The season is still mighty young, but already I've been noticing in recent comment threads a tired old mantra: "How dare you criticize Mark Few / Mike Hart / any Gonzaga player?? You have no right to attack them! You know nothing! Be grateful for what you have!" I find this one of the more insidious arguments around, as it both puts fallible humans on a sacred pedestal, and also attempts to silence any dissent or analysis.

But rather than rehashing this debate ad infinitum, I thought I'd present an alternative. It occurs to me that, if you find criticism of Gonzaga Men's Basketball offensive, then perhaps a website devoted to analysis, opinions and commentary on Gonzaga Men's Basketball might not be an ideal place for you. And yet, you still want and need that dose of Zaggery. Where can one turn? Where find all the glory, none of the negativity? I offer you the following paragraph for future usage, which can easily be user-modified to suit the vicissitudes of each game:

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I would highly, highly recommend this article about baseball in Cuba. It's really lengthy, but well worth the read.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/07/cuban_baseball200807?printable=true&currentPage=all

A few talking points:

-- It doesn't paint Yunieski in a favorable light at all, as it suggests that an innocent man is doing time right now, because of circumstances involving Betancourt's escape and his refusal to testify.

-- Yuni's old manager, Victor Mesa, once was ejected before a game even started, when he was giving the lineup card. The umpire warned him not to come on the field or say anything, to which Mesa responded, "Are you fucking blind? I'm standing on the field right now!"

-- Cuban baseball players represent perhaps the world's most valuable untapped labor pool, with an estimated value of half a billion dollars. Currently are paid the equivalent of $60,000 US dollars... combined.

Seriously. This article gets into issues of agency, refugees, baseball history, Havana economics, baseball fandom and rivalries, prospects... It's rad.

PS -- I'm ignorant on embedding links, so apologies on the clunky address.

www.greggzaun.com

will blow your mind. And do NOT skip the intro, either.

Furthermore, in the November "Reflection" section (under the "Zaunbie Nation" tab), he declares his undying love for the Pacific NW. I have to think that with his undeniable grit, and his self-evident web-programming chops, he'd be able to help Willie Ballgame take his campaign for Love to another level with the help of the WWW.

I came out of my class at Boston University today at 4pm, hoping to walk across the street to Taco Bell and get a free ellsbury taco to tide me over until dinner.

Then I saw the crowd. There were, no joke, upwards of 200-300 people outside said Taco Bell, and 3 news crews. Needless to say, this crowd was decked out in sox paraphernalia and lacked the math necessary to evaluate whether a .79 cent taco was worth an hour's wait. On closer inspection, however, it appeared that Jacoby Ellsbury himself was doing a photoshoot inside the taco bell (speaking of -- that dude's eyebrows are ridiculously manscaped/manicured. D Zoolander's got nothing on him. A female friend pointed this out to me, so it's okay that I noticed). Nevertheless, an hour later he was gone, but the mob still stretched around the building.

Because of this, I think I can now safely say that this World Series brought me absolutely nothing good. Except maybe freeing up tomorrow night for the Sonics opener.

Anyone else manage to get free tacos?

The game thread on Over the Monster features some thoroughly mild-mannered and respectful red sox fans. Some of my favorites:

*
"Dice-K pitched well, but he's no Felix."
**
"Comparing Hernandez to someone on the Sox? There is no one..."
**
"Pedroia walks. Lugo with a bunt single. Youkilis with an opposite field bloop to RF. Papi brings em and himself all home. Let's see it...
"According to Remy ...The opposition is 4 for 50 against Hernandez so far this year... now 4 for 51."
***

Fact: Jeff, the fact that you were AT the game, soaking in the glory made me feel infinitely better about having to watch it in the Boston University cafe. Which, by the way, got really, really quiet after a couple of innings.

I don't want people to think that I'm a fan of Bill Simmons, but I do think his "13 levels of losing" can be applied to the Soriano situation.

http://proxy.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/020528

SPECIFICALLY, "Level II: The Stomach Punch," defined as "Any roller-coaster game that ends with A) an opponent making a pivotal (sometimes improbable) play, or B) one of your guys failing in the clutch ... usually ends with fans filing out after the game in stunned disbelief, if they can even move at all ... always haunting, sometimes scarring .."

I feel like this is especially the case because of the LaRoche/Hudson rumors, the senseless scouting debacle that Jeff noted, etc.

What got me started on this was noticing how my desire to shut out senseless, stupid sporting pain  was eerily similar to the wake of the Gonzaga-UCLA game on March 23rd, arguably the most painful loss of my sporting life. There's just no way to adequately deal with the needless stupidity and random chance involved...