It was announced today that rookie phenom Stephen Strasburg of the Washington Nationals will need Tommy John surgery and will be out of baseball until 2012. This isn’t funny. It’s actually pretty unfortunate for any fan of major league baseball.

What is funny are the number of brilliant tweets, making fun of Rob Dibble for criticizing Stephen Strasburg’s toughness.

For those of you who don’t know, Rob Dibble—a former pitcher for the Reds in the 90’s—recently criticized Strasburg after he exited his last start with pain in his forearm. Here’s what he said:

“Okay, you throw a pitch, it bothers your arm, and you immediately call out the manager and the trainer? Suck it up, kid. This is your profession. You chose to be a baseball player. You can’t have the cavalry come in and save your butt every time you feel a little stiff shoulder, sore elbow…. Stop crying, go out there and pitch. Period. You need to know the difference between pain and injury. When I was 12, my arm hurt. When I was in my teens and I would throw and walk off the mound when I was a starter, my arm would throb. I couldn’t even hold a glass of water. And you know what? I loved it. I was so sick, I loved it, ’cause I felt okay, I’m throwing hard enough to make my arm shake when I’m just standing there.’ So I was a totally different animal than I think has been created here with Strasburg, where now you’re telling this kid as soon as you feel any arm pain, call us and we’ll come help you. Please.”

Now Dibble is forced to take his foot and plant it firmly in his mouth.  It’s times like this that I truly love Twitter.  So many great tweets have come out this morning.  Here are some of the best I’ve found. (more…)

June 8^th, 2010, 9:00 pm—Joey’s Apartment: Bellerose, New York

(phone rings)

Joey: (watching Mets Game) C’mon Francouer! Ya piece-a-shit!

(phone rings)

Joey: Hello?

Owen: Joey! What’s up ya guinea bastard!?

Joey: Just watchin’ deez fuckin’ shitty Mets, ya dumb Irish prick.

Owen: Shitty? Things are looking good! We are just 2.5 games out of first. We look unstoppable at Citi Field right now!

Joey: yeah yeah, They can’t fuckin win on da road though!  They’ll never go anywhere if they don’t’ win on da road!…And dis piece-a-shit Reyes! When is dis bum gonna start fuckin’ hitting? He’s battin’ Two-Fowty!

Owen: yeaaaah, he’ll get it together though.  Give him some time.

Joey: Nah, he’s a fuckin canca in the clubhouse! That’s the problem with dis’ fuckin’ team.  We need some team chemistry! We got all these fuckin’ Mexicans on the team, doing dances every time they hit the ball or pointin’ to da sky every time they strike someone out! Dees bastahds should be cuttin’ my fuckin’ lahwn!

Owen: Jose Reyes is from the Dominican Republic

Joey: Same fuckin’ shit! Omah Minaya is fuckin’ racist! We need more white guys on da team!

(David Wright strikes out) (more…)

In the world of sports, commentators, writers and other members of the media like to throw around all sorts of overused sports terms. Since many members of the media often have a close relationship with the players, they have to choose their words carefully when they criticize them in the newspaper or on a broadcast.

Over the years, several critical sports terms have become mainstream. These politically-correct terms usually hide some type of flaw in the player’s game. Here are a few examples.

Game Manager

A term given often given to a mediocre quarterback who happens to play on a team with good defense and a strong running game. Typically it’s someone who throws like a girl, can’t hit receivers downfield, but rarely gets picked off. It usually takes him 20 plays to execute a scoring drive because he can’t throw the ball effectively on passes more than five yards.

The media may say something like: “The Miami Dolphins have a great running game and a solid defense. If Chad Pennington can just manage the game, I like their chances of coming out with the victory this Sunday.”

Translation: “The Dolphins have a great rushing attack and their defense may even score some points for them. If Pennington can just hand the ball off to Ronnie Brown and not throw the ball to the other team four times, then they should probably win this game 9-7. (more…)

Today, we have our first solo post from Don Valdez, AKA DV from the 24 Mockery feature…

Why am I a Mets fan?  When I was about four years old my father threw me a bag and said if you catch this you get to keep what’s inside.  I dropped the bag twice.  On the third time I did catch the bag and inside was a Mets hat.

162 days out of the year I ask myself… Why I did I accept this gift when I clearly dropped the bag twice?   The baseball gods were clearly trying to help me out.  Alas, I ignored their signs.  And here I am.

Were there good times?  Of course there were good times.   Were there bad times?  No.  Simply saying there were bad times would be a horrific understatement.

This will likely turn into a recurring article—as every few days I plan on confessing I am a Mets fan and how much it blows.

April 29^th 2010 – Today’s Confession… I Hate the Mets… (more…)

When it comes to the New York Yankees, baseball fans either love ‘em or hate ‘em.  There is no in-between.  Today I have a post on The Casual Observer titled “Why I Love the Yankees”, while Kosmo—the founder of The Casual Observer—will discuss why he hates the Yankees on this site.   While it pains me to posts this blasphemy written below, I will post it because it should strike up some good conversation.

Why Kosmo Hates the Yankees

Derek Jeter is overrated

OK, people, please put down the pitchforks.  I’m not suggesting that Jeter isn’t a fine player.  I’m not even suggesting that he’s not Hall of Fame caliber.  I’m just suggesting that he’s placed on a pedestal a bit higher than what might be appropriate. (more…)

Spring is in the air! If there’s one thing Spring is synonymous with, it’s baseball.  However, most men my age have long since given up on their boyhood dreams of playing professional baseball.  Lack of athletic ability, combined with unwillingness to work hard has put an end to that dream.  Instead, men (me included) have decided to live out their dying boyhood fantasies by playing slow-pitch softball.

As someone who has been playing for about seven years now, I have learned a lot and I am ready to pass on my knowledge to you.  With leagues beginning to start up, it’s important that all men follow these important rules.  These are 10 commandments that all men who play softball must abide by.  (more…)

There is a close friend of mine, whose brother is an alumnus of the University of Maryland. After Maryland lost on a buzzer-beater to Michigan State in the Second Round of the 2010 NCAA tournament, he posted on Facebook that it was the worst sports loss of his life.

That got me thinking. What is the worst sports loss of my life? As a HUGE Yankees fan, I haven’t had too much to complain about over the years. However, there have still been a few heartbreaking losses mixed in with all those titles.

The 2004 loss to the Boston Red Sox in the ALCS is certainly an easy choice for most Yankees fans. Blowing a 3-0 deficit to the hated Red Sox was certainly difficult to swallow.

Yet after thinking about it, there were two other games in my lifetime that hurt just a little bit more… (more…)

The Baseball Hall of Fame announced Wednesday that Andre Dawson will be the newest member of the Hall of Fame. Bert Blyleven and Robert Alomar narrowly missed being elected as well. The fact that Alomar did not make the HOF was surprising but that did not stand out the most when looking at the voting results.

I noticed that David Segui, the known steroid user, who bounced around his entire career and was nothing more than a slightly above-average first baseman, received one vote. Who in their right mind would have voted for this guy? So then I got to thinking: What other marginal players have received votes over the years? Thanks to baseball-reference.com (one of my favorite sites) I looked through the final hall of fame ballot over the past ten years and found quite a few of these people. (more…)

Here is the latest edition of the LwB’s Links of the Week. In this edition, we have hot chicks in booty shorts, a man marrying a video game character, a Serena Williams wardrobe malfunction and MUCH MORE.

If I ever have a daughter, this is why she will NOT be going away to school

Looking for some good ornaments for the tree? These adult Christmas ornaments could do the trick. (more…)

As you all know by now, the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies will battle it out for the 2009 World Series title this week. If you are a reader of this site, you probably know that I am a HUGE Yankees fan. What you may not know, is that my fiancé, a native of a southeastern Pennsylvania suburb is a Phillies fan. We should be in for quite the interesting week.

I worry how this series will affect our relationship. Up until this point, we always rooted for each other’s teams. We shared a love for baseball and a hatred for the Mets. I’d take her to Yankee Stadium and she would buy a shirt of whichever Yankee she thought was the hottest at the time. She’d take me to Citizens Bank Park and I’d purchase a Phillies cap and cheer on Chase Utley.

But that all changes from here on out. My Phillies hat will be burned in effigy. I hope Citizens Bank goes bankrupt and Chase Utley breaks an ankle. (more…)