THE RATASS GAZETTE

“I’m a Milwaukee Bucks fan.” I’ve been repeating that phrase to myself like a mantra recently, trying to break it in, get comfortable with it. That’s because I haven’t always been a Bucks fan. In fact, I just became one a couple days ago. I was a Suns fan growing up, but I wouldn’t call them “my favorite team” anymore. I’m not even sure why, they’re just not. So I needed a team, and I chose the Bucks. And if you need a team, so should you. What’s that you say? The Bucks suck? Well, yes, it’s true they did finish with the worst record in the NBA this year (15-67). The 76ers caught a lot of flak for their futility during their record-tying 26-game losing streak in 2014, but it’s worth noting that they still had a better record than the Bucks at season's end. However, the fact that they're so bad right now is exactly why you should root for them. Huh?  Here are my top 3 reasons to hop on the Bucks bandwagon right now...  1 .   There’s nowhere to go but up. ...

Rickey Henderson 1982 Topps #610 RANDOM THOUGHTS ... Awesome card here featuring the great Rickey Henderson on the base-paths, which is fitting because in 1982 he set the Major League record with 130 stolen bases. The previous mark had been 118, set by Lou Brock in 1974. Henderson had put himself on the map with 100 steals in 1980, but in 1982 it all came together. ...  He led the league with 116 bases on balls, helping him to a .398 on-base percentage, which means he was getting on base a ton. And if he got on, he was taking second base in a hurry. And maybe third base, too.  ... Henderson was also caught stealing 42 times in 1982, which seems like a lot (and it is), but when you consider his 75% success rate that season (130 steals in 172 attempts), it's acceptable. ... He was 80% for his career, which is phenomenal. ... Henderson, a Hall of Famer,  led the American League in stolen bases in seven consecutive seasons (1980-1986), and topped the century ma...

Paul Goldschmidt is the best baseball player no one is talking about, so let's talk about him...   Paul Goldschmidt: Hitting Machine. Here's a question for all you fantasy baseball fanatics out there... Who is the top-ranked 1st-baseman* on ESPN's Player Rater right now? Hint: It's not Prince Fielder (he's #6), or  Joey Votto (#11), or Albert Pujols (#26). And it sure as heck isn't Billy Butler -- the 1B I drafted in Round 4 of my 10-team league draft -- who is ranked #33. Yep, you guessed it, the answer is Goldschmidt . Check out these numbers: Player AVG OBP SLG OPS R HR RBI SB Goldschmidt .320 .413 .592 1.005 22 9 30 4 Fielder .302 .428 .569 .997 18 8 32 0 Votto .315 .451 .485 .936 24 4 13 0 Pujols .240 .322 .408 .730 14 5 19 0 Butler .245 .380 .388 .768 11 3 19 0 As ...

Previewing the 2013 NASCAR Season, which opened with Jimmie Johnson's victory in the Daytona 500...  Yee-haw! That there's a fast-drivin' car!  Hoo-boy, did y'all see that Daytoner race?! Dang, ol' Jimmie just wasn't gonna be beat. That's why he's the best, right there, boy. There some days he just ain't gonna be beat. Junior thought he was a-gonna win, so did The Little Lady , but they ain't. Because Jimmie said they ain't. That's all there was to it, boy. Now, I mean no disrespect to Jimmie, but I think this here is Matt 's year. Now again, I ain't never bad-mouthed Jimmie and I never will. I swear on my dear Aunt Mable's headstone that I ain't never said a bad word about Jimmie. But I'm tellin' ya, boy, this here is gonna be Matt's year.  Why? Well, for firstly, Matt's due. And for secondly, did you know he's got a new gas can man this year? He sure as shit does, my cousin Ernie told me ...

Ozzie Smith 1984 Topps #130 RANDOM THOUGHTS ... Here we see Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith hustling down the baseline on his 1984 Topps card. Smith played 124 games in 1984, posting a stat line of .257/.347/.337 (.684 OPS). Yikes, that .337 slugging percentage is hard to look at... but at least he was hustling! He also added 791 cart-wheels, which was right around his career average. And, oh yeah, he was named an All-Star and won a Gold Glove. ... I've always admired the 1984 Topps card design, going as far as to say it's my favorite Topps baseball card design of the 1980's. A bold statement, for sure, but this design is top-notch. You've got the player inset photo, with the player photo exploding out of the top of the frame, which is cool. The vertical team name, with matching team color, is a nice touch as well. Player name and position are presented cleanly in all-caps in the lower-right hand corner of the card. Just a really nice-looking design. Awesome card from ...

REVISITING MY PREDICTIONS FOR RANDY MOSS IN 2012 - Back in May when Randy Moss signed with the San Francisco 49ers, I boldly predicted that he would put up numbers to this effect: My Randy Moss Projections for 2012... 64 receptions, 960 yards, 12 TD Actual Randy Moss Totals for 2012... 28 receptions, 434 yards, 3 TD ANALYSIS: I was a little off.   Clearly, I was seeing a huge Moss resurgence after he spent a year away from the game, but I'd figure he'd get close to my projections pretty easily... I predicted 4 catches per game for Moss, and he wound up averaging 1.75 catches per game.  I figured he'd average 15 yards per catch, and I was actually right on the money with that one. He averaged 15.5 yards per catch in 2012.  And I definitely thought he'd play a much bigger role in the red zone, but he managed just 3 touchdowns for the season.  So yeah, I missed the mark on that one by a couple of football fields. But let's move on to the real ...

If you play fantasy football and you don't check FantasyPros.com weekly... you should. If you consult ESPN's Matthew Berry's weekly rankings and base your lineup decisions on that... you shouldn't. There are dozens of fantasy football experts out there, not just the ones you see on the Worldwide Leader, and some of them (actually a pretty good chunk of them) provide better fantasy football advice. So if not ESPN , then who should you listen to? Fantasy Pros is tracking over 100 different fantasy football experts this year (the list grows annually). It measures their weekly rankings against each other, crunches some numbers , and yada yada yada, they can tell us who's giving us the most useful rankings. So without further ado, here are the most accurate experts according to Fantasy Pros ... Top 10 of 2012 (Thru Week 8) Jody Smith - Gridiron Experts John Paulsen - 4for4.com Sablich Brothers - New York Times Mike Tagliere - Tags Fantasy Football John Halp...

Haven't had your morning cup of java? Well, this collection of scintillating Vince Carter jams will wake you up like a strong up of coffee. Vinsanity! RANDOM THOUGHTS... Sometimes these Top 10 dunk lists have a few jams that are just filler... Like seven great dunks and three OK dunks. But not here. Oh, no. There is no need for filler when you're talking about amazing Vince Carter rim-rockers. I could probably rave for an extended paragraph or three on each one of these slams, but I'll save everyone that mess and just mention my favorites: The 360 (#4), the big one-handed windmill (#8), and the two-hand double-pump reverse jam (#2)... with authority!

RANDOM THOUGHTS... How's this for a bad ass hockey team logo? It belongs to the Wheeling Nailers of the ECHL . Wheeling is in West Virginia and the team is a minor-league affiliate of the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins. The ECHL is chock full of awesome team logos, and this is among the best. ... Let's cut to the chase, this logo is fucking tough. If I'm a hockey player, and I'm a tough guy, this is what I want on my jersey. You've got the sharp edges on the hockey mask in the middle of the logo, which gives it that sinister Jason-from-the-Friday-the-13th-movies quality. And then you've got the skull and crossbones motif going on, too. Except instead of bones, you've got nails , which fits perfectly with the hard-working community this hockey team represents. The black-and-gold color combo matches the Penguins and it looks great. ... If you put this logo on a shirt, I'd buy 10 shirts. If a guy wearing one of those shirts told me I had to either figh...

Tony Gwynn 1987 Topps #530 RANDOM THOUGHTS... It's fitting that Tony Gwynn is shown here in the batter's box because he was definitely focused on the ball that year. He'd post a major league-leading .370 batting average in 1987, which was the highest number he'd posted in his career to that point. He also stole 56 bases that season! I was surprised to learn that Gwynn stole 319 bases over his 20 year career. ... Gwynn had a great offensive year in '87, adding 13 triples that contributed to an impressive .370/.447/.511 stat line. He also led the league with 218 hits, and those 56 SB were good for 2nd in the NL. His gaudy .958 OPS ranked ahead of NL sluggers such as Mike Schmidt (35 HR's in 1987) and Andre Dawson (a league-leading 49 bombs). Now that's raking it! ... Gwynn hit over .350 in a season a whopping 7 times! I already knew he was great, but now I'm starting to think he was  really  great. Tony Gwynn is the man.

The Rise of the NWO in WCW - Here's an awesome clip featuring the formation and rise of the New World Order in the WCW.  The faction formed in 1996 and it was a huge move for the WCW in the Monday Night Wars , with Nitro subsequently besting Raw in the ratings for quite a while.  It's got fantastic interviews with all the major players including Eric Bischoff, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, and the Hulkster, among others.  It's interesting to hear them reflect on that time period, when wrestling was really surging on TV.  I'll admit, I was a WWF guy during this time, but when you team up Hall, Nash, and Hogan, and throw in some kick-ass black-and-white t-shirts... well, you really got something going there.  Check it out!

" That's gotta be KANE! " - Watch this clip and relive the debut of Kane! This was the first time we got a glimpse of the Undertaker's long-lost undead brother, and it was pretty awesome. He showed up at WWF's Badd Blood in 1997, ripped the door off a steel cage, and Tombstoned the Undertaker's big dead ass back to Hell, helping the Heartbreak Kid to a victory along the way. What a nice guy! Having the great Vince McMahon calling the match really helps sell it, too, good stuff. Hellfire and brimstone! It's KANE!!!

DX Invades WCW in 1998 - Where were you when D-Generation X drove a tank down to WCW's Monday Nitro and talked shit to Eric Bischoff and the dubya-see-dubya? Well, I was there. Oh, maybe not there physically, but I was there , man . This is clearly one of the highlights of the Monday Night Wars between Raw and Nitro , and my buddies and I were huge DX fans, so this was right up our alley. Screw Nitro , DX rules! Suck it!! The interviews with all the people involved here are fantastic, real good stuff. Enjoy!

Deion Sanders 1990 Topps #61 RANDOM THOUGHTS ... An awesome card featuring Deion Sanders as an up-and-coming phenom. Prime Time before his prime. Check out the badass photo! A young man on his way to conquering the sports world. It's a really cool picture that captures Neon Deion at a very exciting time in his career. ... He was entering his second MLB season in 1990, and he appeared in just 57 games for the Yankees that year, but then again, he did play 16 games with the Atlanta Falcons in the NFL that fall as a kick returner/ punt returner/ shutdown corner. So we'll cut him some slack. ... The 1990 Topps set, as any baseball card collector will tell you, was the first set to feature colored borders, and it's one of my favorite Topps card designs ever. There were many border colors, varying by team or whatnot. The other design features -- like the player photo showing in front of the team name, and a parallelogram (a parallelogram!) containing the player ...

RANDY MOSS SIGNS WITH THE 49ERS - The San Francisco 49ers made a very wise move and signed future Hall Of Fame wide receiver Randy Moss this past week. Anyone that thinks that Moss is washed up or not worth the "risk" is crazy, and here's why... Did the Niners upgrade at the position? Clearly. Randy Moss' worst year is better than Josh Morgan's best year. That's not just big talk, either. Well, actually it is. Morgan's best year is, in fact, better than Moss' worst year, but it's pretty damn close! Moss' "worst" season (in terms of sheer statistics) was 2006, his final year in Oakland. He posted 42 receptions, 553 yards, and 3 TD in 13 games. Josh Morgan's best season was 2010, when he posted 44, 698, and 2. So Morgan's stats are slightly better, but than again, if you extrapolate Moss' 13 games out to a full 16, Moss's numbers are 52, 680, and 4. The bottom line is, even if you get only 75% of the Moss of old, h...

Finally, here is Part 3 (of 3) of our Dazzling Dunks extravaganza, featuring Clyde "The Glide" Drexler!  Clyde "The Glide" Drexler - We're gonna wrap things up with some silky smooth moves from Clyde "The Glide." There was a perception back in the day (at least with the people I knew) that Clyde didn't dunk with power, since he didn't do a lot of rim-hangin', like Kemp or 'Nique. This video will change that perception. He dunks with plenty of power. I'm not pulling your chain when I say that some of these dunks are straight outta sight. These dunks are smooth, man. Most of these dunks are from his days with the Blazers, but there is one in there from his Houston days, and I'm not talking Phi Slamma Jamma! Check it out! Random Thoughts on the Drexler video... They get it rolling right out of the gate here at #10, a one-hand alley-oop slam, one of the best I've seen! He calls for the oop on the break and fini...

Here is Part 2 (of 3) of our Dazzling Dunks extravaganza, starring Dominique Wilkins. Dominique Wilkins - Ah yes, the "Human Highlight Reel!" I am on record as saying Dominique Wilkins is my #1 favorite dunker of all time. That's quite a statement, because I love dunks and there's a lot of great dunkers. But I dig Dominique's style, with the windmill slams, the double-pump reverse jams, and things of that ilk. I like a lot of limb movement in a dunker. Limb flailing, even. Dominique also dunked with power and hung on the rim a lot, which I also dig. So that's one dig, and then another dig. What's that give me? Um... I don't know, actually. A small hole, I guess? Look, they're awesome dunks, so just watch the video...  Random Thoughts on the Dominique video...  Pretty much everything I like about Dominique as a dunker is in this video. We've got the "reverse stuff" at #8 (I just really like it when people call a dunk a "s...

Welcome to Part 1 (of 3) of our Dazzling Dunks extravaganza! This one focuses on Shawn Kemp. If you haven't had your daily dose of dunks yet, go ahead and have a few. Even if you think you've had your fill, just have a couple more. Go on. You know you want to...   Shawn Kemp - The "Rain Man" is one of my favorite dunkers of all time. I actually saw Shawn Kemp play against the Bucks at the Bradley Center back in the day. I don't remember what exactly what year, but it was during the Glenn "Big Dog" Robinson era in Milwaukee. Kemp was an established dunker at the time, though, and when he stole a pass at half-court during the game, the crowd was expecting something phenomenal. He had a fast-break with no defenders in front of him, and everyone was suddenly on their feet. He did a fairly simple two-hand reverse jam, and the crowd was actually a little disappointed, but my point is this: Those few seconds of anticipation as he dribbled to the hoop were ...

"I'm the champ!" - Check out this unbelievably awesome Ric Flair promo from 1988.  It's Flair at his gloriously confident best.  I'm not sure he could say all this stuff in today's overly PC culture, but back then you could say pretty much whatever you wanted.  Plus, he name-drops everyone from Dale Murphy to Lex Luger to Ted Turner and everyone in between.  I can't watch it enough and I laugh hysterically every time I see it.  Enjoy!  The Ric Flair Flop - And, of course, we can't discuss Ric Flair without talking about the Ric Flair Flop!  It's a highlight of almost every classic match he's been a part of, and here's a great video compilation of a bunch of them.  This video is probably about two minutes too long, but you get the gist of it.  It's like they teach you in elementary school, "It's better to have too many Ric Flair Flops than not enough."  Words to live by, kids!

Well, Super Bowl Sunday is finally here , and it seems like everyone is rooting against Tom Brady.  Why? Good question.  Brady seems to be a humble guy who is beloved by his teammates.  But from the people I've talked to, people really seem to dislike the fact that he's good-looking, dates good-looking women, and his team wins every year (even though that also sounds a lot like Joe Montana, and people seem to love him ).  Well, I'm here to defend Tom Brady because I like watching greatness and because I know he'd do the same for me. I mean, really.  Would you rather see Eli Manning and the Giants win?  Seriously?  Well, if you're still not convinced after I threw a "really" and a "seriously" at you, here are some reasons why you should be rooting for Tom Brady to win Super Bowl XLVI... Underdoggedness... Tom Brady was an unheralded 6th-round draft pick in 2000, only got a chance to play because Drew Bledsoe was injured, plays every seas...