So, Do You Like ... Stuff?

Memorial Day weekend was made for sports (and also for other things, like remembering our veterans, similar to the way we do on Veteran’s Day). The three days that are known as the unofficial start of summer serve as the perfect setting for all things sports-related. Well, except for Major League Baseball, which used to have most teams play doubleheaders on Memorial Day, but now has most teams play zero-headers, which makes perfect sense considering that most lay people have the day off to enjoy, oh, I don’t know, say…baseball. But I digress. And Memorial Day weekend isn’t just for professional athletes, like it was in the Middle Ages. It’s for everybody! Even me, which is why for the second consecutive Memorial Day weekend, I will be “exercising” my God-given right to enjoy sports by running in a race, and then drinking beer. “The Spring Lake Five” is an annual local race that is gaining in popularity, best evidenced by my own involvement. The “five” stands for the number of time...

There’s something special about listening to baseball games on the radio. Maybe it’s the knowledge that fans of yore had only the radio available to acquire integral information about our national pastime, or maybe it’s the fact that 162 games provide numerous opportunities to listen to the action while driving. Or maybe it’s just that I’d much rather hear a catchy “Foxwoods” commercial (“take a chance…make it happen…”) than watch terrible local cable commercials (“Hi. I’m Denise, your warranty and parts manager”). Nevertheless, that said, after 26 World Championships and too many great moments to name, you would think that I’d have nothing to complain about as a Yankees’ fan. But after having to endure their 2005 radio broadcasting team for almost two months now, I feel compelled to file an official complaint. So here it is. John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman are the broadcasting team for the New York Yankees. Sterling is the play-by-play guy, and has been for some time now. Waldman had ...

I was never able to express myself in grammar school, at least not through wardrobe. I attended a Catholic grade school, and I was forced to wear a standardized uniform. By the time I had reached the seventh grade, and my rebellious side had kicked in, I was relegated to sagging my pants to “stick it to the man” — or in this case, nuns — which must have looked even more ridiculous considering that the other half of my “hip-hop” wardrobe consisted of a white dress shirt and a clip-on tie that featured the initials of the fine institution I attended. “SBS…bee-OTCH!” Anyway, my background in self-expression notwithstanding, I was rather shocked when my sister, who is now a teacher at a public grade school, informed me that one of the fifth-grade students at her school was roaming the hallways wearing a shirt that read “Pimpin’ ain’t easy.” Now, giving the parents of this upstart child the benefit of a doubt, I can only assume that when they purchased this shirt FOR their young son, they w...

I was watching ESPN Classic this past Sunday morning, and they were running a yearly recap of “This Week in Baseball” from 1992. It was fascinating. I realized how much the game of baseball has changed over the past decade or so. Well, not really the game itself, but the players. Baseball players of yore — and by yore I mean fifteen years ago — hold a special place in my heart. Not because they were good at baseball, but because their images are etched in my mind for all eternity as a result of my heyday of baseball card trading. I don’t think that many kids today still trade baseball cards, what with all of their Pokemon, extreme sports, and time spent avoiding Michael Jackson. But when I was a kid, baseball cards were pretty much all I cared about. I spent hours upon hours trading cards with my friends. I forced my mom to spend her weekends dragging me to various baseball card shops and shows, where shiesty adults who made a “living” collecting and selling sports cards would rip me o...

In a society as health conscious as ours, what with all of our “low carbs” and smoke-free airplanes, it amazes me that hot dogs have survived this long. It’s pretty much common knowledge that hot dogs are made from ostrich testicles and spare tires, but wieners still remain as big a part of American culture as Wayne Newton. Or even Paul Revere. The reason for this, quite simply, is that hot dogs are downright delicious. I have a long history with hot dogs. When I was a young boy, I used to eat them raw, right out of the package, until my mom would catch me and scream things like, “Get that raw processed meat product out of your mouth this second,” which was a rather ironic scolding considering she used to send me to school with “Lunchables.” Anyway, I don’t know why I ate them that way. I thought they tasted like bologna, except slimier. And I suppose that my metabolism at such a young age was able to process and digest raw chunks of ostrich testicles much better than it does today, be...