This Book Has Balls Page 6

  This Mad Shaming needs to stop now. Anger is great, it’s natural. I feel it right now for no reason at all. Being mad is fantastic, and being Mad Shamed is not okay—plus it has deep ramifications on its victims in ways only well-trained doctors can diagnose. It’s embarrassing, regrettable, terrible for your health, and, above all, downright shameful.

  Embrace your anger, embrace your madness. Stand up against Mad Shaming and let the tiger roar, let the lion out, and if the bear is poked, go ahead and say, “Fuck it,” and let the bear take a swipe. Stop holding it all in. That’s what causes bad behavior in the outside world, not to mention chronic diarrhea.

  Mad Shaming is beyond sports. It’s happening every day in schools, in the workplace, and in the home. We’re all so afraid to show our anger out of fear of people pointing and taunting and saying passive-aggressive shit like “Wow, are you getting upset, dude?” Guess what? Yeah, motherfucker, I’m getting upset. I’m even more upset at the fact that I can’t show how upset I am, and it’s about to manifest itself later in my day, and I’m going to take it out on someone who doesn’t deserve it, so yeah, I Am Upset, Dude.

  I’m getting more upset that you’re even asking me if I’m getting upset, with that Rob Lowe peaceful-looking resting smirk on your face. No disrespect to Rob Lowe, but he knows that his smirk could drive a motherfucker crazy if it just stared at you asking if you were upset. But shout-out to Rob Lowe’s skin lotion. My man looks good for being three thousand years old.

  The entire Incredible Hulk series was based on Mad Shaming. The poor prick David Banner couldn’t feel anger, and if he did, he turned into a giant green beast who whooped the fuck out of everyone in sight. If he could have just felt his anger and expressed it, he wouldn’t have had to turn green, turn into Lou Ferrigno, and have us act like it was the same guy.

  Now don’t forget that Mad Shaming is the cousin of Hate Shaming. Every day you hear people question variations of Hating: Why you hating? You’re a hater. Don’t hate. I strongly believe that you can’t truly love if you can’t truly hate. Hating in sports is healthy. Hating in sports is essential. Being a fan of competitive sports is one of the only places that I think some good old-fashioned healthy hate should be embraced and encouraged. Now, you wanna humiliate people because of their organic, god-given hate? You want to take this away from people? You wanna dishonor and disgrace people because of this? No! Stop it now. Stop it right fucking now.

  It’s an enormous part of sports. Maybe one of my favorites. Saying “Don’t hate” in sports is like saying “Don’t love.” You can’t love if you don’t hate. It’s simple mathematics. Ask the Dalai Lama. He started out as a hater. Or one of those guys did before they started walking around in nice robes loving everyone and half smiling. The Shaolin monks were violent haters until they went the way of the peaceful warrior. Look it up. I don’t know if any of this is totally correct, but I’m in the flow, and I don’t fact check.

  I wouldn’t dare attempt to stop a Red Sox fan from hating Bucky Dent. You should hate him. Never would I talk shit to a pissed-off, swollen-faced Boston Red Sox fan and say some punk-ass Hate Shaming shit like “Why are you hating on Bucky Dent?” Don’t be mad that New York Yankee Bucky Dent hit that looping home run over that dingy-ass Green Monster in that hellhole you call Fenway Park.

  I know exactly why all Boston fans hate the Buckster. I would never take that away from even the most venomous, low-life Boston Red Sox fan while he’s sauced up and crying about his team. I get it. It’s the same reason why I hate that cockeyed bastard David Ortiz. Who can hate the lovable Big Papi? Me, that’s who. Oh, and every single Yankees fan alive. It’s okay. Sports lovers love to hate. It’s in our blood. Of course, we respect that fat motherfucker, but we also hate that motherfucker. We have to. And it makes perfect sense. Respecting and hating have nothing and everything to do with each other. I don’t hate any lames. I only hate the greats.

  You think I spent time loving Michael Fucking Jordan during his career? Hell, no. Of course I knew he was the best player ever, and I stayed up late to watch his highlights on every news channel early in his career. Of course I loved and wore his sneakers, like the rest of the world. But that was all before he became a real fucking issue for me. Once he started kicking the New York Knicks’ asses, it was over. All of it. There went the Jordan posters on my wall, right into the fucking garbage. No more running around New York to buy overpriced Jordans, and no more humming the “Be Like Mike” song. I didn’t wanna be like Mike—I wanted to bury Mike. I hated that fuck. I despised him. I was blinded by hate, disgust, and anger. I didn’t cheer for MJ when he came back to the Garden in ’95 and dropped 55 on us. I was pissed off, and I know for damn sure that Jordan loved the hate. It made him great. The greats embrace the hate.

  Reggie Miller lived off visceral, raging hate from fans in every arena in every city. He would drink hate smoothies for breakfast. He ate, drank, and shat hate sandwiches. Without that hate, Reggie Miller doesn’t make the Hall of Fame. Reggie “the Fuck” Miller would never question fans being angry toward him; it was his fuel and his fire. I couldn’t stand that snaggletoothed cocksucker. A few years after Reggie retired, I saw him in a restaurant in New York City and walked over to him. Before I could say anything, he said, “You ready to give it up, you ready to stop hating and stop talking shit?” It wasn’t at all mean or confrontational. He had seen me at games over the years heckling and knew I had hated his fucking guts throughout his career. Now he was asking me if I was ready to put down my sword and treat him with normal person-to-person respect. I told him straight up, “Reggie, I hated you to death, but I respected you even more.” We gave each other a pound, and that was it. When I see him now around at NBA games, it’s all love, but we both know that old hate never fades.

  Joe Montana killed the Giants game after game, and I hated him and his fucking amazing hair and dimples. That Goofy-Ass, Stretch Armstrong–looking Randy Johnson taking away the Yankees’ World Series in 2001? The hate and disgust I felt toward him was real and vital, and if I saw him today, it would be tough to not say something. The guy stole months of my happiness, and it stung. But guess what? It’s okay. It’s what makes sports so damn entertaining and such an amazing escape. We get to feel it all, and it’s okay. So, next time you or somebody else is screaming and yelling with snot coming out of their nose because their favorite player or team took a tough loss, sit back and let them go through the natural progressions of being mad as fuck and let them hate as hard as they need to until it passes naturally. It’s just nature taking its course. Embrace the hate.

  Question Time for Bill Belichick

  Bill Belicheat, what can I say? Billy Boy, I don’t like you. I don’t like your face. I find it quite unsettling. I don’t like your disposition or the way you’ve carried yourself all these years, Bill. I know you’re the winningest NFL coach of all time, but I think you’re 500 percent full of caca. Yes, yes, I know that sounds harsh, and I’m sure most of you reading this know I’m not a New England Patriots fan. The easy way out is to assume that my dislike of Billy Bullshit is due to jealousy of the fantastic football team he coaches. That is an incorrect assumption regardless of the fact that I’m a homegrown New York Giants fan. Although we haven’t had the undisputable success of the Patriots, I still rejoice, usually during a solid and healthy bowel movement, over the fact that the Giants did two fantastic Super Bowl stuff jobs on New England. They stuffed them nice and they stuffed them proper on the biggest stage in all of sports. Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane in case you forgot.

  The year was 2008 and the game was Super Bowl XLII, which means Super Bowl 42. To be honest, I had to look up what the fuck XLII equals in the real world of numbers. I don’t know why the NFL continues this roman-numeral charade, but this ain’t Game of Thrones, so cut the crap: everyone is lost and googling the roman numerals.

  Let’s refocus. 2008: the Patriots were being considered the greatest football team ever, and they were close
to completing a perfect 19–0 season. Wouldn’t that have been delightful? They would be the first team to pull it off since the 1972 Dolphins. Wouldn’t that have been a grand accomplishment? Yeah, well, it didn’t happen, fuckos. The Giants came into this Super Bowl a huge underdog. They fought their way into the Big Dance and they made it, tattered and torn. New England was up 14–10 at the half. However, New York stayed alive and got the ball back with almost two minutes to go when the Giants’ quarterback, the funny-faced, goofy-looking yet stellar Eli Manning, escaped the menacing grip of six or seven Patriot defenders. Baby-faced Eli got loose and threw a duck to David Tyree. The relatively unknown Tyree made a magical catch, pinning the ball to his helmet. He looked as shocked as the rest of the world. I, for one, jumped up on my couch, took my shirt off, scared the shit out of both my sons, and said, “What the fuck! What the fuck!” I doubt any Patriots fans jumped onto their couches during that magical moment, but I’d bet they flipped them over. On the very next play, the Giants quarterback with the inability to grow facial hair threw an easy touchdown to a wide-open Giant receiver named Plaxico Burress. To this day, I still can’t figure out why Plaxico was so wide open. I think it was because the Patriots were still in shock from the David Tyree once-in-a-lifetime earmuff catch. Eli Manning was named MVP of the game. Most gamblers would’ve expected the staggeringly handsome man of steel, the hair-gelled Tom Brady, to be the MVP, but he wasn’t. Sorry, Tommy. The Giants won the Super Bowl 17–14, and the Patriots’ dreams of being considered the greatest team ever went right down the fucking drain.

  And just in case you forgot, the Giants also beat the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI, which I think means 46, but who the hell knows? I left my roman numeral translator at home again. New York got to the 2012 Super Bowl with the worst record a team ever had at 9–7. Madonna was the halftime guest of honor and flip-flopped around the stage half naked while hanging on for dear life in four-inch heels. I remember staring at the TV praying she didn’t tear a meniscus or tweak a hammy.

  It wasn’t a very memorable game. However, Eli did get a chance to play the hero again, and he did. He threw a pin-perfect pass to Mario Manningham that left the Patriots and their fans in shock and awe. The Giants soon scored what would turn out to be the game-winning touchdown. The Giants’ Super Bowl victory was embarrassingly overshadowed by Leonardo DiCaprio’s ex-girlfriend and Tom Brady’s current wife, Gisele, throwing a postgame shit fit in broken English about Brady’s wide receivers dropping catches. It was some lowbrow TMZ shit, but a great moment for all Giant fans. So, like I said, I’m good with where the G-Men stand versus the Patriots. It’s Billy Belichick and his attitude I need to talk about.

  Billy, Billy, Billy, I know I’m not alone. I have a few questions, and I want some answers. What has crawled up that dusty ass of yours and died, Bill? Why the one-word answers all the time? The robotic Rain Man “I’m just here to coach football” act is tired. It’s also rude. You make San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich look like the life of the party. You know how hard that is to do? For the last seventeen years, every time you show up at a press conference, you’ve been bad-mannered and impolite to every reporter. You treat every question like it’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard. Don’t you know that the only dumb question is the one you don’t ask, Bill? You’re Question Shaming these innocent reporters day after day, week after week, season after season. You’re making reporters feel bad about themselves. We get it. You’re not a people person, you’re a pro football coach, you’re just there to do your job, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those reporters you give reluctantly mumbled one-word answers to are just doing their jobs, too. I’ve been trying to get an NFL-approved press pass so I can show up at your press conferences and ask some questions myself. Thus far, for some reason, my requests have been denied. However, if I ever do get the press lanyard, here are the questions you can expect:

  The great Vince Lombardi, legendary leader of men, would show up to games looking sharp and presentable, wearing a pressed suit and tie and that classy wool hat that yelled “dapper leader.” Why do you have to show up looking like you just escaped a methadone clinic? Do you understand that people pay hard-earned money to see your successful team play football, yet you’re on the sidelines dressed in that dingy cut-off sweatshirt that appears to have been ripped from a puppy’s mouth? What the fuck, Bill? Do you own a suit or not?

  My second question—do you have any suggestions for a good video camera and lens package? I plan on recording the practice of my son’s archrival flag football team. They’re a competitive team named the Jets. Would you suggest a camera that assures me the best quality recording to study the Jets in hopes of beating them, despite the fact that I know recording another team’s practice is both ethically and morally wrong? Something with a tight rack focus to see all the play-calling signals to assure my son’s team a victory would be great. Not saying you would ever do this, but hypothetically, if you were filming another team’s practice, what kind of camera would you use?

  Finally, have you gotten any handwritten letters from President Trump lately? If so, would you please tell us what the letters were about?

  I feel like these are all very reasonable and well-thought-out questions. I’m sure I wouldn’t get any answers, because Billy the Grump Hole acts like he doesn’t have to answer to anybody. Not sure if you know about this, but there was a very famous mobster from New York City named Vinny “the Chin” Gigante who ran the infamous Genovese Family. His claim to fame was that he walked around Greenwich Village and Little Italy dressed in a bathrobe, pajamas, and slippers and talked to himself when he knew people were watching. He did this to give the impression that he was mentally ill and harmless and not a threat instead of the dangerous, devious criminal he was. Billy “the Chin” Belichick, I’m watching you, I’m not alone, and I’m waiting for my answers.

  Hookers, Pills, Dwarfs, and the Las Vegas Raiders

  The Oakland Fucking Raiders mean a lot to professional football. They represent something to the game. They have fans who go to literal war for their team. They’ve bred real football characters and villains in their time. Al Davis ran a passion-filled squad out of Oakland where players like Howie Long, Marcus Allen, Kenny “the Snake” Stabler, and real-life goons like John Matuszak and Jack Tatum thrived under the Raider banner. Matuszak was in the World’s Strongest Man contest just for shits and giggles, and Jack Tatum’s nickname was the Assassin. Bo Jackson was running over grown men like they were babies, and Lyle Alzado was ripping helmets off other players’ heads and throwing them into the stands twelve years after his Bar Mitzvah while hopped up on juice! This was the Raiders of Oakland, California. This was the most hated franchise in all of sports, and for all the right fucking reasons. And now we’re about to see this team be hated for all the wrong reasons. Have you ever fucking been to Vegas? Whatever Happens in Vegas Happens for Real in Vegas, and it includes hookers, pills, midgets, and handcuffs. Al “Just Win, Baby” Davis is up there in Black and Silver Heaven freakin’ the fuck out. He knows what the hell happens in Vegas. You want to put a bunch of NFL players with money in their pockets and time on their hands in Sin City? Well, let me paint you a not-nice picture of what goes on down here, my friends. I hate to be the bearer of bad fucking news, but let’s get real.

  First off, their coach, Jack Del Rio, is a passionate guy, and when passion meets a twenty-four-hour playground where pills and pussy are chasing you deep into the night like a devil on steroids, shit can go south quickly. And he’s just the coach. Coach comes home, team took a tough loss, the bright lights of the strip start calling his name, and next thing he knows, he’s knee-deep in vodka at the craps table and threatening a guy who’s making fun of the team. He didn’t see it coming. He’s not a superhero, he’s just a football coach, which already means he’s got a screw loose for shit that’s loud, dangerous, and wild. That’s all the Raiders need is to wonder why Coach Del Rio is living in that cheap motel off the strip and three of his cheerleaders
are on the back of a milk carton because they were sold into a Colombian sex-trafficking ring after a loss to the Browns. This is the kind of shit that happens all the time in Vegas. Are you kidding me? I left dealing with credit card fraud and whooping cough. Vegas is the fucking devil’s playground!

  Las Vegas is also going to be terrible for NFL players. They have a hard enough time staying out of trouble as it is. Take a young player like Tyrell Adams, who’s never seen a building taller than his high school, and now he’s got the finest girl he’s ever seen that wants to “show him around” Vegas and introduce him to her friends at the club. Can you say, “Give me your wallet, I’m having your baby”? What happens when quarterback Derek Carr, a seemingly nice kid who played at Fresno State, a town where people cry over sheep getting shaved, has a bad night and the meth bandits come creeping out of the Luxor? “Psst, Derek, come here, man, try this, it won’t kill ya.” Fuck that. Amari Cooper, nice kid fresh off the country boat from Alabama, misses two catches and heads through the casino with his head hanging low, and who is there to pick up his spirits? Donna, who last Tuesday was Joe. And now he’s got a tranny mistake on his record, and his entire family is calling to make sure he’s okay. It’s not a good place for these kids, man, I’m telling you. They’re targets. And don’t tell me how Vegas is family friendly now. These people put the kids to bed and step into a puddle of cocaine and blackjack until they turn into vampires.

  Fuck this move, man. Mark Davis, what are you thinking? I know in your mind you think you’re going to school the kids and make sure they know who to trust and who not to talk to and all that, but they’re men.

  I don’t care how many guest speakers they bring in to the team to warn kids off the downfall of drugs and hookers in Vegas. The shit is at their fingertips. At least in Oakland you had to cross a bridge, and it wasn’t in your face. You had to find a Starbucks with a strong Wi-Fi connection to meet a lady of the night. In Vegas, they’re your fans, and next thing you know, they’re your employees. This is a shitstorm waiting to happen.