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!

History Lessen for Bill Plaschke

Bill Plaschke has a Hi-Larious preview of the NBA finals, which could have been written by Bill Simmons if he had the restraint to be brief and not explain anything in tons of detail. In other words, it's not real analysis - it's just comparing peripheral stuff. One of the sections was in regards to which team's fanbase had the better "chant". Too funny right? That Plaschke.

Chant vs. Chant

In the early days of this championship rivalry, the Celtics fans invented the "Beat L.A." chant.

The Lakers will respond this week with a simple, "M-V-P, M-V-P."

The Boston chant is wish.

The Lakers chant is a reality.

The early days of the Celtics-Lakers rivalry were in the 1960’s. The “Beat LA” chant started in 1982. The chant was not directed at the Lakers, but instead at the Philadelphia 76ers, who were in the process of finishing off game 7 in Boston in the conference finals. The Lakers had already clinched the West.

The Boston fans had conceded defeat and sent the Philly players off with the message…. "Beat LA”. The Lakers beat Philadelphia, but Philly got them back in ’83.

Anyway – I think the Celtics fans should chant “DPOY!” and “EOY!” (Executive of the Year). That would totally rile people up. Knowing the Celtics fans, they’ll probably chant something about Kobe’s alleged hook-up with a Laker cheerleader, or even go into the vault and chant something about the rape trial. But that opens them up to some serious Paul Pierce stabbing, Ray Allen OCD, or Sam Cassell looking like Admiral Akbar chants in retaliation.

Cliffs Notes Version: Bill Plaschke on the Lakers Clinching the West

Same guy, same annoying, cutesy writing. Here is a trimmed down version of his column on the Lakers clinching the Western Conference.

From Finished to Finals.

From Loons to June.

From Shock to Awe.

No more punch lines, just punch…

No more laugh track, just tracks….

Whoever they play… the Lakers will not have home-court advantage.

But for the fourth time, they will have home-run advantage.

Nobody's season...

Nobody's season...

Last summer, remember, Bryant's prayer was that he leave everyone.

Now, his prayer is that everyone follow him.

How did this happen?

How did this happen?

If you don't think … then you haven't been watching.

If you don't think … then you haven't been listening.

So did the San Antonio Spurs. So did the rest of the NBA. So did we.

Now go read the column.

Done?

Didn’t you pretty much get the tone, style and point with 80+% of the words missing?

Bill Plaschke doesn’t like Pau Gasol Anymore

Bill Plaschke recently wrote these lines of poetry about Pau Gasol after game 1 of the playoffs. Well, now it’s crunch time (second round) and what happens? The big Spanish baby had a bad game. This is only half his latest column because I can only deal with so many one sentence paragraphs of fruity sportswriting.

Did you see the craziness of the video-game highlight, Kobe Bryant 2008, a toss against the backboard that he caught for a dunk?

Kobe Bryant 2008 is a “video-game highlight”? Huh? Anyway, yes, I saw that play.

Did you feel the floor burns of those three steals, Grand Theft Basketball 2008, consecutive heists in the final minutes?

So we’re working a video game theme I see. Plaschke, you creative dog. I hope there’s some Ikari Warriors worked into the conclusion.

Did you hear the Lakers come back from a 10-point deficit midway through the fourth quarter Friday night to silence the head-throbbing noise and nearly trash the best home court in basketball?

"We could have won this game," Lamar Odom said, shaking his head.

But the story was what you didn't see.

The moral was what you couldn't feel.

The outcome was due, in part, to what you could barely hear.

Could this guy be any more fucking full of himself?

paugasol.

Faced with the most intense, physical postseason game of his career, late-season giant Pau Gasol shrank to an indiscernible size in the Lakers' 104-99 loss to the Utah Jazz at EnergySolutions Arena.

With their first loss in seven postseason games, the Lakers weren't the only ones to reveal their spring mortality.

Gasol, a novice in these deeper waters, proved he also can sink.

Handed its first real test of June-worthiness, that great basketball brain flunked.

Faced with its first playoff adversity, that gentle smile became a whine.

Jarred for the first time with playoff desperation, those beautiful passes were junked.

I left that all in there, uninterupted, so that you can see the horrendousness of the prose.

Can you all say it with me?

JUST FUCKING SPIT IT OUT. Plaschke’s biggest fault is that he feels the need to say the same thing over and over again.

Instead of getting to the point, he stinks up the joint.

Thank you, thank you. I'll be on page 3 of LA Times Sports any time now.

And so forth. "It was loud," Gasol said. "It was intense."

Unacceptable! You aren’t suppose to feel intensity, or hear the crowd. You can only relax your calm eyes on the rim and sink jumper after jumper.

In his tired eyes you could see the confirmation of one more sentence.

No you couldn’t. You couldn’t see anything in his eyes. You’re making that up and using his eyes as some sort of literary device to make another faux poignant, obvious, crappy observation.

It was awful.

I hear you brother. I saw that in his eyes too.

For the first time in this postseason, Gasol did not dress in the crowded visiting locker area afterward, instead retrieving his clothes and dressing in a quieter spot in the back.

THAT, has meaning. I mean, like, wow! Right? Crazy shit. I mean, dressed in a quieter spot? There's so much going on there. I think that should be the name of Gasol's biography.

It was precisely that way in the game.

I know right. I mean, that was the meaning that I saw from it too. This is awesome. I’m thinking like Bill Plaschke now.

Did you notice Gasol sipping his coffee this morning with his pinky in the air? I see another flop in game 4.

Suddenly, if the Lakers aren't careful with their two-games-to-one lead, it could be that way for the rest of the summer.

I’m sorry, Bill? You lost me. It could be WHAT WAY? Like they were dressing in quiet spots instead of in the dressing room. All summer?

"I can do much better," Gasol acknowledged.

On that shot, he was perfect.

In a game in which Utah's two big men combined for 49 points, he scored 12.

Fucking failure. I mean – he should have hit so many more than 6 of his 10 shots.

In a game that featured 37 Lakers free throws, he didn't get to the foul line once.

It’s because he’s a giant passive pussy. I mean – he took 5 free throws a game in the regular season. Now he takes none. That can only be because he was afraid of getting hit like a little girly girl. What’s the matter – they don’t have hard fouls back in Spain? Go back to soccer you pussy.

No, wait. Knitting! Knit me a sweater “Pau-ssy”.

In a game that featured many touches in 40 minutes, he had just one assist.

Many touches! I hadn’t even realized that. Here I was, watching the game….and not noticing all of these non-assist creating touches.

Okay this got boring a while ago.

Why I Can't Stand Bill Plaschke

It's because of lines like this, in his latest column, about the Lakers game 1 win and, more specifically, Pau Gasol.

With his frumpy hair and delicate gait, sometimes he looked like a bird. With his long thin arms spread wide, other times he looked like a plane.

In the end, though, he looked like Super You-Know-Who, scoring 36 points with 16 rebounds to lead the Lakers to a 128-114 victory over the Nuggets in their first-round playoff opener.

Gee I didn't see where that was going.

It was a day of class, with Rick Fox bringing out the ball to start the game.

It was a day of crass, with some Lakers fans chanting, "D-U-I" when Carmelo Anthony shot his first free throws.

It was a day of sass, with Coach Phil Jackson, during pregame interviews, impulsively calling out Shaquille O'Neal for never getting his proper sleep during the playoffs.

But mostly, it was a day of Gas.

Hey! I get it! You RHYMED! How clever!!!!

I hate you.

Bill Plaschke Spins Some Nonsense

Bill Plaschke likes the Andruw Jones signing for a bunch of reasons. Let’s take a look:

Folks will complain because Jones, 30, is coming off the worst full season of his career, but every question has an answer.

I can’t argue with that. Was the Jones signing a good one? Probably not terrible since it's only for two years. Will Bill Plaschke have some good reasons? Probably not. Do I like Jello Pudding? Absolutely.

You say he had a bad summer? I say he still would have led the Dodgers in home runs (26) and runs batted in (94).

And he would have finished 9th in OPS+ among all Dodger hitters. That’s behind Wilson Betemit.

You say he's overpaid? I say that by giving him only a two-year deal, he's going to feel underpaid, and you know how hungry those guys get.

Last year he was so hungry that in his big-time, have-a-monster-year-and-get-huge-contract season of 2007 he turned in his worst performance to date. So that logic sucks.

You say he won't be any better than the combination of Kemp and Andre Ethier? I say, in a post-steroid-era season in 2006, he hit 41 homers with 129 RBIs, so get real.

So we’re not going to address how good Kemp will be? Just that Jones had a good year in 2006? How’d he do in 2007? Matt Kemp had an OPS of .894 last year, Jones had an OPS of .894 in the aforementioned 2006 season. Last year? Jones was at .724. Matt Kemp made about $400K. Ethier didn’t show Kemp’s potential but was still better than a league average hitter last year, Jones was not.

Since when is “so get real” an actual fucking point in a real argument?

You say that Lebron James is better than Kobe Bryant? Well Kobe Bryant scored 81 points in a game, so get real! What grade are we in?

You say it's silly to bring a power hitter to Dodger Stadium? OK, well, how about bringing a perennial Gold Glove winner to Dodger Stadium?

I say both statements are silly. The point that you made up (and then didn’t address) and the point you brought up. Yes, Jones is a good fielder. If that’s what you care about, trade for Coco Crisp.

In acquiring Jones, the Dodgers are actually acquiring four players.

This is going to make a ton of sense. Four players worth of salary maybe. But based on last year, he represents pretty much one average player.

His power allows them to give Andy LaRoche a long-awaited chance to win the job at third base.

Ahhhh I see…so having Andruw Jones allows the Dodgers to play Andy LaRoche over power hitting Nomar Garciaparra, who’ll have to take his 7 HR’s and 78 OPS+ to the bench. Andruw Jones should have nothing to do with third base.

His pedigree probably convinces Jeff Kent to return for one more run at a championship.

Now we are onto the hardcore evidence. Jones’ pedigree will convince Jeff Kent, who is “good”, not great, and is about 40 years old and proved to be clubhouse poison again last year to stick around (which is mildly odd because I thought LA had a club option on him).

His position lets Juan Pierre become Juan Pierre.

Yes, Jones playing CF instead of Juan Pierre is a big upgrade on many fronts, because Juan Pierre is an out-machine with a little girl arm. But, Bill, what the hell are you saying here? I don’t think it’s “lets Juan Pierre become Juan Pierre, bench player”, and that’s a problem.

No, no, the Dodgers will not and should not trade the short-armed center fielder. Just because he was overpaid doesn't mean he lacked value. Did everybody somehow miss that he was second in the league in stolen bases and led the league in sacrifice bunts?

That might be the most terrible paragraph (well, a Plaschke paragraph) of baseball analysis I’ve read in a while. How can you ever say a team shouldn’t trade a bad player with a bad contract? I mean, if they could give him away, they should. Nobody would want him though, because he LACKS VALUE. You try to trade him Bill, and tell me what kind of “value” you get back.

The other NL leaders in sacrifice hits were John Maine, Omar Vizquel, Aaron Cook, Jeff Francis, John Smoltz, Tom Glavine, Kyle Lohse, Wandy Rodriguez, and Ian Snell. Do you notice anything about the hitting prowess of these players? They are not good hitters (all but one is a pitcher). They sacrifice bunt a lot because their managers would rather them give up an out than give it the old college try. The fact that Juan Pierre led the league in sacrifices is not impressive and including that point as a positive is the ultimate in reaching for an argument. I mean, it’s a hitting category that he beat a bunch of pitchers in and that should tell you something.

The Dodgers need to keep Pierre's speed and bunting ability at the top of the order. Goodness, it's one of the reasons Jones agreed to play here. But at least now, Pierre can move to a safer left field and be viewed for what he is -- a complementary player.

The Dodgers don’t need to keep out-machine Juan Pierre at the top of the order for a variety of reasons, two of them being that he sucks and Rafael Furcal is also on the team at the top of the order, who was sort of inept last year too.

"I never said Juan Pierre is a franchise player," Colletti said. "He's a very good player on a winning team."

That statement makes zero sense. He’s only a good player on a winning team? So he’s only good if he’s surrounded by a ton of other good players? I suspect that’s Colletti’s perception, but he doesn’t realize that it’s the winning team that masks how bad Pierre is.

Four players in, one player out, and that player is either Kemp or Ethier, who are overcrowding right field.

If you’re keeping track. This is a summary of the math:

IN (+):
- Andruw Jones (duh) at $18 million per.
- Andy LaRoche (because now they can safely sit HR machine Nomar Garciapparra out, which we still don’t know if they’ll do. This should happen completely independent of who was in CF anyway.)
- Jeff Kent (because of Andruw Jones’ pedigree or some nonsense)
- Juan Pierre (he’s in somehow, even though Jones’ is taking his place in CF).

OUT (-):
Solid young player Andre Ethier or potential stud Matt Kemp, who have the nerve to overcrowd RF.

= Good signing. That's one loony equation. Andruw Jones for two years at that pay is a bit much, to me, but given Hunter's contract I think it's not a bad move for the Dodgers. But who would dig up these arguments? Bill Plaschke, that's who.

Garciaparra Content With His Suckiness This Year

The alternative title was: "Bill Plaschke Makes Sense in His Own Annoying Way"

Bill Plaschke’s latest work is a marathon of one-sentence paragraphs about Nomar Garciaparra’s offensive ineptitude this year. It includes some pretty standard, but difficult to believe, statements from Garciaparra and to Plaschke’s credit he sort of calls him on it. Large portions deleted to maintain your sanity.

Nomar Garciaparra welcomes you to his locker in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, same nice guy, different nice guy.

His smile is like his swing.

Huge but vacant. His voice is like his power. Once resounding, now soft.

I hate the way you write. Nomar’s power seems to be gone. His voice is soft too? What? Was his voice ever "powerful"? I say no.

In the middle of the strangest of Dodgers seasons, Nomar Garciaparra is the strangest of Dodgers.

He's there, but he's not.

I understand, but I don’t.

"I don't look at my stats, I never look at my stats," he says. "As long as we're winning, that's all I care about, nothing else."

Of course you care about winning, but how do you feel about helping the team win? Because your stats suggest that your team would be better if you were performing at least like an average big leaguer. Currently you sport a .274/.319/.332 line with an OPS+ of SEVENTY-TWO. You have fifteen extra base hits. Two home runs.

"This team is where we need to be right now, and that's all I'm concerned about," he says.

That’s just crazy. Let’s say, for a second, that I was awesome at this blogging thing. Like Firejoemorgan awesome. Lots of people visit the site. People love me (except Joe Morgan, presumably) and I get thousands of visitors a day. I do interviews. I’m in Sports Illustrated and life is sweet.

Then, I get writers block and I start sucking at blogging, like Goodguyatsports. I can’t do anything right, and I’m a shadow of my former self. Every day I get up wondering where it went, and if I still have the talent/skill to deliver like I used to. I should have had like another 4-5 years of solid blogging ahead of me. The other bloggers who I was once compared to (Derek Jeteblog and A-Blog), have won World Series (of blogging) rings or have dominated offensively blogging at historically awesome levels. I’m the guy who was traded for three other so-so bloggers who helped my old blog blog themselves to a blogging championshipblog. Blog.

If that’s me, I’m a little perturbed by that. I went from a potential hall-of-fame blogger to below average.

The Dodgers are in first place, indeed, but they are also in other places.

They are in a quandary if they go into September with a corner infielder who doesn't hit the ball any harder than the slap-hitting center fielder. Yeah, Garciaparra has become Juan Pierre without the speed.

Wow, “Juan Pierre without the speed” is the worst thing you can call a baseball player. Seriously. That’s like saying “he’s as valuable as David Ortiz without the bat” or “Johan Santana with his left arm amputated.”

"Hey, I had a year when I hit 35 homers and we didn't win anything, so how much fun is that?" he said.

Well you won 92 games and made the playoffs. And you remember your stats pretty well don’t you, for a guy who doesn’t pay attention to them (that was nine years ago)? How do you not understand that the team winning has little positive to do with you? You are not doing you’re job very well, and you’re lucky the team is winning in spite of you. That’s like a COO being so bad that they are demoted to mailroom clerk and saying, “it’s cool man, as long as the stock stays up.”

Surely this can't be much fun either.

At least Plaschke calls Nomar out on his thinking.

He doesn't wince when he is moved to third base because the Dodgers needed a stronger hitter at first base in James Loney.

"When I signed my contract, I told them I'd do whatever they needed, and I'm not going to change now," he says.

Okay, they need you to hit, not be so accepting of your suckiness.

He doesn't gripe when he is benched for Wilson Betemit, an occurrence that could become more common as the Dodgers seek more power.

"Whatever is best for the team, I'll do, that's always been how I feel," he says.

Nomar, this good guy attitude is cool, but they really just want you to hit the baseball away from fielders more and not slug .332.

When he's playing well, Garciaparra is the lovably quiet enigma. When he's struggling, he's just an enigma.

So he’s not “lovably quiet” now? But his voice is soft, like you said above? Huh? So he's quiet but not lovable? Never mind.

The Dodgers compute his age, watch his work habits and remain confident he can find himself before September finds him.

Now I know the Dodgers think sabermetrics is sort of hocus pocus, but I figured they were beyond “compute his age” stage in the ballgame. That makes me picture this scene at a Dodgers pre-draft meeting:

Scout: “Well you’re right Ned, that Joe Needlenose looks like a ballplayer.”
Ned Colletti: “Great!”
Scout: “He’s got a winning attitude, a stoney faced presence at the plate, especially with runners on and 2 strikes. The kids got grit.”
Ned Colletti: Puts snakeskin boots up on the table, folds arms behind his head. Let’s draft him, how old is he?”
Scout: “Let me get my calculathingy out and I’ll do an age computation. He’s 2007 minus 1987. That’s……..20."
Ned Colletti: “Perfect.”
Other Scout: “He does have a good attitude, but, well….he hasn’t drawn a walk since little league and all he hits are singles. His slugging and OBP are equal to his batting average, which is only .275.”
Ned Colletti: “Oh really? You don’t say. Well, you’re fired...... numbers boy.”

What they need to do now is face the truth that this player no longer exists.

Maybe his physical changes have finally robbed him of his power.

Maybe his years of fighting injuries have finally stolen some of his reflexes.

Maybe we'll never know.The only thing certain is, whoever this Garciaparra person is, he's gone, and the bewildered Dodgers miss him already.

Plaschke’s right, the demise of Nomar Garciaparra is rather curious. His career path reminds me vaguely of Don Mattingly’s, a player a liked watching growing up. They both had quick starts at the ages of 23-28, and hit an injury bug that seemed to drain their power before tailing off much earlier than expected. Neither walked much, but both were somewhat difficult to K. They both topped out with similar power numbers and had a career OPS+ of 127. They both played for flagship franchises and were supposed to lead them for a long time, but left somewhat prematurely without winning only to have their team win immediately after they left.

Your English Teacher Would Dislike Bill Plaschke

Bill Plaschke of the LA Times has a writing style that I can’t take very often. He could be writing about ME and I would tune him out after 7 one-sentence paragraphs. He also will throw in all these little cutesy statements that are supposed to be clever and/or give us a warm feeling. If you look here, you can see a good representation of his style. There is nothing particularly egregious as far as content goes, this is just his standard work.

A quick summary:
- 878 words
- 33 one sentence paragraphs. 33! His other paragraphs were just as short anyway.
- 40 paragraphs total.

This line:

We're so busy worrying about You Know Who lying, we are missing Ichiro flying, and Junior striding, and K-Rod nearly crying.

But were they all trying? I don’t know I was just eyeing. Larussa had an excuse for shying away from using Pujols in the ninth but I wasn’t buying, and who cares it was so long I was dying.

…and this line:

With Vladimir Guerrero winning the home run-hitting contest and Rodriguez earning the save, the two days were touched by Angels indeed.

Awwwwwwww.