The one where Reginald and I call a truce.

Trained in the famed "humpback breaching" technique.

Our national nightmare is over.  The WBC has ended with Japan beating out South Korea for the title? Crown? Heavyweight belt?  It’s nice to see someone’s so excited about the whole proposition of international baseball.  It’s really too bad we don’t have something like this in the Olympics to look forward to… Oh?  We do?  Well, these professional players really need an outlet for all their foreign policy aggressions.  You know, playing for millions of dollars will only take you so far.  You have to play for PRIDE!  That’s the ticket.  National pride!  The red, white and blue.  The rising sun.  The… whatever’s on South Korea’s flag… the Yin Yang with stuff around it!

There’s a reason that they don’t (or “didn’t”) allow “professional” athletes to participate in the Olympics.  I’m not sure what that reason is (or “was” in this case) but it makes sense.  Why are we always trying to contrive ways to have nations compete against each other in sport?  Enough’s enough.    Is the World Baseball Classic going to keep a new Berlin Wall from going up?  No.  China’s already got their own wall.  Nobody’s trying to take it down either.  Give me a good reason that this exists.  And don’t give me “the passion of competition” or an argument that revolves around how “it exists and people get excited about it so therefore it’s justified in application”… ends justify the means and all that.  That’s bullshit.  Yes, the US team ran around the field with fervor after the “stunning” win over a territory that we ALREADY OWN (Puerto Rico, if you weren’t paying attention.  And, I know you were not).  That proves nothing.

Granted, if the USA had won I would be running around chanting “OO! ESS! AH!” like the last time I beat my Venezuelan friend at a game of washers at a UH Cougar tailgate.  But, that’s neither here nor there.  I don’t care that Japan has succeeded in taking the American Pastime and perfected it just like everything else (except nukes, assholes, we still have a corner on that market).  Even then, I can’t say that I would have been truly excited about it.  I wouldn’t have worn my Stars and Stripes button-down shirt to work this morning.

Congratulations to Japan.  May you be the first, second and very last winners of the WBC…

Up ahead are your Houston sports updates:

Texans:  32 days until the NFL Draft.  Feel the excitement well up inside you.  The NFL released part of the schedule yesterday.  Who’s not on the Texans calender?  The Dallas Cowboys.  They are running scared from the new-look Texans.  Houston has played Dallas every years since sneaking into the league.  This year (allegedly) the Cowboys have a conflict with the Dallas Arlington Texas Rangers.  Good riddance.

Rockets:  I loathe Utah.  The Jazz are mostly to blame for this bias.  Houston travels to the snowy state for the game tonight.  TNT will have all the action.  After gaining the division lead with a win over San Antonio it will be nice if the Rockets can manage to keep the momentum going.  Oh, and Okur is already maimed.  Finish him off, Yao (or Mutumbo, I don’t care which one).

Astros:  The country is atwitter with the news that Cecil Cooper thinks that the Astro’s can win 90 games.  Where I come from they put people in rooms with padded walls that talk crazy like that.  The Astros have at least a 120-win season in front of them, Cooper.  This is no time for self-deprecation.

University of Houston:  Look, I get people trying to make money (except Fourth and Fifty… we do this for free, for now), but I want to know about UH recruitment news and I don’t want to have to pay for it.  I’m one of a couple thousand fans in this city that is intrigued enough to be researching this stuff.  Stop putting up road-blocks.  Something MUST be done!  I’m sure there’s a very interesting article about Kent Brooks behind that advertisement to buy shit, but I’m not “IN” apparently.  I’m not paying to be “IN” either.

Aeros:  The Aeros?  Yeah, sure, why not?  Defeated another team in a penalty shoot-out!  Peoria has an AHL team?  I thought they were reserved for places like Rochester and Amarillo… Right now the Aeros are in second place in the Western division.  These are things you need to know.  We’re doing important stuff around here, people.

- Septimus Rex

[Photo from here but they didn't give credit for it, so I'm not going to either]