On ESPN's programming decisions

Their decisions related to Sunday Night Baseball, specifically.  Deadspin linked to this earlier today, which is awesome--awesome enough for me to start reading Baseball Essential more regularly from now on.  While whoever wrote that post seemed to be trying not to over-editorialize, the results speak for themselves: ESPN, whenever possible, is going to show Yankees-Red Sox (or either of those teams even when they're not playing the other) no matter how those teams are playing.  If it's not one of those two, you've got a really good chance at seeing the Cardinals, Braves, Mets or Dodgers.  Just under 50% of SNB games since 2005 have included at least one of those teams.

Now, obviously I get that other than the Mets, who have sucked since 2009, those teams have all been very successful for most or all of the past decade.  No one wants to watch shitty teams play, so being a good team is a good way to make it into the only nationally televised game of the week that is alone in its timeslot.  But for fuck's sake, look at this graph from that post:



Are you shitting me?  The Blue Jays haven't even been that bad for the last decade.  Sure, no playoff appearances, but they've fielded some decent teams, finishing at or over .500 for 4 of the past 7 seasons and employing a couple different superstar caliber players in that time.  Add to that the fact that they're in the AL East, and thus have to have at least a couple Sunday games against the Yankees or Red Sox every season.  And they haven't been on fucking SNB fucking ONCE?  Christ on a crutch, that's embarrassing.  It's a little less egregious in the case of the Mariners, who have been pretty bad for a while, but their ballpark is awesome and they do have King Felix.  (Admittedly, it's hard to schedule a SNB game a couple months out and be sure he would start that night, but come on.)  ZERO appearances?  Apply similar logic to varying degrees as we go up the graph from right to left along the graph; when you factor in quality of team and size of fanbase, I think the relatively low numbers of White Sox, Rangers, Twins and Brewers games are also infuriating.

The question about these decisions on ESPN's part is one I've tackled a few times on this here blog, and I'm happy to tackle it again, because I am lazy and like recycling my own ideas like an unpaid version of Rick Reilly.  It's a chicken and egg problem--does ESPN only show the teams that seem to have gigantic fanbases all over the country, or are there gigantic fanbases for those first ten or so teams from left to right in part because ESPN (and MLB itself) forces those teams on everyone at every possible turn?  I'm sure the answer is "some of both," but what pisses me off is the way the other three main American sports leagues seem to not be nearly as egregious about this as MLB and its main primetime national TV partner are.

If the Grizzlies and  Trailblazers are both having a great season, ESPN is going to nationally televise their next game and people are going to watch.  If the Jaguars and Titans are both somehow 10-2 in early December, their divisional game is going to get flexed into Sunday Night Football and people are going to watch (apply same logic for ESPN's Monday Night Football scheduling the following season).  The NHL is actually closer to MLB in this regard than the NFL or NBA, as they don't do a particularly great job of promoting teams other than those in eastern Canada/the Great Lakes region/the Northeast, but 1) they don't have an ESPN contract so I know ESPN isn't complicit, and 2) I spend enough time on the hockey internetz to know that fans are most definitely talking quite a bit about the surprising Predators and Lightning this year--certainly more than I'd expect MLB fans to talk about the Astros and Padres if each are in first place come July.

Based on all this, I guess I have to conclude that there's something about baseball fans that pulls them towards the Yankees/Red Sox/etc. moreso than fans from other sports are pulled towards those sports' equivalent franchises.  By way of example, I'm sure the percentage of baseball fans residing Phoenix who are Yankees fans is way higher than the percentage of hockey fans who are (New York) Rangers fans.  But it's still goddamn ridiculous to look at SNB, which could definitely be used as a tool by the league (in dictating to ESPN what games they can choose for their broadcasts) to promote some up and coming teams, and see that the first five matchups in 2015 include Yankees-Red Sox twice, Yankees-Mets, Cubs-Cardinals and Cardinals-Reds.  That's one team slot out of ten filled by a team that isn't on national TV every goddamn week already via either an ESPN weeknight game or FOX's Saturday games.

I guess what I'm trying to say, besides go read that linked article for yourself, is fuck ESPN, fuck MLB, and fuck everything else.  I hate it all.

Counterpoint: Bill Simmons is an unprofessional dumbass who doesn't belong on TV

As promised last week, this is a post in which I directly address a Bill supporter's praise of Bill.  Is this article fruit that hangs as low as Bill's own work hangs?  Of course.  Chris Chase writes "For the Win," (I know...) a blog on USA Today's site (I know, I know...), which upon its launch was publicized as follows:

For The Win wants to take a BuzzFeed-style viral media approach to sports media. The new site, which will compete with rivals like Deadspin, will focus on finding “shareable” content that will be appealing even to people who don’t follow sports.

I KNOW.  I KNOW.  It's not like this is a graduate thesis that can only be ripped apart with careful and incisive analysis.  But the point is this: there really are hundreds of thousands (millions?) of assholes out there who think this stuff about Bill.  This guy is at least good enough at expressing such thoughts to get a job with a major media outlet (even if that outlet is America's foremost source of charts, infographs, and other news fit for consumption in the breakfast room of a Best Western).  To Chris Chase, I say this: your opinion about Bill Simmons is most definitely not FTW.  More like FTL lololol GOT HIM.

Bill Simmons is the best thing about ESPN's NBA Draft broadcast
By: Chris Chase

Judging by chatter on Twitter, this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but here goes: Bill Simmons was the best thing about ESPN’s NBA draft coverage on Thursday night. 

Obviously at this point I have no way of tracking what was said about Bill the night of the draft.  There may have been a lot of negative tweeting about him, but I'd be surprised if more than 25% of all fans serious enough about the NBA to watch the draft dislike him.  It's more of a vocal minority thing.  Or so I'd suppose.  I cannot validate this with anything but anecdotes and vague estimates of the number of people I know who like Bill as compared to the number I know who hate him.  What do you want me to do, put work into this blog?  Get fucking real.

The whole team was great, 

Sort of.

but particularly Simmons, 

No.

whose NBA fanboy routine plays best during the league’s annual selection show.

His NBA fanboy routine, which is really a Celtics and himself fanboy routine, never plays well.  He's awful.  Compare him to his closest analogue, Sir Charlies.  (Not that they're exactly the same, but they have the same roles on their respective NBA shows: deep "real talk" color commentary.)  Now it's tough for anyone to stack up next to Barkley, who is a national treasure, but just look at their respective levels of professionalism.  Barkley is occasionally cutting and dark with his commentary, but when he is it's always well-supported with analysis that's not just self-promotion and snarky rhetorical questions.  Meanwhile, he never 1) cheerleads for teams he played for or likes or 2) says ridiculous bullshit like whine "DO I GET TO TALK NOW????" when he's not the center of attention or drag his feuds out into the spotlight which then affects whatever broadcast he's on.  Bill Simmons doesn't belong on TV any more than I do, and my voice is nearly as annoying as his.

Simmons style, which is hit-or-miss on NBA pre-game and post-game coverage, 

Simmons style, which is hit-or-miss on NBA pre-game and post-game coverage for some reason

Fixed that for you.

is perfectly suited for the draft. He gives a fresh perspective. 

Examples?  He's not ignorant about basketball.  He's also not in any way intelligent or interesting.  He doesn't have some kind of smart eye for talent (Jeff Van Gundy), or for X's and O's (Hubie Brown).  He's just a guy who likes the sport and thinks he's always right.  He should join Wilbon and Kornheiser on PTI and make it a triumvirate of insufferable know-it-all dipshits.  Of course, we know what Wilbon thinks about BLOGGERS who write BLOGS.  But you get my point.

He’s passionate. 

Sure.  That doesn't make for especially good TV, though.

He loves the NBA and it comes across on the telecast, which is harder than it sounds. 

I don't need my commentators to love the sports they're talking about.  I just need them to not be bored, by which I mean I need them to not sound like Joe Buck.  Past that "love for the game" threshold, intelligence and insight are about a million times more important than passion.

And, above all, he’s able to convey the importance of picking players for the future while still acknowledging that it’s mostly a crapshoot.

Yeah, that's such a crazy, abstract concept.  Most fans have no idea that that's how the draft works.  Good thing future Bucks GM and Official Vertical Integration Machine of ESPN/ABC/Disney Bill Simmons is here to explain it to us.  Jesus Christ.  That sentence might as well say "I really like Bill Simmons, so let me pat him on the back for knowing what the draft is and how professional sports generally work."

Other than some new bells and whistles, draft coverage hasn’t changed much in 20 years. The first round goes something like this: pick, analysis of the pick, highlight reel, interview (if the player is there), more discussion, commercial, preview of upcoming pick, repeat 32 times. Simmons brings something new. He gives real opinions that don’t feel sanitized for mass consumption.

Yeah, Bill's great at #realtalk.  Remember all that wacky, subversive, off-the-wall analysis he provided in his most notable analytical moment so far?  Who could forget #strongtaeks like "WHOA!" and "I need medical attention!"

One moment summed up all of that. When the Boston Celtics, Simmons’ favorite team, drafted James Young, the cameras caught him doing this.

What a punchable face.  I mean, he's always got a punchable face, but that's an excellent screen cap.  That's his face at its MOST punchable.  Quite a sight.  Also, I'm glad fist pumping now counts as a "real opinion[]" that "[doesn't] feel sanitized for mass consumption."  WATCH OUT AMERICA.  HERE COMES THE JOHNNY ROTTEN OF BASKETBALL ANALYSIS.

A certain segment of the Internet hated it. They called Simmons a biased homer without any professionalism. 

And they were completely right!

Okay, let’s say that’s true. 

It is.

So what?

It makes for shitty TV.  Every fan serious enough about the NBA to watch the draft has a favorite team.  Everyone will have an opinion about what their favorite team did during the draft.  Who gives a flying cunt about this guy's opinion about his team?  How is it any different than what House-O, who was sitting next to you at the bar, had to say about what just happened?  Just because this guy was born on third base, and then caught lightning in a bottle at the onset of the sports blogosphere, it's supposed to be entertaining to see him being excited for his team while wearing a suit and sitting with actual professional sports analysts?  Go fuck yourself.

Give me an actual opinion from someone with a known bias rather than phony opinions from someone with a hidden bias. 

What hidden biases do most commentators have?  The fuck are you talking about?  This is not politics, where you have to be very careful to understand the backgrounds/motivations of the talking heads on TV.  This is sports.  I promise you, Jalen Rose and Doug Collins are not coloring their analysis with carefully chosen positive or negative buzzwords for guys that were drafted by teams they like/dislike.  It's not hard to remain unbiased as a sports commentator.  Sports are fun.  Maybe Jalen hates the Bulls for the way they traded him to Toronto.  You think that's going to affect what he says about a guy the Bulls drafted?  Again, go fuck yourself.

There are conflicts of interest often in sports broadcasting, not just on ESPN. You think Jon Gruden doesn’t pull punches on Monday Night Football so as not to insult a team he might be criticizing? 

You fucking IDIOT.  Have you ever watched a Gruden MNF broadcast?  GRUDEN ADORES EVERY SINGLE PLAYER AND TEAM IN THE LEAGUE!  He won't shut the fuck up about how great everyone is.  He can make Blaine Gabbert sound like Joe Montana.  And this isn't some secret, hidden talent that Gruden spent years honing.  It comes naturally to him, because he's not a dipshit.  Bill IS a dipshit.  That's the whole problem here.  Jesus Christ.  Of ALL the examples you could have chosen to try to prop up your shitty argument that commentators have biases that cause them to "pull punches" or whatever, none of which would be good examples because basically no national commentator does that, you chose the worst possible one.

Or that recently retired players are easier on former teammates because they’re buddies? 

First of all, that doesn't apply during the draft.  Second of all, when it does apply (like if the ESPN Sunday Countdown crew is discussing the Ravens with Ray Lewis on the set or something), nearly always the other analysts will go out of their way to make the situation as unawkward as possible by not forcing the recently retired guy to give an opinion, or by prefacing whatever he's about to say with "Now I know you have some friends on the team."  And even after all that happens, you know what?  Often, the player will give a pretty reasonable and insightful opinion (as much as you can have insightful opinions on telecasts like NFL pregame shows, which is not at all) on the team/player in question.  It's just not that hard to do.  Bill Simmons is not a shining beacon of objectivity in a sea of bullshit.  TV sports analysis is actually pretty much a sea of bullshit, but Simmons isn't just a part of it.  He makes it worse by not even managing to act like an adult on set.  Fuck him and fuck his fans.

Simmons made his career partially built on his ability to be a fan whose passion was relatable.

That was pretty novel in 1998.  It's not novel anymore, and he's gone from a self-deprecating "aw shucks, Boston sports break my heart all the time" guy to a pompous, self-obsessed twat.  Let's stop giving him credit for the original Boston Sports Guy shit he wrote during the Clinton administration.

Simmons loving Larry Bird hardly measures up to that. 

Actually, I'm glad you brought up that point to undermine your own point, because you know what?  Simmons and his love for Bird absolutely DO measure up to the idea (again, not applicable during the NBA draft) that maybe sometimes Bill Cowher goes easy on the Steelers or whatever.

This is sports. People are supposed to be biased homers. As long as you wear that opinion proudly, who’s it harming? 

Here's a better question: who's it helping?  Who's enjoying it, other than unoriginal waterheads who think Simmons is fantastic?

Wouldn’t you rather hear that diehard Celtics fan Bill Simmons like the James Young pick rather than the usual bland analysis about how James Young could possibly fit into Brad Stevens’ system? 

Not at all!  Not even a little bit!

That fist pump told you more about the Young pick than any commentary could. 

Holy shit.

It doesn’t mean Simmons is right, but at least we know where he actually stands and can form our own opinion based on that. 

No we can't.  No we fucking can't.  We can't form shit based on that, unless for some reason we're dumb enough to think Bill has a better grasp on NBA prospects than actual analysts like Chad Ford.  Who gives a bloody, runny shit about what Bill Simmons thinks?  Again, I mean, other than his fanboys.

Sometimes that may lead to arguments with Doc Rivers, like on last year’s telecast. Again, isn’t that more interesting than the alternative?

That was better than if Simmons gladhanded Rivers, I suppose, but read the Bleacher Report article I linked above--the way Simmons beat up on Rivers for years, and more or less baited him with a series of tweets prior to the draft, was pathetic.  It was more car-crash-can't-look-away interesting than oh-cool-something-real-and-fun interesting.

There are problems, of course. His rants can quickly devolve into whininess, he interrupts way too much and you always get the sense he doesn’t know as much about the college players as he lets on. 

Haha, no way, don't be silly!  You sound like someone who has maybe actually paid attention to stuff Bill has been saying throughout his career and have thus reached the inevitable conclusion that he shouldn't be paid for his opinions or analysis, much less be paid to talk about them on TV.

The last part isn’t his fault. 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Simmons was paying attention to the NBA from October to June. That’s his job. 

Yeah!  Who has time to, like, KNOW stuff about college basketball when they're busy doing a few hours of TV and a couple podcasts a week?  HE'S NOT SUPERMAN, PEOPLE!!! WHAT DO YOU WANT OUT OF HIM???  Well, for one, I'd rather he didn't just make shit up.  But I suppose that's asking a lot from the guy who has successfully completed over 1,000 WHO SAYS NO? trades on the ESPN Trade Machine (TM)(Patent pending).

Even if he locked himself in a room and watched game tape for the 11 days in between the end of the NBA Finals and the start of the NBA draft, he wouldn’t know nearly enough about the draftees. 

Actually, that's not true.  If he did that for 11 days straight, he'd definitely know enough about them to not sound like a diptard on TV.  HOWEVA: there is a prerequisite to that hypothetical coming to pass.  In order for any of this to happen, he'd have to be capable of gleaning knowledge about players by watching tape, something I'm 100% sure he is not able to do.  So this is all ifs and buts and candies and nuts.

But that’s why Jay Bilas is on the set.

Jay Bilas is on the set to know things.  Bill is on the set to pump his fist for the Celtics and pretend to know things.  I wonder which one of them has a higher salary?

Speaking of Bilas, he’s part of a team that helps Simmons thrive. 

I'm so, so, so sorry Jay.  Years and years of hard work, pounding pavement, attending hundreds of NCAA games--all so you could one day serve as Bill's caddy.  Holy dog balls, that's depressing.

You can’t have a bunch of me-first guys on the floor, 

You really shouldn't have ANY me-first guys on the floor.  This is why Shaq doesn't quite fit with Ernie, Kenny and Charles.  Shaq still needs that attention.  The other three don't (nor does Chris Webber for that matter).

so it helps that the always-underrated Rece Davis is there to keep Simmons in check. 

I like Rece Davis.  This blog is often so virulently negative that I felt like throwing that it, with no caveats.  Rece Davis is damn good at his job.  There, I said it.

Bilas is great too; he shows you can combine perspective, a sense of humor and keen knowledge of players. 

Three things Simmons doesn't have!

Jalen Rose is the weak link on the panel. He’s still trying to find his schtick, but he has a good rapport with Simmons and doesn’t immediately make you want to change the channel like half of ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown crew.

NFL Sunday Countdown is terrible.  Rose is pretty OK.  Simmons is terrible.

Richard Deistch of Sports Illustrated says the NBA Countdown team is in flux for next year. Here’s hoping Simmons stays around and continues to breathe some life into a format that desperately needs it.

I'd rather watch the WNBA draft than watch another NBA draft with Simmons on the set.  He sucks.  In conclusion, Chris Chase is a dummy.

THE PEOPLE DEMAND MORE JETER COVERAGE

First thing's first--if you've never been to this blog before, and arrived recently for the first time because someone linked you to it along with a note to the effect of "Look at what this angry stupid guy has to say!" please don't bother leaving your dumb comment. Just close this tab and kindly fuck off. Thanks.

With that out of the way, let's get back to Jeter, who surely is not only the greatest athlete of all time, but indeed, the greatest person. Jeter Jeter? Jeter Jeter Jeter. Jeter Jeter calm eyes clutch hustle gift baskets.  Should he be elected to the HOF unanimously? SI's Sam Border (in a column from 2011, right around when he picked up his 3,000th hit) makes a very compelling case that he should, and further, that Jeter should also be the next President and Vice President of the United States of America.

At first blush, it seems unlikely that there could ever been a total agreement on anything in baseball. Arguing has forever been part of the game. It is everywhere: You see the infield in, I see pinched at the corners.

Which is it? It can only be one of those. This is not a good example of an argument in which people who are well-versed in the subject matter can reasonably disagree.

You see a curve, I see a slider.

Again, those are two different things, so if two people are arguing about it, one of them is wrong.

You see the hot dog man, I see cotton candy.

And now you're not even trying.

When it comes to the Hall of Fame, which is currently voted on by people ranging from tenured baseball writers to members of various committees,

From those people, to morality-policing assholes who only shape their preferences based on the direction the wind is blowing, to guys who write for golf magazines and haven't covered baseball in a decade, to idiot know-nothing basement-dwelling bloggers like Murray Chass.

the divergence of opinion becomes even more magnified.

No it doesn't. This is high school level writing. "My thesis is that people disagree about the Hall of Fame. Because it's my thesis and I want to make it sound poignant, in fact I'm pretty sure they disagree more about the Hall of Fame than any people have ever disagreed about anything ever."

Generally, this is a group that can't agree on anything: Sandy Koufax only got 87 percent of the votes when he was elected in 1972.

Although it's idiotic that anyone wouldn't vote for him, at least there's a plausible reason for it with the way his career ended so prematurely.

Mickey Mantle got 88 percent.

And in contrast, that's just fucking stupid.

Even Babe Ruth -- only the greatest hitter ever -- had five percent of the voters say he wasn't a Hall of Famer.

Ah, the original asshole voters, the ones who make it ok for today's assholes to practice their assholism.

Tom Seaver, who missed unanimous election by just five votes, got 98.84 percent in 1992 and remains the closest to perfection.

Seaver was amazing, of course, but to top the percentage received by guys like Aaron and Ruth, he must have been a real asskisser when sportswriters were around. "Yes, Mr. Pearlman, I agree that athletes are horrible people. You are absolutely right. Would you like another autograph?"

In other words, unanimity isn't the Hall electorate's strong point and it is very likely there will never be a player to get 100 percent of the votes. In fact, in looking at the current baseball landscape, I would propose that there is only one player in the foreseeable future who even has a chance at accomplishing such a feat.

Sure, but Mike Trout is only 22. He won't be eligible for about 25 years if baseball fans are lucky.

One player who might bridge the gap between stat-geeks and the crusty old lifers.

True, he's got the gaudy WAR totals, he's got the traditional stats, he's got the hustle/grit.  Pretty prescient of you to know how good he would be back in 2011, before he even made his MLB debut.

One player who everyone -- regardless of their individual views on the game -- sees as worthy.

Whoa, easy! Dial it back at least until Trout is 30.

You've probably heard of him.

Frank Stallone?

His name is Derek Jeter.

:-(

Now, Jeter is a great player. (Watch out! This dumb petty angry blogger is about to say nice things about the player he's been tearing down for the past week!) If I had an HOF vote I'd happily cast it for Jeter on the first ballot. And I'm the first person to point out what a bunch of fucktards HOF voters are. But look, let's face facts. Not even the mystical dreamy eyed flip play good face True Yankee powers of Derek Jeter are going to stop some overprincipled cuntface from casting a blank ballot in 2019 because there are CHEATING CHEATERZ up for election. And there will be some non-cuntface voters who decide to be contrarian and also not vote for him, because fuck it they have a vote and the unwashed masses don't, and they don't feel like voting for him. What are you going to do? It is what it is.  And sorry I'm not sorry, but Jeter just isn't dreamy enough to me to make me hope he manages to cure the collective idiocy of the voters.

Or, at least I hope this is the case. If Jeter actually does get elected unanimously, overcoming the barriers I just described, I'm going to shit myself. God, how insufferable would that be? I'd have to stop following baseball for a year. Disaster. It can't happen. It won't happen.

/Larry B hyperventilates

In the third season of The West Wing (which, frankly, should get 100 percent of the votes when it's eligible for the Greatest Series Ever Hall of Fame),

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Aaron Sorkin sucks balls. Your taste is as bad as your baseball analytical abilities.

there is a scene in the episode "The Two Bartlets" where

Paragraph deleted. I do not give a fuck. Keep your West Wing fanboyism to yourself please. (The gist was that some people are popular with all kinds of voters, from sophisticated to unsophisticated. Same thing he already said above.)

Jeter is the same.

You know who else was the same? Rickey Henderson. Tony Gwynn. Mike Schmidt. None of those guys were unanimous. I don't know how many starlets they fucked, or how many 306 foot opposite field pop fly home runs that would have been outs in 29 of the 30 stadiums in the league those guys happened to hit in big moments, but Jeter is not more worthy of unanimity than they were.

The demographics of the Hall of Fame voters are obviously difficult to pin down, but there are some generalizations that can be made. To get 100 percent of the votes, a player would need to appeal to everyone:

Top notch analysis.

Those who value traditional statistics and those who look at more modern metrics;

Those who prefer the latter to the former see Jeets for what he is: an awesome player, a first ballot HOFer, but a guy who also is pretty hilariously overrated by those who prefer the former to the latter.

those who care about winning and those who want gaudy personal totals;

People who care more about the former demand to know why Scott Brosius hasn't been enshrined yet.

those who look for dignity and representing the game well and those who simply use their "gut" to tell them if a player is worthy.

These people are also known as fucktards.

Want advanced stats? Jeter's career WAR is 70.2, which is 55th all-time among position players. Roberto Alomar, who got 90 percent of the 539 votes cast this year and will be inducted in Cooperstown on Sunday, is below him at 63.5. So is another shortstop in Barry Larkin (68.9), as well as Tony Gwynn (68.4), Jackie Robinson (63.2),Yogi Berra (61.9) and roughly three-quarters of the rest of the players already in the Hall.

Jeter's WAR total is in the top quartile of all HOFers. Therefore: voters should get together and agree to induct him unanimously when no one has previously been so inducted. Makes sense. If we can't tongue Jeter's asshole one last time before he fades into history, why have a Hall of Fame at all?

Prefer more traditional markers? Jeter has already passed 3,000 career hits, a long-time benchmark for position players.

Yes. This is one of the reasons he is definitely a Hall of Famer. It is also not a reason to treat his election differently than Stan Musial's, Ted Williams's, etc.

Consider, too, that Cal Ripken is currently the position player toreceived the greatest percentage of votes (98.53 percent in 2007) and Jeter has him beat -- handily -- in most critical rate statistics.  Jeter's .312 career average is 36 points higher than Ripken's. His .383 on-base percentage is 43 points higher. His .831 OPS is 43 points higher.

First of all, great job double-counting OBP and OPS.  Hmmm.  I wonder how their career SLGs stack up?

Second of all, "critical rate statistics." Interesting. Why are they so critical?  Why isn't the fact that Ripken had almost 200 more HR than Dreamy Eyes McGee in only 800 additional PAs critical?  Anyways, when you adjust for park and era, Jeter's offensive edge over Ripken is not as striking (career OPS+es of 117 and 112, respectively). But how about the "critical" counting stat of WAR (rWAR in this case, because fuck Fangraphs), where Ripken has a 95ish to 70ish edge? Jeter actually has an edge in oWAR, but it is more than made up for by Ripken's enormous dWAR edge (35ish to -10ish). Turns out baseball is about more than just hitting, and Jeter has been a joke on defense for about 14 seasons. Ripken never recorded a negative dWAR in his career. Jeter has only recorded a positive dWAR three times, and two of those were during the 90s. It's fucking bonkers how good Ripken was. Jeter is a first ballot HOFer, but Ripken is one of the 50 or so best players ever. Jeter can't make that claim, no matter how clurtch he is/was.

Ripken, of course, is crediting with "saving baseball" after the disaster of the 1994 strike and there is value in that.

Typo is (sic).  Anyways, what? If that even is a topic people discuss, I'm pretty sure McGwire and Sosa receive that credit, as they probably should.

Public perception is certainly a factor for some voters -- does this player "matter?" -- and Ripken did. But as much as anyone ever has, Jeter has mattered, too.

Barf.

He has been the face of the game's most famous franchise 

Definitely.

and, in many ways, the entire league, 

Barf.

for nearly his entire career: After 9/11.  

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Can't we all just agree that without Jeter, we never would have gotten over it?

When Team USA competed in the World Baseball Classic for the first time. 

First of all, I like the WBC just fine, but let's face facts: no one really gives a shit about it.  Second of all, in the 2006 WBC, against teams not named South Africa (which the US beat 17-0), Jeter was six for seventeen with one walk and two errors.  We didn't get out of the second round, finishing 8th, behind basically every single other nation on earth that cares about baseball.  So yeah.  Not sure "Member of 2006 USA WBC team" is a really strong line on his resume.

When Yankee Stadium was closed down. 

I like the implication that this was an important moment for MLB rather than just the Yankees.

When George Steinbrenner died.

Same.

He has been popular. 

Definitely.

He has been dignified. 

How?  How?  Fucking how?  This is more idiotic Jeter ballwashing with virtually no substance.  Yes, he has never been legal trouble or linked to steroids during his career.  Congratulations Derek, you've reached the lofty dignified heights achieved by 90% of all MLB players.  What else has he done?  Is he known for any special charity efforts, above and beyond what any other star player does?  I've fucking had it with hearing about how when a guy plays for the Yankees and doesn't live like a shithead, somehow he's the epitome of class.  Fuck that.  Ken Griffey Jr. is virtually identical to Jeter in the "he wasn't a shithead" department.  Griffey's one mildly unclassy act was the way he more or less forced the Mariners to trade him to Cincinnati, ruining their leverage; the Jeter equivalent is the way he refused to switch to 3B for ARod.  Both guys, other than those mild missteps, were/are decent human beings.  So why is one of them just remembered as the guy who hit all those home runs without steroids, and the other is Christ come back to earth?  It's fucking disgusting.  I'm sick of it, and if you disagree with me on this point, you are a bad person.

He has been reliable and trustworthy for fans, never letting them down with even a hint of a connection to gambling or crime or the use of PEDs.

LOLZ @ the idea that he deserves a pat on the back for not being linked to gambling.  What decade is this, the 1920s?  Other than Rose, has a single active high (or even medium) profile player been linked to gambling since World War II?  If one has I sure as hell can't think of him right now.  [Late breaking update: Chris W, because he is a jealous hater who wants to dump on my blogging at every possible turn, points out that Denny McClain fits this criterion.  Fair enough.  So that's two prominent players since WWII.  Someone throw Jeter a parade for not being either of them.]

No one would say that Jeter is the best player ever or even, necessarily, of his generation. 

Oh, I don't think you'd have to look too far to find quite a few people who think both of those things.

But that is not the issue here. The question is whether he is someone everyone, regardless of how they rate a player's career, could see the name "Derek Jeter" and immediately think "Hall of Fame."

Greg Maddux didn't get 100% of the vote.  He's on the short list of nominees for best pitcher in baseball history.  He hit every traditional statistical milestone, and was adored by "fancy stats" people.  He was regarded as a good teammate.  He has a ring.  There is no way to not think "Hall of Fame" when you see "Greg Maddux."  Of course I think it's moronic to say "Well Maddux didn't get 100% of the vote, so Jeter shouldn't either."  But saying "Jeter has 3000 hits and 70 WAR, so can't we all agree that he should go in unanimously?" is equally moronic.

The question is whether Jeter is good for all time zones.

It's tough for anyone to stack up to an all time legend like Greg Maddux.  So how about we compare Jeter to Wade Boggs?  3000 hits, played for two of baseball's marquee franchises and won a ring with one of them, was great with the glove, and has a much higher WAR total than Jeter.  Sounds like a sure fire "Hall of Fame" guy to me.  Now I'll grant that Boggs had some personal failings that Maddux, Griffey, Jeter, etc. appear not to have.  But he wasn't ever connected to steroids, crime or (lol) gambling.  Other than the fact that he drank too much and allegedly had some problems with teammates, how was he not good enough "for all time zones" to be unanimously elected?  "But Jeter Jeter Jeter!" is about as far as any of these ballwashers can go, and it makes me sad for them.  This and so many other articles reads like a teen girl's diary entry about a member of a boy band.  It's fucking pathetic.  Full stop.

If you look at the active players ahead of Jeter on the all-time list of position players in terms of WAR, there may be an inclination to wonder why Jeter -- and not, say, Albert Pujols -- would have the best chance at becoming the first 100 percenter. It's a reasonable question.

It sure is!

Here are the players ahead of Jeter:

1. Alex Rodriguez

2. Albert Pujols

3. Chipper Jones

4. Jim Thome

Let's not ignore other guys who at the time of this writing were retired but not yet eligible or currently on the ballot but not yet elected: Frank Thomas (ahead of Jeter in rWAR, behind in fWAR, but like I said fuck Fangraphs), Larry Walker (same) Jeff Bagwell (UH OH HE HAD MUSCLES BETTER NOT ELECT HIM), Palmeiro (OK I can see why he's not getting elected) and Griffey.  Not to mention Lou Whittaker.  Sorry Lou--maybe if you had been more dignified and classy, you wouldn't have been booted off the ballot so quickly!

Taken in reverse order, Thome (while an incredible hitter) will inevitably be docked by some for not playing a field position for much of his career. He never really had a chance.

And maybe Jeter should be docked by some for being a bad defender and not having Thome's 600+ home runs.  At least Thome wasn't actively hurting his team while the other team was batting.

Jones, who statistically is one of the most underrated players of all time (his 141 OPS+ is third among third basemen in history) will nevertheless suffer among the intangible-heavy voters, who may hold back because they don't think of him as a "winner." 

These people are idiots who should have their HOF votes taken away, and then be sealed inside a cave somewhere in Nepal.

It also hurts Jones that he played his entire career in Atlanta, which -- while certainly not Kansas City -- doesn't have the spotlight of other cities.

This is the closest he will come to admitting that "Jeter deserves more credit because THE BIG APPLE QED."

Pujols, too, will be knocked for a lack of winning, though he has time to change that.

He has since won his second World Series, getting on base at almost a .500 clip and hitting five home runs in 80 PAs that postseason.  On the other hand, he has also since started hitting like dogshit, fueling speculation (from me) that he's older than he says he is, and will continue to decline rapidly.  He's still almost certainly going to top 100 WAR though, putting him in the top 30 or so all time.  600 HR isn't out of the question and 3000 hits is a possibility.  He could retire today and have had a better career than Jeter.  But I agree, because Jeter happened to play on a really awesome Yankees team during the late 90s that won four WSes, and Pujols did not, that's definitely a reason that Jeter is the better player.

Ultimately, the question with Pujols will be about his popularity. Even now, in his prime, Pujols ranks sixth in terms of jersey sales, below players like Jeter (No. 1), Joe Mauer (No. 2) and Chase Utley (No. 4), and even if continues to produce the way he has, his (relatively) lower profile will likely be what keeps him from challenging the 100 percent mark.

You're a fucking diptard.  At the time this was written Pujols had a pretty good shot at hitting 700+ home runs.  He had an outside shot at 763 (finished 2011 with 445--was supposedly about to enter his age 32 season, meaning if he could do something like 35-35-35-30-30-30-25-25-25 he'd be at Ruth's mark entering his age 41 season.  I mean if ifs and buts were candy and nuts and all that, but still.  Saying in 2011 "If Pujols can continue to hit like he has (i.e., like one of the top ten hitters ever), I suppose he might be as good a nominee for unanimous HOF election as Jeter, but he doesn't sell as many jersies, so...." is just agonizingly stupid.

As for A-Rod, the issue is moot. His admission to using PEDs during his career means the question is less about whether he'll get in unanimously and more about whether he'll get in at all.

Very true, and much more true in 2014 than it was in 2011, but can we also just agree that A-FRAUD's real sin was dragging Jeter down throughout the former's whole career as a Yankee and limiting New York to just one WS win during that time?  Honestly, Derek deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor for overcoming A-ROID's .365/.500/.808 line during the 2009 postseason and carrying the team to a championship.  (To Jeter's credit, he hit like a maniac that postseason too: .344/.432/.563.)

Jeter does not have that issue. He is clean. 

$2,000 from Larry B to the Red Cross for a positive test anytime before the end of this season.  Can you imagine the hilarious articles writers like this guy would frantically bang out in Jeter's defense?  "If he's guilty of anything, it's wanting to win too much."

He is beloved. 

You don't say.

He has won five championships. 

And yet, just one without Tino Martinez.  Who was carrying who on those late 90s Yankees teams?  Food for thought.

He has been a 12-time All-Star. He has the numbers, regardless of which numbers you happen to think are important.

Rickey Henderson: did not have the numbers, or something.

I know that baseball has forever been a game of friendly disagreement but Derek Jeter is a first ballot Hall of Famer.

Correct.  Unfortunately that's a different (and much less stupid) point than the one you've been trying to make throughout this dumb article.

Surely there's at least a chance we could all agree on that?

I have no problem with that.  Now shut up and go away.

Teaser for my next Jeter post: the title of it (not making this up) contains the words: "Shut up, stats nerds and haters."  It's gonna be gooooood.

Rick Reilly gets OHsofuckingclose to writing a good article; ruins it in the last five sentences

Been working on a post about Jonah Keri's MLB trade value rankings, but it's not done, so I thought I'd share this tonight.  Holy ballsack, there is no way Rick Reilly wrote the first 95% of this.  You can bet your bottom dollar he wrote the last 5% though--particularly the last sentence.  You'll see.  Most of this is so inoffensive (and at times, even dryly funny) that I can present it with very minimal comment.  The subject matter: while HOF voters are taking idiotic (and often completely unfounded; Bagwell, Biggio, and more to come) stances regarding players who are allegedly tied to PEDs, the expansion era committee voters happily sent in three managers who managed several of STEROID HISTORY'S GREATEST MONSTERS for extended periods of time.  Although the two voting bodies consist of different people, that's fucking dumb, no?

I'm so pumped up for next July in Cooperstown!

I can't wait to see who's going to be in the crowd at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony for new members Tony La Russa, Bobby Cox and Joe Torre.

Maybe Mark McGwire will show up? It might be as close as he'll ever get. La Russa managed him for 15 seasons in both Oakland and St. Louis and says he never saw McGwire do a single steroid. Imagine that.

Simple unadorned sarcasm that doesn't have a cringe-inducing pun or play on words.  Like I said, if you're like me, you'll have a hard time believing Rick wrote this.

Maybe Alex Rodriguez will attend? He probably won't get in, either. Former New York Yankees skipper Torre says he didn't even notice A-Roid's alleged PED use in the four years he managed him. A-Roid's got plenty of time to go to Cooperstown. He's appealing a 211-game suspension for PEDs. Torre? No ban for him. In fact, he's an executive vice president of Major League Baseball now.

Maybe former Atlanta Braves manager Cox will look out in the crowd to see his old star Gary Sheffield. Probably not. Cox says he never saw all the PEDs Sheffield was taking when he had him right under his nose in the Atlanta clubhouse.

To be fair, Cox was probably legally blind by the mid 90s.

In all, the three managers being inducted oversaw at least 34 players who've been implicated as PED users and never noticed a thing wrong.

Now this isn't entirely fair.  It's not like any of these managers have (to my knowledge) gone on record and swore that they never once ever suspected any of their players ever took any steroids ever ever cross my heart and hope to die on a stack of Bibles.  But the general point here is 100% fair--the national media and a good chunk of baseball's fanbase have spent the last 15 years getting preachy and angry about steroid use.  It's escalated during the course of the last 5 or so years to a fever pitch.  It's probably not going away anytime soon.  So given that the role of a manager is to know his players inside and out so he can put them in the best possible position to succeed on the field, how is there zero outrage directed at these guys?  I'm not saying that steroidmongers should treat managers exactly the same as they treat players.  I'm saying, given that there are dozens of writers and hundreds of thousands of fans bursting with moral indignation at the idea of guys like Clemens and Bonds getting into the HOF, why hasn't there been ANY discussion at all on the national level about the role managers played in enabling steroid use?

Sorry.  Rick, you're doing a good job.  Back to you.

You could build a wing with the admitted and suspected drug cheats they won with: A-Rod, Roger Clemens (Torre), Jason Giambi (Torre and La Russa), McGwire, Jose Canseco (La Russa), Melky Cabrera (Torre and Cox), David Justice (Torre and Cox), Andy Pettite (Torre), Manny Ramirez (Torre with the Dodgers) and Sheffield (Torre and Cox.)

What the fuck is Melky Cabrera doing with the rest of these guys?  Other than that, great point.

If we get really lucky, maybe disgraced HGH pitcher Darren Holmes will show up. He played under all three of them!

I'm sure Rick didn't do that research himself, but the fact that he thought to ask someone else to do it represents a level of effort miles beyond what he usually puts out.

It's just another year in the Hall of Farce, 

Dumb, but not as dumb as his usual "jokes."  I'm just thrilled he DIDN'T go with "Hall of Shame."

where the codes of conduct shift like beach sand; where the rules for one set of men are ignored for another; where PED poppers can never enter, but the men who turned their backs to the cheating get gleaming, bronze plaques.

Hail The Great Enablers!

Holy crap, it's a little melodramatic (it's not like the managers were buying the steroids for the players or anything), but wow, that's borderline good writing.

La Russa's slipping on the Hall of Fame jersey Monday is the sight that really tested my gag reflex. He did more for juicers than Jack LaLanne. 

A dated reference, to be sure, but again not nearly as dumb as his usual fare.  I expected a joke about Orange Julius or something.

He managed McGwire and Canseco -- the Wright Brothers of the Druggie Era -- for 21 combined seasons. He made millions on their pimpled backs, won his first World Series title on their syringes and built his 33-year managing career on their artificially carved biceps.

Under La Russa, the Oakland clubhouse became a kind of leather-upholstered showroom for creams, rubs and injections that allowed players to work out harder, recover quicker and attack the game like a wolf in a hen house. It didn't change much in St. Louis, either, where he says he didn't notice what McGwire, Troy Glaus, Fernando Vina and Ryan Franklin were doing.

Score another victory for Baseball's Best Fans, who trip over their dicks telling you about how their team always Plays The Game The Right Way.  I hope Will Leitch falls out of a hot air balloon.

He spent eight hours a day around these guys, eight months a year, and yet he never saw a thing. Maybe he dressed in a different clubhouse?

Who knows whether and how many of these players were openly using in the clubhouse, but the managers aren't idiots.  You know they knew.  Sorry to acknowledge Canseco, because the last thing he deserves (besides attention) is acknowledgement, but I pretty firmly believe him (and Ken Caminiti, and the rest of the long list of players who have said that everyone in baseball knew everyone was using).

But he goes into the HOF and those players never will. Maybe he can send them some Instagrams.

A pretty bad cultural reference without any meaningful context other than "this is one-uh them apps them kids like to use these days," but still, this is an A+ relative to everything Reilly has done since like 2004.

Hey, you think any of the three skips will mention how PEDS helped them get to that sunny afternoon in Cooperstown?

Oh, and I can't forget to thank Katalina at Tijuana Pharmacy for all her help. Like my players always said, "We can't get cut without Kat!"

You won't even have to be in Cooperstown to smell the hypocrisy. Even the faintest scent of a rumor of PED use is enough to sink a player now.

Managers? Odorless.

Take Houston Astros great Craig Biggio. He had more than enough career to get in, and even though there isn't a stitch of evidence against him, the writers have kept him out because they have a niggling hunch he might've used.

Again, the BBWAA is not responsible for the election of these managers, but the broader point is absolutely worth talking about.  Currently, the discussion about steroid use by subtopic is split up as follows: 90% players, 5% MLB itself, 5% owners.  Managers need a chunk of that pie.  A pretty big one.  (Obviously the owners and league could also stand to gain at least twenty percentage points as well.)

Remember, kids: If you play the game under even a single cloud of suspicion, you're out. Manage it under one? Come on in and pull up a plaque!

Can you imagine this in any other sport? Do you think for a second Johan Bruyneel, the manager of all of Lance Armstrong's cheating, champion Tour de France teams, didn't know what was going on? You figure Bonnie and Clyde's driver just thought they were always running late?

As I think I've made pretty clear around here, I dislike steroid users but do not hate them with the flaming passion of a thousand burning suns.  I especially dislike guys like Bonds and Clemens, who were gigantic assholes in addition to using steroids, but what are you gonna do?  They were great players, as were McGwire, Sosa, Palmeiro, etc.  I don't want to be in the business of being the morality police and punishing players for conduct that wasn't against the rules when they were doing it.  I also don't want to be in the business of deciding who would or would not have gotten in anyways absent steroid use.  And I sure as fucking fuck especially don't want to be in the business of deciding whether a guy who's never been formally connected to steroids "looked like a user," or some horrendous garbage like that.  

So you know what?  If I were voting, I'd pretty much just vote without factoring it in.  That might allow for the admission of a guy like McGwire or Sosa who may not have made it in without roids, but that's a far lesser evil in my mind than the exclusion of guys like Bagwell or Biggio.  I don't like steroid use, but Jesus, can we please unbundle the national panties?  It happened.  There are now good measures in place to curb its use.  Anyways, this has been a great and thoughtful article by Rick, and I'm happy to see what he may be in the process of turning over a new leaf, so why don't we---

Next month, the writers are expected to vote down McGwire for the eighth time and Clemens for the second time. 

Oh no.  Rick, please don't.  Please stop while you're ahead.  We don't need to delve into this.  You've done a great job here--

They're right to do it. 

Noooooooooooooooo.  Even if you disagree with my steroids stance and agree with his, I hope you can agree that he didn't need to go into this.  The article would have been just fine without it.

Those guys are tainted beyond any reasonable doubt, though Clemens still maintains innocence. But for the expansion error 

Rick, please!  That's the kind of joke we're used to seeing from you!  The wheels are coming off!

committee to let these three managers in -- unanimously, no less -- after winning hundreds of games with better chemistry is the gold standard of double standards.

Jesus.  That's so disappointing.  Just please don't finish with one of your signature horrendous one liners--

If you believe they didn't know, then you'll fit perfectly in Dupers Town.

And the collapse is complete.  Jean van de Velde, Rick.  Rick, Jean van de Velde.

Bill fixes the Lakers, tests my patience (part 4)

When we last left Wolf Pope Simmons, he was again negotiating a brilliant trade against himself, one which would leave the Bulls (as pointed out by commenter ivn) in a position where they would be playing Mike Dunleavy Jr. during crunch time.  THE TRADE MACHINE SAYS IT WILL WORK!  THEREFORE IT WOULD WORK!  What's next?

5. Don't amnesty Metta World Peace unless you absolutely have to.

Oops.  The fact that the Lakers did this in real life is a sign that they intend to compete next year, which 1) makes plenty of sense, for the 150 reasons I've already given in this series and 2) kind of disappoints me, because it would be really fun to see them go into full-fledged rebuilding mode without doing any of the things Simmons insists they should do.  Imagine the self-aggrandizing things he would Tweet about how dumb they were being!  Pure entertainment.  Would really warm my cold, black heart.

I hate losing Metta when he's the Kendrick Perkins of small forwards. 

Apparently all cross-positional references have to involve current or former Celtics.  Who is currently the Tony Allen of centers?  (Easy: JaVale McGee.)  Who is the Rajon Rondo of power forwards?  Your answers in the comments.

Ideally, we'd need him playing 35 minutes a game, missing 60 percent of his shots, throwing passes into the third row, getting dumb technicals, and letting faster small forwards blow by him for six solid months. 

I'd like to take this opportunity to point out how crucial MWP was in the 6FOR24!!111111 game: 20 points, including a huge 3 to put the Lakers up 6 with a minute to play.

He's a big part of Riggin' for Wiggins. So if the Bulls won't flip Deng and Hinrich for Gasol, 

But you said it best yourself: they'd HAVE to say yes!

you make the Cleveland deal, save $30 million in luxury tax and keep Metta around.

As both commenter Adam and I have already pointed out, why would the Cavs give away a 1st round pick in a loaded draft to "upgrade" from Gasol to Varejao?  If Varejao stays healthy, he's a marginally worse player than Gasol and the Cavs make the playoffs.  If Varejao gets hurt, the Cavs go to the lottery.

6. Since you're sucking anyway, bring back as many popular former Lakers as possible.

Although it is obviously not meant to be taken seriously, this is one of the stupidest things I have ever read and Simmons should be punched in the kidneys for having typed it out.

I'm convinced that the Lakers bugged my house because, ever since I started working on this column on Monday, they signed Jordan Farmar (someone Lakers fans irrationally loved because he's a UCLA guy) and they're courting Sasha Vujacic (another guy the Lakers have irrationally loved, while the rest of America irrationally hated him). 

The "irrationally [loved/hated/whatever] thing he rolls out all the time is a nice little variant on Klosterman's SECRETLY UNDEROVERUNDERPROPERLYRATED twatfuckery.  It's also a nice little SUPER SMART BASKETBALL NERD angle: listen, non-Lakers fans, I know you think Sasha Vujacic is a whiny little piece of shit who flops every chance he gets, but your hatred of him is SO IRRATIONAL.

I'd go further than that — I'd also bring back beloved veterans Derek Fisher

Speaking of guys who whine and flop a lot

and Luke Walton 

I hate it when people say shit like this, but I'm going to anyways.  Did you know Luke Walton is 33?  Holy shit, I feel old.

for the veteran's minimum, then keep my 15th roster spot open and spend the season signing old Lakers favorites (Robert Horry, Rick Fox, Michael Cooper, Sam Perkins, etc.) to a series of 10-day contracts.

Again, punches to the kidneys.

Important note: Lakers fans would LOVE this. Shit, they'd even enjoy 10 days of Slava Medvedenko. As long as Kwame Brown and Smush Parker aren't involved in 10-day roulette, we're good.

Lakers fans, why did you IRRATIONALLY hate Kwame Brown so much?

7. Tell Jack Nicholson to stay away for the entire season.

We don't want Jack sitting there and enduring a willfully bad Lakers team. It might kill him. 

Check out the totally subtle starfuckerism.  "Let me tell you about Jack!  Jack and I, we go way back.  I know how much the Lakers mean to him, that's how close we are."  You know what, I deleted the rest of this section, because it was too depressing to make fun of.  Suffice it to say, he managed to make a Weekend at Bernie's "joke" and more importantly, post the picture of Justin Bieber with the Stanley Cup you've already seen on 25 different blogs.  ZOMG celebs!!!!

8. Keep Mike D'Antoni for the entire year.

When I was going over my tentative "Save the Lakers" plan last night with my friend Lewis (a Lakers nut who's onboard with everything you just read),

A fellow BASKETBALL NERD who understands subtle things that could make or break a team, like signing LeBron and drafting Andrew Wiggins.

I jokingly asked him, "OK, what would you do with D'Antoni?"

Trade him to the Magic for their 2014 first rounder (top three protected--they're not just going to give it away!).  WHOOOOOO SAYYYYS NOOOOOO

"Are you kidding?" Lewis yelped. "YOU KEEP HIM! YOU KEEP HIM THE WHOLE SEASON! WE WANT THE WORST COACH POSSIBLE!!!!! WHY WOULD YOU EVER FIRE D'ANTONI!"

Like I said, clearly Lewis is someone who is in the rarefied air as Bill in terms of sophisticated basketball knowledge.

(Ladies and gentlemen, the Mike D'Antoni era!)

Jokes in that format were pretty fresh in 1997.

We wrap things up next post, including the line:

You know who they SHOULD be emulating, actually? [_____].

You get three guesses as to what goes in the blank, and the first two don't count.

What this world needs is more love letters from sportswriters to Derek Jeter

How many more years will sportswriters sit down at their keyboards, or whatever awesome brain-connected device replaces the keyboard 20 years from now, and decide that the world really desperately needs to read more drivel like this?  Don't get me wrong, I know it'll go on until he dies, so at least another 40ish years, but will it stop at some point after that?  I guess Bob Costas still blabs He Was More Important Than The Game Itself garbage about Mantle to this day, so the answer is probably no.  Christ.  It's excruciating to think about.

THE MAGIC OF baseball will always live in the storytelling --

And this is why a lot of people hate baseball.  For all the shit I shovel on the NFL for being a sport for meatheads, the assface baseball fan equivalent to the NFL fan meathead is the person who thinks the magic of baseball is in the storytelling.  It most certainly does not, not anymore than the magic of any sports is in the storytelling.  The magic of baseball is in the accessibility, the quirkiness, the way it starts with spring and dies with fall every year, and a hundred other things that are not related to constructing obnoxious and often factually incorrect narratives around dreamy-eyed True Yankees.

the grandeur of Ruth, the Midwestern identification with Musial, the unbreakable Robinson and the complex defiance and moral ambiguity of Bonds.

The magic of all those guys were that they were phenomenal players.  Reading about them (and, for example, the fact that Bonds and Ruth dominated the game in very similar ways 70ish years apart) is awesome, but it's not awesome "storytelling."  It's awesome because they were awesome at baseball.

It's what gives life to the statistics.

I'm sure you can see where this is headed.

Unfortunately, in the age of Moneyball and fantasy leagues,

And NERDS who are NERDY STAT NERDS

the numbers have been detached from, and become more important than, the players.

This is about as phenomenal a straw man as you could hope to construct to try to tear down STAT NERDS.  Hey, I'll bet you STAT NERDS think NUMBERS are more important than BASEBALL PLAYERS, don't you?  You'd get rid of the players entirely if you could!  Don't deny it!

All but one.

You guessed it... Frank Stallone.

The Yankees' Derek Jeter has defied the impact of the two most influential elements of his time: the institutional shift toward quantitative analysis and the cynical lust for home runs, fueled by performance-enhancing drugs.

This is pure horseshit.  I'm sure you were thinking the same thing as you were reading it so I'll spare you the paragraph-long response.  Needless to say, there is nothing about a guy with a .382 career OBP and 94 oWAR that "defies" the shift towards quantitative analysis.  If you want to out yourself as a shithead, be sure to say things like YOU STAT NERDS PROBABLY DON'T EVEN THINK DEREK JETER IS GOOD.  Somewhere along the line, shitheads like Bryant have tried to drastically change the message promoted by people who say things like "Jeter is a bad defensive shortstop" and "Jeter is a first ballot HOF guy, but I'm tired of reading love letters to him from people like Howard Bryant" to JETER SUX.  It's embarrassing.  Also, sorry Howard, but it's not 1998 anymore.  No one is "lusting" for home runs.

For now, he's stuck at 3,304 hits, sidelined until after the All-Star break with an ankle injury. But with Jeter, the visual has always been better than the numerical --

Those steely, calm, steel eyes.  They look right through you.  And when Derek says "Sorry guys, no more questions, I've got to shower and go home" the eyes are saying something much naughtier than that.

and there's never been a better time to appreciate that than in his absence,

Or every March through October of every year from 1996 through 2012, which apparently were also great times to appreciate him, according to numerous baseball writers across the country.

which only underscores his longevity.

It certainly underscores that he's old as shit and about to retire.  Not sure if it underscores how long he's been playing.

For years, most stats guys never liked him as much as his All-Star rivals at shortstop: Alex Rodriguez,

They both became regulars in 1996.  Between then and 2004, when A-FRAUD joined the Yankees, there was exactly one season when Jeter was better (1999).  The other eight seasons, PAY-ROD was somewhere between "somewhat better" and "insanely better" than Steely McGiftBasket.  Jeter is one of the 20 best players of the past 20 years.  Rodriguez is one of the 20 best players of all time.

Nomar Garciaparra

He became a regular in 1997.  Between then and 2003, when he finished his run as an impact player thanks to his groin/hamstring exploding like a firework in 2004, Jeter was better in 1999 and 2001 (because NOMAH got hurt and played in only 21 games).

and Miguel Tejada.

Tejada was definitely not as good as Jeter, although I don't remember too many "stat guys" insisting on that, especially considering Tejada's weakness relative to these other three was always OBP.

Jeter, now 38, has outlasted them all at the position

Lol.  Yes, Jeter did a fantastic job of outlasting Rodriguez at the position, mostly by being the world's greatest teammate and forcing the defensively superior Rodriguez to switch positions in order to accommodate Jeter's ego.

and created a more compelling legacy. (Rodriguez and Tejada will always be drug-tainted,

Fortunately, non-idiots will still be able to appreciate how good they were anyways.  Also, $1,000 to the Red Cross if Jeter tests positive before the end of the season.

and Jeter likely will finish with twice as many hits as Garciaparra's 1,747.)

Take that, guy whose career was ended by crippling and unpredictable injuries!

Jeter most clearly defined his essence on separate occasions in the 2001 ALDS against the A's. Moment One was, of course, [LB edit: THE FLIP PLAY OMG NEED TO GO CHANGE MY PANTS]. But while the scorebook registers Jeter's play as simply an out -- albeit one that was 9-to-6-to-2 -- it demoralized the A's.

This is the kind of stuff we're going to be reading from our rocking chairs at the old folks home in 2070, and the person writing it is going to think they're shining light into darkness.

The second defining moment came two nights later, with the A's spent, wondering as the noise cascaded on them just how they were here playing a deciding Game 5 at Yankee Stadium, how they had let the series slip away. Terrence Long hit a foul ball along the third base line that Jeter chased and caught, spilling into the stands. It was, again, just another out, F6, but on the field it was a referendum of championship toughness.

A ball a faster guy might have gotten to without having to sell out and dive into the stands.  But hey, GRIT TOUGH STEELY EYES CLUTCH.  Hard to argue with that.

The Yankees had it. The A's didn't.

The ability to win three out of five games in that particular series: the Yankees had it.

That intangibles notion is murky, of course, and complicated.

Could have ended the article right there.

Jeter played in an era when everyone was suspected of PED use. For those choosing to believe the shortstop that he was, is and always has been a clean ballplayer, the monument to his fidelity and greatness lies in his old-school bona fides.

That's awesome.  "Those who assume he never used credit it to something ill-defined, the existence of which can't be proven or disproven."  And let's also point out that as of June 2011, Jeter was coming off by far his worst offensive season and was hitting .257/.321/.329 with zero home runs in the not-exactly-young season. Then he rebounded nicely to finish 2011 and had a .316/.362/.429 season with fifteen home runs in 2012.  Let's just put that out there.  Something clicked for him.  Did a nagging injury heal?  Did he change his approach?  You know what--it could have been anything.

Jeter, along with possibly Ken Griffey Jr., is the only player in the modern game whose iconic moments were generated by all five tools -- not just by standing in the batter's box and hitting another home run in a game that encouraged nothing but.

Again, if you want to out yourself as a shithead, make sure you tell everyone that Jeter is one of only two players in the last 25ish years to generate "iconic moments" with all five tools.  That will make it very clear to everyone reading your writing that you're a fucking shithead.  It will also require you to ignore the existence of Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Carlos Beltran, and about 200 other position players to play during that time.

Like Jackie Robinson, Jeter is pure baseball.

True Yankee.  Steely Eyes.  Pure Baseball.  Gift Basket.

He will be remembered for his baserunning (the clever beating of the shift by swiping third base that he made routine).

How many players don't capitalize on that?  More importantly, how many teams are like "screw it, ignore than runner on second, we're putting the full shift on?"  My guess is this happened once with Jeter in like 1997 and Bryant now wants to credit him with a) making it routine and b) inventing cars, airplanes, and computers.

He will be equally celebrated for his fielding and throwing.

He will be remembered for being an adequate to good shortstop through his 20s, and then receiving a bunch of Gold Gloves he didn't deserve during his 30s.  Not sure "celebrated" is the right term.

(Even though he doesn't rank anywhere near the top 1,000 in career defensive WAR, you can't deny the Flip, the nailing of Arizona's Danny Bautista at third in the 2001 World Series or the flying leap into the crowd against the Red Sox in the summer of '04.)

That's right.  Those three plays cannot be denied.  They really happened, they were not optical illusions that fooled everyone who saw them.  I will grant that.  He's still been a shitty defensive shortstop for a decade and running.

And his hitting consistency is close to unmatched. (His injury likely will make his quest for 4,000 hits unsuccessful, but he is in range to catch Henry Aaron at 3,771 for third all time.)

I'm not trying to overhate here, but that's not going to happen.

Not that he couldn't power the ball out of the ballpark too -- there was the first-pitch leadoff home run in Game 4 of the 2000 Series when the Mets had won the night before,

"Not that he couldn't power the ball out of the ballpark too -- remember, he hit a home run once."  Take a step back and think about this article.  What the fuck are you getting out of this?  What the fuck could Derek Jeter's closest admirers (other than Howard Bryant and his family) get out this?  Much of this can be summarized as "Jeter was great."  Holy dog balls, this is awful.  Almost over though.

and the two-out, full-count walk-off home run the following year in Game 4 against Arizona.

Why did the Yankees lose that series?  I blame A-Rod, even though he was a Ranger at the time.

As if that wasn't enough, there's also the imprint he's had on the Yankees, the first homegrown star to lead the franchise to the World Series since Mickey Mantle. (1977-78 belonged to Reggie, not Munson.) 

As Chris W put it, what a fun and worthwhile use of our time--let's argue whether Munson really "led" the Yankees to that title.  After that we can go back to debating the existence of Jeter's "old school bona fides."

He became the signature player for the game's signature team when it returned to power, and in an era of drugs and cynicism and ruined reputations, he never embarrassed the sport, his team or,

This describes 99% of all MLB players.  One of the ones it does not describe is Barry Bonds, who was still fucking awesome, way more awesome than Derek Jeter.  Neener neener neener.

most important, his family name.

Most importantly, he never embarrassed the sacred Jeter family name?  What?  Why are we giving him credit for this?  "Most importantly, he never pushed anyone off of the Statue of Liberty.  For this, he deserves a parade."

There is no metric for that. Just a magical story.

It really isn't.  This was a colossal waste of time and I apologize to you for having made you read it.

Last post in FireJay history?

Experts say: MAYBE.  Not that I would ever actually follow through on my promise to shut down the blog if the Celtics make the NBA Finals.  That was a lie the second I wrote it, and I'd like to extend a great big fuck you to the rest of the Eastern Conference for allowing that outcome to happen.  WAIT IS THAT A JINX I DON'T KNOW GO HEAT WOOOOOOOOO.  Just saying, could be the last post in the blog's history because you never know when the sun is going to supernova or when an idiot 19 year old manning a radar station in North Dakota mistakes a flock of birds for a bunch of nukes and the whole planet gets blown to smithereens.

Anyways, this is really more of a quick check in than a full post, so I'll start by saying that I'm really enjoying ESPN's cross promotion of Prometheus.  I will never get sick of Stephen A. Smith (who is back on the Four Letter in several roles after several years away because ... ... ... ???????) asking me to check out the Prometheus trailer.  Never.  I hope they are still running that promo well after the movie is out of theaters.

A few more highlights from the now two week old Simmons column I've been picking at:

The Staples staff hustled everyone out, turned the arena over, burned some sage to get rid of Donald Sterling's aura, 


Sterling is one of the few subjects who can actually draw decent jokes out of Bill.  Here's to him continuing his racist, maniacal ways.  ("Him" being Sterling, not Bill.)


then reopened the doors for Game 4 of the Lakers-OKC series. I skipped this one because of an event for my son's preschool, because I couldn't stomach being around Laker fans for a second straight night, and because I couldn't afford to get divorced. 


I HAVE A FAMILY!  YOU CARE ABOUT THEM!


That's why Saturday was encouraging. Westbrook played an absolutely breathtaking game, but when the time came for Oklahoma City to plunge that final dagger into the Lakers' season (and, quite possibly, the entire Kobe era),


Alex, I'll take "Wishful Thinking From a Complete Idiot" for $800.  And "Played Out Jeopardy! References" for A JILLION DOLLARS

The morning started off with an off-putting vibe because of the aformentioned bike race, which spawned a Carmageddon-like panic because it shut down so many of the morning's traffic routes. Kings fans were urged to show up three hours early and to even — gulp — take the subway to be safe. Personally, I would rather drive my car through the bike race and pancake some of the cyclists than take the L.A. subway. Fortunately, my special L.A. Live parking pass enabled my daughter and me to circumvent the traffic, park, grab brunch AND watch the first wave of cyclists fly by toward the finish line.


I've been obliterating this point beyond recognizance lately, but again... this is a guy who has a lot of followers who tell you they love him because he's some kind of representative of the everyday fan.


This ended up being one of my favorite father-daughter moments in a while.


YOU STILL CARE RIGHT?  MY DAUGHTER SAID SOME SHIT THAT ANY GIVEN TEN YEAR OLD COULD HAVE SAID OH MY GOD KIDS ARE JUST MAGICAL!

Everyone thought the Kings would roll over Phoenix like they did the previous three games, so when things started shifting the other way — a sketchy call against the Kings, a Coyotes power play goal, Smith out-playing Quick — the crowd panicked and eventually checked out altogether. You couldn't blame them; they were bitterly disappointed. As the third period limped along with the Kings trailing by two, my daughter vainly tried to get a few "Let's Go Kings" chants going, then turned around and yelled in frustration, "What's the matter with everybody?" At that point, I knew we'd be driving home with her in tears and me repeatedly explaining to her that the Kings had three more chances to make the finals (which is exactly how it played out). Little kid sports fans are the best. 

/Larry B throws coffee table out apartment window

I almost feel like a blasphemer saying this, but has anyone else noticed how frequently Magary has been writing about his WILD ADVENTURES IN FATHERDOM on Deadspin lately?  It's been bothering the fuck out of me, I won't like.  Come on Drew.  Don't fall into the holy shit I used to be a wacky bachelor but now I have kids and they amaze me every day trap.

The Spurs never flinched, chopping the lead to 15 and eliciting the first of many panicked Clippers timeouts. Watching the Spurs and their bench reacting to that moment (totally locked in, totally expecting the Clippers to cave), you could just tell where the game was going. I even tweeted about it.

That's how you know how smart I am!

Three months after starting to follow hockey, I know way more about it than noted hockey writer Bill Simmons

That's about as noteworthy as knowing more about sabermetrics than Joe Morgan, or knowing more about hip hop than Tony Kornheiser. In fact it's no more noteworthy than knowing more than Simmons does about anything besides the NBA. Still, after reading a dogshit piece he wrote for Grantland about the Los Angeles Kings, I couldn't help but smirk. I followed the NHL back when I was in middle school, stopped for almost 15 years, picked it back up this January, and could easily recognize that Simmons was talking out of his colon. Never change, Bill. Never change.

The L.A. Kings blew a chance to clinch their division (and a no. 3 seed) Thursday night, losing a shootout at home to San Jose. Those two teams play again on Saturday night, in San Jose, with the winner getting the no. 3 seed and the loser getting the no. 7 seed. (Late note after we posted:

Leitch and Simmons are the same person! Holy shit, it makes so much sense! It's like I just finished watching Fight Club for the first time!

Apparently Phoenix can win the division as well by winning its last two games.

Late note after I wrote this: my editors informed me that I didn't have all the facts correct. There's a first time for everything, I suppose.

I'm not too concerned because, again, it's Phoenix.)

Phoenix ended up winning those games and the division.

None of this really matters because seeds don't matter in hockey -- anybody can beat anybody anywhere at anytime --

Home teams in game 7s in NHL playoff history: 85-55.

but for the die-hards sitting in my section, it mattered for two reasons.

I love his insinuation that any RATIONAL fan doesn't care whether their team is the 3 seed or the 8 seed. It's only those crazypants lunatics who actually want home ice advantage.

1. The no. 3 seed potentially means an extra playoff game (Game 7, no less). Like everyone else who bought Kings playoff tickets, I wanted that extra game. Badly.

Ah, the perspective of the everyman fan that made Bill famous. I DEMAND THE OPPORTUNITY TO BUY MORE $200 PLAYOFF TICKETS! ALSO, DAVID STERN, YOUR REFUSAL TO MAKE SURE TEAMS PLAY THEIR STAR PLAYERS IN EVERY GAME SPITS IN THE FACE OF THOSE OF US WHO GO TO DOZENS OF GAMES A YEAR! I DID NOT BUY THESE CLIPPERS SEASON TICKETS TO SEE DERRICK ROSE ON THE SIDELINES IN A SUIT! A POX ON YOU!

I was rooting for the Kings like they were a Boston team last night.

Sitting in your section must be super fun.

2. I know this sounds impossible, but in 44 years, the Kings have only captured one division title. They even put up a banner in Staples Center for it. Is there a better way to prove your fans have been tortured than hanging division banners,

Lots of teams that aren't 80+ years old do that. I know it's funny to imagine franchises outside of PEDROIA NATION being excited about regular season success, but it happens.

or even worse, having one of those fans say during a game, "We need to get that banner?" (And yes, I heard someone say that last night.)

Lol what's that guy's problem? What is he, a fan?

So last night's battle against the Sharks felt like a de facto playoff game.

What a shock, considering absolutely nothing was on the line.

You can always judge the chippiness of any hockey game by the number of times after a goalie freezes the puck when an opposing forward does the "go an extra couple of feet and abruptly stops right in front of the goalie just in case the puck falls out" move, then at least one opponent whacks him in the face and they do the whole "Hey, what was that????" staredown/shoving/sarcastic swearing routine.

Hockey, explained by a nine year old pro wrestling fan.

The Kings and Sharks did that after just about every whistle.

And then dad bought us popcorn, but I spilled mine, but it was OK because then we got hot dogs.

Late in the third period, with the Kings pressing on a power play and Jarrett Stoll flying up the ice on a two-on-one, the evil Ryane Clowe (a bearded bully on the Sharks who had already scored a goal and won two fights) broke up the breakaway by deflecting the puck with this stick. This wouldn't have been a big deal except, you know, CLOWE WAS SITTING ON THE BENCH AT THE TIME!!!! Did all four referees miss him doing this? Of course they did. After the 75th time they replayed it on the video screen, everyone knew the Kings would lose because that's just how hockey works — when you get screwed over on something like that, there's no bouncing back.

"That's just how hockey works." - some asshole who is a famous sportswriter because of his super sweet Las Vegas bachelor party tips, his reality TV knowledge, and his ability to repeatedly drop the same tired references from the same five or six movies into columns that use sports as a backdrop for stories about his family

Of course, that wasn't my biggest takeaway from Thursday's game. Like always, the Kings got their asses kicked in all three fights. I grew up watching Terry O'Reilly, Stan Jonathan, John Wensink, Wayne Cashman, Al Secord and everyone else on the Big Bad Bruins, a team that fought so much, they even climbed into the MSG stands once to fight Rangers fans. The Bruins always know how to scrap; it's been that way for my entire life, and really, you couldn't have it any other way in Boston.

Last sentence sounds like it was lifted from a Dan Shaugnessy column. May you and him both contract Crohn's disease. ALSO: TOM BRADY STOPPED WINNING CHAMPIONSHIPS EVERY YEAR, SO HE'S NOT ONE OF US ANYMORE!

So it's been disorienting to watch the Kings keep getting beaten up. Thursday night, Joe Thornton pounded Drew Doughty so relentlessly that we were watching it the same way Apollo Creed's wife watched the Drago fight.

Wait, what was I just saying about repeatedly dropping in references from the same five or six movies?

Was it a coincidence that the Sharks rallied back from a 3-1 hole after winning those three fights? Maybe, maybe not.

"Was it a coincidence that the Sharks rallied back from a 3-1 hole after winning those three fights? Maybe, maybe not." - some asshole who wrote a 4000 word column about how meaningful it was to hear Coldplay rocking a live show on Hollywood Boulevard the evening of the first Jimmy Kimmel live taping

The Kings have a well-balanced team with an outstanding goalie, and they chase the puck pretty relentlessly (at least lately). But you can push them around, and if you want to make a cheap run at Kopitar, Quick or anyone else, you definitely don't have to worry about someone making you pay. After sitting through half of their home games this season, that's their biggest flaw (that I can see, anyway).

Someone with stronger analytical skills might see that the Kings scored the second fewest goals in the league this season and arrive at a different conclusion, but you could be right. Another strong nominee? Too many division championship banners!

For instance, the Bruins

"Let me tell you about my night at the Kings/Sharks game. For instance, the Bruins [robble robble robble]" - some asshole who has about 50 million Twitter followers hanging on his every word just in case he drops a hot gambling tip, and who also routinely finishes under .500 against the spread in picking NFL games over the course of a season

Nobody captures their identity better than Dustin Penner, their frustrating 6-foot-3 forward who's evolved into something of a whipping boy for the Kings faithful. One of the biggest guys on the team, Penner barely throws checks, much less punches. Every time he wades into the corner and goes through the motions of not hitting someone, you hear this chorus of pissed-off "COME ON, PENNER!" hisses coming from every direction. I always want him to do well, just because it's funny when he scores and the fans instantly flip that switch and pretend to be Penner fans again. But if you're trying to win the Cup? You need less Penners and more Ryane Clowe.

Clowe has played his whole career in San Jose. During that time (the last six seasons) they have made the playoffs every season, and twice been the #1 seed in the West. They've also never gotten closer to the Cup than last year's 4-1 conference finals loss. In 2009 they won the President's Trophy and promptly lost in six games in the first round. Not to say it's Clowe's fault or something, I just thought Bill's analysis was funny.

You know who summed it up best? My 6-year old daughter,

Of course she did! I knew we weren't going to get through the whole article without hearing about some poor sap who has to spend time with Bill because they have the same blood.

who has somehow attended a whopping 14 Kings games this season and wants to marry Anze Kopitar. (I wish I were making that up.)

Brendan Fraser is offended on Kopitar's behalf.

We were watching the Zamboni drive around between the second and third periods last night when she suddenly piped up, "Hey, daddy, why doesn't someone teach the Kings how to fight?" Let's hope that doesn't become the epitaph for their 2012 season.

The real story if that ends up happening? Not enough Bruins on the team.

By Far Bill's Worst Baseball Article Ever, Part 1

I couldn't get all the dumbassery from last week's article into one post. Just couldn't do it. In any case, I know the title of the post sounds hyperbolic (not that we use that kind of style around here, not at all, ever) but I stand by it. It's terrible in so many ways; covers so many facets of godfuckingawful; contains so much garbage that it's hard to get my mind around it. You'll see what I mean.

Before we begin, I'd just like to remind everyone what Bill taught us last post: that the MLS is less popular than AAA baseball. Sure, MLS is on TV infinity times more often, but if you want the whole story you have to look at the attendance numbers. Oh. Damn, nevermind. (If you don't want to do the division for the AAA numbers, or click on the links, the long and short of it is that MLS teams on average draw more than twice as many fans as AAA teams.)

ANYWAYS

The most prominent (and pretty much the most hilarious) way in which this article is fucking terrible is in Bill's perfect embodiment of the frontrunnerness of RED SOX NATION. The last third of the article, which I hopefully get around to before the weekend, is about how baseball games are too long. There are all kinds of ways to put fire to his analysis there and watch it burn, but it's not really homerish. Well it is and it isn't. You'll see what I mean. But most of the first two thirds of the article, covered here, consists of reasons why Bill thinks the Red Sox are "boring" this year. The real reason NESN and Boston radio ratings are down, of course, is because the Sox are buried in third place and probably won't make the playoffs. But watching Bill spend 5000 words dancing around that and instead blaming a bunch of other shit (some of which actually isn't other shit, just a half admission that he's a frontrunner) is fascinating. OK, I think the intro is sufficiently long.

On Tuesday night in Anaheim, with a teetering Red Sox season threatening to crumble, J.D. Drew saved Boston fans from another episode of "Papelbon, P.U."

/rimshot followed by 1950s style laughtrack

by walloping a timely double. The ball bounced off the right-field wall toward Bobby Abreu, who reacted to the carom like a ghost was clubbing him from behind with a two-by-four. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! (Didn't we create the DH position for guys like Abreu? I'm almost positive we did.) Two runs scored, Boston's eighth-inning lead expanded to three and when the TV crew cut to the obligatory shot of Drew pumping his fist at second base ...

Oh, wait ...

I forgot. J.D. Drew never does things like that.

HOW DARE HE? Doesn't he know how to "own" a moment? Doesn't he know what the legendary Beantown faithful deserve? Clutch doubles only mean something if you celebrate afterwards.

He stood there impassively, handsome as always, looking the same way he always does, like the guy whose at-bat music should be Lady Gaga's "Poker Face." If NESN launched a game show called "Guess What J.D. Just Did?" in which contestants guessed based off his expressions -- did Drew just hit a game-saving double, take a called third strike, hit into a double play, win the lottery or find out he was going to jail? -- nobody would ever win. Really, he's the perfect player for the post-2007 Red Sox regime: someone who plays hard, looks good statistically, does everything either "pretty well" or better and leaves you cold. He used to have me screaming obscenities every time he took a called third strike in a big moment. Now I get him. There are no big moments for Drew. He approaches every game, every inning and every at-bat exactly the same. Expecting him to own that Anaheim moment just wasn't realistic.

We're off to a good start. Who the fuck cares how a player "owns" moments? Sign #1 that you're a frontrunner: your team is 15 games over .500 in early August, but you're bored by them because they don't pump fists and shout at the sky enough. You know who owns moments? That fuckstick Papelbon. And Joba Chamberlain! Now there's a guy you can get excited about.

Quite simply, he's a boring player on a boring team during a fairly boring season.

Fffffffffffffffffrontrunner.

It's the first Red Sox team without a truly compelling player since 1993 -- when we went 80-82 -- and even then, we had a young Mo Vaughn (29 homers, .915 OPS) and Roger Clemens launching his loathsome "I just got paid, I'm gonna start puttin' on weight,

I cut this joke short. You didn't miss anything.

Really, you have to go back to 1981 (pre-Wade Boggs, post-Fred Lynn, post-Carlton Fisk) for a Red Sox team with less pizzazz than the 2010 crew.

Significant losses for the Red Sox from 2009 to 2010: Jason Bay, Nick Green (significant in that he had a lot of ABs, not that he's good), and Takashi Saito. 2009 Red Sox on August 1: a half game back of the Yankees for the division crown, 2.5 games up in the Wild Card. 2010 Red Sox on August 1: 6.5 games back in the division, 5.5 games back in the Wild Card. So you do the math: either Jason Bay is the most magnificently exciting player of all time, or Bill is a complete and total fucking fffffrrrrrrrrrrrrontrunner. Oh, and as he explains later, they've also been missing Jacoby Ellsbury basically all season. But if Ellsbury and Bay are the difference between this article being written and not being written... Bill can go eat a box of taints. JD DREW WHY DON'T YOU DO A DANCE AND SHOOT OFF FIREWORKS WHEN YOU MAKE A GOOD PLAY?

On Wednesday, both Boston papers carried front-page stories about Sports Business Journal's report that NESN's Red Sox ratings had plummeted 36 percent. (The Boston Globe also reported that WEEI's ratings were down 16.5 percent, and that male listeners between the ages of 25 and 54 had dwindled by 28 percent.) One morning earlier, my father and I had been on the phone trying to make sense of SBJ's story. Neither of us was surprised, more curious. What caused it? Was there a single reason? Five reasons? Ten reasons? Was it a fluke or a sign of something more substantial?

There a single primary reason. I've already brought it up a few times. Finish it for me: you're all a bunch of ffffffffffffrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

/Larry B makes direct eye contact with you, encouraging you to say the word out loud

Let's say we assigned a percentage pie of blame for dwindling Red Sox interest in 2010. My pie would look like this:

Needs more pop culture references. Pie charts are boring. Let's get Jersey Shore or The Bachelorette worked in here somehow.

INJURIES: 10 PERCENT

[Newly acquired CF Mike] Cameron also can't hit. And he's one of those guys who looks old -- like, when you're watching him stand on second base, you make jokes like, "I wonder whether he still keeps in touch with old teammate Satchel Paige's family" and "I forget; did Cameron integrate the American League in the early '50s, or was that Larry Doby?"

And here's your obligatory mention of the fact that the Red Sox were the last team to integrate, 12 years after Jackie Robinson debuted for the Dodgers. Twelve fucking years. That's crazy. That's like if integration started the same year the McGwire/Sosa HR chase happened, and some team was just getting around to taking care of that this year.

As for Bill's substantive analysis, Ellsbury has been down all year. Pedrioa and Victor Martinez have been hurt too. On the other (sensible) hand, the Sox still have Kevin Youkilis (I always laugh when Sox fans claim he's underrated, although he isn't as overrated as you'd expect a white Red Sox player to be), David Ortiz (somehow OPSing over .900 after starting the season like 4 for 100), Clay Buchholz, and Jon Lester. Those four guys alone would be enough to excite any rational non-frontrunning fanbase. Add in Pedroia's substantial contribution (342 PA so far) and there's really no leg for Bill to stand on here.

FRONT-OFFICE PARALYSIS/INADEQUACIES: 5 PERCENT

A few days ago, the following rant appeared on the Boston Dirt Dogs site:

" ... can't believe the front office just fiddled this summer while Rome burned and we flushed an entire season and $150M down the toilet by thinking we could tread water with Bill Hall playing second and Kevin Cash catching and David Ortiz batting third against lefties and J.D. Drew playing every day against lefties and Eric Patterson and Daniel Nava and Dusty Brown, et al. It was so [expletive] obvious when the Laser Show and V-Mart got hurt that we had to go get a real bat, Jason Werth level, who would still start when we got healthy, but instead we did [expletive] nothing and buried ourselves. It was like we had no front office, the Jack Hannahan blockbuster notwithstanding." -- An understandably apoplectic Kevin H. on the lost season

Awwwww. Poor guy. His team didn't go pick up an all-star caliber hitter at the trade deadline when the few that were available would have cost way more than their value. THEO YOU BUM YOU LET US DOWN WE WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOU UNLESS WE MAKE THE PLAYOFFS AGAIN THIS YEAR FOR THE 7TH TIME IN THE LAST 8 SEASONS

My friend Daniel recognized the venom immediately: It sounded just like our crazy friend Hench, who had been griping about Theo Epstein in our e-mail circle for the past few weeks. Daniel e-mailed us the rant with the subject heading "Hench, is this you?"

Yup. It was Hench.

Who. Gives. A. Fuck.

I couldn't disagree. Team Theo's lack of urgency as the injuries mounted was appalling -- on July 3, after the Pedroia/Martinez double whammy, we were still a half-game behind New York and 1½ games ahead of Tampa

And we had an exciting team! Now that we're 5+ games back, they're just not exciting anymore. You know what's exciting though- playing with the ESPN NBA trade machine. Hoooo boy. THE NETS SHOULD SWAP THEIR ENTIRE ROSTER WITH THE CLIPPERS. WHO SAYS NO? WHICH GM HANGS UP THE PHONE FIRST?

At the same time, you can blame Epstein (and Boston's owners) for ignoring a simple law of entertainment these past two seasons: Just like you can't open a blockbuster movie without a star, you can't expect a nine-figure baseball team to capture the daily imagination of a big market without a player who passes the Remote Control Test (when you don't flip channels because you know Player X is coming up) or the We Can't Go Get Food Yet Test (when you don't make a food/drink run at a game because Player X is coming up) or even the Every Five Nights, I Know What I'm Doing Test (when you have a transcendent pitcher who keeps you in front of the television every five days).

I like Pedroia. I like Kevin Youkilis. Clay Buchholz has been a revelation this year. I really, really like Lester, my favorite current player (and someone quietly enjoying a monster season) mainly for everything he's been through. But none of them passes the above tests. I went to a Philly-Boston game in June in which we shelled Jamie Moyer for something like 30 runs in the first two innings. Philly pulled Ryan Howard in the third. We were crushed. Dammit! We only got to see Howard hit once! The 2010 Red Sox don't have a pitcher or hitter who generates that reaction. It's true.

So I guess either Bay, Ellsbury, or some combination of them passes all those tests. And geez, I had forgotten that the Red Sox and Phillies played a series against each other in Philadelphia. How much asshole can you cram into one stadium at one time? I'd hate to have been a security guard at Citizens Bank Park for that one. Oof.

THE HANGOVER: 15 PERCENT

It's been the elephant in the room for three years. Do I care as much as I did? I think about this question constantly. The short answer? No. It can't mean as much. It will never mean as much.

I'm fine with this. It's OK to say that your team's first championship in nearly 100 years was super special and meant more than any other one in the future could.

Before 2004, rooting for the Red Sox wasn't about just sports. It was about mortality. It was about a ticking clock that only we could hear. It was about exchanges like this:

"Jimmy's dad died last weekend."
"That's terrible! How old was he?"
"Sixty-five."

... and how you'd immediately add 1918 plus 65 and realize, "Crap."

I'm not fine with this. If you or anyone you know did/does this, you are an asshole. Stop watching sports immediately and go throw yourself off a building.

With that said ... it's not life or death. Which opens the door for fickle TV ratings and everything else.

Fffffffffffffffrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

This reminds me of the time Bill claimed that Celtics fans (pre-2008 championship) were suffering more than Clippers fans, because it's harder to be a fan of a team with a great history of winning that's in a slump than be a fan of a team with no history of winning at all. You hear that, Browns fans? YOUR FANDOM IS LESS TORTURED THAN COWBOYS FANDOM.

(Interesting side note: In just the past decade, five franchises lost life-or-death status.

Interesting fact: Bill makes up categories like this and presents them as universally agreed upon six times per column.

Boston in 2004. The White Sox in 2005. St. Louis in 2006.

That's fucking ridiculous. Their last win before 2006 was 24 years earlier.

Philly in 2008.

And 28 years. Let's throw the Marlins in 2003 on here, why not.

And really, the Yankees in 2009 -- since every Yankees fan was secretly having a heart attack about the fact that they were 0-for-the-century, the Red Sox/Yankees dynamic had flipped and A-Rod had become the Reverse Curse of the Bambino, so we have to count them.

You're the stupidest person ever born.

That leaves San Francisco and the Cubs as the last remaining big-market, life-or-death teams with that "Jimmy's dad" factor, although you certainly can count Cleveland, Houston and Milwaukee as well, and maybe even Seattle, San Diego and Texas if you're feeling magnanimous.)

A World Series win by any of those teams would mean 50 times as much to their fans than Philly's 2008 win or Saint Louis's 2006 win did. It would mean 500 times as much to their fans as New York's 2009 win. FIVE OF THE EIGHT TEAMS YOU JUST NAMED HAVE NEVER WON THE WORLD SERIES. ANOTHER IS ON A 102 YEAR DROUGHT.

THE BANDWAGON EFFECT: 5 PERCENT

Look, I don't want to be Grumpy Old Man. I really don't. But I probably attended 100 Fenway games just from 1998 to 2002; the level of baseball sophistication in the stands was unparalleled.

Unparalleled relative to Bill's experiences in other ballparks, which probably adds up to a handful of games in Yankee Stadium and this one time he went to Philly and saw the Sox beat the hell out of Jamie Moyer. Hilarity always ensues when he starts talking about Boston crowds. Always.

We worked with Pedro like Frick and Frack. He did his job (rolling through lineups); we did ours (standing every time he got two strikes on someone, doing the steady clap to get him fired up, cheering him like a Roman gladiator). That's gone now.

WE CLAP FOR OUR PLAYERS! IN RHYTHM WITH ONE ANOTHER! LET'S SEE YOU PULL THAT OFF!

THE STEROID ERA HANGOVER: 5 PERCENT

Gag me.

The best thing about baseball? How 120 years and six generations intersected. Now our little statistical compass has been shattered like a beer bottle. For the past week, every media outlet has tried to talk us into A-Rod's 600th homer -- as if the moment means something, because, after all, just six other people have done it! -- only the nation's collective indifference was telling.

As I've perceived it, people are no less excited for it than they were for Ken Griffey Junior's 600th in 2008. And he's insulated from steroids in the minds of most. So really, what this point amounts to is Bill admitting that he's not really that into baseball this year. Probably because the Red Sox are buried in third and he's a ffffffffffrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

(I tweeted sarcastically Friday, "I'm on pins and steroid needles!")

Congratulations! You turned a phrase!

THE DECLINE OF BASEBALL IN GENERAL: 5 PERCENT

This is where it gets really, really, really, really stupid. And it's also where I go to bed. Join me next time, as Bill comes to the conclusion that the state of the economy overall has no bearing on baseball ticket sales! And that when a team starts sucking ass on the field ten years after opening a new stadium, and then their attendance drops, that's because fans got bored with the stadium!