Big White Stiff

Ask the experts: Jay Bruce edition

2008-06-02T22:17:00.006-04:00

Jay Bruce arrived in the majors just one week ago, and he's already a first ballot Hall of Famer. His stat line is pretty amazing; 3 HRs, 184 RBI, 387 runs scored, 6 walks, my heart, named Super Duper Delegate. Just amazing stuff. The pundits are in unison, Jay Bruce is better than everyone. Let's take a look at what some of the most respected members of the baseball inner-circle had to say about The Bruce, shall we?

"Jay Bruce Almighty is just so goddamn rude. Gaaaah, the nerve of some people. Fuck. I've got 324 different nicknames and home runs calls to get in, but we can't go 8 fucking seconds without a Jay "Born in the USA" Bruce update. It's just so fucking rude. I'm sorry. Fuck. Hey, where'd Leather go? -- Chris Berman

"Did I ever tell you about the time Jay Bruce forced me to wear a woman's bikini? Well anyway, Bruce tears off my clothes and forces me to wear this skimpy bikini. For the next three months I had to hit wearing only a woman's bathing suit. I would cry from shame and question my manhood daily, but Ill be damned if at the end of the season my OBP hadn't tripled. Went up to .200." -- Corey Patterson

The key for Jay Bruce is the pitch up and in. It's his strength and weakness. He's got a quick enough bat, so if he can make contact, it's got a pretty good chance to fall in for a hit. If he's just a bit late, those odds decrease. How many guys in the league can crush the belt high fastball? Well, Jay Bruce can. -- Tim McCarver

"When I played, guys like Jay Bruce didn't exist. We had Tony Perez at first, who was about as good as it got. Davey Concepcion was the glue of our team. No one was better at fouling off the 0-2 slider than Davey. Jay Bruce, though, is another story. When he swings the bat, he makes things happen. You can almost feel when Jay Bruce is going to get a hit. Much like Barry Bonds or Jason Giambi. You just know. That's what makes baseball great." -- Joe Morgan

"Jay Bruce, you know his story. Reminds me of a young Jim Edmonds. Man, Edmonds can play. Stay tuned for the Best Sports Show Period, right after Reds live" -- George Grande

"Dude, man." -- Dusty Baker

"God laid some serious shit on the National League, man. If you're a pitcher, you just have to miz-an up a bit for me. Hang tiz-ight. Jay Bruce works for me, brother. He knows the business."-- Hulk Hogan

"I want Jay Bruce inside me" -- My buddy Steve

"Guys" that piss me off

2008-04-13T22:18:00.003-04:00

"Guitar Hero" Guy

Holy fuck balls. You're playing a slightly less gay version of Dance Dance Revolution with a plastic controller shaped like a guitar. It has colored buttons, for fucks sake. How can anyone get into that game? IT'S JUST FUCKING PRESSING BUTTONS REALLY FAST WHILE LISTENING TO MUSIC!

"Howard Stern Fan" guy

Take a shower and shut the fuck up.

"Bury a shirt underneath Yankee Stadium" guy

What do you want to bet this guy actually had a lengthy thought process before settling on "shirt in concrete"? And how many buddies did he tell before hand? Did no one tell him "You know, Bruno (I named him Bruno), that's not really funny. It's actually retarded. You're 36 and talking about encasing a shirt in concrete. Read a book."

"I haven't watched baseball since the strike" guy

I had this exact conversation at work last week.

Me- "Have you seen Johnny Cueto yet?"

Him- "No, I refuse to watch baseball. Greedy players and greedier owners. When they had the strike, I was done.I was a huge fan growing up, too."

Me- "That's hardcore."

Not ten seconds later this guy pushes the "Close Door" button on the elevator as a lady asked him to hold it. Yeah, greedy players...

"ESPN sucks" guy

We know. Thank you.

"South Park is the best show on TV" guy

Take a shower and shut the fuck up.

Live Blogging history: NIT Selection Show

2008-03-16T19:36:00.019-04:00

Yeah, I'm going there.

9:00 Eastern on ESPN 2. Check here for real time snarky, mildly amusing comments and hard hitting analysis.

Here we go...

8:35- Getting close. Literally tens upon tens of people are on the edge of their seat. While we wait, let's look at the projected top 4 seed lines, via Nit-ology.

1 Seeds- Ohio State, Arizona St, Virginia Tech, Illinois St
2 seeds- Florida, Syracuse, Mississippi, UMass
3 Seeds- Maryland, Dayton, New Mexico, VCU
4 Seeds- Creighton, UAB, Florida St, Oklahoma St

Seems fair, but a bit BCS heavy. I'll say Dayton gets a 2 and UMass gets a 1.

8:48- I should also mention there are 7 automatic bids to the NIT. These are teams that won their conference regular season title, but lost in the tournament.

VCU, Stephen F. Austin, Utah St, UC-Santa Barbara, Robert Morris, UNC-Asheville, Morgan St, Alabama St.

As a Dayton fan, I'm rooting for a first round game with Asheville. Kenny George is the man, and I'd like to see Charles Little dunk on him. Santa Barbara would be my next choice, only because seeing "Banana Slugs" on the UD scoreboard for two hours would be worth the price of admission. Maybe they'd bring their mascot, too.

vs

We could only hope.

8:59- I'm so excited! I'm so...scared.

9:01- Mike Gleason in the house. I've always hated Mike Gleason.

9:03- Here we go

Ohio State (1) vs UNC Asheville (8)
Cal (4) vs New Mexico (5)

Dayton (3) vs Cleveland Sate (6)
Illinois St (2) vs Utah St (7)

Dayton gets the shaft again. BRob's not happy, and you don't want an unhappy BRob.

9:13-

Virginia Tech (1) vs Morgan St (8)
VCU (4) vs UAB (5)

Nebraska (3) vs Charlotte (6)
Ole Miss (2) vs UC-Santa Barbara (7)

Now we're saying Dayton is equal to Nebraska. Sure.

9:14- Dayton plays at 6 on Wednesday on ESPNU. Thanks for the good time slot, asses.

9:17:

Arizona State (1) vs Alabama St (8)
Southern Illinois (4) vs Oklahoma St (5)

Creighton (3) vs Rhode Island (6)
Florida (2) vs San Diego St (7)

They're going too fast for me, now. I'll catch up later.

9:whatever

Syracuse (1) vs Roberts Morris (8)
Minnesota (4) vs Maryland (5)

Florida State (3) vs Akron (6)
UMass (2) vs Stephen F Austin (7)

There's your NIT field, folks. Proceed in not caring.

We're not in Kansas anymore, Cinderella

2008-03-14T22:29:00.007-04:00

College hoops is my favorite sport, and weeks like this are exactly why. The best possible way to describe it is... a complete clusterfuck of awesome. Let's break it down...

The Good

American won the Patriot League, earning its first ever bid to the Big Dance. That's a win for all us. Especially Toby Keith.

The Bad

Raise your hand if you want to play in the NCAA tourney. Anyone? Bueller? Oh, St Joe. Is that it? Stop burning things West Virgina, we saw you, too.

Syracuse, Villanova, Maryland, Arizona St, Arizona, Oregon, Dayton, UMass, Ohio St, Illinois St, and New Mexico all needed one more win to really solidify their resume (or in the case of Illinois St, all they had to do was not get blown out), and all failed. Since there has to be 34 at large bids, you figure at least 4 or 5 of those teams will make it. Jim Tressel is intrigued by their ideas, and would like to subscribe to the newsletter.

So which of those teams will make it? I'll pick Villanova, Arizona St, Arizona, and Dayton (pending the outcome of the A10 final). That's not what teams I would pick necessarily, just who I think the Stonecutters will choose. Steve Gutenberg's Big Green is a lock.

The Ugly

Not one noteworthy performance out of a big white stiff. For shame.

West Virginia's team is ugly, too. Not only is their coach a giant mustard bottle, but they also have the goofy looking Joe Alexander, and a 22 year old kid stricken with a mean case of male pattern baldness. They say a team tends to reflect the area it represents, and I'd have to agree in WVU's case.

The Downright Fucked Up

The SEC quarterfinal game between Alabama and Mississppi State was interrupted by a Tornado Warning in Atlanta. The roof has been ripped in a couple of spots, and debris is all over the court. A possible tornado causing a basketball game to be delayed. Perfectly fitting for this week.

So grab the glass slipper, Dorothy. You have to get back to Auntie Em's before that nasty bitch turns your dog back into a pumpkin. Here's to hoping the Wicked Witch gets crushed. And by that I mean Duke.

Boycotting Bracketology

2008-03-10T19:03:00.014-04:00

We've got less than a week until Selection Sunday, and maybe it's just because my team is squarely on the bubble, but I can't take any more of this bracketology stuff. I'd rather be balls deep in a discussion on DiPS ERA and VORP. I can't take this shit anymore.

Bracketology has evolved from a cute little projection system into a full-blown pandemic.

"This team is 5-5 vs the RPI top 100!"

"That team sucks. This team is 10-2 in its last 12!"

"Fuck you, Steve. That team lost to Alcorn State three years ago."

All we need now is a chick doing her own bracketology based on which teams have the cutest mascot or prettiest uniforms, and it will have reached office football pool levels of maddening. Joe Lunardi will update his bracket every day this week. Hillary Clinton thinks that lacks credibility.

My biggest beef: De facto play-in games. The talking heads are saying the loser of Villanova/Syracuse on Wednesday is "out". Really? Syracuse loses to a decent team so their resume is automatically worse than someone else?

"This team needs to make the finals of their conference tourney..."

So now we're giving more credence to a fucking single elimination tourney than a much larger sample sized regular season? Hulk Hogan thinks that's illogical.

I'm out. Keep reading this drivel every day, douchebags. I'm actually going to watch games and be entertained by the play on the floor. I might even clean a portion of my home*.

People are Retarded Fuck Nuggets.

2008-03-05T17:32:00.006-05:00

I found this post on UDPride today, and wanted to share. Apparently, Brian Roberts will be a father soon. Which of course means he's a witch or something to some people.

"It was described as a "personal matter". This is simply not a good example for a Catholic school. Frankly, I hope that this thread is the last we hear of this situation. Celebrating children out of wedlock may be OK at that university across town, but not at UD IMHO!"

In four simple sentences he set Catholics back to before Martin Luther split, and took veiled shots at BRob, his girlfriend, and unborn child. He also took a shot at a local school who, if you aren't paying attention, is wonderful for the community. (Also, I go there, so it's the capital of awesome two nights a week. )

Fuck you, Douchebag McBiblethumper. May you one day get Super Aids.

To my 7 readers

2008-02-26T22:28:00.004-05:00

I started a new job this week, and things are pretty hectic. Combined with classes 2 nights a week, and my free time is gone. I may not be around for several days, and maybe a week or two.

I won't ignore you, and I couldn't possibly ignore those big uglies in the paint. I will return when time allows.

Your fearless leader,

Captain Awesome

First Ever Stiff of the Week

2008-02-22T13:20:00.003-05:00

Luke Harangody, Notre Dame
Just yesterday I called Gody the ugliest man alive, and I stand by those words. Howeva, the big fella can flat out ball. He's averaging 20 and 10 for a pretty surprising Irish team. All he did last night was drop 23 points and 12 boards right down freshmen phenom DeJuan Blair's gullet in another big home win.

As a sidenote, there must be something with the letters "harang" appearing in order in a person's last name. Fellow big ugly Aaron Harang is the most underrated pitcher in baseball right now. That's weird.

Masochism

2008-02-21T22:05:00.007-05:00

I shouldn't take sports so seriously. I mean, they're meaningless in the big picture of life. It's a fantasy land of sorts, separated from reality. I should just turn off the TV or computer, and move on with what's really important. Family, friends, work, my dog...anything.

But here I sit, unable to do any of that. It has been an hour since my favorite team, the Dayton Flyers, suffered a crushing collapse to La Salle, effectively ending any realistic chance they had to make the NCAA tourney. Simply put, they blew it. I shouldn't feel like this.

Hell, I'm used to my teams losing games and constantly breaking my heart. I grew up right in the middle of the Bungles era, watching David Klingler, Ki-Jana Carter, Dan Wilkinson, and Akili Smith bring things to a whole new level of suck. I didn't know what good NFL football looked like. In 2005, everything changed. The Bengals won the division and looked to make a deep playoff run. On their second play of their first playoff game in 15 years, Carson Palmer found Chris Henry for a huge gain. This was it. We really were going to do something special. Then the camera panned back to see Palmer on the ground, writhing in pain from a blown out knee. Season over. Dream over. Back to reality.

I grew up watching the Reds get swept out of the 1995 NLCS only to fall from grace the very next year. In 1999, they rebounded and had a special year for the ages, only to get shutout by Al fucking Liter in a one game wildcard playoff. That offseason, the Reds traded for the best player in the game, and hometown hero, Ken Griffey Jr. This is really going to happen. A little over a year later, Junior blew out his hamstring. Him, and the Reds, haven't been the same since. Dream over. Back to reality.

In 2006 the Buckeyes were perfection on grass. They couldn't be stopped. Troy Smith won the Heisman, and the team beat VLoyd once again and headed to the National title game. It was going to be a coronation. Teddy Ginn took the opening kickoff back for a TD. This was going to happen. 3 hours later Florida polished off a 41-14 asskicking. Dream over. Back to reality.

This past year, it happened again. The Buckeyes were back in the title game after an unlikely season. It was special. Beanie Wells took the second play of the game for a long TD run. Shortly after that the Bucks made it a 10-0 lead. This year was going to be different. It was happening. 3 hours later LSU was capping off a 38-24 win. Dream over. Back to reality.

In 2003, the Flyers had a banner year. They won the A10 title and rode into the Big Dance on high. Many people said they were a sleeper Final Four pick. Something special was going to happen. They even fell behind #13 seed Tulsa big early, and came back to within a few. It was going to happen. Sean Finn slammed home a put back dunk to draw the Flyers even closer. That was it. Offensive goaltending negated the dunk, and the Flyers were upset, ending a dream season. Back to reality.

The lone bright spot was an improbable Buckeyes national title in 2002. They upset the great Miami Hurricanes. I'm not married, I don't have kids...I consider that night the greatest I've had in my 22 years of life.

You know what? The pain of being brought back to reality so many times has numbed the great feeling of that night many times over. I can't remember exactly how I felt when the final pass fell and the Buckeyes stormed the field in victory. I look back and remember being happy, but the feeling is gone. I only remember pain.

It shouldn't be that way. Sports isn't reality. The outcome of games should not effect how I feel. I should just put down the remote and move on. There's more important things to be done. I shouldn't feel this intense pain and sorrow over some people I don't know losing a game.

But I do. And you know what, I'm not sure I'd want it any other way. I'm a fan. See you Sunday, Flyer fans. I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Random Observations and Predictions

2008-02-21T14:26:00.008-05:00

I watch a lot of college basketball, and I think things.

- Drew Neitzel has to be 34 years old by now. It seems like he's been at Michigan State for 13 years or something.

- Kentucky will not make the NCAA tourney. Sorry Kige.

- I love when Duke loses. Generally I try not to take pleasure in the suffering of others, but I do with Duke. They're just so fun to hate. Jon Scheyer is my favorite. Poor kid goes 0-fer in a loss to Wake Forrest, and then drops 27 on Miami in another loss. He just can't win, and I can't stop laughing at him. And then there's Paulus...

- Thad Matta has a really big nose.

- Luke Harangody is the ugliest human being alive

- Bruce Pearl in an orange jacket is one of my favorite things in the history of ever.

- Predictions sure to be right:

Dayton 76 La Salle 68
Rhode Island 93 UMass 85

Upset Special:
Pitt 69 Notre Dame 65

Introducing: The Stiffs

2008-02-20T12:32:00.005-05:00

What exactly is a big white stiff? You may be asking that very question at this very moment. Is it just a big, slow, tall white guy? Well, yes. That's exactly right. But who are the stiffs? Allow me to introduce a few of my personal favorites.

Bryce Husak- Sr, Saint Louis University
Tale of the tape: 7'0" 260 lbs

Must resist urge to crack a Majerus big stiff joke...Ok, it passed. SLU always seems to play my Dayton Flyers twice a year, so I've seen a good amount of Husak (pronounced: Who-shock) over the last four years. He's the total package. He can step out and hit the 17 footer, and...well, that's about it. He averages 6.0 points and 4.4 rebounds, while blocking a beastly 1.7 shots per game. On a team that has to light it up to reach 40 points, Bryce is an important cog in the wheel.

Kurt Huelsman- So, University of Dayton
Tale of the tape: 6'11" 240 lbs

This is a homer pick, but Kurt is my favorite BWS of the moment. He averages 6.0 points and 4.5 rebounds a game, but his impact goes beyond that. Kurt is a very good passer for a big man, and his overall game is improving pretty rapidly. Like most stiffs, Kurt has the face of a 13 year old, but the body of an Adonis.

Scot Pollard- Boston Celtics
Tale of the tape: 6'11" 265 lbs

Scot Pollard is a man's man. He's been known to rock the mohawk, and look right into a camera and tell kids to use drugs while his team is in a huddle during a timeout. He is what we all aspire to be. Currently he's averaging 1.9 points and 1.7 boards a game. That, my friends, is nearly a double-double in my book. How important is this man? He played for the Cavs last season, and they won the Eastern Conference. Over the summer he signed with the Boston Celtics, and immediately the pundits claimed they were one of the favorites to win the NBA title in 2008. Scot Pollard is a winner, pure and simple.

Kevin Malone- Dunder-Mifflin Scranton
Tale of the tape: Above average height, portly, male pattern baldness

Kevin is just an ordinary accountant by day, and the kick ass drummer of the band Scrantonicity II by night. His hobbies include paper football, gambling, laughing at anything that remotely sounds like a sexual innuendo, and lying on the beach eating hot dogs.

But when you get this guy on the floor, he's "wet" as the kids say. I once witnessed him make 7 or 8 straight 15 foot jumpers. Impressive, and it earns Big Kev a spot in my heart.

That's just a sampling of the quality stiffs that currently roam the basketball world. There are many more, and I will do my best to bring them the notoriety they rightfully deserve.

As a side note, the inaugural BWS Hall of Fame inductions will be taking place this weekend. So look out for that.

Hello You People

2008-02-20T02:02:00.000-05:00

How many times have you been watching a basketball game and there's an out of place white guy that's only on the floor because he's roughly 8 feet tall? He can't dribble, shoot, and even tie his shoe, but yet he's playing D-1 college ball. Or even worse, he's in the NBA getting paid to be really fucking tall.

I bet you laugh at them. They're just ogres out their for your amusement, right?

Wrong. Big white stiffs are true American heroes, and they will be celebrated on my blog.

I suppose I should introduce the blog at this point. My name is Adam and I'm addicted to basketball. I prefer college, but I'll watch an NBA game once in a while. My favorite team is the Dayton Flyers. That's enough about me (awkward transition...moving on...)

While BWS's will finally get the credit they deserve on this here blog, I (perhaps we down the road, we'll see) will dabble in all things college hoops. You know, the big games, March Madness, Erin Andrews' ass, and why Xavier can suck the left nut Duke is ignoring. You know, the usual.

So grab some popcorn and cue your favorite Shawn Bradley getting dunked on clip. It's going to be a fun ride.