Carlos Beltran signs with the Yankees

All I can say about it is at least he is off of the Cardinals. It becomes so much easier to root for him to win a World Series now that it is almost ridiculous. As far as whether he will or not is still left to be determined by him staying healthy and the Yankees making their team better. But for now he's no longer a Cardinal, and let's face it, seeing him on that team was just sad. It's like having your wife leave you for a dude that kicked your ass then offering to live in their house and clean it, and do the dishes, and cook dinner.... it's just wrong!

The Mets officially sign Curtis Granderson

Yes, it's true, he can................................................

And now he will for the Mets for the next 4 years!

It's a big signing for the Mets who basically now have 2 major leaguers on their team with Matt Harvey missing a year. It's a small step in the right direction, and one that might really mean nothing if the Mets continue to act as cheap and stingy as they have so far but it's something. And, wouldn't you know it, they're using to sell tickets. Again, stingy and cheap.

If you're not a Mets fan and you got insulted by what Granderson said at his Mets press conference today you should know he 100% doesn't believe what he said. He's pandering to his new fans, as he should, because he will be playing in front of about 8,000 of them 81 times a year over the next 4 years. But with any luck we will get 4 good years out of the Grandyman and he will stay healthy and produce and help build this team and help make it better. But, on the off chance he doesn't, at least it cannot possibly be any more pathetic to watch the Mets play.

What the Mets Must Change to Succeed

Mets’ fans can certainly be forgiven for thinking the team’s owners and management don’t really care one way or another about success. Coming off another disappointing season in 2013, where they ended up 22 games out of first in the NL East and were out of contention by the end of April, it’s amazing that anyone even showed up to the ballpark.

The Mets inflicted pain in fans’ wallets and on their eyes. Ticket prices were high, and when wannabe attendees factored in the costs of parking and food, they cringed. It’s hard enough to scrounge up the dough for first-class entertainment, so why waste hard-earned money on a second-class team? Stay-at-home fans weren’t talking about sparkling defense and pitcher-pounding offense. They were instead talking about ownership obsessed with mindless money ball and a GM who says “prospect” so often you’d think the Mets had one.

If—and that’s a very strong if— the Mets can turn this team around and become contenders, they should start by flipping young talent like Noah Syndergaard, Wilmer Flores, Juan Lagares, and maybe even Travis d’Arnaud for proven players like Matt Kemp, Giancarlo Stanton, or Carlos Gonzalez. Then they should make a big splash in the free-agent pool by luring Jacoby Ellsbury, Robinson Cano, Chase Utley, Carlos Beltran, Shin Soo-Choo, or Brian McCann to Flushing. A veteran first baseman like James Loney will fill hole, and then the pitching leaks can be plugged up with arms attached to hurlers like Chris Capuano, Chris Carpenter, Tim Hudson, A.J. Burnett, Erving Santana, Matt Garza, Dan Haren, and Josh Johnson. Note that when I say “veteran,” I don’t mean players born before 1973!

Shoring up the team with at least six new position players, some solid veteran arms, and a non-volatile bullpen will have an immediate benefit. The moves will show disenchanted Mets’ fans that they’ll have something more to cheer about than designer tacos if they show up at the stadium. 

Is there a such thing as too much football?

If you're like me you love football, are in a committed relationship with your Red Zone, have multiple fantasy teams, and put a small amount of money (really, just $20) on a pick-em league just so you can bitch about everyone else's team just as much as your own.

Yes, football is the only time of the week I'm not severely depressed about being an unemployed recent college graduate but it also leads a lot of yelling at the TV, some cheerful, some sad, some neutral (it's just fun to yell at the TV sometimes) but is this all taking the fun out football?

Each week I take a bunch of guys who are insanely gifted athletes and slot them into different positions on a fantasy team and each week one ends up disappointing me because he didn't see the ball enough. Sometimes his team wins, sometimes they don't but that player still gets harassed on Twitter (not by me though). So it begs the question, is all of this worth it? If like the old days (and by old days I mean like 3 years ago before Red Zone and possibly about 10 years ago before I was aware of fantasy sports) you would watch your team at 1 or 4, possibly get a game on the other channel at the other time, and get Sunday and Monday night football was that more enjoyable? There was no being upset because Texans are no longer trustworthy as a pick, or anger because the Colts spent a first round pick on a great young RB and are playing Donald freaking Jones instead. There was just your love for your team and getting to enjoy some great national games.

These types of leagues also force you to root for guys you wouldn't normally like to root for. For instance as a Jets fan I might have Tom Brady on a fantasy team (though I really try hard not to) and enjoy his fantasy output but still get mad when the Patriots win. And some folks might even root for a guy on their fantasy team to do well against their own team (I'm not one of those people but they exist) and it's becoming a giant hypocritical vortex in a way... who can I root for and still feel good about myself and who do I need to root for because I refuse to lose?

It now also gives meaning to those games you never thought you would care about before.. "what's going on in that 1 o clock Jags Titans game" is now something that people utter, even in Jacksonville and Tennessee whereas if this was 10-15 years ago people might not even realize it ever happened.

And really, at the end only one person is left at the top of the fantasy football summit, they're the only winner, the rest are just sorry losers who wasted their whole fall/winter obsessing over something that left them alone and cold, high and dry, and with an empty feeling for another 7 months.

But to answer the question, is it worth it? Is all this losing, and frustration and anger about super teams being formed, and stars not living up to their expectations, and rooting for a bunch of assh*les really worth using up your entire Sunday over?! Well...probably not but it's better then dwelling on your own thoughts and the 8 straight hours of commercial free football is just so wonderful with it's quad boxes and octoboxes that really at the end of the day we will always be moths drawn to the light of the NFL and the fantasy leagues and the pick-em leagues because we just can't stop ourselves from it because, just like real football, when you finally win that fantasy league and all your hard work paid off as the head coach of some poorly named fantasy team you can call yourself a champion, and only a few select people in this world can ever call themselves a champion

You're Welcome, Mexico!

Tonight the United States Men's National Soccer Team beat Panama 3-2 in Panama to keep Mexico's hopes of reaching the World Cup Final alive. Yes it ruined Panama's dreams, but quite frankly if you couldn't beat the American B team with a 1 goal lead in stoppage time you didn't deserve to go anyway Panama. Mexico, like all good football teams that wear green, limped into this playoff through the backdoor and sparked by this will probably find a way to defeat New Zealand (which blogger doesn't think is a real word apparently?); and though I can't personally say I will be rooting for them (because I won't be) I can say that you're welcome, Mexico, but now you owe us!

In exchange for keeping you in the World Cup hunt Mexico now must allow for "Taco Tuesday" to be every single day of the week. That's right, Monday is now "Taco Tuesday", Wednesday, nope, not "hump day" but "Taco Tuesday" and on and on. Next, we would like a lifetime supply of Sombrero's shipped to America and the ability to co-use the word "siesta" as well as take them regularly during work days. Lastly we would like to ask you to stop naming your sports teams racist things like "Redskins" because it's really offending the natives who allowed for this country to have a soccer team in the first place.

Let's also not forget the type of financial impact missing the World Cup would have on a country like Mexico. According to Leon Krauze, a writer for Bloomberg  “If it doesn't [Mexico] make it to the World Cup, everything related to it will devaluate. Losses could be upwards of $600 million.” 

This type of financial loss would have been (and still could be) detrimental to Mexico and really drag down on them for years to come. It's almost amazing how a sports can carry a country so mightily...

But not to rain on their parade, go enjoy your playoff with New Zealand (still not a word according to Blogger), you deserve it!

P.S. check this video out -

Really cool stuff, they really are grateful and you can't knock that.

America can just sit back relax and tell this Mexico for a while now "Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, consider this justice a gift on my daughter's wedding day."

Minus the whole daughters wedding day thing...but you know, you get what I mean.

Point, Counterpoint: Responding to the Redskins Name Controversy

So I've been trying to avoid this argument all together, but as it drags on I just can't anymore. The reason why I decided to write this post is anger. It's literally pissing me off. As I read Sam's awesome article (check it out if you haven't yet) about the quasi-rant that famous Commackian Bob Costas went on during the halftime show for the Sunday night Redskins-Cowboys tilt, and the hyperbolic, over-dramatized comments that followed from anonymous internet posters, I could actually feel anger building inside me. Not anger directed towards Sam, who was simply pointing out how awful people are, based on their ridiculous comments, while not picking a side in the debate. It wasn't even anger towards those insane commenters. I felt myself getting angry at this debate itself. Why, you ask? Well I'll make it clear for you:

It is 100%, completely and totally POINTLESS, USELESS and UNNECESSARY!

Look, full disclosure, I'm a die hard Washington Redskins fan. Could that make me biased? Sure. Do I want the team name to change? Absolutely not. But that's not what I'm getting at. What I'm getting at, is that it's a moot point, and a useless debate. A survey conducted by the National Annenberg Election Survey in 2004 revealed that 90%, yes NINETY PERCENT of Native Americans did not find the term "Redskins" offensive. And, in fact, their are many Native American schools that use "Redskins" for the name of their teams. So clearly, this group that should be so terribly offended, according to those arguing against the name, doesn't actually seem to have any issue with it.

So why are we debating? If you ask me, I believe it's because people always need to have something to bitch about. Americans always need to be able to whine and complain in order to draw attention. That's why you see stuck up, self-loving individuals (see: Costas, Bob), corrupt BS artists who are only looking for some extra support by focusing on a meaningless debate rather than the endless pile of alarmingly scary issues facing this country (see: Politicians) and potentially insane "street protesters" arguing about a football team name all day, every day. 

The name is not changing. Dan Snyder has said it countless times. 

"We'll never change the name. It's simple. NEVER -- you can use caps."

No matter what Bob Costas, or that random politician ignoring his actual duties, or that crazy guy breaking into the Redskins owners meetings hurling flyers demanding a name change say, the NFL franchise located in Washington is, and will continue to be, the Washington Redskins. So please, PLEASE for everyone's sake, can you protesters please move on. Don't worry, I'm sure soon enough there will be some new, trendy, pointless debate for you to toss your unqualified opinion into, and then I can write this blog again!

NFL roundup for week 6

What did we learn in week 6 of the NFL? Well first of all, all of us at 5G 1B send our condolences and prayers to Adrian Peterson and his family. I'm not sure how he managed to stay on that field on Sunday, but G-D bless him.

Getting back to the sport it's getting more and more obvious each week that other than baseball it's the most painfully slow sport on the planet and we love it, and the cliches of any given Sunday almost proved to be true!

The Jags, Titans, Raiders, and Bills all had great chances to send shockwaves through the league but all came up short (however Jacksonville did cover so that absolutely counts for something in betting cirlces!). The Jags went into the half down 14-12 and it could have been 14-14 sans a missed 2 point conversion. The Broncos didn't look all that great and yet still finished them off 35-19. The Titans gave the Seahawks a real run for their money up in Seattle which is one of the toughest places to play but just came up short, the Raiders kept it close for a little while in KC but didn't have enough in the end and the Bills backup QB Thad Lewis through a touchdown with only seconds remaining to send the game to OT but the Bengals found a way to get the win in OT.

The remaining unbeaten's in the NFL after week 6 are only AFC West division rivals Kansas City and Denver. New Orleans fell from those ranks thanks to a last second touchdown from Tom Brady in New England.

The remaining teams without a win in the NFL after week 6 are Jacksonville, the New York Football Giants, and Tampa Bay.

This weeks biggest surprise and biggest letdown both came from the Monday night game for me. I was very disappointed in the Colts after beating both Seattle and San Fran (at Candlestick) and going up against a team in San Diego missing 2 veterans on the defensive line it looked like it would be a high scoring game and one that Indy should have had and the fact that they put up nothing more than 3 field goals and still choose to ignore Trent Richardson is deeply disappointing. But on the flip side well done to the San Diego defense who has basically been being carried by Rivers all season long and they got a well deserved victory to back him up on Monday Night.

Week 7 games to look out for - Cowboys vs. Eagles in Philly in the battle for first place in the weak NFC East. Patriots vs. Jets, Jets trying to climb out of a 2 game hole in AFC East. And finally Broncos vs. Colts. The return of Peyton Manning to Indianapolis. Need I say more?