Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Other People's Writing

Who needs my blather when you can rely on actual good writers?!

* Pity the poor Raiders fans, as the Ringer's Michael Weinreb writes, as their team is finally starting to turn things around on the field and yet also on the verge of leaving Oakland for Las Vegas.  I've always had kind of a soft spot for the Raiders' renegade mentality, and if I hadn't been a Packers fan (which is ironic, since Packer Nation is about the most Pollyanna of all fanbases and basically Raider Nation's opposite), you might well have seen me in the Black Hole with my bald head painted silver.  That being said, as someone who has been to the Coliseum before, holy crow does Oakland need a new stadium.

* There's more than a little too much pointless celebrity fluff on the Ringer, which is why the site still can't be seen as anything more than Grantland-lite.  Still, some of the fluff has its amusing moments, like Sam Donsky's exploration of the best night any celebrity has ever had at Madison Square Garden.  The pictures alone (drunk Amanda Seyfried, Larry David looking like every picture of Larry David, the incredible reaction shots from Miguel Cotto and his kid, etc.) are worth the price of admission.

* Casual wrestling fans of the 80's and 90's may remember Haku as a rather forgettable midcard wrestler in the WWF, or in a somewhat larger role as Meng in WCW.  Behind the scenes, however, Tonga Fifita had a real-life reputation as a near-mythical badass.  Crave Online's Rob Fee collects some of the most well-known anecdotes, and a quick jaunt to Fifita's Wikipedia page reveals a few more choice quotes.  Jake Roberts could always cut a great promo, so it's no surprise that he has the best line about Fifita's toughness.

* Obligatory oral history time!  This one's by Rob Neyer for Complex, about the history of Seinfeld's most famous baseball-related humour.  If I ever do a 'best Seinfeld episodes' listamania entry (hard to believe I haven't done this yet), the one with Keith Hernandez will be high on the list.

* I love pretty much everything Joe Posnanski writes (uh, except about Penn State) but I especially love it when he rips into a silly infomercial.  And even ‘rips into’ is stretching it, as he takes this ad apart with hot fire in the most polite way possible.  Bonus points since this ridiculous commercial stars, of all people, a random former Survivor player.

No comments: