Billy: Still The Shittier Ripken Brother

Cal and Billy have a show together on XM. Now, I have to confess that I've never listened to said show. But I did hear Billy appear as a guest on Buck Martinez's show this morning, and given some of the things he said, I think it's fair to assume his talent as a radio personality lags just as far behind his Cal's as his baseball playing ability used to.

Re: the Royals, Orioles, and Marlins and their hot start:

They've just been playing good, solid, fundamental baseball. That's what you like to see.

Excellent point. That's as good as reason as any I can think of. I mean, why did the Patriots go undefeated during the regular season last fall? By playing good, solid, fundamental football. The New Orleans Hornets and their surprisingly fantastic season? You guessed it. Good, solid, fundamental baseball. I mean basketball. The 1927 Yankees? Yup. Meanwhile, elsewhere in baseball, this kind of logic can be used to explain why certain teams are struggling. I hear the Tigers have been throwing opposite handed and trying to hit with bowling pins, fluorescent light tubes, and anything else they can find that might be hilariously misused as a bat. The Astros' position players have been doing dizzy bat relay races in the clubhouse tunnel before taking the field every inning. The Nationals won that exciting game first (domestic) game of the season two Sundays ago, and then specifically said to themselves, "Alright, guys. We got that first win under our belts. So we're done playing good, solid, fundamental baseball. Just bullshit from now on."

Re: What he would say to his players, were he the manager of one of the above-mentioned unexpected division leaders:

You know, I'd tell them, just keep on rolling with it.

I mean, I know managers don't really do that much, but, uh... I think you'd probably want to offer your players a little something more than that. How about "I like the way we've been playing, but we can't assume the whole season is going to be this easy. Don't let this go to your heads." Or maybe "God damn it, if you assholes build up expectations too much, it's going to cost me my job when we finish 67-95 anyways. How about we take it easy for a few games." But I guess going with the same thing you'd usually shout at a jam band rocking out on stage is acceptable too.

Re: Detroit's slow start:

Anytime you get off to a slow start, that's going to sting you early.

Consider yourselves stung early, Tigers fans. Yes, it's analysis like this that earned Billy the nickname "Fuck Face". Don't worry, the link is SFW. (Does anyone have one of those? I bet my friend Adam, who loves the Orioles and whose nickname also happens to be Fuck Face, would give you a lot of money for it.)

Oh, and I was about to end the post, when I remembered that later in the afternoon I heard Rob Dibble say something along the lines of:

Join us for "The Show" tomorrow, when we discuss the impact injuries are having on early playoff races.

I'm not saying every game doesn't count. Just ask the 2007 Phillies, Mets, Rockies, or Padres. But really, should we be talking about injuries in that particular context on April 10th? The question is not rhetorical. The answer is: Maybe. Probably not. Definitely not. Rob Dibble, and the producer who wrote that teaser for him, are silly geese.

Conventional Wisdom vs. Colin Cowherd vs. Reality

Happy New Year!

There have been a lot of boring games this bowl season. So, if you've been watching the bowls, you've been only too glad to watch the scrolling numbers on the bottom of the screen. ESPN thoughtfully provided a set of numbers on America Voting - showing us the percentage of net-users who picked each team to win in their Bowl Mania. Thoughtfully, Colin Cowherd listed his predictions with a short one-sentence blurb about each game right next to SportsNation's readers (different from the Bowl Mania numbers). Which is amusing, because reading Colin's one-sentence blurbs just makes me snicker - though he's actually been quite successful - 22-5 so far. Impressive, Colin. Here's a few of the more interesting breakdowns:

Bowl #1: San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl
Colin says: Paul Johnson's built a solid defensive-first football team that'll carry with them in the bowl game."

What, Colin? In three of its last five games, Navy gave up 59, 44, and 62 points- but managed to win two of those games because their offense wasn't stoppable. In the North Texas game, they gave up over SIX HUNDRED YARDS of total offense!

Both Colin and the SportsNation readers are wrong on this one - Utah takes Navy by a nose.

Papajohns.com Bowl: Southern Miss vs. Cincinnati
Colin says: Cincinnati is the most underrated team in the country with double-digit wins.

Well, seeing as they didn't get double-digit wins until they *won* this game, that seems like a stupid thing to say, Colin. Since no team with double-digit wins is outside the top 12, it's hard to contest this stupid claim.

Colin and the SN readers take an easy win when they can get it. Bearcats roll.

Sheraton Hawaii: Boise State vs. East Carolina
Colin says: Could East Carolina travel any further?

Dan-bob says: Could you select a more irrelevant factor in predicting the outcome of the game?

Conventional wisdom and Cowherd wisdom get thrown for a loop - ECU pulls it out. Over 90% of people picked BSU - probably because they didn't know anything about the game but figured the karma from the statue-of-liberty-and-cheerleader proposal was enough to carry BSU through this year. Actually, that's about as useful as Colin's theory about travel.

Pacific Life Holiday : Arizona State vs. Texas
Colin says: I'll go with the better QB and the better big-game coach. (he picked ASU).

Dan-bob says: Why have the other 21 players even play the game? Let's just have a punt-pass-and-kick game between the two coaches and the quarterbacks! Also, two years ago, Mack Brown won the biggest game - the national title game over a pretty good USC team. I guess Dennis Erickson has won some big games too, but this seems like a draw to me. The actual difference in the game was Texas outrushing ASU to the sweet tune of 300-24. Maybe Colin should've considered that.

This is the first time the Bowl Mania crowd picked differently - they and Colin lost out on ASU's throttling. SportsNation readers were right this time, but only by a small margin.

Champs Sports : Boston College vs. Michigan State
Colin says: Boston College was once the second-best team in the country. Matt Ryan is this difference in the game.

I like how Colin says that since BC was ranked #2 at one point, they were *actually* the second-best team in the country. It's almost as though Colin believes that the rankings create reality - by virtue of ascending to #2, the Eagles actually became the second-best team! Unfortunately, Colin, the rankings actually reflect a distorted reality - and BC was never the second best team around.

Ryan had an average game and the Eagles barely beat the overmatched Spartans.

PetroSun Independence : Alabama vs. Colorado
Colin says: The desperate Tide just need this baby more.

Colin was right. Too bad you didn't need it more, Colorado. I don't know what you could've done to win this game, but Colin was pretty sure your lack of need doomed you. Bama 30 - Rough-Em-Up-Buffs 24.

Roady's Humanitarian : Georgia Tech vs. Fresno State
Colin says: This is a tough, physical matchup. Georgia Tech's defense is the difference.

Fresno State piles up 571 yard of offense and the lack of a GT defense is indeed the difference. Good thing GT hired "defense first" Paul Johnson to bring his "defense first" mode to Atlanta. Everyone has egg on their face here: GT gets smoked.

Brut Sun : South Florida vs. Oregon
Colin says: Oregon's running game will pound away at the Bulls.

Colin beats SportsNation/Bowl Mania pickers - who inexplicably picked USF by a pretty big margin - perhaps remembering USF's one-time #2 ranking. Colin is actually right on - the Ducks' Jonathan Stewart ran for 253 and Oregon rolled 56-21. Though it's worth noting that Oregon's fifth-string qb also threw five TDs.

But Colin, wasn't South Florida once the second-best team in the country too?

Cotton Bowl: Missouri vs. Arkansas
Colin says: A couple of Heisman hopefuls shine.

McFadden had a solid 105 yards and Daniel completed only 12 of 29 passes for 136 yards and no touchdowns and had one interception. Actually, neither of them shined. I think Colin just wanted to mention the only two players in this game that he'd actually heard of. The actual differece in this game was Missouri's Tony Temple, who ran for 281. But everyone was right about the winner: Missouri in a rout.

Capital One: Michigan vs. Florida
Colin says: Tim Tebow will give the Wolverines' defense headaches.The Lloyd Carr era is finally over.

Actually, the UM defense held Tebow pretty much in check - particularly on the last drive, where UF's offense pretty much handed him the ball and told him to go win it, and he threw six straight incompletes. The real difference in this game was the incredible Chad Henne - who utterly outplayed the Heisman winner.

I never thought I'd write that sentence.

The Lloyd Carr era is over, and so is the conventional wisdom of Florida being a great team. Unranked Michigan takes down the Gators - Colin and both sets of pickers are proven wrong. An amazing 91% of people picked Florida - this, along with the BSU whiff, makes me think that people assume that a bowl win one year means a bowl win the next year. It certainly shouldn't have to do with the teams actually playing!
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Needless to say, conventional wisdom and Cowherd wisdom proved accurate on the first two BCS games. Overall, Colin and the mass of interwebbers were accurate - though with some hilarious whiffs like the UM-Florida game. Stay tuned for the rest of the bowl breakdowns!

cbssportsline forces its writers into awkward arguments

(preamble: given my relative lack of knowledge about the bears compared to pnoles and chris w, this post could easily blow up in my face. we'll see what happens. mostly i had the idea of making it based on the ridiculous premise of the position pete prisco had to defend. my analysis might suck, but it's still a funny situation. alright, roll the tape.)

in today's flashy, loud, "who's now", in-your-face, people-screaming-at-each-other-all-the-time, "no spin zone"-emulating sports media, there are few things more annoying than the awkward "head to head" segment. everyone knows what i'm talking about: two analysts are asked the same question, almost invariably take opposing viewpoints, and simplistically duke it out with each other for about 30 seconds. then they move on to the next subject. sometimes, like on "pardon the interruption," it works pretty well. but when this happens, usually it's a function of a genuine (or at least genuine looking) rapport between the two combatants. i wholeheartedly feel like mike wilbon and tony kornheiser are good buddies who love talking about sports and just happen to disagree a lot. most of the time, though, these kind of segments seem forced and obnoxious. PTI is the exception rather than the rule.

sadly, it would seem that some media firm has done market research saying viewers love people shouting at each other in split screen, so this is the way things are going to be. we have to live with it. so, given that that's the case, let's try to look on the bright side of things! sometimes it can create some pretty hilarious situations, such as during this printed exchange between cbssportsline.com's pete prisco and clark judge.

Should the Bears have benched Rex Grossman?

this is where the comedy comes in- some jackass editor came up with this question, and as a result, someone's got to defend grossman. pete, this is pretty much the journalistic equivalent of being o.j. simpson's legal team. how are you going to work your way out of this one?

No. That might sound crazy considering how he has struggled, but three games does not make a season.

right. but it does make almost 20% of a season, and when you lose two of those three games and one of your division rivals goes 3-0, it makes for a 2 game deficit. furthermore, grossman does have a very recent (hint: it was last year) full season of absolutely maddening inconsistency and overall slightly subpar performance on his resume. in 2006 he completed only 54.6% of his passes, had a TD/INT ratio just slightly over 1, and sported a very "meh" 73.9 QB rating. in fact, those stats can be broken down further when you separate his starts in weeks 1-5 (completed 61% of his passes, 10 TDs against 3 INTS) to the rest of the regular season (51% completions, 13 TDs and 17 INTS). in three playoff games he was very pedestrian (56% completions, 3 TDs and 3 INTs, 197 yards a game). so, grossman has sucked this year. aaaaaand, since right around last halloween, he's also sucked. i'm aware that the bears as a team aren't built in such a way that they require a 350 yard/3 TD performance out of their QB game in and game out. and i'm not saying brian griese is going to be much better. but can you really defend grossman from a "he just needs more time... let's not do anything drastic after 3 measly games" perspective?

Plus, I blame the coaching staff.

please elaborate.

Grossman hit Bernard Berrian in the hands in the second quarter for what should have been a long touchdown pass. Berrian dropped it.

i wasn't aware berrian was part of the staff. also, let it be known that grossman is the only QB ever to have one of his WRs drop a potential touchdown pass. this fact should be acknowledged by any grossman detractors.

Then with his team down 10-3, he passed them to the tying touchdown.

this is pretty much true.

After the Cowboys made it 17-10, Cedric Benson fumbled and Dallas turned that into a field goal.

ok...

Then it went bad. Grossman's first pass on the next series was picked by Anthony Henry and returned for a touchdown. Game over.

you're not helping grossman's case.

The rest really went downhill, but it didn't matter.

true. the bears probably were out of the game, down three scores with less than 12 minutes to play.

It doesn't matter if it's Grossman or Brian Griese. You can't succeed as a quarterback in a system designed to make the quarterback play it safe.

trent dilfer (during a half season in which he never cleared 300 yards) and brad johnson (during a season in which he cleared 300 yards once) have super bowl rings. now, i realize 300 yards is an arbitrary point to choose whether or not a QB is "playing it safe" or not. but i think it's pretty generally established that those two guys were "game managers," not "gunslingers," and each made few enough mistakes to take their teams to titles. obviously the 2000 ravens and the 2002 bucs had amazing defenses. it's not like dilfer and johnson carried the teams to titles all by themselves. i'm just saying... this sentence, about how QBs can't succeed while playing it safe, is a crock of crap. in fact, it's patently false, as long as "leading your team to a super bowl title without putting up manningesque numbers" qualifies as being a successful quarterback.

The Bears think they can just win by playing good defense, running the football and mixing in a special-teams return or two by Devin Hester.

i'm not sure they could win it all by doing that, but they could definitely win a lot of games. the injuries their defense has sustained hurt that prospect, as has cedric benson's spotty play. but stranger things have happened than a team with an awesome defense and a home run threat like hester winning a lot of games by playing conservative offense.

At some point, the coach has to let the quarterback do more than just manage the game. Grossman never got that chance. It's unlikely Griese will get it either.

again, not sure i agree with that. maybe with the bears' d hurting, and benson struggling, the playbook needs to be opened up a little bit. but not a ton. especially with griese or grossman or kyle orton in charge.

meanwhile, clark judge, you have the oh-so-enviable position of taking the counterpoint and explaining why it's good grossman was benched. your thoughts?

Are you kidding me? The Bears were getting nothing from the position.

[middle of column omitted]

I don't know if Brian Griese will be better, but I do know he won't be worse.

good enough for me. i'm sold.

peter king vs. one of his readers in a "who is stupider?" contest

from king's latest mailbag on cnnsi.com. as is often the case when i post about mailbags, i have no idea whatsoever why king chose to print this question. i'm just going to assume it was for the enjoyment of readers like me.

KEEPING IT REAL. From David Floyd of North Carolina. "You are a great writer and I enjoy your columns on a regular basis. But I just have to ask you something. When the average American struggles on a daily basis to get by and faces real challenges daily, how is it one should look upon some of your musings? I mean, you've spoken of what a wonderful daughter or two you have, and you probably have just as wonderful of a wife. You live the life probably any man would dream of, covering the NFL and getting paid for it all the while. So when we see you complain about whichever Starbucks is nearby and the price of working out at a hotel gym center, and the cost of parking in Manhattan or hear any of the other rumblings which seem awfully miniscule to the average person trying to get by, what is one to think? Poor, poor pitiful Peter. How about this Peter? Every day you awake and look in the mirror, tell us how you hit your knees and thank your maker for gracing you with such a rich life."

david of north carolina, you are a bonafide douchebag. in the time you spent conceptualizing and writing that email, you could have written a check to the charity of your choice, put it in an envelope, addressed it, and dropped it off at the post office. talk about selfish! but king, never to be outdone, comes up with perhaps the worst possible answer:

I'm really glad you wrote that and knocked me down a peg or two. I need to hear stuff like that sometimes. Thanks for the wakeup call. The reason I told the story about the airfare and parking fare is that I found the comparison insane and I thought that you might too.

so basically... "yeah, you're right david, thanks for the perspective.... but (repeat of complaint). is that not ridiculous?" what a great example of two people talking to each other without communicating. and better still, in this case they are both extremely dumb. high comedy- that's what firejaymariotti is all about!

assorted funny quotes, vol. 1

tim mccarver, re: the all star voting process during fox's saturday broadcast of the giants vs. the yankees:

"even if major league baseball has to overhaul the entire all-star balloting program, they need to make sure bonds is the starting left fielder."

i'm not sure if he means overhaul it so that the guy with the top OPS at each position gets the starting nod, or overhaul it so that the guy tim mccarver likes the most at each position gets the starting nod. i can guess though.


cecil fielder on steroids in baseball:

"If we didn't know, we ought to really slap ourselves if we didn't think something was going on in baseball - from the commissioner's office on down," said Fielder, the manager of an independent league team. "Guys were getting too big and too strong. Little guys turned into big guys. Baseball was doing so well at the time, everybody was turning away from it and letting it go on."

i'm not at all saying this is funny because fielder was on the juice or something. this is funny because, whatever the reason (in this case probably bacon covered cheese fries), fielder is one of the most famous "big guys" in recent baseball history. i'm reading between the lines here and it seems cecil is saying "i got huge by eating a lot and occasionally lifting weights. all these guys that got big using drugs piss me off. i'm supposed to be the only ridiculously fat/strong guy around these parts." i'm also picturing him giving the quote while eating a sandwich.

lawl! lawl!