The best headline I have seen in weeks came from the associated press...
"Yankees' Wang hit hard, Red Sox rough up Halladay"
Just take the first half of that on it's own for a minute...
Yankees' Wang hit hard
Think about it.
Yeah, there you go. So, what was that editor thinking? That could only have been made worse by "hit hard," being replaced by the term, "pounded."
Guess it might just be that kind of year for the Yanks.
Stripped...
Pacman Jones gets his appeal today. Of course it has come out that the night before his last meeting with Roger Goodell Jones was at a New York strip club.
He's appealing the suspension based on the idea that the punishment is unprecedented. His lawyers need to look a little deeper into league history. In 1963 Detroit Lions Paul Hornung and Alex Karras both served season long suspensions for gambling on the game.
Spitting the bit...
The Yankees had an opportunity to move above .500 for the first time in I don't know how long this season (...maybe since the first week?). Everything appeared to fall in their favor. They were playing a mediocre Texas squad in the friendly confines of Yankee Stadium. Chien-Ming Wang, last year's ace, was on the mound against a pitcher who's ERA was somewhere north of 6.00.
What did the Bombers do? They bombed. Wang gave up seven runs in less than seven innings, and then the bullpen gave up another seven leading to a 14-2 loss in the Bronx. Currently they are half a game below .500 and a season high seven games behind the Red Sox.
Sure, the cavalry is on its way, but will it arrive in time?
USADA is losing cred...
According to an AP report:
Floyd Landis claims the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's lead attorney approached his lawyer offering "the shortest suspension they'd ever given an athlete" if Landis provided information that implicated Lance Armstrong for doping.This calls into question why USADA's rep failed to show for the test of the B sample recently (Landis' reps could only be present at the World Anti-Doping Agency's test of the reserve sample if USADA's reps were present).
Who let the dog out...
Even with plausible deniability involved, it seems that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is seriously considering suspending Michael Vick anyway. According to a report from Don Banks at Sports Illustrated, Goodell essentially told Vick, "your house, your responsibility."
Personally, I have to admit, in my opinion - and let me stress that last word - Vick is guilty as sin in this, but will manage to avoid legal culpability. The suspension, given the fact that he has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately, I think looms as a very real possibility.
A suspension would certainly be a wake-up call for Vick. The question is, would it work?
Interesting conversation...
In light of Amanda Beard's decision to pose for Playboy, my wife and I had an interesting conversation...particularly in regards to gratuitous nudity and roll models. I won't go into the heavy details, but it lead me to an article regarding the marketability of athletes and women's athletics.
According to a poll of 65 businesses around America by Street & Smith released earlier this year, only Maria Sharapova breaks the top 10 (ninth). Other women to make the list, or be determined marketable:
Michelle Kwan (skating - retired)
Mia Hamm (soccer - retired)
Anna Kournikova (tennis - retired)
Chris Everett (tennis - retired)
Michelle Wie (golf)
Swin Cash (WNBA)
Heather Mitts (soccer)
In recent years others have made the list, such as Venus and Serena Williams, and Gabi Reece, but why such a short list? Is it tied to the lack of popularity of women's sports? Is it tied to something else?
The saying that everyone hears in regards to advertising is "sex sells," yet efforts of the WNBA to make attractive players such as Sue Bird and Lauren Jackson the faces of their franchises don't seem to help draw in the larger fan base that the WNBA has hoped to attract. Is it due to a long standing misperception that the women's locker-room is merely the jock "closet," a haven packed solely with athletic-minded lesbians and a homo-phobic United States stays away?
Is it that women's sports hasn't tried hard enough to market to a lesbian fan base that does indeed exist?
All of these are plausible explanations. But I have one other - it's the markets that women's team sports feel they need to be in. These Joanie-come-lately leagues insist on trying to compete with already established men's teams for the same dollar.
Look where the WNBA has situated their teams - New York, Seattle, Detroit, Houston, etc. Many of those teams are in markets where they are competing with Major League Baseball's longer established Yankees, Mets, Mariners, Tigers, Astros, etc, for the fan dollar. That's not a winning proposition. The reason - the NBA, the WNBA's parent corporation, wanted to be in the biggest television markets.
It might have been wiser, however, to move into the secondary markets. Pensacola, which is a top 45 television market, but has precious little in the way of professional sports, is the home town to the women's football team Pensacola Power. It is one of the few venues for that sport that regularly attracts over 4,000 in attendance for its games. By way of contrast, in their second seasons Pensacola regularly attracted several thousand fans and was covered by the local newspaper, Philadelphia, competing against the Sixers and Flyers (when the two made the playoffs), as well as the Phillies, were lucky to attract 1000.
Yes, the female athletes you see hawking products tend to be the prettiest - lord knows that Kournokova had moments, but was never at the top of the game, never won a major tournament and never ranked higher than eighth, but was at the time the most marketable face in tennis. Not just women's tennis - but tennis as a whole. Even sitting on the sidelines she continues to make millions.
Are there exceptions? Sure - Mia Hamm wasn't the prettiest of the pro-soccer players, but she's not unattractive and she was the best at what she did.
The question all this leads to is - what's the answer? How can women's sports be more marketable and draw bigger crowds? If I could answer that, I'd have a whole lot more money than I do now.
What is Clemens real impact?
Assuming Kei Igawa was still getting used to a new leagues, batters, umpires, etc., it's probably safe to project him for somewhere between eight and eleven wins over the course of the season and about a 5.00 ERA. With a maximum potential of about 23 starts and a move to a tougher league than he pitched in last season, chances are Clemens will produce between ten and fourteen wins with around a 4.00 ERA.
For an additional $26 million (figuring for luxury tax), that's really not much additional bang for the Yankee buck, if all the assumptions above are really true. Also, they can not figure that a 45 year-old pitcher who averaged six innings per game in the weaker National League is going to do the same in the American League...and isn't part of their problem right now their overtaxed bullpen?
DE-Bearded...
Olympic swimmer and occasional model Amanda Beard evidently will be appearing sans swimsuit in the July issue of Playboy. There is, from our puritanical countrymen and our militaristic feminists, something of an outcry about this.
Dr. Mary Jo Kane, director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls & Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota, told the New York Daily News, “It used to be that female athletes were portrayed as wholesome, All-American girls. Now you get female athletes in GQ, Playboy and the Swimsuit issue. The result of it is coverage that is very damaging—that trivializes and marginalizes women athletes because it does not give them the respect they deserve as competent athletes.”
So it's okay for an athlete to be wholesome, but not sexy? I understand that Dr. Kane wants these athletes to be taken seriously based on their merits as athletes, but no one should get bashed because that person is comfortable in his or her own skin.
Also, it's not like this is the first female athlete to do so - Australian WNBA star Lauren Jackson, Olympic high jumper Amy Acuff, Olympic figure skater Katarina Witt, and world cup soccer player Brandi Chastain have all been photographed sans clothes (to paraphrase Chastain - she worked really hard for her body, is proud of it, and wanted it recorded). This phenomenon is not limited to female athletes - Olympic diver Greg Louganis posed for Playgirl in 1987. NBA star Alan Houston and baseball player Carlos Delgado have also posed nude, but I don't believe that anyone thinks that has detracted from their athletic accomplishments.
Let's face it, we're not talking about Tonya Harding and the homemade porn tape here.
Personally, I think Playboy should be commended when they actually portray a woman with a strong, healthy, athletic body achieved through hard work and sweat rather than surgery.
Coming up sevens...
Let's just say that Josh Beckett is not the same pitcher this year as he was last year. Right now he's 7-0 with a 2.51 ERA and has given up two home runs. Last year? Thirty-three starts, 36 homers.
What a difference a year makes.
People who are worried about how the Dice-man adjusts from Japan to the American majors should take a look at Beckett who struggled last year. All of you who are worried about Matsuzaka - remember the following...he is still getting used to new umpires, new batters, a new strike-zone, and a new ball size. He'll come around, just don't expect him to dominate this year - but do expect to see flashes.
Not much of a fan but...
I'm not much of a basketball fan, as I'm sure regular readers have figured. I don't watch much, I'm not particularly enamored of any team and...since the early 1990's, I just find that the game has evolved into something I just don't care about. I haven't watched a minute of even the playoffs this year, and I'll usually catch a game or two...this year it's just not catching my interest.
There has been speculation in recent years that it has to do with the fact that there are more black players (roughly 75%) there than in any other league (football is roughly 65%) and the fact that they are more visible and easier to see the "thug life" connection in the blatantly displayed tattoos. I can't help but think if this were true, than hockey would rein supreme.
I think it's a different issue.
I think Michael Jordan initiated the advent of a new business model in how to build a team - find one or two superstars and surround those guys with JAGs (just another guys). Who did Allen Iverson ever have playing with him in Philadelphia that was a superstar (at the time he was with Iverson)? Paul Pierce in Boston? Even the Utah Jazz really only had Karl Malone and John Stockton for years.
I'm not even a basketball fan and I can tell you that the Lakers and the Celtics of the early to mid 80's went much deeper than that. Sure the Celtics had their big three in Larry Bird, Robert Parrish, and Kevin McHale, but they also had Dennis Cowens, Danny Ainge, ML Carr, Bill Walton, and Dennis Johnson - several of which were Hall-of-Famers themselves. The Lakers themselves had the likes of Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Bob McAdoo, Byron Scott, and Kurt Rambis.
Personally I think the problem is that they are trying to sell the game as a team sport and so few of the franchises really play as a team, not to mention the fact that there has been a deterioration in certain important skills such as defense (which is as much a reason why Team America hasn't been able to come home with the gold as anything else).
As for the last point - a lot has been made of the other teams around the world playing day in and day out together. It's interesting how that never affected our dream teams until the most recent generations of players.
Ready for launch...
So the Rocket Man has ended up in pin-stripes...big whoop. The Yankees biggest problem right now is getting quality starts out of the front five in the rotation, so they go out and sign 45-year old Roger Clemens to a deal to shore up the starting rotation.
Clemens was good last year, averaging 6 innings per start and a 2.30 ERA in the National League. Clemens will be starting about five starts earlier this year than last, so he could feasibly have 25 starts on the year (although I'm guessing the number will be closer to 20). He's unlikely to have that ERA or last six innings per start in the American League where line-ups tend to be deeper.
Yankees fans who think this is going to be your savior, take note - when Clemens left the AL to pitch with the Astros, his ERA dropped nearly a whole run per nine innings (3.91 to 2.98) and he lost five fewer games. During his stint with the Yankees he averaged a 4.01 ERA and was only as low as 3.51 once. Is he really going to relieve the pressure on the bullpen? Maybe, but I have my doubts.
For that, they need to hope that Mike Mussina can come back and stay off the DL, Andy Pettite doesn't break down from being another year older (and the Yankees needing more out of him and Clemens than the Astros did), and rookie Philip Hughes can fulfill some of the promise he showed before the hamstring injury, they might have a shot at the post-season. And all of that assumes that the stop-gap solutions they currently have in place are able to alleviate some of the bull-pen's current work-load before Clemens is even ready to pitch in the majors, otherwise injuries will begin occurring there. They have already pitched 112+ innings this season to Boston's 75. To put it another way - they've pitched four extra games.
If this pace keeps up, the Yankees bullpen will have pitched 21.6 more games than the Sox pen. That is not a winning formula.
From the "sucks to be him" department...
On Saturday Julian Tavarez had his best game of the year, giving up only two runs to the Twins. Unfortunately he was going against Twins' ace Johann Santana who only gave up one run.
To compound issues, rumors have begun to surface that the Sox are shopping Tavarez to make room for the rehabbing cancer survivor, John Lester, in the hopes of bringing Lester back to the majors by early June.
All of this kind of makes Schilling a cautionary tale. I'm not comparing Schilling to Tavarez. Even at this age, Schilling is a more talented pitcher than Tavarez. What I'm talking about is that you have an older, veteran pitcher on staff, but waiting in the wings are a number of prospects that the Sox have been unwilling to part with. All of those younger prospects have more of that magic term "upside" attached to them than either Schilling or Tavarez, and it's only a matter of time until each are replaced.
I'm not saying that it will happen this year for Schilling...but with three major pitching prospects simmering on the back-burner in Pawtucket, taking his contract negotiations public might not have been his wisest move in recent years.
Taking a couple for the team...
This year's Aussie Rules season got under way with a friendly match against North Carolina in Raleigh. If that was friendly, I'd hate to see how they play teams with whom they were unfriendly. Of course it didn't help that I drove the five hours there and five hours back on the same day.
In all honesty it was one of the more physical games of footy I have been involved in since I started playing back in 1999.
On the plus side...we won by 2, we beat a division one team, we were playing with a bench of three for the first half and an injury reduced that to a bench of two against a team that was sporting about a dozen reserves. The final was 68-66. Still, there was a lot of room for improvement.
On June 9 we will face them on our home turf in a game that will actually count towards the standings in the Eastern Australian Football League (Us, Philly, NC, NY, and Boston).
Anyone who is local, come on down we can always use the support (for directions, click on the Baltimore/Washington Eagles link on the right).
Much ado about nothing...
Evidently Tom Brady has been spotted lately wandering around Manhattan wearing a Yankees cap. The various national sports media outlets are making a big deal out of the signal caller for the New England Patriots wearing something other than the hometown Red Sox cap.
Let's note a couple of things here - first, he grew up in the Giants and Athletics territory, not Massachusetts. Second, this isn't the first time he has been seen wearing a Yankees cap. Third, who cares? Everyone that's a sports fan develops their own tastes and preferences and I don't expect that to change just because the individual ends up playing in the territory of the team that is the rival of whom they root for.
I played football in high school, and had I been large enough and good enough to play in college and get drafted, let me tell you how I would have signed that big fat contract with the teams that I hated growing up. If I ended up on the Jets, yes you would have seen me wearing my Sox cap and jersey at Yankee Stadium.
Now, if he were to go and sign a contract to play for the Dolphins or the Colts...well then, all bets are off.
The NYpon Ham fighters...
Okay, so I stretched a little for a pun here, but right now the Yankees seem to be feeling a little hamstrung. Over the course of the first month of the season the Bronx Bombers have lost four pitchers including the latest casualty, pitching prospect and expected phenom, Phil Hughes to hamstring problems. Since spring training under the stretching program instituted by the Yankees new strength and conditioning guy Bobby Abreu, Chien-Ming Wang, Andy Pettitte, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui and Mike Mussina each went down with ailments that could potentially be tied to conditioning and stretching issues. That's four starting pitchers and three starters for those keeping score at home.
According to the NY Daily News - "After Mussina strained his hamstring on April 11, Cashman threw his full support behind [trainers] Miller and Cavalea, saying, 'None of these injuries have anything to do with this new program.'" Yesterday Miller was shown the door, possibly in a move by Cashman to avoid that same door himself. Someone had to take the fall for the Yankees' slow start, and it appeared that the trainer was ripe for the kicking.
If the Yanks have a May like their April, rest assured there will be other heads that roll before the end of the month.
Not exactly waiting for Godot...
Josh Beckett has accomplished something in a Red Sox uni that not even Pedro did...six wins in six decisions to start the season. Only a handful pitchers in Sox uniforms equaled or topped that feat - Roger Clemens and the ole' southpaw, George Herman Ruth are among them. Not bad company to be in.
The early returns seem to be that Beckett is on course, as long as he stays healthy, for a 20-win season, even if he stumbles a bit, and a strong candidate for the Cy Young. Right now he has 6 wins (1st, which could put him on pace for close to 14 by the All-Star break), is 9th in innings pitched (39.2), 8th in strike outs (35), 9th in ERA (2.72), 8th in Walks/Hits per Inning Pitched (WHIP) with 1.06, and opposing batters are hitting only .219 against him (10th).
If he maintains these averages, he has every chance of finishing in the top five in every important pitching category. The big question is, can he do it? As a Sox fan, I sure hope so.
What is truly amazing is that in almost every one of the categories I mentioned, there is another Sox pitcher in front of him - Schilling in innings pitched, Wakefield in ERA and opponent's batting average, and Matsuzaka in strike outs.
I think Sox fans would be hard pressed to find a time in the team's history when four members of their pitching staff were in the top ten of those statistical categories over the course of any one month period of time in any season. Hitting? Sure. But pitching...
Feeling a little drafty...
As readers may have noticed, I'm not much on covering the draft, but I am going to say a couple of things about this past year's draft -
Feeling Patriot-ic - I think some good and some...well let's just say that the jury is out as to what happened here. I honestly don't know enough about Brandon Merriweather to claim he's a bad guy. Yes he was involved in a gun incident, no, the police found nothing illegal in his involvement - the gun was licensed and it was determined that he was indeed acting in self-defense. I'm not happy about it, but to borrow a Belichick-ism - it is what it is...and what it is appears to be an isolated incident.
Then there was the brawl where he was caught on film stomping on a Florida International player's head. I understand that football is a game of great emotion - when in high school I had to be restrained from going after another team's center, but I was 15 at the time, not 21.
Are these red flags? Yes. But people have been comparing this to picking Pacman Jones which I believe is...shall we say a touch of hyperbole. Jones had been arrested for assault in a bar incident in West Virginia and had a history of trouble in high school including suspensions from both school and team, I have not heard the same in the case of Merriweather. Merriweather could easily be heading in that direction, or it's quite possible that there will be nothing else along these lines. He has shown, from what I've read, little indication of following the troubled paths of Jones, Chris Henry, Tank Johnson, or even Washington safety Sean Taylor.
Trading places - The Pats made one pick on day one of what was considered a weak draft class, trading picks for extra places in next year's stronger draft. One of the big coups for the Pats was getting San Fran's number one next year. While the Niners figure to be better next year, I'm guessing it will still give the Pats a pick in the teens.
Rolling stones gather no Moss - There are a lot of positives to the Moss deal. The Pats picked up a talented player for virtually little to no real cost to themselves. The controversial wide receiver automatically makes the offense better. Currently, he's saying all the right things - even lauding Troy Brown as the best receiver to come out of Marshall. I still don't like the deal.
I don't feel they needed him to put them over the top at this point. I have no respect for a player that, "plays when I feel like it," and feel that it's the equivalent of the Red Sox going out and getting Derek Jeter (or in the past, Don Mattingly or Catfish Hunter) to play for them - it just wouldn't feel right.
So, for what appears to be a bargain (potentially just one year $3+ million and a fourth round draft pick) the Patriots landed Raiders' trouble child Randy Moss. There's just something about this deal that feels...well...icky. This guy is about a half step up from Terrell Owens. It's like George Steinbrenner owning the Red Sox. There's just something wrong about this deal.
Does it make the Patriots team better? Probably, but at what cost? Moss is a highly talented and likely motivated player, with a desire to show the league that he is the same player he was before his two years in Oakland. However, he is also a notoriously selfish player. Despite his protests to the contrary this past weekend, his selfishness is well documented, as he often publicly complained that he did not get the ball enough, did nothing to sell routes when he knew running plays were going away from him, and seldom blocks.
How long, in the Patriots team first system, will this guy last before becoming a problem?
It will be difficult for me to root for this guy - too often he has been in the news for the wrong reasons, and that is something that is important.
Generally I'm willing to give the Patriots brain-trust the benefit of the doubt...this move has just left me wondering.
As someone who has spent years as a professional journalist, I try very hard to remain neutral when it comes to certain things related to reporting...even when I am a fan. If you search my site, knowing I am a big Patriots and a big Red Sox fan, you will find articles that are often critical of my favorite teams. I'm a fan, but I understand reality.
I don't give players or the team a pass when I think they have screwed up.
Shades of guilt?
I have to admit...in all the doping scandal involving Floyd Landis, I think he screwed up. I don't know that he actually doped...he might not have, he might have. I do know that his initial reaction is problematic in the court of public opinion.
In the immediate aftermath of the first test Landis, a former teammate and domestique of perennial accusee Lance Armstrong launched into a variety of excuses for why the tests came back positive for elevated levels of testosterone. I freely admit to being no doctor, but the lines about ingesting the alcohol and the line, “now there's also the possibility, and it's an argument that has been used by other people. At this point, I don't know if it's somehow or some way I ingested something that caused the tests to be that way,” that he gave Jay Leno both ring hollow.
This led Landis to fall back on the stand-by of pointing the finger at the lab, which typically smacks of desperation.
Reasonable doubt...
Let's look at some of the surface issues here, I won't even delve too deep.
Landis has been able to fall back on the lab because, let's face it, this lab has had a history of mishandling samples.
Landis finds himself caught in a "perfect storm" type of scenario. Consider the following - cycling as a sport in recent years has garnered a reputation as a haven for the performance enhanced, particularly blood dopers. Cycling's governing body decided it was finally time to crack down hard on suspected cheaters - bouncing some of cyclings' biggest names, including Jan Ulrich and Ivan Basso, before the Tour even got underway last year. Couple that with the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (Dick Pound's), profound and even slanderous contempt of Lance Armstrong and a growing resentment of American riders dominating the French event (wins in 10 of the last 20 years - Greg LeMond twice, Armstrong seven times, and Landis once) and what do you have? A situation in which being able to disqualify the winner gives the IOC the biggest trophy of all in cleaning up their sport.
I'm not saying this is what has happened, but I don't believe this is outside the realm of possibility.
Even those believing in Landis' guilt - which I admit is a possibility - I pose to you the following questions -
If WADA was convinced that there was no possible way that the test on the A sample was wrong, then why require representatives of USADA to be present when Landis' representative is present?
If the USADA rep couldn't be present, then why not reschedule?
In 2004 two riders were kicked out of the Tour after doping investigations. Is there some reason that the IOC's and WADA's people were unable to complete an investigation with enough time to prevent Landis from crossing that finish line? They were able to do it in 2004.
Also, with historical issues with the lab, would it really have been so difficult to farm the test out to a different lab that both parties could agree on?
Due process has been negligible at best throughout the course of this affair, and I am only scratching the surface here. And I think it's safe to say that it doesn't look like he will get a fair hearing from doping officials.
In the news for all the wrong reasons...again
It seems my favorite Atlanta Falcon punching bag, the highly over-rated quarterback Michael Vick appears to have run afoul of the law...again, this time he has been implicated in a drug probe which has revealed, at the very least, some sort of indirect support of the illegal practice of dog fighting at a home Vick owns in Virginia. Currently a 26-year old relative who was being investigated as a drug dealer in a narcotics probe lives at the home.
According to the report, "more than 60 dogs were found in three buildings. Some appeared malnourished, scarred and injured, officials said."
Unfortunately, since Vick was not there...and I don't believe this would be his primary residence, I have a hunch that this will provide him with plausible deniability, allowing him to walk away from this dog fighting and what is yet another drug-related scandal unscathed.
I think it's interesting that trouble always seems to be hovering around this guy - whether it's as Ron Mexico, flipping off the fans, or being detained at an airport...not to mention the MySpace photos with a girlfriend and the marijuana use comments contained therein. Sure, to be fair one has to ask, "is he an innocent target?" or, "is he somebody that keeps putting himself in position to be a target?"
Just plain sloppy...
Orioles announcer and Maine native son Gary Thorne screwed up...bad. Assuming he heard Doug Mirabelli right and Mirabelli did actually say that it was paint on Schilling's sock, as someone who has worked professionally as a journalist for over a decade, here are the questions I have -
If the story is true...
1. When he first heard this, as he claims, two years ago (to the best of his recollection), as a journalist why didn't he follow up on this and get confirmation? There were plenty of potential sources to confirm -
A. First baseman Doug Mankiewicz who had a very acrimonious departure from the Red Sox.
B. Former Sox center fielder Johnny Damon.
C. Former Sox first baseman Kevin Millar.
D. The doctor, Bill Morgan, who performed the procedure and later was fired by the Red Sox.
Those are the ones off the top of my head. Keith Foulke comes to mind as well.
2. Mirabelli has a reputation as a practical joker - always has had that reputation. Wouldn't that make it more important to a reporter to confirm a story?
3. Most importantly, why would any reporter sit on a story like this for two years?
Red Sox fan or no, as a journalist I know that's something I'm working on getting out quickly and I'm making sure I have corroboration for my story. This was just sloppy and irresponsible.
28th and wondering where to go...
Right now the Red Sox are third in the majors in ERA (3.21), the Yankees 27th (4.83), the Yankees are 4th in batting average (.275), the Sox are 13th (.259). However, from the 7th inning on the Sox are 5th (.277), and the Yanks are 8th (.263) in batting and the Sox are tied for 2nd in ERA (1.83) while the Yanks are 28th (5.03). All of this has translated into the best record in baseball for the Red Sox heading into the final weekend of April. For the Yankees? A better record than only the Royals, Rangers, Nationals, and Cubs. Technically, that leaves them in 28th overall in the bigs.
How loud will the thus far quiet George Steinbrenner become if the Yankees extend their losing streak against the Red Sox this weekend? If they are swept again? If they lose two of three?
It could get really ugly really soon in the Bronx.
I know that the Yankees started like this last year, but last year they had a deeper bench and the Red Sox pitching wasn't as good as it is this year. They can turn it around. The question is, will they in time?
And those are lonely places. Lonely, lonely places...
Dissecting labs...
According to the French newspaper L'Equipe, Floyd Landis' B-sample has tested positive for epi-testosterone. This of course is the same paper that has led witch-hunt after witch-hunt against American riders and the same French lab that has repeatedly bungled the testing of Tour-de-France riders.
Landis has of course responded, making some very valid points about the potential invalidity of the test results. I am not defending him, nor any other American rider, as I honestly don't know what to believe. I do have to say that something smells very wrong about the process here and the term "railroaded" pops into my head.
Pushing the panic button...
Brian Cashman must really feel Steinbrenner breathing down his neck at the moment. The Yankees are off to a great start offensively, but have been horrible on the mound (I think the longest any starter has gone has been 6 innings). Cashman will be promoting top pitching prospect Phil Hughes to start Thursday's game. The Yankees GM has been loath to do this in light of the fates of other top prospects rushed to the bigs such as Kerry Wood.
Dropping three straight to arch-rival Boston and then a fourth to Tampa Bay must really be eating at The Boss...and Cashman I'm sure knows it, otherwise Hughes doesn't go any higher than AAA before September of this year. The move smacks of desperation which is kind of funny when you think about it - do the conversion to a football season. This would be like management panicking somewhere around the early fourth quarter of the second game of the season...say with 13:45 left on the clock in the 4th quarter.
Early returns looking good...
My other sports gig, Bitterfans, asked its writers to submit predictions for this year's baseball season season, and right now I'm looking good in my picks for each division winner (hey, I know it's early and anything can happen between now and October). Here they are along with current standings -
AL East - Boston 1st
AL Cent - Minnesota T-1st (with Detroit)
AL West - Oakland - 1st
NL East - New York - 1st
NL Cent - Milwaukee - 1st
NL West - Los Angeles - 1st
I fully expect to be wrong on a couple of these...but hey, I need to give credit where credit is due while the standings still fall in favor of my predictions. Yay me.
Bright lights, big city...
This weekend marks the biggest holiday in football fandom for anyone whose team is a perennial bottom feeder...Saturday is Draft Day. It is the day that is meant to give hope for the turnaround, give belief that what was once bad can become good in a hurry. Fans gather in Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan to see who the future of their franchise is going to be.
The draft was created and designed on the premise that it favored the worst teams, giving them first shot at the top talent in the draft. It hasn't exactly worked that way - ask a fan of the Arizona Cardinals, a perennial bottom feeder. Of course that is no fault of the draft. The draft itself is sound as long as the organization picking has all of its front office and coaches on the same page.
To wit; the Cardinals, Lions, and Browns are consistently picking in the top ten. Theoretically those teams should be amassing an immense amount of talent. The Colts, Patriots, and Chargers typically are picking in the late 20's of the first round, amassing what should be lesser talent.
All teams work with the same salary constraints - and in spite of a reputation as being "cheap" the Patriots usually spend to the cap as does most of the league. What has been the difference between the bottom feeders and the cream of the crop? Management, talent evaluation, and coaching.
Bad luck does play a part (injuries, sudden retirements, etc), but even that can be overcome; the Patriots won a Super Bowl with a defensive backfield so decimated that one corner was a street free-agent, a safety was a career corner, the other safety a career linebacker, and the nickel-back was a career wide-receiver; the Philadelphia Eagles made it past the NFC Championship, getting that monkey off their back, sans the wide receiver who was supposed to be the missing piece in the previous seasons.
To put it a different way - If I told a Colts fan that Matt Millen was going to be their general manager, the Colts fan would probably go all Oedipus and claw his eyes out before killing himself. If I told a Pats fan that Dan Snyder was buying the team from Bob Kraft...let's just say what they would do would make the Boston Tea Party look tame by comparison.
For some reason it's like playing kick-ball when you're little, but the kid picked for team captain somehow finds a way to always pick the kid that everyone else would pick last. That's what it has come to for those bottom-end teams.
Management for the successful teams have set rules and prices and often will part with a highly talented player who thinks they are worth more than the team has budgeted for the position. The teams at the bottom? They're the ones who pay the big bucks thinking that the free-agent is the missing piece. Ask Redskins fans how well that has worked out, or Raiders fans.
The problem isn't the system...the problem is human, and the system wasn't made to account for human error.
It's early yet, so I'm not going to make a big deal about the Sweep at Fenway, however, if they take the three at the Stadium next week, The Boss (and I'm not talking Springsteen) isn't going to be happy. However, I do want to address some strange facts about this past weekend's series.
The finals of the games from Friday to Sunday - 7-6, 7-5, 7-6. One more run for the Yankees on Saturday and we're looking at the Number of the Beast. Is anyone really surprised by that?
Now onto the real trivia related to the weekend and the things that can be taken from this series.
The Yankees hitting is keeping some dismal pitching afloat. After this weekend, according to ESPN, Yankees starters are averaging fewer than 5 innings pitched per start and the bullpen has thrown the most innings of any bullpen in the majors. None of the starters is averaging even six innings per game.
The Bombers have largely been kept afloat through the efforts of the usually unreliable in the clutch Alex Rodriguez who has more home runs (12) than the rest of his team combined (11), and has more than twice the RBI's (31) of all but one of his teammates (Bobby Abreu with 16).
Red Sox pitching was mortal in the series, but still seemed to prove the old baseball adage, "great pitching beats great hitting." Also, Sox starters lasted a minimum of six innings in each start, keeping the Boston bullpen fresh. The Yankees had one starter last at least six full innings. In two of the three games Yankees starters relinquished the mound with the lead only to watch the bullpen cough up the lead. The Boston bullpen held in each instance it was asked.
Last night a rookie became just the second pitcher in the history of baseball to give up home runs on four consecutive at-bats. Curious connections - JD Drew is the only batter to be involved in the last time that four consecutive batters hit home runs (it happened a total of five times in the sport's history, but only twice was the same pitcher on the mound for all four dingers). Drew is the only batter involved in the quad-fecta more than once. Terry Francona's father was involved in the last time four were hit off of one pitcher.
What can be taken from this weekend? Not much more than a smug sense of self-satisfaction for Sox fans, with the understanding that the tables could be turned next weekend. But Yankees fans still should view this as a warning about the state of their pitching. As a Sox fan, I have seen my team try to build offensive juggernauts and ignore pitching. I can say that it can be good enough to get you to the post season...occasionally, but it won't get you much farther.
There really is nothing quite like it.
I'm talking Sawx-Yanks here.
I've been immersed in the rivalry for as long as I have followed baseball, and that brings me back to about four years old I would guess. For thirty-three of my thirty-seven years I have been through the ups and downs - the 1978 meltdown, Yaz's last game at Yankee Stadium, the mid to late 1980's when the rivalry stalled a little due to fact the Yankees didn't compete at the highest level when the Sox were going to the post-season every other year, the mid-1990's when the same was going on the other way, and of course 2004.
2004 was a very cathartic year for Red Sox fans - and at the same time it was somewhat anti-climactic. After the gut-wrenching drama (The Sox never do anything the easy way) that was the American League Championship Series between the Yanks and Sox (really, the way it needed to happen too), the World Series win over the Cardinals (which was also appropriate considering 1967) was...nice, but not momentous...well, not as momentous as the AL Championship win. That might have been why the dismantling of the Cardinals seemed almost an afterthought in that post-season.
The irony of that post-season is not lost on me either. Up until that point, the Yankees were the Beast in the East, Goliath to the Red Sox' David. They owned all the great post-season records - more World Series trophies than any other team, and more than many teams combined. The Sox? They hadn't won since 1918. The post-season record - no - the post season reputation of the Sox since? Epic collapses - 1967,1975, 1978, 1986 (and my brother is a Mets fan), 1988, 1990, 1996, 2003 (what were you thinking Grady, what were you thinking?).
But in 2004, and this must absolutely eat at George Steinbrenner, the Red Sox turned the table on their nemesis. The Yankees were just three outs away from the World Series and up three games to one over the Sox. No team in major league baseball had ever come back from down 3-1, let alone 3-1 and only three outs away from elimination. But the Sox did it, and against the pitcher universally accepted as the best closer in baseball.
Suddenly, not only were the Sox in the series, but they bequeathed their legacy upon the hated arch-rival Yanks. Suddenly the worst post-season collapse in the history of baseball was in The Bronx. There was a weird sense of relief and joy among Sox fans...even the doomsayers were looking at the nature of the rivalry with new eyes - and having trouble trying to tell fellow fans how the (Sox) world was going to end at the hands of the Cardinals. Hell - if we could beat the Yanks, the Cards would be easy.
Sure, Steinbrenner has driven up salaries around the sport. He has created a multitude of problems for small market teams trying to compete. But he has been good for the sport. He has given us a bad guy...an almost cartoonish evil villain sans any true evil. His biggest sin is that he wants to win at any cost and will try to buy a championship - but he doesn't do anything against the rules. He is the owner of the Indians in the movie Major League, or the owner of the Washington Sentinels in "The Replacements." He is the owner who lacks any real expertise, but is trying to win no matter the fiscal cost. And he is a great villain - I will miss him when he is gone.
But all of that is incidental. Tonight begins the Fair in the Fens, the Carnival by Kenmore Square. It is the only rivalry in professional American athletics that evokes a virtual post-season atmosphere for every game. Tonight and for the next three days John Updike's, "little lyric bandbox of a ballpark," will become a rocking juke joint with pilgrims from New York going to the Park with the Fenway Faithful.
With Sox-Yanks, it's not a game. It's a religion.
Visitors already know where I stand on this. I acknowledge that Bledsoe is a borderline Hall of Famer, but, based on the history of the quarterbacks enshrined, I would say that he is a HoFer never the less. I hear a lot of people talk about how you can not look at these statistics in a vacuum. In that case, let's not.
I addressed in my last post a number of the statistical comparisons...now let's look at something else that's relevant, Hall of Famer players with whom these players played that might have made the quarterback's job easier - defense, linemen, wide receivers, running backs, etc.
Let's even take a look at some of the current quarterbacks that reports regularly call "future HoFer..."
For the purposes of this I am not going to count Vinatieri (even though his best seasons came with Brady), due to the fact that other deserving kickers have been unable to get enshrined, and until Vinatieri is actually voted in, I will not count a kicker amongst the sure-fire or even likely to make it into Canton.
Let me start by posing the following question - Name more than one sure-fire HoF player that Bledsoe played with for more than a season. The only likely candidate I can come up with for Bledsoe is Curtis Martin. The only wide receiver with a shot? Terrell Owens with whom he spent one season and seldom passed to because (this was from a Dallas newspaper) he hadn't bothered to learn the playbook. So Bledsoe played with one definite. The only other is likely Ty Law.
So let's give him two there.
Tom Brady? Four - For at least one of the Super Bowl runs he had a future HoF in running back Corey Dillon and one and a third for Ty Law, for two of them Rodney Harrison, and in all three, Richard Seymour. Remember, I am going with the players with which HoF gets mentioned.
Peyton Manning? Four, possibly five - Marvin Harrison, Edgerin James, Marshall Faulk, possibly Tarik Glenn and some have even begun to mention Reggie Wayne.
Brett Favre? One - Reggie White.
Dan Marino? One - Dwight Stephenson. And even when Stephenson was gone, Marino had go-to guys Mark Duper and Mark Clayton for multiple seasons, Bledsoe never had the same pair of starters for more than two consecutive seasons.
Troy Aikman? When all is said an done it could be as many as three - Michael Irvin, Emmitt Smith, and there has been talk about Larry Allen.
Dan Fouts? Only one - Kellen Winslow (and Fouts didn't have to jump right in like Bledsoe did - his first season he was able to learn under Johnny Unitas and see how things were done by veterans like Deacon Jones).
Terry Bradshaw? Eight - Lynn Swann, John Stalworth, Joe Greene, Mel Blount, Jack Hamm, Franco Harris, Jack Lambert and Mike Webster.
Joe Montana? Two - Jerry Rice, Ronnie Lott.
Warren Moon? Two - Bruce Matthews, Mike Munchak (and even Earl Campbell for a season...and talk about statistics being aided by longevity - he played in the NFL for 20 seasons not including his work in the CFL).
Jim Kelly? Two - James Lofton, Thurman Thomas.
John Elway? The only quarterback that has none listed with him, although Bob Kuchenberg and Terrell Davis have stirred up debates on it (Kuchenburg making it to the round of 17, and Davis being debated by the actual voters), so I give Elway two.
Almost all of those HoF QB's had HoFers catching their passes. The exceptions? Elway, Moon, Favre and future HoFer, Brady. Of those without a big presence catching the ball, Moon played behind two HoF pass-protectors and Elway played behind one on the verge. So only Brady, Bledsoe and Favre among the above lacked the pass catcher and/or protection that all the other quarterbacks benefited from.
Of the quarterbacks to throw for more than 3000 yards at least nine times in their careers (Bledsoe, Favre, Marino, Manning, and Moon), only Favre has done it while surrounded with less talent on the offensive side of the ball.
So, in the modern era of passing who has done more with less? Very few. You can count on one, maybe two hands tops the quarterbacks who have done more with less than Bledsoe - Favre definitely, maybe Fouts, maybe Moon, Steve Young (who also had Rice and Lott), and Elway, but you're going to be hard pressed to argue that any of the other recent Hall of Fame inductees at quarterback did more to raise mediocre talent to a championship level than Bledsoe.
His one truly talented receiver? The oft injured and and mentally impaired Terry Glenn. His most reliable target? Ben Coates who hasn't even sniffed Canton. Outside of those two, non-Pats fans would have a hard time remembering that Bledsoe's big receivers were less a list of who's who at the position than of who's that with Vincent Brisby, Ray Crittenden, Michael Timpson, and Shawn Jefferson. Even with Montana everyone remembers Gary Clark.
I know a losing battle when I take it on. I write to raise awareness regarding Genarlow Wilson - check here for the update on what's going on with Wilson - and now I'm starting a campaign for Drew Bledsoe's induction to the Hall of Fame, knowing full-well that for whatever reason, sports columnists around the country are down on him in spite of a body of work that rivals most of the quarterbacks in the Hall of Fame.
Let's start with Sports Illustrated columnist and Massachusetts resident Don Banks (with whom I often find myself in agreement) and his recent column in which he says Bledsoe is "not even close" to a Hall of Famer...
Banks primarily argues the following
consider this overview nugget that in my mind clearly defines Bledsoe's legacy: As a starting quarterback, Bledsoe saw three organizations give up on him: New England, Buffalo and Dallas. That's nearly unparalleled among Hall of Fame quarterbacks.So, in his own argument he points out two other HoF QB's who lost jobs to other quarterbacks. Only one of the two others, however, could be considered a casualty of the salary cap era as Bledsoe was. When Bledsoe was released from the Bills he hadn't been beaten out by JP Losman, he was more expensive and the Bills felt that Losman's scrambling ability behind their suspect offensive line gave them a better chance in spite of the fact that he was unable to outplay Bledsoe for the starter's roll. Additionally, when in New England, Belichick opted to stay with the hot-hand in Brady when Bledsoe came back from a devastating injury.Twenty-six-year NFL veteran George Blanda lost starting jobs in Chicago and Houston, but his memorable stint in Oakland was primarily as a kicker and backup quarterback. The newly enshrined Warren Moon -- himself a borderline Hall of Fame candidate in the eyes of many -- saw Houston, Minnesota and Seattle replace him as a starter, but his Hall candidacy was aided immeasurably by both his six record-setting seasons in the CFL and his pioneering role as the game's first star black quarterback.
Bledsoe has no such historical niche to hang his Hall candidacy on.
So, he's behind in a couple of the statistical categories that Banks chooses to list, but even so is still ahead of Elway and Aikman in two of those listed. He cites the starting record of 98-96 (and a playoff record of 3-4, but is 4-4 if you count the relief appearance in 2001), but if win-loss is so relevant, then why is Joe Namath in? Namath had a losing record...by a lot, and less than pedestrian statistics. Here's the comparison -Bledsoe's career 57.2 completion percentage ranks behind all but one of the recent Hall of Fame quarterbacks who competed in his era, among them Steve Young (64.3), Joe Montana (63.2), Troy Aikman (61.5), Jim Kelly (60.1), Dan Marino (59.4), and Moon (58.4). Bledsoe is ahead of only John Elway (56.9). He's last in that group in quarterback rating (77.1), yards per pass attempt (6.64), and second-to-last in touchdown percentage (his 3.74 beats only Aikman's 3.50).
Bledsoe is also near the back of the pack of his peers when it comes to winning. His 98-96 career record as a starter is about as middle of the road as you can get. He went to just one Super Bowl as a starter, throwing four interceptions in New England's loss to Green Bay in that championship game a decade ago, and led a team to the playoffs as its No. 1 quarterback just four times in 14 years (going 3-4 in those games). That pales next to the postseason exploits of QBs such as Montana, Aikman, Elway, Young, Kelly and Marino.
The above quote was ganked from the AP report on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's decision to suspend Titans corner Adam "Pacman" Jones for the 2007 season and Bengals receiver Chris Henry for the first half of the season. Goodell went on to explain, "These players and all members of our league have to make the right choices and decisions in their conduct on a consistent basis."
According to the report, both the Bengals and Titans are publicly supporting the commissioner's ruling and Jones can even make it back before the end of the season if he plays ball with his employers...
He could be reinstated before season's end if he adheres to a strict set of conditions set by the NFL that include no further involvement with law enforcement; counseling, education and treatment under league and court-ordered programs; follows restrictions on his activities agreed to with the Titans; and a community-service program submitted to the league for review and approval.
I think that it's pretty safe to say that Asante Samuel will not be a Patriot much longer, particularly if he thinks his contract demands are realistic. I give him an outside chance of being in the red, white and blue next season, but based on what I read in the Boston Globe, Samuel has no actual clue of his market value...
As part of the recent negotiations between cornerback Asante Samuel and the New England Patriots, Samuel's representatives were seeking a contract that included about $30 million to be paid out in the first three years of the deal.
The Patriots were offering a package that averaged around $6 million per season, and although it is not known how much money would be paid out in the first three years, one thing is clear: It wasn't close to the $30 million Samuel was seeking, which led to his recent comments about being unhappy with the state of negotiations.
The above quote came from the now deceased former Grambling football coach Eddie Robinson. It is all you really need to know about the man to know what was truly important to him. If you need to know more, read on. A fair amount of the following was ganked from today's AP report...
Repeat visitors to theangryfan will be familiar with the fact that I had issues with the media gushing over the importance of a black coach winning this past year's Super Bowl. It's people like Robinson that were the true trailblazers for black America in the coaching realm. While Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in professional baseball, Robinson, according to the AP report on his passing, "'elevated a small town program to national prominence and tore down barriers to achieve an equal playing field for athletes of all races,' Gov. Kathleen Blanco said in a statement. 'Generations of Louisianans will forever benefit from coach Robinson's fight for equality.'
"...Jerry Izenberg, the sports columnist emeritus at the Star-Ledger of Newark and a close friend of Robinson since 1963, said the coach was an inspiration in the deep South.
"'People look at black pride in America and sports' impact on it,' Izenberg said. 'In the major cities it took off the first time Jackie Robinson stole home. In the deep South, it started with Eddie Robinson, who took a small college in northern Louisiana with little or no funds and sent the first black to the pros and made everyone look at him and Grambling.'"
Robinson's impact on equal rights started with his attitude. It was not unrealistic, but at the same time he didn't acknowledge being a second hand citizen, "'The best way to enjoy life in America is to first be an American, and I don't think you have to be white to do so,' Robinson said. 'Blacks have had a hard time, but not many Americans haven't.'" While Robinson saw himself as an American first, he was practical enough to know what limitations were imposed on him and his players by the society he was in, making lunches for his players when they went on the road because he knew that they would be unable to dine in restaurants in the South.
He was the first in his family to finish high school, let alone college, and his achievements at Grambling are college football legend - his "career spanned 11 presidents, several wars and the civil rights movement. His overall record of excellence is what will be remembered: In 57 years, Robinson compiled a 408-165-15 record. Until John Gagliardi of St. John's, Minn., topped the victory mark four years ago, Robinson was the winningest coach in all of college football. "
For my money, Robinson was (arguably) one of the five or ten greatest college coaches to ever walk the sidelines. Only a handful of other names come to mind when I try to think of comparable coaches...Bear Bryant and Joe Paterno are some of the company he keeps.
Robinson died at the age of 88 while suffering from Alzheimer's and leaves behind his wife, two children, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. I will forever remember the man as he is in the AP photo above - looking tough as nails, a little hunched over in a baseball cap and trench coat. May he find the peace in his passing that must have eluded him for the last couple of years as he combated the Alzheimer's.
A couple of brief thoughts regarding yesterday's exercise in futility at Kaufman Stadium in Kansas City.
A. Spring training is over, time to wake up guys, the season is here.
B. One game behind and only 161 left...
C. Schil - You can't spend spring training clamouring for a new contract and then cough up five earned runs in four innings while being out dueled by the immortal Gil Meche and expect to have credibility with Sox fans. We love you for what you did a couple of years ago, but don't negotiate your contracts in the press - it has a way of biting you in your ass.
D. This was one of the Sox uglier opening days...hopefully Josh Beckett will have better luck tomorrow.
E. Is that six losses in a row now to the Royals?
Didn't watch a single minute of this year's March Madness and found I didn't miss it at all.
With the NFL Draft practically upon us there has been a lot of recent speculation about what this team will do and what that team will do. The draftniks have said they believe with their two first round picks the Patriots will...
Draft a safety and lineman
A linebacker and a corner
Trade lower and get more picks while drafting a linebacker
Get a wide receiver and linebacker
A running back and safety
or any number of different combinations of the above. It really covers a lot of possible options, but I will be the first to say that I have looked at Patriots needs in the past, compared it with Belichick's draft history in those years and I think it's safe to say that I have no frakkin' clue what the Patriots will do.
Sure, they could use more youth at linebacker and safety, they could use another running back, and good corners are always hard to find. However, they seem to have addressed all the major concerns in free-agency this year, so don't be surprised if they go after the best available player that fits their system, rather than for high-need.
Stumble It!