dex: yeah, but what do we CALL our jj redick tag?

NBA officials say: Billy Donovan leaving Florida to coach JJ REDICK. This is kind of the best thing that shep. and I have been given this year, we cannot lie.

In case Jeremy Foley is interested, shep. and I feel that UNC assistant Joe Holladay would be a superb choice for the head coaching position at the University of Florida. And we've got a good suggestion for Joe Holladay's spot on the Carolina bench, as well. Warren Weston Miller would be an excellent assistant coach. Our interest in this subject is purely scientific, I assure you.

shep.: If somebody offered me $27.6 million, I would coach J.J. Redick.
dex.: And by coach, you mean beat in the locker room at halftime?
shep.: Well, I was thinking service sexually, but beat in the locker room at halftime would work too.

And, oh yeah, the Heels are ACC Champions, bitches.

I woke up this morning in my childhood bedroom with an inexplicable hangover and the feeling that shep. and I had done something truly ridiculous yesterday, which was odd, since the sum-total of my drinking on Sunday amounted to a single beer at the O's/A's game and I always adhere to the Rule For Drinking Beer During Hot Weather At Baseball Games (half a bottle of water for every beer, which is only problematic when you miss ninth inning rallies because you're in line for the women's bathroom), and also since, honestly, when do shep. and I ever do ridiculous things, especially when we aren't even in the same state? NEVER. Well, hardly ever.

Once I downed two cups of coffee and shoved the cat in his carrier to start the six hour trip home to the NC from the parentals' place in Baltimore, I remembered: oh, yeah, yesterday shep. bought us All-Session passes to the NCAA Chapel Hill Regional.

So that's what we're doing for at least a good chunk of this coming weekend: watching Carolina play WCU, ECU and Jacksonville for the right to go to the Super Regional. If you're going to be at the Bosh for any of the games, we'll be the people sitting down by the opposing team's dugout hassling on-deck batters and assessing catchers' ... talents. shep. has big sunglasses. I will be wearing a spectacular hat, and will have a digital camera in one hand and a scorebook in the other. We promise to make lots of off-color jokes about the fact that WCU's mascot is the Catamount, and possibly embarrass ourselves horrifically, like always.

In other news, if Daniel Cabrera promises not to suck like a Hoover anymore (like he didn't yesterday), I shall make myself present at all of his starts. Luckily, I think that the likelihood of Cabrera not sucking is low, so I can save on game tickets.

Even Tahmoh Penikett would look wretch in these robes, I cannot lie.

Fact: even if you have Reyshawn Terry's arms, cheekbones, and sweet 16-foot jumper, you still don't look good in Carolina blue graduation robes. I don't think anyone looks good in Carolina blue graduation robes. (This is not the only reason that I attended my own recent graduation as an audience member, but it was one of them. Except graduate students get to wear black, BUT I FOUND THAT OUT LATE, OKAY?)

Regardless, congratulations to the Tar Heel basketball class of '07 -- Reyshawn Terry, Warren Weston Miller, and Dewey "Biscuits" Burke (our nickname for Reyshawn is not fit for a family friendly blog, alas) -- on their graduations and to Coach Dean Smith on his honorary doctor of laws degree. Y'all make me proud to share a graduating class with you.

"I wonder if Greg Oden's beard and Adam Morrison's mustache go on play dates." -- Len Bias Cocaine Surplus of Deadspin

Baron Davis's beard is the older brother who takes the NBA Facial Hair Play Group to Chucky Cheese.


In other news, the backup catcher on the Georgia Tech baseball team thinks that shep. is in love with him.

somehow, this is all Tyler Hansbrough's fault.

There was a longer post here about my life karma, currently in the green (good weather, full set of teeth, favourite Tar Heels returning), and how it's feeling perhaps affronted by the recent burst of serenity in my life. Being my life karma, it's decided to take reckless matters into its own hands and find new and improved ways to fuck me over this spring.


That post is gone now because it was stupid.


All I can say is, of course the Yankees' baby-faced Phil Hughes, twenty-year old pitching prospect extraordinaire, went down last night with a hamstring injury during his second major league start. Of course he did. After all, he's only pitched three AAA games. Such things are destined to happen! Oh, and he might miss a month! Well now! Shock of America!


During the NCAA playoffs dex. and I spent an unreasonable amount of time making deals between ourselves and fate, all in the name of basketball. We would cheer for teams we hated, or compliment coaches and players we'd rather see lying dead in the street, in an attempt to garner better karma for the Tar Heels. Ultimately, losing to Georgetown could not have been our fault; in March, I said more nice things about Billy Donavan than the total amount of time I talked to my family, and words cannot describe how difficult that was for me.


Would I trade one of the returning Tar Heels for a healthy starting rotation, or a bullpen that won't burn itself out over the next month? No, I wouldn't, and not just because dex. would kick my ass from here to Asheville. But if Bobby Frasor could throw ninety miles an hour and had a reasonable sense of control, I would strongly consider chloroforming his ass and driving him to New York myself, just to see how he could do. Seriously. I have a really spacious trunk.

Conversations that happen at Four Corners after midnight when shep. is tipsy.

dex: Nomar's growing facial hair! I guess Mia is too busy to have sex with him now.
shep: He's helping take care of the twins, and this baseball career takes a lot of time.
dex: He has to get his own water now.
shep: It's hard to be Nomar when he has to get his own water.

Sometimes, things related to the White Sox are not all bad.

I have two Tar Heels on my fantasy league (where shep. is already soundly kicking my ass) team this year. Two! And if BJ Surhoff hadn't gotten old, I would have three. I have a great love for the Weej, as my high school boyfriend called him. I miss him and his old-man knees and the fact that he caught until his knees got too bad, then he played third base until his knees got too bad, then he played in the outfield until his knees got too bad, and then he DH'd for a while after that, until he couldn't stand up anymore. That's dedication to the game, man.

... Wait, what was I talking about? Right. Tar Heels on my fantasy league roster. I have two Tar Heels on my fantasy league team, Andrew Miller (RP, Detroit) and Chris Iannetta (C, Colorado Rockies). This pleases me, because it speaks volumes for Carolina's baseball program.

My point was: this year, the Tar Heels baseball team has a starting pitcher who pitches out of the bullpen on his off-days, just because he can, who lists Guitar Hero as his favorite video game, and who was a chess champion in middle school. Seriously. Is there anything not to love about this baseball team? I THINK NOT.

The joy of watching this team this year hasn't been that they're good (which they are) or that they win (which they do) -- it's been how they win. On Friday night, against Duke, they won 7-0 on a complete game shutout by Robert Woodard, and they had one extra base hit, a late-game solo homerun by Chad Flack.

One. One extra base hit. They scored six runs on the strength of walks (good eyes at the plate, because the Duke pitchers were good), singles, and smart, smart base-running. It's a textbook definition of small ball -- solid hitting from everyone in the lineup (well, not really; Tim Federowicz is slumping, and slumping bad, lately, and it was really the very very top and the very very bottom of the lineup that won the game on Friday night), smart baserunning and a quick (read: lots of stealing) starting lineup, and solid if not inspired pitching. Woodard gave up a bunch of hits, but it didn't matter, because the defense was good and he never got rattled. (He does, however, have the weirdest motion on the face of the Earth, and Dontrelle Willis, I'm looking at you -- Woodard kicks, pauses, and finishes delivery, when there's no one on base. It's supremely strange to watch, makes him look like a robot.)

Carolina Baseball has been fun to watch this season because they're playing smart baseball. To steal a line from the White Sox, they're playing grinderball. Play hard, play smart, play fundamentally solid, and trust your pitchers. And you'll win. (I still think that Benji Johnson has better rapport with his pitchers than Federowicz -- Johnson is a smart, gentle sort of catcher, who knows exactly how to call for each of his pitchers, and knows how to adjust on the fly -- but Federowicz hits better and has a better arm, so I guess it's a trade-off.)

Grinderball -- it's the kind of baseball that looks boring on paper but turns out to be a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

(Photos, such as they are, are here.)

Just slighter nicer than if Greg Paulus decided, in this thin NBA point guard class, to go pro.

Sometimes, when we're really, really lucky, shep. and I do get nice things.