#he has been moved down to third favorite bat boo

[srirachvbi]

home ( sugawara x reader )

Letting out a loud sigh, he gripped onto the doorknob. It had been an especially tiring day as his students seem to be even more energetic than usual, but he knew he’d have exhausting days when he decided to go into education. 

“I’m home!” he called out as he opened the door. Slipping his work shoes off, he slid his feet into his slippers and walked further into his apartment. At first, everything seemed a little too quiet, but as he moved closer to the kitchen, he heard the quiet humming coming from inside. Looking in, his exhaustion seemed to suddenly go away at the heartwarming sight.

Your hips were moving smoothly with the music that was coming from your earbuds, while you skillfully cut the green onions in front of you. 

The two of you went to high school together, and he remembered those days like they were yesterday. With his busy life with volleyball and your equally as busy life with soccer, there wasn’t much interaction until your third year. Honestly, the only reason you guys actually spoke to each other was that you ended up tripping down the steps one day.

To be honest, you weren’t really paying attention that day. With the news that you had barely passed your physics test, your head wasn’t too focused on walking down the stairs. Your third year had hardly started, and yet, you were already struggling in your classes. Was this how the rest of the year was going to go? This, was soon to be seen as a mistake, as you tripped over your own feet and felt yourself falling. 

“Oh, fu-” Bracing yourself for an awful fall, you closed your eyes, hoping that the damage wouldn’t be too severe. You had the semi-final match for a tournament that Friday and missing it would definitely crush your already dwindling spirits. Instead of a landing on your head and dying, you were quickly embraced by two fairly strong arms.

“Eh? Are you okay?” 

Peeling open your eyes, you looked up at your savior and almost outwardly gasped. There was a halo of light surrounding his head, and the dude was probably the most attractive person you had come by at your high school.

 “Oh, damn... Am I already dead?” You muttered.

Your savior let out a loud laugh and he helped you back to your feet. “No, sorry, this is just the 3rd floor staircase. Did you hurt your head somehow?” He teased.

“Ah, no. You just looked like an angel for a second there.” You grinned and held out your hand. “I’m (L/N)(Y/N)! Thanks for saving me there, angel boy!” 

“I’m Sugawara Koushi, and no problem,” he chuckled, “I wouldn’t want to see you fall down a flight of stairs of course.”

After that interaction, fate seemed to bring the two of you together quite a bit more. Practice had ended for the day, and your legs felt like they were going to fall off. It has to be against some law for your coach to make you guys run suicides after a game. The burn in your legs, however, was not stopping you from getting a sports drink from Sakanoshita. You dragged yourself into the convenience store with your two other teammates. Simultaneous sighs of relief came from the three of you, as the air conditioning felt as though it was a blessing from heaven. 

“(L/N), hey!” he greeted you, unaffected by your disheveled looks. 

Practically jumping out of your skin, you cursed whatever deity was in the sky. Your hair was practically glued to your forehead, and your skin was bright red. Why was the world cruel enough to let him see you like this? It was unavoidable that you ended up harboring a crush on the grey haired boy-- he was absolutely breathtaking and was maybe the nicest guy in the third year (next to his two friends, Daichi and Asahi). 

“Suga-san, it’s nice to see you!” You tried to muster up the most energy, so that you didn’t seem like you were about to die. 

He gave you a bright smile, which made your heart clench. Why was he so pretty? “How was your game?” 

“We lost, so our coach made us run suicides after, which is why I look like such a mess.”

“Mmm, I disagree. You look beautiful.” 

Oh, that smooth son of a bitch.

One thing led to another, you two ended up going on a date. It was a really small date, but it was definitely your favorite first date you’ve ever had. The two of you ended up going to a small bakery near his house, and just talked there for a few hours.

“You can’t be serious!” He laughed, holding his stomach with his arms.

“I’m dead serious! We stole the baseball team’s bats and mitts, so that we could play appleball!” You grinned, waving your hands around to make the story more dramatic. “We played three innings before we ran out of apples, and the baseball team caught us using their bats. They ended up chasing us across the soccer field, and I swear I saw my life flash before my eyes!” 

He wiped the stray tears from his eyes, trying to catch his breath. Two hours into your first date, the two of you had completely gotten rid of the awkward atmosphere. 

“I don’t know if I have a story to top that one, but there was this one time during practice...” 

When you guys graduated and went off to college, it was difficult. While you went off to college in Tokyo, he stayed in Miyagi. It was a four hour drive to go back to your hometown, and yet, you took the trip every chance you could. It was hard, but you persisted. There were insecurities about everything, but as the four years passed, your relationship was steady. 

“I’m done!” You cheered with your phone pressed against your ear. Suga let out a similar cheer over the phone, making you grin. He had his last final two days ago, which he had been teasing you about since then. Since he was able to finish school before you, he was able to call you more often. He had tried to scold you about not being focused on your finals, but he had no luck in getting any say in. You would make excuses left and right, as your textbooks glared at you from your desk.

“You’re coming back to Miyagi this weekend, right?” He asked, shuffling around on the other side.

“Yeah! My graduation is on Friday, so I’ll head back afterwards since yours is Saturday.” You hummed, pulling the key to your apartment out of your pocket. “I can’t wait to see you!” 

“Mmm, me too! I gotta go, but I’ll call you later, ‘kay?”

“Alright, seeya, Koushi!” You replied, and hung up. The short trek up to your apartment only took a few minutes, since you weren’t in any rush. Shoving the key into the door, you twisted it and opened your quiet apartment. “Ah, so tired...” You stretched your arms over your head and yawned.

“BOO!” 

“WHAT THE FUC-” You screamed, jumping five feet back. Your boyfriend let out an ugly cackle, holding his stomach with his hands. He practically resembled Kuroo from high school. 

“Surprise, I’ve come to see you!” 

“You’re such a jerk!” You whined, hitting his chest with your hands. “I think I just lost four years of my life.” 

He chuckled and wrapped his arms around your waist, before rubbing his nose into your neck. “I missed you,”

“Mmm, I missed you too, jerk” 

It had been only a few years since college ended, but the two of you settled back into Miyagi after you got a few things sorted. Now, at twenty six, the two of you were comfortably living together. 

The kitchen smelled strongly of spices, and he grinned widely at the scent. He quietly walked towards your figure, and peaked over your shoulder to look at what you were doing. 

“Ooh, looks tasty!”

You practically jumped at the sound of his voice, stilling the knife in your hands. ”Kou-”  

He slowly wrapped his arms around your waist and rested his head on your shoulder. “I’m home~” He gave you a bright smile, making your heart melt. No matter how long you two had been together, his smile was always so relaxing. Koushi grasped your left hand and started to play with the small diamond ring on your ring finger. 

“Welcome home, Koushi.” 

word count: 1430 Sorry this is pretty short! I wanted to write some cute suga because I’m such a softie for him. Hopefully I did his character justice! 

#sugawara koushi x reader #sugawara koushi #sugawara x reader #sugawara imagine #sugawara koushi imagine #haikyuu #karasuno #haikyuu!! #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu x reader #haikyu imagine #karasuno imagine #haikyuu suga #haikyuu sugawara #anime imagine #haikyuu fluff

[retvenkos]

*through tears* “of course i’m punk rock...”

requested

SIRIUS BLACK AS A FLUFFY CHILD THAT DESERVES LOVE INCLUDES…

sirius loved to read

not as much as remus, of course

but, uhh he came from a rich family that he hated???

as a child he would read to escape???

don’t deny the facts, guys

he wrote poetry

at first his parents kinda made him do it, but then he enjoyed it

and at first he tried to hide it from the marauders

but in fourth year peter was going through sirius’ trunk, casually looking for a quill

and he found them

notice the plurality of that

because it was a stack

and at first he was like

???????

these belong to sirius

??????

leather jacket, swearing, punk rock sirius

??????

he was high key confused

but then he starts to read them

and he’s like

but these are good????

so he walks to the common room with them to ask sirius what they were

and sirius knows right off the bat

and he gets super protective

and peter feels bad for bringing them down

but then remus complements him on his word usage

?????

and then peter tells him he liked them

??????

and them james says he wants sirius to help him write some to woo lily

?????????

and he’s never gotten so much praise before

because his family would make fun of him for everything he did

and he feels so loved

and he cries

and even though the marauders aren’t exactly sure why, they still let him get it out of his system

and they totally support him

and for christmas remus gets him a patch that has a pen and paper on it and he loves it and puts it on his jacket right away

and then patches become his fashion statement

like, he continues to buy the most random patches and pins

it’s a thing

so pure

just like him

ANYWAY

so we all know sirius did everything muggle to piss off his family, right

well, he totally loved muggle music

like, billy joel was him jam

john lennon was his man

the beatles were his brothers

queen was his soul provider

and david bowie was his idol

and we all know he would sing it randomly everywhere

and we all know that during gryffindor parties he would karaoke and it would be fire

but moving on...

while he never had strong connections with the first years, he would be popular among the third years

like, they would look up to him and he would tell them to smash expectations and all that jazz

he never had an emo phase tho

that was remus’ thing

but omg his reputation as a womanizer would be huge

and like, everyone thought that he got with girls all the time

truth was tho, that most were fake

he had only ever been intimate with a handful of girls, and he had been drunk af

a lot of stuff happened when he was drunk af

but james was always there to keep him in line

and when james died, he wasn’t there to stop sirius from making bad decisions

his first kiss was probs remus when he was all sad and drunk

it was in their dormitory so all the boys saw it

and afterwards he started to cry

but they told him it was okay

and they loved and supported him

like true friends

and they never really brought it up again

but sirius knew it was chill

which led to endless jokes about his sexuality

and it’s always in good fun

because know he knows he’s accepted by his friends and he’s not afraid anymore

and he was way protective of his friends

you wanna make fun of remus’ scars?

you’re dead

you wanna say that james is a stupid jock?

that’s his job, boo. i hope you have a cup on

you wanna poke fun at peter because of his size?

you’d better run for your  l i f e 

BUT AS A STUDENT

sirius was that kid that was 10/10 smart, but never did his work

like, he hardly ever did anything in class

but he would always ace the tests

which made mcgonagall so  t r i g g e r e d

and he would be that kid that always leans back dangerously far in his chair

and never falls

which makes other kids think they can too, and then they fall

despite what it may seem like, sirius didn’t hate the other houses

he was always a little suspish about slytherin, but he was never rude to them

he just didn’t like them

and ravenclaws?

he loved ‘em

except for when they would go on tangents

he would play chess with them and he would  s l a y

 but when they would start to talk about the logistics about his strategies he’d straight up leave

and hufflepuffs

he will never admit it, but hufflepuff was one of his favorite houses

like, they were always super accepting and kind

and he could always be seen hanging out around them if the marauders were doing something?

and DETENTION

we always talk about how much james and him would be in detention, right?

but i have a feeling he would sweet talk his way out of detention every

damn

time

and remus would seethe

and sirius wasn’t on the quidditch team

nah, he was not an outright athletic dude

but he would be a stand in for the gryffindor team

like, he was a pretty solid beater, despite all odds

and defense against the dark arts was his best subject

and like, i just have a lot of feelings about sirius

he’s great because he knows he can be himself and his friends will always have his back

AND FLUFF ENSUES.

#harry potter #marauder era #Sirius Black #james potter #remus lupin #peter pettigrew #the marauders #headcanons #imagine #siriusblackheadcanons

[robininthelabyrinth]

Countless Roads - Chapter 4

Fic: Countless Roads - Chapter 4 - Ao3

Fandom: Flash, Legends Pairing: Gen, Mick Rory/Leonard Snart, others

Summary: Due to a family curse (which some call a gift), Leonard Snart has more life than he knows what to do with – and that gives him the ability to see, speak to, and even share with the various ghosts that are always surrounding him.

Sure, said curse also means he’s going to die sooner rather than later, just like his mother, but in the meantime Len has no intention of letting superheroes, time travelers, a surprisingly charming pyromaniac, and a lot of ghosts get in the way of him having a nice, successful career as a professional thief.

A/N: This is a new chapter (chapter 5 on Ao3) 

———————————————————————————-

The first time it happens, it's – kind of funny, actually. In retrospect, anyway.

"Don't you dare touch him," Mick growls from where he's standing by the door, glaring at where they’ve got Len all tied up. They being some Santini Family assholes who hired Len and Mick for a small job - nothing big, the main guy said, just need it done quick, don't want to get the Family name involved - and then decided they didn't feel like paying some freelancers for work they apparently should've been doing themselves. Sadly for them, Len's just smart enough not to have brought the goods with him and had no intention of giving said goods up until they coughed up the cash for them.

Damnit, Len hates Family jobs. They shouldn't have taken it, he knows that, but it'd been such an easy job...

"And what exactly are you planning to do about it?" the main Santini asshole drawls, smug and confident now that he's got his people with him.

"You'll touch him over my dead body," Mick says.

"Fine," the mobster sneers, and shoots Mick dead in the chest, the force of it making Mick stagger backwards and fall down to the floor.

"You fucking little – " Len shouts from the chair he's been tied to, eyes wide with terror, worried half to hell because he has no idea what happens when you make a ghost as solid and real as he's made Mick and then that stupid ghost goes and gets himself shot.

"Enough!" Santini snaps. "Or you're going to get a bullet yourself, Mr. Snart – "

"I told you," Mick rasps, and the entire room turns to look to see him standing back up. Mick makes a big production out of it, too, dragging his limbs up like he's in pain, like his joints are creaking, clutching at his chest, but he gets up, eyes fixed on Santini. "You'll touch him over my – dead – body –"

Santini shoots, but Mick takes a step forward. Another shot, another step.

The third bullet clicks to an empty chamber, and Santini just breaks, turning tail and running, each and every one of his men with him.

"You okay?" Len asks the second the last one is gone. He knows ghosts don’t feel things the way the living do, but he’s given Mick a lot of life over the years…

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure, I’m good. Stings like a Lisa special, nothing worse than that."

Lisa had once expressed her frustration with Mick by squeezing a lemon at him when he'd just cut his hand open in the kitchen and had been bleeding a little - more out of habit than anything else. Mick is never going to let her live it down.

"But you're okay?"

"All good, boss."

Len shakes his head, starting to grin. "Well," he says, biting his lips to keep from laughing. "Guess now they know you meant it about it being over your dead body."

Mick snorts.

The next time, they try shooting Mick in the head.

Of course, that doesn't work either - Mick confirms that lots of life or not, dead men don't feel pain the same way the living do, so it's all the same to him - but it does bring up some logistical issues.

Mick wisely plays dead until Len gets them to go away, because there's reputation and then there's revelation, and the whole gang that tried it unanimously flip their lids in a most satisfying way the next time Len walks in, Mick trailing behind him, same as always, and both of them playing dumb as rocks about the whole alleged – it's their new favorite word after a stint in prison and the justice system - the whole alleged murder thing.

Len's gotten Mick some damn fine fake papers, too, so the Fed threw them into the same prison, too. It was a learning experience.

Not one Len's all too eager to repeat. Mick got into fight after fight on Len's behalf, even with Len felling a few overly touchy guys personally. Next time, he's going to send Mick floating out the wall and get a quicker exit that way.

Mick's quasi-solid virtually all the time now, which Len likes. People think he's a living person, which in fairness is probably why they try to kill him.

Len's pretty sure he's doing the ghost thing wrong, that he's not supposed to give a ghost another life like this, a life made out of his own life, but he figures if he really wasn't supposed to do this, he wouldn't be able to use his feelings about Mick for the extra boost he needs to keep him solid so often.

Love really is the most powerful force. Who woulda thought it?

Other than literally the entire literary world, anyway.

Len still doesn't like it when Mick 'dies', though, whether the cause is an angry mobster or a hail of police bullets, so he starts doubling down on his plans, working on them all day and night so that they don't go wrong and Mick isn't called upon to protect him.

"You know it doesn't hurt me, right? Not really?" Mick asks from the poker game he's set up with a handful of friendlies: the nun who's waiting to see her last student graduate, the thirteen year old who died in a car accident on the way to hear his favorite band, the prostitute that got killed by a serial killer (Len's working on IDing the bastard in his spare time), and a grandmother with wicked children who wouldn't let her see her grandkids.

Grandmother or not, Sun-hui is kicking everyone's asses as usual. Tyrice is staring at her with an expression of awe – Len's got the feeling that the kid's going to be moving on pretty soon if he can convince Sun-hui to attend that concert with him.

(Len underestimates exactly zero of his friendlies - sure, they protect him from the unquiet dead, but Tyrice has a tendency to cause accidents on the street corner where he'd died and Sister Bea has a way of guarding her church schoolkids from trouble that includes nearly giving them heart attacks when they start to do something she considers stupid.)

"I know it don't hurt you," Len replies, not for the first time. "Makes me all queasy, though."

"Awwwww," Daniela says. “You’re such adorable snugglekins.”

"Shut up."

"Find the guy that beat my face in, and I will."

"I'm working on it!"

"Len – " Mick starts.

"Mick, if it makes you feel better, you can think about it as me not wanting to go back to jail, okay? If no one catches us, there's no problem."

"Fine, fine."

"Your plans are getting much better," Sun-hui says approvingly. "You leave very little trail behind you, like a ghost."

"Aw, thanks," Len says, grinning at her. He would never have understood Sun-hui in life, due to the language barrier that vexed her, but the dead all speak the same language.

He's not entire sure what language that is – he's pretty sure it ain't actually English – but that's what he knows, so he hears it in that, or else he just understands it regardless. Len vaguely recalls his mom saying something about how the curse of Babel didn’t apply to the dead, but the specific mechanics aren’t really that interesting to him – they can talk, he can listen, that’s all that matters.

“Plus your plans got much better since your old man got sent away,” Tyrice says, kicking his heels. He’s pretty short. Maybe he regrets not getting tall? Len should offer him some help with that. “Good-for-nothing dickwad.”

“Well, yeah,” Len says, because it’s not untrue. He’d resisted getting rid of his father at first, either by making a heist go wrong or via Mick’s preferred method of just up and torching the fucker, but that'd been because of Lisa, who needed to stay in a good school for her skating and grades. Once his dad fucked up her ankle right before a big skating competition because he needed spare cash, Len saw red.

He’d been able to sweet-talk the old lady down the street into signing up for fostering and then agreeing to take in Lisa for the remainder of her schooling once Lewis was on his way to prison for a good long time.

Having said old lady’s husband around – and said old lady being a devout spiritualist, or whatever the hell you call people that pay fake mediums too much money, much to her deceased husband’s concern – had really helped.

Besides, if her boo-boo told her the money was better used on taking care of Lisa than on all those mediums, who was she to object?

(Boo-boo. Really. Len is so glad he and Mick aren’t over-the-top smoochy like that.)

All things considered, it worked pretty well.

His remaining concerns about leaving Lisa with the old lady were misplaced: Mrs. Crabtree was officially Lisa’s favorite person ever, being a proper old grandma type, and Lisa chased the fake mediums who sought Mrs. Crabtree out for an easy mark away with a baseball bat, which in turn meant Mr. Crabtree felt comfortable moving on, which made everybody happy.

But since that skating scholarship didn’t look like it was going anywhere anymore, not since Lewis, that still left the question of somehow paying for Lisa’s continued schooling. It turned out high school was fine and all, being public, but college? College is an expensive pain in Len's ass, but he was determined that Lisa would go. Mrs. Crabtree certainly couldn’t help pay for it, living off her pension as she did, and neither Len nor Lisa would ever ask for her to. Now that Len knew that Lisa was somewhere safe, though, he could devote himself to dealing with that little problem.

With his dad gone, Len could recruit his own crew and hunt up some game of his own, and what glorious game it was: high end jewelry transports, art museums with shitty security, history museums with even shittier guards, fashion designer outlets where they carted away bags of dresses, much to the complaints of his crew until they found out they could sell that shit to a copy-cat place for very near the price of gold…

Okay, sure, it didn't work perfectly all the time – he spent a good few of Lisa's teenage years in prison – but after he got out again, he went right back at it, saving up the money for Lisa’s college and grad school and whatever else she wants in life. Two solid years of it, travelling the world, and it was fun and all, but Len’s not going to lie, he’s damn happy it’s over. Now that he’s had time to try all the different variations, he definitely prefers taking his time and planning out the perfect heist instead of doing them all rapid-fire like he has been.

Not to mention, now that the heat’s passed in Central and they’re mostly looking for him in Europe and the coast cities instead, it means that he gets to come home and settle down, and best of all that he’ll get to see Lisa again regularly instead of just talking to her on the phone like it’s been the last two years.

Lisa is twenty now – starting a bit later than the rest, yes, but money takes time and she's not so far behind that people would really notice. College freshman, thanks to the fudging of her high school record that he paid for to make sure she got to go anywhere she wanted, though she still picked Central City Uni so that she could live in her own apartment but still come back to Mrs. Crabtree’s for her laundry and to hang out, apparently.

College.

Lisa.

Man.

Len doesn’t even know what to do with that.

Like, he's been dreaming of it and planning it and counting on it, but now that she's actually enrolled, it's all weird.

He hasn’t been much of a brother these last few years, he feels – he’d been in and out of prison until she was seventeen, and he’d spent her last three birthdays out raising money for her. Len took care of Lisa as long as he could, and when he realized he couldn’t, he got her where she needed to be, but it’s not the same as really being there, even though Lisa assures him that between the near-daily phone calls and the week-long visits he tried to arrange at least once every three months, she never felt like he was too far away.

Still not the same, and he’s gotta admit, he’s feeling a bit insecure about it. Which, he suspects, leads to his current overreaction now that she’s coming to crash with him for her very first spring break.

Len spends a whole week cleaning up the place he’d acquired in anticipation of Lisa's arrival, and he never cleans.

"Why are you so worried?" Sun-hui asks, even as she supervises his (deplorable) cleaning attempts. "Your sister loves you, and will be happy anywhere."

"She's a college student now," Len says, focusing on his scrubbing. "I don't know, there's a difference."

"Nah, man," Tryice says. He’d finally gotten his concert, but he’d decided to wait on Sun-hui reaching her own goals before agreeing to pass on. "Still your sister. My big bro went to college, but he was still the same coming back." He pauses. "Smoked more pot, though."

Len gives Tyrice a dirty look, then sighs. "Well, s'long as it's just pot, we'll be fine."

"Yeah, crack's the bad stuff," Tyrice says all too wisely.

"Pssh, heroin. Now that's a college kid killer – and I should know," Julie says. She's new - died of an OD before flying home for Christmas, now waiting for next Christmas to go back and say goodbye to everyone, and she’s become best buds with Daniela, which is good since Sister Bea has finally moved on by now.

Kiki, another new one, a soft-spoken too-late-regretted suicide, nods in agreement.

“Very bad,” she says solemnly. Nora – a sad-looking woman in her late thirties who’d gotten stabbed in the chest and never saw her beloved eleven-year-old grow up – covers her mouth to hide a smile at Len’s expression.

"Well, I think meth – " Daniela starts.

"Will you all stop talking about drugs!" Len finally yells. "Lisa's not on any! So shut up!"

They all smirk at him, but fall silent. They usually listen to him, Len's found, especially when he means it. He's not sure if it's because they all want something from him or because he actually has some power over them, but he's been trying not to think about it too hard.

He's not a necromancer, damnit. His job is to help fix the world by doing his own special part of the spiritual cycle of life, just like the bacteria that eat the body of the dead, except he helps clean up the ghostly realms instead of the forest.

Julie thinks the metaphor is awful, and Nora agrees. Mick kind of likes it, though.

Speaking of Mick, he's been too quiet.

"Mick?" Len calls, but no, nothing. "Go check if something's on fire," he tells the ghosts, shaking his head.

"Nothing's on fire," Mick grumbles, walking through the door to the kitchen. The open door, for once; he’s getting better at pretending to be living on instinct. "I went grocery shopping and didn't want to holler back from the porch."

"Groceries?"

"If we're gonna impress your sister like you so obviously want to, we're gonna need some food,” Mick says like it’s obvious. “College students eat like pigs when the food’s free.”

Len sighs and looks down at the half-scrubbed floor. "I'm not gonna impress her either way," he says. "I'm a high school dropout with a criminal record – "

"Who raised her from childhood," Mick says skeptically. "Who got that criminal record paying for her schooling. Who got your dad put away on charges of theft and murder that'll keep him there for a few years at least, so that he won't find you guys when he gets out. Nah, nothing impressive there at all."

"But – "

"Lenny. It'll be fine. Relax."

#dccoldwave #mick rory #leonard snart #lisa snart #my fic #deadfic

[rafterzebra]

Theory: The NBA is the New ‘Attitude Era’ of Pop Culture

There are few spaces in time that evoke more gleeful nostalgia for people my age than the Attitude Era of Wrestling. The era began around the time I was starting high school, an age where young people such as myself were finished with the boiler plate simplicity of childhood cartoons and simple narratives of “good guy versus bad guy”. We wanted heroes that were compelling and villains that had an edge to them. More than anything, we wanted antiheroes that shunned tradition and freely expressed themselves. The WWE (then the WWF) gave that to us. Whether it was completely by design or not, the characters and plot lines that emerged from that era of wrestling gave the audience what it craved: dramatic theater that seemed real and relatable. When the era ended, wrestling was never quite the same. The advent of social media, and a new breed of NBA superstar has achieved the remarkable and recreated an attitude era of its own. The void that was left in pop culture by the tamping down of the WWE’s delivery became filled by the storylines and characters we see competing on the court, and smack-talking in the media for the time in-between. It has led to immense popularity of the league and the high-level interest in its athletes that you simply do not get in any other sport.

By the early to mid 90s, I was done with wrestling. As a child in the 80s, I loved watching Hulk Hogan and all the others and then having fake matches with some friends on the playground at recess. By the time adolescence was taking hold, I found myself drifting away from that world and gravitating full-time to sports. It was more entertaining to see the competition unfold in real time, with no “assistance” from people running out of the back, or a referee getting knocked unconscious only to be revived at a determined time. The “good guy”, which was usually depended on what team you rooted for, did not always win. Michael Jordan emerged as the most popular athlete in the country, the Buffalo Bills failed to win their “title match” four times in a row, and I dare say the 1993 Phillies were an incredible group of athletes to observe.

It wasn’t until a high school friend convinced me in class one day that wrestling had a new face that I began to pay attention once again. He began explaining to me the evolution of Stone Cold Steve Austin. When he told me that Austin gained his new bad guy persona by saying he whipped Jake the Snake’s ass, I was immediately intrigued. Jake the Snake had been one of those wrestlers from the era when I watched as a kid, generally a good guy. When I was told that they allowed that to happen, I felt compelled to begin to tune in. It was just as the Monday Night Wars were heating up, with rival WCW showing on TNT Monday Nights as well. WCW had lured away much of WWE’s older talent that had name recognition. They also turned Hulk Hogan into a bad guy (RIP Mean Gene). Hogan led the new group of wrestling in WCW called the “nWo” which stood for the New World Order, signifying that the old ways of doing business were dead. Every Monday night I began to tune in to see what would happen next.

As I watched, I noticed it wasn’t the same old storylines, wrestling had evolved. Stone Cold was supposed to be a heel, but the crowds could not get enough of him. The supposed bad guys who were supposed to be booed were so charismatic and so refreshing in the face of the babyfaces that the crowds made their choice. The Rock encountered the same thing, in an arc that molded his career into what it is today. The Rock was first presented as WWE’s first third generation wrestler and came in fresh-faced and in, shall we say, colorful attire. The audience, bored by another wholesome, fresh-faced upstart began to boo him, chanting “Rocky sucks” over and over again (he was known as Rocky Maivia then). The powers that be had no choice but to turn him heel, and had him join the group The Nation of Domination, which was a play on a black militant group (the world was in a different place in the 90s). He started off by going down the checklist of what bad guys should do; he interfered in matches, he cheated to win, he clashed with supposed fan favorites. However, something else happened during this time, and that was his work on the microphone began to increase his popularity. His slick delivery and insults were not the traditional “the audience sucks, I’m gonna smash this wrestler in the cage” type of rhetoric. Much like Austin, The Rock came with a slick delivery and insults that made the crowd laugh instead of boo. It got to the point where the crowd started chanting “Rocky, Rocky” when he was speaking and yelling out his catchphrases. The rest is movie box office history.

It wasn’t just the bad guys that were turning good, the good guys where riding the edge of being bad. The group Degeneration X were headlined by fan favorite Shawn Michaels, one of the few wrestlers that could be described as a bad guy fan favorite before the Attitude Era began. The rise of DX became almost a battlecry for young people in that time; the very words of their theme song indicated they stood for counterculture and were directly against the stuffy traditions their parents and the boomer generation were trying to hold them too. The world had changed, the President of the United States was on trial for getting a blowjob in the Oval Office (a moment which DX hilariously mocked), OJ Simpson’s trial had permeated all manner of media, there was no disputing a new day had dawned in how Americans consumed and craved entertainment. There was no more wool being pulled over the eyes of the audience, they knew, they were in on the stories, they just wanted the stories to raise their eyebrows.

For many reasons.the Attitude Era eventually ended in 2002. After WWE acquired WCW, and the Rock and Austin began to fade away, the company rebranded. The company moved toward a more “PG” style of entertainment and while it retained many of its fans and still remains a popular entity today, it lost many casual fans that had been drawn in by the extreme stories and characters that had liberty to do and say just about anything.

The NBA was struggling from a period I call The Jordan Hangover during this time. With MJ retired, the league began chasing the next MJ instead of rebranding itself. Was it Kobe? Was it Allen Iverson? It became obvious that no one could fill those shoes (pun somewhat intended). Subsequently, the NBA went through a few phases of title runs with the Lakers and Spurs, and LeBron James ultimately entered the fray. While he was and always will be compared to Jordan, LeBron was a different type of superstar. His high school games had been broadcast on ESPN. He was allowed to join the league right from high school and began scoring 20 a night right off the bat. He was anointed and self-aware, but at the same time he had detractors and a long line of critics that would jump on any move he made. I think he became who he is today because he could handle all of that weight. Talk to any NBA fan and they can recite their list of players that came in with the hype of a freight train, but left the league with the whimper of a pushcart. LeBron had the hype and delivered. His performance in Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals heralded his true arrival. However, his inability to win a title ultimately drove him to the tipping point that changed the game in more ways than one.

There were certainly moments that evoke the Attitude Era between the end of the WWE version and the NBA version, I don’t know if I would call them precursors but I think they were the tremors that foreshadowed the quake. The Shaq-Kobe split, Ron Artest and along with him the Malice at the Palace, the  Stoudemire suspension in the Suns-Spurs series. More than anything, these moments that sports is always entertainment, and unscripted, which always delivers the potential for stand alone moments. There were moments, however, July 2010 was when it really all began. While LeBron had plenty of detractors, he had never done anything that was worthy of a good deal of backlash. He performed well on the court, stayed out of trouble off of it. He faced criticism for not bring his team a title but he had plenty of defenders. When he entered free agency in the summer of 2010, many knew he would most likely not return to Cleveland. The Decision was met with extreme hostility outside of South Florida. Similar to Hulk Hogan’s heel turn, many became devoted to not only cheering against LeBron, but writing him off forever.  On July 9th, 2010, LeBron was introduced, along with Chris Bosh, joining Dwyane Wade in MIami for a truly over-the-top press conference. It was so ostentatious that videos have been made with the nWo theme playing over it. The NBA was truly never the same.

LeBron has had quite a journey since then. He faced immediate backlash and ultimately expressed regret over the way he announced his decision, but the joining together of the “Big Three” in Miami was a success. LeBron floundered in the first of four straight NBA Finals the team would reach, losing to the Mavericks, but they went on to win two titles. LeBron ultimately went back to Clevaland and did the impossible, gaining them a title in 2016. His free agency departure from Cleveland was with less commotion the second time around, but still sent ripples across the league because he’s LeBron James. 

While LeBron remains a central figure in the league, and expands his influence outside of it, his decision and arrival in Miami in July of 2010 was the next stage of evolution for the league. The maneuvering around of star players in free agency is only half the story, the other competent are the athletes themselves finding their way in this new league. There are only a handful of veterans, most riding the bench for teams, that were in the league during the Jordan Hangover (props to Vince Carter for being in the league in the 90s and still playing). The new NBA athletes grew up when LeBron entered the league, they know who Michael Jordan, many wear his shoes, but they were young or not even alive when Jordan was at his peak. The internet was around from their youth, and they’ve had social media accounts for a significant amount of time. The NBA players today know the value of “brands”, and they also know that particularly in their sport players that are valuable hold a considerable amount of leverage, and can maximize that leverage through the media. The NBA superstars of today parallel the Attitude Era wrestling superstars of yesterday in many ways. 

Stone Cold Steve Austin’s gimmick was that he didn’t like his boss and would stop at nothing to piss him off and humiliate him. Nowadays when an NBA star is not happy with his coach or his contract, he makes it well known. Jimmy Butler essentially worked his trade out of Minnesota by using the media. The Rock became popular off his quips and catchphrases, often insulting his opponents. Smack talk, often through social media, is commonplace in the NBA between athletes now. One of wrestling’s staples were their superstars cutting “promos” in which they would set up storylines or attempt to verbally take down opponents. This past offseason Kevin Durant went on CJ McCollum’s podcast and basically told him that he could not beat the Warriors. This led to a social media spat with McCollum calling Durant soft for his decision to join the Warriors. The valuable angle to these types of back-and-forth is that it is out there on social media for everyone to see and react to. It’s a promo that is interactive, and unfolding in real time. 

The other great element to what the NBA has going is that much like the Attitude Era there are no clear lines for heels and babyfaces. If you like Joel Embiid’s taunting of the Timberwolves, you love Joel Embiid. If you don’t like him, you’ll tune in to see him fall in the playoffs. Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant’s split leaves the decision up to you; there is no good side or bad side, it all comes down to whose game you respect. 

Above all else, it is the drama that sustained the Attitude Era and that has lifted the NBA to new heights. Off-season and free agency speculation has become it’s own entity, dominating sports discussions in the summer. Fans cannot get enough of stories of in-fighting and social media moments where players are caught showing their true feelings on their team, management, or other players. The empowerment and recognition of this power by the players has been telling. Kawhi Leonard went the Sting route last season by sitting quietly in the rafters and moved to Toronto, causing huge waves without saying a word. The Spurs were thought to be a buttoned-up organization, but even they could not prevent a player defecting out of their system. This ability to craft their own story and generate so much content that #NBATwitter is thing, just has not permeated to other sports. Athletes in those sports do make statements and get into arguments on social media, but it doesn’t have the personality that the NBA superstars bring to it. While some sports fans lament of how the NBA used to be, with players giving generic answers to media questions and being content to wallow on a team for years while collecting top dollar but never winning many games, that era is over for players that want to control their brand. Judging by the popularity of the sport in its current form, the league is right where it wants to be.

The NBA may not be an exact replica of the Attitude Era. For one there were storylines and phrases said back then that are not appropriate for this day and time. However, the same desire for unfiltered content and ambiguous heroes in those stories exist. The superstars are young and brash, and are not afraid to express their discontent with management. They are loud and express themselves in a variety of ways, including their dress. They have developed cult followings and fans that will ride with them no matter what, going to great lengths to counter attacks on their performance. They in-fight, smack talk and bicker with each other, reaching to petty levels of back-and-forth. They take any slight against them extremely personal. These elements made the Attitude Era ascend to the heights of pop culture, and it’s making the NBA as popular as ever.

#NBA #SportsMedia #attitudeera #nbatwitter

[never-shuts-up]

RAW 4/10 Adventure: Getting All Shook Up

So I got a message around 8 AM Monday that a friend of a friend had some openings for seat fillers for RAW at Nassau Coliseum that night. So the adventure began!

 I immediately texted D and by 10 AM we had both made plans to leave work early, and I was working on my second dose of kava and third or so near anxiety attack.

Left work at quarter to three, on the road by four… and promptly got stuck in traffic. Accidents kept popping up on the map and there were moments when we were certain we would never get there before the call time, and even contemplated turning around, but we were already on the GWB and I was still determined to try. 

When it was starting to look impossible, this exchange happened:

Me: I guess anything worth doing in life leads to either a scar or a story.

D: If you can call sitting in traffic “a story.” Unless it ends in “And that’s where you came from!”

Me: I think that would lead to a very specific selection of baby names.

Two hours later we rolled up to the Coliseum with less than a gallon of gas in the tank, no idea where the nearest gas station was, and no clue where to find our contact.

The particulars of us actually getting in aren’t important, but we found our guy and made it. We were given the rundown of how seat-filling works and shown to some really good seats where we would wait for a wrangler to come move us to empty seats on camera if and when we were needed. From there we got to see the first few matches, and then our wrangler found us and waved us down to even better seats, low in the bleachers on the other side of the ring. We were slightly above eye level with the wrestlers in the ring and right in front of the cameras, but any time they played toward the main cameras, we were watching them from behind. With some of the talent, this is a really good problem to have (insert a bunch of “peach” emojis here), and with some it’s not a problem at all because they are able to play to all sides.

The Highlights:

- Enzo and Cass opening things up in a taping for Main Event. They were super extra hyped up because it’s basically a hometown show, so much “how you doin’?” With which I just wanted to respond “stuck in traffic” as Enzo detailed the drive there from Jersey. Cass vs. Titus O'Neil while Enzo worked the crowd.

- Lucha cruiserweight tag team with Gran Metallik! This was the point when D and I both well and truly lost our shit. Luchadors at any non-lucha show are just so extra that you can’t not love them, and I want to give them the Best Dressed award for the night. Sparkle capes!!!!!

- Miz and Maryse opening the show with their John Cena & Nikki Bella bit. I was in stitches, because I thought they were done with that and certainly didn’t expect to see them coming to RAW with it. And then who shows up? As you know, it was Dean Fucking Ambrose! And meanwhile I’m thinking “shit. If Dean’s coming here, then Seth Rollins must be leaving because they would never tease us with the idea of a Shield reunion (or even messing with the leftover threads of that plot) without putting a giant wrench in it somehow.” This only dampened our spirits until the setup for the Sami Zayn vs. Miz match, which had me jumping out of my seat. Hell fucking yes! Sami in a singles match!

- Cruiserweights were an absolute treat because Austin Aries is hilarious, and Neville just sat next to the announcers’ table looking pissed. I don’t quite buy TJP as a heel, maybe I’m just not up on the history here, but I’ll gladly keep watching.

 - We moved seats before Seth’s “Fate” appearance, so we were watching it from behind, and that was a smidge disappointing but I know my face was in the background doing… I don’t know what. Emoting like a motherfucker. Cheering, crumpling, cheering again. I think D was sitting in the row in front at the time so he didn’t see my face, but I bet he could hear it. Watching Kurt Angle’s entrance, the entire exchange, and Samoa Joe getting shut. the. fuck. down. was magnificent.

- Finn Balor vs. Jinder Mahal: OMG. Finn did his infamous entrance crotch pose on our side of the ring, almost directly in front of us, and I died a little. Aside from a messy forearm, Jinder did make Finn look good, but then again Finn always looks good, and even though he doesn’t really work the crowd as much as others, his grace and intensity always impress, and the crowd was With Him 100%.  (Before and after this match was when my phone started blowing up with messages from friends who saw us on TV, and the timing could not have been better to capture us at peak enthusiasm.) Of course, I’m pissed that Finn got concussed, but so grateful that I was able to see him wrestle just once.

- Sami vs. Miz was everything. I danced like a lunatic to Sami’s music, and we had several “ole ole” chants going. We booed the Miz so hard he turned around and full-on glared at our entire section a few times, which just made us boo louder. The energy we built up for Sami felt great, and he was definitely taking and appreciating it, and effing killed it. And of course we all freaked out again when he won; I was doing the Running Man at my seat and giving zero fucks what that looked like.

- 8 Man Tag Team Match - so many highlights. Too-sweeting Gallows & Anderson, who finally ditched the dopey shoulder pads they wore last week. The Hardys being the Hardys and so so so many “Delete” and “Brother Nero” chants. They may not be broken, but I think we might be. Sheamus and Cesaro doing their James Bond meets Magic Mike entrance in the kilts. Watching Cesaro take a beating from G&A and the Shining Stars at the same time, for a long fucking time, was punishing, but the ups outnumbered the downs. The guys in the row behind us had a gigantic Irish flag, so Sheamus gestured right at us to acknowledge it during their exit, and D had a whole “Immortan Joe looked at me! I am awaited in Valhalla!” moment.

- The end of Ambrose vs. Owens, which in general was more satisfying than a lot of the Ambrose matches in recent memory, he actually seemed to flip the switch in a more believable and useful way. By this point we were really getting tired, and thinking about the logistics of leaving… and then Chris Jericho showed up to deliver a “bye, bitch” Codebreaker at his former bestie, the televised part of things ended, and shit got interesting. How interesting? Samoa Joe interesting. 

Then more interesting.

Seth Freakin’ Rollins interesting.

I made a sound that I’m pretty sure only dogs and bats can hear.

 So the match that was supposed to happen last week went forward as a dark match. I was marking out for all of it. There were “Stupid Idiots” chants, which were everything. I think D didn’t have the heart to make fun of me for freaking out when Seth sold the knee thing, because I always die a little when that happens. But everyone’s favorite shiny pants goofballs triumphed, of course, and Jericho got to work the crowd and tell Long Island we made the list. (After our ordeal getting there, if I had the List I would have put Long Island on it for sure. I would have put Long Island at the TOP of the fucking List and everyone who drives in the greater NY area as well, because fuck it all.) During this part, he was playing toward the crowd on the camera side, and Seth was standing in the opposite corner working our side, including some great drumroll-spirit-fingers when Jericho built up to his signature line. Couldn’t have asked for a better ending. I wanted to go down to the floor to try and catch a closer glimpse or a high-five or something on their way out, but decided that kind of access should be saved for the people who paid a shit-ton of money to be there, not our freeloading asses.

The Low Points

- Mixed feelings about Nia vs. Charlotte. It looked like Nia was finally getting her due and getting to be the monster we all know she can be, but even though I couldn’t tell from where we were sitting, I heard later that it looked wildly unsafe on camera. Charlotte looked pretty wrecked at the end, but I couldn’t tell if it was just her selling it really well.  Later, Alexa and Mickie’s big reveal built Monster!Nia up further, and I freaked the hell out at seeing Alexa. The only problem is, Nia gets way too close to being too real, to an extent that gets scary - and even if you don’t know much and don’t know what you’re looking for, you can feel something is out of place.

- The Wyatt teaser. I don’t really understand the logic of trading him. Eater of Worlds vs. Demon King has the potential to be pretty badass, but it kicks the whole Wyatt Family narrative right in the balls.

 -  Slut-shaming chants aimed at Maryse, who was leaning on the apron right in front of us during the Sami/Miz match, with her butt sticking out in some very accentuating black and rhinestone shorts. I think I yelled “I don’t agree with your decisions, Maryse, but I respect them!”

- The Roman backstage beatdown I have a lot of mixed feelings about. I’m not a fan of backstage beatings after a certain point - a few blows or throws to build up a plot are fine, but watching someone get full-on wrecked never sits well with me. Sometimes it just feels cheap. And this definitely did not sit well. As seat fillers, we were told that we should cheer or boo with the people around us, but I really couldn’t. I could not get down with it for a LOT of reasons, and was really glad not to be on camera. I know there were good plot reasons for it to happen this way, but I couldn’t really get into the tidal wave of emotion the rest of the audience was riding. If anything, it made me feel seasick. Especially when they started replaying it. Repeatedly.

Overall? Amazing night. Worthwhile experience. Some of the trades seemed to be set up well, some didn’t seem all that necessary, but it kind of has to be considered as a whole with Tuesday’s Smackdown. As the FIRST live WWE event that D and I have been to, it was really one for the books, and I would not trade it for anything. Even though it had its flaws, I was thrilled to death to be there, and grateful for every moment. Also, if you watch this and see some goofy platinum-blonde in a yellow scarf cheering and hollering her heart out next to a tall, long-haired ginger dude, let me know. I was flailing extra just for you.

#wwe raw #adventure #recap

[junker-town]

Where Scooter Gennett’s 4-homer game ranks in the Weird Baseball Hall of Fame

Scooter Gennett hit four home runs in a game, which isn’t a sentence that should exist.

Scooter Gennett had three homers in 2017. Then he hit four in one game. It’s funny because he’s a typically light-hitting second baseman. It’s also funny because his name is Scooter. If his name were “Boom Jackson” or “Large Arms Von Trapp,” it would be less funny. The randomness is my favorite part, though. Scooter Gennett? Scooter Gennett?

Yes, Scooter Gennett. And now it’s a name that baseball fans will drop in casual conversation in 2057.

What we have here, then, is a baseball twofer. These are my very favorite baseball occurrences, as they seem to cut to the soul of the sport. The requirements for a baseball twofer are simple:

A performance that shows off baseball skill ...

... under a random, quirky set of conditions that will never be replicated

Does Gennett qualify? We know the first one is true. The second one is a little dicier because he’s received five at-bats in a game before, and he will again. While the randomness of him being the player to accomplish this instead of, say, Giancarlo Stanton or Aaron Judge is amazing,

Does it make the pantheon, though? I suppose I need to construct a pantheon, first. Here are my five favorite individual baseball performances that combined skill with a quirky pile of weird baseball, and we’ll see if Gennett can squeak in.

5. Brent Mayne gets the win at Coors Field

As you’ll see with a couple of these games, I’m cheating and using games I’ve written about extensively. Mayne’s unlikely relief performance has long been a fascination of mine. It’s still one of my favorite baseball stories of all-time.

Mayne was a 32-year-old catcher who had never pitched in his life. Not in little league. Not in college. He was in the game because of a minor skirmish that led to a Rockies pitcher getting unexpectedly ejected. He had to face the Braves, including Andruw Jones and Chipper Jones, in extra innings. And he had to do it in Coors Field in 2000, which might have been the toughest place to pitch in baseball history.

The starting pitcher for the game, for example, was Masato Yoshii. His 5.86 ERA for the season was good for an ERA+ of 99. Completely average once you accounted for park effects.

Mayne didn’t even know what a balk was.

"I didn't want to balk," (Mayne) said. "I was thinking what is the balk (rule)? Can I go into the glove and take the ball out of my glove? That was probably the most nerve-wracking thing.

He won the game.

John Rocker got the loss.

I’m not even sure how there are four games ahead of this one, really.

4. Bob Brenly’s four-error, two-homer game

This one makes it because I was there. Sure, I was nine years old and watched the whole thing with a finger up my nose, but that’s not much different from my current routine.

Brenly made four errors in the fourth inning. He was put at third base, where he didn’t belong, and he screwed up. Repeatedly. Four runs scored. Fans booed. His manager, Roger Craig, left him in because ... well, screw you and stay in there, I guess.

In a sport where the all-time worst fielders can still make 90 percent of the plays, it’s hard to fathom four errors in one inning. It’s hard to dig a hole deep enough into the earth.

In the fifth inning, Brenly homered.

In the seventh inning, he hit a two-run single to tie the game.

In the ninth inning, he hit a walk-off home run.

Redemption is never that instant, that perfect. Ruben Rivera didn’t hit a walk-off homer after committing the worst baserunning of all time. Fred Merkle didn’t come back from his boner and goad someone else into an even worse boner.

But Brenly got his chance, and he took advantage of it perfectly.

3. Andy Hawkins no-hits the White Sox, loses by four runs

Well, say, I wrote about this, too. When Scooter Gennett hits four home runs in a game, it apparently makes me want to write the equivalent of a clip show. If he does it again, I’ll come up with something more original. That’s my solemn promise to you.

But I’m still fascinated with this game, which featured errors and wind and sun and demons. It’s perfect that Jim Leyritz is the left fielder — apparently, I’m obsessed with catchers out of water — but it’s perfect that Jesse Barfield, one of the finest defensive right fielders ever, is screwing up at the same time.

This was something of a low point for the Yankees. They were a proud franchise with a history that most professional sports teams couldn’t touch. Heck, they have a greater history than any pro team, for my money, but in 1990, they were a joke. They were going to break the franchise record for losses, and then they were going to lose 91 games the next year.

George Steinbrenner was suspended from running the team because he paid a detective $40,000 to dig up dirt on Dave Winfield. Don Mattingly was hurt, and his career went downhill, even though he was just 29. Deion Sanders was hitting .158 for some reason.

And they lost a game 4-0 without allowing a hit. That was the 1990 Yankees. They never recovered except for all the times they did.

2. Babe Ruth/Ernie Shore’s perfect game

Technically, it’s not a perfect game, just like the last example wasn’t a real no-hitter, but it’s still one of the best individual performances under extraordinary circumstances in baseball history.

It’s not a perfect game because there was a baserunner. A walk. And after that walk, Babe Ruth punched the umpire in the face.

“You run me out and I will come in and bust you on the nose,” Ruth threatened.

“Get out of there right now,” said Brick.

Then in rushed Ruth. Chester Thomas tried to prevent him from reaching Owens, who had not removed his mask, but Babe started swinging both hands. The left missed the arbiter, but the right struck him behind the left ear.

Manager Barry and several policemen had to drag Ruth off the field.

The whole recap is worth reading just for the awesome 1917 style. The following words are used:

curtain-raider

Uncle Cyrus

Carolina professor

Chain Lightning Johnson

moundsman

arbiter

Griffmen

The Bluffton Kid

“back to his own cliff for a bang from Morgan”

hassocks

But we’re ahead of ourselves. The real story is that Ernie Shore, typically a starter and a pretty good one, came in unexpectedly and retired the next 27 batters. While it would have been temporally impossible for him to quote Clerks throughout the whole game, he probably did. And he thrived in a way that most pitchers will never thrive.

The Red Sox and Senators were playing the first game of a doubleheader, too. Both games were finished in 3:40, which was shorter than the White Sox/Tigers game from last Sunday, in case you were wondering.

1. Bengie Molina hits for the cycle

Here it is. My favorite combination of baseball skill and baseball absurdity. There is nothing better or more pure than this.

Bengie Molina ran like Yadier Molina was hanging from his ankles and begging him not to run. He was, quite possibly, the slowest baseball player I have ever seen. Perhaps the slowest baseball player I will ever see. And that’s when he was in his prime. In this game, he was 35 years old. In catcher years, that’s closer to 45 when it comes to legging out triples.

On July 16, 2010, in his ninth game with his new team, the Texas Rangers, Molina hit a single in the second inning. In his next at-bat, he hit a double. In the top of the fifth inning, he hit a grand slam. All he needed was a triple for the cycle.

All I need is physical ability to make the majors.

It sounded so simple, but Molina had hit three triples in his previous 4,450 plate appearances. Two of them came at AT&T Park, a triples haven that extends to 420 feet in right center. There was absolutely no way, statistically, for Molina to hit a triple exactly when he needed one.

The odds. I can’t fathom the odds of that happening.

But the skill! Hitting baseballs that hard against three different major-league pitchers is impressive.

The odds, though.

But the skill!

That back-and-forth is what makes baseball beautiful. The odds and the skill, the unlikely and the likely. And on Tuesday night, Scooter Gennett scooted out of obscurity, hitting four homers in a game, even though it wouldn’t have been a major surprise if he didn’t hit another four home runs in his career.

I’m not sure if it makes the pantheon, though. He had 15 homers last year, after all, and having a legendary game isn’t quirky enough on its own. The only way he moves from “Simply one of the best games in baseball history” to “In the pantheon of quirky baseball twofers” is with his name, which isn’t that unusual. Maybe if he named himself after a Muppet Baby to avoid discipline from a cop, he’d make it.

Gennett found himself at a police station as a young child because he was giving his mother problems with wearing his seat belt. She took her son in to scare him into wearing it, and left with a surprising twist.

In an attempt to avoid trouble with the law, the mischievous young Gennett gave officers a fake first name. “I told the cops Scooter Gennett because that was my favorite Muppet Babies character. I kind of just used it as an alias, I thought I would get in trouble if I told them my real name.”

I ... I need to sit down for a bit.

[superprofitz]

Weekly Market Recap Feb 26, 2017

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Back to business…

While there was not much movement in the major indexes this past week it was still a significant win for the bulls as prices had been quite removed from major moving averages last week so even some “stalling” and consolidation this past week would have been a victory.  So indeed that is what happened.  Almost all the week’s gains were consolidated in an hour to open Tuesday morning and the closing moments of Friday.  Considering we had a holiday Monday that means all the action was at the very open and close of the week!

In economic news, existing-home sales ran at a seasonally adjusted annual pace of 5.69 million, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. That was 3.3% above an upwardly-revised 5.51 million in December and 3.8% higher than a year ago.  Homes available for sale declined 7.1% compared to a year ago – even as prices spiked 7.1% higher. The median price was $228,900.

Also on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve minutes were released and they were a bit more hawkish than expected:

“Many” Federal Reserve officials indicated their support for raising rates if the economy continued to strengthen, according to the minutes of the Fed meeting earlier this month. But the transcript also showed a mood of uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s fiscal policy plans, which have been the biggest boost to stocks during the past few months.

While it makes our writing a bit repetitive, this type of rally without relent or pullback is just a major grind on any bear. You can see in the S&P 500 chart, that this rally has been SO unrelenting the index has not closed below even the FIVE day moving average since the first day or two of the month!!

We don’t follow the Dow Jones Industrial Average much as it’s a very narrow index but it is up 11 days in a row.  That is rarefied air.  And for market bulls, good news.  There have only been 8 other such streaks per Bespoke, and each has led to at minimum a positive gain of some sort 3 months later – often by a good amount.  The average being 7%.

Also per Bespoke, with a gain of 10.48% in the 72 trading days since the Election, the only President who had a stronger first 72 trading days was JFK (+13.12%).

More good news for the bulls.  Since 1945, there have been 27 years when the S&P has achieved gains in January and February. The stock index then finished up for the year (on a total-return basis) in every one those years, according to CFRA’s Sam Stovall. That’s going 27 for 27, or batting a thousand.  The average rise in those years was 24%, as shown in his chart below, and the gauge was up further in the remaining 10 months 25 of 27 times.

Here is a 5 day “intraday” chart of the S&P 500 via Jill Mislinski.

This week in eye candy; the global economy by GDP share in a pie chart.

The U.S. economy, as measured by gross domestic product, is by far the largest in the world at $18.04 trillion. China, the closest thing the U.S. has for a competitor, is No. 2 with a GDP of $11 trillion, while Japan is a distant third with $4.38 trillion.  Put another way, the U.S. economy is roughly equivalent to the combined gross domestic products of the eight next-biggest countries after China — Japan, Germany, the U.K., France, India, Italy, Brazil and Canada.

Not sure how true this is, but if accurate it is a fascinating reason why “west sides” of major cities are more prosperous than “east sides”.

The east sides of New York, London and Paris are noticeably and famously poorer than their western sides. And it turns out there’s a reason for that.  Researchers have found that it’s due to the impact of air pollutants at the time of the Industrial Revolution, as prevailing winds in the U.S. and Europe typically blow from west to east. And it’s an impact that has lasted into today.

The week ahead…

President Trump is scheduled to make a speech to Congress on Feb. 28, where he is expected to provide details on his highly anticipated tax reform proposals. Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer are slated to speak on Friday next week. Investors will scour the comments for any hints as to when the central bank will raise interest rates.

We won’t get the monthly employment data this Friday, but we will get ISM manufacturing and non manufacturing on Wednesday and Friday respectively.

Index charts:

Short term: Two weeks in a row we have said the only negative thing in these 2 charts is that things are “extended”. We will repeat it a third week.  That said, at least there was some consolidation this past week!

The Russell 2000 did not partake this week (again)- it remained stuck in this yellow range.

The NYSE McClellan Oscillator near zero is a bit of a surprise with the major indexes in rally mode last week.

Long term: Here are 5 year charts on the major indexes; again nothing negative here other than things are extended… in fact the NASDAQ has now broken ABOVE the upper part of our channel on a weekly basis! That is the second week in a row this has happened.

Charts of interest:

Wednesday, home builder Toll Brothers (TOL) jumped 6.1% after posting a fall in profit and revenue, but rising contracts in five of its markets.

First Solar (FSLR) dropped 8.4% Wednesday as the solar-panel maker reported that it swung to a loss on restructuring charges.   But it regained all that AND MORE on Thursday and Friday.  Boo yah.

Shares of Tesla (TSLA) dropped 6.4% Thursday after the electric-car maker late Wednesday reported a wider-than-expected quarterly loss, though its beat sales expectations.

Nvidia (NVDA) shares closed down 9.3% Thursday after a round of bearish analyst comments prompted investors to take profits from the highflying chip maker, which has more than tripled over the past 12 months. Instinet downgraded the stock to reduce from buy, while BMO Capital Markets cut its price target to $85 from $100.

It wouldn’t be a proper week if a brick & mortar retailer didn’t punch it’s investors in the teeth.

Shares of L Brands (LB) sank 16% Thursday after the Victoria’s Secret parent late Wednesday issued weaker-than-forecast guidance for 2017.

But some good news in that sector Friday as Foot Locker (FL) gained 9.4% after the shoe retailer reported profit that beat forecasts.

Have a great week and we’ll see you back here Sunday!

Original article: Weekly Market Recap Feb 26, 2017.

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