Of all the things to bring me back to post something, it's an article by Ian O'Connor about Brock Osweiler. I don't have a strong opinion on O'Connor and really have no strong opinion on Osweiler either. Yet, here I am. Ian O'Connor thinks Osweiler made a mistake by leaving the Broncos. I think this is a ridiculous opinion knowing the facts as they happened.
1. Gary Kubiak only played Osweiler during the 2015 season when the Broncos' original starting quarterback, Peyton Manning, could not play due to injury.
2. As soon as Manning could play and Osweiler struggled, and remember Manning was a 39 year old noodle-armed quarterback at the time, Kubiak played Manning over Osweiler.
3. The Broncos didn't give Osweiler much consideration when he was a free agent, until the rumors he might leave started up and then they offered him $45 million over 3 years or 4 years at $64 million, depending on what you believe.
4. All indications are that Osweiler was "wanted" by the Broncos, but not really wanted. NFL teams are desperate for quarterbacks and so a young quarterback isn't treated like this if the organization REALLY thinks he's the long-term guy.
5. So Osweiler got $8 to $27 million and one more year (depending on what you believe) in a contract from the Texans, while the Broncos got to start Trevor Siemian over the guy they drafted in the first round, Paxton Lynch.
6. Indications {based on (a) how the Broncos kept Siemian around last year when they already had Manning and Osweiler and (b) this year started Siemian based solely on performance} are that if Osweiler came back to Denver, there is a chance he may not have even started. Clearly, Gary Kubiak likes Trevor Siemian.
But anyway, dumb move by Osweiler to get paid a lot of money and become a starter...or so says O'Connor. It's not like NFL players want to make as much money as possible and get playing time or anything. It's not like the NFL has non-guaranteed contracts either.
If success is determined only by the size of your bank account, then Brock Osweiler is your man.
Success for an NFL quarterback is determined (partially) by three things:
1. Size of your bank account.
2. How many Super Bowl trophies you have.
3. Individual awards you have received.
Though it's fun to ignore, Osweiler now has success with two of these three things. I would bet Ian O'Connor might get pissed off if ESPN decides they want to cut his pay. Or would he? Because he wouldn't want to be one of those people who thinks success is determined by the size of his bank account. We know O'Connor would never leave ESPN if another company offered him more money. He's too principled for that.
He was offered an $18 million wage to work for the Houston Texans and a $16 million wage to work for the Denver Broncos, and he took the extra loot.
What O'Connor neglects is Osweiler was offered $2 million less (I thought it was $3 million less) over a period of several years to work for the Broncos. Also, the guarantees in the Broncos contract could have been different because NFL contracts aren't 100% guaranteed. But let's pretend O'Connor is simply ignoring this in a desperate attempt to help prove his point and not because he doesn't understand how NFL contracts work. He works for ESPN, so there is no way he is simplifying a complex issue.
But we all know that happiness and prosperity in life, even in pro
football, are often defined by things that have nothing to do with
dollars and cents. Take championship rings, for instance. How much money
do you think Dan Marino would give back if it meant adding a Super Bowl
title to his otherwise staggering legacy?
Honestly, I think Dan Marino is perfectly fine with his legacy that doesn't include a Super Bowl ring. More importantly, Brock Osweiler HAS a Super Bowl ring. He won a Super Bowl ring last year, so it's staggering to me that Ian O'Connor ignores Osweiler has a Super Bowl ring and doesn't have to go chase one. He's won his Super Bowl and now wants to be a starter. Comparing Brock Osweiler to Dan Marino is stupid anyway.
More importantly, I think the issue is being confused here. The issue, as I see it and how everyone else should see it, isn't that Osweiler chose to be the starter in Houston over being the starter in Denver. Osweiler chose to take more money to be the starter in Houston as opposed to taking less money in Denver and compete for the starting job. What, O'Connor really thinks the Broncos and Kubiak had no clue what they had in Trevor Siemian? They just kept him as a 7th round pick on the roster when there were other more experienced quarterbacks out there and got lucky he has ended up being a capable starter (so far)? There is a reason, and Osweiler also knew the reason, the Broncos weren't tripping over themselves to outbid other teams for Osweiler. It's because they liked Siemian and they thought he could be the starter for them this year or in the future.
So Osweiler took more money to be a guaranteed starter after sitting behind another quarterback for four seasons. O'Connor wants the reader to believe the Broncos saw Osweiler as a starter, yet immediately benched him when a slightly better, older, less permanent quarterback option was presented? The Broncos then waited around to see if the better, older, less permanent quarterback would retire or not, while knowing it could affect their ability to re-sign Osweiler. Then when that better, older, less permanent option retired they saw Osweiler as a starter so much that they didn't really exert themselves to re-sign him. Don't be thick for the purpose of a column. Osweiler isn't very good, but he's not very good while being the starter for the Texans and making more money. The Broncos just didn't value Osweiler as much as he thought they should.
Osweiler sure had to be thinking that way Monday night, when the Broncos
made the NBA-sized quarterback look smaller than the fine ink in his
$72 million deal. ''
Maybe he was. Maybe he was upset that he didn't get to play with such a great defense. Maybe he was mad at himself for blowing a chance to be a starter on a playoff team. Or maybe he was mad he didn't play well, but understood that he probably wasn't going to be the starter in Denver long-term anyway so he's glad he got paid.
Osweiler was all over the place with his passes, and the Broncos hit him
hard on or after delivery every chance they got. Osweiler yelled at
wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins, a much better football player than the quarterback, after one throw to nowhere.
The fact Hopkins is a better football player than Osweiler is very irrelevant. It's not a criticism of Osweiler necessarily. The list of players on the Broncos roster who are better than Trevor Siemian goes at least 10 players deep. If Siemian yells at one of them, then it doesn't mean much. Osweiler was awful against the Broncos, but pointing out a hierarchy of vocal criticism is silly.
Talib was asked at his locker if the Broncos were motivated not only
to end their surprising, two-game losing streak but also by a desire to
prove to Osweiler that he shouldn't have left.
"Definitely,
definitely," the cornerback said. "We know he looked up at those passing
yards in the fourth quarter. And maybe it wouldn't have looked like
that if he had stayed."
I mean, it wouldn't have happened if he had stayed because he wouldn't have had to play such a great defense. Unless the Broncos defense started playing defense for the Texans the lack of passing yards by Osweiler against the Broncos definitely would not have happened if he played for the Broncos. There is a chance Osweiler would be on the bench and have less money if he had stayed with the Broncos too. Let's just keep ignoring that though.
"We knew that he struggles with disguises," Ward said. "We'd seen that
from playing here and the film, so we tried to do that. We started kind
of slow in the beginning, but we got better as the game went on, and it
affected him."
And if Osweiler played for any other NFL team, outside of the Broncos, opposing defenses would never have studied film and seen he struggles with disguises. The Broncos have the only competent defense and defensive coordinator in the NFL and Osweiler would have thrived if he played for the Broncos. I guess this is the assumption to be made.
Not much didn't affect Osweiler in this game, and that might've had
the Broncos wondering if they should've tried to re-sign him after all.
But Elway did want him, and he drafted him in the second round to
someday lead the franchise the same year he signed Peyton Manning.
Elway wanted Osweiler, but it's almost like the Broncos didn't want Osweiler as much as O'Connor portrays here.
Osweiler slammed that door in his former boss' famous face, and that was a worse decision than any he made Monday.
This is overstating what Osweiler did by choosing to sign with a different team after the Broncos didn't offer him a contract he felt reflected his talent. Osweiler sat behind Peyton Manning for 3.5 years and then was pulled in the third quarter of a Week 17 game once Manning was healthy, after having gone 6-2 as the starter. The writing was on the wall, especially combined with the fact the Broncos didn't rush to lock Osweiler up when he could be a free agent, that the Broncos were pretty "blah" on him. The Broncos correctly evaluated Osweiler, that he wasn't going to be a quality NFL starter. But yeah, Osweiler "slammed that door" in Elway's face, right? How dare he attempt to improve his career and bank account.
O'Brien and Smith definitely know what they are doing, and they
definitely understood that they were taking a big, fat gamble on an
athletic, 6-foot-8 kid with seven career starts to his name.
Actually, if O'Connor did any research at all before regurgitating this column then he would know O'Brien didn't even meet Osweiler prior to the Texans signing him. So they "definitely knew what they are doing" and "they definitely understood" the "big, fat gamble" they were taking? I'm not entirely convinced.
But what in the world was Osweiler thinking when he left this
near-perfect situation in Denver? For that matter, what in the world was
his super-agent, Jimmy Sexton, thinking?
"I want to earn a large commission and get my client set for life." --- exactly what Jimmy Sexton was thinking.
"Denver may not want me as their starter judging by their actions since Week 17 and I can be the starter in Houston." --- exactly what Brock Osweiler was thinking.
Osweiler walked out on that program because he said he fit better in O'Brien's system.
How did that fit work out Monday?
Two issues I see here:
1. It can't be ignored that the Broncos have a really, really good defense. They make good quarterbacks look not-so-good. Osweiler isn't a good quarterback, but when seeing how the "fit" of the Texans offense worked out on Monday, the quality of the Broncos' defense must be acknowledged as well.
2. Osweiler said he fit O'Brien's system because he isn't going to say, "Man, I don't think this system is going to work for me" after getting paid $72 million to run the offensive system.
This may come as a shock to Ian O'Connor, but athletes (falls into his fainting chair) don't always tell the truth and/or their deepest thoughts to the media.
Even so, Osweiler should still be the Broncos' starter -- not the less talented Trevor Siemian
--
You can tell I take exception to this contention. Isn't it possible Osweiler wouldn't be successful in Denver and eventually be replaced by Trevor Siemian? It's not like Gary Kubiak didn't see both quarterbacks in practice every day or anything. So if/when Osweiler struggles, O'Connor doesn't think Osweiler would be benched (again, by the way) and replaced by Siemian? At that point, Osweiler certainly isn't getting a good deal on the free agent market IF the Broncos even decided to release him. He was the backup for 3.5 years in Denver. That's a long time for a competitive athlete to sit.
Osweiler isn't Derek Anderson, Matt Moore, Mark Sanchez or any of the other backup quarterbacks who got a chance to start and realize that's not where their value to an NFL team may lie. Osweiler hasn't gotten a chance to start and he wanted that I presume. I can't figure out why it's assumed Osweiler would (a) not be a bad starter in Denver and (b) would be the starter in Denver no matter what.
and the quarterback's representative, Sexton, has to take a hit for
that. Too often, agents confuse the richest deal with the best deal.
I can't imagine a scenario where Osweiler getting the most money and being the definitive starter wasn't the best deal for Osweiler. I also can't imagine a scenario where Osweiler would play worlds better for the Broncos than he has with the Texans.
If Sexton's client is telling the truth when he says his benching late
last season for a returning Manning didn't drive him out, then what was
the deal?
Again, this may come as a shock to Ian O'Connor, but athletes (falls into his
fainting chair yet again) don't always tell the truth and/or their deepest
thoughts to the media. So Osweiler is being diplomatic and not burning bridges by stating it wasn't the late season benching that drove him away. In truth, it doesn't matter. The deal probably was that he wanted to be a starter. Now he is.
This isn't to say Osweiler won't develop into a pretty good player in
this league. He beat the unbeaten Patriots last season, and he delivered
a thrilling comeback against the Colts last week, and he made a sweet,
third-and-8 run against Denver in the third quarter.
He's been a backup for 3.5 years. If he's going to develop into a pretty good player, then it has to start happening fairly soon. Osweiler understands this, which is why he went out and got paid when he had the chance to go out and get paid. This is as opposed to being a member of the Broncos, a successful team, yes, but also a team that committed to him in the same way I commit to writing regularly on this blog. Sure, that is what they would like to have happen in theory...unless something else comes along of course.
As he headed for his car after this sweetest of October victories, a
smiling Elway stopped near a stadium barrier to mingle with players'
family members and others looking for photos. He always walks -- or
hobbles -- with his shoulders pinned back and his barrel chest puffed
out. It seemed on this night that his chest was puffed out an extra inch
or two.
It feels good to win a game and show a decision Elway made was the right decision. Couldn't Elway feel good that he chose to not fully commit to Osweiler and instead give Trevor Siemian a shot? Isn't it possible Elway's chest-puffing is not from getting back at a quarterback who spurned him, but showing his evaluation of that quarterback as not being the future starter of the Broncos was the correct evaluation? In this scenario, isn't it possible Osweiler would have ruined his chance to be a starter had he re-signed with the Broncos?
Why not? It was painfully clear that Brock Osweiler, former Bronco, had put his money on the wrong horse.
Ignoring this painfully bad last sentence, this is also a horribly confused sentence. Osweiler didn't put any money on the wrong horse because he received the money. If anything, the Texans put money on the wrong horse, though their alternative may not have been any better. So it's clear the Broncos put money on the correct horse, at least in the short-term. See, the Texans HAVE the money to put on a quarterback, while Osweiler is the guy who received the money from the Texans.
The correct sentence here should be written as, "Why not? It was painfully clear the Broncos put their money on the correct horse."
Osweiler has a Super Bowl ring and wanted to be a starter. It's not a mistake that he made, but an attempt to be a definite NFL starter and make the most money possible. End of story.
Showing posts with label Ian O'Connor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ian O'Connor. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
4 comments Watch Out Minka Kelly, Ian O'Connor Wants to Give The Jeter a Thorough Back Rub
You may not have heard, but Derek Jeter got his 3,000th hit recently. This story fell under the radar, but it does deserve some recognition. Fortunately, that's why Ian O'Connor exists, to give attention to Derek Jeter. So he's written one of the most embarrassing odes to Derek Jeter that has ever been read by the public. I am 76% certain this was not supposed to be for public consumption and O'Connor was writing all of these thoughts down in his diary and accidentally sent it to ESPN.com for publication. ESPN.com upon seeing this article and comparing to the other journalism on the site thought it was just fantastic and published it. So we have what appears to either be an embarrassing journalistic come-on, which means Minka Kelly better watch the fuck out, or Ian O'Connor just really, really, really enjoys watching Derek Jeter play baseball.
Here are my favorite parts of this load of crap. I won't comment a lot, because it isn't necessary.
The ball was in the air, disappearing into the kind of white clouds Norman Rockwell loved to paint, and Derek Jeter watched it the way a child watches a runaway balloon floating across a midsummer sky.
Read this sentence again. Try not to laugh. I dare you.
This is some crap a 7th grade English teacher would given a "D-," then smack the child across the face for being stupid, step on the child's foot and immediately send them to the school nurse for drug testing.
He was young again. We were all young again.
I went out driving later that day and it turns out I wasn't old enough to drive a car anymore. Apparently I was 12 years old again. The policeman who pulled me over and I got a good laugh about this as we reminisced over how young the Jeter makes us feel.
These two sentences make Baby Jesus cry...but at least he's young again!
The script was so wonderfully absurd, the shortstop said, "I wouldn't have even bought it."
The Jeter wouldn't have bought it because it didn't have breasts nor was it a famous brunette. Those are the criteria The Jeter requires.
Jeter didn't merely become the 28th major leaguer and first Yankee to reach 3,000 hits, and the only man not named Wade Boggs to do so with a homer; he turned the afternoon into a this-is-your-life review of his greatness, claiming five hits and the winning RBI against the Tampa Bay Rays and choking the life out of the non-stop talk of his imminent demise.
No, it didn't. If Jeter goes 0-15 over his next four games, he is still batting 0.250 during that span. Demise still imminent.
One last time, with feeling, Jeter was No. 2 in your program and No. 1 in your heart.
Warning: This sentence could kill your kitten. Don't let your kitten read this sentence.
But Price lost the duel for No. 2,999 in the first inning, when the shortstop singled through the hole near short on a 3-2 pitch. "He could've thrown it in the dugout," Jeter said, "and I would have swung."
Oh, Yankees fans are well aware of that. No need to remind them.
"You want to hit the ball hard," Jeter said. "I didn't want to hit a slow roller to third base and have that be replayed forever."
Because The Jeter is so important, his 3,000th hit will be replayed forever. On a loop. In the sky. Just so the angels can see it and have a better view.
But nothing interfered with Jeter's sense of theater, then or now. Saturday, with a full Stadium house standing and chanting his name, the captain wasn't about to settle for an inside-out bloop over the second baseman's head.
If it had been a bloop, Jeter would have requested the at-bat been done over so he could get a better hit. The umpire would allow it without a shred of hesitation. The umpire just wants to feel young again.
Jeter punched a single past the drawn-in defense to put the Yankees ahead for good and, incredibly, match his career high of five hits.
Somewhere in Vegas, Pete Rose was nervous.
Rose was actually nervous because he had bet $100,000 Jeter wouldn't ever go 6 for 6 during a game in his career and Rose wasn't planning on paying out this money if he lost. The life of a gambler never rests.
In the Bronx, Jeter was partying like it was 1999. "My mentality is still that I'm young," the shortstop said.
I AM YOUNG NOW TOO! THANKS BE TO THE JETER!
"I don't care how much his ability has diminished, I guess you could say," Joe Torre said. "At 37, it is no surprise that you are not as good as you were at 27. But he still scares me if I'm in the other dugout."
What's really scary is how much sugary, hero-worship crap has been written about Jeter after he hit his 3,000th hit. Let's cut back on it please.
"I grew up with these fans," he said.
He rewarded them with a simple gift.
The gift of hitting his 3,000th hit so ESPN would shut the fuck up about wondering when he was going to hit it. Thanks be to The Jeter.
By playing baseball the way he played it in his prime, Derek Jeter made everyone in the house feel like a little kid.
The only thing worse than using a shitty cliche like this is using the same shitty cliche about everyone feeling young again 4-5 times in the same article. Ian O'Connor talks so much about being a kid and feeling young he should be a registered sex offender at this point.
Ian O'Connor is the author of The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter.
You mean Ian O'Connor worships this athlete and writes doe-eyed articles about the very athlete he wrote a book about, and therefore profits from this athlete's hero worship when people read his book? I didn't see that one coming.
The only thing missing from this article is a smiley face at the end and lines where Ian O'Connor practices writing his new name, Ian O'Jeter, which is much cooler than Ian Jeter. Gay marriage is legal in New York now, so I think we just saw Ian O'Connor make his move.
The ball was in the air, disappearing into the kind of white clouds Norman Rockwell loved to paint, and Derek Jeter watched it the way a child watches a runaway balloon floating across a midsummer sky.
Yes, that sentence actually got written.
Here are my favorite parts of this load of crap. I won't comment a lot, because it isn't necessary.
The ball was in the air, disappearing into the kind of white clouds Norman Rockwell loved to paint, and Derek Jeter watched it the way a child watches a runaway balloon floating across a midsummer sky.
Read this sentence again. Try not to laugh. I dare you.
This is some crap a 7th grade English teacher would given a "D-," then smack the child across the face for being stupid, step on the child's foot and immediately send them to the school nurse for drug testing.
He was young again. We were all young again.
I went out driving later that day and it turns out I wasn't old enough to drive a car anymore. Apparently I was 12 years old again. The policeman who pulled me over and I got a good laugh about this as we reminisced over how young the Jeter makes us feel.
These two sentences make Baby Jesus cry...but at least he's young again!
The script was so wonderfully absurd, the shortstop said, "I wouldn't have even bought it."
The Jeter wouldn't have bought it because it didn't have breasts nor was it a famous brunette. Those are the criteria The Jeter requires.
Jeter didn't merely become the 28th major leaguer and first Yankee to reach 3,000 hits, and the only man not named Wade Boggs to do so with a homer; he turned the afternoon into a this-is-your-life review of his greatness, claiming five hits and the winning RBI against the Tampa Bay Rays and choking the life out of the non-stop talk of his imminent demise.
No, it didn't. If Jeter goes 0-15 over his next four games, he is still batting 0.250 during that span. Demise still imminent.
One last time, with feeling, Jeter was No. 2 in your program and No. 1 in your heart.
Warning: This sentence could kill your kitten. Don't let your kitten read this sentence.
But Price lost the duel for No. 2,999 in the first inning, when the shortstop singled through the hole near short on a 3-2 pitch. "He could've thrown it in the dugout," Jeter said, "and I would have swung."
Oh, Yankees fans are well aware of that. No need to remind them.
"You want to hit the ball hard," Jeter said. "I didn't want to hit a slow roller to third base and have that be replayed forever."
Because The Jeter is so important, his 3,000th hit will be replayed forever. On a loop. In the sky. Just so the angels can see it and have a better view.
But nothing interfered with Jeter's sense of theater, then or now. Saturday, with a full Stadium house standing and chanting his name, the captain wasn't about to settle for an inside-out bloop over the second baseman's head.
If it had been a bloop, Jeter would have requested the at-bat been done over so he could get a better hit. The umpire would allow it without a shred of hesitation. The umpire just wants to feel young again.
Jeter punched a single past the drawn-in defense to put the Yankees ahead for good and, incredibly, match his career high of five hits.
Somewhere in Vegas, Pete Rose was nervous.
Rose was actually nervous because he had bet $100,000 Jeter wouldn't ever go 6 for 6 during a game in his career and Rose wasn't planning on paying out this money if he lost. The life of a gambler never rests.
In the Bronx, Jeter was partying like it was 1999. "My mentality is still that I'm young," the shortstop said.
I AM YOUNG NOW TOO! THANKS BE TO THE JETER!
"I don't care how much his ability has diminished, I guess you could say," Joe Torre said. "At 37, it is no surprise that you are not as good as you were at 27. But he still scares me if I'm in the other dugout."
What's really scary is how much sugary, hero-worship crap has been written about Jeter after he hit his 3,000th hit. Let's cut back on it please.
"I grew up with these fans," he said.
He rewarded them with a simple gift.
The gift of hitting his 3,000th hit so ESPN would shut the fuck up about wondering when he was going to hit it. Thanks be to The Jeter.
By playing baseball the way he played it in his prime, Derek Jeter made everyone in the house feel like a little kid.
The only thing worse than using a shitty cliche like this is using the same shitty cliche about everyone feeling young again 4-5 times in the same article. Ian O'Connor talks so much about being a kid and feeling young he should be a registered sex offender at this point.
Ian O'Connor is the author of The Captain: The Journey of Derek Jeter.
You mean Ian O'Connor worships this athlete and writes doe-eyed articles about the very athlete he wrote a book about, and therefore profits from this athlete's hero worship when people read his book? I didn't see that one coming.
The only thing missing from this article is a smiley face at the end and lines where Ian O'Connor practices writing his new name, Ian O'Jeter, which is much cooler than Ian Jeter. Gay marriage is legal in New York now, so I think we just saw Ian O'Connor make his move.
The ball was in the air, disappearing into the kind of white clouds Norman Rockwell loved to paint, and Derek Jeter watched it the way a child watches a runaway balloon floating across a midsummer sky.
Yes, that sentence actually got written.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
0 comments A Big Day
Before I get to what the title of this post refers to, I just wanna make a couple of quick, unrelated points, because this is my space to vent my hate filled soul onto you, the unwitting public.
Do you realise Tyler Thigpen was 2/13 for 12 yards with 2 interceptions at one point last week? TWO OF THIRTEEN. I literally think I might be able to do that, a screen pass or something to Larry Johnson. At least I'd lack the arm strength to throw the interceptions. I cannot wait to see how bad Kansas City are gonna be this year. It's gonna be FANTASTIC. I was texting friends of mine saying "he's 1-10 for -1 with an int!". It was at that point that I realised I was becoming Bill Simmons, and after a long, heart to heart with a whiskey bottle, I hope I have learnt my lesson.
Also, my preseason NFC predictions are going great, thanks for asking. My proposed six playoff teams are a sterling 8-10, with St.Louis looking like the most audacious back-to-back fuckup pick of our generation. I'm not too worried about Minny or Seattle, but New Orleans has major secondary issues still and it has the looks of "not their season" with all the injuries (Gay, Glenn, Shockey, Colston, even Jamaal Brown), so yeah. Not so hot.
But it doesn't matter because today is a very special day.
Today is the day I get to lampoon my very own A-Rod Suxors column. Today I am officially a member of the sports blogging community. Ian O'Connor, I will always remember you fondly as my first.
Just a note, this thing made me waaaaaaaaay madder than writing on this blog ever should, so I will not be writing on A-Rod again.
Before long, A-Rod will escape from New York
In the business of sportswriting, nothing carries less redeeming social value than a prediction. I printed one, anyway, on Nov. 13, 2003, and it was the subject of some ridicule from longtime colleagues and friends.
I authored a column around the notion that Alex Rodriguez was destined to end up with the Yankees. "Put it in the books," I wrote. "Theirs will be a marriage of necessity over convenience, a union colored by a player's desperate bid for his first ring and an owner's obsessive bid for his seventh."
The piece in The Journal News of New York inspired a roundtable segment on Madison Square Garden TV, featuring a couple of nationally renowned baseball columnists (Joel Sherman and Jack Curry) swinging heavy lumber at the pinata disguised as me.
A martyr of our age.
There are no links provided, and I guess he has no reason to lie, but like, why was he vilified in such a way? Were Joel Sherman and Jack Curry like; "oh Ian! Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian! You poor misguided fool. Let me get this straight, you think the New York Yankees - who NEVER spend to buy players like, I dunno, Jason Giambi, or Mike Mussina et al. These New York Yankees? Will spend money to get the best player in baseball to play for them? They'd have to be mad wouldn't they? What a sunken cost that would be. You do realise he has only hit 156 homers in the last three seasons right? An OPS of just 1.016? That's a mere 184 points higher than Paul O'Neill! And, if you've done your research, niave Ian, you'd realise he's missed a total of one game in the last three years. It's a liability the Yankees can ill afford with their tight payroll and modest ambitions."
Seriously, Joel Sherman is a douche and Jack Curry not much better, but you'd have to know negative amounts about baseball to make this argument.
On one level, the prediction made little sense. The Yankees would never ask Derek Jeter to vacate the shortstop position, A-Rod was nobody's idea of a second baseman, third baseman Aaron Boone had just delivered one of the most dramatic home runs in franchise history, and Joe Torre had won four championships with a selfless approach that Rodriguez didn't exactly personify.
a) they had a DH spot if needs be
b) if Alfonso Soriano can play second base, I'm pretty sure a 28 year old A-Rod could have gotten away with it
c) I'm not even going to do the stats stuff - Aaron Boone was Aaron Boone, Alex Rodriguez was Alex Rodriguez, case closed
d) on what basis did Alex Rodriguez not personify a selfless approach? Give me one, ONE example of this
On another level, A-Rod clearly wanted to leave Texas, the hated Red Sox were reportedly interested in acquiring him, and the spend-crazy Yanks hadn't won it all in three long years.
...and Alex Rodriguez was awesome right? Right? Wrong, ok.
Two months later, there was Jeter at the news conference to introduce A-Rod as his teammate. Even though Rodriguez had agreed to change positions, Jeter looked as if someone had stolen his bike, his supermodel girlfriend, or both.
sleepovers would never be the same again.
Sure, a strange set of circumstances was needed to put the deal in place. The Rodriguez-to-Boston trade had to unravel in a hard-to-believe way, Boone had to wreck his knee in a pickup basketball game, and one of the greatest shortstops of all time had to agree to move to third.
you had to keep on the Boone angle, didn't you O'Connor? We all know this is a waste of time but you keep pushing my buttons, fine, I'll find your Aaron Boone 2003 stats, but I don't have to like it. Boone OPS .756, Rodriguez OPS .996. And I am supposed to believe, as a sentient being, that it was Aaron Boone's injury that opened the door for Alex Rodriguez. Of course I'm not, you're fucking with me in your incredibly stupid way, and I bit, I took the bait. Are you happy you son of a bitch?
Yet this context is offered as a way of pumping some much-needed credibility into this next absurd prediction: Alex Rodriguez will be a member of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim by the start of the 2011 season.
absurd, crazy! Want an out-there prediction? Go to Ian O'Connor. Alex Rodriguez will be playing for a team other than the Yankees, one of the other two fucking teams that can afford him. Wow, what a McCain style maverick you are sir.
(political editorial btw, did anyone watch the GOP convention? They had Republican supporters with these McCain "Mavrick" signs. You would have thought someone would have consulted a dictionary at some point, it is only the legitimacy of your party beamed to the entire world. Awesome. /political editorial)
OK, maybe not the Angels, and maybe not 2011. But the point is, he won't be a Yankee for the duration of his 10-year, $275 million contract, not even close.
wow, this prediction just gets more outrageous by the minute! You're telling me, that Alex Rodriguez, will, in the next ten years, be playing for another team, somewhere, at some point. I'd also like to think he was saying he will be "not even close" to being a Yankee, like, a professional sychronised swimmer for the Guam Confederates or something, but sadly, I think he means not close to ten years.
But the Yankees missed the playoffs this year for the first time since 1993, and Sunday night sure sounded like the beginning of A-Rod's end in the Bronx. During Yankee Stadium's closing ceremony, a moment for players past and present to be celebrated like never before, Rodriguez was the one Yank to draw some boos from the crowd.
unlike before he signed that ten year deal, when New York celebrated "Alex Rodriguez is the Coolest!" day every November 3rd. Yes, it's a very different time now.
No, it wasn't a full-throttle boo; the cheers slightly beat out the jeers.
please, continue. Let me hear more about the Ian O'Connor scale of booing, I, and no doubt your entire readership are rapt with attention. What is a three quarter throttle boo? Would you call it a subdued, eloquant boo, or whimsical, enigmatic boo? What about the pitch of the boo? Was it consistant? Could the crowd hold the "o" sound for longer than the seven consecutive seconds required by the famous Mike Celzic scale of booing for a player to be run out of town? These are things I desperately need to know.
And no matter what he does, A-Rod can't win any public debate with Jeter.
what public debate? Honest to fucking God, what are you talking about? Do you think Jeter and A-Rod are ever like "Jesus Christ dude, should we just kiss just to give these single chromosome morons something else to talk about?". I gotta be honest, I think I would. I think if I were Derek Jeter, I'd kiss Alex Rodriguez, tongue action, the whole lot. Just to get the reaction. I mean, honestly, the tabloid world is waiting for it. This is the "will they or won't they?" story of baseball apparently. Kissing isn't enough, fuck - on the field - start a website, get married, whatever, I am sick to death of this. Have you heard me world of sports journalism?
SICK
TO
DEATH
The man drove the Yanks to the playoffs last year, and he has put up megastar regular-season numbers since his arrival. A-Rod even had a hell of a postseason run going for himself in 2004, when he hit .421 against the Twins in the Division Series and saved the Yanks from an 0-2 deficit with a 12th-inning double. In fact, Rodriguez would've stood among the heroes of a League Championship Series sweep of Boston had Mariano Rivera put away Game 4.
Rivera failed, the Red Sox managed their own deferred sweep, Rodriguez was widely mocked for slapping at Bronson Arroyo's glove on a putout, and the rest is history.
In the 2005 Division Series loss to the Angels, A-Rod hit .133 and then announced he had "played like a dog." In the 2006 Division Series loss to the Tigers, A-Rod hit .071 and compelled Torre to bat him eighth in the order. In last year's Division Series loss to the Indians, A-Rod managed a .267 batting average and his first postseason RBI since the calamitous Boston series of '04.
In between, Rodriguez hardened his status as the game's leading drama queen. The World Baseball Classic waffling, the World Series opt-out, the poker clubs, Madonna and so much more.
you did that. You. The media, you did all this. He decided to play for one team and not another. He opted out of his clause at the end of the season. The poker clubs I don't even know about but I guess he was living his life. Is the Madonna thing even true? Or were you leeches just following him around with a camera and a pair of scissors, happy to paste A-Rod's face on some guy and snickering about it? You do this, you make this ridiculous non-story, peddle it out every two months as substantive analysis and get paid hundreds of thousands for the luxury. And not only that, you then have the gall to turn this on the poor bastard and accuse him of cultivating this imaginary status and being "undeserving" of the legacy of a team that played fucking ten years ago, when the man is just playing baseball, every day, and doing so very well.
ENOUGH.
A-Rod carries too much baggage to the plate in critical, must-hit situations, and the process is wearing out a fan base still hopelessly in love with the Jeter-led team that built a dynasty around pitching, chemistry, clutch hitting and a commitment to treating little things as big things.
Nobody doubts A-Rod's otherworldly talent...
everyone doubts it. Everyone. You say you don't, but that's in bad faith. It might not be "hitting the ball" talent, but you doubt his talent to play winning baseball, as though there were some pixie dust delivered by Santa Claus, as though he's sold his soul or something. You buy into the Jeter-love and the stupidity of the whole exercise by writing this column. You aren't defending A-Rod and saying "stop being a bunch of ungrateful-bandwagon hopping-front running-no guts-less humanity-free spending-joy killing-low life morons who are booing an incredible, once in a generation (ok, twice, Pujols) player. Stop it." You could do this, you don't, and that makes you as culpable as anyone with a "full-throttle boo" in that stadium.
but everybody questions whether he'll ever get it.
exactly.
At the All-Star Game in July, another goodbye event for Yankee Stadium, Jeter understood it was important to stay for all 15 innings, while Rodriguez had checked out hours earlier.
So amazingly enough, Yankee fans talk about being "stuck" with A-Rod for another nine years, all the way through 2017, despite the fact he might finish his career with more than 800 homers and 4,000 hits.
"We can win three World Series," Rodriguez said after winning the 2005 American League MVP award, "(and) with me it's never going to be over. My benchmark is so high that no matter what I do, it's never going to be enough."
he said, selfishly. While killing a puppy. With ivory poached from an unnecessarily large group of elephants. That he stole. From orphans. With diseases. He gave them.
That's what happens when you sign two contracts worth more than half a billion dollars combined. Fair or not, Yankees fans hold A-Rod largely responsible for the postseason failures of the last five years.
the answer is not. Don't pretend this doesn't matter. It does. You're supposed to be the person who sets people straight, who can actually make people think "yeah, maybe this is fucked up". You write for FOX SPORTS dude, you're not writing for some backwater blog, people read this shit, and you just sit by and go "well, people can be unreasonable and retarded, and I'm perfectly fine with that, far be it for me to interfere".
They'll need to persuade Rodriguez to waive his veto power for the good of all concerned, and they'll need to convince themselves that eating tens upon tens of millions of dollars — and trading away the home-run record to boot — makes sound business sense.
if they couldn't do it last year, they sure as hell wouldn't do it now. If I were Alex Rodriguez, I'd be asking for more fucking money, the shit they put him through.
I'm done man, before I have a goddamn heart attack over this petty, dumbing down shit.
Do you realise Tyler Thigpen was 2/13 for 12 yards with 2 interceptions at one point last week? TWO OF THIRTEEN. I literally think I might be able to do that, a screen pass or something to Larry Johnson. At least I'd lack the arm strength to throw the interceptions. I cannot wait to see how bad Kansas City are gonna be this year. It's gonna be FANTASTIC. I was texting friends of mine saying "he's 1-10 for -1 with an int!". It was at that point that I realised I was becoming Bill Simmons, and after a long, heart to heart with a whiskey bottle, I hope I have learnt my lesson.
Also, my preseason NFC predictions are going great, thanks for asking. My proposed six playoff teams are a sterling 8-10, with St.Louis looking like the most audacious back-to-back fuckup pick of our generation. I'm not too worried about Minny or Seattle, but New Orleans has major secondary issues still and it has the looks of "not their season" with all the injuries (Gay, Glenn, Shockey, Colston, even Jamaal Brown), so yeah. Not so hot.
But it doesn't matter because today is a very special day.
Today is the day I get to lampoon my very own A-Rod Suxors column. Today I am officially a member of the sports blogging community. Ian O'Connor, I will always remember you fondly as my first.
Just a note, this thing made me waaaaaaaaay madder than writing on this blog ever should, so I will not be writing on A-Rod again.
Before long, A-Rod will escape from New York
In the business of sportswriting, nothing carries less redeeming social value than a prediction. I printed one, anyway, on Nov. 13, 2003, and it was the subject of some ridicule from longtime colleagues and friends.
I authored a column around the notion that Alex Rodriguez was destined to end up with the Yankees. "Put it in the books," I wrote. "Theirs will be a marriage of necessity over convenience, a union colored by a player's desperate bid for his first ring and an owner's obsessive bid for his seventh."
The piece in The Journal News of New York inspired a roundtable segment on Madison Square Garden TV, featuring a couple of nationally renowned baseball columnists (Joel Sherman and Jack Curry) swinging heavy lumber at the pinata disguised as me.
A martyr of our age.
There are no links provided, and I guess he has no reason to lie, but like, why was he vilified in such a way? Were Joel Sherman and Jack Curry like; "oh Ian! Ian, Ian, Ian, Ian! You poor misguided fool. Let me get this straight, you think the New York Yankees - who NEVER spend to buy players like, I dunno, Jason Giambi, or Mike Mussina et al. These New York Yankees? Will spend money to get the best player in baseball to play for them? They'd have to be mad wouldn't they? What a sunken cost that would be. You do realise he has only hit 156 homers in the last three seasons right? An OPS of just 1.016? That's a mere 184 points higher than Paul O'Neill! And, if you've done your research, niave Ian, you'd realise he's missed a total of one game in the last three years. It's a liability the Yankees can ill afford with their tight payroll and modest ambitions."
Seriously, Joel Sherman is a douche and Jack Curry not much better, but you'd have to know negative amounts about baseball to make this argument.
On one level, the prediction made little sense. The Yankees would never ask Derek Jeter to vacate the shortstop position, A-Rod was nobody's idea of a second baseman, third baseman Aaron Boone had just delivered one of the most dramatic home runs in franchise history, and Joe Torre had won four championships with a selfless approach that Rodriguez didn't exactly personify.
a) they had a DH spot if needs be
b) if Alfonso Soriano can play second base, I'm pretty sure a 28 year old A-Rod could have gotten away with it
c) I'm not even going to do the stats stuff - Aaron Boone was Aaron Boone, Alex Rodriguez was Alex Rodriguez, case closed
d) on what basis did Alex Rodriguez not personify a selfless approach? Give me one, ONE example of this
On another level, A-Rod clearly wanted to leave Texas, the hated Red Sox were reportedly interested in acquiring him, and the spend-crazy Yanks hadn't won it all in three long years.
...and Alex Rodriguez was awesome right? Right? Wrong, ok.
Two months later, there was Jeter at the news conference to introduce A-Rod as his teammate. Even though Rodriguez had agreed to change positions, Jeter looked as if someone had stolen his bike, his supermodel girlfriend, or both.
sleepovers would never be the same again.
Sure, a strange set of circumstances was needed to put the deal in place. The Rodriguez-to-Boston trade had to unravel in a hard-to-believe way, Boone had to wreck his knee in a pickup basketball game, and one of the greatest shortstops of all time had to agree to move to third.
you had to keep on the Boone angle, didn't you O'Connor? We all know this is a waste of time but you keep pushing my buttons, fine, I'll find your Aaron Boone 2003 stats, but I don't have to like it. Boone OPS .756, Rodriguez OPS .996. And I am supposed to believe, as a sentient being, that it was Aaron Boone's injury that opened the door for Alex Rodriguez. Of course I'm not, you're fucking with me in your incredibly stupid way, and I bit, I took the bait. Are you happy you son of a bitch?
Yet this context is offered as a way of pumping some much-needed credibility into this next absurd prediction: Alex Rodriguez will be a member of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim by the start of the 2011 season.
absurd, crazy! Want an out-there prediction? Go to Ian O'Connor. Alex Rodriguez will be playing for a team other than the Yankees, one of the other two fucking teams that can afford him. Wow, what a McCain style maverick you are sir.
(political editorial btw, did anyone watch the GOP convention? They had Republican supporters with these McCain "Mavrick" signs. You would have thought someone would have consulted a dictionary at some point, it is only the legitimacy of your party beamed to the entire world. Awesome. /political editorial)
OK, maybe not the Angels, and maybe not 2011. But the point is, he won't be a Yankee for the duration of his 10-year, $275 million contract, not even close.
wow, this prediction just gets more outrageous by the minute! You're telling me, that Alex Rodriguez, will, in the next ten years, be playing for another team, somewhere, at some point. I'd also like to think he was saying he will be "not even close" to being a Yankee, like, a professional sychronised swimmer for the Guam Confederates or something, but sadly, I think he means not close to ten years.
But the Yankees missed the playoffs this year for the first time since 1993, and Sunday night sure sounded like the beginning of A-Rod's end in the Bronx. During Yankee Stadium's closing ceremony, a moment for players past and present to be celebrated like never before, Rodriguez was the one Yank to draw some boos from the crowd.
unlike before he signed that ten year deal, when New York celebrated "Alex Rodriguez is the Coolest!" day every November 3rd. Yes, it's a very different time now.
No, it wasn't a full-throttle boo; the cheers slightly beat out the jeers.
please, continue. Let me hear more about the Ian O'Connor scale of booing, I, and no doubt your entire readership are rapt with attention. What is a three quarter throttle boo? Would you call it a subdued, eloquant boo, or whimsical, enigmatic boo? What about the pitch of the boo? Was it consistant? Could the crowd hold the "o" sound for longer than the seven consecutive seconds required by the famous Mike Celzic scale of booing for a player to be run out of town? These are things I desperately need to know.
And no matter what he does, A-Rod can't win any public debate with Jeter.
what public debate? Honest to fucking God, what are you talking about? Do you think Jeter and A-Rod are ever like "Jesus Christ dude, should we just kiss just to give these single chromosome morons something else to talk about?". I gotta be honest, I think I would. I think if I were Derek Jeter, I'd kiss Alex Rodriguez, tongue action, the whole lot. Just to get the reaction. I mean, honestly, the tabloid world is waiting for it. This is the "will they or won't they?" story of baseball apparently. Kissing isn't enough, fuck - on the field - start a website, get married, whatever, I am sick to death of this. Have you heard me world of sports journalism?
SICK
TO
DEATH
The man drove the Yanks to the playoffs last year, and he has put up megastar regular-season numbers since his arrival. A-Rod even had a hell of a postseason run going for himself in 2004, when he hit .421 against the Twins in the Division Series and saved the Yanks from an 0-2 deficit with a 12th-inning double. In fact, Rodriguez would've stood among the heroes of a League Championship Series sweep of Boston had Mariano Rivera put away Game 4.
Rivera failed, the Red Sox managed their own deferred sweep, Rodriguez was widely mocked for slapping at Bronson Arroyo's glove on a putout, and the rest is history.
In the 2005 Division Series loss to the Angels, A-Rod hit .133 and then announced he had "played like a dog." In the 2006 Division Series loss to the Tigers, A-Rod hit .071 and compelled Torre to bat him eighth in the order. In last year's Division Series loss to the Indians, A-Rod managed a .267 batting average and his first postseason RBI since the calamitous Boston series of '04.
In between, Rodriguez hardened his status as the game's leading drama queen. The World Baseball Classic waffling, the World Series opt-out, the poker clubs, Madonna and so much more.
you did that. You. The media, you did all this. He decided to play for one team and not another. He opted out of his clause at the end of the season. The poker clubs I don't even know about but I guess he was living his life. Is the Madonna thing even true? Or were you leeches just following him around with a camera and a pair of scissors, happy to paste A-Rod's face on some guy and snickering about it? You do this, you make this ridiculous non-story, peddle it out every two months as substantive analysis and get paid hundreds of thousands for the luxury. And not only that, you then have the gall to turn this on the poor bastard and accuse him of cultivating this imaginary status and being "undeserving" of the legacy of a team that played fucking ten years ago, when the man is just playing baseball, every day, and doing so very well.
ENOUGH.
A-Rod carries too much baggage to the plate in critical, must-hit situations, and the process is wearing out a fan base still hopelessly in love with the Jeter-led team that built a dynasty around pitching, chemistry, clutch hitting and a commitment to treating little things as big things.
Nobody doubts A-Rod's otherworldly talent...
everyone doubts it. Everyone. You say you don't, but that's in bad faith. It might not be "hitting the ball" talent, but you doubt his talent to play winning baseball, as though there were some pixie dust delivered by Santa Claus, as though he's sold his soul or something. You buy into the Jeter-love and the stupidity of the whole exercise by writing this column. You aren't defending A-Rod and saying "stop being a bunch of ungrateful-bandwagon hopping-front running-no guts-less humanity-free spending-joy killing-low life morons who are booing an incredible, once in a generation (ok, twice, Pujols) player. Stop it." You could do this, you don't, and that makes you as culpable as anyone with a "full-throttle boo" in that stadium.
but everybody questions whether he'll ever get it.
exactly.
At the All-Star Game in July, another goodbye event for Yankee Stadium, Jeter understood it was important to stay for all 15 innings, while Rodriguez had checked out hours earlier.
So amazingly enough, Yankee fans talk about being "stuck" with A-Rod for another nine years, all the way through 2017, despite the fact he might finish his career with more than 800 homers and 4,000 hits.
"We can win three World Series," Rodriguez said after winning the 2005 American League MVP award, "(and) with me it's never going to be over. My benchmark is so high that no matter what I do, it's never going to be enough."
he said, selfishly. While killing a puppy. With ivory poached from an unnecessarily large group of elephants. That he stole. From orphans. With diseases. He gave them.
That's what happens when you sign two contracts worth more than half a billion dollars combined. Fair or not, Yankees fans hold A-Rod largely responsible for the postseason failures of the last five years.
the answer is not. Don't pretend this doesn't matter. It does. You're supposed to be the person who sets people straight, who can actually make people think "yeah, maybe this is fucked up". You write for FOX SPORTS dude, you're not writing for some backwater blog, people read this shit, and you just sit by and go "well, people can be unreasonable and retarded, and I'm perfectly fine with that, far be it for me to interfere".
They'll need to persuade Rodriguez to waive his veto power for the good of all concerned, and they'll need to convince themselves that eating tens upon tens of millions of dollars — and trading away the home-run record to boot — makes sound business sense.
if they couldn't do it last year, they sure as hell wouldn't do it now. If I were Alex Rodriguez, I'd be asking for more fucking money, the shit they put him through.
I'm done man, before I have a goddamn heart attack over this petty, dumbing down shit.
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