I don't hate Bill Simmons; I nothing Bill Simmons. I just try to ignore him, enjoy the frequent and dead-on haterade from my blogger superiors, and generally do my best to forget he sorta ruined me as a sports fan for a couple years (it's a long, boring story that, since this site isn't my memoirs, doesn't really need to be told).
But I have to say, the man wrote a really nice article today, and since I know he needs the traffic, I thought I might link it and offer the Fire Everybody! seal of approval to his piece. The best part?
Ctrl+F: boston "Phrase not found"
Ctrl+F: celtics "Phrase not found"
Ctrl+F: red sox "Phrase not found"
Ctrl+F: patriots "Phrase not found"
Ctrl+F: karate kid "Phrase not found"
Ctrl+F: the hills "Phrase not found"
There's a glancing reference to Carlton Fisk and the World Series, but that's the closest the article comes to dealing with any of his usual topics. Instead, it's basically just a massive collection of emails from various Sonics fans on how the impending move to Oklahoma City is affecting them, with Bill providing a pretty insightful lead-in. Though I think his argument is one-sided (not that he doesn't admit as much: "There is only one side"), I appreciate his clarity and argumentation. This is why I liked the guy in the first place.
Also, I'm still trying to figure out whether Bill's new bosom buddy Matt Ufford took the time to write in. This has got to be the leading candidate...
City: Seattle
Name: Matt
How can one guy come in and steal a team from an entire city? I can't believe he would even have the guts to try something like this ... until I start to think about it more. Clay Bennett picked the perfect city to mess with. We are a bunch of computer-nerd, organic-eating, coffee-drinking wussies. I can say that because I am from here, but even if I weren't, I don't think anyone would do anything about it.
Of course, Cap doesn't live in Seattle anymore, but it could still be an honorary residence. But nah, I'm not buying it. The comedy is pretty lame and obvious by his standards, and since when has Ufford cared about whether he has the right to shit on an entire city?
Besides, I think his words on With Leather in a post from November 2 of last year pretty clearly summed up how he felt:
Murdering Clay Bennett over MOVING THE SONICS -- Fuck you, you fucking piece of shit. Fucking die.
Truer words were never spoken, Cap. Or blogged, as the case may be.
All right, fuck positivity. Bring on Murray Chass!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Oh those loveable, eugenically-inclined Brits...
Hidden inside my colorful pseudonym is the terrible secret that I am, in fact, a Brit. You know, a Limey. A Pommy. A Redcoat. John Bull's lapdog, which I believe is called John Lapdog (after Shakespeare we lost all our imagination). I could go on, but why should I when Wikipedia already has?
So anyway, imagine my intense intrigue (read: mild interest) when I noticed the following headline on ESPN.com - Height makes right: British Olympic officials seek tall people. Sounds positively scintillating, doesn't it? Tell on, anonymous Associated Press writer...
Answering a nationwide appeal for tall people with athletic potential, more than 50 prospective Olympic athletes have been placed in British training programs for the2012 London Games.
I'm pretty sure that in England the main indicator of British athletic potential - itself a bit of a contradiction in terms - was, you know, "being tall." So "tall people with athletic potential" might be a tad redudant over in the UK. I mean, that's all that John Amaechi brought to the table, and he's probably Britain's most famous athlete.
Clarification One: I am NOT, I repeat NOT, making fun of Mr. Amaechi's homosexuality. I am instead making fun of the fact that he was pretty terrible at basketball.
Clarification Two: The fact that I'm calling John Amaechi Britain's most famous athlete might be read as a culturally ignorant, typically American dismissal of soccer. That is incorrect. It's actually a carefully-considered, stereotypically American "fuck you" to soccer. There also might be some jingoism in there, I'm not sure.
More than 3,800 people applied to be part of the "Sporting Giants" project. They were tested for their skills in four Olympic sports -- rowing, handball, beach volleyball and indoor volleyball.
Britain...not even bothering to pretend they could field a basketball team. At least they're not completely delusional.
"There are so many people out there who don't know how good they could be at sports they've probably not even thought about," UK Sport talent identification manager Chelsea Warr said Thursday.
For the record, I've already thought about all the sports I'm awesome at. Like autoracing? Dude, it's not like you need to parallel park or nothing in Formula One. Football? I mean, how hard can punting be, really? And that shit totally counts as football. I've played more than enough Mario 64 to be a professional gamer (I even found the weird room and everything!). I mean, they haven't come out with anything since Nintendo 64, so I'm set, right?
Also, sepak takraw looks like fun, its rampant showboating notwithstanding.
"This was a mild shake of the tree. We looked under a few rocks and look what we found."
Wait, have the Olympics revived the Mixed Metaphors event? Because that one shows potential, even if a tree and a rock are somewhat related spatially thinking. What about "We're not jumping off the sinking ship until the cows come home" in reference to how hard you're looking for athletes? Or maybe "The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree when you take the road less traveled" when discussing...well, I have no idea what that would be discussing. Sort of the whole point of mixed metaphors, really.
Stuart Campbell, 25, gave up his job as a personal trainer to join the British Handball Academy in Denmark.
"I had never even seen a handball court before Sporting Giants," Campbell said. "But we're not just here to make up the numbers -- we're here to win medals."
Yeah...keep telling yourself that, Stuart. You do realize they don't give participation medals, right? Well, not since Eddie the Eagle, in any case, who incidentally doubles as Britain's most famous Olympian. I'll just let that one sink in.
Frances Nicholls, 23, who had been working as a teacher in York, has now relocated to Henley, home of Britain's most famous rowing regatta, after being fast-tracked onto Britain's national rowing program.
"It's been an absolute whirlwind," Nicholls said.
From York...to Henley? God, it's all glitz and glamor for the British Olympic Rowing Team. I have no idea how they all haven't had heart attacks from the excitement. Well, that and the fact that all the British Olympians are probably horribly out-of-shape. That could also cause heart attacks, especially if they're being expected to compete on an international stage with actual, you know, athletes. You know, from countries where the strategy goes beyond "Let's find some of them tall gits!"
So yeah, massive global pressure and the Henley nightlife. Very equivalent things, both causing heart attacks in British Olympians. I'll say it if no one else will.
Male candidates had to be taller than 6-3, while female candidates needed to be taller than 5-11.
Dear lord...Britain's is trying to recreate the Potsdam Giants! You remember them, right? They were that Prussian regiment that King Frederick William I started back in the 1700s? He basically went around kidnapping lots of tall people, including monks and priests, to be his soldiers so that he would scare the shit out of the enemy. A lot of them were "only" around 5'11", which was pretty tall at the time, but he actually had a few seven-footers in there. Actually, most of them suffered from crippling gigantism, making them unfit for battle, so the Potsdam Giants never did anything more intimidating than make the opposing army think something was wrong with their depth perception. Which has it uses, but still.
Also, he himself was 4'11", so I leave you to draw your own conclusions about why he was so obsessed with having giants in his army. Although I will submit this quote as evidence: "The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but tall soldiers--they are my weakness." But before you dismiss old Frederick William as a height-fetishizing old coot, do know that he would make them march for him regularly, even if he was on his sickbed, and that usually they were led in the marching by their mascot...a fucking bear. So he may have been a height-fetishizing old coot, but at least he had the common decency to be awesomely insane about it.
But even so, this is how the road to eugenics begin. You randomly decide tall people are better than one thing, and then you decide they're better at all things. Hey, tall people can reach higher shelves...let's make them our librarians! Hey, tall people can push reach their arms slightly further down clogged drains...our plumbers they shall be! And I think everyone knows that as go librarians and plumbers, so goes the nation. Basically, my message to British people of average height: start running, because the British government is committed to breeding a superhuman race of taller people. Oh, the humanity!
However, six candidates who exaggerated their height on the initial application form were still tested and have since been placed in Britain's canoeing squad.
Or not. Stupid Brits, got to always reward moxie and motherfucking pluck. Those are short people traits, Brits! Come on, either you're into eugenics or you're not. There's no halfway!
Five-time Olympic rowing champion Steve Redgrave said looking for potential medal-winners based on their physical attributes was a policy that had served Britain well before.
I'll level with you: long digressions about eugenics and Prussian military history aside, the main reason I went to the trouble of writing this post is coming up. I think you'll agree with me when I say this proves I am twelve-years-old.
"I never thought I would row until my first coach came along and asked me to have a go," Redgrave said. "Years later I asked him 'Why did you pick me?'
Yes, Steven, why were you picked?
"He said, 'Well, you had big hands and big feet."
And we all know what that's supposed to mean! Steven Redgrave's first rowing coach was totally into him because he though he had big feet. Yeah, Steven, dude totally wanted your big *AHEM* feet. Heh, heh...heh.
You guys get that I'm implying Steven Redgrave's coach thought he had a big dick, right? Because I'd hate for such a subtle, highbrow joke like that to go over your heads. You know, because dick jokes are never not funny. That's just comedy science, that is.
So anyway, imagine my intense intrigue (read: mild interest) when I noticed the following headline on ESPN.com - Height makes right: British Olympic officials seek tall people. Sounds positively scintillating, doesn't it? Tell on, anonymous Associated Press writer...
Answering a nationwide appeal for tall people with athletic potential, more than 50 prospective Olympic athletes have been placed in British training programs for the2012 London Games.
I'm pretty sure that in England the main indicator of British athletic potential - itself a bit of a contradiction in terms - was, you know, "being tall." So "tall people with athletic potential" might be a tad redudant over in the UK. I mean, that's all that John Amaechi brought to the table, and he's probably Britain's most famous athlete.
Clarification One: I am NOT, I repeat NOT, making fun of Mr. Amaechi's homosexuality. I am instead making fun of the fact that he was pretty terrible at basketball.
Clarification Two: The fact that I'm calling John Amaechi Britain's most famous athlete might be read as a culturally ignorant, typically American dismissal of soccer. That is incorrect. It's actually a carefully-considered, stereotypically American "fuck you" to soccer. There also might be some jingoism in there, I'm not sure.
More than 3,800 people applied to be part of the "Sporting Giants" project. They were tested for their skills in four Olympic sports -- rowing, handball, beach volleyball and indoor volleyball.
Britain...not even bothering to pretend they could field a basketball team. At least they're not completely delusional.
"There are so many people out there who don't know how good they could be at sports they've probably not even thought about," UK Sport talent identification manager Chelsea Warr said Thursday.
For the record, I've already thought about all the sports I'm awesome at. Like autoracing? Dude, it's not like you need to parallel park or nothing in Formula One. Football? I mean, how hard can punting be, really? And that shit totally counts as football. I've played more than enough Mario 64 to be a professional gamer (I even found the weird room and everything!). I mean, they haven't come out with anything since Nintendo 64, so I'm set, right?
Also, sepak takraw looks like fun, its rampant showboating notwithstanding.
"This was a mild shake of the tree. We looked under a few rocks and look what we found."
Wait, have the Olympics revived the Mixed Metaphors event? Because that one shows potential, even if a tree and a rock are somewhat related spatially thinking. What about "We're not jumping off the sinking ship until the cows come home" in reference to how hard you're looking for athletes? Or maybe "The acorn doesn't fall far from the tree when you take the road less traveled" when discussing...well, I have no idea what that would be discussing. Sort of the whole point of mixed metaphors, really.
Stuart Campbell, 25, gave up his job as a personal trainer to join the British Handball Academy in Denmark.
"I had never even seen a handball court before Sporting Giants," Campbell said. "But we're not just here to make up the numbers -- we're here to win medals."
Yeah...keep telling yourself that, Stuart. You do realize they don't give participation medals, right? Well, not since Eddie the Eagle, in any case, who incidentally doubles as Britain's most famous Olympian. I'll just let that one sink in.
Frances Nicholls, 23, who had been working as a teacher in York, has now relocated to Henley, home of Britain's most famous rowing regatta, after being fast-tracked onto Britain's national rowing program.
"It's been an absolute whirlwind," Nicholls said.
From York...to Henley? God, it's all glitz and glamor for the British Olympic Rowing Team. I have no idea how they all haven't had heart attacks from the excitement. Well, that and the fact that all the British Olympians are probably horribly out-of-shape. That could also cause heart attacks, especially if they're being expected to compete on an international stage with actual, you know, athletes. You know, from countries where the strategy goes beyond "Let's find some of them tall gits!"
So yeah, massive global pressure and the Henley nightlife. Very equivalent things, both causing heart attacks in British Olympians. I'll say it if no one else will.
Male candidates had to be taller than 6-3, while female candidates needed to be taller than 5-11.
Dear lord...Britain's is trying to recreate the Potsdam Giants! You remember them, right? They were that Prussian regiment that King Frederick William I started back in the 1700s? He basically went around kidnapping lots of tall people, including monks and priests, to be his soldiers so that he would scare the shit out of the enemy. A lot of them were "only" around 5'11", which was pretty tall at the time, but he actually had a few seven-footers in there. Actually, most of them suffered from crippling gigantism, making them unfit for battle, so the Potsdam Giants never did anything more intimidating than make the opposing army think something was wrong with their depth perception. Which has it uses, but still.
Also, he himself was 4'11", so I leave you to draw your own conclusions about why he was so obsessed with having giants in his army. Although I will submit this quote as evidence: "The most beautiful girl or woman in the world would be a matter of indifference to me, but tall soldiers--they are my weakness." But before you dismiss old Frederick William as a height-fetishizing old coot, do know that he would make them march for him regularly, even if he was on his sickbed, and that usually they were led in the marching by their mascot...a fucking bear. So he may have been a height-fetishizing old coot, but at least he had the common decency to be awesomely insane about it.
But even so, this is how the road to eugenics begin. You randomly decide tall people are better than one thing, and then you decide they're better at all things. Hey, tall people can reach higher shelves...let's make them our librarians! Hey, tall people can push reach their arms slightly further down clogged drains...our plumbers they shall be! And I think everyone knows that as go librarians and plumbers, so goes the nation. Basically, my message to British people of average height: start running, because the British government is committed to breeding a superhuman race of taller people. Oh, the humanity!
However, six candidates who exaggerated their height on the initial application form were still tested and have since been placed in Britain's canoeing squad.
Or not. Stupid Brits, got to always reward moxie and motherfucking pluck. Those are short people traits, Brits! Come on, either you're into eugenics or you're not. There's no halfway!
Five-time Olympic rowing champion Steve Redgrave said looking for potential medal-winners based on their physical attributes was a policy that had served Britain well before.
I'll level with you: long digressions about eugenics and Prussian military history aside, the main reason I went to the trouble of writing this post is coming up. I think you'll agree with me when I say this proves I am twelve-years-old.
"I never thought I would row until my first coach came along and asked me to have a go," Redgrave said. "Years later I asked him 'Why did you pick me?'
Yes, Steven, why were you picked?
"He said, 'Well, you had big hands and big feet."
And we all know what that's supposed to mean! Steven Redgrave's first rowing coach was totally into him because he though he had big feet. Yeah, Steven, dude totally wanted your big *AHEM* feet. Heh, heh...heh.
You guys get that I'm implying Steven Redgrave's coach thought he had a big dick, right? Because I'd hate for such a subtle, highbrow joke like that to go over your heads. You know, because dick jokes are never not funny. That's just comedy science, that is.
Friday Frenzy: There Will Be Posts
Sorry for taking the day off yesterday...I'm still on pace to write five for the week, but I sort of frontloaded them all in the first couple of days and then needed to recharge. Well, I'm ready and raring to go, so let me promise you one thing...
THERE WILL BE POSTS. As in multiple. Big ones. It'll be fun.
Also, this may be, in fact, NO BLOG FOR OLD MEN. I think that means I'm going to make fun of Murray Chass. I guess we'll find out together.
ARCHIE OUT!!!
THERE WILL BE POSTS. As in multiple. Big ones. It'll be fun.
Also, this may be, in fact, NO BLOG FOR OLD MEN. I think that means I'm going to make fun of Murray Chass. I guess we'll find out together.
ARCHIE OUT!!!
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Some more fun with Ray Ratto, now in handy San Francisco Chronicle version...
I must admit, I've taken something of a shine to Ray Ratto's crazy ramblings. He's not intelligent or especially interesting, but he doesn't seem to take himself too seriously. Of course, that's been said of Peter King, and I know how my esteemed colleagues feel about him. So that probably isn't too much of a defense. Eh, let's just take a look at Ray's latest, this time for his hometown San Francisco Chronicle.
Before we even begin, I'd like to remind you of Ray's headshot for CBS Sportsline:
And now let's take a look at his headshot for the Chronicle:
Let nobody say Ray Ratto doesn't understand what makes an awesome headshot. But does he understand the mechanics of an awesome article? Only one way to find out...
I wish I knew how to quit Bonds stories
That's the subhead. And I got to say...Ray, that's a terrible start. Even ignoring recent tragic events, Brokeback Mountain references have been passe for at least a year. How about "Bonds stories drink my milkshake"? It doesn't make even the first lick of sense, but since I'm still enraptured by the crazy eyes of Daniel Plainview (saw it last night...second time!) I would totally respect you for making the reference, even if that threatens my integrity as a bad sportswriting deconstructionist.
We note with satisfaction the discovery that our reactions are still sharp, our willingness to dive headlong into a conclusion is still inspiring, and our desire to say the words "Barry" and "Bonds" in the same sentence remain unabated.
So, uh...did that make any sense to you? Is Ray happy he's still a bad journalist who is obsessed with Barry Bonds? And could he have chosen a more roundabout way of communicating that idea? I mean, I appreciate the fact that he doesn't take himself very seriously - I could never imagine Plaschke writing something like this, for instance - but I'd really prefer it if I didn't have to read that paragraph three times just to understand the intended meaning. If I wanted to read sportswriting by James Joyce, I'd read Finnegans Wake.
Monday therefore was a great day. First, St. Louis manager Tony La Russa had said a day earlier that despite his extraordinary powers of suggestion, his superiors, general manager John Mozeliak and the ownership group decided not to be interested in Bonds for the second year in a row.
Man, I hate Tony La Russa. I don't have much to add, other than the idea of him fancying himself some kind of Svengali-esque master manipulator moderately amuses me. Ray Ratto and me, joined in mutual disrespect for Tony LaRussa. As they say in Oregon Trail II, let's keep going.
Then, Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said there had been some minor discussions among the oxymoron that is the Rays' brain trust about signing Bonds, pitcher Kenny Rogers or outfielder Kenny Lofton. Managing general whatsis Andrew Friedman called it a non-story, trying to do our job for us. Andy old sock, old shoe, old chimp, we'll be the ones to decide what is and what isn't a non-story, thank you very much indeed.
What, "old sport" couldn't make the cut? I'm pretty sure none of those are actual phrases, and I'm pretty sure you need at least one real one for the joke to actually work. Also, Andrew Friedman is director of baseball operations, not "managing general whatsis." Keep your comedy mistakes straight, Ratty boy.
And yes, I do realize Ray is feigning ignorance of the team to show his disdain for Tampa Bay, but I'm pretty sure there's some good old-fashioned real ignorance underpinning it. And real ignorance passed off as ironic ignorance, well...that makes me furious!
(Yep, that'd be another Mystery Men reference. I am so uncool.)
And then Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris, reminded us all that Bonds isn't ready to retire, and that he would be willing to play in Japan if need be.
This could be pretty awesome. If he played a whole season, how many homers do you think he could hit? He's not in his prime anymore, but even so, fifty has got to be very attainable. Or maybe they'd just walk him like 400 times. I'm perfectly willing to make crazed, Krukian-type predictions about this.
Also, what if he had to wear one of those crazy triple-digit numbers, like 118 or something, and when the Japanese media asked him why he chose it, he just smiled and said, "Because that's how many homers I'm hitting this year." Hell, what if Barry just really took a shine to the Japanese media? I mean, Japan has been known to embrace possibly misunderstood raging freaks of nature who are basically walking cautionary tales for unchecked technological advancement and also really appear to have cripplingly bad knees:
By the way, I was seriously considering not going for the obvious punchline there and making it somebody other than Godzilla. But that would have meant depriving you of random Godzilla awesomeness, and I'm just not prepared to do that. Also, I couldn't think of a better punchline. Maybe legendary Japanese warrior Yamato Takeru? But that's only because his name reminds me of the Yamato Gun from Starcraft, and that shit's badass:
Wait, what am I writing right now? Oh, that's right, making fun of a Ray Ratto article. Back to the grind!
So in one 24-hour period, we have no news on Bonds from the Cardinals, the Rays and the Yakult Swallows. But because someone said his name, that's good enough for us.
Way to cramp my buzz, Ratty Boy. You're about to get all serious and self-righteous and shit, aren't you? Aren't you? AREN'T YOU!? You were doing so moderately well taking neutered potshots at Tony LaRussa. Fuck it, let's just hear it...
Because playing or no, visible or not, in uniform or in a suit, Barry Bonds remains the gift that keeps on giving.
He sure is, considering how many crappy articles have been essentially gift-wrapped presents for bloggers far more talented than I to rip the ever-living shit out of. Can't really argue with you there.
Whatever moral issues you might or might not have with Bonds pursuing his career while he waits for a trial date, rest easy knowing that we have no issue with pursuing Bonds stories,
What the hell's the point of writing this article? It's a Barry Bonds article decrying Barry Bonds articles. Just don't write them and think of something else. What's that Ray? The real point is to make shitty jokes and weird analogies? Oh, OK then.
even if all they are is someone saying his name in a meeting as part of some Bizarro World Jeopardy category - "I'll take Baseball Players in Their Mid-40s Who Need a Gig for $1,600, Alex."
Actual baseball players in their mid-40s who would gladly accept $1,600 for a chance to play ball:
Who is...Jose Canseco? (Because he's still got so much to prove.)
Who is...Ozzie Canseco? (Because he still has to prove he has something to prove.)
Who is...Fred McGriff? (Because if Sosa can do it and Juan-Gon can try to do it, then the Crime Dog is come back for his seven fucking homers.)
Who is...Paul O'Neill? (Because fucking True Yankees never lose the itch. The itch to hit-and-run and sac-fly and turn perfect 9-6-3 DPs and just generally be gritty-licious and hustle-tacular all the way to another third consecutive championship, just like they used to back when being a Yankee fucking meant something. Fucking A-Rod man, fucking A-Rod just don't get that shit at all. Also Paul never got round to catching a fly ball in his hat.)
Who is...Rickey Henderson? (Nah, that doesn't work. Fucker's 49, for a start.)
Also, I believe Bizarro World Jeopardy would involve people asking questions in the form of a question to receive answers in the form of an answer. Wait...is regular Jeopardy already Bizarro World Jeopardy? All I know is, I'll be watching Alex Trebek carefully from now on. Based on my research, Bizarros act something like this...
So if Trebek acts all intellectual and learned when any real dude would act like an immature, snickering moron...
Ah shit, Trebek's a fucking Bizarro. Or maybe he's actually Mr. Mxyzptlk...
Look, whatever the case, Trebek has definitely fought Superman in some comically bizarre way. I feel pretty comfortable saying that much. I also feel very comfortable saying Trebek vs. the Man of Steel would be better than Superman Returns. Just saying.
God, I'm getting so off-topic. I think this is what happens when I try deconstructing the ramblings of crazy people.
Could the Cardinals use Bonds the player? Of course, and especially so if Albert Pujols' plan to play the season with an injured elbow turns out to be nutty.
Trust me, Albert, Ray Ratto knows nutty. So if he says what you're up to might be nutty...well, all I'm saying is call some squirrels pronto, because we're talking a nut bonanza here.
Great. I've become Ray Ratto. I think I liked it better when I was figuring out which Superman villain Alex Trebek was.
Also, according to Pujols himself, "It didn't make sense having the surgery and just clean it up, when cleaning it up it wasn't going to make it good." I have no idea if this is accurate, but I do trust Pujols to know what's nutty and what's not and then to do what's not, in fact, nutty.
But St. Louis might not be as crazy about Bonds wearing its team's jersey.
Ray, you realize that this has morphed from an article decrying Barry Bonds articles into just a regular, straight-up Barry Bonds article? You know...that thing you hate? Shouldn't you be, I don't know, arguing that Bonds is a non-story or something? Wasn't that supposed to be your thesis?
Could the Rays use Bonds the player? Lord love a duck, yes.
As a fellow coiner of bizarre neologisms, points on the "Lord love a duck" thing. Although unless "Lord love a duck" is your way of communicating your detailed argument for why we shouldn't bother talking about Barry Bonds, I can't really give you points for, well, actually having a point.
Sure, we all know about Harry Lord's weird man-love for Ducky Swan (I mean, why else do you think his EQA dropped from .266 to .214 in 1914? Couldn't stop thinking about the Duck, dude) but what does that have to do with Bonds being excessively covered? Also, there was once a player named "Ducky Swan." This is why I love old time baseball so damn much, even if nothing will ever beat Rusty Kuntz on the awesomely improbably name front.
But given that the only people who go to Rays games are fans of the other team, the likelihood that he could win over customers who are predisposed to root against his team seems minimal.
Right, because if there's one thing Rocco Baldelli is about to do, it's singlehandedly win over what has got to be the most apathetic fanbase in sports. OK, fine, BJ Upton will help. Wouldn't a dude like Bonds be just the sort of publicity stunt a team like the Rays should consider?
Just to show you I am actually capable of baseball-related research, I'll give you one obvious example of signing an iconic, past-his-prime slugger...
1934 Boston Braves average attendance: 303,205, 6th out of 8 in NL
1935 Boston Braves average attendance, now with the drunken remains of Babe Ruth: 232,754, 7th out of 8 in NL
Well, that didn't fucking work. This is why I keep my research to comics and YouTube. Still, Babe Ruth was terrible at that point and the Braves won forty fewer games than they did the year before. So I don't know, I still think signing Bonds might work, even if the numbers don't really indicate it.
Let's put it like this: I don't think signing Barry Bonds will drive casual fans away. If anything, this is the sort of thing casual fans love; it doesn't require them to know anything about sports because Barry Bonds hasn't really been a sports story in years. By the way, Ray, feel free to use any of these as ideas for future articles about Barry Bonds articles. Just make sure to credit good ol' Archie Micklewhite when you do.
Could the Swallows use Bonds? Could the Dragons? The Buffaloes? The Nippon Ham Fighters? People who follow Japanese baseball say yes, and they would know. After all, we took Tsuyoshi Shinjo, right?
I don't know shit about Japanese baseball, but I do know this...
1. Barry posted a .344 EQA and a 170 OPS+ last year while playing in Major League Baseball
2. The MLB is better than the various Japanese leagues (yes, even the National League)
3. If Barry can do that in the MLB, then he can at least equal that in Japan and likely far surpass it
4. Any Japanese team could use somebody like that
Quod erat demonstrandum, bitch. Man, I'm so hardcore, what with the calling people "bitch" and all.
But as we've said more times than you've had hot dinners,
So why are you saying it again? Especially when your ostensible point is that everyone should just shut up about Barry Bonds. Isn't there some one-legged minor league pitcher out there you could profile or something? Or maybe some egghead catcher who went to MIT or some shit and works on game theory proofs in the dugout? I bet Ozzie Guillen's saying crazy shit right now! Wouldn't that be fun to write about?
signing Bonds isn't a baseball issue, it's an ownership issue, and no owner feels the urgency to bring in someone with Bonds' luggage in February. Those owners keep hoping that the promising young lad from Double-A will deliver the goods, because he won't be arbitration eligible, because he meets the criteria for the minor-league junkies out there, and because cheap is cheap.
Yes, because if there's one thing teams like the St. Louis Cardinals are doing, it's avoiding washed-up old sluggers with steroid issues. Although Juan Gonzalez probably would be willing to play for $1,600, and as Ray says, cheap is indeed cheap.
Bonds, on the other hand, isn't likely to be a bargain. He always has had a healthy regard for money, and if any team could tarnish his on-field accomplishments, Tampa Bay would be the one.
Are you sure playing for Tampa Bay is what's likely to tarnish Barry's on-field accomplishments? Really?
[The scene: Cooperstown in 2035.]
Son: Dad-unit?
Father: Affirmative, son-unit?
Son: Where is the plaque noting subject Bonds, Barry, late of Pirates of Pittsburgh, the Giants of San Francisco, and the Rays of Tampa?
Father: Tampa Bay, son-unit.
Son: But Tampa Bay is the bay, not the city. How can a baseball team play in a large body of water?
Father: That is not what they do, son-unit. Their stadium is located in the city of Tampa.
Son: Floridians are terribly illogical, aren't they, dad-unit?
Father: Terribly illogical, son-unit.
Son: It makes my diodes weep with electric sorrow. My inquiry regarding the absence of subject Bonds, Barry stands, dad-unit.
Father: Well, there's really one reason...
Son: Searching databanks...was it his rampant, widely-documented steroid usage in a time when such substances were still illegal?
Father: Negative.
Son: Perhaps his prolonged legal troubles for committing perjury in front of a grand jury?
Father: Negative.
Son: His notoriously frosty relationship with the media, the very same group that elects players to Fame, the Hall of?
Father: Negative, son-unit. You in fact have already stated it.
Son: Reviewing short-term memory files. Sufficient reason not found.
Father: Son-unit, he played for Tampa Bay. That is the black mark from which no baseball reputation can ever recover, no matter how glorious.
Son: I understand, dad-unit.
Father: Do you notice that gap in the plaques? That is where Wade Boggs used to be.
Son: I have only now properly processed the full implications of this.
Father: I know, son-unit. I had hoped not to tell you until you were older.
Son: Dad-unit...you would never make me play for the Rays, would you?
Father: With a first-rate cerebral computer like yours? Son-unit, the Orlando Billy Beanes signed you out of the womb.
[Exeunt. A mechanical Joe Morgan akin to one of those animatronic talking Presidents at Disney waves as they pass. He starts to cry, suggesting even the simplest of automatons is capable of human emotion.]
Exercise in cheesy b-grade social science fiction aside, I'm pretty sure there's nothing the Rays can do to tarnish Bonds's baseball reputation. I'm pretty sure Barry already beat them to that one.
But we're not talking about finding a new home for Bonds. We're talking about how his name snaps us to attention and propels us toward crank-addled speculative pieces about where he should go, where he should bat, where his lawyers can reach him in an in-game emergency.
Are you sure we're talking about "how" this happens? Because I haven't read you discussing "crank-addled speculative pieces" so much as "writing a crank-addled speculative piece."
Also...did Ray Ratto just admit he does crank? Fuck man, that explains the crazy headshots. Dude was fucking torqued the whole time.
The story must be advanced, even if it advances only from "could" to "might."
Wait, there's a story here? Could have fooled me...
And Monday showed that we've still got it. A big knee-jerk media win, this, and we're all heading for your homes to take a victory lap through your hydrangea plants and your koi ponds.
Sorry man, I had to let Leonard Maltin eat my hydrangea plants after he guessed all the technical Oscars correctly. The guy just loves the taste of the Azores. You can still have your lap through the koi ponds, though. Leonard says carp disagrees with him.
Also - and I realize Ray's writing to those ultra-liberal frosted-over-hippie heroin addicts in San Fran - but what the hell was that paragraph supposed to mean? How did the media "win"? Who were they competing against? Their readers? Is he tacitly admitting this is all a big exercise in just how much bullshit he and his colleagues can possibly peddle before any of us yokels get wise? Simply put...just how big of a dick is Ray Ratto?
This is the gift of Bonds in repose. We can't see him or hear him, but we don't need him any more to divine his future. We know the Giants don't want him, and we are pretty sure the A's won't sign him (although you never know when W.L. Beane will get a wild hair up his beezer). We also apparently can scratch the Cardinals, despite La Russa's silver-tongued wizardry.
W.L. Beane? You mean Billy Beane's son and partner, W.L. Beane? You do realize Beane's a family man and the A's are a family business, right? Man, There Will Be Blood references never get old. Not like Brokeback references, that's for sure.
Also, between the silver tongue and the apparent hypnosis abilities, Tony La Russa sounds like he's taking the final few steps to becoming a full-fledged supervillain. We'll know for sure when he starts randomly explaining to Lou Pineilla his incredibly complicated strategy for victory when the Cards are beating the Cubs 8-1. Of course, since in baseball managerial strategy doesn't count for shit, this won't mean anything, but that would still be vintage supervillain. Vintage La Russa, too, soon enough.
That still leaves 27 other teams, plus the 12 Japanese teams. We don't see him working the Mexican Leagues or the Caribbean, but if Raul Castro has an opinion about him becoming a Villa Clara Orange Grower in the next few weeks, we're keen to know.
Much more interesting: what if Bonds went to play baseball in Taiwan? That's vaguely more possible than Cuba (in the sense that Cuba is totally impossible whereas Taiwan is just basically impossible) and due to that pesky One-China Policy, there's no extradition from there.
So what if Bonds fled to Taiwan, started cranking out fifty homers a year over there until he was fifty-five, and held a daily press conference where he gleefully reiterated how many steroids he used to do and how much he loves lying to grand juries? Bonds is totally crazy enough to do something like that, and it'd pretty much be the most awesome thing to ever happen.
After all, his perjury and obstruction trial is moving at the expectedly glacial pace. The latest argument is about whether a typographical error was an accident, or an act so monstrously prejudicial that he cannot hope to have a fair trial in this solar system.
You know, they've got a hell of a judicial system on Neptune. I'm just saying.
That will be adjudicated ... well, presumably before the judge retires.
This isn't really about Ray Ratto, but I'm not sure I'd take that bet. That's a little worrisome.
Secondly, the Roger Clemens self-immolation saga is going to take some time before it runs its course. The latest development - that the Congressional committee that supervised his public trouser-drop two weeks ago is going to urge the Justice Department to get nasty with him - has its obvious fascinations.
So your argument is, "We shouldn't write endless, repetitive articles about Barry Bonds because we could be writing endless, repetitive articles about Roger Clemens." The logic's airtight, I'll give it that much.
Thirdly, regular old spring training cannot sustain our prurience in these hyper-nutty days. For the same reason that we can be diverted from the real outrage of performance-enhancing drugs (they're illegal, they're obtained without any guarantee of purity of efficacy, and they're often administered in germ-enriched environments), we can be entranced by names.
Wait, we get entranced by names because "they're illegal, they're obtained without any guarantee of purity of efficacy, and they're often administered in germ-enriched environments"? I admit I'm starting to hallucinate a little...but that doesn't sound right.
And who has a bigger name than Barry Bonds? And no, Roger Clemens' playing days really are done.
What, calling A-Rod a tranny-loving choker isn't famous enough for you? Fucking elitist.
So Tony La Russa scratched our itch. Then Joe Maddon did, much to the consternation of Fast Andy Friedman. And of course, Jeff Borris played his occasional game of Whack-a-Mole.
No one has ever before and no one ever will again call Andy Friedman "Fast Andy Friedman." Ladies and gentlemen, we have just witnessed a unique moment in the cosmos. Hope you enjoyed it.
Also, how is Whack-a-Mole at all the right game to convey what Jeff Borris is up to? Unless he's hitting Tony La Russa with a mallet, in which case I'm completely on board. And willing to help.
So whatever else happens with Barry Bonds' baseball career, at least we know we're still on our Pavlovian game - such as it is.
Classy reference to end there, Ray. Shame about the rest of the article, but still.
Well, that's this post done. I think I'll just ring my "post is done" bell...wait, Ray, why are you drooling and slobbering like that? Ray, dude, I don't have any steaks. Please stop looking at me like that, Ray. Seriously man, your eyes are crazy.
Aw shit...
Before we even begin, I'd like to remind you of Ray's headshot for CBS Sportsline:
And now let's take a look at his headshot for the Chronicle:
Let nobody say Ray Ratto doesn't understand what makes an awesome headshot. But does he understand the mechanics of an awesome article? Only one way to find out...
I wish I knew how to quit Bonds stories
That's the subhead. And I got to say...Ray, that's a terrible start. Even ignoring recent tragic events, Brokeback Mountain references have been passe for at least a year. How about "Bonds stories drink my milkshake"? It doesn't make even the first lick of sense, but since I'm still enraptured by the crazy eyes of Daniel Plainview (saw it last night...second time!) I would totally respect you for making the reference, even if that threatens my integrity as a bad sportswriting deconstructionist.
We note with satisfaction the discovery that our reactions are still sharp, our willingness to dive headlong into a conclusion is still inspiring, and our desire to say the words "Barry" and "Bonds" in the same sentence remain unabated.
So, uh...did that make any sense to you? Is Ray happy he's still a bad journalist who is obsessed with Barry Bonds? And could he have chosen a more roundabout way of communicating that idea? I mean, I appreciate the fact that he doesn't take himself very seriously - I could never imagine Plaschke writing something like this, for instance - but I'd really prefer it if I didn't have to read that paragraph three times just to understand the intended meaning. If I wanted to read sportswriting by James Joyce, I'd read Finnegans Wake.
Monday therefore was a great day. First, St. Louis manager Tony La Russa had said a day earlier that despite his extraordinary powers of suggestion, his superiors, general manager John Mozeliak and the ownership group decided not to be interested in Bonds for the second year in a row.
Man, I hate Tony La Russa. I don't have much to add, other than the idea of him fancying himself some kind of Svengali-esque master manipulator moderately amuses me. Ray Ratto and me, joined in mutual disrespect for Tony LaRussa. As they say in Oregon Trail II, let's keep going.
Then, Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon said there had been some minor discussions among the oxymoron that is the Rays' brain trust about signing Bonds, pitcher Kenny Rogers or outfielder Kenny Lofton. Managing general whatsis Andrew Friedman called it a non-story, trying to do our job for us. Andy old sock, old shoe, old chimp, we'll be the ones to decide what is and what isn't a non-story, thank you very much indeed.
What, "old sport" couldn't make the cut? I'm pretty sure none of those are actual phrases, and I'm pretty sure you need at least one real one for the joke to actually work. Also, Andrew Friedman is director of baseball operations, not "managing general whatsis." Keep your comedy mistakes straight, Ratty boy.
And yes, I do realize Ray is feigning ignorance of the team to show his disdain for Tampa Bay, but I'm pretty sure there's some good old-fashioned real ignorance underpinning it. And real ignorance passed off as ironic ignorance, well...that makes me furious!
(Yep, that'd be another Mystery Men reference. I am so uncool.)
And then Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris, reminded us all that Bonds isn't ready to retire, and that he would be willing to play in Japan if need be.
This could be pretty awesome. If he played a whole season, how many homers do you think he could hit? He's not in his prime anymore, but even so, fifty has got to be very attainable. Or maybe they'd just walk him like 400 times. I'm perfectly willing to make crazed, Krukian-type predictions about this.
Also, what if he had to wear one of those crazy triple-digit numbers, like 118 or something, and when the Japanese media asked him why he chose it, he just smiled and said, "Because that's how many homers I'm hitting this year." Hell, what if Barry just really took a shine to the Japanese media? I mean, Japan has been known to embrace possibly misunderstood raging freaks of nature who are basically walking cautionary tales for unchecked technological advancement and also really appear to have cripplingly bad knees:
By the way, I was seriously considering not going for the obvious punchline there and making it somebody other than Godzilla. But that would have meant depriving you of random Godzilla awesomeness, and I'm just not prepared to do that. Also, I couldn't think of a better punchline. Maybe legendary Japanese warrior Yamato Takeru? But that's only because his name reminds me of the Yamato Gun from Starcraft, and that shit's badass:
Wait, what am I writing right now? Oh, that's right, making fun of a Ray Ratto article. Back to the grind!
So in one 24-hour period, we have no news on Bonds from the Cardinals, the Rays and the Yakult Swallows. But because someone said his name, that's good enough for us.
Way to cramp my buzz, Ratty Boy. You're about to get all serious and self-righteous and shit, aren't you? Aren't you? AREN'T YOU!? You were doing so moderately well taking neutered potshots at Tony LaRussa. Fuck it, let's just hear it...
Because playing or no, visible or not, in uniform or in a suit, Barry Bonds remains the gift that keeps on giving.
He sure is, considering how many crappy articles have been essentially gift-wrapped presents for bloggers far more talented than I to rip the ever-living shit out of. Can't really argue with you there.
Whatever moral issues you might or might not have with Bonds pursuing his career while he waits for a trial date, rest easy knowing that we have no issue with pursuing Bonds stories,
What the hell's the point of writing this article? It's a Barry Bonds article decrying Barry Bonds articles. Just don't write them and think of something else. What's that Ray? The real point is to make shitty jokes and weird analogies? Oh, OK then.
even if all they are is someone saying his name in a meeting as part of some Bizarro World Jeopardy category - "I'll take Baseball Players in Their Mid-40s Who Need a Gig for $1,600, Alex."
Actual baseball players in their mid-40s who would gladly accept $1,600 for a chance to play ball:
Who is...Jose Canseco? (Because he's still got so much to prove.)
Who is...Ozzie Canseco? (Because he still has to prove he has something to prove.)
Who is...Fred McGriff? (Because if Sosa can do it and Juan-Gon can try to do it, then the Crime Dog is come back for his seven fucking homers.)
Who is...Paul O'Neill? (Because fucking True Yankees never lose the itch. The itch to hit-and-run and sac-fly and turn perfect 9-6-3 DPs and just generally be gritty-licious and hustle-tacular all the way to another third consecutive championship, just like they used to back when being a Yankee fucking meant something. Fucking A-Rod man, fucking A-Rod just don't get that shit at all. Also Paul never got round to catching a fly ball in his hat.)
Who is...Rickey Henderson? (Nah, that doesn't work. Fucker's 49, for a start.)
Also, I believe Bizarro World Jeopardy would involve people asking questions in the form of a question to receive answers in the form of an answer. Wait...is regular Jeopardy already Bizarro World Jeopardy? All I know is, I'll be watching Alex Trebek carefully from now on. Based on my research, Bizarros act something like this...
So if Trebek acts all intellectual and learned when any real dude would act like an immature, snickering moron...
Ah shit, Trebek's a fucking Bizarro. Or maybe he's actually Mr. Mxyzptlk...
Look, whatever the case, Trebek has definitely fought Superman in some comically bizarre way. I feel pretty comfortable saying that much. I also feel very comfortable saying Trebek vs. the Man of Steel would be better than Superman Returns. Just saying.
God, I'm getting so off-topic. I think this is what happens when I try deconstructing the ramblings of crazy people.
Could the Cardinals use Bonds the player? Of course, and especially so if Albert Pujols' plan to play the season with an injured elbow turns out to be nutty.
Trust me, Albert, Ray Ratto knows nutty. So if he says what you're up to might be nutty...well, all I'm saying is call some squirrels pronto, because we're talking a nut bonanza here.
Great. I've become Ray Ratto. I think I liked it better when I was figuring out which Superman villain Alex Trebek was.
Also, according to Pujols himself, "It didn't make sense having the surgery and just clean it up, when cleaning it up it wasn't going to make it good." I have no idea if this is accurate, but I do trust Pujols to know what's nutty and what's not and then to do what's not, in fact, nutty.
But St. Louis might not be as crazy about Bonds wearing its team's jersey.
Ray, you realize that this has morphed from an article decrying Barry Bonds articles into just a regular, straight-up Barry Bonds article? You know...that thing you hate? Shouldn't you be, I don't know, arguing that Bonds is a non-story or something? Wasn't that supposed to be your thesis?
Could the Rays use Bonds the player? Lord love a duck, yes.
As a fellow coiner of bizarre neologisms, points on the "Lord love a duck" thing. Although unless "Lord love a duck" is your way of communicating your detailed argument for why we shouldn't bother talking about Barry Bonds, I can't really give you points for, well, actually having a point.
Sure, we all know about Harry Lord's weird man-love for Ducky Swan (I mean, why else do you think his EQA dropped from .266 to .214 in 1914? Couldn't stop thinking about the Duck, dude) but what does that have to do with Bonds being excessively covered? Also, there was once a player named "Ducky Swan." This is why I love old time baseball so damn much, even if nothing will ever beat Rusty Kuntz on the awesomely improbably name front.
But given that the only people who go to Rays games are fans of the other team, the likelihood that he could win over customers who are predisposed to root against his team seems minimal.
Right, because if there's one thing Rocco Baldelli is about to do, it's singlehandedly win over what has got to be the most apathetic fanbase in sports. OK, fine, BJ Upton will help. Wouldn't a dude like Bonds be just the sort of publicity stunt a team like the Rays should consider?
Just to show you I am actually capable of baseball-related research, I'll give you one obvious example of signing an iconic, past-his-prime slugger...
1934 Boston Braves average attendance: 303,205, 6th out of 8 in NL
1935 Boston Braves average attendance, now with the drunken remains of Babe Ruth: 232,754, 7th out of 8 in NL
Well, that didn't fucking work. This is why I keep my research to comics and YouTube. Still, Babe Ruth was terrible at that point and the Braves won forty fewer games than they did the year before. So I don't know, I still think signing Bonds might work, even if the numbers don't really indicate it.
Let's put it like this: I don't think signing Barry Bonds will drive casual fans away. If anything, this is the sort of thing casual fans love; it doesn't require them to know anything about sports because Barry Bonds hasn't really been a sports story in years. By the way, Ray, feel free to use any of these as ideas for future articles about Barry Bonds articles. Just make sure to credit good ol' Archie Micklewhite when you do.
Could the Swallows use Bonds? Could the Dragons? The Buffaloes? The Nippon Ham Fighters? People who follow Japanese baseball say yes, and they would know. After all, we took Tsuyoshi Shinjo, right?
I don't know shit about Japanese baseball, but I do know this...
1. Barry posted a .344 EQA and a 170 OPS+ last year while playing in Major League Baseball
2. The MLB is better than the various Japanese leagues (yes, even the National League)
3. If Barry can do that in the MLB, then he can at least equal that in Japan and likely far surpass it
4. Any Japanese team could use somebody like that
Quod erat demonstrandum, bitch. Man, I'm so hardcore, what with the calling people "bitch" and all.
But as we've said more times than you've had hot dinners,
So why are you saying it again? Especially when your ostensible point is that everyone should just shut up about Barry Bonds. Isn't there some one-legged minor league pitcher out there you could profile or something? Or maybe some egghead catcher who went to MIT or some shit and works on game theory proofs in the dugout? I bet Ozzie Guillen's saying crazy shit right now! Wouldn't that be fun to write about?
signing Bonds isn't a baseball issue, it's an ownership issue, and no owner feels the urgency to bring in someone with Bonds' luggage in February. Those owners keep hoping that the promising young lad from Double-A will deliver the goods, because he won't be arbitration eligible, because he meets the criteria for the minor-league junkies out there, and because cheap is cheap.
Yes, because if there's one thing teams like the St. Louis Cardinals are doing, it's avoiding washed-up old sluggers with steroid issues. Although Juan Gonzalez probably would be willing to play for $1,600, and as Ray says, cheap is indeed cheap.
Bonds, on the other hand, isn't likely to be a bargain. He always has had a healthy regard for money, and if any team could tarnish his on-field accomplishments, Tampa Bay would be the one.
Are you sure playing for Tampa Bay is what's likely to tarnish Barry's on-field accomplishments? Really?
[The scene: Cooperstown in 2035.]
Son: Dad-unit?
Father: Affirmative, son-unit?
Son: Where is the plaque noting subject Bonds, Barry, late of Pirates of Pittsburgh, the Giants of San Francisco, and the Rays of Tampa?
Father: Tampa Bay, son-unit.
Son: But Tampa Bay is the bay, not the city. How can a baseball team play in a large body of water?
Father: That is not what they do, son-unit. Their stadium is located in the city of Tampa.
Son: Floridians are terribly illogical, aren't they, dad-unit?
Father: Terribly illogical, son-unit.
Son: It makes my diodes weep with electric sorrow. My inquiry regarding the absence of subject Bonds, Barry stands, dad-unit.
Father: Well, there's really one reason...
Son: Searching databanks...was it his rampant, widely-documented steroid usage in a time when such substances were still illegal?
Father: Negative.
Son: Perhaps his prolonged legal troubles for committing perjury in front of a grand jury?
Father: Negative.
Son: His notoriously frosty relationship with the media, the very same group that elects players to Fame, the Hall of?
Father: Negative, son-unit. You in fact have already stated it.
Son: Reviewing short-term memory files. Sufficient reason not found.
Father: Son-unit, he played for Tampa Bay. That is the black mark from which no baseball reputation can ever recover, no matter how glorious.
Son: I understand, dad-unit.
Father: Do you notice that gap in the plaques? That is where Wade Boggs used to be.
Son: I have only now properly processed the full implications of this.
Father: I know, son-unit. I had hoped not to tell you until you were older.
Son: Dad-unit...you would never make me play for the Rays, would you?
Father: With a first-rate cerebral computer like yours? Son-unit, the Orlando Billy Beanes signed you out of the womb.
[Exeunt. A mechanical Joe Morgan akin to one of those animatronic talking Presidents at Disney waves as they pass. He starts to cry, suggesting even the simplest of automatons is capable of human emotion.]
Exercise in cheesy b-grade social science fiction aside, I'm pretty sure there's nothing the Rays can do to tarnish Bonds's baseball reputation. I'm pretty sure Barry already beat them to that one.
But we're not talking about finding a new home for Bonds. We're talking about how his name snaps us to attention and propels us toward crank-addled speculative pieces about where he should go, where he should bat, where his lawyers can reach him in an in-game emergency.
Are you sure we're talking about "how" this happens? Because I haven't read you discussing "crank-addled speculative pieces" so much as "writing a crank-addled speculative piece."
Also...did Ray Ratto just admit he does crank? Fuck man, that explains the crazy headshots. Dude was fucking torqued the whole time.
The story must be advanced, even if it advances only from "could" to "might."
Wait, there's a story here? Could have fooled me...
And Monday showed that we've still got it. A big knee-jerk media win, this, and we're all heading for your homes to take a victory lap through your hydrangea plants and your koi ponds.
Sorry man, I had to let Leonard Maltin eat my hydrangea plants after he guessed all the technical Oscars correctly. The guy just loves the taste of the Azores. You can still have your lap through the koi ponds, though. Leonard says carp disagrees with him.
Also - and I realize Ray's writing to those ultra-liberal frosted-over-hippie heroin addicts in San Fran - but what the hell was that paragraph supposed to mean? How did the media "win"? Who were they competing against? Their readers? Is he tacitly admitting this is all a big exercise in just how much bullshit he and his colleagues can possibly peddle before any of us yokels get wise? Simply put...just how big of a dick is Ray Ratto?
This is the gift of Bonds in repose. We can't see him or hear him, but we don't need him any more to divine his future. We know the Giants don't want him, and we are pretty sure the A's won't sign him (although you never know when W.L. Beane will get a wild hair up his beezer). We also apparently can scratch the Cardinals, despite La Russa's silver-tongued wizardry.
W.L. Beane? You mean Billy Beane's son and partner, W.L. Beane? You do realize Beane's a family man and the A's are a family business, right? Man, There Will Be Blood references never get old. Not like Brokeback references, that's for sure.
Also, between the silver tongue and the apparent hypnosis abilities, Tony La Russa sounds like he's taking the final few steps to becoming a full-fledged supervillain. We'll know for sure when he starts randomly explaining to Lou Pineilla his incredibly complicated strategy for victory when the Cards are beating the Cubs 8-1. Of course, since in baseball managerial strategy doesn't count for shit, this won't mean anything, but that would still be vintage supervillain. Vintage La Russa, too, soon enough.
That still leaves 27 other teams, plus the 12 Japanese teams. We don't see him working the Mexican Leagues or the Caribbean, but if Raul Castro has an opinion about him becoming a Villa Clara Orange Grower in the next few weeks, we're keen to know.
Much more interesting: what if Bonds went to play baseball in Taiwan? That's vaguely more possible than Cuba (in the sense that Cuba is totally impossible whereas Taiwan is just basically impossible) and due to that pesky One-China Policy, there's no extradition from there.
So what if Bonds fled to Taiwan, started cranking out fifty homers a year over there until he was fifty-five, and held a daily press conference where he gleefully reiterated how many steroids he used to do and how much he loves lying to grand juries? Bonds is totally crazy enough to do something like that, and it'd pretty much be the most awesome thing to ever happen.
After all, his perjury and obstruction trial is moving at the expectedly glacial pace. The latest argument is about whether a typographical error was an accident, or an act so monstrously prejudicial that he cannot hope to have a fair trial in this solar system.
You know, they've got a hell of a judicial system on Neptune. I'm just saying.
That will be adjudicated ... well, presumably before the judge retires.
This isn't really about Ray Ratto, but I'm not sure I'd take that bet. That's a little worrisome.
Secondly, the Roger Clemens self-immolation saga is going to take some time before it runs its course. The latest development - that the Congressional committee that supervised his public trouser-drop two weeks ago is going to urge the Justice Department to get nasty with him - has its obvious fascinations.
So your argument is, "We shouldn't write endless, repetitive articles about Barry Bonds because we could be writing endless, repetitive articles about Roger Clemens." The logic's airtight, I'll give it that much.
Thirdly, regular old spring training cannot sustain our prurience in these hyper-nutty days. For the same reason that we can be diverted from the real outrage of performance-enhancing drugs (they're illegal, they're obtained without any guarantee of purity of efficacy, and they're often administered in germ-enriched environments), we can be entranced by names.
Wait, we get entranced by names because "they're illegal, they're obtained without any guarantee of purity of efficacy, and they're often administered in germ-enriched environments"? I admit I'm starting to hallucinate a little...but that doesn't sound right.
And who has a bigger name than Barry Bonds? And no, Roger Clemens' playing days really are done.
What, calling A-Rod a tranny-loving choker isn't famous enough for you? Fucking elitist.
So Tony La Russa scratched our itch. Then Joe Maddon did, much to the consternation of Fast Andy Friedman. And of course, Jeff Borris played his occasional game of Whack-a-Mole.
No one has ever before and no one ever will again call Andy Friedman "Fast Andy Friedman." Ladies and gentlemen, we have just witnessed a unique moment in the cosmos. Hope you enjoyed it.
Also, how is Whack-a-Mole at all the right game to convey what Jeff Borris is up to? Unless he's hitting Tony La Russa with a mallet, in which case I'm completely on board. And willing to help.
So whatever else happens with Barry Bonds' baseball career, at least we know we're still on our Pavlovian game - such as it is.
Classy reference to end there, Ray. Shame about the rest of the article, but still.
Well, that's this post done. I think I'll just ring my "post is done" bell...wait, Ray, why are you drooling and slobbering like that? Ray, dude, I don't have any steaks. Please stop looking at me like that, Ray. Seriously man, your eyes are crazy.
Aw shit...
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Chipper Jones is so close, yet so far...
I'll finish my recent little run with that vaguely promised post about Chipper Jones and Buster Olney. It isn't anything too crazy, but I said I'd write about it and I need to recharge for my next couple of big posts. Here we go...
So anyway, Chipper Jones almost understands how baseball works, as seen in this blog entry by Buster Olney, a man who sure knows how to dump a link.
Some players don't like to make numerical goals, but Chipper Jones came to the Braves' camp with a specific number in mind: One hundred fifty.
That's how many games he intends to play in this year, and considering that he once played in 153 or more games in eight consecutive years, this might seem absolutely reasonable, almost a given. But Jones turns 36 on April 24, and 150 is about the number of games he's missed over the last four seasons -- 158, to be precise.
I'm probably just being paranoid, but I always get nervous when sportswriters throw tons of numbers around, none of which happen to be stats. Games played, years old, date of the year...none of these are baseball statistics, and yet all are numbers, which is something the SABR-chip Voros McCracken implanted in my cerebral cortex can't quite grapple with. I'm especially wary of the "[X random stat] in [Y consecutive seasons]." All I'm saying is, I'm raising the alert level. Let's see how the rest of this goes.
He thinks back on his injuries last season and believes their freakish nature is not something that he could've helped; there was nothing he really could've done differently, in a year in which he missed 28 games. But Jones knows how important his presence is in a relatively young Atlanta lineup and he is devoted to the idea of playing in 150 games.
Right, because Chipper posted a 10.5 WARP-3 and a .339 EQA last year in 134 games. The WARP-3 is a spike from previous years, even accounting for injuries, but he had a tremendous 2007 campaign and will give tons of value to the Braves lineup if he even approaches that previous work. Not sure what PECOTA thinks of him (I'm between subscriptions with Baseball Prospectus at the moment), but the main value Chipper will add is his value of being good at baseball.
So how do you hope to avoid injuries this year, Chipper?
He hasn't prepared any differently for this season. He didn't bulk up or slim down. He is just locked in on the number: 150. "I think it's just a mind-set, to be honest with you. It's a long, hard marathon. You've almost got to treat it like your basic 9-to-5 desk job. You've got to wake up every morning and you've got to go do it. You just stay focused on one game at a time, and before you know it, the season is over.
I don't have a 9-to-5 desk job, unless you count surfing the web between 9:00 PM and 5:00 AM every night to see whether any sizzling sex tapes (or, even better, late night Deadspin posts) have hit the series of tubes. But even so, I think playing professional sports is slightly different from your standard 9-to-5 job. For one thing, I don't think most office workers talk about "taking things one collation at a time." For another, you're unlikely to be drilled by a baseball traveling upwards of a 100mph in most offices. And if you are...that's sort of an awesome office. Where should I forward my resume?
"Not to sound brash, but we need me in the lineup to be successful offensively. I've got to be healthy."
Dude, you were worth 10 wins last year all by yourself. That's not brash at all.
"That being said, for me to be successful, Tex [Mark Teixeira] needs to stay healthy."
He was worth a combined 7.1 WARP-3 splitting time between Texas and Atlanta, so he's definitely really good. But you realize most of your play is dependent on...well...your play, right? Tex isn't coming into the batter's box with you, you know. And I know the presence of Teixeira might force pitchers to throw to Chipper more, but I'm guessing that isn't tremendously significant. The point is that I'm pretty sure Chipper is completely missing the point, which is a shame because he's legitimately pretty awesome.
"It just seems that when I'm not in there, too many people have to hit out of their comfort zone, in a different place in the order, and we just don't have the same fluidity in the lineup."
Well, they're also faced with playing in a lineup without a dude who is worth ten wins. If by "fluidity", you mean "ten wins", then yes, yes there are problems with fluidity in a sans-Chipper lineup.
C'mon, dude! You're no Erstad or Eckstein! Don't sell yourself short by talking about weird bullshit like "comfort zones" and "fluidity." Talk about VORP and MLVr and OPS+ like you know you desperately want to. All the cool kids are doing it.
His physical problems the last two years came on odd plays, weird plays.
"I flipped over a third baseman in Pittsburgh last year and it cost me a month," Jones recalls. "The year before, I slipped on a wet track in San Francisco and I missed a month. Those things, you can't help. It's not like you've got a torn oblique, or a chronic hamstring thing. People can say 'Your body is breaking down.' It's not breaking down. I've run into a couple of freak plays that I'll just have to try to avoid this year."
Right...but there's really no way to do that. That's why they're freak plays. Shit happens.
He acknowledges in his next breath, however, that there's really no way to do that. Stuff happens.
Thanks for agreeing with me there, Chipper, though you could have at least changed a few words around so that the plagiarism isn't quite so blatant. Also, feel free to swear; ten-win dudes get to cuss a little. We've come a long way since 1898, you know.
Also, why is this article being written? I haven't noticed a more substantiative point than "Chipper Jones is good" and "The Braves would benefit if Chipper Jones was healthy."
Jones had one of the best seasons of his career in 2007, in many respects. A .425 on-base percentage. An OPS of 1.029, his third-highest ever.
Good, good. These are great stats that really illustrate his value.
His ninth season of more than 100 RBI.
For the love of fuck, Buster...
The second time that a pitcher worked through the Atlanta lineup, he hit .380; in those instances when pitchers faced him a third time in a game, he hit a staggering .412.
WHAT!? That's seriously a stat you're going to quote? I mean, it's awesome and all and cool in a "Hey I'm Jayson Stark here are some weird stats I noticed" sort of way, but please don't use them as some sort of evidence of Chipper's real value. Those are pretty much the definition of non-repeatable skills.
But this success only magnified his own angst about missing 28 games last year.
It is extremely frustrating, "especially when your teammates express to you on a daily basis how much you're needed, and they get to the point where they come out to the press and say how much you're needed."
Bunch of fucking crybabies, those Braves. Of course, that total bust Jeff Francoeur is twelve-years-old and possibly French, so I'm not surprised.
But lest there be any doubt: He is needed, as someone who can be the difference between the Braves having a good lineup and having an exceptional lineup.
Right. Ten wins worth. That's it.
I know they mostly eschewed any talk of intangibles, but I'm super-paranoid at the moment. Also, I think Buster and Chipper can be saved from the twin demons of hustle and grittiness, so I'm willing to make the extra effort. And by "extra effort", I mean "make a mountain out of a molehill" and "say 'fuck' a lot." Because I care.
So anyway, Chipper Jones almost understands how baseball works, as seen in this blog entry by Buster Olney, a man who sure knows how to dump a link.
Some players don't like to make numerical goals, but Chipper Jones came to the Braves' camp with a specific number in mind: One hundred fifty.
That's how many games he intends to play in this year, and considering that he once played in 153 or more games in eight consecutive years, this might seem absolutely reasonable, almost a given. But Jones turns 36 on April 24, and 150 is about the number of games he's missed over the last four seasons -- 158, to be precise.
I'm probably just being paranoid, but I always get nervous when sportswriters throw tons of numbers around, none of which happen to be stats. Games played, years old, date of the year...none of these are baseball statistics, and yet all are numbers, which is something the SABR-chip Voros McCracken implanted in my cerebral cortex can't quite grapple with. I'm especially wary of the "[X random stat] in [Y consecutive seasons]." All I'm saying is, I'm raising the alert level. Let's see how the rest of this goes.
He thinks back on his injuries last season and believes their freakish nature is not something that he could've helped; there was nothing he really could've done differently, in a year in which he missed 28 games. But Jones knows how important his presence is in a relatively young Atlanta lineup and he is devoted to the idea of playing in 150 games.
Right, because Chipper posted a 10.5 WARP-3 and a .339 EQA last year in 134 games. The WARP-3 is a spike from previous years, even accounting for injuries, but he had a tremendous 2007 campaign and will give tons of value to the Braves lineup if he even approaches that previous work. Not sure what PECOTA thinks of him (I'm between subscriptions with Baseball Prospectus at the moment), but the main value Chipper will add is his value of being good at baseball.
So how do you hope to avoid injuries this year, Chipper?
He hasn't prepared any differently for this season. He didn't bulk up or slim down. He is just locked in on the number: 150. "I think it's just a mind-set, to be honest with you. It's a long, hard marathon. You've almost got to treat it like your basic 9-to-5 desk job. You've got to wake up every morning and you've got to go do it. You just stay focused on one game at a time, and before you know it, the season is over.
I don't have a 9-to-5 desk job, unless you count surfing the web between 9:00 PM and 5:00 AM every night to see whether any sizzling sex tapes (or, even better, late night Deadspin posts) have hit the series of tubes. But even so, I think playing professional sports is slightly different from your standard 9-to-5 job. For one thing, I don't think most office workers talk about "taking things one collation at a time." For another, you're unlikely to be drilled by a baseball traveling upwards of a 100mph in most offices. And if you are...that's sort of an awesome office. Where should I forward my resume?
"Not to sound brash, but we need me in the lineup to be successful offensively. I've got to be healthy."
Dude, you were worth 10 wins last year all by yourself. That's not brash at all.
"That being said, for me to be successful, Tex [Mark Teixeira] needs to stay healthy."
He was worth a combined 7.1 WARP-3 splitting time between Texas and Atlanta, so he's definitely really good. But you realize most of your play is dependent on...well...your play, right? Tex isn't coming into the batter's box with you, you know. And I know the presence of Teixeira might force pitchers to throw to Chipper more, but I'm guessing that isn't tremendously significant. The point is that I'm pretty sure Chipper is completely missing the point, which is a shame because he's legitimately pretty awesome.
"It just seems that when I'm not in there, too many people have to hit out of their comfort zone, in a different place in the order, and we just don't have the same fluidity in the lineup."
Well, they're also faced with playing in a lineup without a dude who is worth ten wins. If by "fluidity", you mean "ten wins", then yes, yes there are problems with fluidity in a sans-Chipper lineup.
C'mon, dude! You're no Erstad or Eckstein! Don't sell yourself short by talking about weird bullshit like "comfort zones" and "fluidity." Talk about VORP and MLVr and OPS+ like you know you desperately want to. All the cool kids are doing it.
His physical problems the last two years came on odd plays, weird plays.
"I flipped over a third baseman in Pittsburgh last year and it cost me a month," Jones recalls. "The year before, I slipped on a wet track in San Francisco and I missed a month. Those things, you can't help. It's not like you've got a torn oblique, or a chronic hamstring thing. People can say 'Your body is breaking down.' It's not breaking down. I've run into a couple of freak plays that I'll just have to try to avoid this year."
Right...but there's really no way to do that. That's why they're freak plays. Shit happens.
He acknowledges in his next breath, however, that there's really no way to do that. Stuff happens.
Thanks for agreeing with me there, Chipper, though you could have at least changed a few words around so that the plagiarism isn't quite so blatant. Also, feel free to swear; ten-win dudes get to cuss a little. We've come a long way since 1898, you know.
Also, why is this article being written? I haven't noticed a more substantiative point than "Chipper Jones is good" and "The Braves would benefit if Chipper Jones was healthy."
Jones had one of the best seasons of his career in 2007, in many respects. A .425 on-base percentage. An OPS of 1.029, his third-highest ever.
Good, good. These are great stats that really illustrate his value.
His ninth season of more than 100 RBI.
For the love of fuck, Buster...
The second time that a pitcher worked through the Atlanta lineup, he hit .380; in those instances when pitchers faced him a third time in a game, he hit a staggering .412.
WHAT!? That's seriously a stat you're going to quote? I mean, it's awesome and all and cool in a "Hey I'm Jayson Stark here are some weird stats I noticed" sort of way, but please don't use them as some sort of evidence of Chipper's real value. Those are pretty much the definition of non-repeatable skills.
But this success only magnified his own angst about missing 28 games last year.
It is extremely frustrating, "especially when your teammates express to you on a daily basis how much you're needed, and they get to the point where they come out to the press and say how much you're needed."
Bunch of fucking crybabies, those Braves. Of course, that total bust Jeff Francoeur is twelve-years-old and possibly French, so I'm not surprised.
But lest there be any doubt: He is needed, as someone who can be the difference between the Braves having a good lineup and having an exceptional lineup.
Right. Ten wins worth. That's it.
I know they mostly eschewed any talk of intangibles, but I'm super-paranoid at the moment. Also, I think Buster and Chipper can be saved from the twin demons of hustle and grittiness, so I'm willing to make the extra effort. And by "extra effort", I mean "make a mountain out of a molehill" and "say 'fuck' a lot." Because I care.
And now, for a little sense, I look to you...Scoop Jackson!?
After taking what amounted to two consecutive rage dumps on the swirling hurricanes of assclownage that are Mike Lupica and Mitch Albom, I need a chaser. Something to calm me down. Something I find a little silly, but don't utterly disagree with. Who better to do that than...Scoop Jackson? Really? Well, I'll try anything once.
Kelvin Sampson, stay strong. So what, they have phone records. So what, they say you gave "false and misleading information" to investigators. Five major violations committed … more infractions pending … it means nothing. Because none of it is true. To you.
Ah, so the point of this column is to criticize Kelvin Sampson's actions by satirically taking his side? Not a bad idea, although it seems a little complicated for a man who doesn't understand what plagiarism is, but what the hell.
"The allegations that I knowingly acted contrary to the sanctions that occurred are not true," you said. "I have never intentionally provided false or misleading information to the NCAA. I intend to work within the NCAA process on this matter, and I look forward to my opportunity to do so." You, Kelvin, are my newest hero. I too have "KS" on my adidas.
Not bad, I guess. At least you're directly addressing Kelvin in a consistent manner. Although if you keep that up for an entire article, it might get a little irritating. Don't you think so, Scoop? Hmm? You?
There's an old saying: Self-incrimination is for suckas.
Uh...no there isn't. Googling that phrase brings up three hits, all of which link back to that article. Substituting the more formal "suckers" in there only produces a link to an article by a dude called Andrew Snyder for, of all things, the Taipan Financial News. As much as I know Scoop is a daily reader of the premium web content put out by "the world's top financial network" (which somehow doesn't have a Wikipedia page), I don't know if that's quite enough to call it an "old saying." That article was only written on February 15 of last year, you know.
The best Wikiquote can dredge up is this pithy adage from playwright Lillian Hellman in a letter she wrote in 1952 to the House Committee on Un-American Activities:
I am prepared to waive the privilege against self-incrimination and to tell you everything you wish to know about my views or actions if your committee will agree to refrain from asking me to name other people. If the committee is unwilling to give me this assurance, I will be forced to plead the privilege of the fifth amendment at the hearing.
Oh, and deleting the "suckas" entirely only gives seven hits for "self-incrimination is for", two of which are just Scoop's article and the rest are mostly just legal advice. Scoop, you were doing so well...why do you have to just flagrantly make shit up?
Only those who are weak in mind -- ridden with guilt, thanks to a strong moral compass -- confess to a sin (or something the general public considers a sin) they've "apparently" committed.
So wait, is it really a sin, or just a public sin? That's kind of a big difference. Does it matter then whether Kelvin Sampson is lying or just honestly believes he hasn't done anything wrong? Are you talking about morality or public relations? I mean, I don't think you're particularly qualified to discuss either, but I like to know what I'm criticizing you for.
As the evidence stacks up, when the feds show up, "suckas" begin to break. Cracks appear in their psyches. News conferences become confessionals, cameras and tape recorders the priests.
Except of course news conferences are nothing like confessionals because they're inherently not a private conversation between two individuals (and God, if you're counting him). Also, cracks in the psyche? Does that make sense? Shouldn't it be cracks in the armor, maybe, or cracks in the facade? You know, the fake stuff that you're putting up to protect you from people discovering your real nature? I'm honestly just confused.
And while we're talking about hack writing (and when aren't we?), one of my pet peeves is when a writer comes up with some dumb concept - in this case, the almost impossibly lazy "suckas" - and starts using it throughout the article like it's some universal term that's always appropriate to use in these situations. I'm pretty sure the English language is big enough for you to find one word that actually describes what you're thinking about without require quotation marks. What about...I don't know...suckers?
Victim: "I made a mistake. I'm sorry for what I did. I want to apologize to my family, my friends, my fans and the organization. I let a lot of people down. And to all of the kids out there, this is not the message that I want to send out. I'm not the hero you made me out to be. I'm only human …"
Blah … blah … blah. Sucka.
How is that person the victim? Isn't that person the perpetrator? I mean, satire's satire, Scoop, so I'm cutting you some slack, but I don't think "victim" makes sense there from almost any perspective. At least put "sucka" there so that you stay mildly consistent.
The other day, according to the New York Daily News, a photograph surfaced of Roger Clemens at the infamous party at Jose Canseco's house that Clemens and many others insisted he did not attend. For many people, this would be the perjury breaker, the smoking gun that puts a hole in your credibility the size of a Siberian diamond mine. That's if this were any other athlete. But this is Roger Clemens, the American hero who's turned denial into an art form.
I really thought Scoop was just making shit up with the "Siberian diamond mine" reference, but it turns out he's absolutely right. So it's not wrong, just a tremendously mixed metaphor that's needlessly faux-poetic. Eh, I guess that's not too big a deal.
Also, has Clemens really turned lying into an art form? I think everyone tends to feel his excuses have been pretty lame and really have only worked to delay the inevitable. Face it...Roger Clemens is hardly the Roger Clemens of lying. I'd say he's more the Odalis Perez of lying, especially when he stopped buying tickets for inner city kids to attend congressional hearings when it turned out the House wasn't planning on calling him again.
In this era of professional sports figures publicly pleading guilty to crimes they haven't been caught committing, it's so refreshing to see guys like Sampson and Clemens admit to nothing. Sure, Andy Pettitte came off like some sort of saint, and people are looking at his moral fiber as something we all need to incorporate into our daily diet. But, truth be told, Clemens should be given an Oscar for his acrimonious and hostile defense of self.
Not bad joke with the "moral fiber" thing. Not good, of course, but hey...not bad. And I'm sorry, if we're planning on giving an Oscar to people for "acrimonious and hostile defense of self", I'm pretty sure the list has to begin and end with Marion Barry:
Now THAT'S how a real man lies.
Lately, and particularly in sports, the art of self-exoneration has become as trendy as facial hair and Derek Lam sunglasses.
Oh Scoop. You and your fashion sense. I think it's worth point out googling the words "derek lam sunglasses baseball" brings up Scoop's article as the number one result. So yeah...I think he's really onto something there.
Barry Bonds, Bill Belichick, Miguel Tejada, Lance Armstrong, Michael Vick (until he had no choice), Pete Rose (who held on for a historic amount of time), Marion Jones (again, held out until the end), Floyd Landis, Rafael Palmeiro -- even beyond sports, look at how John McCain stood his ground defiantly last week when The New York Times reported a possible improper relationship between him and a female lobbyist.
This just in: Scoop Jackson, Mike Huckabee supporter.
Clemens says Pettitte "misremembers," Belichick says he "misinterpreted," Sampson "never intentionally misled" -- these guys have laid the groundwork for all to follow when the Clay Davis is about to hit the fan or when the men in the windbreakers show up at your front door.
Sweet Wire reference there, Scoop. Not that I've ever gotten around to watching it myself - if I want so see a premium channel show about impossibly corrupt cops, I'll watch Dexter. You know, because I love serial killers (I'm also impossibly white and creepily hunky, much like Michael C. Hall). But thanks to the fine folks at Kissing Suzy Kolber, I do at least sort of get the allusion, so I'll reciprocate with the appropriate video.
Admit to nothing, even if there's a videotape, or friends have turned state's evidence. The manhood rule supersedes all: Self-indictment is for losers. And the No. 1 rule in sports is: Don't be a loser.
I suspect the real number one rule in sports is slightly more homophobic, but what the hell, I'll go with it.
Losers tell the truth. Well, let me rephrase that: Losers admit to the truth when denial is still an option. The duty is to go out like a man. Head up, chest out, deny 'til you die. "It's in man's nature to deny," my great uncle used to tell me as a kid. "Because when you go to the grave, you take those denials and whatever you did wrong with you."
Wait a second...that appeal to authority with your great uncle sounds like it's tacitly supporting what Clemens and Bonds are up to. Have you been serious this entire time, Scoop? Nah, there's no way. Is there?
Incidentally, Scoop, when I can't tell what your actual stance is two-thirds into your article...you may need to work on your writing a little. Maybe a wee bit.
We as a nation should take pride in how Bonds has stuck with his "flaxseed oil" testimony. We should applaud Landis for his Jack Daniels regimen. Forget being like Mike. Be like Clemens: When in doubt, assign blame elsewhere.
Or, we could actually be, you know, like Mike, who has somehow managed to never publicly get into lasting trouble for what apparently is a pretty heavy-duty gambling problem, despite the fact that many conspiracy nuts think he was secretly suspended for two seasons. There's also the fact that he has probably ordered Charles Oakley to kill people.
Actually, Scoop, why the hell aren't you writing this about how people like Jordan are truly invulnerable to any accusations of anything? Why are you praising the lying skills of a fired coach and a dude who will likely be indicted for perjury?
Blame your wife, throw her under the bus.
I'm pretty sure that'd just destroy the bus.
Go to lengths unseen outside of an episode of "The Maury Show."
And since I haven't seen an episode of The Maury Show, looks like I'm shit out of luck to even comprehend how far Clemens has gone. Shame...I was really looking forward to understanding that.
Damn immunity. Show no fear. Get your "KS" on. That's what the great ones do. They stay true … to self only.
You realize it was the Indiana players who got their "KS" on, right? You can't just turn that into some bizarre turn-of-phrase. Well, you can, and you did, but that doesn't make it right.
It's true, players like Canseco opened up the door for the dirty truth in sports to come out the way it has the past few years. And yes, everyone who told the truth regarding the Mitchell report should be commended for possibly being the catalysts for cleaning up all of sports.
But Canseco's a sucka.
Canseco wrote a bestselling book, got hailed as a whistleblower (admittedly, he mostly got hailed by idiots), and put himself back in the news years after his publicity expiration date. He may be a "sucka", but I'm not so sure he's a sucker. An idiot, yes. But a sucker?
It's real men like Clemens and Sampson who know that in sports, staying sucka-free is vital, and when choosing between telling the truth and dying in denial … choose death.
If by death, you mean being the assistant coach at a low level D-1 program until you can work yourself back up...then yes, Kelvin will be choosing death. And as for Roger...well, I don't think he'll be doing anything drastic anytime soon.
But thanks Scoop - you may be a little weird, but you're no Albom and you're certainly no Lupica. Thank you, Scoop, thank you, for restoring my faith that sports journalism can merely be bad instead of offensively terrible. I don't know how I'll ever repay you.
Kelvin Sampson, stay strong. So what, they have phone records. So what, they say you gave "false and misleading information" to investigators. Five major violations committed … more infractions pending … it means nothing. Because none of it is true. To you.
Ah, so the point of this column is to criticize Kelvin Sampson's actions by satirically taking his side? Not a bad idea, although it seems a little complicated for a man who doesn't understand what plagiarism is, but what the hell.
"The allegations that I knowingly acted contrary to the sanctions that occurred are not true," you said. "I have never intentionally provided false or misleading information to the NCAA. I intend to work within the NCAA process on this matter, and I look forward to my opportunity to do so." You, Kelvin, are my newest hero. I too have "KS" on my adidas.
Not bad, I guess. At least you're directly addressing Kelvin in a consistent manner. Although if you keep that up for an entire article, it might get a little irritating. Don't you think so, Scoop? Hmm? You?
There's an old saying: Self-incrimination is for suckas.
Uh...no there isn't. Googling that phrase brings up three hits, all of which link back to that article. Substituting the more formal "suckers" in there only produces a link to an article by a dude called Andrew Snyder for, of all things, the Taipan Financial News. As much as I know Scoop is a daily reader of the premium web content put out by "the world's top financial network" (which somehow doesn't have a Wikipedia page), I don't know if that's quite enough to call it an "old saying." That article was only written on February 15 of last year, you know.
The best Wikiquote can dredge up is this pithy adage from playwright Lillian Hellman in a letter she wrote in 1952 to the House Committee on Un-American Activities:
I am prepared to waive the privilege against self-incrimination and to tell you everything you wish to know about my views or actions if your committee will agree to refrain from asking me to name other people. If the committee is unwilling to give me this assurance, I will be forced to plead the privilege of the fifth amendment at the hearing.
Oh, and deleting the "suckas" entirely only gives seven hits for "self-incrimination is for", two of which are just Scoop's article and the rest are mostly just legal advice. Scoop, you were doing so well...why do you have to just flagrantly make shit up?
Only those who are weak in mind -- ridden with guilt, thanks to a strong moral compass -- confess to a sin (or something the general public considers a sin) they've "apparently" committed.
So wait, is it really a sin, or just a public sin? That's kind of a big difference. Does it matter then whether Kelvin Sampson is lying or just honestly believes he hasn't done anything wrong? Are you talking about morality or public relations? I mean, I don't think you're particularly qualified to discuss either, but I like to know what I'm criticizing you for.
As the evidence stacks up, when the feds show up, "suckas" begin to break. Cracks appear in their psyches. News conferences become confessionals, cameras and tape recorders the priests.
Except of course news conferences are nothing like confessionals because they're inherently not a private conversation between two individuals (and God, if you're counting him). Also, cracks in the psyche? Does that make sense? Shouldn't it be cracks in the armor, maybe, or cracks in the facade? You know, the fake stuff that you're putting up to protect you from people discovering your real nature? I'm honestly just confused.
And while we're talking about hack writing (and when aren't we?), one of my pet peeves is when a writer comes up with some dumb concept - in this case, the almost impossibly lazy "suckas" - and starts using it throughout the article like it's some universal term that's always appropriate to use in these situations. I'm pretty sure the English language is big enough for you to find one word that actually describes what you're thinking about without require quotation marks. What about...I don't know...suckers?
Victim: "I made a mistake. I'm sorry for what I did. I want to apologize to my family, my friends, my fans and the organization. I let a lot of people down. And to all of the kids out there, this is not the message that I want to send out. I'm not the hero you made me out to be. I'm only human …"
Blah … blah … blah. Sucka.
How is that person the victim? Isn't that person the perpetrator? I mean, satire's satire, Scoop, so I'm cutting you some slack, but I don't think "victim" makes sense there from almost any perspective. At least put "sucka" there so that you stay mildly consistent.
The other day, according to the New York Daily News, a photograph surfaced of Roger Clemens at the infamous party at Jose Canseco's house that Clemens and many others insisted he did not attend. For many people, this would be the perjury breaker, the smoking gun that puts a hole in your credibility the size of a Siberian diamond mine. That's if this were any other athlete. But this is Roger Clemens, the American hero who's turned denial into an art form.
I really thought Scoop was just making shit up with the "Siberian diamond mine" reference, but it turns out he's absolutely right. So it's not wrong, just a tremendously mixed metaphor that's needlessly faux-poetic. Eh, I guess that's not too big a deal.
Also, has Clemens really turned lying into an art form? I think everyone tends to feel his excuses have been pretty lame and really have only worked to delay the inevitable. Face it...Roger Clemens is hardly the Roger Clemens of lying. I'd say he's more the Odalis Perez of lying, especially when he stopped buying tickets for inner city kids to attend congressional hearings when it turned out the House wasn't planning on calling him again.
In this era of professional sports figures publicly pleading guilty to crimes they haven't been caught committing, it's so refreshing to see guys like Sampson and Clemens admit to nothing. Sure, Andy Pettitte came off like some sort of saint, and people are looking at his moral fiber as something we all need to incorporate into our daily diet. But, truth be told, Clemens should be given an Oscar for his acrimonious and hostile defense of self.
Not bad joke with the "moral fiber" thing. Not good, of course, but hey...not bad. And I'm sorry, if we're planning on giving an Oscar to people for "acrimonious and hostile defense of self", I'm pretty sure the list has to begin and end with Marion Barry:
Now THAT'S how a real man lies.
Lately, and particularly in sports, the art of self-exoneration has become as trendy as facial hair and Derek Lam sunglasses.
Oh Scoop. You and your fashion sense. I think it's worth point out googling the words "derek lam sunglasses baseball" brings up Scoop's article as the number one result. So yeah...I think he's really onto something there.
Barry Bonds, Bill Belichick, Miguel Tejada, Lance Armstrong, Michael Vick (until he had no choice), Pete Rose (who held on for a historic amount of time), Marion Jones (again, held out until the end), Floyd Landis, Rafael Palmeiro -- even beyond sports, look at how John McCain stood his ground defiantly last week when The New York Times reported a possible improper relationship between him and a female lobbyist.
This just in: Scoop Jackson, Mike Huckabee supporter.
Clemens says Pettitte "misremembers," Belichick says he "misinterpreted," Sampson "never intentionally misled" -- these guys have laid the groundwork for all to follow when the Clay Davis is about to hit the fan or when the men in the windbreakers show up at your front door.
Sweet Wire reference there, Scoop. Not that I've ever gotten around to watching it myself - if I want so see a premium channel show about impossibly corrupt cops, I'll watch Dexter. You know, because I love serial killers (I'm also impossibly white and creepily hunky, much like Michael C. Hall). But thanks to the fine folks at Kissing Suzy Kolber, I do at least sort of get the allusion, so I'll reciprocate with the appropriate video.
Admit to nothing, even if there's a videotape, or friends have turned state's evidence. The manhood rule supersedes all: Self-indictment is for losers. And the No. 1 rule in sports is: Don't be a loser.
I suspect the real number one rule in sports is slightly more homophobic, but what the hell, I'll go with it.
Losers tell the truth. Well, let me rephrase that: Losers admit to the truth when denial is still an option. The duty is to go out like a man. Head up, chest out, deny 'til you die. "It's in man's nature to deny," my great uncle used to tell me as a kid. "Because when you go to the grave, you take those denials and whatever you did wrong with you."
Wait a second...that appeal to authority with your great uncle sounds like it's tacitly supporting what Clemens and Bonds are up to. Have you been serious this entire time, Scoop? Nah, there's no way. Is there?
Incidentally, Scoop, when I can't tell what your actual stance is two-thirds into your article...you may need to work on your writing a little. Maybe a wee bit.
We as a nation should take pride in how Bonds has stuck with his "flaxseed oil" testimony. We should applaud Landis for his Jack Daniels regimen. Forget being like Mike. Be like Clemens: When in doubt, assign blame elsewhere.
Or, we could actually be, you know, like Mike, who has somehow managed to never publicly get into lasting trouble for what apparently is a pretty heavy-duty gambling problem, despite the fact that many conspiracy nuts think he was secretly suspended for two seasons. There's also the fact that he has probably ordered Charles Oakley to kill people.
Actually, Scoop, why the hell aren't you writing this about how people like Jordan are truly invulnerable to any accusations of anything? Why are you praising the lying skills of a fired coach and a dude who will likely be indicted for perjury?
Blame your wife, throw her under the bus.
I'm pretty sure that'd just destroy the bus.
Go to lengths unseen outside of an episode of "The Maury Show."
And since I haven't seen an episode of The Maury Show, looks like I'm shit out of luck to even comprehend how far Clemens has gone. Shame...I was really looking forward to understanding that.
Damn immunity. Show no fear. Get your "KS" on. That's what the great ones do. They stay true … to self only.
You realize it was the Indiana players who got their "KS" on, right? You can't just turn that into some bizarre turn-of-phrase. Well, you can, and you did, but that doesn't make it right.
It's true, players like Canseco opened up the door for the dirty truth in sports to come out the way it has the past few years. And yes, everyone who told the truth regarding the Mitchell report should be commended for possibly being the catalysts for cleaning up all of sports.
But Canseco's a sucka.
Canseco wrote a bestselling book, got hailed as a whistleblower (admittedly, he mostly got hailed by idiots), and put himself back in the news years after his publicity expiration date. He may be a "sucka", but I'm not so sure he's a sucker. An idiot, yes. But a sucker?
It's real men like Clemens and Sampson who know that in sports, staying sucka-free is vital, and when choosing between telling the truth and dying in denial … choose death.
If by death, you mean being the assistant coach at a low level D-1 program until you can work yourself back up...then yes, Kelvin will be choosing death. And as for Roger...well, I don't think he'll be doing anything drastic anytime soon.
But thanks Scoop - you may be a little weird, but you're no Albom and you're certainly no Lupica. Thank you, Scoop, thank you, for restoring my faith that sports journalism can merely be bad instead of offensively terrible. I don't know how I'll ever repay you.
I'd follow Mitch Albom anywhere no matter how off-topic...
You remember how I said I wasn't going to write a post about Jason Whitlock's thoughts on the Oscars? Turns out I was just thinking of the wrong Sports Reporter.
I'm not going to watch the Oscars tonight.
Good for you...it was pretty boring, as usual, although I think Jon Stewart was pretty good under the circumstances. Of course, I'm a massive Daily Show fan, so I'm biased. I know my beloved fellow poster Djmmm46 (old Djemmie!) hated him, but hey...it's hastily written comedy performed in front of the worst crowd imaginable. Kind of hard to judge.
Normally I do. But I've spent enough time and money on the most depressing, dark and disturbed lineup of movies I ever can remember. I don't need to see them get rewarded.
He's totally right - this year's films were fucking badass. You remember the milkshake scene? C'mon, you fucking remember the milkshake scene.
DRAINAGE!!! Sorry, where was I? Oh yes...
Am I the only one who remembers when they actually gave Oscars to movies that had happy endings?
Hmm, let's see (spoiler alert!)...
2006's The Departed: everyone except Alec Baldwin and Marky Mark gets killed.
2005's Crash: everybody either dies or has their life shattered, final scene is proof that racism will always continue as long as road rage exists ("Speak American!" is the kind of slogan even John Rocker can get behind).
2004's Million Dollar Baby: Clint Eastwood kills somebody and for some strange reason doesn't feel totally awesome about it, which is a definite departure from, well, every other film he's ever made.
2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: I have no idea how this ends...I fell asleep somewhere around the fifth epilogue. Although I heard Frodo got taken to some mystical afterlife bullshit. Kinda bittersweet, if you ask me, even if evil was essentially annihilated.
2002's Chicago: Never seen it, but it basically ends with two murderesses who hate each other getting off scot free. And I'm sure Mitch Albom, a law-and-order kind of guy, would not consider such immorality a happy ending.
2001's A Beautiful Mind: A guy who is crazy ends up being respected and honored but is still basically crazy. This is the closest we've come to a happy ending thus far, and this film prominently involves electroshocking Russell Crowe. Actually, you're starting to talk me into it.
2000's Gladiator: The hero dies and hallucinates about his dead family before he does so. Also the Roman empire is bizarrely abolished two hundred years early in favor of a restored Republic, probably creating some hellish alternate universe where Rome never falls like that one episode of Star Trek. (Yes, I know it was an alien planet, not an alternate universe. As though that somehow makes more sense.)
1999's American Beauty: Kevin Spacey gets shot by a militant homophobe and he never even has sex with Mena Suvari. Now that's a modern tragedy.
1998's Shakespeare in Love: Shakespeare doesn't get the girl as she leaves for a faraway land with a man she doesn't love. It's like Casablanca...with Shakespeare! Somehow, Casablanca plus Shakespeare equals lowest-common-denominate romantic pablum. I hate everything.
1997's Titanic: The ship fucking sinks. This is also the second film on this list where Leonard DiCaprio horribly dies. Not that I'm complaining.
1996's The English Patient: It's apparently a tragedy and Ralph Fiennes dies, I think, so not really a happy ending. Honestly, no one on the internet is willing to give away the ending of this decade-old film. I can see why Elaine hated it so much.
1995's Braveheart: Mel Gibson dies after being horribly tortured, which I'm sure was fun for him but isn't really a happy ending for the audience. Of course, as a Brit, I was rooting for Longshanks the whole time, mostly because he was played by Patrick McGoohan, and nobody fucks with Number Six...
Unfortunately, Sophie Marceau's Princess Isabelle totally messes up King Edward's victory by getting impregnated with William Wallace's child and whispering this news to the King as he dies. So nobody wins...except the French.
1994's Forrest Gump: Jenny dies. NEXT!
1993's Schindler's List: The fact that this might have the happiest ending yet (I mean, Schindler saves as many as he can and redeems himself in the process, and the final scene at the cemetery really illustrates how powerful the good he did really was)...well, that fucking terrifies me.
1992's Unforgiven: Clint seems a little more comfortable with killing everybody, but this film is way too morally ambiguous to have a clearcut happy ending.
1991's Silence of the Lambs: The most dangerous psychopathic cannibal alive escapes and resumes killing people. I don't think so.
1990's Dances with Wolves: The ending is pretty happy, I guess, but the whole "destruction of Native American civilization" thing puts a damper on the proceedings.
1989's Driving Miss Daisy: The movie ends with old people discussing being old. That's the closest we've gotten, considering neither of them are horrifically impaled at the end of the scene.
1988's Rain Man: Tom Cruise is less of an asshole and Dustin Hoffman is still autistic. Is that happy?
1987's The Last Emperor: China goes communist. It'll be a sad day in hell when I call that a happy ending.
Since we've now gotten to before my birth, I feel comfortable saying I don't remember when the Oscars gave the Best Picture award to films with happy endings. For what it's worth, I think you've got to go all the way back to Tom Jones from ninteen-sixty-fucking-three for the last film that goes out of its way to wrap things up happily for pretty much all its characters. Although Rocky has a pretty happy ending, I guess, considering it's a film about a loser.
I can't believe I'm going to keep going after that incredibly long and somewhat pointless exercise, but I've still got some bile to spew at Mitch Albom, so here we are.
There's not one happy ending in this lot -- unless you consider an unplanned teenage pregnancy resulting in someone else's adoption a happy ending. That's the big payoff in "Juno."
Let's see...the adoptive mother was healthy, financially secure, and a committed parent. The pregnancy was traumatic, of course, but Juno's parents were incredibly understanding. Oh, and it ended with Michael Cera and Ellen Page getting together, and I'd gladly switch places with either of them in that relationship. So yeah...pretty happy. Or are you such a black-and-white moralist that any unwed teen who accidentally gets pregnant must be condemned to a hellish existence forever as a punishment? In which case...fuck you, Mitch Albom.
Otherwise, you have "There Will Be Blood," in which a tyrannical oil baron destroys everyone and everything around him; "No Country for Old Men," in which a serial killer destroys everything and everyone around him; "Michael Clayton," in which greed gets nearly everyone killed, and "Atonement," in which a false accusation ruins the lives of all involved.
Um. Remind me again.
Why do we go to the movies?
I think it's to be entertained. You know what I found entertaining? The elemental force of badassery that is Anton Chigurh...
Oh, and I think being thought-provoked and transported elsewhere are legitimate reasons to see movies. Sure, I like the occasional happy film as much as the next guy. It's not as though Enchanted doesn't exist if I really need to be filled with cinematic sugar.
Now, I'm not a Pollyanna. I enjoy films. I collect them. And I understand that not every story ends with music swirling and heroes walking off into a sunset.
No, sometimes it ends with a dude dying from Lou Gehrig's disease while spouting quasi-profound bullshit to some random asshole. And by "random asshole", I of course mean "that specific asshole Mitch Albom."
Seriously, this is one of Morrie's pearls of wisdom: "When you learn how to die, you learn how to live." I'm supposed to be moved and enlightened by that horseshit? The Sphinx from Mystery Men came up with better stuff than that, and even Ben fucking Stiller was able to work out he was just spinning formulaic bullshit. That's right. A Mystery Men reference. Deal with it.
But lately there's this sense that unless a movie is dark, violent and hopeless, it can't be "real." It can't be "art." It can't truly "matter." I put these words in quotes because it feels as if critics and awards committees define things that way.
That's not really fair. Juno and Knocked Up were both critically lauded and pretty upbeat, but of course since they don't show Ellen Page and Katherine Heigl being burnt at the stake or crushed between two rocks for their wanton lust, they can't possibly count. The Great Debaters did reasonably well with critics and highlights a moment of triumph in race relations during a difficult period. Charlie Wilson's War is supposed to be pretty fun. Once is hopeful even if it's a little melancholy. And what about Ratatouille? Or the previously mentioned Enchanted, for that matter?
I mean, I do think there are tons of dark films at the moment, and considering the current cultural milieu, I'm not exactly surprised. But I'll avoid any generalizing pop sociology bullshit of my own and just say that there are plenty of happy movies being made.
So instead of praise for, say, "The Bucket List," a film that everyone I know has loved and which has a positive message about getting old and sick, most critics attacked it as too "sentimental."
Right...because it was kinda cloying and sentimental. But then, you are the Tuesdays with Morrie dipshit, so I guess by your standards The Bucket List was emotionally austere like it was some kind of Erich Rohmer flick.
And anyway, if I want to see Jack Nicholson deal with old age and death, I'll watch About Schmidt, which at least has the common courtesy to throw in some hot Kathy Bates nudity. Ooh mama.
Meanwhile, we get an Oscar nomination for "The Savages," a movie about getting old and sick that is so depressing, you want to jump off a building.
Right...because getting old and sick is often very difficult when you're not a multi-millionaire. This reflects reality and does so in a way that doesn't condescend its audience. Is this a film everyone will want to see? Of course not, and I wouldn't expect them to. But to imply it's somehow not artistically valid? Seriously, dude, fuck the shit off.
Instead of a single nomination for "The Great Debaters," a historic and uplifting film, we get best actor, picture and director nominations for "No Country for Old Men," which sets a record for murders by a man carrying an air tank (which he uses to blow a hole in one victim's head, just so he can have his car).
You're right. That part was pretty awesome.
Here's a news flash: Killing without remorse doesn't make a story art. Cold and cynical dialogue doesn't make a story valuable.
That's true. Shoot 'Em Up obviously isn't art, although it is pretty sweet in a "I can't believe any film is this gleefully dumb" sort of way. It's when these films combine such violence with...oh, I don't know...let's say weirdness, dysfunction, and twisted irony that they become interesting.
It's no accident the films nominated this year, for the most part, didn't do much box office. People don't go to the movies to see weirdness, dysfunction or twisted irony.
Why you gotta go plagiarizing me, Mitch? And anyway, the Oscars is (at least theoretically) about rewarding the most artistically relevant films, not the most popular. The line admittedly gets really blurred and often its choices are total bullshit, which is why I don't particularly care either way about them, but don't blame the Oscars for not picking movies based on your own made-up criteria.
Most go to be entertained.
True. What's your point?
This doesn't mean that "Spider-Man 3" or "Shrek the Third" automatically should get Oscar nominations. But those films, at the top of the box office list last year, do share a good-guys-win ending. There's a reason people gravitate to that.
They also featured lazy pop culture references and a ridiculous emo strut. Also, I'm pretty sure the main reason people went to see these films is because of that "three" in their title. You know, because the original movies were actually pretty good. (Although would it kill movie Spidey to make a wisecrack? Just once?)
And it wasn't always considered beneath the Academy to celebrate it. In 1973, "The Sting" won best picture, and "American Graffiti" and "A Touch of Class" also were nominated. In 1979, "Kramer vs. Kramer" won, and "Breaking Away" and "Norma Rae" were nominated. As late as 1994, "Forrest Gump" took the best picture honors. Today, it's hard to imagine that film would even get nominated. Too many cynics would call it sweet and hopeful.
Dude, Jenny died. From AIDS. Oh, but she was a druggie, so that's OK, right?
And I guess that's what I miss. Hope. If movies were meant to reflect only the real-life worst in us, why would we need them? We could use mirrors.
Certainly true in your case.
Don't misunderstand. I get the skill and patience these actors and directors have put in. I see the hard work, from the writing to the lighting. But the humanity Frank Capra or even Steven Spielberg celebrated is getting buried now, under this desire to explore the dark, the macabre and the dysfunctional.
Have you seen Mr. Smith Goes To Washington? There's a random sequence where the new senator Jefferson Smith reads an article he doesn't like and proceeds to beat up the entire Washington press corps...with no discernible consequences. And this in a film where his opponents are actively looking for any reason to destroy him. It's A Wonderful Life is about a dude who needs an angel to talk him out of committing suicide. Also Arsenic & Old Lace is about old people killing other old people. Face it, Mitch...if Frank Capra were working today, he'd be making No Country for Old Men. Or at least Intolerable Cruelty.
There's a moment in "No Country for Old Men" where Javier Bardem's character is about to cold-bloodedly kill yet another victim when the victim says, "You don't have to do this." And the character chuckles and says, "They always say the same thing."
And he does it anyhow.
Right...it's a statement about his psychosis and twisted moral code and the completely different way in which he views the world from other people. It's a brilliant line perfectly delivered. The fact that "he does it anyhow" is exactly the point, not some gratuitous exploitation.
I guess to the people who keep celebrating the worst of human nature, I would also say, "You don't have to do this." But they're gonna do it anyhow. All I can do is spend the three hours tonight watching something else.
May I suggest Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom's For One More Day, where "a suicidal former baseball player is granted one more day with his deceased mother." It's only two hours long, but I imagine you can spend the other hour working on 2010's surefire smash hit Untitled Mitch Albom/Adam Sandler Project, which I'm sure will be really uplifting and inspirational and also really artistic. How many gay panic jokes has Mr. Sandler requested, by the way?
I'm not going to watch the Oscars tonight.
Good for you...it was pretty boring, as usual, although I think Jon Stewart was pretty good under the circumstances. Of course, I'm a massive Daily Show fan, so I'm biased. I know my beloved fellow poster Djmmm46 (old Djemmie!) hated him, but hey...it's hastily written comedy performed in front of the worst crowd imaginable. Kind of hard to judge.
Normally I do. But I've spent enough time and money on the most depressing, dark and disturbed lineup of movies I ever can remember. I don't need to see them get rewarded.
He's totally right - this year's films were fucking badass. You remember the milkshake scene? C'mon, you fucking remember the milkshake scene.
DRAINAGE!!! Sorry, where was I? Oh yes...
Am I the only one who remembers when they actually gave Oscars to movies that had happy endings?
Hmm, let's see (spoiler alert!)...
2006's The Departed: everyone except Alec Baldwin and Marky Mark gets killed.
2005's Crash: everybody either dies or has their life shattered, final scene is proof that racism will always continue as long as road rage exists ("Speak American!" is the kind of slogan even John Rocker can get behind).
2004's Million Dollar Baby: Clint Eastwood kills somebody and for some strange reason doesn't feel totally awesome about it, which is a definite departure from, well, every other film he's ever made.
2003's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: I have no idea how this ends...I fell asleep somewhere around the fifth epilogue. Although I heard Frodo got taken to some mystical afterlife bullshit. Kinda bittersweet, if you ask me, even if evil was essentially annihilated.
2002's Chicago: Never seen it, but it basically ends with two murderesses who hate each other getting off scot free. And I'm sure Mitch Albom, a law-and-order kind of guy, would not consider such immorality a happy ending.
2001's A Beautiful Mind: A guy who is crazy ends up being respected and honored but is still basically crazy. This is the closest we've come to a happy ending thus far, and this film prominently involves electroshocking Russell Crowe. Actually, you're starting to talk me into it.
2000's Gladiator: The hero dies and hallucinates about his dead family before he does so. Also the Roman empire is bizarrely abolished two hundred years early in favor of a restored Republic, probably creating some hellish alternate universe where Rome never falls like that one episode of Star Trek. (Yes, I know it was an alien planet, not an alternate universe. As though that somehow makes more sense.)
1999's American Beauty: Kevin Spacey gets shot by a militant homophobe and he never even has sex with Mena Suvari. Now that's a modern tragedy.
1998's Shakespeare in Love: Shakespeare doesn't get the girl as she leaves for a faraway land with a man she doesn't love. It's like Casablanca...with Shakespeare! Somehow, Casablanca plus Shakespeare equals lowest-common-denominate romantic pablum. I hate everything.
1997's Titanic: The ship fucking sinks. This is also the second film on this list where Leonard DiCaprio horribly dies. Not that I'm complaining.
1996's The English Patient: It's apparently a tragedy and Ralph Fiennes dies, I think, so not really a happy ending. Honestly, no one on the internet is willing to give away the ending of this decade-old film. I can see why Elaine hated it so much.
1995's Braveheart: Mel Gibson dies after being horribly tortured, which I'm sure was fun for him but isn't really a happy ending for the audience. Of course, as a Brit, I was rooting for Longshanks the whole time, mostly because he was played by Patrick McGoohan, and nobody fucks with Number Six...
Unfortunately, Sophie Marceau's Princess Isabelle totally messes up King Edward's victory by getting impregnated with William Wallace's child and whispering this news to the King as he dies. So nobody wins...except the French.
1994's Forrest Gump: Jenny dies. NEXT!
1993's Schindler's List: The fact that this might have the happiest ending yet (I mean, Schindler saves as many as he can and redeems himself in the process, and the final scene at the cemetery really illustrates how powerful the good he did really was)...well, that fucking terrifies me.
1992's Unforgiven: Clint seems a little more comfortable with killing everybody, but this film is way too morally ambiguous to have a clearcut happy ending.
1991's Silence of the Lambs: The most dangerous psychopathic cannibal alive escapes and resumes killing people. I don't think so.
1990's Dances with Wolves: The ending is pretty happy, I guess, but the whole "destruction of Native American civilization" thing puts a damper on the proceedings.
1989's Driving Miss Daisy: The movie ends with old people discussing being old. That's the closest we've gotten, considering neither of them are horrifically impaled at the end of the scene.
1988's Rain Man: Tom Cruise is less of an asshole and Dustin Hoffman is still autistic. Is that happy?
1987's The Last Emperor: China goes communist. It'll be a sad day in hell when I call that a happy ending.
Since we've now gotten to before my birth, I feel comfortable saying I don't remember when the Oscars gave the Best Picture award to films with happy endings. For what it's worth, I think you've got to go all the way back to Tom Jones from ninteen-sixty-fucking-three for the last film that goes out of its way to wrap things up happily for pretty much all its characters. Although Rocky has a pretty happy ending, I guess, considering it's a film about a loser.
I can't believe I'm going to keep going after that incredibly long and somewhat pointless exercise, but I've still got some bile to spew at Mitch Albom, so here we are.
There's not one happy ending in this lot -- unless you consider an unplanned teenage pregnancy resulting in someone else's adoption a happy ending. That's the big payoff in "Juno."
Let's see...the adoptive mother was healthy, financially secure, and a committed parent. The pregnancy was traumatic, of course, but Juno's parents were incredibly understanding. Oh, and it ended with Michael Cera and Ellen Page getting together, and I'd gladly switch places with either of them in that relationship. So yeah...pretty happy. Or are you such a black-and-white moralist that any unwed teen who accidentally gets pregnant must be condemned to a hellish existence forever as a punishment? In which case...fuck you, Mitch Albom.
Otherwise, you have "There Will Be Blood," in which a tyrannical oil baron destroys everyone and everything around him; "No Country for Old Men," in which a serial killer destroys everything and everyone around him; "Michael Clayton," in which greed gets nearly everyone killed, and "Atonement," in which a false accusation ruins the lives of all involved.
Um. Remind me again.
Why do we go to the movies?
I think it's to be entertained. You know what I found entertaining? The elemental force of badassery that is Anton Chigurh...
Oh, and I think being thought-provoked and transported elsewhere are legitimate reasons to see movies. Sure, I like the occasional happy film as much as the next guy. It's not as though Enchanted doesn't exist if I really need to be filled with cinematic sugar.
Now, I'm not a Pollyanna. I enjoy films. I collect them. And I understand that not every story ends with music swirling and heroes walking off into a sunset.
No, sometimes it ends with a dude dying from Lou Gehrig's disease while spouting quasi-profound bullshit to some random asshole. And by "random asshole", I of course mean "that specific asshole Mitch Albom."
Seriously, this is one of Morrie's pearls of wisdom: "When you learn how to die, you learn how to live." I'm supposed to be moved and enlightened by that horseshit? The Sphinx from Mystery Men came up with better stuff than that, and even Ben fucking Stiller was able to work out he was just spinning formulaic bullshit. That's right. A Mystery Men reference. Deal with it.
But lately there's this sense that unless a movie is dark, violent and hopeless, it can't be "real." It can't be "art." It can't truly "matter." I put these words in quotes because it feels as if critics and awards committees define things that way.
That's not really fair. Juno and Knocked Up were both critically lauded and pretty upbeat, but of course since they don't show Ellen Page and Katherine Heigl being burnt at the stake or crushed between two rocks for their wanton lust, they can't possibly count. The Great Debaters did reasonably well with critics and highlights a moment of triumph in race relations during a difficult period. Charlie Wilson's War is supposed to be pretty fun. Once is hopeful even if it's a little melancholy. And what about Ratatouille? Or the previously mentioned Enchanted, for that matter?
I mean, I do think there are tons of dark films at the moment, and considering the current cultural milieu, I'm not exactly surprised. But I'll avoid any generalizing pop sociology bullshit of my own and just say that there are plenty of happy movies being made.
So instead of praise for, say, "The Bucket List," a film that everyone I know has loved and which has a positive message about getting old and sick, most critics attacked it as too "sentimental."
Right...because it was kinda cloying and sentimental. But then, you are the Tuesdays with Morrie dipshit, so I guess by your standards The Bucket List was emotionally austere like it was some kind of Erich Rohmer flick.
And anyway, if I want to see Jack Nicholson deal with old age and death, I'll watch About Schmidt, which at least has the common courtesy to throw in some hot Kathy Bates nudity. Ooh mama.
Meanwhile, we get an Oscar nomination for "The Savages," a movie about getting old and sick that is so depressing, you want to jump off a building.
Right...because getting old and sick is often very difficult when you're not a multi-millionaire. This reflects reality and does so in a way that doesn't condescend its audience. Is this a film everyone will want to see? Of course not, and I wouldn't expect them to. But to imply it's somehow not artistically valid? Seriously, dude, fuck the shit off.
Instead of a single nomination for "The Great Debaters," a historic and uplifting film, we get best actor, picture and director nominations for "No Country for Old Men," which sets a record for murders by a man carrying an air tank (which he uses to blow a hole in one victim's head, just so he can have his car).
You're right. That part was pretty awesome.
Here's a news flash: Killing without remorse doesn't make a story art. Cold and cynical dialogue doesn't make a story valuable.
That's true. Shoot 'Em Up obviously isn't art, although it is pretty sweet in a "I can't believe any film is this gleefully dumb" sort of way. It's when these films combine such violence with...oh, I don't know...let's say weirdness, dysfunction, and twisted irony that they become interesting.
It's no accident the films nominated this year, for the most part, didn't do much box office. People don't go to the movies to see weirdness, dysfunction or twisted irony.
Why you gotta go plagiarizing me, Mitch? And anyway, the Oscars is (at least theoretically) about rewarding the most artistically relevant films, not the most popular. The line admittedly gets really blurred and often its choices are total bullshit, which is why I don't particularly care either way about them, but don't blame the Oscars for not picking movies based on your own made-up criteria.
Most go to be entertained.
True. What's your point?
This doesn't mean that "Spider-Man 3" or "Shrek the Third" automatically should get Oscar nominations. But those films, at the top of the box office list last year, do share a good-guys-win ending. There's a reason people gravitate to that.
They also featured lazy pop culture references and a ridiculous emo strut. Also, I'm pretty sure the main reason people went to see these films is because of that "three" in their title. You know, because the original movies were actually pretty good. (Although would it kill movie Spidey to make a wisecrack? Just once?)
And it wasn't always considered beneath the Academy to celebrate it. In 1973, "The Sting" won best picture, and "American Graffiti" and "A Touch of Class" also were nominated. In 1979, "Kramer vs. Kramer" won, and "Breaking Away" and "Norma Rae" were nominated. As late as 1994, "Forrest Gump" took the best picture honors. Today, it's hard to imagine that film would even get nominated. Too many cynics would call it sweet and hopeful.
Dude, Jenny died. From AIDS. Oh, but she was a druggie, so that's OK, right?
And I guess that's what I miss. Hope. If movies were meant to reflect only the real-life worst in us, why would we need them? We could use mirrors.
Certainly true in your case.
Don't misunderstand. I get the skill and patience these actors and directors have put in. I see the hard work, from the writing to the lighting. But the humanity Frank Capra or even Steven Spielberg celebrated is getting buried now, under this desire to explore the dark, the macabre and the dysfunctional.
Have you seen Mr. Smith Goes To Washington? There's a random sequence where the new senator Jefferson Smith reads an article he doesn't like and proceeds to beat up the entire Washington press corps...with no discernible consequences. And this in a film where his opponents are actively looking for any reason to destroy him. It's A Wonderful Life is about a dude who needs an angel to talk him out of committing suicide. Also Arsenic & Old Lace is about old people killing other old people. Face it, Mitch...if Frank Capra were working today, he'd be making No Country for Old Men. Or at least Intolerable Cruelty.
There's a moment in "No Country for Old Men" where Javier Bardem's character is about to cold-bloodedly kill yet another victim when the victim says, "You don't have to do this." And the character chuckles and says, "They always say the same thing."
And he does it anyhow.
Right...it's a statement about his psychosis and twisted moral code and the completely different way in which he views the world from other people. It's a brilliant line perfectly delivered. The fact that "he does it anyhow" is exactly the point, not some gratuitous exploitation.
I guess to the people who keep celebrating the worst of human nature, I would also say, "You don't have to do this." But they're gonna do it anyhow. All I can do is spend the three hours tonight watching something else.
May I suggest Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom's For One More Day, where "a suicidal former baseball player is granted one more day with his deceased mother." It's only two hours long, but I imagine you can spend the other hour working on 2010's surefire smash hit Untitled Mitch Albom/Adam Sandler Project, which I'm sure will be really uplifting and inspirational and also really artistic. How many gay panic jokes has Mr. Sandler requested, by the way?
F@$% Mike Lupica
Did I spell that right up there? Or is it supposed to be "F&!#"? Sorry, I don't know my comic book swearing nearly as well as I should (and believe me, I googled "Superman swearing" for quite some time to try to find an answer...because I care about the research). My real point is...fuck Mike Lupica. Seriously.
We already know that Hank Steinbrenner has inherited the spending gene from his father. He has also inherited the back-page gene, though even the old man in his prime didn't take his own temperature for the media as often as Hank has since becoming the out-front, return-all-phone-calls Boss Jr. of the Yankees.
Yes, yes, Hank Steinbrenner is a colossal ass. Any sensible person knows this. Not really worth writing an entire column about, I think, because what are you going to do beyond write a "He so crazy!" piece that either unnecessarily attacks the man or just coddles his idiocy (you know, like with Ozzie Guillen). I guess you could write a moving human interest piece about how difficult it is to emerge from George's shadow, but honestly...who gives a shit about how hard it's been for a billionaire punk who has never had to work a day in his life? Well, clearly Mike Lupica doesn't but I think you already knew that.
On the other hand, something you might not know...Mike Lupica is a major league asshole. He's the kind of guy the Toledo Mud Hens playfully offer a contract to just to mock the very idea anybody, even the New York Daily News, could afford an asshole of such gigantic proportions.
But perhaps the strongest pull of heredity involves the area that was always George Steinbrenner's strong suit, at least back in the day:
I'll get to the meat of Lupica's argument (if you can call it "meat" - we're talking common shrew quality meat here, people) in a moment, but first I'd like to point out that that constitutes an entire paragraph of Lupica's article. That isn't a sentence; I was tipped off by the colon. You see, Mike, people who are, you know, literate - or, as I prefer, liter-fucking-ate, because the presence of the interfix "fucking" makes it sound cooler - tend to end sentences with periods. Hell, they also tend to put more than one sentence in a paragraph, but baby steps here. Let's see if the next sentence helps us out any.
Second-guessing his Baseball People.
THAT...THAT is your sentence? That is the combination of words you felt deserved rewarding with a period? That's not a sentence. It doesn't have a subject and it barely has a verb. That's a gerund and a direct object, and a randomly capitalized direct object at that. At least the previous line was basically a sentence, even if it was horribly clumsy and difficult to understand.
Wait, I think I've got it. Mike, I see what you did wrong here, and it's a very understandable mistake. You see Loopy - I can call you Loopy, right? - you think that any old set of words can become a sentence just by putting that "." thing at the end. You're halfway there, and I'll give you points for trying. But you thought that that other collection of words, the one that really was a sentence, was so sentence-y that it needed two of those "." thingies, didn't you? And when you found that ":" thing on the keyboard...well, that must have been twenty minutes well spent for you, wasn't it?
Problem is, ":" isn't just a double ".". Nope, it does totally different things. It's a little bit like how "w" - you know, the letter that goes "double u" - isn't exactly like two "u"s. This is why your assistants always look bewildered when you give them notes asking for them to "vacwm this fucking disgrace for a set." Well, that and the fact you're throwing feces at them. Sorry, "throuuing feces."
Man, I really am a tenth grade creative writing teacher. And I thought I was lying in that other post.
As if those Baseball Peeps are working for somebody else.
Again, not a sentence; that would be a dependent clause, although that's probably way too difficult a concept for you to grasp. Let's just call it a "no sentence". When you write a "no sentence", you don't get to give it a "." until you make the "no" go away, OK? And only when the "no" goes away and you have just a "sentence" can you give it the "." and try again with another set of words. It's a lot like Hungry, Hungry Hippos, in the sense that if you practice really hard and never give up, someday you might be marginally better at it than a five-year-old.
Also, I'm going to combine those three separate paragraphs into a single, grammatically correct sentence on the off-chance that this will turn Loopy into a master of prose.
But perhaps the strongest pull of heredity involves the area that was always George Steinbrenner's strong suit, at least back in the day: second-guessing his baseball people as if those baseball peeps are working for somebody else.
Much better. Now it's just horrendously hacky and boring.
It is abundantly clear now, before a spring training game is played, much less a baseball game that counts, that Hank is having non-buyer's remorse about Johan Santana, New York Met.
Right, precisely because no games have been played. The Steinbrenners are infamously proactive owners - even if that means occasionally reaching horribly with the likes of Jaret Wright or Carl Pavano - and they tend to always want activity. This isn't just old news; I'm pretty sure you can find that on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I think the specific lines were discovered in Cave 5, but honestly I get my scrolls mixed up after awhile.
Anyway...this isn't really newsworthy, because Hank Steinbrenner has already established that, much like his father, he would like to sign every player in the league except a couple who aren't "True Yankees." And judging by the A-Rod deal, he's flexible on that last part. So yeah...this is nothing anyone with even moderate baseball knowledge doesn't already know.
Oh, but wait, this is all about how he's like his dad? Do tell, Mike, do tell.
He really does get that from his dad's side of the family. If you don't believe that, ask Brian Cashman sometime how often he heard the name "David Ortiz" after the Red Sox got him from the Twins and he turned into a Boston baseball legend known as "Papi."
To be fair, Brian Cashman was engaged in a heated affair with Joan Steinbrenner back in 2004 as part of a sexually-charged revenge plot against George that involved role-playing as the various Red Sox, hence why Brian heard "David Ortiz" shouted so much (Joan was Dave Roberts, of course). What can I say, Closer was big back then and using sex to destroy people's lives was all the rage.
You know, sometimes I really miss 2004.
What was my point? Oh, right, it's possible Hank's proclivity to scream baseball players' names at Brian Cashman comes not from his idiot of a father, but from his trollop of a mother. Right right.
Man, I'm really hope none of the major western religions are right, because I know where I'm going to after writing that paragraph. And that's the toned-down version.
So if Santana, another ex-Twin, the one the Mets finally got for a bag of balls, pitches the Mets to the World Series this season, pitches them all the way to the Canyon of Heroes, Hank has made it pretty clear that it won't be his fault.
Eh, I think I'm going to take it easy this paragraph and just snicker at the phrase "a bag of balls." Heh, heh...heh.
I can't believe I'm barely a third of the way through this thing. Time to crank up the jets, methinks. I use "methinks" to show you I'm pretentious, by the way.
It will be Cashman's.
"Hopefully, (trading for Santana) is not a move we should have made that I'm going to be ticked off about," Hank Steinbrenner told the Daily News.
"If Santana could have made the difference for us and the young pitchers aren't ready, people have to be held accountable," Hank Steinbrenner told Newsday.
Those aren't just predictable quotes from a Steinbrenner, they're practically like a home movie.
Don't the Steinbrenners strike you as the kind of technologically backwards idiots who still use a Super-8 camera with no sound? I only mention this because I feel like comparing those quotes to a home movie is asinine, and that's the best reason I can come up with as to why. Also because that particular metaphor doesn't really make sense. Home movies generally record unusual events - birthdays, vacations, etc. - and aren't always the best indicator of an average day in the life of a family. And even if that were so...who quotes a home movie? So maybe that's the second-best reason why that quote is asinine. Did you know the word "asinine" sounds like it's got "ass" in it? There's a reason this blog isn't going on my resume, people.
But here's a question: If Hank Steinbrenner thought Johan Santana was worth the money and the prospects, why didn't he overrule Cashman and tell him to go make the deal?
True, but you've got to give Steinbrenner some credit for listening to Cashman. At least, I think you do. Either way, it seems like you're pretty seriously prejudging the dude. If he made the deal, he's an idiot (which he is). If he blames Cashman for not making the deal, he's an ass (which he is). If he doesn't blame Cashman, rest assured Lupica will think of something wrong with that. My guess? Hank's secretly a werewolf, and you know werewolf owners can only blame GMs for bad trades under a full moon. This is why William Clay Ford hasn't gotten around to firing Matt Millen, because Millen always does super awesome work when the moon is full like dumping bad contracts and stockpiling draft picks and stuff. You can look it up if you don't believe me (please don't look it up).
When Hank decided that all was forgiven with Alex Rodriguez and that he wanted to give A-Rod a contract that will eventually be worth $300 million, who stopped him? It was quite an honorable thing for Steinbrenner to give A-Rod the deal the Yankees were prepared to give him before he opted out during Game 4 of the World Series. But it is still a fact that when the time came to make the deal Hank acted as if A-Rod were the one with all the leverage when the Yankees had it all.
Wait, what's the problem here? Steinbrenner acted like an ass, but he looked past his own intrinsic assholishness to recognize A-Rod would be a tremendous asset to the team, and so he made the deal he had to make. Considering how much of a jerk Hank Steinbrenner is, that's about as laudable as he's going to get. Why do you have to tear the man down when he gets it basically right?
(I didn't notice the presence of my new favorite word when I typed "asset", but I feel very happy my subconscious is working with me on this one. All about following the Tao, I guess. Be one with the way and all that shit.)
Nobody got in Hank Steinbrenner's way then, not Cashman, not any other of the other Baseball Peeps in Tampa. The way nobody got in Hank Steinbrenner's way when he overpaid to bring back Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada.
Right...these were reasonable moves considering the Yankees have an unlimited budget. They aren't the Royals, for goodness sake, and you can't really evaluate their contracts based on cost-effectiveness. I do know that between A-Rod, Rivera, and Posada, we're looking at almost sixty wins above replacement players over the last two years. I'm not claiming that's rock-solid analysis (I'm kind of looking past Rivera's 5.6 WARP-3 last year to make a general point), but basically these are three guys who are worth the sort of investment the Yankees are prepared to make.
Hank threw money at A-Rod and nobody got in his way, he did it with Posada, he did it with Rivera, even though it is fair, no matter how much you admire the last two guys, to wonder what kind of bang Hank is going to get on his buck at the back end of their deals.
Yeah, but if they win a World Series or two before the end of their deals, that's all that'll matter. And it's not as if the Yankees are unaccustomed to eating bad contracts. Seriously, I have no strong feelings either way towards the Yankees - I used to hate them, but I must have been a bandwagon hater 'cause since around 2004 I can't muster up much energy for the hating - and I think Hank Steinbrenner is a dickish moron, but Mike Lupica is making me defend him. The only thing this reminds me of is when Geraldo Rivera interviewed Charles Manson...and you come away rooting for Manson.
By the way, if you're wondering whether Hank Steinbrenner is Charles Manson for the purposes of this metaphor...maybe, but really Lupica is both Geraldo and Charles Manson.
I think that says it all.
We already know that Hank Steinbrenner has inherited the spending gene from his father. He has also inherited the back-page gene, though even the old man in his prime didn't take his own temperature for the media as often as Hank has since becoming the out-front, return-all-phone-calls Boss Jr. of the Yankees.
Yes, yes, Hank Steinbrenner is a colossal ass. Any sensible person knows this. Not really worth writing an entire column about, I think, because what are you going to do beyond write a "He so crazy!" piece that either unnecessarily attacks the man or just coddles his idiocy (you know, like with Ozzie Guillen). I guess you could write a moving human interest piece about how difficult it is to emerge from George's shadow, but honestly...who gives a shit about how hard it's been for a billionaire punk who has never had to work a day in his life? Well, clearly Mike Lupica doesn't but I think you already knew that.
On the other hand, something you might not know...Mike Lupica is a major league asshole. He's the kind of guy the Toledo Mud Hens playfully offer a contract to just to mock the very idea anybody, even the New York Daily News, could afford an asshole of such gigantic proportions.
But perhaps the strongest pull of heredity involves the area that was always George Steinbrenner's strong suit, at least back in the day:
I'll get to the meat of Lupica's argument (if you can call it "meat" - we're talking common shrew quality meat here, people) in a moment, but first I'd like to point out that that constitutes an entire paragraph of Lupica's article. That isn't a sentence; I was tipped off by the colon. You see, Mike, people who are, you know, literate - or, as I prefer, liter-fucking-ate, because the presence of the interfix "fucking" makes it sound cooler - tend to end sentences with periods. Hell, they also tend to put more than one sentence in a paragraph, but baby steps here. Let's see if the next sentence helps us out any.
Second-guessing his Baseball People.
THAT...THAT is your sentence? That is the combination of words you felt deserved rewarding with a period? That's not a sentence. It doesn't have a subject and it barely has a verb. That's a gerund and a direct object, and a randomly capitalized direct object at that. At least the previous line was basically a sentence, even if it was horribly clumsy and difficult to understand.
Wait, I think I've got it. Mike, I see what you did wrong here, and it's a very understandable mistake. You see Loopy - I can call you Loopy, right? - you think that any old set of words can become a sentence just by putting that "." thing at the end. You're halfway there, and I'll give you points for trying. But you thought that that other collection of words, the one that really was a sentence, was so sentence-y that it needed two of those "." thingies, didn't you? And when you found that ":" thing on the keyboard...well, that must have been twenty minutes well spent for you, wasn't it?
Problem is, ":" isn't just a double ".". Nope, it does totally different things. It's a little bit like how "w" - you know, the letter that goes "double u" - isn't exactly like two "u"s. This is why your assistants always look bewildered when you give them notes asking for them to "vacwm this fucking disgrace for a set." Well, that and the fact you're throwing feces at them. Sorry, "throuuing feces."
Man, I really am a tenth grade creative writing teacher. And I thought I was lying in that other post.
As if those Baseball Peeps are working for somebody else.
Again, not a sentence; that would be a dependent clause, although that's probably way too difficult a concept for you to grasp. Let's just call it a "no sentence". When you write a "no sentence", you don't get to give it a "." until you make the "no" go away, OK? And only when the "no" goes away and you have just a "sentence" can you give it the "." and try again with another set of words. It's a lot like Hungry, Hungry Hippos, in the sense that if you practice really hard and never give up, someday you might be marginally better at it than a five-year-old.
Also, I'm going to combine those three separate paragraphs into a single, grammatically correct sentence on the off-chance that this will turn Loopy into a master of prose.
But perhaps the strongest pull of heredity involves the area that was always George Steinbrenner's strong suit, at least back in the day: second-guessing his baseball people as if those baseball peeps are working for somebody else.
Much better. Now it's just horrendously hacky and boring.
It is abundantly clear now, before a spring training game is played, much less a baseball game that counts, that Hank is having non-buyer's remorse about Johan Santana, New York Met.
Right, precisely because no games have been played. The Steinbrenners are infamously proactive owners - even if that means occasionally reaching horribly with the likes of Jaret Wright or Carl Pavano - and they tend to always want activity. This isn't just old news; I'm pretty sure you can find that on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I think the specific lines were discovered in Cave 5, but honestly I get my scrolls mixed up after awhile.
Anyway...this isn't really newsworthy, because Hank Steinbrenner has already established that, much like his father, he would like to sign every player in the league except a couple who aren't "True Yankees." And judging by the A-Rod deal, he's flexible on that last part. So yeah...this is nothing anyone with even moderate baseball knowledge doesn't already know.
Oh, but wait, this is all about how he's like his dad? Do tell, Mike, do tell.
He really does get that from his dad's side of the family. If you don't believe that, ask Brian Cashman sometime how often he heard the name "David Ortiz" after the Red Sox got him from the Twins and he turned into a Boston baseball legend known as "Papi."
To be fair, Brian Cashman was engaged in a heated affair with Joan Steinbrenner back in 2004 as part of a sexually-charged revenge plot against George that involved role-playing as the various Red Sox, hence why Brian heard "David Ortiz" shouted so much (Joan was Dave Roberts, of course). What can I say, Closer was big back then and using sex to destroy people's lives was all the rage.
You know, sometimes I really miss 2004.
What was my point? Oh, right, it's possible Hank's proclivity to scream baseball players' names at Brian Cashman comes not from his idiot of a father, but from his trollop of a mother. Right right.
Man, I'm really hope none of the major western religions are right, because I know where I'm going to after writing that paragraph. And that's the toned-down version.
So if Santana, another ex-Twin, the one the Mets finally got for a bag of balls, pitches the Mets to the World Series this season, pitches them all the way to the Canyon of Heroes, Hank has made it pretty clear that it won't be his fault.
Eh, I think I'm going to take it easy this paragraph and just snicker at the phrase "a bag of balls." Heh, heh...heh.
I can't believe I'm barely a third of the way through this thing. Time to crank up the jets, methinks. I use "methinks" to show you I'm pretentious, by the way.
It will be Cashman's.
"Hopefully, (trading for Santana) is not a move we should have made that I'm going to be ticked off about," Hank Steinbrenner told the Daily News.
"If Santana could have made the difference for us and the young pitchers aren't ready, people have to be held accountable," Hank Steinbrenner told Newsday.
Those aren't just predictable quotes from a Steinbrenner, they're practically like a home movie.
Don't the Steinbrenners strike you as the kind of technologically backwards idiots who still use a Super-8 camera with no sound? I only mention this because I feel like comparing those quotes to a home movie is asinine, and that's the best reason I can come up with as to why. Also because that particular metaphor doesn't really make sense. Home movies generally record unusual events - birthdays, vacations, etc. - and aren't always the best indicator of an average day in the life of a family. And even if that were so...who quotes a home movie? So maybe that's the second-best reason why that quote is asinine. Did you know the word "asinine" sounds like it's got "ass" in it? There's a reason this blog isn't going on my resume, people.
But here's a question: If Hank Steinbrenner thought Johan Santana was worth the money and the prospects, why didn't he overrule Cashman and tell him to go make the deal?
True, but you've got to give Steinbrenner some credit for listening to Cashman. At least, I think you do. Either way, it seems like you're pretty seriously prejudging the dude. If he made the deal, he's an idiot (which he is). If he blames Cashman for not making the deal, he's an ass (which he is). If he doesn't blame Cashman, rest assured Lupica will think of something wrong with that. My guess? Hank's secretly a werewolf, and you know werewolf owners can only blame GMs for bad trades under a full moon. This is why William Clay Ford hasn't gotten around to firing Matt Millen, because Millen always does super awesome work when the moon is full like dumping bad contracts and stockpiling draft picks and stuff. You can look it up if you don't believe me (please don't look it up).
When Hank decided that all was forgiven with Alex Rodriguez and that he wanted to give A-Rod a contract that will eventually be worth $300 million, who stopped him? It was quite an honorable thing for Steinbrenner to give A-Rod the deal the Yankees were prepared to give him before he opted out during Game 4 of the World Series. But it is still a fact that when the time came to make the deal Hank acted as if A-Rod were the one with all the leverage when the Yankees had it all.
Wait, what's the problem here? Steinbrenner acted like an ass, but he looked past his own intrinsic assholishness to recognize A-Rod would be a tremendous asset to the team, and so he made the deal he had to make. Considering how much of a jerk Hank Steinbrenner is, that's about as laudable as he's going to get. Why do you have to tear the man down when he gets it basically right?
(I didn't notice the presence of my new favorite word when I typed "asset", but I feel very happy my subconscious is working with me on this one. All about following the Tao, I guess. Be one with the way and all that shit.)
Nobody got in Hank Steinbrenner's way then, not Cashman, not any other of the other Baseball Peeps in Tampa. The way nobody got in Hank Steinbrenner's way when he overpaid to bring back Mariano Rivera and Jorge Posada.
Right...these were reasonable moves considering the Yankees have an unlimited budget. They aren't the Royals, for goodness sake, and you can't really evaluate their contracts based on cost-effectiveness. I do know that between A-Rod, Rivera, and Posada, we're looking at almost sixty wins above replacement players over the last two years. I'm not claiming that's rock-solid analysis (I'm kind of looking past Rivera's 5.6 WARP-3 last year to make a general point), but basically these are three guys who are worth the sort of investment the Yankees are prepared to make.
Hank threw money at A-Rod and nobody got in his way, he did it with Posada, he did it with Rivera, even though it is fair, no matter how much you admire the last two guys, to wonder what kind of bang Hank is going to get on his buck at the back end of their deals.
Yeah, but if they win a World Series or two before the end of their deals, that's all that'll matter. And it's not as if the Yankees are unaccustomed to eating bad contracts. Seriously, I have no strong feelings either way towards the Yankees - I used to hate them, but I must have been a bandwagon hater 'cause since around 2004 I can't muster up much energy for the hating - and I think Hank Steinbrenner is a dickish moron, but Mike Lupica is making me defend him. The only thing this reminds me of is when Geraldo Rivera interviewed Charles Manson...and you come away rooting for Manson.
By the way, if you're wondering whether Hank Steinbrenner is Charles Manson for the purposes of this metaphor...maybe, but really Lupica is both Geraldo and Charles Manson.
I think that says it all.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Good God, Man
This will probably end up becoming my once-weekly post. It's Monday, so it's PK time. As usual, he starts decently, with football things:
Holyfuckme. Peter, buddy, come here a minute, would ya. Look, I know your editor wants you to personalize the column. It's usually boring as hell, but if you have a recommendation or something, that's fine. However. The "wowzers, planes are so cramped!" angle has been done. Ad balls Nauseam. On the topic of nausea, nobody--nobody--wants to hear about an old fucking man farting. Think about what you submitted here, Peter. Do you understand just how boring that is? Or how gross? Whatever, let's try to wrap it up.
He's never once farted in a public place, right Peter? Right? Fuck you.
Technically that's $11M per, but fair enough. A quasi-interesting football thing.
Asante Samuel could be headed for Philadelphia. I hear the all-pro New England cornerback could get five years and $55 million from the Eagles, but I think once Philly finds out no other team out there is willing to give $10 million a year to a finesse corner who doesn't like contact -- unlike the franchised Marcus Trufant of the Seahawks and Nnamdi Asomugha of the Raiders -- the price tag could slither down a bit.
It's pretty big football news that the G-men are considering adding a young, top-10ish corner. Though there have been several recent examples of crazies doing well on new teams, his apparent immaturity is a valid concern.
I'm warning you about DeAngelo Hall, Giants. And I'm warning you other suitors: Don't overpay for this man...I can say two good things about Hall: He's a cornerback with guts, and he's only 24 years old. But coaches and some former teammates who've been around him think he's an immature risk-taker and not a team guy.
Agent Drew Rosenhaus is trying to scare up business in the Chad Johnson market. And failing, from what I gather.Football.
Seattle's torn about whether to cut Shaun Alexander.Football.
An elderly man, a farter, maybe 68, fell asleep across the aisle from me Sunday night on the Continental minibus in the sky from Indy to Newark, and he began snoring. (I hate these suffocating little jets, and it seems that's almost all you fly if you're going 1,000 miles or less these days.) Lucky Ray Rice, by the way. The Rutgers running back was way in back and didn't have to put up with the elderly farter's snoring and aroma.
Holyfuckme. Peter, buddy, come here a minute, would ya. Look, I know your editor wants you to personalize the column. It's usually boring as hell, but if you have a recommendation or something, that's fine. However. The "wowzers, planes are so cramped!" angle has been done. Ad balls Nauseam. On the topic of nausea, nobody--nobody--wants to hear about an old fucking man farting. Think about what you submitted here, Peter. Do you understand just how boring that is? Or how gross? Whatever, let's try to wrap it up.
Fuck you. You went with the farting story when you had other options? Fuck you.10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. The Conrad Hotel in Indy is a hidden gem downtown. Huge flat screens in the rooms. John McCain was there the other day, a few minutes after I checked in, for a fund-raiser. He knows how to pick the good hotels, I guess.
d. What was the bigger upset? Giants over Pats? Or No Country for Old Men over There Will Be Blood?I know nothing about movies, but apparently No Country was a big Vegas favourite. So, Giants over Pats.
g. And while I'm at it, congrats to a good friend and superb broadcaster, Dale Arnold, for his appointment to the Red Sox radio network team. Great pipes, and a better guy.
He's never once farted in a public place, right Peter? Right? Fuck you.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Quickie Meta Post...
I'll usually try to dial down the posting about ourselves stuff, but since this was quite a week for us, in that it was both our first and our biggest...well, I hope you'll begrudge me this one post.
I can't speak for my beloved partners in crime (especially that badass motherfucker Passive Voice, who seriously is one badass motherfucker), but my plan is to write a substantial post every weekday, including the next entry in the award-eligible "52 52 52" series. I'll try to post some odds and ends elsewhere (I'm working on one such right now), but that'll hopefully give you a sense of what to look out for. Honestly, I'm just trying to keep some sort of pace with Ken Tremendous, who has written more posts in the last few days than I have while taking care of a newborn child. That man truly is tremendous.
Oh, and feel free to leave comments if you have any compliments, concerns, critiques, or just generally think we're full of shit. We'd love to have a little community of anonymous basement-dwellers here at Fire Everybody, because there are only so many Joss Whedon appreciation events I can make each year and I really need to interact with people between meet-ups with ShadowChild2468 and SummerInTheGlau81. No, they won't tell me their real names; they're afraid my slightly off-putting nature is because I'm some Academy-created assassin, but that's a gorram lie. I'm just cripplingly awkward.
Huh...this post appears to have devolved into semi-autobiographical ramblings, so it's probably just time to call things a day. I'll be back soon to make fun of Chipper Jones...and why not?
I can't speak for my beloved partners in crime (especially that badass motherfucker Passive Voice, who seriously is one badass motherfucker), but my plan is to write a substantial post every weekday, including the next entry in the award-eligible "52 52 52" series. I'll try to post some odds and ends elsewhere (I'm working on one such right now), but that'll hopefully give you a sense of what to look out for. Honestly, I'm just trying to keep some sort of pace with Ken Tremendous, who has written more posts in the last few days than I have while taking care of a newborn child. That man truly is tremendous.
Oh, and feel free to leave comments if you have any compliments, concerns, critiques, or just generally think we're full of shit. We'd love to have a little community of anonymous basement-dwellers here at Fire Everybody, because there are only so many Joss Whedon appreciation events I can make each year and I really need to interact with people between meet-ups with ShadowChild2468 and SummerInTheGlau81. No, they won't tell me their real names; they're afraid my slightly off-putting nature is because I'm some Academy-created assassin, but that's a gorram lie. I'm just cripplingly awkward.
Huh...this post appears to have devolved into semi-autobiographical ramblings, so it's probably just time to call things a day. I'll be back soon to make fun of Chipper Jones...and why not?
Friday, February 22, 2008
Oh Gary, you so crazy!
This isn't even bad journalism - it's the Associated Press, for crying out loud, which writes articles the way Billy Beane builds baseball teams: robots, and plenty of 'em. But it is a crazy person saying crazy things, which is more than enough for me to want to have some fun with it.
Gary Sheffield put himself in the spotlight again, and the Detroit Tigers' slugger enjoyed every second of it.
All I can say is, thank goodness for that. I was afraid Gary had mellowed in his old age.
"My family has been trying to get me to walk away for a while now because they don't like the negative stuff that comes my way. I love it," Sheffield acknowledged. "I try to explain it to them, but they think that's some psychotic thing."
That might sound like a harsh diagnosis on the part of Gary's family, but Sheffield is married to B.F. Skinner with their two kids Jean Piaget and Ivan Pavlov with Sigmund Freud retained as a crazy uncle. They travel across America, solving mysteries and looking for the spirit of this great nation. So yeah, if Sheff's family says he's psychotic, I'm inclined to agree.
Sheffield stirred things up Thursday morning by calling Scott Boras, his former agent, a "bad person," in part for going after money the All-Star says he doesn't deserve.
Yes, in part for going after Sheffield's money. The other part is that Scott Boras is a bad person. And by "bad person", I mean "really good at his chosen profession of getting maximum money for millionaires by screwing over billionaires, which for some strange reason is uncool." Also he's kind of a dick.
Sheffield declined to comment on the specifics of the grievance, but the designated hitter has said he represented himself in negotiating his contract with the Yankees.
I find that hard to believe, since I'm pretty sure there are no clauses demanding funding for further research into his pioneering racial theories, ending the current Yankee team policy of slavery, or giving him the right to legally kill R. Kelly. Hell, there's not even any mention of daily personalized shoes from his favorite celebrities, which I'm guessing pretty much starts with Bea Arthur and ends with that minx Betty White. (Check this out for the scoop on Gary's love of footwear...it's right after the ones about after him fathering two children in his teens and his involvement in an extortion plot. I may have made up his love of The Golden Girls, however.)
Sheffield vowed to say a lot of "ugly things" about various topics when the case is resolved.
"It ain't going to be pretty," he said. "No fine is going to be big enough. No suspension is going to be long enough."
What about one that keeps you about of baseball until you're fifty? What would that be...a ten-game suspension? OOH!!! BURN!!! Gary's so old he was born during the Johnson administration...the ANDREW Johnson administration. Thank you, thank you, I'm here all day. No seriously, I never leave my basement. Also Gary Sheffield is pretty old and could become shitty at baseball at almost any moment. Which is fine by me, because then he could retire and commit all his energy to coming out with batshit crazy opinions. Maybe Gary and Carl Everett could host a show where they desperately try to out-crazy each other (you know, like Skip and Woody's work on First and Ten, only more rational)...
Carl: Look, you know how I don't believe in dinosaurs, but...
Gary: Sorry to interrupt you there...
[Buzzer blares.]
Carl: No apologies!!!
Gary: No apologies!!! But you're making a great point. Paleontologists like fossils found in Latin America because they can control them, put them together however they like. They tell a Latin Australodocus that he's got to go and be a Loncosaurus, well he'll do it because it's his first time in an American museum and he's trying to get ahead. But you find that same fossil in Tampa, well now that's a fossil you've got to treat with respect. It's got to be what it's got to be, and if your classification protocols and binomial nomenclature ain't exact, then your paleontology ain't shit, and that fossil's just going to go back to who he is, which is a Australodocus bohetii that you have to respect.
Carl: You say those words are Latin, but have you ever met a Latin? I reject the existence of Latium and all its satellites of supposed imperialist oppression until Romulus himself steps through here and tells me to mother-humping "Ave!" And no, my dear Garold, Remus just ain't gonna cut it! Seven birds flying overhead my eye!
Gary: We got to take a quick commercial for a bunch of brainwashing corporate Valkyries to sell you on their poorly-produced merchandise that will likely turn you into a giant effete Pavlovian cash machine, and then we'll be back for five good minutes with Beano Cook...
"Nothing happens. Then, he comes back, `I want some more money.' That's basically the way he's acting," Sheffield said. "I don't know why. It's probably personal with him. But when it's done, it's going to be personal with me."
I honestly think Gary is trying too hard at this point, because that last part didn't even really make sense. Are you saying you're going to hunt down and kill Scott Boras after this is all over? Because that's the only reading I can get out of that. I think I'm confused because how is this not already personal to you if you're rambling at such great length about it?
I understand you're looking to ratchet up the intensity, but I feel like talking about making things personal is the Morgan-esque "my revenges need to be more consistent" of veiled death threats. At least say "I'm going to get some satisfaction", which is doubly cool because it evokes nineteenth-century dueling and because juvenile idiots like me can snicker at the idea of you getting satisfaction from Scott Boras. You know, because that implies you'd go gay for Scott Boras.
What I'm saying is, Gary...you can do better. B- on that last one, B+ overall.
Sheffield is known for saying what's on his mind.
Anonymous Associated Press writer, you have just made an understatement so incredibly understated that even you cannot comprehend how understated it is. Tell me, anonymous AP writer...are you a stoner's conception of God?
Last year, he called the investigation into steroid use in baseball a "witch hunt" that was all about "getting" Barry Bonds. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Sheffield testified in 2003 before the grand jury that he didn't knowingly take steroids while working out with Bonds.
Look, possibly-divine AP writer, if you're going to reference Gary and steroids, don't try to take the high road by not mention the incredible "steroids is something you shoot in your butt" explanation that Gary gave to explain why he'd never, ever do steroids. Not because they're illegal, but because it might imply he's gay. Which judging by what I've been writing thus far, may be a legitimate concern for Sheff.
"Actually, I'm not supposed to be talking about this at all," Sheffield said. "But, I am anyway."
Your country thanks you, sir. Your country thanks you.
Gary Sheffield put himself in the spotlight again, and the Detroit Tigers' slugger enjoyed every second of it.
All I can say is, thank goodness for that. I was afraid Gary had mellowed in his old age.
"My family has been trying to get me to walk away for a while now because they don't like the negative stuff that comes my way. I love it," Sheffield acknowledged. "I try to explain it to them, but they think that's some psychotic thing."
That might sound like a harsh diagnosis on the part of Gary's family, but Sheffield is married to B.F. Skinner with their two kids Jean Piaget and Ivan Pavlov with Sigmund Freud retained as a crazy uncle. They travel across America, solving mysteries and looking for the spirit of this great nation. So yeah, if Sheff's family says he's psychotic, I'm inclined to agree.
Sheffield stirred things up Thursday morning by calling Scott Boras, his former agent, a "bad person," in part for going after money the All-Star says he doesn't deserve.
Yes, in part for going after Sheffield's money. The other part is that Scott Boras is a bad person. And by "bad person", I mean "really good at his chosen profession of getting maximum money for millionaires by screwing over billionaires, which for some strange reason is uncool." Also he's kind of a dick.
Sheffield declined to comment on the specifics of the grievance, but the designated hitter has said he represented himself in negotiating his contract with the Yankees.
I find that hard to believe, since I'm pretty sure there are no clauses demanding funding for further research into his pioneering racial theories, ending the current Yankee team policy of slavery, or giving him the right to legally kill R. Kelly. Hell, there's not even any mention of daily personalized shoes from his favorite celebrities, which I'm guessing pretty much starts with Bea Arthur and ends with that minx Betty White. (Check this out for the scoop on Gary's love of footwear...it's right after the ones about after him fathering two children in his teens and his involvement in an extortion plot. I may have made up his love of The Golden Girls, however.)
Sheffield vowed to say a lot of "ugly things" about various topics when the case is resolved.
"It ain't going to be pretty," he said. "No fine is going to be big enough. No suspension is going to be long enough."
What about one that keeps you about of baseball until you're fifty? What would that be...a ten-game suspension? OOH!!! BURN!!! Gary's so old he was born during the Johnson administration...the ANDREW Johnson administration. Thank you, thank you, I'm here all day. No seriously, I never leave my basement. Also Gary Sheffield is pretty old and could become shitty at baseball at almost any moment. Which is fine by me, because then he could retire and commit all his energy to coming out with batshit crazy opinions. Maybe Gary and Carl Everett could host a show where they desperately try to out-crazy each other (you know, like Skip and Woody's work on First and Ten, only more rational)...
Carl: Look, you know how I don't believe in dinosaurs, but...
Gary: Sorry to interrupt you there...
[Buzzer blares.]
Carl: No apologies!!!
Gary: No apologies!!! But you're making a great point. Paleontologists like fossils found in Latin America because they can control them, put them together however they like. They tell a Latin Australodocus that he's got to go and be a Loncosaurus, well he'll do it because it's his first time in an American museum and he's trying to get ahead. But you find that same fossil in Tampa, well now that's a fossil you've got to treat with respect. It's got to be what it's got to be, and if your classification protocols and binomial nomenclature ain't exact, then your paleontology ain't shit, and that fossil's just going to go back to who he is, which is a Australodocus bohetii that you have to respect.
Carl: You say those words are Latin, but have you ever met a Latin? I reject the existence of Latium and all its satellites of supposed imperialist oppression until Romulus himself steps through here and tells me to mother-humping "Ave!" And no, my dear Garold, Remus just ain't gonna cut it! Seven birds flying overhead my eye!
Gary: We got to take a quick commercial for a bunch of brainwashing corporate Valkyries to sell you on their poorly-produced merchandise that will likely turn you into a giant effete Pavlovian cash machine, and then we'll be back for five good minutes with Beano Cook...
"Nothing happens. Then, he comes back, `I want some more money.' That's basically the way he's acting," Sheffield said. "I don't know why. It's probably personal with him. But when it's done, it's going to be personal with me."
I honestly think Gary is trying too hard at this point, because that last part didn't even really make sense. Are you saying you're going to hunt down and kill Scott Boras after this is all over? Because that's the only reading I can get out of that. I think I'm confused because how is this not already personal to you if you're rambling at such great length about it?
I understand you're looking to ratchet up the intensity, but I feel like talking about making things personal is the Morgan-esque "my revenges need to be more consistent" of veiled death threats. At least say "I'm going to get some satisfaction", which is doubly cool because it evokes nineteenth-century dueling and because juvenile idiots like me can snicker at the idea of you getting satisfaction from Scott Boras. You know, because that implies you'd go gay for Scott Boras.
What I'm saying is, Gary...you can do better. B- on that last one, B+ overall.
Sheffield is known for saying what's on his mind.
Anonymous Associated Press writer, you have just made an understatement so incredibly understated that even you cannot comprehend how understated it is. Tell me, anonymous AP writer...are you a stoner's conception of God?
Last year, he called the investigation into steroid use in baseball a "witch hunt" that was all about "getting" Barry Bonds. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Sheffield testified in 2003 before the grand jury that he didn't knowingly take steroids while working out with Bonds.
Look, possibly-divine AP writer, if you're going to reference Gary and steroids, don't try to take the high road by not mention the incredible "steroids is something you shoot in your butt" explanation that Gary gave to explain why he'd never, ever do steroids. Not because they're illegal, but because it might imply he's gay. Which judging by what I've been writing thus far, may be a legitimate concern for Sheff.
"Actually, I'm not supposed to be talking about this at all," Sheffield said. "But, I am anyway."
Your country thanks you, sir. Your country thanks you.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
52 52 52 Week #1: Mississippi
In which I examine crappy local sports journalism on a state-by-state basis, progressing through the states in terms of an alphabetical ordering of the heights of their tallest points. Because I can.
My first stop in my 52-state tour of bad journalism takes me to Mississippi, where Tishomingo County's Woodall Mountain clocks in at a robust 806 feet. Some facts about Woodall:
1. Locals are rather charmingly self-aware about the fact that such a tiny peak is their state's highest point. You can buy a hat in area stores that proudly proclaims, "Ski Woodall." Yes, please.
2. There's a bluegrass band in Tupelo called the Woodall Mountain Boys.
3. During the Civil War, the Battle of Iuka took place in 1862 on Woodall Mountain. General William Rosecrans won victory by taking the mountain and barraging the nearby town of Iuka with artillery and plenty of it. No word on whether or not Rosecrans or his aid, Staff Sergeant Guildenstern, met their fates in the battle, although I imagine they're now dead.
Mississippi's representative in the series is Tommy Snell, who writes a column about golf for The Sun Herald, a Biloxi newspaper whose readership is mostly made up of denizens of the Gulf Coast. To the paper's immense credit, they kept publishing during Hurricane Katrina even after all their offices were devastated by the hurricane, which forced them to publish out of the Columbus, Georgia newsroom of the Ledger-Enquirer. This ultimately won them a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. So yeah...nothing but respect for The Sun Herald.
This column by Mr. Snell? Eh, not so much.
Brandel Chamblee of The Golf Channel suggested, maybe even demanded, that Tiger Woods stands as the greatest athlete of all time.
Ooh boy. Look, I'm already going to say I'm not on board with any of this. I think "greatest athlete ever" is a really dumb topic to begin with - I mean, how the hell do you compare the relative athletic excellence of, say, Wilt Chamberlain to Gale Sayers? Let's say for a second you tried to do this scientifically. Even if you figured out how much they outperformed the average players in the sport, how do you calibrate the two marks so that it's a fair comparison? Is being the greatest pitcher ever more impressive than being the best quarterback? I've heard it argued Wayne Gretzky is greater than Michael Jordan because his stats were way more insane relative to the league averages. But does that mean he really was better or just that, for whatever reason, it's easier to outperform the mean in the NHL compared to the NBA?
Then there's the concept of "athlete." Does that mean we're talking about them in the context of their sport, or are we trying to get to some transcendent quality of "athleticism"? I suspect many people who want to argue this topic are more interested in the latter, which is pretty much wholly unquantifiable. Was Pele more "athletic" than Sandy Koufax? And speaking of Koufax, how do you deal with people with incredible athletic abilities whose careers never panned out the way they should have, like Bo Jackson or David Thompson (or even, much as I hate to say it, Michael Vick)? Should Bo or Deion Sanders get extra credit for excelling at two sports?
So yeah, all of these are valid rebuttals to the idea that Tiger Woods is the greatest athlete of all time. A much less valid but more assholish counterargument would be that his greatest rival looks like this:
When your chief competitor has man-boobs...yeah, I don't think I'm buying you as greatest athlete of all time. Honestly, there's only one worse choice than Tiger Woods that I hear when this argument comes up.
That's fast company, Secretariat would say.
And there it is. I'm not going to argue this beyond four incredibly simple words: SECRETARIAT...WAS...A...HORSE. I mean, if you're making some top fifty list of greatest athletes, I could see putting Secretariat in there somewhere to add a bit of color. But as the first athlete Tommy Snell names to refute the Tiger Woods argument? That just won't stand.
That's not a slam dunk, Michael Jordan would argue.
His Airness is a legitimate candidate for this asinine title. Also, that's a terrible...wait, does that even count as a joke?
Brett Farve's Fanatics from the Kiln would just have everyone look at the record book.
This is, I think, why I wanted to embark upon this project: to discover the weird in-jokes that dominate local sports columns. Seriously, I have no idea what the Kiln is supposed to be or how it got its name, but I'm going to assume it's a group of amateur potters who spend all their time firing clay sculptures of Brett Favre in various exciting positions, such as "throwing a potentially career-ending interception" or "sitting on a tractor." Also, those fanatics apparently love Brett so much that they haven't actually bothered to learn how to spell the man's name. I will resist any temptation to impugn the intelligence of the great people of Mississippi, but I'd really appreciate it if they didn't keep lofting softballs at me.
Oh, and Brett Favre as all-time greatest athlete? Eh, it's better than Secretariat. But I'm a little dubious of Favre's credentials for a made-up bullshit title like this. What am I supposed to be arguing again?
On a Sunday when Tom Brady and a bunch of Patriots might throw a different name into the "super" ring, it's fitting to start the argument of "greatest athlete of all time."
So this was written right before the Super Bowl. I think it should be pointed out that that sentence suggests that either the Patriots currently have on their roster several candidates for the best athlete who ever lived, or that he's suggesting the Patriots as a team might be the best athlete ever. I don't know which of those arguments is sillier. Also, "throw a different name into the 'super' ring"? I get that the word "super" is in there because of the Super Bowl, but I'm still pretty sure that doesn't make even a quantum of sense. Or solace, for that matter.
I happen to agree with Brian Hewett of TGC that Secretariat was the greatest athlete, if we can call a horse an athlete.
No, we can't call a horse an athlete. You realize why, right Tommy?
A horse is a horse, of course.
Precisely, though no points for the obvious reference. I'll see you your Mr. Ed and raise you Comet the Super-Horse.
Farve might not be playing in Phoenix today,
Since Favre is apparently the Sun Herald's local deity, I'm still shocked they can't spell his name correctly. This is the sort of thing I just assumed was a myth...I didn't honestly believe anyone was this terrible. Once again, my faith in humanity is totally unwarranted.
but as they toss 5-yard dumpoffs or 70-yard TDs, Manning and Brady will feel the grip of NFL and Packer records etched in the pigskin. Unitas, Bradshaw, Starr and Brady won't catch the USM grad this year or the next, and that's argument enough to throw down the "greatest" gauntlet in The Kiln.
Let me get this straight...with just the Super Bowl left to go in the 2007-08 season, Tommy Snell feels the 59-year-old Terry Bradshaw, the 74-year-old Bart Starr, and the dead Johnny Unitas are unlikely to do enough to surpass Favre's achievements? And just to make things clear, even another season for three men a combined 204 years of age won't do enough to edge past Favre? THAT is the Kiln's argument? That his 2008 campaign will be better than a dead guy's, even if said dead guy is Johnny U? I'm not hallucinating, right?
Man, gotta love the Kiln. They're so fucking edgy. Logic is for pussies when they're around. By the way, how has this proven anything - and I'm using "proven" incredibly loosely - beyond Favre being the best quarterback ever? When are we going to hear about how Brett Favre will throw more touchdowns next year than Georges Vezina? C'mon Kiln, step it up!
Tiger might be the luckiest athlete of all time. He conjures up shots at just the right moment.
Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, let me get this straight. As part of your argument that Tiger is one of the greatest athletes ever, you essentially write off all his obviously prodigious skill as mere luck? I'm sorry, do you just keep a gun constantly trained at your own foot? I bet the Kiln would be behind something like that, especially if they could make an erotic Favre sculpture based on that imagery. It'd be controversial, but all the better for it.
With unmatched crowds and a stadium-like setting (600,000 expected this week), he made a hole-in-one on No. 16 at the FBR Open, the loudest stage in golf.The more he practices, the luckier he gets. Cliché? Maybe, but facts are facts. More wins? More majors? As the lyrics suggest, "it's just a matter of time."
WHAT LYRICS!? I admit my cultural milieu may be slightly different from Tommy Snell's, but I have no idea what the hell he's referencing. Is it Randy Travis or Brooks Benton? Maybe Cartel? Dream Street!? Fuck it, I didn't get into this to be a musicologist.
Greatest coach? That's easy, John Wooden. Seven consecutive NCAA national championships and the greatest winning percentage (.813) of all time. When Florida wins five more in a row, we'll talk.
Did you include that just to take a random shot at SEC rival Florida? Come on, Tommy, be honest. I won't forgive you, but at least I might someday understand you.
Greatest athlete? A bit more difficult. The jury's still out, but Tiger's giving his closing remarks.
You know, I'm pretty sure when a jury is out for, you know, deliberations...well, I'm pretty sure the time for closing remarks has passed. You know, you make your closing remarks, and then the jury's out. So if this metaphor is correct, Tiger would be giving his closing remarks to an empty jury box.
All of which leads me to me to think that even if Tiger Woods is the greatest athlete in the history of everything, he's sure as hell not the best jurisprudent. Actually, I'm pretty sure that title goes to the feller from Alabama, not Mississippi.
Congratulations, Tommy Snell...you just got your local ass handed to you! I feel so big right now, you can't even imagine.
My first stop in my 52-state tour of bad journalism takes me to Mississippi, where Tishomingo County's Woodall Mountain clocks in at a robust 806 feet. Some facts about Woodall:
1. Locals are rather charmingly self-aware about the fact that such a tiny peak is their state's highest point. You can buy a hat in area stores that proudly proclaims, "Ski Woodall." Yes, please.
2. There's a bluegrass band in Tupelo called the Woodall Mountain Boys.
3. During the Civil War, the Battle of Iuka took place in 1862 on Woodall Mountain. General William Rosecrans won victory by taking the mountain and barraging the nearby town of Iuka with artillery and plenty of it. No word on whether or not Rosecrans or his aid, Staff Sergeant Guildenstern, met their fates in the battle, although I imagine they're now dead.
Mississippi's representative in the series is Tommy Snell, who writes a column about golf for The Sun Herald, a Biloxi newspaper whose readership is mostly made up of denizens of the Gulf Coast. To the paper's immense credit, they kept publishing during Hurricane Katrina even after all their offices were devastated by the hurricane, which forced them to publish out of the Columbus, Georgia newsroom of the Ledger-Enquirer. This ultimately won them a Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. So yeah...nothing but respect for The Sun Herald.
This column by Mr. Snell? Eh, not so much.
Brandel Chamblee of The Golf Channel suggested, maybe even demanded, that Tiger Woods stands as the greatest athlete of all time.
Ooh boy. Look, I'm already going to say I'm not on board with any of this. I think "greatest athlete ever" is a really dumb topic to begin with - I mean, how the hell do you compare the relative athletic excellence of, say, Wilt Chamberlain to Gale Sayers? Let's say for a second you tried to do this scientifically. Even if you figured out how much they outperformed the average players in the sport, how do you calibrate the two marks so that it's a fair comparison? Is being the greatest pitcher ever more impressive than being the best quarterback? I've heard it argued Wayne Gretzky is greater than Michael Jordan because his stats were way more insane relative to the league averages. But does that mean he really was better or just that, for whatever reason, it's easier to outperform the mean in the NHL compared to the NBA?
Then there's the concept of "athlete." Does that mean we're talking about them in the context of their sport, or are we trying to get to some transcendent quality of "athleticism"? I suspect many people who want to argue this topic are more interested in the latter, which is pretty much wholly unquantifiable. Was Pele more "athletic" than Sandy Koufax? And speaking of Koufax, how do you deal with people with incredible athletic abilities whose careers never panned out the way they should have, like Bo Jackson or David Thompson (or even, much as I hate to say it, Michael Vick)? Should Bo or Deion Sanders get extra credit for excelling at two sports?
So yeah, all of these are valid rebuttals to the idea that Tiger Woods is the greatest athlete of all time. A much less valid but more assholish counterargument would be that his greatest rival looks like this:
When your chief competitor has man-boobs...yeah, I don't think I'm buying you as greatest athlete of all time. Honestly, there's only one worse choice than Tiger Woods that I hear when this argument comes up.
That's fast company, Secretariat would say.
And there it is. I'm not going to argue this beyond four incredibly simple words: SECRETARIAT...WAS...A...HORSE. I mean, if you're making some top fifty list of greatest athletes, I could see putting Secretariat in there somewhere to add a bit of color. But as the first athlete Tommy Snell names to refute the Tiger Woods argument? That just won't stand.
That's not a slam dunk, Michael Jordan would argue.
His Airness is a legitimate candidate for this asinine title. Also, that's a terrible...wait, does that even count as a joke?
Brett Farve's Fanatics from the Kiln would just have everyone look at the record book.
This is, I think, why I wanted to embark upon this project: to discover the weird in-jokes that dominate local sports columns. Seriously, I have no idea what the Kiln is supposed to be or how it got its name, but I'm going to assume it's a group of amateur potters who spend all their time firing clay sculptures of Brett Favre in various exciting positions, such as "throwing a potentially career-ending interception" or "sitting on a tractor." Also, those fanatics apparently love Brett so much that they haven't actually bothered to learn how to spell the man's name. I will resist any temptation to impugn the intelligence of the great people of Mississippi, but I'd really appreciate it if they didn't keep lofting softballs at me.
Oh, and Brett Favre as all-time greatest athlete? Eh, it's better than Secretariat. But I'm a little dubious of Favre's credentials for a made-up bullshit title like this. What am I supposed to be arguing again?
On a Sunday when Tom Brady and a bunch of Patriots might throw a different name into the "super" ring, it's fitting to start the argument of "greatest athlete of all time."
So this was written right before the Super Bowl. I think it should be pointed out that that sentence suggests that either the Patriots currently have on their roster several candidates for the best athlete who ever lived, or that he's suggesting the Patriots as a team might be the best athlete ever. I don't know which of those arguments is sillier. Also, "throw a different name into the 'super' ring"? I get that the word "super" is in there because of the Super Bowl, but I'm still pretty sure that doesn't make even a quantum of sense. Or solace, for that matter.
I happen to agree with Brian Hewett of TGC that Secretariat was the greatest athlete, if we can call a horse an athlete.
No, we can't call a horse an athlete. You realize why, right Tommy?
A horse is a horse, of course.
Precisely, though no points for the obvious reference. I'll see you your Mr. Ed and raise you Comet the Super-Horse.
Farve might not be playing in Phoenix today,
Since Favre is apparently the Sun Herald's local deity, I'm still shocked they can't spell his name correctly. This is the sort of thing I just assumed was a myth...I didn't honestly believe anyone was this terrible. Once again, my faith in humanity is totally unwarranted.
but as they toss 5-yard dumpoffs or 70-yard TDs, Manning and Brady will feel the grip of NFL and Packer records etched in the pigskin. Unitas, Bradshaw, Starr and Brady won't catch the USM grad this year or the next, and that's argument enough to throw down the "greatest" gauntlet in The Kiln.
Let me get this straight...with just the Super Bowl left to go in the 2007-08 season, Tommy Snell feels the 59-year-old Terry Bradshaw, the 74-year-old Bart Starr, and the dead Johnny Unitas are unlikely to do enough to surpass Favre's achievements? And just to make things clear, even another season for three men a combined 204 years of age won't do enough to edge past Favre? THAT is the Kiln's argument? That his 2008 campaign will be better than a dead guy's, even if said dead guy is Johnny U? I'm not hallucinating, right?
Man, gotta love the Kiln. They're so fucking edgy. Logic is for pussies when they're around. By the way, how has this proven anything - and I'm using "proven" incredibly loosely - beyond Favre being the best quarterback ever? When are we going to hear about how Brett Favre will throw more touchdowns next year than Georges Vezina? C'mon Kiln, step it up!
Tiger might be the luckiest athlete of all time. He conjures up shots at just the right moment.
Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, let me get this straight. As part of your argument that Tiger is one of the greatest athletes ever, you essentially write off all his obviously prodigious skill as mere luck? I'm sorry, do you just keep a gun constantly trained at your own foot? I bet the Kiln would be behind something like that, especially if they could make an erotic Favre sculpture based on that imagery. It'd be controversial, but all the better for it.
With unmatched crowds and a stadium-like setting (600,000 expected this week), he made a hole-in-one on No. 16 at the FBR Open, the loudest stage in golf.The more he practices, the luckier he gets. Cliché? Maybe, but facts are facts. More wins? More majors? As the lyrics suggest, "it's just a matter of time."
WHAT LYRICS!? I admit my cultural milieu may be slightly different from Tommy Snell's, but I have no idea what the hell he's referencing. Is it Randy Travis or Brooks Benton? Maybe Cartel? Dream Street!? Fuck it, I didn't get into this to be a musicologist.
Greatest coach? That's easy, John Wooden. Seven consecutive NCAA national championships and the greatest winning percentage (.813) of all time. When Florida wins five more in a row, we'll talk.
Did you include that just to take a random shot at SEC rival Florida? Come on, Tommy, be honest. I won't forgive you, but at least I might someday understand you.
Greatest athlete? A bit more difficult. The jury's still out, but Tiger's giving his closing remarks.
You know, I'm pretty sure when a jury is out for, you know, deliberations...well, I'm pretty sure the time for closing remarks has passed. You know, you make your closing remarks, and then the jury's out. So if this metaphor is correct, Tiger would be giving his closing remarks to an empty jury box.
All of which leads me to me to think that even if Tiger Woods is the greatest athlete in the history of everything, he's sure as hell not the best jurisprudent. Actually, I'm pretty sure that title goes to the feller from Alabama, not Mississippi.
Congratulations, Tommy Snell...you just got your local ass handed to you! I feel so big right now, you can't even imagine.
52 Weeks, 52 States, 52 Posts about shitty local journalists: an introduction
This is truly a beautiful world we live in. Somewhere, birds are singing, bees are buzzing, fishes are swimming, giraffes are elongating their necks in a desperate attempt to reach the tall fruits, at least if my understanding of Lamarck is correct. Elsewhere, the sun is shining, sometimes in such a way that the Moon looks kinda cool, and through all the land groggy bloggers are awakening early in the afternoon to find a fresh round of chocolate-chip waffles and Red Bull in their basement, lovingly left there by their eternally understanding, unerringly supportive parents, who even remembered to buy them those tickets for the last night of the Star Trek festival at the revival theater (it's Insurrection and Nemesis...back-to-back!). All is right with the world.
But we must step away from our wonderment and remember how this bucolic paradise was achieved: by fighting, on the front line. I was there at the fall of the Big Lead - someday I might even come to terms with that. I remember how bad things once looked...it seemed like Mike Celizic would never stop gleefully spinning entire columns out of just glancing at the standings; Bill Plaschke would continue to shit on the legacy of every poet ever born, particularly that fucking pimp Samuel Coleridge; Skip Bayless would forever argue himself into a moebius strip of self-contradiction based on his all-consuming hatred for all life; Mike Lupica would...well, shit, just Mike fucking Lupica. I remember the spies and infiltrators they sent amongst us to dampen our spirit and destroy our resolve. It seemed like all hope was lost, until out of the bowels of Pennsylvania came a writer who reminded us all why we love ripping the shit out of crappy sports journalists. In two words or less: Mike Seate.
Mike Seate is the sort of gleefully deranged journalist who never, ever could get a job at anywhere bigger than Pittsburgh's local newspaper (not that there's anything wrong with that). His bizarre devotion to super-bike racing and preserving people's right to do dangerous stunts at 40mph over the speed limit (as long as they're on motorcycles!) is so wonderfully insane that it easily trumps whatever mild delirium Woody Paige has just transferred to the printed page. He is everything I love about small-time journalism.
And so that is why I am embarking upon this project to honor all the obscure journalists like Mike Seate out there. And by "honor", I of course mean "make fun of." And by "make fun of", I really mean "launch an unprovoked ad hominem attack against somebody who doesn't even make the kind of Bill Conlin money that would even begin to justify such scorn." For the next year, I will each week choose a new local journalist from each of these United States and point out their foibles in a mildly humorous manner. If I find even one journalist who is even half as badass as Mike Seate, I will have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Frankly, I just want to see just how much shit you can get away with when your paper's circulation isn't more than 200,000.
Now you might have two questions, and even if you don't I have two questions for myself. And I intend on getting some answers.
Archie, there aren't 52 states! Huh!? Wha!!??
It was either keep this at fifty and be a couple weeks short or go for broke and tap into that rich 52-themed market. So sure, there aren't technically 52 states at the moment, but hey, I've got a year, I'll think of something. You know what they say: "A year is a long time in state sovereignty." Come on Guam!
Are you going to do this in some random order? Because that would be chickenshit.
I'm not sure if that term you just used there is positive or not, but I do indeed have an order I'm going to do this in. When I first came up with this idea, I knew I wanted to have a set order so that I didn't forget any and so that I didn't need to spend upwards of fifteen seconds each week choosing which state I'd do next. But how? Alphabetically? Too obvious. By population? Too topical. Order in which they were admitted to the Union? Too state-quarters-y.
And then I remembered one of my all-time favorite sports quotes from legendary Florida State coach Bill Peterson: "You guys line up alphabetically by height." And so it was that I had my order. And make no mistake - I'm not going to alphabetize the name of the highest points in each state. However tall they are (in feet, of course...yeah America!), that's what I'm alphabetizing. So stuff starting with eight will be first and two will be last, the way nature intended.
This should be fun.
But we must step away from our wonderment and remember how this bucolic paradise was achieved: by fighting, on the front line. I was there at the fall of the Big Lead - someday I might even come to terms with that. I remember how bad things once looked...it seemed like Mike Celizic would never stop gleefully spinning entire columns out of just glancing at the standings; Bill Plaschke would continue to shit on the legacy of every poet ever born, particularly that fucking pimp Samuel Coleridge; Skip Bayless would forever argue himself into a moebius strip of self-contradiction based on his all-consuming hatred for all life; Mike Lupica would...well, shit, just Mike fucking Lupica. I remember the spies and infiltrators they sent amongst us to dampen our spirit and destroy our resolve. It seemed like all hope was lost, until out of the bowels of Pennsylvania came a writer who reminded us all why we love ripping the shit out of crappy sports journalists. In two words or less: Mike Seate.
Mike Seate is the sort of gleefully deranged journalist who never, ever could get a job at anywhere bigger than Pittsburgh's local newspaper (not that there's anything wrong with that). His bizarre devotion to super-bike racing and preserving people's right to do dangerous stunts at 40mph over the speed limit (as long as they're on motorcycles!) is so wonderfully insane that it easily trumps whatever mild delirium Woody Paige has just transferred to the printed page. He is everything I love about small-time journalism.
And so that is why I am embarking upon this project to honor all the obscure journalists like Mike Seate out there. And by "honor", I of course mean "make fun of." And by "make fun of", I really mean "launch an unprovoked ad hominem attack against somebody who doesn't even make the kind of Bill Conlin money that would even begin to justify such scorn." For the next year, I will each week choose a new local journalist from each of these United States and point out their foibles in a mildly humorous manner. If I find even one journalist who is even half as badass as Mike Seate, I will have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. Frankly, I just want to see just how much shit you can get away with when your paper's circulation isn't more than 200,000.
Now you might have two questions, and even if you don't I have two questions for myself. And I intend on getting some answers.
Archie, there aren't 52 states! Huh!? Wha!!??
It was either keep this at fifty and be a couple weeks short or go for broke and tap into that rich 52-themed market. So sure, there aren't technically 52 states at the moment, but hey, I've got a year, I'll think of something. You know what they say: "A year is a long time in state sovereignty." Come on Guam!
Are you going to do this in some random order? Because that would be chickenshit.
I'm not sure if that term you just used there is positive or not, but I do indeed have an order I'm going to do this in. When I first came up with this idea, I knew I wanted to have a set order so that I didn't forget any and so that I didn't need to spend upwards of fifteen seconds each week choosing which state I'd do next. But how? Alphabetically? Too obvious. By population? Too topical. Order in which they were admitted to the Union? Too state-quarters-y.
And then I remembered one of my all-time favorite sports quotes from legendary Florida State coach Bill Peterson: "You guys line up alphabetically by height." And so it was that I had my order. And make no mistake - I'm not going to alphabetize the name of the highest points in each state. However tall they are (in feet, of course...yeah America!), that's what I'm alphabetizing. So stuff starting with eight will be first and two will be last, the way nature intended.
This should be fun.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Seriously...is Ray Ratto serious?
First of all, thanks so much to Will Leitch for linking to us and thanks to everybody (all 1,831 of you!) who have visited us today. If even a few of you found us funny enough in what is still very early days (seriously, this is only day three) to stick around and watch us grow...well, I'm honored, and I thank you. But either way, I've got an article to rip apart that is all about the stupidest concept in all of sports: curses. Sportsline's Ray Ratto?
Don't go all Bartman or Billy Goat on poor Dempster
I totally agree with this. Unfortunately, when your headshot is this...
I'm just not sure I can take anything you say seriously. So I'm going to have to dive deeper before deciding if your reasoning passes muster, Ratto. I'm sure you understand.
This isn't going to be just Ryan Dempster's fault. We have to see to that. Just because he says the Cubs are going to commemorate their 100th year without a World Series championship by having to start a new streak in 2009 doesn't mean he should be throttled when it doesn't happen.
He probably will be, of course, but it doesn't make it right.
Wait, Ray, I want to get this straight. It's not okay to strangle sports figures? My god, my entire world has been turned upside down (Bob Ryan's too). Seriously Ray, it's not even okay to kill Ryan Dempster? I mean, he had a 99 ERA+ last year! That's almost precisely average! How can I not feel bloodlust towards such a man?
Ray Ratto: bold stances ("strangling is bad!"), strong opinions ("it's not right!") since 1982.
(Note: I have no idea if Ray has been writing since 1982. I am willing to look up the patron saint of genital warts but not, for some reason, when Ray Ratto started writing. Draw your own conclusions.)
Dempster understands that the Cubs' entire marketing plan is based on the team's historical failures, a remarkable feat akin to Belgium commemorating its record in world wars.
Belgium in World War 1: member of the Allies for the duration of hostilities
Belgium in World War 2: member of the Allies from May 10, 1940 to the war's end
Belgium's record in World Wars: 2-0 (Just like the Marlins in the World Series! Actually I totally remember when Belgium had to get rid of Miguel Cabrera to save money. And by "Miguel Cabrera," I think I mean "the Congo.")
Ray, if you're looking for the lovable loser of the World Wars...well, Germany is the loser of the World Wars. There really isn't a loveable loser of the World Wars. I'd say it's Italy, but they switched sides in World War I, which I think makes them the Red Sox. Anyway, it's definitely not Belgium. Belgium is the Marlins. After all, who doesn't remember when in Game Six of the European Theater Championship Series, when that random fan (I think it was Portugal) got in the way of Rommel when he was trying to make that catch, and then Hermann Goring made that key error later in the inning, and before you know it Belgium came roaring back with six runs to blow the game wide open?
Wait...what?
He also understands that this feeling is four generations deep, and that predicting a World Series in year 99 or year 101 doesn't have the same goofy charm.
Ray might have a point here, but I'm pretty sure people would have found Dempster's prediction a little silly whether it was made this year or last year. If anything, it might have been more ridiculous last year, because the Cubs had just spent tons of money kind of foolishly. And by that, I mean they gave money to Jason Marquis. You know, to pitch. Just because he was merely below average instead of the biggest disaster ever doesn't change the fact that the 2007 season was one huge question mark. Frankly, it still is.
Also, the Diamondbacks are totally Czechoslovakia. Think about it.
In fact, manager Lou Piniella, who is responsible for one percent of the legacy, has already talked to his players about how to deal with all the questions about the Cubs' century.
Let me guess. "We don't let it bother us." "We just have to focus on the next game." "That's more something the fans worry about." You know...like almost any answer given by almost any player ever. And I do mean ever. I'm pretty much certain Coroebus of Elis just talked about taking the race one naked step at a time or some shit like that. Of course, he probably said it in Greek, as was the style of the time.
Breaking news: Luxembourg has announced that they are, in fact, the Kansas City Royals, in the sense that both have very little chance of winning the AL Central anytime soon.
We can assume he didn't already send Dempster out as a scouting party of one to see how many enemy snipers were up in the trees. That seems like an odd way to soft-pedal an anniversary party.
What an incredible way to fill column inches...come up with a stupid conspiracy theory that no one other than you has even thought of, and then debunk said theory. At least I'm not going around claiming Denmark isn't the San Francisco Giants (King Christian X was a total juicer with balky knees and I'm also pretty sure he was succeeded by Aaron Rowand).
The rest of the article makes some pretty tired points like "Cubs fans don't really want to win" and "Indians fans have it way worse!" I would refute these, but I don't think they really count as, you know, arguments. They're just sorta weird unfalsifiable things that help nobody (just like the various interpretations of quantum mechanics - and as I'm sure Ray Ratto would point out, the hidden variable theory is total bullshit). Also, the longer I go on, the greater the danger of falling into the trap of irritating homerism. So I will hopefully sidestep becoming an insufferable homer when my real points are...
1. There's no curse around the Cubs
2. Inventing a curse is shitty journalism (see Shaughnessy, Dan)
3. Writing an entire article around the curse when you don't even think it's really is even shitter journalism because you don't even have a story
4. If you're a sportswriter, actually having a story is something I consider a common courtesy
5. Geovany Soto should be unanimous ROY!!! WHOO!!!
Aw, shit. Too late.
Don't go all Bartman or Billy Goat on poor Dempster
I totally agree with this. Unfortunately, when your headshot is this...
I'm just not sure I can take anything you say seriously. So I'm going to have to dive deeper before deciding if your reasoning passes muster, Ratto. I'm sure you understand.
This isn't going to be just Ryan Dempster's fault. We have to see to that. Just because he says the Cubs are going to commemorate their 100th year without a World Series championship by having to start a new streak in 2009 doesn't mean he should be throttled when it doesn't happen.
He probably will be, of course, but it doesn't make it right.
Wait, Ray, I want to get this straight. It's not okay to strangle sports figures? My god, my entire world has been turned upside down (Bob Ryan's too). Seriously Ray, it's not even okay to kill Ryan Dempster? I mean, he had a 99 ERA+ last year! That's almost precisely average! How can I not feel bloodlust towards such a man?
Ray Ratto: bold stances ("strangling is bad!"), strong opinions ("it's not right!") since 1982.
(Note: I have no idea if Ray has been writing since 1982. I am willing to look up the patron saint of genital warts but not, for some reason, when Ray Ratto started writing. Draw your own conclusions.)
Dempster understands that the Cubs' entire marketing plan is based on the team's historical failures, a remarkable feat akin to Belgium commemorating its record in world wars.
Belgium in World War 1: member of the Allies for the duration of hostilities
Belgium in World War 2: member of the Allies from May 10, 1940 to the war's end
Belgium's record in World Wars: 2-0 (Just like the Marlins in the World Series! Actually I totally remember when Belgium had to get rid of Miguel Cabrera to save money. And by "Miguel Cabrera," I think I mean "the Congo.")
Ray, if you're looking for the lovable loser of the World Wars...well, Germany is the loser of the World Wars. There really isn't a loveable loser of the World Wars. I'd say it's Italy, but they switched sides in World War I, which I think makes them the Red Sox. Anyway, it's definitely not Belgium. Belgium is the Marlins. After all, who doesn't remember when in Game Six of the European Theater Championship Series, when that random fan (I think it was Portugal) got in the way of Rommel when he was trying to make that catch, and then Hermann Goring made that key error later in the inning, and before you know it Belgium came roaring back with six runs to blow the game wide open?
Wait...what?
He also understands that this feeling is four generations deep, and that predicting a World Series in year 99 or year 101 doesn't have the same goofy charm.
Ray might have a point here, but I'm pretty sure people would have found Dempster's prediction a little silly whether it was made this year or last year. If anything, it might have been more ridiculous last year, because the Cubs had just spent tons of money kind of foolishly. And by that, I mean they gave money to Jason Marquis. You know, to pitch. Just because he was merely below average instead of the biggest disaster ever doesn't change the fact that the 2007 season was one huge question mark. Frankly, it still is.
Also, the Diamondbacks are totally Czechoslovakia. Think about it.
In fact, manager Lou Piniella, who is responsible for one percent of the legacy, has already talked to his players about how to deal with all the questions about the Cubs' century.
Let me guess. "We don't let it bother us." "We just have to focus on the next game." "That's more something the fans worry about." You know...like almost any answer given by almost any player ever. And I do mean ever. I'm pretty much certain Coroebus of Elis just talked about taking the race one naked step at a time or some shit like that. Of course, he probably said it in Greek, as was the style of the time.
Breaking news: Luxembourg has announced that they are, in fact, the Kansas City Royals, in the sense that both have very little chance of winning the AL Central anytime soon.
We can assume he didn't already send Dempster out as a scouting party of one to see how many enemy snipers were up in the trees. That seems like an odd way to soft-pedal an anniversary party.
What an incredible way to fill column inches...come up with a stupid conspiracy theory that no one other than you has even thought of, and then debunk said theory. At least I'm not going around claiming Denmark isn't the San Francisco Giants (King Christian X was a total juicer with balky knees and I'm also pretty sure he was succeeded by Aaron Rowand).
The rest of the article makes some pretty tired points like "Cubs fans don't really want to win" and "Indians fans have it way worse!" I would refute these, but I don't think they really count as, you know, arguments. They're just sorta weird unfalsifiable things that help nobody (just like the various interpretations of quantum mechanics - and as I'm sure Ray Ratto would point out, the hidden variable theory is total bullshit). Also, the longer I go on, the greater the danger of falling into the trap of irritating homerism. So I will hopefully sidestep becoming an insufferable homer when my real points are...
1. There's no curse around the Cubs
2. Inventing a curse is shitty journalism (see Shaughnessy, Dan)
3. Writing an entire article around the curse when you don't even think it's really is even shitter journalism because you don't even have a story
4. If you're a sportswriter, actually having a story is something I consider a common courtesy
5. Geovany Soto should be unanimous ROY!!! WHOO!!!
Aw, shit. Too late.
Now I feel like I gotta pull my weight...
Quick-- name three or four players the Yankees are really glad didn't retire before spring training in 2007. Did you name Johnny Damon? Congratulations! You are:
a) Retarded and/or
b) Jon Heyman
Yeah, because that's not at all self-serving. I'm guessing the Yankees would rather have that money come off the books. As the good folks over at AtHomePlate point out, Johnny Damon, has pretty much zero value when he's not playing centerfield, where he played all of 48 games last year and had an OPS+ of 97. But hey Heyman, Johnny just knew these guys needed him. Certainly, more than that asshole, Rodriguez. Man, what a dickhead he is.
a) Retarded and/or
b) Jon Heyman
When Johnny Damon walked out of spring training early last year, he thought he was walking away from the game, SI.com has learned. The Yankees explained Damon's absence early last spring as "personal reasons,'' and there was a lot of wrong speculation about something or other happening with Damon's family that would necessitate the time off.
The reality is, according to Yankees clubhouse sources, Damon just wasn't sure if he wanted to keep playing and was actually seriously considering walking away from the final three years of his $52-million, four-year contract. Nobody does that, but Damon almost did.
"I was just exhausted .... Burnt out,'' Damon told SI.com Tuesday. "[Retirement] definitely crossed my mind.''
After a few days, Damon decided to return. "I knew these guys needed me,'' Damon said with a smile. How true that was.
Yeah, because that's not at all self-serving. I'm guessing the Yankees would rather have that money come off the books. As the good folks over at AtHomePlate point out, Johnny Damon, has pretty much zero value when he's not playing centerfield, where he played all of 48 games last year and had an OPS+ of 97. But hey Heyman, Johnny just knew these guys needed him. Certainly, more than that asshole, Rodriguez. Man, what a dickhead he is.
Oh, that explains everything...
Back when I read ESPN.com for more than just news and the occasional column, one of the places I liked to visit was Rumor Central, if only because I found all the potential trades and acquisitions strangely fascinating. I lost interest, however, when I came to realize I just didn't care that much about who would win the Matt Morris sweepstakes, what the Giants are going to do about Ray Durham's contract, and whether any team was going to make Cristian Guzman's comeback a reality. And these weren't even deals that had, you know, happened. They were just rumors, and boring rumors at that.
So I have to admit I was a little surprised when I happened to glance upon ESPN's NBA rumor central yesterday and discovered a rumor so juicy I could have sworn I was swimming in grapefruit:
Avery Wanted To Trade Dirk
Whoa, that's a pretty huge story, especially considering how much trouble the Mavs just went through to pull off a trade meant to solidify Dirk's position. Man...if this is true, that's a massive storyline you've got right there.
According to an infallible source,
What, Pope Benedict XVI is Rumor Central's mole in the Mavs organization? Funny, I would have figured he'd be with the...
We interrupt your regularly scheduled post to present the first in our award-eligible series, "You Choose the Punchline!
Which is the funniest team to suggest Pope Benedict XVI works for? Possibilities include...
A. The Angels - Way too obvious...what are we, sixth graders? (For the record, we here at Fire Everybody are eighth graders.)
B. The Rockies - Because they're supposedly "God's Team" and all, but honestly, wasn't that joke a cliche a year ago?
C. The Lions - Basically the same argument but entirely centered around Jon Kitna, although that reference isn't exactly fresh either.
D. The Red Sox - Plays to the strong Catholic contingent in New England, suggestion that John Henry and Larry Luchinno take orders direct from the Vatican a la ultra-conservative conception of the Kennedy administration sort of amusing. Bonus points for implying the pope is Bill James.
E. The Nashville Predators - Because suggesting anybody, much less the Pope, cares about hockey is always funny. Look it up.
Correct answer? I have no idea what the punchline should be - that's why I made this a lame multiple-choice thing.
the Mavericks' coach (Avery Johnson) pressed team owner Mark Cuban to deal Dirk Nowitzki after the NBA's MVP came up shamefully small against the Warriors in last season's upsetting first-round elimination, but was overruled.
It was a pretty huge upset, but what kind of coach is so shortsighted that he'd want to deal the reigning MVP, even after one of the worst upsets ever? I have no idea what Avery Johnson is like personally - he could be a total Deliverance-style nutcase for all I know - but I'm guessing the fastest coach to 150 wins probably has an ounce of common sense. Of course, he might be a total boss-banging hippie mystic, but someone like that would probably be all about guiding Dirk on the next phase of his cosmic journey or some shit. Also, I apologize for implicitly creating the image of Mark Cuban and Avery Johnson engaged in coitus, and I now apologize for explicitly creating it.
Johnson's ideal leader is supposed to offer positive guidance and counsel on and off the court, as well as in and out of church.
The next starting small forward for the Mavs? Saint Vitalis of Assisi. And before you accuse me of lamely using someone intentionally more obscure than Francis of Assisi, keep in mind that Saint Vitalis is the patron saint of "diseases affecting the genitals," something that should come in very handy if Vernon Maxwell is pondering a comeback. That's definitely leading when it comes to "in and out of church." Or maybe just in and out. As in the old in-out, real savage. You know...sex. I'm told players have it on occasion.
(I was thinking of splitting those last few sentences into separate lines for the sake of comedic pacing, but I'll be damned before I do anything that makes me remotely like Bill Plaschke. Frankly, I'm uncomfortable enough with sharing letters in our names.)
That disqualifies Jason Kidd.
Man, Rumor Central is really moving away from the whole "boringly reporting what random sources whisper to us" straight into "salaciously impugning the character of a guy who, yeah, probably deserves it." When did Rumor Central decide to become so...well, I'd say "interesting," but I think the word I'm looking for is "assholish." Not that I necessarily have a problem with that.
Still, one sphere of influence is better than none. Convinced a championship is otherwise beyond capture, Avery compromised his primary concern.
So wait, Avery Johnson is allegedly so concerned about the moral fiber of his team that he actually struggled in deciding it was more worthwhile to win a championship than make sure his players achieved salvation? I'm sorry, that's just insane. When did Rumor Central just start making shit up and spewing random sensationalist bullshit? Wait a tick, there's a source listed here for all this information...
-- New York Post
You know, never in the entire history of man have three words explained so much. Also, I have never been less surprised by anything in my life, and I include the sun continuing to rise daily in that statement.
So I have to admit I was a little surprised when I happened to glance upon ESPN's NBA rumor central yesterday and discovered a rumor so juicy I could have sworn I was swimming in grapefruit:
Avery Wanted To Trade Dirk
Whoa, that's a pretty huge story, especially considering how much trouble the Mavs just went through to pull off a trade meant to solidify Dirk's position. Man...if this is true, that's a massive storyline you've got right there.
According to an infallible source,
What, Pope Benedict XVI is Rumor Central's mole in the Mavs organization? Funny, I would have figured he'd be with the...
We interrupt your regularly scheduled post to present the first in our award-eligible series, "You Choose the Punchline!
Which is the funniest team to suggest Pope Benedict XVI works for? Possibilities include...
A. The Angels - Way too obvious...what are we, sixth graders? (For the record, we here at Fire Everybody are eighth graders.)
B. The Rockies - Because they're supposedly "God's Team" and all, but honestly, wasn't that joke a cliche a year ago?
C. The Lions - Basically the same argument but entirely centered around Jon Kitna, although that reference isn't exactly fresh either.
D. The Red Sox - Plays to the strong Catholic contingent in New England, suggestion that John Henry and Larry Luchinno take orders direct from the Vatican a la ultra-conservative conception of the Kennedy administration sort of amusing. Bonus points for implying the pope is Bill James.
E. The Nashville Predators - Because suggesting anybody, much less the Pope, cares about hockey is always funny. Look it up.
Correct answer? I have no idea what the punchline should be - that's why I made this a lame multiple-choice thing.
the Mavericks' coach (Avery Johnson) pressed team owner Mark Cuban to deal Dirk Nowitzki after the NBA's MVP came up shamefully small against the Warriors in last season's upsetting first-round elimination, but was overruled.
It was a pretty huge upset, but what kind of coach is so shortsighted that he'd want to deal the reigning MVP, even after one of the worst upsets ever? I have no idea what Avery Johnson is like personally - he could be a total Deliverance-style nutcase for all I know - but I'm guessing the fastest coach to 150 wins probably has an ounce of common sense. Of course, he might be a total boss-banging hippie mystic, but someone like that would probably be all about guiding Dirk on the next phase of his cosmic journey or some shit. Also, I apologize for implicitly creating the image of Mark Cuban and Avery Johnson engaged in coitus, and I now apologize for explicitly creating it.
Johnson's ideal leader is supposed to offer positive guidance and counsel on and off the court, as well as in and out of church.
The next starting small forward for the Mavs? Saint Vitalis of Assisi. And before you accuse me of lamely using someone intentionally more obscure than Francis of Assisi, keep in mind that Saint Vitalis is the patron saint of "diseases affecting the genitals," something that should come in very handy if Vernon Maxwell is pondering a comeback. That's definitely leading when it comes to "in and out of church." Or maybe just in and out. As in the old in-out, real savage. You know...sex. I'm told players have it on occasion.
(I was thinking of splitting those last few sentences into separate lines for the sake of comedic pacing, but I'll be damned before I do anything that makes me remotely like Bill Plaschke. Frankly, I'm uncomfortable enough with sharing letters in our names.)
That disqualifies Jason Kidd.
Man, Rumor Central is really moving away from the whole "boringly reporting what random sources whisper to us" straight into "salaciously impugning the character of a guy who, yeah, probably deserves it." When did Rumor Central decide to become so...well, I'd say "interesting," but I think the word I'm looking for is "assholish." Not that I necessarily have a problem with that.
Still, one sphere of influence is better than none. Convinced a championship is otherwise beyond capture, Avery compromised his primary concern.
So wait, Avery Johnson is allegedly so concerned about the moral fiber of his team that he actually struggled in deciding it was more worthwhile to win a championship than make sure his players achieved salvation? I'm sorry, that's just insane. When did Rumor Central just start making shit up and spewing random sensationalist bullshit? Wait a tick, there's a source listed here for all this information...
-- New York Post
You know, never in the entire history of man have three words explained so much. Also, I have never been less surprised by anything in my life, and I include the sun continuing to rise daily in that statement.
Please DON'T fire Will Leitch...
Passive Voice - or Passive, as his mother calls him - and I headed down to the Boston leg of Will Leitch's book tour for God Save the Fan. Since in our civilian lives we work at our student radio station, I had read with interest the following section of Will's FAQ for the book that he posted back in January:
I am a professional media reporter. I would like to "interview" you about the book, and by "interview," I mean, "call you an asshole." How can I do this?
Interpreting "professional media reporter" incredibly loosely, I somehow conned the very nice people at Harper Collins into letting me interview Will for a whole thirty minutes. Here's the link to our sports department's blog that has the interview, in case you're interested - it's also got interviews with Pat Forde, Dak from Fire Joe Morgan, and (for some reason even I don't understand) Dolph "Ivan Drago" Lundgren. I'll also put the links at the end of this post.
Anyway, I thought I might pretend I'm more than just an angry blowhard by filing this report on the book tour! Complete with pictures! Almost none of which were taken during the event itself!
First of all, the event was at the Boston University Barnes & Noble, whose previous author events have apparently included:
1. Gene Wilder's autobiography
2. A Wolfgang Puck cookbook
3. The expanded universe novel Star Wars Darth Bane Path of Destruction: A Novel of the Old Republic (their title, not mine). Author Drew Karpyshyn recommended on the book's poster that I "embrace the dark side." Will do, Drew, will do. Also, until further notice, I'm assuming KSK demigod Big Daddy Drew is Star Wars expanded universe author Drew Karpyshyn. I'm also assuming Christmas Ape is Wolfgang Puck and Flubby is Gene Wilder.
4. TV's Detective Munch himself, Richard Belzer, who I can only assume was promoting the book Law and Order: SVU - Complete Season Three DVD Boxset.
5. Much more worryingly, Dan Shaughnessy and Mike Lupica have also been through here.
Lupica's message was especially inspiring: "Barnes & Noble, thanks for the use of the hall. Mike Lupica." It's that sort of class that has made the man number one, people.
The event itself went well, and in the interest of not wasting too much more of your time I will condense the narrative into a few notes and highlights. Is that bad journalism? I wish I knew.
- Will blasted the myth that it's difficult to get a Deadspin commenting account, which basically means the fact that I went to the trouble of interviewing him for thirty minutes just to get a commenting account is pretty much the lamest thing I've ever done. And believe me, there's plenty of competition for that title.
- When asked whether he'd met any of his fellow bloggers, Will mentioned he had only met the Mighty MJD for the first time relatively recently, and he was exactly like what Will expected to the point that he recognized the man, who he had never seen before, in a crowded room. I don't know quite what that means, but I'd like to think "exactly what I expected" means held in the loving embrace of Muff Stubble Girl.
- Will Leitch does a dynamite southern accent, as was seen during his dramatic interpretation of the John Rocker interview. Seriously, it made him sound 20% manlier, 30% more charismatic, and 70% more likely to kick my disrespectful ass. Is a southern accent Will Leitch's personal Enzyte?
That southern twang was definitely enhancing that particular male, though I'm dubious whether it's all natural.
- The dude portraying Will in the Rocker reenactment was wearing a shirt, tie, and pants ensemble (sorry, I'm way too uncouth to have the more precise term for that...business casual, maybe?), which I think made him the best-dressed dude there. He hurt that image a little by wearing a "Free Will" hat, which I thought might have something to do with the whole ESPN blackballing thing until I noticed Shakespeare's picture between the words. So unless the Bard of Avon has started writing the hawking and jousting closers, I don't think it had anything to do with Deadspin. But I've been wrong before.
- Will added a footnote to a footnote when he elaborated on this gem from the Rocker interview: "My interviewing tactic mostly involves plying my subject with alcohol. Don't laugh: This is exactly how Seymour Hersh does it." Ever the pop culture maven, Will substituted in Mike Wallace for Hersh and noted, "Just like with Roger Clemens!" This of course ignores that, much like Captain America, it is now chemically impossible to get Clemens drunk. Also, just like Captain America, Clemens was recently publicly ambushed and assassinated while being brought to a hearing. If this doesn't capture exactly what just happened to the Rocket, I don't know what does.
- Apparently pretty much every fan of the site Will has met over the years has been totally normal, except for one guy who was a little on the weird side. It seems the key to unnerving Will Leitch is to quickly repeat Deadspin catchphrases at him, as the fan's weirdness took the form of sidling up to him and mumbling bon mots like "You're with me, Leather!" and "Carl Monday watches you masturbate!" To be fair, the dude was Martin Lawrence, so perhaps it's understandable.
- Speaking of strange little creeps, Supermike was, as far as we can tell, not there, as someone at one point piped up and asked, "Is Supermike here?" Tragically, there was no response. To be fair, The Tin Star was on Turner Classic Movies at 6:15, and if there's one thing we definitely know about Supermike, it's that he really appreciates his late-era Anthony Mann.
- I'm going to break this story now: Will Leitch and Boston Legal starCandice Bergen James Spader are the same person. I've suspected this for awhile due to their shocking physical resemblance - they both are male, have hair, and sorta smirk in some pictures I've seen - you know, the works. Take a look...
C'mon, this explains everything. His constant references to co-star William Shatner, his lingering sexual tension with Maggie Gyllenhaal, the fact that I have complicated man-crushes towards two men when really I should only be capable of one, his awkwardness in situations with Peter Gallagher and Andie MacDowell, the fact that you've never, ever seen them in the same room together...you know, everything! The Pulitzer committee knows where to find me when they're ready to recognize this. You too, Nobel.
- Finally, it was time for Will to sign our books. I asked him to personalize it with the only quote I could think of that was appropriate. He very kindly appended it to his own apology for being a boring interview (which he isn't) and totally justified shot at Dolph Lundgren (I want to start a feud)...
I don't want to call out Will for not knowing every line ever written from The Simpsons, but he didn't immediately recognize the origin of "Keep reaching for that rainbow." You can't begin to imagine how proud I am that Will Leitch and I share a private joke that even he doesn't get.
And now, that interview...
Of Deadspin, God Save the Fan, and the book tour
Experts and student journalism
The jokes that are Ivy League and Big 10 basketball
I destroy any chance of ever interning at ESPN...thank goodness
Will utterly owns my ass in a round of Cubs-Cards taunting
A manifesto for sports fans
Dolph Lundgren and tequila are discussed, much happiness ensues
What is good sports journalism?
I am a professional media reporter. I would like to "interview" you about the book, and by "interview," I mean, "call you an asshole." How can I do this?
Interpreting "professional media reporter" incredibly loosely, I somehow conned the very nice people at Harper Collins into letting me interview Will for a whole thirty minutes. Here's the link to our sports department's blog that has the interview, in case you're interested - it's also got interviews with Pat Forde, Dak from Fire Joe Morgan, and (for some reason even I don't understand) Dolph "Ivan Drago" Lundgren. I'll also put the links at the end of this post.
Anyway, I thought I might pretend I'm more than just an angry blowhard by filing this report on the book tour! Complete with pictures! Almost none of which were taken during the event itself!
First of all, the event was at the Boston University Barnes & Noble, whose previous author events have apparently included:
1. Gene Wilder's autobiography
2. A Wolfgang Puck cookbook
3. The expanded universe novel Star Wars Darth Bane Path of Destruction: A Novel of the Old Republic (their title, not mine). Author Drew Karpyshyn recommended on the book's poster that I "embrace the dark side." Will do, Drew, will do. Also, until further notice, I'm assuming KSK demigod Big Daddy Drew is Star Wars expanded universe author Drew Karpyshyn. I'm also assuming Christmas Ape is Wolfgang Puck and Flubby is Gene Wilder.
4. TV's Detective Munch himself, Richard Belzer, who I can only assume was promoting the book Law and Order: SVU - Complete Season Three DVD Boxset.
5. Much more worryingly, Dan Shaughnessy and Mike Lupica have also been through here.
Lupica's message was especially inspiring: "Barnes & Noble, thanks for the use of the hall. Mike Lupica." It's that sort of class that has made the man number one, people.
The event itself went well, and in the interest of not wasting too much more of your time I will condense the narrative into a few notes and highlights. Is that bad journalism? I wish I knew.
- Will blasted the myth that it's difficult to get a Deadspin commenting account, which basically means the fact that I went to the trouble of interviewing him for thirty minutes just to get a commenting account is pretty much the lamest thing I've ever done. And believe me, there's plenty of competition for that title.
- When asked whether he'd met any of his fellow bloggers, Will mentioned he had only met the Mighty MJD for the first time relatively recently, and he was exactly like what Will expected to the point that he recognized the man, who he had never seen before, in a crowded room. I don't know quite what that means, but I'd like to think "exactly what I expected" means held in the loving embrace of Muff Stubble Girl.
- Will Leitch does a dynamite southern accent, as was seen during his dramatic interpretation of the John Rocker interview. Seriously, it made him sound 20% manlier, 30% more charismatic, and 70% more likely to kick my disrespectful ass. Is a southern accent Will Leitch's personal Enzyte?
That southern twang was definitely enhancing that particular male, though I'm dubious whether it's all natural.
- The dude portraying Will in the Rocker reenactment was wearing a shirt, tie, and pants ensemble (sorry, I'm way too uncouth to have the more precise term for that...business casual, maybe?), which I think made him the best-dressed dude there. He hurt that image a little by wearing a "Free Will" hat, which I thought might have something to do with the whole ESPN blackballing thing until I noticed Shakespeare's picture between the words. So unless the Bard of Avon has started writing the hawking and jousting closers, I don't think it had anything to do with Deadspin. But I've been wrong before.
- Will added a footnote to a footnote when he elaborated on this gem from the Rocker interview: "My interviewing tactic mostly involves plying my subject with alcohol. Don't laugh: This is exactly how Seymour Hersh does it." Ever the pop culture maven, Will substituted in Mike Wallace for Hersh and noted, "Just like with Roger Clemens!" This of course ignores that, much like Captain America, it is now chemically impossible to get Clemens drunk. Also, just like Captain America, Clemens was recently publicly ambushed and assassinated while being brought to a hearing. If this doesn't capture exactly what just happened to the Rocket, I don't know what does.
- Apparently pretty much every fan of the site Will has met over the years has been totally normal, except for one guy who was a little on the weird side. It seems the key to unnerving Will Leitch is to quickly repeat Deadspin catchphrases at him, as the fan's weirdness took the form of sidling up to him and mumbling bon mots like "You're with me, Leather!" and "Carl Monday watches you masturbate!" To be fair, the dude was Martin Lawrence, so perhaps it's understandable.
- Speaking of strange little creeps, Supermike was, as far as we can tell, not there, as someone at one point piped up and asked, "Is Supermike here?" Tragically, there was no response. To be fair, The Tin Star was on Turner Classic Movies at 6:15, and if there's one thing we definitely know about Supermike, it's that he really appreciates his late-era Anthony Mann.
- I'm going to break this story now: Will Leitch and Boston Legal star
C'mon, this explains everything. His constant references to co-star William Shatner, his lingering sexual tension with Maggie Gyllenhaal, the fact that I have complicated man-crushes towards two men when really I should only be capable of one, his awkwardness in situations with Peter Gallagher and Andie MacDowell, the fact that you've never, ever seen them in the same room together...you know, everything! The Pulitzer committee knows where to find me when they're ready to recognize this. You too, Nobel.
- Finally, it was time for Will to sign our books. I asked him to personalize it with the only quote I could think of that was appropriate. He very kindly appended it to his own apology for being a boring interview (which he isn't) and totally justified shot at Dolph Lundgren (I want to start a feud)...
I don't want to call out Will for not knowing every line ever written from The Simpsons, but he didn't immediately recognize the origin of "Keep reaching for that rainbow." You can't begin to imagine how proud I am that Will Leitch and I share a private joke that even he doesn't get.
And now, that interview...
Of Deadspin, God Save the Fan, and the book tour
Experts and student journalism
The jokes that are Ivy League and Big 10 basketball
I destroy any chance of ever interning at ESPN...thank goodness
Will utterly owns my ass in a round of Cubs-Cards taunting
A manifesto for sports fans
Dolph Lundgren and tequila are discussed, much happiness ensues
What is good sports journalism?
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Some mild fun with what is honestly not a completely terrible article...
I think the general consensus of the blogosphere (alternative term: interblogs) is that Jerry Crasnick is one of the good guys. He eschews the pointless negativism of a Jay Mariotti, the weird poetry of a Bill Plaschke, the rampant Yankeeism of a Mike Celizic, and the being-two-thousand-years-old of a Murray Chass. Usually, he writes solidly unremarkable articles that make solidly unremarkable points, although all too often he falls prey to the siren songs of sportswriters: hustle, grit, and clubhouse presence. So if not one of the good guys, at least one of the neutral nellies. You guys like alliteration, right?
But still, I can't shake the feeling that, with a little careful prodding and nagging, Jerry can take that final step into being a full-fledged Rob-Neyer-style baseball dude, and if there's one thing I definitely feel the world needs more of, it's Rob Neyer. So now, as part of my genius Bizarro self-improvement plan for Mr. Crasnick, I will shame him into recognizing the error of his ways by nitpicking what is on balance a decent column.
Chicago is anxious to extend its hands and hearts to Kosuke Fukudome. If he fulfills the hype, there will be an abundance of standing ovations, Wrigley Field curtain calls and laudatory Jay Mariotti columns coming his way over the next several months.
Laudatory...Jay...Mariotti? Sorry Jerry, you've already lost me.
But as Fukudome nears the end of his first week in a Major League Baseball clubhouse, even the most erudite, well-educated Cubs could use a primer on how to relate to their new teammate.
Ooh, who do you think is the most erudite, well-educated Cub? I know who it used to be, but sadly that was now ten years ago. Hmm...I'm going to go with Sean Gallagher, if only because those songs he wrote in the early nineties were truly something else. Or is it because his stand-up is so avant-garde and revolutionary?
Center fielder Sam Fuld, who has an economics degree from Stanford,
Stanford? NERD!!!
counts "Mr. Baseball" with Tom Selleck and "Lost in Translation" with Bill Murray among his Japanese cultural references.
Lost in Translation? PRETENTIOUS NERD!!! Ah, that felt good. I love ripping on them nerds. Because if there's one thing I'm not, it's a nerd. What's that? You want another completely random link to an Alan Moore comic? Well, OK, if you insist...
Anyway, skipping ahead...
The Cubs did plenty of homework before signing Fukudome to a four-year, $48 million deal in December. Ace scout Gary Hughes watched him at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and returned with glowing reports, and Bush and scout Paul Weaver were similarly impressed in subsequent viewings.
I think we're supposed to assume they did a little more research than this, but I'm a little concerned when the first piece of evidence Jerry cites is a four-year-old analysis of Olympic baseball, something pretty much universally considered to be a failed bastardization of baseball proper. And anyway, it's not as though Fukodome's regular season games aren't televised, so it's not like the old days when the only way to see the likes of Sadaharu Oh were in exhibition games against a hungover Mickey Mantle. I mean, I know for a fact Japan has TV; I see clips of it all the time. Admittedly, the Japanese television I've seen didn't really have much to do with baseball, unless it involved random people being pelted with them, I guess.
Fukudome hit two home runs for Japan at the World Baseball Classic in 2006, and had the look of a player who's comfortable on a big stage.
Well, David Ortiz hit two homers, so that definitely proves that argument. Endy Chavez did as well, and you just know those two homers helped him make that amazing catch back in the 2006 NLCS. Oh, and *SHUDDER* Bernie Williams hit two as well.
Of course, Adrian Beltre hit FOUR homers at the WBC, so that means he's twice as comfortable as any of those non-clutchy hit-nothings on a big stage. And that's definitely been borne out by his play in a huge market like Seattle, where those pirahnas in the media will eat you alive if you don't play up to their colossal expectations (and, by that, I think I pretty much mean With Leather's Matt Ufford).
Fukudome's willingness to work deep counts makes him a welcome addition to a Chicago lineup that embodies the word "aggressive." Last year the Cubs were tied for 25th among the 30 big league teams in walks. They also displayed a hack-first and ask-questions-later mentality as a rule. According to Stats Inc., the Cubs swung at 46.9 percent of the pitches they saw last season. That made them the 22nd most selective team in the majors.
Jerry, you're never going to make any progress until you're willing to call a spade a spade. The Chicago Cubs lineup wasn't aggressive because "aggressive" in this context has positive connotations. The Chicago Cubs lineup last year was "undisciplined", "counterproductive", "bad at things that actually contribute to what hack sportswriters like to call manufacturing runs, which really should mean working counts and producing walks," and "playing like Juan Pierre was still there." Come on, Jerry, you know, deep down, in your heart of hearts, you're an unrepentant asshole...just like me! Give in to your darker nature! Rip those Cubs hitters a new one!
Fukudome posted an on-base percentage of .430 or better in each of his last three seasons with the Chunichi Dragons, and Piniella loves the thought of hitting him second between Alfonso Soriano and Derrek Lee.
Well-done Lou! You put your high-OBP guys at the top of the order, thereby giving them slightly more opportunities than other players to use their already superior ability and thereby maximizing your overall run-scoring potential! Precisely right. (Well, other than Alfonso ".337 OBP" Soriano leading off. That's merely average, but at least he has a reasonable contract that reflects that. Don't correct me on that...as a fan, I need this. Although his WARP-3 last year was 9.0, so that's something.)
What's his principal strength as a player?
"My strength is, when I make a mistake I forget about it very quickly and prepare for the next play or the next pitch," Fukudome said.
As I believe you might say in your native Japanese, Mr. Fukodome, "Chigau!" Your principal strength is your .430 on-base percentage over the last three seasons in Japan. That is an awesome strength. You don't need to run from who you are and create Erstad-esque pseudo-arguments for why you're valuable. (Incidentally, I had no idea no idea how much research I would have to do to figure out that "chigau" was the exact Japanese word I needed to use.)
If Piniella is correct, big league pitchers will test Fukudome's bat speed with hard stuff out of the chute. Then they'll pound one side of the plate or the other to try and find a weakness. With each test that Fukudome passes, opponents will invent new ways to try and beat him.
You mean...they're going to pitch to him? People, this is why Sweet Lou makes the big bucks; he takes a long look at major league pitchers, studies their habits, and ultimately decides they are, in fact, not belly-itchers. Me, I was definitely learning towards the belly-itching side of things, so I'm sure glad I'm not running the Cubs. Honestly, I figured opposing teams would just let Fukodome hit off one of those preschool batting tees. Actually, that might happen with the Pirates.
Judging from his portfolio in Japan, Fukudome doesn't have a lot of shortcomings. He's a former Central League Most Valuable Player, a two-time batting champion and a four-time Gold Glove Award winner with a career .397 OBP.
The Gold Glove: a bullshit award that knows no international boundaries. Come to think of it, didn't Buzz Aldrin pick one up for his fancy flag-handling on the Moon? And what about this plaque that Carl Sagan put in Pioneer 10? Doesn't figure two look suspiciously like the two baseballs that adorn the Gold Glove award? Don't they? Dear lord...the universal apocalypse is coming...and it's in Gold Glove form! What an angle!
You know, utterly unbelievable as it might sound, that digression pretty much illustrates the problem with Crasnick's article - whereas the end of all life in the universe is, you know, important, there really isn't anything that Jerry writes that offers any particularly new insight. Let's see if I can summarize his points:
1. Japanese players face a culture shock when they play in the United States
2. Kusoke Fukodome should be pretty good, if not outstanding
3. The Cubs were horribly impatient hitters in 2007
4. Lou Piniella believes pitchers will pitch to Fukodome
5. Adding a good player to an improving Cubs team might make them improve more
C'mon Jerry - I know you have to reach a quota of articles and everything, but if this is all you've got to say, you might as well have the common decency to make up crazy shit like an intergalactic Gold Glove conspiracy. Hell, I'll let you have it...for a price.
But still, I can't shake the feeling that, with a little careful prodding and nagging, Jerry can take that final step into being a full-fledged Rob-Neyer-style baseball dude, and if there's one thing I definitely feel the world needs more of, it's Rob Neyer. So now, as part of my genius Bizarro self-improvement plan for Mr. Crasnick, I will shame him into recognizing the error of his ways by nitpicking what is on balance a decent column.
Chicago is anxious to extend its hands and hearts to Kosuke Fukudome. If he fulfills the hype, there will be an abundance of standing ovations, Wrigley Field curtain calls and laudatory Jay Mariotti columns coming his way over the next several months.
Laudatory...Jay...Mariotti? Sorry Jerry, you've already lost me.
But as Fukudome nears the end of his first week in a Major League Baseball clubhouse, even the most erudite, well-educated Cubs could use a primer on how to relate to their new teammate.
Ooh, who do you think is the most erudite, well-educated Cub? I know who it used to be, but sadly that was now ten years ago. Hmm...I'm going to go with Sean Gallagher, if only because those songs he wrote in the early nineties were truly something else. Or is it because his stand-up is so avant-garde and revolutionary?
Center fielder Sam Fuld, who has an economics degree from Stanford,
Stanford? NERD!!!
counts "Mr. Baseball" with Tom Selleck and "Lost in Translation" with Bill Murray among his Japanese cultural references.
Lost in Translation? PRETENTIOUS NERD!!! Ah, that felt good. I love ripping on them nerds. Because if there's one thing I'm not, it's a nerd. What's that? You want another completely random link to an Alan Moore comic? Well, OK, if you insist...
Anyway, skipping ahead...
The Cubs did plenty of homework before signing Fukudome to a four-year, $48 million deal in December. Ace scout Gary Hughes watched him at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens and returned with glowing reports, and Bush and scout Paul Weaver were similarly impressed in subsequent viewings.
I think we're supposed to assume they did a little more research than this, but I'm a little concerned when the first piece of evidence Jerry cites is a four-year-old analysis of Olympic baseball, something pretty much universally considered to be a failed bastardization of baseball proper. And anyway, it's not as though Fukodome's regular season games aren't televised, so it's not like the old days when the only way to see the likes of Sadaharu Oh were in exhibition games against a hungover Mickey Mantle. I mean, I know for a fact Japan has TV; I see clips of it all the time. Admittedly, the Japanese television I've seen didn't really have much to do with baseball, unless it involved random people being pelted with them, I guess.
Fukudome hit two home runs for Japan at the World Baseball Classic in 2006, and had the look of a player who's comfortable on a big stage.
Well, David Ortiz hit two homers, so that definitely proves that argument. Endy Chavez did as well, and you just know those two homers helped him make that amazing catch back in the 2006 NLCS. Oh, and *SHUDDER* Bernie Williams hit two as well.
Of course, Adrian Beltre hit FOUR homers at the WBC, so that means he's twice as comfortable as any of those non-clutchy hit-nothings on a big stage. And that's definitely been borne out by his play in a huge market like Seattle, where those pirahnas in the media will eat you alive if you don't play up to their colossal expectations (and, by that, I think I pretty much mean With Leather's Matt Ufford).
Fukudome's willingness to work deep counts makes him a welcome addition to a Chicago lineup that embodies the word "aggressive." Last year the Cubs were tied for 25th among the 30 big league teams in walks. They also displayed a hack-first and ask-questions-later mentality as a rule. According to Stats Inc., the Cubs swung at 46.9 percent of the pitches they saw last season. That made them the 22nd most selective team in the majors.
Jerry, you're never going to make any progress until you're willing to call a spade a spade. The Chicago Cubs lineup wasn't aggressive because "aggressive" in this context has positive connotations. The Chicago Cubs lineup last year was "undisciplined", "counterproductive", "bad at things that actually contribute to what hack sportswriters like to call manufacturing runs, which really should mean working counts and producing walks," and "playing like Juan Pierre was still there." Come on, Jerry, you know, deep down, in your heart of hearts, you're an unrepentant asshole...just like me! Give in to your darker nature! Rip those Cubs hitters a new one!
Fukudome posted an on-base percentage of .430 or better in each of his last three seasons with the Chunichi Dragons, and Piniella loves the thought of hitting him second between Alfonso Soriano and Derrek Lee.
Well-done Lou! You put your high-OBP guys at the top of the order, thereby giving them slightly more opportunities than other players to use their already superior ability and thereby maximizing your overall run-scoring potential! Precisely right. (Well, other than Alfonso ".337 OBP" Soriano leading off. That's merely average, but at least he has a reasonable contract that reflects that. Don't correct me on that...as a fan, I need this. Although his WARP-3 last year was 9.0, so that's something.)
What's his principal strength as a player?
"My strength is, when I make a mistake I forget about it very quickly and prepare for the next play or the next pitch," Fukudome said.
As I believe you might say in your native Japanese, Mr. Fukodome, "Chigau!" Your principal strength is your .430 on-base percentage over the last three seasons in Japan. That is an awesome strength. You don't need to run from who you are and create Erstad-esque pseudo-arguments for why you're valuable. (Incidentally, I had no idea no idea how much research I would have to do to figure out that "chigau" was the exact Japanese word I needed to use.)
If Piniella is correct, big league pitchers will test Fukudome's bat speed with hard stuff out of the chute. Then they'll pound one side of the plate or the other to try and find a weakness. With each test that Fukudome passes, opponents will invent new ways to try and beat him.
You mean...they're going to pitch to him? People, this is why Sweet Lou makes the big bucks; he takes a long look at major league pitchers, studies their habits, and ultimately decides they are, in fact, not belly-itchers. Me, I was definitely learning towards the belly-itching side of things, so I'm sure glad I'm not running the Cubs. Honestly, I figured opposing teams would just let Fukodome hit off one of those preschool batting tees. Actually, that might happen with the Pirates.
Judging from his portfolio in Japan, Fukudome doesn't have a lot of shortcomings. He's a former Central League Most Valuable Player, a two-time batting champion and a four-time Gold Glove Award winner with a career .397 OBP.
The Gold Glove: a bullshit award that knows no international boundaries. Come to think of it, didn't Buzz Aldrin pick one up for his fancy flag-handling on the Moon? And what about this plaque that Carl Sagan put in Pioneer 10? Doesn't figure two look suspiciously like the two baseballs that adorn the Gold Glove award? Don't they? Dear lord...the universal apocalypse is coming...and it's in Gold Glove form! What an angle!
You know, utterly unbelievable as it might sound, that digression pretty much illustrates the problem with Crasnick's article - whereas the end of all life in the universe is, you know, important, there really isn't anything that Jerry writes that offers any particularly new insight. Let's see if I can summarize his points:
1. Japanese players face a culture shock when they play in the United States
2. Kusoke Fukodome should be pretty good, if not outstanding
3. The Cubs were horribly impatient hitters in 2007
4. Lou Piniella believes pitchers will pitch to Fukodome
5. Adding a good player to an improving Cubs team might make them improve more
C'mon Jerry - I know you have to reach a quota of articles and everything, but if this is all you've got to say, you might as well have the common decency to make up crazy shit like an intergalactic Gold Glove conspiracy. Hell, I'll let you have it...for a price.
Around the Horn punching bags are the best kind of punching bags...
Since I've already done Bill Plaschke, I might as well keep things moving and have some fun with Woody Paige. As much as I probably should, I don't exactly hate Woody Paige. Sure, he's an incompetent boob who gets paid plenty by ESPN to make an ass out of himself and gets paid what is probably quite a bit less by the Denver Post to write utter drivel, but...BUT...he doesn't seem to actually hate sports. Which is something I suspect of both Plaschke and Jay Mariotti, and which is something far more deserving of my undying scorn. I'm not saying I like the guy or anything - I'd turn in my sports journalism deconstruction blogging card right now if that were the case - but hey - I've only got so much scorn, and I'm not going to waste it on the sports equivalent of that crazy uncle babbling in the corner.
Anyway, Paige has written this piece about the Denver Broncos in the draft.
If I'm in charge of the Broncos, I offer the Cincinnati Bengals Travis Henry, Javon Walker and my first-round draft choice for Chad Johnson.
My first instinct here is that that trade doesn't work, if only because it NEVER seems like trades in the NFL work. I'm not just saying they're usually disastrous; I'm also saying I can't think of any legitimate trades other than Champ Bailey for Clinton Portis, and that was years ago. Oh yeah, and Moss to Oakland a few years ago. Oh, and Charlie Frye, but that really shouldn't be the third that I think of. Sorry, I have absolutely no idea where I'm going with this. I think I'm trying to get into the Woody Paige mindset of babbling inanity. I'm a method blogger, you see.
If I'm in charge of the Bengals, I tell that fool in charge of the Broncos to seek psychiatric counseling.
Oh. OK then. Thanks for wasting roughly three seconds of my time. (I'm a very fast reader, although I've got nothing on Jimmy Carter - dude can read 2000 words a minute! That's like one post by me about Bill Plaschke! President's Day fever - it don't end until I go to sleep!)
You know, if I was a certain local New England sportswriter for some reason on retainer from ESPN as a national columnist, I'd probably reference some crazy trades I once proposed in Madden right about now and how my wacky friends were dumb enough to accept some of them. But since I'm not, and since I don't really give a shit about Madden, I won't. (Of course, if I was Curt Schilling, I'd be waxing lyrical about Everquest. If only we all had that sort of gaming wisdom at our disposal, the world would be a better place. I think that's been scientifically proven as a fact.)
OK, so that idea doesn't work. I've got a million more, some somewhat compos mentis.
Admittedly, I'm a sucker for self-referential humor. (Oh? You'd noticed? This is getting so meta my keyboard might explode.) But I should probably remind myself that just because you admit to being a terrible writer doesn't excuse the fact that you're a terrible writer. For the record, my excuse is that I don't get paid. I'm not sure what Woody's is, although maybe it has something to do with that time he ate dog food on national TV.
In regard to the NFL draft, I possess the 12th and 42nd picks for the Broncos. I trade down in the first round and up in the second round.
I use my late first-round selection for 280-pound Clemson defensive end Phillip Merling and my early second-round selection for athletic Oklahoma inside linebacker Curtis Lofton. Each is an early junior opt-out. Both will play in their first season and become serious players by their second season.
I'm utterly perplexed here. Is this supposed to be hard-hitting analysis or a creative writing exercise in speculative fiction? Is this his appraisal of Merling and Lofton's pro prospects or just authorial omnipotence? I mean, I have a suspicion since it's Woody Paige we're talking about, but seriously...I feel like I'm looking at the sportswriting equivalent of one of those optical illusions where it's a general one way and a bunch of people under an arch the other way.
Now I have kids Jarvis Moss, Tim Crowder, Marcus Thomas and Merling on my defensive line with third-year Pro Bowl type Elvis Dumervil and assorted veterans, and my linebacking corps has D.J. Williams and Nate Webster (Ian Gold will be gone), bolstered by Lofton. And I've already got in my secondary all-world Champ Bailey, Dre Bly, Domonique Foxworth, Karl Paymah, Hamza Abdullah and (most likely) John Lynch.
Most likely John Lynch, Woody? I would have thought you wouldn't have left a single detail to chance in this little novella of yours. All I know is, if it turns out the mysterious jewel thief was John Lynch all along, I'm going to feel cheated. I'd like to think you're above such cheap twists, Woody, but this forced ambiguity is a red flag. Also, I'm apparently a tenth grade creative writing teacher.
I feel like Ron Popeil, the infomercial king. I'm not finished.
Quick analogy: if Woody Paige is Ron Popeil, does that make Skip Bayless the "Ding King" guy? You know, Billy Mays?
Judge for yourself:
I think you've got to agree - the evidence is piling up.
I draft in the fourth round Colorado linebacker Jordon Dizon. I'll never regret the decision.
The fact that he'll never regret the decision is the only reason Woody gives for why, you know, he'll never regret the decision. He's either the world's worst sportswriter or just a fairly hacky novelist. I mean, at least "I'll never regret the decision" is sort of like foreshadowing, I guess, so maybe that's supposed to sow the seeds for how Jordan Dizon teaches Woody how to live again or something a la Finding Forrester. I'm not sure which of those is preferable, although I think I'd be up for Woody Paige shouting "You're the man now, dawg!" Actually, I'm willing to bet anything he did that on Around the Horn at one point or another. Or at least he wrote it on that stupid chalkboard. The fact that I know even this much about Around the Horn is making me seriously consider giving up my current life and joining some form of non-religious monastery. They have those, right?
I've got myself and the Broncos a defense — young enough, mean enough, talented enough, with enough leaders. They'll deny you; I defy you.
Woody Paige sure loves parallelism, but he also apparently doesn't have the slightest clue how it works. As much as "with enough leaders" is probably preferable to the horribly forced and clumsy alternative "with leaders enough" - and if Woody Paige didn't seriously consider that possibility, then I'm founding that non-religious monastery right here and now - the sentence only really sounds even remotely clever if all the words are arranged the same way.
Also, as much as "They'll deny you" and "I defy you" rhyme and complement each other and everything...well, I defy anyone to explain what the hell those mean in this context. Is he addressing opposing offenses in the sense that the Denver defense will deny them points? And is he talking to me personally with that second part, telling me he defies my attempts to understand what he's saying? Is he talking to me? Dear lord, I'm hallucinating. I think Woody Paige articles might be a hallucinogenic substance, so that raises the question...should they be banned? This concerned citizen says yes.
First, I bring in Henry and tell him he owes me big time for everything that happened in the past season. He already has admitted such publicly.
Woody Paige: armchair GM, armchair psychologist. And by psychologist, I mean "dude who desperately wants to give Travis Henry shit with or without mentioning the words 'paternity suit.'" Also, would a team with Paige as general manager be the first in sports history to suffer an actual, Bounty-style mutiny? I'm not sure, but I'm nominating Jay Cutler for the part of Fletcher Christian, if only because they both seem a bit overhyped.
Second, I bring in Walker and tell him I know he wants out of here, but he's going nowhere until 2009, so he should just embrace the situation as the No. 2 receiver (behind Brandon Marshall and ahead of Brandon Stokley) and catch as catch can.
[The scene: the office of Woody Paige, general manager of the Denver Broncos.]
Javon Walker: You wanted to see me, Mr. Paige?
Woody Paige: Yes, son. Now, I know you want out of here.
Walker: I just don't think this is the right fit for me.
Paige: I understand. Well, we both know what happened last time you were unhappy.
Walker: Believe me, I certainly don't want a repeat of the whole Packers situation.
Paige: Of course. For now, we can't really move you, so I'd just advise you to make the best of this situation and hopefully you'll be where you want to be in 2009.
Walker: I'm a professional, Mr. Paige, and you can expect nothing less.
Paige: Thank you Javon, that means a lot. And remember: catch as catch can!
Walker: Wait, what did you just say?
Paige: Catch as catch can!
Walker: I'm sorry, I'm just not processing the words coming out of your mouth.
Paige: Catch as catch can!
Walker: Seriously, what the fuck does that even mean?
[Scene.]
I'm with that fictional representation of Javon Walker I just created: "catch as catch can" is utter gibberish.
Third, I draft an offensive lineman third.
I'm past the point of asking do people edit these articles. Seriously, is there even a point where a first-day intern so much as glances at what Woody has written? I mean, I suppose there's nothing absolutely wrong about that last sentence...but hell, how can someone paid to write for a living ever construct a sentence like that?
Fourth, I sign free-agent wide receiver Justin Gage of the Titans, who had an impressive game (six receptions, 66 yards) in Denver on "Monday Night Football," or Bryant Johnson, who hasn't gotten his due, time or cash with the Cardinals.
The secret of Woody Paige's new player evaluation:
1. Did potential acquisition ever play against Denver?
2. Did potential acquisition actually play in Denver?
3. Did it happen when that strange Kornheiser fella was talking to Christian Slater?
If so, there's at least a thirty percent chance Woody Paige has seen you play. Also, call me hard to impress, but six receptions for sixty-six yards? That's apparently your entire basis for wanting this dude? I mean, it's better than just saying the reason you want Justin Gage is because you want Justin Gage (which would actually be pretty creepy if you wrote that), but it's really frightening just how low I have had to set the bar for you, Woody. I'm pretty sure a cockroach couldn't limbo under that. Of course, cockroaches are infamously poor at limboing, but I digress.
Fifth, and most important on offense, I put the hard rush on Steelers free-agent linemen Alan Faneca and Max Starks. Faneca is a seven-time Pro Bowler (think Hall of Famer Gary Zimmerman as a guard), and Starks is a — get this — 6-foot-8, 337-pound tackle. He's coming off a knee injury, but Starks is only 26, and he would be the future replacement for the retiring Matt Lepsis. Try to get past The Great Wall of Starks.
Does "Great Wall of Starks" really count as a play on the Great Wall of China? Shouldn't the replacement word have to sound at least slightly like the word "China"? Maybe? Although this does make me thing of some sort of Great Wall of Sharks, and although I haven't worked out all the logistics it is almost certainly unbelievably awesome.
If I'm in charge of the Broncos and I can do all that, I'm feeling pretty good on Feb. 18, 2008, even without a trade with Cincinnati for Johnson.
Call me crazy.
Sorry Woody - I'm not giving you the satisfaction. Although the nice men in the white coats should be arriving shortly to take you on a little trip. You'll probably want to go quietly; they tell me it's so much easier if you do.
Anyway, Paige has written this piece about the Denver Broncos in the draft.
If I'm in charge of the Broncos, I offer the Cincinnati Bengals Travis Henry, Javon Walker and my first-round draft choice for Chad Johnson.
My first instinct here is that that trade doesn't work, if only because it NEVER seems like trades in the NFL work. I'm not just saying they're usually disastrous; I'm also saying I can't think of any legitimate trades other than Champ Bailey for Clinton Portis, and that was years ago. Oh yeah, and Moss to Oakland a few years ago. Oh, and Charlie Frye, but that really shouldn't be the third that I think of. Sorry, I have absolutely no idea where I'm going with this. I think I'm trying to get into the Woody Paige mindset of babbling inanity. I'm a method blogger, you see.
If I'm in charge of the Bengals, I tell that fool in charge of the Broncos to seek psychiatric counseling.
Oh. OK then. Thanks for wasting roughly three seconds of my time. (I'm a very fast reader, although I've got nothing on Jimmy Carter - dude can read 2000 words a minute! That's like one post by me about Bill Plaschke! President's Day fever - it don't end until I go to sleep!)
You know, if I was a certain local New England sportswriter for some reason on retainer from ESPN as a national columnist, I'd probably reference some crazy trades I once proposed in Madden right about now and how my wacky friends were dumb enough to accept some of them. But since I'm not, and since I don't really give a shit about Madden, I won't. (Of course, if I was Curt Schilling, I'd be waxing lyrical about Everquest. If only we all had that sort of gaming wisdom at our disposal, the world would be a better place. I think that's been scientifically proven as a fact.)
OK, so that idea doesn't work. I've got a million more, some somewhat compos mentis.
Admittedly, I'm a sucker for self-referential humor. (Oh? You'd noticed? This is getting so meta my keyboard might explode.) But I should probably remind myself that just because you admit to being a terrible writer doesn't excuse the fact that you're a terrible writer. For the record, my excuse is that I don't get paid. I'm not sure what Woody's is, although maybe it has something to do with that time he ate dog food on national TV.
In regard to the NFL draft, I possess the 12th and 42nd picks for the Broncos. I trade down in the first round and up in the second round.
I use my late first-round selection for 280-pound Clemson defensive end Phillip Merling and my early second-round selection for athletic Oklahoma inside linebacker Curtis Lofton. Each is an early junior opt-out. Both will play in their first season and become serious players by their second season.
I'm utterly perplexed here. Is this supposed to be hard-hitting analysis or a creative writing exercise in speculative fiction? Is this his appraisal of Merling and Lofton's pro prospects or just authorial omnipotence? I mean, I have a suspicion since it's Woody Paige we're talking about, but seriously...I feel like I'm looking at the sportswriting equivalent of one of those optical illusions where it's a general one way and a bunch of people under an arch the other way.
Now I have kids Jarvis Moss, Tim Crowder, Marcus Thomas and Merling on my defensive line with third-year Pro Bowl type Elvis Dumervil and assorted veterans, and my linebacking corps has D.J. Williams and Nate Webster (Ian Gold will be gone), bolstered by Lofton. And I've already got in my secondary all-world Champ Bailey, Dre Bly, Domonique Foxworth, Karl Paymah, Hamza Abdullah and (most likely) John Lynch.
Most likely John Lynch, Woody? I would have thought you wouldn't have left a single detail to chance in this little novella of yours. All I know is, if it turns out the mysterious jewel thief was John Lynch all along, I'm going to feel cheated. I'd like to think you're above such cheap twists, Woody, but this forced ambiguity is a red flag. Also, I'm apparently a tenth grade creative writing teacher.
I feel like Ron Popeil, the infomercial king. I'm not finished.
Quick analogy: if Woody Paige is Ron Popeil, does that make Skip Bayless the "Ding King" guy? You know, Billy Mays?
Judge for yourself:
I think you've got to agree - the evidence is piling up.
I draft in the fourth round Colorado linebacker Jordon Dizon. I'll never regret the decision.
The fact that he'll never regret the decision is the only reason Woody gives for why, you know, he'll never regret the decision. He's either the world's worst sportswriter or just a fairly hacky novelist. I mean, at least "I'll never regret the decision" is sort of like foreshadowing, I guess, so maybe that's supposed to sow the seeds for how Jordan Dizon teaches Woody how to live again or something a la Finding Forrester. I'm not sure which of those is preferable, although I think I'd be up for Woody Paige shouting "You're the man now, dawg!" Actually, I'm willing to bet anything he did that on Around the Horn at one point or another. Or at least he wrote it on that stupid chalkboard. The fact that I know even this much about Around the Horn is making me seriously consider giving up my current life and joining some form of non-religious monastery. They have those, right?
I've got myself and the Broncos a defense — young enough, mean enough, talented enough, with enough leaders. They'll deny you; I defy you.
Woody Paige sure loves parallelism, but he also apparently doesn't have the slightest clue how it works. As much as "with enough leaders" is probably preferable to the horribly forced and clumsy alternative "with leaders enough" - and if Woody Paige didn't seriously consider that possibility, then I'm founding that non-religious monastery right here and now - the sentence only really sounds even remotely clever if all the words are arranged the same way.
Also, as much as "They'll deny you" and "I defy you" rhyme and complement each other and everything...well, I defy anyone to explain what the hell those mean in this context. Is he addressing opposing offenses in the sense that the Denver defense will deny them points? And is he talking to me personally with that second part, telling me he defies my attempts to understand what he's saying? Is he talking to me? Dear lord, I'm hallucinating. I think Woody Paige articles might be a hallucinogenic substance, so that raises the question...should they be banned? This concerned citizen says yes.
First, I bring in Henry and tell him he owes me big time for everything that happened in the past season. He already has admitted such publicly.
Woody Paige: armchair GM, armchair psychologist. And by psychologist, I mean "dude who desperately wants to give Travis Henry shit with or without mentioning the words 'paternity suit.'" Also, would a team with Paige as general manager be the first in sports history to suffer an actual, Bounty-style mutiny? I'm not sure, but I'm nominating Jay Cutler for the part of Fletcher Christian, if only because they both seem a bit overhyped.
Second, I bring in Walker and tell him I know he wants out of here, but he's going nowhere until 2009, so he should just embrace the situation as the No. 2 receiver (behind Brandon Marshall and ahead of Brandon Stokley) and catch as catch can.
[The scene: the office of Woody Paige, general manager of the Denver Broncos.]
Javon Walker: You wanted to see me, Mr. Paige?
Woody Paige: Yes, son. Now, I know you want out of here.
Walker: I just don't think this is the right fit for me.
Paige: I understand. Well, we both know what happened last time you were unhappy.
Walker: Believe me, I certainly don't want a repeat of the whole Packers situation.
Paige: Of course. For now, we can't really move you, so I'd just advise you to make the best of this situation and hopefully you'll be where you want to be in 2009.
Walker: I'm a professional, Mr. Paige, and you can expect nothing less.
Paige: Thank you Javon, that means a lot. And remember: catch as catch can!
Walker: Wait, what did you just say?
Paige: Catch as catch can!
Walker: I'm sorry, I'm just not processing the words coming out of your mouth.
Paige: Catch as catch can!
Walker: Seriously, what the fuck does that even mean?
[Scene.]
I'm with that fictional representation of Javon Walker I just created: "catch as catch can" is utter gibberish.
Third, I draft an offensive lineman third.
I'm past the point of asking do people edit these articles. Seriously, is there even a point where a first-day intern so much as glances at what Woody has written? I mean, I suppose there's nothing absolutely wrong about that last sentence...but hell, how can someone paid to write for a living ever construct a sentence like that?
Fourth, I sign free-agent wide receiver Justin Gage of the Titans, who had an impressive game (six receptions, 66 yards) in Denver on "Monday Night Football," or Bryant Johnson, who hasn't gotten his due, time or cash with the Cardinals.
The secret of Woody Paige's new player evaluation:
1. Did potential acquisition ever play against Denver?
2. Did potential acquisition actually play in Denver?
3. Did it happen when that strange Kornheiser fella was talking to Christian Slater?
If so, there's at least a thirty percent chance Woody Paige has seen you play. Also, call me hard to impress, but six receptions for sixty-six yards? That's apparently your entire basis for wanting this dude? I mean, it's better than just saying the reason you want Justin Gage is because you want Justin Gage (which would actually be pretty creepy if you wrote that), but it's really frightening just how low I have had to set the bar for you, Woody. I'm pretty sure a cockroach couldn't limbo under that. Of course, cockroaches are infamously poor at limboing, but I digress.
Fifth, and most important on offense, I put the hard rush on Steelers free-agent linemen Alan Faneca and Max Starks. Faneca is a seven-time Pro Bowler (think Hall of Famer Gary Zimmerman as a guard), and Starks is a — get this — 6-foot-8, 337-pound tackle. He's coming off a knee injury, but Starks is only 26, and he would be the future replacement for the retiring Matt Lepsis. Try to get past The Great Wall of Starks.
Does "Great Wall of Starks" really count as a play on the Great Wall of China? Shouldn't the replacement word have to sound at least slightly like the word "China"? Maybe? Although this does make me thing of some sort of Great Wall of Sharks, and although I haven't worked out all the logistics it is almost certainly unbelievably awesome.
If I'm in charge of the Broncos and I can do all that, I'm feeling pretty good on Feb. 18, 2008, even without a trade with Cincinnati for Johnson.
Call me crazy.
Sorry Woody - I'm not giving you the satisfaction. Although the nice men in the white coats should be arriving shortly to take you on a little trip. You'll probably want to go quietly; they tell me it's so much easier if you do.
Monday, February 18, 2008
When it comes to Bill Plaschke, I'm willing to go the extra mile to make him look like an idiot...
...not that I really, you know, need to or anything. But it feels good to nitpick the most obsessively minor details of his scribblings. You see, my thesis is this: Bill Plaschke is wrong about everything. Shall we see? Let's go.
Five minutes into spring cleaning, and Matt Kemp and I are already having a fight.
I think if this was literally happening, that sentence would have to more accurately read: "Five minutes into spring cleaning, and Matt Kemp has already beaten me to a bloody pulp." And would anyone doubt that that had, in fact, happened? Hell, I'm already buying hypothetical Matt Kemp a medal.
"I'll buy," I said, holding out my credit card to the man working the cash register at Mack Daddy's, a soul food place next to his gym on a cluttered street.
Here's how much I hate Bill Plaschke: I researched the hell out of Mack Daddy's on the off-chance that Bill is inaccurate in calling it "a soul food place." The verdict? Yeah, I guess it's "a soul food place", but I think a more accurate description would be "a soul food place run by a health nut Taekwondo expert with a truly worrying fear of salt who has some sort of crazy Atkins-meets-Weight-Watchers health plan ('cause it's not a diet!) that involves eating three things and drinking two things." Also, Mack Daddy's proprietor Mack Newton thinks the fact that he helped monitor Charles Barkley's shape and physical fitness is something to brag about, which I believe means Mack Newton was born without shame.
Basically, I'm saying I'd rather read a profile of possibly crazy restaurateur Mack Newton than suffer through whatever half-baked ramblings Bill Plaschke has concocted about Matt Kemp. Is Tom Wolfe available? Because he's gangbusters at writing profiles.
(Also, Barkley 2014! WOO!)
"Listen," I said. "I buy for young players. I always have. When you make the big money, you can buy mine."
And why am I guessing he makes dudes like Brad Penny take him to eateries where the average dish costs more than fifteen bucks? Maybe he used to make Eric Gagne take him to Bastide so that he could better "understand" the closer's French roots.
Although it has to be said, Mack Daddy's half-order of spicy chicken salad with field greens and balsamic vinaigrette is a steal at seven dollars.
"No, dude," he said, firmly. "I can pay my own way."
He gets a plate full of catfish nuggets. I get a side dish of insight.
But what was your main course, Bill? I bet it was the C.G. Ribeye Wraps, right? Right!?
Also, and anyone who reads any of the other bad sports journalism attack blogs already knows this, Bill Plaschke is the world's shittiest poet. I mean worse than Vogons or even Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings. (That's my gift to you, Douglas Adams fans. Feel free to repay me by pointing out I used the wrong name.)
Seriously, making a parallel out of literal thing X and figurative thing Y is about as obvious as it gets. Bill Plaschke writes bad poetry. I write another black mark on my soul. See, Bill? See how much that just sucked? (Now random Hitchhiker's references, that's where the REAL writing's at.)
Five minutes into spring cleaning, and already I like Matt Kemp better than last year.
What seemed like clubhouse defiance is now calm confidence.
That deer-in-the-headlights look has become an unfettered focus.
Lesson to everybody who wants to get in Plaschke's good graces (I can't imagine anyone who this applies to beyond L.A. Times interns, and honestly you guys just have my pity): if you want to win Bill Plaschke's undying respect, just save him fifteen dollars. Then sit back and watch the fawning columns roll in.
Matt Kemp will pay his own way?
The Dodgers' season depends on it.
I think this means that because Matt Kemp isn't relying on Bill Plaschke to constantly buy him dinner, Plaschke won't be forced to steal money from his BFF Frank McCourt during one of his many Paul DePodesta effigy burnings in the Dodgers owner's box, which in turn will save McCourt enough money to be able to buy Roy Halliday. (Matt Kemp eats $12,750,000 worth of catfish nuggets per year.) Makes perfect sense to me.
Their unwillingness to deal him prevented them from obtaining this winter's top traded pitchers -- Johan Santana, Erik Bedard or Dan Haren.
The Dodgers believe that by keeping his cannon in the middle of their lineup, Kemp would blow enough smoke to shroud the hole at the top of their rotation.
WARP-3 of Santana, Bedard, and Haren in 2007: 9.4, 8.1, 8.0
WARP-3 of Matt Kemp in 2007: 3.5
Admittedly, Kemp played in only 98 game and PECOTA might really like him in 2008, but I think it might be a tad unfair to ask him to singlehandedly compensate for the non-presence of Johan Santana. Although it has to be said, people who eat Mack Daddy's catfish nuggets as often as Matt Kemp do tend to blow their fair share of smoke. (That's right, people, a flatulence joke. Because I'm the highbrow one.)
Also, even if Matt Kemp has a superstar-quality season in 2008, something he's quite possibly capable of, there's still the tiny issue that Plaschke's arguments to that general effect are inane, pointless, and I think reveal he knows nothing about baseball. Which is not surprising.
Now Matt Kemp has to save the season.
He can save it with his bat, capable of at least 20 home runs, at least 80 runs batted in, at least an on-base percentage in the mid-.300s.
I will leave aside the obvious "RsBI are a bullshit stat" point and at least give Bill a little credit for citing OBP, not batting average. The interesting thing is that the season he describes is pretty much precisely that of Eric Byrnes, he of the 21 home-runs, 83 RsBI, and .353 OBP. Byrne's 2007 WARP-3? 9.2. So maybe Plaschke is onto something after all.
Of course, he's also describing Adam LaRoche, with his 21 homers, 88 RsBI, and .345 OBP. His WARP-3? 4.9, which is still respectable, but not exactly Santana-amnesia-inducing, if you catch my drift. So I think I'm going to have to go back to the original "RsBI are a bullshit stat" point and throw in a slightly modified "Bill Plaschke knows just enough about baseball to construct arguments that sound like they might make sense until you look at a stats page for like fifteen seconds." Eh, screw it: "Bill Plaschke is wrong about everything" is punchier.
But there's more!
He can save it with his arm, which is right-field strong, and his feet, which are 20 stolen-bases fast.
With the standard caveat about the imprecision of fielding stats, Matt Kemp's 2007 FRAA: -3. Not terrible, but you're not exactly defeating Lex Luthor with an arm like that, if you get what I'm saying. (Note: I don't even get what I'm saying.)
Also, 20 stolen bases? Good for, what, fiftieth best in the Majors? Gary Sheffield got 22 stolen bases for crying out loud, and I'm not sure anyone this side of Joe Morgan is delusional enough to call him "fast." Besides, unless we're talking a plus-80% SB percentage, stolen bases aren't really helping your team, whether you swipe 20 or you swipe 130. Matt Kemp got caught stealing five times last year in only fifteen attempts. Yeah...that's not helping anybody.
This post is already plenty long, so let's speed through the rest of this.
Has this small-town 23-year-old grown enough to handle the big-city pressures of being a Dodger?
I thought LA was famously apathetic about all their teams except the Lakers, and even then only when they're doing well. This is why the second-biggest city in the US doesn't have a football franchise. Although I guess the pressure of knowing Bill Plaschke could turn on you at any second can't be underestimated. Honestly, I'm not sure it can even be estimated at all.
Will he show up at the park early for extra work? Will he stay late for interviews? Will he win the praise of veterans who will judge him as much on his hustled groundouts as on his home runs?
Reason number one why baseball veterans shouldn't be given any positions of authority in baseball after they retire: they think hustle on groundouts = home runs. Unless you're hustling towards first to take out Albert Pujols in some sort of Ty-Cobb-inspired lunacy (which would be sort of awesome, but also very illegal, so I want to make it perfectly clear to longtime reader Mark DeRosa that I am not even remotely advocating this), hustle on groundouts doesn't matter.
Remember last year when he was criticized for loudly complaining that a garbage can had been put next to his locker?
"If I see that trash can this year, I'm going to call a press conference with all the writers and say, 'See, I'm moving it without complaining,' " he said.
Could we get Rasheed Wallace to do this, please? I miss the full-on malcontent Jail Blazer Rasheed. "Both teams played hard" indeed.
He pauses and smiles.
"No, no, just kidding," he said. "This year, I'll just move that trash can without saying a word."
That trash can incident was part of the reason that last year's veterans complained about youngsters such as Kemp and James Loney.
The veterans thought the kids didn't respect winning. They thought they didn't respect the game.
The veterans quietly complained about everything from late clubhouse arrivals to dumb baserunning errors to smiles after losses.
Stupid veterans, just because they fought in some long ago foreign baseball war in a faraway land (in this case, I believe they were Expos games back in 2003), they think they can tell the young generation what's what. Also, "smiles after losses"? Who do these veterans think they are, the dads on Matt Kemp's Little League team?
Those complaints reached the ears of Dodgers management, whose thoughts reached me, so I wrote a column about the possibility that Kemp would be traded.
It wasn't my idea, it was the Dodgers' idea, yet judging from the angry responses I received, you would have thought I put a "For Sale" sign in front of Kemp's locker.
Of course you didn't, Plaschke - how the hell would you have time to visit the Dodgers clubhouse when you're so busy with Around the Horn (you'll catch up to Mariotti and Paige one of these days!) and writing Hostel-inspired torture porn about Paul Depotesta?
Also, I choose to take Plaschke's words ultra-literally and assume his use of "whose thoughts reached me" means he telepathically intercepts whatever Ned Colletti is thinking. Prove me wrong!
In the end, the Dodgers decided to keep him.
Now they have no choice but to embrace him.
I've got nothing to add except that I'm almost certain Plaschke thinks that sounds really poetic and stylistically inverted and shit. Uh huh.
He first dealt with his body, spending the winter working in Phoenix with fitness guru Mack Newton.
Mack's back!!!! WHEE!!!! It's like I got all my St. Patrick's Day presents early or something. You get presents on St. Patrick's Day, right? Or at least some cheap bourbon?
But he has also listened to Newton's daily talks about becoming a man.
Mack Newton's exercise program: describing in explicit detail the night he lost his virginity.
Having grown up as a
star, he is not used to the criticism.
OK, that's actually how that is formatted. I know Plaschke can't write any paragraphs longer than a sentence, but even by his standards, that's just absurd. Sorry, I mean...
That's
just
abs
u
r
d
.
"See you in Vero," he said with a big grin as he climbed into his dirt-splattered SUV outside the restaurant.
We'll all be waiting.
So we shall, Bill. So we shall.
For...YOU.
[Dramatic orchestral string...blackout.]
Five minutes into spring cleaning, and Matt Kemp and I are already having a fight.
I think if this was literally happening, that sentence would have to more accurately read: "Five minutes into spring cleaning, and Matt Kemp has already beaten me to a bloody pulp." And would anyone doubt that that had, in fact, happened? Hell, I'm already buying hypothetical Matt Kemp a medal.
"I'll buy," I said, holding out my credit card to the man working the cash register at Mack Daddy's, a soul food place next to his gym on a cluttered street.
Here's how much I hate Bill Plaschke: I researched the hell out of Mack Daddy's on the off-chance that Bill is inaccurate in calling it "a soul food place." The verdict? Yeah, I guess it's "a soul food place", but I think a more accurate description would be "a soul food place run by a health nut Taekwondo expert with a truly worrying fear of salt who has some sort of crazy Atkins-meets-Weight-Watchers health plan ('cause it's not a diet!) that involves eating three things and drinking two things." Also, Mack Daddy's proprietor Mack Newton thinks the fact that he helped monitor Charles Barkley's shape and physical fitness is something to brag about, which I believe means Mack Newton was born without shame.
Basically, I'm saying I'd rather read a profile of possibly crazy restaurateur Mack Newton than suffer through whatever half-baked ramblings Bill Plaschke has concocted about Matt Kemp. Is Tom Wolfe available? Because he's gangbusters at writing profiles.
(Also, Barkley 2014! WOO!)
"Listen," I said. "I buy for young players. I always have. When you make the big money, you can buy mine."
And why am I guessing he makes dudes like Brad Penny take him to eateries where the average dish costs more than fifteen bucks? Maybe he used to make Eric Gagne take him to Bastide so that he could better "understand" the closer's French roots.
Although it has to be said, Mack Daddy's half-order of spicy chicken salad with field greens and balsamic vinaigrette is a steal at seven dollars.
"No, dude," he said, firmly. "I can pay my own way."
He gets a plate full of catfish nuggets. I get a side dish of insight.
But what was your main course, Bill? I bet it was the C.G. Ribeye Wraps, right? Right!?
Also, and anyone who reads any of the other bad sports journalism attack blogs already knows this, Bill Plaschke is the world's shittiest poet. I mean worse than Vogons or even Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings. (That's my gift to you, Douglas Adams fans. Feel free to repay me by pointing out I used the wrong name.)
Seriously, making a parallel out of literal thing X and figurative thing Y is about as obvious as it gets. Bill Plaschke writes bad poetry. I write another black mark on my soul. See, Bill? See how much that just sucked? (Now random Hitchhiker's references, that's where the REAL writing's at.)
Five minutes into spring cleaning, and already I like Matt Kemp better than last year.
What seemed like clubhouse defiance is now calm confidence.
That deer-in-the-headlights look has become an unfettered focus.
Lesson to everybody who wants to get in Plaschke's good graces (I can't imagine anyone who this applies to beyond L.A. Times interns, and honestly you guys just have my pity): if you want to win Bill Plaschke's undying respect, just save him fifteen dollars. Then sit back and watch the fawning columns roll in.
Matt Kemp will pay his own way?
The Dodgers' season depends on it.
I think this means that because Matt Kemp isn't relying on Bill Plaschke to constantly buy him dinner, Plaschke won't be forced to steal money from his BFF Frank McCourt during one of his many Paul DePodesta effigy burnings in the Dodgers owner's box, which in turn will save McCourt enough money to be able to buy Roy Halliday. (Matt Kemp eats $12,750,000 worth of catfish nuggets per year.) Makes perfect sense to me.
Their unwillingness to deal him prevented them from obtaining this winter's top traded pitchers -- Johan Santana, Erik Bedard or Dan Haren.
The Dodgers believe that by keeping his cannon in the middle of their lineup, Kemp would blow enough smoke to shroud the hole at the top of their rotation.
WARP-3 of Santana, Bedard, and Haren in 2007: 9.4, 8.1, 8.0
WARP-3 of Matt Kemp in 2007: 3.5
Admittedly, Kemp played in only 98 game and PECOTA might really like him in 2008, but I think it might be a tad unfair to ask him to singlehandedly compensate for the non-presence of Johan Santana. Although it has to be said, people who eat Mack Daddy's catfish nuggets as often as Matt Kemp do tend to blow their fair share of smoke. (That's right, people, a flatulence joke. Because I'm the highbrow one.)
Also, even if Matt Kemp has a superstar-quality season in 2008, something he's quite possibly capable of, there's still the tiny issue that Plaschke's arguments to that general effect are inane, pointless, and I think reveal he knows nothing about baseball. Which is not surprising.
Now Matt Kemp has to save the season.
He can save it with his bat, capable of at least 20 home runs, at least 80 runs batted in, at least an on-base percentage in the mid-.300s.
I will leave aside the obvious "RsBI are a bullshit stat" point and at least give Bill a little credit for citing OBP, not batting average. The interesting thing is that the season he describes is pretty much precisely that of Eric Byrnes, he of the 21 home-runs, 83 RsBI, and .353 OBP. Byrne's 2007 WARP-3? 9.2. So maybe Plaschke is onto something after all.
Of course, he's also describing Adam LaRoche, with his 21 homers, 88 RsBI, and .345 OBP. His WARP-3? 4.9, which is still respectable, but not exactly Santana-amnesia-inducing, if you catch my drift. So I think I'm going to have to go back to the original "RsBI are a bullshit stat" point and throw in a slightly modified "Bill Plaschke knows just enough about baseball to construct arguments that sound like they might make sense until you look at a stats page for like fifteen seconds." Eh, screw it: "Bill Plaschke is wrong about everything" is punchier.
But there's more!
He can save it with his arm, which is right-field strong, and his feet, which are 20 stolen-bases fast.
With the standard caveat about the imprecision of fielding stats, Matt Kemp's 2007 FRAA: -3. Not terrible, but you're not exactly defeating Lex Luthor with an arm like that, if you get what I'm saying. (Note: I don't even get what I'm saying.)
Also, 20 stolen bases? Good for, what, fiftieth best in the Majors? Gary Sheffield got 22 stolen bases for crying out loud, and I'm not sure anyone this side of Joe Morgan is delusional enough to call him "fast." Besides, unless we're talking a plus-80% SB percentage, stolen bases aren't really helping your team, whether you swipe 20 or you swipe 130. Matt Kemp got caught stealing five times last year in only fifteen attempts. Yeah...that's not helping anybody.
This post is already plenty long, so let's speed through the rest of this.
Has this small-town 23-year-old grown enough to handle the big-city pressures of being a Dodger?
I thought LA was famously apathetic about all their teams except the Lakers, and even then only when they're doing well. This is why the second-biggest city in the US doesn't have a football franchise. Although I guess the pressure of knowing Bill Plaschke could turn on you at any second can't be underestimated. Honestly, I'm not sure it can even be estimated at all.
Will he show up at the park early for extra work? Will he stay late for interviews? Will he win the praise of veterans who will judge him as much on his hustled groundouts as on his home runs?
Reason number one why baseball veterans shouldn't be given any positions of authority in baseball after they retire: they think hustle on groundouts = home runs. Unless you're hustling towards first to take out Albert Pujols in some sort of Ty-Cobb-inspired lunacy (which would be sort of awesome, but also very illegal, so I want to make it perfectly clear to longtime reader Mark DeRosa that I am not even remotely advocating this), hustle on groundouts doesn't matter.
Remember last year when he was criticized for loudly complaining that a garbage can had been put next to his locker?
"If I see that trash can this year, I'm going to call a press conference with all the writers and say, 'See, I'm moving it without complaining,' " he said.
Could we get Rasheed Wallace to do this, please? I miss the full-on malcontent Jail Blazer Rasheed. "Both teams played hard" indeed.
He pauses and smiles.
"No, no, just kidding," he said. "This year, I'll just move that trash can without saying a word."
That trash can incident was part of the reason that last year's veterans complained about youngsters such as Kemp and James Loney.
The veterans thought the kids didn't respect winning. They thought they didn't respect the game.
The veterans quietly complained about everything from late clubhouse arrivals to dumb baserunning errors to smiles after losses.
Stupid veterans, just because they fought in some long ago foreign baseball war in a faraway land (in this case, I believe they were Expos games back in 2003), they think they can tell the young generation what's what. Also, "smiles after losses"? Who do these veterans think they are, the dads on Matt Kemp's Little League team?
Those complaints reached the ears of Dodgers management, whose thoughts reached me, so I wrote a column about the possibility that Kemp would be traded.
It wasn't my idea, it was the Dodgers' idea, yet judging from the angry responses I received, you would have thought I put a "For Sale" sign in front of Kemp's locker.
Of course you didn't, Plaschke - how the hell would you have time to visit the Dodgers clubhouse when you're so busy with Around the Horn (you'll catch up to Mariotti and Paige one of these days!) and writing Hostel-inspired torture porn about Paul Depotesta?
Also, I choose to take Plaschke's words ultra-literally and assume his use of "whose thoughts reached me" means he telepathically intercepts whatever Ned Colletti is thinking. Prove me wrong!
In the end, the Dodgers decided to keep him.
Now they have no choice but to embrace him.
I've got nothing to add except that I'm almost certain Plaschke thinks that sounds really poetic and stylistically inverted and shit. Uh huh.
He first dealt with his body, spending the winter working in Phoenix with fitness guru Mack Newton.
Mack's back!!!! WHEE!!!! It's like I got all my St. Patrick's Day presents early or something. You get presents on St. Patrick's Day, right? Or at least some cheap bourbon?
But he has also listened to Newton's daily talks about becoming a man.
Mack Newton's exercise program: describing in explicit detail the night he lost his virginity.
Having grown up as a
star, he is not used to the criticism.
OK, that's actually how that is formatted. I know Plaschke can't write any paragraphs longer than a sentence, but even by his standards, that's just absurd. Sorry, I mean...
That's
just
abs
u
r
d
.
"See you in Vero," he said with a big grin as he climbed into his dirt-splattered SUV outside the restaurant.
We'll all be waiting.
So we shall, Bill. So we shall.
For...YOU.
[Dramatic orchestral string...blackout.]
Wernicke's Aphasia is the best Aphasia!
I really fucking hate Peter King's writing. Surely this makes me some sort of maverick free-thinker around these blog parts. I'm going to get into this a whole lot more at a later date, but for now, a quote from today's MMQB:
Purple emphasis mine. "If looks were confidence, he'd be as fast as Deion Sanders." To me, this reads:
1. Noel Devine's Role Model's speed was attributable to confidence. Not, you know, leg muscles.
2. Chris Long has looks comparable to Deion Sanders' confidence-level.
So, watch out, Brett Favre. Your unprecedented looks record (if looks were irresponsibility, Favre'd be as fast as Pacman Jones) doesn't look quite so safe now that Chris "they don't call him" Long "for nothing" is on the scene.
Long is 6-foot-4 and 270 pounds. The experts say he'll run about a 4.8-second 40-yard dash. He smiles at what the experts say. Adams, 6-4¾ and 258 pounds, ran a 4.66-second electronically timed 40 in Indianapolis, the best time of the 50 defensive linemen at the combine last year. Moss, 6-6½ and 250, ran a 4.78. Long won't say what he thinks he'll run, but if looks were confidence, he'd be as fast as Deion Sanders.
Purple emphasis mine. "If looks were confidence, he'd be as fast as Deion Sanders." To me, this reads:
1. Noel Devine's Role Model's speed was attributable to confidence. Not, you know, leg muscles.
2. Chris Long has looks comparable to Deion Sanders' confidence-level.
So, watch out, Brett Favre. Your unprecedented looks record (if looks were irresponsibility, Favre'd be as fast as Pacman Jones) doesn't look quite so safe now that Chris "they don't call him" Long "for nothing" is on the scene.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Shane Victorino definitely knows the meaning of the word "rivalry"...
I have a couple stray thoughts on this Jayson Stark piece about the growing Mets-Phillies rivalry. I'm pretty sure I don't have a huge problem with Jayson Stark, although I also am not sure what's the difference between him, Eric Neel, and Jim Caple. I swear they switched their headshots two years ago and I'm still trying to figure out who is now who.
Anyway, there's nothing too egregious, although I can't help but love Phillies centerfielder Shane Victorino's definition of "rivalry."
"It's amazing how fast this has become such a great rivalry," said Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino on Sunday. "First, Jimmy makes his statement. Now Carlos is making his statement. It's becoming like, `Who's going to say something next?'"
I'm going to break this story: Shane Victorino prioritizes talking the talk over walking the walk. Also, his definition seems to set the bar for rivalry at "two people talking, not necessarily at each other." By this logic, I'm pretty sure the following count as rivalries:
1. Thanksgiving dinner at the Victorino household (although there actually is a legit rivalry here - Shane's sister knows he stole that coloring book back when they were little, and her revenge is going to be epic on a Wuthering Heights type scale)
2. That one dude who lives down the hall from me who I once grunted noncommitally at because I had clearly made eye contact with him and he sort of grunted back
3. Global conqueror Genghis Khan and Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci, who both lived around the same time and were known to say stuff on occasion. I sometimes wonder, like Shane, "Who's going to say something next?" Answer: neither of them. They're both dead. Sorry to be a downer, but I'm going to treat you like an adult around here, and if that means I have to be the one who tells you Genghis has gone to the great bloodbath in the sky, then so be it.
Then there's this part, which really reveals the glory of the understatement, a literary technique that I too will utilize as I wind down this post. (That's called being meta!)
As a guy who once aspired to be a boxer growing up, [Brett] Myers never met a battle he thought was worth backing away from.
Uh, yeah...I guess that's one way to put it.
Anyway, there's nothing too egregious, although I can't help but love Phillies centerfielder Shane Victorino's definition of "rivalry."
"It's amazing how fast this has become such a great rivalry," said Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino on Sunday. "First, Jimmy makes his statement. Now Carlos is making his statement. It's becoming like, `Who's going to say something next?'"
I'm going to break this story: Shane Victorino prioritizes talking the talk over walking the walk. Also, his definition seems to set the bar for rivalry at "two people talking, not necessarily at each other." By this logic, I'm pretty sure the following count as rivalries:
1. Thanksgiving dinner at the Victorino household (although there actually is a legit rivalry here - Shane's sister knows he stole that coloring book back when they were little, and her revenge is going to be epic on a Wuthering Heights type scale)
2. That one dude who lives down the hall from me who I once grunted noncommitally at because I had clearly made eye contact with him and he sort of grunted back
3. Global conqueror Genghis Khan and Italian mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci, who both lived around the same time and were known to say stuff on occasion. I sometimes wonder, like Shane, "Who's going to say something next?" Answer: neither of them. They're both dead. Sorry to be a downer, but I'm going to treat you like an adult around here, and if that means I have to be the one who tells you Genghis has gone to the great bloodbath in the sky, then so be it.
Then there's this part, which really reveals the glory of the understatement, a literary technique that I too will utilize as I wind down this post. (That's called being meta!)
As a guy who once aspired to be a boxer growing up, [Brett] Myers never met a battle he thought was worth backing away from.
Uh, yeah...I guess that's one way to put it.
Journo-porn? Yes please...
This is old, but it was maybe the oddest start to any article about Devin Hester I've ever read. And I've read a lot of articles about Devin Hester. Take it away, Mike McAllister...
She was waiting patiently near the sidelines, but she wasn't a member of the media, wasn't from the league office, wasn't representing any particular team in an official capacity. She was simply a fan, wearing a white tube top, tight blue jean shorts and a golden tropic tan that reached from her manicured toenails to the top of her forehead, just under her long, shimmering red hair.
You know, Mike, I'm pretty sure the romance novel bubble hasn't burst yet, if that's really what you want to do with your time. Fabio is still available to pose shirtless on the cover of whatever purple prose you can crank out of your horny, horny mind. I can see it all now...
SHE was the rich heiress with a summer to do it all. HE was the record-setting kick returner with nothing left to lose, having already lost a Super Bowl. SHE was afraid of trusting again. HE was confused what that first paragraph had anything to do with his 11 return touchdowns. SHE had one mission, even if it meant going all the way. HE was the most electrifying player on one of the world's most frustrating teams, and as a fan that irritates ME no end. THEY were all THEY ever needed.
An Amor Publications True-Life Erotic Paranormal Mystery Book
Mike McAllister, write that tome! People at beaches everywhere will thank you.
Or maybe you were just trying to provide the straight male/lesbian answer to all the journo-porn out there about our male athletes? Well, thanks...I guess...
She was waiting patiently near the sidelines, but she wasn't a member of the media, wasn't from the league office, wasn't representing any particular team in an official capacity. She was simply a fan, wearing a white tube top, tight blue jean shorts and a golden tropic tan that reached from her manicured toenails to the top of her forehead, just under her long, shimmering red hair.
You know, Mike, I'm pretty sure the romance novel bubble hasn't burst yet, if that's really what you want to do with your time. Fabio is still available to pose shirtless on the cover of whatever purple prose you can crank out of your horny, horny mind. I can see it all now...
SHE was the rich heiress with a summer to do it all. HE was the record-setting kick returner with nothing left to lose, having already lost a Super Bowl. SHE was afraid of trusting again. HE was confused what that first paragraph had anything to do with his 11 return touchdowns. SHE had one mission, even if it meant going all the way. HE was the most electrifying player on one of the world's most frustrating teams, and as a fan that irritates ME no end. THEY were all THEY ever needed.
An Amor Publications True-Life Erotic Paranormal Mystery Book
Mike McAllister, write that tome! People at beaches everywhere will thank you.
Or maybe you were just trying to provide the straight male/lesbian answer to all the journo-porn out there about our male athletes? Well, thanks...I guess...
On a slightly more substantial note...
I'm going to take Gregg Doyel to task over...something. I know it involves sexiness, which is a glorious, beautiful thing that I just don't trust in the hands of someone who spells Gregg with three g's.
Danica Patrick wants it both ways, and please -- please -- get your mind out of the gutter. That wasn't a sexual reference...
It's been a long time since I've seen writing that classy. And by classy, I mean middle school classy (OOH! BURN!!!). Look, I'm as male as the next fella - I actually considered changing my name to Joe Six-Pack but I just didn't feel it was stereotypically manly and American enough - and even I didn't notice the double entendre there until ol' Greggy (Gregggy?) pointed it out. Nothing says "quality journalism" like making a juvenile sex joke and then calling your readers perverts. Because that's what he's calling all of you right now: perverts. And I know for a fact that some of you aren't. Well, at least I hope we have a non-pervert readership. Honestly, I just hope we have a readership.
Like I said, she wants it both ways -- she wants to be treated like a serious racecar driver, but she also wants to be seen as a sex object -- when her body of work suggests she is only one of them. Assuming you find her sexy.
I dunno, I think this is reasonably sexy. Maybe not first-world all-hottie (man, I'm so proud this is the subject of my first post) but still perfectly decent. And doesn't she get extra points for driving fast cars? Guys like fast cars, right? I mean...GRR!!! VRRM VRRM!!!
So yeah, I think Danica Patrick is pretty sexy, certainly by the standards of race car drivers. But hey, what do I know? I think Sanjuro is superior to Yojimbo! (I mean, really...)
Considering she hasn't won a race in her three seasons on the IndyCar circuit -- a tiny, elite series where getting a ride is the hardest accomplishment -- she's still a novelty act. Patrick is the pretty young thing trading paint with the men.
People who have raced on the IndyCar circuit in 2007: 32
People who have won races on the IndyCar circuit in 2007: 6
That means there are six real racers and twenty-six novelty acts on IndyCar at the moment. And that seems really unlikely, unless they've all got great gimmicks on a par with being reasonably sexy in a male-dominated sport (I know for a fact that Ryan Hunter-Reay yodels while he races, but you can't really hear it over the, you know, race cars).
Also, Danica Patrick is seventh in total points - that's the best of anybody who hasn't won a race - has four top-5 finishes and eleven top-10s. I honestly had no idea what I'd find when I looked up these IndyCar stats, and I must admit I was deathly afraid Danica would be the second-worst racer or something. But no - she's seventh-best. Which is really pretty reasonable in a thirty-two driver league, especially one as supposedly prestigious as IndyCar, right? Right?
OK, I have to admit: I know nothing about IndyCar racing. I don't even really care that much. But I DO care about what is sexy, and in the name of defending that which is reasonably sexy, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say Gregg Doyel is full of crap. Crap I say!
To be fair, Doyel does deal with this later in his article, where he basically says only seventeen people really race in IndyCar and that being seventh out of seventeen makes you mediocre. Whatever. Being seventh best in a premiere racing league still means she's competing on a par with men in a men's league, which I think means it's valid to find her story compelling. Certainly, I see no need to write a long, drawn-out attack against her. And neither does Gregg, because he's about to make one massive right turn into Tangent Town. Gregg?
This could change, but as of now Patrick barely deserves to be called an athlete. She's certainly not Anna Kournikova, another sex object from the sports world who was mocked for never winning a tournament in her eight years on tour. That's a lie, by the way. Kournikova won 16 doubles events, including two majors. If you're going to tell me that her regular partner, Martina Hingis, carried her to most of those titles, I'd counter with a question: When Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi were dominating in men's doubles a decade ago, who carried whom?
Now that's a great question. I've got some more!
1. When Jesse Block and Eva Sully were dominating husband-and-wife Vaudeville comedy acts in 1930s New York City, who carried whom?
2. When Brent Goldberg and David T. Wagner were writing the acclaimed screenplay for National Lampoon's Van Wilder, who carried whom?
3. When Quintus Fulvius Flacus III and Appius Claudius Pulcher were dominating the Roman consulship in 212 BC, who carried whom?
4. When Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein were showrunning The Simpsons, who carried whom?
5. When Spider-Man and Killraven dominated the Martians in Marvel Team-Up #45, who carried whom?
The answers, of course, are that they were all equally codependent, except for Spider-Man, who quite clearly was carrying Killraven against the Martians. (Incidentally, it is my sincerest hope that the only comments I get pertain to my unprovoked attack against Killraven. Make it happen, people.)
Doubles tennis is the second thing in this post that I gleefully know nothing about, but I will point something out that may or may not have anything to do with anything...
Singles career of Laender Paes: Runner-up in four majors, won one career title, highest ranking ever no. 73
Singles career of Mahesh Bhupathi: Never got past the second round in any majors, no career titles, highest ranking ever no. 217
Singles career of Anna Kournikova: Once reached the semifinals of Wimbledon, no career titles, highest ranking ever no. 8
Singles career of Martina Hingis: Won five majors, 45 career titles, highest ranking ever no. 1
A couple things strike me - one, Laender Paes was clearly carrying Mahesh Bhupathi, and two, this is a really silly comparison. Gregg Doyel is comparing two very mediocre (and that's being charitable to Bhupathi) singles players who combined for an unstoppable doubles team. That doesn't illuminate anything about a pairing of an above-average player (Kournikova) and all-time great (Hingis).
Doyel goes on to make some arguments that Kournikova was actually underrated as a player, which I actually find relatively interesting because I'm always intrigued by unconventional wisdom, especially when it involves giving credit to people who are sexy (I only read Moneyball because I like getting lost in Scott Hatteberg's eyes). But his argument is so shoddy and anecdotal and generally unconvincing that I remain unmoved. Also...
What the hell is this article supposed to be about? Oh, that's right, Danica Patrick, and how Gregg Doyel thinks she's a total hussy. The rest of the article is basically a long-winded description of her spread in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and her disgustingly sexy answers in an interview in the same issue.
There she is, peeling off her racecar suit to reveal the bikini. In another she turns to the camera so we can see her rear end as she holds a racing helmet. In another she's pouring out of her racing suit as she lies in the sand. And finally there's a full-page photo of her wearing only her bikini bottom -- no racing suit, no helmet, no bikini top. She's covering her breasts with her left hand while lips part suggestively and her right hand fluffs up her flowing mane of silky brown hair and ...
Ahem.
I think that Gregg Doyel is going to the trouble of writing he's aroused by all this as part of a clever ploy to concede that yes, these photos are having their intended effect on red-blooded American men like Gregg Doyel. But really it just makes him sound like a vaguely puritanical moron who, having awoken from his five-decade cryogenic slumber, still finds the swimsuit issue the height of public erotica when I'm pretty sure googling ANY word in the English language will, within twenty hits, provide you with more shocking images than that (although any of you poor fools who google "tadpole" have only yourselves to blame). Also, this passage forced me to imagine Gregg Doyel aroused, and there are certain things you just can't unsee.
On the back page, an interview with Patrick is wrapped around a photo of her sitting on a bed, covering her presumably full-frontal nudity with a pillow. In that story Patrick says she hasn't seen the swimsuit edition yet and asks her interviewer if she's on the cover. (No.) She asks if she was given a pull-out centerfold. (No.) She hints that she has raced nude under her racing suit -- underwear "gets in the way," she says -- and she says she'd like to see fellow drivers Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves in swimsuits.
Huh...she sounds like fun. Is this going anywhere? Incidentally, since I know Danica is reading this blog, I'm more than happy to oblige on the Helio front. No luck with Mr. Kanaan, unfortunately. Dude must be a prude or something.
Also, I'm really glad all this criticism is coming from a guy who very clearly has a horny high schooler's (in other words, a high schooler's) view of anatomy:
She can take off her clothes for Sports Illustrated and appear in a GoDaddy.com commercial where an actual beaver is used as a euphemism for, well, you know what a beaver is a euphemism for.
Heh, heh...heh. Man, I miss all the best commercials when I don't own a TV. Gregg, it's called "a vagina", and everybody's got one...well, except dudes, of course. They have...well, I believe the term you prefer is "man-a-ram."
Over the years Patrick has admitted to using sex to sell herself. "It really doesn't matter to me," she has said. "Whatever sells tickets. Whatever brings them back. ... I use my femininity, which is nothing that hasn't happened before and nothing I'm opposed to. I want more TV viewers, too, and I want more fans in the Indy Racing League."
Terrific. She'll get what she wants. Every time she drops her trousers, a few more men will tune in to watch. But as her novelty on the track wears off and her desperation for a headline increases, how low will those trousers go?
Oh, I get it - this is really all about protecting Danica from herself. Gregg Doyel has seen one too many starlets flame out and flame away - it was one of the Spears sisters that finally did it, he's not sure which - and now he's going to save them all from their wanton sexuality and savvy self-marketing. Gregg Doyel: moral defender, American hero.
At this point I'm wondering what we're going to see first from Danica Patrick:
Her car in Victory Lane ... or the beaver.
I am SO glad this guy is a self-appointed moral arbiter. And I am SO glad this is my first post.
Danica Patrick wants it both ways, and please -- please -- get your mind out of the gutter. That wasn't a sexual reference...
It's been a long time since I've seen writing that classy. And by classy, I mean middle school classy (OOH! BURN!!!). Look, I'm as male as the next fella - I actually considered changing my name to Joe Six-Pack but I just didn't feel it was stereotypically manly and American enough - and even I didn't notice the double entendre there until ol' Greggy (Gregggy?) pointed it out. Nothing says "quality journalism" like making a juvenile sex joke and then calling your readers perverts. Because that's what he's calling all of you right now: perverts. And I know for a fact that some of you aren't. Well, at least I hope we have a non-pervert readership. Honestly, I just hope we have a readership.
Like I said, she wants it both ways -- she wants to be treated like a serious racecar driver, but she also wants to be seen as a sex object -- when her body of work suggests she is only one of them. Assuming you find her sexy.
I dunno, I think this is reasonably sexy. Maybe not first-world all-hottie (man, I'm so proud this is the subject of my first post) but still perfectly decent. And doesn't she get extra points for driving fast cars? Guys like fast cars, right? I mean...GRR!!! VRRM VRRM!!!
So yeah, I think Danica Patrick is pretty sexy, certainly by the standards of race car drivers. But hey, what do I know? I think Sanjuro is superior to Yojimbo! (I mean, really...)
Considering she hasn't won a race in her three seasons on the IndyCar circuit -- a tiny, elite series where getting a ride is the hardest accomplishment -- she's still a novelty act. Patrick is the pretty young thing trading paint with the men.
People who have raced on the IndyCar circuit in 2007: 32
People who have won races on the IndyCar circuit in 2007: 6
That means there are six real racers and twenty-six novelty acts on IndyCar at the moment. And that seems really unlikely, unless they've all got great gimmicks on a par with being reasonably sexy in a male-dominated sport (I know for a fact that Ryan Hunter-Reay yodels while he races, but you can't really hear it over the, you know, race cars).
Also, Danica Patrick is seventh in total points - that's the best of anybody who hasn't won a race - has four top-5 finishes and eleven top-10s. I honestly had no idea what I'd find when I looked up these IndyCar stats, and I must admit I was deathly afraid Danica would be the second-worst racer or something. But no - she's seventh-best. Which is really pretty reasonable in a thirty-two driver league, especially one as supposedly prestigious as IndyCar, right? Right?
OK, I have to admit: I know nothing about IndyCar racing. I don't even really care that much. But I DO care about what is sexy, and in the name of defending that which is reasonably sexy, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say Gregg Doyel is full of crap. Crap I say!
To be fair, Doyel does deal with this later in his article, where he basically says only seventeen people really race in IndyCar and that being seventh out of seventeen makes you mediocre. Whatever. Being seventh best in a premiere racing league still means she's competing on a par with men in a men's league, which I think means it's valid to find her story compelling. Certainly, I see no need to write a long, drawn-out attack against her. And neither does Gregg, because he's about to make one massive right turn into Tangent Town. Gregg?
This could change, but as of now Patrick barely deserves to be called an athlete. She's certainly not Anna Kournikova, another sex object from the sports world who was mocked for never winning a tournament in her eight years on tour. That's a lie, by the way. Kournikova won 16 doubles events, including two majors. If you're going to tell me that her regular partner, Martina Hingis, carried her to most of those titles, I'd counter with a question: When Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi were dominating in men's doubles a decade ago, who carried whom?
Now that's a great question. I've got some more!
1. When Jesse Block and Eva Sully were dominating husband-and-wife Vaudeville comedy acts in 1930s New York City, who carried whom?
2. When Brent Goldberg and David T. Wagner were writing the acclaimed screenplay for National Lampoon's Van Wilder, who carried whom?
3. When Quintus Fulvius Flacus III and Appius Claudius Pulcher were dominating the Roman consulship in 212 BC, who carried whom?
4. When Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein were showrunning The Simpsons, who carried whom?
5. When Spider-Man and Killraven dominated the Martians in Marvel Team-Up #45, who carried whom?
The answers, of course, are that they were all equally codependent, except for Spider-Man, who quite clearly was carrying Killraven against the Martians. (Incidentally, it is my sincerest hope that the only comments I get pertain to my unprovoked attack against Killraven. Make it happen, people.)
Doubles tennis is the second thing in this post that I gleefully know nothing about, but I will point something out that may or may not have anything to do with anything...
Singles career of Laender Paes: Runner-up in four majors, won one career title, highest ranking ever no. 73
Singles career of Mahesh Bhupathi: Never got past the second round in any majors, no career titles, highest ranking ever no. 217
Singles career of Anna Kournikova: Once reached the semifinals of Wimbledon, no career titles, highest ranking ever no. 8
Singles career of Martina Hingis: Won five majors, 45 career titles, highest ranking ever no. 1
A couple things strike me - one, Laender Paes was clearly carrying Mahesh Bhupathi, and two, this is a really silly comparison. Gregg Doyel is comparing two very mediocre (and that's being charitable to Bhupathi) singles players who combined for an unstoppable doubles team. That doesn't illuminate anything about a pairing of an above-average player (Kournikova) and all-time great (Hingis).
Doyel goes on to make some arguments that Kournikova was actually underrated as a player, which I actually find relatively interesting because I'm always intrigued by unconventional wisdom, especially when it involves giving credit to people who are sexy (I only read Moneyball because I like getting lost in Scott Hatteberg's eyes). But his argument is so shoddy and anecdotal and generally unconvincing that I remain unmoved. Also...
What the hell is this article supposed to be about? Oh, that's right, Danica Patrick, and how Gregg Doyel thinks she's a total hussy. The rest of the article is basically a long-winded description of her spread in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and her disgustingly sexy answers in an interview in the same issue.
There she is, peeling off her racecar suit to reveal the bikini. In another she turns to the camera so we can see her rear end as she holds a racing helmet. In another she's pouring out of her racing suit as she lies in the sand. And finally there's a full-page photo of her wearing only her bikini bottom -- no racing suit, no helmet, no bikini top. She's covering her breasts with her left hand while lips part suggestively and her right hand fluffs up her flowing mane of silky brown hair and ...
Ahem.
I think that Gregg Doyel is going to the trouble of writing he's aroused by all this as part of a clever ploy to concede that yes, these photos are having their intended effect on red-blooded American men like Gregg Doyel. But really it just makes him sound like a vaguely puritanical moron who, having awoken from his five-decade cryogenic slumber, still finds the swimsuit issue the height of public erotica when I'm pretty sure googling ANY word in the English language will, within twenty hits, provide you with more shocking images than that (although any of you poor fools who google "tadpole" have only yourselves to blame). Also, this passage forced me to imagine Gregg Doyel aroused, and there are certain things you just can't unsee.
On the back page, an interview with Patrick is wrapped around a photo of her sitting on a bed, covering her presumably full-frontal nudity with a pillow. In that story Patrick says she hasn't seen the swimsuit edition yet and asks her interviewer if she's on the cover. (No.) She asks if she was given a pull-out centerfold. (No.) She hints that she has raced nude under her racing suit -- underwear "gets in the way," she says -- and she says she'd like to see fellow drivers Tony Kanaan and Helio Castroneves in swimsuits.
Huh...she sounds like fun. Is this going anywhere? Incidentally, since I know Danica is reading this blog, I'm more than happy to oblige on the Helio front. No luck with Mr. Kanaan, unfortunately. Dude must be a prude or something.
Also, I'm really glad all this criticism is coming from a guy who very clearly has a horny high schooler's (in other words, a high schooler's) view of anatomy:
She can take off her clothes for Sports Illustrated and appear in a GoDaddy.com commercial where an actual beaver is used as a euphemism for, well, you know what a beaver is a euphemism for.
Heh, heh...heh. Man, I miss all the best commercials when I don't own a TV. Gregg, it's called "a vagina", and everybody's got one...well, except dudes, of course. They have...well, I believe the term you prefer is "man-a-ram."
Over the years Patrick has admitted to using sex to sell herself. "It really doesn't matter to me," she has said. "Whatever sells tickets. Whatever brings them back. ... I use my femininity, which is nothing that hasn't happened before and nothing I'm opposed to. I want more TV viewers, too, and I want more fans in the Indy Racing League."
Terrific. She'll get what she wants. Every time she drops her trousers, a few more men will tune in to watch. But as her novelty on the track wears off and her desperation for a headline increases, how low will those trousers go?
Oh, I get it - this is really all about protecting Danica from herself. Gregg Doyel has seen one too many starlets flame out and flame away - it was one of the Spears sisters that finally did it, he's not sure which - and now he's going to save them all from their wanton sexuality and savvy self-marketing. Gregg Doyel: moral defender, American hero.
At this point I'm wondering what we're going to see first from Danica Patrick:
Her car in Victory Lane ... or the beaver.
I am SO glad this guy is a self-appointed moral arbiter. And I am SO glad this is my first post.
History about to be made...
I guess I'll kick things off by saying, Fire Peter King. Man, fuck Peter King.
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