"Hey, how much you want for this lampshade?"

lemon curry?

I've always been partial to the sweet and simple Tonight I'm Gonna Rock You Tonight

Yarrr, here thar be spoilers

The best example I can think of in the US is Bernard Goldberg. If you only saw, for example, his pieces Real Sports on HBO you might think he was a somewhat annoying sports journalist. Then again, he's also a conservative doofus hack who does shouty pieces for Fox News and writes idiotic books about how liberals…

also, where do the accusations of bigotry really come from? Other than the Mexican joke from the last season (which I thought was just a stupidly clumsy attempt at shock humor, not outright bigotry) I haven't seen anything that really offended me in the show.

very little of the politics actually comes through in the US, because the hot-button left/right political issues here are quite different than in the UK (the only similarity is over global warming, where, on the show at least, the hosts come off as skeptical but not unreasonable). Clarkson et al are basically…

Clarkson is tolerable once you realize that his schtick is just that: schtick.

I can't believe that Wily Mo fucking Pena made it back to the bigs. And he STILL can't lay off that slider in the dirt.

that's "Hard Hittin'" Mark Whitten

if a pitcher throws hard, you'll hear commentator say he has a "good" or "live" arm. And yes, "stuff" means the total package - fastball with velocity and movement, sharp breaking ball, deceptive changeup, etc.

there's one case where player salaries have been really suppressed: the NFL. Outside of the top-tier players (and the occasional Albert Haynesworth) players are very much underpaid, that's why during training camp season it seems like every other story is about some player or other holding out for a new contract. And…

ha! This should have happened much sooner

people usually say "he has good stuff" about young or inexperienced pitchers because there's no good way to describe the gut feeling that he is a good pitcher or has the potential to be a good pitcher (without a track record to base that on) and because there are so many different variables that go into good pitching…

the revenue-paying teams (Yankees, Red Sox, Mets) have been complaining about that for as long as there's been revenue sharing, but there's no way the revenue-taking teams would allow the league to have so much authority over how they spend their money. Also, it would work counter to Chairman Bud's efforts to hold…

@Kirk - the team that's notorious for taking revenue-sharing cash and doing jack shit with it is the Marlins. Then again, they've been trying to get a new stadium for years, which is finally happening, so maybe they'll be opening up the coffers. I don't think the Pirates have been so stingy, just incompetent (there…

@thewarfreak - one thing I've learned in the past few years is not to trust a rookie catcher who has a great year. The position just takes too much out of a guy, it's hard for them to be consistently good. Hell, just look at what's happening to Joe Mauer this year.

I tuned in to a NESN broadcast and got to hear Jerry Remy try to pronounce "Bedard." That was fun.

it's distracting and not particularly telling. The strike zone isn't a scientific measurement, it's the interpreation of the home plate umpire on that particular day. Part of the fun of watching a game is figuring out what kind of zone the umpire is calling and what pitchers are doing to take advantage of it.

the only in-game interviews that are worth anything are ones with Phil Jackson or Greg Popovich. The blatant sarcasm and dismissiveness is outstanding.