Two posts in June? Why the fuck not.
I happened to take a quick look at Joe Mo's chat today and I thought a few question/answers were worthy of posting here. Because they sucked.
These are cut and pastes so typos are as they showed up in the chat.
John (CA): What are your thoughts oin Tommy Hanson so far?
Joe Morgan: I haven't seen him, and I havent read a lot about him, but everything I hear about him on TV, he's going to be a star. But I don't use other peoples' judgements on players, I like to see them. I don't follow the lead of others in terms of rating players. I like to do it myself.
Summary:
I haven’t seen him.
I haven’t read anything about him.
People say he’s good.
But I don’t listen to people.
I barely watch baseball.
I don't read anything about baseball.
Question answered?
No.
Ben (Lincoln, NE): Joe, what's your take on the White Sox?
Joe Morgan: That's a team that I just can't figure out. Every time I think they're going to go down and they should start rebuilding, they win a few games ago.
To keep my brain from exploding I’m going to just pretend he didn’t end that second sentence with “ago”. So, if this means what I think it means, then no team should ever rebuild unless they go an entire season without a winning streak.
Contreras came back and looks great. They look good for a moment and then they fall back. So, I can't figure them out.
Seriously. At first I’m like…this team has won a few games in a row, they're AWESOME!…then they lose 3 in a row…so I’m like…this team SUCKS! Then they go and win a game again! Make a decision White Sox! Are you going to lose all the time or win all the time? You can’t just be a .500 team or something! Winning, then losing and back and forth and back and forth. I can’t analyze that.
They have some young players and veteran players, but I just can't figure them out.
This is the third time Joe said he can’t figure them out. He's typed 6 sentences.
Also, I fucking love this sentence. Read it again, it's beautiful. It's like Joe concedes that he can't "figure out" teams that have all veterans or all young players. But this White Sox team, well shit they have both....and he still can't figure them out.
They could turn things around and win the division or they can fall deeper toward the bottom of the division.
So they’ll either be awesome and win the division or they’ll suck.
Jason (DC): Joe, Is Magglio Ordonez toast, or will he rebound in a big way?
Joe Morgan: That's a puzzling situation for me, because Jim Leyland said he's benched indefinitely. I don't know if I've heard that phrase used before with the benching of a star. Something is going on there, and we don't know what it is. I find it hard to think that a guy that has had success and can just disappear. My first thought is that he needs a wake up call and this is what that is. Maybe he just needs a good ol' fashioned kick in the pants and this is it.
So, is Magglio Ordonez toast or will he rebound in a big way?
ben (los angeles): if you were the manager of the Dodgers what would you do with Pierre when Manny returns? It doesn't seem productive or fair to bench him.
Joe Morgan: I finally found someone who agrees with me. I said this on Sunday Night Baseball. You're not talking about a bench guy in Pierre. You're talking about a guy with a lifetime average of over .300. If I'm the Dodgers, instead of benching him, I'd try to trade him for a good starting pitcher. Don't make a mistake about it, the Dodgers as good as they are need another starting pitcher. But thanks for agreeing with me. I like people that agree with me. Though I like people that disagree with me so I can explain my side.
No one is going to trade a “good starting pitcher” for a guy who should be a platoon outfielder on a good team. The last 5 years that Pierre was a full-time player, these were his finishes in OBP: First, Second, Second, First, Third. Just kidding, that was "Outs Made". Also, Joe absolutely does not like people that disagree with him as evidenced by his pettiness against anyone who has brought up Moneyball since Billy Beane commissioned IBM to build a computer to write it for him.*
*See Firejoemorgan archives.
Ryan (VA): Hey Joe is Chipper Jones a 1st ballot Hall of Famer if he doesnt reach the 500 homerun mark?
Joe Morgan: Being honest with you...that's a great question. I don't normally answer those questions because I'm on the Board and I don't want it to look like I'm pushing for a player while he's still playing. however, I think that Chipper will end up in the Hall of Fame.
A. I like that Joe is honest when he's answering these chat questions.
B. Joe always reminds people that he’s on the Board and that he shouldn’t give an opinion.
C. Joe always then gives his opinion.
D. He accomplished A-C without answering the question.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Bill Simmons is Smarter Than You Are
That’s why he sees all the real stories. Behind the numbers. Behind the uniforms and canned quotes, Simmons is able to break it all down for us. Why did Lebron have a great season in ’08-09? Give up? Kobe Bryant played in the Olympics.
From the mailbag.
I'd bet anything that Kobe secretly regrets being on the Redeem Team. He gained nothing exposure-wise because they showed every game in America in the wee hours;
But he gained something exposure wise with the tens of millions of people around the world who watched Olympic basketball. Is there anyone in the US who doesn’t know who Kobe Bryant is? Also, wasn’t that first game against China on at like 10AM Eastern time on a Sunday?
all he did was put unnecessary mileage on his knees when he could have been resting.
That’s all he did. That’s all that was accomplished in Beijing. When Kobe Bryant is 60 and his grandchildren ask him about the Summer of ’08, his first memory will be…. “Oh that was the summer I put some more mileage on my knees. Nothing else of substance happened. Next topic.” Then they’ll probably ask him about Shaq or about winning the dunk contest in ’97 or being accused of rape or something.
If that's not bad enough, he SINGLE-HANDEDLY altered the course of his main rival's career.
SINGLE-HANDEDLY! This needs to be in all caps, so you know how important it is to his point. That rival? None other than Lebron James, who was an underachieving, underperforming pile of crap before the Beijing Olympics. Lebron James...the guy whose high school games were nationally televised. The number 1 pick in the draft a few years back. That guy. His career path was altered by the Olympics. Right.
Fun fact – Lebron’s per game averages for Points, Rebounds, Assists, Steals and Blocks either stayed the same or decreased from the season prior to the Olympics. Although he did play a couple less minutes because there were more blowouts. Still, his course was not altered any more than it would have been if Lebron had stayed home.
LeBron intimated as much himself: Only after watching Kobe's daily workout routine and nonstop commitment to defense did LeBron realize that he was selling himself short to some degree.
Did playing with Kobe Bryant (and Dwyane Wade, and Chris Paul, and…) make Lebron James better? Probably. How could playing with those guys not help your game? Is this something that we should credit with making him turn some sort of corner? No. This is like saying that Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and Paul Pierce all wouldn’t have been the players they are today if they were drafted 1-3 slots higher. Oh wait, Simmons is convinced of that point too. He and other sportswriters love to take small, innocuous parts of the story, and make them the story. Because that’s what they think they are paid to do – point out the little things that dummies like you and me (especially you) miss because we aren’t as perceptive.
And when Kobe took over as the alpha dog in the gold-medal game (and everyone let him do it), that made LeBron realize, "I'm not quite there yet."
I bet a million dollars that Lebron James didn’t realize this, or think this after the gold medal game, and Bill Simmons is making up that he did so that he can tie it into his nice little bullshit anecdote.
Of the many reasons MJ skipped the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, I guarantee these were two of them:
The 1984 Olympics and the 1992 Olympics? Those are the two main reasons. He already had two gold medals. Just kidding. Bill is right. He was afraid that people would realize why he’s really good at basketball, in 1996, when he was 33 years old and had just unretired and led the Bulls to 72 wins.
"Why should I show these guys I'm trying to beat how I prepare every day?"
Double or nothing on the million dollars that Michael Jordan being afraid to show these guys how he prepares every day had nothing to do with him not playing in the 1996 Olympics.
and "Why should I give my foes any insight into what makes me me."
That’s the same thing as reason one. But very true, I doubt any of those guys knew much about Jordan in 1996. He had 4 rings, 8 scoring titles and 4 MVP's at the time .
He remembered how the 1992 Dream Team experience rejuvenated Barkley's career and didn't want to make the same mistake twice.
Um, I’m pretty sure the 1992-93 season coinciding with Barkley being traded to a good Suns team with a good blend of stars (KJ, Majerle) complementary players (West, Ainge, Chambers, Ceballos) and young guys who would pull productive years out of their asses (Oliver Miller, Richard Dumas) had more to do with his success in 1993 than the Olympics OR MICHAEL JORDAN PLAYING IN THE OLYMPICS. Barkley didn’t play remarkably better in ’93 than he had before; he just played with a better team than he had been dealt in Philly.
Anyway, if Kobe never plays in the 2008 Olympics, then LeBron and Wade become alpha dogs by default and spend the whole time playing poker or Bid Whist in Worldwide Wes' hotel room ... and Kobe is cruising to the title right now. He has to be kicking himself.
Sure.
Do you think Kobe has spent 5 minutes since he left Beijing thinking about the impact his presence at the Olympics may or may not have had on the other players? I don’t.
From the mailbag.
I'd bet anything that Kobe secretly regrets being on the Redeem Team. He gained nothing exposure-wise because they showed every game in America in the wee hours;
But he gained something exposure wise with the tens of millions of people around the world who watched Olympic basketball. Is there anyone in the US who doesn’t know who Kobe Bryant is? Also, wasn’t that first game against China on at like 10AM Eastern time on a Sunday?
all he did was put unnecessary mileage on his knees when he could have been resting.
That’s all he did. That’s all that was accomplished in Beijing. When Kobe Bryant is 60 and his grandchildren ask him about the Summer of ’08, his first memory will be…. “Oh that was the summer I put some more mileage on my knees. Nothing else of substance happened. Next topic.” Then they’ll probably ask him about Shaq or about winning the dunk contest in ’97 or being accused of rape or something.
If that's not bad enough, he SINGLE-HANDEDLY altered the course of his main rival's career.
SINGLE-HANDEDLY! This needs to be in all caps, so you know how important it is to his point. That rival? None other than Lebron James, who was an underachieving, underperforming pile of crap before the Beijing Olympics. Lebron James...the guy whose high school games were nationally televised. The number 1 pick in the draft a few years back. That guy. His career path was altered by the Olympics. Right.
Fun fact – Lebron’s per game averages for Points, Rebounds, Assists, Steals and Blocks either stayed the same or decreased from the season prior to the Olympics. Although he did play a couple less minutes because there were more blowouts. Still, his course was not altered any more than it would have been if Lebron had stayed home.
LeBron intimated as much himself: Only after watching Kobe's daily workout routine and nonstop commitment to defense did LeBron realize that he was selling himself short to some degree.
Did playing with Kobe Bryant (and Dwyane Wade, and Chris Paul, and…) make Lebron James better? Probably. How could playing with those guys not help your game? Is this something that we should credit with making him turn some sort of corner? No. This is like saying that Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade and Paul Pierce all wouldn’t have been the players they are today if they were drafted 1-3 slots higher. Oh wait, Simmons is convinced of that point too. He and other sportswriters love to take small, innocuous parts of the story, and make them the story. Because that’s what they think they are paid to do – point out the little things that dummies like you and me (especially you) miss because we aren’t as perceptive.
And when Kobe took over as the alpha dog in the gold-medal game (and everyone let him do it), that made LeBron realize, "I'm not quite there yet."
I bet a million dollars that Lebron James didn’t realize this, or think this after the gold medal game, and Bill Simmons is making up that he did so that he can tie it into his nice little bullshit anecdote.
Of the many reasons MJ skipped the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, I guarantee these were two of them:
The 1984 Olympics and the 1992 Olympics? Those are the two main reasons. He already had two gold medals. Just kidding. Bill is right. He was afraid that people would realize why he’s really good at basketball, in 1996, when he was 33 years old and had just unretired and led the Bulls to 72 wins.
"Why should I show these guys I'm trying to beat how I prepare every day?"
Double or nothing on the million dollars that Michael Jordan being afraid to show these guys how he prepares every day had nothing to do with him not playing in the 1996 Olympics.
and "Why should I give my foes any insight into what makes me me."
That’s the same thing as reason one. But very true, I doubt any of those guys knew much about Jordan in 1996. He had 4 rings, 8 scoring titles and 4 MVP's at the time .
He remembered how the 1992 Dream Team experience rejuvenated Barkley's career and didn't want to make the same mistake twice.
Um, I’m pretty sure the 1992-93 season coinciding with Barkley being traded to a good Suns team with a good blend of stars (KJ, Majerle) complementary players (West, Ainge, Chambers, Ceballos) and young guys who would pull productive years out of their asses (Oliver Miller, Richard Dumas) had more to do with his success in 1993 than the Olympics OR MICHAEL JORDAN PLAYING IN THE OLYMPICS. Barkley didn’t play remarkably better in ’93 than he had before; he just played with a better team than he had been dealt in Philly.
Anyway, if Kobe never plays in the 2008 Olympics, then LeBron and Wade become alpha dogs by default and spend the whole time playing poker or Bid Whist in Worldwide Wes' hotel room ... and Kobe is cruising to the title right now. He has to be kicking himself.
Sure.
Do you think Kobe has spent 5 minutes since he left Beijing thinking about the impact his presence at the Olympics may or may not have had on the other players? I don’t.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Orlando Magic Win, Larry Bird Sucks
If you’re a fan of the NBA, as I am, then you no doubt saw the impressive performance by the Orlando Magic against the Boston Celtics in game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semi-finals on Sunday night. They won going away, and even when the Celtics could pull within 4 or 5, you knew the Magic would respond to push the lead back up to 10+. The most amazing part was the relative ineffectiveness of the Celtics “Big 7” composed of Larry Bird, Kevin Mchale, Bob Cousy, Bill Russell, John Havlicek, Kevin Garnett, and Dave Cowens. I mean…..where were those guys? I thought they were all long since retired (or sidelined with an injury, in Garnett’s case), but after reading Mike Bianchi’s column in the Orlando Sentinel, they should have had the same impact on the game as they would have if they were 27 years old and wearing green and white.
Let’s take a look:
All that mystique turned into a mirage Sunday night.
I know right? Larry Bird? More like Larry Turd! Guy didn’t score a point.
All that Celtics history turned into Magic histrionics.
Because everyone knows that a team’s record in the 1960’s should directly impact the outcome of games played by players who weren’t born yet.
Also, histrionics means what, exactly, here? Acting in an overly (unnecessarily) dramatic fashion. Awesome!
That famed and acclaimed Celtics green faded to Magic blue. And white.
Because no one thought the Magic would win, right? No one. I mean, they only won 59 games!
Ignite.
Other than rhyming with white, what is this word’s function here?
This can't be true, can it?
Please tell me why, the fuck, anyone thought it couldn’t be?
Well, can it?
Well, tell me!
Did the Orlando Magic really just bury the storied Boston Celtics 101-82? Did they actually destroy the defending champions by 19 ... in Game 7 ... on Boston's home court?
Well, yes and no. The Celtics team that won the championship last year included James Posey, Kevin Garnett and Leon Powe suited up. So they didn’t beat that team. They beat a team that was clearly fucking exhausted and unable to get Ray Allen a clean look for like 5 games. The Paul Pierce who was the best player on the court against LA last year was relegated to flailing around looking for foul calls. Orlando was the better team, why are you writing this like they were underdogs? They really really weren’t. They have a bunch of good players. They have the All-NBA first team center and Defensive Player of the Year.
Mark this down as one of the greatest days in Orlando sports history. This is the night, the Magic, the resoundingly resilient Magic, ignored all of the Celtics legend and lore and started building their own legacy of triumph and tradition.
I know right, I totally expected the Celtics “legend and lore” to have an impact on this game, because I have an IQ of 32.
"This is about as big a win as you can have — for our organization and our team," Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said.Hey, Shaq, do you still think Van Gundy is the "Master of Panic"? Or does he now qualify as the Patriarch of Pressure? Hey, Sports Illustrated, do you still think Dwight Howard smiles too much to lead the Magic to playoff success against the NBA's elite? Or has he finally proven you can grin — and win?
Slow down. Not to downplay the Magic’s win too much, but it’s the Eastern Semi’s. They have to at least get through Cleveland to dispel these assertions.
Did Sports Illustrated really imply that he smiles too much to win a championship? Really? I read the column, and that wasn't my takeaway.
Toppling a legacy
On this, the 20-year anniversary of their inception, the Magic vanquished the most dynamic, dynastic champion this league has ever known. The Celtics have won 17 NBA titles in their proud history, but the Magic's Big Three of Howard, Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu had that look in their eyes like they aim to win their first.
I know that this is what sportswriters do, but this is maddening. When the Celtics beat the Bulls in the first round, it had not one goddamn thing to do with Michael Jordan and Larry Bird, just like Orlando beating the Celtics had nothing to do with Boston's history. See, here’s the thing, it is history if you beat a historically good collection of basketball players, it's not history if you beat a franchise that has had a good history. Writers love to put up bullshit stats like “such and such a team has never lost a game 7 at home, or a series when they were up 3-1”. Those numbers are only relevant to the extent that they involve the actual players on the court.
The 2007-08, 2008-09 Celtics were absolutely not the most dynamic, dynastic champion the league has ever known. When teams beat the early 90's Yankee teams that weren't very good, I don't think they said...."Yeah, we overcame Ruth and Gehrig and Mantle and all that history!"
And, now, they are halfway home.
Eight wins from a championship.
Eh, only if you consider Cleveland and LA/Denver to be of the same caliber as Philly and Boston. You don’t, do you?
Bring on the Lebron James and the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers, who the Magic will play in the Eastern Conference finals beginning Wednesday in Cleveland. The Cavs have marched through two playoff series with a perfect 8-0 record, but the Magic have had their number. Orlando has beaten Cleveland in eight of the last 11 games dating back three-plus seasons.
If the Magic can dismantle the Celtics in this pressure-packed atmosphere, they can beat anybody, anytime. Before Sunday, the Celtics had been 17-3 at home in Game 7s. They had been 32-0 when leading a seven-game series 3-2 as they did after Game 5. And the Magic still buried them by throwing a Boston Three Party and draining 13-of-21 shots from three-point range.
See. Those numbers don’t matter, because they involve the Russell, Bird, or Havlicek era Celtics. This is not hard.
"I don't know too much about history," Howard said. "Sometimes, history is rewritten."
Dwight Howard should write for the Orlando Sentinel.
You've heard of the Magna Carta? In the history of Orlando sports, this victory will go down as the Magic Carta.
(cringes)
If there were any shadowy spirits or historic haunts hovering in Boston's arena Sunday night, the Magic played the role of Ghostbusters and exterminated them.
Historic haunts at the TD Banknorth Garden? Were they channeling the first ever Celtics team to play there, led by Rick Fox, Dino Radja and Dana Barros?
The Celtics leprechaun that supposedly sits on the backboard and blocks the opposition's shots? I think he ran in fear after one of Howard's rim-rattling power slams.
That’s probably 100% true. I don’t even remember seeing a leprechaun after Howard’s first dunk.
And that victory cigar that late, great Celtics coach Red Auerbach used to light up after big wins? The Magic snatched it from the Celtics' mouth and ground it into the dirt.
I’m confused by this, is he implying that the entire Celtics team were somehow planning to smoke a Cigar at the same time?
Also, I THINK YOU’VE MADE YOUR POINT ABOUT THE CELTICS HAVING A LOT OF HISTORY, YET SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY, NOT CHANNELING THAT HISTORY TO WIN A BASKETBALL GAME IN 2009.
Forget about the recent release of the new Star Trek movie, which flashes back in time and chronicles the early days of Captain James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members. Do you realize the Magic are flashing back in time, too, and are now reliving the days of Captain Shaq and his crew members who led the USS Amway into the Eastern Conference finals back in 1996?
Yes, let’s relive the 1996 Eastern Conference finals, when the Magic lost 4 straight to the Bulls by an average of 17 points per game.
Also…nice…..Star Trek…. tie in?!?!
The Boston Celtics may have looked into the rafters Sunday night and saw the retired jerseys of past legends Bill Russell, John Havlicek and Bob Cousy, but guess what?
Um, those guys are old and are no longer playing?
The Magic looked within themselves and found a vestige of their own past — a past of heart and hustle and hopes and dreams.
That’s really sweet.
The Orlando Magic — your Orlando Magic — buried the ghosts of Celtics past and now are poised to march into their own blazingly bright future.
Jesus, this guy should be a speechwriter or something. The Celtics were two shots away from losing this thing in 5 games.
Let’s take a look:
All that mystique turned into a mirage Sunday night.
I know right? Larry Bird? More like Larry Turd! Guy didn’t score a point.
All that Celtics history turned into Magic histrionics.
Because everyone knows that a team’s record in the 1960’s should directly impact the outcome of games played by players who weren’t born yet.
Also, histrionics means what, exactly, here? Acting in an overly (unnecessarily) dramatic fashion. Awesome!
That famed and acclaimed Celtics green faded to Magic blue. And white.
Because no one thought the Magic would win, right? No one. I mean, they only won 59 games!
Ignite.
Other than rhyming with white, what is this word’s function here?
This can't be true, can it?
Please tell me why, the fuck, anyone thought it couldn’t be?
Well, can it?
Well, tell me!
Did the Orlando Magic really just bury the storied Boston Celtics 101-82? Did they actually destroy the defending champions by 19 ... in Game 7 ... on Boston's home court?
Well, yes and no. The Celtics team that won the championship last year included James Posey, Kevin Garnett and Leon Powe suited up. So they didn’t beat that team. They beat a team that was clearly fucking exhausted and unable to get Ray Allen a clean look for like 5 games. The Paul Pierce who was the best player on the court against LA last year was relegated to flailing around looking for foul calls. Orlando was the better team, why are you writing this like they were underdogs? They really really weren’t. They have a bunch of good players. They have the All-NBA first team center and Defensive Player of the Year.
Mark this down as one of the greatest days in Orlando sports history. This is the night, the Magic, the resoundingly resilient Magic, ignored all of the Celtics legend and lore and started building their own legacy of triumph and tradition.
I know right, I totally expected the Celtics “legend and lore” to have an impact on this game, because I have an IQ of 32.
"This is about as big a win as you can have — for our organization and our team," Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said.Hey, Shaq, do you still think Van Gundy is the "Master of Panic"? Or does he now qualify as the Patriarch of Pressure? Hey, Sports Illustrated, do you still think Dwight Howard smiles too much to lead the Magic to playoff success against the NBA's elite? Or has he finally proven you can grin — and win?
Slow down. Not to downplay the Magic’s win too much, but it’s the Eastern Semi’s. They have to at least get through Cleveland to dispel these assertions.
Did Sports Illustrated really imply that he smiles too much to win a championship? Really? I read the column, and that wasn't my takeaway.
Toppling a legacy
On this, the 20-year anniversary of their inception, the Magic vanquished the most dynamic, dynastic champion this league has ever known. The Celtics have won 17 NBA titles in their proud history, but the Magic's Big Three of Howard, Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu had that look in their eyes like they aim to win their first.
I know that this is what sportswriters do, but this is maddening. When the Celtics beat the Bulls in the first round, it had not one goddamn thing to do with Michael Jordan and Larry Bird, just like Orlando beating the Celtics had nothing to do with Boston's history. See, here’s the thing, it is history if you beat a historically good collection of basketball players, it's not history if you beat a franchise that has had a good history. Writers love to put up bullshit stats like “such and such a team has never lost a game 7 at home, or a series when they were up 3-1”. Those numbers are only relevant to the extent that they involve the actual players on the court.
The 2007-08, 2008-09 Celtics were absolutely not the most dynamic, dynastic champion the league has ever known. When teams beat the early 90's Yankee teams that weren't very good, I don't think they said...."Yeah, we overcame Ruth and Gehrig and Mantle and all that history!"
And, now, they are halfway home.
Eight wins from a championship.
Eh, only if you consider Cleveland and LA/Denver to be of the same caliber as Philly and Boston. You don’t, do you?
Bring on the Lebron James and the top-seeded Cleveland Cavaliers, who the Magic will play in the Eastern Conference finals beginning Wednesday in Cleveland. The Cavs have marched through two playoff series with a perfect 8-0 record, but the Magic have had their number. Orlando has beaten Cleveland in eight of the last 11 games dating back three-plus seasons.
If the Magic can dismantle the Celtics in this pressure-packed atmosphere, they can beat anybody, anytime. Before Sunday, the Celtics had been 17-3 at home in Game 7s. They had been 32-0 when leading a seven-game series 3-2 as they did after Game 5. And the Magic still buried them by throwing a Boston Three Party and draining 13-of-21 shots from three-point range.
See. Those numbers don’t matter, because they involve the Russell, Bird, or Havlicek era Celtics. This is not hard.
"I don't know too much about history," Howard said. "Sometimes, history is rewritten."
Dwight Howard should write for the Orlando Sentinel.
You've heard of the Magna Carta? In the history of Orlando sports, this victory will go down as the Magic Carta.
(cringes)
If there were any shadowy spirits or historic haunts hovering in Boston's arena Sunday night, the Magic played the role of Ghostbusters and exterminated them.
Historic haunts at the TD Banknorth Garden? Were they channeling the first ever Celtics team to play there, led by Rick Fox, Dino Radja and Dana Barros?
The Celtics leprechaun that supposedly sits on the backboard and blocks the opposition's shots? I think he ran in fear after one of Howard's rim-rattling power slams.
That’s probably 100% true. I don’t even remember seeing a leprechaun after Howard’s first dunk.
And that victory cigar that late, great Celtics coach Red Auerbach used to light up after big wins? The Magic snatched it from the Celtics' mouth and ground it into the dirt.
I’m confused by this, is he implying that the entire Celtics team were somehow planning to smoke a Cigar at the same time?
Also, I THINK YOU’VE MADE YOUR POINT ABOUT THE CELTICS HAVING A LOT OF HISTORY, YET SOMEHOW, SOMEWAY, NOT CHANNELING THAT HISTORY TO WIN A BASKETBALL GAME IN 2009.
Forget about the recent release of the new Star Trek movie, which flashes back in time and chronicles the early days of Captain James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members. Do you realize the Magic are flashing back in time, too, and are now reliving the days of Captain Shaq and his crew members who led the USS Amway into the Eastern Conference finals back in 1996?
Yes, let’s relive the 1996 Eastern Conference finals, when the Magic lost 4 straight to the Bulls by an average of 17 points per game.
Also…nice…..Star Trek…. tie in?!?!
The Boston Celtics may have looked into the rafters Sunday night and saw the retired jerseys of past legends Bill Russell, John Havlicek and Bob Cousy, but guess what?
Um, those guys are old and are no longer playing?
The Magic looked within themselves and found a vestige of their own past — a past of heart and hustle and hopes and dreams.
That’s really sweet.
The Orlando Magic — your Orlando Magic — buried the ghosts of Celtics past and now are poised to march into their own blazingly bright future.
Jesus, this guy should be a speechwriter or something. The Celtics were two shots away from losing this thing in 5 games.
Friday, May 1, 2009
Some Heroic Randomness
So between job, wife, baby and life I haven’t been able to read much online lately. When I do it’s usually financial news, given all that is going on. But I have been watching the NBA playoffs, and I had a few snippets I figured I’d throw up on the ‘ol blog.
This is from a recent column where Jemele Hill and Scoop Jackson answered some questions about the upcoming NBA playoffs.
Question: Which player is most likely to jump into the national spotlight and make fans think, "Damn, I didn't realize he was that good"?
Scoop Jackson: John Salmons of the Chicago Bulls. Being in Chi-town, I've been lucky enough to watch this dude light up teams ever since the trade that brought him here in February. While some players are straight slept on, this cat was hibernated on by everyone except his family members and probably some ex-girlfriends. He can flat-out ball! Now I know he's barely played in the playoffs before, and it's a whole other level of comp and intensity. But from what I've seen over the past 30 games or so, Salmons (along with Ben Gordon, because he's playing for a new contract) is going to make a lot of fantasy hoop dudes pissed because they've been hibernatin' on him.
This paragraph made my head spin.
Why?
1. He calls John Salmons “cat” and “dude”. He does this because it’s part of his ultra-cool “Ladies Man” like writing style. Ya dig? Sorry I’m hatin, yo.
2. He is clearly very pleased with his discovery that he could use the word “hibernating” to mean “really slept on” (he had the italics in there). Sorry, “hibernatin’”. Next he’ll just start dropping “natin” into columns or something.
3. It’s now acceptable to just take words that are never abbreviated and just abbreviate them without a period or anything. Example being competition just becomes comp. Scoop Jackson is a whole ‘nother breed of ter writers.
4. No fantasy hoop dudes were “hibernatin’” on John Salmons and Ben Gordon.
5. Fantasy leagues generally end with the end of the regular season, so even if people were sleeping on your boy, it wouldn’t matter.
6. Remember last year Scoop said that the Suns were pretty much guaranteed a finals spot because they traded for Big and he’s made the finals in his 3 previous stops in the NBA? I do. Okay that has nothing to do with this post.
Scoop also said that Tony Parker was the best point guard in the NBA and pointed to the fact that he’s won a finals MVP and Chris Paul hasn’t made a finals yet. Yup. It’s that simple folks.
Bill Simmons recently wrote a column about how the Bulls – Celtics playoff series is awesome and stuff, which included this sentence.
They [the Celtics and Bulls] have veteran crowds that know how to affect games and make them a little more fun to watch.
Yeah, take that San Antonio. You too, Los Angeles. In Boston and Chicago, we actually affect the games that we watch. We’re blue collar. We’re a part of the action. We have veteran crowds. Fact: The crowds in Los Angeles skipped college and are only in their second year of following the NBA. The crowd in New Orleans had an average age of 7. No surprise they aren’t in the playoffs any more. We direct the outcome in Chicago and Boston. It is our will, passion, and intensity as basketball fans that make our teams win. You douchebags can come late (LA) and stare at the jumbotron (which they probably do in like, Miami, because those people are stupid and are probably day dreaming about Gloria Estefan and Dan Marino fucking the whole time anyway). In Boston and Chicago, we’ll just keeping living basketball history, thank you.
You have to love any series in which Ben Gordon finally realizes his destiny as a playoff killer. As a Celtics fan, I'm terrified. As a basketball fan, I'm titillated. But it was always meant to be. Even if comparisons to Vinnie "Microwave" Johnson make more sense on paper, I'd liken him more to a shorter Andrew Toney.
Saying that Ben Gordon is a shorter Andrew Toney is like saying that Shaquille O’Neal is a shorter Wilt Chamberlain. They are, like, the same fucking height. Maybe ½ to 1 inch difference, which doesn’t matter unless you have freakish Sam Perkins-like arms. I know I know…Toney may actually be slightly taller…but it’s not like a 4 inch difference or something that would impact the way they play.
Last night I watched the Sportscenter recap of the great Bulls-Celtics game 6 matchup. Jalen Rose described Ray Allen’s game (51 points) as being “heroic”. Um, okay. A little strong, but it was an awesome game and he played great. I’ll go with that. Then about 20 seconds later the anchor had the following back and forth with Rose:
Anchor (I forget): How bad does Kevin Garnett want to be out there?
Jalen Rose: Oh…Heroically!
Yeahhhhh.. Sure. I like it, that’s my new word for “really”. I want Jemele Hill to write a real column that I can puke on heroically bad.
On WEEI this morning (Boston radio), they were talking about the play of Glen Davis in this series and specifically about the matchups with Chicago. Dennis and or Callahan pegged his height at 6’6” or even 6’5”. After the 6'5" comment, John Meter-Perel chimed in with “at most”. He’s listed at 6’9”. Why is this so hard? Some analysts talk about height like they are trying to quantify the players “heart” or something.
One day I’ll read a bad column and maybe comment on it.
This is from a recent column where Jemele Hill and Scoop Jackson answered some questions about the upcoming NBA playoffs.
Question: Which player is most likely to jump into the national spotlight and make fans think, "Damn, I didn't realize he was that good"?
Scoop Jackson: John Salmons of the Chicago Bulls. Being in Chi-town, I've been lucky enough to watch this dude light up teams ever since the trade that brought him here in February. While some players are straight slept on, this cat was hibernated on by everyone except his family members and probably some ex-girlfriends. He can flat-out ball! Now I know he's barely played in the playoffs before, and it's a whole other level of comp and intensity. But from what I've seen over the past 30 games or so, Salmons (along with Ben Gordon, because he's playing for a new contract) is going to make a lot of fantasy hoop dudes pissed because they've been hibernatin' on him.
This paragraph made my head spin.
Why?
1. He calls John Salmons “cat” and “dude”. He does this because it’s part of his ultra-cool “Ladies Man” like writing style. Ya dig? Sorry I’m hatin, yo.
2. He is clearly very pleased with his discovery that he could use the word “hibernating” to mean “really slept on” (he had the italics in there). Sorry, “hibernatin’”. Next he’ll just start dropping “natin” into columns or something.
3. It’s now acceptable to just take words that are never abbreviated and just abbreviate them without a period or anything. Example being competition just becomes comp. Scoop Jackson is a whole ‘nother breed of ter writers.
4. No fantasy hoop dudes were “hibernatin’” on John Salmons and Ben Gordon.
5. Fantasy leagues generally end with the end of the regular season, so even if people were sleeping on your boy, it wouldn’t matter.
6. Remember last year Scoop said that the Suns were pretty much guaranteed a finals spot because they traded for Big and he’s made the finals in his 3 previous stops in the NBA? I do. Okay that has nothing to do with this post.
Scoop also said that Tony Parker was the best point guard in the NBA and pointed to the fact that he’s won a finals MVP and Chris Paul hasn’t made a finals yet. Yup. It’s that simple folks.
Bill Simmons recently wrote a column about how the Bulls – Celtics playoff series is awesome and stuff, which included this sentence.
They [the Celtics and Bulls] have veteran crowds that know how to affect games and make them a little more fun to watch.
Yeah, take that San Antonio. You too, Los Angeles. In Boston and Chicago, we actually affect the games that we watch. We’re blue collar. We’re a part of the action. We have veteran crowds. Fact: The crowds in Los Angeles skipped college and are only in their second year of following the NBA. The crowd in New Orleans had an average age of 7. No surprise they aren’t in the playoffs any more. We direct the outcome in Chicago and Boston. It is our will, passion, and intensity as basketball fans that make our teams win. You douchebags can come late (LA) and stare at the jumbotron (which they probably do in like, Miami, because those people are stupid and are probably day dreaming about Gloria Estefan and Dan Marino fucking the whole time anyway). In Boston and Chicago, we’ll just keeping living basketball history, thank you.
You have to love any series in which Ben Gordon finally realizes his destiny as a playoff killer. As a Celtics fan, I'm terrified. As a basketball fan, I'm titillated. But it was always meant to be. Even if comparisons to Vinnie "Microwave" Johnson make more sense on paper, I'd liken him more to a shorter Andrew Toney.
Saying that Ben Gordon is a shorter Andrew Toney is like saying that Shaquille O’Neal is a shorter Wilt Chamberlain. They are, like, the same fucking height. Maybe ½ to 1 inch difference, which doesn’t matter unless you have freakish Sam Perkins-like arms. I know I know…Toney may actually be slightly taller…but it’s not like a 4 inch difference or something that would impact the way they play.
Last night I watched the Sportscenter recap of the great Bulls-Celtics game 6 matchup. Jalen Rose described Ray Allen’s game (51 points) as being “heroic”. Um, okay. A little strong, but it was an awesome game and he played great. I’ll go with that. Then about 20 seconds later the anchor had the following back and forth with Rose:
Anchor (I forget): How bad does Kevin Garnett want to be out there?
Jalen Rose: Oh…Heroically!
Yeahhhhh.. Sure. I like it, that’s my new word for “really”. I want Jemele Hill to write a real column that I can puke on heroically bad.
On WEEI this morning (Boston radio), they were talking about the play of Glen Davis in this series and specifically about the matchups with Chicago. Dennis and or Callahan pegged his height at 6’6” or even 6’5”. After the 6'5" comment, John Meter-Perel chimed in with “at most”. He’s listed at 6’9”. Why is this so hard? Some analysts talk about height like they are trying to quantify the players “heart” or something.
One day I’ll read a bad column and maybe comment on it.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Some Hall of Fame Talk
Phil Arvia has posted his Hall of Fame ballot here. While I’m not going to just post/critique columns that support guys that I don’t support, I am particularly interested for the logic that drives the voter’s actions. Which is why, to me, Arvia’s support for Harold Baines was interesting:
Harold Baines: When he retired, he was the greatest DH ever. He didn't invent the position, he just defined it.
First…when he retired how many players were there that were best known for being DHs?
Next, let’s be clear here; the position that Baines defined was the position of….not having a mother fucking position. If the best thing for your team is for you to not own a glove, then to me your bat better be a lot better than Harold Baines’ was to achieve baseball’s supposedly highest honor. This is a nonsensical reason for voting for someone.
Let’s review what Harold Baines did well. It wasn’t fielding, because he DH’d most of the time. Speed? Try 34 career stolen bases. Power? He never hit at least 30 homers in a season. Average? .289 career…..313 was his highest single season average. He must have walked a lot you say? Never more than 73 times in a season. You want traditional crappy stats like RBI and Runs? He topped 100 RBI 3 times with a high of 113. His career high in Runs is 89.
Now, to me, a player in Baines’ era should have a nice run of years with numbers close to .313/29/113/89 w/ 73 BBs to be consider in the Hall discussion. That’s pretty much what you’re looking at with more heavily debated guys like Rice, Parker, Murphy and Dawson. THOSE WERE HIS SINGLE SEASON HIGHS! Their run of peak years destroy those of Baines. Baines had a couple of very good years, and was a consistent, good hitter.
Now, Joe Capozzi published his ballot this week as well. He employed the “if player X has better counting totals than player Y, then how can you leave player X out!” strategy in supporting Andre Dawson. This can be a somewhat useful tool using players who played roughly the same amount of time in similar positions and especially in the same era. Who does Joe compare Andre Dawson to?
Joe Dimaggio.
Sounds like a good comparison, right?
But I'm bothered by the prospect of excluding someone like Andre Dawson, who played on bad knees for struggling teams and still had more hits (2,774), more home runs (438) and more RBI (1,591) than Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio (2,214, 361, 1,537).
Let me say this very slowly.
A writer is making an argument for Andre Dawson by linking his name, via a comparison, to a sure-fire no-brainer all-time great like Joe Dimaggio.
He has cherry picked Dimaggio because Dawson’s counting stats were better.
Joe Dimaggio played for 13 seasons. He played in 1,736 games. He missed 3 prime years due to war service.
Andre Dawson played in 21 seasons, logging 2,627 games.
So. That doesn’t look right, does it?
In 891 more games, Dawson had 560 more hits, 77 more home runs, and 54 more RBI (using Joe’s stats), than Dimaggio. At the rate that Dimaggio had at-bats/game, had he played as many games as Dawson he would have needed to hit .160 in his next 891 games to have as many hits as Dawson. To catch Dawson in HR’s he could have lowered his HR run rate from once every 18 at-bats to once every 46 at-bats. So if Joe Dimaggio had gone from being Joe Dimaggio over his first 1,736 games and then turned into one of the worst hitters in MLB history over his next 891 games, he would had roughly the same counting totals as Dawson.
Do we all see the danger with counting stats and comparables now?
I guess one thing you could say is that Dawson seemed to keep pace with Dimaggio when it came to getting hits. But you know the problem with that right? Dawson never walked. Dimaggio had a career OBP of .398 (OPS+ of 155). Dawson comes in at paltry .323 and an underwhelming OPS+ 119. I think Joe Posnanski recently said every OF in the HOF has an OBP at least 20 points higher than Dawson.
And I don’t want to hear about how no one cared about walks in the 80’s. Walk rates have been virtually the same for decades.
Harold Baines: When he retired, he was the greatest DH ever. He didn't invent the position, he just defined it.
First…when he retired how many players were there that were best known for being DHs?
Next, let’s be clear here; the position that Baines defined was the position of….not having a mother fucking position. If the best thing for your team is for you to not own a glove, then to me your bat better be a lot better than Harold Baines’ was to achieve baseball’s supposedly highest honor. This is a nonsensical reason for voting for someone.
Let’s review what Harold Baines did well. It wasn’t fielding, because he DH’d most of the time. Speed? Try 34 career stolen bases. Power? He never hit at least 30 homers in a season. Average? .289 career…..313 was his highest single season average. He must have walked a lot you say? Never more than 73 times in a season. You want traditional crappy stats like RBI and Runs? He topped 100 RBI 3 times with a high of 113. His career high in Runs is 89.
Now, to me, a player in Baines’ era should have a nice run of years with numbers close to .313/29/113/89 w/ 73 BBs to be consider in the Hall discussion. That’s pretty much what you’re looking at with more heavily debated guys like Rice, Parker, Murphy and Dawson. THOSE WERE HIS SINGLE SEASON HIGHS! Their run of peak years destroy those of Baines. Baines had a couple of very good years, and was a consistent, good hitter.
Now, Joe Capozzi published his ballot this week as well. He employed the “if player X has better counting totals than player Y, then how can you leave player X out!” strategy in supporting Andre Dawson. This can be a somewhat useful tool using players who played roughly the same amount of time in similar positions and especially in the same era. Who does Joe compare Andre Dawson to?
Joe Dimaggio.
Sounds like a good comparison, right?
But I'm bothered by the prospect of excluding someone like Andre Dawson, who played on bad knees for struggling teams and still had more hits (2,774), more home runs (438) and more RBI (1,591) than Hall of Famer Joe DiMaggio (2,214, 361, 1,537).
Let me say this very slowly.
A writer is making an argument for Andre Dawson by linking his name, via a comparison, to a sure-fire no-brainer all-time great like Joe Dimaggio.
He has cherry picked Dimaggio because Dawson’s counting stats were better.
Joe Dimaggio played for 13 seasons. He played in 1,736 games. He missed 3 prime years due to war service.
Andre Dawson played in 21 seasons, logging 2,627 games.
So. That doesn’t look right, does it?
In 891 more games, Dawson had 560 more hits, 77 more home runs, and 54 more RBI (using Joe’s stats), than Dimaggio. At the rate that Dimaggio had at-bats/game, had he played as many games as Dawson he would have needed to hit .160 in his next 891 games to have as many hits as Dawson. To catch Dawson in HR’s he could have lowered his HR run rate from once every 18 at-bats to once every 46 at-bats. So if Joe Dimaggio had gone from being Joe Dimaggio over his first 1,736 games and then turned into one of the worst hitters in MLB history over his next 891 games, he would had roughly the same counting totals as Dawson.
Do we all see the danger with counting stats and comparables now?
I guess one thing you could say is that Dawson seemed to keep pace with Dimaggio when it came to getting hits. But you know the problem with that right? Dawson never walked. Dimaggio had a career OBP of .398 (OPS+ of 155). Dawson comes in at paltry .323 and an underwhelming OPS+ 119. I think Joe Posnanski recently said every OF in the HOF has an OBP at least 20 points higher than Dawson.
And I don’t want to hear about how no one cared about walks in the 80’s. Walk rates have been virtually the same for decades.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Easterbrook Again Makes Meaningless, Incorrect Assertion
Check out this post for a comment from last week's TMQ regarding Drew Brees potentially breaking Dan Marino's single season passing yards record.
Below is an excerpt from this week's TMQ:
• The football gods did not want Drew Brees to break Dan Marino's single-season passing yards record -- because that record was set in a Miami playoff year when the yards were needed, whereas Brees' breaking the record for the eliminated Saints would have been a stunt.
It’s an odd little swipe at Brees, attempting to discredit the yards he threw for this year as less important than the yards that Marino threw for in a 14-2 Dolphins season, when they cruised into the playoffs. By Easterbrook’s rationale, all of Tom Brady’s yards last year were needed, as the Patriots were in a playoff year. Gregg would never say that, right?
Also, this football gods thing….is tired.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Easterbrook Just Makes Shit Up
Don’t ask me why I’m breaking such a long hiatus to write this post, but this week’s TMQ includes this line in reference to the possibility that Drew Brees could break Dan Marino’s single season passing yards record:
In this case, if Brees succeeds, it will be essentially a stunt, given the finale game has no meaning to the eliminated Saints. Marino's record year came as the Dolphins reached the Super Bowl -- those were all yards the team needed to win pressure games.
The 1984 Dolphins finished 14-2. In second place in the AFC East were the Patriots at 7-9. The Dolphins were 12-2 when Marino threw for 404 and 340 yards in the last two games.
So, Greggggg, how exactly were “all” those yards needed to win “pressure” games?
New Orleans is 8-7. Maybe Brees will rack up yards because he’s a competitor who wants to win? Maybe they want to finish above .500? Maybe they are psyched up to play a good Carolina team with a good passing defense?
Nope, says Gregg, it’ll be a “stunt”.
I wasn’t going to post about this, as I mentioned it instead in the reader comments over at FireJayMariotti, but this was in TMQ a few weeks ago and it is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read from Easterbrook:
Trailing Cleveland 6-0, Tennessee went for it on fourth-and-1 on the Browns' 28 and got a touchdown; the Titans won. (Tennessee cleverly threw to blocking back Ahmard Hall, who lost a fumble on fourth-and-1 earlier in the year; knowing that, Cleveland totally ignored Hall.)
Do you really think that Cleveland “totally ignored” Hall by design? If they did, do you think it’s BECAUSE EARLIER THIS YEAR HALL HAD A FUMBLE THAT HAPPENED TO BE A FOURTH DOWN PLAY????
I do not. I think that’s asinine.
In this case, if Brees succeeds, it will be essentially a stunt, given the finale game has no meaning to the eliminated Saints. Marino's record year came as the Dolphins reached the Super Bowl -- those were all yards the team needed to win pressure games.
The 1984 Dolphins finished 14-2. In second place in the AFC East were the Patriots at 7-9. The Dolphins were 12-2 when Marino threw for 404 and 340 yards in the last two games.
So, Greggggg, how exactly were “all” those yards needed to win “pressure” games?
New Orleans is 8-7. Maybe Brees will rack up yards because he’s a competitor who wants to win? Maybe they want to finish above .500? Maybe they are psyched up to play a good Carolina team with a good passing defense?
Nope, says Gregg, it’ll be a “stunt”.
I wasn’t going to post about this, as I mentioned it instead in the reader comments over at FireJayMariotti, but this was in TMQ a few weeks ago and it is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read from Easterbrook:
Trailing Cleveland 6-0, Tennessee went for it on fourth-and-1 on the Browns' 28 and got a touchdown; the Titans won. (Tennessee cleverly threw to blocking back Ahmard Hall, who lost a fumble on fourth-and-1 earlier in the year; knowing that, Cleveland totally ignored Hall.)
Do you really think that Cleveland “totally ignored” Hall by design? If they did, do you think it’s BECAUSE EARLIER THIS YEAR HALL HAD A FUMBLE THAT HAPPENED TO BE A FOURTH DOWN PLAY????
I do not. I think that’s asinine.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Scott Miller – Digging up the Dirt
Okay okay I’m about to finish my paragraph supporting Albert Pujols for MVP. I needs to hammer this baby home with that final sentence that summarizes exactly how MVP-like Pujols was this year. Should I drag out numbers? No, numbers don’t tell the story. Perhaps recall an at-bat, or a play? Too singular. Lots of people have great plays. I’ve got it, a quote! Yes, a quote from a highly respected baseball man! A broadcaster or writer? A current player like Greg Maddux? A former player? A hall of famer like Nolan Ryan or something? I’ve got it, a GM! People are really intrigued by GMs!
Hey, Kevin Towers, tell me what you think of Albert Pujols!
"Pujols is a frickin' baseball player," Padres general manager Kevin Towers says.
Frickin’? Is he trying to be Dr. Evil? Oh well. Almost done.
Amen.
Done.
Hey, Kevin Towers, tell me what you think of Albert Pujols!
"Pujols is a frickin' baseball player," Padres general manager Kevin Towers says.
Frickin’? Is he trying to be Dr. Evil? Oh well. Almost done.
Amen.
Done.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Jon Heyman More Valuable than Tom Verducci, but Verducci Better
There’s nothing that draws out crazy failures in logic like MVP and CY Young voting. I just stumbled onto CNNSI and checked out Tom Verducci and Jon Heyman’s picks, and there’s a whole lotta wrong to be discussed. To be honest, I didn’t follow baseball as much this year as I have in prior years. I had a really busy summer at work and personally. It’s also pretty late and I’m tired. So instead of doing a bunch of research and using numbers to dissect their picks, which strike me as odd, I’ll just try to approach it more high level, with some basic logic.
First, Verducci, who is generally decent. Unlike Heyman, who must have incriminating pictures of someone important at SI.
NL MVP
1. Albert Pujols
2. Lance Berkman
3. Ryan Howard
4. Ryan Braun
5. Manny Ramirez
6. Brad Lidge
7. CC Sabathia
8. David Wright
9. Johan Santana
10. Hanley Ramirez
The guy is just posting his opinion, so just because I think Chase Utley should be on the ballot and he doesn’t have him, I’m not going to throw a fit. But Manny Ramirez played in 53 games. Brad Lidge had a great year. He threw 70 innings with a 1.95 ERA. But I have a fundamental problem with closers being MVP’s unless they are historically awesome.
But here’s my bigger problem. Based on the above list, how is Verducci’s CY ballot not:
Lidge
Sabathia
Santana
?
Here it is:
NL Cy Young
1. Tim Lincecum
2. Johan Santana
3. Brandon Webb
Verducci tells us the CY is meant to honor the best pitcher in the league, and correctly says that the pitcher with the most wins isn’t necessarily that pitcher. But how the fuck isn’t the best pitcher more valuable than the second best pitcher? How is the most valuable pitcher not one of the 3 best pitchers? And how is the best starter not more valuable than 2 other starters? In my mind, any attempt to reconcile this position is a failure to understand the singular nature of baseball performances. It’s not Lincecum’s fault the Giants suck. He can’t control what the other 4 pitchers do, or what the hitters do.
Similarly, Verducci had Francisco Rodriguez ninth as the most valuable pitcher in the AL, but not among the top 3 pitchers. Aren’t the pitchers who pitch better more valuable?
Now to Jon Heyman.
NL MVP
1. Manny Ramirez, Dodgers. The savant saved the storied franchise, slugging .743 and lifting the Dodger dogs to the NL West title.
Okay, but 53 games? Even if you include all his games in Boston, Pujols still had 147 Runs Created vs. Ramirez’s 134. Ramirez RC number in the NL was 60.9. The Dodgers won the NL West because the NL West sucked. If they were in the NL East, and the Mets were in the NL West, Heyman’s first 4 players are Mets. Why is this so hard?
2. CC Sabathia, Brewers. Carried them with three straight outings on three days' rest, and oh yes, had a league-leading seven complete games.
It’s just a philosophical difference here on Ramirez and Sabathia that’s not worth debating further. Sabathia is more defensible (to be on the Cy ballot), to me. For the rest of them, I’ll just show the list without the explanations because I have the same point that I had with Verducci.
3. Ryan Howard, Phillies.
4. Brad Lidge, Phillies.
5. Albert Pujols, Cardinals.
Pujols just finished his best season. He posted the best OPS+ in baseball (190) since Barry Bonds in 2004. The best by someone not named Bonds in the NL since Sammy Sosa in 2001 (64 homers, .437 OBP). Manny Ramirez’s (highest full season OPS+ was 186 in 2000) was higher in his 53 games in LA. I’m going with the guy who played 148 games in the NL.
6. Ryan Braun, Brewers.
7. Johan Santana, Mets.
8. Carlos Delgado, Mets.
9. Chase Utley, Phillies.
10. Lance Berkman, Astros.
So his CY ballot must be Sabathia, Lidge, Santana?
NL Cy Young
1. Santana. Gets edge over CC for ERA title and for being in the NL all year.
But, in the MVP race…….you had….Sabathia SECOND, and said you could easily have flipped him with Ramirez! Why….here…does being the NL all year mean more??
2. Sabathia. Sheer second-half dominance.
What about the first half? Does that count?
3. Lidge. Though tough to leave out Webb and especially Lincecum (18-5, with a league-leading 265 strikeouts) in this year with at least five deserving candidates.
NL Cy Old: Tom Gorzelanny. Ugliest numbers ever, including a demonic 6.66 ERA.
Ugliest ever? Cy Old is lame and doesn't make sense. Wouldn't the Cy Old be....like.....the best old pitcher?
AL MVP
1. Francisco Rodriguez, Angels. An alltime great season with a record 62 saves.
Ladies and gentleman, your AL MVP…..the 4th best closer in the league!
2. Carlos Quentin, White Sox.
3. Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox.
4. Justin Morneau, Twins.
5. Kevin Youkilis, Red Sox.
6. Joe Nathan, Twins.
7. Joe Mauer, Twins.
8. Jermaine Dye, White Sox.
9. Josh Hamilton, Rangers.
10. Evan Longoria, Rays.
Apparently Grady Sizemore and Alex Rodriguez were not as valuable as any of these 10 players because the other players on their teams did not play as well as the other players on the above teams.
Okay, so his Cy Young ballot must start with Rodriguez and Nathan?
OF COURSE NOT.
AL Cy Young
1. Cliff Lee, Indians.
2. Roy Halladay, Blue Jays.
3. Francisco Rodriguez.
I know that Heyman thinks this makes total sense and that I'm just a geek and he would say that I don’t understand baseball and pennant races and cracker jack and locker rooms and sweat, but this is a giant failure to exercise defensible logic.
I suppose Verducci and Heyman feel that good closers are very valuable, but they aren't necessarily worthy of being deemed the best pitchers, but how can Heyman defend having two starters 1 order in the MVP balloting (Sabathia / Santana) with good separation between them, but then have the order reversed in the CY balloting?
First, Verducci, who is generally decent. Unlike Heyman, who must have incriminating pictures of someone important at SI.
NL MVP
1. Albert Pujols
2. Lance Berkman
3. Ryan Howard
4. Ryan Braun
5. Manny Ramirez
6. Brad Lidge
7. CC Sabathia
8. David Wright
9. Johan Santana
10. Hanley Ramirez
The guy is just posting his opinion, so just because I think Chase Utley should be on the ballot and he doesn’t have him, I’m not going to throw a fit. But Manny Ramirez played in 53 games. Brad Lidge had a great year. He threw 70 innings with a 1.95 ERA. But I have a fundamental problem with closers being MVP’s unless they are historically awesome.
But here’s my bigger problem. Based on the above list, how is Verducci’s CY ballot not:
Lidge
Sabathia
Santana
?
Here it is:
NL Cy Young
1. Tim Lincecum
2. Johan Santana
3. Brandon Webb
Verducci tells us the CY is meant to honor the best pitcher in the league, and correctly says that the pitcher with the most wins isn’t necessarily that pitcher. But how the fuck isn’t the best pitcher more valuable than the second best pitcher? How is the most valuable pitcher not one of the 3 best pitchers? And how is the best starter not more valuable than 2 other starters? In my mind, any attempt to reconcile this position is a failure to understand the singular nature of baseball performances. It’s not Lincecum’s fault the Giants suck. He can’t control what the other 4 pitchers do, or what the hitters do.
Similarly, Verducci had Francisco Rodriguez ninth as the most valuable pitcher in the AL, but not among the top 3 pitchers. Aren’t the pitchers who pitch better more valuable?
Now to Jon Heyman.
NL MVP
1. Manny Ramirez, Dodgers. The savant saved the storied franchise, slugging .743 and lifting the Dodger dogs to the NL West title.
Okay, but 53 games? Even if you include all his games in Boston, Pujols still had 147 Runs Created vs. Ramirez’s 134. Ramirez RC number in the NL was 60.9. The Dodgers won the NL West because the NL West sucked. If they were in the NL East, and the Mets were in the NL West, Heyman’s first 4 players are Mets. Why is this so hard?
2. CC Sabathia, Brewers. Carried them with three straight outings on three days' rest, and oh yes, had a league-leading seven complete games.
It’s just a philosophical difference here on Ramirez and Sabathia that’s not worth debating further. Sabathia is more defensible (to be on the Cy ballot), to me. For the rest of them, I’ll just show the list without the explanations because I have the same point that I had with Verducci.
3. Ryan Howard, Phillies.
4. Brad Lidge, Phillies.
5. Albert Pujols, Cardinals.
Pujols just finished his best season. He posted the best OPS+ in baseball (190) since Barry Bonds in 2004. The best by someone not named Bonds in the NL since Sammy Sosa in 2001 (64 homers, .437 OBP). Manny Ramirez’s (highest full season OPS+ was 186 in 2000) was higher in his 53 games in LA. I’m going with the guy who played 148 games in the NL.
6. Ryan Braun, Brewers.
7. Johan Santana, Mets.
8. Carlos Delgado, Mets.
9. Chase Utley, Phillies.
10. Lance Berkman, Astros.
So his CY ballot must be Sabathia, Lidge, Santana?
NL Cy Young
1. Santana. Gets edge over CC for ERA title and for being in the NL all year.
But, in the MVP race…….you had….Sabathia SECOND, and said you could easily have flipped him with Ramirez! Why….here…does being the NL all year mean more??
2. Sabathia. Sheer second-half dominance.
What about the first half? Does that count?
3. Lidge. Though tough to leave out Webb and especially Lincecum (18-5, with a league-leading 265 strikeouts) in this year with at least five deserving candidates.
NL Cy Old: Tom Gorzelanny. Ugliest numbers ever, including a demonic 6.66 ERA.
Ugliest ever? Cy Old is lame and doesn't make sense. Wouldn't the Cy Old be....like.....the best old pitcher?
AL MVP
1. Francisco Rodriguez, Angels. An alltime great season with a record 62 saves.
Ladies and gentleman, your AL MVP…..the 4th best closer in the league!
2. Carlos Quentin, White Sox.
3. Dustin Pedroia, Red Sox.
4. Justin Morneau, Twins.
5. Kevin Youkilis, Red Sox.
6. Joe Nathan, Twins.
7. Joe Mauer, Twins.
8. Jermaine Dye, White Sox.
9. Josh Hamilton, Rangers.
10. Evan Longoria, Rays.
Apparently Grady Sizemore and Alex Rodriguez were not as valuable as any of these 10 players because the other players on their teams did not play as well as the other players on the above teams.
Okay, so his Cy Young ballot must start with Rodriguez and Nathan?
OF COURSE NOT.
AL Cy Young
1. Cliff Lee, Indians.
2. Roy Halladay, Blue Jays.
3. Francisco Rodriguez.
I know that Heyman thinks this makes total sense and that I'm just a geek and he would say that I don’t understand baseball and pennant races and cracker jack and locker rooms and sweat, but this is a giant failure to exercise defensible logic.
I suppose Verducci and Heyman feel that good closers are very valuable, but they aren't necessarily worthy of being deemed the best pitchers, but how can Heyman defend having two starters 1 order in the MVP balloting (Sabathia / Santana) with good separation between them, but then have the order reversed in the CY balloting?
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Hollywood VORP
Forbes magazine recently posted an annual review of the most overpaid movie stars. I’ve seen this linked on Yahoo, MSNBC, and various other places on the Internet. While I see some commentary about the list, everyone seems to take it at face value.
It’s extremely difficult to judge the actual value a movie star has on a movie, because you can’t separate the star power of the actor from the actual quality/marketing/buzz of the movie, and some combination of these things is what drives profits. To me, the true value of Russell Crowe is the dollar value of profit that he adds to a movies profit over what another actor would contribute in the same movie (released at the same time, same script, etc.). I think Forbes has a big flaw in their analysis, which I’ll try to illustrate, because they entirely focus on the ratio of the profit to the actor’s salary.
Forbes’ list is derived from a “payback” figure they compute to determine how fairly paid the star is in relation to studio profits. Below is the gist of how the figure was computed:
To calculate our payback figures, we took half of each film's worldwide box office (to roughly approximate the studio's cut of each ticket). Then we added the first three months of DVD revenues and subtracted the budget to derive the film's gross income. After that, the actor's total compensation (upfront pay plus any money earned from sharing in the film's profits) was divided into the gross income to get the actor's payback figure for the film. The payback for the last three movies for each actor was averaged to calculate ultimate payback. We deliberately used gross income rather than net income in our analysis because the latter figure is so easily manipulated by studio accountants, with marketing expenses treated differently for almost every film.
So it’s obviously more of a ball-park calculation, but, still, it sounds like a lot of thought went into the analysis.
Here’s an excerpt from the results:
Our list of the top 10 overpaid celebrities is rife with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Tom Cruise ranks third with a $4 return for every dollar he was paid mostly because of last year's stinker "Lions for Lambs," which Cruise's studio, United Artists, produced. For every dollar the star earned the film returned only $1.88.
That the list is rife with the biggest names in Hollywood should be obvious, since the analysis focused on stars whose average fee was over $5 million and, more importantly, it severly penalizes big paydays, even if they are justified.
Cameron Diaz may be the highest-paid actress in Hollywood, with $50 million in income between June 2006 and June 2007, but studios might want to question whether she's worth the money. Her films returned a lowly $4 for every dollar Diaz earned.
The main problem is that their value is being distorted by only focusing on how much the movie’s gross income was in proportion to the actor’s compensation. They should focus on the impact the star had on the dollar value of the profit, not the percentage.
Here’s a very extreme scenario to prove my point:
Let’s say Tom Cruise is compensated $1 billion for his role in “The Little Albino That Could: The David Eckstein Story”, which we’ll just call “the movie”. The movie has a budget of $1.1 billion, including Cruise’s comp – so $100 million of non-Cruise budgetary costs. The movie then has gross receipts of $4 billion (the ½ box office + DVD sales). $4 billion less $1.1 billion is $2.9 billion of “gross income” as defined above. $2.9 billion divided by $1 billion is a “payback” of a mere $2.90 for every dollar that Cruise earned.
Now let’s say that David Eckstein stars in the movie, and is paid $5 million for his efforts. This is the same script, same director, same everything else except lead actor. David Eckstein grits out a tough movie, but ultimately doesn’t have the box office pop that Tom Cruise does. The movie grosses a highly respectable total (ludicrously high for a movie staring David Eckstein) of $300 million. The budget is now $105 million, leaving “gross income” of $195 million. The movie’s “payback” is a kickass $39.00 for every dollar earned by Eckstein.
$39.00 would make Eckstein a world class movie value and underpaid in the eyes of Forbes. Cruise would be way overpaid at $2.90.
So if you own a studio, would you rather make $2.9 billion in the first scenario or $195 million (that’s 93% less) in the second? I’ve rigged the analysis to look ludicrous to prove a point.
Further exacerbating the flaws in this analysis is the fact that top flight movie-stars typically earn a portion of the profits (as Forbes notes above). Movie accounting is terribly complex and I don’t have the requisite industry knowledge to really be thorough here (or the time to do the research), but I suspect what further skews these results is the fact that top stars often get a piece of the profits once the movie is in the black, which narrows the proportional gap between the movie’s profits and their pay….but only because the movie was wildly profitable, partly because of the star.
Let’s run through an example to show how Forbes’ analysis is distortive:
Again take two exact same movies and budgets – more realistic numbers (but still made-up and probably retarded). Use a budget of $50 million, except for lead actor’s pay. Eckstein and Cruise both agree to a $5 million base salary, except Cruise is a big star, is also acting as a Producer and will be heavily promoting the movie. So he is going to get 30% of the profits (in exchange for taking such a low base, for him) after the movie has gross receipts (the ½ tickets + DVD’s) of $100 million – to cover marketing and other ancillary costs that must be recouped by the studio on top of the budget. If the movie makes $100 million, then the "payback" for both Cruise and Eckstein would be $9.00. But a movie that makes $100 million with David Eckstein as its big star might make $300 million with Cruise, which is why he’d command a share of the profits. In my model, at $300 million, Cruise would take home $65 million. Forbes would say that his “payback” is only $2.85 per dollar earned. In their eyes, Cruise is 3 times more overpaid than Eckstein, because Eckstein’s pay as a percentage of gross profit is much less. But Cruise’s movie had “gross income” as defined by Forbes of $185 million compared to Eckstein’s $45 million. He only made more money because his movie generated more.
How is Cruise overpaid in relation to Eckstein in that scenario? I think the studio would happily take the extra $145 million. The only risk to the studio was that the movie was so good that Eckstein could have carried it to the same gross income (before 30% profit-share) as Cruise and the studio could have pocketed that profit-share money. I do realize how off these numbers are to reality, but the theory should hold.
I’m not saying Forbes’ method wouldn’t point out some overpaid stars, but I think it’s a terrible way to conclusively list them. In Forbes’ defense, I think they sort of realized the flaw in their logic and used the $5 million per picture floor in computing the pool of actors to review, which removes extreme outliers (if you paid me $.01, I could have a higher payback than any actor). But I have to think this can be done in a better way. The other glaring issue is that the movie may make no money for various reasons that have nothing to do with the ability of its star to generate box office receipts. The movie, not the star, could just be terrible – that doesn’t mean the star is overpaid.
Forbes had this revelation later:
In general, actors who earned under $10 million per picture did better on our list.
This is not surprising. If you pay Jennifer Love Hewitt $5 million and Angelina Jolie $15 million, the Jolie movie’s gross income doesn’t need to be triple Hewitt’s to justify the cost, it just needs to be $10,000,001 higher. Forbes would require Jolie to generate three times the income, and that makes no sense. There’s no variable costs tied to Jolie that would justify that extra profit burden on her.
So how should Forbes have modeled the calculation to be more reflective of the actual return on the actor’s value? Is there some way to measure a Hollywood equivalent of baseball’s VORP? VORA - Value Over Replacement Actor...tied to movie profitability? There probably is, but it would take someone with intimate knowledge of Hollywood’s accounting/compensation practices and someone much smarter than me to build that model.
It’s extremely difficult to judge the actual value a movie star has on a movie, because you can’t separate the star power of the actor from the actual quality/marketing/buzz of the movie, and some combination of these things is what drives profits. To me, the true value of Russell Crowe is the dollar value of profit that he adds to a movies profit over what another actor would contribute in the same movie (released at the same time, same script, etc.). I think Forbes has a big flaw in their analysis, which I’ll try to illustrate, because they entirely focus on the ratio of the profit to the actor’s salary.
Forbes’ list is derived from a “payback” figure they compute to determine how fairly paid the star is in relation to studio profits. Below is the gist of how the figure was computed:
To calculate our payback figures, we took half of each film's worldwide box office (to roughly approximate the studio's cut of each ticket). Then we added the first three months of DVD revenues and subtracted the budget to derive the film's gross income. After that, the actor's total compensation (upfront pay plus any money earned from sharing in the film's profits) was divided into the gross income to get the actor's payback figure for the film. The payback for the last three movies for each actor was averaged to calculate ultimate payback. We deliberately used gross income rather than net income in our analysis because the latter figure is so easily manipulated by studio accountants, with marketing expenses treated differently for almost every film.
So it’s obviously more of a ball-park calculation, but, still, it sounds like a lot of thought went into the analysis.
Here’s an excerpt from the results:
Our list of the top 10 overpaid celebrities is rife with some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Tom Cruise ranks third with a $4 return for every dollar he was paid mostly because of last year's stinker "Lions for Lambs," which Cruise's studio, United Artists, produced. For every dollar the star earned the film returned only $1.88.
That the list is rife with the biggest names in Hollywood should be obvious, since the analysis focused on stars whose average fee was over $5 million and, more importantly, it severly penalizes big paydays, even if they are justified.
Cameron Diaz may be the highest-paid actress in Hollywood, with $50 million in income between June 2006 and June 2007, but studios might want to question whether she's worth the money. Her films returned a lowly $4 for every dollar Diaz earned.
The main problem is that their value is being distorted by only focusing on how much the movie’s gross income was in proportion to the actor’s compensation. They should focus on the impact the star had on the dollar value of the profit, not the percentage.
Here’s a very extreme scenario to prove my point:
Let’s say Tom Cruise is compensated $1 billion for his role in “The Little Albino That Could: The David Eckstein Story”, which we’ll just call “the movie”. The movie has a budget of $1.1 billion, including Cruise’s comp – so $100 million of non-Cruise budgetary costs. The movie then has gross receipts of $4 billion (the ½ box office + DVD sales). $4 billion less $1.1 billion is $2.9 billion of “gross income” as defined above. $2.9 billion divided by $1 billion is a “payback” of a mere $2.90 for every dollar that Cruise earned.
Now let’s say that David Eckstein stars in the movie, and is paid $5 million for his efforts. This is the same script, same director, same everything else except lead actor. David Eckstein grits out a tough movie, but ultimately doesn’t have the box office pop that Tom Cruise does. The movie grosses a highly respectable total (ludicrously high for a movie staring David Eckstein) of $300 million. The budget is now $105 million, leaving “gross income” of $195 million. The movie’s “payback” is a kickass $39.00 for every dollar earned by Eckstein.
$39.00 would make Eckstein a world class movie value and underpaid in the eyes of Forbes. Cruise would be way overpaid at $2.90.
So if you own a studio, would you rather make $2.9 billion in the first scenario or $195 million (that’s 93% less) in the second? I’ve rigged the analysis to look ludicrous to prove a point.
Further exacerbating the flaws in this analysis is the fact that top flight movie-stars typically earn a portion of the profits (as Forbes notes above). Movie accounting is terribly complex and I don’t have the requisite industry knowledge to really be thorough here (or the time to do the research), but I suspect what further skews these results is the fact that top stars often get a piece of the profits once the movie is in the black, which narrows the proportional gap between the movie’s profits and their pay….but only because the movie was wildly profitable, partly because of the star.
Let’s run through an example to show how Forbes’ analysis is distortive:
Again take two exact same movies and budgets – more realistic numbers (but still made-up and probably retarded). Use a budget of $50 million, except for lead actor’s pay. Eckstein and Cruise both agree to a $5 million base salary, except Cruise is a big star, is also acting as a Producer and will be heavily promoting the movie. So he is going to get 30% of the profits (in exchange for taking such a low base, for him) after the movie has gross receipts (the ½ tickets + DVD’s) of $100 million – to cover marketing and other ancillary costs that must be recouped by the studio on top of the budget. If the movie makes $100 million, then the "payback" for both Cruise and Eckstein would be $9.00. But a movie that makes $100 million with David Eckstein as its big star might make $300 million with Cruise, which is why he’d command a share of the profits. In my model, at $300 million, Cruise would take home $65 million. Forbes would say that his “payback” is only $2.85 per dollar earned. In their eyes, Cruise is 3 times more overpaid than Eckstein, because Eckstein’s pay as a percentage of gross profit is much less. But Cruise’s movie had “gross income” as defined by Forbes of $185 million compared to Eckstein’s $45 million. He only made more money because his movie generated more.
How is Cruise overpaid in relation to Eckstein in that scenario? I think the studio would happily take the extra $145 million. The only risk to the studio was that the movie was so good that Eckstein could have carried it to the same gross income (before 30% profit-share) as Cruise and the studio could have pocketed that profit-share money. I do realize how off these numbers are to reality, but the theory should hold.
I’m not saying Forbes’ method wouldn’t point out some overpaid stars, but I think it’s a terrible way to conclusively list them. In Forbes’ defense, I think they sort of realized the flaw in their logic and used the $5 million per picture floor in computing the pool of actors to review, which removes extreme outliers (if you paid me $.01, I could have a higher payback than any actor). But I have to think this can be done in a better way. The other glaring issue is that the movie may make no money for various reasons that have nothing to do with the ability of its star to generate box office receipts. The movie, not the star, could just be terrible – that doesn’t mean the star is overpaid.
Forbes had this revelation later:
In general, actors who earned under $10 million per picture did better on our list.
This is not surprising. If you pay Jennifer Love Hewitt $5 million and Angelina Jolie $15 million, the Jolie movie’s gross income doesn’t need to be triple Hewitt’s to justify the cost, it just needs to be $10,000,001 higher. Forbes would require Jolie to generate three times the income, and that makes no sense. There’s no variable costs tied to Jolie that would justify that extra profit burden on her.
So how should Forbes have modeled the calculation to be more reflective of the actual return on the actor’s value? Is there some way to measure a Hollywood equivalent of baseball’s VORP? VORA - Value Over Replacement Actor...tied to movie profitability? There probably is, but it would take someone with intimate knowledge of Hollywood’s accounting/compensation practices and someone much smarter than me to build that model.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Peter King: Hotelnerdness
From this week's Monday Morning Quarterback.
Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week
Sometimes I forget the things that annoy me on the road, and Saturday, at an NBC rehearsal for the 2008 TV season, Bob Costas reminded me of one.
At hotels now -- and this has been happening for four or five years -- when you order room service, the male or female waiter who comes to the door always asks: "May I come in?''
I’m not as old as Peter “skunk stripe” King or Bob “I look like a mini-Luke Skywalker….which is hard because Mark Hamill is small” Costas, but I don’t think I’ve ever had room service just barge into the room without knocking or anything. Nor do I want them to.
Which prompted Costas, coming off a month in a hotel in Beijing, to say: "May I come in?! No! I'll eat the meal in the hallway! What do you mean, 'May I come in?' ''
Good point, Bobby.
No, no it’s not. See, maybe the hotel staff is acting professional because they don’t want to walk in on Bob Costas jerking off (to his interview with Nastia Luikin) or taking a dump (to his interview with Michael Phelps).
Seriously, hotel staff ...asking if it's okay for them to come in….is a nuisance?
Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week
Sometimes I forget the things that annoy me on the road, and Saturday, at an NBC rehearsal for the 2008 TV season, Bob Costas reminded me of one.
At hotels now -- and this has been happening for four or five years -- when you order room service, the male or female waiter who comes to the door always asks: "May I come in?''
I’m not as old as Peter “skunk stripe” King or Bob “I look like a mini-Luke Skywalker….which is hard because Mark Hamill is small” Costas, but I don’t think I’ve ever had room service just barge into the room without knocking or anything. Nor do I want them to.
Which prompted Costas, coming off a month in a hotel in Beijing, to say: "May I come in?! No! I'll eat the meal in the hallway! What do you mean, 'May I come in?' ''
Good point, Bobby.
No, no it’s not. See, maybe the hotel staff is acting professional because they don’t want to walk in on Bob Costas jerking off (to his interview with Nastia Luikin) or taking a dump (to his interview with Michael Phelps).
Seriously, hotel staff ...asking if it's okay for them to come in….is a nuisance?
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Mike Freeman Demands Immediate Satisfaction
Remember the Olympics? Yeah, the Olympics…the collection of athletic contests that ended Sunday. Remember Usain Bolt, that fast guy? Mike Freeman thinks it’s the biggest joke in sports that he’s not in talks with an NFL team as of Wednesday. 3 days after the Olympics ended. Biggest joke in sports. By the way, I'm going to be lazy and assume that Bolt has not played much football. If that's wrong, well Freeman should have brought it up.
Yeah, so there’s a lot of hyperbole on the way.
Why is NFL so slow to go after lightning-fast Bolt?
I know right, it’s been 3 fucking days! Why isn’t Bolt lining up in practice right NOW! Also, matching lightning with “Bolt”? Friggin’ brilliant.
The National Football League is run by smart and hyper-successful people. Well, except for the Cincinnati Bengals. Other than the team that re-signs misdemeanor generator Chris Henry, the league is brilliantly engineered -- which is why it's so puzzling no team has made a strong play for Olympic speed demon Usain Bolt.
Has he ever played a down of organized football? Has he ever run in pads? Has he ever been tackled? Do Sprinters automatically have great hands? Do Sprinters have to memorize inch-thick playbooks? Could he be great? Sure. Is he such a sure thing that NFL teams should have made a move 3 days after the Olympics ended?
Bolt would instantly be the fastest person in the sport, yet teams are signing retread jerks at wide receiver like Henry, whose buffoonery has embarrassed an entire city.
I’m dizzy trying to connect these dots. I bet Mike Freeman every penny I have that Chris Henry is a more valuable wide receiver than Usain Bolt right now. Also, I suspect that Cincinattionians or whatever are not personally embarrassed by Chris Henry.
Maybe Bolt will say he's not interested. Well, make him interested. Make him an offer he can't refuse. Throw millions of dollars and some Black Uhuru CDs at him.
Yeah! Fuck the salary cap! Give millions of dollars to a guy who we don’t know has ever actually caught a football! This is smart business.
At the very least try to get him into the NFL. That's my problem; I've spoke to NFL team officials over the past few days and there is no indication a team is even trying to convince Bolt to play football.
I know right, and the Olympics have been over for days! Don’t these teams want to win?
The fact no one has attempted is one of the biggest jokes in all of sports.
Can I nominate this for Hyperbole of the Year?
When Bolt runs, time moves backward. His 40-yard dash time is in milliseconds. Bolt is the only thing in the known universe that can escape the gravitational pull of a black hole.
"I'm not so sure I can beat him," says a speeding bullet.
He’s fast, we get it. This is intentional hyperbole, so this doesn’t count.
If someone could teach Bolt to catch the football and absorb punishment, he would instantly become one of the top three most dangerous weapons in the NFL. Put him with the right quarterback and he'd possibly be the most lethal.
Instantly top 3? Am I the only one who thinks this is nuts?
A guy who is 22 years old, 6-foot-5 and 190 pounds, and might run a sub-4.2 40-yard dash? You tell me what his potential would be.
This “guy”, he’s never played organized football right?
Please read carefully. This isn't to say Bolt is guaranteed NFL success. But why aren't some of the wealthier owners known to take chances, like Jerry Jones, throwing cash at this guy?
Salary caps? They are busy paying attention to guys who actually play football, perhaps?
History might indeed be against Bolt succeeding on the NFL level. Track stars don't have a long NFL pedigree. So what? That doesn't mean Bolt can't do it.
Yeah – so what? Throw millions at him! That’ll fix that little bit of history!
It might not work.
Then why is the non-pursuit “the biggest joke in all of sports”??????????
But these five reasons explain why and how it could:
1. Bob Hayes. Bolt and Hayes have almost identical backgrounds. Hayes set world records at the 1964 Olympics and then was signed by the Cowboys with limited football experience. (Hayes should be in the Hall of Fame, but anti-Cowboys sentiment among voters has kept him out.)
Good point. Plus, professional football has hardly changed since the 1960’s!
Actually, wait, there’s another small difference….Bob Hayes played college football. Relevant, right? Also, there’s been a bunch of sprinters who failed.
This is from the SI Vault:
Hayes differed from the sprinters who would follow him into and out of the NFL, because he was not merely a sprinter who happened to play football. He was, as he liked to put it, "a football player first, then a runner." There were lots of fast guys on Jake Gaither's Florida A&M squad, and he'd shuffle them in and out, align them in different formations. Hayes was listed as a halfback, but he'd line up all over the place—on the wing, in the slot, wherever he was needed.
People have said that his college career was only so-so, but he was a starter at wide receiver in the 1965 College All-Star Game, and the quarterback who started that game for his team, Roger Staubach, would, in the years that followed, go on to launch many deep strikes to Hayesfor the Cowboys.
So that’s a pretty shitty example.
2. The biggest reason why Bolt wouldn't work is the NFL might not be able to afford him. Bolt will make a ridiculous amount of endorsement money in the coming months. (Bolt endorses Porsche, Bolt endorses Nike, Bolt makes a commercial for a speedy pregnancy test.)
Yeah, because track stars make way more than NFL players.
No, really….here’s SI’s “Fortunate 50” – please count the track stars and football players. Something tells me they could make that the “fortunate 500” before we see a track star on there. Admittedly, it's just US athletes, and maybe track stars make a ton of money overseas. But still, I would bet that the NFL brings more riches.
What a team says to Bolt is this: How much more money do you think you'd make if you were a two-sport star?
But what they should say first is….. "have you ever caught a football?”
Then they'd educate Bolt about Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson. Sanders played a nine-year, part-time MLB career while playing football. Why can't Bolt do something similar?
Ahhh Deion and Bo…..these are two athletes who were freakishly fast, but also had the athletic ability to hit a 95 MPH baseball and agility to maneuver through huge, fast athletes, in full pads, with ease.
So far we know that Bolt can run straight, on a track. Do you think it’s safe to assume Bolt has the variety of athletic skills that Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson had? I’d say not.
Play to his ego -- and if you don't think he has a fat ego, rewind the end of that gold medal race when he taunted fellow runners after activating the second stage of his Saturn V rocket boosters.
Bolt could race around the world, make his money, and then play in NFL games. They have these things called airplanes. Some have props, some have jets. He can hop on one.
That’s true, since the NFL is soooo easy. Plus he wouldn't be at all tired from sprinting against world class athletes. He wouldn’t need to practice or anything. Those off-season workouts that Jerry Rice put himself through? Waste of time.
3. His size. Remember, Bolt is a sturdy 6-5 and 190 pounds. This doesn't mean he's ready to take a hit from Bob Sanders (who the hell is?) but a team can slowly get Bolt accustomed to physical contact the way Dallas did with Hayes.
Also, the way Hayes got accustomed to physical contact when he was playing football in college.
4. Jerry Rice. Hire Rice as a consultant to work with Bolt. Or Michael Irvin or even Deion Sanders to teach him about the chess game defensive backs play with wideouts. Just make sure Rice doesn't teach Bolt how to dance or Irvin doesn't teach him about drug paraphernalia.
Ahar har har.
So after you dump millions and millions of dollars on Bolt, go hire some high price consultants so that he can learn a playbook.
WHY HASN’T THIS HAPPENED YET? IT’S BEEN 3 DAYS….THIS IS THE BIGGEST JOKE EVER!
5. This quote from Scouts Inc.'s Jeremy Green to ESPN says it all: "We all go to the combine every year to look at receivers who are 5-11 and run a 4.7 40. Why not this kid? I could see it."
It's definitely a long shot and tough sell to Bolt and it's likely Bolt might state he's not interested. He grew up in Jamaica and might care less about professional football.
He might be more focused on, I don’t know…sprinting?
You won't know until you give it a chance. If he says no way, ask again. If he says no after that, ask once more. Do what it takes to get him on a football field.
Okay, fine….you want to see Bolt play football. Me too….sort of. By why all the hyperbole? Why should anyone take Mike Freeman seriously when he writes garbage like this?
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
You Can Not Fool the TMQ
I’m not a batman geek. I’ve seen The Dark Night, and I liked it, but I don’t recall the details all that well. That shouldn’t overcome the general point of this post, which is that Gregg Easterbrook is a fucking killjoy who doesn’t understand when you’re supposed to take your thinking cap off and enjoy life for 2 ½ hours….and I’m not talking about pretending to be turned on by cheerleaders. There’s a difference between picking on unrealities in a Batman movie and in a movie that intends to be realistic despite the unrealistic premise, like Point Break or Speed (or any Keanu Reeves between Bill & Ted’s and The Matrix).
The latest Batman installment is a hit, and well-made from a cinematography standpoint, but the Joker character was unrealism carried to an extreme, even by Hollywood's low standards. The Joker has hundreds of obedient, superefficient henchmen, including surgeons and high-ranking police officers, who serve him without question -- even though they know he murders his own henchmen.
He is a criminal mastermind. They have a lot of henchmen. It’s a fictional movie based on a fucking comic book character.
The Joker knows things no one could possibly know, such as what street the police van carrying Harvey Dent will turn down during a wild chase. (He has henchmen positioned on that street, one of dozens the van might have turned down).
Wasn’t there a tractor trailer rigged to block the alternative path, so that they were more likely to go down the street they went down? I may be confusing scenes here. I also thought that the whole exercise of carrying Dent in the police van was a ploy to try to draw the Joker out, so they weren’t trying to be secretive.
Also, he’s a criminal mastermind in a fictional movie.
The Joker can get poison into the police commissioner's private office without anyone suspecting anything.
Well, I think he probably broke in, or had someone on the inside break in. I don’t think he just walked in during the day and put the poison in the bottle and no one suspected anything.
He was able to break in because he’s a criminal mastermind in a fictional movie, and they do things like that.
City officials make a sudden decision to load several hundred people into ferries; in just a few hours, Joker is able to place thousands of pounds of explosives aboard the ferries without anyone noticing, plus rig devices to take over the ferries' engines.
I think a ten year old would have realized that he did this well in advance of the people getting on the ferries. Also, I thought they were put on ferries as part of an evacuation, masterminded by the criminal mastermind, the Joker? Man, my memory sucks.
Anyway, he’s a criminal mastermind, and those fuckers think ahead.
Joker is able to move thousands of pounds of explosives into Gotham General Hospital without anyone noticing.
How do you know that no one noticed? Maybe 20 people noticed and he killed them all. They do that, those criminal masterminds in fictional movies.
Positioning the explosives for the two giant-blast sequences in "The Dark Night" would have required large trucks and a front-loader carrying multiple heavy objects through places crawling with police officers without anyone noticing.
Um, what about the warehouses full of explosives used on Harvey and Rachel? Wasn’t THAT unlikely!
Answer, yes. But these are both examples of scenes orchestrated by a fictional character in a fictional movie about a billionaire playboy that dresses up like a bat.
Joker always knows exactly where everyone he wants to kill is in a huge city (how?);
Maybe he follows them? The people he wants to kill are, like, the most famous people in the city and they are frequently the target of media. I guess the Joker (criminal mastermind) finds them the same way that paparazzi find Britney Spears. I don’t think he “always” knows “exactly” where they are. He first finds Harvey Dent at a fundraiser thrown….for….Harvey Dent.
he's beaten to a pulp by Batman, yet just minutes later, easily overpowers a huge policeman;
He really wasn’t beaten up that much really, and that police officer was not huge and he looked about 50.
Joker steals from the mob, yet no mob soldier simply shoots him.
Because they are frightened of him, and also because he guarantees he can deliver things to them (the Asian dude, all their money back, Batman).
Joker has a bomb sneaked into the jail where he's being held -- somehow he knew in advance what cell he would be in! -- and it blasts open the jail wall, plus kills all the police officers standing around the Joker, but does not hurt him.
Wow! IT'S ALMOST LIKE HE'S NOT REAL!
The latest Batman installment is a hit, and well-made from a cinematography standpoint, but the Joker character was unrealism carried to an extreme, even by Hollywood's low standards. The Joker has hundreds of obedient, superefficient henchmen, including surgeons and high-ranking police officers, who serve him without question -- even though they know he murders his own henchmen.
He is a criminal mastermind. They have a lot of henchmen. It’s a fictional movie based on a fucking comic book character.
The Joker knows things no one could possibly know, such as what street the police van carrying Harvey Dent will turn down during a wild chase. (He has henchmen positioned on that street, one of dozens the van might have turned down).
Wasn’t there a tractor trailer rigged to block the alternative path, so that they were more likely to go down the street they went down? I may be confusing scenes here. I also thought that the whole exercise of carrying Dent in the police van was a ploy to try to draw the Joker out, so they weren’t trying to be secretive.
Also, he’s a criminal mastermind in a fictional movie.
The Joker can get poison into the police commissioner's private office without anyone suspecting anything.
Well, I think he probably broke in, or had someone on the inside break in. I don’t think he just walked in during the day and put the poison in the bottle and no one suspected anything.
He was able to break in because he’s a criminal mastermind in a fictional movie, and they do things like that.
City officials make a sudden decision to load several hundred people into ferries; in just a few hours, Joker is able to place thousands of pounds of explosives aboard the ferries without anyone noticing, plus rig devices to take over the ferries' engines.
I think a ten year old would have realized that he did this well in advance of the people getting on the ferries. Also, I thought they were put on ferries as part of an evacuation, masterminded by the criminal mastermind, the Joker? Man, my memory sucks.
Anyway, he’s a criminal mastermind, and those fuckers think ahead.
Joker is able to move thousands of pounds of explosives into Gotham General Hospital without anyone noticing.
How do you know that no one noticed? Maybe 20 people noticed and he killed them all. They do that, those criminal masterminds in fictional movies.
Positioning the explosives for the two giant-blast sequences in "The Dark Night" would have required large trucks and a front-loader carrying multiple heavy objects through places crawling with police officers without anyone noticing.
Um, what about the warehouses full of explosives used on Harvey and Rachel? Wasn’t THAT unlikely!
Answer, yes. But these are both examples of scenes orchestrated by a fictional character in a fictional movie about a billionaire playboy that dresses up like a bat.
Joker always knows exactly where everyone he wants to kill is in a huge city (how?);
Maybe he follows them? The people he wants to kill are, like, the most famous people in the city and they are frequently the target of media. I guess the Joker (criminal mastermind) finds them the same way that paparazzi find Britney Spears. I don’t think he “always” knows “exactly” where they are. He first finds Harvey Dent at a fundraiser thrown….for….Harvey Dent.
he's beaten to a pulp by Batman, yet just minutes later, easily overpowers a huge policeman;
He really wasn’t beaten up that much really, and that police officer was not huge and he looked about 50.
Joker steals from the mob, yet no mob soldier simply shoots him.
Because they are frightened of him, and also because he guarantees he can deliver things to them (the Asian dude, all their money back, Batman).
Joker has a bomb sneaked into the jail where he's being held -- somehow he knew in advance what cell he would be in! -- and it blasts open the jail wall, plus kills all the police officers standing around the Joker, but does not hurt him.
Wow! IT'S ALMOST LIKE HE'S NOT REAL!
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Am I Crazy or This a Double Standard?
I don’t know much about Alan Abrahamson, who is writing for NBCOlympics.com, but I’ll concede that he knows more about Track & Field and any related stories of doping than I do. But I have to object to the way he starts his column about Usain Bolt.
BEIJING -- Usain Bolt of Jamaica etched his name into history Wednesday as one of the Olympic greats, indeed one of the greatest athletes of all time.
What an asshole, right! Who does Abrahamson think he is?
Okay, that’s not the part I meant. On this point I have to agree. I was impressed when he so easily ran the fastest 100M ever, but I thought Michael Johnson’s record was relatively safe.
Assuming he's clean.
This is the second line in the column. Has anyone said this about Michael Phelps, even though swimming has historically been a doped up sport as well?
Aren’t we assuming everyone is clean? Isn’t that where we start? Does it have to be said?
And while no evidence of any sort has surfaced to suggest he's not, it's naïve not to wonder how Bolt is able to run so fast.
Just like one has to wonder how all the gold medalists in track and swimming can run and swim so fast. On the list of how he can run so fast, where is “he may be on drugs?” What about simply thinking that he’s a freak of nature/gifted, he trains really hard, and he’s in amazing physical condition….. these things take a back seat? This strikes me as a bit of a pessimistic way to start a column on the day Bolt broke the record when you've heard no evidence of any sort. Did Alan Abrahamson write about Michael Johnson with this skepticism in 1996 when Johnson ran 19.32? Usain Bolt runs 2/100ths of a second faster and you immediately default to ….hey, great race…..IF he’s clean.
If there’s no evidence of any sort, then why cast that shadow over his accomplishment?
Because no one in the history of human beings, from the first primitive soul desperately trying to outrun a saber-toothed tiger to the sophisticated races of our times, has ever run as fast as Usain Bolt has run at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Has anyone ever swum as fast as Michael Phelps? Does that mean he’s doped up?
"I am the best," Bolt declared late Wednesday night. "I proved it at the Olympics."
Yeah, if you weren’t on drugs, druggie. You can’t fool us.
The rest of the column was a perfectly fine summary of the race, and the background on Johnson’s record falling.
In this column about Phelps, Abrahamson’s title/header is as follows:
Built to succeed ... and assume his place in history
Mental strength, intense focus drove Phelps to epic 8-for-8 in Beijing
There is no mention of steroids or the possibility of Phelps' using PEDs. This is appropriate. Why put “assuming he’s clean” as the second line in a story about Bolt’s impressive feat?
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Gregg Easterbrook Totally Calls out DC Comics
This paragraph is in this week's Tuesday Morning Quarterback on ESPN.com:
Meanwhile, I read that Christian Bale, who plays Batman in "The Dark Knight" -- the movie bore no relation whatsoever to Frank Miller's 1986 graphic novel "The Dark Knight," which revived the Batman craze -- says his favorite of the many Batman graphic novels is "Dark Victory." I got a copy. In it, Batman battles the Joker, Harvey Dent, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Pengy and the rest in the sewers of Gotham City. The sewers are cavernous, with only trickles of water running along the bottom; so large the giant Solomon Grundy, who's 20 feet tall, strides through them easily. The sewers lead to doors that open throughout Gotham City, allowing Joker and the rest to strike, then vanish. Gotham's enormous cathedral-ceiling sewers appear to be the greatest public-works project in human history, yet no one knows they exist. Batman has to discover the sewers to determine how the super-villains are moving around the city. And the sewers have a door that leads to the Batcave, which contains -- a bottomless pit.
What the fuck DC Comics? Can’t you write a story about a billionaire playboy who moonlights as a bat while fighting crime against a grown man-penguin, a guy in a cryogenic suit who shoots ice and a guy with a half normal/half terribly deformed face that flips a coin to decide if he’s going to kill someone AND INCLUDE A BELIEVABLE PORTRAYAL OF THIS FICTIONAL CITY’S SEWER SYSTEM! You can’t fool the TMQ, bitches!
Now, who will answer to the TMQ about the insanity of the subway system in Metropolis or the Daily Bugle’s lack of any required Federal labor laws posted in the break room! Please answer the comic gods!
Meanwhile, I read that Christian Bale, who plays Batman in "The Dark Knight" -- the movie bore no relation whatsoever to Frank Miller's 1986 graphic novel "The Dark Knight," which revived the Batman craze -- says his favorite of the many Batman graphic novels is "Dark Victory." I got a copy. In it, Batman battles the Joker, Harvey Dent, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Pengy and the rest in the sewers of Gotham City. The sewers are cavernous, with only trickles of water running along the bottom; so large the giant Solomon Grundy, who's 20 feet tall, strides through them easily. The sewers lead to doors that open throughout Gotham City, allowing Joker and the rest to strike, then vanish. Gotham's enormous cathedral-ceiling sewers appear to be the greatest public-works project in human history, yet no one knows they exist. Batman has to discover the sewers to determine how the super-villains are moving around the city. And the sewers have a door that leads to the Batcave, which contains -- a bottomless pit.
What the fuck DC Comics? Can’t you write a story about a billionaire playboy who moonlights as a bat while fighting crime against a grown man-penguin, a guy in a cryogenic suit who shoots ice and a guy with a half normal/half terribly deformed face that flips a coin to decide if he’s going to kill someone AND INCLUDE A BELIEVABLE PORTRAYAL OF THIS FICTIONAL CITY’S SEWER SYSTEM! You can’t fool the TMQ, bitches!
Now, who will answer to the TMQ about the insanity of the subway system in Metropolis or the Daily Bugle’s lack of any required Federal labor laws posted in the break room! Please answer the comic gods!
Monday, August 18, 2008
Jemele Hill Is Not the Michael Phelps of Columnists
Phelps' eight gold medals makes us rethink greatness
This is long enough, let’s just jump right in.
What's an athlete?
One who competes in an exercise activity or sport at some level above terrible. I’m an athlete.
Just to warn you, I’m about to waste a lot of both of our time parsing this bullshit column. I should probably just avoid it.
Who's an athlete?
Like hundreds of millions of people.
What's mental toughness?
I’ll loosely define mental toughness as the ability to sustain focus and execute at a high level in the face if adversity and/or pressure. What’s with the fucking quiz to start the column?
What are limits?
I’ll defer to your nearest fifth grader to define limits.
What is greatness?
Well I'm tired already. What is a moronic way to open a column?
Lance Armstrong's seven Tour de France victories in a row. Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. Wilt Chamberlain's 100 points. The Tiger Slam.
Yes? Those are “great” things in the context of athletic achievement.
We thought we knew those answers before Michael Phelps. But now that we've witnessed Phelps win eight gold medals, it turns out we didn't know anything.
Fuck that, I’m wicked smart. I know lots of stuff. You don’t know anything, but I already knew that. You’re just catching up with me Jemele.
Forget your previous notions. Forget other things you've seen from the other world's best athletes. What Phelps has done is as remarkably different as God giving us the sun one day and the seas the next.
I’m getting down right giddy about how she’s going to explain why 8 Gold Medals from Michael Phelps is more impressive than Lance Armstrong winning 7 straight Tours after beating cancer.
Because it’s not. At least not in any clear way.
But his greatest achievement at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing isn't the gold medals, or breaking Mark Spitz's 1972 record for most golds at a single Games. Phelps has changed the way we think about sport.
Yeah, he’s made me say: “What the fuck, there are a ton of chances to win medals if you’re a swimmer!” If you are the very best female gymnast in the world, and you dominate every apparatus and have very good teammates, you can have a flawless Olympics and you’ll win, at best, 6 Golds. I would argue that a gymnast who has mastered all 4 apparatus to that level is more impressive than Phelps, but she would not be able to compete in terms of medal count.
What Usain Bolt did in his one 100 Meter final damn impressive by itself even though it's "only" 1 record. That one gold/record, to me, carries the weight of a few swimming gold medals. Everyone can run. Rich, poor, whatever. Not everyone grows up with the access that Michael Phelps had to swimming and coaching. Bolt ran the fastest 100 ever and was celebrating with 15 meters left. Sprinters have to come out of like 3-4 prelims just to make the medal round. There’s a definite risk of fatigue or injury.
Phelps has redefined athletics, and athleticism.
Nope.
He has returned us to the ancient, Olympic ideal.
Legend says Zeus' son, Hercules, created the Olympic Games after completing 12 labors over 12 years. Some of Hercules' tasks included having to bring back a three-headed dog from hell and retrieve golden apples that promised eternal life.
This is relevant how?
For Phelps, it was completing 17 races in eight days and amassing seven world records. As the Hercules myth spells out, the Games' origins are rooted in endurance. That is why we must consider Phelps' achievements in these Olympics as the greatest athletic feat ever accomplished.
Woah woah woah. Woah.
Woah.
Let’s simplify this little bit of knowledge that Jemele has dropped on us and see if it makes sense.
The Olympics are about endurance, therefore Phelps’ winning 8 gold medals is the greatest athletic feat ever accomplished.
Isn’t that thinking a tad narrowly? Why is athletic accomplishment only relevant in the Olympics? Why does some ancient myth about what the Olympics are about determine what kind of athletic accomplishment is the best ever?
Back in ancient times all the kruglidites of super happy land defined the best athletes as those who could accurately strike small objects with curved sticks. Therefore, Tiger Woods is the best athlete ever.
It's not just about what he has done. It's about what he has endured.
That’s true, Lance Armstrong does not have the endurance that Michael Phelps does. Neither do those ultra-marathoners. Neither do Ironman triathletes, who swim like 2+ miles in the Ocean, bike 112 miles and then run a full marathon in the Hawaiian heat.
Endurance should be the key element that distinguishes greatness. What did Jordan endure when he won six NBA titles? Did he push his body to the limits Phelps has? Not even close.
If your measure of athletic greatness is limited to endurance, then you can throw out virtually all team-sport athletes. I think this is retarded. How many basketball games did Jordan play at an absurdly high level on his way to 6 championships? Like 600? Ha! Trivial!
How much endurance does it take to land some crazy ass vault like a gymnast, or to do some flips on a balance beam? Clearly not Michael Phelps’ level endurance, but can’t those athletic achievements be just as impressive? Is every marathoner a better athlete than every basketball player, football player, gymnast, etc. ever? HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE?
What if an athlete existed that could long-jump 40 feet. 10+ feet further than anyone, ever. This same athlete could also hit cleanup for the Yankees and hit 75 homeruns and kick a football 85 yards with precision under NFL pressure. But all definitions of being an endurance athlete, this superhuman would fail to be a better athlete than Michael Phelps. SEE HOW THIS MAKES NO SENSE?
Of course, no one is disputing Jordan wasn't the best basketball player in the world, but Jordan's flu game couldn't compete with Phelps, who had a week's worth of flu games at the Olympics.
That’s a double negative, dingbat. You’re saying that Jordan was undisputedly not the best basketball player in the world. Who says Jordan’s “flu game” is his best athletic achievement? Why did Phelps have a week’s worth of flu games? What?
See, here's the thing: Jordan was sick. The Jazz were not sick. Phelps was not swimming under different conditions than the other swimmers. So he didn't have a week's worth of flu games. If all the Utah Jazz were also playing "flu games", then you'd have a point.
And it must be pointed out that Jordan, who ESPN SportsCentury named the greatest athlete ever, isn't even the biggest winner in his sport. Phelps is.
Again, this is poor sentence structure. To me, you just made it sound like Phelps is the biggest winner in Jordan’s sport. You can’t compare an NBA player to an Olympic swimmer.
And what did Joe DiMaggio's body endure when he hit in 56 consecutive games? Mentally, he was strained, just as Roger Maris was when he hit more home runs than anyone else in a single season. No disrespect to baseball players, but the fact that Babe Ruth -- who many consider the best baseball player to ever live -- could knock off a fifth of vodka every night during the season shows the level of physical commitment needed in baseball is a joke compared to what's physically required of Phelps, who burned as many calories each day during his quest as a marathoner does. What DiMaggio and Ruth did was a power walk.
Skill sport versus endurance sport. Again, if you think endurance is all that matters, then skill can’t win. The best athlete ever would be some ultramarathoner or triathlete.
How can you definitively say that Michael Phelps is a better athlete than Carl Lewis? Lewis dominated in sprinting various distances as well as long-jumping. He was, at one point, the fastest human in history and he also won Gold in long-jumping at 4 consecutive Olympics. Being a great athlete is more than endurance or speed. Some of the fastest people I’ve met happened to suck at team sports that require coordination, like basketball or baseball.
This is off-the charts in terms of piss poor, unenlightened analysis.
Tiger Woods, the best golfer in the world, won a major championship with a torn ACL. Phelps couldn't even dream of doing the same.
Because...his sport....is not...like golf?? Swimming is all the sudden the only sport that one can compete in to become the greatest athlete ever. Isn’t that pretty much what she’s saying?
Besides, is Tiger as dominant in golf as Phelps is in swimming?
Same. It’s harder for the best golfer to win every tournament than it is for the best swimmer to win every race. There is so much different here, it’s not even funny.
What if every golf tournament was played between 8 golfers? Imagine Tiger’s record then. What if every swimming race, Phelps had to beat like 40 other swimmers? What if instead of the race being a back and forth of continuous laps, Phelps had to get out of the pool after ever 2 laps, and gather his thoughts about the swim he just had, then all the swimmers lined up and he had to go through all the mental preparation for the next set of laps and do it again? What if he had to do this for 18 sets, for four straight days, against 40 or so swimmers? Do you think he’d win every tournament, as Hill seems to want Woods to do in order to be his equal? SEE HOW GOLF IS DIFFERENT FROM SWIMMING? Jemele Hill does not.
No way.
Fuck you.
Ask yourself this: Whose field is tougher? Tiger's or Phelps'?
Like you know a god damn thing about Phelp’s “field”. You, like me, watch swimming every four years and know exactly what Rowdy Gaines tells you, and little else.
Since Tiger shut down his season because of his knee injury, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh have spent his absence out-choking each other. But Phelps has had to beat Ian Crocker, Ryan Lochte and Laszlo Cseh in Beijing - all of whom were world-record holders.
They are world record holders because of the crazy swimsuits being used (also, something about faster pools). They are quickly breaking each other’s records. It’s sort of silly, really.
Phelps is beating his competition in their individual specialties. Imagine if Kobe Bryant sang a better national anthem than Marvin Gaye, or if Alex Rodriguez dunked better than Dwight Howard.
Folks, I say this often, but that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever read from Jemele Hill. IMAGINE IF....Kobe Bryant could sing like Marvin Gaye!
Why is it up to Alex Rodriguez to be anything more than a baseball player to be one of the best athletes ever? We're not asking Phelps to be anything more than a swimmer. Imagine if Michael Phelps hit better than Alex Rodriguez? Why is it that team sport athletes need to be better in other sports entirely, but Phelps just has to be a great swimmer at different swimming disciplines. Carl Lewis beat the best sprinters and the best long-jumpers. Both of those are often separate specialties, moreso than swimming frontwards versus swimming backwards.
Many Baseball players are great at hitting, fielding and baserunning. Are these not more varied disciplines using different tools and skills than the breast stroke, freestyle or the butterfly? I say….who knows...but I’m more open minded than Jemele.
Wayne Gretzky, hockey's greatest scorer, collected 2,857 career points -- over 21 years. In two Olympics, the 23-year-old Phelps became the most decorated Olympian ever.
So Gretzky’s accomplishments are invalidated from this argument because they took 21 years to achieve. This makes no sense. Phelps has had more opportunity! They award a fuckload of medals in swimming, how is this not clear? The most medals Kobe Bryant can win? 1. The most Shawn Johnson can win? 6. Phelps has done a monumentally impressive thing but please, calm the fuck down.
Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game is nice, but not more difficult than setting a world record in six consecutive, grueling events, including winning two golds in one day.
Why not? Oh, you’re done.
All I’ll say is this; World records fall every freaking race it seems, and no one is dropping 100 points in an NBA game ever again.
Lance Armstrong's seven straight Tour de France titles probably comes the closest to matching Phelps. But it's impossible to be confident in Armstrong's achievements because he dominated one of the dirtiest professional sports in the world. Even if you believe Armstrong was completely clean, he essentially is doing just one thing. Phelps is proficient in four different strokes, at different distances.
So we get to act like Phelps is some multi-sport dynamo because they are different strokes? Is he the only swimmer swimming different strokes at different distances? Nope. Also, if we get to assume Armstrong was clean, as you say, then isn’t it more impressive that he so dominated a dirty sport? Aren't the different tour stages at different distances?
Football feats also don't measure up.
Because they are different sport??????HMMMM?!!!??!?!?!?!?!?
Not Emmitt Smith's NFL-best 18,355 career rushing yards or Tom Brady's single-season record of 50 touchdown passes.
What about them?
Brett Favre is considered by some to be the greatest passer ever, but he also holds the all-time record for interceptions.
This is interesting, how?
Would Phelps even be in consideration for greatest athletic achiever if he lost nearly as many races as he'd won?
No Olympic swimmer has lost nearly as many races as they’d won. That’s why they are in the fucking Olympics. But good point. I mean, Michael Jordan missed thousands of shots! What’s up with that? I’m pretty sure Barry Bonds used to make outs. Michael Phelps never struck out while swimming!
Think about it, the crux of her argument is something like this:
The best athlete must be the athlete with the most endurance AND
The best athlete must have varied skills, such as swimming different ways AND
All skills within team sports are vaguely classified under the skill of “playing sport X well”, therefore they are not as versatile as swimmers AND
I love Michael Phelps so I’m just saying whatever crap I can to support my argument!
Television commentators are comparing Phelps to an actual fish, or an amphibian. When we think of the greatest athletes ever, fish aren't usually what comes to mind. But with Phelps, all conventional thinking goes out the window.
Television commentators are dumb. Let’s rephrase:
Dummies are comparing Phelps to an actual fish, or amphibian, because he swims awesomely and is the flavor of the month. When we think of greatest athlete ever, smart people know that you can’t compare team sport athletes to individual sport athletes across eras. But with my terrible analysis of Phelps, you’ll notice that I’m incapable of thinking rationally and doing legitimate analysis.
This is long enough, let’s just jump right in.
What's an athlete?
One who competes in an exercise activity or sport at some level above terrible. I’m an athlete.
Just to warn you, I’m about to waste a lot of both of our time parsing this bullshit column. I should probably just avoid it.
Who's an athlete?
Like hundreds of millions of people.
What's mental toughness?
I’ll loosely define mental toughness as the ability to sustain focus and execute at a high level in the face if adversity and/or pressure. What’s with the fucking quiz to start the column?
What are limits?
I’ll defer to your nearest fifth grader to define limits.
What is greatness?
Well I'm tired already. What is a moronic way to open a column?
Lance Armstrong's seven Tour de France victories in a row. Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. Wilt Chamberlain's 100 points. The Tiger Slam.
Yes? Those are “great” things in the context of athletic achievement.
We thought we knew those answers before Michael Phelps. But now that we've witnessed Phelps win eight gold medals, it turns out we didn't know anything.
Fuck that, I’m wicked smart. I know lots of stuff. You don’t know anything, but I already knew that. You’re just catching up with me Jemele.
Forget your previous notions. Forget other things you've seen from the other world's best athletes. What Phelps has done is as remarkably different as God giving us the sun one day and the seas the next.
I’m getting down right giddy about how she’s going to explain why 8 Gold Medals from Michael Phelps is more impressive than Lance Armstrong winning 7 straight Tours after beating cancer.
Because it’s not. At least not in any clear way.
But his greatest achievement at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing isn't the gold medals, or breaking Mark Spitz's 1972 record for most golds at a single Games. Phelps has changed the way we think about sport.
Yeah, he’s made me say: “What the fuck, there are a ton of chances to win medals if you’re a swimmer!” If you are the very best female gymnast in the world, and you dominate every apparatus and have very good teammates, you can have a flawless Olympics and you’ll win, at best, 6 Golds. I would argue that a gymnast who has mastered all 4 apparatus to that level is more impressive than Phelps, but she would not be able to compete in terms of medal count.
What Usain Bolt did in his one 100 Meter final damn impressive by itself even though it's "only" 1 record. That one gold/record, to me, carries the weight of a few swimming gold medals. Everyone can run. Rich, poor, whatever. Not everyone grows up with the access that Michael Phelps had to swimming and coaching. Bolt ran the fastest 100 ever and was celebrating with 15 meters left. Sprinters have to come out of like 3-4 prelims just to make the medal round. There’s a definite risk of fatigue or injury.
Phelps has redefined athletics, and athleticism.
Nope.
He has returned us to the ancient, Olympic ideal.
Legend says Zeus' son, Hercules, created the Olympic Games after completing 12 labors over 12 years. Some of Hercules' tasks included having to bring back a three-headed dog from hell and retrieve golden apples that promised eternal life.
This is relevant how?
For Phelps, it was completing 17 races in eight days and amassing seven world records. As the Hercules myth spells out, the Games' origins are rooted in endurance. That is why we must consider Phelps' achievements in these Olympics as the greatest athletic feat ever accomplished.
Woah woah woah. Woah.
Woah.
Let’s simplify this little bit of knowledge that Jemele has dropped on us and see if it makes sense.
The Olympics are about endurance, therefore Phelps’ winning 8 gold medals is the greatest athletic feat ever accomplished.
Isn’t that thinking a tad narrowly? Why is athletic accomplishment only relevant in the Olympics? Why does some ancient myth about what the Olympics are about determine what kind of athletic accomplishment is the best ever?
Back in ancient times all the kruglidites of super happy land defined the best athletes as those who could accurately strike small objects with curved sticks. Therefore, Tiger Woods is the best athlete ever.
It's not just about what he has done. It's about what he has endured.
That’s true, Lance Armstrong does not have the endurance that Michael Phelps does. Neither do those ultra-marathoners. Neither do Ironman triathletes, who swim like 2+ miles in the Ocean, bike 112 miles and then run a full marathon in the Hawaiian heat.
Endurance should be the key element that distinguishes greatness. What did Jordan endure when he won six NBA titles? Did he push his body to the limits Phelps has? Not even close.
If your measure of athletic greatness is limited to endurance, then you can throw out virtually all team-sport athletes. I think this is retarded. How many basketball games did Jordan play at an absurdly high level on his way to 6 championships? Like 600? Ha! Trivial!
How much endurance does it take to land some crazy ass vault like a gymnast, or to do some flips on a balance beam? Clearly not Michael Phelps’ level endurance, but can’t those athletic achievements be just as impressive? Is every marathoner a better athlete than every basketball player, football player, gymnast, etc. ever? HOW DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE?
What if an athlete existed that could long-jump 40 feet. 10+ feet further than anyone, ever. This same athlete could also hit cleanup for the Yankees and hit 75 homeruns and kick a football 85 yards with precision under NFL pressure. But all definitions of being an endurance athlete, this superhuman would fail to be a better athlete than Michael Phelps. SEE HOW THIS MAKES NO SENSE?
Of course, no one is disputing Jordan wasn't the best basketball player in the world, but Jordan's flu game couldn't compete with Phelps, who had a week's worth of flu games at the Olympics.
That’s a double negative, dingbat. You’re saying that Jordan was undisputedly not the best basketball player in the world. Who says Jordan’s “flu game” is his best athletic achievement? Why did Phelps have a week’s worth of flu games? What?
See, here's the thing: Jordan was sick. The Jazz were not sick. Phelps was not swimming under different conditions than the other swimmers. So he didn't have a week's worth of flu games. If all the Utah Jazz were also playing "flu games", then you'd have a point.
And it must be pointed out that Jordan, who ESPN SportsCentury named the greatest athlete ever, isn't even the biggest winner in his sport. Phelps is.
Again, this is poor sentence structure. To me, you just made it sound like Phelps is the biggest winner in Jordan’s sport. You can’t compare an NBA player to an Olympic swimmer.
And what did Joe DiMaggio's body endure when he hit in 56 consecutive games? Mentally, he was strained, just as Roger Maris was when he hit more home runs than anyone else in a single season. No disrespect to baseball players, but the fact that Babe Ruth -- who many consider the best baseball player to ever live -- could knock off a fifth of vodka every night during the season shows the level of physical commitment needed in baseball is a joke compared to what's physically required of Phelps, who burned as many calories each day during his quest as a marathoner does. What DiMaggio and Ruth did was a power walk.
Skill sport versus endurance sport. Again, if you think endurance is all that matters, then skill can’t win. The best athlete ever would be some ultramarathoner or triathlete.
How can you definitively say that Michael Phelps is a better athlete than Carl Lewis? Lewis dominated in sprinting various distances as well as long-jumping. He was, at one point, the fastest human in history and he also won Gold in long-jumping at 4 consecutive Olympics. Being a great athlete is more than endurance or speed. Some of the fastest people I’ve met happened to suck at team sports that require coordination, like basketball or baseball.
This is off-the charts in terms of piss poor, unenlightened analysis.
Tiger Woods, the best golfer in the world, won a major championship with a torn ACL. Phelps couldn't even dream of doing the same.
Because...his sport....is not...like golf?? Swimming is all the sudden the only sport that one can compete in to become the greatest athlete ever. Isn’t that pretty much what she’s saying?
Besides, is Tiger as dominant in golf as Phelps is in swimming?
Same. It’s harder for the best golfer to win every tournament than it is for the best swimmer to win every race. There is so much different here, it’s not even funny.
What if every golf tournament was played between 8 golfers? Imagine Tiger’s record then. What if every swimming race, Phelps had to beat like 40 other swimmers? What if instead of the race being a back and forth of continuous laps, Phelps had to get out of the pool after ever 2 laps, and gather his thoughts about the swim he just had, then all the swimmers lined up and he had to go through all the mental preparation for the next set of laps and do it again? What if he had to do this for 18 sets, for four straight days, against 40 or so swimmers? Do you think he’d win every tournament, as Hill seems to want Woods to do in order to be his equal? SEE HOW GOLF IS DIFFERENT FROM SWIMMING? Jemele Hill does not.
No way.
Fuck you.
Ask yourself this: Whose field is tougher? Tiger's or Phelps'?
Like you know a god damn thing about Phelp’s “field”. You, like me, watch swimming every four years and know exactly what Rowdy Gaines tells you, and little else.
Since Tiger shut down his season because of his knee injury, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh have spent his absence out-choking each other. But Phelps has had to beat Ian Crocker, Ryan Lochte and Laszlo Cseh in Beijing - all of whom were world-record holders.
They are world record holders because of the crazy swimsuits being used (also, something about faster pools). They are quickly breaking each other’s records. It’s sort of silly, really.
Phelps is beating his competition in their individual specialties. Imagine if Kobe Bryant sang a better national anthem than Marvin Gaye, or if Alex Rodriguez dunked better than Dwight Howard.
Folks, I say this often, but that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever read from Jemele Hill. IMAGINE IF....Kobe Bryant could sing like Marvin Gaye!
Why is it up to Alex Rodriguez to be anything more than a baseball player to be one of the best athletes ever? We're not asking Phelps to be anything more than a swimmer. Imagine if Michael Phelps hit better than Alex Rodriguez? Why is it that team sport athletes need to be better in other sports entirely, but Phelps just has to be a great swimmer at different swimming disciplines. Carl Lewis beat the best sprinters and the best long-jumpers. Both of those are often separate specialties, moreso than swimming frontwards versus swimming backwards.
Many Baseball players are great at hitting, fielding and baserunning. Are these not more varied disciplines using different tools and skills than the breast stroke, freestyle or the butterfly? I say….who knows...but I’m more open minded than Jemele.
Wayne Gretzky, hockey's greatest scorer, collected 2,857 career points -- over 21 years. In two Olympics, the 23-year-old Phelps became the most decorated Olympian ever.
So Gretzky’s accomplishments are invalidated from this argument because they took 21 years to achieve. This makes no sense. Phelps has had more opportunity! They award a fuckload of medals in swimming, how is this not clear? The most medals Kobe Bryant can win? 1. The most Shawn Johnson can win? 6. Phelps has done a monumentally impressive thing but please, calm the fuck down.
Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game is nice, but not more difficult than setting a world record in six consecutive, grueling events, including winning two golds in one day.
Why not? Oh, you’re done.
All I’ll say is this; World records fall every freaking race it seems, and no one is dropping 100 points in an NBA game ever again.
Lance Armstrong's seven straight Tour de France titles probably comes the closest to matching Phelps. But it's impossible to be confident in Armstrong's achievements because he dominated one of the dirtiest professional sports in the world. Even if you believe Armstrong was completely clean, he essentially is doing just one thing. Phelps is proficient in four different strokes, at different distances.
So we get to act like Phelps is some multi-sport dynamo because they are different strokes? Is he the only swimmer swimming different strokes at different distances? Nope. Also, if we get to assume Armstrong was clean, as you say, then isn’t it more impressive that he so dominated a dirty sport? Aren't the different tour stages at different distances?
Football feats also don't measure up.
Because they are different sport??????HMMMM?!!!??!?!?!?!?!?
Not Emmitt Smith's NFL-best 18,355 career rushing yards or Tom Brady's single-season record of 50 touchdown passes.
What about them?
Brett Favre is considered by some to be the greatest passer ever, but he also holds the all-time record for interceptions.
This is interesting, how?
Would Phelps even be in consideration for greatest athletic achiever if he lost nearly as many races as he'd won?
No Olympic swimmer has lost nearly as many races as they’d won. That’s why they are in the fucking Olympics. But good point. I mean, Michael Jordan missed thousands of shots! What’s up with that? I’m pretty sure Barry Bonds used to make outs. Michael Phelps never struck out while swimming!
Think about it, the crux of her argument is something like this:
The best athlete must be the athlete with the most endurance AND
The best athlete must have varied skills, such as swimming different ways AND
All skills within team sports are vaguely classified under the skill of “playing sport X well”, therefore they are not as versatile as swimmers AND
I love Michael Phelps so I’m just saying whatever crap I can to support my argument!
Television commentators are comparing Phelps to an actual fish, or an amphibian. When we think of the greatest athletes ever, fish aren't usually what comes to mind. But with Phelps, all conventional thinking goes out the window.
Television commentators are dumb. Let’s rephrase:
Dummies are comparing Phelps to an actual fish, or amphibian, because he swims awesomely and is the flavor of the month. When we think of greatest athlete ever, smart people know that you can’t compare team sport athletes to individual sport athletes across eras. But with my terrible analysis of Phelps, you’ll notice that I’m incapable of thinking rationally and doing legitimate analysis.
I Continue to Not be Impressed by Bill Plaschke
This is pretty late, but Bill Plashke’s column about the Men’s USA hoops team victory over China is good enough to read a little of if you feel like getting mad at something.
The title: Men's basketball: It was a billion to 1, and we did it
Not a good start when the title doesn’t make sense. China has over a billion people, got it, but the USA has 300 million. Also, “we” did nothing. YOU….ate a dick.
The U.S. men's team begins redeeming itself with an Olympic win led by a special K: Coach Mike Krzyzewski.
Special K. Awwww.
The first step was a stomp. The first greeting was a slap. The first words were sung with steals, stuffs and the angriest of slam dunks.
This opening is classic Bill Plaschke nonsense. The first greeting was a slap? Wha?
This wasn't a game, it was a star-spangled banger.
That wasn’t a pun; that was a god-awful pun.
Later:
The prettiest basketball country in the world returned to the Olympics and its roots Sunday with a 101-70 victory over a skilled team, a giant nation and an old stereotype.
Prettiest?
Later:
It has been tagged as the most selfish basketball nation on Earth, but the U.S. showed teamwork intensity normally not seen at any place other than, say, Duke University.
First, the US is totally the most selfish basketball nation in the world. Have you seen the AND1 tour bullshit? We have a league of people who are devoted to playing selfish, showboat basketball. Second: what is teamwork intensity?
What a difference a K makes.
I get it – that rhymed with “day”. Pretty clever!
Kobe Bryant, Wade, James, Howard…..nawwww….it’s all the coach. I could have coached them over China.
Four years ago, the U.S. team selfishly blew a gold medal for the first time since it began sending NBA players to the Olympics in 1992, raising the question of whether our stars had forgotten how to play the game we invented.
How did they selfishly blow it? That makes no sense. The way that sentence is written it implies that they lost in the Olympics for their own gain. They were the wrong guys, coached by the wrong man, given very little time to put together a cohesive team. Kryzewski has better personnel, who have played together, and he has a team that doesn’t expect to just show up and blow teams out, like the ’04 team did. That team was the perfect storm of circumstances that left the US ripe to get beaten.
Here's guessing Coach Mike Krzyzewski won't let them.
In case you’re just figuring it out, this column is all about Plaschke wishing it was Coach K’s dick he was eating.
Later:
Then there were the assists. Seven guys had them, maybe more guys than in all of 2004, the Americans poking and prodding and passing to all those nasty slams.
Seven guys had assists? This is meaningful? Eight guys on China’s team had assists. From what I can quickly discern, between 6 and 8 guys had assists in each of the 2004 games.
But other than that, right on!
The title: Men's basketball: It was a billion to 1, and we did it
Not a good start when the title doesn’t make sense. China has over a billion people, got it, but the USA has 300 million. Also, “we” did nothing. YOU….ate a dick.
The U.S. men's team begins redeeming itself with an Olympic win led by a special K: Coach Mike Krzyzewski.
Special K. Awwww.
The first step was a stomp. The first greeting was a slap. The first words were sung with steals, stuffs and the angriest of slam dunks.
This opening is classic Bill Plaschke nonsense. The first greeting was a slap? Wha?
This wasn't a game, it was a star-spangled banger.
That wasn’t a pun; that was a god-awful pun.
Later:
The prettiest basketball country in the world returned to the Olympics and its roots Sunday with a 101-70 victory over a skilled team, a giant nation and an old stereotype.
Prettiest?
Later:
It has been tagged as the most selfish basketball nation on Earth, but the U.S. showed teamwork intensity normally not seen at any place other than, say, Duke University.
First, the US is totally the most selfish basketball nation in the world. Have you seen the AND1 tour bullshit? We have a league of people who are devoted to playing selfish, showboat basketball. Second: what is teamwork intensity?
What a difference a K makes.
I get it – that rhymed with “day”. Pretty clever!
Kobe Bryant, Wade, James, Howard…..nawwww….it’s all the coach. I could have coached them over China.
Four years ago, the U.S. team selfishly blew a gold medal for the first time since it began sending NBA players to the Olympics in 1992, raising the question of whether our stars had forgotten how to play the game we invented.
How did they selfishly blow it? That makes no sense. The way that sentence is written it implies that they lost in the Olympics for their own gain. They were the wrong guys, coached by the wrong man, given very little time to put together a cohesive team. Kryzewski has better personnel, who have played together, and he has a team that doesn’t expect to just show up and blow teams out, like the ’04 team did. That team was the perfect storm of circumstances that left the US ripe to get beaten.
Here's guessing Coach Mike Krzyzewski won't let them.
In case you’re just figuring it out, this column is all about Plaschke wishing it was Coach K’s dick he was eating.
Later:
Then there were the assists. Seven guys had them, maybe more guys than in all of 2004, the Americans poking and prodding and passing to all those nasty slams.
Seven guys had assists? This is meaningful? Eight guys on China’s team had assists. From what I can quickly discern, between 6 and 8 guys had assists in each of the 2004 games.
But other than that, right on!
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Michael Phelps is Also 1406 Stolen Bases Behind Rickey Henderson
After another Michael Phelps (that swimmer guy swimming in that tournament in that foreign place) piece on Sportscenter, Matt Weinert lead into a comparison of Phelps to other winners in other sports with this little nugget:
“He’s certainly the standard for Olympians, but he hasn’t matched any of these great champions.”
They then go into a little montage to explain that Bill Russell won 11 NBA championships, Rocket Richard won 11 Stanley Cups, Yogi Berra 10 won World Series and Charles Haley won 5 Super Bowls.
What, the fuck, does that intro mean?
I mean, he won more gold medals than any of them? The total of his gold medals is greater than any of those numbers. He has not, in fact, played another professional sport – so you got me there.
“He’s certainly the standard for Olympians, but he hasn’t matched any of these great champions.”
They then go into a little montage to explain that Bill Russell won 11 NBA championships, Rocket Richard won 11 Stanley Cups, Yogi Berra 10 won World Series and Charles Haley won 5 Super Bowls.
What, the fuck, does that intro mean?
I mean, he won more gold medals than any of them? The total of his gold medals is greater than any of those numbers. He has not, in fact, played another professional sport – so you got me there.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
“I Don’t Know Where Angola is But They in Trouble”
I remember Charles Barkley uttering the line above (or something real close to it) before the 1992 Olympics. The “Dream Team” (feel free to use that), went on to sneak past Angola 116-48. That’s quite a whooping. Which is why I was surprised to read the following snapshot from today’s game summary of the US’s game against Angola:
The United States improved to 4-0 against Angola, starting with the Dream Team's Olympic debut in 1992. That romp is best remembered for Charles Barkley's elbow to an unsuspecting Angolan player in a 116-48 victory.
Angola went down almost as easily this time.
There’s other wording in the summary to describe how easily the US beat Angola. The final score was 97-76, or a 21 point win. Angola outscored the US in the fourth by 7 points to keep the margin down, so I’m sure it wasn’t even that close. But c’mon, the 1992 team won by 68 points! That was way way way easier. The 1992 team’s margin of victory would have been only 23 points (close to today’s game) if Angola had avoided the FORTY SIX TO ONE run the US team went on.
Yeah, so, there’s nothing interesting on the internet these days.
The United States improved to 4-0 against Angola, starting with the Dream Team's Olympic debut in 1992. That romp is best remembered for Charles Barkley's elbow to an unsuspecting Angolan player in a 116-48 victory.
Angola went down almost as easily this time.
There’s other wording in the summary to describe how easily the US beat Angola. The final score was 97-76, or a 21 point win. Angola outscored the US in the fourth by 7 points to keep the margin down, so I’m sure it wasn’t even that close. But c’mon, the 1992 team won by 68 points! That was way way way easier. The 1992 team’s margin of victory would have been only 23 points (close to today’s game) if Angola had avoided the FORTY SIX TO ONE run the US team went on.
Yeah, so, there’s nothing interesting on the internet these days.
Monday, July 28, 2008
Scoop Jackson and Whatnot
Scoop Jackson wrote about what a swell year 1998 was for Sports. The column included this paragraph:
Now think of the effect of that shot. That last one of Michael Jordan's true career, the end of the Bulls Era. (Note: The previous game -- the flu/food poison game -- is still considered by many as Jordan's greatest performance.)
Now think of how you, Scoop, Mr. NBA writer...former editor of Slam Magazine (I think)....didn't know the Flu game was game 5 of the '97 Finals, not '98. Seems minor, but any NBA writer would remember that the flu game was in Utah, as was game 6 of '98. So even if it's a typo on the year, he should have realized that they don't play game 5 and 6 in the same arena....in any round of the playoffs.
I've been working like 70 hours a week and neglecting my fantasy team, so I click a link on the yahoo page to check out some solid fantasy advice from Brad Evans.
Shrouded by Randy Johnson's hillbilly-sexy mullet, Eric Byrnes'medical record stacks and discarded tissues shed over Chris Snyder's originally-diagnosed-fractured-but-was-technically-bruised testicle is an underappreciated Snake that has slithered in the desert.
The pitcher poisonous reptile is Chad Tracy.
Brad Evans...you are trying way to hard. Like....10 x's too hard. You have an easy, bullshit job. Just tell me who to pick up.
Over the past three weeks, the corner infielder's swing has sizzled like the sweltering sun in the Sonoran sky.
Can't you just say: Pick up Chad Tracy, and then give me some stats? No? That's not "bringing the noise, yo", like only a 30 year old whiteboy can?
During that span he's hit safely in 13 of 17 games, hammering out 22 hits in 58 at-bats (.379 BA). His 14 RBIs, eight runs and eight extra-base hits in that stretch are equally impressive.
Hey! That's helpful.
Let's see what he has to say about Melvin Mora:
Mora has rampaged through opposing pitchers with Cal Ripken flair since the break. Injected with cortisone, and presumably the Iron Man's DNA, earlier this month.....
Injected with the "Iron Man's DNA" sounds kind of gay.
Now think of the effect of that shot. That last one of Michael Jordan's true career, the end of the Bulls Era. (Note: The previous game -- the flu/food poison game -- is still considered by many as Jordan's greatest performance.)
Now think of how you, Scoop, Mr. NBA writer...former editor of Slam Magazine (I think)....didn't know the Flu game was game 5 of the '97 Finals, not '98. Seems minor, but any NBA writer would remember that the flu game was in Utah, as was game 6 of '98. So even if it's a typo on the year, he should have realized that they don't play game 5 and 6 in the same arena....in any round of the playoffs.
I've been working like 70 hours a week and neglecting my fantasy team, so I click a link on the yahoo page to check out some solid fantasy advice from Brad Evans.
Shrouded by Randy Johnson's hillbilly-sexy mullet, Eric Byrnes'medical record stacks and discarded tissues shed over Chris Snyder's originally-diagnosed-fractured-but-was-technically-bruised testicle is an underappreciated Snake that has slithered in the desert.
The pitcher poisonous reptile is Chad Tracy.
Brad Evans...you are trying way to hard. Like....10 x's too hard. You have an easy, bullshit job. Just tell me who to pick up.
Over the past three weeks, the corner infielder's swing has sizzled like the sweltering sun in the Sonoran sky.
Can't you just say: Pick up Chad Tracy, and then give me some stats? No? That's not "bringing the noise, yo", like only a 30 year old whiteboy can?
During that span he's hit safely in 13 of 17 games, hammering out 22 hits in 58 at-bats (.379 BA). His 14 RBIs, eight runs and eight extra-base hits in that stretch are equally impressive.
Hey! That's helpful.
Let's see what he has to say about Melvin Mora:
Mora has rampaged through opposing pitchers with Cal Ripken flair since the break. Injected with cortisone, and presumably the Iron Man's DNA, earlier this month.....
Injected with the "Iron Man's DNA" sounds kind of gay.
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