Never Leave Early

Most people, when attending a horrible movie, will stay through the end of the movie. Even if it's 150 minutes! You paid $10 and you're going to sit through the whole thing. The same rules apply for a bad comedy show ($10-$20). And you'd almost definitely look at every painting in a bad art exhibit if you dropped $10 to get in the door.

But if people pay $25 dollars (and that's on the low end) for a baseball game, they're happy to leave early. To beat traffic, or go to a bar, or because the people they're with who don't care about baseball are bored. Never leave early. Never. Ever. No matter how bad the game seems. Even if you don't care about baseball. The neat thing about baseball: every game you go to, you might see something you haven't seeen before.

Last night at the Orioles-Red Sox game, we sat through a rain delay of more than an hour, when the Red Sox were already up 9-1 through four and a half innings. They restarted the game at 9:50, and the Sox tacked on an extra run to make it 10-1.

In the bottom of the 6th, I thought we had our special moment. After the second out, the entire Red Sox infield ran to the dugout, apparently thinking there were three outs. They had to come back out to finish the inning. It happens, but I've never been at a game where it happened. Everyone got a laugh.

And then the Orioles scored 10 unanswered runs in the 7th and 8th to complete the greatest comeback in Orioles history.

NEVER LEAVE EARLY. About half the crowd had already split when the magic happened. What's the worst case scenario? You'll be tired at work? Your kids will be tired at school? Is that worse than being the guy who had tickets to one of the best games you'll ever see live and then LEFT BEFORE THE BEST PART? No one will ever think back on that time their dad took them to a baseball game and they had a really easy ride home.

Never leave early. Unless you have to check in with a parole officer.

Tags: baseball

Trivia Recap: July 16

We had a short turnaround from the last trivia night, but another packed house! In honor of Bastille Day, we had a bunch of questions about prisons and prisoners; we also apologized for the nasty June games with "Easy Does It," a round of lightweight questions. On the video side, "On the Road Again" featured questions filmed in Charolottesville, Hyde Park, Detroit and more. And we closed things out with music: naming the singers of 12 different "summer" songs (Mungo Jerry, anyone?).

After a rough start, the Wise Ass Latinas got a perfect score on the music round to earn a come-from-behind victory (31 out of 42). The Golden Triangle Gun Club and Sqizzle tied at 28, with the Gun Club taking second in maybe the most inspired dance-off yet (both teams were awesome). In order of finish:

Hi there

I'm back! Sorry to disappear for a few weeks, but I was on vacation. Then I spent a week getting things back in order after my vacation. Lots of reports to come, including: the Bronx Zoo, Tedddy Roosevelt's House, the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest, Seaside Heights and some updates on my summer tour. Fun!

Tags: trivia

Bronx Zoo

New York has at least five zoos, which could explain the smell. It seems like a great thing to have so many options, but when it's go time -- when you actually have to pick a zoo to visit with your girlfriend and her parents -- you have to make some serious decisions. What am I looking for?

Personally, I am looking for a gorilla in a wifebeater and a Yankees cap drinking light beer. And so we traveled to the Bronx Zoo!

It's a pretty charming place. There's a nice central pavilion with the "old zoo" -- all the structures from the early 20th century, which are now rent-controlled, and so none of the animals ever leave. There's a small monkey house for small monkeys and a small reptile house for some gigantic pythons. And then there's a very nice woodsy portion, where you stroll past about five gift shops to see bears, then five more gift shops, then tigers, then five more gift shops, and you wrap up with a camel ride. It's like Washington's National Zoo, only not as hilly, and so the many fat people you find at any zoo are not as sweaty and panting when you're at the Bronx. It really adds to the whole experience, believe me.

I was definitely a fan of the monorail ride at the end of the day: it takes you over a small river and around a more spacious holding area where all sorts of Asian herd animals are being kept. It serves as a reminder that, give open space, majestic wild animals will mostly just look for some mud to sit in and not do all that much. Nature is very lazy, and as part of nature, I feel we must respect its wishes by sitting still upwards of 20 hours a day. Sadly, there were no animals doing "it," or even having a sloppy makeout sessions, but we did get to spot a baby rhino.

And speaking of babies, how many people take their kids to the zoo? I truly appreciate all the fine events that my parents took me to as a kid, and I feel that even if the memories aren't vivid, the impressions and inspiration to learn have stayed with me throughout my life. That said, when I have kids, they aren't going ANYWHERE. $20, plus snacks and facepainting and camel rides, for a few hours of entertainment? Cable is only $50 for a whole MONTH. And if my kid can't get the same amount of inspiration from watching "Bridezillas" on We, then that's not a kid I'm interested in parenting.

Tags: travel

Hot Diggety!

Life is mostly drudgery, with the occasional oasis created by special occasions spent with special people. Those moments are few and must be carefully chosen, and forever cherished. And so to celebrate my girlfriend's recent birthday, we watched a man eat 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes.

There is but one place to see such a thing: Coney Island, at the world famous Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest. Each July 4, the luminaries of the professional eating circuit gather by the boardwalk for their Super Bowl (and Christmas, and Apocalypse). And I'm happy to say that I was there to see these amazing athletes in action.

We got there at about 10:30, and the crowd was already pretty big -- we had a view of the stage, but there wasn't even a remote chance of remaindered hot dog landing on us, and as there were no Gallagher fans in our group, this was OK. So then, the waiting. Which involved:

-- One contestant, a 400-pound subway operator from New York, rapping several songs about how much he enjoys food. There were also several references to arterial clogging. This sounds sad at first blush, but consider that he was joined by two people in hot dog costumes, a midget in an Uncle Sam costume, and a team of cheerleaders which, if memory serves, are called the "Bunettes." The second dancing hot dog pushed it over the edge and made it a happy thing.

-- This year, members of Ringling Brothers jumping on trampolines while wearing skis, a hula hoop and a snowboard. Not all at the same time, but it was still impressive. It speaks well of Olympic trampolining that, once you have achieved gold-metal status, you can look forward to a steady career of exhibition performances at competitive eating events, wherein upwards of 30 percent of the crowd might actually pay attention. Keep reaching for that dream, young trampoliners.

-- Everyone in the crowd whooping whenever ESPN's boom camera swung by. I'm going to put this on my TV credits.

-- The Coney Island strongman lying on a bed of spikes and then getting hit with a sledge hammer by his sons. His sons then bend rebar around his neck. I cannot figure out the career trajectory whereby someone eventually says: "I would like to lie on a bed of spikes while someone hits me with a sledge hammer." It has to be a gradual thing, whereby someone accidentally hits them in the stomach with a balpeen hammer as they relax on the beach, and they think: "That wasn't so bad." Or maybe it's just a man saying "This can't be any worse than data entry. Let's find out."

-- George Shea. I cannot emphasize how good the emcee is for this event. He regularly refers to competitive eating in Biblical overtones, as in, "They say that that competitive eating is the battleground on which God and Lucifer wage their warfor control of men's souls." I'm paraphrasing there, but I'm not off by much. He called one of the contestants the leader of the "Four Horsemen of the Esophagus." He wears a Warren Harding getup (white pants, dark coat, straw hat) and started off the contest from one of those telescoping platforms that raised him about 25 feet in the air. It was awesome. I am not being ironic.

After all that, the eating itself is a little bit anticlimactic. The introductions take about as long as the 10-minute contest, and once the guys start cramming it in, there's not too much to do but stare in horror / admiration. American Joey Chestnut pulled ahead early and maintained his lead through the end, setting the record with 68 hot dogs in 10 minutes. This even broke the record from when the contest was 12 minutes. Second place went to six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi, who you have to admire for showing up. Competitive eating is reportedly taking its toll on his body, and there could have been a "Natural" moment somewhere in there. He also takes a fair amount of abuse from the crowd. I did not know that we had an issue with the Japanese, but apparently hot dog eating is a very patriotic event, and we can't have foreigners taking the Mustard Belt overseas to their backwards homelands. USA!

Once it's over, it's VERY over. They announce the winner, present the belt and get those guys out of there, probably because the site of the champion barfing all over the stage would put a dent in future publicity efforts.

So from there we were free to roam Coney Island! I rode the Cyclone, which is a very old wooden rollercoaster. Despite its age still can inflict whiplash at $8 a pop. We need to protect this valuable part of our heritage, so that future generations can hive mild headaches for a week after riding, and so share in our common culture. Then we all took a tour of public housing projects and got some pizza.

It's hard to process the whole day without breaking out into "America the Beautiful."

Champion

Every eater introduced had their "world titles" rattled off. Hot dog eating may seem disgusting to you, but how about beef brisket? Sushi? Key lime pie? Ramen noodles? All those world champs were on stage at the same time. It got us thinking about what we might want to eat competitively, and I'm going with iceberg lettuce. No nutritional value, but low in calories. In fact, I am declaring myself the de facto iceberg lettuce champion of the world. I have made a leafy green belt, and anyone who wants to take this title can challenge me in person at any time. BYOL.

Tags: travel

Sagamore Hill

Mount Vernon has been called the autobiography that Washington never wrote. Sagamore Hill, then, would be the comic book that Theodore Roosevelt never drew.

The most interesting man in America had his passions, and judging from the house in Oyster Bay, they exploded all over the walls. You can't swing a big stick without hitting a dead animal, a bookshelf or something that might have killed a dead animal. It really is the house that TR built -- he bought the property in his early 20s, had the house constructed from scratch and clearly had a pretty heavy hand in the decorating. It was a warm-weather residence at first (the family also had digs in New York city, or Washington, or wherever they happened to to be living that year), but it became a year-round home, the "summer White House" and a Theodore Roosevelt museum. It's clunky, kind of tacky, and oh yeah: FUNDAMENTALLY AWESOME.

I got to visit on July 5 with a group of intrepid friends, who put up with a lack of coffee and me being a b****, to the point where we were there for the first tour of the day. As in, they hadn't opened up yet. We had to have a park ranger unlock the carraige house, where Roosevelt kept his vending machines, just to keep blood sugar levels high enough to keep my friends from mutiny. But what a tour it was!

The guide was awful. I've seen 23 presidential homes and this was the worst tour I've had. He was an older guy -- a volunteer for the National Park Service, from New York. We had about an hour to check out the home of one of America's most influential, dynamic and charismatic leaders, and about 15 minutes were used up by the guide talking about:

His loathing of hunting and killing animals, and how seeing the animals in the house was upsetting.

His hatred of war, and how seeing the trophies from Roosevelt's military career was upsetting.

How he found Sarah Palin to be a lunatic and how Barack Obama was "mesmerizing."

His nephew who was serving in Iraq, which segued again into how he hated war.

This time his wife gave a bunch of his stuff to the Salvation Army without him knowing.

His many failures as a tour guide, like the time he lost track of a bus driver who tried to open up a gun cabinet in Roosevelt's hideaway.

He didn't wait for the group to arrive in any room before he started speaking, he couldn't answer a few basic questions about items in the house and he complained a few times how there were 15 people in the tour group, when there were 12 of us. The highlight was a delightful yarn (while showing us the kitchen) about how he had to watch a chicken get clubbed to death when visiting rural acquaintances. I don't remember the details, as they were clouded out by my urge to club our guide to death with a chicken. Let's just say that, even as a volunteer, he was clearly getting paid too much.

Fortunately, the house tells you what your horrible, horrible guide probably missed:

Naturalist. From his earliest days, Teddy Roosevelt was a great naturalist, and he expressed his profound love of nature by killing and stuffing large portions of it. Every room had some kind of animal-skin rug, complete with the heads, to the point where it's hard to imagine how visiting dignitaries didn't trip on gaping animal maws. In fact, I'd rather imagine that they did, because it makes history that much funnier. We counted a polar bear, a grizzly bear, a tiger, a zebra and one Spanish soldier. Every non-bedroom had mounted animal heads: moose, deer, African herd animals, a warthog, William Jennings Bryan. There were about five elephant-foot wastebaskets, a few pairs of mounted tusks, and a bannister made from a giraffe's spine. (Spot the lies!) Beyond the animals, the estate itself is a nice spread -- hills and woods, rolling right down to Oyster Bay, where Roosevelt would ditch Secret Service and take his wife out rowing. He was our first president to live in a beach house, and for this we must adore him.

Family guy. Peeking in the kids' rooms, it's like a sitcom: the teenage daughter's room is all prissy, one of the son's room's (Quentin, I think) was packed with skis and snow shoes and college pennants ... If he was alive today, TR would almost definitely have his own VH1 show, and in one episode Alice would make out with a Japanese diplomat. It would be awesome.

Showman. As if the animal heads weren't enough, there's one phenomenal room in the mansion: a two-story addition to the house that's part museum, part rec room. Some of the coolest swag from his career was on display, including, placed across the antlers of one animal head, his sword and hat from his Rough Rider days. In case you misssed that, there's a near life-size portrait of TR in his Rough Rider uniform hanging by the door. Your guests should always know that you killed people and looked dashing doing it. It's an alpha male kind of room, where you would hang your 72-inch flat screen TV, keep your vintage pinball machine and maybe a kegerator. You can't NOT be impressed, and Teddy Roosevelt absolutely had that it mind. One other fun detail -- on the porch, the railing is missing in one section at TR's behest. When crowds would hoof it up the hill to stand on his lawn and hear him speak, he wanted to be as close as possible, with no barriers between him and his audience. Anyone who's tried to do stand-up comedy behind a podium completely gets this.

Nerd. There are books everywhere. Roosevelt's study (the de facto Oval Office a few months out of the year) is lined with them, they're all over the "rec room" and they're even crammed in odd spaces -- the bedroom where Roosevelt died has a bookshelf mounted almost on the doorframe, like they saw a few square inches of space and had to fill it. And like any self-respecting nerd, Roosevelt had a hideaway: a room on the top floor where he could be alone with his thoughts, and some animal heads, and his collection of antique swords, and a giant grizzly bear rug. Yes, Teddy Roosevelt was king of the nerds. And king of the jocks. But not king of the jungle! There were no lion heads in the house, and he died from health complications picked up in the Amazon, so it's safe to assume that the jungle kept its crown.

If the house is missing anything, it's Edith -- Roosevelt's wife pretty clearly deferred to her husband in most of the common areas. There is a parlor which is sort of girly and brighter, but for the most part she seems to be in the background. It actually fits the pattern of their life, as she wasn't one for the spotlight. Living in a moose lodge is the price you pay for marrying greatness, I guess.

In the historic sense, Sagamore Hill was maybe the first true summer White House -- thanks to phone lines and rail lines, TR was actually able to move the operations of the executive branch to a fishing village in Long Island a few months out of the year. It's also the place where TR kicked the bucket, in an upstairs bedroom after a steady decline. And he's buried just a mile a way! Youngs Memorial Cemetery is just down the hill. We were greeted there by yet another intriguing character, a retired teacher who was now the "groundskeeper," apparently knew a few of TR's kids and tried to present us with a photocopied packet documenting his personal advocating on behalf of ... uh ... something. I think there was an anti-child abuse bill in there somewhere. In my mind, he regularly has fistfights in the town square with our tour guide over the girl they both asked to prom. She went with neither of them.

The grave is very simple and, considering that he was the most popular man in America, reserved -- Edith apparently picked out the spot, and maybe in death she finally got her say on the decorating.

Indian Head: August 15

I'm happy to announce that I'll be back in Indian Head, Maryland, on Saturday, August 15. This time I'll be doing a more conventional stand-up show, with my good buddy Jared Stern.

If you're anywhere in the free world, you should probably make it to this show -- tickets are just $10, and you can get some more info over at the Black Box web site.

YEAH!

New Podcast: Flip Orley 3

Last week I got to have another chat with hypnotist Flip Orley -- this time out we talked a good bit about hypnosis and memory. It's pretty neat stuff! Check it out over at the podcast page.

Tags: shows, presidents

A Collection of Somewhat Negative Thoughts That Do Not Really Reflect the All-Around Great Time I Had at Seaside Heights, New Jersey

1. So often we only see the "pleasure" end of guidodom: half-drunk semi-literate people with spiked hair trying to show off their physical fitness on a boardwalk, while using sexual harrassment as an icebreaker. But to maintain that physical fitness, and still be free in the afternoons to get back out on that boardwalk, guidos must get up early for the business end and exercise in the blazing, exposed heat of the seashore. So the next time you see someone clearly hungover, close to vomiting, yet still running 8-minute miles in a 90-degree morning sun, show some respect. Pop your collar.

2. Many of the people slamming energy drinks do not seem to be using all that much energy, except maybe to quickly consume energy drinks. In fact, if you are in New Jersey, and someone is slamming an energy drink while wearing a track suit, there is a 90 percent chance that they are not maximizing the potential of either item. At that point, why not carry around a calculus textbook? Then you can just tell people that you love irony.

3. I love the beach, my tragic skin impediment aside. But on the beach at Seaside Heights, it is illegal to "play ball" or throw a frisbee. In case you didn't know this, a man comes on a loudspeaker every hour to tell you, and someone patrols the beach ready to issue a summons at a moment's notice. Oh, those carefree, totalitarian days by the sea! I also saw a lifeguard whistle a teenager to fill in a hole that couldn't have been more than two feet deep. I think we all feel for the unfortunate kid who died in a beach cave-in one time, but you CAN'T DIG HOLES ON THE BEACH? Some of my best beach memories come from heading down early, digging a 4 x 5 x 5 hole and then hanging out in it all day. We pimped out the best holes with bucket seats, shelves and stairway access. No one died and everything got filled in when the day was done. Giant holes are awesome, not only as metaphors for repressed sexual desires, but as metaphors for intense physical labor with no tangible long-term results. Kids need this stuff. FREE THE BEACH!

4. Seaside Heights has two nice little amusement piers, with some neat rides. And then there's the Skyscraper. In this slightly blurry photo, it's the big green thing:

Each end of that beam has two seats attached on a axle. As the whole thing spins like a propeller, the seats also flip constantly. It's $20 to ride. I almost puked after riding the swings for $5, so we're saving the Skyscraper for the next time I feel like throwing up everything I've eaten since the age of 4.

5. T-shirts shops are a big part of the boardwalk when I was a kid. There were some racy T-shirts: "It's not a bald spot, it's a solar panel for a sex machine!"; and the always-popular fuzzy green monster flipping the bird. T-shirt shops are still a big part of the boardwalk. There are some racy T-shirts: for example, a decal showing (SPOILER ALERT!) a woman performing a sexual act on a man as the man sits on the toilet, with text indicating some unfortunate consequences should the woman not complete said act in a particular way; and beyond T-shirts, women's underwear with slogans such as, "I don't have my cherry, but I have the box it came in." Last days of the Roman empire, folks. Last days.

To sum up, things were better when I was a kid, and GET OFF MY LAWN!

Tags: travel

New Podcast: Greg Proops

Good times this week as I chat with "Whose Line" star Greg Proops. He's very talkative, and after starting out chatting about the Mongols (seriously), we get into his start in improv, intercontinental comedy, his trademark glasses and some fashion tips. 40 minutes, but there aren't really any gaps. I used to watch the British version of the show all the time, so I gotta say I've been an admirer of his work for quite some time.

Go get it over at the Podcast page.

Boston!

A friendly reminder that my Boston show is just about a month away! Mottley's Comedy Club now has a listing on their Web site, so you can get tickets in advance if you like. That's Thursday, August 27, so tell everyone you know in Beantown.

Tags: podcast

Reading Room

After languishing in Web obscurity, some of my favorite mini writing projects have finally been collected on chriswhitesucks.com. There's a new link you'll notice on the right side of the page, called the "Reading Room."

If any new stuff gets added there, I'll let you know on the blog, but if you're bored at work, go skim for a bit!

And in honor of this occasion, I have posted a short story. It's called "The Tyranny of a Sunny Day," and while I don't think it will win any awards any time soon, it's at least readable. And short. That's what I strive for.

Tags: writing

Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Sometimes you don't really WANT potato chips, but a friend is having a bag of potato chips, and so you eat a few potato chips, and then over the course of seven or eight years as you sit around talking, you absent-mindedly eat most of the potato chips. You don't really care about having more potato chips, but why bother putting away the rest of bag? You sort of have to finish it at that point.

And so I walked into "Half-Blood Prince." I don't really get sucked in (never read the books). I have no emotional investment in any of the characters. The production is top-notch, but as it's completely saddled with an awful narrative structure (for movies), it doesn't do much to build dramatic tension and the humor is sparse and unsustainable. Somehow they manage to make magic seem mundane. BUT I saw the first five, so I have to finish the bag.

Here's the a big problem: Movie Dumbledore is a d-bag. Every movie, there's some mystery Dumbledore tells Harry about. Harry spends a few months solving the mystery, then Dumbledore tells Harry that HE KNEW THE SECRET ALL ALONG. It's like someone sending you to the store to pick up beer on a Sunday, and you have to go to 12 stores to find somewhere that's open, and then when you get back they're drinking a beer on the couch. They had it in the basement all along, but they just wanted to see if you could get the beer yourself! Oh, and a few of your friends died while you went looking for the beer. Oops!

There's probably lots of info in the books that justifies this kind of behavior, but as I will never read the books, ever, I will continue to be vaguely dissatisfied straight on through the last two movies. Which, make no mistake, I will definitely see.

I would like to take this last paragraph to once again champion the cause of Mr. Ron Weasley, the true hero of this saga. With no special talent for magic, no massive collection of magical items and bearing the scorn reserved for redheads, Ron manages to mack on the ladies, pull numerous chestnuts from the fire and provide all the comic relief. Ron, you are a great American. Even though you're British.

P.S. -- shortly before watching this movie, a friend spilled a large, cold soda on my crotch. If you are a big fan of Harry Potter you can take all this with a grain of salt.

Tags: movies

Yikes

American TV is often reserved for the beautiful, or at least not hideous, people. So when flipping channels, you really take notice when you come across Wendy Williams. Oddly enough, she looked OK when she was just a radio host, and now between botox and plastic surgery she is painful. Really, she now looks like Helena Bonham Carter. In "Planet of the Apes." With DD boobs.

Yikes.

Tags: TV

Hamilton Arts Collective

Announcing a new stop on my Summer Tour: the Hamilton Arts Collective in Baltimore. Die-hard fans will recall that I had a show lined up there more than a year ago ... and then the place shut down. But they're back!

And so am I, on September 12. Please join me in the good times, if you're anywhere within 500 miles of Baltimore.

Tags: I Take Requests

The Pittsburgh Pirates deal at the deadline

Having already dealt CF Nate McLouth, 1B Adam LaRoche, OF Nyjer Morgan and numerous other players through June and early July, the Pirates have continued their activity this week:

July 29: SS Jack Wilson, RHP Ian Snell and cash to Seattle Mariners for 1B Jeff Clement, SS Ronny Cedeno and prospects. Wilson brings excellent defense to the surprising Mariners, while Snell has had some success as a big-league starter. Key to the deal for the Bucs are Single A pitching prospects Aaron Pribanic, Brett Lorin and Nathan Adcock, who could act as seat-fillers to make home games a little less sad to TV viewers.

July 30: 2B Freddy Sanchez to San Francisco Giants for P Tim Alderson. One-time batting champion Sanchez helps stabilize the Giants' infield defense and adds a "professional hitter" to a lineup of free-swingers. The 6'6" Alderson might never pan out but should be able to reach things on high shelves, including that bag of pretzels in the general manager's office.

July 30: LHP Tom Gorzelanny and LHP John Grabow to Chicago Cubs for RHP Kevin Hart and RHP Jose Ascanio. Getting left-handed bullpen help is never a bad idea in a pennant race, and so the Cubs were willing to part with Hart, who was effective filling in for the injured Ted Lilly. The prospects Hart will be traded for in July 2010 could figure prominently into the Pirates' future plans, possibly as toss-ins for a 2013 deal.

July 31: C Ryan Doumit, Captain Jolly Roger and the Pirate Parrot to Bill Stoneman's Used Cars for a 2002 Isuzu Rodeo with 139,000 miles. Doumit and the two costumed mascots should help boost sales at Stoneman's lot, which has been hurt by the economic downturn. The Rodeo has enough miles to get general manager Neal Huntington to Florida, where he plans to stare at the ocean and "you know, think stuff through for a few days."

July 31: The 1960 World Series championship and the memories of Willie Stargell to the New York Yankees for half a bag of mildew-covered baseballs. The Yankees get their coveted 27th World Series Championship, reversing one of their most notorious postseason defeats, plus another plaque in the Hall of Fame. The half-bag of mildew-covered balls has been given a $25 million, 4-year contract and is slotted to play right field, pending a physical.

July 31: The Primanti Brothers sandwich concession and the right to kick every Pirates season-ticket holder one time squarely in the groin to the Cincinnati Reds for any juicy gossip. The Reds get a fine complement to Skyline Chili, while the Pirates will finally know what all the other teams are saying about them.

July 31: PNC Park to the Mt. Lebanon School District for the home phone number of this one middle school kid who we hear throws pretty hard. A win-win. The Mt. Lebanon Blue Devils get the most beautiful stadium in baseball for 2010, while the Bucs will play in the cozier high-school setting, and can nurture a relationship with an allegedly hard-throwing youngster, who could easily be flipped for elementary school students if his salary demands are too high.

July 31: $23.2 million in small, unmarked bills and the entire roster of the AA Altoona Curve to the Texas Rangers for a bag of magic beans. Planted in the pitcher's mound at PNC Park, the beans could produce a mighty stalk climbing to a castle in the clouds, where there lives a giant with a goose who lays golden eggs! The Pirates will then see if that giant has any interest in taking the contract of LHP Zach Duke off their hands.

Tags: sports