The dawn of the age of Aquarius at Autozone Park

This post is in a series of flashbacks of the year that it was in 2006. The posts will run until Dec. 28th in this blog.

During the first day of the Kids’ Camp at Autozone Park, I was eating lunch with Steve the Fantasy Baseball Guru, Kelly, Michelle (not the one I went to school with), the “legendary prankster” Brian Esposito, and “Principal Tankersly” when the conversation turned into a discussion on Zodiac signs.

Given the fact that sometime during the broadcasts that I did on Fan Radio, I always managed to bring up the Zodiac signs of certain players because on the rosters that they give us in the broadcast booth, they have the players’ birthdays.

So knowing people’s Zodiac signs was just something that was ingrained in me from the time when my mother explained to me Zodiac signs when I was in sixth grade.

Back to the story, Dennis Tankersly said to us that he was a Pisces, which happens to be the same Zodiac sign of John Nelson and the legendary prankster Brian Esposito, who actually shared a birthday with him.

When it was my turn to share my Zodiac sign, I said that I was a Scorpio and shared m birthday with Pedro Martinez and the guy who hit that home run in 1951, Bobby Thomson.

It was also the same Zodiac sign of Kelly, whose birthday was a week after mine.

By the time it was Michelle’s turn, it was two Scorpians and two Pisceseans (not sure if I spelled that right or now) sitting at the table.

“I’m a Libra,” she said as we all chewed on our respective hamburgers.

The last person to share their Zodiac sign was the wise Fantasy Baseball Guru himself.

Now remember, this was a guy that would always say he was just smart whenever one of us would ask him a question on certain things.

This time, his response to the Zodiac conversation shook the world.

“I don’t even know my Zodiac sign,” he said.

After savoring the last few bites of my cheeseburger, I asked him his birthday.

“Feb. 16th,” he said.

“You’re an Aquarius,” I said to him, “You’re three days shy of being a Pisces, which begins on Feb. 19th.”

A month later, I asked the chocolate cutie what was her Zodiac sign, which was something that was egged on by my big sister.

From my own actions around her, it seemed to me that she shared the same Zodiac sign as the city’s fine version of Marcie, who was a Pisces.

My theory was that many Pisces girls that I talk to, I end up losing lots and lots of concentration.

When I guessed her Zodiac sign during one of the first conversation that I had with my big sister, she had this to say to me.

“LeToya Luckett is a Pisces.”

So is Will Clark and Harry Caray.

Not to mention Juan Encarncion and former Detroit Tigers outfielder Skeeter Barnes.

When I brought up the Zodiac thing to her after we got in a picture together, I asked her what was her Zodiac sign.

“Aquarius,” she replied, “My birthday’s Feb. 9th.”

When I found out, I had to think about my ex, who was also an Aquarius and I couldn’t see eye to eye with.

Mainly because she rushed into what she thought was going to be a long-standing relationship.

Without getting to know me.

I went into the store and told the wise Fantasy Baseball Guru about what had happened when I asked the chocolate cutie about the Zodiac sign.

“She’s an Aquarius,” I told him, “Just like you.”

And probably for the first time in the history of mankind, the wise Fantasy Baseball Guru actually admitted to not being smart about Zodiac signs.

In a circular way.

The cute snuggie wuggie cuggie

In looking back at 2006, today’s midday post will look back at number 70 on the countdown of the things, people, places, and sayings that made 2006 a year to remember.

Kids, long before Myspace became all the rage, there was a little social networking website that was called BlackPlanet.

Every single person on your street had a BlackPlanet page, whether it was your neighborhood candy lady or the neighborhood bully that rode around in a bike that was similar to the one Deebo rode in the classic Next Friday, BlackPlanet.com was the site you had to be on.

A year ago, a few days prior to Thanksgiving, I ended up adding a very cute girl to my then-neverending list of female friends on my Messenger list who lived in western Tennessee.

We talked off and on as friends for much of the holiday season, which was right around the same time that I was talking to someone at school that I met in the campus bookstore earlier in the semester.

With most of my female friends, the ones that I refer to in my column, almost half of them have nicknames that I give them in order to avoid putting people on blast in my column, which from the looks of things hasn’t brought up any problems among my friends.

It was during one of those talks we had on instant messenger that I ended up calling my friend “snuggie wuggie”, which was just something that I made up in a New York minute.

And of course, I had her blushing when she heard me say that.

As the spring came in, I spent less time on BlackPlanet.com because Myspace was now becoming the rage among my friends.

I had started a Myspace page a year ago, but never went to the page because I was too busy bonig up my friends list on Black Planet, of which their were many.

So by May, I ended up finding out that the “snuggie wuggie” was on Myspace and a few weeks later, she posted a bullentin about what her friends (including myself) thought of her introductory picture.

One of the lines in the message said leave a dirty message, which I couldn’t think of at the present moment because I was at work.

I said on one of her pictures, “I think you’re sexy as hell, that’s as dirty as I will get because I’m at work.”

When I returned home from the office, I got a reply from her that said, “Awwwww, aren’t you the sweetest thing.”

Paging Dr. Joye

In looking back at 2006, this afternoon’s post will look back at number 71 on the countdown of the 100 things, people, places, things, and unique sayings that made 2006 a year to remember.

A frequently forgotten fact about what transpired during the summer is what had happened almost two months before the season began.

I was very interested (to say the least) in a girl that I met two days after Hurricane Katrina hit the city of New Orleans in the campus bookstore at school and from the looks of things, everything seemed to be going well.

That is, until two weeks before her birthday, I ended up having some concerns about the status of what was going on between us, which was nothing more as I look back on it, a causal friendship.

Towards the end of January, I started explaining what was going on between me and the girl from the campus bookstore to a friend of a friend on Yahoo.

The tricky part was that I ended up trying to help her get hooked up with a friend of mine from my Whitehaven days, who similar to what would happen this summer with me, met her during the summer session at school.

And she ended up trying to convince me that I was at the time, sprung on the girl from the campus bookstore, which seemed to be very true at the beginning part of the year.

Her theory was that I always seemed to talk about her, had no other options, and I wanted to tell the world that I liked her excluding her.

Which was true.

When the game between Da Crew and the Bible Boys seemed to be a go, I explained to her that she could learn how to play basketball by coming to the Chris Walker Court at Gaston Park to see the greatest streetball game ever played in this city.

As the month of Feburary rolled around, it was apparent that the sprungness theory of Dr. Joye seemed to be very true to me as for the first time, I asked the girl from the campus bookstore out on a date for Valentine’s.

Dr. Joye’s response?

“Sprung.”

Or in this case, sprung times infinity on a sundae with even more sprung sprinkles.

Sounds delicious.

The last time that I actually paged Dr. Joye was when I added her to my endless number of friends on Myspace during the middle part of May.

By that time, her and my friend broke up over something that was really stupid and the sprungness theory that she had in Febuary seemed to be a complete hoax.

When I told her what happened with the girl from the bookstore, she asked me why didn’t the two of us hook up.

Which was something that I tried to figure what went wrong when the choke-job was finally complete.

Not that Miss Candy

I had no plans of writing an early afternoon post (because I had already written my morning post on my other blog) but I had to say something about this.

On Wednesday, my sister explained to me that I should try to find the chocolate cutie and try to get her number again, which is something that I haven’t given any thought about since the last time I saw her, which was in August.

So on a hunch, I typed in the nickname that I’ve always referred to her as while I was on Myspace on Wednesday afternoon and tried to see what I came up with.

10 results.

The one that stuck out was a girl that lived in Atlanta and was only a year older than me.

And she was single and very attractive if I might add.

So figuring that she wasn’t about to add me to her friends list and add another notch in my belt as I eclisped 500 friends on Thanksgiving, one month to the day that I topped 400 friends, I gave no thought of her being part of my friends list.

This morning when I checked Myspace, it showed that I had 507 friends because of three more that were added to my friends list.

So I checked to see which people responded to my friend request.

One of Lil Boo’s friends added me last night, which would be another friend from Adrice’s friend tree through the countless degrees of separation.

Then I had to check and see which person became friend number 507.

And given the fact that I tend to overlook things on Myspace, I tried to figure out who would add me to their friend list.

As I got to page 10 of my friends list, I scrolled down to see who friend number 507 was.

Miss Candy.

No, not the chocolate cutie (not quite sure if she’s on Myspace or not).

But an equally cute girl from Atlanta, who happens to be a Virgo and single.

Which equals a very good combination, if you know what I mean.

I called my sister right after the discovery and left a message saying that a girl (not the chocolate cutie) who shares the same nickname as the chocolate cutie added me to her friends list, which seemed to be a surprise to me.

But there’s a possiblity that the adding of the Georgia Miss Candy could actually mean something in the long term.

Uh………

Don’t even think about it.

Quinn, we hardly knew ye

Every time I listen to Mike Valenti’s historic rant when Michigan State gagged in their matchup against Notre Dame in September, denying us of a Notre Dame-free society in the world of college football, I can’t help but ask myself what would have happened if Michigan State had won that game against the Fighting Irish.

We wouldn’t be talking about Brady Quinn for Heisman for one thing.

Heck, he shouldn’t been mentioned after what he did when the Irish faced the Wolverines in South Bend and got spanked by almost three touchdowns, which should have eliminated any talk of him being mentioned for the Heisman because he didn’t win any big games.

Emphasis on the last three words of the previous paragraph.

Quinn went 24 fo 48 in that game against Michigan, running up 234 passing yards with 3 touchdown passes and three picks.

In tonight’s game, the senior quarterback threw for three touchdowns and no picks, while running up 268 yards in the air.

So if you add the two games that are the marquee matchups for the Irish, you would get 502 yards, an average of a 251 yards, which is respectable by all means.

But the important thing that the Heisman voters will look at is this, did Brady Quinn win those two games?

No.

What people outside of East Lansing don’t know is that Quinn had to bring the Irish back from a 37-21 deficit (which is possible when you’re playing Michigan State) and win 40-37.

So you really can’t say the Irish won that game, because as we all know, Michigan State handed it to them like a scared tourist handing over a million dollars to a robber in Downtown Memphis because of the coaching staff’s inabilty to coach with a lead.

The only big game that I would look at if I was a Heisman voter would be the game against Penn State, when he lit up the Nittany Lions for 287 yards in a 41-14 rout in Happy Valley.

1-2 against Penn State, Michigan, and USC.

Which says it all for Quinn.

Not Heisman worthy.

When you get pasted by 26 against Michigan at home and 20 against Southern Cal on the road, don’t expect to be standing on the podium in New York City when the Heisman is given out.

The reason why Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, Desmond Howard, Ricky Williams, and others have won the Heisman in the previous 15 years, is because they performed well in big games while their teams won those big games they performed well in.

Quinn has not done that in a big game this year except once when the Irish went on the road and pasted Penn State in the beginning of the season.

Don’t get me wrong, he performed well against Michigan and Southern Cal and didn’t even throw a pick against the Trojans in tonight’s game.

But did the Irish win those games against the Wolverines and the Trojans?

No.

Enough said, then.

What is up with these Dogs?

Three years ago, Butler shocked the world by heading to the Sweet 16 for the first time in over 40 years, gracefully bowing out to top-seeded Oklahoma in the regional semifinals, the furthest for any Butler team since the NCAA expanded the field in 1985.

Of course, the trip to the Sweet 16 in 2003 made up for the 25-5 record that Butler had in 2001-02 and trip to the NIT, which was one of the biggest snubs this side of Springfield, Missouri.

Fast forward three years later, when Butler pretty much ran roughsod through teams like Tennessee, Gonzaga, and even Indiana, all of whom are big name schools and have very strong basketball traditions, to win the Preseason NIT.

First national championship of any kind in almost 80 years for the Bulldogs.

I didn’t get a chance to see the game between Butler and Gonzaga, but I did read the column on their win over Gonzaga in the Indianapolis Star about how the Bulldogs hit 8 3-pointers and didn’t trail in their game against Gonzaga.

Their last 3 NIT games?

13 down against Tennessee, 12 against Indiana, and 7 against Notre Dame, all of which were victories for Butler.

According to the same article that I read in this morning’s paper, coach Todd Lickliter said that the possibilty of being ranked in the top 25, which could possibly happen after their three victories over major conference schools, was of no concern to the Bulldogs.

But if you ask me, if these Dogs can keep this trend up,  look for the Bulldogs to dance their way into the Big Dance when March rolls around.

It’s a bigger picture beyond thuggery

I was supposed to do an afternoon flashback on this year, but since the University of Miami screwed up my ideas for a late afternoon post by firing coach Larry Coker, I figured that writing about Thug U (which is what most people call the University of Miami) football would be way more important than writing about my year.

And garner some debate over the firing of Coker by comments left by many of my readers.

Seriously, I don’t think a guy who coaches a team to a national championship, which would guarantee you a lifetime contract with the university that you coach at, should receive a pink slip.

If that was the case, then Lloyd Carr, Joe Paterno, Bobby Bowden, Steve Spurrier (when he was at Florida), Philip Fulmer, and Bob Stoops would all be gone from their respective universities for the seasons following their national championship seasons.

But for Miami, it’s a different story.

The 2001 national championship team, true enough, was stocked with players that were recruited by current North Carolina coach Butch Davis and included such players as quarterback Ken Dorsey and linebacker Jonathan Vilma.

But still, even though the Hurricanes were consistently in bowl games and contending for the Big East championship (and much later on the ACC) after 2001, the talking heads in the media and even some Hurricane fans were calling for Coker’s head, especially after the brand of supposed thuggery the Hurricanes showed when they played LSU in the Peach Bowl at the beginning of this year, when they went on the road and played Louisville and stomped on their logo in midfield, and of course, the brawl against Florida International, which showed the entire country the supposed thuggery of the Miami football program.

Or so they thought.

From what I’ve heard over the years about the program, the University of Miami has had a pretty clean program over the last ten years, a long way from the renegade days of Dennis Erickson and Jimmy Johnson and the days when Miami once came to the Fiesta Bowl in fatigues to play Penn State when Michael Irvin and Vinny Testervarde was there at Miami.

One of the things that I have looked at through the last few years that I have written aout college football through my blogs was that Miami has had few arrests that made the news, the same that couldn’t be said at schools like Ohio State, Tennessee, Michigan State, or any other big time school.

As I recall, Alabama had a bunch of stupid boosters that couldn’t keep their passions for Crimson Tide football in their multi-million luxury boxes a few years back by buying recruits for the Tide.

Even a new coach was run out of Tuscaloosa before his first practice by going to a strip club in Pensacola and the school had to scramble to find a new replacement for him.

Notre Dame had a highly publicized incident in which a new coach lied about his background on playing football at the University of New Hampshire, causing the coach to resign and hire the school’s first African-American coach, which they got rid of because of subpar performances on the field, yet the fact that Notre Dame had always kept their football coaches for at least five years until they could make a decision on them.

Problem was, the coach was the wrong color.

At Florida, the adminstration and fan base ran a coach out of Gainesville, yet the Gators were always contending for the SEC East title and went to a bowl game.

The problem was that the coach was not Steve Spurrier.

At Florida State, there was a highly publicized incident in which two star wide receivers were caught buying stolen merchandise from a mall in Tallahassee for 50 dollars, one of whom got kicked off the team and is currently playing in the NFL while the other one is still looking for a job in the league given the fact the guy was reinstated a few weeks after that incident.

The list goes on and on about the trangressions of big-time college football programs like Ohio State (see Maurice Clarett for proof), Michigan State (fighting with the Illini after they put the school flag in the middle of the field, arrests, substance abuse), Ole Miss (recruiting violations), Colorado (rapes, sexual harassment), and others.

The main problem with Coker’s tenure at Miami was this, too many people in South Florida expected him to win national championships year in and year out and the fact that the team had a 3-loss season last year, it shouldn’t give the Hurricanes a sedgeway to fire the guy who had given the university 12 years of service in their football program.

The problem did not lie in the supposed thuggery of the players (one of whom happens to be from Memphis and I actually attended school with him) nor the renegade atomsphere that was perceived by the media.

Just the fact that Coker couldn’t sustain the success of the 2001 national championship team and they couldn’t build on what Butch Davis created when he arrived there to replace Dennis Erickson.

An antidote to shopping

Before I begin, I should let you know that I hate shopping.

No surprise, because I’m a guy.

But for millions and millions of people around the country, today is the first day of Christmas shopping, meaning that there will be long lines and short tempers.

Which equals catfights and mayhem when the doors open.

Fortunately, for most of us (including myself), we have an antidote to the chaotic scene at shopping malls across the country.

College football.

And a way to put those Thanksgiving leftovers to use as we watch the bitter rivalry of Texas and Texas A&M and see if the Longhorns can wrap up the Big 12 South.

The “Battle For the Boot” between Arkansas and LSU, which was always my favorite Thanksgiving rivalry game because of the atomsphere you would get at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge (I’m sure Kate’s at that one) and the game that got me serious about SEC football, which was back in 1997 when the two faced each other in Little Rock on the day after Thanksgiving.

Even the Mid-American Conference got some interesting alternatives to Christmas shopping.

Miami of Ohio versus Ohio University, the “Battle for the Bricks”, which is a game that I am watching right now as I write this.

Northern Illinois with Garrett Wolf (should get an invite to New York City) against Eastern Michigan in Ypslianti, with a possible bowl invite on the line for the Huskies.

And later on, Western Michigan (my friend Jennifer’s school) against Akron in Akron, which should be an interesting matchup in its own right.

Of course, if you don’t watch those games that I mentioned, you can always do the next best thing.

Shop and wait in long lines.

Spiezio, the chocolate cutie, and the dash

September 29th began like any other day in Memphis, with the exception of the always omnipresent heat that you have to deal with even in late September.

I had planned on going down to Midtown to help out at Food Not Bombs and fight through the traffic that was very congested through the area bounded by South Hollywood on the west, Southern Avenue on the north, East Parkway South on the east, and Central Avenue on the south because of the UT-Memphis game, which seemed to be a bigger challenge than hitting a fastball thrown by Chris Carpenter.

While I was getting prepared to leave, I cut on my Webshots screensaver of all of the pictures that I had of all my (mainly female) friends.

Now remember, this was five minutes prior to the Cardinals-Brewers game starting with Jeff Suppan going to the mound.

When I cut on the screensaver, the first picture that the screensaver showed was the picture that set off the cutest story in the history of Memphis professional baseball.

And the most famous home run call in Redbirds history.

“It’s not a big deal,” I said to myself as I shut down the computer and headed out the door.

Everyone at Galloway knew how big of a Cardinals fan I was , but the only problem that I had was that the kitchen where we prepared the food had no radio nor tv to see what was going on in St. Louis.

By 2:30, I had not gotten any word on the game situation in St. Louis, so I cut my serving time short over at Food Not Bombs and raced down Second Street to my second favorite hangout, the Bigfoot Lounge to grab a burger.

Once I got there, I sat at the bar and ordered a drink and saw the score in St. Louis.

2-0 Milwaukee.

Bottom of the eighth inning.

A couple that were in town for the Memphis-Tennessee game and I talked about SEC football and the game in St. Louis while Scott Spiezio came to the plate.

“You think they’re going to pull it out?,” I asked the guy that was sitting next to me as I took a large bite out of my burger.

“They might,” he replied to me as I looked at the television.

Whenever I got nervous about something, I would always cup my hands and blow through them (which happened a lot of times whenever I did a broadcast during the season at Autozone Park).

But with Spiezio at the plate and bases loaded, I didn’t really think that seeing the picture that began the cutest story in the history of Memphis professional baseball prior to leaving for Cooper-Young to help out at Food Not Bombs was going to mean anything.

That’s when it happened.

Spiezio hits a line drive to the right-field corner, which seemed to me to be a guaranteed double that would at least tie the game.

But the way that Spiezio hit it, I thought differently about the score.

As I cheered Spiezio to get to third, I kept thinking to myself, was the picture that set off the cutest story ever told in Memphis professional baseball history an omen to what was going to happen when the eighth inning came around?

Not really.

In the ninth inning with the tying run on second, Adam Wainwright struck out Mike Rivera (who was the first batter in that ninth inning on July 4th) to shrink the Cardinals’ magic number down to one.

Later that night, I ended up seeing the picture once again as I turned on the screensaver and played “Marion’s Theme”, which was a tune that I played after every Cardinals or Redbirds victory.

And went to bed smiling.

Hey, there’s condoms in the bathroom!!!

In looking back at 2006, this afternoon’s flashback will look back at number 73 on the countdown of the top 100 things, events, and people that made 2006 the year that it was.

A few weeks ago, I went on a trip with my church to Nashville for a conference with other churches from across the region, which I wrote about in my post on Halloween, because I had no Internet access for the three days that I was there in Nashville.

Given the fact that I have gone on many church trips in the past with my grandmother, you would think the trip to Nashville would be for the most part, free of anything that would be immoral.

Or better yet, immoral things that you have to make observations of for a blog entry.

Which is exactly what happened when some church members and I made a pit stop on the outskirts of Nashville.

There was this quaint service station that was on the west side of Nashville off Interstate 40 and given the fact that we were almost in Williamson County and running low on gas, we decided to fuel up for the road with snacks and gas by stopping there.

And given the fact that I drank like that “Home Alone” character (except the bed-wetting part), I found the pit stop the perfect opportunity to answer the call of nature.

I went into the bathroom and did what I had to do (can’t believe I’m writing about a bathroom) when I raised my head up after flushing the toilet.

In front of me was a condom-vending machine, that had all the great condom brands (Trojan, Magnum, Durex) waiting to be bought by some unsuspecting person in the men’s bathroom.

Beliving that the condom-vending machine wasn’t working, I twisted the knob to see if the condom machine was working properly.

To my surprise, it was.

After I washed my hands, I went out to grab a tall Coke for the road (regret that decision now) and told one of my church members what I just saw in the bathroom.

“There’s a condom vending machine in the bathroom,” I said, “And it actually works.”

My fellow church member looked at me as I let out a big sigh of disbelief, based on my knowledge of knowing that condoms in service stations are normally located behind the cashiers, not in a bathroom.

“Well, that’s the way of the world we live in,” he said to me as we went to the counter.

So true.