I didn’t know Adrian Cardenas. I’ve probably seen him play. In his first game in the Majors on July 31, 2012, as a Cubbie he broke up a A.J. Burnett no-hitter at Wrigley, a two-out single in the bottom of the eighth inning. I have a habit of starting to watch games where a no-hitter or a perfect game is possible starting in the seventh inning.

So I probably saw that single to right field. In fact, here it is.

Yesterday he wrote a piece in the New Yorker why he quit baseball at the age of 24. He gives two reasons:

I quit after trying to balance my life as a professional baseball player with my life as a student during the last three years of my career. In the spring and summer, I played ball. In the fall, I studied creative writing and philosophy at New York University. But with every semester that passed, I loved school more than I loved baseball, and eventually I knew I had to choose one over the other. As I submerged myself into an academic environment, I thought often of my parents, who knew nothing about baseball but raised me with a passion for music and language so great that sports seemed irrelevant by comparison.

I quit because baseball was sacred to me until I started getting paid for it. The more that “baseball” became synonymous with “business,” the less it meant to me, and I saw less of myself in the game every time I got a check from the Philadelphia Phillies Organization, the Oakland Athletic Company, or the Chicago Cubs, L.L.C. To put it simply, other players were much better than I was at separating the game of baseball from the job of baseball. They could enjoy the thrill of a win — as it should be enjoyed — without thinking of what it meant to the owners’ bottom lines. These players, at once the objects of my envy and my admiration, are the resilient ones, still in the game. I am no longer one of them.

There is so much romanticizing bullshit that surrounds sports. Look at what’s going on with the Boston Red Sox, how they’re trying to connect the horrific Boston Marathon bombing with how the team’s World Series win pulled the city out of mourning and back into normalcy.

It’s easy to fall into these mythologizing traps and perpetuate these falsehoods. Look at most of the talking heads at ESPN. But sports isn’t an allegory of anything. It doesn’t explain humanity.

It’s a game that supports a business.

Sure, it can cause 50,000 people to cheer on command. It can bring together a fan base for a moment. But to think it can actually heal an entire city is laughable and preposterous.

It sounds like Cardenas couldn’t separate the ugly realities of the game versus the mythology. It’s better to quit than fake it.

Last night at the Kings game, Abbey from Fox Sports and I were gabbing about a bunch of nonsense. She talked about wanting to take her laptop and work at a bar but because of societal pressures felt unable to do so.

All of a sudden it hit us: a sports bar for sports writers!

• Power outlets would be readily available for all.
• The wifi would be really good, but just for shits it would go out every 2 hours to replicate that arena/ballpark experience.
• Really greasy, really fried and really shitty food would be served.
• The back of the place would be reserved for writers on deadline complete with signs reinforcing that no noises should be made even though there would be no separation between them and the rest of the bar. Besides, bloggers look better than “respectable media” so they would make up what the public initially sees upon entrance.
• Tvs will be everywhere showing all of the games.

We were talking and talking about it thinking about what a great idea it was. Then we realize how awful it would be.

It would be perhaps one of the most miserable places in the world, a place where no one concedes an argument, like a really bad version of First Take. Since everyone is broke, there will be no tipping which further adds to the misery of the place.

It’s a total money loser, but selfishly I’m thinking it would be a great place for me to do work.

Friday night I had dinner in Old Torrance with NY. It had been a little more than a month since I’ve seen her, which she reminded me very clearly multiple times. There was an implication that I’m an anti-social hermit, but I know that it has become a fact. She points it out to me all of the time.

We’re gabbing. She’s talking about work and shopping. I decide to tell a story about my tortured past. When I was in first grade living in Louisiana, we had two chihuahuas for about six months. I loved them. Sure they were troublemakers, but they weren’t too bad.

For some reason my mom decided to get rid of them, so she told me she gave them to a loving family who had a big yard for the dogs to play. Fine. I was upset, but I was okay with it.

I come to find out from my aunt that my mom just set them loose in some field. Just let them go.

So I’m building up the story to NY saying, “This is a tale of trauma from my childhood.” Or something along those lines. NY blurted, “What? Did you get molested?”

To which I responded, “No. It wasn’t THAT romantic.”

*rimshot*

I went over to Cathi’s and Tyson’s farmstead deep in the heart of the hippest neighborhood in America. We carved pumpkins. Actually, I didn’t carve a pumpkin. I just nibbled on food all day.

There was a trip to Donut Friend, a place where you can add toppings to your donut. I got the “Jets to Basil” which is a donut stuffed with goat cheese, strawberry jam and basil leaves topped with a sugar glaze and balsamic reduction sauce. We at LAist did a photo gallery of the place a couple of weeks ago.

Yesterday I powered through all episodes of the second half of Breaking Bad. It was great, although I really hated the ending. I hate that such a loathsome character like Walter White got to be the hero and the martyr. I hate that Skylar was left so vulnerable after all of the sacrifices she made. I hate that it tried to tie everything in a nice little bow.

At least, that’s what Rolling Stone is telling us today.

Lou Reed is 71, so I suppose his death shouldn’t be surprising. But you know how sometimes a person is old as shit, and you’re not ready for them to die?

I was late to the Lou Reed/Velvet Underground party. It wasn’t until after I moved back to LA from Santa Barbara that I really started to listen to them. I think it was when I read Denis Johnson’s Jesus’ Son that I listened to that landmark Velvet Underground and Nico album.

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

When the album first came out they said not a lot of people bought it, but all of those who did formed a band.

I don’t want to believe that Lou Reed is dead. But I suppose that is the case.

It was obstruction that ended Game 3 of the World Series. You can talk about the coulda woulda shoulda, Will Middlebrooks obstructed Allen Craig.

First of all, it was a great play by Dustin Pedroia at second base with all of the infielders drawn in with runners on second and third with one out. He was able to get Yadier Molina out at the plate.

Second of all, it was a shitty fucking throw by catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia to try and get Craig out at third.

While this was happening, I was driving home. I was listening to the call on ESPN Radio where play-by-play man started yelling about interference. So I thought Craig was called out for interference.

Then he said that the run counted. So then I started shouting “OBSTRUCTION, NOT INTERFERENCE!”

Runners interfere, fielders obstruct. Simple. That’s one of my pet peeves in baseball, people who can’t tell the difference between obstruction and interference. So there.

The only question to ask after this game: why the fuck did it take almost four hours? No wonder no one wants to fucking watch baseball.

This New York Times article almost made cry: “Gay Couples, Choosing to Say ‘I Don’t'”.

Not really, but it really did put a smile on my face. Finally there was a story about some of us fagolas who reject the idea of marriage.

For some, marriage is an outdated institution, one that forces same-sex couples into the mainstream. For others, marriage imposes financial burdens and legal entanglements. Still others see marriage not as a fairy tale but as a potentially painful chapter that ends in divorce. And then there are those for whom marriage goes against their beliefs, religious or otherwise.

“It’s a very, very archaic model,” said Sean Fader, 34, an artist in New York who is single and asked to be identified as queer. “It’s this oppressive Christian model that says ‘Pick a person that’s going to be everything to you, they have to be perfect, then get a house, and have kids, and then you’ll be happy and whole.’ ”

A-fucking-men.

tony is the reason i am at laist.

tony went to ucsb and was editor of the nexus. clarification: he lost the eic by one vote

tony is from chicago and likes the cubs and bears but he does root for the doyers and raiders.

tony has connections with the nefarious organization known as xbi.

i once told tony he bore a striking resemblance to jay bakker. see?

tony blogs in all lower-case.

tony likes poutine.

tony has a song written about him by a really famous rock and roll band.

all of the pretty girls of the world should stick their tongues into tony’s mouth for his birthday.

This didn’t fit in with LAist stuff. It really is like Rivers Cuomo and Weezer were ahead of their time.

When “I’m Tired” came out in 1996, I wondered how anyone could be tired of sex. But I was 17 at the time, so of course I would think that.

But it looks like people in Japan have had it with sex and relationships according to The Guardian. I have to say that I completely identify.

The trouble of trimming and douching, not only the online courtship of hooking up makes masturbating with a dildo more appealing than dealing with that crap.

From the article:

Japan’s under-40s appear to be losing interest in conventional relationships. Millions aren’t even dating, and increasing numbers can’t be bothered with sex. For their government, “celibacy syndrome” is part of a looming national catastrophe. Japan already has one of the world’s lowest birth rates. Its population of 126 million, which has been shrinking for the past decade, is projected to plunge a further one-third by 2060.

Really, I’m not worried about it.

Seriously, what the fuck SEC? The story of the conference as it unfolded yesterday:

• Home underdog Vanderbilt literally stole the game against #15 Georgia 31-27 thanks to the Dawg’s fumble-happy ways.
• Tennessee jumped on South Carolina early, Gamecocks quarterback Connor Shaw got hurt, a last second field goal gave the Vols the 23-21 win.
• Sure Missouri was ranked higher than Florida, but it’s Missouri with a backup quarterback! They still got the win 36-17.
• Johnny Manziel got hurt, and Auburn had more bullets in the gun in their 45-41 road win against the Aggies.
• Ole Miss won the Magnolia Bowl 27-24 as LSU looked completely unprepared in Oxford.
• Alabama held serve.

Perhaps the epitome of SEC football at its worse came on Sept. 13, 2008 when Auburn beat Mississippi State 3-2. But five years later from perhaps the worst football game in modern history, SEC football is pretty entertaining to watch.

Okay, they had to import a Big 12 team to their ranks in Texas A&M to become fun, but we saw the headwinds start to change in 2010 with Auburn and Gus Malzahn/Cam Newton.

But now things are unpredictable in the conference. Mizzou in their second year in the conference has shot to the top of the SEC East. The mainstays Georgia, South Carolina and Florida in the East are fumbling all over themselves.

The only reliable team is Alabama, as boring as they can be. I already have them winning the SEC West and in the SEC Championship game. So at least that narrative keeps going.

But everything else?

Here is the new AP rankings which bring up another what-the-fuck. Why are there no female voters for the poll? I know there are plenty of female college football sportswriters, reporters and such. So why no representation on the poll?

I’m sure there have been female voters before, but looking at the list of voters today sort of caught my notice.

Anyway, here are my rankings.