Greatest. Class. Ever

Lineups for the MLB All-Star game were announced yesterday, and once again it was on display just how kick-ass the Class of '95 was for high school sports in Colorado. We f-ing ruled! Roy Halladay (Arvada West, class of '95) and Brad Lidge (Cherry Creek, class of '95) were both picked as reserve pitchers for the game. It's the 2nd All-Star game for Lidge, and the 5th for Halladay, proving again that the Class of '95 is fucking awesome. Granted I don't have Irv and Joe's expansive knowledge of Colorado High School sports from any time before about 1990, but I think it's a pretty safe bet to say that the 1995 class produced the greatest crop of talent in the history of the state. Halladay and Lidge top the baseball talent. In basketball we had Michael Ruffin (Cherry Creek) and Chauncey Billups (George Washington). In football we had.... Well... I know that the "Albino Rhino" Kevin McDougal (Arvada West) played for the Colts for a couple of seasons, and I think that Tom Ashworth (Cherry Creek) was a class of '95 guy. There are probably some others I'm leaving out that Brainz will remember (his brain is like a steel trap filled with crap like this). But I think it's safe to say that the Class of '95 was the greatest class in the history of everything. Feel free to bestow gifts upon us, as you bask in the glow of sheer awesomeness that exudes from our every pore.

Linkage...

Well.... It's been nearly a month since we posted anything new on this blog, and I can't really think of a good excuse for it outside of just being lazy. But this morning the immortal words of Morgan Freeman entered my head and told me "to get busy bloggin', or get busy dyin'", and with the sultry baritone of MF ringing in my ears I realized what I had to do..... A link dump. Sure it's a cop out, but it will have to do for now... along with a promise of much more content from now on. - If you haven't already checked it out, it looks like outstanding blog www.firegeorgekarl.com isn't only picking up steam, it may actually succeed thanks to Karl's idiot lawyer. - With the Rockies defying my predictions and actually signing most of the guys from last year's team, I may have to start caring about baseball again. - Javon Walker is now a Raider. Nice move Javon, just ask Randy Moss, Jerry Porter, and every single other Oakland WR of the past 5 years how much fun that is. It's probably a lot better than playing next to Brandon Marshall though. Although, I guess if he found someone dumb enough to pay him $55 million over 6 years, it doesn't really matter what team he's playing for. Way to go Al Davis!! - Looks like the Birdman is ready to fly again. And this time it won't be in the Highlands Ranch Rec League. - Champ's little bro a Bronco? I'm all for it. In fact, I'd like to populate the entire defense with members of Bailey's family. - Finally, Forty Duece sent me this earlier today. A bizarre and hilarious short movie made by E's hot girlfriend in Entourage.... which is just 3 minutes of Baron Davis roller-skating to New Edition in short shorts and a tank top. Update - The "making of" the Baron Davis video can be seen here... (Thanks JP)

Random Thoughts....

It's been a few weeks since we've posted an update here at Homers. Just some quick thoughts, and I'll have CU update up later..... - I'm still reeling from the revelation that one of the greatest pitchers in MLB history was using steroids. Sure, we all suspected guys like Bonds and Benito Santiago of getting a little help from the juice, but now we find out that Denny Neagle was using???? Consider my world rocked. Just so you know, I judge the greatness of a pitcher solely on their salary and shockingly poor taste in prostitutes. - Todd "Fat Arms" Sauerbrun was released by the Broncos yesterday. As he was leaving Dove Valley he could be heard screaming from his car "God damn you Devin Hester!!!!" Here's an interesting sidenote; Sauerbrun, Pacman Jones, and Chris Henry all attended West Virginia University. Yet Sauerbrun is the only one of them to be kicked off of three NFL teams. Don't worry about Sauerbrun though, I'm sure he'll get another shot somewhere. And if he doesn't, he's still got his huge biceps, rad Oakley shades, and a kick-ass tribal band tattoo going for him. So he'll have absolutely no problem getting laid in New Jersey. - The Broncos only ended up with one player (Champ Bailey) making the Pro Bowl. That number seems about right. I think Brandon Marshall was close to a Pro Bowl level this year, but he's not going to make it in the AFC. Same with Jay Cutler. I don't think Cutler was on that level this year, but he will always have a tough time getting in. We're talking about a conference that includes Brady, Manning, Roethlisburger, Palmer, AND Kyle Boller. And they only take three. Seriously can you even make a case for another Broncos player to be in the Pro Bowl? Nalen missed most of the season, there is no way you can reward a guy like DJ Williams when our run D was so pathetic. Dre Bly was decent, but not great. The ONLY player who might have a complaint is Elvis Dumervil. I mean, he does have 11 sacks, 4 forced fumbles, and an interception even though most NFL scouts consider him a midget. Not bad stats for a little person. With Elvis' freakishly long arms, I wonder if he'd be good at dwarf throwing? Or basketball.... - I think the biggest Pro Bowl snub would have to be Mario Williams. The guy does lead the AFC in sacks and he did single handedly destroy the Broncos O-Line last Thursday. I think that voters weren't quite ready to admit that they were wrong about him when he was drafted, I can't think of any other reason why he shouldn't be in. I'm sure all the chowds feel like their Caucasian sensation Wes Welker was snubbed. But that's just their closet racism talking. Just kidding, i'm sure they're not all racist. Afterall, New Edition is from Boston. - Nene has been given clearance to start full practices on Friday. Hopefully, since he was only out with a thumb injury, he was able to stay somewhat in good shape. Given Nene's history this isn't a likely scenario. I'm a little worried he might come back looking like Tony Soprano in the final season. We also should have Chucky Atkins back soon. They are projecting his return sometime shortly after Christmas. So in the next week we could finally see the Nuggets at full strength for the first time this year. Well, we still won't have Steven Hunter for another six weeks, but we'll be healthier than we've been all year. If Chucky can play even remotely close to the level he was at during the final few weeks of last season, we should be pretty damn tough to beat. In other Nugget related news. DerMarr Johnson was back in town this week playing with the Austin Toros of the D-League against our very own Colorado 14ers! The Teeners and Toros squared off back to back nights, with our boys sweeping both games. DJ looked pretty good, getting 16 points each night. You know, I always liked DerMarr. And unlike most of the squares in this town, I didn't give a damn how ridiculously he spelled his first name. I looked past his name, to the player that never lived up to his potential. Also, the name is not that strange. I believe the German translation of DerMarr is "that goop" or "the goop", depending on the context.

Why we'll win....

After my rant last night about the ticket process, I have now settled down a bit and am getting excited for the series to start. We all need to do this. The thing with the tickets sucked, but now we're over it. Let's remember that we are now in the World Series and get behind our boys. So, with pretty much the entire world picking the Red Sox in the series, here are some reasons why the Rox will win: - We won the season series. I know, I know. The World Series is a different beast. We have to face Josh Beckett at least twice. The Red Sox are more amazing than the invention of beer, the destruction of the Nazi's, and Jenna Jameson combined. Whatever. We still won the series during the season. Scoreboard Sox fans. We also shelled Beckett for his first loss of the year. The bottom line is that we won the series 2-1, in Boston, with the last two games won by a combined score of 19-3. I don't think we'll be intimidated by them. - No DH in Colorado. During games in Colorado, Red Sox pitchers will have to hit. Something they don't regularly do. But the more important issue is that the Red Sox DH, Big Papi, won't be able to hit unless he plays in the field. This means they will most likely move him to first base, which means the Sox will have to bench Kevin Youkilils. All he's done is hit .425 in the playoffs with 4 bombs and 9 RBI. Or they could move him to another position, which means they have to bench someone else, or move them to another position. Any way you look at it the Red Sox will have to completely change their defensive lineup when they come to Colorado. - No Tim Wakefield. I know he's not the top guy in their rotation, but he was the only pitcher the Rox had trouble with in the series in Boston. In the NL West the Rox have seen plenty of great pitching. Most have been in the form of big, tall, intimidating fellas who throw nasty stuff. We've faced guys like Brandon Webb, Jake Peavy, Chris Young, Brad Penny... even David Wells and Greg Maddux. We know how to hit the big guys who throw hard. What we don't know how to do is hit the knuckle ball. Luckily, now we don't have to worry about it. - Because Red Sox fans need something new to bitch about. Ever since the Red Sox won the Series in '04 they have lost their identity. They used to be the loveable losers, the team that just couldn't catch a break. They would always come close and then some sort of great injustice, some rare sporting catastrophe that has never happened to another team before (like a ground ball going between a guys legs to tie the score, they still could have won that game later) would happen to them and they would fall short. Now that they've won one, they are just a bunch of self entitled douchebags. Seriously, how many DVD's, ESPN columns, books, magazine covers, etc. do you need to celebrate one win? Someone wins the Series every single season. Other teams have waited longer for a Series win. But somehow their wait was longer, their win sweeter, blah blah blah. No one outside of New England cared. But now you're the Yankees. You're the team that tries to buy a championship every year. You're the favorite every year. You're the fans that everyone else in the country hates. And it bugs the shit out of you. You long to be the loveable losers again. So you need this Series loss. You need it to happen in some strange way so you can start the string of compaints again. "The Rockies shouldn't be in the playoffs", you'll say, "Holliday didn't even touch home plate!". If the Padres hadn't choked to end the season we wouldn't have had to play the Rockies! Plus they got eight days of rest before the series!" You'll complaign. And secretly, down somewhere deep inside you yourself, you'll be happy again. Happily miserable. So here's one fella who's picking the Rockies to win. Besides, they've won 21 out of 22. If this were any other team would anyone pick against them? But since we're just the Rockies the streak can't continue against the mighty Red Sox. Can it? Why not?

The Death of Our Mojo

There's nothing quite like pissing off your entire fan base on the eve of your first ever World Series. What the hell is wrong with our organization? There are so many things wrong with the attempts to sell World Series tickets, I don't even know where to begin. But I'll try.... Why do I, as a Rockies fan who lives roughly 15 miles from Coors Field, have the same opportunity to buy tickets as a Boston Red Sox fan.... or someone living in Duluth, Minnesota.... or someone in South Africa, or the Middle East, or anywhere else you can get a fucking internet connection? Why wouldn't you have a lottery system that favors locals? Or sell half the tickets on-line, and half at the ticket office? Anything that would give YOUR OWN FAN BASE a leg up on the opposing fans and ticket brokers worldwide? I can't wait for Matt Hawpe to ground out with the bases loaded during game 4 at Coors Field and hear the crowd erupt in applause, since the stadium will be 1/3rd filled with Red Sox douchebags. The only logical reason I can think of is that our ownership doesn't really care about the fanbase as much as the duckets they saw they could make from online marketing. We all know they claimed it was "to improve your ticket-buying experience and to make it as pleasant as possible" since we all stared at that same screen for hours watching the clock tick down. But God knows that wasn't true. My ticket buying experience was neither improved, nor as pleasant as possible. In fact, I don't remember another ticket buying experience being more unpleasant. It kind of felt like waiting in line to get tickets, only you get kicked in the testicles every two minutes, kicked out of line, and then you have to head back to the end of an 8 million person line only to get kicked in the junk again two minutes later. The real reason they sent us all online is because of all the money they stood to make from their banner ads while we all waited. With 8.5 million people on their site simultaneously, every time a person clicked on one of those Qwest banners advertising broadband, or "gas friendly to gas free" Chevys, the Colorado Rockies earned $.50-$1.00 per click. So if you figure one out of every ten people got bored enough while waiting to click on a banner, we're talking about 850,000 clicks which would turn into $425,000-$800,000 in revenue for the Rox. Shit, we just paid for Troy Tulowitski and Manny Corpas' salaries! In only two hours! Meanwhile, your fans who have supported you for the last 15 years (the last 12 being extremely shitty ones) can't get a ticket at face value, and now they have to go on eBay to pay a grand a pop for tickets from some kid in Norway who was able to get 4 tickets for game 3 on Saturday night! So either our beloved Rockies owners are money loving pricks who don't care about their own fanbase, or they are retardedly stupid. Neither one makes me feel very good about the franchise. The thing that really pisses me off about this whole experience is that it has put a huge shit cloud over this amazing run we've seen over the last month. All the good feelings, the good mojo, seem to have taken a major hit over the past two days as all of us Rockies fans spent 3+ hours per day getting kicked out of the website while trying to buy tickets. Now, here we are less than 24 hours from the opening pitch of the first World Series in Rockies franchise history, and in place of all the excitement we were feeling a couple of days ago, now we're pissed off at the team after the ticket fiasco. I guess we could blame ourselves also. I mean, it was our fault that we "maliciously attacked" the Rox servers. The nerve of us! Wanting to watch our team compete in the World Series! For SHAME Rockies fans for SHAME!! Well, now it's all over. And now we have a few days to re-mortgage our homes so we can get a pair of tickets to watch our boys put a hurting on the Red Sox. I think I'll be watching from home. For those of you out there who feel a sense of loss at not seeing the below message on your screen right now, here it is one last time: World Series tickets for Game 3, Game 4 and Game 5 at Coors Field are sold out. Please wait for the server to become available. The site is experiencing heavy loads at this time. To improve your ticket-buying experience and to make it as pleasant as possible, this site permits entry to a limited number of patrons at a time. This page will refresh when the countdown timer below reaches zero. When this happens, the system will automatically try to access the site again. Do not refresh this page or you will be dropped to the end of the line. Thank you for your patience. Fuck off Monforts.