Apocalypse

The first member of the media to ever criticise Joe Torre gets it. He gets it perfectly.

If you don't score, you don't win

The Nets managed to somehow lose game four of their series with Cleveland, despite being at home and despite a relatively poor performance by the Cavaliers. The Nets boast a trio of star players: Jason Kidd, point guard extraordinaire, Vince Carter, and Richard Jefferson.

The Cavs have one dude. Lebron. And Lebron did not exactly dominate this game (almost blew it by missing a late free throw).

So why aren't the Nets good? Tony Kornheiser wondered why they aren't *great*, despite having three stars on their teams. Everyone sees the three guys and thinks "man, they will be hard to stop".

Yet they are oh so easy to stop, for very simple reasons. Reason, actually.

None of them can shoot.

Oh, sure, Vince Carter is a fine player and so is Richard Jefferson, and Jason Kidd is clearly a terrific point guard, but none of them can shoot. They can drive, finish, pass, etc., but if the defense collapses, they kick it out and... then they have to drive *again* because none of them can shoot. This is a terribly constructed team. The big three can't hit a wide open 20 footer with any type of regularity. The opposing team can just give the three point line away and it won't matter.

It is here that one finds my biggest problem with sports teams of today. They have all forgotten how to win. You win in basketball by scoring more than your opponent. This requires the ability to SHOOT. If speed and hops were all you need, Tyrus Thomas would be Oscar Robertson. If the ability to slice and dice was all you needed, Devin Harris would be Magic Johnson.

Jason Kidd is a terrific point guard, but no one in their right mind would take him over Steve Nash. Want to know why? It isn't because Kidd is an inferior passer--he isn't, really--or because he is an inferior rebounder--he is clearly superior--or because he is worse at defending--he certainly isn't. It is because Steve Nash can do that tiny little thing which so many people can't in the NBA.

He can shoot the basketball and *make* said shots. If The Nets had anyone who could knock down an open jumper, they could very well have won each and every game they have played. Instead, they have let a Cleveland team more fit for posing for a "weirdest hairstyle of the month" contest than basketball, completely embarass them.

Now clearly, Vince Carter has always been overrated, and Richard Jefferson has always been well-rated despite people attempting to claim he is underrated (he is a good player, not a great one) and Jason Kidd is an exceptional point guard. But still, if any of them could shoot, this team would be nigh unbeatable. Instead, they have let a floppy-haired flopper, a guy who can't decide whether to wear a headband, a guy with a crazy patch of hair on the back of his neck, a guy who is a 700 hundred years old (also fat) and a superstar who doesn't seem to care whether he wins or not...

to completely embarass them. The Nets are every bit as bad as their record suggested. It is because they can't shoot.


This is not only a Net problem or a basketball problem though. The Knicks are a fine example of an extremely athletic--and utterly inept--basketball team. None of them can shoot. But in other sports, we have teams willing to break the bank on players who can do a lot of things well but can't do what they need to do at all. NFL teams are always ready to pay a lot of money for fast WRs who can jump. They often forget to check if they can catch. Marques Colston is not particularly fast, but he owned the league last year because he can do that oh-so-unimportant catching thing. In baseball, pitchers with great fastballs and knee-buckling curves are always hired... even if they have never won any games due to their complete inability to throw a ball over the plate (see: Jeff Weaver).

The teams that do well are the teams that get players who can do what they need to do to win (see: New England Patriots). They might not have ceisure inducing speed or mind-numbing power, but most of their players can do what they are supposed to (i.e. their linebackers can tackle, their QB can throw accurately, their tight ends can block and catch, etc.)

After looking at John Elway's career biography and stats, I have to wonder... what did this guy do that was so amazing? I mean, sure, he was extremely consistent, but most of the time that consistency manifested itself in 20 TDs, as well as just a few less than 20 INTs. Not to mention he only ever threw for 4,000 yards *once*. As far as winning... well sure he got to the Super Bowl a lot... and lost a lot. Until, finally, a great running game won it for him in 97 and 98. I'm not saying he wasn't great. But why is he the supposed greatest of all time? If anyone knows, please edify me.

World Series to be played... in November! The possible seventh game of the World Series would be played November first, thanks to the MLB moving back the starting game from October 20th to October 24th. Not sure why this is important but I thought you needed edification (by the way, my twisting and butchering of this word is completely purposeful).

The Most Bogus Suspensions Since the first suspension bridge fell down: Two words: You suck NBA, in much the same way that dropping your toast butter-side down sucks, in much the same way that feet wrapped in leathery, burnt bacon suck, in much the same way that the person trying to count out exact change in front of you sucks, in much the same way that an empty soda can sucks, in much the same way that My Chemical Romance sucks, in much the same way that a baby does a job on a thumb, in much the same way that falling in the mud sucks, in much the same way that getting dumped sucks, in much the same way that sitting in an airplane behind an obnoxiously obese person who is putting their seat back WAY too far and snoring sucks, in much the same way that putting on your shoes only to find out someone filled them with peanut butter sucks, in much the same way spinach sucks, in much the same way nuclear bombs sucks.

Yeah, that's right, I said it. NUCLEAR BOMBS! That's how pathetic these retarded suspensions are. I look forward to a disastrously low-rated Conference Finals and NBA finals, because NO ONE wants to watch a bunch of dirty whining babies who only got to where they are on the backs of scurrilous suspensions handed down by a league with as much common sense as a pauper has cents.

Oh I love it when my blog fulfills its purpose.

~The Sports Maunderer~

Some tidbits and a new business arrangement

"He threw the ball well," said Mariners manager Mike Hargrove, who added Weaver will take his next turn in the rotation. "If he throws like that the rest of the year we're going to be all right."

This is what Mike Hargrove said after Jeff Weaver gave up 6 runs in 5 1/3 innings.

I would love to see what he looks like when he throws badly.

Regardless of the humorous flavor involved with this quote, it is an established fact that Weaver has always been one of those pitchers who “throws the ball well”. His stuff has always been good. His pitches have movement and speed. Throwing the ball well is not his problem.

He still sucks.

How he parlayed his flash in the pan postseason performance into a heist worthy of “The Sting” is a question answerable only by Seattle’s GM (who by the way, has GOT to be the worst GM in baseball, for so many reasons). Nevertheless, at least he starts.

I’m looking at you, Carl Pavano.


Anyway, after the Rockets lost game seven, I braced myself for a bunch of random “Tracy McGrady can’t get it done” nonsense. I didn’t get as much as I thought (mostly due to his being completely overshadowed by a certain clumsy German), but some people still blamed him.

Big mistake. You watch that game, and you know that Tracy did everything short of ripping his heart out and throwing it at the other team to distract them in order to win that game. Yao Ming, on the other hand, is a colossal (no, this isn’t some pathetic play on words) failure. He is slow, can’t play defense, can’t even outrebound guys a foot shorter than him, is a turnover waiting to happen, and basically doesn’t provide enough offense to make up for his utter cruddiness everywhere else. Houston will never win with this guy at center, unless they happen to trade for Tim Duncan, Steve Nash, Lebron James and Tayshaun Prince, and relegate Yao to gatorade duties.

He stinks.

Meanwhile, in the big news of the week, Roger Clemens is coming back to the Yankees. This is cool but somewhat disappointing, because now when the Yankees go on a run and make the division interesting (hopefully culminating in a dramatic victory once again), everyone will say it was all Clemens, when it reality, it won’t have all been Clemens. But alas, such is the curse of being the Yankees, and having a history of simply being better than everyone else.

(Speaking of which, Steve Philips once said it was childish and arrogant for Yankee fans to expect to win the World Series every year... really? Seeing as, on average, they have won more than once every four years for the last 87 years, it seems relatively intelligent and perspicacious to me)

Anyway, I have entered into a deal in which I pay for the advertising services of Post Hill; to offset this cost, he pays me to advertise for him. So here we go. I will attempt to come up with a song better than the “worst song ever” candidates he usually parades from Kevin Federline and the like, regarding Post Hill’s awesomeness.

For sports there is only one place to go
The verbose and circular eyesore
You now happen to know
As the Sports Maunderer

But for all that stuff not sports related
!@#$!@#$%!#@$%@#$%
(Gotta have profanity in any song, period, if you want it to be famous)
Go to Post Hill, cuz he will...

Uh...

What the heck rhymes with “related”?

~The Sports Maunderer~

One Half Was More Than Enough

Everyone likes a vacation, but after a short time one realizes that most vacations resemble back-up quarterbacks. Sure, fans clamor for them, they look so pretty sitting there on the sideline while the starter struggles through a bad game, and if the backup ever comes in for the starter, he usually starts off well.
After a while, however, you realize that there is a reason this guy is a backup. The novelty factor keeps him afloat but he can’t play for sixteen games like your starter can. Home is a starting quarterback. Sometimes you need a break, but you always go back, with good reason.

May the Third, 2007 was not exactly a day I had been counting down to. It was the last day of work before a three day weekend and there was a game I wanted to see at night, but there are other three day weekends and sporting events.

I woke up tired, because you always wake up tired. Cereal, car, five hours of work. Work was an unpleasant experience, for reasons no one is interested in. Something everyone will understand though: after working fifteen minutes late on Monday so that I could finish fifteen minutes earlier on glorious Thursday, I was looking forward to an early exit. I screwed up a rendezvous, however, and was forced to simply wait for ten minutes in the rain, losing whatever advantage I had gained. May not seem like much at first, but after a crappy set of hours, everyone knows how frustrating that can be.

So I threw some things and hit some things and got over it. I had a friend come by the house for a few hours. For the most part, she informed me of the intrigue and recent drama occurring at her school. Always interesting, if somewhat depressing. After her departure I watched some sports news and intermittently checked on the Yankee game. Ultimate Frisbee was cancelled for the day thanks to an unpleasant string of precipitation.

I hate rain. It really sucks.

After dinner, an amalgam of The Office, throwback video games, novel-writing, Yankee winning and nephew adoration brought happier times and easier moods. The day was finishing better than it had started.

The whole day, I had been planning on watching the Golden State/Dallas game. Not only had I become interested in the series because it was history waiting to happen, but I had grown to love Golden State’s insane style of basketball. Ten days ago I had no idea someone could have that many tattoos, and now all I could think was “Man, that Matt Barnes guy hustles”. So I was looking forward to this capstone for Thursday.
Yet due to a TV territory war, I didn’t get to turn the game on until the second half was starting.

Didn’t matter.

Didn’t matter at all.

From the time I changed the channel to TNT to the time I had to calm a racing heart as I got into bed, there was nothing but pure, unadulterated, unexplainable basketball bliss.

Basketball paradise.

Basketball ecstasy.

In the most unbelievable combination of insane, crazy, “what the heck are they running?” basketball with “this is exactly how you are supposed to play”—running down every loose ball, penetrating at every turn, slamming it in people’s faces than kicking it out when they collapse, running them ragged around pick and rolls, swarming clumsy Germans and forcing turnovers and bad shots—I have never, ever watched a game that I cared more about and which was less in doubt from beginning to end.

And I haven’t even gotten to the crowd yet.

Before the game, I had read Bill Simmon’s vehement arguments that Golden State was one of only two remaining home court advantages in the NBA. He believed Dallas simply could not win in that environment, and was he ever proved correct. Dallas could have shown up with MJ in his prime and they would have lost (well, alright, that is pushing it). But regardless, this crowd is unbelievable. They understand everything. They know exactly when to cheer, how loud to cheer, why they are cheering and how to get the absolute most of their team while completely demoralizing their opponents. The Mavericks looked beaten and weary midway through the third quarter. And if you tell me this wasn’t due to that unbelievable Golden State crowd, you are nuts. They made me a Golden State fan for as long as anyone on this team is alive. I wanted to be in that building. If God had deigned it appropriate for me to die young, He would have let me attend that game and die in utter joy right afterwards.

This wasn’t one of those games where the big bad top seed looks like it is losing the game on purpose and will turn it around at any moment but just happens to wait too long. This game was utter domination by a team that was simply more athletic, hungrier for victory and less worried about defeat. They simply did not care what the score was; already up twenty, they pushed the ball to get a 2 for 1 at the end of the Third Quarter! And the crowd absolutely understood what they were doing, and applauded them like mad for it.
Every time the ball bounced for a long rebound, a Warrior got it. Every time someone drove to the basket, three Warriors swatted it. Every time a shot went up, a Warrior challenged it. They were everywhere. I have never seen five guys look like twenty as they did on this night of unexpected, inexplicable basketball perfection. I didn’t even know what city Golden State was in a few months ago. Now I know half of their lineup.

Baron Davis
Steven Jackson
Matt Barnes
Jason Richardson
Al Harrington
Andris Biedrins
Monta Ellis

They are all fast, they are all strong, they are all good at seemingly everything. And their coach, Don Nelson, just pulled off one of the great coaching feats in the history of anything. His team made the Dallas Mavericks appear confused, frustrated, and simply untalented at times.

And the home crowd understood it, too. They understood it all. Every time someone set up at the three point line and Baron Davis drove to the basket, they saw the collapse, kick, score coming. When Jason Richardson put the exclamation point slam on the game, they had seen it coming ten seconds earlier off of that terrific pass. I was sitting at home, watching on TV, and I was standing and cheering at points! I was always on the edge of my seat. The game was a bloody blowout, and I could not have been more interested in the next possession.

I went to bed last night having witnessed one of the great home crowd experiences of all time, and I wasn’t even there. They willed their team to near perfection, and I felt privileged just to watch. A 111-86 blowout later, I went to bed, not tired at all. You are never tired when you go to bed.

Torre is Inimitable

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=2859065

Finally. The NCAA is pushing back that wretched line. If it were up to me, the lin would be NBA length. That line sucks. Takes the midrange jumpshot out of the equation. That takes ballhandlers out of the equation. Right now, it is give it to a big guy until they stop him, then kick it out for open threes. Lame.

Maybe this will work a bit better.

Anyway this will be a shortened version because I am only here to say one thing.

JOE TORRE SUCKS

He jsut took Mike Mussina out of a game after he had thrown five innings of one run ball, but had reached that dreaded... SIXTY PITCH mark? Man this manager is bad. I don't care if Mike is coming off an injury. If he can't throw more than 60 pitches, he should never have come off in the first place.

Anyway, if you came here expecting more, too bad. Read the column below this one. If you already read that one... oh well.

~The Sports Maunderer~

Thank God

There is not much satisfaction to be gained from the Yankees recent change of direction in their strength and conditioning department--but there is definitely some.

The Yankees are somewhat old.

And Carl Pavano is somewhat fragile.

And they are having some bad luck.

And Torre is still mostly to blame.

But you are telling me that a 20 year old pitcher, a 26 year old pitcher, a 30 something hitter, a 38 year old pitcher, etc. etc. all just randomly began having hamstring problems at the exact same time, and there wasn't a bit of a common cause?

This makes me feel better.

What doesn't make me feel good is that after finally showing some heart last night--the Yankees blew the Rangers out of the park and got a no-hit performance from Philip Hughes--the news turned sour as Hughes is now going to miss 4-6 weeks due to injury. Oh boy. No, nothing else could go wrong. Well. They could give Joe Torre an extension. But other than that, nothing more could possibly go wrong.

Anyway, if you thought the Grammy's had lost credibility--I'm still wondering if they ever had any credibility--just know that sports awards aren't any better. Soon enough Dirk will win the MVP award with one of the most mediocre season ever to receive such an honor, but even worse than that... Rick Reilly is apparently an 11 time winning best sportswriter in America.

This guy thinks Torre is great, like all the media idiots (why do they defend him so sharply? They constantly tell us it isn't his fault they are losing, while at the same time telling us it was all due to his genius that they used to win! where, exactly, did Joe Torre gain mass brainwashing abilities?), but he also thinks Randy Moss is about as bad as Terell Owens and that he will destroy New England and that this was a terrible move by the Patriots...

WHAAATTTT?!

These comparisons are so stupid. Randy is NOTHING like TO. TO, when upset, lashes out and destroys the camaraderie of his team. He insults people, complains about QBs, etc. etc. Randy Moss, when upset, just dissapears. He is not a "cancer" in the club house (speaking of which, that word is way overused. Think up something new, people. Yes, Rick Reilly, supposedly the best sports writer we have, used the word repeatedly. So why am I not famous yet...?) and he does not ruin team chemistry. He singlehandedly took the 98 Vikings to the brink of a Super Bowl, only foiled by Gary Anderson's first missed kick all year (and a wide receiver singlehandedly taking a team by the horns and making it good is unheard of). He made Randal Cunningham look good. He made Daunte Culpepper look good. He could make anyone look good.

Now sure, he is thirty years old. But he is still raring to go. And he will. He will "go" a lot. And the Patriots will go to the Super Bowl.

And let's say I'm wrong about everything and he is a disaster both on and off the field. They only traded a 4th round pick for him! Kick him off the team and be done with it! They didn't lose anything. They'll still have a Super Bowl contender and they still will have plenty of picks in next year's draft. It isn't like they broke the bank on him anyway.

And yet, you want to know something funny?

Rick Reilly is without a doubt the best sports writer I have ever seen. His columns in the back of Sports Illustrated are usually hilarious, always informative and generally creative. He talks about off-beat topics and has witty ways of addressing them. I *love* this guy. In fact, when I first heard him spew the nonsense I just informed you of (on Mike and Mike in the Morning, a terrific radio show), I didn't even realize it was him, because I never thought Rick would be so obtuse.

It just goes to show that even the best sports writer can sound stupid when he *speaks*.

(Yes, I am only reacting this vehemently to his vitriolic attacks against Randy Moss because he also was very pejorative in his comments on the Yankees, but still. The thing with Randy is idiotic).

In other news, apparently someone somewhere conducted a "study" of NBA reffing and concluded that the refs are racist (if I got paid to write, I'd provide a link. Since I am not, you can use thirty seconds of your time and google it yourself). Now first of all, I scoff at the word "study", since all they did was look at statistics that others people compiled and gave percentages (I have performed a study of Albert Pjuols recent years, and have concluded that Albert Pujols usually hits a lot of home runs. See? I can do it too!). But still, their main point is a good one:

NBA refs are completely racist. Absurdly so. I can say without a doubt that at least 75% of the fouls called are on black players. Probably more. Maybe close to 90%. Those refs aren't even trying to hide it. They are all over the African-Americans. They won't let them do anything. They call fouls all game long. How many times does a white guy get called for a foul? Seven or eight times a game, at most? Come on you bigoted jerks, straighten this out.


Something to ponder:

If the Titans signed Keyshawn Johnson, he would give their entire receiver corps a %200 increase in receptions from last season.

Now, for our favorite sports version of Legolas, its time for the...

Mort Report Retort:

Brady Quinn fell to 22 in this year's draft. This was unexpected.

The Patriots are hoping to win a few games this year after a few minor offseason acquisitions.

The Lions picked a WR in the first round. What? That was from two years ago? What, no, it was three years ago? Wait, hold on, it was FOUR YEARS AGO?!

The Eagles hope Donovan McNabb gets healthy for this season, because most people agree he is the leading candidate for their starting QB job.


And with all the absurdly obvious stated, I leave you with one last thought:

Chris Mortensen makes more money to say "A diversion" then soldiers do to protect our country. Dear me.

~The Sports Maunderer~

Aliens, Drafts, and Unbeaten Teams

There are bad articles. There are stupid articles. There are articles that make you want to pull your hair out. There are articles that end with the invisible yet understood phrase "Yeah, now you get to go jump off a cliff because someone actually did write this article and someone actually did publish it, and both of them are your fellow humans."

Then there is this article.

You can click the link but you don't need to. In summary, John Hollinger (otherwise known as the least knowledgable of the unknowledgable NBA "experts" ESPN employs) ranks international players from 1-30 in the NBA.

Alright, the fact that Tim Duncan is on this asinine list is bad enough (yes, Tim Duncan, who was born a U.S. Citizen, still is a U.S. Citizen, and went to Wake Forest, and speaks English like he grew up speaking it because... oh yeah, he did!), and the fact that Steve Nash is an "international" player is hilarious enough (oh sure, he was Canadian, but he went to school here and learend basketball here; I mean how "international" is he...) but he is also listed under a different flag (just look; it is hilarious), yet even that I can get over. Even the fact that Ben Gordon (yes, UConn's own Ben Gordon) is listed as international is laughable yet endurable.

(apparently, the NBA lists these players as international, so this is the smokescreen Hollinger hides behind. Shame on him. The NFL also throws flags when someone glances at a QB the wrong way. This doesn't mean sportswriters must lower their standards. Particularly because the NBA only lists half of these players as international because they *want* the game to be international).

No, the real problem with this list is... THE LIST! Granting that these players even belong on the same list--fine, whatever--here are the top ten of these "top thirty".

Dirk Nowitzki
Tim Duncan
Steve Nash
Yao Ming
Pau Gasol
Manu Ginobli
Tony Parker
Loul Deng
Memhet Okur
Ben Gordon

Yes. He has Dirk Nowitzki--who has won quite literally nothing, and cost his team several playoff series--ahead of Tim Duncan, the MVP, finals MVP, three time championship winning power forward ranked among the best of all time! WHAAAAAT?!

And don't try to tell me that these rankings are based only on "this year". If that were true, the oft injured Yao Ming would be nowhere near the top, Luol Deng would be much higher, and there is no way Mehmet Okur would beat out Ben Gordon. So, frankly, the top ten sucks. Badly. But listen to this!

Raja Bell, the Pheonix Suns' best defender--and one of the league's best defenders--is two spots (27 to 25) behind...

get ready for it...

no, you aren't ready yet...

seriously, prepare yourself...

DARKO MILICIC!!!

If you have heard of him, you know why this is so absurd. If you haven't, then there you go, you know why this is so absurd! This guy is better known for being a collosal failure than anything else. He is best known as having been taken before Melo, D-Wade, Chris Bosh and even Josh Howard. He is best known as the most gargantuan mistake in one of the best drafts of all time, 2003. This guy doesn't belong anywhere near this list.

Well anyway. My readers probably don't even know who the vast majority of these players are (or even how to pronounce their names, but we all have trouble with that) , but I thought I should let you all know just how inane John Hollinger is. Yes. You need to be informed.

Anyway, the Browns pulled off a major draft heist by grabbing both Joe Thomas (could you have a more generic name than that? I think it is behind only "John Smith"...) AND Brady Quinn, who the idiots in Miami passed on. Yes. Miami. The team that has no QB. The team that passed up Drew Brees for Daunte Freakin' Culpepper. Think they know what they are doing? Yeah, right. Isn't it amazing that they spend millions of dollars on hundreds of people to spend thousands of hours studying these things... and they still know less than a moronic fan with a keyboard? They should be a bit more parsimonious with the dough and just ask me. Seriously. They couldn't do any worse.

But all of this news takes a backseat to the knowledge that the next NFL season has been cancelled. Yes. Cancelled. Why? Because in their divine wisdom, the other teams in the league have conspired to do everything in their power to make the Patriots unbeatable. This team was one or two plays away from winning the Super Bowl *last* year, and now they get Randy Moss?! They aren't losing a game all year, unless the injury bug finally hits them.

Wouldn't that be ironic? They have won three Super Bowls with mediocre talent because the important player--Tom Brady--never got injured. What if he gets injured the year they finally have more talent than anyone else?

Of course, the one team that could actually play with New England--San Diego, still arguably as full of talent as New England--has no hope because they hired Norv Freakin' Turner. I simply don't get the obsession with hiring *failed* retreads. But it happens everywhere. Celebrities spend their entire lives marrying, divorcing, and remarrying, even thoguh none of them can keep a marriage together. NFL teams do the same thing, minus the wedding gowns and pecuniary disputes.

Meanwhile, the Titans wasted yet another draft day. They do that a lot. So, who is Vince Young going to throw to? I dunno. Neither do the Titans. They have four receivers currently on the roster. one of them--ONE OF THEM--caught double digit passes last year, and he only caught 27! (Reggie Bush, aka running back, caught 88. Otherwise known as twice the entire Titans WR corps combined. And to offset this, they have a running back named... uh, wait... nope. Not sure who their running back is. They probably don't even know.

At least I get to root for New England. And they will never lose.

~The Sports Maunderer~

NBA stuff... plus commercials!

I would enjoy the NBA first round a lot more if any of the games meant anything. It is a rather distinct irony that baseball, a sport in which the best team doesn’t even always win in a seven game series, has a five game series in its first round (which, by the way, is basically equivalent to the second round of the NBA playoffs, thanks to the smaller number of teams!) yet the NBA playoffs, which has a first round made mostly of gigantic mismatches, stretches its first series’ out to seven games. In other words: it really doesn’t matter that Denver beat San Antonio in game 1, nor does it matter that Golden State beat Dallas in their game 1. This is like the inevitable beat down every superhero takes at the hands of the villain before eventually rising one last time to conquer evil. Unfortunately, in the NBA scenario, we are teased by the villain getting beat down once before inevitably coming around to wipe out the team everyone is rooting for (I defy you to find one person not from San Antonio rooting for the Spurs—other than Skip Bayless, who clearly doesn’t count for anything).

The only good thing about the NBA playoffs is they allow sportswriters and pestiferous bloggers to take all the time in the world. Usually, I have to rush an article out to keep up with relevancy—not so with the NBA playoffs. I started the previous paragraph before the Nuggets-Spurs game began, and finished it after the game was well out of reach of the Nuggets. And it still completely maintains its relevancy, because as I point out in aforementioned first paragraph, the first game simply doesn’t matter.

But two games sort of does, and the Heat are finished. Don’t give me that nonsense about their comeback win from a year ago. Not only was that perpetuated by the refs calling fouls like Dwayne Wade was the last fertile man alive and we had to keep him from being harmed at all costs, but Miami was simply a better team last year. None of their players got any younger, including Shaq, who seemes to have burned out keeping this team relevant after Dwayne’s injury. And regardless of Dwayne’s health, without having Shaq draw double teams, Wade is no longer the unstoppable force he supposedly was last season. (He wasn’t. it was Shaq, once again. It’s just that Shaq passed out of the triple teams so Dwayne Wade got the stats—and the fouls—instead of the big Diesel.)

So anyway, that series is over, and the team I have been rooting for from season’s beginning is headed to the second round. Yep. Write it down, my predictions always fail.
I must say a Detroit/Miami matchup would likely please fans more, so the refs
could still get a call from David Stern telling them to turn this puppy around, but I think if the commish did that, even the gullible, dupable masses of the United States of Asininity would cry foul—oh the irony.

Anyway, Detroit/Chicago should be a good series, but unfortunately my team likely won’t come out on top. Because as mediocre as they are, Detroit is still better than Chicago.


It is somewhat odd that the conferences (or leagues, in the case of baseball) are so sharply weighted to one side in all of the three major sports. The AFC clobbers the NFC in the NFL, the West is far better than the East in the NBA, and the AL is monstrously better than the NL in the MLB. I haven’t been around forever so I don’t know if one conference is always this dominant in all three sports, but these are certainly not just minor edges. I mean, the AFC is to the NFC as filet mignon is to feet wrapped in leathery burnt bacon. Same goes for the other leagues.

I make fun of bad commercials quite often in my blog, whether they be sports related or entirely non-sports related. So I figure I will give credit to those who are credible by pointing out the “fave 5” commercials, starring Charles Barkley and Dwayne Wade, are hilarious. I’m not sure who thought of something so simple yet so amusing, but whoever it was deserves to have their names up there with the equivalent of the West, AFC and AL of marketing. Look them up on Youtube. They are progressively funnier as they go along.

Anyway, the Yankees are in the process of getting themselves spanked yet again, so I'll have to wait to talk about baseball. Until next time...

"You got wings?"

~The Sports Maunderer~

Idiot. (and not the pop-punk American kind)

After watching Joe Torre once again manage the Yankees to death and destruction, wasting the super-human efforts of one Alex Rodriguez, I am quite ready to throw in the towel on the baseball season. Yes, this is completely irrational and ridiculous. No, I really do not care.

What a bum. Every Yankee fan on the planet should have been cringing when he overmanaged them to snap defeat from the jaws of—well, you know the rest. Clearly though, this guy sucks. If the media would stop slurping up to him, maybe some progress would take place in the Yankee clubhouse. But no. Of course not. Because their GM is almost as much of a dunderhead as Torre is (he actually has made some good personel moves lately, but being pro-Torre pretty much offsets any kudos that might have given him). This reminds me of Bill Simmon’s frustration with Doc Rivers in Boston. Apparently he stinks. Well that is kind of obvious (the guy has successively made his team worse and worse) to anyone but the Boston media, who love him. Torre is one of the most pathetic managers in the game, and this is obvious to anyone who just watches their games. Sure, maybe he smoothes over some egos and attracts some free-agents but you cannot win when your manager takes out a starting pitcher doing fine, then takes out a reliever who came in and dominated two hitters, than brings in Rivera against a hitter who has done consistently well against him throughout his career.
Idiot.
Idiot, idiot, idiot.
Idiotic idiot.

Anyway, commentators have been billing these April games as “just as important as those that come in September” because, well, that’s always what the talking heads say in April. Then, when September comes, the phrase changes to “the games that really count”. Then the next April they change their story again. Yeah well I got news for you. These games mean exactly the same as September games. But no one knows what they mean, and teams are still warming up, so they tend to go differently then September games. Still, they count just like all of the other ones. Either way, the ESPN analysts have to get their story straight. Or, wait, no they don’t, because that would hinder their ability to hype the games, which of course they do because they want people to watch them. And I have no problem with this. I just thought I'd point it out.

Baseball has lost most of its interest for me right now, though. I’ll probably get interested again if the Yankees get healthy and begin to rip through the league, but at the moment they aren’t healthy and the only one doing anything is getting wasted by a terrible manager and terrible injuries. As Kirk Vonnegut would say, “so it goes” (actually, for Vonnegut’s phrase to properly apply, someone needs to die in some horrible fashion. I vote for Joe Torre dying by a sudden stroke in the seventh inning of some game when he is about to go out to pull a pitcher who is currently throwing a perfect game but who has thrown almost eighty pitches and just threw a ball to begin an at-bat. Then, one could very easily proclaim “so it goes”)

As a sidenote, from a purely rational standpoint (it is completely absurd to bury your team in April, but it is too painful to allow yourself to care when they are losing), the series was actually encouraging if you look at it from this standpoint: The Yankees beat the snot out of Curt Schilling, Josh Beckett, and Diasuke Matsuzaka, otherwise known as the big three Boston starters. The Red Sox barely grazed Andy Petitte. Sure, they destroyed some minor league starters but what do you expect? If the Yankees get healthy before they are too far gone in this race (and Joe Torre has an unfortunate accident with an escalator or something), they still have a decent shot.

Meanwhile, I am enjoying the NBA playoffs. Why? Because there are series worth rooting for but not so much so that it kills you when Denver inevitably loses. Nevertheless, I immensely enjoy when they are victorious, because no one likes the Spurs. I mean, no one. And so far, the quality of the games has been decent enough, outside of that hideous excuse for a basketball game they put on in Cleveland. If Lebron gave a crap in that game, he forgot to let anyone know.

Something funny (unless you are from Philly): D.J. Gallo, a writer for ESPN’s page 2, wants Denver to reach the finals, along with Detroit. Not that this will happen, but you have to agree it would be pretty cool if the entire city of Philadelphia gets to see Iverson’s Nuggets squaring off against Webber’s Pistons. Yep. Or, maybe not. Cuz you know, I don't promote or endorse mass suicide.

Anyway, I haven’t the heart to continue talking sports while the Yankees continue reeling, so I have to be off now to... iron myself, or jump through flaming hoops, or get shot out of a cannon or something.

And by the way, the last column by Post Hill (tis on my links over in that nice, tidy little sidebar I provide you with) was absolutely hilarious, and if you don’t read it, you’re a chump. If you do read it and yet don’t get it... well then you simply don’t get random hilarious humor.

Okay, Daniel, I have really given you a shout-out now, so the least you can do is give me a comment saying thanks.


~The Sports Maunderer~

Apologies, Drafts, and Roy Hobbs

Before I get on with the regularly scheduled programming, I have to say that The Sports Maunderer seems to have gotten off track lately. Instead of writing in the fashion which this blog was initially created for—venting regarding ridiculous sports stories--I seem to be long winded and less frequent, also talking about “big and important” stories like championship games rather than the only stories that matter—like Yankee spring training and the Titans' Wednesday practice report. This will be rectified. Expect shorter articles, but probably expect them a little more often. And I will also drop the “I’m trying not to be biased” act. (If you hadn’t noticed my bipartisan restraint these last few columns, you aren’t the only one. Just imagine what it will be like now...)

The NFL draft is one of the most anticipated, most covered, most talked about events in sports. I don’t get it. I really don’t. I mean I can understand there being some intrigue with the top five picks, and the guys like Brady Quinn. But I mean... NFL draft specials where they project into the third round? Why don’t we simultaneously telecast a show on the various ways Mel Kiper has ever done his hair? Oh, because it would be entirely useless? That’s what I thought.

So why is football’s selection process so much more exciting than the NBA or MLB? Well, first of all, it isn’t, but the real question is why do people act like it is. I’m not sure, because I’m not really knowledgeable and erudite, I only pretend to be, but nevertheless I will disclose my thoughts upon the issue.

First, some explanation: The NFL draft is two days (!) and seven rounds long. 1st round picks are expected to be stars, 2nd and 3rd round picks are generally presumed to be starters, 4th and 5th round picks are supposed to be reliable back-ups, and 6th and 7th round picks are supposed to be on the practice squad. (This explains why Jeff George and Charles Rogers went in the first round, while Tom Brady and Marques Colston went in the 6th and 7th, respectively. If you haven’t heard of Jeff George or Charles Rogers, you aren’t the only one.)

In the NBA draft, there are two rounds. High 1st round picks are expected to be stars or at least starters, low 1st round picks are in that caliginous, starter-backup, gray area, and 2nd found picks are shots in the dark. (The NBA draft is surprisingly predictable. Everyone once in a while you get a Gilbert Arenas or a Michael Redd in the second round, but for the most part, the best players were high picks. This also explains why teams tank like nuts in the NBA—you are almost guaranteed a terrific player at the top spots. In the NFL, 1st round picks are pretty much 1st round picks)

In the MLB draft, there are a hundred thousand rounds, the teams are selecting guys who haven’t even committed to baseball necessarily, and the best prospects are usually still two or three years away from even being rookies. Hence the complete lack of interest in the Baseball draft. (Recently, Josh Hamilton, the #1 pick of the 1999 draft, who apparently was out of baseball for a while, is doing well in a comeback attempt with the Cincinnati Reds. Josh Beckett was #2 in that draft. As usual, you only know these things once they become famous; you didn’t know who Josh Beckett was when he was drafted second, and you knew Kevin Durant a year and a half before his second pick status, sure to come in a few months)

The real reason football’s selection process is so well known is incredibly simple, however. It isn’t the American obsession with football (although that certainly doesn’t hurt), or the appropriate length (two days? Next thing you know Quentin Tarantino is gonna rip you off by charging you twice for the same movie. Oh, wait I’m a few years behind the times...), or the fact that the prospective top ten picks show up in New York to sit there for five hours doing nothing (they get dressed up, sit there for five minutes until their name is called, and then what do they do? Yeah no one else knows either, but it can’t be very interesting. “You just made millions of dollars by doing nothing! Now you get to sit here while we tell you who the Browns picked in the 3rd round!”), or even Mel Kiper’s hair (although it is debatable whether that is hair or actually carbon fiber).
Nope, the reason the NFL draft blows all the other ones out of the water is that we get to see ESPN talking heads speak without stopping for literally hours, because nothing else is going on, and we almost enjoy trying to tell how much longer it will be until Mike Ditka kills Michael Irvin. (By the way, there are a ton of “Mike”s one ESPN... Golic, Greenberg, Ditka, Irvin and I’m sure plenty of others)
If the NBA wants people to care as much about their draft as we do about the NFL draft, they need to stick Jim Rome, Stephen A. Smith, and Don Imus into a room talking about the draft as the teams spend twenty minutes to decide who to pick (even though they have had months to decide, those twenty minutes are EXTREMELY important). Anyway, I can see it already:

Jim: The Grizzlies just selected Greg Oden. INNNNNNNNN-cred-i-ble.

Stephen: He is the absolute most powerful center prospect we have seen in yeaus (years). Don’t you going telling me they shouldn’t draft him and they should draft Kevin Duran,t cuz I know that was what you were thinking! (imagine this and all of Stephen’s dialogue at a decibel level of approximately thirty-seven times that of everyone else)

Don: I’ll tell you, man. That is one big dude.

Stephen: Big? BIG?! All you can say is BIG?

Jim: I gotta agree with my homes, here, he isn’t just *big*, he is GARRRRRR-gan-tu-an.

Don: Looks like he’s got an AARP card, too. Big fella, he is.

Stephen: The Celtics drafted Kevin Durant!! NO NO NO!!! We don’t want him languishing in that pathetic playa killing purgatory! Somebody kill Danny Ainge!

Jim: Look, Kevin’s gonna get you the treys and maybe a few duces, but he isn’t gonna be banging with the big boys down low or trading paint with NBA forwards without getting popped.

Don: That is one skinny dude.

Stephen: The Timberwolves got lucky and get the third pick and yet they take Joakim Noah?!?! Are you kidding me! You can stick the nail in that coffin, folks!

Jim: I agree, Stephen, RIIIIIIIIII-dic-u-lous.

Don: That is one hairy dude.

Stuart Scott enters out of nowhere.

Stuart: Did I hear what I think I just heard? Alright, that’s it buddy, you just brought race into the discussion, you bigoted racist, you’re fired, you racist.

(Stephen A. Smith begins to implode)

Jim: This is OUUUUUUUT-rag-eous.

Don: Now hold on, I didn’t call him anything nearly as bad as what I used to call people. You shoulda heard what I said about the Rutgers Women’s basketball team!

Stuart: Race is a part of sports, and until we acknowledge the racial element, the racial element will always remain the racial element.

Don: Uh wha?

Stephen: The Hawks drafted Brady Quinn! They forgot what draft they are in!

Jim: Don, that was UNNNNNNNNN-eth-i-cal.

*Stephen A. Smith re-enacts a Spinal Tap drummer*



Until next time, loyal readers. I’ll be enjoying A-Rod as he gives us all his best Roy Hobbs impersonation. (I've completely jinxed him now.)

The Sports Maunderer

Some minor rants and the Ultimate NFL Schedule

Well with baseball’s first week come and gone, and its second week well underway, it is time to have some fun with those little things that we let slip under the radar whilst enjoying the beginning to the penultimate season of Yankee Stadium. At least, I think it is. Can’t really remember. Heh.

Let’s get the nasty, barely sports nonsense out of the way first. I don’t really care to talk about this stuff, but I read some decent articles so I figure I’ll link you to those.

So, Don Imus is apparently a bigoted racist jerk, and while I don’t really care about him much, I have to say that this backlash against someone being insulting is a bit amazing. People are insulting all the time. Rosie O’Donnell is far more insulting to a far greater number of people than Don Imus is, and no one appears to give a crap. Imus made some disgusting, despicable remarks, and clearly he paid the price for it. But why does no one else (particularly people who glorify the kinds of remarks Imus made, in their “music”)? Jason Whitlock sums it all up perfectly in his article where he addresses the situation.

I also have to say, why do guys like this get jobs in the first place? Now that he said something utterly outrageous, the country is up in arms, but where was the country when he said all those things that were *almost* completely outrageous? Why do we have these guys in the first place? Why does Howard Stern still have a job? What, has he never said anything outrageous? It doesn’t make much sense why so many people have latched onto this one issue.

Finally, some people are, reasonably enough, claiming he should not have been fired because people in this country have the right to free speech. Admirable words, maybe, but while we have the right of free speech, we do not all have the privilege of a public radio show. That is something which one has to earn and if one commits some grievous offense, it can be taken away. I still don’t understand why this is different from the things he says every other day on his show, but if they want to fire him, it is their right.

Meanwhile, the Duke Lacrosse players were officially exonerated. The State district attorney not only declared them not guilty, he went so far as to declare them innocent. The subtle difference here being that he wasn’t simply dropping the case because he lacked evidence, he was dropping it because he had evidence: they were innocent. I wonder if Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, the Black Panther party and the host of ESPN personalities who condemned them without thought are going to apologize. Um, well, I doubt it. Jemele Hill (known as the person who thinks Kobe is better than MJ) did, though, for which one can only respect her a little more. Still, the Kobe>MJ nonsense is hard to forget.

Now, returning to sports stories (and really, those previous ones were not sports stories...), people are up in arms about teams tanking to get a high pick in the NBA draft. This is the scenario, of course, because the draft will be absolutely loaded this year. The draft has been loaded before, and teams have tanked before. But this year, things have gotten more epic than Scott Stapp in “With Arms Wide Open”—err, well, more epic than he was attempting to appear. Anyway, people have been suggesting all manner of solutions and nostrums for this problem (two teams absolutely stinking in a game that you paid money to watch), but really, there is only one way you are ever going to fix this, and I’ll explain why:

Unlike football and baseball, where a team full of good players beats a team full of role players and a superduperstar, in the NBA you have to have that “franchise” player (I put franchise in quotes because the term is used a lot in sports outside of basketball, where it absolutely does not belong, but I don’t want to run down that excursus at the moment) as absolutely necessary to winning. The only exception to this in the last... forever... is the Piston team of ’04. Even there, you could make the argument that Ben Wallace was a defensive superstar, and they came out of the weak Eastern Conference and managed to win in the finals against the self-imploding Lakers who had three too many stars. Regardless, the point is that getting Greg Oden or Kevin Durant doesn’t just help a team, it makes a team. So teams will always tank, period, unless there isn’t an incentive to do so. As it is, you are basically telling the lazy bum who takes a smoke break every three minutes, plays video games when people aren’t watching, is gone too long for his lunch hour and delivers shoddy work even when he is focused: HERE’S A CHRISTMAS BONUS FOR SUCKING SO BADLY.

You need to take the weight out of the lottery. Period. Fourteen teams don’t make the playoffs (which is actually *less* than the number who do make the playoffs, meaning that it is actually harder to miss the playoffs than make them, but I could talk about this all day and I have been doing enough digressing); have them all get a one in fourteen chance of being number one, and a one in fourteen chance of being number fourteen. Of course, even then, this won’t stop tanking. Teams with little hope of making a dent in the playoffs will mutilate themselves to get out, just so they can get that shot at the next Patrick Ewing. The NBA will never truly make this go away. But two teams losing a few games to make sure they aren’t the #8 seed is better than half the league pretending to be injured.

So is it time to declare the Sports Illustrated cover jinx a scientific fact? Mere weeks after they have a story about global warming, the entire U.S.A. freezes over in April. I'm not sure how we can continue to call it coincidence. Seriously, why has no one taken this up? We should put the impending nuclear doom of the world on there. We should put Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the cover. We should put George Bush on the cover. We should put Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton on the cover. We should put taxes on the cover. We’d get rid of all of our problems in a few months.

The NFL schedule was released recently, and since I, the Sports Maunderer, have the benefit of both a terrible memory and a relative lack of interest in such things, I can honestly say I remember absolutely none of the games outside of the Pats/Colts game on November Fourth, and the fact that the Titans play two road MNF games. Better than this, however, I will now give you a dream schedule of one game a week that would have been better than the 16 games a week the NFL managed to come up with.

Week 1: Giants at Pittsburgh: A battle of the two most overrated young QBs in the game!

Week 2: Falcons at Anybody: At battle between the most overrated QB in the league, and his better judgment!

Week 3: Colts at Bears: Let’s see who wins now that Rex Grossman has two more games of experience, Mr. Peyton Manning.

Week 4: Pats at Colts: Duh.

Week 5: Colts at Pats: Well this is strictly forbidden by the scheduling (they aren’t in the same division) but seriously, you know you’d watch two weeks in a row.

Week 6: Bengals at Ravens: Not only is it a juicy divisional matchup, but thanks to the NFL’s new hardline policy against criminals, both teams might actually be able to field starting lineups!

Week 7: Patriots at Chargers: Let’s see if Norv Turner can mismanage a game as horrifically as Marty Schottenheimer.

Week 8: Titans at Texans: Vince Young in Texas again, plus I just want the Titans to have an easy game.

Week 9: Raiders at Titans: I just want to see the Titans have an easy—I mean, there is some really bad blood between these teams, because the Titans offensive coordinator is Norman Chow, who once worked for USC, which is a college from the same state as Oakland, so... yeah okay I’ve got nothing. You have seen through my bias. Aren’t you a regular Columbo.

Week 10: Whoever picked Brady Quinn *at* Whoever picked Jamarcus Russel: The Sugar Bowl all over again!

Week 11: Cowboys at Eagles: If I need to explain this one, the act succeeding my explanation will be me jumping into a giant blender.

Week 12: Jets at Patriots: Ooh, the soap opera of two fat old men not getting along! (Okay, So Mangini is really the only fat one... but Belichick must use some type of alien technology to siphon his fat away and stick it onto his assistants. Really. Charlie Weis, Romeo Crenel, Eric Mangini? These guys are all as big as two people, and Weis might be pushing 2.5)

Week 13: Patriots at Jets: Not only is this another juicy game (people will be talking about the fixed handshake from the previous week all day) but it’s actually legal, since these teams *are* in the same division!

Week 14: Browns at Raiders: Time to see who wins the #1 pick for 2008.

Week 15: Saints at Colts: If anyone ever holds a play to less than seven yards, I’d be shocked.

Week 16: Colts at Broncos: Time for the annual Peyton Manning beatdown of Denver’s pass defense!

Week 17: Browns at Titans: Hey, I can dream, right?


One last note: The Suns apparently can’t play defense. How is this possible? Shawn Marion is a Defensive Player of the Year candidate, but he isn’t even the best defender on his own team; that is Raja Bell. So with two defenders that good, you’d think they would be slightly better. Sure, Amare and Steve couldn’t guard me, but still, you’d think two great defenders would keep their defense from smelling like feet wrapped in leathery burnt bacon.

Not sure what’s up next time, so you and I will likely both be shocked come next column; until that dreaded day,

The Sports Maunderer

P.S. Europe reappeared.

Dangit.

Part the Only Important

It is time for that hideous beast, the AL East. The waters here are particularly caliginous this year; and the first week of baseball did nothing to imrove visibility. All the questions were actually magnified. Can Boston hit enough? Will Dice-K be able to survive the second time through the league? Can the Yankees pitch...? at all...? anyone? Any of their pitchers capable of producing an out? Can the Blue Jays keep up with the massive payrolls of the Yanks and Sox? Can Leo Mazzone finally work his magic with the Orioles? Will the Devil Rays be a last place team again? Well. Okay, so we already know the answer to *that* one. Still, the intrigue in the only division that matters is now reaching critical mass. Let's start our mock baseball draft's final installment, with my AL East Preview.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays: It is actually surprising that this team is as bad as it is. It has a top of the rotation type starter, and a lineup simply overflowing with athletic, speedy guys who can get on base and reek havoc. Sure they have little to no power and their bullpen sucks, but still, how can they be this bad every year? They need lots of things, but a power bat would really help. Not to mention some infamy. Yeah, lots of infamy. In fact, that might be their biggest problem. No one is ever afraid to play against the "Devil Rays". Besides the stupidity of the nickname, there is no history to fear, no team to fear, no nothing. They need a power bat and some infamy, and I can roll it all into one with their selection:

Mark McGwire! Not only do they get a guy who hit more homers than Mickey Mantle while racking up less total hits than Bernie Mac, but they get a guy who would instantly set their star in the sky flailing and screaming pain as it erupted in a more colorful, dazzling display of media scrutiny and public attention than it ever had before. No one else would fit the Devil Rays better.

Baltimore Orioles: Besides having two full words fewer in their name than the D Rays have (yet another problem the Devil Rays have... one of many), they also have two pitchers fewer than they need. And probably two hitters fewer also. And probably two relievers fewer as well. So what do they do in baseball's mock draft?

They trade their pick for several picks from the lower rounds!

Toronto Blue Jays: Here is the first of the "Big Three" in the AL East. Simply gaining entry into the "Big Three" is hard enough, since before it was the "Big Two", but the Blue Jays made themselves relevant by:
1) Spending money, so that they get into the big payroll bandwagon
2) Coming in second place last year, breaking the "Big Two"s strangelhold on the top (sort of)
3) Lastly, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, they picked up a former Marlins starting pitcher, who has loads of talent, a mediocre record and a World Series ring. A.J. Burnett, one of the former "Big Three" Marlins pitchers has still not lived up to expectations, but having him is all that counts (just ask Carl Pavano about those expectation things).

So what do the Bluy Jays need to put them over the top? THE LAST MARLINS PITCHER! Dontrelle Willis of course.

Boston Red Sox: The Red Sox are one of those "If everything goes right, we're unbeatable, if everything goes wrong, we're a regular Washington Nationals" teams. If Josh Beckett (Their Florida Marlin) pitches like an ace, Matzasuka never gives up a run, Curt Schilling acts like he isn't a hundred years old, J.D. Drew doesn't get injured, Papelbon duplicates his success, etc. etc. the Red Sox could be very very good. But as you are all wondering: what the heck are the chances of J.D. Drew staying healthy? Not very good. I really don't know what the Red Sox need, except maybe...

A Quantum physicist capable of changing the laws of probability. Let's face it, the number of things that need to go right for them to win defy all logical probability, but if they can get someone to fix this, they could go a long way. Finding a quantum physicist capable of changing the rules of probability won't be easy for the Red Sox though, because after all, unlike the Yankees, they don't have very much money. You see, the Red Sox are the "little guys" who only spend 160 million on their team instead of 190. Poor them.

New York Yankees: Ah the Yankees. Their lineup is impeccable, their bullpen has the Sandman and a lot of help, their pitching staff is beat up but at full strength should be good... Their problem? The manager. The manager who sticks the greatest player ever to play the game in the eight hole. The manager who lets his team fall asleep in the playoffs. The manager who gets antsy when his starter is throwing a perfect game because it will be difficult to justify taking him out in the sixth inning so he can continue his vendetta against relief pitchers by making them throw their arms out of their sockets. They don't need to draft anyone, they need to fire someone. And don't come in here with any of that nonsense about Torre winning four World Series. I could have managed those teams to World Series victories. Those teams were nigh unbeatable. There's a reason why they won 4 times in 5 years. They hit better and pitched better than anyone else, and it didn't matter that Torre did his best to screw them over. But since 2000, Torre has been managing his teams out of the playoffs, culminating in the horrendous, hideous, atrocious, unspeakably egregious gaffe he forced upon Yankee fans in last year's pathetic fall to the Tigers. So due to all this, the Yankees draft:

Whitey Ford. Regardless of their manager's ineptitude, they still need a starting pitcher. Whitey was not only the greatest Yankee starter ever, he was also a cheater. That fits into today's baseball game perfectly.

Well that's all I got today, people. The Sports Maunderer hopes you enjoy the rest of the baseball season.

What? You want predictions? Geez, people. That's asking a lot. But I'll give a lot.

NL East: The Mets shock everyone.

NL Central: The Cardinals shock no one (who else is gonna win?)

NL West: NO ONE CARES!

NL Wild Card: The Phillies. Or something like that.

AL East: The Yankees hold onto their crown.

AL Central: The Tigers hold onto theirs.

AL West: The Angels win, the A's don't hold onto theirs.

AL Wild Card: I hate having the Twins out of the playoffs, but I gotta go with the Indians.

World Series: Yankees over Mets

Bias? What bias.

--The Sports Maunderer

AL Central, AL West, NL West

We need to get onto our regularly scheduled programming--continued coverage of the mock baseball draft for the ages--but first, breaking news:

Europe dissapeared overnight!

Far more important, however, is the recent revelation that Europe actually existed in the first place. What with their complete lack of religion (just ask Norway), sports (soccer doesn't count, so...) and basically anything of interest, Americans had for some time figured Europe was a figment of our imagination. Apparently this wasn't so. For something to dissapear it has to have been there in the first place, correct?

Alright, now back to our regularly scheduled schedule, my misanthropic harangues regarding all things everywhere.

What to tear to pieces first? The AL Central, of course.

Chicago White Sox: They have a good pitching staff, and they have a decent lineup (by decent I mean very good) and their bullpen isn't bad either. Remind me again how this team missed the playoffs last year? Oh, right. Their manager is a vile curmudgeon. He gets everyone so riled up that you can't possibly concentrate in that atmosphere. Outside of the fact that he has insulted so many ehtnic, cultural and racial groups that you can now just say he has insulted the entire planet, he doesn't appear to make up for it with any particularly good managing. He has to get his act together. Pointless vituperations against mankind are hypocritical, since he is a part of mankind. If I see someone who does nothing but insult, demean, and make fun of others all day long I would give him a stern talking to. Yes, this is why I avoid mirrors all day long. Anyway, the White Sox need something to cool down their hot under the collar manager, so they draft:

A Freezer. Stick him in there and don't let him out. (Ya know I never really had anything against Ozzie Guillen until thirty seconds ago, when I realizedthat the only reason they couldn't make the playoffs must have been their manager. If a manager's rebarbative ways are hurting his team, his rebarbative ways must go)

The Minnesota Twins: This team has an utterly fantastic bullpen, an utterly fantastic starting pitcher (the best in baseball, actually) and a lineup that while not extremely intimidating, can put runs on the board. The problem? Sidney Ponson is in their rotation. When Sidney Ponson is in your rotation, you have serious issues. The other problem is that Sidney Ponson is the most recognizable name on their pitching staff outside of Johan. Very big problem. The solution?:

Roy Oswalt. As I pointed out in my last article, the astros could never lose if they had more Roy Oswalts. Well, the Twins are even better than the Astros and they don't have a Roy Oswalt yet. Give them one, and they will never lose a playoff series again. Of course, the Twins DO have a guy as good as Roy Oswalt in Francisco Liriano (when he comes back, he will quite literally give the Twins the two best pitchers in the game), but he is out for the entire year with Tommy John surgery (what does Tommy John have against pitchers, anyway?)

Detroit Tigers: It is very clear what this team needs. Very, very clear. Pitchers Fielding Practice. With their pick they select:

Mike Mussina or Greg Maddux: Both of these guys have won multiple gold glove awards. If they had been on the mound in the World Series, we would not now be enduring the shame of an 83 win "World Series Champion".

Cleveland Indians: Steve Philips says this team has all the tools but lacks leadership. Usually, I can't stand Steve Philips. But this year, he picked the Yankees to win their division while everyone else (including the usually reliable Buster Olney, Jason Stark and you-know-who) has them out of the playoffs. Not only that but he has the Red Sox... IN THIRD PLACE. So Steve Philips is, for the next three weeks until he starts ragging on the Yankees again, my favorite baseball analyst (You let me down Peter, you let me down). Anyway, since he is obviously so correct in his division picks, he must be correct when he says the Indians need a leader. So let's get them one:

They draft Napolean. Nuff said.

Kansas City Royals: The Royals clearly don't need to draft anyone, because they already got their pick: Gil Meche. No, neither the salary figure nor the career ERA are typos. This is why the Royals are the Royals.

AL West:

The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Orange County of California of the U.S.A.: This team has pretty superb starting pitching, pretty superb relief pitching, and a pretty superb hitter in Vladimir Guerrero (even if he has never gotten a BB in his life). How did they miss the playoffs again? Oh that's right. They are in the AL. the AL had eight teams last year (Yanks, Sox, Sox, Tigers, Jays, Twins, Angels, As) who were better than half of the NL teams that reached the playoffs by virute of not stinking as much as the other guys. The AL should sue the Tigers for screwing up what was one of the most dominant AL years in league history. Anyway, the Angels need another hitter. So we will draft for them:

Jo Dimaggio. Nothing very special about this one. They need a hitter, he was one of the best ever. Why are you giving me that look?

Texas Rangers: They need to draft something very simple:

A new ballpark. How can you win when the opposing team only needs to blow on the ball to knock it out of the park?

Oakland Athletics: Frankly, this team simply needs a higher payroll. The lack of money is overwhelming. Another way to state the previous sentence is "the money is underwhelming". Whichever way you look at it, they need to spend more money. You know, sorta like the Giants and Barry Zito. Didn't *that * turn out well... The Athletics select:

A better mascot. I mean, come on, a dopey guy with a baseball for a head? THAT, and not their diminuitive payroll, is why they never do much in October.

Seattle Mariners: Let's try a simple analogy here: feet wrapped in leathery, burnt bacon are to smelling bad, as ______ is to managing a team into the ground faster than a peregrine falcon that forgot to hit the breaks. If you said Seattle's General Manager (if you don't know his name, you aren't alone!), you are correct! So with their pick they select:

An assassin, to kill everyone in their front office, so that they can get someone with baseball smarts. I'm still reeling over the Adrian Beltre contract, and I am not even a Mariners fan. Richie Sexson didn't help either.

NL West:

NO ONE CARES!




Kramnik prevails despite being blind: Kramnik recently won the Melody Amber Chess Tournament, a an invitation-only combination of blind and speed chess which Kramnik has now won or co-won 6 times. Apparently, Beethovean could have competed in this tournament and felt right at home. Not that Beethovean ever played chess. Does this paragraph have a point besides my desire to include chess in every column? No, not really.

I'd write more but I must save my fingers for the article everyone cares about, the brobdingnagian (its a word, look it up) column where I let my rooting interests completely screw logic and reasoning, and I explain to you why Carl Pavano will shock the world, Dice-K should be a curse word, and the Yankees will defy common sense to win it all.

Oh, and that Roy Hallady guy is good.

until then,

The Sports Maunderer

Baseball Mock Draft

With baseball season upon us, it should be time for predictions. But instead of wasting your time with such nonsense (you know I would just put who I was rooting for anyway), I am going to take a page out of the NFL’s book and conduct a mock baseball draft. Not sure why no one has caught onto baseball’s draft yet. I mean who isn’t completely excited by a five thousand round marathon in which one is seeing their favorite team’s (distant) future? Uh, yeah…

To avoid such obvious problems, my draft will be short (one round) contain a player the team needs to compete RIGHT NOW, and the player will also be some baseball legend of past, player of present, or… yeah, past or present. No future going on here. We don’t want to wait like you do for "Psyche" and "Monk" to start their seasons (and this is a terribly unjustifiable excursus, but I must say I hardly even wait for Monk anymore. That situation has grown that dire. What a good show gone bad...). So regardless, here is part one in a three part series: my mock baseball draft.

NL East:

New York Mets: Well everyone knows that the Mets have plenty of hitting (in other words, their lineup doesn’t look quite as paltry as most in the NL), plenty of bullpen (in other words, they actually have a closer), but need a little help in their rotation (in other words, they have no one there). So who do they need to draft? You guessed it:

Pedro Martinez. And I am not referring to the one they already have. I’m referring to that Pedro. The Pedro who went by “Pedro”. The Pedro who had won the game before he even threw a pitch. The Pedro forever lost on a cold night in October when Jorge Posada smoked—err, poked—a double into center.

Philadelphia Phillies: The Phillies appear to be the good at everything great at nothing team. They have some hitting, some pitching, some defense, but not a whole ton of much. (What do you expect, an AL team?) So what can you give a team lacking any type of star power in this all powerful draft?

Elvis Presley. You might think I am joking here, but in all seriousness, the thing they need is recognition. Their own fans barely know who their fourth starter is. If Elvis was around to sing about Rollins and Utley and Howard, people would get excited, and they would ride the King’s momentum into the postseason.

Atlanta Braves: The Braves are pretty much weak. Why? Because they lost their miracle worker. The Braves could have a staff consisting of Sandy Koufax, Whitey Ford, Roger Clemens and Randy Johnson and they would still stink at pitching without their long lost pitching coach. So clearly the Braves need to draft:

Leo Mazzone. This gives me a chance to ask the question: Why did Leo Mazzone leave the Braves for the Orioles? It wasn’t an upgrade (he is still the exact same position) and the Orioles have nothing pitching wise the Braves didn’t have (unless having “less talented” arms counts as something they have which the Braves don’t have) and they also have to face AL East lineups all day. Why the heck did he leave? If it was money, the Braves were simply stupid for letting him go in the first place.

Washington Nationals: Frankly, the Nationals don’t have much of anything. There is only one person in the history of everything who could save the Nationals. The Washington Nationals select:

God. Yeah I know, people don’t say the Almighty is a baseball “player”, they say He is a baseball “fan” (which is true). But surely in His younger days He threw a little and swung the bat a few times? Heck, He might have even fielded some ground balls. And the Nationals need more than all the help they can get.

Florida Marlins: Well as usual, the Marlins have tons of young talent and prospects but an average age of somewhere around seventeen. Clearly then, they need someone to balance this out so that they have some experience on their team. Who do they need?

Honus Wagner. Not because he was supposedly great or anything, but because he must be so old by now that he takes the average age of the Marlins right up there along with the most experienced teams in the league. And experience wins championships!

NL Central:

Saint Louis Cardinals: Goodness knows how this team won a World Series, but—hmm, it appears I received an email the other day from someone named “goodness”… wonder what they have to say. Ah, interesting. Goodness says: The Cardinals won the World Series because they are a bunch of lucky nobodies who rode terrific opposing pitching to a title. And by terrific opposing pitching I mean those fastballs the tigers threw over their first basemen’s head. Well, goodness knows. So who do the Cardinals need? Someone who isn’t as hateable as Tony la Russa, Albert “Poo holes” (how can you like a guy with that name?) and Jeff Weaver. They need someone everyone always likes! So who do they need to pick up?!

Barry Bonds! Oh sure, the media hates him, fans hate him, congress hates him, but San Francisco fans, proving once again that San Fran is the nuttiest place in the world, love him! And so they would suddenly root for the Cardinals. And no one else besides Cardinals fans could possibly stomach an 83 win team being proclaimed “champion”. (This was basically a .500 team, folks)

Chicago Cubs: Well they spent a lot of money to improve on their disastrous 2006 season. But they still can’t avoid that nagging injury bug. Has anyone ever checked to see what Mark Prior and Kerry Wood look like when they are healthy? Or have they never been healthy for long enough? By the way, has there ever been anything like this? These two guys will go down in history together; in much the same way LewisandClark has become one word, PriorandWood has become one word. Not because they have lightning stuff (which, supposedly, they do), but because they are always injured. They have become the freaking poster boys for the always injured players. In this mock draft, the Cubs take:

Doctor McCoy, affectionately known as “Bones” by Trekkies everywhere. He is the only guy around who could keep the Cubs title shot afloat, since we all know that sometime in June, that blasted goat will rear its head and the following will occur: Alfonso Soriano will go blind after staring in the mirror too long, Carlos Zambrano will blow his arm out after fist pumping too vigorously, Derek Lee will forget how to hit, and Lou Piniella will burst an artery somewhere after throwing too big of a tantrum. Only Bones could fix all of that.

Houston Astros: This is a team characterized by star players surrounded by nobodies. They had Roy Oswalt and “everybody else” in the rotation (minus the Roger Clemens traveling circus) and in their lineup, they had Lance Berkman and “everyone else”. They tried to address part of this problem by signing Carlos Lee to protect Berkman, but they lost their only other decent starter in Andy Petitte. So the Astros need:

Roy Oswalt. Another one. And then, after that, preferably another one. They could use as many Roy Oswalts as they can find. If their entire team (including their lineup) was made of Roy Oswalts, I don’t think they would ever lose. Unfortunately, they only have one.

Milwaukee Brewers: I’ll be honest: I know nothing about the Brewers. Until ten seconds ago, I did not even know how to spell “Milwaukee”. I think I might be able to name you one player on their team. Ben Sheets. That is it. I haven’t a clue about anything else. So how am I supposed to know who they are drafting? Well I am going to have to guess:

Babe Ruth. I mean, seriously, if you could draft anyone from the history of baseball (and that is the premise of this draft), *you* would draft Babe Ruth too!

Pittsburgh Pirates: (This section was blacked out due to the fact that for some absolutely insane reason, cable, radio and internet providers put West Virginia in the Pittsburghian region. The Sports Maunderer doesn’t get it either, but apparently if you want to read this section… well actually, The Sports Maunderer doesn’t get the point of a blackout either, and he is not sure what it accomplishes, but anyway, regardless, you can’t read this section)

Cincinnati Reds: They can hit, hit, and hit some more (effulgent praise of their hitting is a bit biased considering the park they play in, but nevertheless), but no one is sure if anyone on their team has ever thrown a baseball over a plate without someone sending it back the other way for a home run. With little rotation or bullpen to speak of, only one man can single-armedly save their team…

Cy Young. Now you might be saying, “of course Cy Young, you just keep picking the most famous players” but it wasn’t so obvious. After all, Cy Young might be a cancer in the club house due to the fact that he never won any Cy Young awards; he might be ticked that they lowered the mound. He might be bothered by the body armor players wear these days… There are many things that could go wrong. But 749 (complete games) speaks for itself, and the Reds need someone who will pitch every single game they ever play. His arm might fall off at season’s end, but if they drafted Cy Young and pitched him every inning of every game, they’d win the Series this year.


Florida Repeats!: *makes funny snoring sound*. This team was so much better than Ohio State it isn’t even funny. They can’t shoot in the Big Ten, apparently. How many wide open looks did OSU guards clang off the side of the rim or the backboard? Yeah, I can’t count that high either. Suffice it to say, it was a number that could give infinity a run for its money. When was the last time that one team so utterly dominated the paint (Oden practically took on Horford, Noah and Richards 3 on 1 and he beat the snot out of them anyway) and still got utterly destroyed? Florida has some terrific shooters, no doubt, but OSU couldn’t hit the back side of an elephant the way they were shooting. And it isn’t like they had no open looks.

Baseball begins!: Yanks triumph, Sox stink, Cardinals show everyone they were for real by getting thumped on Opening day by a ten thousand year old pitcher!

The Suns can beat The Mavs (and suddenly, no one else): Yeah, past that headline there isn't much to say.

Coming up next, the NL West and the AL West and the AL Central. Saving the best for last, of course.

I’ll either see you next time, or if you are smart and simply skip the next column and read the AL East one, I’ll see you two times from now,

The Sports Maunderer.

In case you didn't know...

In a post that would make Mr. H.R. Williams proud (for those unaware, Mr. H.R. Williams is the diabolical genius behind "Posthill", the always obnoxious, offensive, over-the-top extremist nonsense Blog to which I offer thee a link on my sidebar), the original major rant of this post was apparentl too offensive to remain posted. What a shame. It must have been quite possibly the most outlandish thing ever written, because The Sports Maunderer is home to sheer insanity which makes it past the editor while this post did not. We here at The Sports Maunderer apologize for the shortened column, and hope you will take solace in the fact that my musings regarding what it would be like to be Greg Oden, the baseball season, and the band named Muse will all be published sometime in the next week. Or... well probably not. Next month. Well. They will get published sometime. Eventually. Without further adu, let us proceed with this shortened column.

Phenom backlash: I think we are finally seeing the result of way too much hype following way too many players. The sports commentators and fans are sick of it, and they are lashing out at O.J. Mayo, more because they are sick of over-hyped high-schoolers than because they have any actual problem with him. Sure, the ref incident was bungled, and he shouldn’t have walked over to him, but that ref had it out for Huntington High since the year before, when he managed to get Patrick Patterson ejected from a game. Patrick Patterson. No one complains about his attitude problems.
And yeah, the backboard reflecting dunk and concomitant throw into the stands were boneheaded, but how many kids wouldn’t be fired up in that situation? I’m not saying that justifies it, but the only reason his head has been taken off in the media is because people are sick pf phenoms.
He has obviously made mistakes, but we all do that. The thing that is telling is that instead of railing against those talking about him—such as Michael Wilbon—and declaring he “doesn’t care what others think” or some equivocal nonsense like that, he really seems to want to change people’s opinions. That is far more important to a guy not even out of high school yet than whether or not he made—gasp—some mistakes.

The Commentator duo from Hell: Not that this would—in the name of everything good, it had better not—happen, but I just came up with the commentator duo from Hell. Can you imagine anything worse than listening to a game where the play-by-play guy is Lou Holtz, and the color commentator is Shannon Sharpe? I could switch on the “espanol” feature and have a better shot at understand what they are saying. The only thing I could likely make out would be the moments when Shannon begins laughing like hyena who just heard the funniest joke ever told. And then I would know that something absolutely not funny had just happened. Not that you needed anymore food for nightmares, but there you go.

Until next time (and we apologize again for the inconvenient shortening of my column... what? You don't mind? You're joking. Right?

...right?)

The Sports Maunderer

Team Science 101

In between musings upon various subjects recently (the musings included thoughts of what it would be like if I was Greg Oden, the hypocrisy of sports pretending to break racial barriers, and the band named "Muse") I realized that I had sort of thrown in what was potentially a very good article in my last column without expanding enough on it at all.

So let the pullulation now begin, as I turn Team Chemistry into Team Science. Basically it functions like this: if team "chemistry" is so important, certainly team "Physics", team "Biology", team "Anthropology", team "Organic Chemistry", team "Quantam mechanics" and various other sciences must be equally important. So I will now give a short definition of each, and then list some teams that have particularly good showings in these sciences and some teams that are particularly poor. (Note: For the most part, I am excluding current baseball teams from these ratings because I am about to give my completely *unscientific* and nearly useless baseball preview in a few days. In fact it will probably come out a few days after baseball season starts, just to add to the utter dysfunctionality of aformentioned preview).

Let us begin then, with Team Physics:

Physics: the science that deals with everything.

If you don't believe me, go look it up. Physics is the science that deals with matter, energy, motion, and force. Those four things go by another name: everything. So basically, team physics is team everything. If your team is good, it has good team physics. If your team isn't good, it has bad team physics. This is a very simple equation, and a good one to begin our Class with. No, put your hand down, we don't take questions until after my lecture. And if you have a question already you are clearly a moron who should be kept out of any classroom of any kind, and you should drop this course immediately.

Teams that have good team physics: Dallas Mavericks, Florida Gators (Basketball AND football AND Ultimate Frisbee... did you know that Florida almost literally owns the Championship of every college sport in America right now?), Indianapolic Colts, etc. etc.

Teams that have poor team physics: Memphis Grizzlies, Kansas City Royals, Oakland Raiders (The Raiders stink at just about everything, so expect them to show up in the "poor" performance area quite often)

Team Biology: The science of living matter in all its forms and phenomena, especially origin, growth, structure and behavior

Origin and growth? Sounds like General Managers to me! They build a team, add to the team, structure the team, etc. As for behavior of the team... well that is all on the players (unless you are Tony La Russa; then it's on you). So Team Biology has to do with how a team is built and structured, as well as how it behaves. Good structure and good behavior leads to a good workplace, but a nasty streak can get you to your Championship fast. A balance of edginess and self control gets you right where you want to be.

Teams that exhibit strong team biology: The Bulls dynasty. Jordan, Pippen, and a slew of role players perfectly willing to let Jordan dominate the game. They managed to stay out of prison but at the same time had a competitive (and somewhat insane, thanks to Dennis Rodman) personality that simply crushed everyone in their path. A team like the current Mavericks has decent Physics in that they are structured beautifully, with all the pieces you could want, but their behavior is almost *too* good at times. No one is "afraid" of the Mavericks. In the words of Billy Donovan, most teams "respect the Hell out of them" (yeah, I only used Donovan's words there because that sentence makes no sense) but no one is afraid of them. Still, I'd say they have top notch biology. The Patriots always have top notch biology because their general manager is a "genius". Last year's Saint Louis Cardinals had terrific team biology, which shows that team biology must be all-important, because the Cardinals had absolutely nothing else going for them. But then, maybe it was just the Tigers utter lack of team biology that won the Series for the Cards.

Teams that exhibit weak biology: Apparently team biology isn't that important, because the Miami Heat of yesteryear show terribly team biology. But then, that makes sense because they only won due to a leaguewide conspiracy anyway. The Raiders have terrible team biology, of course. The Yankees have had very bad team biology for the last five years, though they are getting better with the inculcation of younger talent into their team.

Team Chaos Theory: The study of unpredictable and complex dynamic systems which are highly sensitive to even tiny changes.

In other words, who can endure the crazy swings of sports no matter what? Who can win despite the ball bouncing the other way, and the refs being paid off?

Teams with good chaos defense: The Patriots Dynasty. Most of you could see this one coming. Despite the NFL being a game won and lost on the all-too-weird vivacity of the strangely shaped ball, the Patriots won 21 games in a row and 3 Super Bowls in 4 years. That is near impregnability as far as Chaos Theory is concerned. Most "dynasties" are particularly efficient in this area, given their lengthy success, but the ultimate might have been the Yankees of the late 90s. Baseball is a sport where the Best team only wins about 60% of the time, and yet the Yankees won 4 World Series in 5 years. Not easy.

Teams with bad chaos defense: UConn basketball of a year ago. They were the best college basketball team by leaps and bounds, yet lost to a puny George Mason squad in one of the most pathetic games of all time. Besides proving that basketball is better when good teams play good teams (as in this year's tourney) that game was incredibly difficult to watch. UConn had the six best players on the court, yet they all Rudy Gay'd there way through emotionless, fundamentally unsound basketball. They couldn't handle the bounces going the other way. Yankee teams of recent history are also designed such that on a good day the Yankees blow the best teams out of the water, but when the Umpire is a bit off his mark or the wind is going the wrong way, the Yankees can lose to anyone (i.e. last year's pathetic Tigers team). The Raiders, of course.

Team Exobiology: The study of aliens.

Basically, if your team can handle an absolutely foreign presence, they are good with exobiology. If they can't, they are the Raiders. What do I mean by alien presence? I mean Terrel Owens, Ron Artest, Pacman Jones and their ilk.

Teams with good exobiology: The Bulls Dynasty, again. They won Championships with Dennis Rodman. I'm not sure if anyone has that kind of exobiology. The Patriots are pretty good here, though, surviving and thriving with Corey Dillon.

Teams with bad exobiology: The 49ers, the Eagles, the Cowboys, the Pacers. Yeah, that pretty much says who the aliens are. The Titans are doing what few other teams like doing but usually ends up being for the best: getting rid of their alien.

There we have it, people. Is your team good with the sciences?

Minor Rants

Usually I have a couple rants in my minor rants section, but today I have only one. Now, I have never thought much of a certain writer over at ESPN's "Page 2" (which is the exception, since most of Page 2 is hilarious, brilliant stuff). She seems to over-simplify things, has very little knowledge of just about anything sports related, and has nothing funny to say about anything. But I never knew she was this putrid. She recently claimed that Kobe is Better than Michael.

I could simply stop right there and most people would agree that Jemele Hill now has no credibility in anything, even how to make a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwhich. But let's just mention a few things.

This isn't even close. MJ took a cast of role players and won six titles without breaking much of a sweat. Kobe only won titles because Shaq handed them to him. So what if Kobe can score? Anyone can score in this day and age. You can't guard people anymore (no hand checking). And the ability to drop into zones to protect against big men at times opens up the perimeter even more. And Kobe doesn't score as much as MJ anyway. And let's not forget that Kobe is still barely over .500 with this team.

But the most outrageous claim she makes is that the NBA is better now than it was in MJ's day. I have no clue what she is smoking, but only because I have never smoked anything, and so I'm not sure whether pot, niccotine, or some other drug happens to affect your sanity the most. the NBA of the early nineties blows this NBA out of the water. At best, the current NBA has three teams with a title shot. THREE! Back then... oh boy. If you scroll down his latest article, Bill Simmons wrapped it up most succinctly:

"MJ played in the most competitive era in the history of the league (1987-93) and emerged with three titles from 1991-93. Jemele argued that Kobe's current competition is tougher than the teams from 1991-93, which is just plain wrong. There's no comparison. The league sucks right now. Back in the early '90s, you had Magic's Lakers, Drexler's Blazers, Riley's Knicks, Isiah's Pistons, Price's Cavs, Hakeem's Rockets, Robinson's Spurs, Malone's Jazz, the TMC trio in Golden State, some underrated Celtics teams (they averaged 52 wins a year during Reggie Lewis' prime), some great Suns teams (including a 62-win team in 1992-93 with Barkley) and a Sonics team that was just taking off with GP and Kemp. It was a top-heavy league back then, unlike now, when 80 percent of the teams are mediocre and there are only four good teams (Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio and Detroit)."

The Sports Maunderer was created so that I had an outlet for my frustrations, and this is exactly the kind of thing my blog was created for, so it is blissful and ecstatic that it is fulfilling its purpose. Instead of ranting to whoever would listen, I now ramble for everyone to read.

I don't blame Hill for making an assertion and then arguing for it. Except that I do, because this assertion is just that dumb.

So I rephrase: I wouldn't normally blame anyone for making an assertion I disagree with and attempting to support it. Unless it is one of the hundred dumbest things ever asserted. This is one of those.

One last tidbit: Has anyone actually ever used the word "antidisestablishmentarianism" without putting it in quotes? Ever?

Well have fun, peoples, and maybe next time I'll let you in on what it is like to be Greg Oden.

The Sports Maunderer, signing off.

Back baby

It's back. It's ALL BACK! In honor of everything coming out of the woodworks recently, I have decided to bust out the blog. Andy Petitte went back to the Yankees, Bill Parcells went back into retirement, ESPN went back to discussing homosexuality as if sports somehow has anything to do with this, March went back to being not so mad, and I will now get back to insulting people, things and philosophies. You know, sort of like Democrats. Of course, in much the same way that Democrats have plenty to criticize (they are criticizing Republicans after all), I Also have plenty to criticize. So let's get to it.

First of all, though, let us hail someone who has now become one of the greatest QBs of our generation, Peyton Manning.That's right ladies and gentlemen, he is now the best QB of his time. This was completely unthinkable a few months ago but now he has validated his legacy by throwing twice as many interceptions as TDs in his most recent playoff run. We now know he is the best because he is better than Rex Grossman. We know he is the best because his defense suddenly learned how to tackle. We know he is the best because Adam Vinatieri was near golden throughout the playoffs. All of this clearly points to Peyton's perfection and brilliance.In 2003, when he threw a hundred TDs (actually, it was closer to 10, but that's a lot) in three games in the postseason, the Colts emerged defeated and Tom Brady was hailed as the greatest QB of his generation. Of course, Tom Brady also had a defense which shut down every other offense in the postseason that year, including my beloved Titans. But we ignore that.

The Truth is: we don't know how to judge whether a football player is any good. If we did, no one would still be praising Michael Vick. In baseball, where 99% of the game is a one on one battle between hitter and pitcher, it is rather easy to determine who is good and who isn't. In basketball, where players are judged on their ability to work within a team but also take over the game when necessary (i.e. Michael Jordan), it is rather easy to determine who succeeds and who fails. In football... oh football.

In football, eleven guys have to do everything right to make one good play. If you think about it, that makes it somewhat amazing that games like Super Bowl XLI don't occur more often (and by that, I mean games where both teams play pretty much terribly), but I digress. The point is that Peyton Manning rode a resurgent defense to the Hall of Fame, and yet no one on that defense, minus maybe Dwight Freeney, is sticking around in Canton after their chauffeuring duties are accomplished. The Steelers of an era ago won Super Bowls galore with a veritable roster of Hall of Fame inductees; the New England Patriots won their three Super Bowls with one or two at most. The moral of that story? A) Free agency didnt assassinate dynasties, and B) teams don't require anyone to be spectacular, they require everyone to be good and to and work together.

The overused phrase "team chemistry" only really applies in football. It does somewhat apply in Basketball, but as Shaq and Kobe proved, it means little more than toasters on an island. What do toasters on an island mean? Who the heck knows. The point is that football requires an amazing amount of coordination, and if the corner breaks at the right time and the safety drops off at the right time, it doesn't really matter if either of them have 4.33 speed. Everyone in the NFL is big, fast and strong. The ability to work collectively is far more important.

(A word on team "chemistry": where did this phrase originate? What exactly does "chemistry" have to do with coordination, teamwork, and collective action? The only thing I can think of is that by "chemistry" they mean "mixing things together", but not only is that a ridiculous misrepresentation of what chemistry actually is, but when you *do* mix things together in chemistry, you have no idea what you are going to get half the time. I really don't see how this cliche ever became a cliche. But we all know I could deconstruct cliches for years, so I'll move on now.)

The Chargers fired Marty Schottenheimer in an odd fashion, but now that he is gone, they can win a Super Bowl without further adu. They were by far the most talented team in the league last year, and lost in the playoffs due to a succession of egregious coaching errors longer than "Hey Jude". I don't need to list them again (it is hard to forget them), but they were beaten because the coaching stunk, not because the players messed up., and--Well crap. They hired Norv Turner, put the Super Bowl parade on hold.


I suppose that we should mention "March Madness". I place this in quotes because this March has been about as "mad" as... an entirely sober Vulcan. The hallowed opening rounds stunk, the Sweet Sixteen delivered many close games but ZERO (I'd say "count 'em" but you can't!) upsets, and the Elite Eight was fine but certainly no overwhelming amount of "madness" occured.

Maybe that is what they were counting on though. We have become so used to dozens of upsets a year that this year, with the tournament lacking in upsets entirely, it is completely mad, by virtue of the fact that it is completely sane! This is like Hannibal Lecter suddenly finding human flesh disgusting, the birds in "The Birds" suddenly sitting placidly around like birds usually do, or Dennis Rodman acting like a normal human being. It is more insane than insanity could have ever acheived!

...or not. In reality, it has simply been boring. But I do believe that it underscores a basic truth: The end result of the tourney is never particularly insane (okay, besides Villanova back in 85, but the fact that college basketball didn't have a shot clock was insane enough that I'm surprised it took so long for a Villanova to beat a Georgetown by milking the clock). The first few rounds are usually "insane" because a small number of crappy teams beat a small number of good ones. But even George Mason, king of all Cinderellas, never had a serious title shot. Sure it was cool they got to the Final Four, but who got to the Final Four in 1991? You know? Of course you don't. But you know Duke won the title. That is all that anyone remembers, and in the end, the upsets in the first round are meaningless beyond those silly brackets we all fill out. Now that we have a year with next to nothing in terms of early upsets, and yet our Final Four looks like most of the other Final Fours always have, we realize that upsets are highly overrated.

(If you haven't figured out by now that this is merely the depressing maundering of someone whose own bracket completely sucked this year due to the fact that he picked a lot of upsets... you are very very dumb)

In other news, Kobe Bryant is scoring many a point, and the Lakers are winning many a game. This makes a certain amount of sense because to win games one need score more points than the opponent (which it seems ESPN analysts forget sometimes), yet it also seems that for so long I have been told that Kobe is a ball-hog in such a negative light that his scoring must be bad. He should attempt to score as little as possible. Then the Lakers would somehow counter intuitively win more. Or something. Come on Kobe, how LOW can you GO! You must score less for the Lakers to win more! All the talking heads agreed on this years ago! Stop screwing with their brilliance by simultaneously scoring and winning! You are proving them all wrong and this is not allowed. At all. We frown upon ye, Kobe Bryant.

Steroids in baseball?! Folks are outraged that Gary Mathews Jr. Might possibly have used performance enhancing drugs. They are outraged because he is the first baseball player ever accused of cheating in any way shape or form. I mean, what do you think this is, NASCAR?

Alright, now the moment you have all been waiting for. Brilliant analysis and up to the minute news from our:

MORT REPORT RETORT!

The Yankees hope Chein-Ming Wang comes back from injury as quickly as possible, because he is a pitcher on their team.

Kerry Wood and Mark Prior are injured.

Greg Oden is a very good freshman for Ohio State University.

This just in: The Colts won the Superbowl.

This just in: Joakim Noah has a lot of hair.

USC is relatively excited about O.J. Mayo.

Peter Gammons is a Hall of Fame writer. This has been the case for a while now, this is nothing new, but it makes me wonder: what do I have to do to become a Hall of Fame writer? Besides first locating where exactly this writers Hall of Fame is located, I figure writing would be rather important. Yet who the heck ever reads anything Peter has to say? We all get our Gammons fix on ESPN when he analyzes, commentates, reports or dissects something in front of a camera (and he does it very well). And even if you wanted to read him online, you can only do it if you are in "ESPN Insider" otherwise known as Magazine Subscriber. And even then, you can't *really* read his insider columns because I *am* a subscriber and I cannot read them because the website refuses to acknowledge my privileged status. (I am very ticked off with ESPN regarding this issue. Very much so. Expect many beatings of a dead horse on this issue in the weeks to come). So since no one can read him, and we all watch him, shouldn't he be in the Sports reporters hall of fame or something? Not sure if there is one of those, but I never knew there was a writers Hall of Fame either, and I doubt you knew that, so stop giving me that condescending smirk and tell me where this Hall of Fame is located.

Well that is all I have for this post. While a little weak on humor, insight, and basically everything else you look for in a sports column, don't worry because A) this is my first one back and things will get better and B) my columns are never particularly funny, insightful or useful, so if you are reading them anyway, you must not care.

Until next time, try not to get flagged for roughing the passer, fouling Dwanye Wade, or discussing Kevin Durant.