E-40, Giants Fans Show Support Through Song

I mean, its like a car wreck. A 30-car pile-up. Like that moment in a NASCAR race, when cars start flipping and you go from thinking its awesome to getting sick to your stomach.

The next video is from rapper E-40.  The guy who only has one song?  False.  It was only a few days ago that I searched some of his stuff on Spotify and found some gems.  Here are a few highlights:

Gargoyle Serenade
In This Thang Breh
Stove On High
My Lil Grimey N*gga
I'ma Teach Ya Hot To Sell Dope
Extra Mannish

You get the idea.  So here's his latest addition to the mix.  Enjoy.  Or try to.  Or don't, probably easier if you don't.

AHL Season Kicks Off Tonight

No NHL, no problem.  Well, no, still a huge problem, but at least starting Friday night there will be hockey night in America.  The AHL kicks off their 77th season with seven games slated.

This season, Three if by Strike will be keeping an eye on a few teams -- the Connecticut Whale, Providence Bruins and Worcester Sharks.  Being from Connecticut, seeing a hockey team in green gets me every time.  The Whale finished 36-26-14 last season to make the playoffs.  The P-Bruins will be the team most closely watched considering all the young talent that's ready to make the push to the NHL if it should return.  They wrapped up their 2011-12 campaign with a 35-34-7 showing, missing the playoffs but stayed out of last place which went to the 31-33-12 Sharks.

NHL 13 can only provide so much hockey for me.  Plus, with the great ticket deals going on, how can you not get into AHL hockey?  Not to mention the ridiculous amount of fights that go on...

On Fridays, the Whale have $12 tickets, with $1 hot dogs and $2 beer.  The Bruins have giveaways every Friday night, with $5 already off regular ticket prices.  And for the Sharks, for $79 you can snag four tickets, four hot dogs and four sodas.  Count me in for all of that.

Crabcakes and Baseball - That's What Division Series Are All About

It took five games for the Tigers to outlast the Athletics, and it took five games for the Giants to stage a backs-against-the-wall comeback against the Reds.  Friday night, the Orioles will attempt to take down the Yankees at home, and the Nationals will try to use their own home field advantage to wipe out the defending World Champion Cardinals.

The Reds won their first two games against the Giants in San Francisco, but went winless at home -- where they went 50-31 in the regular season -- for the remainder of the series to fall 3-2.  The A's, fresh off a walk-off win in the ninth inning of Game 4, could only muster four hits without a run against the indomitable Justin Verlander to fall 6-0 in Game 5, and 3-2 in the series.

But onto Friday.  The Orioles have never lost a series in New York, and tied the season series at 9-9.  They'll send Jason Hammel into the trenches against Yankees ace CC Sabathia.  Neither team has gotten their offense going, with players like Matt Wieters, Adam Jones, Jim Thome, Alex Rodriguez, Robinson Cano and Nick Swisher all hitting under .200 for the series.  I like the Orioles here, though.  The Yankees have looked sluggish at home, and if the O's can get an early run on the board, that should be all the confidence they need.

Just south of Baltimore, Washington will try to advance using their "October Natitude."  I agree, its one of the worst postseason slogans, but whatever gets the people going.  Riding the coattails of Jayson Werth's walk-off home run, their momentum coupled with Gio Gonzalez on the hill should bump them past the Cards with ease.

Underdog stories are few and far between in baseball.  The A's have already been bounced, with the O's and Nats trying to play Cinderella this year.  Last season, the Cardinals barely squeaked in to win it all.  Thinking back before that, however, you'd have to go to the Rays in 2008, when they beat out the defending champion Red Sox.  They couldn't get 15,000 people to Tropicana Field on a given night, but then the postseason came, the place was filled to the catwalks, and I was hearing cowbells for the next week and a half.

They eventually lost to the Phillies for the World Series, but in my opinion, baseball has never been on the stage it is on this year.  The NHL is in a lockout, freeing up fans' evenings as the season should be underway.  Cities like Oakland, Baltimore and D.C. have turned out in full force to support their teams like never before, filling up their respective parks.  If there would be any games to watch this postseason, it will be the games tonight.

Jayson Werth Forces Game Five After Hitting Walk-Off Home Run on Thirteenth Pitch of At-Bat

What do Raul Ibanez, Coco Crisp and Jayson Werth all have in common?  They have all had walk-off hits within the past 24 hours to push their teams closer to the Fall Classic.

Wednesday night, Ibanez came in as a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the ninth, hit a game-tying bomb, then a game-winning shot in the twelfth to take a 2-1 series lead over Baltimore.  Crisp, with his team down 3-1 going into the bottom of the ninth, capped the three run comeback off with an RBI single to force Game 5 against Justin Verlander and the Tigers.

Thursday night, with a close game at 1-1 going into the ninth between the defending World Champion Cardinals and the Nationals, Werth led off the bottom of the frame.  The Nats were feeling it on defense, with the pitchers collecting eight of the last nine outs by way of the K.  Werth saw 12 pitches against starter-turned-reliever Lance Lynn, and with a full count, the 13th pitch came, and it sure did go.  Werth slammed a line drive home run over the left field fence to force another Game 5 in the 2012 MLB postseason.

"I was sitting at home watching my boy Raul Ibanez do it, and he gave me something to do today," Werth said after the game, still catching his breath from the celebration.

Thursday afternoon, the Giants won their Game 5 against the Reds, becoming the fifth team to ever come back from a 2-0 deficit in a five game series.  Game 4 of the Orioles-Yankees series is set to begin at 7:37, with Phil Hughes taking on Joe Saunders.  For the nightcap, the amazing story of the Oakland A's continues with Game 5 from O.co Coliseum.

As for my picks?  0-for-3.  I picked the Braves to win the now Cards-Nats series, so there goes another one, and my World Series winners, the Reds, were eliminated in their hometown today.  Awful news.

But man, do I love baseball.

Full Speed Plus Jumping Still Can't Knock Chara Down

As the NHL lockout drags on, we are beginning to see NHL players making an impact overseas.  In his first game, Patrice Bergeron netted two goals with two more assists.  A game between HC Dynamo Moscow and HC Lev Praha was shown on ESPN2 because the teams featured Alex Ovechkin and Zdeno Chara respectively.  But it was Chara's next game with the better highlight.

Chara is the biggest player in NHL history at 6-foot-9, and weighing in at 255lbs.  This highlight isn't a slapshot at 108 miles per hour, nor is it Chara dishing out some punishment, unfortunately.  Rather its someone else attempting to lay the big man out and failing miserably.

Igor Makarov of SKA Saint Petersburg lines up Chara behind the net, catching him off guard as he leaves his skates to deliver the hit, but can't knock Chara all the way down.  Its a real solid impact, but it looks like Makarov bit off a little more than he could chew here, faceplanting behind the net.

Why My Head Will Probably Explode Tonight

Tonight, I'm going with my roommate, viewer 14,000, to a screening of the new biopic "Lincoln." Wait for it...before the show there's a live satellite Q&A with Steven Spielberg and Daniel Day-Lewis. Ahh what's that...wait a minute...something's happening? AHHHHHHH...oh...there go my brains.

Without getting to far into it, I've been obsessed with Steven Spielberg since I was about 8 years old.  Jurassic Park was the first PG-13 movie I was allowed to watch, I've been Indiana Jones for Halloween and in 7th grade I gave a presentation about Spielberg's restrained use of CGI  after seeing Minority Report.  This is a big moment.  Add to this the fact that Daniel Day-Lewis is a crazy method acting  maverick, and being able to sort-of talk face-to-face with them is almost too much to handle.

I've been trying to think of questions worthy of these two goliath's for the past two weeks and the best I can come up with is, "Why are there plans to make Jurassic Park 4 AND Indiana Jones 5?" Hearing that  those are in development makes me think that Spielberg hasn't actually seen Jurassic Park III or Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. Even though he helped produce them both. Yikes.

What do you think ThreeifbyStrikers? If your had the chance, what would you ask some of the most revered  living icons in film?

Tunes For Thought - Snarky Puppy

One of my goals on this Wednesday afternoon was to compile a list of music without any lyrics.  So far its been populated with mostly jazz, with some Explosions in the Sky, Andy McKee and "The Goat Rodeo Sessions" featuring Yo-Yo Ma thrown in.  My goal is to get as many different genres into the mix as I can, and I can cross a few off the list with this band, Snarky Puppy.

They're a jazz fusion band out of Denton, Tex., and they are amazing. The band consists of up to 30 members at one time, and their sound is absolutely incredible, give them a listen, and check them out on Spotify, too.

Big thanks to Bill for showing me these guys.