Ridiculous(berger)

*channeling Hunter S. Thompson and his disregard for proper capitalization*

There are a lot of things being said about the Ben Roethlisberger Situation. Pretty much all of it is Mumbo Jumbo Looney Tunes Bullshit, & it's hard to determine what Is and what Is Not true.

Well, since this is a Blog, I'm not going to pretend that what I'm saying is anything other than an Opinion. Perhaps an informed, intelligent Opinion, but an Opinion nonetheless.

With that in mind, here are some Things I Think About This Situation:

- Ben Roethlisberger was suspended for four to six games for not committing a crime, according to the Laws of the United States Justice System.

- Being a Disrespectful, Entitled Asshole is not a crime.

- The National Football League is in the business of Making Money, & not in the business of Morality.

- The Pittsburgh Steelers are in the business of Winning Football Games, & also not in the business of Morality.

- Roger Goodell has decided that suspending Ben Roethlisberger for being a Disrespectful, Entitled Asshole is the Morally Right thing to do.

- Art Rooney II has decided that trading Ben Roethlisberger, who has won two (2) Super Bowls & restored the Steelers' franchise as a football powerhouse, for being a Disrespectful, Entitled Asshole is the Morally Right thing to do.

That is all ye know, & all ye need to know.

All the rest of it is just another chapter in the never-ending "Society holds professional athletes to unreasonably high moral standards & charges them with being role models whether they want to be or not" saga.

There is no doubt that Ben Roethlisberger is a world-class Swine. But his behaviour was being implicitly tolerated & accepted by the very same fans, organization and league that are now selling him up the Three Rivers.

As the old saying goes, you can't create a monster & then whine when he stomps on a few buildings.

Mahalo.

CS
April 22, 2010

As Usual, Hunter S. Thompson Had This Shit Figured Out Ten Years Ago

Hunter S. Thompson was a man ahead of his time. While journalism was still revered as a noble and upstanding pursuit, Thompson was calling out both athletes and politicians on their bullshit, getting smashed at the Kentucky Derby and running around Vegas drugged out of his mind, in an effort to get the most sensational and therefore "real" story possible.

So it should be no surprise that he had a solution to the ever-growing problem of baseball games taking goddamn forever to play, and that it is wholly representative of the "Gonzo journalism" he popularized in his heyday.

In his November 6, 2000 "Hey Rube" ESPN column, Thompson outlined his plans to redesign and shorten baseball games, in three easy steps:

ELIMINATE THE PITCHER: This will knock at least one hour off the length of a game... Pitchers, as a group, are pampered little swine with too much money and no real effect on the game except to drag it out and interrupt the action.

Works for me. Pitchers are far and away the major source of my frustration with the game (especially the ones currently on my fantasy team). The good Doctor proposed that a pitching machine would pop up from the mound, provide an automatic pitch (dialed to the exact specifications of the catcher), and then sink down into the mound to open up the infield. Open it up for what, you ask?

ALL BASE-RUNNERS MAY RUN TO ANY BASE (but not backward) -- First to Third, Second to Home, etc. And with NO PITCHER in the game, this frantic scrambling across the infield will be Feasible and Tempting.

Oh, for that. Between the chaos going on in the infield and the customizable pitch-bot, the catcher becomes the most important player on the field, throwing runners out and dictating the exact pitch needed in every situation (which a real pitcher provides about 2% of the time).

This is all well and good, but what of the length? And how the hell do we keep score of this madness?

LIMIT ALL GAMES TO THREE (3) HOURS: Like football and basketball and hockey, the Baseball game will end at a fixed time. THE SCORE, at that moment, WILL BE FINAL, based on an accumulation of TOTAL BASES IN 3 hours.

Delicious. Try and tell me you wouldn't watch that. DON'T LIE TO ME!

You can read the full article in all its glory and wild genius here, or listen to Hunter's widow Anita read it aloud in the video above.

We miss you, Hunter. Mahalo.