Stuff that should bounce off you like raisins off an Oldsmobile ...
Wondering how new Montreal Canadiens coachJacques Martin will handle the insatiable Quebec media after being in a southern U.S. city and big-small-town Ottawa for so many years. Roy Mlakar won't be there to ride herd.
Hockey fans who complain "superstars get all the calls" in the NBA when the NHL did not suspend Penguins star Evgeni Malkin for starting a fight in the last five minutes of the game. Jeff Blair's suggested title for Colin Campbell: "NHL Vice-President and Director Of Figuring Out What’s A Cheap Shot." The greasiness was compounded by the fact the NHL announced Malkin was off the hook via a press release at 11:48 p.m. (literally, the 11th hour.)
Michael Vick being a contentious issue, while there is a barely a peep about current Atlanta Falcons player Quinn Ojinnaka being allowed to play in the NFL after he allegedly "spat at his bride, tossed her down some stairs and then threw her out of their Georgia home in the wee hours."
"What Vick, Ojinnaka's former Atlanta teammate, did to become a pariah will forever and properly be considered heinous. Training dogs to fight, and then executing those who don't win, is certainly reprehensible . . . and Vick has the shattered life, career and finances to prove it.
"But at the end of the day, shouldn't battering people be more prominently placed in the great photo of disgraces than any act of abusing (and, yes, killing) dogs? And isn't battering people made even more abominable when the alleged batterer is a 6-foot-5, 305-pound man, and the identified batteree is a woman of significantly less height and ballast?
The knowledge that HBO, which passed on Mad Men and Breaking Bad, has given Joe Buck his own show.
Conan O'Brien debuting tonight as host of The Tonight Show. The commitment NBC has made to Conan is truly amazing. They've given him the best lead-in that petty jealousies can buy.
(Lord, please forgive anyone whose reaction to seeing Jay Leno sign off last Friday night was to scream at the TV, "The show should have gone to Letterman in the first place!" The line of succession should have gone Carson-Letterman-Conan. It's a pain that never ends.
It's a sin to say that about Leno. Like Stewie Griffin once said, the fact is the man is out there every night with fresh material and he's charming.
Last but not least, having to be the guy who makes this joke: "Kingston Frontenacs defenceman Erik Gudbranson was taken in the Continental Hockey League draft today. Playing in Russia would be an easy switch since he's already in junior hockey's Siberia." So much for trying to quit making Frontenacs jokes.
(Kingston's own Taylor Hall was taken too. Three OHLers were taken and two had Kingston ties. Crazy.)
BS: "Can you think of any two people who have less in common than James Brown and Pacman Jones?" KSK: "Caligula and Judge Reinhold."
There is the element of "who cares? So they're big media stars and you're not," but it's worth sharing since some people be like-minded about both individuals in question. Magary also had a great point that people should maybe get past the, "I think (blank) are going to win," unless you're someone on the level of Nate Silver of Baseball Prospectus and FiveThirtyEight fame. His rant would have done yours truly some good after 8-0 Queen's lost to 4-4 in Ottawa in the OUA football playoffs.
Simmons' act was fresh in the late '90s and in the 2000s, but it's become the sport media's analog to Will Ferrell's man-child act. It ticked the giggly in the late '90s and early 2000s, when people -- especially men who realized that you're not going to be young forever, but you can at least be immature -- just needed to disappear into, say, one of Ferrell's comic constructs and laugh like a hyena for 92 minutes. Eventually, you wonder when someone who's a NBA guy in his medium will stop making an ABA movie, to paraphrase one review of Ferrell's thin 2008 vehicle, Semi-Pro. It is often a similar deal with Simmons' references to 1980s pop culture, the Boston Celtics of that era, gambling, Grady Little and porn.
(Et tu, Sagert?)
As for Buck, there's nothing wrong in gnashing your teeth as he somnambulates through a telecast for the 1,001st time. Buck is a good traffic director, to borrow a term used by a TV person in one of Dan Jenkins' satiric novels. He works in television, where they take a break every seven minutes, reinforcing the message that nothing matters (not this is anything close to an original insight). As a Deadspin commenter noted, it is fun to re-imagine iconic sports moments, like the 1980 Miracle on Ice, as they would have been called by the late, great Jack Buck's issue:
Dave Silk clears the puck, it doesn't look like the Soviets will be able to regroup in time, and the U.S. advances to the gold medal game against Finland.
Again, it doesn't matter, but it's a good release. The larger point is that we are at the end of a decade, and in on the very small sports-fan scale, Buck and Simmons should be left behind in this one, where they belong.
(Buck and other play-by-play guys will be a topic of discussion today on Offsides, Kingston's most listened to hour-long sports show, 4 p.m. ET on CFRC 101.9 FM, cfrc.ca.)
It is not a bad thing if teams that didn't reach double digits in victories during the regular season reach the Super Bowl. Mediocrity is rewarded every day in our society, so why people would not tolerate that in pro football is beyond comprehension. I know, you're looking for escapism, not reality thrown back in your face like a bad punt into the wind in Buffalo.
No doubt a lot of media chatter about the Giants will dwell on Eli Manning's mental toughness as reflected by his team's inability to finish drives. The inference left unsaid it that it's proof of some huge character flaw. It was actually a matter of simple mechanics. Some passers can handle Giants Stadium's notorious January winds. It was obvious that Manning could not from the first series of the game, when Elisha had Steve Smith open deep and the ball was blown off-course and fell incomplete.
On the next Giants possession, Manning tried a play-action pass to the same side of the field, the right sideline. The ball sailed out of the receiver's reach and Philly's Asante Samuel returned the gift interception to New York's two-yard line, setting up the first touchdown. Talk about foreshadowing.
The Giants, as you remember, won the Super Bowl last season by winning games in Tampa Bay, Dallas, Green Bay (it was cold, but not windy) and Arizona, when Manning could throw effectively without worrying about the wind. Manning is now 0-2 at home in the playoffs. The Giants haven't scored a touchdown in either game. Sometimes, it is that simple, although hey, there's a huge media maw to feed where pro athletes are either heroes or choking freaking dogs.
It is quite possible that Fox's Troy Aikman might have mentioned that 2005 shutout loss, but the mute button was on most of the afternoon as a prevent defence against Joe Buck. Of course, in broadcaster cliche-speak, that was a different Eli Manning, since he was only in his second season in '05. He might be more mature and more savvy, but no amount of age and wisdom is going to make up for what kind of ball he throws.
Anyway, laying objectivity aside, seeing the Eagles advance at the Giants' expense was sweet. Drew Magary at Deadspin beat everyone to this last week, but Eagles defensive co-ordinator Jim Johnson is a football geek's favourite football lifer. His unit has been the best one on the field in both of Philly's playoff wins.
Johnson is 67 years old, which means he will never get a chance at running his own team. He's not even the best known Jim Johnson in pro football. The Eagles' identity has always been quarterback Donovan McNabb, even though they've always been a balanced team.
A NFL owner would rather have someone who projects renewal and youthful enthusiasm.One of his former assistants, John Harbaugh, has Baltimore in the AFC title game; another, the Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier, is a candidate to run his own team. The Giants' defensive boss, Steve Spagnuolo, is also in the running for one of several vacancies, so in other words, the coordinators from the teams the Eagles eliminated are in line to move up the football food chain.
There's the vicarious joy for Jim Johnson, plus the Giants embody loathsomeness. No one wants New York teams to win too often. The topper today was a boneheaded challenge in the fourth quarter by their crabass coach, Tom Coughlin, after Derrick Ward, was obviously short on a third-down running play. Coughlin actually made a bigger blunder earlier, by forcing the Giants to go into the wind in the first quarter.
It was milquetoast. It was fourth-and-inches and the Giants, down by nine points, only had two precious timeouts remaining. Risking a timeout for the sake of two feet in field position was pound-foolish. A team which led the league in rushing ought to be able to get two feet. Naturally, after the refs' spot was upheld, Manning got stuffed on a quarterback sneak. It was brilliant.
Anyway, not to overdo do the here's-what-happened-in-sports-and-here's-what-I-think, but here's a couple other random thoughts.
Crime, punishment and Joe Buck: The Fox play-by-play man made a smug reference to Plaxico Burress "took himself out" of the picture, referring to how the Giants suspended him after his handgun charge. Pro Football Talk noted that in the second game today, San Diego's Vincent Jackson, who had a drunk-driving charge, scored the first touchdown of the game. The second TD of the game was scored by Santonio Holmes, who was charged with marijuana possession earlier this year. Neither player was benched by his team after being arrested.
Point being: The moral high ground is nice in the NFL. Winning is nicer. Don't count on hearing that from Joe Buck.
Best beauty use of the quick kick: It was mentioned a couple weeks ago that the quick kick, where the quarterback punts from a standard scrimmage formation, is a great underused gambit.
Early on in the San Diego-Pittsburgh game, the Steelers had fourth-and-8 on the 34-yard line. A 51-yard field-goal try was out, since no one has ever made a kick that long at Heinz Field, known to have the worst playing surface in the NFL. The Steelers lined up like they were going for it, but QB Ben Roethlisberger, backpedalled a few steps, took the snap and left-footed a punt that rolled dead at the nine-yard line, pinning San Diego. Pittsburgh forced a punt, and Holmes returned it 68 yards for a touchdown. That might not have happened if the Chargers had started with better field position.
Hidebound coaching, Fisher is King: There is a debate at Pro-football-reference over Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher opting for a tying field goal on a fourth-and-inches situation with 4:00 left Saturday. It is always schadenfreulicious when a team has the safe call backfire, as it did when the Baltimore Ravens moved downfield for the winning points, eliminating Tennessee.
That doesn't mean it was the wrong call. Coaches play for the tie or for overtime all the time. No one remembers the times it worked and Tennessee's defence had played well enough to give Fisher confidence that his team would get a meaningful chance to score again.
Oz right now: One subplot of the NFC title game between the Eagles (9-6-1) and Arizona Cardinals (9-7) is that it means a former Australian Rules Football player will play in the Super Bowl. How can you not be excited for the Aussies, choosing with punter to root for, Philly's Sav Rocca or 'Zona's Ben Graham?
He does do that:Pacifist Viking had an odd observation about Joe Buck: "Before a game on FOX, watch the intro with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. While Aikman talks, Buck watches Aikman, but every few seconds he turns to look at the camera with an ultra-serious expression, as if he's checking to make sure we're paying attention. It is a very unnatural, robotic movement -- he seems compelled to artificially turn his head toward the camera every few seconds."
Fun factoid: The NFC championship game will be the 114th meeting between the Cardinals and Eagles. The all-time series is tied at 54-54-5.
Here's a dozen randomly cherry-picked items you should be aware of about the National League championship series, which opens tomorrow night.
Manny Ramírez has the Evil Gene, as evidenced by his insistence in acting like he's playing a game.
Expect Fox Sports, which has the call for the NLCS, to turn this into a morality play on how "That One" can be poised to lead his team to the World Series after what he supposedly did to get banished from Boston.
Tim McCarver seems to have made that pretty clear with his statement to a Philadelphia reporter, "Every sport, there have been people who have held organizations hostage, whether it be Terrell Owens or Randy Moss or Manny Ramírez."
Someone, please, explain why he delicately overlooked Roger Clemens. Or Brett Favre.
But it's the Dodgers who fear lefties.
It's a small, small sample size, but the two teams the Dodgers pitchers fared the worst against during the regular season were the doomed Nye Mets and the Phillies, whose meanest hitters swing from the left side -- Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Jimmy Rollins and the flyin' Hawaiian, Shane Victorino. The Cubs had no such beast, and worst of all, knew they had no such beast.
L.A.'s only lefty starter is 20-year-old Clayton Kershaw. He is going to be nails some day, but he started the season in Jacksonville. Granted, if you could live in Jacksonville, Florida for any extended period, nothing should ever scare you, even the fairly potent Phils.
OK, enough about the 84 wins.
The Dodgers, counting the playoffs, are 20-8 since Sept. 1. The Phillies are 20-9. True, as a Jays fans it is teeth-gnashing times ten that over in the National League, a team can catch lightning in a bottle for one month and have a shot at the World Series. Baseball is supposed to measure a gift for dailiness, not reward the slackasses who were C students all year and somehow pulled an A out of their butts on the final pop quiz of the year.
The Dodgers are analogous to the 2006 Edmonton Oilers -- a team that only had to make the playoffs. Once they arrived, they were dangerious. That might be fine in a hockey, but it's anathema to baseball, the sport of those with more discerning tastes.
The Ex-Cub factor
In 1987, the Cubs rotation included two second-year pitchers, Jamie Moyer and Greg Maddux, who posted respective 5.10 and 5.61 ERAs and lost 29 of their 47 decisions. Two decades, Moyer is still going strong, while Maddux is more or less delaying his first-ballot Hall of Fame induction.
It's an old saw in baseball that the team with fewer former Cubbies will win. The Phillies have only two, Moyer and fellow older-than-dirtster Matt Stairs, the ex-Jay. Moyer, who will turn 46 years old a couple weeks after the World Series, apparently wants to pitch until he's 50.
The Dodgers have three -- Maddux, Nomar Garciaparra and Juan Pierre. The ex-Cub factor was negated in the first round since L.A. played the current Cubs. Dodgers manager Joe Torre also buried the latter two on the bench.
The other 2004 Red Sox hero who's on a big salary drive.
Right-hander Derek Lowe could potentially starts games 1, 4 and 7 for the Dodgers, and he's a killer in the playoffs. For what it's worth, he's also beaten the Phillies the last two times he faced them.
The pen is mightier
Like the Rays, the Phillies' bullpen has been underappreciated, even though its 3.19 ERA was second-best in the majors. (Who was No. 1? Why, it was a certain fourth-place team in the AL East that used to employ Pat Gillick.)
Brad Lidge, as you probably know, has not blown a save all season, which only means he's due to blow one soon. Or not.
The ball always bounces for the team with the brighter manager.
Speaking as an American League guy, real baseball includes having nine hitters in the lineup, not eight (unless the exception is named McGlovin). The NL has the pinch-hitting, double switches and the pitchers with their .111 batting averages who barely move fast enough to be described as running when they tap out yet another weak grounder to the second baseman. It's kind of like watching two Ivy League schools play football -- for an afternoon, it's kind of cute, but you wouldn't want to watch it for an entire season.
That being said, having a bench and knowing how to use it is huge in the NL. Joe Torre, by almost all accounts, is always credited with having more on the ball than Phillies manager, Charlie Manuel. Torre's bench includes Garciaparra and Jeff Kent, who can no longer play an effective second base but could still be a factor as a hitter.
It used to be fashionable to project anti-Yankees resentment toward Torre, but he's shown before that he can flat-out manage.
The ball always bounces for the team with the better catcher.
L.A.'s Russell Martin is the best his league has to offer, behind the plate and at bat. His counterpart, Carlos Ruiz, does a decent enough job behind the plate, but is such a terrible hitter that it essentially reduces the Phillies to a seven-man batting order (unless foul-ball machine Brett Myers is the starting pitcher).
Martin is on a tear of late.
The curse of Gillick?
Phillies GM Pat Gillick gave a generation of Canadian ball fans the gift of enjoying two World Series titles in the '90s. There have been playoff teams in all three of his subsequent stops, but none has managed to win a pennant. Considering what happened to the 1996 Orioles and how the 2001 Seattle Mariners contrived to flame out after a record 116-win season, one has to wonder if someone has a Pat Gillick voodoo doll.
Why the Phillies might win
They have the big bats, even though none of Howard or Utley did a whole lot in the easy four-game win over the Brewers and Pat Burrell was stymied until the clinching game. They also scored fewer runs than they did in 2007, but no one seems to have noticed.
The Phillies bullpen is also strong.
Martin and Andre Ethier, he of the .507 BAbip (batting average on balls in play) since Sept. 1, might be due for a big-time evenout. Let's face it, the Dodgers were also a bit lucky against the Cubs, whose hitters did sweet FA to adjust to how they were pitched.
Why the Dodgers are going to win
They have the starting pitching-and-defence equation mastered to a greater extent than the Philadelphians. Their manager has been here before and last but not least, Manny Ramírez seems to be owning the moment.
The Phillies' combo of power and good-enough pitching works over the Long Season. Beyond Game 1 starter Cole Hamels, though, they're largely a bunch of soft tossers, which is a deal-breaker in the playoffs, when games more often turn on one big inning.
Howard was held in check by the Brewers and Chase Utley quite possibly is playing hurt, much like Robbie Alomar did during the Jays' 1992 run. Shorn of their two big boppers, the Phillies can be had.
Notwithstanding that an 84-win team should not be in the playoffs to begin with, there is reason to like the Dodgers. Besides, after McCarver's remarks about Manny, he deseves another Deion Sanders treatment during the locker-room celebration.
Prediction: L.A. in seven.
Does either of these teams stand a chance in the World Series against the AL East winner?
Only insofar as post-season baseball is pretty random. Consider this The 2008 NLCS: The Race To Avoid Being The Team Which Has Their Ass Handed To Them In The Fall Classic.
Elsewhere ...
Jays assistant GM Tony LaCava is interviewing for the top job with the Seattle Mariners.
Canada's own Rich Harden will be back with the Cubs next season.
Fox Sports cutting to a commercial during O Canada is tacky -- but it's like expecting the class clown not to make armpit noises during a school assembly.
The point is, you almost look forward to it with Fox. One less than endearing Canadian trait is that we often overanalyze American interpretations of us, just to look for the boo-boos. It's kind of like the nerd who adds to the goofs section on the Internet Movie Database. Watching how Fox, the broadcast arm of the hyperbole-industrial complex, utterly ignored this country's baseball fans during the baseball All-Star Game telecast from Yankee Stadium, though, you can't blame us for feeling that way.
It happens too often. We are forced to keep score at home. No one in Canada would have known about this right away, save for the fact globesports.com's Jeff Blair blogged it, but MLB did have O Canada. While Sheryl Crow performed The Star-Spangled Banner, there was a recorded version of our national anthem, with no singer. The only reason it was even seen in Canada, ironically enough, was due to a screwup by the Canadian rights holder.
Think about it. Months of planning and preparation went into this Bronx bonanza, but MLB couldn't find anyone to sing O Canada. Hey, it's not like there were an unprecedented three Canadians in the game. In fairness, New York City isn't swimming in unknown performers who just need a break.
This very well could be the old Canadian insecurity talking. Doesn't it seem like U.S. broadcasters constantly betray a lack of broadcast preparation when it comes anything Canadian? The half-assed treatment of our anthem was just the tip of the iceberg.
What happened was that that chill bump-raising pregame ceremony introducing virtually every living Hall of Famer wrapped up and Fox went to a commercial break. That's not so bothersome. They had a lot of ads to squeeze in and the pregame ceremony was bound to run a little long.
On Sportsnet Pacific, the screen went to black for about 15-20 seconds. Then suddenly the feed came back, somewhere around the "from far and wide," although it was hard to be pinpoint it exactly, since there were no words. What, MLB couldn't spring for the airfare and a hotel room to get this singer down to New York City?
Any Canadian baseball nut who tuned to see a game that had an unprecedented three of our own playing in the Midsummer Classic -- the L.A. Dodgers catcher Russell Martin, Cubs right-hander Ryan Dempster and Twins first baseman Justin Morneau -- saw half of a half-hearted treatment of our anthem.
In the top of the fourth, Roy Halladay came on to pitch. Joe Buck called the four-time All-Star Holliday (no, he plays for the Colorado Rockies -- as Amrit pointed out, he homered an inning later, but not off his AL near-namesake). A few moments later, Tim McCarver, referred to the Jays' home stadium as the "Rogers Dome." (Well, it has only had Rogers' corporate on it since 2005, and it is a dome.)
Hopefully Jays president Paul Godfrey wasn't expecting any quid pro quo for persisting in playing God Bless America during the seventh-inning stretch at the Rogers Centre long after many U.S. teams discontinued the practice.
It was a slap in the face. They skimped on an anthem singer and then Joe and Tim skim over some basic prep work for the broadcast involving a Canadian-based player. It comes off as saying, hey, it's Canada, what does it matter?
This isn't coming from someone who's resolutely anti-American. There's so much they do better than Canada -- sports, movies, politically motivated witchhunts, Trials of the Century, showing celebrities at their worst, subtle political satire. How many Canadians who couldn't get anywhere creatively in this country have made it big down there?
One of the funnier aspects about that line "where else can even paperboy option the film rights to a book?" in that Bruce McCulloughKids In The Hall monologue, In America, is that it has a grain of truth. The U.S is still the country for the dreamers, the lottery players. Canada is where your life is just a job you have to finish, although that's probably just as true for most Americans (that's why country music is so popular in both countries).
Getting back to the point, no Canadian broadcaster would ever think to go to commercial during the American anthem. We're way too eager to ingratiate ourselves with the Americans. Our government even let American fighter pilots do a flyover over the U.S. ambassador's residence in Ottawa on July 4, as well we should have. We would never consider not giving our American friends equal consideration.
Down south, they figure there's no need to bother with acknowledging Canada, but then again, we are kind of boring.
You think Buck and McCarver mentioned that there were three Canadians in the game? Don't be foolish.
(How sweet was it to see the full range of Martin's talents -- hitting, going first-to-third on a single, working the plate -- and to see Morneau score the winning run?)
Forget it, it's the Bronx
Capping the pregame hoopla by wheeling in George Steinbrenner was lame. Only the Yankees would have the gall to be so obvious about ripping off the scene in Boston in 1999, when the presence of Ted Williams, in evident poor health, turned Fenway Park into a giant kiss-and-cry area at a figure skating competition.
There's no moral high ground in begrudging an 78-year-old plutocrat in his sunset years becoming America's grandpa. That said, you can sub in "baseball owners" into that line from Chinatown about how "politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough" and it fits the scene to a tee. It's no wonder he didn't get a big ovation from the crowd.
Painting Steinbrenner in such a glowing light, giving him more of a spotlight than Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, George Brett, Mike Schmidt and Frank Robinson, et al., is a whitewash. Sorry, but there's no way to be objective about Steinbrenner.
In the back half of his time running the Yankees, he was the best owner in sports. However, you have to remember that for at least as long, probably longer, he was the worst owner in sports. He demeaned players and managers, ran roughshod over people who had no way of fighting back, traded in thinly veiled racism to try and shake down NYC for a new stadium -- remember when he kept saying the area around the Stadium was "too scary" -- and damn near destroyed the Yankee tradition.
A generation ago, Goose Gossage, one of the Yankees legends involved in the first-ball ceremony (four first balls? Really?), said, "George always like to talk about the Yankee tradition. When did he ever play for the Yankees?"
Gossage was right the first time. The Yankees can recognize Steinbrenner on their own time, like before their final home game of the season, rather than shoving it down the throats of fans whose teams don't have $209-million payrolls. The rewriting of history is well underway.
Plus there was the time he invited himself to Costanza's wedding.
The best hitters in the game (and Jason Varitek) went 3-for-28 with runners in scoring position. Basically, it was like a Jays intrasquad game.
Everyone will be having a lot of fun with the story about Ichiro Suzuki's not-G-rated Gipper speech.
Great lines from ShysterBall: "The baseball luminaries are riding in 100 Chevy Silverados. Baseball's carbon footprint is taking a beating this evening.
"This thing reminds me of the Macy's parade. I hope I didn't tune in too late to see the David Wells balloon."
Dustin McGowan's not out for the season. Even better news: He never watches movies that star Bill Murray.
Via Uni Watch, here's a great trivia question: Who was the first player to play in an All-Star Game wearing Blue Jays gear? OK, It was Ruppert Jones, an outfielder in the '70s and '80s who never played for the Jays. How did he pull that off?
Lastly, how much more informal was baseball back in 1967, the only previous time the game went 15 innings? Mickey Mantle was on the American League team that season, but didn't feel like he rated the honour, so he flew from Dallas to Anaheim, arrived after the game had started, pinch-hit for the starting pitcher in the third inning, struck out, and flew back to Dallas. The game was still going when he met up with his buddies at the country club.
It's too bad that OPS+ wasn't around in in 1967. For a guy who was supposedly done, The Mick had an OPS+ of 150. Most players never get close to that in their entire career.
(Digression: Searching for the McCullough monologue turned up the greatest cold opening in television history. Try to work "guilty, but with various good excuses" into conversation whenever possible.)
There's one question anyone who embarks on writing seething screed about The Captain being voted into the Midsummer Classic should first have to answer. If they can't, they have to turn their energy toward another topic, something less contentious than who starts in the all-star game (suggestion: "Religion: What Is The One True Faith?").
Here it is: Has anyone from Major League Baseball ever made it clear whom the All-Star Game is actually for, the players or the fans?
An answer has never been apparent during the past 20-odd years as a baseball-obsessive. That's why anyone -- present company very included -- who writes a blog post or any full-length article giving her/his opinion on whom the fans should have voted into the game is, at best, fulfilling their obligation to provide content. At worst, they're a little bit full of shit for being blind to a grey area that Roger Clemens' family could drive six Hummers through, side-by-side.
Just using should is strikes one, two and three. There is no should about an event that's ensnared by the MLB hype machine's meathooks. Derek Sanderson Jeter is producing a garden-variety .732 OPS and his usual just-OK defence for his $21.6-million salary, which makes him one of the game's most overpaid players. It's not even the second-best production among a thin field of American League shortstops. All three Yahoo! Sports national baseball writers anointed the Texas Rangers' Michael Young as their starting shortstop.
So what, though? All of you can take your OPS and your WARP and your VORP and stuff it in a sack. Don't share your Win Shares. Shame on Yahoo! Sports for telling baseball geeks what they want to hear, that the game is for the players who are doing the best this season.
Anyone who watches a Fox station on a regular basis (in the case, only because FOX 44 from Burlington, Vt., shows Family Guy and Seinfeld reruns between 11 p.m. and midnight) knows that this is being played up as, cue the ominous music, "the last Midsummer Classic ever at Yankee Stadium."
Let's ignore that Yankee Stadium isn't what it is because of anything that ever happened in a glorified exhibition game in July -- can you even name the last time the game was played there? -- but because of what's happened there in October. Never mind that, as Will Leitch pointed out last week in a New York Times piece, "the bleacher bums, the upper tier folk, the families who have had the Yankees in their blood for decades," likely won't be at the July 15 game since tickets for an event typically have such a mark-up that only the most well-connected and well-heeled can attend.
Fox and MLB want that image of No. 2 in pinstripes trotting out to take his place at shortstop in the top of the first inning of the last all-star game ever at Yankee Stadium. They want Joe Buck -- did you know the guy doesn't even like baseball that much? -- to make some extemperaneous remarks about how it's fitting that it's Jeter who's starting in this, the last all-star game ever at Yankee Stadium.
(Digression: At some point, there will be a post about how watching The MLB on Fox stirs up more mortal terror than anything Alfred Hitchcock ever put in a movie. It's this funhouse-mirror distortion of America -- the banal commentary from Joe and Tim McCarver, along with a steady stream of commercials for all sorts of wonder drugs for your wang. Far be it to suggest that there's a time-tested holistic remedy if your penis isn't doing what you need it to do -- stop drinking beer and watching sports, put down the channel-flipper and the fatty foods and get some exercise!)
October, according to the major media, is Jeter's time, but of course, there might not be playoff baseball for the Yankees, who are four games behind the Red Sox for the wild-card spot. One major culprit for the failure of a $196-million ballclub is a lack of a production from the all-important 2-hole in the lineup, Jeter's normal spot in the lineup. Note the irony? (Fire Joe Morgan pointed out a couple days ago that this only adds to the reason to blame the Yankees' shortcomings on Jason Giambi and Alex Rodriguez.)
From here on out, let's at least be halfway intellectually honest and stop humouring ourselves that the All-Star Game exists for any such noble purpose. The annual byproduct of ballot-box stuffing does decide home-field advantage for the World Series, which is like choosing the next president of the United States by the same method used on American Idol (which will happen, by 2024 at the latest).
ESPN carries on like the only two baseball teams that exist, much less matter, are the Red Sox and Yankees. It's no surprise, then, that the Evil Empires account for six of the nine elected starters in the American League, with Ichiro Suzuki, who's 26th among AL outfielders in OPS (one spot up from the Jays' Alex Rios, for pity's sake) also voted since there's a huge voting bloc in Japan. The Cubs' Kosuku Fukudome, .420 slugging percentage and all, was also elected as a National League starting outfielder, although he's simply having a nice first season in North America.)
It's just pointless to spew venom about Jeter, or to point out that among the 17 elected starters, only five are the most productive hitters at their position going into today (this is based on OPS). If you want to get mad at anyone, point out that if the Red Sox hadn't traded Hanley Ramírez out of the league, he could be starting for the AL. Hey, since everything gets blamed on Blue Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi, point out if his ballclub had ever been able to come up with a solid shortstop (too bad Troy Tulowitzki, whom the Jays infamously passed over in the 2003 draft, is having a lousy, injury-riddled year?), maybe there would be a viable, popular alternative to Jeter in the AL.
(Digression No. 2: Obligatory passive-aggressive swipe at Ricciardi -- if Kim Ng is ever going to become baseball's first female general manager, could it please be in Toronto?)
Fox and MLB use the all-star game to sell stars, not call attention to the guys who might happen to be better at baseball. They need Derek Jeter out there patrolling his range of infield dirt — a range which is shrinking like the polar ice cap — instead of a deserving player, so-called. Judging by how the voting turned out, ESPN, Fox, et al., are doing a very good job of persuasion. The two Boston/New York players who actually have great numbers but who are also media-inculcated whipping boys, Jason Giambi and J.D. Drew, didn't get voted in.
At least Red Sox slugger David Ortiz' injury means that Texas' Milton Bradley should get to take his spot as the designated hitter.
See? There's that word should again. We've lost already.
Stuff that should bounce off you like raisins off an Oldsmobile ...
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