Liver Rants For The Week: Babies, Death and Sports

August 7, 2009


Seems like every other day the Liver is finding out something new that’s happened to not just his sports teams and sports in general but to his friends.  I just had the first of two of my greatest friends having their first child THIS MONTH. Needless to say, me thinks me learned a valuable lesson God. Just because you’re asleep for a year, doesn’t the mean the rest of the world is gonna slow down. It keeps going.

But the Liver is truly happy not just for his friends, but for HIMSELF. One of the benefits of being asleep for a year and then reawakening to find that just about ALL of your close friends are married or divorced with 1.5 kids is that YOU STILL HAVE NO KIDS.

As Coach Bob Knight would say after ripping someone a new a**hole verbally, ”Now (pause) back to the game.”

So Brett Favre finally called it a career huh?  Forgive me if I don’t shed a tear dear reader for one first ballot Hall of Famer QB Brett f***ing Favre after six years of threatening us with the very thought of he "might" retire. Give me a break. I’ve already seen you doing the crying and “I got nothing left to give” bit before Brett. The Liver doesn’t ask many favors dear God…okay maybe he does…but that ‘s not the point.

The point is dear God whatever you do, PLEASE make sure this is the end of Brett Favre talk in this upcoming NFL season sucking up airtime that could be given to ANTHING ELSE GOING ON IN THE NFL SEASON. ARE THERE ANY dear readers who are Packers fans who still extol this man’s memory even though he was THIS close to suiting up for arguably your bitterest divisional rival just so he could stick it to the Packers brass? Way to go Brett.

And since we’re on the topic the Liver would be wagering on FOX that has the best chance to get Favre in there on an infrequent basis. Can’t you just see Favre, Jimmy Johnson and Terry Bradshaw together? They could be having a conversation on the latest issue of “Fish and Game” while Howie Long and Curt Menefee are trying to talk football.

R.I.P Jim Johnson. The Liver may be bleed silver and blue but he has ALWAYS respected the hell out of Andy Reid and Jim Johnson even though their team was the Filthy Eagles. Damn good coaches who have always been about class. That’s the one common component (Filthy’s defense) that beat the hell out of the Cowboys consistently this decade. I always remember when he was given his few close-ups during Cowboys-Eagles games and you could see that stone cold face. I truly feared seeing him as well as the rest of that Eagles team, cause more often than not, the Cowboys got their asses kicked.

Jim Johnson was one of the toughest, meanest but first-rate assistant coaches the likes you just don’t see anymore. His defense over his 10 year span with Reid and the Eagles was top five more often than not. What a shame they couldn’t have beaten the Pats in their Super Bowl. The Liver can honestly say that Filthy was the lesser of rooting for two evils that day. I had to pick a team to bet on so I became a temporary Filthy fan, even with T.O. Oh and there was the little thing about me not wanting the Pats to tie the 90s Cowboys as the only teams in NFL history to be Super Bowl winners 3 out of 4 years. As an NFL fan I can truly say that it’s gonna take a few years before the Liver gets used to not seeing him twice a season. If cancer can beat a man like Jim Johnson, you know there is no cure.

Oh and you think that’s depressing? Try waking up and finding out that Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Karl Malden and Walter Cronkite JUST TO NAME A FEW are dead. John Hughes, the man who had a huge impact on the Liver’s adolescence in the 80s, is dead? Apparently the Liver was lucky to live through this past July. Lets just say the Liver has spent a few nights in front of his computer on You Tube looking at old news and film footage with a Shiner Bock in one hand and a tissue in the other.

And if that’s not depressing enough, how’s about finding out a guy you really liked rooting for and didn’t wear a Cowboys uniform (Steve McNair) got shot dead four times by some sick, crazy girlfriend of his? Of all the people that would happen to, the last one you’d think of would be McNair.

Arturo Gatti? So first it’s ruled a homicide as the wife SUPPOSEDLY strangled him to death with her PURSE STRINGS right? And now they’re telling us that it was a suicide? Such things give the Liver tired head.

But then there’s this for the Liver to feel better about. Tony Romo and Jessica Simpson broke up apparently after Jessica wanted to have a Ken and Barbie birthday party for herself. Maybe he’s not so dumb. Maybe he’ll be even more focused on football and trying to figure out how to win a f***ing playoff game this century.

He’s got Jerry Jones calling the new Cowboys offense “Romo friendly.” I’d say he better show me, along with every other level headed Cowboys fan out there, something in December and January. Yeah we’ve seen the whole “get off to nice starts” bit kid. I know the story. Unfortunately you and the team seem to peak during Thanksgiving Dinner. I want to see that in December. This will be his third full season as a starter. It’s time to show Cowboys fans you can be THE MAN. That means take care of the ball.

So Manny, A-Rod and David Ortiz have all tested positive in the infamous 2003 “ANONYMOUS” MLB drug test? I think it’s time now, and I’m talking to real baseball fans out there, to seriously considering marking the years 1989-2005, “THE STEROID ERA.”  It’s almost to the point that Albert Pujols and Jim Thome are the only guys standing FOR RIGHT NOW as far as dominant hitters of this decade that HAVEN’T TESTED POSITIVE.

As much as I hate Ozzie Guillen and The Liver’s biological father “The Most Interesting Man in the World”, I love them all the more. Particularly when Ozzie gives us juicy tidbits like this when being asked for 10,000th time about someone testing positive, in this case it was Big Poppi.

If you’re gonna give names, release the whole list or as Ozzie says, “If you gonna divorce me, divorce me right away…don’t say you gonna leave me. If you gonna talk…you gonna be every night….you gonna be all with the divorce…you know…get out of my house.” Couldn’t have said it better.

So they Lakers did what they had to do to make sure they’re still the team to beat. They got Lamar Odom to resign. So let me see now, the NBA salary cap for 2009-2010 is $57.7 million. The tax threshold is at $69.9 million. The Lakers salary for 2009-2010…drumroll please…$92.9 million. Now the Liver is no math genius like Chevy Chase but that’s 23 million in TAX MONEY that Dr. Jerry Buss will be paying. Shades of Jerry Jones circa 1995 are flooding my mind.

The Liver is drunk just from hearing about the players who have changed teams JUST THIS OFFSEASON. Shaq is a Cav? ‘Sheed is a Celtic? Marrion a Mav? This one made me cringe…Tim Thomas a Mav? Ahhh, Mark didn’t you try this in 2004? Wasn’t that the double Antoine experiment along with Dirk and Nash and Finley?  Doesn’t matter though. Fortunately for the Liver the Mavs will be a fun team to watch and will make the playoffs. Unfortunately, they won’t be encountering a wounded dog of a Spurs team this time in the first round. What the hell? The Knicks aren’t doing anything this season. 

Last time I checked 23 of 32 teams had publicly released statements saying they want nothing to do with Michael Vick. The AFL might have to close down shop due to what the Liver has been told over the last week is quite a nasty recession. Glad I live in California where there’s strong leadership up top and there’s no way that this state would be forced to use IOUs for state tax refunds because they’re that f***ing broke. Thanks Governator.  

So this Twitter shit is now a marketing ploy for celebrities and athletes to post breaking news on themselves? The Liver might be a drunk, a gambler, a womanizer, a rank sentimentalist BUT isn’t this just the equivalent of taking out your hard earned money, laying it out in front of you and setting it on fire JUST so you can feel closer to your favorite celebrity? At least do some hard drugs like crystal meth or cocaine or heroin. If you’re gonna piss your money away, do it for purely selfish reasons.