Do we have a "Lazy Headlines That Are Untrue and Tell You Nothing" label?

Yes, all the Cardinals do is win. Except in game one, when they lost. I can't speak for anyone else, but I would have much preferred a generic headline like "It's all tied up!" or even the cringe inducing "It's a whole new ballgame!" It's nice to know that ESPN's editors are allowed to post nonsensical shit just like their columnist peers.

MMTMQR: This analysis is as stale as a Teen Wolf reference

That's right, I'm covering last week's TMQ on Sunday night.  Sue me.  Before I do though, first, I wanted to respond to the anonymous tearing down Magic and defending Doug Collins in the comments to my last post.  My point wasn't that Magic is a great analyst (like I said, he's sort of kind of good--agree to disagree there) or that Collins is a bad analyst (I agree that he's good, better than Magic).  My point was that Magic also brought cache and a "wow" factor to NBA Countdown.  Collins can't do that.  Can he be entertaining and insightful?  Sure.  But it seems like a downgrade to me, on balance.  The best move would have been to just replace Wilbon with Collins.  But like the Deadspin post speculated, it sounds like Magic left because Simmons is a cunt.  And who would blame him?

Second of all, I'd like to revisit a few of the audible turds that slithered out of McCarver's mouth during tonight's ALCS broadcast.  In discussing Austin Jackson's strikeout problems, he noted (in a tone of voice that suggested he was dispensing Super Important Insider Knowledge) that one problem a lot of hitters who frequently strike out have is that they tend to chase pitches out of the strike zone.  Thanks Tim.  Later on he identified Miguel Cabrera as one of the greatest players in the history of the game, which, hey, I'm not a Cabrera hater and he certainly looks destined for the HOF at this point, but let's not get ten years ahead of ourselves in anointing him the next Hank Aaron yet.  

Anyways, here's your TMQR, only five days late.  Here's how he opened his column:

Is there any end in sight for the upswing in football offense?

And for the 50th column in a row, Gregggggggg feels compelled to let you know that a lot of teams are racking up a lot of yards and points these days.  FASCINATING.  Very fresh information.  Maybe one of these weeks he'll take time to investigate the rumors that some athletes use steroids.

Denver and Dallas played a contest with 99 points, 1,039 yards of offense and one punt. At 46 points per game, the Broncos are on a pace to score 736 points, which would pulverize the NFL season record of 589 points. At 490 offensive yards per game, they're on pace to gain 7,840 yards, which would best the league record of 7,474.

But wait--what about college football?  Is the same trend happening at that level as well?  I MUST KNOW!

And the Broncos are staring at the taillights of the Oregon Ducks and Baylor Bears! Baylor is averaging 71 points and 790 offensive yards per game; Oregon, 59 points and 

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The NFL scoring record came in 2007 (New England), the yardage record in 2011 (New Orleans). The NFL's three best performances ever for first downs were in 2012 (New England), 2011 (New Orleans) and 2011 (New England). How many records will fall in 2013?

Aside from CBS and FOX producers who need to make sure their broadcasts are filled with a constant stream of uninteresting graphics about this topic, who gives a shit?

Also important are Manning's confident, quick release; constant small changes in the game plan; nearly error-free communication of rapid play calls (this factor is more than meets the eye); 

Only a brainiac like Gregggg understands the importance of Manning's play calling and audibling, topics that have been discussed to death by every single football analyst in the world for the past 15 years.

and defensive backs who play scared because they are worried about being torched. As the postseason approaches, defensive backs may start jamming Denver receivers, reducing the Broncs' gaudy numbers.

Wouldn't that theoretically open them up to getting burned deep?  And why would they start doing it later in the season if it were the best way to defend Denver's offense?  Again, questions which only the world's smartest man can answer.  (Hint: the world's smartest man also knows that blitzing never works.)

Eagles at Giants, Philadelphia was called for offensive holding. Jersey/A coach Tom Coughlin's choice was to give Philadelphia fourth-and-4 on the Jersey/A 47 or let the visitors repeat the down as third-and-20 on their 37. When Coughlin chose the latter, Fox announcers Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick practically passed out. "The Eagles were short of the first down, which would have forced Philadelphia to punt," Brennaman said. Philadelphia converted and scored a field goal on the possession. After commercial, the camera did a close-up on the announcers, who at this point had enjoyed five minutes to think about what occurred. "Philadelphia had to punt, why did the Giants not force them to punt?" Brennaman asked his partner. "The only explanation I can offer is that Tom Coughlin was confused about the situation and did not realize the Eagles would have to punt," Billick declared.

Look, Billick is a card carrying waterhead of an analyst.  And generally, Greggggggg is right about the fact that teams should go for it on 4th down much more often than they do.  But I am so fucking tired of his "coaches punt to deflect blame" horseshit.  Listen to the crowd any time a home team passes up a 4th and short near midfield.  They boo the shit out of the coach's decision.  Easterbrook is correct that announcers tend to have super conservative points of view on coaching decisions, but it's not like fans do too.  People understand that coaches are dumb.  Despite what this pretentious cumstain would have you believe, very few fans say "Dur, well, we punted on 4th and 2 from the 50 while down 7 with 4 minutes to go and never got the ball back, that was the defense's fault!"

Sweet 'N' Sour Play: Leading 10-0 at Tennessee, the Chiefs had their backs to the wall as the Titans reached first-and-goal on the 1. Kansas City staged a classic goal-line stand: run no gain, pass no gain, run no gain, run no gain. The Chiefs' offense took the ball 94 yards the other way for a field goal and a 13-0 margin; the visitors went on to victory. Sweet.

Wait, if they took the ball 94 yards after a goal line stand, that means the line of scrimmage for the field goal was probably the Titans 5!  That's a mincing, fraidy cat field goal!  Reid should have challenged his team by going for it on 4th and goal, or 4th and whatever it was!  By sending in the field goal unit he told them he didn't expect them to win.  I'm surprised no one scribbled game over in their notebook at that point.

Another sweet goal-line stand occurred when Dallas, jumping to a quick 14-7 lead over Denver, reached first-and-goal at the Broncos' 3. The Boys went penalty, incompletion, incompletion, sack, field goal. Holding Dallas to a field goal in this situation helped kick-start the Denver comeback.

In the sense that they started scoring a bunch of touchdowns right after that stand, yes, it did.  In the sense that the Broncos have a really awesome offense that is always going to put up a shitload of points every game, their comeback had not a fucking thing to do with that sequence of plays.  But narratives!  So much fun.

Maybe Zombies Are Writing the Scripts: Erg ... arg. "The Walking Dead" new season kicks off in a few days, hard on the box-office success of the Brad Pitt zombiefest "World War Z."

Yes.  He's still doing this.

One must suspend disbelief to watch a Superman film, a sci-fi movie and almost any kind of action flick. 

One must suspend disbelief to watch pretty much any movie in any genre.  Why don't you take your own advice and work on doing that more often, Gregggg?  BUT MOVIES ARE UNREALISTIC is the only thing I can think of that's even more boring to read about than SOME TEAMS SCORED 60 POINTS LAST WEEKEND, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THEM.

But Superman is presented as a space alien whose biology is different from human, so perhaps different biology allows qualities such as wingless flight. "Star Trek," "Star Wars" and other sci-fi movies are set in imagined societies that have imagined technology. Zombie movies, by contrast, involve Homo sapiens and occur in the present day. In "World War Z," "The Walking Dead" and other recent zombie hits, there's not even a hint of how the zombie transition could be possible.

If carbon dioxide was going to create zombies, this would have happened to Australopithecus. OK, it's a movie.

I hate you. 

One must suspend disbelief to watch a Superman film, a sci-fi movie and almost any kind of action flick. 

One must suspend disbelief to watch a Superman film, a sci-fi movie and almost any kind of action flick. 

One must suspend disbelief to watch a Superman film, a sci-fi movie and almost any kind of action flick. 

Maybe it will sink in eventually.

New England Falls from Ranks of Unbeaten: Cincinnati sacked Tom Brady on third-and-2, sacked him on third-and-8, sacked him on third-and-10 late. The Patriots' no-name receivers were not open on critical downs. On the third-and-10 sack, Cincinnati blitzed six.

STOP ME BEFORE I BLITZ AGAIN IT ALWAYS IS THE WORST THING EVER

Gregg comes up with a can't-miss solution to gerrymandering:

Since any redistricting based on political arm-twisting will be tainted, the solution is computer algorithms that generate districts. A panel of experts representing a mix of ideologies could check the algorithms for neutrality, then let a mathematical formula draw the lines.

JUST PUT A CHIP IN THE BALL!  IT'S SUPER SIMPLE!  USE A COMPUTER TO DO IT OR SOMETHING!

Fortune Favors the Bold! Hosting Georgia, underdog Tennessee kept the offense on the field on fourth down three times in the fourth quarter, resulting in two touchdowns and a late 31-24 lead. The rest of the contest went the favorite's way.

Somehow, the idea that there are football gods that reward certain coaching decisions and punish others is not borne out by the sequence of events that took place during that game.

Untouched Touchdown of the Week: No Dallas player was within 15 yards of Peyton Manning as he jogged into the end zone on a naked bootleg on third-and-goal. How monumental will the point spread be for next Sunday's Jacksonville at Denver contest? With Jax 0-5 and barely putting up a fight, for the remainder of the season, this column will call the team Jaguars A&M. Maybe next Sunday's pairing will be Jaguars A&M at Broncos University.

/crickets

Weather Channel even announces its storm name picks in advance, mimicking National Weather Service policy on tropical storms. TMQ hopes the channel gets to Storm Kronos, then the weathercasters can dress as Klingons. If only Storm Xenia were instead Storm Xena!

Tip your wait staff, folks.

Ron Rivera, Pack Your Bags: Cam Newton was 25-1 as a starter in college, and is 14-22 as a starter in the NFL. But football is a team sport.

Fair enough, but in this same column:

The king's ransom in draft choices paid two years ago for Julio Jones led to talent depletion of the Atlanta roster. The king's ransom in money paid this offseason to Matt Ryan led to free-agency dilution. (It was unrealistic for Atlanta to put so many chips on discount free agent Osi Umenyiora -- in 2012, Osi's Giants were 31st in defense.)

Football is a team sport, unless Gregggggg wants to throw someone under the bus, in which case it's their fault that the Giants were terrible last year.  Seriously, this guy is a fucking moron.  Please, ESPN, I know you check this blog (by which I mean: no one other than my friends and a few of you nice strangers who have found us via Google or a really old Deadspin link checks this blog).  I'm begging you: fire this guy.  He sucks.  He's awful.  He knows next to nothing about football.  He's not funny.  He's not insightful.  He likes pointing out that science fiction is fully of scientific inaccuracies.  He's a sanctimonious, pretentious cunt.  Fire Gregg Easterbrook (dot blogspot dot com)!

HAHAHAHAHA

I am working on a TMQR (no really I am), but then I saw this on Deadspin and I couldn't not cross-post it here.  It's both sad and super entertaining.  Bill Simmons, self-appointed god of all that is sports, has successfully annoyed the shit out of one of the 5 greatest NBA players ever.  Was Magic a great analyst?  No, but he wasn't horrible either.  He was kind of good.  More importantly, did he add legitimacy to ESPN's programming in a way that can't be easily replaced?  Yyyyyup.  But hey, at least Doug Collins is on board for the coming season.  So ESPN can take solace in the fact that an all time great player is gone, but he's been replaced with a top 1000 all time player whose career coaching record is a mild shade over .500 and who couldn't get the late 80s Bulls past the conference finals.

On the plus side, Simmons had the good sense to kick Wilbon's condescending ass to the curb.  So that's nice.  As I've said before, I loved the way Wilbon talked down to Simmons on NBA Countdown because Simmons deserves that kind of treatment, but it didn't make Wilbon any less detestable overall.  If I were Simmons, I would have had Wilbon fired before last season.  Wilbon is a twat.

Narratives: for people who hate thinking

No TMQR right now although I may post something on Friday.  In the meantime, I want to point out that like most Boston sports fans, Jackie MacMullen HATES thinking.

It was the ideal confluence of personalities, 

Because they won the division.

and not just because they succeeded, in concert, at sprouting mounds of facial hair.

Right--it was an ideal confluence of personalities because they won the divisiion.  Had the 2013 Red Sox had a good-not-great season, maybe gone 85-77, you would not in a million years have identified them as an ideal anything.

Long before that, there was an underlying vibe percolating among ownership, the front office, the manager and the players.

That's right--the 2012 Red Sox had a shitty season.  But it couldn't have been because of the fact that they had shitty players like Mike Aviles, Aaron Cook, Alfredo Aceves and Daisuke Matsuzaka playing major roles.  It couldn't have been that Jacoby Ellsbury and Carl Crawford were too hurt to contribute.  It couldn't have been that Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Daniel Nava hadn't figured out how to hit like they would end up hitting in 2013, or that Clay Buchholz and Jon Lester had down years because sometimes pitchers have down years.  No, none of those things.  It was the VIBE.  It was that the team didn't really believe in itself.  It was Bobby Valentine's fault.  Whatever it was, it sure wasn't just that the team had shittier players, worse luck and more injuries than the 2013 team.  If you're going to be a buttass sportswriter like Jackie MacMullen, you've got to credit a team's success/failure to magic/lack of magic, knowing how to win/not knowing how to win, and having fun/not having fun.  That's what the populace likes to read about, after all.

They had been champions, most of them, 

Other than Cody Ross, no one important had been a champion for at least five seasons.  Some of them had been on the 2007 World Series team.  Like, 10 of them.  The rest of them had never been champions.

idolized and adored by a faithful brethren. 

That's horrible writing.

But when it started breaking bad, 

OOOOOOOOOOO! TOPICAL!

the fallout was swift, vicious, unforgiving. 

FACK THE SAWX!  I NEVAH LIKED THEM ANYWAYS!  HOW LONG UNTIL BROONS SEASON?

Disappointment evolved into outrage, which led to the unkindest cut of all -- indifference.

Also known as "fairweatherism."

And so the Red Sox were left with an ownership that was viewed as disingenuous, 

Because it is, but to be fair, every ownership group in pro sports is disingenuous.

a roster that was dismissed as entitled, 

It wasn't, it was just bad, but again, narratives are more fun that facts.

a general manager who was perceived as undermined and a manager who limped back to Boston nursing the wounds of a two-year stint in Toronto that was both underwhelming and disconcerting.

I haven't even read this article yet (starting doing this breakdown without reading because I knew from the headline that it was going to be horrendous), but I'm guess John Farrell gets about 75% of the credit for the fact that the 2013 Red Sox won 28 more games than the 2012 Red Sox.

Together they shared a glittery portfolio, 

What?  Do you know what metaphors are?  Have you ever used them before?

yet they also shared the burden that comes with squandering sustained excellence: something to prove.

This is worse than Mariotti's writing.

That sentiment was also a common thread among the new faces. There was Gold Glove winner Shane Victorino, spurned by his beloved Phillies and swapped to the dysfunctional Dodgers, where Victorino floundered. 

But wait--the 2013 Dodgers had a huge turnaround of their own, after letting Victorino go in the offseason!  How do you explain it--if he was a key missing piece for the 2013 Red Sox, shouldn't the 2013 Dodgers have missed him?  THE NARRATIVE IS FALLING APART ABANDON SHIP

Mike Napoli came as a free agent from Texas, where he batted a paltry .227 the season before. A hip issue nullified his 3-year, $39 million deal, leaving him with a one-year $5 million contract and a resolve to show the Sox he was worth every penny of the original contract.

Yes, he batted a paltry .227 the year before, because his hip was fucked up.  Now it's healthy (although he still only batted a shitty .259, which doesn't matter because batting average is stupid, etc., etc.).

Stephen Drew came in the wake of a lackluster season split between Arizona and Oakland, where he batted .223 with 7 homers and 28 RBIs.

He only had to outperform Mike Aviles.  That's not exactly a high-pressure situation.

GM Ben Cherington said adding personnel that had redemption in mind was not by design; 

Jesus, I hope not.  No GM should be adding personnel with more than a passing thought to whether the players "have redemption in mind."

he was focused on specific skill attributes and players who looked at Boston and "saw it as an opportunity and not a burden.''

I think Cherrington is probably pretty smart, so I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that last part is just a little scrap he threw MacMullen for the sake of her article.  I think roughly 99% of his focus was probably on adding players who are better at baseball than the 2012 players they replaced.

Jonny Gomes was one such player. 

Jonny Gomes is awesome at hitting left handed pitching.  This season, he started in LF against LHPs and played well.  In 2012, the Red Sox LFs were Daniel Nava (nominally a switch hitter but terrible against LHPs throughout his career so far), Scott Podsednik (lefty), Carl Crawford (lefty) and Darnell McDonald (terrible at hitting baseballs under any circumstances).  Gomes made the team better, not because of his vibe, or his will to win, but because of a skill he has.  See how that works?

He said a primary reason he inked with the Sox was the number of accomplished veterans on the roster who were under fire and motivated to re-establish themselves (you can safely assume the 2-year, $10 million contract had something to do with Gomes' decision as well).

Analysis that means nothing, considering pretty much every team in the league has accomplished veterans coming off of a bad year every season (followed by parenthetical with factual information that actually explains why Gomes came to Boston).

"I told my agent, 'Call the Sox. We need to go there,' '' said Gomes. "Because I knew those guys were going to have a huge chip on their shoulder. I knew the way they were going to approach the season, and I wanted to be part of it.''

See, it's not totally fair for me to rake writers like MacMullen over the coals for their shitty writing--the sound bites given by players reinforce this narrative-driven bullshit.  Then again, maybe the players spout narrative-driven bullshit because the writers write about it, so it is the writers' fault after all.  Regardless, I know this much is true: there are very few people in America who can do what Jonny Gomes does better than he can.  There are a whole shitload of people in America who can do what Jackie MacMullen does better than she can.  So I'm going to go ahead and go after the person here who can (and should) be replaced by someone who doesn't peddle this nonsense.

Nobody fit that profile more snugly than Jon Lester, who had morphed from one of the most feared left-handed pitchers in the game to a symbol of everything that was wrong with the Boston Red Sox. Lester was pegged as a card-carrying member of the chicken-and-beer fraternity 

Holy fucking fuckballs.  One of these years, THE JILTED VICTIMS of CHICKEN AND BEER NATION will get over that little gem of a non-story.  We can only hope it's this year.  NEVER FORGET, SOX FANS.  NEVER FORGET.

/Sarah McLachlan plays over slow motion video of Bobby Valentine walking to the mound and taking the ball from Josh Beckett

that contributed to the stunning collapse in 2011. His struggles on the mound continued in 2012, and his career appeared to be at a crossroads.

It appeared to be?  We aren't even sure if we want to use that figure of speech?  Come on Jackie, show some spunk.  Get out there and COMMIT to the idea that Lester's career was at a crossroads.  Also, not to be too factual about any of this, but he did post career highs in BABIP and HR/FB in 2012.  Now I'm not saying that those struggles were entirely due to luck, or that they had nothing to do with whether he liked drinking beer on nights when he wasn't starting during 2011.  I'm just saying they were probably MOSTLY due to luck, and also, that they had not a fucking thing to do with whether he liked drinking beer on nights when he wasn't starting during 2011.

Catcher David Ross came to Fenway last summer with the Atlanta Braves. Lester threw against them on June 22, giving up 10 hits and three runs in seven innings of a 4-1 Sox loss.

"It didn't make sense to me," Ross said. "He was throwing hard, he wasn't injured ... I figured, 'He needs someone to point him in the right direction.' "

Lester went winless in his last five starts and finished with a 9-14 record and a 4.94 ERA.

Another case of players pushing the narratives that writers then push.  Pretty embarrassing for all, really.  Also, how the fuck would a player on another team know whether Lester was injured or not?  Maybe he was.  That's at least one plausible reason why he was so horrible.  His career ERA through 2011 was 3.53.  He was a run and a half worse in 2012, but David Ross said that after seeing Lester once, in a game Ross did not even record a plate appearance, he knew that everything was fine with Lester mechanically.  That's great stuff.  Why is this even in this article?  Is David Ross the only Red Sox player who MacMullen could get ahold of to comment on this story?

When the Red Sox began courting Ross, he inquired about Lester and his ineffectiveness, about Lackey and his surgically repaired arm, about Clay Buchholz and his durability. Farrell said all three needed some mechanical adjustment as well as a reboot mentally.

David Ross, June 2012: "Jon Lester has no mechanical problems."
John Farrell, to David Ross, 2012-2013 offseason: "Jon Lester needs some mechanical adjustments."
David Ross, to Jackie MacMullen, September 2013: "The problem with Lester was that he needed someone to point him in the right direction."

Maybe by "point him in the right direction," Ross meant literally, as in make an adjustment to point his body in the right direction while he pitches.  Pro athletes are fucking idiots.

"The first time I caught Lester's bullpen, I told him, 'Hey man, when your ball is up, it's flat. When it's down in the zone, it jumps out of your hand,' " said Ross.

Lester listened closely. Ross found him to be earnest, disciplined and humble.

Why, what a coincidence!  That's EXACTLY how stuffy old white dudes who read the work of writers like Jackie MacMullen like their athletes to be!

"I caught him in spring training and he threw five innings of no-hit ball," Ross said. "I went back and told my buddies, 'We've got nothing to worry about.' ''

"After he dominated the Mets' AAA lineup, I knew it was going to be an awesome season."

Indeed, what was overlooked amid the bitterness toward the downtrodden 2012 Sox was the one undeniable mantra in baseball: Pitching cures all.

Easy now.  We're starting to drift into the world of real, actual analysis.  Let's get back to the narrative soon please.

Lackey, who was recovering from Tommy John surgery, rededicated himself to his craft and reported to camp with a svelte physique

BEST SHAPE OF HIS LIFE!

and a steady diet of rejuvenated fastballs and sliders.

Lackey insists he did "nothing different, nothing special" in preparation for 2013.

"Everything is a little overblown here,'' Lackey said. "We've got guys who have done it for a long time with a pretty good track record.

Wow, that's pretty levelheaded analysis from a guy who looks like a caveman.  Putting aside inappropriate remarks about Lackey's physical appearance, I'm glad SOMEone quoted in this article is here to tell us "Yeah, it's not that big of a deal, we kind of had a down year in 2012, but we knew we'd play better in 2013."

"People were giving Lester hell, and he had the best winning percentage in the history of baseball. That's kind of ridiculous.''

OH NOEZ PITCHING WINZ IS BAD STATISTIC.  But he's got a point anyways.

Yet Cherington, born and raised in New England, 

That's like catnip to Red Sox fans.  HE'S ONE OF US!  HE KNOWS US!  JUST LIKE I'M A LIFELONG SAWX FAN FROM MINNESOTA BY WAY OF TEXAS, CHAHHHRINGTAWN IS 100% BOSTON!

understood exactly where the criticism stemmed from.

The fact that Lester pitched like ass in 2012?

"When a pitching staff performs the way ours did last year and the end of the previous season, 

NEVER FORGET

I think it's more than fair to critique and to have a skeptical eye,'' Cherington said. "We knew we needed to be better. We knew we had the pieces, but there were certain technical things that needed to be rectified, as well as other issues.

Things Cherington didn't name: a need for more players with something to prove.

"What John and his staff have done so well is … [they have] allowed everyone's energy to be focused on the field. It sounds easy in December, but it's harder to implement during a long season," Cherington said.

"It's had a great impact on the team, to have all our mental energy focused in a productive way.''

Again, hoping this was just Cherington throwing MacMullen a bone.  Although now I'm not so sure.

Ross picked up on the "redeem team" vibe from the moment he stepped into the clubhouse.

Whew!  Enough actual analysis; let's get back to the VIBE.

"There was a whole lot of motivation in this room,'' Ross concurred. "Lester had something to prove. Lackey did too -- big time. Buchholz, even Pedey... 

I assume that's Pedroia but it's kind of hard to tell.  Also, when written that way (and when said out loud, given the most likely pronounciation), it makes their second baseman sound like a sex criminal.

when I got here, Dustin told me, 'I've never been on a losing team in my whole life.' He took it personally. He was going to do something about it.''

2012 Pedroia: 114 OPS+, 4.9 WAR
2013 Pedroia: 116 OPS+, 6.5 WAR

Sounds like he did something about it to the tune of helping the 2012 team win 71 games rather than 69, had he performed then like he did in 2013.

Pedroia bombarded Farrell daily with texts, emails and phone calls. He made suggestions on everything from personnel to locker placements.

The personnel suggestions, cool, that's what a team leader should do.  He shouldn't be overruling the manager or anything, but I can see the value in him making pinch hitting suggestions and the like.  Locker placements?  This is more worthless bullshit that only idiot readers will latch onto.  IT WAS THE LOCKAHS!  THAT WAS THE PROBLEM IN 2012!  GOOD THING PEDEY FIXED THAT!

Look, you get the gist of this, and it's not like it's going in a different direction before it wraps up.  I'm not going to write about the rest of it, but here's some of the non-analysis, idiot fan catnip, and narrative-based bullshit that I skipped over:

"All I know,'' said Pedroia shortly after his new manager was hired, "is when John Farrell walks into our clubhouse, everyone listens.''

This means literally nothing.

Gomes is a huge Farrell backer but concedes, "John is a great guy, but I don't want to talk about pitching all day. He does.''

Idiot fan catnip.  What fan wants to read that their team's coach/manager likes relaxing and spending time with his family, even if that's true for most of coaches/managers?

"When I'm talking to my manager, I feel like I am talking to my brother,'' Ortiz said.  "I don't want to talk about last year. That is in the past. I want to talk about here -- now.

Big Papi with an all time classic worthless cliche.

The "Farrell Factor,'' as Larry Lucchino coined it, has positioned the Red Sox as one of the favorites to win the World Series. 

Managers don't do that much.

When the Red Sox dealt malcontents Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett last summer,

I included this just because it's an unnecessary pot shot on Gonzalez and Crawford.  I don't think anyone has ever called either of them a malcontent.  I know some fans in New England have called Crawford other words that are not nice to call someone, but I really think it's irresponsible to lump those two guys in with known asshole Beckett.

"Think about Toronto this year. Everyone was wrong. You truly can't predict results solely on talent -- not in this game.

That's Jonny Gomes again, letting you know that THE GAMES ARE PLAYED ON THE FIELD, NOT IN THE PRESS ROOM WHERE BIG FREE AGENT SIGNINGS ARE ANNOUNCED.

"But there's something to be said for 25 guys with one goal -- that's winning. 

Gomes with another great cliche combined with some worthless non-analysis.

They have survived the loss of not one, not two, but three relievers. 

Oh dear me!  However did they endure a whole season with THREE injuries to the most easily replaced of players?  I'm surprised they even played all 162 games, let alone won the division.  They should get a parade no matter what happens in the postseason.

They have forged on even though their sellout streak came to a halt and paying customers still aren't quite "all-in." 

Well duh they're not all in, it's been 6 years since the Red Sox won a World Series.  What, you want them to be passionate about a team of LOOZAHS?

They grow beards and wear matching stars-and-stripes boxers and enjoy baseball so much, they've been compared to the 2004 "Idiots" of World Series fame, which is the ultimate Boston compliment.

I hope no Boston team ever wins another game, ever again, ever.

This Blog Was Founded on Statistical Ignorance, Dammit!

The label "statistical ignorance" is the ninth-most-used label on this blog, but only two of its 46 uses are after 2009.  I long for the good old days when our posts were often smarmily pointing out numerical fallacies in baseball analysis and not just Larry B bitching about pop sportswriters who write about movies and shit. But now that I'm out of the regular job world and into the grad student life, maybe I will find some time to bring "statistical ignorance" back.  Or maybe I'll just sit back and watch Larry wage his war against The Sports Guy.  

Anyways, I somehow ended up on this article: "5 Reasons Steroids Were Never the Real Problem in Baseball", by someone named Adam Tod Brown, and read it.  The whole article isn't really very interesting; it takes some sensible and some foolish angles on steroids, but overall it's nothing new.  But there was one spectacular goof, which I had to post about:

#3. Pitcher Is the Position With the Most Performance-Enhancing-Drug Suspensions

It's also important to note that of the 43 players suspended for using performance-enhancing drugs since 2005, 15 of them were pitchers. The next closest position was outfielder with 13, but that blanket term actually covers three positions on the field (left, right, and center fielder), so even then it's not really as close as it seems.

Oh!  Thanks for pointing out that outfield is a blanket term that actually covers three positions on the field!  It's a good thing you cleared that up, Mr. Brown.  But now that you mention it, gosh, maybe pitcher is the position with the most performance-enhancing drug suspension because pitcher is the position with the most players.  

In fact, the 35% pitcher ratio of pitchers suspendees to overall suspendees is actually lower than one might expect.  I'm too lazy to figure out exactly what percentage of MLB players are pitchers, but if you figure most teams carry 11 or so pitchers out of 25 roster slots, you'd expect a roughly 44% ratio.  Now this is hardly a large sample, and who knows how many cheaters evaded the testing... but this is the kind of article that suggests Adam Tod Brown needs to be beaten with a sock full of quarters.

The infrequently used "something that doesn't suck" label gets its annual moment in the sun

This is really fucking good.

Sanctimonious idiot Jeff Pearlman misses the point, spends 1500 words telling you that you missed the point

Are you up to speed on the whole Thayer Evans/Oklahoma State story thing?  Hopefully, because I don't really want to take the time to explain it.  (Have you already forgotten about it, because this post is about 10 days late?  Probably.)  The basics, in case you need them, are that Thayer Evans is a guy who is good at picking up on stories that people find interesting, but really shitty at adhering to basic standards of journalistic integrity as he crafts his reporting.  He's irresponsible and sensationalist.  He doesn't really do things like "verify his sources" or in some cases "have credible sources in the first place."  And please believe, I don't give a steaming pile of fuck about Oklahoma State, Auburn, LSU, the Honey Badger or Cam Newton.  But this is an indisputable fact at this point: Thayer Evans is a shitty journalist.  That should be the main takeaway from his Oklahoma State expose, because the fact that a major college football program doesn't follow NCAA rules and gives its players lots of benefits they shouldn't get is not news and thus not eligible to be a takeaway.

Anyways, what does Jeff Pearlman think about all of this?  YOU'RE MISSING THE POINT, AMERICA.  THE POINT IS THAT WE SHOULD ALL BE ABSOLUTELY OUTRAGED ABOUT THIS OUTRAGEOUS STUFF THAT OSU WAS DOING.  Jeff Pearlman is a dope.

I don’t know Thayer Evans. We’ve never met, never spoken. In fact, before a couple of days ago I’m not sure I’d ever heard of the man. Is he a good reporter? 

Not at all.  That's well known at this point.

A shady reporter? 

Yes.

Does he love Oklahoma and hate Oklahoma State? 

According to Jason Whitlock, yes, although that doesn't make his shitty reporting any more or less shitty.

Could he care less? I just don’t know—and, I’m quite certain, most other don’t know, either.

Everyone knows.  Use the Google machine.  Type in "Thayer Evans journalism ethics."  There's lots of smoke and plenty of fire.  Thayer Evans is an unethical journalist.

Here’s what I do know: Much of the criticism of his reporting methodology has been—on the surface—bunk. There’s this idea out there that, in order to properly and rightly report a story, one needs to interview a select group of people—generally the stars and head coach. If you don’t speak with them, the logic goes, you’re interviewing the wrong folk.

This is crap.

The criticism of Evans has little to nothing to do with his interviewee selections.  It has a lot more to do with his doing things like secretly recording conversations with interviewees who did not know they were going to become interviewees, not doing basic fact checking with regard to facts that could have easily been checked, and embellishing facts to spice up a story.  Jeff Pearlman is a dope, and in his quest to be OUTRAGED at another ho-hum NCAA scandal, is going to try to defend Thayer Evans.

Without fail, stars and head coaches are almost always the worst interviews/sources. Why? Multiple reasons: A. They’re the ones who benefited most from the team/program. The head coach of Oklahoma State was paid big money to guide a high-exposure program. He had endorsement deals, contractual perks, etc … etc. Unless he was ultimately screwed, there is, literally, zero reason for him to speak. Stars can be grouped in the same category. You’re Brandon Weeden. You were the starting quarterback at Oklahoma State; that ultimately led you to the NFL. What, exactly, are you going to complain about? Who are you going to rat out?

The job of a reporter (and it ain’t easy) is figuring out whose information is correct, and whose is not. 

See the fact checking link up there.  Apparently Evans isn't so good at "the job of a reporter."

It’s about feeling comfortable with sources; about having other people vouch for a source’s words and/or character. Ultimately, it’s a judgement call. 

That Thayer Evans has repeatedly demonstrated he sucks at making.

The thing that puzzles me—that has always puzzled me—is the brainless craziness that is college football. 

Crank up the Pearlman-o-matic 5000!  Here comes the sanctimony.

Whether Thayer Evans’ reporting was flawed 

It was.

or perfect, 

Not close.

clearly Oklahoma State did some very bad things. 

NOW EVERYONE WAG YOUR FINGERS AT THEM SIMULTANEOUSLY

This is obvious, and a fact no one seems to be denying. And yet … why don’t school loyalists care? We’re talking about 19-, 20-, 21-, 22-year-old (so-called) student-athletes 

ZING

once again being treated as pieces of meat. They’re models for uniforms, dollar signs for endorsement deals, images to place on the cover of university literature … and, rarely, actually people.

Yes.  All correct.  But we don't need shady fucktards like Thayer Evans to show us these things.  1) We already know them 2) presenting them in the context of a JUICY SCANDAL does nothing but titillate for the sake of titillating, rather than actually generating interesting analysis (something much of the reporting on the Ed O'Bannon case has done).  It is no longer news that players took money or had access to sex and drugs.  Sorry.  And if you want to report on those topics without following the basic standards of ethical journalism, then fuck you and fuck the people that defend you because they think you've uncovered the next Watergate.

I hear college football die-hards speak of their teams as “we”—we need to run the ball better; we need to come out strong against Oregon. This, of course, is ludicrous. These are often kids with flimsy academic credentials, being asked to carry a full course load while also practicing X hours per day, flying X miles across the country, missing X class and X class and X class. 

Oh my God, what are we talking about?  Jeff, you are the worst ranter ever.  At the very very least, even if you're going to be the dope that we know you are, try to stay on topic.

They would struggle to maintain a 2.0 average if they were solely enrolled in school (minus sports)—

That's completely untrue, fucking insulting to thousands of kids, and possibly racist.

and yet, we pretend all is OK and groovy and grand. We dress them up in our school colors, roll out the balls and cheer away. Then, seven or eight years later, when we see X player living in his mother’s house, barely able to read, 44 credits shy of a college diploma, we shrug. Shit happens.

If you love Oklahoma State, shouldn’t you be furious? Not at the reporter or the magazine, but the school and the athletic department and the football program? 

Yes.  But you already knew about all those problems before private eye Thayer Evans arrived on the scene to build his own personal brand with a poorly-vetted story full of uninteresting crap.  You can hate the NCAA and the way it treats athletes, and you can also hate Thayer Evans.  They're not mutually exclusive possibilities.

Shouldn’t you be demanding a clean system; a desire for all-around excellence; a chance for your guys to wind up as successes in business, not just a meaningless game against Baylor? Shouldn’t you demand to hear the truth from your university? Aren’t there better questions to ask than, “Why does Thayer Evans hate us so much?”

I have no sympathy for OSU alums who feel victimized by Evans because he's apparently an OU fan.  Fuck both of those schools and fuck that whole state.  But more importantly, fuck Jeff Pearlman for taking this angle on the story.  As a, you know, journalist, you'd think he'd understand why it's important that journalists adhere to ethical standards of their profession.  Instead he's busy making sure we understand that college football is broken.  Thanks Jeff.  We got it.

I’m a Jason Whitlock fan. I truly am. I thought his commentary on the Don Imus-Rutgers stuff was outstanding. His gun stuff was equally top shelf. He’s written some wonderful stuff through the years; some columns that I’ve read more than once.

That said, this has not been a good week for the man.

Whitlock is an asshole.  Still, this was pretty awesome.

Whitlock clearly sees himself as some sort of media sheriff; a guy charged with keeping the rest of us in line. 

The lack of self-awareness is staggering.

He likes calling out individual writers, pointing out their flaws, explaining (in not these exact words) why they suck and he’s awesome.

Pot kettle etc.  And yes, of course, I realize that the pot/kettle thing goes one step further, to me and this blog.  Except that I don't think I'm awesome.  I just think that everyone sucks.

In regard to Thayer Evans, Whitlock told an Oklahoma radio station, “Having worked with Thayer Evans at Fox Sports …”

OK, to start here. I’m pretty sure Whitlock did not work with Evans. Back in the day, when people shared offices, they worked together. I’m in this cubicle, you’re in that cubicle—we work together. Whitlock never shared an office with Evans, never spent great time (if any time) with Evans. Literally, they were located in two different cities. 

And we know that they never collaborated on a project, or shared notes, or discussed their trade?  I don't want to make a big deal out of this small point, but again, in his effort to make sure we understand that the REAL STORY HERE is that some NCAA athletes don't graduate, Jeff is bending over backwards to defend Thayer Evans.  It's pathetic.

By Whitlock’s definition, I worked at Sports Illustrated with Gary Smith. Sure, he was in North Carolina and I was in New York. And sure, we literally were never in the same room at the same moment. But we worked together because our paychecks were signed by the same person. No.

I like that this is his first criticism of Whitlock's piece.  "Let's start with the important stuff--sure, Whitlock and Evans worked for the same company, but did they truly work 'together?'  OPEN YOUR EYES SHEEPLE, THEY TOTALLY DIDN'T"

Furthermore, Whitlock talks about Evans’ loyalties, calling him a “huge, enormous, gigantic Oklahoma homer.”

Here's the best part.

However, Whitlock’s past desperation to work for Sports Illustrated was no great secret. His dream of being handed the back-page column. He, of course, was never offered a job by the magazine—and was, we can assume, angry about it. Does this not (by Whitlock-think) make him the wrong guy to go off on the magazine? Is he not as biased as Evans is presumed to be?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

That's the greatest thing Pearlman has ever written, and we've definitely gone after him on this blog plenty of times over the years.  It's fucking priceless.  That might be the worst attempt at flipping the script on someone I've ever seen.

After slaying Evans, Whitlock noted, “I think the story is a cliché and bogus and suspect and just the wrong angle.”

You know what's fucking fantastic?  You want the full context of that comment?  To explain what Whitlock thinks is the right angle?  Here you go:

I have the obvious take (on the series) that I’m tired of these stories. We’ve been reading these stories for 30 years and I’m tired of people pointing out how corrupt participants are in a system that has been proven to be corrupt. The NCAA amateur system is corrupt, so we should not be surprised that there is corruption among the participants. I would like to see more of the focus on the NCAA and the system and fixing that, and then I’ll get upset about the corruption. I think the story is a cliché and bogus and suspect and just the wrong angle.

JEFF.  EARTH TO JEFF.  JEFF, GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF YOUR ASS IMMEDIATELY.  Whitlock has the EXACT SAME PERSPECTIVE on this issue as you do.  It's just that he, while acknowledging how fucking up NCAA football is, ALSO wants someone like Evans to not be a huge shithead.  See how he can have it both ways?  You could too, if you weren't such a sanctimonious dope.  That's the world Jeff Pearlman lives in: if an unethical "journalist" writes an unethical piece, but the tone of the piece is something Pearlman agrees with, it's asking too much of him to get him to acknowledge the shittiness of the journalism.

He also admitted, and I’ll place this in capital letters, that HE NEVER READ THE ARTICLE. Never. Not once. Not a word. DID. NOT. READ. IT. Even if you think the writer is a fraud, how in God’s name can you rip a piece you never read … then have other credible news sources give those words weight.

Whitlock should have read the article(s), but it doesn't change the fact that it is well established that Thayer Evans is a piece of shit.

Again, I think Whitlock is a good writer, and I have no personal beef. But he pulled this same crap when I appeared on his podcast several years ago to promote Sweetness. Whitlock welcomed me on, wanted to talk Walter Payton … but admitted never having read the book, because he doesn’t read sports books.

Uh …

OK, again, that's Whitlock being an asshole, but leave it to Jeff to complain about the nice (if awkwardly lacking in execution) thing that someone else did to him to help him sell his book.

My favorite piece of the Whitlock diatribe comes here: “There are a brand of sports writers who love doing these investigative pieces. They are not hard to do these days in terms of so-and-so got this money under the table. We’re into this area where unnamed sources can say anything, any of these he-said, she-said stories. I don’t respect the entire brand of investigative journalism that is being done here.”

All of that seems very fair to me, if heavy-handed.  It's not that this brand of journalism deserves no respect; it's that it's been done before, many times, and people like Evans use it to make a name for themselves because it's scandalous.  And that's pretty dumb.

Jason Whitlock has the absolute easiest job in sports media—and he knows it. He opines. That’s it. He doesn’t report. He doesn’t dig. He doesn’t make calls or seek out information. He takes the reporting done by others, sits in front of his laptop and comes up with a take. That’s it. He’s a good writer. Is he one of the, oh, 200 most-talented sportswriters in America? Probably not. 

I don't like Whitlock, but actually, I'm pretty certain he cracks the top 200 in the country.

(For the record, I’m by no means placing myself on that list either) 

Geez, I certainly hope not.  (Just kidding, Jeff!  You might be in the top 200 too.  No sarcasm.  But fuck you both anyways.)

But—and this is the big part—he’s loud. And obnoxious. He presents himself as a tough guy unafraid to take a tough stand, and people buy it. They absorb his self-righteous diatribes, because—on the surface—it seems to be driven by a desire to seek out truth and justice.

If any of you have every spent any time on jeffpearlman.com, you know the one thing you will definitely find there is a collection of self-righteous diatribes.

But, with men and women like Whitlock, truth and justice are often smokescreens for the parallel drugs plaguing the American media: Attention and fame. 

If you cannot see that those things are exactly what Thayer Evans is trying to obtain, you're fucking blind.

Whitlock seems all about attention and fame. Or, put differently,what sort of person states his own case for the Pulitzer Prize? What size ego must a man have to A. Think to himself, “I deserve the Pulitzer” and B. Write about it? I mean, between all the craziness of life and the highs and the lows and the ups and the downs, who even has time to ponder such a thing?

Whitlock is an asshole.  Pearlman is a dope.

For all I know, the Oklahoma State report is filled with holes,

It is.

and Sports Illustrated will have to apologize 

Oddly, they did not, although they should have.

and Thayer Evans will soon be selling insurance door to door in Ada. 

We can only hope!

I just don’t know.

As a journalist, however, I am deeply troubled by the blame-the-messenger mentality that has zoomed to the forefront.

As a journalist, what you should be troubled by is the state of journalism thanks to writers like Evans.  1% of the country is "blaming the messenger" in the sense that Jeff means it.  They are mouth-breathing OSU fans, and they want to discredit everything Evans wrote simply because they love their school.  The other 99% is blaming the messenger in the exact way everyone should be: by pointing out that Thayer Evans is a tabloid journalist who should be legally barred from ever going near a computer.

There is more here than just a reporter with a vendetta, and or a reporter who can’t report, or a magazine story.

It’s time we all try and see it.

Which is pretty much what Whitlock said, except with a lot more idiocy mixed in.

FMTMQR: The more things change...

Actually nothing changes, ever, because this guy is a repetitive, unoriginal, faux-intellectual piece of garbage.  How many times can you keep reading my same old comments on his same old terrible writing/analysis?  I know I always say I'm going to stop doing these, but this year I really might have to.  Let me know in the comments if you really think this is worth my time or yours.  (Not trying to beg for affirmation, but really, kind of begging for affirmation.)

TMQ is reporting on an exclusive basis that during the first half of the Washington-Philadelphia game on "Monday Night Football," Chip Kelly shouted into the Eagles' helmet radio, "Mr. Sulu, engage warp six!"

*crickets*

In other football news, Peter King of Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports 

Another man who knows a little something about long-winded uninsightful writing!

has decided he will stop using the franchise name "Redskins," shifting instead to "the Washington team." TMQ has been on this bandwagon for a decade, and it's nice to have company on a bandwagon. (Some sousaphones would be nice, too.) 

Find a more perfect example of a terrible TMQ joke.  I dare you.

King's decision shows he listens to his conscience. The world would be a better place if more people with insider status listened to the voices of their consciences.

In the context of this particular issue, the problem isn't powerful people not listening to their consciences.  It's powerful people who really don't give a shit about racial slurs.  Their consciences aren't coming into play.  

/stops writing post and watches Eminem's "Guilty Conscience" music video because that last line reminded me of it

Two weeks ago, this column called the moniker "Doomed, doomed. No chance this team name survives." 

As long as Dan Snyder is alive, the nickname will be just fine.  He's 48.  He's just as horrible as Al Davis, who died at 82.  I'm tempted to post a link to that horrible picture of Davis bleeding at that press conference a year or so before he died, but I won't, because maybe some of you have eaten recently.  So anyways, we can expect the nickname to maybe change in 2049, depending on who Snyder gives the team to in his will.

Tick…tick…tick. That's the clocking ticking down on what this column will call the Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons until its new name is trademarked.

*crickets*

Just remember this column's motto: All Predictions Wrong or Your Money Back. TMQ is free, so if any of my predictions actually proved correct, you would receive -- oh, never mind.

*crickets*

The asteroid capture plan would require a new heavy-lift rocket unimaginatively called the Space Launch System, with roughly the power of the old Saturn V. Dull names are a symptom of the lack of vision at today's NASA. 

That is the whitest sentence ever written.

The space station is just the International Space Station: it might as well be called the Please See Disclaimer Space Station. SLS is the dumbest rocket name ever. How about calling it Artemis? She was the sister of Apollo.

1) Who gives a flying rat's fuck

2) No, this is Artemis:

This problem stretches broadly across the football factory landscape: Boosters and the sports press fixate on game performance, avoiding the issue of the education that big universities are supposed to be providing to football players to justify their indentured status. Monday's noon "SportsCenter" led with 12 minutes -- a long time in live broadcast terms -- on Texas allowing 550 rushing yards in a loss at BYU. This was spoken of as some kind of calamity. The calamity in the Longhorn football program is that in the most recent year, 46 percent of African-Americans graduated. That was not mentioned.

There's no sportswriter out there who is better at being on the right side of an argument conceptually, and still managing to make you want to punch him in the face for the way he expresses his thoughts.

Buck-Buck-Brawkkkkkk: The Bills entered their opener on an incredibly lame 3-25 streak versus New England. Trailing the Patriots 10-0, home crowd roaring, Buffalo reached fourth-and-2 on the Flying Elvii 44 -- and punted. You don't need to know anything else about the game.

Fuck you.  Fuck you twice.  Fuck you with a Space Launch System rocket.  Fuck you, you fucking ass fucking hole.  I do not have time to do it this week, but sometime in the coming month, I am going to go through the game logs of the previous weekend's games, and find every team that punted in opposing territory on 4th and short and won the game.  And then I'm going to post them here, and I'm going to email them to Greggggggggggggg, with the subject line "Some thoughts about scientific inaccuracies in Back to the Future."

The Big-Bad Character in "Under the Dome" Was Bald -- Coincidence? The hit summer series "Under the Dome"

BWHAHAHAHAHA

In "The Simpsons Movie," the solution to a town under glass was Homer Simpson. If Homer appears to save the day in "Under the Dome," perhaps he will explain how a river flows through Chester's Mill. The impenetrable dome is said to cut off the outside world and extend to bedrock, rendering it impossible to tunnel in or out. So where is the river water coming from, and where is it flowing to? Clouds float by. Breezes gently waft through the trees of Chester's Mill and cause 

He's still doing this.

Because the night was unusually hot for Denver, kickoff temperature was 70 degrees higher than when Baltimore visited in the playoffs. Not counting kicking-play specialists, the Ravens started five gentlemen from below the testosterone-pumped level of Division I; Sunday, Dallas would also start five from below the football-factory level.

Could be an editor's mistake, but is there supposed to be a line break there?  I, like you, find it CAPTIVATING that it is hot in the summer and cold in the winter in Denver.  But what does it have to do with SMALL SCHOOL NON-GLOREE BOYS?

Denver used aggressive defensive tactics, keeping six or seven men on the line of scrimmage, big-blitzing on third-and-long. 

How did they not lose by 60 points?  

By the second half, the Broncos' front was noticeably outperforming Ravens offensive linemen. Bear in mind -- big-blitzing usually works early in the season and fails late.

No support for this.  No citation, no evidence.  Just a throwaway assertion to support his long-held and utterly retarded thesis.

The Football Gods Chortled: 

Oh indeed they did wax wroth so forth, verily!

Jacksonville lost 28-2 at home to Kansas City, which was last season's worst club. 

Actually, they were both last season's worst club.

Remember, Jacksonville is the team that's too good for Tim Tebow.

Remember, every team in the NFL, and most in the CFL, is too good for Tim Tebow.  But of course TMQ is carrying water for Tebow; that's a contrarian thing to do right now, and implying that Tebow could actually be a successful NFL QB over the course of a full season, and without the benefit of a very good defense, a great kicker and several miraculous breaks is a Smartest Guy In The Room thing to say.  Next on Gregg's list of things to be snarky about: MOST OF YOU PROLES HAVE NO IDEA THAT REX RYAN IS ACTUALLY A GREAT COACH.

Located in Cambridge, Mass. the Massachusetts Institute of Technology offers intramural air pistol. Located in Claremont, Calif., Pomona College and its next-door neighbor Pitzer College field combined teams known as the Sagehens; here is their angry-grouse logo. That the University of South Carolina's sports nickname is the Gamecocks has long led to snickering about the women's teams, though Gamecock in this usage refers to Revolutionary War hero Thomas Sumter. A sage hen can be of either sex, but just as the South Carolina nickname makes the women's teams sound male, the Pomona-Pitzer nickname makes the men's teams sound female. This alone may be enough material for a college gender-studies course.

*crickets*

Bill's mailbag of horseshit is horsier and shittier than ever, part 3

Woof.  Not sure I'm going to be able to finish this.  It's at least one post after this one, and in the meantime he has put out a hilarious NFL season preview in which the Patriots are the second best team in the NFL.  Gotta get to that eventually.  Anyways, I'll try to breeze through this.  Some of it is bad enough to be presented without comment.  Like this:

Q: Are you aware that the President of the American Leprosy Missions is named Bill Simmons?
—Warren K, Adelaide, AUS

SG: Did you know that my middle name begins with a "J," and that the second Ku Klux Klan was formed in 1915 by the Reverend William J. Simmons? 

Yep, so that's that.  Go to Grantland if you don't believe me.  Actually, unless you feel very very compelled to do so, don't go to Grantland.  It sucks.

Q: How is it possible that Grantland's Best Song of the Millennium Bracket did not include "Seven Nation Army"? As the commander-in-chief of Grantland, I am appalled that you allowed this travesty to transpire. It is probably the most distinctive guitar intro of the last decade plus, and the song was definitely played enough to warrant a spot on the list. Use your powers and fix this immediately.
—Andrew, Thousand Oaks

IT IS INFURIATING TO ME THAT YOUR NONSENSICAL BRACKET BASED ENTIRELY ON SUBJECTIVITY DID NOT INCLUDE A SONG THAT SOME PEOPLE HATE AND SOME PEOPLE LIKE AND WHICH I LIKE.

SG: Heat fans ruined that song. 

Everyone ruined that song, including Andrew from Thousand Oaks.

Q: In light of the ongoing debate over the name of the Washington Redskins, don't you think it's time Boston changed the name of Yawkey Way, given that Tom Yawkey was an open racist who refused the integration of baseball?
—Kieran, Portsmouth

Let's watch Bill tapdance around this one.  And by tapdance, I don't mean give the very obvious answer: "Redskin is a slur and Yawkey is not, so there's that.  On the other hand, Yawkey was a huge bag of shit.  It's unlikely either name will change, although there are great arguments that both should, but mostly let's just agree that racism sucks and both Washington's NFL team (ACTUALLY THEIR STADIUM IS IN MARYLAND LOL, signed TMQ) and Boston could use a lot less of it." No, by tapdance, I mean, talk about what a great guy Yawkey was and try to come up with reasons why honoring racists is a good thing.

SG: Given that Yawkey Way is the road you walk down as you're about to stroll into Fenway Park, yeah, I'd say that's a little awkward. Especially if you were a black Red Sox fan thinking to yourself, Wow, if it were 1949 and I was good at baseball, the guy they named this street after wouldn't have let me play on his team. Hold on, lemme work up a good loogie to spit.

But Yawkey owned the Red Sox for 44 years (longest baseball reign ever at the time), 

Irrelevant.

helped turn the Jimmy Fund into one of America's best cancer charities 

Relevant, but only to the extent Yawkey was actually responsible for this, and who knows what that extent is.  Also, when I say relevant, I don't mean "Maybe Yawkey was a good guy after all," I just mean "Maybe Yawkey wasn't 100% a piece of shit."

and even got elected to Baseball's Hall of Fame. 

Irrelevant.

His shadow hangs over the 20th century for Red Sox fans, for better and worse. 

Mostly for worse.  And he didn't even give Red Sox fans trying to defend him today the cold comfort of some on-field success.

Dave Zirin and I discussed this very theme on Wednesday's podcast: Changing a street name, pretending your history doesn't exist, 

Love the ability of some people to pretend that not honoring someone or something is the same as pretending they didn't exist.  We HAVE to name a street after Yawkey!  We don't have a choice, we'd be lying to ourselves if we didn't!  It's not hate, it's heritage!

and not giving your fans a chance to discuss and digest what happened … 

And again, apparently without that street being named after him, there's just no way fans will be able to learn and digest the team's racist history.

I mean, that isn't the greatest idea, either. Yawkey was a flawed guy in extremely flawed times, and if the street makes you remember that and appreciate the progress we've made over the past six decades, maybe that's not a bad thing.

Yeah, that's it!  Let's have an annual "Yawkey Day" at Fenway, where minority fans have to sit in segregated sections, and the Sox have to field an all-white lineup!  It's the best way to appreciate how far we've come!

Here's what I'm thinking: What if we went the other way? What if you kept the name of the street, but you built statues of Pumpsie Green (the first minority Red Sox player), Jim Rice, Pedro Martinez and David Ortiz 

Torii Hunter is extremely angry that Bill is trying to lump those last two in with the first two.

that would be strategically positioned along Yawkey Way? And then, you point out on each statue that the Red Sox were the last franchise to integrate their team, and that once upon a time, our racist owner Tom Yawkey fought for years and years to maintain an all-white Red Sox team? (Thinking.) Or we could just change the name to Dave Roberts Drive and be done with it. What Red Sox fan wouldn't feel like a million bucks walking down Dave Roberts Drive? I need to think about this some more.

He tried to save it with a half-joke at the end there, but let's face it, that whole answer is pretty sad (though not unexpected).

Q: I was just rereading "Now I Can Die In Peace" for the 10th time and couldn't help but notice your take on A-Rod after he slapped the ball out of Arroyo's glove like a ninny in Game 6: you said the play " … exposed A-Rod as a liar and cheater of the highest order, the kind who would turn over an R in Scrabble a pretend its a blank letter." Touché sir. You called it.
—Tyler, Durham, NH

Remember that time A-Rod broke an on-field baseball rule?  THAT TOTALLY PROVED THAT HE WOULD ABUSE STEROIDS THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER.  GOOD JOB BILL NOW PUBLISH MY LETTER.  Tyler from Durham sucks.

Q: Did you read Bill Barnwell's piece on the yearly QB Championship belt? He gave Peyton Manning six seasons of belts and Tom Brady 1. My roommate and I think he's trying to get you to fire him so he can join Peter King's site.
—Danny, Lincoln NE

SG: We certainly can't rule it out. Obviously, I would have given Brady the 2003 and 2004 belts for leading a juggernaut that won two straight Super Bowls, 

Or you could just do what Barnwell did in that article, and give the belt to the guy with the best stats, rather than the best defense and coach.

finished 34-4 over that stretch (including an NFL-record 21 straight victories) 

18-1.  18-1.  18-1.  That is all that matters.

and beat the Colts all four times they played (including twice in the playoffs). 

That PROVES that Brady was better!

We left the 2004 playoffs believing that Brady was the next Montana, that he owned Manning and the Colts, and that there was no better money QB in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE. 

Stealing my damn bit.

Had someone written a column in February 2005 based around the premise "I don't care what just happened, I'm still giving the QB Championship belt for these past two years to Peyton Manning," he would have seemed like a crazy person … right?

With Barnwell's stat-based criteria?  No.  Manning had like 1500 more yards, 25 more TD, 6 fewer INT, and a QB rating about 20 points higher those two years.  Brady had an awesome defense and Bill Belichick.

And just so you don't think I'm a homer (you're right, we're about 10 years too late), I would have given Eli Manning the 2011 belt for carrying a 9-7 Giants team past Matt Ryan, Aaron Rodgers, a terrific Niners defense in San Francisco, then Brady in the Super Bowl. We left that season believing that he was the best big-game QB in football, right? Same logic as Brady in 2003 and 2004. 

You're an idiot.

As for 2012 … I don't know. Joe Flacco submitted one of the best QB postseasons ever, but didn't that feel more like a good QB catching fire for a month than someone becoming the league's best QB? 

YOU'RE AN IDIOT.

Q: After Game 7 of the NBA Finals, SportsCenter cut you in the postgame show off right as you were going to say something about The Decision! What was it?????
—Matt Scully, SF

SG: Part of me never wanted to answer this question, just because I enjoyed so many conspiracy theorists thinking ESPN intentionally cut me off there. Really, you think ESPN would do anything like THAT? (Thinking.) Fine, it's probably the wrong week to ask that question. But if that were true, then that means I uttered the words "The Decision" and a panicked director in Bristol immediately screamed, "CUT HIS MIC!" within 0.015 seconds. Come on. Nobody can react that fast.

First of all, it's insulting that he thinks anyone reading this doesn't know that TV is on a delay FOR THIS EXACT REASON, that mics can be cut if people say bad shit.  Second of all:  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (link does not refer to this same incident, but to one similar enough to make everything he just said pathetic and obviously disingenuous)

So what did I actually say? The same thing I've written in my column before — that "The Decision" was considered a disaster when it happened, but it's really the best thing that happened to the NBA since Jordan came back from baseball. From the spring of 2010 through the summer of 2013, everything happening with LeBron James was more interesting than anything else happening in any other sport. 

Just like how Midnight Run is our least-aged 1980s comedy!

Anyway, that's what I said — and I did make that entire point. Magic was even nodding with that super-impressed, "I like where you're goin' with this, Bee-wwl" look on his face. 

That's kind of racist.

Q: Did you see Nestle launched a contest to build a female sports fan her own Wo-man Cave, or as they're calling it, the WoCave? If anyone can come up with a better name than WoCave it's you.
—Sarah, DFW

SG: Thanks for your unwavering support, Sarah. You're right, if I can't top a name that sounds like the name of a magazine targeted at gynecologists, I should just retire right now. In my opinion, no female-twisted play on the words "Man Cave" can work. Especially the reprehensible WoCave. Forge your own identity, ladies. Since it's a place to hang out, a cave-like word like "nest," "den," "lair," "bunker," "lounge," "haven" or "hideaway" needs to 

This goes on for an additional paragraph.

Q: What's your very best piece of life advice?
—Chuck Alexander

SG: You mean something that didn't come from George Costanza ("Just remember, it's not a lie if you believe it"), David Halberstam ("Being a professional means doing your job on the days you don't want to do it"), Ferris Bueller ("Life moves pretty fast — if you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it") and Milton Berle ("If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door")? Hmmmmmm. I'd go with this advice …

Don't worry about what other people are doing. Worry about what you're doing.

Nope.  Not here at this blog.  Worrying about what other people are doing is pretty much the only thing we do.

Bill's mailbag of horseshit is horsier and shittier than ever (part 2)

To the anonymous in last post's comments, re Jeter vs. A-Rod as Yankees SS in 2004: yes, there were people back then who thought Jeter was the better shortstop.  They are the same people who still think he deserved every Gold Glove that he won, i.e., they were/are fucking idiots who should be thrown into volcanoes.  I realize that defensive metrics and defensive WAR have a long way to go before they're perfectly accurate, but as of the start of 2004 season, Jeter had about -2 dWAR and Rodriguez had about 8 dWAR.  That's a gap that can't be explained away with a rallying cry of SHUT UP STAT NERDZZZ, WATCH SOME GAMES.  The odds that Jeter was the better shortstop are about the same as the odds that he doesn't get into the HOF on the first ballot.  Also, re your claim that bengoodfella was exaggerating more than the pro-Jeter crowd: NO.

Anyways, when we last left Bill and his merry band of sycophants, some retard had asked/told Bill that the final scene of the first episode of the current season of Breaking Bad was the best scene in television history.  How do you think Bill will respond?

SG: I thought it was the television equivalent of the 75 seconds or so right after Mike Tyson first chewed off part of Evander Holyfield's ear — when we realized what happened, zoomed through the Seven Stages of WTF? and assumed they would stop the fight, only they didn't, and suddenly Tyson and Holyfield were hopping in their corners, ready to fight again as everyone lost their freaking minds.

/game show buzzer

Gotta give him points for comparing it to a sports moment rather than another pop culture moment, though.

I've been in just about every conceivable sports fan situation at this point — that's my no. 1 "I am prepared for ANYTHING right now" sports fan moment. (It's impossible to overstate how exciting those few seconds right before they started fighting again were. I still remember where I watched that fight, who was there, and where everyone was sitting.) 

Hopefully the reason he remembers all of that so vividly is because he was alone.  I would sooner stick my dick in a paper shredder than watch a fight with Simmons.

Wait a second, we're doing this right now? This is happening??????? I AM PREPARED FOR ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING.

SHUT THE FUCK UP

Q: Is there anyone who can die between now and next month to prevent James Gandolfini from getting the hammer slot in the 'In Memoriam' Emmys montage? I see only three potential people stealing his thunder: Bill Cosby, Bill Shatner, or Jerome Seinfeld.

—Bryan Farris, Baton Rouge

Yeah, those three, and about two hundred other actors and actresses.  Good way to get your question into the published mailbag, though.  "Hey Bill, here's a horseshit question about nothing that has a bunch of possible answers.  Here are my answers to it, which are terrible.  Your thoughts?"

SG: Agree on Cosby and Seinfeld. Disagree on Shatner. Would add the following definites: David Letterman, Michael J. Fox, Mary Tyler Moore, 

And then he goes on for like 15 more.  It's embarrassing.

The single toughest call? Gandolfini or Eddie Murphy. 

THIS IS WORTH CONSTERNATION!  America's most popular sportswriter, everyone.

Q: I'm not sure why, but the other day, I decided to see what the current Red Sox rotation would look like if all the pitchers were actually dinosaurs:

1. Felix Doubrontosaurus

I'll spare you the rest.  Point is, the person who wrote this should be beaten severely on public television.

Q: SportsCenter has been showing a lot of tweets on air from sports figures and celebs. 

On the list of the fifty worst things to start happening on Sportscenter in the last four years, this is near the top, but is definitely eclipsed by the fact that they also show a lot of tweets from everyday sports fans too.  That's just what I want with my highlights--some instant feedback from @boner69 about how great LeBron's dunk was.

Most of the time, the person reading the tweet kinda butchers it due to the weird form of English used on twitter. What do you think of SportsCenter bringing in a Frank Caliendo type impersonator and use him over an anchor awkwardly reading a Shaq tweet?

—Ashton, Springfield, MA

That would be almost as funny as yelling like KG every time you order food at a restaurant!  Sick idea, bro

And here it is, as mentioned in the comments to one of my Midnight Run posts:

Q: I don't want to bad-mouth Midnight Run, but to claim "No movie used more f-bombs more effectively than Midnight Run" took me aback. Have you not seen The Big Lebowski?

—Eric S., St. Peters, MO

SG: Still haven't seen that movie. My buddy Gus believes everyone should have one movie that you've never seen just because it infuriates and perplexes everyone you know that you haven't seen it. His movie is E.T. He's never seen it. 

That was an awesome "movie I've never seen" to have never seen in 1991.  Probably infuriated and perplexed everyone Gus met at that Color Me Badd concert.  These days, I wouldn't think he's getting much mileage out of it.

This infuriates and perplexes me. For me, it's Rebowski. Er. Lebowski? Is it Rebowski or Lebowski? I wouldn't know because I've never seen it.

DIE

Q: In your "Overrated/Underrated/Properly Rated" podcast with Wesley Morris, you debated how to rate Jodie Foster's career against Meryl Streep's career. 

Woo!  Sports!  And if not sports, pop culture that people definitely care about!

Streep is probably the most similar to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

It would be a waste of Blogger's pixels to copy and paste the rest of that.

SG: I like it because Wesley overrates Foster's Accused/Lambs peak 

And yes, he answered it.  With like 500 words.  And an equation to be used to numerically determine who our greatest living actor or actress is.  This guy can make almost anything unfun and tedious with his magical superpowers of fauxnalysis.

Sorry, Al Pacino — you missed the cutoff by one point. Hoo-ah!

NAILED IT!

Q: I had a dream last night about a cricket-playing cat called Toby. Toby was like the Babe Ruth of cat cricket, I mean he made the other cats in the cat cricket league look like they were kittens. He even had an epic five-minute YouTube montage of his greatest shots that I watched several times. And the worst feeling about waking up wasn't realizing that it was all a dream, but realizing that I couldn't send you a link and tell you about Toby, the Babe Ruth of cat cricket.

—Jonathan Gault, Syracuse

SG: I've learned to see through transparent attempts to become the last e-mail of the mailbag.

Worst part about that question: all of it, or just the fact that the dude used that particular pseudonym?  And I have to unsarcastically acknowledge Bill here.  It's bad enough that he does that LOL MY READERS LOL thing still, but it's worse that he probably gets 250 emails a week trying to be the person that writes that email but failing, which is like trying to punch yourself in the face and instead falling down and breaking your arm.

Q: Pick one musical act for the New York Super Bowl halftime: Jay-Z, Bruce, Bon Jovi or the debut of the Frank Sinatra hologram?

—Chris Agar, Felton, DE

I love Bruce, but his 2009 halftime performance was a letdown.  And then SIXBURGH beat the poor Cardinals in the last 30 seconds after the Cardinals mounted that awesome comeback.  Overall, a night full of letdowns.

SG: I guess I need more clarity … are we considering this a New York Super Bowl or a New Jersey Super Bowl? (Maybe America should vote on this?) 

What a horrible idea!

If it's a New York Super Bowl, then I vote for Jay Z performing with the Sinatra hologram. If it's a Jersey Super Bowl, I vote for Bruce and Bon Jovi performing together as Chris Christie eats pasta in the background with a Gandolfini hologram.

I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY UNDERSTOOD THE POINT OF YOUR QUESTION!

But if we're considering this a New York–New Jersey Super Bowl — a joint collaboration, if you will — then nothing less than a Jay Z–Springsteen combo would suffice. 

I AM THE ARBITER OF ALL THINGS NEW YORK!

We might as well go all-out because right around the second quarter — when it's 18 degrees and every Super Bowl spectator is in full-fledged WTF mode — we're going to collectively decide that no cold-weather city should ever host a Super Bowl again.

I told you he was turning into Peter King.