Usually I leave Scoop Jackson to J.S., but with his Rocco Baldelli-esque illness proclamation, I will have to scoop up the Scoop shit with a shovel. I know we all have gotten enough of the Cubs and the columns on them losing to the Dodgers in a 3 game sweep in the LDS. Let's just focus on Scoop and his overly dramatic take on the subject. Scoop seems to think Wrigley Field is going to be empty next year and the fans are going to stop cheering for the Cubs. I am little confused as to how such loyal fans, as has been displayed at least twice this summer on the Sports Illustrated cover and in articles in the magazine, would just give up on the team, but stranger things have happened.
Like the Cubs losing in a short playoff series...
Scoop Dawg!
No one here saw this coming. Not like this. The elimination of hope. Quick as a Jennifer Aniston relationship, instant as a Wall Street bankruptcy.
You can't see me right now but I am literally playing the world's smallest violin for Scoop right now. I went to Ireland, found the smallest leprechaun who plays in an orchestra, kicked his ass and stole his violin, and now I am playing it. It is difficult to play because it is so small.
One day, the top team in the National League and a favorite to win the World Series for the first time in 100 years. Four days later, gone.
As I have learned in the past week, the LDS is a 5 game series, so in a short series like that pretty much anything can happen, and it did. They won 97 games this year and were 5-2 against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Of course they had also not played the Dodgers since June 8, so I think it is fair to say the makeup of both teams had changed signficantly since that date.
The Phillies did win 92 games this year and Milwaukee won 90 games, so I would say the Cubs were not the overwhelming favorite to win, but yes they were favorites. Greater upsets have occurred, and will occur again, in a short series such as this.
The team with the best record in baseball, the Anaheim Angels also lost in a five game series. Maybe not as quickly as the Cubs did and the public did not whine about it so much, but they still lost.
This was worse than last year. Worse than 1989. Worse than 1984. Maybe the worst ever.
Maybe if it is so bad you should take a sabbatical from writing and go on a vacation Scoop...and never come back.
Because this time the Cubs didn't just lose a series. They lost a part of their soul, plus a large majority of their fans.
Cat Stevens said the first cut is the deepest, but that's not true, it's the 100th cut that runs the deepest for the Cubs fans. If anyone in sportswriting has his finger on the pulse of America it is Scoop Jackson, and he doesn't feel a heartbeat for these Cubs fans. The majority of Cubs fans, 50% or more, are now going to not cheer for the Cubs anymore because they lost this one series of five games...according to Scoop. Does seem arbitrary considering they have 100 years of history to whine about? Yes, but this is the final straw.
You heard it here first everyone. The Cubs have lost 50% or more of their fans. That means next year Wrigley Field will be empty because the majority of Cubs fans won't attend those wonderful day games/parties. That's right, they are so serious they are going to get JOBS just so they can't attend day games and fall back in love with the Cubs when they start winning again. I wish these fans great joy in their new endeavors in attempting to find jobs.
This is known as the Cubs Economic Predictor, where when Cubs fans get angry with the team and stop going to Cubs games, the Chicago area is flooded with job applicants, new industries come into the area because of the influx of new workers, and the local economy is booming. The economy is booming so much companies expand into other areas, creating even more jobs until unemployment is at 0% (which is not economically healthy, but who cares?), and finally America is saved by Cubs fans finding jobs and just remember where you heard the news first. From Scoop Jackson.
As one Cubs fan said when leaving Bridget McNeill's -- one of the few bars just outside Wrigleyville that was allowed to sell alcohol after the seventh inning of the close-out game -- "Still waters don't run that deep."
Really? A man coming out of a bar he was in simply because it let him drink longer said, "still waters don't run that deep?" Are you sure he did not say, "I am pissed the Cubs lost and am going to get further drunk until I fall and break a vital limb on my body?"
Two things are happening here: Either Scoop Jackson really thinks the majority of Cubs fans are going to not cheer for the team next year, or he is just being very dramatic about this loss and undermining the entire point of his column when the fans attend the games next year, which his point is that Cubs fans have had enough.
The town has officially given up on the Cubs.
There is our answer.
Some of the things uttered as Alfonso Soriano struck out to end the series cannot be printed on this Web site. Some, Quentin Tarantino couldn't even put in his films.
This has never happened before. A fan has never uttered horrible language in the direction of a baseball player. Ever. Red Sox fans watch out, these Cubs fans may turn out to be the most dedicated in the world...except for the whole abandoning their team forever thing.
The ugliest breakup in sports just happened.
This is what irritates me about hyperbole. Cubs fans are clearly not going to quit cheering for the team forever but Scoop insists on still being dramatic about it. Is this break up really uglier than the Cleveland Browns leaving for Baltimore? It left a city without an entire football franchise, at least the Cubs are still there. Uglier than the Brooklyn Dodgers moving to Los Angeles? They moved 3,000 miles across the country, basically started a new fan base and ensuring the old one could rarely attend games. Uglier than the Charlotte Hornets leaving for New Orleans? George Shinn got pissed the fans would not pay for a new arena to help fund a team that was struggling because fans quit attending games due to the team trading away all the star players. Oh, and George Shinn had also just gotten acquitted of sexual harrassment, but he still wanted a new arena, as an acquittal present I guess. To this day, some people in the Charlotte area will not attend NBA games or watch NBA games because of that situation. It alienated a rabid fan base into absolutely not caring about the sport at all.
Even if the Cubs fans give up on the team, which they are not going to, it will not be uglier than any of these situations.
And that "It's Gonna Happen" mantra has turned into an "It's Never Gonna Happen" belief and a "We Don't Give a $%&* If It Ever Happens" feeling.
That mantra was kind of presumptive anyway. Probably best to leave it behind. Even the Red Sox fans were not dumb enough to have the mantra, "This year we kick the Yankees Ass" in 2004.
Obscene gestures, followed by obscenities. So many obscenities. "I can't think of an obscene word that describes how obscene they played," another ex-fan said, after dropping an f-bomb.
These same things happen after every pro/college football team's loss and at the end of every playoff game that a team loses. Nothing to see here. I have threatened more lives in my sports viewing history than I care to mention. It is called frustration and usually it goes away.
Phone calls and e-mails poured in. One read: "Man, [expletive] the Cubs! Forever! I'm done with them! Sorry sons of [expletive]. Unless Mark Cuban buys them. That's the only way. … I hope the [expletive] Cubs burn in hell!"
I don't get the Mark Cuban love. Mark Cuban's team, the Dallas Mavericks, usually make the playoffs as a high seed and have only made the NBA Finals once, where they choked and lost. Usually the Mavericks are defeated in the playoffs and the high expectations for the team are usually not met. The team has a made a few questionable moves lately, firing Avery Johnson and trading for Jason Kidd, and they could be a great team or a big mess this year. What is so different that Mark Cuban has brought to the Mavericks the Cubs don't have?
Or, as lifelong-but-no-longer Cubs fan Andre Curry said, "They need players that can play in October, [expletive] April."
Maybe they could go to the "Baseball Players Who Are Good in October Store" where you can definitely get players like that. This store is empty.
There was one scene that said it all. An image that will be played over and over, year after year, until this team finally wins a championship. Derrek Lee's batting helmet lying on the grass next to his bat. He had just thrown them both to the ground after striking out in the fifth inning of Game 3.
The way his helmet rolled over, then stopped on its side, it looked dead.
I did not see this. I did not see the helmet stop on its side. I think this helmet and batting helmet story may be a more local thing or Scoop is desperately attempting to prove his "The fans will never get over this hypothesis" and needed a bad analogy.
A perfect symbol of what the Cubs just became to this city.
Get the wife and kids, burn your Cubs memorabilia, tear down Wrigley Field! The Cubs are dead to this city as of today and the entire city means it. No one will be at opening day next year. No one! This would be the point where Scoop would run into his room and start crying if he were 8 years old again.
First it was the walks (seven in Game 1),
Good thing they started Ryan Dempster, the ace, right Gene W.? Ted Lilly would have kicked so much more ass.
Actually, he may have...
then the errors (four in Game 2),
I don't know if a weird statistical incident like that would be a good reason to give up on a team.
then life.
Is Scoop going to kill himself? I hope not, I am having enough trouble finding horrible articles to mock without him offing himself.
Soriano replaced A-Rod as the worst living postseason star (1-for-14, .071 for the series, after going 2-for-14 the postseason before). Aramis Ramirez (2-for-11, .182 for the series, after going 0-for-12 the postseason before) made Vlad Guerrero's postseason career look Hall-of-Fame-ish.
These Cubs players have a clear history of stinking in the postseason. So why is this so shocking and this is the straw that broke the camels back again?
The totals from the past two postseasons: 12 runs in six games. All losses. Overall? A 3-11 record in NLDS history, including three sweeps. A 7-20 record at home in the postseason, the worst mark in all of major league baseball.
So why the mass exodus from Cubs fans? I mean, they are who we thought they were! They didn't get let off the hook either.
It's like with all this bizarre "This is our year" talk and covers of major magazines pronouncing the Cubs going to the World Series, the Cubs almost believed the talk a little bit and never showed up in the postseason. I think it is a little bit of karma for being so presumptive all year about how this year is different for them and just kind of assuming success in the playoffs will happen. The funny part is the Cubs are a great team, it is just a short series and anything can happen, and it did.
Wrong? Wrong is knowing what this city has gone through for the past century yet not just losing but not even showing up.
What has the city gone through? The Chicago Bears have become a perennial NFC Championship team, the Chicago Bulls won 6 NBA Titles, and the Chicago White Sox won the World Series in 2005. Now Illinois is about to have a Senator from the state elected President. That is just the last 20 years too! The city of Chicago has had it pretty good
The city has not gone through anything, it is just Cubs fans that are struggling, let's not make this much bigger than it has to be to make your column seem more important than it truly is.
And the biggest problem -- probably the biggest reason so many people are attaching four-letter words as prefixes to " … the Cubs" -- is that there's no answer for how to fix what happened or to make sure it doesn't happen a third, fourth, fifth, 10th time in a row.
Well you could find pitchers that can outpitch Derek Lowe, Chad Billingsley, and Hideki Kuroda in a 5 game series. That would be a start. I would worry about the offense after the pitching is taken care of.
On paper, and on the field for 162 games, the Cubs were (and can continue to be) the best team in the National League.
This happens every single year. A top team gets knocked off in the playoffs, just because it happened to the Cubs does not mean it is even crueler or more unjust than what has happened to every other team.
The Anaheim Angels had the best record in all of baseball and got knocked off this year, the year before, and it seems like every other year in the first round of the playoffs. Last year the entire National League was obliterated by the streaking Rockies. Was that unfair because the Rockies were not the best team in baseball all year? It is the playoffs, man up or get out...which the Cubs did.
There are no glaring holes or weaknesses.
Well, the Dodgers did have a better team ERA than the Cubs. That is worth something in a short series. The Cubs were also middle of the pack this year in fielding, right near the Dodgers in fact. So no glaring holes or weaknesses, but you still have to play the games.
Am I the only one is getting a sort of sense of entitlement the Cubs fans had this year? Like they thought they were clearly the best team and had a right to make it to the postseason and are a little shocked there are other teams that could beat them? It's like Scoop thinks they had a right to win.
No team in sports history has done this to its fan base before. No other fans have had to endure pain for as long as those who perpetually "wait 'til next year."
Now the Red Sox have won a World Series, this statement is very true. This was true before this year though, so why are all the fans bailing now? Or is Scoop full of shit? We know the answer to that one. The funny part is that other than Bartman from a few years ago, I can't think of any instances (and don't include the stupid goat) where the Cubs have come close to winning a World Series and did not do so because of some freak incident. Nothing like Bill Buckner has happened to the Cubs. Usually the Cubs have gotten beaten by another team or were just not good enough to win in the playoffs. (I am not saying it has never happened, I am sure something stupid has happened other than Bartman, but the Red Sox were never cursed and they had a couple heartbreaking and weird defeats along the way. I am just saying the Cubs have generally just gotten beaten or never made it).
And for the first time in 36,538 days in Chicago, no one gives a damn about next year. Or the year after that.
Wrigley Field will be empty and all of the Chicago Cubs fans are going to completely give up on the team. I bet $100 dollars Wrigley Field will be even more packed next year and Cubs fans will be just as rabid. Scoop Jackson is a hyperbolic spewing moron.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
3 comments Cubs Curse Not at All Responsible for Cursed Loss
So, I have been a little ill of late and thus might not be posting so much, but I could not let this one pass by without comment. If there's one thing I love more than hearing about mavericks, it's hearing about curses. Especially when a writer, like Gene Wojciechowski can't even decide whether he blames a curse or not. Let the vapid second guessing and grasping at straws begin!
Cubs' latest failure is worse than ever
I think I've worked out these titles. It's like promoting a film. It's back, and this time it's more recent than ever.
It wasn't a collapse. "Collapse" is too nice a word. A collapse would mean the Chicago Cubs actually showed up for the National League Division Series.
It wasn't a choke. A choke is what happened in 2003, when the Cubs were exactly five outs away from their first World Series in seven decades. A choke is when you blame someone sitting in Section 4, Row 8, Seat 113 of Wrigley Field.
it was a sweep. It happens, in baseball series. How many times is this going to have to happen. How many times the Yankees lost in the playoffs and everyone was, apparently sincerely, "stunned". It just happens ok? Like it's not like skill has nothing to do with it, no one pretends that's the case, but it's been pretty well established that the baseball playoffs are much more prone to the chaos of the cosmos than the other two major sports. You make the trade off for those moments of amazement, that defy the odds like the Roberts steal or the Pedro meltdown, the Bartman thing, the horseflies in Cleveland, all this stuff and so much more. The craziness of the baseball playoffs is simultaneously its biggest strength and greatest weakness.
If I were you I'd paint it as part of the quirkiness and true uniqueness of baseball rather than some nuclear meltdown. That's not how this writing caper works though is it? Consider my hopes dashed.
No, in some ways this latest Cubs playoff zombie film is worse than 2003's, and it's definitely worse than last year's October three-and-out. The 2003 choke produced anger and tears. The 2007 postseason losses produced disappointment, but with them came a weird, wait-'til-next-year optimism.
Next year just came and went. The Cubs have become playoff-irrelevant, which is the cruelest thing you can say about a team. They simply don't matter once the leaves change.
it's worse than ever for...whatever reason Gene can pull out of his ass.
Nine postseason losses in a row. Nine. The Cubs haven't won a playoff game since Oct. 11, 2003.
I find the whole concept of postseason losing streaks ridiculous. Kerry Wood was on that team and...no one else as far as I can remember. And I tell you what, swept or otherwise, Kerry Wood is doing cartwheels over this season, it was the unreported comeback story of the year IMO.
The Los Angeles Dodgers just eliminated them in three games. Check that. Only one of those Dodgers-Cubs games -- Saturday night's 3-1 loss -- was actually competitive. The first two were embarrassments for the Cubs.
still don't really know why this makes it "worse than ever". They were swept last year too. I guess the record of the Cubs was better this year, but the competition looked weaker to me, I don't know about you guys. I don't think there was some massive distinction between the two seasons, and I guarentee you for sure the 2003 one hurt more.
[We pause here to give the Dodgers their every prop. They bear-hugged the playoff moments.
A little more than a month ago they were five games below .500 and losers of eight in a row. Now they're drying out their swim goggles and unis from the champagne and beer clubhouse showers. Their right-handed starting pitching Saran Wrapped the Cubs' predominantly right-handed lineup.
So now the Dodgers advance to the NLCS. Nothing against the remaining playoff teams, but can you imagine what will happen if Manny Ramirez's Dodgers, led by a former New York Yankees manager, somehow face the Boston Red Sox, the team Manny couldn't wait to leave, in the World Series? Just think: At least two games, possibly four, of Manny back in Fenway?
We now return to our previously scheduled skin peel of the Cubs.]
this is it for analysis of the Dodgers role in the Cubs loss. Now we can get to the real reason right Gene?
The Cubs deserve every rip job they get. Winning 97 games during the regular season means zilch if you lose every time you reach the postseason. It means less than zilch (negative integer zilch?) if you waste the precious home-field advantage in a best-of-five NLDS. At least in last season's playoff sweep to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Cubs started the series on the road.
yeah, they lost. No one is saying this is good. They are dissapointed. Are you trying to correct them? Do you think the Cubs are like 'YESSSSSSSSSSSSS, what a year boys! Way to go! We won 97 games and lost in the NLDS, just like we planned!". Yeah, thanks Gene, put them back in their place, the delusional fools.
Look, no one suggests this is a good result for the cubs. No one. Everyone knows this is a poor result, but let's not now relegate them to perenial losers, like this team cannot possibly win in the future. If that is the case, than they have bigger issues than this series loss, they don't have professional athletes on their baseball team.
The Dodgers had a lot to do with what happened earlier in the week at Wrigley and Saturday evening at Dodger Stadium. To mention Billy Goat curses, black cats and priests sprinkling holy water in the Cubs' dugout is to insult what Joe Torre's team did in the NLDS.
they did have a lot to do with what happened to the Cubs huh? They fucking beat the Cubs, arguably the most important reason for the Cubs...defeat. Anyway, as poorly as you put it, thank you for seeing some sense and placing the blame for the Cubs exit where it belongs - at the feet of the Dodgers.
But there is a 100-year weight (and wait) around this franchise's neck.
oh. Oh Gene don't. We were...I thought we were making a connection. How could you? I mean honestly Gene...I mean it's so cliche, I thought we were moving through this article together. You know, the old team? Actually making sense and presenting a cogent argument? I thought...nevermind.
It isn't what made Alfonso Soriano finish the Dodgers series 1-for-14. (Fittingly, his check-swing, Game 3-ending strikeout came on a toe-high pitch.) It isn't what made Aramis Ramirez finish 2-for-11 or Geovany Soto 2-for-10.
cut them. Cut them all. But yes, I guess you're back on the right path - it wasn't the 100 years that preceded them, but Dodger pitching, and of course, that mistress fortune we alluded to earlier. Good to have you back Gene!
But the failed history of the Cubs, combined with the expectations for this postseason, overwhelmed them.
but-you-we-but-but-no-curse-not-reason-but-logic-but...
If they couldn't deal with the past, how were they going to deal with the present?
how deep. You must hit the idea of the ball before you can hit the ball itself. In order to score a run, you must let the run score you.
Torre said afterward that the Cubs felt the pressure of opening the series at Wrigley. If so, these Cubs are exactly where they belong: out of the playoffs.
the Dodgers, on the other hand, could not give a fuck. They were like a whole bunch of little James Deans out there. You can keep your NLDS old man, we don't play by your rules. *sigh* Dreamy.
Cubs manager Lou Piniella can pretend the 100-year World Series drought isn't a factor, but the numbers say otherwise.
it's great how already stupid articles so frequently have a sentence that make you go "wow, now it's going to get really out of hand". Gene is about to use statistics, to tell you the exact reasoning why the Cubs failed. And he's going to deduce that that reason is a 100 year curse. That is to say, thousands of players who played for the franchise, somehow, in some occult manner, affected this team. And a goat. Enjoy.
The Cubs reach October and suddenly need barf bags. Seven walks issued by Ryan Dempster in the Game 1 loss to the Dodgers. Four Cubs errors in the Game 2 loss. Rich Harden lasts only 4 1/3 innings and the Cubs leave nine runners on base in the Game 3 defeat.
Ryan Dempster gave up six walks in a July loss to the Marlins, totally gripped by the evil hand of the curse. Harden gave up eight baserunners in those 4 1/3 innings. He gave up seven in five in a win over the Brewers in September, again in August against the Braves, nine in 5 2/3 innings against the 'Stros. This isn't to say Harden's not sick, he is, he's awesome, but these things do fucking happen, I don't care if your name is Johan Clutchity Nolan Schilling Gibson Nochoke - it happens, deal with it.
The Cubs were outscored 20-6. They might as well have been waving rhythmic gymnastics ribbons at the plate. By the way, Soriano and the holes in his swing are signed through 2014. Enjoy.
I know Soriano is (rightfully) a polarising figure, but he does have the seventeenth best OPS in the NL, he is paid way too much (not that that should be much of an issue with Cub ownership)and shouldn't be your number one offensive option, but with Lee, Soto, Ramirez et al in the lineup, he's the least of your concerns. Maybe not at leadoff though. Whatever, you don't care about complicated analysis, sorry, I forgot who I was speaking to. Let me try again.
Boo! Strikeout! Bad! Me! Hungry!
Some of Piniella's decisions deserve scrutiny, too. He started the struggling Kosuke Fukudome in right field for the first two games and got an 0-for-8 out of him. He slotted Ted Lilly, who had won his last four starts in September, in the No. 4 spot of the playoff rotation. Lilly never threw a pitch. Piniella also tinkered with the lineup.
even though this is unabashed 20/20 hindsight kind of stuff at least it has to do with actual baseball. I don't know if these are good or bad calls, I don't really care enough to put in the time to adjudicate, I'm just noting that now Gene has returned to "not about the curse" discourse now. How long until he reverts back to his Mr. Hyde like alter-ego?
Sadly, it won't be in this article - but it'll come, in the offseason. Squeezed between Yankee rebuilding stories, Brett Farve etc etc. I do want to highlight one final little parting shot though.
Strange. The Cubs are done, but former Cubs Greg Maddux and Nomar Garciaparra play on for the Dodgers. I wonder whether they sneaked a peek into the Cubs' dugout during the celebration.
1) how is that strange at all? They used to play for them, now they don't. FUCKING FREAKY MAN.
2) Maddux and Nomar are nearly universally recognised as a Brave and Red Sox respectively, Maddux might care slightly about the Cubs but frankly, has been through too much shit to care at this point, and Nomar is just happy to still be cashing a paycheck. What's strange is you including this in your column, I can't make any sense of it.
No surprises there.
Cubs' latest failure is worse than ever
I think I've worked out these titles. It's like promoting a film. It's back, and this time it's more recent than ever.
It wasn't a collapse. "Collapse" is too nice a word. A collapse would mean the Chicago Cubs actually showed up for the National League Division Series.
It wasn't a choke. A choke is what happened in 2003, when the Cubs were exactly five outs away from their first World Series in seven decades. A choke is when you blame someone sitting in Section 4, Row 8, Seat 113 of Wrigley Field.
it was a sweep. It happens, in baseball series. How many times is this going to have to happen. How many times the Yankees lost in the playoffs and everyone was, apparently sincerely, "stunned". It just happens ok? Like it's not like skill has nothing to do with it, no one pretends that's the case, but it's been pretty well established that the baseball playoffs are much more prone to the chaos of the cosmos than the other two major sports. You make the trade off for those moments of amazement, that defy the odds like the Roberts steal or the Pedro meltdown, the Bartman thing, the horseflies in Cleveland, all this stuff and so much more. The craziness of the baseball playoffs is simultaneously its biggest strength and greatest weakness.
If I were you I'd paint it as part of the quirkiness and true uniqueness of baseball rather than some nuclear meltdown. That's not how this writing caper works though is it? Consider my hopes dashed.
No, in some ways this latest Cubs playoff zombie film is worse than 2003's, and it's definitely worse than last year's October three-and-out. The 2003 choke produced anger and tears. The 2007 postseason losses produced disappointment, but with them came a weird, wait-'til-next-year optimism.
Next year just came and went. The Cubs have become playoff-irrelevant, which is the cruelest thing you can say about a team. They simply don't matter once the leaves change.
it's worse than ever for...whatever reason Gene can pull out of his ass.
Nine postseason losses in a row. Nine. The Cubs haven't won a playoff game since Oct. 11, 2003.
I find the whole concept of postseason losing streaks ridiculous. Kerry Wood was on that team and...no one else as far as I can remember. And I tell you what, swept or otherwise, Kerry Wood is doing cartwheels over this season, it was the unreported comeback story of the year IMO.
The Los Angeles Dodgers just eliminated them in three games. Check that. Only one of those Dodgers-Cubs games -- Saturday night's 3-1 loss -- was actually competitive. The first two were embarrassments for the Cubs.
still don't really know why this makes it "worse than ever". They were swept last year too. I guess the record of the Cubs was better this year, but the competition looked weaker to me, I don't know about you guys. I don't think there was some massive distinction between the two seasons, and I guarentee you for sure the 2003 one hurt more.
[We pause here to give the Dodgers their every prop. They bear-hugged the playoff moments.
A little more than a month ago they were five games below .500 and losers of eight in a row. Now they're drying out their swim goggles and unis from the champagne and beer clubhouse showers. Their right-handed starting pitching Saran Wrapped the Cubs' predominantly right-handed lineup.
So now the Dodgers advance to the NLCS. Nothing against the remaining playoff teams, but can you imagine what will happen if Manny Ramirez's Dodgers, led by a former New York Yankees manager, somehow face the Boston Red Sox, the team Manny couldn't wait to leave, in the World Series? Just think: At least two games, possibly four, of Manny back in Fenway?
We now return to our previously scheduled skin peel of the Cubs.]
this is it for analysis of the Dodgers role in the Cubs loss. Now we can get to the real reason right Gene?
The Cubs deserve every rip job they get. Winning 97 games during the regular season means zilch if you lose every time you reach the postseason. It means less than zilch (negative integer zilch?) if you waste the precious home-field advantage in a best-of-five NLDS. At least in last season's playoff sweep to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Cubs started the series on the road.
yeah, they lost. No one is saying this is good. They are dissapointed. Are you trying to correct them? Do you think the Cubs are like 'YESSSSSSSSSSSSS, what a year boys! Way to go! We won 97 games and lost in the NLDS, just like we planned!". Yeah, thanks Gene, put them back in their place, the delusional fools.
Look, no one suggests this is a good result for the cubs. No one. Everyone knows this is a poor result, but let's not now relegate them to perenial losers, like this team cannot possibly win in the future. If that is the case, than they have bigger issues than this series loss, they don't have professional athletes on their baseball team.
The Dodgers had a lot to do with what happened earlier in the week at Wrigley and Saturday evening at Dodger Stadium. To mention Billy Goat curses, black cats and priests sprinkling holy water in the Cubs' dugout is to insult what Joe Torre's team did in the NLDS.
they did have a lot to do with what happened to the Cubs huh? They fucking beat the Cubs, arguably the most important reason for the Cubs...defeat. Anyway, as poorly as you put it, thank you for seeing some sense and placing the blame for the Cubs exit where it belongs - at the feet of the Dodgers.
But there is a 100-year weight (and wait) around this franchise's neck.
oh. Oh Gene don't. We were...I thought we were making a connection. How could you? I mean honestly Gene...I mean it's so cliche, I thought we were moving through this article together. You know, the old team? Actually making sense and presenting a cogent argument? I thought...nevermind.
It isn't what made Alfonso Soriano finish the Dodgers series 1-for-14. (Fittingly, his check-swing, Game 3-ending strikeout came on a toe-high pitch.) It isn't what made Aramis Ramirez finish 2-for-11 or Geovany Soto 2-for-10.
cut them. Cut them all. But yes, I guess you're back on the right path - it wasn't the 100 years that preceded them, but Dodger pitching, and of course, that mistress fortune we alluded to earlier. Good to have you back Gene!
But the failed history of the Cubs, combined with the expectations for this postseason, overwhelmed them.
but-you-we-but-but-no-curse-not-reason-but-logic-but...
If they couldn't deal with the past, how were they going to deal with the present?
how deep. You must hit the idea of the ball before you can hit the ball itself. In order to score a run, you must let the run score you.
Torre said afterward that the Cubs felt the pressure of opening the series at Wrigley. If so, these Cubs are exactly where they belong: out of the playoffs.
the Dodgers, on the other hand, could not give a fuck. They were like a whole bunch of little James Deans out there. You can keep your NLDS old man, we don't play by your rules. *sigh* Dreamy.
Cubs manager Lou Piniella can pretend the 100-year World Series drought isn't a factor, but the numbers say otherwise.
it's great how already stupid articles so frequently have a sentence that make you go "wow, now it's going to get really out of hand". Gene is about to use statistics, to tell you the exact reasoning why the Cubs failed. And he's going to deduce that that reason is a 100 year curse. That is to say, thousands of players who played for the franchise, somehow, in some occult manner, affected this team. And a goat. Enjoy.
The Cubs reach October and suddenly need barf bags. Seven walks issued by Ryan Dempster in the Game 1 loss to the Dodgers. Four Cubs errors in the Game 2 loss. Rich Harden lasts only 4 1/3 innings and the Cubs leave nine runners on base in the Game 3 defeat.
Ryan Dempster gave up six walks in a July loss to the Marlins, totally gripped by the evil hand of the curse. Harden gave up eight baserunners in those 4 1/3 innings. He gave up seven in five in a win over the Brewers in September, again in August against the Braves, nine in 5 2/3 innings against the 'Stros. This isn't to say Harden's not sick, he is, he's awesome, but these things do fucking happen, I don't care if your name is Johan Clutchity Nolan Schilling Gibson Nochoke - it happens, deal with it.
The Cubs were outscored 20-6. They might as well have been waving rhythmic gymnastics ribbons at the plate. By the way, Soriano and the holes in his swing are signed through 2014. Enjoy.
I know Soriano is (rightfully) a polarising figure, but he does have the seventeenth best OPS in the NL, he is paid way too much (not that that should be much of an issue with Cub ownership)and shouldn't be your number one offensive option, but with Lee, Soto, Ramirez et al in the lineup, he's the least of your concerns. Maybe not at leadoff though. Whatever, you don't care about complicated analysis, sorry, I forgot who I was speaking to. Let me try again.
Boo! Strikeout! Bad! Me! Hungry!
Some of Piniella's decisions deserve scrutiny, too. He started the struggling Kosuke Fukudome in right field for the first two games and got an 0-for-8 out of him. He slotted Ted Lilly, who had won his last four starts in September, in the No. 4 spot of the playoff rotation. Lilly never threw a pitch. Piniella also tinkered with the lineup.
even though this is unabashed 20/20 hindsight kind of stuff at least it has to do with actual baseball. I don't know if these are good or bad calls, I don't really care enough to put in the time to adjudicate, I'm just noting that now Gene has returned to "not about the curse" discourse now. How long until he reverts back to his Mr. Hyde like alter-ego?
Sadly, it won't be in this article - but it'll come, in the offseason. Squeezed between Yankee rebuilding stories, Brett Farve etc etc. I do want to highlight one final little parting shot though.
Strange. The Cubs are done, but former Cubs Greg Maddux and Nomar Garciaparra play on for the Dodgers. I wonder whether they sneaked a peek into the Cubs' dugout during the celebration.
1) how is that strange at all? They used to play for them, now they don't. FUCKING FREAKY MAN.
2) Maddux and Nomar are nearly universally recognised as a Brave and Red Sox respectively, Maddux might care slightly about the Cubs but frankly, has been through too much shit to care at this point, and Nomar is just happy to still be cashing a paycheck. What's strange is you including this in your column, I can't make any sense of it.
No surprises there.
Monday, October 6, 2008
4 comments MMQB: Read Only If You Like Upper East Coast Football
One criticism I have made of Peter King previously is that he really, really pays attention to teams that are in the upper east coast of the country and pretty much gives periodic nods to the other teams in the league. Granted, there are a lot of teams in that area that are great this year but there is only so much New York Giant, Washington Redskin, New England Patriot, Pittsburgh Steeler, and Philadelphia Eagle love I can stand.
Nothings changed.
I like to try to be neutral or at least not turn this into a fan blog, but I am going to have to warn you (all?), that is going to be incredibly tough this week. My favorite team in the world turned in one of the best defensive performances of their entire franchise history and there is zero mention by Peter. I would not need it mentioned necessarily, especially by him, but I think since the team they played but up a great deal of offensive numbers last week, it was at least noteworthy.
Let's get excited by Peter getting excited!
What do you want to hear about first? The origins of the Wildcat play, which has carried the woebegone Dolphins to wins over the two AFC Championship Game teams from last year? The future of Kerry Collins, who, in a month, has gone from a washed-up backup to one of the NFL's 20 most important players? The incredible case of Matty Ice? Plaxico Burress' future with the Giants?
We get options? Yes, then...none of the above! None of the above I say!
I don't know what to tell Peter King if he truly thinks Kerry Collins is one of the NFL's 20 most important players. I would love to hear about Matty Icccccccccccccce though.........and I don't care about Plaxico Burress at all.
None of the above, though I'll get to them all.
I like how he starts off the column giving the readers choices letting them choose what they can hear about first and then makes the choice for us. This pretty much describes how I feel about Peter King. I have an option every week but for some reason he makes the decision for me to read his column. I can't explain it.
My choice: The first play-call of Clinton Portis' life.
Oh absolutely, let's focus on this incredibly important event then. This one play in one football game, sounds very, very relevant. Granted, the play-call turns out to be a fourth down play and was important at the end of the game, but I am not sure it should MMQB.
The Redskins are turning into one of the great stories of the year. They looked inept in a flaccid opener against the Giants. They've looked like the '67 Packers since. They won their fourth straight, 23-17, at Philadelphia Sunday, and afterward, I couldn't quite believe what Jim Zorn told me.
He clearly just wanted to talk about the Redskins and needed a cheap segway.
On a side note, I like how everyone is talking up the NFC East because it has the greatest teams in the league in it and how certain people, Alex Marvez, want to put an East team in the NFC West. I can't help but think about the extraordinarily powerful NL Central with Milwaukee, St. Louis, and the Chicago Cubs and how the NL West was mocked all year for having teams that barely break .500 all year. Then the Dodgers sweep the team with the best record in the National League. A team from the "worst" division manhandles a team from the "best" division in the playoffs. I think this is a story I am going to remember for football season.
"Clinton called that fourth-down play,'' Zorn said.
The offensive guru is having a RB call key fourth down plays. This does not bode well for them in the future, having players believe they can call plays.
Zorn had his thinking cap on, with Jason Campbell and Portis and a couple of the coaches on the sidelines. "I called the formation first,'' he said, "and then he called the play. He thought we should run a draw. I didn't say anything, and I looked at my plan. It was going to be very hard to run. But I thought about the play, and it was a good call.
Fourth and one. Philly has zero timeouts and if they got the ball would have to march 62 yards to get a touchdown to win the game. A draw...I would not have the guts to call that. Really Zorn probably had no idea what play to call there either, so he just let Portis pick it knowing his play call choice would be no better.
The draw's a great call there, with the expectation that a strong back would either wham into the line, or the quarterback would throw a sure thing to either the back or tight end.
"A sure thing to either the back or tight end?" What the hell kind of sure thing type pass is there on fourth and one to a tight end or a running back? Clearly, King Peter knows more about football than me but it seems like either a pass to the running back or tight end would not be the greatest call on fourth down without a little play action. Especially since the Redskins would be in a tight formation at the line of scrimmage to at least sell the run, it would take a little longer for the tight end/RB to get open.
Imagine the ownership he feels in his team this morning, knowing the new coach, an offensive maven, thought enough of his brain and gut feeling that he could get the yard he needed.
Imagine ownership thinking their running back just called a play when they pay the head coach to do this. Not a great feeling I would imagine for their confidence in the coach to make play calls, especially if this starts happening frequently.
• Ice Ice Baby. "You don't realize the stadium's right in the middle of a neighborhood,'' Matt Ryan said over the cell phone with a bit of impressed wonder Sunday. He'd just walked into Lambeau Field on his fifth professional start and stunned the Packers 27-24. He was 16 of 26 for 194 yards, with two TDs, one pick and no sacks taken, and he finished the game with two kneeldowns. We're now going to have to take this kid, and this team, seriously.
Ladies and Gentleman, Peter King has a new quarterback boyfriend, but he and Brett Favre are going to stay friends and not avoid each other, don't worry.
Let's make sure Matt Ryan meets all of Peter's criteria:
White- check
Has an affiliation with Boston- check and he gave the stupid ass nickname Matty Ice to him, after giving it to Matt Cassel, so that must be some kind of bonus point.
Gives Peter access to his thought process- we will see
Peter can write about his appearance without it disturbing the player- well...
He looks like a bank vice president 25 minutes after the game, in a neatly pressed suit with not a hair out of place.
Check!
Ryan plays the part of an NFL quarterback perfectly. He says all the right things.
That is all that is required really. Akili Smith did not play the part of a QB well, not because of the skill required for the position, but mostly he said the wrong things and expressed his hatred for anyone of Muslim and Asian descent. That was the wrong thing to say. Same thing with Heath Shuler and now he is taking his pro-fur wearing stances to Washington D.C. as a Senator! Being pro-fur is not the right thing to say, so he sucked at QB.
The best has been good enough for a 3-2 start.
Other than the Packers, the Falcons have beaten the Lions and the Chiefs...not that impressive really, but when Peter King has to prove a point, we ignore this.
• Kerry Collins is back, and he's not going anywhere.
He knows what he isn't -- a No. 2 quarterback.
Vince Young has, and always will, suck so on the Titans he is not a #2 quarterback. That does not make him a #2 quarterback for nearly every other team in the league, except maybe five teams. Even those teams would rather have a younger player rather than a 35 year old who has started an entire season in a few years.
"I'm so excited to be here,'' he said on a noisy Titans' bus to the airport after the game. "I still have a lot of confidence in myself as a player, and I've got the kind of opportunity that I've been waiting for.''
What opportunity would that be? To quarterback a NFL team? I think he had that chance in Carolina, New Orleans, Oakland, and with the New York Giants. Granted he is playing very well right now but King Peter is getting overly giddy with the Kerry Collins love in free agency after this year.
I dare my reader(s) to pick a team that would want Kerry Collins for a two year deal after this year with the full intention of making him the starter for those two years, other than Kansas City. They don't count because they would sign me after this season if I could throw a spiral.
O'Hara couldn't say enough good things about Manning, and anyone's who watched much of the Giants this year sees what O'Hara sees -- the maturation of a kid who doesn't get flustered by anything.
I am getting really close to admitting I was wrong about Eli Manning but I still need to see some more games from him playing at this high level...and he still will never be as good as Peyton.
The Fine Fifteen
1. New York Giants (4-0). This is not only a defensively intimidating team and offensively efficient team, but also a very deep team.
They also saved two babies from drowing in lakes this week and solved the financial crisis. Good job New York Giants!
Tom Coughlin suspends his best receiver for a game, and his plug-in guy, Domenik Hixon, probably the fifth receiver coming out of training camp, outgains Seattle 117-115 and out-touchdowns the Seahawks 1-0 in the first half.
Wow! That is amazing they beat Seattle like that at home. Especially since the Seahawks 2nd leading receiver is Billy McMullen. The Giants are the best!
2. Tennessee (5-0). Best game by a quarterback with a 52.0 passer rating in a long, long time. When's the last time a backup quarterback went into Baltimore and drove 80 yards to win the game in the fourth quarter?
Those are some interesting Jayson Stark-ish type milestones you have mentioned there King Peter. "When was the last time a RB ran for 150+ yards against Pittsburgh when the team was missing its top 2 receivers and there was a full moon the night before?"
Notice I keep calling Kerry Collins a backup quarterback. He's not anymore.
Not for the Titans because he is the best they can do right now. For 90% of the rest of the league he is a backup quarterback. I am not quite yet buying what Kerry Collins is selling simply based on his history of looking good one year and then the next looking year looking horrible. I don't care how much he has slimmed down and quit drinking.
6. New England (3-1). The hounds have been released. Matt Cassel has been allowed to throw it way far downfield. See that smile on the sidelines from Randy Moss?
They beat San Francisco this week? Super Bowl or bust! Finally someone has taken the chains off of Matt Cassel, with an arm as strong as that and a history of beating sub .500 teams, I say Matty Iccccccccccce 2 puts the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
11. Buffalo (4-1). Bills surrendered five sacks. Bills turned it over four times. Bills got their terrific young quarterback concussed. Storm clouds form over Orchard Park. Bet they're glad to have the bye this week.
Wow. One loss and King Peter drops them in his "Fucked Up Fifteen" to number 11. Right behind a 2-2 team and right in front of a 2-3 team. I guess Trent Edwards did not return Peter's late night phone calls.
14. Indianapolis (2-2). "We played Colts football for five minutes today,'' coach Tony Dungy told his team in a raucous locker room at Houston. "Good thing it was the last five.''
I would not call the Colts lucky this year, I think they have actually earned both wins they had, but doesn't it feel like this team is hanging on by a thread right now? I see this working out two ways, first the Colts will get breaks all year and this will lead them to the playoffs, or second, the bubble will burst and they will be lucky to be the 10-6 I predicted.
Defensive Players of the Week
Ray Lewis, MLB, Baltimore. I know, I know. The Ravens lost Sunday, a painful defeat at the hands of the Titans in which they let Tennessee drive the length of the field in the fourth quarter to win. But the play of Lewis over the last eight quarters simply must be recognized. In the narrow losses to Pittsburgh and Tennessee, Lewis has 20 tackles, two sacks, two passes deflected, one tackle for loss and two quarterback hits.
Travis LaBoy, DE, Arizona. Facing the previously unbeaten Bills, LaBoy led a parade of pass-rushers to the Buffalo backfield and finished with seven tackles, two sacks, two quarterback pressures and two tackles for loss. Arizona won 41-17 -- a week after getting scorched for six touchdown passes and 56 points by the Jets.
These are both great individual performances. More so Travis LaBoy's than Ray Lewis, which apparently encompassed two games and King Peter just felt like mentioning both.
The problem with this meaningless award is that the Carolina Panthers held the Kansas City Chiefs to 127 yards of total offense this week. DeAngelo Williams, the Panthers running back, ran for 123 by himself. How this is not impressive to Peter I really have no idea, considering the Chiefs did not have 100 yards of total offense until the fourth quarter and did not cross the 50 yard line until the second half. My whole point is that if you replace "Carolina Panthers" with "New York Giants" it would have been mentioned at least once in this MMQB column.
Special Teams Player of the Week
Stephen Gostkowski, K, New England. I'm long overdue in recognizing this rising-star kicker. At Candlestick/Monster/3Com/Whatever Park Sunday, he kicked field goals of 35, 40 and 49 yards, and put four of seven kickoffs in the end zone; three were downed as touchbacks. For the year, he's hit on all 10 field goals he's tried.
Am I the only one that sees what a huge New England Patriot fan he is? I would like to think not but I may be. Or I may be insane.
I also don't spend my entire life trying to prove certain people are fans of Boston area teams, but the media has this enormous group of reporters who are from the New England area and it gets quite tiresome for me. Again, we have loyal readers who love the Patriots and the Red Sox, so I don't want to constantly bash them. Gostkowski a definite upgrade from Adam Vinitieriiaiaia simply because Adam V. broke my heart and I hate him.
In 1971, the Raiders chose 19th and the Rams 20th. Tatum, the safety from Ohio State, and Youngblood, the defensive end from Florida, were on the board. Though Davis has always been a DB fan, he favored Youngblood here, and Madden wanted Tatum. Madden won, but took no victorious pride in it. He just thought Tatum fit the Raiders' defense better.
The point is, Madden and Davis sparred verbally all the time, and neither took it personally. "That's what the next coach has to do,'' said Madden.
This is a great story and all, but you are choosing between a player in the middle to late parts of the 1st round. It is a little different from disagreeing about the #1 pick of the draft. If a coach doesn't agree with the player the owner wants to pick at #1 in the draft, then there should not be a "we'll agree to disagree" type mood by either side. That player is going to be the cornerstone of the team and in this situation was the first pick that Lane Kiffin got to make as head coach. Way for Peter King and John Madden to try to compare two things that are completely different.
Throw in the fact there was no salary cap at the time when the Tatum pick was made and dumbass John Madden is comparing apples and oranges. That was 35 years ago! If you can't recognize the way the game has changed, then I don't know what to tell you.
1. I think these are my quick-hit thoughts of Week 5:
a. Tony Mandarich admits to steroid use at Michigan State and using performance enhancers and abusing alcohol as a pro in an interview with Armen Keteyian. Rick, I'm shocked to see gambling going on in this establishment. Absolutely shocked!
I don't get that reference at all. I googled Peter King claiming prior to today that Tony Mandarich used steroids and looked for an article where Peter claimed Mandarich was accused of using steroids and could not find anything. Obviously Peter knew though, right?
I did find this though...which is really interesting:
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1068312/2/index.htm
The story about his mom wrestling him because he is built like his mother is just priceless.
Also Mandarich said he would play in Green Bay if the price is right...then who does he get drafted by? Green Bay...and that is priceless. If you don't read that article then you have no one but yourself to blame.
3. I think this is what I liked about Week 5:
a. Eli and Peyton Manning were 14-of-15 at 1:32 p.m. Sunday.
This man absolutely falls in love with quarterbacks and if they do one thing well, he is sure to bring it up.
g. Nor do the Patriots. That was an old-school defensive game, with lots of confusion for young quarterback J.T. O'Sullivan to try to comprehend.
First off, it was against the 49ers and J.T. O'Sullivan, so it is not like it was against the 1967 Green Bay Packers.
Second, they also gave up 21 points to the 49ers, including 3 touchdowns thrown by the immortal J.T. O'Sullivan. They held the ball for a good percentage of the game which helped the total yardage of 199 the 49ers gained look good, but they gave up 4.3 yards per rush, so it is not like they were dominant in all phases. The Patriot offense controlled the game well and that is to their credit, so it seems like they played a better old-school offensive game.
I don't hate the Patriots, I promise.
h. Kyle Orton looks more and more like the answer for Chicago, at least temporarily.
I bet Peter thinks the Bears should sign Kerry Collins as their starter. You know he thinks this.
e. If I'm Mike Holmgren, I'm asking my front seven this morning: Could you guys explain to me why you didn't try to tackle Brandon Jacobs much? That was an embarrassing effort by the Seahawks on defense. Putrid.
Do you think Peter wants a redo on that puff piece he wrote about Mike Holmgren at the beginning of the year? I am guessing he probably has forgotten about it already, after all, they play on the West Coast, so they were not even worth mentioning anyway.
6. I think this is what the first month of the season has taught Eric Mangini about Brett Favre: "The biggest thing he brings to the team is he's exactly the same the next play whether the play's a big success or a failure. You try to teach your players that the only thing that matters is the next play, and to have such a great example of that on your team has been fantastic. With Brett, there's never a sense the game is over. He'd never act like it was anyway.''
The Jets had a bye week this week. You know Peter had to sneak Brett in there somewhere and somehow, despite the fact he has no relevance to anything that happened in the NFL this week.
You know in his dreams Peter re-enacts the movie "Man on Fire" with himself as Denzel Washington and Brett Favre as Dakota Fanning. I can see Peter and Brett playing in the backyard and instead of Peter teaching Brett to swim, he teaches Brett to throw a football. This is definitely one of the things I think I think Peter thinks about.
b. In November, when Vermeil is on the verge of cutting Phillips for repeated insubordination: The coach sees no difference in Phillips's demeanor. He doesn't get the apology he wanted. Finally, he says, "Lawrence, tell me something. What would you do if you were me?" Phillips thinks for a moment. "Coach," he says, "I'd cut me."
That's right. Vermeil, in effect, asked Phillips if he thought he should cut him -- and the player fired himself!
Peter King is chiding Lawrence Phillips for being honest with his head coach about what Phillips himself would do in the situation Dick Vermeil was in. I think if you switched the situation around a little bit and made the player not Lawrence Phillips, we'll say Jason Peter, then Peter King would respect his ability to tell his coach the truth. That was my Jason Whitlock moment of the week.
b. One other dumb playoff baseball thing: During the White Sox-Rays opening game, TBS showed 2008 fights between the Rays and Yanks, then the Rays and Red Sox, and Harold Reynolds said this sent a signal that the Rays wouldn't be pushed around by the power teams of their division anymore. Presto! Division title. What crappola. The Rays have been fighting for years. They brawled with the Sox in 2000 and finished 69-92. They brawled with the Sox in 2004 and finished 70-91. They brawled with the Sox in 2005 and finished 67-95. If you're going to use clichés, at least make them true.
You don't think Peter King forwarded this to his friends at CNNSI.com like Jon Heyman do you? He actually gained some credibility with me with this comment.
d. Does every Cubs fan dissolve into an emotionless blob at the first sign of adversity? Talk about a couple of woe-is-me crowds at Wrigley. And six runs in 27 innings is not going to win an April series in Pittsburgh or an October series in the playoffs.
Pot meet kettle. Red Sox fan meet the Cubs fan. After two World Series how quickly we forget the stories about how cursed the Red Sox are (Dan Shaughnessy), stories about how you just KNEW something bad would happen (Bill Simmons) or any other Red Sox fan who told a "we are so cursed and unlucky" story. I can't believe he wrote this.
i. You're the smart one, Bill Plaschke.
He just lost all of that credibility.
Read this and see if you think Bill Plaschke is smart:
http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2006/08/best-ever.html
This is classic FJMorgan.
You recognize Manny Ramirez quit on a great team once, and he'll do it again. In the first three innings Saturday night, Ramirez scored from first on a hard double to right, then tagged up at first base and went to second on a medium-deep fly to center field. I can guarantee you that in eight years in Boston he didn't do those two things in one season, never mind twice in one three-inning stretch.
Bitter Peter wrote his feelings down on a piece of paper about Manny. Bitter Peter does not have a woe is me attitude. Bitter Peter likes food.
l. Finally got to see the premiere of Family Guy, and if I had to pick,
The season premiere or the premiere of the entire show? If it is the entire show you are WAY late on that one.
I'm not sure which TV character I'd chose as the best in history -- George Costanza, Barney Fife, James West or Brian the dog. Brian's quite a maverick.
A dig at Sarah Palin! How fucking not hilarious and overdone now. I can see Peter putting down his pasta rolls and garlic bread to high five his friends with his greasy fat hands after he put this in the column. Not funny and you should be ashamed at being such a douchebag.
I do not like Sarah Palin at all either, and I am not defending her, but King Peter is incredibly not funny.
I think we will end it on that low note. I think I have run J.S. off for a few days, so you are stuck with me for a little while. We'll see how low readership goes.
Nothings changed.
I like to try to be neutral or at least not turn this into a fan blog, but I am going to have to warn you (all?), that is going to be incredibly tough this week. My favorite team in the world turned in one of the best defensive performances of their entire franchise history and there is zero mention by Peter. I would not need it mentioned necessarily, especially by him, but I think since the team they played but up a great deal of offensive numbers last week, it was at least noteworthy.
Let's get excited by Peter getting excited!
What do you want to hear about first? The origins of the Wildcat play, which has carried the woebegone Dolphins to wins over the two AFC Championship Game teams from last year? The future of Kerry Collins, who, in a month, has gone from a washed-up backup to one of the NFL's 20 most important players? The incredible case of Matty Ice? Plaxico Burress' future with the Giants?
We get options? Yes, then...none of the above! None of the above I say!
I don't know what to tell Peter King if he truly thinks Kerry Collins is one of the NFL's 20 most important players. I would love to hear about Matty Icccccccccccccce though.........and I don't care about Plaxico Burress at all.
None of the above, though I'll get to them all.
I like how he starts off the column giving the readers choices letting them choose what they can hear about first and then makes the choice for us. This pretty much describes how I feel about Peter King. I have an option every week but for some reason he makes the decision for me to read his column. I can't explain it.
My choice: The first play-call of Clinton Portis' life.
Oh absolutely, let's focus on this incredibly important event then. This one play in one football game, sounds very, very relevant. Granted, the play-call turns out to be a fourth down play and was important at the end of the game, but I am not sure it should MMQB.
The Redskins are turning into one of the great stories of the year. They looked inept in a flaccid opener against the Giants. They've looked like the '67 Packers since. They won their fourth straight, 23-17, at Philadelphia Sunday, and afterward, I couldn't quite believe what Jim Zorn told me.
He clearly just wanted to talk about the Redskins and needed a cheap segway.
On a side note, I like how everyone is talking up the NFC East because it has the greatest teams in the league in it and how certain people, Alex Marvez, want to put an East team in the NFC West. I can't help but think about the extraordinarily powerful NL Central with Milwaukee, St. Louis, and the Chicago Cubs and how the NL West was mocked all year for having teams that barely break .500 all year. Then the Dodgers sweep the team with the best record in the National League. A team from the "worst" division manhandles a team from the "best" division in the playoffs. I think this is a story I am going to remember for football season.
"Clinton called that fourth-down play,'' Zorn said.
The offensive guru is having a RB call key fourth down plays. This does not bode well for them in the future, having players believe they can call plays.
Zorn had his thinking cap on, with Jason Campbell and Portis and a couple of the coaches on the sidelines. "I called the formation first,'' he said, "and then he called the play. He thought we should run a draw. I didn't say anything, and I looked at my plan. It was going to be very hard to run. But I thought about the play, and it was a good call.
Fourth and one. Philly has zero timeouts and if they got the ball would have to march 62 yards to get a touchdown to win the game. A draw...I would not have the guts to call that. Really Zorn probably had no idea what play to call there either, so he just let Portis pick it knowing his play call choice would be no better.
The draw's a great call there, with the expectation that a strong back would either wham into the line, or the quarterback would throw a sure thing to either the back or tight end.
"A sure thing to either the back or tight end?" What the hell kind of sure thing type pass is there on fourth and one to a tight end or a running back? Clearly, King Peter knows more about football than me but it seems like either a pass to the running back or tight end would not be the greatest call on fourth down without a little play action. Especially since the Redskins would be in a tight formation at the line of scrimmage to at least sell the run, it would take a little longer for the tight end/RB to get open.
Imagine the ownership he feels in his team this morning, knowing the new coach, an offensive maven, thought enough of his brain and gut feeling that he could get the yard he needed.
Imagine ownership thinking their running back just called a play when they pay the head coach to do this. Not a great feeling I would imagine for their confidence in the coach to make play calls, especially if this starts happening frequently.
• Ice Ice Baby. "You don't realize the stadium's right in the middle of a neighborhood,'' Matt Ryan said over the cell phone with a bit of impressed wonder Sunday. He'd just walked into Lambeau Field on his fifth professional start and stunned the Packers 27-24. He was 16 of 26 for 194 yards, with two TDs, one pick and no sacks taken, and he finished the game with two kneeldowns. We're now going to have to take this kid, and this team, seriously.
Ladies and Gentleman, Peter King has a new quarterback boyfriend, but he and Brett Favre are going to stay friends and not avoid each other, don't worry.
Let's make sure Matt Ryan meets all of Peter's criteria:
White- check
Has an affiliation with Boston- check and he gave the stupid ass nickname Matty Ice to him, after giving it to Matt Cassel, so that must be some kind of bonus point.
Gives Peter access to his thought process- we will see
Peter can write about his appearance without it disturbing the player- well...
He looks like a bank vice president 25 minutes after the game, in a neatly pressed suit with not a hair out of place.
Check!
Ryan plays the part of an NFL quarterback perfectly. He says all the right things.
That is all that is required really. Akili Smith did not play the part of a QB well, not because of the skill required for the position, but mostly he said the wrong things and expressed his hatred for anyone of Muslim and Asian descent. That was the wrong thing to say. Same thing with Heath Shuler and now he is taking his pro-fur wearing stances to Washington D.C. as a Senator! Being pro-fur is not the right thing to say, so he sucked at QB.
The best has been good enough for a 3-2 start.
Other than the Packers, the Falcons have beaten the Lions and the Chiefs...not that impressive really, but when Peter King has to prove a point, we ignore this.
• Kerry Collins is back, and he's not going anywhere.
He knows what he isn't -- a No. 2 quarterback.
Vince Young has, and always will, suck so on the Titans he is not a #2 quarterback. That does not make him a #2 quarterback for nearly every other team in the league, except maybe five teams. Even those teams would rather have a younger player rather than a 35 year old who has started an entire season in a few years.
"I'm so excited to be here,'' he said on a noisy Titans' bus to the airport after the game. "I still have a lot of confidence in myself as a player, and I've got the kind of opportunity that I've been waiting for.''
What opportunity would that be? To quarterback a NFL team? I think he had that chance in Carolina, New Orleans, Oakland, and with the New York Giants. Granted he is playing very well right now but King Peter is getting overly giddy with the Kerry Collins love in free agency after this year.
I dare my reader(s) to pick a team that would want Kerry Collins for a two year deal after this year with the full intention of making him the starter for those two years, other than Kansas City. They don't count because they would sign me after this season if I could throw a spiral.
O'Hara couldn't say enough good things about Manning, and anyone's who watched much of the Giants this year sees what O'Hara sees -- the maturation of a kid who doesn't get flustered by anything.
I am getting really close to admitting I was wrong about Eli Manning but I still need to see some more games from him playing at this high level...and he still will never be as good as Peyton.
The Fine Fifteen
1. New York Giants (4-0). This is not only a defensively intimidating team and offensively efficient team, but also a very deep team.
They also saved two babies from drowing in lakes this week and solved the financial crisis. Good job New York Giants!
Tom Coughlin suspends his best receiver for a game, and his plug-in guy, Domenik Hixon, probably the fifth receiver coming out of training camp, outgains Seattle 117-115 and out-touchdowns the Seahawks 1-0 in the first half.
Wow! That is amazing they beat Seattle like that at home. Especially since the Seahawks 2nd leading receiver is Billy McMullen. The Giants are the best!
2. Tennessee (5-0). Best game by a quarterback with a 52.0 passer rating in a long, long time. When's the last time a backup quarterback went into Baltimore and drove 80 yards to win the game in the fourth quarter?
Those are some interesting Jayson Stark-ish type milestones you have mentioned there King Peter. "When was the last time a RB ran for 150+ yards against Pittsburgh when the team was missing its top 2 receivers and there was a full moon the night before?"
Notice I keep calling Kerry Collins a backup quarterback. He's not anymore.
Not for the Titans because he is the best they can do right now. For 90% of the rest of the league he is a backup quarterback. I am not quite yet buying what Kerry Collins is selling simply based on his history of looking good one year and then the next looking year looking horrible. I don't care how much he has slimmed down and quit drinking.
6. New England (3-1). The hounds have been released. Matt Cassel has been allowed to throw it way far downfield. See that smile on the sidelines from Randy Moss?
They beat San Francisco this week? Super Bowl or bust! Finally someone has taken the chains off of Matt Cassel, with an arm as strong as that and a history of beating sub .500 teams, I say Matty Iccccccccccce 2 puts the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
11. Buffalo (4-1). Bills surrendered five sacks. Bills turned it over four times. Bills got their terrific young quarterback concussed. Storm clouds form over Orchard Park. Bet they're glad to have the bye this week.
Wow. One loss and King Peter drops them in his "Fucked Up Fifteen" to number 11. Right behind a 2-2 team and right in front of a 2-3 team. I guess Trent Edwards did not return Peter's late night phone calls.
14. Indianapolis (2-2). "We played Colts football for five minutes today,'' coach Tony Dungy told his team in a raucous locker room at Houston. "Good thing it was the last five.''
I would not call the Colts lucky this year, I think they have actually earned both wins they had, but doesn't it feel like this team is hanging on by a thread right now? I see this working out two ways, first the Colts will get breaks all year and this will lead them to the playoffs, or second, the bubble will burst and they will be lucky to be the 10-6 I predicted.
Defensive Players of the Week
Ray Lewis, MLB, Baltimore. I know, I know. The Ravens lost Sunday, a painful defeat at the hands of the Titans in which they let Tennessee drive the length of the field in the fourth quarter to win. But the play of Lewis over the last eight quarters simply must be recognized. In the narrow losses to Pittsburgh and Tennessee, Lewis has 20 tackles, two sacks, two passes deflected, one tackle for loss and two quarterback hits.
Travis LaBoy, DE, Arizona. Facing the previously unbeaten Bills, LaBoy led a parade of pass-rushers to the Buffalo backfield and finished with seven tackles, two sacks, two quarterback pressures and two tackles for loss. Arizona won 41-17 -- a week after getting scorched for six touchdown passes and 56 points by the Jets.
These are both great individual performances. More so Travis LaBoy's than Ray Lewis, which apparently encompassed two games and King Peter just felt like mentioning both.
The problem with this meaningless award is that the Carolina Panthers held the Kansas City Chiefs to 127 yards of total offense this week. DeAngelo Williams, the Panthers running back, ran for 123 by himself. How this is not impressive to Peter I really have no idea, considering the Chiefs did not have 100 yards of total offense until the fourth quarter and did not cross the 50 yard line until the second half. My whole point is that if you replace "Carolina Panthers" with "New York Giants" it would have been mentioned at least once in this MMQB column.
Special Teams Player of the Week
Stephen Gostkowski, K, New England. I'm long overdue in recognizing this rising-star kicker. At Candlestick/Monster/3Com/Whatever Park Sunday, he kicked field goals of 35, 40 and 49 yards, and put four of seven kickoffs in the end zone; three were downed as touchbacks. For the year, he's hit on all 10 field goals he's tried.
Am I the only one that sees what a huge New England Patriot fan he is? I would like to think not but I may be. Or I may be insane.
I also don't spend my entire life trying to prove certain people are fans of Boston area teams, but the media has this enormous group of reporters who are from the New England area and it gets quite tiresome for me. Again, we have loyal readers who love the Patriots and the Red Sox, so I don't want to constantly bash them. Gostkowski a definite upgrade from Adam Vinitieriiaiaia simply because Adam V. broke my heart and I hate him.
In 1971, the Raiders chose 19th and the Rams 20th. Tatum, the safety from Ohio State, and Youngblood, the defensive end from Florida, were on the board. Though Davis has always been a DB fan, he favored Youngblood here, and Madden wanted Tatum. Madden won, but took no victorious pride in it. He just thought Tatum fit the Raiders' defense better.
The point is, Madden and Davis sparred verbally all the time, and neither took it personally. "That's what the next coach has to do,'' said Madden.
This is a great story and all, but you are choosing between a player in the middle to late parts of the 1st round. It is a little different from disagreeing about the #1 pick of the draft. If a coach doesn't agree with the player the owner wants to pick at #1 in the draft, then there should not be a "we'll agree to disagree" type mood by either side. That player is going to be the cornerstone of the team and in this situation was the first pick that Lane Kiffin got to make as head coach. Way for Peter King and John Madden to try to compare two things that are completely different.
Throw in the fact there was no salary cap at the time when the Tatum pick was made and dumbass John Madden is comparing apples and oranges. That was 35 years ago! If you can't recognize the way the game has changed, then I don't know what to tell you.
1. I think these are my quick-hit thoughts of Week 5:
a. Tony Mandarich admits to steroid use at Michigan State and using performance enhancers and abusing alcohol as a pro in an interview with Armen Keteyian. Rick, I'm shocked to see gambling going on in this establishment. Absolutely shocked!
I don't get that reference at all. I googled Peter King claiming prior to today that Tony Mandarich used steroids and looked for an article where Peter claimed Mandarich was accused of using steroids and could not find anything. Obviously Peter knew though, right?
I did find this though...which is really interesting:
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1068312/2/index.htm
The story about his mom wrestling him because he is built like his mother is just priceless.
Also Mandarich said he would play in Green Bay if the price is right...then who does he get drafted by? Green Bay...and that is priceless. If you don't read that article then you have no one but yourself to blame.
3. I think this is what I liked about Week 5:
a. Eli and Peyton Manning were 14-of-15 at 1:32 p.m. Sunday.
This man absolutely falls in love with quarterbacks and if they do one thing well, he is sure to bring it up.
g. Nor do the Patriots. That was an old-school defensive game, with lots of confusion for young quarterback J.T. O'Sullivan to try to comprehend.
First off, it was against the 49ers and J.T. O'Sullivan, so it is not like it was against the 1967 Green Bay Packers.
Second, they also gave up 21 points to the 49ers, including 3 touchdowns thrown by the immortal J.T. O'Sullivan. They held the ball for a good percentage of the game which helped the total yardage of 199 the 49ers gained look good, but they gave up 4.3 yards per rush, so it is not like they were dominant in all phases. The Patriot offense controlled the game well and that is to their credit, so it seems like they played a better old-school offensive game.
I don't hate the Patriots, I promise.
h. Kyle Orton looks more and more like the answer for Chicago, at least temporarily.
I bet Peter thinks the Bears should sign Kerry Collins as their starter. You know he thinks this.
e. If I'm Mike Holmgren, I'm asking my front seven this morning: Could you guys explain to me why you didn't try to tackle Brandon Jacobs much? That was an embarrassing effort by the Seahawks on defense. Putrid.
Do you think Peter wants a redo on that puff piece he wrote about Mike Holmgren at the beginning of the year? I am guessing he probably has forgotten about it already, after all, they play on the West Coast, so they were not even worth mentioning anyway.
6. I think this is what the first month of the season has taught Eric Mangini about Brett Favre: "The biggest thing he brings to the team is he's exactly the same the next play whether the play's a big success or a failure. You try to teach your players that the only thing that matters is the next play, and to have such a great example of that on your team has been fantastic. With Brett, there's never a sense the game is over. He'd never act like it was anyway.''
The Jets had a bye week this week. You know Peter had to sneak Brett in there somewhere and somehow, despite the fact he has no relevance to anything that happened in the NFL this week.
You know in his dreams Peter re-enacts the movie "Man on Fire" with himself as Denzel Washington and Brett Favre as Dakota Fanning. I can see Peter and Brett playing in the backyard and instead of Peter teaching Brett to swim, he teaches Brett to throw a football. This is definitely one of the things I think I think Peter thinks about.
b. In November, when Vermeil is on the verge of cutting Phillips for repeated insubordination: The coach sees no difference in Phillips's demeanor. He doesn't get the apology he wanted. Finally, he says, "Lawrence, tell me something. What would you do if you were me?" Phillips thinks for a moment. "Coach," he says, "I'd cut me."
That's right. Vermeil, in effect, asked Phillips if he thought he should cut him -- and the player fired himself!
Peter King is chiding Lawrence Phillips for being honest with his head coach about what Phillips himself would do in the situation Dick Vermeil was in. I think if you switched the situation around a little bit and made the player not Lawrence Phillips, we'll say Jason Peter, then Peter King would respect his ability to tell his coach the truth. That was my Jason Whitlock moment of the week.
b. One other dumb playoff baseball thing: During the White Sox-Rays opening game, TBS showed 2008 fights between the Rays and Yanks, then the Rays and Red Sox, and Harold Reynolds said this sent a signal that the Rays wouldn't be pushed around by the power teams of their division anymore. Presto! Division title. What crappola. The Rays have been fighting for years. They brawled with the Sox in 2000 and finished 69-92. They brawled with the Sox in 2004 and finished 70-91. They brawled with the Sox in 2005 and finished 67-95. If you're going to use clichés, at least make them true.
You don't think Peter King forwarded this to his friends at CNNSI.com like Jon Heyman do you? He actually gained some credibility with me with this comment.
d. Does every Cubs fan dissolve into an emotionless blob at the first sign of adversity? Talk about a couple of woe-is-me crowds at Wrigley. And six runs in 27 innings is not going to win an April series in Pittsburgh or an October series in the playoffs.
Pot meet kettle. Red Sox fan meet the Cubs fan. After two World Series how quickly we forget the stories about how cursed the Red Sox are (Dan Shaughnessy), stories about how you just KNEW something bad would happen (Bill Simmons) or any other Red Sox fan who told a "we are so cursed and unlucky" story. I can't believe he wrote this.
i. You're the smart one, Bill Plaschke.
He just lost all of that credibility.
Read this and see if you think Bill Plaschke is smart:
http://www.firejoemorgan.com/2006/08/best-ever.html
This is classic FJMorgan.
You recognize Manny Ramirez quit on a great team once, and he'll do it again. In the first three innings Saturday night, Ramirez scored from first on a hard double to right, then tagged up at first base and went to second on a medium-deep fly to center field. I can guarantee you that in eight years in Boston he didn't do those two things in one season, never mind twice in one three-inning stretch.
Bitter Peter wrote his feelings down on a piece of paper about Manny. Bitter Peter does not have a woe is me attitude. Bitter Peter likes food.
l. Finally got to see the premiere of Family Guy, and if I had to pick,
The season premiere or the premiere of the entire show? If it is the entire show you are WAY late on that one.
I'm not sure which TV character I'd chose as the best in history -- George Costanza, Barney Fife, James West or Brian the dog. Brian's quite a maverick.
A dig at Sarah Palin! How fucking not hilarious and overdone now. I can see Peter putting down his pasta rolls and garlic bread to high five his friends with his greasy fat hands after he put this in the column. Not funny and you should be ashamed at being such a douchebag.
I do not like Sarah Palin at all either, and I am not defending her, but King Peter is incredibly not funny.
I think we will end it on that low note. I think I have run J.S. off for a few days, so you are stuck with me for a little while. We'll see how low readership goes.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
4 comments Bill Simmons Shows Up One Month Late For A Party And Does Not Even Bring A Gift: Part 2
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Friday, October 3, 2008
0 comments Easterbrook's Bullrush...Easterbrook in a "Rush" to Criticise
So, I thought I'd give you guys a break from Ben's self-flagellation and simultaneously check in on the ball of pure ego that is Gregg Easterbrook.
As you can see from the title, part of me has given up. At least the pun centric part of me, I am fully in the hands of the sportswriters now. You'd think they'd give Easterbrook a new photo on Page 2 huh? Like it's all black and white, like he's died of something or terminally ill. Like the Easterbrook of the good old days. In fact, it kind of looks like a high school photo in a yearbook. Maybe he is so vain he demands that no photos are taken of him over the age of 28, I don't know. What I do know? Easterbrook fucking loves a man with his hands wrapped around the ball as long as he isn't throwing or kicking it - ideally football would not allow throwing or kicking the ball at all apparently. This is just a quickie, but it is a doozy.
Tis Better to Have Rushed and Lost Than Never to Have Rushed At All:
Isn't Denver supposed to be the league's master of the rush?
maybe four years ago. Now it would be Minny. Or Jacksonville. Or San Diego. If you watch football you'd notice that Denver has been one of the most aerial based teams in the NFL. Keep up Gregory, you only write a thesis on the fucking sport every week. So no, they are not. Any other questions you need to ask me, the reader of your column, to educate you on football?
Trailing woeful Kansas City 26-16 with 2:26 remaining, the Broncos reached first-and-10 on the Chiefs' 15 and went incompletion, incompletion, incompletion, field goal. Then the onside kick failed, and Larry Johnson iced the game with a touchdown run.
what? Seriously? What the fuck? I mean, it's wrong, and I'll get to that, but even more amazing - this goes against everything you stand for! You're all about throwing caution to the wind, "4th and 67? Who gives a fuck, you're down by one with 5:57 remaining! Would you like FRIES with that vagina?" This has been your thing! The whole "coaches are scared to go for it in must win situations"! This is the single defining football trait of your writing (considering 60% of your columns are old man rants about subjects unrelated to sports). You have to throw right? Where is your famous YOU NEED TWO SCORES philosophy here? Honestly, what the fuck. Even with hurry up offense you would get two plays, max, in before the two minute warning, and it's very unlikely you would score or even get a first down on those two plays. If Denver had less than 3 TO's it makes even less sense. You need to score quickly. You watch football Easterbrook? Notice how teams throw when they are behind by more than a score in the last quarter? There's a reason for that champ.
I'm not saying that rushing would be unforgivable or anything, it's just like...who cares? Both decisions are fine and passing on first down (and if you pass on first down you pretty much commit to passing on the remainder of the series) is probably the more common (and also more likely to result in victory) choice. How can you rail against this? Furthermore, what possible difference would it have made to the outcome of the game if they rushed? Touchdown or no, if they don't recover the kick it's game over anyway.
So much idiocy packed into just four sentences - and there are TEN THOUSAND WORDS OF THIS A WEEK.
As you can see from the title, part of me has given up. At least the pun centric part of me, I am fully in the hands of the sportswriters now. You'd think they'd give Easterbrook a new photo on Page 2 huh? Like it's all black and white, like he's died of something or terminally ill. Like the Easterbrook of the good old days. In fact, it kind of looks like a high school photo in a yearbook. Maybe he is so vain he demands that no photos are taken of him over the age of 28, I don't know. What I do know? Easterbrook fucking loves a man with his hands wrapped around the ball as long as he isn't throwing or kicking it - ideally football would not allow throwing or kicking the ball at all apparently. This is just a quickie, but it is a doozy.
Tis Better to Have Rushed and Lost Than Never to Have Rushed At All:
Isn't Denver supposed to be the league's master of the rush?
maybe four years ago. Now it would be Minny. Or Jacksonville. Or San Diego. If you watch football you'd notice that Denver has been one of the most aerial based teams in the NFL. Keep up Gregory, you only write a thesis on the fucking sport every week. So no, they are not. Any other questions you need to ask me, the reader of your column, to educate you on football?
Trailing woeful Kansas City 26-16 with 2:26 remaining, the Broncos reached first-and-10 on the Chiefs' 15 and went incompletion, incompletion, incompletion, field goal. Then the onside kick failed, and Larry Johnson iced the game with a touchdown run.
what? Seriously? What the fuck? I mean, it's wrong, and I'll get to that, but even more amazing - this goes against everything you stand for! You're all about throwing caution to the wind, "4th and 67? Who gives a fuck, you're down by one with 5:57 remaining! Would you like FRIES with that vagina?" This has been your thing! The whole "coaches are scared to go for it in must win situations"! This is the single defining football trait of your writing (considering 60% of your columns are old man rants about subjects unrelated to sports). You have to throw right? Where is your famous YOU NEED TWO SCORES philosophy here? Honestly, what the fuck. Even with hurry up offense you would get two plays, max, in before the two minute warning, and it's very unlikely you would score or even get a first down on those two plays. If Denver had less than 3 TO's it makes even less sense. You need to score quickly. You watch football Easterbrook? Notice how teams throw when they are behind by more than a score in the last quarter? There's a reason for that champ.
I'm not saying that rushing would be unforgivable or anything, it's just like...who cares? Both decisions are fine and passing on first down (and if you pass on first down you pretty much commit to passing on the remainder of the series) is probably the more common (and also more likely to result in victory) choice. How can you rail against this? Furthermore, what possible difference would it have made to the outcome of the game if they rushed? Touchdown or no, if they don't recover the kick it's game over anyway.
So much idiocy packed into just four sentences - and there are TEN THOUSAND WORDS OF THIS A WEEK.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
1 comments Bill Simmons Shows Up One Month Late For a Party and Does Not Even Bring a Gift: Part 1
Bill Simmons is back! He talks about the two topics absolutely no one is tired of...Manny Ramirez and Bill Simmons' own love for the Boston Red Sox. Did you hear Manny does not play for the Red Sox anymore? I had not until I read this.
If Bill Simmons wrote a Christmas card to someone and I could get my hands on it, I would write a post about it and if I ever find what he wrote in his 9th grade yearbook, I will write a post about that as well. As many of you know, I am having a hell of a time with factual accuracy at this time in my blogging life. So J.S. and I have hired an Ombudsman to make sure all facts are correct. We do all of this for you, our reader(s).
Simmons!
You may wonder why I am writing about a freaking epic 20,000 word article that Bill Simmons wrote, immediately after not being able to handle a 1,000 word piece by Gene W. without claiming the National League is now using the designated hitter and the LDS goes 101 games. I wondering why I am also but a Bill Simmons post rarely has any facts so this should be easy. This is Part 1 of the post and Part 2 will be up tomorrow or Saturday, so mark your calendars!
When I was working for "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in April 2003, our gregarious executive producer, Daniel Kellison, convinced a few notable Red Sox players to be our guest announcers before a three-game series in Anaheim.
You worked for Jimmy Kimmel? THE Jimmy Kimmel? The one with an incredibly not funny ex-girlfriend Sarah Silverman? Why have you never mentioned this before?
Oh, and yes, he is starting off with a useless story about the only thing in his world that matters...himself.
This useless story will seem exciting compared to the long discussion and the many many words of boredom you will feel talking about the reasons Manny Ramirez left Boston. I do all of this for you readers.
When we learned Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez were coming, we were infinitely more excited than for Britney Spears' appearance six months later.
"And we're going out afterward!" Daniel predicted gleefully. "We're taking them out!"
I would bet $100 that Manny Ramirez smells like a homeless man when you meet him in person. Make it $200 if he is wearing his batting helmet.
To Daniel's disbelief, I made myself a game-time decision.
By the way, Bill has no idea what "game-time decision" means. He is using it here to say he was not going, not that he would think about it, but that he was not going. My ombudsman says a game-time decision is when a coach decides whether a player will play or not...Simmons was not playing in this situation, so it is used incorrectly.
See, I think like a fan, write like a fan and try like hell to keep it that way. If I went drinking with my favorite players, I might see things that couldn't be unseen.
Let's play a word association game describing a story Bill told to prove Bill does not do this. First one to guess what I am talking about wins a box of stale Hot and Spicy Cheez-Its.
Tom Brady...
2008 Super Bowl...
Patriots perfect season...
Bill's "connected friend"...
Hotel room...
Nope, not a threesome. Bill was going to hang out with Tom Brady back in his hotel room after the Patriots won the Super Bowl against the Giants. I actually respect his decision here to not go out and stay "a fan," but I guess Bill changes his ways when it comes to Tom Brady.
Every time I watched the Sox from then on, when Wedding Ring Guy came to bat, I thought of him hitting on our 22-year-old talent assistant and jamming that ring in his pocket. And you wonder why I never want to drink with my favorite players.
You may be wondering what the point of this story is. You are not alone.
With Manny riding in the other limo, they started telling "Manny Being Manny" stories, like how Manny routinely stuffed uncashed paychecks in the top shelf of his locker. Seems he rarely got around to cashing them.
I am still waiting for Adam Corrolla to start telling some "Steve Being Steve" stories...you know since people say that type stuff about Steve Smith and all.
I heard Manny drives around town picks up little children in a pick up truck, then takes them back to his house, gives them lemonade while they plant a garden in his front yard. Then he gives them autographs and leaves the house, not returning for days. Manny Being Manny, I guess.
Papi pulled out Manny's card, felt an unexpected twinge of guilt and confessed. And Manny -- the alleged idiot savant with uncashed checks spilling out of his locker, the so-called dummy who stumbled into a record contract and should have been conned into paying for everything by his much, much, much smarter teammates -- was laughing and saying, "Nononono, I'm not paying"
Big Papi would have gotten a big punch to the face if he stole my credit card and then tried to get me to pay. This is a horrible Manny Being Manny story. It sounds more like David Ortiz being an asshole, which I always suspected. For some reason I felt like Dr. Sloan from "Diagnosis Murder" when I wrote that sentence.
I thought of that story when Manny began acting up again this summer. Boston's brain trust had decided to dump him. Again. We were doing this dance for the fourth time in six years. There were two crucial differences this time, the first being Manny had canned his old agents and hired Scott Boras, one of the worst human beings in America who hasn't actually committed a crime.
Oh yeah, I have heard about how much trouble the Red Sox have with Scott Boras and trying to meet his demands. Wait, no I have not. I am not sure how Bill thinks Boras is so evil since a fair amount of Red Sox players are currently managed by Boras.
You got Jason Varitek, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and J.D. Drew off the top of my head who the Red Sox signed while Boras was their agent. Of course Manny was represented by him as well. Maybe Bill is just mad that Johnny Damon and Derek Lowe left for more money. It is weird to hear a fan of a team with the second largest payroll complaining about Scott Boras, especially when my favorite team has traded or not resigned 2 players in the past year simply because Boras is their agent.
One of the team's minority partners, the New York Times Company, happens to own Boston's signature newspaper (The Globe).
Interesting. Not that the Globe would not write anything negative about the Red Sox.
Note: Not "the Sox" but the Red Sox. There is another "Sox" team, so you can't just say "the Sox," no matter how much you know it annoys me.
The Sox signed cushy deals with Boston's signature sports radio station (WEEI) and sister station (WRKO), and since those rights always can be shopped to a competitor down the road, you'll see CC Sabathia hit an inside-the-park home run before a Red Sox owner gets ripped to shreds on WEEI.
It's like they have their very own dictatorship to make sure decisions are not second guessed. Probably a smart move, I bet Hank Steinbrenner wishes he could do this.
Had the identity of the second villain been revealed, maybe Boston fans wouldn't have been so eager to downgrade from a first-ballot Hall of Famer to Jason Bay.
Oh, the guy who hit the homerun last night in the first round of the playoffs? He sucks!
He hit 31 HRs and had 101 RBI's this year and is a definite upgrade over Manny defensively so even though it was not an even trade, it's not like the Red Sox got Casey Kotchman in return.
Once Manny shifted into sulk mode, the Red Sox wasted no time painting him as a malcontent. After Manny berated the team's 64-year-old traveling secretary and shoved the poor guy to the ground, the team did everything but hire actors to re-enact the incident on www.redsox.com.7 After Manny skipped a crucial game against the Yankees, claiming he had a sore knee, management made a point of getting MRIs on both knees and telling reporters he was fine.
I realize Bill is the speaker for all of Red Sox Nation and he was taking a 10 week leave of absence so he can make money writing a book, but do we really need this to be rehashed right now? If you don't know this story, you don't like baseball, so you would probably not read this article. Thereby only those who already know the story are reading this article, so it is not news to them. Hopefully the ombudsman will miss my leaps in logic.
As the trading deadline approached and Manny continued his "Beavis and Butt-Head" routine,
Uh...his Beavis and Butthead routine...he was making snarky comments while watching music videos, picking his nose and passing gas? This is where Bill sometimes fails in writing. He can't accurately express an emotion without comparing it to something else and sometimes the comparison does not make sense to me.
This is one of those instances.
Manny hit a double-play ball and jogged to first base with the intensity of an underpaid bus boy cleaning a table at Denny's.
Shitty comparison but at least it makes sense.
On the NESN broadcast, Jerry Remy was coughing up a lung in disgust.
This would be funny if you did not know Bill Simmons is using his column to take cheap shots at Remy because he has a "feud" with him.
http://awfulannouncing.blogspot.com/2007/07/jerry-remy-throws-bill-simmons.html
Bill Simmons: Slowly turning into Jay Mariotti but without actually doing any reporting.
That is his motto now. Done and done...
Since Boston signed him in 2000, my life changed in the following ways: I started writing for ESPN, moved to California, worked on a TV show, wrote a book, got married, fathered two kids, bought a house, purchased two "Red Sox World Championship" videos and knocked up Jamie-Lynn Spears.
Why is this column reading more like an introduction to Bill Simmons for those who don't know him? This also has nothing to do with Manny Ramirez, but has everything to do with why Bill Simmons loves himself. Few people know the sun's power pales in comparison to the energy Bill expends in attempting to get his accomplishments into every column.
Over the last three years, my daughter has seen Manny and Papi on our television more than the Wiggles and Elmo combined. Manny became part of my family, for God's sake. Doesn't that count for anything?
Count for anything for what? Manny Ramirez is among the 200 million Americans who care neither about Bill Simmons or how many times he has watched a Red Sox game. Somehow he is simultaneously whining about Manny leaving and trying to prove a point that Manny was evil.
Manny was being Manny and wanted to be Manny as a free agent after the season. The Red Sox weren't going to give him this option, so he acted a five year old and did not hustle. The Red Sox, rather than benching him, gave him exactly what he wanted. It seems pretty simple to me.
By the 2007 playoffs, Manny had evolved into the jelly to Big Papi's peanut butter.
Because David Ortiz is fat, he needs to be the jelly...because he has a belly full of it, like Santa Claus...because they are both fat.
During a rain delay against the Yankees last weekend, NESN showed the 2007 team video and one moment startled me: After Dustin Pedroia cranked his insurance home run against Cleveland in Game 7 of the ALCS, he skipped happily back to the dugout and was greeted by a delirious bear hug from ... yup, Manny Ramirez.
Why does everyone get so excited that Manny can do something humans do? He is a weird guy, that does not mean he can not get excited at seeing his teammate hitting a homerun. Why the hell would this startle Bill? Did he expect Manny to get up on the dugout and start flipping off the crowd or mooning Pedroia? Everyone even makes Manny weirder than he probably is. My ombudsman says I can't say anything else because I have no proof but I would bet he is just really quirky and kind of misunderstood.
How was Manny's latest "funk" much different than Carlos Delgado seemingly mailing it in until Willie Randolph was fired, then miraculously regaining the ability to smile and hit home runs for Jerry Manuel?
Exactly. You know what those two players have in common? Both Hispanic. What does that mean? Nothing.
His funk was exactly like Randy Moss's funk before he got to the Patriots. Players pout, it just depends on whether the team will put up with it or not. The Red Sox got tired of putting up with it. Haven't we heard all of this before?
It's like ESPN said, "People read Bill Simmons, people love the Red Sox...let's have Simmons write about the Manny situation so we can get more web site hits!" Then they did it and now we have this document to peruse.
If anything changed other than Boras getting a "Special Guest Star" tag in Manny's ongoing sitcom,
This is a weak attempt to blame Scott Boras. How can Bill assume Manny is so individualistic and quirky that there is a phrase, "Manny Being Manny" where it insinuates it is hard to control and predict his actions, then try to blame a man behind the curtain for all of Manny's actions. I doubt if Manny is so fucking odd and tough to deal with, then Scott Boras was able to tell him to try and opt out of his contract after the season and if that did not work, then to not hustle around the bases. That is why this is weak to blame Boras. Scott Boras, though incredibly evil, can't control Manny and for Bill Simmons to try and manufacture a new angle blaming him for this is disingenious.
You didn't hear Simmons complaining about the evil that was Scott Boras when J.D. Drew opted out of his contract to come to Boston...and just at the exact time they need a right fielder.
Look, I've seen Manny pull this crap at least 200 times in eight years. This was worse than the other 199 times?
Bill even admits this was an ongoing problem. Was this part of a grand new scheme for Scott Boras or did Manny decide as he has done 4 out of the past 6 years to act like an asshole and the fact the Red Sox could get rid of him this time exacerbated the issue? Did Boras sit down with his friends/associates and say, "let's get Manny Ramirez to hire us, convince him to pout about the two options the Red Sox have on his contract, and then see if the Red Sox will trade him. Even though they have put up with his shit for years and now have all the bargaining leverage they would need."
We know which one is true. Manny hired Boras as his agent because he knew he was going to pout about his options just like he had pouted four separate times in the past, but this time he knew he has Scott Boras to get him a new contract.
Simmons is just trying to manufacture a different angle for this that is just not there. Yes, Scott Boras had something to do with it, but he controlled Manny no more than any manager or teammate had been able to control him over the past 8 years, which is very little. Manny decided to pout like a baby and Scott Boras did not discourage these actions. Bottom line.
My ombudsman told me that is the one potentially inaccurate statement I could make but I would have to retract it upon someone finding proof that a google search did not find.
it was an ever-evolving 25-man roster: more happy-to-be-there youngsters and businesslike veterans, considerably fewer Latinos and free spirits -- guys who seemed woefully ill-equipped to handle Hurricane Manny.
You heard it here first. Latinos can not handle Manny Ramirez, despite the fact he is from a Latin country, they all hate him.
Bill Simmons reported this, you can believe it.
Manny's 2008 meltdown wasn't much different than the ones in 2003, 2005 and 2006, only nobody kept him in check this time around. It was just a different team.
A quick recap: Scott Boras is also at fault for Manny Ramirez's behavior because Manny is acting the same way he has consistently acted over the past 8 years. Scott Boras had nothing to do with those misbehaviors back then because he was not his agent but he does now. Why? Because the team is different and there are less Latinos, which means Manny knew no one would prevent him from pouting and the grand scheme to pout himself into a trade would work this year. Then he would laugh insanely and play with his dreadlocks for two hours.
This feels like some odd scheme that a cartoon villain would put together.
When Coco Crisp charged the mound in June and got summarily pounded and sucker-punched by a swarm of angry Rays, not a single Boston player had his back or seemed especially perturbed about what happened. I thought it was the most telling moment of the season.
If they weren't sticking up for Coco, they certainly weren't standing up to Manny Ramirez.
So this team was different in that they don't help out their teammates when they are getting their ass kicked? Where is the Ubuntu on this team?
You are probably asking yourself, "when did Bill think the Red Sox team was not standing up for Manny? When he started pouting and not hustling or the exact moment Coco Crisp got in the fight?"
The answer: Bill knew the EXACT moment Coco Crisp got in the fight because he can read minds and tell exactly what a team is thinking at all times. He saw Coco Crisp get in a fight and said to himself, "When Manny starts not hustling, this team is not going to give a shit and stand up for him."
Manny's teammates have rarely stood up for him, publicly at least, this team is not different, they just had enough talent to where they did not need him as much anymore.
Tomorrow we will try to refocus Bill more on boring us with Manny Ramirez history and less on blaming random people for Manny's behavior in Part 2 of our Bill Simmons special.
If Bill Simmons wrote a Christmas card to someone and I could get my hands on it, I would write a post about it and if I ever find what he wrote in his 9th grade yearbook, I will write a post about that as well. As many of you know, I am having a hell of a time with factual accuracy at this time in my blogging life. So J.S. and I have hired an Ombudsman to make sure all facts are correct. We do all of this for you, our reader(s).
Simmons!
You may wonder why I am writing about a freaking epic 20,000 word article that Bill Simmons wrote, immediately after not being able to handle a 1,000 word piece by Gene W. without claiming the National League is now using the designated hitter and the LDS goes 101 games. I wondering why I am also but a Bill Simmons post rarely has any facts so this should be easy. This is Part 1 of the post and Part 2 will be up tomorrow or Saturday, so mark your calendars!
When I was working for "Jimmy Kimmel Live" in April 2003, our gregarious executive producer, Daniel Kellison, convinced a few notable Red Sox players to be our guest announcers before a three-game series in Anaheim.
You worked for Jimmy Kimmel? THE Jimmy Kimmel? The one with an incredibly not funny ex-girlfriend Sarah Silverman? Why have you never mentioned this before?
Oh, and yes, he is starting off with a useless story about the only thing in his world that matters...himself.
This useless story will seem exciting compared to the long discussion and the many many words of boredom you will feel talking about the reasons Manny Ramirez left Boston. I do all of this for you readers.
When we learned Johnny Damon and Manny Ramirez were coming, we were infinitely more excited than for Britney Spears' appearance six months later.
"And we're going out afterward!" Daniel predicted gleefully. "We're taking them out!"
I would bet $100 that Manny Ramirez smells like a homeless man when you meet him in person. Make it $200 if he is wearing his batting helmet.
To Daniel's disbelief, I made myself a game-time decision.
By the way, Bill has no idea what "game-time decision" means. He is using it here to say he was not going, not that he would think about it, but that he was not going. My ombudsman says a game-time decision is when a coach decides whether a player will play or not...Simmons was not playing in this situation, so it is used incorrectly.
See, I think like a fan, write like a fan and try like hell to keep it that way. If I went drinking with my favorite players, I might see things that couldn't be unseen.
Let's play a word association game describing a story Bill told to prove Bill does not do this. First one to guess what I am talking about wins a box of stale Hot and Spicy Cheez-Its.
Tom Brady...
2008 Super Bowl...
Patriots perfect season...
Bill's "connected friend"...
Hotel room...
Nope, not a threesome. Bill was going to hang out with Tom Brady back in his hotel room after the Patriots won the Super Bowl against the Giants. I actually respect his decision here to not go out and stay "a fan," but I guess Bill changes his ways when it comes to Tom Brady.
Every time I watched the Sox from then on, when Wedding Ring Guy came to bat, I thought of him hitting on our 22-year-old talent assistant and jamming that ring in his pocket. And you wonder why I never want to drink with my favorite players.
You may be wondering what the point of this story is. You are not alone.
With Manny riding in the other limo, they started telling "Manny Being Manny" stories, like how Manny routinely stuffed uncashed paychecks in the top shelf of his locker. Seems he rarely got around to cashing them.
I am still waiting for Adam Corrolla to start telling some "Steve Being Steve" stories...you know since people say that type stuff about Steve Smith and all.
I heard Manny drives around town picks up little children in a pick up truck, then takes them back to his house, gives them lemonade while they plant a garden in his front yard. Then he gives them autographs and leaves the house, not returning for days. Manny Being Manny, I guess.
Papi pulled out Manny's card, felt an unexpected twinge of guilt and confessed. And Manny -- the alleged idiot savant with uncashed checks spilling out of his locker, the so-called dummy who stumbled into a record contract and should have been conned into paying for everything by his much, much, much smarter teammates -- was laughing and saying, "Nononono, I'm not paying"
Big Papi would have gotten a big punch to the face if he stole my credit card and then tried to get me to pay. This is a horrible Manny Being Manny story. It sounds more like David Ortiz being an asshole, which I always suspected. For some reason I felt like Dr. Sloan from "Diagnosis Murder" when I wrote that sentence.
I thought of that story when Manny began acting up again this summer. Boston's brain trust had decided to dump him. Again. We were doing this dance for the fourth time in six years. There were two crucial differences this time, the first being Manny had canned his old agents and hired Scott Boras, one of the worst human beings in America who hasn't actually committed a crime.
Oh yeah, I have heard about how much trouble the Red Sox have with Scott Boras and trying to meet his demands. Wait, no I have not. I am not sure how Bill thinks Boras is so evil since a fair amount of Red Sox players are currently managed by Boras.
You got Jason Varitek, Daisuke Matsuzaka, and J.D. Drew off the top of my head who the Red Sox signed while Boras was their agent. Of course Manny was represented by him as well. Maybe Bill is just mad that Johnny Damon and Derek Lowe left for more money. It is weird to hear a fan of a team with the second largest payroll complaining about Scott Boras, especially when my favorite team has traded or not resigned 2 players in the past year simply because Boras is their agent.
One of the team's minority partners, the New York Times Company, happens to own Boston's signature newspaper (The Globe).
Interesting. Not that the Globe would not write anything negative about the Red Sox.
Note: Not "the Sox" but the Red Sox. There is another "Sox" team, so you can't just say "the Sox," no matter how much you know it annoys me.
The Sox signed cushy deals with Boston's signature sports radio station (WEEI) and sister station (WRKO), and since those rights always can be shopped to a competitor down the road, you'll see CC Sabathia hit an inside-the-park home run before a Red Sox owner gets ripped to shreds on WEEI.
It's like they have their very own dictatorship to make sure decisions are not second guessed. Probably a smart move, I bet Hank Steinbrenner wishes he could do this.
Had the identity of the second villain been revealed, maybe Boston fans wouldn't have been so eager to downgrade from a first-ballot Hall of Famer to Jason Bay.
Oh, the guy who hit the homerun last night in the first round of the playoffs? He sucks!
He hit 31 HRs and had 101 RBI's this year and is a definite upgrade over Manny defensively so even though it was not an even trade, it's not like the Red Sox got Casey Kotchman in return.
Once Manny shifted into sulk mode, the Red Sox wasted no time painting him as a malcontent. After Manny berated the team's 64-year-old traveling secretary and shoved the poor guy to the ground, the team did everything but hire actors to re-enact the incident on www.redsox.com.7 After Manny skipped a crucial game against the Yankees, claiming he had a sore knee, management made a point of getting MRIs on both knees and telling reporters he was fine.
I realize Bill is the speaker for all of Red Sox Nation and he was taking a 10 week leave of absence so he can make money writing a book, but do we really need this to be rehashed right now? If you don't know this story, you don't like baseball, so you would probably not read this article. Thereby only those who already know the story are reading this article, so it is not news to them. Hopefully the ombudsman will miss my leaps in logic.
As the trading deadline approached and Manny continued his "Beavis and Butt-Head" routine,
Uh...his Beavis and Butthead routine...he was making snarky comments while watching music videos, picking his nose and passing gas? This is where Bill sometimes fails in writing. He can't accurately express an emotion without comparing it to something else and sometimes the comparison does not make sense to me.
This is one of those instances.
Manny hit a double-play ball and jogged to first base with the intensity of an underpaid bus boy cleaning a table at Denny's.
Shitty comparison but at least it makes sense.
On the NESN broadcast, Jerry Remy was coughing up a lung in disgust.
This would be funny if you did not know Bill Simmons is using his column to take cheap shots at Remy because he has a "feud" with him.
http://awfulannouncing.blogspot.com/2007/07/jerry-remy-throws-bill-simmons.html
Bill Simmons: Slowly turning into Jay Mariotti but without actually doing any reporting.
That is his motto now. Done and done...
Since Boston signed him in 2000, my life changed in the following ways: I started writing for ESPN, moved to California, worked on a TV show, wrote a book, got married, fathered two kids, bought a house, purchased two "Red Sox World Championship" videos and knocked up Jamie-Lynn Spears.
Why is this column reading more like an introduction to Bill Simmons for those who don't know him? This also has nothing to do with Manny Ramirez, but has everything to do with why Bill Simmons loves himself. Few people know the sun's power pales in comparison to the energy Bill expends in attempting to get his accomplishments into every column.
Over the last three years, my daughter has seen Manny and Papi on our television more than the Wiggles and Elmo combined. Manny became part of my family, for God's sake. Doesn't that count for anything?
Count for anything for what? Manny Ramirez is among the 200 million Americans who care neither about Bill Simmons or how many times he has watched a Red Sox game. Somehow he is simultaneously whining about Manny leaving and trying to prove a point that Manny was evil.
Manny was being Manny and wanted to be Manny as a free agent after the season. The Red Sox weren't going to give him this option, so he acted a five year old and did not hustle. The Red Sox, rather than benching him, gave him exactly what he wanted. It seems pretty simple to me.
By the 2007 playoffs, Manny had evolved into the jelly to Big Papi's peanut butter.
Because David Ortiz is fat, he needs to be the jelly...because he has a belly full of it, like Santa Claus...because they are both fat.
During a rain delay against the Yankees last weekend, NESN showed the 2007 team video and one moment startled me: After Dustin Pedroia cranked his insurance home run against Cleveland in Game 7 of the ALCS, he skipped happily back to the dugout and was greeted by a delirious bear hug from ... yup, Manny Ramirez.
Why does everyone get so excited that Manny can do something humans do? He is a weird guy, that does not mean he can not get excited at seeing his teammate hitting a homerun. Why the hell would this startle Bill? Did he expect Manny to get up on the dugout and start flipping off the crowd or mooning Pedroia? Everyone even makes Manny weirder than he probably is. My ombudsman says I can't say anything else because I have no proof but I would bet he is just really quirky and kind of misunderstood.
How was Manny's latest "funk" much different than Carlos Delgado seemingly mailing it in until Willie Randolph was fired, then miraculously regaining the ability to smile and hit home runs for Jerry Manuel?
Exactly. You know what those two players have in common? Both Hispanic. What does that mean? Nothing.
His funk was exactly like Randy Moss's funk before he got to the Patriots. Players pout, it just depends on whether the team will put up with it or not. The Red Sox got tired of putting up with it. Haven't we heard all of this before?
It's like ESPN said, "People read Bill Simmons, people love the Red Sox...let's have Simmons write about the Manny situation so we can get more web site hits!" Then they did it and now we have this document to peruse.
If anything changed other than Boras getting a "Special Guest Star" tag in Manny's ongoing sitcom,
This is a weak attempt to blame Scott Boras. How can Bill assume Manny is so individualistic and quirky that there is a phrase, "Manny Being Manny" where it insinuates it is hard to control and predict his actions, then try to blame a man behind the curtain for all of Manny's actions. I doubt if Manny is so fucking odd and tough to deal with, then Scott Boras was able to tell him to try and opt out of his contract after the season and if that did not work, then to not hustle around the bases. That is why this is weak to blame Boras. Scott Boras, though incredibly evil, can't control Manny and for Bill Simmons to try and manufacture a new angle blaming him for this is disingenious.
You didn't hear Simmons complaining about the evil that was Scott Boras when J.D. Drew opted out of his contract to come to Boston...and just at the exact time they need a right fielder.
Look, I've seen Manny pull this crap at least 200 times in eight years. This was worse than the other 199 times?
Bill even admits this was an ongoing problem. Was this part of a grand new scheme for Scott Boras or did Manny decide as he has done 4 out of the past 6 years to act like an asshole and the fact the Red Sox could get rid of him this time exacerbated the issue? Did Boras sit down with his friends/associates and say, "let's get Manny Ramirez to hire us, convince him to pout about the two options the Red Sox have on his contract, and then see if the Red Sox will trade him. Even though they have put up with his shit for years and now have all the bargaining leverage they would need."
We know which one is true. Manny hired Boras as his agent because he knew he was going to pout about his options just like he had pouted four separate times in the past, but this time he knew he has Scott Boras to get him a new contract.
Simmons is just trying to manufacture a different angle for this that is just not there. Yes, Scott Boras had something to do with it, but he controlled Manny no more than any manager or teammate had been able to control him over the past 8 years, which is very little. Manny decided to pout like a baby and Scott Boras did not discourage these actions. Bottom line.
My ombudsman told me that is the one potentially inaccurate statement I could make but I would have to retract it upon someone finding proof that a google search did not find.
it was an ever-evolving 25-man roster: more happy-to-be-there youngsters and businesslike veterans, considerably fewer Latinos and free spirits -- guys who seemed woefully ill-equipped to handle Hurricane Manny.
You heard it here first. Latinos can not handle Manny Ramirez, despite the fact he is from a Latin country, they all hate him.
Bill Simmons reported this, you can believe it.
Manny's 2008 meltdown wasn't much different than the ones in 2003, 2005 and 2006, only nobody kept him in check this time around. It was just a different team.
A quick recap: Scott Boras is also at fault for Manny Ramirez's behavior because Manny is acting the same way he has consistently acted over the past 8 years. Scott Boras had nothing to do with those misbehaviors back then because he was not his agent but he does now. Why? Because the team is different and there are less Latinos, which means Manny knew no one would prevent him from pouting and the grand scheme to pout himself into a trade would work this year. Then he would laugh insanely and play with his dreadlocks for two hours.
This feels like some odd scheme that a cartoon villain would put together.
When Coco Crisp charged the mound in June and got summarily pounded and sucker-punched by a swarm of angry Rays, not a single Boston player had his back or seemed especially perturbed about what happened. I thought it was the most telling moment of the season.
If they weren't sticking up for Coco, they certainly weren't standing up to Manny Ramirez.
So this team was different in that they don't help out their teammates when they are getting their ass kicked? Where is the Ubuntu on this team?
You are probably asking yourself, "when did Bill think the Red Sox team was not standing up for Manny? When he started pouting and not hustling or the exact moment Coco Crisp got in the fight?"
The answer: Bill knew the EXACT moment Coco Crisp got in the fight because he can read minds and tell exactly what a team is thinking at all times. He saw Coco Crisp get in a fight and said to himself, "When Manny starts not hustling, this team is not going to give a shit and stand up for him."
Manny's teammates have rarely stood up for him, publicly at least, this team is not different, they just had enough talent to where they did not need him as much anymore.
Tomorrow we will try to refocus Bill more on boring us with Manny Ramirez history and less on blaming random people for Manny's behavior in Part 2 of our Bill Simmons special.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
3 comments My Name is Ben And I Am A Moron
As one of the wonderfully intelligent readers of this blog has pointed out to me, I am the moron, not Gene Wojokkeoekdkidkdski. I swear I believed the LDS was 7 games, and I was so sure I did not even do research to make sure I was correct. Even when looking at the pitching matchups for the Cubs v. Dodgers series, I ignored the fact only 5 games were scheduled. As pointed out to me, the premise of my article is still sort of intact, but it is ruined for me because I am an idiot.
For some reason I thought last year the LDS got changed to 7 games but then a co-worker pointed out to me that was the NBA Playoffs' opening round that got changed. Then he asked "do you like anything" when I told him I hated the Twins and I am glad the White Sox won, so he really has no credibility. This is what happens when my favorite team starts not making the playoffs every year, I switch to watching other sports. What a feeble excuse, but true. Gene W. is a moron and I am too.
A lesser person would edit his article or erase it all together but my punishment for being such an idiot is to leave it up, completely intact for further generations to see my idiocy. I will not be posting for certain amount of time as punishment for this, so I have time to think about how horrible I am at researching and do something to fix it. I will make it up to you readers, do not lose faith. I will be in all of your neighborhoods in a green van today handing out candy (you will see the "free candy" sign in spray paint on the side of the green van), so look out for me.
For some reason I thought last year the LDS got changed to 7 games but then a co-worker pointed out to me that was the NBA Playoffs' opening round that got changed. Then he asked "do you like anything" when I told him I hated the Twins and I am glad the White Sox won, so he really has no credibility. This is what happens when my favorite team starts not making the playoffs every year, I switch to watching other sports. What a feeble excuse, but true. Gene W. is a moron and I am too.
A lesser person would edit his article or erase it all together but my punishment for being such an idiot is to leave it up, completely intact for further generations to see my idiocy. I will not be posting for certain amount of time as punishment for this, so I have time to think about how horrible I am at researching and do something to fix it. I will make it up to you readers, do not lose faith. I will be in all of your neighborhoods in a green van today handing out candy (you will see the "free candy" sign in spray paint on the side of the green van), so look out for me.
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