D-Bag O' the Day (v. 1.3)—Pitchers & Catchers Report!

Our latest winner of the prestigious D-Bag O' the Day Award goes to the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance (NAGAAA), whose website proudly proclaims:

Created in 1977, the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance (NAGAAA) is a 501c(3) organization that promotes amateur sports competition, particularly softball, for all persons regardless of age, sexual orientation or preference, with special emphasis on the participation of members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community; and to otherwise foster national and international sports competition by planning, promoting and carrying out amateur sports competition.

NAGAAA's current membership includes over 680 teams from 37 leagues throughout the United States and Canada. Teams representing these leagues participate annually in NAGAAA's Gay Softball World Series (GSWS), hosted each year by a different member city.

NAGAAA sounds like a nice way for athletically inclined GLBT folks to enjoy some sports-related community bonding.  Also, the gay softball leagues allow straight people to play as well, which leads to increased tolerance, not to mention unlikely friendships.  As a good example, one of my close college buddies and roommates moved halfway across the country after graduation.  Doug was a typical small town Midwesterner by background, played every sport imaginable, and straight to the point where I doubt he had ever met a gay person.  When he got to Florida, his co-workers were gay, yet they hit it off over sports, and within a couple of weeks, Doug was a star player in the Tampa area gay softball league.

So why am I throwing NAGAAA  under the D-Bag Express?  Well, it turns out that even gays can be intolerant and discriminatory when it comes to sexuality.  Apparently, at the 2007 Gay Softball World Series, a team from the Seattle area placed second, but was challenged by another team(s) for violating a rule limiting the number of "heterosexual" players to two per team.  How did NAGAAA handle the allegations?  According to a discrimination lawsuit recently filed over the incident:

Each of the three plaintiffs was called into a conference room in front of more than 25 people, and was asked "personal and intrusive questions" about his sexual attractions and desires, purportedly to determine if the player was heterosexual or gay, the lawsuit alleges.

—Janet I. Tu, "Bisexual men sue gay group, claim bias," Seattle Times (20 April 2010).

Now, NAGAAA's rules only reference "heterosexual" and "gay" as possible sexual orientations, and the distinction is drawn based on the "predominate sexual interest" of the player, apparently making individuals who identify as bisexual "pick a team", so to speak.  So, these three gentlemen, who had publicly declared themselves gay (for purposes of softball, at least), still had to prove they were gay, or at least mostly gay, to a bunch of other gay people. When they were deemed insufficiently gay, their team was disqualified.  So much for "promot[ing] ... softball, for all persons regardless of ... sexual orientation or preference, with special emphasis on the participation of members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community."  It's good to have goals.

First off, how do you even decide if someone is "gay enough" to play softball?  See how many fashion designers they can identify in 30 seconds?  Have them identify interior decorating faux pas in pictures?  Ask them to create a Madonna-Lady GaGa mashup, and then choreograph it?  Decide if they run or throw "like a girl"?  Oh wait, the gay community is (correctly) opposed to such trite and offensive stereotypes.  So was the questioning more a matter of keeping score while the players were asked if they would rather sleep with Ricky Martin or J-Lo ... Paul Walker or Jessica Alba ... Will Smith or Beyonce' ... Joaquin Phoenix or Reese Witherspoon?  Or did it come down purely to an over/under on sexual encounters—"you must have sucked this many c---s to play our reindeer games"?  The entire premise of "gay enough" is simply absurd.  Let's be blunt—if someone is willing to self-identify as gay or bisexual, and face the negative societal attitudes that still come with such self-identification, well in my book, that's plenty gay.  I seriously doubt the NAGAAA is going to see a huge influx of faux-gay players who can't resist the opportunity to win a gay softball title.

Even setting aside the ridiculous complaints and resulting sexual inquisition, the NAGAAA rule itself is way out of line.  Sports are one area in society where gays still face some degree of systemic discrimination.  Trust me, it's tough to be gay and to love sports.  But if you don't believe me, take a look at a list of prominent "out" gay athletes, and note how many waited to come out until after their retirement from competition.  So when straight guys not only accept openly gay athletes but also accept them as teammates and friends, why on earth would gays want to limit straight participation in their leagues?  What better way to break down gay sports stereotypes and build stronger gay-straight ties in the sports community than to encourage even more straight guys to participate in predominately gay sports leagues?  The NAGAAA's rule prevents the very acceptance of gays in sports that the organization is trying to promote.

Besides, doesn't the NAGAAA realize that good switch hitters are always in great demand?

Picture of the DQ'd softball team.  Can you identify the not-gays?

(Answers and some interesting reader comments at Towleroad.com).

ADDENDUM (22 April 2010):  The three DQ'd players apparently were suspended for a few months, but later reinstated with threats made to ban the team from NAGAAA competitions if the team subsequently were found to have again violated the "two heterosexuals" roster limit.  The players are seeking not only monetary damages (a requirement for federal court jurisdiction in this type of case), but also are seeking injunctive relief, including a court order to strike the use of "gay" and "heterosexual" labels from the NAGAAA rules, as well as to abolish the "two heterosexuals" roster limit.  The plaintiffs are being represented by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), and the full complaint is available online.  Incidentally, a big high five to a gay rights advocacy group willing to stand up for folks who have been wronged by a gay organization on the basis of sexual identity.

ADDENDUM (23 April 2010):  The NAGAAA put out an "open letter" response to the lawsuit today.  Over at the Boneyard, blogger "davyjones" effectively skewers the NAGAAA's obsessive use of "gay/lesbian" and an apparent head in the sand approach to the existence of bisexuals. 

I also noticed that NAGAAA made several references to "security" and "safety" in its PR release.  Perhaps in the distant past (the NAGAAA dates to 1977) there were concerns over safety for gay athletes, but if there is a serious problem of gay-bashing straight softball players, I certainly haven't heard of it.  I think this purported "safety" justification is a pretty small fig leaf to hide behind. 

Frankly, if the NAGAAA wants to exclude straight folks for safety (or any reason), then they need to exclude all straight folks (why allow two scary straight players per team?).  The fact that NAGAAA allows some straights to play pretty well eviscerates any of their purported justifications for their silly rule.  The NAGAAA should be honest and admit their rule is based on an old (and untrue) stereotype that gays are not as good at sports as straights, and straights must be "ringers" whose participation should be limited.  The original protest seems founded on this very stereotype; the protesters didn't care that they were losing to a team with bisexual or straight players, they were upset that those players were giving their opponents some kind of "unfair advantage".  Are we as gays really going to buy in to this kind of bovine excrement?  The NAGAAA should be ashamed of having this rule, and the protesting team should be ashamed for protesting based on that rule.

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Just for the record, since he wasn't given his own individual post, our D-Bag O' the Day Award (v. 1.2) went to this gentleman for intentionally vomiting on an 11-year old girl at a Phillies game.  You stay classy, Philadelphia!

Wine & Whine O' the Week (v. 1.10)

While on IMOP-V last month, I played several sessions of 1/2 PLG at the Venetian.  During one late night session, a guy dressed in Cardinals gear was playing an uber-aggressive style and running over the table.  In a two hour period, I flopped two sets of 4s and a set of 6s against Cards.  Now, small sets can spell doom in PLG, but since Cards was uber-aggro, I stuck around all three times, and all three times I rivered quads!  Even better, it turns out Cards actually had big hands all three times as well, and paid me off.  The first two times, he did some standard whining, but the third time, Cards stood up and started shouting about the injustice of it all, putting on a real Phil Hellmuth temper tantrum before storming out.  The next evening, when I told the PLG players about the prior night, they told me Cards had played earlier that evening and was still bitching about it.  Hilarity certainly did ensue!

In honor of Cards' temper tantrum, I must highly recommend a new line of wines I recently discovered—Tempra Tantrum.  The Tempra Tantrum wines are from Spain, home of the Tempranillo grape, one of the few wine grapes that performs well in hot, dry climates (most of the traditional well-known wine grapes—e.g., Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir—perform best in cooler climates, or areas with cool, foggy mornings to offset hot summer days).  All of the Tempra Tantrum wines are a blend of Tempranillo and one of the "noble" red wine grapes—Merlot, Syrah/Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Grenache.  Although Tempranillo historically was used for Riojas which are aged before release, in the past decade more Spanish winemakers are turning to a younger, fresher style of Tempranillo that emphasizes the grape's soft, juicy blackberry and plum flavors.  The Tempra Tantrum line is a good example of these modern, easy drinking wines that are also easy on the wallet ($8-$10 retail).  My personal favorite is the Tempranillo-Grenache blend.  Grenache is another grape that performs well in hot climates, and adds red fruit (cherry and raspberry) flavors to the blend; it goes very well with pizza, pasta with red sauce, and cheese.  For those who like a spicy note to their red wine, I highly recommend the Tempranillo-Shiraz blend.

You can follow Tempra Tantrum on Twitter.

Another Night at the Meadows

Last night I made my return to the Meadows ATM after a month or so layoff, recovering from two Vegas trips, getting caught up on work, and getting some quality time in with Berkeley now that the weather has turned Iowa-spring beautiful.  I was afraid there would be some rust, but I made two early hero calls (JJ on a K-Q-x flop, and calling with bottom pair to catch a busted flush draw) to build up some chips.  But then I made a great call with KQs on a flop of Ah-Kh-Tc, to find I was up against the T-high flush draw (as I expected).  The turn was a Q to steal some more outs, but the river brought the 3h.  Ouch.  Rebuy!  Ooops.  Error.  I made two donkey plays—paying off a rock with TPTK when he caught his 3-outer for two pair, and trying to bluff a calling station when a flush draw hit the river.  I also flopped the nut boat with Q9, got it all-in against QT, but the river was another 9 for a chop that felt like a loss (though in fairness, about half the money went in on the river when I knew a chop was likely).  So, I called it a night.  Bad luck + bad play usually is a sign that it's time for gin.

There was a fun hand that went down shortly after my 1/2 NL table opened.  A young kid had just taken a big hit, and was looking to push with his last $30-$40.  Someone raised preflop to $12, kid and a couple others call.  Flop is Tc5d3s.  Kid pushes for $25, gets called by one player.  Kid shows QcJc for no pair, no draw, and is up against QTo.  The poker gods smiled on the kid, however, throwing out runner-runner Ac-Kc for the backdoor royal flush!  Kid made a nice pot and a $200 high hand jackpot.  Pretty sweet!

* * * * *

Today was a gorgeous day, sunny, light breeze, upper 60s this morning.  So, the sig other and I took Berkeley to nearby Raccoon River Park for a walk on the nature trail around Blue Heron Lake.  Berk did the usual dog head-out-the-window thing on the drive over, and had a ball on the walk.  We also checked out the doggie park, and we'll likely sign Berk up once he gets past his overly-friendly puppy phase.

Anyway, as we walked, the sig other reminded me that today was the birthday for our gal pal who went with us on our recent spring break Vegas trip.   I texted her a birthday wish:  "Happy Birthday! Rigor Mortis!", referring to our running joke since St. Paddy's Day on the Strip.  Of course, about an hour later, the sig other happens to mention that our friend was driving to an uncle's funeral this morning!  Yeah.  Awkward.  Maybe I'll nominate myself as "D-Bag O' the Day"....  Thankfully, she hadn't even thought of the awkward connection when I texted an apology.  As for the sig other:

Gee, you know that information really would've been more useful to me YESTERDAY!

—Robbie (Adam Sandler) in The Wedding Singer

The City Center Pit of Despair

Count Rugen:  Ah. Are you coming down into the pit? Westley's got his strength back. I'm starting him on the machine tonight.

Prince Humperdinck:  Tyrone, you know how much I love watching you work, but I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it; I'm swamped.

Count Rugen:  Get some rest. If you haven't got your health, then you haven't got anything.

—The Princess Bride

In the movie The Princess Bride, the villain Count Rugen tortures the hero Westley in the "Pit of Despair" with a machine that sucks out a person's remaining years of life, causing them to scream in horrendous anguish.  The screeching and wailing you heard yesterday likely was from investors in MGM Grand-Mirage (MGM) as its stock price fell on MGM's reports of dismal first quarter earnings projections, as the CityCenter project is quite literally sucking out all of MGM's current and future profits.

The numbers for Aria are shockingly bad:  a $66 million operating loss ($54 million of which is depreciation), and a pathetic 63% occupancy rate.  As I wrote in a recent review of City Center, the Aria casino seems designed to eschew luring in walk-by customers from the Strip in favor of trapping its hotel guests inside.  This strategy obviously won't be successful if you aren't getting any hotel guests.

Even worse news for City Center comes from their residential condo units.  According to an article by Howard Stutz at the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

• MGM took an "approximately $171 million noncash impairment charge related to the development's 2,400 residential units";
• MGM recorded "revenues of $24 million related to forfeited residential deposits"; and,
• Only "25 condominium sales had closed by March 31 with a combined sales price of $38 million".

Let's unpack this data a bit.  Getting $24 million in bonus cash from forfeited deposits sounds great—for this quarter.  I don't know how much of a deposit was required per condo, but those canceled sales have to affect hundreds of condos, and City Center won't be getting any revenue from those condos in the near future.  Based on the closings reported, each condo is averaging around $1.5 million, so the canceled condos translate into hundreds of millions in deferred revenues that probably won't be recouped for more than a year, if not significantly longer.  Now, City Center will save some money in the short term by not having to finish all of those condos, but selling those condos was a key part of their financing plan.  But at least they've closed on a whopping 25 out of 2,400 condos, so they've got that going for them, which is nice.  Even assuming another couple of hundred condos have been sold and will close later in the year, it looks like City Center still will have a glut of unsold condos to carry into the next few years—if they have the cash to do so.

Speaking of cash, digging into the financial statements themselves is kind of interesting, in a Discovery Channel show about vultures and dung beetles sort of way.  First, the gaming industry has definitely not recovered from the recession:

Total casino revenue is expected to be approximately 5% lower than the prior year, with slots revenue down approximately 1% for the quarter. The Company's table games volume, excluding baccarat, was down 4% in the quarter, but baccarat volume was up 17% compared to the prior year quarter. The overall table games hold percentage was lower in 2010 than the prior year quarter; in the current year first quarter the hold percentage was near the midpoint of the Company's normal 18% to 22%, while in the 2009 quarter it was at the top end of the range.

The increase in baccarat volume likely means marketing efforts have been focused on Asian high-rollers, something all the major casinos probably have been making a priority now that the great American home equity rave is over.  Also, the MGM house has been experiencing a little negative variance on the table games, meaning we can all expect more 6/5 payout, eight deck, continual shuffle blackjack tables.  Poker isn't broken out separately from the pit games, but I suspect poker is holding its own; poker players might drop down stakes in a recession, but the volume of games seems about standard on my recent trips, and rake is more about volume than game size.  Still, it wouldn't surprise me if the MGM family took a look at Harrah's and made a move to $5 maximum rake.

The other interesting information is the breakdown of operating income by casino.  Now, the financial statements also show a breakdown of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), which is a useful and meaningful figure for certain accounting purposes.  But, let's focus on the operating income portion of earnings, which is the actual hard cash coming in the door, and compare it to the first quarter of 2009 (all figures in thousands of dollars):

It seems that business is down across the board for the MGM family of Strip casinos, but the drag of City Center is quite obvious.  Also, although the financial strength of previous MGM family flagship Bellagio is no surprise, the strong performance of New York New York relative to its MGM siblings was a major surprise.  The sharp drop off for Mandalay Bay is puzzling, although that might be related to reduced numbers of conventions (Mandalay Bay has a large convention area).  The Monte Carlo numbers are almost certainly skewed by the fire last year; insurance proceeds for business interruption were discussed in the financial statements, but they seem to be accounted for separate from operating income.*  It's also pretty obvious that Circus Circus should be imploded, except what could be done with that crappy property in the current economy?

No matter how you slice it, City Center is appearing more and more like a boondoggle.  Maybe MGM was part of a covert government plan to bankrupt Dubai by sucking them into this money pit ... Ya never know!

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* ADDENDUM (18 April 2010):  Looking back at the financial statements, the Monte Carlo fire insurance proceeds were accounted for as follows:

The prior year [2009] results include the $190 million pre-tax gain on the TI sale as well as $15 million of Monte Carlo business interruption insurance recovery income (recorded as a reduction to general and administrative expense) and $7 million of Monte Carlo property damage insurance recovery income (recorded as property transactions, net).

However, I forgot that the fire was in January 2008, not last year.  So, the 2009 and 2010 figures cited above are both from full operations.  From the financial statements in the recent press release, it's unclear whether the $15 million in business interruption insurance proceeds were included in the 2009 operating income figure.  Even assuming insurance proceeds were included (making the 2009 operating income exclusive of insurance proceeds something closer to $8 million), the Monte Carlo's operating income for this year is still significantly reduced.  Makes you wonder if City Center is sucking its neighbor dry.

The Absurdity of Poker

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

—Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"

Once upon a time, I was a philosophy major, spending my days thinking deep thoughts (my nights were mostly spent drinking beer with friends at the recently closed West End Lounge, thinking less than deep thoughts).  Strangely, when I read my friend Poker Grump's post today, one of those deeply buried philosophy neurons fired across a synapse that escaped those college Jagermeister shots:

Last night I played there [Excalibur]--for the first time in six months--for 5 1/2 hours. The best hand I made was two pair. No trips, no straights, no flushes, no full houses. I had two pair twice, never even top two, winning with it once, losing to a straight the other time. As for starting hands, the only big pair I ever had was K-K, and of course that lost to A-Q when an ace flopped.

I don't even know how one might begin to calculate the odds of that sort of run of near-nothingness, but it seems astronomically improbable.

There's really no way to describe to a non-poker player the feeling of incredible frustration that can build up when you are folding junk hand after junk hand, and when you do get a hand, you either miss the flop or you flop a draw that doesn't get there.  There's a reason poker players refer to "grinding" when talking about long poker sessions, and why they talk about being "card dead" when faced with Poker Grump's situation.

I recently did some random calculating when I was in a card dead slump of my own.  Let's say I average five eight-hour sessions per month (40 hours/month, or 480 hours/year), and four Vegas trips where I average fifty hours per trip (200 hours/year).  Just to be safe, let's round it up to 750 hours a year spent playing poker.  Now, let's assume I see an average of 30-35 hands per hour, which means I probably see roughly 24,000 hands of poker every year, or 2,000 hands per month. So, using the odds for hitting various poker hands, I should expect to see roughly the following hands during the course of a "typical" month:

• Pocket Aces:  9 times, and one set of aces.
• Pocket Kings:  9 times, and an ace will flop 2 of those times
• Pocket Yaks:  9 times, and an overcard will flop 5 of those times (and Yaks will lose every time)
• Pocket pairs: 118
• Flopped sets or better (assuming all pocket pairs see the flop): 14
• Sooooted cards:  480 times
• Playable sooooted cards:  160 times (estimated; your mileage may vary)
• Flopped flushes:  4
• Flopped flush draws:  17
• Made flushes:  10

The numbers don't lie—poker is going to be a Sisyphean task most sessions.  So why bother playing?  Why go through the tedium, not to mention the agony when your rare good hands lose?  To me, poker is is rewarding precisely because it is a struggle—a struggle to improve your skills, a struggle to beat good opponents, a struggle against your own emotions and doubts, and yes, sometimes, a struggle against Fate itself.  Sitting down at a poker table, winning hand after hand, session after session, might be every poker player's dream, but in reality no player would ever enjoy the game of poker if it were so easy.  Card death, missed flops, bad beats, and suckouts are certainly agonizing, but they make the hot streaks, well-timed bluffs, hero calls, and monster pots all the sweeter.  To enjoy poker, one must suffer.

All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing.

—Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"

For better or worse, poker is my thing.  Because I love the game, I must learn to love the boredom and the painful losses that are part of the game.  Of course, I don't wish too much poker suffering for myself or my poker friends!  As for Poker Grump, when he finally breaks out of this card death slump, I hope he takes the opportunity to rebrand himself as "Poker Zombie" ("Poker Jesus" probably risks a trademark lawsuit or a playing card thrown through the carotid artery).