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| Champ once again! Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein |
1. Orange Cassidy (Last Week: 2) - Cassidy won back the Independent Wrestling Championship yesterday from Kris Stadtlander at the Beyond Boston show. Sure, it came with interference from Kimber Lee, but do you think he cares? If he doesn't care, then I don't care. Long live Orange Cassidy, baby!
2. Max Muncy (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Madison Bumgarner is one of the best pitchers of this decade. He's also a frothing diaper baby who just can't stand it when people have fun playing baseball. Granted, when Muncy took him deep enough to splash down in McCovey Cove last night, one could take solace that Bumgarner is an equal opportunity shithead, as Muncy is White and many of his other targets are POC. Either way, it's annoying when someone gets mad because someone on the other team celebrates good shit they did. Hell, if I were a baseball player, and I hit a home run into McCovey Cove, I would strip naked down to my jockstrap and prance around the bases doing the Cha-Cha Slide. EVERYBODY CLAP YOUR HANDS. It's INFURIATING when the aggrieved team "retaliates" by throwing a hard projectile at the celebrator at 90+ mph.
What underlies this "play the game the RIGHT WAY" claptrap is that it is racist and classist at heart. Despite its booming popularity in generally poor Latin America, baseball can be a cost-intensive game to play. Players get good in the Dominican Republic with crude sticks and old balls, but for players in America to play organized baseball, they have to buy equipment which can be expensive. I know from experience; my son played baseball and the glove itself was $25, which was the CHEAPEST option. We didn't get him a bat as we weren't sure he'd stick with it after this year (he will though, at least that's the first indication), because a bat is at least a $40 investment. Granted, it's not as cost-intensive as hockey, but it's still not as cheap to pick up as basketball. Of course, I can afford these things. What about the parent(s) of less-fortunate children who want to play baseball?
Anyway, Black and Latinx people are disproportionately represented in the lowest classes, which is thanks to things like slavery (or more accurately, the pathetic response to repaying for slavery) and exploitation of immigrants from South of the Border for drastically sub-minimum wages. When you're poor, you tend to celebrate the good things, because it takes the sting away from the avalanche of bad things that crushes you on a daily basis. Things like hitting a home run, winning five bucks on a scratchy ticket, or being able to graduate high school when so many of your friends didn't make it for whatever reason are causes for joy, the kinds of things that people in affluent communities take for granted. Good things naturally happen to them, so they bring this stuffy attitude of "acting like you've been there before." I'm sorry if you can't find joy in anything but gaining more material wealth, but that mindset is boring.
So when ballplayers celebrate the good times, it should be embraced, not reviled. It's why Brian McCann, the whole of the St. Louis Cardinals organization, the stuffy dickhead who threw at Tim Anderson earlier this year, and yes, Bumgarner are all on the wrong side of history here. If Major League Baseball was serious about its slogan "Let the Kids Play," then it would impose impossibly stiff penalties on those who engaged in retaliatory hit batsmen. I mean, as Phillies 1B and my current Large Adult Son Rhys Hoskins believes, if you don't want the dude to celebrate a home run, don't give up the home run.
Anyway, Muncy rules because when Bumgarner started jawing at him for pimping his homer, he jawed back "If you don't want me to watch the ball, go get it out of the ocean." LEGEND. Even though they traded Yasiel Puig, it's guys like him and Muncy that, even though I'm supposed to hate the Dodgers, that I can't.
3. Prince Stannis (Last Week: Not Ranked) - I may be biased because of my predilection towards the English bulldog, but Prince Stannis is currently the second-best dog in wrestling, after Officer Magnum, of course. He's a stout lad, stubborn like his namesake, refusing to budge when demanding that his mommy, Mia Yim, lift him up onto the bed. That kind of resolve is what's needed in the world today!
4. Stokely Hathaway/Malcolm Bivens (Last Week: Not Ranked) - I'm just mad that I can't find "I Put Lifts on My Boots to Complain to Jesus" on iTunes. Wait, what do you mean they shut iTunes down?
5. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Some corncob thinking about challenging AOC next year for her House seat went out in a wrinkled-ass shirt to try and goad her into DEBATING HIM at Pride, and the Rupert Murdoch-owned shitrag that is the New York Post treated it like it was SABU FEARS TAZ. Pride is not the time or place to do debates for a House seat, and AOC was focused on more important things, like demanding justice for the trans prisoner who conveniently showed up dead at Rikers Island. AOC doesn't have time or energy to deal with the shitty games of the Republican Party.
6. Breakfast for Dinner (Last Week: Not Ranked)OFFICIAL HOLZERMAN HUNGERS SPONSORED ENTRY - Breakfast for dinner is great because it's easy to make, tastes great, and it is packed with protein, which is what your post-work dinner should be. You really should be eating carbs in the morning to fuel your day and protein at dinner for your muscles to use to build up after you've worked. "But TH," you might say, "I work in an office." Well, the protein is healthier for you than the carbs anyway, and it's not like breakfast doesn't have ANY carbs. I mean, potatoes, toast, and bagels aren't there to sit pretty.
7. The Silversun Pickups (Last Week: Not Ranked) - The alt-rock/shoegaze icons returned with a new album this past Friday that shows that they still have "it."Widow's Weeds is probably their best effort since the seminal Swoon from earlier in the decade. Go listen to it however you can right now.
8. Kota Ibushi (Last Week: 9) - Everyone knows that Ibushi doesn't care about his body. If he can injure it for the greater good of professional wrestling, he'll do it, which is the only way I can explain this bump.
9. Lil Nas X (Last Week: Not Ranked) - Not only has he shaken up country music so much that the charts are scared of him and his smash hit, "Old Town Road," but he's also got a hugely important fan in Guy Fieri. Not only is LNX good at music, he's good at posting too as he responded the only way anyone should for the Mayor of Flavortown.
10. Otis Dozovic (Last Week: 10) -
