Oh, he was so sought after. One of the best shortstops available after the 2022 season, Carlos Correa had a lot of teams willing to pay an unfathomable price to secure his services. They came, they pitched, they waited as he and his agent, the very talented and very much loathed Scott Boras, pored over every offer until they made their decision.
Attention President of Baseball Operations of the San Francisco Giants Farhan Zaidi, we will graciously accept your team’s offer and come play for your fabulous team. Giants fans (I am one) were elated (not all of us).
We got Carlos Correa! The Dodgers killer! We’re off to the World Series again!
As Giants fans we generally aim higher. Frankly I don’t give a fuck whether any single player does well against the loathsome Dodgers, but some do. And he did well, very well. In the 2017 playoffs when Correa was an Astro (when they won their first World Series CHEATING against the Dodgers), his slash line was .289/.326/.561. For the season he was .315/.391/.550. Pretty lofty numbers.
Now if the name Carlos Correa doesn’t ring a bell, perhaps a bang-bang of your trash can might.
I just spent a four days in Texas. Was I deep in the heart? Not really. From an anatomical perspective looking at a person walking away, the ‘heart’ could be considered Santa Anna, Texas which is kind of ironic given he wanted to cut the heart right out of Texas. First, I was in Houston. Houston would be like the right shinbone if it was a severe compound fracture like you see in Stranger Things. Then I went to San Antonio, the normal leg with a twisted knee, and then Austin AKA the right hip. Very appropriate for Austin since it is the only hip place in Texas yet not appropriate since it should be the left hip.
Size
Texas. What to say about Texas. It’s big. Really really really big. It’s not the size of Alaska – you can fit 2.5 Texas’ into Alaska, but it’s big. It’s so big this is where Southwest Airlines was born. Who wants to drive to Dallas from Houston? No one. San Antonio? From Houston? Sure. From Dallas? No fucking way. Hence, Southwest first set of flights were the triangle from Houston to Dallas to San Antonio. And how, pray tell, did the good folks who started Southwest Airlines entice people to fly on said airlines? With colorful planes? Well… no. This is a marketing question for y’all as it was for me when I went to Northwestern. We had a whole half a day to try and figure it out. Us college kids thought we had all the answers. Free food. Nope. BOGO tickets. Nope. Buy 3 flights get one free. Nope. Free fifths of whiskey. Yep. Wait. What? Yep. None of us came up with that answer and therefore our professor thought we were idiots. Yeah, because that’s the FIRST THING we’d think of – handing out free booze. “you kids need to learn what the audience is all about and you didn’t.”
Oh really? Alcoholics? Yeah, because coming to the conclusion only alcoholics would be brave enough to get on a fledgling airline’s flights makes so much sense.
They don’t drop whiskey into your lap anymore, but Southwest still does the triangle flights everyday – San Antonio to Houston to Dallas. Good to know, but watching people wait for a delayed flight from San Antonio to Houston – a 3-hour(ish) drive – is kind of hilarious.
Sounds
Your ears will pick this up more than you want, trust me – the actual song Deep in the Heart of Texas. I swear to baby Jesus someone told June Hershey (lyrics) and Don Swander (music) the morning after a massive drinking binge they had to write a song about Texas.
The stars at night are big and bright (clap clap clap clap) deep in the heart of Texas
The prairie sky is wide and high (clap clap clap clap) deep in the heart of Texas
The sage in bloom is like perfume (clap clap clap clap) deep in the heart of Texas
Reminds me of the one I love (clap clap clap clap) deep in the heart of Texas
GEETAR PICKIN’
The coyotes wail along the trail (clap clap clap clap) deep in the heart of Texas
The rabbits rush around the brush (clap clap clap clap) deep in the heart of Texas
The cowboys cry ‘Ki Yippee Yi’ (clap clap clap clap) deep in the heart of Texas
The dogies bawl (MOOOOO!) (clap clap clap clap) deep in the heart of Texas
PRODUCER: Hey June? Don? That’s only a minute 45 seconds. Do you have any more animals to add to it? Deer? Armadillo? Chupacabra? Hello? June? Don? JUNE & DON: Fuck off. PRODUCER: Ok, wrap it up. All done!
Speaking of sounds, we have the Cheatin’ Astros. Minute Maid Park is a nice facility, but the Astros cheated to win the 2017 World Series. They had center field cameras key on the opposing catcher to steal signs then relay it to their hitters what pitch was coming. It if was a curveball or any other non-fastball pitch BANG BANG went the trash can lids then bye bye went the Yankees then the Dodgers.
Sites
The Alamo, where white guys lost, yet they won. It seemed like every single statue of a person at the Alamo that I read about at the Alamo started off with “after a series of business failures back east, so and so moved to Texas” or “after a bad marriage and a business failure back east so-and-so fled to Texas.” Out loud, I said, “oh so they were losers who ran like chickens” and some guy laughed loud enough it broke the unwritten rule of the Alamo Code of Silence (not sure that’s a thing but everyone was super quiet).
I am certain during their last breaths Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett had a discussion that went kind of like this:
“I hope this becomes a tourist attraction.”
“Tourist attraction ?” “Oh yeah, we’re going to lose this battle and we are going to lose it bad. Yet somehow, through tourism, we will make this a victory.” “And a movie.” “A what?”
“A movie – moving pictures on a screen. It’s coming. And maybe they’ll get a huge conservative movie star to make it so it looks like we were wronged.” “But we’re trying to claim this as our own.” “Never mind that.”
(Cannonball hits wall) “Jesus Hosea Jebediah Santa Anna is pissed.” “He probably has a right to be. I mean we did kind of shell game him a bit.” “Are you saying we…” “Swindled him? Well… does it matter now?! We are not going to survive this! But what will… maybe… just maybe… become a legacy so it becomes a tourist attraction.”
“Oh that again.” “Yes, with tourist trap crap attractions like Ripley’s Believe it or Not, an IMAX theatre, a Haagen Dazs, a Starbucks, an entire shopping center… and a coffee shopped named after you Davy.” “Oh for fuck’s sake. Coffee?” “Yeah and…” OK, so you get my point. The Alamo is surrounded by everything crappy. There’s even a Tussaud’s Wax Museum. It’s not Madame Tussaud’s either it’s Larry or Big Head Todd Tussaud or something like that but after I saw the massive Trump head (and I think Eric Trump) in wax I refused to pay any more attention to it. The only thing it should be surrounded with are Mexican restaurants. It’s close, but not quite there yet.
They may as well move the Alamo to Branson. If they can move the London Bridge to Arizona, they can move the Alamo to Missouri. There I said it.
It’s spring training and all the teams are out there getting prepped for the six months of regular season ahead of them. Baseball, since its season is so long, is a weird sport and team fortunes can change pretty quickly. However, I am not going out on a very long limb by stating this could possibly be the most lopsided season we’ve seen for a long time. The disparity between awesomeness and sorry-ass, to me, has never been wider.
For some teams the season will be far longer than they want. As such let’s start in reverse, like a spinning bunt that hits fair but slowly trickles right over the foul line to ultimately just be a strike… or in these collective teams’ cases, an out.
The ‘Keep your Bats in the Rack” Group
Colorado Rockies – they traded their best player, Nolan Arenado, to the Cardinals for a sack of seeds that no matter good the soil is and how carefully they water, will never germinate to anything of substance. They will be so bad that if California slides into the ocean, the Rockies still won’t win the NL West. They’re destined to be bad for a minimum of 5 years. Are there other teams worse than the Rockies? I believe yes, at least two.
Let’s call Part One – First Starter: The American League
Is there a more perfect time to make a change in how you start a ballgame than now? It’s a question posited by fellow Fancy Boy Jake Breunig and frankly a damn good one.
Now Jake wrote a fabulous article about abolishing the National Anthem this past August. I will defer to him his over-arching replacement choice(s) and instead give each city their just due. However, let’s first take a look at our National Anthem. What we sing is not the entire song. Why? Well it’s what one could call a little shitty toward ‘freemen’ AKA ‘slaves who were freed yet still being treated like shit on both sides.’ As with every war involving America, only the poor and minorities are asked/told to pick up a rifle. During the War of 1812 (when Francis Scott Key wrote the poem that became a song… and later the anthem), freemen were not only ‘enlisted’ to fight for the American side, but the British took a lot of them and “allowed them to fight against their oppressors” which is code for “hello good dark chap, take this rifle and hustle up to the front lines and sacrifice yourself for our cause.”
Hey kids, as you may well know – or not depending upon your life I guess – Super Bowl LIV is this Sunday. Who’s playing? It’s the Chiefs and the 49ers, but really who cares? This isn’t about who wins, but who makes money.
No, I’m not going to go on and on about which square to pick on the party or office grid to win sweet cash each quarter that eventually gets claimed victory by Francine the receptionist who generally hopes the team whose quarterback has the better-looking ass wins.
However, ladies and gents, that winner could be you using a different form of betting. And if you have the propensity to gamble your life away, why not do it watching a game rather than sitting at a roulette table quietly praying to your desired Lord to make that ball hit 22 Black? WARNING: No bet is a surefire thing (they are about as surefire a thing as a long-lasting marriage), but there are some Super Bowl bets you may want to make to try and expand your pocketbook.
How does one make some coin you may ask? With a proposition bet. A proposition bet, short form prop bet, is one where a person such as yourself puts some money down on an occurrence… or non-occurrence… happening during any game, but especially the Super Bowl.
There are more than 400 prop bets you can make. Heck no I am not going to go over all of them, but let’s check out a few that aren’t the typical “Will so-and-so score a touchdown in the first half” kind of prop bets.
Fancy Boys Club 