Doing a quality impersonation is hard work. Except for George Bush. He's easy to impersonate. Or John Madden. He's pretty easy too. Oh, and Jack Nicholson. Everyone can do him. But a high end, quality Rickey Henderson impersonation? It's tough to actually pull off. Jimmy Rollins can do just that.
Now, TBS hasn't put a formal offer on the table, but I would be surprised if they let Jimmy slip through the cracks during the offseason.
When the Yankees are officially eliminated from the playoffs in a few weeks, there's going to be a lot of blame going around. Fans will blame Alex Rodriguez for never coming through in the clutch, Brian Cashman for never making the deal for Johan Santana, and Hank Steinbrenner for forcing Joe Girardi to move Joba Chamberlain to the starting rotation.
They'll also be blaming the Rays and Red Sox for having superior teams. Still, there's one person who probably deserves more credit for the Yankees demise than anybody else, it's just that most Yankees fans probably don't even realize it. That man is President of the United States, George Bush.
Are Yankees fans also Barack Obama supporters? The Yankees have won eight world championships during Democratic administrations in the past 50 years but haven't won a title with a Republican in office since Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958. Since then, the Yankees have won titles during the terms of John F. Kennedy (1961-62), Jimmy Carter (1977-78) and Bill Clinton (1996, 1998-2000).
The Rocky Mountain News' Tracy Ringolsby also digs a little further and notices that the Red Sox haven't won a World Series with a Democrat in office since Woodrow Wilson in 1918. So it looks like Yankees fans will have a lot easier time figuring out who to vote for this November than I am.
Are Letterman's writers taking their cues from FanHouse, where Will Brinson noted yesterday that Barack Obama's skills on the hardwood were just a wee bit more impressive than President Bush's?
I'll admit that when I first started watching this video (via FanIQ), I probably made some sort of snarky comment about how grainy it is. And the quality isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but once G-Dubya starts the rock, it doesn't need to be. He finally catches rim on his third shot (no the second one didn't go in) which is a layup that never actually had a prayer of going in.
Although in fairness to Bush, I would rather my President be an embarrassingly bad basketball player than a Carolina fan. Does that mean that our next President Democratic Presidential nominee isn't a lot better at basketball than the current (and uncoordinated) leader of the free world? Not necessarily:
Wouldn't politics be more fun if the candidates just played one-on-one games to see who would win? At least we could get Michael Jordan out of the Bobcats front office and alongside Barack if that were the case.
I think that this can be a valid and an interesting way of covering a golf tournament, but the choice of Durst by the extraordinarily traditional and staid Masters members is very surprising to me. Durst is known as a national political satirist who tends to bash both sides of the political aisle, and at least in the above YouTube clip of his one man show, completely skewers the sitting President of the United States. Some folks don't care for that sort of talk.
I can't fathom anyone thinking that his Masters blog is particularly funny, but more importantly, that the Masters members would think its tone is appropriate.
The Washington Nationals have apparently decided to be good neighbors to the rest of the District in their new ballyard. Tongues have been wagging about how the team would handle President Bush's first pitch on Sunday. Their catcher, Paul Lo Duca, was one of the stars of the Mitchell Report and Bush spent a large chunk of his 2004 State of the Union decrying steroids in sports. The sight of Lo Duca grinning and trotting to shake the President's hand after the toss is probably one Bush's team would like to avoid.
The Nats are willing to play ball. Rather than risk embarassing the President, manager Manny Acta will catch the pitch instead and Bush can serve out the rest of his Presidency with his dignity and reputation intact. Er, well, he'll get to serve it out without having a picture of him shaking hands with Paul Lo Duca anyway.
As embarassing as such a snapshot could be, Bush isn't out of the woods just yet. An enterprising photographer could find a way to snap the President listening to Lastings Milledge spin rhymes on his turntables. Or what if Elijah Dukes decides to show Dubya how one sends text messages on a cellphone, dawg? Talk about awkward.
At this point, we should not be surprised by anything Manny Ramirez does or says. He is a great hitter, a flawed fielder and well, sort of quirky dude. I suppose it all wraps into his "Manny being Manny" charm. So when Manny skipped Boston's visit to the White House on Wednesday -- the visit in which George Bushmade a joking knock on his dead grandmother -- there had to be some explanation why Manny decided not to go, right?
It is his new passion for his down time, and he had some of that on Wednesday. So when asked if he needed a presidential remark to feel important, he said he did not.
"I was doing meditation in my house, so I feel more important," Ramirez said. "That's what I do now. In my time off, I read books and I meditate. That's what I do."
So there you have it folks, Manny Ramirez was not watching his fellow teammates being congratulated by George Bush when he didn't make the trip, he was achieving inner peace and maybe reading some books. And nothing about that really seems out of the ordinary. Sorry, No Photos (HT: BBTF)
George Bush welcomed the Boston Red Sox to his home yesterday -- it's something called the "White House" -- to congratulate them on their World Series victory of '07. As he usually does at these sports celebrations, he cracked a few jokes. (It's sports! It's fun!)
"I love the fact that you've got some of the game's biggest stars. I mean, 'Big Papi,' the guy lights up the screen. He brings a great personality - (applause). I'm sorry his running mate, Manny Ramirez, isn't here. I guess his grandmother died again. (Laughter.) Just kidding. (Laughter.) Tell Manny I didn't mean it."
You can watch video of said quote here. If you remember last spring training, it was reported Manny didn't report to spring training because he was with his sick mother, but then reports surfaced he was actually at a car show. (Theo Epstein later cleared this up, saying he wasn't going to a car show and instead attending to family matters.)
On any accord, this probably wasn't in the best taste or choice of words, but hey, the speech writers for Bush have a hard enough time as it is, huh? Sorry, No Photos
The Red Sox visited the White House today and George Bush -- as American presidents do -- congratulated and celebrated Boston on its World Series victory of the '07 season. Besides making a joke about Manny Ramirez's dead grandmother (I don't think that one went over so well!) President Bush found time to liken Daisuke Matsuzaka to himself, getting in some self-depreciation for good measure.
It's almost as if his own approval rating for himself is lower than America's for him. Hi-yo!
Last year's team played like starving dogs, tracking down the puck as if it were a hunk of meat. Intensity and relentless physicality made the Ducks the league's most frightening date on the schedule. This year? They're still big and strong, but they're not as ferocious on the forecheck. That's led to fewer scoring chances, a fact borne out by their standing as the meekest offense of any team holding a playoff spot in either conference.
When the Yankees are officially eliminated from the playoffs in a few weeks, there's going to be a lot of blame going around. Fans will blame 
The Washington Nationals have apparently decided to be good neighbors to the rest of the District in their new ballyard. 
At this point, we should not be surprised by anything 
