You Know What Really Grinds My Gears?

I think I'll complain a little. Everyone should get to every now and then.

Last time I wrote about things that make me laugh. This time I think I need to complain about some things that annoy me. Just like laughter, we all have things that just rub us the wrong way. I’m a big believer in getting those things off your chest once in a while, thereby reducing the amount of stress in your life and who isn’t down with that?

The Designated Hitter:

I have always disliked the Designated Hitter and I dislike it even more now. Between 1973 and 2022 the DH was only a rule in the American League but it was negotiated into the 2022 Collective Bargaining Agreement making it the law of the land in the National League as well. The Players Union was all for it because it would give a multi-million dollar job to fifteen aging Major Leaguers. To heck with all the strategy, to heck with the double switch and to heck with the pitchers hitting for themselves and the joys. pains and guffaws that brought everyone. Because of this switch we will no longer get the pleasure of watching pitchers hit home runs or embarrass themselves. I am also personally distraught that I will no longer get to see at bats by my Guru and Life Coach Bartolo Colon.

Spineless Republicans:

Today’s left-wing radicals do not play by the normal rules of polite society and if Republicans don’t learn that lesson quickly, they are going to always be the opposition party, even when they control all the branches of government. Do you know why Republicans are so frequently disappointed with the rulings of “their” Supreme Court Justices? It’s because they actually appoint people that look at what the Constitution says, or at least what they think the framers meant. The Justices that are appointed by the Democrats are chosen for their ability to toe the party line, every time, in every situation, without fail. If the right, appointed people based on an ideological willingness to rule on the dictates of the party then they would have a predictable set of justices.

It isn’t just in the Supreme Court where the Republicans are losing. Take the current “debate” over “transgender issues”. The right is losing because they automatically ceded ground by going along with the left’s terminology, such as “transgender woman”. We all know that it’s really just a man who thinks he is a woman. They are not “brave” they’re confused at best, and most probably mentally ill. Plus it is just so confusing, actress Ellen Page was a lesbian woman, who was “married” to another lesbian, then she decided that she was really a straight man called Elliot. She had a double mastectomy but also had to divorce “his wife” because “he” couldn’t be married to a lesbian, even though “he” was still in to girls. What kind of baloney is that?

The so-called Lia Thomas, the male swimmer swimming against actual women at the University of Pennsylvania is another great example. He is a male, and has been since he was born as William Thomas. He was known as Will until his sophomore year at Penn when he was the 65th ranked 500 meter freestyle swimmer in the country. Since he wasn’t succeeding as a man he decided to “transition” and become Lia Thomas. He took testosterone blockers for a year and is now the “Women’s National Champion” in the 500 freestyle. As far as I’m concerned Republicans should be yelling from every mountain top “That’s a MAN!”.

The border and the “immigration crisis” is another on the long list of areas where the Republicans are losing because they are letting the Democrats frame the narrative. The people crossing our border are not “migrants” they are not immigrants, they are criminal aliens breaking one of the most basic laws of any country. I really don’t care if they’re coming here for a better life or they feel persecuted in their own country. There is a process to immigrating to this country and they need to follow it. If you follow the process, I will welcome you with open arms just as Americans have since the country began. The United States doesn't have an obligation to take bedraggled peasants from every crappy country in the world. If your country is so bad, fix it yourself, we did. 246 years ago a group of people upset with the way their country was being ruled took up arms to overthrow the most powerful country on earth. If we did it so can you.

Hey Republicans, we elected you to change things in Washington, not to just go alone with the Democrats because you want to be liked or don’t want to be called names. Grow a pair!

Celebrities who think I care what they think:

Why do stars like Bono, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bruce Springsteen LeBron James and others think that I value their opinions? Sure, I may like their movies or music or watching them on the court, but why do they think that means I want to hear what they think about current issues? I liked DiCaprio in The Revenant but how does that make him an expert in climate science? Did he get a degree when I wasn’t looking? Besides I have a hard time listening to some star’s speech at the UN, where they say I need to buy an electric car and save the planet when they arrived in a private jet or on their 450 foot yacht. Hey Bill Gates, if you’re so concerned about global sea levels rising why did you just buy $43 million beach-front mansion in San Diego? Having the super rich tell me I need to make sacrifices to save this or end that, just smacks of hypocrisy. This is the United States, so celebrities can express whatever opinions they hold but they do not have the right to expect the public to listen to them just because their rich and famous. I find it incredibly annoying that the glitterati continue to believe that they have all the right answers and anyone who disagrees with them is a right-wing Q-Anon nut job, or even better a Nazi. Hey, LeBron James, how comfortable is your $36 million Hollywood mansion? I'll bet it is way more comfortable then the huts the Uyghurs that make your shoes live in. When the Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. James said the GM was “not educated on the situation.” Now we know that he was worried about the launch of Space Jam 2 in China and that is why he condemned the tweet. Why should Morey be concerned about LeBron’s movie? This is a free country and if Morey wants to tweet his support of the Hong Kong protesters, that’s his right. If a major celebrity spoke out every now and then about some center or right-wing cause I might not be so jaded when it comes to them.

Taking the fighting out of hockey:

To quote a letter to the editor I had published in The Hockey News many years ago. “There are two times in a hockey game the crowd is guaranteed to be on their feet and yelling. A goal and a fight.” The NHL has been trying to take fighting out of hockey for a long time and they have been fairly successful at it. In the 2000-01 NHL season there were 684 fights in 1230 games or 0.56 per game. In 2018-19 (the last season before COVID) there were 238 in 1271 or 0.19 per game, a 65% decrease. Now, some would say that this is a good thing, that no one like a league full of goons but I disagree and I’ll bet that most people if able to answer anonymously would agree with me. Even the Hockey News a leader in the quest to scrub hockey of fisticuffs, speaks out of both side of their mouths on the issue, they decry it most of the time but had a four page article on the Red Wings vs. Avalanche rivalry in their latest issue. To read a detailed account of the rivalry read my article about the Wings click the link.

Hey, Hey Hockeytown!

Fighting has always been part of the NHL and it should always be. The play in the NHL is better when the players are the ones policing themselves. It used to be a well-known fact that if you mess with a teams star, you will answer for it from the enforcer who’s job it is to make sure that the stars are not mistreated.

Since the extinction of the enforcer from NHL lineups, high sticking and cross-checking penalties have risen and more star players are getting hurt. If the enforcers were brought back, those incidents would be brought back to a normal level and the game would be more exciting to boot.

The New York Yankees:

I hate the New York Yankees, not the classic Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Whitey Ford Micky Mantle Yankees but the George Steinbrenner Yankees. The A-Rod, Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Reggie Jackson, Ron Guidry, Bucky “Bleeping” Dent, Aaron “Bleeping” Boone Yankees, the Evil Empire Yankees. The Yankees that try to BUY a championship every year. The Yankees that fired and rehired Billy Martin five times.

The Yankees were fined by the league for sign stealing the same year as the Astros (2017) but they are also the team who's GM blamed those very Astros and their cheating for the Yankees current title drought.

The main reason I hate the Yankees is that every year they try to sign every big name free agent on the planet. If there is a big name players going on the free agent market the Yankees will be one of the teams in the running to sign him. Right now the Yankees are paying three free agents they’ve signed in the last three years $54 million 1/3 of the entire payroll. They only have eight players on their 40 man roster that they drafted. Most other MLB teams have 14-18 players that were drafted by their current teams. Their continued overpaying for free agents has been driving up league salaries for years. In 1973 when Steinbrenner bought the team, the average player salary was $36,500, in 2010 when he died it was $3,014,572, an increase of 8,159%. So they are one of the reasons for high payrolls but they are also one of the biggest critics of the rising salaries across the league. Which in my dictionary is the definition of hypocrisy. I have hated the Yankees since the late 70’s and will continue to do so as long as I live. When I check the baseball scores I check to see if the Tigers won and if the Yankees lost. When I play fantasy baseball I will NEVER take a Yankee player, even if he is one of the better players in the league, because I must remain free of the taint of the Evil Empire.

I now have another reason to hate them. Thursday 04/21/22 the Yankees were playing the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers best player and first ballot Hall of Famer Miguel Cabrera was one hit away from 3000 hits which would make him only the seventh player in Major League history to have 3000 hits and 500 homeruns. In the game he was 0-3 with two strikeouts. He came up for the forth time in the eighth inning with the Tigers ahead 1-0 and runners on second and third with two outs. Instead of pitching to him and potentially giving up his 3000th hit they intentionally walked him and didn't even give him a chance. So with bases loaded the next hitter blooped a single into left field and drove in two runs and the Tigers won 3-0. So not only are they cheaters and wild money spenders but their also chickens that didn't want to give up a milestone hit to one of the nicest players in all of the majors and they still lost the game.

Local Meteorologists:

This one might be a local thing but it annoys me none the less. Up here in Northern Michigan we have two main meteorologists, Joe Charlevoix and Mark Watkins. Joe Charlevoix (the same name as a local town), whose name was probably Joe Milwaukee or Joe Columbus at various points in his career is the kind of guy who's out there filming segments on cat fashion shows and pie eating contests when he’s not doing the weather. Mark Watkins is the slicked backed hair, tailored suit, pinkie ring kind of guy who might have sold used cars or discount appliances before becoming the weather man. Both of them are doom and gloom guys when it comes to our strange weather. Every day their teasers go something like this: “I hope you have enjoyed the sunshine because tomorrow the clouds return and the temperatures plummet. Tune in at eleven for the full forecast”. Now, our weather up here is bad enough without these guys making it seem like Narnia where it’s always winter but never Christmas. Another thing I don’t want to hear from them near the end of a six month winter is “We’ve had a lack of snow recently, will we be able to catch up to normal?” No, I hope we won’t catch up to “normal”, winter is long enough as it is.

Why do the weather programs always have to be called “The Storm Team”, why can’t it be called the Fair Weather Fans or the Blue Sky Bunch. It is the worst of both worlds, the two guys are cheery and upbeat and always giving us bad news. As an example here is the seven day forecast for this week.

The wide range of high and low temps is due to the size of the forecast area, all the way from the Canadian border to the middle of the mitten.

Hate Speech:

The problem I have with hate speech is that there is no such thing as hate speech, at least not the way the modern left thinks of it. The left says if speech is hurtful, upsetting, inflammatory or what they would call misinformation, then they believe that speech should be restricted at the least but more likely, completely banned. They seem to forget that we have the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

While it might be uncouth or insensitive to say things about someone different from you, it is not against the law nor is it a violation of the First Amendment. One must remember that the First Amendment doesn’t just apply to speech that you agree with. To quote a famous American.

“If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free speech — not free speech for those who agree with us but freedom for the speech that we hate.”

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Supreme Court Justice

What ever happened to the old schoolyard adage “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” and what about this;

If one cannot tell the difference between words and axes, let both be hurled at them until the can.

— Viking proverb

So, while you might not like what someone posted online, they are completely free to do it and should not face consequences for it. If a bank manager posts “I like Hitler” on their personal Twitter account they should not face any punishment for it, because the First Amendment allows you to say what ever you want. However, if the manager posts the same message from the bank’s official Twitter account they can be fired because a company has the ability to control the speech of it’s employees in a work setting.

What, you may say, about shouting fire in a crowded theater? That can't be protected speech, right? According to actual constitutional law scholars, you are allowed to yell whatever the heck you want in the crowded theater.

Here is an article on shouting "fire" in a theater.

Read about the first amendment and the few instances it is curtailed here.

James Madison the architect of the Bill of Rights, had a commitment to free speech that should serve as a reminder that, while people say things that we might find personally offensive, we should never wish the state or anyone else to squash their right to do so. Our First Amendment freedoms combined — freedom of religion, of assembly and petition, of press and speech — give us the right to think what we like and say what we please. If we the people are to govern ourselves, we must have these rights, even if they are misused by a minority. If James Madison isn’t enough of an authority on the subject maybe the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, is. In his first inaugural address he said.

“If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

In other words, people that try to talk others into changing our system of government and God-given rights, are allowed to hold those opinions because freedom of speech is the sword to combat undemocratic ideas. So go out there and say whatever is on your mind and know that the First Amendment has your back.

Bench Clearing Brawls:

I hate bench clearing brawls in baseball for the simple reason that for the most part they are stupid and pointless. The vast majority of times a batter is hit by a pitch it is unintentional. Sure, sometimes it happens for a reason but more times than not the pitch just got away from the pitcher. If you’re a Major League hitter and the three guys ahead of you all hit homeruns, you should be prepared to have the next pitch be inside maybe even close enough to knock you down. It’s not personal just business, the pitcher has a job too and he’s just sending you the message not to get too comfortable in the batter’s box. If you hit a homerun and stand at the plate watching it or make a dramatic bat flip be prepared to take a pitch in the ribs in your next at bat and of course if one of the pitcher’s teammates has been hit by a pitch someone on your team is next. Too many players now a days take it personally when a pitcher throws inside, apparently they believe that the inside of the plate belongs to them and the pitchers aren’t allowed to throw pitches there. I know it hurts to be hit by a pitch, I had my hand broken by an 83 MPH fastball, and I can only imagine how it feels to be hit by a 100 MPH pitch but that’s no reason to charge the mound. Take your base and get your revenge by scoring.

Besides, baseball brawls are the most pointless thing ever. So, you have a hitter who takes exception to either getting hit or having a pitch go too close to him. Most of the time he thinks about it for a second before charging the mound, giving the umpire and the catcher time to get between him and the pitcher. If the batter breaks away from them and charges the mound he’s outnumbered 9 to 1 which is why his teammates come out of the dugout to help. Once everyone gets out there, it’s mostly just a bunch of guys in tight pants milling around. These are hardly ever anything like a hockey fight. The most ridiculous part of baseball brawls are the players running in from the bullpens, which are usually just outside the fence in the outfield. If they want to fight so bad why don’t they just go over to the opponents bullpen and fight right there? Then there is always one hot head that just can’t let it go. I’ve seen plenty of fights that had run it’s course and everything had calmed down and all of a sudden, one guy starts yelling and pushing and there it goes again and 9.5 times out of 10 it is some guy that was sitting on the bench not even a player involved in the real incident. So my advice to MLB players is go out there and play the game, don't try to show up your opponent, act like you’ve hit a homerun before and remember the pitchers have a right to throw a pitch over any part of the plate.

Hipsters:

You know the kind of guys I mean, the pretentious ones who wear skinny jeans that don’t go down to their shoe tops, with untucked flannel shirts, beards, man buns, thick-rimmed glasses, tattoos, riding their stupid fixed gear bikes and talking about their organic honey or their small-batch artisanal pickles. I say shave, get a haircut, get a real job and start contributing to society. I always want to ask them if their mothers know what they look like and how do they feel about it?

They are a subculture with no strict ideology, but one crammed with bizarre contradictions. Hairy but groomed, homespun but mass produced, the demographic most likely to invest in reissued Nokia phones, but also the one that seemingly grew up on their smartphones. No soundtrack to speak of but whatever they listen to it must be on vinyl. Non-conformity expressed through conformity, the worst of every world.

How many different craft beers does one town need, and do I really need small batch pickles or artisanal mayonnaise or a place to drink wine while I knit? They're all so snooty about their products, it drives me crazy. I'm always hearing things like “the beer has hints of lavender and coriander with a hoppy finish” or “this cheddar has notes of hazelnuts and a creamy finish”. I just hate that, I don't taste those things I only know know what I like and what I don't like. I really don’t care that you think your vintage t-shirt store is authentically vintage or that the sardines in the Sardine Bar (a real business in San Francisco) are sustainably caught in the wild or that a percentage of every purchase of beard oil goes to bearded men in third world countries.

The Hipsters are all about following “your path” and claptrap like that. Every time I hear one of them say “follow your dreams”. All I can think of is a quote from Dirty Jobs host Mike Rowe who says “Just because it’s your dream, doesn't mean you don't suck at it”.

This is actually just a portion of the things that grind my gears and none of these things might bother you at all. That’s ok, everyone is different but if you like the Yankees I really think you should examine your priorities. Until next time, You stay classy Substack. If you wish to comment on my list of annoyances, share this post with your favorite curmudgeon. or subscribe to this publication, please click one of the buttons below.