Wistful, sappy sports journalism makes me sad

[Before I begin, in honor of tomorrow night's sure to be more enjoyable if watched without sound All State Home Run Derby Brought to You by GEICO and State Farm, might as well post a link to the best voicemail I have ever received.]

Sometimes it's Sunday evening and I say to myself "I'd really like to put a post up tonight, the beginning of the week can be hectic and if I don't do one now maybe I won't get a chance until Wednesday or Thursday."  And I also say to myself at that point "Shit, I'm pretty tired and lazy.  I don't want to look all over the internets for something to post about."  How do I resolve that tension?  By turning on ESPN, of course.  This evening's garbage came from an unexpected source.  Buster Olney did a pre-scripted voiceover piece (like a slimmed down version of a 60 Minutes segment) about Bryce Harper and Mike Trout, set to sappy background music and highlights/pictures of each.  It was a goddamn disaster.  Buster, what the fuck were you trying to do here?  Unless it was "invent a narrative that doesn't exist in an attempt to be an cuntier version of Bob Costas" you failed.  Quotes are exact thanks to the magical magic of DVR.

Let the record show 

We're not in court.

that Mike Trout and Bryce Harper were called up to the majors in 2012 on the exact same day: April 28.  

Trout also played in the majors in 2011.

And no matter what they accomplish for the rest of their careers, they will be forever linked, 

???

like Tom and Jerry, (screen shows a picture of Tom and Jerry, no really, they did this, they probably had to pay rights fees for it too), Batman and Robin (still from the set of the old Adam West Batman TV, which also probably cost a shitload in rights fees), Martin and Lewis, Simon and Garfunkel.  


None of those duos are even remotely analogous to a pair of baseball players on different teams in different leagues who have never played against each other at any level and for all we know, may never have met each other.  


They will be tied together- Trout and Harper.  


By idiotic journalists doing dumb puff pieces, yes.  In the same manner as two famous musicians who were in a band together, or pair of cartoon characters who are always beating the shit out of each other?  Not even close.


And as was the case with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, 


Much better comparison although it's kind of too late since you already brought up all those other terrible comparisons.  And even this is still not really that good, since Bird and Magic famously faced off against each other in a college national championship game and were friends/rivals before they even entered the NBA.


there will be a debate over which player you'd rather have.  The 20 year old Trout is arguably the fastest player in baseball, and is a threat to win the batting title, and the MVP, and is regarded as a shutdown centerfielder.  


"Shutdown centerfielder" is not a thing you can be.  You can be a shutdown reliever, or an outstanding centerfielder.  Pick one.


The 19 year old Harper is not as refined a hitter as Trout, but has demonstrated that he might have Ruthian power, 


Peter King thinks it's semi Bonds-like!


and that every day, he plays with the eyes and the intensity of Mike Singletary.  


You're doing a story about baseball players, so naturally, when you need to say that one is passionate about the game, you compare him to someone who doesn't play baseball.


[Long spiel about each player's stats, and how they've helped their teams]  This all before either can legally drink a beer in the United States.  


This was brought up solely to show the "That's a clown question bro" clip, which is a funny clip and all but felt kind of forced here.  Probably because this whole segment felt completely forced at all times.  It was like someone got Ken Burns really drunk and then told him to make a two minute documentary on how Harper and Trout will be forever linked.


Oakland GM Billy Beane 


Wait, who?


knows that both Trout and Harper are once in a generation talents, breaking into the big leagues at the exact same time.  


And this was all he said about Beane.  No direct quote, no anecdote about how Beane passed on Trout in the 2009 draft because he's the geniusest genius around, no explanation as to why his name was mentioned at all.  As far as we know he has exactly zero to do with either Trout or Harper.  Yet Buster cites him here.  Your guess as to why is as good as mine.


You might have to go back more than 60 years of baseball to find another duo as dynamic and as young as Trout and Harper when they first made an impact.  In 1951, the Giants promoted Willie Mays and the Yankees promoted Mickey Mantle, 


Let's slow the fuck down.  Harper and Trout have like 500 combined MLB plate appearances.  I get that they're both really talented, and playing well at a very young age, but Jeebus.  If I were a betting man I'd bet against them eventually hitting a combined 1200 home runs and both making the HOF a la Mickey and Willie.  Let's slow down and take a deep breath.  


and like those superstars, who went on to share the same song, 


A timely reference.  Fuck, I don't even get the reference, but I'm sure it's some stupid 50 year old song. Wait, unless it's We Didn't Start the Fire.  


/listens to We Didn't Star the Fire


Nope.  Only Mickey made the cut for that one.


Mike Trout and Bryce Harper will forever share a stage... 


They probably won't.  They have no relationship that predates their arrival in the big leagues.  Until and unless they change teams and end up in the same league, they'll only play each other once every three or four years.  Their teams are based thousands of miles apart.  Like, I'd sort of get this sentiment if Harper was a Dodger or Trout was an Oriole.  But there's really nothing here.  They play the same position, I guess.  They are both power/speed guys.  Whatever.  This was an embarrassing waste of time for Buster.


this week, as All Stars in Kansas City.  


They will forever share a stage as All Stars this week?  What?

BONUS COVERAGE:  Kruk, having witnessed Buster's incredibly stupid little segment, what are your thoughts about these two players?

They both respect the game immensely.  It's not like "I'm here, let the games begin, I'm going to save the sport." ... They don't want to draw all this attention to themselves with... with a gesture on the field, that, that, that kind of disrespects the opponent.  They play the game the right way, and they're great great players.

You are a complete and total buffoon.  Also: LUNCHPAIL ALERT.

As always, Rick Reilly shows us the funny

In a column that no doubt consists mostly of jokes he has already used in other columns throughout the years, Rick brings up a topic about as ripe for hilarious non-analysis as airplane food and boner pills: BASEBALLERZ R SLOW WHEN THEY DO THINGZ, TEH GAME IS BORINGS TO ME.

Things that nobody reads in America today:
The online legal mumbo jumbo before you check the little "I Agree" box.

Kate Upton's resume.

Actually, I would like to read that.  I want to know whether or not she graduated from high school (is that a thing models do?) and where she got her first big break.  EAT IT RICK, I'M ALREADY MESSING WITH YOUR WORLD.

Major League Baseball's "Pace of Play Procedures."

Premise of the article: baseball games are too slow.  Rick's chosen method of drawing in the audience: making a list of things that people apparently don't read and putting MLB's pace guidelines on it.  Since whether or not people read those guidelines is a very relatable, illustrative idea.  Get the engraving machine ready--I smell another sportswriter of the year award.


Not that baseball games don't have a pace. 


Where's he going with this...


They do: snails escaping a freezer.


SNAP!


Cincinnati at San Francisco was a 3-hour, 14-minute can-somebody-please-stick-two-forks-in-my-eyes snore-a-palooza. 


Remember that 3.25 hours number.


Like a Swedish movie, it might have been decent if somebody had cut 90 minutes out of it. 


Don't drag the fact that you didn't enjoy The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo into this.


I'd rather have watched eyebrows grow.  And I should have known better.


That last sentence was a link to a piece he wrote in 2000 about this very subject.  I hate linking to the shitpile that is Deadspin, but they have done a good job documenting Rick's self-plagiarism in the past. Not to say he's plagiarizing here, but come the fuck on, man.  There are like thousands and thousands of things happening in sports that you can write about.  Maybe try not to keep writing about the same shit over and over? 


Buster Posey of the Giants, The Man Who Wrecked Your Dinner Reservations, has this habit of coming to the box, stopping outside it and unfastening and refastening his gloves before his FIRST SWING! What exactly was he doing in the on-deck circle? His cuticles?

I'm not going to say I've never ever been annoyed at the pace of a baseball game, but holy fucking shit Rick, your favorite sport is golf.  Golf is the undisputed heavyweight champion of sports that involve people taking for-fucking-EVER to get ready to swing a thing another thing.  Jesus.  It's agonizing.  But hey, at least when golfers aren't taking four minutes to throw blades of grass in the air and otherwise do the super important things you do when you're getting ready to swing a club at a ball, they're walking places.  Now that's action.

New rule: Umpires who don't order batters back into the box within 12 seconds -- because the rules state that a pitcher must throw the ball within 12 seconds of receiving it -- will get the room at the hotel next to the newlyweds.

NEW RULE: IF YOU TAKE MORE THAN FIVE SECONDS TO LINE UP YOUR PUTT, YOU GET PUNCHED IN THE FACE LOL

There's also this amusing passage in the "Pace of Play Procedures" (hah!): 

What is that "hah" doing there?  Is he laughing at the existence of the Procedures?  Is it a pre-emptive laugh at what we are being led to believe will be a RIOTOUS rule within said procedures?  Is he still thinking about how funny it is to watch snails try to escape a freezer?

"When given permission to leave the batter's box under Rule 6.02, batters may not step more than 3 feet from the batter's box."
Whoo-eee! That's rich. These guys wandered away from the box like 2-year-olds at a petting zoo. Six times they left the dirt circle around the plate altogether. Left the entire circle!

THE HUMANITY!  Look, complain about the number of seconds it takes a pitcher/hitter to do X all you want.  I'm down with that.  At some point, guys are taking too long.  But who gives a flying rat's ass about this?

And by the way, this nonsense about there's only a 2-minute, 10-second TV break between half innings? Bullfeathers. Only once did the break between half innings take 2:10 or less. The rest of the time, it was miles over. The break before the top of the fifth was 4 minutes, 12 seconds! 

It should go without saying that this has not a fucking thing to do with the Pace of Play Procedures or how many inches from the plate batters are wandering these days.  This is about teams making money.  Durrr.

Where did everybody go? 

They were in the stadium the whole time, it's just that the TV feed cut away so sponsors who paid money can get messages about their products out to the viewers?

Out to feed their meters?

No?

There were 14 attempts by pitchers to pick off runners, not one of them even coming close. 

Actually, 14 pickoff attempts in a game that was close throughout sounds relatively low.  I guess it was a game involving the Giants at AT&T Park, so there were probably like six total baserunners during the nine innings.

Most of them resembled somebody tossing a turkey to a co-worker.

Tossing a what to a who?

New rule: Pitchers get two pickoff attempts per runner. For every one after that, the umpire adds a ball to the hitter's count.

Ah, and here we have the exact moment when he went from being a guy who might know something about sports and is complaining about some shit that's sort of OK to complain about, to being a guy who obviously has his head firmly entrenched in his ass when it comes to knowing anything about sports.

Four times the hitter, after going through his Art Carney routine, got into the box, decided the pitcher was messing with him, and called time out.
Twice the pitcher wanted a timeout.
Five times the catcher called time out to go out to the mound to discuss, what? ObamaCare?

That's a thing that was in the news recently!  Other options: the TomKat divorce, how darn hot it is outside, and something about that Justin Bieber fella.

And explain to me why a reliever who's been warming up in the bullpen for five minutes still needs eight pitches to warm up on the mound. 

Because he hasn't been warming up with that catcher, or from that mound.

Do field goal kickers get eight practice kicks? Dumb.

Lulz at the idea of analogizing field goals and pitches.  DO BASKETBALL PLAYERS GET TO PRACTICE THEIR ALLEY OOPS DURING TV TIMEOUTS?  DIDN'T THINK SO.

Three hours and 14 minutes, 170 step-outs, and three double-shot macchiatos for that?

Please, I beg of you, bring on the NFL.

Yeah!  Can't wait for NFL games to start!  If you're annoyed by 3 hour and 14 minute games that mostly consist of players standing around and waiting or adjusting their equipment for twenty seconds before the next three second flurry of action, the NFL is the league for you!  It's wall to wall adrenaline with no breaks or interruptions, and you know what the best part is?  Sometimes you get to take a three or four minute breather while one of the officials ducks into a little booth and rewatches the play that just happened twenty times before deciding that it pretty much happened the way he originally saw it happen.  God it's thrilling.  My heart is racing just thinking about all the action!  

People who think baseball is boring because there's too much standing around but that football is BALLS TO THE WALL AWESOME ALL THE TIME should be sterilized and/or beaten to death in public.

Insufferable asshole continues to be insufferable asshole

It's almost time for the All Star Break, which means it's almost time for the home run derby, which means it's almost time for Chris Berman to yell at us for a whole evening, which means it's time for ESPN to give him a little bit of warmup time by letting him call their Monday night game.  If you see this post in the next hour or so, go turn it on.  My God.  This man is terrible at describing what he is watching.  He's atrocious.  Absolutely atrocious.

Who's in the booth with him?  You guessed it: Frank Stallone.  Nah, just playing, it's Rick Sutcliffe.  Hooray!

Uh, here's some stuff I was sort of thinking about

Do I have the energy to do a real post?  Not really, and given my half-hearted efforts on that Simmons stuff from last week, it's probably best that I don't try.  Instead:

Courtesy of hdh9 in the comments to Thursday's post, this is what it looks like when someone who gets paid to write makes fun of Bill.

I realize I have bitched about this several times in the last year or so, but I hadn't watched Sportscenter in a few weeks and turned it on this evening to catch highlights of Spain/Italy.  I got about a minute of those highlights, followed by another two minutes during which the anchor read tweets congratulating Spain from soccer analysts like LeBron.  The tweets weren't insightful or funny or controversial.  And the anchor had to sit there and read them to us, because apparently posting them on the screen and giving viewers a few seconds to read at their own pace wouldn't provide the proper framing.  Holy shit, what the hell happened, Sportscenter?

Finally, we all know the only thing worse than Sportscenter is sports talk radio.  It's the clogged septic tank of sports analysis.  Tonight I was driving around and flicked over to my local FOX Sports radio affiliate.  The host, Mike North (the guy who used to have his own show Chicago until he got fired for being an asshole) was talking to some goofball caller about the candidates for the final MLB All-Star spots.  They were discussing Harper vs. Chipper, and shit got very dumb very quickly.  This isn't all exact quotes, but I was listening to it like 30 minutes ago, so it's close.

See, people are saying that you have to take Chipper because it's his last season.  And they're saying that Harper can wait, because he'll have plenty more chances.  


Given that the candidates were just announced, this is probably a straw man.  I don't think that many people who aren't Braves fans are saying/will say that.


I don't like that "we have to honor Chipper because it's his last year" stuff.  

Go on.


I think you have to evaluate based entirely on performance, in the here and now.  


Well that's one way to look at it, and I'm not sure it's the best way, but I can see why you would--


Don't you want to see Harper?  In my opinion, he is the youngest, brightest star in the game.  


Don't go too far out on a limb!  Is Harper "young?"  Sort of.  Is he younger than every single other current MLB player?  Technically, yes.  Is he the "youngest" star (or player) in the game?  TBD.  I'm simply not ready to commit to that idea.  


Also: the people (to the extent that there are any) who really want Chipper to go because it's his last season have things all wrong!  It's all about who's playing better, plain and simple.  Oh, and also, in addition to evaluating who is playing better, you should also make sure to include any player who is young and exciting on the basis of their status as young and exciting.  


Besides, everyone said Mark Fidrych would get plenty of chances to pitch in the All Star Game, and he was out of baseball two years later!


Fidrych did pitch in the ASG.  Twice.  And that's when I flipped to another station.  Sports talk radio is worse than genocide.

More level 12 stomach punch level bad analysis of LeBron

It wasn't just a matter of LeBron playing really well.  There are like four other storylines down there somewhere.  Just let Bill scrape around for a few thousand words, he'll find them.

In the postgame presser, he mentioned being happy it played out the way it did, that he needed to "hit rock-bottom" before he could become the player he needed to be. I don't believe this for two reasons. 

1) That doesn't fit with my worldview that there are compelling narratives driving everything that happens in sports

2) CASTAWAY!  THE BACHELOR!  WHO SAYS NO???

First, his jaw-dropping performance in the 2009 playoffs (35.3 PPG, 7.3 APG, 9.1 RPG, .510 FG) strongly hinted that this 2012 bloodbath (30.3 PPG, 9.3 RPG, 5.6 APG, the first player ever to average a 30-9-5 twice in the postseason) was coming. 

How about basically everything he's done on the court for the past 6 or so years suggested this postseason was coming?  He went for 24, 8 and 6 in the 2011 playoffs while shooting 46%.  Some of that scoring deficiency probably comes from the fact that Bosh was hurt for much of the 2012 playoffs. The guy is really, really good and has been for a while.  Stop trying to make it more complex than it is.

His evolution was always headed this way; we just got delayed (and nearly derailed) by 2010's meltdown in the Boston series, then "The Decision," then everything from last year. 

Nearly derailed: no, not at any point.  Sort of kind of delayed: I suppose so, at least in the case of the 2010 playoffs.  Shit you already knew presented as high level analysis: definitely.

Second, I can't imagine LeBron would ever repeat the last 23 months. There had to be better ways to get there. During last night's interviews, we kept hearing the same wistful refrain from LeBron, his teammates and even his coach. The last two years weren't fun. Wearing that big bull's-eye and the black cowboy hat wasn't fun. Being booed wasn't fun, being picked apart wasn't fun, being maligned wasn't fun. 

No fucking shit, Sherlock.  I don't know if he's publicly commented on the subject, but I'd bet a fair sum of money LeBron would like it better if The Decision had never happened.  Other than that, and losing the 2011 Finals, would he change anything from the past 23 months?  Doubtful.

They spent last season battling the collective vitriol, figuring out how to use it to their advantage … and ultimately failing. 

No.  They spent last season getting booed everywhere they went because LeBron is a horse's ass, winning the ECF, and losing in the Finals because Dallas played a little better.  They spent this season getting booed everywhere they went because LeBron is a horse's ass, winning the ECF, and then winning in the Finals because they played better than OKC.  Jesus fucking Christ.

As LeBron admitted last night, it just wasn't him. He wasn't meant to be someone who dunked on opponents and stared defiantly into the stands like a wrestling heel. 

He still did that this year.  I saw him do it, including during the playoffs.  Sorry to ruin your screenplay.  

He lost himself in the process, spent the summer remembering why he liked basketball, rededicated himself, found that same joy … and the rest was history. 

Go fuck yourself.

Even if that sounds like a sweet plot for a sports movie, I'm not buying that LeBron needed that specific sequence to achieve his manifest destiny. 

I'm totally not buying that this off-the-cuff quote LeBron gave without providing much context fully and precisely describes why the Heat won it all this year!  I'M TOO SMART FOR THAT!

Sports would have taken care of that for him. You keep losing the title, you keep going back to the drawing board, you keep trying to get better. Wilt wanted to get past the Celtics. Bird wanted to get past the Sixers. Magic wanted to get past the Celtics. Jordan wanted to get past the Pistons. That's basketball. 

Let's change that to "the best players tend to get better as they enter their mid to late 20s, and then start winning championships."

Eventually, LeBron would realize that losing sucked and spend the summer accordingly. Decision or no Decision. 

/buries head in hands

How is he simultaneously making this both unnecessarily complicated and overly simplistic?

So what actually changed? For one thing, Dwyane Wade injured his knee and became 70 Percent Of Dwyane Wade, inadvertently solving the "dueling banjos" dilemma. The Heat tried to thwart six decades of NBA history by teaming two alpha dogs together, making them equals and assuming their overwhelming talent would overcome any resulting bumpiness. 

After all, it had been a whole ten years since a team with two alpha dogs who were made equals won a title!

They were wrong. Basketball doesn't work that way, 

It has worked that way as recently as 2002.

for the same reason you don't need two transcendent lead guitarists for a rock band.

Because 1) basketball teams in the free agency era are exactly like rock bands, there's a lot of mobility and guys switching teams/bands all the time and such, and 2) there are all kinds of bands out there with two lead guitarists (sarcasm rescinded for metal bands like Slayer and Metallica, who really actually do have two awesome lead guitarists, making Bill double wrong).

Someone had to learn bass. It ended up being Wade, and only because fate intervened. We'll remember Game 6 of the Boston series for a variety of reasons, but mainly because LeBron looked around and said, I'm going down on my own terms. I'm playing all 48 minutes and scoring 50 points. If we lose, we lose. At least nobody will say that I rolled over. It ended up being the most important two hours of his career. He went out and assassinated the Celtics. 

As Slade pointed out in the comments to the last post, this is vintage "the world of sports revolves around THE HUB" stuff.  (More below as well.)  IT TOOK THE LEGENDARY STATUS OF SCALABRINE NATION TO BRING OUT THE BEST IN LEBRON.  HIS UNREAL PERFORMANCE AGAINST DETROIT IN GAME 5 OF THE 2007 CONFERENCE FINALS MEANS NOTHING AS IT WAS NOT ACCOMPLISHED IN THE GAHHHHHHHHDEN.

And that's only scratching the surface. Imagine you're Wade. Imagine you talk Bosh and LeBron into joining YOUR team and living in YOUR city. Imagine that first year going to hell. 

In the movie about the 2010-2011 Heat playing in Bill's mind, they went 38-44, lost by 40 in Cleveland as the crowd showered LeBron with rocks, and were nearly kicked out of the league after the season was over.  In reality, they were a great team that got booed a lot and missed winning a title (and being serenaded by a Simmons article similar to this one, telling everyone a nonexistant story about how they overcame adversity and grew and changed and invented team basketball) by a couple games.

Imagine coming to the begrudging realization that you're only going as far as LeBron takes you, that — even though it's your city, and you're the one who gets introduced last at every home game — you're going to have to wear the Robin costume. By Game 2 of the Finals, everyone is wondering whether you're the same guy you used to be; meanwhile, you've never had to take a backseat on a basketball court before, and that's what is screwing you up more than anything. By Game 5, you're listening to your fans serenade LeBron with "M-V-P!" chants as he holds two trophies like a hunter holding a couple of deer heads. You're standing on the side, just like Shaq six years ago. Maybe that's what he meant by "difficult." 

What he meant by "difficult" is that he's kind of a crybaby, and he's having trouble coping with the fact that LeBron is completely amazing at basketball while he is only kind of amazing, and he just turned 30.

Just know the situation was resolved organically, much like it was during the 2008 Olympics, when Spain was closing in and Kobe said I got this, followed by everyone else letting him have it. That's just how basketball works. You can't have two guys saying "I got this." 

Yes, you are actually right about that.  It's also sad how wrong you are about the idea that you can't have two superstars on the same team and win a title.

Miami figured that out a year late. And if Wade hadn't tweaked his knee, maybe they never would have. 

AND THEN EVERYTHING TURNED AROUND WHEN GORDON BOMBAY WAS FORCED TO COACH THEM AS PART OF HIS COMMUNITY SERVICE BUT ENDED UP TEACHING THEM HOW TO HAVE FUN BUT ALSO WIN AT THE SAME TIME!

The other twist of fate: Derrick Rose wrecked his knee in Round 1, propelling the Celtics into the Conference Finals … 

Wait, holy shit, did he just admit that?  I get that the use of "propelling" implies that it could have happened even with a healthy Rose, but I'm still shocked.

you know, LeBron's nemesis, 

That earlier stuff was just a teaser of the WITHOUT THE CELTICS LEBRON WOULD BE NOTHING horseshit.  Here's the real deal, presented without comment because I don't think anything I could add anything that would make this more hilarious.

the bullies who beat him in 2008 and 2010, the grizzled veterans who were convinced that LeBron would always cave when it mattered most. Garnett and Pierce loved pushing his buttons more than anyone. During their final regular-season road trip to Miami, which turned out to be a surprisingly easy win for the Celtics, they spent the last two minutes busting Wade's balls about LeBron. You picked the wrong guy. You'll never win with that guy. LeBron could hear everything. They didn't care. In Game 5 of their playoff series, Garnett and Pierce pushed things a little further, believing that LeBron was ready to cave again. Down the stretch, Garnett muttered derisive obscenities under his breath anytime LeBron was in earshot, then stuffed him at the rim on a pivotal drive. A little bit later, Pierce nailed a back-breaking 3 right in LeBron's mug, then yelled, "I have the balls to take that!" as he trotted back down the floor.
In retrospect, they pushed him too far. The Celtics regarded LeBron with a surprising amount of disdain — that's why Rondo angrily yelped, "Let's go!" before defending LeBron's final drive of regulation in Game 2. LeBron ended up settling for a 21-footer against someone seven inches shorter than him, followed by Rondo strutting back to the huddle and probably telling his teammates, "I knew he didn't have the balls to come at me." They spent that whole series challenging his manhood; by the end of Game 5, they thought they had broken him. Was that what turned him into a serial killer in Game 6? Not entirely … but it definitely helped. I just don't think LeBron makes LeLeap without the bullies from Boston.

Yeah. Fuck.

This whole article is one huge reverse jinx on the 2012-2013 Heat!!!!

Bill has thoughts about LeBron and the Finals.  Guess how insightful and worthwhile those thoughts are.

You know what saddens me? 

You realized you've been using the same tired style and jokes for like 15 years now?

The funniest clip on YouTube is no longer funny.
Klosterman thinks what makes funny Youtube videos funny is that they are secretly super underratedly unfunny.  Also, I'm pretty sure videos of Denny Green encouraging reporters to "crown they ass" will always be funny, so there's no need to say there's been a change in power at the top of the funniest Youtube video rankings, which do not exist.

Yep, you can finally rest in peace, "The Heat Welcome Party" video. Thanks for giving us two sterling years atop the Internet comedy rankings.
I love when Bill tries to flaunt his comedy chops. HEY I FOUND A YOUTUBE VIDEO THAT IS AMUSING YOU KIDS WOULD LOVE THIS. Bill is your aunt, forwarding you lolcats and clips from Leno's "Jaywalking" segments. While certainly somewhat amusing in its own way, I'm pretty sure the Heat welcome video has never been one of the 1,000 funniest Youtube videos out there at any time.

We're replacing you with a bullpen by committee of old reliables like "I Like Turtles," "Charlie Bit Me," the "It's Still Real to Me, Dammit" guy, Journey's immortal "Separate Ways" video, and even the "I Like Turtles" techno remix. 
Like I said. Wow, the I like turtles kid? Even Daniel Tosh got over that two or three years ago.

Let's hope you don't resurface as something else — something scarier, something more ominous, something on the level of Namath guaranteeing Super Bowl III or Ali promising to defeat Liston.
Seeing as how at least one of James, Wade and Bosh will be moving on within 4 years, I have a hard time believing they'll actually win twelve championships of whatever they promised. I suppose you can say they're as good a bet to win in 2013 as anyone else, but they're not going to get better in the offseason (even if they get the player Bill might call "the corpse of Ray Allen") and I'm sure the Bulls and Pacers (among others) will find a way to improve.

See, the ceiling of "The Heat Welcome Party" slowly changed during the last two games of the 2012 Finals. It's no longer about hubris or a suffocating lack of self-awareness.
What's that you just said, sportswriter who displays hubris and a suffocating lack of self-awareness on a weekly basis? THE IRONING IS DELICIOUS

It might be more of an omen, a warning, a little like the Game of Thrones characters seeing a red comet streak across the sky and saying, Uh-oh, dragons are coming.
Yes! It's exactly like that brutally shoehorned pop culture reference! It's also like the Client List, I think!

I mention this only because, like every other non-Miami fan who attended the last two home games, I left that arena muttering to myself, "Shit … he finally figured it out."
Or maybe he finally had the right supporting cast, or simply got the shots to fall which hadn't been falling. This is lazy sportswriting at its finest. A team didn't win or lose because they won or lost, it won or lost because of [fill in the blank with something about hustle, character, playing the game the right way, "figuring it out" or some other such tardery].

We remember NBA stars three different ways:
AND EXACTLY THREE WAYS ONLY. HERE IS THE COMPREHENSIVE LIST, COURTESY OF THE SMARTEST GUY IN THE ROOM.

by the entirety of their career, their career's highest peak,
AND WHICH MAD MEN CHARACTER THEY ARE MOST SIMILAR TO.

and the duration of that peak. Something like 25 players had genuinely great careers, but only seven played at the all-around level that LeBron achieved these past few weeks. Jordan, Russell, Kareem, Magic and Bird kept their peaks going. Wilt got bored. Walton got injured. Now we're here again.
I've been thinking recently about why Bill has this compulsive need to constantly make lists and put things in order. I think I have my answer: he's a fucking idiot who knows very little about sports, and this is his way of putting up a facade that says "hey check it out my head totally isn't in my ass right now."

LeBron spent the last nine years juggling various identities — a little Jordan, a little Magic, a little ABA Doc, a little Pippen — never revealing that HE knew what he wanted to be.
That's such complete and utter nonsense I can barely stand to read it. What a fresh, steaming pile of elephant shit. LeBron is a fucking basketball player. He goes out on a the court and (cue up Tedy Bruschi and Trent Dilfer) plays basketball. Making it more complicated than that, into some kind of identity crisis mind game LeBron is somehow playing with the public, is goddamn fucking ridiculous.

Even his position was amorphous. Was he a power forward? A small forward? An oversize point guard? What the hell was he? By the end of the 2012 Finals, we had our answer: He's LeBron James.
You know what, it was an insult to Bruschi and Dilfer to put Simmons on their level. Sorry fellas. Go back to your macho posturing and super serious camera staredowns.

First of a kind. A power point guard who can create his own shot from the perimeter and the low post, a devastating passer who can't be double-teamed, a superior athlete who attacks the rim whenever he wants, an unfathomably durable workhorse on both ends, someone who can defend all five positions (yes, five) at an elite level.
All that is probably true. Unfortunately, it loses all its impact when it comes after some complete gobbledygook about how LeBron has been hiding his identity from us or something.

Over everything else, he fully married his physical gifts with his basketball I.Q. and morphed into something of a basketball monster.
Again, he didn't morph or change into anything in the middle of the playoffs. This is the player he has been for the past several years. He just played better in the playoffs than he has before. Applying post hoc "OH THE TIPPING POINT WAS REACHED" analysis to the situation is the action of a blithering idiot.

Remember all those times when we wondered, Why doesn't LeBron just take it to the rack — it seems like he could score whenever he wants? Yup, pretty much. A good example of LeBron's physical dominance this spring: Late in Game 4, when LeBron started limping and finally toppled to the floor, everyone in the arena had the same reaction. Wait, LeBron can get hurt? LeBron feels pain? It was like seeing Michael Myers keel over. When he was carried off, the crowd audibly gasped in disbelief. They're carrying him off? They're carrying LeBron off?
As opposed when Paul Pierce gets carried off, and the Boston fans say I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY HURT OW-UH PAWL! HOW DAY-UH THEY! while everyone with a brain says Jesus Buttfucking Christ, we all know he'll be back next TV timeout, how does this guy not have a more widely acknowledged reputation as a gigantic drama queen?

So yeah, everything starts with that remarkable body.
Now he sounds like the creepy baseball scouts from Moneyball, except that in basketball, your level of physical fitness is actually really important.

In Game 4, Miami planted him on the low post and LeBron went Larry Bird 2.0 on us. (For the record, there was never supposed to be a Larry Bird 2.0. We discontinued that model in 1992 and assumed it would never be seen again, much less in an even more devastating form. So … yeah.)
LEGEND WAS OW-UH POINT FOHWAHD AND I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT SOME BLACK GUY COULD DO THE SAME STUFF HE DID! MUCH LESS WITHOUT THE LEAGUE'S SMAHHHHHHTEST FANS WILLING HIM TO VICTORY!

That's all I've got for now. Seriously, fuck this guy.

Look

Reasonable minds can disagree.  But in my opinion, if you'd rather a team owned by a card-carrying asshole and played for by at least five card-carrying jerks (Westbrook, Ibaka, Collison, Fisher, Perkins) win a title over LeBron, U MAD.  Go Heat.  I certainly hope they never win another with this nucleus, but this one was deserved and enjoyable.  And fuck the Thunder and their basketball hipster fans in the earhole.

Also, as I typed this, we returned from commercial and were all treated to the following:

PA Announcer: And now ladies and gentlemen, direct your attention to center court for the presentation of the Larry O'Brien trophy and the Bill Russell MVP trophy...  PLEASE WELCOME STUART SCOTT!!!!

That has the same ring to it as "Ladies and gentlemen, you asked for them, you got them... NICKELBACK!!!"  And I'm not going to link to it, but I hope you saw it on Grantland a month or two ago; surprise among surprises, Klosterman thinks Nickelback is SECRETLY SUPER UNDERRATED.  What a chode.  Now let's get the mic to Stuart so he can buttfuck his way through the simple line he had days and days to rehearse.

SS:  Thank you.  Here to present the Larry O'Bryphen trophy

Cue up my main man Carl.

... Larry O'Brien trophy... David Stern.

Which is kind of like Nickelback introducing Jay Mariotti.  Also worth noting that Stern thanked "the wonderful fans of South Florida."  As my first few sentences make clear, I was rooting for Miami in part because OKC's fans are a bunch of entitled dust bowl fatsos who were born on third and think they hit a triple (in the context of sports fandom).  But whoa, UH OH, let's not get carried away with praise for Miami's worthless/barely existant fans.  Stern's use of "wonderful" there reminds me of Louis CK's bit.

Also, I know Chris W was counting, and unfortunately this year the NBA playoffs only lasted 55 days.

I don't understand basketball terminology

Watching game 3 of the Finals from my DVR tonight.  Jeff Van Gundy describes Russell Westbrook's pull up foul line jumper:

That's a "make or miss" shot.

Huh.  Are there other kinds of shots?  Maybe "make or get the offensive rebound" shots?  If so, James Harden should attempt more of those and fewer of the "miss or miss badly" shots he's been putting up.

I Am Here to Dismiss a Rumor

You see, Tom Verducci seems to think that the Pittsburgh Pirates aren't terrible. I, like any rational-minded human being, think that's completely and totally false, 33-31 record be damned.


I have this crazy idea, an idea as crazy as believing in Charlie Brown

I mean, is that like, a thing? Most people, even 4-year-olds, feel like Charlie Brown is completely and totally fictional. You totally shoulda gone with something like Santa Claus. Just sayin'.

a balanced budget

Topical!


the Cleveland Browns 

I guess we're now equating "crazy" with "terrible"

and pro soccer in America

Tom, way to beat 9.4% of America to making this joke.


I am starting to believe the Pittsburgh Pirates are an honest to goodness contender.

Tom, Tom, TOMMMMMMMM. Really? The Pittsburgh Pirates? That team that's 4 games back in a pretty "meh" division and has been outscored by 26 runs? Those Pittsburgh Pirates? Really?

That's right: the Pirates. The team that hasn't had a winning season in Bryce Harper's lifetime, or since Bush the elder was president, Nolan Ryan was pitching and Barry Bonds was skinny. The team that in recent years passed up Zack Greinke, Prince Fielder, Jered Weaver, Clayton Kershaw, Tim Lincecum, Matt Wieters, Madison Bumgarner, Eric Hosmer and Buster Posey to take Bryan Bullington, Neil Walker, Brad Lincoln, Daniel Moskos and Pedro Alvarez with top-11 picks in the draft.

I'm really proud of you for looking up all of this information. Really, I am. In fact, it's mostly because of everything you just mentioned that your premise is completely and totally terrible and stupid. But I'm a glutton for punishment, so let's press on.

The team that last year was in first place as late as July 25 and wound up with 90 losses

Don't care what happened last year. Don't care.


The team that has scored the fewest runs in baseball this year. 

Uh oh, Tom. That sorta kinda totally completely insinuates that the Pirates have a terrible offense. Which they do.

The team that is the worst hitting team in franchise history (.224) except for the outfit that finished in 11th place in the American Association 128 years ago!

We get it. It's unbelievable for someone to think the Pirates are contenders. That's actually why it's a stupid thing to believe, Tom.

Today those Pirates are tied for first place with Cincinnati in the NL Central with more wins than any of the four 2011 NL playoff teams and the best record in baseball over the past two weeks (12-3). 

Okay, so I confess. This was written a few days ago. But everything he has to say is still stupid. Trust me.

The Pirates are 30-21 since beginning the year 2-6.

Note to self: You're allowed to remove any single 8-game stretch of a season to evaluate how good a baseball team is in mid-June.

It would be easy to dismiss the Pirates as a pretender waiting for the fall -- a reprise of their 2011 season. But Pittsburgh was doomed to fail last year because its pitching staff was a collection of soft-tossing pitchers whose low strikeout rate and high WHIP portended the collapse.

Yes. And now they are doomed to fail because their hitter with the 2nd highest WARP has a .183 batting average and 69 plate appearances. DON'T CALL IT A......collapse.

This year looks very different. The Pirates are striking out 7.41 batters per nine innings, the highest rate in franchise history by a wide margin (7.00 from 1969). Their WHIP has improved from 15th in the league to fourth. In short, the Pirates now have pitchers with stuff.

They are pretty decent at what probably amounts to 40% of playing baseball. They've had good pitching so far. They're also relying on guys like Erik Bedard and A.J. Burnett who have chronic relapses of sucking or getting hurt.

A.J. Burnett has found refuge from the AL East with the JV lineups of the NL. Erik Bedard, another veteran happily sprung from the AL, has remained healthy. And James McDonald, courtesy of a wipeout slider discovered at the urging of catcher Rod Barajas in a morning spring training game, is a different pitcher. He just might become the greatest righthanded strikeout pitcher in Pirates history.

I fully buy the James McDonald story. W/R/T the other guys, holllllld your horses a little bit. You wrote this on June 12th. There's very few major league pitchers that survive for a career of at least a few years that don't put up a good 2.5 month stretch now and then. You want to reconsider anything?

Still not convinced this is a different Pirates team from last year? Here are more reasons why Pittsburgh is not collapsing this time:

Ya got me Tommmmm. I'm not convinced. Bring on what you have to say.

The offense isn't as bad as the numbers suggest. The Pirates were historically awful in April and May, but have hit a respectable .257 in June.

Holy shit! Stop the presses! They had 2 historically bad months, but don't worry guys, they sort of hit for an okay BATTING AVERAGE in June! This offense ain't anywhere NEAR as bad as that -0.8 collective WARP makes you think it is!

Neil Walker

0.2 WARP

Garrett Jones

-0.3 WARP

Alex Presley 

-0.3 WARP

and Clint Barmes 

-0.9 WARP

all have awakened to give Andrew McCutchen some help. 

I didn't realize that giving someone the finger and saying, "Fuck you man, we're not gonna help you win shit" qualified as "some help". But I am not as educated as Tom Verducci.

This is still a below-average offense, 

That doesn't cover it. It is a below replacement-level offense.

but Pittsburgh doesn't need as much firepower as most teams because . . .

Goody. This should be good.

The Pirates have a strong homefield advantage. Runs are harder to come by in PNC Park than in any other major league park this season, with teams combining for slightly more than five runs per game.

A statistic not at all attributable to the patheticness of the offense of one of the teams that participates in every single MLB game played at PNC park.


The park plays big in leftfield and left-centerfield, and Hurdle chuckles as opposing hitters try to jack balls over the rightfield wall, which is not as easy a task as it appears. The Pirates have played 18 games at home without hitting a home run and are 9-9 in those games. 

WATCH OUT, REDS!  9-9!

They are 19-6 in home games decided by one or two runs.

This is absurdly lucky.

Pittsburgh's bullpen is ridiculously good, sporting the lowest ERA in baseball (2.44). 

And bullpens are known for how non-fickle they are. I trust this'll last.

Hurdle is proving my theory that many managers are better in their second job (i.e., Terry Francona, Charlie Manuel, Bruce Bochy, Joe Girardi, etc.). Hurdle has been masterful as this team makes the most out of having scored the fewest runs in the majors.

Clint Hurdle honestly probably does deserve some credit, given the circumstances. However, this is pretty easy to overstate, as Verducci is about to prove.

His bullpen usage has been so sharp he has used pitchers three consecutive days only twice.

Genius! All the other managers in the majors use pitchers on three consecutive days on a routine basis!


He twice pulled McDonald from games for a pinch-hitter after just four innings -- and won both games. 

A result that, I am sure, was entirely due to pulling a good starting pitcher after 4 innings.

He has given Barmes and Alvarez three straight days out of the lineup as a "mental break" to snap a slump; each one came back swinging a hot bat.

Wow. That's brilliant. Nothing fluky about that. We found the secret to making Clint Barmes hit well, everyone. Just don't play him for three days.

The manager also has encouraged his players to run the bases aggressively. The Pirates are among the four best teams in the league at taking the extra base.

If they keep their current pace up, that'll be worth....a whole win!

It's difficult to believe that any baseball team in this era could field a losing team 19 years in a row, especially when the Pirates picked no lower than fourth in six consecutive drafts (2006-11). Other than McCutchen, however, they don't have an impact player on the roster.

But...they're contenders, right?

The NL Central champion has won an average of 93 games in the 16 full seasons since realignment, but this is starting to look like one of the five times when only 83-88 wins was enough to take the division. Pittsburgh may not be a playoff team just yet, but can the Pirates win 83 games -- a total that would have them playing meaningful games in September for the first time in a generation? Yes, they can.

You are nuts if you think 83 games is a likely win total for the NL Central division champion.

The Pirates' front office crunched some numbers before the season began and calculated that the expanded postseason format this year (with the second wild card added to each league) improved their playoff chances by 13 percent. 

Which is fascinating, because Baseball Prospectus pegs their current chances at 2.8%. That ain't the say-all-end-all, but they're significantly worse than their record after 2 months.  Trust me, Pirates,  your odds of making the playoffs never came close to 13%.  Forget about "improved by".


Pittsburgh does have a style that allows little room for error. The Pirates' offense is so bad that they must play close, low-scoring games consistently, a style that puts tremendous pressure on their bullpen.

Again, you realize that offense is like 50% of baseball, right? The way you talk about it makes the Pirates' offense sound like it's an inconvenience rather than a serious handicap. There have been teams that have been good at baseball despite bad offenses but none of them were leaning heavily on a pitching staff full of oft-ineffective pitchers without even having a true ace. It is not that difficult to see that the Pirates aren't good. They've done a great job supporting that even in the less-than-a-week since this article was published.

But in this run-depressed era of baseball -- especially in a pitcher's ballpark -- they have a fighting chance as long as their arms stay healthy. 

Said Verducci, apparently oblivious that he's kind of talking about Erik Bedard.

Maybe October in Pittsburgh still belongs to the Steelers alone, the way it has been for 19 years. But can baseball matter again in September in Pittsburgh? It actually seems possible this year.

Tom -- please see the below message from rational people everywhere:

"NO, IT FUCKING DOESN'T!"

Michael Schur would tolerate this post

I didn't say he'd like it; I'd need to provide a link to Fire Joe Morgan at the top of our blog to receive that level of approval.  (Chris W once emailed him to let him know we were fans of theirs, and that we meant only respect as we cribbed their style.   KT replied by saying he didn't understand why Chris would have done this if we were fans, and that he wanted us to link his jillion hits a day blog at the top of our 150 hits a day blog.  True story.  Guy did not come off as a prong at all, not one bit.  Maybe I'll make a post about that email exchange one day.  MAYBE.)  Anyways, the reason I say he would tolerate this is because it's more in the "shitty sportswriting about baseball" vein of Fire Joe Morgan that Fire Jay Mariotti never does anymore, and less in the "fucking dammit I fucking hate fucking ESP fucking N" vein of what Fire Jay Mariotti has become.

This a piece from the Chicago Tribune about one Paul Konerko.  Their whole staff of baseball writers with HOF votes (they still employ at least nine of these fuckers, which kind of erases the mystery of how that paper could be losing money) was asked if Paulie is an HOFer.  Most of them responded somewhat rationally.  Not brilliantly, mind you; I'm just not covering their takes on Konerko because I don't have enough time, and because the two below are leaps and bounds better than any of the others.

TEDDY GREENSTEIN


In my quest to bolster Paul Konerko's Hall of Fame chops, I did a little research. Now I wish I hadn't.

Numbers are scary and confusing!  Whether or not a player gave a ball from the World Series to his team's owner at the championship parade is fun and accessible!  (Don't get the reference?  Google it, or just ask White Sox/Konerko fan Chris W about whether or not Konerko gave the damn ball to Reinsdorf.)

Konerko actually fares well in the traditional categories, especially if he hits 93 more bombs to reach 500. 

He's playing extremely well for his age, hitting 39 HRs at age 34 and 31 at age 35, but there's just no way he gets 93 more.  I'LL SHUT DOWN THE BLOG IF THAT HAPPENS.  Nevermind, no.  No I won't.

But in the new-school category of WAR (Wins Above Replacement position player), Konerko rates 45th among active players at 26.0.

He somehow trails Orlando Hudson, 

Who is/was an elite defender, and had good OBP skills and decent pop during his prime

Mark Ellis 

Same story

and Grady Sizemore, who had four good seasons. 

Konerko was a decent but unremarkable 1B until his age 29 season in 2005, and is awful on defense both by numbers and by the eye test.  Every Sizemore season from 2005 through 2008 was better than Konerko's best season.

Jim Thome, fourth among actives, has a comparatively Ruthian 67.4 WAR.

Because he's got 10,000 PAs, a career .403 OBP, and 600 HRs.

Of course, that stat does not measure this: Which teammate would you want to go to WAR with? 

Stop the internets.  The competition for greatest turn of phrase (or turn of term?) ever is over.

Konerko is off the charts there.

So if he continues to rake, I'll continue to look for reasons to check his box. He brings every intangible. He's an A-plus guy in the clubhouse.

Like I said, vintage 2005/2006/2007 Fire Joe Morgan stuff.

I covered his dreadful 2003 season (.234 average, 18 homers), and he did not snap at the media once.

A spot in Cooperstown?  HOW ABOUT HIS OWN WING!  IS THERE ANYTHING THIS GUY CAN'T DO (to make fart sniffing sportswriters adore him)?

He has been terrific nearly every year since. 

He was "eh" from 2007-2009.

I would like to think that's good karma.

And I would like to think good people deserve to have good things happen to them, bad people deserve to have bad things happen to them, and that everything in life turns out to be perfectly fair.

/drinks dish detergent

PHIL HERSH


I would consider Paul Konerko seriously for the Hall of Fame even though his career stats are excellent but not head-turning (.284 BA, 407 HR, .863 OPS).

Of his baseballreference top ten most similar batters, exactly one (Orlando Cepeda, #9) is in the Hall.  His top three are Tino Martinez, Gil Hodges, and Derrek Lee.  Doesn't really scream enshrinement.

Konerko is a good fielder 

/game show buzzer

with an offensive consistency (eight seasons with 97 to 117 RBIs 

Measuring offensive performance with RBIs?  dak is tearing out his hair right now.

in a lineup often devoid of table-setters; eight seasons of 30 or more doubles from a guy with no speed)

I guess he chose the "X seasons with Y or more Zs" construct rather than just going with the raw total, because Konerko's raw doubles total of 377 isn't even in the top 200 all time.

and a professionalism that make him far more than the sum of his stats.

Junior just threw his laptop through his TV.

I said no to a similar player, Jim Thome, when we asked the Hall question about him five years ago, 

Two Paul Konerkos comes somewhat close to being as good as one Jim Thome, so I can see why you'd come to that conclusion given the relatively unamazing number of seasons in a row in which Konerko has hit 30 or more doubles.

and I cited his huge strikeout totals as a negative. 

Another old FJM favorite.

(I since have changed my mind on Thome; 604 home runs erase a lot of K's.)

Good news, Jim: you've won over Phil Hersh.  Put the bubbly on ice.  Cooperstown will be calling in 2018 after all.

With Konerko, it may be a case of familiarity breeding respect: Watching him over 14 seasons with the Sox, my appreciation of his contributions has grown steadily. 

And that's what the HOF is about, right?  Voting in guys you've personally interacted with and who seem like decent fellas.

And his last two full seasons have been his best; another couple like 2010–11 (so far, 2012 is one), and Konerko is a Hall of Famer on my ballot.

Would you go to WAR with him though?  That's the real question.