Jon Heyman shows us the funny

What... what happened here? Reading this made me feel like I stumbled upon a grisly crime scene. Why did he write this? Who edited it? Who approved it for publication? We've seen a lot of terrible attempts at humor but I think this might be the first time I've seen Heyman try his luck at an entire column that is all jokes. Holy God, what a blimp crash.

The Angels didn't attribute the firing of hitting coach Mickey Hatcher after 12-plus years of service to the wishes of their new well-paid singles hitter Albert Pujols. But if these type of changes keep happening, well, we we all suspect that you know who is the one who's really in charge.

Cue up Yakety Sax and whoopie cushion sounds.

Nine Signs Light-Hitting Infielder Albert Pujols is Running the Angels
1. The traditional long-running team insignia, the halo, is replaced by an arch.

GET IT??????

Instead of a halo being alighted on days the Angels win, the arch will glow whenever Pujols gets a ball out of the infield.

Joke #1 about how Albert misses St. Louis, which, besides just being dumb and hacky, also makes little sense given the fact that Pujols seemed perfectly happy to leave the Cardinals. If reports came out that he agonized over the decision, ultimately went with LAA because of family reasons or something, and then was on record as saying it was devastating for him to walk out on the Cardinals, this would merely be a bad attempt at humor based on the assumption that people think replacing the Angels' giant halo with something else would be hilarious. Instead it is both that and not founded in reality, making it even more obtuse. If we start Off to a great start.

2. CIA agents are hired to ensure no sensitive information is leaked from team meetings such as precisely which player proclaimed the team would turn it around.

On one hand, the fact that Pujols was mad about Hatcher's "betrayal" is a little lame considering that Hatcher didn't leak any information that was sensitive or important to the press. (Hey look, this joke actually is founded in reality!) On the other (correct) hand, what Hatcher did was still plenty stupid and plenty unnecessary, considering it pissed off the team's franchise player. And btw HAW HAW HAW CIA AGENTS THAT'S RICH

3. Fans entering Angels stadium will be met by a greeter saying "Bienvenido,'' an homage to Pujols' famous softball-playing father Bienvenido Pujols.

*game show buzzer* *second louder buzzer for racism* Hey, Pujols's dad's name means a word in his native language! You've never met a white guy named "Welcome" have you? Didn't think so.

4. The spread will now be catered by Pujols 5, the St. Louis restaurant.

Joke #2 about how Albert misses St. Louis. And I hate to critique all these jokes with the all caps thing I mostly stole from Drew Magary, because that makes me barely more funny than Jon, but I can't think of a better way to tear down garbage like this than HAW HAW IT'S HIS RESTAURANT, BUT FROM HIS OLD TEAM SO HE PROBABLY LIKES THE FOOD EVEN THOUGH IT'S FROM THE OLD TEAM

Look, I know most of you reading could do better, I'm hardly George Carlin or Chris Rock here. The all caps overexplain the joke bit is all I've got right now. roll with me. I've had a horrific week.

5. The bench coach henceforth serves a dual role as caddy for the avid golfer Albert.

*game show buzzer* Doesn't Rick Reilly have intellectual property rights on all terrible humor that involves golf?

6. The new team name is the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and the Dominican Republic by way of Kansas City.

No buzzer- this is the only joke on this list I will somewhat partially tolerate (relative to the rest of this urea) because "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" is pretty fucking stupid, and whichever marketing whiz came up with it should be beaten with a tire iron.

7. The trade is finally complete: Mike Trout, Peter Bourjos, Erick Aybar, Mark Trumbo, Jered Weaver, Dan Haren, C.J. Wilson, Jordan Walden, Hank Conger and the entire roster of the Salt Lake Bees for Yadier Molina.

THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN

Joke #3 about the team/town that Pujols claims to not miss at all.

8. Agent Dan Lozano is given his own $10-million personal services contract.

This is an incredibly idiotic joke, but the "LOL FAVORITISM TOWARDS AGENTS" aspect is pretty great coming from a guy who spends a good bit of his offseason column space carrying water for the biggest and most powerful agent in the game.

9. Introducing the new manager of the Angels, Jose Oquendo.

Joke #4 premised on a thing that does not exist. But you know what, how great would it be if Pujols got legendary cocktug Mike Scoscia fired? I'm in favor of any sequence of events that produces that outcome.

In conclusion Jon Heyman is probably slightly worse at writing jokes than Bill Simmons.

Same Old College Football Stuff

Some crap from Dennis Dodd's blog at sportsline.com. It's mostly some overwashed garbage about Tate Forcier and all that, but there are a few tidbits that merit mention here:

What we have found during this down time is that college football needs that brand, no matter what form it comes in. The game is better when the major powers are good. Notre Dame is down after Saturday but not out. Penn State keeps winning under Joe Paterno. Oklahoma and Texas keep pumping out 10-win seasons.

This is a similar thesis to what the HatGuy suggested a few weeks ago. I don't know why some writers seem resistant to new blood in the college game. If I were a Boise St., Cincinnati, or BYU fan, I would be pissed. Writers probably love big-name teams doing well since it's easy to research their pasts and throw up an article. It's a lot harder to come by an interesting historical angle on a Boise St. BCS run than it is a Notre Dame BCS run.

4. BYU: Please stop the questions about the Cougars' national championship worthiness if they run the table. Yes, they would deserve to play for it all.

The questions will persist because of BYU's schedule. Props to the BYU AD for scheduling Oklahoma and Florida State - but you can't just say that BYU deserves it right now. I imagine it would take a strange storm of circumstances involving the BCS conference leaders having 1 or 2 losses for BYU to get consideration.