Quick thoughts on...

The home run derby:

If you've ever seen the movie Clerks (and if you haven't, you should), you'll fondly remember the line from Randal that struck close to home for anyone who's ever worked a customer service gig.  

"This would be a great place to work if it wasn't for the fucking customers."

I was reminded of that quote while watching pulling my hair out during last night's home run derby. I couldn't help but say...

"This would be a fun event to watch if it wasn't for ESPN's fucking announcers."

Is there a more useless, annoying, moronic, cliche spewing pairing than Chris Berman and Joe Morgan? They make my ears bleed, which turned out to be a blessing. Having blood filled ears means you can't hear the braying Berman and the clueless Morgan.

If I hear "Back, back, back..." one more God damn time I'm...I'm...I'm going...Well, at the very least I'll write a snarky blog post.

Billy Packer getting the ziggy:

Billy Packer is no longer employed as a college basketball analyst. It should have happened 15 years ago, as Packer was long past his experation date, but beter late than never. To be honest, I thought CBS would keep his intolerable ass on the air till indefinitely. But why CBS decided upon the bland Clark Kellogg than the awesome Bill Raftery as Packer's replacement is beyond me. Considering CBS kept Packer gainfully enmployed for decades, I shouldn't be surprised they screwed up in replacing him as well.

There was once a time when Packer was tolerable. It was back in the days before cable TV was everywhere, when you were lucky to see 1 or 2 college hoop games a week. From the mid 70'd thru the early 80's, there was NBC's 3 headed monster of a hoops broadcast team, Dick Enberg, Al McGuire, and Packer. McGuire took the sharp edges off of Packer's normally bitter sounding self, and it made for a highly entertaining call. (McGuire may have been the best color guy ever, a cross between clownish Dick Vitale and and the knowledgeable yet dour Packer, getting the best of both without the schtick of neither)

Once Packer went off on his own, with no one to counter his extremely narrow view of college hoop (ACC rules, everyone else drools...especially mid-majors), he beacme the cranky, bitter, sour curmeugeon we all came to know and loathe.

Goodbye and good riddance to Billy Packer, and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. You will not be missed.

Why Joe Dumars hasn't made any big changes on the Pistons:

Joe D is truly stuck between a rock and a rock. He wants to make a rock the foundation style move, obtaining another team's numero uno player, preferrably via trading part of the Pistons' core. But the players he is willing to deal  (Seemingly any and everyone but Rodney Stuckey) have more value to the Pistons themselves than they do to other teams. Take them out of the Detroit system, and I'm not sure how good Billups, Rip, Prince, et all would be.

The rest of the NBA seems to believe the sum of the Pistons is greater than the actual parts. And those parts aren't worth trading a superstar for, even in a 2 for 1 blockbuster. It's sort of a Catch 22. Thanks to the philosophy of building a contending team without a true superstar, the Pistons now find themselves unable to trade for said superstar when one is now needed to win big in today's NBA.


It apears the only BIG change we'll see is the one that already happened, Michael Curry being named head coach.  It might give the Pistons a must needed jolt of attitude, but is it enough to get them over the conference finals hump? I doubt it.