chris w reveals his true feelings about the home run derby

this is kind of an awkward way to "blog", but i'll give it a shot anyways. first of all, i think we can all agree that while the home run derby is sort of kind of cool concept, its execution is poor at best. it takes entirely too long, is entirely overhyped, and really just leaves me wondering what all the fuss is about. if i were to change it, jeez, i don't know what i would do. just not make such a huge damn deal out of it i guess. regardless, the point remains- the home run derby and the hype surrounding it are annoying. but i'm not quite sure i am as capable of expressing that sentiment as my fellow fjm contributor chris w. so let's have him take the wheel on this one. what you are about to read is a direct, word-for-word transcription of a voice message left for me by chris w at 2:14 AM tuesday morning. warning: contains slightly more profanity than the stuff that usually comes out of chris w's mouth, which, if you know him, is a lot of profanity. here goes:

what's up, larry's cell phone. it's... it's, uh, chris w here. jesus christ, man, i mean, every time i watch the home run derby i feel more and more retarded. you know, because, it's like, what the fuck? here's this fucking competition that's centered around these fucking big fatass steroid using motherfuckers taking batting practice. and i don't even mean that in the terms of like, the kansas city royals pitching staff but i mean like, literally, BATTING PRACTICE. then in finals we're like all excited that fucking vlad guererro hit fucking 3 home runs, you know? what the FUCK is that? i would hope that he could hit 3 home runs. i could go out there and hold a wooden bat upside down, and i would hope that i could hit 3 fucking home runs with a fucking upside down wooden bat. nobody pitchers could fucking serve up motherfucking fastballs, and by fastballs, i mean fucking 74 mile per hour lob-balls... (trails off) anyways i'm at this sweetass restaurant about to get some sweetass hamburgers hopefully, and.... that's gonna end this call. take it easy.

couldn't have said it better myself. what the fuck. i hope he ended up getting those hamburgers.

also, hey vlad guererro, you're a big bitch for how you handled your second round appearance. did anyone else see this? it got to a point where he needed something like 3 home runs before he got 2 more outs or he would have been eliminated. obviously, he's pretty winded at this point (at least for a baseball player); he's taken about 15 huge swings in the last few minutes. so what does he do? unlike the guys that hit before him, matt holliday and alex rios, he starts stalling for time to regain his strength. he steps out... inspects his bat... lets 6 or 7 pitches in a row go by at one point.... then when it gets down to him needing one more home run with no outs remaining, he steps out AND SPENDS 2 MINUTES TAPING HIS FINGERS. then he hits 2 more bombs before his last out, eventually moving into the finals. are you kidding me? that's bush league. holliday and rios didn't do that shit. they didn't have the same "pressure", sure, because they were the first two competitors to bat so they didn't have a target number they were aiming for. but they certainly would have benefited from taking the same liberal breathers that vlad did. i'm sure they were winded by the end of the round as well. but they just kept on hacking and didn't stall for time to recover. that's gritty. that's relentless. that's the way the home run derby was MEANT to be played.

yeah, i wrote that whole thing because i'm a rockies fan and wanted to see holliday in the finals. but still... honestly. get in the box and swing the bat, asshole. your fingers don't need tape.