matthearn.com

Lots o’ little thangs:

• Some new photos over at CharlesHearn.com, check them out with great gusto.
• This Don Imus thing has gotten out of hand, for reals. At this point, listening to the racial opinions of a nearly 70-year-old white guy in a ridiculous hat makes about as much sense as listening to my great-grandfather expound upon the “Slavering Huns” (he was in The Great War, you see). Who cares? So an old man made a racist joke on the radio. There are worse things going on in our culture, trust me.
• Don’t tell my wife, but I have secretly acquired a copy of “MBL 2007: The Show,” on a recommendation from my buddy Kyle. I plan a full review next week, but here are a few thoughts:
  • I haven’t even tried anything but “Road To The Show” mode, in which you start as a young player in the minor leagues and work your way up to the bigs and see if you can make the Hall of Fame, and which may be the most addictive thing I’ve used since I got out of the methadone clinic. Apparently there are a variety of ways in this game to play it like a regular video baseball game, but I don’t have time for that because I’m living and dying with a 19 year old switch-hitting catcher who’s batting .265 for the Ottawa Lynx, a triple-A Phillies affiliate. I’ll give all the details of this mode in next week’s review, but I’d just like to leave you with my most recent game’s effort: 6/6, with 2 doubles, a home run, and 4 RBI, and would have gotten “Player of the Game” honors if the bullpen could have held an 8-3 lead.
  • I did play a game with Kyle over the weekend (before I bought my own copy) and I can report that the graphics are a little irksome; Chase Utley, for example, is so dark that Kyle and I referred to him by his full name, “Black Chase Utley,” every time he came to bet or fielded a grounder.

  So far the game gets a 10/10 out of ten for gameplay and a 100/10 for “unintentional hilarity.”

• Speaking of Kyle, he also lent me three books, which I may or may not also get around to reviewing:
  • Why My Wife Thinks I’m An Idiot, by Mike Greenberg. I never really listened to Mike and Mike on the radio, because sports radio is about as interesting to me as The World Beard Championships, so I didn’t know much about Greeny going in. The book was good, and hilarious, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he seemed like a bit of a dick. And I can’t explain why, exactly. He describes himself as a “metrosexual” and tends to go into great detail about the expensive clothes he wears; I also like expensive clothes, but every time he said something like “my Prada backpack,” I kept envisioning an overtanned 19 year old brunette sitting in the college cafeteria showing off her new Uggs to her Long Island hookers friends.
  • Fantasyland, by Sam Walton, which details his season playing in the toughest fantasy baseball league in the country. I haven’t finished it yet, but so far it’s been equal parts interesting, revealing, and hilarious.
  • Moneyball, by whoever it is that wrote Moneyball who I don’t feel like looking up. Okay fine, it’s Michael Lewis, you guilted me into it. I haven’t gotten to this one yet, so I’ll just relate a couple of other people’s blurbs:
    • Weekly Standard – May be the best book ever written on business.
    • Wall Street Journal – Another journalistic tour de force.
    • Hearnwife – Stop sitting on the toilet reading those $%#&ing books and come to bed.
• I may be setting a pointless record for “unordered list depth” for blog posts.
• And speaking of sports, just check this out; scroll down to the line for Robert Horry in the San Antonio box score.
• Everybody at Team Hearn is sick again. Charles is pretty good at bringing home germs; he, of course, is over them in all of a day, and we suffer for 2 weeks. I’m going to go to bed. Have a nice weekend, and avoid the clap.