So I’m just minding my own business listening to some good old fashioned Lupe Fiasco while working and I see this ad on Spotify. Bhad Bhabie?
Hold on a second, isn’t that the Cash Me Outside girl? Yep, that would be one Danielle Bregoli, who became famous after basically telling Dr. Phil to go fuck himself.
Well, apparently she has a rap album now. And I know this won’t be a popular opinion, but I listened to it and it is……FIRE. Now is making a 14-year-old white girl a street rapper the greatest idea? Maybe not, but what do I know I don’t have any kids. All I know is I am fully on board with these bangers.
I’ve been excited about this for some time, as I wrote about the new drink when I first heard about its existence. It. Is. Here. In our first video edition of The 300s Reviews, we finally try the Mountain Dew booze we’ve been hearing so much about.
“So now theres an alcoholic Mountain Dew? I want to try it. I need to try it. But its dangerous territory. I’m gonna have to force myself to just sip it like I’m taking communion because if I black out on Mountain Dew booze and ruin the soda for myself I don’t know if I can continue on in this world.”
ESPN – A Division III football player has been dismissed from his team for kneeling during the national anthem before a game last weekend. Gyree Durante, a backup quarterback at Albright College in Reading, Pennsylvania, was kicked off the team after he knelt by himself during the national anthem before last Saturday’s 41-6 loss to Delaware Valley University.An Albright College spokeswoman said in a statement that the team’s leadership council, which consists of 24 players, voted to kneel during the coin toss and stand during the national anthem. Durante then decided to kneel during the national anthem on his own.
Alright, why don’t we just pump the fucking breaks here, Albright College. You’re a D-III liberal arts school; not the goddamn Dallas Cowboys. Its one thing for a multi-billion dollar industry to start getting pissy when players kneeling is screwing with their advertisers. Its another thing entirely for this football factory in Reading, Pennsylvania to start cutting teenagers for protesting. Not to mention this is college. A Liberal Arts college. What the hell do kids do in college besides drink and shackle themselves with a lifetime worth of debt if they’re not able to protest? Kids protest legitimately everything in college. Its supposed to be a learning environment. Not a place you should cut a kid for standing up (no pun intended) for what he believes in.
Now I’m pretty sure D-III schools don’t give out scholarships so its not like they ruined the kid’s life or anything, but come on. If we’re being honest, intentionally getting cut was probably half the reason he did it. Why am I practicing and going to film sessions and waking up early to wreck my knees and get CTE when I’m in college and should be funneling vodka cokes and blacking out on a Tuesday afternoon.
And we can all cut the crap about how he made his team look bad by being the only guy kneeling. Except for Captain America here:
Josh Powell, a freshman defensive end from Tampa, told NBC 10 that Durante broke his teammates’ trust by taking a knee during the national anthem. “We trusted him throughout the week, after time and time again he told us he would stand,” Powell said, according to NBC 10. “When you can’t have a player on a team that you can trust, he’s got to go.”
This guy just sounds like a Grade-A dickhead, a real practice hero. The guy who’s laying the hit stick on teammates during walkthroughs.
Look, I wouldn’t kneel during the anthem myself as I’d feel uncomfortable doing so, but thats the point. Thats what a lot of people are missing. Its supposed to make people feel uncomfortable, otherwise it wouldn’t get attention. It wouldn’t be a worthwhile protest if it wasn’t pissing people off. Now the next step is to articulate why you’re protesting and work towards having intelligent discussions about what everyone can do to impact change. Is every single player kneeling able to intelligently articulate the exact reasons why they’re kneeling and what it means to them? Probably not, but there’s plenty who are able to do just that so trying to ban kneeling or forcing players to stand will only create more divisiveness and ultimately other forms of protest.
Its supposed to start a conversation and make everyone take a look at the world we live in, for better or for worse, and try to understand the way others see the world from their perspective. Its called empathy. Maybe they’re right, maybe they’re not, but the truth is almost always somewhere in the middle. So by outright dismissing the protest because you don’t agree with the method, you’re missing the boat.
CBS Sports – The U.S. men’s national team will only be spectators during the 2018 World Cup in Russia. That’s because the USMNT lost 2-1 at Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday night in the final match of the hexagonal group stage. The loss, plus a winning goal from Panama in the dying seconds against Costa Rica gave the Panamanians the third and final direct spot in the group, eliminating Bruce Arena’s squad. Honduras defeated Mexico to earn the fourth spot.
For the first time since 1986 the United States won’t be playing in the World Cup. The USMNT failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup is downright embarrassing. The worst part? A goddamn DRAW against Trinidad and Tobago and they qualify, which was apparently too much to ask.
Just a quick side note, as of a September ranking by a little organization known as FIFA, the USA men’s team was ranked 28th in the world. Wanna guess what Trinidad and Tobago was? Come on, guess. Well, they came in at just under triple digits at No. 99.
A few spots behind Sierra Leone; a country made famous by Leo Dicaprio and Kanye West for fucking blood diamonds.
After a 2014 World Cup run that got people excited and legitimately asking if the US could finagle a Top-8 finish in 2018 and play with the big boys. Welp, a loss to motherfucking Trinidad and Tobago may have just killed an entire generation of young, budding soccer fans. Just to put this into perspective, the earliest the United States can make the World Cup next, I will be in my mid 30s.
People forget that qualifying for the World Cup isn’t exactly a foregone conclusion for the US, even if it should be. Well all that goodwill, excitement, and momentum that American soccer had built up over the last 7 years is gone. And they won’t even have a chance to redeem themselves for another 5 years. And who’s to say they’ll be any better?
American soccer has struggled to ever get a real foothold in the international scene. 2014 was one of the most exciting World Cup runs ever as the USMNT got to the round of 16 and were eliminated, but in absolutely thrilling fashion, which only got people that much more excited for 2018. Seriously, if you’re even half a soccer fan, read this quick recap of that final game and remember the good times. I know where I was. I was slugging beers at Clarke’s while the sun was still up like a goddamn soccer hooligan.
“The U.S. drew Belgium in the round of 16. After spending much of the match defending against Belgium’s potent attack, with goalkeeper Tim Howard setting a World Cup finals record for saves in a match, the U.S. survived with a 0–0 score after 90 minutes, sending the match to extra time. After quickly falling behind 2–0 to Belgium in extra time, the U.S. cut the deficit in half in the 107th minute when substitute Julian Green volleyed in a lobbed through ball from Michael Bradley, but were unable to score a second and were eliminated.”
Anddd now we’re back to square one. I don’t think anyone is more bullshit than our boy and former Revs player Taylor Twellman though. TAKE EM TO THE WOODSHED, TAYLOR.
Boston Herald – After five years of near constant scrutiny, which never went away despite three division titles and a World Series, John Farrell is out as Red Sox manager. He was fired on Wednesday, two days after the Red Sox lost in the division for the second year in a row.
Yesterday in our Red Sox post mortem I asked the question has the John Farrell era had finally come to an end? John Henry answered that resoundingly this morning, firing Manager John less than 48 hours after the season came to an end. Here’s what I said yesterday on the likelihood of Farrell losing his job.
“I think his ultimate downfall is his inability to be that armchair psychologist. Manager John is not the guy that will call someone into his office to lay down on his couch and just talk things through. One of my favorite stories of a manager excelling at this was one about how Terry Francona used to call players over to talk with him right behind home plate as the team took BP. So everyone in the world could see them, but no one could hear them. This is an area where Manager John is sorely lacking, which became painfully obvious on multiple occasions this year, none more so than David Price blowing up on Dennis Eckersley and then essentially defending Price and the situation was never really resolved. In a market like Boston, managing the clubhouse and all its personalities is the No. 1 job requirement, which is why I think Farrell is ultimately shown the door this offseason.“
For a guy the Red Sox literally had to trade draft picks to the Blue Jays to acquire, he never seemed to be the John Wayne character we were all led to believe he was. I don’t know if it was a matter of not adjusting to the additional media responsibilities as a manager or if he just doesn’t present well, but Farrell always seemed to be playing catch up. Whether it was defending players that never seemed to have his back or making questionable in-game decisions, the guy always had people second guessing him.
Lets not forget that he did manage the team to a World Series in 2013 though. That may have been a matter of Farrell being along for the ride with a talented and motivated team, but he was still a part of history.
So while I am never the guy clamoring for a manager to lose his job, I think a change was needed. Lets just not trash this guy on the way out the door like we’ve seen with this ownership group so many times before.
Rap-Up – Is Slim Shady ready for his return? Four years after The Marshall Mathers LP 2, Eminem will reportedly release his eighth major label solo studio album on Nov. 17, according to HITS Daily Double.
LETS. FUCKING. GO. The world is just a better place when Eminem is a part of it. His last album MMLP2 went 4x Platinum too so lets not act like his last album didn’t bang. Its been about four years since Em’s last drop so its about that time for him to make his return. You think the guy doesn’t have it anymore? Or he doesn’t still have the fire? Well, I would like to point you to this cypher he did on the BET Awards last night where he goes IN on Donald Trump for 4 minutes straight.
And Twitter was going nuts with huge names like LeBron, Colin Kaepernick, Keith Olbermann and more weighing in on the cypher so this one mayyy have some legs.
Racism is the only thing he’s Fantastic 4(fantastic for), cause that’s how he gets his rock off, he’s orange. Sheesh @Eminem!! 🔥🔥✊🏾🔥🔥#Unitedpic.twitter.com/wcL28BCWpy
Wherever you sit on the political merry go round, you don’t spit like that off the dome for 4 minutes if you don’t have some shit to say. Not that I’m necessarily hoping for a 16 track political commentary from Em, but he’s a 44 year old man who’s seen a lot, and with that age comes shifting perspectives. I for one will be first in line to buy that shit and hear what B Rabbit has got to say.
Its always difficult getting back to every day life after a heartbreaking tragedy. I remember in 2013 after the Boston Marathon bombing the whole city was put on lockdown for nearly a week. Literally — there were curfews in the city as police hunted down the terrorist cowards. Now, just a few short days after the senseless shooting on the Las Vegas strip, the Golden Knights were set to play their first home game ever. Not exactly an ideal scenario for a franchise to have its coming out party. But sports are a funny thing. When the last thing you want to do is laugh, have fun, and cheer on a meaningless game; sometimes its the best thing to start the healing process. In Boston the Bruins were the first team to play again and it was fucking electric.
In the face of terrorism, and call it whatever you want but that Vegas shooting was terrorism, Americans are downright defiant. As a wise designated hitter once put it, This is our fucking city.
So the Golden Knights had their first home game ever and after an absolutely awesome pre-game ceremony…they. blew. doors. I do not envy the Coyotes having to go into that environment. The Knights scored just 2:31 into the first period. Then they scored again less than four minutes later. Then they scored AGAIN less than two minutes after that. Then AGAIN a few minutes after that. 4-0 before the first period was even over. I said it a lot last night, but sports are incredible.
SLAM – Jeremy Lin knew that his new dreads would ruffle a few feathers, and the hair did indeed draw Kenyon Martin‘s ire. The former Nets big man accused Lin of wanting to be black.
So as we all know Jeremy Lin has hit a bit of a quarter-life crisis post-Linsanity days and has taken to filling that void in his life by sporting wacky new haircuts like every 3 weeks.
The Faux Hawk
The Dragonball Z
The Undercut Man Bun
The Cornrows
The Boys Regular
His latest cut though are some fresh new dreads.
Now I’m all for doing some stupid shit with your hair if you can 1.) grow it and 2.) not get fired for looking like an asshole. If you can fulfill both of those quotas, do your thing homie.
Lin actually wrote an extremely thoughtful article on The Players Tribune about how he wanted to be considerate about the perception of him sporting dreadlocks. He really did not want to look like he was appropriating black culture.
Welp, ever insightful Kenyon Martin, the dude who once got a pair of lips tatted on his neck, was NOT having it.
“Do I need to remind this damn boy that his last name is Lin. Like, come on man. Let’s stop this man, with these people,” Martin said in an Instagram video. “Like, there’s no way possible he would’ve made it on one of our teams with that bulls–t going on on his head.
“Come on, man. Somebody really need to tell him, like, ‘Alright bro, we get it. You want to be black.’ Like, we get it. But the last name is Lin, alright?”
Jeremy Lin clapped back though with the most polite Fuck You we’ve seen in some time. Basically told Kenyon, “Bro you have Chinese tattoos, but big fan of you’re work, Mr. Martin.”
ESPN – Ben Hill Griffin Stadium is popularly known as The Swamp. And now the Florida Gators will look the part. For Saturday’s football game against Texas A&M, Florida will wear a new uniform designed to evoke the look and feel of an alligator. The uniform, which was under development for two years and was unveiled Monday night, features a “swamp green” jersey with an alligator-skin pattern. The helmet, pants and socks are rendered in the same color, but without the gator-skin treatment.
OH MY. What have we here? I feel like the wild jersey reveals have slowed down the last year or two. You used to see every school rocking wild combos of camo and chrome and neon and it was AWESOME. Feel like theres been less and less of that lately. Enter, the University of Florida.
You wanna be a Gator? Like the actual ferocious goddamn water dinosaur that is an alligator? Well, don’t talk about it. Be about it.
Joel Embiid is the absolute living, breathing reincarnation of George Costanza. Unprecedented levels of mailing it in and the king of snaking it til you make it.
Absolute mailman of the century. Guy’s played 31 games in 3 years and just got a $150M extension. Thats a Costanza level of mailing it in. https://t.co/9J5Z0yW8E5
Seriously, you almost have to respect it. 31 games played out of a total of 246 games he’s been in the NBA for. I would kill to show up for 12 PERCENT of my job and still get paid an exorbitant amount.
The 300s 