Where Have You Gone, Dom DiMaggio?

Dom DiMaggio is one of my all-time favorite baseball players, but not for anything he accomplished on the field.
Dom was a pretty good player in his own right (7-time All-Star, .298 career average) but he was always overshadowed by the success of brother Joe and his best friend Ted Williams.
But after their baseball careers ended, it was Dom who had all the success. Joe got married twice and reportedly spent the rest of his life pining for Marilyn Monroe and mourning her death which he believes was caused by the Kennedys.
Ted Williams got married -- and divorced -- three times, and had unusual relationships with his children.
Dom was married to the same woman for more than 60 years and had many kids and grandkids.

Neither Joe nor Ted could find any fulfilling work post-baseball and turned into reluctant pitchman (Mr. Coffee!), but Dom became a successful plastics manufacturer and later in life was a wealthier man than either of them.

Dom DiMaggio was proof it's not how you start, it's how you finish.

Paulo's Book Club: "Living On The Black"

"Living on the Black" by John Feinstein is the finest book I have ever read about the art of pitching.



"Living on the Black" chronicles the 2007 season through the eyes of veteran pitchers Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina. While the two separate storylines sometimes make it confusing to remember who you're reading about, Feinstein enlisted two pitchers for his work because in case one got injured, or had an uninteresting season he had the other as insurance.

And that decision worked out fine as Mussina struggled with injury and ineffectiveness, Tom Glavine had a remarkable year, and his chase of his 300th win (the Number that Must Not Be Named) is the book's central theme.

I absolutely love this book and don't want to ruin it (although the ending ruins it for most Mets fans -- an entire chapter on that disastrous final start of the season for Glavine), but here's what you learn about Tom Glavine: every hit he ever gave up was the umpire's fault. He knew that he had to get outside pitches called as strikes so if the umpire didn't give it to him on one pitch, he'd go right back there, and if they umpire didn't see the first call as a mistake, he'd be down in the count 2-0.

Glavine and Mussina proved to be great choices for a book of this nature because they were both honest (they kind of come off as whiners) and intelligent, really giving the reader a feel for what a pitcher goes through as he pitches well, and especially when he pitches poorly.

It's that insight that makes "Living on the Black" a must-read.

Another One Bites the Dust

We're entering a new chapter in the Steroid Era. We already smoked out most the obvious cheaters now we're getting to the guys we didn't think were users. First it was A-Rod who we thought was too skinny and never underwent a drastic physical change. Turns out he was juicing since high school so we just never noticed.
Now it's Manny Ramirez who we thought was just too stupid and too disinterested to use steroids.
Manny was caught with HCG in his system -- a female infertility treatment. Manny says a doctor prescribed it because he was having a little trouble with little Manny. Don't buy it. He's a cheater like all the rest of them.

Since Eddie Murrary in 1996, 10 players have entered the 500 home run club. Three of those players have failed steroid tests (Rafael Palmeiro, Alex Rodriguez and Manny Ramirez).
Two of them were implicated in the BALCO investigation (Barry Bonds and Gary Sheffield).
Two more embarrassed themselves in front of Congress to the point no one even questions that they are steroids cheats (Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa).

And that leaves us with three who haven't done it or haven't been caught (Jim Thome, Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey Jr.)

I wouldn't be surprised if all three of those guys eventually get caught or admit it. Griffey might be a little shocking, but with the rash of injuries he had, I've often wondered if steroid use was a factor.

If you had any doubts or actually believed MLB's party line that most of the users were lesser players just trying to hand out, this list should dissuade you from that view.

With each passing repot it seems like Ken Caminiti underestimated when in 2002 he told Sports Illustrated 50% of major leaguers we're using steroids.

What Do You Give Me For? Tyson Jackson and Malcolm-Jamal Warner

What do you give me for Tyson Jackson, the third pick in the draft to the Kansas City Chiefs and Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the man TON accuses of ruining Mike Tyson's career.





Note: this is the third straight year the Chiefs used their first round pick on a guy from LSU -- first Dwayne Bowe, then Glenn Dorsey, now Tyson Jackson.

My New Favorite Person in the World

Britain's Got Talent judge Amanda Holden is my new Courteney Cox. After years of praying Courteney would dump David Arquette for Jeff Zucker, I've now given up forever on my dreams of Courteney Cox-Zucker becoming a reality.

Now I am hopeful that Amanda Holden (who is also pretty hot) will fall in love with Syracuse University alum, Rich Kiss.
I would call her house everyday and say "I need Amanda Holden-Kiss"

I Never Saw Her at the Mall

Because I never watched ABC's show "True Beauty" I never knew a really hot chick from Staten Island was on the show.
Laura Siani didn't win because obviously girls from Staten Island don't exactly have inner beauty. But she has big tits and a nice ass, and that's good enough for me.

Song of the Week

"Rockin That Thang" - The Dream

I absolutely love this guy. This is the second time he made SOTW and they might be the only two songs of his I ever heard.

What Have Chinese People Ever Done to You?

A strange thing is happening on Google. I'm sure you've noticed, when you type a search from the main page, it automatically offers the most popular suggestions starting with those letters.

If you Google "I am" the first thing it will display is "I am extremely terrified of Chinese people."

I Paid For Those Titties

The most villified woman in America right now is Miss California Carrie Prejean. The long and short of it is that she was asked by Perez Hilton (what's a gay dude doing judging hot bitches?) for her stance on gay marriage.
Instead of telling him what he wanted to hear she said she thinks marriage is between a man and a woman.

Let me just say I am in favor of gay marriage because I want everyone to do what they wish so long as it doesn't interfere with someone else's life.

But I'm really not concerned with gay marriage. What scares me about this new wave of liberalism as evidenced by the attacks on Ms. Prejean, we all have to share the same beliefs oR risk being publicly ostracized.

The political correctness police are threatening to take away our freedom of speech and in the case of wackos who say the Bible is against homoSexuality, their freedom of religion as well.

But none of that is why I like Carrie Prejean. I like her because she's hot. And she's hot, or at least hotter, because she has a nice new pair of titties. The Miss California Organization paid for Prejean's boob job a few months before the pageant. Take a look at the pictures and you can see the difference between her at the pageant and her previous self.








One strike against her, she may be fucking Michael Phelps.

Movie Stunt Goes Awry

The new Nic Cage movie "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is filming in Times Square and typing up traffic. During a car chase scene, something went wrong.

A Lot of that Did You Ever Notice? Kinda Stuff

Papa Poop (aka Grandpa Shell) was able to get two tickets to see Jerry Seinfeld in Atlantic City Saturday night so we breezed down for a quick trip.
By the time we got there and picked up our tickets it was about 4pm. The show started at 7:30 so we had about 3 hours to play, and since I didn’t want to burn through my money too quickly I played poker instead of craps.

I sat down at a 1-2 no limit table and about the third hand I played I got A-Q and called $15 preflop. The flop brought an ace and two rags. The guy in early position went all for $45. So his $45 plus the $60 already in (the two blinds called) gave me the pot odds to call. Of course he had ace-king and I was already down $60.

Later I got another A-Q raised to $10, bet $15 on a nothing flop, then folded on the turn to a bet of $25.

My other big hand was an A-K suited. The flop came the Kh-5c-Jc. I bet $20 and was called. The turn was the 5 of diamonds. I bet $25 and got raised to $100. I folded.

I also folded another big hand. I guy in early position raised to $25. He got called before it got to me. I had pocket 10s. I laid them down. Then the flop came A-K-2. The early raiser bet $75, so I’m pretty sure I made the right move.

At this point I was down to almost nothing. Then I went on a minirun but every time I bet everyone folded. I raised to $10 with hands like A-7, A-J, K-10 and took them all down preflop. I had pocket 7s a couple times, also raised to $10. Was called then forced to fold on the flop.

My last hand was my undoing. I limped from the small blind (only the button was in) with A-7 of hearts. The flop was J-7-4. I bet $20 and they both called. A 6 hit the turn and we all checked. An 8 hit the river and it brought three diamonds. The button checked so I bet $50 thinking I was the only one who showed any aggression, so maybe I could represent the flush, or jacks but it turns out they both made straights. The guy on my right had 5-3 and was furious that the other guy made his straight to chop on the river. I don’t know why he hung around with an inside straight draw on the flop for $20 more.

That was my last hand, I left before I could lose anymore. I don’t think I played poorly, but as usual I got no big hands, I never connected solidly with a flop and nothing I tried worked because I was always doing it at the wrong time.

Thankfully the night only went up from there.

Seinfeld was hysterical. I had seen bits of his material (the iPhone, “in Bed”) before on late night shows, but they were much better in person. He also did a brief sketch on TV news (breaking news, everything is breaking news) which I thoroughly enjoyed. None of it really stands out in my mind right now but the whole thing (about an hour maybe) was hysterical, basically the whole room was laughing the entire time. I had never seen him live before and it was a real treat, he worked the room really well saying to a couple who came in about 15 minutes after he started (“the show’s about to start”), his mannerisms, his delivery, it was all perfect.

Papa Poop treated me to a nice dinner at Morton’s (I had the scallops wrapped in bacon) and we split a baked potato the size of a football. A nice meal to wrap up a great trip.

Good Find SCZA

SCZA found a high quality video of the entire Manny Pacquiao - Ricky Hatton fight.

Note: You have to click play twice, the first time ads will appear. The second time the fight will play. You will probably need to watch this fullscreen since TON never changed this blog to the layout that accepts wide screen video.



Pac-Man is just too quick and even though he's moved way up in weight throughout his career he still has that one-punch knockout power. The guy is an absolute monster. If Mayweather beats Marquez in July, he could face Pacquiao in December. That could be the highest grossing fight of all-time (raw dollars, not adjusted for inflation) even in this period of economic turmoil.

I also love the fact that Manny doesn't seem ready to retire like every other boxer. He just wants to keep on fighting. He could get every contender between 140 and 154 -- Moseley, Margarito, Cotto -- and beat them all.