7/16/2004 10:00:00 AM by Rob

Pain, misery, disappointment, gloom, doom, despair, disgust
 
What a surprise, right?
 
First, a rebuttal from yesterday
 
I think I was perhaps too hard on my son, the former 'Laker Nick' who I now call 'Nick in Heat'.  I ripped him because compared to my 35-year committment to the Cubs, his so-called committment to the Lakers is nothing more than a fling. 
 
As I have mentioned many times, I have a LOT of time to think in my car.  Today, I was just chewing on what the concept of 'loyalty' means in professional sports in general, and specifically, the Laker situation.  Here, you have a team that won three times in a row.  You understand that there is a cliche about how it is 'easier to get to the top than it is to stay on top'.  But, you figure, since they are there, and managed to repeat, and repeat again, that they KNOW what it takes to stay there, so why in the hell don't they just keep on doing what works?
 
There are NO good guys in the Laker case.  Shaq perhaps started the whole thing when he fucked up the 2002-03 season by waiting until training camp started before getting his toe fixed, saying that 'he hurt it on company time, so he is going to heal on company time'.  Jeezus, what kind of gold-brickin' n-gg-r shit is that?  You play a sport for a living, and you get paid more than anyone else in sport to do it.
 
Phil Jackson has won nine titles, yes.  He is smart for picking his spots, yes.  There are things he does well, yes.  He is also a certified whackjob, yes.  He is NOT a quality individual, which should have been made clear when he left his wife for the owner's slut daughter.  And, as it turned out, his supposed mediator skills, credited as the key of his success with the Bulls, were greatly exaggerated, as he fiddled while Shaq and Kobe burned.
 
Laker management, Dr. Buss and Mitch Kumstein, will ultimately prove themselves stupid by backing the wrong horse, Kobe, on the behalf of whom, I cannot say enough about.  I give him credit for looking presentable in public while his child wife has his dick-n-balls in a fucking vise, and his mother-in-law is shoved halfway up his ass trying to find any extra money they can siphon off of him.  When they cart him away after the beginning of the next season, to spend several years as an overnight guest of the State of Colorado, I will high-five and chest-bump anyone and everyone in my general vicinity.  So you've been warned.  Give me a wide berth in October.
 
Faced with all that, it's no wonder my young son has become disenchanted.  So I'm sorry, son, and I hope you find happiness in your next sporting endeavor.  Because it is best that the parent does not wish his own miserable fate on his sons.
 
Mark Prior, in a nutshell
 
It would probably be prudent for me to wait until the MRI results come in for Mark Prior, but as you all know, that's not exactly my M.O., so I guess we won't be seeing him again for a long, long time.  I knew it was too good to be true...the best college pitcher in the last 30 years, falling into OUR lap.
 
The season isn't over, because our staff, with Rusch, should do OK.  Guess we're keeping Clement.  Guess we're not getting the Unit, or the vastly overrated Nomahhhh.  Another year, another time we aren't soaring with the eagles, just jostling for scraps with the other buzzards.  But as I said yesterday, that might be OK, as long as Hendry hasn't stopped looking for a closer.  I imagine it won't cost Clement PLUS Guzman and Mitre to get Urbina, Julio or Guardado.  I really like that Dan Kolb from the Brewha's, but one thing they DON'T need is prospects, and I think even THEY aren't dumb enough to send him to us for Alex Gonzalez and, say, Sergio MeatTray.
 
Break the components down:

• Starting pitching - still good enough
• Offense - most days, adequate
• Defense - surprisingly decent
• Set-up men - if you count LaTroy in this category, top-notch
• Closer - BUZZZZ!

C'mon, Jim.  Let's go get 'em.

 
 

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