No Rhubarb!

Seattle's MLS franchise, slated to take the field in 2009, has opened up voting on the franchise name. The choices are Seattle FC, Seattle Alliance and Seattle Republic. This has sparked quite a bit of outrage amongst longtime supporters who apparently assumed that the team would retain the Sounders moniker. There is a write-in option, and quite the call to use that to vote for the Sounders. A personal note - one that we also left on GOALTacoma's blog - We hate the name Sounders. It's a throwback to the old NASL team, and it's always struck us odd that every soccer team since has adopted it. The official choices are Seattle FC, Seattle Alliance and Seattle Republic. If the Seattle-types would have the brains to ask us here at No Rhubarb! we would suggest a combination. Call it "Seattle Alliance FC" and we'll be happy.

Now the taking notice moment. According to MLSRumors, Thierry Henry is supposedly in negotiations to join the Seattle team when they open play. We have mentioned M. Henry before on this blog, but a small refresher course may be required:

Henry in MLS automatically becomes the best player and most dangerous striker in the league. While David Beckham is more of a celebrity, on the pitch he's more of a supporting player. Henry scores goals. Lots and lots and lots of goals. He's the French National Team's all-time leading goal scorer. He ranks third on the list of the Premier League. He's Arsenal's all-time leading scorer. Put him in a Seattle uniform and I'll go out and buy a Henry shirt.

Even if it does say "Sounders" across the front.

Posted by frinklin at 2:58 PM | 3 comments Links to this post    
Labels: Man Cannot Live On Baseball Alone, The Beautiful Game

25

H/T to Blogtown PDX

Posted by frinklin at 6:39 PM | 0 comments Links to this post    
Labels: Man Cannot Live On Baseball Alone

More than a dozen hardy souls have signed up for the Feed Tacoma Bracket Challenge. The brackets lock at 9AM tomorrow morning, so if you haven't signed up, ya'll better hurry.

Posted by frinklin at 10:39 PM | 1 comments Links to this post    
Labels: Contest Time, Man Cannot Live On Baseball Alone, Tacoma Rainiers

Last week, as part of his semi-regular Mailbag feature, Bill Simmons, the ESPN Sports Guy invited SuperSonics fans to write in, to vent, to scream, and to generally raise hell about the NBA's seemingly inevitable move away from the Emerald City. The result was the longest piece to ever run under Simmons' byline. The final product was 15,000 words, 15,000 words of heartache and rage, opened by Roger Angell's classic summing up of what it means to be a fan:

It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitive as a professional sports team, and the amused superiority and icy scorn that the non-fan directs at the sports nut (I know this look -- I know it by heart) is understandable and almost unanswerable. Almost. What is left out of this calculation, it seems to me, is the business of caring -- caring deeply and passionately, really caring -- which is a capacity or an emotion that has almost gone out of our lives. And so it seems possible that we have come to a time when it no longer matters so much what the caring is about, how frail or foolish is the object of that concern, as long as the feeling itself can be saved. Naivete -- the infantile and ignoble joy that sends a grown man or woman to dancing and shouting with joy in the middle of the night over the haphazardous flight of a distant ball -- seems a small price to pay for such a gift.

Simmmon's piece is a worthwhile read. Angry, aching, often ridiculous and always heartfelt.

Posted by frinklin at 3:31 PM | 0 comments Links to this post    
Labels: Man Cannot Live On Baseball Alone, SoooooooooooooperSonics

While we here at No Rhubarb! are somewhat dormant during the off-season, patiently waiting for Spring Training and the orgy of aging white guy reminisces that entails, we are also blogging America's most important game: politics. Along with an old friend, we have begun to blog at Electoral College Dropouts, and we promise to bring to the 2008 presidential election the same utter lack of knowledge and research you find here. Enjoy.

No, please, do come visit.

Posted by frinklin at 11:11 PM | 0 comments Links to this post    
Labels: Man Cannot Live On Baseball Alone, Under Construction

We've been working on a post regarding the Seattle SuperSonics and their possible (okay, probable) move to Oklahoma City. It isn't done yet, but we would like to take a quick moment to point that it's obvious the new owners aren't trying real hard. Say, for instance, this listing at the Sonics Team Shop. This very nice Sonics Flex Fit cap is currently for sale, but with an asking price of $28, 479.00, we think action will be a mite slow. We here at No Rhubarb are cap aficionados, but we rarely buy caps that top the 20K mark.

Posted by frinklin at 12:35 AM | 1 comments Links to this post    
Labels: Man Cannot Live On Baseball Alone, SoooooooooooooperSonics

Yeah, the blog went silent for a few days, but I have a damned good reason. I fell down the stairs at my house. Yeah, clumsy blogger + scary 100-year old staircase = look out below.

I'm okay though, and now that a good 1/3 of body doesn't hurt, I"ll be back around.

Posted by frinklin at 9:48 PM | 0 comments Links to this post    
Labels: Man Cannot Live On Baseball Alone

The Fourth of July: Fireworks, flags, barbecue and baseball. Whether you go out and play catch with Dad or head to the bleachers for a hot dog and a chance at a fly ball, the national pastime is – and always will be – intertwined with this particular celebration of America.

So how is it that the Puget Sound – with three professional teams – has no baseball to be seen? The Mariners are in Kansas City, the hometown Rainiers begin a four-game series in Portland tonight, and the Everett AquaSox (admit it, you love the name too) are in Boise. The Rainiers held Independence Day festivities yesterday, with a fireworks show and some sweet alternate jerseys.

The Fourth for this household though, is a little on the sedate side. We are the owners of four dogs. Four large, overly excitable dogs that don't take to sedation very well. Fireworks for us is an adventure. So, with no baseball and large dogs, today is a relaxing holiday for the Frinklin Household. Sleep late, enjoy the day-off and perfect weather, fire up the grill later this afternoon and later walk a couple blocks for a great view of the Freedom Fair fireworks show.

Have a happy and safe fourth everyone.

Posted by frinklin at 11:46 AM | 0 comments Links to this post    
Labels: Man Cannot Live On Baseball Alone, Tacoma Rainiers

If you are between 25-35 you know about the Transformers. A massively successful toy line in the 80's, it spawned a TV series and an animated movie. The storyline never changes: massive robots from a dead world land on Earth, impersonate pick-up trucks and fighter planes, and beat the bejezus out of each other.

The movie hews pretty closely to the established Transformer mythos. Dead planet, centuries long war between the heroic Autobots and evil Decepticons, Earth caught in the middle. As this is a Michael Bay picture – a Michael Bay picture based on a toy-turned-TV series, no less – plot isn't really all that important. All the Transformers are looking for the All Spark, a giant cube that can either return life to Cybertron or turn Earth into Cyberton, Jr. The key to finding this thing is a kid named Sam Witwickey (Shia LaBeauf) who has the coordinates to the All Spark encrypted on his great-grandfather's glasses.

Boy, that made even less sense after I type it.

Still, doesn't matter. This movie is about action and there is plenty of it. We have running. We have shooting. We have yelling. We have shooting while running and yelling and we have yelling while running and shooting. Sometimes we don't have yelling, just running and shooting. Always running and shooting. This movie runs a thousand miles an hour from the first scene (a US Army base in Qatar gets blown to smithereens by a Decepticon) and never, ever lets up. The effects are spectacular, from the CGI robots to the amazing car chase scenes (three of 'em!) and dizzying final battle through the streets of Los Angeles.

Not everything can be CGI, so there is a rather impressive human cast, led by LaBeauf, an enormously appealing young actor and old hands like Jon Voight as the square-jawed Secretary of Defense and a scenery-chewing John Turtorro as the head of secret government operation that knows about the robots. This is Michael Bay's world, so the women are preposterously good-looking and there is a surfeit of gun-toting hero-types such as Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson as survivors of the Qatar attack.

Is it necessary to be a pop-culture obsessed Gen X type on a nostalgia trip to enjoy this movie? No, but it helps. There is a certain thrill the first time Optimus Prime comes around a corner or when Megatron sneers “fleshling” like it's 1986 again, but it isn't necessary. This movie is just so damned much fun, anybody willing to buy into the concept will enjoy it. This movie is so full with guy stuff - cars, guns, jetfighters, incomprehensible army jargon, semi trucks, leggy blondes…. Well, it’s easy to overdose on it all. I’ve been using Sufjan Stevens albums to recover. It's well worth it though. For two-plus hours I - and everyone else in the theater - was 14 again.

Okay, look: this movie features giant outer-space robots with swords. Tell me that isn't cool!

Posted by frinklin at 12:45 AM | 0 comments Links to this post    
Labels: Man Cannot Live On Baseball Alone

Greetings from lovely San Diego! Thanks to the miracle of my in-laws fancy satellite internet (they live in a rather rural area) No Rhubarb! is on the air. Well, sorta… and not very often, but we’re here.

Rough day for the hometown nine yesterday, as Brad Thomas pitched his best game of the year, throwing six scoreless innings – and not getting anything to show for it. The bullpen – culprit this time was Jamie Cerda, who gave up five runs – failed the squad. Not that the offense and defense helped much either. The Rainiers ended up with a total of 5 hits and 3 errors. Not a pretty day all around.

This series stumbles on tonight at 6:05. The TNT lists Jorge Campillo (2-4, 4.07) as the starter, which would make sense, as it is his turn in the rotation. TacomaRainiers.com doesn’t list a starter for the Rainiers. What does that mean? Maybe something, maybe nothing, but we do know that DJ Houlton (5-2, 3.28) starts for the 51s.

Box

For an interesting take on the Our Favorite Rainier Conundrum, check out this USS Mariner post from yesterday. Dave makes the very valid point that Adam Jones is done with Triple-A, and at this point is one of the "5-6" best hitters in the organization. It’s not difficult to argue, nor is it obvious what the Mariners should do with Jones right now. There isn't a place on the major league team for him - thanks to some hopeless decisions by the Seattle front office - and he needs no further time with Tacoma.

Hey, time to slap myself on the back. I did get one right yesterday, as A.C. Milan rode two Inzaghi goals to a 2-1 win over Liverpool in the Champions League finale. Give the Reds credit though; when Peter Crouch was on the pitch Liverpool threw a scare into the Rossoneri. Honestly, was there any Milan fan in the world who wasn’t terrified the last two minutes and into stoppage time? Memories of 2005 die hard.

Posted by frinklin at 11:53 AM | 0 comments Links to this post    
Labels: Blogs Much Better Than This One, Game Results, Man Cannot Live On Baseball Alone, Our Favorite Rainier, Tacoma Rainiers, The Beautiful Game

This is a hectic day for the Frinklin family. We are leaving to night for the sun-drenched lands of San Diego (no Whale's Vagina jokes please) for my lovely sister-in-law's massive wedding. All we need to do today is take the dogs to the kennel, finish the laundry, pick up my new glasses (thank you Downtown Vision), get the house ready for the cat-sitter, head out to Comic Book Ink to pick up comics for the flight (Comic Book Ink rocks, any and all South Sound Geeks should go there), and (oh yeah) pack for the trip.

Whew...

Now, what this means for the No Rhubarb! reader is that blogging will be rather erratic, definitely light and quite-possibly non-existent. Yes, you may – for the next week anyway – fall back into the dark days where there was no blog solely for the Tacoma Rainiers, and for that we apologize. If you need Rainier-based content,the TNT has a fine article on Our Favorite Rainier we recommend highly.

Also, for non-baseball fun, we recommend – nay, we command – that you flip your televisions to ESPN2 for the finale of the UEFA Champions League, A.C. Milan v. Liverpool. While we are by no means the expert that this fellow is, we just don't see the Reds being able to keep up with Milan, and very much doubt a repeat of 2005.

Posted by frinklin at 11:28 AM | 0 comments Links to this post    
Labels: Man Cannot Live On Baseball Alone, Our Favorite Rainier, Tacoma Rainiers, The Beautiful Game, Under Construction

Monday afternoon, a perfect day for Tacoma baseball. The last home game before an extended road trip through the PCL Southwestern hinterlands. Again, a perfect day for baseball, which, quite frankly Tacoma owes us after we've shivered through some very cold, very wet baseball games.

But we weren't actually at the game on Monday. No, the first perfect baseball day just happened to fall on a day when we here at No Rhubarb! had previous plans. On the most perfect day of the spring, we headed up to Seattle, and stayed inside all evening. We went up to the Paramount for Silent Movie Mondays. This was our first try, and we are true believers at this point. Silent Movie Mondays transform the Paramount back into the movie palace it was meant to be. They use a vintage screen and projector, and fire up the Mightly Wurlitzer. A Harold Lloyd retrospective runs through the end of this month, and you shouldn't miss it.

Who was Harold Lloyd? Try this, a snippet of Why Worry?, one of the movies we saw on Monday.

Now, while we missed the game on Monday, we did have a correspondent on the scene. Kevin Freitas dot net, maestro of both KevinFreitas.net and Feed Tacoma. Yeah, we are aware he claims that the .net isn't part of his name, but we are not dummies. We know the truth. Correspondent Kevin was nice enough to share his rather impressive photos from the game, including this soul-chilling look at crossdresser Rhubarb.

Photo Courtesy of KF.net
Yes, of course Rhubarb is a crossdresser.

Posted by frinklin at 12:35 PM | 0 comments Links to this post    
Labels: Child-Devouring Mascots, Man Cannot Live On Baseball Alone, Rainiers: The Experience, Tacoma Rainiers, Things That Make Us Want to Die