Matt Carstens

Softball Season Preview

The Bulls of the 90’s. The Steelers of the 70’s. The Yankees of the 20th Century. All dynasties have to start somewhere. Here, one more is born. I give you the unofficially named Fancy Spartans.

Starting Pitcher: Ben Tole
Weighing in at a hefty 350 pounds, Big Ben has an variety of tools in his pitching arsenal including the MeatBall, Curve, Cutter, and the infamous Knuckle Curve.

Catcher: Oliver McIntosh
The only international import, this Englishman has the intelligence to call the game and the physical prowess that this position demands.

Corner Infielder/Outfield: Will McKenney
Batting .413 for Tacoma Community College, Big Bill brings a big bat for the team as well as a versatile glove.

Corner Infielder/DH: Sean Lemme
Battling Big Sexy in the height department, Lemme’s sweet swing is sure to benefit from the transition from Wiffle Ball to Softball.

Corner Infielder/DH: James Whelan
This lazy SOB quit baseball last year because he didn’t want to play the field. He’ll be sure to get his AB’s and plenty of appearances in the field for the team.

Middle Infielder: Jon Cleveland
Moving from the lead-off spot to the number two hole really helped the Clever become an intracal part of the Stick Bugs Inaugural season.

Middle Infielder: Brian Rowley
Best known for dunking off Oliver’s back, he showed his abilities on and off the Wiffle Ball field.

Manager/Utility: Matt Carstens
After a grueling season of managing the Stick Bugs his knees could be a concern this season. But what Jose Vidro can do, he can do better.

Left Fielder: John Otteni
John Otteni showed some Kenji-like dead pull power on the Wiffle Ball field, and was always reliable in the field.

Center Fielder: Colin Wessman
A natural born athlete, Colin has the range and the fundamentals to be a leader in the outfield.

Right Field: Hussein Zayan
Hussein has absolute power with his sweet stroke, and a canon in right field will help him lead the league in assists.

Rover: Will Dornes
Rover is one of the most important positions, and we’re privileged to have his speed gobbling up potential base hits in the shallow outfield.

Just remember to buy your season tickets soon.

C.A.T: A Farewell To The Kings

My personal favorite of the Rush discography, this album has a variety of different themes dealing with lyrics, time signatures, tonal centers, and much more.

It starts out with the title track, which is a derivative of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. It deals with certain themes such as departure, medieval feudalism, and autocratic monarchy.

Next is the aptly titled, “Xanadu”. This song has one of the rare occurrence of Geddy Lee on rhythm guitar, and some great lyrics about honey dew.

My personal favorite “Closer to the Heart”, is a short but sweet song featuring some of Niel Peart’s finest work.

The rest of the album is kind of sub-par like most Rush albums at the end, but the last track Cygnus X-1 has one of the best rush grooves I’ve ever heard.

Ugh.

I know most people hate Barry Bonds, and I know this will never happen, but nothing would make me happier than to have Mr. Bonds in a Seattle Mariner uniform. He is one of the greatest hitters of all time and he was definitely not alone in this whole steroids era. The reason I think was so good with enhancement was because he was already such a great hitter. He won 3 MVP’s as a skinny guy playing for the Pirates back in the early nineties. Sure hes a jerk, but he can help this sorry sack of crap we call a baseball team a lot.

This team needs to confront some big problems. We went out and solved our pitching situation (hopefully Carlos Silva will make his next start) besides the fact that Bedard has been sidelined for most of the season so far. But our offense is dismal. And by dismal I mean it sucks. Wilkerson, Johjima, Vidro, and even my new favorite player Big Sexy has cooled off as of late. Vidro’s career is over. With Jose Lopez dominating the 2 hole, Vidro’s lack of power and average needs to be shown the door. He is a black hole sucking up everything a good offense should have and needs to be taken to the back yard and put down.

Wilkerson was a mistake, lets move on. Bring up Balentin or Reed and get something out of right field rather than nothing.

And last but least, Johjima has absolutely stunk. I don’t however think his career is over. I think he’ll get out of this slump with a little more time. However, I do not agree with extending his contract for another 3 years/27 million. It’s time to build for the future, and especially with Jeff Clement down in Tacoma batting .375/.500/.688 (Batting average/on base percentage/slugging percentage). The M’s front office obviously has a hard time understanding that with age comes decline in performance. And this is especially true with catchers.

Well I know that this organization will not do take note to any of my suggestions, but I beg them please do something.

T3: Rob and Big

Well all good things must come to an end, and this week was the series finale of MTV reality
show Rob and Big. I feel like I learned a lot about being best friends and stuff.

10. Time Travel
One day Rob decided to take out a time machine he had purchased before Big Black had moved in. They can’t get it to work, so they call the man that made it. This man refuses to meet in person because he thinks Rob and Big are aliens.

9. Turd in the Pool
The duo come home from skate boarding only to find that there has been some human doo-doo in the pool. They turn to Drama, Rob’s cousin, and invite a polygraph examiner to evaluate the situation. It turns out he didn’t do it, so they just pump out the pool, skate, get a cool mural drawn, and return to their every day lives.

8. “Netting Spider Man”
After purchasing a net gun in an earlier episode, Rob and Big are driving through the streets of Hollywood when they notice some douchebag dressed as Spider Man harassing people. They return home, grab the net gun, and drive-by net him while screaming “Rob and Big bitch!”
Classic.

7. Turtle Racing
The boys stop by a local bar and notice that underground turtle racing is an up and coming sport. After a dismal performance from their rent-a-tortoise, they decide to go and capture one in the wild. Speedy Ka-ka-ka-klakston did not fare as well either, so they ended up releasing him into the wild.

6. Special Buddies
After seeing the cover of a cereal called “Good Friends” with a white woman and a black woman on the cover smiling. Rob knew it was destiny. So they dressed up in old women drag and took their own picture and sent it in to the cereal company. After getting turned down, Rob surprised Big with a fake cereal box entitled “Special Buddies.”

5. Dirty Girl
Big Black’s Uncle Jerry comes to town and they decide to film a music video for Rob’s alter Ego “Bobby Light”. The song is entitled “Dirty Girl” and was later released on iTunes.

4. Guinness World Records
Rob picks up a copy of the record book at the grocery store and notices how easy most of the skate boarding records are. So he decides to give Guinness a call and they come out from england to witness history. Not only did Rob break 21 records including most 360 flips in a minute and longest boardslide, but Big Black broke two records of his own. Most bananas peeled and eaten in one minute (3) and most powdered doughnuts eaten in three minutes (5).

3. Black Lavender
For some reason Big Black decides to start stripping under his alias “Black Lavender”. I guess you had to be there.

2. Big Bob
When Rob realizes he can’t relate to Big’s struggles of being obese, they call a make up artist and Rob gets a make over. With a fat suit, 3 hours of prosthetics, and stilts, Rob is transmorphed into 7 ft, 400 pound Big Bob. He finds out what it’s like when your fat and even tries to skateboard.

1. Finale
When Big Black knocks up some bitch, he has to finally move out. An emotional day full of flashbacks and mediocrity. This probably isn’t the best episode, but definitely the most powerful.

My Deepest Apologies

Between 9 hours of class, rehearsal, practicing, softball, homework, and moving into my new dorm room, I haven’t really had the time to bless all the readers with my fruitless knowledge of pop culture tidbits. I appreciate all the work Sean has done on the site, and love reading everyone daily opinions on music, movies, and more. Not to make this blog a place to resort to internet arguing, but indirectly posting your discontent is not as nice as asking upfront.

Well with all this behind us, here and Ellensburg people are jumping off the Mariner band wagon like it was filled with poisonous wheat bread. Sure we had 4 straight losses to one of the worst teams in baseball, but remember, it is April. There is 162 games over 6 months. We are barely a week into the season, and the we happened to lose a couple 1 run games. One run games can really go either way, and with an offense like ours, (not every consistent) we are bound to lose those kind of games. Another thing that erks my jerks is that people are saying that our bullpen is terrible. Sure Putz went down, O’Flaherty has been less than desirable, and there’s this really drunk guy sitting behind me right now, but I don’t think its the bullpen, as much at it is McLaren’s utter stupidity. He put In O’flaherty 3 days in a row, in key situations, and it ultimately led to them losing the game every time. I could understand maybe 2 in a row but 3? Why do that when you have a perfectly good Ryan Rowland-Smith wasting away in the pen? Plus Green, Baek, Caucaron, and hopefully Dickey soon are legit.

But taking 2 of 3 from a surprisingly good Rays team is a good sign, and its good to see the bats come alive tonight against the Angels. Our starting pitching is pretty outstanding besides that fat piece of Washburn. Once Putz gets back we will be fine.

Well I have to get up tomorrow for the big Pre-Season Softball Tournament so I’d better get to bed.

C.A.T: Dookie

I decided to go all the way back to the distant future of 1994 with an album very dear to my heart, Dookie by Green Day. As “lame” as they’ve become lately (which I disagree but won’t get into that), this album will forever be a classic.

Some say Green Day did to grunge what grunge did to hair metal. Coming out with a not nescisarrily new sound, but a quality produced version of what their ancestors had done before them. With only 3 insturments, they managed to mix and re-mix until they got a great full sound. Using simple, yet effective harmonies, it strengthens Billy Joe Armstrongs voice to a new level then heard on previous releases, and makes Mike Dirnt a starting member of my back-up all star band.

Not only was it a musically sound album, but lyrically it dealt with an array of different issues. Key subject matter included anxiety and panic attacks, boredom, sexual orientation, and past loves. Although some of the songs still have the fun, imature attitude, Billy Joe’s lyrical skills can be described as “serious”.

Well all in all you won’t find a better pop punk album, so if you don’t have it, get it.

Lofa for Life

Unlike Josh Brown, some football players actually like to win games. Lofa Tatupu signed a 6 year contract extension today, making him what seems to be a Seahawk for life. The 25 year old middle linebacker is the cornerstone of the Hawk defense, and hopefully produce the more of what we’ve seen the past three years. Since his rookie season he has led the team in tackles all three years and been to all three Pro Bowls.

The coolest thing I thought came out of all this, is how the team banded together to get this deal done. Patrick Kerney, Deon Grant, Jordan Babineaux and Craig Terrill all restructured their contracts so the extension would fit under the salary cap. It just shows how the Seattle Seahawks are committed to winning, and hopefully Seattle will be a winning city for years to come.