#NerdsUnite: Play on playa! (Breaking down the world of sports so you don't have to!)
<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Derek - I met him when I was professor for a day at CSUF. Really rad dude, and he wants to come on board to help explain to us nerdy folk the wild world of sports. Smart dude, and knows his shizzy shiznat. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT DEREK!!!</editorsnote>
#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @DerekJ_AllDay
I don’t wish to dwell on the tragic passing of 42 year old Junior Seau at the moment, and quite frankly I’d like to get this tid-bit out of the way before I really start. The superstar linebacker for the San Diego Chargers took his own life on Wednesday and even though this should be what I’m writing about today I am not going to. There could be a million medical variables and reasons as to why Junior Seau did what he did, and we won’t know anything for certain until his brain is studied. I’m going to keep my opinions to myself for now, but I will be sure to write a post on this subject when more information is available. All that needs to be said for now is, RIP #55 Junior Seau.
G’day nerd nation, summer is coming up and we all know what that means; time for video games. I know I’m looking at Diablo 3 and its much anticipated release in about a week. I also have rather ambitious plans of playing through the Mass Effect series (which I’ve already begun) again just because it’s so awesome. Ya haters, the ending was AWESOME! Y’all suck. In addition, I’m far in Skyrim so it’s very likely that will be finished too. I may be stupid for thinking I can do this but three months is a long time.
Anyways, I’m not the video game writer on here so I’m going to shut up now. On to my other specialty…sports! Baseball saw one of its craziest days in a long time on Sunday, which included a new rivalry between the Phillies and Nationals sparked by veteran pitcher Cole Hamels intentionally hitting the Nat’s 19-year old super prospect Bryce Harper with a pitch. No that is not a typo, Bryce Harper is 19 years old, in the Major Leagues, and is the #2 prospect in all of baseball. Before the Phillies-Nats game began, there didn’t seem to be any bad blood between the two teams; that has now changed.
For whatever reason, Cole Hamels decided that he did not like Harper and plunked him square in the back with a 93 MPH fastball. (That hurts) Harper then returned the favor by stealing home on Hamels and also going 2 for 3 at the plate with a run added to his stat line. Now, much of this is very normal in baseball, even intentionally hitting/hurting someone, but here is the issue….
This is what Hamels said after the game, "I was trying to hit him,”…. "That's something I grew up watching, that's kind of what happened. So I'm just trying to continue the old baseball because I think some people are kind of getting away from it," Hamels said. "I remember when I was a rookie the strike zone was really, really small and you didn't say anything because that's the way baseball is…But I think unfortunately the league's protecting certain players and making it not that old-school, prestigious way of baseball."
HA! That’s basically my opinion…HA! Hamels is a douche, plain and simple. Let me tell you a few things about old school baseball which I happen to know just a little about. Old school guys WILL throw at you intentionally, will bark at you if they want to, and will pick fights if they feel disrespected…but the one thing they WILL NOT do is go to the media after a game and tell everyone about how “old school” they are. If you need to tell someone you’re old school, you probably aren’t. If you’re a real ball player you let your play do the talking in between the lines, and if you hit a guy then any payback is done on the field, not off! Hamels is a fake, a phony, a fraud, a fuck-o…oh and one more thing an old school guy wouldn’t do, is let a 19 year old kick his ass.
Nationals GM Mike Rizzo certainly agrees with me saying, "Cole Hamels says he's old school? He's the polar opposite of old school. He's fake tough,"…"He thinks he's going to intimidate us after hitting our 19-year-old rookie who's eight games into the big leagues? He doesn't know who he's dealing with. He thinks he's sending a message to us of being a tough guy. He's sending the polar opposite message. He says he's being honest, well, I'm being honest. It was a gutless chicken shit act," Rizzo added, "That was a fake-tough act. No one has ever accused Cole Hamels of being old school."
Haha! I love this shit!!! You really don’t get drama like this from any other sport. In baseball there is so much going on behind the game and so many messages being sent that most know nothing about. The game is so much more about respect than the actual rules, it’s about pride and being a true competitor by being willing to gain that edge by any fair way possible. These quotes sound like a conversation my dad and I would have had at dinner, bitching about how much of a chicken shit coward Cole Hamels is. It’s the realest emotion you are ever going to see in sports.
Oh, and let’s not forget Bryce Harper is a douche too, the difference is he’s 19 and has an excuse. He has done some stuff like blow kisses to a pitcher after he hit a home run; if he did that to Nolan Ryan I swear on anything Bryce would be dead. So don’t get me wrong, I think Hamels was right to hit Harper, but he was wrong to blab about it and let everyone know how tough he is.
Thanks for checking in again guys! I was planning on talking about a lot more, but I got excited writing this one and I just kept going. Tweet me @DerekJ_AllDay if you want to chat.
T-minus: 2 weeks until summer break.