What. The. Fuck.

[filkertom]

Workers dig through two feet of concrete at Yankee Stadium to remove a Red Sox shirt left by a construction worker to "curse" the place.

Well, shit, I bet Steinbrenner really feels like an idiot now. All those high-salary players he paid for over the years didn't mean squat against the Power of the Magic Shirt.

Many thanks to the superstitious shithead who buried the shirt, for providing all that extra employment for the superstitious construction crew and superstitious sports-news desks broadcasting to superstitious sports fans across the country.

Any particular foofrah that's made you roll your eyes lately?

Comments

[ladysmith.livejournal.com]

Did you see Olberman comment on this last week? He made a good point; that if a team is cursed, it's cursed because of what the team did to itself. He used as an example the Orioles. When they built Camden yards, among the buildings that were razed were Babe Ruth's childhood home, and his father's store. There's no mention of that ANYWHERE in Camden Yards. The Orioles haven't placed better than third since moving into Camden Yards.

I thought that was interesting. And, granted, superstitious. But baseball people are a superstitious lot.

[packy.livejournal.com]

Yes, and remember the Red Sox curse was supposedly because they sold off their best pitcher to the Yankees right after he won the World Series for them. Of course, they never learn... right after they broke the curse and won the series, what did they do? Sell off the pitcher who won it for them to the Yankees. They never learn, do they?

At least this pitcher wasn't just as good a slugger as he was a pitcher.

[fredhuggins.livejournal.com]

OT, but that's the best icon I've seen it quite a while.

[packy.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[packy.livejournal.com]

Well, to be fair to Steinbrenner, the shirt was buried in the new stadium, which isn't even completed yet, so it couldn't have had any effect on past Yankee performance.

I think the decision to take it out, however, was a sound business decision, and the Yankees are nothing if not a business. Baseball fans are notoriously superstitious, and when the Yanks hit their next statistically inevitable losing streak, the fans will blame the shirt. There will be great hew and cry to have it removed, which will be much more expensive once the new stadium's built and in use. It's much cheaper to take it out now while the place is still under construction.

Though I do like Levine's initial reaction: "You know, it’s never a good thing to be buried in cement when you’re in New York.”

[baphnedia.livejournal.com]

Foofrah: http://www.paradice.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=1798

(read the post first then continue here...)

One part I didn't mention was the existence of White Holes (which was also a part of the program). Where Black Holes devour the universe, White Holes create the universe; and they are connected to Black Holes via a wormhole. Like the Bermuda and Dragon Triangles.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Actually, King George had nothing to do with this; it was some yutz from the Bronx who weaseled into the work crew for one day who did this last week (and George has been out of it this year).

Everyone here is laughing about it; personally, I'd have turned the meme on its head and claimed that it shows how the Yankees were going to bury the Sox starting next year when they move into the new digs. But hey, what do I know? :-)

Speaking of Yankee Stadium, here's an image for you (warning: extremely disrespectful image wrt religion and sanctity): Pope MaleBenedict is celebrating Mass there shortly. Just imagine the scene with all the priests distributing Communion in the seats; I can't help but picture them with Stadium vendor uniforms and their collars, hawking sacred food and drink.

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

This guy came up to me and said, "You know, if Jesus had played baseball, he'd have been the best there ever was." Yeah, like I'm gonna argue with THAT! So I said, "You know, if Babe Ruth had been the messiah, we'd have beer and hot dogs for communion." He left.
--Bill Engvahl

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

*g*

Although, considering the innuendo and sexual jokes about the Church as is, I can only ROFL at the concept of hot dogs as communion...

[sazettel.livejournal.com]

I had two reactions to this:

1) Better start digging under Comerica Park to find out what's effin' up the Tigers.

2) Could be worse, they could be digging for Jimmy Hoffa again.

[jss]

Maybe Jimmy Hoffa's buried under Comerica Park and is what's effin' up the Tigers? (Yes, yes, I know. Maybe he's buried under the old Tiger Stadium lot. <Sniff>.)

[faxpaladin.livejournal.com]

W-T-flying-F do the sports desks have to do with this? It's not news when something this silly happens? It shouldn't be reported?

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Might be better if they said something about some stupid asshole who snuck into a construction site to "curse" an opposing team, and the stupid management of said team who spent hundreds or thousands of dollars to dig up the goddamn shirt as if that would do anything besides cost hundreds or thousands of dollars and get on the news, and they'd mention the civil suit to make the original jerk pay the costs of the demolition crew and the rebuild, that oughta keep him off the streets for a few minutes, and then maybe the sports anchor could look at the main news anchor and say, "... y'know, why are we even reporting on this? It's all millionaires playing a game against other millionaires, and one of the silliest superstitions anyone has ever heard of. What does it have to do with anything? Are we really that bone stupid as a people?" and then the weatherwench could say, "I dunno, but at least my job involves giving people information they need and use" and the sports guy would nod and weep in shame and they'd fade and go to commercial.

Or something.

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Bread & Circuses my friend Bread and Circuses. If it isn't baseball then it's something else. For instance since we moved we found that our new neighborhood is filled with Nascarites and Nascar flags go up on almost all the houses around us on a race day.

And I don't think it's going to get much better unless people start motivating. I'm trying the best I can to uplift people when I can but it's a long climb for most from the bottom...

This just in: Polar Bears Murder Fish

[mythdude.livejournal.com]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7336092.stm

Newspapers in Europe are shocked, SHOCKED I say, to discover that the adorable polar bear baby Knut would grow up to be a fish murdering maniac that has nothing to do with his species.

[briansiano.livejournal.com]

Here's another bit of silly hysteria, debunked by the ever-rational Katha Pollitt. The foofaraw over the proposal at Harvard for setting up women's only hours at the gym, in response to requests by Muslim students.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080428/pollitt

"Few would be writing about this handful of single-sex gym hours if the request had come from, say, overweight women or shy women or the club of virgins recently written about in the New York Times Magazine.Some co-ed campuses have single-sex dorms--Cornell has one for women--to say nothing of sororities, fraternities and single-sex societies like Harvard's ghastly final clubs. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, Orthodox Jewish women at Queens College of CUNY asked for one hour of women-only swimming, a request seconded by other women; now Queens has a weekly pool hour for women and one for men as well. Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, St. John's College in Santa Fe, and Kalamazoo College have all experimented with women-only gym times or classes. None of this has aroused a lot of interest from the national opinion industry. Maybe the women writers are too busy exercising at Curves, the ubiquitous women-only chain, while the men writers are off at their Elks lodge."

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

From an engineering standpoint, you don't want soft material like this embedded in your cement. It forms a weak spot - like a hole - where the cement can start to crack from. Superstition or not, this couldn't be allowed to remain in the superstructure.

Doofus SHOULD be charged with the labor it took to repair his code-violating defect in the building.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Good point. And that, not some supposed "curse", is what the coverage should be focusing on. This creep was willing to let his personal prejudice put thousands of people at risk. He should be getting flayed in the media.

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

While both things are true I think they want to stay away from another "fan persecution" like what happened to the one fan that caught the one game-outcome-changing ball a few years go.

(Not a sports nut so I can't recall his name but the fans in his home state were so angry that he had to hide out in another state until it all blew over. Sorry - my memory sucks.)

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Steve Bartman.

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

So entomb a DVD of the 2004 ALCS. That will haunt the Yankees for centuries

(For the non-sports enabled, the Yankees were literally one out away from going to the World Series. The managed to allow a Red Sox comeback, and then lose the next three games to complete the worst collapse in American sports history. I take all the credit for this. (http://gridlore.livejournal.com/587311.html))

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

Meh. As an exiled Yankees fan who has a Yankees-hating Red Sox fan as one of my best friends, my initial reaction was, "Um, it's a shirt, guys." But seriously, anyone getting wound up about this from an "OMG you spent money getting the shirt out!" should calm down. There are not only more important things to worry about, but considering they're building a brand-new stadium that I'm doubting they really need (and might I add that the Red Sox are getting their own stadium soon--next year, I think?) this is peanuts. And it makes a good story. It's quirky and, in the grand scheme of things, pretty harmless. I'm not going to waste righteousness on a prank that hurt no one, no matter how ill-conceived it may be.

Incidentally, the Yankees are donating the retrieved jersey for auction to benefit The Jimmy Fund (http://www.jimmyfund.org/) at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

[kinsfire.livejournal.com]

What I find funny in NY is no one seems to admit that the Mets exist. This year, both the Yankees and Mets are playing their last seasons in their respective stadiums. Find references to Shea coming down in the news.

Find references to the venue of so many impressive concerts is being torn down. Billy Joel is doing the very last concert ever to happen in the stadium.

But it's just the Mets, so it's not like it's anyplace that has REAL historical importance...

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

For those who are wondering, The Jimmy Fund has long been the Red Sox's official charity.

[rabidfangurl.livejournal.com]

Behold the power of sympathetic magic.

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

Too bad nobody snuck a Gore campaign t-shirt into the foundations of the White House eight years ago.

Hey, this could be the start of a new fashion trend: Curse Shirts! Just buy a special curse shirt and hide it in your victim's new construction or property or laundry hamper and they'll never win.

Who would _you_ curse with a shirt, and what would the shirt say?

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

My guess is that when they auction the shirt on eBay, it will pay for the expense of digging it out.

[infinitemorning.livejournal.com]

I just think it's freaking ridiculous that they're talking about possibly bringing criminal charges against the construction worker. Under what law, exactly?

*headDESK headDESK headDESK*

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Probably vandalism, or malicious destruction of property, or fraud. I imagine something along those lines could be made to stick, although I'm not really in favor of prosecuting him beyond exiling him from the City, and especially from the Bronx :-)