2 Items For Your Viewing Pleasure

• First of all, check these bitchin kids:




• Second of all, Yahoo Profile Pic of the Week returns:

Kyle Blanks, 1B SD:



nuff said.

Holy Fucking Awesome

I am not a crook.

Wow. That's really all I got. Just wow.

Probably my favorite AB last night was when Chase Headley swung and missed at a slider for strike 3 that ended up plunking his shin. Nice hack, you loser.

*I don't want to take anything away from Sanchez, which is why I'm writing this in super-tiny font, but I think I could probably no-hit the Padres. That team is fucking pathetic. Minus Adrian Gonzalez, who's AVE. has dropped 20 points since the beginning of July, they don't have a single eligible batter hitting above .250. What a joke.

Just Sayin

So Pablo gets the short-end of the All-Star Game shaft. Victorino ended up outvoting Sandoval by something like 300,000 votes, despite the fact that Sandoval has clearly been the better player so far this year. Not that this is a huge travesty. Victorino is a solid player who's having a good, if not great year (.308/.372/.464 with 15 steals and a half-dozen jacks). Victorino also played a key role for a World Series winner in '08, and who furthermore is a pretty damn likable guy. All this makes for a good case that Victorino is a worthy All-Star.

That said, Pablo has been a grade-A beast, especially over the last few months, sporting an overall slashline of .326/.379/.560, and a June line of .394/.459/.745, including 8 bombs. Those are All-Star numbers. Period.

I write this post NOT to point out that Sandoval has suffered some kind of injustice for which Giants fans should be rightfully pissed-off. Frankly I don't give a shit about the All-Star game one way or another and would rather Sandoval – as well as Lincecum and Cain – not play at all, so as to avoid even the possibility of injury and because these guys could use a week to just kick it and get their rest on.

Instead I write this post to point out the simple fact that Giants fans, though good fans, are not as diehard as Phillies fans. Plain and simple. This is why Shane Victorino scored more votes than Pablo Sandoval – again, despite better numbers, and despite a pretty aggressive marketing campaign by the Giants that included paying for full-page ads in at least a few major Venezuelan newspapers. People in the Bay Area, partly because there are two teams vying for the interest of a not-gargantuan sized metropolis, simply do not support their pro sports franchises with the same fervor as folks in places like Philadelphia. Shane Victorino is an All-Star instead of Pablo Sandoval because he plays in a city that cares more about its pro sports teams than the Bay Area does.

This is relevant because I often hear West Coasters in general, and Californians in particular, point out the "East Coast Bias" of the major sports media outlets, along with governing bodies like the NCAA Tourney Selection Committee and the BCS pollsters. The popular lament is that West Coast teams are not given enough attention, and/or aren't taken seriously, and/or aren't given the same opportunities as teams from the East Coast – less you think I'm constructing a strawman here, just read this. But that complaint is stupid, because West Coasters DON'T care about sports as much as people in other parts of the country. We just don't.

By the way, this is probably a good thing. Californians can go to the beach, ski, go to a gazillion awesome concerts, go mountain biking, smoke legal bud, or whatever, all at the expense of NOT watching pro sports. In Philly, you watch football in the impossibly cold winters, and watch baseball in the impossibly hot summers – that is, when you're not kicking black kids out of your local pool.

Warriors For Sale, BASM Willing To Put Up 2 G's, Offer Rescinded

Lots of chatter over the past few days about Chris Cohan actively seeking a buyer for his 80% majority share of the Golden State Warriors. About damn time, I'd say. Here are some tasty nuggets from Cohan's Wiki entry that effectively sum up his tenure:

"Cohan's tenure as owner of the Warriors has been highlighted with the longest playoff drought of any team in NBA history. From 1994 to 2007, the Warriors did not make the playoffs under Cohan. Under Cohan, the team has had nine head coaches and did not have a winning season until the 2006-2007 season."

Not only has Cohan been abjectly unavailing in his duties to oversee the franchise, he also, evidently, has a reputation for being a tremendously unlikable, cantankerous, and borderline sociopathic asshole. The Wiki entry continues:

"Chris Cohan sued his business partners to gain sole ownership of the Golden State Warriors in 1994. The Warriors were a popular, 50-win team at the time, and soon turned into a nationally ridiculed loser. Not only that, there was a long list of parties dragged into civil courtrooms by "Cohan the Contrarian" which included his stockbroker, life insurance agent, and primary attorney. Hard to believe, but all were longtime friends. One was the best man at Cohan's wedding and another a groomsman."

Safe to say that few tears have been shed over Cohan's continued legal troubles, including an ongoing tax-evasion investigation by the IRS, which likely is the catalyst behind Cohan's sudden urgency to sell the team. One must, at least, wonder. Cohan's timing is certainly peculiar, in that the NBA's morbid financial outlook is public knowledge at this point – bad, to say the least, and perhaps getting desperate if one is to believe what one reads – and thus the value of its teams are likewise depressed. That said, given Cohan's history of business decisions, selling the franchise low would be precisely the kind of thing we should expect.

But how low, as they say, can you go? BASM gets about 30 regular readers a day. Let's say we all throw in 2 G's – that's 60 large right there. I know a pharmacist in Pacheco who can get a bunch of Vic's and some Xanax at wholesale, and who also happens to owe me a pretty big favor. If I play my cards right I can probably get another 10 G out of the pills. I figure, among BASM's readers and our various revenue sources, we should be able to come up with like, maybe $100,000 all told. That should be enough for a fairly sizable minority share. Then we use that leverage to encourage Cohan to sell the remaining sum to someone we can control from behind the scenes, a sort of J. Howard Marshall like figure who can be manipulated through the ruse of a willing, preferably buxom, ingenue. This plan is not so far fetched.

A better option, anyway, than Larry Ellison, who, by all accounts, is a megalomaniac hellbent on controlling the entire universe. That, I do not want.

Kid's Got Heart

Jeezus. Watch this video of some fucker named Anthony Van Loo, a defender for SV Roeselare of Belgium's Jupiler League, suffer some mid-match cardiac-arrest, literally die for a few seconds, then be brought back to life by a defibrillator implanted in his heart. At about the 0:15 mark you can see his whole body jump off the ground as the Lown waves pulse through his sinoatrial node. That is some wild shit.

Not to self: if you ever have a heart-condition severe enough that doctors determine it necessary to have a defibrillator implanted into your heart, cease and desist the playing of professional sports.

For an enhanced video watching experience, get this song playing in another window.



And you thought soccer players were pussies.

Franchise Rankings: Warriors Bottom Gay, Giants Mostly Top Gay, Niners Utility Gay - So Says the Four Letter

I'm a little late to the party on this, but ESPN the Mag. ran a feature earlier in the month ranking all 122 major pro sports franchises based on 15 or so different factors, from "Title Tracking" to "Fan Experience" and everything in between. The Angels somehow got the number 1 spot, while the Clippers occupy the bottom-most position at 122.

Where do our beloved Bay Area teams fall?

We'll start with the Dubs, who scored an overall ranking of 109, just out of reach of the Atlanta Thrashers – a franchise I can honestly tell you I've never heard of – but still 10 spots better than the likes of the Detroit Lions. While their Overall Ranking is abysmal, the Warriors managed to take home the title of Professional Sports Franchise Least Likely to Win A Championship In the Lifetime of Its Current Fanbase! Fucking fantastic. As John Ryan of the San Jose Merc. points out, "The Warriors have now succeeded in eliminating all expectations." Good for them.

The Niners score an overall ranking of 87, which is still plenty shitty, if not abysmal. In terms of affordability, player personnel, and "Title Tracking" the Niners score mostly in the 25th percentile range, which all sounds about right given their current lack of direction. Also not surprisingly, the Niners score a ranking of 114th for Stadium Experience. Candlestick is no treat, but why for instance would Dodger Stadium be ranked 22nd? I can at least go to a Niner game and not worry about dying, which I think should probably be taken into consideration for future rankings.

The Giants score just 3 spots higher than the Niners at 84th overall. Again, in terms of personnel, title tracking, ownership, winning, etc. the Giants, like the Niners, are firmly in the lower quadrant. However, unlike the Niners, the Giants score a whopping 7th overall for Stadium Experience, including the #2 spot for Stadium Quality, behind only the Minnesota Wild.*

*This is really fucking confusing to me because the Wild, unless I'm mistaken, play their games indoors. Just in general, how could the quality of an indoor stadium ever compare to that of an outdoor stadium? Are the seats at the Xcel Energy Center made of chocolate or something? Do naked chicks walk around letting you touch their boobs? Do Wild fans get to actually participate in the games? How could looking across the ice at a group of ugly Minnesotans be better than looking out across AT&T at the Bay?

• Some weird inconsistencies from these rankings that raise questions about the validity of the entire project:

- The Red Wings are ranked 1st overall in Ownership. The Tigers are ranked 20th. Mike Illitch owns both teams.

- The Jets are ranked 109th in Stadium Quality. The New York Football Giants are ranked 97th. The A's are ranked 121st in Stadium Quality. The Raiders are ranked 115th.

Your thoughts...

Sabbatical Over, Mother Fucker

This is where I've been for the last week. Way better than writing gay shit about Bay Area sports. For real.



Now that I'm back, for all three of you who care, BASM will return to its semi-regular scheduling.

By the way, Burn After Reading sucks balls.