4 Quarters Radio: March 11 1st Quarter

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The first-quarter curriculum for March 11:
--At the opening, Scott's alone except for his lovely wife Rachel, who's shooting video footage for Scott's class project. After a major false start, Scott is finally joined by the tardy Bobby, Andrew, and Mack.
--Once the manpower situation is settled, 4Q's Big-Ass Baseball Preview continues with looks at the NL and AL West divisions. Scott and Mack slightly differ on their thoughts for the AL, but the NL is a fairly reasonable consensus.
--The Angels' health, the Rangers' pitching, the Giants' hitting, and Don Mattingly's managerial abilities are cited as big keys to the two divisions' finishes.

Excised music: "Rum and Coca-Cola" by Wanda Jackson.

Stick around at the end for a brief snippet of the track, and help the show out by purchasing the full download if you like it.
 

4 Quarters Radio July 26

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On the July 26 episode of 4QR, Scott shares some preseason props from the national media toward Middle Tennessee State. Then, he slides into wondering why it's the biggest football schools who seem to get the most innocent, impressionable football players, while lesser schools are capable of treating their players like men and teaching them about agents. Well, except for the guy at Grambling. (Hint: the word "pimp" comes up quite a bit here.)

In the second, the focus shifts to baseball. Hall of Fame inductions are discussed, and then Scott tees off on Alex Rodriguez's upcoming 600th home run. The Professor's suddenly-shaky pick of the Tigers to win the AL Central gets notice in the wake of their injury epidemic.

Bobby calls in for the third, and they talk a bit about Chris Paul and his trade demands, complete with guest appearance by the original Veruca Salt herself. Keith Bulluck's new deal with the Giants, the Tour de France's asinine code of "racing etiquette," and discussion of which stadium food vendors are filthy deathtraps fill a hefty variety platter, along with the traditional Epic Fails.

Excised music: "We Are One" by 12 Stones, "Centerfield" by John Fogerty, "They Don't Want" by Electric Wire Hustle, and "15 to 20" by the Phenomenal Handclap Band.

Bye-Bye, Mr. Shaving Cream Pie

This is not a picture of the shaving cream pie that landed reigning NL Rookie of the Year Chris Coghlan on the disabled list, but if you've seen one guy with white goo all over his face, you've seen them all.

The baseball season is somewhere around the 100-game mark right now, and Coghlan is the second guy this season to grievously injure himself celebrating a win. The problem with that is that the entire season is 162 games long.

Translation: we're only just now getting to the games that will decide anything. Game 51 of 162 is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but that was the one in which Kendry Morales broke his leg.

Now, we're at the trade deadline, and the Angels have been searching high and low to find a bat to replace Morales. Unfortunately, the prices for Prince Fielder and Adam Dunn have been way too expensive, so they had to try to improve the pitching staff instead by getting Dan Haren.

Not coincidentally, the Halos now trail Texas by 7 1/2 games, and have even fallen percentage points behind Oakland.

Is it unfair to blame Morales for the Angels' current difficulties? Nope.

It's a game in May. You just hit a walk-off granny. Bully for you. Now, just round the bases, STEP on home plate, not STOMP on home plate, and all of your teammates need to act like you've been there before. Get over yourselves.

I'm all for guys having fun, celebrating, et cetera. But dogpiles at the plate are asinine unless you just pulled a win that aids your playoff hopes in September...

...or means you get to hoist that.

As annoying as dogpiles can be, shaving cream pies may be even worse. They're now apparently done after every game, and when they're done to a cagey veteran like Wes Helms, they can easily go awry.

Helms was prepared, he ducked, Coghlan had to swing the pie again, and there went his knee.

Manager Edwin Rodriguez has banned the custom now, and there's about 29 other fellows who need to follow suit. Teams lose enough important players to legitimate in-game injuries, they shouldn't be terribly keen on the idea of losing them to acting like complete idiots, celebrating a meaningless game with months left to go in the season.