3000 Words

This is what the Stanley Cup looks like when it goes through airport security:

This is the winner's photo after Sam Greenwood won the $1,000 buy-in No Limit Holdem tournament at the World Series of Poker for $319,000. I post this not because of the shirtless men, but because of the girl surrounded by shirtless men who is absolutely mortified.

It's my birthday, bitch! And Mrs. Poop thinks she's Skyler White, minus the Ted incident.

What Do You Give Me For? Bart Chilton and the Painting From "Ghostbusters II"

What do you give me for Bart Chilton, former Commissioner of the CFTC and Vigo the Carpathian of Moldavia, the painting in "Ghostbusters II".

Note: we saw this movie at Damino's 11th birthday party because Mama Damino would not let us see "No Holds Barred."

The Most Exciting Mets Prospect Since Alex Ochoa

Maybe I damned Akeel Morris with faint praise with that headline as I didn't even have time to finish this post before Morris suffered one of the worst debuts in major league history.
I have been following Morris since early 2014 when I unwrapped my first Akeel Morris card in a pack of Bowman baseball cards.

Morris had been unimpressive in 2010 & 2011 and absolutely awful in 2012 going 0-6 with a 7.98 ERA while walking more than 5 batters per 9 innings. Dreadful stats.

But in 2013, something clicked. They gave up on using Morris as a starter and moved him to the bullpen, his walks fell (though 4.6 per 9 is still not great) and his strikeouts rose, to 12 per 9. His traditional stats were awesome too, a 1.00 ERA in 45 innings.

In 2014, he was even better 0.63 ERA, 3.47 BB/9 and more than 14 K/9. It was during this season, after I got the card, that I started to follow him and read more about him. He throws hard, hitting 95, and also has a great changeup.

After which the Mets added him to the 40-man roster so they wouldn't risk losing him in the Rule 5 draft.

But I was shocked when he started the season at single-A again. But once again he was dominant with a 1.69 ERA and striking out 13 men per 9.

That was good enough to get the call-up when the Mets needed someone and even though he was in single-A he was one of the few available healthy choices that wouldn't require them to bump someone from the 40-man to make room.

As soon as I saw the promotion I immediately went on eBay and bought 80 more cards for 12 bucks.

It was only for a couple days, what could go wrong?

Well everything that could go wrong did. A clearly nervous Morris couldn't locate his change-up and walked the first two batters. A potential double play was thwarted then a ridiculous bunt was misplayed, then a grounder snuck through the infield and then BOOM! a three run homer. Five runs, two outs in his major league debut. 67.50 ERA.

I still have hope my investment could possibly pay off. He still has good stuff. He still dominated the minor leagues and now he has a big league experience to build on.

The Chick That Got Panda In Trouble

Pablo Sandoval was benched for one game for clicking "like" on some instagram photos during the game. Kung Fu Panda says he grabbed the phone on the way to the bathroom during a game. And he admitted liking a couple photos. The professional shit-stirrers at Bar Stool Sports noticed this and immediately ratted out Sandoval.

Pabs knows a fine is coming and completely admits that he fucked up by violating a rule banning the use of electronic devices during the game. But he just couldn't resist the photos of diva_legacy.

We can see two big reasons he liked the pictures.

We don't know much about Miss Diva_Legacy yet, except that she likes selfies, eyebrow grooming and push-up bras. We also know she is not the former Mrs. Sandoval.
Nor is she Dubcy Romero who was purportedly Sandoval's girlfriend as recently as last year.

You can blame the guy for liking big-tittie latina hunneez but he needs to learn a thing or two about being discreet.

Where Was ThePoop When the Lights Went Out?

In the dark. The lights briefly went out in my office (though the computers stayed on) when a 20-year old woman lost control of her car, took out a utility pole and the transformers exploded.

The car was engulfed in flames but some brave policemen pulled the driver from the burning car.

Amazingly she escaped with injuries that weren't considered serious.

Look at that car, she is lucky to be alive never mind not permanently disfigured. None of the rescuers were injured.

The "P" Stands for Player

LeBron James deserves to be MVP of the NBA Finals. And it’s an absolute travesty.
If you’re saying the award has to go to the best player on the winning team you are adding factors into the voting that don’t exist.
There is a team award. It’s called the Larry O’Brien Trophy. The Warriors won it. Commissioner Adam Silver gave them that trophy. I saw it. Here’s a picture:

The MVP is different. It is an individual award given to the player (the P in MVP) whose contributions were most (M) valuable (V).
And even if there were a natural bias towards a player on the winning team (as there should be) shouldn’t this be the one exception – where one player is so transcendent and the disparity of the teams is so great that even his best efforts can’t overcome it.
He averaged 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists. Yes his shooting percentage was poor, but again a big part of that is htat he had to take all those shots. Who else was gonna do it? You want him to give the ball to JR Smith in a key spot?
Plus, LeBron is only competing for MVP against other players in this series. He is not competing against your memories of Michael Jordan, or what you read about Bill Russell and how they single-handedly carried inferior teams to victory (they didn’t) because they are “winners.”
He was competing against Andre Iguadola who averaged less than half as many points, rebounds and assists. And he was credited for his defense on LeBron. Who still averaged nearly 36 points!!!!

The basic summary is this: if you don’t think LeBron was the MVP of this series you are stuck in a decades-old mindset where we were unable to separate individual performance and contributions from team results.
It is the same thing we fought over nearly three years ago when voters robbed Mike Trout of the MVP Award.
Individual awards should be given based on individual performance.
Having the championship title taken away from him when Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving got hurt was bad enough -- don’t steal the MVP too.

Song of the Week

"Smokey Joe's Cafe" - The Robins
Sixty years ago, in 1955, this song was played on record players everywhere. It was used in "School Ties" as an archetype of the music of the time. And if it's good enough for David Greene, it's good enough for me.