2008 Britsh Open

I first went golfing during my father's afternoon off when I was 6 years old at a time when he sometimes went golfing in flip flops, so I make no apologies for my golfing habit. Call me an elitist, but I still play with the clubs I bought for $150 that I purchased with my below-minimum-wage allowance while working on the lumberyard in middle school. Whatever.
When I was young and into the golf scene, I hated Greg Norman. He was the guy with all the skills, all the money, and all the reasons to dominate, yet he still seemed to lack that killer instinct that would allow me to root for him. I remember watching the Masters in '96 when he blew a seemingly insurmountable lead and cheering with my friend Ross as Norman completely collapsed through Amen corner in the final round. Now, over a decade later, I've had the pleasure of following another guy with all the skills, all the money, and an indescribable instinct for "the moment" destroy the golf scene. It only seems fitting that as The Man is noticeably absent from the British Open ("You know you've got problems when you're too injured to golf"- John Ring) that I find myself cheering for Greg Norman as he has turned back the clock and found himself as the unlikely leader at 53 years of age heading into the final round at the 2008 British Open.
From roughly 1998 through 2004, I was too into my own lackluster athletic career to really follow anyone else wholeheartedly. However, now that I'm washed up in Alumni Creek, I think I've discovered how great it is to be an unbiased fan, to witness the seemingly unthinkable and appreciate how great it is. Maybe Norman will revert to his form in '86 when he led every major after 3 rounds (the dubious "Saturday Slam") and only won 1, or maybe he will draw strength from his GILFish wife who was able to perform in the clutch on numerous occasions throughout her career. Whether fair or unfair, I'll compare Norman's performance tomorrow to my own in dire situations that were clearly less pressure filled than his. Jim Rome may call him "Chris" or every sportswriter in the world may call him Jesus. Whatever happens, happens. It's been a fun ride, and I know who I'll be rooting for.

Bob's Bar - RJR

On Sunday afternoon, I drove with my buddy Seth to Martinsburg, Nebraska so we could eat at a place called Bob’s Bar. I had only been there once before, but it’s semi-famous around the area for their enormous burgers, huge portions of appetizers, and cheap prices. A 1-pound cheeseburger is only three dollars, and a large pitcher of beer is four bucks. We split a “full order” of tater tots for $3.50, and couldn’t even come close to finishing them.

Driving to Martinsburg involves about 15 miles on 2-lane highways, then 10 miles on a hilly gravel road. Bob’s is the only restaurant in town, so it’s pretty easy to find. It’s the kind of place where the bartender smokes a cigarette with about a half inch of ash while cooking our burgers. Fortunately, the food is delicious and the atmosphere is great.

There are some more great pictures of the food here.

Colossal Expectations - RJR

I had the unexpected pleasure of watching today's opening day game between the Kansas City Royals and the Detroit Tigers. The only reason this game was on TV is that the Yankees game was in a rain delay, and luckily I have nothing better to do than sit and watch the game. Pitching for the Royals is Gil Meche, who I've always known would be a great addition and be worth every penny the Royals are paying him. Anyway, I have a few comments about the new baseball season:

1) This morning I woke up to about 4 inches of new snow on the ground in South Dakota. That means if I decide to leave the house today, I'll likely have to de-ice my car, and maybe even shovel the driveway if the sun doesn't come out. I wonder how many baseball players shovel their own driveways?

2a) The Royals have a new manager this year in Trey Hillman. Hillman has never managed in the majors, and spent the last 5 years managing in Japan. Rumor has it Hillman's former team auctioned off the right to negotiate a contract with him, and the Royals took the "Price is Right" strategy of bidding one dollar. I'm actually cautiously optimistic about this guy. Of course, I'm extremely concerned that Jose Guillen will end up missing 65 games due to suspension, another 40 due to injury, and will come back from the all-star break to hit .240.

2b) In the top of the first inning, Kansas City reached first base on an error, then immediately stole a base. The announcer said something about the Royals playing "small ball" and "advancing runners" under their new manager. If I read about "clutch hitting" or "manufacturing runs" on kcroyals.com, I'm going to start a letter-writing campaign to have sabermetrics taught in Kansas City high schools.

3) Apparently, Miss America sang the national anthem and threw out the first pitch in this game. I didn’t see how she did, but can you think of anything more terrifying than throwing out the first pitch? You only get one chance! I would practice for weeks if I had this opportunity.

Predictably, the Royals got shut out
Shockingly, the Royals played very well, got some good breaks, and had great relief pitching on their way to a 6-5 11^th inning win.

On a related note, the Royals play the Yankees in New York on Monday, June 9. It's the last season for Yankee Stadium, so I might not have another opportunity to go to a game there. If anyone wants to go, email me. Tickets are pretty reasonable on stubhub.com.

Stuff White People Like 3/5/08 jpw

I am obsessed with this website:

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

Absolutely can’t get enough of it right now. I'm interested in seeing what other people weigh in on this. I'd like to see how many categories you (honestly) fall into. My money is on Cmah to take the crown by alot. (Cmah, come back home. Seriously. I apologize for all the racist Asian jokes. You were white after all.) You can either reply to the post or post your own analysis using welsh@stanford.edu and harwick7.

I’m only counting 9 things that I like on the list. (I would probably also like Wrigley Field except I've never been there. My parents did bring me pictures of Ryne Sandberg and Shawon Dunston from Wrigley when I was a kid which I really liked.)

The list of things I like:

Graduate school: I've been here for 2.5 years and am less than halfway finished.

Juno- Good movie. I like when she plays that Hole song with Jason Bateman.

Dogs- Must be over 20 pounds, though.

Indie music

Arrested Development- Favorite show ever. Probably my #1 on this list.

Microbreweries- They usually have sports on tv, food, and beer. All things that I like. (I guess they always have beer, huh?)

Traveling- There is something I gave up for Lent that I like doing on road trips. Wow, I’m really craving one right now.

Wes Anderson movies- Bottle Rocket is on my Facebook profile!

Assists- I think the blogger meant to say 'hustle' but probably doesn't understand sports enough to get the concept. (He’s from Canada so he only knows hockey and basketball. He would clearly also like Mike Alstott and David Eckstein who have never made any assists. I love hustle. (I read an interview with the guy who made the site. He described himself as a white guy from a neighborhood in Toronto where Indian people tried to be white and white people tried to be Jamaican. Do you think Bart van Veghel made this website?))

Finally, I would like to say that I don’t like marathons. In the marathon I ran 17 days ago, 5 of my toenails fell off and I became an alcoholic for 2 weeks afterwards.

The Hold Steady: Still in the Bars--(Hopefully for the Ausinist.com-Let me know what you think)-bwh

I explained to my buddy, Mark, that he had no choice; we HAVE to see the Hold Steady. NPR, I told him, named the Hold Steady “the best bar band in America.” If you ask me, NPR probably knows bar bands like a nun knows sex positions. But Mark, that goofy bastard, loves NPR.

I divide concerts in Austin into three categories: 1. not worth it, 2. I’d feel bad missing it or, 3. if you’d like to continue being my friend you’d better go. NPR advice notwithstanding, the Hold Steady fall right into that third category.

I’m also forcing Mark to listen to the Hold Steady for at least an hour every day. To his first listen, the Hold Steady sounded like the music his older played driving him to track practice. The Hold Steady songs are about characters as familiar as the riffs: Gideon the lovable fuck-up, Charlemagne the scary but incredibly older guy and Holly the beautiful, contagious party girl. I can’t wait to hear what happens to them in the yet to be released album “Stay Positive.”

For all their gritty stories and critical acclaim, the Hold Steady play with the enthusiasm of kids in a garage. It’s as if they can’t quite believe they’re rock stars. Granted, the lead singer looks like a level 8 Dungeonmaster, and the keyboardist is a pair of overalls away from stomping Koopa Troopas—but the Hold Steady seem to really appreciate being rock stars.

The Hold Steady are playing at Emos on March 27^th. Gideon, Charlemagne and Holly will be there, so will Mark.

Bullpen jpw 2/19/08

A couple things have gotten me thinking about theme songs recently. The first was Drew from deadspin talking about how he would play A Song for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age for his team to run out onto the field to if he's ever a big time football coach. He would also request red lights for night games to "set the tone for an absolute bloodbath." Pretty cool. The other incident occurred at the Nuthouse when Thunderstruck by AC/DC was playing on the jukebox, and my friend Tom suddenly said, "If I'm ever a major league closer, this is the song I'm gonna run out of the bullpen to." One of the more random but completely satisfying conversation starters I've heard in quite some time. Not that I've ever forgotten anything that's ever happened at the Nuthouse, but I forgot which song he had said that night, so I emailed him later, and here was his reply:

Hey John,
I would run out to the mound to "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC.
Also, when I strike someone out, over the stadium PA would play the part in the song that
goes "you've been (drums drums drums) THUNDERSTRUCK" and "THUNDERSTRUCK" would flash on
the jumbotron and all the fans would yell "THUNDERSTRUCK". It would be awesome.
Tom

I don't think I can beat either of those, but the song I would want to run out of the bullpen to would be On Call by Kings of Leon. It would start at the beginning with that weird synthesizer sound. The crowd and opposing team would instantly recognize the song and be like, "Oh shit, Welsh is coming in. This game is over." Then it would skip to 2:45 into the song (I'm pretty sure they could digitally remaster that for a big time closer like myself) when only the bass is playing and everything is quiet, and then when the rest of the band kicks in, the bullpen gate would burst open and I'd appear looking really pissed off. When the songs starts saying, "I'd come running," I wouldn't even think about running. I'd walk as slow as possible so that the batter would be so nervous about striking out and embarassing himself, it would be a relief when it actually happened.

Pedro Martinez y Juan Marichel 2/10/08 jpw

Was anyone else surprised at the lack of violence in the
Pedro Martinez cockfighting video? I know it's cruel,
inhumane, and the birds die, but if that's what cockfighting
is like, is it really that enjoyable to watch? I sometimes
take morning dumps that are more violent than that. It kind
of reminds me of the time when I was a kid that Matt Sweeton
and I biked to Wal-Mart to buy a female Chinese fighting
fish and two males, because he wanted to make them fight.
The lady at Wal-Mart would only sell us one male because she
said they would fight (Would anyone buy these fish for
another purpose?), so we had to bike to K-Mart to get the
other male. When we got back to Matt's house and dropped
them all in a bowl together, do you know what happened?
Nothing! I mean, maybe one of them changed colors a tiny
bit, but there was no biting or pecking or thrashing or whatever it is
fish do when they fight. Matt had made a horrible
investment of approximately $6. I suppose Pedro lost more
than that with his bird, but it still wasn't very exciting.
They just kept flapping their feathers everywhere with no
blood or anything. After about five seconds you couldn't tell
which bird was which, and all of the sudden one of them was
lying lifeless on the ground and the camera switched over to
Pedro who was sitting with a little grin on his face like
Johan Santana had just given up a home run to Chipper Jones
or something (hi Nark). Now I can kind of see why Michael Vick was
into dogfighting. If you are going to do something hideous
and inhumane on the black market, there might as well be
tons of violence and growling and blood and that sort of
thing. Of course, my dogfighting knowledge is based solely on
two movies: Amores Perros (a Cmah recommendation) and Fresh
(a Big Daddy Drew recommendation), so I may be completely off
base when I say that dogfighting is a much more entertaining way to get
arrested than cockfighting or fishfighting.