To Tide You Over....

...until the long piece about the Oklahoma State non-scandal hits, here's a few other pieces you should check out.

Adam Sobsey's Bull City Summer has been a marvelous memoir of a season spent following the AAA Durham Bulls closely. It's brilliantly and affectingly written, and this piece on hard-luck OF Brandon Guyer will dent your heart a bit. The rest of the series - and the blog - is well worth reading as well.

Sports On Earth is home to some consistently good writing. This recent guest piece by Susan Elizabeth Shepard stands out, however, for its brutal honestly and refusal to pander to squishy sentimentality. What do pro athletes and strippers have in common? More than you'd think.

There is nothing on Earth better than Joe Posnanski writing about the Royals. Except maybe Posnanski writing about Springsteen. But here he writes about the Royals.

These days the great Charles Pierce makes his crust tearing into politics like a gator tearing into an unwanted Duck Dynasty cast member, but every so often he unlimbers the old sportswriting muscles over at Grantland. The management of this site cheerfully confesses to not being fans of Mr. Simmons' self-absorbtion or style, but he's given Pierce and Jonah Keri a place to play, and that's worth something.

Great Moments In Oversimplified Media Narratives, Atlanta Braves Edition

The narrative is clear. Brewers outfielder Carlos Gomez admired his home run against the Braves and took a slow trot around the bases, causing Atlanta catcher Brian McCann to confront him before he got to home plate. This triggered a bench-clearing brawl, which resulted in ejections, suspensions, and an injury to Brewers infielder Aramis Ramirez. But in the aftermath, McCann was lauded for upholding the unwritten rules of the game, and Gomez got blasted as a showboating punk with no respect for baseball or anything else.

Lots and lots of fans  and media types piled onto that narrative, vociferously defending Atlanta and McCann and calling Gomez some fairly awful things.

Except.

Adult Swim In Arizona

Apparently there is some outrage being generated in certain quarters over an unsourced rumor that, during their victory celebration in the swimming pool in center field of whatever they're calling the Diamondbacks' park these days, at least one Dodger (and possibly more) embraced their inner six year old and - there is no graceful way to say it - peed in the pool.

Now I find this ridiculous for several reasons, namely:

• The whole "They partied in our pool!" nonsense out of noted razor clam poacher Willie Bloomquist is precisely that: nonsense. The game was over, the park was empty, and they won. In the words of Chopper, Harden the @#$# up, Willie. 
• Everybody pees in the pool. 17% of adults - not kids, adults - admit to it, which means that the actual numbers are way higher. Any pool you dare venture into is almost certainly going to have some whiz in it. That's why there's enough chlorine in your average swimming pool to kill half a regiment at Ypres: BECAUSE EVERYONE PEES IN THE DAMN POOL ANYWAY.
• And because the Dodgers jumped in the pool in uniform. Those bad boys would almost certainly show a narsty colored stain quite well. 

Which leads me to the conclusion that A)it's probably a load of bollocks that someone dreamed up so more old men could yell at Yasiel Puig to get off their porch and B)nobody in their right mind would give a crap even if it were true.
But, it did get me thinking about how this story might have gone if it had been someone else in that pool. For instance:

• If it had been the Denver Broncos, it would have been someone else's pee added to the pool.
• If it had been the Milwaukee Brewers, the pee would somehow have been mishandled on its way into the pool.
• If it had been Lance Armstrong's, he would have sworn that the pee was actually an organic healing elixir.
• If it had been the Philadelphia Phillies, someone - probably Ryan Howard - would have gotten hurt while peeing.
• If it had been Oklahoma State, thousands of angry internet commenters would have demanded to know why it hadn't been Miami or North Carolina or USC or Oregon that peed in the pool instead.
• If it had been Texas A&M, someone would have sworn that it was just a coincidence that 4500 vials labeled "Urine sample - Manziel" showed up in the pool at that time. And Johnny would have had to sit out of the pool for half an hour.
• If it had been the Lakers, the story would have been about how nobody would have peed if they'd hired Phil Jackson as coach.
• If it had been the Coyotes, nobody would have cared.
• If it had been the Arizona Cardinals, nobody would have believed it.
• And if it had been the Yankees, it would have been reported as Derek Jeter nobly and honorably marking his territory as God-Emperor of the Suburban Phoenix Dunes, and for that we should all be grateful.

Steelers 911

Last week, the Pittsburgh Steelers were 0-2. This doesn't happen a lot here in Pittsburgh.  The player leadership of the team didn't have much of an idea of what to do in response.

1 change to come out of Steelers veterans meeting yesterday is younger players arent allowed to play pool or ping-pong during business hours
— Jory Rand (@JoryRand) September 19, 2013

Now they're 0-3.

So I guess maybe the team's troubles aren't related to rookies playing 8-ball.  That's weird and surprising! The correlation between snooker and crappy football play is well-documented in precisely nowhere.  Perhaps the relationship is too subtle to be detected by modern science. We need better footballoscopes.

Maybe the vets will double down. Maybe next, guys with three years or fewer won't be able to play Battleship, cribbage, or Vampire: the Masquerade.  (Meanwhile Roethlisberger's standing on the trainer's table shouting, "I call a Blood Hunt upon thee, outcast Kindred Ryan Clark!")

Guys, you are a team. The standings don't say "Pittsburgh Steelers New Dudes: 0-3."  You want to refocus the team, refocus the team. Don't pretend that the problem is that the new guys are distracted while the wily vets are pure professionals.

There are some specific, concrete problems that can be addressed.
* Ben Roethlisberger is personally responsible for 7 of the Steelers' 10 turnovers (4 picks, 3 lost fumbles).  He should, uhh, hold onto the ball.
* The offensive line is atrocious. The Steelers' O-line hasn't been great since Russ Grimm left, but the current line gives swiss cheese a bad name. As of this writing, Football Outsiders' advanced stats rank the Steelers' offensive line 30th. I don't know enough about the trenches to know whether this is schematic problems or personnel problems, but with a rank that bad it's almost certainly both.
* Related, the coaches must stop substituting guys in and out of the offensive line from play to play. The linemen must learn to play together, and that requires actually playing together.

The team's not the Titanic. Most observers thought this was going to be a rough year for the Steelers. It's OK to have those once in a while, so long as the team uses this opportunity to get what they can out of the personnel they have, and learn.

Congratulations ARRRRRR In Order

We interrupt our usual non-stop stream of snark and unusually convoluted sub-references to offer congratulations to the Pittsburgh Pirates, who yesterday clinched the franchise's first playoff berth in 20 years.
Or, to put it another way, the last time the Pirates made the playoffs, Mariano Rivera, who is retiring after an unprecedented run as a closer after a ridiculously long career, was in the minors.

Your Weekly ACC Update

Another week, another game against Bethune-Cookman for the league...

AL MVP: Any Argument In A Storm

I remember it like it was only last year.

The baseball season was headed into its home stretch, and one of the fiercest debates raging was who deserved the AL MVP award. Was it Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera, on his way to the first Triple Crown in recent memory? Or Angels outfielder Mike Trout, the darling of the analytics community, whose unprecedented rookie season was made even more impressive by the fact that he got a late start on the year. Columns raged, invective flew, and in the end, Cabrera won. Old-school types cheered it as a win for, well, for old-school types, and yelled at the analytics types to get off their lawns. Analytically-aligned fans chanted "but what about defense" and muttered darkly about how the demographic shift was on their side.

18 Innings In

18 innings.
21 pitchers.
6 hours, 54 minutes.
184 pitches thrown for each team.
10 consecutive scoreless innings.
A game-winning RBI delivered by a guy who didn't enter the game until the 10th inning, and had enough time to go 2-4.
That's what the Tampa Bay Rays and the Baltimore Orioles did to each other last night. That's what you do when there's under 10 games left in the season and the wild card standings are packed tighter than salmon going upstream in a David Attenborough documentary. That's what you do when it's September and your roster has expanded and one loss can drop you from leading the wild card race to a half game out of the second spot. That's what you do when you're a couple back with not that many to go, and you're running out of chances to make up ground.
The storylines are everywhere. The win went to a guy (Jeremy Hellickson) who had to get sent down to Class A to get his head straightened out. That RBI in the 18th came from a guy (David DeJesus) who was traded twice this season, once to a team that expressly didn't want him. The losing pitcher (Bud Norris) was supposed to end up on the West Coast when he got ransomed out of 100-loss factory Houston for prospects; instead he wound up, to everyone's surprise, in Charm City. Super-rookie Wil Myers went 0-8 in the game. The guy who scored the winning run (Desmond Jennings), went 2-4 after getting into the game in the 9th. The Orioles' closer never entered the game, which may say something about the way Buck Showalter manages or may say something about the way Jim Johnson is pitching.
But really, the only storyline that matters is that this is what you do when the year's running out. You fire every bullet, including your Sunday starting pitcher, because this one game really does matter that much. There's no time for sunk costs any more, no saying sometime around the 13th "screw it, put the shortstop in so we can save the bullpen for the rest of the series". Because if you don't win this game, the rest of the series might be too late.
The game wrapped up around 2 in the morning.
And today at 1:05, they do it all again.

What the Bo Pelini Rant Can Teach Us

Soon you will learn the power of this fully operational football coach

There is precisely one circumstance under which Nebraska fans will not forgive coach Bo Pelini for his Mamet-esque rant from a couple years back that just got released over at Deadspin, and that's if he fails to win enough games.

I wear my visor in a fight*

The NHL has implemented a rule where, if a player gets in a fight (where they get a 5 minute major for fighting, instead of the 2 minute roughing call) and removes his helmet, he gets an additional 2 minute minor for unsportsmanlike conduct.

It's been stated that the reason for this rule is to avoid concussions.  But it's really just a way to penalize fighting even more than it already is.  And I think it's a dumb idea.

Let's be clear here:  the staged fights you see when the guys drop their gloves just after a face-off need to stop.  The players are transparently attempting to pump up the energy of the team, and it's generally transparent.  Although this one (Max Talbot vs. Dan Carcillo in 2009) was an example of one that broke that mold, leading to the Pens eliminating the Flyers.

But a spontaneous fight, where the players just start smacking the living bejeebies out of each other because one guy smashed the other guy into the boards, that almost always results in a momentum shift.

There are also logistical issues with this.  What happens when a guy knocks the other player's helmet off?  What happens if the cause of the fight was a guy high-sticking someone and knocking it off?  Are they penalized then?

I think it's a bad rule, and the NHL should feel bad.




*Sung to the tune of that great 80s hit "Sunglasses at Night".  Yeah, it's a reach.  Deal with it.

The Improbable Math of September

September is the time for improbable math.

It's when you look at the number of games your team sits out of a playoff spot, and the number of games left, and you squint and you hope and think maybe, just maybe...

Maybe if we win all our games, and the three teams ahead of us keep losing, we'll make it.

Maybe we'll get hot.

Maybe the Reds will go 6-6, and that means all we have to do is go 11-2 to catch them. It's doable, right? We've still got games against the Marlins.

Your 2013 International League Champions, the Durham Bulls

Bulls in Motion...

You may have noticed a decided tilt towards Durham Bulls-related content on this blog over the summer. The reason for this is simple: I live ten minutes from their ballpark, and I get to games (generally with some combination of my dad and nephew or my friends Mur "Sansaball" Lafferty and Jim Van Verth and their mighty daughter) as often as I can. The park is lovely and the games are a lot of fun to attend, and if the food options largely run to "variations on hot dogs", that's just fine.

Your "ACC Is On The Rise" Update For 9/16

In the interests of science, let's see how the resurgent ACC did this weekend:

IN CONFERENCE
Just one game this week, with Georgia Tech hammering Duke. Duke has been making strides under David Cutcliffe, but Tech's bizarro offense is tough if you don't have the athletes to pursue the flexbone, and Duke, well, doesn't. Or if they do, they're all playing for Coach K.

In Defense of Knuckleballers

Our Patron Saint

Those of you not reading Adam Sobsey's marvelous Bull City Summer series, about one year at the ballpark (and beyond) with the AAA Durham Bulls, have been missing out. Graceful, insightful, and fun, it's a long-form exercise that really gets to the heart of the material its covering, with genuine affection for the players, managers and characters who make the AAA game what it is.

But in a recent post, he takes a swipe at knuckleballers, and that's where I've got to draw the line. Sobsey's point is that knuckleballers are, in essence, a novelty act. They have precisely one (1) pitch, and they throw it every time out. And that, he posits, is an unenjoyable fan experience - there's no suspense over what's coming next, there's no chance for a pitcher to magically squeeze that extra bit of velocity out of his arm for that one vital pitch, there's nothing but the knuckler, darting and dancing and eventually making its way to the plate (and occasionally behind it, when the catcher fails to handle it). The comparison he settles on is the comedy of Steven Wright: off kilter, repetitive, and functional only within its own space.

Cheatery, NASCAR Style

So the buzz out of NASCAR right now is that Joey Logano - and really, what better sign is there that NASCAR's gone national than a guy whose name make him sound like he should be a roadie for Bon Jovi - did some cheatery to lock up his place in the "Chase".

(The Chase, for those of you unfamiliar with is, is NASCAR's version of the playoffs, wherein the top drivers basically wipe the slate and compete all over again for the last few races of the year. But since those races still include full fields, it's like letting the Yankees and Red Sox slug it out in the ALCS while the Royals and Mariners play catch in the outfield, and the White Sox show up, take batting practice, and then leave right after the first pitch.)

Your Jets Update

Mark Sanchez is probably out for the year with a busted labrum.

Which means that there's still a good chance Rex Ryan won't announce his quarterback until the second quarter of Sunday's game.

Your Handy-Dandy Guide to the Sports Illustrated-Oklahoma State Scandal

What's the big deal?
In a five part investigation, Sports Illustrated has allegedly uncovered evidence of massive institutional corruption at Oklahoma State University's football program. Money, sex, academic fraud, you name it - it's all apparently in there, and the allegations extend from the turn of the century up through 2011.

So what's the big deal?
Well, it depicts a program where academics were laughable, players got handed envelopes of cash in the locker room, and more. And all of this is coming from eyewitness reports from former players.

Let's Not Get Too Excited, ACC Edition

Local sports pundits (and a few national ones) are all a-twitter over the notion that finally, after roughly 2 decades of saying "NEXT year we're going to be good at football", the ACC has risen up to show its fangs. After all, the evidence is unmistakeable: a high-profile win by the league's best team, Clemson, over a highly ranked SEC opponent (Georgia). Another win by a league team (Miami) over an SEC powerhouse (Florida). And...and...

And that's about it.

Great Moments In Getting Overexcited Over One Game, Geno Smith Division

Buoyed by the fact that Jets didn't get run out of the stadium by the Buccaneers on Sunday, the pundits are declaring the Geno Smith era to be a resounding success. Leading the chorus is The Sporting News' Vinny Iyer, whose love letter to Smith makes you wonder if Iyer was standing outside the Jets' locker room after the game, hoping to be asked if he'd accept a rose.

A Summer At the Ballparks

Fan Appreciation Day, Durham Bulls Athletic Park. A dad tosses pop flies so his son can learn to make spectacular catches crashing against the fence.

AT&T Park, preseason tour, the view from the Press Box.
And in the distance, the waters of McCovey Cove.

The view from the Giants' dugout, placed along the third base side
because there's more room there. Looking out to dead center,
an awfully long way away.

Outside Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, just before
Opening Day. A bronze statue seemingly hurls a water tower, daring
another statue to hit it. Bronze Ted Kluszewski waits out of shot, patiently, for his chance
to swing.

Domonic Brown stealing second against the Reds, in a game the
Phillies won with 2 homers in the 9th off Aroldis Chapman.
Erik Kratz and Freddy Galvis, you are a thermodynamic miracle.

Opening night, Rogers Centre, Toronto. R.A. Dickey was betrayed by
his catcher, who let a fistful of knucklers roll by. The Jays lost, setting
the tone for the season. But for one night, the joint was jumping.

The end of the Phillies' ballpark tour; a chance to sit in Charlie Manuel's press conference seat,
deep in the bowels of Citizens' Bank Park.
I tried to announce a trade of Michael Young, but no one believed me

Nephew Jake's first college baseball game - Duke vs. Maryland,
right before the ACC tournament. Note the Jays jersey and Bulls hat.
Also note the foul ball, off the bat of Duke's shorstop. While we admired it, the kid hit a second one to the exact same spot and nearly brained us both.

Dad and Jake, Bulls versus Charlotte Knights. 

Dog days of summer. Rochester's bullpen crew heading in to the dugout after pre-game warmups at the DBAP.

Catching warmup tosses in the visitors' pen, during the last homestand of the season.
The catcher's mitt pops with every pitch.

Seated right behind home plate at a Winston-Salem Dash game.
16 rows back and a million miles away.

Bulls infielder Mike Fontenot takes his son onto the field after
a loss to Charlotte in the next to last home game of the year.
The grounds crew ignores Fontenot, and just works around him.

After the last home game of the season, the Bulls gather on the mound to celebrate.
13 runs, 17 hits, and nary a homer to be seen - and that was just for the Bulls. 

The Year of the Third Stringer

Clearly, this is the year of the third-string quarterback. 

Usually, nobody knows who these guys are and, apart from their immediate families, agents, and alumni associations, nobody cares. They're rookies who didn't get drafted with glamor picks, coming out of school without the sheen of Mel Kiper Jr.'s slightly unsettling approval to grease their way into reps with the first team. They're journeymen who never made it big, bouncing from clipboard to clipboard around the NFL because they're known quantities. 

These are the guys whom you never want to see on the field, but if they get out there they won't fumble every snap or throw every pass into the middle of the cheerleaders. They're safe, and nothing more; they're Tony Pike and Koy Detmer and Scott Tolzien and Tyler Bray. And year in and year out they get flipped and swapped and cut and picked up, and only the most obsessive fans and fantasy players ever really bother to learn their names.

Until this year.

The Pirate List

Sometime in the very near future, the Pittsburgh Pirates are going to win their 82nd game of the season, thus guaranteeing themselves a winning record. (They got #81 tonight, meaning the worst they can do is .500) This is a good thing, particularly for A)the Pirates organization B)fans of the team and C)anyone still mad at the St. Louis Cardinals for hiring Mike Matheny as manager instead of eminently qualified Cardinals lifer Jose Oquendo (like, say, my wife). And it's a big deal for baseball fans because the Pirates haven't had a winning season since 1992.
That, in case, you were wondering, is a very long time. It's the longest active streak of losing seasons in major professional team sports (No, the Washington Generals don't count). And when the Pirates do cross that magical 82-win barrier, you can expect a barrage of Beloit List-like articles detailing exactly how long it's been since the Buccos had a winning record. Things like "The last time the Pirates had a winning season..."

Seriously, Ron

Last night the Steelers played the Carolina Panthers in a preseason* game. Thousands of people in Charlotte paid scores of dollars apiece in order to see their teams' stars dress up like football players and cheer for their teams' scrubs and flotsam.

In the middle of the second quarter, Carolina quarterback / crisp, delicious pickle Jimmy Clausen drove the Panthers down to the Steelers' 1 yard line.  On 2nd down, the Panthers sent running back / baking soda Armond Smith over the top, and the Steelers defense stopped him just short of the goal line.

Panthers head coach / inscrutable guru Ron Rivera decided, at this point, to throw a challenge flag.

Wha...?

Why, Ron? Why would you do that?

Touchdowns in a preseason game are meaningless.  You play preseason games to assess your players.

If you didn't score, you now have two more offensive plays with which to assess your goal-line offense.  Isn't that worth more than six points in a preseason** game?

(Spoiler alert: It is in fact worth more than six points in a preseason game. )

Seen from this perspective, Rivera's decision to kick the field goal two plays later, on fourth-and-3, is maddening. Make another try. We're all pretty sure that the Panthers special teams can hit the trey from inside the 5-yard-line. Find out what your offense can do, Ron.

Apparently too many head coaches have internalized the only thing anyone will ever remember Herm Edwards for:



That's not what the preseason is for, Ron.

* I originally wrote "meaningless preseason game" but that first adjective is kind of assumed.

** Ibid, only moreso

Unsettling Settlement

Here's what you need to know about the settlement the NFL came to on the massive lawsuit filed by former players over concussions: It's the biggest win the league has seen since the Monsters of the Midway stomped Washington 73-0.

Dear Reporters at Coaches' Press Conferences: No

Just, no.

I realize that when you're at a press conference for a coach whose program is embattled in one way or another, you're going to want to ask the hard questions. You're going to want to ask about the scandal do jour, and you're going to to want to be seen doing so by your editors when the awkward footage of said press conference shows up on SportsCenter.

Sanchez Newtons

Over at Jets Over The Pond, Matt Goldstein (full disclosure here: Matt's my cousin, and I love him even if he is a Jets fan) compares the shambling husk of Mark Sanchez to Panthers QB Cam Newton. While neither of them has lived up to the expectations laid upon them by a hyper-rabid media and both have been dinged for occasionally acting like young men with gobs of money whose whims have been catered to since they were old enough to slow dance with a girl in the late stages of a bar mitzvah reception, they've taken radically different paths to their current level of Not Being The Next Tom Brady.

Your Handy-Dandy Conspiracy Theory About Mark Sanchez's Injury

If it had been Blane Gabbert, nobody would care.

Instead, it's Mark Sanchez who's down after a bizarre sequence of events, which means it's front page news. Never before has a training camp QB battle between two nonentities - the misfiring Sanchez, whose skills and poise have eroded under four years of Rex Ryan's "coaching" and inferior offensive lines, and the clearly not-ready-for-prime-time Geno Smith, whose main back-of-box feature at this point is that he's not Sanchez - been so endlessly dragged out in the public eye.

Network of Denial

This is what happens when you cover the product and you are the product.

There's a reason ESPN has pulled out of its coproduction with PBS on a documentary for Frontline. The piece, which was 15 months in the making, was called League of Denial, and was based on the investigative work of the Fainaru brothers - who write for ESPN. If the name Mark Fainaru-Wada sounds familiar, it's because he's been at the forefront of the ESPN's investigations into PED use in baseball for years, and has a spotless reputation for journalistic integrity.

A Game Design Perspective on Baseball's New Instant Replay Proposal

Here are some basic rules of game design:

• Simple and elegant is always better than complicated and filled with special cases.
• Be aware of unintended consequences
• Playtest and prototype the hell out of things before you release them to your audience
• Don't train your players to do one thing, and then unexpectedly turn around and penalize them for doing what you've taught them to

Sunday Dinner With Baseball

Family dinner Sunday night was supposed to be Chinese food.

We're Jews from the Northeast. It's always supposed to be Chinese food on Sunday night. Instead, we ended up at a Japanese steakhouse - myself, my wife, my sister and her husband and two kids, and my parents. It wasn't the tradition, but hey, we knew the kids would enjoy it, and there was something on the menu everyone liked.

Monday's going to be a rough day, the latest is a series of rough days and the first in the start of a whole new stretch of them. My sister has cancer, and Monday is when they wheel her in for surgery. Our other sister also has cancer, and had surgery earlier in the summer, but then again as a family we've always been very good about taking turns. There was a tricky moment back in 1979 or so when my sister - the one who's getting operated on Monday morning, not the other one - got impatient waiting for me to listen to her and brained me with my pinewood derby car, but what siblings don't have those sorts of moments.

Cholly's Gone

Thank you, Charlie Manuel, for that authentic frontier gibberish

Cholly's gone.

Uncle Charlie Manuel, the marble-mouthed hitting maven who led the Phillies to the best run of sustained success in their history, is out, and designated successor Ryne Sandberg is in. Sandberg's got the "interim" tag on him, but nobody this side of the ghost of Danny Ozark thinks that anyone else is going to be in the dugout next year. Sandberg's been the guy-in-waiting for too long, and Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. has this habit of locking in long-term to His Guy. (see also: Ryan Howard contract)

No Slumping For Old Men

Now batting, Alfonso Soriano

Here we go again.

It's late in the season, and the Yankees are eating contracts. Big, fat, overpaid veteran contracts. It's a strategy they've used for years, hand in hand with their habit of picking up scrap-heap ex-All Stars in spring training.

And like clockwork, the guys hit. And hit. And hit.

The Good Stuff, Detroit Tigers Edition

In the midst of all the yammering about A-Rod and Biogenesis and the poor guy who fell off Turner Field yesterday, this is a wonderful reminder of the good stuff that goes with baseball fandom.

Give it a read.

It Doesn't End Here

Here's the sequence of events:

• St. Louis radio jock and ex-player Jack Clark goes on-air and claims that Albert Pujols' trainer told him Pujols shoots up with PEDs.
• Pujols' trainer says, "Wait a minute, I haven't talked with that guy in ten years and I never said that."
• Pujols says, "I'm suing you."
• The radio station that employs Clark and his partner fires both of them.
• Clark's partner makes some noise about how the radio station hung them out to dry,

End of story. Right?
Wrong.

Of Foul Balls and Genny Cream Ale

Wednesday night at the ballpark.

Me, my father, a family friend down from Philadelphia and my ten year old nephew Jake, the budding baseball fanatic. On our last outing together, he asked me to take him to a sporting goods store to look at catching gear. He's always talking about his baseball cards - the new hotness is the Mariano Rivera he just picked up. "Hang on that one for five years," I tell him. "They're going to have to let him in to the Hall of Fame."

Not a Professor of Economics

Last night, on ESPN radio, there was a discussion of the comments former Patriot Wes Welker made about his former coach, the Hooded Nemesis Bill Belichick. Welker, perhaps understandably, noted that he felt he had done everything the team had asked him to do, and that his last year there, Belichick had still singled him out for unwarranted criticism.

After the season, of course, Welker got a lowball offer from the Pats, got a slightly higher one from Denver, and left town in a blaze of crossing routes. Now, to anyone not named Wes Welker, this sounds an awful lot like Belichick knew he wasn't bringing Welker back and purposely set about making sure his teammates weren't going to miss him too much. Call it character assassination, call it shrewd psychology, whatever; this is the NFL, where 370 pound men regularly slam into each other with the force of a SmartCar getting inhaled by a Hummer's engine intake. "Not nice" doesn't entire into it.

Pete Rose Said What?

Pete Rose has advised the Biogenesis 13 to "come clean". This is laughable, for any number of reasons, not the least of which being that it took literally decades for Rose to admit he'd lied, and lied about lying, and lied about lying about lying. Rose's story is too long and too sad to go into here; I'd advise anyone who still thinks he's a victim in all this to go back and read the actual report that lays out in damning detail who Rose was running with, what he did, and how he lied about it.

Denny McLain's weighing in, too. Denny's not as famous as Pete is, of course. He had some great years for the Tigers, was the last guy to win 30 in a single season, and got his toes broken by mobsters over a gambling debt while his team was in the thick of a pennant race. McLain later would indulge in such activities as embezzlement, mail fraud, racketeering, drug dealing, and flying a wanted felon out of the country. And Denny is disappointed in Tigers shortstop Jhonny Peralta for not appealing his suspension, what with his team in a pennant race and all.

Who are the Biogenesis Thirteen?

So here's the list of players suspended on Monday by MLB for their part in the Biogenesis affair:

• Alex Rodriguez
• Nelson Cruz
• Jhonny Peralta
• Everth Cabrera
• Antonio Bastardo
• Jordanny Valdespin
• Jesus Montero
• Francisco Cervelli
• Cesar Puello
• Fernando Martinez
• Sergio Escalona
• Fautino De Los Santos
• Jordan Norberto

If you're not a baseball fan, you've heard of one of these guys: A-Rod. If you're a casual fan, you may have heard of a couple more. Cruz was an All-Star this year, and has shown up on endless blooper reels for the way he played outfield in the World Series a couple of years ago. Peralta and Cabrera were also All-Stars, middle infielders with a bit of sock and a lot of speed, respectively. But one played in Detroit, where he was overshadowed by Miggy and Prince and Verlander, and the other played in San Diego, where no national reporter has dared set foot since Tony Gwynn retired. So, semi-famous at best.

What Can Michael Jordan's Retirement Teach Us About A-Rod?

So here's the difference between baseball and basketball.

If you believe the investigative journalists, when basketball's most transcendent talent got caught dead to rights doing something he ought not to have, he "retired". In response, the NBA dropped its investigation into Michael Jordan's gambling, one that it hardly trumpeted prior to Jordan's "retirement". There were no talks of a bargain, no targeted leaks of evidence, no long and drawn out public cha-cha with the evidence. Today, barely anyone remembers that there had been an investigation into Jordan's gambling, or that Jordan had written a massive check to a convicted drug dealer to cover gambling debts, or, well, you get the idea.

What Exactly Was Jonathan Papelbon Expecting?

Noted Deep Thinker Jonathan Papelbon shot his mouth off again at the conclusion of the Phillies' train wreck of a road trip. Saying that he hadn't come to Philadelphia for this, whatever this is (I'm assuming it's an 8 game losing streak that knocked the aging, wounded Philberts from the Oort Cloud of contention to definite "Sell" mode), he then demanded wholesale changes to the organization a la Boston. Entirely lost on him was the irony that one of the changes that improved Boston was, well, getting rid of one Jonathan Papelbon.

With Apologies to Tom Abernathy

So do you remember when it was vitally important to debate whether Yasiel Puig belonged on the All-Star team? And all the heated debates over whether he should be selected? And whether it was a slap in the face to guys who'd played years - or at least whole seasons - if he were selected? And you absolutely could not get away from the debate and the rants and the geshrying?

Things A-Rod Was Not Responsible For, No Matter What The NY Post Tells You

By  now, we have all learned the truth: Yankees third baseman is in fact history's greatest monster, and there is no bottom limit to his depravity. He has mouthed off on Twitter. He has failed to inform his bosses as to his whereabouts. He has failed to be Derek Jeter. And, if you believe the Bill Madden types of the world, he is morally equivalent to a crime boss who killed at least 19 people, subverted the FBI and spent decades on the lam. But as we wait for the pitchfork-wielding mob to storm his penthouse apartment and bestow upon him the end he so richly deserves, we should remind ourselves that there are still a few crimes that have been committed by others. For all of his black-hearted, relentless evil, A-Rod did not yet:

• Vandalize the Lincoln Memorial
• Get an OB-GYN to clear him to play baseball
• Commission a painting of himself as Pikachu
• Talk Disney into buying Times Square
• Provide morning-after gift baskets for his sexual conquests
• Get a third-year med school student to clear him to play baseball
• Cause the managers to run out of pitchers at the 2002 All Star Game
• Ride a fixed-gear bike through Brooklyn complaining about all the goddamn hipsters in their Mini Coopers
• Deny that he's down with the Bronies
• Have Cameron Diaz feed him anything Andrew Zimmern would eat while watching a game in a luxury box
• Do a guest appearance on Hillbilly Handfishing
• Write the ending to Mass Effect 3. He did, however, refuse to play a FemShep because Jason Giambi made fun of him.
• Do a guest appearance on Storage Wars: NY, where he attempted to buy a locker with some cute adirondack chairs but ultimately got outbid by a hairy guy named "Vito" from Staten Island
• Hook up with an attractive woman from the stands to "play doctor" and then have her clear him to play baseball
• Help overthrow the rightfully elected government of the Comoros with an army of 16 geriatric mercenaries (which, to be fair, does sound like the Yankees' roster at this point)
• Steal a box of Thin Mints out of Ichiro's locker and claim it was totally Travis Hafner who did it
• Much of anything this year

Hall of Fame Voters Are Kind of Dumb

Did not vote for Biggio or Bagwell for the Hall of Fame

So there's nobody living going into the Baseball Hall of Fame this weekend, which is dumb. The voting process for the Hall has so thoroughly embraced the notion of "The perfect is the enemy of the good" that it's gone a step further: The voters' perfect not only is the enemy of the good, it's also dating the good's ex-girlfriend, kidnapping its dog, and leaving flaming bags of poo on the good's doorstep. 
And like I said, this is dumb. The Hall of Fame induction weekend is a chance to make baseball look good. It's an opportunity to bring back memories, to invoke the warm nostalgia that is one of the game's  birthrights. It's an opportunity to celebrate what is good in baseball, with attendant publicity.
Except, of course, the voters have collectively adopted the "well, actually" attitude of the Simpsons' Comic Book Guy, demanding every candidate be so good and so angelic that even playing at the same time as PED guys is enough to invoke a wave of "Not on my ballot" chest-thumping.

Your Handy-Dandy Guide To What People Are Saying About Ryan Braun

• "Ryan Braun owes the fans an apology" = "Ryan Braun owes me an apology"
• "Ryan Braun owes the kids an apology" = "Ryan Braun owes ME an apology"
• "We should remove the statistics of players caught using PEDs from the record books" = "I am angry and don't understand interconnected systems. What do you mean there were pitchers involved in all those home runs?"
• "Ryan Braun gets the worst of this because he will always be known as a cheater" = "I don't understand that for $100M, you can buy a big fat jug of Don't Give A Crap"
• "Ryan Braun is the Lance Armstrong of baseball" = "I just skimmed the whole Lance Armstrong thing because, you know, cycling, so I have no idea what Lance Armstrong actually did."
• "The Brewers are better off without Braun this season" = "I understand that the Brewers are in fact better off not paying another $3M and change to a guy who's going to be at 60% the rest of the way. Also, I believe they've manufactured a ton of Caleb Gindl jerseys"
• "I pay their salaries" = "I pay a tiny fraction of their salaries, and am attempting to use that fact to claim moral standing so I can rant" 
• "I'm as angry about this as anybody" = "My producer suggests it would be a really good idea if I were angry about this"
• "We should let team void the contracts of steroid users" = "I firmly believe players will lie and cheat to earn multi-million dollar contracts, but that owners - whose ranks include a war profiteer, guys with ties to Bernie Madoff, and Jeff Loria - would never lie or cheat or spike someone's Gatorade to keep from paying them. I also believe that Smurfs are real."
• "Alex Rodriguez is the Lance Armstrong of baseball" = "OK, the Ryan-Braun-is-Lance-Armstrong thing didn't work"
• "Alex Rodriguez is going to claim he's injured and can't play so he doesn't get suspended so the Yankees can have insurance cover his salary" = "I have never actually dealt with an insurance company"
• "I feel bad for all the clean players" = "I wrote a lot of stuff cheering on McGwire and Sosa in the 90s"
• "I look at Chris Davis and I know he has to be doing steroids" = "I have the mutant ability to detect steroid use with my eyes"
• "I see 300 pound linemen doing 4.9 40s and know they have to be doing steroids" = "I have the mutant ability to detect steroid use with my eyes"
• "We don't actually know what PEDs do to help baseball players" = "I have actually read the literature on the subject, and will now get hammered as a steroid apologist"
• "Players who shoot up make it unfair for the other guys" = "Except the guys on my favorite team, who should be getting tattooed with cortisone shots so they get back on the field as soon as possible"
• "First time steroid users should be banned for life" = "I have conveniently forgotten that I own three Andy Pettite jerseys"
• "What do you think this means for baseball?" = "Please tell me this will be bad for baseball"
• "Why don't people care about PEDs in football?" = "I am still dealing with having gotten picked last for kickball in elementary school, and have not yet come to grips with the fact that where the popular kids are concerned, nobody gives a crap if they break the rules."
• "This is proof baseball's drug testing program doesn't work" = "I don't understand that the drug program that catches people is working, and the drug program that doesn't catch people isn't"
• "Alex Rodriguez is the Whitey Bulger of baseball" = "I have no idea who Whitey Bulger actually is or what he did, but his name came up on my Twitter feed"

A Quick Plug For Somebody Else's Stuff

If you've read my posts on the NFL you know that I'm a fan of the advanced statistics calculated and promulgated by the guys at Football Outsiders.

For the last few years I have picked up PDF versions of their Football Outsiders Almanac during the NFL preseason. It's a great read and gives good context for the upcoming season. I personally use it to prepare for the fantasy league that I play in, but I've never won a dime in that league so maybe you should take my advice with that in mind.

Anyway -- gratuitous plug here, I'm not getting a cut or anything -- Football Outsiders Almanac 2013 is now up for sale in PDF at the FO store and I'd encourage you to check it out.

Rick Reilly Is On Drugs

I am certain Rick Reilly is on something.
I have no proof for this. But I look at his columns today and they're much, much longer than they used to be. You can't tell me he's writing this much without stimulants. I mean, you look at his back page pieces for SI back in the day versus his longer-form essays for ESPN.com now and he's producing way more words than he ever did before. It's not like he's suddenly going to acquire a larger vocabulary, not at his age, so he's got to be on something.

Great Moments In People Who Have Never Had To Talk To A Lawyer Yammering About Sports

"Sources: Braun Didn't Answer PED Questions"
That's the headline in ESPN.com.  Faced with a possible suspension, which he will certainly fight in court, Ryan Braun refused to answer questions about PEDs from reporters.
Now, there are two types of people in America. There are the people who will read that and immediately think "AHA! HE'S GUILTY!" Because, you know, he didn't answer questions and stuff.
And then there are the people who have ever dealt with a lawyer. Because if you are involved in a legal case, one that potentially has millions of dollars' worth of personal repercussions on the line, the first thing your lawyer tells you to do is shut the hell up. Because, to be blunt, it is the smart thing to do. You don't talk, you don't say things that can be taken out of context and used to beat your head in when you get to trial.
Of course, if you don't say anything on something like this, they'll paint you as guilty anyway. But it's way less quotable. And all the chowderheads who think that Braun's first responsibility is to satisfy their curiosity - or more accurately, provide them with ammunition for their preconceived conclusions - as opposed to seeing to his own legal defense and welfare, well, I wish them joy of any future run-ins with the legal system.
I think they might change their minds about talking.

Apologies and Mea Culpas

You don't do a mea culpa in the passive voice.

Right Now...

Somewhere, LeBron James is writing Dwight Howard a thank-you note.

I Play For Smart People

We're not even at the All Star Break and already the howling has started in certain quarters about how, if the playoffs started today, it would be a ratings disaster because the playoffs wouldn't consist exclusively of the Yankees and Red Sox, possibly cloned to fill all the playoff slots but ensuring large TV markets). The spectre of *gasp* a Pittsburgh or an Oakland sneaking into the postseason, instead of the large market teams that Fox is banking on, will apparently trigger the zombie apocalypse, the heat-death of the universe, and a reboot of "Boy Meets World" (Note: One of these has already happened. Danielle Fishel, call me.)

Shocked, Shocked to Find FameMongering In This Establishment

So some media types are shocked – shocked, I tell you – to discover that Dwight Howard may be enjoying the public nature of his free agency courtship because it makes him feel like a star. Because he likes the attention, and this is apparently bad, you see.

A Dozen Burning Sports Questions, Answered

A-Rod vs. Brian Cashman - actual footage

Sports talk radio is mainly in the business of chewing cud, which is to say taking simple stories and gnawing on them endlessly until they're bland, mushy, and possibly in the digestive tract of a cow. With that in mind, here's Sportsthodoxy's official take on some of the most contentious issues out there - and by "contentious", we mean "taking up the most on-air segments right now"

Q: Should Dodgers rookie outfielder Yasiel Puig be an NL All-Star, despite only having a month in the major leagues?
A: Yes. Because the all-star rosters are slightly larger than my graduating class from high school so he won't be bumping anyone "worthy", and since All-Star games are designed to pique fan interest, it makes sense to put the most interesting guy in baseball in there. Also: Roger Pavlik, All-Star.

Sportsthodoxy Fisks The News

I always liked the tag line of The Daily Show back when Craig Kilborn was hosting: "When news breaks, we fix it."

This morning I was reading the latest scoop on Aaron Hernandez from ESPN, and I noticed a few questionable turns of phrase.

A Tale of Two Cities of Brotherly Love

You can get a jump on Homer Bailey, but not on Father Time

In the dim and dusty corners of the baseball trade rumor market last week, there was a report that the Boston Red Sox were interested in Phillies third baseman and Iconic Texas Ranger Michael Young. However, the rumor was pretty much discounted immediately because the Phillies' GM, Ruben Amaro Jr., has said that nobody's going anywhere, that the club could still make a run, that he has to see what it looks like when the whole team is healthy, etc. etc.

Bill Versus Doc: Fight!

One of the interesting side effects of modern commentator culture is that, increasingly, said commentators feel the need to make themselves part of what they're commenting on. You see it at concerts - there's always the jerk in the front row calling back answers to the performer's stage patter. You see it online, not that you should ever, ever read the comments section of, like, anything. And you see it in the traditional media, where the lines between celebrity and celebrity journalism have blurred to near transparency. 

Your Handy-Dandy Guide to the Trades Made At and Around the NBA Draft

The Philadelphia 76ers trade PG Jrue Holiday and a 2nd round pick to the New Orleans Pelicans for Nerlens Noel and next year's (protected) first round pick

Translation: The Sixers have decided to blow the whole thing up and start over with Noel and a couple of probable lottery picks next year. To get a good lottery pick, it helps if you don't have a lot of good players, so they ditched their best one on a them that's in a hurry to win now. When people say hopefully "build around Evan Turner and Thaddeus Young", you know you're going to have a lot of ping pong balls next year.

Great Moments In Putting The Cart Before the Horse, Hernandez-Tebow Edition

We've been staying away from this because A) at this point, it's all idle speculation and B) Charles Pierce said it all and said it better over at Grantland, anyway.
But watching the media reactions to the release and subsequent arrest - or is it the other way around - of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez has finally roused the sleeping bear.

The Nerd at Third Base

We all knew Alex Rodriguez in high school.
Not the Alex Rodriguez, of course. Not the one who took Seattle by storm as a teenager and hammered baseballs like he was Neal Peart and they were crash cymbals. But we all knew someone - hell, maybe we were someone - like him.
And again, by "like him", I don't mean "a supremely gifted athlete". I mean someone who was socially awkward, desperate to fit in, and gifted with an uncanny instinct for saying the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time.

Closing Time

"And the Padres tie the game at 3!"

It's a very simple three step process:

1-Closer blows a game.
2-Closer blasts his teammates.
3-Closer blows more games.

Talking Football After Cooley

All hail the mighty Cooley Bird

So I saw Mike Cooley play a gig in Chapel Hill the other night, at an affable hole in the wall called Local 506. Cooley, for those of you not familiar with the man or his works, is one of the principals in the band Drive-By Truckers, and if you haven't heard of them, well, there's no hope for you.
Anyway, after the show wrapped up and the floor cleared out, and the dad shirts and ironic beards and expensive replicas of cheap t-shirts from my childhood had shuffled on out the door, only the die-hards were left. They clustered at the bar, pounding beers that weren't PBR and talking excitedly about next week's show in Winston-Salem, comparing the fine points of this gig's rendition of "Zip City" to those of one they heard in Athens at the 40 Watt back in 2004.

A Short Pop Quiz on the NBA Finals

1: True or False - After the buzzer sounded on Game 7, LeBron James was physically lifted into Heaven by a host of angels with fiery swords and Miami Heat "White Hot" branded merchandise?

2: The Spurs lost because:

The Martyrdom of Saint Wil

I swear, you'd think they were gonna kill him.

That smile says "Send Help!"

For the last couple of months, one of the recurring themes amongst baseball types was the way in which Wil Myers was being kept against his will in the desolate hell-hole called Durham, North Carolina. To hear the way the seamheads put it, Myers was "trapped" in Cackalacky by the heartless and foolish Rays front office. Presumably, he was also being flogged regularly, fed nothing but gruel, and guest-starring on episodes of Beyond Scared Straight. No doubt the poor kid spent his days here digging his way out of the home clubhouse at the DBAP, possibly in the direction of Bull City Burger and Brewery, and covering up the hole with a tattered Rita Hayworth poster.

Llllladies and Gentlemen

Warning: soccer-related content below.

This past weekend was first half of the PA West Soccer Open Tournament at Edinboro University in Edinboro, PA.  It's a tournament for western Pennsylvania rec soccer teams -- not elite college-prep type teams with professional coaches, but neighborhood youth soccer clubs.  I'm heavily involved with one of those clubs and I was up at the tournament with my son's team.

Each team is expected to provide volunteer time to the tournament. When I approached the tournament director to take care of my team's time, she cocked her head and said "how's your announcer voice?"

The Points, They Are Tipping

Until recently, the definition of "oversteering" was "what Rich does when playing a racing game on his 360", which is why my nephew loves firing up Driver: San Francisco (Ubisoft Reflections, represent!) every time he visits - he's got a better chance of staying on the road than I do. I'll skid a little to the right, go hard left, slide out of control, try to go right, and end up with a perfectly harmless Alfa Romeo that never did no harm to nobody wrapped around the Coit Tower.
Twice.

Why I Write This

There are a couple of reasons I write this thing. One is, of course, that it's fun. It's a completely different type of writing than the stuff I do for work (video games where people get shot in the face) or the stuff I do for myself (horror novels where people have terrible things happen to their faces) or even my side business writing (book reviews wherein authors occasionally, figuratively get it in the face). It's an informal place where I can just sort of let loose with pure opinion. Very relaxing, that, and very cathartic.

Why Playoff Hockey Rocks (Painfully Oversimplified Math Division)

Every year, people magically rediscover playoff hockey and gasp, astonished, at how exciting it is. This usually happens around the time of the first triple-overtime game, and lasts until somebody wins the Stanley Cup. At that point, hockey is magically forgotten about in most of the US until it's time for the cycle to repeat. But for those few golden weeks, hockey justifiably captures the attention of those who know enough to look, and its playoff games are the most exciting of any major sport's.

Why? Math.

You Dropped a Bomb On Me, Baby...

Dig if you will, a picture, of the Boston Bruins and the Chicago Blackhawks engaged in a triple overtime thriller in Chicago.  It’s past midnight on the east coast, and everyone is thinking “End this!  I have to get to work in the morning!”  Andrew Shaw of the Blackhawks delivers a redirection that goes in on Tukka Rask, ending the game.  This being on NBC, Pierre Macguire jumps over the boards, or at least climbs over them slowly, and grabs the guy who potted the game winning goal.  “Tell me about the goal.”  Standard stuff.

Andrew Shaw then drops an f-bomb on national TV.  LIVE!  OH THE HUMANITY!

Two days later, TWO DAYS, there’s an article on Puck Daddy, Yahoo! Sports’ hockey blog, about how Shaw’s mother and the mayor of his hometown ‘absolve him’ for popping the f-word¹.  According to wikipedia, a network is not required to censor foul language between 10PM and 6AM.  So, evidently people are up in arms over something the FCC doesn’t care about.  You know, the FCC with the over-strict decency rules.

David Ortiz got away with it after the Boston Marathon bombings, and that was during prime-time.  So, I think Andrew Shaw gets a pass on this one.

¹ I’m aware of the irony of complaining about censorship and then self-censoring by not using the word in question.  I didn’t want to fuck up and offend someone.²

² Oops.

Timmeh! And the Lord of the Underworld

Sometimes the jokes write themselves:

"You hear the Patriots signed Tim Tebow?"
"I thought they needed a running back."
"They just signed one."

Bad Teams Find A Way To Lose, Class A Division

Never piss off a bipedal fish with a hot dog cannon

Bad teams find ways to lose.

I went to see the Carolina Mudcats the other night. A relative of my wife's was in town for the first time, we wanted to show him a good time, and we picked up my dad and my nephew on the way out to Five County Stadium for a Saturday evening contest. The weather was lovely, post-storm blue skies, the opponent was the loaded Rangers affiliate the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, and it was Miggy Cabrera Bobblehead Night for all kids 14 and under. My nephew, who is ten, had been discussing the desirability of a bobblehead versus a toy bat with my wife on the way in, was ecstatic.

Let's All Jump On Donovan

A McNabb Career Highlight

Even the sports world has socially awkward nerds. Case in point: Donovan McNabb, who is about as comfortable speaking with other human beings as Jeffty Loria is with a forensic accountant. For all that his career ended with a thud, McNabb really was one of the best quarterbacks of his era, a guy who consistently led undergunned Eagles teams to the playoffs (even if once he got there, he played like someone was holding his family at gunpoint in a South Philly basement). He played hard, he played hurt, and he played well, and yet the only time anyone ever warmed to him was when he was doing Chunky Soup commercials. The rest of the time, he went total McFly every time a microphone got shoved in his face, to the point where he lost sympathy and credibility at an unseemly pace. It didn't matter if he was reciting the lyrics to "Happy Birthday", he would say it in a way that was so flat, unappealing, entitled, and awkward that  you got mad just listening to it. He could have revealed the Grand Unified Theory in a postgame presser and people would have called bullshit reflexively, because he just has that kind of public voice.

An Open Letter To Baseball On the Bosch Deal

"So if A-Rod OPSes the same as a duck, he's made of wood"

Dear Baseball:

Please stop being so fucking stupid about the way you handle PEDs.

What Can Dom Brown Do For You?

I think that one landed in Jenkintown

Domonic Brown is very good at hitting baseballs.

This is something that a lot of people agreed on, starting with when the Phillies took him with the 20th overall pick a few years back. It persisted as he climbed the minor league ladder, with old school scouty  types drooling over his physical tools and analytics nerds looking at his projections and getting the vapors.

Why I Am Rooting For The Heat

I am rooting for the Miami Heat out of sheer, enlightened self-interest.

It is not because I am a fan of LeBron James, though I remain puzzled as to why an athlete who took less money in exchange for a better chance of winning remains vilified by the press. It's not because I have any love for The House That Pat Riley Built, or for the colorful bro-hood of burgeoning psychopath Chris Andersen, or the South Beach Home For Wayward Duke Alumni (c/o Shane Battier).