Thursday, January 08, 2004

We ain’t frontin’, Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

Plum rude is all
*The good people of Britney Spears’ hometown of Kentwood, LA, are reportedly miffed that Britney called off her marriage. Generally, Louisiana residents feel that it is bad manners to call off a marriage, it’s considered a rude way to treat a close relative.

For her part, Britney Spears vehemently denies that she is a pop icon gone out-of-control. In fact, Britney said she can’t wait to settle down, have a child and dangle it from a hotel balcony.

Love is not a Rose
*It turns out Pete Rose didn’t just gamble, he gambled really badly. Rose stuck a former friend, Paul Janszen, with $34,000 in gambling debts. I can’t understand why Rose would not pay his gambling debts. I can see why he wouldn’t pay his hair stylist, but not his gambling debts.

The art of the Schlameel
*Donald Trump will star in a reality show, “The Apprentice.” Trump will fire contestant/workers until one is left. The winner will probably be the one who goes the longest without uttering the words: bad comb-over.

The contestants will work with Trump, negotiating real estate deals, organizing meetings and grooming Trump’s eyebrows.

The Donald Trump show “The Apprentice’s” catch phrase is; “It’s not personal, it’s business.” That’s better than their first idea: “It’s not a rug, it’s a comb-over.”

Poor guy
*Kobe Bryant was booed and suffered a bad 8-23 night shooting with five turnovers in the Los Angeles Lakers 113-91 route at the hands of the Denver Nuggets in Kobe’s first appearance in Colorado since his sexual harassment charge. It was sad. Afterwards, Kobe was so upset, he just returned to his hotel room and quietly ate the frozen dinner his wife packed him.

I never promised you a garden, Rose
*Despite coming clean that he bet on baseball, many people feel Pete Rose should not be in the Hall of Fame. Some cite his gambling, others blame his chronic lying, and the “Queer Eye” guys say Rose has made more bad hair choices than Don King and Paula Jones combined.

Since you asked:
Let’s forget about Pete Rose’s fourteen years of bald-faced lying; the fact that he actually did commit the Cardinal sin: betting on baseball; let’s even put aside some of his hairstyle choices. Pete Rose should not be in the Hall of Fame because he wasn’t that great of a baseball player.

What?

Yes, Pete Rose has the record for most hits. So what? Roger Maris had the record for most home runs and he isn’t in the Hall. Let’s face it, the reason Rose has the record for hits is because he also has the record for selfishness. You don’t get hits by sacrificing to advance runners. Yes, Rose hustled. That’s because Rose was so slow he had to hustle.

Pete Rose is not a good guy, we know that only too well. Rose openly cheated on his many wives; (One ex-wife claimed Rose dumped her on their wedding night to drink and play pool with his buddies) Rose was reportedly a terrible father; his teammates supposedly didn’t like him that much. Hell, the guy even went to prison for cheating on his taxes. But a lousy personality or questionable morals is not enough of a reason to exclude somebody from the Baseball Hall of Fame. (See: Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Joe DiMaggio and countless others)

No, Rose should be excluded from the Hall of Fame because was a shameless statistics-slut who just happened to outlast the record books. Remember the John Huston line from “Chinatown”?

“Ugly buildings, politicians and whores get respectable if they last long enough.”

Well, we can exclude Pete Rose from the list of items that get respectable with age as well as we can exclude him from the Baseball Hall of Fame.

But that could just be my opinion. And -as a close friend pointed out - I may have come down to hard on Clint Eastwood. (It is hard to estimate just how much my snotty comment may have upset the Billionaire Movie Mogul Star) To Clint and the five other people who read this, sorry about that.

But I am sticking with my statement on Pete Rose.