Losers of the Week

This has been a great week. The M's are hot. Pre-season football is in full swing. The Sounders are in the quarter finals of the US Open Cup. And, like every week, we were graced by a few heroes, and enraged by a few douche bags.

Douche Bags of the Week

Aubrey McClendon-
One of the many minority owners of the Sonics, was nice enough this week to tell us exactly what we already knew. That Clay Bennett (Ass Pickles) bought the team with every intention of moving them to Oklahoma City. He said Bennett didn't even care if he lost money in moving the team, which he obviously would, all they want to do is "break even." I have a few thoughts on this guy. First, you have to be really dumb to say something like this when everybody knows that David Stern's number one priority is making money. Admitting that you are willing and eager to do something that is going to cost the league money is a pretty bad move. For an ignorant red neck moron from Oklahoma, he isn't very familiar with his Jewish stereotypes. Let's put what he did into terms he can understand. Are you listening Aubrey: Telling your Jewish boss that you want to make a move that is going to cost his company money is like telling Jeff Foxworthy you want to cut off his mustache. It's not what he wants to hear. Second, I can't wait for McClendon to get tired of being called a "minority owner". The chance that some one might mistake him for a black guy is definitely keeping him up at night. In his next dumb ass statement I bet he refers to himself as the "partial owner". Or "the very very caucasian gentleman, who is one of many very very caucasian gentlemen, who all own part of the Sonics". Either way, he's not calling himself a minority for much longer.

The Bouncers at Heavens-
Bouncers, by nature, are shall we say...a bit unreasonable. But the guys working the door at Heavens Saturday night were down right ridiculous. They tried to make us pay $10 to get in, when there were flyers saying it was free before 11. Plus, we were with D Chern, who's brother was promoting the club that night. All around poor move by them. We took our business else where, opting out of the Pioneer Square scene, back to a house party in the U District. It was great for us in the long run because instead of dropping upwards of $40 each to get drunk at Heaven, we got housed for free in the U. Nice move bouncers, turning away 10 eager drunks is basically like losing $500. McClendon and the Heavens bouncers are starting an accounting firm called "No Cents".

Horablio Ramirez-
With an away ERA of over 10, and a road record of 1-4, Horablio is one bad start away from Triple A. We traded a solid, proven right handed long reliever with 95 MPH gas for this guy. Then, we spent this whole year looking for a good, proven right handed long reliever, while at the same time trying to figure out why Horablio is trash on the road. Nice move Bavasi. BUT, I just turned on the TV and we are up 9-2 in the 8th. Remember when I hated on Jeff Weaver for five straight weeks on DBOTW, then he turned into a decent pitcher after that. Maybe I have a reverse curse on M's pitchers. In that case, our whole staff is a bunch of low lifes who have zero chance of getting us to the playoffs, much less to the World Series. We should just quit right now. I hope that works.


Heroes of the Week-

Lee Elder-
One of golfs greatest pioneers. Lee Elder is basically the Jackie Robinson of professional golf. He was the first black golfer to play in the Masters in 1975, and is in the PGA hall of fame. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Elder at the Rumble at the Ridge golf tourney this morning. This was honestly one of the coolest and unexpected meeting of my life. I have been lucky enough to meet quite a few of my heroes over the past couple of years at KJR, but this guy takes the cake.
Beside the fact that he is on par with Tiger Woods in terms of what he has meant to racial equality in golf, he was the nicest guy I've ever met. My job at the Tourney was to hang out by our broadcast tent and grab Seahawks and NFL alumni. (Warren Moon, Steve Largent and Dave Craig to name a few) I had a list of guys that Softy wanted to talk to, and I grabbed them as they went through. At 12:45, with 15 minutes left on the show, the tournament director walked up to me and asked if we wanted to talk to Lee Elder before we left, and I just looked at him and laughed like, "yeah, bring over Tiger too." But he was serious, and I quickly said that we did want to talk to him. Three minutes later a golf cart pulled up, and a short old black guy, that sort of looked like Danny Glover from "Royal Tennenbaums" jumped out. "I ain't doin' no radio interview. I don't care who they say they are," he barked to my astonishment. About six million things went through my mind, before I timidly said, "Please?!?" He just looked at me for like five seconds before doubling over with laughter. To say that Lee Elder got me pretty good would be like saying that Tiger Woods is a pretty good golfer. As I settled into the realization that I had just been thoroughly clowned by a 65 year old civil rights pioneer, he grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a big bear hug. "You thought you were in trouble," he laughed. "You thought you were fired." He was right. One of the six million thoughts was, "oh fuck, I just pissed off a golf legend, I need to find a new job." Visions of Happy Gilmour scaring Chubs out of the window with the gator head came to mind, and I saw Lee Travino. And he was not happy. When he stopped hugging me, he stepped into the tent and proceeded to give the best interview of the day. As he was on air, it started raining like a monsoon, and after his interview he stayed dry with us in the tent for about five minutes. Talking to him was amazing. Softy meets hundreds of athletes and famous people every year, but to watch him stand there and marvel at the presence of Lee Elder, it was like he was a kid. Men like Mr. Elder are few and far between, and I have to say that it was the honor of my life to meet him.


The Guy who called Shawn Kemp's High School Games-
This is an important Youtube clip for any Sonics fan to watch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g36vjEI9cYg. GP and Kemp at there best. But watch and listen very closely. 41 seconds into the clip the guy who called Kemp's high school games reacts to a Kemp dunk by telling us that Kemp "wears size 16 shoes and has a 42 inch" what? I don't know what he says. It sounds like he says " a 42 inch Leroy." Which is in my opinion a great name for Kemp's piece. Size 16 shoes and a 42 inch Leroy. That explains the 20 kids. This is officially my favorite Youtube clip ever, and by far the best term I've ever coined for the unit. Manny's got 24. Kemp's got 42. Holler at your Leroy.