And Now, A Hockey Article

Nope, I lied. But now you'll see how I felt when I started reading Bernie Miklasz's column about an apparent new stadium that was built for the Dallas Cowboys. The place has been open for a while, but apparently Bernie only gets VHF or Clear QAM, as it took NBC's Sunday Night Football to prompt him to write an article about the Cowboys' new stadium. (Spoiler - it's not really about that.)

Let's start at the very beginning. Either I haven't been paying attention (likely, too lazy to look at old posts) or Bernie added his e-mail address and phone number to the top of his articles. Observe:

Bernie Miklasz bjmiklasz@post-dispatch.com
314-340-8192
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
09/24/2009

Just found that odd is all.

Watching Sunday night's game between the New York Giants and Dallas at the Cowboys' new stadium, and listening to Al Michaels and the NBC boys go completely ga-ga in losing their minds over Jerry Jones' $1.1 billion monument to excess, I began thinking about the NFL scene in St. Louis.

As everyone else in St. Louis was thinking about ways to forget the NFL scene in St. Louis. Odds on favorite was Bud Light. I think it's made here?

When the Edward Jones Dome opened in 1995, it was the envy of a lot of NFL owners, and other NFL cities reacted by funding and building exorbitant new palaces to please their wealthy football merchants.

If you want to be picky, in 1995 it was known as the Trans World Dome. Then American Airlines bought TWA, stripped St. Louis of being a hub, and left the airport an antiquated pile of steel. But this is an article about the... Cowboys new stadium. Yes, that's it.

NFL owners desperately wanted to outdo each other, and the rapid escalation of ego has now reached preposterous levels, culminating in the images being broadcast from Arlington, Texas on Sunday. I'm not one for political correctness, and I'm a free-market guy, and I am blessed to have a few relatively modest perks in life. But the football McMansion near Dallas left me cold and came across as over-the-top and obscene.

I doubt that ego plays any role in it. I'll attempt to show my work.

Owner's Money - Tax Money = Less Owner's Money for New Stadium
New Capacity - Old Capacity = More Seats
More Seats x Raised Ticket Prices = Profit
Less Owner's Money + Profit = More Profit

My macroeconomics teacher would be so proud, given that she wasn't shipped back to Trinidad or Tobago. I forget which one she was from.

I find it hard to believe that a man of Bernie's size could be cold. Poor circulation, perhaps?

Given the hard knocks of a tough economy, and all of the jobs being lost across the country, and the many parents worrying about feeding their kids and paying the bills, it struck me as wildly inappropriate to be glorifying Mr. Jones' collection of designer luxury suites, private clubs, exotic cage dancers and a video board so large that it could span the Tropic of Capricorn.

You know who wont be going to these games? People that worry about paying bills or feeding their kids. And such a large venue being built could not have provided construction jobs, or additional jobs for stadium maintenance. And the Mitsubishi Orgazmotron that was installed must have been supplied for free, not providing jobs to anybody at all. It just fucking appeared. Through God's glory hole in the roof.

Look, there's nothing wrong with having a nice stadium. There's nothing wrong with investing in professional sports for your community, but only up to a point. How far do we go with this? Will anyone, can anyone, try to top Jones? Will some oil sultan rush to build a $2 billion stadium in Dubai, hoping to lure the Jacksonville Jaguars or St. Louis Rams?

Caution! Slope is slippery! The NFL won't grant Canada a franchise, but somebody in Dubai will land one? The NFLPA will let players fly to Dubai to play games? Somebody will want the Jaguars? Highly unlikely. Dubious even.

And whatever happened to the football game?

Oh, that.

The game.

Alright, I wasn't in Sunday night so I didn't watch, was there a lot of stadium talk? It's a pretty cool place with a lot of unnecessarily cool shit, why not show it off?

I was delighted to see the Giants beat the Cowboys. Jerry's billion-dollar stadium couldn't make Tony Romo a more accurate passer or make Wade Phillips a good coach. Jerry's boys haven't won a playoff game since 1996. I guess you can build a stadium to end all stadiums, but it doesn't mean you know how to build a winning team.

Sample size: 2 games.

What's happened to this league? I grew up watching Hall of Famers such as John Unitas, John Mackey, Raymond Berry, Lenny Moore, Jim Parker and Gino Marchetti, and I didn't need to see them on a video board to enjoy it. When Unitas was marching the Baltimore Colts down the field to pull out another dramatic victory, I didn't care that I was sitting on cold, uncomfortable, aluminum bench-style seats at the austere Memorial Stadium. I loved the experience.

And teams would walk ten miles in the snow just to have the chance to fart on a picture of Marilyn Monroe's left arm! THAT'S WHEN FOOTBALL WAS A MAN'S SPORT! How dare technology ruin the comfort of watching the game... in high definition... from St. Louis... when the game is being played at night in Texas under lights. You know what would have made the experience better for the young Bernie Miklasz? Not freezing his clit off sitting on aluminum.

The game mattered. The players mattered. The competition mattered. That was my treasure. It wasn't about valet parking or leather chairs in luxury boxes. We didn't go to a football game demanding to be treated like VIPs sealed away behind a rope line where we'd discuss the quality of the brie, or praise the chef for his dish of braised short ribs.

I would dare say that many of the 100,000+ people there cared about the game. Cowboys fans - when not busy quoting Jimmy Johnson - tend to want their team to win.

A ham and cheese sandwich in a brown bag was perfectly fine.

Or 15 of them. And dont' worry about the bag actually, Bernie will just end up choking on it.

Those days are gone forever. Now there are too many consumers and climbers who can't tolerate the NFL experience unless they get to pretend to be Donald Trump for the day.

I can't go to a game unless I own real estate? I don't get it. I went to games each of the last three years and the most I spent was $200. I saved for a couple of months and sat right behind the Seahawks bench, first row. It was pretty fucking cool. Now I have to own apartment builds though, and that sucks.

Frankly, I'd rather watch on TV.

....oh, this is a good one. Just wait for it, it's great.

At least then the game — the competition — is pretty much at the forefront of the presentation.

That be the forefront presented by Visa. But first, here's a whole bunch of computer-generated lines and a robot that runs away from a Burger King! This and more, after retired players tell us what to watch even though it's all we'll be able to see on post game. And don't forget to watch the series premiere of Ratings Flop, a great comedy that will be canceled way to early because nobody gets it. I have had the fortune of seeing games from noon - 6:15 by virtue of sickness the last couple weeks, and believe me, there's a lot more at the forefront than the competition.

In this increasingly snobby and inaccessible NFL environment, we're told that the Edward Jones Dome is inadequate and outdated and a threat to the STL's future as an NFL city. The underlying threat is this: better build a new one and try to keep up with the Jerrys of the NFL world, or risk losing your franchise.

Believe you me - it's a giant shit pit. You can feel 1995 when you walk into the place. They spent $30 million to fix the video replay boards than didn't display the correct colors before and it's nowhere near enough. But the kicker is that the Rams have an escape clause in their contract if the Dome isn't in the top third of stadiums, the Rams get to leave. I guess it was nice to have a divisional opponent for the Seahawks to beat while it lasted...

The city, county and state — and taxpayers — made sacrifices to get the NFL to return to St. Louis. It was a nasty and costly fight, but we got the stadium and the franchise. That was fewer than 20 years ago. Who wants to go through that again?

So, you want them to leave?

Not that I want to see the Rams leave. I don't. But in the highly stressed financial climate, there's no discernible sentiment for investing public dollars for a new football stadium — or to publicly fund substantial upgrades for The Ed.

But a new opera house - that's what we need! If you watch this video, you'll see that having a neck and being able to be heard are not qualities you need to report news in St. Louis.

I don't know how this will eventually play out. The Rams are for sale. They probably will be free to leave after the 2014 season. The best hope, of course, is that a billionaire will step in and buy the franchise and build a stadium with (mostly) private money. But what are the chances of that happening?

About the same that a sultan gets an NFL team in Dubai?

In a few years, will St. Louis be capable of having a place in the NFL's insanely excessive Jerry World?

I can only think of one other billion dollar stadium being built, and two teams share that one. So I guess you could say it's only 2 $700 million stadiums being built into one. Like Voltron.

Do we want to have a place in Jerry World?

You do if you want a football team in St. Louis. I want one, but I don't think fans of the Rams do.

Bad Baseball Analysis of a Bad Division

Phil Rogers' latest on the NL Central race from ESPN.com

Mr. Rogers decides to have a look at the three teams in contention in the NL Central - the Cubs, Brewers and Cards. Unfortunately for readers, his article is an amalgamation of random statistics, a few quotes, and some stabs at analysis. Let's take a few closer looks:

Brewers

Claudio Vargas, the Brewers' most effective starter with a 10-4 record, got knocked out in the first inning at San Francisco on Friday and appears headed for the disabled list with back problems.

1. Four other Brewers starters have lower ERAs - and Vargas's 5.14 barely edges out the much-maligned Capuano's 5.40
2. Vargas has the worst WHIP of any Brewers starter - an abysmal 1.56.
3. The Amazing Claudio Vargas has a 10-4 record.

Clearly he is their most effective starter. Hey! Maybe this is why their team sucks: their most effective starter sucks!

Yovani Gallardo, a tough kid from the hardscrabble side of Fort Worth, Texas, has lost the mojo that made Yost believe he could bail out the disappointing veterans.

Lunchpail alert! Hardscrabble alert! Mojo alert!

I bet the kids on the hardscrabble side of Forth Worth play their Scrabble with rusty metal game boards and broken glass letter tiles. The kids on the softscrabble side of Forth Worth are given these on their tenth birthdays.

Cubs:

Entering the Brewers series, the Cubs are on pace to finish the season with 131 home runs, their lowest total since 1997, and have hit an NL-low 30 in 42 second-half games.

Good. Phil, if you're going to focus on the Cubs' lack of offense, be sure not to point out the most obvious measure of a team's offensive output (runs scored) and be sure to focus on one component of that output (home runs). Why not just see if the Cubs have fewer singles than the Brewers? I mean, they've only scored about 20 fewer runs than the Brewers. But hey, let's talk more about home runs! I love home runs!

Then Phil goes on to talk about some other crap. Like mentioning a lot of junk about the Cubs' lack of offense and Carlos' Zambrano's big mouth and big contract. A few standard Lou Pinella quotations, and you get my drift. Booooring, standard Cubs-articles-fare. Here's my problem with this article:

1. The article mentions nothing about Ted Lilly, who has better numbers than Zambrano and has outperformed his career WHIP and ERA by like a standard deviation... at 6 million per, his 3.85 ERA is a fucking STEAL. Talk about a signing paying off.
2. The article cites a three-team race in the title, but doesn't even mention the Cards. Not that the Cards are any good - their team ERA is shitty and their team runs scored is shitty - but anyone can see that they could catch a streak and outperform their Pythag for the next 33 games or whatever. They're just as likely as the other bad teams.
3. I am just so fucking tired of hearing about the Brewers and the Cubs. Nobody cares about the this-year-feel-good-Brewers or the pity-party-Cub-losers.

Just let one of them make the playoffs and lose already.

journalist mindlessly bitches about the NBA draft lottery; makes zero good points

its over a week old, but please, do enjoy this fine piece of garbage from aol fanhouse writer steve aschburner. everyone knows the NBA draft lottery is somewhat controversial. some support it, saying it discourages teams from "tanking" down the stretch because even finishing with the worst record in the league only gives you a 25% chance at the top pick. this in comparison to other leagues, notably the NFL, where finishing with the worst record gives you a 100% chance at the top pick. others dislike the lottery, because sometimes (the orlando magic in 1993 being the most extreme example) teams that were nowhere close to being bottomfeeders end up getting a very high pick. thus, teams that didn't "tank" and really genuinely were terrible arent getting what they deserve- the best chance possible to help their team improve. somehow, over the course of this article, aschburner manages to flip flop between both sides of the argument, contradict everything he says at least once, almost declare that the lottery should be modified to give bad teams even worse odds at getting the top 3 picks, and ultimately provide one of the worst non-solutions to a sports related problem i have ever read. its all pretty disorienting. also, this is going to be pretty long. but its such a bad article, especially at the end, that i strongly encourage you to stick with me and finish. i promise youll feel all warm and fuzzy if you do.

NBA Comes Out as Loser in Draft Lottery
System Again Leaves More Deserving Teams Out of Top 3

remember that subheadline. eventually it will make steve look like a complete moron.

The NBA's draft lottery blew up on national television Tuesday night so stealthily, so thoroughly and so quietly that the broadcasters covering the pseudo-event didn't see, hear or feel the blast until several long moments later.

The explosion was muted, like a bomb deep beneath an ocean pumping a hump of a bubble to the surface, the damage all done below. The TV guys and probably a lot of viewers didn't catch on right away -- they were fixated on the teams that would slot into the Nos. 1 and 2 spots at the very end -- but other, more dedicated or more frustrated lottery followers knew things had gone awry the moment the Milwaukee Bucks were announced as the No. 6 pick.

that is a horrendously crappy pseudo-run-on-sentence of an intro. i write crappy sentences all the time... but im not being paid to do this, and besides that im writing from my parents' basement wearing nothing but dirty underpants (as all bloggers do). nothing can blow up "stealthily." if a high school english teacher were grading this, she would write "WORD CHOICE?" in red pen here. also, i watched the broadcast of the lottery results announcement. the broadcasters had a very firm grip on what was happening the entire time, and recognized the surprising nature of the results almost instantly. they didnt make a huge deal about it or get frustrated for no apparent reason like aschburner is about to do throughout his article, but they did point out that the bucks, celtics, and grizzlies all dropped an unexpected 3 spots. and your extended explosion analogy is freaking terrible, aschburner.

Anyone familiar with the mechanics of the league's annual Ping-Pong losers' derby realized immediately that the system, again, had failed. And that a messy situation for the NBA had just gotten way messier.

if the point of the lottery system is to prevent teams from tanking games, then (as aschburner himself will say later in this same article) it definitely succeeded. on the other hand, if the point of the system is to make absolutely sure that the teams with the worst records get the best picks, then i guess it failed. but if the league wanted that scenario to happen, there wouldnt be a lottery in the first place. they'd just do things the way the NFL does them. this is equivalent to saying "this past year the rich paid the government a higher percentage of their income than the poor. our country's progressive taxation policies have failed, yet again."

also, i dont know what "messy situation" he's referring to... there hasnt been any lottery controversy for several years now. people still talk about the famous lottery that brought patrick ewing to the knicks, that orlando situation in '93 i already referenced, and how the spurs got lucky to land tim duncan in '97. but those are mostly distant memories. the more current draft related "messy situation" is the problem with tanking ive already mentioned. and again, as we will later see, aschburner acknowledges that boston and milwaukee did exactly that! so other than memphis getting hosed, what exactly is the problem? dont hold your breath waiting for a clear answer. youre not going to get it.

By lottery rule, a maximum of three teams could move up from the pack into the top three spots. That meant teams could drop no more than three places in selection order. The first eight cards unsheathed by NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver lined up exactly, by inverse order of the teams' records, as they were supposed to.

Ever so briefly, it appeared as if no team was going to move, that the entire process was stick to the chalk and be a monumental waste of time, money and hype. Then the Bucks dropped from third, their statistically targeted position, all the way to sixth.

Uh oh.

let the contradictions begin- first the lottery was bad because the teams with the worst records didnt get the best picks. but now, if that theoretically hadn't happened and everyone had gotten the pick they were supposed to get, steve implies this would have made the whole deal "a waste of time, money, and hype." make up your mind, idiot. calm down and tell me what the problem is.

Instantly, we knew that three teams had moved up, the only possible way for Milwaukee to drop the maximum number of spots. Instantly, before Silver even reached for the next oversized envelope, we knew that Boston and Memphis were about to land at No. 5 and No. 4, respectively.

Instantly, before a thousand distraught Celtics fans even had time to grab their bricks, we knew that serious trauma was about to be inflicted on all manner of LCD, plasma, DLP and traditional picture-tube television sets. Instantly, we knew that Memphis boss Jerry West had made the right choice in waving goodbye to the Grizzlies this spring, but unfortunately now for the wrong reason.

im not a professional writer but im pretty sure starting four consecutive sentences with the same melodramatic adverb is dumb and annoying. we get the point- once the bucks were revealed at number 6, discerning viewers knew right away that the fates of the celtics and grizzlies were sealed as well. as ive already said, the TV guys didnt exactly fail to notice this. they didnt shit their pants about it, but they definitely brought it up. also- considering west's reason for leaving the grizzlies is because hes in his late 60s, has a son playing college basketball who he wants to watch, and doesnt want a fulltime GM role anymore im pretty sure hes still doing it for the right reason(s).

That left three relatively undeserving teams vying, in some order, for the top three spots in next month's NBA draft: The perpetually mismanaged and unloved Atlanta Hawks, the near-homeless and potentially relocating Seattle SuperSonics and the already-stocked-with-superb-young-talent Portland Trail Blazers.

i know he says "relatively" undeserving, but this is pretty dumb. i think the difference between the crappiness of the hawks/sonics and celtics/bucks/grizzlies is pretty much negligible. he doesnt exactly make either of the former sound like theyre on the verge of a title. the blazers, well, they got lucky. good for them. the sentence still mostly contradicts itself.

A draft class boasting two of the most exciting players in recent college basketball history, Ohio State center Greg Oden and Texas forward Kevin Durant, was getting skewed -- some might say screwed -- because the balls came up crazy in the NBA hopper.

no one would say the draft class itself got "screwed". nice try for the play on words there, though.

This is what we and the league were left with:

get ready for a steady stream of contradictions and pure confusion as steve breaks down the outlook for most of the teams who were involved with the lottery. as a side note, i love the word choice here- he makes it sound like every NBA fan out there is picking up the pieces of their love for the game after this monumental tragedy of a lottery. relax, steve.

-- Portland, which cleaned up in last year's draft (Rookie of the Year Brandon Roy, No. 2 man LaMarcus Aldridge and budding point guard star Sergio Rodriguez), now figures to add Oden, the best center prospect since Shaquille O'Neal and Alonzo Mourning entered the league together in 1992. Assuming Aldridge can log most of his minutes at power forward, the Blazers are in position now to trade 20-10 man Zach Randolph, a headache too reminiscent of their "Jail Blazers" days, for even more young assets.

no problems here- the blazers are in great shape. however, i think its important to note that roy was taken with the 6th overall pick and rodriguez with the 27th. the blazers were lucky to have acquired 2 lottery selections but its not like theyre going to end up with the no. 1 pick in back to back years like the magic. rodriguez, notably, is a guy who has greatly exceeded expectations. or maybe the blazers' scouts knew something everyone else didn't. either way, no one should be mad about them having rodriguez in addition to these other guys. basically every team in the league passed on a chance to get him.

-- Seattle, stuck in its quest for a new arena, is in position to grab Durant, a multi-dimensional player capable of creating a buzz unlike anything the Sonics have had since the days of Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp and coach George Karl. Trouble is, it's not as much buzz as Oden would have brought and the Sonics still might end up being Bekins-ed down to Oklahoma City by their out-of-town ownership. Even if the franchise stays in Seattle, it will watch Oden's development play out three hours to the south via I-5, for its nearest rival in the Northwest Division.

so... confusing. a minute ago, the sonics were a bunch of lucky bastards who screwed poor little memphis/boston/milwaukee out of their birthright. now, even though they jumped to pick number 2 when they were supposed to have number 5, THEY are somehow the ones who got screwed? make up your mind, idiot. are the sonics lucky or aren't they?

-- Atlanta winds up retaining its pick, thanks to top-three protection. Had the Hawks stayed at No. 4 or slipped back, their pick would have gone to the Phoenix Suns, allowing coach Mike D'Antoni, Steve Nash and crew to add a valuable piece off the bench that maybe could have pushed the league's most exciting and entertaining team all the way to the Finals for once. Instead, Brandan Wright or Al Horford or another top prospect will join a bunch of other top prospects -- the Hawks will have picked third, fifth, second and sixth in consecutive drafts, working backward from this one -- playing aimlessly in front of empty seats at Philips Arena.

same idea, roughly. a few paragraphs ago the hawks were the beneficiaries of everything thats wrong with the lottery. now we hear that the teams plays aimlessly in front of a sparse crowd. hmmm, sounds like just the kind of team that needs more talent. at this point steve has probably forgotten what he was angry about.

-- Memphis, after posting the NBA's worst record (22-60) with a minimum of alleged "tanking," gets penalized again. The Grizzlies had the deck temporarily stacked against them by the NBA Board of Governors upon entering as an expansion club in Vancouver in 1995, barred with Toronto from earning a top pick on merit. Now the Grizzlies, who also play before a disturbing number of empty seats at the FedExForum, miss out again thanks to a bad system.

a very fair blurb. its true, they got screwed, and didnt seem to tank much. too bad. these things happen. its about to get ugly, though.

-- Plenty of fans who root for other NBA teams are reveling in Boston's pain today. The Celtics tanked games as conspicuously as anyone in the season's final month, and the team's heavy media coverage flushed out the lottery angle as far back as, what, November? Worse, Boston fans felt they deserved some lottery luck, 10 years after the Tim Duncan debacle drove coach Rick Pitino back to college and left the Celtics' fate in the hands of an Antoine Walker for so long.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand... i think i just pulled some tissue in my brain trying to figure out why its bad that they got screwed. wait! aschburner is about to make a horrible attempt at explaining himself!

But you know what? The NBA is a stronger league if the Celtics -- its most storied franchise -- are a legitimate contender with a true marquee player. Boston is important as an NBA anchor market, on par with New York and Los Angeles and ahead of Philadelphia and Chicago. Its tradition, the passion of its fans and its media and its role in a better East-West competitive balance make it vital to the other 29 clubs, in ways that a strong Golden State or Orlando or Milwaukee club never would be.

so the celtics should have gotten a better pick, because theyre a storied franchise and its good for the league. ok. worst fucking argument ive ever heard. moving on.

-- Speaking of Milwaukee, the sympathy factor starts to slip with the Bucks' fall to sixth. This team was lucky enough to land the No. 1 pick (Andrew Bogut) just two years ago and has the No. 7 guy from that draft (Charlie Villanueva) on board as well. The Bucks shut down Villanueva and Bogut early, and Michael Redd missed 29 games and played only twice after March 30.

ok, so the bucks probably tanked too. and they have a lot of young talent on their roster. and they dont deserve a high pick because they're not "important as an NBA anchor market" like boston. (seriously, i cannot get over that. that is the stupidest shit i have ever read on a major sports website.) so why are we supposed to feel sorry for them? steve never really tells us, even though his thesis so far has basically been "the lottery is flawed because teams with bad records arent getting the high picks they deserve." remember that subheadline? how much nonsense that make at this point? he just kind of sounds like a bitter celtics fan, but his bio at the bottom of the column says he was a timberwolves writer for several years. so your guess as to why this column blows is as good as mine.

-- Minnesota? Eleven trips to the lottery, 11 failed attempts to move up. Whatever warm and fuzzies Kevin Garnett might engender from serious basketball aficionados get balanced away by the front office's mistakes, most of them related to the draft (losing three first-round picks over Joe Smith's illegal contracts, picking players such as Ndudi Ebi and William Avery, and outsmarting themselves with the Brandon Roy-Randy Foye swap last June). The Timberwolves, too, were guilty for the second consecutive year of backpedaling their way down the standings, not so much to improve their draft position but to avoid paying off the Clippers -- for the 2005 Marko Jaric/Sam Cassell deal -- with a pick worse than No. 10.

so we should feel bad that they didnt move up (first sentence). except that we shouldnt, because theyve made lots of dumb moves and probably tanked this year (rest of paragraph).

-- Of the remaining lottery teams, Chicago -- in possession of New York's pick, courtesy of the Eddy Curry trade -- was the only one whose climb into the top three might have made one team while breaking another, simultaneously. Knicks fans will have an easier time getting over the loss of the ninth-best prospect. Unless, say, he becomes a No. 9 the way Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion and Tracy McGrady were No. 9s.

irrelevant to what you claimed you were going to write about.

-- It would have been nice to see Oden wind up close to home in Indiana, had the Pacers beaten the odds for the No. 1 pick. It would have been nice to see Philadelphia, which survived the Allen Iverson and Chris Webber trades nicely and actually played hard down the stretch, get rewarded with some lottery luck. It would have been nice if New Orleans, as it tries to revive its franchise in the Big Easy, had been blessed with one of the top two picks.

it would be nice if good things always happened to good people, war and hunger were ended forever, and if i didnt have to write for this blog because sportswriters like you got their heads out of their asses.

Then again, six winning Powerball numbers, on a ticket somewhere in my house where I actually could find it, would be really, really nice, and that's not happening, either.

that too. actually, that would help both of us, because if you won powerball youd probably quit this job. everybody wins!

Which leaves us with the draft lottery itself. NBA commissioner David Stern, who hasn't had a very good May so far, told reporters before the event Tuesday that he doesn't like the way the system gets played by teams trying to improve their odds of winning by losing.

much as i often dislike stern, he makes a great point. maybe the painful lessons learned by boston and milwaukee will resonate with some teams in the future, and those teams will actually play their best players all season long and not screw over their fans for a slightly better shot at a better player in the draft.

In a sense, the improbable result from Tuesday ought to argue pretty loudly against such tanking. That Portland, Seattle and Atlanta would line up for the top three picks had less than a one-10th of one percent chance of happening. Combined, there was a 60 percent chance that Memphis, Boston or Milwaukee would land the No. 1 pick. And still teams maneuver, too often taking money out of fans' pockets with their lack of serious competition.

"It's a system that favors teams to not win games," Philadelphia president Billy King told reporters. "Anytime you have a system like that, it's not good for the league."

ok, good, weve established that aschburner is anti-tanking. why were then supposed to feel sorry for milwaukee and boston continues to go unexplained.

The way to end the tanking would be to give every lottery team one Ping-Pong ball, no weighting involved. Then the only temptation to lose might come from a club faced with a shot at a franchise-altering draft pick vs. a rough first-round playoff series against a No. 1 seed. And Golden State's work against Dallas this year might have enough shelf life to stifle that.

thus giving teams with bad records even LESS of a chance of winning the lottery! thatll solve all our problems! the NBA actually tried this, or a variation of it, from 1985-1989. it was not popular for obvious reasons. but as were about to see, aschburner doesnt recommend this system.

Unfortunately, we'd get more of what happened Tuesday: The most deserving teams missing out on the help they desperately need. That's what a draft is supposed to provide anyway.

fair enough, i agree.

So what Stern and his lieutenants in the NBA need to do is reinstate the old East-West coin flip between the conference bottom-dwellers, let teams draft in inverse order of record after that -- and properly police the final month of regular-season games, to make sure penalties are stiff for those tempted to tank.

at least aschburner seems to have realized the problem with his line of thinking (about 20 paragraphs too late)- you cant be both anti-tanking and anti-lottery. the latter was created to prevent the former. in a twisted way they are opposites of each other. look at the NFL's non-lottery system. if you like it, then you have to admit, youre leaving room for tanking. if you hate it, then youd have to agree that one of the easiest ways to fix it is to enstate a lottery. steve tries to get around this by talking about "imposing penalties" on those who would tank under his proposed non-lottery system. lets hear him out before i rip him to shreds.

If the league can throw the book at the likes of Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw, according to the letter of the law, it can flex a lot more when the Celtics sit starters, when Kevin Garnett checks out five games from the finish line or when Milwaukee lines up more suits than warmups on its bench.

no, it cannot. it abso-goddamn-lutely cannot. how is the league supposed to tell team to play their injured players? in many cases of "injured/inactive" star players on teams fading down the stretch over the course of the past however many years, i would guess that its very possible they could have been on the floor if their teams really needed them there. but there is a bottom line here: the team says theyre injured. how the hell is the league going to fight you on this if youre the GM/head of operations/coach for one of these teams? put a quota on minutes your stars have to play every night? fine you? bring in league approved doctors to examine players and overrule the diagnosis of your team physician? slap you on the wrist? im pretty much flabbergasted. what the hell is he talking about? i give steve a "D-" on this column, only for his acknowledgment that getting rid of the lottery heavily adds to the incentive to tank. then i'll lower it to an "F" for his completely moronic attempt to explain how the league could remove this incentive. dear lord. what is this profession coming to.

ive been watching jonah keri very closely

ever since this terrible little piece about tim wakefield's amazing start to his season. and ill be honest, it appears keri isnt really a total moron. most of his "keri the ten" points are reasonably insightful. but not all of them. i was particularly bothered by a section in yesterday's column (scroll to point #2). in this little gem of a rundown, keri begins by promising analysis on a specfic topic; then goes on to deliver absolutely no analysis on that topic whatsoever. this is like going into a bar that claims to sell 7 different kinds of beer, then finding out they only serve water.

"2. Seven teams hit the beach too early"

How else can you explain seven road sweeps among the 15 series played over Memorial Day weekend?

im going to theorize they were at the ballpark, not the beach, but just didnt play as well as their opponents.

Let's take a quick look at those seven results, and the lessons learned from each one:

sounds great. i cant wait to learn these valuable "lessons."

Rockies sweep Giants
Prognosis: The Giants need more hitting. Ray Durham's abdomen injury weakens what's already one of baseball's worst offenses. The Giants own the eighth-best team ERA in the majors. But they also rank 24th in team OBP, their offense polluted by too many Pedro Feliz look-alikes.

this is not bad analysis, just incomplete. (don't worry, stick with me here, its going to get a lot dumber before were through. this might be the best of his 7 rundowns which is saying something.) the giants are in the bottom 10 in almost every team hitting stat, true. they only scored 8 runs in the series. and feliz, dave roberts, rich aurilia, and omar vizquel are a lot of the reason for their run scoring struggles.

but right or wrong, the team came into the season knowing barry bonds was going to have to provide much of the team's firepower. he's slugging .410 in may with 5 extra base hits, compared to .814 and 11 XBH in april. he's where their ability to score lots of runs starts and he hasnt been getting it done. he did hit a HR on sunday but was 0-for in the series until then. if he gets healthy, and randy winn, ryan klesko, and bengie molina can continue to hit as above average as they have so far, theyll return to the middle of the pack in those categories and win more games. on the other hand, if barry continues to stink up the joint, improvements out of those other 4 guys (none of whom are hitting THAT far below what should be expected of them except for aurilia and maybe vizquel, both of whom are old) will not help the team all that much. i hate to oversimplfy the analysis like that. but based on what you could have reasonably expected out of their lineup at the beginning of the season, the giants' offense more or less tends to go as barry goes.

The Rockies are a couple of years and one well-placed Todd Helton trade away from being really scary.

i am a huge rockies fan and very optimistic about their chances most of the time. keri's choice of language here, however, is hyperbolic. in reality they are both of those things, plus some other key trades/resignings, plus some strong development out of sketchy prospects, from being what i would consider "really scary". maybe to keri "really scary" means "capable of winning 85 games", which it should not. also, how did you discern this, jonah? anything about the games the rockies won this weekend? i guess not.

Indians sweep Tigers
Prognosis: I've been on the Tribe bandwagon all year.

you and basically every other baseball writer out there. hey, i've been on the "american idol" bandwagon for years now. (not really.)

C.C. Sabathia has gone from darkhorse Cy Young candidate to one of the front-runners. They've got the second-best record in the AL, and that's with Travis Hafner slumping through most of May (.189 average). The Tigers are still in fine shape; Magglio Ordonez (.357 AVG/.429 OBP/.686 SLG) has been the most valuable player in the game.

see, this is what im complaining about. what "lessons" did we learn from this sweep again? both these teams are good. ok... i could have learned that from looking at the standings. how about something about the tigers' miserable bullpen? cleveland's timely hitting from guys off the bench? no, nothing? ok, great.

Red Sox sweep Rangers
Prognosis: The loaded Sox didn't miss a beat without Josh Beckett, and he's due back tonight. More on the Rangers later.

so we learned the red sox can continue to win games even with a guy who plays every 5th day out, and that you want us to keep reading your column. not much of a "lesson" in either case. to be fair, the later part about the rangers he references is pretty legitimate. he basically recommends a fire sale, which the rangers already 13 games back and in that division, isnt a totally horrible idea. but still... nothing related to this particular series at all. i know the exact same amount about both teams and the series they played as i did last friday morning.

Phillies over Braves
Prognosis: The Phils are back over .500 and seem to be the wild-card contender they appeared to be on paper.

great. so what did we actually learn from this series?

The theory that most half-decent pitchers can be effective closers will get a severe test with Antonio Alfonseca thrust into the role by Charlie Manuel.

alfonseca's stats in the series: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 save. i mean, this doesnt really either help or hurt the case that he should be a closer. its just one game. again, my point being- what did we learn?

The Braves are still for real, but they need help at the back of the rotation. Then again, who doesn't?

so we learned the braves are not suddenly a bad team because of 3 bad games. also, in terms of a commodity that is hard to come by, they are in basically the same situation as most other teams. great, thanks for clearing that up. might as well have written "the braves will not be relocating to montreal anytime soon."

Angels sweep Yankees
Prognosis: If Ervin Santana could pitch only home games, the Angels' pitching would be nearly unbeatable.

santana did not pitch in this series. im not sure this fact makes keri sound dumber than if santana had, and had won a game (thus contradicting the point), but its damn close. anyways, as it was, on the weekend the rest of the staff WAS unbeatable. keri has nothing to offer about that, though. just a little side point about a guy who didnt appear in any of the 3 games.

I still think the Yankees will rebound. But if they don't turn things around, would they consider dealing some vets for younger talent? Could you imagine the low-budget Twins or A's dealing prospects for Giambi, Abreu ... or even Clemens?

again, absolutely no analysis of the weekend's games. but putting that aside for a minute, i dont even need to explain how dumb this sounds. there is a reason those guys he named are not on those teams he named- they make too much goddamn money. the only way those trades would happen is if the yankees picked nearly all of the salaries of the expensive players. i dont know what the odds are of that happening, but i would guess its pretty low. also, i hope clemens sucks bad enough when he finally makes it back that no one would want him anyways.

Mariners over Royals
Prognosis: Gil Meche might be turning back into a pumpkin; at least Alex Gordon and Ryan Shealy are showing some signs of life.

meche- fair enough, he stunk up the joint on friday night. 7 ER in 4.1 IP. but shealy and gordon? a combined 4-21, 2 R, 2 RBI, 3 BB. if that's "signs of life", then take back what you said about the giants and their anemic offense. dummy.

The M's might be the most perplexing team in baseball, with a record that's better than their talent level would seem to suggest.

so you were confused by their sweep of the royals. why did you write this column?

Things could get interesting once Richie Sexson starts hitting, especially if Felix Hernandez returns to King Felix form.

cant really disagree with you there. also, this column could get really interesting if you would just do what you said you were going to do in it.

Mets over Marlins
Prognosis: Carlos Delgado finally started hitting, which might have been the only thing the Mets lacked.

finally, something pertaining to the games that were actually played between may 25th and may 27th, 2007. christ. i would like to amend what i said at the beginning of this post- this column is now like going into a bar that claims to serve 7 different kinds of beer, then finding out they actually serve 1 watered down kind of beer.

Omar Minaya deserves his share of credit, but remember that Jose Reyes, David Wright and others were in the system before Minaya took the job.

omar minaya deserve his share of credit for this three game stretch. as he does for every other three game stretch the mets play as long as a team he partially assembled plays in them. what about any particularly solid performances beside's delgado's? im too lazy to look at the box score, but im sure there were several of them.

The Marlins should entertain offers for Dontrelle Willis; they're not making the playoffs this year, and Willis' perceived value is probably higher than his actual value at this point.

parallels the ervin santana comment from the NYY/ANA recap. willis did not fucking play in any of the three games. i suppose keri could be trying to say, "well, based on the fact that they got swept at home, theyre not a very good team and thus they should deal one of their most valuable players for some guys that will help them in the future." but he should have just SAID it like that. also, willis is not eligible for free agency (and a contract the marlins probably wouldnt pay) until after the 2009 offseason. i dont think trading him until at least this time next year would be a good idea. but hey, dont listen to me. i dont write an uncleverly titled weekly rundown column for espn.com.