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I have about twenty things due for school tomorrow and yet I’m sitting here typing up part I of this post? Why? Oh that’s right…BECAUSE I SAW THE PACKERS KICK SOME ASS LAST NIGHT!

Let’s see, where to begin? Went to class…dozed off…class over…repeat three more times…time for the game! I rushed home, grabbed my ticket, made sure I was dressed in all the Packers gear I own, and bolted out the door. I drove over to Lee’s apartment to see if he still wanted to go and was pleased to see that he still wanted to go, even though he had no ticket. That my friends, is the true measure of a fan. We were on the road by 5:15 and in Charlotte by 6:30. I honestly don’t even remember much about the drive up there. I swear to God it felt as if it took maybe fourteen seconds total to make the trip. I think I blacked out from all the euphoria I was experiencing from the realization that I was about to see the Packers.

Surprisingly enough, close, cheap parking was easy to find in an underground garage and as we made our way back up to street level, we began to nice something was a little off. Maybe for every two or three Panthers fan we passed, we’d see at least one Packers fan. I’ve never high-fived so many strangers in my life then I did during the two-block walk to the stadium and by the time

I’d been talking to Alex via cell phone every 15 minutes or so and eventually we found each other. We made a game plan of (A) Finding Lee a ticket (B) Getting some beverages and (C) Taking a urination stop. B and C were easy enough, but A….let’s just say that the scalpers there were a little out of their mind. It was still two hours before kickoff, so they figured they could try to scalp high. $200 was the minimum bid of the upper level seats and Lee just wasn’t having any of that. We walked around a little bit, relaxing and talking to all the Packers fans / hotties we could find, which wasn’t too hard. There were quite a few intoxicated individuals walking around trying to pick up some women, which led to some of the funniest pick-up lines I have ever heard. This one guy held up a beer offering it to the first woman to come talk to him. An equally intoxicated lady walked over to him and he just looked at her, gave her the beer, and said in this long, drawn out voice “You’re….hot.” Surprisingly, she just took the beer and left. Go figure.

As game time approached, we went back to Sleazy Corner for the twentieth time to try and purchase Lee a ticket. As Lee haggled with one guy, I walked over to some other guys to see what they were selling and Alex started darting around like a pro. He was moving around, talking to five different guys at a time, sniffing out the slightest hint of weakness and desperation. He finally turned and gave me “the look” and I went to grab Lee and bring him over. By the time we had gotten there, Alex had become best friends with the guy and was talking to him as if he was some long-lost friend. That’s why Alex is such a cool guy. He can be friends with anybody. Anybody. The guy eventually sold Lee a ticket for cheaper then what Alex and I had actually paid for ours and as we turned around to enter the stadium, we just all looked at each other and started going crazy.

We ran into the stadium, grabbed some food and drinks, and started screaming with every Packers fan we came in contact with. While in line at the ATM, we befriended some Packers fans who happened to be in our section as well. Turns out there were a lot of Packers fans in the same section as us =) We eventually found our seats and Lee happened to be in the section right next to us, so we didn’t have to part ways until right before the game started.

As Alex and I found our seats, we realized that we had some unique seats. For me, location field wise is much more important then how low or close we are to the action. I’ll take an upper deck, mid field ticket any day over a bottom section, end zone ticket. Maybe being tall and looking down on people has something to do with it, but I enjoy being high up. I feel like I can see everything and as long as I’m not in some ancient stadium that wasn’t planned well for those in the upper desk (ie Soldier Field until it was renovated, etc.) I’m happy. Well Alex and I had seats that were on the 10-yard line and in the highest row possible. We both thought they were damn awesome. We had a huge concrete slab behind us, so we were able to stand the entire game and not piss people off behind us (for some reason, Panthers fans like to sit and be quiet…but I’ll get to that in Part II) and we could see everything on the field. We had a sweet view of downtown Charlotte as well and I honestly couldn’t have been happier with our seats.

As the countdown finally reached zero, Alex and I just turned and started cheering as loud as humanly possible. The PA system sprang to life as the Packers began to sprint out onto the field. As I stood there cheering loud and hard, it finally hit me. The Packers were about to play live in front of me. The dream Alex and I had always talked about since 4th grade was finally being lived. Every year we discussed how badly we wanted to go see the Packers and how amazing it would be to see Favre play in person and yet, we never managed to make our plans materialize. Well not this time. There I stood, next to my oldest and best friend, screaming at the top of our lungs, and waiting to see #4 run out onto that field.

It was just like I had imagined it and it was truly a feeling I’ll never forget.

GO PACK GO!!!!!!!

Jesus Christ, I can’t tell you how excited I am right now! In less then 7 hours, I will be in Charlotte watching the Packers…..

The minute after I uploaded the post about the Olympics last night, I started receiving massive amounts of hits from Yahoo, Google, and AOL from people searching for “kerri walsh misty may slap ass” or “kerri walsh ass” or “misty may is a porn stars name” or “misty may porn star” or “kerri walsh+ass+pictures” or……

Okay, I think you get the picture. My traffic over the past twenty-four hours has easily quadrupled from searches exactly like those or similar ones. So I figured that since so many people are coming here looking for pictures along those lines, I might as well oblige these random people who will most likely never come back to Shyzer again. But I figure that maybe, just maybe, one or two of them might stick around, so it’s worth it to me.

Not that I had any pictures of them on my computer or anything…. =)

So long Edgar Martinez.

I first began following the Mariners back in 1992. The likes of their roster back then included players such as Edgar, Omar Vizquel, Ken Griffey Jr, Jay Buhner, Tino Martinez, Mike Blowers, and Harold Reynolds. Over the years, every single player from that team’s roster was released, traded, or retired. Except for Edgar.

Edgar was the staple that recent Mariners fans were used to seeing. Since joining the team in 1986, he’s never played for a single other team. He’s been a member of a rare and elite bred along with the likes of Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr., and Barry Larkin. He’s not once tried to place money ahead of loyalty, he not once tried to hold the team ransom for a pay raise, and he’s not once ever passed on the opportunity to help out the community and those around him. Instead, he showed up to work every day, usually before the required time, worked as hard as any player there, and returned home to spend the rest of his evenings with his wife and children. His career numbers ranks him as the best DH to ever play the game, having racked up a career batting average of .312, 2,205 hits, 510 doubles, 1,244 RBIs, 1,272 walks, 1,203 runs, 305 home runs, and a .420 on-base percentage. So you can see the Edgar wasn’t just a fan favorite. He was a perennial All-Star player who year in and year our lifted the Mariners onto his back and carried them as far as he could.

If you ask any Mariners fan of their favorite baseball moment, you’re likely to hear Game 5 of the 1995 Divisional Playoffs. It was the first year Seattle had ever made the playoffs in their entire team’s history and in the best of 5 series; they were pitted against the dreaded New York Yankees. In what seemed like a flash, the Mariners lost the first two games and found themselves in an 0-2 hole. They fervently and valiantly fought their way back, winning the next game and staying alive for another day. In Game 4, the Mariners found themselves down 0-5 and were on the verge of elimination…that is, until Edgar Martinez pulled the proverbial rabbit out of his hat and drove in 6 runs to give the Mariners the win. But even that wasn’t enough, as they had only forced the decisive game 5 to be played on Seattle’s home turf…..

No postseason series ever meant more to a franchise than the five-game division set between the Mariners and Yankees in 1995 did to Seattle. Imagining what the Mariners would be like today had they not played that series is like imagining the history of baseball had Babe Ruth and Ted Williams decided to become carpenters. The Mariners had lost $20 million dollars the previous year. Just before the regular season ended, the public voted down a stadium proposal.

But Edgar Martinez was at the heart and core of that series; for you see, in game 5, Edgar not only won the game, but he saved baseball in Seattle.

The two teams traded shots back and forth during Game 5 and by the sixth inning, the game was tied at 2-2. As the Yankees were batting, Don Mattingly delivered a bases-loaded double that cashed in a pair. With one out in the eighth and a 4-2 lead, Yankee’s pitching David Cone was cruising until he left a pitch over the plate for Ken Griffey Jr., who blasted his fifth homer of the series and reignited the Seattle crowd. With two outs, the bases loaded and Mariano Rivera warmed and ready in the bullpen, Yankees manager Buck Showalter committed the timeless “just one more batter” sin with Cone. Pinch-hitter Doug Strange drew a walk, and trotting home with the tying run was a relatively obscure pinch-runner named Alex Rodriguez. Rivera entered and blew away Mike Blowers to stop the bleeding and keep the game tied a 4-4.

In the top of the ninth, Norm Charlton gave up a double followed by a walk, which meant that Lou Piniella could wait no longer: In came Randy Johnson, to the roar of the Seattle faithful. Johnson would be awarded the Cy Young after the season, thanks to his 18-2 record, 2.48 ERA and 294 strikeouts in a strike-shortened season that likely cost him five starts. That was the upside; the downside was that Johnson had worked seven innings in a tough Game 3 battle less than 48 hours earlier. No fatigue was immediately evident, as Johnson whiffed Wade Boggs before getting O’Neill and Bernie Williams to pop up.

In the bottom of the ninth, Rivera gave up a leadoff single to Vince Coleman, who was promptly bunted over to second by Joey Cora. Yankee’s manager Buck Showalter wisely put Griffey on, and signaled the bullpen for the Yankees’ ace, Jack McDowell, who had faced Randy Johnson in Game 3. Black Jack fanned Edgar Martinez and thought that was the last time the Yankees would have to see Edgar and his .571 seies batting average. Oh how mistaken he was.

The teams swapped tenth-inning goose eggs, setting the stage for one of the most dramatic eleventh innings in baseball history. In the visitor’s half, Johnson committed the cardinal sin of walking the leadoff manm who worked his way to second base and ultimately beat out the throw to home on a bloop single. The Yankees headed into the bottom half of the inning with nothing more then three measley outs between them and a ticket to the next round of the playoffs.

In the bottom of the eleventh, Showalter elected not to go to high-priced closer John Wetteland, who had been bombed the night before in Game 4. Instead, he asked McDowell to soldier on. And for that decision, I thank you Mr. Showalter. Joey Cora, who blasted a rare home run some eight innings earlier, was the leadoff man. With the count at 2-1, he surprised the Yankees by laying a perfect drag bunt down on the Kingdome carpet, beating out an infield hit. Griffey followed with a base hit up the middle, and Cora scooted to third with the potential tying run. Once again, Showalter said “just one more batter” to Black Jack, perhaps remembering his clutch strikeout only two innings prior of the next man up, Edgar Martinez. However, History choose not to repeat itself this time around.

As Martinez stepped into the batting box, he eyed Black Jack down and settled into his comfort zone. Ready for whatever pitch was about to come his way, he battled and battled for what felt like an eternity to most Mariners fans. With two strikes on the count and the next pitch on it’s way, Edgar decided to take a swing at the ball and seemingly effortlessly pulled the ball down the left line that bounced into the left field corner.

Cora scored easily. Meanwhile, fans both at the game and watching from home began to realize that Griffey might actually score the winning run from first. Gerald Williams retrieved the ball and as Juniors churned his legs faster then I have ever seen a man run, Tony Fernandez got off a good relay which meant that the Yankees had a play at home. With Junior almost floating off the ground as he sped towards the plate, the ball slammed into the catchers mit only inches above Junior as he joyfully slid home. The call? Safe.

The Mariners had won and the players swarmed Griffey as he lied smiling on home plate. As the dog pile grew, I’ll never forget the image that was shown next. A camera quickly panned over to second base to catch the image of Edgar Martinez standing there, arms outstretch, smile pulled broad, and tears streaking down his cheek.

Following the euphoria generated by the postseason, then-Gov. Mike Lowry called a special legislation session and the state approved construction for a new stadium But more than gaining the Mariners the stadium, the series gained ever-lasting fans, winning over a region that had never before been exposed to such exciting, dramatic baseball. And Edgar Martinez can just fully lay claim to having played the largest role in the entire series.

Edgar stayed around for another 8 1/2 seasons, helping the Mariners make the postseason three more times and tie the major league record for wins in a season at 116. He’s the only player still on the Mariners from that 1995 season. He’s the only player still on the Mariners from that 1992 season. To me, he is the Mariners. I honestly can’t picture them without him. And yet today, at 5:30 PM EST, I was forced to do so. I’ve never shed a tear over a player retiring since I always tell myself that it’s not as if they are dead, they just aren’t playing baseball any more.

Yet today, as I took my shower after work, I quietly said goodbye to Edgar and thanked him for all the memories.

So long Edgar. You’re a Hall of Famer in my book.

And for any of you baseball fans out there, whether you liked, disliked, or even knew of Edgar Martinez, you should go check out this tribute to him written last October. It not only captures the emotion that some fans have with Edgar, but with the emotions all fans have with their favorite players.

I’m searching like hell for a local base/softball team to join for the summer. There’s surprisingly more activity up here then I had originally thought, but most of it seems like it’s older men’s slow-pitch softball leagues. I can technically join them….but it’s slow pitch softball. I really wish I could find a fast pitch or even full out baseball league around here, but honestly, baseball isn’t the biggest sport in this area. There’s a few local summer leagues that are for college players only, but I can’t get into any of those since I don’t play for an NCAA school. God, what I would give to be able to go run out and play in Duncan Park again. I remember how huge that outfield used to seem and how fun it was to roam center field back in high school. I swear though, if they would just hold tryouts, I would be there in a flash.

I know I’ve said this a thousand times, but I really miss playing baseball competitively. Not going out for my high school team honestly is the biggest regret I have. I never even went and tried out because I was scared of not making the team. Jesus Christ, how pathetic is that? And now I sit here practically begging my way into a slow pitch softball league. Go figure.

(This will be the last post of this type for a long, long time. So humor me and read it. Also, for those of you interested in how the hell I became such a big Mariners fan, you can find the answer in the comments of this post.)

Well, the move back home has gone smoothly enough. I still have yet to deal with the pile of shit in the garage I call “my stuff,” but that will be dealt with sometime soon. I have, however, been working on a number of new posts to soon show up on Shyzer. I actually had a good one ready and prepared to go up tonight, but I decided to hold off a day on that one to finally get in these 2004 baseball predictions I made this past March. I would have posted them then, but I wanted to take the time to explain why I picked each team to finish where I put them, which you can read by hovering your mouse over the team’s logo. Looking back on them, I didn’t see any prediction that made me go, “Wait a minute…what in the hell was I smoking when I make THAT?!” but at the same time, quite a few of them have been off so far. Yeah, it’s only a month and a half into the season, but things are starting to settle down, the dust is clearing, and we are beginning to see the true side to most of these teams.

In fact, now that I look at, I can’t help but chuckle. The League that I should know the most about, the American, seems to be where I made the worst predictions to date. I picked the Twins and White Six to be bad (nope and nope), the Blue Jays to play decent (nope), the Angels to tank (God I was off), and the Royals to win their division (Okay…I was REALLY off on this one). The only prediction in that whole league I seem to have nailed is the Mariners blowing. But more on this later.

The National League, however, I seem to be doing decent in. My three “upset” picks were all over here. The Phillies sucking, the Dodgers winning, and the Padres surprising everybody. So far, so good. It seemed like every “expert” out there picked Philadelphia to dominate that division, but they are hardly “dominating” and winning this one with ease. Apparently winning the World Series and keeping your most important player isn’t that big of a deal now a days. Folks, the Florida Marlins are still good. They were good last year. They beat Atlanta, Chicago, and New York. They are still good this year. How much more is it going to take to prove they aren’t just some “fluke?” The Padres seemed to have snuck up there on everybody and all of a sudden they are a playoff team and the Dodgers have finally found the offense that they so desperately needed. Yeah, yeah, it’s only May. Come October, the tables could be turned in both leagues and Kansas City could be winning their division like I said. But I’m not holding my breath on this one. =)

Which brings me back to the Mariners. The season is over. I knew all along they weren’t going to be a good team, but with the birth of every new season for every team, there is that small seed of hope. Maybe, just maybe, your team will exceed all expectations and win despite all the odds. It happened with the Marlins last year, it happened with the Angels the year before, and it happened with the Diamondbacks the year prior that. They all just barely made the playoffs and then caused chaos for all the other teams in the playoffs. But they all had one thing in common. Pure, common, unfiltered luck. They suffered no injuries, they picked up key players along the way, and had more then one player have career years. And so I held out hope that maybe, just maybe, they’d have a season like that.

Ha.

Sunday afternoon was the game that slammed the steak in. Last night was the final blow. Sunday, Seattle has an offensive outburst by scoring 6 runs in the 2nd inning. They’ve only scored 6 or more runs four times this season, helping them earn the 4th worst offense in the entire major league. They went on to allow the Yankees to score 7 runs and lose the game. Then, last night, I watched the Mariners get 17 hits. SEVENTEEN HITS! 16 of those hits were for singles. Yet even with those weak singles, they managed to carry a 6-2 lead into the 8th inning. So what did they do? Let the Twins score 5 runs and win the game 7-6. This team stinks. I cried and stared in amazement as the Mariners went out and signed some of the worse players this off season. The Mariners’ management ignored logic and went with “community friendly” guys who can’t hit or field worth a shit. They continue to operate in a method that will maximize their wallets (publicly stated numerous times. They aren’t bashful about this fact) while staying relatively competitive. You almost want to root against them at this point so that they’d finally realize how erroneous their assumptions on your average fan’s intelligence is. Attendance in Seattle has already dropped by over 10,000 fans per game. Jersey sales are at a decade low and they were only able to get 6 games televised on national TV this year.

It’s time to clean house. Trade whatever elder players we have, stockpile on young talent, suck for another 4 years, and see if we can’t win a world championship that way. The method their operating under now has already proven futile and now it’s just a matter of the fans staying away from the ballpark and merchandise staying in the store to prove to the owners that this new path must be undertaken. It would be so much easier to start following some other team (I’ve practically fallen in love with the Marlins since last October), but I can’t. I love the players on the Marlins, not The Marlins. If Pierre and Dontrell and Lowell and Choi and Castillo were all traded, the Marlins would be a different team and I’d no longer follow them. And even if I did, I couldn’t forgive myself for becoming one of “those” fans, which is why you stick with your team through thick and thin. Yes, the next few years are going to physically blow. I’ve already stopped following baseball with the same passion, the same zeal, the same energy that I once did. I still love the sport, I still will stop flipping through channels if I spot a baseball game, and I still drop everything the moment the guys decided it’d be a good day to go out and play. But The Mariners have jaded this fan with their greedy ambitions and until they prove that they care about their fans, I’ll stay away.

Like I said, this will be my last post about the Mariners for a while. I’ve got a few funny posts ready to go, so don’t think I’ve forgotten about y’all. Back to my daily weekly ramblings. (And that y’all was just for you Stan)

Oh yeah…Go Mariners.

The following won’t apply to any Braves or Cubs fans since you can watch your team play whenever you damn well please, but for the rest of us….

It isn’t every day that a deal comes along that is such an easy choice that you feel compelled to make the purchase just based on the ridiculous value you’re getting for the money. Today is one of those days, so as a service to my readers, here is something I discovered this morning while shopping through MLB.com’s subscription packages.

Since I reside in South Carolina, I was considering dropping the $80 to buy access to MLB.tv, which would allow me to see some live Mariner baseball this year. However, $80 is a bit steep for watching through questionable connections on my computer, so I was surfing for alternatives. I was hoping to find some package that would also give me the condensed games, so I could watch the west coast games (which begin as I’m heading to bed) the next morning. While going through the subscription options, I found this page. It presents three options:

1. Purchase MLB.tv, which allows you to watch a large majority of games live, but no condensed games or optional footage, for $15 per month or $80 for the season.

2. Purchase MLB All Access, which includes MLB.tv, plus gameday audio, condensed games, video highlights, and some other fluff that I probably won’t use. This is $20 per month, or $110 for the season.

3. Sign up for MSN Premium, which is a bundle of free programs that Microsoft is selling as a subscription model for $10/month. Newsflash, folks: Pop-up blockers, spam filters, and email accounts are free. Don’t pay for them. But wait, MSN Premium includes MLB All Access. Hey, thats promising. And its $10 per month, rather than the $20 per month if you buy directly from MLB.com? Already sounds like a good deal. Hey, why not just throw in the first 3 months for free, just for the heck of it? Wait, they do.

So, you can pay $80 for 6 months of MLB.tv, $110 for 6 months of MLB All Access, or $30 (3 months free, 3 months paid) for 6 months of MSN Premium, which includes MLB All Access. You don’t have to be a math major to figure this one out.

I’ve already watched two games this year and frankly, the video feed and picture / sound quality are 100 times better then what I had expected. Anybody with a half-way decent video card will be able to enjoy the game and seriously, $30 for what MLB All Access is offering is a steal. Go sign up now.

I’ll admit, on two occasions I’ve had people from SeattleMariners.com come and visit my, albeit incomplete, Mariners section. I even caught a screen capture of one of their visits. I have no idea what they were looking for, but it made me smile that at least one person in the Mariners office knew I was a fan. I don’t really care if it was some desk clerk whose job is probably to check all their referrals and make sure they aren’t slandering the team, but still, in my head I can imagine it was the General Manager checking to see what my opinion was on one of the horrendous signings he made this off season. But having unknown people from your favorite team and talking personally with an All-Star and possible future Hall of Famer are quite different.

I didn’t catch wind of this until about a week after it happened, but it turns out that Boston Red Sox fans may have played a part in getting All-Star pitcher Curt Schilling to accept a trade to Boston last November. In the wee hours of the morning after Thanksgiving, Schilling went to the mlb.com Red Sox message board and posted this.

He then went over to www.sonofsamhorn.com (which is a huge BoSox message board) and logged into the chat room. After confirming his identity, he proceeded to chat with about 24 Red Sox fans for a few hours. He has sense made many appearances on both message boards after accepting the trade.

So here we are: Thanksgiving night 2003. Schilling stumbled into a SOSH chat room at 2:30 in the morning and found those 24 fans in there, which is my favorite part of the story. Only the guys from SOSH would be chatting about the Sox at 2:30 A.M. on Thanksgiving night. After he introduced himself, they verified his identity with a barrage of questions, then spent the rest of their time pleading for him to come to Boston. He ended up staying in the chat room past 4 o’clock, talking about anything and everything, from baseball to the comparative hotness of the Olsen twins to who’d win in a fight between a shark and a bear. (Schilling went with the bear.)

The next day was even stranger: After Schilling landed a SOSH account and word spread with the members, Friday afternoon, the deadline for Schilling to accept his Boston trade, turned into a pitch session from the SOSH members to Schilling. Everyone had their say.

Now here’s where it gets crazy. The deadline comes…and Schilling accepts the trade. Better yet, he specifically mentions the passion of the SOSH guys as one of the main reasons he decided to play in Boston. Unbelievable. Can you remember any other instance of fans directly influencing a player like this? Can you remember any other player seeking out the input of fans like this? I mean, unless you’re a Yankees fan, how can you not root for Curt Schilling now? Shouldn’t every player be like this? And if they were like this, wouldn’t you like sports a little more than you already do? Sure, it’s nearly impossible to determine an athlete’s character from what we read and hear. But Schilling seems like the exception. Passionate, knowledgeable, the kind of guy who just gets it. Sports fans aren’t asking for much these days, just give your best, take nothing for granted, show us some appreciation and we’re happy.

It’s the kind of thing that makes you post on a message board when you’re supposed to be on vacation. It makes you dream about Opening Day when you’re bracing through an ice storm, or when you’re stuck 3,000 miles away from your favorite team. It makes you dream ahead to next October…

And so it begins. Again.