ATTENTION WORLD: BILL HAS FIGURED OUT HOW TO GAMBLE ON THE NFL

His lead in to last Friday's picks column:

I rededicated myself to understanding football gambling better. I mean, why not? What else was I going to do? One morning, I was killing time power-walking on a treadmill before a doubleheader of The Equalizer and A Walk Among The Tombstones when I came up with a gambling brainstorm: What if there were a better way to figure out NFL records than just wins and losses? For instance, Arizona battled back in Week 1 to beat San Diego 18-17 on Monday night — the Cardinals got the “win” and San Diego got the “loss,” but really, that was an “either/or” game, right? For gambling purposes, there had to be a better way to capture that.

I went through the first few weeks of games and redid everyone’s records, tagging each game as either a legitimate win or loss, an ass-kicking win or loss, or an either/or game. 

There IS a way to capture that: it's called point differential.  (To be fair, this new "system" of Bill's also incorporates some measure of standard deviation that season long point differential does not capture.  To be realistic, thinking that this is some kind of revolution for the world of spread bet analysis is unfiltered idiocy.)

And if anything else happened in that game with gambling repercussions — a comeback win, a blown lead, major dysfunction, whatever — I tagged that, too. And again, I did this because I had an incredible amount of time on my hands.

Well, I'm glad he put that time to good use.  He went 3-11 against the spread (a Redskins cover of +10 tonight could get him all the way to 4-11!) this week.  That's actually kind of hard to do.  Getting that far away from a .500 record really requires a special brand of dumbassery that few possess.  I guess Bill has it.  

If you are the kind of person who sincerely listens to what Bill Simmons has to say about gambling, or anything else, you're fucking stupid and you need to do something about that.  Also, with the MNF game still in progress, underdogs went 6-8 against the spread this week, putting them at an even 58-58 for the season.  The Year of the Dog rolls on.

For Once, Dr. Z Entertains Me Without Being Flagrantly Dumb

Dr. Z is a lot of things. Crusty old crummudgeon. Possible asylum escapee. Poor writer. Idiot. But this is his day in the sun at FireJay, because he just wrote a very entertaining piece which not only claims that Brett Favre could've been a whole lot better but also calls out the media for constantly handling him with kid gloves. Now, I'm not a Favre/Packer hater. I acknowledge that he's great, and I really don't have anything horrible to say about him. The tone of what Dr. Z does here probably takes things a little too far; I mean, Favre has the all time win, TD and yardage titles in addition to a ring. It's a nearly peerless resume and should be treated as such. But I'm excited about this piece simply because it's such a breath of fresh air.

Who has guts to subtly shit all over a surefire hall of famer less than 12 hours after he retires? Who's going to implicitly call out John Madden and Peter King (along with others) for refusing to hold Favre to the same standards they use on every other QB in the league? Who's going to question whether or not he was the greatest QB in Packer history by referencing two guys no one's ever heard of from the 40s and 50s? Dr. Z, that's who. Hey, you don't land a lady like the Flaming Redhead unless you've got balls down to your shoes. There's a reason he looks so happy with himself in his CNNSI file photo. He says what he wants, when he wants, and that makes him a real man.

Remember the night in Oakland, when it was iffy whether he'd play, following his father's death? Four TD passes and 399 yards in the air was the legacy he left out there. But there were downers, too, and it only hurt Favre that the knights of the TV screen always were ready to make excuses for him.

His fourth quarter and overtime meltdown against the Giants last season, which put a sad end to a remarkably classy season? Never mind ... the redemption of the Giants' field-goal kicker was the angle. The goofy, looping interception that cost the Pack the Eagles' game in OT in the divisionals in 2004? Oh, let's put it on the defense for allowing McNabb his fourth-and-26 completion in regulation.

Always ready to make excuses, always braying about "what a good time he's having," that was the continual barrage from TV. Maybe a few frowns, a stern reprimand or two, might have toned down the wild maverick a little, but gosh, he sure is having fun out there. And that's what the game is all about, isn't it? Fun, boys acting like men and so forth.

Facial.

Also, I forgot to award a winner for last week's reader extra participation Friday. Thanks to everyone who submitted (Even you, Archie the Possible Cokehead. And yes there are still winners. Keep trying.), but I've got to hand this one to Matt for pointing out that:

Worst: Chess. Don't get me wrong, I like chess. But when Bobby Fisher died recently,players quoted in the flood of resulting articles kept citing all Fisher "had done for our sport." Seriously? Sitting at a table for days & taking hours to decide in which direction you want to move a tiny piece a total of about 3" qualifies as a sport? I think I burn more calories taking a dump than a chess player does in an entire match. Plus the title "Grandmaster" sounds suspiciously like "Grand Wizard," and that's just racist.

By A: almost never being on TV and B: not requiring any movement out of the participants (we're not counting moving your arms to move the pieces, fuck that), chess failed to meet two of my three stated criteria for being a "sport." So really, this submission shouldn't even count. So why am I giving it the title anyways? Fuck, man. Now that I think about it "Grandmaster" does sound a little bit racist. And wasn't Bobby Fisher a well-known anti-Semite? It's 2008, International Chess Governing Body Association Incorporated. I think it's time we moved past that kind of thing.

(Note: posts that point out what a fucking disaster Dr. Z is to resume shortly. This is a one time deal.)

Does It Get Any Better Than Lifetime Original Movies?

Before I get going with my actual post for the night, I just realized I didn't award a winner for last Friday's Reader Extra Participation Friday post from Friday. Friday Friday Friday. Anyways, I liked everyone's submissions (especially Jeff's references from Independence Day, which really took me on a trip down memory lane). But in the end only one person can win. So I'm going to declare this a tie between two people. Andrew and BenGoodfella teamed up to produce this dynamic 1-2 punch:

A- "Does it get any better than the middle third of the Lifetime movie To Be Fat Like Me? You have the very hot Kaley Cuoco trying to reinvent herself as a dramatic actress after 8 Simples Rules..., loads of unintentional AND intentional comedy in re: the fat suit, plus you get Caroline Rhea as (you guessed it!) the fat, near suicidal enabling mom. You know eventually she's going to get found out by her new fat friends as a fake fatty, but...you...just...cannot...turn your eyes away from the screen. It's the Karate Kid of movies for kids with eating disorders!"

B- "I think the best part of "Fat Like Me" is when at the end she rips off her fat suit at the party and everyone is shocked that is she is not really fat. That moment gave me chills...mostly because I realized I had watched the entire movie at that point."

Well played, both of you. I definitely need to see that movie so in ten years when I take over Simmons's post at ESPN.com, I can reference it in one of my hundreds of lame articles about Denver sports teams. You two can either share or fight over the prize, which is a box of stale Froot Loops. Thanks again to everyone who commented- only 60 or so hours until you have to begrudgingly humor me with another submission.

Hooraaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy

Nice job, douche. You've just made most of America happy. Maybe you should miss some more wide open receivers.

The 1972 Dolphins? Whatever. I can deal with their asshole-ery for another year. They're not long for this world anyways.

I Promise, I'll Write About Someone Other Than Simmons After This Post

First, let me quickly declare Reader Extra Participation Fridays a huge success. Thanks a lot to everyone who participated! I'm declaring JD this week's winner (yes, it's a contest now, because I just decided it should be) for this:

"On 4th and 31 from the Jersey/A 44-yard line with 12:31 to go in the second quarter, down 14-7, Dallas decided to punt. I then proceeded to pick up my pink fountain pen and write 'Game Over, I love the taste of my own ball hair,' into my Care Bears notebook. How can you punt in your opponents territory down by a touchdown this late in the game!?!? The football gods then spoke these words to me: 'I shall punish these dim-witted fools that call themselves professionals!"

Honorable mention to Shimmering for this, which wasn't quite what I asked for but was pretty awesome anyways:

"Stat of the Week No. 2: Since I began writing this column for ESPN, thirteen people have taken a toaster-bath as a direct result."

And similar thanks to Richard for the haiku. Very tasteful. Anyways, all this Simmons stuff is getting repetitive, I know. But reader Daniil tipped me off about something that I definitely have to post. In his words:

"I don’t know whether you guys read sportspickle.com or even know about it and I don’t know if you caught this from his handicapper column. Did DJ Gallo just compare Philip Rivers to his coworker Bill Simmons??? I know I’m reaching, but that would be fucking great if Bill got offended by this and started spewing and they insulted each other in their articles on ESPN. My respect for DJ Gallo would grow greatly if he did this intentionally."

Well, let's take a look at the passage in question.

Here is San Diego’s one chance of winning: if Bill Belichick trades Tom Brady for Philip Rivers before kickoff. And don’t laugh – “Um, I never have on this site, so why would I start now?” – it could happen. I think Bill Belichick secretly wishes Philip Rivers was his quarterback. Rivers just has that certain Boston sports “je ne c'est douche” that would make him a more fitting figurehead for the city’s best team. I mean, sure, Tom Brady can be a total cockhead when he wants to, but Philip Rivers exudes Boston douche. He is Boston douche. If Red Sox Nation beats with one heart, that heart is inside the body of Philip Rivers. Rivers’ bio says he was born in Alabama, but I wouldn’t be shocked at all to learn that he grew up outside of Boston. Or that he went to a prep school and then on to some overrated New England private college. Then, no doubt, he spent a few years living off of his daddy’s trust fund money, dabbled a bit in date rape and bartending, and then settled down with some pink-hat skank because he thought he got her pregnant. Yes, it’s clear to me: Philip Rivers is from Boston. He is Boston. But unless he makes it on to Boston’s beloved Pats before kickoff, this is going to be a total beatdown.

Is that a description of Bill? Well, let's break it down. Obviously he's from Boston or somewhere just outside of it. According to his Wikipedia page (always a reliable source, I know), he went to this prep school. He then attended College of the Holy Cross, which may or may not be overrated but is definitely private and definitely located in New England. Bill himself alludes to his bartending exploits in his columns. Date rape? Wouldn't put it past him. Trust fund? Well, that prep school he went to costs $37,000 a year if you board and $27,000 if you're just there to learn. And he's constantly talking about how his dad has been a Celtics season ticket holder for decades, which can't be cheap. That's not ironclad proof that he's a trust fund baby but it certainly indicates there's money in the family. I have no idea whether or not The Sports Gal is a "pink-hat skank," but I really can't see anyone wanting to get married to Bill unless there were some extenuating circumstances like a pregnancy.

So all in all... yeah... it might be a coincidence. But it might not be. I'm sure Gallo has met Simmons and is familiar with his work. They're both successful professional journalists in the same field and with roughly similar styles. Who's to say they can't have beef? You can make your own judgment. If something more comes of this, you'll definitely read about it here. Thanks again to Daniil.

New Blog Feature Thing: Reader Extra Participation Fridays

I was facing two big problems earlier tonight.

1) I am tired
2) Gregg Easterbrook released a TMQ column this week that contains some absolutely wretched analysis

I mean, how was I supposed to reconcile these two with each other? If I go to bed, Easterbrook's turd of an article goes unchecked, probably forever. If I take a bunch of time to complain about the article, I go to bed late. Then I'll just be tired again tomorrow. And maybe Saturday too. What kind of bullshit life is that? How am I supposed to break that vicious cycle if I don't start tonight? But just as I was starting to panic, I had an idea. Let me lay it out for you slowly, so that by the end of the explanation you're so bored with what I'm saying that you have no interest in being a part of the idea.

Yesterday saw FireJay set another direct traffic record. Very exciting stuff. We also shattered our old record for being looked for on search engines; Google was overflowing with lovejuice for us. And the 34 comments (granted, like ten of them are from me, Chris W, and pnoles, but don't burst my bubble) on the Simmons piece has to be close to an all time record for the blog as well. So there's definitely a lot of you out there reading this drivel. I mean, shit, look at you right now. You could be doing anything on the internet. But you've chosen to be here.

Therefore, here's my idea: every Friday, we do a sort of play on those "You Write the Caption" competition magazines and blogs are always having. It used to be one of my favorite features in Sports Illustrated For Kids, even though most or all of the winning selections were probably written by kids' parents. But whatever. Anyways, for our little thingy I'm describing here, instead of a picture, we'll just present you with a handful of quotes from a terrible article and a theme for you to follow in your responses. Then you all just go buck wild making up jokes from the perspective of the author, which is sort of caption-ish in a way. Pow. Instant comedy. I mean, what better way to celebrate this windfall of new readers than by asking you to show us and each other how witty and snarky you can be? I hate the word snark, but I think its made-up definition applies nicely to what FireJay and blogs like it are all about. You wouldn't be here if you didn't like snark, and weren't pretty damn good at being snarky yourself. Hell, most of you are probably better at being snarky than I am. I'm really more angry/angsty. Snark snark snark. Fuck that word. See? I'm pissed now.

But seriously, you can see what I'm getting at here. I want you all to use your rapist's wits to help make the blog a funnier place. Some of you already do that in the comments section on a daily basis, but I want Friday to become a special day where you really focus and bring your A games. And on top of that, maybe some of you that read but don't comment will be inspired by this feature to make the plunge into commenting every once in a while.

This week will be the trial run. If it flops, we'll pretend it never happened. If it's even a mild success, which I define by having at least two commenters participate without making fun of me for thinking this would work, then we'll keep it going.

Easterbrook went like ten steps further than he usually does this week in terms of making shit up and passing it off as the truth. Here, he speculates as to why some of the NFL's divisional playoff games turned out the way they did.

Dallas took its regular-season finale off, then had the bye week, then honked at home. As you just might possibly have heard, certain Cowboys not only lost focus during the bye but treated the week as a vacation! Receiving millions of dollars per year for a part-time job, some Dallas players nevertheless felt they had to award themselves a vacation to get their minds off the playoffs -- and as we saw Sunday, the Cowboys' minds surely were off the playoffs!

Really? How did we see that? They piled up 11 penalties, but that alone isn't going to convince me. I'm going to need a little bit more explanation than "as we saw Sunday, [X], and that is that because I said so and I like science fiction a lot."

Romo kept trying to throw deep, rather than throwing slants, which are the standard counter to the big blitz. You sensed Romo wanted to hit a deep pass so everyone would credit him for winning the game.

Did I? I'm pretty sure I didn't. I mean, Romo's usually a spotlight hogging asshole, but- oh wait, no, that's someone else on his team. Nevermind.

Garrett never straightened Romo out in the fourth quarter -- perhaps because Garrett's head wasn't really in the game, either.

So I guess Gregg was either at the game, or has a magical TV feed that allows him to watch what's happening on the sidelines at all times.

In the fourth quarter, Dallas' offensive line play broke down. Could this have something to do with offensive line coach Tony Sparano not having his head in the game because he spent the bye week interviewing for head-coaching jobs?

Great theory. Totally unprovable and probably no more than 10% true. But it's cute. You know what will often cause offensive line play to break down? Being lined up opposite Osi Umenyiora and Michael Strahan all damn game.

Jacksonville trailed the highest-scoring team in football history by 11 points in the fourth quarter; reaching first-and-goal, the Jags absolutely had to score a touchdown. So why didn't the coaches assume they'd use all four downs and power-rush three times? Jacksonville had to get a touchdown. The mouselike field goal was all but running up a white flag. You could see at that point that Jack of the River had quit on the game. He wasn't going all-out to try to win, he was trying to hold down the margin of defeat so that on the banquet circuit in the offseason, people would say, "You gave the Patriots a good game."

Yep, I bet that's it. Why make decisions that you think give you the best chance at beating them, like kicking a field goal to get a one-score deficit? What's the glory in that? If you end up winning, no one's going to praise you for that on the offseason banquet circuit. Those banquet people are a tough to please crowd- they really only gravitate towards close losses.

Whoever coaches Indianapolis next season, if the Colts win a bye again, please, don't give the starters the season finale game off! Dungy has done this four times, and four times the result has been first-round home-field defeat for Indianapolis. Was the problem that the Colts defenders relaxed when LaDainian Tomlinson and Philip Rivers went out?

I'm glad this one is phrased as a rhetorical question rather than an outright true statement, but it's still stupid and wrong.

OK, so here's the theme for this week's Reader Participation Friday: given all these assessments Easterbrook makes about last weekend's games that range anywhere from "completely unprovable and unresearchable" to "batshit insane," please come up with some other explanations Gregg might formulate to explain occurrences in the world of sports. Write your response in the first person, as though you were him. Here, I'll do a couple examples to start things off.

"Maybe if Ohio State was more worried about preparing for LSU and less worried about visiting as many locations as possible in New Orleans that were portrayed in the movie JFK, they wouldn't have been blown out so badly in the National Championship Game."

"Jimmy Johnson just won his second straight NASCAR season championship. And it's no wonder, considering how much better he is at never letting any of the parts in his car break than the other drivers on the circuit."

"It's clear that the Colorado Rockies were swept in the 2007 World Series by the Boston Red Sox because the Rockies were too busy worrying about Drew Carey taking over hosting duties on 'The Price Is Right' to focus on the games."

"The secret to Tiger Woods's success lies in the fact that he never thinks about whether or not spectators are staring at his ass. John Daly, on the other hand, is particularly afflicted by this problem."

"Kobe Bryant is a dominant scorer in the NBA year in and year out for one reason: defenders refuse to guard him close due to his cripplingly bad breath."

Is this a good idea? It's a good idea, right? No? Well screw it, we're trying it this week anyways. I guess I'll find out when I wake up and check the comments in the morning. Come on, people. It's Friday. Nothing says "the weekend's almost here" like imitating Gregg Easterbrook.

(And of course, keep in mind that future installments of the feature will be much shorter because I won't have to laboriously explain my stupid thought process or anything.)

Jerry Crasnick Pwns Some Random Masshole

During an ESPN.com chat re: "Who's better, A-Rod or Pujols?"

Steve (Boston, MA): Jerry know that i think of it ill take Youk, and Mike L. over both of them to play my corner spots WS CHAMPS baby

Jerry Crasnick: Steve,

Thanks for the provincial Bostonian viewpoint. A baseball chat at ESPN simply wouldn't be complete without it.

Yeah! Facial! Tell him, Jer. Steve from Boston, you just got an eyeball full of mustache.

In case you're unsure of what the definition of "provincial" in this context is (which I for one intially was), it's number three on this list.

The sad part about all the hating I do on Boston and its fans is that I'm sure there are tons of them out there that are perfectly cool and well-adjusted. Hell, regular FireJay commenter and Good Guy At Sports writer Jeff is a great example. But people like him are hard to pick out of the crowd with all the Steve from Bostons wandering around teh interwebs. They make comment sections basically unreadable. You'll be reading what people have said about a college football column and then, boom, without warning, somehow the conversation has drifted over to Tom Brady and his sexy chin donut. And these people are ready to reference something Bill Simmons wrote as objective gospel about how sports works ("Dude, chemiceracity really works! Go Sawks!") at the drop of a hat. It's sad. Looking back to 2004, I wish I could go back in time and kick my own ass for being a temporary Red Sox fan that October. Look at what's happened to the landscape of sports since. New York fans were never this bad. At least they know how to deal with winning (except their NBA fans... zing!).

Back To The Grind

Enough of this vacation nonsense. Starting today, I'm back to my usual at least one post per weekday routine. That's good news for both of you out there who are still checking the blog after our week-plus hiatus. Thanks for sticking with us, and if you see any of the other ten people that used to read us, tell them we're back.

Let's get things started with two quick new years resolutions-

1) By popular demand, I'm going to try to be less angry and more light-hearted/carefree/happy/comedically inclined. Basically I'm going to spend less time talking about how how furious bad sportswriting makes me and instead spend more time coming up with unwitty jokes. I'm going to end more sentences with exclamation marks! Because that implies excitement! Which makes everything seem more energetic, and high-energy people are always funny! See what I mean?! I feel like Dane Cook already! In order to get my mind in the right place for this transition, I'll probably visit funny sites like this more often. Or this. Or this. These make me laugh. I like laughing.

2) I will start getting in shape, eating healthy, reading books, volunteering for charities, and generally putting the shattered pieces of my life back together.

See what I mean about writing more unfunny jokes? It's gonna be a great year.

A Little Weekend Housecleaning

I have a bunch of small things I want to go over, so why not throw them all into one post?

First- Check out our newest link, eTrueSports. As the description in the sidebar reads, it's a whole lot like Sports Pickle or The Onion's sports section. Very well done, and good for a light hearted laugh for whenever you don't want to read our overanalytical diatribes here at FireJay.

Second- Almost two weeks after it was originally published, this Gregg Easterbrook explanation for New England's dominance this season still infuriates me:

What is [Patriots offensive line coach Dante] Scarnecchia's secret? It's so, so simple, yet few NFL teams understand it: New England offensive linemen never stand doing nothing, watching the play. On a shocking number of NFL plays, there is at least one gentleman simply standing there doing nothing at all, and often that gentleman is an offensive lineman. New England's offensive linemen never stand around doing nothing. More than anything else, never standing around doing nothing is what separates the Patriots from the rest of the league, and this approach pays the most dividends on the offensive line.

So I decided to take the challenge I levied in my response to that column, and watch a bunch of football while paying specific attention to the offensive line in order to see how often any of them "[stood] there doing nothing at all." Since last weekend, I dutifully sat on my couch and absorbed between 15 and 20 hours of football. My repertoire included all or part of the following games (plus countless highlights from other games not televised where I live):

NCAA-
Florida St. at Wake Forest
Navy at Pitt
Hawaii at San Jose St.
Boston College at Notre Dame
LSU at Kentucky
Oregon St. at Cal
Colorado at Kansas St.
Missouri at Oklahoma

NFL-
Tennessee at Tampa Bay
Washington at Green Bay
Oakland at San Diego
New England at Dallas

Are you ready for my stunning results? If for some reason you're standing while reading this, sit down. I saw offensive linemen standing around doing nothing during exactly sixteen plays in hours upon hours of coverage. Only three of these sixteen happened during my viewing of NFL action (two by the Raiders, one by Green Bay). So... yeah, unless my definition of standing around doing nothing differs drastically from Gregg's... I was right. He's full of shit.

Third- In an attempt to answer my own question from the title of Thursday's post, I emailed ESPN to ask why Bill Simmons is the only Page 2 writer whose columns don't have ESPN's "Conversation" commenting feature. I'll let you know if I hear back from them. Don't hold your breath.

Fourth, and finally- I'm watching the pregame show for game 3 of the NLCS. Now I definitely don't mind Charles Barkley at all. In fact, I kind of enjoy his zany, disjointed approach to sports analysis. But I really have to ask: why, oh why, is he talking about baseball? It's kind of like some TBS exec said "Well, everyone likes Barkley. The NBA doesn't start for a few weeks. Hell, give him a plane ticket to Denver." I guess it could be worse; he could be Tim McCarver.

Thanks for stopping by and feel free to come back a few times this week. We'll be adding a new writer who likes and will probably write about hockey! (If you're into that kind of thing.)

no! you can't... how... nooooooo!

doesn't cbssportsline.com's scott miller understand that a-rod is the most unclutchiest unclutcher of all time? apparently not, because otherwise he wouldn't have written this monstrosity of an article. no one else comes close. two other very well paid guys with very similar postseason stats can't even compare. why not? because they didn't single handedly end the yankees' postseason chances, that's why. vlad guerrero and alfonso soriano play for the angels and cubs, respectively. therefore they're not chokers like choke-rod. only choke-rod is a postseason failure. no one else. i mean, let's be fair to soriano and vlad- they've both been under tremendous pressure to produce in the postseason. cut them a little bit of slack already! i think they've earned it. rodriguez? wah wah wah. cry me a river. i'll tell you what- i'll get in touch with you next april if and when i need a walk off grand slam. until then, just try to enjoy your piles and piles of money that you didn't earn. if only you had hit a HR in every at bat you had against the indians, as you're being paid to do, new york would be moving on to the ALCS. instead you decided to blow it because you're lazy and useless and horrible. and for that you should be shot. enjoy the canadian baseball league, fake-rod, because no MLB owner in his right is going to sign you when you opt out of your yankee contract! good riddance.

(note to anyone who might be new to this blog: i'm being sarcastic, miller's article is actually really good. go read it.)

more comedy at the expense of old people

since the big lead linked us last week, i guess it's only fair that we link them. after all, both our sites are roughly equal to each other in popularity so fair is fair.

anyways, read the post below where i make a quick little joke about gregg easterbrook talking like a curmudgeony old man. then, go to this link, for perhaps the best curmudgeony old man rant i've ever seen from a professional journalist. gregg's got absolutely nothing on beano cook. (well, obviously. i mean, it is beano cook. but still... you've got to be kidding me.) stick around for the full two and half minutes; the conclusion is amazing.

what?

The first sentence of the AP preview of tonight's Rockies/Braves game:

Atlanta's offense was finally stifled in its last outing, but those bats won't likely stay quiet for long with Tim Hudson on the mound.

Tim Hudson, career 1.185 OPS hitter. Some may say the best hitting pitcher ever. This is from an AP preview, mind you, not the Atlanta Constitution-Review-Tribune

hands down, best article ever

it's not even close. it's like comparing "dirty work" to other comedies from the late 90s. it's like comparing charlie weis to other girthy college football coaches. it's like comparing something that's really awesome to some other stuff that sucks in comparison. you'll see what i mean by all this hype, as soon as you read resident espn outdoorsman jeff mckinnis's article about quite possibly the most dominant athlete in any sport, ever. i'm honestly embarrassed that i'm taking the time to make fun of this article... i just can't help myself.

Raise an eyebrow toward KVD
Is the Sooner Run champion possibly the best ever — in any sport?

never heard of KVD? he's kevin vandam, and he's a professional... bass fisherman. that's right. i don't want to waste my time, or anyone else's, by getting into a lengthy discussion about what is or is not a sport. nascar? bowling? poker? all receive major airtime on "sports" tv networks. all are debatably un-sporty, at least when compared to baseball or hockey or boxing. but fishing? really? what percentage of one's ability to fish well is function of athleticism, and what percentage is a function is fine tuned skill? if it's not a 0/100 split, it's damn close. and there are literally thousands of competitive activities out there that share that same 0/100 split. many of them are not sports. that's all i'm saying.

If this article gets no further than the core fishing fans, then I'm only preaching to the choir.

While I hope the choir enjoys it, I'm really hoping that someone else out there stumbles across it, and it raises at least one eyebrow. With that said, let me assure you that I'm not a writer, I'm just a guy with some thoughts about professional bass fishing that I just have to spout off about.

both my eyebrows are completely unraised as of right now. but i suppose that could change. spout away, jeff.

I am an absolute sports nut. I drive to work every morning with "Mike & Mike" on the radio, and ESPNews is on my TV all day, with its lower right-hand corner giving me "breaking news" as it happens in the sports world. Yes, I know I need to get a life.

I'm pretty smart about my sports, and I know that the reality is bass fishing will never be a major sport, but it absolutely can become super strong in the "niche" category if for no other reason than for the amount of people across the nation who play the game.

i'm going to go waaaaaaaaay out on a limb and say kevin tragically overestimates the number of americans who "play" bass fishing. do you think more people fish than bowl? than play poker? than play pool? i'm not a fisherman myself, nor did i have any as friends growing up, but if you put a gun to my head and made me guess fishing's place in that hierarchy (with pool, bowling, poker, and other "fringe sports" that get tv time) among the american public, i'd have to put it dead last. furthermore, in terms of enjoyability, fishing seems to be a highly personal kind of thing. i think you can get a certain level of enjoyment from watching an amazing bowler finish off a 285 game, or watching that crazy looking asian lady sink a ridiculous 4 ball combo (everyone knows who i'm talking about, right? that lady is ALWAYS playing whenever womens pool is on). but watching someone fish... i mean, how do you enjoy that? the weigh-ins might be somewhat interesting, but as for the competition as a whole, i'm postulating that fishing is crappy television. even if you yourself love to fish, i can't see how you'd get any enjoyment out of watching it.

ok enough stupid analysis of fishing. let's just allow mckinnis to go ahead and say a lot of hilariously outrageous stuff about fishing. that was, after all, why i made this post in the first place and hyped it up so much in my intro.

One more thing before I get to the point. If the sports world knew how hard it is to excel as a professional bass fisherman, these writings would be more impressive. If you had any idea how hard these guys practice in all weather conditions, how hard they compete in all weather conditions, you would be amazed.

if i knew how to insert an mp3 of a sitcom laugh track that played immediately after you read that, i would do so. seriously- these guys MAKE THEIR LIVING CATCHING FISH. you have no idea how hard that is.

If you just had a clue of the hand-eye coordination, the decision making, the stamina and the vision and instincts these bass pros are blessed with, you would stop thinking about Jason Giambi and his steroid issues at least for a few minutes.

the laugh track i was talking about would continue for a while here, as well.

as a side note, i have this friend that's effing ridiculous at guitar hero II on playstation. should he get some recognition for that? you have no idea how amazing his hand-eye coordination, decision making, stamina, vision, and instincts are.

Very few people sense those things, so outside of the "choir," I'll be viewed as just another bass nutt. Here it goes anyway.

Bass fishing is not the next NASCAR because we don't get 100,000 people to our weigh-ins.

bass fishing is not the next nascar because people would rather watch cars drive 180 mph and crash into each other than watch some dude sit in a boat and fish.

Kevin VanDam is not exactly the Tiger Woods of the sport. No disrespect to Tiger, but KVD dominates more, in a more demanding sport.

i cannot put into words how funny that sounds. i'm not saying that i know, 100% objectively, that pro golf is more demanding than pro fishing. what i am saying is- that last sentence is hilarious.

Wow! Here we go. Kevin VanDam is the point of this outburst.

Why isn't KVD ever in that "breaking news" box on ESPNNews?

i'm having a hard time coming up for an answer to this question; every time i try to ponder it, "turkey in the straw" and "dueling banjos" just keep playing on repeat in my brain.

Actually, I know. It's because it's just not on anyone's radar.

But why isn't it?

I know that answer as well. Most people just don't understand what KVD is accomplishing. In the world of professional bass fishing, most competitors strive for good finishes and maybe one win every 5 years. I'm betting that professional golf is about the same.

rafael nadal recently set an all-time record by winning like 80 straight tennis matches and 12 straight tournaments on clay, and most people didn't hear about that. why? because people weren't aware of it? the executives at the major sports news outlets had no idea that it had happened? false. because no one really gives a shit about tennis, thus it's not worth those networks' airtime and print space to talk about it. now, take this concept that the sports media doesn't really cover much tennis, and extend it to fishing...

Well, KVD has won two out of the last three Bassmaster Elite Series events, and please be aware that the field he competes against is hands down the strongest there has ever been. It's the big leagues of bass fishing.

"the big leagues of bass fishing" sounds like "the big leagues of pogo stick jumping" or "the big leagues of juggling".

Then there's winning a Bassmaster major, which for an angler's career can compare to a golfer winning one of its majors.

Two years ago, KVD won three out of the four major tournaments. When I think about that, I realize it's unfathomable. Can't be done. Where in the world is a Sports Illustrated writer? How do all the bass feats things go unnoticed?

how indeed! i'm dying here. is this guy serious? the further i go into this article, the more i keep checking my calendar to make sure it's not april 1st. also, tiger woods won 4 majors in a row in 2000-2001.

When an NFL team wins a Super Bowl one time, it's in the mind of a sports fan, forever. Mr. VanDam has won the bass fishing Super Bowl (Bassmaster Classic) twice in recent years. So you'd think someone from Fox's Best Damn Sports Show Period would be all over that.

seriously, mckinnis, i'm at work here. you're going to get me in trouble. people are giving me looks. of course, the irony here is that BDSSP (as those of us in the know refer to it) is so dumb, i wouldn't put it past them to report on fishing.

Take KVD out of the mix and I could make the statement that bass fishing, unlike other sports, can't be dominated because no other sport deals with a live, unpredictable creature — the bass. Kevin is dominating it, though. He is doing the unthinkable. He's defeating Mother Nature.

just like that british guy with the show on discovery channel about surviving ridiculous situations in the wild does. the difference- the british guy is entertaining to watch.

Now, you might be wondering, what difference does all this make to me? Well I guess my motives are selfish because I'm obsessed with elevating the sport of bass fishing. The quicker everyone sees that we have, dare I say it, a freak of nature on our hands, the sooner and stronger the spotlight will hit this very unique and special sport.

jai alai is a very unique and special sport. i don't think they're going to be attracting any spotlight anytime soon, and they're definitely in line in front of fishing in my book.

KVD has held up the winner's trophy 13 times in his young career and is by far the leading money winner in Bassmaster history with $2.5 million, and I could continue listing his accomplishments, but I won't. I'm stopping right here.

i'm sure kevin appreciates that. actually, i just thought about him sitting at a computer reading this article and just being really embarrassed by the hyperbole. that would be great. if he has a website, i'd love for him to release a statement on it along the lines of:

"sorry some of you read that outrageous piece on espn.com about me. i promise you, i don't take myself that seriously. i'm great at fishing and i enjoy my life, but i try to keep it all in perspective. also, i have never given nor will ever give an interview to jeff mckinnis because he's insane."

I could also tell you why I think he's reaching these heights, but I'm going to leave that to someone else. I will say, don't believe the "cape and phone booth story," though.

thank you jeff. i will be sure not to confuse kevin vandam, real life pro fisher, with superman, fictional character, no matter how many people insist they acquire their prowess the same way.

No, the why and how is not important to me. That he's doing it right before everyone's eyes is important to me.

Kevin VanDam is a young, clean cut gentleman, who is loved and respected by all his competitors. He's extremely smart about life and sees the big picture when it comes to his sport of bass fishing.

the big picture hopefully being- "man, i can't believe i make my living catching fish while wearing a jacket with 350 different corporate logos on it. this is awesome."

To top it all off, he's blessed with a wonderful family. Kevin and his wife Sherry have twin sons, and like most bass pros, struggle with being away most of the time.

they also deal with the potential danger of kevin one day being tricked into going on an ill-fated fishing trip with roy scheider, richard dreyfus, and robert shaw in pursuit of a gigantic shark.

Say this is starting to sound like I'm after the job of being KVD's agent, doesn't it? No way! I just want to see the Bassmaster Elite Series advance one more step, which can happen if the sports world gets a feel for the path this talented angler is traveling right now.

So, hey USAToday! Come on Greeney and Golic (Mike & Mike in the Morning). What do you say People Magazine? This is possibly the most dominating competitor that any sport has ever seen.

i'm speechless.

Someone please show and tell us what KVD is all about. Raise at least one eyebrow.

the answer, from everyone except people who already know about and love fishing: no.

time for my weekly happy, positive, upbeat post

ive decided to make it a beginning-of-the-week tradition to make one post about a piece of journalism that doesnt suck. see my celebration of how dumb horse racing is from last tuesday. now, im no fan of all of jeff pearlman's work. the guy has definitely written a terrible article or two in his time. but that doesnt mean i cant appreciate good writing by the guy when i see it. this week id like to throw out a couple of fantastic snippets from his in-depth barry bonds pseudo-biography "love me, hate me: barry bonds and the making of an anti-hero." the book's real title should be "how we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that barry bonds is not just a steroid user, but also an absolutely ginormous asshole (even for an asshole of a professional athlete)."

i mean, this general subject is all old news. bonds did steroids. bonds is a jerk. we know this to be true. and furthermore, many of history's greatest athletes have been jerks; it's not like bonds is blazing a trail here. but the book manages to stay extremely interesting throughout by documenting literally hundreds of incidents, from bonds' spoiled childhood all the way up through the 2005 season, that are jaw droppingly funny/sad in their exposition of what kind of man he is in everyday situations. many just defy the imagination. you have to evaluate bonds on a whole new level of d-bag after reading this book. he makes rasheed wallace, bill romanowski, shea hillenbrand, etc. look like normal down-to-earth guys. thats the real beauty of the book; explaining what a messed up dude barry is in social situations. if you want an in-depth look at bonds' "alleged" steroid use, read "game of shadows" (although "love me, hate me" does cover it reasonably well). but if you want to get a full picture of what kind of a fucking weirdo and totally messed up person bonds is, which is more interesting in a lot of ways, this is your book right here. im about 3/4 of the way done (i'm making this post before finishing because it's monday) and two particular sentences have stood out. id like to share these with you.

1. from page 234. pertains to the title of this blog:

Jay Mariotti, the Chicago Sun Times star columnist, went so far as to shush anyone with the audacity to question Bonds's authenticity. "The whispers have been out there about Bonds, as they've been about any hitter who flirts with history," he wrote. "but any innuendo should stop at once."

oh jay. i would love to get a number on how many times since you wrote that (during bonds' historic 2001 season) you've complained about steroids in baseball and cited barry as the prime offender. not that columnists are never ever allowed to change their mind about something... but come on. it's jay were talking about here. im sure he just originally defended barry to piss people off. imagine if barry played for the cubs or white sox. what would jay have said about him then?

2. from page 225. pearlman doesnt give a citation for this one, but i hope to god it's true. this is from a section of the book about how bonds, in the author's words, "struggled to cope with his blackness."

Whereas (other) black players filled the San Francisco clubhouse with the beats of Tupac, Nas, Missy Elliot and Jay-Z, bonds's four favorite performers are Barbra Streisand, Kenny G., Michael Bolton, and Celine Dion.

oh my god.... please please please let me somehow find out that this is true. holy crap. this is the best and most entertaining detail i've heard about an athlete's personal life since i found out gilbert arenas' favorite movie was "kingpin."

i love jokes and hate horse racing

its tuesday, and feels like monday because the week just started. so i thought id share an article i really enjoyed before spending the rest of the week tearing apart ones i hate.

The Debriefing: If Vick's a Jerk, So Are Preakness Organizers

by "mjh"

goddamn bloggers. always using bizarre indecipherable pseudonyms.

http://www.aolsportsblog.com/2007/05/23/the-debriefing-if-vicks-a-scumbag-so-are-preakness-organizers/

if were going to make 1,000 michael vick-related posts, this might as well be one of them. aol fanhouse, which i usually find to be extremely "blah" (as in, nothing i really like... nothing i really hate, either) has published a doozy of a piece comparing dogfighting to horse racing. now, before i post some sections of the article, ill put it all out there up front: i HATE horse racing. not dislike; i dislike the designated hitter rule. not "am bothered by"; i am bothered by the usc trojan football team. no... in the world of sports, there is nothing i HATE quite like horse racing.

how ridiculous is it? lets just start the complaining with the obvious fact that its a bunch of animals. if horse racing is really a "sport" lets get a panel of judges down to sea world, have them assign scores to the routines being done by dolphins and killer whales, and televise it. i know id watch that before i watched the kentucky derby. furthermore i cant stand the super-rich-or-super-drunk-white-people-only culture, the completely uninspiring storylines, or the fact that most people who call themselves horse racing "fans" really only care about 3 goddamn races. when that one horse war emblem just barely missed winning the triple crown 4 or 5 years ago, and they showed the millionaire owners and their families crying in the stands immediately after the race, i wanted to reach through the tv and slap the shit out of those people. are you kidding me? on top of all these other complaints, as this author points out, horse racing is also pretty cruel to the horses. im not sure if it should be equated to dogfighting. thats probably a stretch considering the whole point of dogfighting is for the animals to maul each other, while horse races in and of themselves are usually not violent. and its silly for him to put "the preakness" in the title of the article, rather than "nearly all major horse races." but still... fuck horse racing. without further ado, heres some of the better one liners and points this guy makes:

I'd also recommend taking one particularly charismatic pitbull, grooming it as a noble and magnificent champion (name it something like "Marmaro," maybe), and then have it brutally mauled to death during a nationally-televised pit fight. You'd be surprised at how much people love that stuff.

this as part of a sequence of fecicious suggestions to vick as to how he can pass off dog fighting as a legitimate kind of entertainment. "marmaro" is a sweet name for a barbaro parody of an animal.

later, to clarify his position, this is part of a list of things the guy says he would rather do than defend vick:

...buy WNBA season tickets...

buh-zing! coincidentally, ive heard the WNBA made fun of by being referenced as the HBA: horse basketball association.

I just want to know why horse racing is acceptable if dog fighting is evil. Do both take advantage of animals solely for the entertainment of humans? Yes. Are both responsible for the premature deaths of thousands of animals? Yes. Do both cause immeasurable suffering and injuries to the animals involved? Yes. Do human beings profit off of this pain and death? In both cases, yes. What other standards are there?

like i already said, this is definitely oversimplification and not a 100% fair comparison. but still, a valid point at its most basic level. and one that a lot of people fail to appreciate as they get swept up in "triple crown fever" this time of year. speaking of which- how mad must the owners of the belmont stakes be every time the horse that wins the kentucky derby fails to win the preakness? there goes millions in ad revenue, thanks to decreased ratings expectations. mwah mwah. i picture them as a bunch of guys dressed in seersucker suits, angrily punching through their top hats like villains in old silent movies used to do when their plans got foiled.

And when (a horse is) in a truck being shipped to the slaughterhouse, the horse isn't thinking, "Well, I've had a great run, but I feel like since I helped Elroy Ryerson hit that exacta and buy himself an extra bottle of Thunderbird, I can go out on top." He's thinking, "I DON'T WANT TO DIE, GET ME THE HELL OUT OF THIS TRUCK."

gambling just so that you can buy extra thunderbird... a terrifying scenario. maybe you should drop down to colt 45 or old english for a while, until things in your life turn around a little bit.

People see Seabiscuit and have this romanticized notion of how well horses are treated, but very few horses get the Seabiscuit suite. Not every race horse gets the immaculate stable, the company of numerous female horses, and a feast of oats and carrots everyday. Not every horse gets to develop a close, personal relationship with Tobey Maguire.

they damn well should. if he spent all his time befriending horses he wouldnt have any left over to star in crappy movies like a certain giant blockbuster that was recently released.

But most horses aren't in Barbaro's tax bracket. If a horse can't make money, or stops making money, he'll soon be holding together your child's next arts-and-crafts project. You know how much money would've been spent on Barbaro if he finished out of the money in the Kentucky Derby? About enough to buy a bullet and a ride in a dump truck.

couldnt have said it better myself. every kid age 14 or under that sent barbaro a get well card should have to watch a 3 hour tape that consists only of footage of injured race horses being euthanized. every person over the age of 14 who sent it a get well card should be spayed or neutered. if youre going to engage in that kind of activity, especially with all the other stuff going on in the world today, you should not be allowed to reproduce. the planet has enough out of touch and stupid people as it is.

look, its not that im a animal rights activist. i used to date one so believe me, i know how frightening and crazy they can be. you wont see me giving money to PETA (or even liking PETA) or refusing to eat anything but free-range-super-organic-cage-free meats. but the point remains- a large percentage of horse racing fans probably love animals and dont want them to be treated badly, and they have no idea just how shitty life really is for those things. also horse racing is fucking dumb.