Warped, Sports, and Forts

A lot of things happened the last 3 days or so. We had a flurry of activity at the trade deadline, I hit up the Warped tour in Milwaukee, and built the most bitching fort in my basement.

Trade Winners:

1. Milwaukee Brewers. They at least bought themselves a playoff birth and a shot at the division in the Sabbathia trade. He's a perfect NL pitcher: can go deep into games, overpowering stuff, and can hit. It's not a tough call when he comes up top 7 to say "take your bat CC, you're out there next inning." That's important. They gave up Matt LaPorta and a friend of mine who works for the Brewers and watched LaPorta is sure he'll be a stud. So the Indians got a good looking deal as well.

2. Chicago Cubs. Harden and Wood, can we get NBA benchwarmer Matt Bonner to work in middle relief so we can make more jokes? Rich is a great six inning pitcher, but he's only a 6 inning pitcher. Which is why you will see great stats from him in every category but the win-loss column. You can count on 3 runs or less, but how much do you like turning the ball over to middle relievers for 2 innings every outing? Those guys are wild cards, that's why they aren't starters or closers. The scouting reports are very positive on Gallagher and he's posting a 4 ERA at 22, so he might be very good one day. He needs to work on better mixing his pitches as well as locations (thank you ESPN scouting).

3. Angels. A middle of the order consisting of Vlad, Teixeira, and Torii Hunter. That's intimidating. They know look like the most complete team in baseball. They lost Kotchman who's a good young player, but his OBP was .321 and he was on pace to be a 20 HR guy. You want more out of your 5 guy. They also gave up Steve Marek a closer-prospect. Angels fans may be upset over losing a sentimental favorite in Kotchman, who's father is a minor league manager for the Angels and was brought up on the Angels, but the fact of the matter is that most of the game's very good-elite 1B were far better at age 25 than Kotchman is.

-----Epic Gap in the impact of the trades.

3. Yankees. Picked up Pudge who calls a good game and hits decently for an easily replaceable Kyle Farnsworth. Xavier Nady is incredibly underrated and will probably take over at DH. That lineup will not be fun to go throw because everyone can hurt you, with the exception of the Melky "Milkman" Cabrera (the milkman only delivers once a week, much like Cabrera). Marte is a left handed specialist who adds depth to the bullpen. They gave up a couple of B prospects, which if your the Yanks means nothing.

4. White Sox and Reds. Good trade for both sides. Griffey probably won't be an everyday starter, but will push Swisher and Konerko to start performing as well as allow Dye and Quentin to take a day off here and there without forfeiting the game. The two have combined to miss 4 out of about 200 possible games. Granted baseball isn't a taxing sport, but you still want guys fresh. Griffey also provides a left handed power bat to balance the order. The Reds win because they save 8 million dollars. They got a long reliever and utility man in the process too, if that means anything.

Neutral:

1. Dodgers. Manny is crazy. He is gone, became a complete caricature of himself. He can still hit well, but he's only in it for the money. I can see him fighting Jeff Kent to the death in a daring camel-back joust, we REALLY need to bring back jousting, or I could see him leading the Dodgers to an NL West division championship. It's not a real risk, because he came essentially for free, but I'm evaluating based on how much the deal could help. It may not make any impact whatsoever, could tear the clubhouse apart, or give them an already winnable NL West. They are not a championship threat.

2. Pirates. I have to assume there going to use all the pieces they acquired to bring an a stud player. Otherwise it seems like they set themselves up to be this years pre-Manny Dodgers.

3. Tigers. Pudge will be replaced by super-utility Brandon Inge and production won't really suffer. Their bullpen needed the help.

4. Braves. Probably could have gotten same caliber players with the compensation picks from Teixeira, although grabbing the players through a trade is a little safer.

Losers:

1. Red Sox. Lost the face of the franchise. Bay isn't a long drop performance-wise, but he is in the category of fear. People knew and feared Manny, perhaps because he resembles the Predator meets fat Pirates of the Carribean Johnny Depp, and baseball is a game where players psyche themselves out. Bay isn't scary, he's Canadian. Teams intentionally walked teammate Nate McClouth 3 times as often as they did Bay. You also never know how a guy going from nobody watching in Pittsburgh to the bright lights of Boston is going to react. He looked good last night though. Is anyone else wondering where Bill Simmons commentary on his favorite team losing it's defining player went?

2. Rays and Marlins who missed out on Bay and Manny respectively. They Rays didn't lose too bad though, because Manny is gone from the division. I thought the Twins should have gone after a power bat to plug in at DH and solidify the order, but I don't really question their methods.

WARPED TOUR

I made the hour long drive to Warped Tour's Milwaukee stop with my friend Billy. I was going basically just to see Reel Big Fish but I ended up catching 4 shows and hanging out to hear another couple. The following are my mental notes:

In any given room, I'm in the top 5 palest people there. Usually there's a couple people who see less sun than me, but I'm always up there. Not at Warped. Here I'm a bronzed god. It's the skater/irony/misfit crowd and my friend and I stick out pretty bad because we don't hate life and see the sun.

Not a particularly attractive female crowd. Strike Milwaukee off the list of cities I want to be an eligible bachelor in.

The first band we catch is We The Kings at 1. My friend Scott saw them in New York and said the played well but it wasn't that fun. I endorse his statement.

Around 2, we head over to the free Monster bar and listen in on Motion City Soundtrack. I don't have any music by most of the bands here, but I have heard some stuff by all of them. I was very comfortale sipping on an energy drink and overhearing MCS. They were pretty good and the fans were into it.

2:30- Against Me. I stood towards the back because I only knew a couple of their songs and I'm happy I made that descision. A couple of people came out of the mosh pit with serious gashes. Definitely not a studio band, but they tried to play straight through their entire set and lost some steam at the end. It was a pretty impressive show, usually you see a band slow it down a little but they played at an incredible pace up to half way through the last song.

We took a break for an hour between Against Me and Reel Big Fish. The Monster was keeping me awake but didn't give me the energy boost it claimed. The t-shirts being sold were kind of disappointing. We sat around until it was finally time.

Reel Big Fish Time! We went over a couple minutes early to get good spots and a death metal band was playing on the adjacent stage. Billy said it best: "This music makes me feel sad." But then they were done and there was no more sadness. Because Reel Big Fish came out and played "I Want Your Girlfriend To Be My Girlfriend Too". There was a large pit which was a hybrid skank/mosh pit. I'd like to thank whoever invented skanking as it allows white people like me to comfortably dance. They covered the first verse of Metallica's "Enter Sandman", I think it was a small jab at the emo crowd that had dispersed a little for their show. They played to the crowd more than any other band, telling some jokes throwing out air fives, mocking Katy Perry, and other such things. They took requests and when the crowd overwhelmingly chanted for "Beer" they said it was beneath their artistic integriy. They held out for a minute then when they said "just kidding. This song is called Beer," everybody went nuts. They followed that with Take On Me and for those two songs there was only glory and frenzy. I was the final crowd surfer over and the lead singer gave me a thumbs up. All of that is true and it was perfect.

Cobra Starship followed Reel Big Fish as a double-header main event. I found Billy and sat down because I had no energy. I resembled Paris Hilton after RBF, drained, smelly, and covered in other men's sweat. The key difference being I hadn't died a little on the inside, I had done whatever the opposite of that is. We listened to Cobra, who performed really well and the fans were again going nuts. They still sound a little raw and I don't approve of the tight white pants they wore, but Cobra won me over. They, like almost every other band there, are better live than in studio.

Break and dinner.

The final show I wanted to see: 3Oh!3. My friend told me I had to see them and he's usually right so I took a flier. It's basically 2 white frat boys from Boulder who decided they wanted to start a techno/rap band. Then they hired a random black guy to dance and throw Monster on people and created a cool hand sign. That's a winning formula. The music was good but nowhere near as impressive as they energy they sent out. They simply got the crowd going nuts. They were a little short of Big Fish, but those 2 were well above everyone else as must-sees. If going you should also see Cobra Starship, Motion City Soundtrack, and Against Me. That way you get your fill of emo pop, punk, hip hop, and ska.

-----Random Change of Thought

I recommend to anyone feeling down that they build a blanket fort. I built a huge fort in my basement and it was very worthwhile. One feels very safe when in a blanket fort. You need chairs, large blankets, and some pillows for comfort.

Can the Bulls please sign Ben Gordon? Seriously, we look like the Hawks. He's gonna benefit more from Derrick Rose's drving presence as an outside shooter more than Deng is, and we already overpaid Deng. What's the holdup?

Boos directed in the direction of Brett Favre and the Packers. Brett wants to compete for the Packers QB job, they won't let him. The Packers want to trade him out of the division, he won't let them. Solution: throw money at the problem and offer Brett 25 million to stay retired. Way to make it look like this whole fiasco is about ego and money, not the game. UNACCEPTABLE.

You made it to the end of the article! You win!