During last year's Eastern Final, some of us - okay, one of us - would stand up and bellow a hearty "Oh, yeah...IT'S CRITICAL!!!" every time Robert Baker made a catch. This may have been worse karma than the popcorn stunt, and probably struck the folks in front of us as just one of the many irritating noises coming from our row (some of which don't even involve a cowbell). But I had my reasons.

See, that week, we'd learned Baker isn't just a receiver...he's also an aspiring rapper. And under the name Shake Severs, he'd released a single - It's Critical - that somehow came into my possession. It's not as though Kanye was exactly shaking in his boots, especially because the track was marred by a random punk guy turning up to scream "IT'S CRITICAL!!!" where the chorus should've been. But Baker's rhymes about his checkered past had a certain appeal to them, if for no other reason than that they finally resolved the season-long debate over who had more street-cred - him or Noel Prefontaine.

The disappointing part, though, is that articles like this one promised us a full album's worth of Shake Severs come January - and so far as we know, it's nowhere to be found. This might explain Baker's performance in the season's first few weeks, which has been slightly below his usual standards...dude's got so many rhymes waiting to bust out, he can't focus on the field.

Just to be clear, we're not making fun of Robert Baker. In fact, that'll probably be a general policy around here. Partly, that's because we have immense respect for his football skills. Mostly, it's because we're all a little scared of him, especially since learning that he's friends with Mike Mihelic; if there's a pair of CFL players we'd less like to get on the wrong side of, it's not coming to mind. We just want - nay, demand - our Shake Severs.