I'm the Lyrical Jesse James

Just Win Babies

Brandon Backe goes on the DL, Roger Clemens can’t get here until at least mid-May, and so it’s up to the kids to keep the Astros afloat. So far, so good after the weekend’s games. Wandy was just sick on Saturday and probably would have had a no-hitter had I not left the place where I was watching the game. My bad. Fernando Nieve looked solid on Sunday. Yeah, the Diamondbacks are the worst hitting team in the Majors, but the guys got it done . Taylor Buchholz gets the ball Monday night and he’s looked legit. Lance Berkman is off to one sick, sick start. Willy Taveras has a 9-game hitting streak going into this homestand hitting .333 over that span. So far, so good.

--The last time the Astros had pitchers make their professional debuts on consecutive days was 1963. Larry Yellen (you know I’m gellin’) and Jay Dahl were those guys. Apparently the Colt 45’s were doing some kind of all-rookie publicity stunt at that point of the season and that's why they were brought up. Yellen only pitched one more season in the bigs. It was 17-year-old Jay Dahl's only Major League appearance as he was tragically killed in a car accident just two years later. The Lord works in mysterious ways. Yellen was just 20. Sticking with that team for a bit. Joe Morgan was a 19-year-old who hit .240 in eight games. Twenty-two year old catcher John Bateman led the team with 10 HRs and 59 RBIs. Six of the eight regulars hit .210 or worse. Ouch. The best ERA among the starters was Ken Johnson’s 2.65, which helped him compile an 11-17 record. Harry Craft’s team finished second-to-last in the NL at 66-96. There endeth the history lesson.

--The ‘Stros are 3-2 on the road now. Last year that third road win came on May 25th.

--Milwaukee’s bullpen, which was one of the best last season, had a 14 consecutive scoreless innings streak snapped on Sunday. Its 3.38 ERA is 3rd in the NL.

Stats through Sunday…

--Manny Ramirez has 1, 2, zero extra-base hits thus far.

--Albert Pujols smacked 1, 2, 3 homers on Sunday including a walk-off job. He tied his career-high with 5 RBIs. I would have thought with a guy like that his career high in RBIs would be more than just 5.

--Congratulations to Oakland’s Dan Johnson who ended his 0-27 last Friday. He’s now at .031. Good luck with that.

--Seattle’s Adrian Beltre had an outstanding spring and was a guy I was targeting in fantasy drafts. Thankfully I didn’t get him. Beltre is now “batting” .143 with no HRs, no RBIs, and no extra-base hits. Oddly he does have four SBs. By the way, Ichiro is still under .200. If you didn’t know Seattle is Carl Everett’s new home and he’s off to a bad .150 start.

--On Saturday the Phillies beat the Rockies 1-0. It was the first time Colorado was beaten at Coors by that score.

--Yeah, the days when the Braves rolled out vaunted starter after vaunted starter are in the past, but this season Atlanta was the last team to get a win by one of its starters. After starting 2-36 Jeff Franceour is 9-17 with 3 HRs.

--Edgar Renteria has a 12-game hitting streak. The last Brave to start off a season with a 12-game hitting streak?? C’mon, not Chipper, not Jeff Blauser, not Biff Pocoroba,
not Claudell Washington, not Lonnie Smith, but none other than Deion Sanders who opened up with 14 straight games back in ’92.

Best One-Liner Ever

Britain’s VH-1 ran a poll on what people’s favorite lyric evah was. Let’s take a look at some of what the top 20 had to offer. At 20 we get The Police with “Every Breath You Take”…
“Every Single Day, Every Word You Say, Every Game You Play, Every Night You Stay, I’ll Be Watching You”
Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” at 16 with…
“Is This The Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy? Caught In A Landslide, No Escape From Reality”
Tupac’s “California Love” which seems out of place here at 15 with…
“Now Let Me Welcome Everybody To The Wild, Wild West, A State That’s Untouchable Like Elliot Ness”
I thought this next one would be in the top 5.
Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.”…
“We Don’t Need No Education, We Don’t Need No Thought Control. No Dark Sarcasm In The Classroom, Teachers, Leave Them Kids Alone.”
U2’s “Where the Streets Have No Name” at number 11 with…
“I Want To Run, I Want To Hide, I Want To Tear Down The Walls, That Hold Me Inside”
Another lyric that should be higher up the list comes from Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?”…
“Father, Father, We Don’t Need To Escalate, You See, War Is Not The Answer, For Only Love Can Conquer Hate”
Another one for my top five would be Radiohead’s “Creep” which was 9th…
“I’m A Creep, I’m A Weirdo, What The Hell Am I Doing Here? I Don’t Belong Here”
Now for the top five from 5-1…
One that should be way, way lower Coldplay’s “Yellow”…
“Look At The Stars, Look How They Shine For You”
Excellent selection at 4 with
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, None but ourselves can free our minds, Have no fear for atomic energy, Cause none of them can stop the time”
Numero tres belongs to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit”…
“I Feel Stupid And Contagious, Here We Are Now, Entertain Us”
At 2…The Smiths “How Soon is Now?”…
“So You Go, And You Stand On Your Own, And You Leave On Your Own, And You Go Home, And You Cry, And You Want To Die”
Taking us to # 1 and the best live act around…drumroll…U2’s “One”…
“One Life, With Each Other, Sisters, Brothers”


Quick Hitters and Random Thoughts

--The man, the myth, the Sawyer a.k.a. Josh Holloway on his relationship with his fiancée once Lost became the mega-hit it is, "When Lost took off, part of me thought, 'Do I cut and run?' I still like to look around, but respectfully and with no intentions. 'Married, not buried,' I always say. If I were single?... Damn, I'd have one girl doing my laundry, one shaving me, one bringing me a cocktail and another one coming out of my tent all hung over."
So many priceless Sawyer one-liners including this one from Season One,
SAWYER: So a tribe of evil natives planted a ringer in the camp to kidnap a pregnant girl and a reject from VH1 has-beens. Yeah, fiendishly clever. And why am I getting the evening news from a six-year-old?
WALT: I'm ten.
SAWYER: Okay, then it must be true.
My new favorite site…islostarepeat.com. It has the answer and nothing but the answer to the biggest question I face every week.

--At what point did Robin Williams and Cheryl Hines think making RV was going to be a good move?


--So on Around the Horn the topic at the bottom reads "Gay/Thomas". Why can’t it say Rudy/Tyrus? And does that question make me homophobic?

--I don’t know if you’ve heard about this anywhere, but apparently there are some issues in this nation regarding immigration. Who knew? One elementary school in L.A. dealt with the walkouts with a lockdown. A lockdown that in the school district’s handbook is reserved for nuclear attacks. So that meant students couldn’t go to the restroom. Well, they could, but it would have to be in the bucket in the corner. Yes, bucket in the corner. Nice job, Worthington Elementary. Cant't wait to see those test scores if that's the intelligence of the principal.

--I like Heineken Light, but can definitely do without the commercials playing "Don’t Cha." Won’t have that in my head for another week. Word of advice: If you are dating a girl who has that song playing as hold music on her cell then you should probably walk away from that relationship.

--One invention I’d like to own, but probably shouldn’t is this Opticon device that changes lights from red to green. These things are on sale, but only supposed to be used by fire departments, doctors, and other kind of important people. Some guy in Colorado paid $100 on e-Bay for one and used it for two years until police caught him in the act.

--We head to Edison Mall in Fort Myers for our Easter Bunny violence story of the weekend. So it’s Saturday night and there’s a long line of kids hoping to get a pic with the Bunny. The Easter Bunny’s wife is the manager of the set-up and the two decided to stop the fun about 10 or 15 minutes before it was really supposed to close. So one mom took offense and asked the 25-year-old female manager what was going on. An argument ensued and escalated when Bunny’s wifey decked the mom, pulled her hair, and took her to the ground. That’s when the Easter Bunny ripped off his head and jumped in on his wife’s behalf. No word on if any rabbit punches were thrown. Sorry about that one (not really).

--Because for better or for worse this is who we are…Scary Movie 4 became the best ever Easter weekend debut at the box office. On the plus side is the trailer for Clerks II which you can see before Scary Movie 4 or you can see right here.

--Ali G will have a part in Ocean’s 13?!

--Coming this fall to a USA Network near you…Major League Gaming. Get ready to see a whole lotta Halo 2. I’m tempted to rent 24: The Game, but I need to master Fight Night Round 3 first.

--Seriously why is 1st and 10/Cold Pizza still on the air?

--There was pretty big house fire in Wadsworth, Ohio recently. When firefighters got there they were a bit bewildered when the owner of the house jetted. That is until they discovered 239 marijuana plants worth roughly $700,000 in the basement. That must’ve been as tough a walk-away as Robert DeNiro was forced to do in Heat.

--Your disturbing story and resulting quote of the week comes to us from Purcell, Oklahoma. 26-year-old Kevin Underwood is accused of killing his neighbor’s 10-year-old daughter. This sicko should die a slow and excruciatingly painful death. The Purcell Police Chief David Tompkins with this, "Regarding a potential motive, this appears to have been part of a plan to kidnap a person, rape them, torture them, kill them, cut off their head, drain the body of blood, rape the corpse, eat the corpse, then dispose of the organs and bones."

--At WWE’s next PPV Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon are wrestling Shawn Michaels and God?! God works on Sundays, now?

If that's not the real showstopper I don't know who is.

--Congratulations to the Pearl River Central School Board in Mississippi. These geniuses have a policy, which doesn’t allow people 21 or older to attend high school dances and in this case the prom. Okay, that’s probably an okay policy. However, one of their seniors has been dating a guy she met back when she was a freshman and he a senior. They’ve been off and on with “on” being the case for a while now. Christopher Raffo is the guy and this guy happens to be a Marine who is going to Iraq soon, but does have 30 days off when the prom rolls around. So the board was asked to reconsider its policy. Parents for each went to bat for their kids. The board listened and still said no. Nice job, Mississippi. Your stellar reputation remains intact.

--If you want to watch Dolly Parton sing to Hulk Hogan, err…Starlight, Starbright then here ya go.

Questions, comments or if you think Rowdy Roddy Piper’s best movie was They Live…