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Alex Rodriguez

Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez: Even The Maligned Get Realigned

by Jose on November 8, 2009 · 1 comment

in life

Alex Rodriguez, 2009 Champion

Alex Rodriguez, 2009 Champion

Much of the last 5-6 years of my New York Yankee fandom has been spent on defending the Yankees’ decision for trading for, and eventually resigning Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez. I’ve had so many heated battled with Red Sox fans and fellow Yankee fans about the merits of getting one of the greatest players of this generation (and possibly of all time) for arguably the greatest sports franchise in the world. The vaingloriousness of New York demands such a matchup. Plus, until Game 4 of the 2004 American League Championship Series vs. the Comeback Red Sox, there was no question about how great an acquisition this became.

Of course, no one talks about Mariano Rivera’s 2 blown saves because it had to be the new guy’s fault. Everyone on that team was a “true blue Yankee” with pinstripes in their veins, whether they were acquisitions or from the farm system … unless their name was Alex, and these definitions often made Yankee fans the laughing stock of baseball, even with the gaudy 26 championships at that point. While it’s hard to pity a man who’s making 400 times more money than I am, I couldn’t help but think about how this Dominican overachiever resembles and reflects so many people within our society.

Our society has countless stories of people who succeeded tremendously on an individual level, but never got the respect they deserved simply because the factors and societies around them couldn’t legitimize their work and put it in its proper perspective. So you can only imagine my excitement when Alex Rodriguez won his first championship, fingers to his eyes, in the embrace of Mr. Perfect, Derek Jeter. After all the hard work, the sports psychoanalysis, the drama, the steroids, the surgery, the criticism from all angles, he not only became a champion, but he contributed in a major way to ensuring that his team won, in a league where his secret name was “The Freezer” … for making his teams worse for playing on them. (An unfair comparison if you ask me.)

Finally, a chance for people to see him for what he is, blemishes and all. Oh right, and a championship ring to go along with that.

Jose, who hates to say he told you so, but … I don’t hate to tell you.

p.s. – 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2009 were his best years … A-Rod is odd.

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The MVP Matters Less When The Team Goes To The World Series

by Jose on October 27, 2009 · 0 comments

in life

Alex Rodriguez Screaming With Mariano Rivera, Celebrates ALCS Win

Alex Rodriguez Screaming With Mariano Rivera, Celebrates ALCS Win

Quick: name the last 5 (MLB) World Series MVPs (Cole Hamels, Mike Lowell, David Eckstein, Jermaine Dye, Manny Ramirez). Those of you searching on Wikipedia right now hopefully kept reading. Otherwise, you’re probably at a loss. Now, name the last five teams quickly, and that’s probably an easier task (Phillies, Red Sox, Cardinals, White Sox, Red Sox). This is one of the many reasons why I love baseball: the idea that the more people are involved in a game, the more we get to concentrate on the team as a symbiotic entity, joining as one for a common purpose (aside from extracting as much cash as possible from religiously devoted fans of the game like you and me).

Growing up, I liked basketball, because David Stern’s marketing ploy concentrated heavily on the flashy individual or the larger-than-life characters, and society reflects this interest. Whenever we consider “great” series to watch in the NBA, they’re never the team that flows in indiscernible unison like the Spurs of late or the Pistons of 2004. The focus has primarily been on the Lakers with Shaq and / or Kobe, the Heat with Dwayne Wade, the Cavs with LeBron, or Boston with their big 3 superstars. While the models have all proved sustainable for the NBA marketing-wise, the championship teams always found a way to quietly pull their star player back from doing too much and distributing the wealth of stats.

In baseball, making the team feel like a team feels like a much easier task to do. Almost everyone’s on the field for the whole game, and the designated hitter along with the rest of the field position players get 4-5 at-bats a piece. While certain players excel highly at their specific task, baseball demands that those who do well and those that don’t have to put in their share of the work so the whole team can do better. No one can do their at-bat over, nor can anyone come up again in a different spot in the lineup. Therefore, everyone’s gotta do their part to win that game. The teams who strive for the championship can have an abundance of excellent singular players, but the cohesion is so much more important.

I say this because, in my line of duty, there’s a dearth of understanding about how every person’s role in the “assembly line” eventually helps the entire team out. Today, I spoke to a fellow teacher about some of the students in our classes, and how we as teachers are quick to dismiss them as lazy. While I agreed to a certain degree, I also think much of the discipline has to come very early on. We can’t just hope that they’ll “catch on” later on. Every step from classroom 1 to 14 matters in that child’s life, and thus, every teacher that child has should find a means of doing their job as well as possible.

If the 1st and 2nd players up to bat get on base, it’s imperative for the people in the 3rd and 4th spots to do their best to knock those runners in to score. Come to think of it, during any period, a team has at least 3 chances to drive in those runners no matter where the lineup starts from. We as teachers reasonably have around the same chances to ensure that our children all get equitable education. While we may not get paid the same amount of money these professionals do, it’s easily the same mentality and approach we should adopt to our teaching. This isn’t strictly about just the academic skills, but also ingraining study habits and classroom conversation. While too many urban teachers believe the parents are to blame for everything, they’ve yet to look in the mirror and maybe call foul on their own mentalities.

Thinking about my own experiences as a student, almost every teacher I had from pre-k to middle school felt different as teachers. Some were fun; others were strict. Some could come in and create a wonderful learning experience and others only went by the book. Yet, the good teachers far outweighed the faulty teachers, and when one didn’t give me certain material to know, the next year, I picked it right up with a better teacher. Fortunately for me, I never had even 2 consecutive bad teachers in any subject I learned. That may not be the case for too many of our students, and maybe that should make anyone involved in the system of schools think about bridging those gaps and ensuring all runners can come home.

The great teachers couldn’t do it by themselves. They only have a year or two with me at most, much like baseball players may only get that at-bat to make an impact on a player in scoring position. It has to be a line of reliable teachers to keep the line moving. When thought leaders don’t take that holistic approach to child transformation, they end up losing on the back end. Homerun hitters (or in education’s terms, the really effective teacher who made max growth for a student during a year) are cute, but homeruns are truly unreliable. Ask the ‘97 Mariners, who scored the most homeruns in the history of the game, but have yet to win a championship in franchise history. Ask the ‘04 Yankees who were a collage of some of the greatest individuals players you could find, but lost in ugly fashion to a Red Sox team that also had its share of stars, but became this cohesive unit of indestructibility … like the Yankee teams from ‘96 – ‘00 they used to hate. That solidarity is rare, but wonderful for any child to have.

Thus, the Yankees had to reform into a model that included the inexperienced but enthusiastic and the veteran and ever-hungry. That’s why they’re back in a big way. Plus, their pitchers make it easier to bridge between innings. Hmm.

To wit, the teams in this World Series have adopted their team mentalities even as they’re filled with perennial All-Stars. Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte have each won 4 championships together on teams that embraced the team concept, but, as living legends, never won a championship after 2001 because the organization focused too much on individual power. Alex Rodriguez has phenomenal stats and MVPs and already ranks as one of the greatest to ever play the game, but has never played in a World Series. Brad Lidge has become a great pitcher all over again after becoming the scapegoat for the Houston Astros a few years back. Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins, and Chase Utley seemed like good teammates, but only when each of those players take a backseat to their team as a whole did they win it all.

Like Cole Hamels taking the World Series MVP last year amongst those three. Or even CC Sabathia getting the ALCS MVP after pitching 2 great games in spite of great offensive games from Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter. When you ask those two if they’re happy for CC, they’ll probably say the same thing every other great MVP in baseball has said:

“CC played great, but I don’t care who gets the MVP. We’re just all happy to get to where we are. We all have one goal in mind.”

Are we as teachers just hoping for playoff contention or are we World Champion caliber?

Jose, who’ll be at Game 1 of the World Series tomorrow …

p.s. – This guest post by Jon Becker regarding SABERmetrics illustrates the baseball / education analogy further …

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A-Rod Can Haz Dominican Culture Now?

by Jose on December 8, 2008 · 7 comments

in life

Alex Rodriguez's Pledge of Allegiance

Alex Rodriguez

Back in July of 2005, the World Baseball Classic committees were just getting their international rosters, and most people stuck to their countries of origin, as stipulated by the rules. With 16 teams in the competition, many of us baseball fans almost salivated to the chin being able to watch these all-stars playing on the same teams. Derek Jeter, Chipper Jones, and Ken Griffey Jr. all on the same squad? Jose Reyes, David Ortiz, Albert Pujols in one line-up?

Whoa.

And Alex Rodriguez, arguably the best all-around player in baseball, has the choice of playing for either of these teams.

And he chose the Dominican Republic. No harm, no foul.

Yet, what ensued afterwards was a backlash of sorts, including meetings I’m sure very few of us were privy to, and he went from being 100% sure he’d play for the Dominican Republic to not playing for any team whatsoever to eventually playing for the US team. It’s bad enough his reputation as an asshole who wants to please everyone just wouldn’t go away. Now, he’s back to dealing with identity politics that are, in many ways, out of his control. As some people may know, both of his parents are Dominican and he has dual citizenship in both Dominican Republic and the United States, where he’s lived most of his life. He went from living in Washington Heights in NYC to Florida, where his only father figures were his baseball coaches growing up, but his mom still instilled in him some cultural pride, though not ostensibly.

Anyone who considers themselves multi-ethnic or has done a little studying on multi-ethnic people understand that, despite our allegiance to our ancestors’ countries, we also contribute to the American culture and when we go back to those countries of origin, we are usually considered Americans. Even with an accent as heavy as Alex’s, he’s probably looked at as American, at least subconsciously. But that’s the struggle for Alex: forces from the people who pay him his hundreds of millions, including sponsors and players’ unions, and others like his family who he seems to treasure and the 20-some-odd years he wasn’t an American icon, but a Dominican playing America’s favorite pastime.

Yet, on Saturday, December 6th, 2008, and at the behest of David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez did what he should have done back in 2005. He signed on to play for the Dominican Republic.

Now, the response is completely different. Many Dominicans are lauding the move, calling it “authentic” and “true to what he really is.” Yet, Americans, who were indifferent back in 2005 when he first made the decision to play for the Dominican Republic, now have a growing resentment about this move, calling him “Benedict A-Rod” among other things. And to all of them, I say …

GET OVER YOURSELVES!!!

I can’t believe the gall of anyone who so much as whispers Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez’ name and can say he’s not Dominican with a straight face. So what if he was born here? Does that completely strip him of any culture that’s instilled in him? Does that make him any less of a man because he is Dominican? Why do people criticize him for making this move? Is it because he was an American-born Dominican rather than a Dominican boy some scout made a lot of lavish promises to and kept in a perpetual farm system? Is it his blond streaks, extra-marital affairs, and rumors with Madonna and maybe some other models here and there? Is it because he’s living the American Dream that so many of you advertise so flauntingly to the rest of the world? Is it because you just need any excuse to berate and denigrate A-Rod, whose name someone shrunk just so they could Americanize it?

And believe me, even as a New York Yankees fan, I get it: he comes off as an arrogant, selfish, rich, undeserving, flip-flopping, callous asshole. I personally don’t see it that way, but I understand where it comes from. But none of this, and I mean NONE of this, gives anyone any right to tell that man whether he gets to be Dominican or celebrate his Dominican culture, and anyone who’s a real fan of the man shouldn’t judge him. Even if you don’t like him as a player, respect his right to his own cultures.

Both of them.

And when he comes to play in the New Yankee Stadium in March of 2009, he’ll be pledging to the American flag right along with everyone else in there.

Jose, who will be waving any one of 2 flags during the WBC, since Haiti doesn’t have a baseball team like that …

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In Search of A-Rod’s Soul

by Jose on August 7, 2008 · 3 comments

in life

Make no bones about it; I got love for Alex Rodriguez, the 3rd baseman for the New York Yankees.

His swift and graceful swing, his trot, and that swagger he shows when he comes up to bat. The ease in which he picks up balls coming down the left field line and gets them to whoever’s platooning at 1st base. Even the way he wears the uniform makes you want to don the uniform too. Not to mention how well he’s made so many young Latinos proud to be Dominican, even when he’s had conflicts with that identity, his unwavering work ethic, and the astronomical numbers he puts up every season.

And it’s with these reasons that I, like many Yankee fans, have this internal struggle as to whether we should believe the man’s hype. He’s not only got the talent and the numbers to prove it, but he’s got the makings of someone with the perfect life: blonde streaks, good build, beautiful (ex?)-wife, and enough millions to buy out his own baseball team. He also has a hint of arrogance that’s subtle enough for the general populace not to notice, but enough to annoy others. Until the last couple of years, he still showed signs of vulnerability. Now, he’s reached a level of stardom that’s hard to come down from, embroiled in messy affairs and also coming across as a bit dispassionate.

Oh yeah, and he’s not that good when batters are in scoring position (.245 this year), and it’s even worse since we expect him to have a good 1.000 when there’s that situation. He’s a monster of a player, but a monster to himself. After watching Rodriguez’ Yankeeography on the YES Network, you get a sense that as truly phenomenal a player as he is, the pressure of his contract, the media, the fans, the owners and general managers, and his own teammates gets to him, even if it’s just a little bit. In particular, if anyone’s watched him in the last few games, he gets up there, same swag, same gallop, same batting stance, but if there are runners in scoring position, he anxiously and genuinely wants to hit a homerun that’ll further cement his place amongst the pantheon of great Yankees before him, like DiMaggio, Ruth, Mantle, and Jackson.

Alex Rodriguez SwingUnfortunately, it’s that desire to be the greatest that prevents him from doing so. Everyone’s entitled to their own definition of greatness, and it’s with that definition of greatness that A-Rod willingly and unapologetically lives with, even with the justified scrutiny he lives with. It’s amazing how through the 1996-2000 years of Yankee legacy, only the Yankees themselves went into the season with really high expectations, and everyone else just hoped and imagined. Now, due to these star players and steep contracts (along with the steep prices to go to these games), we’ve expected a championship, and that’s where we might have fallen wayside with A-Rod particularly.

Is the onus on us Yankee fans, whose hubris is internationally-renown and well-documented? Is the onus on the players and agents who help to drive up expectations by setting a dollar figure on the expectations we have for our roster of 10 on the field? Or is it really on the owners for charging us so much and pointing the blame directly at the people who they pay extraordinary money for? Can we who actually have an affinity for all things Yankee-related believe in such things as rookie development and rebuilding years, something we haven’t seen in New York City since the early 90s?

A-Rod has become symbolic of all that’s right and wrong with the league. The steriod allegations (none of which have been proven), the peculiar sense of family values, the conflict of identity for Latino players representing both homeland and citizenship to the United States, the vice grip of agents, publicists, and handlers, and the dogged scrutiny of the media for the next big story made from nothing more than a footnote, and of course, he’s in the most prestigious offensive position on the most successful team in US sports history.

But for anyone watching the way I watch second-most favorite player (interestingly, Derek Jeter’s my first), it’s also a testament to the struggles of human fallacy. There aren’t enough extrinsic influences in the world that can bring this man peace so long as he doesn’t win a championship. He’s the emblem for those who’ve always had unfathomably high expectations set for them and could never quite reach them. Every strikeout, missed play, and every year we spend waiting for #27 only serves to further scathe A-Rod’s legacy.

Alex Rodriguez is currently hitting .295 in the last 30 days, but he’s hitting .143 in the last 7 days, which means he’s spent more time getting pelted by the ball than pelting the ball itself recently. These slumps constantly remind him of how much harder he has to work, on the field, in the clubhouse, in his home, and in his mind. If they can somehow dodge the unlucky fate of these numerous and untimely injuries, he’ll also have to search for the A-Rod that beat up on the Minnesota Twins in ‘04, or the regular season A-Rod of ‘03, ‘05, and ‘07.

Will you go the way of Patrick Ewing, Jim Kelly, and Don Mattingly or Joe Namath, Wade Boggs, and yes, Willis Reed? Your story’s far from over, but rarely has the fate of a 25-man baseball team rested on the performance of one man the way it does with you. Rarely does a whole team’s legion of fans both loathe and heavily anticipate one man’s at-bat with men on base in a pressure situation. And rarely does that man have as much potential and talent as you do, A-Rod.

The question remains: Alexander Emmanuel Rodriguez, where is your soul?

“90 feet from home …”

jose, who’s a Yankee fan through and through …

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Helter Skelter

by Jose on October 3, 2007 · 5 comments

in Uncategorized

Jena 6Those that need an explanation as to why people made a big uproar over the Jena 6 need no further comment from me after this:

First off, let me just say that the reason why Jena 6 is so important is because the justice system is doing an injustice to its own system. I understand that there has to be punishment for any kid beating up on another kid so violently, but to send the 6 to jail when the “victim” went out to party the morning after is absolutely absurd. What’s more, because the justice system wasn’t working in their favor when they first brought up the issue of the ropes hanging from the tree (they were told the equivalent of “Oh they’re just playing around. It’s nothing.”), as kids, they found no other solution but to rebell and act out. A schoolyard fight is means for 15 years in jail but mock death threats are cool?

This after some dimwits decided to derisively reenact the Jena 6 incident and post it on Facebook. When asked for comment, Kristy Smith, whose Facebook profile became private said, “We were just playin n the mud and it got out of hand. I promise i’m not racist. i have just as many black friends as i do white. And i love them to death.” Like reaching for a life preserver after you’ve drowned.

AlexRodriguez2.jpgIn any case, New York baseball has become rather helter skelter as of the last two weeks. I won’t get into the Anucha Brown Sanders vs. MSG / New York Knicks deal today, but rather my energies turn to, what else, the Yankees and the Mets. The 2 top teams in any sport for the tri-state area at this juncture are the Yanks and Mets, and only one made it to the postseason.

One of them was seen as an absolute, overpaid, and miserable failure 50 games into the season while the other triumphed and galloped to its podium as the ambassadors of its league. People’s alliances quickly changed through that murky period to the more triumphant team. Then something happened: the team with the worse record started performing well and the winning team suddenly became lackadaisical. And now we stand here with only one New York baseball team in the playoffs and the other frustrated and upset with its own overconfidence.

If you would have told me this story as some psychic from the future, I would have said that the first team was the Mets and the second team was the Yankees. Yet, it’s really the Yankees that showed the heart to come back from what looked like an unfathomable deficit to qualify for the playoffs. On the other side of the river, the Mets lost all their composure, and basically embarrassing themselves with that 17-game stretch to end the year. Alas, all is right with the world.

The Mets’ swagger really caught up to them in a big way. Lethargic, uncaring, and unfocused are just some of the words we can use to describe that team. Sometimes when you keep getting fed, you eventually lose all the hunger that you first started out with. In the meantime, the Yankees ran out and actually beat most teams handily (save the Angels, who I’m glad they don’t have to meet.)

As a Yankees fan, I’m happy as hell the Yankees don’t have to see the Angels in the first round because they’re the only team that has a winning record against the Yanks in the last 13 or so seasons. Of course, I’m also pulling for the most popular search term to my blog: Mr. Alex Rodriguez, who Howard Bryant wrote about in his recent article, “King of Gotham“). While I understand that he’s the product of the most evil agent on the face of this Earth, I also think very highly of his skills and love how he really proved every A-Rod hater wrong this year.

Here’s hoping he continues to do so, but if the Yankees don’t make it, you can’t Blame-Rod for this one. He basically carried the Yanks to the second season for 3/4th of the season. Besides, it’s a 25-player game. Jeter, Posada, Rivera, Chamberlain, and Wang need to continue to produce. Everyone from the starting pitchers, the bullpen, to the coaches, the on-field defense, and the line-up all have to do their job to make this work. And they have to play hard every single game, something the Mets forgot to do since September 1st.

jose, who’s appreciative of having a team to root for in earnest every october since 1995

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I Slipped, Fell, and Landed On Your Blog

by Jose on September 3, 2007 · 0 comments

in Uncategorized

Alex Rodriguez Gets Key to the CityEver since I started typing opinionated blogs in my last venue, I’ve always had interesting search strings attached to my blogs, including “Toastee from Flavor of Love,” “F)(% Bush,” and “hot sexy black @$$.” (Yes, I’m censoring myself a bit.) Since then I’ve tried my best to keep my references to pop culture and sex specific and concise, but even still Google did me no justice.

That is, until this blog.

Now, I’m associated with exactly what I like to be. Let’s check some of these, won’t we?

1. NYCTF -

Totally makes sense. I’m one of the more prominent fellows that blogs regularly about his experience. Unlike others in the Village Voice, I’ve had a more positive experience, but I’ll get into that this week tomorrow.

2. Hot Ghetto Mess -

Not that I’m a Hot Ghetto Mess, but many of you took a liking to my commentary about HGM, and that’s great. Even with the name change, it doesn’t matter. BET is a HGM, so it’s ironically fitting that it’d be on that station.

3. Alex Rodriguez -

I don’t have a problem being associated with A-Rod at all. I find it rather hilarious really. He’s AL MVP as far as I’m concerned, and I called it since the beginning of the year. If / when he signs with the New York Yankees for the remainder of his career, I have a feeling you’ll see even more of his name around these parts. I just hope people aren’t looking for naked pictures of any strippers he’s been associated with.

4. Vilson -

Do I need to explain this? Though I find it funny that despite being the only Vilson in my family that can’t speak a lick of Haitian Creole, I’m the one that stands out in the Internet’s peripheral.

5. Up, down, up, down, left, right, left, right, A, B, select, and start -

This one’s my favorite because I’m now associated with only the greatest cheat code on Earth. For those not in the know, that was from the acclaimed video game Contra.

So I’ve been tagged by your girl, Ms. Whatsit, to do a bookmarks meme. This is how it works.This is a bookmarks meme where participants share some of the things they might have in their del.icio.us page (or in my case, my Firefox browser). If one doesn’t have a del.icio.us account, any old bookmark platform will do. The purpose is to share something about yourself that might not be apparent in a regular blog post. Here are the rules:

1) Once you’ve been tagged, link your most recent bookmarked pages back to your blog
2) Name the tag that you have used so others can access the links easily in a blog post
3) At the end of your post, tag 6 people and list their names, linking to them.
4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged. (I might not be able to do this today)Here are six of the most recent bookmarks in my bookmarks folder:

1. Soulja Pooh Boy – a video interpretation of a popular Southern rap song, sponsored by Winnie the Pooh (funny ish)
2. Jack Wiler – His poetry is just hilarious yet sincere to me.
3. “Sin City” effect on Photoshop – This is where I got the inspiration to do that Sin City look my parent website has.
4. Pandagon’s “The Telltale WMD’s” – It’s not that bloggers want to take away people’s jobs; it’s that most political bloggers want them to do it fully and correctly.
5. The Manager’s Cheat Sheet: 101 Common Sense Rules for Leaders – A list of some of the things “leaders” often forget. Good for teachers, too.
6. Sad Kermit’s “Creep” – OMG, it’s so depressing but hilarious. Please, if you don’t do anything else, just click on this link. Oh fuck it. Here it is.

I’m supposed to tag other people here, but feel free to tag yourself.

jose, who’s got a thing for educational books, and lots of them

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Crazy Eights

by Jose on August 3, 2007 · 4 comments

in life

Borrowed from J. Dakar:

The Rules:
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged write their own blog post about their eight things and include these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged and that they should read your blog.
5. 8 is a magic number. Though three is the magic number. (I changed this line.)

Eight Obscure Things About Me:

Derek Jeter

1. Derek Jeter’s my favorite baseball player. I love the heart and determination he shows on and off the field. From baggin’ every chick most dudes want to to baggin’ awards and stats left and right, he’s the epitome of awesome. That and the media gives him a pass for everything he does. He’s one of NY’s true kings. Plus, I got his home and away jerseys.

AlexRodriguez2.jpg

2. Alex Rodriguez is now a close second, surpassing just about anyone I can think of. I think the fact that he’s been playing with a “chip on his shoulder” really endears me to him more than anything. Despite the little blond streaks and the cheating sprees, he’s still a fantastic player on both ends of the field, so give him his crown already people. If he stays in NY, give him his “true Yankee” label already. ::rolls eyes::

2. If something were to ever happen to my favorite city ever (NYC), I’d move to either D.C., Chicago, or San Francisco. Let’s not let that happen, though.

3. As a math teacher, I gotta say: I didn’t choose math; math chose me. When I filled out the application through the NYCTF process, I don’t even remember what I wrote in, but they figured since I have a computer science degree, I must be good at math. I’m good, but if I had a choice, I’d teach … everything. Math, ELA, and social studies. Then again, maybe not. Math it is.

4. I have a slew of books I haven’t read yet, and that are waiting to be read. By my estimates, it’s a good 25 of them. I’ll get to them eventually …

Common’s “Finding Forever”

5. I sing along to my favorite songs on my iPod (Common’s Finding Forever currently on rotation), no matter what song it is or time of day. I don’t care how people look at me; I’m going to sing and/or rap, f******.

6. I search for myself on Google just to see if my name is inappropriately associated with anything … and usually run into very interesting things. It’s mostly positive now, but wow.

7. I’m somewhere in between obscure and easily found. I have a MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo, AIM, MSN, GMail, my own site, an NYCDOE e-mail, CCNY, Syr, and a few other accounts out there I haven’t taken into account. I’ve had most of the social networking sites even before they became trendy. With that said, people always say how hard it is to reach me. Please …

Joe Budden

8. The five contemporary famous people I’d like to meet are: Common, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Jay-Z, and Joe Budden. There it goes. The Rock would be cool, and I’ve already met Talib, Rakim, and Chuck D, so I’m fine.

Tag. You’re it:

You, you, you, you, you, you, you, and you …

jose, going to New Orleans this weekend …

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Simpsellent and A-Roids

by Jose on July 28, 2007 · 4 comments

in life

img_0527-vi2-copy.jpgI just got back from a really good rendering of the TV-to-silver screen movie The Simpsons Movie, and it was awesome. It fulfilled its enormous expectations, and I’m really happy. This could have been an absolute bomb like so many TV-to-movie movies are, but no. I’d rather not give any spoilers here, though I’m sure they aren’t hard to find at all.

Once I logged in, I checked my Slimstats and noticed I’m the #1 search for “Alex Rodriguez steroids.” Apparently, Jose Canseco made some interesting allegations against Alex, stating that he had something “in store” for everyone in his next book. In response to the linked blog, I responded

“Great. Now Boston fans’ll start wearing T-shirts that say ‘Jeter Injects A-Rod.’ Because that’s exactly what we need right now. Wasn’t it enough for Jose to ride the bench for the 2000 Yankee championship or to be part of one of the greatest Simpsons episodes of all time?”

In short, I believe:

arod0401.jpgALEX RODRIGUEZ DID NOT DO STEROIDS!

Really, as right as Canseco’s been about everyone, the list of guys he named before were people the common sports fan could point out. But A-Rod? Really? I call BS on it for three very simple facts:

1) When’s the last time A-Rod’s missed an exorbitant amount of time for injuries?

2) A-Rod’s head’s actually grown smaller since the Texas days, which says a lot. (If you’re under the NY media scrutiny, that’s easy.)

3) Alex is practically the same size he was since he started in Seattle.

Maybe it’s also because I consider myself a big fan of his and really rooted for his reemergence since last year’s abysmal playoffs. Maybe it’s because I’m also biased towards the Yankees, my favorite (winning) team in the world. I can’t see the shock of this wearing off anytime in the near future. Baseball also might be in shock because he’s the clearest hope for a steroid-free player to clear out Barry Bonds’ soon-to-be home run record.

However, that’s mainly because I wholeheartedly believe he didn’t do steroids. He got a little bigger only during last season, and that slowed him some, but he still put up some awesome numbers nonetheless. This year, he’s having a phenomenal year, and for Canseco to bring out this information now is consistent with wanting to make sure his book does well. If he really did do anything out of the ordinary, we would have seen Alex amongst the 20 or so players subpoenaed by the government, or at least in the Game of Shadows book when so much of the steroids research was done or even his first book, Juiced.

More importantly, though, I want to see this ugliness over. Most baseball fans can agree with that. Once the last of the prominent steroid figures leaves, the rest of us can get back to actually enjoying baseball as the sports it is and not in this Cansecoism (think McCarthyism) we’re constantly under.

G_d, Canseco, you’re ruining my first name. Be gone, please.

jose

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Jose on Barry (Not Literally)

by Jose on July 26, 2007 · 3 comments

in Uncategorized

bonds30806.jpgYesterday, ESPN’s Sportscenter had an exclusive “town hall” meeting in San Francisco, CA, to discuss Barry Bonds and his pursuit of the homerun record. It’s amazing how many fans really cheered him on, and still do. What’s worse is that, I’m cheering him on, too.

I’d love to tell you how morally upstanding Barry is and what a wonderful human being he is, but by too many accounts, he’s not. I’d also love to tell you that I’m enamored with the idea of him breaking that record over someone who actually earned that record through blood, sweat, skin color, and tears (Hank Aaron). I’d love to stand alongside many of my colored brethren in support of Barry, because he’s public enemy #1 and we as a people understand the implications of being guilty until proven innocent but I’m not.

Dude did it. That’s something we need to stop playing ourselves with. OJ was an awesome football player at the college and professional level, but he most likely murdered Nicole. Michael Jackson was the king of the 80s and even the early 90s, in music and pop culture, but he definitely bleached his skin, uprooted his naps, and touched kids inappropriately in those camps. Unfortunately, the evidence against Barry is overwhelming, and everyday something new is coming out about Barry. Barry’s gotten a free ride as far as I’m concerned, and has the money to show for it.

Yet, I’m happy Barry has the potential to break that record; after all, baseball as a community allowed for this to happen. With all the Mark McGwires, Jason Giambis, Jose Cansecos, and Gary Sheffields, we just allowed these juiced players to break records all while Bud Selig rolled in the dough these men were making for him. Sports fans, managers, owners, and the mass media all had a role in allowing steroid users to do as they pleased. It’s like we asked them to do that for us in our orgasmic need for the long ball.

Will he make it into the Hall of Fame? Most likely, and that has everything to do with the moral burdens placed upon the voters (sports writers from all across the country). Why are we holding these guys accountable for what MLB should have fixed in its own sphere? It’s akin to having a kid who’s been behaving badly for the last 7-8 years and then sending him over to his grandfather’s house to get punished; it makes one wonder how great a parent this kid had to begin with. And unlike the aforementioned kid, I wonder whether these baseball players can come back reformed.

He’ll still make it in; Barry Bonds was once a fantastic baseball player everyone could at least trust. He had a stank attitude, but we knew the guy could rank up there with the great baseball players of all time if he continued on that path before 1998-9. He was a 40-40 threat every season, and played defense like his life depended on it. An MVP candidate even before this madness. He had 3 of them before the steroids. Yet, something about him said, “If Mark and Sammy can get all this love for breaking Roger Maris’ single-season record, imagine what I can do if I took the stuff.” What made OK players into awesome players turned awesome players into icons for an entire era.

Maybe this will all go away if / when Alex Rodriguez surpasses Barry’s record (estimate: 768), but if it doesn’t, we’ll still have to smell the residue of a sullied record and the final stain left by the Steroid Era of MLB.

peace,

jose

p.s. – The New York Yankees are hot, and A-Rod is doing as well as I hoped he would. I’ll not jinx them anymore.

AlexRodriguez2.jpg

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Love, Reign O’er Me

by Jose on April 7, 2007 · 3 comments

in life

alex-rodriguez.jpgAlex Rodriguez comes up to bat against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, bottom of the 8th with the bases loaded, and I’m yelling at the screen like, “PLEASE! Oh my G_D no! They’re gonna boo him, and he’s going to blow it.” I shut my eyes for a bit and went back to my writing as A-Rod struck out in fashion.

Of course, the boos came with a thunder only NYY fans can produce, and it hurt a little bit because I’ve pulled for him since 2004, when we wouldn’t have even had these A-Rod conversations if it wasn’t for our choke at the hands of the Red Sox that year. I’ve also denounced what it means to be a true Yankee other than years as a Yankee, only because some of the Yankees we consider to be “true” were paid mercenaries, and before free agency, the best players came to the Yankees with no restrictions.

Yet, we lay all these ridiculous expectations on A-Rod because the Yankees are paying him 16 mil a year (the Rangers took 9 mil off Steinbrenner’s hands), which makes sense on paper, but ridiculous in real life. Often, what matters in a person’s image is the ratio between people’s expectations of you and how you as a person react and enact those expectations.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about myself in that respect. People who love(d) me have always had high expectations for me, and have looked to me because I wear many hats. I’ve succeeded in many aspects of my life, and often carry an omniscient demeanor. I play the role of brother, son, teacher, student, friend, listener, lover, … the list goes longer than I could have imagined and I play these roles as well as I could.

As of late, though, I’ve felt these roles become far too heavy for my person. I began to take out my frustrations on the easiest parts of my life, such as my loved ones. At first, it showed up as a little acid in my stomach, but by today, it grew to a full-blown cancer. My childhood ailments began to resurface in a cloud of insecurity. For the first time in a few years, I feared not having the fortitude to play these roles for the ones I loved.

After some counseling over coffee from a loved one, shopping and a wicked double feature also known as Grindhouse, the stars realigned in my favor. I look at my own life now and realize that only I can live my life and this never ending quest for excellence will come with pain and suffering; if not, then I’d have nothing to sell in my soon-to-be best-selling biography (Even in pain, I have to have my wits about me).

arodyells.jpgDown 7-6 with the bases loaded, A-Rod came up to bat again. Down 2 strikes, A-Rod saw the ball coming at him and turned it back around in glorious fashion. The Yankees win 10-7, and A-Rod comes out for the curtain call. It’s still April, and when October comes, he’ll now look back to this moment and become the A-Rod we hoped to acquire way back in that infamous winter.jose, who’s the first teacher ever to get a multi-million dollar signing bonus from the NYC Board of Ed, so don’t hate

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