Class of 2026

C.R.E.A.M.
C
Wears a Pittsburgh hat.

Can Raekwon Enjoy Another Muffin? (It doesn't matter, he's going to have one anyway.)




Dick Diver
SS
Wears a St. Louis hat.

Dives for dicks, and the occasional bag of dicks. (lol, all women are crazy, both fictional and real.)




Emerson Drive
LF
Wears a Cincinnati hat.

The enemy fleet was rapidly approaching. The Captain, sweat dripping from his brow, barked orders at his first mate.
"The Cylons are closing fast! Is the Emerson Drive ready?"
"Almost set, Captain Kirk! Just a few more calculations.....there!"
"Punch it, Chewie!"
The ship lurched, the stars flared into star bursts, and the crew exploded into spontaneous applause. The Drive had worked. The Spice was safe.


Hedda Gabler
3B
Wears a St. Louis hat.

Manipulative cunt. Norwegian.


Iggy Pop
SP
Wears a New York (NL) hat.

Part time rocker, part time bad actor, one-time junkie. Does not believe in shirts. Not Dr. Manhattan.



Monsieur Meursault
SP
Wears a St. Louis hat.

W supposedly read this on one of his brush-clearing environmental rescue trips to his ranch in Crawford. It'll take a team of psychiatrists to figure that shit out.

Class of 2025

John Shaft
2B/SS
Wears a Cincinnati hat.

Here's the dirty little secret about Shaft - it's not that good. Oh, it starts off well enough, John Shaft walking the streets of New York, cutting in front of traffic, flashing his badge, talking to a white street vendor (who, one assumes, is friends with Shaft because he is, quite literally, blind and therefore doesn't realize that his buddy is an Uppity Negro). That Song playing the whole time. But then it sort of just turns into a standard actioner. Shaft isn't even all that recognizably black, not the way some other blaxploitation heroes were. He's not trying to get one over on The Man, he's more or less just doing his job.

Or, to keep with the blaxploitation theme, a crude sexual metaphor - The Theme From Shaft works, in part, because it's all foreplay. The anticipation builds and builds through that long-ass intro, until the beat finally changes and Isaac Hayes' voice comes over, smooth as silk. Sings a few lines, the ladies sing back and then, post-coitally, he gets the hell out of Dodge. Shaft, on the other hand, is all orgasm - the opening scene is John Shaft, walking around and being badass, but then the film lingers around all night to cuddle as a pretty rote genre movie. So, if you've never seen it, this will probably suffice:

Class of 2000

Sanath Jayasuriya
2B
Wears a Cincinnati hat.

Sanath Jayasuriya is a Sri Lankan cricket batsman, perhaps the most accomplished in that country's illustrious cricketing history. That's what wikipedia tells me anyway, and who am I to argue? He's also a pretty ugly dude, which wikipedia "forgot" to mention, so maybe it is as untrustworthy as people say.

I think I'm starting to get the hang of this cricket thing. The "bowler" (he's like a pitcher in baseball) chucks the ball towards the batter. His job (the bowler's) is to dislodge the wicket stump that the batter is protecting and not, contrary to popular belief, to throw the ball hard enough to send it back in time from which it will be impossible to hit it. The batter protects the wicket by hitting the ball, but since he has one of those flat wooden cricket bats (descended from American fraternity paddles) he can hit the ball in a lot of directions - forwards (like in baseball) or sideways, backwards and, well, that's about it. But that's still a lot. He then runs between the two wickets and he gets runs based on how many laps he completes. Or something like that. Meanwhile fielders go retrieve the ball and, I don't know, peg it at the runner's head to try to get him out. The game has a hell of a lot of run-scoring and matches only end based on some complicated formula that only people from the Indian subcontinent can understand which, quite frankly, is probably the only reason they love the game so damn much in the first place. It's not so unlike baseball, and even pays tribute to its American cousin with a history of ugly racism.


Squatch
SP
Wears a New York(AL) hat.

Who's the Typhoid Mary of "NBA mascots have to entertain the crowd by performing trampoline dunks between quarters"? I think I read somewhere that it was the Suns Gorilla, but I don't know if that's right. Anyway, Squatch is the Seattle (no longer Super) Sonics mascot, and he looks like Teen Wolf (a movie, incidentally, which I have never seen and which is on my lifetime boycott list for relatively petty and childish reasons).

Squatch in action:


Doesn't it seem kind of sucky that Squatch gets all the glory while the people not dressed in costumes do all the heavy lifting? Plus they have to wear tacky yellow shirts, not awesome chick-magnet costumes.

On his own this time, squatch throwing down in what looks like a high school gym, earning some money on the side as well as scouting prospects for the future (or, I guess, current) Mrs. Squatch:

Class of 1997

Lt. General James Longstreet
OF/1B
Wears a Cleveland hat.

James Longstreet was a general who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War under General Robert E. Lee. Maybe you knew that already, but I didn't, and I come from Northern Virginia, so I didn't want to assume.

Has there ever been a war that tested the notion that the victors write the history books more than the American Civil War? Lee is revered, in the north and the south, as an almost divine figure; Longstreet, who became a Republican and tried to take a hand during Reconstruction, is treated like a turncoat and a pariah. The Civil War is one of the few that has a clear distinction between the side that is fighting for something that is morally right and that which is fighting for something that is morally wrong, and yet those on the "wrong" side have often come out cleaner than those on the "right" side when all is said and done. Granted, much of that is due to the specific actions of those in the "right" (I'm looking at you, Sherman) but the fact is that not too many people who have fought a war against the United States have enjoyed the sort of posthumous popularity that certain Confederate figures have.



Marcus Trescothick
SS
Wears a Cincinnati hat.

Marcus is an English cricketer who has participated in more than 75 test matches for the English national team, whatever the fuck that means. You'll be glad to know that the English are just as unimaginative when it comes to nicknames as us Yanks are - Marcus's nickname is "Tresco". Continuing along the theme that we began with Brian Lara, Marcus also has his own game - Marcus Trescothick's Cricket Coach. If you enjoyed the riveting action and excitement of NFL Head Coach, but you love an even more esoteric sport, why not check out Marcus Trescothick's Cricket Coach? It's a wicked googly!

Class of 1993

Romesh Kaluwitharana
C
Wears a Cincinnati hat.

(guest written by velguth)
Quite unlike with Brian Lara, who I got to know a lot about and is a true star in world cricket, Kaluwitharana got his name almost entirely because he has a funny name. "Romesh" + six syllables? Hell, yeah! I mean, a boatload of Sri Lankans have long, funny names, but Romesh had one of the best.
It should be said that he was the wicketkeeper for the Sri Lankan national team in that 1999 World Cup that introduced me to cricket. So he must have been fairly good, as I bet there were a few million other Sri Lankan lads willing to play that role. And as I look him up, I find adjectives like "diminutive" and descriptions like "extremely popular" and "loved for his perma-smile behind the stumps". And apparently he did some great things in the 1996 World Cup. But that's all news to me. I just liked the name.

(Commentary by FuriousGiorge)
Sri Lanka used to be called Ceylon. It is shaped like a tear drop. They grow a lot of tea. Arthur C. Clarke lives there and is able to maintain dual citizenship, which is a nice side benefit of coming from a country that once controlled something like 50% of the world's brown people. Like, of course, Romesh Kaluwitharana.

Steve Jones
1B/RF
Wears a New York (NL) hat.

I think it's safe to say that Steve Jones is the coolest ever punk who also has Peter Sutcliffe's dodgy perm. Johnny Rotten may have been the public face of the Sex Pistols when it still existed, and Sid Vicious may have become the unfortunate public face of the band after its dissolution, but Steve Jones was the person most responsible for whatever musical quality the band possessed. Never Mind the Bollocks.... is a misunderstood album in many ways - it's regarded as this raw, un-selfconscious punk opus, but in reality it's as slickly produced as any horrible 80's hair metal album. The guitars, in particular, are overtracked and give the album its distinctive sound. It's not the sound of a punk band on stage, but it's an interesting sound nonetheless and it's Steve Jones that makes it unique.

Paul Weller claims the Pistols stole the riff for "Holidays in the Sun" from The Jam's "In the City" but no one really cares what Paul Weller thinks anymore.


?uestlove
RP
Wears a St. Louis hat.

This made me laugh:

Henry Adaso: Realistically, how long do you think The Roots has as a group?
?uestlove: Rich [Nichols] thinks we have four more relevant records in us, before we become the Neville Brothers or the Rolling Stones.

Take that, Aaron Neville! And, the other Neville Brothers! Whoever the hell you are! The Roots are at the forefront of the burgeoning Philadelphia Hip-Hop Scene which I probably just made up right now but which seems like it should exist if only to wipe the horrible aftertaste of The Band Which I Will Not Name But Which Also Comes From Philadelphia out of my mouth. The Roots are as good as advertised. I'm even willing to forgive them for their close association with professional wigger Scott Storch. Here's a question that has (almost) nothing to do with ?uestlove - why are rappers always talking about/sampling/working with Coldplay? It's puzzling. It's as if George Clinton was constantly playing covers of songs by Bread or Air Supply.

Class of 1992

Brian Lara
RF
Wears a Cincinnati hat.

(Guest written by velguth)
I first started paying attention to cricket in the 1999 World Cup. Working with a New Zealander and an Indian who were big fans of their national teams, I adopted the West Indies as my team to support, largely on the grounds that they were the only team that mattered from the Western Hemisphere. Brian Lara was by far their best player, and still is. Essentially he's been the only "world class" player they've had during the last decade or so, which is kind of sad because in the past (e.g. 1980's) the West Indies were as good as anyone in world cricket.

Anyway, Lara quickly became my favorite player. He's a proud black dude with an attitude somehow more remniscent of U.S. athletes than most cricket "gentlemen". He's outspoken, often selfish, and not a particularly good leader (he was stripped of national team captaincy -- a big deal -- at least once). Vaguely Iversonian. And he's also been erratic over his career, with extended highs and extended lows, perhaps best likened to Jaromir Jagr's career arc.

But in his good stretches, he's a monster. At times he gets called "probably the best batsman in the world". Of the 10 greatest batting performances in the history of cricket, he probably has 3 of them (more than any other player). He periodically wins matches ENTIRELY by himself with his batting. Even when he's been scuffling for a while, every opponent fears him getting back on track that day. Basically, and I wouldn't say this about perhaps any other cricketer, he's a bad ass.

(FuriousGiorge's comment on the guest-bio):
Did you know that they make a cricket game for the PS2? Of course you did, how silly of me. And on the cover? None other than Mr. Lara himself. That's right - for sheer, mind-numbing....awesomeness, it's Brian Lara Cricket 2007. Not sold yet? Okay, here are some funny cricket words:

Gazunder
Googly
Hoik
Jaffa
Perfume ball
Quack trick
Slog
Windy Wush
Zooter

Cricket - it's not just for twee British fairies anymore. Okay, it's still mostly for twee British fairies, but occasionally a bad motherfucker like Brian Lara slips through.



Capital City Goofball
Everywhere
Wears a New York (AL) hat.

Capital City Goofball is the mascot for the Capital City Capitals. He is big and goofy and looks a bit like the Phillie Phanatic. If you think the Phillie Phanatic is inherently funny, well, first of all, you're probably 7 years old. And second, you probably think the Goofball is hilarious. These are the Goofball's funniest lines:
"Ah Mancini. The mascot's best friend."
"If there's anything I can do for you, just squeeze the wheeze."
He only featured prominently in one episode, that crappy one where Homer tells the story about going to the big leagues as a second-rate mascot and going down in flames. Occasionally he still shows up out of nowhere in an episode, like the unloved version of Bumblebee Man or Sideshow Mel. And he honks his fucking nose. Pure. Comedy. Gold.


Tony Reali
SS
Wears a Cleveland hat.

I could go both ways on Tony Reali. On the one hand, he seems like kind of a douchebag. On the other hand, I could easily believe that he's just a dude who plays a douchebag on TV. We can all probably agree on this - he's no Max Kellerman, mostly because he's not borderline retarded. Have I mentioned that Jay Mariotti is a cum-guzzler in this bio yet? Oh, I guess I just did. So, in conclusion, Jay Marrioti guzzles cum.


Don Quixote de la Mancha
SP
Wears a St. Louis hat.

I'll be honest - I've never read the novel. If you want a proper bio of the man read the book or, perhaps more appropriately, the Cleland Notes version. So I'm no expert on Don Quixote the character, but what I do know about are urban legends and movies. Cervantes, in the original text of Don Quixote, wrote:

For me alone was Don Quixote born,
and I for him; he to act, and I to record;
in a word, we were destined for each other...
let the wearied and mouldering bones
of Don Quixote rest in the grave...

This was directed at another author who wrote and published an unauthorized sequel, but the message remains clear - don't fuck with Don Quixote, or Don Quixote will fuck with you. Orson Welles attempted to film Don Quixote: he died before he could finish it. Fernando Rey died while he was filming a version for Spanish television. The film version of Man of La Mancha is...sort of a piece of shit. Okay, that's a bit weak. But the big one was when Terry Gilliam attempted to film his version (The Man Who Killed Don Quixote) - flash floods, a star that developed a double hernia and could no longer film his scenes, color changes that made earlier shots unusable, fighter jets that wiped out dialogue on the soundtrack. Just a disaster from day one, a movie that would not be made. Cervantes, it seems, is a petty son of a bitch, even from beyond the grave (Orson Welles got some measure of revenge when he put his own curse on Heart of Darkness, and you can ask Martin Sheen how that one worked out).

Class of 1990

Hairy Dawg
3B
Wears a Cincinnati hat.

This is the mascot for the University of Georgia Bulldogs. His name is Uga and he (or one of has ancestors) has been around since 1958, long enough to be considered a venerable tradition. Here is another picture of a University of Georgia mascot Can you see the difference? I'll give you a minute. Okay, give up? The first is a real dog, which is cool even if its ripped off from Yale, and the second is a fucking muppet who looks vaguely like a dog. If you were to read this USA Today article, you would have to come to the conclusion that the writers either A) have terrible taste in mascots or B) are idiots. Because either they really love Hairy Dawg, or they (more likely) think Uga is Hairy Dawg. But he is not. And Hairy Dawg sucks.

(The only thing that makes Hairy Dawg remotely palatable is a sexy coed.)

Class of 1973

Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor
CF
Wears a New York (NL) hat.

ROY top 5, 2 MVP top 5 finishes. Top 20 in 5 statistical categories (HR, Hits, RBI, Runs, SB)
1991. America has just escaped from the long nightmare of the Gulf War. Desperate for someone, anyone to take their minds off of the harsh realities of early-90's life, like a savior from the heavens along comes Tim Allen to prove that the American sitcom can be taken in completely new directions and America will still respond like they always have. With laughter. From the exasperated wife, to the adorable children, to the bumbling father figure, on Home Improvement as in life no problem will ever last more than 24 minutes. And if that weren't enough, in comes the wacky neighbor, the perenially single coworker and the impossibly hot "Tool Time Girl" to provide more fodder for Tim Allen's unique brand of inoffensive, middle of the road comedy. We were in good hands with Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor for 8 years, getting us through the tough times with comedy that, as your grandma might put it, "is some seriously bland and watered-down shite". Indeed grandma. Indeed.


Kronprins Frederik
SP
Wears a Cincinnati hat.

Top 20 in 5 statistical categories (Wins, Shutouts, ERA, WHIP, K's).
Between the Crown Prince and Prince William in England, it is clear that European royalty has found its niche, and that niche is filled to the brim with SEXY.
Did you know: Prince Frederik's mother, Queen Margrethe II, is an accomplished painter who has contributed art to the Danish editions of The Lord of the Rings, making her the only monarch currently alive to answer to the phrase "Hey, geek". This is contrary to popular opinion which considers her one of two monarchs to answer to that phrase - Prince Charles, of course, only recognizes the phrase, "Hey, sissy."


Tycho Brahe
SP
Wears a Washington hat.

2 Cy Young awards plus 1 other top 5 finish. Top 20 in 5 statistical categories (Wins, Shutouts, ERA, WHIP, K's)
Three things you need to know about Tycho Brahe:
1)He was a brilliant scientist and a fanatical data collector, who nevertheless stuck by the old Ptolemaic system of believing that the Earth was the center of the Universe.
2)He kept a dwarf named Jepp, who he believed was clairvoyant, as a jester. Jepp stayed under the table during dinner.
3)Like seemingly every other brilliant mind of the Enlightenment era, he died by ingesting some sort of horrible poison (mercury, in this case). Not quite brilliant enough to assume that putting every interesting substance they came across into their mouths was not such a great idea.