We Dropping Tilted?
It’s almost impossible to dislike the Little League World Series, unless you’re also a person who likes to spend their time kicking puppies and ripping the Life Alerts out of the varicose veined hands of innocent grandmothers who have fallen and can’t get up. Even if you’re a victim of the short attention span generation and can’t stomach professional baseball anymore, Little League has a lot more going on to make it a more entertaining watch. The faster pace and shorter game. The check-swing-eyes-half-closed home runs. The dynamic of watching a prepubescent pipsqueak take the mound against a 5’11” monster with facial hair. Even the crowd shots of the moms trying desperately to narrate a game they don’t fully understand to their husbands over the phone, saying things like, “Oh, he just had a nice hit!” even as their son just bounced into a double play (no, I’m not speaking from experience, why do you ask?). But with all that unbridled joy, you know what almost made me want to stop watching? Freaking Fortnite, man. I once thought the biggest problem with this game was that it appropriated the objectively best word for a two-week span of time, but now it’s actually started to dominate the discussion on a sports broadcast over the sport they’re actually playing! Hell, you could see in the kids’ faces half the time that they’d rather be in front of their PlayStation than on the diamond. Blergh. I guess I’m more of an old man every day. Anyway, Rhode Island was robbed and Big Al hits dingers.
Fantasy Hour
I usually throw some Fantasy Football advice in the first issue of the year, but let’s be real, you can get hard-hitting, league-winning analysis just about anywhere nowadays. Instead, I’ll just name off the three most mediocre value players for the coming season, and I swear it’s not because I’m running out of room and ideas. Big Ben Roethlisberger is your best bet to be a QB1 that you’ll never feel like benching because of his sterling reputation and stacked position players yet will score 40 percent of his points in three games. Aka the Julio Jones experience. Man am I ambivalent on the value of a guy like that in the late rounds when half your league is drunk and checked out! Nothing feels better than a plug-and-play tight end, am I right, ladies? In other news, Greg Olsen is sure to be like the sixth TE off the board and will definitely finish ranked ninth. King of this category is Lamar Miller, he of the 80 yards from scrimmage and three catches. A pick as sexy as Gary Busey, Miller will definitely neither make nor break your season. You’re welcome, TU.
The Feature Creature
Before we go this week, I’ve got some bad news for all my adoring fans. I’m a senior, and, uh, I plan on graduating. That means that this is our final year together for bad jokes, awkward pop culture references and a smattering of honest-to-goodness sports analysis. Now I know you’re all thinking, “Justin, I can’t go on without you,” and you’d be right. Your life will never be the same once you stop hearing my Word on the reg. But never fear, we have a more than capable replacement standing by in the form of new sports editor Brennen “I once played basketball at St. Vincent–St. Mary” Gray. Brennen, who once played basketball at St. Vincent–St. Mary (LeBron’s high school for those out of the loop) possesses both a better sense of humor and a greater athletic pedigree than yours truly, and I trust him to take this column to new heights once I’ve gone. Why am I mentioning this now? Well, so he can gain some practice and to ease the transition, my man will be interjecting his own opinions from time to time as the Feature Creature, and I just didn’t want you guys to be alarmed. J-Gucci out.
