December Is The Cruelest Month

Well, it happened. The 11-5 Patriots, with a winning percentage of .688, are officially the best team of the wild card era not to make the playoffs. And, in an effort to avoid falling into depression, I started thinking not about yesterday's elimination, but about the other great teams from recent years not to make the playoffs. And so, in a Poop on Boozer first, I decided to do some actual research, finding the best teams from the past 10 years not to make the playoffs in every sport (except hockey, since I did it by winning percentage, which ties in hockey made difficult). So, here you go, without further ado: the best of the rest, the Patriots' brothers in extraordinary mediocrity:

1. TIE: 2007 Browns, 2005 Chiefs, 2003 Dolphins (winning percentage: .625)

There are too many teams to go into much individual detail, but considering that the Patriots are now number 1, and the next three teams are all football as well, this suggests that somehow the NFL breeds the best borderline teams. Sure, it's got a divisional format, which helps keep good teams out at the expense of, say, the Arizona Cardinals--but so does baseball, and it doesn't crack the top four. Ultimately, the reason that baseball's bubble teams are worse is because baseball teams in general are more average--football has .625 teams that don't make the playoffs, while baseball rarely has .625 teams, period.

4. 2008 Warriors (winning percentage: .585)

A bad year to be a middle-of-the road team in the West--the East had the league's best teams in Boston and Detroit, while the West had its top teams bunched together around .600. In fact, while Eastern playoff teams had winning percentages that ranged from .451 to .805, every single one of the playoff teams from the Western Conference was between .600 and .700--which meant that a team just outside .600 wasn't going to make it, even with great fans and Baron Davis. Parity, thy name is the 2007-08 Western Conference.

5. 2005 Indians (winning percentage: .574)

This roster most likely would make the playoffs today, and it's somewhat surprising that it didn't then. But the White Sox won 99 games, and the Red Sox and Yankees tied in the AL East, giving the Wild Card to one of them and leaving the Tribe on the outside looking in. If only they'd figured out how to unleash swarms of marsh-bugs on cue in time...

Get Ready, K.L.

A pitcher with the best nickname ever is coming to your town.

Greatest Hits

It's been a tough week. And, since I'm in need of a pick-me-up, and because my posts seem to tilt inevitably towards Boston homerism so I may as well stop resisting and embrace it, I've decided to list, in descending order, the top five sports memories of my life. I invite my colleagues, if they're interested, to do the same, since I'd be interested to hear their stories, and because it will delay the inevitable "worst five memories of my life" follow-up post that will depress me for weeks.

Without further ado:

THE TOP FIVE SPORTS MEMORIES OF D.R.W.'S LIFE

5. 2008 ALCS, GAME 5

This one can't go any higher than number 5--when you don't go on to win the championship, and when you in fact don't even wind up winning the series, it's tough to remember this game without thinking about what could have been. Still, it has a legacy--from now on, I can never give up on an important game, no matter how painful a bludgeoning it's become, because the 2008 Red Sox forced me to admit that there's always a chance. Yes, it's going to be a painful existence, thanks to this game--but it will all be worth it if I can ever even come close to replicating the moment when I collapsed on the floor after J.D. Drew's walkoff liner and had absolutely no way to process what I'd just seen. God, I love sports--and we're only on Number 5. The list is working its magic already.

4. 2008 NBA FINALS, GAME 6

So tempting to pick a different game--maybe the night that Pierce and LeBron channelled Bird and Wilkins as my friends and I watched, incredulously, in our college dorm, or the 24-point comeback that we took in at a bar off of Boylston Street. But those experiences were all about us, and what set the 2008 Celtics apart was that it was all about them. Just when I worried that I might grow desensitized after so many Boston championships, along came a team that wanted to win more than anyone else I'd ever seen. Sure, Kevin Garnett's post-victory interview is undeniably funny--but it's also one of the greatest expressions of pure emotion you'll find anywhere in sports. I'm happy when my teams win, but when the 2008 Celtics won, I was happy for them. And, you know, for myself too.

3. SUPER BOWL XXXVI

Without a doubt, the worst actual championship you'll find anywhere on this list. Sure, the Pats were huge underdogs, and that made it a hugely exciting game--but it can't compare to the raw emotionality of the Celtics win, or the sheer magnitude of any championships that may or may not be coming farther down in this list. But still, it was a great game, it was the rise of Tom Brady, and, most importantly, it was the first championship any of my teams had ever won on my watch.* To put that moment any lower than third would be criminal.

2. 2004 WORLD SERIES

I can't pick a specific game, because--let's face it--the actual games were, objectively, terribly boring. The 2004 World Series wasn't about great comebacks or heroic moments, or even individual games at all--it was about optimism. Even after the Sox-Yankees ALCS, Boston fans couldn't shake the feeling that there was always a way not to win. How awful would it be if the Red Sox completed the most incredible comeback in baseball history--and then lost? It would, in fact, have been so terrible that I honestly believed it would happen. That was the mindset in Boston--until it didn't happen, and things were never the same again. Optimism. It's a beautiful thing.

1. 2004 ALCS

Which game do you want me to pick? Should I choose the one where, facing elimination the night after losing 19-8, the Red Sox countered with the most famous stolen base in team history and a clutch RBI single off of the greatest closer that ever was, followed by a David Ortiz walkoff home run in extra innings? Or maybe the one that went 14 innings and six hours, featuring a miraculously bizarre hop that prevented Tony Clark's liner to right from winning the series for the Yankees, as well as the most exruciatingly tense inning in baseball history, when, in the 13th, Varitek ended up catching Wakefield (to which he was not accustomed), and surrendered three (!) passed balls and was just one away from losing the entire series? Followed by yet another Ortiz walk-off hit? Or maybe I should pick the one where Curt Schilling shut down Yankee Stadium while actively bleeding from the ankle, because his tendon was scraping against the bone due to surgery that the team doctor had only ever performed on a cadaver, and A-Rod was called out at first after the glove-slapping incident, causing fans to throw baseballs and debris onto the field to the point that the game was stopped and riot police were stationed along the warning track as A-Rod looked on the verge of tears for the remainder of the game?

There's no way. If I made myself pick one game for each item on this list, those would be 1, 2, and 3 in some order or another, and Game 7 would be Number 4 for good measure. It was that good. It was the greatest professional sports victory of all time, anywhere, and you'll never convince me otherwise. It transformed a town, a team, and a rivalry forever. I will never have a better sports memory for the rest of my life, and I am entirely OK with that. I have every game on DVD.

*Unless you count the 1986 Celtics title, which they won when I was two months old. I like to think I contributed.

Empire State

The Yankees may not suck.

It's true, despite the chants to the contrary. But it's not as obvious a statement as you might think. The Yankees certainly did suck, from October 27, 2000, until midafternoon yesterday. That's what happens when you have the payroll of nine teams. You either win the World Series, or you suck.

Yankee fans may disagree with that admittedly high standard, but Brian Cashman is clearly on my side. What else could inspire a man to pick the top three free agents in a relatively stacked offseason and buy them all? For $423 million?

The Yankees want to win a World Series. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. They're going after the best players in order to do it, and there's nothing wrong with that either. The problem, as I've said before, is that they do it in the most inelegant way possible. Brian Cashman and Hank Steinbrenner may have just secured their team a championship, but there wasn't an ounce of baseball analysis or business negotiating skills involved in the process. Find the three free agents who had the best years last year and offer them endless money? Indications are that the Yankees weren't even bidding for Teixeira until the Red Sox and Angels dropped out, then they stuck their heads in and offered him $180 million and a full no-trade clause. Mark Teixeira, since I now hate you, it gives me pleasure to know that you could have held out for $10 million more. Trust me, they would have given it to you.

Sure, I'm a Red Sox fan, but if you think about who the real victims are here, it's the Nationals. They wanted to revitalize (well, "vitalize") their franchise. They broke the bank to make a huge offer that would have helped level a MLB playing field that so reliably tilts towards the big-money franchises. It's too bad, Nationals fans; it turns out your league is actually designed so you don't have a shot at the World Series.

So there you have it. You'd think that, to win a World Series, you have to be highly skilled at evaluating talent, and predicting when players are about to peak so you can buy them cheaply. But that's not the case--really, anyone can do it. You too can win a World Series, for the low, low price of $423 million.

Yes, you certainly can win a championship that way. But I'm certainly going to be satisfied every time the Yankees lose to the $30 million Rays along the way. 

a post just to poop on boozer

as i watch the blue devils poop all over xavier, it seems like an appropriate time to poop on a former dookie and the namesake of this blog: carlos boozer.

for those if you haven't been paying attention to the utah jazz this season... wait, let me start that sentence again. for those of you who have a life, you probably haven't noticed that carlos boozer has been riding the bench with a bum knee. he's contributed almost nothing to the jazz this season; in fact, the man hasn't played since before thanksgiving.

so, of course, what better time to come out and declare that you're going to opt out of your contract at the end of the season?

okay, despite my hatred for its hoops squad, duke is a great academic university, and i'm sure its graduates are all intellectual studs. carlos boozer, however, does not seem to be among the smart ones. why else would he come out and declare he doesn't need the jazz when they most clearly don't need him?

as chris sheridan points out, while boozer has been filing his nails on the pine every night, paul millsap has been kicking ass, averaging 15 and 9 while making less than 10% of what boozer does. and we all know about boozer's penchant for cutting and running (and not in the backdoor kinda way). why risk more money on him?

so, carlos boozer, way to make it easy on your GM to get rid of you. sure, you'll find a job somewhere else. but let's see how much game you have in the paint without kirilenko and okur drawing all defenders by draining threes from the wing.

Poop On Boozer Out-Of-Touch Masshole Update, Pt. 2

Can it really be true that the Bruins and Sharks are on a collision course to meet in the Stanley Cup? Will my friendship with K.L. survive?

tuesday night sports digest

time to stop saying "the U," guys. okay, i realize that the university of miami was a great football team back in the day. hell, i loved watching ken dorsey lead comeback after comeback, and i enjoyed the complete demolition the hurricanes defense inflicted on all their opponents. but in case santana moss and co. haven't noticed, miami now sucks. i mean, 4-4 in the acc? while the 'canes still have some great individual talent, miami is no longer the university to beat.

overreaction of the decade. remember when todd bertuzzi almost killed steve moore? remember how he cried a little, and then he continued playing for top NHL teams? well, apparently, almost paralyzing a person is much less offensive than making a casual (although admittedly very offensive) comment about your ex-girlfriends and the players now dating them. i may be missing something, but did sean avery cross some special line? T.O. says worse stuff every day, and he keeps getting jobs in the big D. so why did the stars decide to eat several million dollars and cut avery? could it just be because he isn't all that good? either way, this only adds to what continues to be an embarrassing season for co-GM brett hull. (but the sharks are lookin' good, eh?)

more on the mitchell report. what report, you say? yeah, i know the mitchell report was forever ago, but tom verducci had a good SI piece on the lasting effects of bud selig's decision to crack down on drugs in baseball. check it out if you haven't read it yet.

how good is the big east? the verdict is still out. while this week's rankings certainly favor big east squads, the orange showed that those teams are far from invincible. the real question remains: can anyone beat the tar heels? well, i think someone might have to smack hansbrough in the face again before that becomes a real possibility.

Seeing Red

Changing your uniform design is like calling one of those last-second timeouts just as the opposing team is about to kick a field goal. Sure, it may have been a good call--maybe their first try would have been straight through the uprights, but they choke when they have to kick it again. However, when you think about it, it's just as likely that they miss that first kick, and your ill-advised, too-clever-by-half timeout gives them the second chance they need.

Switching up your team's logo and uniform design is kind of like that. There's always the chance that your old design really was an eyesore, and the change is actually an improvement. However, it's just as likely that you're fixing what isn't broken, overthinking and overacting when the best move is to leave well enough alone.

Now, if you're like me, you probably weren't sitting around thinking, "You know what really needs a change? The Boston Red Sox logo that's existed happily for 29 years." But that's what sets people like you and me apart from the Red Sox brass. Maybe it was the Game 7 ALCS lost that left a sour taste in their mouths, but after two recent World Series wins and God knows how many millions in revenue, they suddenly decided that this just wasn't good enough anymore.

Now, let's face it: baseball doesn't have much over other sports. While I love it to death, it's slow, objectively boring, and as much as I keep hoping it will happen, the players never start hitting each other with their bats. The one thing baseball does have in its corner is history. No American sport can touch baseball's unique place in Americana, and its steady presence through every cultural transformation. Love them or hate them, the Red Sox have pretty much always been there. And through Reagan, the Berlin Wall, O.J. Simpson, Monica Lewinsky, September 11th, and Barack Obama, they had the same logo.

The point is that baseball isn't simply historic--it's also somehow comforting in the way that it stays the same as we grow and change. If you're the Blue Jays, sure, you can feel free to try out some new uniforms. But if you're one of baseball's most stories franchises, then that's just not going to fly, especially if you decide to change to this.

uh... i don't think so

sometimes, espn just gives sports journalism a bad name.

in a poll of its divisional bloggers, espn found that kurt warner was the runaway leader for nfl mvp.

runaway leader.

we're talking guaranteed 1-pick, 2-sacks a game kurt warner. we're talking plays-in-the-nfc-west kurt warner. we're talking are-you-shitting-me-it's-the-arizona-cardinals kurt warner.

yes, he does have a 99.1 passer rating. but let's remember that he gets to throw to the three towers every week. and it's not like seattle is putting up a ton of resistance as kurt rambles down the field.

you have to respect what arizona has done this year, regardless of how weak its division is. but kurt warner is not your nfl mvp.

if you don't want to drink the kurt warner haterade, consider the list of players who received zero votes in this poll. notable absences including titans QB kerry collins, giants RB brandon jacobs, atlanta QB matt ryan, colts DE dwight freeney... the list goes on. true, these may not be conventional mvp candidates, but do they really deserve as little as zero votes? i mean, even clinton portis got three votes.

poop on espn's nfl bloggers.

you know it's time to fire brian sabean...

...when he makes two dumb moves in one week.

first, he signs bozo bobby howry, who had a 5.35 ERA with the cubs this past season and is 35 years old. yup, that's just who we want setting up brian wilson.

then, letting omar vizquel go because he's "old" - okay, maybe the quotation marks aren't necessary - sabean signs super "young" (and here i mean the quotation marks) edgar renteria, who was anything but impressive with the tigers. sure, he's a .290 career hitter, but what's the big deal? the giants have pretty good middle infield talent in burriss, frandsen, and velez, and they really didn't need to waste money on an average free agent.

okay, brian, i know you made some big splash moves like bringing bonds over back in the day and stealing guys like benito santiago and robb nen. but really, two ridiculous signings in one week? maybe that worst trade of the century wasn't just a fluke.

i think it's time to follow peter magowan out that gaping door.

The Most Annoying Phrases In Sports

Welcome to Part 1 of a (hopefully) ongoing series, in which I write about the often-used sports terms that make me the angriest, thus making me even angrier. It's not the healthiest practice, blood pressure-wise, but away I go:

-"Running the point." This term bothers me because it involves inventing an object that doesn't exist. Just because you are a point guard doesn't mean that there needs to be something called "the point." We don't feel the need to say that quarterbacks are "running the quarter," do we? Sure, we do refer to slot receivers as being "in the slot" or second basemen as being "at second," but those are actual, physically defined locations on the field. "The point" is...wherever the point guard goes, I guess? That's too nebulous for me, and it's much more accurate to say that the point is nowhere. Let's leave it that way, shall we?

-"Pitching and defense wins baseball games." You can't do this. There are, arguably, two really important aspects of baseball (pitching and hitting), and two less important ones (defense and baserunning). The implication of this term is that pitching and defense are more important than hitting, but that's a senseless comparison; you're pitting two dimensions of baseball against one. Sure, pitching does seem to have a slight edge over hitting as the single most important facet of the game, but it seems very possible that hitting and baserunning combined are more important than pitching alone. Or that pitching and baserunning are more important than hitting. In fact, why drag defense into it at all? If your argument is that great pitching beats great hitting, it almost weakens it when you make it seem as though you have to throw something else in there to make it hold up. Hey, did you know that Barry Bonds and Rafael Belliard combined have more career home runs than Albert Pujols?

While I do die a little inside whenever I hear phrases such as these, they pale in comparison to what I am dubbing the 2008 Meaningless Sports Phrase Of The Year:

-"Dink and dunk." If 2007 was the year of "it is what it is," 2008 is the year of dink and dunk. I'm not sure what it is that caused this phrase to explode in popularity. Maybe it's the fact that 2007's two best quarterbacks are either sidelined or less effective in '08, making short passes a more popular strategy. Maybe it's the fact that Chad Pennington became semirelevant when he switched teams this offseason. Regardless, "dink and dunk" is here, and it's not going away.

So, what makes "dink and dunk" so infuriating? Two things. First: it's meaningless. Sure, I'll get your point if you use it in a sentence, but the words themselves are completely arbitrary. Do short passes make a "dink" sound when they fall into the hands of running backs/slot receivers? It seems unlikely.

Secondly, there is an even shorter and easier term for the same thing that is NOT meaningless: "short passes." It's kind of beautiful in its simplicity, isn't it? So why do we need a nonsense term for the same thing? We don't. If nothing else comes of this Poop on Boozer post (and I firmly believe that will be the case), I'm hoping for a yearlong moratorium on "dink and dunk."

turkey day sports digest

thanksgiving football: pretty boring. okay, i didn't expect any better when i saw that the lions and the hawks would be taking the field. but 25+ point spreads... really? does anyone else have more fun watching tony romo grimace? personally, i'd rather just see him sing journey with mr. belding.

your college basketball player to watch is greg monroe. the georgetown freshman is one of the most impressive big men i've seen in a while, and it's not just because he is a human highlight reel. for one thing, he plays great defense. not only is he a beast around the glass; his hands are also active at the top of the key, and he's a danger to strip the ball from any opponent. then, he's always ready to spark a fast break - or to fill the lane and finish himself. and it's a pleasure to watch a big man who can actually make free throws. the big east is as tough as any division in college basketball, and monroe is going to have to be a key piece of the puzzle if the hoyas are going to make a run at the title - or even just the top four spots.

iverson misses practice... again. but i don't see what the big deal is. i mean, we're talking about practice!?

happy thanksgiving, all.

because this never happens...

"hey, did you catch venkataraman's last no-hitter?"

yeah, something's wrong with that picture.

indians aren't too notorious for their baseball skills - cliff lee aside. (har har har, i'm here all week.) the subcontinent is much more cricket-crazy than homer-hungry, preferring to play for five days straight in the sun rather than wuss out after five rain-filled innings.

all that side, two indian pitchers made history today when they dotted the i's and crossed the t's with the pittsburgh pirates, becoming the first indian athletes to sign professional baseball contracts.

it gets better. they were apparently noticed because of a publicity stunt, a "million dollar arm" contest run by jeff bernstein, a promoter more famously known for being barry lamar bonds' marketing agent.

(side note: bonds gets three counts thrown out, but he's still on the hook for 10 others, with a trial pending in march. yawn?)

no word, though, on whether this signing will prove to be any more than a marketing gimmick for south asia. is espn-star trying to line up some new television deals with major league baseball out there? will sportscenter asia finally stop showing bowling and pool highlights?

only time will tell. in the meantime, the pirates organization should get ready for a serious dose of aloo gobi.

Bud Wiser?

It was difficult to get excited about the 2008 World Series rain delay issue. It was the controversy that wasn't: everybody talked about it as though it were a polarizing issue, but ultimately, no one really seemed to think that it was handled the wrong way (except, of course, for Scott Eyre).

And now, as perhaps the final chapter in this anticlimactic non-saga, we have this:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/11/20/playoffs.shortened.ap/index.html

Again, this is probably the only system that would really work, and it's great that MLB finally has something officially codified (and a little appalling that they didn't before). Still, it's going to be pretty awkward when Fox has to pre-empt a night of primetime TV to present the last two innings of an 11-1 blowout. What if the home team were losing? Would the stadium even be full? How sad would it be to watch a postseason baseball game in a non-full stadium? Would Joe Buck's underenthused monotone finally be appropriate for the situation? Only time will tell...

Poop On Boozer Out-Of-Touch Masshole Update

The Bruins are good?

Re: 2008 mlb awards... meh?

As a follow-up to K.L.'s post on this year's MLB awards, I wanted to add that I found this year's AL MVP vote particularly interesting. Not that Dustin Pedroia didn't have a great year, but it's hard, at first glance, to see what would cause you to pick him over the guy who stands ten feet away from him in the field, Kevin Youkilis.

From a hitting perspective, it's almost no contest. Look up the stats--Youk had a better, albeit somehow less memorable, year at the plate. There's probably something to be said for the fact that Pedroia's production was better compared to the average second baseman's than Youk's was for first base, which is much more of a traditional power spot. Indeed, Pedroia boasts a better WARP for the year (if you're into that kind of thing), which is probably for that very reason. But as someone who's inclined to think that a hit is a hit and a home run is a home run, I don't care very much about where on the diamond those hits come from. If a backup catcher has a tremendous year for a backup catcher, we don't hand them the MVP for that accomplishment.

So, if Youkilis (and maybe even Carlos Quentin) had a better year at the plate than Pedroia, then what was it that tipped things in Pedroia's favor? Was it defense? It only takes a few games watching Pedroia to see that he is a superb defender, but there's no way he's significantly better than Youkilis, he of the Gold Glove and record errorless streak. There has to be some reason that Pedroia beat out Youkilis and others for the MVP, but I just don't see how defense can be it.

Maybe it goes back to what I mentioned earlier--Pedroia is somehow a more memorable player than Youkilis. He swings his bat like a medieval battleaxe and makes ridiculous diving stops to save no-hitters. Youkilis, on the other hand, is a decidedly unsexy bearded bald man who excels with appropriately unsexy stats like pitches per plate appearance. Youkilis is an extremely valuable player, but Pedroia just plays more like an MVP.

Or maybe it's something as simple as this: Pedroia has 726 plate appearances last year, compared to 621 for Youkilis and just 569 for Carlos Quentin. Youkilis may have had the edge in rate-based stats like OBP, slugging, etc., but Pedroia kept his rates up over the course of many more games. To win the AL MVP award, the first thing you have to do is show up.

2008 mlb awards... meh?

and as of today, we have them all, the winners of major league baseball's awards for 2008.

yawn.

there could have been no better cap to this season's completely boring award-winners than dustin pedroia taking home the AL MVP today. don't get me wrong - the guy works hard, he represents for short people like me, and he helped the red sox a ton this season. but really, an MVP with just 17 home runs?

or how about albert pujols, taking home best-man honors for the fourth-place cardinals? now, i've never been a fan of the your-team-has-to-make-the-playoffs-for-you-to-win ideology, but this is a little ridiculous. think about how many MVP awards a-rod could have racked up with the rangers if he had been held to the same standards as pujols was this year.

checking out the cy young, we have winners from two teams that were absolutely horrible this year. again, i'm a huge tim lincecum homer, and cliff lee was probably the best pitcher in baseball this year. but did anyone get excited about these picks except giants and indians fans?

you can make the argument that lou piniella and geovany soto are great feel-good stories for the cubs, but i'm not buying it. if it weren't for the fact that joe maddon has those sweet glasses and that evan longoria is one consonant away from being really hot, this award season would be a total bust.

wake me up when november ends.

140 CC's of Recklessness

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3703112

It's tempting to call this the most predictable move of the young baseball offseason, and there's certainly a lot of truth to that. But this baseball analyst thinks (hopes?) that there's still a lot that can be learned from this. Namely, that Hank Steinbrenner will follow in the wayward footsteps of his father.

See, the decline of the Yankees dynasty was marked by a practice of finding the best-performing free agent from the past season and making him an offer he couldn't refuse. It's a strategy that will net you some good players, to be sure, but there are two problems with it. For one, it's awfully inelegant; if you're a baseball GM, you're supposed to be able to predict who will perform above their market value next year, not look at a list of free agents from last year and go, "Look! He had the lowest ERA!" But more importantly than that, you end up dishing out long-term contracts to players who may just have had their peak year.

This Sabathia offer, in my opinion, is in keeping with that errant Steinbrenner tradition. Obviously, going after C.C. isn't an inherently bad idea--he's still a tremendous pitcher. But six years is a long time, $140 million is a lot of money, and there's also this:

C.C. SABATHIA'S 2008 ERA, BY LEAGUE

NL: 1.65

AL: 3.83

Something tells me that if you bring C.C. back to the land of designated hitters, you're not going to get that gaudy 1-something ERA you think you're paying top dollar for. But hey--he had the lowest ERA! Let's see if we can break the $200 million mark!

sunday night sports digest

that dirk is such a maverick! this one reaches back a few weeks, but it's worth pointing out for those of you who missed it back then. ever imagine what it would be like to have sarah palin as president? let's just say that nowitzki has a prominent role in the oval office. click on the picture frame behind palin's desk...

dangerous waters. we're just a few weeks into the NHL season, and san jose is running away with the pacific division. i should be excited, no? well, given the sharks' recent run as regular-season dominators and postseason underwhelmers, even an 80-win season wouldn't be enough assurance come springtime. one thing's for sure: todd mclellan is not coaching like a rookie.

unbeaten, but still boring. after sneaking past the bears on the road, the titans are 9-0, more than halfway to a perfect regular season. but there isn't a hint of the drama that surrounded the pats as they made their run last year. why? because tennessee just isn't that good. kerry collins at QB and a running game that produced just 20 net yards against chicago? let's just say the titans' destiny isn't exactly etched into stone quite yet.

psu really smells like poo, poo, poo. as if penn state didn't already have things hard enough playing in the unimpressive big ten, they went and crapped the bed against iowa to thoroughly eliminate any chance of making the bcs championship game. (note to self: i should probably avoid making absolute statements this year when it comes to college football. oh well.) so can we expect bama-red raiders come january? eh... not so fast. each will have a pretty significant hurdle in its championship game, and alabama didn't exactly look stellar against LSU. teams that have faded from the national spotlight (USC, anyone?) may still have a shot at getting back into the big game.

JJ is within reach. after grabbing the pole in phoenix, jimmie johnson is poised to take his third straight sprint cup title. what are you doing reading this?! flip over to ABC to check out the action! and no, you don't have to live south of the mason-dixon line to appreciate JJ's talent.

Fall Classic

A while ago, I wrote a post comparing all of the presidential candidates to NFL athletes. In the wake of Barack Obama's historic win, the last thing I want to do is trivialize his accomplishment, but as I watched history in the making on Tuesday night, the sports-politics connection occurred to me again.

I'm certainly not the first to suggest that there are various ways in which sports and politics are similar, but what I noticed on Tuesday night was slightly different--not just that sports and politics can be related, but as a fan experience, they're almost indistinguishable. From a fan perspective, the difference between the two isn't qualitative, it's quantitative--watching politics involves the same processes as watching sports, just on a much larger and more important scale.

This all became clear to me on Tuesday night. I rushed home at around 7 and immediately turned on the TV so I wouldn't miss any of the preliminary action, just as I had recently done throughout the MLB playoffs. As tense as can be, I sat exclusively on the front third of my seat, something I hadn't done while watching TV since the Rays won Game 7. I kept no fewer than eight tabs open as I watched, refreshing various electoral maps and political blogs anxiously. A few weeks earlier, I had done the exact same thing with Matt Garza's pitch count.

Despite being so excruciatingly nervous (or perhaps because of it), I was still able to laugh at CNN's ridiculous practice of beaming their reporters into their studio via hologram. As I enjoyed the unintentional comic relief, I recalled a similar moment from years before, when FOX would interrupt Sox-Yankees to have Scooter the Talking Baseball explain to us what a curveball was. Political coverage can be as intense as sports coverage, but it can also be just as over-the-top ridiculous.

Finally, there was the way the night ended. For the 65 million-plus who voted for Barack Obama (or, alternatively, for those who voted for Bush in 2004), watching your guy win felt not too far removed from seeing your team win the Super Bowl. For me, there were the celebratory text messages to friends, the traditional phone calls to my entire family in which I can't say anything coherent, followed by news footage of late-night rallies and partying in the streets. The stakes may have been higher, but it was the same exact process from every championship my teams ever won.

As I said before, it's important to remember that politics, especially when it involves such a huge racial milestone, matters more than sports ever will. Looking back, that makes the fact that I compared Barack Obama to Adrian Peterson seem a little ridiculous. On Tuesday night, it felt a lot more like I was watching Jackie Robinson.

now that's something to celebrate

october 30th might as well be a national holiday in east timor. that is the day that FIFA's lowest-ranked nation clinched its first-ever point by tying cambodia, 2-2.

okay, so east timor has only been a country for six years. but its first non-loss... ever? that's pretty miserable, even for a nation so economically ravaged.

but hey, when you're at the bottom, even a tie is a reason to celebrate. winning isn't everything, right? just ask caltech.

(on a side note: two soccer posts in one day? poop on boozer is finally finding its niche.)

espn360.com: trying to take it to the next level?

cynopsis digital reported yesterday that espn360.com had reached an agreement with IMG Sports Media to stream australia's hyundai a-league - 84 regular-season matches and up to six playoff matches, including the "grand final."

now, i know you all are thinking the same thing i did when i first read this: what the hell is the hyundai a-league? and how the hell did a crappy car company like hyundai manage to gather enough cash to sponsor something?

well, if the word "matches" wasn't a good enough hint, the a-league is australia's premier league - soccer, to most of you reading, or football, to the real sports fans out there. i can't say that i've heard of too many of the "star players" that ball under the hyundai logo, but this league is apparently up and coming according to wikipedia, with the 2008-09 season to feature a seven-team youth league and an eight-team women's league (very creatively named the w-league).

here's hoping this experiment goes a little bit better than the wusa. or the wnba, for that matter.

Philly Fanatics?

Actually, in response to K.L.'s statement that "no one actually celebrates," that brings up my biggest dilemma when deciding who to root for in the World Series. Maybe it's just me, but when i think about who to support, I don't just think about the teams and the players, but also the fan bases--which one needs/deserves it more?

And this is where I ran into crippling indecision. Philly fans are notoriously mean and obnoxious, so my first inclination was to root for the Rays and their docile, harmless fan base. But then I wondered--are Philly fans really meaner than supporters of any team with a huge fan base that really cares--Red Sox, Yankees, etc.? Do I really believe that there aren't Red Sox fans that are just as terrible as Philly fans? Didn't Sox fans make fun of Jorge Posada's kid's craniosynostosis at Fenway? Does it get more horrible than that?

And on the flipside--are Rays fans really the better choice? Wouldn't I rather reward a passionate and long-suffering fan base than a few Floridians who picked up a couple of Rays hats when their team was hot at the All-Star break and think that Rocco Baldelli is some sort of adult film star? Let's be utilitarian about this--when it comes to rewarding actual fan bases, a Philly win would make more fans happier (this doesn't apply, of course, when you factor in the fact that most neutral parties seemed to support the Rays).

For all these reasons, I settled on the Phillies. Also, I really, really hate B.J. Upton.

phils win world series

no one actually celebrates.

...

...

...

well, i guess my picks were better than theirs. woohoo?

kobe hurts knee, k.c.r. pukes

but he's okay! kobe, that is. no confirmation on k.c.r.

injuries aside, what will the reigning nba mvp bring to the court this year? until the 2008 finals, it seemed that kobe had finally figured out how to feed his teammates while taking over at the right times. but as game 6 dragged on, bryant looked like the kobe of old, utterly unable to do anything as the celtics ran away with it all.

oh, and lamar odom seems to be on the trade block. these lakers may still be good, but they're far from a shoo-in as repeat western conference champs.

one thing's for sure: things are going to get mighty interesting once bynum is back in as the go-to big man.

why do people keep hiring ty willingham?

apparently, ty willingham's job is not so secure.

no shit, sherlock.

the real question is, why do teams keep hiring him in the first place? okay, he won one pac-10 title with stanford, taking them to to rose bowl in 1999, and he had 10 wins in his first season with the fighting irish. but he hasn't had a winning season since 2002 and has been to one bowl game since then, a loss with notre dame in the insight bowl.

maybe he's just a nice guy. or maybe the fact that he could take a piss-poor team like stanford and turn the cardinal into a contender speaks to his strength as a coach. but if we go by the record, this guy is a capital-L loser. Loser.

guess investment banks aren't the only ones having a hard time getting rid of the deadweight.

when sports news just doesn't make sense

one of the top stories on espn.com earlier today: tom brady underwent a second procedure on his left knee to clear out an infection.

go ahead. ooooooh and aaaaaaah.

i mean, is this really news? it must be, given that espn ran a similar story about peyton manning just a week or so ago. perhaps that is more relevant, given that peyton is still playing this season. but does it really matter whether tom brady underwent one or two knee surgeries to take a break from eating chocolate strawberries with gisele? unless that surgery magically cured him and he is ready to put matt cassel back on the bench where he belongs, this really isn't news.

guess espn.com is trying to become more like cnn.com - a provider of irrelevant news, that is. ah well, there's always real newspapers.

Red Sox Love Has Driven Me Insane

Still breathing.

That's the thought that flashed through my mind as I lay on the hardwood floor, moments after collapsing in a heap in front of the TV screen and moments before regaining my full cognitive functions.

I'm still breathing. This game didn't kill me.

It was tense as the Red Sox closed in on the Tampa Bay Rays, and was it ever fun. As the improbable turned into the impossible and then into the ridiculous, as J.D. Drew's ninth-inning liner screamed through the enchanted Fenway air, as 7-0 improbably, impossibly, 

ridiculously, turned into 8-7...it was fun.

The second thought that occurred to me, after I confirmed that I was still alive, was that my team was still breathing as well. I had seen it shocked back to life by a series of question marks--Dustin Pedroia and his postseason slump, J.D. Drew and his ailing back, David Ortiz and his bum wrist, Justin Masterson and his rookie jitters. If all those roadblocks to postseason success could be forgotten in two-and-a-third innings, then why shouldn't Josh Beckett return to form against James Shields in Saturday's Game 6, and why shouldn't Jon Lester bounce back if there should be a Game 7? This is Boston. Why not?

Momentum, of course, is a tricky thing, and, thinking realistically, there are plenty of reasons why the rest of the series may not go as unbelievably well. But no matter what happens on Saturday night, Thursday's miracle had irreversible consequences. It reignited the passion and hunger of Red Sox fans, who, like Patriots fans before them, had become bloated and complacent with too much mundane success. Thanks to Thursday's insanity, Red Sox fans care again, as much as they did in 2004, and that's no small feat, considering Pats fans never cared again as much as they did in 2001.

In some ways, victory in baseball is just a synonym for delaying the inevitable. Even if the Red Sox are as successful as it is possible to be, even if they never lose again, their season will still end at some point. But that's why the effects of Thursday's win were so important. I had taken October baseball for granted, but after staring death in the face, I'm just happy to have the chance to see one more game, to watch my team taste the postseason at least one more time. After Thursday, I appreciate what I've got. And if James Shields thinks he can take that away from me, well, I'd love to see him try.

monday night sports digest

three-day weekend = bonus sports.

to the devil with it. so tampa bay drops the evil part of its name and suddenly can't be stopped? my predictions are still within reason, but the rays are making baseball fans scratch the back of their heads in confusion. you have to feel for lester, though - not only does he have the pressure of red sox nation upon him, but he's also fighting for all those cancer survivors that consider him their hero.

phillies keep thumpin'. for all the talk about the weakness of the NL, LA and philadelphia are certainly putting on an offensive show. while kuroda silenced the phillies' bats in game 3, victorino and stairs put some juice behind the ball in the come-from-behind victory tonight. a victor-in-y, perhaps? nah, guess not.

no mo' romo. go figure: of all the things he could have hurt, tony romo goes and breaks his pinkie - and now he's out for a month. now dallas isn't even in position to take advantage of the suddenly beatable new york football giants. if the nfc east looked invincible two weeks ago, it's just another division again come tuesday morning. but hey, new york, at least the market's back on track!

year of the serbian. djokovic and ivanovic are pretty sweet, but jelena is proving that she is the serbian you don't want to mess with. ousting zvonareva in the final of the kremlin cup, jankovic won her third title in three weeks and solidified her spot as the no. 1 player in the world. she may not be a (singles) grand slam champion, but she is by far one of the most competitive women on the circuit.

a hockey tragedy. unfortunately, this digest ends on a sad note. new york rangers prospect alexei cherepanov, 19, died of an apparent heart attack towards the end of a game in the continental hockey league. authorities are currently investigating whether adequate medical care was available at the rink, and one can only hope that this terrible occurrence leads pro sports franchises around the country to reexamine their emergency preparations to ensure that such health-related occurrences can be avoided in the future.

Brrr... Outdoor Basketball

The Phoenix Suns and Denver Nuggets met in a preseason game on Saturday night in Indian Wells, CA, near Palm Springs.

While Indian Wells isn't your typical NBA destination anyway, the game had another twist: it was played outdoors.

ESPN's Marc Stein recaps the action in Denver's 77-72 victory over the Suns, an uncharacteristically low scoring game for the two squads.

The reason? It was chilly. Well, sorta.

The temperature dropped to a frigid 64 degrees, or, as Marc Stein says, "all the way down to 64 degrees." Brrrr...

I mean, I understand that when you sweat, that's gotta be a bit chilly, but 64 degrees is hardly "cold." Stein does say that the wind was "gusting" at 15 MPH, so perhaps I should lay off and give them the benefit of the doubt.

Still, knowing the countless street ballers play through the "elements" of wind, rain, cold, and much more difficult rims and chain nets to shoot on than what the NBA players had to "suffer" through on Saturday night, you've got to ask, how spoiled are these guys? And, how would they fare against the street scene's best? It's a fair question.

That said, I think it's a fun concept, but one that ought not transfer into the regular season. Watching NBA teams battle it out in different venues, different countries, and through different elements is great, but when the games start counting, all teams need to be on equal footing.

Plus, Shaq's free throws are miserable enough that I don't wanna have to watch him try to shoot it through the wind. (O'neal was 0 for 2 from the line).

Shaq wasn't the only one. Neither team shot over 36% from the field, and the teams combined to make just 3 of 27 three-point attempts. And actually, it was Denver whose free throw shooting suffered, sinking just 18 of 38 attempts.

Like I said, cool concept, but I'd rather watch more exciting basketball than a 77-72 brick-fest.

The Los Angeles (insert NBA team name here) of Anaheim?

The Lakers played an exhibition game at Anaheim's Honda Center on Tuesday night, as they usually do once each season, giving fans a bit further south their yearly glimpse of NBA basketball in their home territory. It wasn't all that long ago that the Clippers played a handful of games in Orange County from 1994-1999 (at the then-named Arrowhead Pond) and seriously considered moving there permanently before deciding to become the Lakers' co-tenants at Staples Center.

Now, after Tuesday's pre-season contest between the Lakers and the Jazz, one Anaheim official told the Orange County Register that he wouldn't be surprised if the city gets an NBA team within the next 5 years.

If that team isn't the Clippers, it seems a bit much to have 2 Los Angeles teams, then an Anaheim team down the road, don't you think? The Clippers barely make a pull in the LA market, competing with the Lakers, and plenty of Orange County fans are already plenty devoted to the Lakers.

After seeing the Angels change their name to consider themselves a part of the LA market, it seems clear that the two cities are too close to each other to sustain 3 NBA teams between them.

Two suggestions:

1) Make that team the Clippers. They've got to be sick of playing red-headed step-child to the Lakers not only in the city of Los Angeles, but playing there in the same building as them all season long. Make a clean break, give Orange County fans something to be excited about close to home, and don't clog the already congested market.

2) Why not bring a team to San Diego? It's far enough from the LA market (Padres do fine, away from the Angels and Dodgers) to sustain its own fan base, and you've got enough LA hatred to form a fan base in SD alone.

Now, what team is moving next? Oklahoma City just got the doomed Sonics from Seattle, but who else is on the list of teams ready to move out of their market?

I don't see the NBA expanding yet again. At 30 teams, it's at its current limit, in my opinion.

So, again, who's next? Personally, no team seems to be in that much turmoil to move out, but then again, five years is a long time for something to happen. Cities like Memphis, Charlotte, Toronto, Oklahoma City, and New Orleans, would be my guesses for places that may not be able to keep their teams. Any other thoughts?

Interesting Shaq Interview

Shaq sat down with ESPN for a candid, very unlike-Shaq interview. He was very apologetic and sincere. It's definitely something to check out. It's long, so if you don't have time, I've broken down the highlights.

9:40 - OK, this is Shaq-being-Shaq; "Dream Team II" (which Shaq played on) was better than Dream Team I. Really, Shaq?

5:44 - Favorite Moment with the Lakers? - "Playing with one of the greatest players ever, Kobe Bryant. That was fun." Again, seriously?

4:26 - "I think we were the greatest 1-2 punch in the game." - on him and Kobe. Is he regretting things?

4:08 - Shaq talking about the infamous rap about Kobe. He apologizes, says it was blown out of proportion, but then says, "if you look back, I just said the same thing that you guys said." Really, Shaq? Did any ESPN commentator say "Kobe, tell me how my ass tastes!?" He later says he called Kobe and said "My bad."

2:29 - Great Shaq moment. "Did you already make a prediction that this team will make it past the first round?" "Yes I did. "But, it's September." "So."

:50 - "What is Tim Duncan got his fifth [ring] before you got yours?" "I'd be pissed."

It's a fun interview. Check it out.

poop picks: ALCS, NLCS, and world series

here at poop on boozer, we're all about duking it out, especially when it comes to our (supposed) sports knowledge. so as we prepare for the four remaining baseball teams to entertain us over the next few weeks, enjoy our best guesses as to who's going to come out on top this fall.

and remember: there's only one october!

-------------------------------------------------------

K.C.R.

ALCS: Boston fans wanted this matchup. They're pissed. The Red Sox Nation just took care of its biggest nemesis this season after knocking off the league best Angels, 3-1. Next on their list? Tropicana Field. Not the Rays - just the field. The Sox went 1-8 at the Trop this year, which played a big factor in their losing the season series 10-8, to the Rays. Sox fans would like nothing more than to shut up the Tampa Bay faithful and prove once and for all that the Rays don't really belong. After watching what they did to the Angels, I don't think they'll have a problem, personally. Red Sox in 5.

NLCS: Good to see the Dodgers make a splash after basically 20 years of futility. Manny-mania exists in Dodgerville, and thank goodness, cause they needed something. The Philly lineup is potent with Howard, Utley, and Rollins, but the prospect of another major sports meeting between LA and Boston is just too much for the networks to pass up (did I say that?). Dodgers in 6.

WORLD SERIES: As much as I hate to admit it, the Sox are too powerful and too strong. Manny will be booed heavily in his return to Fenway, and he'll resume his place in left field in front of the Green Monster. I'd be very surprised if his trip back to Boston doesn't include a stop to pee in the bathroom inside the Green Monster. That said, the series will go back and forth, before the Red Sox ultimately take control and repeat as World Champions. Red Sox in 6.

-------------------------------------------------------

D.R.W.

ALCS: If the 2008 season had gone on for any longer, say another month, you would have eventually seen the Boston Red Sox in first place. They were closing the gap in the AL East, and theoretically may have been able to do it inside of 162 games without injuries to the heart of their lineup (Jason Bay can indeed replace Manny Ramirez, but not with Mark Kotsay hitting behind him). Of course, as a counter to that, even when the Sox were hot and the Rays were not, Tampa won those crucial head-to-head matchups down the stretch, and the middle of the Sox lineup is STILL hurting, not to mention Beckett's oblique. It's a lot to sift through, but I think it comes down to this: if Beckett's healthy, the Beckett-Lester combo will win the Sox the series. If not, Tampa's knack for timely hitting will take it. Red Sox in 7.

NLCS: The Dodgers are reminding me a lot of the 2007 Rockies lately. Their late hot streak allowed them to enter the playoffs with all the momentum in the world, which masked the fact that they had been quite a mediocre team all season. Of course, the cliche is true: the playoffs are in many ways a crapshoot, and baseball is a sport where the hot team can always beat the better team (you may want to ask John Lackey about that - just don't stand within grabbing distance when you ask him). So why shouldn't the Dodgers beat the Phillies? The red-hot 2007 Rockies beat all NL comers, and they didn't even have midseason acquisition Manny Ramirez (who, by the way, may knock Cole Hamels down a couple of pegs). Dodgers in 5.

WORLD SERIES: I could devote an entire post to how awesome this series would be (and I will, if it happens), but for now, I'll try to contain myself to how I think it will go. If the Dodgers really were the Rockies, it would be a sweep to end all sweeps and everyone would go into the long winter months hating the Red Sox that much more. But they're not. The Rockies, in my opinion, were blown out of the water by the Sox last fall because the NL's best just couldn't measure up to the AL's best. The Dodgers, however, actually have the AL's best, and he used to wear a Red Sox uniform. And that leads me to ask: how many World Series wins is Manny Ramirez worth? It may very well be one or two, which is remarkable for a single player. But it's not four. And it would have to be, because I believe the Red Sox would sweep the Dodgers without him. With him? Red Sox in 5.

-------------------------------------------------------

K.L.

ALCS: there were only three teams that were really fun to watch this year in the AL (and might i say in baseball?), and two of them are in this matchup (nice knowing you, los angeles, anaheim, california, or whatever you plan to be next). with the rally monkey (thankfully) out of the picture, the AL east's best will fight to the finish in a pennant battle that has to have a-rod choking on his own vomit. injuries have been the name of the game for boston in the fall, and the health of beckett and drew will have a significant impact on the series. that said, theo did his best to fill those gaps, and with options like casey, kotsay, and crisp to plug holes here and there, the red sox should be set on offense. so it comes down to the pitching matchups. matsuzaka wins game 1, beckett goes 4-5 innings and gets a no-decision (to go with a paul byrd loss) in game 2, lester takes game 3, wakefield loses game 4, but matsuzaka comes back with a win in game 5, and lester (on short rest) and papelbon get the job done before the series can be stretched to seven. as much as i hate to agree with both d.r.w. and k.c.r, the arms don't lie. Red Sox in 6.

NLCS: was manny ramirez really hurt in boston? can players really put up his kind of numbers without performance enhancement? these are all the interesting questions that will be completely irrelevant when the phillies and the dodgers take the field. these two teams had impressive runs in the division series, although the phillies did have a blip loss to the brewers in game 3 that forced them into some extra action. what city of brotherly love fans can feel good about, however, is that pat burrell has his swing back. between him, howard, and utley, the middle of the philadelphia lineup is just scary. that's not even counting players like jimmy rollins and shane victorino. i don't care how good manny is - the phillies are on fire at the right time, to the point where they pretty much have the wild card fervor about them. (and we all know that wild cards have been far from shabby in the past decade.) hamels and blanton are ballers, moyer looks young again, and lidge - though a little shaky - is still perfect. as good as lowe, kuroda, and billingsley can be, they lost 31 games between them for a reason. myers drops game 2 at home, but the phillies surprise most of the sports world (and k.c.r. and d.r.w.) by finally getting back to the world series. Phillies in 5.

WORLD SERIES: red sox-phillies? meh. interesting, but i've seen better. you would think this would be a close series, but if we've learned anything from the past four years, when a team with the word "sox" in its name makes the playoffs, a sweep is in the making. who am i to bet against a 100% win percentage for the red and white sox in the final round since 2004? Red Sox in 4.

a video is worth a thousand words

on thursday night, the NHL kicks off the regular season in full force after a few international bouts to get fans going.

not excited? you've just forgotten what the game is all about. let this video bring back the good times - and get you ready for another sweet season.

So much for that

I don't quite understand what went down, but despite my excitement several weeks back about the Clippers signing Jason Williams, the guard has called it quits.

Thats right, after signing with the Clippers in August, Jason Williams, called "Clippers guard," despite never donning the red, white, and blue, has retired.

How and why does that happen?

Williams signed on August 7. I'm pretty sure he never started training with the team, but he decided to call it quits.

I was always a J-Will fan, ever since rumors back in the day of a deal with the Sacramento Kings that would have brought him to the Lakers. I'm talking like 1999.

He was always a fantastic passer and a great shooter, and as my post back in August indicates, I was excited to see him bring some of that flash to the Clippers.

Oh well, Baron Davis as the only point guard will have to do for the new look Clippers.

Next time, just retire first, Jason, don't get our hopes up.

he's got the brain to go with the brawn

the Boston Herald reported the other day that former crimson captain and current panthers defenseman noah welch agreed to donate his brain to medical science.

okay, okay, get all those jokes out of your system about dumb jocks. hardy har har.

but welch's move is actually very important. in a sport like ice hockey, players can sustain quite serious head injuries due to the physical nature of the sport. by studying the long-term impact of big hits on the brain, scientists, doctors, and engineers can do more to protect athletes - especially younger ones - from doing too much damage to themselves.

it certainly isn't easy to actually commit your organs to posterity - who hasn't had a brief nightmare of having their organs harvested while being still alive? - so welch should should be commended for his move, especially as he is the first hockey player who has agreed to pledge his brain to science. here's hoping that he'll able to convince his teammates and peers to sign on for the research as well.

DANKS FOR NOTHING (Finally, I get to use it!)

FINAL PICKS UPDATE:

So, it wasn't exactly the offensive firebombing that I predicted, but the White Sox have indeed taken the AL Central from Minnesota behind John Danks, by the downright Twinsian score of 1-0. Of course, one wonders what would have happened if the RNC hadn't forced the Twins on a 14-game death march at the end of August. And I thought Republicans were OPPOSED to government interference! (Rim shot.)

Anyway, I'm giving myself four out of five points for a successful pick. It really could have been five, but when you predict that a team will slug its way into the playoffs, and they slug as little as humanly possible in the win that gets them there, well, your hands are tied, even when you're cheating. So it goes.

UPDATED TOTAL: 32 out of 40, which brings my grade from a B- to...well, to a B-. Lovely.

P.S. For those wondering about the title of this post, it refers to this older one.

March Madness Still Sucks: Reexamining Baseball Picks

One of the benefits of having a blog is that you get to do anything you want. If I want to write a post comparing Joe Biden, quite possibly the future President of the United States, to Pacman Jones, then I get to do just that. You can't stop me.

I bring this up because, as you may recall, both K.L. and I wrote columns last month picking all of the MLB division and wild card winners. We don't quite know all the results yet, but Monday Night Football hasn't started yet and I'm bored, so I've decided to dig up my old picks and give myself a grade for the results that we do know. It is, of course, inherently unfair for me to grade my own picks, but if you don't like it, you can register poopondrw'sselfservinggradingsystem.blogspot.com and complain all about it.

AL EAST

My pick: Tampa Bay Rays

Winner: Rays

Key quote: "It's up for debate--are the Rays just a little luckier and overdue for a regression, or are they simply better than the Red Sox at scoring just as much as they need to win? The former seems more likely, but I'm betting they'd be able to survive such a regression even if it did occur."

Analysis: Not a bad note to start out on--I called a tightening race with the Rays still prevailing, and that's exactly what we got. Of course, I claimed that it would be luck that caught up with the Rays, and it could certainly be argued that it was injuries instead. But hey, the Sox had their fair share of injuries too (and, by the way, will miss Beckett for Game 1), so I still say a regression to the mean was what made things so close. I'm giving myself 5 out of 5 points on this one.

AL CENTRAL

My pick: Chicago White Sox

Winner: TBD

Key quote: "Still, I see the Southsiders slugging their way to the division title, as even the return of Liriano doesn't change the fact that the Twins are due for a few losses."

Analysis: Sure, we don't know the actual outcome yet--but the White Sox are missing Carlos Quentin, and catapulted into a tie with the twins on the strength of a grand slam, so I'm claiming credit anyway. But in the interest of fairness, I'll hold off on awarding points for just now--because something should be done in the interest of fairness in this post.

AL WEST

My pick: The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Surrounding Orange County Environs

Winner: Angels

Key quote: "Get ready for yet another Red Sox-Angels ALDS."

Analysis: Sure, that quote was technically from the wild card section of my old post rather than the NL West section, but this pick was so utterly predictable that frankly I have no idea why you're bothering to read this anyway. Easiest five points I ever won.

AL WILD CARD

My pick: Boston Red Sox

Winner: Red Sox

Key quote: "Since I consider the Twins to be one of the least convincing playoff contenders in either league, the tie will eventually go to the Red Sox."

Analysis: I'd love to give myself the full five points for picking the Sox, but the Twins did not end up posing anywhere near as much of a threat as my pick implied. Four out of five.

NL EAST

My pick: New York Mets

Winner: Philadelphia Phillies

Key quote: "Sometimes, however, things are blissfully simple: the Mets have Johan Santana down the stretch, and the Phillies don't. It's hard to envision a 2007-style collapse with Santana able to serve as a potential stopper if need be."

Analysis: In a battle between the Mets' penchant for late-season choking and the Brewers' penchant for late-season choking, never bet on the Mets. That's the lesson I learned from this season. But, while I was completely overestimated the Mets' ability to avoid a collapse, I actually was sort of right about Santana, who came up huge in his last game of the season and did absolutely everything he could. So I'm giving myself one out of five points just for that, and I will just have to live with the fact that I missed an easy "You Don't Mess With The Johan" joke in the original post. 

NL CENTRAL

My pick: Chicago Cubs

Winner: Cubs

Key quote: "To me, these are two very evenly-matched teams, which means the way things are now (Cubs 4.5 games up) is just about the way they're going to stay."

Analysis: 7.5 games does not equal 4.5 games, which means I lose a point for being overly specific with my predictions. 4 out of 5.

NL WEST

My pick: The Manuel "Manny" Aristedes Ramirez Onelcida Travelling Circus, a.k.a. the Los Angeles Dodgers

Winner: Dodgers

Key quote: "The Dodgers are currently two games behind the Diamondbacks, but Manny Ramirez is playing well enough to carry a team into the postseason singlehandedly."

Analysis: Any way you look at it, that's a five-point answer right there. And it was even an upset when I predicted it. If only there were a way to give myself 6 out of 5 points. Oh wait--there totally is. Six it is. Anarchy prevails.

NL WILD CARD

My pick: Milwaukee Brewers

Winner: Brewers

Key quote: "The Cardinals should drop out of it first, but eventually the Phillies will fold and the Brew Crew will stand alone."

Analysis: You know, if I had limited myself to just "Brewers," things would have turned out great. But I had to go and predict the demise of the Phillies, and now they're the AL East winners and Philly fans are pretending they love Jimmy Rollins again and I look like an idiot. Three out of five points.

So we have a total of 28 out of 35 points, with 5 yet to be awarded. Not bad, especially considering I only cheated a little bit. Now that the grading is over with, we can all just sit back, relax, and think about how awesome a Red Sox-Dodgers or Rays-Cubs World Series would be...

sunday night sports digest

what a weekend in sports.

nick saban apparently is the man. when Forbes asked whether saban was worth his salary, i scoffed and thought to myself, he's good, but he's not that good. clearly, i had no idea what i was talking about. although some of the credit for alabama's dominating win over georgia has to go to mark richt's inept squad, saban has turned the crimson tide around in his very short tenure. it's hard to call anything in the talent-rich SEC, but alabama's got as good a chance as any to launch itself into a BCS bowl.

lance in france - again. he's baaaaaaaack. is there anything this man can't do? and this time, he's riding for more than just victory and pride, as he's hoping to use the tour de france as a spotlight to further his fight against cancer. who says you need two testicles to be great?

NL ballers. were you the smartest kid in your high school class before that transfer student came and displaced you as valedictorian? well, now you know how national league hitters and pitchers probably will feel in a few weeks. if justice is done, cc "half-man, half-'mazing" sabathia and manny "masher" ramirez will pick up cy young and MVP honors, respectively. sabathia pitched a complete game on three days' rest to propel the brewers into the playoffs, while ramirez has the dodgers' offense looking like his former team. forget tradition - these guys are the best in the league.

when it comes to the east, NFC stands for "national football champions." with the 'skins dropping the 'boys in a rivalry showdown, the NFC east officially declared itself up for grabs, with only the idle giants remaining undefeated. pending the outcome of sunday night football, the division could stand at 12-3 after the first four weeks of the season. can you pick the winner in this race?

monday night TV. in my house, monday nights are Heroes nights. but with the ravens and the steelers facing off on MNF and the white sox trying to keep their season alive against the disappointing tigers, is there any reason sports shouldn't take precedence?

thank god for TiVo.

to fire or not to fire

you think donald trump is a bad boss? try working for al davis.

the raiders' owner is constantly throwing head coach lane kiffin under the bus, with a report surfacing almost every sunday that kiffin is to be fired on monday (regardless of the outcome of sunday's game, of course).

but, as of tonight, kiffin still remains at the helm of oakland's beleagured nfl squad, doing his best to hold together a team that has been shoddily constructed and features characters who make T.O. look like a saint.

can you imagine being in kiffin's spot? team officials refuse to deny the reports of his firing, yet he has to keep on coaching. he barely loses, 24-23, to a solid buffalo team, but there is little praise for the picasso he makes it out of the crappy paints that are his players.

can you imagine being a raider? your owner doesn't have confidence in your coach, so why should you? you don't know if he'll be here next week, so why bother playing hard for him? the media only pays attention to the gossip about his job, so why try and make an impact during the game?

the raiders have gone from featuring the "Black Hole" as one of their strengths to losing themselves in one, and it all comes back to davis. if he can't show the appropriate leadership at the top, there is no way anything is getting fixed from the head coach on down.

time to retire, old man. leave nfl ownership to a younger - and less stubborn - crowd.

and don't make kiffin your scapegoat.

Revisionist History

First, it was the last season at Yankee Stadium. Then, it was the last All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium. Now, we finally have the last of the lasts--the last game at Yankee Stadium, ever.

Sad? You bet it's sad. The season-long schmaltz-a-thon aside (if no one cares about the All-Star Game anyway, must we really obsess over The Last All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium Ever?), Yankee Stadium is the unquestioned first among this country's sports venues. It has the look, it has the location (not so much within the city, but the city itself adds to its mystique), and most importantly, it has the history. Yankee fans can have a tendency to think that everyone loves the Yankees as much as they do, but throughout the 20th century, they were right about one thing--the Yankees WERE the American team, and Yankee Stadium was where Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, and Dimaggio lived and breathed. Sports and American history don't intersect any more closely than that.

The surprising thing, however, is that as Yankee Stadium prepares to close its doors, there isn't more anger to go along with the sadness. Because Yankee Stadium, as glorious as past as it has had, could have gone right on making history. The plans to demolish it came about during a previous era, when the Yankees were irrelevant and attendance (and revenues) were slipping. But that was the past--perhaps you've heard, but the Yankees are profitable again, and--this decade aside--the Pinstripes are completely capable of winning championships with Yankee Stadium as their home. But the team that has the most money in baseball wants more, and it's willing to sacrifice its own history and tradition in order to get it. Say what you will about my beloved Red Sox, but as another of baseball's richest teams, they made a commitment to work with their historic stadium rather than give up on it.

So, to use a morbid but apt metaphor, Yankee Stadium isn't just dying, it's being murdered. Sure, sadness and nostalgia are still appropriate emotions, but so is outrage. This story in today's Boston Globe (of all places), however, is the closest I've seen. The rest of the media is treating Yankee Stadium's passing as something inevitable, as if baseball cathedrals were prone to dying of old age. But that isn't the case; as we all know, baseball history lasts forever. Unless the New York Yankees get involved.

re: Invaluable

let me start first and foremost by declaring that tim lincecum is as deserving as any for the NL cy young award (there you go, d.r.w.). and if he and the indians' cliff lee get their dues, it will certainly produce some interesting precedent for the yearly discussions when people whine about mvp candidates on losing teams.

that is just it, though. why all this convention/tradition around what player should be declared the most valuable player? is there a reason why the person must play for one of the eight teams that make the playoffs? or, in the case of k.c.r.'s post, does the person have to have been with the team the entire season - or just long enough to make an impact?

sabathia and ramirez actually provide great material for a comparison.

without a doubt, cc has been one of the best pitchers in the national league in the second half of the season. if you want value, sabathia is your man, helping milwaukee do its best tampa bay impression. but, this is where we can bring the idea of value into focus. given that the brewers now sit 10 games out in the NL central and 2.5 back in the wild card race, does sabathia's performance have the same allure? indeed, the necessity to be a player on a winning team features less prominently in cy young conversations than mvp ones (although the reason for that is not altogether clear). but if you were to put cc's value in a sentence, would you say that he was valuable because he helped the brewers almost make the playoffs? or because he helped the brewers avoid another season in the NL cellar? perhaps that adds value from a fan and/or revenue perspective, but it seems tough to say - especially given the brevity of his tenure in sausagetown - that he has been the savior that could bring a ring to wisconsin.

ramirez, on the other hand, has revitalized himself and his new team. after crying game after game in the yankees' dugout, joe torre is enjoying watching manny play on his side, with or without a real haircut. like sabathia, ramirez has put up gaudy numbers after coming to the national league (albeit over a shorter time period). with arizona sputtering, the dodgers look poised to return to the postseason and to perhaps even win a playoff series. value? how about hitting nearly .400 with a home run almost every 3 games, putting up bonds-ian OPS numbers? if LA holds on to take the NL west, ramirez will be hailed as the man who boosted his team into october.

does it matter that he joined the team after playing 100 games in boston? if you take a look around chavez ravine, there doesn't seem to be a single fan that remembers the pre-manny era. and as for opposing managers in the NL west, they're feeling the same sinking feeling that they grew all too accustomed to whenever barry lamar stepped into the batters' box.

that fear, that presence - that is what value is all about, as bonds' seven mvp awards attest. choosing manny may not jive with tradition, and it may not fit the baseball honor code. but as captain barbosa famously remarked, the code is more like guidelines, anyway.

sabathia hasn't been able to put his team over the top, and for that reason, he will not win the cy young. but manny's performance may be enough to make people forget that he ever relieved himself inside the green monster. alfonso soriano surely his has fingers crossed, but manny's got as good as chance as any to take home the trophy this season.

p.s. vote lincecum for NL cy young! can you hit that changeup?