My wife was flipping channels a few minutes ago and came across a live performance of this song by the artist below.

Yeah -- David Hasselhoff doing grave damage to one of the great songs of my childhood. If there is one thing that Democrats and Republicans ought to be able to get together on, it is the necessity of legislation banning David Hasselhoff from coming within 100 feet of a recording studio.

And yeah -- the live performance was just as awful.

Hooga Hooga Ooga Chaka indeed.

Posted by: Greg at 09:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 94 words, total size 1 kb.

Surely a ballplayer is worth more than a box of bats!

During three years in the low minors, John Odom never really made a name for himself.

That sure changed this week—he’s the guy who was traded for a bunch of bats.

“I don’t really care,” he said Friday. “It’ll make a better story if I make it to the big leagues.”

For now, Odom is headed to the Laredo Broncos of the United League. They got him Tuesday from the Calgary Vipers of the Golden Baseball League for a most unlikely price: 10 Prairie Sticks Maple Bats, double-dipped black, 34-inch, C243 style.

“They just wanted some bats, good bats—maple bats,” Broncos general manager Jose Melendez said.

According to the Prairie Sticks Web site, their maple bats retail for $69 each, discounted to $65.50 for purchases of six to 11 bats.

“It will be interesting to see what 10 bats gets us,” Melendez said.

So let's see -- that would make Odom worth precisely $655.00 to his new team. hardly a vote of confidence, in my book.

But then again, this is the minor leagues.

Posted by: Greg at 02:27 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 191 words, total size 1 kb.

Well, these are some young men who will have a great teacher.

Craig Biggio found it difficult to peel off his uniform after the final game of a 20-year career with the Astros last fall. Now he will have the opportunity to wear another uniform.

Biggio, perhaps the most popular player in Astros history, will be named today as baseball coach at St. Thomas High School, said several people close to the situation.

Biggio's oldest son, Conor, is a football and baseball player for the Eagles, who won a state title in baseball this month. Biggio helped coach the Eagles in football and baseball after his playing career ended.

St. Thomas, a private school on Memorial Drive, will introduce Biggio as its baseball coach and former Rice University quarterback Donald Hollas as its football coach to the students at an afternoon assembly.

Neither Mike Netzel, who will be introduced as the new athletic director at St. Thomas, nor Biggio could be reached for comment.

Biggio was always a class act while here in Houston, and is revered in a way that few athletes ever experience. That he has chosen to give back to the community in this way is a model that I hope we see more athletes take to heart.

Posted by: Greg at 10:37 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 221 words, total size 1 kb.

Not good, if your name is Bill Belichick.

A former New England Patriots employee has sent the N.F.L. eight videotapes showing the team recorded play-calling signals by coaches of five opponents in six games between the 2000 and 2002 seasons, in violation of league rules.

But the group of tapes does not include video of the St. Louis RamsÂ’ walk-through practice the day before the 2002 Super Bowl. The employee, Matt Walsh, had been linked to such a tape by news media speculation.

Walsh emerged as a pivotal figure in the spying controversy that enveloped the Patriots last season after they were caught taping Jets defensive signals in the season opener.

Walsh, who worked for the Patriots from 1997 to 2003, agreed to turn over the tapes and other evidence by Thursday under an agreement reached last month between lawyers for the N.F.L. and Walsh. The agreement indemnifies Walsh from all future legal fees.

WalshÂ’s tapes show that the Patriots recorded the signals of offensive and defensive coaches in regular-season games against the Miami Dolphins, the Buffalo Bills, the Cleveland Browns and the San Diego Chargers and against the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2002 American Football Conference championship game. In that game, the tape has been edited to show Steelers coaches signaling plays, followed by two different camera angles of the actual plays that were called.

I guess I remain unfazed by the whole thing.

Yes, the tapes appear to show a rules violation.

But I've never understood why it OUGHT to be a rules violation -- after all, signal-stealing in baseball is a fine old tradition and a respected part of the game. And since the signals can be viewed openly by anyone in the stadium, recording them seems trivial.

But the point remains that the tapes DO violate league rules -- and there must be an appropriate penalty. Will it mean the end of one of the NFL's top coaches? Let's wait and see.

Posted by: Greg at 10:38 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 334 words, total size 2 kb.

Vanity Fair is about to run a cover featuring teen superstar Miley Cyrus. The photo, shot by glorious photographer Annie Liebovitz, is not pornographic, but it is disturbing nonetheless. The Wall Street Journal notes the reason.

She is also 15. Thus this week's uproar over a seminude photo by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair magazine. The photo – showing Miley draped in a sheet, back bared, hair tousled, with a come-hither smile – upset countless parents who immediately grasped the photo's essential vulgarity.
Such ordinary wisdom apparently escaped every so-called grown-up involved in the photo shoot. The sophisticates at Vanity Fair defended the picture as a "beautiful and natural portrait." Absent sensible adults, Miley herself stepped forward to issue a statement saying that the now-embarrassing photo shoot was supposed to be "artistic."

This isn’t a porno shot – it really does qualify as an art shot. But a (seemingly) naked teenage girl draped in a sheet is a bit too sexual for my taste. Frankly, it is a bit too sexualized in a society in which teenage sexuality is already a source of concern. After all, we’ve just removed hundreds of children from a religious cult over the issue of sexual abuse of girls the same age as Miley Cyrus – aren’t we sending a highly contradictory message when we show her in a seductive pose on the cover of a national magazine?

Posted by: Greg at 10:46 AM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 243 words, total size 2 kb.