205 Drop: Top 10 reasons why this MLB season sucks

Today's drop has all kinds of misery, which I'm starting to realize is why the people who read this wildly unpopular blog, well, read it. Go click if you care.

205 drop: Top 10 least-loved MLB promotional giveaways

Your drop today has one item that's in highly questionable taste, and that's not even considering the highly unseemly thought of Manny Ramirez eating a home pregnancy test. Comedy ain't pretty, people. Go click and see where I've offended.

Blogrolling knows where the bodies are buried

MLJ with the true crime story of spreading his mother's ashes at Fenway. Kind of amazing on many levels, and certain to become a huge story, I think.

Barney Frank continues to make me happy. Harry Reid? Well, let's just say I wasn't thrilled to have to speak well of him in 2004 when I canvassed in Reno, and I'm even less thrilled about it now.

National MLB ratings on Fox down about 9% from last year, 23% from 2000.

Meanwhile, the NBA is getting some of its highest ratings ever.

Fran Tarkenton is not a Favre hag. But he does speak the obvious truth that, well, anyone with eyes who hasn't been polishing Brett's knob for quotes over the past decade knows. It's the little things in life that make you happy, really.

205 Drop: Top 12 ways to get a small child through an MLB game

Today's drop goes to dark places while having tons of useful suggestions for the baseball-loving parent. Honestly, your best move for such things is to never buy very good seats -- the kid will never be able to take anything less -- pack food if the stadium allows it, and keep in mind that you're not really going to see a game, so much as you are trying to indoctrinate a new person that will take you to games when you are old and feeble. Anyway, go click, there's some nice nastiness today.

The Yankees Are Hospitable Hosts

I had the Phillies-Yankees game on this afternoon while doing the laundry, and I have to congratulate the Yanks for being so accommodating to the visiting team. After years of a huge and unfair home field advantage, complete with ghosts and full-throated partisans and wall-to-wall Yankee Fans, the most valued franchise in baseball has, in one fell swoop, made the playing field much more level. With acres of empty seats in the close areas, a permanent tourist mindset from the overpriced everything, and the sense from non-locals that they need to see the new yard, you've never heard so many fans happy to see the home team lose... which they did today, to the immortal Carlos Ruiz and Clay Condrey, to drop their series with the Fightin's.

In many ways, it just makes things like the Yankee road games, where they have any number of road fans ruining the experience for the local faithful, and helps us get to that perfect moment for MLB -- a post-modern age where every person in attendance is more or less neutral in their rooting interests, maybe because they're all fantasy sports players and/or corporate greedheads who are too well-heeled to applaud. It's certainly making life easier for the Phillies, who are below .500 at home and far above that on the road. If they could ever get their home and closer problem (Brad Lidge blew his second save of the series today, has an ERA of over 9, and just looks snakebit) dealt with, they could be, you know, good or something.

But in any event, continued thanks to the Yanks for replacing their perfectly acceptable, massive home-field advantage with a massive boondoggle that will, over time, destroy their pitching and retard their player development and talent evaluation. (Oh, and what a fair home run for Mark Teixeria today, who went deep to left when his bat broke all the way into the outfield.) Good work, gents!

Sin Eater

I was reading the New Yorker this last week, which is just all kinds of cheery about how the current economy is a whiter shade of ghastly, and something that's going to have fairly permanent and long-reaching effects. (And just when you thought the worst was over, probably because you, personally, aren't unemployed. You unfeeling bastard.)

Anyway, the writer makes the point that part of our problem with the current crisis is that we have no villains to blame. Sure, you can scapegoat Bernie Madoff, or the Detroit auto CEOs, the AIG bonus babies or any number of watchpuppy people in the press and SEC... but none of these people are all that satisfying, and the punishments are far from visceral.

It reminds me of the steroid situation, really.

Even the most disgraced roider -- your Sosas, your McGwires, your Palmeiros, your Bonds, your Clemens, etc., etc. -- is more or less free to enjoy the grotesque amounts of moolah that they made from breaking the rules. Sure, their retirements may not be willing, their legacies might be tarnished, and they might be bitter and unhappy about various aspects of how it ended... but it's not like any of them were doing time in the crossbar hotel with Dog Lovin' Michael Vick and friends.

Maybe this eventually changes if Bonds is held up on perjury charges. Maybe someone famous going to jail and/or having their assets seized really wouldn't make anyone feel or act any differently about steroids.

But then again it might, right? And it might even be a deterrent? I'm not asking for much here, really...

205 Drop: Top 10 reasons why David Ortiz is struggling

The list today is one of those small moments where we really can't just kick a man when he's down. For the record, I have nothing against Ortiz, despite the fact that the man has killed me in any number of fantasy leagues, previously with competence, and then last year by being on my roster. But at least I was able to avoid him this year, so we're all good.

Yankee Fan, of course, might feel a little bit differently. (And enjoy the list a bit more.)

205 Drop: Top 10 moves to increase MLB attendance

Today's snarky list is here. Today's overly long rumination on today's list is below. Who said that we're a wildly unpopular sports blog due to our basic contempt for humanity? At least, who said that out loud?

Today, I'd like to say a word in defense of light crowds at the old ball yard. When I was a partial year season ticket holder for the A's during the stint in NoCal, I took the Shooter Child (now the Shooter Eldest) to about 20 games a year, and in that mix along with the de rigeur fireworks shows were a fairly strong number of mid-week night games where the crowds were fairly, shall we say, intimate. We preferred them, on many levels, to the games where Yankee Fan and Red Sox Fan invaded the park by the thousands to tell us how much of a craphole it was. (Thanks! We hadn't noticed!)

Part of that was simply wanting to avoid Yankee Fan and Red Sox Fan -- honestly, you people are worse on the road than you are at home -- but mostly, it was because baseball without a crushing crowd has its own charms. You can get to a bathroom or concession stand without a major commitment, for one. You don't have to step over people to tend to the needs of your small child, for another. If the person near you has to provide an R-rated soundtrack to the game, you can also just plain move. It's all to the good.

There's also just a more relaxed air to the whole thing. Baseball, on some very basic level, should just not be taken all that seriously. It's the same game that you see played by children without adult supervision, after all, and even if it doesn't have that whole Air of The Drama when the crowds are small, it's still a pretty good game, especially in person. You can relax watching it. Maybe help a kid with the coloring. Savor the taste of that only good at the yard hot dog, because it's only at the yard that you're actually not multi-tasking and grinding on so many fronts that you can, you know, actually taste it.

So to all of the teams that are taking it on the chin at the turnstile, I wish you nothing but continued challenges. And to the rest of us who just love the game, rather than all of the things that you have to put up with around the game... well, good seats available. And maybe, just maybe, not enough security people around to give a damn when we take that mid-game free seat upgrade.

205 Drop: Top 10 conclusions from the Manny Ramirez suspension

Today's list of snark concerns a little-known outfielder for the Dodgers, some guy by the name of Ramirez. It's a little surprising that he doesn't get more press notice, having been suspended for 50 games for violating the league's drug policy, but I suppose once this story happened to JC Romero, it's all old hat. Anyway, go click...

The Man Ram Goes Down

Manny Ramirez gets 50 games for steroids today, according to the LA Times. I'd say more, but the Bad Tooth will probably get you 5,000 words by close of day, and I've got a day job...

Socially horrifying

In this week's issue of the New Yorker, professional provocateur Malcolm Gladwell talks about the David vs. Goliath dynamic, and how the underdog wins more often than not... which is to fight a different battle. (David broke ranks and used artillery; the Philistines stayed in classic battle formation.) He also goes into a long examination of an unheralded girls' basketball team from Redwood City, CA that used the full-court press every game and wound up going to the national championships, despite not being very good at anything but the full-court press. Relentless effort beats superior talent, because in the words of the late great Fred Shero, relentless effort is a talent.

In between lots of sniffing about how the outsider perspective is better, and that many teams should press (highly debatable, but besides the point here) rather than lose while fighting Goliath's battle, Gladwell hits on a central truth: to win using the David tactics is to consider options that are socially horrifying to the status quo. If you are used to a half-court basketball game with set plays, head to head defensive matchups, visible coaching stratagems and all of the other conventional bells and whistles, 48 minutes of trapping is about as appealing as a stick in the eye. It's ragged, without flow and prone to big runs in either direction, leading to a drama-free conclusion. If both teams press and run and do it well, it can be great, but most of the time, the styles won't match, and you get a mess. The same goes for any court sport (hockey, soccer, tennis, and for all I know, lacrosse and rugby).

And this is a key point: court sports have a higher standard to meet than games driven by individual actors (baseball, boxing, golf) or rare events (football). Listen to the Bad Tooth's podcast following the Celtics winning Game 7 against the Bulls (ok, actually, don't), and you can hear the palpable disappointment that the last game also wasn't close and a classic. That's not just a ridiculously spoiled fan's perspective; that's what someone who is watching pro hoop even if he doesn't have a rooting interest in the laundry feels. It's also why football and baseball fan thinks that hoop fan is something of a snob and/or ridiculous. In those sports, it's enough -- hell, much more than enough -- if your laundry wins. In court sports, the laundry has to win in a way that's easy on the eyes.

Socially horrifying shows up in football and baseball too, of course. In football you have the run and shoot or spread offense, the Wildcat formation, a million different ways to try to recover an onside kick and so on, and so on. In baseball, you have the Three True Outcome sabermetric softball players and the pitch count injury worriers, respectively. But the games are too closed for even radical innovations to have that much impact, and there is no socially horrifying way to play the game, really; you just can't get that far away from the median to reach that level. Though Lord knows, Andy Reid does try.

Anyway, something to keep in mind the next time your favorite team is going down to defeat against a heavily favored team, Are they prepared to take socially horrifying actions -- say, a blow to the head that prevents a game-tying layup, or a standard-setting elbow that prompts referee overreactions that favor the less physical team... or performance enhancing substance use? And if they aren't, are you OK with them really not doing everything they can to win the game?

Blogrolling sets fires and creeps you out

Far be it for us to avoid the Stephen Strasburg hype. The College Baseball Blog does it better than most.

The Ghost of Wayns Fontes with the love for the Off Track Betting Parlor. Who doesn't love this place?

MLJ with the extremely depressing five-year recap of the MLB first round. What a waste. No wonder the good teams give up picks for free agents like water.

Minor league baseball -- it's fantastic! And by fantastic, I mean, really regrettable and kind of sad.

We're getting closer to legal online gambling, folks. You know, like grown up countries.

And you people wonder why I don't like hockey. It comes in black and white with creepy puppets! (But only if you are a Bernie Federko fan. Yes, I'm old.)

205 Drop: Top 10 signs the new Yankee Stadium is a bandbox

Some quick words about the usual list of snark this morning that aren't nearly as funny, at least not intentionally...

It's not exactly a done deal that the new yard is Coors East. But if it is, the home town team is in serious, serious trouble.

The Yankee philosophy of winning baseball, such as it is under the Fredo Steinbrenner / Brian Cash and More Cashman regime, is simply this: win with as little risk of not winning as possible. You do that by collecting the most predictable asset in MLB; dependable offensive power, preferably based around the merits of slugging and on-base percentage, on offense, and premium starting pitching on defense.

Year over year, this is the asset that is collected in the Bronx; it is also what they draft for, value in trade, and pay for to such an extent that little, if anything, is left over for injury back-ups (witness what they've trotted out there at catcher and third base during the recent A-Rod and Posada injuries). It's also the asset that is most destroyed by a bandbox yard.

Simply put, when your obscenely compensated power hitter hits a three-run bomb that goes 450 feet in the new place, it's a good thing; it keeps the stands filled, creates nice easy high-margin run wins that cover over your faltering bullpen, and stakes your power rotation arms to just rare back and get outs the old-fashioned way; by themselves. You win lots of 8-5 kind of games, you almost never have a long losing streak, and when a bad pitching team comes to town, or you play an MLB- squad after the All-Star Break, you roll them. It's not exactly a formula for playoff success, but you get there, and what the hey, if a few guys get hot in October, you win it all. It's a game that dozens of MLB franchises would like to play; it's roughly akin to being the big stack in poker, bullying the other players, and seeing every flop.

But if the new yard is a bandbox? Well then, your obscenely compensated home run hitter is matched by my MLB- Jason Kendall clone (that'd be the A's Kurt Suzuki, who is as good of a young catcher as you can have, provided you ignore his absolute lack of power) going opposite-field yard, as he did in a recent game at Yankee Stadium 2, Electric Offensive Boogaloo. Suddenly, what wins isn't the neutralized power hitters or the suddenly overtaxed starting pitching, but defense and pitching depth -- you know, like last year's Phillies team, or the '07 Rockies. Compare the defending World Series champions on defense against this Yankee team, especially at shortstop and the outfield (and yes, Yankee Fan, it helps a lot if the outfielder can throw, rather than just run). Compare the relative stats of the middle relievers, provided you can stand to look at WHIPs that look like ERAs, and ERAs that look like interest rates from a guy who breaks thumbs.

Even if the place is what it seems to be, I don't think that NYY falls off the face of the earth; there's too much talent here for the yard to completely overwhelm it, and they do play half of their games on the road, in front of mostly supportive crowds, with relatively few bandbox yards. Maybe the road games keep the pitching staff close to together, or maybe they see real benefit from previous washouts; Phil Hughes looked good in his first start, and Ian Kennedy and Kei Igawa have been better so far in AAA.

But right now, they are constructed in a way that's opposed by their surroundings, and I don't remember a winning MLB team, plus or otherwise, that you could say that about. And more importantly, I don't see this management team being bright enough to change the way they view talent to change anytime soon.

205 Drop: Top 12 Signs Your MLB Team Is Having More Than A Slow Start

The drop tonight works in unfortunate moments for at least a half dozen fanbases,
because I enjoy the pain of others, and always recycle my own. But on the bright side, Matt Holiday actually hit a home run for the A's today. I didn't know he was allowed to do that.

Top 10 Post Peak Oil MLB Changes

I was perusing the Old Gray Lady last week, as one is won't to do while it still exists, and the story was of an environmentalist movement that talks about transitioning after Peak Oil. This mostly dystopian concept holds that oil is running out, alternative fuels and technology won't be enough to compensate, and the future is going to be a lot less fun when it comes to, you know, travel and shipping and a million thins we more or less take for granted. It's all kinds of cheery, really.)

So the idea is to start working out now how we'd all manage in such a world. Sure, you can plant crops to help raise your own food, but how do you get your excess to market to trade for gingham and the like? And so on. If you are the kind of guy who likes to work out doomsday scenarios and overplan for an unsatisfying future in which you have no real control - in other words, if you are just about every Eagle Fan I've ever met, and we are really not that unique -- well, have at it, really.

So, with that in mind, the following list of ways MLB could change to lower their carbon footprint.

10. Club cars. Calling to mind the old school millionaire rail cars of a century ago, this is where traveling teams ditch their private jets for their own railroad car. Considering the delays and misery that is every airport, I suspect this is a change that many players would actively encourage, especially if more high speed rail came into play. Besides, don't you want to see those MLB+ team trains steaming past you while you wait for your own podunk regional line?

9. More day games. Whether or not it actually makes sense on an ecological scale is debatable -- after all, tens of thousands of people sharing one light has to be better than them all being in their homes, right? -- but since you can sell 'em this way, that's what you'll get.

8. Enforced divisions. Those cross-country trips to play the least meaningful games on the schedule, just so your fans have the opportunity to see every other team in the league... Well, that's what satellites are for, right? And from there, we get...

7. Separate leagues. Pacific, Atlantic, North and South, with travel miles taking priority over tradition. On the plus side, you'll have much better shot at seeing your team on the road. Take the train with them!

6. Overfishing in regional markets. It's not exactly news that if a town is big enough to support an MLB+ franchise, it's probably big enough to support two... or, in the case of New York with its huddled masses, four or five. Brooklyn and Long Island get teams first, one in each league, maybe as moves from Florida and Tampa, just to keep the air miles down. Philly adds an AL team, Boston an NL market. And so on. If you think the Lemur overcovers teams from this region now, you ain't seen nothing yet.

5. Longer homestands and road trips. Again from a pure carbon standpoint, it's very wasteful to have so many back and forth trips, when you could simply keep teams on the road longer and set up the schedule to be more conducive to lowered traveling costs. Especially for teams visiting the other coast, you could easily see a month-long trip to knock it all out at once, rather than make 3-4 trips during the year.

4. Regional drafts. If regional rivalries get more important, than so do regional players, and it makes sense to encourage such things by skewing homegrown talent to stay with teams close to where they developed. I actually think this is the better way to go on many levels, especially if you want to try to make college baseball more interesting for things other than waiting to see if someone dies from a batted ball off an aluminum bat. (And speaking of such things, let's make sure those things are made from recycled metal, of course.)

3. Fewer rain outs. This isn't to mean that there will be less rain; hell, if the environment goes to to dystopia, there will be more. But if you go to more day games, there's just more chance to get a game in, since you can wait out the weather and get it in at night. Remember as well that if the make up game, especially for teams from the other coast, are harder to achieve, there's also just more incentive to get the game done that day. (For that matter, you can also count on more partial games; as is, there are relatively few games each year called and logged in the books before the full nine is played.)

2. Less money. It's just a simple fact that we can dress up if we like, but will still be with us: there is a bubble that needs correcting here, and that bubble is the amount of money involved in the games. If everyone involved is spending less (and, sigh, probably having less), that means there have to be less money from advertising sponsorships, and ticket prices eventually falling, because the market will eventually correct itself. You will, eventually, pay less for your ticket; you also probably aren't going to be too happy about it. (Oh, and this will also really hit all of those teams that have to suddenly live with less Yankee and Red Sox games on the schedule, and higher travel costs.)

1. No more outsourcing. Short and sweet: enjoy those players from overseas, folks, especially from markets like Japan that can put up a fight for them. When the travel costs to bring them in get nasty, you'll just see less of them.

205 Drop: Top 10 things Yankee Fan does not want to hear right now

The 205 link today is a nice thing about being an A's Fan (yes, there are nice things) is that when the Yankees *or* the Red Sox lose, you're happy.

The down side is that happiness is somewhat tempered by the fact that the other is usually winning when that happens.

But hey, take what you can, right?

Clue. Less.

"They're off to a very good attendance start. One team is averaging 44,000 -- the Yankees are at 44 -- and the Metsies are averaging 37,000. So it would be hard if I went to Pittsburgh or somewhere today and tell them, gee, you know, those two New York clubs are really struggling."

Bud, let me explain this slowly, using small words.

New stadiums in MLB+ markets should not, under any circumstance, have issues in filling any part of the stadium in the first *year* of operations.

The fact that both of the NY franchises are not getting those seats sold right now, when they are flush with curiosity for the new yards, is not good. Especially with both teams showing sizable flaws that could take them out of a pennant race (which would be, for a NY hater like myself, just fantastic). By the way, those flaws would be the starting pitching rotation for both teams.

And who said the recession was no fun?

Get a foul ball for just a few thousand dollars

You are looking at Not Very Much Attended Premium Seating at the new Yankee Stadium, which didn't take long to thin down a mite, especially in the pricey seats, for non-Opening Day crowds. The gent in the foreground in pinstripes is on the freaking field. One generally assumes that, you know, great swaths of empty seats should not be the thing closest to him, no?

Shockingly, New York Fan, even New York Corporate Fan Guy, hasn't been too interested in ponying up for the $2500 seats this year. I wonder why? Oh, right, because we're in a freaking recession that's making people reconsider, perhaps permanently (fingers crossed), the wisdom of such things.

Oh, and there's also this. NY Baseball Fan, for all of his flaws, is actually there to see the game, and not the freaking building, you unconscionable rubes. Enjoy your sparkling new albatrosses. (And no, according to the NYT, there are no plans afoot to price 'em down. In the immortal words of Nelson Muntz, "I *said* Ha, Ha...")

Adam Eaton Heals Me

In my single very bad year of Little League baseball, I was on the league champion team. The first baseman was the coach's son and the best player (and biggest asshat) in the league; he could rake. We had a half dozen or so great players, and we generally rolled the league. I had a few good games early through sheer luck, but then more or less fell apart, especially on defense. (It turns out that my eyes don't work together, so my depth perception is pretty much non-existent. Not an asset on pop ups, really.)

When the team won the championship, I wasn't all that excited; hitting 12th and playing for one inning in deep right will tend to take the joy out of things, really. I knew I wasn't going to ever do this again, and that it wasn't that much of a story. I took no share of the glory.

This puts me considerably on front of Adam Eaton.

"A lot of things went wrong, but a lot of things went right, too. I helped them get to the playoffs two years in a row, and obviously we won the World Series last year."

Adam's ERA in 2007: 6.29.

Adam's ERA in 2008: 5.80.

Now, to be fair, maybe I'm not getting the whole story here. Perhaps Adam was a great asset in the clubhouse. Or a mentor to Cole Hamels and Brad Lidge. Maybe his statistics don't show his, um, true worth.

And maybe my Little League team needed my googly-eyed ballast to keep them all focused on the prize.

Yes, that must be it.

So I'd like to be the very first person in the greater Philadelphia region to say these words:

Thank you, Adam Eaton.

Through your considerable example and incredible linking skills, that's one more source of childhood shame erased. I was the MVP, baby!

No Stars, Just Great

I don't watch all that many movies or television shows, folks. Between the three sports, filling the bloghole, doing the day job, playing poker, doing the household stuff and being the Shooter Dad and Husband, the day runs out of hours pretty fast. No complaints.

But I do, eventually, work through my Netflix queue, and after reading enough about the show to know that I was going to geek out on it, I took the plunge and started plowing through "The Wire", the critically acclaimed HBO series that's set on the mean streets of Baltimore. I know this seems a fair way from sports, but wait for it, I'll circle back.

Part of the reason why the show works so well is that it has no known star actors; the cast is just freaking huge, to the point where, just like real life, you are not always certain which character is which, and what exactly is going on. The lead actor is a guy (Dominic West) from Britain who I've only ever seen in one other movie ("300"), where he's the nasty dude that rapes the Queen and gets garroted in public. Thank heavens I saw that flick before "300", or I'd have been completely discombobulated during his scenes.

Since it was an HBO show, it avoided the committee meetings and network notes that water down the product to draw a bigger audience. It's also relentlessly adult, smart as can be, and filled with larger meanings that sit with you for a long time after you watch the episodes. I can't recommend it enough, and someone really needs to smack Joss Whedon upside the head until he goes and works for HBO, and stops wasting his time having shows die with Fox. Thank you.

Now, one of the reasons why this relates at all to sports is that in the past month on the NBA telecasts, the movies "Obsessed" and "Next Day Air" have both been pimped. In the former, you get a romantic triangle with Idris Elba as the meat in an Ali Larter / Beyonce Knowles triangle, which is to say, you get the tough as nails #2 guy in the drug organization being inconvenienced by a predatory temp. It's unsettling, really. In the later, you get what seems to be a slackerish guy taking stuff of a truck in a comedy about missing goods, or the #1 guy in the drug organization slumming. (That'd be the equally great actor Wood Harris.)

But the second and bigger point is that if you are a fan of "The Wire", you're *huge* into it; it's not a casual thing. I'm thrilled to see Elba and Harris getting work, to the point that I might actually go rent these other probable turds that they are getting paid for now, just because I want them to do well from being involved in this show. Just the same way that I'll always have a soft spot for Marco Scutaro, the one-time Magical Man Elf of Oakland who is now improbably holding down the leadoff spot for the equally improbable first-place Blue Jays. Or the eternally lovable Chad Bradford, another ex "Moneyball" star who has bounced around the majors providing good side-armed relief innings for a decade now. He's in Tampa now, rehabbing from an injury. Go, Chad Bradford, go.

MLB+ fans who just geek on the stars (A-Rod! Jeter! Manny! Big Papi! Other Small Corporations!) are missing out on the best stories, the small ones that you root for harder, and more personally. They also look down on the nerdy love that we give these life-sized heroes, because "The Wire" didn't have a huge audience, and these guys generally don't show up on All-Star teams or with rings on their fingers.

Except, of course, when the little guy is on *their* team, at which point he becomes Scott Brosius. Or Paul O'Neill. Or Dave Roberts. Or Jon Lester. Or the other, truly loved, truly human, players.

Anyway, go rent season one of "The Wire", or give me a ton of grief for only knowing about it 8 years after the fact. (And please, no spoilers. I've only just finished Season 2.)