REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun (JERUSALEM)

Dudes. B was looking at random shit on Yahoo last night and found this picture of a tortoise with a custom-made wheelchair. Her name is Arava and her back legs are paralyzed, but she gets around just fine on her little wheels.

Seriously, how cute is that?!

I’ll be back later today with a post on Olympic fashiony stuff (exciting, I know).

I’m kind of on sports overload right now. There’s been SO MUCH going on — I’ve spent the last few evenings stuck to the couch watching Olympics on two channels, one or two baseball games, and the occasional football.

Because of this madness, it took me a few days to watch the Lithuania/Russia basketball game I recorded. I finished watching it yesterday. Unfortunately, and I know they’re Lithuania’s best chance at Olympic greatness (so far, we have one bronze, won by wrestler Mindaugas Mizgaitis), I just wasn’t that impressed.

The guys just looked messy out there. They have only one NBA player (Linas Kleiza); they were supposed to have two additional NBA players on the roster. However, the Cleveland Cavaliers denied Zydrunas Ilgauskas permission to play, and Darius Songaila is out due to injury.

Here’s the whole roster (with links to each player’s official Olympics page):

Simas Jasaitis (G/F)
Šarūnas Jasikevičius* (PG)
Robertas Javtokas (C)
Rimantas Kaukėnas (PG)
Linas Kleiza (F)
Darjuš Lavrinovič** (C)
Kšyštof Lavrinovič** (F/C)
Mindaugas Lukauskis (SG)
Jonas Mačiulis (SF)
Marijonas Petravičius (F/C)
Marius Prekevičius (G)
Ramūnas Šiškauskas (G/F)
Head Coach: Ramūnas Butautas
Assistant Coaches: Rimas Kurtinaitis, Robertas Kuncaitis, Virginijus Mikalauskas

The team page is here.

On the plus side, I absolutely love the fiery Šarūnas Jasikevičius. He’s always yelling at everybody. Like A.J. Pierzynski, he’s the kind of guy you love if he’s on your team and hate if he isn’t.

I’m not delusional (most of the time), so I’m not going to say that there’s any chance in hell these guys beat the USA. However, even though they didn’t impress me in the game against Russia, I’m an optimist and I think they could medal. They beat Argentina (thanks to some late-game heroics from my guy Linas Kleiza) and they’ve only lost once (a pounding at the hands of Australia, WTF). Their next game is in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, a quarterfinal against China. I think they can win that one. Sėkmės!

____________

*The thing over the “c” in Jasikevičius is called a caron (sorry if you already knew that — I didn’t). The letter “č” is pronounced like ch. My last name has a č, which means the pronunciation makes sense, although I’ve never seen anybody but a hard-core Lugan use the caron.

**Twins!

I’d like to dedicate Saturdays to telling you about all the shit I should’ve told you about earlier in the week but didn’t, either because I’m lazy or because instead I got drunk and bought shoes on the internet (I hate when that happens but sometimes a girl needs a pair of ridiculous 70s-style beige platform sandals).

There are quite a few things I didn’t tell you about this week. The good thing is that you probably know about all of them already. You know about the alleged underage Chinese gymnasts. I say there are three options for that hot mess: (1) the IOC and gymnastics people enforce the freakin’ age limit already in a serious way that might involve X-rays (Sanja Gupta says that works for determining age within a few months and I don’t see how else they can do it when corrupt governments are free to falsify documents); (2) the IOC and gymnastics people determine that they’re unwilling or unable to enforce the freakin’ age limit already and get rid of it; or (3) things continue as is and the sport of gymnastics is de-listed from the Master List of Sports and everybody in the world stops giving a rat’s ass about it. Period, end of story. You also know that the planets have aligned such that the Cubs and the Angels are on their way to the World Series, where they will each win three games and then the Angels will win this thing (I know I picked them last year, but whatever, I’m always a year early with my baseball predictions — see also Morneau, Justin in the Home Run Derby).

What you might have missed, and what I’ll focus on for the rest of this post, is the fact that the White Sox are mad crazy awesome. I mean, they’re not all that, because they’re tied with the stupid Twinkies. They lost to the A’s (I’m assuming the apostrophe in A’s is because it’s a contraction and not because of poor grammar) last night and they’ve had a few misses with the hits. However, there are two awesome things going on with the Sox right now.

First, John Danks is dank. Haha, I’m sure I’m the first person in the world to say that. Seriously, though, he has emerged as an amazingly reliable starting pitcher. If I had a big bag of weed and had to trust a White Sox pitcher to carry it across the country for me, I’d put them in the following trustworthiness order: (1) John Danks; (2) Mark Buehrle (he’s Old Reliable as far as I’m concerned); (3) Javier Vazquez; (4) Gavin Floyd; (5) “to be determined.”

Danks is 10-5 with a 3.18 ERA. His road ERA is the third-best in MLB at 2.54. That’s a guy you want to have nachos with, you know? He’s got your back.

Second, did you see that home run shit on Thursday? I didn’t, but my phone went crazy with the White Sox text updates I get. The guys hit four consecutive home runs (BACK-to-BACK-to-BACK-to-BACK as Chris Berman probably would say), to tie an MLB record (this is the sixth time it happened). With two out in the sixth inning of the game against the Royals, HEY GUYS IT’S JI JIM THOME hit a three-run home run, followed in order by home runs from Paul Konerko, the Cuban Missile Alexei Ramirez, and Juan Uribe.

The whole “ladies love the long ball” thing is a myth, at least if you ask me. I don’t give a rat’s ass about the long ball. I care about winning. You can do that with the long ball or the small ball or whatever — it’s all good. That said, there’s just something about the White Sox hitting home runs. It just makes sense, you know? It’s especially awesome when they’re down and they break out the home runs and win the game. I love that.

I have a good feeling about the White Sox winning the AL Central this year. This is despite the fact that I’ve felt that their success this year is due in part to a smoke-and-mirrors game rather than pure talent. The Twins are the only team that can beat them. And that? Is not going to happen.

Finally, here’s a YTMND for you. GO SOX!

I haven’t updated about any of the “players we like” in a long time. My new plan is to provide a “players we like” update once a week, let’s say on Fridays, because it is Friday and that’s a day I’m usually too lazy to provide much of substance. I’ll also make a roster that lists all players we like, so that if you’re into that kind of thing, it’s at least somewhat organized.

To get started — there is some good news. Jamaal Tatum has been updating his website, Jamaal Tatum Hoops. There’s a blog/basketball diary, a clothing line (seriously, how cool is he?), video, and my favorite part — pictures. You’re welcome.

As a vegetarian, I’m always interested to learn about professional athletes who also are vegetarians or might lean in that direction. It’s not all that common.

Today, Michael Silver’s “The Gameface” on Yahoo! featured Tony Gonzalez and his “neo-vegan” diet. I’ve never heard of “neo-vegan” before, but according to the article it involves “swearing off most dairy products and meat,” eating fish and “the occasional chicken dish,” and lecturing other people about what they eat.

I’ll give props to Gonzales for a few things. First, he’s really thinking about what he eats and trying to be healthy. That’s cool. Also, I’ll never fault someone for giving up some or all meat and dairy products. Finally, I won’t blame him for the term “neo-vegan,” because he doesn’t use it himself.

But?

What’s up with the lectures? If there’s one thing that’s annoying about being a vegetarian, it’s the fact that so many times you’ll encounter a restaurant that has one vegetarian option and it involves mushrooms, which are disgusting. Okay, that doesn’t apply here. But if there’s a second thing that’s annoying about being a vegetarian, it’s encountering meat eaters who assume that you’re preachy and annoying because they maybe one time encountered some vegan Trustafarian (I think “Trustafarian” is funny) kid from Boulder who went on and on and on about the evils of meat, cruelty to animals, and the destruction of the environment as we know it before getting into mommy’s Land Rover and driving to the mall to beg spare change and cigarettes off of strangers who make less per month than he gets in allowance. I suspect that most normal vegetarians hate this shit as much as you guys do.

Aside from that, isn’t “neo-vegan” just another way of saying “flexitarian,” which is someone who is, like, um, kind of a vegetarian sometimes except when she isn’t and, like, eats meat and stuff because oooooh bacon yum? Honestly? If you call yourself a flexitarian, I’d kind of like to punch you in the face. Do you know what you call a vegetarian who eats meat sometimes? NOT A VEGETARIAN. Why in the hell do you need a label for that?

I’m kidding about this. Really, I don’t give a shit what you call yourself. However, it gets a little annoying when you’re an actual vegetarian and people think you eat fish and chicken because they’ve encountered so many “vegetarians” who eat fish and chicken (and you don’t want to get preachy about your eating habits).

It also gets annoying when people make up words to define shit that doesn’t need to be defined. Do words like flexitarian or gastrosexual (no really, I read about this the other day — it’s an unappetizing term for  “dude who likes to cook as a way of making himself more appealing to women” or some shit) really add anything to anybody’s understanding?

Maybe I should make up a few words to describe obscure conditions:

• A “Scaliatarian” is one who strictly construes “vegetarian” to mean somebody who does not eat anything that contains dead animal, be it steak, chicken, fish, jello, beef broth, or Altoids.
• A “neo Broncos fan” is an individual who is a Broncos fan except when they suck, in which case she cheers for the team from her city of origin.
• A “flexifanian” is somebody who cheers for whoever is winning and/or the Red Sox or Yankees despite having no connection to Boston or New York.
• A “Carmeloite” is an out-of-shape basketball player who refuses to ever play any defense.

I could go on all day! Lucky for you, I won’t.

Quick update: Former Broncos safety John Lynch is about to sign with the New England Patriots.

The only thing I can say about that is, “Ew!” Of course, I wish John well, but that’s gross.

I have a confession.

First, let me tell you that I love the Olympics. I’d watch them all day every day if I could. I’m not crazy about synchronized diving or gymnastics, but I haven’t found one Olympic sport I just won’t watch.

What’s crazy, though, is the surprising realization that I really like a sport I thought I hated.

I feel weird saying this, but holy crap:

My name is Tracy and I love boxing.

There. I feel better.

I thought I hated — or at the very least didn’t like — boxing. I’ll admit that I stereotyped. I thought of boxing as big giant crazy Mike Tyson guys, women in bikinis who have no purpose other than to look sexy and hold a sign, and some weird Vegas cigar-smoking-steak-eating manly man vibe. And like any time you generalize and dismiss something, I was wrong.

I started watching boxing when nothing else was on, because I’m a sucker for the Olympics and I’ll watch anything. The first cool thing is that I was able to, with approximately 99% accuracy, predict who would win any given match (which is cool because, as I’ve mentioned, I’m terrible at predicting anything). The second cool thing is that, and this is so weird, boxing is freaking AWESOME.

For the last couple days, I’ve been trying to figure out why I like boxing so much. I’m not sure, but I have a few ideas.

Boxing is kind of pure and certain, like math. When I was younger, I was very touchy-feely and into things like literature and psychology, where you talk about themes and feelings and there often is no “right” answer. I also used to like figure skating and gymnastics.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to appreciate things like math, where there is a right answer and no time for bullshit or speculation, while losing patience in the kinds of touchy-feely things I liked when I was younger. I don’t want to talk about feelings and I don’t give a shit about what some judges think about the artistic expression in that triple toe loop. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with those things, but they just don’t appeal to me any more.

Don’t get me wrong — boxing isn’t definite or completely objective by any means. It’s scored by humans. If you don’t know how it works, here’s an explanation from the about.com boxing site, written by Andrew Eisele, which says it better than I can:

The boxers are paired off at random for the Olympic Games, without regard to ranking. They fight in a single-elimination tournament, with the winner advancing to the next round and the loser dropping out of the competition. Winning boxers progress through the preliminary rounds to the quarterfinals and semifinals. The two semifinals winners fight for the gold and silver medals, while both losing semifinalists receive bronze medals.

Bouts consists of a total of four rounds. Each round is two minutes in length with a one-minute interval between each round.

Contests are won by knockout or on points.

A point is awarded for a scoring hit with marked part of the glove on the opponent’s head (side or front) or body (above the belt).

A panel of five judges decides which hits are scoring hits.

Judges each have two buttons before them, one for each boxer, and they press the appropriate button when they believe a boxer delivers a scoring hit.

An electronic scoring system registers a point whenever three or more judges press the button for one boxer within a second of each other. No point is awarded for a hit unless three of the five judges agree.

When two boxers trade blows in a flurry of infighting, where no full-force punches can land, the judges wait until the end of the exchange and award a point to the boxer who got the better of it.

At the end of the bout, when each judge’s points have been totaled, the boxer awarded the most points by a majority of the judges is declared the winner.

I don’t find the subjective element of boxing (scoring) to outweigh the objective element (punching the other guy) the way I find the subjective element of, say, gymnastics, to outweigh the athletic part (for me — I know they have elaborate guidelines and it’s probably not as subjective as I think it is, but I find it annoying).

I also appreciate the simplicity of the sport — there are two guys trying to hit each other. There’s no fancy equipment or much of anything other than gloves, muscle, sweat, and will. I fucking love that. It just seems to pure and elemental. I didn’t know I was into that sort of thing, to be honest. But I guess I am.

I’m still learning about the weight classes. “Light flyweight” (106 pounds) is the lightest classification in the Olympics (I guess a light fly weighs less than a feather?). 106 pounds. That’s tiny! I do like the little guys better than the super heavyweights. I’m not sure why — maybe it’s just that they seem to rely more on speed and craft than power, which I find more interesting to watch. Most of the matches I’ve seen have been smaller guys.

Have you heard about U.S. boxer Rau’shee Warren? He lost (and was eliminated) because he was down by one point but because of the crowd noise, he thought he was up by one point, so he stopped throwing punches at the end of the match. It’s nuts. He was just on TV talking about it, and he really has an awesome attitude despite what happened. He showed up to support his teammate and gave him props for working hard. It’s really cool that, in the face of amazing disappointment, he comes out to do an interview and cheer for his buddy.

The other day, I saw the guy who lost the match hug and then carry the guy who just beat him back to his corner (and the winner — I don’t remember his name — was just adorable, with bright dyed-red hair and the interviewer at the end asked him [through his coach/interpreter] if he’d heard of Dennis Rodman but he hadn’t and it was too cute). The sportsmanship in boxing is pretty amazing. And I’m really impressed by the fact that these guys can be out there, trying to beat the crap out of each other and then, at the end, hug and it’s over, because it’s just a game. I like that. That’s kind of a lesson all of us, myself included, could use in everyday life, you know? Boxing has the potential to make us better people, and I guess that’s what I love most about any sport.

I haven’t posted a recipe for a while, so let’s talk about food today.

Do you guys know about Springs1? If you don’t, you really should. She’s on Blogger (where she starts a whole new blog for each post, which is awesome). “How to Be a GOOD Server in a Restaurant” deserves special mention. She’s all over the internet, but this is enough to get started.

Springs1 is a masterpiece of crazy internet freakdom. She is obsessed with restaurants, servers, and above all else, RANCH DRESSING.

I will admit to having in common with her a love of ranch dressing. I’m no Springs1-level freak about it, but I am a little snobby. Bottled ranch sucks. Restaurant ranch usually is awesome, but sometimes you want to have it at home. I’ve tried a few recipes I found on the internet but haven’t been impressed. So I took the best one and tweaked it a bit.

My work-in-progress ranch recipe is after the jump. Tomorrow, I’ll get back to sports and tell you about my dirty little Olympics secret.

Springs1 Ranch

Ingredients

• 1 cup mayonnaise (I use Hellmann’s/Best Foods — light is ok)
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 1/3 (or more!) cup buttermilk (with 1 1/3 cup, the dressing will be v. thick)
• 1 teaspoon dried chives
• 1 teaspoon dried parsley
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• fresh cracked pepper to taste
• 1/8 teaspoon dried dill (v. optional — the dill is iffy; sometimes I like it and sometimes I don’t)

I use heaping measurements of the chives, parsley, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt.

Throw everything in a large bowl and stir like crazy until smooth and well-blended. Add extra buttermilk if you like a thinner ranch at any time. Refrigerate (duh). I store this in a glass jar.

For a low-tech version, leave out the green stuff (chives, parsley, and dill).

It’s pretty good, but something isn’t quite right about it. I don’t know exactly how to explain it — you know how when you have really good ranch at a restaurant, it has a sort of “cool” quality? This is missing that. But what is it? I’ve read that MSG adds the right flavor to ranch, but I’ve never tried it. Maybe that’s it.

Let me know if you have any ideas!

Dan Steinberg is my new favorite person on the internet. Yesterday, he discussed the fact that Lithuania’s Fans Are Balling. I love this so much, because he recognizes something that has made me very proud for many years — My People are freaking awesome. We love our basketball. And we have the tie dye (well, “we” in the sense of, as a people, some Lithuanians represent by wearing tie dye although I personally do not because, well, ew) to prove it. Also, many of us have green eyes, which is rare (I learned this the other day). Random, but cool! Like Lithuanians! We’re also known for being stubborn, which is a blessing and a curse, let me tell you.

Dan Steinberg also bestowed upon the world the most awesome interview with Craig Sager to ever exist. What do I make of Craig Sager and his fixation on blonde Lithuanian women? If you’ve read about me on Deadspin, you might be surprised.

Craig Sager is one of those guys who I notice every time he’s on TV, but I don’t really know anything about him. Whenever he’s reporting from the sidelines of an NBA game, I yell at B, “Dude! Check out what he’s wearing! When you’re old you need to dress like this!” His wardrobe is the shit and in life, he’s attained a certain level of awesomeness.

My thoughts on the Craig Sager interview are twofold. First, I think that, once you’ve achieved a certain level of awesomeness in life, you’re allowed to say some crazy shit and that adds to, rather than detracts, from your awesomeness. Second, I think that there’s nothin’ wrong with appreciating anybody’s hotness. I’m not going to blame anybody for finding, say, blonde Lithuanian women hot. They are! There’s nothing wrong with recognizing that.

I also love the wardrobe discussion. Quoth Sager:

Yeah. I brought all sorts of different underwear that match my shirt. That’s the only thing I can do.

Hee.

Anyway, my favorite part of the interview isn’t anything Craig Sager said. It was something Dan Steinberg said. Here’s a snippet (Steinberg is in bold):

The dunking mascots missed all of their dunks off the trampoline.

Did they?

You’re not supposed to miss your dunks off the trampoline.

Well, see, I can give you perspective on that too, because I was [Willie] the Wildcat at Northwestern.

Of course you were.

No really, I just died from laughing so hard. Craig Sager, international pimp and appreciator of Lithuanian sexy women (is saying “Lithuanian sexy” redundant?) is talking about all kinds of shit and, just to show how he thoroughly out-awesomes you in every possible way, he tells you that, in addition to being married to a Luvabull and being too busy to pay attention to dunking mascots while he provides his earth-shattering commentary on athletic festivities, which is how he makes a living and is much cooler than whatever you do, he throws in that he was the mascot at Northwestern. To this, what other response could there be but, “Of course you were.”

I’m going to find a way to work “Of course you were” into my everyday conversation when possible.

I was the attorney who worked tirelessly to exonerate the innocent defendant with the help of newly discovered DNA evidence.

Of course you were.

I was really drunk and actin’ a fool at the Rockies game before they put me in the little self-contained jail within the bowels of Coors Field.

Of course you were.

Maybe I’ll even wear tie dye while saying it.

The Colorado Rockies are a Christian organization. I’ve mentioned what I refer to as “Rockies 4 Jesus” before. That post contained a link to the USA Today article about the team and Christianity. I also wrote about Rockies Faith Day last year.

Back when the team was doing well, they gave a shout out to the man upstairs in the USA Today article:

While praising their players, Rockies executives make clear they believe God has had a hand in the team’s improvement.

“You look at things that have happened to us this year,” O’Dowd says. “You look at some of the moves we made and didn’t make. You look at some of the games we’re winning. Those aren’t just a coincidence. God has definitely had a hand in this.”

Yesterday, this year’s Faith Day game was a disaster. A crowd of 45,660, including many who attended with church groups, couldn’t get the Power of Christ to compel the Rockies to stop sucking.

I don’t know if new pitcher Livan Hernandez, who got lit up yesterday, is a raging heathen the likes of which the team hasn’t seen since my pal Jose Mesa. How do you explain the horrible Faith Day game? How do you explain this year’s extravaganza of suck?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it here, just to be clear: I have nothing against Christianity or Christians or religion or faith (unless you try to impose your view of what’s right on others, because that is incredibly disrespectful and just wrong). I will say that I just don’t get it. As someone on the outside of Christianity looking in, I don’t understand why, last year, O’Dowd said that God “had a hand” in the team doing well. Aside from the obvious questions (God really has nothing better to do? Why you guys? Proximity to heaven? Wait, what?), doesn’t a team doing well result from the actions of the players, not God?

On the flip side, if you give God credit when things go well, do you also blame God when things don’t? Will O’Dowd or Clint Hurdle come out this year and say, hey, God really let us down this season. As part of the Faith Day festivities, Charlie Monfort and Seth Smith gave “testimony,” we featured “Christian rock music superstar Steven Curtis Chapman,” and you couldn’t keep us from being pounded (16-7!) by the crappy Padres? Really God? What’s up with that?

I guess God is busy with the Angels this year.

Here are a few quick notes about how a few Lithuanians and Latvians (sometimes referred to as “My People” [upper case, which differentiates them from "my people," which refers to White Sox fans]) are doing in the Olympics (behind the cut so as not to spoil anything for people who are even more behind the times than I am):

Men’s hoops: Lithuania upsets Argentina. Linas Kleiza is awesome (told ya!).

• Official Olympics Results page
• Denver Post article
• Article from Lithuanian Olympics site (in Lithuanian)

Men’s beach volleyball: Latvians upset world champs Dalhausser and Rogers.

• Official Olympics Results page
• NBC Olympics article
• Plavins and Samoilovs: Olympic Studs of the Day

Women’s road cycling: Edita Pucinskaite finished 9th, Jolanta Polikeviciute finished 11th, and Modesta Vzesniauskaite finished 27th.

• Official Olympics Results page

Here’s my very, VERY late 2008 post about the at-bat music of the Colorado Rockies. You can read last year’s post here (and there’s a lot of good stuff in the comments, including a discussion of other songs played during games).

This is just in alphabetical order, because it was easier for me to do it that way and then I don’t have to change it when guys go on or off the DL or anything. Let me know if anything here is wrong or if you have anything to add, and I’ll edit the list. Sorry about the blanks — I’m just not sure about everybody.

Garrett Atkins: The Way I Are by Timbaland

Jeff Baker: Gz and Hustlas by Snoop Dogg and/or Still D.R.E. by Dr. Dre

Clint Barmes: Back Where I Come From by Kenny Chesney

Taylor Buchholz:

Aaron Cook:

Manny Corpas: He’s using some kind of remix of Salio el Sol by Don Omar.

Jorge De La Rosa:

Jeff Francis:

Brian Fuentes: For You by Staind

Jason Grilli: Everlong by Foo Fighters

Brad Hawpe: Rockstar by Nickelback

Matt Herges: Rock the Casbah by the Clash? They played this once when he came out to the mound, but I’m not sure it’s his actual music. Nice choice if it is!

Todd Helton: Back in the Saddle by Aerosmith and/or These Are My People by Rodney Atkins

Ubaldo Jimenez:

Matt Holliday:

Chris Iannetta: I Can’t Dance by Genesis

Jayson Nix: Flashing Lights by Kanye West

Omar Quintanilla: Stronger by Kanye West

Scott Podsednik: Elevation by U2

Glendon Rusch:

Seth Smith: Jesus Freak by DC Talk

Ryan Spillborghs: Thriller by Michael Jackson

Ian Stewart:

Cory Sullivan:

Willy Taveras: I still don’t know what this one is. It’s the same song he used at the end of last season.

Yorvit Torrealba: The Anthem by Pitbull & Lil Jon (This song is AWESOME.)

Troy Tulowitzki: I think he’s using Gimme More by Britney Spears. Yesterday was the first time I heard this one and I didn’t know the song, but it wasn’t too hard to find something saying “gimme gimme” on iTunes.

Luis Vizcaino:

Kip Wells:

The Onion has its finger on the pulse of the “idiot commenter” phenomenon with a new article about Brandon Mylenek, a 26-year-old guy who intends to post an “incredibly stupid” comment on the internet tonight. Brandon said, “Although I do not yet know exactly what my comment will entail, I can say with a great degree of certainty that it will be incredibly stupid.”

Read the awesome article here: Local Idiot To Post Comment on Internet.

“Just once, everyone should be able to make an inanimate object come to life and be his pal.” -Dave Eggers

When I read that a few years ago, I thought it was funny. When I really thought about it, I realized that the inanimate object I would like to bring to life to be my pal was an owl from the top of the Harold Washington Library in Chicago. That building is crazy and cool as hell, kind of like Ozzie Guillen. Anyway, I thought about all the fun things my gigantic metal owl friend and I could do together, but eventually I realized that he wouldn’t be able to fit through the revolving door at, say, the Berghoff, which was a totally respectable place to go for lunch back in the day when I worked in the area (they used to have stuffed shells that were a surprising and delicious vegetarian offering for a traditional German restaurant). That’s kind of a bummer. How can I enjoy my meal in those circumstances?

What if, instead of making an inanimate object come to life and be your pal, you could have an athlete be your pal? And by “pal” I mean pal. I’m not talking about someone you want to interview or pretend to be buddies with only to punch him in the face when he’s not expecting it or have sex with or any of that. I mean someone you want to just be buddies with for like a week. It would be cool if you picked someone who isn’t obvious, like Gilbert Arenas. I’m sure everybody wants to hang out with Gilbert Arenas.

So who is the athlete I’d like to befriend, and what would we do? I’ll tell you after the jump, and there even are a couple crappy pictures I took myself (because I heard that pictures are cool). And video! Come join the party! Doesn’t it look like fun?

My pal would be Ryan Spilborghs of the Colorado Rockies. Do you know about him? If not, you’ve been missing out on a whole lot of awesome. Last year, his at-bat music was “The Sweet Escape” by Gwen Stefani. This was fun because every time he came up to bat, they’d play the WOOOO OOOOOH WOOOO OOOOOH part of the song, right? And then the music would stop and everybody at Coors Field (the cool people anyway) would go WOOOO OOOOOH WOOOO OOOOOH! How do you not love that?

So this year, his at-bat music is, and I shit you not, THRILLER. You wouldn’t believe the awesome that results from this at games. One time, a woman several rows up from us acted out like the entire Thriller dance thing, all monster-claw-y and shit. When we’re there for our “Ladies Fan Club” games, several of the ladies get up and dance. It’s just about the greatest thing, ever.

People call him Spilly, so I’m sure it’s okay if I call him Spilly, seeing as we’re BFFs and all. Spilly and I would go to Sea World (one time he was on the Rockies All Access show talking about the disposable underwear he got at Sea World and how it would rock to get disposable underwear to take on road trips and ew, I just googled that to see if there was anything about it on the internet and I got an ad for Depends). After Sea World, we’d go out for pizza and beer (in the afternoon, because in a world where I’m BFFs with Spilly, I don’t have a job), and then go shopping. I don’t actually go shopping, ever (I buy shit on the internet) but for some reason, I think it would be fun to, say, hang out at Cherry Creek with Spilly, trying on ridiculous sunglasses and maybe 80s shoes with skinny pants at Urban Outfitters and perhaps waltzing at Nordstrom. We’d cap off the night by dressing up in mismatched clothes and going to a club or ritzy hotel bar, where we’d speak with fake vaguely European-sounding accents and play practical jokes on unsuspecting people.

The next day might involve snowboarding in the winter (I’ve never done this and I’d be terrible, but he’d have a flask so it would all be okay) or bowling (not my talent). In the summer, it would be mini golf (I’m much better at this than you’d think) or road trips to crazy little towns in Wyoming where we’d take artsy pictures of ourselves outside retro-looking hotels and then post them on Flickr so everybody could tell us how cool we are. Spilly is so cool I bet he travels with a can opener, a spoon, and a few cans of beans and SpaghettiOs in his trunk so he doesn’t have to stop to get food because then he might miss something really exciting.

Before I forget, I have to mention that he has some of the best facial hair in major league baseball. (For the record, I’m also partial to Nick Swisher’s facial hair, especially when it’s dyed purple or pink to coordinate with the relevant cancer awareness day festivities. Let it be known that a pornstache alone is not enough to impress me in the facial hair arena.) Unfortunately, I haven’t found any good shots of his best facial hair statements. Internet, you should do a better job of keeping track of Spilly. I’m just sayin’. So I can’t give you a picture of his facial hair, but I can give you a picture of him chewing on what are presumably sunflower seeds, that I took that one time I had really good seats.

Oh! Speaking of sunflower seeds! He stars in one of those Rockies commercials (which are all really funny). He gives a tutorial on proper chewing technique.

Spilly is the captain of Team Awesome, I’ll tell you that. But enough about Spilly. If you could have an athlete pal, who would it be? What would you do?

Here’s a video.