the shrewdness of apes

world soccer update!

i've been remiss in this space to discuss the almost unthinkably bad World Cup draw in which the USA was placed in Group E with Italy, the Czech Republic and Ghana. the dreaded Group of Death. OK, there's no easy groups but one look at Group A (Germany/Costa Rica/Poland/Ecuador), Group B (England/Paraguay/Trinidad and Tobago/Sweden), Group F (Brazil/Croatia/Australia/Japan), Group G (France/Switzerland/S. Korea/Togo) or Group H (Spain/Ukraine/Tunisia/Saudi Arabia) and it's not hard to think that having 3 of the top 12 teams in the world in one group is a bit unfair. and from all acocunts, Ghana are no slouches either. all the kvetching, however, obscures the fact that the U.S. will have to play well no matter who the opponent is. if they can pull off two draws and a win, they'll move on. anything less and they have to hope for some help. if the quaterfinal game with Germany in 2002 proved anything, it's that the Americans can hold their own with a top tier team while this statistical analysis shows that soccer provides a better chance of an upset in any given game than do any of the 4 major North American sports. the study was done by Americans, so i'd say there's no anti-American bias built in to the study, but 2 of them are from academia so that might not hold water. damn pinkos.

anyway, if there's one game that's going to cause some consternation among American observers, it will be the Iran-Mexico game. who to root for, the religious extremists who would love nothing more than to hold the threat of nuclear weapons over our heads (and who embarrassed us in 1998) or the southern neighbors who would love to watch us Yanqui bastards choke on our tacos? perhaps there's some significance in the game being played in Nuremberg (as is the USA-Ghana collision) and justice will find a way for both teams to lose.

meanwhile, the African Cup of Nations which started yesterday in Egypt and every group is a Group of Death with at least 1 World Cup qualifier and 1 runner-up. Group D with Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal has been christened the toughest, but Group B is no cakewalk with qualifiers Togo and Angola already having lost to Cameroon and Congo DR and Group A has hosts Egypt and surprises Ivory Coast who are doing their best to ingore the unrest at home by beating a tough Morocco 1-0. check the full standings here. none of these games are being broadcast here in the U.S. except on some channel called Telesud available only on the Dish Network; i'd like to see some of these teams play before the World Cup, but if the quality of the broadcast is anything like what is was during WC qualifying, you're probably better off just reading the recap. hopefully things will improve by the time 2010 rolls around, when the tournament is held in South Africa. according to this article, that tournament has already raked in more sponsorship dollars than this year's, and there may be an extra spot awarded to an African team in the interim.

in England, the run to the FA Cup continues next weekend with the 4th round of games. there are at least a few matchups of smaller teams (Stoke v. Walsall, Colchester v. Derby, Brentford v. Sunderland) that guarantee to keep some hope of major shocks alive into the round of 16. and if Chelsea can lose to Everton and Man U can fall to Wolverhampton, then all the better.

finally, those of you who were following the MLS draft live (i thought about skipping work, but decided not to) already know that with the first overall pick, the MetroStars selected former Padres outfielder Marvell Wynne who will be making his pro soccer debut at age 46, while the title of Mr. Really Really Irrelevant went to Aaron King of N.C State, chosen by Los Angeles with the 48th pick.

World Cup Qualifying Report - Two days left!

there are just 5 spots left now as the home-and-home playoff series began on Saturday. my earlier predictions proved surprisingly cogent, as i went 4-for-5 in Asia, was mostly right in Europe, and correctly predicted Trinidad heading to a playoff. Uzbekistan let me down, as did Chile, but still not bad overall. so without further ado, your guide to Wednesday's games written by someone who will be unable to watch any of them (quick perusal turns up only reruns of Trinidad vs. Bahrain anyway).

Australia v. Uruguay - La Celeste won the first leg 1-0 at home, but now face an arduous trip to Sydney for a game 4 days later and 13 time zones away. the Socceroos tried to claim the mental edge by taking a charter flight back home replete with massage tables (but presumably no Foster's). apparently, Uruguay doesn't care about its team because they all had to fly coach. they didn't win a single road match during South American qualifiying going 0-6-3, but they only need a tie here. still, i like the Aussies to either win outright by scoring twice or by netting one and then taking the penalty kicks. i would have considered getting up at 4am for this one just to relive the fun of 2002, but i don't see it in the listings so i might actually be productive at work instead.

Bahrain v. Trinidad and Tobago - Trinidad payed a terribly lackluster match at home and needed an unreal strike from Christopher Birchall - who had never set foot in Trinidad before the Qualifying began, but who's mother is Trinidadian and who is Trinidad's first white player in something like 60 years - just to escape with a tie that means they likely will have to win to advance to the World Cup for the first time in their history. i don't know much about Bahrain, but i still think that Uzbekistan got hosed and i have numerous co-workers from Trinidad, so i'm rooting for the Soca Warriors.

Czech Republic v. Norway - the Czechs won on the road 1-0 in a game in which the losing goalie was given the "Man of the Match" award, meaning it should have been worse. can the Norwegians become the first team to overturn a deficit in a European home-and-home qualifiyer? seems highly unlikely.

Turkey vs. Switzerland - the Turks really hurt themselves by falling 0-2 in the first leg, including a late 2nd half goal. Switzerland allowed just 7 goals in 10 matches leading up to this, so expect them to pack it in on defense and hope to make the game as boring as possible.

Slovakia v. Spain - speaking of boring games, Slovakia will need to win this game 4-0 in order to advance. Spain allowed but 3 goals in going 5-5-0 during the first stage of qualifications, so i think i like my chances in Tuesday night's Mega Millions drawing better than i like Slovakia's.

after this, it's a long, cold winter until things kick off on Munich on June 9th. not to mention a long 4 years for those that get left behind. i'll be back with more analyses once the groupings are announced on December 9th.

Good thing he doesn't read this blog

In a group e-mail from my uncle, amid the usual stuff about new houses, jobs and the kids going to homecoming and getting driver's licenses, came this bit of info: "Someone asked if they [my cousins] played soccer, well I have a theory that soccer is an un-American sport brought to this country by a conspiring European underground movement to weaken the U.S. spirit and to diminish the U.S. dominance of real sports like baseball, football, hockey and basketball, but I maybe overthink that issue just a tad....Don't get me going, lets just leave it as a European plot to break the will of the American Youth."

hmm, the U.S. hasn't won a gold medal in hockey since 1980; we finished 6th in the 2002 basketball world championships and 3rd in the 2004 Olympics; and baseball is now 25% Latino and there's no guarantee of the U.S. winning the World Baseball Classic next year when teams like Japan, Puerto Rico, Mexico and the Dominican Republic will all field strong teams. throw in the homoerotic undertones of football (which, perhaps not coincidentally, has been bringing games to Japan and now Mexico in recent years) and the steadily climbing US soccer ranking and you can see that he's clearly on to something. hell, we're even getting out butts handed to us by skinny Japanese guys and tiny Asian-American women when it comes to the all-American sport of Gluttony (of course we learned that one from the Romans sort of). then again, MLS attendance is still pretty dismal, so there may still be some hope yet.

World Cup Qualifying Report - Extended Remix

it's been quite some time since i've written about soccer on here (or anything for that matter - i'm not sure if and when that will be rectified), but it's getting down to it. with matches scheduled world-wide for Saturday and Wednesday, the field for Germany 2006 will be much clearer in the next week. with so many important games coming up, there's going to be a lot to cover, so if you don't care mcuh about the details, you can just skip to my predictions for each area so that you can ridicule me later when my half-assed analysis proves worthless.

North America

Currently: the U.S. is in! having clinched on Labor Day weekend with a 2-0 victory over Mexico. a tie to Guatemala a few days later coupled with a Mexico win put Mexico in and tied them with the U.S. at the top of the group (though i believe the U.S. hold the head-to-head tiebreaker). the winner of this group puts themselves in a very strong position for getting a top seeding in the World Cup draw, which is very important if you want to avoid the Argentinas and Germanys of the world in the opening round. The fight for the 3rd spot is just about wrapped up with Costa Rica ahead of Guatemala by 5 points and Trinidad and Tobago by 6 points with 2 matches to play. the big battle here is for the 4th spot, which earns the right to play the 5th place Asian team in a home-and-home playoff.

This Week: a point by the Ticos against the U.S. tomorrow would put them in unless Guatemala stunned Mexico and then beat Costa Rica on Wednesday. Mexico might be pressed by a Guatemalan team desperate for points as they try to say ahead of T&T who is away to last place Panama before finishing with Mexico at home. if the U.S. can tie Costa Rica and then dispatch Panama in Foxboro, they should take the group and be well positioned for the big show.

Predictions: the U.S. gets a tie and a win to lead the group. Mexico slips past the Guatemalans but ends up tying T&T who first beat Panama. Costa Rica gets two ties to qualify, and Trinidad finishes a point up on Guatemala.

Africa

Currently: if you thought the previous was convoluted, just wait. there are 5 groups in Africa and only the winner of each group will advance. with just one game left for each team (all played tomorrow), it's going to be a finish that is sure have some stunning results - all the moreso because 4 countries have a chance to qualify for the first time in their histories. group leaders Togo, Ghana, Cameroon, Angola and Tunisia have a simple agenda: win and they're in. but looming behind them are Senegal, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote D'Ivoire, Nigeria and Morocco respectively. of the five, Ghana is closest to qualification needing only a tie to qualify. even with a loss, they can still get in, unless Congo DR completely whomps South Africa (unlikely given the importance to Bafana of finishing in the top 3 to earn a place in the African Nations Cup).

This week: starting from the top, Togo need to win at (the other) Congo because Senegal is unlikely to lose at home to Mali. i haven't seen them play, but i am an unabashed Togo supporter based on a report that i did in high school (one of those where an encyclopedia probably played a major role) and the fact that it's just a tiny sliver of a country on the Bight of Benin in West Africa. if i can get all Larry King here for a second, "Bight of Benin" would make a great pretentious band name. moving on, Ghana have a relatively easy go of it at the Cape Verde Islands. Cote D'Ivoire shot themselves in the foot with their home loss to Cameroon back in September, so if they're to make their inaugural trip to the World Cup, they'll have to win at a Sudanese team they previously beat 5-0 and hope for some help from Egypt against Cameroon. they could easily get it, as Egypt is the highest scoring team with 25 goals in 9 games though they have been fairly hapless on the road. major surprise Angola needs only to maintain their current tie with Nigeria to move one, as they hold the advantage head-to-head. if they can beat a weak Rwandan team or get help from a Zimbabwe side that lost badly at home to Nigeria last year, they will be dancing in the streets of Luanda. finally, and most excitingly comes the North African battle for Group 5 as Morocco travels to Tunisia (in a match to be refereed by an Egyptian) needing a win to advance in the last game of the day on Saturday.

Predictions: to make this quick, i predict the following qualifiers: Togo, Ghana, Cote D'Ivoire, Angola and Morocco in a minor upset on the road. that would be make for 4 first-time qualifiers, which would be quite amazing.

Cool Nickname Watch: many of these teams have great nicknames such as South Africa's Bafana Bafana (roughly: "the best of the best"). others that i like are Togo's Les Eperviers (the Hawks), Ghana's Black Stars, Nigeria's Super Eagles, Cameroon's Indomitable Lions, Kenya's Harambee Stars (Harambee = "let's all pull together"), the opposite themed Liberia Lone Stars, Algeria's Desert Foxes, Benin's Ecureuils (Squirrels), Malawi's Flames and Rwanda's Wasps

Europe

Currently: if you thought Africa was unsettled, you haven't looked at the European standings, where 51 teams are fighting for 13 spots from 8 groups. and just to make things more convoluted, only 1 team - the surprising Ukraine - has so far qualified, other than host country Germany. but by Wednesday, we'll have 10 qualifiers and 3 home-and-home playoffs. if you were in Europe right now, you'd be hearing about nothing else, sporting-wise. to simplify this a bit, let's break this down into a few categories:

* Knocking on the Door: Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Poland
* Looking Good: England, Sweden, Croatia, France, Norway, Serbia and Montenegro, Spain, Turkey
* Hanging Around: Slovakia, Russia, Greece, Switzerland, Israel, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina
* Need Help: Scotland, Denmark, Romania, Ireland, Lithuania, Belgium

This Week: [deep breath] so in Group 1, the Czechs can make it easy by beating the Netherlands at home tomorrow. even if they do they're unlikely to win the group as Holland finishes up against doormats Macedonia. if they lose, then they would likely need a positive result at Finland to advance, provided that Romania wins in Helsinki first. and that's one of the easier groups. [inhale] Ukraine is in from Group 2 and Turkey has the edge on second place, but they have only one game left in a hostile Albania. Greece and Denmark lurk 2 and 4 points back respectively with 2 games to play each including tomorrow's game against each other in Denmark. whoever wins there might have an edge as they both have easier games against Georgia and Kazakhstan to finish out. [inhale] moving on to Group 3, Portugal need only crush puny Liechtenstein to punch their ticket. Slovakia and Russia are battling for 2nd place in a race likely to be decided by Wednesdays game against each other in Bratislava. first, Slovakia must avoid a loss to Estonia who might still be mathematically alive for 2nd, but it would probably require an advanced degree to figure out how. [inhale] Group 4....where to start? four teams are within 3 points of each other. Swtizerland and France are tied at the top with 16, Israel has 15 and Ireland has 13. Israel has only one game left versus two for the other, but theirs a is home date with the Faroe Islands for which the current odds are 1-25. Switzerland has the tough row to hoe, at home with France and away to Ireland. both Les Bleus and Les Mangers Pomme de Terre should have no problem taking 3 points from Cyprus in their other matches. assuming Israel finished at 18 points, the Swiss-Irish match on Wednesday will probably be do or die for both. [inhale] Italy leads Group 5 and will clinch during one of the their two remaining home contests, but that's where the simplicity ends. Norway and Slovenia are tied with 12 points, while Scotland has 10 and Belarus has 7. Belarus would need the intervention of St. Jude to move on to the next round, while Norway appears to have the inside track with an easy homer against Moldova before facing Belarus. Scotland has risen from the dead with 8 points in their last four games, including a big win at Norway, but they'll need wins against Belarus and Slovenia to have a shot. if Slovenia could somehow topple Italy in Palermo (almost 1 year after beating them at home) they could have hopes of moving on. [double inhale] Group 6 is blessedly easy. Poland and England will advance, and England can overtake Poland if they can first dispatch Austria before hosting and beating the Bialo-czerwoni. [another deep breath] but who wants easy, when there's Group 7 where only poor, pitiful San Marino (population 28,800) has been eliminated. Spain and Bosnia-Herzegovina are the countries lucky enough to still play the Marinos, but Serbia and Montenegro currently leads the group at 16 points: a 2 point lead on the Spaniards and 3 over the Bosnians, while the Belgians and Lithuanians are seeking to find a way to leapfrog their way to a playoff place. so which matches are important? how about all of them? seriously. the potential permutations - there are 729 of them, not accounting for different scores - are too many to process. neither Spain nor Serbia has lost a match yet during qualifying, so let's not complicate this any more and just call them the favorites. [inhale, shake it out] the cool down exercise brings us to Group 8 where the winner of tomorrow's Sweden-Croatia collision in Zagreb will grab control of the group with the other likely headed for qualification by bring one of the top two 2nd place teams, thereby escpaing from the playoff process.

Predictions: OK, let's take Ukraine, the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and Poland as given. France still has injury questions, but i like them to emerge from the morass of Group 4. i'll take Croatia in a minor upset in Group 8 and Bosnia-Herzegovina in a major coup in Group 7. England and Sweden will be the two 2nd place teams to automatically advance. for the 3 playoff series, the Czechs should be there along with Norway. i predict Greece slipping past Turkey in the Battle of the Aegean, Slovakia taking out Russia and Spain overcoming Serbia. that leaves Switzerland and Israel who i'm predicting will end up tied, in which case i think Switzerland advances based on goal differential (they tied 2:2 and 1:1 in their head-to-head matches). so there you have it. the draws for whichever 6 teams are headed for the playoffs take place on October 14, with the matches to be played on November 12 and 16.

South America

Currently: only one table for our friends to the South, but that doesn't mean that the analysis won't be a bit complex. every team here had two games left, and standard-bearers Argentina and Brazil are in. Ecuador and Paraguay have the inside track on the two remaining qualifying slots four points clear of the next tier, while the race for the fifth spot and a chance to play-off against Australia is still very up-for-grabs with Uruguay, Colombia, Chile and even Venezuela having a chance.

This Week: the schedule makers knew what they were doing when they mapped things out. Brazil and Argentina play also-rans Bolivia and Peru on Sunday, meaning that the 3 matches on Saturday all have serious implications. Venezuela - a team that is much improved in recent years - must win at home against Paraguay to cling to any hope. Colombia must not be kind hosts to the Chileans, with whom they are currently tied. Chile needs to reverse the away form that has seen them outscored 11-2 in four consecutive losses away from Santiago, although they will avoid the ignominy of finishing last as they did 4 years ago. finally, Uruguay needs to steal at least a point, and preferably three, on the road from Ecuador ahead of their final matchup with Argentina, but they will have to overcome the extreme elevation in Quito where Ecuador is undefeated in qualifying. things don't get any easier on Wednesday as Peru and Bolivia play each other, meaning tough games for everyone else. Venezuela will have to hope that the Brazilians aren't playing their best team, though it seems unlikely that they would lay down in front of the home crowd. meanwhile, Paraguay hosts Colombia and Chile hosts Ecuador in games that will settl the jumble in the middle of the table.

Predictions: it's hard to see Ecuador and Paraguay stumbling enough to be passed in the standings, so the main question is who emerges from the scramble for the 5th spot? one tantalizing scenario - with Venezuela defeating Paraguay, Uruguay losing to Ecuador and Chile and Colombia drawing - would have four teams tied with 1 game to go. Uruguay's tough schedule makes them unlikely to cling to their current 1-point lead, unless Chile and Colombia tie and then collapse in their final game. even then, Uruguay will need to find a point somewhere to avoid being done in by their unfavorable goal differential. i'm forecasting Chile to eke out a tie and then beat an already-qualified Ecuador to set up a playoff with the Socceroos.

Oceania

Currently: Australia is the lone representative from this region moving forward, having dispatched the unheralded and unexpected Solomon Islands by a 9:1 aggregate in their home-and-home during September. they await the 5th place team from South America for a playoff in November in the hopes that they can succeed where they have failed in 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2002 when they fell one step short of the World Cup. this is also their last time representing the region before joining the Asian Confederation for all future competitions.

Prediction: Australia will finally take a playoff (against Chile, if my powers are more than mere guesswork) and qualify for Germany 2006.

Asia

Currently: Uzbekistan's incredible 2nd-half comeback against Kuwait in August catapulted them into a play-off with Bahrain for the right to take on the 4th place team from North America. the first leg was originally played in September with the Uzbeks winning 1-0. however, a controversial and incorrect refereeing decision led to the amazing consequence of FIFA voiding the result of the match entirely and rescheduling it. this, even though the call unfairly penalized Uzbekistan in a match that they went on to win. if the result from Saturday turns out differently, you can bet that some hell will be raised. already qualified from this region are South Korea, Japan, Iran and Saudi Arabia.

This Week: the home-and-home series plays on Saturday and Wednesday. the team with the most aggregate goals advances.

Prediction: i'm going with Uzbekistan, for justice's sake as well as to get a little representation from central Asia. they should fall to Trinidad & Tobago in the end however.

OK, so you've waded through all of this and now you find yourself wondering "how can i watch some of this hot ball-kicking action?" the news is a mixed bag. ESPN2 is showing the Costa Rica v. U.S. at 10pm ET. if you've got DirecTV and the Setanta Sports USA channel - they're showing Scotland v. Belarus at 10am, Czech Republic v. Holland at 2:30 pm and a tape-delayed Belgium v. Spain at 7pm. those of us with digital cable (at least in the Time Warner world) will have to settle for Fox Soccer Channel's showings of Russia v. Luxembourg at 11am (snooze) and Bulgaria v. Hungary at 1pm (meaningless). Spanish-language channel WNJU (Ch. 47) is showing Italy v. Slovenia an hour delayed at 4pm ET and Mexico v. Guatemala live at 9pm. the Italy match is live at 3pm on Italian channel RAI (Ch. 505), but that's a subscription service. other subscription only channels with games include Caracol (Ch. 815; Colombia v. Chile at 4pm) and TV5 French (Ch. 555; Tunisia v. Morocco at 3:35pm). you can also order the England v. Austria game on pay-per-view for $24.95. anyone paying for that, however, is either English or fanatical. but then, if you've just read almost 3000 words about this, that probably describes you.

unsung hero of the 7th inning

about a week ago, the Baltimore Orioles sent 40-year old relief pitcher Steve Reed to the minors which is the type of thing that happens without notice countless times per season. on the off chance that Reed never again pitches in the major leagues, i would like to take the time to commemorate him. Reed pitched for 7 different teams, putting up 870+ innings of solid middle relief. he doesn't have any gaudy numbers, never pitched in a World Series, racked up only 48 wins and 18 saves and never led the league in anything. in one of his biggest moments in the spotlight, he allowed 8 runs in just 1 and 1/3 innings against the Red Sox in Game 4 of the 1999 ALDS (there's a picture of me smiling in front of a TV showing the 23-7 final score of that game somewhere in a shoebox).

so what the hell is this all about? with little expected argument, i would like to proclaim Steve Reed to be the best pitcher in Colorado Rockies history. far from an oxymoron or a backhanded compliment, this is quite an accomplishment. the offense-augmenting effects of Colorado and Coors Field are well documented, and Reed is the only pitcher i'm aware of who consistently beat the odds there and put up numbers that would look pretty good in any park. for his career in the mountains, he had an ERA of 3.63 and a WHIP of 1.27 in 499 IP. his 466 hits allowed in those innings is superb considering and his 67 HR allowed is mitigated by the cirucmstances of his home stadium. and since Coors suppresses strikeouts, his 352 Ks is better than it looks too. he never made an All-Star team and isn't going to the Hall of Fame, but what he did in 7 seasons in Colorado is nothing short of spectacular. if he had 1 more IP, he would dominate the franchise leaderboard.

if you're still looking at those numbers and thinking "eh, he was OK", consider this: his ERA+* for his years in Colorado is 141 (with a career total that was 138 before he completely tanked this season in Baltimore). 100 would be a league average pitcher and the career leader - Pedro Martinez - sits at 167. where would 141 put him on the all time list, if he qualified? tied with Greg Maddux and Roger Clemens at number 12 all-time. his 138 career mark would put him in the 16th spot along with Tim Hudson, Cy Young and Three Finger Brown. he falls short of the 1000 career IP needed to qualify, but that's some pretty rarefied air. fans of recent Mets teams are advised to ignore the fact that John Franco is 14th all-time in ERA+, as well the fact that the Mets traded Jason Bay to the Padres for 26 innings of Reed at the trading deadline in 2002.

Reed combatted the altitude by starting low

i won't claim that Reed should be bound for Cooperstown, but he deserves some recognition for consistent success in a harsh environment. considering he went undrafted in over 80 rounds during the 1988 draft and didn't make the major leagues full-time until he was 28, the submariner had a very productive career for his position.

* ERA+ is a measure of the pitcher's ERA compared to the league ERA, adjusted for scoring environment and park factors. scores of >100 are above average.

uni watch uni watch

it dawned on me in about the 4th inning of today's softball game that one of the guys whocame out to play was Paul Lukas of Beer Frame and Uni Watch fame. then i noticed that he was the only person playing who was wearing stirrups. they were pulled up to his calves, which fits right in with his fetish for the more traditional style of uniform as opposed to the abomination that is the modern pajama-style, full-length pants. his shirt, however, was untucked so i have to deduct some points for that (the fact that no one else was tucked in is beside the point). he was on the opposing team, so i didn't get a good look at some of the smaller details of his outfit, but i'll try to sneak a glance next time to see whether he has any visible logos, patches or bad color combinations.

***UPDATE*** looks like i shoud have read to the end of his column before posting this, as he included a link to a picture of himself in his softball regalia.

World Cup Qualifying Report

when we last left off, our intrepid men of the pitch had rebounded from a disheartening 2-1 loss to MExico to dispatch Guatemala by 2-0. like most other things around here, the two matches played in the past week did not get my full attention - i saw maybe 30 minutes of the two games combined. fortunately for the US team's chances, my presence in the television audience falls somewhere below a solid attack and Kasey Keller's brilliance on the scale of deciding factors.

first came a 3-0 victory over the Ticos of Costa Rica led by Landon Donovan's two goals (his first tallies in this final qualifying round) and polished off by Brian McBride's late goal to ice it. i caught the first goal, which came nicely off of a loose ball and also saw an equalizing goal that was waved off for offsides. Keller reportedly had a brilliant stretch to preserve the lead in the first half, and after witnessing more of his heroics in Wednesday night's 3-0 triumph at Panama, i can easily believe it. with the US up 1-0 early in the Panama match, he made a series of 3 saves in 5 seconds that were among the most inspired i've ever seen. and they inspired the American side as well, as they went on to score two more goals in the first half to avenge the ugly almost-loss from last year when they needed a very late goal in the rain to salvage a point from the Panamanians. now, with two months off before a match against Trinidad & Tobago in Connecticut, the team has all but clinched a spot in Germany 2006.

elsewhere, the field is starting to take shape. a quick rundown by continent:

South America (4.5 spots) - Argentina, Brazil, blah blah blah. the real excitement here is the battle for the other two qualifying places, currently occupied by Ecuador and Paraguay. Colombia and Chile are lurking but face tough games in September @ Uruguay anf @ Brazil repsectively. if Uruguay can win, they would put themselves into 5th place and in line to take on the Oceania winner for the right to go to Germany.

Asia (4.5 spots) - Iran, Japan, Saudi Arabia and South Korea are all in while Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Bahrain are still alive for a playoff with a North American team. North Korea is eliminated, to which the world can only say "thank you" given the political climate there as well as the rioting that took place during a loss to Iran that forced the recent match with Japan to be played in an empty stadium in Thailand.

Africa (5 spots) - group leaders include the usual suspects of Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa as well as moderate surprise Ivory Coast who are currently in ahead of Cameroon and Egypt. other potential surprises lurking beghind the leaders are Togo (a personal favorite), Zambia, Tunisia and Angola. the series of games next weekend will help shake things out a bit.

Europe (13 spots + host) - virtually no surprises here whatsoever, with the exceptions of Ukraine who are on the verge of clinching a spot in their group over Turkey, Greece (the 2004 European champion) and Denmark and France, the 1998 World Cup champions who currently sit 4th in their group (behind Israel!). battles between Poland and England, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic, Spain and Serbia, Ireland and Switzerland and Croatia and Sweden are mildly compelling but the real action here won't take flight until some teams other than Andorra and Liechtenstein start getting near elimination.

Oceania (0.5 spots) - this region has been quiet for over a year awaiting this September's 2-game playoff between Australia and the Solomon Islands for the right to play a South American team for possible entry into the World Cup. Solomon Islands qualified for the playoff after tying the Aussies in the final game of the previous round, leaving them 1 point ahead of New Zealand who had a loss to Vanuatu to blame for their downfall. and yes these are real places, and yes i had to look them up to find out where they were. at any rate, this is Australia's last hurrah as the big fish in the little pond as they join the Asian Football Confederation next time around.

host: Germany
in: Saudi Arabia, Japan, Iran, South Korea
virtually in: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Ukraine, United States
open spots: 22

read these words

just when i thought today's game between the Royals and Devil Rays couldn't get any more lame than Kansas City having Tony Graffanino, Emil Brown and Matt Diaz hitting in the 3-4-5 slots, along comes an ad hyping the Devil Rays that ends with the tagline "Devil Rays baseball...Watch It Happen." literally not even an exclamation point on the end. my god, they could just as easily have said "paint drying....watch it happen" and achieved the same result in terms of raising excitement levels on Florida's Gulf Coast. just by sitting there in the stands or, more likely, on your couch, you're already watching it happen. what kind if call to action incites you to do something you're already doing? they couldn't even give us a generic "Take It In At the Trop" or a "These Kids Are Really Trying Hard" or a "Come Sit In Our Office Chairs!"? they might as well add "And don't forget to breathe!" on the end there.

now, if you'll pardon me, i've got to go watch some laundry happen.

order now and we'll throw in a stickfigure CD absolutely free

just saw Will Ferrell do the 7th inning stretch at Wrigley (in his full-on Harry Caray mode), which reminded me of the link that ended up in my inbox earlier this week courtesy of DC correspondent Matt: Oh Say Can You Sing! this one has something for everyone. Kelly Wunsch singing "Hurts So Good"; Sean Casey doing Toby Keith; the original hip-hop stylings of Coco Crisp and Jimmy "J-Dog" Rollins; a video tour of Ozzie Smith's memorabilia room! and take it from MLB.com "This is an awesome project - no cheesy or campy elements allowed!" this CD/DVD will set you back $18 plus shipping and a small kickback to Bud Selig, but really wouldn't you rather spend the money to hear Omar Vizquel cover the Goo Goo Dolls rather than shell out a similar sum for one of his rookie cards?

6-4-3 on ch. 442

some thoughts in my first season of having the MLB Extra Innings package since 2002:

worst visual quality: the Royals' RSTN network which appears to have borrowed its cameras from some gauzy 70s porn shoot. during one game last week, the centerfield camera even appeared to be situated directly above said porn shoot as it was constantly shaking, rendering the game even more unwatchable than usual.

channeling-Harry-Caray moment: Vin Scully spending half an inning wondering about the provenance of Dodgers reliever DJ Houlton's initials. Houlton's given name is Dennis Sean, so it is a bit odd and meantime Vin got to tell us about how everyone used to call Ken Landreaux "KT" even though his name was actually Kenneth Antoine. but then i see that Landreaux's middle name is really Francis, so now i'm totally confused. anyway, maybe Houlton was just a big Michael Fishman fan (who knew he was born in Cuba?).

team still getting the shaft: the Nationals, who have been woefully underrepresented on the XI package thus far thanks to the continued evil machinations of Bud Selig and his cabal where the franchise is concerned.

worst announcers: the White Sox, who subject viewers to the all too frequent exhortations of Ken Harrelson, et. al. who say things like "c'mon Buehrle, stay on top of this guy" and "you got him 0 and 2, don't let him off the hook now" as if they were just some guys in their own rec room, working on a second six pack.

lamest blackouts: despite the fact that many Mets games are not currently available to Time Warner Cable customers (if you don't know why, you're probably better off), they are still blacked out on the package. blackouts are lame in the NFL, and they're lame here. the point of paying extra for this package is to see games i couldn't otherwise see, and the Mets should be no exception.

Dunn in

Pedro Martinez just gave up a 3-run home run to Adam Dunn in his first inning of work as a Met. even knowing that Pedro has started slow sometimes in years past, i think that this is a really bad sign for him. i am predicting that this is the year that his decline begins in earnest (i.e. ERA above 4, <30 GS), and the contract that the Mets gave him is going to look terrible by this time next year. i think the Mets finish last in the NL East as the progress of Beltran, Reyes and Wright fail to match the declines of Pedro, Floyd, Piazza, Glavine, etc.

before some more predictions, a quick note about steroids: the fact that the first guy caught under the new testing is Alex Sanchez (4 lifetime HRs, a career SLG% of .364, last year's AL leader in bunts for base hits*) has to be one of the funniest things of all time and just goes to show how little hard evidence there is about what steroids can contribute to a player's game. if anything, maybe this will make people take a bit harder look at what non-sluggers might be using them and why and own up to the fact any linkage between steroids and increased HR rates is logically flawed at best.

at any rate, i spent a little time with Baseball Prospectus' Predictatron and was a bit surprised at some of the standings i came up with. here's some highlights:

~ the Bowa-less Phillies win it all
~ the A's get buried by the Angels in the AL West and miss the playoffs again
~ the Twins parlay Johan's left arm all the way to the World Series
~ NL Central: St. Louis first, Houston last, Milwaukee second
~ Nationals above .500
~ Giants under .500
~ Red Sox win division, Yanks get Wild Card
~ worst team in the AL: White Sox

the 2005 t.s.o.a. award winners:

AL Cy Young - Johan Santana
AL MVP - Vladimir Guerrero
AL ROY - Jeremy Reed (OF, SEA)

NL Cy Young - Jacob Peavy
NL MVP - Bobby Abreu
NL ROY - J.J. Hardy (SS, MIL)

* by rights, there should be clamoring for this entry in the record books to have an asterisk next to it. not that anyone actually gives enough of a shit.

World Cup Qualifying Report

now that's more like it. i missed the live broadcast so i had to watch the replay on Telemundo, but the USA totally demolished Guatemala in a game that could have been 8-0 instead of 2-0. i still would have liked to see the offense a bit crisper, especially with the passing, but the Guatemalans looked like a high school side out there against a relentess US attack. Brian Ching should have had about 5 goals (not including his errant bicycle kick - 1 of 2 attempted by the US. sweet!), but it was still nice to see some different players getting a chance. even better when they score like Steve Ralston did in the 2nd half at the culmination of one of the nicer build-ups of the night.
Eddie Johnson once again proved that if there's a player to be excited about on this team, he is the one with a goal and an asisst.

elsewhere, the Mexicans and Costa Ricans both faltered on the road, tying Panama and Trinidad respectively with Mexico even blowing a 2nd half lead, so the qualifying table looks quite a bit better than it did at the beginning of the week with the US comfortably ensconced in 2nd place after three games.

no games until June, so we'll check back in then. here's the remaining qualifying schedule:

June 4 v. Costa Rica
June 8 @ Panama
August 17 v. Trinidad & Tobago
September 3 v. Mexico
September 7 @ Guatemala
October 8 @ Costa Rica
October 12 v. Panama

World Cup Qualifying Report

after some warm-ups yesterday in the form of Bulgaria/Sweden and Romania/Netherlands it was time for today's main course: Mexico vs. USA from Mexico City. armed with some black bean dip and some beer from Vermont, i was joined by t.s.o.a. correspondent La Chima. since it was showng on ESPN2, we knew the announcers would be of questionable quality, but it wouldn't matter if the US could finally break through with the first ever win in the altitude of the Mexican capital.

the starting lineup was about as expected, though neither of us had ever heard of (Olney, MD native) Oguchi Onyewu who was filling in on defense for Eddie Pope. the ghost of Claudio Reyna also managed to be healthy enough to take a midfield position, much to the chagrin of La Chima who chided him for doing little yet somehow aways earning praise as a guy who does the things that don't show up in the box score (which in soccer is just about everything), but as i pointed out "that captain's arm band ain't gonna wear itself". this led to an extended digression on Tony Meola and the possibility that he might be accessorizing his outfit of sweatpants with his own armband while watching the game at home in New Jersey.

if you're wondering why i'm not talking about the game yet, well, it turned into a major disappointment. while the first 30 minutes were relatively even and well played, the US defense got sucked into a black hole over the next few minutes as Mexico had their way with the ball inside the box. how the US, with only 1 striker and very little offensive push to that point, could get caught with their pants down for 2 goals in 3 minutes is just shameful. unmarked Mexicans were as prevalent as anti-US sentiment in the stands.

despite the two goal deficit, the US never seemed to develop any sense of urgency on offense. what limited counterattack the US could mount was not helped by poor passing and ball-handling. attacks down the flanks (and the dangerous crossing balls that come with them) were nonexistant, and the fact that Mexico was called for 9 offsides to 0 for the US tells you all you need to know about who was pushing the ball forward. the Americans did manage to put it all together for about 10 minutes in the second half, which resulted in a goal by Eddie Lewis that seemed to put Mexico on the ropes for a bit. that momentum shift soon passed however, and even some offense-for-defense substitutions late in the game could not create any good chances to equalize. meanwhile, the Mexicans were still putting pressure on the US goal, and Kasey Keller had to make at least two really beautiful saves to keep the deficit at just one goal.

we were of the opinion that the US played like complete crap, and were astounded that the announcers had nothing negative to say during or after the match about the performance. La Chima claimed that this was endemic of all soccer coverage in this country, where it seems as though the pundits are afraid to be critical of the team and Coach Bruce Arena for fear that the few fans out there might abandon the sport altogether. i think Arena deserves a bit of a pass, as he has managed to bring the team to international prominence, but there's not enough blame to go around after a game like that. the loss puts the US in a tie for 3rd place with Costa Rica in the CONCACAF qualifying region in which 3 teams will advance (and a fourth will have a chance as well) heading into Wednesday night's game against Guatemala, which becomes much more critical now. anything less than a win and the mild panic created by today's fiasco may turn into a full-blown psychotic episode.

utes to ambush 'cats?

it's a rivalry almost as lopsided as Red Sox - Yankees although it may be known to only a handful of dedicated rooters. but it does represent the 3rd most common matchup in NCAA tournament history and it happens again tonight. it's the Utah Runnin' Utes versus the Kentucky Wildcats, and though Utah can always lord it over Kentucky that they (Utah) won an NCAA basketball championship 4 years before Kentucky ever did, in head-to-head action Kentucky has ruled the roost in this battle of schols representing states with negative stereotypes (who do you pull for, the polygamists or the hillbillys?).

where has this rivalry come from? is it just random chance? has the selection committee made it a point to put the teams in position to clash? and if so, why? consider the history since 1993 (much thanks to whoever runs the Bracketville site from where much of this info came):

1993 - Kentucky polishes the floor with the boys from Salt Lake in a second round matchup 83-62.
1994 - nothin' doin'.
1995 - the teams are placed on opposite sides of the bracket; Kentucky in its customary #1 seed, and Utah at a more beatable #4. they get nowhere close to playing each other. bonus Utah note: Ogden-based #14 seed Weber St. shocks Michigan St. in the first round but loses out on a potential battle with Kentucky when they fall to Georgetown at the buzzer.
1996 - a Sweet 16 matchup is anything but as Kentucky pounds Utah as flat as the old Bonneville lake bed 101-70.
1997 - the teams are the #1 and #2 seeds in the West regional and the hicks topped the Mormons by the eerily prescient score of 78-69 in the regional final.
1998 - the ultimate showdown. Kentucky survived scares from Duke and Stanford to make the final, while the Utes cruised past Arizona and powered past UNC. Utah led by 10 points at halftime, but was powerless to stop the 'Cats onslaught in the 2nd half, eventually losing 78-69. future NBAers in this game included Nazr Mohammed, Jamaal Magloire, Andre Miller and Michael Doleac.
1999 - the 'Cats and Utes get the #2 and #3 seeds in the midwest, but their impending collision is derailed by the Szcerbiak led Cinderellas of Miami (Ohio), wo knock off Utah 66-58 in the 2nd round.
2000 - the two teams snag the #5 (Kentucky) and #8 (Utah) seeds in the Midwest bracket, but the anticipated matchup never materialzes when they lose their 2nd round games to Syracuse and Michigan St. repsectively.
2001 - Utah fails to qualify, though Utah State does pull a 1st round upset over Ohio State.
2002 - the teams are actually seeded on opposite sides of the bracket. Utah loses to eventual finalist Indiana in the 1st round, while Kentucky loses to eventual champion Maryland in the Sweet 16.
2003 - In the 2nd round, Kentucky crushes the 9th seeded Utes 74-54.

that makes for 5 games over a 11-12 year period - all won by the Wildcats - with a few more games that could have happened had the teams won another game or two. tonight they tip off at 9:40pm for the right to play the winner of the Duke-Michigan State game. can the Utes finally break through? they've looked good thus far and this is a pretty non-descript Kentucky team, so i'm going to take the 4.5 points.

of course, you could just read Buster Olney

Flak Magazine runs down all the numerous sports satire sites out there, and some of them are actually funny. the Athletic Reporter contributed this humorous piece, of which i have excerpted the first paragraph:

NEW YORK - Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig attempted to prove this week that he is serious about removing the stain that steroids have left on the game, announcing that the 1998 National League MVP Award will be retroactively given to former Cubs second baseman Mickey Morandini. "We've determined it to be highly likely," Selig announced, "that all 23 players who finished ahead of Morandini in the MVP voting in were using steroids."

there's also a piece that references Wonderfalls (possibly funny to some). meantime, check out the Flak print version, now priced to move at $5.

all the way home

what better way to celebrate 30 years (and relax after a full weekend of celebratin') than by taking the afternoon off with a cigar and some Monday Night Football, live from Norwich. besides, better to get home before the full-blown snow-induced panic sets in.

rocks in their heads, needles in their arms

i don't think i've ever actually posted about the NHL lockout which has now stretched past the 4-month mark and threatens to wipe out the entire season. let's set aside the fact that the owners (like their compatriots in baseball) severly overstated the financial peril that they claim makes owning a hockey team unprofitable; let's set aside the the fact that they have no one to blame but themselves for signing players to the large contracts that threaten to bankrupt them; let's set aside their compete unwillingness to bargain in good faith by making any concessions from their original hard-line positions (while the players have certainly shown a willingness to negotiate, unless you consider offering to take a 24% pay cut to be a bad faith ploy); and let's set aside that the best way to get cost certainty for your business is to control your own costs and not wait for someone else to bail you out. the thing that i'm sick of hearing constantly is that most of the owners are better off with their teams not playing because they lose less money this way. that's 100% wrong and here's why: no owner has ever sold a team for less than s/he bought it for and in most cases the value of teams has escalated at a rate that far ourstrips inflation, or interest rates or the stock market or anything else you want to compare it to (the average value of a team was 2.7 times higher in 1999 than it was in 1991 and my brief perusal of the numbers indicates another 25% jump between 1999 and 2002). by not playing, the owners are damaging the one thing they can ill afford to hurt and that is the value of their investment. a franchise valued at $150 Million has no worth when there are no tickets sold and no games played. players can go overseas and still make money, but an owner can't sell when there's nothing to sell. that the owners would know this and yet continue down the path of destruction only makes them look more foolish.

on to steroids (you didn't think i would let this go did you?). Jose Canseco, Jason Giambi, blah, blah, blah. if self-righteousness was water, the entire sporting-journalisitic complex would have drowned by now, and most of the fans too. there couldn't be a bigger rush of people waiting to place blame and trying to outdo each other with "i knew McGwire was on steroids years ago..." stories. i won't re-hash things i've said numerous times before but i will urge everyone to read this free article from the gents at Baseball Prospectus which covers the Astros, Cardinals and Rangers. the piece about Tony LaRussa's managing prowess was interesting, but at the very bottom a great point was made. if you want to believe Canseco's allegations (or believe that steroids enhance performance in measurable ways) take a look at the performances of Ivan Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez and Rafael Palmeiro before and after Canseco joined the Rangers and supposedly introduced them to the juice (reproduced in the article). where is the big jump in performance that would be the smoking gun here? the careers of all of them look pretty normal for a high quality player: good numbers that get better with age, including power numbers that peak around age 26-29 and then plateau for a while before tapering off slowly into the mid-to-late 30s. just like Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth. i'll quote the very end of the article:

First, players are innocent until proven guilty. Secondly, for good or ill, steroids weren't against the rules of Major League Baseball during Canseco's career. And perhaps most importantly, there isn't any study out there that proves that steroids help players produce more offensively. That doesn't mean that steroids don't help; that means that we don't know that they do. We try to trade in data around here and not conjecture, and we're hoping that people who read Canseco's book will do the same.

also, to whichever knuckleheads were using Brady Anderson as an example of how we "know" some baseball players are juicing, would you please explain his statistics on either side of his fluke 1996 season in which he hit 50 homers. this is turning into a witch hunt and it's really pathetic. no one is saying that steroids are good, but the level of discourse here is of the "he's muscular so he must be juiced and i don't wanna hear no arguments" variety. so much so that an obvious attention-hound like Canseco gets credibility simply because people are willing to jump at anything.

if you look at a known 'roid-head like Ken Caminiti you can see the power surge that he experienced later in his career (beginning around age 31) and then use that to hypothesize about other players like Bonds, Steve Finley, McGwire, etc. but using 1 data point is what's known as a small sample size and it would be foolish to draw any conclusions without having many more players to draw from and to know when certain players started (and stopped) taking steroids so you could determine what effect it had on performance. until then, i will remain skeptical.

World Cup Qualifying report

World Cup 2006 is a little more than a year away, but the qualifying rounds are well underway and i hope to provide some commentary on them from time to time. the US has entered the final round of qualifying for the CONCACAF region (if anyone can tell me why Guyana and Suriname are in this reagion as opposed to South America, i'd be interested to know) which will send 3 teams to Germany next year and possibly a 4th depending on the results of a play-off against the 5th place Asian team.

having already planned a personal day off of work, i was able to watch yesterday's opening game against Trinidad & Tobago in Port au Spain. the game time conditions were hot and humid. the field did not seem to be in particularly good shape, which caused a few errant bumps and bounces throughout the game. and the US team certainly looked like they had not had much time together to prepare, between the near strike of the players and the late releases that some got from their club teams. nothing about the game was very crisp and that included the camera work and the picture. this was perhaps a function of the bar i was watching it in, or maybe it was a function of shoddy equipment and production on the part of ESPN2. i'm sure they didn't have a huge budget for the game.

the US kept up good pressure throughout the first half which finally resulted in a goal from Eddie Johnson, left basically unmarked in the box. this was in stark contrast to the early part of the game where Trinidad seemed to have everyone packed in on defense to avoid getting behind early. but sloppiness crept into the US defense with an alarming consistency and T&T had quite a few chances to make something happen some of which died due to poor execution while numerous others were called back offsides. still, the run of play favored the US and they deserved the lead.

(quick celebrity note: Drew Carey apparently flew to Trinidad just for the occasion of the game and not for Carnival. the announcers also outed him as a Los Angeles Galaxy season ticket holder, which i'm sure goes over big at those parties at the Playboy Mansion.)

the second half continued in much the same fashion as the first and some fast-paced end-to-end action resulted in nice saves from each keeper before ending with a bullet from Eddie Lewis (leaving only Eddie Pope out of the Eddie-goalfest) that gave the US a 2-0 advantage. the rest of the game was largely academic, even after Trinidad pulled back to within a goal in the 89th minute on a cross that Kasey Keller deflected into the net, and so it was 3 important points to the visitors. and those are important points to have heading into their next match with their largest regional rival in Mexico City - where they have never won a World Cup qualifier - on Sunday, March 27 (live on Telemundo at 1pm ET, check local listings). that game will be followed three days later by the first home match against Guatemala in Birmingham, AL at 8pm ET, live again on ESPN2.

elsewhere around the region, Mexico were also victorious yesterday, winning 2-1 at Costa Rica while Panama and Guatemala faced off to a scoreless tie in their opening match. meanwhile in Asia, South Korea defeated Kuwait, Japan defeated North Korea, and Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan tied, as did Bahrain and Iran. the Euorpean region saw a few contests as well, with the only really notable result being Greece's 2-1 defeat of Denmark that gets the Euro 2004 champions back into position to advance to the field of 32.

Johan can phone home for just $.07/min (+ applicable taxes)

west coast correspondent Dave Nelson forwarded along this link to a series of baseball cartoons in Korean. some of them focus on teams and player stats, while others are a bit more narrative based (i assume). perhaps youthlarge can shed some light on what exactly is being said in any of them, but regardless of comprehension they're pretty fun to look at, like the Yankees strip where the team appears to be watching porn in the box labeled "Alex Rodriguez" and the "Jason Giambi" box features a despondent Giambi with a syringe in his shoulder while a teammate (Kevin Brown?) chastises him or perhaps accuses him of stealing his stash. here's another confusing example of Johan Santana as ET:

and featuring Joe Mauer as "Elliot"

for more laffs, check out the most recent cartoon which features the Expos and in which a naked Tony Batista (genitals blurred) does some stretches in the clubhouse, much to the consternation of a teammate. perhaps there's a joke in there about Batista being a better player if he would take more pitches instead of swinging at so many bad balls. the next two frames feature: Batista with his arm around Brad Wilkerson possibly with eyebrows arched; and a geriatric Frank Robinson walking with a cane while a young charge (the number indicates it is Tomo Ohka) appears to razz a visibly shaken Sun-Woo Kim.

more questionable sporting fashion

watching Fox Sports World the other night, i came across two new entrants in the ugliest uniform contest being sported by Toulouse (lavender) and Caen (striped) of France's Ligue 1. isn't France a country full of designers? can't somebody do something about these? and while the advertising certainly isn't helping the cause, i don't know that it's necessarily making it worse.

the lavender appears to be the result of trying to mix the colors on the French flag into one. perhaps they found the color to be soothing to the point where opponents put up less effort (or simply nauseating). the stripes, meanwhile, can be used to create disorienting optical illusions sure to have the opposing team suffering from vertigo before half time.

no word on whether he will stand for "La Borinqueña"

one of the sidebars to the protracted Carlos Delgado negotiations was whether he would continue his slient protest of refusing to stand during or otherwise acknowledge the playing of "God Bless America" that many stadiums have taken to ad nauseum during the 7th-inning stretch. it's amazing how much energy has been expended discussing this which just goes to show the effect that one small gesture can have. gladly, his new address in South Florida (and the $$$ thrown at him) will not change his tune, so to speak:

Delgado answered questions in English and Spanish on subjects ranging from championship rings and the courtship for his services to the Marlins' playoff chances now that he's their cleanup hitter.

``The Marlins don't support it, and we don't not support it,'' Samson said. ``He's an adult. The club's position is that what he does is up to him.''

i think the Marlins stance is the proper one. whether you agree with Delgado or not, he has a right to his opinion and a right to act in accordance with those opinions. those on talk radio and elsewhere who claimed that they didn't want Delgado playing for the Mets (or whoever) as a result of his views are the people who sicken me and are the reason we're all now subjected to the neo-fascism of the Patriot Act, et. al. to me, the overplaying of "God Bless America" is symptomatic of a larger ill that is conformity of opinion and action.

"The Star Spangled Banner" is already played before every game, giving everyone a chance to display their love of country and their inability to hit the high notes. remember a number of years ago when there was actually some momentum building behind the movement to stop playing the Anthem before games? i'd like to see anyone try to make that case now. meanwhile what could be more American than singing "Take Me Out To the Ballgame" during the 7th-inning stretch? and the Mets' playing of "Lazy Mary" (in Italian) during that time is always a highlight for me (the Yankees' abhorrent "Cotton Eye Joe" is another matter and should immediately be jettisoned for something less offensive like Toby Keith). let's get back to having each team create its own 7th-inning stretch traditions and stop having each game become a paean to the "War on Terror". i go to games to get away from all of that, not to endure constant reminders of failed foreign policy and a government where inveterate liars become Secretary of State.

1-AA schwag report card

you may remember that loyal reader Dave and i had a little bet going in advance of the 1-AA football championship game between JMU and Montana. the Dukes inevitable triumph made me the winner and it was with much anticipation (and a bit of badgering) that i waited for my winnings to arrive from the Treasure State. and since Dave and his family are such a stand-up bunch (must be something in the crisp, Rocky Mountain water) they sent me even more than i bargained for. a quick review:

Montana Grizzlies Adjustable Hat:
this was an extra throw-in courtesy of Dave's parents who i guess figured they could have the last word on the matter this way - sort of a very polite "screw you". but it's a great hat. i'ts not some cheapo piece of felt, there's just a paw print on the front, and velcro in the back. and it's not like they're the Yankees or something. definitely wearable. grade: B+

Buffalo Jerky:
made, packed and vacuum-sealed at a local Billings-area butcher shop, this stuff is the real deal. chewy but flavorful, it drove the dog crazy and the wife couldn't stop eating it. no ingredient list, but there was no detectable MSG and no illness resulting from overconsumption. grade: A

Buffalo Chips:
made from the same animal (and not what the name would imply), these were round pieces of dried meat about the size of a roll of Scotch tape. a little drier than the jerky and not as tasty but still disappeared in a hurry. grade: B-

Elk Jerky (teriyaki):
i was hoping this would be the coup de grace, but instead it was the most disappointing part of the whole deal. this was made by a Montana-based company but was prepackaged and replete with logo, ingredients, etc. i'm not sure what part of the elk this is made of, but it's brown with an eerie translucent quality. unlike the buffalo jerky, it stretched as we tried to tear some pieces off and didn't easily relent to our attempts to chew it. sort of the consistency of a rubber cement spill left out overnight. what flavor there was seemed to come from the additives as it didn't really taste like meat. there were two packages of this so perhaps the other one will be better, but it may just become dog treats. grade: D-

download your National Champions wallpaper here

Pioneerzz of the game

with the Carlos Beltran sweepstakes heating up and just 43 days until pitchers and catcher report to spring training, you'll forgive me if i have a bit of baseball on the brain. hey, it's either that or a rant about how Utah, Lousiville or Boise State could have offered a better fight than Oklahoma did last night and how ridiculous it is that none of those teams even had a chance to prove how good they are (outside of the great Liberty Bowl game that Louisville and Boise State played against each other).

the t.s.o.a. ballot for the Hall of Fame: Boggs, Sandberg, Gossage, Blyleven, Tommy John, Alan Trammell (Jim Rice and Dale Murphy are on the cusp).

everyone talks about how WWII took away some of the best years of Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, etc. but what about Johhny Pesky? give him 3 more prime, 200-hit seasons at SS and he's certainly the equal of, say, Luke Appling or Joe Sewell and deserving of a place in the Hall of Fame. sure he got a pole named after him, but that's hardly ample compensation for a plaque in Cooperstown.

a couple fun baseball links: the Girls of Summer, highlighting women pioneers of the game with in-depth pieces on one woman per position throughout the last 100 years. check out Jackie Mitchell who once struck our Ruth and Gehrig back-to-back and Toni Stone who broke the gender barrier in the Negro Leagues.

also check out the Indy Leagues Graveyard, cataloguing the demise of entire leagues and teams mosly from the 1990s to the present day. there's not a ton of info about most of the teams, but there are plenty of bad nicknames and logos to explore (and some good ones). St. George Pioneerzz anyone?

and finally a story to crush the wife's crush: Johnny Damon got married before the New Year. and for some reason AC/DC lead singer Brian Johnson was in attendance.

a softball to end the year

amid the recent tragedies, all the "best of 2004" lists, and the sites stepping over each other to publish their "celebrities who died this year" lists, the ever-eagle-eyed Paul Lukas and Uni Watch give us the rundown on all the major (i.e. horrific) trends and developments among sports uniforms.

could anything possibly be worse than this?

Dukes to Eat Griz Like So Much Spawning Salmon

marc beat me to the punch on tonight's 1-AA championship contest featuring t.s.o.a. alma mater (can i still call it that even though i remain 4 credits short of graduating?) James Madison University and some college from one of those underpopulated Handsome Western States.

OK, so Montana is pretty fearsome what with their near-annual trips to the finals and a huge throng of supporters who have traveled to Chattanooga to see them. but what's really important here is the wager between me and loyal Griz supporter and native Montanan David L. in the tradition of mayors from opposing World Series cities, we discussed betting products native to the regions of the respective schools. after some debate, i'm prepared to put a bottle of Shenandoah Valley wine on the table, hopefully from Landwirt Vineyards in Harrisonburg (backup is North Mountain Vineyard and Winery). Dave made a preliminary offer of some authentic Montana Elk Jerky and i think putting up 1lb. of that should be sufficient. Let's go Dukes!

on politics and baseball

a quick follow-up to Wednesday's debate over baseball in DC courtesy of the ever-insightful King Kaufman of Salon.com:

The tide seems to finally be turning against baseball in the "give us a stadium or you won't have a team in your town" scam. Even the Cardinals couldn't get the city that loves them dearly to build them a home outright. But you can't blame rich mendicants for wanting to keep their hands out. When it pays, begging's easy work.

Last month Washington voters booted out three council members who were in favor of a taxpayer-financed stadium deal and voted in three candidates who opposed it, including former Mayor Marion Barry. As usual the people, who have to actually pay the freight on ballpark boondoggles, were squarely against the deal struck by the politicians, who get credit for securing the sparkling new toys and are long gone by the time the bills come due.

maybe Angelos put them up to it

good for the DC City Council. they passed the measure yesterday that would provide the financing for a new baseball stadium for the Nationals (nee Expos). but instead of the publicly financed hijacking that Major League Baseball tried to ram through, they required that at least half of the stadium be privately financed. the corporate welfare that Bud Selig and his cronies receive from virtually every metropolis they do business in is a ridiculous use of taxpayer money for a business whose revenues only continue to grow.

this a great move in my opinion because they have baseball backed into a corner. after a courtship with more twists and turns than an Escher drawing, MLB finally made the smart move and decided to move the Expos to DC. so how will it look now if they decide to rescind that decision after the 2005 season? the outcry will be heard across the country (except for a mute pocket around Baltimore) and Bud et. al. will be pilloried for their capriciousness. they also will be left with no other good options, which is why they chose DC in the first place. Las Vegas? please - they don't have a large enough stadium ready to go for the interim and their metropolitan area population of 1.5 Million pales in comparison to the 4+ Million in the DC area (over 7.5 Million when you include Baltimore too). yes you could say that Vegas gets lot of tourists who could beef up those numbers, but so does DC. DC also has a larger base of big companies and government bigwigs who can buy up luxury suites and pump $$$ into the teams coffers and two of the richest counties in America right outside its borders. and that doesn't even get into the issue of placing a team in a city where sports gambling is legal.

time to suck it up, MLB. you may have just been played.

hurry, only 500 produced!

this thing is going to be popping up under far too many trees around New England this Christmas (link courtesy the wife):

coming soon to an awful sports bar near you...

baseball annies must have an offseason too

Rockies pitcher Denny Neagle gets nabbed soliciting a prostitute and now the team will try to void his contract, or at least buy the contract out for a lesser amount. two things: 1) they have a bit of a case here since there's actual charges involved, whereas the Yankees do not since the evidence against Giambi comes from secret testimony and 2) keep in mind as you read the last sentence that this man has made $20 Million over the past 2 years to basically not pitch.

If talks of a settlement fall apart, the Rockies would release Neagle, then could consider trying to void Neagle's contract on the basis of paragraph 7 (b) (1) of the uniform player's contract. It allows contract termination if a player should "fail, refuse or neglect to conform his personal conduct to the standards of good citizenship and good sportsmanship."

The chances of being able to enforce that clause would be iffy, but it does provide a stimulus to work out a resolution of the contract. That's because an effort to enforce the clause could lead to an investigation into off-field activities that extend beyond the early-Friday episode in which Neagle is accused of paying a prostitute $40 for oral sex.

***UPDATE*** more low-wage shenanigans as Tiger Craig Monroe got arrested yesterday for allegedly stealing a $29.99 belt from a department store. in his defense, he made only $335,000 last year.

keep your laws off Jason Giambi's body

steroids - where to start? first of all none of it is surprising. not that they used them, not that Bonds claimed to have done so "unknowingly" (and for a very short period of time), not that the grand jury testimony was leaked, not the outcry from sports radio blatherers and their feckless listeners, not the Yankees attempts to void Giambi's contract (which they almost assuredly can not do), not that everyone has already forgotten about Gary Sheffield and his lack of punishment and not that i've only heard Roger Clemens' name once so far only to have it quickly brushed aside.

so to fan the flames of the indignant, some assertions:

1. steroids don't help you hit. they can help you lift more weight but they don't help you make contact and there's not a clear connection that they help you hit home runs (Steve Finley's odd career stat trajectory aside). if we believe Giambi when he testifies that he started taking steroids in 2001, then look at his career numbers - they actually get worse once he started taking them as his OPS+ has plummeted from 202 to 174 to 151 to 91. certainly some players are going to have better numbers that coincide with their use of steroids and human growth hormone and horse tranquilizers. but almost as certainly there are an equal number of players whose performance declines while they are using.

2. the Players Association has no obligation whatsoever to negotiate a tougher drug testing process than what they and the owners agreed to in 2002. just like an owner is not obligated to renegotiate a contract with a player who is a perennial all-star yet is under contract for only $1.5M.

3. if Barry Bonds only used steroids unknowingly in 2003 (which is what his supposedly truthful testimony asserts - there's no proof of anything else), then i challenge anyone to tell me how that should affect the way we look at his career numbers.

4. it's total hypocrisy for fans to wring their collective hands over this when there has been no outcry for all the amphetamines ("greenies" etc.) that baseball players take on a regular - in some cases everyday - basis. these drugs are most definitely performance enhancers on some level, i.e. curing hangovers and jetlag, boosting energy and confidence etc. this has been common knowledge at least since "Ball Four" came out, yet there's no testing for them and no one is calling talk radio shows to bemoan the games won or records set under their influence and very few consider the vast numbers of players who take them to be cheaters.

here's a very interesting article about the use of supplements (legal and illegal) in baseball, which includes this hilarious quote from Mo Vaughn:

Vaughn and other Major League Baseball players say ephedra and other stimulants -- often referred to as "greenies" -- are essentially a part of baseball tradition, routinely and sometimes blindly consumed to withstand the grind of baseball's marathon season.
Players "use them for energy," Vaughn said this past week in Port St. Lucie, Fla. "We don't think anything about weight loss."

i wanna destroy you

many of you are aware of the ridiculous and shameful events that transpired over the weekend in the sports world, mainly the fight that took place between Ron Artest, his teammates and the greater Detroit Metro area. now he was provoked, but to say that justifies his actions (and those of his teammates) would be the same as saying you are justified in stabbing me after i flicked your ear. it's easy to get caught up and wonder how something like this could have happened and what is wrong with today's players. but i remember watching as a 4 year-old as the Boston Bruins climbed into the stands at Madison Square Garden after fans threw things at them, threatened them, etc. the image of Mike Milbury beating a man with his own shoe will forever be etched in my brain. and Listmaker set me straight over the weekend on the fact that it's not just recently that fans have caused problems at events like these. but it does seem like it's gotten worse. or at the very least that it hasn't gotten better, which is truly terrible. to some degree i think it's indicative of Abu Ghraib syndrome - the dehumanizing of adversaries to the point that you feel justified acting in malicious and unacceptable ways.

and does race play a factor? you'd think in a league like the NBA that it wouldn't, but then you have to consider the recent outrage over the Terrell Owens/Desperate Housewives promo that has heavy racial overtones as well as the beyond words abomination that was the Spanish fans' actions during a recent "friendly" football match with England and the disparate treatment of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens despite similar dispositions, abilities, ages and strange aging patterns and you start to realize that for as much as racism has receded into the background it still has a thirst for the spotlight. it makes it very hard to want to be a fan when you have to be lumped in with the pod people who, to put it in elementary school terms, "ruin it for everyone else". it's hard enough to be associated with the lowlifes sporting the "Jeter Swallows" shirts, so in the spirit of tilting at windmills, this is my manifesto for being a fan:

* booing, yelling and heckling are integral parts of the fun of a game, but be creative and mix it up - nothing is worse than hearing "you suck" shouted for 2 hours.

* if your taunting of opponents stems merely from your disppointment and frustration with your own life, take your pathetic ass outside.

* if you can't keep it clean when there are kids in earshot, you don't deserve your ticket.

* the presence of an opposing fan in your general vicinity is not a challenge to your manhood.

* if your feelings about a specific player are in any way colored by race or sexual orientation (presumed or otherwise), then *you* are the asshole. if you put those feelings into words, i can't stop you but i can root for you to get hit by a bus, i mean pray for your evil soul.

* if a loss by your team is enough to make you want to fight somebody -anybody - then you sound like a good candidate for shock therapy and/or a lobotomy (provided you haven't already had one).

* that $6 beer is going to do you a lot more good if you drink it rather than hurl it at a player. ditto that $3 soda and $4 box of popcorn. why not just start flinging poo, you missing link waste of stem cells?

* bored? not really there for the game? most stadiums and arenas come equipped with a wide variety of expensive time wasters. do not, under any circumstances, try to start "the Wave" (and god bless the St. Paul Saints for outlawing it).

feel free to submit anything else you'd like to see here - it's a work in progress.

putting the kibosh on Damon's posse

it looks as though the Johnny Damon stencils that had appeared on some lampposts in the Carroll Gardens area of Brooklyn are no more. the wife noticed them (a simple headshot of Johnny w/ helmet and long flowing locks rendered in red) popping up near her office a couple of weeks ago, and the Daily News reported on the phenomenon a couple days ago (link via CSTB). but Yankee fans and the DOT vowed to remove them and when i dropped her off at work today, she noticed the absence of his visage on the corner pole. the eradication was also carried out one block down where i had previously noted it.

after the ALCS someone tried to sell t-shirts with the above image on them at Cafe Press but had it removed the next day after it was determined that it probably violated licensing agreements. when will the persecution of Mr. Damon end? is this because he has a speech impediment? because he looks like Jesus/a caveman/Charles Manson? maybe someone should pay to have his face put on some giant billboard in NYC for a month or so.

beltre and nomar they aren't

i was looking forward to DC getting a baseball team so i would have a National League team to root for. but if they're going to pull stupid crap like signing the overrated Vinny Castilla and Cristian Guzman to multi-year contracts, i may have to reconsider that stance. not that they're helped by the fact that they still don't have real ownership putting them at a disadvantage during the free agent season. could MLB make this situation any worse somehow?

drinking the babe under the table

i never wrote about how i felt about the Red Sox winning the World Series, but people have been asking and i think i have the answer at this point. no one wants "desperate" and "long-suffering" to be adjectives used to describe them - let alone the basis for an entire indentity. but the extreme emotional swings and exquisite tension that came from watching the Red Sox did have an addictive quality. they enabled you to feel a part of something larger than yourself, both in the way they bonded you to your fellow fans and the way they made you wonder why humans were given the capacity for such a broad range of feelings. and while there was bit of negative reinforcement, it only served over the years to heighten the emotions to the point where it's hard to imagine them being any greater than they were during the latter stages of the ALCS. they had simply reached critical mass. so while it was important for the Red Sox to win the World Series, there was just no way the psychic energy could be sustained. the sweep was almost the perfect "cool down" period after the strenuousness that came before - get the heart rate back to normal, take a shower (in champagne) and get on with life.

so i'm happy, but also a bit sad. the Red Sox won and it's about time and we won't have to hear about any of the trappings of the curse any more. but now, no sporting event will ever again be able to elicit such a level of emotion from me. until my son hits the bottom of the 9th inning grand slam that wins the 2032 World Series.

wagering your future

lost in all the pre-election build up was a small article in Monday's New York Times about the website longbets.org, a "public arena for enjoyably competitive predictions" designed to "improve long-term thinking". that may sound a little dry, but in practice it seems like it could be quite fun:

Ted Danson, the actor who portrayed Sam Malone, is making Red Sox fans proud for a different reason: as a result of Boston's World Series victory last week, Mr. Danson won the first bet ever decided at Long Bets (longbets.org), an online prediction site that focuses on scores that may not be settled for 45 years, if ever.

Mr. Danson's counter was also scientific. "Statistically, scoring goals is harder than hitting a home run and in the World Cup you have the whole WORLD against you," he wrote. In baseball, he argued, "the Red Sox only really have to beat the Yankees."

perusing the list of bets on record is endlessly fascinating with everything from "At least one human alive in the year 2000 will still be alive in 2150" to "By 2025 the scientific evidence of a hither-to-unknown large bi-pedal great ape will be sufficient to convince at least 50% of primatologists that a yeti/bigfoot-like creature exists." and you can peruse a list of predictions awaiting a challenge (the minimum bet is $200 on each side with any proceeds going to a charity of the winner's choice) or post your own prediction for a $50 fee. all predictions "must be societally or scientifically important' so they probably wouldn't have accepted my "Ben Roethlisberger will become a better QB than Philip Rivers of Eli Manning" prediction.

bring it on, Leitch

foolish things that have come out of my mouth #82,463:

watching football on Sunday the day after the 19-8 Game 3, i loudly declared "anyone who picked the Red Sox to win this series is a f***ing idiot!"

now comes the real test - beating a team that took Game 7 from the Sox in '46 and '67. i'm gonna err on the side of caution and say that this one is probably going 7 as well - no matter how the first 3 games go.

one last thing from the LCS: i don't want to impugn all Yankee fans, because i know and read many good ones, but if I had to stereotype "typical" Yankee fan behavior, it might be remarkably similar to Amy Blair's confession in this week's Week In Craig.

inconceivable

there's nothing i can say that hasn't been expressed already but i'm still getting chills up my spine every 15 minutes or so, so i'm just going to savor this for a few days. all the coverage you could possibly want can be found on the Boston Globe's Sports page.

the hit that sealed it

[UPDATE] since many of you probably won't dig this deep, here's some fun passages from Eric Wilbur's Blog on the Globe site:

The Red Sox capped off the greatest comeback in postseason baseball history, finishing off the Yankees to earn a trip to the World Series.

About half an hour into this celebration, the Yankees turned off the lights at Yankee Stadium. “Typical,” remarked one Sox official.

and then, confirming what Mitch reported in Handwashings the other day (a great read for lots of behind the scenes baseball):

In the second inning last night, there was a rush for the coffee machine by many of the Boston media, already preparing for a late night with the Sox up 6-0. Except, no coffee. No soft drinks either. “Unbelievable,” one media member remarked. “Oh well, we’ll be eating lobster rolls next week anyhow.”

When it comes to pregame grub provided to the media, the Red Sox set out a buffet that includes, among other items, clam chowder, lobster rolls, and jumbo shrimp cocktail. The Yankees, on the other hand, dish out boxed sandwiches, and I think my roast beef from two nights ago was what woke me yesterday morning, still mooing.

circular connections

there has been quite a bit of attention paid recently to the New England Patriots and their 20-game winning streak (longest of all-time; their 17 straight regular season wins is also a record), and whether this makes them the greatest team ever, especially given the age of parity in which they play. but across the pond, another team is about to mark an undefeated milestone as Arsenal look to make it 50 straight unbeaten games (by far the longest unbeaten streak in British football history) against Manchester United at Old Trafford this weekend. the managers are already talking smack at each other ahead of that match so it should be a pretty fun one, even if you don't like either team.

this all came together in my mind last night while watching "Fever Pitch" between innings of the baseball game. based on Nick Hornby's book, Colin Firth plays a long-suffering Arsenal fan who finds love during the same season that Arsenal win a stirring victory of the league title with a last second goal against Liverpool (this happened in 1989). he's as outwardly pissy and pessimistic about his team as i am about the Sox, but in the end he's out there dancing with everyone else and he learns that his whole life doesn't have to revolve around his team. i'd like to think that that's a lesson i don't need to learn, but it was a heartening thing to see amidst the chaos of the LCS. it may have even given me a little hope (since 1989, Arsenal have become an almost Yankees-like juggernaut in the Premiership, finishing 1st or 2nd every year since 1998). and then i see today that they're adapting the movie for American audiences, with the main character now being a Red Sox fan (and being played by Jimmy Fallon...ick). that can't be a good sign. but there's no real life triumph for them to use in this movie, at least not yet. maybe they'll have a reason to do some re-writes in a few weeks time.

celebrating with "the idiots"

a slightly belated birthday to the two Sox fans who got the terrific gift from David Ortiz last night (and technically had the Sox win twice on their birthday). Dad, sorry that you slept through the end of it - i can't promise that tonight is going to turn out as well, but perhaps some rain will rest our pitching enough for just a little more mojo. just getting this thing to 7 games after what happened on Saturday would be a serious moral victory. some general notes:

man the "Moneyball" and Francona haters must have been pissing themsleves last night when the Sox could neither effectively steal a base nor put down a bunt.

memo to Mark Bellhorn: stop swinging at the pitches in on your hands.

i don't know why the Sox didn't have Mirabelli in to catch for Wakefield last night - that was one of those things that should have cost them the game. the lucky things that went their way (like Clark's double in the 9th that went over the wall) were pretty shocking to a hard-core negative cynic like myself.

can Varitek really have much left in the tank after catching 3 consecutive marathon games? Mirabelli's not a bad hitter and decent defensively, it might be worth giving him a start.

there is no part of the Yankee lineup that fails to freak me out. it could be "coming up, Bubba Crosby, John Flaherty and Enrique Wilson" and i'd still be biting my nails waiting for one of them to loft one into the second row.

there could be a lot of New England babies named Curt next year if Schilling manages to come out and dominate.

damn you, Red Sox. damn you for making me care again.

NFL Pudding Strike

the NFL's television policy is a joke. in local markets you can usually only get the games of the home team(s) on Sunday afternoons, and they often refuse to switch to more competitive games when the games they are showing become blowouts. on top of that, they've sold the exclusive rights for the NFL Sunday Ticket package (in which every game is available) to DirecTV, meaning that the vast majority of Americans can't sign up for it. why they do this i'm not sure. it seems to defy all logic because they're intentionally limiting their customer base. personally, i hate DirecTV due to a terrible interface and the lack on On Demand programming and would never order it. but if i lived in Canada and i had digital cable, i could get Direct Ticket for $25 a month. ditto in Mexico, though i can't find the price. so why do the citizens of the U.S. get the shaft?

unfair as that may be, i can always go to a bar or to a friend's house to watch the games each week. but in the US Virgin Islands, there is no place where every game can be seen and they're usually stuck with whatever the local affiliates are showing. so Clay Travis finally decided to do something about it, going on strike to protest and developing nflpuddingstrike.com . here's the pertinent passage of his letter to the commissioner

Recently Edward Browne of the islands pursued a hunger strike in an effort to get the Virgin Islands the right to vote. He took his stand on an empty stomach and I will take mine on pudding. Until the images of every NFL game shine forth on this island, I will eat nothing but pudding.

today is day 33 of this brave struggle, and Mr. Travis has eaten over 230 puddings in that time. make sure you check out the pudding section where you can read his reviews of various pudding flavors which contain great insights like "The primary difference I have discovered between Scooby Doo Chocolate Boo and Chocolate is that the former has more o's." godspeed, pudding man.

big thanks to t.s.o.a. special correspondant Matt for the tip. he's working on a short piece about Mr. Travis for Sunday's Washington Post.

Gardy pulls a Grady

here's the body of an e-mail i just sent to Aaron Gleeman in response to his defense of the managing in the 12th inning of last night's Twins/Yankees game:

"I have to disagree that the option of bringing in Romero or Crain was unpalatable. When no one was warming up in the top of the 12th, I thought to myself "Do they really think Nathan can pitch a 3rd inning after already throwing an inning yesterday?" Especially after Nathan threw 8 straight balls, you have to get him out of there. Lose with a fresh pitcher, not one struggling to find the strike zone. And don't forget that Nathan was now going through the order for a second time, so A-Rod, et. al. had already seen him once in the game. Most of the time you don't have that luxury with a reliever.

In all your zeal to point out how Rodriguez and Sheffield kill lefties (Sheff killed righties too), you neglected to point out that Romero was better against righties this year in terms of OPS against while Crain totally shut righties down. So what if he's a rookie? No one seemed to care when K-Rod was a rookie - he just went out and dominated. Crain doesn't have quite as electric stuff, but his stuff might have been good enough to get a K or a DP - Nathan's stuff obviously wasn't at that point and they may have cost themselves the series. When you've got the Yankees down, you can't let them have a breath or they'll bash your head with a shovel. I know the Twins rode Nathan all year and he delivered, but that was too much to ask of him and the Twins may very well pay the price of allowing the Yankees to squeeze out of a choke hold.

Of course, this is all just my opinion, which is colored perceptibly by my Red Sox fandom (full disclosure and all that), but I think Gardy [Ron Gardenhire] may have pulled a Grady."

oh well, at least the Sox managed to pull out another victory for a 2-0 series lead. Pedro managed to look pretty good, and i'm ready to feel confident about him again. the strike zone was tight all night for both sides, so he didn't get all the calls, but most of the hits against him were of the dinky, bloopy variety. the only really hard hit balls were Guerrero's 2-run single and Anderson's line drive double-play in the 6th. but Petey fought through a couple tough at-bats in the 7th and was bringing it in the mid-90s even after 110+ pitches. i fell asleep during the 9th inning, but fortunately nothing untoward happened as Foulke closed it out easily.

***UPDATE*** and not to keep harping on this, but another part of Gleeman's article just struck me:

Instead, the series is tied and there's a very good chance New York will take a 2-1 lead with Carlos Silva getting the call in Game 3 (yet another reason why leaving Nathan in wasn't a bad move, since it's unlikely he'd have gotten a meaningful appearance in Game 3 anyway).

what the hell is is that??? you're planning to lose Game 3? what sort of manager would think like that? i'll answer that - a very bad one. if you don't think the Twins can win Game 3 at home against Kevin Brown (who has been nothing special this year, is recovering from a broken hand and has a bad back), then i have to question your credentials as a Twins fan and a baseball writer. Silva may not pitch very well, but what if the Twins have a 9-8 lead going into the 9th? they'll certainly want to call on Nathan then, and what if he sputters? are those extra 4 batters enough to make a difference in his effectiveness 2 days later? for the Twins sake, i hope they aren't and for your sake i hope you can find a little optimism before Friday. (note: this part of the response not actually sent to Mr. Gleeman)

betrayal at the ALDS (not affiliated with the Mormon church)

another early morning phone call from my father reveals another startling baseball-related development: my expatriate aunt has become an Angels fan! the proof comes from boston.com's scenes of the game. among a gallery of fan shots, there she is:

now, she's lived in SoCal for a long time so i can understand following the local team, but this is the playoffs and her hat should have a "B" on it, not an "A". and did she get there 2 hours early? the stands behind her are virtually deserted, and she wouldn't be so happy if this were after the end of the game - how very un-LA (area). but how very LA to leave behind the painful masochism of Red Sox fandom for the trendy, monkey-powered life of an Angels fan. i'm half-schocked that she's not wearing a Kabbalah red string around her wrist. well, we'll show her. yesterday's game was un-scintillating and relatively relaxed, but i'm already nervous about tonight. Pedro has about 12 pitches to prove to me he can still get it done.

***UPDATE*** the official word on the hat is that she was supposedly went to the game with "all Angels fans" but was pulling for the Sox. that still sounds a bit fishy as plenty of Red Sox fans (including one in the picture) showed up wearing the proper gear. she was there 2 hours early, though.

next year, i'll get to coach the fantasy all-star game

at long last, it finally came to pass. i've been playing fantasy baseball since 1989 in one form or another, often in multiple leagues (including 4 this year), for a grand total of about 28 total teams owned. throw in some terrible fantasy football and basketball teams, and that's over 30 "seasons" without a winner. while not quite Cubs-ian in its futility, that streak still speaks poorly of my skills as an owner/general manager and has left me wondering from time to time whether perhaps i had some cognitive defect that was preventing me from winning. but as of this morning the history is meaningless, the heartbreak of last season can be forgotten and i can finally be called a champion. and it wasn't terribly close as i moved into 1st place during August and my lead kept growing all during September.

was i drinking from the same flagon of mojo that will propel the Red Sox to their first title in 86 years? i can't quite execute such a huge leap of faith (not to mention circumlocution of logic), but if it happens, i might have to quesiton the forces at play in the unvierse.

1-13 since 1997

King Kaufman does a great job criticizing the Redskins for their mismanagement of their timeouts in the second half that left them unable to stop the clock after they got into field goal range and could have the tied the game. so i'll let that drop. but i do want to focus on a series of events at thge end of the 1st half that very well may have cost the team game (and which TMQ may have touched on already- i haven't read his column yet).

having been held in check almost the entire first half, the 'Skins march over 90 yards to the Dallas 1 with 1:12 left in the half. on the first play the try to sneak Mark Brunell in, which is just idiotic when you have Clinton Portis who has scored 14 and 15 rushing touchdowns the past 2 years. he gets stuffed. timeout is called and the next play, Portis gets a short gain. after wasting some time, the Redskins call their final timeout with :16 left. now everyone in the stadium, watching at home and on Mars knows the next play will be a pass because they can't risk getting stuffed again and not having enough time to get the field goal unit on. Brunell play fakes, and immediately has someone in his face, batted down, incomplete, field goal, momentum gone. first off, why not have two plays ready after calling timeout on 2nd down just in case you don't make it? that way you can just line back up maybe before the defense can fully set up. secondly, why not just attack with Portis again? from the 1-yard line, running is a surer bet than throwing (just ask Trent Green). hell, i would even consider running it again on 4th down. if they stop you, so be it, but if you can't get 1 yard on the ground in 4 chances against a defense that allows 120+ yards rushing per game, then you don't deserve to win. and lo, they did not win. Coach Gibbs was completely unimpressive the past 2 games and he needs to turn things around fast before the fans sour on him. sadly Tom Coughlin is predictably being blown by the news media for winning two in a row. ugh.

pronk call for oliver closeoff

i don't how i've gone all these months without knowing that Travis Hafner's nickname is "Pronk" and that it's short for half project, half donkey. this is so bizarre that it increases my enthusiasm for the Indians (which will please the wife) but this probably does little to ease the pain of Cleveland having been named the U.S.'s "poorest big city".

and in response to an inquiry from the other night, Oliver Perez is not the first major leaguer with the first name "Oliver", though he is close. one Oliver Hill had 2 at bats for the 1939 Boston Braves, collecting a double and a run scored. there is also Oliver Brown who came to the plate 25 times for the Brooklyn Atlantics in 1872 and 1875. of course that was just before the founding of the National League in 1876, and can thus be easily removed from consideration. it seems like such a common name to have such little representation in major league annals - there are 10 Jamies after all.

Playing for Geoff Hurst

amusing and odd team names from the second round qualifying for the FA Cup:
Ramsbottom United, Frickley Athletic, Clitheroe, Cammell Laird, Liversedge, Workington, Shepshed Dynamo, Belper Town, Coalville Town, Stone Dominoes, Dorking, Folkestone Invicta, Leatherhead, Merthyr Tydfill, Bognor Regis Town, Weston Super Mare.

these teams come from the British equivalent of Podunk and are all vying to the right to play the role of chum to the sharks of the Premiership (Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United) in the later ("proper") rounds. but you have to love any tournament that gives 661 different teams a chance to take home the crown, even when it means that Goliath stomps David, as happened to Millwall in last year's final. "win-or-go-home" tournaments provide the most drama, the most excitement and the best storylines. and best of all they settle the game on the field and not in polls. NCAA football hierarchy take note.

maybe they would have been better off losing them

a cautionary tale for those rooting for NYC to get the Olympics in 2012, from Tuesday's Globe and Mail:

While Greek politicians had optimistically promised a tourism-driven economic boom and an improved standard of living in the wake of the Games, the opposite seems to be taking place. The International Monetary Fund predicted a period of contraction: "Underlying fundamentals suggest the economy may slow materially in 2005."

[Prime Minister] Karamanlis acknowledged that repaying the Olympic debt would entail sharp cuts to public services -- an awkward move, as the Games were sold to the Greek public as an economy-building event that would raise their standard of living. The Prime Minister tried to describe the cuts in optimistic terms.

i was originally for New York getting the Games because it seemed like it would be cool to have them here and the infrastructural improvements would provide lasting benefit to those who live here. but now it would only make sense if they figure out a way to reduce the costs that hosting the Games entails, because they just don't bring in as much money as everyone assumes (and as we saw with the RNC, locals head for the hills during events like this, taking their spending $$$ elsewhere, so the whole thing is more or less a wash economically). the same can be said of the stadiums that the city is trying to get built on the West side and in Brooklyn. the economic benefits of these type of things are always overstated. but i do believe that sports arenas should be in downtown areas (and if they can fill vacant space above rail yards, all the better), near public transportation and population centers. they do spur other development to a degree, and it's nice to have them blend into the city rather than sit out in suburbia surrounded by parking lots. in the case of the Jets it would also help end the ridiculous charade whereby "New York" is in New Jersey as far as the NFL is concerned. but getting the public to foot the bill for these buildings is corporate welfare and extortion disguised as public benefit, especially considering the sweetheart deals the teams often get on rent and stadium revenues like parking. Major League Baseball has been extremely adept at pulling this off in cities across the country, despite the growing evidence that it's a losing proposition for taxpayers and that a (mostly) privately financed stadium can work just fine, as they proved in San Francisco. and say what you will about Steinbrenner, but he is at least willing to put up his own money for a new stadium though the specifics of his plan still require some debate in terms of land use and public access.

fear and loathing in the NFC East

we're only 1 week into the NFL season, and already i'm looking at the Patriots schedule to see how long they can ride this unbeaten streak (the AFC North is very beatable, as is the NFC West and outside of the Jets, the AFC East should be a cakewalk). but in the NFL, as in most sports, it's always more fun when you have something to hate. fortunately, there's no shortage of people/places/things worthy of ire:

the Cowboys: the loathsome Bill Parcells is reason enough to root against "America's (gag) Team". but now their fans show themselves to be complete assholes, booing an Islamic couple who were shown on screen during Sunday's game. this depsite the fact that the gentleman was wearing a Cowboys jersey (featuring the number of Dat Nguyen, the "Tet Defensive" - credit to Chris Mooney for the nickname), and the woman was wearing a rida that is imprinted with blue and white stars and says "Cowboys" on it. let's hear it for George Bush's Amurica! (via CSTB)

the Giants: Tom Coughlin has wasted no time putting his foot in the ass of this team (because, you know, fiery, tightly woound taskmasters have such a wonderful history of success with multi-millionaire athletes). first, he was found to have violated union rules during spring practice - keeping players longer than allowed and forcing attendance at "voluntary" workouts. then he continued pushing his theory "that very few players that miss time actually need to do so" even using a coach's colon cancer surgery to call out his players' lack of "toughness". now he's fining his players when they show up early for meetings - because they aren't getting there early enough. could you imagine working for a guy like this? "'Players ought to be there on time, period,' Coughlin said. 'If they're on time, they're on time. Meetings start five minutes early.'" i'd rather walk around Iraq wearing a Cowboys jersey than play for him. fortunately, i can just watch on TV and boo myself hoarse.

"If I chased numbers, maybe I wouldn't have as good results."

moving on to a different kind of diamond, let's spend a little time looking at Ichiro!. after last night's 3-for-5 effort (his 5th straight mutli-hit game) he now has 217 hits, leaving him 40 short of the major league record for hits in a season with 29 games to play. as of April 30 he was hitting just .255, and this was coming on the heels of a terrible finish to last season. but since then he has hit exactly .400, raising his average to .374 and giving Mariners fans at least one reason to keep watching. i'm not going to get into a whole debate here about his value as a player. yes he doesn't walk much, meaning his OBP is very dependent on his BAve, he doesn't hit for much power, and he didn't deserve that MVP award in 2001. but changing his approach at the plate could be disastrous. let's just say he's very good and a lot of fun to watch and look at the big questions for the rest of the season:

can he break the hit record? well, in the 132 games he's played this year (missing only July 10) he has averaged 1.64 hits per game. if he kept that average over the final 29 games and played every day, he would amass more 48 hits and break the record with a few days to spare. put another way, if he continues his average of 4.39 ABs per game he would get 127 more ABs for the year (putting him at 707, which would also be a record). giving him credit as a .374 hitter, he has a 93% chance of breaking the record in the course of 127 ABs. using his lifetime major league average of .338, he still has about a 74% chance to make history. if he could average 5 ABs per game the rest of the season (which is doubtful given the rest of the Mariners offense), he becomes a virtual lock, with a 99.5% or 95.4% chance of getting it depending on which batting average you use as the baseline.

can he hit .400? time is running out on this one. to hit .400 with 707 ABs, he would need to finish with 283 hits, meaning he would have to hit 66-for-127 (.520) the rest of the way. that seems pretty damned impossible, and the probability bears out that assumption. if we assume that Ichiro! is a .374 hitter (meaning that in each at-bat over time there is a 37.4% chance that he will get a hit), the odds that he would get 66 hits in any random set of 127 at-bats are 0.00058 or 0.058%. if we go by his career average of .338, those odds get even slimmer. if we were to consider him a .400 hitter he still only checks in with a 0.4% chance to hit .400 for the season. even stretching him out to 5 ABs per game does little to help him. only if we gave him credit for being a .463 hitter (his average for August) would we start getting into the realm of real possibility: about an 11.7% chance he could do it. too bad, but i'm still rooting for him to get the hit record.

jinx proof

it's always a bit strange when a parent calls you at work. sort of a "worlds colliding", "how am i supposed to act in this situation" deal. so when i hear my father on the other end of the line this morning, i'm immediately wondering who died. but his voice is much too jovial for that. he wants to know what the mood is down here (my parents live in New Hampshire) and i assume he means the mood surrounding the convention. wrong again - he knows better than to talk politics with me. he's talking about the Yankees and how they're reacting to their weeks long slide (culminating in that wonderful 22-0 drubbing at the hands of Cleveland) that's has put the Red Sox back in the hunt for the AL East. being cable-less i'm moderately out of the loop, so i don't have much to offer other than what i read in the Times this morning. then he drops this doozy:

"so they're saying the curse is broken. [incredulous reply] yeah, last night Manny hits one into the right field stands and the ball hits this 16-year old kid in the face and knocks out his two front teeth. turns out that the kid lives in the house that Babe Ruth lived in when he played for the Red Sox."

and the occasionally torturous ridiculousness of Red Sox fandom becomes fun once again. now if we could just find that piano....

***UPDATE*** another call reveals more curse-reversing fun facts: the past two games, the Red Sox linescore has started 410 (4 runs in the 1st inning, 1 in the 2nd, 0 in the 3rd). 410 is the area code for Baltimore, where Babe Ruth was born. and the current Red Sox streak in which they've won 14 of 15 games began on August 16th, which was the anniversary of Babe Ruth's death. developing....

***UPDATE/CORRECTION*** turns out the teeth removing foul ball incident happened on Tuesday night, not last night. this article has the skinny on the kid, his family and the house.

like a crime syndicate for college sports

it's been too long since i've flogged the NCAA for anything (stay tuned for BCS-related ranting come November), but in the past couple of days they've given me two reasons to do so. in a nutshell, my problem is that the NCAA allows colleges to take advantage of athletes who produce boatloads of revenue that they never see a dime of, all while being held hostage by ridiculous rules designed to keep them as "amateurs". meanwhile, the NBA, NFL and to a lesser degree MLB, NHL and MLS get free player development. specifically, here's what's been going on in recent days:

Case #1 - Jeremy Bloom was a wide receiver for the University of Colorado. he is also the reigning world champion is freestyle moguls and was a 2002 Olympian. he is training for the 2006 games, but in order to adequately prepare, he needs financial support, which he got by accepting endorsements. as a result, the NCAA deemed him ineligible to play football. the reason? while it would be kosher for him to accept a professional salary for his skiing, accepting endorsements from sponsors crosses some arbitrary line the NCAA has drawn. how they can legitimately claim that this has any bearing on his football career is confusing at best and malicious at worst.

Case #2 - Mike Williams was a standout wide receiver at USC last year as a sophomore. normally, sophomores aren't eligible to be drafted in the NFL due to collusionary rules that prevent teams from choosing players who are fewer than 3 years removed from high school. but former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett challenged that rule in court and had it overturned earlier this year making him (and Williams) eligible to be drafted. Williams understandably decided that going pro was in his best interest (he was a sure 1st round pick) and signed with an agent to prepare for the draft. then a higher court overturned the previous ruling just days before the NFL draft. now Williams could not be drafted, but his relationship withan agent made him ineligible in the NCAAs eyes. so he severed ties with the agent and began taking summer classes (he was academically ineligible, which had a hand in this process), and applied for reinstatement. but of course, the NCAA just turned him down, leaving him in limbo for a year. what does the NCAA stand to gain by keeping him off the field? do they feel as though they need to punish someone who did nothing wrong (meanwhile the kid with the rap sheet as tall as he is gets his scholarship to Miami)? what a bunch of hypocrites.

doing our part for the economy

the shrewdness of apes/balgavy/listmaker baseball adventure begins soon and as such this space will be on hiatus until next week. many thanks to Batgirl and her legions for their help in re: the Twin Cities.

as long as i'm spreading the baseball virus, today's Hardball Times has an intersting article about the creation of the save statistic and the ripple effect it has had on the game.

too bad they're not sponsored by a battery acid company

if there's an eventual limit to the popularity of NASCAR (and if you ask me, they've gotta be trading paint with that limit already), it's going to be brought on by ridiculous crap like this:

LONG POND, Pennsylvania (Sports Network) - Jimmie Johnson Tuesday was fined $10,000 for covering a bottle of a sports drink made by a NASCAR sponsor due to the fact that he has a contract with a rival company.

Johnson tried to get around it by taking a sign that said Lowe's -- the primary sponsor of his car -- and placing it in front of the bottle. NASCAR, though, said Johnson was not "following the directive of a NASCAR official" and called the act "detrimental to stock car racing."

i don't know which is worse, the driver taking his sponsors so seriously as to actually whack a competitors product to the ground or the overseers who go so far as to place actual products on the winning cars in the first place. every race is so saturated with advertising, i don't know how they expect any of it to get through to people anyway.

ixnay on the ugsdray

secrets of the Mets training table revealed?

"As the Mets gobbled up pep and pancakes during a players-only meeting in the clubhouse kitchen yesterday morning...."

and here i thought baseball was worried about the image of steroid-shooting, "greenie"-popping players. speaking of which, noted juicehead Jason Giambi is still not in playing shape due to the "intestinal parasites" the he and Kevin Brown picked up, ummm, somewhere. then the crack t.s.o.a. research team decided to look into the symptoms of steroid withdrawal, which are:

Weakness, fatigue, decreased appetite, weight loss, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea (which can lead to fluid and electrolyte abnormalities), and abdominal pain are common. Blood pressure can become too low, leading to dizziness or fainting. Blood sugar levels may drop. Patient may no longer be able to hit above .250.

OK, we added that last bit, but the rest of it sounds pretty in line with what poor Jason has been suffering through, especially since all the tests for cancer and whatnot have come back negative. maybe he and Ryan "4 HR" Klesko can have a beer this winter and talk about how great it was to land big contracts before baseball's financial and anabolic bubbles burst.

*last second update* - Giambi is now being tested for a (new) potentially life-threatening condition caused by internal parasites, and could be out for the year. the disease is called "amebiasis". here's what the CDC has to say:

Although anyone can have this disease, it is most common in people who live in developing countries that have poor sanitary conditions. In the United States, amebiasis is most often found in immigrants from developing countries. It also is found in people who have traveled to developing countries and in people who live in institutions that have poor sanitary conditions. Men who have sex with men can become infected and can get sick from the infection, but they often do not have symptoms.

greek holiday

with only 30 days until Athens 2004, t.s.o.a. is coming down with a mild case of Olympic fever, though it could simply be the effects of 2 days of baseball withdrawal. though there's no US representation in the football or baseball tournaments, there's still plenty to see and - unlike many previous Olympiads - plenty of chances to see it as some sort of programming or another will be on around the clock, with much of it being broadcast live despite the 7-hour time difference between Athens and the East Coast.

i'm not huge into track and field - well the track part anyway - but i have discovered a rooting interest in triple jumper Tiombe Hurd. not only is she legally blind due to a retinal condition which leaves her with little depth perception, but she attended t.s.o.a. alma mater James Madison University. and on Monday she broke the American record at 47'5". a medal sport for women only since 1996, this event has been dominated by Eastern Europeans, so let's go Tiombe!

one bothersome thing is the flak that Greece is taking for the blackout in Athens the other day. now granted, the planning and execution of the Games has been spotty at best as officials scramble to get stadiums finished, build infrastructure and keep terrorist threats at bay. but i think this power outage is being a bit overblown, especially considering the massive blackout suffered less than a year ago round these parts, which was more widespread and lasted much longer. seeing Selena Roberts (the most loathsome of the hacks that the Times deems worthy of sports columns) rip into Athens officials, even intoning the BALCO scandal (and "other drug stories in other countries" - very vague, nice work) as if that were anyone's fault except the athletes involved, set me to rooting even harder for the Games to go off without a hitch.

i should expect that Olympics fan Bile & Venom will have some things to say as we get closer to the starting gun.

it's lonely at the bottom

sorry folks, my brain is on baseball overload recently:

at the halfway point of the baseball season, there are only 6 teams more than 10 games out in the Wild Card standings, which is fairly amazing considering all the sky-is-falling, "we can't compete!" nonsense that's been blowing around in recent years. let's look at these teams and why they are where they are:

Montreal (28-55) - no more breath need be wasted outlining the plight of this team (if you want more info read this, the 2nd of a 3-part series in the Washington Post that describes why Bud Selig's rule over the game is a tainted sham. links to the other two parts of this must read can be found on the right hand side of the article). but they weren't helped by injuries to Carl Everett and Nick Johnson, two of their top hitters, protracted slumps from other hitters (Vidro, Wilkerson) and a depleted farm system that is bone dry at the highest levels. their slow start doomed them to cellar-dwelling in an otherwise wide-open division.

Kansas City (29-53) - after last year's fast start and year-long contention, many figured that this team was poised to make some noise this year in a division that lacks any dominating teams. yet they've fallen behind the rebuilding Tigers and Indians thanks to a stark lack of pitching, sub-par years from several players and, of course, injuries. quick, name one of the Royals starting pitchers. fine, you can have partial credit for Kevin Appier, who has made 2 starts this year. you know things are bad when your top prospect (Zack Greinke, who is looking Saberhagen-esque so far), is your best starter but can still only manage a 1-6 record. but a team disappointed in their Juan Gonzalez signing? who knew?

Arizona (30-55) - just 2.5 years removed from their World Championship - one of the sweetest moments of t.s.o.a.'s life, and not because we're D-Backs fans - the Snakes have crumbled, losing an ace, their top slugger, their manager, and a whole lotta ball games. trading Curt Schilling got them some pitching depth and a decent prospect that they then used to land Richie Sexson, but Sexson is now out for the year with a severely dislocated shoulder, while the other players they traded to the Brewers are playing a major part in that team's resurgence. they were looking hopeless on June 15th and they are 4-18 since then. we'll see whether they trade Randy Johnson, but this is a team that needs to get younger. the good news is they have the minor-league system to do so.

Seattle (32-50) - this team just plain stinks, and the excitement that is Ichiro! has even worn off to the point where i don't even care to watch them. old players have declined predictably, mediocre free agent signings have been mediocre, and pitching suspects have been suspect. they have been a bit unlucky and they got a nice package for Freddy Garcia, but i'm not sure they're in the best hands. they have a lot of interesting pitchers in the minors so they may not be too far from getting back into the thick of things.

Colorado (33-50) - just a confusing team. they prove year after year that anyone can hit there. yet the pitching always stinks, even when adjusted for the ballpark. the main problem seems to be that they simply never get any good pitchers. don't you think a Roger Clemens or a Curt Schilling would manage to do OK out there? until they actually field a major league pitching staff (*cough* Shawn Estes *cough*) they have no right to complain that they can't win playing in Coors. somebody has to win the 81 games played there per year, right?

Baltimore (36-46) - after finishing April at 13-10, people were getting excited that the big offseason signings would make this team relveant for the first time since 1997. that talk is all but dead, even though Miguel Tejada and Javy Lopez have continued to perform well. Rafael Palmeiro has declined, but at least he isn't embarassing himself the way Sidney Ponson has been. and too many other pitchers have been sucktastic as they stand 2nd to last in the majors in ERA and walks (ahead of only Colorado). perhaps this offseason they'll spend some of that free agent dough to land a capable hurler or two.

while all of these teams are flawed, one interesting about all of them except Kansas City and Montreal (and even those two teams won 83 games a piece last year) is that they have strong revenue streams based on relatively new ballparks and a track record of high attendance figures. these aren't poor teams. and yet they lag behind teams like the Brewers, Twins, As, Devil Rays and Padres - teams with smaller payrolls - for want of pitchers who can get somebody out when it counts. only Montreal has close to an average pitching staff, and they have socred the fewest runs in the majors. the Royals, Orioles, Rockies and D'Backs meanwhile rank in the bottom 6 in ERA and WHIP.

prospects vs. proven veterans

while everyone in the baseball world has been focusing on the two recent big trades involving Carlos Beltran and Freddy Garcia, i thought it would be a good idea to evaluate a couple trades that were made in past couple years and see how they've panned out compared to what the conventional wisdom said.

before the 2003 season the Braves traded Kevin Millwood to the division rival Phillies for little-known catcher Johnny Estrada. to the world, this looked like a simple salary dump for the Braves as Millwood was coming off a monster season (18-8, 3.24, 178 Ks) and was due for salary arbitation. i don't recall one single person giving Braves GM John Schuerholz any benefit of the doubt despite his track record of 10+ consecutive division titles. so where does the trade stand now? Estrada spent last year torching AAA to the tune of .328/.393/.494 (BA/OBP/SLG) while Braves C Javy Lopez exploded for 43 HR and subsequently was allowed to leave via free agency. this year, at age 27 (the traditional peak year in a player's career) he's continued to spank the ball like a submissive congressman, hitting .339/.391/.502 as the Braves' everyday catcher. Lopez, now with the Orioles, has played well (.316/.365/.474) but letting him leave looks like a smart decision. the fact that the Braves saved about $8M by doing so makes it look even smarter.

as for Millwood, his 2003 numbers looked a lot more like numbers from 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2001 than those from 1999 and 2002. his 4.01 ERA was right about at the league average. his 14-12 record is in line with the fact that the Phillies were just above .500 on the year. now there is value in a guy who can throw 222 IP, even if those innings are league-average. but with each passing year, it looks like his dazzling '99 and '02 will be the aberrations in his career trend line. he's doing nothing to disprove that this year with his 4.93 ERA and BR/9 in excess of 12.5. so this trade certainly deserves a re-evaluation, though it's long-term value will depend on whether Estrada can keep putting up numbers at anywhere near his current clip.

Moving to a more recent trade, the Marlins dealt Derrek Lee, the 1B of their World Series champs to the Cubs in exchange for perennial prospect Hee Seop Choi. the Cubs, having sat through a season in which Dusty Baker refused to give Choi any regular playing time and held him out of the playoffs in favor of Erick Karros and Randall Simon, decided they would go for a proven veteran rather than their young star (whose minor-league track record pretty much indicated his readiness). understandably, the Cubs thought that this trade might give them the push necessary to get into the World Series while perhaps weakening the team that beat them to get there in 2003. but after signing Lee to a 3-year deal in February, it's going to cost them about $25 million to find out. meanwhile Choi plays for about $310,000 this season and is still years away from a big free agency payoff (though he will make more once he's eligible for arbitration). thus many people again saw this move as primarily financially motivated from the Marlins standpoint, if still well short of the type of payroll slashing that went on in 1998 (fucking Huizenga - what a prick).

so how's has the trade looked so far? Choi's .267/.383/.524 (13 HR, 33 RBI) looks pretty damn good, even compared to Lee's .305/.381/.516 (10 HR, 46 RBI). and Lee plays in a better hitter's park to boot. the only thing holding Choi back is the fact that they won't let him face left-handed pitching. but at a significant cost savings, you have to think the Marlins got a better deal by getting the younger player (by 3+ years), just entering his prime. meanwhile the Cubs pay more for the same production and are left with a starting lineup dominated by right-handed hitters. in the standings, the two teams are within a couple games of each other in the wildcard race, with the Marlins tied for their division lead with the pitching-needy Phillies and the Cubs trailing the Cardinals in the Central by 3.5 games. it will be interesting to see how this all plays out by the end of the year.

for love of the game

it's been a while since anyone organized a kickball game in the Park, but t.s.o.a. has some friends that play in leagues so it was a little shocking to read this article in Flak about adults playing kickball and dodgeball to exorcise childhood demons:

On the surface, it seems like fun to have schoolyard standards like dodgeball and kickball becoming popular adult activities. Sadly, these new leagues seem more about overcoming your p.e.-class memories than reliving them....[I]f you're trying to overcome your childhood pain through kickball, you must have been more sensitive than Kenny Loggins

how about just sticking to the surface? even in an organized league, i would say most people are playing because it's a simple, fun and cheap activity that can be enjoyed by members of both sexes. the point is more that we're now all mature enough to know that our self-worth isn't based upon how well we play or whether we win. and that it's a good way to socialize and/or drink heavily.

Reliving the Dead-ball era

as a non-native transplant i've only been vaguely aware of the existence of the Brooklyn Historical Society as a cultural resource or what have you. then a friend recently sent us an e-mail informing us of the exhibit concerning the history of beer brewing in Brooklyn, which is being accompanied by a weekly Friday beer garden. the exhibit runs through October and the beer garden is every Friday until August. that was enough to sign up for the e-mail newsletter, and i was delighted to receive the first copy today detailing an upcoming 3-part walking tour on Brooklyn Baseball History on June 13, 20, 27 ($15 per tour). the walks will take place in Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope and Green-Wood Cemetery. the only problem is that the 2nd installment conflicts with our wedding, which is too bad because that one includes tours of the original homes of the Brooklyn Dodgers. part of the second one (1898-1912) is even still standing, meaning "these walls represent the oldest standing major league structure anywhere". that walk meets in the Park across the street from friends of t.s.o.a. Danny Baseball and Youthlarge, a park which contains it's own bit of history in the Old Stone House. but that's probably best left for another post.

can anyone tell me on what street in Brooklyn you can find this sign?

follow the trail of drunk British ex-pats

since Arsenal wrapped up the Premiership title ages ago, playing the first undefeated season in 115 years, it's high time to have a game that means something. enter the FA Cup final, this Saturday at 10:00am EDT, that pits filthy eternal powerhouse Manchester United against a plucky first division Millwall side whose fans have a history of hooliganism. it could be a blowout but surprises can always happen in a single game, as they did in 1973 when Sunderland beat Leeds 1-0 (check out the yellow ball they used). i would love to root for the upset in person, but this game isn't available live on any channels that i get, so if anyone has plans to watch somewhere, or knows of a good bar that will be carrying the game, let me know.

if you should find yourself in front of a TV tomorrow at 2:30pm, you can also watch the UEFA Cup Final between Marseilles of France and Valencia of Spain live from Gothenburg, Sweden on Fox Sports World. featuring a special appearance by everyone's favorite referee and lead singer of Midnight Oil, Perluigi Collina.

seriously, how scary is this?

meanwhile, the IOC cut the number of cities up for consideration for the 2012 Olympic Summer Games down to 5: London, Paris, New York, Madrid and Moscow. how the hell do you choose between all of those? i'm pulling for NY, even though i know the preparations would probably make things even more of a madhouse around here than usual with all the construction and security. the NYTimes had an article yesterday on an architect who is one of the finalists for the design of the Olympic Village in Long Island City (which would be right near my office, should i [shudder] still be here then). the model on display in the picture looks pretty damn cool.

maybe there's something to this "tools of ignorance" thing after all

after over a year of stalling and grandstanding, Piazza moves to first.

"If I had known how I was going to feel after playing first for a few days, I probably would have done it years ago," Piazza told the Associated Press. "I played first a few nights in a row and then I got behind the plate...I felt a lot fresher."

yeah, who knew cutting out 150 deep knee bends per day might have an effect.

88 career home runs

hey, '86 Red Sox fans, it's the sorta bizarre and thoroughly out-of-date Unofficial Rich Gedman Web Page. if you've some time to kill, read the history and background section which reads like a strange, fairly dull stalker diary.

link via fitted sweats

training for the 20 Ks

ESPN Classic was showing Roger Clemens' first 20 strikeout game yesterday and t.s.o.a. was immediately struck by how different (read: skinny) the man looked 18 years ago. everything about him was slimmer, from his head to his legs. everyone keeps pointing to the way Barry Bonds has filled out over the years as a testament to the hormones everyone "knows" he's been taking, while completely ignoring the fact that this is the way bodies react as they get older, especially when you abide the strict training regimens that these two gentlemen use to turn the excess mass into muscle. i don't believe there's been a single accusation of steroid use for Clemens even though his transformation is remarkably similar to Bonds' (the pictures below don't do the best job of showing it, but if you saw that 1986 game yesterday you would understand), so allow me to make the first: if Bonds is on steroids, then so is the Rocket Man. at the least it explains the bat throwing incident if not his obsession with children whose first names begin with K, one of whom is named similarly to the wife. but wouldn't the steroids have withered his genitals? hmmm......

a bigger asshole or just bigger?

[Update, 5:15 pm] in today's Under the Knife on Baseball Prospectus, Will Carroll says: "Yes, steroids would help pitchers. It's always been my understanding that steroids, used properly (and yes, there is a proper way) would benefit pitchers MORE than it would hitters. Not only would they increase strength, but the drugs could be used to assist recovery, something pitchers definitely need to worry about." watch out, Roger, the evidence is mounting.

the world's moving pretty fast out there

merci beaucoup to kfan for forwarding along this story from the NYTimes about HiMpact Sports a new technology that "reduces a three-hour baseball game to an eight-minute experience" by cutting out all non-action that takes place during a game. not that i'd want to watch every game at that pace, but for fantasy or highlight purposes it could certainly be helpful and enlightening (e.g. was Scott Rolen's 0-for-4 last night that bad or did he just hit a lot of balls right at people?; or how far did that Richie Sexson homerun go?). as Marc prophesized less than 3 weeks ago, "it would be like your own personal 'baseball tonight.'" i would get up 10 minutes earlier every morning for that.

on a side note, can anyone read the Circuits section of the Times without that creepy, cloying, only-child from the commercials popping into your head saying "...and what's happening on the web." i think it's starting to drive me insane. thank the sweet lord it's only a once a week section otherwise i may have knifed myself in the brain by now.

and not one mention of my fantasy teams

there's been a lot of baseball in the ol' Inbox recently:

first, Marc sent around the link to a hilarious Lego reenactment of Tuesday night's Twins-Tigers game from Batgirl.

then Batgirl linked to this great article about flaky Twins outfielder Lew Ford. i had no idea the Red Sox had originally drafted him. i gotta say that between this, Cuddyer's Diary (highight: Mike and Doug Mientkiewicz spend an off day at a Cleveland mall), the new turf and the general likeability of the whole team, it's almost enough to make me a Twins fan. then i remember that Carl Pohlad still owns the team and would have happily pocketed the contraction payout to wipe the team out of existence. plus they have two World Series titles in the past 17 years so screw that.

courtesy of Dan comes the story of one man's obsession with collecting baseballs from major league stadiums. he has over 2100 now and even wrote a book a few years back called How to Snag Major League Baseballs. but the part that caught my eye was this paragraph:

While he's not working or trolling for baseballs, he's writing another baseball book. He also holds the record high score in a 1980s-era video game called Arkanoid, he's an expert Scrabble player and he has assembled a 130-pound rubber band ball.

truly a man of letters! and the official brother of t.s.o.a. and i were Arkanoid crazy back in the original Nintendo days so i was happy to find that i could download Arkanoid 4000 for free. the 1 user comment left about the game so far is pretty priceless.

of course the big story coming up is the second Red Sox-Yankees showdown of the year, the Sox having taken 3 of 4 games last wekeend. the Yanks are still reeling despite two straight wins and another series loss to the Sox in April might be enough the send Steinbrenner into coronary country. Pedro will be pitching on Sunday (against whom is TBD) and i'd give odds that he lowers his 3.86 ERA before the day is over. you gotta root for a guy like Bubba Crosby though, pinstripes or no (especially because his playing time should be inversely proportional to the Yankees success). i've got a real soft spot for guys like that.

fan fare

on a lighter note, at this week's Mets home opener, i started talking with Sujan about baseball players and managers named after food. my tangential brain picked up the task today and here's a pretty decent list:

Cookie Rojas, Darryl Strawberry, Mike Lamb, Jim Rice, Bill Bean (not Billy Beane), Chet and Bob and Jim Lemon, Johhny Oates, Zack Wheat, Bobby Wine, Clarence Beers, Sweetbreads Bailey (real name Abraham Lincoln Bailey), Pepper Martin, Ginger Beaumont, Peaches Graham (2 foods in 1), Peanuts Lowrey, Tom Butters, Noodles Hahn, Candy Maldonado, Bake McBride, Tim Crabtree, Dizzy and Steve Trout, Felix Pie (Cubs OF prospect), Tim Salmon, Pork Chop Pough (1995 Eastern League All-Star), Vinegar Bend Mizell, Sugar Cain (really!), David Cone, Chip Hale, Kevin and Randy Bass, Rob Deer, Eddie Bacon, Eddie Mayo, Pickles Dillhoefer.

research aided by Baseball-Reference.com. bonus tidbit: type "sausage" into the Player Search area and Randall Simon's stats come up.

setting the table

the rise of sabermetrics (aka "moneyball") in baseball is one of the most polarizing movements in sports. while i regard it as an improvement over much of the traditional analysis, there are those who choose to belittle it or otherwise dismiss it, despite the evidence amassing in its favor. Baseball Prospectus (one of the progenitors of this approach) put up a great piece about the whole debate yesterday. though i urge you to read the whole article, i'll reprint the crux of the argument, which i think explains the whole thing very well in a very straightforward manner:

The vastly overstated Beane/Moneyball/sabermetric bias against scouting is a red herring, as is the macho derision of sabermetricians. The truth is, while statistics provide the evidence for most of the new theories of the game, most of the ideas advocated by the so-called statheads can be explained by plain old common sense. Over in the Pinstriped Bible about a year and a half ago, I attempted to summarize what I had learned in 20 years of following baseball in the form of 19 "commandments." Let's revisit a few of those now and see if we can justify them in the most simplistic way possible, without resorting to "freaky" sabermetric weirdness--that is, no "advanced" stats, no math, which I can't do anyway:

It's how often a player reaches base that's important, not batting average, not RBI.
Baseball doesn't have a clock in the sense that football or basketball does, but it has outs, 27 of them, and each one an offense spends brings the game closer to extinction. The players who reach base most often are the ones most likely to put off the inevitable death of the offensive effort. The more your players get on base, the more your players get a chance to hit, meaning you score more runs.

Remember league and position averages: numbers have meaning only in context.
Hypothetical season: the Anaheim Angels' first baseman hit .275 and slugged .440. That seems pretty good, until you realize that the American League as a whole hit .277 and slugged .445, and that American League first basemen in particular hit .295 and slugged. 500. The Yankees often endured this problem with Tino Martinez. Baseball is, among other things, a game of matchups, of 'my first baseman is better than your first baseman.' It's not enough that your first baseman answers to an amorphous definition of "good"; where he ranks in the class is most important.

The odds are on the closer's side.
In most cases, the difference between the best and worst closers in terms of save percentage is quite small. That's because with only three outs to get, a closer has a tremendous advantage. Tony Gwynn comes to bat against Dickie Noles. Against the league, Tony is hitting .350. Against Dickie, he's a .450 hitter, which is to say that Dickie still gets him out 55% of the time.

inside the lines

observations from a weekend where everything was put on hold for sports:

fantasy baseball draft weeekend has replaced Christmas as the one time per year i get so excited that it's hard to fall asleep.

i've gotta stop going to early season games in outdoor parks in the northeast. sunday night's RedSox-Orioles game was in the high 20s with a whole lotta wind. just completely uncomfortable. the pretzels we bought outside the stadium were rock hard by the time we sat down to eat them. the grease from my cheesesteak congealed so fast that i almost couldn't finish it. after sitting for 6 innings, Dan and i were both amazed at how stiff our knees were when we got up to meet some other friends. Dan's grandmother kiddingly told him before the game to brink some whiskey - he really should have. still, it was nice to be at the opening game, but the temps at Shea next Monday better be a little more hospitable.

this might be the best time of year for sports. you've got a new baseball season, the men's and women's Final Four, the Frozen Four (NCAA Hockey finals for the uninitiated), the NHL playoffs (much more exciting than the regular season), the NBA playoffs coming up soon, a new MLS season (worth checking out Freddy Adu), the Masters, etc. my eyes are already glazing over.

i don't often win money betting on sports (still owe you that night at the Brick, Matt!), but i did pretty well with the NCAA tourney this year winning our local Brooklyn pick pool picking UConn, plus having the most overall victories, and finished 3rd out of 75 people - good for $75 - in another pick pool that i might have won if Kansas could have beat Georgia Tech last weekend. hooray for me.

the Smithereens' "Blow Up" was a really terrible album.

losing sleep

the lure of baseball proved too strong this morning and so i found myself hauling my tired ass from the bed to the couch at 5am to watch the Yankees and the Devil Rays play the first real game of the year. the dog, having tried unsuccessfully to cough something up for 5 minutes, knew an opportunity when he saw one and claimed my abandoned spot on the bed.

ESPN2's broadcast was pre-empted leaving me with only the abhorrent YES Network showing the game. in retrospect i should have turned on the radio, but Ken Singleton was decent as usual and Joe Girardi didn't embarass himself in his broadcast debut, making several interesting comments about the umpiring. Michael Kay needs to have his lungs sucked out by a tornado though.

at any rate, my decision looked bad when Giambi (who doesn't look much different from last year at all, despite so much having been made of his supposed weight loss) muscled one over the left field fence for a 2 run homer in the first. and the Yankees still had Sheffield and Posada coming up. but Victor Zambrano settled down and pitched really well for 6 innings, even striking out A-Rod twice looking. Toby Hall's bloop single tied it, and eventually the Devil Rays ran away with an 8-3 victory. i have to admit that i dozed off around the 4th inning and i missed Jose Cruz's homer in the 6th, but saw the other runs score that inning. the rest of the game i was in and out, satisfied to know the Yankees would lose at least 1 game this year. i don't think i'll get up for tomorrow's game, much as i'd like the see kevin brown implode.

oh yeah, and the "Ricoh" advertisements that were on the Yankees jerseys and batting helmets were a travesty. i'm glad they have such a healthy appreciation for the sanctity of the pinstripes and what they mean to millions of their fans.

and starring...

t.s.o.a. recently complained about the lack of celebrity elbow-rubbing we have been privy to since moving to this great city. then we rememebered the time that Katie Holmes and Chris Klein walked by us on Broadway. then, a couple of friends were shown an apartment currently inhabited by John Wesley Harding. now this sunday, a whole new level is reached as a fairly major celebrity is set to join the Coffee Flats fantasy baseball league. it won't be official until they actually show up for the draft, but for now a hint: their first listed credit is for something called Jamie's Secret. should be interesting.

trifecta

the NYTimes sports section was a wealth of interesting tidbits today:

on potential Mets 5th starter Grant Roberts:

With his surfer-dude drawl, it sometimes seems that the laid-back pitcher Grant Roberts doesn't take anything too seriously......but no one has been more spirited than Roberts, a 26-year-old from San Diego. After striking out the Cardinals' Greg Vaughn in the first week of exhibition games, he pumped his fist, impressing coaches and teammates.

"He's got a little fire in him," Mets Manager Art Howe said. "I just want to see him turn it into a blaze."

oh, he's blazing all right. and if fist pumps are so impressive, maybe Tiger Woods should be the 5th starter.

-----

on 6-11 high school basketball player Dwight Howard:

"He has a chance to be in the Hall of Fame," Vaccaro said. "That's how good I think Dwight Howard is. He's a Tim Duncan. Absolutely. Blocking shots, shooting the ball, running the court. He's Timmy."

good move. those types of predictions never turn out wrong.

-----

on Tom Penders hiring at Houston:

Penders, 58, is best known for resuscitating Texas after his arrival in 1988 after successful stints at Tufts, Columbia, Fordham and Rhode Island. He led Texas to a 208-110 record and eight NCAA tournaments, including a regional final in 1990.

what, no mention of his regrettable tenure at GW (the online version mentions it towards the bottom, but it was completely absent from the print version) and the shambles he left the team in? good work by the Houston PR department.

dead letter office #13

with baseball - and perhaps more importantly *fantasy* baseball - season approaching, here's a piece that i wrote last fall. the first line was written by my friend BillM and served as the jumping off point for the story. the rest speaks for itself.

[slightly edited for taste and clarity]

> just don't forget about the bullpens - you never know what might happen.

prophetic words from a man who has seen his share of fantasy league battles. allow me to indulge a bit and paint yesterday's scene from my life for you:

i have been in fantasy baseball leagues since 1989. for those scoring at home, that means this was the 15th year of my fantasy baseball existence. the rest of my fantasy life shall remain private, but suffice to say, there are over 25 teams that i have captained in that time.

and i have never won it all. not once, not even tied, nothing. i have been in first place, but never on the final day. the past few years have been littered with 2nd place finishes, five or six in all, but i still could not get my name on a trophy.

which brings us to this year, and one of the 3 leagues in which i participate (in this league we use players only from the NL East and NL Central). to be brief, i was entrenched in first place from the get go, and stayed there until July when BillP passed me on the strength of his cadre of solid Braves - esp. Sheffield, Giles, Lopez, Ortiz, Smoltz, Hampton, etc. - and a lineup that was just crushing the ball. his trade for Al Lieter in May shored up his staff and set us up for a battle to the wire. and to the wire it went, down to the last week with mere points separating us from each other, and categories up for grabs - tied in Wins and Win%. i went ahead by 2 points one day only to lose my lead the next day.

cut to Sunday, I am on the couch for the 4th straight day recovering from my minor nose surgery (deviated septum). i have been waiting for this. i am 1 point behind, and we are tied in Wins. if i can pull ahead of him, i make up that point and we are tied. if Aaron can somehow manage 3 wins as well, then i could win it outright by half a point. i have one guy starting, Kip Wells. BillP has none with Leiter sitting the last day out. Aaron is supposed to have 3, but ends up with only 2 when the Astros bench Wade Miller for their meaningless finale.

on Aaron's team, Millwood gets behind early and Vargas only pitches 3 innings, so my hopes of an outright win are dashed early on. but Kip Wells is doing fine, and it's 2-2 in the top of the 7th. Jack Wilson (another proud member of Team Gloomtown) cracks a homer off Juan Cruz to make it 3-2, and I'm putting the champagne on ice in my kitchen - i can't drink it (antibiotics), but i can at least spray it at the dog in celebration.

after being distracted by football for a few minutes, Dan calls to ask if i'm watching this unfold. i am and we run through the possible scenarios that might get me a title (did Maddux pitch well enough to lower Mitch's WHIP under BillP's?). in the 9th inning, Tavarez gets the last out, and Wells has pulled it off for me, pushing me ahead in Wins. or has he? ESPN's graphic gives the win to Joe Beimel for some reason and my heart sinks. i call Dan and he gets online to find out what's going on. eventually it is sorted out that Wells was indeed the pitcher of record. sigh of relief. but while I have him on the phone, i ask Dan to make sure that BillP didn't get any wins. with no starters going, and 3 RP from losing Atlanta, it seems unlikely. Kyle Farnsworth didn't get into today's game, so that leaves only Ricky Stone. Ricky Fucking Stone.

somewhere in SE Texas, an official scorer decided that in the last game of the season, a game in which the starter went only three innings, the victory should be awarded to a man who entered the game in the 7th inning with a 6-2 lead and pitched 1 inning. mind you, two other relievers had come before him, but they had given up hits, walks and a run, while Stone pitched a perfect inning. when the starter doesn't go 5, but his team leads the whole way and wins, the scorer has the right to decide who to award the win to. so it was that Ricky Stone ran his record to 6-4 on the year, counteracting Mr. Wells' win and thereby relegating me to a 2nd place finish. no trophy, no big payday, no glory. just utter and abject disbelief and a deep gnawing pain that at least for a moment made me forget that my sinuses were completely congested with blood and snot. dan was sympathetic, but then decided it would be more fun to begin invoking comparisons to the Red Sox and chiding me for voting to keep Fielding% as a category, which helped provide the margin of victory for BillP. i couldn't blame him, i could only stare into the void trying to make sense of it all while yelling the odd obscenity as the dog and my fiance looked at me quizzically.

there is something to be said for the exquisite torture of being a Red Sox fan. it's the innocence of a child who believes in the Tooth Fairy mixed with the denial and co-dependence of the abuse victim who keeps going back to their abuser to repeat the same actions and patterns, while constantly trying to convince themsleves that *this* time it will be different. i was trying very hard not to think about my fantasy teams in the same terms, wanting to keep everything in context and not blame the intervention of a "curse" or a higher power. and i was beginning to buy into it, how next year would be different, how i would learn from my mistakes, how i would finally get my name on the trophy so i could gaze upon it proudly when i walked through the door from work each day. but in the middle of a hot shower that still failed to wash away the stench of another season of defeat, the intervention of larger forces became all too apparent and a cold shudder ran the length of my body. it was at this point that i remembered the small bit of information i had come across less than a month ago:

Ricky Stone was born on Friday, February 28, 1975. The same day as me.

ticking away

remember when the government was thinking about taking bets on where and when terrorist attacks would occur? what kind of odds do you think you could get for the upcoming Athens Olympics? they're behind schedule on just about every major project, they've now scrapped plans to even put a roof over the pool, security concerns continue to mount, and we're not exactly talking about the most politcally stable place on earth as it is. i doubt even the government would be dumb enough to give you even odds on that. we will be happy to watch, but glad that we're at a safe distance from the action, athletic and otherwise.

following along

we had been testing out the various options since last October's baseball playoffs. with the advent of the NCAA tournament today we can now say in no uncertain terms that the CBS Sportsline scoreboard is hands down the best of its kind. when you are on the main page, it's constantly updating itself in very close to real time while filling you in on the last play in good detail, telling you what happened and who did it (it differentiates between layups and slam dunks, and even uses terms like "floating jumper" while also noting assists and the like). it's almost as good as the radio in terms of following the ebb and flow of the game. when you go to an individual game page, you can see more clearly how the momentum shifts. here's a series of plays that led Charlotte to cut Texas Tech's lead from 12 to 8:

TXTECH 17:26 Defensive Rebound by Darryl Dora
TXTECH 17:14 Lost ball turnover on Devonne Giles, Stolen by Curtis Withers
CHARLO 17:08 Martin Iti made Slam Dunk, Assist Demon Brown
TXTECH 16:41 Jarrius Jackson missed 3-pt. Jump Shot
CHARLO 16:38 Defensive Rebound by Demon Brown
CHARLO 16:34 Eddie Basden made Slam Dunk, Assist Demon Brown
TXTECH 16:27 Full Timeout

Demon Brown? you can practically hear Dick Vitale screaming or Billy Packer prosletyzing. and the best part is they haven't had any noticable slowdowns or dropouts - they were obviously well prepared for the amount of traffic they knew was coming. moral of the story? ESPN sucks. (and go Jaspers! up by 10 w/ 12 to play!)

the new face of Dallas

Marc Cuban is one of my favorite people in the sporting world. he's constantly taking on the league, the officials and the press and most of the time i feel like he's right. plus any billionaire with that haircut is somehow endearing. big thanks to Marc for tipping me off to the fact that he actually has his own blog going now. we'll see how often he updates it, but so far he doesn't seem to be lacking for word count.

you may rememeber him getting behind the counter at Dairy Queen to make up for running his mouth about bad officiating:

charting the course

every year at tournament time, we all become experts for 3 days, analyzing trends and matchups before trying to find our way to a TV at noon on Thursday. i wish i had a database from the past 20 years that showed me how teams fared against the conventional wisdom regarding them (i.e., hot or cold, tough or soft, peaking or declining, etc.) because i have a sneaking feeling that many of the justifications people (paid talking heads and laypersons alike) use for their picks and preferences end up getting flushed within four days. i know mine usually do - it's just too hard not to pick with my heart most of the time. here's some of the things i've picked up on in recent days:

• teams that everyone agrees got hosed in seeding: Pittsburgh, Wisconsin
• teams that got a higher seeding than they deserved: Florida, Maryland, Texas Tech, Alabama
• teams no one likes because "they don't play well in the tournament": Miss. St., Cincinnati
• teams everyone likes because they've got "tournament history": Michigan St., Syracuse
• team who got a #1 seed despite going 6-4 in their last 10 because they've cast some sort of spell over people: Duke
• teams no one cared about 2 weeks ago but who are now being overpicked (relative to seeding): Washington, Maryland, Xavier, Utah, Pacific
• teams everyone cared about 2 weeks ago who are now being underpicked (relative to seeding): St. Joe's, Providence, Air Force, Louisville
• teams from Conference USA who no one knows much about: DePaul, UAB, Charlotte
• teams somewhat under the radar who have serious chances of winning 3-4 games: Cincinnati, Illinois, Vanderbilt, Boston College, Memphis, Seton Hall

of course, now i look at how the picks are breaking down and see that much of the above is simply conjecture. with all of that said, it's hard to pick against Stanford and their consistency to win it all. #1 seeds have won it all 11 of 19 times since the field expanded in 1985 and 10 of the last 14. oh, and i love Lehigh in tonight's play-in game. lay the points.

pulling up lame

while every sport has it's share of injuries, baseball seems to produce many that can only be described as bizarre. to wit:

according to Jayson Stark's latest column on ESPN.com, "Marlins pitcher
Bryce Florie pulled a rib-cage muscle while throwing, then had a nightmare
later that night, jumped out of bed, slammed into the window and needed 15
stitches to stop the cut in his chin."

plenty more interesting injury stories - from Glenallen Hill's arachnophobia to Steve Sparks' attempt to rip a phone book in half - can be found here and here.

also check out this interview with Red Sox special consultant Bill James. the interviewer did a pretty terrible job, but it's interesting nonetheless.

taking next thursday off

it looks like St. Joe's is finally going to lose, leaving the whole NCAA tournament even more wide open than it already was. t.s.o.a. has a few ideas about who we'll be picking, but we'll save those. we will remind everyone now that over the past 15 years or so, teams from Utah have averaged at least 1 first round win per year (they were 1-3 last year, though Utah State took finalist Kansas to the final moments before losing by 3). let's check in on this year's batch of Beehive State contenders:

BYU: looking good for an at-large berth out of the MWC. beat Okla St earlier this year.
Southern Utah: ousted in quarterfinals of Mid-Continent tournament.
Utah: 21-8 and 3rd in the Mountain West, but might need to win conference tourney to get in.
Utah State: 25-2 overall, 17-1 in the Big West. they're in and they're dangerous.
Weber State: eliminated in semifinals of Big Sky tournament. too bad too as these guys are always a sentimental favorite (moreso!) since we lived about 1/2 mile from the campus for a few years, and because our shocking pick of them to upset in North Carolina in 1999 provided the margin of victory for our winning entry that year.

checking in with the unique lexicon that springs up this time of year, we find it highly amusing when those who don't own the trademark to "March Madness" resort to calling it "March Mayhem". what if someone trademarks that phrase? "March Morass" perhaps? bonus linguistic question: which terminology for the group between "the Sweet Sixteen" and "the Final Four" do you prefer, "The Elite Eight" or "The Great Eight"?

p.s. this was entry #100!

pumped up

here's some interesting reading on the whole steroids in baseball issue. all i can say is that if i disagree with Mike Lupica, then i know i must be on to something.

meanwhile, thanks to Matt for clueing me in to the fact that my high school alma mater has made the state semifinals in basketball. go Blue Devils!

<4 weeks

especially for SuDan and anyone else with a jones for the team from Flushing: the Shea Hot Corner. i recommend scrolling down to read the entries about Justice Blackmun's papers that include a shot of official SCOTUS paper that reads "V.P. Agnew just resigned!!.....Mets 2 Reds 0".

balco-rama

the steroid truffle hunt has finally turned up some players long suspected of juicing themselves: Barry Bonds, Jeremy Giambi and Gary Sheffield (not to mention lesser lights like Randy Velarde and Marvin Benard). while i still stand by my earlier comments that i'm not sure that steroids have had much of an impact on the power numbers of the game, i got to thinking about the subject a bit more today while reading George Vecsey's horribly sanctimonious column in today's NYTimes.

and what it came down to for me was: so what?

why do we care so much? why is what other people put into their bodies so dazzlingly interesting to so many people? i laugh in the face of anyone who tries to use some ridiculous "unfair advantage" argument to justify their outrage over "performance enhancing" drugs. we exist at the intersection of biology, chemistry and physics. the whole concept of natural selection is based on the fact that certain beings have innate advantages over others. caffeine might give one student an advantage over another on an exam. marathoners "carbo load" before a race because it will help their performance. i'm a much better pool player after 2 beers. where do you draw the line? a 6'5" gentleman who weighs 335 pounds is more likely to be employed as an offensive lineman than one who weighs only 240, depsite the fact that the weight gain is likely unhealthy. they both have the choice of what they want to do, and are hopefully armed with the information to make an informed choice regarding the possible consequences both short-term and long-term (which would be more likely if we didn't constantly try to sweep all this stuff under the rug).

barry bonds hit 73 home runs in 2001. if your enjoyment of that fact is diminshed because he may have used steroids, then you're watching for the wrong reasons - it's about pitcher vs. hitter, the crack of the bat and the beauty of a ball arcing through the air. steroids didn't let Bonds hit all of those home runs, hard work and a lot of natural ability did. look at Benard or Velarde - alleged steroid use didn't boost their power numbers as a look at their year-to-year SLG% can show you. hell, look at Bonds' numbers and try to figure out when the steroids kicked in. or Sheffield - his progression looks pretty normal for player with his talents. so enough of the hand-wringing and the brow-furrowing - let's talk about baseball.

no to YES?

talk about your moral dilemmas. the Yankees and Cablevision are currently in arbitration to determine whether Cablevision can force subscribers to pay extra in order to receive the YES Network. if they are allowed to do so, it will trigger clauses that allow other cable providers to follow suit. if that happens, what's a Yankee hater to do? pay the extra $2 or $3 a month in order to see the games against the Red Sox and others or expand my Quixote-esque Yankee Stadium boycott to the realm of TV? that $30 or so per year is the equivalent of a couple of tickets. but then they also show the occasional English Premier League game, plus they have coverage of the NCAA Hockey Tournament. i'm torn - but I can't root for the Yankees to win the case, because then they stand to make even more money by being able to charge cable providers based on their total number of subscribers. any help out there?

making it worse

version 1: it turns out that the Rangers knew that Alfonso Soriano is actually 28 and not 26 even before they traded Alex Rodriguez for him. regardless of your original opinion of the trade, this revelation totally skews it in favor of the Yankees. a 26 year-old coming off back to back seasons with 38+ HRs is a lot more valuable than an 28 year-old. besides just the two year difference, it is fairly well documented that many, many players have breakout seasons at age 26/27 after which they very rearely get much better than they already are. your real huge stars (like Rodriguez) put up bigger numbers earlier in their careers. so what did the Rangers get? a free-swinging 28 year-old player who has had two good seasons, but who isn't likely to get much better, who plays a cover-your-eyes second base and who is untested in the outfield. yes he's cheaper, but when you factor in the money the Yankees are saving on Soriano, Drew Henson and Aaron Boone (you like how he managed to fuck the Red Sox along with himself here? bastard.), it's not as big a difference as everyone wants it to be. read this for a better technical breakdown of the money involved. the moral? Tom Hicks is an idiot, but not for signing Rodriguez to his gargantuan contract. and the less said about John Henry's e-mail tirade, the better.

version 2: Colorado football coach Gary Barnett is informed that former placekicker Katie Hnida (since transferred to New Mexico, where she was the first female to score points in an NCAA football game), is joining the rush of rape claims against his team. after encouraging her to identify the attacker so that he can be prosecuted, he then went on to denigrate her kicking abilities, saying that she hadn't earned the respect of the male teammates (one of whom committed the alleged rape) because of her lack of skillz. how could he possibly see that as relevant to the conversation at hand? is it really possible for a man this dumb to coach a complicated sport like football and make millions while doing it? this ranks right up there with Bobby Knight's "if rape is inevitable, just relax and enjoy it" quip. the more the flashlight shines on college football and basketball, the uglier they keep getting.

coming in lighter

elsewhere in sports, it was interesting to read on can't stop the bleeding yesterday the quote from a Sports Illustrated article about how the new steroid testing in baseball will lead to "more than a few spring training stories about players who 'took yoga,' 'lost weight,' 'changed diets,' 'cut back on weightlifting,' 'came in lighter,' 'wanted to be more flexible,' and other code words for cutting down on steroids and other illegal supplements."

similar phrasing had already appeared in a story about how Phil Nevin has dropped 30 pounds through yoga, pilates, etc. now comes today's NYTimes with this tidbit about Cliff Floyd:

Floyd has been working out regularly at a Miami hotel and said that with spring training approaching, he would wear spikes today for the first time since the injury. Floyd said he had been doing yoga and pilates exercises in an effort to be less bulky.

less bulky, eh? i'm very intrigued to see if power numbers drop this year if indeed fewer players are taking steroids. personally, i don't think that steroids contribute much to the increased run scoring and power in the game (which, by the way have decreased since their highs in 1996 in the AL and 2000 in the NL). steroids don't help you actually hit the ball, and that's the most important aspect of home runs. in fact, huge muscles could potentially be an impediment to bat speed, which in turn determines the speed of the ball when it is hit. certainly in some cases there seems to be an inexplicable jump in a player's power numbers (i'm looking at you, Steve Finley), but for the most part, i think that steroids contribute mostly to players just looking bigger and scarier.

spring, rebirth, and bad poetry

with the coronation completed, baseball season officially begins. it has in college at least, even if the pros don't report for spring training for another two weeks.

in the baseball equivalent of the first robin of spring, Peter Gammons breaks down the AL East, complete with his goofy "2004 team song" (where he reaches for a serious Hendrix deep cut. "spanish castle magic?"), and a bizarre diversion into politics culminating in a plug for the Dropkick Murphys.

at least with the World Series, there's no halftime to fill with banal "entertainment," so the only breast-related controversy would be if morganna the kissing bandit came out of retirement (for a dirtier picture of morganna, click here).

moving up

sometimes, reading the agate type on the sports page leads to a gem like this:

CHICAGO WHITE SOX - named Razor Shines coach of Birmingham (AA) of the Southern League.

this is a step up from the Kannapolis (A) Intimidators for the sharply named Shines. having a great name helped make up for an extremely lackluster career in which he managed only 81 major league ABs over four seasons, without ever hitting a home run. i swear that i remember having one of his baseball cards growing up, but i couldn't find a picture of one online. i did find his Indianapolis Indians bobblehead on sale, however.

i suppose the fact that it's on sale points to the beginning of the end for the bobblehead craze. and none too soon - do we really need more of these pointless souvenirs clogging up our shoeboxes and landfills for years to come until such a point when someone decides that the supply has dwindled enough that they're worth something and Sotheby's starts auctioning them off? is this what we want the anthropologists of the future using to reach conclusions about our society? "hmmm...this appears to be an idol made in tribute to their orb god whom they believed held sway over the economic revitalization of their cities."

and while we're jumping off tangentially here, the razor wars are quickly spiraling out of control. when gillette introduced the Mach III, it was universally hailed as the best razor ever invented. so schick went and dreamed up the Quattro - four blades of cutting power - a razor that engendered a lawsuit and begged the question "where will it end?" while many assumed the jump to five blades was nigh, gillette has countered with the new M3Power which still has only three blades like the Mach III, but now vibrates for some reason. which means, that in addition to buying blades, you'll now have to buy AAA batteries in order for your face (or legs - I've heard many women rave about the Mach III) to achieve strokability.

the t.s.o.a. solution? stop shaving.

angels in america

the 2002 world series champion anaheim angels have decided to rename their stadium "Angels Stadium at Anaheim" after edison international decided to opt out of their naming agreement.   while t.s.o.a. applauds any move that results in fewer ridiculous corporate names attached to stadiums and arenas (Enron Field anyone?), issue must be taken with the choice of new names.   the desire to include the team is somewhat understandable, but without the history of a "Yankee Stadium" they're heading for an "Oriole Park at Camden Yards" type situation where everyone just uses the name they like better.   in this case "the big A."

you might be thinking "so you have a better solution, smart guy?" and indeed i do: name the stadium after deceased franchise patriarch and singing cowboy extraordinaire Gene Autry.   "Autry Field" or "Autry Memorial Stadium" has a much better ring to it, n'est ce pas?   maybe book some shania twain shows there on off nights.

(here's more "big A" action for nyc residents).