Bye Bye FireJoeMorgan

[El Mudo]

One of the best blogs on ye olde internet (http://www.firejoemorgan.com/)

After 21 years, and almost 40 million posts (we'll have to check those numbers, but it's something like that), we have decided to bring FJM to an end.

Although we have not lost our borderline-sociopathic joy for meticulously criticizing bad sports journalism, the realities of our professional and personal lives make FJM a time/work luxury we can no longer afford.

We started this site with two purposes: to make each other laugh, and to aid and abet the Presidential campaign of Bob Barr. Although we failed in the latter goal, we gleefully succeeded in the first, and thanks to a grassroots internetty word-of-mouth kind of a deal, we appear to have positively affected the lives of actual citizens as well, which astonishes and delights us to this day. We really never thought FJM would be for anyone but us. We are thrilled and kind of humbled to have been proven wrong.

We thank all of you for the kind emails, and the tips, and the support. To each and every person who ever contacted us: hat tip to you.


That site is pretty much responsible for me getting interested in baseball again, primarily due to how much I learned from it in regards to Sabermetrics and the phoniness of "traditional" baseball statistics like batting average and RBIs. Shame to see it go, because there was some REALLY good stuff on there


And Joe Morgan still sucks...FTW

[TheMojoPin]

Between that and Kerry Wood being sent on his way, yesterday sucked for me baseball-wise.

I guess this is fitting with all the rumblings of how pretty much everyone wants Joe demoted as ESPN.

[El Mudo]

Between that and Kerry Wood being sent on his way, yesterday sucked for me baseball-wise.

I guess this is fitting with all the rumblings of how pretty much everyone wants Joe demoted as ESPN.


Its God paying the Cubs back for employing Dusty Baker :wink:

[underdog]

This is really disappointing. I really enjoyed reading FJM.

[PD]

agreed.
one of the better sites.

wow.
I can't believe its been around that long

[TheMojoPin]

Guess Ken Tremendous is too busy writing The Office.

[FezsAssistant]

I hate Joe Morgan.

[TheMojoPin]

I hate Joe Morgan.

I don't think there's a person alive who thinks otherwise.

[cougarjake13]

couldnt someone else just take the name and keep it going


like devoted fans ??

[FezsAssistant]

I don't think there's a person alive who thinks otherwise.

I wasn't a guest, but I was at a Hall Of Famers party last summer. Just about everyone was there. I was so damn giddy and star struck. Unfortunately, Joe Morgan was there, too. He's the only person I had a negative reaction to.
I don't really have a point to this story. Just kind of bragging, I guess. Almost everyone was there. I was in heaven.

[El Mudo]

FJM is guest editing Deadspin today!!

Glorious!!

[TheMojoPin]

Fuck, I got so excited when I saw this thread title. Not because I thought the site was back, but because I missed the word "fire" in the title and thought Joe Morgan was fired or dead.

I'm reading the great new book about the Reds called The Machine and it makes you hate Morgan even more. The guy was never not an asshole.

[TheMojoPin]

Oh my God, Junior's shredding of an article about the "10 scrappiest players" is a thing of beauty. I've missed their justified hatred of David Eckstein and his ilk so much:

They may or may not play every day, but every time they step on the field you're ensured that they're giving it their all.

You know what you're saying, random dude who wrote a very minor Internet-only baseball article that never thought he would get trashed and over-analyzed for little to no reason? You're saying that they look like they're giving it their all. And you know why they look that way? Because they're bad, and it literally takes them the maximum physical effort to accomplish basic baseball tasks like throwing the ball from short to first. When David Eckstein throws the ball to first base, he has to wind up like a shot-putter, spin around forty-three times, and launch it at an angle 89 degrees from the horizontal. Afterwards, he undergoes an IV drip for a fortnight and he's so out of breath that he requires several months of acupuncture to regain the power of speech. For this we laud him.

[El Mudo]

Oh my God, Junior's shredding of an article about the "10 scrappiest players" is a thing of beauty. I've missed their justified hatred of David Eckstein and his ilk so much:



Best part of that article:

No, the true number one on this list is David Eckstein. Let me tell you a story about David Eckstein. One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with Eckstein. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints. Other times there were one set of footprints. This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow, or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints. So I said to David Eckstein, "You promised me, Eckstein, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I noticed that during the most trying periods of my life, there have only been one set of prints in the sand. Why, when I have needed you most, have you not been there for me?" David Eckstein replied, "Because my little legs had gotten tired, and you were carrying me." And I looked down and saw that I was still carrying David Eckstein.

Then he grounded out weakly to second.

[TjM]

:lol::lol::lol:

Good to know. Keep in mind, of course, that "the best defense of Derek Jeter's life" ranks somewhere in between "the best fiscal responsibility of Mike Tyson's life" and "the best not-getting-assassinated-ness of James Garfield's life."

[underdog]

This one (http://deadspin.com/5360398/in-a-time-of-mourning-our-nation-turns-its-eyes-to-jair-jurrjens) actually had me literally laughing out loud.

Holy shit you guys. I think the guy who wrote this article is going to kill Johnny Bench.

[shakes head after reading]

[rereads last few sentences to make sure he read correctly]

[tracks down and sucker punches Willie Harris out of sheer confusion]

[TheMojoPin]

Here's another thing about Eric Byrnes: he's fucking awful at baseball. Take a look at this slash line: .210/.258/.346. Those are not typos. Eric Byrnes is scrapping it to the tune of a .604 OPS. And he's not even 3'2" in height and 14.6 avoirdupois ounces in weight like David St. Scrapulous Eckstein. Nope. 6'2", 215, and absolutely zero recognition of the strike zone.

I found this on Eric Byrnes' Wikipedia page. This is not a joke. "He is also known for sliding headfirst into bases when there is no play." If Eric Byrnes were a cop, it would say this on his Wikipedia page: "He is also known for discharging his weapon willy-nilly into seafood restaurants and school buses when there is no crime occurring."

LULZ

[TheMojoPin]

He seems like he's probably a pretty solid guy all-around (talking about Jesus, but it applies to Jeter too). He's engaged to Minka Kelly (again, Jesus). The point is, sportswriters love Captain Intangibles like North Koreans love birthday cake (this is a new racist stereotype I'm trying to start, pass it around). He's a "throwback." He "plays the game the right way." He "ingests petroleum waste product and converts it into silky velvet fabric suitable for tailoring into handsome robes or luxurious bedding material." You've read all of these clichés before, particularly the last one.

NEVER LET IT END!

Paul Newman, for instance, took one home in 1987 for his performance in "The Color of Money," and Martin Scorsese in 2007 for directing "The Departed." Both could just as easily have been given the Academy Award several times earlier in their careers. Baseball's Most Valuable Player awards are no different...

Read that again: "Baseball's Most Valuable Player awards are no different." Really? The MVP award is no different from the Oscar race? Not one difference? Tilda Swinton is exactly analogous to Mark Teixeira? The sound editing in Master and Commander is 100% the same as Miguel Cabrera?

Okay, that's a bit of a willful misreading of Barra's meaning. I hope. But you can't set up a comparison between two different contests and then use one contest's shitty, flawed reasoning to justify the shitty, flawed reasoning in the other. I mean, you can. But you shouldn't, unless you want to be a terrible, terrible human being. Is that what you want to be? Fine. Go ahead. Do it. No, I understand. Do it.

[El Mudo]

There was a general manager who lived in a shoe he suddenly had so many holes to fill he didn't know what to do.

One of the things about writing for your own personal website which again seriously is not in anyway a blog is that you don't have an editor or for that matter anyone who can read over your work and suggest or insist that maybe there's a comma or some punctuation missing in your sentences a second set of eyes can be especially helpful when the columnist of this weblog non-blog writes his columns using a printing press from the late 1870s which his assistant (his 91 year-old grandson) then converts to html code and keep in mind his grandson is not allowed to read the article or suggest any changes to the punctuation he has to do it all one letter at a time it's a painstaking process but his grandfather rewards him with stories of what it was like to work for The Gray Lady right after the McKinley assassination "Those were heady days" the elder Chass will often tell his grandson right before he takes a nap in his beautiful oak coffin and prays to Odin that death may find him in his sleep



:lol::lol:

[TheMojoPin]

They drop both the Garfield and the McKinley assassinations in the same day.

There is none better.

[TheMojoPin]

"How do you measure the value of inspiration and professionalism?" asks Marty Appel, author of "Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain."

With…um…a…an inspirationamometer and a professionalismfantasmatron! With these two scientifically accurate and mathematically precise instruments, we can readily measure that Derek Jeter is 3.6 times as inspirational and a whopping 14.9837482348920011070110010001001 times more professional than that shiftless sluggard Joseph P. Mauer!

Why, Mauer hardly registers a 9 x 10-19 on the professionalismfantasmatron! And people were suggesting we give HIM the MVP?! The nerve!

If porn didn't exist, FJM would be my porn.

He is on pace to threaten Pete Rose's all-time record of 4,256 career hits.

Pete Rose: 4,256 career hits.

Derek Jeter: 2,718 career hits.

4,256 - 2,718 = 1,538 more hits to go.

Derek Jeter is 35 years old. Assuming that age has absolutely no effect on his performance (always a safe assumption), he would have to continue his pace of approximately 194 hits a year for 8 more years to match Pete Rose. Which means at age 43, he would have to be shattering the record for hits by a 43-year-old (currently held by Carlton Fisk, with 111 hits). And he would have already broken the record for hits by a 42-year-old (Luke Appling, 148) and a 41-year-old (Pete Rose, 172).

Anyway, I'm pretty sure "vaguely, potentially, possibly having a scintilla of a chance of getting within shouting distance of Pete Rose's hit record within the next ten years" is the number two criterion on the ballot for MVP voting. I haven't read it in a while, but I would bet a ham sandwich on it.

[El Mudo]

They drop both the Garfield and the McKinley assassinations in the same day.

There is none better.

I was JUST going to bring this up!! Apparently, KT's been reading a lot about the Gilded Age lately

[TheMojoPin]

Wow.

Still, there is a question as to whether the MVP award really means all that much to Derek Jeter. As he put it on Aug. 23 after the Yankees beat the Red Sox-a victory that Mr. Jeter paced by hitting a home run on the game's first pitch off Boston ace Josh Beckett-"I'm not thinking about winning any awards right now. The only award that matters is that fifth World Series ring."

Joe Mauer, meanwhile, issued a different statement to the press after going 2-4 with a walk against the Cleveland Indians. "Fuck the World Series," said Mauer. "Seriously. Write that down. Fuck the World Series. If I ever win a World Series ring, I will literally just take it and fuck the tiny ring-hole." Mauer punctuated his remarks with a graphic, thrusting pantomime, presumably of what he would physically do to the World Series ring. Mauer added: "I don't give a flying goddamn about winning. I am an awards guy. I'm Joe Fucking Mauer. I only care about individual honors. How many times do I have to tell you guys that? Mauer out, fuckfaces!" Mauer then urinated on a picture of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett holding hands and stormed out of the clubhouse whistling a pro-al Qaeda anthem that he wrote himself earlier in the day.

[El Mudo]

And so it is heaped into our living rooms and we must learn to live with it, like an evil mother-in-law who's moved in indefinitely.

A recent study of the Ju'hoansi San – also known as the !Kung – who live on the Nambia-Botswana border, determined that their distinctive clicking sounds have links to the most primitive language in humanoid history, which traces back over 40,000 years. A thorough examination of these sounds, cross-referenced with the fossil record and an extensive examination of similar languages and proto-languages, has determined that it is literally impossible to tell a joke older than "my mother-in-law drives me nuts!"




This made me laugh out loud harder than the Eckstein Footprints....sweet mother of God is that hilarious.

[El Mudo]

If I ever see Jeter's name attached to the hip of performance enhancers, I'm done. I mean it — I'll never watch another big league game again.

Just, hang on a second there, sparky. Really? Really. If Derek Jeter did steroids, you would never watch another baseball game again. Ever. Not this year, not next year, never. Wojo is WoDone with WoBall, if Derek Jeter has done steroids. When everyone else, in every sport, has done steroids.

I call bullshit on this, frankly, because: although I personally hate steroids, and all they have done to tarnish the game I love, a pretty fucking hefty amount of famous and popular players have done steroids, and Wojo, like the rest of us, is still watching baseball. Because it's baseball, and baseball is awesome, even if every single player worth a damn since 1992 has been jamming llama testicle suppositories up his butt to make himself run faster. It's baseball. It's fun. Baseball!!!!!!

Also, grammar quiz: what kind of insane literary device is the phrase "attached to the hip of performance enhancers?" a) Metonymy b) vernacular idiom c) utter nonsense d) Grumbletorp-noun phrase?

The answer is e) bad.



Gold

[JimBeam]

I'm guessing somebody wrote an article saying the Jeter should be this year's MVP and this other guy is analyzing it ?

Does anybody have the direct link to the article ?

[IMSlacker]

I'm guessing somebody wrote an article saying the Jeter should be this year's MVP and this other guy is analyzing it ?

Does anybody have the direct link to the article ?

It's at deadspin.com (http://deadspin.com/5360495/what+if-the-what+if).

[underdog]

Yuniesky Betancourt? I'd Yunies-keep going and never look back!!!!