Post-It Note Paul here, subbing for Mr. Walsh, who is taking an intensive dance course. Actually, he's celebrating his anniversary. That's right ladies, Dan Walsh is not on the market.
Remember how happy you were after the Brewers wrapped up a 7-0 road trip with four thrilling wins in St Louis to push their road record above .500? Do you remember how that felt? Seriously, dig deep and try to remember, because all of that good mojo has disappeared in a flurry of bad defense and untimely hitting.
The Crew lost to the Cubs again last night, ensuring a second consecutive home series loss. For the second straight night, it wasn't even much of a contest. Shoddy defense led to two Cubs runs in the first. For a while, our only hitter who could touch Ryan Dempster seemed to be Manny Parra, who doubled with no outs and tripled. How did we fare in those RISP situations? Well, we stranded Parra both times. Let's not even get into the hit-and-run play that led to Jason Kendall getting thrown out at second in advance of Parra's double. We've been outplayed, outcoached and overmatched this entire series. Hats off to the Cubs.
If you want to relive the pain of another loss, here's ESPN's recap:
Here's post-game audio with Ned, Manny, Prince and Billy.
Rubbing some salt into the loss, the Cardinals won last night to move back into a tie with the Brewers for the wild card.
We do, of course, have a ton of Cubs fans in the area right now. I'd like to thank you for your input to our local economy, but would you kindly not fight Brewer fans in 3-against-1 matches? I mean, really, let's fight this out fairly.
In other Brewers-related news:
- CC Sabathia took out a full page ad inside Wednesday's Cleveland Plain Dealer sports section, thanking the Cleveland fans (and a local sponsor) for their support during his time there. Classy PR move.
- Jim Powell reports in his blog that Yovanni Gallardo is hoping not only to pitch, but to start, in September.
- The Brewers are having a fairly successful season at the box office, and on TV and radio
- What is Erin Andrews doing flirting with the dreaded Cubs???
Headed to today's Brewers-Cubs finale? Well, you better leave early because the State Fair is also starting today.
Way back on May 14th, when I made my Daily Drink guest writing debut, I said this: "Oh, there's also a Brett Favre mention in the article, but frankly, I'm on a Favre news hiatus." Of course, the following smattering of links out of the googlzillion out there regarding Favre right now make a hiatus impossible.
On Wednesday, Packers President Mark Murphy met with Favre and his agent, James "Bus" Cook in Mississippi. ESPN has the story. Murphy had no comment, but guess what? "Bus" did. Personally, I'm surprised we haven't heard from Brett's brother Scott in a while. I just want this thing done with. Meanwhile, Commissioner Goodell has delayed acting on Favre's reinstatement request, hoping to give the Packers and Favre some time to come to an amicable solution. Ha. That's probably optimistic thinking. Did Murphy offer Favre $20 million to stay retired?
Chris Mortensen's update:
Packer players are sick of the Favre news:
Even better... how 'bout a monotone rework of a Hannah Montana song about Favre? Gotta praise the dude's creativity -- the bobblehead is an especially nice touch. But, wow is his singing painful to listen to. (h/t Kissing Suzy Kolber)
Bob McGinn and Tom Silverstein are reporting that, internally at least, the Packers have discussed the possibility of trading Favre to the Bears or Vikings.
Favre stuff from around the interweb:
I'm guessing there might be a few more Favre-related stories out there in the blogosphere, but really, this is about all my stomach can handle to look at.
I was engaged in a lengthy email debate about the Favre situation over the last couple of days. I developed a little analogy:
It would be like getting engaged to a girl, then having the girl you broke up with who moved away and joined the peace corps move back to town and want to get back together.
You got engaged four months ago. You're currently working on the invitations for the wedding.
Most of your friends like the new girl a lot. They think your relationship will be rock solid. Of course, a few of them really really liked the old girl. She was your legendary girlfriend. The one you had a ton of awesome times with. And they'd sorta like it if you gave her another chance.
Let's not forget that while she was in the peace corps, your ex-girlfriend hooked up with that Swedish guy you were both friends with. That guy was never able to pull in the quality of girls that you could, but he seized the peace corps opportunity, and your ex- was callous enough to call him on the cell phone plan that you were still paying for (you bought phones together back when it seemed like you'd be together forever).
And now that you've told her you're not getting back together. Because you're getting married.
Well... she's telling you that she's going to crash your wedding and have sex with the Swedish guy in the middle of the dance floor. During the grand march.
To which my friend Jeff replied:
Let's also not forget that it is starting to look more and more like you may have ever so gently persuaded her to join the peace corp in the first place.
My response:
Well, she threatened to join the peace corps every year for the last three years, then always changed her mind and didn't go. This time, she got on the plane to DC for her week of training before heading off to Darfur, had a breakdown on Tuesday and called you to come get her. You booked a flight, but while you were in the boarding area, she called and said she'd decided to go to Darfur for sure.
Now, you're not blameless in this because you've been flirting with this girl at work for the last two years too. But, you never asked her on a real date (you may have had lunch a few times) until the peace corps thing.
Followed by Jeff ending the story with this gem:
And for the grand finale...... Why would you ever decide to marry a girl you haven't had sex with? Sure, you grabbed her boobs in Dallas one time, but that's all the further you've gotten. Besides that, she seems to get a lot of headaches.
Can I use the word "boobs" in the Daily Drink? Man, I sure hope the censors don't get all up in Dan's grill about that one...
Speaking of the Packers, there's actually some non-Favre related stuff going on with the team:
- While Ryan Grant sits out trying to negotiate a new deal, Brandon Jackson has been making strides in camp. One of the benefits of having Sirius satellite radio is the NFL radio channel. The Packers got discussed a few times yesterday. On Grant, they made some great points about why Grant holding out is silly. Why? He hasn't proven enough AND if he duplicates what he did last year? He'll be able to sign a much bigger deal next offseason.
- The Packers' salary cap is in great shape (with or without Favre).
- The Packers released a TE they had paid a signing bonus to acquire in the first place. Railbird Central says it was the right move.
- Railbird Central also wonders if the Packers can trade for a defensive tackle (a position that is becoming thinner by the day)
- The Journal Sentinel's Greg Bedard has a detailed rundown of Wednesday's training camp practice. Here's a summary version.
- Don Walker reports that the Packers proposing a $20+ million project for the east side of Lambeau Field.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement ceremony is this weekend. That also means we get the Hall of Fame game (Colts - Redskins). But even better? We're pretty much officially in "ok to talk about fantasy football without being a complete dork" season. And I probably qualify as a FFL dork. I mean, I even created a service for tracking FFL records for leagues that use one particular fantasy service. I'm in my first draft of the year (I'll be in 8 or 9 leagues when all is said and done). It's one of those slow-email type drafts, so we've made it through 12 rounds in 5 days, with 13 more rounds to go (no setting lineups, waivers, or trades in this format -- you just draft it and forget it). With the 5th pick in round 1, I took Joseph Addai. I think I like 5 guys at the top of the draft this year. After that, I'd rather pick lower in round 1 and get that high second round choice.
Speaking of fantasy, AOL Fanhouse created quite a stir with their partnership with Fantasy Sports Girl. If you get your fantasy news from Fantasy Sports Girl, you are more than welcome in any of my leagues.
Dwyane Wade is taking an 'angry' approach heading into the Olympics. Let's just hope that anger doesn't distract from more important things, like making shots, playing defense, winning games. You know, that stuff that tends to lead to gold medals. Speaking of the Olympics, former Brewer manager Jim Lefebrve is trying to teach the Chinese baseball team how to hit. His goal of simply trying to "play the game right" sounds like the stuff that led the Brew Crew to 74 wins and a fifth place finish in the division in 1999. Interestingly, Lefebrve also had a bit of an acting career!
Buckingham U Blogger reports on some coaching changes at Wisconsin. In an ongoing series breaking down each position of the Badger football team, Jeff Potrykus looks at the young WR corps. ESPN.com's Adam Rittenberg ranks the Big Ten's rivalries. Both of UW's protected rivalry matchups make the top 5. 2 hours later, he took another look.
Leonardo DiCaprio has been fairly successful with the ladies in his lifetime. Who do you prefer?
| former g/f Gisele Bundchen |
or |
current g/f Bar Refaeli |
 |
 |
Your input welcome in the comments section below.
I'm off to Lollapalooza in Chicago tomorrow-Sunday. Tickets are still available, but I believe they are expecting nearly 75,000 people each day. The lineup is awesome, and while hot, the weather looks like it's going to be quite cooperative for a 3-day outdoor festival. Here's my initial itinerary (albeit with some conflicts that will need to be resolved). Some bands I'm looking forward to seeing:
Friday: Mates of State
Saturday: The Ting Tings