MLB’s Japanese Player Fetish

This has been a topic that I’ve had on my list of things that I wanted to write about, that I just haven’t really been able to bring to fruition.  Either I burn myself out on writing about high school tryhards applying to every school under the sun, or I just don’t feel like I have sufficient time to write about it, but it’s definitely a topic that I feel like I could go off about, but for whatever reason, I just haven’t had the chance to do so until now.

But it’s been something that’s been brewing over the last few years, and this year it’s definitely come to a boiling point about just how cringey MLB has become when it comes to their obvious opinion and feelings when it comes to Japanese players.

Sure, Shohei Ohtani is an incredible specimen of a baseball player, and I do think there is legitimate argument that we might be able to call him the best player of all time (for this generation), and that he’s more impressive than Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Albert Pujols, combined.  Statistically he does bring a lot to the table, but one thing that he does not bring to the table that MLB insists that he does, is the fact that he is, Japanese.

His ethnicity has nothing to add to any argument over his place in baseball history, but MLB is so rapid quick when it comes to injecting it into the narrative, and it’s not like those who follow baseball aren’t already aware that Japan is the de facto #1 country in the world when it comes to baseball talent, seeing as how they’ve won the vast majority of Olympic golds and World Baseball Classics when it comes to international competition over the last 20 years.

But MLB does it anyway, because for whatever reason, over the last 20 years, they’ve become an organization that is definitely going through a serious weeaboo phase in their history where Japan = #1, and everything, including their own assets are inferior in comparison.  Ohtani is definitely a worthy blue pill to cause this phenomenon within the organization, but the ensuing trickle-down effect when it comes to the yearly migration of a handful of Japanese players and the hype and fanfare they get when they come to America is downright cringey.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto making more money than Roger Clemens and Nolan Ryan ever made in their careers, combined is an egregious overpay and fellating sign of kowtowing to their Japanese overlords. 

Everytime Shota Imanaga throws another scoreless inning, bean counters for Elias and MLB blow their loads at being able to throw out another tweet about how low his ERA is, seemingly completely ignorant to how the league will adjust on him harder than the stock market once the scouting report on him is complete. 

Seiya Suzuki is by-and-large a perfectly good, above average player, but the way MLB expounds his occasional positive contributions is like they’re talking about the second-coming of Ichiro.

The season is barely a quarter of the way through, and there’s already talks about the next Japanese overlord, some guy named Munetaka Murakami.  But few outside of the diehard fans of their respective teams are bothering to get excited over any prospects on their own farms.

The point of all this is that it’s extremely clear that MLB has a pretty raging boner fetish on Japanese players right now.  I can practically hear the gong and racist Asian theme in my head every time I see an MLB channel or MLB beat writer lose their shit over something a Japanese player does, as if their mythical powers from the magic Orient were why Yamamoto had a 5.2 inning outing where he gave up no runs, while Max Fried throws a complete game shutout in the middle of an era where complete games are becoming as scarce as no-hitters.

Much has been made of Ohtani’s 2024, and how because he doesn’t have to worry about doing any pitching at all, he can focus on being the demigod of hitting he’s believed to be.  Every single home run he hits, is answered by some god-awful MLB tweet fellating him for doing what he’s going be paid $700 million dollars to do; meanwhile, Marcell Ozuna of the Braves is leading the majors in home runs currently, when just a year ago, fans were clamoring for him to be cut from the team and eat the salary hit, and MLB barely takes notice when he maintains his home run lead.

It’s just funny how an entire organization like Major League Baseball becomes no different than myself and lots of my nerdier friends in my life have been at certain points of their lives, when it comes to going through a Japan #1 phase.  I look back at that time of my life with rolled eyes and a little bit of embarrassment, but the difference is that I’m not a publicly known, forward facing, billions of dollars organization, looking like a collective cringey weeb in front of the rest of the world, and I look forward to the day when MLB grows out of it, because it’s really fucking embarrassing watching them spooge all over themselves over Japanese players.

I think the Bloodline has DJ Tanner Wrestling’d

Only the longest of my zero readers know that DJ Tanner Wrestling-ing is my personal evolution to jumping the shark, and in the case of this particular topic it’s relevant since this is yet another post about, professional wrestling.

Anyway, over the weekend the WWE did their best to surprise the Universe by introducing Tanga Loa into the company, when he interfered during the Bloodline vs. Kevin Owens and Randy Orton tag match.  A few weeks ago, they had brought in Tama Tonga to join forces with Solo Sikoa, whom the storyline has as being the guy now assuming control over the Bloodline, with the long-deserved hiatus of Roman Reigns after Wrestlemania. 

And with that, both members of the Guerillas of Destiny (GoD) have made their way to the WWE after a long and fruitful career overseas in NJPW.  Both have aligned with Solo, and are representing the new age of the Bloodline.  I doubt that they’ll still be called GoD once the dust settles from their arrival, but to those that are familiar with them, they’ll always be GoD.

Personally, I’m high on GoD, and loved their work in Japan.  It was the highlight of the evening when NJPW had a tour stop in Atlanta, where the main event was the Guerillas winning the IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team championships, and above all else, I love that they’re the son and the adopted son of the baddest man on the planet, Haku.  That alone gives them a 10 in toughness, because I can’t imagine anyone raised by Haku would be anything short of being the polar opposite of a pussy.

I am excited for their arrival in the E and the sheer potential they bring by both being in the company, but at the same time, I still can’t help but have this feeling that they’ve caused the whole trajectory of the Bloodline to DJ Tanner Wrestle, mainly because of the simple fact that they’re not actual bloodline to the Anoa’i family.

In fact, they’re not even Samoan, but Tongan.  I know that white people can’t tell Asians and island boys apart, and there are a lot of similarities between the cultures, but the fact of the matter is that Tama Tonga and Tanga Loa aren’t related to the Anoa’i family nor are they Samoan, so having them be a part of the Bloodline seems kind of shark-jumpy in my opinion.

I know that Haku is super tight with many Anoa’i members, and as Rikishi once said, us island boys have to stick together, but it does feel like a little bit of a cop out to just slap GoD into the Bloodline and hope that nobody questions the genealogy here just because they’re all from island origins.

Sure, they did it already with Sami Zayn being the Honorary Uce, but the difference here is that they weren’t trying to hide the fact that he wasn’t Samoan and related to an Anoa’i, and I’m not saying that they might not do the same with GoD, but so far, they also haven’t made any attempt to dispel it either.  I have this suspicion that unless they get some heat from any Polynesian groups, who demand specificity, the WWE is just going to hope that fans at home assume that GoD are Anoa’i and don’t question it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m stoked that GoD are now a part of the E.  They will inject a viable tag team into the division of whichever show they land on, and I’m sure fans are already salivating at the idea of an inevitable GoD vs. the Usos matchup, because a Bloodline civil war does seem like it’s the obvious end game coming once Roman Reigns’ vacation is up.

It’s just details matter to me, and two guys whom aren’t even blood-related themselves, joining up with a faction called the Bloodline to which they’re not related to, seems a little DJ Tanner Wrestling-ey in my opinion.  I get why they did it, and honestly from their perspective, as far as being fast-tracked to the main event and making money, they’re probably not sweating it, but it doesn’t change the fact that the execution of it, holistically as a whole, does seem forced and just a little bit DJ Tanner Wrestling-ey.  Creative might surprise me and spin a magnificent story, as they did over the last two years of Roman’s reign, but seeing as how they blew the wad at Mania, I’m not optimistic that this long-term story will be worth the wait if all the moving parts happen in the manner that I think they will.

#TRYHARDSZN2024: Just 17??

Sós: Westlake High senior accepted into 17 colleges, amassing over $1M in combined scholarship offers

I’m convinced the only thing students are taught at Westlake High is how to apply to colleges, and once they become proficient at it, it’s all they do every day at school.  Because this is the third time this #TRYHARDSZN that I’m dipping into a story about students at Westlake High who have been accepted into a large number of colleges; all of which have made sure to mention the aggregate dollar amount of scholarships they’ve been offered, which is typically the tell-tale sign that most of the schools they were accepted to aren’t really that prestigious.

But to review, we’ve had students that cleared 63 and 50 acceptances, and then one who cleared 50+, so a student “only” being accepted into 17 schools seems kind of booty in comparison, especially seeing as how in their insufferably terrible senior wall where all students humblebrag or be ashamed of how many or how little schools they’ve been accepted into, there were more than just a few that probably had 17+ acceptances posted on the wall.

However, doing the math, and clearing $1M in combined scholarships out of just 17 acceptances blows the fuck out of water compared to the other TRYHARDs of the SZN who needed 50+ schools to clear the $1M mark.  Which means that she’s gotten some substantially heavier ride offers from fewer schools than her peers at CollegeApp High.

One thing that is a little different about this #TRYHARD’s story is that she actually has a pick named, and isn’t just being mum about where she’s going to go because they’re still phishing out a free ride from somewhere; and it’s of all the schools in the country, she’s picking Notre Dame.

I respect the ambition and the absolute get-the-fuck-out-of-the-hood mentality she’s taking, but I have to imagine it’s going to be a tremendous amount of culture shock going up to South Bend.  Especially from southwest Atlanta, going to lily-white Indiana where the winters are going to be brutal and the number of black people is going to feel like she’s going to Norway.

But considering her successes with #TRYHARDing, she’ll probably be alright in the end.  Good on this one for actually stating intent to go somewhere remotely prestigious, and not just doing it for humblebragging attention.

Who needs Vegas when you can just go to Kroger?

I wish I had the imagination to make this shit up: South Fulton Kroger under scrutiny for basically opening a slot machine area inside of the store

I don’t even know where to begin with this.  It’s like a hungry lion jumping into a herd of gazelle but there are so many intriguing options that it’s hard to focus on just one, and they all get away and they go hungry, but in this case I don’t know what angle to start blabbing on about and this post is going to (already) turn into shit.

It’s funny though; I like Kroger as a company.  They used to be 24 hr. mostly until the pandemic so it was convenient to go whenever, and the bottom line was always that my dollars always stretched a little further at Kroger than say, Publix.  But ask anyone I know around here, and the general consensus is that Publix is a preferable grocer, because it feels cleaner and safer and more upscale in general, none of which I necessarily disagree with, but when I’m trying to stretch dollars, Kroger is still superior in that regard.

Granted, I still do the majority of my shopping at Publix, because there are literally two of them equidistant from my home and closer than the nearest Kroger and for daily needs and quick gets, time is money and distance wins out, but sometimes when I know I need to make a big trip, I’ll go out of my way and hit up Kroger, because at least where I am, they’re not as scuzzy as say, the ones in South Fulton are, which I am all too familiar with, seeing as how I lived there for 13 years.

But over the last few years, Kroger hasn’t done themselves any favors in the public eye, especially that of the one that resides over the Metro Atlanta area.  I mean, prior to getting hit with the Gentrification Bomb, we had Murder Kroger in the middle of the city, where at least three murders had occurred.  Then we had the Kroger in College Park that was accused of being racist for implementing a series of security vestibules that basically enclosed shoppers inside aisles to help deter theft.

And now we have a Kroger in South Fulton County that for some reason, has decided to put a miniature slot casino inside their store.  Prizes are not monetary, but they’re still slot machines all the same.  Like, my knee-jerk reaction is just to laugh at the sheer absurdity of such a wild idea, and just how flagrantly targeted it is at feeding into racial stereotypes and not even trying to hide it.

Like really, what the fuck business do slot machines have inside of a grocery store?  Even Las Vegas has steered away from the days of having rando slot machines in every gas station, CVS and restaurant, and you can go into a Smith’s or an Albertsons to get just your groceries and not be tempted to dump the remainder of your paycheck in some crappy Wild Cherry or Double Diamond machine.

But not this Kroger, who set up a loosely partitioned-off area with a few slot machines and some sad stools for people to really post up and get comfortable for a wallet-draining slot session.  And it’s at the front of the store, where it’s easy for people to come inside with the sole express of gambling away their money, instead of like Costco where they make you march all the way to the back of the store in order to get a $5 rotisserie chicken. 

Kroger Casino’s spot is where you’d see some other Kroger or Kroger-affiliated stores set up like a Subway, a Starbucks, or like eye glass repair or a tax prep kiosk; random conveniences meant to make you want to spend a little more time in the store to sway you to shop more on actual profit-making products.  But instead, it’s just a literal hole in the wall guarded solely by some portable plexiglass partitions with a sign on it that states one must be 18+ in order to play.

I’ve been to Krogers in the hood; maybe not this specific one, but I’ve been to some rough Krogers in South Fulton.  Usually against my better judgment, but the desire to save a buck or two, or sometimes they’re just conveniently on my route.  I don’t think for a minute that by the time I post this, there probably have already been at least 100 minors who have meandered into this section of the store without repercussion and drained at least $2,000 by now.  The store is definitely not going to spring extra for some fat slob with a fake badge and can of pepper spray to run security for this section, and it’s clear that the intent of Kroger is knowing that they will help create young gambling addicts, and by being in existence, help pad their own bottom lines at the expense of the poor and vulnerable.

As sad as this all is, and the painfully obvious message that it’s sending, all I can do is laugh about it.  It’s fucked up, but I still find it absolutely hilarious.  Kroger is in the making money businesses, and there clearly no moral or ethical boundaries in place if they have an idea that can make them some, and they’re absolutely not at all concerned over the optics of choosing stores in the hood of hoods to pilot such an idea out.

Next thing we know, there will be some form of legalized prostitution brought to you by Kroger, where customers can walk up to a different loosely partitioned section of the store, scan your Kroger Plus Card, and then chat with some store employee in a blue Kroger polo shirt about wanting to get 30 minutes with Kayla, before going into a makeshift brothel like in Taken to get your jollies off.

And of course, this would pilot in Forest Park, or Covington, Georgia, because the seedier the idea, the deeper into the hood they need to be piloted in.  Fresh for everyone!™

Doesn’t pay to be white during #TRYHARDSZN2024

Roux: Utah senior has perfect ACT scores, can’t get into MIT or even Brigham Young

Not going to lie, sure it sucks for this teenager whose dreams appeared to be crushed that his 1A and 1B schools have both turned him down, but I found myself laughing a lot while reading this because of the seemingly very obvious answers to his rhetorical questions of whhhhyyyyy?

But why was Trenton Caldwell rejected by both MIT and BYU? But because both schools didn’t say, he may never know.“It’s pretty frustrating because I really feel like if I knew what it was, I would be able to fix it lickety-split, but it’s just impossible really because I have no idea,” said Trenton.

I mean come on.  I don’t even need to Google the name “Trenton Caldwell” to know this guy is whiter than a Paul Ryan intern. A name like that, living in Utah, having Brigham Young as one of your top college picks? 

This is an amusing example of the effects of a gradually awakening culture, where the pendulum may have swung back in the opposite direction a little on the hard side, and it’s kind of disadvantageous to be white and applying for colleges these days. 

In one side of the room, you’ve got black and Hispanic kids applying for 120 colleges presumably for free, getting into 63 of them, and then boasting on the news about how blessed they are, and on the other side of the room, you’ve got Ben Affleck and Ben Affleck putting their eggs into the 1-2 schools they really really really really hope they can get into as well as a safety school or two, and getting turned down without explanation which is one in itself if they took the time to look in the mirror and thought about what their elders did, it almost seems about as fucked up as racial exploitation.

But buddy, nobody owes you any explanation, and let this be a good lesson as well as a sample of what awaits in the adult world.  You can be the most qualified applicant for the job of your dreams, have the paperwork, proof, references and be ready to explain why you’re a perfect fit, but if the HR recruiter got cut off in traffic on the way to the office, or their pour over was short 0.027 ounces, and they’re in a pissy mood, they will delete your application without an explanation on every single day that ends in the letter Y.

Really though, it must suck for Ben Affleck over here.  The day he opened up his test results and found out that he notched a perfect score on his ACT, he probably thought that the world was his for the taking.  MIT would undoubtedly be impressed with his perfect score and undoubtedly accept him.  Boston, here I come.

But no, MIT sends him a form letter of rejection, wishing him well on his future endeavors and sorry it didn’t work out for us.  And then to rub salt into the wounds, BYU turns him down too, and neither give anything more than a form response to why he didn’t get in.

All this being said, by the time the dust settles from #TRYHARDSZN2024, Ben Affleck will probably already be on reddit, truth social, or whatever alt-right internet groups bemoaning how much it sucks to be white now, and being earmarked as a promising recruit for whatever future Charlottesville incidents will occur probably not too far from now.

#TRYHARDSZN2024: Cornell or.. China?

Source: California teenager accepted into over 30 colleges; among them Cornell and Duke…Kunshan in China

I have to assume that after like the first 10 or so college applications, most of them are going to be for layup schools for a lot of these #TRYHARDs.  Of course they go after the Ivy Leagues, the Stanfords, MITs, Hopkins’ and a surprising favoritism to Georgia Tech, but the reality is that I’m guessing most high school upper classmen can probably only name like 5-6 off the tops of their heads that they actually imagined going to themselves.

So when they apply to well into the 50s and 60, at that point, they just applying to everything under the sun and copying and pasting their essays and utilizing auto-fill in their broswers when filling out college applications for the SUNY-B-tier, UNC-G-tier and Cal-D-tier schools, and doing it for the attention they can get by amassing a large number of college acceptances.

But for this California teenager, the fact that Cornell is the first school mentioned, means that Cornell is the top school that she was accepted into, which means that she probably has at least applied to several of the other Ivy Leagues, as well as many other top-tier institutions in the country.

The fact that the article doesn’t talk about aggregate scholarship dollars earned means that she clearly swung for the fences and got a lot of impressive yeses, and it turns out that she comes from a family of tryhards:

According to Tye, Madison had the academic inspiration she needed to pursue scholar status from her brother Chandler Brown, a Harvard graduate now pursuing his doctoral degree at Stanford University. Tye, Madison’s mother Yvonne Brown, and sister Brittany Brown also have higher education degrees from acclaimed four-year universities.

Her resume is pretty impressive, and it’s commendable that she’s coming out of the ashes out of some rural rando desert town in the San Bernadino valley area, and it’s clear that #TRYHARD as she may be, she’s definitely in the upper class that actually is trying to shoot for the moon and isn’t just doing it for attention and to phish out a free ride somewhere.

But the funny thing for me is the fact that her short list is Cornell and Duke Kunshan out in China. It’s not often, and in fact, it’s not something I’ve ever heard before of anyone in America ever aspiring to go to a university outside of America.  Much less to a place like China where the language barrier will be debilitating, not to mention China is super racist when it comes to black people.

The above photograph is from 2016; not 1976 or 1916, but literally within the last decade.  That’s from an in-flight magazine on Air China, for all passengers to read optionally, the advice they give about steering clear from Indians, Pakistanis and black people.

I’m not even black and could realistically hide in plain sight if I were to go to Shanghai, but nowhere in China is high on my list of places I want to go visit, much less gain an education from.

I know the temptation is high, to try and break the mold of molds, by being a black American to march into China and flip the narrative, but my god would that be walking into a lion’s den of putting your life into hell.

Girl, you got an acceptance into Cornell; you know a quarter of the population of Suzhou, China probably applied to get into Cornell since it’s an Ivy, don’t be the hipster who just has to try something different.  Save it for after you get your degree and have the flexibility to peace out of China at a moment’s notice when you go and realize that the place just isn’t as friendly to you as you might have thought it would’ve been.

#TRYHARDSZN2024: Student Loans vs. Walmart U?

😊: Bentonville teenager accepted into numerous prestigious schools, among them multiple Ivy League schools and . . . Georgia Tech

Shoutout to this kid who decided to flash his Georgia Tech acceptance letter in the same photograph with Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Penn, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Berkeley and Stanford.  He must really think highly of their robotics program, or perhaps he’s a thrill-seeker wanting to go to a school where students are allowed to concealed carry.

Aside from the obvious clowning about Georgia Tech, this kid really is among the higher-tier TRYHARDs of the SZN, having notched five of the eight Ivies, and it seems pretty clear that Brown and Dartmouth are the Ivies that people either forget and/or don’t care about, because of all these TRYHARD stories that I’ve been trying to track this SZN, those are often the two that are omitted with these kids.  Or maybe Harvard is trying to outreach and not be so staunch, while Brown, Dartmouth and seemingly Yale want to keep their velvet ropes up intact and do as much curating as possible.

Either way, what drew my attention was the fact that this particular TRYHARD being from Bentonville, Arkansas, to which I would guess most people might be aware, is known for being the home and headquarters to one of the biggest capitalistic cancers in history, Walmart.

Which begs the question of what if this bright young man were to forego the pursuit of college, and be one of those guys that just got his foot in the door young to a literal Fortune #1-caliber company like Walmart and just began applying himself into the corporate grind.

As unsexy as it might seem, there are countless stories of people who enter large corporations at the ground level, and through almost no other means than longevity, eventually begin climbing up the corporate ladder, and by the time their peers have graduated college with avalanches of student debts, they’re sitting in management with a very high ceiling still left to achieve, and ultimately end up being the stiffs in suits that make six figures and live in Microsoft Office all day long, when they’re not delegating.

I’m curious if a kid as bright as this TRYHARD were to just forget school, and put his brain into the Walmart machine instead, if he would ultimately have a more lucrative career in the long run, instead of becoming a cog in any Ivy League school or Georgia Tech, and falling into student debt, bad habits and academic rat racing.  I don’t know what this kid’s specialty is, but perhaps being as bright as he is, he doesn’t have to slave away at the store level first, and can get into corporate early, and work on technology, POS or other technological ways to part their shoppers from their money.

But then again, this kid is either Indian or Pakistani, and living in a hicktown like Bentonville, Arkansas, I get why he probably wants to get the fuck out.  Forget everything I said about considering Walmart U over Harvard or Stanford.  Good for you kid, for being smart enough to light the path out of Arkansas; hopefully you’re smart enough to not pick Georgia Tech over those fancy Ivy League schools.