Letter From the Editor

Dear readers,

Due to the demands of writing a book and writing for another blog on WordPress.com as well as working and also returning to school, I will be retiring from this blog effective immediately.

It has without a shadow of doubt, been a wonderful journey writing in this blog about various topics that enter my head when I’m Downtown at the Bon-Ton Cafe eating a cheeseburger or playing basketball down at the Hollywood Community Center over the course of the last two years. I can’t say enough how many of my friends, mostly female, enjoyed reading a column that had a focus on them to make them smile.

The blog will still be up and running as a “Best of Doc Hancock and Friends” blog, where you can read everything about Playboy Bunnies, belly rubs, sprungness theories, and all of the other things that made up my life from August of last year to July of this year.

But again, for those of you who read this blog over the last two years, thank you once again for stopping by.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Dr. R.E. Hancock

July 23, 2007

It’s your problem, not mine

A week ago, I wrote a flashback column on a friend of a friend in this very blog that to me, was no big deal.

But after speaking with my friend on last night about the column that I wrote on last Monday, it seems as though as his friend is on a cloud that isn’t on the one of the nine clouds that you normally hear about.

“You’ve created a mess,” my friend said to me about the column on Dr. Joye, “She’s got the big head now.”

Okay, I admit, writing a column about a female friend is very different from writing about college sports.

When you write about college sports, it’s a very different because people have various opinions and you don’t have to worry about people having the big head.

But write a column on a female friend, they become enamored and ecstatic about being a focus of a column that is read by hundreds each day.

I told my friend, “This isn’t the Commercial Appeal, man. She ought to understand that this is only a daily weblog, not a newspaper.”

“Well, she already understands that,” he told me in our conversation on last night.

“Good,” I said to my friend, “There’s a big difference between writing for a newspaper and writing for yourself.”

I remembered one column I had to write on the hottest of the hot a week before Valentine’s and Dr. Joye explained to me that she wanted the column to have a focus on her.

A week after she made a theory on being sprung on that girl I met in the campus bookstore.

Of course at the time, the blog I had was not as well read as this one, I don’t think.

Thanks a lot, Blogger.

“The Spit”

Continuing with the countdown of the 100 greatest events of 2006, this afternoon’s post looks back at number 88, when I thought it was wise to wolf down a bottle of Coke real fast.

When I decided to write a book about my experiences down at the corner of South Third and Union Avenue, the emotional core of the book was going to be my reunion with Michelle and Sharika, who were in high school with me at Whitehaven High School and the funny moments that we had down at the ballpark.

And on this countdown, many of the misadventures I went through with the two, will be part of the book as well.

The first misadventure that will be mentioned on the countdown with the two was when I did the Round Rock-Redbirds game for Fan Radio on August 19th.

I had bought a bag of peanuts and a bottle of Coke to munch on while I was keeping tabs on the action on the field.

Midway through Mike Rose’s at-bat, I heard a couple of voices behind me in the area where the cheerleaders and ushers sit during the game or before they head out on the field.

As I opened another bunch of peanuts and took a swig of my bottle of Coke and watched Mike Rose take his turn at the plate, I turned back and saw Michelle and Sharika and asked them, “What are you two doing?”

Remembering that I had snuck in a bag of chocolates with a Notre Dame Fighting Irish hat that I bought earlier in the day, the two of them asked me did I have any more chocolates with me, which I didn’t because my hat reeked of the sweet smell of chocolates.

After Rose struck out, Junior Spivey comes up to the plate and as I marked down Rose’s strikeout on my scorecard, Michelle brings up something about Junior Spivey to Sharika.

And as soon I caught wind of this, I decided to test the capacity of Coke that my mouth could hold by wolfing down the Coke real fast.

Once I reached my breaking point, I found myself spitting up Coke and onto the scorecard I had in my left hand as well as the pants that I wore.

Realizing that the two were still there, I turned back to them again and said to them while I was holding the stained scorecard up for everybody to see, “Look at my scorecard.”

And the two in unision said, “It’s not our fault.”

I brought this up again during the final episode of the “Two Girls and a Doc Show” when I told their friend about what happened that muggy night on August 19th.

And still to this day, they both claim it was not their fault that both Mike Rose and Junior Spivey struck out when they went to the platform.

This week’s picks

On last Friday, I did my very first pick special of the season and went 3-2 (Michigan,  Florida, and Texas were the winners on last week).

The picks I posted on last Saturday wouldn’t count because hell, I ran out of things to say in the blog Saturday morning.

And now here’s this week’s picks:

Memphis 35 Arkansas State 0

Florida 21 Auburn 14 (sorry, Kelly)

Ohio State 38 Michigan State 14

Michigan 23 Penn State 20

Louisville 20 Cincinnati 0

Those are my picks and I’m sticking with it.

Magic number:4

Chicago Cubs 11
Cincinnati 4

Cards’ magic number:4

Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston……………

Just watched Michigan State make Notre Dame’s defense look as lost as a crackhead in Downtown Memphis (wonder if I can say that) by scoring two quick touchdowns to give Michigan State a 14-0 lead over Notre Dame at Spartan Stadium and probably threatening my two-point gift to the Irish against the Spartans.

In Cincinnati, the Chicago Cubs are beating the Cincinnati Reds 11 to 4 as the game goes into the bottom of the eighth inning. The scenario for the Cardinals is clear and simple, a Cardinals win and a Reds loss would shrink the magic number down to three games with one more game against the Astros in what could possibly be Roger Clemens’ last home start as a pitcher on Sunday night, a game I will definitely be watching.

But for now, it looks like the magic number will probably whittle down to four instead of three as the Cardinals are trailing the Astros, who have won the first two games of this series on late-inning dramatics (Lance Berkman’s homer in the 8th inning and the big ninth inning that the Astros had in the bottom of the ninth inning), 3 to 1 going into the top of the sixth inning. Luke Scott has his ninth homer of the year tonight for the Astros.

Prediction on Michigan State-Notre Dame

Spartans 23

Irish 21

Midday scoreboard

Purdue 27
Minnesota 21

Michigan 27
Wisconsin 13

Georgia 14
Colorado 13

Clemson 52
North Carolina 7

Buckeye Update: Penn State 0 Ohio State 0

Sometimes, parental control is needed

Many years ago, it was customary for parents to choose the spouses that their child were going to marry or for that matter, which girl or boy they could date.

Well, in the MTV generation that I’m in, we guys like the girl that’s a lady in the streets but a freak in the bedroom.

And some girls like guys that have grills in their mouth and do’ rags.

But now, the good folks at MTV are turning the old-fashioned way of approving dates for their children into a reality show that I ended up watching this morning when I finished watching Sportscenter.

Parental Control, the new reality show on MTV, is a show in which the parents make two choices for their kid on alternatives for their loser boyfriend or girlfriend.

And at the end of the show, the kid makes a decision on whether or not they want to stay with that person they’re trying to replace or the person that their parents chose for them.

The candidates for the parents are brought into a room with them and are asked a series of questions in order to weed out which ones will be the two people their child will date during the show.

While the child go on the two dates, their parents and their boyfriend or girlfriend watch the whole thing on camera and during that, the parents kinda ridicule their child’s boyfriend/girlfriend.

One of the episodes I watched this morning featured a guy who was 20, jobless, and always had the girl pay for the dates (which goes against dating rules).

Of course to top that, he was a jerk to the girl, who I thought was very pretty in my opinion.

When it all boiled down to it, the jerk was swapped in exchange for one of the parents’ choices, leaving the jerk in a cloud of smoke and hurt feelings.

The episodes I watched this morning of Parental Control made me think about the list of lady friends that I was interested in.

Of course, the list I wrote back in July, was based on three things.

The first was personality, because I don’t like girls that are complete robots and boring to talk to.

Second was ambition or something going for themselves (i.e. job, own apartment, car, et. al.).

That second factor kinda drew me away from that girl I was talking to at school for much of the 2005-06 school year.

And the third, of course, was looks, which would probably consititute for 15 percent of what I myself look for in a girl.

But given the strained relationship with my own parents, parental control in who I choose to date out of the short list that I wrote a few months ago would be a bad idea for me.

A very bad idea.

Game time set for UT-Memphis

Next Saturday’s game between the Tennessee Volunteers and Memphis Tigers will be on ESPN starting at 11 o’clock in the morning.