ESPN.com Censors Let One Slide…

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Look At Because It Is Often Terrifying (But Also Hilarious)

Wikipedia has finally colorized its epic diagram that accompanies the definition of “Frotting.” Never again will anyone be confused by the logistics of dick-to-dick sexual contact.

Additionally, Wikipedia’s List of Sexual Positions is filled [PUN] with similarly hilarious sexual diagrams, including the tri-racial oral threesome:

What are you still doing on this site? Get over to Wikipedia immediately and join me in this parade of hilarity.

Bernie Madoff Gets Off Easy (Sentencing-Wise, Not, Like, Sex)

There really is no such thing as justice in this country. While pot dealers and perpetrators of similarly petty crimes languish in jail, word came today that the mastermind behind one of the most treacherous financial schemes in American history will be back on the streets in a mere 150 years. That means the 71-year-old Madoff will be back in time to appreciate all of the following:

1.)  An appearance by a mysterious time traveler from 180 years in the future in a unfolding of a real-life Back to the Future scenario.
2.) J.D. Salinger’s 240th birthday.
3.) The incorporation of a new baseball franchise in Washington D.C., with the previous franchise, the Washington Nationals, having relocated to Las Vegas in 2015 and later the Moon in 2108.
4.) The official canonization of Darren Daulton, who, as it turns out, was right about everything.
5.) The 2161 edition of the Rolling Stones’ unending embarrassment parade.
6.) The 170th season of The Simpsons.
7.) Year 158 of the American War on Terror.
8.) Observant Jews giving up and reclassifying pigs as vegetables.
9.) The 145th anniversary of the demise of both Major League Soccer and the WNBA.
10.) American independence from China.

Have A Rare Enjoyable Bar Experience At D.C.’s Dan’s Cafe

Who wants to get drunk? If your answer is “me” (referring to you, rather than me), Dan’s Café in Adam’s Morgan is where you should be in the very near future. With decorum that feels like the hull of an old ship and prices that make it feel like that ship is destined for someplace awesome, Dan’s is the choice destination for D.C.-area dive bar enthusiasts.

Continue reading at District Eats…

Thursday Celebrity News Haiku

Michael Jackson: Dead
Geovany Soto bakes
Farrah Fawcett: Dead

Also, people fucking love dead celebrities. I almost couldn’t get my browser large enough to get this screen shot:

NY Times Catches Up To Rake Blog

Rake Blog, May 18, 2009:

…As the allegedly tainted sluggers of the Steroid Era begin to trickle into Hall of Fame eligibility, the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), the self-regulating collective of beat writers who vote on Hall of Fame candidates as well as player awards including the Cy Young, MVP, and Rookie of the Year trophies, is seeing to it that the question will not be, “How should the Hall of Fame react to players whose performance was enhanced by illegal chemical stimulation?” But instead, “Does the Hall of Fame even matter?”…

The New York Times, June 19, 2009:

The Baseball Hall of Fame, which started as a local tourist attraction and a major-league publicity stunt, has since become a national field of dreams — and now, a battlefield. If it surrenders to the moralists who want to turn back the clock to some imagined golden era, and excommunicates the greatest stars anyone has ever seen, it will suffer the fate of all battlefields located on the wrong side of history. Obscurity.

Note: Great Op-ed by Zev Chafets

Chris Sprow As Bad At Thinking As Arky Vaughan Was Good At Baseball

Well, looks like we can add Chris Sprow to the list of people who, regardless of what their business cards say, have no business writing about baseball. In a column in the June 29th edition of ESPN: The Magazine, Sprow discusses the players currently enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame that he believes to be least deserving. While I have no problem with Mr. Sprow expressing his opinions, I do take issue with his reasoning, which in turn leads me to feel some degree of disappointment with ESPN for presenting this drivel as if it were an informed point of view.

Sprow correctly identifies Bill Mazeroski as one of the first casualties of any purge of the HOF; no player with a career adjusted OPS+ of 84 should even be allowed to visit the Hall of Fame (with the exception of Ozzie Smith at 87, but at least he played shortstop). Once the list comes to Boston Beaneaters star Hugh Duffy, though, Sprow’s reasoning takes a nosedive. Again, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and a left fielder with a

Arky Vaughan, prior to dying

career adjusted OPS+ of 122 is certainly a worthwhile candidate to have their HOF credentials questioned. However, rather than discussing points such as Duffy’s place in the left-field positional delta and the brevity of his peak as a hitter. Quoth the Sprow:

“Hugh was pretty good — he has a career average of .324 — but consider us slightly concerned that in 1894 he ballooned to an average of .440, then never hit higher than .352 in a season thereafter.”

Never hit higher than .352 thereafter? Fuck Hugh Duffy! Let’s ignore the fact that Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Ken Griffey Jr., Mike Schmidt, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez, Eddie Mathews, Frank Robinson and Cal Ripken Jr. have exactly two seasons between them in which they hit .352 or higher (Aaron in 1959 and A-Rod in 1996). Who gets chastised for failing to hit .400?

A few slots down from Duffy on Sprow’s list of undeserving Hall of Famers is former Pirates shortstop Arky Vaughan. Vaughan’s inclusion on the list should immediately raise eyebrows, as even Sprow notes that by many metrics Vaughan is the second-best shortstop of all-time (after Honus Wagner). However, it is again the reasoning rather than the point that is problematic. Sprow:

Vaughan has just 2,103 career hits and 96 home runs.

Vaughan’s 2,103 career hits place him 204th all time, a ranking that may sound pedestrian, but when it is taken into consideration that there are over 16,000 player entries on Baseball-Reference, it can be appreciated that Vaughan’s hit total actually places him in the 98th percentile in the category all-time. But who gives a shit about hit totals? Ichiro routinely leads the league in hits, and Ichiro clearly sucks.

What we, not to mention those of us who are paid by the largest sports media company in the world to think and write about sports, should be noting is that Vaughan’s career adjusted OPS+ of 136 bests Hall of Famers Ripken, Ernie Banks, George Brett, Al Kaline, Orlando Cepeda, Joe Morgan, Jackie Robinson, Tony Gwynn, Rod Carew, Wade Boggs, Roberto Clemente and a whole slew of others, not to mention such active luminaries as David Ortiz, Jason Bay, Adam Dunn and Chase Utley. It should also be noted that while his 96 career home runs are nothing to write home about, Vaughan finished in the top 10 in the league in doubles in five of his 14 seasons, OPS in seven and slugging in four. (Side note: Vaughan also died at the age of 40 when he was lost at sea, which is something that used to happen to people. Hilarious.)

It’s fine to argue that Arky Vaughan or Hugh Duffy or any baseball player is better or worse than any other player, however, at least attempt to make a rational argument, especially if said argument is going to be consumed by an audience of millions. I didn’t even get paid to write this piece and I somehow managed to squeeze in a little research prior to expressing my opinions.

Rake Blog Blogroll Swelling With New Food Sites

The Rake Blog Kinfolk menu on the right site of the side you are currently reading welcomes two new additions this week, with the introduction of my cousin Josh Ellis’ new beer blog, Heights Hops, and my brother’s Washington D.C.-area consumables site, District Eats.

Josh Ellis: Blog Mang

Readers of Rake Blog will no doubt appreciate the wit and candor of Josh’s new site, which features reviews of regional imbibements as well as insight and updates about his own homemade microbrews. The fact that Josh is a gigantic pervert only helps his cause. District Eats will ultimately feature reviews and information about bars and restaurants in the greater D.C. area, as well as videos and a blog to keep readers abreast of noteworthy specials and events around town.

As no post on this site would be complete without a little self-absorbed shilling, I will be contributing some of my classic insight to the District Eats food blog, so enjoy the shit out of that.

David Gilmour Awesome Even As An Old Man

Nothing Says “Loving Tribute” Like a Volkswagon Beetle Adorned With a Generic Message to a Dead Person

She’s Back!

Privileged enough to have Dave Letterman making fun of her dumbass daughter (albeit the wrong one), Sarah Palin has re-entered the American consciousness with a vengeance this week:

Google Trends search for "Sarah Palin" 6/7/09. 6:40 p.m.

Of course, Larry Flynt was the first to the scene, finally answering the titular question posed in his film, Who’s Nailin’ Palin? The answer, according to the title of a new Flynt production, is Obama’s Nailin’ Palin:

Too Early To Count Out Heretofore Woeful Indians In ’09

The A.L. Central, like its Western-division brethren and the entire National League, is full of bad teams. The division’s first-place Detroit Tigers enter Tuesday’s games with a run differential that would rank 5th in the A.L. East. The Minnesota Twins, meanwhile, have ridden Joe Mauer’s Ted Williams impression and a pitching staff that has decided against issuing walks this season into second place, a mere three games out, and are the only other team in the division to have outscored its opponents thus far. The other three teams in the division, the Chicago White Sox, Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Indians all sit mired within two games of one another, 4.5-6.5 games back of the Tigers. Despite their similar records, however, the Indians are easily the best of the three and regardless of the team’s poor play and bad luck to this point, should not be counted out of the race for the 2009 postseason.

More!

PS: Last night’s Rick Vaughn bobblehead giveaway clearly ranks among the best promotions in the history of organized sport. E-Bay will be scoured.

Religion Complex, Erotic

Area Man’s Erections Outnumber His Total Jobs, Homes

2:30pm Sunday; 4th Ave. btw Bergen St. & Dean St., Brooklyn

Help En Route For O’s Pitching Staff

With the Orioles’ pitching corps ranked last in the league in ERA (5.24), second to last in WHIP (1.428) and home runs allowed (80) and third from the bottom in strikeouts (but with a league-low 11 wild pitches on the year as a feather in the team’s proverbial cap), one needest look further than the big-league squad to admire the organization’s bevy of pitching talent.

Through Thursday’s games:

* = Promoted to AA Bowie, expected to make AA debut Tuesday
** = Promoted to AAA Norfolk; Allowed one run and struck out six in six innings in AAA debut Friday 6/12
*** = Pitched 13 2/3 innings in the majors, making two spot starts for injured Koji Uehara
` = Innings total of the beast