4/22/2004 09:06:00 AM by Rob

I'm back, did you miss me?

First of all, Joe, NO PROOF? Good lord, man, what version of ESPN have you been watching? I see a man who is roughly five times the size he was when he first broke into the majors. I see a man who exhibits EVERY LAST ONE of the supposed side effects of steroids, HGH, and who almost looks silly up there, like a grown man who decided to play one last year of little league ball.

But steroids don't give you the coordination it takes to meet the ball with the swing, and THAT's the tragedy of it all. Barry always could rake. If he hit 35 homers a year, he would still be the best player in the game.

Anyway, no class today, and if you've come in for a big gay Cubfest because they have been smashing the Pirates like a bull in a china shop, sorry. This has NEVER been the place to come for Happy Happy Joy Joy. I expect them to crush the pile of stale leftovers like that. Yeah, it's cool, and it has been especially welcome to see Z continue to kill fools, and for the Meat Tray to finally get his first league W. They both can come over to the Casa De Sloth for the King's Enchiladas anytime they want. Love the Zamboni. Love him!

I do think it's cool that the Reverse Karmic machine is still working. Since I mentioned CPat's OBP, he has reached base 6 out of 10 times. Of course, there were no walks...he did it the hard way.

It also appears that there is slow yet positive progress in the Prior Proceedings. He is up to 50 pitches off of the mound, and now he gets to do "simulated games"...from there, there's the pitching BP, then minor league rehab, then one or two pitch-count-controlled starts...sounds like an old-time courtship. It will be June before he's up to full speed.

But, at least, he's gonna pitch this year, barring an unforeseen injury.

Finally, there was a major news story in my neck of the woods! The Illinois Tornado rampage from Tuesday hit Utica, which is 10 miles from me. Utica was trying to pass itself off as a "charming river town", kind of like Geneva, IL is, or on a much grander scale, the San Antonio riverwalk area, the St. Louis riverwalk...they had the historic old buildings, and the riverfront area. But what they didn't have was REAL F.U. money backing it up. So it has become kind of a biker mecca...lots of bar-n-grills in these old sandstone buildings, with cheap burgers, cheaper drinks, lots of Harley stuff on the walls, and, most tragically, not a lot of additional infrastructure. Those buildings were, pretty much, in original condition from when they were built soon after the Civil war.

So when the tornado hit, they collapsed like a sandcastle. We have acquaintances that live there, and they all lived...it was neat, because as we were wondering about them...they showed up on an interview on the NBC news.

But 8 people didn't get out, and we pray for them and the families and friends they left behind.

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