Tim Keown. Yep, That's About It.

Everyone don't forget to make your College Football Pick 'Em choices and Yahoo Fantasy Football rosters for this weekend. I am hopeless in both leagues.

Before I get to the Tim Keown article for the day, I need to focus on another piece of semi-journalism that was bad...my own. It's Friday and I can do what I want. Towards the end of the Bill Simmons mailbag Tuesday I threw in a little screed against the Maryland basketball team and I really should edited that part out because it was useless. I started this blog to talk about sports and bad journalism, aiming to do so in one post that both talked about sports and mocked bad sportswriters. I didn't intend on ever cheering for my favorite teams or railing against my least favorite teams, but I broke my own self imposed rule on Tuesday (not that Maryland is one of my least favorite teams, that's not true). I was in a very pissy mood when I wrote that post because of various events going on at work, think about "Office Space" except dumber, and ended up writing something that I myself would make fun of...so I will.

How about a framed picture of the Maryland Terrapin men’s basketball team picture from 2004-2005 to 2008-2009 when the teams had a record of 102 wins and 63 losses, 3 NIT appearances, not getting past the second round in the NCAA Tournament?

Oh, tough shot there, especially coming from a Duke fan whose team has underachieved for say...............the last 4-5 years.

Maryland fans are great, many of them talk a lot of shit, but some like Rob here neglect to look at the fact they haven’t won a game against the team they are talking junk about since February 28, 2007.

2007 was 2 years ago and the Terps have played Duke 5 times since then. It's not like the turn of the century was when Maryland last beat Duke.

This from the same crowd that said they had sex with J.J. Redick’s sister, who was all of 11 or 12 years of age at the time.

As opposed to a Duke crowd of Cameron Crazies, who are really no crazier than any other crowd, they just cheer in a smaller venue, are closer to the court and get a lot more publicity than many other college basketball crowds. The Cameron Crazies have said the following (just off the top of my head):

1. Chanted "A-I-D-S" to Juan Dixon because his parents died of this disease.
2. Chanted "Phil Ford's wife" to Ed Cota because there was rumors he slept with Phil Ford's wife. 3. They held up a sign that said "J.R. 'Can't' Read," which led to Dean Smith pulling the SAT scores of Smith v. Danny Ferry into the public and defending his player.
4. Annoyingly wave their hands on in-bounds plays.

Let's just say they are easily the most annoying group of fans in college basketball so Maryland fans have a long way to go to match them.

The crowds at the men's basketball games have made an entire reputation out of being bitter and angry people. It’s what they are known for in the ACC.

Partially because no media establishment dares to insult Duke's crowd for being vulgar.

I am just kidding Rob from College Park, Maryland. I wish Maryland the best of luck in the NIT this year.

Smug alert! I see Maryland as being around 3rd or 4th in the ACC this year (like Go does), which would most likely put them in the NCAA Tournament. Now that I am done insulting myself, let me bring up some good points Maryland fan "Go" brought up in the comments.

Come on Ben. You of all people to repeat the hyperbole of the basketball media, "MD fans are the meanest."

Like I said, I didn't start this blog to take cheap shots constantly at teams. All my cheap shots are shorter comments and should be based somewhat in the truth (i.e. my smart ass comment the Cowboys haven't won a playoff game since 1996...try to ignore the "Tony Romo looks retarded" tag because that is more of an opinion). I am better than buying into the media's infatuation with putting up the Maryland crowds as the meanest in college basketball.

I'd rather be apart of our fan base who can be really funny and creative such as http://www.deaconarchive.net/image/opponents/2.jpg than to be a Cameron Crazy dork with their lame chants and antics. The students pass cheer sheets around before games.

The Cameron Crazies do a great job of cheering but they really can be dorks. I sometimes cringe when they are shown on television.

Two things I hate the most about being a Duke fan:

1. The Cameron Crazies- I know this doesn't make me popular among Duke fans. I like the energy they provide and the fact they ALWAYS show up and make noise. I don't like the fact they do pass around cheer sheets and frankly seem like the kind of people I didn't speak to in college (this is where I get an angry email/comment from a Cameron Crazie questioning my loyalty).

2. The hype- I like the fact they are always on television but way too often the team gets overpraised, which leads to the team being in the crosshairs of every semi-casual fan like Bill Simmons. These people tend to take cheap shots against Duke, like Bill does, as if it is indoctrinated his their DNA to do this...but it's all because the media LOVES them some Duke so while they are cheap shots against Duke, they are a response to the media loving Duke. I still hate it when Bill Simmons knocks Duke because he is just doing it because he is trying to be funny and it is cool to knock Duke. If you don't follow a sport closely, it sounds stupid to try and mock one of the teams in that sport because it just seems like you are following the crowd.

All schools' fan bases, including Md's, do dumb and vulgar things.

Absolutely true. I know I am being pathetic right now in apologizing but I don't want to use this blog as my sounding board for listing out the teams I hate, even though I don't hate Maryland. It is pretty easy to probably figure the teams I don't like, but that doesn't mean I need to annoy everyone with my angry drivel.

In fact, I think I have defended Gary Williams on this blog on a few occasions because he coaches his ass off and it isn't his fault the team stunk in the early part of last year.

So I was stupid to get all worked up and start taking extended cheap shots at Maryland, especially when my favorite college basketball team's fans are worse than Maryland's and I am sorry for wasting space with it.

-Tim Keown take his "You aren't good enough to date my daughter" scowl and directs towards several topics, including six man crews in the MLB playoffs.

The biggest and most unnecessary affectation in sports is baseball's insistence on a six-man umpiring crew for the postseason.

Affectation: the act of taking on or displaying an attitude or mode of behavior not natural to oneself or not genuinely felt

I don't know if I would call the six man crew the biggest or most unnecessary affectation, but I would call it not really that harmful to the MLB playoffs for sure. It's one of those situations where it's not going to hurt the game currently being played to have two extra guys on the field, so it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things...unless something goes wrong, in which case it is the biggest abomination in the history of sports in the eyes of some.

I'm trying to think of an instance in the past 30 years when someone said, "That was a great call. Good thing they had umpires standing in the outfield or they would have missed that one." I'm still thinking … nope. None.

Just like people in a restaurant rarely call the manager over to tell him/her the food was excellent, people watching a baseball game only notice the umpiring if it is bad because the expectation is that it will be good. I never sit and watch a game thinking, "Man these guys are calling balls and strikes correctly and the umpire really had his positioning down to make sure he saw the fielder's foot on the base for the double play correct as well," because it is their job...so I expect the calls to be right. We as Americans only notice things when things go wrong, that tends to be our nature. The same thing goes here. Tim Keown doesn't notice the good umpiring because it is their job to umpire the game correctly and when this expectation is met, no one notices.

But I can think of one call (other than the Jeffrey Maier/Derek Jeter/Tony Tarasco fiasco) that was botched that would have been made correctly if there were only four umpires:

Dear Pure Speculation and Unproveable Statements,

Tim Keown invites you to join the discussion on whether there should be six umpires calling a MLB playoff game. You will be our only guests, Common Sense and Actual Proof are not invited to join the discussion.

Sincerely,
Tim Keown's Editor

It was one of those calls that was so wrong, you didn't even need to see a replay.

Holy shit, the call was wrong! Let's change all major league baseball rules and eliminate all human elements involved with the game because we just realized humans are fallible and won't always get every call on the field correct, even if there are 10,000 umpires on the field.

I have no problem with robots making the calls on the field, including calling balls and strikes. I prefer the human element but if robots would work to call games, I would be fine with this happening. Until robots become the umpires, we are going to have to deal with the umpires in a baseball game missing a call because of human error. It happens, deal with it.

So how can I be sure it would have been made correctly by the third-base umpire?

You absolutely can not be sure of this, so the only way you can be sure is to lie and say there IS a way you could be sure.

There's no guarantee, of course -- but I can say it would have been made correctly,
Glad to hear Tim can't guarantee the call would have been made correctly by the third-base umpire but he is still sure it would have been made correctly if there had only been a third-base umpire.

because I've never seen a foul-line call that bad before in years and years of watching way too much baseball.

Oh...........So the fact Tim Keown has personally never seen a foul-line call this bad is proof the third base umpire, who would not have had as good of a look at the ball landing as the LF umpire who blew the call, would have gotten the call absolutely correct. So we basically just need to trust Tim Keown's memory and ability to hyperbolize this as the worst foul-line call he has ever seen and this trust we have in him is proof the call would have been made correctly by a four man umpire crew, so six man umpiring crews are harmful to the game of baseball. Got all that?

It's a matter of sheer probability -- the third-base umpire would have taken four steps out and made the right call.

Actually this is a matter of sheer opinion. A matter of sheer probability is that the LF umpire would get this call correct (let's say) 99 out of 100 times, but he missed this one, so the probability is that the LF umpire would get the call correct 99 more times before he missed another one. THAT is a matter of sheer probability. The third-base umpire could have easily had missed the call as well. Probability wise, if there is a missed call on a play like this 1 out of 100 times, the third base umpire in a four man crew is subject to these same probabilities as a LF umpire in a six man crew.

I think I am rambling.

Maybe Cuzzi was too close.

Maybe the idea an umpire needs to be further away from the action to be more accurate is stupid. If this were correct the home plate umpire would call balls-and-strikes from the broadcasting booth.

Maybe being positioned in the outfield for two or three games a year creates an unfamiliar situation -- by definition they're out of position.

This is still a stupid reason. The LF umpire was maybe 20-30 feet further up than he usually would be on that play if he were the third-base umpire, it's not a completely different angle that should mess an umpire up on a consistent basis. In fact, this is the first time I can recall a six man umpire crew missing a foul-line call.

Naturally the tendency is to completely overreact to the situation and make this one exception of a missed call override the innumerable other correct calls that have been made by LF umpires in the playoffs, leading us to believe a six-man crew is useless based on this one example.

Whatever -- it's unnecessary, and aside from the extra pay, it's unfair to the umpire.

It is unnecessary to have a six man crew in the playoffs but it doesn't really take anything away from the game and I don't think it has an effect on the quality of the umpiring. It was a horrible call, but we can't take this one missed call and completely overreact to it.

Phil Cuzzi made a horrible call. Did it make the difference in the series anymore than Punto's base running mistake, Gomez's base running mistake, or Joe Nathan blowing a save? Probably not. It doesn't make sense to have six umpires for a playoff game because four could handle it efficiently but I don't know what the problem with having two extra sets of eyes on the field would be. Missed calls are going to happen and an umpire's own personal strike zone has as much more, if not more, to do with the outcome of a given playoff game than any other umpiring mistake in general does.

I am not saying having 2 extra umpires in the playoffs is smart or adds anything, but I also don't think it takes away from the games either. I don't think having two extra sets of eyes caused this to be a bad call, I think it was just a ball call caused by human error. If MLB could increase the accuracy of the calls on the field, I think that would be a preferable policy, but until that point comes we are going to have to accept that human error occurs on the field from time to time.

Tim then jumps to different topics but he is in no way done being wrong.

Jeff Fisher is one of the best coaches in the NFL, regardless of what his team's record is right now...But Collins is about done, and Jeff Fisher has to make a concession at some point -- the season is lost no matter who is your quarterback, but it might not be totally lost if it can be used to resurrect Vince Young.

A part of me says that Vince Young can provide the team a different voice in the huddle and also has the ability to scramble that would keep a defense on its heels. Really, what can it hurt at this point? Another part of me says, "it's Vince Young, he lost the job to Kerry Collins for a myriad of reasons, the least of which was his performance, what makes you think he actually could do any better?" I am leaning towards keeping Young on the bench if I were Jeff Fisher. I don't know if the Titans team has confidence in Young after last year and most of all, the Titans would probably have to change the offense around a little to build it to Young's strengths, which can be a good thing and a bad thing (for the passing game).

Most of all, I still wonder why everyone was fooled that Kerry Collins was so great last year.

-Even though I was wrong about the Divisional round of MLB's playoffs it's not going to stop me from making predictions for the NLCS and the ALCS. What I don't get is why MLB scheduled a Friday 4:00pm NLCS game after a Thursday 8pm NLCS game and then there is only one game on Saturday and Sunday, when the majority of people can watch the games. I know this is the way the schedule works for reasons I am not privy to, but I am under the impression it makes more sense to get as big of an audience for the game as possible, so scheduling games in the middle of the afternoon on a Friday may not be the best choice, just like scheduling only one game per day during the weekend doesn't seem smart to me. I know college football and the NFL both take place on Saturday and Sunday but I still think there may be a bigger audience for a 4pm and 8pm doubleheader during the weekend. I could be wrong.

(Note: I originally wrote these predictions Wednesday afternoon)

NLCS prediction: Philadelphia 4-2

I know predicted against the Dodgers last round and they obliterated the Cardinals 3-0, while the Phillies had to struggle a little bit to beat the Rockies, but I still feel like the Phillies are the team to beat in the National League. I simply don't believe the Dodgers have the pitching to beat the Phillies hitters. There is no real hole in the top 6 of the Phillies lineup, so there is no way to walk one of the Phillies better hitters and expect great success, like the Dodgers did with Pujols. I don't trust Cole Hamels as much as I wish I could, but I trust him to keep the Phillies in the game, while I am not exactly sure what to think about the Dodgers starting pitching. Wolf, Padilla, Billingsley, and Kershaw underwhelm me a bit. It's not like the Dodgers have a ton of holes in their lineup top-to-bottom, but I think the Phillies lineup is stronger as is their pitching. Plus, I still want to see Brad Lidge try to close out a game in the World Series on the road with a ton of pressure on him.

I think every game of this series will be close, so I could easily see the Dodgers winning the series, but I feel more confident predicting the Phillies to win.

ALCS prediction: New York Yankees 4-3

I know I also predicted against the Los Angeles Angels last round and they also swept their Divisional series 3-0 against what I thought was a really good Red Sox team. I am actually torn on this prediction. I don't trust AJ Burnett and the Yankees benefitted from playing a Twins team that wasn't at full strength and made several baserunning blunders that put them out of games. I don't see the Angels making those same mistakes. I am also not 100% sure Joe Girardi knows how to use a bullpen and I could see Joba Chamberlain netting 1 1/3 innings with 6 appearances in this series and Rivera may end up pitching 20 innings total. I think a Yankees prediction to win the series is too easy simply because they get all the hype, but I am still going that way.

The natural inclination is to have an East Coast bias and say the Yankees are going to run over the Angels, but I don't think this could be true. I think this will be another close series, much like I think the NLCS will be close. The Angels have the starting pitching to keep up with the Yankees and will probably pitch more carefully to A-Rod and Tex in key situations than the Twins did. I like the RH middle of the Angels order with Hunter, Guerrero, and Morales but it just feels like this is the Yankees year. They are getting breaks from the umpires and timely hitting from their best hitters. My gut says the Yankees win this series.

-Peter King makes a quite bold statement on his Twitter:

@zachbaker74 : Peyton Manning will have to slide badly, or Colts would have to tank, for him to lose MVP at this point, barring a big upset.

Yes at this point in the season Peyton Manning is the MVP, but there have only been 5 weeks of NFL football this year. 5 total weeks of NFL football has been played, it's just a little bit early to say Peyton Manning will have to slide badly for him to lose the MVP at this point. What if Peyton Manning doesn't slide but Drew Brees just plays out of this world and the Saints go 14-2? Shouldn't he be an MVP candidate also? I wish Peter would leave his biases behind and not crown Peyton Manning the MVP quite yet.