Tag: greed

The WWE fan meet and greet experience brought to you by Cricket Wireless

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite being a shitty wrestling fan these days, one of the things that I still like to try to do is meeting wrestling talent, and when possible getting signed 8x10s because one day I’ll have a personal space again where I can frame and hang them, and just in general, getting autographed photos is one of those things that if I don’t get them if the opportunity is there, I’ll inevitably end up regret not doing so later on down the line.

That being said, The Algorithm fed me intel about a free meet and greet that was happening in the Metro Atlanta area, where Alexa Bliss and Penta were going to be appearing at a Cricket Wireless location out in Norcross.  I don’t hide the fact that I am a fan of Alexa Bliss, and I’ve grown to appreciate Penta more and more throughout the years, so I thought to myself that this was one that I was interested in, but probably not likely to do, because of being a dad, as well as the fact that I’d heard that these meet and greet experiences, especially the free ones, typically require fans to arrive in ungodly early amounts of time, in order to ensure not getting cut off.

But then as the weekend approached, grandma took the girls and suddenly I really had nothing stopping me from attempting to brave the experience and see if I could get autographs from a prime Alexa Bliss and Penta.  The idea of waking up in the middle of the night and then have to go wait 5-6 hours didn’t seem at all that appealing at first, but the fact of the matter was that it’s not that I wouldn’t really be able to do what I’d probably have end up doing in the first place, which was dicking around on my phone, being lazy, doing Duolingo, etc.  I would however be forfeiting an extremely rare opportunity to turn the alarms off on my phone and sleep in, but again, going back to the thought of potential regret, I would’ve been disappointed to pass up on Alexa Bliss, and Penta to a degree, in circumstances where I could’ve been available.

So I made the decision to go for it, got an 8x10s of each to try and get signed, and I got my ass up at 3:45 am, with the intention of getting to Norcross as early as possible and hope that I would be far up enough in the line to where I wouldn’t be cut off, and had a chance to get autographs.

I got to the shopping plaza right around 4:30, and I came prepared based on the intel of netizens who have detailed their experiences; lawn chair, a snack, and a water bottle, despite the fact that I really didn’t want to figure out what to do if nature struck over the six hours I had to kill.  From what it looked like, I was unfortunately not early enough to be the front of the line, but it only looked like there were like 40 or so people in advance of me, so I knew I would probably be good enough to stay and wait; my biggest fear was making the trek out there, only to discover the line was already wrapped around the building, and then be immediately defeated, but at least I’d be able to go back to sleep, but I was pleased knowing that I was possibly okay.

Honestly, the waiting wasn’t really that bad.  I did my Duolingo, did my Wordle and Connections and a crossword puzzle on my phone, and caught up on the previous night’s Week 1 College Football scores, feeling disappointment in Virginia Tech for allowing VMI to actually get on the board with a field goal in spite of hanging 70 points on them, and fascination at the masterclass of gaslighting done by the NCAA and Michigan to justify allowing Michigan to get a second, and ultimately successful chance to avoid the upset despite the fact that the clock struck zero but that’s possibly a post for another time.

I made a single-serving friend with the person next to me, whom I figured out the bathroom problem, by offering to get them a Red Bull while I jetted off to the nearby QT to take care of business since we still had like 4 hours to go, and we chatted wrestling and it helped chew up a lot of time.

However, it’s when the sun started to rise and the schedule event time neared did things start to progressively go from dubious, to hairy, to dishearteningly deflating, and frankly this post probably doesn’t happen if everything were as perfectly successful as I’d hope they would be.

When it was the darkness of the 4-5-6 am hour of the morning, the temperature wasn’t bad at all, but once that sun started coming up, the heat started to rise, and the impatience of the constantly growing line started to emerge.  All the while, Cricket employees would at first just be checking in, but the manager of the place would get on the megaphone to go over some of the expected rules of the event.

At first, they pissed off a lot of people by saying that there would only be one autograph per party, so all the people who wanted to get both Alexa and Penta to sign something now had to pick; it was an easy choice for me, and I was at least satisfied knowing that I could still get Alexa’s autograph, since I didn’t know I would really have a shot at it, coming into the event.

Then, they stated that photographs would be limited to a single group picture, meaning no individual pics with Alexa and individuals with Penta.  Presumably also, entire groups had to go in at once, and no family pic, and then pervy dad alone with Alexa pic in the same group.

With each successive announcement, there would be some grumbles, none more than from this one party of like 9 in front of me that brought like the whole fuckin’ family, including the kids and presumably a grandma with a cane, and I often ask myself why I’m such a fan of something that also has such downtrodden rednecks as superfans of it as well but that would be overly judgmental of me.  I had an idea of bringing the girls to meet Alexa with me, with their tag blets, since Alexa is a multi-time holder of those specific blets, but I definitely wouldn’t have wanted them to wait 6-7 hours like I ended up doing, and I’m surprised but not surprised at the families who actually did have their kids do such.

10:30 rolls around, and nobody’s seen any limo or luxury SUVs to indicate that the stars of the appearance were there and ready to go, and as if he knew what everyone was thinking, manager announces to everyone that the talent is “en route,” eliciting more bitching and moaning, specifically from the party of 9 rednecks in front of me.  I’d learned from stories of other Cricket appearances, that talent tardiness does tend to occur fairly regularly, and as disappointing as that is, it’s a free event, that alone right there gives all associated pretty much all the leeway in the world to do whatever the fuck they want to.

Probably around 11 is when two black SUVs arrive, and it’s obvious that the talent has arrived.  But the meet and greet doesn’t happen immediately, and the sun is up and blazing, and people are getting ornery at why things aren’t starting and the line not moving.  Nosier people than me who meandered up to the front to peep inside the store were reporting that Alexa and Penta were doing photos and autographs with the employees first, inciting even more angst from those in line.

And then the shit really hits the fan, when manager announces to the crowd, that neither Alexa or Penta will be doing any autographs, and that it’s just meet and photos only.  Maybe the first 10-15 parties got autographs, and those who were coming out of the store were clearly getting way more than a single article per, and combined with the employees who got to bogart talent time in advance of all the people, now everyone started getting pissed.

Party of 9 were basically screaming NO! NO! and loudly proclaiming their protest at the news of no autographs.  It’s clear they brought the whole family, thinking they would walk away with a Kay-Bee Toys worth of signed crap, and progressively complained more and more throughout the morning about the escalation of policy.

I felt the gut punch of disappointment at the revelation that I wasn’t going to get either of my photos signed, much less from Alexa, and it was agreed that the general mood of the whole event deflated tremendously from everyone in line, many of whom had been waiting as long, if not more than I had at this point, who were going to be going home empty handed.

But again, this was a free event, and nobody asked anyone to wait 6-7 hours for this, and they owed nobody anything, since they were not getting paid.  The manager, exasperated by the sudden rage, hilariously got on his mic to remind everyone that this event was being done by their generosity.

Obviously, seeing as how I’d already burned seven hours, I wasn’t going to leave without at least meeting Alexa and Penta, so I stuck around and got my ten seconds to shake their hands, and get a few rapid-fire shots on my phone as evidence that I did get to meet them.

Also to ask Alexa who her favorite Disney princess was because my daughters wanted to know (they didn’t, but it was a good conversation starter that made her stop and think) – she said Elsa.  

Needless to say, I’m not mad, just disappointed, in the whole experience.  I’m glad I got to meet two talents I like, but like many, I’m extremely disappointed in not being able to have a keepsake in the form of an autograph from it.  I’d rather have had the auto and no photo, than the other way around, but as many have documented these events being, it truly was a cattle call to churn people in and out of line as quick as humanly possible.

Again, as it was a free event, there’s a very low ceiling to how actually mad people are really allowed to be at it, and its rapid-fire changing of policy during it, and as is often the case, I’d frankly rather pay money for a guaranteed meet and autograph, and had Alexa Bliss done a paid appearance in advance of Saturday Sunday Night’s Main Event, I probably would have done it.

I take the whole experience as a valuable educational lesson learned, in the end.  Hearing how they were and experiencing it for myself weren’t far apart, and although it didn’t cost me much in terms of money, it had a massive time cost, to which that time is so precious to me, that I’m not willing to go through with this kind of thing again in the future.

But of course, the Barves

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

BaseballWRLD: Braves’ shortstop Kim Ha-Seong is statistically basically having the worst baseball season in history

I really hate that it’s a Korean player, on the Atlanta Braves, that is having this unfortunate distinction, but the proof is in the pudding and the numbers don’t lie.  I know that all over the internet, there are couch statisticians and homers who are going to cry that ~85 plate appearances is too small a sample to make this kind of judgment, but those individuals probably aren’t really seeing the bigger picture, nor have they actually watched any Braves games in which Kim has actually been in this season.

Man has been the very definition of a free agent flop, and one more thing that sucks about this whole thing is that this is the kind of free agent signing example that will further make the Atlanta Braves corporation even more gun-shy and risk-averse skittish about free agent signings in the future, than they already are.  One-year pacts are pretty low-risk as they come, albeit at high price tags, but considering the return on investment Kim has provided, or didn’t, the $20M he is making in the 2026 season has been particularly brutal.

Like with most Korean players in MLB, I supported Kim and have been such, even when he signed with San Diego and was playing out there.  I was proud of the guy when he was putting up 5+ bWAR seasons for the Padres, with him being so good in 2023 he was even notching some low-end MVP votes and a Gold Glove. 

Injuries derailed his time in San Diego, and he was shipped off to Tampa Bay where he couldn’t ever get back on track, and I was really excited when the Rays made him available and the Braves being the Braves did the Braves-iest thing and managed to buy low on him, picking him up at the waiver-deadline last year, which is the second trade deadline, the one nobody ever talks about, because that’s the one that’s like C-rated CDOs and there’s rarely any notable talent ever exchanged.

And that initial gamble paid off, and fed into my hypothesis of how much playing environment matters, with Kim’s numbers improving noticeably going from Tampa to Atlanta.  It’s like going from sleepy Tampa with white trash and no Korean community to Atlanta, that sure, still has its share of white trash, but has a robust Korean community mattered, and across the board his counting stats all improved in roughly the same amount of plate appearances.

The union proved to be mutually beneficial enough to where the Braves actually spent money and spent money on a Scott Boras client, two things that the organization normally hasn’t done a lot of historically, but it was a good opportunity for the Braves to get a reliable shortstop, and a good opportunity for Kim to possibly flex a season of being healthy and playing in a good environment, which he could then hope to parlay into a larger, more lucrative deal, likely away from Atlanta afterward.

But then he just had to go to Korea in the offseason, where the winters can be brutal, he slipped on some ice and fell and fucked up his hand, and before even reporting to Spring Training, the Kim deal had already begun to go tits up.  He missed all of Spring Training, and it’s evident that the lack of preparation put him in a miserable place to play catchup with, and when he returned to the Major League squad, he was joining the team that was contending and facing real pressure, and Kim just couldn’t get going.  He was a black hole in the lineup, and it went from it’s too early to tell to okay, maybe he does suck now.

A setback that put him on the disabled list was kind of a convenient excuse to remove him from the roster and start getting some production from other players, and fans began to bemoan his inevitable return, because the Braves being the Braves always demand ROI, and they would undoubtedly be determined to recoup anything at all from the $20M they were paying him.

He hit well in his rehab assignment, which the team was milking to the absolute maximum to keep him out of the Majors, but when push came to shove and they were forced to bring him back up, they did the predictable thing and brought him back up, while releasing one of the guys who was filling in for him, and doing it better than he was.

But the fact that Kim can’t hit Major League pitching goes to show that this is probably where he realistically is now, as a player.  Capable of doing well against Triple-A talent, but unable to be competent in the Majors.  As much as I support Kim personally, the reality is that his MLB career is more than likely done after this season, and he’ll probably go back to Korea to where he can hopefully salvage a lucrative career out in the KBO.

Regardless, we’re back to square one, where Kim is still sucking, and sucking to the magnitude of being on track to having the literal worst offensive season in MLB history, no hyperbole.  bWAR is kind of a catch-all statistic, loosely used to measure player worth, and Kim is currently sitting on -1.0 bWAR, which doesn’t sound like that much considering there are guys with worse, but it’s the fact that he’s gotten there in much shorter time that shows just how bad and detrimental he has been. 

Google estimates the cost of one bWAR in 2026 is roughly $11M, so the fact that Kim is sitting on -1.0 bWAR, and is getting paid $20M to get there, his financial impact to the organization is -$31M dollars.  That’s nearly two not-retired Prince Fielder seasons, but the difference is that Fielder wasn’t in the dugout adversely affecting a batting lineup, or on the field being fat, immobile and hurting the team defensively.

Most anyone with a brain knows that at some point, the roster spot is more valuable than a bad asset, and the smart play would have been cut Kim, eat the $20M, and to have kept Jorge Mateo, who at the time I’m writing this, had contributed +0.7 bWAR to the Braves before he was ungratefully released.  But like I said, the Braves are so corporate and so predictable, that everyone unfortunately knew that they were going to keep Kim and demand to get any modicum of ROI.

Again, I hate that this is happening to Kim, because this will undoubtedly make the baseball public continue to question Korean baseball players while still fetishizing Japanese ones, and I hate that it’s happening to the Braves. This will further cloud their willingness to use the free agent market, and I’m not going to hold my breath that I’ll ever see a day where there’s a standout Korean player on the Braves.

When the inevitable day comes where the Braves are bounced from the playoffs, many are going to be pointing their fingers at Kim, who sure, isn’t undeserving of it, but the team is also culpable for keeping him, when more optimally strategic options were available the whole time, due to their obsession with ROI and getting their money’s worth clouding optimal strategy.  That part, wouldn’t be on Kim.

SummerSlam, blets and moments

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t watch SummerSlam, nor did I actually care to even exert a modicum of effort in order to watch it.  I know that my general fandom of the WWE product has been tested and waning over the last year or so and the grand consensus of all the changes and corporatization of the company is resulting in me gaining more and more distance from the product like it were 1990 all over again and my parents cancelling cable television, preventing me from keeping up with the biz.

Every show is behind a different pay wall, Fanatics has standardized and priced merchandise to inaccessibility, and frankly the product blows chunks now.  Storylines are convoluted and limited to the smallest of pools, and RAW on Netflix is so overwhelmingly buried in ads, I sometimes feel like I’m watching a pirated stream instead of a program that I’m paying a subscription to watch.

That being said, when one of my bros asked our group chat if anyone were watching SummerSlam, it took me 0.2 seconds to respond ‘no.’  I left out the part that I thought it was probably going to be mid as fuck, and the whole two-night show thing that TKO is trying to force like it’s a second Wrestlemania seems like bullshit and when the day is over, there were only two matches on the entire event that I remotely cared about.

Additionally, I knew that there was little point to watching the show, given the fact that with maybe an 18-minute delay, the results of every single match would be spoiled and revealed on various social media outlets, and I could get the Cliff’s notes on the entire show without having to sit through all the ads, rest holds, and botches from the gradual blunting of talent over the last years.

The good news for me was that the two matches I did care about, ended in the ways that I was happy with.  One was predictable, which was the culmination of Chad Gable’s redemption story, with him defeating Penta for the Intercontinental championship.  In the past, I would’ve said for certain that Gable was going to lose, because in the Vince McMahon era of the company, it was almost an unwritten rule that superstars did not win in their hometowns, but in the TKO era, they’re so obsessed with creating moments but more importantly farming footage for future UnTolds, that stuff like this flips, and it’s become pretty predictable, even moreso than it used to be, even for a wrestling oracle like myself.

But still, I’m happy to see Chad Gable get a signature W at the event, because the man has been one of the hardest working and mold-breaking performers over the last few years and it always brings me great joy to see hard workers get their just desserts.

The other match I was intrigued in, ended in really the only winner I had hoped for, but assumed was not going to be the case, which was Chelsea Green climbing to the top of the ladder and winning the Women’s championship, made vacant by the very legitimate Rhea Ripley injury.

As much as I love Chelsea and the internet loves Chelsea, there’s no denying that the E has treated her like this expendable comedy act, and given the fact that she was in the match with former champions like Charlotte, Jade Cargill and Tiffany Stratton, it seemed more likely the E would give it to one of the safe choices, and that Chelsea was there to provide some highlights and outstanding character work.

But the E loves to give surprises, and like I had mentioned, I’m convinced now that they’re so fixated on creating compelling content for UnTold documentaries, they allowed for the impossible to happen, and regardless of their motivations, I was stoked to discover that Chelsea Green had outlasted all the competition, and walked away as the new women’s champion.

Naturally, both these matches occurred on Night 2 of SummerSlam, and if the E really wants to ensure that two-day events have any modicum of succeeding in the long run, they have got to stop backloading their events so blatantly, because history has not been kind to the small number of two-day events they’ve held thusfar, with Night 1 shows being mid as fuck compared to their Night 2 counterparts.

Among the ocean of mediocrity that was the rest of SummerSlam, what stood out to me the most was the introduction of, what’s being called the ESPN Moment of the Night championship blet, inconsequentially being handed out, pretty informally on social media, to the worker of the show that, much to the low-hanging fruit name of the title goes, perceived to have made the best moment of the night.

Night 1 of SummerSlam, the “title” went to Oba Femi, presumably because of his emotional and landmark victory over Brock Lesnar, supposedly ending the career of one of the most impactful performers in the history of the business.  I mean, considering what else was on the card that night, it was pretty low-hanging fruit, and much like the importance of what the title represents, it’s pretty useless, and for a jaded smark like me, actually more of a detriment, because I kind of see it as ESPN giving a middle finger to all the oldhead fans like myself who don’t like all these paywalls, all these separate services, and all the infectious corporatization of the product we once loved so much.

That being said, as happy as I was to see Chelsea Green win the Women’s championship, it was like someone peeing into the pool of celebration when I later saw that ESPN had “awarded” her with the ESPN moment of the night blet, and seeing it on her shoulder in conjunction with an infinitely more meaningful prize on her other.  Fewer things spoil a good time than the arrival of the asshole that everyone doesn’t like but feels obligated to be civil towards because they have a lot of money and influence.

Either way, I’m stoked that performers I like got their flowers and moments at SummerSlam, but at same time I feel satisfied with my choice to not bother watching or pursuing the show because aside from those two matches I don’t really feel like I missed anything, and even if there were, it’s not like I wouldn’t be able to find it on YouTube or any other temporary hosting of the important things.

But that fucking ESPN blet, it is astonishing, that TKO has managed to create a championship blet that is somehow more meaningless and has less importance than any of the 25 straps circulating in the AEW/ROH wrestling space, as well as any of the 14 straps that Mercedes Mone was concurrently holding a little while back.

Dad Brog (#172): The Lego difficulty spike is real

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Growing up, among my favorite toys were Legos.  Frankly, that fandom hasn’t changed, considering the small collection of nostalgia Lego sets that I’ve purchased within the last few years that I’ll never actually put together but protect with fervor at the thought of not having them because it’s better to have and not need than to want and not be able to get and maybe one day when I have a nice big room of dedicated me-space, I’ll be able to set up a table and actually put these sets together but anyway.

Much to my delight, my children have grown to like Legos in their own right, and over the last two years or so, we’ve been occasionally putting Lego sets together and they get decent entertainment out of both the building as well as playing with the finished products.  Sure, they’re expensive as F these days as the cost of official Lego products have inflated as much as petroleum throughout the passage of time, and it is interesting to see the alternate yet compatible brands that are out there now, much as Tyco were the off-brand of my childhood that got mixed into the brick piles, but Mega Bloks and some cheap bootlegs from Daiso have been good ways to subsidize entertaining my children, and once disassembled, nobody has any clue and for the remainder of this post I will continue to refer to all bricks as simply Legos, much like the term for sodas have a generalized term.

Over the last few Lego projects with my kids, there’s always a finite amount of time in which the kids’ focus wavers and eventually breaks, and lately it’s typically gone from, let’s build together with dad to, distractions from the other kid making it hard to focus on continuing, to ultimately zero participation with dad is it finished yet?

What doesn’t help is the seemingly massive difficulty spike in build complexity with today’s general Lego sets, and it doesn’t seem nearly as basic as my own childhood, going from Duplos into set #6954 Blacktron: Renegade although perhaps that’s a bad example but I wanted to make that nostalgic deep cut.  But the point remains that there’s a pretty wide difficulty curve in Legos in general that seems to be a stark contrast to the gradual increase in builds from when I was growing up.

Like, in my elder child’s room, she has two bins full of Duplo blocks, and on almost a daily basis, she builds the most expansive castles and structures that she, and I are so proud of her imagination skills at creating such things.  But come downstairs, and we’ve got all the Lego kits we’ve been amassing over the last two years, and regardless of the suggested age written on each box, I just figure it’s more important to get them based on the concepts and properties that the kids like, seeing as how their dad is an adult Lego enthusiast with decades of experience putting these things together.

Except the thing is, and which is probably the chief reason why Legos are harder now than they were when I was a kid, is the fact that just about every Lego kit now has 400% more small and intricate pieces than the kits I grew up with.  I don’t know what terminology the  Lego community uses to describe Legos today, but for lack of a better term, the amount of pieces that are sized beneath 2×4 and even 2×2 peg pieces AKA a whole shitload of tiny pieces, is tremendous; creating scenarios where they get lost, easy to miss,* resulting in an increased probability of build failure.

*and easy to end up stepping on, which many know that nothing is a greater pain in the galaxy than barefoot stepping on Lego bricks

Furthermore, as impressively creative as lots of today’s Lego builds are nowadays, many end up with suspect connection points, weak joints and integrity ill-suited for elementary school aged kids who want to play and imagine and simulate, instead of dorky adult builders who want to build and display and not actually play with them.

All this being said, my kids and I will put together various Lego kits, only for them to be played with for 5-10 minutes, immediately forgotten until a corresponding kit is created, added to the world of completed kits, and maybe another 5-10 minutes of play is created.

In between play time, small components break off, go missing, mixed together, and it becomes impossible to put things back together.  Thankfully, I have the experienced wherewithal to not toss any instruction booklets in the rare event anyone actually wants to reassemble anything, but as we get more sets, and more sets get built and fall apart, inevitably things get to the point where they have to be fully disassembled, and all bricks get put into the dreaded Lego Bin, where everything is tossed into a communal tub in the name of space conservation.

And it was in the latest episode of dad waits until the kids are in bed to start breaking down idle and incomplete and broken up kits and putting them into The Lego Bin did I really realize just how intricate and full of small tiny pieces that today’s kits all seem to be comprised of, and how I feel like this really impacts the overall replay-ability of Legos in general, with kids probably favoring to get brand new kits instead of playing with communal piles of micro-parts, and writing that out, perhaps that’s the goal of Lego corporate to begin which makes those cocksuckers evil geniuses.

Either way, I’m glad my kids like building with Legos, but the shade of adulthood continues to look at things from my childhood in their modern incarnations with skepticism of accusatory greed and intentions to bilk consumers before providing a source of entertainment and happiness.

Plus I’m just getting tired of stepping on all these goddamn bricks, which isn’t so much Lego’s fault for scattering them on my floors, but at the same time it is, that they keep making sets that have nothing but 1×1 and 2×1 micro-bricks that are real easy for young children to misplace and end up scattered.

Imagine dropping $120 for some Jerry Seinfelds

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SI: New Balance releases the 950s, featuring Cooper Flagg as their figurehead; retailing at $120

Initially, I wanted to write about how such a retail price is contrary to the supposed quote by reigning NBA Rookie of the Year, Cooper Flagg, where he stated that he wanted his first signature shoes to be priced at $35, so that all kids could afford them, but there’s a lot of claim that such quote was bogus, and so I don’t want to risk looking like an incorrect asshole, so I’ll disclaim the ambiguity of the quote.

However, if he did say something along those effects, and New Balance still said naaaahhhh, here’s your shoe, and we’re going to sell it for $120, then egg on Cooper Flagg for allowing it to stand, but let’s be real here, high integrity isn’t necessarily something basketball fans expect from those dudes who went to Duke.

I mean in all fairness, $120 isn’t a horrible price, considering the fact that just about any signature released by Nike or the Jordan sub-brand usually starts at like $200 and goes only up, and often time results in a couple of fatalities throughout the nation as overzealous sneakerheads resort to violence over some fucking sneakers.  But $120 is still a price point where the purported youngsters that Cooper Flagg had in mind probably still can’t afford, which then kind of defeats the purpose for that price point in the first place.

Especially when, when the day is over, the 950s are basically New Balance-branded knockoffs of Nike Air Force Ones, in that they’re all-white sneakers that look like Jerry Seinfeld would wear on the set of Seinfeld.  And then the question becomes, why the fuck would anyone pay $120 for bootleg AF1s when, if you play your cards right, you can get the OG AF1s for less than that.

Either way, I know that they dropped almost a month ago, but I’m just finding out about them now, and just about everything about this whole release seems like kind of a flop.  They’re overpriced clones, look like dorky Forrest Gump shoes, and if Flagg actually had claimed he wanted his shoes to be cheaper, then they failed there too.

But really, what really made this post into reality was the want to photoshop together imagery of Flagg with Jerry Seinfeld, united in their dorky all-whites joints.

Just stfu and play ball, Mookie

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

SI: All-Star Mookie Betts wants MLB to basically implement a mercy rule and avoid position players pitching

One of the tiniest consolations of watching a baseball game where the score gets out of hand, is the off-chance of getting to see a position player come into the game and pitch.  If cheering for the team that’s up by a margin that warrants the entry of a position player, it’s kind of a fun, rubbing-it-in kind of mentality that they’re clobbering the opponent so bad that this is happening.  And if cheering for the team that’s getting clobbered, it’s the moment where the white flag has been raised, and hopefully they can relax a little bit and enjoy the entertainment of seeing a guy more than likely loft some meatballs to the plate, but occasionally make some surprising highlights.

Frankly, some of the more memorable highlights that I can recall easily in spite of being a shitty baseball fan, come from position player pitching:

Every one of these plate appearances I could recall off the top of my head without any thinking necessary.  That’s the beauty of position player pitching, it’s low risk, low stakes, high chance of fun, high chance of making positive memories.

And Mookie Betts wants it all to go away.

A man who has won four World Series, an MVP award, and is making $20 million dollars this year, $170 million in his career, with about $120 million waiting for him in deferred pay, all for playing a children’s game, somehow wants to play less baseball, even if it it’s just removing one of the more rare scenarios, and removing position player pitching and basically having a mercy rule instead.

Yeah, that’s never going to happen because of things called television deals, advertising rights, time to move concessions and merchandise, greedy owners getting their money’s worth out of their indentured servants, but (what should be) most importantly, fans getting the product that they volunteered to get when they decided to invest their time in a baseball game.

But fuck you anyway for even suggesting such a selfish, poor-optics and tone-deaf idea, because it’s not like having the opportunity to hack away at pitches from dudes who haven’t seriously pitched since they were teenagers is truly ruining your life.

Despite the fact that he players for the Dodgers, I generally have no qualm with Mookie Betts.  He seems like a decent guy, likes bowling, always shown to be real chill, one of my favorite authors adores the man.  But this absurd suggestion coming from him creeps him into Anthony Rendon-territory of coming off as selfish and greedy, wanting to even suggest reducing the amount of baseball he has to play despite making multi-generational wealth playing it.  I don’t, really agree with the notion that everyone gets an opinion on the matter, especially when the one trying to make it is a guy who makes absurd amounts of money playing baseball. 

This is where I’d say, how hard is it to take an at-bat against a guy probably throwing no harder than 60 mph, but apparently Mookie has but only one plate appearance against a position player, this season, against the Pirates’ Tyler Callihan; where he flew out to center.  So I guess his salt at not being able to basically get a free home run or base hit, and denting his batting stats by a ten-thousandth of a point entitles him to suggest implementing a mercy rule for everyone, got it.

In this regard, Mookie can go fuck himself.  Position player pitching should remain indefinitely, and it wouldn’t matter if it were Mookie Betts suggesting this, his douchebag teammate Dalton Rushing, or even someone I enjoyed like Freddie Freeman, Martin Prado, Chipper Jones, Jonny Venters, David DeJesus or Cal Ripken, Jr., my reaction would be the same, fuck off and stop acting like an overpaid man-child and take your at-bats against the backup catcher or veteran all-star just wanting to have some fun.  It’s the one of the only consolations of a lopsided game, and often times a reminder that baseball is supposed to be fun.

Watching the WWE has kind of become a job

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I was on vacation, I didn’t really think much of wrestling beyond the show in Korea that I was going to go/had gone to, and thinking of an upcoming local show that I mentally reminded myself to reach out to my boys about when I got back.  But as far as what was going on in the big pro-wrestling industry, I knew that I was missing out on things, but at the same time I didn’t really care.

Through social media, I saw that Sami Zayn had won the WWE championship at Night of Champions, which in one hand made me happy because I’ve grown to really appreciate the man and his career, and it always brings me satisfaction when a hard worker gets rewarded. 

However, in the other hand, was the skepticism that his win came entirely on account of the fact that this was one of the WWE’s gross Saudi shows, and in spite of the fact that the E has gotten a lot of credit in recent years for not treating viewers like complete idiots like they used to, such doesn’t seem to apply to the Saudi shows and the company pretty much does nothing but grasp at low-hanging fruit out in the Middle East.  It’s very easy to assume that Sami won in Saudi Arabia almost entirely to satiate the local audience, getting to see an openly Muslim man win the largest prize in the company.

Such narrative was justified just nine days later, when Sami would immediately drop the WWE championship to a returning CM Punk; contrary to what I was just saying about not treating fans like idiots, such had occurred in Chicago, Punk’s hometown, being seen as yet another low-hanging fruit cash grab, or that Sami was seen as nothing more than a transitional champion and that this was the plan all along, neither of which is particularly good optics among the IWC.

The E has been harder and harder to keep up with, much less actually, like and enjoy, as the sands of time have progressed since the company had been sold, folded into the parent TKO company, and turned into this NASCAR-like ATM of corporate greed.

Months ago, I stated that I’d never felt more alienated from the WWE and my general fandom, and not only has that not changed, but the chasm has widened and continues to do so.

Obviously, companies like the WWE and their parents TKO don’t become the bloated fat cash cows they are because they care about lifer fans with lots of opinions like me, but if it actually mattered, they’re at constant risk of fans like me turning my back on them because of how much they’ve changed things, primarily for the pursuit of moar and moar money.

The point of all this is that I’d actually been debating with myself since coming back from vacation, on if it really wanted to bother getting back into watching big wrestling anymore, because over the last few months, watching wrestling has begun to feel more like a chore and that my time was not being spent well doing such, versus actually enjoying the product. 

For every Iyo Sky vs. Rhea Ripley or El Grande Americano vs. El Grande Americano banger classic, there are hours upon hours of ads to have to sit through, predictable, ChatGPT-generated storylines, moar ads, moar shitty product, and a whole lot more ads.

But for lack of a better alternative, as well as probably false-hope clinging that just one more RAW will get better, I still tuned into RAW the other night, just to see where things were.  And honestly, nothing was really new, and I’m left wondering why I even bother, yet again.  I’d say I’ll just keep up through YouTube, but even those videos are so loaded with ads now as well, that they’re becoming a chore as well.

I was chatting with some of my bros during the broadcast, and it dawned on me that watching the WWE was a lot more like a job, than the last time I opined such, and it was slightly more explainable now, because as someone who has worked for large corporations for the most of their career, watching WWE truly feels like a scenario where I like and appreciate all the workers and talent, but I really dislike and detest all of the higher-ups, shareholders and people who are steering the workers and talent into soul-sucking and inefficient uses of their skillsets.

Frankly I realize that I’ve had this mentality and relationship with other fandoms in my life, like how I’ve felt/currently feel about the Atlanta Braves, as well as how I’ve felt about most of the companies I’ve ever worked for.  I appreciate (most) talent, workers and colleagues, but I don’t particularly care much for those higher up, playing a different game than the rest of the pleebs.

This is probably one of those revelations where I’m amazed to realize at the age of 44, and that there are probably tons of people way more enlightened than me that figured it out way longer ago.  That fandoms all eventually feel like jobs at times, and that it’s worth pondering on if they’re worth continuing to keep once they hit that point, or if we should always just be looking for better things to invest our time into.

As far as professional wrestling goes, I still enjoy going to indy shows with friends, and thankfully Atlanta has no shortage of availability of such shows, and even though I’m jaded and completely skeptical of the E these days, I still have hopes for the few storylines that it’s clear that the company actually gives a shit about, like the masterpiece that is the redemption of Chad Gable. 

Granted, I know that on a long enough timeline, they’ll fuck it up because they always fuck up eventually, be it through he’ll fall short at Summer Slam due to some shenanigans, an injury, or they won’t plan for anything beyond his initial journey and that he peters out after victory, but at least for the time being, he’s probably the best thing going under the E umbrella, and the only thing I’m truly vested in with the company.