MichaelLortz.com/JordiScrubbings.com

I keep popping up in different places.

Today, Jay Busbee of Right Down Peachtree finally ran a post I wrote for his site a few weeks ago. Because of a bet Jay and I made early in the baseball season, I had to write about my favorite Atlanta Braves team. Unfortunately, Jay wouldn’t let me write about the 1893 Boston Beaneaters (they were a gas!). So I wrote about the 1977 Braves, the team managed ever-so-briefly by United Nations donor and New World Order advocate Ted Turner. Check it out.

My favorite Braves team.

11 random thoughts as the NBA tips off:

I know the Alamo doesn’t have a basement, but does the Alamo Dome?

And why is Notre Dame playing Washington State in a football game in San Antonio on Oct. 31, 2009?

Pop quiz: from which country, besides the US, do the most NBA players come from? (answer on bottom)

Greg Oden is probably happy he missed the first game of the season. He would have gotten killed by Tim Duncan. Then the media would have been all over the “is Greg Oden really ready to play in the NBA” story. Yeah, like Tim Duncan only destroys rookies and Joel Pryzbilla.

I expect Darius Washington to stick around for a bit. He wasn’t too bad last night.

Speaking of Dariuses, what ever happened to Darius Miles? Does he still exist?

On the subject of Miles, here is a nugget of wisdom from Charles Barkley during his early TNT days:

“I don’t think the Clippers are a good environment for (new No. 1 pick Darius) Miles. They’re a terrible organization … I hope he gets out of there … The Clippers are one of the problems in sports. People think you have to win to make money — the Clippers are a perfect example of a team that lets all their good players go every year … they’re giving their fans a bad product … that’s one of the problems in sports today. There’s just no excuse for what the Clippers have been doing for the past 10-15 years, letting all their good players go.” (found in an old Sports Guy column)

Again on the subject of the Clippers, I’m buying an Al Thornton jersey the moment the jersey store finally gives me a call and tells me they have them in.

As I am sure you know by now, Scoop Jackson thinks blogs are ruining the NBA. After what happened with The Big Lead, why say something like that? As my mother used to say, if you don’t have something nice to say, drink your complaint away. Actually, she didn’t say that, but it’s good advice.

Although I am a little tired of Gilbert Arenas’s blog, Rod Benson’s blog is still hilarious. The poor guy is returning to the land of “Bucks, and Stadium, B Dubs and Dennys, the Steak Buffet and Wal Mart, Best Buy and Ressler Chevrolet commercials”. Best of luck, Rod (no homo).

Random complaint: Is there anyone else that gets the NBA radio station on satellite radio? I am convinced this station is useless. Today I listened hoping to get some excitement, get the blood flowing, hear some opening day hype. Instead there were sound bytes by unidentified people on what suits they wore on draft day. Like I care. The only one I recognized was Joakim Noah, who talked about his bow-tie. Um, Mr. NBA Radio Programmer Guy, it’s opening night. Where are the previews and analysis and discussions and banter, etc, etc.? Needless to say, my adventure in NBA Radio didn’t last long before I switched back to Night Calls on Playboy Radio.

Answer: Serbia (8).

(This post was originally featured on Right Down Peachtree, the sports blog of Atlanta Magazine. Because Atlanta Magazine no longer has an online sports section, I decided to repost it here.)

Earlier this year, in approximately March or so, Jay Busbee and I decided on a friendly wager on who would win the season series: my New York Mets or his beloved Atlanta Braves.  After much deliberating, we decided that while the winner would get to gloat all off-season, the loser had to write about their favorite roster in the winning team’s history.  As luck, or as I like to call it “the Mets utter ineptitude”, would have it, the two teams tied 9 to 9.  So in lieu of counting stats and breaking it down to the knitty-gritty, we decided to both write.

I’ll be honest, before the Braves became an NL East powerhouse, I never paid them much attention.  Growing up in New York in the 1980s, the Braves were an afterthought, a minor speedbump on the road to further Mets glory.  Before the days of David Justice, Ron Gant, and John Smoltz, the only time I had any feelings towards the Braves was when Lonnie Smith hit a game-winning home run against Sid Fernandez sometime in 1989.  Fernandez was a personal favorite of mine and I was quite mad at this last-place Brave outfielder for standing in the way of my favorite team.  But I digress.  As for my favorite Braves team, for the sake of colorfulness and sheer ineptitude, I am going with the 1977 Atlanta Braves.

Besides being the year I was born, the year of the Son of Sam, the year Interpol made it illegal to copy video tapes, and the year the Bronx supposedly burned, 1977 marked one of the lowest points in Atlanta Braves history.  Gone were Hank Aaron, Dave Johnson, Ralph Garr, and Dusty Baker.  In their place were Jeff Burroughs, Willie Montanez, Gary Mathews, and a position-less youngster named Dale Murphy.  Add in a new charismatic owner and his penchant for hands-on management, a knuckleballer who won 16 yet lost 20, and the legendary Biff Pocoroba, and the 1977 Braves were one of the worst teams the city of Atlanta has ever seen, and that includes some bad Hawks basketball.

Leading the charge for these bumbling Braves was manager Dave Bristol.  Bristol would manage 160 of 162 games in 1977, making way for the first Bobby Cox era in 1978.  Of course, thanks to new owner Ted Turner, the Braves made headlines on one of Bristol’s “days off”.  Turner, eager to show his baseball prowess, took the reigns of the team on May 11th, promptly losing to the Pirates 2 to 1.  Although he would go on to claim that “Managing isn’t that difficult, you just have to score more runs than the other guy”, it would be the last day Turner would venture into the daily on-the-field management of the club.

As much of a mess as they were in the dugout, the Braves were as much a mess between the lines, and probably nowhere more so than on the mound.  The so-called ace of the staff was future Hall-of-Famer Phil Niekro.  Although Niekro pitched for the Braves from 1964 to 1983, 1977 was by far his worst year.  In 1977, Niekro gave up over 300 hits and walked a whopping 164 batters.  Rounding out the staff was a gaggle of has-beens and never-weres including one-time 20-game winner Andy Messersmith and one-time NL ERA leader Buzz Capra.

Although the aforementioned Burroughs had one of his better years and was clearly team MVP, my favorite Brave on the 1977 team is shortstop Pat “Don’t call me pocket” (can I say that?) Rockett.  I could be wrong, so long-time Braves fans please help me out, but by his stats, Rockett seemed like he epitomized the light-hitting, slick-fielding shortstops of the era.  Sort of a Rafael Belliard of his day.  Except for one glaring problem – Rockett wasn’t very good with the glove.  Although he only played in 84 games, Rockett was perhaps the worst fielding shortstop in the National League in 1977, committing 23 errors.  His 1 error per 3.65 games was second worst in the league behind stone-handed Padre shortstop Bill Almon and his horrendous 41 errors.  Whereas the Padres moved Almon to third the following season, Rockett wasn’t so fortunate, playing his the final 55 games of his career in ’78 and hitting an unmistakably pathetic .141.

Without a doubt, the 1977 Braves were a mess.  Similar to today’s Giants, they were a team in transition.  Young prospects Dale Murphy and Bob Horner would emerge the following season as stars, and after a few more years of struggle, the Braves would finish in first in ’82 and second in ’83 and ‘84.  Unfortunately however, their success was short-lived, and the Braves turned into the eventual doormat of the NL West.  Yet no matter how bad they were throughout the 80s, no other Atlanta Brave team featured a Rockett, a knuckleballer, and an owner gutsy enough to think he could manage.  That’s why, as a Mets fan and a fan of eccentric personalities everywhere, the ’77 team is my favorite Braves team.

Trying to keep it quick tonight. Working on something for Epic Carnival.

Oh Word, one of my favorite hip-hop blogs, shed some light on the state of hip-hop blogging. Definitely worth checking out.

Oh Word’s interview.

There are a lot of places in this interview where you can replace “hip-hop” with “sports” and the answers are still relevant.

My favorite response:

17. Do you think there should be more or less hiphop blogs?

I think there should be more bloggers reading and responding to other people’s hip-hop blogs and acting under the assumption that they’re not the only information source for their audience. There’s a lot of echoing going on in the blog world and it’s troubling. Too much information and not enough intelligence.

Again, substitute “hip-hop” with “sports” and I totally agree.

Last Thursday, popular blogger, writer, internet personality Dan Shanoff wrote a post explaining why he roots so passionately for the Florida Gators. According to Shanoff, the Gators were his wife’s life-long passion and, as he was lacking a fan association at the time, he began to follow them with her. As their courtship progressed, Shanoff fell in love both with the woman and her team, eventually becoming as diehard of a fan as a “fan-in-law” could be.

As to be expected, reaction to Shanoff’s post was divided. Of course, several readers proclaimed Shanoff was just a frontrunning bandwagon-jumper. Others were happy for him that he had both found someone and something that made him happy. A third group, while not berating his decision, wondered if he would remain loyal to his new found team if for whatever reason his marriage ended. The fourth and final segment commented not on Shanoff’s decision, but on the awkward way he tried to defend himself.

In attempting to validate his decision, Shanoff inadvertently berated more traditional fan affiliations. By choosing the team of his wife, Shanoff stated his method of affiliation was “arguably superior to the more traditional, passive roots of sports allegiance”, namely biology, geography, and college acceptance. Although I initially found myself torn between the first and third groups, when I read Shanoff’s claim of “affiliation superiority”, I taken aback and even slightly insulted. As someone whose sports affiliations are rooted in all three rationales, I would like to briefly discuss my personal fan allegiances and through them explain why I believe Shanoff’s theory of affiliation superiority is indeed faulty.

As a youth, I grew up on Long Island, NY. Although near both the Mets and the Yankees, familiar influence guided my early baseball affiliation. As my father was a long-time Mets fan, I became a perfect example of Shanoff’s biology rule. My dad was a Mets fan and hence I became a Mets fan. Baseball was the only sport in the house, and I dove into the Mets with both feet.

A few years later, my family and I moved to Central Florida. It was here that I developed an interest in basketball, shooting hoops with the neighborhood kids. As I didn’t have a favorite team and the Orlando Magic had yet to play their first game, I picked up the team of the other transplanted New York kids: the New York Knicks. The Knicks at the time were easy to root for with players such as Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, and Mark Jackson. This affiliation however, was neither geographic nor biological nor college acceptance. It did however help me to bond with some of my new friends and pick up a sport I enjoyed.

Several years after becoming a Knicks fan, I enrolled at Florida State University. Here, of course, I have to admit the validity of Shanoff’s point of college acceptance. As I cared little about the team prior to attending, because they were the only school to accept me, I became a full-fledged Seminole fan. This fandom created more friendships and associations and still does to the present day, as I frequently watch Seminole broadcasts with other transplanted alumni.

Most recently, since moving to Tampa in the last year, I have begun to associate myself with an example of Shanoff’s geographic affiliations. Living closer to a major league park than I ever have, I’ve attended numerous Tampa Bay Rays games, met other Rays fans, and as many across the blogosphere may attest, have even been known to defend the Rays on occasion. Although I am still a Mets fan, I have slowly begun to acknowledge a budding fandom towards the Rays.

In all of these examples, as well as Shanoff’s “fan-in-law” approach, the affiliation was completely voluntary. In each, the affiliation was also secondary to group identity. I chose to root for the Mets for family, I chose to root for the Knicks for friends, I chose to root for the Seminoles for classmates and peers, and I chose to root for the Rays for community. Similarly Shanoff chose to root for the Florida Gators for the bond it would create with his wife, her family, and the entire Gator Nation. In all of these cases, the group dynamic was the catalyst, not the team itself. A winning team might raise the interest level and involve a larger group, but without any form of the group dynamic to stimulate the fandom, there wouldn’t be much concern at all.

In my opinion, Shanoff’s methodology in choosing a team is neither greater nor worse than those he dismisses. Few and far between are those who discover a team and root completely alone. For most of us, being a fan is about identity, it’s about family, and it’s about sharing the emotion of sports with others, no matter how life brought you together.

Once again my knowledge of the future has come to fruitful fruition. Way back in January, I predicted in haiku form that Britney Spears would be linked to a star athlete. To quote:

“Britney like friend Paris
Oops I see a star player
Dating a pop star”

Lo and behold, Miss Spears was seen with Cowboys’ QB Tony Romo.

Sometimes I’ll admit, I even amaze myself.

In case you are wondering, yes I know Britney supposedly dated Luke Walton of the Lakers in April. But raise your hand if you think he is a star.

Put your hand down, Mr. and Mrs. Walton.

(Link found on various sites to include The Big Lead.)

According to FSU beat reporter/blogger Andrew Carter of the Orlando Sentinel, Florida State University president T.K. Wetherell is considering moving one of the Seminoles’ home games to Tampa in 2008.

“Wetherell is very much opposed for FSU to have football schedules that include eight home games. Seven home games, it seems, is the max. Look for the Colorado game next season to possibly be moved to Tampa, according to Wetherell. FSU is still searching for another opponent for next season.”

First, let me say I would definitely go to a Florida State-Colorado game in Tampa. Driving 30 minutes beats driving 4.5 hours any day. However, I don’t think the game will happen. Not after this year.

Before this year, the University of South Florida was considered an afterthought in the Florida college football landscape. The big three (FSU, Miami, UF) ruled the roost and USF and UCF were the proverbial red-headed step-children. No one cared much about them. September 28th changed that. USF’s victory over the West Virginia Mountaineers catapulted them into national, if not state-wide, prominence. Despite the many FSU alumni living in Tampa, including myself, Tampa has become ground-zero for the explosion of USF popularity.

On that ground alone, I think it’s bold for the FSU president to assume the Noles can march into Tampa and displace the USF fanbase for a weekend. Even if FSU played Colorado on a USF road weekend, Tampa is now USF Country. Why would the Tampa powers-that-be allow a mediocre college football has-been that barely makes the top-25 play in the same town as a team recently ranked second? I know there is money to be made, including my ticket cost, but couldn’t the Noles pick another venue? One that wouldn’t step on the toes of a burgeoning fanbase?

Perhaps the Noles should look towards the geographical region of south Florida, instead of the home of South Florida? I’m sure the Seminoles could sellout either the Orange Bowl or Dolphins Stadium. I don’t think there are any legitimate college (or pro) football teams playing there anymore.

As we prepare for the 2007-2008 NBA season, I have decided to forego the usual team-by-team analysis familiar on dozens upon dozens of other websites. Instead of breaking each team down player by player and writing about their respective strengths and weaknesses, I have decided to tell you the future. You read that correctly. In the words of the artist currently known as the artist formerly known as Prince, “I’ve seen the future, and it will be.”

So like a modern-day Edgar Cayce, here are 40 events that will happen this NBA season.

1. The Knicks will not make the playoffs.
2. The Grizzlies will.
3. Kevin Durant will not win Rookie of the Year.
4. But no one will compare him to Adam Morrison.
5. The Magic will finish with a better record than the Heat.
6. Florida Gator alumni will still think Billy Donovan would be a better coach than Stan Van Gundy.
7. Isiah Thomas will not make any trades during the season.
8. And still keep his job.
9. And my personal boycott of Knicks basketball will pass its 1,000th day.
10. Steve Francis will return to form.
11. The Rockets will have the 2nd best record in Texas.
12. Better than San Antonio.
13. San Antonio will still go further in the playoffs.
14. The Nets will continue to be overrated.
15. The Raptors will be underrated yet again.
16. Boston will not win the East.
17. Kevin Garnett will win MVP.
18. Alonzo Mourning will retire after this season.
19. So will Shaquille O’Neal.
20. Andrea Bargnani will be for the Raptors what the Pistons thought Darko Milic would be.
21. Darko will put up better numbers than Otis Thorpe as a Grizzlie.
22. Lil Bow Wow’s “Basketball” will not get better with age.
23. Kurtis Blow’s “Basketball” will remain a hip-hop classic.
24. Ron Artest and Tracy McGrady’s trips to Africa will be overshadowed by the first brawl of the season.
25. Which will involve either a Euro or an American-born white player.
26. Jessica Alba will attend less than five Warriors home games not nationally televised.
27. But she will still top Beyonce for hottest female fan.
28. Tom Brady will be seen at numerous Celtic games, as will other Boston celebs.
29. Last season’s experiment with a new basketball will never be mentioned.
30. Who Shot Mamba? will be mentioned during a national broadcast.
31. Dwight Howard will win the dunk contest runnin’ stank all over it with rib-ticklin’ jumps of double chocolate funk.
32. Nate Robinson won’t bother competing.
33. The Kobe Bryant rumors will continue until the trade deadline.
34. When Kobe gets traded to the Eastern Conference.
35. PacMan Jones won’t be anywhere near the NBA All-Star game.
36. Chris Paul will win All-Star MVP.
37. Sun Ming Ming will play in the NBA D-League.
38. At least one writer will ask if Gilbert Arenas’s popularity is affecting his game.
39. The Indiana Pacers’ “whiter is fan-friendlier” strategy will backfire.
40. The Miami Heat dancers will continue to be the hottest in the land. By far.

All of these will occur. My 2015 sports almanac told me so.

I have to apologize to the masses, I haven’t done a Flip the Script Friday in a while. I’ve been going on and on about sports. Yeah, I know, you want something different. Something you can’t get on any other site. Something more original than “The Top 10 Hottest Chicks That Should Be Forced To Date Willie McGee” or “What Simpsons Characters Would the Knicks Be If The Knicks Were Simpsons Characters”. Boring drivel. So, without further ado, I bring to you the latest Flip the Script Friday. Enjoy.

If you’ve read The Serious Tip since back in the day (March to be exact), you might know I have an unusual fascination with extreme heavy metal. Although I don’t listen to it much at all, the most fringe of the rock/metal genre has piqued my interest for quite some time. To be honest, I am not sure why these bands interest me. Perhaps it’s their appearance, their defiance of death and their embracing of dark, or maybe I just think they are an amazing anti-establishment sub-culture as evident by their creative names and over-the-top lyrics and theatrics. Upon investigation, one might even be drawn to question their “realness”, similar to the “studio gangstas” in hip-hop culture.

Anyway, before I start to babble on about the socio-economic-religious impact of extreme heavy metal on global culture, HailMetal.com put together a list of the best death metal albums of all-time. I definitely recommend taking a look, if only for the artwork and the creative monikering.

Before I give you the link however, I would like to share a couple of my favorites and my own commentary:

Number 3:

Hmmm … “Amorphis”. Doesn’t “amor” means love? And “phis” is, of course, more than one “Phi” – possibly short for Phi Mu, or any other Greek organization. So if I have this right, the translation of this mega-power in death metal means “Love Phis”. Honestly, if all Phis looked like this or specifically like this, I’d probably name my band after them too.

Number 42:

Yeah, you see that right. The cover of Macabre’s death metal magnum opus Sinister Slaughter is a mock of The Beatles’s Sgt. Pepper album, only depicting mass murderers and other assorted deranged psychopaths. What else would you expect from a band with songs named “Ted Ted Bundy Song” and “Nightstalker Richard Ramirez“? My only question is, is music about killing people considered “snuff rock”? Not to be confused, of course, with the “Snuffy Rock” they play on Sesame Street.

Ok, those are my favorites. Do I own either of these? No. Could I understand what the singers were saying/screaming/bellowing without looking at the lyrics? Probably not. But, I’ll give them credit, they are creative. In their own special way.

As for the rest, they can be found here: Hail Metal.com’s Best of Death.

For some reason the sun always shines a little brighter when I go back to Tallahassee to see the Seminoles. Even when attending an indoor basketball game, I can feel the sun beaming through the facility, warming my heart. Just being among fellow Seminoles in our personal Mecca leads me to walk with little bit more pep in my step. For in Tallahassee, my worries seem so far away, and Mister Bluebird always perches himself on my shoulder.

So it is with great joy that I am able to share these picture with you, dear reader. Enjoy. And by the way, the game was so great I was confident enough to leave with the Noles firmly in command with 2 minutes left. Ah, the feeling of victory. If only I could have taken a picture of the scoreboard as time ran out.