I try to avoid posting about bloggers

But this dude blogs for Yahoo so he probably makes decent money for his work (well, some money anyways).  That makes him fair game as far as I'm concerned, and besides, oh my goodness gracious what a fucking idiot.

Where does Andrew Luck ank among NFL quarterbacks at this moment? 

Well, in terms of yards passing, he's now second overall in the league.  That's pretty good, although it's also a function of the fact that his team's running backs are Donald Brown and Vick Ballard.  If you want to use ANY other metric of QB performance, you'll see that Luck ranks pretty low.  24th in QB rating.  29th in completion percentage.  Tied for 17th in touchdown passes.  I can't find a stats site that will rank the league's QBs by TD/INT ratio, but his is 1.25, and that's pretty shitty.  Luck has definitely played decently, especially for a rookie, but he's probably not among the top 20 QBs in the league.

Are there 10 quarterbacks in the league better than him? 

Yes.  There are many more than that, in fact.

Five?

Manning, Brady, Ryan, Rodgers, Roethlisberger.  And a bunch of other guys.  Fellow rookie RGIII is outplaying Luck by a pretty significant margin by passing stats alone; add in Griffin's running ability and he's way, way, way better than Luck right now.  Not that RGIII hasn't also received his share of undue hyperbolic praise.  But if someone is going to write an article about how Luck is inserting himself into the MVP discussion (oh yes, he's about to do that, just wait), it seems like "he's not even the best rookie QB in the league" is a good place to start with a counterargument.

What Luck is doing in Indianapolis so far this year is among the most impressive feats a rookie has ever pulled off. 

He's throwing for a lot of yards, in part because he's 3rd in the league in attempts per game with 42.  He's been pretty average.  I know the history of the NFL is littered with crappy rookie QB performances, but it's not like he's setting the world on fire.

Behind his NFL rookie record 433 passing yards, Indianapolis beat Miami 23-20 to improve to 5-3. In a watered-down AFC, the Colts have a great shot at a playoff berth, which is amazing.

The Colts have beaten the Packers, I'll give them that.  On the other hand they've also lost to Jacksonville and been completely humiliated by the fucking Jets.  Their remaining schedule has 5 road games and 3 home games; they play Houston twice and New England.  They'll probably finish 8-8 and if they make the playoffs it'll be predominantly a function of the AFC's shittiness.

This is the same franchise that was in serious danger of going 0-16 last year. 

It's also the same franchise that went 10-6 in 2010 and didn't really lose anyone other than Manning for 2011.  It's not like the roster was a total wasteland when Luck showed up.  They had a horrible 2011, but I doubt they were a true talent 2 win team.  Just like they're not a true talent 10 win team now.

The Colts didn't add much in the free-agent market this offseason, realizing they faced a long-term rebuilding project.

Their offense had/still has plenty of quality pieces.  Their defense put up poor numbers last year, but those were skewed by the fact that the defense spent so much time on the field because the offense was abominable.  It was probably a middle of the pack defense, give or take, as it is this year and was in 2010.  They traded for Vontae Davis during the preseason.  Not really a "we don't expect to be good this year" kind of move.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news but you're going to have give other Colts besides Luck credit for their "5-3 although we're really not that good" start.

But they added Luck. And now they are halfway to a 10-win season and a wild-card berth.  Sometimes success in the NFL is as easy as having a great quarterback.

Just ask any of the vapid talking heads on FOX or CBS's pre/postgame studio shows!  That must mean it's true!

Luck was dominant against the Dolphins. 

He was pretty good.  He completed 63% of his passes and led his team to a 3 point win, at home, against another mediocre team.  

He completed 30-of-48 passes for 433 yards, with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He broke the Colts' rookie record for passing in a game - set by Jack Trudeau with 359 yards in 1986, of course. Were you expecting someone else?
LOL INDEED I WAS, YOU GOT ME THERE, I AM THE HUCKLEBERRY

The Colts had a more memorable rookie quarterback who set records that Luck is gaining on. ESPN Stats and Info said Luck is the second rookie in NFL history with four 300-yard passing games. The other was Peyton Manning in 1998. Luck has half a season left to add to that total.

And if he keeps throwing 42 times per game, he's got a good shot at getting there.

Two Colts receivers had 100-yard games on Sunday: Donnie Avery and T.Y. Hilton. That's not exactly Swann and Stallworth. 

And those guys often get single coverage because the Colts still have Reggie Wayne, who's still really good.  

The Colts could go from a team that started 0-13, brought back a roster that isn't dramatically better than last season and had the horrible situation of coach Chuck Pagano being diagnosed with leukemia during the season, to one that goes to the playoffs. Luck's impact on the first half of this NFL season can't be overstated. 

It certainly can.  Congratulations for accomplishing the impossible, sir.

He should be considered a legitimate MVP candidate through eight games.

Not even close.

If Luck isn't already considered in the elite tier of NFL quarterbacks, 

He's not.

his inclusion on that list will be an easy decision very soon, 

He looks pretty decent so far.  Maybe in a few seasons, depending on like twenty different factors.  So basically he has as good a shot as any talented-but-mediocre-so-far rookie would have of eventually joining those ranks, which is probably worse than 50/50.

especially as the Colts start to add pieces around him. 

Yeah, maybe an elite #1 wide receiver type guy.  They certainly don't have one of those right now.  (He would benefit from the presence of a running back who's not Donald Brown or Vick Ballard, I'll concede that.)

Indianapolis picked the perfect year to be awful and earn the first overall pick.

There's a chance Luck will end up being better than other QBs picked #1 overall recently, like Newton or Stafford or Bradford.  There's even a chance he's as good as Manning or Elway one day.  And then there's also a chance he's never any better than middle of the pack, because playing QB in the NFL is fucking difficult.  Up until this point I had no strong feelings either way on Luck.  Thanks to this article, which other than the fact that it uses correct spelling/grammar/capitalization sounds like it was written by a poster at coltsfansmessageboard.com, I now hope he fails spectacularly.

Sunday night bag of things which can be grabbed

Why are you laughing at the title? I didn't want to be boring and say "grab bag." OH I SEE THE DOUBLE ENTENDRE NOW. WHY I OUGHTA. First, we have a gem of logic from Rhodes Scholar and wordsmith Troy Aikman. Trailing the Packers by two points with about five minutes left, the Buccaneers went with an onside kick. It didn't work, and a few plays later Aaron Rodgers hit Jordy Nelson for a game-icing TD. But it was still a two point game when Troy said:

You know, some might say hey, Raheem Morris showed confidence in his defense being able to make a stop by going for it there, you know, with the onside kick. I think that that's an invalid argument to try to make. If you have that kind of confidence, with the time left on the clock, you kick it deep.

Which sends the more positive statement to your defense: "Hey, we're trying to get the ball back right away since that's our best shot at winning. However, if we can't, we're fine with giving you the job of stopping the best passing attack in the league on a short field" or "Uh, if we give up another touchdown the game is over, so we're going to try to make sure the Packers have to go the length of the field to score one. Onside kick? Nnnnope."

Next, we have Cris Collinsworth dropping some fantastic nonsense of the "GRRRR I HATE PLAYERS WHO TALK TRASH! THAT'S NOT HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME!" variety. In the second quarter of tonight's Eagles/Giants game, DeSean Jackson caught a 50 yard pass from Vince Young (I know! Yes, that Vince Young!) but had the gain negated because he taunted the Giants sideline after the play. Now obviously it was stupid and there's no defense for Jackson here. And Collinsworth is generally really good. But this:

Just watch! That play could decide this game!

is a little much. At the time it was 3-0 Eagles with about 38 minutes to play. The penalty gave the Eagles 1st and 10 from their own 5ish instead of from the Giants' 40ish. Jackson was being a dope, but commmmmme onnnnnnnn. Let's dial down the hyperbole.

Finally, I don't have the time or energy to parse the text of this, but just look at the headline:

Accolades aside, can Ells(bury) win MVP?

Votes aside, can Obama get second term? Stock market aside, can economy recover? Criminal charges aside, is Jerry Sandusky at risk of going to jail? And then the article goes into an MVP breakdown, the most inane portion of which is his analysis of Verlander's chances. Since the author works for ESPNBoston, yeah, you guessed it, he breaks out the "WELL IF PEDRO DIDN'T WIN IT IN '99..." tripe. The proper response to which, of course, is "go fuck yourself."

Snap Hyperbole with Don Banks

From Don Banks Snap Judgments column:

Indy entered the game 15-1 against division rival Houston from 2002 on; and until the Texans manned up and handled the Colts, they were going to forever seem like the expansion club that couldn't quite shed that label.

With the rate of turnover in the NFL, I don't really know how much, if at all, the Texans players care about this sort of thing. However, it's certainly a very happy day for Texans fans who have suffered through the lop-sided rivalry, so I'm all for giving this victory a little more prosey prose. However, Banks had to then go and make it all seem absurd and contrived with this needless histrionic description:

In a very real sense, this was Houston's Super Bowl.

In a very real sense, the Texans and their fans would not be satisfied finishing 1-15.
In a very real sense, the Texans and their fans would prefer to go 0-2 against the Colts and win the Super Bowl than go 2-0 and not win the Super Bowl.
In a very real sense, this was not Houston's Super Bowl.

Someone put an end to MMQB, please

6. New England (5-2). If you had told me the Pats would lose Tom Brady in the first hour of the first game, and would play a quarterback as green as Kermit the Frog, and would play like the '76 Bucs in losses to the Dolphins and Chargers, and would be 5-2 and tied for first in the division midway through the season ... well, let's just say I would have wondered if you were all there.

And, if you'd have told me that Peter King would continue to be fat. And, Peter King would continue to be lazy. And, Peter King would continue to oggle Brett Favre. And, Peter King would continue to annoy every NFL player with 3 am text messages eight weeks into the season ... and, and, and, and ... well, let's just say I would have completely believed you.

9. Chicago (4-3). Twenty-five career starts for Kyle Orton. A little early to start thinking about Orton being the long-term quarterback, but it has to be something Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith are pondering.

On the one hand, it's too early to start thinking about this. But, on the other hand, the GM and coach are thinking about this.

14. Atlanta (4-3). Every game Matt Ryan has to struggle and get bloodied and knocked down and go through adversity is another game closer to making him a top-10 quarterback in the league.

For the record, things that make you a top-10 quarterback in this league:

1. Rocket arm
2. Ridiculous precision on passes
3. A solid understanding of NFL defenses
4. Ability to go through progressions accurately
5. Some valuable skill players would help

...

67. Taking a beating, struggling with your passing, getting bloodied, getting knocked down, going through adversity, and going 23-44 with two interceptions in week eight of your rookie season.

Stat of the Week

Chad Pennington is money on money drives. I find it amazing that a man who got to Miami less than a month before opening day can know the offense as well as Pennington does. How well does he know it? Miami has had 16 touchdown drives in its seven games this year. On those 16 drives, Pennington has completed 88.9 percent of his passes (56 of 63).

What's a money drive? I take it to be, roughly, the last two minutes of the first half, or at any point in the fourth quarter when your team is ahead by less than eight or trailing. Peter King, you define it as, well, as any drive ending in a touchdown pass. So, you're saying that on drives that ended in a touchdown pass - the ultimate success for a quarterback - he was good at completing passes? Got it. What a stat of the week.

e. The legend of Matt Ryan grows. How'd he thread the needle past Asante Samuel for that 55-yard TD throw to Roddy White?

Same way he managed to throw the aforementioned two picks and assist in losing the game.

g. Who's thinner, Jimmy Johnson or Jennifer Aniston?

Let's see ... we can figure this out ... is the answer A or B?

h. Europe finally saw some offense. 2008: 69 points in London. 2007: 23 points in London by the Giants and Miami.

Yesterday in London: perfect weather, the Chargers with a very solid offense, versus the Saints, who you mentioned earlier can't stop anyone. London, circa 2007, pouring rain, with the Giants, a defense you laud just about every single week, and the Dolphins, who were very, very bad at scoring points last season.

Also, when you say "finally," can that refer to the second occurrence of one thing being better or substantially different than the first? Ponder this: let's say Matt Ryan had had a really awful week one, but a phenomenal week two. Would Mr. King have written, "Finally, Matt Ryan has a good game?"

Somehow, I doubt it.

6. I think -- and I said this all week -- that there are so many reasons why Kellen Winslow is probably not long for Cleveland, but there is one overriding one: money. The staph-mania is a legitimate story, and the Browns have to continue their vigilance to make sure the infections don't continue to be any more of a problem in Cleveland than they are for any other franchise. But the biggest source of tension Winslow has with the team is that he's had two very good years and two years when a knee injury kept him off the field.

Biggest concern for Cleveland: money.

Concerns listed by King: Staph infection, and Injuries keeping him off the field.

b. Who's better on play-action than Chad Pennington? You've got to see how he froze the Buffalo front on a first-half touchdown throw.

Peyton Manning says, "hello." Also, the point of play action is not to freeze the front, but rather the secondary, into thinking it's a running play, so that your receivers can get behind them.

i. Andre Johnson had a 41-catch, 593-yard October for Houston. That would translate to 164 catches and 2,372 receiving yards for a full season. This just in: You've got to mention Johnson with Randy Moss (who had his 800th catch Sunday) and Larry Fitzgerald among the elite wideouts.

One month does not a career make. Johnson has had two 1000-yard seasons in his first five seasons. Moss is eight for his first ten.

9. I think I've got this piece of old business from the Favre-Matt Millen-Packers love triangle broken last week by Jay Glazer on FOX: Millen told Favre last week that Detroit defensive coordinator Joe Barry was the source for the story that Favre discussed Packer offensive stuff with Millen. Barry has declined to comment on the story. I have tried to reach Millen, without success.

I did speak to Favre last week. He is steadfast that he gave the Lions nothing of substance, including the kind of code words a quarterback would say at the line that would indicate an audible or specific change of play, and is adamant that what FOX called "a 90-minute dissertation on every single thing that the Green Bay Packers do on offense'' never happened. Without Millen's side of the story, I can't substantiate that one way or the other.

When you first spoke to Favre, you basically reported that he hadn't contacted the Lions at all. Shortly thereafter, you reported that Favre had spoken to the Lions, but it may or may not have been about substance.

Excuse me for pointing out you're possibly the least biased person to ever tell us what's happening in the life of #4.

a. Guess I was wrong about the Rays. That's the thing about a short series. You get a couple of guys in a slump (Carlos Pena, Evan Longoria) and it's all over before they can get out of it.

It's 3-1. It's a best of seven series. It's not over yet.

d. There are about 10 movies I want to see. Recommendations?

They all suck. On second thought, you might like High School Musical 3.

Peter King: Fat, Oblivious

So, there you are tubby. You look like a bucket of lard on a bad day. You baby gorilla. Why don't you work a zoo, and stop bothering people.

Kerry Collins is back, and he's not going anywhere. I don't know how many quarterbacks in the NFL today can go on the road, play the most fearsome defense in football, take a mugging for three-and-a-half quarters, then drive his team 80 yards in 11 plays to win the game. How many, really? Four? Five? I don't know.

That's right, you don't know. Much like anything that's not related to Denny's Grand Slam menu, you're totally clueless. Here's a little bit of information: Joe Flacco was having a terrible day against Pittsburgh last week, then led an 80 yard TD drive at the end of the 4th quarter. Does that make him one of the four or five best QBs in the league? No, no, no, no, and no.

Also, Flacco and Collins stats from Sunday:

Collins: 17/32, 163 yds, 1 td, 2 int
Flacco: 18/27, 153 yds, 0 td, 2 int

Kerry Collins: HOF Class 20??

The Giants are a pretty deep team. What must Plaxico Burress have been thinking in Miami or New Jersey, if he had his TV on Sunday? There was his sub, Domenik Hixon, rushing and receiving for more than 100 yards in the first half against Seattle before going out with a slight concussion, and there were the Giants, crushing the Seahawks 44-6, with their best receiver serving a one-game suspension.

My guess is he was thinking, "Shit, I could've padded my stats to a ridiculous degree against this embarrassing excuse for a football team. Holy shit, look at that white guy in the secondary! FUCK!"

Seriously, is Peter King really that dumb that he can't deduce the following:

IF Team A has an epically bad defense
AND Team B has an above average offense
THEN it doesn't mean shit that the Giants scored 44 points against the Seahawks without Burress

The Fine Fifteen

1. New York Giants (4-0). This is not only a defensively intimidating team and offensively efficient team, but also a very deep team. Tom Coughlin suspends his best receiver for a game, and his plug-in guy, Domenik Hixon, probably the fifth receiver coming out of training camp, outgains Seattle 117-115 and out-touchdowns the Seahawks 1-0 in the first half.

This is a commentary on the Seahawks, not the Giants, you dumb fuck.

2. Tennessee (5-0). Best game by a quarterback with a 52.0 passer rating in a long, long time.

No, it was a shitty game by a guy who had a 52.0 passer rating, but his team managed to win in spite of him.

4. Pittsburgh (4-1). No team in the history of NFL byes needs a bye like the Steelers right now.

Wait, the Steelers have injuries to important players? That has literally never happened to an NFL team before. I also literally shit my pants when I read that last sentence.

9. Baltimore (2-2). Joe Flacco's quite a bright prospect. Joe Flacco worries the heck out of me.

Me: Hey Peter, do you think I should go to the beach today?
PK: Yeah, go for it. The beach is a lot of fun.
Me: Great, I'll go get--
PK: But the beach can also be really boring and not fun.
Me: Uh...thanks, brah.

c. I've nailed you a few times, Warren Sapp,

PROBABLY NOT THE ONLY NFL PLAYER UV NAILED, LOLZ!!1

h. Kyle Orton looks more and more like the answer for Chicago, at least temporarily.

So, in other words, he may or may not be the answer. You see, that's Peter King using his access to tell you things that you, the average slack jawed American, could never figure out.

4. I think this is what I didn't like about Week 5:

b. In Wisconsin, at 1:05 p.m. local time Sunday afternoon, the Brewers were down 5-0 and the Packers down 17-7.

20 years from now, we'll all be able to tell our kids where we were at 1:05 pm on Sunday October 5, 2008.

f. This isn't Delaware, Joe Flacco. The strength of your arm won't get the ball through defenders. They'll catch it here.

I get it Flacco sucked. He's not that great right now. Might not ever be. But he threw the exact same number of picks as your new man hero, Kerry Collins, so please at least be consistent, you fucking asshat.

b. One other dumb playoff baseball thing: During the White Sox-Rays opening game, TBS showed 2008 fights between the Rays and Yanks, then the Rays and Red Sox, and Harold Reynolds said this sent a signal that the Rays wouldn't be pushed around by the power teams of their division anymore. Presto! Division title. What crappola. The Rays have been fighting for years. They brawled with the Sox in 2000 and finished 69-92. They brawled with the Sox in 2004 and finished 70-91. They brawled with the Sox in 2005 and finished 67-95. If you're going to use clichés, at least make them true.

The irony is too much.

g. First two games of the BoSox-Angels series ended at 1:25 and 1:29 a.m., respectively. There's some East Coast love.

Angels season ticket holders should be required to skip work to accommodate Peter King, et all East Coast baseball fans.

i. You're the smart one, Bill Plaschke. You recognize Manny Ramirez quit on a great team once, and he'll do it again. In the first three innings Saturday night, Ramirez scored from first on a hard double to right, then tagged up at first base and went to second on a medium-deep fly to center field. I can guarantee you that in eight years in Boston he didn't do those two things in one season, never mind twice in one three-inning stretch.

Looking at game logs will no doubt prove Peter King right. Don't bother questioning the legitimacy of his claim.

l. Finally got to see the premiere of Family Guy, and if I had to pick, I'm not sure which TV character I'd chose as the best in history -- George Costanza, Barney Fife, James West or Brian the dog. Brian's quite a maverick.

Yep, that's the reason Brian is funny...because he is a maverick. Look out Dean of Cinema and Telvision Studies at USC, this guy's gonna eat your lunch...LITERALLY!

Speaking of the Yankees, Would Someone Please Throw Hank Steinbrenner Out of a Hot Air Balloon Already

Everyone's already seen this; everyone already knows it's laughably dumb; I don't care. I haven't posted since Sunday night. Take what you can get, people.

Fredo says:

"The biggest problem is the divisional setup in major league baseball. I didn't like it in the 1970s, and I hate it now."

Way to throw in that little bit of (likely) revisionist history just to make sure we all know you've felt this way for 30 years, and are not just complaining about it now for the first time because your team is not going to the playoffs.

"Baseball went to a multidivision setup to create more races, rivalries and excitement.

Yes. And despite its occasional shortcomings, it has done exactly that, which is worth a lot more to the game and the fans than what you're about to bitch about.

But it isn't fair.

That poor New York Yankee organization just can't catch a break, can it? Why can't the world just be fair every once in a while? Is that so goddamn much to ask?

You see it this season, with plenty of people in the media pointing out that Joe Torre and the Dodgers are going to the playoffs while we're not.

I hadn't really looked of the relative accomplishments of those two teams through that lens before right now. But thanks for bringing it up! Hey Yankees- choke on a tall, warm pile of your own shit. You embarrassed your successful manager, made him an offer that was never meant to be accepted, and more or less told him not to let the door hit him in the ass on his way out. Now you'll be sitting at home in October while he gets to take a shot at the reasonably wide open NL. Fantastic.

"This is by no means a knock on Torre - let me make that clear-but look at the division they're in. If L.A. were in the AL East, it wouldn't be in the playoff discussion. The AL East is never weak."

1. If L.A. were in the AL East, who knows what their record would be. Odds are Hank is right about where they would be, but you can't just say "if team X changed leagues, they'd still have the exact same record." Just saying. I'm being nitpicky before I dive into the good stuff.
2. This quote isn't really a knock on Torre... but at the same time, it's a response to what the media has been saying about Torre's accomplishments versus the Yankees' accomplishments. So, yeah, it's a knock, you jealous bucket of butter.
3. The NL West has stunk to varying degrees for the past 4 years or so, but the AL East is far from perfect. The Central or West was stronger 2006, 2005, and 2002. I didn't hear any execs from any of those divisions' third place teams complaining about the sand in their cunts during those years.
4. Fair? Fair? You want to talk about fucking fairness? You run a team that can afford to sign whoever the fuck you want, whenever the fuck you want, for as much or more than any other team can possibly pay them. You have the most pronounced and staggering competitive advantage of any team in professional sports. You can never be outbid for a free agent. Ever. And if you make a mistake and sign a clunker? Who gives a fuck! Give him his money, let the fans eat him alive, and sign someone else. Nearly every single other fucking team in the fucking league is in a relatively unfair position compared to yours when it comes to the most important determinant to how much talent a team can acquire and keep. Get fucked, Hank. I hope they blow up the old Yankee Stadium while you're still working there in your office.

In case you missed that joke, the Yankees are moving out of their old stadium and into a new one next season. You might not have heard.

Steinbrenner also questioned the legitimacy of the Cardinals' 2006 title, noting that their 83 regular-season victories were two less than the Phillies' total, but because of the system, St. Louis reached the playoffs as NL Central champs while Philadelphia lost the wild card race to the Dodgers, who had 88 wins.

"People will say the Cardinals were the best team because they won the World Series," Steinbrenner wrote. "Well, no, they weren't. They just got hot at the right time."

Hey, DUMMY- if you're going to complain about this kind of thing, you might want to, you know, pick on a team that didn't "deserve" to go to the playoffs and then actually went out and tanked. For example, might I recommend the 2005 Padres? They won the NL West with an 82-80 record and somehow got bounced out of the NLDS by the Cardinals in just two games. Picking on that 2006 Cardinal team is retarded- any team that wins it all "got hot at the right time." You can't be awesome all year, stroll into the playoffs, and stroll home with that ugly-ass trophy with all the flags on it. The 2001 Mariners won 116 games. Maybe Hank should forfeit his team's AL pennant from that year (earned by beating those Mariners, of course) because clearly those Yankees (95 wins) weren't the best team in the league.

What a useless windbag.

P.S.- To the credit of Yankee fans, almost 90% of them who voted in the poll attached to that article (assuming most of the people who read it are, in fact, Yankee fans) already know that Hank is a zilcheroo. Or maybe a bunch of Red Sox fans came over and voted, who knows.
P.P.S. Before you write a comment that says "HEY BUT THINK ABOUT IT TEH MARLINZ WON TEH WORLD SERIES OVER TEH YANKZ AND TEH RAYZ R GOOD THIS YEAR SO THAT SHOWS MONEY DOESUNT MATTER," yes, I know money doesn't guarantee anything. But I don't think anyone would disagree with me if I said it's much easier to be the Yankees than it is to be any other team. Compared to 85% of the rest of the teams in the league, their mistakes are less costly and their opportunities to add assets are far more frequent.
P.P.S.- I attached the "Barbaro" label to this post because Hank Steinbrenner somehow makes me even more angry than Barbaro does.
P.P.P.S.- I hope Hank Steinbrenner spontaneously combusts. Immediately.

The Suns And Mavericks Are Going To Have A Hard Time Golfing Comfortably With Such Huge Balls

I'm working on a Gregg Easterbrook "WMTMQR" column, but I got sidetracked by the topic you're seconds away from reading about, so the Easterbrook thing will have to become a "TMTMQR." Look for that, of course, on TM. Having just watched the final seconds of the Spurs closing out the Suns, I decided it would be fitting to talk about this guy named Bill Simmons who writes for ESPN.com. He's actually one of their most popular columnists. Who knew? Yeah, that's what I'm saying, too- whatever happened to Hunter S. Thompson?

Anyways, one of Simmons' more well-known columns from the past couple years is this, from February 2007, in which he lambasted nearly every team in the NBA for not making some kind of risky, roster-altering, hype-generating trade before that season's deadline. In his criticism, he very cleverly re-christened the league the "No Balls Association" in a brilliant turn of acronym. Oh, the audacity! His point was basically that although nearly every team in the league was flawed at the time in some obvious way, their GMs were too afraid to make a big deal lest they take the fall or get fired should the move either not produce good postseason results or further delay a rebuilding effort. It was an interesting concept for a column. Certainly gave a lot of fans something to discuss and complain about.

But I didn't at all agree with him at the time. (This blog didn't exist so I could voice that opinion, which is a convenient excuse for me to use revisionist history in my favor now.) Basically, the whole premise seemed less about teams trying to make the best possible decisions and more about teams doing things that Bill found exciting. New faces in new places! New matchups! New columns to write, about potential impacts and ramifications! What's not to like, if you're employed as Bill is? Unfortunately, nearly all of the trades he talked about didn't make sense for at least one of the teams involved. And some didn't make sense for either/any of said teams. Of course, as with anything Simmons writes, it was basically a chance for him to pop off at the mouth and act like his opinion is unadulterated fact. (Yes, you asshole anonymous Simmons-defending commenters, every columnist does this to some extent. But Simmons does it constantly, and with a nearly unparalleled level of abrasiveness.) And just because he gets on his high horse, and cracks wise while acting like he's smarter than at least 20-25 of the 30 GMs in the league, doesn't mean he's right.

So fast forward to February 2008. It's the "No Balls Association" no more. The Mavericks work overtime and jump through several hoops in order to land Jason Kidd, and the Suns surprise a lot of people by rolling the dice on Shaq. Hooray, says Bill. Finally- a group of executives not afraid to go boom or bust! Well, fittingly, tonight both of those moves more or less busted. Neither team even came close to sniffing the second round. Although it's arguable that their results would have been no different had they not made their trades, my point is that big deadline deals rarely happen for a lot of very real (and non-"ball lacking") reasons. For the teams scuttling their season and acting as sellers- unless the star they're probably giving away is in the final year of a deal, there's an incentive to wait until the summer to field offers because that gives them more time to maneuver and often allows them to drum up interest from more potential trade partners. For the teams acting as buyers- there's no other way to put this; the enormous risk such deals usually carry is just flat out debilitating. Laugh all you want, question whether or not people have nuts in their sacks; but the risks often outweigh the rewards. And what happened to the Suns and Mavs speaks to that. Neither team got noticeably better after acquiring their star. (Dallas probably got a little worse, and almost missed the playoffs.) Both, especially the Suns, are financially worse off than they were before the deals.

Now, let me put all the caveats out there to make sure I don't sound like an idiot. Yes, I know the Lakers also traded for Pau Gasol in a "big deal" and that that move is working out swimmingly. Good for LA. But that was an extremely rare case of a team looking to deal a superstar actually not asking nearly what their guy was worth. Opportunities like that don't come along often. The Lakers basically paid the Grizzlies peanuts, so they don't get credit for showing balls. Yes, I know Simmons actually stated that he thought Kidd was a bad fit for the Mavs. But in the column in which he voiced that opinion, he still said he approved of the trade. Why? Among other things, the Mavs "needed a transfusion" and this trade made them "more interesting." He also gushed all over the Shaq trade. Oops. And finally, yes, I know that Simmons has never said that making risky deals guarantees teams success. But he still violently advocates doing so anyways, and that's reason enough for me to make fun of him.

In conclusion- (I love using that, because my high school English teachers always discouraged it, and now they're not around to stop me from having my fun and writing poorly) I'm not writing this from the stance of "Haha! Dallas and Phoenix didn't both win four NBA titles each this summer after making big deadline moves, so everything Bill Simmons has ever written is wrong and he should be fired!" Well, he should be fired. But not for this. I'm writing it to point out something a little subtler. Taking an ultra-abrasive stance as a writer, the way Bill did in his original "No Balls" column, can blow up in your face. Even if you feel really passionately about something, you're probably better off writing about it without resorting to too much hyperbole and histrionics. Is that a rule the writers of this site, myself included, ever follow? Absolutely not. Go fuck yourself. It's still a good rule. I know, it's really tempting to act like every GM in every league is a dummy. After all, only a handful of them win championships every year, and only about half of them field teams with winning records. But the vast majority of them are smart enough to run a team. Their moves/non-moves are made for perfectly legitimate reasons. Grading the performance of a group of them at a particular time, and giving three quarters of them Fs, F-minuses, F-minus-minuses, Z-minues, etc., is over the top and stupid. Stop it. You're somehow making yourself look worse. Just go back to writing your dumb mailbag and flaunting the fact that you know a lot about Vegas. Vegas? Really? Wow, cool. Where else could I possibly find information about that place? Do you think they have a tourism board or anything? You know, I'm too lazy to do any actual research about one of the country's top 5 vacation destinations. I guess I'll just take what this prick says as gospel.

Speaking of that mailbag, I checked it out. Not a ton of material I felt like covering. Basically he's become a Boston blogger who has his work published on ESPN. The kind of analysis he gives about the Celtics/Patriots/Red Sox is more or less similar to the type of stuff I read about my favorite teams on their respective SBNation blogs. You want to ask him about anyone else? If it's one of a handful of NBA teams (Suns, Pistons, Lakers, Cavaliers), he might be able to offer something coherent. If it's any other NBA team, he's clueless. If it's an NFL team, he doesn't know it, but he's clueless. If it's the Yankees, he'll just talk more about the Red Sox or make a joke about how A-Rod is actually Choke-Rod. If it's another AL team, he'll mention a player from that team on his fantasy team. If it's an NL team, he'll act like the fact he doesn't follow the NL makes him cool or something. In essence, he's running CeltsCornerSawksTawkPatsPrattle.blogspot.com off of the world's most popular sports site. Sure, I'm bothered by it, but at the same time, it's like... it's so boring that I can't really get that worked up. Oh my God- does this mean I'm losing my edge? Hopefully not. This basement is still as comfy as ever.

Alright Everyone, Back To Your Basements

We're not welcome in the Dallas Mavericks' locker room anymore.

Mark Cuban is the only blogger allowed in the Dallas Mavericks locker room.

At Cuban's direction, the Mavericks have created the first blogger-free policy in the NBA, perhaps in all of pro sports. As a blogger himself, he believes people writing for blogs don't need behind-the-scenes access to do their jobs, even if those blogs are run by newspapers.

Cuban said his point is that if he allows one blogger in, then out of fairness he would have to allow all of them, even if it's just a suburban teenager who runs a fan site. Instead, he said it's better to keep them all out.

"My choice, my decision," Cuban said, adding that he hasn't discussed it with the league office. "We brought it to their attention after the fact. I think they recognized, look, it wasn't a blogging issue, it was a space issue. If you run out of space, you've got to put the velvet rope somewhere. So what do you do? Do I say, `Oh, you're major media, you can get in and little mavsforum and mavstalk and mavswiki, you can't get in?' I'm not going to do that."

Well, you should do that. At bare minimum. I mean... that is, if you don't want to be labeled as insensitive, backwards-thinking, and possibly racist.

Does anyone out there have any experience with forming special interest groups and subsequently getting desperate politicians into back pockets? Our rights as bloggers are in jeopardy. We need to stand up for ourselves. This decision sets a dangerous precedent; before long, we won't be allowed in mall food courts or comic book stores. Not that we like going outside anyways, but it's always nice to know you have the option in case you want to check out girls through binoculars, right? Next, the powers that be will start restricting our content. We'll be prevented from using made-up statistics like OPS or making fun of David Eckstein. And eventually... I shudder to even think of it... our parents will make us move out. You heard me. No more free food. No more free rent. No more not having a job. No more playing 19 hours of Sega Genesis a day. This is the world we face, people.

In protest/response to this development, I will no longer blog about the Mavericks. I ask all the rest of you out there to join me in this boycott.

This Is Why We Prefer Jay Mariotti Didn't Write About Sports

Go ahead. Read this. It's very short, I promise.

I don't want to create a bunch of new labels for this specific post. But here are a few new ones I could easily tag onto it. Each one is applicable to many of Jay Mariotti's columns.

"Chris Duhon is not better than Kirk Hinrich"
"Blowing a small sample size out of proportion"
"hyperbolic crap" -- wait, we actually have that one
"One bad decision does not a player make"
"Player B, usually regarded as worse than Player A, played better than Player A last game. Therefore, Player B should start over Player A"
"Cleanup on aisle common sense!" (sorry, the Miller High Life commercial just came on)
"Marriage....the true cause of sports failures."

Knee-Jerk NBA Reactions, Vol. 1

According to foxsports.com's Charley Rosen, it's pretty much over for Cleveland after tonight's 92-74 loss to Dallas. Who cares that it was the first game of the season? It's time to tell it like it is- the Cavs are finished.

From the get-go, Cleveland's interior defense was putrid — especially the total lack of communication between Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Drew Gooden. As a result, the baseline rotations were either late or non-existent, with Z showing to help on ball penetration and not being able to recover back to his man, and with Gooden nowhere in sight.

Last year's Cavs team, which reached the NBA Finals, never had a bad half of interior defense. Ever.

Not that the rest of the Cavs fared much better — especially in their inability to prevent the Mavericks' ball-handlers from penetrating deep into the lane. Nor was the Cavs perimeter defense any more efficient. For the game, Dallas knocked down half of their eighteen 3-pointers, with most of them launched under little (or no) pressure.

Also the first time this has happened to Cleveland since the 2005-06 season. It's looking bleak.

For sure, the Cavs did tighten up their defense in the second half,

Whoa whoa whoa! Don't backtrack, Charley! It's over and we all know it. Get those tickets and jerseys on EBay, Cavs fans. Get off the bandwagon while there's still time.

LeBron James was downright awful — 2-11, 4 assists, 5 turnovers, and only 10 points.

Trade him.

As the game progressed, the Cavs' "revised offense" was identical to last season's schemes.

How dare they play like that again! It's not like it got them anywhere. I'm surprised they didn't demolish their arena and build a new one in the offseason in an attempt to turn their fortunes around. Their zero season conference title drought is borderline embarrassing.

Daniel Gibson looked lost out there — 3-6, four assists, eight points.

Choke job.

He had difficulty staying in front of Devin Harris,

Cut him.

but doesn't everybody?

No. Only Daniel Gibson, only tonight.

Larry Hughes shot the ball like he was trying to join the bricklayers union — 2-13, seven points.

Get it? Bricklayers? As in, basketball players who frequently miss shots? It's a slang term- how cutting edge. This is the kind of stuff the youth today wants to read.

Devin Brown showed impressive quickness — 2-5, five points. But he did little else.

Donyell Marshall — 2-5, five points — was repeatedly chumped when Nowitzki took him into the pivot.

Damon Jones — 3-5, eight points — hit a pair of meaningless treys, and was toasted by everybody he tried to guard.

No sarcasm, these aren't very good. Still... it was one fucking game.

Okay, James is allowed to have bad games. Trouble is that when he's not brilliant, the Cavs are in deep trouble.

When (name of their biggest star) isn't brilliant, three quarters of the teams in the league are in deep trouble.

And except for frequently running LBJ into the low-post, the Cavs' offense looks just as stagnant as it did too often last season.

The situation is hopeless. It's almost like a horrible car crash; I want to turn away, but I can't, because it's too horrific. Cavs owners, have you considered moving the team to Canada?

Anyway, one ball game does not a season make.

That's a good poi- wait, WHAT? Are you serious? Losing to one of the top 3 teams in the league on opening night doesn't determine your entire season? Well, I'll tell you this- back in good ol' days of Wilt and Kareem, back when players called their own fouls and you were allowed to dive at your opponents' knees when they were cutting through the lane, things were totally different. If this Cavs team had put up this kind of performance in 1968, LeBron would have kneed Gibson in the balls after the game.

But unless something dramatic and unforeseen happens between now and next spring, the Cavs most relevant motto just might be: "Wait till last year."

I have a feeling something very undramatic and foreseen (at least by me) will happen to the Cavs. Stick with me now: They will eventually resign holdouts Anderson Varejao and/or Sasha Pavlovic, be basically the same team they were last year, play some games against teams that aren't nearly unstoppable in the regular season, and win 50ish games again. See how that works? It's called small sample sizes don't usually reflect season long performance. Use your brain, Rosen.

I realize this is a relatively low quality post, filled mostly with poorly written and unfunny sarcasm. I just couldn't help it. Let me explain it to you this way: when two 0-1 NFL teams are squaring off in week 2, and analysts make ridiculous statements like "This is pretty much a must-win for both teams... that sounds reactionary, but it's true" it absolutely infuriates me. No. No it is not a must-win. For either team. Same general idea applies here, only moreso, because there are 5 times as many NBA games as NFL games in a season. You can start 0-5 and still high step to the playoffs when you have Cleveland's talent (and more importantly, play in the Eastern Conference). Let's not go shitting ourselves just yet, even though the Cavs got blown out by the Mavericks on opening night. Please.

Now the Cubs are Really Screwed

In honor of our new friends at jaythejoke.com, I've decided to take some valuable (sarc) time out of my day and pick on the latest Jay article. Cub fans, whatever shred of hope you still had remaining should be gone. Yes friends, Jay is throwing in the towel (after 3 months of sucking Piniella's dick).

You want me to roll out the gush and the goo, the ``Go Cubs Go'' chorus, the Pat-and-Ronnie bop. You want me to suggest an emergency Bill Murray visit, an Ernie Banks pep talk, a Harry-and-Jack seance and all those desperate devices Cubdom pulls from its tail when 99 Seasons of Fear on the Wall are about to become 100.

First off, "Fear on the Wall"? Has "Cubdom" been terrified of something through all of these past 99 seasons? This, ladies and gentlemen, is why Jay Mariotti sucks at writing. I'll even throw out that Jay is wrong about 99 about to become 100, because it's 98 about to become 99.

Here's how that little phrase got in there. Jay realized that it's been (or going to be) 99 seasons of losing. His brain searched for a phrase with the number 99 in it. "Hmmm....99 bottles of beer on the wall, maybe? 99 seasons of....something on the wall? I need a word that rhymes with beer. Cheer? No, that's the opposite. Queer? No, that's what I had to convince the world I'm not after Ozzie made fun of me. Fear? Hmmm...seems like the best one. But it doesn't really make sense. Ah well, I'll toss it in there and hope people just read it as a clever phrase and don't think about it."

Too bad.

But why would I do that?

Gee, Jay, because you've been saying nothing for months but that Piniella is a baseball Yoda who will carry the Cubs to the promised land, first past the Arizona "Smoke-and-Mirrors" (as you have been calling them for weeks). I don't know, I'd think a dude with any sort of spine would stick with his prior convictions and maintain some sort of shred of hope. But you don't have a spine. (BAD JOKE ALERT!) That's why you flop on every issue.

You say the Cubs are due. I say they're too deep in doo-doo.

Jay, can you imagine yourself saying that terrible play on words out loud, like on Around the Horn or something, in front of thousands of people? You're a fucking embarrassment.

It's easier to make a case why Bartman should throw out the first ball today than why they'll win Game 3 behind erratic Rich Hill, win Game 4 behind a short-rested Carlos Zambrano and then return to Arizona and conquer the Diamondbacks behind The Mad Leather Whipper.

Really. The Cubs still have like a 10% chance of winning the series and you think it's easier to argue that Steve Bartman, a man upon whom most at Wrigley Field wish serious harm upon, should step out into the middle of all of them and throw out the first pitch of the game?

Meh, you've never really made sense before, not like I expected you to start now.

The Cubs need to sweep the next three games. I'm thinking January thongs on Oak Street Beach are a more likely scenario.

Right, if I might be of the opinion that you're overreacting juuuuust a tad, you wouldn't hold it against me, would you?

The Cubs haven't even been competitive in crawling into their 0-2 crater.

Really? Wasn't Game 1 a 1-1 tie until the late innings? Ask Carlos Zambrano if he was competitive that day.

Sure, they do. Rule No. 1: Pitch the ball out of the strike zone and make a lot of stinkingly wealthy hitters look silly, striking out 23 Cubs in two games. Rule No. 2: Make the Cubs' pitchers pay by scoring on four of six walks Thursday. Rule No. 3: Play grinder ball, throw down a suicide squeeze, have fun and apply even more pressure to an uptight team that is feeling the weight of 99 years.

Grinderball????? That's how the DBacks are doing it?

Game 1: 2 solo homers, then walk-double-sac-fly

Game 2: single-walk-sac bunt(rendered meaningless by...)-homerun. Single-triple. Single-walk-triple. Walk-walk-single. Okay, we've scored 7 runs and we're up by 5. Now let's play some fucking GRINDER BALL and lay down a suicide squeeze. GRINDING IT OUT. That's what the Diamondbacks are doing. GRINDING for all these runs. Look up the fucking definition of GRINDER BALL, would you? I mean, you'd have to look it up in a fictional dictionary containing stupid media-invented terms that don't mean anything, but for the love of shit, ask yourself, "when you are putting down a suicide squeeze after scoring 7 runs (hence, proving you don't need to "grind out" runs) and attaining a 5 run lead, is this GRINDER BALL?" IS IT?????

The only saving grace: The games are on TBS. No one's watching.

Yes, no one is watching baseball, because baseball becomes less interesting when it's not on a major station, where we could hear Joe Buck and Tim McCarver struggle through broadcasting while the former doesn't know shit about baseball and the latter spews ridiculous expressions that don't make sense. I mean, yes, the audience is more restricted, but most people owning a TV have basic cable, Jay.

As if life's odds aren't already stacked against the Cubs, examine the history they must overcome. In the wild-card era, no NL team has come back from an 0-2 hole and claimed a best-of-five series. When the Cubs have started 0-2 in a postseason series, they've lost all five times dating to 1910. There is a shred of hope involving Piniella, who overcome an 0-2 deficit in 1995 to beat the Yankees. But he was managing the Mariners then.

What does past Cubs teams failing in this situation have to do with the chances of the present Cubs team? No. Tell me. Why the fuck does what the Cubs did in 1946 (year picked at random, don't sue me) have anything to do with the odds of the 2007 Chicago Cubs beating the 2007 Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2007 National League Divisional Series in 2007???

Okay, brace yourselves everyone, because for the first time ever, Jay is about to do some analysis, and it's actually interesting and informative and shows that he's researched something.

Should the Cubs find their thrill on Rich Hill, Zambrano returns Sunday on three days' rest at home, where he is wildly inconsistent. When Piniella tried Big Z on three days last month, it didn't work out. Nor does the three-day theory succeed much in the playoffs. When managers have brought back starters on short rest in best-of-five series the last 10 Octobers, those teams have lost nine of 14 series. Expand that to all rounds, and teams have gone 4-17 in short-rest games.

See? That wasn't so hard, was it? Good paragraph, Jay! (except for the thrill/Rich Hill wordplay) Just think, if you made sense like this more often, the entire city of Chicago wouldn't want to dump a large container of hot tar on you!

I'm actually guessing that this was written by either Jay's editor, Jeffrey, or Jay's secretary, Rachel.

When asked if he'll view the year as a success if elimination comes quickly, Piniella said yes. ``Look, this team finished last in the division last year, the most losses in the National League, and here we are in the postseason in one year,'' he said. ``If that's not a success, well, I really don't know what it is.''

Then, a minute later, he waxed philosophical about what this all means in the grand scheme. ``It's only a game,'' said Yoda Lou. ``It's not life or death.''

If the Cubs lose tonight, he'll come to realize how many millions think otherwise.

I'm guessing the latter quote is taken totally out of context. And also, I assure you that zero people in Chicago feel that Game 3 is of life-or-death seriousness. Millions of people, however, think you should be thrown out on your fat ass, because the Sun-Times is getting less talent per dollar spent on you than the White Sox are getting from their players! BURN! PWNED KENNY WILLIAMS!

If Anyone Knows Anything About Playoff Success, It' Reggie Jackson

You sure can't tag this article "anecdotal bullshit", because this is Reggie F'in Jackson talking. I realize that the baseball world is inundated with A-Rod and Yankees crap lately, but this article from the NY Post seems particularly egregious to me. So here goes:

"Meet the New Mr. October: Reggie Believes A-Rod Will Keep On Rollin"

"Rollin"?

October 3, 2007 -- The man who spit in the face of October pressure believes Alex Rodriguez won't be smothered by it for the third straight postseason.

“I think he will do super well," Reggie Jackson said yesterday ...

"SUPER" well, Reggie? Is that really what you meant to say? "I think he willl do SUPER well!"? Up until now, I thought Reggie Jackson was pretty manly; now I think he's a bit effeminate.

“Look at the year he had. You can't have a better year than he had. Who was the last guy to roll into the postseason with the kind of year he had this year?"

Albert Pujols, last year.

Jackson knows what makes Rodriguez tick;

Which is? A watch battery? Lime jello? Strippers? Boos? His Collector's Edition DVD of Mallrats?

Oh. You're not going to tell me. Darn.

understands that despite the MVP season, there are people waiting to empty their lungs with boos for the one guy who the spotlight will be on from beginning to end.
“They booed him from the start this year," said Jackson, who will be with the Yankees for today's workout at Jacobs Field.

Yawn.

Loudly booed when he dropped a foul pop in the first inning on Opening Day, Rodriguez turned the boos to a summer full of cheers, and chants of “MVP, MVP" and finished with 54 homers, 156 RBIs and a .314 average. Now, that success is something Jackson believes Rodriguez is going to lean on.

“He got off to a great start and never stopped," Jackson said. “And it wasn't all smooth. He couldn't have gone through anything tougher than what happened to him in Toronto and the family situation. It wasn't like he got a free pass."

Hyperbolic crap. He could've gone through something much worse. In fact, word has it that A-Rod and his wife are expecting another child. It could've been much tougher; he could've been hit by a bus. Except most bus drivers are better at driving buses than baseball writers are at writing about baseball.

Is Rodriguez's regular season enough for him to bounce back from an 0-for-4 effort in a Game 1 defeat?

This is quite the non sequitur Is he referring to the past or speculating about the future? The Yankees haven't even started playing their series yet!

Remember in 2005, Rodriguez was coming off a year in which he would be voted the MVP and soiled the bed in the ALDS against the Angels when he batted .133 (2-for-15) and set the record for the most inhales and exhales at the plate. The deeper the breath, the worse the at-bat.

I am good at remembering this because writers like you have mentioned it in every article this season.

Rodriguez promised in March this year was going to be different, and it was. Instead of his life being an open book,

huh?

what he said was measured and rarely in depth. Now, on the verge of his fourth - and possibly last - postseason as a Yankee, Rodriguez is poised to wash away the stench of 2005 and 2006 (1-for-14; .071 against the Tigers).

“I am focused on 2007," Rodriguez said following a brief workout at Yankee Stadium. “It's a whole new year. I am taking one pitch at a time."

I feel like sports stars have to give cliched bites to writers because that's all the feeble-brained writers can handle. I think it'd be funnier if A-Rod announced, "Fuck it. It's a whole new year. I am taking it TWO pitches at a time, and when I hit TWO home runs at a time maybe you goddamn writers will stop writing about those thirty goddamn at bats!"

Since Indians starter C.C. Sabathia is murder on lefties - they hit .203 (41-for-202) against him - a larger responsibility falls on Derek Jeter and Rodriguez, who are a combined 19-for-39 (.487) against the lefty they haven't seen since Sept. 1, 2004.

Poorly written. Sentence is too long; separate last clause into independent sentence. I will now stop picking on grammar.

And you know who will get the blame if Jeter and Rodriguez don't hit Sabathia and the Yankees lose, right? It won't be Jeter.

Which is a damn shame, because it seems to me that in your previous sentence, you said that Jeter and Rodriguez share the responsibility. It's too bad you asshole writers are willing to assign Jeter a share of the responsibility, but you know goddamn well that you won't assign Jeter a share of the blame.

“When you come to New York you get invited to the dance every year," Rodriguez said. “You keep getting chances."

Wow. This is competes with the opening quote for "Most Effeminate Thing Said By Current or Former Yankee Superstar". I wonder if A-Rod was sad about not getting invited to dances every year when he was in high school. Or maybe when he played in Texas.

With the right to opt out of the final three years of his contract, this could be Rodriguez's final chance to win a World Series in pinstripes. It's a chance Jackson believes Rodriguez will finally cash in on.

“He has got to be digging himself," Jackson said. “If that was me, I would be digging myself once a day. The year he had was unbelievable."

Digging himself? I don't think I even know what that means. Speak English, Reggie, or at least spit your candy bar out when you're talking.

Now we will see how it ends. Will it be a springboard or an albatross? The guy who had put Mr. in front of October is betting on the former.

YOU BE THE JUDGE!

If you think A-Rod is cool, turn to page 81, then buy this poster and send it to George King.

If you think A-Rod sucks, go back to page 1 and realize that this is what real baseball fans want to do to you.

Heyman knows best...

I don't read John Heyman's "Daily Scoop" on si.com that often, and I wish I had decided to skip it today. He squeezed out this turd of an article that basically says, "I don't like Curt Schilling because he talks too much"

After years and years of trying to figure out what makes that fascinating, hard-throwing blowhard Curt Schilling tick, I think I am finally on to something.

He's nuts.

OK, maybe he's not insane in any clinical way. But insane nonetheless. Insane in his own way. There can be no other good explanation as to why he would say aloud that he might like to join the Devil Rays next year as a free agent. The D-Rays. Think about that. No two-time World Series champ and borderline Hall of Famer with a massive ego and thirst for the spotlight willingly signs up to pitch his last season in Tropicana obscurity.

From the Sportswriter's bible, Book of "I Know What's best for you," chapter 12, verse 26-28: "If thouest are an aging great player, thou shall only play for the team with the best chance to winnith." Heyman may have had a point about Schilling being insane here if Schilling says he expects the D-Rays to win it all (or even get to the playoffs) in the next season or two. Luckily Heyman has a quote from Schilling to clear this up.

"It's one of those situations you'd certainly have to look at,'' Schilling said on his weekly radio spot on Boston radio station WEEI. "Knowing that I'm probably going to spend one more year playing, if circumstances happen and things happen and they made some moves that were positive, I'd love nothing more than to finish my career working on a pitching staff where I know that there are young guys that are going to be positively impacted by me being around [after] I was gone. I enjoy that. I love working and talking and being around young pitchers."

Oh, so Schilling would want to play for the D-Rays because he wants to be around young players in a developing franchise? Fuck him, he should be playing for the Yankees, because I'm John Heyman, God of Sportswriting.

Schilling, who is 7-5 with a 4.25 ERA, went on to speak fondly of having a home in the area at one time, as reported in the Boston Globe.

"I love Tampa, I love the area, I love everything about it," he said. "I loved living down there."

So Schilling wants to play in Tampa because

1) He likes Tampa
2) He wants to be around young players

Nowhere in your justification do you provide any evidence that Schilling wants a sweet new deal out of the Red Sox.

Putting aside the fact that Tampa Bay is trying to build for the future and has virtually no chance to win next year (it's never won more than 70 games), and would have no good reason to pursue an attention-starved 40-year-old pitcher, it makes no sense for Schilling to say such a thing from a business standpoint. As a negotiating ploy, it is nothing short of idiotic.

I'll bet Schilling could play for Tampa if he was willing to take a pay cut. Once again, nowhere here does he say anything about getting $13 million dollars out of the Rays, so right now you are just making shit up.

Of course there is one other possibility, and that is Schilling is simply the world's worst agent. Schilling, along with Gary Sheffield and Jamie Moyer, are a few of the very rare major leaguers who represent themselves. That's never a good idea, though Moyer manages to do it without making a spectacle of himself.

Let's look at this closer. If Schilling was such a terrible agent, as you say he is, how did he acquire a contract worth $13 million per year from the Red Sox? Let's look at someone who is very similar to Schilling: John Smoltz. They have an identical career ERA+ (126) as well as nearly identical numbers of Games Started, innings pitched and strikeouts. And to boot, Schilling is two years older. From 2004-2006, the three years guaranteed from the Sox, Schilling averaged $13 million per year, and Smoltz averaged $10.5 million. The going rate for an agent's take in the MLB is at least %5 (plus a waaaaay bigger percentage of endorsement deals), so that brings Smoltz down to under $10 million per year. Even if the Red Sox didn't have to option the fourth year of Schilling's deal, between 2004-07 Schilling would have made a cool $39 million only pitching three years. Smoltz, on the other hand, would have made under $40 million for pitching all 4 seasons. Such. A. terrible. agent. Worst Ever, in fact. What a crazy idiot.

Presumably, the reason players represent themselves is either because they are cheap, or because they think they know better. In Schilling's case, of course, it has to be because he thinks he knows better. Because he thinks he knows everything.

Presumably, idiot writers like John Heyman write stupid shit like this because they are clinically brain dead, or because they like to play armchair psychologist. In Heyman's case, he thinks he knows what's best for a player, knowing next to nothing about what the player actually wants.

After being ably represented for years by competent and accomplished agents Dennis Gilbert and Jeff Borris, Schilling decided to do it himself in recent years, and, ever since, all heck has broken loose. For his first deal with Boston, to get four years, Schilling put himself in position of having to win the World Series -- not a great bet since Boston hadn't won for 85 straight years. Yet, his pitching is a lot better than his agenting, and he helped them do just that, which guaranteed the 2007 season at $13 million, plus incentives. That brings us to today.

Yeah, all heck has broken loose. Let's say Schilling only signed a three year deal, no incentive extra year, worth a guaranteed $13 million per year. As a then 37 year old pitcher, that's a pretty darn good contract by itself. I'm not sure how the "World Series incentive" clause was written, but it sure seems like it worked out pretty well for all parties. Schilling got an extra year, 365 extra days, for $13 million; he likely couldn't have been able to pull that kind of dough for 4 years from any other team, even with an agent.

Just because you can throw a fastball and splitter at world-class proficiency -- not to mention become a World Series hero in two cities -- that doesn't make you an agent.

John, Just because you can bang your keyboard to spit out letters and hyphens and periods and shit -- that doesn't make you a good writer. It's also too bad Microsoft Word doesn't have a "This Sentence Reads like Shit" tool

Or even particularly sane.

So he's insane because he can negotiate a pretty true to market value contract without an agent? Or because he doesn't want to pitch for the team you want him to?

Regarding Schilling's negotiating skills, one general manager said yesterday, "He apparently didn't go to Agent's University.''

According to Internet blogger eriz, "John Heyman apparently didn't go to Write a Cohesive Argument University."

I could do this all day.

Not only has Schilling put the D-Rays into play, but worse, he's taken the Yankees out of the mix, saying they are the one team he would never, ever play for. And, of course, as everyone knows, the Yankees are the one team that could make the Red Sox sweat.

MAYBE HE SAID THAT BECAUSE HE DOESN'T WANT TO PLAY FOR THE YANKEES. DID YOU FOR A SPLIT SECOND CONSIDER THAT? GODDAMMIT, YOU FUCKING RETARD SPORTSWRITERS CONSTANTLY HEAP TONS OF SHIT ON GUYS LIKE JOHNNY DAMON FOR "BETRAYING" THEIR TEAMS AND FANS. AND THEN SCHILLING SAYS HE DOESN'T WANT TO PLAY FOR THE YANKEES ON HIS BOSTON BASED RADIO PROGRAM, AND YOU THINK HE'S RUINING HIS CHANCES TO GET A GIANT CONTRACT OUT OF THE RED SOX, EVEN THOUGH YOU'VE PROVIDED NOT ONE PIECE OF EVIDENCE THAT THIS IS WHAT HE'S TRYING TO DO.

Instead of making Red Sox people sweat, Schilling made them laugh. These are the dog days of the pennant race, and even the executives of baseball's best team need a tension breaker at this time of the year. And this was theirs.

When Red Sox higher-ups finally stopped cackling at Schilling's latest D-Ray claim, I did get one of them to come to the phone. Red Sox GM Theo Epstein would only say that "out of respect to the player concerned,'' he wasn't going to talk about this. Epstein also said, "Our consideration now is to win the World Series.''

Yeah that quote is totally not the generic response journalists get from team management when they get asked about signing and trade rumors. Theo Epstein was totally like *wink wink* "Curt's a dumbass. Hahahahahahah." You could totally tell from that comment.

That makes sense. While Schilling dreams of the D-Rays, Red Sox people are thinking of October glory.

While Schilling makes a mess of this, Boston people play it perfectly. In reality, Schilling should be the one with bargaining strength here. If he were half as smart as he thinks he is, he should know he already has the advantage. Through the sheer luck of good timing, he is one of the better free-agent pitchers -- if not the best pitcher -- out there in the world's worst free-agent pitching class.

But instead of understanding that silence is golden, Schilling has done what he does incessantly, which is to talk. Schilling already has come down from a two-year request to one (at least he has on the airwaves).

Now we get around to the actual reason you wrote this article. You don't like listening to Schilling talk. Well, I don't like reading your work. So next time you sign on to a new sports publication, I'll write a post about your contract negotiations with CBS Sportsline using only hearsay and shit I make up. And then I'll finish the piece up by saying "plus he's a fucking atrocious writer."

MSNBC.com Needs New Analysts....

.....like Michael Ventre needs a new job.

This guy is a total joke. Everything he writes is laughable. Admittedly, there are a few Celizic articles that are hard to tear apart, but this guy just never says anything of value. We're going to have an "INSIGHT" comment after each section, telling you what you can learn from Ventre each time.

Dodger fans will abuse Bonds more than ever
Environment will be truly hostile as Giant seeks record-tying 755th HR

Ooh GREAT! An article about how fans of a divison rival.....don't like Barry very much! What foresight, what ANALYSIS, what STUFF PEOPLE COULDN'T HAVE TOLD THEMSELVES. No really man, really, I expect that you'll write multiple, excellent paragraphs that will make me understand this in a new, more profound way. And if I haven't conveyed this yet, simply an AWESOME topic to write about.

In professional wrestling, it is common to see a villainous figure climb into the ring and spew nasty comments at the crowd. The fans, many of whom work themselves into the equivalent of a ‘roids rage without even taking steroids, scream back at the instigating hulk, questioning his manhood, his ancestry, the whereabouts of his spouse (often suggesting she’s someplace she isn’t supposed to be) and bathing him in every combination of expletives imaginable.

Oh man, gotta love this setup, the wrestling analogy...the angry fans, the "instigating hulk"....how could you NOT draw this comparison?

INSIGHT: None. Just things about wrestling. We'll forgive him later though if this is somehow useful.

Take that scenario, multiply it by 10, and it will approximate the scene at Dodger Stadium this week when Barry Bonds attempts to tie, and then break, Hank Aaron’s career home-run record.

So....the fans won't just be hostile, they're going to be VERY hostile. Continue with this awesome, awesome analogy (and continue saying such awesomely insightful stuff!)

INSIGHT: Dodger fans don't like Barry Bonds, and will jeer, heckle, and boo him intensely. Anyone else not know this already? Because I sure didn't.

The pro wrestling analogy is fitting not simply because Bonds, like many pro wrestlers, resembles one of those huge Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade balloons that appears inflated to the brink of bursting. It’s also appropriate because when Bonds and Dodger fans get together, there is a visceral reaction, a primal, savage, beastly burst of ferocity that rivals scenes on “Animal Planet” when a lion hunts down and then devours a zebra.

Can you imagine a giant Barry Bonds balloon floating down the street during the Macy's parade? Thanks to Michael Ventre, I sure can now. And this "Animal Planet" thing sounds pretty cool. Maybe I should watch that. What's this article about again? Oh yeah. Baseball.

INSIGHT: Barry Bonds got big on steroids. Dodger fans don't like Barry Bonds, and will jeer, heckle, and boo him intensely.

And that’s just during batting practice.

So I was looking up the definition of "hyperbole" in the dictionary the other day, and....hey!

Starting Tuesday, the gloves come off.

Woah....careful man. "Gloves" are boxing equipment, not wrestling equipment. Your extended metaphor is dying.....

Bonds has been showered in boos, catcalls and suggestive remarks every time he has appeared in Chavez Ravine in the past. After all, he’s a Giant. He wears the uniform of a pagan horde, at least in the minds of the locals. When they look at Bonds, they don’t think “home run,” they think “pillage.” They want to roast mutton by an open fire, drink grog, and then battle him to the death.

INSIGHT: Tuesday, Barry Bonds plays in Dodger Stadium. Dodger fans don't like Barry Bonds, and will jeer, heckle, and boo him intensely.

This time, emotions will run even higher. Bonds is attempting to stain the record book by trying to hit Nos. 755 and 756. But he also wants to do it against the Dodgers. Bonds gets off on that.

"Bonds gets off on that"? "stain the record books?" There's something sexual here! Suppose Bonds hits 2 homers Tuesday night, here comes Ventre's article title the next day:

"Record Books Stained as Bonds Excitedly Shoots Off Two Orgasmic Homers Against Rival Dodgers"

INSIGHT: Bonds doesn't like the Dodgers, and (probably?) wants to break the record against them.

Like the aforementioned meat-headed juicers who oil their bodies and then slam each others’ heads into the mat, Bonds has a lot of anger. He is perturbed that a ticker-tape parade isn’t being held every time he enters a new city. He scoffs at detractors who suggest that somehow his accomplishments aren’t worthy of admiration. He mocks those who have followed the legal process and believe that eventually he might be forced to trade in McCovey Cove for Pelican Bay.

Ah, back to wrestling, good. Somehow I doubt that Bonds cares that a "ticker-tape parade" doesn't happen wherever he goes.

INSIGHT: Bonds is an angry man who believes he is doing something great and hates people who say otherwise. (we need people to tell us this???)

Bonds enjoys being despised — usually. He revels in it — for the most part.

INSIGHT: Bonds likes being hated.

But this historic pairing of controversial slugger and proud rival fan base is actually ideal, because whether he wants to admit it or not, this is one situation in which he’d rather not have to deal with resistance. In a perfect world, he’d rather break the record, be greeted with an outpouring of love and appreciation, and then get carried around the stadium on an opulent litter like the kind Cleopatra used to ride in.

More dumb, hyperbolic crap. What a waste of (cyber)space.

INSIGHT: Bonds won't be loved in Dodger Stadium, but ideally, he wants to be loved and appreciated. (This seems VERY contradictory to your last insight!)

Bonds would like the Dodgers to stop the game so that the fans can give him as long a standing ovation as possible without having to be burdened with mundane details like finishing the game. Bonds would love Bud Selig to get on one knee, say, “I’m not worthy,” and then hand him keys to a yacht. Bonds would like a hug from Henry Aaron. Bonds wants a video tribute on the big scoreboard showing his career highlights, but one that is digitally enhanced so it doesn’t appear as if he went from looking like a cyclist to an offensive lineman practically overnight.

Ideally, Bonds would love to orchestrate every detail of his record-breaking performance in Dodger Stadium the way Eva Longoria planned her wedding in France.

Ain’t gonna happen.

Stop, just STOP already. This is nonsense. It's like you realized 4 paragraphs ago you had no point, so you're just spewing hyperbole and analogy left and right.

INSIGHT: Ideally, Bonds wants to be loved and appreciated.

On April 8, 1974 in Atlanta, Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s record for career home runs. He whacked No. 715 off a Dodger, Al Downing. Since then, Downing has been an answer to a trivia question, even though he’s more than that. He had a fine career over 17 major league seasons, most with the Yankees and Dodgers, and has also worked in the Dodgers’ organization.

Downing’s name doesn’t live in infamy. He just happened to give up the record-breaking blast to a great player and a great person. If it wasn’t him, it would have been somebody else.

What does this have to do with anything? I mean it's hard to say you're off topic in an article with no point, but somehow, I REALLY think Downing is irrelevant to talking about Dodger fans hating Bonds. And by the way, great last sentence of this section.

INSIGHT: Al Downing gave up Aaron's record breaking home run, but don't sell him short! He had a nice career, and if he didn't give up that home run, someone else would have!

But pity the Dodger pitcher who gives up Bonds’ record-tying and/or record-breaking dingers this week. Brad Penny will be the L.A. starter on Tuesday night, followed by Mark Hendrickson on Wednesday and Brett Tomko on Thursday. And there are relievers who could be victimized also.

INSIGHT: It would suck to give one of the next two Bonds home runs (duh), and there are several different people who might do that.

There may be a segment of Dodger fans who want to see Bonds break the record this week against the Dodgers for two very different reasons: 1) they want to tell their grandchildren someday that they were present when history was made, or 2) of all the fans in the majors, they feel they are best equipped to unleash a torrent of horrors not seen since medieval times.

INSIGHT: Dodger fans don't like Barry Bonds, and will jeer, heckle, and boo him intensely. (I've pressed CTRL-V 3 times for this already)

Yet most Dodger fans probably want Bonds to be foiled in his quest. They don’t want to see him break the record at all, but they know that’s unrealistic because even if he were on life support he’d somehow blink his eyes and convince the Giants to wheel him out to home plate so he could stick his bat out.

INSIGHT: Dodger fans don't want Barry to break the record, but he will anyway. I am a terrible sportswriter who just uses weird hyperboles to fill up space.

Most Dodger fans want Bonds to strike out every time up, so they can jeer and taunt him. They’ve been doing it to him his entire career, but especially since 1993, when he joined the heathens to the north. They’ve been especially vociferous in their heckling since 2001, when it became clear that Bonds had put on a few extra pounds of muscle.

INSIGHT: CTRL-V! Dodger fans don't like Barry Bonds, and will jeer, heckle, and boo him intensely.

Barry Bonds is coming to Dodger Stadium. It may not be an event as scripted as a pro wrestling match, but Dodger fans definitely know their lines.

INSIGHT: Barry Bonds is coming to Dodger Stadium. What will happen is unknown, but the one thing for certain is.....(CTRL-V!) Dodger fans don't like Barry Bonds, and will jeer, heckle, and boo him intensely.

To those of you reading this. Scroll up to the top. Read it again, but only read the sections marked "INSIGHT" Ask yourself if you learned anything in these sections that you didn't already know (except for that stuff about Al Downing). If the answer is "yes", there's a 97% chance you've never heard of "baseball" before.

Again, really, Ventre, thank you oh so very much for being a baseball analyst who says smart, informed, wise things about baseball that are so obscured to the casual fan.

I'm off to play poker!