliever who has been as inconsistent as a depression case using homemade Prozac. Paul Malholm has been pretty good as well and Travis Wood has contributed as well. It’s nice that the Sean Marshall screamers have been silenced for now with Wood pitching well. Those clueless fools never fail to give me a chuckle.

Starlin Castro

The lone Cubs All-Star last year, Castro has picked up where he left off after becoming the youngest player in NL history to lead the league in hits. He’s still a work-in-progress in many areas, but he’s brimming with talent. As evinced here…

Gotta love this type of stupidly good talent.

Dale Sveum and the coaches

The Cubs have been playing aggressive baseball. From baserunning to defensive positioning to going right after hitters, the coaches have put their stamp on this team in the way they want them to go about their business. Even with the recent stuff about Garza and Marmol not throwing the pitches the staff wants, this has been a positive so far. I’m looking forward to seeing what they can do with some more legitimate ML talent.

The Show that Won’t Fucking Die.

Over 13 million votes for the final vote on Wednesday. (No, I don’t watch this show. My wife and girls do and I caught the last 5 minutes the other night when the winner was crowned.) Apparently, some guy named Phillip Phillips won, beating some 16-year-old girl. I haven’t heard him sing yet, but I’m sure he’ll be coming to a low-rent dinner theatre near me sometime soon. There have been some very talented winners, of course, but chances are they would have been discovered anyway. Jennifer Hudson and Carrie Underwood come to mind. Some of the shit that has won…Taylor Hicks, David Cook, Fantasia….really are pushing it as to being considered stars.

While the world certainly would manage to not explode if this show went off the air, the thirst the American public exhibits for this show never fails to amaze me. The early shows are pretty funny, when the truly talentless come in and get their metaphorical nuts squashed, but when they whittle the “talent” pool down to whatever they take to Hollywood, it gets silly. Shoving some of these clowns down America’s throats…anyone remember that hack Sanjaya they tried to hype as an uber-talent?….is just crap. I’m no great judge of vocal talent, but I know what I hear and some of those people have no business doing nothing more than singing in church choirs or in the shower. Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s Elvis pissing on my leg.

Unfortunately, this show is a phenomenon and isn’t going away any time soon. I’ll stick to Laverne and Shirley reruns, thanks.

The Bag Skate – Patrick Kane, Fully Krausened

by: Tony Leva
email: tonytrucker1969@gmail.com

Patrick Kane needs to learn how to drink

Over the Cinco de Mayo weekend, Deadspin cover boy Patrick Kane visited the University of Wisconsin at Madison campus and proceeded to get so liquored up that pics of him and accompanying stories of debauchery swept this glorious thing we call the internet. What, you missed them? Well, here’s a sample of KANER’s weekend fun…

So what’s the big deal, you ask? Surely there’s nothing wrong with a 23 year old multi-millionaire superstar athlete having a good time cruising the co-ed population and drinking enough to kill a large yak, right? Well, yes and no.

Here’s what’s no big deal….Kane is of legal drinking age and his team is out of the playoffs. He didn’t do anything wrong aside from acting like a drunken buffoon. (As of today, Madison police said no charges will be filed against Kane and they are unaware of any complaints filed by anyone against him. Kane was rumored to have choked a co-ed at some point during his weekend.) Even with his appalling fashion sense, I’m sure he got a little somethinsomethin as long as the whiskey dick wasn’t overwhelming. Hell, I wish I had gone with him.

Here’s what is a big deal….Kane represents a first-class hockey organization and this isn’t the first time he’s acted like a wank. He has been a Deadspin favorite for years now and is always good for some drunken hijinks. The Vancouver limo pics are a personal favorite of mine.

He’s guilty not only of hogging here, but also of being a pattern dickhole. The incidents like this have been piling up over the past few years. Remember the parade on June 11, 2010? I was there when Kane was crocked out of his mind and slurred his way through his turn at the mic. Not a big deal as the first championship for anyone, especially the guy who scored the Cup-winning goal, is bound to be an occasion where you totally overserve yourself. Pattern behavior like this isn’t good.

CHUG-A-LUG!!

When you are a superstar like Kane is, you need to make smarter choices, especially in this day and age when EVERYONE has a cameraphone and is all too happy to snap away when a guy like Kane acts like this. You simply can’t continue to give the masses who want to tear you down ammo to blast you with. Until he starts making smarter choices and either tones this WAY down or opens his own private bar and drinks alone like the George Thorogood song suggests, I’m sure Kaner will be social media’s favorite drunken clown.

As for his future, the TRADE KANE!! faction is up-in-arms again, imploring the team to get rid of him ASAP for any return he can bring. Those people should not only be beaten with a rubber hose, they are hypocrites of the highest order.

First off, trading Kane right now would be stupid for a couple of reasons. One, you will not get anywhere near full value for him. When you have a 23-year-old who is an elite playmaker and possesses a resume like Kane does, you don’t deal him when his value is compromised. We went through this last season when Kane was slumping. Giving away an asset like this, only to watch him find his game again for the next decade or so would be grossly incompetent.

Secondly, you are hurting your team on the ice in a huge way. We need another top 6 forward as it is and with Hossa’s return uncertain, we may need two. Dealing Kane would leave a hole as big as the hangover I’m sure he had after the weekend in Cheeseland. For a team with its championship window still wide open, this would be a catastrophic blow and isn’t in the best interests of the team or the fans.

As for the hypocrite part of my statement, the fans screaming to trade Kane are the same fans who cheer Bobby Hull unreservedly. Hull, in his day, was the biggest lush ever seen on Rush Street. He was a carouser of the highest order and would make Kane look like a Boy Scout on a mild sugar high in comparison. Add in the numerous domestic abuse charges Hull encountered and the little incident where he said, “Hitler had some good ideas. He just went a little bit too far” (kinda makes Ozzie Guillen’s comment about Fidel Castro look like a love song, doesn’t it?) and Kane again looks like a pussy cat. You can’t ignore what Hull did and condemn Kane for far less. He’s not the “bad guy” some idiots in the media claim him to be, either.

While Kane is still young and immature, it’s far too early to give up on him. He has a vast amount of skill that is still untapped and is readily apparent. The guy who scored a goal-scorers goal to win the Stanley Cup is not to be whisked out of the organization. We need him here to do this again….

Episode 015 – I Have A Cloak Of Loneliness And A Lotion Of Pleasure

Email us 99sportsproblems@gmail.com
Find us on iTunes

• 0:48 Andy is dead this episode
• 1:15 Propers
• 2:10 Tony thinks Twitter is exuberantly happy
• 2:46 Ted Lyons Sunday Starter
• 9:30 Top Ten MLB HOFers that need to be kicked out
• 19:38 Breakage
• 20:15 Beer brewed with maple syrup
• 22:00 Andy’s story time
• 23:00 Waite Hoyt sucks too
• 25:00 @SaintLouisSport
• 25:30 White Sox talk
• 37:02 Chicago Cubs talk
• 43:54 Breakage
• 44:30 A buncha gutless dogs that folded like lawn chairs
• 48:43 House Cleaning
• 51:58 Where Are They Now: Bo Jackson
• 57:50 The show never really ends
• 59:27 Bye-bye

Episode – 014 Nickle and Dime People

Find us on iTunes

• 0:01 Lee Elia Rant
• 2:00 Introduction and Propers/It’s Pat!
• 4:30 Bulls/Derrick Rose Sad Face
• 8:00 Happy Lee Elia Day
• 9:50 The Ted Lyons Sunday Starter/General Baseball Notes
• 16:50 NFL Draft
• 26:50 Beer Breakage
• 27:19 Wing Walker Beer
• 28:30 Where are they Now? Black Jack McDowell
• 32:14 The Slugging Konerko’s
• 37:32 That Young Awful Cubs Team
• 41:35 Breakage
• 42:00 Tony Talks about his feelings/Hawks Eulogy
• 53:30 Top Ten NFL Draft Busts

Send Us Your Sports Problems

Hey there folks, we’re looking for your email questions for this week’s podcast episode, which we will be recording on Sunday. Topics we are discussing include the following:

• NFL Draft results
• Phil Humber, Jake Peavy, and the White Sox pitching staff
• Cubs farm system
• All time NFL draft busts
• AL/NL updates (Matt Kemp really wants that MVP award)
• Beer, what are you guys drinking these days?
• Blackhawks eulogy

Please send us your questions and feedback and fill out the form below. Thanks, we love our fans!

Name(required)

Email(required)

Sport/Team/Issue

Comment(required)

Submit

Δ