Rookie Of The Year came out in ’93, starred Thomas Ian Nicholas (later of American Pie semi-fame), Daniel Stern (who also directed), and featured guest shots from Barry Bonds, Bobby Bonilla, and Pedro Guerrero (!!!).

 Little Henry Rowengartner (Why did they pick this name?Why!?!)  breaks his arm playing a little league game, and his arm heals in such a way that he is now the hardest throwing player of all time….as a 12 year old! He gets spotted in the bleachers of Wrigley by the GM of da Cubbies and is immediately signed to a large contract and placed directly on the big league club. Wha???

As Henry is dominating major league hitters, his mother, Mary, begins to fall in love with….GARY BUSEY!! Jesus. I think I would immediately plunge into alcoholism if my mom ever had started dating Gary Busey. I didn’t realize the gravity of the situation when I watched this movie as a kid. This takes on all sorts of new meanings now.

 Of course, when Henry comes back home at one point during the season, he finds that his former friends now hate his guts. Who cares. FUCK those jealous little twat-children. If they wanted fame and fortune in the big leagues like Henry here, then MAYBE they should have thought about breaking their own arms.

 Anyway, the last act devolves into some plot development where Henry’s evil stepdad agrees to hand him over to the Yankees for $25 million. So, basically, Rookie Of The Year foreshadowed Alex Rodriguez.

 What sports movie remembrance would be complete without looking at the errors made by the filmmakers in regards to the rules and traditions of baseball. From IMDB:

• Factual errors: During the last game Henry uses the hidden ball trick illegally. It is against the rules of Major League Baseball for the pitcher to stand on the mount without the baseball. The correct call would have been a balk.
• Factual errors: When Henry is called from the dugout for the first time, the “Rocket” is pitching and everyone seems to act like he had a horrible game. However, after the game, John Candy, the announcer, says that Henry got the save with a 5-4 win. Henry gave up a Home Run, so the worst that the “Rocket” could have done was throw 7 innings giving up only 3 runs, which is pretty good by anyone’s standards.

And let’s not overlook the most glaring, inexcusable error in the whole entire film:

•  Continuity: The size of the moon during the last game in the season.

Dude Ain’t Black? is a feature on Afrosport dedicated to the rare athlete you thought was black but turned out to be as black as Will Perdue. The inaugural edition features a shortstop for the San Diego Padres that had me fooled more than any other player before.

Khalil Greene is actually Khalil Thabit Greene. His name alone makes me feel like an Uncle Tom.  I haven’t felt this unfairly whitewashed since Ali-Haji Sheikh. 

He practices the Baha’i faith, enjoys writing hip-hop lyrics in free time(!!!).  His first name means “friend of God” in Baha’i (religions have their own languages?). His parents names are Jim and Janet.

There were other activities besides baseball that interested Khalil. He enjoyed art and made drawings in sketchbooks, painted a mural of Pink Floyd on the art room door, and drew a portrait of Abdul-Baha, who was the eldest son of the founder of the Bahai Faith.

“With the first selection in the 2007 racial draft, the negroids select…..Khalil Greene”

http://www.uga.edu/bahai/2002/020530.html

1. Get the referees to figure out what are and are not fouls. The inconsistency in regards to this is so heinous that it all seems random. Flopping is beyond rampant. I’m convinced a teamwith Manu Ginobili, Shane Battier, and Devin Harris could win the next World Cup. It’s absolutely nauseating. I can’t even get excited when my own team benefits from some punk ass flop.
2.  For TV telecasts, make the ball glow, so that it’s easier to follow.
3. In the last 60 seconds of a game, each team gets two timeouts. One full, and one :30. I even feel one timeout in the final minute would be better.  I’ve gone from room-spinning drunk to Mormon-sober during the end of close games.
4. The first round of the playoffs go back to 5 games. I realize the NBA would never give up the money, but did the Pistons really need a 4th game to prove their superiority over the Orlando Tragic? So, how about not having off days in between two playoff games played in the same arena? Game 1 would be Monday, Game 2 would be Tuesday, Game 3 would be Thursday, Game 4 Friday, Game 5 Sunday, etc. This is the playoffs. If you’re two weak to play a back to back, then you deserve to be at home with the rest of the losers, and forced to watch Grey’s Anatomy until the Finals end.
5. Instead of a championship tournament, determine the title with a slate of bowl games, feautring nearly random matchups. Then have the coaches and media decide who was the best.
6. Get Dikembe Mutombo as a color analyst. Hell, make him the play-by-play. Could you imagine? “Nash COOKIECOOKIECOOKIE Amare COOKIECOOKIE SLAM DUNKCOOKIE!”
7. Get Mike Fratello back on the sidelines.
8. Lower ticket prices just a little bit, please. There are 41 home games a season. That’s just 21 less than baseball, and the MLB has pretty damn reasonable ticket prices. The NFL has 8 home games a season, so it can pretty much get away with gouging, unless it’s a Raiders game…some o’ dem seats got cobwebs on ‘em. If I want to sit in the nosebleeds for $13 a ticket, I should be able to. And don’t call resort to personal attacks, like calling me a cheapskate, you gaywad.
9. Have the lane widen towards the baseline. This would open up the middle, and result in more motion around the court. 5 guys standing around until the shot clock hits 7 sucks.

So, there…..Suck my dick, David Stern. Just kidding. I actually like you, Sterny…kind of

Let me just say that I know Holocaust survivors that are better at keeping a beat than Ron Artest.

•  Scrabble-Regular Scrabble? No. Dirty Scrabble? Still no.
•  Cup Stacking-Haven’t tried yet..don’t have matching cups.
•  Spelling Bee-Now we’re talking. But only if you could hire that judge dude that gives the language of origin and all of that. That guy hates his job so much. One day some Indian kid is gonna ask for the word to be used in a sentence for the 9th time, we’ll hear a gunshot, and the camera pan over to a bloody stump.
• Rock, Paper, Scissors-Well, no. Everyone knows the only good things Rock, Paper, Scissors is good for is when deciding A) Who has to clean the rim of the toilet for the first time this year, and B)  Who has to be in charge of filming the Rock, Paper, Scissors contest.

 As we all know, ESPN stands for Eastern Sports Promotion Network…. Excited Screaming People Network…..Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. That would explain everything…..if any of this shit qualified as entertainment. Still, it’s ESPN’s prerogative. If they want to waste time and resources sending production crews out to these competitions, then they’re legally entitled to do so. There’s nothing we can do to stop them.

ESPN expanding their programming is neither new or strange for cable television. When was the last time you saw music videos on MTV or Vh1? When was the last time you saw Courtroom coverage on Court TV? When was the last time you saw satan on the Disney Channel?

This blog is going to be so different from every other blog. I mean, I’m gonna use a few of the old standbys, but you’re going to see a lot of new shit here, like a sarcastic attitude, embedded youtube videos, and recommendations of shitty bands that you don’t care about.

My hopes for this blog are as follows:

 -I hope to one day have an actual person see it. Preferably not any of my family members. 

-I hope that the one person that sees it is Vinessa Shaw circa Ladybugs

 This way, when people try to insult me and say “And nobody reads your shitty fuckin’ blog, either”, I can take a long drag off a cigarette, stare off into the distance, and coolly say “Vinessa Shaw circa Ladybugs reads it.”

The title character is a lowly nerd in the high school caste system. He wears glasses that Jaleel White would later wear on Family Matters, and his football helmet appears to be stolen from NASA. A girl catches Lucas attention, and he decides the only way she’ll slob his knob is by joining the football team. Charlie Sheen plays Lucas’ mentor on the team, and winds up going after the same girl, creating a rivalry on the gridiron, and a love triange on the sidelines. Lucas learns not about love, but about himself. It’s held up surprisingly decently over time. Haim, on the other hand…..

Favorite quote: “If you’re so depressed, why are you eating pizza?”

I found out some disturbing information about the final play of the game at the end: Lucas was an ineligible receiver! From IMDB:

In the football game it would not have mattered if Lucas would have caught the pass because he was playing tackle. Unless they were using some type of unbalanced formation, which I doubt they were, Lucas was inelgible. Also he was wearing number 72 which is an inelgible number unless he checks in with the official.

In addition there were about a half dozen other infractions on the play,(illegal motion, illegal formation, two forward passes, etc, etc, etc,) but this was the most obvious.

a white running back and a black kicker

Brian Leonard, a tailback out of Rutgers, got picked up in the draft by the Rams this year. I saw at least two Rutgers games where Leonard played, and I had no idea until today that he was a white guy. Maybe those hideous all red, er, “scarlet” unis Rutgers wore distracted me. Now, my parents can probably remember a time when there were at least a few good ivory-skinned tailbacks. John Riggins comes to mind. My grandparents can probably remember when all the running backs were white (Hello, Paul Hornung). Maybe Leonard will be the great-white-hope that the 1980′s Boston Celtics were.

 Justin Medlock out of UCLA got drafted by the Kansas City chiefs. The brotha can kick the shit out of the football. I guess he got popped on a DUI a few years back. If he gains a few pounds, he’s gonna be Seblackstian Janikowski