7/15/2004 10:02:00 AM by Rob

Ain't gonna happen

I have spent the last two hours, searching high and low, radio, TV, papers, internet, calling my peeps....and there's nothing about us trading for a closer, about us trading for shortstop help, about us trading for a first-name-basis superstar. All there is is this Shaq, Shaq, SHAQ!

Who IS this Shaq? And why would his parents name him after a lame B-52's song? They could have gone with Lob from "Rock Lobster"...now THAT's a retro-dance-blast! Or maybe "My-Ding-A-Ling", the old Chuck Berry 45 I played about a trillion times in my youth. Ling O'Neal. If you're 7-2 and weigh 400 pounds, even 'Ling' can sound tough.

My eldest son purports to love the Lakers with every ounce of his being...which is why it was completely pathetic to watch him throw away all of his Laker gear, and start making plans to save for Miami Heat stuff. Kids these days...they don't know what loyalty is. Did I jump ship when we traded Billy Williams? Bill Madlock? Fergie? The Hawk? Maddux, for chrissakes? True fandom, son, is loyalty to the brand. If we went out and got nine college kids to hold it down today against the Brew Crew, would you root for your boys in blue, even if you've never heard of ANY of them?

For all the young misters and misses in the metropolitan Corn Hole area, Laker Nick is now Nick in Heat. We now return to our regularly scheduled bitching about the Cubs and King George the Second.

If we do nothing but wait for the average-defensively, strikeout-enabled Alex Gonzalez to get better, our offense will score an average of three runs a game. It is possible that we will get the 45 wins we need with our starting staff. We could win a lot of 3-2 and 4-3 games with our staff, and our set-up men, Remlinger, Farnsworth, and Hawkins.

If we roll into August WITHOUT a PROVEN closer on our staff, forget it. We ain't winning 45. We ain't catching the Cardinals. We ain't sneaking in with a Wild Card. We ain't even going to finish .500. I love our guys that represent the tip-top of our prospect pool, Brownlie and Guzman, as much as anyone.

If we are building long-term, and we KNOW that those two will take the place of Maddux and either Clement or Zambrano by 2006, then fine. Hold on to them. But then we have at least 5 other VERY attractive options. Deal them. Deal them all, for a closer. We don't have one, now, and for the foreseeable future.

If you are related to LaTroy Hawkins, then get in your hoopties, get on 80, drive west to Corn Hole, come on up my drive, and just try to kick my ass! Because your boy DON'T GOT SACK!!! He ain't no closer, and he NEVER will be!

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