Hack'n'Slush

"Now batting for the St. Louis Cardinals, Number One..."

Players aren't the only ones that cheat. Organizations cheat all the time. The Patriots - dear God, let's not talk about the Patriots. The New York Giants stole signs all the way to Bobby Thompson's home run off Ralph Branca. George Toma was a master of turning the Kansas City baselines into either racetrack or swamp, depending on whom the Royals were playing. Branch Rickey spun off forty-zillion farm clubs so he could sign all the talent and have it rot away in the minors rather than let anyone else have it.

So in one sense, what the Cardinals allegedly did by hacking the Astros is nothing new. In another sense, it's very new, because this sort of interstate computer skullduggery is exactly the sort of thing the Feds take very seriously, largely because if they nail the Cardinals' hide to the wall here, it sets up a lovely precedent for when they go after Goldman Sachs should they be so inclined. And has been pointed out elsewhere, the Feds are not inclined to play nice when it comes to baseball, largely because nailing baseball's hide to the wall is the sort of high-PR low-risk move they're hungry for. See also: Barry Bonds, trial of.

In the Wake of the Triple Crown

Not actually American Pharoah. Either of them.

It has now been one week since American Pharoah won horse racing's triple crown, the first horse to do so in an exceedingly long time. This singular event, like the long-awaited Mayweather-Pacquiao bout, was supposed to breathe life into a sport that has slipped steadily away from the limelight over the past couple of decades, and indeed, it did briefly wash up against the shores of the national sports conversation.

Bold NBA Finals Prediction.

I don't care what happens tonight. The Warriors are going to win the NBA Finals.

Things We Think About What Happened At FIFA

In light of the arrests that have rocked FIFA and the even more shocking resignation of newly re-elected FIFA President Sepp "Baron Harkonnen" Blatter, it's time to take a measured look at what it all really means. To wit:

1. BWAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHHAAH. I mean, somewhere, John Oliver just wet himself laughing. 

Your NBA Playoff Narratives

There are two possible outcomes of the NBA playoffs:

1-The Cleveland Cavaliers win the championship.
2-The Cleveland Cavaliers do not with the championship.

Regime Change In Miami

What, me, manage?

Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria has fired his manager, well-regarded former catcher Mike Redmond, and replaced him with team GM Dan Jennings.

This is, in a word, insane. Jennings hasn't managed since he was wrangling high school kids in the 80s, and while I'm not a huge fan of the "you had to play the game to know how to coach it" school of thought, there are limits. This has the potential to get very ugly, very fast, especially if the clubhouse tunes out the suit who's sitting where Redmond used to  be. (Then again, he's the GM and he negotiates contracts. Maybe we'll see massive sucking up instead.)

Touchy About Feeley

You can pretty much anticipate the reaction of sports fans to any piece of news to come down the pike. At this point, the data set is large enough and the behaviors visible enough that you can generally skip the story and already know what the comments sections are going to be like.

Tulo Can You Go

This is not a news story:

"Troy Tulowitzki set to talk with his agent about whether or not to demand a trade".

The Sounds of Deflategate's Aftermath

The following are the sounds of the Tom Brady suspension:

(Brady, for those of you living on Mars, has been suspended for four games next season for his role in "Deflategate". In addition, the New England Patriots have been fined a million dollars and stripped of two draft picks, a #1 in 2016 and a #4 in 2017. And the two Patriots employees who carried out the nefarious plan have been suspended indefinitely without pay, but they don't actually play football so nobody appears to care about them. But I digress.)

"IT'S NOT FAIR THE LEAGUE HAS IT OUT FOR US BECAUSE WE'RE SO AWESOME" - The sound of the New England Patriots fan, who is constitutionally incapable of admitting that Tom Terrific or indeed any of his heroes could ever possibly conceive of ever possibly doing any possible thing ever wrong - unlike those mooks who play for the Jets, who are just the scum of the Earth. Until they come play for the Patriots, at which point they're awesome. Until they leave to go back to play for the Jets again.

About the Bout

The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was proof that boxing's time is over. The American sporting landscape is no longer interested in watching two men brutalize each other in largely uninteresting shoving matches artificially constrained by an esoteric set of rules. These days, the preference is for MMA, which offers watching two men (or women) brutalize each other in largely uninteresting shoving matches artificially constrained by an esoteric set of rules that reinforces the Gracie family dynasty, but which gives the impression of being wild and unconstrained.

NFL Draft Round 1 Thoughts

You remember how absolutely everyone was convinced that the Eagles were absolutely certain to trade Sam Bradford and a bunch of other cool toys to Cleveland to get Johnny Manziel and a bunch of #1 picks that they could then trade to Tennessee for the #2 overall pick except that Tennessee would also be getting Bradford and possibly free pony rides?

Yeah, me neither.

Top 10 Most Likely Philadelphia Eagles Draft Picks

Two possible Eagles picks working out at the team's complex

It has been an eventful offseason for the Eagles and their coach/GM/resident supervillain Chip Kelly. He has traded quarterbacks, signed quarterbacks, traded for quarterbacks that nobody thought he had any interest in, ditched running backs, signed running backs, and generally treated the whole offseason like one long day at DraftKings.com. That being said, it all comes down to this week's draft, and while various pundits have offered up their (almost inevitably wrong) predictions as to what the Chipster will do, we at Sportsthodoxy think we've got a handle on the ten most likely possibilities:

A Calm, Rational Reaction To the Tebow Signing

So the Eagles have signed Tim Tebow.

Speculation as to the likely reaction from the Philadelphia sports talk radio crowd below the fold:

On Baseball's Long Season

One of the things I love most about baseball is the fact that the season is so long. There's plenty of time for narratives to play out, for players to rise and fall and then redeem themselves. Developments have time to mature and manifest fully, with clearly traceable arcs that reward the patient viewer.

An Important Note On Fantasy Baseball

No, not that kind of baseball nerd

Nobody actually wants to listen to you talk about your fantasy team.

Important Pre-NFL Draft Reminders

Never Forget John Rutsey

As the lumbering behemoth that is the NFL draft bars down on us like an inevitable bad character decision in The Walking Dead, it's time to take a few minutes and go over the most important things for you, the fan, to remember going into the three day festival of all things Mel Kiper Jr.'s hair. Most notably:

Buck You

Still a Deer

Dear Owners of the Milwaukee Bucks:

I realize that the Rebranding and New Logo are necessary steps in the ritual dance of Get The Public To Pay For A New Arena. I appreciate that you did not suddenly decide to change the franchise's name to the Cheesemongers or the Zombie Unicorns or the Brett Favres. 

Badger Badger

In the wake of last night's upset of undefeated #1 seed Kentucky, and the subsequent crumpling in disgust of brackets everywhere except the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill region of North Carolina, I give you, without comment, this:

On Hamilton

On a police procedural television show, they usually establish the suspect's guilt by laying down motive and opportunity.

In the case of the ongoing leaks - which, incidentally, are in direct violation of the MLB labor agreement - about Josh Hamilton's apparent relapse this winter, the Angels have motive. They have opportunity. And if they were any more cartoonish about this, Fred and Daphne would be pulling a rubber head off Arte Moreno and shouting "Old Man Smithers!"

True Confession: Why I'm Rooting For Duke

Confession time: my bracket got blown up in the first game of the NCAA tournament (No, I'm not counting the nonsense in Dayton). I'd picked Iowa State as a dark horse for a Final Four run, based on their remarkable, unflappable drive to the Big 12 championship and their ability to rally from double-digit deficits. So naturally they got ambushed by the University that Ate Birmingham and went out 40 minutes into the whole shebang.

Ten Things I Think I Think About Sports This Week

"Also, Bill Buckner in '86? Totally caused by aliens."

1. The Philadelphia 76ers, a team that is actively trying to be bad, does not have the worst record in the NBA this season. They don't even have the second-worst, and at least one of the teams they're ahead of was supposed to be a contender this year. Which means either the Sixers can't even screw up right, or, man, do certain people in New York and Minnesota need to feel ashamed.

On Yard Goats And Crappy Cabernets

Now this is a badass mascot-worthy goat. That's a goddamn mountain he's jumping off.

So there's now a minor league team called, and I quote, "The Hartford Yard Goats". Leaving aside any opinions one might or might not have about Hartford and why it's a travesty they didn't name the team "The Whalers", it is, to be blunt, ridiculous. As mascots go, a "yard goat" - literally, a goat that someone keeps in their backyard - is about as inspiring as calling your team "The Shrubs" or "The Goddamn Opossums That Keep Getting Into My Garbage Cans" or "The Crabgrass". It's not the sort of mascot you rally around, it's not exciting, and it's not traditional, and even as we speak a zillion baseball bluehairs are frothing over how the Yard Goats (who had the perfectly good name of Rock Cats until earlier this week) are a disgrace to our proud baseball history of Lugnuts and Sand Gnats and Isotopes. 

Twelve Things We Learned From the NCAA Tournament Bracket

There are certain things we learn every year on Selection Sunday: who made the cut, who didn't. What teams got screwed by their seeding and which ones got an easy path to the Sweet 16. And then there's the deeper learning, the true lessons imparted by the deeper subtext of the bracket itself. To wit:

5 Reasons Philadelphia Doesn't Hate The Sixers

The national basketball media remains fascinated with the Philadelphia Experiment being carried out by GM Sam Hinkie. Largely, they're against it - in their minds, it is nobler to strive endlessly for mediocrity (with the implied "and then get out of the way for the glamour teams" that goes with it) than attempt radical reconstruction in an attempt to improve themselves. But interestingly enough, the fans in Philadelphia have largely ignored the doom-and-gloom narrative around the team, which may in fact be some kind of first. Here's five reasons that's the case:

Battle Of The Spring Training Sites

There are those who claim that spring training baseball is best in Arizona, and those who think it is best in Florida. Fans of Arizona point to the extensive list of local restaurants provided by Keith Law during his ESPN chats and the fact that all of the teams train close together, while fans of Florida like to point to the tradition of spring training there, the resorts, and the fact that it isn’t Arizona. However, in this age of statistical analysis of everything, it seems obvious that the only way we will ever get to the bottom of this debate is with a head to head comparison, to enable us - the fans - to determine which spring training state is truly the best of all.

Twenty Stories We Can Expect To See Out Of Spring Training This Year

1. Rangers suffer blow to their rotation with injury
2. Rangers suffer second blow to rotation with injury
3. Rangers petition AL to allow opposing teams to hit off a tee this year

Consider the Source

One of Buster Olney's confidential sources

Consider the source.

Heading into what will almost certainly be a lost season for them, the Phillies have themselves a very valuable asset in the form of Cole Hamels. Hamels is a very good pitcher who is rather expensive but not outrageously so, and a great many teams would be improved by having Hamels in their rotation. [Assume I've just done a lengthy bit on marginal wins here, and trust me that it's not worth it for a team like the Phillies to keep him around instead of flipping him for young talent; 70 wins + some prospects who could help you win next year > 75 wins.) 

Tinfoil Angels Cap Alert

So your new baseball conspiracy theory, hot off the presses...

Cleveland Redux

You remember when the Cleveland Cavaliers were, like, the worst team ever? When they were under .500 and the coach was about to get fired and the stars couldn't play together and LeBron was supposedly secretly tweeting that he wanted to go back to Miami and Kevin Love was being benched and ZOMG WORST TEAM EVER?

All the NFL Combine News You Need

Here is all you need to know about the NFL combine:

Top 10 Least Likely A-Rod Related Headlines This Spring Training

10-A-Rod Admits He Actually Is A Centaur
9-Yankees Exec Admits To Not Really Caring What A-Rod Is Doing Every Minute Of Every Day
8-NY Post Writer Joel Sherman Hospitalized With A-Rod Related Dementia
7-Lupica: "We Should All Just Forgive And Forget A-Rod's Actually Minor Transgressions"
6-Trump: "I Have Absolutely No Opinion On A-Rod"
5-Rodriguez goes 0-3 in Spring Training Game; World Fails To End
4-A-Rod Responds To Critics With "Well, How Many of YOU Have Dated Cameron Diaz?"
3-Jeter Says Nice Thing About Rodriguez
2-Yankees Official Agrees to Attach Name To "Anonymous" Report of Management Displeasure With Rodriguez' Showing Up Early And Working Hard
1-New York Media Collectively Admits Rodriguez Coverage Is Overblown; Decides to Hound Chase Headley Instead

Spring Training Is Here

Pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training.

On The Weapons-Grade Stupid In Wisconsin

The proposal from legally dubious Gov. Walker of Wisconsin to pay for a new stadium for the Milwaukee Bucks is in, and in any just or sane world it would provoke hysterical laughter. In so many words, it calls for the "athlete tax" - income taxes from pro athletes plying their trade in Wisconsin - to back $220M in bond revenues that can then be handed to the Wall Street vampires who bought the team. In return, the vampires in question, who have been drumming up support for this nonsense by bestowing tiny ownership slivers in the Bucks around town, will agree to take that money and not move the team. In other words, they will take $220M in arena bonds to continue to make money by largely doing nothing.

On Rooting For An Awful Team

Your Phillies Marketing Department, Folks.

There is something to be said for being a fan of a terrible team.
I mean, sure, rooting for a winner is nice. Watching the team you back actually win it all is a great feeling, regardless of whether you then decide to move your couch onto the lawn so you can set it on fire to "celebrate" the victory. But even rooting for a team that doesn't go all the way - that just wins more than it loses - is nice. You get more good days than bad ones. More times when you got the desired result than the other guy, the guy who roots for the crappy team, did. More times when your choice of team to support seems like the right one.

And yet....

RIP Dean Smith

The only man on the planet who could keep Michael Jordan under 20 points per game.

Godspeed, Coach Smith

Your Pete Carroll Conspiracy Theory Is Dumb

Normally in the wake of a close Super Bowl loss, the losing team's fans start indulging in conspiracy theories as to why their hometown heroes lost and they were deprived of the opportunity to set their favorite couches on fire in the street. The usual suspects include the refs, the NFL, organized crime and, presumably aliens, not necessarily in that order. A bad throw on 3rd and 9 becomes proof that the losing team's QB was being held in a basement somewhere by burly men from either Palermo or Murmansk (take your pick) who had wagered millions in Vegas; a blown call becomes evidence the refs have been ordered not to mess with one team's chances of winning.

The Ten People You Meet After Every Super Bowl

There are some who say that sports bring out the best in us. I disagree. Sports brings out the us in us, for good or for ill. And a big sporting event, like the Super Bowl, brings out really primal archetypes, ones that must be allowed to run free until at least mid-February. They include:

1. The one who is convinced that by all rights and logic, their team actually won the game, and that it's just that pesky score thingie that came out inaccurate. Has endless reams of supporting evidence as to why this theory is correct, most of which boils down to "Well, we beat Jacksonville in Week 6"

The Official Sportsthodoxy Super Bowl Drinking Game

Take one drink if...

• Every time someone goes "Aww, come on!" over a non-existent holding or pass interference call.
• Every time someone goes "Aww, come on!" over a holding or pass-interference non-call.
• Someone says "I'm just here to watch the commercials."

Super Bowl 49 Coaching Breakdown

With Super Bowl Sunday fast approaching, it's important to get your scouting down right so you can know who's who at the big game.

Not the players, of course - we've long since passed the point where players were anything but the mechanistic imposers of their godlike coaches' will and schemes. Or so, at least, said coaches' agents will tell you, especially at contract renegotiation time. 

But with that in mind, here's your handy-dandy comparison/contrast of the two Super Bowl coaches:

The Super Bowl Grift And Its Wider Applications

The dirty secret is out.

The mayor of Glendale, AZ - home to a football game you may have heard about this weekend - has gone on record as saying that hosting the Super Bowl is going to cost his city money.

This is, of course, anathema to the NFL and its mindless boosters. Look at all the money that will be spent, they howl. Look at all the exposure. They've already started pillorying the poor guy for daring to question the NFL's narrative. 

On Why My Dad Hates Pete Rose

Note: Not his actual signature

So here's the part of the story I didn't tell the other day. I'd shied away from it because it makes someone look bad, and the point of yesterday's piece was to try to maybe make folks feel a little better, but once Dad pulled the string on this one, it was full steam ahead.

To wit: Pete Rose was a jerk back in 1981, too.

On Handwriting Worse Than Mine: Monte Irvin and the Uses of Nostalgia

So I'm looking at an old American Cancer Society event program that my folks got for me, back when they were officers in the New York chapter. The program is from an old banquet where they celebrated various sports figures, and my dad got various of the attendees to autograph it for me. There's five or so signatures in there, along with a couple of inspirational messages from figures that eleven year old me probably wasn't in any position to appreciate. But that didn't matter; my folks got it for me, and I've kept it and treasured it for thirty-plus years.

10 Things Social Pressure Is Forcing Me To Think About That Patriots Ball Thingie

Because if you're going to opine on something sportsish this week, it has to be the shriveled balls of New England.

1. The compulsive need to "name" the "scandal" with something cute like Deflategate or Ballghazi is a stunning indictment of the mainstream sports media's inability to produce anything above lowest common denominator hurr-hurr-hurr material. That being said, I look forward to the day when Bill Belichick is caught rigging the turnstiles at Gillette Stadium and the resultant furor is labeled "Gategate".

Why All Your Complaining About The Max Scherzer Contract Is Wrong

Former Detroit Tiger and possible Best Pitcher On The Planet Not Named Kershaw Max Scherzer signed a 7 year deal with the Nationals over the weekend with a reported dollar value of $210M. This has produced the usual freaking out from all quarters, all of which is conspicuously absent when an NFL player signs a big deal and all of which is complete hooey. To wit:

Cheatery and 3 Minute Drills

Thoughts on Division Championship Sunday

1. In New England, "taking the air out of the ball" is no longer just a metaphor. If it is confirmed that the Patriots deliberately deflated game balls, that puts the league in an interesting position vis-a-vis who actually should be playing in the Super Bowl. (Word is the Pats will be penalized draft picks. Clearly, the penalty here is insufficient deterrent.) Alternately, it also puts certain members of the Patriots' support staff in imminent danger from individuals with the middle name "the" who wagered large amounts of money on Indy's ability to cover the spread.

The Pitch Clock Is A Terrible Idea, Because The Hell With Subtlety

Meet MLB's New Pitch Clock. Yes, They're Starting It In The Minors. 
Why Do You Ask?

I will keep this simple.

Baseball does not need a pitch clock to speed up play.

This is not because baseball does not need to speed up its pace a bit.

Denver Kremlinology

There are two narratives for what's going on in Bronco-land right now. 

One is that the 39 year old quarterback who was blowing the doors off the league early in the season got hurt but didn't come off the field. He spent the last 5 weeks of the season and the playoff round playing on a quad with less structural integrity than Paul Broun's understanding of The Origin of the Species, and for a precision passer like Manning that's death.

11 Deep Thoughts From the National Championship Game

A few thoughts and revelations from last night's first-ever "national championship" college football game:

1. If Ohio State can win a national championship behind its third string QB, no coach in America will ever be allowed to use injuries as an excuse for a rough season ever again.

The Fix Is Enh

One of the most interesting memes in sports fandom is "the game is fixed". It also manifests as "the refs decide who wins", "the team with the most money always wins", and "Roger Goodell wanted the Cowboys to win". You saw it popping up ten seconds after the weirdly reversed pass interference call in the Cowboys-Lions game, just as you saw it popping up back in that Super Bowl a few years ago when some truly horripilating refereeing cost the Seahawks the game.

On the Camellia Bowl

Friend of the blog Aaron Terry just got his first bit of sports blogging published, a take on the venue for the Camellia Bowl.

Check it out here.

(and yes, Camellia has two "L"s. Who knew?)

Ten Things I Think About the Baseball Hall of Fame Results

1. Congratulations to John Smoltz, Pedro Martinez, Randy Johnson, and Craig Biggio on their induction into the Hall of Fame. Celebrating their election, not fist-shaking impotent rage over who did or didn't vote for whom and why, is the thing to take away from yesterday's results.
2. Having four candidates go in without losing anyone with a reasonable case for induction off the bottom of the ballot (I'm looking at you, Gary Sheffield) is a good thing, as it means that next year's relatively thin crop of new candidates could allow some more worthies to make it in. And by worthies, I mean "Tim Raines". But I digress.

Apologies

Sorry for the slower pace of content recently. I've been focusing on the Kickstarter I'm principle creative on, specifically the 20th Anniversary Edition of the tabletop RPG Wraith: The Oblivion. Check it out here if you're so inclined - it's ghosterrific.

And your regularly schedule geshrying will return tomorrow after the KS wraps up.

Bowl Cut

Here is all you need to know about bowl season:

A team being coached by an interim coach after the head coach was fired but before the new head coach got out of his current gig came back from 25 points down in the 4th quarter to beat a team whose coach had quit to take another job, and which was being coached by an interim coach while the new head coach, who had just coached another bowl game 20 miles away, watched from the stands.

Thoughts on the 2014 NFL Season, Few Of Them Good

So what has the 2014 NFL season taught us?

Nothing good, really.

Football Grumpiness

In about six months, they'll be pointing to Florida State's participation in the college football playoff and the fact that the ACC got 11 teams to go bowling as evidence that once again, the ACC had an awesome football year.

Take a closer look, of course, and you see that 4 of those teams finished the year 6-6, and wouldn't have been bowl-eligible if not for cupcake non-conference schedules. (Virginia Tech, you're excused from this criticism). Another two went 7-5. Near as I can tell, everyone played - and beat - Tulane.

Hall Monitors

The main problem with the voting for the Baseball Hall of Fame is not the fact that the voting membership contains a significant chunk of people who don't write about baseball. It is not the fact that rampant hypocrisy about PED issues has subsumed the debate over Hall-worthiness. It is not the fact that Dan LeBatard gave his ballot to Deadspin last year (and Deadspin readers did a pretty good job with it), or that voters are only allowed to vote for 10 guys a year. It's not even the annual inanities of guys like Pedro Gomez and Dan Shaughnessy, whose self-righteous self-regard for their roles as Keepers Of The Sacred Flame Of Cooperstown (self-appointed) carries with it the unmistakable stench of bullshit.

Pad People

There's something uniquely enjoyable about watching the Padres slide into the spotlight in the offseason. Usually that slot goes to the Red Sox and Yankees (and maybe the Dodgers and Angels), who are inevitably in on every big free agent out there; the A's and Rays' payroll contortions as detractors revel in the sell-off and supporters struggle to divine the logic; and the sad-sacks like the Phillies and the Marlins and the Mets, who only make offseason news for the wrong reasons.

Nixer the Sixer

There's nothing funnier in sports right now (with the possible exception of the Atlanta Braves' stadium shenanigans) than the tsunami of outraged think pieces about how bad the Philadelphia 76ers are.

And yes, they're bad. Legendarily bad. Historically awful, if you want to be honest. The youngest team in league history, they're the result of a clearly defined strategy to tear the roster down to the foundations and rebuild by being awful and getting several years of high draft picks. So far, they've done two out of three: they've been awful and they've gotten high draft picks. The rebuild, they're still working on - this year is still firmly in the "Be awful" pile.

On Football in LA

At some point, there will be another NFL team in Los Angeles.

This will not happen any time soon. The reason it is not happening any time soon is that there currently no NFL stadium in Los Angeles, and those things take a while to build. Seriously, it's taken roughly a year for them to put a small cafe and an exercise room in at the office part where I work; and whether or not you include water fountains it's my understanding that stadiums take considerably more work.

Johnny On The Spot

And now we know why Cleveland stuck with the flailing Brian Hoyer for so long, even when it was obvious he'd lost his early season mojo: He gave the team a better chance to win. This is not a banner wave for Hoyer, who appears to have topped out in lesser-Detmer-brother territory. His confidence is shot, his accuracy isn't there, and he can't buy time in the pocket. And he still gives Cleveland a better chance to win than Johnny Football.

Rollins West

The rational, calculating fan in me who values victories over everything else is glad that the Phillies' rebuild has officially begun with the trades of Antonio Bastardo and, more importantly, Jimmy Rollins. Bastardoo is a reliever and about to get expensive, not the sort of luxury a team that's unlikely to be winning much in the near future can afford. Rollins is a a late-30s shortstop who's slowly moving into decline phase and makes a ton of money. Trading him while he still has some value officially kicks off the Phillies' desperately needed rebuild process.

Bowling For Chicken In The Bahamas

If you want to know exactly how stupid college football has gotten, look at this year's bowl schedule.

No, I'm not talking about how TCU and Baylor got shut out of the "playoff". They got cute with this whole "co-champions" nonsense, de-valued their seasons, and paid for it. (and for the record, you can stop argle-bargling about that win over Minnesota any day now. Any. Day. Now.)

Overheard at Big XII Conference HQ

"So there are 4 teams allowed in the playoff."
"Right."
"And we're gonna have two teams that will have 1 loss each?"
"Right."
"And the playoff says they value conference championships?"
"Right."

Basic Reading Comprehension For Fans, Part 1

Time for some remedial English reminders:

"I don't like this move" is not the same as "I hate your team".

Pack Over Spiders

This is how big guys beat little guys: depth.

An Eagles' Fan's Dearest Hope

Here is every Philadelphia Eagles fan's fondest wish:

The Real Reasons ESPN Put Keith Law on Twitter Suspension

By now, ESPN’s ludicrous “Twitter suspension” of baseball writer Keith Law has wrapped up, leaving numerous unanswered questions in its wake. Questions such as “Why the hell did they suspend Keith Law?” and, well, that’s about it, though the popular wisdom is that it’s because Law brought the heavy lumber when walking gamedev nightmare Curt Schilling started spouting off on Twitter about how evolution isn’t real neener neener neener. 

ESPN, for its part, claims that the Twitter exchange had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the suspension and now they’re sticking their fingers in their ears so they can’t hear you LA LA LA LA LA LA WE’RE NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT THIS. 

On Rooting For Some Of The Bad Guys

There's a lot of talk swirling around the Tampa Bay Rays these days. They lost their GM to the Dodgers. They lost their manager, under weird circumstances, to the Cubs. They traded a former Rookie of the Year for prospects, they're making minor deals left and right, they DFA'ed their starting catcher whose pitch-framing genius never seemed to translate into getting above the Mendoza line at the plate, and they're the subject of persistent "maybe they'll move to Montreal" rumors.

It is the official position of this blog:

That Curt Schilling is an addle-pated ninny.

That is all.

Gratuitous Who Lyric Reference

So the differences between the BCS and the "College Football Playoff" are:

1-The playoff isn't called the BCS, which let the parties involved renegotiate their sponsorship deals.
2-The playoff involves 4 teams instead of 2, though once again the participating teams will be chosen by an arcane illogical process superficially disguised as "scientific".

The similarities are:

Conspiracy Theories For Fun And Profit!

The great thing about conspiracy theories is that they only have to make sense within their own context, which they conveniently create. Once you're inside the bubble, every fact becomes new evidence of the theory and every fact that disproves the conspiracy theory becomes evidence of a coverup, which ends up lending credence to the conspiracy theory all over again. This is how people find themselves believing that the Smithsonian Institute is actively engaged in a massive coverup to hide proof that giant half-alien hybrids colonized the US in the 5th century, among other less intellectually defensible positions. Never mind that it makes absolutely no sense, once you're convinced that those giant alien-human hybrids existed and learn there's no evidence, then logic (such as it is) immediately dictates that the evidence must have been destroyed. The alternative - that there never were any half-alien power forwards lurching across the landscape during the Moundbuilder period and the whole concept is loonier than a pile of Canadian currency - is unthinkable.

Like I Was Saying

A post-game handshake between two members of the Cleveland Cavaliers is now a national controversy. LeBron saying he wasn't letting his kids play football, like about a gazillion other parents, now a national controversy. Oy, the geshrying.

God help the national sports media when they actually start playing winning basketball.

So That Was Ugly (Panthers-Eagles Edition)

I'm out of town this week, but I can only imagine the wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth back home over the Carolina Panthers' extended demolition at the occasional hands of Mark Sanchez. No doubt the drums are beating for the team to do something about Cam Newton - what "something" is, nobody is quite sure, except it boils down to "play better for less money" - and to burn Riverboat Ron Rivera and the front office in effigy for letting Steve Smith go. Sometimes, it is true, riverboats catch on fire and sink.

RAUL! (And Charlie)

Word came down the pike this morning that Durham Bulls manager Charlie Montoyo is one of the finalists for the vacant managing job in Tampa, and this has me torn.

ACC Weekly...Oh, The Heck With It.

So the ACC stacks up like this:

• Florida State - Actually very good, especially when their quarterback isn't doing things with online memes, criminal investigations or seafood that keep him off the field. An almost certain lock for the playoff.

The Sky Is Falling (In Cleveland)

We are now 4 games into The LeBron Redux era in Cleveland, and the alarm klaxons are officially sounding. They lost their first game! Their rookie coach called a team meeting after that first loss! LeBron said something about players from a culture of losing! LeBron's not taking enough shots! They haven't won all four games by a gazillion points each! Sports talk guys are discussing how LeBron's gone soft! How he doesn't have the motivation he had in Miami! How people like him too much! LeBron and Irving had a "healthy discussion"! Something something Dion Waiters something! 

But the Sanchize Is Also Cursed

Insofar as I root for anything related to the NFL, I root for the Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles lost their QB of record for the foreseeable future in Sunday's game against the Texans. This leaves them, at least temporarily, in the hands of former Jets punching bag Mark Sanchez, and Eagles fandom in the equivalent of the old "But the frogurt is also cursed" routine from the Simpsons. To wit:

Game Changers in the Temple

Going to go out on a limb here and predict the impossible: that Temple will beat Penn State this season. Sometimes, a team just gets that look of destiny - and by "destiny" I mean "the laws of probability take a double hit from the bong whenever this team is around" - and
In their opener, Temple - still theoretically reeling from losing coach Al Golden to Miami a while back - beat Vanderbilt. This was the first time they'd beaten an SEC team since the late Triassic, and cause for minor celebration on North Broad Street. 

The Phillies No Way

Apparently Phillies GM has just unleashed a new organizational bible on the team called "The Phillies Way". 

This, as you might expect, is a terrible idea.

World Series - Final Thought

Madison Bumgarner has a terrible nickname.

Seriously. "MadBum". That's the sort of thing you expect to hear attached to a minor character in a Monty Python skit, or maybe used as an insult when the Gallagher boys from Oasis are feuding again. It doesn't even fit into the sort of pre-fab model of modern baseball nicknames, where you either add a "-sey" to a  guy's last name, or take his first initial and the first syllable of his last name and get something that I'm pretty much started out as an internet "What's Your Porn Star Name?" meme.

Royal Thank A Twin

Here is what we know about the World Series:

It may be decided by Glen Perkins. Perkins, some of you may note, plays for the Minnesota Twins. The Twins, some of you may further note, are not playing in the World Series. As a matter of fact, they got about as close to the Series as I currently am to the Coachella Valley and the big carrot festival therein, which is to say "not very".

RIP Oscar Taveras

Somewhere in my baseball card collection is an In Memoriam card for Ken Hubbs. Hubbs won Rookie of the Year and a Gold Glove for the Cubs back in the day. In 1964, a small plane he was piloting crashed, and he was killed.

Observations From The Third Deck, World Series Edition

Friday, I was lucky enough to attend game 3 of the World Series. Hitting a World Series game has been a dream of mine since I was old enough to be called out for being terrible at baseball (as opposed to when I was younger than that and simply lacked the small motor skills to do things like "catch" and "throw a two-seamer", and so, when the opportunity materialized (courtesy of friend and occasional Sportsthodoxy contributor), I went. 

Now, I have been to a lot of baseball games in my time. Majors, minors, good games, bad games, games where I helped heckle Von Hayes into incoherent confusion and games where Mike Schmidt turned around and gave my dad the finger. (True story. I swear.) I'd even been to a playoff game before - though that was in Atlanta, so it didn't entirely count. But there is nothing like a World Series game. A few notes from the seething cauldron of orange-and-black noise that was AT&T Park...

Scene From A Royals Game

The one time I went to a game in Kansas City, the Royals were terrible.

Which was fine, because they were playing the pre-Maddon Rays, who were terrible, too. Which meant lots of runs and lots of wacky fielding and lots of opportunities to buy beer and hang out with my wife and our friends as the game rolled along.

The Latest UNC Scandal, In Five Sentences

Five takeaways from the latest scandal at UNC, where the ship of institutional integrity has foundered on the rocks of the desire for mid-tier bowl payouts.

Your Weekly ACC Roundup: Weak 8 Edition

People describe a conference as "competitive" when they want to say one of two things.

One, they mean that the conference is really, really good and that the level of competition is high.

Your Handy Dandy Guide To Stupid Baseball Think-Pieces

Now is the season when writers and talk show hosts who have paid absolutely no attention to baseball for the last six months suddenly develop Very Important Opinions on things, and share those opinions with the world. It should not come as a terrible surprise, however, that most of those opinions are about as finely considered and well thought out as your average episode of Challenge of the Superfriends.

Fortunately, we're here to make sense of all this newly minted brilliance, largely so you don't have to. Just sit back and let us translate pundit to English by way of baseball:

ACC Week 7 Wrapup: Here Is What We Know

Here is what we know about North Carolina: They can’t stop anybody. The fewest points they have allowed this season is 27, to a SDSU team that’s ranked 98^th in the country in scoring. Notre Dame just hung 50 on them to run their PPG allowed to 43.3, which, I’m pretty sure, is more than Tulane has scored all year. They may have finally figured out that going with just one quarterback is a good idea, but it’s too late for this season. They’ll have to win 4 out of 6 to be bowl-eligible, and I don’t see them knocking off Duke, Virginia or Miami. Only Pitt and a suddenly vulnerable NC State, both at home, look like solid possibilities, and that’s for a team that started the year ranked.

Words is Words, ALCS Division

Jarrod Dyson is a very fast man. Jarrod Dyson said some stuff. The stuff, and I'm paraphrasing here, is that the team he plays for, the Kansas City Royals, is going to win the playoff series they're currently contesting, in five games at most. Another bit of stuff he said suggested that if the team his team is playing got down 3 games to none, they wouldn't think they could come back and win it.

The Sportsthodoxy Interview - Kevin Wilson

While Duke may grab the college sports headlines in Durham, the city is home to another Division 

I school that's making some noise in athletics. Last season North Carolina Central's men's basketball team went 17-1 in-conference on its way to a MEAC championship and a first-ever NCAA Tournament bid. Thanks to a fortuitous Twitter encounter, we got the chance to sit down and talk with one of the individuals behind the rise of NCCU, Associate Athletic Director Kevin Wilson. From Kierkegaard to Fayetteville and the ins and outs of development for an athletic program, here's the straight scoop from the Eagles' Nest: 

Royals Steal One By Not Stealing

Here's the thing about the Kansas City Royals:

Your National League Championship Series Rooting Guide

And here is where I potentially end relationships with either all of my friends in the gaming industry in the Bay Area, or my wife's family in Missouri. Forward!

Your American League Championship Series Rooting Guide

Baltimore Orioles
Reasons to Root For Them:
Haven't been to a World Series since 1983, when I would sneak out of bar mitzvah receptions to try to find a TV so I could watch them pummel the Phillies. Buck Showalter is the best manager left in the playoffs, and is actually interesting to watch. The team survived season-ending injuries to its best player (Manny Machado) and second best player (Matt Wieters), plus last year's MVP candidate went kerblooey before getting popped for ADD meds and their expensive free agent pitcher did his best Shawn Boskie impersonation all season long. Camden Yards is still a gorgeous ballpark, and Boog's BBQ is actually edible. Plus, karma - at this point the kid who stole that home run ball from Tony Tarasco in the playoffs against the Yankees is a Weleyan grad, but c'mon - the universe owes them one.

Your Weekly ACC Roundup - Week 6: Things We Were Wrong About

On the surface, Week 6 - the first full week of conference play - looked pretty normal in the ACC. After the giddy heights of the first few weeks and the mayhem of weeks 4 and 5, it was almost a relief to get into conference play and have favorite pretty much run the table. But even in the midst of a sea of the expected - like, say, Florida State pummeling Wake Forest like they were re-enacting the Hulk-Loki scene in Avengers - there is still proof that we got some things wrong. Namely:

We're Doomed: World Series Ratings Edition (Again)

The transcript of a conversation held inside Fox Sports HQ last night after the baseball scores went final.

EXECUTIVE ONE: Oh crap, we're doomed.

EXECUTIVE TWO: What do you mean?

EXECUTIVE ONE: The American League. We thought we were going to get LA-

10 Things We Learned From Last Night's Giants-Nationals Game

Nationals/Giants pre-game photo. Note the beards.

The short version of last night's Giants-Nationals playoff game is: Nationals blew a 1 run lead in the bottom of the 9th and then lost it on a home run in the 18th. Which, of course, is saying The Hobbit is about a hiking expedition. Scratch the surface of an 18 inning game and you'll find plenty beyond the score; dig deep and you'll find really interesting things like:

1. At times the game resembled the old "Action Hank" episode of Dexter's Laboratory. You kind of expected Jayson Werth's beard to charge the mound and attack Yusmeiro Petit's remarkable facial foliage. Just remember, Little Hank - It ain't the beard on the outside, it's the beard on the inside. Unless it's elevated, in which case a left-handed batter can turn on it.

The Foles Guy

So everyone in Philadelphia is freaking out because Nick Foles has apparently forgotten how to pass.

This is not true. (the "forgetting how to pass" part, not the "people in Philadelphia freaking out" part. Because I grew up in Philly, and if there is one thing the good people of Fildelfyuh do exceedingly well, it's panic on cue when calling in to sports talk radio. And make cheesesteaks. But mostly panic on sports talk radio.)

ACC Roundup: Week Five, Which Looks Oddly Familiar

Here are ten things we know about the ACC following week 5's results:

1. North Carolina State is absolutely for real. You could be forgiven for doubting them, considering their first for games - all wins - were against two community colleges, a school that stopped playing football in 1972, and Jimmy John's Sandwich University. But they took it to Florida State from the opening kickoff and stayed in it largely to the end, when FSU's superior depth finally allowed them to put it away. NC State coach Dave Doeren was later forced to apologize for suggesting the FSU players had faked injury to slow down NC State's offense; this was a clear case of "just because it's true doesn't mean you can actually get away with saying it." But all things considered, the Pack might be the second-best team in the conference right now, which, considering last year's debacle, is an impressive place for them to be.

Wild Wild Life

Baseball is layered thicker than lasagna with stories.  These stories are immensely varied in length, quality and character.

The smallest unit is the individual pitch.
An at-bat.
A half-inning.
A full inning.
One pass through the batting order.
The full game.
A three or four game regular season series.
The full season series between two teams.
The playoff race near the end of the season.
The whole regular season.
The playoffs.
The whole year.
A generation of players for any team (for instance, the Derek Jeter era).
The full history of a team.
The full history of baseball.
The perogie race (Hunter Pence cheers for Potato Pete).

There's one thing that cuts this structure of stories off at the shoulders.  The Wild Card game.

It's a one game win-or-go-home pressure cooker.  There's no "We'll get them next game!"  There's no chance for a multi-game comeback.  It has the pressure of a game 7 without all the build-up of games 1-6.  No chance to develop a nice seething hatred for Hunter Pence (who loves Jar-Jar Binks).  It doesn't even feel like a true playoff game.

It should be a best of 3 series.  It's short, which doesn't give the division winners that much additional rest, and you can have multiple high-pressure games.

There are some downsides, of course.  How do you manage the travel issues?  Pittsburgh-San Francisco is some serious back and forth, when games are every day.  Does it give too much rest to the division winners, such that they're at a significant advantage over the teams that had to play at least two additional games?  Does this end up being like the NHL playoffs, where it seems like they go on longer than Hunter Pence spends doing his hair?

But I think it would be better for the game to have a longer Wild Card series.

(Disclaimer:  I live in Pittsburgh.  But I felt this way last year too).

If (Oakland Version)

If...

If Coco Crisp hadn't hurt himself in an 11th inning that never should have happened, he would have been out there to snag that fly ball that found turf in the twelfth. Or Sam Fuld is in left, where he belonged, and he gets it, and lovable but immobile Jonny Gomes is on the bench, a minimum safe distance from his glove...