A little Friday afternoon #RushHourRap bringing you into the weekend even though most of you are probably only commuting from the desk in your bedroom to the couch in your living room. Doesn’t mean we can’t crack a few crafties on a Friday night with some new tunes though.
Jack Harlow blew onto the scene when he dropped Whats Poppin earlier this year with one of the catchiest beats I’ve heard all year. Well now he’s back with Tyler Herro, named after the rookie Miami Heat sniper who you may remember for the assault he committed against my Boston Celtics. The song itself has some sneaky one liners that are super relevant during these UNPRECEDENTED TIMES.
Can’t touch me, I got instincts Locked in the house, but I’m plottin’ things
I came home nice, but I’m goin’ back mean I’m ’bout to globe-trot when they know a vaccine
Is it a little early in his career for Tyler Herro to have a rapper name a song after him? Maybe, but Herro played at Kentucky, where Harlow is actually from so the connection makes sense. Not to mention, Herro has the best drip here. So now he’s got a song to match.
Hopefully Herro’s career goes better after having a rap song named after him than Johnny Manziel’s did once Drake made him a rap anthem with Draft Day.
NBCSports – Per reports in the Wall Street Journal and Axios, Henry’s Fenway Sports Group — which includes not only the Red Sox, but Liverpool, Roush Racing, and stakes in other sports ventures — is negotiating to sell a stake of 20-25 percent to Redball Acquisition Corp., which Beane co-chairs. That portion of the club would then be taken public.
The shocking part is Beane’s reported role. Because he cannot maintain financial relationships with two MLB teams — he retains a small ownership stake in the A’s while continuing to oversee their baseball operations — he’d have to leave Oakland. But his plan isn’t to join Boston’s front office. Instead, he would reportedly help marshal FSG’s ventures in European soccer, where he’s already a minority owner of a Dutch team.
I’ll be honest, this is not how I expected John Henry to finally get his guy, but it seems like Billy Beane may be finally coming to work at Fenway…Sports Group. You can read the financial details at Axios, which help explain the nature of the deal better, but essentially Beane’s company Redball Acquisition is looking to buy a stake in FSG so he would be more of a partner or a chairman rather than an employee of Henry’s. Beane has been quietly building a sports empire since Michael Lewis profiled him and the A’s in the era defining Moneyball. Beane currently chairs the Redball company, has an ownership stake in the A’s along with his role running baseball ops, and even bought a Dutch soccer team so he’s not exactly looking to make a lateral move to be the GM of the Red Sox.
John Henry has lusted after Billy Beane for nearly 20 years. So much so that there was an entire scene devoted to it in the Moneyball movie where Henry is trying to lure him away from Oakland to join the Red Sox and become the highest paid GM in the league.
“Anybody who’s not tearing their team down right now and rebuilding it using your model? They’re dinosaurs.”
Now this could be disheartening to Red Sox fans, especially those of us who read Moneyball and have always daydreamed of Beane using his model and John Henry’s money to turn the Sox into the consistent behemoth they could be. But, it seems like that ship has sailed as Beane has his sights set on bigger fish. As does John Henry who, at least in the court of public opinion, seems to be drifting further and further from the Sox being his top priority. In case you’ve lost track, Henry now owns the Red Sox, Liverpool, Roush Fenway Racing, and The Boston Globe. Whether that has any real tangible effect on the day to day success of the Sox is debatable, but for a city as provincial as Boston this could actually anger a lot of fans.
What do you mean you’re bringing in the most famous brain in baseball to manage your SOCCAH TEAM??
He’s looking for Billy Beane to unleash Moneyball on the English Premier League and build Liverpool into a juggernaut.
I get it. John Henry is a guy who literally made his fortune by understanding market inequities in finance and trading “with the explicit intention of precluding not only human emotion, but also any subjective evaluation of factors outside of price behavior.” Sound familiar? He buys a couple of baseball teams (Henry owned the Marlins from 99-02) and then in the early 2000s emerges Billy Beane, a baseball GM that unlike anyone before him starts using data, analytics, and economics to build a baseball team with an AJ Wright level budget. Of course Henry was smitten. This was like a kindred spirit for him in the game of baseball. So he’s tried to lure Beane away for years with gigantic contracts, but Beane always opted to stay in Oakland. Henry even tried to snag Beane once again in 2019 before they hired Chaim Bloom.
Billy Beane has been John Henry’s white whale for nearly 20 years.
USA Today –Cody Bellinger has always had plenty of pop. But after the biggest home run of his life, he’d just as soon avoid the pop that followed.
Bellinger made history Sunday night, becoming the first player to hit homers in two Game 7s of the National League Championship Series. And after he ripped a 2-2 pitch from Chris Martin into the right field stands at Globe Life Field, strutted down the first base line and exhorted his Los Angeles Dodgers teammates as he tallied the final run in a 4-3 victory, Bellinger got a little too exuberant.
He swung his right arm wide for a powerful forearm bash with teammate Kiké Hernandez. A bit too powerful. Bellinger dislocated his shoulder in the celebration, he told MLB Network, and retreated to the training room so it could be popped back into place.
“I hit Kiké’s shoulder a little too hard and my shoulder popped out,” Bellinger said. “They had to pop it back in so I could play defense. It kinda hurt.
“I’m going to maybe use my left arm (next time). I’ve never dislocated that one.”
Jee. Sus. Christ. The Bash Brothers would be rolling in their graves if they saw this nonsense. Cody Bellinger literally dislocated his shoulder by forearm bashing his teammate while celebrating a home run.
Bellinger now joins Bill Gramatica in the Worst Sports Celebrations Hall of Fame.
I know we all grew up on the adrenaline and testosterone (and the cream and the clear) of the late 80s and early 90s, but come on man. Maybe the reason Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire were able to violently smash their forearms together after hundreds of home runs is because they were juice up goons with arms the size of folding tables?
What do I know, I’m just a blogger, but maybe Cody Bellinjury should remember that the next time he wants to put a forearm through his teammate’s radius and ulna bones.
Hopefully this doesn’t hurt Bellinger’s performance as Game 1 of the World Series is tomorrow night so theres not a ton of time to rest. BUT I did play lacrosse with a kid in high school who had graham crackers for shoulder sockets and would routinely dislocate them during games. Kid would just jog over to the trainer, get it popped back into place, and go about his business like nothing had happened. So theres that unrelated anecdote I can offer to worried Dodgers fans if it helps.
Speaking of the Bash Brothers, go watch The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience on Netflix. Adam Sandberg and the Lonely Island crew randomly decided to make a 30 minute music video honoring the 80’s Oakland legends and I was fucking crying laughing watching it. Way funnier than it has any right to be.
I know that headline is the definition of first world problems and every Jets, Bills, and Dolphins fan in America is probably reaching for the closest pencil to stab me in the eye with. BUT, that doesn’t change the fact that in the midst of a bizarre, start and stop, don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it UNPRECEDENTED season, the Patriots officially have a losing record this late in the year for the first time since 2002! That is WEIRD! A lot of factors have gone into that, mainly the greatest quarterback of all time leaving town, but also this goddamn pandemic screwing with rosters and schedules all across the league.
I mean the Patriots have played all three of their QBs at various points this year and Cam Newton just missed the better part of the last two weeks of practice after a positive COVID test. Add in the fact that the Pats are dealing with injuries/other COVID issues and the team was forced to roll out some Papier-mâché amalgam of an offensive line unit yesterday. Newton was mostly mediocre throwing the ball yesterday with 2 picks and only completing 17 passes all day. In fairness, Newton has completed 15, 30, 17, and 17 passes in each game he’s played in this year so it wasn’t a disastrous drop off, but he did have his worst QB Rating of the year by far at 51.6.
Newton did rush for 76 yards and a TD though, including a 30+ yard run where he stiff armed the shit out of a defender at the end.
Another thing that stuck out to me was the decision to go for 2 instead of just kicking the extra point after scoring to put the game within 9. That was head scratching. If they just kick the XP then they’re only down 8 points, but failing to get the 2 point conversion put the Pats down by 9, which requires them to score twice to come back. Now I know the analytics stat heads say it’s actually smart because getting that play out of the way affects the game script and the team then knows they need two scores regardless, instead of banking on getting a 2 point conversion at the end and leaving yourself no time. I’m not a math or economics guy so I don’t want to sound like a disgruntled scout at the Moneyball table, but that sounds like a bunch of malarkey to me. Luckily it ended up not hurting them after Drew Lock melted and threw two picks to put the Pats right back in the game.
Trent Green: And the key there is no interceptions by Drew Lock.
Or do we rightfully give him and Cam shit for being incapable of moving the ball against a team that just barely beat the Jets the week before? I mean you never want to say it’s a waste if it works, but it didn’t result in a win so it’s kind of a waste to call all these trick plays against the goddamn Broncos because now it’s on film for future opponents to study. The element of surprise is what makes these plays work, despite the fact that I’m almost positive the Pats tried to run this same exact play on the prior series when Edelman got immediately tackled for a 2 yard loss.
I’m pretty sure the play where Newton went out for the reception is the same one that Brady got hurt on last year too. So it just goes to show the stark contrast of this year’s team vs last year’s; there are certain areas where Newton has helped tremendously as Brady nearly broke his leg on that same trick play last year. But the Pats are in a lot more rock fights this year and are just looking to keep opposing teams under 20 points as they’ve become much more reliant on the running game, the defense, and sleight of hand.
I want to err on the side of patience considering Newton and the team barely practiced the last week or two, but hey the same thing happened to the Titans after they flipped the bird to COVID protocols and they rolled in their first game back after essentially zero practices. So who the hell knows what to expect from this team, but I do know there is potential for an elite unit there. Just look back 3 weeks to the Seattle game, which they lost, but Newton went off for 397 yards and 1 TD plus 47 yards and 2 TDs on the ground. So if the Pats can get it together and find some semblance of consistency, which is easier said than done in these UNPRECEDENTED TIMES, then they can be dangerous.
Random Silver Lining of the Day
Cam Newton is in fact not afraid to dive into the pile to recover a fumble, despite sports talk radio hosts roasting Newton about that for weeks after signing with the Pats. Forgetting the fact that the moment in question was one play in a game that happened nearly 5 years ago. This was actually a huge moment that kept the Patriots’ slim chances alive. Cam didn’t play great, but it wasn’t for a lack of grit.
I happened to catch the end of the Ravens game and I saw Lamar Jackson break this huge run only to do this awkward Rick James leg crawl before hopping back up. I’m not even a Ravens fan, but I imagine John Harbaugh had a miniature stroke seeing that on the sideline.
Maybe we don’t joke about blowing out our legs, especially after a week you missed practice because of knee injuries. I don’t know, just a thought.
And yes that is the second time I’ve referenced a 17-year-old show in the last couple of blogs. Truly is a goddamn shame that show didn’t run for longer. Obligatory embed of the Chappelle’s Show Charlie Murphy Rick James True Hollywood Stories below:
Introducing the official #RushHourRap playlist curated by The 300s. Dozens of songs compiled from the past 30 years so you can take my obscure music recommendations with you anywhere. Featuring everyone from household names like Eminem and Kanye to lesser known artists, rappers you need to know, and young guys on the come up.
Some of the deeper cuts of #RushHourRap unfortunately did not make the list because Spotify doesn’t exactly have a plethora of obscure mixtapes. So that means you’ll still need to track down hidden gems like Switch by Lupe Fiasco on YouTube.
But if you’re a fan of our morning rap recommendations then make sure you save and share this playlist because it’s a living breathing entity that I’ll be adding to all the time.
It’s hard to believe last weekend was Bill Burr’s first time ever hosting Saturday Night Live considering the man has been an A-list comedian for years. He had Comedy Central specials back when those were a thing and obviously was a key guy off the bench on Chapelle’s Show back in the early 2000s.
So I was pretty jazzed to see old Billy Red Face take the stage at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. His monologue got the most attention because it did what Burr does best, it pissed off a ton of people, it made others uncomfortable, but it was all genuinely hilarious. But the best part of his episode had to be the Sam Adams commercial.
“Yea it’s kinda sweet and shit, but there’s nothing else to drink” had me howling. That and when Burr chugs the entire glass, then looks on in disgust only to say “I don’t like that.”
It’s nice to see SNL playing to the strengths of the actors and their backgrounds for a change rather than forcing everyone into quirky situations or another hamfisted political skit. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s just me being provincial, but SNL always seems to kill it with the Boston skits. I mean how can we forget Casey Affleck’s Dunkin Donuts commercial?
SPOILER ALERT FOR A SHOW THAT ENDED SEVEN YEARS AGO.
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So yesterday from the clouds came the news that Dexter is coming back to Showtime for a limited series 10 episode run. After a brief seven year hiatus it seems like they’re trying to make up for that god awful ending of Dex sailing directly into a hurricane only to somehow survive and go become a lumberjack. God that ending was dumb, but I know we’ve had this discussion so many times on this blog; how many great TV shows really stick the landing? It’s an unenviable task after years and years of buildup and fan expectations, it’s impossible to please everyone. Breaking Bad is the only show that really seemed to nail the finale. Game of Thrones did not, The Sopranos did not, LOST absolutely did not, hell even the Seinfeld finale was a weird letdown.
But in the age of streaming many beloved TV shows have regained new life. Whether it’s Arrested Development, 24, Roseanne, Fuller House, Prison Break, Will & Grace etc. These revived shows of yesteryear are usually either a blatant cash grab, a nostalgia bomb, or a make good for a poorly received finale. The point is, in the age of streaming fans have more power than they’ve ever had before.
With all that being said and after the taste the finale left in my mouth, I am all in on Dexter making a comeback. Reports say it starts shooting next year and is likely to air in fall 2021. This show was one of my favorites in college and was one of the first I truly binge watched bumming DVDs off friends because this was before Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime etc. But when Dexter was good, it was GREAT so it will be awesome to see Michael C. Hall back in the shoes of our favorite serial killer. Granted the show kind of waned in the last couple of seasons with convoluted plots and forced storylines.
Like I said though, when this show was good it was great as it had some incredible acting. John Lithgow even won an Emmy for his role as Arthur Mitchell in Season 4.
Dexter won four Emmys, two Golden Globes, and Michael C. Hall himself earned 27 award nominations including a Golden Globe win for Best Actor.
The show featured some all-time shocking TV moments like finding out who the Ice Truck Killer was, Rita in the bathtub, Deb vs LaGuerta over Dexter, the affable Lithgow dropping an absolutely nuclear C-bomb on his wife, or Sgt. Doakes catching Dexter with a one liner so popular it became a meme.
But what really sealed Dexter as an all-time show for me was the incredibly powerful Dark Passenger monologue from Hall in Season.
Now that is acting.
So I am ready for some more Dexter in my life and I’ll have my credit card ready for you Showtime, just name the premiere date.
ESPN – The New York Jets’ rocky relationship with Le’Veon Bell came to an abrupt end Tuesday when the team announced it had released the running back.
The move concluded a 19-month tenure that was filled with disappointment and broken promises. Bell, who arrived as a marquee free agent in 2019, never clicked with coach Adam Gase, who opposed the signing from the outset.
That Jets contract (4 years $52.5 million) was a disaster from Day 1, but imagine picking Adam Gase over Le’Veon Bell?? It’s hard to tell if after 1 year + 4 games in New York if he is already washed up or if the Jets are just sucking the life out of him. I mean he’s only 28 years old, granted it’s an old 28 considering his monumental workload at Michigan State. But you’d have to think he still has a couple good years left in him. Adam Gase, the offensive guru responsible for (read: worked in the same building as) Peyton Manning’s record setting 56 TD season in Denver, has now traded, released, and generally made the Jets’ best players worse. All-Pro Jamal Adams. Former All-Pro Le’Veon Bell. First Round QB Sam Darnold. All three were seemingly key building blocks for a rebuilding team. Two of them are now gone and Darnold, despite flashes of the potential that made him the third overall pick two years ago, looks to be stuck in neutral.
So Patriots fans do you want Le’Veon Bell? He officially becomes a free agent at 4 pm on Wednesday. It’s basically become a cliche around here to say the Pats are in on Veteran X whether it’s Calvin Johnson, or Larry Fitzgerald, or AJ Green. The Pats are in on all of these guys and then nothing happens. Now the Pats are rumored to be in on Le’Veon Bell. Except, this time it’s the Jets. The Jets bought HIGH on Bell and sold LOW, getting absolutely nothing in return and releasing the former All-Pro running back. The Patriots absolutely do not need another running back with James White, Damien Harris, Rex Burkhead, and eventually Sony Michel already in the mix. But Bill Belichick is nothing if not a man who enjoys stomping on the graves of his enemies. I cannot even imagine the size of the grin on Belichick’s face as he thinks about picking the latest failed experiment of his rival off the scrap heap and turning him into a weapon for the Patriots as they fight for another Super Bowl title.
The #Patriots are looking to do for running backs what they did for tight ends a decade ago. Just win a Super Bowl with 3,4,5 RBs routinely on the field at the same time. #NFL#Jetshttps://t.co/PCplgDjaoF
The Pats absolutely do not need him, but there are few teams out there that could utilize Bell better than New England. Now let’s look at Bell’s side of it. He legit sat out an entire season in Pittsburgh because he wanted a new deal and didn’t want to risk blowing out his knee right before his one big pay day.
Like LeBron or Sebastian, high school graduates Straight to the league, I ain’t waitin’ for my knee to blow Yesterday I was needin’ this dough
Then he signs a gargantuan contract with New York to be their bellcow back and take the Jets back to prominence. Only for the new head coach in town, aforementioned offensive guru and recently fired Dolphins coach Adam Gase, to immediately shit all over the move.
One disagreement between Adam Gase and Mike Maccagnan/Christopher Johnson…
Gase absolutely did not want to sign Le’Veon Bell, per sources. In fact, he made it clear that he didn’t want to spend a lot of money on any running back.
Hows that for a welcoming party? Bell drastically underperformed and battled injuries, but even when he was healthy the team around him was getting worse and the rift between him and the head coach was getting wider. You think that guy is motivated at all to stick it to his former boss?
What better way than to sign on with their biggest rival and beat the Jets’ brains in and win a ring in New England? It’s a win win for both sides as Bell signs on with a competent team that will utilize his talents, reestablishes his value, and helps him try to get that elusive Super Bowl ring before signing another big deal somewhere else this offseason. It’s the playbook that Darrelle Revis and Trent Brown perfected in recent years.
Not to mention that every player we thought was a bum while playing for Gase has THRIVED since getting away from him. Just look at Ryan Tannehill. Under Joe Philbin for the first three years of his career in Miami, Tannehill improved every. single. year. Touchdowns, Yards, Yards per Game, Completion Percentage, Quarterback Rating, even his total Rushing Yards ALL improved every single year. Enter Adam Gase. Tannehill played a mixed bag of two seasons under Gase (he missed 2017 due to injury) as the Dolphins floundered and the coach publicly threw his QB under the bus. Both got 86’d by the Dolphins as Gase went on to do Gase things in New York, while Tannehill won Comeback Player of the Year with the Titans.
And don’t even get me started on Kenyan Drake. After 3+ seasons in Miami where Drake failed to top 644 rushing yards in a year, Drake rushed for 633 yards in 8 games with the Cardinals last year. After never rushing for more than 4 touchdowns in Miami, Drake rushed for 8 touchdowns in 8 games in Arizona last year. Drake is also more than DOUBLING his yards per game in Arizona compared to Miami as he has turned into a stud away from Adam Gase.
These turnarounds from Tannehill and Drake post-Gase legitimately offend me as a football fan. The clock is ticking on that man’s head coaching career as the Jets continue to be the worst team in football.
He’ll probably latch on somewhere else pretty quickly because the NFL is incestuous with former coaches just being recycled all across the league, but if I’m running the Jets the next move I make is the same Gase made with Le’Veon Bell, send him packing.
I have to give Joe Manganiello credit because he’s come a long way from playing the affable bro you got brunch with back on How I Met Your Mother.
Dude climbed the ladder from dumb jock (he was Flash Thompson in the original Spider-Man) to juiced up eye candy in Magic Mike, to locking down Sofia Vergara and eventually action movie star. Although, he did kinda get screwed after his portrayal of Deathstroke was teased at the very end of Justice League only for the entire DC Universe to collapse on itself before he had a chance to shine.
Anyways, “Archenemy” is an interesting idea that sort of seems like a cross between Will Smith’s homeless man turned superhero “Hancock” and a spin on when Superman loses his powers on Krypton due to the Red Sun. Here’s the official synopsis from IMDB.
Max Fist, who claims to be a hero from another dimension who fell through time and space to earth, where he has no powers.No one believes his stories except for a local teen named Hamster.
Okay, now that we got that out of the way we can get to the real star of “Archenemy,” which is easily Dennis Reynolds AKA Glenn Howerton in a role that he seems to have been lusting after for years. It basically looks like Dennis Reynolds’ peak insanity playing out in the form of a violent gangster of sorts.
What do we have here??
Becoming more and more unhinged over the years in Always Sunny, Howerton turned Dennis from a self absorbed narcissist into a legitimate sociopath.
Hell they even did a Making a Murderer mockumentary where they implied he killed his ex-wife. Only Always Sunny could make something as dark as that legitimately hilarious.
My point being, this movie looked fine, something I would catch on HBO or Netflix at some point and be sufficiently entertained. That is until I saw a bleach blonde Glenn Howerton unleashing his rage. As Rob McElhenney has pointed out in podcasts over the years, Howerton is a legitimately classically trained actor, which is why he kills it every time he gets a wild storyline in Always Sunny.
The 300s 