Instant Replay in Major League Baseball?

Yeah.  That’s the real problem with baseball.  It’s not their looking the other way with steroids a la the WWE.  It’s not the designated hitter (why not have 9 offensive player and 9 defensive players?).

The problem is that there is no instant replay?

George Will is a lot smarter than me, and he’s way better at getting people to agree with him than I am.  You’re better off just reading his thoughts.

In the NFL, coaches’ challenges, which trigger replays, contribute to the sense that a game consists of about seven minutes of action — seriously: Use a stopwatch, and you will confirm that — encrusted with three hours of pageantry, hoopla and instant-replay litigation.

WWE Does Something Really Classy

Ric Flair

I’ve pretty much stopped watching wrasslin’, mostly due to the great Hornswaggle debacle of 2007. But I tuned in tonight to find out what happened at Wrestlemania. I was surprised to find out that Ric Flair was retiring. Just an angle? I thought so, but now I don’t.

At the end of the show, Flair gave his retirement speech, which was basically a thank you to the fans. Then HHH came out and thanked Flair and introduced a bunch of other guys who wanted to say thanks as well–guys I haven’t seen in a long time–The Four Horsemen, including Arn Anderson, JJ Dillon, Dean Milenko, Tully Blanchard, and Barry Windham. Lots of other old school wrestlers too–Ricky Steamboat, Greg Valentine, and Harley Race. Then some prominent guys who are currently wrestling and are close to Flair personally came out, then the whole cast came out.

Flair was crying, and everyone in the arena was chanting, “Thank you Ric!” A very nice way to pay tribute to a guy who IS professional wrestling, at least to people of my generation.

Whooo!

By the way, noticeably absent? Vincent K. McMahon.

Cool, Cocky, and Bad

Honky Tonk ManThough I’m tempted to make this autobiographical, I know in my heart that I owe it to the greatest Intercontinental Champion ever to focus on him. That’s right, The Honky Tonk Man is the greatest IC ever…hands down.

I’m always gratified when the majority of my readers answer a poll question correctly. Not that all poll questions have a correct answer, but this one did. Still, it is widely known that I have the brightest readership in the blogosphere.  Both of you guys are geniuses.

Anyway, one year, two months, and 27 days. That’s how long Honky held the IC belt. No one has held it longer. Even when he lost the title, it was to the Ultimate Warrior. Not “Warrior” as he was known after his return. No, no, no…The Ultimate Warrior. No shame in that.

My 2007 Year in Review

Unlike everyone else, I slacked off and waited until 2008 was officially here to do my review. 2007 was my first year of full on blogging. I’d messed around here and there with different blogs before, but 2007 was the year I drank the Kool Aid and went at it for real. I’ll keep this list confined to what occurred on this blog. You’ve probably guessed by now that I’m somewhat guarded about the personal life. Enough about me…here are my thoughts on my 10 most notable posts of 2007:

Ron Paul’s Presidential Run
At times it seemed to me that Ron Paul news was taking over this blog. On one hand I feel like I need to apologize for that, but on the other hand, it’s my blog and that’s what I was interested in. Luckily, I wasn’t the only one who was excited by Dr. Paul’s message, and I hopefully played a small part in helping him get elected. More on that later this year, as I have some thoughts on what is realistic, and what is for the best.

Knox County Scandals
There were more in 2007 than I can even count. That makes you wonder how much stuff is going on that we haven’t even heard about yet. Last week I saw a t-shirt that read, “Miami: A sunny place for shady people.” Knox County seems to have the market cornered on shadiness this year.

Steroids in Sports (and Non-Sports)
My bottom line–WHO CARES? Next topic.

People Getting Nekkid and Almost Nekkid
I got a ton of traffic this year writing articles about Vanessa Hudgens, along with a couple of articles about the Inskip teacher who had arguably inappropriate photos on MySpace. I don’t really care who gets naked and takes photos of it, I just wonder how people can do that and not retain ALL digital copies of the material. Idiots.

Barbie Cummings and the Highway Patrol
This was just a funny local story that ended up causing me to exceed my bandwidth when it went national and I ended up ranking #3 on Google for “Barbie Cummings Blog”. Since then, Ms. Cummings life has apparently changed dramatically, much for the better. How do I know that? I’m resourceful, and it didn’t take much digging anyway. Nevertheless, it seems like she wants to leave that part of her life behind her, so I think it’s time this story finally died and went away, never to be mentioned here again.

Tennessee Smoking Ban
Thank you to our state’s elected leaders for writing and enforcing personal choice laws on private property. If you really want to look out for me and mine, stop wasting our tax dollars on this crap. Next thing you know we’re going to have to provide health care for people who would’ve otherwise died if you’d not spent millions trying to keep them from smoking.

Buddies Blogging
Some people I know IRL also started blogs this year. It’s funny that you can go months or years without talking or emailing with someone, and this medium puts you in the position to “converse” with them every day. Even when it isn’t dialog, you read what they write and they read what you write. Very cool. Not to mention the countless other blogs I’ve begun to read that I never would have learned about if I’d not started blogging for real this year.

The War On Education
Also known as the public school system. I feel like I don’t spend enough time or energy talking about this because I think it’s the number one problem facing our country. Solutions are anything but clear and simple, but one thing I’m very excited about for this coming year is that I’ve got an idea that may help a little, at least for individuals. I’m finishing up some other projects, and then I’m going at it full force.

Blogging About Blogging
As I said, 2007 was my first year blogging full throttle, and boy did I learn a lot. I posted a ton of stuff about monetizing, driving traffic, building networks, linking to other people, and I’m sure lots of other stuff that annoys people. I can’t help it…my interest is peaked. Another project I want to tackle for this year is keeping that stuff off of this site and directing it to a different blog that is dedicated to that subject.

The One I Wish Was More Popular
Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about The Wire. I really wished more people watched this show, especially the season that starts next week which will address the media. I’ve had several great conversations with people who watch The Wire, and I’d love to bring more of them to this venue. In fact, I think I’m going to, despite the fact that most people don’t know about the show. At least I’ll have the bragging rights that a couple of people heard about it from me when they are finally turned on to it.

That’s Not A Steroid Problem…THIS is a Steroid Problem.

Reason brings up some excellent points about athletics, police, and steroid abuse.

Given that police officers carry guns, night sticks, and tasers, and that they have the power to use lethal force when necessary, one would think our politicians would be more concerned about illegal use of a drug known to contribute to fits of rage and violence among law enforcement than use by a bunch of baseball players.

One would think.  As far as I’m concerned, you can throw in football players, weight lifters, cage fighters, and especially professional wrestlers into the “who cares?” category.

This stems from a story in the New York Daily News was written after

…27 NYPD officers cropped up on the client lists of a Brooklyn pharmacy and three doctors linked to a pro sports steroid ring.

I’d never really thought about cops on steroids, but it seems like the type of job that would foster steroid use to me.  Of course, I haven’t been beaten down by a juicer with a badge recently either.  I just assume that there is a certain percentage of people in all lines of work who use steroids (and heroin, and meth, and marijuana, etc.).  Could it expain some instances of excessive use of force or brutality?  Possibly.  But I wouldn’t go jumping to those conclusions any more than I would for people in any other line of work.

It’s probably fair to say that I’ve known at least one person who was on the juice since I was 16 years old, but I’ve never seen what I’d call ‘roid rage.  The violent assholes I’ve known who were juicing had always been violent assholes and probably always will be.

You Mighta Heard By Now, We’re Doin’ a Little Survey

There were some pretty interesting results from my last poll–at least I thought they were interesting. I asked readers to choose (one) between free markets, free religion, free speech, and free beer.

With 50% of the vote, speech won pretty handily. I’d assume that the 29% who voted for beer were being funny. It’s easy when the punchline is provided, no? 14% chose free markets, and 7% chose free religion.

Why is this interesting? Mostly because free speech won so easily–much more easily than I would have predicted. I think I know why.

Scott HallIf you give me free speech, I can use it to get the rest of them. Okay, to get free beer it helps to be as handsome as ten movie stars, but you get the point.

There’s a reason why freedom of speech is the first right guaranteed in the Constitution. If we ever lose it, all is lost.

*** Bonus points to the people who know why wrestling great Scott Hall is pictured in this post.

Yet Another Dead Wrestler

This time it’s Brian Adams, who was known as Crush when he was part of the tag team Demolition. This is happening way too frequently. The powers that be in pro wrestling have a reputation of chewing guys up and spitting them out–not really caring about what happens to them afterwards, but sooner or later this is going to come back to haunt them.

This is just bad marketing.

It’s sad that they will only be able to see the business side of what all of these deaths mean, but if those are the terms that get them motivated to try and change things, so be it.

PacMan Jones is a Wrassler!

The Tennessean dropped that bomb today.

I hate to say it, but this worries me. Professional wrestlers have a hard enough time staying out of trouble and living clean lives without throwing in bad seeds like PacMan Jones.

Why stop there? If TNA is going to stoop this low they might as well send Barry Bonds down to ringside to be his manager carrying a Louisville Slugger. They’ve lost all legitimacy.

One Gorilla at a Time

All the talk about Barry Bonds has apparently quieted all talk about Chris Benoit. I guess the media only has so many minutes of each day it is willing to devote to steroid junkies?

Somewhere, a kid is saying, “see…steroids can help you do really good things too.”

The real question…will anyone ever be World Champion 16 times like Ric Flair? And is so, can they do so without the use of steroids? In my estimation, no way.

You Won’t Believe This

Another great cyclist has been disqualified from this year’s Tour de France for blood doping. Alexandre Vinokourov tested positive for doping after he won Saturday’s time trial. If you haven’t been keeping up with the Tour, he looked like an amateur during Sunday’s stage, only to come back and tear the field to shreds on Monday’s mountain stage.

I don’t mean to be cynical–okay, I guess I do mean to be cynical–but almost all of these guys cheat. You have to be nuts to think they don’t. I really shouldn’t be news to anyone when they get caught, it just means they failed to outsmart the latest tests.

In other breaking news you may find shocking…

Professional wrestlers use steroids.
Barry Bonds too.
The gov’ment wastes a lot of your tax dollars.
There isn’t a pill that can make you safely lose weight.
Breathing smoke on purpose is bad for you.
Bill Gates doesn’t send out checks to people for forwarding emails.
That guy in Africa who emailed you about the unclaimed money…he’s a scam artist.