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You haven’t really watched boxing until you watch it with 30 drunk Mexican dudes crammed into a makeshift garage in Historic Filipinotown.  But that’s what I did a few weeks ago when Manny Pacquiao fought Miguel Cotto for the WBO Welterweight title.

I’m not even really sure how I got there.  Iowa lost to Ohio State in overtime earlier in the day and my neighbor Pablo, a punch-drunk former boxer in his own right, asked me if I wanted to go with him down the block to watch the fight.  I decided to go.  Mostly because I was already drunk and had no reason to say no.  It could be hilarious, right?

My neighborhood is predominantly Hispanic and I’ve heard the neighborhood hoopla surrounding fights in the past, so I was curious.  I’d also recalled watching interviews with Louis CK, Chris Rock and Eddie Murphy talking about how much they loved boxing.  I’d also revisited Richard Pryor’s bit about the Ali-Spinks fight from Live in Concert.  ESPN also just had a great 30 for 30 documentary on Ali-Holmes, which led me to rewatch When We Were Kings, Tyson, and a 10 part YouTube viewing of “The Thrilla in Manilla” documentary.

Fast forward to November 14th and I’m drinking Corona in front of a big screen TV in a garage with a bunch of strangers who don’t speak English.  And I loved it.

If you would have asked me 3 weeks ago who the heavyweight champion of the world was, I’d have no idea.  Now I want to see the Klitschko brothers beat the shit out of each other for my entertainment.  I’m watching clips from HBO’s boxing podcast off of iTunes and reading blogs all over the Internet.  I have no idea what’s wrong with me.  But I do know that the top two fighters in the world, pound-for-pound, are Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr.  And when their 2010 fight gets announced, I’ll be just as excited as everybody else.  That’s a boxing opinion!

I’ve heard people theorize in the past about the similarities between boxing to stand-up comedy.  Maybe that’s what drew me in.  Maybe I have a Mad Men-induced ideal of drinking whiskey and getting into boxing and horse racing to go along with my obsession with baseball.  I really don’t know…  Because that means I’d also have to get into horse racing.  But for whatever reason, I’m loving something I couldn’t have cared less about a few months ago.  Who’s jumping on the bandwagon with me?  Nobody?  Fine.  More room in the Mexican garage for me.

I’ll be on Matts Radio tonight at 6pm PST.  Matts Radio, of course, is hosted by two of my favorite comics - Matt Dwyer and Matt Braunger.  Check it out here.

Last night, I went to Tiger Lily and heard a bunch of people talk excitedly about this album.  It seems like this album, along with Blakroc, is the the proverbial shit right now.  One person I talked to said it was the greatest rock band ever assembled.  They had my attention.  They even have a song called, “Scumbag Blues.”  What is it?  The bass player is John Paul Jones!  The drummer is Dave Grohl!  And the frontman is Josh Homme.  Okay.  So I guess my enjoyment of this album depends on how much I like Queens of the Stone Age.  Therein lies the rub.

QOTSA are just fine, but I don’t really listen to them.  But hey, that song, “No One Knows” is pretty cool, right?  And it’s not like I can sit around listening to Led Zeppelin II and Get Behind Me Satan for the rest of my life.  Right?  Right?

When I started listening to the first song, “No One Loves Me & Either Do I”, I felt like Homme’s voice didn’t fit with the music as well as I wanted.  I wanted Robert Plant or Jack White (or even Grohl) and Homme really never really mans up.  But when the second half of the song cranks up, I thought to myself that if the entire album is as nasty, then I’ll be fully on board.  And that’s my basic problem with the album: I love the music.  I wish they had another singer.  Sometimes I’m listening to a “what if David Bowie sang for Zeppelin” mashup.  Don’t tease me, Josh Homme.  Why bother making the music so brutal and awesome if you’re just gonna sing androgynously along with it?  The quintessential example is “Gunman.”  A super awesome riff and drum beat are all for not because of whatever the fuck Homme decided to do with the vocals.

If you like Queens of the Stone Age, you’ll love this.  I didn’t dislike it.  At all.  It’s just kinda like when guys complain about HJ’s.  Hear me out.  It’s still pretty good, but it’s disappointing when you know that 2/3 of the group is capable of F’ing the S out of you.  B+

Yeah, yeah.  The Yankees (yawn) won the World Series last night.  Now everybody is hyping up the Yankees’ players again.  This time, it’s Andy Pettitte.  And they want him to get Hall of Fame consideration already.  Not so fast.  Let’s take a look.

Pettitte has played 15 seasons, with the Yankees and Astros.  Or wherever Roger Clemens told him to go.  The best pitchers on those teams have been Jack McDowell, David Wells, David Cone, El Duque, Mike Mussina, Clemens, Roy Oswalt, Chien Ming-Wang and CC Sabathia.  But you could say Pettitte was the best pitcher on the Yankees in 1996, 1997, 2000 and 2003.  He’s never won a Cy Young Award (he got second in 1996), and in the those years, the best pitchers in baseball were guys like John Smoltz, Clemens, Greg Maddux, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson and Tom Glavine.  He was often very good, but never the best.

It might help Pettitte that he’s played in 12 post seasons and has 5 rings, including 1996 and 2000, when he was his team’s ace.  He’s even gone 18-9 in postseason games.  And he hasn’t been in his prime since about 2006 and has continued to pitch moderately well.  But he kinda played 11 of those post seasons with the Yankees.  And they’re the Yankees.  They always have a disgusting offense and a closer named Mariano Rivera.  This year was no different.

Then you have the 2006 steroid accusation and the Mitchell Report.  And the 2007 admission that he used HGH in 2002 for an elbow injury.  And the 2008 admission that he used HGH in 2004.  Then he threw his dreamlover, Roger Clemens under the bus.  But he admitted it, right?  Who knows what that’ll do for the guy.

If we look past his Yankees steroids and Steroids steroids, does the guy have the numbers, anyway?  Not really.  He’s currently tied for 95th all-time on the Hall of Fame Standards list.  And that’s just pitchers.  He’d be a below-average Hall of Famer, at best.  He’s still behind guys like Dwight Gooden, Jack Morris, David Cone, Bob Welch and Dennis Martinez.  Gooden, Welch and Kevin Brown are actually the three most comparable pitchers (currently) to Pettitte.  And those guys aren’t getting in.

I think Pettitte has to get 300 wins.  Right now he’s 63rd all-time with 229.  At his current pace, he’d need around 5 more seasons to get there.  We’ll talk in 2014.  Then we’ll also see if his roid elbow is still an issue.