I have No Snare in my Headphones

Cause for Confusion #1: Chicago Cubs
I certainly do not want to overstep my boundaries or put a hex on anything at this moment, but the Cubs should be in first place by three or more games right now in the NL Central. They need to make one simple adjustment to their lineup. DON'T BAT ALFONSO SORIANO LEAD-OFF!!! I know he wants to bat lead-off, but if you're Lou Piniella you have to grow some balls and tell him no. Kick some dirt on him or whatever you do. Act like the crazy old man that you are and call him into your office for a little "pep talk." Make certain you have shorts on and the legs hiked up super high so he can see your prunes and start preaching like a weirdo. Five minutes into your rambling sermon about the importance of run production and he'll do whatever he can to get out of your office. Do whatever it takes--just get it done. Soriano has fifteen homeruns at this point with only 33 RBI's. The only other player with that many bombs and less batted in is John Buck--but he plays for the shitty Royals so he doesn't count. This seems so clear to me that I feel like I am really missing something. Kind of like when the Reds batted Dunn leadoff--when his OBP was like .250 and he never saw more than 5 pitches. Soriano swings at EVERYTHING--which is fine, but he doesn't give the rest of the lineup a look at the pitcher at all. Bat The Riot or Fontenot leadoff, and put Lee in the two hole because he has mysteriously lost his power, and bat A-Ram and Soriano 3-4 in any order. I understand he's a threat to steal bases and such, but he has too good a bat to be wasted at the top.

Cause for Confusion #2: The NBA
Oh I get it, Kelenna Azubuike is a seasoned veteran, right? Is that why he's scoring 29 in Summer League Games and "Wonder-Man" Greg Oden is fouling people at an alarming clip. He's like a seven-foot Alhaji Mohammed. Who, incidentally, says he is 95 years old on his Myspace profile; but he has a rockin' INPA and Outkast jam. Check it out: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=22778780
Ok, sorry. Anyway, in two games Oden has 19 fouls. Here is my confusion; why do they get ten fouls a game? That doesn't make any sense. That's like Spring Training games giving hitters 12 strikes--and they have to keep running on the ninth batter. You know David Eckstein would watch the first eleven strikes too. Anyway, stop fouling people. You're tall. Just stand there. Oh, and practice your free throws. You should probably just shoot them left-handed again; because you suck right-handed.

Cause for Confusion #3: UK Football
This is not so much confusion as shock and terror. First the shocker (bet you tools love hearing that). UK has the fourth toughest schedule in the SEC East, and sixth overall. Shocked? No you say? They have the eleventh toughest schedule in the country. What is that about? This is going to piss off so many UL fans but the rest of the country is shit compared to SEC football; and Florida proved that last year. Sure because UK is in that conference doesn't mean that they're elite or even good, but they certainly would fare much better in any other conference. They're schedule as it stands has at least three automatic losses at the beginning of the season, and thats assuming we get Ole Miss and MSU from the West. We don't beat UF and UT ever; somehow we got UGA last year; we should always beat USC but never do; UL is beatable due to the emotion; Vandy is good now...kinda; potentially, UK could beat everyone they should and lose seven (UL, Arkansas, UF, UGA, UT, USC, LSU). However, I honestly believe that we will beat Louisville. It's our time with seasoned vets back, and the fact that they have a new coach. It's our best shot since we had fatty. We just need to do something about Brohm...

All of that being said, here's the scary part. KSR (Kentucky Sports Radio) had Kent State's coach on last week, and they possess our kryptonite: a dual-threat QB. They are picked to win the MAC, which is always a tough conference. They will give us a lot of trouble; let's hope we learned from those "easy-win" games last year.

Cause for Confusion #4: My Nose
Seriously, what's with all the nosebleeds? I had three today.

Bruce Froemming is RETIRING!...and kinda porky

That's pretty much all I got about him, pretty old and pointless news. It looks like he is going to eat this microphone, though. Anyway, in an occupation such as his own, one should be careful not to inflate, simply due to the fact that each bad call he makes will be blamed on his flab. Ed Hochuli has it right. Froemming is retiring after this season; so good riddance, fatty.

The "Who's Now" segment on ESPN has gone far enough. We have become so celebrity-driven in our society that we are now voting on who is the "cooooooooooolest athlete around?" What are we, eight? A recent matchup in the Ali Bracket pitted Super Bowl Champion Peyton Manning against swimmer Amanda Beard. He slaughtered her. Her only chance was that she posed for Playboy, and men like nudity. A forthcoming thriller has slated A-Rod vs. seven seeded Terrell Owens. If this was at all based upon what ESPN thought, TO would be a one seed and breeze through the field. This is just so stupid. Making it worse, though, is the personalities telling us who to vote for. What???????? This should be nothing more than an ongoing Page 2 poll.

Andrew Bogut, we all remember, is Woo's bitch. However, Bogut had some pretty choice words for his NBA counterparts, saying that the fans were right and they only cared about money and possessions, in so many words. Yeah. Thanks Andrew. What next, they're crybabies too? Here's my problem with this; it's really not even my problem. If any player took offense to this, which many may, he will get punched in the balls first time down the floor by each one of them. Why say this? leave it alone. Everyone knows this; just don't say anything.

Everyone remember Brook Lopez? She sounds hot, right? Well he is a center for Stanford's basketball team. If anyone watched the UL-Stanford game in tournament, you would realize how ridiculous it would be for him to be the overall number one pick in next year's draft. Not Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News. I don't know anything about evaluating talent; but if he goes number one, I would be completely shocked. He looked so bad against UL, I can't believe he would even get drafted. But DeCourcy knows more than I, and I guess he has a huge upside or whatever.

One final tidbit. The eight year olds from Germantown (my old team) banged out forty hits on their way to slipping past Rockford Lane in a barn-burner, 31-0. I mean, they published this in the Courier. Rockford Lane had better pitching when I was younger.

Sorry about the Froemming thing. I just wanted to see what it was like to post a picture.