As our loyal reader(s) may have noticed, DTS has been down for the last 2 weeks or so. In reality, this was due to a lengthy bout of strep, but since that lacks sex appeal, we’ll say instead that we were called in to consult on the Willie Randolph firing. That’s right, we’re breaking it right here, Dropped Third Strike advised Omar Minaya and the Wilpons to fly Willie Randolph out to the west coast and then drop the axe on him in the dead of night. Did we give the Mets bad advice? Perhaps, but we stand by our actions. More importantly, now that we’ve finished with this tawdry affair we can return to the far more important task of giving you, the ordinary folks, our uninformed and frequently horribly wrong opinions, instead of wasting them on hoity-toity fancy-pants owners. In that spirit, we plan to forego our usual weekend siesta and will be posting throughout the next few days. In other words, you can look forward to even crankier than usual postings. And thanks to all of those who expressed concern over our absence. As for those of you who didn’t express any concern, well that’s just rude and I know you were raised better than that. Honestly.
From the Shyster’s daily rundown of the previous night’s games:
Padres 2, Cubs 1: Greg Maddux isn’t Greg Maddux anymore, but last night against his old team he did what your ex-girlfriend does when she knows she’s going to be at the same party as you. No, he didn’t exactly wear a slutty dress and hang on your friends while making taunting eye-contact with Chicago, but 7 innings of one run ball is the sort of thing that makes someone have to try hard to remember why they dumped somebody in the first place. After the game you can imagine all of the Cubs’ buddies saying “man, Greg sure looked good tonight,” to which the Cubs could only reply “I KNOW, now will you shut up about it?” The Cubs’ current rotation could only stand around feeling awkward and vaguely jealous.”
Darn fine writing, except now we can’t get the visual of Greg Maddux in a slutty dress out of our head.
Yesterday we sat down to watch the UEFA Champions League final between Manchester United and Chelsea. Now we realize soccer, fine sport though it is, doesn’t compare to the wonderful game of baseball, but we found the storyline too compelling to pass up. Two great clubs, both from England, who had fought it out throughout the season in the Premiership, with Man. U. barely edging out Chelsea to the league championship with a win in the final week, set to go at it again in a winner-takes-all battle to claim supremacy throughout Europe. The match started off slow (well slow by soccer standards–lightning fast, painfully fast, unimaginably fast by baseball standards) and we began listing all the things we hate about England. The Spice Girls, warm beer, the fact that they have knights and we don’t (though I don’t know what passes as standards for knights nowadays–do you really think Sir Ian McKellen could take on a dragon?) when we were suddenly interrupted by a thunderous roar. Cristiano Ronaldo (pictured above for those of you who don’t know) had pounded home a header to give Manchester United a 1-0 (it’s called a zero, not a nil–get it right, Brits) lead. This lead was overturned by a scrappy goal right at the end of the half by the Blues of Chelsea and we went into the half at 1-1. We’ll spare you the details of the second half and the thirty minutes of overtime and jump straight to the exciting conclusion: Penalty Kicks–every casual soccer fan’s favorite moment, and every serious fan’s most detested means of ending a match. Manchester United won the coin toss (yes, they have those in Europe) and elected to shoot first. Carlos Tevez stepped up to the spot, struck it well, and United was up 1-0. Michael Ballack responded for Chelsea. 1-1. Michael Carrick coolly pushed Man. U. ahead, 2-1, and Juliano Belletti quickly stuffed one away to even it at 2-2. Cristiano Ronaldo stepped up to the penalty spot. And then time stopped. We knew right then and there that he was going to miss, and miss badly. We quietly moved out of arm’s reach of all nearby United fans. Think about it. Here we had arguably the best player in the world, a man known for racking up mind-blowing stats against lesser opponents and then disappearing against top competition (his earlier header had been his first goal against Chelsea in 13 matches), a man who exuded a very thinly veiled arrogance, a physical marvel, a man who has some difficulty fitting in, an athlete constantly in the public eye, poised at the precipice of one of the biggest moments of his life. A career-defining moment. And take a look at that picture–the olive skin, the purple lips, the obvious tendency toward odd, semi-manic moments. All of a sudden we weren’t watching a soccer player taking a penalty kick in the UEFA Champions League final, we were watching A-Rod step up the plate in the 9th inning of a playoff game with Jeter and Abreu on base, and the game on the line. The outcome was inevitable. Ronaldo took a breath, ran up to the ball, stutter-stepped, trying to fake the goalie out and force him to commit, then hurriedly snapped off a shot, with much less than usual velocity, and the keeper pounced on it easily. (That stutter-step, by the way, was at best semi-legal–precisely the kind of awkward rule-bending we have seen Rodriguez engage in so often). Instead of trusting his natural ability, Ronaldo over-thought the situation, and in trying to limit the risk and improve his odds, he guaranteed his own failure.
In the end, luck smiled on the lads from Manchester, and the soggy turf that had troubled players throughout the match caused Chelsea captain (and DTS favorite) John Terry to slip and push the decisive penalty kick wide (stay strong, John, it’s not your fault), allowing United back in the match, and enabling Edwin Van Der Sar to make a heroic save two shots later to seal the victory.
The lesson? That’s up to you. Maybe it’s that the best players will always struggle to defeat their inner demons. Maybe it’s that a team needs more than one super-duper-star to win. Maybe it’s that luck is always the strongest force in any situation. But for us, the lesson is simple. Steer clear of the pretty ones.
Craig Calcaterra, AKA the brilliant Shysterball, 
has the following to say to accompany this picture:
With the way the Mets and Yankees are playing right now, you’re probably not going to see anything this exciting in the Stadium this weekend:
Newly minted NYU grad William Lopez turned a day of pomp and circumstance at Yankee Stadium into a day of cop and gown when he took off his pants, dashed onto the field and tried to steal home. Ignoring warnings to stay off the field, Lopez gave in to a spur of the moment impulse and, wearing just boxers, beige socks and brown laceups under his purple gown, he hopped the fence behind first base and raced across the diamond.
Lopez tagged third, hung on to his cap and chugged down the baseline toward home – cheered on by many classmates.
A security guard tackled him before he reached the plate.
“As I was on the ground and they were holding me, I was literally trying to crawl toward the plate,” Lopez told the Daily News. “What I think is really funny about this is I got arrested for trespassing at my own graduation.”
After the ceremony, Hank Steinbrenner was quoted as saying that he wanted his team to “play the Lopez way.”
We won’t bother linking to the specific piece at Shysterball since we basically just quoted the entire thing, but you can reach the website through the link above and we strongly advise you to stop by his site frequently. Anyway, this NYU thing is near and dear to our heart. Shyster neglects to mention that Lopez graduated from the Tisch School of the Arts, so this could have been some kind of performance piece. O you wacky college artists. Some heavy-duty research (grueling hours on facebook.com) revealed that Lopez is fond of kittens, movies, and being darn near decapitated by Yankee Stadium security. Fellow NYU-Grad, Dan Sarrow, described the hit: “When I saw security heading for him, I was wondering, are they going to take it easy on this guy, just grab him and bring him down, or are they going to take him out? They definitely took him out. I mean, seriously. Took. Him. Out.” Hey, it could have been worse, turns out Michael Strahan was a special guest at graduation, so Lopez should consider himself lucky he didn’t have to have a Superbowl ring surgically removed from his colon. In the end, although we don’t support crazy acts of hopeless and shameless attention-grabbing (who are we kidding? Of course we do), we have to respect this guy for not giving a crap and just going for it. It’s a shame he didn’t make it home. We should also point out that he’s got some white-ass legs. Get a tan, Lopez.
Even though Joba and Goose supposedly made nice, we feel compelled to weigh in on the whole fist pump controversy. Sure, Joba might be a little overly enthusiastic out there from time to time, but we ask you–what is a greater crime against humanity: Joba’s fist pump, or the Goose’s ’stache?
