Armando Galarraga and Histrionic Whining

The sanctity of the baseball record books are challenged every summer in some respect. Steroids, balata-based balls, All-Star ties, 162-game seasons, midget batters, World Wars, the lowering of the mound, the raising of the mound, the designated hitter... every one of these has caused some variation in the sanctity of the record books. Any decently enlightened fan has realized that part of the job is to mentally adjust for the conditions and exceptions that have applied to the game over the years.

Whenever some new variation comes up, some writers inevitably call for adjustment to preserve the sanctity of the books. They're missing the obvious: the "sanctity" that they're preserving is only sacred because baseball fans and historians have learned to adapt their thinking. It's an insult to the fans to suggest that every record book entry requires an annotation giving every contextual detail.

The latest entry comes from ESPN New York's Ian O'Connor, who has supplied us with stupid before. He calls for Bud Selig to reverse Jim Joyce's call and declare Mr. Galarraga the author of a perfect game.

Hey Bud, don't shrug this one off

Bud Selig can get the shrug back. Right here, right now.

No, he can't. The shrug still exists. The shrug will always exist, unless we pull some Big Brother shit and destroy every copy of the news from the summer of 2002.

Mulligans aren't normally awarded in sports. Bill Buckner cannot get that Mookie grounder back, Scott Norwood cannot get wide right back, and Greg Norman cannot get a hundred Sunday putts back.

That's the whole POINT of sports. That's why we compete - to declare a winner. If everyone got do-overs, there'd be no point in competing. Everyone would just do it over until they got it right.

But Bud, this one's for you.

Ian, why?

Remember that shrug at the 2002 All-Star Game in your very own Milwaukee backyard, where you threw those bony hands in the air, slapped on your best Willy Loman expression, and told the finest baseball players in the world their spirited 11-inning contest would end in a 7-7 tie?

This is a poorly used rhetorical question couched within a poorly used rhetorical device (apostrophe) and tied to a poorly used allusion. I feel poorer, like Willy Loman near the end of that play, for reading that paragraph.

You're getting a do-over, Bud, and here's a little unsolicited advice: Don't shrug this second time around.

He didn't shrug. Also this is not the second time around; this is a totally different situation.

Invoke your best-interests-of-the-game powers to make Armando Galarraga and Jim Joyce and Jason Donald and the rest of baseball whole.

I don't know why sportswriters consistently think baseball is broken or dying. Baseball has had thousands of blown calls over the years - some even in games of much more gravity than an early-season non-division matchup. Somehow, it continues. This whole article is dramatic silliness. It is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.

The imperfect man pitched the perfect game, Bud, just like the old newspaper story said.

That's a reference to Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Did you other readers recognize that immediately? I had to google it.

The offending umpire, Jim Joyce, is in full agreement even as he picks through the rubble and ash of a distinguished baseball life.

Ash? Rubble? Is a volcano metaphor really appropriate right now when thousands of Icelanders are viciously dumping their geological shit all over Europe?

"It was the biggest call of my career," Joyce conceded as he reportedly paced in his dressing room, "and I kicked the [stuff] out of it. I just cost that kid a perfect game."

And yet, he didn't. Everyone knows it was a perfect game. I suspect that Armando Galarraga will receive more press, notoriety, and mention than Dallas Braden ever will.

So this isn't only about granting Detroit's Galarraga his rightful corner of history, or about acknowledging that Galarraga caught Miguel Cabrera's throw and put his foot on the first-base bag before Cleveland's Donald did the same.

He HAS his rightful corner of history. And everyone already has acknowledged it.

This is about freeing Joyce from the grim prison cell that will hold him for the rest of his professional days.

Good lord, this is dramatic nonsense. Yes, he will get a lot of annoying press. If he has the sense to not buy into the hand-wringing whining of people like Ian O'Connor, he'll have a fine life.

Don Denkinger can fill you in. He once told me on the phone about his infamous blown call that turned the 1985 World Series, when he ruled Kansas City's Jorge Orta safe at first before replays showed that the Cardinals' Todd Worrell had beaten him to the bag.

And that's why Bud Selig can't reverse a call. You can't just go back and start changing calls, even if they were wrong. The game is over. Umps have always made bad calls. No amount of sentimental nonsense or played-up drama can change the fundamental nature of a sport officiated by human beings.

"It's a crushing feeling," said Denkinger, who received death threats and a never-ending stream of hate mail from gamblers and fans. "You can't imagine what a person feels when you're written about, talked about, and then they show 13 different angles of the call in slow motion."

Hate mail from gamblers? I already imagine that most sports gamblers are dummies, but I can't even fathom having the gall to risk thousands of dollars on a sports contest which has a huge luck factor to begin with, and then complaining when a person makes a good-faith mistake.

Don't want to get yelled at over a bad call? Don't become a professional baseball umpire.

Life isn't fair, but we like to think of stadiums and arenas as places to go to escape life for a few hours. Games are supposed to be fair. What went down in Comerica Park on Wednesday night was a million miles from fair.

Ian O'Connor is somehow confused into thinking that every game was perfectly fair up until June 2010. And the thing is: it actually was completely FAIR. An unbiased, independent third party who is not related to or paid by the Detroit Tigers or the Cleveland Indians organizations made an objective call with a clear view. It was completely fair. It just wasn't accurate.

So the expanded use of instant replay is the issue of the day, the item atop the commissioner's morning agenda. Only there's no time to measure the merits of technology against the charms of a sport officiated by fallible men.

What are you saying here, Ian? That if Bud makes the decision today, it'll be better than if he makes it tomorrow?

That debate isn't going to help Galarraga, or Joyce, or millions of right-minded baseball fans who need some healing ASAP.

Healing? Who out there is healing from this terrible injury wrought upon us all? A plague of locusts has struck the land thanks to the pernicious villainy of Jim Joyce!

Selig shouldn't wait. Even the city of Cleveland would be with him on this one.

Haha, Cleveland sucks.

He wouldn't be fighting a powerful and antagonistic players union over the issue of performance-enhancing drugs, and he wouldn't be flexing his pecs in an attempt to stop or expedite the sale of a team.

What? So, Mr. O'Connor, you're ENCOURAGING him to gain PR points for a cheap-shit sentimental issue like this one and make the call that would make a bunch of people feel happy but violate the sentiments of the game?

Selig would simply be using his power to call a batter out at first. If the "best interests of baseball" clause doesn't cover that, what the hell does it cover?

Eddie Gaedel is still in the books, even though the commish tried to strike him. This kind of stuff just happens in baseball, and really, nobody is hurt by it, since everyone knows Galarraga pitched a perfect game anyways.

There is only one real danger here: the precedent of allowing the commissioner to redact the results of a game based on popular outrage. That simply can't be allowed to happen - just as Ford Frick is justly hammered for insulting the fans when he tried to intervene in the record books to preserve the public's vision of righteousness.

Even the commish isn't above the rules.

"I just watched the replay 20 times," Galarraga said, "and there's no way you can call him safe."

He's right.

Baseball players, coaches and managers are taught to move on from a moment like this. Get over it. Prepare for the next day's game.

Good advice for you to take, Mr. O'Connor.

You're supposed to live and die with the good and bad breaks, and remember that the 162-game season is an endless narrative that rewards the characters who weather the most plot twists.

Sounds good to me.

But those terms of engagement just don't cut it here. There's no moving on from the damnation of the 21st perfect game in history, and the third in a month.

"Damnation". "Grim prison cell". "Healing". Good lord, the histrionic diction of this article is nearly making me swoon. If I had a wife and I lived Victorian England and I read this to her, I would need some smelling salts and my fainting chair.

This commissioner has always loved to be loved. In fact, I've never met a sports executive who cares more about his or her public standing than Bud Selig.

And that's why I'm almost surprised that he made the right decision by not caving to the immediate pressure of sentimental writers and fans. Good for Bud - by taking an unpopular stance, he avoided setting a dangerous precendent. Choosing to restore the perfect game would have been easy for Bud to do, but would have added to the weight and pressure put on future commissioners in similar situations.

He wants you to appreciate him for introducing the wild card, for authorizing the Mitchell Report, and for giving birth to the World Baseball Classic. He would also prefer it if you forgot all about that 7-7 score at the 2002 All-Star Game.

Who really hates Bud Selig for that, anyways? Actually, the real problem with that game wasn't Bud's decision to allow it to end in a tie... the real problem with that game is the nonsensical pandering of the managers trying to get as many players in the game as possible.

Well, here's your big chance, Bud. The Tigers are in the books as 3-0 winners either way.

So grab your heaviest lumber, step into the box, and remember one last thing:

Don't shrug.

He didn't, and I'm glad. If you want to see hilarious examples of incredible shitspouting braindead fluttertalk, read the comments on the ESPN article. They're so awful.

UPDATE: Irony Correctly Identified by Sportswriter!

Irony in its many forms has become a subject for Larry B and Jack M's ire. There are literally sixteen posts which are labeled with some form of "irony". (Note: this does not mean that there are literally sixteen posts which are labeled ironically: I suspect that at least 500 of our 1,098 posts are labeled ironically.) Several of them are celebrations of sportswriters' own ignorance, which causes a form of dramatic irony where the reader knows more than the sportswriter, in much the same way that an audience just wants to tell poor Othello about Iago's treachery. Too bad the writers' ignorace doesn't lead them to a similar tragic end. Perhaps, in some way, blogs like this one aim to restore harmony between writers and readers by exposing the writers' own ignorance, much as an audience might want to save the Moor by exposing his lieutenant in Act II.

ANYWAYS

You may have heard - on Monday night, the Dodgers beat the D-backs on a game-ending balk call. The situation was a little unorthodox. Earlier in the inning, James Loney had walked and advanced to second on Casey Blake's single - but was thrown out when he slipped while foolishly trying to advance to third. He thought he had killed a rally. Blake eventually worked his way to third and scored while distracting the D-backs' reliever, Esmerling Vasquez and causing a balk.

After the game, star MLB.com reporter Evan Drellich's column seems to have correctly used this contentious term:

For Loney, there was redemption knowing that the team won. And there was a little irony, too: Blake said he would not have tried to distract Vasquez with less than two outs.

In this case, I think it makes sense. Simply and naively defined, irony exists the separation between what's usually expected to occur and what actually occurs; or, verbally speaking, between what words are expected to mean in their literal sense and what they actually mean in the context they're used. That's mainstream sarcasm because the intended meaning of words doesn't correspond with the literal spoken meaning. The intended meaning is the opposite of the literal meaning.

In this case, Loney appreciates the irony because he thought his gaffe would have decreased his team's probability of winning. Consult:


As it turns out, Mr. Loney was quite right - the win probability chart above suggests that he decreased his team's chance of winning by nearly 20% with his stupid baserunning. Doubtless, in that case, it's better to play a little bit conservatively on the basepaths: there's no way that advancing to third would have raised the win probability by the corresponding amount.

Now the larger irony rests on Blake's statement - that, actually, Loney indirectly increased the win probability through his blunder - since Blake wouldn't have tried to distract Vasquez otherwise. If we take Blake's statement at face value, this is a textbook case of situational irony.

I feel like calling shenanigans on Casey Blake, though [postgame interview video here]. It's a pretty strong statement that you have absolutely no confidence in the batter if you're resorting to fake steals of home to try to get the picther to balk. Blake DeWitt, you got shamed.

A Mixed Bag of Silly Baseball Comments

Dayn Perry's overly stilted introduction to his article on disappointing baseball players and teams:

Great expectations -- so much more than a heavy-handed Dickensian romp! In this case, we're talking great expectations unmet.

What? I guess when you dial up Dayn Perry's articles, you can expect a nickel's worth of baseball insight as well as a nickel's worth of literary criticism.

___________________________________________________________________

An article regarding several recent disputes between batterymates:

"The very best pitch a pitcher can throw is the one he throws with his heart," said Brent Mayne, a veteran of 15 seasons and author of the book "The Art of Catching."

I think I know what Mr. Mayne is trying to say here... but (*&^ the heck, Brent, you can't throw baseballs with your heart!

_________________________________________________________________

From a pretty pointless article where MLB player Ron Hunt, famous for being hit by a pitch a lot, was asked for his perspective on several recent mound chargings:

"I don't understand what is happening with all of this stuff," said Hunt from his home in Wentzville, Mo. "Maybe it's a case of me being 'old school' but it seems like they don't play the game the right way anymore."

I wish someone would take a poll of retired major leaguers and ask a simple question:
Do players today play the game the right way?

Hunt didn't establish himself as a player noted for being hit by pitches until he was traded by the Los Angeles Dodgers to the San Francisco Giants after the 1967 season.

"It was so cold in that ballpark in San Francisco that we had to wear everything we could under our uniforms to stay warm," recalls Hunt. "We bundled up so much it was hard to get loose and swing the bat. I just decided that I was going to crowd the plate, not give in, and hit the ball up the middle and do whatever it took to get to first base."

Apparently "playing the game the right way" means having such little confidence in one's hitting skill that it requires crowding the plate and hoping to get hit by a pitch.

That's playing the game the right way.

Two Quick Things

I'm on a haphazard roadtrip through the upper midwest at the moment.  I've come across two very brief things that merit mention:

1. The latest issue of SI has an article by good old Selena Roberts about aging NASCAR driver Mark Martin.  I have no idea if it's a good article (what constitutes good NASCAR journalism anyways?), but the title is one of the silliest things I've read recently:

The Old Man And the Wheeee!

Wow.

2. Last night a friend and I went to the Brewers/Mets game - Miller Park's a nice place and I enjoy the culture of tailgating that surrounds it.  But, more importantly, my friend and I replicated the sign displayed in this video (0:21 in). While we were standing outside the park, educating the public on Wade Boggs's ability to drink sixty-four beers on a cross-country flight, a couple of malcontents chirped up that they'd heard Wade on Dan Patrick's radio show recently and that he stated that the number was forty-eight.  Can anyone out in the blogiverse corroborate this story?

Now, of course, it's also true that Wade might be trying to downplay his prowess a little bit - just like he does in the original PTI segment where he ludicrously claims that "It's nothing to be proud of".  But if he did renounce his accomplishment, I'd like to know it so I can respond to challenges like this.

Oh, geez, I don't know, like seventy?

Bud Selig's Inconsistent Opinions

Bud Selig offers his thoughts on the New Yankee Stadium. We will now see yet another example of the commissioner being a waffling milquetoast. I, for one, can't wait until baseball hires a commissioner that looks as bad ass as this guy:



NEW YORK -- Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig felt like he was 15 again.

I figure the last time he felt completely childish was when he called the All-Star game a tie and then instituted the lousy-ass "this time it counts" rule. From the tone of my critique so far, you should be able to determine that I am going to rip Selig. I know that seems to be low-hanging fruit, but the guy deserves it.

Selig remember that it was for his 15th birthday that he first stepped into historic Yankee Stadium. His mother had brought him to the Bronx so that he could see his favorite team in person, by way of the third deck.

How nice. Was Selig's family too poor to take him there before his 15th birthday? What a Horatio Alger story that Bud Selig is.

Fast-forward nearly 60 years, and here Selig was at the opening of the Yankees' new $1.5 billion home.

Goddamn, I didn't realize Bud was that old. Someone put him out to pasture already.

"My view is a little better today," Selig joked.

And take his jokes with him.

But in many ways, his feelings about the new facility echo those about the original one.

"I'll never forget the thrill of walking in [the old Stadium] the first time," Selig said. "What I sense today is they've preserved the history."

By moving into a brand-new stadium designed to generate approximately a skillion more dollars a year, yes, they preserved the history. I wrote about this issue last summer, and I stand by it. The Yankees sold their history to more money, and nobody's even mentioning it.

Selig is also in favor of preserving the history at two of baseball's most hallowed shrines -- Fenway Park and Wrigley Field. As much as he likes the way architects have brought Yankee Stadium into the 21st century, Selig hopes Fenway and Wrigley can remain a central part of the sport's connection to previous generations by staying open.

Note how he avoids criticizing what the Yankees did, even though their now-defunct stadium was thrice the hallowed shrine than either of those other parks. I guess it's not the commish's place to critique a team, but it sure seems like this is example #842 of Bud Selig not having the cojones to tell it like it is.

"There's something about Fenway and Wrigley that I'd like to see preserved," Selig said. "I think the institution of Fenway and Wrigley is something that should be preserved. If they can make it work [economically], good for them."

Goddamn: don't people realize that the Yankees, in old Yankee Stadium, were certainly "making it work [economically]" - shit, they were raking in money to the tune of $327,000,000 dollars. That is not enough to support the Yankees' lust for bigger money, bigger stars, bigger everything. Therefore, they built a new stadium, hoping to exceed that. Note again that Bud avoids saying that the "institution of Yankee stadium should've been preserved.

The opening of this lavish park in the midst of a recession is seen by some as incongruous. And the Yankees have been criticized by some for the 52,325-seat ballpark's ticket prices, which reach as high as $2,625.

If you build it, they will come. If the Yankees can get people to pay it, fine by me. Also, whoever sees this as "incongruous" is an idiot, since they started building this thing like five years ago, when this country was not in a recession. Can you imagine the Yankees' brass saying: "Oh, shit, there's a recession, let's just have this mostly-built ballpark just sit there idly!".

Me neither.

But while the priciest seats get a lot of the attention, Selig looks at the park's full range of prices -- including $5 bleacher seats, $29 grandstand seats and $48 terrace seats on the low end of the spectrum -- and considers the charges to be fair, for the most part.

I'm glad they have forty-eight dollar seats for all those poor New Yorkers who want to sit on the terrace but couldn't afford sixty-dollar seats.

"I know there's been a focus on the expensive seats," he said. "[Yankees co-chairman] Hal Steinbrenner himself has said that's something that they should review. But in the meantime, there are a lot of seats priced here that are quite fair and competitive."

And Selig said he believes MLB's clubs have done a fine job staying fair and competitive at a time when many fans are forced to tighten their belts.

"As a sport, baseball's done an amazing job with ticket prices this year," Selig said. "I'm proud of our clubs. We've reacted very well. A lot of clubs have cut prices and concession prices. My father used to always say to me, 'There's nothing good or bad, except by comparison.' If you look at other forms of entertainment, our ticket prices overall are competitive."

Bud Selig's dad is endorsing a dangerous form of moral relativism here. I wonder if the young Selig ever used his dad's argument against him. It seems to me that any father that concedes such a point is entering dangerous waters!

Selig didn't take the full tour of the new Yankee Stadium on Thursday. He said he plans to give this park and Citi Field, which the Mets opened up on Monday, a full review when each club has an off-day.

Glad the commissioner is earning his keep by going around, touring new stadiums, and offering inconsisten opinions on baseball's own commitment to history.

But Selig did get a chance to watch some of Thursday's game with Yankees principal owner George M. Steinbrenner III.

I wonder if you have to do this once you become commish. I think I'd probably just tell Steinbrenner to kiss my ass and go sit in the bleachers, but then again, Bud Selig didn't get where he is without knowing how to butter up the real kingmakers.

"I sat with him for a little while," Selig said. "I did most of the talking. I just told him he ought to be very proud."

Bud, jellyfish that you are, you just don't have the courage to go up to George Steinbrenner III and tell him what you really think of his team's fairly clear abandoning of baseball history for bigger revenue streams.

Bill Simmons removes shoe, prepares foot for oral insertion

Q: Has any movie ever predicted the future of sports better than BASEketball did, in 1998? Ridiculous end zone celebrations, stadiums named after brands, teams jumping cities for money. I remember watching it thinking it was outlandish to name a stadium after Trojan or Tampax. Now I could see it.
-Aaron, Denver

SG: Who knew Trey Parker and Matt Stone would be the George Orwells of pro sports?

No one, because they're not. Parker and Stone were commenting on contemporary trends in professional sports. Example: if you were as true-blue a Pats fan as you claim to be, you'd remember that that from 1970-1982, they played in SCHAEFER stadium.

With regards to touchdown celebrations: team celebrations were banned 14 years before BASEketball came out, the NFL has since banned players from using props, and recently gave Wes Welker a $20,000 fine for making a snow angel after a touchdown. So yeah, those TD celebrations are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of control.

Teams leaving cities for money? That never happened before BASEketball.

I want to see which league will cave first and sell its championship game or series to a sponsor. You know it's coming.

Fuckkkkkkk. I'm going to call my friends on my NEXTEL CUP phone and warn them. Shit, I'm so depressed that I might go back to smoking WINSTON CUP cigarettes. What a BUSCH league move this would be by American sports leagues.

Would you ever have guessed we'd be saying the "Allstate Sugar Bowl"?

Only if you'd been to one of the past 50 Buick Opens.

This could be one more thing Gary Bettman screws up. We may be headed for the Levitra Stanley Cup Final.

VIAGRA!

The World Series: It Isn't Broke, But Idiots Want to Fix It

So you might have heard, somewhere in between all the real sports news: the World Series was delayed by rain. First time in a hundred years.

Cue the idiot sportswriters.

WRITER #1: MIKE FREEMAN, Sportsline.com

In which Mike Freeman Complains about The Lack of Storylines

This is the 2008 version of the White Sox-Astros, Tigers-Cardinals and Marlins-Indians. In other words, gentlemen, start your Xanax.

I actually kind of liked the joke. Really, though - I think Freeman's bitching about big-market teams not being in the World Series. Which seems to me to be kind of stupid.

It's possible this could end up as the lowest-rated and least-watched World Series in modern history. Ratings gold, baby.

Who the fuck CARES if no one watches? If the millions of idiot Red Sox fans and idiot Dodgers fans and idiot Cubs fans and idiot Yankees fans aren't watching... I'm pretty sure that's a good thing.

What real baseball fan cares about the ratings? In fact, what human being cares about the ratings? It's like Mike Freeman wants to turn the World Series into the goddamn Super Bowl. What I hate most about the goddamn sportswriters is that they're so goddamn phony. They talk about all the great underdog stories like they're the goddamn ducks on the pond and they finally make it to the World Series and nobody cares.

This is nothing against the two franchises themselves. There are plenty of good folks in those clubhouses and front offices. There'll also be some stars on display when the series begins this week. The Rays are a good story and the perennially losing Phillies aren't bad either. But that's it. There's absolutely nothing else compelling about this series.

There's the fact that it's the World Series. I'm sorry there aren't any steroids or Hank Steinbrenners or PettiteGH or BizzOzzie Guillen or Steve Garvey sleeping with someone's mom. It's still the WORLD SERIES.

The biggest problem is the lack of a villain. Boston would have filled that role perfectly as the Patriots did in the Super Bowl last year. But what can you hate about either of these teams?

Interesting point, Mike, suggesting that the series lacks definition because neither team takes a binary opposition. How Lacanian; non-definition breeding aimlessness, CAN'T YOU SEE WE'RE AT LADIES?

Later...
You're all phonies because you know I'm right.
You're like the writer who went to Hollywood to write good sports stories and now he writes as a National Writer for Sportsline and you drive around in your sports car and nobody reads your actually good stuff about your secret goldfish.

WRITER #2: JEFF PASSAN, YAHOO! SPORTS

Here is a picture of Jeff Passan:
Critique #1: the all-caps EXCLUSIVE at the bottom which means that Yahoo! sports is the ONLY PLACE YOU CAN GO to get your JEFF PASSAN FIX.

I never worked hard enough to get me a marketing degree from one of them there universities, but it seems like "exclusive" is only a useful marketing tool if you have a brand actually worth marketing. Jeff Passan Brand Sports Journalism is like Yugo Brand Automobiles, exclusively available in the Chicagoland Area Larry B Imported Cars dealership!

Critique #2: This picture of Jeff Passan, though small and somewhat pixelated, could easily be mistaken for one of the pictures on this site.

Now: on to his actual writing: "Baseball's Crown Event is Beyond Repair

Overly hyperbolic title. The World Series once got canceled by a strike. A fucking rainout isn't going to make it beyond repair.

This World Series is beyond salvaging.

False.

It is a disaster borne of people who think cowbells and haircuts make them fans,

You're nobody to lecture on personal appearance.

owners so greedy they accept late-October baseball and late-evening start times,

A charge which you offer no solution for.

and a commissioner who unilaterally changes a rule while he’s carrying the book in his left hand.

A change which everyone in the inhabited (and uninhabited) universe recognizes as a necessary and intelligent change to make.

Game 5 is suspended. Rain washed through Citizens Bank Park from the beginning of the Philadelphia Phillies' potential championship clincher to the sixth inning, when the Tampa Bay Rays tied the score 2-2. The game is supposed to resume Wednesday night. It is on Mother Nature, which is a good thing, because if it were up to the baseball gods, they would smite the series before it could continue any longer.

Baseball gods don't exist. And if there were baseball gods, they would be more likely to listen to me than to you.

...
Re: the decision to start game 4:
The conditions were fine for playing. It’s just that the entire country was in its REM cycle, baseball hardly a competitor for sleep.

So here, Jeff Passan complains that baseball made a decision that was counter to getting higher ratings in order to complete the Series on time. This might have made sense, especially considering that the Phillies' fans might have flown halfway across the country to go to this one game. But no - the people IN the stadium don't count!

Later:
Such is the norm, too, with the 8:30 p.m. start times now typical for World Series games – and the remainder of the postponement, which will begin at 8 p.m. Thank MLB again for that. It got into bed with Fox for a long-term $3 billion deal. Fox requested a later first pitch. MLB obliged. The guys in suits win. The kids with hats and genuine interest in the game, and not the green it generates, lose.

I actually kind of like his point. Screw the networks. But here's the thing, Jeff: you can't bitch about MLB starting a game REALLY late because nobody can watch it, but then also bitch about MLB starting a little later so that people CAN watch it.

You can't have your hair-gel and eat it too, Jeff.

When two teams get together, no matter the size of the market or depth of the history, and play a to-the-max series with the requisite drama that accompanies a great matchup, it is magic. Baseball doesn’t need the Yankees or Red Sox. Minnesota and Atlanta did just fine in 1991.

Please tell this to Mike Freeman.

And that, actually, is the only thing that can turn this debacle around and help MLB avoid it being the Rain Series or the Delay Series or the Atrociously Umpired Series or the Series No One Cared About.

Every single memorable world series has to do with the spectacular plays on the field, and nothing to do with MLB decisions. 1960? Oh, that was because MLB set up the greatest and most dramatic upset ever! 2001? Oh, that must have been MLB setting the Yankees up to lose.

Series get Proper Names because of the baseball. Other than deliberately telling fans to pull Maiers or Bartmans, it's hard for the big brass to add intrigue. That's the players' jobs.

The questions crossing everyone’s mind Monday night were how to keep weather from so adversely affecting the biggest games of the year. Shorten the regular season? No chance the owners would lose the revenue.

No chance fans would want this either. What an idiotic solution, and Jeff Passan's such a two-faced moron for suggesting that only the owners' greed would shoot this down. Every respectable fan (especially the ones who recognized the endless * battle that happened LAST time they changed the length of the season) recognizes that this is not a solution. 162 is fucking sacred, man.

Do it by playing doubleheaders every other Saturday, shaving nearly two weeks from the season? Again, revenue would lag, and the players’ union almost certainly would say no.

Do we really need to reschedule the entire season just because one game - the first time in a hundred years? No... you're just a hand-wringing space-filler.

Schedule a neutral-site World Series? No thanks.

Wow, Jeff! We agree! (This, by the way, is about the stupidest solution to the "problem" I've heard).

Sometimes, nothing can save baseball from itself. Not even global warming.

Sometimes, baseball doesn't need to be saved.

But baseball journalism sure does, and that's why we're here!

Something I Don't Understand: Game Recaps

Often, I don't have the opportunity to watch a lot of football on the weekends. Hey - I'm a busy guy! But sometimes I still like to know what's going on in the football world. Therefore, I turn to teh_interwebs to help me catch up! Often, I can even find out what happened in the football game even though I didn't watch any of it!

But here's what I don't understand. The articles generally give me a weird, jumbled version of what actually happened in the game. Case in point: the AP recap of today's Bengals-Jets game. Since I was busy all day and couldn't watch any of it, I had to go find out what happened online. I actually wanted to find out what happened in the game, but I ended up with a mishmash of numbers and a suspiciously postmodern pastiche of game events. I think it's generally consistent with how any sports recap articles are written (for your reference: today's Rams/Redskins game, yesterday's Texas Tech/Nebraska game and even yesterday's ALCS Game Two).

Here's my breakdown of this style, using the Bengals/Jets recap as a source text:

The beginning of the article: The Most Exciting Events In The Game

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- Rested and rusty after a bye week, the New York Jets made just enough plays to beat the winless Cincinnati Bengals.

This opener makes sense, though it really kind of kills the suspense! I mean, do I really need to read the rest of this article? Then again, considering the Bengals, did I really even need to find this article in the first place? (LAWL!)

[Are teams really rusty after one bye week? Aren't most teams actually better off after a bye week, since their staff can plan better?]

Thomas Jones ran for two touchdowns, including a 1-yarder late in the game, and caught a pass from Brett Favre for a score as the Jets beat the Bengals 26-14 on Sunday.

A slightly more detailed version of the above - though, from all indications in the stats, Thomas Jones' importance seems overstated. He did score three touchdowns, but he didn't account for 90 yards of total offense. These facts actually hurt my understanding of the game: it seems like the author just wanted to chuck the most interesting events (i.e. touchdowns) right up at the top of the article .... but it completely screws any uninformed reader, because the reader can't figure out the context of those scores.

The End of the Article:Pointless Filler of Uninteresting Events

Fitzpatrick ran it in over the right guard from 1 yard to make it 17-14 with 8 seconds left before halftime. The play capped a 14-play, 66-yard drive in which Fitzpatrick was 8-of-10 for 64 yards and led the Bengals to their first five first downs of the game.

Wait, why am I hearing about this at the very end of this article? Why is the fact that this drive "led the Bengals to their first five first (sic) downs of the game" concealed till the end of the article? Wouldn't it have been more interesting to know this earlier, to demonstrate how the game was still close even though the Bengals didn't manage a first down until over a third of the game had passed?

Is the fact that they had their first five first downs of the game a secret-code for AP writers, perhaps intimating that tonight's post-work alcohol binge will be an overload of this?

Feely's 43-yard field goal with 5:36 left in the third quarter made it 20-14.

Why the heck is this the last line of the story? Is this for people scoring at home while reading the article, so they can know exactly how every single point was scored? Did this event not have any drive associated with it? Or is the writer just getting paid by the word and including as much meaningless verbiage as possible in order to line his pocket?

The problem with this format:

The problem is that the article never really tells the story of the game. Rather than telling the chronological story of the game - and giving the reader a sense of the game's ups and downs and providing actual context for the big plays in the game... the story simply cobbles together a series of highlights which tell no actual story. As a result, the whole article doesn't even want to be read: it's as though the article doesn't even WANT itself to be read... as though the author EXPECTS you to click on something else before you get to the end.

I expect to be attacked by this kind of image-hopping thing when I'm watching TV highlights - they only have a few seconds to tell the story of a game. But with journalism, you'd think you could at least get a coherent story - because every sports game is just that: a story of sequenced events. Unfortunately, every sports game's recap is a mishmash of unsequenced events.

When you're stuck in an image-obsessed culture that has little appreciation for context and real narrative, I guess this is what you get.

Shameless Ploy for Big-Market Readers

Just your average pre-playoff Tuesday, waiting for the Twins/White Sox game to start, getting vaguely excited about baseball. So I went sailing around teh_interwebz, casting my nets about for the good fish to be had. I happened to trawl around to Lake MLB.com, where I found a pearl of great price and subsequently decided to abandon this stupid metaphor.

But really.

MLB.com's FRONT PAGE is pimping the following article: "Yankees Fans Divided on Cubs-Dodgers"

What?

The day before the division series starts, and there's a front-page article on the ostensible home page for ALL OF BASEBALL, and what do we find? Articles about Cubs fans, Dodgers fans, Rays fans, Twins/White Sox fans, Angels fans... articles about actual baseball that has been played, or baseball that will soon be played...

Nope. Yankees' fans opinions about the NLDS. Oh, sure, MLB.com, you're a place where people can go to get good, relevant, insightful baseball coverage.... Actually, MLB.com, you're a joke, a portal where MLB can shamelessly cross-promote its various products (which I wrote about recently here) with a smattering of shit journalism thrown in. I will now end the world's first apostrophe to a website. But honestly - if my byline read "writer for MLB.com", I might punch myself.

It's a sad day when media portals like this one have to resort to asking random fans in New York (who seem to be overwhelmingly Italian-American, though it's by any means a representative sample) what they think about a National League playoff series.

The conclusion I'm drawing: Yankees fans are not baseball fans, do not care about non-Yankee playoff baseball, but that MLB.com is desperate for readers, so they pander to these generally-apathetic baseball fans by putting Yankee coverage on the front page.

QED!

Bill Simmons and Rick Reilley are worth every penny

I've learned a few things over the past 10 days or so:

1. Joe Posnanski has a large fan base, and despite writing a terrible article about Brett Favre, Posnanksi maintains a blog where he uses big words like OPS+.

2. Sports bloggers are open to any and all criticism, unless it is directed at their burrito house of choice.

Therefore, to avoid further criticism, I will now deride two ESPN writers who I know no one will defend (Because no 1 comes to r site lolz!!1).

Is it a classic if no one is watching? Guess you'll have to take my word for it. by Bill Simmons

This title is mad deep.

I can't let the Gold-Medal Game go. USA 118, Spain 107. One of the 10 most dramatic basketball games of my lifetime.

Hard to believe that there've been less than 10 important games in Simmons's lifetime where the winning team won by less than 11.

And nobody gave a crap or even knew.

Yeah, certainly wasn't discussed at all by Chad Forde, Scoop Jackson, or anyone else who wrote about the Redeem Team.

The game started at 2:30 in the morning ET and vanished into thin air. Only West Coasters and super-diehards stayed up to see it. Everyone else woke up Sunday, heard the score, caught the highlights and never thought about it again.

You see this is what I really hate about "professional sports writers." They can make blanket claims like this, which aren't supported by any facts at all whatsoever, and it gets passed off as fact. He doesn't even provide an anecdote. He's fucking clown shoes.

The biggest irony of this all is that he's lauded as "THE SPORTS GUY," that guy who's just like every one who reads him. Yet, he makes this moronic assumption that only he and five other people on the west coast watched the game. Remember when you were cool, Simmons? You talk about it all the time, yet you seem to forget that for people, aged 16 through 1 day younger than you, staying up till 4:30 am to watch a basketball game on a SATURDAY NIGHT IN THE SUMMER isn't that big a hardship.

p.s. I'm sure no one woke up and watched it on Tivo either. Jackass.

And that's why I hope neither NBA TV nor ESPN Classic ever replays this game. It belongs to me and the lucky few who watched it live and sweated it out.

And the aniversary of this game shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of douche;

Which Franchise Rules Your City? I Have the Answer. By Rick Reilly

Before I dive in, let me remind the reader that Reilly makes an obscene amount of money for a sports journalist. In addition, he derides bloggers for not having the inside info to write compelling pieces like the ones he does.

Okay, with that out of the way, Reilly will now pick cities at random and say which team the city favors most, with next to nothing to back up his claim. Hardcore sports journalism:

ATLANTA Georgia football. Every SEC grad gets a job in Atlanta. The Braves can't even sell out playoff games. Everybody thinks the Hawks moved to Calgary years ago.

You hear that Georgia Tech fans? You like UGA. Bet you didn't see that one coming, traitors.

BALTIMORE Ravens, in a squeaker over Michael Phelps.

Being from Baltimore, I can attest to the fact that this is really accurate. Here's how my thought process went:

Hmmm, Michael Phelps: douchey swimmer who doesn't race specifically for Baltimore, is only nationally recognized every 4 years, and himself prefers the Ravens to Michael Phelps. OR The NFL franchise I waited the first 11 years of my life for. OR That MLB team, which Reilly didn't even mention, whose stadium set the record for quickest to 50 million atendees ever.

Fuck you.

BOSTON Red Sox. Once, Boston was a hockey town, and Orr's Bruins ruled. It's never been a Celtics town—despite Russell and Bird—partly because of the finally fading racism. Patriots? Pssshhht. They're not even in Boston. The Red Sox, though, sell out a cramped, rusted ballpark as though there were Hope Diamonds under every seat. Says longtime Boston sports yakker Eddie Andelman: "Who can have a decent conversation about anything else?"

The Red Sox, one of the most successful teams of the past 10 years, sell out a stadium that holds 30,000 people. There's something special about that team I tell yous.

DETROIT Red Wings. It's called Hockeytown, not Basketballtown.

I get it the Red Wings are popular and rightfully so, but you'd think that it would've occurred to Reilly that the University of Michigan holds the record for largest attendance for a football game ever: 112,000 people. I'm just sayin'.

NEW YORK You see more Yankees hats in NYC than all other teams combined. Win 26 titles, that happens. Then there's this: MoviesUnlimited.com lists 21 flicks about the Yanks, four on the Giants and Mets each, two on the Knicks and one on the Rangers.

There are more movies about zombies than all New York teams combined. Ipso facto, people would prefer a world overrun by the flesh eating dead to a situation where they had to root for any New York team.

I'm done.

P.S. Joe Posnanski could learn a lot about quality and consistency by spending a day in his local Qdoba.

Peter King: Fat, Annoying

If I have to tell you the two major themes in Peter King's MMQB column, then clearly you're not a golfer.

From his "Fine 15":

New York Jets (1-0). "We didn't even have a chance to discuss this before the play was called,'' Eric Mangini told me, regarding the lottery pick of a touchdown pass from Brett Favre to Chansi Stuckey in the first half at Miami. It was fourth-and-13 at the Miami 22, and the Jets had no kicker because, for the moment, Mike Nugent had a bum thigh, and so Favre, under heavy pressure, threw it up deep.

"That's something that only a smart player would know -- throw it down to the end zone, and the opposition catches it, who cares? The worst thing would be to take the sack and give them the ball in good field position. Brett knew just to throw it and take the chance.'' The ball, I said to Mangini, would not have been thrown by a quarterback who cared about his quarterback rating. "Absolutely not,'' he said.

Boom, bang, kablammo! (That's the sound of either your head or your bathtub whiskey distillery exploding)

1. Wouldn't an experienced quarterback have found an open reciever who was past the first down line, rather than heaving a jump ball into the endzone?

2. Quarterbacks who worry about their quarterback rating are usually worried about two things: throwing balls their receivers can catch, and not throwing interceptions.

3. When was the last time a QB was accused of purposely sabotaging a hail mary attempt because he didn't want his QB rating hurt by a likely interception? The answer: never.

From the: What I learned about football that I didn't know last week section:

The NFL passed a rule in April to allow communication between the sideline and one defensive player on the field, the same as offensive coach-to-quarterback communication. Theoretically, this would take away some of the advantage an offense has had for several years, with coaches being able to call plays into a quarterback's ear until the 15-second mark on the play clock.

But because many defensive players don't play every snap, the rule allowed for a second player to have a speaker in his helmet, but only if the first defensive player wasn't in the game. So the second player needs to have two helmets: one that he'll wear when he's not getting the play called into him, and one with a speaker in the helmet. To prevent a team from having both players with the speaker in the helmet in the game on the same play, the NFL decided to put a man in an official's hat and white official's pants on each sideline to guard the backup defensive-communicator's helmet.

Thoroughly confused? Or thoroughly disgusted?

There are 267 games in the NFL this year -- 256 regular-season games and 11 more in the playoffs. Thus, the NFL will spend $80,100 for those three employees to do their sacred duties at each game.

You know, I agree; it is pretty stupid that the NFL has to employ three people per game just to make sure this doesn't happen. You'd think that it'd be something that officials would notice. If the NFL were a government organization, and my tax dollars went to it, I might be pretty disgusted.

But guess what PK, the NFL makes a shit load of money. They make more than $80,100 off the first 100 people through the gate at most stadiums. And considering that they just had a season that was marred by a cheating scandal, that $80k seems like a small price to pay for peace of mind.

Also, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the NFL doesn't hire millionaires to make that cooshy $30/per hour salary, so it's probably going to people who will spend that extra 100 bucks a week immediately; thereby helping the economy (if you believe in the trickle up theory, which I do). So your righteous indignation is just idiotic in every way.

The Way We Were

The first in a year-long (or longer) series comparing players of today with those of long ago, or not so long ago. In this section, I'll compare players who, for reasons on and off the field, could have switched places in time and been similar.

Brett Favre vs. Sammy Baugh

I didn't read this comparison, nor will I ever. Let's see if I can stomach next week's comparison between Tom Brady and a former college quarterback that was killed in Vietnam.

Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week:

Sometimes I forget the things that annoy me on the road, and Saturday, at an NBC rehearsal for the 2008 TV season, Bob Costas reminded me of one.

At hotels now -- and this has been happening for four or five years -- when you order room service, the male or female waiter who comes to the door always asks: "May I come in?''

Which prompted Costas, coming off a month in a hotel in Beijing, to say: "May I come in?! No! I'll eat the meal in the hallway! What do you mean, 'May I come in?' ''

Good point, Bobby.

Choose your own adventure time:

Repulsed by hypocrisy: Weren't you outraged by the NFL spending $80,000 to make sure there was no cheating, and now you're talking about getting room service on NBC's expense account?

Sarcastic: Who's writing this column now, Jerry Seinfeld and Gregg Easterbrook?

Logical explanation (with sarcasm): I've never been with a woman in a hotel (or anywhere for that matter), but I imagine that many guys take women there. I wouldn't be shocked if these men and women often engage in sexual congress that goes on and off throughout the night, causing them to miss their dinner reservations and call down for room service. I know this is going to make me sound like a looney tune, but maybe, just maybe these men and women are naked when the room service guy arrives with the food. Maybe he asks "may I come in," because his hotel manager has gotten complaints from angry rich people about the room service guy coming in, when the people just wanted their food left outside. I know it's really far out there, but it's just a theory of mine.

From 10 Things I Think I Thought while washing down those 12 queso burritos from Qdoba with a Cinnabon/chocolate milk combo that I liquefied in my blender:

When Peter Gammons says the AL MVP is Dustin Pedroia, that gets my attention.

Mine too, like "Wow, should this guy still be allowed to communicate to a national audience?" or "Does he know who this guy on Pedroia's team is?" or "Can he even begin to fathom what this guy is doing statistically?"

The answer to all the previous questions: no.

For the record, Ocho Cinco is not "Eighty-Five'' in Spanish. It's "eight five.''

This is why Peter King gets paid the big bucks.

I think I'm starting to think Carson Palmer belongs in Jay Cutlerville. He hasn't been a commanding presence on the field for some time, I'd say going back to mid-2006, and I'm hard-pressed to think of him in the same league with the top five or six quarterbacks. I did put him there in my top 50 in the SI NFL Preview issue, but after watching him Sunday, I almost wish I could have that one back.

1. What exactly is the common denominator between Palmer and Cutler?

2. Really says a lot about your top 50 list that you're ready to abandon a guy after one week.

3. Did it ever occur to Peter King that Palmer's struggles might've had something to do with the fact that he was playing against a team that's only one year removed from being the best in the league? No because...

4. It's blatantly obvious to me that Peter King didn't watch the game, didn't read the AP report, didn't look at anything besides the score and Carson Palmer's numbers. If he had, he would've seen that Palmer was left out to dry by his offensive line and the one interception he threw was a pass that should've been caught but was bobbled into Ravens' CB, Chris McAlister's, hands.

Said McAlister, "good football analysis by Peter King, nevermore."*

*He didn't actually say that, but that's what I imagine him saying to me, if I ever get to hang out in his hotel room with him after the Ravens win the Superbowl after going 19-0.

Sunday Night Baseball Liveblog #2: Joe Morgan Likes Manny Ramirez... A Lot

PNoles and I are watching the game again tonight. Should be a real bundle of laughs.

7:14 CST: I just turned on the game, like 45 seconds ago, and Joe has already praised Joe Torre for calling a hit and run with Manny Ramirez on first and James Loney at the plate. He mentioned that if the Dodgers want to make the playoffs, they're going to need to do more of that and stop "waiting around for the home run." Sending Manny Ramirez: pretty much asking for an out. (Too bad it worked and Loney managed to slap a single through the left side. Bah humbug.)

7:21 CST: Casey Blake clubs a 3 run bomb on a pitch that K Zone shows as being about three inches above the knees. Joe insists that it was "up in the zone... for a sinkerballer." Maybe he missed his location and wanted it to sink out of the zone, but buddy, it doesn't matter what kind of pitcher you are. Three inches above the knees is three inches above the knees.

7:22 CST: Jon Miller praises Blake for "coming through in the clutch!" I don't know how clutch you can possibly be in the top of the first, but I guess whatever the upper limit of that categorization is, Blake hit it.

7:31 CST: Stephen Drew gets thrown out trying to steal second. Joe does not approve. Well, which is it, Joe? You don't want them to wait around for the three run bomb, do you? (Actually, Joe's probably right here. It's just funny to hear him not approve of a SB attempt, regardless of context.)

7:35 CST: Joe's analysis re: Brandon Webb's struggles: "Make no mistake about it... when you're going for your 20th win, a lot of things go through your mind. Especially in this day and age, when so few guys get there." I'm awarding him zero points for this one.

7:40 CST: According to Joe, the name of the Diamondbacks' starting pitcher is actually Brandon Wells.

7:47 CST: Joe, re: the Brewers' petitioning of the league to change the scoring of the Pirates' only hit in today's game to give C.C. Sabathia a no hitter: "I've always thought it was in the rulebook, from back in my umpiring days, that the first hit had to be a clean hit."

1) Can you imagine how awful Joe would be as an umpire, what with his complete inability to make tough decisions?
2) That's not in the rulebook.

7:55 CST: Jon praises Casey Blake for squibbing a grounder past Webb (Wells?), allowing Matt Kemp to advance from 2nd to 3rd. He calls it good "situational hitting, to get the ball past the pitcher like that!" Call my crazy, but I don't think there's a situation in the whole game of baseball where your goal ISN'T to hit the ball past (or away from, in the case of bunting) the pitcher.

8:04 CST: Joe is sure that acquiring David Eckstein will help the Diamondbacks because they "need a little more leadership on the field." Hopefully they also need more mediocre defense and poor hitting, because Lil' Eck will be bringing those to Phoenix as well.

8:13 CST: OK, guys. Webb isn't keeping his sinker down in the zone and Lowe is. We get it. You can only talk about that for so many straight half-innings (going on five at this point) before it gets stale.

8:17 CST: Joe, re: Andre Ethier's RBI double with 2 strikes: "Well, with two strikes, he changes his mindset and just wants to drive the run in." What was his mindset before he had 2 strikes? Try not to drive the run in? Foul off as many pitches as possible? Check out the hot girl sitting behind the dugout?

8:26 CST: And Webb is out of the game. Earlier today, the front page headline on espn.com was his picture, with the headline "Oh, What a Webb!" Any guesses about that one? Anybody? Is it a play on that oldies hit "Oh, What a Night?" What am I missing here?

8:33 CST: Jon has a theory as to why Joe Torre is such an effective manager: "He has the ability to phrase something, and not make it sound like a cliche!" (I use an exclamation mark because Jon always sounds like he's excited about everything.) If it even exists, I'm not sure that ability is more or less important to a manager's ability level than filling out a lineup card. We'll call it a push for now.

8:50 CST: PNoles's apartment has several visitors in it right now, so I'm having trouble hearing Jon and Joe over the awful racket going on in here. It is helping me enjoy the game a lot more, though. Every cloud has a silver lining.

8:57 CST: Going back to the Eckstein trade: how the hell did he clear waivers? The whole AL let him get away? Really? Haven't these teams ever heard of winning?

8:59 CST: Since I'm grasping at straws here, I might as well offer commentary on the commercials. I kind of enjoy these Mike's Hard Lemonade spots that are obviously ripping off Tommy Boy, but what demographic are they going after? There can't be a huge overlap between Chris Farley fans and sugary malt beverage drinkers.

9:05 CST: Speaking of how excited Jon gets when pretty much anything happens, Tony Clark just missed a catch in foul ground during an 8-0 game. "HE DROPPED IT! HE HAD IT, AND IT BOUNCED OUT!" Easy, tiger. Easy now.

9:12 CST: As the third out is recorded in the top of the 6th, Joe reveals that he'll be pressing Jon for Jon's MVP and Cy Young picks during the next half inning. Hopefully Joe is willing to give his own opinions as well- I'm already getting tingly thinking about the possibilities.

9:15 CST: Obviously Jon has his finger squarely on the pulse of pop culture; after a brief K Zone montage of Lowe's sinker tonight, he manages to funkily blurt out "Derek Lowe, 'get down' tonight!" Hopefully Kool and the Gang will be visiting the booth later in the evening.

9:19 CST: Joe finally settles the age-old debate about the relative levels of passion for baseball expressed by fans on America's two coasts. "A lot of people say people on the east coast care more about baseball. But I'm a west coast kind of guy! I really think the guys in Los Angeles... the fans in San Francisco... I think fans on the west coast really care about baseball too." Good to have that all cleared up.

9:27 CST: Jon has told Joe to back off the end-of-the-year award questions. Oh nooooo!

9:28 CST: Wait, wait, wait, wait.... whoa. We're back on topic. Jon says some wishy washy crap about the Cubs' whole lineup. Joe then takes the reins. He helpfully reminds us that we won't know until the season is over (thanks a lot), but then reveals his dark horse candidate: Carlos Delgado. His OPS+: 122. Pujols' OPS+ (not that I'm saying he's necessarily the best pick, just that he's one of many potential better picks): 191. Cue up the laugh track.

9:41 CST: Jon and Joe discuss NL Cy Young candidates without saying anything especially dumb. Of course, Joe was quick to point out that many guys have had excellent seasons. As opposed to 2007, when one and only one guy had an excellent season.

9:44 CST: I am shocked MLB didn't bring Dane Cook back for their playoff promos. Why not? Part of advertising is getting people to remember your message, and I don't think Dane could possibly have done a better job in that capacity. Everyone say it with me: there are only how many Octobers?

9:58 CST: I just realized, we didn't have any Joe-less half innings tonight. Either he's holding it, or tonight he managed to take his bathroom break(s) during a commercial break(s).

10:01 CST: Joe and Jon wax poetically about the alleged HOF credentials of one Maury Wills. The comedy of this doesn't really need to be expanded upon much: let's just leave it at his career OPS+ of 88. Although, I have to say I'm surprised that Joe would be in his corner. It's not like Wills was part of the Big Red Machine.

10:11 CST: Sorry, I kind of tapered off at the end there. That's enough nerdery for tonight. We'll be back next Sunday as Joe and Jon continue their elaborate dance of idiocy. Remember, as unfunny as I am, at least I have two working eyes! (I really wanted to end on a high note, and taking a shot at Stu Scott seemed like the way to do it.)

Pat Forde Passed Tenth-Grade English

As bad as the article chris w posted last week with the overextended introduction via Death Cab For Cutie was, I think this is even worse.

It's right in the middle of a slow offseason for college football fans; the recruits are settled and Terelle Pryor plans to make a decision next week, but the season doesn't start for another month and a half. So, of course, the WWL's football showpiece, Pat Forde, needs to do something to drum up interest and draw out an article. Rather than just predicting, Pat decided to go with a theme as well. I imagine Pat's final list of themes for the article looked something like this:

1. American heroes - as it's almost July 4th and everyone likes fireworks.
2. Aliens and extraterrestrials - celebrating the Will Smith classic Independence Day and a celebration of world multiculturalism and xenophobia.
3. Gas prices and the war in Iraq - for those of you scoring at home, the terrorists are currently winning.
4. Shakespeare - why not?

Because it's June, and because June is slower than an Ivy League defensive back when it comes to college football news, the boss e-mailed me with a quirky story idea.

The throwaway gag aside, I wonder who Pat's boss is, and I wonder if this is really how things work over at the ESPN Offices, which are doubtless the sort of wacky and fun offices that we glimpse in those hilarious SportsCenter commercials.

The curiosity in me wants to see this email...

He pointed out that Midsummer's Eve was upon us, and the day has a long tradition of being a time for telling fortunes. Some guy named William Shakespeare even built a story around Midsummer's Eve -- and the suggestion was that I do the same.

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal" - Eliot.

"Fuck it, man, the boss wants me to sound like a pretentious asshole while I'm writing about college football, why the hell not?" - Pat Forde

Who can turn down an offer like that?

Good question, Pat. You can't, I guess, but I'm not sure this really applies to anyone else in the world... most of our bosses don't ask us to do things like this.

After reacquainting myself with "A Midsummer Night's Dream,"

Do you think he read the play? It seems that he deliberately avoided saying that he re-read the play; I think, in this context, "reacquainted" means "read the SparkNotes".

it seems Shakespeare himself might have had football on the brain when he wrote it. You don't believe me? I have the evidence.

This is so funny!

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!" -- Was that Puck? Or Tim Tebow?

Why would Tim Tebow say that? Am I missing something?

So he rambles on about some connections between Shakespeare and football and whatever. But on to his predictions:

1. Notre Dame will be better.

No shit. Notre Dame was awful last year. This is a lousy prediction.

Perhaps improved enough to lose another bowl game.

Good thing you qualified that. You wouldn't want to predict a six-win Notre Dame team. That would be really going out on a limb.

But part of the Fighting Irish fan base won't notice, because it'll be consumed with watching for Scourge of Humanity Ty Willingham to fail at Washington.

Most likely. It'll be better than watching Notre Dame play USC, for sure.

3. Rick Neuheisel won't bet on his own team in the office bowl pool.

No shit. His team sucks, and he'll never coach again if he gets in trouble. What kind of predictions are these?

4. Ohio State at USC is the nonconference game of the year.

No shit! I'm glad you predict this, Pat!

Honestly, I really want to know how long it takes these writers to write these articles. I could write this shit in like an hour. At that rate, Forde should pump out eight of these a day, but his archive suggests he gets one out every four days or so.

5. Georgia at Arizona State won't be bad, either.

What a lousy prediction. They both won 10 games last year. You suck, Pat.

There are some other predictions but they're either boring or poor attempts at humor. In sum: The article was poorly written, it has an inane and questionable theme, and the predictions are mostly nonsense. I realize ESPN has to provide some content to the college football fans who need something to read during the offseason, but this is ridiculous.

Here's what's even more ridiculous: the picure and the caption. Voila:

William Shakespeare isn't the only one who can pen a midsummer night's dream.

*&^$ the heck? I wonder what the caption writers were thinking. How many levels of irony can you spot in that statement? I'm finding at least four....

It's time to close this critique. If you haven't fallen asleep while reading it, or if I've offended you with this commentary, just pretend it was all a dream... because Pat Forde certainly chose a weak and idle theme for this article.

This Is Not A Fake Jerry Crasnick Column

Title is a shout-out to pnoles' amusing spoof of a Crasnick column. Here's Jerry's latest, which reminds us of the old adage that the truth can be stranger than fiction.

I almost feel bad for ripping on Jerry Crasnick; his columns aren't meant to be serious. They're a lighthearted look at an under-represented idea/issue within the game of baseball. The problem is - Jerry's lightheartedness train goes past the "humor" junction and crashes right into the "infantile" depot. Let's take a look!"

In the quest to determine what it takes to be a good-hitting pitcher, we figured we'd glean some insight from an extremely bad-hitting pitcher. Luckily for us, Phillies broadcaster Larry Andersen had a few moments to kill before heading into the booth during the team's recent homestand.

Jerry is an unfunny guy with a lack of acumen for analyzing the important aspects of the game. But this section - totally irrelevant to the rest of the column, reminds us that Crasnick is a journalist because he has access to the insiders like Phillies broadcaster Larry Andersen. Larry Andersen's fame and glory prevent ordinary proletarians such as myself from getting close enough to glean parcels of wisdom which no doubt drip from his mouth like honey from a tobacco plant.

** Disclaimer**
I am not making up the following chart. Scroll up and click the link to see if I'm lying if you want to:

HIGHEST CAREER OPS (min. 75 plate appearances)
PLAYER	OPS
Babe Ruth	1.164
Ted Williams	1.116
Lou Gehrig	1.079
Micah Owings	*1.058
Barry Bonds	1.051
Albert Pujols	1.042
* -- .391 OBP, .667 SLG

I don't know what there is to say. This attempt at humor is lousy. But the thing is: maybe Micah Owings really is a better hitter than Barrold Bonds.

The real stats:
HIGHEST CAREER OPS:
1. Chuck Lindstrom 4.000
2. John Paciorek 2.000
HIGHEST CAREER FIELDING PERCENTAGE:
1. Moonlight Graham 1.000
4323 tied at 1.000
HIGHEST CAREER ON-BASE PERCENTAGE:
1. Eddie Gaedel 1.000
34 tied at 1.000
HIGHEST CAREER ERA:
1. Lino Urandeta ∞
19 tied at ∞

Moving on... the STARTING NINE!

Micah Owings, Diamondbacks

After watching Mets left-hander Pedro Feliciano throw two fastballs off the outside corner to Owings on Sunday, Diamondbacks broadcaster Mark Grace observed, "I've never seen a pitcher get pitched as carefully as Micah Owings does. He gets pitched like Gary Sheffield in his heyday."

"The wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for."
- Charles Dickens
"The baseball wisdom of Mark Grace is not in the simile, and his unhallowed hands should cease to disturb it, or the Game's done for"
- dan-bob

As a high school sophomore, Owings hit .630 with 21 home runs.

This is why I like Jerry Crasnick. He looked up Micah Owings' high school statistics. That's going the extra mile right there. Man, Micah Owings was a bad ass when he was fifteen!

There are some other pitchers on the list. For example, #2 a noted Chicago wit provides us with this quotable gem:

Zambrano's personal motto was, "If they hang 'em, somebody's gotta bang 'em."

That's what... she said?

#6 on the list is Adam Wainwright:

Wainwright's 87 career at-bats make for a small sample size, but he definitely knows what he's doing.

What? You care about small sample sizes in a joke column about pitchers' hitting? Jerry, make up your mind: are you serious about this business or not? I think I might actually be interested in a serious article evaluating the worth of good-hitting pitchers. But on to more mindless drivel!

#7 is Tim Hudson, who was apparently a big-time stud position player in his off-days in college. But Jerry includes this gem:

"It goes straight to being athletic," said a scout. "He can field his position, get a timely hit or lay down a bunt against a real tough pitcher. He's a baseball player."

He's a baseball player? I thought he was a ballerina, or a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman or a Vice President with time to burn. Damn. He IS a baseball player.

Here's a pet peeve of mine: Why are scouts NEVER identified in their articles? Journalists with access - like Jerry Crasnick - presumably leave them anonymous to protect their insider information. But seriously - every time I see a stupid-ass quotation like this, I want to know which team employs the scout so that if it is my favorite team I can phone them immediately and demand that that assclown is fired from his somewhat-desirable [I suppose] employment in professional sports.

#8 is Jason Marquis:

"He uses the whole field, and he understands what hitting is about," said a National League scout. "He takes a pretty good hack."

Goddamnit, Aaron Harang. Your career -52 OPS+ indicates that you do not know what hitting is about. Presumably, hitting the ball and running to first. This just in: scouts demand anonymity because they know their information is seventy-three percent anecdotal fucking hearsay.

Here is a picture of Jerry Crasnick. Yes, I realize it's hypocritical of me for using infantile insults while criticizing infantile humor. My feeble excuse is that I am not getting paid to write this. If I ever get paid to write, I'll do a much better job.

Till then, it's everyone's favorite palindrome: RACE CAR!

Jeff Pearlman Wants Rick Reilly's Job

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the ultimate puff piece. It's by FJayM favorite, Jeff Pearlman. It's pretty much an exact recap of my first post on this blog, where I satirized Rick Reilly columns for being overly sentimental. The problem with any satire is that someone just might take you seriously. You have to wonder if one poor Irish baby actually ended up dinner thanks to that Swift asshole.

Anyways. To the article!

The other day I submitted a column to my editor that was lathered in snark. That's pretty much all I've been shooting off lately -- one snarky piece after another. It's a trap writers fall into from time to time.

"Snark" is a word invented by Lewis Carroll to describe an imaginary animal. Just because "snarky" is an adjective doesn't mean you can say that you lathered your column in snark, unless you've just slain a Jabberwocky.

We start to believe opining on the negatives of sports is more fruitful than opining on the positives. So we unload on steroids and dumb jocks and David Carr and Pittsburgh's middle relief, quite certain that's what you, the customer, covets.

Not only do we at Fire Jay Mariotti covet just that, we actually produce just that when you writers fail to supply it. Actually, even when you opine on the positives, Jeff, some asshole on the internet will probably make a blog post criticizing your word choices.

"There's a fine line between being cynical and coming across as bitter," my editor said. "The readers are turned off by bitter, and I believe it makes them a lot less likely to read future pieces of yours."

I know for a fact that larry b is turned on by bitter, and I suspect chris w is as well. In fact, I suspect that 95% of this blog's readers are turned on by bitter - that's what brings them here.

Although it doesn't always show, I love sports. Love them.

Actually, Jeff, so do we.

I love walking into the Toronto Blue Jays' clubhouse and finding Sal Fasano -- the ultimate baseball survivor -- standing there with a goofy smile and tobacco juice dripping down his chin.

Disagree. Jon Lester is the ultimate baseball survivor.

I love watching the David Tyree catch on YouTube over and over again. I love little guys who have no business being here: Spud Webb, Harry Chappas, Theo Fleury.

What the hell? No Eckstein?

Also: you're wrong, Jeff. Just because they're little doesn't mean they have no business being here! If they really had no business being there, you can bet that the GMs wouldn't have hired them to play sports, because GMs don't really give a shit about advancing the cause of undersized people everywhere, they just care about winning games!

-- at this point, Jeff goes on a weird memory trip about his high school track team. Weird.

I love what this job has allowed me to witness. Tony Gwynn leading his Padres teammates back onto the field to thank the fans after winning the 1998 NLCS. Robin Ventura's walk-off grand slam single. Luis Gonzalez smoking one up the middle.

There's no way that Gonzo "smoked one" up the middle. Here's where being overly sentimental about things actually influences your memory. Here's VIDEO EVIDENCE of my point:

(fast forward to the 3:45 mark if you don't have time for all of it)



See? The announcers describe it as "floated" - it was a little bloop at best. I realize I'm being nitpicky - overanalyzing one of Jeff's verbs - but it's stuff like that that annoys the hell out of me. You know you're being overly sentimental when you describe a texas leaguer as being "smoked".

[Also, if you listen to the whole YouTube thing, Tim McCarver makes the most salient point I've ever heard him make - immediately before Gonzo's at-bat. I hadn't seen this clip since I watched it live six years ago - but I'm actually kind of impressed. Way to go, Tim!]

I love that I once interviewed Lou Piniella while he was simultaneously urinating, smoking a cigarette and eating a hoagie.

Jeff: TMI.

I love sports names. I love Taylor Coppenrath, Orlando Woolridge, Dewon Brazelton and Alge Crumpler. I love Coco Crisp, Flozell Adams, I.M. Hipp and Mike Augustyniak. I love Nuu Faaola even more than I love Mosi Tatupu, but not quite as much as I love Niko Noga.

Everyone likes good sports names, except larry b who just yesterday complained that he doesn't care what anyone is named. Larry b is a cynical asshole.

Just for the heck of it: Snuffy Stirnweiss.

[This guy has a good list of the good ones in baseball. ]
___________________________________________________________

Jeff, everyone loves sports as much as you do. Even the bitter, cynical people who write blogs like this one. But everyone (should) hate overly sentimental sports pieces, just like this one. Don't turn into Rick Reilly.