Two guys who, like, never agree

Adios, amigos.

2008-08-13T14:48:00.003-07:00

It was fun while it lasted, but it seems that I'm all alone here, now. And arguing with the ether just ain't my style. See y'all on the other 'blogs.

Just in case ...

2008-08-12T14:45:00.003-07:00

... you were wondering what I'm doing these days, I've begun a new blog called l'antagonista. It's still a work in progress and everything, but I wanted to start writing again in a non-TGWNA format. This place was dead, anyway.

The fine line between cheap and thrifty.

2008-07-15T09:31:00.002-07:00

My man Diesel pointed me toward an interesting bit of reading the other day. I had sensed from the manner in which it was sent to me that the Diesel views Arsene Wenger's frugality in a positive light, as the author does, which makes sense for someone as financially savvy as he.

Initially, the article garnered somewhat of a 'meh' response on my end. Then I got to thinking about it, and I don't know if Wenger's financial tactics are really all that laudable, particularly in a league with such high stakes as the Premiership.

Now, I understand that the Gunners are paying for their new stadium with team revenues only, which is quite commendable. And I am aware that brand-new stadia cost a lot of bread, especially when you aren't having local taxpayers fund it for you. Also, I concede that it would be nice, I guess, if the organization didn't hemorrhage money. But my contention with the sort of blanket-statement of "He's being smart by spending less" is that it, in itself, fails to address the core concept of value.

Value is, of course, the simple ratio of what one gets per what one pays. It is OK if you spend a lot of money, so long as you get a lot of silverware (ManU). Conversely, if you spend little and receive little, then what good are you? (Derby County) The fact is that championships brings fans, and fans bring revenue. If you want to fill stadiums and bring in the skrilla, you have to put butts in seats by winning. Also, in my view, the situation is made all the more significant by the fact that the EPL is essentially a 4-team league. When you're Arsenal, keeping up with the Joneses means putting up the required cash to compete with three of the best teams in the world. In fact, there are already pretty valid concerns that Wenger's spendthrift policies may end up costing the team valuable players, and, by extension, wins. Losing Hleb and Adebayor would leave holes that I doubt that Samir Nasri and Aaron Ramsey will be able to fill. It may be a sage advice to buy low and sell high on the stock market, but a strong balance sheet does not necessarily translate to notches in the win-column, as members from both sides of the salary cap issue are all too eager to impart.

And let's dispense right now with the rubbish that it is better to have an inexpensive player with future? potential than an established player with experience and skill that serves you now. Fans don't come to this week's game because the team will be good in 3 years, they come because they are hoping for a victory today. Affirming the contrary would be tantamount to saying that you like to go to such-and-such a restaurant every day because the food shouldn't suck so bad in a few years:

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Person 1: "Man, this burger sucks; I think it is made of pigeon meat! And it cost me $10!"

Person 2: "Dude, stick with this place, man. With all of the money that they are making off of selling $10 rat-burgers, they'll have enough dough in a few months to start serving real beef! Besides, isn't this a nice looking dining room?"

Person 1: "But.....that assumes that they'll even want to buy real beef after a few months. If they've already established that they can get $10 for a 89 cent product, why would they ever upgrade their ingredients? Let's go."

Person 2: "That's not how I roll, Broseph. This imitation pork fritatta may make me gag, but it has tremendous upside."

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And, getting away from questionable meat products for a moment, allow me to also put the pre-emptive kibosh on any 'quantity is better than quality' bullshit. If anyone else but Diesel is reading this, you may wonder what the hell I am talking about. In that event, execute a post search on this blog for 'Cat Skinner 2000', or a variant thereof. You should find a post authored by the D that suggests that having a large amount of cheaper, less competent cat skinners is the same or better than a fewer number of more expensive units, or whatever.

Although quantity does indeed have a quality all of it's own, this model for selecting sports team rosters just doesn't work....at any level. Why? Because only X number of players can be on the field at any given time. You can have a million Phillipe Senderos' on the bench, but not a one of them is going to be able to stop Cristiano Ronaldo. Even if you tied 4 of them together with bungee cords, put one oversized jersey over the lot, and convinced the ref that this constituted only one player, they would not have a prayer against that fairy on the wing. Another hole in this logic is found by trying to extend it into other, comparable realms.

For example, if I went out and got 3 day-laborers from the Home Depot and sat them at my desk, my job wouldn't get done (or done properly, anyway). Even if I paid them an amount that totalled among the 3 of them to be less than my hourly rate (about $7 per hour right now), you'd still get a bunch of garbled crap on the CAD drawings, and my clients would be considerably less likely to keep doing business with my firm. I'm not saying that I am better than these 3 men, but I am saying that, for now, I am a better engineer. Now, extend this to the sports world. Team quality is not an additive property of individual player proficiency. Sucks + Sucks + Sucks = Sucks.

P.S. Um, upon review, I realize that I may have built a few straw men here, Diesel. Please feel free to tell me off if I have put any words in your mouth vis-a-vis any of the supposed positions that I present as being contrary to yours.

zzzzzz...Huh?...Oh, Euro 2008 is here!

2008-06-03T13:55:00.003-07:00

That's right, you lazy, cholesterol-soaked, American Imperialists! It's time for the Euro 2008 championship, and I, for one, couldn't be more excited. Really!

Despite the fact that, for me, this is a pretty exciting time of year for sports (Stanley Cup finals, F1 is in full swing, NBA finals involving two teams that anyone gives half a shit about), there hasn't been anything blogworthy to write about that anyone but I would care to read. But the Euro championship is different. This affects everyone, and anyone not caring about this clash of the soccer titans is an unwashed rube.

Perhaps that last part is a bit much, but the fact remains that the Euros are an excellent and almost unavoidable opportunity to allow your ethnic pride to bait you into arguments about a sport that you know little about with equally impassioned strangers. Count this as a rare chance to throw your undivided support towards a team of players whose names you cannot pronounce. It's like the St. Patrick's Day of the sporting world. No one really cares about being Irish; you don't speak the language and have never been there, but, by God, you'll jump at the opportunity to get wasted and proclaim your pride as a member of Celtic race.

Speaking of Celtic pride, Ireland will not be represented in this year's tournament. Booooo. Neither will any of the UK nations, for that matter. There goes that half of the Big C gene pool, and the ill-fitting Irish national team jersey, to boot. So, who am I throwing in with (primarily)?

Polska!

That's 'Poland' for you non-Slavic wags. I don't speak a word of the language, have never been there, and, because my father was adopted, haven't the slightest clue as to the origins or whereabouts of my ancestors. That makes me the perfect candidate to get into a barfight with some dago or kraut bastard over the honor of one Jakub Blaszczykowski. Fuck all haters.

Also, in the true spirit of the modern day euro-mutt, I'll give 1/16th of my support to, wait for it,.....France! Three reasons:

1. They have received absolutely zero dap from ESPN's annoying little TV ads. Portugal, which has accomplished roughly dick in international play, gets a 30-second spot; but France, apparently, can go fuck themselves. What a great way for me to be both an asshole and an iconoclast at the same time. I'm in douchebag heaven with this one; and that's what soccer is really all about. Fuck all haters.

2. Entertainment value. France plays the most exciting, beautiful soccer in Europe. A win for the frogs is a win for the sport. I really enjoy the irony of the fact that the only country that can possibly get Americans to give a flying fuck about soccer will be the one nation that everyone here pretty much universally despises.

3. Um, they are going to win and it's not even going to be close. Seriously, vive la France.

So, everybody, all two of you; Fire up the HD, don those expensive, brand-new jerseys, and pledge your schizoid allegiance to whichever half, third, quarter, or sixteenth of your ethnic heritage is represented on the pitch over the next few weeks. So long as you're not looking for an explosive offense, aggressive playing style, and well, scoring, you'll be in set. Catch the fever.

P.S. Why is Lukas Podolski not starting for the German squad? If the krauts don't want him, we'll be glad to welcome him back to the motherland. Miroslav Klose, too, please.

OK, I can't imagine anyone's checking in anymore ...

2008-04-24T18:30:00.002-07:00

... but, something actually came up that got me interested enough to write.

Jason over at It IS About the Money, Stupid, recently posted a sort-of rhetorical question: Why is it that pitchers today — particularly young ones — are getting Tommy John Surgery in such high numbers? Jason posits, as many have, that the efforts to help pitchers — restricted pitch counts, five-man rotations, etc. — might actually be the cause. I've heard this said often, and even written about it a little before in this space.

The problem with that idea — and I'm not criticizing Jason, simply offering a counter-point — is that it isn't taking into account one vital, fundamental difference between the "olden-days" when pitchers routinely threw complete games, and today:

It is way, way, way, way, way, way, way, WAY harder to pitch in today's game.

The last time I wrote about this, I challenged the self-reinforcing memory device that allows people to think that pitchers back in the day never got hurt. I wish I had the time to do a breakdown on the length of pitchers' careers in previous eras, but I've got my nose buried in the world of soccer statistics these days and don't really feel like making my brain and/or processor melt with even more Excel work. But I would be willing to bet cold, hard currency that pitchers, on the whole, experience longer careers now than they used to. It's sort of a sucker's bet, because there are so many developments in the game, particularly in the related fields of training and medical treatment, that it is virtually impossible that I'm on the wrong side of this. And the reason that such a counter-intuitive belief has persisted within many circles is because we tend to only remember those who did have long careers, and quickly forget the Jeff D'Amicos of the world who make an impact one season, and are gone a couple later.

However, for the sake of my argument, I can allow for the idea that injuries are more common today for pitchers. To simply hone in on the so-called "improvements" teams have made in pitcher handling as the possible cause of all this TJ surgery distress is missing the forest for the trees; the reason teams have hard pitch restrictions and five-man rotations is because they were adjusting to both the realities of pitcher attrition rates and the fact that, since the lowering of the mound, pitchers must pitch much better if they're to pitch effectively (say that sentence five times fast).

Here's what's changed since Bob Gibson's 1.12 ERA season in 1968, often cited as the single-greatest pitching season in the history of the sport:

• Mounds have been lowered four inches
• Balls have gone from being hand-wound to machine-wound, resulting in a tighter ball
• Balls are often swapped out after a few impacts with a bat, resulting in fewer "softened" balls
• Ballparks have become exponentially smaller, most notably w/r/t power alleys and foul territories
• Hitters have gotten bigger
• Hitters have gotten smarter, thanks in large part to video analysis
• Hitters are encouraged to work counts much more often
• The strike zone has gotten smaller

I'm probably leaving some things off the list, but that will do. Essentially, just about everything that's happened in the last 40 years has been almost virulently anti-pitcher. So, it's tougher to get an out than it's ever been in the history of baseball, if we're talking in broad strokes.

The next logical step is to assume that pitchers must exert more effort, on average, with each pitch than they would have 40 years ago. It's the effort per pitch — not necessarily the raw number of pitchers — that determines pitcher fatigue. And it's when pitchers continue to pitch while fatigued that leads to injuries, as Dr. James Andrews has said a million and a half times. The only reason things like Pitcher Abuse Points exist is because it's much easier to try and figure out a general number for a ceiling that can be applied to the average pitcher than it is trying to figure out a number for each individual pitcher. I'll bet, though, that the individual teams' pitch counts are much more nuanced and specific; coaches should be able to tell, based upon an individuals level of effort per pitch and stamina level, what number works for each pitcher on the staff. If they don't, they should probably be fired (you hear that Charlie Manuel, he who is attempting to end Cole Hamels' career?).

There are a lot of ancillary issues that are leading to the rise in TJ surgery, which is an increased ability to diagnose specific problems as opposed to nebulous terms like "tired arms," specialization at early ages for athletes, the Vanderbilt coaching staff and the 10-year-old curve ball. It doesn't hurt that the surgery is more available and affordable than it's ever been, which allows it to be an option for younger players who probably would have been forced to just give up the game after tearing a UCL in years past. Shit, there's something to be said about the correlation between advanced surgical procedures and the demise of knuckleballers, as many of those who turned to the world of constant manicuring did so as a result of a fastball-killing arm injury.

But the bottom line is that the rise in TJ surgery isn't because pitchers don't train to throw 150 pitches per game or 300 innings a season any longer; they don't do those things anymore because, if they did, it would probably result in an even more TJ surgeries. As far as I can tell, arguments like this come down to figuring out where in the chain of causality one wishes to begin his or her inquest. Starting at the increase of TJ surgery is, I believe, about three or four links too far up the chain.

Thanks, Jason, for writing something that got me thinking.

Reason number 23,367 that NASCAR sucks.

2008-04-11T15:08:00.008-07:00

As the latest in the ever-increasing number of reasons to turn your racing attentions elsewhere, this article serves as a paragon of inept, completely out-of-touch journalism. A stark contrast to this guy, who has been put on blast for actually relating an informed, accurate take on a topic, Blount's premise is fundamentally asinine and laughably wrong.

What Blount (and the complaining drivers, for that matter) doesn't seem to grasp is that NASCAR, unlike, say, F1, is a sport that prides itself upon uniformity, simplicity, and antiquity.

I mean, NASCAR, still uses pushrod motors! Pushrod! No one even produces cars with pushrod (no camshaft(s)) motors anymore! Is anyone really surprised that a sport that not only embraces, but champions outdated and inferior technology would not be receptive to change? Forget about those fancy fuel injectors, Poindexter, that shit's for pussies. And don't even start trying to push that non-oval-tracks-make-for-more-interesting-races bullshit; I ain't had enough Milwaukee's Best tonight to get roped into that conversation. Give me a chaw, boy, and a knife to whittle this switch!

__________________________________________________________________________

Aaaaaaaand, we're back.... It should not be lost on anyone that all of the kvetching over the pushrod-using, carburated, breadbox of a vehicle is taking place over a vehicle once dubbed the 'Car of Tomorrow'. Aside from helping us understand the definition of the word 'irony', that little tidbit should serve as the codex of the NASCAR world: spitefully ignorant, intentionally backward, and complaining all the way.

Aerodynamics?! They're complaining about aerodynamics?! Sweet Enola Gay, son! I only finished 3 semesters as an aero before switching to physics, but here's a quick primer on some astute observations that I have made whilst pondering this issue:

These:

are more aerodynamically sound than this:

For the Flying Spaghetti Monster's sake, even the rearview mirrors have been engineered and wind-tunnel tested on the F1 cars!

P.S - This is completely off-topic, but why is texting (on standard keypad phones, anyway) so popular? Does anyone realize that we have essentially reverted back to Morse code? What's up with that, people?

I wish this were the last word on Lute Olson

2008-04-11T09:58:00.002-07:00

But I know it's not going to be.

I don't know how much more I'm going to be posting, and this doesn't exactly qualify as breaking news here. But considering I've spent no small amount of time baiting columnists in this space — even this particular one once or twice, though I've always done so with some hesitation, because I know Greg a little and respect him very much — I wanted to take the opportunity to present a columnist not only writing/doing something good, but brave.

For those who may not know, Olson blackballed Hansen for quite a few years after the city's leading sportswriter had the temerity to call out Olson and the program for letting a player sit in jail (I believe this is the story, but I could be wrong). Olson's megalomania is no recent development; he's been pulling this shit for years. And, after what appeared to be a heartfelt burying of the hatchet with Greg a couple of years back -- lore has it that the patch-up came at the request of Lute's now-late wife, Bobbi, under whose well-deserved halo Lute has lived to this day -- it appears Lute thinks there's cause enough to draw arms again. That's sad, because Greg's one of those writers who only grudgingly gets into it with those he covers. That's not to say he's a sycophant — he's certainly not, as this column proves (as do dozens of others through the years) — but he is clearly more attuned to the kind of column writing that makes people better fans of a program, as opposed to better critics. Furthermore, just about any time Greg actually decides to write something even remotely strident, he gets fucking killed by readers (read the comments after the Olson column, but be sure to take a couple of Advil first). Yeah, maybe the Mariottis of the world get it worse, but they actually deserve it. Greg Hansen has spent the last two-plus decades giving big-league coverage, in terms of the quality of his writing and the respect/gravity he affords his subjects, to the world's biggest college town. He deserves, at the least, a poorly populated e-mail inbox on column days.

I'm actually getting angrier about this as I write, which means that I'm reaching the point where I'll probably just start throwing bombs at Tucson. But I don't want to. I'm exhausted by the entire Lute Olson situation -- he really is the grinch that stole college basketball, at least for me -- and I'm not really interested in slamming my former home because I still like a lot of things about Tucson.

But, seriously, I have no idea how anyone with a shred of intelligence can still be a fan of this program as long as Shakes is at the helm.

Exhibit A:

2008-03-26T22:08:00.005-07:00

Try this at home, kids! The above is a one-of-a-kind, 100% completely accurate litmus test for racism! A sort of Rorschach test for prejudice, if you will, for this image is exactly what the observer wants it to be. Follow these steps:

1. Show this to someone you know. If they find Gisele to be overrated due to her lack of titties, or express interest in the no-exercise diet, then you have witnessed a perfectly normal reaction to this otherwise uninspiring cover for a magazine no one really reads unless they are in the waiting room at the dentist. Skip to Step 4. However, if the person in question deems the image to be racist or offensive, then you have a real, live bigot on your hands. And, if that isn't bad enough, you would be in the presence of the worst (OK, second-to-worst) kind; the latent racist. The latent racist, or LR, is a person who, amid vehement claims to the contrary, harbors a deep-seated and potentially dangerous form of racial misunderstanding and/or resentment. At least the Archie Bunkers of the world are honest.

2. The latent racist, at this point, should not be openly ridiculed or chastised. Rather, you should maintain eye contact and slowly back away, smiling affirmatively. The latent racist is the most dangerous of the non-violent racist breed, and should be treated with a measure of caution. The LR is irrational, you see, and sees a visage of King Kong where there is really just a picture of a forward for a hopelessly lost basketball franchise. Other symptoms include, but are not limited to; naively positing that affirmative action is a good idea, a feverish, unsupported support of Barack Obama's presidential candidacy, and the refusal to acknowledge that prison tats make a black person (or anyone, for that matter) appear threatening. This last one seems a bit ironic, I know, but is consistent with the LR's very measured attempts at appearing to be non-racist. The fact is that the LR is actually very racist, indeed. Deep down, he/she is terrified of and/or disgusted by black people, yet desperately wants the world to know that they're cool and unaffected by racial distinctions, despite the fact that they filter everything they see through a color-sensitive lens.

3. If the subject is a friend, encourage them to fight the symptoms of latent racism. Make them aware that everyone is aware of the slight undercurrent of racial tension in this country, but that treating fashion magazine covers with the same gravitas as, say, real-life, violent racism (a la the Jena Six) is not the definition of progress. Inform them that they have nothing to feel guilty for, and that slavery was not their fault. Walking on eggshells around blacks or the issues surrounding blacks only drives the feelings of LR deeper within, and that treating them as poor, disadvantaged wretches (I am talking about affirmative action) is about the most condescending, insulting, and, well, racist thing that anyone can do.

4. Sit back and laugh as a few nuts in the media out themselves as being latent racists on a hair-trigger by getting all up in a tizzy and apologizing profusely for an image that doesn't even upset black people. Equally ridiculous will be the remaining contingent who, under the guise of neutrality, will try to stir up shit and lay the kindling for a flame war by posing it as an 'Is this offensive, America?' piece. They certainly need that manual.

P.S: I rescind that 'no-tittie' comment about Gisele. Subsequent photos reveal that she does, in fact, have boobs.

A Friend of the Program Previews the NCAA Tourney

2008-03-18T12:43:00.003-07:00

I got the following NCAA tourney preview via e-mail from a friend of mine, and thought it was too good not to post. So, with his blessing and Diesel's, I present you:

The Official Jim 2008 NCAA Tournament Preview/Suicide Note

Overture

My fondest tournament memory from the last few years came in the first round game in 2006 between Michigan St. and Utah St. About five minutes in, Utah St. point guard David Pak got fouled and went to the line. As Pak shot his first free throws, the venerable Dick Enberg was obliged to share some personal information about the "young" man.

"Pak is actually a 29 year old freshman," began Enberg, cheerfully, with his customary grace and warmth, as he read whatever notes had been put in front of him.

Pause. Obviously Enberg hadn’t read the notes beforehand.

"It seems Pak actually spent seven years in prison..."

Long Pause.

"...for the...heinous crime...of rape," stuttered poor Enberg, a broken man, his belief in humanity crushed.

The best part is that I realized David Pak was actually from my hometown and that we had once played on the same NJB all-star team in 4th grade. Yeah, that’s right, I was an all-star! Suck it!

Some thoughts on the season that was:

Duke: I don’t know how they do it, but each year Duke somehow becomes whiter and more insufferable. I thought they hit the highwater mark two years ago with J.J. Redick, who I actually liked as a player, until some of his poems were published in Sports Illustrated. Here’s a stanza:

No bandage can cover my scars
It's hard living a life behind invisible bars
Searching for the face of God
I'm only inspired by the poems of Nas

I believe this has the same scansion as Rilke’s Duino Elegies. In any case, it makes me proud as an American to know that Duke, for so long an insidious bastion of corporate virtue, inspires so much hate in so many people. Not even the delicate lyricism of J.J. Redick can redeem them. It is a moral imperative that you pick them to lose to West Virginia in the second round.

Pac-10: Out here on the West Coast, when I’m not playing beach volleyball or enjoying fresh avocados on an eerily beautiful afternoon, I like to watch games from the best conference in the country. It was brutal this year. The middle of the pack teams out here all would have competed for titles in the Big Ten, Big 12, Small 7, and SEC. There’s still a purity to the Pac-10; unlike the ACC and the Big East no new teams have been added or dropped based on the whims of television revenue and football scheduling. It’s the same teams every year in the Pac-10, playing the same home and away. God bless.

Freshman: Michael Beasley at Kansas State had a great year and will likely be the No. 1 pick. But to me, he’s the second coming of Derrick Coleman – which isn’t a good thing. Injuries bothered Eric Gordon all year, but I think he’ll turn it on in the tournament and make a bid for going No. 1 in the draft. Though I faintly despise Kevin Love – mostly because he’s related to Mike Love, the least talented of all the Beach Boys and the man responsible for "Kokomo" –there’s no denying that he’s a beast. Over at Memphis, I can’t help but note a supercilious air about freshman point Derrick Rose. Maybe it’s his elegant last name, or his high cheek bones, but he plays too much like a dauphin and I’m not convinced he can lead Memphis to the final four. In Johnny Flynn and Donta Green, Syracuse has the best freshman duo in the country, and their my early pick to win the tournament next year.

Tyler Hansborough: Torture. That’s the only way to describe watching him. He’s a walking dry heave, and yet will be national player of the year. North Carolina is a magnet for chiseled, robotic atheletes; there’s not an ounce of flavor on their entire team, which is maybe why they are No. 1 in the country.

Players I like: Deron Washington of Virginia Tech, who apparently hates Duke as much as I do. Last year he delivered the play of the year:

Greg Paulus being forced to lick Deron Washington’s balls as he soars over him – it’s an image that should be inscribed on a Grecian Urn. In both games this year, Washington went nuts, hacking every Duke player in sight, drawing technicals, and generally comporting himself like a true gentleman. I think he’s borderline Artest on the mental stability scale and I actually think he’ll make it in the NBA. Too bad Virginia Tech missed out on the tournament. It’s probably the worst tragedy ever to befall that university.

Derek Low and Kyle Weaver of Washington State, both fun to watch in really subtle ways. Low’s what they call in the business "deceptively quick" in that no one can figure out how a pudgy guy with a pony tail can get around people. Weaver is kind of a poor man’s Josh Howard, but an ambitious poor man who perhaps is getting job training at a local community center.

Mike Green of Butler – A.J. Graves, who, as his surname implies, is small, pale, and wizened, like a mortician’s assistant, was supposed to be the star for Butler, but it was Green who carried them all year. Very Andre Miller in the way gets to the basket.

Names: There is a worrying shortage of great names in college basketball this year. There’s Demontez Stitt at Clemson and Wink Adams at UNLV, but neither are worthy of the pantheon. To fill the void, here’s my all-time top 5:

5b. Majestic Mapp (Virginia)
5a. Scientific Mapp (Florida Central)
4. God Shammgod (Providence)
3. Jihad Muhammad (Cincinnati)
2. Baskerville Holmes (Memphis St.)
1. Zenon M (Cal Poly Pomona)

As a kid, I actually watched Zenon M play against Chapman "University". He was not as good as his name. The only current players who could possibly make the list are Dunky Magoo and Ipsissimus Q. Le Fist, the backcourt at South Alabama.

Now to the Brackets

EAST

Players to watch:

Tyler Smith (Tennessee): the main reason Tennessee has elevated themselves this year from underachievers with an obnoxious coach to achievers with an obnoxious coach.

David Padgett (Louisville): tough, hard working, white: these are the qualities that a dying generation of TV announcers drool over in a borderline creepy fashion.

Upsets:
St. Joe’s over Oklahoma in the first round; Indiana over North Carolina in the second round – D.J. White neutralizes Hansborough, Eric Gordon goes fucking sick house on their asses .

Pick
Tennessee. They are bright orange and fun to watch.

Misc
Luke Harongody of Notre Dame: he sort of looks like a ham.

WEST

Players to watch

Joe Shipp (UCLA): Love and Collison get most of the attention, but Shipp is a beast in his own right. A classic Socal baller – smooth, sleepy, and efficient, does everything well.

Joe Alexander (West Virginia): His game is catching up with his athleticism. A better, more aggressive version of Chase Budinger, whom he’ll match up with in the first round.

Nuno Gonsalves y Morbo (South Alamaba): born into poverty on the outskirts of Lisbon, this exciting sophomore has overcome the tragic and unexplained loss of his left hand to become one of the top 200 players South Alabama has ever produced.

Upsets
Tame bracket. West Virginia over Duke in round 2.

Pick
UCLA. They have the easiest road to the final four.

Misc
My second favorite player on UCLA is Lorenzo Mata-Real, who looks like a cross between Dracula and a 60s mod.

SOUTH

Players to Watch

Ronald Ramon and LaVance Fields (Pitt): a classic NYC combo, tough, low to the ground, tricky around the basket, seeking contact. Unlike most NYC guards, Ramon can actually shoot.

Paddy Mills (St. Mary’s): insanely quick freshman from Australia, which, fun fact, is the only country that is also a continent. Great match up in the first round between he and D.J. Augustine of Texas.

Cherry "Bomb" Rogers (South Alabama): I’m looking forward to watching Rogers, the only player in Division I basketball who plays with a court-ordered tracking device around his ankle. In 2003, he was arrested in Huntsville for providing haven to wanted members of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Upsets

Pitt over Memphis in the Sweet 16.

Pick
Pitt. I know I’ll regret this, but I can’t stand to see John Calipari go to the final four. Even if Memphis wins it all, I can take solace in the knowing that three years from now, Memphis will be on probation, their title will be stripped, and Calipari will be an assistant coach in the NBA. Go Pitt.

Misc
Oregon has the worst uniforms in the history of college basketball. the only possible exception were the satin unotards that N.C. State wore for one game under Jim Valvano. That’s when they had their fire and ice backcourt of Chris Corchiani and Rodney Monroe. Remember them? No? Then fuck you.

MIDWEST

Players to watch

Stephen Curry (Davidson): it’s always fun when a really good player plays in a conference a notch or two below his ability and he’s given the green light to heave it whenever he wants.

Cliff Hammonds (Clemson): a player I’ve always liked in the ACC, gritty and with that little touch of idiosyncrasy in his game that belongs to all left-handed players.

Mario Chalmers (Kansas): Don’t care for him either way but he has the same last name as Superintendant Chalmers on the Simpsons: "Well, Seymour, you are an odd man, but you steam a good ham."

Barabas Van de Shock (South Alabama): his untimely suicide prevents us from seeing the Sun Belt conference’s leader in field goal percentage.

Upset
Nothing major here. Davidson over Gonzaga, but that hardly qualifies. USC to the sweet 16.

Pick
Georgetown. I love their team, love their coach. If they shoot decently at all, they’ll be fine. I just can’t get on board with Kansas – a very good but somehow anonymous team with a suspect coach.

FINAL FOUR
Georgetown over Tenn
UCLA over Pitt

WINNER
My fondest basketball memories – besides playing alongside future sexual predator, David Pak – involve the Big East in the mid-80s. It was all going on in NY, with the Golden Age of Hip Hop providing the soundtrack for epic battles between the likes of Pearl Washington and Walter Berry. Seduced by nostalgia, and confident in Jesuit machination, I feel like I have no choice but to make an unforgivably reckless pick in the final and take Georgetown. But I won’t. UCLA has got the goods.

UCLA over Georgetown.

(my N.I.T. picks coming soon!)

About the author: Jim Gavin is a former toilet salesman, PA for Jeopardy!, and Long Beach middle-school hoops legend. He is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow in fiction writing at Stanford University. You can read one of his published stories here.

And that's my cue.......

2008-03-11T16:03:00.003-07:00

I was waiting for an adequate amount of time to pass before my next post for a couple of reasons: one being that Diesel's preseason round table post is a tough act to follow, and the other being that I wanted to afford the blog-viewing public ample time to soak in the awesomeness of that monster of an entry.

Self-imposed moment-of-silence over.

So, what to talk about? It is kind of a weird time in the sportsworld right now, where one is more excited about what is about to happen than what has actually occurred. On one hand, Major League Baseball is bereft of any current major news outside of the Rolen deal, Randy Moss's domestic violence case has been dropped (but we all knew that he was innocent, anyway), Shaq continues to drag the Suns back to earth, the ASU baseball program is riddled with cheaters, and the great, Santa-booing town of Philadelphia has picked up an MLS franchise. Meh. Actually, there is one among us who is actually pretty amped about this.

On the other hand, Selection Sunday looms (please, oh, please, let Arizona be among the 64), the F1 season approaches*, and UEFA Champion's League action is heating up. I'm throwing-in with Roma, by the way, because if they don't win, I'll have to keep Diesel from cutting himself. He's pretty damn committed to the Giallorossi, and I am really only a casual Liverpool fan (although they look really, really good right now). Let's just hope that the lupi don't play Manchester United again.

P.S. ESPN has ditched Sean Salisbury whilst simultaneously making an effort to bring back Battlebots! W00T! This is teh l33t shizNiT!

*= I know that no one cares, but good God almighty is it an exciting time to be an F1 follower. The talent level (both driver and technical) is at an all time high in a season that will be the most challenging in recent memory (the loss of traction control is a biiiiiiiiig deal). In other words, F1 has created the perfect opportunity for drivers to showcase their talent, and there will be no lack of it this year. For all the (well-deserved) critique/hysteria that the organization has received/ created, the sport has somehow managed to revive in spectacular fashion. The teams are incredibly balanced, diverse, and well-equipped, and someone other than Ferrari, McLaren, or Renault has a genuine shot at winning the constructor's cup this year. Gheeeeeeee!

Diesel be tired, yo

2008-03-11T10:41:00.004-07:00

Just wanted you all to know I love you, but that I have neither the energy nor impetus necessary to write anything. Big C and b can feel free to actually earn their keep around here, though.

Freeloaders.

The First Annual TGWNA Baseball Preseason Roundtable Opinion Session

2008-02-28T10:58:00.010-07:00

We here at TGWNA have never been committed to offering our readers the finest in online content, but our New Year's resolution was to actually make this site worth reading. So, we decided to get actual, interesting baseball minds to write stuff for the blog! Welcome to the First Annual TWGNA Roundtable! I don't know why any of these people have decided to risk their reputation by being associated with this decrepit site, but it's amazing what people will do when you just ask.

The responses have been better than I could have ever imagined, to be sure. In addition to the fact that we have some seriously smart contributors, the answers represent a pretty wide cross-section of baseball opinions. Thanks very, very much to those who participated, and I hope the rest of you have as much fun reading this as I have.

Our panelists are:

John Brattain is a regular contributor to The Hardball Times and, in this blogger's estimation, one of the the most thoughtful and entertaining baseball columnists in the business. He's never been at a loss for words, except for that one time the Jays went and re-upped John McDonald, and his .227 EqA, for two more years and almost $2 million per. The Hardball Times Season Preview 2008 is available now, by the way.

Craig Calcaterra is better known as Shyster, perhaps the most tireless baseball blogger on the interwebs. When he's not posting something on the order of six items a day, he also claims to be a member of the Ohio bar and a working lawyer (citation needed). A Braves fan, Craig hopes to one day help Mark Lemke sue David Eckstein for trademark infringement.

Connor Doyle — or Diesel — is the co-founder of this blog and a former sports writer in Idaho. He quit the "biz" about three years into his career when he felt the desire to do something even more financially irresponsible that writing for a living, and moved to Italy for a short period of time before finally going broke. He now works as a lackluster accountant and harasses his friends on AOL Instant Messenger all day.

Ryan Finley is a graduate of the renowned University of Arizona School of Journalism and sports writer for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, Ariz. A native of San Diego, Finley is getting married in a couple of months and has promised (or threatened, depending on your perspective) to name his first child Gwynn, regardless of gender (how many names come with a .305 EqA?).

Colin Laisure-Pool goes by Big C around these parts, and he wants you to know the sport we should really be talking about is F1 racing. Or something. Anyway, Colin's still a little bit of a baseball neophyte, but has sort of been worn down in the last year or so by Diesel's constant prattling about the "scientific beauty" of America's Pastime and has since celebrated his 20th game watched during last year's Game 4 of the World Series. Mazel tov!

Voros McCracken is a legend in sabermetric circles for discovering that pitchers had little control over what happened to batted balls put in play, perhaps the last great Eureka! moment we'll ever have in baseball analysis. DIPS (Defense-Independent Pitching Statistics) have become something of a Rorschach Test for the way people see the game, as there's perhaps no idea in baseball analysis that creates as much guffawing from the old school. After a three-year stint as a black ops agent for the Red Sox, he's returned to the blogosphere and now writes for the Baseball Digest Daily. Also, he's the only one of our panelists with his own Wikipedia entry.

Jason Rosenberg is the author of the blog It IS About the Money, Stupid, the platform upon which he unleashes a daily fusillade of anti-hypocrisy rants that warm the cockles of Diesel's heart. Unfortunately, Jason is also a Yankees fan, which means that all the good deeds of the world will never stop him from ending up here. We kid, Jason; you can't be that bad of a guy, because you accept the fact that Jeter is absolute death going to his left.

Justin St. Germain is a former college sportswriter and current Wallace Stegner Fellow in fiction writing at Stanford University. Justin cops to knowing the least about baseball of anyone on our panel, although that doesn't mean he's above telling everyone else they're wrong (he tells me this all the time, and it's never true). For real, though, you can see one of Justin's published stories here, and here's the website for the Stanford creative writing program. Classy!

Pete Toms is a writer for Baseball Digest Daily, a gig he scored not too long ago thanks to his always excellent SOC work on his now somewhat dormant blog, A Baseball Geek. A native of Ottawa, Ontario, Pete is both more cultured and polite than anyone who has ever uttered words in this blog before. Also, he is more than willing to admit that he does, indeed, work out of a basement.

Geoff Young is the man behind legendary Padres blog Ducksnorts and author of the Ducksnorts annual, unquestionably the most entertaining and edifying team-centric annual publication in sports (I know this sounds like faint praise, but really, I've already purchased a copy for myself and one as a gift; it's great stuff). Geoff is also a semi-regular contributor to The Hardball Times and a snappy dresser.

And here are the questions:

Bud Selig asks you for two suggestions. Provided you don't ask him to resign, what ideas do you promote?

Brattain: First, get rid of interleague play and get both leagues into a balanced schedule. Put everybody on the same playing field insofar as playoff races go. Second, revenue sharing subsidies should go into a fund that the receiving team cannot touch unilaterally. Clubs can save up from year to year if they're building towards a playoff run and blow the wad then. In the meantime, a club can invoice the fund when they make a purchase/sign a player/draft pick so they have access to the money. Let's get rid of leaving revenue sharing to the discretion of the team receiving it.

Calcaterra: As a lawyer I spend too much time focusing on rules, but I'm going to make kind of boring, rulesy suggestions anyway: First I'd ask him to abolish interleague play. The games were a nice novelty for a while, but I'd prefer to going back to the leagues not knowing that much about each other until the World Series. Even worse, now that teams within a division are playing different interleague schedules, it's unfairly impacting pennant races. For the same reason, I'd suggest either going back to the balanced schedule or eliminating the wild card.

Second, I'd have him order the umpires to enforce Rule 8.04: "When the bases are unoccupied, the pitcher shall deliver the ball to the batter within 12 seconds after he receives the ball. Each time the pitcher delays the game by violating this rule, the umpire shall call 'Ball.'"

The games are too long, especially in the playoffs. I've been watching a lot of 1970s and 1980s games on tape recently, and I was shocked at how bad the time in between pitches has gotten. While this rule is aimed at being punitive to the pitchers, its enforcement will also cut down on batter baloney (adjusting gloves, hats, nuts, etc.). Let's just play some ball already.

Doyle: I'm going to keep it down to one because it's going to be a little long: I would suggest blowing up the current revenue-sharing system, which is perpetuating the ability of bad owners to continue making substantial profits without concerning themselves about the product on the field. There's nothing more repulsive than billionaires collecting welfare checks, but that's essentially what happens now. Instead of handing out the money to teams, make them come and justify the need for it. Better yet, make them match any contributions from the revenue sharing pool out of their own pocket, as a way of ensuring that the money is being used to better the product instead of ensure profits for an otherwise unsustainable product.

OK, I lied: I'd also suggest he end the entire draft slot charade.

Finley: I actually think history will reflect kindly on Bud Selig. For all the PED/All-Star game bleating, Selig has ushered in an era of popularity and financial stability not seen in decades. Three of Selig’s most visible changes — the wild card, interleague play and realignment — have been major hits with average fans, if not necessarily the minority that considers themselves traditionalists. That said, here’s what I’d change:

1. Eliminate best-of-five playoff series in the first round. Any fan worth his latest installment of “BP” will tell you larger sample sizes are a better gauge of success, a fact that should be considered given it’s the, you know, playoffs. Extending the first round to a traditional best-of-seven format would give fans a chance to enjoy the depth and complexity of a traditional playoff series while extending the season by three days, tops.

2. Limit pickoffs to two attempts per base runner per inning. Imagine how the game would change with the elimination of the “courtesy throw”: Games would move faster, runners would take more larger leads and steal more, and pitchers would probably rely more on pitchouts — for my money, one of the most exciting plays in sports — to get potential base-stealers out. More importantly, a pickoff limit would reintroduce speedsters, players who have been pushed to the margins with the advent of “Moneyball”-style management decisions and the rise of obscene power numbers at traditionally slappy positions.

Laisure-Pool: No. 1, I would suggest that he move as swift as humanly possible concerning the whole PED dust-up. Baseball needs to admit its culpability and re-engineer their lax policies and practices. Although I do believe that, in the short term, this is bringing attention to the sport, I also believe that the long-term effects of a long, protracted process will damage Major League Baseball's reputation permanently and irreparably. The 'train-wreck effect' will attract a number of one-timers, but the overall process is alienating an entire group of die-hards. Case in point: the last round of player's strikes. My father, a rather devout Giants fan, was turned-off to the sport for good after those strikes, which in no small part contributed to the tapering of my interest in baseball, as well. This is a cancer that will eventually kill the sport if left unchecked.

No. 2, Continue and stimulate further the process of making the sport more accessible to working class fans. One should be able to go to a game, park within a 1/2 mile, get good seats (not nose-bleeds), eat a dog or whatever, and have a few beers for under $40. I understand that a baseball team is a business and not a public service, but when my tax dollars are used to fund a stadium, I want to be able to enjoy the fruits of my labors. Lower ticket and concession prices, and I guarantee more interest in even the most mediocre of teams. It is already a widespread perception that MLB is a sport played by pampered, uncaring millionaires and owned by greedy, nefarious billionaires. However right or wrong that perception is is secondary to the fact that the quickest and most effective way to remedy MLB's image is to put butts in seats.

McCracken: 1. Abandon the organized minors. 2. Institute a promotion and relegation scheme.

Rosenberg: First, I’d change some rules regarding the All Star game. I’d eliminate mandatory representation by every team, unless rosters expand to 32-35 to account for the expansion over the years. I’d also eliminate the “World Series” home field advantage bonus; it’s just an exhibition.

There are many subtle rules changes that I’d want to see changed to speed up the pace of the game but the main ones I’d propose would be a stricter enforcement of the “pitch clock”. Get on the hill or in the box or it’s an automatic strike or ball depending on the guilty party. I’d also change the rule requiring pitching 4 balls on an intentional walk. Call the intentional walk and send the runner to first. This is not Little League.

But my main “platform” involves making the game more kid-friendly. To do this, I’d make all Playoff and All Star games to begin at 7pm EST during the weekend and 6pm on week nights. This will be challenged by the West Coasters understandably but games cannot end after 11pm EST. No playoff games on the weekends will be scheduled during the evening. During the season, after every weekend day game, all kids 12 and under will be allowed to run the bases. I’d also give every kid 12 and under a raffle ticket upon admission to every game. Draw 10 tickets each game and the winners get to meet one player after the game. Can you imagine the impact this would have, to actually run the bases or meet a real ballplayer? Talk about building a lifetime connection to the game!

St. Germain: No. 1: Trim interleague play — there's got to be some way to still let the Cubs/Sox and Mets/Yankees play a few games a year without subjecting us to Royals/Pirates and Nats/A's. And then there's the whole unfairness when it comes to the Wild Card. It's just too much.

No. 2: Do away with the All-Star game/home field thing. It's the stupidest sports gimmick since the puck streak.

And then get rid of the DH and contract the Devil Rays, and we're good. I'm not kidding about either one. (Yes, I still call them the Devil Rays, and yes, I could expand on this contraction thing, but this is probably not the place nor time.)

Toms: No. 1: Steroids are good. Bigger, faster, stronger is what we all want. No. 2: Find new ownership for Pittsburgh. Post current CBA, the Rays & Royals have started to try to win (FLA should start trying soon). Pittsburgh's ownership continues to stuff all the revenue sharing/central fund money into its pockets. President Frank Coonelly & GM Neal Huntington, for all the adoration they received from the baseball media this offseason, won’t change this.

Young: No. 1: Make the All-Star game meaningless again. It was more fun that way. Plus, I don't want someone on the Pirates determining who gets home-field advantage in the World Series. No. 2: Find a way to get rid of the anti-trust exemption, and generally be more honest with your customers.

What's the one thing you don't think the industry is doing enough of, on the whole?

Brattain: Fixing the amateur draft. As mentioned earlier, keep revenue sharing subsidies away from receiving clubs until they need it. They could use this money to nab the top picks. That's a short-term solution. Over the longer term, they should come up with a different compensation scheme for teams losing free agents like a de facto Rule 5 pick for a Type A free agent. However, they don't have to keep the player drafted on the 25-man roster, giving them time to let him develop in the minors. That way, you de-link the draft rules from the MLBPA since it doesn't affect major league players, and they can put in hard slot money and larger consequences for going unsigned after being drafted without raising the ire of the union.

Calcaterra: Trusting its product. I went to a Padres game last summer and was absolutely shocked at how much singing, dancing, clowning, and general farting around goes on between innings. It's as if the people running the game are worried that all of the casual fans they've managed to attract over the past few years will simply go away the moment they aren't being assaulted with entertainment. Maybe some will, but do you really want to base your business around customers who are that damn fickle?

Doyle: Looking within for new stadiums. I think the fallout in communities from rigged stadium deals — and pretty much every one has been rigged — has really hurt the popularity of the product in most places over the long haul. To piggyback off my revenue-sharing rant, this is precisely the type of thing that could be paid for by baseball if it stops lining Carl Pohlad's pockets with other teams' profits. MLB could set up a below-market lending service for owners looking to improve or build stadiums, which is a good deal for everyone involved (except the owners who would be deprived of the current bounty of free money).

Finley: Finding, and promoting, the game’s next great managers. Face it, baseball is the only major league sport that continues to promote the “you can’t get a job without experience, but you can’t get experience without a job” philosophy to find its most important, and visible, on-field coaches. Major-league manager jobs come open about as frequently as Supreme Court spots, and most are filled by retreads.

Laisure-Pool: See Part 2 of Question 1. Baseball is our national pastime because it is a sport of the everyman. You don't have to be 7 feet tall or be built from 300 pounds of solid rock to be a good baseball player. As the game advances, bigger, faster, and stronger players are coming to the forefront for sure; but baseball is like no other major professional sport in its ability to produce players that their fans can relate to. This is a big part of the reason why the PED issue is ripping the sport to shreds in the eyes of the common viewer. Baseball needs to take a heavy-handed approach to stop the bleeding on this issue, stat.

McCracken: Besides paying me money? Incentivizing success on the field for "small-market" teams.

Rosenberg: As you can probably tell, one of my biggest “issues” lies within MLB’s ignoring of the kids with respect to game start times. This is most prevalent and important for the “showcase” games, including the all star game and the entire post season. Kids need to be more engaged with the ballplayers and the game. By allowing them to run the bases after every weekend day game will build an instant bond with the game. This can also be done by randomly selecting some number of kids (say 10) to meet a ballplayer after the game. Kids will not care who it is, just that they got to meet a real major leaguer. If that player gave each kid an autographed ball, all the better. It’s easy, it’s cheap and it’s the right thing to do to get kids re-invested in MLB. (Note to Brian Cashman: If you want me to come on board to help you with this, let me know! I’m ready and just 15 minutes away!)

St. Germain: Maintaining a competitive professional sports league. I know, I know, the World Series hasn't been very predictable this decade, but you've still got fans in eight or ten cities who go into Opening Day knowing their teams have zero shot at making the playoffs, much less the Series. The Rays -- who should have never existed in the first place -- might not finish above fourth place for another ten years. Maybe revenue sharing is the answer, and it just needs more time, but I'm not sold on it yet.

The NFL has kicked MLB's ass in the ring of public opinion for a lot of reasons, but parity's a big one. Even if you're a Raiders fan, you still went to the Super Bowl recently, and could conceivably be competitive next season. How do you justify going on as a Royals fan?

Toms: Shortening game times. Sandy Alderson did make some progress in this regard, but it seems to have gone by the boards. I think we’re currently just under 3 hours typically? No matter how it’s done — mound height, strike zone, deader ball — you have to decrease run scoring to speed it up substantially. I think the trade-off would be OK. Most of us don’t have 3 hour windows to watch uninterrupted, and at the ballpark I think fans would prefer 2.5 hours to 3. Fans like offense, but I think they would be more appreciative of a quicker game.

Young: Being honest with its customers. The Average Joe doesn't want to hear some corporate entity complaining about financial losses while at the same time refusing to divulge actual numbers.

Whom is the one player you're most excited to see play this season?

Brattain: Dustin McGowan. He was a long time coming due to Tommy John surgery on his right elbow. Nevertheless, he has Roy Halladay-level stuff and he took a big leap forward once he realized that he could get major league hitters out with it. In his earlier cups of coffee, he gave opposing hitters too much credit, tended to nibble at the edges, and walked too many hitters. He's had the epiphany where he realized My stuff is nasty! and has thrown accordingly.

Calcaterra: Kosuke Fukudome. Who knows how accurate the scouting reports are, but if he is as advertised – good plate discipline, moderate power, a little speed, solid defense – he'll be one of those all-around players I'm such a sucker for.

Doyle: Justin Upton. The world of scouting is a minefield of hyperbole, but there's something about this kid that makes it seem like he really could live up to the hype. It's heartening, also, that his brother has made the leap (or so we think). Upton is the ultimate canvas on which prospect aficionados can paint their wildest fantasies; he could do almost anything this year, and it really wouldn't be surprising.

Finley: Delmon Young. Young didn’t quite live up to expectations as a rookie in 2007, but he played in all 162 games, hit 13 home runs and had 93 RBIs, and posted an OPS in the mid-.700s. He led all AL rookies in seven offensive categories, and finished second in ROY voting. By my count, Young can only benefit from the offseason trade that bounced him from Tampa’s all-too-crowded outfield to Minnesota, where the media/public pressure will be nonexistent. Lost in the race to step over Young to crown another young star — Justin Upton is last year’s Chris Young, etc. — is the fact that Delmon is only 22 years old. Assuming he can stay out of trouble, Young will be the last great player to roam the Metrodome and face of the Twins franchise heading into their new ballpark.

Laisure-Pool: Eric Byrnes. That guy better deliver.

McCracken: Alex Gordon.

Rosenberg: Joba Chamberlain. A bit of a homer call but I want to see what he can do over an entire season. He was incredibly exciting to watch in limited action last year so I’m excited to see how he continues to develop.

Aside from guys on my hometown team, I want to see if Ryan Braun can match or better his 5 month blitzkrieg from last year.

St. Germain: I'm not sure if I'm supposed to pick a prospect or just anybody, but, barring Bonds or Rocket coming to town with a visiting team, I guess I'd have to say Ichiro. I've never lived within driving distance of an AL team, but I recently moved to the Bay Area, so if I can go see the most singular talent in the majors play in a surprisingly good stadium for baseball that has a wide variety of cheapish beer, seats that are plentiful and affordable, and easy public transit access ... well, sign me up.

Toms: Justin Upton. Bruce and Longoria are the current “it” prospects, and I don’t doubt they are deserving of the acclaim. But I think J. Upton has more raw talent than anybody.

Young: Johan Santana. I've only seen him once on TV, and now that he's in the National League, I'm hoping I'll get to catch him in person when the Mets come to San Diego.

What's the one thing that stands out the most to you about all the PED hand-wringing this offseason?

Brattain: The hypocrisy. Back in 2000, I got to work the inside of major league clubhouses for the first time. I was surprised at how many guys looked suspiciously like roiders (I have known a great many users in my lifetime). It was obvious even to a hack like me. However, the media was fearful of the players and of losing their access. I can understand this, but surely you can tip off some investigative journalist about the situation rather than remain mute.

Now that others blew the lid off the story, they've become Rambo-like tough guys protecting the game from the dirty rotten cheaters. Give me a break; they were as complicit as the owners, the union and everyone else. They have no right to scream about protecting the sanctity of the game.

Calcaterra: How willing so many people are to conclude that the Mitchell Report is infallible. If you believe most sports writers, everyone mentioned in the report is a rotten cheater, and everyone not mentioned is as pure as the driven snow. If you think there weren't dozens of PED users surprised to see their names not mentioned you're crazy, so how about toning down the demonization of those who were?

Doyle: That America — led by the media's chosen opinion-makers — is still addicted to irrational moral codes that collapse under the weight of any scrutiny.

Finley: That taking HGH will get you into Sports Illustrated, even if it’s only the swimsuit issue.

Lasiure-Pool: The scope and intensity of the coverage/attention astonishes me. Congressional inquiries? Good lord. This is particularly striking after one considers the fact that the press/public has turned its back to this issue for so long. Why now? And why so doggedly pursue a problem that has existed in relative obscurity for decades?

The second half of this debacle is MLB's reaction, which seems slow, uncertain, and weak. It is my perception that Mr. Selig is doing about the worst job imaginable vis-à-vis damage control on this issue, and is doing little or nothing to assuage the suddenly rankled fanbase that serves as the sport's lifeblood.

McCracken: How easily people convince themselves that their outrage over the issue is more common in the public than it really is.

Rosenberg: How incredibly unnecessary and self-inflicted it all was/is. Selig didn’t have to commission the Mitchell Report. In addition, Clemens’ predicament is also seemingly self-inflicted with his apparent lying to a Congressional Committee. Clemens could have simply given the same excuse as Pettitte (“I did it to recover from injury”), gone quiet for some period of time, and go about his private life. He would have been a pariah for a while and likely never made the HOF, but if he took his celebrity and set out on an anti-steroids campaign, he’d be so much better off. Mark McGwire’s efforts to help the anti-steroids campaign rival OJ’s efforts to find the real killer, after all.

St. Germain: The fact that it took the Mitchell report for anybody in the media to acknowledge the likelihood that Roger Clemens was a roider. If there was one player's performance to suspect over the last ten years — as much or more even than McGwire, Sosa, and Barry — it was Clemens.

Toms: The over-reporting. Fans don’t care; It’s a media and baseball chattering classes subject. The overwhelming number of the 80 million-plus who will go to games this season wouldn’t know Radomski from Hardin. The fans who pay the freight want a win for the home team, ballpark food, good weather, beer (of any kind) and a 6-4-3. Ironically those of us who most care abut the PED subject are the people least likely to abandon the product over any matter.

Recently the HGH issue seems to be getting more play. I think it’s a non subject because HGH is not effective; I think the juice is what works. I suspect management and the MLBPA think this too and as a result the union will make some “concessions” on HGH.

Young: The fact that it makes everyone look stupid on so many levels.

Who do you consider to be the most invaluable person in baseball?

Brattain: I would have to say MLB President & COO Bob Dupuy. He's Selig's tough guy that gets to issue ultimatums about the dire consequences that will befall a community should they not cough up a half billion dollars of corporate welfare. He reminds me of a toothless Rottweiler that folks don't seem to realize lacks teeth. Politicos quiver in fear when he arrives at the Legislature, never realizing that he really has no leverage. Washington D.C. has a team and the only available facility for a major league team is in Montreal. Where is a team gonna go? He sounds like the spineless parent who tells his little boy or girl that if they don't do what they're told, the next warning will be even more dire and You dont want that to happen do you?

It doesn't take a lot of skill to issue empty threats, but that's generally all you hear him do anymore.

Calcaterra: MLBAM CEO Bob Bowman. If I would have told you a few years ago that baseball would have the kind of online presence – not to mention revenue – it has today, you'd have told me I was crazy. As late as 2002, most baseball executives thought using PowerPoint during arbitration hearings was as state-of-the-art as it got. Now baseball owns online sports.

Doyle: The Padres fan in me wants to say Kevin Towers, but I have to conclude — as the Diamondbacks obviously did this offseason — that it's Josh Byrnes. While it's easy to say he's just a Theo clone, the difference is that Byrnes is playing with fire every time he makes a move, because the Snakes don't have the financial clout to fade bad decisions, whereas the Sox do. With the exception of the Eric Byrnes extension — which probably isn't as awful as people like me make it out to be — he really hasn't misstepped once while making some pretty ballsy moves (or, non-moves, like letting fan favorite Luis Gonzalez walk). Plus, the fact that he now has the kind of job security few GMs in the history of the sport have enjoyed means that he can truly take the kind of bold steps needed to ensure the franchise's viability for the next decade in a rather inhospitable market.

Finley: Omar Minaya. The Mets’ GM continues to raise the bar when it comes to salary negotiations and player acquisition. Johan Santana may be his biggest fish yet.

Laisure-Pool: Bud Selig, of course. I can think of no one else who carries such sway over the sport.

McCracken: Alex Rodriguez.

Rosenberg: I’m not a huge Selig basher, and while I think as long as he’s Commissioner he’s the most important, that doesn’t make him the most invaluable (which I define as irreplaceable). I don’t think anyone is irreplaceable. I think the most invaluable person in baseball is the one who stands up to the Union and demands change in their stance regarding PEDs. Who that is, I am not exactly sure. I wish Jeter’s comments recently about blood testing were more assertive and definitive, but he’s not going to go that far. Not his style. Who is the conscience of the league? Who can force change even against the CBA? Can’t be Selig; it needs to come from within the players’ ranks, against the advice of Donald Fehr.

St. Germain: George Steinbrenner (and his progeny). Nobody in baseball has affected the current state of the game as much. For the worse, most would argue, but damned if the guy doesn't make things interesting. Now that Barry's (probably) gone, is there a better villain in the game?

Toms: Bud Selig. I’m in a very small minority here, but I think he’s done a great job. With the expiration of the CBA in 2011, we will have had 16 straight seasons of labor peace. There is NOTHING more important than that, and don’t underestimate how hard that is. The NHL not so recently lost an entire season, and keep your eyes on the ownership politics in the NFL. There has also been a lot of franchise stability; nobody’s moved, save the Expos. A ton of better, (as in better fan experience) ballparks have been built as well. It is a golden age. The only thing baseball fans love more than baseball is complaining about baseball. Back to Bud, who gives a shit that there was a tie All Star game? I don’t like the Wild Card or interleague or the unbalanced schedule. But again, I’m not typical of the 80 million; I think most like all those things.

Young: The fans. MLB must never forget that. Without us, MLB doesn't exist.

What non-favorite team of yours are you most interested in this season?

Brattain: Tampa Bay. They've been assembling a tremendous cache of talent down there and they're starting to fine-tune things and address specific needs. They're in a difficult division, to be sure, but they're getting close. Barring a wave of injuries or a bunch of inept trades, they may make some noise this year and will be ready to make a major move in 2009. I think this could be the first season with a winning record for the franchise — quite an accomplishment in view of its checkered history.

Calcaterra: The Royals. I used to watch Trey Hillman manage the Columbus Clippers at a time when the Yankees had no one worth a damn in the high minors. Hillman made those awful teams look pretty good. The Royals certainly aren't there talent-wise, yet, so they'll provide a pretty good lab to see how much difference a decent manager can make.

Doyle: My initial answer is the Rays, but I have a feeling that the Diamondbacks are going to be the most compelling team in the majors this season, for many of the same reasons that people will pick the Rays. There's so much to like about the way this club has been built, and outside of the Mets, it's the only NL team I could see being able to hold its own in the American League and still fight for a playoff spot. In fact, even after the Johan signing, I think the D'Backs are still the team to beat in the NL, and they're young and exciting to boot.

Finley: The Nationals. The ex-‘Pos are proving that you don’t need to have a large budget — or a minor-league system, or an experienced manager, or a capable pitching staff — in order to be noteworthy. Jim Bowden continues to launch half-court shots (mixed metaphor alert) as Washington’s GM, with Elijah Dukes, Lastings Milledge, Wily Mo Peña and a cast of thousands (a few hundred of them being Boones) competing for spots in a clubhouse straight out of “Major League.” The anticipated return of Nick Johnson, the fate of Dmitri Young and the disastrous catching situation should make the Nats either exciting to watch — or fun to watch lose.

Laisure-Pool: The Tampa Bay ~~Devil~~ Rays. I've heard promising things about them (read: Diesel says they'll be good), so I want to see if they will be worthy of the dap. Also, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Is it even possible that that team will ever even be competitive?

McCracken: Pittsburgh Pirates. I think they have a chance to surprise this year. Well, probably not, but it's a weak division and for the first time in years I don't see any glaring holes in their lineup.

Rosenberg: They are becoming overhyped underdogs already, but I want to see what Tampa Bay can do this year and next. Can they finally make the leap? Besides them, I’m really excited to see what the Brewers can become. Great young talent there and it should be fun to watch.

St. Germain: This isn't the most interesting or thoughtful response, but either the A's or the Giants. Both teams are going through really interesting transitions, and both will be horrendous. But I can be at either stadium in half an hour, and I have no job this summer, so ... have I mentioned how much I love Stanford?

Toms: I think the Reds have a legit shot at the playoffs. I’m kinda pulling for them because they have a Canadian guy – first baseman Joey Votto – and I would like to see Junior in the playoffs. Junior has never gotten his due, both on and off the field. The Cubs will have to disappoint for the Reds to win, however.

Young: The Rays. There's some tremendous young talent in Tampa Bay, and it would be nice to see that franchise finally get on track.

What's the one annoying thing you hope this season will be the swan song for?

Brattain: Scott Boras. Kenny Rogers fired him, Alex Rodriguez isn't speaking to him, he has a number of clients still unsigned. Granted, he just picked up Manny Ramirez, but I'd really like to see his empire crumble. It's not so much the contracts he gets his major league clients, but I'm sick an tired of his being the 800 lb. gorilla in the room at every amateur draft. His influence has ruined the whole concept of giving the worst teams the first crack at the best talent. Boras has the elite prospects fall down to where teams like the Red Sox and Yankees are waiting.

Many people wonder how these clubs keep coming up with these great kids when they usually draft near the bottom. Well, Scott Boras is the reason. There should never be signability issues with the draft.

Calcaterra: The Yankees' second-half rebounds. For once I'd like them to stay dead after everyone pronounces them as such in May. It's not that I hate the Yankees so much (just a little) as much as I am tired of the "They're dead! They're alive! They're dangerous! They choked!" storyline. I want the Yankees to either be dominant or doormats. Leave the in-between stuff to everyone else.

Doyle: Baseball's anti-trust exemption. Like most, I'm very much against the insane level of interaction between the feds and baseball lately, but I've also been excited by the prospect of the legislators finally thwacking baseball with the stick it's been threatening to use this entire time. Not only is there no need for the exemption — it is impossible for an upstart league to unseat MLB at this point — but it's given baseball the mistaken impression that it somehow deserves a governmental loophole (or that it's fine for Peter Angelos to block the Nationals unless he gets a kickback). Make MLB compete on the same playing field as every other major business in America; no one's going to try an monopoly-bust a sports league at this point in time.

Finley: Everybody harbors one wildly unpopular sports take, and this one’s mine: Stop it with the national anthem and “God Bless America” already, unless an American team is playing the Blue Jays or two American teams are playing on foreign soil. My distaste for both songs has less to do with a lack of patriotism and more to do with the train wreck that inevitably comes when an aspiring pop star/barber shop quartet/opera singer tries to put his/her own stamp on time-honored songs. Save it for the demo tapes.

Laisure-Pool: Roger Clemens' and Barry Bonds' careers. I don't even say this in a spiteful way; I just feel that it is time for each of these gentlemen to exit stage right. Both have made their imprints, broken records, and left their legacies. For better or worse, it's time to go. Whatever they can contribute to a team at this stage in their careers will be outweighed by the burden of their infamy.

McCracken: Around the Horn.

Rosenberg: Do I have to pick just one? So many things annoy me that I’d like to see gone for good, including: “Manny being Manny,” Congressional hearings involving baseball, mandatory representation in the All Star game, pink Red Sox hats, the Marlins, Fox broadcasts, Carl Pavano, and discussing how players are “reporting in the best shape of their lives."

St. Germain: The furor and media attention surrounding Barry Bonds. I've had enough of the hypocrisy.

Toms: Tony LaRussa. What a pompous, arrogant ass. He pisses me off way more than Bonds. At least Bonds was great at something; why has LaRussa been deified?

Young: Same as every year: The Wave.

What kind of contract are you offering Bonds right now if you're the GM of a team that can reasonably say it's bordering on contention?

Brattain: I would offer Bonds a guaranteed $8 million or $1 million for every 10 games played, whichever is higher. If he gets hurt or is fitted for non-Yankee pinstripes, he's guaranteed that $8 mil; if he gets into 150 games then he makes $15 million.

Calcaterra: One year, $4.5M with some plate appearance incentives, and an opt-out clause in the event his bail is revoked.

Doyle: One year, $5 million base, with $1 million added for every 10 games played over 100. Bonus of $2 million if his WARP3 is greater than five.

Finley: It depends. Most of this year’s contenders have legitimate, if not comparable, players in left field, and the ones with left-field issues — the Padres, Braves, etc. — aren’t too keen on taking on Bonds’ baggage and pending legal issues. Assuming that signing Bonds would make my contending team better — and that’s a big if, given the reasons stated above and Bonds’ pending legal issues — I’d offer a basic 1-year, $1 million contract with incentives based solely on home run production.

By adding $1 million to his deal for every 10 home runs hit, I would be assured Bonds is swinging for the fences — and isn’t that why any team would want to employ the game’s home run champ, anyway? — every time he comes to the plate. I would also let the public in on every detail of the contract, especially the homer-based escalators. Face it, most fans would embrace Bonds if they knew he was coming out of his shoes on every hittable pitch.

Laisure-Pool: I would go all The Price is Right and offer one dollar more than the highest bidder. Really, though, it's hard to say. I definitely have the perception that he is somewhat diminished in his abilities, and somewhat of a clubhouse cancer/media circus risk. He's certain to be an asset for many teams, but I don't see him getting any more than Eric Byrnes money.

McCracken: Depends on the team. I don't think he's overly useful to all that many teams. Most teams in contention have good-hitting/poor-defense players available at places like DH and LF. One year at maybe $3.5 or $4 million might work. I mean, he is 43, and though he hit well last year, decline tends to get steeper and steeper at these ages.

Rosenberg: $5M guaranteed, with $1M bonuses at 400, 500, 550 and 600 at bats (including walks, naturally). Full protection for each game missed due to legal issues. Fully voidable if found guilty.

St. Germain: Well, the short answer is, no kind of contract, because I'd want to be the GM of an NL team, and the guy isn't a viable outfielder at this point. I also wouldn't want the media circus in my clubhouse.

But as a hitter he's still clearly worth some cash. It's hard to give a dollar amount, but it would be a one-year, incentive-heavy deal. I mean, if Barry plays 140 games (not likely), he's worth $12-$15M, easy. But if he gets less than 200 ABs as a DH, maybe $5-$7M? I'd try to guarantee him no more than $4M and make the rest dependent on ABs or games.

And of course there'd have to be an out clause in case he winds up in the joint.

Toms: Bill Bavasi should offer Bonds a blank cheque. I think the Mariners have a shot. As has been oft stated, he would be an immense improvement over Vidro at DH (And I like Vidro, as I got to see him play a lot of AAA here).

Young: This is probably an unpopular stance, but if my team is bordering on contention I'd prefer to find ways to improve that don't involve creating unnecessary distraction.

Blackballed

2008-02-26T10:41:00.002-07:00

Barry Bonds will likely not be in anyone's camp for Spring Training this season. I have seen some strange, strange things in my life as a sports fan, but I don't think I've ever seen an athlete who remains this valuable not get a shot with someone.

It may seem like I'm being purposely obtuse by expressing any measure of shock at this development, but it's a sign of my almost inexcusable hope in the human race that I am still cowed by the stupidity present in industry groupthink. The fact that Bonds isn't in someone's camp right now makes no more sense than giving a multi-million dollar severance package to a CEO who has bled his shareholders dry, but it has happened nonetheless. Perhaps the capitalists were wrong to think that financial incentive was enough to encourage the majority of people to utilize rational thought.

I've spent the last couple of days truly amazed at the glee the media is taking with the entire Bonds saga. If it's not windbags like Ken Rosenthal trying to compare Bonds' "indiscretions" to actual crimes against human beings, it's the media's dogged hounding of any team official from any team that dares to even be obvious and state that having the guy in the lineup might not be the worst thing ever.

ESPN's Rob Neyer poo-pooed the idea that Bonds' was being actively blackballed by owners and GMs, though perhaps only in terms of a strict definition of the term:

Has Bonds been blackballed? I don't think so. That term suggests conspiracy. I don't see one, nor have I heard any hint of one. As I think I mentioned recently in this space, there's a key piece of information to which we're not privy (at least not yet): How much does he want? I believe that if Bonds were willing to sign for nothing (i.e. just a few million bucks) he could find himself a roster spot.

I, too, doubt there's any kind of organization behind the efforts to keep Bonds out of baseball this year, but I nonetheless feel that Bonds is being informally blackballed, if only by a media that's made it clear they're going to make life hell for anyone who breaks rank on this thing. Believe me, when someone as generally congenial as Ken Rosenthal — we're talking about the Andy Katz of baseball here — starts mentioning Kobe Bryant's rape case in the same breath as Bonds, you know there is some serious revenge on the minds of sports writers who have taken Bonds' shit all these years. This isn't commentary, it's payback.

Pure speculation on my part, but I think the Rays were more than a little interested in Bonds for this season. It's a forward-thinking franchise that's struggled to attract fans, and no one's going to argue that Jonny Gomes is more deserving of ABs at this — or any — point in his career than Bonds. It just seemed like the right fit, not unlike the A's were. And, make no mistake, people will show up to see Bonds. Some of them may boo, some of them may "protest" the team, but there's never been a team that better understood that all attention is good attention that the Rays.

But I also think a young franchise on the verge of landing a new, publicly financed stadium, caught of whiff of the media's incoming shit storm and thought better of being so bold. Again, I could be wrong, and this is all speculation on my part. But I really do believe that the media — not Bonds, not Bonds' agent, and not Bonds' indictment — scared off teams like the Padres, A's and Rays who dared to suggest that maybe Bonds might perhaps be somewhat of a moderate upgrade, maybe, over the horseshit they're planning on trotting out in either LF or at DH.

Considering the tenor of much of what I've seen in the "established" sports media this past week — Rosenthals' thoughtless rant joins TK's anti-blogger diarrhea and Jon Heyman's comical "takedown" of statheads — it appears that the old-school media are fending off what many forecast to be their forthcoming irrelevance by proving they're capable of the same spleen they often criticize bloggers for displaying. And, in this case, it appears that the media is close to successfully taking food out of Bonds' mouth, which is what I think he was accusing them of attempting to do for so long anyway. There's probably an opportunity to tie everything into some snappy line, but I'm going to leave it at that.

# # #

Pepe's Ryan Howard post at his new blog is really interesting, even if I take issue with one of his (albeit smaller) points.

The Mayans had it right.

2008-02-25T12:32:00.005-07:00

FYI; the picture above is of the Mayan 'Pyramid of the Sun' in Teotihuacán, Mexico.

I usually reserve this blog space for the occasional disjointed, negative, and over-the-top rant about a loosely sports-related topic/event. However, it is slow in the non-racing (if anyone wants to talk about racing, let me know....please?) sportsworld at the moment, and I, like so many of you, are waiting for Diesel to actually post on the whole Kelvin Sampson situation before I issue any tepid response.

So, in the mean time, I'm going to cross y'all up and posit a quick bit of adulation for everyone's best friend: technology.

Technology is cool. Particularly of the solar/electric and electro/(mechanical/chemical) varieties.

To wit: Our great state of Arizona is about to become the home of the largest solar power plant on this entire rock. How fucking totally awesome is that? I've known about this technology for a while, but never dreamed that it would come to our backward backwater burgh. Janet Napolitano [insert dyke joke here] made a quip about this being a harbinger for Arizona to become the "Persian Gulf of solar energy". I audibly cheered when I heard this, which would mark the first time that I have ever observed a Napolitano sound/video blurb without thinking about her resemblance to Janet Reno. That speechwriter deserves a raise.

I realize that everyone is not going to be as gung-ho as I about this issue, which is part of the reason why I'm posting about it on an argument blog. But, honestly, invest in solar technology, people. Seriously. I'm seeing my financial advisor about it tomorrow (really!). This is sooooo good on so many levels that I could blather about it all day, but I'll just leave it alone at the risk of rambling.

In other news, I read about another interesting piece from the 'it will never be feasible/commercially available in our lifetimes' file. This car (or, more accurately, a variant thereof) may very well be the future of road-based transportation. Again, this is a car and a technology that I and just about everyone else in the world have known about for a long, long, time. What makes these guys special is that they actually plan to produce the coddamned thing en-masse and make it widely available/affordable. For the moment, they only have a niche-roadster, but the company is already in the process of expanding into to the low-end luxury market. This is how trends begin; small, seemingly insignificant advances in, say, battery technology lead venture capitalists into starting such a car company. As the big three enter the fray, advancements in every conceivable area will be stressed/marketed as a way of building a better mouse trap, so to speak.

Next thing you know, we'll all be plugging our cars in to the outlets in our garage. The power, of course, being courtesy of our friendly, neighborhood uncontained fusion core. [I'm referring, of course, to the sun, as I think that a contained fusion core, a.k.a nuclear fusion-driven power facility, will not happen in our lifetime. I really hope that I am wrong on that one, but the smart money is on the 'no' vote for any type of next-gen nuclear power in this country.]

May Ahau-Kin sustain us.

P.S. - I know that the Mayans were preceded by the Egyptians in the whole sun-worship thing, but the Maya are just about the coolest non-white ancient culture ever. Fuck the Aztecs, man, the Mayans did it first, and with more class. Anyone who doesn't give the Maya their proper dap is either retarded, gay or a Seahawks fan (Kidding!).

Suck it, Jack! (You too, FIFA)

2008-02-15T15:20:00.005-07:00

In keeping with today’s theme of globalism, I’m steering the ship back towards sports. Yesterday, it emerged that CONCACAF president Jack Warner, no stranger to scandals, said he will support England’s 2018 World Cup bid over the United States, simply because England will be traveling to his home country of Trinidad & Tobago in June to play a friendly. U.S. Soccer, knowing a cash-grab when they see one, will also have England swing through the States on its way through, but it would be nice if they’d think about canceling that date in light of Mr. Warner’s political back-slapping.

I immediately knew something was awry with CONCACAF when we met Warner at the seven-star Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai when touring the city with the World Youth Championships in 2003. With a nightly stay at the man-made island hotel starting at $1,000 a night, CONCACAF’s money surely could have been going to better places. As a minor confederation of the horrifically stuffy FIFA, it’s unsurprising that CONCACAF is run about as poorly as it’s function is difficult to describe.

Meanwhile, FIFA muppet Sepp Blatter blackmailed the Premier League’s idea to play a 39th league game in various cities across the globe by not-so-coyly threatening to undermine England’s 2018 World Cup chances. The idea of a 39th game has its detractors, none of whom are at least willing to hear about it, like Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. Wenger is “too innovative to shoot it down so quickly” and is a man who’s bread isn’t necessarily as buttered by global gains in the lucrative football marketplace as, say, the whores of Manchester United and Chelsea, so it’s unsurprising the Premier League’s (world’s?) best manager is open to the idea.

But no matter how certain clubs or managers may be against the idea, none of them has gone so far as the guy that’s in charge of world football. If FIFA’s job is to police the game and make sure it’s being regulated fairly - providing every confederation with an opportunity to host the World Cup on a rotating basis, cleaning out remiss agents and helping third-world players so they aren’t taken advantage of by them and setting the standard for referee and admin practices, to name a few - how is it okay for FIFA to publicly blackmail a country, simply because they do not agree? Hosting a World Cup is serious business, in more ways than one - something Mssr. Blatter hasn’t quite grapsed, considering his hard-on for giving 2010 to South Africa when it will, at best, stretch the country well past its resources. Furthermore, Blatter is widening the gap between club and country, which is the sporting equivalent to making both the church and state happy, by turning the English FA against the Premier League. No matter what threats are taken, having a gulf between these two parties will almost certainly trouble England’s bid throughout the entire ordeal.

Meanwhile, Warner continues to publicly embarrass CONCACAF to a world audience. Outside of UEFA boss Michel Platini, you shouldn’t know the name of a confederation president no matter who you are - Warner has repeatedly violated rules and been a general nuisance to the countries he’s supposed to represent. It’s no wonder why CONCACAF won’t ever be taken seriously with this edited for our younger audience in charge, especially if he publicly vows to turn on his own federation, all for the good of his own glorious ego.

# # #

I was hoping to sum up my thoughts on this 'EPL Abroad' thing, but it's proving to be quite difficult. Basically, I think it's something England should do because it will only further the EPL's reputation as being the world's strongest league (esp from a marketing standpoint), since they will be the first and so far only ones to do it. As Diesel told me, it's fine to float an ejaculate balloon over Asia and America and see what sticks when it's popped, which would be at least a good chunk of new fans willing to throw their monies their way. However, there are many flaws in the idea, with #1 and #1A being what matchups each location will get - American fans are intelligent to know Wigan-Middlesboro isn't their idea of top-drawer soccer, and given Asia's hysterical responses to soccer, it will best be served over there. That means we'll be stuck with crap over here, most likely.

Are all Arcadia High School graduates such asshats?!?!

2008-02-14T19:29:00.009-07:00

OK, Spielberg didn't actually graduate from Arcadia, but he went there for a while, so it's close enough. Besides, ' Are all Arcadia High School ex-attendees such asshats?!' lacks panache. But it struck me today that his recent pull-out of the 2008 Summer Olympics in China is a bit, shall we say, douchebaggy?

My initial reaction to this story was that Spielberg was not going to get the skrilla that he expected for this gig, and made up this Darfur story as a cover. Then, after a little searching around, I found that this whole Darfur escapade is somewhat of a cause célèbre among the Hollywood attentionati. I'm sure that just about everyone who reads this blog (especially SheHawks Anonymous) is as familiar or more with the history and current sit-rep in the Sudan, but just to be clear, my understanding of the issue is as follows:

- There is an ongoing, bloody civil war between the Arab ruling class (associated with the government) and the black, Christian working class (often referred to as the rebels) in the large, sparsely populated, and oil-soaked western region of Darfur. A group known as the Janjaweed are involved somehow.

- The Arabs, depending on who you ask (UN says no, Clinton said yes), are essentially trying to eradicate the black African Christians. GENOCIDE. This conflict has been on and off for many years. Millions dead. Bad times.

- Sudan has some of the largest oil, natural gas, and mineral deposits in the world. The place is practically a goldmine for industrialists. Many, many industrialized nations want this shit, so they, with the government's blessing, have moved in and displaced a lot of people.

- Peeps (black African Christians) got pissed when told to get the fuck off of their land, and fight back. Arab-ruled government decides that they have to choke a bitch.

- The People's Republic China, which accounts for 40% of the Sudan's oil sales (more on this later), has gone against the grain of western politics and chosen to do business with a country whose government is incompetent at best, and absolutely corrupt at worst. President Clinton prohibited American companies from dealings with the Sudan, despite the fact that some American businessmen (i.e Friedhelm Eronat) have done so, anyway.

- Steven Spielberg, George Clooney, and a whole host of other celebrities decide that this is an issue for them to tackle. China is becomes the object of scorn, while the Sudanese government itself plays the 'See no evil, hear no evil' game and manages to largely avoid critique.

- Spielberg, who had previously been involved in some way, decides that he's going to take his ball and go home because a 6-billion-person nation will not drastically alter its foreign policy for a fucking movie director.

That's basically the broadstroke as I gather it. I'm sure there is more to this, but I doubt that it will be of much consequence to the central debate here, which is: Just who the hell is Spielberg, or anyone else, to expand the topic, to play the self-righteous fiddle here? As a nation who benefits from Iraqi and Venezualan oil, where does all of this holier-than-thou posturing come from? If China accounts for only 40% (some reports say more) of Sudan's oil output, where's the outrage over the nations that contribute to the other 60%? Why isn't the Sudanese government at the center of the ring here?

I'm pretty sure that this will generate at least a little discussion. And to make things short, I'll briefly expound my conclusion: Let's focus on our own country's foreign policy, and leave the rest to the U.N. babysitters. Unless the U.S is willing to take unilateral supercop tact, citizens of the good ol' US of A should direct their fame-seeking and perfunctory ire at either the Sudanese or American governments. If you are so upset by the China's Rick Neuheisel-esque approach to Sudan's transgressions, boycott Chinese goods. While your at it, boycott Great Britain, Sweden (no more IKEA, bitch), Germany (Volkswagens aren't so trendy now, eh?), France (that one my not be so hard for the Diesel), Austria, Canada (but, hockey rules!), Malaysia and Russia (mmmmmm.....pierogies).

The subtextual proposal that China - and China alone - is to blame for the killing of Sudanese by Sudanese is tragically ignorant. The conflict was quite active when Spielberg took the job to begin with; his snotty, hypocritical, and just outright perplexing actions surrounding this 'genocide'* will only force China inward, and that is the last thing that I believe any fair-minded American wants. I'm not China's biggest fan, but I realize that, for better or worse, our future in this country is immutably intertwined with the Middle Empire. I miss the "Free Tibet" people, at least the Chinese army was directly involved. Oh well, looks like China will have to opt for Señor Spielbergo.

* It is my opinion that the incendiary term 'genocide' is being misused in the case concerning Darfur. It seems that money and religion have more to do with the killing than race.

P.S. - I was going to post about how much of a waste Arlen Specter is but, well, too easy. Happy $7,830.00 in federal income tax to me.

In the interests of self-promotion ...

2008-02-14T00:05:00.002-07:00

The new blog by TGWNA co-founder Pepe (me), The Phranchise, has now gone live. There's a ton of work to do on the template over the next few days/weeks/months, but I couldn't resist a Kris Benson post to kick things off.

The Safety of Clichés

2008-02-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, it's good enough to just call someone a "clubhouse cancer," as despicable and irresponsible a term as it may be. It's a bromide by now; any time a player is an asshole (excepting short, pudgy and overrated catchers from Brooklyn) he's labeled as such. In fact, as Section IX of the Implicit Sports Writer/Reader Contract actually states:

Reader shall ignore the visceral connotation of referring to a human being as a "cancer," and instead accept that "cancer" in the context of the sports section implies something much less serious; heretofore, "cancer" should be considered a slur on part with "petty annoyance," or, "somewhat cocky dude."

It would be nice if writers would stick to the basics when breathlessly trying to convince readers that an egotistical and rude athlete is worthy of public scorn. Maybe offer a little anecdote about some perk the player receives — "Can you believe he has his own post-game spread?!? And that it's all Flax?!?" — maybe run an anonymous quote from a teammate who describes in breathtaking detail how the story's subject didn't high-five him once after a homer, and then a mention of the old warhorse cliché, "clubhouse cancer." That way, the reader can then put down the paper, puke up his undercooked eggs in the sink, and head off to work safe with the knowledge that X is one bad hombre.

But every so often, a sports writer — usually a columnist — will try and find the door to the matrix, and take things well beyond the limits of taste. This is one of those times:

Despite their apparent need for a power bat/corner outfielder, and SI.com's recent speculation that Petco Park represents (Barry) Bonds' likeliest landing spot, the Padres have narrowed their search to exclude indicted sociopaths.

Sorry, you might have missed the part of that paragraph that's got my man-tits in a ringer. If I may, with a little more emphasis:

Despite their apparent need for a power bat/corner outfielder, and SI.com's recent speculation that Petco Park represents (Barry) Bonds' likeliest landing spot, the Padres have narrowed their search to exclude indicted sociopaths.

In case you're wondering, the author is Tim Sullivan, and the rest of his weekly insult to U-T subscribers can be found here. Maybe you want to read the column for yourself, because you don't trust the Diesel. But, if you want to save the 5 minutes of your life that you'll never get back, allow me to distill the column's main points for you:

Sports Illustrated wrote that the Padres were the most likely destination for Bonds;
Bonds has a psychological condition that is considered on par with psychopathy (Some would say that the causes of sociopathy are environmental [a.k.a.: "Learned Behavior"] as opposed to a genetic underpinning in the case of psychopathy, however the vast majority of mental health professionals still use the two terms synonymously) that generally involves an inability to function within society and a lack of impulse control that can manifest itself in violent outbursts and/or premeditated violence;
Kevin Towers/Sandy Alderson think that any benefits of having Bonds' still awesome bat in the lineup would be outweighed by actually having Bonds on the team at all other times;
The Padres, thusly, should not acquire Mr. Bonds.

Frankly, I'm exhausted by the "not-on-our-team!" shit columnists have been churning out ever since the Giants announced they were cutting ties. If I still had free access to Lexis-Nexis, I'd look up how many times the search terms "Barry+Bonds," and, "not+worth+it" have appeared in sports pages in the last year. And, it's usually bullshit — which I suspect columnists know, but pretend otherwise — because fans would get behind Pol Pot if he could slug .600 and draw 100+ walks.

But let's say Sullivan's right, and that Bonds wouldn't be a worthwhile pickup for the Friars. Can't he just say that without stating that Bonds has a mental disorder? Would he like it if I attributed his shitty, malinformed columns to paranoid schizophrenia?

Yeah, I know what some of you are thinking: "Boy, that literal definition of Bonds sure does sound a lot like him." No, it doesn't. Bonds is an asshole, dickhead, cocksucker ... name your epithet, and he probably fits it. Maybe he's the least approachable or sociable player in the majors. It doesn't matter. He's not a sociopath, because he hasn't fucking killed any of the sports writers who insist on saying the most outlandish shit about him daily. Maybe I'm being a little bit of a stick in the mud, here, but saying something like "Bonds is a sociopath!" isn't funny, or clever. It's an indictment of Sullivan's ability to understand the difference between a column in a major metro sports section and a drunken rant.

Yes, I know fans say crazy shit all the time, myself included. As I'm fond of pointing out, my college buddies and I used to joke that a rarely-used Arizona basketball player who went AWOL for a while had AIDS. It retrospect, it's not really funny, but at the time we thought we were a riot. Amazingly, though, no one made the leap to writing something even remotely that baseless and libelous in one of our sports columns in the student newspaper, because we all understood that there's a big difference between what you can say to your buddies and what you can put in an information-based news delivery vehicle. It saddens me that a bunch of beer-addled 20-year-olds who got in trouble on an almost-daily basis with our paper's advisor understood that basic principle better than a veteran hack like Sullivan.

Or, more bluntly, it's a good thing for Timmy that the U-T didn't narrow its search to exclude serial killers.

# # #

One more thing: I didn't notice this at first, but did anyone pick up on the fact that Tim Sullivan is actually suggesting, thanks to his inability to punctuate sentences properly (or his copy desk's unwillingness to wipe up his typographical slobber), that Bonds has been indicted of being a sociopath? Man, I heard prosecutors could get an indictment against a ham sandwich, but I didn't know they could actual compel grand juries to offer psychiatric evaluations as well! It's a brave new world out there, kiddos.

Ohgodpleasemakebaseballstart

2008-02-08T13:22:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you people, but I'm sort of going crazy right now.

On the bright side, I've spent the majority of this week — work hours included — trying to create a formula for Value Over Replacement Player in my fantasy league, using the last seven years of league data.

So far, it looks like this:

=(((L564-67)/24.5)+((N564-15)/10)+((O564-62)/27.2))+((P564-6)/10)+(((Q564-0.265)*(K564/8000)/0.002))

For the first time in my life, I've created an Excel document larger than 50 megabytes. I'll probably spend the next two weeks tweaking the formula, or making it relative to position (right now it's not). Unless I fucking shoot myself before two weeks are out, that is.

Please, baseball. Just start already.

Because you can't spell "Super Bowl" without "self-immolation"

2008-02-02T15:28:00.000-07:00

I know it's trendy to pan the Super Bowl, especially considering it's been a letdown almost every year I've been a fan (disclosure: Author is a Bills fan). But I'm actually pumped about the game, because I have a sneaking suspicion that the Giants could actually make a game of this. Especially if Parcells benches Eli for Hostetler.

Anyway, there's nothing better to get you ready for the game and all game-related wagers than McSweeney's literary predictions. (disclaimer: People who have not read at least a handful of these authors will actually believe there are many things better than these particular previews, but if you haven't read at least half of these authors then you should climb into your time machine and punch your high school English teacher in the liver.)

The Ayn Rand one was so good, I read it twice. And then I swore to myself that I would never betray humanity by putting anyone else's needs above my own.

Enjoy the foot-ball game, heathens.

And now for a meaningful topic

2008-01-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

I suppose it could be fun to continue arguing about what a bunch of whiny bitches Pats fans are, but I said everything that needed to be said in my first and only post on the subject.

However, there's no limit to what I can say about the wave of unabated rage that washed over me while reading this feature on the life and times of Jerramy Stevens, perhaps the single worst person in the history of sports, non-murderer division (we think).

Stevens is pure scum, to be sure, and it's a shame that he's not the kind of person we're torturing in GITMO right now. But he was far from the only criminal to play a role in his sub-human behavior, a point that might be missed by many who read that completely dispiriting (but very well researched and written) story. And, as far as I'm concerned, Rick Neuheisel is as complicit in Stevens' crimes as the man himself. Yes, I realize Slick Rick wasn't the only coach to enable Stevens, but the decision to actually discipline Stevens for a procession of rape, DUI, hit-and-runs and assaults rested on his and former AD Barbara Hedges' shoulders. Hedges was a stupid, opportunistic bitch, for sure, but it is Neuheisel that personifies the college head coach who is pure evil.

And it's only a matter of time before the next horror story presents itself at UCLA, now that they've hired Neuheisel.

I can almost understand a middling program, both athletically and academically, like Arizona State taking a chance on Dennis Erickson. I realize that some people involved in the administration of college athletics think the wages of winning is dealing with despotic coaches who don't believe in discipline for players unless they drop passes. But at least ASU's "reputation" is already that of a sketchy, outlaw program that hasn't leveraged its willingness to trash the school's image into actual success on the field. Erickson only represents a small uptick in trashiness over the dreck that program has run through its halls, and it's clear that the administration will allow him to run everything as he sees fit now that he's already delivered them a top-25 finish and some serious face time on College Gameday.

But UCLA is not Arizona State; they're not even on the same planet. UCLA is supposed to be a beacon of hope for cynics, a superior academic institution that also happens to house the most successful athletic program in the history of college sports. It wasn't that long ago that pathological rules violator Bob Toledo was run out of Westwood, and while his firing was ostensibly the result of poor on-field performance, the athletic department didn't exactly deny that the coach's reputation as a snake was a factor as well. The Bruins have long gravy-trained the good name of legend John Wooden, who managed to dominate the college hoops landscape without soiling the institution's good name. In fact, there's good reason to believe that UCLA's vaunted status as an academic institution has been bolstered by the successes of the basketball program and the rest of the academic department.

But USC's success under Pete Carroll — who, thanks to Reggie Bush, is no longer unscathed by scandal himself — has obviously convinced the higher-ups at UCLA that valuing character in the upper-reaches of its football program comes with too high a cost; it only took one truly disappointing season on the part of erstwhile coach Karl Dorrell (who seemed like a swell guy) for him to get shit-canned, a decision made with such apparent haste in large part because Neuhesiel was available.

As an Arizona partisan who watched UCLA's football program destroy the Wildcats' best chance at a Rose Bowl in 1998, I will revel in schadenfreude when Neuheisel inevitably begins to destroy the Bruins' reputation (who will give me 100-1 odds on UCLA getting the NCAA death penalty in the next 10 years?). But as a fan of college sports, I'm disheartened to see that it's easier to break out of Alcatraz than it is to convince university presidents and athletic directors to concern themselves with character.

Addendum: The Times followed up the Stevens piece with another piece on Curtis Williams, another horrible former Husky who actually received the death he so richly deserved after (ironically) a dirty hit on the field. And then, to top it all off, b found some fucking UW blogger says he's still on the fence about UW erecting a statue in that fucking wife-beater's honor! Man, it's days like this that make me wish we had colonized Mars already.

Allow Me To Retort!!

2008-01-28T09:16:00.000-07:00

Well said, Diesel. Touche, mon frere! You and larry b bring up a solid point vis-a-vis the whole "this is just what happens in sports, man" angle. You're right about that: too bad this truth is wrapped in such a load of fermenting, tired bunk.

Since there is no way that I am going to win a word-volume/quality battle with my main man here, I'll just stick to what I know: concise, metered, and rational thought.

You are wrong. So very wrong.

See what I did there? I totally ended this argument!

I do, however, suppose that there is another way of proving your wrongness. And that would probably be to point out all of the contradictions, inconsistencies, and just plain imagination in your post. I don't have all night, so I'll limit myself to three. Namely, the following three:

1. Bill Belichick is a pompous asshat:

For someone who claims to be concerned 'only with results' in this game called life, Diesel seems to be pretty hung up on guys who are big meanies whilst doing their job to perfection. He isn't the only one who feels this way; for anyone who bothers to put the words "Bill Belichick asshole" into Google will find that there is a veritable plethora of those all too eager to point out that the man is a dick. Here, I'll do it for you. I treat this the same way I treat the maligning of another Bill....One Mr. Duane Charles Parcells.

Um, who the fuck cares about his personality? He gets the job done, yes? Don't tell me that you were one of those neocons calling for the impeachment and removal from office of Bill Clinton due to his threadbare moral fiber being a 'blight' on the nation. Barry Bonds is an asshole, too. Is he a blight on the MLB because of it? I'm sure you would be much happier if the NFL were populated entirely of Andy Reid's clones (I hear he is really nice to the press). Perhaps if ol' Belichick dressed a little more like Jack Del Rio, you wouldn't be so harsh on him.

To expound on the Bonds/Belichick comparisons addressed in the footnote: Diesel is quick to point out the double standard with which the press treats both gentlemen not 4 inches after maligning one of them for reasons having little if anything to do with the NFL (bad dress, terse press conferences, et al). Hey, pot, this is the kettle; um, you're black.

Spygate: I have yet to come across any conclusive evidence that coach Belichick had violated any NFL rule related to signal stealing during any other post-preseason football contest this year, so to suggest such is pretty weaksauce. Also, there is no way that he could've violated this 'rule' prior to 2006, because the rule/memo/whatever the fuck you want to call it didn't exist. And it is still unclear as to whether it exists today. It is not even certain that what Belichick did even constituted 'cheating' anyway. Please, people, come harder on this one.

2. Randy Moss and the fawning sports media:

If Diesel is suggesting that the media is somehow eschewing the recent battery charges against Randy Moss, then he and I aren't reading the same papers.

I believe that what Diesel and so many other Pats haters (I wish there was a better term, Pepe, I need an editor) suffer from is what some clinical psychologists like to call "batshit crazy". The purported 'fellatio by the media' that occurs on a regular basis is typically no more than, you know, reporting the fucking news. A headline stating that the Patriots have won their 18th game, broken another record, or traveled one more step toward perfection is not tantamount to a blowjob, it is a cold, hard fact. Maybe Diesel can prove otherwise, but I don't think anyone is giving Moss a pass on anything, as Randy has been rather curt with the media throughout his career and hasn't exactly made any friends on the sports beat. But, one would ask, where does this 'fawning' perception emanate from? Allow me to present a one-act play representing a day in the life a your run-of-the-mill Patriots disliker:
_____________________________________________________________

Open Curtain:
Jerkoff Pats hater sits in front of his television, foaming at the mouth after eating soggy rat intestine. Jim Nantz and Phill Simms comment on the game:

Jim Nantz: "Wow, Phil, that is Moss's 23rd TD reception of the year, a new NFL record!"

Phil Simmmms: "That's right, Jim. 23 TD catches is a pretty amazing feat in the sport of football; something upon which everyone can agree is universally awesome."

*Jim Nantz: "You know, Phil, I think that this means that Randy should be able to slap whichever bitch he damn well pleases!"

*Phil Simms: "Word."

Jerkoff Pats hater grits teeth and grumbles "Fucking sports media."
Close Curtain

Please note that the asterisk denotes dialogue that happened entirely within our protagonist's spite-addled brain.
_____________________________________________________________

3. Diesel's assertion that this is something that concerns the Patriots players themselves:

Huh? Well, maybe Tedy Bruschi, but c'mon, the man had a stroke. Plus, he's a UA alum!

4. (OK, I lied) Diesel's repetition of the "Everybody wants the Patriots to win!!" meme:

Really!? Everybody?! I'm probably the only Patriots fan that you know. I'm one of only two Patriots fans that I fucking know. I sit here as the only Pats supporter in a 20-mile radius, and I have to hear that mess?!! It's pretty clear that you have not been to KSK or Deadspin, lately (great blogs, btw), lest you may have borne witness to the ubiquitous, 'Pats fans are assholes and racists, LOLZ!1!' every three coddamn comments. How about the bounty on Tom Brady's leg? For every Bill Plashke and Bill Simmons out there, there are 20 dubious doubters on the 'boards. This has come up before, and it never fails to vex me. Does anyone who reads this blog actually want the Pats to win this Sunday?

So much for everybody.

Say Hello to my Little Cliché!

2008-01-27T12:52:00.000-07:00

I know it's been the question TGWNA readers have been constantly asking themselves.

"What the fuck does it take to compel Diesel to actually write a post anymore?"

Good question, friends.
/Jim Nantz voice

Well, here's an easy answer: Play the fucking "respect" card.

I realize that Big C's mini-rant w/r/t the Patriots did not actually involve the word "respect," but he and I both know that it wasn't for a lack of intimation. His entire post dripped of so much respect-baiting that it shorted my computer's power supply when I read it.

I'll be more than willing to say that what the Patriots have done to this point in the season is one of the more impressive team sports accomplishments of my lifetime, ranking alongside Arsenal's undefeated 2003-04 campaign in the English Premier League, the Yankees' 1998 season, the Red Sox's comeback against the Yanks in 2004, and the Chicago Bulls' 1995-96 season. And I'm willing to say that with or without a win in the Super Bowl, since I'm not very concerned with worrying about whether or not this Pats team is the greatest in the history of the sport (while I can see why others are into this argument, the lack of objective reference points makes it simply a point of conjecture ... there is no way to properly compare football across eras, as far as I know).

That said, the Patriots as currently constituted, are a blight on the NFL. Their coach, a brilliant tactician for sure, is also a cheating boor who believes — like too many transcendent sports figures — that his talent and ability allow him to exist in a realm where condescension and surliness are acceptable characteristics for a public figure (see footnote). The team's star wide receiver is probably a sociopath who has the audacity to claim that the fawning sports media is somehow out to paint him as something he is not, when he has received more free passes for intolerable behavior both on and off the field during his career than all but a select few peers, regardless of sport. And the team as a whole has copped the same, tired "us against the world" shit pretty much since the beginning of its multi-year run of league domination, despite the fact that it's clear the world has been anything but against them for quite some time. My love of Leonard Cohen aside, I prefer my entertainers to be a little less monotone, and those who claim persecution to have an actual basis for the accusation.

As for the fans, what can be said about them that hasn't already been said about paranoid schizophrenics off their medication? I remember, faintly, being somewhat satisfied when the Patriots beat the despicable Rams in Superbowl XXXVI, and when the Sox mounted sports' most improbable comeback against the Yankees. But those days are long gone, and any conception of New England-area fans as somehow being "lovable" seem ridiculous now. When people ask me why I really don't have steadfast affiliations with teams any longer, I point to the guy in the Red Sox hat who acts in precisely the same manner as his "hated" Yankees cohorts. I am loathe to be associated, in any form, with the type of person who believes that the justifiable reaction to a win by his favorite team is to try and start a fight in the bar with all the "haters."

I could probably slag on the Pats and Pats fans for another 1,000 words (who am I kidding? I could probably do it for 10,000 more words), but it's neither important nor original at this point. What I'm wondering — and this isn't rhetorical, Big C — is who the fuck cares what anyone says about the Patriots? Why does a superlative team of accomplished veterans feel the need to trot out the stupid "bulletin board" shit that bad high school coaches have relied on for decades? Why do the fans require the acquiescence of all those in attendance every time "his" team's supermodel-impregnating quarterback continues to prove he's worthy of the plaudits handed out with alarming frequency by analysts? Since when did anything matter to the fans of a team more than on-field success? Do you really need a fucking hug in addition to your fourth Superbowl win?

I've long considered a need for constant affirmation to be a sign of weakness, particularly on the part of men. Those who claim to be dedicated to any cause should lack a need for approval. Those who claim to be better than others shouldn't need those others to admit as much, particularly when there are organized and regulated contests at hand to allow for some objective measure of the claim. And those who are claim millions to ply their trade shouldn't allow themselves — at least publicly — to admit that they still require more in the way of appreciation to feel like they've truly accomplished something.

The Patriots, and their fans, have come to embody everything that makes sports and its fans appear so puerile. The real "haters" are the scores of right-minded people who see the sociology of sports as a disturbing and collective softening of brains. Here we are debating the level of respect given to whiny, spoiled athletes and an equally whiny and spoiled fanbase that somehow thinks its entitled to some modicum of special treatment they've never afforded to others (lest we forget the "Jeter Swallows" shirts that have been extremely popular in the uncomfortable seats of Fenway for some time). I'm all for a good sports debate, even if it doesn't adhere to the same strict intellectual rigor I attempt to apply to arguments of outside interests. Hell, I'm even fine with some good, old-fashioned mindless taunting, as evidenced by my ownership of a "Jesus Hates the Yankees" shirt. Sports are a diversion, if not an opportunity for those of us no longer blessed with more than a geriatrics's range of motion to live and play vicariously through athletes. And fandom is an opportunity to identify one's self with a specific group, for the purposes of pride and differentiation. I do not begrudge anyone his or her rooting interests, nor the success(es) of his or her favorite team(s).

But it will be a cold day in hell before I think there's any reason to give the Patriots special consideration because they're excellent at football. I will not tip my cap, genuflect at the altar of Belicheck, or condemn representatives of the '72 Dolphins for sounding like perspectiveless brats when dissing another group of perspectiveless brats. I will simply hope that whomever coaches the Bills will adopt some of Belicheck's strategic approach without acquiring his willingness to be a reprehensible asshole, and proceed to beat the ever-loving shit out of that franchise for the next decade.

Yes, I do hate the Patriots, because they and their fans make me extremely aware of what a base pursuit being a fan of sports is, and what kind of company one should expect to keep if he wants to watch football in a bar on Sundays. I hate that sports writers have cheapened the word "genius" in the process of reporting on Belicheck. I hate the idea that Randy Moss is being given a relative free pass on a serious charge because commentators are more concerned with how this issue might effect the team than the individuals involved in the alleged assault. I hate the fact that every time Tom Brady has an irregular stool it leads ESPN.com.

But, more than anything, I hate all the "respect" talk. And if that makes me a bad sports fan, or whatever, then I'll happily take my sour grapes home with me and dine with Mercury Morris.

# # #

Footnote: Bill Belicheck is a cheater; I don't think this point is arguable. Despite his, and Big C's, claim that the camera issue isn't worth talking about any longer, it still constitutes a breach of NFL rules and was clearly carried out to gain a material advantage in an otherwise fair contest. Furthermore, while Belicheck was only caught cheating during the Jets game, it's entirely likely that he had cheated in that same fashion during other contests.

Belicheck is also a Grade-A son of a bitch. He is the very image of a modern-day athletic megalomaniac, right down to his unwillingness to abide the most basic rules of the league that's made him famous, as evidenced by his violating the league's standards for coaching attire and his constant fucking around with the injury report.

Barry Bonds is all of these things as well: Cheater, flouter of the rules, son of a bitch.

The main difference is how the men are perceived: Bonds as a pariah, Belicheck as a genius with flaws. The prime example of this double-standard is the way Bob Costas, one of the most respected figures in the sports media, approaches the two men. When the subject is Bonds, Costas can barely disguise his contempt. When the subject is Belicheck, however, Costas chooses to focus on the coach's accomplishments and overlook his personality deficiencies.

I don't really care to examine why this double-standard exists, only to point out that it does and is further proof that the Patriots are given an easier ride than most N.E. fans would have you believe, particularly by the media.

Mr. Morris, I implore you.....

2008-01-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

I was going to write a little bipolar, happy/angry ditty about how great my impending $600 'economic stimulus package' is, juxtaposed with how utterly horrible it is to be a single, kid-less taxpayer in this country. That gem is probably best saved for that potentially life-ending moment in which I find out what the actual damage is on tax day.

Instead, I just want to lay out a few quick things about this article.

In the interest of disclosure, I'll state up front that I am a staunch Patriots fan. Use this to assume whatever you want about me; about half of it is probably true, anyway. I make no apologies for liking my own second-favorite team and being pleased with their success this season. While I'm not the trendy, sycophantic, bandwagon-fan that you'd probably like to label me as, I am also not one of those spineless, cocksucking twits that pulls the whole 'All other Pats fans are jerks, and I am ashamed of them; but I'm not like that!' routine on the message boards.

With that said, I'm well within my rights to treat this whole Don Shula/Mercury Morris shit talking cavalcade as an affront to my beloved Pats (how dare I be happy for them, by the way?) and lash out at said asshats accordingly. Instead, as a fan of the NFL and lover of all things good and decent, I'll take the high road on this one and issue the following request: Mr. Shula, Mr. Morris, Mr. Kuechenberg, and all other New England Haters: Please, I beseech you, enough with the shrill, baseless, and absolutely moronic 'criticism' of the best team in NFL history. Particularly in the cases of Shula and Morris, who seem to be intelligent, virtuous people in all other regards, I suggest that you change into a fresh pair of diapers and endeavor to retain whatever dignity you have left after all of this drama has subsided. Don Shula has, until now, come across as a generous, wise, old sage. And Mercury Morris would probably be someone that I would really admire were it not for all of this senility-induced drivel.

Is it really that difficult for all of the Pats' detractors out there (and they have been legion) to just sack up, show a little class, and tip your hat to one of the best performances hitherto witnessed in American sports? The sad, hateful, and now entirely indefensible head-burying display being put forth by the anti-Patriots movement is no longer amusing or relevant. To hear the phrase 'Patriots suck' is to hear a cry for help. And I just dare someone to bring up Spygate.

This doesn't mean that there aren't other legitimate claims to the 'Best-Season-Ever' crown. Some have brought up the '85 Bears. OK. Others have, a bit less convincingly, nebulously mentioned 'those early nineties 49ers teams'. Perhaps. But one thing is made pretty clear in Kriegel's article: it sure as hell ain't the '72 Dolphins.

Which brings me to the reason that I brought the topic up on this blog to begin with: Is there any stat/metric/method extant for comparing teams through the eras that aren't just a collage of faint, childhood impressions? I know that VORP, OPS+-!^2%$#, and park-factors are popular grist on this blog, and I am curious to see if any such logic, or a species thereof, may be helpful in a sport that doesn't make me fall asleep faster than a bottle of NyQuil. It will probably be the only real productive thing to come out of a post that will likely cause me to be flamed harder than a Birmingham church.

Oh well, we all have our crosses to bear.

Paying for proficiency, and other shitty ideas.

2008-01-23T14:23:00.000-07:00

Hello, 'BlogWorld!

I've decided to emerge from beneath the shadowy depths of the comments section to actually contribute to what has been for quite some time now my favorite blog. I don't intend to clutter the format, so I'll keep Formula 1 debates, NHL issues, and physics talk to a minimum. I also don't intend to adhere to the rules of proper English grammar, as I am a not a prescriptive grammarian (I am, actually, but I'll blame my foibles on the fact that I'm an engineer). I'll mostly post on sports/sociopolitical issues like my man Diesel, but since we are in the midst of the Super Bowl doldrums, I'll opine on the Learn-and-Earn program being experimented on in a Georgia public school.

My initial thought on the story is that this is a total mistake. It is important to note that this is a privately funded program and does not necessarily concern my public tax dollars; so there's no need to sound the fiscal alarm. But it is also critical to understand that this is a program that essentially rewards incompetence and devalues hard work and self-determination. It's like that Simpsons episode where Homer discovers that he needn't use his own legs '..like a sucker' (Sorry, no link, YouTube sucks these days).

Christ, this is the last thing that our beleaguered public schools need. Why don't they just put up a billboard on campus that states, 'Fuck up, and you get a cookie!'? I have a hard time believing that anyone is blind to the inherent disincentivization of self-directed learning and scholastic performance that such a program will cause. The program, which I will from this point refer to as 'student welfare', incorporates all of the negative properties of government-controlled welfare and filters out any virtue that food-stamp welfare may have. In other words, students that really need the help (dyslexic, autistic, and otherwise mentally challenged), already have programs to help them along. This program will only go to those students who are lazy and defiant enough to hold out for cash. It's like these students are holding our average test scores and grades hostage, and won't improve them until they get a helicopter, a million in unmarked bills, and a free pass out of town.

Meanwhile, students who actually make a coddamn effort on their own are implicitly told to go fuck themselves. Great. And I don't buy the 'Some of these students are in economically disadvantaged positions that impede scholastic performance' BS; if a student needs tutoring, they can get it on their own time and the public dime, anyway. And it's not as if high school is that hard to begin with; where I'm from (Arizona), it's actually sort of a joke. Just like this cockamamie program. Like Diesel put so eloquently a couple of posts ago: What the hell am I missing here?

___________________________________________________________

Since that last bit was so rock-solid and bulletproof; something to which no rational being could possibly disagree, I'll offer up a few parting shots not worthy of a post themselves.

1. Beyonce has fatty legs:

Don't get me wrong, she is one hell of a beautiful woman, but, honestly, case closed.

2. Macbook Air: Does anyone actually give a flying fuck? Thinner than the average laptop computer, you say? Well, halle-fucking-lujah, that will save me a whopping inch, maybe one and a half, in my briefcase! And all I have to surrender are vital components? Woo-hoo! Perhaps they'll make another one of those asinine commercials that points out the fact that Mac guy is thinner (and less functional) than PC guy. Take that, PC guy!

3. Nothing. There is no third thing.

Mr. Miller will have a word with you now, Lance

2008-01-21T13:51:00.000-07:00

The current flavor of the month for the media right now — when they're not too busy mocking Congress for doing what the excessive media coverage of the Mitchell Report encouraged Congress to do in the first place — is asking ballplayers what they think about steroids, testing, and the future of America's erstwhile back-acne-free youth. Theoretically, there's no problem with the media doing this, since I can't imagine there are many better topics for reporters to ask ballplayers in an offseason. However, the reality of the situation is that when a player is evasive or wishes not to comment, the writer has the power to make it appear that the player's motivation for his recalcitrance is more sinister than simple — and advisable — discretion. On the other hand, honest/loudmouth players who spout off create a serious problem when it comes to that player's union maintaining a unified front.

Lance Berkman is an example of the latter. He's been full of self-aggrandizing chatter this offseason, reaching his zenith with this whopper when asked about his willingness to offer a blood sample for an HGH screen, even though a reliable test has yet to be created:

"Absolutely, there's no question," he said. "I think anybody that wouldn't submit to that has something to hide."

I suppose Berkman deserves plaudits for offering up his sangre so freely, but his taking it a step further and casting suspicion on any player who's a little less trusting when it comes to his bodily fluids is a breach. I would like to think that when spring training rolls around, one of his savvier teammates will pull him aside and ask him, politely, to keep his fucking mouth shut when it comes to other players' business.

But, more importantly, it got me to wondering if we would be reading comments like these were the union's leadership made of stronger stuff. I realize that at one point in time, MLBPA honcho Donald Fehr was seen as being a strong rep for the players, but it's clear that his appearances in front of Congress have turned him into a pussycat, relatively speaking. Marvin Miller, the man most responsible for the union's power at the bargaining table, probably would have informed players at the outset of Mitchell's investigation that breaking rank would result in being stranded by the union the next time that player found itself in hot water. And that's the way it should be.

Comments like those offered by Berkman move the onus on the players, and the players alone, when it comes to handling the steroid issue. And while our proud Rice grad might think it's a black-and-white issue — players shouldn't do steroids, period — responsibility for PED use in baseball has proven to be anything but clear. It's imperative that the administrative and ownership arms of baseball not be allowed to wriggle it's way off the hook if we're going to talk about the past. And, in terms of the future, a strong union is the only thing that can prevent PED testing from turning into a complete farce, because the owners will be more than happy to set up a rigged system if it means that they won't be pushed in front of the cameras again. Every time someone like Berkman opens his trap, it makes it more difficult for Fehr or his successor to hold strong against the lopsided demands of ownership that are sure to come during the next collective bargaining negotiation.

# # #

Here's an awesome interview with a very awesome baseball writer who took a pass on voting for the Hall of Fame this year (hat tip to Rob Neyer).

A Confederacy of Dunces

2008-01-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

Does this picture startle you? It scares the shit out of me. A face like this shouldn't be ubiquitous unless it's on the front of a box of oatmeal, should it? I don't think so. But apparently our intrepid representatives in D.C. think so, because Mitchell was back on his bully pulpit Tuesday, only it was on the taxpayer's dime as opposed to baseball's. Mind you, taxpayers have subsidized the latter to such a degree that it's irrelevant to distinguish between the two parties at this point.

I appreciate that Mitchell might have been at a loss for something to do now that he's both saved Ireland and saved the children of America from the dangers of improved bat speed, but a full congressional hearing seems like a bit of a reach for this particular workaholic. Perhaps I'm the only person standing in this particular line of thought, but the Mitchell Report felt a little light after the initial mediajaculation w/r/t the list of names. I'm not particularly interested in getting back into the particulars here, but suffice to say I can't imagine what on earth made Congress think that enough had changed post-report that a brand-new hearing needed to happen. And after reading Jayson Stark's live blog, I have no more of an idea than I did before.

What strikes me as interesting, though, is that these kinds of media circuses continue to take place. It's facile to say that politicians simply enjoy grandstanding, though that not to say it isn't true. However, politicians often act in accordance with maximum utility in mind; they rarely continue doing things that don't play well with constituents (at least not publicly), because nothing is more important than the next election for most career politicians. If you're to accept those premises, then clearly politicians have concluded things like the steroid hearings play well to the public and make them appear more ... congressional?

Despite its supposed status as a true marketplace of ideas — the ideal newspapers long claimed to represent despite the obviousness of that industry's inability to juggle unabridged honesty and the need to attract advertising — it appears the sports department of the blogosphere has adopted the same kind of ideological rigidity and hegemony that we often accuse the sports media of having. I can find nary a good sports blog that hasn't expressed some measure of outrage over these congressional hearings, not to mention fatigue over the steroid issue in general. If we're to believe that sports blogs represent the "common man's" outlook on sports, then one would think the Henry Waxmans of the world would take the hint and stop interrogating Donald Fehr. But they haven't, which leads me to believe that we're all missing something here in the blogosphere.

It might be a reach, but I see this as analogous to Ron Paul's run for the Republican nomination. If the primaries were held on the internet, Paul would win in a landslide not seen since the last time Fidel Castro held an "election." The momentum his campaign has generated on the internet — not to mention the insane outpouring of campaign contributions that is composed almost entirely of small donations counted in the low hundreds — would lead one to believe that Paul is not only a viable candidate (he's almost certainly not, which causes me no small amount of sadness) but that his ideas really hold water with a large percentage of the American populace.

Such must be the same with steroids in baseball. The interweb cognoscenti has thrown up its hands and said that we're all tired of it, but obviously has miscalulated exactly who the "royal we" in this case represents. Leeches don't affix themselves to corpses, only bodies that still pump blood; the fact that the U.S. Congress is still involved indicates that the heart of the steroid issue is still pumping. Now, it's just a matter of figuring out why, and perhaps in the process discovering if maybe we're the ones who are missing something.

I realize there's no point to this, but I just felt like riffing.

J'accuse!

2008-01-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

Contrary to what some might believe, I did not also quit the blog. I did, however, spend a week getting drunk in Laughlin and San Francisco and attending a wedding that threatens to undermine the sanctity of all that is good and pure in America (in a power outage, no less!), so I really haven't had the desire or opportunity to post something.

And, frankly, I don't know that I really have anything to write about right now. It's been a very boring stretch for sports lately, with the worst bowl season in recent memory, some fairly uninspiring NFL action, and the baseball world dominated by Roger Clemens' intrepid ~~water-muddying~~ name-clearing bonanza. As of right now, Clemens has now sued the trainer after the trainer threatened to sue Clemens if the 60 Minutes interview involved Clemens calling the trainer a liar. Shyster's doing a very good job of keeping track of all the shenanigans, and unlike myself he actually knows what he's talking about when it comes to the law.

If you're still willing to read anything more about Clemens and steroids, allow me to suggest Gary Huckabee's fantastic rant on BP.

B, feel free to pick up the pieces here.

It must be nice to be T-Pain

2007-12-27T10:46:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago, I posted in the comments section about an interesting piece I’d heard on NPR about how T-Pain was selling more ringtones than actual song downloads or CD sales, but it got lost amongst childish sniping on said comments section.

The music industry is, in a word, bizarre. It’s an age where Radiohead can sell a non-label-backed album for whatever price the consumer chooses, yet still be among the top illegally downloaded (ie free) albums. Even Jay-Z pulled his latest album, American Gangster, off iTunes because iTunes wanted to sell his concept album as individual singles.

But this T-Pain story just kills me. In short, the guy who has done “Buy U a Drink (Shawty Snappin’),” “I’m N Luv (Wit a Stripper)” and “Bartender” has now become the model of a music industry once-anomaly by being more successful in ringtones than he is in actual music sales. Sales have shown that consumers are four and five times more likely to download a 15-second clip of one of his songs at $2.99 and up than they are to download the entire song on iTunes for $0.99. Ringtone sales make up to 40% of record labels’ revenue today.

Stumped, but envious, of his success, those in the music industry found that his robotic, effect-laden voice actually sounded better on crappy cellphone speakers than it did over better speakers. To capitalize on a certain song’s success and to extend its shelf life, the record companies introduced special “ringtone remixes.” Therefore, buying a 15-second clip was, in addition to making a statement about yourself, actually a better bang for your buck. T-Pain’s guest appearances on far more commercially successful artists’ – Kanye and Chris Brown, to name two – were almost certainly done to help generate more ringtone sales, since the two mentioned artists are having no trouble selling their singles and albums on iTunes. In effect, T-Pain has become the first “Ringtone Artist.” Mos Def said the industry was “a better-built cell-block.” For T-Pain, it’s a better-built luxury cruise liner.

His sales and this story are both staggering, but before we anoint T-Pain as a revolutionary, it must be said that he’s capitalizing on a fairly new idea. If ringtones were around in the 60s, then you’d have to believe his numbers couldn’t be compared to The Beatles’.

Another good/fine (no, not that fine) example of this would be Mariah Carey’s (non-Christmas) top selling songs on iTunes – they are all from her most recent album. It’s not, say, Hero or Dreamlover, two songs that helped her become the biggest-selling artist of the 1990s. Just because a song is downloaded a lot today doesn’t mean it’s any more popular; rather, it’s just more readily available. The beauty of iTunes is that I don’t have to even put on pants and, bang, the new Lupe Fiasco album is on my computer. But people who love Mariah Carey already have all her CDs and don’t need to download them again on iTunes – even though iTunes and record execs would love you to. The Emancipation of Mimi sold ‘only’ 10 million copies thanks to a depressed CD-buying market, but had the benefit of extra digital sources to buy from that Mariah didn’t have the advantage of back then.

Still, to believe iTunes, you’d think her latest was the greatest – and be denying a significant period of non-digital history ever happened.

An open letter to Pepe and Diesel

2007-12-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

Dear Pepe and Diesel,

Psssst.. Come on back. It’s okay. I’ll even make the first move. Things will be good again, I swear. Ever since I took over the reigns at McKale Center in Tucson, the Arizona basketball team has become infinitely more likeable – by being everything Arizona is not.

Sure, we don’t have that freakishly gifted athlete that we can call on in the clutch to go up and slam home a put-back, sweeping the crowd off its feet, forcing our opponent to call a time out and letting our pep band belt out a couple verses of “Moondance.”

And, okay, we’re not particularly all that exciting to watch. Our offensive style is more UCLA and Washington State than it is Kentucky in the mid-90s or the Wildcats you’re used to. Aesthetics-wise, we’re a better fit for the Big East or Big Ten. But, you see, this is the way the Pac-10 is going, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing – we’re playing in arguably the best or second-best conference in all of college basketball right now. We plan on winning it again soon.

And, I know, our uniforms look different now. Our shorts look weird, they’re lacking trim and the ‘CATS’ is placed far too high up the sides, and our jerseys have an unnecessary and distracting stripe down the back sides, but just look past all that for a moment.

Because, you know what? I think, despite the lack of high-flying, fast-break basketball that made Arizona so appealing in the first place, you’re going to love us again. It may not happen overnight, and you may find some of our games ugly and choppy, but we’d love to have you on board again.

I know you’re tired of the Purdues and Seton Halls beating your more talented teams, and so am I. Perhaps more worryingly, you’re tired of us having too many assholes that are difficult to root for, like Marcus Williams and Chris Rodgers, and not enough true student-athletes to be proud of. And I know you may have had poor relations with Shakes and found him to be too under-achieving at times and too hasty towards the fans and media.

But I’m working on all of that, trust me. I really am. You think Chase Budinger will get a big head and pull a classic Arizona ‘phenom that doesn’t achieve all of his potential,’ like Williams or Hassan Adams? That’s not going to happen. I tell him every day that, with hard work, someday he’ll perhaps have the opportunity to be a good player in Europe. Jerryd Bayless is one of my favorite players to coach, but until he handles the ball better, he’s headed there too.

Plus, I don’t appeal to the crowd and all their “We want Bagga!” chanting. Hell, I’m dumbfounded as to why Daniel Dillon got a near-standing ovation when he entered the game last week! I’m going to make these kids earn their playing time and you can be damn well sure that they’ll play hard – or else I’ll threaten to cancel their Christmas, like I did last week.

The biggest difference between me and Shakes is our personalities, which is perhaps my biggest selling point to you. Face it, fellas, I’m you. I watch basketball, make funny and outrageous statements and have a few drinks – when was the last time you saw Shakes in the same local establishment you frequented? My weekly radio show has become a must-listen to simply because I don’t hold anything back. When asked if watching 17-18 basketball game films every day helps me become a better coach, I interrupted the interviewer and told him you’d be an “absolute psychopath!” if you didn’t. During a recent press conference, a media member’s phone rang, and I (semi-) jokingly fined him $500 or pro-rated it to his pay. When was the last time Shakes did any of that?

Finally, I think what I’m doing here is pretty significant. Already this season, we’ve battled against two teams that have far superior size and talent to us – Kansas and Texas A&M – and we beat A&M in one of the best environments I’ve seen at McKale in years. We went to Chicago and beat Illinois using our toughness, something Sean Singletary has been poking fun at us about for years. (An aside, Who the fuck is Sean Singletary anyway?)

Saturday night, we’re taking on a very, very talented team in Memphis – think A&M, but better. I’d appreciate it if you tuned in and checked us out. We may not win, but we may not lose, either. There’s a new king in town, and you’d have to be a complete moron like Laval Lucas-Perry if you didn’t see this thing out with me.

Love,

Kevin O’Neill
XOXO

One wonders how many Mets fans can actually spell "xenophobia"

2007-12-19T16:38:00.000-07:00

Newsflash: Mets fans think Omar Minaya's signing too many ~~brown people~~ Latin Americans

Why, just last week I attended a reception where one man, knowing I'd written a book about the Mets, approached me and said, "I still love the team, and Livan Hernandez wouldn't hurt. But how about adding an American or two?"

I mean, really? How about adding an American or two? It's official: I can't say things in sports rarely surprise me anymore, because I find myself being surprised an awful lot these days. And this, in so many ways, takes the cake.

How about adding an American or two?

I won't both pointing out the 12,000 incorrect assumptions being made by the Mets fans Pearlman cites. What's the point? There is no logical rationale for this kind of belief, so to argue with it is kind of like arguing with someone about their favorite color. And, frankly, I think we're all a little naive to think that there aren't more baseball fans who feel this way about black and hispanic players, fans who hearken back to the days when the game's best players were predominantly mustachioed white dudes with mullets and "blue collar" values. They feel a disconnect with today's non-white superstars, who appear more aloof and self-centered and lazy and cornrowed. And David Eckstein isn't lazy, they say to themselves; people need to write about Eckstein more, not overrated guys like Hanley Ramirez, over whom national columnists can't stop fawning.

According to Pearlman, the non-tendering of Paul LoDuca, a PED-fueled and philandering clubhouse cancer has served as the proverbial "last straw" for a lot of these ~~bigots~~ fans. One would think that a rabid fan base hungry to upstage the Yankees would embrace the casting off of an overpaid, underperforming asshole, but the fact that he's white and a loudmouth apparently means "character" to fans, and implicit in that is that LoDuca's non-white replacement is incapable of being a fiery leader.

Ever since Minaya got the Mets' GM job, there's been a lot made of his being hispanic. In a vacuum, there's nothing wrong with both acknowledging the novelty of seeing a non-white face in upper-level baseball administration, particularly since Minaya was (I believe) the first hispanic GM in the sport's history. When Carlos Delgado was a free agent a few years back, a lot was made of Minaya's effort to use his ethnicity — and, to a degree, the ethnic composition of the Mets' locker room — to draw Delgado to the team. If I remember correctly, Delgado bristled at Minaya's efforts and decided to sign with the Marlins, which resulted in a little bit of blowback for Minaya. But I never understood why people were upset by Minaya's gambit. Why wouldn't you try and use every available resource to land someone you desperately want? And who's really offended by the fact that Minaya might want to use the fact that he speaks spanish as a hopeful mark in the Mets' favor? Does some shine come off a contract that isn't negotiated exclusively in english?

But it's starting to make sense, now. Apparently, it's not racist if you're talking about hispanics, and it's not racist if you can couch it in positive terms ("We just want to see more Americans!") instead of negative ones ("Stop signing the brown people!").

I realize there's a danger implicit in drawing general conclusions from individual situations, but I can't help but think that Mets fans are the only ones who feel this way about the globalization of America's past time.

Blog-to-Blog Resuscitation

2007-12-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

Today, it’s Three Guys Who Never Agree, as Pepe and Diesel have so graciously allowed me to enter their space for a college football discussion. A But what about the kids?? Part II, if you will…

Much discussion, amongst the media and amongst me and my friends and family, the last few days has centered on the latest round of the college football carousel, which has lost all kind of control ever since Tommy Bowden left his undefeated Tulane squad between the final regular season and bowl game. Ironically, Rich Rodriguez was his offensive coordinator then, and he has recently done the same, this time leaving West Virginia, his alma mater, for Michigan. Another non-stop discussion on the radio dial has been Atlanta’s Bobby Petrino “quitting” on his team “in the middle of the season,” which implies there was more than the actual three games remaining of a wash-out season. Because we apparently have nothing else to listen to, and it’s football, blowhards nationwide have overreacted to both of these instances, calling these men “quitters,” “traitors” and, perhaps most comically, “guys I wouldn’t want my son to play for.”

In my best Chris Rock voice, Can we please cut the fucking shit already?

An annoyance I have is our continual holding of athletes to a higher standard than everyone else, even though, time and time again, we are reminded of how idiotic this is. It’s now crept into us holding coaches to higher standards, as if these “leaders of men” are any different. We’re avoiding the idea that coaches, just like us simpletons, want to max out their potential and have the best possible life, just like we hope to. The only difference is their window to do that is exponentially smaller than ours, based on simple time frames, pressure and short attention spans.

Plenty has been said about Bobby Petrino, so it would be redundant for me to bring them all up here – these mainly center on the outside influences that destroyed the season before it began for Atlanta, an average to slightly above average team at best heading into the season if none of those things happened in the first place. Is it wrong for Bobby Petrino to leave Atlanta during the season to head for Arkansas? Perhaps, but it’s not necessarily his fault – if he wants to move to Arkansas, he has to get started right away. By staying for those three final NFL games to see out the season, he would have lost at least one season in Fayetteville, all because of the NCAA’s reluctance to push National Signing Day, which is the root of all the December coaching changes, back a little bit.

The gap between the end of the regular season and the bowl games is too precious to lose when going after those final pieces to the recruiting class, so schools like Michigan and Arkansas have their hands forced into “stealing” other teams’ coaches while the season is still going on. It’s the same reason why Arizona had to go and get Mike Stoops, even though he was the defensive coordinator in a national championship race at the time. But that’s the business timeline the NCAA has set up. The NBA doesn’t open the free agent market on May 1st for a reason, yet college football wants everything signed and sealed by February 6th with battles taking place well before that. Teams don’t have any time to lose.

Football, college and pro (and, who are we kidding, high school), is business - a fact that everyone acknowledges but fails to understand. Everybody thinks they can contend for a national championship, even though it’s proven every year that it is arguably the hardest goal to accomplish in team sports. There are far too many obstacles to overcome and, unlike the NFL, there are no equal playing fields when it comes to competitive advantages and disadvantages.

Which brings me to Rodriguez, who’s become the latest “traitor” on the paving the path to a successful career in coaching football. Nobody bats an eye when an assistant coach, who has a far closer relationship to players than the head coach and is often the one making promises, leaves to take another job, yet we all get up in arms when the head coach moves to greener pastures.

Whether you think Rodriguez’s career move is great or deplorable, you have to understand that the timing of his decision was neither his nor Michigan’s fault. College football has the longest offseason in sports, yet there’s little breathing room between the end of this season and the beginning of next. In fact, they overlap, and the loser in most cases is the end of this season, because next year, of course, is the year we win it all!

But what about the kids? they always say. Seems like one set of them is going to be neglected either way. They should be expecting it by now - it’s the nature of the beast for college football hires to be handled like this. But it doesn’t have to be, does it?

Yes, George, What about the kids?

2007-12-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

The money-shot has, finally, been delivered in Bud Selig's two-year-long steroid porno. We've read the Mitchell Report — or allowed Deadspin to point out the most interesting sections — and we've seen the tedious press conferences by the author and the benefactor, who should have at least held hands at some point for posterity's sake. We may have witnessed the moment Roger Clemens, considered by some to be the greatest pitcher in the history of the game, became the next sure-fire Hall-of-Famer to see his shot at Cooperstown go down the shitter (it should go without saying that if Clemens isn't disqualified after the Mitchell Report, then Mark McGwire should be giving another nationally televised speech in the next couple of years, during which he can again not talk about the past). And we've become intimately familiar with the next wave of steroid scapegoats, a marvelous cross-section of baseball players that doesn't discriminate based on talent or active playing status.

None of this has made me care any more about steroid use than I did before, a position that's apparently quite popular if one is to believe that internet pundits and comment-writers constitute an accurate sample of sports fans. Yes, of course, I would prefer to follow sports without the knowledge that the men involved are actively partaking in sado-masochism to better entertain me and bolster their personal finances. But I've also never thought "fair-play" was an option in sports, and I take bemused pity on anyone naive enough to think that such a fantasy is attainable. I find it hard to believe that members of a society unable to convince people to stop murdering — even with the threat of the ultimate punishment looming should one take a life — thinks that any testing policy will significantly negate the desire to cheat, not to mention stop cheating among even a majority of those who have done so in the past. That doesn't mean you don't ban and constantly improve testing measures, it just means that you must accept the existence of impropriety in athletics just as you do in all other walks of life. It is enough to state unequivocally that cheating is wrong — something baseball didn't do until a few years ago — clearly state the punishment for cheating, and hope that you've convinced the fence-sitters that it's probably a better bet to drink a little more Red Bull and quit staying up so late before day games.

(Side note 1: Please, everyone, stop saying the "Steroid Era" — as obnoxious and sanctimonious a label as any in the history of sports — is actually over. Steroids haven't gone anywhere. Steroid users haven't gone anywhere. Steroids are still being taken by baseball players, maybe even a lot of baseball players. The horse is out of the motherfucking barn; this isn't like the "Cracker Era" in baseball, which was ended by Robinson's breaking of the color barrier. The "Steroid Era" in baseball will exist until an even better method of cheating comes around and makes steroid use passé.)

(Side note 2: I love — LOVE — that amphetamines didn't so much as merit a mention in Mitchell's report. For $20 million dollars over two years, you could at least be thorough.)

Anyway, what really got me — I almost did a spit take on my hamburger when I heard this at the bar during lunch — was Mitchell upping the sancti-ante my giving us the well-worn "What about the kids?!?" line. That kind of drivel is sickening in any occasion, but Mitchell using it to prop up baseball's criminal overreaction to decades of passive acceptance of PED use was about as scummy as it could get. Not that I should expect anything better from a former federal congressman, but every so often I'm still stunned at the gall of people who believe that pre-adolescents make for handy metaphorical human shields.

Now that I've calmed down, my almost paralyzing desire to break Mitchell's left orbital has subsided. But I'd still like to throw his own mealy-mouthed question back in his face. What about the kids, you cocksucker? Because I think that baseball's steroid "investigation" has set a far worse moral example for today's youth than anything F.P. Santangelo did with his ass, a needle and perhaps his closest personal-training buddy.

If we're to use the Mitchell Report as a moral guide, then the kids should believe there's nothing wrong with applying wide brushes when condemning individuals. The "list" — not the fake one released hours before the Mitchell Report which was, stunningly, to be found on the web sites of "legitimate" news delivery agencies (hear that, SAS?) — is presented as a context-less recitation of "users" everywhere it's to be found. Are we to believe that Paul Byrd and Andy Pettitte are both guilty of the same crimes, to the same degrees? Further, are we to believe there's equal evidence of the guilt of both men? Of course not. But Mitchell's use of names invited a situation in which all alleged users — and I'd bet the house that a not-insignificant portion of the men on that list shouldn't be on it — are considered cheaters of the same magnitude and with the same amount of proof. Remember, kids, that it's OK to generalize provided you're doing it under the banner of righteousness.

If we're to use the Mitchell Report as a moral guide, then the kids should believe that it's OK to injure others based on hearsay and zealotry. Because, as far as I can tell, all Mitchell has to offer about Clemens and Pettitte, the two biggest names indicted by the report, is the testimony of a potentially jilted ex-personal trainer and his supplier. No corroboration, no lie detector test, no actual evidence of steroid use outside of the "sworn testimony" of two guys and the willingness of the rest of us to allow our suspicions to be so easily confirmed. Yes, there's some fairly damning, hard evidence about others that was uncovered by the Feds in various raids, but that's not the case with the two gentlemen who spent the most time on the ticker during Mitchell's press conference. I'm shocked, frankly, that Mitchell didn't take the now-popular path of talking to ballplayer's ex-mistresses and presenting their testimony without reservation. Remember, kids, that the ends always justify the means.

If we're to use the Mitchell Report as a moral guide, then the kids should believe it's acceptable let others take the punishment for a misdeed you participated in, provided you can cop to plausible deniability. Why haven't we seen a gigantic, explosive, above-the-virtual-fold columns condemning Brian Sabean's tacit acknowledgment of Bonds' steroid use (and encouragement, in the fashion of offering Bonds another contract after Stan Conte had made it very clear that Bonds was juicing), which was documented in the report? And Sabean wasn't the only one; I refuse to believe that most coaches, GMs and owners were in the dark about this shit. Men cannot simultaneously be intelligent enough to run massive organizations and dumb enough to not have a fucking clue what its employees are up to in the goddamn clubhouses. Mitchell made mention of "shared responsibility," and deserves credit for not cracking a smile when doing so. His report has laid this problem squarely on the players and given the administrators a token reprimand for playing dumb. Everyone knew what was going on, and the money men encouraged it by lavishing the users with millions of dollars and ridiculously long contracts. Remember, kids, that shit always rolls downhill, so just make sure that you're rich if you're going to do something wrong.

And, finally, if we're to use the Mitchell Report as a moral guide, then kids should learn to celebrate the ethics of the snitch. The parts of this report that weren't based on seized evidence were based on the testimony of those who had something to gain by implicating others in their crimes. It's nice to know that, should I ever be a part of a criminal conspiracy, I have currency with my captors so long as I'm caught first. Right after high school baseball players are handed a first-person testimonial about the dangers of steroids written by the remorseful hand of Jason Giambi on his personalized stationary, they should receive a concise explanation of "The Prisoner's Dilemma," and understand how the proper manipulation of game theory can likely one day emancipate them from punishment for misdeeds, or at the very least mitigate that punishment. Remember, kids, to rat early and rat often. Maybe one day, you'll be best known for destroying the life of someone much more popular and successful than you.

Just don't take steroids. We beg of you. Anything but steroids.

(no subject)

2007-12-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

I’ve spent much of the last week debating whether or not to continue our little experiment called TGWNA. Part of it is due to the creative apathy that’s beguiled me most of my life; my chief character flaw is an overarching desire to be lazy. Despite what may come across as a desire to shout my sometimes obnoxious views from the rooftops, I much prefer having the roof over my head and the heat on. Applying that metaphor to writing, which I once foolishly believed was what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing, I’ve found that it takes much longer to compose in my head and leave it there. The process of elucidating my thoughts through the written word is tiresome and frustrating, because my thoughts are often much less compelling in a physical form than they are in the ether.

However, the main reason for thoughts of pulling the plug is that this virtual space has become somewhat uncomfortable for me of late, and apparently my good friend and co-author shares a similar sentiment. I believe the current situation is endemic to the site’s underlying concept, which could be best summed up by the crude moniker, “argument blog.” At its inception, I never imagined this space would be happened upon — not to mention desirable to — people who didn’t know the site’s principals. This was really just an attempt to combat the post-collegiate diaspora that made personal contact among our group of friends more difficult; I wanted to recapture the bliss of the hyperbolic group arguments we used to impose on almost any space we occupied, often without thought to the mores of the particular environment or innocent bystanders within earshot.

But it’s become readily apparent a few times previous to this one that a virtual argument lacks many of the most endearing aspects of a live one, and amplifies its few regrettable characteristics. Namely, it’s impossible to smile when delivering a barb unless you’re willing to succumb to emoticons, an artifact of the internet age that I despise. There have been numerous intervals where I’ve been convinced that irreparable harm has been done to friendships over exchanges in this space, though thankfully that hasn’t actually been the case yet (I hope). If there is an overarching theme to this blog (besides sports) it is stubbornness. I can’t think of a single occasion where a point, however ancillary, has been conceded. As is often the case with impasses, something eventually breaks, and it’s usually decorum. Insults and aspersions are cast, people get pissed, and everyone begins to question how fun this really is. And if we’re not having fun here, then why the fuck aren’t we spending our internet time looking at Brittney Spears’ twat?

But reflection over the last couple of days has changed my perspective. A staple of my internet chats with friends has become “When are you going to write about this on the blog?” and it reminds me that I am no closer today to most of my friends than I was when I first registered the site on Blogger. This is, still, the easiest way for me to maintain friendships with people I see sporadically. And it’s still the only forum I’ve got to write when inspiration strikes. I may not do it as much as I used to or should, but I shudder to think what will happen to my brain if I ever cease doing it completely.

In short, I’m going to keep writing, though I can’t make any promises about how often.
As for the potential for explosive comments, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s better to have more dialogue then less, even if that sometimes means I’ll get bent about something written. I’ll only request that everyone — myself included — keep in mind that insults and condescension are the hallmark of the intellectually incompetent. I single no one out, because I have been as guilty of choosing vituperium over testimonium, and it’s unfair to expect others to be respectful if you’re being an asshole.

Sorry about the length. I imagine this was a scintillating read.

p.s. – I may start writing about some non-sports things. Not often, but a recent Camille Paglia column really got me going.

p.p.s. – I also might write about soccer every so often.

p.p.p.s. – XOXOXOXO ☺

The Disagreeal

2007-12-06T02:52:00.000-07:00

OK, I'll bite.

Sean Taylor -- Your whole point here seems to be, "I was wrong about Sean Taylor, but I'm not going to retract, because I could have been right." Which is fine, except that you were still wrong. And so were most of our commenters with their half-assed theories about his "bad life decisions." Turns out he just got robbed because he was rich.

I'm not even going to talk about race, for once. But, all due, your take on Occam's Razor seems off. First of all, I think you extend Occam's Razor well beyond its actual jurisdiction, which is scientific, and I think it loses a lot of its sharpness when used metaphorically to discuss a sports-related murder. But even beyond that, you're wrong that the simplest explanation is that his past led to the attack. The simplest explanation, logically, is that it was a robbery gone awry, because that doesn't rely on some overblown and mostly speculative beef stemming from a gun-brandishing incident that happened years ago. The simplest explanation is exactly what happened.

Forgive me if I don't care what a backup cornerback who was in Phoenix at the time thinks. I'll take the word of the experienced people who are paid to investigate these kinds of things, who all seem to say that it was a robbery. And it also doesn't matter to me that you and Anonymous #2 could have been right -- you weren't.

The Pats -- This whole greatest ever talk is retarded, and I'm sorry I was the one to instigate it on this blog. (Although, to be fair, I was far from the first person to bring it up in the sporting world at large.) I don't care if the Pats win the rest of their games by 50 points apiece -- they're not the greatest ever.

They're playing in the most mediocre NFL in memory, a league that has three -- I'll give you four if you really want to debate it -- legitimately good teams. Their division, against whom six of those wins will come, might be the worst NFL division I've ever seen. They should have lost the last two weeks, to teams that are currently 5-7 and 4-8, respectively. Both made the NE defense look terrible, despite starting backup QBs. They couldn't run the ball against either. They won because of suspect playcalls and extremely suspect -- I mean conspiracy theory iffy -- penalties.

It's asinine that we're even talking about this as a possibility, and it's just another sign of the inanity of contemporary sports culture, which rushes to beknight every good team or player as the best ever, even before they've actually accomplished anything. It's utter stupidity. It's like we've all joined the cast of the Best Damn Sports Show Period for their nightly list feature, "Top 20 All-Time Greatest NFL Teams Who Went 12-0."

Thankfully, I think the whole discussion will end soon, because if they play anything like they have the last two weeks, they won't beat the Steelers.

Instant Replay and Peavy -- I'm with you on both.

Wolf, Milledge, and Dukes -- Too early on all three counts. You're mistaking potential for results yet again.

Wolf -- Overall, yes, I agree that it's a shrewd move by a great GM. But let's not forget that this is a guy who's missed most of the last three seasons with various arm injuries, and wasn't that good to begin with. The reason it's a shrewd move has much less to do with the player Randy Wolf is and a lot more to do with how cheap he came.

Milledge -- So the Mets traded their second-best outfield prospect for a guy (Church) who will contribute almost exactly what Milledge would have next year (check their respective stats), as well as a defensive catcher they needed. (I know the value of a good defensive catcher is anathema to the stattys of the world, but it exists.) The only reason it strikes me as odd is because of Estrada. You're also neglecting the fact that Milledge is a notorious headcase who may never put it all together.

Dukes -- Speaking of notorious headcases, let's take a look at your rationalization of Dukes' character. He's "done some bad stuff"? His actions are "reprehensible for sure"? Excuse me -- dude didn't throw a rock through a window, or even take the Clear: HE THREATENED TO KILL HIS GIRLFRIEND AND HER CHILDREN! Then he sent a picture of the gun he was going to use! And that's just the latest in his string of sociopathic behavior. He's a horrible human being, and I don't care if he throws 150-mph fastballs or has a VORP of 872: he doesn't deserve a second chance. Sure, he'll get one. Of course he will, because he hasn't made the mistake of doing steroids and outlasting his welcome. But he doesn't deserve it. I'm actually just fine with saying that people who terrorize women and children don't deserve second chances, thank you very much.

Sure, maybe he'll be the MVP in four years. But that's far from a foregone conclusion. In fact, given the potential that he's actually shown in both arenas, it's a lot more likely that he'll be in jail by then. So let's hold off a bit before we say how much of a steal he is.

A note on comments: You'll notice that comments are disabled for this post. They will be for the rest of my posts from here on out. It's the only way I'm willing to continue doing this. Some of you offer some real and much-appreciated insight in our comments section, and to you I sincerely apologize. But I'm not willing to deal with the rest anymore.

The fact is that comment sections are almost invariably full of stupidity, snark, ad hominem, or worse. Look at any newspaper's website, or any prominent sports blog. What you'll find is a bunch of work-avoiding slackers trying to out-quip each other, readers getting into stupid arguments with each other, and just plain bad writing and thinking.

For instance, our own comments have recently hosted: ad hoc Sean Taylor conspiracy theories, implications that he was to blame for his own murder, people I hardly know taking shots at me, me taking shots at people I hardly know, and our resident Seahawks fan's continuing juvenile-hall smack about Donovan McNabb being fat and/or gay. Since our very first posts, it's served mostly to further arguments between friends that invariably get personal and create real-life tension. The semi-public forum only exacerbates this. There's just no point.

I'm sick of it. You want to disagree, maybe offer an opposing view? Fine. Start your own blog. Shit, ask to join this one -- I'd love to have more viewpoints to keep it fresh and make posts more frequent, and I'm sure Diesel would agree. We'll be happy to have blog-offs. Or you can e-mail us at our newly created blog address -- tgwnablog@gmail.com -- and we'll do mailbag columns. But either way, you're going to have to provide more than a few lines of facile smartaleckyness.

Cleaning house

2007-12-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

Sean Taylor
It appears the cops are fairly resolute on this being a non-premeditated murder, which I suppose makes much of the speculation — mine included, featured right below this post — appear hasty and flat wrong.

OK.

I'm not going to apologize for what I said because I still feel there's logic behind it. Readers will, by this point, be familiar with my love of William of Occam, and his fine razor. The simplest answer, in this case, was that Sean Taylor's off-the-field history likely played a role in his eventual demise. I agree with many critics of the media's coverage that attempting to draw conclusions about Taylor — as a person, or in regard to his demise — based on his on-field behavior reeks of prejudice, and not necessarily in the racial sense (though it would be foolish to say that's absolutely not the case, either). But I disagree with those crowing "See! I told you so!" to those who stated the obvious in the early days after his death, which is that Taylor had a history of being both the alleged victim and perpetrator of gun violence. And that's not even getting into the break-in a week prior, the remnants of which involved what can only be construed as a threat of violence. I'll be curious to see how that situation is ultimately reconciled by investigators when it's all said and done, if it's to be reconciled at all.

I'm also going to say this — and I know I'm likely to catch shit for it — before being done with the matter of Taylor's death: I still have trouble buying it. It would make perfect sense for the perpetrators to represent their crime as a burglary gone bad, as a lack of premeditation serves as a mitigating circumstance when it comes to murder. Of course, it's not just the perps saying this; I would like to believe the police wouldn't simply buy into what's been confessed and leave it at that. But without getting all conspiracy theorist on everyone here, if this is a coincidence, it's a hell of a coincidence. And I'm not the only person who thinks so. But that's also largely irrelevant, so I'll leave it at that.

There are a ton of other issues that Taylor's death has brought up, however, w/r/t black athletes, the perception of black athletes by the media and fans, and the fairly shocking mortality rates for young black men that Taylor's death has suddenly made everyone aware of. I'm not going to pretend I'm capable or willing of attacking all with the correct gravity right now, but maybe I'll break them up and tackle them another day. I am going to say this, however: If you believe that race isn't an issue, you are allowing your desires to cloud your perception of reality. Race is not only an issue, it might be the issue. And I don't see why acknowledging that, or talking about it, is met with shouts, because it's that reaction that guarantees the "race isn't an issue" people will continue to be very, very wrong. I'm not saying everyone has to agree on the conclusions, only that the argument is worth having.

The Patriots
Two sub-par performances in a row against teams that strain to be considered mediocre (unless we're actually willing to grant that the Eagles' and Ravens' performances against the Patriots suggest that, perhaps, they're better than just mediocre ... perhaps they've been unlucky?). But, still, two wins. And what's surprising to me is that, amid the speculation and desire to assign the 2007 Patriots a legacy despite the presence of, potentially, seven more games to go, everyone seems to have forgotten how fucking hard it is to win a football game in the NFL.

That statement can serve as an age-old truism — I mean, there's a reason there's been one undefeated team in the history of the league, and that team had one of the weakest schedules in the league that season — or you can make it specific to this era. It's difficult to describe to people who haven't been exposed to the inner workings of a professional or college football team just how staggering the technology at the disposal of coaches is in the modern era. The days of the single game tape are long gone; teams have the opportunity to dissect teams using the standard two cameras (one sideline, one end zone) operated by the home team at each game, television tapes and advance scouting reports in addition to the sheer volume of information that fans have access to as well. There are no secrets in football anymore, especially when it comes to schemes. To top it all off, coaches generally spend about 80 hours planning for each game, which would cause one to expect some advancement in approach against a particular opponent as the season wears on.

The Patriots, at some point, were going to have these kinds of games. I'm a little surprised that they came in a pair, but the timing shouldn't really be a concern. Nor should the opponents; while the Eagles and Ravens are well on their way to incredibly disappointing campaigns, they're not the Dolphins, either. Both teams schemed well in an effort to exploit their strengths and the Pats' weaknesses. Both had the Pats on the ropes. Both looked like they might pull it off.

And they didn't.

I have no idea what's going to happen for the rest of this season, which is why I'm willing to wait before making any affirmative statements about the Pats' "greatness." But I will say this: If New England wins out, regardless of margins of victory of heart palpitations on the part of Tony Kornheiser, they're the greatest team in the history of the NFL. But I really have trouble believing that's going to happen. It's just too hard.

On instant replay
Twice this week, games with big playoff implications were decided by questionable calls. The Packers lost because of a pass interference call that cost them close to 50 yards that appeared to be a case of tangled feet, which does not constitute pass interference. The Browns lost when Kellen Winslow was ruled out-of-bounds on a game-tying touchdown reception, despite the fact he was clearly forced out of bounds.

The pass interference call wasn't reviewed, because you can't review pass interference. The Browns' touchdown was reviewed, but not to determine if it was a force-out, because that's not reviewable either.

What bullshit.

We're told that those plays aren't reviewable, because they're "judgement calls." The same goes for field goal tries, holding, and facemask penalties. What distinguishes these plays from non-judgement calls is not readily apparent to me. Does the term suggest that the definitions of the infractions are highly subjective? If that's the case, those definitions should be reconsidered. But I think we all know they're not subjective, they're just difficult to call consistently. And that makes sense; being a football official is very difficult, and expecting robot-like precision on the part of human beings is foolish. With all due respect to Seahawks fans, bad or missed calls are not indicative of anything more than human fallibility.

But doesn't the presence of instant replay indicate an implicit acceptance on the part of the NFL that referees might get it wrong sometimes, and that there should be a mechanism in place to allow aggrieved teams the benefit of an opportunity on the part of officials to correct their errors? I think that's a reasonable conclusion. And if that's the case, then shouldn't the most difficult calls to make be made available to a second look?

I sense that the league is afraid that including pass interference on the list of reviewable plays will somehow expose officials to scorn, or even worse expose the league's rules definitions as being more subjective than what constitutes obscenity. I guess it's nice to see that the colossus of American sports is so damn sensitive.

The hot stove
I know everyone's talking about Santana, but isn't that getting old (plus, he's not going anywhere)? No, the real story is that the smart teams are jumping in early and swinging high-risk, high-ceiling deals before the market gets further inflated at the Opryland Hotel bar. The Padres' signing of Randy Wolf is precisely the kind of free agent deal that mid-market teams have to make if they're going to stay competitive; the only way Wolf will end up being highly paid is if he earns the money. Yeah, I know, the Padres have an advantage because of PETCO when it comes to signing pitchers, but it has less to do with the specifics of this deal than it does the approach. The only "bargains" to be had are on players with red flags, as evidenced by the Nationals' swindling of the Mets and Rays for Lastings Milledge and Elijah Dukes, in addition to the aforementioned Wolf signing.

(Quick note on Dukes: If you think this was a bad deal, then you're confusing baseball with the National Honors Society. Dukes is a talented player who's done some bad stuff, on the field and off. He threatened the life of his girlfriend, which is reprehensible for sure. But he's not in jail for it either, which means he's still eligible to have a career. If you think Dukes should be punished for his transgressions, complain about the justice system, not baseball)

But I think the really interesting story is that its looking very likely that the Padres will lock-up Jake Peavy long-term. Peavy's willing to cut the Pads a discount — he'll likely make less annually that Carlos Zambrano — comes in return for a no-trade clause, which is understandable. And while I've often bemoaned long-term contracts for pitchers, I'm starting to soften a little when it comes to the elite guys. Peavy's on a very short list of hurlers who are near-mortal locks to be among the best five starters in the majors on a yearly basis, and while it's dumb to expect that he'll be anywhere close to this dominant in 2013, he should still be well above-average barring significant injury. And while the "significant injury" caveat isn't insignificant, it's probably not significant enough to make deals like these prohibitive any longer. At some point in time, you've got to take your shot, even if you acknowledge that the odds aren't the most desirable. Peavy's not only one of the pre-eminent players in the game, he also happens to play for a team whose best pitching prospect (Will Inman) projects to be a No. 3 in a perfect world. I happen to think that the Twins should strongly consider giving Santana the money he wants as well — this is a fairly recent conclusion for me as well — but the situation for the Twins and the Padres aren't exactly analogous. The Twins could afford to lose Santana, even without a massive return in a trade, because they are flush with pitching prospects and have Francisco Liriano returning from Tommy John surgery. The Padres, on the other hand, don't have anyone all that great coming up through the system, which means that Peavy's value to the team is even higher.

Guys like me are often accused of ignoring the forest for the trees when it comes to stuff like this, and I think that's fair criticism. I hate the idea of teams — particularly teams I like — signing irrational contracts, and those belonging to free agent starters are most often deserving of that particular epithet. In my perfect world, you would always have enough talent on the farm to allow free agents to walk, because free agents are almost always too expensive. But in an imperfect world, you have to accept that there are times when too much isn't really too much. Peavy's expensive, and if he gets hurt it will be a massive blow to the franchise's ability to compete. But it would probably be an even bigger blow to not have him, which means it's a deal you have to make.

When the truth doesn't suit our bromides

2007-11-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

Sean Taylor is dead, in case you haven't heard. The reaction from the media, I think, has been pretty muted, considering the nature of the murder and the talent level of the victim. But I guess that's what happens when the player in question hardly ever spoke with the media; in the absence of personal anecdotes, there's really not much to say in situations like these. Or at least that's the stance most media members have taken with Taylor's shooting and subsequent passing, sticking to the facts and editorializing little.

But what of those facts? Not of the shooting; those surrounding Taylor's life. Isn't there something to be said of the fact that Taylor's last few years have been a bit troubling on the "getting his name in the blotter" tip, even by the standards of the NFL? This guy's name has been linked with gun violence on multiple occasions, both as victim and perpetrator. This isn't to say he's a murderer or a gangster; it's just to say that the search "Sean Taylor+guns" would come up with a few more hits than "Bob Sanders+guns."

Mike Wilbon thought Taylor's backstory was relevant. Here's what he said during a chat, yesterday:

McLean, Va.: Will your opinion of Taylor change if this does not turn out to be a random incident (e.g. home invasion)?

Michael Wilbon: No ... people's opinions are shaped by the way they've grown up, the way they see the world, what they know about the world the person in question grew up in, etc. Sean Taylor isn't the only guy I know who fits his general profile. I've known guys like Taylor all my life, grew up with some. They still have shades of gray and shouldn't be painted in black and white...I know how I feel about Taylor, and this latest news isn't surprising in the least, not to me. Whether this incident is or isn't random, Taylor grew up in a violent world, embraced it, claimed it, loved to run in it and refused to divorce himself from it. He ain't the first and won't be the last. We have no idea what happened, or if what we know now will be revised later. It's sad, yes, but hardly surprising.

Unsurprisingly, Wilbon's catching some blowback. From Chris Mottram's Mr. Irrelevant:

This is ridiculous on so many levels, but the worst part is that it sounds an awful lot like Wilbon is suggesting Taylor had this coming. Sure, Taylor’s had some troubles in the past, but that’s like suggesting the slutty girl from high school deserved to be raped. See, the way it works is that crimes are not the fault of the victims.

Listen, I don't have an axe to grind with either of these guys, and I can see where Mottram's coming from. Wilbon's comments do seem a little chilly, especially now that we know the guy ended up dying.

We're supposed to be nice to the dead and dying, and "concern" ourselves more with that person getting better or ascending swiftly to the pre-assigned level of heaven in times like these. We tend to wait at least two weeks before suggesting anything negative about the deceased, and even then you must chase any statement with, "... may god rest his/her soul." It's proper form. It's also bullshit.

It's not Wilbon's or Mottram's job to comfort the family of the dead, folks. Reporters and columnists are there to let us know what the news is, and sometimes what their opinion of the news is. And Taylor's death is a sufficiently big story that people are allowed to call it like they see it. That's what Wilbon did. Taylor's been in trouble, and a good percentage of those situations involved guns. No, he wasn't Tupac, but it's so totally not surprising that he got shot. To say otherwise is disingenuous.

I also don't think that Wilbon — or anyone who cares to mention Taylor's history and the possibility that there's a connection — is saying Taylor "had it coming," an expression that implies the person deserved it. No one has a fucking bullet to the groin "coming to them." But to borrow Mottram's rape analogy, you needn't suggest the slut deserved to get raped to point out that sluts are more likely to get raped than girls who are in bed by 10 p.m.

I'm really wondering if Wilbon's going to be the only one to point out the obvious: That, despite alleged attempts to improve his life — and I love how everyone has taken statements to this effect as gospel — Taylor's past almost certainly came back to haunt him. We may not really understand (yet) what Taylor's past involves in whole, but a few well-publicized incidents give us an idea. A couple of years ago, he stuck a gun in the face of someone he had just beaten up over a stolen SUV, and subsequently was the reason someone went NYPD on a friend's truck during a drive-by. And from the scraps of information coming through about recent events, Taylor had reason to believe he was still a target, especially considering that a little more than a week ago someone broke into his house and left a fucking knife on his pillow. This shooting was not the product of some casual disdain, or a desire to separate Taylor from his wealth. Someone wanted him dead, or seriously fucked up, and dedicated no small amount of thought and effort to achieving that end. Murder like this doesn't happen by accident; at some point, Taylor or a close associate initiated a chain of events that led to yesterday's murder. You don't need to be McNulty to figure this stuff out.

However, I have a sneaking suspicion that outside of a few glancing blows like this one, we're not going to see anything substantive on this until REAL Sports or another investigative (and non-print) outlet decides to tackle the "Athletes and Gun Violence" story again, maybe even with a new perspective. But, like the Brian Pata/Darrent Williams situations proved, even the hardest-hitting outlets are loathe to dig into what it is that these young men did that made their murder such a priority for someone. Maybe one of them was a "senseless" killing — the more we hear about the Williams slaying, the more it sounds like he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time — but it's not possible that they all were. Pata was executed, and Taylor was stalked before being executed. Pata and Taylor did something to inspire these killings. If you're going to report the story, you need to be willing to address that issue. That is the story.

The fact that he responded to his SUV being stolen by hunting down some guy, beating the living shit out of him, and then putting a gun in his face tells us something about Sean Taylor's character. You don't brandish weapons in the process of disputes unless deadly weapons — and the violence associated with them — are a central motif in your life. The only way we can insult Taylor's memory is to accuse him of being stupid enough — after growing up in a Florida inner city — to think that he could simply walk away from that kind of past without it catching up to him at some point.

It is unfortunate that Sean Taylor is dead. It's tragic that his infant daughter will grow up without a father. I feel for everyone involved in his life, many of whom are not only dealing with grief but the kind of anxiety that springs from someone your age dying. And I certainly don't believe that Sean Taylor deserved to be murdered. No one deserves to be killed; murder always represents the grandest of injustices. I hope his killer(s) are found, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and never allowed to take the life of someone's son, brother and father. Who wouldn't share those sentiments?

But I, like Wilbon, am not surprised by Taylor's death in the least. I don't believe it's an inexplicable tragedy; it's merely a tragedy, and further proof to anyone dense enough to still need it that if you're willing to point a gun at someone else, there's a strong likelihood that you will find yourself at the other end of one at some point. Whoever killed Taylor that night did so not only armed with a gun, but what he felt was reason enough to use it. And to pretend that's not the case is to willfully ignore that which is right in front of your face.

Dear TGWNA,

2007-11-26T11:16:00.001-07:00

Yo. It's me Aaron Rowand. I used to play center field for the Philadelphia Phillies, but I'm now unemployed. I doubt I'll be out of a job for long, but apparently I had to wait for some dude named Torii (what kinda name is that?) to get signed so everyone could figure out how much they were willing to pay me. They say I'm going to get paid less; not a whole lot, maybe 10 percent less overall. OK, that's cool, considering dude just got signed for $18 milly a year to play in that place by Disney Land. Heh. I like the tea cups ride.

Anyways, my only question is: Why is this Torii guy going to get paid more than me, exactly? Don't get me wrong, he seems like a cool guy and everything, and I've seen him on Sports Center robbing dudes of home runs and stuff, which is cool. But, hey, you might have noticed me on Sports Center a couple of times to, face-planting into fences. Alls I'm saying is that it's not like he's got a monopoly on highlight catches. He may jump, but is he willing to look like a fucking hockey player for the rest of his career? Yeah, I didn't think so. If he only knew how much the broads dug steri-strips.

So, if it's not the highlight catches, then what is it? As far as I can tell, I'm as good as the dude. Maybe better. My boy Diesel got me some numbers on this shit, and told me to paste 'em on here.

Aaron Rowand career OPS+: 106
Torii Hunter career OPS+: 104

Aaron Rowand WARP3, 2005-2007: 19.1
Torii Hunter WARP3, 2005-2007: 19.0

Aaron Rowand Age: 29
Torii Hunter Age: 31

Also, on defense, Diesel told me it's basically a wash. Hunter has a slightly higher "range factor" and "zone rating," I got a higher "fielding runs above replacement" figure, and we got the same fielding percentage.

Yeah, I'm like you: I don't have a motherfucking clue what WARP3 is, either (Diesel also said something about my VORP being higher than Torii's last season, but I told his geek ass to shut it already), but I think it's pretty cool that the stats are saying I'm better than the other guy who's gonna get paid more than me.

Hold on, that's not cool at all. That's actually really fucked up.

They Aren't What They Think They Are

2007-11-26T00:22:00.001-07:00

You can come out of Sunday night's game and do what most people are doing, and continue to fellate the Patriots while slapping the Birds on the back for their moral victory, losing by only three to the Greatest Team In NFL History, Ever, quarterbacked by Tom He Just Plays Like a Champion (that's his Indian name). It's easy to do that, if it's the only Eagles game you've watched this year. It's easy to buy the idea that this is a good franchise that can sneak up on anybody, even the mighty, peerless Patriots.

Well, that's bullshit. I'll tell you what I take from the game: the Pats are not that good.

Let's get it out of the way now: how good is that good, exactly? They're the best team in the NFL this season. That's it. I'm sick of hearing all this other hype. I'm not convinced this year's Pats are the best team I've seen in the last three years, or in the salary cap era, or even that they're better than the '04 Pats. I've only followed the NFL for about 15 years, only really followed it for about ten, and they're not even close to the best team I've seen, much less the best ever. Who is? More on that later.

For now, let's discuss what happened last night. Not that you heard any of this from the announcers or studio analysts, but here's what happened. The Patriots went to the wire with a team that:

1. Was .500 going into the game, both this season and over the last three seasons combined. For those of you who remember the 2004 Eagles, know that this is not that team. This is not a good football team. This is a team that got embarrassed by the Cowboys and Giants this year. This is a last-place team.

2. Was playing on the road, in late November, in one of the hardest places to play in football.

3. Started A.J. Feeley at QB. Yeah, he played well, spectacularly except for a few bad throws -- even if those throws did cost them the game. But he's had enough NFL starts -- 20-ish -- to show exactly who he is and who he isn't. He isn't an NFL-caliber starting QB. Ask the Dolphins. And he spotted them 7 points right off the bat on a horrendous throw. A guy who's been starting all season doesn't come out and throw that ball on the third play. Now, I'm not saying Donovan McNabb would have won this game -- he wouldn't have, and there's no doubt in my mind, but that's a whole different post. Only that a pretty mediocre quarterback started in his place.

4. Started one third-string safety who was out of the NFL a few weeks ago (and got hurt during the game), and another who's 34 and banged up, against the best passing attack in the league. Both starting safeties dropped crucial interceptions that should have been caught pretty easily.

5. Was coached about as poorly as could be, offensively. The defensive game plan was great, and although I'm sick of Jim Johnson and his constant blitzing, the three-man front was brilliant. The no-huddle four-wide would have shredded a lot of defenses. But Reid and Morninwheg pulled all their usual bullshit, burning timeouts they'd need later, and -- in a move that would have given me a coronary if I weren't already expecting it, because I've seen the same thing so many times -- they called a deep pass pattern on the final drive, when the only reasonable gameplan in the world would have been to run the ball or throw short passes for two minutes and go for the tying field goal. Feeley made a bad throw -- LJ was open short -- but he never should have been put in that position.

6. Did not force a turnover, unless you count the turnover on downs when the Mastermind decided to go for it and the Second Coming threw a duck. Usually when a team loses to a lesser team, turnovers are the reason: a few freak fumbles, Eli Manning's three pick-sixes against Minnesota. The Pats dominated the turnover battle, including a pick-six two minutes in, and still barely won.

7. Got a grand total of 92 yards from its best player. That's 60 less than Westbrook has averaged on the year. It would be much more understandable if the Eagles were close because Westbrook blew up, but he was not much of a factor.

All that, and the Best Team Ever still needed a few breaks to win by three? Get the fuck out of here. A couple of things go the other way -- that inexplicable fourth-down offsides by the Eagles, which led to the Maroney TD; if one more safety was healthy, the Birds wouldn't have had linebackers on Welker all night; if they catch even one of those picks; if Feeley throws only one baffling interception to Samuel instead of two -- and the Eagles win.

(So right about now is when some of our faithful commenters accuse me of making excuses for the Eagles. But that's not what I'm doing here -- if I was going to do that, I'd mention how Brady false-started all game, stepping back and ducking his shoulders in an oft-successful attempt to draw offsides, but never got flagged for it, or how that Gaffney TD would have been reviewed if any other team in football scored it, or how, if you watch that fourth-down offsides again, it looks like a false start. But I'm not going to do that.)

What I'm saying is that there's a reason the spread was the biggest ever. The Eagles are a mediocre, banged-up team, and the Pats had looked like a great one all year. It was in Foxboro. The Pats had nobody injured going in. A historically great, healthy team at home against AJ Feeley? It should have been a massacre.

Except it wasn't, because the Pats aren't that great. Brady got rattled under pressure -- not that much pressure, either -- and started airmailing receivers or throwing what should have been interceptions. They dropped a ton of passes. Moss got jammed at the line and frustrated into irrelevance. Stallworth was invisible. They have no running game. Their linebackers can't cover for shit, so the middle was wide open all day. Their D-line couldn't get to Feeley. Their kicker missed an easy field goal.

So what? The Pats still won, right? Yeah, they did. And maybe winning -- even if it's close, even if it takes a little luck -- is the mark of a champion (barf). But I just don't want to hear it anymore about the fucking 2007 Patriots being the best team ever. The team I saw tonight wasn't even close to the early '90s Cowboys, as much as it pains me to use that hated franchise as a reference point. Or the Steve Young Niners. Those teams didn't need to play their best game -- no turnovers, a defensive TD, no key penalties -- to beat shitty teams at home.

The Pats' flaws were exposed today, and they are few but significant. They have no real running game. They have a bunch of geriatric linebackers who can play a mean fullback and tight end but can't cover anybody. Brady is human if you can ever get pressure on him (which rarely happens, because they have a great O-line, not that you'd ever hear it in all the Tom Brady fluffing). Outside of Asante Samuel, their secondary is pedestrian. Their D-line doesn't get much push. And if Brady sees pressure like he did tonight, you could be looking at Matt Cassell under center. He's been lucky so far, but look around the NFL and see how many starting QBs are hurt. One play could end all this history talk real quick. (Are you listening, Ray Lewis?)

If the Pats run the table this year, that says more about the sorry state of the NFL than it does about their greatness. I don't see it happening. If the Steelers or Giants don't get them, they'll still have to face a Colts team that ought to be healthier by then.

Either way, they're not the best team ever. Last night's game made that pretty clear.

Sink or swim

2007-11-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

It's no surprise that the term "witch-hunt" has been bandied about in our cliché-crazy environment when referring to the hysteria surrounding steroids and baseball. I've long thought that the Red Scare was the best available analogy, particularly in light of the "What about the kids?!?" pap that's been trotted out by dozens of supercilious columnists trying to justify their rending of Tommy Bahama shirts and well-worn 501s, but we're not here to discuss the relative merits of hackneyed terminology. We're here to talk about, instead, our weird perception of morality and justice as it pertains to athletes.

As tired and inadequate as the witch references may be in general, the concept of a witch trial is most appropriate when sizing up the situation faced by one Barry Bonds, he of the home run record and 1,000 moments of terror for sports writers. The crime Bonds is being pilloried for today is lying to a grand jury, when the opportunity for "immunity" was presented should he offer any testimony that would be self-incriminating. But, considering that what he said that day was going to become public knowledge, he was really faced with a witch's "water test": If he confessed to a crime everyone had already assumed him guilty of, then he would be finished. If he maintained his innocence — honestly or not — then he would face the punishment nonetheless.

If the body floats, it's a witch. If the body sinks, it's not a witch. Live guilty, or die innocent.

The prosecutor was already armed with evidence that Bonds was a customer of BALCO, and had in the process of his patronage obtained anabolic steroids and a series of other performance-enhancing drugs from BALCO honcho Victor Conte. He was also armed with enough evidence to indict Conte as it was; the use of Bonds, Jason Giambi and a handful of other professional athletes amounted to, at best, piling on, and at worst a dog and pony show for — supposedly — the benefit of those in attendance, and those in attendance only.

That last part is what we're most concerned with, at this moment. Grand juries exist to allow prosecutors to, in theory, test the viability of a case they wish to bring to trial. In reality, grand juries exist to strengthen a prosecutor's case by virtue of an indictment that is granted in a closed proceeding without the benefit of judges, the defendant, or lawyers for the defendant or any witnesses. It is not a stretch to suggest that what often takes place within a grand jury proceeding is nothing short of slander against a prospective defendant, which is why it's increasingly rare for a prosecutor to not earn an indictment as a result of these patently farcical proceedings. Evidence that wouldn't see the light of day after discovery is fair game in a grand jury proceeding, and there's no limit to what a prosecutor can do to witnesses that he or she would otherwise be given a severe reprimand for repeating in an open court.

A prosecutor can also offer immunity to any witness, which in theory — sorry if I keep using this particular caveat as a rhetorical device — obviates the need for any witness to invoke his or her Fifth Amendment right to not be compelled to self-incriminate. Bonds, like the other BALCO clients, was granted immunity in return for honest testimony, which in a lot of people's minds means that Bonds had no excuse to lie about his steroid use.

Bonds is a lot of things — megalomaniac, an asshole, selfish — but he's rarely been accused of being stupid. Nor, I suspect, are the members of his legal council. Anyone with half a brain could see the BALCO grand jury for the circus it was, and thusly had to understand two things about it:

1) It was a pointless exercise of prosecutorial power, and;
2) There was absolutely zero chance that testimony would remain secret.

Bonds, like every other athlete called to testify, had much more to worry about than the criminality of any actions they might admit to on that stand. Rarely are the users of "illegal" drugs like steroids convicted of anything more weighty than a misdemeanor; it's only ever the suppliers that need be concerned of serious jail time, and no one has ever accused Bonds of sharing his stash. But an admission to using steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs was nothing less than professional suicide, and in the case of almost every BALCO client, that meant millions of dollars lost. Perhaps I am overly cynical, but I don't know many people who honor the "truth" — particularly when it's over such a petty crime, in the eyes of the law — enough to sacrifice that kind of money. In addition, Bonds stood close to the precipice of one of the greatest professional accomplishments any athlete could hope to accomplish, which meant he stood to lose both material wealth and athletic immortality. He had every reason to lie that day, seeing as the prosecutor's promise of confidentiality promised to be worthless, a belief borne out by the subsequent leak and publishing of that testimony in newspapers and The Game of Shadows, a book that virtually re-wrote the rules about yellow sports journalism.

So, why did anyone expect him to tell the truth on the stand? Where's the benefit? Furthermore, how is the "greater good" served by his telling the truth in this situation? Even if you believe Conte deserved to be locked up for his crimes, whatever Bonds said that day really didn't change things one way or the other. The player's "crime" didn't harm society; it harmed a game that had looked the other way for at least a decade as juiced ballplayers brought fans back into the seats and dollars back into the pockets of team owners (and, yes, the players themselves). The "crime" was against hopelessly naive fans who clung onto silly notions of athletic purity. And, if you really want to go left-field on this situation, Bonds' crime was against his "legacy," or "natural talent," or "respect for the game," ideas that shouldn't be uttered with a straight face. In truth, Bonds' only "crime" when it came to performance-enhancing drugs was that he shopped with the wrong distributor, or perhaps made his use a little to conspicuous. Perhaps that's a sign of poor forethought, but more than likely it's bad luck. Luck, and the fact that he was so unabashedly better than everyone else — even those juicing just as much — that the scope of every self-righteous, fame-hungry writer or federal prosecutor was aimed directly as his expanding head.

The real "crime" Bonds is being punished for — with this perjury indictment serving as proxy — is being unwilling to offer a lame, emasculating and humiliating "apology" like Giambi (who only apologized after the testimony leaked; had it actually remained secret, he would still maintain his innocence) so the rest of us could feel superior for a day before moving on. Because this proud, arrogant athlete didn't prostrate himself, he is everything that's wrong with the game and should be fitted with shackles. Worse yet, now, and only now, that there's an federal indictment — as opposed to just reams of evidence, two books loudly proclaiming his guilt and a general consensus among everyone that he used PEDs — he's suddenly untouchable, and will not be signed by a team this offseason even though he's still one of the 20 best offensive players in the league and without question the best remaining offensive player on the market. How fucking capricious and hypocritical is that, baseball?

If Bonds goes to jail — he almost certainly won't, by the way, because it's virtually impossible to prove perjury in this particular situation — he should be defiant on his perp walk. The only shame that should be felt is by those who think that what's taking place right now is anything except a travesty and embarrassment. Athletes who have killed people, or been party to a murder — hello there, Ray Lewis and Leonard Little! — received nowhere close to the self-congratulatory bile that's filled sports pages the last three years every time the subject is Barry Bonds. One wonders if the fan reaction to Pac-Man Jones the next time he steps on a field of play will compare to anything Bonds received last season on the road.

I'm not saying that what Bonds did was right — taking steroids or lying to the grand jury — nor should anyone "defending" Bonds have to say as much. But I'm not going to pretend that either infraction is anywhere close to deserving of the punishment he's already received, not to mention the punishment he possibly could receive down the road. Nor am I going to give the hyper-moralists a pass, particularly when almost every one of them have done things in their life to further their careers or contribute to their personal wealth — embellishing resumes, backstabbing co-workers, dodging taxes — that are no better or worse than what Bonds did. There are real criminals in sports that are much more deserving of our hatred, but most of them are lucky(?) enough to not be so good that the mixture of misdeed on their part and jealousy on everyone else's part proves potent enough to fire up a crooked trial.

I finish with a question: Do you really feel better now that Bonds has been ruined?

Blow up Boston!

2007-11-20T16:20:00.000-07:00

No, seriously, please do. I hate that city's sports teams and their fans with the fire of a thousand suns.

Returning to the Phillies-free agents conversation, turns out marquee free agents are turning down $12 million dollars to play for the Red Sox. I don't know why. Playing in Philly obviously gives you the best chance of winning an MVP.

Also, the Eagles are 22-point dogs in Foxboro this weekend. You read that right. Biggest dog of the season, and in Eagles history. C'mon, Diesel, take the Pats with the points. I dare you.

It ain't just B anymore ...

2007-11-19T19:43:00.000-07:00

I've found a mocha-skinned sister to love. Everybody, meet Jemele Hill, whom I had rarely read before today, when she wrote the single best piece of commentary I have ever read about Barry Bonds.

I should probably just stop there, since the Brothers Anonymous are probably flinging objects across their earth-toned living rooms already. But I can't resist observing that one of the precious few measured, logical, original, and convincing opinion pieces I've read about Bonds -- and the only readable opinion piece I've seen from ESPN in recent memory -- was written by a black woman. And, even better, she actually acknowledged her race and gender, and the role they play in her perspective, unlike pretty much any of her colleagues, ever (and by colleagues, I don't mean other black female sportswriters, or other black sportswriters, but simply other sportswriters). She obviously knew many of her readers (and, I would bet, many of her colleagues) would accuse her of playing The Race Card, and yet she discussed race, anyway. That takes grit.

(On the race card issue: it consistently baffles me that educated and intelligent people -- I've seen it used in the comments here -- still use that phrase, apparently ignorant of the blatant and sadly ironic racism inherent in suggesting that race is just a card minorities use to win arguments. Accusing somebody of playing the race card is the new race card.)

Are her race and gender why the column's good? No. Are they why her perspective is unique? Actually, yes, they probably have something to do with it. I originally wrote a cynical, sarcastic comment in this space, but that whole bloviating tone is really tiring, here and on every other sports blog I read. (And I'm sure a couple of our trusty commenters will take care of that for me, anyway.) So I'll just say this: that column is a great example of why I think sports journalism would be better off if it offered more minority perspectives.

Second place in the best-recent-Bonds-piece competition goes to McCovey Chronicles.

Later edit: This is sort of interesting. A little bit of digging on Ms. Hill reveals that, in a study done last year, she was the only black female sports columnist employed by the sample size of 305 newspapers. Is she the only black female sports columnist in America? Anybody know?

A few last words ...

2007-11-16T15:58:00.000-07:00

I don't really care enough about this to do an extended back-and-forth. But a couple scattered observations as my last thoughts on it:

Michael Bourn is not that good right now. Look, he's not a younger Dave Roberts. He could be a younger Dave Roberts in a year or two -- but that's his ceiling, not where he is right now. He could also be Willy Taveras, or Doug Glanville, or Endy Chavez, or your typical fast, slappy, armless fourth outfielder. I think you and Dave Silver and every other prospect guy sometimes (often?) lose sight of that distinction, which is important.

The big difference between Victorino and Bourn is offense. Victorino's better defensively because of his arm, but that's just a bonus -- lots of CFs don't have great arms. The big difference is that Victorino has much more pop, and it's not even just a CBP thing -- he hit half his homers on the road. Bourn has zero power.

Jayson Werth is better offensively than Bourn -- even in your theoretical musical-outfield situation (which, by the way, I disagree with, because it makes no sense to be moving your best outfielder between positions every other night -- that's the kind of thing that sounds great in theory, but loses sight of the fact that we're talking about human beings here, and humans generally do better when they're playing the same position every night), it's not really a choice between Victorino or Bourn, offensively -- it's a choice between Bourn and Werth. And Werth offers a lot more of what they need: a corner outfielder with decent pop, a little speed, and a capable all-around game. If he rakes lefties and is replacement level against righties, that means he's better than replacement, overall. Worst case is you spell him sometimes with Greg Dobbs or some other role player. They'll probably pick up another outfielder, since uberprospect Greg Golson (yet another reason Bourn has little value to the Phils) isn't ready yet.

J.C. Romero -- How the fuck is Eric Gagne worth $6M and Romero's not worth $4M? That's the second time you've said that, and Silver said it too! That is about the least self-evident claim I've ever read -- explain that to me, because I don't believe it. You want to talk about what Romero did in Boston last year? Let's talk about Gagne's BoSox stint!

Also, you keep saying that Romero is somehow not that good simply because he was released twice. According to baseball reference, Romero was only released once last year, and the fact that he was released doesn't change the fact that he pitched extraordinarily well for the Phillies -- (and pretty well for Boston, too, but they have ridiculous bullpen depth, which I guess is why they waived him, so they could trade for the Mighty Eric Gagne).

Bottom line on Romero: they signed the best lefty reliever available for less than a lot of worse pitchers get. Yes, the deal is for 3 years, but he's only 31 (six months younger than your boy Gagne, incidentally, and without that whole history of catastrophic arm injuries). I know you hate free agent signings, but get over it. Not every multi-year signing is a mistake. I haven't seen a single other person mention it as some horrible signing -- some other people have wondered if he's really as good as he showed last year, but nobody else is blowing their stack about the humanity of it all as if it were Adam Eaton Part Deux. If Romero tanks -- which, again, is an if -- then he'll be about the fifth or sixth worst contract on that roster. It's a non-story.

The market price of free agents -- You're also talking all this small-market salary strategy about the Phillies. Wrong team. This isn't the NL West, where a ballpark the size of a soccer field, two great pitchers, and Kevin Kouzmanoff get you a shot at the playoffs every year -- they're competing against the Mets, the Yankees of the NL, which puts them in spend-or-suffer mode. Nobody's itching to sign with Philly for a hundred reasons, but they need to fill holes and compete now, so they have to overpay. I'd rather it be a little than a lot.

All this wait-and-develop shit is fine. In theory.

Myers and the rotation -- It's not any more "asinine" than it was last year, and your guarantee about them not making the playoffs with him in the rotation means exactly zilch after they did it this year while trotting out guys like J.D. Durbin to start. If they sign or trade for a starter like Wolf or Colon or Garland, like they keep saying they want to -- and if Eaton's shoulder doesn't require surgery -- that'll give them six. Which means somebody's going to the 'pen. I'd love to see Eaton banished, but I don't see it happening when he's making $8 milly. (For three more years. Kill me.) Who else? Derail a promising young starter's career (Kendrick)? Force a 45-year-old into a position change? Move Cole Hamels, the future of the franchise? If the following things happen, I think Myers will be the closer:

1. They acquire a starter.
2. Eaton is healthy.
3. Lidge struggles and/or they fail to sign anybody else for the pen.

The bullpen cost them too many games last year, and needs to be a priority. Which it is, as they've repeatedly said. Which brings me to the last reason we won't miss Bourn or Costanzo:

The offense is fine -- They've been one of the two best run-scoring teams in the NL the last two years. They don't need more offense from their outfield (and, for the hundredth time, Bourn wouldn't have provided it, anyway.) They need a guy like Lidge to shore up a train wreck of a bullpen.

To sum up, are they the greatest, most earth-shattering moves the Phillies have made in years? No. Do I think these transactions will single-handedly make them NL East favorites? No. Do I even think they'll be the most significant moves they make this offseason? I'm going to wait and see.

They're completely unremarkable moves (which is why I didn't write about them originally) that you and Silver are making out to be way bigger deals than they actually are. You might not hear Michael Bourn's name once next year if you don't watch the Astros. You sure as hell won't hear Mike Costanzo's. And the other guys we're discussing are above-average relievers. Romero and Lidge might flame out completely, but the organization's not going to miss Bourn or Costanzo all that much. These moves just aren't going to be difference-makers, one way or the other.

I like it!

2007-11-14T11:56:00.001-07:00

For the first time in a long time, we're actually having an argument on the argument blog! Even better, good points are being made like fucking crazy. Word.

Pepe, I do see some of what you're saying, and you've made enough good points that I'll admit to saying there's some possibility this could end up working in the Phillies' favor. And I don't think anyone has to be worried that either Bourn or Costanza will one day make this look like a Larry Andersen/Jeff Bagwell deal.

However, that doesn't mean I agree with you ...

The reason I didn't mention Victorino is because I think he's got a capable — not great, but capable — bat for a corner outfield spot, whereas Bourn clearly didn't and Werth does only against southpaws (more on that in a second). You're right that Victorino is a better defensive outfielder than Bourn, but the FH's main advantage is his arm strength, which is better utilized in right field. Furthermore, the combination of Bourn and Victorino out there would probably be worth at least one win, if not two, defensively, since Bourn is a vastly better defensive outfielder than Rowand was last season (desire to run into fences notwithstanding) and all of the Phillies' pitchers are flyball pitchers, if memory serves.

Werth is as "perfect" a platoon player as you'll find these days. He absolutely kills lefties, but is right around replacement level for an outfielder against righties (here are the actual numbers). I love guys like Werth, because when properly utilized they're fantastic, low-cost weapons. He and Bourn would have been perfect platoon partners, as the latter evidenced a huge platoon split himself in 2007, albeit over a smaller sample size. In my idealization, Bourn plays CF against righties, while Victorino starts in CF against lefties with Werth slipping into RF. That's a very favorable situation for any team, and also gives the Phils the opportunity to rest the perpetually ailing Burrell whenever needed, since they'll have four OFs getting regular PT.

I guess the argument, at least to me, doesn't really rest on whether Lidge is good, great or otherwise. It rests on the relative costs and availability of replacements. Bourn may not be a great player, but he's a good player — think a younger Dave Roberts — who's essentially free for the next four years. Costanza is, as you suggested, a Kouzmanoff in a perfect world, which has value but perhaps not as much as the prospect freaks like myself would like to believe. Furthermore, the Phillies have a very real need for OFs, since Rowand most certainly is not coming back, nor should he be pined over at the price he's asking for. I see a ton of value in Bourn, not all of which is directly tied into pure performance. Costanza's potential value — even if it's moderate at best — only serves to tip the scales a little more in the direction of this being a bad trade.

Relievers can be had in this market, and can be had for better prices relative to their actual value, than equivalent OFs. I'm not sure Cordero is worth $40 million — actually, I know he's not — but Gagne is probably worth about $6 million a year, which is very affordable when you consider that Bourn costs virtually nothing. And I think that's the point Nate Silver was driving at — if the Phillies were going to spend an additional $15 million (I'm just throwing that number out) this offseason, there are probably better ways it could have been allotted. And, at the end of the day, the more major-league caliber players you have under your control for league minimum, the better off you are. Every one you trade away costs you not only that player but also the payroll and roster flexibility they afford (you could send down Bourn in a pinch, because he still has options left, for instance).

As for Romero, you're quite right to think that the Phillies needed to retain the best available left-handed reliever on the market. And had they signed him to a one-year, $5 million deal with performance-vested options in 2009 & 2010, we wouldn't be having an argument at all. But the chances of Romero giving the Phillies even one great year — and $4 million for a situational/one-inning reliever should pretty much guarantee "great" — are pretty marginal already (again ... he was waived twice last year! He did not turn into Mike Morgan in 33 innings, at the age of 31), which means the chances of the Phillies even getting a moderate return on those three years at $4 million per annum is a longshot at best. Is it the worst contract of all-time? No. It's not even the worst contract on that team. But I see it as more of the same from a front office that has consistently overpaid for average pitching, and paid for it almost every time. And that's why, in particular, news of the deal was received with much hyperbole on my end.

Stepping back from the specifics, part of the reason I am willing to afford a little leeway to the Phils here is because we've yet to see the extent of their offseason, which could end up providing a much more flattering context for these two early salvos. If they are making a real push at a title, then a wasted $10 million here or there is understandable, if not advisable considering the revenue that kind of success can generate. The timing would appear right, as well; the team's troika of superstars are all in their prime and fast approaching the period where diminishing returns are to be expected from all. If the Phillies follow this up with a deal for a good-to-great outfielder — I don't think such a being exists on the free agent market, unless Mike Cameron's drug suspension seriously impedes his ability to be as overpaid as his contemporaries — then it could possibly reap dividends. But make no mistake, there's no way the Phillies can come into this year with two legitimate OFs with past injury problems and one marginal OF who can't hit righties, and expect to be considered favorites in the NL East, not to mention NL.

Furthermore, the reaction from these two early moves must be to put Myers back in the starting rotation, because it's asinine not to. I don't care what he prefers, he's a legitimate No. 2 starter on a team that needs as many good starting pitchers as it can find right now. Go make a move for another reliever if need be — hell, if they're serious about making a run, I go get Gagne if he'll accept a two-year deal at $6 million per — but whatever you do, make it clear to Myers that he's expected to give his team 200 innings this year. I promise you, if Myers is still in the bullpen when the season rolls around, this team will not make the playoffs, because N.Y. and Atlanta are going to be better, and the Phils simply can't afford to keep that kind of asset in a diminished role.

If I'm the GM, I like my position better with Bourn (and potentially Costanza) and the saved cash than I do with Lidge, and I certainly would have done everything in my power to keep Romero's deal within two years — or three years if the third is a performance-based vested option — even if it meant losing him. I would have taken that money and taken a flier on guys like Gagne, Garcia and perhaps even Colon since it's possible all three will accept one- or two-year deals in return for the opportunity to re-establish their value on the market. Hell, I even strongly consider Cordero, but the apparent necessity of giving him at least four years probably scares me off. Then, I go after guys like Mike Lamb and Morgan Ensberg — both of whom fill needs while hitting, at the least, for better-than-average OBPs — because they'll come cheap and will appreciate the opportunity to play half their games in a hitter's paradise.

But perhaps Gillick has something else planned that will make his first two moves of the offseason make a little more sense. And, saying that, I'll save further criticism until Spring Training.

Though, that's not really a promise.

OK, fine, I'll talk about the Phillies' deals ...

2007-11-14T00:47:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting here fucking around on the internet, procrastinating from a late-night run, and now you've gone and given me a reason to procrastinate past the point when I'll actually have to go running. I've said it once, I'll say it a thousand times more: Goddamn you, Diesel.

But Anonymous's evil twin has also been hectoring me to discuss Lidge (seriously, you should just change your name to Hector, or maybe create a blogger alias and just join us on the blog). So here goes.

Your post doesn't upset me at all because it reads as if you're consciously overlooking a few important things for the sake of argument, and I think you realize those few things full well.

Silver's column angers me a little bit, simply because he's being a jackass. He's doing what seems to be a staple over at BP (at least from what I've read, which admittedly is not enough to say authoritatively): neglecting to mention relevant information in order to make a point for the sake of making a point. He ignores a lot of relevant stuff, as well as making some ludicrous comparisons and projections, in order to shore up a flimsy claim, a claim he probably only made in the first place because he wanted to say something controversial. Still, these are things that, if he's supposed to be a professional baseball writer, he should know better than to believe. And if he does believe them, he could plainly see their wrongness if he'd only read up a little bit in the real media on the state of the organization or the players in question.

I can hopefully address both of your pieces by enumerating these topics. I'll start with topics relating to the Lidge trade:

Aaron Rowand's departure is a foregone conclusion -- That Silver seems to be project the Phillies' resigning of Rowand as likely or even probable is the first of many things he says in that column that lead me to believe he doesn't know much about the organization. The Phils are not going to re-up Rowand, and nobody who follows the organization has thought they would for months, since it became clear he would be looking for $14M per in a long-term deal. There's just no reason for them to do that, because he's not that good -- not nearly as good as his 2007 accolades would suggest, offensively or defensively. I can expand on this point if you'd like, but I'm pretty sure we've discussed it before, and that you agree. The fact that the Phillies made no real move to sign him during their exclusivity period suggests that they do, too. There's also no reason to because of ...

The presence of Shane Victorino -- You make no mention of the Flyin' Hawaiian, and neither does Silver, which is a pretty glaring omission. He would have replaced Aaron Rowand in center regardless of what they did with Bourn, because he's a lot better than Bourn and has proven it. (A brief aside: Bourn [not Bourne] may be the most-misspelled major leaguer in recent memory. I've seen him called Bourne a dozen times in recent articles. The Bourne Identity ruined his life.) There's no way in hell Bourn would have been the Phillies' starting CF as long as Victorino is there. Victorino's been exiled in right too long already. He also quietly posted a pretty good year, especially considering the ample time he missed with a calf injury -- before that he was on par to put up solid numbers even relative to other RFs. It's problematic to try to forecast stats for Bourn, considering the way in which he was used this season, almost always as a late-inning pinch-runner for Pat Burrell. But the Good Phight broke it down pretty well here.

In short, Victorino has all the attributes Bourn has -- decent hitter for average, nearly identical OBPs, excellent base stealer, stellar range -- and a few very important ones that Bourn doesn't: a cannon arm and respectable pop for a CF. Also, the fact that he's two years older shouldn't be a huge deal when you consider that he's shown what he can do over a full MLB season, while Bourn hasn't.

Barring a move for a RF, which I sort of doubt, Werth will be the starter next year. I'm not sure exactly why you think that Bourn is a legitimate starting outfielder and Jayson Werth isn't, but the Phillies think otherwise (obviously), and they have pretty good reason. His numbers were damned good for a guy who made only spot starts and pinch-hit a lot -- they project to a solid-to-good season out of a right fielder, and are head and shoulders better than Bourn's. I don't have the time or inclination right now to parse his defensive metrics, mostly because I have little faith in them anyway, but I know he had a decent amount of assists and was considered above average as a defender. There's no reason to believe that an outfield of Burrell (who isn't going anywhere), Bourn, and Victorino would be better than Burrell/Victorino/Werth, and there's a good amount of reason to believe it would be worse.

The fact that none of the prospects is very good -- Bourn was going to be the Phillies' fourth outfielder even with Rowand gone, for the foreseeable future, for reasons outlined above. Bourn is nothing special right now, and he won't be hard to replace. If the Phillies really need a fourth outfielder to play defense and pinch run, they could just call up Chris Roberson.

As far as Costanzo, everybody (including Silver) seems to mention his 27 homers and say he was the Phils' 3B of the future. What he fails to mention is that he's a defensive butcher and is absolutely abysmal against LHP. They were supposedly thinking about moving him to the outfield. He's drawing lots and lots of Russell Branyan comparisons, which isn't good unless we're playing MLB '07 at the Anonymous household (in which case, Branyan is Roy Hobbs). And really, since when is the fact that Ed Wade scouted him and liked him cause to think he's any good?

The third piece, Geoff Geary, is a proven commodity. Proven to be the definition of mediocre.

So you have one completely unremarkable MR, and two prospects who show few signs of future stardom. In contrast, they got a major-league-level utility player for their bench (who, while not groundbreaking by any stretch, will probably contribute as much to the 2008 Phils as Bourn would have, and far more than Costanzo), as well as somebody who could really make a difference, because ...

Brad Lidge makes a pretty good closer and a great setup guy -- First of all, I don't buy the organization's insistence that this means Myers is moving back to the rotation. The organization has hinted that that's the case, but this is the same bunch of people who said Tom Gordon was their closer last year. Myers has said he prefers closing and he was really good at it when healthy. The bullpen was also the biggest area of concern for last year's Phils by far. Add in the facts that the Phillies have four starting pitchers pretty much penciled in for next year -- Hamels, Moyer, Kendrick, and (sigh) Adam Eaton -- and that they've made it limpid in every official comment that their #1 priority this offseason is pitching, possibly starting pitching, and it becomes far from certain that Myers will be back in the rotation. He might, but there's no guarantee. If they acquire anybody else, possibly an El Duque type on a short-term deal, I bet Myers winds up back in the pen.

And if their bullpen is Gordon/Madson/Romero/Lidge/possibly Myers and whoever else, that's one hell of an upgrade from last year. I don't know why everybody talks about Lidge as if he's damaged goods. He's a 31-year-old, high-strikeout, low-ERA guy who's been excellent in the past, had one bad year, performed well last year and comes relatively cheap (and the $6 millionish they'll pay him after arbitration is relative cheap, considering the $15M Rivera will likely be getting in the next few days), all because of some abstract mass conception of his mental fragility or something. In his original article on the trade, Silver himself estimates that he's quite possibly one of the 15 best relievers in baseball.

He's inarguably better than anybody in their current bullpen not named Brett Myers, unless it's ...

J.C. Romero -- Simply put, Diesel, your text-messaging up-in-armsedness over this deal baffles me. I know you're on this big homegrown-talent kick, and it seems like Silver is, too, but the fact of the matter is that they just signed the best lefty reliever available for $4M/year. Given the market -- with last year's free agents such as the Gagnes and Foulkes and Dotels and Borowskis and Wickmans of the world all making significantly more than that, as well as the LaTroy Hawkinses and Roberto Hernandezes and Jorge Julios making close to the same -- that's not at all unreasonable. Especially not for a guy who was spectacular from the moment he signed with the Phils.

You talk about the signing like he's another Tom Gordon or something, and I fail to see why that is. He's their best option for next year, and if they wind up regretting it in two years, as you say, they only have one year of wasted contract. And that's irrelevant anyway, because of ...

The fact that the Phillies need to be legitimate contenders next year, or else there will be massive changes -- One of the bigger reasons Costanzo and Bourn don't matter is that by the time they might become regular contributors -- and my guess is that neither will ever be good major leaguers -- it will be way too late for Gillick and Manuel, and maybe for the Phillies. The not-so-dynamic septuagenarian duo will break up next year if Gillick leaves, and might be gone regardless, simply because of their age. The Phils' core of young talent will start to break up shortly thereafter as their contracts expire and they can't all be re-signed.

The Phillies have to contend now. These moves give them a better chance to do so, as even you and Silver admit. So it really doesn't matter if they're auctioning their future (which they're not, and I've explained why, without even getting into the huge amount of money [$25M+] coming off the books when the Burrell and Thome and Gordon contracts expire after next year). If they just hung on to average organizational guys for years despite their obvious flaws, expecting somehow to win a championship that way, as you and Silver seem to advocate, then they might as well just move across the street and change their name to the Eagles.

A few other thoughts:

Silver's contention that signing Eric Gagne for $6M or Cordero for 4 years at $10M per would somehow be smarter is one of the three most asinine things I've read this month. The other two are that they have any chance at Rivera and that they should have saved their money for A-Rod. I mean, seriously -- this guy's a journalist? What a load of utter bullshit. The Yanks are offering $15M/year for a 37-year-old closer who's already well past his peak, and nobody with half a brain or any familiarity with the Phillies thinks A-Rod is a possibility. He should at least read the stories posted on their official site before spouting off like that.

His entire last paragraph is also revisionist blather. At the time of that trade, when Beckett had that oft-cited sub-.500 career record and Lowell was a shadow of his former self, I bet you he was one of the legion of reporters blasting that move, too. And to compare giving up Michael Bourn to giving up Hanley Ramirez is just laughable.

Worst-case scenarios

2007-11-12T22:01:00.001-07:00

Well, Week 1 of Diesel's Vegas Blitz has revealed this idea to be as foolhardy as it appeared it might be in my most pessimistic moments. I got killed, lost my iPod, and realized as I sat getting drunk in the terminal while waiting for my delayed plane that the percentage of me that was really looking forward to coming back in five days was roughly the same percentage of my original stake still available for gambling.

Fear not: I'm not going to bore you with more details. Instead, I'm going to bore you with commentary about the only group able to boast having a worse go of it than my foursome of friends in Vegas last weekend: Pepe's beloved Philadelphia Phillies.

Any good Civil War buff knows you can't half-ass historical re-enactments. Sure, most of those pansies out there at Antietam don't know a Parrot Rifle from a Blakely Rifle, but the real enthusiasts know that the different between a lame re-enactor and a great re-enactor is the willingness to contract dysentery. Needless to say, the Phillies' re-enactment of Wade's Lost Cause is proving that one can never take too many steps to feign authenticity.

First, they trade away a legitimate leadoff hitter/very good defensive CF in Michael Bourn and a decent power-hitting 3B prospect in Michael Costanzo for Brad Lidge. Yes, Lidge is still a good pitcher, and he automatically becomes the best reliever on the team, regardless of Brett Myers' future role. But being the best reliever on the Phillies right now is not quite a compliment, either, and this isn't the same Brad Lidge that once belonged in the same class as Billy Wagner, Joe Nathan, Mariano Rivera and John Smoltz. Furthermore, Lidge can become a free agent next season, which means that even if the Phillies could convince him to come back to Citizen's for another tour — which could be a tough feat after he gives up 15+ HR this season — they won't be able to do so without paying him well above what he's actually worth.

What's interesting about a trade like this one is that both teams probably "lost." The Phillies had their CF replacement in Bourn, and the potential cure to a perpetual black hole at 3B in Costanza. Both of these players would have controlled salaries for the next 4+ years as well, which means that they were essentially free talent that would enable the team to be more aggressive in the free agent market. As BP's Nate Silver pointed out, wouldn't the Phillies have been much better off keeping their two players and getting an "overpaid" free agent like Coco Cordero to step in as closer? That works out to three positions taken care of for less money — even if they gave Cordero something like $10 milly a year — than the Phillies will spend on Lidge and a free-agent CF, which they now have a pronounced need for, unless they really think Jason Werth is capable of being an everyday player (hint: He's not). As for the Astros, a team that is completely irrelevant, it's hard to believe that they couldn't have done more for Lidge, as ESPN's Keith Law has pointed out. But that's neither here nor there.

Then, the Phils went and re-upped JC Romero for $12 million. It being over three seasons diminishes the insanity a little, but that's still $12 million for a guy who was waived by two teams last season. Yes, Romero's campaign with the Phillies was impressive, and it would have made total sense to pay him $4 million next season to see if his performance was the sign of an actual career turnaround or simply an aberration. But to lock in 32-year-old reliever to a three-year deal on the strength of a 33-inning performance last season is, at best, a panic move and at worst an admission by Pat Gillick that he doesn't give two shits about this franchise's future beyond next season (he's already said this will be his last season).

I know some people disagree with me on this point, and I'm not saying that this deal is without merit. Romero was by far the best left-handed reliever in the free agent market, and he's proven to be more durable than the average bear. But unless you're of an unlimited budget, these are the kinds of deals that teams almost always end up regretting two years in.

p.s. — Anyone willing to lend the Diesel $300?

TGWNA All-Star Selection: Assistant GM (Since Diesel is the GM, obvs)

2007-11-09T12:07:00.000-07:00

I would write a better intro, but I'm still toweling off my pants:

We are going to utilize several objective measures of player performance to evaluate and develop players. We'll rely on the more traditional objective evaluations: OPS (on base percentage plus slugging percentage) , WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched), Runs Created, ERC (Component ERA), GB/FB (ground ball to fly ball ratio), K/9 (strikeouts per nine innings), K/BB (strikeouts to walks ratio), BB%, etc., but we'll also look to rely on some of the more recent variations: VORP (value over replacement player), Relative Performance, EqAve (equivalent average), EqOBP (equivalent on base percentage), EqSLG (equivalent slugging percentage), BIP% (balls put into play percentage), wOBA (weighted on base average), Range Factor, PMR (probabilistic model of range) and Zone Rating.

Stumped?

It's new Pirates GM Neal Huntington.

While that answer, in no way, assures us that he'll actually be good at his job, it certainly suggests there's no reason to think he won't be, either. Man, the Pirates could be really, really good in about five years.

(Big ups to Rob Neyer for the link)

Spend it on what, exactly?

2007-11-08T22:16:00.000-07:00

Commenter Pete Toms, who has a great blog of his own, brought up some interesting points about the ~~Devil~~ Rays' situation, particularly in terms of exactly how the ~~Devil~~ Rays are spending their not-hard-earned revenue sharing lucre. He referenced a recent post on the also-excellent The Sports Economist that discussed the absolute abortion that is the current revenue-sharing system in baseball. Essentially, the ownership group for the Devil Rays have pocketed eight digits' worth of other teams' largesse while dropping the team's overall payroll between 2006 and 2007. Correctly, the authors of TSE see this not as a failing of the ~~Devil~~ Rays, per se, but more a failing of the system that attempts to redistribute wealth among the already insanely wealthy.

I'll not cop to economics as a personal area of expertise, but as an avowed libertarian I can confess to an intense loathing of corporate welfare, which is exactly what MLB's revenue-sharing system is. It will be a cold day in hell before you can make me feel bad for the owner(s) of a baseball team, who entered into their situation fully cognizant of the situation before them. In the case of the ~~Devil~~ Rays, they knew that the Trop would be the stadium, the AL East would be the division, and the Tampa area would be that from which they hoped to cull fans. Before the contracts were signed. I feel as bad for the ~~Devil~~ Rays as I do a man who spends his last $5 on a trifecta; you weren't worried about losing money when you had your eyes on the potential windfall, so don't come bitching to me after it doesn't work out.

But here's my question: Why should the Rays spend that money on payroll (which would mean spending it on free agents)? As I've detailed before, most high-priced free agent contracts are a bloodbath for the teams involved, and in today's market high-priced deals are being shuttled toward some patently mediocre players, particularly if they ply their trade with a single limb. The message inherent in revenue sharing is that small-market teams, instead of being prudent, should start dumping money into the same kind of dumb contracts the Yankees have made famous in recent years.

(Aside: I will concede this about payroll restrictions, or a lack thereof: The Yankees have been able to retain their best homegrown players once the arb-eligible/free agent years hit, which is a HUGE advantage. If Carlos Beltran came up with the Yankees instead of the Royals, he would still be employed by his original team today. This is the one area in which big-market teams have a decided advantage over their small-market counterparts. However, this doesn't mean that the Yankees are automatically winners in the game of life, either. First, you have to develop the talent, and then you have to properly assess the value of that talent once it reaches arb-eligible/free agent status. Yes, it's an advantage to have Jeter come through the system and then keep him once the big bucks are his for the taking, but if Jeter came up for the Pirates, a savvy GM could have gotten a king's ransom for him in a trade as well. In fact, it's entirely possible that a team would be better off trading a Jeter when he's approaching free agency than spending the money to keep him, provided the return in a trade is good enough. This is the situation faced by the Padres (Peavy) and Twins (Santana), for instance. While the fans of those respective teams would assuredly like it if management would/could lock each up in long-term deals, it's probably a bad idea for both teams. And not just because they don't have the money. But, I'll leave it there, in an effort to not have a longer aside that the post in which its contained.)

If I'm the owner of the ~~Devil~~ Rays, I would probably do the same thing the non-imaginary ones are doing as we speak. The marginal value of any free agent on the market isn't anywhere close to what would be paid to any of the individual players, particularly when one considers that a long-term contract for a veteran would probably serve to block a top prospect. The Rays are wise to plan for 2009 as the year everything comes together, because by that time they'll be fielding a team that could bring a prospect evaluator to tears, and almost all of those guys will have enough major league experience to justify high expectations. Anything the Rays do between now and then on the free agent market, with the possible exception of locking up Carlos Peña (provided they can do so reasonably, both in terms of dollars and years), is probably going to undermine their potential for success. In the meantime, anyone stupid enough to fork over millions of dollars, without attached strings, deserves to be robbed.

As for Pete's second contention, I will recite it here before dealing with it:

The D Rays, Jays ( woe is me ) & O's are at the biggest competitive disadvantage in MLB, playing nearly 1/4 of their games against the Evil Empires. I am an embittered Jays' fan who thinks it's bullshit.

Pete's is not an uncommon refrain for fans of the lesser-endowed AL East teams, and the last decade has done little to convince anyone that it's anything but unfair. I'm not sure I had pubic hair the last time the Yankees weren't in the playoffs, and the Red Sox aren't far behind. If weren't going to define the term "competitive disadvantage" to mean "constantly has to play two of the best teams in MLB," then the plight of the O's, Jays and Rays surely fits the bill.

However, as far as the Jays and O's go, I've got absolutely zero sympathy (the Rays, as an expansion team, are not really the same as the other two, so we'll leave them out [also, the Rays are going to make the playoffs by 2009, mark my words]).

In the case of the O's, their fate has been sealed by some of the worst management seen in baseball the last decade, in spite of advantages in terms of ballpark, market and payroll that more than half the teams in the majors would offer a metaphorical left nut for. Baltimore spent more than $93 million in 2007 to field a team that would have struggled to place third in any division in baseball, mainly because most of that $93 million went to shitty baseball players. I would compare the O's to the Dodgers if it weren't for the latter's farm system, which ranks as one of the best in baseball (even if the current GM would rather get sodomized than actually clear the way for any of his top prospects). The O's have everything that a team needs to compete for the playoffs annually except a functioning brain in the front office and a non-self-immolating owner.

The Jays are a little bit of a different story, because the ~~SkyDome~~ Rogers Centre is a titanic piece of concrete shit, Torontonians prefer almost anything to baseball, and the currency conversion situation has historically put them at a disadvantage (Canadian currency in, American currency out). HOWEVA, I again place the blame on the front office, which has consistently botched the job when it comes to understanding what needs to be done. The previous Ash regime was a relic of the Gillick years, when the Jays ran up massive debt to buy playoff/WS appearances, and the Riccardi years have been even harder to swallow, particularly when one considers Riccardi's pedigree as a Billy Beane disciple. In fact, the day I renounced my allegiance to the Jays — which will be regained by the team of my youth when Riccardi is fired and Chris Antonetti is hired — was when Riccardi publicly stated that he needed more money to compete with the big boys. No, J.P., what you need is a willingness to not spend money on horrible contracts, like those given to B.J. Ryan, A.J. Burnett, Vernon Wells, John McDonald and now Matt Stairs. The Jays probably could have won as many games last season for $20+ million less, which bothers me more than the fact that they didn't just win more games. The reason Canada's last man standing isn't cracking the top two positions in the AL East anytime soon is because they abandoned what was once one of the best scouting and development programs in baseball and convinced themselves that the Lyle Overbays of the world are the key to success.

I don't mean to paint the situation as one in which perfect management for either the O's or Jays would mean that the Yankees or Red Sox's effect would be negated. As our legal system proves on a regular basis, wealth means you can get away with more mistakes than the common folk, and that's the situation for the current pole sitters. But it would be a better argument for both of the "poorer" teams if they didn't spend so much time shooting themselves in the foot.

And that's all I gots to say about that shit, at least for tonight; I got a Vegas trip to pack for. Thanks to Pete (shout out to Ottawa!) for giving me some good stuff to chew on; everyone should really read his blog, which is much more thoughtful than ours.

OK, this is the kind of shit that drives me fucking crazy

2007-11-08T10:23:00.000-07:00

Who's Sean McAdam? Fuck if I know, except he's somehow been asked by ESPN.com, a site that employs a host of talented and knowledgeable baseball writers, to write the "Offseason Outlook" for the Tampa Bay ~~Devil~~ Rays.

I didn't even need to read the story to know that Mr. McAdam was about to bombard me with wrongness. The article was linked with the following explanation:

Devil Rays ownership does not seem ready to spend the money necessary to challenge the big-market competition in the American League East.

That would be, approximately, the moment I had a brain aneurysm and almost died. Mercifully, the Mayo Clinic had some crack neurologists on call, and they managed to repair the rupture and get me home in enough time to make sure this post was still timely. Amazing, that medical technology.

Tampa's rotation is young and gifted, anchored by Scott Kazmir and James Shields, with Andy Sonnanstine gaining valuable experience in the second half. But the Rays could use a veteran starter to set the tone -- someone like, say, Jon Lieber or Russ Ortiz.

I swear, he actually wrote that what the ~~Devil~~ Rays need to do this offseason is sign Russ Fucking Ortiz. I mean, has Sean McAdam ever witnessed a contest of base-ball before in his life?!?! Russ Ortiz! He wants RUSS ORTIZ to "set the tone" for a MAJOR-LEAGUE pitching staff! I DO NOT RESORT TO HYPERBOLE WHEN MAKING POINTS!

No, Sean, what the ~~Devil~~ Rays need to do is precisely the opposite of what you're suggesting: DO NOT SIGN SHITTY, SURE-TO-BE-OVERPAID STARTERS AS FREE AGENTS IN THIS RIDICULOUS MARKET.

In what universe does a team get better by picking up players who are worse than replacement level? It's awe-inspiring, really, how this dude could conclude this is what he wanted to include in his supposedly authoritative piece on the ~~Devil~~ Rays.

And, at the risk of throwing another broken record onto the player, enough with the money shit. Tampa Bay has spent the last two seasons doing everything just about as well as it could be done, stockpiling loads of cheap, young talent while not weighing the roster down with overpaid veterans in long-term deals. The Rays have, at almost every position on the field, either one of the former top-five prospects for that position in place (Upton, Young, Pena, Kazmir, Crawford, Baldelli [when healthy]), or have a top-fiver coming up (Longoria, Brignac, Price, Niemann, Dukes [if he ever makes it up again]). That is awesome, and most of those guys are going to be awesome, but everyone knew it was going to take a little bit of time for the players to come around. And now, most people think that within the next two years, the Rays are going to make a serious push for the playoffs. I promise you, if that's the case, that Jon Lieber will not be one of the reasons why, unless you consider his not being there a reason why.

I would like to think the average baseball fan is astute enough to know that McAdam is totally wrong, but I know that's not the case. In fact, the majority of the people who read that story will think, "Yeah, that's the problem ... those tightwad Rays just aren't willing to spend a buck to beat the YankSox!" Some of those people might even be residents of Tampa, who will now be even more resolute in their unwillingness to attend the games of this particularly fun, exciting team (though I'm unsure that I would be willing to sit in Tropicana Field 20+ nights per year, so I can't be too critical). They will complain on sports radio and write letters to the editor about how management "doesn't care" about the fans, and maybe the owners will decide that the front office in place — which could turn out to be a pack of geniuses when it's all said and done, for these and some other reasons — needs to be replaced by Ed Wade, Jr., who will immediately sign Rheal Cormier to a four-year, $26 million contract with a vested team option for the fifth year that kicks in if Cormier, at any point in his contract, throws a ball that a batter actually misses.

For what I know won't be the last time: There is more than one way to skin a cat. And, depending on implements available, there are ways to skin cats that are good for some people, but wouldn't work for other cat skinners. To continue with this uncomfortable analogy, the Yankees can afford the PussySkinner3000TM, which costs $150 million and is made entirely out of Howard Hughes' melted-down gold fillings. The ~~Devil~~ Rays, on the other hand, can only afford the Mangy-Cat UnMasker 1975, an aluminum contraption they bought for $5 at the local swap meet on which, depending on the light that day, you can still see the Pepsi logos of the recycled cans it's made out of. The PussySkinner is much faster and divesting cats of their dermis, however at that price they can only afford a limited number of cat-skinning implements, so each implement has to be so fast as to ward off the competitive efforts of the plucky/gritty/skins-cats-the-way-cats-are-supposed-to-be-skinned ~~Devil~~ Rays skinners, who are able to afford a multitude of Mangy-Cat UnMaskers, which allows them to compensate for the lesser performance of each individual cat skinner when held against superior cat skinning devices via a greater number of cat skinners that are easily replaceable through the ~~Devil~~ Rays' vast supply room full of Mangy-Cat UnMaskers. In fact, the ~~Devil~~ Rays buy Mangy-Cat UnMaskers in such great volume that, every so often, they'll accidentally get a PussySkinner at the same price of a Mangy-Cat UnMasker, which means they realize much better cat skinning for their cat-skinning dollar. Sure, the ~~Devil~~ Rays probably wish they had more PussySkinners, but after a while you begin to realize that it doesn't matter how you manage to fill a warehouse of cats sans peau, as long as you go ahead and do just that. Because, at the end of the day, you're just doing it for the love of skinless cats.

November is the cruelest month ...

2007-11-06T16:43:00.000-07:00

or maybe that was April. If my boy T-money had run a sports blog instead of penning whackjob Modernist opuses, he'd have changed the month but kept the title: we're in the Waste Land. (That's right, mothereffers, I just dropped a T.S. Eliot reference into the first line. You know you missed me.)

So it's been awhile, awhile as in amonthorso. I been busy, you know? I've been writing postmodernist short stories about gay priests and reading Oakley Hall and Haruki Murakami and applying for jobs in Singapore and dressing up as Kevin Federline, in addition to my usual hatin' and perpetratin'. And besides, nothing of note has happened. back then the Phillies were on the fast train out of Playoffsville and the Eagles had just been curbstomped by an NFC East rival.

Well, the train arrived on schedule. Otherwise, shit is the same. What about the World Series, you say? What about it? Maybe you mistook me for some asshole chowd if you thought I gave a flying f-word. All it did was cement Boston, a city I used to love above all others except Philadelphia, as the red dot on the target of my sporting hatred. Worst sports fans in the world. I miss the curse. Let's move on.

What about Pats/Colts, you say? Actually, I doubt anybody said that, because the goddamned game was covered like a fresh body by everybody from Stu Scott to your neighborhood Pats douche. And AFC football resides right above IHL hockey on the list of sporting leagues I give a shit about.

What about the Eagles? Oh Christ, who even cares anymore. They suck for all the reasons I've been talking about for years. Their offensive and defensive playcalling expose their personnel weaknesses rather than playing to their strengths. They have no receivers. The coaching is as abominable as I've ever seen. Westbrook can't save them when he doesn't get the touches, and McNabb's not good (or healthy, or both) enough to win games on his own anymore, which has been true for two years. The only new thing that's come up in the last few weeks is that Andy Reid's house is a drug emporium. He still won't be fired this season, so I'll have to watch the same bullshit next year -- pass every down on offense, blitz every down on defense -- and, barring a 4-12 season (which I'm praying for this year), he might not be fired even then. His contract is too big. So from here on out I'm just waiting for them to finally blow it up and rebuild. And drinking. A lot.

There's the J-Roll for MVP campaign I've been trying to mount. But the NL MVP isn't announced for two more weeks, and the voters will give it to Holliday, because his team made the World Series (where he and they both pulled an epic choke job), and because they don't care about the fact that he's not an MVP-caliber player on the road, or other little things like the defensive half of the game or speed or runs scored.

The start of the NBA? Please. Why don't we just write about NASCAR.

College ball? Well, it's early, but Lute Olson has taken a leave of absence. There's that. But I don't know what to say other than that I wonder if Parkinson's disease qualifies as a "personal reason." The only person with any sort of inside perspective whom I know, TGWNA's good friend Anonymous, didn't have much to say about it. Personally, I think this is his last season. He looked horrendous by the end of last year -- you no longer need to be looking or have HD to see the shakes and bewilderment -- and so did his team. I don't worship Lute like most Tucsonans and UA alums, because I've had to interview him and I've watched immensely talented but poorly coached UA teams choke for the last six years. But it's still really sad to see this. I've been a UA fan for a long time -- I went to his basketball camp in sixth grade, and have the hopelessly awkward picture to prove it -- and I certainly don't have any animosity for him, either. (Can't speak for my compatriot on that one, though.)

Maybe I'm way off here. I'm sure something else really is going on to prompt the leave of absence. But I'm also pretty sure the team will play better without him, and that his age will become an unavoidable issue this year, and that, even in Tucson, the whispers have probably already started. Once that happens, it's only a matter of time. I think the best-case scenario for Lute lovers is that he remains the figurehead for two more years, with O'Neill running the show behind the scenes. Let's just hope O'Neill can pull a Ben Howland and turn around a sinking program. I guess the worst case is that he never coaches another game, but I don't think that'll happen.

But hey, what do I care? As of tomorrow, I'll be a member of Sixth Man! Suck on that, you public school plebes.

I'll take months that involve "Ennui" for $400

2007-11-05T10:12:00.000-07:00

I realize there's some debate as to what month, exactly, is the worst for a sports fan in the Caesarian calendar. And while I consider myself to be a fair-minded person, anyone who says it isn't November is wrong. Like, DVDA wrong.

I think I'm going a little nuts without the metronome of the baseball season ticking in the background. Even though I don't really like the Diamondbacks, I grew comfortable listening to Mark Grace and Darren Sutton, two very capable and funny broadcasters, at least three times a week while I tooled around the house. I became used to the endless flood of ESPN chats, five stories a day from Baseball Prospectus and 20 or so daily items on ShysterBall. I'll miss updates about the prospects that I acquired for veterans in my keeper league, and arguments over exactly when everyone else (I'm looking at you, Bud Black) is going to realize that Trevor Hoffman isn't the best reliever on the Padres anymore, and might even be No. 3 at this point.

In short, baseball consumed so much of my down time that I never really noticed that I spend an inordinate amount of my life at home, alone. This isn't to say I'm some hermit; it's just that I'm single and I don't have enough money to go drinking with friends every night, nor do they.

Now, I begin thinking about how nice it was having a broad around the house, if only so I had someone to make fun of when bored (I'm clearly an awesome boyfriend [theoretically] and it's stunning that a line hasn't formed in front of Chez Diesel composed entirely of quivering, nubile virgins). And it's not like leaving the house is much of an option; Phoenix, even in great weather, isn't really a go-outside sorta place. I mean, you can go hiking, but I can't say that without smirking. I could go golfing, but none of my friends here are really into it. I could go swimming, but I've never been a huge fan of public bathing places, owing to the fact that I have familiarized myself with MRSA.

In other words, November just sucks.

Worry not, TGWNA denizens; I will not fall into the arms of some crazy bitch just to cure boredom. Like any great athlete (critic), I realize that when the pressure's highest, sex can only get in the way. I will monk-out in an effort to make at least one post a week in this here space, even though I'm not really sure what I'm going to post about. Does anyone really want to commiserate with me on the death of the 4-6? Football's out. While I could probably write a lot about soccer, I doubt anyone here will be interested enough to get past snarky comments about euro-trash and hurled bags of urine. We won't even pretend to care about the NBA until playoff time, and even then I question the league's ability to provide a great deal of mill-worthy grist. I don't know where inspiration is going to come from, which probably means I'm going to force it. But, at least I know I'll be a better read than Plaschke.

Ci vediamo, as my people say. Parlermo presto.

TGWNA All-Star selection

2007-10-30T14:39:00.000-07:00

Dustin Pedroia is the new official second baseman of TWGNA, and we're comfortable sliding him over to short in a pinch.

The Devil's Advocate

2007-10-29T21:19:00.000-07:00

I mean, just look at that cover, the cover of an issue of what once considered itself (and was considered by many others) to be sports journalism's paragon. I'll be the first to admit that A-Rod always seemed a little flaky for a star of his diameter, but I have trouble believing there's an even remotely sane human being who could have handled the press he received in N.Y. without turning into a whiny bitch. I mean, even Sports Illustrated got involved with the True Yankee shit! Good lord.

It was surprising to see a majority of writers I actually respect opine in the past few weeks that A-Rod was a safe bet to stay in N.Y. I was strongly in the camp that opting-out was a no-brainer, regardless any threats by the Yanks that they weren't going to chase if he did so. In addition to the fact that he'll likely do better over the next eight years signing a free agent contract than he would have by taking the Yankees' extension offer, I think Boras really wanted A-Rod to reset the market, since he'll have some extremely valuable free agents coming up the next couple of years (no, I'm not suggesting Boras "controls" A-Rod, just has his ear) and the last time we saw a noticeable spike in salaries was right after A-Rod's first free agent deal.

But, more than anything, I think A-Rod just wanted the out of New York, and I can't blame him. As a bonus, he'll get the opportunity to tell a lot of people that they can go fuck themselves; you've got to believe, by this point, that Rodriguez has got to have that irrational, pregnant-woman anger at the Yankees, if not everyone in baseball. Why, you ask? Peep Exhibit No. 657,266,282:

"It's clear he didn't want to be a Yankee," Hank Steinbrenner, a son of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and now the figurehead of the club's baseball operations, told the New York Daily News. "He doesn't understand the privilege of being a Yankee on a team where the owners are willing to pay $200 million to put a winning product on the field.
"I don't want anybody on my team that doesn't want to be a Yankee."

First of all, it's impressive that Hank already appears to be less capable of shutting his fucking mouth than his father. Looking past that, I find it incredible that A-Rod has constantly been accused of not appreciating the "privilege" to be the best player on the Yankees. Here is a short list of things that prove A-Rod appreciated it just fine:

Constantly said to everyone who would listen that he loved being a Yankee;
Did not murder Jason Giambi when the steroid-addled, .275 EqA-ing asshole called him out in the media for not being "clutch" enough;
Sacrificed the opportunity to be known as the single-greatest shortstop in the history of the game (by a wider margin than one that's seen at any other position, with the possible exception of center field) so a lesser, more egotistical yet mysteriously more beloved player could continue costing the team 1 to 2 games by way of abhorrent defense;
Has hit 1,700 gazillion home runs for the Yankees in a very short period of time;
Did not murder Joe Torre when the manager attempted to humiliate him in the playoffs by batting him eighth;
Did not murder George Steinbrenner for not immediately firing Torre after the latter tried to humiliate the team's best player in the playoffs by batting him eighth;
Did not murder random dog for being batted eighth by manager in playoffs;
Did not have building of New York Post bombed.

It's evident that to whatever degree a player should show his appreciation for being a Yankee, A-Rod has far surpassed it if only in terms of patience. If Paul O'Neill took 1/10th of the shit in the media that A-Rod has, there wouldn't be a single functioning toilet in the clubhouse to this day. Probably the only player in recent memory to get savaged in the New York press like A-Rod was Chuck Knoblauch, and — while this is admittedly a cruel way to look at it — at least Knoblauch did something so incredibly and blatantly scorn-worthy that the coverage was to be expected. I mean, he couldn't make a throw to first base from 50 feet away. A-Rod's biggest crime is that he doesn't hit titanic home runs at exactly the moment everyone wants him to. Because, you know, he's selfish.

But here's the real problem: Why is it that the Yankees still think players should be grateful for the opportunity to be Yankees? I get the history and shit, but really that's for fans. And, even if playing in front of ~~a bunch of plaques for dead crackers~~ Monument Park is a big deal for players, is it a big enough deal to put up with the rest of the shit (Steinbrenner, Steinbrenner's kids, the New York media, Joe Girardi's teeth, New York fans, the homosexuals and minorities on the subway, Derek Jeter's cockblocking, etc.) that goes with it? Maybe when the Yankees were the clear favorite every season (relative to the rest of the field) to win a World Series title. But that ain't the case anymore; believe it or not, folks, there are places you can go these days to win a World Series while growing a beard at the same time.

The Yankees should be kissing Alex Rodriguez's Turtlewaxed ass right now, or at least show a little tact regarding his departure. That franchise has just received four seasons of the best player in baseball for, per annum, approximately what the Angels paid Bartolo Colon this season for the pleasure of watching him get fatter. At that price, the least they could have done was was protect him a little bit, and let the guys who were getting paid more by the team — namely Jason Giambi and Derek Jeter — take a little more of the heat. Instead, they treat him like a piece of shit for four years, let him take the fall for every series loss, and then tell him when he decides to hit the open market that he's an ungrateful asshole who doesn't appreciate the opportunity to be employed by such a classy and storied franchise. Like they did him a favor by letting him don the most overrated uniforms in baseball.

I, for one, am thinking this is the first few dots of a forming pattern. The Yankees' approach to dealing with the end of this season is downright Oedipean so far. Regardless of any particular critic's view of Torre's ability as a manager, he deserved better than that embarrassing outburst by the senile Steinbrenner — that interview should never have been granted by the Yankees — and the insulting contract offer. And say what you want about A-Rod and Boras, the younger Steinbrenner's classless comments as his best player (a player they've paid well below market value for) opts out of his contract will not only likely affect negotiations with Rivera and Posada negatively, but also send out a clear signal to top free agents that they'll have to give up more than long hair if they wish to play for the Yankees. I suspect that Hank Steinbrenner is going to be told, perhaps not politely, to shut the fuck up and let the non-amateurs handle media relations, but the damage might already be done. If I was an agent, the only way a top-line free agent of mine would be advised to sign with the Yankees is if they are offering well beyond what the competition is. I suspect real agents feel the same way.

Whether Yankees fans are willing to accept it or not, this is not the same franchise that became the official landing spot of every premier veteran free agent who wanted to win a ring before calling it a career. The "mystique" went out the door when the Red Sox mounted the most improbable comeback in the sport's history, and the façade of professionalism evaporated when players in the clubhouse started sniping to the media like a gaggle of drunk sorority girls when the subject of the team's best player came up. That A-Rod can probably get more money on the open market is only a part of his reasoning, I imagine. In terms of accomplishing his secondary goals — winning a World Series title and being adored by his fan base for his superlative talent — it's entirely likely that he and Boras have determined there are better settings out there. Make no mistake, teams like the Giants, Cubs and Angels will make sure he's commensurately compensated for his play, but almost as importantly, the fans in those cities won't stupidly claim the team's better off without him.

Ah, yes, momentum!

2007-10-24T22:53:00.000-07:00

I know what you're going to say already: "Eight days! You can't keep momentum for eight days!"

OK, sure. However vague the concept of athletic momentum might be, it certainly seems to go against form for a "hot" team to sit through eight days and about 50 hours of Fox broadcasts to finally play again. But no one would have said that if the Rockies had won, as inconceivable a concept as that might seem now (see footnote No. 1 ... yes, I've been reading DFW again). Had the Rockies won, we would have been hearing enough Mo talk to fill up the agenda of an LDS Conference.

That, ultimately, is why concepts like "momentum" and "choking" bug me so much; they're always predictive until they're not. Barry Bonds was a notorious playoff "choker" until he pretty much single-handedly took the Giants to the World Series. Derek Jeter was "clutch" until he grounded into three fatal double plays in the final two games of the Yankees season, v. 2007 (though, I suppose, the Cap'n hasn't quite lost his bona fides in the minds of most Yankee fans). And the Rockies had "momentum" until they got one of the worst teste-smashings in recent WS memory. As I said, it's there until it's not.

So what's the point, you ask? At the risk of continuing my Sisophysian trend of late (actually, my entire life), one just has to wonder how much longer we're going to discuss this kind of stuff like it's real, not to mention relevant to the outcome of events. Yeah, I know it's just sports, but I've never quite understood why bullshit is any less fetid in the context of "unimportant" events (see footnote No. 2).

My prediction? We still don't know what's going to happen in the series' remaining six available contests. And, when what will happen does, we will have a choice: We can either accept the fact that the game is free of any imaginary forces, or you can disagree. And since it works for the PUSA, I'll go ahead and say anyone who disagrees with me is no different that the terrorists.
____________________

1: I think it's fast becoming time to wonder exactly where Josh Beckett stands in contrast to his pitching contemporaries. While I'll be the first to say that the playoffs shouldn't be weighted differently per se, it's not lost on me that Beckett's track record in the playoffs, albeit in a small sample, is incredible. It's not hyperbole to say he was the chief reason the Fish won the shebang in 2003, and his performance thus far in the 2007 playoffs is certainly as good, if not better, than it was four seasons ago. Clearly, Josh Beckett is no reverse-shrinking-violet; the worst he's ever been in the regular season is very good if not oft-injured, and this season he certainly qualified as great while plying his trade in one of the most difficult pitching environments in the AL. But he's yet to approach the level in the regular season he reaches in the playoffs, which falls in line with the concept of a "big-game" pitcher. Bill James once said in an interview I can't find at this moment that "clutch," while conceptually dubious w/r/t hitters, is both intuitive and statistically provable when it comes to pitchers. I won't bother elaborating on his point, as I'll try and find the interview to link here. But, anyway, what I'm wondering is exactly how much Beckett's talents are worth, if we're to conclude that he can be counted on only to be very good in the regular season, but arguably the best playoff pitcher available, if we're willing to accept both premises as being true. Is he worth more than Johan, even though the latter can be counted on to be one (sometimes two) wins better over the course of the regular season? If you're the Yankees, and both are available as free agents, which one do you prefer in an either/or proposition? I sense that in New York, the answer is Beckett, but I'd be interested to figure out exactly how this would be discussed in a pure economic sense. Right now, I wish I had Nate Silver's brain.

2: This past weekend, I made one of my infrequent trips back to the Old Pueblo, and a certain sports writer friend of mine who will remain nameless renewed his long-standing and vocal objection to the American flag patch on sports uniforms during one of our meandering patio symposiums. To distill his point, he feels that it's become a purely political consideration (flag patches, not patio symposiums), and he would consider himself to be at odds with the political view that stresses nationalism above other all other considerations. I actually think this very topic would make for a great TGWNA debate topic (flag patches, not nationalism) once the baseball material dries up, but we'll leave that for another day. What the entire discussion brought to mind for me, however, was just how wrong the entire rationalization of sports viz. society and life is every time something really bad happens. See, sports so totally aren't unimportant, if for no other reasons than it's such a visible outgrowth of American society. James Caan's character in The Program, still the best sports movie (non-comedy division) out there for this particular writer's taste, defended his position within the school by stating, "When was the last time 80,000 people showed up to watch a kid do a damn chemistry experiment?" There's a reason people who really dig on "important" things are called "wonks," yet people who devote much of their time to thinking about games are most commonly referred to as "normal dudes." Sport is not just diversion, it is a vital aspect of life, and not only for those who actively participate. During an epoch in which we see a rapidly declining birth rate among Americans, in fact, sport may be vital in terms of population growth, as it's been proven that cities that experience a championship in one of the major sports usually have very busy maternity wards nine months later (though, it's troublesome to think the next spike will likely be in the Greater Boston Area, as such an event will likely coincide with fewer English-speaking Americans [I kid]). But, more importantly, I think sports can serve as great educational tools, both in terms of lessons about sportsmanship and the such, and also drawing the otherwise disinterested into stuff like statistics and economics. Needless to say, this particular author had no use for terms like standard deviation until Baseball Prospectus 2004 changed the way he looked at his favorite sport. Also, I really wasn't interested in writing until it became clear I could do so about sports, for pay (however meager that pay might have ended up being). I guess the point is, it really bothers me when Sportscenter rushes to marginalize itself in the aftermath of a disaster, when in truth it should only ever marginalize itself for its role in making us all aware of Stuart Scott's lazy eye.

Computers can't teach me about the vagaries of playoff baseball, Pt. 2

2007-10-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

Devoted reader and relative master of all things grilling Big C has re-assumed his role as TGWNA contrarian, posting a couple of challenges to The Baseball Preachings of Diesel. I feel compelled to defend/clarify some of my positions, as it's apparent that not all of my parishioners are as comfortable falling into step as others.

In re: Luck and the Playoffs

When I, or any other gambler, uses the term "roll of the dice" (or "crapshoot") it's not meant to imply a 50/50 proposition. There's a reason the house owns the seven roll in craps once a point has been established; it's the most common outcome when rolling two six-sided die. However, there's a wide gulf between saying a certain outcome is the odds-on favorite and saying that outcome is preordained; if the two terms were the same, craps would be a boring (and much more costly) game. Instead, despite knowing that seven is the most common roll, it can still be profitable (in the short term) to bet that another roll will come before a seven does, which is the essence of a craps "Pass" bet (or a "Come," which is just an offset "Pass" bet ... but I digress).

When I use the term "rolling the dice" w/r/t seven-game serieseses, what I mean is that the difference between the "favorite" (let's say they're the seven) and the "underdog" (a "Pass" bet on six) is not great enough for anyone to say what's going to happen on the next roll with any great amount of confidence. Yes, betting on rolling a six makes you a 6-to-5 underdog against a seven, but all that means is that for every five rolls of six, you should roll a seven six times. That still means you roll the six five times, though. This is the essence of a gamble, and provided you're paid according to the true odds you're facing — that is, on a $5 bet, you're paid $6 for rolling a six — you should break even.

The playoffs, ostensibly, are contended between the four best teams in each league. We know that's not always the case, as not all pennant winners are created equally, but for the sake of argument we'll leave it at that. By that definition, the gap between any two combatants in a playoff series isn't that wide; in this offseason's biggest mismatch so far, the D'Backs and the Rockies, the underdog (Arizona) was no worse than a 6.5-5 underdog in any game.

As someone who has spent way too many hours at the craps table in his life, I can attest to the fact that you can go through 30 minutes worth of rolls without ever seeing a seven-out; crazy shit happens when you roll dice. You can also go 30 minutes without ever seeing a "Pass" bet pay off. Neither happens all that often, but those things do happen.

The sweeps we've seen so far in the playoffs are indicative of nothing more magical than the fact that, in short series, it's entirely possible for a team to get on a hot roll and defy odds. And while I think all the series so far have held to form — all the "favorites" have won — the fact that the Sox, D'Backs and Rockies (twice) swept is not an accurate representation of the qualities of the teams involved. If the Rockies and the D'Backs played 100 times, it's probably safe to say the Rockies would have won somewhere between 55 and 60 of those games. However, within those 55 to 60 wins, there would likely be multiple streaks of losses that, if broken down into seven-game segments, would lead one to conclude the D'Backs were the better team if that's the only data allowed through the filter.

Furthermore, "momentum" is great until it's gone. I'm not stubborn enough to think that hot streaks can't build up an individual's confidence, but not enough for it to be a proper predictive force. The Rockies' run in the playoffs is a testament to the fact that crazy shit happens every so often, nothing more. It's also a testament to the fact that baseball officiating has absolutely tanked this season, but that's a rant better delivered by others.

One final point: The Cardinals were, without question, the worst team in the eight-team playoff field last season. They limped into the playoffs, almost blowing a prohibitive division lead down the stretch. Everything that you've mentioned as factors in favor of the Rockies was working against the Birds. And they went ahead and won the World Series anyway. Crazy shit just happens in short serieseses, man.

In re: "Clutch"

About the only argument more exasperating to me than the "clutch hitting" one is the existence of god, and for the same reason. Thirty different people will give you 30 different definitions of god, based on the differences found in various religions and personal credos. This makes it difficult to be an efficient atheist; you often feel like you're shadowboxing, since you're never quite sure what kind of being it is you're arguing against. To top it off, in the midst of an argument, the believer can change his/her belief structure to conveniently invalidate whatever it is you're arguing. This can be enraging.

It's the same with clutch hitting: Ask 30 people what defines a clutch situation, and you're likely to get 30 different sets of conditions. It creates a situation in which a non-believer (me) has difficulty disproving anything, ultimately leading to me resorting to snarky comments about unicorns. It's not really good for anyone.

About the only area in which I'll budge is the idea of a "choke," because it makes enough sense; some players might see a consistent drop in performance in high-pressure situations due to various reasons. I will also say that I think this is a much rarer situation that most make it out to be, if it exists at all. I really can't imagine that scores of major league baseball players have gotten this far without a supreme amount of confidence in their ability, if not an out-and-out desire to take at-bats in those pressure situations. There are so many prospective major league baseball players out there that I can't imagine that personality trait isn't almost completely selected out of the pool. And, I fucking promise, A-Rod is not a choke. He is the best player in baseball who has happened to go through less than a handful of short-term slumps when there was 100+ credentialed media members in attendance.

A strong belief in "clutch hitting," however, sounds a lot to me like believing in an intercessionary deity. People will always remember the dude who prayed for five days straight and woke up cured of cancer, but conveniently forget about the dozens of New Orleans residents who drowned in their attics, praying their doomed asses off. All evidence of clutch hitting is anecdotal, and never put into context. Yes, David Ortiz has hit many game-winning hits, but he's also struck out in those situations plenty of times. In fact, he probably does both at almost exactly the same rates as he does in "non-clutch" situations, whatever the fuck those might be. Isn't it enough to say David Ortiz is awesome all of the time? Do you really need the "clutch" qualifier to buttress his greatness? I think not.

Computers can't teach me about the vagaries of playoff baseball

2007-10-15T19:25:00.000-07:00

But Eric Byrnes can! (courtesy of eriz from the excellent [and not as derivative as the name would suggest] Fire Jay Mariotti).

Brynes has decided to thrust himself in front of the cameras repeatedly during this year's postseason, and almost every time has managed to infuriate someone with the relentless stream of bullshit that spews forth from his douchbaggy yap. Yes, I realize that he's actively sought out by reporters, since he's the de facto "clubhouse leader" of the Baby Snakes, and because he's always game for some self-promotional banter. But that doesn't mean he has to oblige every time.

The funny thing is that Byrnes' latest comments are distinctly "new school," and defended by the same "computer geeks" he's mocked on multiple occasions w/r/t run differential and Pythagorean records. We know the playoffs are a total crapshoot, and that a few lucky bounces/breaks will often be the determining factor when two relatively evenly matched teams play a seven-game series. It's not the stat geeks who cite the D'Backs' lack of "clutch hitting," or whatever; that's the announcers and beat writers, who are generally Byrnes' best friends.

As suggested by Big C in an earlier comment, Byrnes probably isn't any different in terms of his perspective on baseball than the vast majority of his colleagues. I get it. Baseball players, taken as a whole, aren't going to win many episodes of Jeopardy! Additionally, the World of Baseball is an extremely insular one, and for the most part completely divorced from reality. Can you imagine another industry that could suffer a 100-plus-person company publicly (and proudly) stating that it has a hiring bias toward Christians? About the only thing Rockies' GM Dan O'Dowd should be thanking god for is the sport's anti-trust exemption.

Anyway ...

If I'm not allowed to be all that indignant over Byrnes' willingness to continue propagating the false nerd-jock dichotomy, then I should at least be able to get in some yelling about the Reds' hiring of Dusty Baker, the mental giant who has managed to destroy more promising baseball careers than the inability to hit a curve ball. I'm not sure that Cincy was "going places," but whatever potential there was for a better-than-marginal improvement over the next couple of seasons has been shot by this incredibly senseless hiring. If you've got Homer Bailey in a keeper league, try and trade him this offseason. And if you're Adam Dunn, go ahead and pack your bags now; there's no way Mr. Clogging the Basepaths is going to have anything to do with your Three True Outcomes ass come next season. (By the way, you might want to suggest to your agent that you've OPSed .990 in PETCO Park the last three years, albeit in a small sample size. Just sayin')

Coupled with the recent hiring of Ed Wade by the Astros and the retention of Brian Sabean by the Giants, it appears that there's still a good number of teams that have no real desire to compete. If Byrnes' comments represent a kind of general antipathy toward critical baseball though on the part of the players — which is understandable — the hiring of Baker represents how institutionalized this kind of prejudice remains.

It can seem, at times, that the statistical analysis community is just tilting at windmills, especially to those who aren't so inclined toward silly-sounding metrics like VORP. But that's really not the case, and I think this year's League Championship Series are proof of that. All four of the teams still playing (I'm writing this before Game 4 of the Rox-D'Backs series) are blessed with front offices that, to varying degrees, use statistical analysis to inform baseball decisions. It's also worth mentioning that, after the Red Sox, none of the three World Series hopefuls are above the median when it comes to total team payroll, which I believe is further proof that the rending of garments over the lack of a salary cap is much ado about nothing. The message is clear: these numbers do mean something, and smart people who like winning baseball games are at least bringing statistical analysis to the table, if not letting it cut the turkey.

Ultimately, though, the success of the intelligent few will only amplify the pain felt by fans of those teams, like the Reds, who appear addicted to failure and the taunting of the fanbase that goes along with it. I can't imagine how I'd feel about baseball if I grew up in Pittsburgh, Cincy or Kansas City. Maybe, after a lifetime's worth of warbling about revenue inequities, I'd buy into the "salary cap as panacea" line. More likely, I would have simply lost interest in baseball at some point, and by this point in my life would be spending a lot more time blogging about soccer. Needless to say, I'm happy I grew up in the heyday of the Blue Jays, and have found in my adopted team an outlook on the sport that lines up well with mine. It's an easy life when the worst manager you've had to deal with on a fan level is Tim Johnson.

For a slightly more optimistic outlook on the Dusty Baker hiring, check out Shyster's take.

Also, Dinosaur Comics is there to remind me that it's not really possible for anything I say to ever actually be "factual" in any meaningful way. *Sigh*