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?

Invaluable

Most Valuable Player. Those three words have stymied journalists and baseball fans alike for years, as it seems as if every season there is the same annual debate over what exactly they are supposed to mean. March Madness chose to take the easy route with its "Most Oustanding Player" award, which you hand to the best player and move on, but baseball (along with many other sports) does it the hard way, insisting that the recipient must not simply be outstanding, but "valuable."

It's an especially intriguing question this year, because two of the athletes in consideration for the National League award are recent arrivals to their league: Manuel "Manny" Aristedes Ramirez Onelcida and Carsten Charles "C.C." Sabathia. Both players are being mentioned as candidates for an award that they could not possibly have won at the season's halfway point, when they worked for American League clubs (and were not in MVP form).

Having both been reborn when traded to the Senior Circuit, the question concerning both players becomes: how do you interpret "value?" Many would argue that the award is best interpreted in the sense of value to one's team--how much that particular club's season was improved by the presence of that player. By this (very common) logic, however, both players would seem to be entirely undeserving of the award. As terrifically as Manny and C.C. have played for their new teams, it seems unrealistic to think that the Brewers, for example, have benefited more from half a season of C.C. than they did from a full season of Ben Sheets. Few players in the history of the game, if any, have actually been twice as good as their next greatest contemporary, and that would be the message if Sabathia or Ramirez were deemed to be the most valuable to their teams.

There is, of course, another way of looking at the term "value"--the run-scoring (or run-preventing, in Sabathia's case) value of the player's production over the course of the year. It generally isn't an MVP contender's fault if he gets traded (although an exception applies to Mr. Ramirez), the argument goes, so why should they be deprived of an award for their hard work (again--exception for Mr. Ramirez) if their team decided to ship them off and rebuild? When evaluated not by their value to their new team, but by their value as score-affecters over the course of the entire season, Manny and C.C. are quite legitimate NL MVP candidates.

Neither way of interpreting the MVP award is correct, although the second line of reasoning does have some interesting implications. Part of the MVP tradition is that it generally can only go to a player on a contending team. This is entirely consistent with the "team value" line of reasoning, since if a player's club doesn't make it to the postseason, they may not have provided as much value as the stars of playoff teams. However, if the half-and-half seasons of Manny and C.C. are going to be considered for the award, it means we are using a "player value" framework, in which case any player on any team is eligible. Manny or C.C. may end up winning it, but if they are even going to be considered, it means there are many other players to look at as well.

Oops, They Did It Again

Remember when Britney Spears married Kevin Federline? That was pretty surprising. No one saw it coming. Of course, that was four years ago, and it no longer seems surprising. We have assimilated that little nugget of useless knowledge into our brains, and now the fact that a semivirginal pop star and her grungy backup dancer once exchanged solemn wedding vows seems utterly mundane.

So, if we can ultimately accept the fact that Britney and K-Fed would tie the knot, why can we not do the same for the poor Tampa Bay Rays? The Rays have been a contender all year and an undisputed first-place team for months, but sportswriters still love to run stories about how surprising they are, checking in every week with a "the Rays (!) are still in first!!!" update. Somehow, you don't find similar stories about the Chicago Cubs.

Never mind the fact that the Rays have been hot since day one. Never mind the fact that some analysts actually predicted this before the season began. To the media, the Rays have remained "surprising" for months, leading up to this little exercise in saccharine faux-shock from Jayson Stark, which appears on ESPN.com bearing the teaser: "The first-place Rays. Go ahead. Say it. It's still true."

The article itself isn't much better.

"Some things in sports, you can't quite explain. They don't seem possible. They don't even seem probable.

But they unfold before your eyes. So they must be real. They must be happening.

...

When your 5½-game September lead has disappeared, when you're getting one-hit by Josh Beckett into the seventh inning, when you're nine outs away from tumbling out of first place, you're supposed to be in trouble. Right?

But somebody forgot to explain that to these goofballs. Somebody forgot to tell these crazy dreamers from Tampa Bay that they're not supposed to be here. They're not supposed to be doing this. They're not supposed to keep on finding ways to toss banana peels under the Red Sox every time the champs seem poised to catapult past them into first place. Everybody in America seems to know that -- except the Rays."

Setting aside for a second the fact that this is terrible, terrible writing, the problem with this continued shock at the success of the Rays isn't that it's merely annoying, but that it's disrespectful to what will ultimately be a 95-win team. I'm willing to ignore the fact that some analysts did see this coming and grant that, at the beginning of the season, the Rays were a legitimate surprise. However, this far into their campaign, the Rays have proven themselves, and their wins should be treated as equally unsurprising as those of other great teams. When the Angels win, no one acts surprised or calls them "crazy dreamers," because they respect them enough to have seen it coming. What this gushing media prose really indicates is that, even this late into a very successful season, no one believes the Rays can do it. Stark's piece is explicit: "They're not supposed to be doing this."

After five months of great baseball, why the hell not?

* * *

P.S. If Jayson Stark has any info on what makes Willy Aybar a "crazy dreamer" and, say, Paul Konerko a normal, boring, non-dreaming ballplayer, he can feel free to email me at journalismcliches@pooponboozer.com.

INTERVIEW: squash pro siddharth suchde

here's a scenario: you just graduated from an ivy league school. you played a sport that doesn't feature quite the fame or money of pro football (either the american or the european kind). do you take the $50K, 9-5 job, or do you sweat it out on the pro circuit with no guarantee of success?

if you're siddharth suchde, the answer is clear: you grind it out, because there's nothing more important than being the best. the indian harvard man has competed at top professional tournaments and helped his country to some of its best results on the international stage - and he's just a year out of college.

poop on boozer caught up with him in the midst of his country-hopping.

POB: You're Indian. You play squash. Was it as obvious as that, or did you take a circuitous route to the sport?

In India, most kids end up playing cricket at a fairly young age. Squash is still an elitist sport which most people aren't aware of. I actually played tennis in a big way but couldn't play in the outdoor courts during the monsoon season. At that time, my parents who were regular "squashies" introduced me to the game. Since then I haven't been as passionate about any other sport.

POB: Was it tempting to skip college and try to go pro right after high school? Any regrets about your decision?

I certainly don't regret going to Harvard. I always wanted to go to college and get a good education. I think the entire college experience has been an incredibly important part of my life. It also gives me a sense of security knowing that if for whatever reason I can't continue my squash career, there's always something to fall back on. However, there's a flip side to that as well. Sometimes, when things aren't going too well and you've had a couple of bad losses, it's easy to start thinking about all the other possibilities available with a Harvard degree. But overall, the positives surely outweigh the negatives.

POB: When did you know that you wanted to put aside the Harvard degree for awhile and give the professional circuit your best shot?

After my first year at college, I made up my mind. My coach was quite influential in helping me make that decision. I did quite well in a few professional tournaments over the summer as well as represented the national team in a few events. The exposure I gained made me believe that I could do well in this sport if I took it up professionally. But, most importantly, I loved each and every new experience. Since then I've been absolutely certain that this is exactly what I wanted to do.

POB: What have been your biggest challenges, on and off the court, in your first 15 months after Harvard?

On court, the biggest challenge was getting used to playing professional players. On tour, it's about earning your livelihood through the sport. The competitiveness, hunger, and determination are on a completely different scale in comparison to college athletes. Guys are willing to undergo physical and mental disintegration to win matches, and you have to be willing to do the same if you want to win.
Off court, I guess getting used to the way of life. We travel around 6-7 months of the year, living out of suitcases in various hotels or with different families. The long plane rides and constantly being away from home for such long periods eventually begins to wear you down. The best way of dealing with it is trying to find the correct balance and not going overboard playing too many tournaments all at once and spreading it out evenly through the year. Easier said than done when you have to defend ranking points, but it's a learning process.

POB: Who is the coolest celebrity you have met?

Some Bollywood actors who you'd have no clue about!

POB: Any more chances you'll take on amateur challengers if cake is on the line?

I'd do anything for cake.

is the pac-10 severely overrated?

yes.

okay, USC is far and away the best team in the country, as it proved by thoroughly demolishing no. 5 ohio state last night in a highly anticipated matchup that turned out to be a snooze. and QB mark sanchez is proving that it doesn't really matter who you are; if you're calling the plays for the trojans, you will probably be a heisman candidate.

but things get uglier from there.

no. 23 cal kicked the day off by getting dominated by the unranked terrapins, representing a resurgent acc conference. don't let the final 35-27 score and QB kevin riley's 423 yards fool you. the golden bears managed just six points through three quarters, looking even worse than they did last year against oregon state.

the day didn't get too much brighter for the west coast's dime. UCLA suffered its worst loss in almost 80 years, getting routed 59-0 by the non-bcs BYU cougars. stanford was as vanilla as usual against texas christian, losing 31-14. washington state and washington made the evergreen state proud by dropping to 0-3 against baylor and oklahoma, respectively. the beavers got destroyed by hawaii, and arizona lost to new mexico.

and it's not like the ranked teams did much better. other than cal's slumbering stumble, no. 15 arizona state was bounced by UNLV in double-overtime. only oregon managed to salvage some of the day for the pac-10 by coming from two touchdowns down against purdue to win in the extra period.

so, if you take pete carroll out of the equation, we're looking at a conference that has four ranked teams and claims to be able to go toe-to-toe with conferences like the SEC and the big 12 but flounders against unimpressive competition. why does anyone respect the pac-10, again?

more importantly, is there any way USC won't go undefeated en route to yet another bcs title game? with all nine of their remaining contests featuring pac-10 opponents, the trojans certainly aren't a team to bet against.

New England Revolution

There is despair in New England, and understandably so. The franchise quarterback, the man who brought winning back to New England sports, has fallen, and he won’t be coming back. From the despairing fans calling in to local sports radio to the pessimistic analysis in both local and national media, the conclusion seems to be that the 2008 New England Patriots cannot win it all without Tom Brady. There is, however, perhaps a more important question to be asked: could the Patriots have won it all with him?

The Patriots opened the Battle of Wounded Knee with Brady at the helm and an empty backfield behind him, abandoning any pretense of running the ball on their first two possessions. Their second drive was cut short by a fumble, so it's tough to judge its effectiveness, but the first saw the Patriots forced to do the unspeakable: punt. (A Chiefs penalty actually extended that first drive, which also ended in a fumble.)

It would, of course, be ridiculous to dismiss the Brady offense for all of 2008 based on the results of one stunted possession, but this "throw the ball or die trying" approach to football is nothing new for the Patriots. Sometime around November of last year, Bill Belichick officially went insane. (Many will argue that this actually happened much, much earlier). Blessed with perhaps the best offense in the history of football, Belichick’s best move would have been to play things conservatively—after all, common sense dictates that a war of attrition would allow his superior on-field talent to shine through, while a game of risks and razzle-dazzle would leave open the possibility for anything, including an upset, to happen. Conventional wisdom also states that when you have the best passing attack ever assembled at your disposal, you open it up further by establishing the run, rather than undercutting it by allowing your opponent to know what’s coming.

Nevertheless, the Patriots began to rely exclusively on their passing game, as their victories transitioned from laughers to nail-biters (especially over the Ravens, Eagles, and Chargers), and eventually to that one unforgettable loss. I will always believe that it was the possibility of an undefeated season that broke Bill Belichick’s brain, that the need to dominate every down of every game affected his play-calling as the season wore on, culminating in the bizarre failed fourth-and-13 conversion in the Super Bowl. As a Patriots fan, I spent the off-season hoping that the Super Bowl loss had humbled Belichick and restored his sanity. I almost hoped that the Pats would lose their season opener against the Chiefs, so the 19-0 albatross could disappear and I could look forward to a nice, relaxing 13-3 season of good old-fashioned balanced play-calling.

The Patriots did not lose to the Chiefs, but when Bernard Pollard lunged into the left knee of Tom Brady, the outcome was essentially the same: it suddenly became certain that the 2008 New England Patriots would not go undefeated. Even as an admittedly biased fan, I am not naïve enough to think that the team will be better off without Brady than it would have been with him. I do believe, however, that the pressures and expectations that helped to derail the 2007 Patriots have vanished along with their treasured QB. Having seen their worst fears realized, the 2008 Pats now have nowhere to go but up, which, as any Patriots fan can tell you, is a whole lot better than having nowhere to go but down.

INTERVIEW: star-ledger's lisa kennelly

who's a 5'0 harvard-educated female who writes about male nudity?

if you've never met lisa kennelly, you're in for a treat. just two years out of college, she has become an all-rounder of sorts for The Star-Ledger, taking a break from covering the yankees and occasionally the (football) giants to check out golf and tennis. (if you're interested in all things u.s. open - either one - she's your gal.)

what makes lisa tick? and why do the yankees suck? poop on boozer investigated.

POB: Just so we can get this up front, what are your feelings on Carlos Boozer?

Basketball is one of those sports that when I have to cover it, I fake it. So umm... he's from Alaska, right? Everyone from Alaska is a little weird. Sarah Palin is only the latest example.

POB: When baby Lisa threw her first baseball, did she ever imagine that she would one day be writing about the New York Yankees for a major paper?

The Yankees, no. I grew up in Seattle as a huge Mariners fan though, and I read every word of The Seattle Times Mariners coverage daily. I didn't have TV growing up, so newspapers were my main source of sports info. So if I ever envisioned writing, it was about the Mariners... but I never ever imagined I'd be covering the Yankees less than a month after I graduated from college. Actually, now I'm back to doing general assignment, so still a healthy dose of Yankees, but I just finished covering the Barclays and the tennis U.S. Open.

POB: So, what's up with the Yankees, anyway?

They're missing the playoffs, and I'm delighted - as a baseball fan, because the Yankees are evil, but as a sportswriter, because covering the playoffs are insane. Fun at times, but mostly insane. As for why? Well, that's obvious: they committed to relying on youth to carry them through a season that was a rebuilding year in everything but name, and it was about as successful as you might expect. Yeah, they had a lot of injuries, but so did the Sox and Rays and they were able to get through it.

POB: Would you let Brian Cashman keep his job?

Yes, because Hank Steinbrenner says so. Oh wait, Hank has no real power... Seriously though, I think he will. I don't believe the Steinbrenners particularly want him gone. And can you think of someone out there, off the top of your head, who would do a better job - both dealing with the ownership and dealing with all that comes with being GM of the Yankees?

POB: And speaking of teams in fourth place... what can be done about your hometown Mariners?

Fire every person in a management position and hire competent people.

POB: What has been the most fulfilling story you have worked on in the past two years?

A search of my paper's online archives turns up 635 stories with my byline over the last 2 odd years... wow. How did THAT happen? Here's a couple, though.

In Yankees spring training in '07, the lead Yankees writer gave me a tip that Cory Lidle's twin brother, Kevin, lived about 45 minutes from Tampa, where the Yankees train. Cory had died just a few months earlier when his private plane crashed into a Manhattan skyscraper - I was actually sent out to interview witnesses to the Upper East Side crash back in October of '06. Anyway, I went out to interview Kevin. When I showed up at his baseball academy, Kevin was wearing his brother's jersey. They're twins, so it might as well have been Cory himself standing there. Eerie, you bet.

Reporting for the story took a lighter touch than some of the more straightforward baseball daily duties, of course. But Kevin was gracious and open about his brother, and the story pretty much wrote itself.

Another one I did was in spring training this season. I was based out of Port St. Lucie, Fla., where the Mets train, which is not too far from Vero Beach, where the Dodgers trained up until this spring. So I went up to talk to Don Mattingly about his whirlwind year of almost getting picked as manager of the Yankees, then having some family issues take precedent. Mattingly knew me somewhat from 2007 when he was the Yankees bench coach and I used to talk to him for various stories. But obviously this was a topic he really didn't want to talk about (his wife was arrested for public drunkenness - it was a messy situation). So first when he saw me he was very pleasant and asked how I was doing, but when I brought up my story he immediately started to rant - not in a mean way, just sort of venting - about how he was worried about how this would affect his son who was still in high school and why couldn't reporters just let it go.

Anyway, the reason this story sticks with me is it was a situation where I was able to use my relationship with Mattingly and the familiarity - and, I guess, trust - he had in me from previous interviews to coax him to talk about it and get him to open up about his divorce and his family problems. This is also a situation where being a 5-foot tall, young, female helps, though not in a sketchy way. I just look pretty nonthreatening, and I suspect he wouldn't have spoken so emotionally to an older, male sportswriter. Maybe, but I don't think so.

POB: We think we might already know about your most embarrassing athlete moment. What about the most awesome one?

I think being referred to as "that bitch from the Star-Ledger" by Carl Pavano's agent was a highlight. This story was the reason why. I haven't had a chance to talk to Pavano since this article, but I expect he won't be too friendly. Not that he ever is.

I also tend to get randomly hugged by athletes (Shelley Duncan, Mickey Rivers, etc.). I don't know why.

POB: Finally, if you had to poop on someone or some team today, who would that be?

I would be worried this would get me fired, but given the state of newspapers, I might not have a job much longer, anyway. Umm... the Mariners? I love them, but they're just awful.

duh moment of the day

in the wake of all this tom brady hubbub, another major star was lost for the season on tuesday, as shawne merriman announced he would undergo surgery to repair the two torn ligaments in his left knee.

shocked? i didn't think so.

why was he going to try and play this season anyway? to put shawne merriman's injury in perspective, let's draw some comparison. his decision to play was like sacha baron cohen trying to play borat without the accent or the moustache. or like pamela anderson trying to became famous without breast implants. or like hillary clinton campaigning for obama without vomiting in her mouth a little.

okay, maybe analogies are best left to d.r.w. but you get the point. a linebacker isn't going to be able to do his job when his knee is unable to do what it does best - turn.

so as merriman unsurprisingly sits out the 2008 season, we will do well to remember the fundamental truth: some athletes are just plain stupid.

Maybe It's Me?

I arrived in Boston as a college student in September of 2004.

Yes, the Patriots had just won the Super Bowl in January earlier that year, but what other sports success had the city had in the recent years before? Celtics? No chance. Red Sox, remember that Curse? Bruins? Please.

I'll go ahead and take credit for that Patriots' championship prior to my arrival, because I knew I was headed to Boston back in December 2003.

Then, what happens?

The Red Sox beat the odds (and the Curse) and win the World Series in 2004, and cap it off with another Series victory in 2007 to bookend my college life in Boston with 2 Championships.

The Patriots won again in 2005, allowing Boston to continue their celebration in the wake of the Sox Curse-Breaking win.

Then, in my final week in Boston, the Celtics brought home a long overdue championship.

Sure, the Patriots lost in the 2008 Super Bowl, but who can argue with the 17-0 record prior to that as not being successful? Perhaps that Super Bowl loss was just a sign of things to come for the city.

Now? I'm gone. I've left Boston, and it's sports are a question mark.

Brady's out. With one whack to the knee, the MVP is out for the year, and the Patriots chances of remedying their Super Bowl disappointment last season just went down the tubes.

The Red Sox, leading in the AL East when I left Boston, are now trailing Tampa Bay for the division lead and are risking not making the playoffs at all.

The Celtics are celebrating way too much, and are poised to struggle in their effort to defend their championship (OK, so this is just wishful thinking, but it definitely falls in line with my theory).

The Bruins? Who?

And now, the good news? I've relocated to LA. Having attached "Los Angeles" to their name, the Angels may reap the benefits of me being in the City of Angels, and the Lakers are destined to have Andrew Bynum and Co. make a repeat (and hopefully successful) trip to the NBA Finals.

I'm liking my theory.

poop picks: ivy league/FCS football

we here at poop on boozer pride ourselves on staying abreast of sports and on voicing our totally non-expert opinions on everything. but, we're also not afraid to step aside and let more knowledgeable people contribute when their expertise greatly exceeds ours.

know anything about FCS football? do you even know what FCS stands for? well, for the answers to all your questions about the ivy league and what used to be division I-AA football, check out the "poop picks" from our experts below.

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MALCOM GLENN, president and former football beat writer, The Harvard Crimson


IVY LEAGUE ORDER OF FINISH: Harvard, Brown, Yale, Princeton, Penn, Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia. Save for a relatively green secondary (which also happens to include a preseason All-American from last season), who have the defending champs lost? The graduation of Brad Bagdis on the defensive line is met with the return of the Bryant brothers, Brenton and Desmond. The quest for the title begins and ends in Cambridge.

IVY LEAGUE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Chris Pizzotti, QB, Harvard. The guy has never lost a game he’s been able to start and finish. Barring injury, he only gets better the longer he plays, and in his fifth year in a Crimson uniform, he’ll finally get the accolades already warranted by the numbers.

IVY LEAGUE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Matthew Hanson, DB, Harvard. Head coach Tim Murphy will be looking for a guy to push some of the action in the direction of veteran cornerback Andrew Berry, and Hanson may be the most physically equipped to do that. Plus, he’s from Colorado.

IVY LEAGUE COACH OF THE YEAR: Phil Estes, Brown. A team many believed over-performed last year will do the same this year, as the other shoe finally drops on Yale coach Jack Siedlecki, paving the way for a surprising second-place showing from Estes’ Bears.

WALTER PAYTON AWARD: Mike McLeod, RB, Yale. Like Tom Brady a year ago, a foot injury in his final game and a swarming performance from an underdog defense ruined what could have been an undefeated season for the favored team’s best player. And like Brady this year, McLeod will return more motivated than ever to erase memories of last year’s conclusion. (EDITOR'S NOTE: malcom was totally unaware of brady's upcoming major knee injury when he made this analogy.)

FCS TITLE GAME: Massachusetts over Appalachian State. Losing to LSU is nothing to feel bad about, but when the Tigers’ starting quarterback is a former Ivy Leaguer, it stands to plant seeds of doubt in last year’s champion. Appalachian State will make a run at a fourth straight crown, but Massachusetts will avenge its championship loss from two years ago.

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PABLO TORRE, reporter and talking head, Sports Illustrated


IVY LEAGUE ORDER OF FINISH: Harvard, Yale, Brown, Penn, Dartmouth, Princeton, Cornell, Columbia. It's Harvard because ever since I've been following Ivy League football (e.g. since 2002), it's been Harvard. (Hooray, homerism!) I was also going to write some sentence about how I'm going to Harvard-Yale this year and want to celebrate an Ivy League title, but any causality between record and alcoholism at The Game is patently farcical.

IVY LEAGUE PLAYER OF THE YEAR: Cheng Ho, RB, Harvard. Mike McLeod is the easy choice. Cheng Ho is the Asian choice. I'm allowed to say that because of my ethnicity. (I also value Chris Pizzotti's 11-1 record as a starter.)

IVY LEAGUE ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: Zach Wodka, OL, Dartmouth. To be completely honest, I don't know anything substantive about any impact freshmen in the Ivy League this year. I am 100% positive that Malcom does, though. (EDITOR'S NOTE: we're not sure how zach's last name is pronounced, but we are now more convinced than ever that pablo does not only write about alcoholism; he lives it.)

IVY LEAGUE COACH OF THE YEAR: Tim Murphy, Harvard. Does he still have braces? That doesn't affect my choice, I'm just wondering.

WALTER PAYTON AWARD: Armanti Edwards, QB, Appalachian State. A loss to LSU takes the wind out of his sails of invincibility (dear god, that's a terrible metaphor), but we'll be hearing about him come NFL draft season. Also, I recently interviewed him and he was very nice, but also said that he "never" drank moonshine. Hopefully the Wonderlic doesn't have a lie-detector component, Armanti.

FCS TITLE GAME: Appalachian State over North Dakota. App State picks up its fourth straight FCS title, easy. I went to the title game last year where the Mountaineers beat Delaware and Ravens starter Joe Flacco. We might look back at that game five years from now and marvel at the two QBs who played in that game. And by "we," I mean "I."

lpga retracts policy but still doesn't have a clue

it had to happen sooner or later, and it finally did: the LPGA backed off its inexplicable policy that would allow suspensions of players whose english was deemed unacceptable.

but the decision and statement from LPGA tour commissioner carolyn bivens showed that she and her colleagues still don't get it. despite the announcement of a revised plan, the LPGA maintains that non-english speakers may still be fined.

what the hell for?

the assertion by grace e. yoo, the executive director of the korean american coalition in los angeles, to the associated press captured it best: if the LPGA is concerned about players being able to communicate with sponsors, then why shouldn't all players also have to learn chinese, french, and japanese to talk to sponsors from nations where those languages are spoken?

i respect the united states for what it has done for sports, inventing, popularizing, and revolutionizing many of the games we have come to love. but this kind of unipolar thinking, at times as present in sports as it is in foreign policy, seriously damages the nation's ability to remain a leader in the field.

if the LPGA wants to stay a relevant international body, it needs to rethink its perspective and its attitude. just because the american golf association is on top today doesn't mean it has to stay that way forever.

Sports, politics, Chuck Klosterman, and Carlos Boozer

Three of my favorite things and one of my least favorite.

From an interview at Mouthpiece Sports:

Q: Both Barack Obama and Sarah Palin have basketball backgrounds. (Palin was dubbed “Sarah Barracuda” in high school; Obama likes to play in sweat pants and a tucked in t-shirt.) Who wins in a one-on-one game to 11 and why?

A: Obama has the size and the skills, but Palin would probably want it more. However, if it was a game of 2-on-2 and you had to pick a teammate from your own region, Obama would win easily. An Obama-Mark Aguire tickets destroys Palin and Carlos Boozer.

Spot the Outlier

Let's play a game.

I'm going to name several team names, and you tell me which one isn't the name of a past or current WNBA team.

Dream, Sky, Sun, Shock, Thunder, Fever, Storm, Fire, Mercury.

Any guesses? It's tougher than you think, huh?

Well, if you guessed Thunder, then you'd be correct, because that's not a WNBA team, but the newest team name of the former Seattle Supersonics.

Just two months after announcing that the team will move from Seattle to Oklahoma City, the franchise announced today that it would take on the nickname Thunder.

Lame.

If that doesn't sound like a WNBA team name, I don't know what does. The theme with the team names in the WNBA has basically been twofold - either counter the existing NBA team in your market (Houston Comets, Washington Mystics, Charlotte Sting, Sacramento Monarchs, etc.) or take some natural element that sounds either scary or intimidating and make that your team name (see list above).

Thunder fits that latter criteria, and I find that a disappointing choice.

The league rests on very original team names, typically without consideration of the natural elements. Granted, I will submit that I was also not a fan of the choice the "Bobcats" for Charlotte's expansion team a couple of years ago. Rawr.

I'm not that creative either, but resorting to a WNBA-caliber team name just seemed to be a poor choice for the new Oklahoma City squad.

re: sometimes, lightning does strike twice

and, sometimes... it strikes four times?!?!

qualifier gilles muller, ranked 130th in the world, dropped five-seed davydenko like nobody's business, prevailing in four sets to reach the us open quarterfinals.

meanwhile, as i write, federer is a break down in the fourth set (although he has a 2 sets to 1 lead). did muller really reach the quarters more easily than federer? and, regardless of who wins the federer-andreev match, is muller going to pull off yet another amazing win and end up in the semis?!?

as my good friend gwen stefani says, this shit is bananas.

Knee Injury Can't Keep Tiger Down

Just over two months removed from surgery that is keeping him out of golf for the rest of the year, Tiger Woods announced that his wife is pregnant with the couple's second child.

According to a posting on Woods' website, the baby is due in "late-winter." Woods and his wife, Elin, had their first child just after the 2007 U.S. Open.

In the wake of Tiger's gritty 2008 U.S. Open victory, it was revealed that he would need surgery on the knee that clearly was affecting his game--nearly keeping him from holding off Rocco Mediate on Sunday and in the Monday playoff.

While the golf world has since been forced to watch Padraig Harrington succeed in two Tiger-less majors, Tiger's been becoming the father figure that we all know he idolized his Dad to be.

"While my injury has been disappointing and frustrating," Woods writes, "it has allowed me to spend a lot of time watching [1st child] Sam grow."

Despite being perphaps the world's most successful individual athlete of all time, he's a good dad to boot.

Keep up the good work, Tiger. And your wife is pretty hot, too.

Kickoff to Election Season, Pt. 2

Well, the VP picks are in for both parties, and we at Poop on Boozer would be derelict in our duties if we did not update our previous post and tell you, the politically savvy, culturally literate, and information-hungry reader, exactly which NFL players these nominees most resemble.

Joe Biden: Pacman Jones. No one doubts Biden's experience, his ability to make smart and adept political plays to support his Democratic team. No, it's his "off-field" behavior which has his supporters worried. Biden is notably volatile and infamous for his frequent gaffes; he has a propensity to allow awkward, blunt, or politically insensitive comments to, if you will, rain down onto the American public. If Biden can clean up these extracurricular slipups, his sheer talent should get him far.

Sarah Palin: Ryan Leaf. With one high-profile QB pick already locked up in the 1998 draft, the San Diego Chargers generated instant buzz when they followed the Colts' choice of Peyton Manning by selecting Ryan Leaf, who had previously served as QB at Washington State. Leaf, however, soon found that the level of play in the NFL was very different from the small-time football of the Pacific Northwest. His inexperience shone through, leading many to question if he was truly read to lead an NFL franchise--even as a backup quarterback, he would always be a heartbeat away from starting, and the Chargers eventually found this idea too uncomfortable to tolerate, releasing him after the 2000 season.

And finally, as a special bonus pick:

Hurricane Gustav: Michael Vick. All the American public wanted to do this election season was focus on the politics that matters: who will win, who will lose, who will take home the title, and who will be doomed to a long off-season of wondering just what went wrong. But instead, Gustav came along, forcing us to turn our attention to a much more tragic and morbid story that left much of the South in turmoil. Soon, thankfully, Gustav will be gone from the public eye forever, never to return.