MichaelLortz.com/JordiScrubbings.com

This post originally appeared on Yaysports!.

(Jordi starting your week. Pay attention, because you can’t afford free speech.)

As many around these parts can attest, patience is cruel lass. A tease. The type of girl that will excite you and give you hope, then yank your heart from your chest like that guy from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Fortunately for long-suffering rock fans hoping for a new Guns ‘n’ Roses album, there is a free Dr Pepper at the end of their arduous wait. (Personally, I’d buy the album just to get the free Dr Pepper. Then I would mail it to Bucketheadland.)

Yet there are others who are waiting for something greater. Something epic. Something so amazingly ground-breaking it will shatter your preconceived notions of mental accomplishment.

For them, I have the honor of offering a few snipets of a great movie. One that stars a witty, humorous, fun-loving talking animal, a young soon-to-be-star, and a beautiful leading lady. It is a film of action, suspense, self-sacrifice, and the epic battle between plucky underdog heroes and an evil so great it dares to destroy humankind forever. And, the movie takes place in Cleveland.

Click here for clip 1.
Click here for clip 2.

Click here for the first music video from this great exercise in cinematography. With a George Clinton cameo!

In other news, the Cavs won, Boobie Gibson got hurt, and baseball season has begun.

What an amazing tool this Internet has become. People have live-blogged elections, TV shows, sports, and public events. Now, for the first time that I have ever seen, someone is live-blogging their prison sentence. Rapper Prodigy of the group Mobb Deep is being allowed to live-blog his prison sentence on Vibe.com.

How cool is this? We used to have to rely on diaries and letters to feel the vibe of life in the pokey. Now we have blogs. Amazing.

In his latest post, Prodigy drops this nugget of wisdom, which is actually pretty deep:

“ANYBODY THAT GOT SOMETHING AGAINST KEEPING A BLOG, YOU SHOULD STAY FARRRRRR AWAY FROM THE FOOL AND NEVER TRUST EM’. A BLOG IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY, JUST LIKE RAP MUSIC ISN’T FOR EVERYBODY. A BLOG IS INTERNET SLANG FOR A LOG AND IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT A LOG IS—IT’S WHAT BOAT CAPTAINS WRITE AND KEEP IN ORDER TO DOCUMENT THE DAYS OF LONG VOYAGES AND TRAVELS…IT’S LIKE A DIARY.”

By the way, Prodigy gets the The Serious Tip Seal of Approval due to his interest in the Illuminati, conspiracy theories, and his valiant fight against The Man.

Keep doing your thing, Prodigy. The temperature’s risin, and it’s nothing surprisin’.

Yeah, baseball season starts Sunday. That’s when this picture stops being about some beautiful FSU co-eds enjoying themselves in a Tallahassee bar and turns into a reminder of how great David Wright is and how excited I am about the Mets’ chances this year.

In case you have no idea what I am talking about, enlarge the pic and then come back and click here.

This post originally appeared on Yaysports!.

(Jordi wearily overlooking his kingdom. Hath Rome already burned?)

I read the Cavs barely lost to the Hornets. Hornets forward David West apparently hit a game winning shot with less than a second left.

Poor Cavalier fans. You know it was not the Cav’s fault, right? They were merely a victim of a power much bigger than LeBron, the team, you, or I. Let me attempt to explain.

Chris Paul calls David West “The 17ft Assassin“.

The Statue of David is 17ft tall.

Michelangelo carved the Statue of David.

Leonardo Da Vinci was Michelangelo’s rival.

Leonardo was born on April 15th.

April 15th is Tax Day.

The Beatles sang a song called “The Taxman“.

George Harrison wrote “The Taxman”.

George Harrison also covered “Got My Mind Set On You“.

“Got My Mind Set On You” was first performed by James Ray.

James Earl Ray (no relation) assassinated Martin Luther King.

If you add up the number value of “Earl” it equals 35.

Add 35 to the number value of “Ray”, you get 80.

Subtract number value of “LeBron”, you get 15.

The Cavaliers have 10 games left.

Subtract 10 from 15, you get 5.

The Hornets won their 5th straight game thanks to the 17ft assassin.

See, I told you it was confusing. Regardless, the Cavs had to lose.

On a semi-related note, there will be no Black Velvet here. Nothing that will bring you to your knees.

In the past eight years, Major League Baseball has opened its season three times in Japan. Once was a curiosity, twice proved it wasn’t a fluke, and the third time created a pattern. A pattern that needs to stop. Although I am far from a xenophobe and I actually enjoyed watching the Red Sox and A’s while eating breakfast the last two mornings, baseball needs to stop trivializing Opening Day.

Few days of the baseball season have as much mystique as Opening Day. Perhaps you can compare it to a playoff match-up or a classic pitchers’ duel, but Opening Day is more than that. It is a day when every team is in first place and every team has a chance. It is a day when kids are expected to skip school and be seen at the ballpark. A day when grown men get giddy and develop odd medical ailments such as “anal glaucoma”. It is a day when, as the old saying goes, “hope springs eternal”.

During almost half of the past eight years however, Opening Day has been a sham, sacrificed to corporate interests and slaughtered on the altar of baseball’s globalization agenda.

As Furman Bisher of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution pointed out, before moving Opening Day to Japan, baseball season would traditionally open in Cincinnati. According to Bisher, “it became a custom that every major-league season opened in Cincinnati. Nobody played before the Red Stockings, now shortened to Reds. It was just that way.” Although the merits of Bisher’s argument about baseball in Japan are flimsy at best, I wholeheartedly agree with his point that Opening Day should keep its Cincinnati tradition.

My idea would be to start every season on the Sunday closest to April 1st. Games would then be organized as they are on every Sunday in the NFL, with of course, one exception. Whereas a majority of the east coast teams would start at 1 pm, the Reds would kick off the season a half hour before, at 12:30. As with the NFL, west coast-based teams would begin at 4 pm, and a nationally-televised game would begin at 7 pm. Every team would begin their season on the same day, no exceptions.

Contrary to the opinion of Mr. Bisher, baseball can still be played overseas, even in Japan. I would love to see more games during the season in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and other locations throughout Latin America (Venezuela perhaps?). Maybe even a game in London. But the first day of America’s Pastime? That should stay in America.

Word around the Internet was that some guy was opening his heart and talking about his lost love while using baseball as a backdrop. Could the Cubs save his forlorn existence?

Blah. Blah. Blah.

As everyone knows, there is only one person with the creative gall to truly express themselves and pour every heart-wrenching emotion into a sports blog love story.

As Matt Ufford of With Leather kindly pointed out, “The first rule of the Internet is that you don’t talk about your feelings unless you’re cloaked in at least four layers of irony and/or anonymity.“

Aye.

(Links: Can the Cubs Mend My Heart?
With Leather: Please God Let This Be Fake)

This post originally appeared on Yaysports!.

(Jordi back again. By lawful decree, your week has started.)

Over the weekend I read one of the best basketball-related stories I have read in a while. You should check it out if you haven’t already. It is about a mysterious shoe-less wanderer named Jesse Dunn.

Lang Whitaker of Slam had a chance to interview this cat at a Waffle House in Atlanta a few years back. I heard in Atlanta they have a two-story Waffle House. Back in college I wrote an article about Waffle House for a segment on the best places to eat late at night. There is a Waffle House right across the street from Casa de Jordi. As you can see that fine chain of eatery has been a major part of my life.

Anyway, some guy from the Pacers is going to take some job with the Knicks. Yay. I’m excited. I remember way back when Larry Brown came to NY and people were like, “Our years of suffering are over! Long live Larry Brown!” When last seen, Larry Brown was still recovering from his time in NY.

Boney will be happy, the Pistons beat the Suns in overtime. The NBA, where exciting happens.
Maybe it is the pressure from running this site, but I haven’t watched a basketball game in over a week. Since I last wrote ”I watched a game”. I don’t remember what game that was. I think it was last week. I also haven’t watched one game of the NCAA tournament. If you asked me who was left in the Sweet 16 (I think that’s where they are), I would say …

North Carolina

Western Kentucky (I only care because a former 400-lb FSU center was pretty good there)

Kendall Gill’s kid’s team

(2 minutes of deep ponderance)

Wow, that’s about it.

Maybe that explains why I turned down Jack Cobra’s offer to fill out a bracket over at his site.
The truth of the matter is: I’ve never filled out a bracket. Ever. Does this make me weird? I don’t see the point in picking favorites from two teams I have never seen play. That’s exciting for compulsive gamblers, I guess.

In other news, click here if you want to see Yao Ming slowly morph into a famous Chinese pop singer named Li Yuchun.

And this, this is funny. As long as no one gets hurt.

Lastly, Kenny Baker is underrated. He is more than welcome in the Kingdom of Jordi anytime. I’ll leave the light on for him.

And yes, that dog can play basketball. It says so on his doggie Myspace/Facebook/social network site. He is probably better than me.

All across Florida I’ve journeyed and finally it was time to meet with my long distance love. As my plan was to travel across the state to see family on my Easter weekend, I figured it would be great opportunity to pay my love a visit. I knew she wouldn’t mind, as she was making her own way through Florida and was in Winter Haven for the day, scheduled to meet with a prominent minority organization from the Midwest.

Unfortunately, our day together was a microcosm of our years together, from the unfulfilled hopes, the patterns of disappointment, and the tears washing away the potential for a joyous end. Hopefully things get better. They can’t get worse.

—————————

As has been par for the course, I arrived late to Chain of Lakes Park, spring home of the Cleveland Indians. Although I made good time to Winter Haven, traffic leading into the ballpark was so bad, by the time I bought my ticket I missed the entire first inning.

Speaking of tickets and seating, because of the large crowd and my late arrival, I was limited to standing in the outfield berm beyond wall in left center field. Of course, I was not alone. There were a few hundred other people sprawled out on blankets or portable chairs. But without something to sit on and the ground wet from a day of drizzling rain, I was forced to stand the whole game. To be honest, I couldn’t expect much more for my seven dollars.

Like many of the old spring parks throughout Florida, Chain of Lakes Park has the sentimental feel of an old-time ballpark from the 20s or 30s. There is nothing fancy about the park, from the old fashioned metal overhangs to the limited scoreboard in right center. It hosts baseball the way it oughta be – without the bells, whistles, and trappings geared for the 15-second attention span.

As for the game itself, as I mentioned, I missed the first inning. I arrived in the top of the second, in time to see the Mets go down in order against Cleveland starter Cliff Lee. Lee pitched well throughout his five innings of action, not allowing a run, scattering four hits, and striking out five.

Lee’s counterpart on the mound, the Mets’ Oliver Perez, suffered an opposite fate. After retiring the side in order in the first, Perez failed to get the lead-off man out in any his other four innings. In the second, he allowed a lead-off home run to Victor Martinez, and after walking the lead-off man in the third, gave up another lead-off homer in the fourth, this time to Indians shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera. Whereas in the first three innings, Perez was able to regain composure, in the fourth he struggled, giving up longballs to Casey Blake and Ben Francisco.

Perez pitched one more inning before leaving the game after five. Sure enough, he put the lead-off man on in that inning as well, issuing a walk to Franklin Gutierrez. Joe Smith and Nelson Figueroa would relieve Perez in the sixth and seventh respectively, and although they didn’t give up any runs, they too both allowed the lead-off man to get on base in their innings. You don’t win games doing that.

As for the Mets offensively, there was not much to talk about. Carlos Beltran hit a home run in the top of the 6th off recycled journeyman Scott Elarton and obscure has-been Fernando Tatis drove home a run in the top of the seventh. Fernando Tatis. Seriously.

Unlike my previous two spring excursions, Saturday’s game did not end 8-4. Instead, after the Indians batted in the bottom of the seventh, the skies opened up, rain drenched both field and the fans, and the umpires finally called it a day with the final scoring being 5-2 Indians.
———————————-

As we near the end of my love’s annual Florida trip, I wish her well and hope the summer months bring her much joy. With luck, we will be together in the fall, enjoying our time in the sun and becoming one in our bliss. Until then, my love, I bid you adieu, adieu. As always, it was an unfulfilled pleasure .

This post originally appeared on Yaysports!.

(Jordi back while the sun still shines.)

While perusing John Hollinger’s NBA Playoff Odds, I became deeply mired in the insane notion that if the Hawks, Pacers, Bulls, Nets, Bobcats, and Bucks all lost every single game until the end of the season, and the Knicks went 11-3, the New York Knicks would make the 8th seed in the Eastern Conference.

I’ll admit, there are probably games that those teams ahead of the Knicks play against each other and as you know, someone has to win those. But great googly-moogly, is the Eastern Conference that bad that a team could hope to win 31 games and have a prayer to make the playoffs?

Check this out:

This book.

Has anyone read this? I think it is a true story about this guy:

Yinka Dare.

Gheorge Muresan.

Eddy Curry.

Think about it.

Oh yeah, read this too, from a chat right before the 2004 draft:

garland,texas: Is it true that the mavs are in talks with
the cavs about trading josh howard or another player for the cavs #10 pic and
get pavel podkolzine?

Brad Friedman: Possibly. Assistant coach Donn Nelson
is as well-versed on the international scene as anyone in the league. The Mavs
love players who cause match-up problems, and at 7-5 Podkolzine can do that.
Howard is expendable with the Mavs having so many wing players.

Why didn’t this happen? Maybe because they thought Luke Jackson was the answer. Howard at the 3 and LeBron at the 2, or vice versa, would have negated Larry Hughes. Imagine. It’s easy if you try.

The Great Jordi hath spoken. Peace out.

This post originally appeared on Yaysports!.

(Once again, back is the incredible, the unstoppable, Jordi.)

Before I begin with this week’s decrees, I would like to thank Jack Cobra for his 52,791 posts this week. The man is a blogging beast. Good job, Jack.

THAT SAID, I have returned from my haitus. For the goodness of this site, I installed a state-of-the-art security system, complete with carnivorous marsupials and demonic sea monkeys. Then I souped ‘em up with the ol’ milk-plus, I did.

Why? Because Cobra wasn’t the only one receiving a coded communication. Instead of decoding my message however, I threw it away immediately.

Let he who abandoned you lose all hope of returning.

The Great Jordi has spoken.

Before I go however, I leave you with this. The Great Jack Cobra’s recent post on the Cav’s lack of offense outside of LeBron reminded me of a story I read about old-time baseball pitcher Bob Gibson. Back in the 50’s, Gibson moonlighted with the Harlem Globetrotters. The Globetrotter’s offensive philosophy consisted of one play: throw the ball in to Meadowlark Lemon. That was it.
The Lemon Offense (as I call it) was part of the Globetrotters’ amazing 8,829-game winning streak. I’m just saying.

Speaking of Meadowlark, check out this old-school commercial. It is funky fresh.

That is all for now.