Yasiel Puig Needs to Shut His Mouth

He's arrogant, but he's good.  Or maybe it's 'he's good, but he's arrogant.'  Bryce Harper was sent down during spring training when he was first coming up because he was emotionally unfit to handle life in The Show. Yasiel Puig hasn't been shown the door in similar fashion, but that's probably because the Dodgers desperately need him to crawl back into the playoff picture.

Anyone who is going to sit there and argue Puig is not a good player is off their rocker.  Puig is an unbelievable player who hit just under .500 in his first 100 major league at-bats.  He throws guys out from the warning track. He's good.

By now I'm sure everyone has seen the video of him running into Diamondbacks catcher Miguel Montero at home plate from a game in early July.  Is it a huge deal? No.  But its a concrete example of how instead of playing a hard-nosed style, he just plays like a punk.  He blatantly ignores the third base coach Larry Bowa, and tries to score when he had no shot.  He doesn't slide and he doesn't try to bowl over Montero, instead he just leans in and tries to give him a forearm shiver. Poor move.

Montero, and a few other members of the D-backs organization have expressed their displeasure with the Dodgers standout.  Luis Gonzalez, a D-backs legend after he helped them win the World Series in 2001, approached Puig after a game and spoke to him in Spanish about his background and the game, but Puig did not once acknowledge Gonzalez's presence.  What does Puig say to all the haters?

“That’s my game,” Puig said Thursday. “I’m going to play my baseball the way I play. We don’t like the way [Gerardo] Parra plays or the way Montero plays, but we don’t go to the press or anybody and talk about how we don’t like it, because we’re more reserved.”

Wait...so you don't go to the media, per the quote from said media? Okay, got it.

However, there is one thing I agree that Puig said after those comments.

“I learned to play that way as a kid,” he said. “I always like to play aggressive and always try to put on a show for the fans. They come to spend their time and lose sleep watching us play. It is one, to me, of the more emotional things in baseball.”

Can't hate that mentality.  But if it leads you to think that you're bigger than the game, you're doing something wrong.  Oh, and leave it Jay-Z to sit back and inflate the 22-year-old's ego by attempting to lure him to his joke of an agency Roc Nation Sports.

Charlie Sheen Hunts the Loch Ness Monster

I don't care what Dos Equis tries to tell me, Charlie Sheen is easily the most interesting man in the world. Sheen is the original wild card, the definition of a loose cannon. When most men have a mid-life crisis they buy a sports car; when Charlie Sheen has a mid-life crisis he takes up a passing interest in cryptozoology.

That's right, last week Charlie Sheen and his friend Brian Pekk took a brief sojourn to Scotland in hopes of doing what thousands of other daring adventurers couldn't, tracking down the Loch Ness Monster. Sheen was even kind enough to invite ex-Mets great Todd Zeile along for the ride, giving us here at Three if by Strike an opportunity to spin this as a sports related story in some weird way.

Perhaps they were inspired by Jeremy Wade's recent trek to find the holy grail of sea monsters. Or maybe Sheen just took a bottle of Jack to the face and spent too long staring at the “Surgeon's Photo.” Either way they shot across the Pond, rented a castle (that's right a castle) and a boat and, armed only with a bottle of scotch and their wits, set out.

Sadly, despite their best efforts not even a single grainy out-of-focus amateur video resulted from their quest for the truth. Nessie, like Sheen's sanity, remains illusive, its existence still no closer to being proved despite Sheen's novel approach to finding it. A day later they returned to the United States, beaten, but not defeated. Bigfoot still roams the Pacific Northwest, Champ is still at large in Lake Champlain, Chupacabras haunt the Mexico wilderness and the Warlock, along with Pekk and Zeile, are hot on the trail.

NHL 94 Featured in NHL 14? What? Yes

I know what you're probably asking yourself, and the answer is: yes, its okay to be unreasonably excited after watching this video.

NHL 94 virtually (ha!) changed the entire sports video game world.  In the 20 years since its inception, EA Sports' NHL franchise has seen its share of ups and downs, but putting in the "NHL 94 Anniversary Mode" might be their best move yet.

NHL 14 will be available September 10th, and I will be destroying Jordan and Sam in it by 6pm that evening.

Commercial Battle - Subaru vs GEICO

Subaru was never someone I would've pegged to end up in the commercial battle, but this commercial is probably one of the best I have seen since... well, our last commercial battle.  Between his face at the beginning and his amazing collection of art at the end, the marketing guys at Subaru done good here.

GEICO seems to always toe the line between hilarious and obnoxious, and while I still think the clown tandem at the end is the latter, there's something about the "I love the Lebanese" line that gets me every time in this one, making it worthy to stand it battle.

Back to the Show

Sorry for the delay, everyone.

A lot has happened since my last post.  Three if by Strike has added a new writer, Jordan "Doc" Coulombe, who I've known for five years now but who's name I still have a tremendous amount of trouble spelling.  The Bruins made a storybook Stanley Cup Playoff run only to fall two games shy in the Finals, leaving me in a tailspin for the better part of two weeks.

Aaron Hernandez killed a guy!

The Celtics ousted Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, and head coach Doc Rivers, but signed 36-year-old Brad Stevens to head up a new-look Boston team and drafted seven-footer out of Gonzaga Kelly Olynyk.  And all the while, the Sox have been the hottest team in the American League, creeping up to 20 games over .500 in early July.

But back to the Bruins.  It took seven games to beat the Maple Leafs, but then nine to beat the Rangers and Penguins combined.  Then the Cup... You know what, let's just stop there.  Andrew Ference, Nathan Horton, Jaromir Jagr, Rich Peverley, Anton Khudobin and Tyler Seguin are gone.  I'm going to blame my long absence from blogging for not being able to come up with an appropriate wording for how I feel about that.

And speaking of feelings, getting a pretty good one about the Sox this season.  It's tough to not like this team, and hey - don't think I've forgotten what this blog says just below the blog name at the top, there. John Lackey has gone from complete lackey back to John Lackey this season, and it seems like everyone, from Jose Iglesias to Shane Victorino to Koji Uehara has stepped up when this team has needed them to.

Bills looks okay, but we'll talk about that later.

Does this mean the blog is back in full force?  That's up to you guys.  Your support for this blog has been tremendous thus far, and even just writing this rambly recap piece, I remember how fun it is to have a blog.  So if Three if by Strike puts up some numbers, then your summer just got a little bit hotter.