Bill Simmons: Master of cause and effect

This is long, and if you have a brain, you'll realize what's idiotic about it after the first sentence of Bill's response, but I'm pasting the whole thing just so you can enjoy Bill's amazing powers of deduction in full.

Q: I know you love these, so here's a great NFL what if: What if Andrew Luck came out after his junior year? If he comes out in 2011, Carolina takes him first and Denver takes Cam second (missing out on Von Miller, and one year later, Peyton Manning). In the 2012 Draft, Indy is then faced with either picking RG III or keeping Manning (and trading the pick), If they choose RG III, Washington misses out on Black Jesus. That's 4 franchises who had their course of history changed dramatically.
—Dan, Denver

SG: And you left out Von Miller (who jumped a level and became the league's most destructive pass rusher this season) going third in 2011 to … (wait for it) … Buffalo! So that's five franchises affected. In that same draft, Miller bumps Marcel Dareus down a pick, so who knows if Cincy passes up A.J. Green for him at no. 4, or if Arizona passes up Patrick Peterson for him at no. 5. (That's seven franchises affected.) And maybe Cleveland just picks the leftover guy (either Dareus, Green or Peterson) at no. 6 instead of trading down to Atlanta (who picked Julio Jones at no. 6), and maybe San Francisco picks Jones at no. 7 instead of Aldon Smith (now we're up to 10 affected franchises), or maybe San Francisco picks Smith, then Tennessee grabs Jones at no. 8 instead of Jake Locker (now my head is starting to hurt). Let's at least agree that 2011's top 10 unfolds differently, with three major chess pieces for 2012 contenders (Miller, Jones and Smith) possibly landing elsewhere.

Also, Denver never would have traded for Manning this spring if they already had Cam, which means Manning lands in either Arizona or San Francisco. (Hold on, we have to wait for Larry Fitzgerald to stop wailing.) For all we know, Manning could be throwing bombs to Julio Jones on an undefeated Niners team right now. So that's a great "What If" by Dan from Denver — and he didn't even mention Luck's fourth Stanford year inadvertently making the 2012 Cardinals eligible for the Ewing Theory, leading to last weekend's shocking upset over Oregon and our eventual Notre Dame–Alabama national championship game (13 teams affected). Amazing.

So what you're saying is.... if an elite, top of the first round college QB... were to be drafted in a different year than the one in which he was originally drafted, by a different team... you can imagine lots of other picks in those two drafts also changing?

/mind asplode

Yo, DJ Gallo, You Are Totally Not Funny. And You Seem Kind of Stupid.

DJ Gallo gave AL and NL previews on espn.com. They're chalk full of bad jokes, etc.

Here's the National League one. I'm just going to skip from part to part.

Arizona Diamondbacks
With a young roster, standout pitching and solid defense, this is a team that is easy to root for -- especially because Arizona's anemic offense means that few, if any, Diamondbacks are on steroids.

ROFLZOMG! Hey DJ, Neifi Perez took PEDs. So did Ryan Franklin and Jim Parque and shitloads of other awful players in the last 10 years. "Bad" does not equal "steroid free." And there's a good chance the DBacks will have a decent offensive year.

Fun Fact: The Rockies set a franchise record last season with a 4.32 ERA. They also replaced their humidor with a Jacuzzi.

LAWLAWLAWLAWLAWL or they had the best pitching staff in the franchise's history. But no, I like your joke so much that I'm going to pretend that isn't true.

San Diego Padres
Like division rivals Arizona, Los Angeles and San Francisco, the Padres have difficulty scoring runs. But San Diego will still be competitive, thanks to a pitching staff led by Jake Peavy, who led the NL in wins, strikeouts and ERA last season. Peavy also led the Padres with 17 hits, a .233 batting average and seven RBIs.

I can picture DJ cracking himself up typing that last sentence.

Fun Fact: Khalil Greene … still white.

...

NL West predicted order of finish: Inverse to the number of team losses.

Does that sentence have a purpose? There's no information and an overused, stupid joke. Like I understand that these are joke previews, but this is just useless.

NL Central predicted order of finish: The first shall be first, and the last shall be last.


And again.

Oakland Athletics

Fun Fact: You can now purchase a copy of "Moneyball" for $5.99 on the bargain rack at Barnes and Noble.

Hah. What a crappy bargain book. No one should want to read it because the A's are bad now.

AL West predicted order of finish: Four-way tie.

Stop this.

AL Central predicted order of finish: Wouldn't you like to know.

I said knock it off already! Don't you want to at least attempt a joke here?

Fun Fact: Delmon Young has only 26 walks in 681 career plate appearances. He tends to throw his bat at every pitch. And also at many umpires.

Fantastic! Hey DJ, 2006 called, it wants its joke back.

AL East predicted order of finish: 1. Yankees; 2. Red Sox; 3. Blue Jays; 4. Rays; 6. Orioles.

But DJ, there's only 5 teams in the AL Ea----aaaahhhhhhhhh!!!! There's the funny! Right there! Orioles 6th! ZOMG! You should be helping Bob Saget write stand-up. Seriously.

If Bill Simmons Publishes Your Question In A Mailbag Column, You Are A Douche By Association, Pt. 1

Actually, based on these questions, most of these people were already douches on their own. But I digress. Let's get to the awfulness.

Back in mid-January, you might remember me writing a "Dr. Jack" breakdown of the undefeated Patriots and the '86 Celtics, trying to figure out which team was greater and leading to hundreds of "You better not have jinxed the season!" e-mails. When the Pats blew Super Bowl XLII three weeks later, more than a few Boston fans blamed me, like my column had the opposite effect of "The Secret" or something.

Can you really blame a writer for altering the outcome of a football game with a column? Of course not. It's patently ridiculous.

Can you really accept a writer who works for a national sports site's decision to devote 75% of his columns to teams from one city? Well, you don't have a choice. He's already tragically popular. It is still, however, patently offensive.

The truth is, I just picked the wrong Boston team for the breakdown -- instead of comparing the '08 Patriots to the '86 Celtics, I should have used the '08 Celtics. With the playoffs just three weeks away and KG, Pierce and the gang running on all cylinders like no Celtics team since Larry Bird's heyday, it now seems like the optimal time to break this baby down "Dr. Jack" style.

Without further ado ...

(Wait for it ...)

(Wait for it ...)

April Fools!

Somehow, that's even less funny that my own pathetic attempt at an over-the-top April Fool's post (see below). My joke was neither directly nor ironically funny. This is unfunny in both of those ways, and in dozens of others that I'm not even smart enough to understand or describe.

(Just give us a few seconds while we revive my dad.)

(All right, we're good.)

Oh! Wow! I just realized something. Fuck me, I'm ignorant- he portrayed that as a joke not because if he really did it it would torture/infuriate people like me, but because many Boston fans are fucking dunderheaded enough to believe that if he had done it it would jinx the 2008 Celtics. I gotcha. Wow. That is sad.

Hey, what about an April Fools' mailbag? Is that something you might be interested in?

Reference from "Entourage," circa 2006. How very relevant. At least his 80s shit is stuff that's managed to stick around in some capacity for 20+ years.

Q: Your stubborn insistence on writing basketball nonsense for months on end reminds me of when Pearl Jam made albums like "Binaural" to purposely drive fans away. The baseball season just started and have we been treated to an SG column about it? No! I'd even read a Red Sox column or a Tom Brady column just because it's not a basketball column. You do realize the baseball season started right?
-- Danny G., Kansas City, Mo.

Too bad Danny is now a douche by association for getting his question printed. Seems him and I share some similar thought patterns. No, I would not rather read about the Sawks or Tom Brady than basketball, but the general idea here is a good one.

SG: Fine, we'll make it an April Fools' mailbag with no basketball questions. (Frankly, any comparison of my hoops columns to "Binaural" is a wake-up call. I might never write about the NBA again.) Speaking of baseball, allow me one extended thought about the American League heading into the season. Why the American League and not both leagues? Because that's the league in which I watch 162 Red Sox games a year and throw myself into my AL-only fantasy keeper league. I know the American League to the degree that when Leo Nunez pitched two scoreless innings in Detroit on Monday, my reaction wasn't "Who the hell is Leo Nunez?" but "Why didn't we start Nunez over Ian Kennedy this week when he was one of my big sleepers and Kennedy isn't even starting until Saturday?" I am an AL junkie. And if it comes at the expense of following the National League, then so be it. I'm not going to apologize. There's only so much time in the day.

You know, that makes a ton of sense. I know plenty of football fans that only follow the AFC. Basketball fans who love submediocrity and accordingly only pay attention to the Eastern Conference. NASCAR fans who only know anything about even-numbered cars. I mean, with so many other sports being in full swing for much of the baseball season (particularly in July and August), who has time to learn a little bit about every team in both leagues? What a ridiculous idea. And it's not like baseball has certain stats like wins, batting average, and RBI that are really easy to look up and generally allow someone who knows the names of players who accrue them in large amounts to put up rough but decent analysis of said players/teams they play for. That's such a crazy concept. You might as well try to juggle electric eels while taking a shower.

Anyway, here's my big extended thought: We're headed for a potentially historic offensive season in the American League. Consider the following things ...

Shockingly, nearly every single point he makes in an effort to prove this idea ends up being wrong/anecdotal/unprovable/stupid/douche.

1. The quality of AL starting pitching has gone south

Why?

because of two trades (Johan Santana and Danny Haren),

OK, fair enough.

some injuries (John Lackey, Kelvim Escobar, Curt Schilling, Scott Kazmir, possibly Josh Beckett),

Lackey, Beckett, and Kazmir should all be 100% by mid-May, but I guess this point is about half right.

overprotective inning counts (Felix Hernandez, Clay Buchholz, Phil Hughes, Kennedy, Matt Garza and Francisco Liriano)

Hernandez, despite missing some starts, threw 190 last year. That means the M's will probably get him up around 210 this year. But yeah. Just because they don't let him throw 140 pitches a night (look at 33 year old Livan Hernandez and his 81 mph fastball to see how that works out), let's boldly claim that Hernandez is somehow contributing to AL pitching getting worse this year.

Buchholz, Hughes, Kennedy, Liriano, and Garza combined to throw 198 innings last year. Total. This year, if they stay healthy, they'll probably clear 650. Not that these guys are as good as Haren and Santana, but that 450 innings they throw might come somewhere close to being in the neighborhood of balancing out the departure of the two aces. Again, I'm not saying the kids are going to have sub-3.00 ERAs and strike out a guy an inning. But their expected emergence prevents the teams that own them from relying on crappy retreads like Jeff Weaver, who still doesn't have a job. They'll see a lot more action this year than last, and at least two or three of them are bound to turn in good seasons. And somehow, this makes AL pitching worse in 2008 than it was in 2007. That's like saying "I won the state lottery, but I didn't win the Powerball, so I'm actually getting poorer."

and the disappearance of reliable, "I know I'm getting 200-220 innings, 140-170 Ks, 13-17 wins and a solid ERA and WHIP out of him" guys

Any support for this assertion? Any way you can justify this at all? In 2007, 14 AL pitchers fit this profile. In 2006, 15 did. In 2000, 13. It's all pretty consistent over the course of the last 8 seasons. I'm forced to wonder, therefore, when the hell these types of pitchers started disappearing and how that's going to make 2008 any different than other recent seasons. Oh, yeah, I figured out why: Bill Simmons is pulling nonsense out of his tightly clenched sphincter in order to try and prove a nonsensical point.

Wait! He does offer some support!

(leading owners to overpay for the likes of Dice-K, Jeremy Bonderman, Rich Harden, A.J. Burnett and others in my draft last weekend).

Matsuzaka fits that profile you just listed, dummy. Burnett would've fit it had he stayed healthy. Bonderman fit it in 2006. Bill's fantasy league (imagine the level of dickbag in the room during that draft!)- the one and only true predictor of what to expect from athletes in real life.

2. Not only were Kenny Rogers and Tim Wakefield drafted in my keeper league, not only did the bidding war for Wake climb to $7, but my buddy Hench and I shared a fist pump after we landed him.

That's because you stupid cunts are Red Sox fans. That says absolutely nothing about the level of pitching in the league as a whole. Nothing. Less than nothing. Also- take note that this is another attempt at reinforcing a point about predicting the real life future based on what happened during a fantasy draft.

3. We can have up to 10 keepers, so our friend Mikey incredibly decided before the draft to keep Andy Sonnanstine at $8. Even more incredibly, nobody made fun of him or thought it was a bad move.

He stunk last year, but he was a rookie. He's got great minor league numbers. Maybe he puts it all together this year. Maybe he breaks out like Kazmir did in that ballpark during his first full year. Maybe that guy just wanted to focus more on drafting a lineup as opposed to a rotation. What real conclusion about the level of pitching in the AL in 2008, as compared to 2007, can we draw from this? The answer: go fuck yourself.

Along those same lines, Erik Bedard was shut down with a sore shoulder last season, gave up eight homers in spring training and went for $30 in our auction. Did I mention that pitching is thin in the American League this season?

Last year, Bedard was arguably the best pitcher in baseball from May 1 until he was shut down at the end of August. He rehabbed fully. And no one gives a fuck about how superstars play in spring training. Considering he'll be making half his starts in Seattle's big park, that guy who got him for $30 has pretty good odds of laughing hysterically all the way to the bank. Yes, you did mention that you think pitching is thin in the AL this season several times. And you have been completely wrong almost each and every one of those times.

4. The overall quality of middle relievers and set-up guys is even more (pick an adjective: disturbing, appalling, grisly, macabre, comical) than usual. I mean, back in June 2005, if you had asked me to choose between one of two predictions -- "In 2008, Alan Embree and Keith Foulke would still be the lefty-righty set-up combo for an AL team" or "In 2008, Kevin Federline will have five Grammys, an Oscar nomination and his own late-night talk show" -- I would have gone with K-Fed in a kajillasecond.

Durrrr... Those guys were hurt three years ago. Therefore, there's no way they could possibly be effective now. This is the kind of thought process that runs corporations into the ground, wastes billions of tax dollars every year, and allow Billy Beane to win 90+ games a season with payrolls in the mid eight figures. I'm not even going to name any awesome AL setup guys. Suffice it to say: there are a lot of them. In some cases, several on the same team!

5. Todd Jones, Troy Percival, Huston Street, Joe Borowski, George Sherrill and C.J. Wilson make up 40 percent of the league's closers. Would you ask any of those six guys to help you fix a flat tire, much less save a baseball game? I didn't think so.

Not trying to pat myself on the back here, but I've fixed a flat tire on my own. So I wouldn't need help from a MLB player in the extremely unlikely scenario that one of them would be passing by while I was fixing another one. Anyways, Street, Percival, Sherrill, and Wilson were all pretty much lights out last year. But Bill just saw Street blow a save to the Sawks in Tokyo, Percival pitched in the NL last year, and he's never heard of Sherrill and Wilson (despite being an AL junkie), so they go straight to the "suck" box. Jones and Borowski are definitely shaky. But you know what? Someone stop me before I start shouting like Adam Sandler... THEY WERE ALREADY FUCKING CLOSERS LAST YEAR. SO HOW THE FUCK IS THE FACT THAT THEY'RE NOT VERY GOOD GOING TO MAKE 2008 THAT MUCH MORE OF AN OFFENSIVELY FRIENDLY YEAR THAN 2007, YOU FUCKING HARD-ON?

Sorry.

6. In our auction, Hench and I paid $14 for Percival. And you know what? We'd do it again.

You probably overpaid, but the guy struck out 36 guys in 40 innings last year. His WHIP was 0.85. He's definitely an injury risk, but if he stays healthy he should be effective. In fact, his re-emergence after semi-retirement and subsequent move from the NL to the AL is a factor that will make AL pitching better in 2008 than it was last year. See how that works? When good players come into the league, it changes how things work.

7. Four of the top five teams have noticeable pitching holes: Detroit (bullpen), Boston (starting rotation, middle relief), Anaheim (ditto), New York (double ditto). Only Cleveland seems to be relatively well-rounded, and that's the same team that relies on Borowski to close games.

Unlike last year, when all of those teams were 100% rock solid when it came to pitching. Totally flawless. Just like the Titanic. (Too soon?) Also: what a fantastic example of anecdotal bullshit.

8. The AL has three monster lineups (New York, Boston and Detroit), two other very good lineups (Cleveland and Anaheim) and one lineup with a chance to become very good (Tampa Bay),

Again, unlike last year, when all of those lineups were full of beer league softball players and anemic children.

as well as an inordinate amount of good hitters who seem like they're poised for a gargantuan year either because it's a contract year, they worked out all winter, they're coming back from an off-season and/or they're ready to make the proverbial leap: Manny Ramirez, Bobby Abreu, Miguel Cabrera, Grady Sizemore, Billy Butler, Delmon Young, Carl Crawford, Alex Gordon, Vernon Wells, Nick Markakis, Josh Hamilton, Robbie Cano, B.J. Upton, Justin Morneau, Howie Kendrick, Travis Hafner ... for God's sake, the list doesn't end, and if the first three guys on that list have career years, their three offenses are going to be insanely, abnormally good.

Well, there's a couple things that are good to know. 1) This year, the AL has some veteran players who are in contract years, and some other good young players who will probably be better than they were last year. 2) If 36 year old Manny (BEING MANNY!) Ramirez or 34 year old Bobby (BEING ON THE DOWNSIDE OF HIS CAREER!) Abreu have ridiculously great seasons, the Red Sox and Yankees will have good offenses.

Let's pick through that list and find the actual candidates to make the AL better in 2008 than it was in 2007- Cabrera, for coming over from the NL; Sizemore, maybe; Gordon; Wells, to rebound; Hamilton, if he doesn't wear down; and Hafner, to rebound. The rest of the names on that list aren't real likely to be a whole lot better this year than last. Cano? Morneau? Markakis? Who the fuck do you expect them to become? I'm not saying they stink, I'm saying they're not going to break out any more than they already have.

So that's my prediction for the American League: We're in for a summer of football scores and eye-popping offensive numbers along the lines of what happened in '77, '87, '93 and the prime of the steroid era.

After all that bullshit, let's review the solid and salient points Bill made in attempting to prove that hypothesis:

Haren and Santana gone, Cabrera added. A few guys who were good last year hurt for a month or so. Kelvim Escobar and Curt Schilling hurt all season.

The end. And that gets us to an offensive explosion. Just... wow. "But... but... but! There are some young guys trying to break out! And Todd Jones and Joe Borowski are cl-" SHUT UP. NONE OF THAT MEANS ANYTHING.

Christ, this is exhausting. There's a lot of great stuff left to cover (including more thinly veiled racism from Bill) but I've gotta turn in. Tomorrow night I'll pick up where I left off. Now, to just tie up all the loose ends by going up to the top of the page and putting "Pt. 1" at the end of the title. Awesome. I am soooo awesome.

The Trials and Tribulations of Wearing Skate Guards on Ice

The skate guard is a pretty simple device. Made of elastic and cloth, it keeps your skates safe if you were walking around on concrete. But let's say your job was to go out on the ice at specific times. Say, I don't know, every TV commercial break. So the first whistle after the 14 minutes, 10 minute, or 6 minute mark (barring other factors including goals and penalties) you are going out and cleaning the snow buildup around the ice. You would be prepared! You would take your skate guards off and look like a skank! You wouldn't leave them on, would you?

You would if you were this Nashville Predators Goal Girl.



Now I know you only get to see her fall one of the three times, but it happened. You'll have to take my word on it. I also apologize for Bernie Federko's color commentary on the fall. If the local affiliate was smart, they would have played back the audio of all of the fans laughing at her. At the end, she looks up at Nashville's "megatron" to see if she's up there. She wasn't. But everybody saw.

I'm Speechless

Jay Mariotti actually took the time to write this in his 24/7 online column. I couldn't be more shocked. I'll copy the entire thing here, and it's short. I refuse to link it for fear it may increase the number of hits this terrible terrible "sports" column gets.

Find your earplugs: Harrelson back

Jay is referring to the White Sox resigning Hawk Harrelson, the poor broadcaster, for the next several years.

Ensuring that illiteracy remains in the Chicago sports media for four more years, the White Sox have handed a contract extension to alleged broadcaster Ken (Hawk) Harrelson.

This is not a reason to write a column. You are abusing your privilege as a columnist for a personal attack. This as a premise for a column alone should be grounds for giving you a pink slip.

This means listeners in an otherwise sophisticated town will be punished with more hillbilly twang,

You heard it here first: Ken Harrelson is the only non-sophisticated thing in an "otherwise sophisticated town". Isn't this the city where some dude ran onto the field plastered to try to attack a first base coach with a knife in one stadium, while in the other people throw their garbage onto the field whenever the team plays bad late in the game? Are these "sophisticated" things to do? Walk around Wrigley Field in the 7th inning of a baseball game, and you'll see and hear just how "sophisticated" Chicago really is.

which is almost as embarrassing as Harrelson's .239 career batting average

ZING!

and his short-term flop as the general manager who fired Tony La Russa.

He fired the guy who felt Aaron Rowand was a better late-game hitting option than Albert Pujols? Tony La Russa is not now, nor ever has been, a good Major League Baseball manager. And even if he were, managers don't do that much.

Now Jay, try to relate this bullshit to something actually about baseball.

When the Sox should be attempting to reinvent an organization that already has lost its World Series cachet, they instead try to stay the same.

I hate to admit it, but I actually agree with Jay here.

Ken Harrelson, WARBs (Wins Above Replacement Broadcaster) for the past 5 years.

2003: 3.2
2004: 2.1
2005: 0.4
2006: -4.7 (oh boy...)
2007: -10.4

So as you can see, it was the broadcaster who profoundly and negatively affected the team's performance in 2007 (and possibly costed them a playoff berth in 2006), and not aging players, regression to the mean, Jerry Owens, or, as Jay believed, Ozzie being crazy and stupid. It was all about Ken Harrelson being crazy and stupid. This organization has just doomed itself.

Harrelson doesn't bring in audiences as much as he scares them away or makes them cringe, whether it's throwing one of his dead-air fits, blaming every loss on the umps or lowering himself to pick fights with media members far more professional and accomplished than him.

Ooooh hooooh hooooooooooooooh! It gets juicy!

The fact behind this comment is that Harrelson allegedly tried to pick a fight with Jay Mariotti in the press box.

As much as I believe Harrelson to be a bad broadcaster now (he wasn't as awful say, 10 years ago), let's look at the facts here for a second!

Ken Harrelson played Major League Baseball. He was the General Manager of a Major League Baseball team. He has been the TV broadcaster for said team for 2 decades or so.

Jay Mariotti writes a sports column for a newspaper. Millions of people are aware of him, and I've yet to meet one who didn't dislike him. He is also often on a TV show that features 4 idiot blowhards trying to suck Tony Reali's dick for "points". Rarely does Jay do any real sports analysis, and has become famous simply for generating controversy.

Which person is more accomplished? Jay feels, the latter.

And this is lovely. Jay has just patted himself on the back for being "far more professional" than Harrelson in the midst of a newspaper column written solely to continue his personal vendetta against the man. Shades of hypocrisy!

Consider it one more reason, along with the extension given to Ozzie Guillen, that the Sox are locked in as Chicago's second-class ballclub for years to come.

It just wouldn't be Jay if he attributed the Sox' failures to something that actually plays baseball. You know, something that actually affects the outcome of the games.

Column over.

Reader Extra Participation Friday: That's Worth a Few Bonus Points, Right?

Who will dethrone JD after his win last week? If he wins again, does that make him a dynasty? (USC fans would definitely think so, even if he finishes second. OH! PWNED!!!1111!11) Will he remember to show up to defend his title? Come on now, everyone join in.

Jerry Crasnick serves as our template this week, as he writes about some MLB free agents who have yet to find a team to play for in 2008.

[Sean] Casey's lack of power clearly works against him. He's posted slugging percentages of .433, .388 and .393 in his past three stops. But he knows how to work a count, and he has a higher career batting average than Lance Berkman and Bobby Abreu. And when Sports Illustrated surveys 464 players and they overwhelmingly anoint you the "friendliest player in the game,'' that's worth a few bonus points, right?

I actually don't mind Crasnick most of the time. As long as he's not writing about players who hustle and "play the game the way it was meant to be played," he's tolerable. This isn't even a flagrantly bad passage; first, it's partially tongue-in-cheek, and second, clubhouse chemistry actually does matter a little. But I still think this makes for a good Reader Extra Participation Friday topic. What other traits can you assign to a struggling player that have little or nothing to do with their ability to play a sport well in an effort to make them sound more desirable? As always, please use Jerry's voice.

"Maybe Joey Harrington just blew his last chance at starting in the NFL by preforming poorly for Atlanta this past season. It's a real shame teams are hung up on his disastrous stats- they seem to forget that the guy knows how to do that thing where you raise only one eyebrow really high."

"After he screwed the pooch during the '06 Olympics, everyone was talking about how Bode Miller was washed up. But his recent return to the winner's circle is no surprise to me. It was pretty much inevitable, given how much he enjoys getting high and going to zoos."

"Sad to hear that no one wants to give former Diamondbacks and Braves pitcher Russ Ortiz a shot during spring training this year. Have you ever seen the guy water ski? He's a maniac out there."

"It's fair to say that former NBA center Oliver Miller has struggled with his weight. But should his career really be over already? Any playoff contender looking for big man help off the bench should give him a call. He's a huge Nickleback fan."

"Sure, Rae Carruth is in jail for conspiracy to commit murder. But if he somehow is paroled or escapes, teams should think about giving him a tryout. The guy can burp and fart on command."

Those five examples took me three and a half hours to develop. I'm sure you can all do better.

An Old Favorite!

Dayn Perry picks his surprising contenders next year

Bad news is: he picked the Reds. Now, according to the Colin Cowherd school of media, other teams in the Central will be gunning for them.

It's pretty much all just Dayn rambling about a few players on each team who are "solid" or "poised to break out" or "could be contributors". Honestly, I'm not even going to break it down, since it's just a bunch of wishy-washy statements about a few names.

OMG JARROD SALTALAMACCHIA the Rangers are a dark horse!

Also, here's the weirdest part - he picks the Rays, then adds this doozy:

As for the bullpen, Troy Percival was an excellent addition, and he'll greatly improve how the Rays fare in late, high-leverage innings.

What the hell is a high leverage inning? Does he mean the ninth? The eighth? The sixth? I have no idea which innings have more leverage than others.

If Homer Simpson is S-M-R-T, Then I'm L-C-K-Y

Pop culture reference! Maybe if I bring up a popular TV show, people will like my blog just as much as they like it!

I know this has nothing to do with bad sports journalism, other than the fact that I'm less ignorant than Stewart Mandel (which isn't saying much), but I'm writing about it anyways. Consider it a sad celebration of the end of college football for the next 8 months or so. Just because I'm feeling like the cock of the walk after re-reading these, and because Ohio State and LSU square off tonight in the last game of the season, let's review my BCS bowl predictions from about a month ago. Obviously I would not be doing this if they had all turned out flagrantly wrong, but they didn't, so I am. Hooray. Holy shit, I am one lucky guessing bastard. Let's get the barely right/mostly wrong one out of the way first.

Georgia/Hawaii: This is exciting on the surface because just like last year's Fiesta Bowl, it's a high scoring WAC team matching up against a traditional powerhouse. So I'm excited about that (as anyone should be, at least on some minimal level) no matter how imbalanced the matchups on the field look. In any case, Georgia is probably going to win, but I'm not sold at all on Mathew Stafford. He misses a lot of open guys. Colt Brennan is the shit and he showed it against Boise State. Knowshon Moreno and Thomas Brown should rack up big yards, but the game will be played indoors and on fieldturf so the Warriors will be moving the ball as well. If Brennan has time to throw Hawaii's going to put up at least 35. Can Georgia match?

Obviously I was way off in thinking that Hawaii had a chance. But at least I was correct in guessing that if Hawaii was going to get killed, it would be because Brennan had no time to throw. That Georgia pass rush was vicious. Anyways, my thoughts about the other three games were more or less correct.

USC/Illinois: Yawn. Stanford over USC gets more ridiculous every time I think about it. Illinois beat Ohio State because no one could tackle Juice Williams. USC won't have the same problem.

Yawn. Williams and the rest of the Illini offense looked like a bunch of Canadians against the Trojan defense. The only thing that kept the game from turning into a total travesty was John David Booty's awfulness. I bet Missouri or Florida could have at least kept the final margin under three touchdowns. But why have a game like that, when you can have tradition? Heavens to Betsy, thank goodness a Big 10 team faced off with a PAC 10 team in the Rose Bowl! What would we have done otherwise?

West Virginia/Oklahoma: Since they seem to be on national TV every single weekend, I've seen WV absolutely embarrass several teams this year. Sure, they haven't played a team like Oklahoma, but as long as Pat White is healthy their offense can move the ball on anyone. Oklahoma is, of course, dangerously good in their own right. Stupid Bob Stoops. Stop looking so smug already. I can't explain WV's meltdown against Pitt other than to say it was a rivalry game, Pitt got up for it, and Westy choked. But like I already mentioned, I also watched Oklahoma absolutely shit the bed against Colorado in October. Bad games happen. If Westy doesn't have a hangover from the Pitt disaster (which is likely given that they have a month to forget about it) they're more than capable of beating the Sooners. Will they? Probably not. But it's going to be a good game as long as White doesn't get knocked out.

West Virginia's bed-shitting against Pitt was an aberration. Turns out, they can play with anyone when White is healthy. Just like I said. Nah nah nah nah nah. OK, maybe I said they "probably" wouldn't win and then they won by 20. At least I gave them a fighting chance, unlike Mandel. (See his article, linked in my original post.)

Kansas/Virigina Tech: Obviously, Kansas is really going to struggle to score much. Fortunately they have a very underrated defense that's going to hold VaTech's offense in check as well. Kansas CB Aqib Talib is a bad man and future NFL starter. I've seen four Hokie games this year and they don't seem to have much at the offensive skill positions. Tyrod Taylor gets a lot of snaps considering he sucks. Brandon Ore crumples as soon as he gets touched half the time. If Kansas makes too many mistakes early, it could get out of hand, but I think Todd Reesing is capable enough of not coughing up the ball that it should be interesting well into the second half.

Obviously this is my favorite of the four. Talib had a pick-6, KU's defense beat the crap out of VaTech's offense pretty much all night, and I came out smelling like a pile of roses covered in daisies and freshly baked cookies. The only thing I was really wrong about was the fact that Ore had a good game. Yayyyyyyyyyy me. Mandel made some kind of crack about the fact that Kansas was only the second best team in the Big 12 North. That may be true, but I guess the second best team in the Big 12 North is still more than a match for the ACC champ.

In conclusion, if there's anything we've learned in the end from this year's slate of BCS bowls, it's that a playoff system would be completely unnecessary and unsatisfactory. (I'm not implying that it will ever happen, just implying that anyone who says it shouldn't happen has a tiny brain. And if they're male, a tiny penis.)

Go Tigers! I don't really give a shit about them, but I do hate Ohio State, and a two loss national champion would be just another log on the fire that's hopefully about to engulf the BCS.

Hopefully.

Probably not.

Definitely not.

Fuck.

Oh well.

Fall Class oh no Wait

There's no bigger stage in the baseball world than the World Series, and we saw a couple of really good games this year. Yes, this truly is a great ga... oh wait, there's a rumbling out of New York City... Joe Torre ripped his pants? No, wait, ARod opted out of his contract. Let's talk about it during the World Series! I link to SI.com because they were credited for breaking the story, which had it's coattails grabbed onto by FOX and ESPN.

Yes, it's a classless act by Scott Boras. What do you expect?

Easy solution for FOX and ESPN: Launch into your gigantic spiral of New York City coverage AFTER the game is over. In 2004, I would have loved to have been in that bar after my team lost to see some other news than Jimmy Fallon celebrating in my ballpark. Any distraction would have been welcome. Boston fans were out rioting last night anyways, so the rest of the country- - the 80% of America that despises New England - - could have waited to see what Scott Boras leaked after the game, the celebration, the presentation of corporate prizes, the interivews, and Jeanine Zelasko's 20 pounds of make up. You can blame ARod and Boras all you want, but some of the blame needs to be put on FOX and ESPN. SI.com broke the story online, and then ESPN and FOX talked about it. The channels lost the ability to claim they broke the story, so they should have waited until after the Rockies and Red Sox were done playing. But instead, I had to endure Joe Buck (who I like... it's a St. Louis thing) speculating where ARod won't be appreciated next year.

Really, I can only shake my head when I read what Buster Olney wrote:

The way this played out could not have been more apropos, because A-Rod needs to be bigger than the game; he needs to be more important than the Red Sox or the Rockies or any other team, or any other player. He is one of the greatest players in history at compiling statistics, the greatest ever at compiling wealth, and his next employer will have to buy into that. The World Series can't matter as much as A-Rod.

I know it wasn't Buster who was on TV talking about it, but give me a break. Who made this story bigger than the World Series? ARod, or those who talked about it during the game? "Reporting" this during the game's grandest spectacle isn't about journalism, so why bring it up?

[note: I came in late during the game when it was brought up, as I had to ask my parents to pick up more Doritos at the store. It seemed to me that FOX tried to legitimize the discussion of the story by having Ken Rosenthal and Joe Buck talk about it. I would have mentioned this, but I wasn't watching when it was initially mentioned on FOX and I would hate to have anonymous commenters flame away for incorrect information on this humble blog.]

A Quick, Angry, Informal Poll

Raise your hand if you give a flying shit about where Kobe Bryant plays this season, whether or not he cleaned out his locker last week, or how he relationship with the Lakers' front office is going.

Didn't think so.

how the hell did the patriots get this reputation?

a semi-outrageous blurb from a dumb AP article about a "controversial" non-story that happened in sunday's patriots/browns game involving a late, low hit by new england LB mike vrabel:

Whether Vrabel's move on Thomas was intentional or not, to Steinbach, it's yet another spot on the Patriots' once-impeccable image, which seems to be getting more tarnished as the months pass.

let me clarify that this isn't yet another of my "god i hate the red sox/patriots soooooo much!!!!1111" tirades. although i do enjoy writing those... expect one as soon as bill simmons releases his inevitable "HA HA RED SOX WON YANKEES LOST TAKE THAT YANKEE FANS" article later this week. anyways, there's no negativity for the patriots themselves here. i'm just pissed about the way the media portrays them. the way i've always understood it, the reason they're widely regarded as a model NFL franchise is because they consistently make great player personnel decisions and have won 3 super bowls in the last 6 years. that's all and that's it. they spend their money wisely, draft well, and win a lot. what other team wouldn't want to emulate them in this regard?

so here's the rub- how did they somehow along the way add a "they're the classiest, nicest, swellest team in the league too!" component to this rep? since when did they also become known as pinnacles of character? when the whole camera controversy thing happened back in september, i couldn't help but wonder why so much attention was being paid to the possible "damage" this would do to the patriots' legacy. what legacy? the one in which they won a lot? i realize that was cheating, but the way i heard things pretty much every team in the league was doing the exact same thing up until this year. it was far from out of the ordinary. the patriots kept doing it into 2007, got caught, and got penalized. that was a mildly interesting story, especially because i hate them. but again, i really didn't (and still don't) understand why everyone is acting like this hurts their reputation as a collective bunch of goody two shoes. as far as i knew, they had a reputation for being really good at football and that's about it.

so getting to the dumb little story that prompted this post, why is one questionable late and low hit all of a sudden doing even more harm in the exact same way? i don't get it. i looked around and couldn't find any penalty statistics from previous years, but i'm going to go way out on a limb and guess that the patriots have committed their fair share during the construction of this mini-dynasty they have going. including some late hits and other personal fouls! oh my heavens! and then when it comes to off the field stuff, their coach tried to steal a guy's wife! (i can't believe how many football fan friends of mine hadn't heard of this before i told them about it. sorry the link isn't great, but the story is right there.) their golden boy QB just had a kid out of wedlock! (probably don't need a link for that one.)

now, don't get me wrong- i'm not criticizing the patriots for this kind of stuff. on the field, tons of players all over the league play dirty each and every sunday. off it, plenty of athletes and coaches have shady lives. larry eustachy, anyone? but apparently, according to this writer (and many many more just like him/her...trust me, it's an epidemic) prior to this season the new england patriots had never done anything wrong or dirty. ever. it confuses the hell out of me. maybe i'm just out of touch; have they actually legitimately developed a reputation of classiness along with their reputation for making good player decisions and winning? or is the former just a function of the latter- as in, everyone just assumes that because they win a lot and they don't have any ray lewis/chris henry type convicts on their team, they must be nice guys as well? i'm frustrated and pissed about this. and furthermore i'm now pissed that this is a rambling post in which i'm kind of sort of defending a boston sports team. i think i'm just going to cut my losses, but please, leave me your thoughts- is this "classy reputation" thing a bunch of crap or what?

dear mlb.com: please don't hire writers who suck at their jobs

honestly. picture this: you're an executive assistant junior vice president for major league baseball. one of your (very limited) responsibilities in this position includes managing the league's official website. wouldn't one of your first moves be hiring an editor who actually knows the difference between good and terrible writing? evidently, whoever is filling this imaginary vice president post in real life failed to make such a hiring. because no editor with half a brain would allow articles like this one by barry bloom onto a major entertainment corporation's site. we're really facing a double fisted attack of bad journalism- shitty analysis and overall clunky writing. let me show you what i mean. this guy could benefit from coherency lessons given by woody paige.

Ten good reasons to watch postseason
From Yanks to broken curses, playoffs sure to bring excitement

oh good. you say the yankees made the playoffs? when did this happen!?!?! do they have any newsworthy players on their team?

It's that time again when all the formulas for postseason matchups have come to an end.

aaaand... the crap begins. what does it mean to "end" a formula? we have subject/verb disagreement problems already.

The playoffs are starting, baby, and from Wednesday's opening of three first-round series to a possible Game 7 conclusion of the World Series on Nov. 1, we'll have nearly a month of non-stop thrill-a-minute Major League Baseball action.

Not that there's anything wrong with it. The month of September was incredible, with nearly half the 30 teams in the Majors still in the hunt on Labor Day.

remember what i said about clunky writing? here's a great example. the sentence "not that there's anything wrong with it" is referring to baseball in the month of september, as in, hey, october is great but let's not sell september short. but this is so poorly written that when i first read that sentence i thought it was a continuation of the previous paragraph. as in " get ready for some non stop thrill a minute baseball action... not that there's anything wrong with that!" come on, barry. organize your sentences/paragraphs like you actually make a living as a professional writer.

Heading into the final weekend, seven National League teams were still standing. After Monday's one-game Wild Card playoff game at Coors Field, only the Mets, Brewers and Padres didn't make the dance.

With all this as the background, this could be the best rock 'em, sock 'em postseason in history. And here are 10 good reasons to watch. Hold on to your caps.

i'm not sure what the list of top ten "rock 'em, sock 'em" postseasons looks like. not that i want to overhype the whole yankees/red sox thing, but i assume 2004 is probably on there. 1997 as well? maybe 1991? whoops, no time to think! better hold on to my cap as we go through ten (eight, for the purposes of this posting) atrociously explained reasons to watch the 2007 playoffs.

1. The Yankees are the only American League team returning from last year's postseason.

that's right, here you have it, folks. the number one reason this year's postseason is going to be great: THE YANKEES ARE INVOLVED! thank goodness. what would we have done without them?

And having the Yankees around is always a good thing. They're the team that everyone loves to hate, except Yankees fans world-wide who now share the passion of their principal owner, George Steinbrenner, the self-acclaimed "Boss."

what an absolutely god awful run-on/incomprehensible sentence. the average american 6th grader would be able to identify that as poor writing. furthermore, did steinbrenner really give himself that nickname? i'm not saying i know that's false, i'm saying i'm skeptical.

You know, 26 World Series titles are never enough. And the last one came over the Mets in 2000, shudder the consequences.

shudder the consequences? what the hell are you talking about? shudder the consequences isn't even a real figure of speech. are you saying it's bad for the mets to lose to their crosstown counterpart? or that it's bad that the yankees haven't won a title since 2000? if i as a reasonably discerning and intelligent reader need to ask these questions, you have failed abysmally in your role as a writer.

2. The Commissioner has been crowing about parity for years, and now he's got it. The demise of the defending champion Cardinals cements the fact that there won't be a repeat World Series winner again this fall. It hasn't happened since the Yanks won three straight from 1998-2000. Since then, Arizona, the Angels, Florida, Boston, the White Sox and Cards have won in succession. Bless revenue sharing.

now here's a place where i really have a problem with bloom's analysis. bless revenue sharing? what the hell are you talking about? true, no one has repeated as champ since 2000. great. cute. yay underdogs. but the playing field in terms of player acquisition in baseball is still horrendously uneven. look at payroll distributions across the league's 30 teams. when good free agents become available, let's be honest- there's really only 10 or so teams that are going to be able to sign them. and now teams that try to build from within instead of through free agency are beginning to face increasingly exorbitant contract demands by prime draft picks, making going after premium talent in that way much more difficult. let's just say the gap in player acquisition capability between the yankees and baseball's bottom feeders is a whole lot larger than between the new england patriots and football's bottom feeders. (and yes, i know the NFL has a salary cap, thanks. the point still stands. baseball is certainly not rife with parity.)

3. Any postseason that includes the Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox and Phillies has to be a good one.

why? because these teams are older and play in bigger media markets than other teams?

These are storied franchises with storylines to spare.

i think you mean, "these are storied franchises with media friendly storylines to spare."

The Phillies haven't even been to the playoffs since the 1993 World Series. And we all remember how that one ended. Right, Mitch Williams? The franchise of 10,000 losses has won once, 1980 against the Royals in the World Series plagued by George Brett's hemorrhoids. There's enough collective angst here to fill a Boston teapot.

what? what the fuck? where does a boston teapot and "angst" fit into this whole thing? boston (obviously, famously) won it all in 2004. they're really not that angsty anymore. the yankees might have angst issues but it has nothing to do with lack of recent success (and by recent, i mean the last 15 years... spare me the dramatics about how they haven't won a title in a whopping 7 years). the phillies haven't won it all in 27 years, but that's not THAT bad. the cubs and their fans obviously have tons of angst due to their extended championship drought, but that's not what you chose to highlight in this bullet point, was it barry? get a clue.

5. This has got to be the year that the Billy Goat curse goes away, don't you think?

the cubs are maybe the 2nd best playoff team in the NL. maybe. they would be sizable underdogs in a world series against any of the AL playoff teams, if they even get there. there are many good reasons they had the fewest wins out of all 8 playoff teams. but the real problem here isn't this sketchy, "hey, why not?" analysis. it's the way barry decides to end his paragraph.

After all, the Red Sox broke their drought by whacking the Cardinals in 2004, and the White Sox followed suit by sweeping the Astros in 2005. Both hadn't won since just after the first World War. The two numbers to keep in mind are 1908 and 1945 -- the last time Cubbies won and the last time they played in the World Series. Fair is fair.

fair is fair? what the fuck does that even mean in this context? i can't even guess. it looks completely thrown in. like if you were hanging out with a friend who suddenly said "hey, i'm hungry. i think i'm going to make a sandwich. fair is fair."

6. The Tribe is suffering from its own mini-curse, having last won in 1948, the second-longest drought behind the Cubs. At least it's been to the World Series three times since then -- 1954, 1995 and 1997, losing on the last pitch of the latter to the Marlins in Game 7. Props to Bill Veeck for breaking the color line and putting Larry Doby and Satchel Page on the 1948 team that defeated the Boston Braves. For that alone, the Indians deserve better.

if you're really into karma and all that crap, they got what they "deserved." they won the world series that year. you just said so yourself. or are you really saying they should win another world series for something progressive they did 60 years ago that already won them a world series?

7. This edition of the Diamondbacks is reminiscent of the posse that was chasing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. No matter what they did, they couldn't shake them, forcing Butch to constantly turn to his partner asking, "Who are these guys?"

you have antecedent problems in that sentence, barry. big antecedent problems. and besides that, where the hell is this going?

Well, the rest of the baseball world is about to find out. They can't hit, they wear Sedona Red now and their closer sprints out of the bullpen at Chase Field to the soulful strains of a rap tune called, "Big Papa." All they do is win.

you also have "incredibly awkward reference problems." so the diamondbacks are like the posse chasing butch cassidy and the sundance kid... because butch and sundance don't know who they (the dbacks) are? also, i love "all they do is win." one of my favorite nonsensical sports cliches. i'm pretty sure they do other things. like lose occasionally. and go through all the other things baseball teams do, like practice, go to team meetings, and attend the occasional charity event.

8. The Curse of the Bambino is behind them, but the Red Sox can't seem to shake the cursed Yankees.

why not? because boston has won a world series more recently? because they just won their first division title over the yankees in like 10 years?

They came back from a 3-0 deficit to win the 2004 AL Championship Series. They just won their first AL East title since 1995.

excuse me, 12 years. but go on, tell me why the red sox can't shake the yankees.

But they didn't make the playoffs last year, and this year they've spent a whole lot of money on Japanese pitchers just to get back. Can the world take another Yankees-Red Sox ALCS? You bet. We'll let you know in a week.

thanks so much for not answering the question. i think what you were actually getting at is the fact that baseball fans nationwide "can't seem to shake an insufferable amount of yankees/red sox media analysis day in, day out, and from every conceivable and forced angle." yeah. that sounds about right.

10. Baseball in November. You can't get enough of it. Game 4 of the 2001 World Series between the Yanks and D-backs was a seminal one in the history of postseason play. It began on Oct. 31 and as the game spun into extra innings, the clock above the Yankee Stadium scoreboard struck midnight, sending baseball into November for the first time ever. Derek Jeter hit the homer in the bottom of the 10th to win it, and he was dubbed "Mr. November" by the New York tabloids. Who will be Mr. November this year?

the only way baseball gets played in november this year is if the world series goes 7 games (hasn't happened since 2002) or if it goes to a game 6 which then goes past midnight. in that case, rather than a new "mr. november" being crowned, i'm pretty sure that regardless of which two teams were involved in the series we'd just be treated to a 2001 jeter montage to remind viewers nationwide that there will only ever be one "mr. november." and of course, let's not forget that jeter will forever also be forever remembered as "mr. clutch", "the captain", and "the sexiest goddamn human being ever to wear a baseball uniform." thanks ESPN.

that's all for this horrible column. thanks, barry bloom. you almost talked me out of watching the baseball postseason. asshole.

yes, i'm jealous of this guy. and yes, he is an enormous tool

don't get me wrong, i really wish i were bryan biederman. see, byran's job (as far as i can tell) is to follow fox's mlb broadcast team around to all its saturday broadcast locations and assemble a photo diary based on whatever shots he can get with an all access on field pass. what a fantastic job, no? basically he's getting paid to go to baseball games and take pictures, then write a couple cheesy captions and get the whole package published on foxsports.com.

now here's the problem- when your photo diary contains almost as many shots of you awkwardly posing with/groping/"carrying" women as it does of actual baseball players... you are a officially a huge douchebag.

check out his work from saturday's yankees/red sox tilt and tell me bryan doesn't have a terminal case of "that guy" disease. hey, jackass- you don't need to prove to baseball fans everywhere that you can get girls to pose with you in pictures. we really couldn't care less. take some more pictures on the damn field.