Gomez has decided, after watching the World Baseball Classic, that South Korea is the new Cuba and Japan is the new Dominican Republic. (Japan and So. Korea are playing in the finals this year, in case you live under a rock.)
South Korea is knows as the "land of the morning calm," whereas Cuba is known (to Gomez) as the land of calm mourning. South Korea has an excellent high-tech infrastructure, whereas Cuba...uhm...doesn't really have an infrastructure other than old cars and masking tape. South Korea has a fully functioning modern democracy. Enough said.
Meanwhile, Japan has a strong work ethic that drives men to suicide, and the DR has no such problems plus Presidente beer. Japan has karaoke, the DR has bachata. Gomez is not sure which is worse.
Gomez loves baseball, and has heard that the Koreans have many dishes that are helpful for a hangover. This is more valuable to Gomez than you might realize.
Chicago Fire midfielder Cuauhtemoc Blanco, and New York Red Bulls striker Juan Pablo Angel are the second and third top-paid players in US professional soccer.
Mr. Angel's yearly salary of $1.78 million is surely enough to make most people comfortable; but it pales in comparison to the $2.94 million paid to Mr. Blanco. Gomez suspects they pay more for players who make silly faces and dance like Bananarama.
Both men's salaries combined, however, still don't match the $6.5 million paid to Mr. Posh Spice by Los Angeles.
Gomez loves soccer almost as much as Gomez loves green tomatillo salsa with a cold Tecate, and wonders what we can do to get more gabachos watching this great Aztec sport.
Ideas?
South Oak Cliff High School in Dallas is the subject of an investigation into whether or not administrators put black and Latino kids in a steel cage to fist-fight one another. While the principal of the school has denied charges - in grammatically daring HillBillyBonics, no less - teachers, students and others at the school say the charges are true.
South Oak Cliff High (referred to as SOCH, as in Soch it to me, holmes) has many famed athletes on its alumni roster, including Dennis Rodman. But, according to a wiki page on the school and another on the district, the school was mostly white back when Rodman went there. (This explains the fishnet stockings.) Now, the school is predominantly Latino and African American.
Gomez thinks HBO and others could help a lot by allowing Latino men other than boxers to get dramatic scripted shows. Maybe they could consider casting Esai Morales next time as a sensitive, loving patriarch in a polygamist Mormon family in Utah; that way all of America will find him and all Latino males earnest, hardworking and kind.
Please don't ask Gomez why this story appears on the Sports page instead of the Education page or Human Rights page. It was on the sports page in the NY Times, and Gomez thinks the NY Times is always correct, so. Orale.
Latinos Don't Ski
Gomez never laughed at the jokes about how Latinos don't ski, mostly because Gomez grew up skiing and didn't want to get laughed at for it. But considering what has happened to some of the finest white entertainers among us - Sonny Bono, Natasha Richardson - Gomez has begun to have more respect for those among our people who eschew the elitist winter sport. Perhaps they have a point.
In all seriousness, Gomez sends his respects to the family of Richardson, and anyone else who has lost a relative to a terrible accident, of any kind.
Gomez is trying to stop laughing, but it is very difficult.
See, we just ran across this crappy little article in the London Telegraph that actually reports as "fact" that "Hispanic" athletes have more testosterone than "Caucasian" athletes. Given that "Hispanics" are a multiracial US census invention (and can be of any "race" besides), the Telegraph looks about as smart as the Queen's Nickers.
The information used in the article comes from the British Medical Journal online, which got its information from some apparently stupid doctors in Switzerland.
One of these doctors, a man named Vivien James, actually said: “There are ethnic differences in people in the way they handle testosterone and this could provide a method for some people to get under the radar of the drug testing system. Introducing a passport would be a more secure way of monitoring T/E ratios over time so you could look for disturbances in the pattern.”
Uhm, Dr. James? Ethnicity is a learned phenomenon, not a biological one. Like culture. Gomez suspects Dr. James studied under Dr. Mengele. Gomez is happy we don't live in Europe.
Gomez usually likes sports stories to be about sports. But we couldn't resist posting this photo, from the Details magazine April cover story on Alex Rodriguez. We've heard steroids can make a man do crazy things, but public enthrallment with one's own reflection has never been on any list we've checked out. Oh well. If Gomez had arms like that, we'd kiss ourselves, too.
The Houston Astros have reportedly signed free agent catcher Ivan Rodriguez to a one-year, $1.5 million contract with an additional $1.5 million in incentive bonuses, according to The Sports Network.
A career .301 hitter, Mr. Rodriguez batted a career-low .219 after being traded mid-season from the Detroit Tigers to the New York Yankees last season.
The 37-year-old future Hall of Famer has shown signs of rejuvenation with Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic, going 9-for-15 with two home runs in four games with the club prior to today's game against Venezuela.
Houston would be the fifth major league team for Mr. Rodriguez. He spent his first 12 seasons with the Texas Rangers (1991-2002), one with the Florida Marlins (2003), and four-plus with Detroit (2004-2008) before last season's trade to New York.