The 2nd Annual KSHE 95 March Bandness Bracket

Here it is, for the second straight year, I'm going through the entire KSHE 95 March Bandness bracket. I will be changing it up a little bit from last year's edition, but the same principle remains--63 matchups of musical fun coming from your favorite sporadic blogger who has absolutely no qualifications whatsoever to do this.

First things first though--I want to give KSHE credit for being a great sport. Half of my post last year was a vaguely hostile threat towards the station yet they not only retweeted it, but they responded to specific things I said (meaning they must have at least kind-of read it). In the last year I've started listening to the radio more than I had previously and I personally believe KSHE has improved dramatically over what it was when I was in high school. An increased reliance on "true" classic rock bands (much more Tom Petty, much more Rolling Stones, much less Pearl Jam) has made them become once again probably my most listened-to music radio station.

Second, here is the format change--rather than pick my favorite band, I'm going to do a random number generator 1-10 and then go with a corresponding song by that band from the website DigitalDreamDoor.com and their list series "Top Ten Songs by Popular Rock Artists". Basically, this will reflect the true ethos of March Madness--the best team (band) doesn't ALWAYS win. If you're going to (completely random example) have Led Zeppelin going against Peter Frampton, it would be a likely LZ blowout, but what if you got LZ's 10th best song against Frampton's best? All of a sudden, it becomes random. Thus, this bracket is more of a simulation than any sort of conclusive decision-maker. Here we go!

K Bracket
Rush vs. Blue Oyster Cult--Closer to the Heart vs. Black Blade: I will freely admit I have to listen to the iTunes snippet of Black Blade here. Not so much with Rush--even though this is their 10th best song as per this website, KSHE has always played a lot of Rush, for better or worse (I think they're probably a bit critically underrated though massively overrated by their insane fans). *Listens to clip* Hey, I think I've heard this song before! Shit, I'm such a musical savant. And I can't say I care too terribly much for it. At least not enough to unseat the de facto 1-seed in Rush. The Canadians live to fight another day.

Eric Clapton vs. Scorpions--Wonderful Tonight vs. Wind of Change: Really, a rough draw for both here. Indisputably Eric Clapton's wussiest of his wussy pop songs vs. the cheesy German reunification anthem. I wish I could bring BOC back into the fold because I'd have picked Black Blade easily over both of these songs. With that said, Slowhand didn't come to play. Scorpions advance.

Lynyrd Skynyrd vs. Nickelback--You Got That Right vs. Animals: (Note, Nickeblack isn't listed on DDD's Top 10 by Artist, so I went off iTunes, and somehow Animals is apparently their second biggest song on Artist Essentials? Okay then. Anyway, in future cases of this I'll just go off iTunes and if there's no artist essentials, I'll go by sales totals, and if they're not on iTunes at all, I don't care about them anyway) I've established several times that I think Nickelback gets way too much crap. They're not a good band but there's a lot of terrible bands, even worse bands (lookin' at you, Staind), that don't get ripped en masse like Nickelback. With that said, You Got That Right is a way better song than Animals. Plus I can't really go with two Canadian bands in three matchups. Live forever, Steve Gaines.

Rolling Stones vs. U2--You Can't Always Get What You Want vs. New Years Day: Holy heavyweight matchup. Seriously, Mick or Bono gets booted in Round 1. And while as a whole I'd go Stones in a heartbeat, they didn't come to play in their first round matchup. This particular Rolling Stones song isn't very good. It's too long and pretentious and because this is bizarro-world, U2 moves on by being less pretentious than somebody. I don't even know what to believe anymore.

Tom Petty vs. The Police--Breakdown vs. Message in a Bottle: Speaking of clashes of the titans, this. Seriously (and I'm going with the defending champions, The Police, here), Tom Petty and the Stones are already gone. If I get to a later bracket and there's a matchup between like Journey and Billy Squier I'm going to start throwing everything.

Van Hagar vs. The Cars--Can't Stop Lovin You vs. Good Times Roll: I'm not entirely sure why Van Halen are two separate entries (at least I assume they are at this point), especially when Sammy Hagar's Van Halen is terrible (for what it's worth, I greatly prefer Sammy Hagar's solo career to Van Hagar, and I greatly prefer Van Halen with David Lee Roth to Hagar solo; I find nothing positive or redeeming about Van Hagar whatsoever, although my dad thinks the band sucked until Sammy came around, so take that as you choose). Okay, I'm done ranting against Van Hagar, because I'm picking The Cars, who brought their game a lot more than they really needed to do for this round (as somebody who puts The Cars' debut album in his personal Top 10, arguably even Top 5, going with the album's opening track is always a win).

Kiss vs. Foreigner--Forever vs. I Want to Know What Love Is: For randomly generated results, there have been some very subpar performances so far. Both bands throw out their most overwrought ballads? With me judging? Do they not even give a shit about winning this thing? Admittedly I haven't heard Forever in a while so I'll give it an iTunes go. *Listens* The fuck is this, Heart? This song is still terrible. I guess I'll go with Foreigner, though I'm very disappointed in both of you.

Pink Floyd vs. The Beatles--Pigs (Three Different Ones) vs. A Day In the Life: Seriously, Kiss/Foreigner is a matchup and so is Pink Floyd/Beatles. Oh well, one has to go. And Floyd just didn't bring it by going with an 11-and-a-half minute song about Animal Farm. I like Animal Farm, I like rock and roll, and I like the two kept as far apart as possible. Beatles advance.

Rush vs. Scorpions--Closer to the Heart vs. Blackout: Okay, Rush, you got away with your pseudo-intellectual bollocks in Round 1, but you can't bring that weak shit all the time and prosper. Blackout may not be a great rock song, but it is a rock song. I hesitate to call Scorpions a Cinderella because they'll probably proceed to put a half-naked Cinderella in a dog collar and covered in motor oil on their next album, but in the meantime they do advance to the Sweet 16.

Lynyrd Skynyrd vs. U2--Tuesday's Gone vs. Walk On: Following an impressive upsetting of The Rolling Stones in the first round, U2 comes out with Walk On, which may be the most U2 song ever. Not their worst song, but nothing exceptional. Tuesday's Gone is Skynyrd's best ballad (and no, Free Bird is a not a ballad; if your song includes a five-plus minute guitar solo that gets faster as it goes, it's not a goddamned ballad) and so they advance to the Sweet 16. They could be poised for a nice little run provided that they don't start trotting out non-Ronnie era songs.

The Police vs. The Cars--Wrapped Around Your Finger vs. Good Times Roll: Ocasek and Co. sticking with a proven formula and Good Times Roll, a song which could beat or could lose to many Police songs. And here it draws Wrapped Around Your Finger, which is in many ways the first Sting solo song stylistically rather than a Police single. This is not a good thing. The defending champs are done. The Cars advance.

Foreigner vs. The Beatles--Dirty White Boy vs.: Okay, it doesn't matter. I'm going with The Beatles. This just isn't even fair. Okay, fine, integrity of the bracket and shit I'll get the Beatles song lined up and...Strawberry Fields Forever. Yup, still Beatles. Okay, happy now, world?

Scorpions vs. Lynyrd Skynyrd--Blackout vs. You Got That Right: Welp, two bands going with proven formulas. The problem here is that Scorpions only won with Blackout because they were going against Neil Peart's "poetry". You Got That Right, while not even close to being Skynyrd's most famous song, is a pretty damn good one. Skynyrd moves on to the Elite Eight. How bout that.

The Cars vs. The Beatles--Just What I Needed vs. Strawberry Fields Forever: The Cars are sticking to well-established territory. Smart move. Stick to the wonderful new wave power-pop meets hard-rock of the debut album and not some of the shittier later work. Frankly, Strawberry Fields is a bit overrated. Kind of a lazy psychedelia, if you think about it. "Strawberry Fields, nothing is real." Come on, Lennon, you're better than that. Hell, you wrote Tomorrow Never Knows BEFORE you wrote this. I could go on for days about how the later Beatles were pretty much dragged down by Lennon after he was the driving force behind Revolver, the band's best album, but whatever. The Cars with the upset.

Lynyrd Skynyrd vs. The Cars--Simple Man vs. Drive: Disappointing showing for an Elite Eight matchup, though I am rather proud of America for producing two bands that are as decidedly different as these two. Simple Man isn't Skynyrd's best song, and it's been cliched into oblivion by Busch, but Drive, in spite of allowing Ric Ocasek to marry a goddamned supermodel, isn't good at all. Skynyrd moves on to the final four.

S Bracket

Led Zeppelin vs. Alice Cooper--Dazed and Confused vs. You And Me: *Listens to You And Me*. Well, it's not the Lifehouse song, but it might as well be. This sounds like it came from Alice Cooper's "Listen to the Flower People" era. Led Zeppelin, by a lot.

Bob Seger vs. Eagles--Hollywood Nights vs. Best of My Love: My mom probably thinks this is the toughest matchup in the first round. Not really, she loves the Eagles and I don't know her opinions on Seger, but you get the point. Basically, these are two acts who have rock sides (at which Seger is way better) and wussy BS sides (at which the Eagles are better). No contrast here though--Seger's "rock" song beats the Eagles making horrible soft acoustic pop for cocaine money.

Styx vs. Pearl Jam--Suite Madame Blue vs. World Wide Suicide: Okay, THIS is the worst first round matchup of them all. It just has to be. Pearl Jam, sensing perhaps they won't be long for this tournament, actually brought it though, contrasting Dennis DeYoung's pop-prog with one of their better rockers. Pearl Jam advances.

Queen vs. Charlie Daniels Band--Another One Bites the Dust vs. The Devil Went Down to Georgia: The only Charlie Daniels song that could beat ANY Queen song would be Long Haired Country Boy, and even that would only been a small group of them. And Another One Bites the Dust is awesome, so this is kind of a blowout win for Queen. This should help their Pythag quite a bit. KenPom is freaking out.

Stevie Ray Vaughan vs. Alice in Chains--Couldn't Stand the Weather vs. Them Bones: Alice in Chains tends to be a divisive band among my more snobbish friends. Are they good or are they bad? Well, um, it's complicated. Though I lean good. And Them Bones is one of their very best songs. It's so damn streamlined as a quintessential AIC song, but it works. Plus, let's be honest--SRV as a songwriter is average at best.

Black Sabbath vs. Allman Brothers Band--Symptom of the Universe vs. Revival (Love is Everywhere): Talk about a nondescript couple of songs from two really good bands. Kind of generic archetypes of the respective bands. And I like Sabbath more. So there.

Judas Priest vs. Steve Miller Band--Painkiller vs. Going to the Country: While Judas Priest has a couple of good songs, they're usually bogged down by being a comically stereotypical metal band. Going to the Country isn't great but at least it isn't terrible. Painkiller is. Sorry, Priest. Here's the rule with you: Go Another Thing Comin or Electric Eye or Go Home. Steve Miller Advances.

Aerosmith vs. 38 Special--Livin on the Edge vs. Back to Paradise: Before selecting, I thought to myself that how long Aerosmith lasted would be strongly related to how quickly they were putting up 80s and 90s songs instead of songs from their 70s heyday. Back to Paradise might be fairly generic Southern Arena Rock fare, but Livin on the Edge is way too damn long of a song. Mild upset as 38 Special advances.

Led Zeppelin vs. Bob Seger--Whole Lotta Love vs. Hollywood Nights: The only way Seger could beat Zeppelin would have been to dig out some old Bob Seger System. But he didn't. Zeppelin advances while I desperately write letters to Mr. Seger asking him to release his pre-Silver Bullet Band work on CD because it's awesome and aside from maybe Her Strut his newer stuff isn't in the same class of pure hard rock.

Pearl Jam vs. Queen--Corduroy vs. Under Pressure: STOP THE FIGHT! STOP THE GODDAMNED FIGHT! QUEEN! QUEEN! GET PEARL JAM OUT OF HERE BEFORE THEY GET HURT!

Alice in Chains vs. Black Sabbath--Would? vs. Children of the Grave: The galloping Children of the Grave riff remains one of their most underrated. Meanwhile, I don't think I've ever been high school emo enough to appreciate Would? as much as I imagine the hardcore fans of theirs do. Sabbath continues.

Steve Miller Band vs. 38 Special--Take the Money and Run vs. If I'd Been The One: Both bands kicked it up a notch from last round, and this is going to sound weird since I'm talking about a classic rock mainstay, but I think Take the Money and Run is underrated. Why? The drums. My God, the drums. With the exception of Wonderwall, no song which is so popular has ever had such excellent drumwork overlooked. Steve Miller moves on to the Sweet 16.

Led Zeppelin vs. Queen--Whole Lotta Love vs. We Will Rock You/We are the Champions: Now this is a matchup. The highs of the respective songs go without saying--the Robert Plant wail vs. the signature We Will Rock You riff. In the end, I have to choose based on the weak moments. Nothing about either of these Queen songs (listed as one) is down, while the middle section of Whole Lotta Love has always kind of bored me to tears. Queen advances.

Black Sabbath vs. Steve Miller Band--N.I.B. vs. Jungle Love: Wow, talk about different songs. And I like both of them. Jungle Love is probably helped here by being a fairly direct pop song because when it comes down to it, the opening drum bit and Iommi's guitar solo are all I really like about N.I.B.--the vocals aren't anything special and it's not really in the upper echelon of Sabbath songs. For a second straight year, Steve Miller is making an unusually long run in this tournament. On to the elite eight he goes!

Queen vs. Steve Miller Band--Crazy Little Thing Called Love vs. Jet Airliner: Jet Airliner might be my favorite Steve Miller Band song and by now it should be obvious I like them more than most. But not only is Crazy Little Thing Called Love one of Queen's best songs, it's one of the greatest pop songs ever written. The guitar riff, the rockabilly bass, Freddie Mercury's Elvis impression, I love it so much. I'm going to award this round to Queen before I just gush about CLTCL for an hour.

H Bracket

AC/DC vs. Creedence Clearwater Revival--Jack vs. Bad Moon Rising: What a KSHE thing (said with all love) to have AC/DC and CCR be a 1-16 matchup. It's really unfair to both bands--to imply CCR isn't in the top 60 of bands, and to put such pressure on a good band that is nowhere near rock's four best bands. But in the end, Jack isn't AC/DC's best performance. Bad Moon Rising isn't CCR's either, but it's closer. CCR puls the massive upset!

The Doors vs. Bon Jovi--Light My Fire vs. Runaway: This is completely and totally unfair. One of the most iconic rock songs ever against a song that even most Bon Jovi fans (not really known for their musical taste) don't seem to give two shits about. The Doors move on.

Motley Crue vs. Nirvana--Dr. Feelgood vs. Heart Shaped Box: It might be the Crue's best song and it's not Nirvana's best, but it's close enough. I'm going with Nirvana if for no other reason than concern of what Nikki Sixx will do in celebration if he beats Nirvana (I assume he will be confused and mistake this for an actual honor; it's not like Nikki Sixx is particularly known for being rational).

Guns N Roses vs. Cheap Trick--My Michelle vs. The Flame: Cheap Trick was given a gift by Guns N' Roses, who drew an average album track. But then Cheap Trick drew The Flame, its awful obligatory 80s power ballad. Guns N Roses, around the same time as The Flame, were doing rock much ballsier and thus deserve this win.

The Who vs. Mama's Pride--I'm just giving this to The Who. This is stupid. Then again, The Urge won The Point's bracket a few times so maybe the locals will win, but they shouldn't.

Metallica vs. Billy Idol--Fade to Black vs. Cradle of Love: Creepy pop-punk vs. a song about how life has no meaning because one's guitars and amps were stolen. Ugh. I guess I'll go with Metallica. Not that it factors into my decision but they should have a much better chance in further rounds.

REO Speedwagon vs. John Mellencamp--Like You Do vs. Hurts So Good: This is the perfect matchup for this tournament because my opinion of each artist is really contingent on what song I'm choosing. And I have a soft, reasonably embarrassing soft spot for Like You Do. Considering it's 70s arena rock, it works. Hurts So Good puts up a better fight than like Pink Houses or some shit, but Mellencamp needed to bust out a real big gun (Crumbling Down, Blood on the Scarecrow) to compete.

Ozzy Osbourne vs. Whitesnake--I Don't Know vs. Now You're Gone: Why is I Don't Know an oft-played Ozzy song? Well, um, song title goes here. But it goes here against Zeppelin tribute band Whitesnake with a song that sounds more like Van Hagar than a watered-down Zeppelin, which might have won here. But Ozzy survives here.

Creedence Clearwater Revival vs. The Doors--Green River vs. Love Me Two Times: The song selection of the source Top 10 doesn't do favors to The Doors. Hence there is no Five To One, there's no Waiting For the Sun, there's no Peace Frog, but there is this song, which feels like a Doors parody. Green River is sort of a quintessential CCR song (by the way, they're just CCR going forward). And they're going forward.

Nirvana vs. Guns N Roses--In Bloom vs. Paradise City: In Bloom has a terrific video, but as a song, it's pretty boring. Indecipherable lyrics, standard Nirvana grunge solo, loud-as-fuck drumming, nothing really transcendent. I think I feel about Paradise City the way most people feel about Bon Jovi songs--it's like a battle cry, a big fun anthemic song that makes you feel good. GNR moves on.

The Who vs. Metallica--Who Are You vs. Seek and Destroy: Simply, The Who could have used a first round tune-up because they came out of the game with their worst ever song, the CSI theme itself. Meanwhile, Seek and Destroy captures Metallica at its early thrash best. Metallica advances.

REO Speedwagon vs. Ozzy Osbourne--Ridin the Storm Out vs. Shot in the Dark: Why does Ozzy, whether with Black Sabbath or solo, ever try to do a song like this? This and Changes just confound me. Like, he doesn't have great vocal talent but when he's rocking, people (myself included) love him. Just a regrettable, stupid song. REO slides into the Sweet 16.

CCR vs. GNR--Have You Ever Seen the Rain vs. My Michelle: Again, My Michelle coming back to hurt GNR. As a stirring tribute to "Every movie about the late 60s ever made", I'm opting with CCR.

Metallica vs. REO Speedwagon--One vs. Roll With the Changes: REO's magical run ends here. First of all, REO's song here seems really similar to You Can't Always Get What You Want to me. I'm the only person in the world who thinks this, probably, but I'm rolling with it. Anyway, One is a good song. It's not their best but it's good enough.

CCR vs. Metallica--Up Around the Bend vs. Creeping Death: To me, Up Around the Bend is the great American guitar riff. And I love me some America. In the battle for California, CCR wins the region.

E Region

Sammy Hagar vs. Foghat--Mas Tequila vs. Eight Days on the Road: Seriously, why do St. Louisans love Sammy Hagar? Is it because they just love big dumb rawk? He's not a local or anything, it's just weird. With that said, somewhere along the line, he got an easy first round matchup against a song that basically sounds like a Hagar song with less power. Okay, Mr. Red Rocker, sir, you get your win right here.

Boston vs. Bad Company--More Than a Feeling vs. Ready for Love: Nobody in the world seems to want to admit that More Than A Feeling is one of the great rock songs ever. And I'm one of those people. I will, however, readily admit it's better than Ready for Love.

Journey vs. Stone Temple Pilots--Separate Ways vs. Tripping on a Hole in a Paper Heart: Oh THANK GOD a good STP song got drawn. I'm not a big fan of the bad and Journey, who I hate more than anything ever, got one of their better songs. But Tripping on a Hole is a good song. So it advances. Phew. I will be able to sleep tonight.

ZZ Top vs. Deep Purple--Rough Boy vs. Space Truckin: Oh cool, Billy Gibbons singing an 80s ballad? This is what the world was waiting for! Deep Purple advances.

Ted Nugent vs. Kansas--Hammerdown vs. Point of Know Return: I'm going with Ted if for no other reason than the spelling of the Kansas song. Also, I avoid picking Kansas in brackets of any kind whenever possible. Also, this region blows so far.

Jimi Hendrix vs. UFO--Fire vs. Doctor Doctor: Okay, okay, Hendrix is in the region. We might be good. And UFO wins several of these matchups so far in the region, but, like, come on, you know who I'm picking.

Def Leppard vs. Billy Squier--Bringin on the Heartbreak vs. The Stroke: Two so-so acts bring their A-game. Def Leppard is a better band in every way though, so they advance. And yes I know my assessment are getting lazier but this shit takes a long time and I'm knocking this out in one sitting.

Van "Roth" vs. Heart--Jamie's Cryin vs. Never: Much like Aerosmith, Heart's success or failure was going to be dependent largely on what decade the song came from. And like Aerosmith, Heart drew the wrong decade. Van Roth advances.

Sammy Hagar vs. Boston--I Can't Drive 55 vs. Smokin: Smokin' is a nice, fun, kind of lame 70s pot song, but the safest rock band ever singing about marijuana is better than Sammy Hagar trying to make some kind of sociopolitical point. Boston advances.

STP vs. Deep Purple--Vasoline vs. Space Truckin: Fun fact, I usually forget the STP song title and call it "Gasoline". Another fun fact, Deep Purple has songs besides Space Truckin, most of which are better. But I'll go with it for now. Hoping it steps up its game next round.

Ted Nugent vs. Jimi Hendrix--Hammerdown vs. Hey Joe: Lol. Hendrix. Goodness did he ever get a hell of an easy region.

Def Leppard vs. Van "Roth"--Rock of Ages vs. Ain't Talkin Bout Love: One of these songs inspired a Tom Cruise musical. Shockingly, I'm going with the other one.

Boston vs. Deep Purple--Rock and Roll Band vs. Strange Kind of Woman: Space Truckin would have lost for Deep Purple. Strange Kind of Woman wins. Good timing, Mr. Purple. Good timing.

Jimi Hendrix vs. Van "Roth"--Foxy Lady vs. And the Cradle Will Rock: Jimi Hendrix finally gets some competition. Kind of. Both are simple enough rock songs but as charismatic as David Lee Roth is, Hendrix he ain't. Hendrix advances.

Deep Purple vs. Jimi Hendrix--Speed King vs. Fire: I'm tempted to shock anyone reading this by going with Deep Purple here. It's a good, underrated song. But in the end, I'd rather listen to Jimi Hendrix do his thing on guitar rather than hear Jon Lord play organ for a long part for some reason. Jimi moves on.

Final Four

Lynyrd Skynyrd vs. Jimi Hendrix--On the Hunt vs. Foxy Lady: On the Hunt is a nice, underrated Skynyrd song from the appropriately titled album Nuthin Fancy. That's why Lynyrd Skynyrd is, nothing fancy at all. And this is a nice, simple blues-rocker. I imagine if I were alive in 1975, I'd think it were a nice song. But if I were alive in 1967 when Foxy Lady came out, I can't imagine being able to stand it. In a good way. Hendrix to the final.

Queen vs. CCR--Bohemian Rhapsody vs. Proud Mary: A bit more of a blowout here than I'd have liked. Perhaps Proud Mary has just gotten ruined by the Tina Turner cover version, which isn't even good yet is famous and stuff, but in terms of both desirability of listening and sheer musical ambition, it's Queen.

The Final
I'm psyched for this final. One battle royale between the American guitar virtuoso who came to prominence in London and the most American sounding British arena rockers of them all. OMG OMG OMG OMG.

Jimi Hendrix vs. Queen--Fire vs. Crazy Little Thing Called Love: A couple of usual suspects here. And two songs I really love by two amazing artists. Strangely, perhaps my favorite thing about Fire is the not-even-great-sounding backing vocals (by Noel Redding? I'm not sure). That's not to downplay it, it's a solid rock song. But as I said before, CLTCL is just about perfect. It's a little like Moondance by Van Morrison--both were covered inferiorly but decently by Michael Buble, but there's a reason why. They both sound like standards. Like, I could imagine people covering Crazy Little Thing Called Love thirty years from now in the same way that people cover Johnny B. Goode. It's just everything great rock and roll and great pop should be.

Is Queen my favorite band ever? No. A good band, certainly, though not my absolute favorite. But, with that said, they are my 2013 March Bandness champion.

2013 St. Louis Cardinals Preview

I am predicting that the 2013 St. Louis Cardinals will finish second in their division and finish third in the Wild Card standings.

This isn't really an outlandish prediction--pretty much every source is predicting a 2nd place divisional finish. The Reds won the division decisively and they improved from last year. The Cardinals more or less stayed equal, perhaps dropping incrementally. But here's a few major predictions about the team, in no particular order.

Yadier Molina is going to come back down to Earth a little bit: Yadi's offense has steadily improved basically his entire career but his 2012 was simply insane. He's getting (for a catcher) old and people who think he's going to improve on OPSing nearly .900 are nuts. He didn't OPS .800 until 2011--as long as he keeps his OPS above .800 I'll be quite all right.

I'm more worried about the #4 spot than the #8: There is a lot of concern about Pete Kozma and what kind of offense he'll bring to the plate (haha, get it? Because it's a common metaphor but it's also literally what he will be doing!), but it's worth reminding that the Cardinals made the playoffs with Brendan Ryan at shortstop. People worry about Pete Kozma because his hitting stats were pretty terrible in the minors, but in the majors they've been stronger. It's a small sample size, yes, but they also were better in 2011. Some guys just do better in the majors. Maybe they're just bored or apathetic or something in the minors, I don't know, but it happens. It's the exception to the rule and it's too early to determine whether Kozma is one of those guys, but if the concern is how the guy batting eighth bats, it's going to be okay. I'm more concerned about Allen Craig as a cleanup hitter. He hit pretty well last year but who knows what will happen after he got his extension? He also was pretty under the radar last season and now he's the cleanup hitter in a good lineup.

If Kolten Wong gets called up, God help us all: Kolten Wong is already the anointed Cardinals second baseman of the future and I'll take the word of people who know these sorts of things better than I do. But he will get absolutely eviscerated whenever he comes up. The hype this guy has suggests he's going to be a big time MLB hitter. That's really not what anyone should reasonably expect he will be--we should expect he'll be a big time MLB hitter for a second baseman. He OPSed .753 in AA last year. This is perfectly fine for a second baseman but for some reason, people expect their middle infielders to be every bit the sluggers of first basemen and corner outfielders. The best second baseman in the Cardinals organization in my lifetime, Fernando Vina, never OPSed .800 in a season. It didn't matter; he was playing (quite well) a premium defensive position. Whenever Wong comes up, possibly this year but more likely in 2014, please be patient.

David Freese might finally be ready to just be a guy: In October of 2011, David Freese went from being a supremely underrated baseball player to a supremely overrated one. And in 2012, he more or less played what I believe to be what he is when healthy--a good, non-superstar type baseball player. He's not Mike Schmidt or George Brett. He is, however, a terrific piece to have for a good team, and maybe with the World Series long over, people will accept that this is what he is.

Don't give Waino a blank check: You know how after Albert Pujols signed with the Angels, all these Cardinals fans (myself included) were relieved that the team hadn't paid for sentimental value? Well, this situation could be happening again with Adam Wainwright. For some reason, Cardinals fans don't have a realistic grasp of what Adam Wainwright is. Adam Wainwright has one all-star appearance. He has never started a World Series game. He turns 32 this year and has had two outstanding seasons and a couple other good ones. He's a good player--he's not Roy Halladay, he's not Justin Verlander, he's not worth an absolute top-dollar contract. Potential 2014 rotation that won't even require re-signings: Garcia, Lynn, Miller, Rosenthal, Kelly. Oh yeah, Michael Wacha and Carlos Martinez, too. Holy shit this depth. Sure it's a nice luxury to have Adam Wainwright but that doesn't mean you sacrifice your payroll for him.

Let's stop pretending Trevor Rosenthal is as top-notch of a prospect as Shelby Miller:Trevor Rosenthal has a faster fastball than Shelby Miller. He has worse statistics by basically every metric and scouts agree Shelby is better. Rosenthal isn't an untouchable prospect. If the Texas Rangers will agree to my favorite hypothetical trade, Matt Adams and Trevor Rosenthal for Elvis Andrus, you take it in four seconds.

Fin.

Why You Should Avoid Mills Properties AT ALL COSTS

No matter what you do on this planet, do not rent from Mills Properties, particularly its Park Val location. If you have any family or friends who are looking for places to live, advise them against renting from Mills Properties. If you have any enemies who are considering renting from Mills Properties, and you take a perverse joy in their mistake, please consider professional psychiatric help. No person in the world deserves the kind of bullshit that Mills Properties unrepentantly produces.

I recognize that virtually anybody who has ever rented an apartment anywhere has some kind of horror story associated with it. Perhaps a case of damaged apartment components, or overcharging deposits, or something of that nature. Hell, when I was in college, a house I was renting had a bathroom door unhinged that we just kind of worked around because our landlord was lazy and kept putting off having it fixed. This situation isn’t even in the same stratosphere of utter incompetence as what Mills Properties offered. I’m not going to argue that it’s the worst apartment lender in the world because I don’t know all of them. But here is my story, and here is why no person you have never met (provided you have never met an authoritarian dictator or an al-Qaeda terrorist) is lowly enough to deserve to settle for Mills Properties.

In my quest to move out of my childhood bedroom, I looked at a few different apartment complexes and one Saturday, I toured Park Val. I looked at the demonstration room and asked a few basic questions. You said that the apartments are all-hardwood floors—Don’t worry about the carpeting in this room, it’s just the demonstration room. What municipality is this in?—Webster Groves. I was surprised to hear that the apartment complex was in Webster Groves—Park Val is literally right behind Shrewsbury Lanes and the route to get there from my house indisputably involves entering the city of St. Louis yet I saw no sign saying that I had entered Webster Groves. But whatever. The apartment seemed relatively nice for the price.

I went to the apartment a few weeks later to go through with an application. I went on a Saturday because I wanted to avoid going during the week as much as I could—I get off work at 5 p.m. and the office closed at 5:30 p.m., and while my boss is extremely nice and would have no problem with me taking a short lunch and leaving at 4:30 p.m., I’ve only been worked at my current place of employment for a little over three months and I don’t really want to push it when I do not have an immediate need to do so. I went and applied and paid the application fee. The next day, I was called and told I had been approved, so I got my boss to approve of me leaving early the next day while I went to go sign the lease on that Monday.

Two interesting things happened on that Monday. First, when looking at the terms I had been given, the rent was higher than what had been promised. Like, fifty dollars higher. I immediately pointed out the difference and the facility manager immediately relented, saying that the price I had been promised when I first looked was a “sale” price. Regardless, he offered me a workaround deal—basically, I could have to pay $10 more per month but in exchange, he would cut an initial application charge by $50 and then take $70 off of my first month’s rent. Fine. I’d pay $120 extra over the course of a year and save $120 off the top. Makes no difference to me. The second interesting thing was that I would not be able to sign a “lease” per se that day; it turned out that the previous tenant was still living in the apartment after the lease had expired, paying beyond the initial monthly rent because that person needed some initial time to move out. Okay, fine, I figured. That person was said to be moving out on Wednesday. After that, I could sign a lease. The next week, the lease was signed.

Once the lease was signed, I started buying furnishings. A large TV for my living room; a kitchen table and chairs; a couch. I hate spending money en masse but now that the lease was signed, I had to get the ball rolling. The long process was finally over and on March 1^st, I would be able to enjoy the fruits of my labor. On February 21^st, I got out of work early due to snow and I attempted to take care of the three main utility-ish things I needed to do before the lease started. Step one was easy—ordering internet and cable. Took about ten minutes with no issue. Step two was somewhat more difficult—renter’s insurance. I was told that I would be able to get a discount on it but I couldn’t get an answer at Park Val, so I put that off. Step three was getting utilities switched over to my name, but according to Ameren, the property manager had yet to verify that I was assuming the responsibility.

On Saturday the 23rd, I got a hold of Park Val. I was worked through the renter’s insurance process. Upon suggestion, I signed up for a one-time payment for the year on the insurance—the last thing I want is to have to remember to make a nominal payment every month if I don’t have to do so, right? The manager said they would call on Monday to Ameren to get things switched over. Sweet.

Tuesday comes around and I took a break at work to call Ameren. Same thing as before—the property manager hadn’t called in. So I called Park Val again. As was often the case, I had to leave a voicemail message. When I hadn’t been called by the end of the day, I sent an e-mail. On Wednesday, I got a voicemail around 9:30 in the morning from Park Val saying to call. Okay. The manager wasn’t there when I called back. I usually like to keep my cell phone in airplane mode early in the day to preserve the battery but I decided to keep a watchful eye and/or ear on the phone, hoping, since the lease began in two days, I could get the Ameren situation taken care of sooner rather than later. At 11:45 p.m., Park Val called back.

“Hey John, um, do you think you’d be able to move in next Wednesday?”

Um, no. Why would I be able to move in next Wednesday? My lease is arranged for this Friday. I lined up for my furniture to be ready for in-store pickup by Saturday. I arranged to have a friend help me with the heavy lifting for that Saturday. I had the people from Charter coming in on Saturday. This is a joke, right? It’s a joke—I’m going to stammer around a little bit in response and then be told I’d been had there. Well, it turns out I had been had long before yesterday.

The reason why I was being asked if I could move in next Wednesday was because the previous tenant, the person for whom I had ostensibly been waiting to leave the apartment, was still living in the apartment. I had signed a lease for an apartment that, for all intents and purposes, did not exist.

“I mean, no,” I said, “I can’t really move in next Wednesday. I mean, I have all my movers mobilized for Saturday and we have furniture and cable coming by and…”

“Look, John, there’s really nothing I can do.”

In some ways, this is true. In more ways it’s a heaping pile of bullshit, but in the sense of “I would have to give a notice of eviction”, it’s true. But the point remains that I had signed a lease, effective on the 1^st of March in 2013, to take possession of an apartment in the Park Val complex. I had even been told by this same person mind you that I would need to wait until the previous tenant had left to sign a lease. I then signed a lease.

“We can start eviction proceedings now but it could take up to 90 days.”

Okay then, so what you’re saying is this whole ‘You can move in on Wednesday’ thing is totally contingent on if this person decides to change his or her mind and abide by the rules and by normal sets up interpersonal decorum? 90 days sounds wrong too, but that’s really just a drop in the bucket compared to what you’re saying so far.

“Look, here’s what I can do for you. For your inconvenience, I can knock $100 off your first month’s rent. That’s all I’m authorized to do.”

Oh, so for my “inconvenience” you’re going to offer me what is essentially a prorated refund on the time I won’t be able to get in the apartment. Go fuck yourself. Holy shit I just want to rail into this dumbass right now. But I’m at work; even though I’m in the hallway I’m pretty sure if I hurl obscenities at you, I’ll at the best get stares and at the worst get reprimanded.

“John, are you still there?”

Yes, fuck face, I’m still here. It’s almost like being told that apparently a signed lease agreement doesn’t count as a binding legal contract in a professional leasing organization’s world would come as a bit of a surprise to somebody.

“Yeah, I’m still…look, let me call you back, I need to get some things together. Bye.”

I hung up and felt dizzy. I was angry, but I was also confused. Like, how is this not over? If I signed a lease, how was that not the end of the process? Not sure what to do, I called my mom. She was probably angrier than I was, or at least didn’t make any particular effort to hide it. Luckily for me, she was actually in the area at the time and went by Park Val to figure out what was going on. I didn’t have the capacity to investigate this entire matter by myself but luckily, she did.

When I got off the phone initially, I thought my landlord was an incompetent idiot. Turns out my mom got to experience a new low in customer service and general human decency. Now, anyone who knows both me and my mom knows that we have fairly different personalities—I’m a pretty relaxed person, in general (internet bluster aside), very much a go-with-the-flow type. My mom will, for better or worse (and in the upcoming story, much much better), talk back. And sometimes this leads to some, um, interesting moments. As much as I don’t really like the idea of my mom fighting my battles for me, the results were so indisputably great this time that I can’t argue against it.

My mom walked into the office and said “You just got off the phone with my son,” and the landlord immediately went into defense mode. When asked why a lease would be offered to an apartment that wasn’t available, the response was “Well, your son was really insistent on getting a lease signed as soon as possible.” Well, of course I was insistent on this—I wanted to make sure I didn’t get swindled. It hadn’t occurred to me that there were steps beyond signing the lease (but really though, I was pretty disappointed to hear that, apparently, my merely wanting something to happen would make it so. Shit, why did I settle for a mildly crappy apartment on the city/county line? I should have made a play for the White House. Or at least M.C. Hammer’s. I mean, that’s probably not that hard to get, right?).

The next question was “Have you done this before?” This is the part where some of you will probably think I’m just telling a fictional story but I swear to God on my mother’s life (and if it turns out this is a lie, it serves my mother’s right for lying) this is what happened. The response was yes. “Has this ever happened, where the person just doesn’t leave?” The response, which is up there with that time Ted Stevens referred to the internet as “a series of tubes” in terms of hilarity-amidst-horror incompetence, was “Yeah, it’s happened a few times. It’s just a risk I like to take.”

Oh, okay then. A risk you like to take. An interesting “risk”, I must say—since it’s really not a risk to you. The person for whom it is a risk, the person whose home is at stake, was not consulted. And I say this as a person who goes to casinos more often than would probably be considered socially acceptable—I wouldn’t risk money unless there was a chance of winning back more than I put in. There is no advantage to this “risk” other than for Park Val to get my money. But no problem—my mom took it a step further than I had wanted. She went to Mills Properties headquarters.

They were a bit better, though this is a fairly low bar. Basically, they won a 100-meter dash in which every other competitor had false started. But most importantly, they gave some more information. First of all, you know how I was told the apartment was in Webster Groves? Nope—St. Louis city. This isn’t even really a big factor for me, besides the obvious of “I don’t like when people lie to me.” And as for the 5:30 closing time which forced me to leave work early? Welp, turns out the office isn’t supposed to close until 6. This was news to Mills Properties. They tried to placate the anger by saying that, because of the lies I had faced and because of the fact that they obviously could not uphold their end of the lease, they could end the lease and refund the charges I had incurred. They were supposed to call today, Thursday, to get things resolved. And they did.

I got a voicemail from the corporate office: “Well, the apartment you had will be available on Wednesday, if you can take the day off or if you can just move in on that Saturday, and for your trouble we’ll be able to refund half the month’s rent.”

Same shit, different day.

So that’s where I am right now. I left a voicemail for them saying that I was sick of being lied to, that their end of the bargain had not been lived up to, and that I wanted to end my relationship with Mills Properties. Apparently, this wasn’t good enough. I’d compare Mills to used car salesmen, but no matter how much a used car salesman lied to you, I can pretty much guarantee that you got some kind of car out of the deal. But even when caught in the most unbelievable lie you could possibly fathom in a rental agreement, one in which property is not only not available but even though this was known already, it wasn’t brought up to the moving party until two days before the lease began. And the process starts again. Four figures spent on furniture and general household accessories that will now have to stay in my parents’ garage and my grandmother’s basement until I can find an apartment not run by “people” that are such lying sacks of shit. It can serve as a temporary symbol of a company I would never recommend to anyone, under any circumstances.

This is just the beginning: There won’t be a rental review website on the internet that doesn’t have a truncated version of my story on it soon. If you have any other rental horror stories, please leave them in the comments section. All companies who treat people like dirt should be exposed. I don’t expect that any business’s first and foremost goal will not be to make money—I do, however, expect a basic level of humanity and conscience. Rent through Mills Properties/Park Val as your own risk—you’ve been warned. This sort of thing happens there.

Don’t worry, people reading this who read my blog regularly—I’ll go back to sports lists and references to obscure Oasis b-sides soon!

Why I Hate Michael Jordan

This sounds like heresy, being a 24 year-old Chicago Bulls fan, but I cannot stand Michael Jordan.

It's partially his fault, and it's partially the fault of the media that made him the unfathomably huge star that he became. It's Michael Jordan's 50th birthday and ESPN will absolutely NOT SHUT UP about it. It's insanity. I get that he's generally accepted as the greatest of all-time in his sport, but do you know when Wayne Gretzky's birthday is? Do you know Pele's birthday? Any of the dozen or so living NFL alumni often regarded as the greatest ever? Because I don't. Nor do I feel like they've been slighted--who cares? But why does MJ get all of the attention?

Michael Jordan is one of the greatest players in NBA history; this I will not dispute. I will dispute that he is THE greatest player of all-time, and I will sure as Hell dispute that he's so clearly the greatest player of all-time that any suggestions to the contrary are blasphemy. Wilt Chamberlain, in 1961-62, averaged 50.4 PPG, 25.7 RPG, and averaged 48.5 MPG (seriously, he averaged more minutes than exist in a regular NBA game). Nobody else besides Wilt has averaged 40 in a season. Wilt did it twice. Wilt had four straight seasons in which he outscored MJ's best season. And don't give me the totally BS argument of how it was easier to do that in Wilt's era--if it was easier, how come nobody else did it? Sure, Jordan had more rings than Wilt Chamberlain (6 to 2). Bill Russell had eleven. Hell, Robert Horry had seven. Teammates matter in the equation. It's not an individual accomplishment.

But my problem really isn't that people think Jordan is the best NBA player ever because there is certainly a compelling case that he is. But that people refuse to even consider alternatives. Saying MJ isn't the best NBA player ever unreservedly is tantamount to saying the Beatles aren't the greatest band ever--siding with MJ or the Beatles is a safe and not terrible opinion, but it's not such a goddamned blowout that conversation isn't merited. People freak out and get upset if Lebron James is compared to Michael Jordan. And I don't even think James is in MJ's class yet but why can't we at least discuss it? Lebron is a better rebounder and arguably a better defender; MJ is a better scorer by a lot but IT'S A DISCUSSION PEOPLE.

But the real problem with MJ isn't that he's overrated as a player; it's that he's overrated as a person.

A lot of people like to cite Michael Jordan's importance as a marketer and as a corporate icon. Won't dispute it. I will dispute that this is something he should be proud of. I don't blame him for it: This is capitalism and he has every right to shill for every product under the sun if he wants to do so. And I also have the right to point out that he's a corporate whore. He was certainly more important to Madison Avenue than, say, Muhammad Ali, but that doesn't make him more admirable. Ali alienated large portions of the country through his actions and what he said. Jim Brown (who also has a birthday today) used his status as an elite athlete to promote civil rights causes. Let's not even get started on Jackie Robinson. Michael Jordan's contribution to society is selling overpriced shoes. 

To me, the definitive MJ moment isn't one of the championships or great highlights--it's his response when he was asked in 1990 why he wouldn't endorse Harvey Gantt against Jesse Helms in a North Carolina Senate election (Sidebar: This shouldn't be viewed historically as a battle between a Democrat and a Republican--it should be viewed as Anybody vs. Jesse Helms). His response was the legendarily weak-kneed line "Republicans buy sneakers, too." Yep, that's why he didn't make what had to be the least controversial partisan political endorsement ever. Not even necessarily that he DISAGREED that Harvey Gantt was the superior candidate. Just that he wanted to make a few more bucks. Again, his right, but this shows all that needs to be said about the fact that Michael Jordan aspired to be a corporation unto himself. All the things people have ripped Tiger Woods for--being a bland, boring superstar who whitewashed any negativity in his private life for the sake of expanding his bank account--applied to Michael Jordan a decade prior.

The last decade since MJ's retirement has proven something I always suspected--Jordan is really only good at basketball. He failed as an executive, helping the Wizards sink to new lows and now being behind the worst NBA franchise mess, the Charlotte Bobcats, of my lifetime. He failed as a gambler, losing millions. He failed as a husband, being divorced amidst adultery. His Hall of Fame speech was legendarily self-serving and vicious, excoriating his currently-homeless high school basketball coach. Hell, his Birmingham Barons career might have been his third-best facet (behind basketball and using his basketball skill to sell things).

With all of that said, I loved watching Michael Jordan play. He was terrific on the court. I wish the sports media would shut up about him for two seconds so perhaps we as a people could go back to enjoying him again.

The Five Greatest Super Bowl Halftime Shows

With American musical preferences as varied as they are, the Super Bowl Halftime Show is the one place where the entire world watches a concert. And everyone watches it. Even if you hate the performer (see: Eyed Peas, Black), you still watch. And believe me, most of the concerts have been TERRIBLE. But here are the five best.

5. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers--2008: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are really the perfect example of a band that gets what it is. They've never been cool but at the same time, they've never been uncool. They're a traditionalist, Rolling Stones-meets-Byrds band, that has spent most of the last three and a half decades making strong, untranscendent rock and roll. And in 2008, they performed a strong, solid set at the Super Bowl halftime show. I do have to deduct points based on their song selection (three of the four songs came from a Tom Petty solo album, and yes, there is a difference between Tom Petty solo and Tom Petty with the Heartbreakers and the latter is better), but "Runnin' Down a Dream" is a grand song to play at the Super Bowl, and when a band can play a song about a girl committing suicide ("American Girl") and nobody bats an eye, that is rock and roll at its finest.

4. Michael Jackson--1993: As I've said before, Michael Jackson was not a great musician, but he was a great performer. He was, especially at his peak (though this probably qualifies as slightly past his peak), the perfect person to do the halftime show. And this was a vital halftime show--once the biggest star in the world did the halftime show, Up With People was screwed. His performance provoked the ratings of the game to go UP, somehow. And his song selection was pretty strong too ("Jam", "Billie Jean"--his best song and nobody will ever convince me it's close, and "Black or White").

3. Paul McCartney--2005: The Super Bowl the year prior, with the wardrobe malfunction, sucked. I hated the music in it to such an extent that even being the fifteen year-old boy I was, the presence of boobies didn't make it much better. So in 2005, they brought in the living dean of popular music. It's that simple. If Paul McCartney is on the bill, he will never not be the final act. With all the great bands at the Olympics and at the Hurricane Sandy benefit concert, it centered around Sir Paul. There were several "safe" elements about this show--the songs, the selection in and of itself, and the decided lack of wardrobe malfunctions. But Sir Paul could have come out and taken a bow and it still would have been better than the awful Rolling Stones (who I like) performance the next year.

2. U2--2002: I didn't grasp the greatness of this performance at the time because I was too busy freaking out about the Rams, but upon further replays, this was pretty great. Could any band other than U2 have done what they did? Regardless of your opinion on their music, they are the ultimate stadium band. Their stadium shows are practically Billy Graham revivals. "Beautiful Day", still a fresh new song at the time was good enough on its own to make this list, but "Where the Streets Have No Name" being played with the names of 9/11 victims scrolling in the background...amazing.

1. Prince--2007: Prince is simply a genius. He will always be compared to Michael Jackson, because they were both super-popular solo African-American artists during the same time frame. But Prince was in a class of his own. He wasn't just a great vocalist and a great showman--he was a spectacular guitarist/multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, and in his halftime show of the pretty bad Super Bowl 41 allowed him to flaunt all of his many powers. He played bits of six songs and even though he's one of the best songwriters of his generation, three were covers. The three highlights were, in order--his performance of his best hard rock song ("Let's Go Crazy"), his scathing/soulful/fierce Foo Fighters cover ("Best of You", in a version that members of the band have admitted is better than their original), and his too-grand-for-words rendition of "Purple Rain", which had all the guitar heroics of his original but also included AN ACTUAL RAINSTORM STARTING DURING THE SONG. God Bless You, Prince.

The Grobitch Confessional

Hello, my name is John Fleming. I am twenty-four years old. And I am the founder of the Twitter account @grobitch20.

This seems like a silly coming-out really; I suspect that for most people who follow both me and Grobitch on Twitter (which is a lot of people, many of whom interestingly enough followed Grobitch before following me, including the man who eventually outed me), this comes as about as big of a surprise as when George Michael came out in 1998. It’s a formality; it isn’t Earth-shattering news. Like George Michael, I’m only confessing because I got caught, but I knew this day would come. Frankly, I’m surprised it took as long as it did. I never wanted to go out on top. That wouldn’t be in the spirit of Grobitch. I wanted it to go down in flames.

I hope that anyone who reads this who is amused by Grobitch is amused for the same reasons I had so much fun doing it. Grobitch is a parody of @grobot20, not an indictment. Is the account critical of its target? No question. But it is also, as its bio long said, “a loving tribute to @grobot20.” For anyone who doesn’t know, I am actually friends with Nick in real life. And we were friends before I got Twitter. In fact, I got Twitter largely because Nick said I would enjoy it. He was right. And if I weren’t at least somewhat amused by his shtick, I’d have no particular motivation to satirize him. And that is why I started Grobitch. This account has lasted ten months. It started when Nick was an undergraduate and he’s now closer to the end than the beginning of Masters degree studies. I’ve had three different jobs since it started. It’s been a fun ten months and here is the story.

Of all of my friends, Nick is the only one that I think could have a half-decent parody account made about him. First of all, he tweets a lot. Second of all, he tweets passionately—he doesn’t just say what’s going on his day, but rather he tweets excitedly about sports, TV, or whatever’s on his mind. Third, and most importantly, he has a great sense of humor. This isn’t necessarily the same thing as being funny, as most people seem to think. A sense of humor means he can, well, sense humor. He can appreciate humor, even when it is derisively directed to him. He would probably be reluctant to admit this, but I suspect the only person who enjoyed Grobitch more than I did was he himself. And fourth, and almost as importantly, he had a large Twitter base upon which to build a following. You can’t parody somebody that has twelve followers. Frankly, I suspected Grobitch would end up with about twelve followers anyway.

Grobitch was founded the night of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship between Kentucky and Kansas and it was the perfect night to do it. Nick hates Kansas basketball (as all good Americans do) and was destined to passionately live-tweet the game. However, I had actually gotten the idea for a parody account of Nick that weekend, when I went up to Kirksville for the initiation of the fraternity of which we are both members. While #LadiesLoveThemSomeGrobot, as Grobitch so often hashtagged, was actually invented by me (as myself, not as Grobitch) as a fairly sarcastic mocking, it’s kind of true. It was the second straight semester that I had come up for initiation and it was the second straight semester that, with Nick not even around, he came up in conversation and I realized that something I hadn’t foreseen was happening here. Nick was becoming something of an institution, as silly and absurd as that sounds. But anyway, the basketball game would be a tremendous opportunity for me to exhibit some of the memes that became Grobitch’s trademark. The memes were insane exaggerations of things the real Nick would use on Twitter, but they soon became the basis of the exaggeration. As with all satire, the solution isn’t to use non-sequitors; it is to become something of a caricature.

The first Grobitch tweet came at 9:00 p.m. on April 2, 2012. “Kansas is proving right now that they’re overrated. The SEC is the best conference in the universe. #MIZSEC #NotBiased.” In retrospect this was an okay tweet, as it does pick up on a secondary Grobitch meme of ridiculing homerism. Tweet 2 said “Doron Lamb is getting laid tonight. Just like me.” Thus beginning Grobitch’s infatuation with “the ladies” (or “teh ladies” if you prefer). Tweet 6 is, in my opinion, the tweet that really launched Grobitch: “Bill Self is an asshat. Thomas Robinson is an asshat. Everybody is an asshat.” It’s a totally insane comment that Nick on his worst day wouldn’t even make but at the same time, it works as satire. It calls people an asshat and it evolves from calling Bill Self an asshat (which I’d be surprised if Nick hasn’t done directly), to calling Thomas Robinson an asshat (less likely, but somewhat plausible), to calling everybody an asshat (the point at which the parody is acknowledged).

I won’t lie; I thought this might last about a week.

Even early on, I alternated between insanity (“When I’m wearing my Jayhawks shirt around campus tomorrow, it’s the only thing ever that could prevent me from getting laid”) and pseudo-social commentary (“Fuck having to work tonight at a job that I voluntarily hold not because I have pressing financial need but for beer money”). And that was the blueprint.

And then the others got involved.

As per the request of others involved, I will choose not to indicate who the others are. I will say that, to the best of my knowledge, the total number of people who have tweeted under the name @grobitch20 is four and that the total number of people who knew before today for an absolute, tangible fact who was behind the account is around ten. With that said, about ninety-five percent of Grobitch’s tweets, including almost all of the reply tweets (even most of the ones that are replying to my personal tweets) came from me.

And so it has continued. Grobitch now has 82 followers. Holy shit, a parody account of a non-celebrity who has only followed people based on whether or not @grobot20 has tweeted at them has EIGHTY-TWO FOLLOWERS. I’m amazed, personally. It’s been a hell of a ride. Will it continue now that the truth is known? I don’t see why not. To some extent, Grobitch had probably seen better days even without being outed. One thing I can promise is that Grobitch will be deleted before it ever resorts to insisting on prior review from, as he would put it, “Real Me”. Thanks to everybody who has made this the most fun ten months anyone could ever hope to have on Twitter.

Love,         

John (@johnjf125)

P.S.—If you have any further questions about Grobitch or the Grobitch process, leave them in the comments section or DM me (either under @johnjf125 or @grobitch20 will be fine) and I’d be happy to answer them under a separate post.

Johnapedia's Ten Greatest Sports Stories of 2012

Rather than dealing with stupid sentimental media stories like Tim Tebow or the Miami Heat or something like that, Johnapedia is going to address the REAL ten best sports stories of the calendar year of 2012.

10. LeSean McCoy, All He Does Is Win--Forget Tim Tebow, whose in the two seasons which occurred at least partially in 2012 will combine for a total of one playoff win.  The true clutch gene of 2012 goes to LeSean McCoy, who in spite of what so-called "experts" have called a disappointing season, he was the first round pick of the champions of two of my three fantasy football leagues.  HE SHATTERED THE MOLD!

9. Revenge of the Halak--For the first couple of months of 2012, all I heard about in St. Louis among my (predominantly white) friends was how Brian Elliott was so much better than Jaroslav Halak in spite of the fact that Halak had several seasons of solid goaltending play on his resume and Brian Elliott had basically been the hockey equivalent to Akili Smith up until a hot stretch during the season.  So then came hoards of clamoring for Halak, arguably the team's best player, to be benched in favor of a guy who was basically given away to the St. Louis Blues.  Halak continued to be critiqued in spite of his general excellence until the Blues faced off against the Los Angeles Kings in the Western Conference (I think it's called Western, right?  It's not like Wales or whatever the fuck it used to be back when people somehow cared less about hockey) Semis and Brian Elliott showed worse at goaltending than if a manican had been placed in goal.  I hated to see the Blues get swept because while I'm largely apathetic about hockey, I do still root for the Blues.  I did, however, love to see blatantly racist hockey fans (GASP!) get their comeuppance.

8. Golden Tate things--Theoretically, this is a negative story since it meant the wrong team won a game.  But the reason the Golden Tate TD fiasco with the replacement refs between the Seahawks and Packers was fucking awesome is because of the passions it brought out.  I was on Twitter that night as well as Election Night and the former was angrier.  T.J. Lang wrote a series of vulgar tweets about how his team got screwed.  Aaron Fucking Rodgers got into it as well.  And neither got fined!  It was a strange loophole in the general rules of professionalism.

7. Lionel Messi is the best athlete in the world--The best athlete in the world, which I define as the person who is mostly clearly the best in the world at their sport, plays the world's most popular sport.  Lionel Messi is the best soccer player I've ever seen--he's better than Ronaldo (either of the Brazilian or Cristiano variant), better than Ronaldinho, better than Zidane.  In fact, let me take it a step further--if Messi wins a World Cup with Argentina in 2014, he's better than Pele.  Yes, better than Pele.  Pele's argument for best ever is World Cups and Messi already kicks the ever-loving shit out of Pele in terms of professional success (seriously, Pele went to the U.S. and it wasn't even a considerable drop-off in terms of opponent quality from his club career).  And this was his best year.  He scores goals with unfuckingbelievable regularity.  It's like if Sammy Sosa had an entire season in which he was playing like he did in June 1998.  And Messi's doing it.

6. Raul Ibanez?--The question mark is how I best explain this.  Ibanez was such a huge WHATTHEFUCKISGOINGON that I found myself rooting for the Yankees (provided he was playing).  9/11 didn't make me root for the Yankees, but this guy did.  When his unbelievable coda, a pinch-hit home run to tie Game 1 of the ALCS in the 9th inning, occurred, I was in a casino, standing around tables, and my eye bulged and I just looked around, seeing a few other guys amazed that HE DID IT AGAIN.  Worth repeating--I live in St. Louis.  Nothing Raul Ibanez did made a damn bit of sense and that's why it was great.

5. Last Day of the EPL Season--I was rooting for Manchester United but I couldn't help but love what I saw.  It was basically the equivalent of Game 6 of the 2011 World Series but for the rest of the world.  Flipping between United and Manchester City, seeing City somehow equalize and take the lead in extra time, which was capped by Liam Gallagher pouring champagne on people in a private box because Liam Gallagher.  It's also why international soccer leagues get it right--rather than trying to expand playoffs or anything silly like that, all the drama comes out on Game 38 of the season.

4. Texas A&M beating Alabama--Let me be perfectly clear here, I fucking hate Alabama.  I always have.  But then when they hired Nick Saban, who is quite frankly fucking evil, I began to hate them to new and previously unthought of levels.  Mike Dubose blamed losses on God, Mike Price had an affinity for unattractive strippers, Dennis Franchione bolted for more money, and yet Nick Saban's eternal dickishness will always be the most unforgivable facet of Alabama football to me.  So to see the anointed assholes who some very dumb people claimed could give an NFL team a run for its money get run all over by a FRESHMAN quarterback who for all intents and purposes won the Heisman in one night (I honestly don't think he even gets an NYC invite if that game never happens) was just majestic.  The highlight of a crazy college football season.  This event is somewhat diminished by Alabama, for a second straight year, having to pay absolutely no consequences whatsoever for a home November loss, but the memories of that evening remain.

3. The New York Giants defeat Evil--There's never a reason to root for the Patriots.  Most teams I root against in sports I respect.  I respect the fact that Lebron James took less money to play for a contender, even if he left in a dickish way.  I respect Duke basketball playing the right way and actually giving a damn about academics.  I don't respect the Patriots--I think they're a group of egomaniacal, cheating bastards who essentially got away with being the crooks they are because a group of idiots claim that winning the Super Bowl in 2002 somehow was a triumph after 9/11 (just as I'm sure the thousands of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina totally had that offset by the Saints making the 2006 NFC Championship game).  But anyway, while this triumph of not-evil over evil wasn't as satisfying was the team that stopped the perfect season, it was still pretty damn great.

2. Game 5 of the 2012 NLDS--Much like Albert Pujols triumphing over Brad Lidge in the 2005 NLCS, this game will certainly be obscured over time because it didn't lead to a World Series win, and also perhaps because it was less exciting than Game 6 of the 2011 World Series, but the fact that it happened AGAIN almost made it better.  The batshit craziness of the Cardinals making a "Just. Won't. Go. Away." comeback AGAIN makes for a lame script but an awesome reality.

1. The 2012 Olympics--I don't give a shit about the Olympics, by and large.  USA basketball winning was nice but I don't consider gymnastics a sport (for the same reason I don't consider acting a sport--it's skillful and often requires great physicality, but in the end, it's a judge deciding the winner) and the swimming was a letdown from 2008.  Usain Bolt is still fast and all that.  The reason the 2012 Olympics was the best sports story of the year is because it led to this: http://metro.co.uk/2012/08/13/spice-girls-and-liam-gallagher-put-15-year-rift-behind-them-at-olympics-closing-ceremony-534926/

And that is why the 2012 Olympics are the best story of 1996.  Happy New Year, everybody!