Parity Podcast Episode #305

A Bisang is a drop, in the same way that a Teachable Moment (Mehmet) is a throw away. I am currently working on making a Keates a throw away, so that "Keatsing" it can mean more than missing the field with the pull.

This arose out of Bisang winning the drops category. On top of this, Al dropped this bomb on the forums after a bunch of chatter about Bisang maybe winning the drops category, and it has stuck. By tradition (this is actually the root of the tradition), when you win a bad category the bad category is named after you, and thus far everyone that has won a bad category has been experienced enough and had enough of a sense of humour that we can do this safely without actually hurting people's feelings (one day this may not happen, and tradition will change).

The history of the Berry is quite simple. One day Simon Berry threw a second assist. In an unprecidented moment of fortune and good luck, he then threw an actual assist. Compounding this absurdly improbably event, he threw something and hit someone in the hands but they dropped it (possibly Bisang?). Per usual, he had a catch or two, a drop, and probably a few goals. Knowing this, and driven by a vainglorious desire to be immortalized forever in the anals of Parity history, he did the math in his head and realized he was only a throw away away from getting at least 1 of every tracked stat. So he did it, and proudly announced that he had done it all.

Forever more, doing it all will be a Berry.

All of the above is precisely why I need to write a dictionary of Parity in-jokes, neologisms, etc. Anything can be verbed these days, so now we can Keates it, Bisang it, or Berry harder than ever before. But that doesn't mean new people get the joke, and I mean to correct that soon.

Does anyone else find it really crazy that **** Lee is bleeped out in the Podcast? At first, I thought it was a clever bit of editing to try and strike **** from the history books but then I went to type this post and every time I type out **** it just shows up as asterisks. This seems like some true 1984 level history retconning. I think it's time we question just how much control Mr. Bettman exerts over this sacred league.

It was very generous of the podcast host to define the whale in such polite terms but, so that there is no confusion, a whale is a player who’s on field value pales in comparison to his or her’s bloated Parity Salary. It was coined as a throwaway line in a competing podcast that was way less polished but somehow just as entertaining. I believe the line went something like, “There hasn't been anything as bloated as Sebastien Belanger’s salary since online videos of a beached whale”.

If we look at this years stats, I’m sad to say that I can no longer claim the title** thanks is large part to my incredible performance in the throwaway category (currently 17). This begs the question of who is this years whale?

When hunting for a whale using the Parity 2.0 stats page found here all you have to do is follow 3 easy steps:

1. Set filter to “All” and sort by Pay with highest salaries at the top

2. Scan the list of names and look for a player that doesn’t belong in his/her’s salary band peers

3. Finally, imagine a Whale candidate trying to cover his/her’s salary band peers and if there is a gross mismatch, voila, you’ve caught your whale

2018 Parity Session 1 (after 5 weeks) Winner:

Name: Michael O’Hare ($107,250)

Peers: Matt Cole ($108,400), Michael Davidson ($106,400), Pascal Michaud ($103,500)

* while there is no requirement for the player to be caucasian, the odds are definitely high and it makes the joke funnier and/or the entire post more uncomfortable so I left it in.

** If you think that Nick Klimowicz ($59,750), Bo Biswas ($58,200) and Morgan Howard ($55,600) are a tier above me for on-field value than I’ll be happy to embrace the whale label

Personally, I've always identified more with Lisa Simpson.

Edit: I just did this Which Simpsons character are you? quiz and got Troy McClure. Good call, Laura.

I got Lionel Hutz

I got Ned Flanders (insert doubtful emoji here). 

Missed Opportunity: Having Dan Thompson/Ken Brockman read the news segment. In my mind, I was hearing it. Great podcast, voice clips were awesome. Also, great idea to have prizes! Quite a few candidates though no True Berry with a "1" in every column, just pretenders with a sprinkling of digits. 

I got Nelson Muntz! Awesome!

I don't think I Bisang'd the Berry.

The best Belanger was only heard by Laura, Seb got D'd badly standing stationary for a pass and I yell out "He was waiting for it like a bus!"

Where is Geofford when you need him?