What a LOSER...

Three innings was all we could stomach last night. In reality, we knew we were in trouble after one pitch. Roy Oswalt's first pitch was a meatball down the middle of the plate that some guy we've never heard of on the Nationals smoked into right center field for a triple. Two innings later, aided by yet another BONER by Greg Dobbs, the Phillies were down 3-zip and we shut it down for the night. Oswalt was horrible. He pitched like an old man who didn't want to be there. Memo to #44: Oh, well, your beloved St. Louis Cardinals were unable to pull off a deal and land you. You are now on what has undeniably been the best team in the National League for three years running. Stop being a pu$$y. Man up and go out and win some games.

(Oh, yeah...J.A. Happ, the guy traded for Oswalt, pitched 5 innings of shutout ball on just two hits in his first start last night. Wow. Why don't we trade for guys like that?!?)

TGIF...

Back from the all day pool party. Good time. Strange, though, that food kept coming off the grill and we weren't the one in charge. Nothing special -- burgers, dogs and chicken. Beautiful pool, though, one of those salt water ones.

And now after our day of fun, we are ready for a nap.

Book another return trip to the World Series...

Roy Oswalt goes to Philly!

Read it. Learn a lot.

Do not disturb...

Man busy playing with New Toy.

Pictures of The Shipment...

About 10 days ago we waxed poetically about going to RCM's to pick up The Shipment. Alas, we never actually told you what the shipment was.

It's a new HP desktop computer, complete with Blu Ray player and writer. (As in, we can now use the HD video camera to produce Blu Ray DVDs.) It also sports a 22 inch HD monitor (As in, we can now watch the Phillies in high def.), as well as a cordless keyboard and mouse. Best of all, it holds the Intel Core i7 chip -- which is the fastest, most powerful chip on the market today.

Take a look:

Summer rapidly speeding by...

Got an e-mail today from Barnes & Noble alerting us to the fact that "July 25 [today's date] is Halfway to the Holidays." Now besides the fact that we found it STUPID that they didn't just say "Halfway to Christmas," it occurred to us that summer is, in fact, proceeding at an alarmingly fast pace. And with that thought hanging over us, we pulled out our Summer To Do List. (Later, we will post a picture of said list.) To be sure, there are several, if not many, things already crossed off the list. But, of course, there are countless more that are not crossed off. And so it was that we spent a solid 45 minutes out in the heat today trimming trees and cutting down branches.

One more thing we can cross off.

Ugh...

Temp in the 80s, but humidity in the 90s. Drowned in sweat on the elliptical this morning. Then drowned in more sweat cutting the lawn (for the first time in over a month). Ugh.

That's a wrap...

Two weeks of basketball camp ended at 3 PM today. The Playmaker lost in the one-on-one championship of the younger division. His camp team, the Michigan Wolverines, ran away with the championship -- winning by 14 points. At the trophy presentation The Playmaker took home some hardware, getting the Most Improved Player award.

Big players step up in big games...

On the eve of the summer camp playoffs, The Playmaker led his team to a second place clinching victory in the regular season. He scored 12 points (6-8 shooting) as his team improved to 6-2 on the week. The playoffs begin tomorrow morning.

Mid-Week Links...

Great article on what a turd LeBron was and is!

$500K now gets you a house two weeks at The Hamptons!

Phillies ready to make trade?!?

Sid, errrr, Jennie Finch retiring from softball! (There was one?!?)

Tiger Woods is still the world's Most Popular Athlete?!?

Now you can train for NFL Combine on the Wii!

The best ever?!?

As we run our basketball camp this week, we have been holding book talks with the counselors (high school and college kids) during lunch. (Sounds boring, but that's what English teachers do.) Anyway, it's a sharp group -- including one kid going to Brown and another, a rising senior, looking at Williams and Amherst. One of them asked us what's the best book we have ever read. We brought up classics like The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, as well as the completely underrated Siddhartha. But we quickly added that two absolutely fantastic books that are "non-classics" are Jaws and The Fan.

We're just saying...

75 x 2 = tired person. Very tired.

This sucks...

Ugh. This is not cool. Not cool at all.

Interesting, but sad...

Raise your hand if you remember Chris Washburn!

Breaking news...

The Shipment has arrived.

We will be picking it up tomorrow morning.

Still funny...

Best we can do...

This is dated, of course, but it's still a cool shot.

Three & out...

1. The Playmaker won both of his camp games today! He had 2 points in the morning game and 6 points (3-5 shooting) in the afternoon.

2. We're not saying Jimenez will get slapped around tonight, but the Phillies did whip him in the playoffs last season! We'll see.

4. Grilling without a grill lid ain't easy! Tonight's our first attempt.

Back to work...

Well, not really. But we are running our annual basketball camp for the next two weeks. Housing 30 kids all entering grades 4, 5 & 6, that makes The Playmaker (going into grade 3) the youngest player in the camp. He scored 4 points in his morning game (loss) and 2 points in the afternoon one (win).

Pretty deep...

Was cleaning today and came across a bookmark with this anonymous quote:

"Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow."

How GREAT is this?!?

www.KissMyAssLeBron.com

Four on the floor...

1. Last word on LeBron! There seem to be two camps who now hate the (young) man -- those that hate him for bailing on Cleveland and those who hate him for that B.S. TV Show the other night. We side with the latter. You can't hate on the (young) man because he left the Cavs. He was not going to win an NBA title there with that present roster. Look around. The Celtics traded for Ray Allen and KG. The Lakers traded for Pau Gasol. What the hell did Cleveland do?!? Um. They traded for ... wait for it ... Mo Williams, Shaq and Antawn Jamison. Hell, LeBron couldn't even get Chris Bosh to do a sign and trade and join him on the Cavs. No free agents want to play in Cleveland. Ever. He took less money (much less...but it's all relative) to go to Miami. And now he's much closer to a title than he ever in Cleveland.

2. Now, onto The Effing Decision! Not sure where to start here. So many choices, and all of them pathetic, disgusting and stupid. (We hate the sport because the sport is stupid.) ESPN: Um, they lied to The World and said we would have LeBron's decision in the first 15 minutes. It wasn't until close to 30 minutes in. LeBron: We will say this. The (young) man is a well spoken individual. He would pass the Dinner Test. (As in, if he was a nobody and Your Kid brought him home for dinner, you would be OK with it.) But he has his Cru (Thick) running the show. That means they agree with everything he says and thinks. Would Drew Rosenhaus, David Faulk (MJ's agent) or Scott Boras have allowed LeBron to do his TV Thing the other night?!? Um, no. It reeked of self promotion. (Right down to The King having the sports drink that he endorses right next to him. A drink, by the way, that we tried once and found to be putrid.) But wait -- he did it so the Boy and Girls Clubs could make money. (They reportedly netted over 2 mill.) If James was so worried about helping the Boys & Girls, why didn't he just make a sizable donation. (Is anyone in his Cru smart enough to know what a tax write-off is?!?) Jim Gray: Wow. He took nearly as big a hit as LeBron did. Prior to this he was best known for putting a gun to Pete Rose's head on national TV and demanding over and over again that #14 admit he gambled on baseball. Few people in the media have ever showed the stones Gray did that night with Peter Edward. Now, he's just another media whore. LeBron's hand picked crony. There were no Rose-esque questions. Not one. And now it's come out that Gray WAS PAID BY LEBRON'S PEOPLE TO CONDUCT THE INTERVIEW!!! Never again will anyone be able to take anything Jim Gray says at face value.

3. Finally, onto the Phillies! Two huge, improbable wins against the Reds. And if Halladay and Hamels close out the first half with Ws, we'll be in good shape. Ironic that as Cliff Lee was traded (yet again) for some top talent, the Phillies were on the outside looking in because they have no top prospects not named Dom Brown. Junior Amaro looks like an idiot for: Getting three pieces of CRAP in return for Lee. For giving Jamie Moyer a $12 million dollar deal, which meant they could not afford to keep Lee. And for giving Raul Ibanez a three year deal, which means they will lose Jayson Werth to free agency this winter.

4. Speaking of Werth -- he is a piece of sheeet! Seen the video of the fan at The Bank who caught the foul ball and then got majorly cursed out by Werth to the point where his son was downright scared?!? If that had been The Playmaker's Sister or The Playmaker, we would have gone ballistic on Werth. We would have spewed the Eff Bomb right back at him. Then we would have filed a complaint with the Phillies. Then we would have contracted every media outlet who would listen to us and told them what a piece of sheeet Jayson Werth is.

Best we can do...

This is what The King Without a Ring will do at 9:03 PM tonight...

Tuesday, when it was first announced that ESPN was going to whore itself into LeBron TV from 9-10 PM tonight, we could have cared less. We had no intention of watching. Why waste our time on a self-promoting guy who's never won anything? Two days later, we still think he's a major A-hole for staging all this. But, we will watch. Seriously, how can you not?!? It's all everyone is talking about. But, just what will James say tonight?

1. There's no way he's going to the Knicks! Why would he? What's the point of being the best player on the team if the team sucks? He can stay in Cleveland and be that.

2. He's not going to Chicago, but he should have! He and Bosh could have teamed with Noah and D-Rose and been the best in the east. And no one would have accused him of riding D-Wade's shirttails to a title in Miami.

3. Speaking of Miami -- that's where EVERYONE now says he's going! Wade, Bosh, LeBron and Pat Riley would instantly make the east a two team race with the senior citizen Boston Celtics.

4. But wait! Is James such an A-hole that not only would he leave his hometown, but he would do it on national television?!? We're guessing not. We are in the 1 percent minority here, but we think it's all a sham. We think LeBron's camp has floated the Miami rumors only to make The Queen look like A Saint when he goes on TV and says he's staying in Cleveland. Ultimately, we think he will take more money in exchange for no ring.

Either way, he's shooting himself in the foot with this TV B.S. tonight. He pisses off his hometown or he pisses off the city of Miami (and hordes of NBA media) for using them for his own benefit.

Saying Eff You to the heat...

Feels like we've been living in a box for the last six days. Too damn hot to do anything outside. So we've been doing projects indoors all week. The Playmaker's Sister is doing a pool camp this week, so she's all set. The Playmaker has been reading, doing his dribbling drills in the basement and playing Topps Attax. (There has, perhaps, been some TV mixed in. PTI, Sports Nation and NBA Summer League.)

This morning, we decided to spit in the face of the heat. After humping the elliptical for 66 minutes, showering, checking TweetDeck and then reading in bed with The Playmaker, we led the troops outside around 8:15 AM. The Dog ran around. The Playmaker's Sister watered the plants and flowers (and then let The Dog chug from the hose). The Playmaker rode his scooter and then continued to work on his New Shot. That lasted a quick hour, at which point we went inside for breakfast.

Eff you, Heat Wave.

Best we can do...

Sixers 86 Celtics 69...

Watch as Speights abuses Harangody with a monster slam plus the foul.

Greatest quote ever?!?

We were listening to sports talk radio last Friday morning and they were talking about how much/how little the United States loves soccer. One host summed it up pretty well: "We hate the sport because the sport is stupid."

Think about that. We hate the sport because the sport is stupid.

How great is that?!?

Happy 4th of July...

Friday night's dinner...