Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Pinkel gets stuck in paper bag, fails to coach his way out

COLUMBIA – University of Missouri head coach Gary Pinkel’s worst fears were realized on Tuesday when he accidentally placed a brown paper bag over his head and had no idea how to coach it off.

Pinkel, 57, had placed the empty paper bag on top of the refrigerator to clear space. When he absent-mindedly went to retrieve it, the bag fell, landing on his head. He immediately called for help from his assistant coaches, but with no one around, Pinkel was forced to find his own way out of the bag.

“I tried every coaching trick I could think of to get out of that bag but nothing worked,” said Pinkel. “That took about 45 seconds. After that, I just stopped doing anything and hoped my players would show up to help me.”

After four hours, Missouri football players Blaine Gabbert and Danario Alexander arrived at Pinkel’s house and bailed him out by removing the bag from his head.

“Coach is an awesome guy, and he really knows how to find great talent, but everyone has their struggles, and I guess those paper bags can be tricky,” said Gabbert. “I just feel fortunate we showed up to keep him from being stuck there all night.”

Pinkel, who has led the Tigers to a 63-43 record in eight plus years at Missouri, could have been out of the bag in just 20 minutes, when former quarterback Brad Smith made a surprise visit at the coach’s house. Pinkel, however, spent that time screaming at Smith about his need to become a drop-back quarterback, despite the fact that Smith is currently in more of a flex role with the New York Jets.

“In retrospect, I probably should have just let Brad do what was most natural for him, which was to remove the paper bag from my head,” said Pinkel. “But in the moment, I felt like I needed to team him that lesson.”

Dayton Moore really wishes you weren’t so f-ing stupid

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Kansas City Royals General Manager Dayton Moore really wishes you weren’t so f-ing stupid, according to a statement released by the Royals today.

Moore, who served as the Royals’ GM since 2004, points his finger at the fans of the Kansas City Royals as part of the problem, calling the faithful “True Blue” supporters, “a bunch of goddamn retards who wouldn’t know a true baseball player if he walked up and spit tobacco juice all over their feet.”

The statement appears to be a response to criticism directed at Moore and Kansas City manager Trey Hillman as the Royals completely fell apart after May, and stumbled to 97 losses.

“How many times to I have to explain this goddamn process to idiots,” Moore said in his statement. “It’s a process, and it’s a process that we’re proud of. Did you not see the first month, when we were in first place? That’s part of the process too. Why can’t you numb nuts focus on that?”

Some of the criticism began before the season even started, when Moore was questioned on his acquisitions of players like Kyle Farnsworth, Mike Jacobs and Willie Bloomquist, and was heightened when he later traded for Yuniesky Betancourt.

Jacobs, Bloomquist and Betancourt are all notorious for an inability to get on base, and none are even average defensively. And as a reliever, Farnsworth has struggled in nearly every pressure opportunity throughout his baseball career.

Farnsworth turned out to be a disaster and all of three of the above position players were at the bottom of the league in on-base plus slugging percentage. In fact, just six Royals finished the season with an OPS above .750 – seven if you count pitcher Bruce Chen and his two plate appearances – and three of those players were catchers. Still, Moore says it’s the fans who need to adjust their way of thinking.

“No one outside of this organization can fully understand what we’re trying to do, because you all, yes, even you reading this article, are too dumb to comprehend how difficult it is to run a team,” said Moore. “It’s not about reading numbers, or listening to successful trends, or being on base a lot, or relying on stats that tell you the middle of your infield might be the worst in modern history. No. It’s about finding guys who are grinders. And it’s about finding guys who aren’t afraid to swing at a pitch in the dirt just because they probably won’t hit it. Or guys who hike their socks up to their mid-calf, thus giving the impression they’re good defenders. But no one in Kansas City would understand that. Because you’re all a bunch of fucking morons.”