Cleveland Sports Forum

Tribe Fan in SC/Cali wrote:

I think I lived in California too long. Heck, I know I did.

I've gotta say, aside from molesting double digit kids, the guy also showed extremely poor judgment in wearing a suede sport coat after the official first day of summer....

I never really had a good reason to dislike Penn State even before they joined the Big Ten.

They were just kind of "there" for me as a college sports fan, if I ever paid attention to them at all. All that "Joe Pa," white helmet, no jersey name goody two shoes stuff sort of just rubbed me the wrong way, though I never thought about it much.

Perhaps it was a 6th sense.

One of my fave "made for TV movies" besides the obvious "Brian's Song" was the John Cappelletti story about dedicating his playing at Penn State for his younger brother who had leukemia. "Something for Joey."



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_for_Joey

Jerry Sandusky has forever tarnished the words "Something for Joey."

My wife and I are headed to a "country" concert Wednesday night. It's at a dog track and off track betting place. Go figure.

This week would be one of our beloved "fair weeks" with lots of live entertainment if we were still in our little part of Califrickinfornia. It's the first time either of us has had any sense of missing Califrickinfornia since arriving (for me....once more) in Southwest Florida.

So, we are going to the Bonita Springs concert as a hopeful substitute.

Craig Morgan (I know he did "Redneck Yacht Club"), Lauren Alaina (who I understand went far one year on American Idol), and some duo playing as "One Night Rodeo."

Rusty:

I am currently reading a book by two time national champion wrestler and current UFC title contender, Chael Sonnen. In the book he tells a story you may find interesting. Bear with it for a minute, it's a bit long but it will get to the part you will find interesting ...

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Back when I was a sociology major at the University of Oregon, I had two roommates, Kevin and Jessie. While I was busy studying and building my genius, they liked to play pranks on each other. Some were harmless, and others were rather vicious. One that fell somewhere in the middle took place on April 1 of my sophomore year. On this particular day, I walked into the kitchen to find Jessie brewing a disgusting concoction in a giant salad bowl. He started by pouring in a little milk, then he added some eggs. I didn’t think much of it until he pulled a container of lunch meat from the fridge and started shredding it into little bits and dropping it into the bowl.

“What the heck are you doing?” I asked.

He said nothing, just kept a sinister smile on his face as he put a lid on the salad bowl and then poked small holes into the top, as if there were something in the nasty sludge he needed to keep alive.

I knew something was up, so I followed him as he carried the sloshing bowl to Kevin’s room. I watched in amusement as he wedged the bowl into the narrow space under Kevin’s bed. It wasn’t until he removed Kevin’s mattress and poked holes in his box spring that I realized the extent of his commitment. He didn’t want Kevin to immediately notice the smell; he wanted the stench to slowly work its way up through his box spring, through his mattress, and then infiltrate Kevin’s dreams.

I knew the punch line was going to take a while, so I went back about my business. So did Jessie. Sometime around the middle of May—six weeks after April Fools Day—Kevin came into the living room and proclaimed, “My room stinks.” I went in to investigate. His room didn’t just stink—it smelled worse than a toilet in the slums of Mumbai. I had completely forgotten about Jessie’s little prank. I was in the process of helping Kevin find the source of the stench when Jessie pulled me aside and reminded me about the little brew he had deposited under Kevin’s bed.

At this point, Kevin had begun dating this very annoying, very mean girl whom both Jessie and I had a strong disdain for, so we joined forces and tried to convince Kevin that it was the girl who had made his room smell bad. “Dude, I think she has some issues,” were among the words spoken. Kevin ignored us and, to the best of his ability, the smell. But it was finals week, and the smell in his room got so bad that he could no longer study. He washed his sheets every single day, sometimes twice a day. He vacuumed his floor incessantly. He wiped everything down in his room with disinfecting wipes. And still he couldn’t get rid of the smell.

Although it was mid-May, it was freezing cold in Oregon, and he had to sleep with his widows wide open. Unable to remove the smell by cleaning, he began to believe that perhaps we might be right about his girlfriend, and he broke up with her. When that still didn’t get rid of the vile stench, he checked into a hotel.

The minute he left the apartment, Jessie removed the rancorous bowl and disposed of it. When Kevin returned from the hotel, the smell was gone. Needless to say, Jessie and I informed him that having the apartment free of his former girlfriend for five days finally allowed her stench to clear out.

Although we kept what we had done a secret from Kevin, we didn’t keep it a secret from our other friends. At the time, Ben Crane, the now-famous golfer, was one of our study partners, and he shared a good laugh at Jessie’s shenanigans. We told him every last detail of the prank.

We shot our mouths off far and wide, and we realized that it would eventually get back to Kevin. So on graduation day, Jessie handed Kevin a card inside which was a detailed description of the origin of the mystery smell that had permeated his room months earlier. As you would imagine, a very pissed off Kevin began chasing a giggling Jessie around the campus, confusing everyone in their Sunday best. That was the end of the matter. Jessie had a great story to tell his grandkids.

Fast-forward four years. Jessie and his wife were in town, and Jessie invited his old buddy Ben Crane and his wife out to dinner. At one point the conversation died down, and Ben’s wife said to him, “Hey, tell them the story about what you did to your roommate in college. You know, about that prank that you pulled with the salad container.”

“Aw, I don’t want to tell that story,” Ben said.

“No, you have to tell it. It is soooo funny!”

Ben looked across the table, right into Jessie’s eyes, and said, “For April Fools’ Day one year, I filled a salad container with a whole bunch of nasty stuff and stuck it under my roommate’s bed.”

“Really?” Jessie said.

“Yeah.” He went on to describe Jessie’s prank in minute detail. He talked about how he broke up pieces of turkey, and how his roommate dumped his annoying girlfriend and even moved into a hotel so he could study for finals.

Jessie didn’t need a bullshit detector to know Ben Crane was lying, he was retelling Jessie’s story as if it were his. Apparently Ben had told the lie so often, he had completely forgotten that it was Jessie who had told him the story in the first place. Jessie, being a good guy, was going to let it ride. But Jessie had told his wife that story on many occasions, and she wasn’t going to let it fly. Immediately she said, “Ben, you do realize that you are telling Jessie’s story. You realize that he is the one who did that prank, not you.”

I will spare you all the details about the havoc this caused at the dinner table, but let’s just say that it was pretty freakin’ hilarious: Ben’s wife began screaming at him for lying to her for so many years, and Ben looked as if he wanted to run out of the restaurant.

Nice. Good story. At one time Ben Crane was considered one of the slowest golfers on the PGA tour. Now, he is considered cool because of the "Golf Boys" video with Bubba, Rickie, and Hunter.

That was a darned great prank! Way more creative than any I created. One year in college we had a two bedroom/one bath place that we piled normally three of us and other assorted morning guests, drunks and lovely ladies on the living room couch and such.

One of the regular guys had a tendency to take really really long showers, and it was pretty easy to presume he was concerned about more than cleanliness.

I had a string of "Black Cat Firecrackers" purchased along the way on a prior drive to Spring Break in Florida.

About 2/3 of the way into the expected length of his normal evening shower, I cut the hot water supply from the water heater. Once I heard him yell "what happened to the hot water?" I killed the power to the bathroom to leave him in the dark. I then quickly lit the string of Black Cat Firecrackers and slid it under the door.

He was pretty pissed off and spitting and hissing as he exited hopping the flashes with a towel around him as the rest of our gang was drinking and "listening to records" in the living room awaiting his exit.

I'm sorry for that, right there...

I made it up to the guy not long after. On Christmas break, New Years Eve specifically, I organized a poker party at the aforementioned 2nd floor apartment with him and my other guy friends. I had dated a Goodyear Heights girl the prior Christmas break while she was home from John Glenn's alma mater and working with me at a college break Christmas job.

She had a boyfriend while at school, and she had me on Christmas break.

And the next Christmas break.

"Torn Between Two Lovers" was our not so great song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8LIYS7s ... re=related

With a nod to Sky Masterson of "Guys and Dolls," she promised me she could deliver at least 8 of her friends to my all guy New Year's Eve poker party by 11:30PM.

I was coy with my guy friends that evening over cards, just hinting that something unexpected might happen before midnight. I didn't give foreshadowing details, as I personally was only 50/50 on the stated quantity of the delivery and just wanted My Christmas Break Girl to be with me at midnight.

At 11:30PM there was a knock on the 2nd floor door, and My Girl (of the day) was there with about 10 of her friends around her.

By 11:31 the poker table was broken down, and by 11:40 all of the living room furniture was carted down the stairs and left for at least half a day in the December 31st and January 1st Akron, Ohio cold and probably snowy night.

The living room became a dance floor for New Year's Eve and long into the morning after, and as I recall some of the girls were still there until January 3rd or 4th.

I can still get high fives from some of the attendees for pulling off that event.

Personally, I still just fondly remember that "my Christmas break girl" showed up and delivered more than expected before midnight on New Years Eve.

That said, My Lovely Wife trumps her, and I am thankful every minute of every day for my good fortune.

My wife and I went to the local Dog Track to see a Country Music performance by Lauren Alaina, One Night Rodeo and Craig Morgan.


I know there are American Idol fans here, and I do not watch the show, but damn, Lauren Alaina was a worthy finalist. That girl has a pure and powerful voice that needed no electronic boost, and that was good since she did not have one.

Pure and Powerful and Clear.

Craig Morgan was great. I don't own a yacht yet, but I certainly have a redneck side and I've driven a truck for the best part of 30 years.


One Night Rodeo was the opening act and they were tight, and good.