Do not trust these men

It's a new week with a new list of men not to trust. They are:

MLB umpires. Getting mad at C.B. Bucknor and Phil Cuzzi for pivotal blown calls is like kicking a dog because he can’t do calculus. Really, what were you expecting? Baseball cultists love a crisply umpired game, or, more precisely, they love commenting on a crisply umpired game — it’s one of their simple pleasures, right up there with transistor radios from the ‘70s and not talking to girls. Bucknor and Cuzzi fail every eye test you can imagine yet continue to earn postseason assignments based on their scores in MLB’s umpire grading system. Debating the validity of the system only misses the larger point — C.B. Bucknor and Phil Cuzzi are more reliable than 80 percent of their colleagues.

APNoodle-armed media sweetheart Chad Pennington.

Chad Pennington. I’ll go to my grave maintaining Chad Pennington was an awful quarterback. What made him good? Both the Dolphins and Jets improved when they added a functional quarterback. Could the Dolphins have beaten the Ravens in the playoffs last year with Chad Henne under center? They certainly would have had a better chance. His whole career has been covered like a premature scolding of anyone insensitive enough to think a good arm is essential to playing quarterback.

Vince Vaughn. I’m struggling to see the appeal of Vince Vaughn, the quasi-romantic leading man. I understand his strengths as a best friend — he’s quick with advice and strings together remarkably creative obscenities. But who are the millions of people who want to root for Vaughn? Has real-life just not provided enough instances of great women settling for an unfeeling guy?

People who get excited over college hockey. Fledgling doomsday cults would be well served to focus their attention on college hockey fans. They’re needy enough to be malleable — talk to them for five minutes about the Beanpot and see if you can stop them from spouting your anti-government propaganda. Even after going to a big-time hockey school, the charm escapes me — the only time the subject came up was when it was awkwardly introduced into conversations by my freshman-year roommate, a fiercely Midwestern chap who asked for Arsenal scores to appear worldly in the eyes of girls from Connecticut. He’d wonder aloud about Bemidji State’s power play and expect us to take it from there. Mainly we’d stay silent, unless he happened to mention the name of a player who had hooked up with a girl on our floor, at which point we’d begin listing all the ways hockey players are idiots.

Rush Limbaugh. There’s nothing to gain really by calling his bluff, but there’s no way Rush Limbaugh can buy the Rams. He’s got three ex-wives and an annual income of $33 million. Even with his partners, that’s not enough revenue. What about footing the bill for a new stadium? He’s not exactly going to be able to take government money to help get it done. He can grumble about Los Angeles all he wants — they’re about to take away his football team away.

Follow me on Twitter: RayGustini

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