So, there I was watching the Phillies and the D-Backs playing the rubber game. Now, when I saw the home team's starting line up included Gload playing first base I figured it would be a long night against an Arizona pitcher who came into the game sporting a nifty 15-3 record. I knew it would be a long night when I saw that Raul Ibanez was in the line up. Ibanez, after a few weeks of actually looking good, went into last night's game mired in one of his 0 for 19 slumps and was back to sporting a .237 average. Given Ruiz's bad "ball," Schneider was once again behind the plate - so I knew it was going to be a long night. Schneider, who struts to the plate with a solid .185 batting average, had already exceeded his monthly ration of hits so I wasn't counting on him to do much of anything.
My one ray of hope for an entertaining game was that Worley was on the mound, and he has shown himself more than capable of keeping his team in games. Not only did he silence the Arizona bats in the first three innings, he had a lead when the rains came. In an awesome display of lightning, thunder and rain, mother nature proved once again that she was more powerful than anything we mere mortals could conjure up and I was seriously considering building an ark. My ark wouldn't be anything like the one Noah built in the book of Genesis. It would not include animals, Republicans, tea party assholes, or first basemen who promote the foul food served at a place called Subway. My ark would include a variety of beautiful women, plenty of weed, booze and a Direct TV dish so that we could dial up all the games we wanted while we sailed past the top of the Comcast building. My ark would have been a party ark.
So, with the Phillies game in a rain delay, I needed something to watch. I checked my handy dandy Comcast channel guide and found that, despite having hundreds of channels, there was nothing to watch. I wasn't in the mood to do the game on MLB, and reruns of Criminal Minds were out of the question. What was I supposed to do? I could have watched MSNBC where a whole network of folks would be railing against anything Republican, but I wasn't in the mood for that. I ended up doing something I normally don't do - I turned on Fox and watched the first half of the Steelers mauling the Dream Team.
The LSF normally does not watch pre-season football just like he doesn't watch spring training baseball games. Hey, when the games are for real - I'm there. Me and the Red Zone channel become best of friends once the games count but last night I figured I would see how well the starters would do against the team that almost won the Super Bowl last year. I should have done my laundry since the spin cycle would have been more entertaining than the Eagles.
I knew I was in trouble when I tuned in just in time for the pre game bullshit from Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. The Phillies parade was being rained on and I was watching Buck and Aikman tell me how great the Eagles were after signing every free agent on the market. Both were effusive in their praise. Aikman stated that free agents wanted to come here because of the stability Fat Andrew provided. He brought up the fact that, under the Lord Of Lard, the Eagles had made it to the playoffs in nine of his twelve seasons as leader of the pack. He was unbearable and Buck, who has never before had anything nice to say about the greatest city in the world, was worse. My solution was to push mute on my remote. I normally watch games with the mute button on since most of the announcers and all of the color commentators are extremely offensive - especially when they are pointing out the obvious.
If you caught any of the game you may understand why it may be a bit premature to call them The Dream Team. The Nightmare Team might make more sense considering that they didn't block anybody wearing a black jersey, causing Vick to get hit and hit and hit. They showed no ability to run the ball (not that Fat Andy would ever want them to) and Vick completed more passes to the Steelers than he did to his receivers. By the end of the first half he had thrown the interceptions, making me think fondly of McNabb. It's nice to see that the D-Mac tradition of playing sloppy may live on. The Steelers methodically took advantage of the Eagles' poor play and took a 21-0 lead into the locker room at half-time. Oh, and how well did our All-Universe defensive backfield play? Well I'll tell you. They were more offensive than the Eagles offense was.
I understand that it is only the pre season and there is still time to "work the kinks out of the system," but it is still the pre season for the Steelers as well, and they looked sharp as shit. Look, football is a simple game. If you don't block, don't tackle, don't protect your QB and don't run, you usually lose. I'll be kind and say that the Eagles are still a work in progress, but the seeds of my discontent were planted last night. Mercifully, the rain delay ended after the first half so I was able to do what I wanted to do - watch the Phillies take the series with some timely hitting and relief pitching. Given that I watched the baseball game I missed the Eagles postgame show, but I'll bet those of you who saw it were treated to the first utterance of "we have to do better" from the round mound of coaching. Hell, he needs to practice his delivery too.
Finally, good luck to all of you fantasy football freaks who took Michael Vick as your number one QB. If last night is any indication of things to come he'll be garroting offensive linemen instead of dogs - and who could blame him.
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