Craig Tyson Adams

  Ventura learned the hard way not to charge the GOAT There are some things in life that someone just doesn’t do. Don’t tug on Superman’s cape is one of them. Nolan Ryan, besides being the greatest human to ever throw a baseball, is a lifetime cattle rancher in the state of Texas. If there is one thing that Ryan does better than punching out batters, it’s punching cattle. He can rope ’em, poke ’em, tie ’em and brand ’em with the best of ’em. Ryan is one of those actual cowboys that  Kevin Costner  plays on television, except Ryan is not playing. Nolan is a real-life John Wayne, even though John Wayne wasn’t real life. On his way to the Baseball Hall of Fame, Ryan pitched for 27 seasons, won 292 games, and struck out 5,714 hitters. Nobody will ever strike out that many hitters ever again. Ryan threw fastballs over 100 mph and a curveball that was like it was falling off a table. Later in his career, he developed an off-speed pitch that just wasn’t fair. If hitters could’ve sued him, the

  A cubicle cautionary tale It happened in a flash. My hand struck the bottom of the desk and the stapler dislodged and fell into my lap. Before I felt it, I heard a click. As the pain washed over me, I looked down. There it was. The staple. The pain stopped and was replaced by a shivering cold as the shock set in. As I caught my breath, I stood up and adjusted myself. In a panic, I hurried to the men’s room. There was another guy in there. Without looking up, we exchanged greetings, and I went into the stall. There wasn’t any blood, but it was stuck. I couldn’t dislodge it. What the hell? I left there and headed to my boss’s office. I had to find some sort of authoritative guidance. As I opened her door and walked in, she looked up at me, startled. “What’s wrong?” “Uh, there’s been an accident.” I said, closing the door. I couldn’t let my coworkers hear. They’d find out soon enough. I didn’t want to be there when they heard. “An accident? Where? What happened?” “The stapler. Uh, I’ve

  A guy’s got to do what a guy’s got to do. Mostly everybody knows that Orson Welles is famous for arguably the greatest movie ever made. Citizen Kane  has topped the annual list of monumental movies for decades. It’s well known that Welles drunkenly endorsed Paul Masson wines in the later part of his career. But, most people don’t know what happened in between when Welles had trouble finding financing for his movie projects. He alienated studio bosses and television executives. Here are a few facts about what Welles did during that time to facilitate fundraising for his projects. Welles supplemented his income by being the training jockey of Secretariat. It’s been said that is the reason the horse was fast enough to win the triple crown with a regular jockey. Orson was a stand-in at Sea World if some attractions became ill. He was a popular seat filler at televised award shows because he could fill two seats instead of only one, cutting down on the cost of paying multiple people. Well

  The Los Angeles Angels are snake-bit. They are cursed. Somehow someway someone put a hex on them. Sure they won a world series once, but that was 20 years ago. It must’ve been because Disney got involved with them at the time. It was fantasyland for Angels fans. Maybe it was the baseball gods punishing the San Francisco Giants and Barry Bonds for crimes against baseball humanity. Bonds cheated to break the most hallowed records in the game. The Angels beating Bonds and the Giants was just a happy circumstance. But, I digress. Throughout the Angels history, they have had one misfortune after another plague them like the plague. Players have died. The team more than once snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They’ve had bus crashes and car accidents. I don’t know if it’s been more or less than other teams, but the Angels sure have had a lot. The latest is with the greatest player they have ever produced. The great Mike Trout was available for the club to draft because of a technic

  It’s hot as a blast furnace here in the Valley of the Sun. A motion of factors added up to me living here if living is what you call sweltering aimlessly without end. It’s so hot here the bees have given up and the birds sit around in the shade ogling and cat-calling the cats that stare at them from the cool indoors. If the cats figure out the mystery of the glass, the birds would be in trouble, until the cats realize that the air is hotter than a hot tin roof and their superior intellect tells them to get back inside toot sweet. All the  wildlife  has gone on with life elsewhere. Even stray dogs have found their way home. As have stray husbands. It’s tough to go out with the fellas after work when life is cooler back at home. Electricity is at a premium so if you’re sitting at a bar, your family at home is just as cool so you end up paying double. It is a good time to find out who the loonies are. Anyone on a golf course or a tennis court should have the nice young men in clean whit

  George Brett had a helluva stroke and then almost had one Gather around, young ones. I’m about to tell you about how  Major League Baseball  Hall-of-Famer Billy Martin turned fellow Hall-of-Famer George Brett into a human volcano. Which is quite the turnaround because Billy Martin was famous for his eruptions. Brett’s team, the Kansas City Royals were playing the Martin-managed New York Yankees that day. The backstory is that both teams hated each other, in a sporting sense. It wasn’t hatred like the Hatfields and the McCoys or the Montagues and the Capulets. That’s a whole other story. The teams in the late ’70s and ’80s were perennial playoff opponents. They often met in the American League Championship Series for the right to advance to the fall classic. The World Series. The Yankees, of course, dominated the Royals. They’d brush past them like the Royals were the weak peasant pretenders to the throne. The Royals were a folly standing in the way of the Yankees’ rightful royalty. T

  There is nothing hot about the hottest of hotels. From the polished brass and marble floors in the ones that shouldn’t cost as much as they do, to the ones where the desk clerk is ensconced behind bulletproof glass and the lobby air is circulated by a 30-year-old fan that looks like it hasn’t been dusted for 35. The type of people that check in to each aren’t separated by much more than what country made their clothing and accessories. If there is any difference between ultimately shoddy couture made in Pakistan or Vietnam, the differences are non-excitant.  Labels are the only difference between someone that has an American Express black card and someone that pays in wadded up cash and donated loose change. Do you think security is a factor? Let me ask you this. Which would you rather have in charge in case there is a decision to be made if there is a life and death situation? A passive, well-dressed dandy that is trained to hit a button summoning police that could take precious mi