Oh Those Crazy Asians!

Now, as someone who is outwardly Asian, I will be the first to admit that Asians have some of the most terrible ideas, like eating dogs or using chopsticks instead of a fork. But one thing I think they got right: taking off your shoes when you enter someone's house.

I just don't get how it's okay to wear your shoes inside. You know what kind of shit people step in while they're walking around outside? Dog shit. Bird shit. Mud. Chewing gum. Dried crusty vomit. Puddles of urine pooled underneath the urinal. Oftentimes, this is unavoidable, and I understand that. But how did it become acceptable to track all the detritus you've collected under the sole of your shoe right onto the carpet? This ass-backwards society freaks out when someone dips their chip into the cheese twice in a row but thinks nothing of smearing fucking dog shit right where I stick my head when I'm looking under the couch for the chinchilla when he's escaped.

So I don't understand why people look so perplexed when I take off my shoes at the door. It's not an Asian thing--it's a common sense thing.

HULK SMASH

As for this thing about Ken Griffey Jr. sleeping in the clubhouse during a game, I don't see what the big deal is. I think that Griffey was doing his team a favor by dozing in his chair - that way he can't actually be put into a game and hurt the team by getting himself out, like he usually does. So I'm willing to see his little nap as him just being a good team player.

But not Mike Sweeney! Mike Sweeney is mad. He's mad that the reporter lied--LIED--about the two young players who ratted Junior out. It was made up, they don't exist, he says. And how does he know that? Through rigorous interviewing and deductive reasoning? Closed-circuit camera footage? No no no. Mike Sweeney needs no such evidence, for he is apparently Chuck Norris:

"We don't think there are two players who said that (about Griffey sleeping)," Sweeney told FOXSports.com. "I challenged anybody in that room if they said it to stand up and fight me. No one stood up."

What saddens me the most is that Sweeney will never go to law school and will never have a chance to test out this innovative new evidentiary technique. "Your honor, obviously my client is innocent, as he did not stand up when the plaintiff challenged the room to a fight."

The Psychology of Fantasy Baseball

In one of my Yahoo fantasy leagues, I thought and behaved in a way that, in retrospect, was very odd, and quite irrational.

I needed to pick up a catcher, as my C slot was vacant, and Geovany Soto had just become available on the waiver wire. The problem was, I didn't know who I was going to drop. Everyone else on my roster was too good. The weakest link was probably Jay Bruce. But I just couldn't bring myself to drop Bruce and pick up Soto, and I never pulled the trigger. Of course, somebody else picked up Soto, and out of sheer indecision, I played the whole week without a catcher.

Then, the guy who picked up Soto offered him to me in a trade. For Jay Bruce. Which I happily accepted.

This is head-spinningly irrational; ultimately, the outcome would have been exactly the same if I had just dropped Bruce and picked up Soto. But it would have felt like I was LOSING Bruce. Soto was free; if I didn't have Bruce on my roster at all, I could still pick up Soto, so it didn't feel like I was gaining anything in EXCHANGE for Bruce. But when Soto is on someone else's team, he's not free anymore, so it felt okay to trade Bruce, because I was getting value. It was value for value, see? That is in contrast to dropping value to pick up something completely free. Funny how that works, but it's been well established that people are more strongly motivated by losses than they are by gains of the same magnitude. Doesn't change the fact that it's exceedingly senseless and illogical, but there you go. I KNOW that and I still can't help feeling that way.

In other news (Dallas Braden notwithstanding), I think the most incredible feat of the young baseball season belongs to a certain David Eckstein, who as of this moment has struck out TWO TIMES in 119 plate appearances. I don't expect him to sustain that kind of contact, but if he did, he would surpass even the peerless Tony Gwynn, who in 1995 struck out an incredible 15 times in 577 plate appearances. Mark Reynolds, on the other hand, can barely go 40 at-bats without striking out 15 times.