Undisclosed Location Photos - #1 in a Series

January 31st, 2008 by Tuffy

 A picture that will only amuse a few of you:

Not pictured to the left: a sturgeon named “Supermike”.

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Missouri Tigers All Cracked Up

January 31st, 2008 by Tuffy

Suspendin’ Mike Anderson, head coach of the Missouri Tigers basketball squad, watched his boys take a beating last night but still put up a decent fight in a 66-62 loss to Nebraska. Unfortunately, it’s a better fight than five of his players put up last weekend.

Five players were caught at the notorious Athena bar in Columbia, MO, Saturday night when Stefhon Hanna, senior guard, couldn’t guard his chin long enough to avoid a broken jaw in an early Sunday morning brawl. Those other four players showed a distinct inability to play any defense for their teammate, leaving him on a train back home to Chicago to recuperate.

Anderson, who felt it necessary to institute a ‘zero-tolerance’ policy after taking over Quin Snyder’s ridiculous mess in 2006, has needed to be quite the disciplinarian since his arrival from UAB. In February 2007, his own son tallied a DUI. His own nephew was shot last summer outside a different Columbia club while trying to break up a fight. Other crimes and misdemeanors for the Mizzou team since Anderson’s arrival include punching women, pistol-whipping men, and peace disturbances left and right.

Mike Anderson wants to take this all more seriously than other coaches might. He seems quite serious about cleaning up this team’s act. He’ll shut down the season by sending starters and key reserves back to their dorm rooms until further notice.

Then again, he might have some family pressures to do so. Apparently, Missouri is the Von Trapp family of the Big 12. His son is on the team? Along with his nephew? Last year, his associate head coach (Melvin Watkins) had his son on the team before that son graduated and joined the coaching staff as a grad assistant. If Sister Maria had to deal with these hooligans, she would have turned the lot of them over to Mary Poppins for a fanciful journey through Dante’s Inferno.

Hopefully, Mike Anderson has the full support of the university to clean out the rest of the administration’s previous floppy-haired mistake, since graduation (or at least the exhaustion of eligibility) might be the only way through this embarrassment. After all, he will run out of extended family soon. Besides, the family he’s had on the team haven’t shown the best judgment skills, either.

If these young men with questionable abilities to make decisions have been attending class, they might know the namesake of their favorite soda joint, Athena. If they do, they’ll recognize her as the companion of Nike and giggle a little since they are, too. Maybe they’d also realize Athena was the goddess of wisdom and try praying to her for sagacity in a way that didn’t involve being on their knees in front of her college town temple, vomiting their lungs out and holding their jaws onto their faces.

Props to Tyson Sprick of MVN for pounding home this story like the Web was a mandibular joint and he demanded satisfaction for this slight.

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Fly with Me in My Beautiful Bulleted List

January 30th, 2008 by Tuffy

Back if not in one piece.  My extended enjoyment of the national air transport system on Monday has forced me to turn to the last resort of rapscallions everywhere: bullets.  I hope my lawyer can create sympathy with the jury.

• The New York Giants showed up in Arizona battling the flu.  If the Giants lose, Tom Coughlin will be vilified by the Post for not putting a hand washing diagram in the Super Bowl playbook.
• I’m not sending you a link to this Internet ad for Oreos, but I will share the text of the ad in its entirety: “You could win a trip for your family to lick race against the Mannings & $10,000!”  Funny; I thought the first one was always free.
• Jason Kidd would like to be traded.  LeBron James wants Kidd on his squad.  That’s nice, but it also explains why Jerry Krause often ignored Jordan’s attempts to play Junior GM during his playing days.  All good things, young man…
• I didn’t watch a minute of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships but for different reasons than one might think.  I find it hard to watch these incredibly young people fight to be the best of their breed.  Mostly, I want to pat them on their little heads after each performance and take them out for ice cream like I promised if they tried really hard and no one went to the hospital.  As much as I’ll be pounding the Olympics here all spring and summer, there’s still some small part of me that finds putting an immense amount of personal investment into 14-20 year olds a little disconcerting.  I can’t help feeling patronizingly paternal when I do, though.
• Then again, maybe I shouldn’t feel badly about that.
• Can we call him “Dinged” Crosby yet?
• I would like to commit to the Indian, but I appear to have commitment issues.  Can we just mess around for awhile?
• If Mighty Mouse is the answer, you’re asking the… actually, you’re asking just the right question, San Antonio.
• When I see Chris Webber’s photo in a story, I instinctively check to see if I still have my wallet.  Good luck with that, Oakland.
• “Andy, let’s go out fishing, okay?  No, Koby has to go back inside now… just you and me, eh?”

Lots more coming as soon as I figure out which one of you got into the peppermint schnapps I was totally just holding for a friend.

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Treehouse Fort - College Hoops with Ken Pomeroy

January 28th, 2008 by Tuffy

Today in Tuffy History: We talk to Basketball Prospectus‘ Ken Pomeroy while I sit in an airport terminal.  I find out where Duquesne is.

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Treehouse Fort: Baseball’s Almost Here

January 25th, 2008 by Tuffy

Today in Tuffy History: Baseball hot stove talk and a li’l football as well.  I report from an Undisclosed Location.  Silliness ensues.

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Tuffy Travel Day

January 25th, 2008 by Tuffy

Tuffy’s on the road today, so there will be light posting. However, be sure to tune into the Treehouse Fort tonight (8 ET) as we’ll fire up the hot stove once again to keep baseball warm and probably get slapped by baseball for getting a little too fresh under the blankets. Also, I’ll be reporting live from an Undisclosed Location. Really. Tune in.

(Posting will probably be light through Monday as well. No one do anything interesting while I’m gone, okay? And stay out of Daddy’s “medicine” cabinet. Thanks.)

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This I Believe - Or Else

January 24th, 2008 by Tuffy

… welcome back, loyal NPR listener. We’re in day five of the summer pledge drive. We know this is about the time the pledge drive gets a little perfunctory and dry, much like the rest of the midday coverage. ha ha! We kid Roosevelt Stevens and his Farm Report. Love you, Rosie! He hates it when we call him Rosie. ha ha.

Therefore, we’d like to give you a little Capraesque look into a future without pledge drives. Sounds great, doesn’t it? No overpriced tchotckes. No aimless banter about moral responsibilities.

By the way, did you notice a distinct lack of high-pitched tittering? Yes, the 2 am music hour is now missing a host… or will be once a missing persons report can be filed in 48 hours… but our donations have risen 14% over last year since her odd disappearance yesterday. See? We do care about you.

But back to Capra. In the vein of “It’s a Wonderful Life”, we’ve put together a sample of NPR programming without pledge drives. You may have heard “Ryan Seacrest’s Laundry List” earlier and maybe you were around this morning for “A List of Chicks Burt Reynolds Claims to Have Banged as Read by Burt Reynolds with Explicit Commentary by Burt Reynolds”. A quite disconcerting experience over breakfast, no?

Still, donations haven’t markedly increased, so maybe you think we’re not being serious about this. Maybe you think this is some kind of cute little gag we’re running. It’s not. We’re serious.

To further prove our point, we’ve asked noted comedian Carlos Mencia to tape an essay for This I Believe. As regular NPR listeners know, This I Believe is a collection of essays allowing people both famous and not-so-famous pontificate on their core beliefs in front of a paid audience. You know, like Chris Matthews but classier.

As regular listeners to this pledge drive know by now, I’m making air quotes when I say “noted comedian”.

Just as we would be forced to tell you if we skipped pledge drives, Carlos Mencia has a new book out: “Jokes I Told Milton Berle”. You can buy it at bookstores now… I guess. Now, This I Believe with Carlos Mencia. Read the rest of this entry »

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Gratuitous NHL Link of the Day

January 23rd, 2008 by Tuffy

This amused me greatly: 

It’s not that Versus isn’t good looking - she’s cute, in a “remember when we used to climb trees when we were six?” sort of way. Versus is comfortable - she’s safe. After a couple of years, she’s even turned moderately attractive. No, none of the jocks like the NFL or those X-Games skater punks are going to dream about her at night, but they stopped mocking her during lunch ever since she stopped wearing glasses and got HD. 

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Colt Brennan Has Surfer Girl Arm

January 23rd, 2008 by Tuffy

So Matt Sussman rings me on the Interrotron 3000 yesterday evening. After exchanging pleasantries and speaking ill of our enemies, he slyly notes, “Your boy Colt Brennan appears to be having trouble with a system of playing other good players.”

Clearly, Colt’s been struggling since everyone else bailed on the Senior Bowl, making him actually work out this week in front of the scouts. (By the way, how does the esteemed board that runs the Senior Bowl determine which team Colt plays on: North or South? Is it a coin flip? Islander vote? Eminent domain?)

To quote the SI piece:

Brennan’s inadequate arm strength is obvious to all in attendance. His passes lack any velocity which gives the defensive backs extra time to break up his throws, something that’s been a common occurrence.

To this point, the only impediment to his throws has been the legal system. I mean, who would have thought Colt Brennan would be a one trick pony in a system specially designed for him thousands of miles from scouts that could only review grainy tapes taken with old cameras left over from Hawaii Five-O filming? (June Jones was serious when he said the U of HI athletics budget was piddling.)

Sussman continued. “He keeps throwing underneath. Nobody’s there.”

I chimed in, “That’s a real damned shame.” For you see, Colt’s not my boy. Suss is just yanking my chain; he knows I’d rather see Brennan pumping gas than double-pumping. I’m sensitive like that.

Tell me more, Sussman. “He can too make all the throws! They’re just using an inferior list that doesn’t include and is limited to: checkdown, lateral, bubble screen, dumpoff, shovel pass, 5-yard out, 10-yard out, off a Georgia Bulldog’s helmet…”

“…sleep, alcohol, co-ed, and combinations of the above are his best passes, yesno?” I add.

Sussman nods through the virtual Interrotron 3000 emotive features (now with more emoting!). “His best pass? Out. ‘Waiwaiwait. I can make this throw. here, everyone grab a paper flower necklace. then I can make the throw.’”

At this point, I realize the true flaw in Colt Brennan’s game. It’s not his weak arm or weak constitution or never having to face his sins. “I know his Kryptonite, Suss: the contiguous United States. When he’s outside the lower 48, he’s unstoppable. CFL, here he comes!”

Sussman makes a good point: “Team Guam could use a signal caller.” I think we all remember their last game.

Me? I’m rooting for the Bikini Atoll Mutants to draft him early. Someone that radioactive should fit in nicely there.

Posted in college football, football | 3 Comments »

Treehouse Fort - Super Bowl Matchup, At Last

January 21st, 2008 by Tuffy

Today in Tuffy History: Super Bowl prep, hot stove talk, NBA stuff, and steroids talk with an actual leading expert as seen on the Internet.

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