Matt Underwood

USC Player

Before we proceed, do you care to comment on the following statement from your friend and USC catcher, Josh Fogel:

“it took the Angels 44 years to win A World Series. In the amount of time it took for the Angels to win a World Series, there have been 9 Presidents, 13 Garth Brooks albums, and 263,639,692 big gulps sold in states WEST of the Rocky Mountains. With this being said, I feel it to be very unfair to ever mention the 26-time World Series champion New York Yankees with the Anaheim Angels in the same sentence ever again.”

First of all, Josh “Pie Box” Fogel exhibits more bias in his arguments than Michael Moore does in his far-fetched allegations. Secondly, the Yankees won all of their championships back in the nineteen-dicketies, when there were only two teams in the league—the Yankees and the Los Angeles Sparks. Third, how can we give Fogs any sort of credibility when his favorite movie is “Mortal Kombat,” his role model is Steven Q Urkel, and he is a fan of the South Hampton Saints (A soccer team). Furthermore, his team has not won a championship this millennium, unlike the Angels who rolled through the 2002 season. Might I remind everyone that a millennium is a thousand years, which is quite a long time. But I guess that all Yankee fans will have to live far in the past to remember their glory days because clearly the future of the American League rests in the superior talent of the Angels and the Red Sox. The Yankees will soon be the Clippers of baseball.

 

My fondest memory of high school baseball came thanks to the man himself, J-Tut (Justin Tuttle). It was about 20 minutes before practice and we were all hanging out in front of the first base dugout at Saugus High. Justin and I were tossing the old cow-skin around and just shooting the breeze, when none other than our teammate Matt Hughes came walking down to the field. Justin asked if I thought he should throw the ball at him and I replied, “Absolutely.” So Justin threw the ball from right in front of the first base dugout, over the fence, and one-hopped Matty right in the flesh balloons. Matt immediately collapsed to the ground and laid there with his hat on his face for at least 40 minutes, while we were all laughing hysterically at him. Sure he might never be able to have kids, but at least we all got a good laugh about it.

 

First, the university has an unmatchable history. Also, everybody always told me how close the “Trojan Family” was and I didn’t really believe them, but since I have been here, I have been exposed to so many people out in the business world that have given me great advice. Finally, Josh Fogel was coming to USC and I really wanted to be sure that I would be with him when the Angels won the World Series so we could share in each others overwhelming joy.

 

Academics have to be the top priority for high school students. Most athletes won’t make a living off their athleticism so they need to have a strong foundation to fall back on.

 

What advice would you give to a high school athlete who wants to play baseball at a higher level?

Make sure you work as hard as you can. Just give it your all so you know that you gave it your best shot. There is nothing worse than looking back and thinking, “If I just would have worked harder or put in more time, I could have been really good.” Have no regrets.

 

Due to my humility, I will not choose the obvious answer for the first one, which would be myself or so I am told. So, I would have to pick Natalie Portman because not only is she gorgeous, but her fantastic acting skills add to her beauty. The obvious answer for Most Talented would be the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim as a whole. However, I will select one person from the best team in baseball and that person would be the 12-tool (at least) threat Vladimir Guerrero. The most ridiculous has to be the sport of soccer. I would put Minesweeper ahead of soccer in the sport category. Soccer requires less skill than being a Yankee second baseman.

 

 

I love the soothing melodies provided by Enya and my favorite song ever has to be “99 red balloons” by Nena. Other than that, I am a big country and rap guy so I like all of the good artists in those genres (Toby Keith, Kenny Chesney, 50 Cent, Bubba Sparxxx…)

 

Natalie Portman and I would head down to Black Angus in good old Santa Clarita, CA. I would order the usual, the 8oz New York Strip Steak (medium) with baked potato soup and a fully loaded baked potato. I would then proceed to eat about three loaves of their bread because it is the best in the world and all the while, she would just watch me eat because she is getting a little thick around the waist.

 

So when you’re hanging at your pad with roommates, Derek Jeter, er, uh, Josh Fogel, and JD Drew, er, Nick Pellico, who inevitably wins the baseball debates?

Josh doesn’t debate; he just raises his voice and spews out incoherent babble that we all laugh at. Josh also doesn’t know baseball, hence his love of the Yankees. However, Nick and I do engage in actual baseball conversations and he always loses because in the end, he is a Dodger fan and there is no excuse for that. You just can’t argue against the dynasty that Arte Moreno has created.

 

My plans are to dominate Wall Street very quickly.

 

I would invite Jesus because that would be amazing to just talk to him. I would also invite that one skinny Japanese guy that always dominates those eating contests against those large human-beings, just to see how much he could eat. My final invitation would go to Vladdy Daddy, the soon to be World Champion, to thank him for bringing glory back to LA/Anaheim. (If I had a fourth invitation, it would go to David Ortiz for obvious reasons.)