White Sox Channel Three Stooges, Sorority Video Will Make You Hit The Books, And Favorite Bass Players
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Nightcaps on this truncated workweek courtesy of Labor Day! I hope you had a great holiday. I know I did. Labor Day is the forgotten sibling of the Summer Picnic holiday triumvirate, which also includes Independence Day and Memorial Day. It's underrated, and this year it even had its own hot dog-eating competition.
I was on grill duty this year and whipped up some top-notch burgers and dogs while wearing my OutKick Patriotic Polo. No one asked me to plug it, but it's a solid polo for hot weather and I detected a 10-15% boost in burger and dog deliciousness because of it.*
*(Claims not backed by science. Not even pretend science.)
Now that Labor Day is behind us, we've officially hit the unofficial end of summer. So, that means we turn our full attention to football season. College football is underway and the NFL gets started on Thursday.
That means that Tuesday night was a big evening as I picked the team that will help me in my quest to repeat as OutKick Fantasy Football League champion.
Last year's squad, Matt-sive Disappointment, was anything but, so here's to hoping that this year's team, Worst Fantasy Team Ever, can follow suit (Yup, we're sticking with the self-deprecating names, and this year our mascot is Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons).
But enough yapping, let's get right into this edition of Nightcaps before it gets banned in Brazil…
The White Sox Looked Like The Three Stooges Last Night
I haven't been following the MLB super closely this season, but over the last couple of weeks, I've become fascinated by the Chicago White Sox. I just can't believe that in the era of advanced analytics and athletes who are in peak physical condition, any team could be this hilariously terrible.
I mean, just look at this:
You never go full-White Sox….
If you made this clip black and white and some "Bonk!" sound effects, it'd look and sound like it came right out of a Three Stooges short.
I didn't think any White Sox squad could be more shameful than the 1919 Black Sox, but at least they were trying to throw games, unlike this 2024 team.
Although…
There's part of my brain that will not accept that a Major League team can be this bad and thinks that there's some kind of Andy Kaufman-esque work happening right now. Maybe they took inventory of where they were at the All-Star break and decided, "F--k it, better to be remembered for something than nothing and all," and played the rest of the season like they were auditioning for Ringling Bros.
This Video Will Get Any Slacker To Hit The Books
I'm a firm believer that not everyone needs to — or even should — go to college instead of learning a trade, but if you're trying to steer a high fella toward higher education, I think I found the video, it comes courtesy of some sorority gals at the University of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin has cheese, brats, beer, a Fonzie statue, and now this. They really do it right up there.
I wasn't involved in Greek life during my days at the University of Central Florida, but I would occasionally go on walks around campus when campus was dead on weekends and I'd cut through the part of campus where the sorority and fraternity houses were.
If I had seen this shoot happening on one of those walks, I would have assumed that I had gotten clobbered by a shuttle bus at the last crosswalk and was in some kind of limbo. Kind of like in the 1962 horror movie Carnival of Souls, just without the creepy stranger following me everywhere, and no Saltair Pavillion anywhere in sight…
You know what, the more I think about it, it'd be nothing like Carnival of Souls, but it would be cool.
Videos like this should be shown in all high school college prep classes. I have a bachelor's degree (a BA in radio-television, but still), and seeing that made me want to sharpen a box of No. 2 Ticonderogas and go take the SATs.
Shiddy Places Takes Baltimore
I was unfamiliar with the TikTok account Shiddy Places, but it's one of those ideas that's so simple and so good that it makes me jealous that I didn't think of it first.
Here's how it works, a Hurley hat-wearing host simply picks a city or state and starts dropping pins on Google Maps to decide whether or not the place in question is "shiddy."
It is fantastic.
OutKick's own Michael "Gunz" Gunzelman covered it this morning, but Shiddy Places' video about the proud city of Baltimore is too funny not to share again.
Turning the image to reveal a car completely on blocks had me in tears.
So, so funny.
True story: my girlfriend and I watched a couple more of his videos and we legitimately cheered when he dropped a pin and found an abandoned gas station in the wilds of Texas that was deemed "shiddy."
Although, I tried playing this game, and the one thing I realized is that you can't do it with your own city because you have a sense of the good and bad parts of town.
I was just calling my shiddy shot over and over.
But still, great stuff from this dude. Highly recommend checking out @shiddyplaces on TikTok after you read several dozen more articles and watch all of the shows here on OutKick.
Let's Revisit Our Favorite Drummers
Last week, I mentioned that the topic of favorite drummers came up in a recent meeting, so I threw out my top 5.
Now, remember, these are "favorite" drummers, not "best" from a technical perspective necessarily and they're in no particular order:
- Neal Peart - Rush
- Nicko McBrain - Iron Maiden
- Mike Portnoy - Dream Theater, The Winery Dogs
- Jimmy Chamberlain - Smashing Pumpkins
- Jean-Paul Gaster - Clutch
I got a ton of great responses to this, so let's run through a few…
From LA Don:
How is not watching Buddy Rich or Jon Bonham fun?
You nailed the number one right, Neal Peart. He’s a god amongst us drummers.
…
From RidgeRunner:
Hey, Matt, you revealed a lot about your music taste with your drummers. Solid picks, great bands, but, uh, wrong.
Ok, I’d have to put Peart in there.
Also:
Keith Moon, The Who
Carter Beauford, DMB
Ginger Baker, Cream
Bonzo Bonham, Zep
Charley Watts, Stones
Lars Ulrich, Metallica
And the king, Buddy Rich, undisputed.
…
From Bill:
Dating myself...
1. Buddy Rich
2. Ed Shaughnessy
3. Neil Peart
4. Carl Palmer
5. My teacher when I was a kid (can't remember his name)
…
From Thad:
5. Neil Peart
4. Steve Gadd
3. Dave Weckl
2. Buddy Rich
1. Gene Krupa
…
From Jonathan in St. Louis:
Anup Sastry
Troy Wright
Josh Manuel
Connor J. Denis
Zev Rose
Alex Camarena
…
There were more where these came from, but as you can see, there are a lot of Buddy Rich fans out there!
Thanks to everyone who sent in a list! I had a great time going through them and checking out the videos that you all sent in.
So… let's do it again! We'll keep it in the rhythm section this time and give bass players some love, how about that?
My top five bass players are, in. no particular order.
- Steve Harris: Iron Maiden's bassist, founder, and principal songwriter can blow your mind with his fleet-fingered gallups. It's impossible to think of Iron Maiden and not picture Steve Harris hammering away on his Precision Bass with his foot on the monitor singing along to the words that he probably wrote.
- Les Claypool: I think Primus is an acquired taste for a lot of people, but I absolutely love them, and I don't think you can argue that Les Claypool isn't one of the most interesting and innovative bass players in all of rock music.
- Geddy Lee: I've been bringing Rush up a lot recently, but they deserve every mention. I mean, how can you not respect a dude who sings and plays bass while also handling keyboard duties and triggering samples, sometimes with his feet? Geddy is the man.
- Cliff Burton: The late Metallica bass player is kind of in a league of his own in the thrash metal world. Hop on Spotify right now and listen to his bass solo "Anesthesia (Pulling Teeth)" from Metallica's debut album Kill ‘Em All if you need a refresher as to why he’s one of the all-time four-string greats.
- Geezer Butler: we mentioned him earlier, but Terrence "Geezer" Butler helped lay the groundwork for heavy metal and that's worth a spot on the list in my book.
That's that — although I would add honorable mentions Lemmy Kilmister from Motorhead, Frank Bello from Anthrax, and Troy Sanders from Mastodon — so now it's your turn.
Looking forward to seeing your lists, which you can send to mattreigleoutkick@gmail.com.
…
That's it for this Wednesday edition of Nightcaps! Hope you have a great rest of the day and we'll do it again tomorrow!