Captain Crunch

I come to you this evening with what I hope upon hope is the last that we'll hear about Derek Jeter skipping this week's All-Star Game and festivities in Arizona. Of course that's too much to ask, but let the record show just how blown out of proportion this whole pseudo-controversy has already been to this point. 24 hours from the time this post freshly hits NAGAYT it will hopefully be old news. But since that day has not yet come, and the only thing on TV tonight is the ESPY Awards (no thanks), here I am - and hopefully, here you are.

If you've paid attention to the "there's nothing else to talk about so let's make something out of nothing" sports media and blogosphere in the past four days, you'd think that Derek Jeter lit an elementary school on fire while calling the First Lady a ho and slapping five with Casey Anthony's lawyers. But I guess that's what happens when you give a forum to people who like to regurgitate conventional wisdom without facts or perspective. So allow me to provide a brief rundown of the whole situation:

Yes, the fans voted him into the All-Star Game to start at shortstop for the American League. And no, his production over the first half of the season (.270 AVG/3 HR/24 RBI, with a .683 OPS that is the lowest of any regular on his team) did not warrant such a selection. Yes, he had just come off a 3-week DL stint due to a calf strain and was clearly not moving like he was 100%. But no, he had not missed any of his team's six games played since his return. Yes, he simply could have opted not to play the All-Star Game and still shown up and hung out for it. And yes, above all, he was coming off a 5-for-5 day on July 9 in which he did something rather historic (for the view that Kevin and I were fortunate enough to have in person for #3,000, take a look here).

The rest of the story, I'm sure you know. The Captain was a no-show in Phoenix, prompting the backlash from seemingly every corner of the baseball world. Such is life when you're the most visible athlete playing for the most high-profile team in the only major professional sport that is in season right now. People, even fellow All-Stars, saying "oh, I'd never skip the game, it's my obligation" haven't spent the past month in Derek Jeter's shoes. And this idea that "oh, this was the chance for so many fans across baseball who ordinarily don't get to see Jeter to cheer him at the All-Star Game and congratulate him on his 3,000th hit" is complete garbage. The majority of baseball fans, especially the less-sophisticated majority, are tired of hearing about Derek Jeter. Take it from me, a guy who has watched or listened to 85-90% of Yankees regular season games over the past decade - Derek Jeter gets booed nearly every time he steps to the plate on the road. And while it's not quite at A-Rod level, the booing is pretty intense. People in National League cities boo him especially hard during interleague play. So now all of a sudden I'm supposed to believe that the assortment of fans in Chase Field were ready to gush all over Derek Jeter when he got announced? Uh-huh. And if so, would it have been just because of the 3,000th hit? I bet that if he went to the All-Star Game stuck on 2,999 he'd have gotten the hell booed out of him - which, for the record, is what happened to all the other Yankees in attendance, save for Home Run Derby champion Robinson Cano.

Did Derek Jeter owe it to baseball to be present at the All-Star Game? No. His job is to help the New York Yankees win as many games as possible in the 2011 regular season and then to win 11 more games in the postseason. That's it. And it's important to not overlook the role played by A-Rod's recent knee surgery and expected 4-6 week recovery time. Had Jeter played in Phoenix and tweaked his calf injury, the Yankees would be faced with a left side of the infield consisting of Eduardo Nunez and Ramiro Pena day-in and day-out for the next month or so. Jeter's reason for not playing was basically the same as that of Mariano Rivera, who had pitched only once in the week leading up to the All-Star break due to a triceps issue, but I haven't heard one ounce of criticism sent in Mo's direction. To me, it's the same issue for both of them - they weren't going to play in the game, and being able to take the invaluable three-day break from baseball is pivotal for an aging player on a team with lofty expectations that is going to rely heavily upon him from here on out.

Now I know there's a lot of venom headed Jeter's way simply because of who he is and who he plays for. People were all over Facebook and Twitter during the All-Star Game, eager to point out that 3 out of the 4 All-Stars not present (regardless of whether they were going to play) were Yankees. And no, #2's plight wasn't necessarily helped by his being spotted hanging in Miami with Minka Kelly during the All-Star break. But you know what? This is a guy who, for 16 years, has busted it down to first base on every ground ball that he's hit. He's basically never had a public slip-up despite dating celebrity after celebrity, doing big-time endorsement after big-time endorsement, and consistently being one of the most recognizable athletes in sports. He has always put the team first and sought to minimize his own accomplishments and moments. His Turn 2 Foundation has, since 1996, been making a difference in steering countless young lives onto the right track.

Yet people have come to hate him over the years for supposedly being made of Teflon. Too perfect, too polished, too prepared, too clean. So they try to manufacture some selfish corner of his personality and point at the 2011 All-Star Game as evidence for it. I ask you, however, if he truly were selfish, wouldn't he have jumped at the chance to absorb all the attention that was supposedly to be bestowed upon him down in Phoenix? Wouldn't he have wanted all of Major League Baseball to convene to worship at the Shrine of Jeter, for all of his peers from across both leagues to come up to him and personally congratulate him on his milestone? Instead, he took a step (ok, half a step) back from the spotlight in an effort to gather himself for a grueling stretch of 25 games in 25 days between now and August 8th, a stretch of games that will do a good deal in shaping up the AL East race. And what happened? The spotlight found him anyway, as it always tends to do. But come 7:05pm on Thursday night in Toronto, sports fans everywhere would be wise to take this "issue" out of the spotlight - and off of their minds. Because you know there is only one thing that will be on Jeter's mind by that point, and that's finding a way to beat the Blue Jays.

Five Tickets to Paradise

In many ways, viewing a sporting event on TV can be a considerably more enjoyable experience than viewing one in person. You're in the comfort of either your own home or your favorite bar, without having to be concerned with traffic, weather, parking, $10 beers, bathroom lines, obnoxiously drunk fans, etc. You get ten times the replay angles and explanations (good or bad) from the broadcasters, and you usually get those views from a better angle than what your stadium seat would provide. But sometimes, well, that whole new attitude of "HDTV makes it pointless to attend a game" is pure garbage. Sometimes, there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that can equal the feeling of being in that packed house, and you don't care how much that hot dog just cost or how long it's going to take you to get home. It's the reason I still go to 10-15 major pro and college sporting events a year, and spend vacation-caliber money to do so.

As a collaborative effort of the blog that has been in discussion for several weeks, all three of us in the near future will give you the top 5 sporting events we wish we could have seen in person. They don't have to have taken place in our lifetimes - in fact, several of them probably won't have. There were going to be a few overlaps along the way (i.e. the Miracle on Ice) but we've managed to avoid them by ceding them to whomever out of me, Kevin, and John were considered the most qualified to write about the event in question. The only other major qualification I've laid down is that no one can use a cliché game, so any instances of one of our favorite teams winning a championship or clinching a championship berth are out. Sure, I'd obviously love to have been at the 1992 NFC Championship Game, or Game 6 of the 1977, 1996, or 2009 World Series, or Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS (among others), but we like to dig a little deeper than that around here. If you're still reading and haven't skipped down to the list yet, then thank you, and enjoy my Top 5.

5. 1991 World Series, Game 7
For my money, it doesn't get any better than a 1-0 baseball game - between any two teams and at any point in the season, for that matter. The game hangs in the balance on every pitch, no matter the count, the batter, or the baserunners. But an extra-inning, 1-0 affair taking place in Game 7 of the World Series? And wait, what's that you say? The starting pitcher for the winning team went all 10 innings? Oh yes, please, sign me up for this. Between the lines, Game 7 of the 1991 World Series between the Twins and Braves makes a strong case for best World Series Game 7 ever (especially among those who believe 1960 and 2001 never happened). Not only did you have the 10 scoreless innings from Jack Morris that singlehandedly keep him in the Hall of Fame conversation. You also had a fresh-faced John Smoltz nearly match the old master Morris frame for frame, as well as the famous Chuck Knoblauch deke play on Lonnie Smith that kept the Braves off the board in the 8th inning (at the 5:00 mark of the video). And remember, all of this came on the heels of Kirby Puckett's 11th-inning walkoff bomb in Game 6 the night before. Over time, this game has come to symbolize for me the end of a baseball era that I just barely missed, since the onslaught of juiced players and juiced ballparks had hit full swing by my first full season of baseball fandom in 1993. In this age of immaculately designed retro-modern stadiums, I kind of wish I could have experienced a little more of the mid-'70s-early-'90s years of cookie cutter stadiums, Astroturf, and the predominance of speed and defense. How cool must the scene in the Metrodome have been that night?

4. 1986 Masters


First I have to say that attending a golf tournament can be quite the hit-or-miss venture. You're never guaranteed a great field of contenders or even a decent view of the pivotal shots. But at Augusta National, I'm not sure how much any of that really matters anyway. Imagine the backdrop provided by the most picturesque eighteen holes in America. That's worth the price of admission alone. Now throw in the greatest golfer of all-time -at age 46, mind you- coming back from a 4-stroke deficit by littering the place with a 65 in the fourth round. What Jack Nicklaus did at Augusta in 1986 is even more impressive when you take a look at some of the other names that rounded out the Top 10 in that Masters. Golf fans understandably remember Greg Norman for blowing the 54-hole lead, but Nicklaus also surpassed Tom Watson, Nick Price, Seve Ballesteros, and Tom Kite on that Sunday, all the while with his own son caddying for him. The thing that separates a golf gallery from the crowd at any other sporting event is how there are only a few opportunities to let loose between shots until you have to quiet back down again. You exert the same amount of passion in about 1/4 of the time. On top of that, Jack owns Augusta. He's the king there. Witnessing Jack Nicklaus win a Masters must be like seeing Sammy Davis, Jr. at the Copacabana. People who bought tickets to the 1986 Masters probably considered it a great chance to see the world's best golfers go toe-to-toe and to maybe see Nicklaus play a few solid rounds in his old stomping grounds before he eased into the Senior Tour. What they got was the moment that cemented the Golden Bear as the best of his, or any, generation. I just wish that I a.) weren't four months old at the time, and b.) had one of those tickets.

3. Super Bowl XXV

The only Super Bowl to be decided by one point, Super Bowl XXV had the country at the edge of its seat for a multitude of reasons, many of them much larger than the back-and-forth game between the Giants and Bills in Tampa. Lest we forget, this Super Bowl was played against the backdrop of the Desert Storm conflict in January of 1991. Fittingly, it featured two teams with red, white, and blue color schemes, as well as Whitney Houston's stirring rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner," still the best to ever be sung before a sporting event. And as a nice contrast to the so-much-larger-than-life-you-forget-it's-a-football-game Super Bowls of recent years, this one was played in the modest accommodations of The Big Sombrero, sans the overload of luxury boxes and indifferent corporate stuffed-shirts in the stands. In a nutshell, this was the best Super Bowl ever played. Outside of that nutshell, it was the best coaching job ever delivered by the best football coach of the modern era. Sure, Bill Walsh was more innovative and won more championships than Bill Parcells did, but I'd like to see him win a Super Bowl with a backup quarterback and against an offense (Buffalo's no-huddle) that was still revolutionary at the time. Everyone who plays against a potent offense tries to follow the script that Parcells wrote for this game - pound the hell out of the ball and keep the opposing offense off the field. What was different about the Giants' plan in this game? It actually worked. The Giants set a Super Bowl record by keeping the ball for over 40 minutes, and the Bill Belichick-led New York defense did its part in holding Buffalo to 17 offensive points and kept the Bills from getting as close as they'd like to have been for the attempt at the game-winning field goal with 8 seconds left. I think you know what happened after that.

2. 2001 World Series, Game 5
You may think I'd want to have been at this game solely for the game tying two-run bomb hit by Scott Brosius with two out in the ninth (the second straight game it had happened, for those who are less informed). But shortly before that home run, amidst the intimidating backdrop of Yankee Stadium on a chilly November evening, seven weeks after 9/11, with the tattered flag from the World Trade Center flying behind the left-center field fence, something happened that Yankee fans should never forget. Win or lose, it was the last home game that Paul O'Neill would be playing before retiring. In the top of the 9th with Arizona ahead 2-0, it began to sink in that O'Neill was conceivably standing in right field in Yankee Stadium for the last time. With that, the right field Bleacher Creatures, for whom O'Neill had become a patron saint due to his hard-nosed style of play, began chanting his name, a chant that would soon spread throughout the building. The chant got louder and kept going for the remainder of that half-inning, creating a scene that still stirs me almost a decade later. Yankee fans get a bad name a lot of the time because there are so many spoiled bandwagon jumpers who think the baseball world revolves around them. This instance is the first thing I point to in defense of Yankee fans as a whole. The combination of spontaneity and raw emotion in that scene is a testament to the knowledge and passion of most of those who occupied the old Yankee Stadium, and those who unfortunately may have been priced out of the new Yankee Stadium. You wouldn't see that chant in Boston. You wouldn't see it in Philly. You wouldn't see it in Chicago, Detroit, or St. Louis - and you definitely wouldn't see it anywhere on the west coast. There's only one place in the world where something like that would happen, and it's at 161st St. and River Avenue in the Bronx.

1. 1954 World Series, Game 1

This moment is my #1 for reasons similar to why I put Game 7 of the 1991 World Series on the list. It's equal parts ambience and athleticism. The above video alone should make it easy to understand this game's ranking. However, there are a few things lost in the utter brilliance of Willie Mays' over-the-shoulder catch in the 8th inning. First, one of the top 3 defensive plays of all-time took place with two men on base and kept the score 2-2 until the Giants would win in the 10th and go on to sweep the Series. Also, if you know me personally, then I've probably had the "what other time and place would you like to live in?" discussion with you at some point. For me, it always comes back to 1950s New York. For even just a day, I think it would be really something to get on a packed subway in a suit and tie and go sit in the stands for an afternoon World Series game among thousands of other people also dressed in suits and ties. Maybe it's romanticized a bit too much, but there's something about that era that just clicks. Finally, like I've said time and again, there is an element to witnessing a baseball game in person that provides a different type of upgrade over television from the other sports - and that's not even considering being able to see this game in living color as opposed to the iconic-yet-grainy 1954 footage we've been seeing since we were kids. I want to put myself in one of those seats at the Polo Grounds and rise as the ball as crushed into center field, feel my heart sink momentarily when it looks like it's either off the wall or gone, and then see Mays with a beat on it and try to track if and where player and ball will intersect. That "oh no....wait, wait a second, Willie's got a shot at it, Willie's got it!" moment is why I firmly believe the best afternoons are the ones spent at a ballpark.

Honorable Mention: 1998 World Series Game 1 (Yanks score 7 runs in the 7th inning and erase any concept of anyone beating them that year), 1992 Duke-Kentucky Regional Final at the Spectrum (the Christian Laettner turnaround jumper at the buzzer), 1992 Bills-Oilers AFC Wild Card Game (Buffalo comes back from 35-3 halftime deficit), 2008 Memphis-Kansas NCAA Finals, either of the Muhammad Ali-Sonny Liston fights in the mid-'60s, October 2007 Cowboys-Bills Monday Night game (the Nick Folk, before he was body-snatched, makes a 53-yarder twice in a row at the gun to overcome seven Dallas turnovers), 1979 Cotton Bowl (a flu-stricken Joe Montana leads Notre Dame to 23 fourth quarter points to beat Houston 35-34 as time expired).

Sh*t I Don't Understand: Black Friday

About 8 months ago, I delved into the topic of shopping and originally intended to include the unofficial American holiday of Black Friday, but decided to hold off until this time of year because it really warrants its own post. Someone please explain to me what the hell is so great about Black Friday shopping. I've been to malls on my share of Black Fridays and never really bought into the whole ordeal. And now that this thing has exploded to the point that people are essentially heading immediately out to the stores once the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie is finished, it's really starting to get on my nerves.

Before you say, "but Lou you idiot, don't you realize the huge sales and discounts that are out there to be had on Black Friday?" - I do realize. How can't I? Every piece of advertising anyone sees or hears during the week of Thanksgiving somehow involves a huge Black Friday blowout, as if the day after Thanksgiving is the last day that anyone will ever be able to buy holiday gifts without going bankrupt. I especially love the stores that have the descending discounts as time goes by during the morning, i.e. before 6am you get 40% off, between 6-8 you get 25%, between 8-10 you get 10%, etc. What a joke. You know where I like to be at 6am on Black Friday? Asleep in bed. The last place I'd ever want to be is standing in 30-degree weather waiting for the doors to open at Kohl's or some other dumpy store so I can stampede in with the rest of the herd and jockey for position to save an ultimately inconsequential amount of money. On that note, let's also not forget the 2008 trampling incident at a Long Island Wal-Mart that resulted in an employee's death.

The root of it is that some people place such little value on their time or have no concept of valuing their time altogether. I don't care if I'm apparently a sucker for paying slightly higher prices for gifts because I miss out on these supposedly phenomenal Black Friday deals. Avoiding the throngs of frantic people, the long lines, the traffic, and any other aggravating thing you can think of is well worth it. Of course, there are exceptions - I have a friend who spent 10 hours or so overnight between Thanksgiving and Black Friday in front of a Target last year but got in as soon as they opened and saved something like $250 on an HD TV. If you break it down, that's essentially valuing your time and relative comfort at $25 an hour, which is pretty fair if you ask me. But how many people actually get the kind of deal (on a worthwhile product, mind you) that really computes into a figure that justifies their time and effort?

Another thing we're assured of on Black Friday is the mind-numbing local news coverage that night. You always see some overweight and inarticulate mongo yelping at the camera, bragging about whatever deals they got, and how "I gots all ma shoppin' done ta-day!" Oh really, Lennie, did you? You're telling me you got all your Christmas shopping done today? I'm here to dispute that fact. No matter how much stuff they do buy, no one gets all their shopping done on Black Friday. You know why? Because there's still a month or so left before Christmas; and as December goes on, our consciousness becomes dominated by Christmas songs, cookies, Ralphie Parker, Rudolph, Santa, etc. That, in turn, compels many people to get back out there for "just a few more things here and there," because they want to immerse themselves in the onslaught of holiday cheer - no one wants to feel uninvited to the party. So even if you end up "getting all your shopping done on Black Friday," chances are you will end up spending even more money in the subsequent weeks.

In conclusion, I don't want to come off like a grinch, but I do believe that Black Friday in Western culture is one of the things about life on our planet that causes the aliens to never really stick around when they visit Earth. I'm not telling anyone not to go out and shop to their heart's content this Friday (after all, what do I care, I'll be at work). But just take it with a grain of salt and maybe, just maybe, think to yourself - is voluntarily subjecting myself to all these unsavory people and uncomfortable situations really worth it?

Singular Sensations

Winning a championship is the ultimate achievement, no matter what level of what sport you're talking about. In professional and big-time college sports, players and coaches are exorbitantly compensated in the hopes that their ability and expertise can lead to the smorgasbord of confetti, trophy presentations from the commissioner, Queen songs being played on loop, and of course, the ring. If you get there, you're a king, a hero, a winner for all eternity. If you don't, well....not so much. What's interesting is that you can name a good deal of high-profile players and coaches who have gotten a ton of mileage out of one championship. If not for that championship, pretty much all of these guys would likely have a much different legacy.

1. Brett Favre - I hate to do it, but this list has to begin here. Brett Favre conquered some already-existing postseason demons when he led the Packers to victory in Super Bowl XXXI in January of 1997. Since then, he's been known as a World Champion. It was great for him, but not great for the rest of us, since the media uses that Super Bowl as an excuse to give him a pass for all the huge losses over which he has presided in the 13 years since. Just the following year, his 11.5-point favorite Packers were upended by Denver in Super Bowl XXXVII. "Brett" would go on to be, if not responsible for, then at least part of, the following moments:
-Green Bay's first ever playoff loss at Lambeau Field on a frigid Saturday night to a young Michael Vick and the Falcons in the 2002 Wild Card round
-A six-INT playoff loss to the Rams
-The worst interception ever thrown (in overtime, mind you) in the 2003 Divisional Playoffs in Philly, aka the "4th-and-26" game
-His last pass as a Green Bay Packer, which sent the Giants to Super Bowl XLII
-A 1-4 finish that cost the 2008 Jets a playoff spot
-The interception at the end of regulation in last year's NFC Championship Game

I rest my case.

2. Bill Cowher - He gets a ton of notoriety for his scowl, his facial expressions, and his impressively long 14-year tenure as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Since he won Super Bowl XL (with the gigantic help from the zebras), the legend of Cowher has morphed way out of control. Of course, he can do no wrong from the comfort of the CBS studios, so his name comes up immediately with every NFL coaching vacancy. Conventional wisdom says he'd be the answer to a floundering franchise's problems. I say he lost four AFC Championship games at home in 11 seasons, and came within a Jim Harbaugh Hail Mary (skip to the 7:30 mark of the video) of losing five. In at least two of those games, he clearly had the better team ('94 vs. San Diego and '01 vs. an upstart New England team that had to bring Drew Bledsoe off the bench to finish the game). Let me be clear - I'm not saying Bill Cowher isn't and wasn't a very good coach, I'm just saying the common perception of him would be totally different if not for Super Bowl XL.

3. Joe Namath - Was he a magnificent thrower of the football? Yes. Did he change the landscape of the NFL forever when he guaranteed the biggest upset in football history to that point when the Jets beat the Colts in Super Bowl III? Yes. Did he win another playoff game after that Super Bowl? No. Did he throw 47 more interceptions than touchdowns in his career? Yes. And finally, did he want to kiss Suzy Kolber? Yes.

4. Mike Ditka - Let me first say that Ditka had arguably the best combination of a playing career and coaching career in NFL history. But similar to Favre, Mike Ditka won a title fairly early in his coaching career and seemingly got a pass for everything after that. Not only do many people give Buddy Ryan an equal amount of credit for the dominance of the 1985 Bears, but Ditka had a 2-5 playoff record in his subsequent years with Chicago, followed by a brutal 15-33 record in three seasons with the Saints where he doubled down on a 9 and got a 2 with Ricky Williams in the 1999 Draft. You wonder how even the Superfans would feel about him if it weren't for 1985.

5. Bobby Cox - He would probably be higher on the list if he managed in a more intense sports city, but I have a feeling Atlanta would still have all the love for Bobby Cox even if his Braves didn't capture the 1995 World Series. The 14 straight division titles are maybe the safest record of its kind, but only one championship in that span is rather underwhelming, especially when you consider how good some of those Braves teams were. A few of those losses you could live with - the 1991 Series vs. Minnesota was as good a matchup as you could find, and they ran into a buzzsaw against the Yankees in 1999. But if you're a Braves fan you really have to shake your head at the 1992 loss to Toronto, the 1996 loss to the Yankees, the 1997 and 1998 NLCS losses to Florida and San Diego, and the 2003 NLDS loss to the Cubs.

6. Peyton Manning - I was reluctant to put Manning on this list because he's still active, but you can't deny how many question marks would still surround him if not for the Super Bowl XLI win four years back. While he's possibly my favorite athlete out of anyone that doesn't play for a team I root for, Manning has a lot of postseason woes to his name. Granted, two losses were the direct fault of Mike Vanderjagt, but that doesn't erase the 41-0 Wild Card rout by the 2002 Jets, the consecutive drubbings in Foxboro the two years after that, the 2007 Divisional Round home loss to a Billy Volek-led Chargers team, and the pick-six to Tracy Porter in last year's Super Bowl. How much of any of that was his fault is debatable, but fortunately in this case the one Super Bowl rightfully puts to bed any doubt of Peyton Manning.

7. Lou Piniella - Sweet Lou was a clutch contributor to back-to-back World Series champions with the 1977 and 1978 Yankees. After becoming one of George Steinbrenner's many managerial victims in the 1980s, Piniella guided the 1990 Reds to a wire-to-wire first place finish and a sweep of Oakland in the World Series. After moving on to Seattle, Piniella's teams boasted one of the top lineups in baseball for nearly a decade but never made it past the ALCS, including the 116-win team in 2001 that got bounced by the Yankees in 5 games. By the end of Sweet Lou's run, which consisted of three woeful years in Tampa and two Division Series exits with the Cubs, his legacy was built just as much upon epic ejections as it was on being a good baseball man.

8. Steve Young - Given the task of replacing Joe Montana, Steve Young was in an almost impossible spot. What made it even worse was that Montana remained on the 49ers for two seasons while Young held the starting spot. Whenever he threw a pick or a bad incompletion, 49ers fans would begin the calls for Joe. Even after Montana was sent to Kansas City, it didn't get any better for Young, especially in the wake of consecutive NFC Championship losses to Dallas. When January of 1995 rolled around and Young finally got the 49ers past the Cowboys and delivered a record 6 TD passes against San Diego in Super Bowl XXIX, there was no more vindicated man in America. Winning that championship of his own allowed people to remember Steve Young as an MVP-type player and not merely the guy who came in for Joe Montana.

9. Eli Manning - This was a toss-up between Eli, A-Rod, and Albert Pujols, but there's too big a faction of people who will never give A-Rod a break and Albert Pujols doesn't really have doubters, so Eli Manning gets this spot due to the sheer size of his stage and his brother's shadow. During the Giants' 2007 regular season, Manning had a few terrible games that caused people to ask whether or not he was adopted. So to do what he did in winning three straight road playoff games and punctuate it with a victory over an 18-0 team in one of the three best Super Bowls ever played is nothing short of remarkable. And while he may never fully escape the identity of "Peyton's little brother," the venom from New York fans and media is likely gone forever.

10. Rick Pitino - This list has been limited to pro football and baseball partially because they are my two areas of expertise, but also because college sports create a different dynamic due to coaches constantly losing their top players to graduation and the pros. Rick Pitino has been all over the map, spending 6 seasons coaching the Knicks and Celtics in between taking three different NCAA programs to a total of five Final Fours. Ever since he was the Providence wonderboy in 1987, Pitino has been one of the most consistent winners at the college level, culminating in his 1996 National Championship with Kentucky. But there were some monumental losses with Kentucky along the way, followed by four horrendous seasons as Celtics coach that are most remembered for this tirade. It's easily conceivable that if 1996 didn't happen, Pitino would be labeled as a guy with a ton of talent at his disposal and relatively little to show for it. The debate should go deeper than that, but I promised myself I'd keep the Pitino section short enough that it could be read in 15 seconds.

In conclusion, I'll admit the list was put together rather hastily and off the top of my head, so if there are any people I omitted or included wrongfully, the floor is yours.

The Justifications of Bad Bettors

Football season is here, and, more importantly to some, so are the 5 most active months in terms of sports betting. It's no secret that football is king when it comes to sports gambling in this country, and because of that, everyone wants to get after a piece or two of the action. What's interesting is that with the wealth of information we have at our disposal today when it comes to handicapping games (weather reports, injury reports, team blogs updated round the clock, statistics out the wazoo, etc.), the harder it ultimately becomes to make a good bet, because there's simply too much information out there. Your mind can become clouded quite easily.

That being said, there is no secret formula, and if there were, it would have been discovered by now. All you can ask of yourself is to make an informed decision on which team you want to back, because, hey, it's called gambling for a reason. But what cracks me up is when people think they have everything figured out, when all they're really doing is throwing money around with nothing but hollow reasoning. Bad bettors come in all shapes and sizes, but their justifications seem to fit a select few molds.

-"They were due!" Really? Were they due? You hear this a lot when someone bets on a team thinking they're going to snap a losing streak. Chances are, they're not "due," they just stink. It works the other way too - people try to bet on a hot team to lose simply because they're "due." How many people got crushed on that thinking with the 2008 Lions or 2007 Patriots - it's like a guy who's lost 5 straight $20 dollar blackjack hands and tries throwing $100 on the next hand because his luck has eventually got to change. Obviously, streaks come and go, but if you're throwing money out there with only the logic that a team is "due" and nothing else, you might as well go play roulette. (An exception would be when a team is blatantly underperforming or overperforming its talent level, i.e. last year when the Broncos started 6-0 and the Titans started 0-6. It was clear the Broncos were not that good and the Titans were not that bad. But tread that line carefully.)

-Basing this week's game too heavily on last week's game. How many times do you hear "they're mad after getting blown out last week," or "they had an emotional win last week and this will be the letdown" from dimwits that you work with or hear on the radio. People who say this have never played real football before. It's one thing to be extra motivated for a game, but let's make something clear: you always have to be "mad" when you step on a football field. If you're not in some sort of altered mental state, you're going to the hospital. The team that's supposedly "mad" in a game after a 35-point loss was probably just as "mad" when they took the field before that very 35-point loss. I find it hilarious when uninformed people try to all of a sudden enter the psyche of a group of coaches and athletes they've never met personally. One exception is a blatantly disadvantageous travel scenario or short week, especially if team turmoil is somehow involved (i.e. 2008 Thanksgiving, the Cardinals had zero chance coming East to Philly on about two days' rest from their game that past Sunday).

-Finding asinine stats to back up whatever conclusion you want to believe in. Stats are there to allow you to draw a conclusion, not the other way around, because there are so many numbers at our hands that you can hand pick and manipulate almost any stat that supposedly supports your thinking. Covers.com, the website I like to go to for spreads and other information, has on each matchup page a sometimes-useful "trends" section and lists the ten prior meetings between the teams in question (which does you zero good if you have interconference opponents who meet every four years - yeah, those times when Miami and Minnesota met in 2006 and 2002 are really going to help me find an edge for Week 2 in 2010). Some people put so much stock in this stuff, it's amusing. I'd like to meet the guy who reads a stat like "Tampa is 6-1-1 against the spread in its last 8 daytime home games when getting 1.5 points or more" and takes something so obscure as reason enough to plunk money down on the Bucs. That guy is out there somewhere. Hell, that guy is everywhere.

-Blind faith in your own team/blind hatred for your team's rivals. Fandom and betting are a tough mix. I'm not saying you have to ever bet against your favorite team or bet for your most hated team, but money tends to stay in the pockets of those who are objective. Don't allow your biases (and we ALL have biases) to distort your vision. For instance, Dallas has opened between an 8- and 9-point favorite at home against Chicago this coming week. Does the fan in me think they can beat the Bears by double digits? Yes. But the observer in me knows the team is poorly coached, lacks discipline, and most of the time does not do the little things right. I wouldn't even bet on them this week with someone else's money. Show me a guy who bets with his heart instead of his eyes and ears, and I'll show you a guy who helped build Vegas.

In conclusion, all you can ever want is to be above .500. And yes, sometimes lucky is better than good. We're all guilty of this stuff from time to time (you're talking to a guy who once lost $50 in Vegas two years ago because he thought he had a feeling about Boof f*ing Bonser and the Twins in a late May game against the Tigers. The Twinkies only lost that game for me by about 16 runs). But, until next time, remember that there is a difference between a losing bet and a stupid bet.

Two Big Holdouts, One Big Similarity

Football is making its way back into the mix of our everyday lives, and with it comes the inevitable story of The Big Holdout. For years, training camp holdouts have been as much a part of August as two-a-days. Some holdouts can go down in history as blips on the radar screen and do nothing to derail the long-term success of the team and player (i.e. Emmitt Smith, 1993). Other holdouts can cripple a player's development and turn out to be little more than a supremely expensive punchline for the team (i.e. JaMarcus Russell, 2007). There seems to be one high-profile holdout each year that gets the lion's share of media attention and controversy. Last year it was Michael Crabtree holding the 49ers hostage until October, and this year it's Darrelle Revis all but telling the Jets to feel free to give out his #24 to someone else this year if he doesn't get every last dime.

So what's strikingly similar about these two scenarios? On the surface, nothing. Crabtree was a rookie wide receiver dealing with an NFC team on the west coast. Revis is a 4th-year cornerback dealing with an AFC team on the east coast. But both holdouts were essentially done as a reaction to a previous decision/contract struck by a totally uninvolved third party - the Oakland Raiders. Crabtree was widely thought to be the best receiver in the 2009 draft, yet Oakland infamously drafted Darrius Heyward-Bey #7 overall, dropping Crabtree down to San Francisco at #10. The ensuing holdout was based on the belief that Crabtree deserved to be paid as if he were taken higher than tenth, since he was clearly a better overall package at his position than Heyward-Bey (who has yet to show himself to be more than a track star in shoulder pads). Revis, who in 2009 staked his claim as the best corner in the game (a title that seems to change hands every 18 months, but we'll tackle that topic another day), grew envious of the fact that Oakland was paying Nnamdi Asomugha an average of $15 million a year. One thing has led to another, the rift between the Revis camp and Jets ownership has been allowed to fester for the entire off-season, and now the holdout has gotten bigger than Rex Ryan's mouth (and his gut).

It's very easy to mock the Raiders for throwing their money around the way they do, and to blame all these holdouts on them. I'm going to go in a different direction here. The Raiders are allowed to do whatever they want (within the rules, of course) in order to build a winning team. So what should they really care how the rest of the league is going to react to them making a questionable high draft pick or giving a cornerback (albeit their best player) the kind of money that HOF-bound quarterbacks make? Neither the Jets, nor the 49ers, nor any of the other 29 teams are the Raiders' problem. The problem is the copycat nature of the NFL. On the field and off of it, teams are constantly basing how they do things off of how everyone else does them. If one team wins with the Cover Two, the Wildcat, or the two-back system, then the whole league has their own version of it within a month. If you're a high draft pick, your contract does not get done until the deal of someone drafted in a slot close to yours is signed, thus giving your agent and your team something "to use as a guideline." Same thing goes if you're a free agent - whatever your deal is, it's going to be based off of whatever a player of similar caliber received recently.

It's probably asking too much, but what I want is for people to stop being so obsessed with using the whole rest of the league as a measuring stick. I know it's just natural competitiveness and a desire to earn what you are supposedly worth, but to me the whole NFL in recent years has begun to take on the form of 1980s yuppies comparing business cards. Whatever happened to having your own idea of what constitutes a legitimate salary, and not being preoccupied with the goings-on of all the other teams? I know it's probably a lost ideal of long-ago, but a man can dream can't he?

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

It's the age-old question presented on a pretty regular basis to anyone under the age of 13. What do you want to be when you grow up? It's quite possibly the first real thought-provoking moment of a kid's life when he or she gives the question an honest answer. What do you want to be when you grow up? Ironically, in many ways the answer to the question does more to define the person you are at that instant than it does to define the person you will ultimately become. What do you want to be when you grow up? The answers to that question often define a generation. What do you want to be when you grow up? In post-WWII America the popular answer has gone from firefighter or policeman, to astronaut or President, to actor or ballplayer, to rock star or comedian. What do you want to be when you grow up? You find the answers to this question often without even asking it; all you need to do is look at the posters that line a kid's bedroom walls. What do you want to be when you grow up? In the '50s and '60s it was Mickey Mantle, JFK, and Jim Morrison. In the '70s and '80s it was Mick Jagger, Joe Montana, and Farrah Fawcett. In the '90s and '00s we had Michael Jordan, Britney Spears, and Mike Myers. But I wonder, who's tacked up on the bedroom walls of young people today? What do they want to be when they grow up?

Before I get too deep and/or nostalgic here, allow me to tell you what my point is. Look at the handful of names I threw out off the top of my head in the previous paragraph. All of those people were, at one point or another, at the top of the line in their professions. Not all of them were saints; in fact, many of them either had some questionable habits or found themselves immersed in some sort of controversy. But at the very least, they earned their keep. They did their jobs and did them extremely well. Compare that to today - how many people do we see being richly compensated for what frankly amounts to a job poorly done? And (this is slightly tongue-in-cheek), is it close to reaching the point where making a fortune for either doing nothing, or merely doing nothing well, becomes the new American dream?

It wouldn't shock me to hear kids today say "I want to be the CEO of a failing corporation when I grow up!" I'm writing this partially in light of the news that BP CEO Tony Hayward is headed out the door, and is still in line to collect the the equivalent of nearly $18 million in salary and pension. Funny thing is, the loot that Hayward will receive is a pittance compared to champs like ex-Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal ($161.5 million including securities and benefits as a thanks for driving Merrill straight into the teeth of the 2008 credit crunch) and ex-AIG boss Martin Sullivan (a package valued anywhere from $35 million to $60 million). The list of similar golden parachutes goes on and on. These guys make JaMarcus Russell (sorry Kevin) look like a lunch pail-toting, hard hat-wearing union laborer.

Although I could go on about the severances given to Wall Street bigwigs who did nothing but make bad decisions and lose money, we've all heard enough about it by now. It's not limited to inept CEO's and NFL draft busts. Remember Anucha Browne Sanders? If the name sounds familiar, it's because in 2007 she got over $11 million from the New York Knicks in a sexual harassment suit. Let me make it clear that I'm not condoning harassment of any kind, but still, being talked to inappropriately by Isaiah Thomas for a few years is not worth $11 million. Take also, for instance, the recent case in Sea Isle City, NJ, where a family was awarded over $500,000 from the police department alone in a racial-bias lawsuit involving the school's treatment of one of their children. I'm sorry, but unless the details of this case come to light and are shockingly beyond what they sound like, whatever happened can not be worth over half a million dollars. $100k I can see, but once you get into the $500k range you're likely going to cost several township employees their jobs so the lawsuit can be paid.

The maxim in this country used to be an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. More and more, the maxim is shifting to getting something for nothing, or at least getting way more than you deserve for doing relatively little. We're heading toward people's goal in life being to get paid handsomely to suck at their job, or to be somehow wronged by a well-heeled party that warrants a big lawsuit. So, I ask, what do you want to be when you grow up?

All For One, One From All?

Mercifully, the NBA free agency whirlwind has subsided, and while certainly all the folks in Cleveland are still pretty steamed (see what I did there? OK Lou you can act your age any minute now) about the public-perception suicide that LeBron James committed, the country now focuses the brunt of its attention on baseball, and specifically for this week, the All-Star Game. One of the time-honored debates that begins the moment the All-Star rosters are announced is the "every team gets represented by at least one player" rule. It used to be that people would only be annoyed at this rule because it would deny a more-deserving player or two a spot on the team, that spot instead going to someone merely having a decent year on a bad team. But since 2003, when Bud Selig found it necessary to inject meaning into a mid-season exhibition game by having its winner determine which league got home field advantage in the World Series, the debate has grown larger and larger. Fortunately, o my brothers, I am here today to solve that debate, in the way that all of our middle school English teachers taught us to - with a bit of the old pro and con.

Pro
Mandating that every team be represented in the All-Star Game is one of the few egalitarian things left in a sport that has become the ultimate caste system over the past 15 years. From a visual perspective, the All-Star Game is unlike anything else, in that you will see 30 different uniforms on the field over the course of the game. Since all of the other sports - football, basketball, hockey, etc. - are nearly impossible to play unless the two teams are wearing distinctly different colors, baseball is the one sport that can pull this off. I, for one, take great enjoyment in seeing every single major league uniform on the field during the Midsummer Classic, and sacrificing a Royal or an Oriole just to get yet another Yankee in there does not seem to go along with the way it was originally drawn up. Not to mention, don't you think much of America is sick of seeing the same 7-8 teams on national television all the time? By mid-July we've all had plenty of Pujols, Jeter, and Halladay. It's a nice change of pace, not to mention a fandom-enriching experience, to see guys like Corey Hart, Heath Bell, and Joakim Soria play on a big stage. It's a spectacle that should put the whole league on display, not just the 4 or 5 biggest markets.

Con
Let's start with the name. "All-Star Game." That kind of implies that every participant should be a star, yes? If that's the case, then good luck convincing me that such players as Michael Bourn (hitting .255 for the sad-sack Astros, albeit with 28 steals), Evan Meek (he does have some nice numbers, but he's a setup guy on the Pirates, give me a break), and Ty Wigginton (sporting a sweet .334 on-base percentage for the 29-win Orioles) really belong on that field. You're selling me on a game where I am just as likely to see a matchup of John Buck vs. Matt Capps (the 23 saves are nice, the 49 hits allowed in 39 innings aren't) as I am to see Cliff Lee against Albert Pujols (Editor's Note: Cliff Lee blew Albert away on 3 pitches in the 4th inning. So I at least got that one.)? And what's worse, the deeper the game goes, how much more likely is it that the average fan will not even have heard of many of the guys on the field at crunch time? Under this system, a guy hitting .260 for a last place team can potentially have the at-bat that decides whether the AL or NL gets home field come late October? Has the whole world gone crazy? Do you get what I'm driving at? Did I just end 5 straight sentences with question marks?

The Verdict
Believe it or not, I'm steadfastly in favor of having every team represented in the All-Star Game. It's bad enough that the owners in cities like Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Kansas City act like they're trying to kill baseball in their respective towns. The least MLB can do to avoid twisting the knife in those beleaguered fan bases is throw them the bone of being able to root for one of their own guys in the Midsummer Classic. What about all the stuff I just said in the last paragraph, about the every-team rule dragging down the talent level? Well, I really don't think that's the issue.

The issue is with how the game is treated. You can't contrive meaning for an exhibition game. Our parents' generation loves to talk about the days when the All-Star Game was a bitter rivalry and meant just as much or more than any regular season game. They croon about Pete Rose running over Ray Fosse in 1970 to illustrate that point. Well I'm sorry, but everyone is going to have to accept the fact that those days are over. There is too much money invested in the players on the field for the All-Star Game to be treated as anything more than an exhibition. Ray Fosse's career was severely derailed after getting decked by Pete Rose. Can you imagine the backlash if that happened today? And it doesn't even have to involve rough play. For instance, if Charlie Manuel were truly managing to win this All-Star Game, don't you think he'd keep Ubaldo Jimenez in there for a lot more than two innings? I don't think they've even invented the words that the Rockies would have for ol' Cholly if he made their ace throw 100 pitches in an All-Star Game. And that's not even considering the issue of everyone not getting into the game, which pisses people off just as much. You can't ask a manager to try his hardest to win a game while at the same time making sure that everyone gets to play. It's a candle burning at both ends.

You could make the All-Star Game count for whatever you want, but guys from opposing teams are still going to be slapping each other on the back during batting practice and chatting while being held on at first base. It's just the way the game is played now. The new every-year DH and re-entry rules are a much-needed safeguard against running out of players, so the issue of repeating the 2002 tie is moot. Instituting those rules is the league saying "there's no reason that everyone can't get into the game," which stamps "EXHIBITION" in big red letters all over the thing. For those reasons, the best of both worlds is to allow the game to remain an exhibition, and simply award home field advantage in the World Series to the team with the better record. Now, can we simply let some of the most talented men on the face of the planet play a game of baseball, and leave it at that?

The Anti-Soccer Rebuttal

Allow me to first make myself clear. I don't hate soccer. I certainly do not like soccer, but "hate" is not exactly the right word. I don't hate it. I just don't buy it. I never got very much into it as a kid, and at my ripe age now, there probably isn't much hope (kind of like how I am with Star Wars, sorry John). A big part of it stems from my growing up in a decently yuppie town and going to school with kids who thought they were tough shit because they played soccer, even though the truth was that 80% of them wished they could play football but their parents wouldn't let them. From an early age, soccer became known to me as the sport you played if Mom was too scared of you getting hurt if you strapped on the good old helmet and shoulder pads. I have many reasons for my disregard of soccer, ranging from the gameplay itself, to its fans, and to greater societal implications drawn from its following here in the United States. While my viewpoint may be somewhat unpopular right about now, just hear me out.

Part I - The Game
I'll start with the on-field stuff. Does it take a tremendous amount of skill and athleticism to play soccer at a high level? Of course it does. However, does that fact alone obligate me to take an interest in the sport? There is also a tremendous amount of skill on display in a sport like archery, as well as an insane amount of toughness and conditioning on display in MMA, but that doesn't mean I'm making plans to watch either of those anytime soon. The issue here is that the display of skill in soccer pales in comparison to the display of skill in the sports that are prevalent in America. Tell me, do you see anything on a regular basis in soccer that is on the level of hitting a 95-MPH fastball, threading the needle to a receiver in traffic while getting your clock cleaned by a 280-lb defensive end who runs a 4.5 40, draining a 3 with a 6'6" defender's hand in your face, snatching a 90+ MPH slap shot out of the air with the glove hand, or sticking a 190-yd 5 iron six feet from the pin? Sure, there are diving or leaping saves and well-executed sequences of passes and shots, but how often do you get those - once or twice a game? The other 88 minutes amount to a ballet, and on a side note I think I prefer ballet costumes to the stupid sponsored jerseys that professional soccer teams wear. Call me a curmudgeon but I kind of like the outlandish idea of a team's uniform prominently bearing the team's name or city.

Contrary to popular belief, the lack of scoring in soccer is a non-issue to me. I love low-scoring baseball games and even low-scoring football if it's played crisply. It's not the lack of scoring in soccer that irks me, it's the lack of structure. Two of my three favorite sports (baseball and golf) are often derided (by soccer fans, ironically) and labeled "boring" for their deliberate nature. But let's be honest, soccer ain't exactly a 10 on the heart-thumping scale either. The pace of soccer is so monotone, it allows for very little of the dramatic buildup you get in the other sports on a big 3rd-and-goal, a 3-2 pitch with bases loaded, or even the final sequence in a one-possession basketball game. A soccer game plays out like some kind of amoebic stream of consciousness. My favorite part of being a sports fan is trying to manage or coach along with the game as I watch. American sports fans value the chess match of what play to call on 2nd-and-1 or 3rd-and-4, what pitch to throw in this 2-2 count, when to bunt or send a baserunner, etc. Soccer is too free-flowing to provide those fan-captivating moments of strategy.

Part II - The Fans
The out-of-the-woodwork soccer following that takes place in this country every four years for the World Cup is enough to put you off your food. Americans will get all juiced up for soccer for the next four weeks, packing the bars and pubs decked out in USA soccer gear like they a.) actually give a shit, or b.) can name 6 players on the team. You know what the fervor is really all about? It's about the drinking holiday. It's about having the popular excuse to go to a bar at 10am on a Saturday and howl away at odd chants and songs in an effort to pretend to be European. And when it's all over they'll go back to ignoring the sport for the next 47 months. So why not just be real about it? Are you really feeling that left out from the party if you don't buy into all the World Cup hype fed to you by ESPN? Kevin made an interesting point in his post (immediately below this one) that following soccer is not necessarily the cool thing to do in the country. But for at least these four weeks it is the cool thing to do, and the amount of people that are becoming temporary soccer fans in the US right now give me all the more reason to turn a deaf ear to the goings-on in South Africa. This would drive me up the wall if I were an actual legit soccer fan like Kevin is. The "four weeks out of every four years" soccer fan is akin to the "championship parade" fan who saw less than 50% of the games that year.

American soccer fans, even the reputable ones, are a unique bunch. Through my years I've never seen a group of people get so offended when you say you don't like their sport. Go and try it sometime. Tell an American soccer fan that you don't like soccer and he'll react like you just called his mother a slut. He'll undoubtedly launch into a sales pitch for the game and try to insult my sport-watching intelligence while doing so. "Oh, but you just don't get it, it's the most popular game in the world, you just can't appreciate it because Americans' attention spans are too short, blah blah blah...." Nobody else does this! Hockey fans don't do it. Auto racing fans don't do it. MMA fans don't do it. If someone tells any of those fans that they don't like their sport, the response is usually along the lines of "that's your business, not mine." What is it about being a soccer fan that makes you more defensive than the post-career Roger Clemens?

And by the way, can we put this "world's most popular" argument in mothballs please? We all know it's the most globally followed game. But does that mean it's a rule that I have to like it, just for that fact? You're in America. Soccer may be the most popular game in the world, but not in this corner of the world. Accept the fact that your beloved soccer is a second-tier sport in the country in which you reside. If you want to go somewhere where soccer really matters, then feel free to move across the pond. I'll even help you pack. If I happened to move to France or Spain, I'd have an easy time accepting the fact that baseball is irrelevant there. Sense of surroundings, people. Sense of surroundings.

Consider this: America is comprised largely of the descendants of European immigrants, yes? These immigrants came over several generations ago from countries where soccer was king. Over time, sports like baseball, football, and basketball came into the fold and took over in the still-young-and-forming-its-identity United States. Soccer fell by the wayside as alternatives were offered. America, thanks to its size and diversity, has had a greater sampling of more sports than most other countries, if not all. And America as a whole has chosen other options over soccer.

On a cultural note, (and thanks to our blog follower Tony for this one) earlier American generations embraced these new "American" sports in part as a way to carve an identity for themselves as US citizens and separate themselves a bit from the countries from which they emigrated. It seems more and more now that people in America try to embrace soccer as an effort to be anything but American. I'm not against being open to other cultures, but seeing people walking around in foreign soccer jerseys with those multicolored scarves that make you look like you belong on a coffee logo bothers me as much as seeing 4th- and 5th-generation Americans with tattoos and/or car adornments depicting their ancestors' home country. Pride for your heritage is fine, but going over the top to act like you're actually from that country when in truth your family has been over here for 120 years is not. You get that point because we've gone blue in the face illustrating it in the past, so no need to dive back in. But let it be known that soccer fandom in this country goes a long way in feeding the xenocentric beast.

In conclusion, I'm indifferent to soccer itself. I can't ever see myself spending time or money in an effort to follow the sport in any way, but I'm not exactly starting a picket line against its existence either. What I want is for it not to be in my face for maybe 4 months out of every 4 years in an attempt to make it relevant in my home country. Have all the fun you want with the World Cup, but do not call my sports aptitude into question for simply sticking to my ways and conscientiously objecting to the blitz of soccer hype. Please cool it with the crusade to try to instantly rearrange the pecking order of American sports. If soccer is ever going to be truly that big a deal in the United States, it is going to take a few generations, because the appeal of sports is very much a generation-to-generation handoff. And in the mean time, you're just going to have to live with the fact that "Dad, you wanna have a catch?" is much more American thing to say than "Dad, you wanna go out and take some penalty kicks?"

(image borrowed from ESPN.com Page 2)

The Inconvenience of Convenience

Technology is a great thing isn't it? Our culture, and especially our generation, is just enamored with it. And no matter what facet of life you're dealing with, chances are there has been some sort of technological development in the past 20 years that revolutionized it. We have so many nicnaks and doodads designed to make every little step of our days that much more convenient. But I wonder, at what point do these added conveniences become counter-productive?

For instance, a few weeks ago I got a text from my sister, saying "Just read in People magazine that Feces Finding has a single out......thought you may be interested since you set up her stage." She was referring to a singer named Fefe Dobson who did a show at the day camp we both worked at back in the day (and yes, I did work on her stage). But did you catch that little error up there? I'm pretty sure if the actual name of the group were Feces Finding, they'd be targeting a whole different segment of the market. Alas, what happened was that her phone has an autocorrect texting feature that will change words it doesn't recognize (which is bound to happen with a lot of names) into words it does recognize. So "Fefe" became "Feces," a chuckle-worthy text blunder caused by a feature designed to make things more convenient.

These things are all over the place. Most colleges these days have an online file sharing system where professors can post assignments, grades, etc. and students can submit papers and homework electronically via a dropbox feature. This is all great, but is it really worth saving the trip to physically hand stuff in? And you don't even want to know what happens if the internet goes down and you can't get your assignments or submit your work before the built-in deadline. It's a shitstorm in a snow globe.

This is the world in which we trudge about our lives. You can't type a word on a computer anymore without spell check having a seizure on your screen. That supremely annoying Microsoft Office paperclip above has managed to gain the wrath of everyone born after 1970. It's great that we have cell phones with email capabilities, but isn't a by-product of those luxuries the fact that you are now accessible in many situations where you really don't want to be accessible (especially in regards to work)? Go into any public bathroom, and you have those automatic-flushing toilets, automatic sinks, and motion-detecting paper towel dispensers. How unreliable are these things? Don't you just love having to wave your hand in front of those things like a jackass to try to get them to serve their function in life? Half the time they're broken anyway, leaving a foul-smelling bathroom with no paper towels to be had.

There's nothing wrong with most uses of technology in an effort to make things more user-friendly. The problem occurs when all of a sudden we are relying on overly involved or complicated systems to do simple and mundane tasks. And why have such elaborate developments been made in some of the seemingly least necessary areas? To counteract human ineptitude, of course!

There is no need for a motion-detection system wired to flush a toilet. There is no need for a laser-powered viewfinder to tell to a golfer exactly how far he is from the hole. Nor is there a real need for an autopilot mode built into new cars to essentially parallel park themselves. But somewhere along the line, laziness and ignorance won out. Auto-flush toilets became necessary because enough people thought it was OK to not flush. Bad golfers with money to burn never grasped the concept of playing by sight, and decided that a handheld surveying system would somehow offset their terrible swing and lack of instincts. A demand for parallel-park assist developed out of the apparent staggering decline in humanity's ability to operate a motor vehicle. The examples go on, but I'd like to think I've made my point.

Unnecessary Courtesy

Being courteous will get you far in life, or at least that's what we're told from about age 3 and on. And you need not look further than the "License and Registration, Please" series from a few months back to see how we value etiquette and a heads-up attitude around these parts. But much like people often take the simple act of saying "thank you" to an unwelcome extent, there are certain elements of courteous behavior that are just flat-out superfluous.

Scene #1: you're walking into work around normal time on a typical morning, so that means there will likely be several other people walking into the building at about the same time as you. Now that you've got the mental picture, how easy is it to envision this: 2-3 people walk in about 50 feet ahead of you, one of whom holds the door for the other(s). That's all fine, it's common courtesy to keep the door open for someone walking in right behind you. But then this overly nice guy or girl continues to hold the door for you even though you're still a good 15 yards away. The mental reflex is for you to feel indebted to this person for maintaining the gigantic 12-kg force (yes I Googled it) necessary to hold the door open. And what happens next? Without even thinking, you break into that embarrassing "half-running-half-walking" stride so you look like you're making an effort to get to the door as quickly as possible and spare this Samaritan a second or two of exhausting door-holding duty. I've grown to detest this awkward power-walking gait so much that now I intentionally slow down when walking into work just so not to be caught in that door-holding gray area.

I'm an able bodied person, who is neither visibly injured nor carrying a ton of shit that would necessitate someone holding the door for me. And don't worry, I won't be mad if you simply allow the door to close when I'm any farther than 5 feet away. Opening the door for myself won't exactly ruin my morning. And on the other side of the coin, I'm not going to feel eternal gratitude to you if you stand there like a bellhop holding the door for me while I practically still have one foot in my car. So for everyone's sake, just walk in and get on with your business. Oh, and another note: going out of your way to hold the door for that good-looking chick who works on the third floor is not going to make her want to hook up with you, so just stop.

Scene #2: you're at the gym and it's fairly uncrowded. As you're in the middle of a set, Mr. Excessive Manners ambles over to you and asks "hey, are you working on that machine/bench/cable station over there?" Normally this would be no problem - in fact, I applaud such a level of gym etiquette - but in this case it's abundantly clear that there's no way in hell you're actually using the apparatus this dude wants to use. No sir, you see, I'm in the middle of a set of squats, what do you think the chances are that I'm also using the dip stand on the other side of the room? There are these things called muscle groups, and most people do not dip and squat on the same day, let alone super-set them. So relax Richard Simmons, you're not being presumptuous if you hop on the dip stand without asking me first, you're just using (gasp!) a bit of deductive reasoning and common sense.

What do we pin all this unnecessary courtesy to? It could just be that some people are so scared to ever make anyone mad, especially in a public setting, that they'll constantly try to appease others to avoid ever being thought of as rude or inconsiderate. But I think the bigger cause of this annoying behavior pattern is that too many people just aren't that observant. You can't live your life on autopilot. Keep the head on a swivel and have a sense of your surroundings, because even those seemingly ironclad rules of "being nice" that we're taught as kids have exceptions.

MLB's Unbalanced Schedule: Just Add Water

To get NotAsGoodAsYouThink's attempt at a baseball preview going, we'll start with something that has been been irking me for a few years now. Major League Baseball instituted the unbalanced schedule in 2001 in an effort to make the long regular season more interesting by adding juice to its existing rivalries and maybe even creating some new ones along the way. For those who are unaware, the unbalanced schedule calls for each team to play about 17-19 games a year against each of the other teams in its division, which will take up about half of the team's 162 games. The rest of the schedule is made up of anywhere from 6-9 games against the rest of the teams in your league, plus between 15-18 interleague games. The heavy amount of intra-division games was supposed to intensify division races and rivalries through sheer volume and familiarity.

It's worked, but only to a point. Sure, baseball gets to showcase (read: TV revenue) a ton of Yankees-Red Sox, Phillies-Mets, Cubs-Cardinals, and Giants-Dodgers games for its fans' viewing pleasure. But there's an ugly other side to that coin, because for every extra marquee matchup the unbalanced schedule gives you, it gives you a Pirates-Reds, Padres-D'Backs, or Royals-Indians sack of garbage to go with it. Plus, fans can get a little tired of seeing the same teams over and again throughout the season - I bet most Phillies season ticket holders would gladly trade a series against the Nats for another more compelling series against someone like the Cardinals or Rockies. It would have been cool to see AL Cy Young winner Zack Greinke face the top lineup in his league last year, but we didn't get to, because the Royals only saw the Yankees for three games in early April and three games in late September, none of which were pitched by Greinke. Such is the drawback of the unbalanced schedule.

I will say the unbalanced schedule is a decent way to keep teams' levels of travel relatively lower, since everyone gets a few extra nearby series within their division versus an extra trip or two across multiple time zones. But even that notion is a bit overrated, since most divisions feature at least one long plane ride within themselves anyway (i.e. New York/Philly to Miami, Milwaukee to Houston, Seattle to Arlington, TX). Finally, the unbalanced schedule calls for the final 3 weeks or so of the regular season to be just about all intra-division games. This is cool at first glance because it guarantees late-season head to head matchups to decide division winners. But it also gives you a good number of games where a team in the hunt gets to match up with (and feast upon) a lowly team's minor league call-ups, which throws a just bit of a wrench into the integrity of the pennant race, yes?

To be honest, it was a welcome change from the way it was before - a bland, auto-fill spreadsheet of a schedule where every team played an equal amount of games (two home series, two road series) against all the other teams in its league. But the novelty has worn off, and now the inordinate amount of intra-division games has created rather unfair situations for teams that are in especially strong or weak divisions. For instance, Tampa Bay must play 36 total games against the Yankees and Red Sox this year; that's 22% of their schedule against two teams widely considered to be among the top 3 in baseball. Not only do they have to contend with the two giants for the division itself, but the Rays must also contend for the Wild Card against teams from the other AL divisions who play a considerably softer schedule. Now, before anyone starts making violin-music jokes, Tampa is a very good team in its own right, and many people are convinced they'd be a playoff shoo-in if they were housed in another division. Some have even gone so far as to propose radical realignment policies in order to counteract the pitfalls of the unbalanced schedule.

If you couldn't get through that realignment article without getting a headache, don't feel bad. It's definitely discussion worthy, but way too off-the-wall to happen. That's why I'm here with a simpler proposal - just water down the unbalanced schedule. Instead of playing 18 games a year against your division counterparts, make it 12-13 games a year. Eliminate one interleague series a year, namely the "rivalry" series (interleague matchups built into the schedule where certain pairs of teams meet for two series during interleague play). I've always viewed this extra interleague series as unnecessary and just an excuse to get Yankees-Mets and Angels-Dodgers for 6 games a year instead of 3. Disburse those 27 games or so that we've just freed up among the other teams in the same league, and all of a sudden you've got a schedule that still caters to the big rivalries but falls short of being disproportionate to the league as a whole. The fans and networks still get their share of headliner matchups, and no one can complain all that much about any team having a ridiculously easy or difficult schedule just because of what division they're in.

Anyone have Bud Selig's number?

Sh*t I Don't Understand: Hunting

I'm not sure if I even want someone to enlighten me on this or not, but I just don't get the appeal of hunting. Hundreds of years ago? Sure. It was the only way to survive unless you lived in an area conducive to farming and could grow your own food. But in this day and age? Not so much. It baffles me to see these dudes who are gung-ho, can't-live-without-it about hunting. Now, it's not the killing of animals that really bothers me, I don't want to get anyone thinking that's the direction I'm going with this. There are areas where certain animals are overpopulated and hunting does a service to the ecosystem, and at least in this country hunting is regulated pretty well, so rest assured I'm not going to harp on moral grounds here.

No, my thing is, I just don't see how in the hell hunting is considered fun. Let me get this straight. I'm going to drive out to the middle of nowhere. I'm going to throw on some orange just in case Dick Cheney is around. I'm going to sit my ass up in a tree or face down in the middle of the weeds somewhere, oftentimes covered in some semblance of animal urine to give off the right scent. And then I'm going to....wait. And then I'm going to wait some more. I remain there and stare at nothing until, if I'm lucky, an unsuspecting deer prances by or a flock of geese fly within the range of the gun I probably paid an embarrassing sum of money for. And if I'm not freezing my ass off by that point I'll aim, fire, and hopefully be the proud owner of a nice fresh carcass that I can mount on my wall at home and use to creep people out. This is best-case scenario, by the way. You talk to people that hunt a lot and it's not uncommon for them to take these big ass hunting trips, come back empty-handed, and still somehow rave about how great of a time they had.

Oh hell yeah, that sounds like my ideal getaway, let me tell you. 36 holes at Pebble Beach, or three days of that previous paragraph repeated over and over? Wow, talk about your all-time dilemmas. Where is the sport in hunting, anyway? That's why I doubt I could ever get into it; if there's no ball it's tough for me to consider something a sport. If you're hunting with a bow and arrow, that's one thing. But you see these guys go hunting with these new high-tech guns so they can go out and shoot some oblivious primate in the back of the neck from 50 yards away? Way to go there, pal. What an act of competitive skill that is. That must have been so difficult, why don't we just tie the damn thing to a tree for you next time while we're at it? Considering that a real accomplishment is like rooting for Arnold in the first few scenes of The Terminator before Kyle Reese shows up.

And above all else, you gotta get that picture with the dead animal and you giving a big thumbs-up, or you holding the thing up by the antlers or some other dignity-robbing pose - because you know you gotta show that shit off to all your friends at your regular Mensa meetings down at Cabela's. "Aw man, look'er here at that dang stag our here boy Earl done bagged himself! Ain't he some heckuva feller?!" What cracks me up is that nobody else does this in any other hobby. I sure as hell didn't have John I take a picture of me and the loaded bar after the first time I benched over 300. And if I ever make a hole-in-one, I doubt it will cross my mind to have someone take a picture of me kneeling and pointing at the ball in the cup.

Yet hunting is a lifestyle for thousands and thousands of people out there. I guess a lot of it has to do with how and where you were brought up and what was presented to you as "fun" from a young age, but I can't just write it all off to that. Maybe it's just the cynic in me, but I'm guessing a lot of hunters just love it because it's one of the only ways to get away from their wives for more than 20 minutes. OK, it's definitely the cynic in me. But I know you were nodding your head, don't deny it.

The Trite Utterances of Subpar Sports "Fans," Volume Three

You're allowed to hate the Yankees. It's a free country. Go ahead. But just have some legit reasons for it. If you want to hate them because of A-Rod or Roger Clemens or the Steinbrenners, that's fine. If you say you hate them because you got real tired of seeing Paul O'Neill throw fits after third strikes back in the day, or because you don't like how Derek Jeter has more hot female celebrities' numbers in his phone than Ari Gold, I won't jump all over you for it. If you even want to say you hate them because of how they treated Joe Torre at the end of his run, I may even agree with you on that. But do the sports-watching world a favor and cease with the "They buy their championships!" shit. I know it's going to hurt for a minute to draw some fact-based conclusions and not just regurgitate everything you hear on ESPN or Comcast Sportsnet or Philadelphia talk radio, but bear with me. Take Advil for any headaches, Midol for any cramps.

My whole thing starts with this. People say the Yankees try to "buy" a championship every year as if they're Montgomery Burns putting together the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant company softball team. Well, doesn't building a contending team entail putting together a roster of good players? And last time I checked, guys that can actually hit the ball squarely on a consistent basis or throw the ball over the plate with regularity don't generally play for the league minimum. Quality players cost money, and you need to spend in order to win. In the 2000s, the only World Series champion with a payroll in the lower half of all major league teams was the 2003 Marlins, an exception that I'll get to in a minute. If you want to blame something, blame Major League Baseball and its lack of a salary cap. Don't blame the teams that spend as much money as they can, because if you ain't buying, you ain't trying.

You can try to catch lightning in a bottle like the Marlins did or the Rays did in 2008, but that will eventually catch up to you. The Marlins won titles in 1997 and 2003 and had to fire-sale after each one because the talent they had stockpiled was due to make a ton of money. Look at the salaries that a few of the 2003 Marlins would eventually make with other teams (scroll down to the bottom of the linked pages for salary figures):

Josh Beckett - $11.167 million with Boston
Brad Penny - $9.25 million with Los Angeles
Derrek Lee - $13.25 million with the Chicago Cubs
Miguel Cabrera - $14.38 million with Detroit
Ivan Rodriguez - $12.38 million with Detroit
Mike Lowell - $12.5 million with Boston
Juan Pierre - $10 million with Los Angeles

And this is leaving out players such as A.J. Burnett (he was injured that whole year), Luis Castillo and Dontrelle Willis (generally accepted as bad contracts), Carl Pavano (because I don't feel like puking), and Ugueth Urbina (because we don't promote guys who attack servants with a machete and threaten to torch them with gasoline). My point is, you can only get away with paying players below their worth for a short period of time. If you are out to be perennial contender, it gets expensive. The 2008 Rays benefited from several years' worth of high draft picks all reaching the majors within a short time of each other (Evan Longoria, B.J. Upton, James Shields) as well as players obtained via astute trading (Scott Kazmir, Dioner Navarro, Matt Garza) to produce a low-cost AL champion. But even now they've already traded one of those players away (Kazmir) for eventual contract purposes and may have to do the same with Carl Crawford, arguably the best player in team history.

I know what you're saying - "wait, isn't this guy disproving his own argument right now?" In a way, yes, because I've reaffirmed the economic imbalances that create something of a caste system in baseball. But what I want to point out off of that is there is a lot more to building a winning team than throwing money at free agents - just take a look at some of the recent Mets and Cubs teams, or the Dodgers and Orioles of the late '90s-early 2000s. What separates the Yankees is that they have been able to retain their homegrown talent even as they became worthy of top-dollar contracts - Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte (excluding his 3-year stay in Houston where he played for less money to be closer to home), and eventually Robinson Cano, Joba Chamberlain, and Phil Hughes. No one can say that the Yankees never develop players and just wait until everyone else's players become free agents. You want numbers? The Yankees had 11 homegrown players in the 2009 World Series, while the Phillies had 8.

Also, I don't see where making trades qualifies as "buying a roster." I'll use the guy with the biggest bull's eye on his back as my example. Commoners forget that the Yankees did not simply sign Alex Rodriguez back in 2004 - they traded Alfonso Soriano (a 28-year-old, five-tool player at the time) to the Rangers to get him. In fact, Texas even paid about $9.5 million of Rodriguez's $25.2 million salary for his first four years in New York because they were that bogged down by the contract. It's certainly not the Yankees' fault that Texas gave A-Rod a bigger contract than it could ultimately handle, is it?

Listen, I know that no other team can afford to spend the way the Yankees do, and that no other team has as much margin for error to whiff on a bad contract, but let's stop acting like they're the only ones spending money out there. I don't recall such a big stink when Boston won two World Series in four years with baseball's second highest payroll, dished out to players like Manny Ramirez ($20 million+ per year free agent deal), Johnny Damon (free agent signed from an Oakland team with zero chance of retaining him), Pedro Martinez (traded to Boston from Montréal when it became evident they wouldn't be able to afford him), and Curt Schilling (traded from Arizona when they could no longer keep both him and Randy Johnson). I guess since they were darling Boston and they had players with long hair and dreadlocks and chin straps that they just had to be a bunch of lovable lugs, right?

By the logic that most people use, if the Yankees "bought their championships," then didn't Boston too? And didn't Arizona in 2001? Hell, that D-Backs team went into so much debt by deferring salaries that within 3 years they were a 111-loss shell of their former selves. I get how you can gripe if you're a Kansas City or Pittsburgh fan, but still don't most of the complaints belong at the feet of your own front offices that trade away talent, spend nothing, pocket all the revenue-sharing money, and essentially make their city's interest in baseball dissolve by about June 1 every year? Or, if you insist on churning out the "buying championships" line, then you're going to have to apply it not just to the Yankees, but to everyone who wins with anything other than a team of David Ecksteins.