March 29, 2005
I Am Serious, and Don't Call Me Shirley
Within the past week, two of my friends have pointed me in the direction of Suns' 12th man Paul Shirley's running diary on NBA.com. Aside from the obvious question that this raised -- how exactly did two people I know, and presumably thousands of others across the nation, come across this obscure page -- reading Shirley's diary also confirmed something I've believed for a long time. Namely, that being an NBA benchwarmer could quite possibly be the greatest gig in the world.
As you probably can imagine, since even if you're an avid NBA fan you've barely even heard of this guy, Paul Shirley rarely ever has to suit up and play; through the Suns' first 69 games, he had played in just four games, logging a total of less than 18 minutes (though, as his diary points out, he was released by the Suns earlier this season and ended up playing for sometime in Russia). But now he's back with the Suns, and -- I think my favorite thing about this diary -- fully appreciative of what a wonderful opportunity he's been given. Perhaps those among us with unnecessarily guilty consciences (like the friend of mine who somberly asked "Why me?" after winning $500 on a single pull of a slot machine at Foxwoods) wouldn't necessarily feel right about collecting a huge salary (in Shirley's case somewhere in the neighborhood of $700,000) for basically doing nothing. But I ask you, guilt-laden friend of mine and guilt-laden persons across the world, isn't this man living the dream? To hear him tell it, it sure doesn't sound bad. He plays poker on the team charter with Amare Stoudemire and members of the Suns' broadcast team. On a whim, he decides to go see a concert featuring his favorite band in Atlanta the night before the Suns play the Hawks, knowing full well he might actually get in the game the next day against the dreadful Hawks but throwing caution to the wind anyways. On his off day, instead of hitting the gym to lift weights, he goes to the beach with Steve Nash and Leandro Barbosa. As far as I can tell, very little is expected of Shirley -- he travels with the team, presumably practices pretty hard to give the key players some work, and then sits back on the bench in his warmups, scanning the crowd for bizarre outfits, making up narratives of people's life stories, and evaluating the looks of the opposing team's dancers. Because he performs these duties, Shirley is probably a millionaire, or close to it. Remember that episode of Seinfeld when George, upon hearing that Kramer attended a baseball fantasy camp, declares, "Kramer goes to a fantasy camp? His whole life is a fantasy camp!"
Sure we'd all like to be an NBA superstar, and many of us frequently envision ourselves trading 3's with Ray Allen or throwing down on Dikembe's head. But I think the dream of being an NBA scrub is vastly underrated. And let's face it: Paul Shirley is a lucky bastard, almost to the point of "Okay, I officially don't like this guy, not for any concrete reason -- I'm just jealous." But before you go hating on Paul Shirley in such a manner, understand that he's just along for the ride, hoping his time on the most exciting team in the league won't ever come to an end. And primarily because he's not too aloof or too spoiled to appreciate what he has, Shirley leaves the proverbial door to the team charter wide open. I, for one, am happy to hop aboard.
________________
March 25, 2005
Don't Call it a Comeback
I'm not exactly sure why, but the recent news that former Mavs' center
In part, I think it's because the very act of picturing Tarpley back
in the NBA makes me hop aboard for a pleasant ride on the nostalgia
bus. Tarpley's prime in the NBA came and went – sabotaged by drug
addiction and hard living – before I really hit my prime as an NBA
fan. I first met Roy Tarpley in one of the earliest versions of NBA
Live on Super Nintendo. That was 1995, and though he was only in his
early 30's then, his skills were already eroding – during the '94-95
season he averaged 12.6 points and 8.2 boards per game, down
significantly from the 16.8 and 13.1 he averaged in '89-90. That early
edition of NBA Live reflected Tarpley's decline – the pixelated
version of Roy was downright sluggish. I knew back then, as I know
now, that the Tarpley I was seeing wasn't the real thing. He had once
been something to behold on the court – a 7-footer who could pass,
rebound, block shots and shoot – but the spectacle that his life was
off the court destroyed all of that. Now, at age 40, Tarpley is
talking comeback. Though there's no question that this version of
Tarpley will be even more diminished than the 1995 model in terms of
basketball skills, there's something incredibly refreshing about his
return. It's a chance at new life, hope eternal, and I for one would
love to see a 40-year-old Roy Tarpley schooling some of the
youngbloods in the NBA, even if it's just one nifty ball fake, one
no-look pass, one silky elbow jumper. For old time's sake.
________________
March 22, 2005
Becoming a Believer: The Search for Truth in Canseco’s Juiced
I don’t know about you, but ever since I first heard that Jose Canseco was going to come out with a tell-all book on steroid use in baseball, I was curious to read it. But by the same token, there wasn’t the foggiest chance in Alameda County I was going to shell out $25.95 (the cover price) for a copy. When it came down to it, I wasn’t convinced that there was anything this book could tell me that I couldn’t surmise from reading news stories about it (and thereby getting a number of key excerpts handed to me). But then I lucked into a free copy, and in the process of reading it, a funny thing happened: I found out I was wrong. There actually were some interesting revelations in this book – above all else, what I realized was that for all his faults, Jose Canseco is no dummy. And whether you agree with his often ludicrous opinions or not, completely disregarding what he has to say would be a big mistake.
Don’t get me wrong – at its best, Juiced is poorly written and insanely disorganized. It’s more a series of disconnected vignettes than a coherent narrative. But just when you’re ready to completely write Jose off, he says something thought-provoking. You get the sense from reading the book that our friend Jose has something of a raging case of A.D.D. And what makes this book unique (in my experience, at least), is that it rapidly, and sometimes completely unexpectedly flies from light-hearted, often unintentionally comedic moments to thought-provoking opinions from a guy you’d never expect to hear them from. You can almost picture Canseco sitting in front of the typewriter (not that he was actually typing the book), rambling on and on, his mind flying in a million different directions telling his crazy stories from his playing days, and then all of a sudden someone walks in the room and stuffs about 80 milligrams of ritalin down his throat and suddenly he’s focused, and remarkably insightful. In a sense, the book is two different narratives in one, traveling side by side: Jose Canseco the idiot and Jose Canseco the idiot who is actually much more thoughtful and smart than you give him credit for. Honestly, the man has a remarkable ability to make himself sound like a complete buffoon, and just at the moment you’re ready to write him off, he goes and says something completely surprising – and in the tradition of Dumb and Dumber, totally redeems himself.
To try to address Canseco’s two distinct trains of thought together would be doing the book an injustice – the fact is, it just wasn’t written that cohesively. So in the tradition of Juiced’s disjointedness, we’ll dissect the nonsense (in many ways the most entertaining part) first. And once all of the distractions are out of the way, like Jose, we’ll pop the proverbial ritalin and take a closer look at what the man actually has to say. So, without further ado:
Canseco the Idiot
Okay, before I can even get into the text, there’s something I must tell you, because I find it kind of troubling: I’m not sure that anyone actually ever proofread this book. Consider the following passage: “Reporters were always trying to pit Mark [McGwire] and me against each other, to contrast us – Jose Caneco the aggressive latin lover with his fast cars, and Mark McGwire, the all-American boy.”
The first time I read this passage, so preoccupied was I with the “aggressive latin lover” image that I almost missed the egregious typo: Jose Caneco. I know this error really isn’t his fault, but really now. Of all the things to misspell, I’m pretty sure one’s own last name is just about as close to inexcusable as it comes. If you’re not going to proofread anything else, at least look at the author’s name. And that’s not all. One page later, Canseco writes, “Once baseball started becoming more popular again, not just in Oakland but everywhere, the competition among them media became just overwhelming.”
That’s not my typo you read. The book really says, “among them media.” Call me nitpicky if you want, but this devastating 1-2 combo (occurring on back-to-back pages) really sets a bad tone for the book. Regardless of whose fault it is, it reflects poorly on the author and the book when there are blatant and easily correctable mistakes. In all honesty, I really can’t remember ever seeing more than one typo in any book I’ve read in my entire life, and after this sequence (occurring on pages 124 and 125), I was kind of reeling. Why was I reading this crap anyways?
Soon enough, my faith in the book was restored, and it was in part gems like this that brought me back: Describing his feelings in the wake of his stunning blockbuster trade to Texas in 1992, Canseco writes, “I even tried to find some humor in the situation. When one reporter asked me where I had been traded, I said: ‘To Ethiopia. For a box of Fruit Loops and a camel to be named later.’”
Considering that Canseco was clearly setting this up as a can’t-miss joke – after all, he really didn’t need to tell it; he obviously only did so because he apparently to this day remains quite proud of it – it struck me as one of the dumbest things I’d ever read. And for this reason, I absolutely loved it. Seriously, what the hell is Jose talking about here? Where is the humor? Is this meant to make a mockery of Ethiopia, camels, Fruit Loops, or none of the three? What a bizarre thing to say. Fortunately, Canseco was just getting started.
Recalling the birth of his daughter, he writes, “When Josie’s head popped out, she was so dark I couldn’t believe it. You know how, when babies don’t have any oxygen in their bloodstream yet, their heads are kind of purple color? Josie was a very dark purple. ‘Hmmm,’ I was thinking. ‘Why is this baby so dark?’”
It’s obvious what Canseco is saying here – he’s clearly suggesting that at that moment he was wondering if he was actually the baby’s father – but what’s not clear is exactly why he felt the need to include this in the book. It really has no bearing on anything, much like at least half of the nonsense he spouts. Which is obviously what makes it so wonderful.
And while we’re on the subject of Jose as a dad, “The Chemist” (the nickname he gave himself as baseball’s great steroid experimenter) was certainly no Dr. Spock. “As a father, you’ve got to be very careful,” Jose writes, his tone almost professorial in authority. “You don’t want to bounce her too hard, or hold her too tight, out of a fear that she’s going to break. Those first months, she spent so much time with her mother, breast-feeding and what not; then, even when I’d try to hold her, I heard, ‘Be careful!’ or ‘Watch out for her head!’ or ‘You have to keep her neck straight!’”
I don’t know about you, but the image of a roid-crazed Jose Canseco sitting in his living room, veins pulsing – a thin layer of sweat glistening on his brow despite the room being at a very comfortable temperature – trying to hold his baby daughter but very nearly squashing her head is pretty funny. Not that squashing babies’ heads is funny, but just thinking about how terrified his wife must have been makes me laugh. Omm, not that terrified wives who are only trying to protect an innocent and helpless baby from their chemically-altered man beast of a husband are funny…anyhow, you get the point. I also like the “breast-feeding and what not” line, through which Jose seems to be dismissing the whole notion of breast feeding altogether as some alien process he can’t understand or fathom.
Speaking on the subject of the 1994 players’ strike that wiped out the latter part of that season, including the World Series, Canseco writes, “Both sides should be ashamed of themselves for pushing things as far as they did that year…[The owners] don’t understand anything beyond what their lawyers told them. In the end, it came down to the nerds against the athletes, just like it was back in high school – and just like in high school, everyone lost.”
The funny thing about this passage to me is that Canseco is really trying to drop a heavy moment on you, the reader. This line, about everyone losing, is supposed to have a great deal of gravity. The problem is, the analogy is simply horrendous. I don’t know about how things went at your high school, but I certainly wouldn’t characterize the athlete-nerd dynamic by saying that “everyone lost.” As far as I could tell, the athletes pretty much always won, and the nerds got clowned on. It’s possible that Canseco was taking a page out of “Hang Time” or “City Guys” and suggesting that somehow the athletes lost in that situation because picking on people isn’t cool, and a real winner doesn’t need to pick on other kids to feel good about himself. But I think we all know that picking on other kids is in fact cool, because it makes you feel better about yourself. So thanks for the totally lame morality lesson, Jose.
One of my favorite images in the book comes from Canseco’s recollection of a night out on the town with his twin brother in 2001. “Ozzie was out with his fiancée, and I was with a date, a lovely young woman named Amber. It was Halloween, and three of us were dressed up as vampires; Amber was dressed as an Indian squaw.”
I don’t quite know why I think this is so funny; I think in large part because of all the things to put Jose Canseco as out of context as I could possibly conceive, nothing quite does the trick like a vampire costume. Whether it’s an accurate image or not, I picture in this instance that he and Ozzie really went overboard with the costumes – capes, white face paint, fangs, the whole shabang. And in my visualization of it, they’re actually kind of regretting the fact that they got so decked out, which makes the whole thing delightfully awkward. As a side note, why were the three of them dressed as vampires while Amber had donned the wardrobe of an “Indian squaw”? Seems like she was kind of left out. Did Jose for some reason forbid her from being a vampire with the rest of them? Did she have a moral objection to dressing as an undead creature of the night? Also, isn’t “Indian squaw” redundant, like saying “hard concrete” or “annoying stepchild”? Isn’t Indian implied in the term “squaw”? Is it even P.C. to say “squaw” in the first place, or is that term a no-no? Someone please educate me.
As you can see, I have officially been derailed. Analyzing the above passages has clearly made me dumber. So have you seen enough evidence? Are you fully convinced that Jose Canseco is an idiot? Yeah, I was too. Now watch this:
Jose Canseco: Smarter Than You Think
It first started to dawn on me that Canseco might just have a clue what he’s talking about on the subject of steroids when I read a section of the book that discusses Jason Giambi. Canseco writes:
Giambi was a doubles hitter when he first came up. Then, as he got so much bigger,
he started hitting a lot more home runs. But he paid for that transformation. Over
the months and years, you could see that he was overdoing testosterone, which is
a retaining agent. He didn’t seem to realize that a baseball player should only be taking
a low dosage of testosterone, and balance it with a ripping agent, like Winstrol or Deca
or Equipoise. So instead of looking like a baseball player, he looked more like a professional wrestler.
I have to admit, this passage kind of knocked me to the floor when I first read it. Ripping agents? Retaining agents? Winstrol, Deca and Equipoise? I’d read a fair amount about steroids just from having followed the news stories about them over the years, and I hadn’t ever heard of any of this stuff. Meanwhile, Canseco was firing these terms off like he’d talked about them a thousand times. This is insider talk – and no matter how skeptical you may be, you have to admit that this doesn’t sound like baby’s head squashing, dressing up like a vampire Canseco; this paragraph makes the man sound intelligent. Even if it’s only within the frame of reference of steroids, Canseco is showing himself to be quite knowledgable. Based on observations of what happened to Giambi’s body, Canseco makes a detailed analysis of what chemicals he was using. It was at this moment that I first started to believe that Canseco – absurd as he was – might just be for real.
Sparked by his surprisingly dexterous handling of steroid terminology and discourse, my belief in Jose Canseco’s credibility continued to grow when I read one short, simple line about Sammy Sosa. That line reads, “I don’t know Sammy Sosa personally, so I can’t say for a fact that he ever took steroids.” There’s nothing shocking about what this line says about Sosa, but it represents an important revelation about Canseco. Namely, though you’ve probably heard otherwise, the man isn’t just wildly pointing fingers and selling out every single person he can in this book. In many cases (like Sosa’s), he isn’t sure, so he doesn’t accuse. While he does suggest that it appears as though Sosa used steroids, he is cautious not to make any accusations he can’t support. This restraint makes his specific allegations all the more believable.
Canseco also poses a brain-stimulating theory when discussing Mark McGwire and the famous andrestenedione controversy from 1998. As you probably recall, during McGwire’s groundbreaking 70-homer season in 1998, it came out in the press that he was using a performance-enhancing substance called androstenedione. At the time, “andro,” as it’s commonly known, was not outlawed from baseball, but it still became a big story that McGwire was taking it. When discussing the andro scandal, Canseco suggests something that I’ve never heard anyone else say: In his opinion, McGwire probably wasn’t taking andro at all. Canseco believes that McGwire planted the andro in his locker (where a reporter could easily find it) as a distraction. With so much suspicion that he (McGwire) was using steroids, if he got the media to believe that he was taking this other, non-banned substance, then he would be a lot better off, as it would explain to the public how he was able to hit for so much power and at the same time take some of the heat off of him regarding steroids. There’s no telling whether or not Canseco’s theory is correct, but it certainly goes a long way towards showing that he’s no fool.
While I wasn’t naïve enough to think that Canseco was now an infallible bastion of truth, I was beginning to believe that much of what he said could not be discounted. However, there was something bothering me. Throughout the book, Canseco repeatedly talks about himself as though he were this great benefactor, the guy who changed the game by turning all of pro baseball onto steroids, taking players under his wing and teaching them the ways of juicing. Hearing all of this over and over again (believe me, he mentions it a lot), I found the whole thing kind of strange, all of this unaccounted for generosity. There was no way Jose Canseco could possibly be that genuinely interested in helping others bulk up just because he saw it as a nice thing to do. There had to be another motive. And remarkably, he explains it:
I never minded helping others get bigger and stronger, even though I knew
that someday I might be competing witih some of these same guys for a spot
on a team…You may wonder why I would share my secret weapon so openly.
Looking back, I don’t think it was entirely selfless: The truth is that I never really
had the greatest of self-confidence, and I think I was always trying to help people,
in a quest to win their approval.
Suddenly, it all made sense. Whatever my opinion of Jose Canseco was – quite honestly, it’s still forming – after reading this, I didn’t believe that he was a liar.
Do You Believe?
Perhaps even after all of this, you’re still not a believer. Maybe you still think Jose Canseco is just a guy who’s so desperate to make money on his book that he’ll say absolutely anything. That, my friends, is exactly what the institution of baseball wants. And when I say institution of baseball, I mean everyone inside the game – the players, the coaches, the owners, the executives. They want you to see Jose Canseco as a marginal character, a crazed heretic blindly slinging accusations out of bitterness and greed. And quite honestly, at times it’s easy to listen to what baseball says about Canseco; we’ve heard so many negative things about him over the years that it’s almost second nature to doubt him. But what I’m telling you here is that whatever you think of Jose Canseco, he doesn’t quite fit the mold. He’s not a desperate liar – if he was, why would he show restraint when talking about Sammy Sosa? Why would he specifically accuse only a handful of players as opposed to hundreds?
Ultimately, that’s what makes this book compelling. Though it’s billed as a “tell-all” exposé on baseball’s steroid culture, it really isn’t that. You don’t come away from this book having been told which players are steroid users and which players aren’t. There’s no list of 100 or 200 players Canseco outs as steroid users. For whatever reason, Jose Canseco resists the temptation to directly accuse all of the sport’s biggest names. And that restraint gives rise to a credibility, to something – as absurd as it sounds – strangely resembling dignity. For all his flaws, Canseco’s words still mean something. In an era of baseball when we don’t believe we can trust anyone, maybe trusting Jose Canseco is the first small step towards change.
________________
March 18, 2005
Ashley Judd: A Wildcat Uncaged
I recently had the good fortune (and I mean that in the most
facetious way possible) to find out that rabid Kentucky fan Ashley
and in all honesty, some of the things she said offended me, not just
as a human being (I'll get to that in a minute), but as a basketball
fan.
Ashley's first violation comes when she's complaining about
Florida swingman Matt Walsh's tendency to clear defenders out of the
way with his elbow. She writes, "I didn't play much ball past the
playground, but I know it is a violation to use your bent arm as a
swinging device to get a sticky defender out of the way." I'm sorry,
come again? Didn't play much ball past the playground? I don't know
about you, but I have a hard time picturing Ashley Judd "balling"
anywhere, especially on the playground. Don't make it sound like
you're all hardcore when you're clearly not – and for the record, who
the hell refers to defenders as "sticky"? No one who knows a thing
about basketball, that's who.
Unfortunately, it gets worse. In further decrying Walsh's use of
the elbow, Judd says, "It's nasty, it's not right, and when Ravi
reacted Sunday and Coach Smith pulled him, our emotional ballast
broke, and I think that's what lost us the game." Sorry Ashley, but it
wasn't your emotional ballast that broke, and it didn't lose you the
game. This is a big no-no in sports fandom. You've got to be very
careful when saying "our" when talking about a team that "you're" not
on. Quite simply, it makes you look like a two-bit hack of a sports
fan. Honestly, you might as well stand up in your seat and yell, "Oh
my word, he made a two-point basket!" I can't quite explain why, but
it's just a no-no to talk like you're on the team, and the very use of
such phraseology is enough to make any sensible sports fan cringe –
it's a red flag that there's a phony fan in the room. There are some
instances where using "our" or "we" when talking about a team is
acceptable. For instance, in a conversation with a friend who is also
a loyal fan of Team X: "Man, we could really use some more starting
pitching." This is okay – like high cholesterol foods or P.C.P.,
everything in moderation. But throughout her column, Ashley Judd
continues to talk as though she's a member of the team: "what we were
missing Sunday was passion," "I also wish, along with all of you, that
we had been able to act more like real basketball players and rebound
more than three times (OK, 12) in the first half"…Unfortunately, it
goes on.
And even more unfortunately, her egregious overstepping of her
bounds as a sports fan transcends simply talking about basketball.
Towards the end of her article she writes that "Desire" has been
Kentucky's strong suit all season. Giving evidence of that, she says,
"Exhibit A is Chuck [Hayes'] last three plays against LSU." Fine – no
problems here.
But then: "Exhibit B is Nelson Mandela surviving 27 years in an
apartheid jail while being fed mostly corn pap and being constantly
degraded and humiliated and denied the most basic human rights. Desire
in life, when it comes form a place of integrity and character, can
lead to seemingly impossible miracles. Miracles like Mandela not only
surviving institutionalized racism, but also overthrowing it and
emerging from its hellholes with reconciliation in his heart."
Okay, in all fairness, there is a context to the seemingly random
insertion of Nelson Mandela into Judd's basketball column – she was to
miss the first two rounds of the tournament while on a trip to South
Africa to spend time with Mandela (she is a global ambassador for
YouthAIDS). But what she's done here – apparently drawing a parallel
between Mandela's perseverence through unimaginable suffering and the
2004-05 Kentucky basketball team's will to win – takes things to a
whole new level. How could she possibly think such a comparison is
appropriate? I'm sure she didn't have the intention of being
disrespectful, but to compare Mandela's experience to a college
basketball team is to belittle what he went through. I'm no historian,
but I can tell you that much. The terrifying thing is, she probably
thought she was somehow paying her respects to Mandela with the
comparison.
I think we can all agree that the SEC's been a disappointment
this year, but this is ridiculous.
_________________
March 17, 2005
The Madness Awakens
Unless you've been spending your days holed up in a tar paper
shanty thousands of miles away from civilization, subsisting only on
whatever you can kill with your bare hands and cook with the heat of
the sun, you're probably aware that the NCAA tournament starts today.
This year, more than any other in recent memory, there's a feeling
hanging over this bracket that just about anything could happen.
Before deciding on what are sure to be another failed set of picks
(the latest in a long line ever since I correctly picked Kentucky to
win the national title back in 1996), I pored over the bracket for
hours trying to crack the code of who would advance. In the past, I
would look at a matchup and for whatever reason have a hunch as to who
was going to win (whether that hunch was right or wrong was another
story). This year, I stared at some of the brackets' closest matchups
(such as Pacific vs. Pittsburgh) like a patient from "Awakenings" –
which is to say, if you haven't seen the movie, like a virtually
brain-dead, lifeless person slumped over in a chair, incapable of
producing any reaction to any external stimuli whatsoever unless a
tennis ball is thrown directly at him, at which point he miraculously
shoots his previously limp and lifeless arm upward and snatches the
orb out of the air with a wicked barehand grab, only to return moments
later to his comatose self. Okay, so I guess the tennis ball part
doesn't really fit into the analogy, but my point is, trying to figure
out what would happen in this bracket has left me feeling almost
entirely helpless. But even with so much uncertainty, there are a few
things I feel like I do know. So without any more hoopla, here are
Instant-Replays.com's 5 sure bets for the 2005 NCAA Tournament:
1. After a disappointing regular season, Georgia Tech will make a run to the Elite 8, and perhaps beyond. And no, I'm not just saying this
because I'm a blindly loyal Atlanta sports fan (okay, I sort of am).
But all of my personal biases aside, Georgia Tech is a huge sleeper in
this year's tournament. At 19-11, the Jackets' record is just one win
better than 16-seed Montana, but don't be fooled by that poor win-loss
record or by their relatively low #5 seed. After making a run all the
way to the national title game last year (and losing in part because
their top scorer, B.J. Elder, was hobbled with an ankle injury), the
Jackets stumbled to an 8-8 ACC record primarily because Elder was out
much of this season with a hamstring injury. With B.J. back near full
strength, Tech is set to surprise some people. Few teams play better
defense, and with Jarrett Jack and Will Bynum joining Elder in a
three-guard front, the Jackets' back court can match up with
anybody's.
2. If you don't know who he is yet, by the end of the tournament
you'll know JamesOn Curry's name. And you won't just know it because
it's one of the most bizarre first names ever concocted. If you were
to look up Curry's season stats, you'd be fairly unimpressed by his
9.0 ppg average for one of the nation's best teams (Oklahoma State),
but late in the season, Curry joined the starting lineup, and at times
became option number one in the Cowboys' offense. Assuming the Cowboys
don't get upset early, Curry could be the tournament's breakout star.
3. Cincinnati and Texas Tech will both get significant scares, if not
both outright losing, in the first round. Do I even need to explain
this one?
4. The #1 seed that everyone forgot about – Washington – will be
better than you think. I realize that this is somewhat in contrast
with my prediction about Georgia Tech above since the two teams would
meet in the Sweet 16 should they advance that far, but I just get the
sense that the Huskies are far better than we're giving them credit
for. It's easy to get overwhelmed by the other three #1 seeds
(Illinois, UNC and Duke) and just write off the fourth one as a
pretender. I know I did. But at the same time, I can't help but think
I'm going to be wrong about that.
5. Number one ranked Illinois will end its season with a single loss.
This is my way of saying that Illinois, entering the tournament with a
32-1 record, will win all six of its games to take the national title
(and therefore be 38-1). But the beauty of this statement is that if
the Illini lose, they still ended their season with "a single loss,"
just in a slightly different way. And therein lies the secret to
talking intelligently about March Madness – always hedge your bets.
Unless of course you're too overwhelmed by the myriad of potential
scenarios to form an opinion in the first place, in which case you can
forget about making any predictions or insightful comments. In that
case, you should just focus on catching the tennis ball.
_________________
March 11, 2005
The Odd Couple
From a personal standpoint, the Braves' signing of Tim Hudson to a
long-term contract extension earlier this month was the most positive
piece of sports news I can recall in quite some time, for reasons that
should be pretty obvious if you know what an obnoxious and irritating
Braves fan I am. However, while reading a recent issue of Sports
Illustrated, I stumbled across something that I'm pretty sure makes me
far happier.
I'll just pause and give you a minute to digest that.
First off, let me say that any news involving Big Gheorghe makes me
smile, but this particular item is simply off the charts. I mean,
despite their geographic alignment (Cal played baseball in Baltimore
and Gheorghe balled for the Bullets in D.C.), can you think of a more
inappropriately juxtaposed pairing of playmates? (Of course you can,
but just humor me here.) I suppose when you get right down to it, the
notion of a 7-foot-7 man going over to another man's house for a
play-date is hilarious no matter who he's going to visit, but there's
something funny to me about his basketball buddy being Ripken. Perhaps
Gheorghe Muresan was completely insane, while I think of Ripken as
being kind of a straight-laced tightwad. But judging Gheorghe like
that was probably not fair. (Note that I did not say the same about
Ripken, who was said to stay at a different hotel and ride in a
different car from his Baltimore teammates during his playing days.
Doesn't sound like a very fun guy to me.)
Whatever the case, this really should be a commercial. Can't you just
picture Cal and Gheorghe coming into the house after a particularly
grueling game, exhausted and sweaty, and Gheorghe calling out to Cal's
wife, "Hey, Mrs. R, how about some Sunny D?" Classic.
Do you think Gheorghe ever gets to sleep over?
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March 9, 2005
Wild Thing
You're probably not going to believe me when I write this, but I've
always believed that Cardinals' pitcher Rick Ankiel was a good enough
hitter to play in the major leagues as a position player. Perhaps I
just became a victim of the hype machine back during his remarkable
rookie year in 2000, when in addition to striking out 194 hitters in
just 175 innings, he also hit two homers and drove in nine runs in his
68 at bats. I definitely witnessed one of those home runs on TV, and
remembered thinking then that the guy had a sweet swing.
Even so, I will admit I'm pretty shocked to see that Ankiel, plagued
by control and arm problems for years after his famous flameout in the
In my memory, this move is pretty much unprecedented. Of course you've
heard of position players making the switch to pitching (Tim Wakefield
and Guillermo Mota come to mind), but to go in the opposite direction
is all but unheard of -- in fact, I can't think of a single example.
So in that regard, the odds are obviously against our boy Rick. But to
all ye naysayers out there, you heard it first right here that Rick
Ankiel can get this done. Remarkably, despite seemingly being around
for ages (probably the product of his story having gotten so much
attention), he's only 25. And you have to believe that the Cardinals
are going to give him every shot to make it (as an interesting side
note, he's out of minor league options, so if he doesn't make the team
as an outfielder, he'll get cut). I obviously don't know how
frequently he's been swinging a bat, and maybe I just want to believe
he can do it because I've always rooted for the guy to make it back as
a pitcher. But even at my most skeptical moment, I think back to that
image in my head of Rick Ankiel and his sweet left-handed swing,
smashing a bomb over the right field wall, and I don't just think
he'll be a success as an outfielder.
Somehow I know he will.
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March 3, 2005
Rick Mahler, 1953-2005, Emblem of a Bygone Era
Perhaps you saw the news today and didn't think too much of it: Former Braves' pitcher Rick Mahler died of a heart attack at age 51. Not to call you heartless or inconsiderate, but this isn't incredibly rare or shocking. Middle-aged people die of heart attacks rather frequently, and let's be honest, if you're a baseball fan who only has followed the sport for the past decade or so, you may not even know who Rick Mahler is.
But to me, a lifelong Braves fan, Rick Mahler was the posterboy for pre-1991 Braves futility. His was the name my dad and I screamed out in disappointment after a Braves loss. Whether fair or not, "Mahler" was our own equivalent to "Munson." Back in 1986, over nearly 240 innings, he posted a 4.88 ERA, which, though almost respectable today, was absolutely horrendous back then, when offensive numbers were down on the whole. The Braves went 72-89 that year, the second season in a six-year stretch during which they were an average of 31 games below .500 a season, the lowpoint being a 54-106 campaign in 1988, when Mahler posted a 9-16 record.
Those days, of course, are long since forgotten -- as the Braves piled up division title after division title, our anger towards Mahler and what he represented faded into almost nothing. It's odd -- in my life, he was always a symbol, representative of an extremely frustrating and seemingly interminable era of futility more than anything else, that it's really only after his death that I first thought of him as a human. Rest in peace, Rick.
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Bringing the Heat
My new favorite pitching coach (other than King Leo, of course) is Brewers' hurling instructor Mike Maddux, who today dropped this gem of a line while speaking of Brewers' pitching prospect Jose Capellan in Jerry Crasnick's ESPN Insider column:
"He's a pitcher who comes at you nice and easy and throws hard,'' said
Mike Maddux, Milwaukee's pitching coach. "He's not a grunt-and-fart
throwing hard guy.''
Perhaps it's just the completely juvenile, potty humor-obsessed teenager in me (okay, it definitely is that), but the idea of a pitcher grunting and farting on the mound while unleashing 95 mph heat is just hilarious to me. And if you look at Capellan's photo, he certainly resembles the kind of guy who could unleash a pretty mean growler out there on the mound.
Kind of gives new meaning to the term "throwing gas," eh?
(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)
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Coming Up Empty
As a fantasy basketball junkee, I find myself quite frequently poring over hoops stats online. Call me a goober or a weenie if you want; I've often said that fantasy sports are the adult male's answer to Dungeons and Dragons, and I'm perfectly comfortable as Dungeon Master of my own personal sports world.
Anyhoo, today I was looking at Miami PG Damon Jones and I saw something pretty remarkable: Over the past two months, Jones has collected a total of seven steals. Since the start of February, he has one, which he got on February 1st. That is unbelievable -- one steal in more than one month. The fact is, you can almost average a steal a game without really doing much of anything. Sometimes getting a steal involves absolutely no effort at all; someone on the other team just makes a crappy pass and throws it right into your hands. To only get one steal over a month-long period, it's almost like you'd have to be avoiding them. Sometimes you're just going to be in the right place at the right time.
I've always liked Damon Jones as a player -- I once saw him getting the how's-your-uncle from security at the Atlanta airport, which I thought was pretty amusing. The poor guy and his female companion were practically forced to have a full-on yard sale right there next to the metal detector. (This really has nothing to do with why I like Damon Jones as a player, by the way; if it did, that would be kind of creepy.)
Anyhow, this latest post may have given you enough reason to permanently write me off as a nerd (if you haven't already), but I find Jones' futility in coming up with steals absolutely remarkable. It's honestly like standing out on a pier for two straight weeks and not once getting hit by errant seagull feces.
And if that doesn't put it in perspective, I don't know what will.
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Lord Byron Speaks
I must admit, I'm not the world's biggest Byron Scott fan. I don't really have any particularly strong reason for disliking him; I guess I just kind of sided with Jason Kidd in the fued that ended in Scott being ushered out of New Jersey.
But I must say, Lord Byron was dead on with his recent suggestion that the NBA should have unguaranteed contracts just like the NFL. Not that I think this could realistically ever happen -- the players' union would never allow it
-- but if somehow it did, I really think it would fix much of what ails the NBA. Guys would play harder to earn their next contract, be more willing to play with minor injuries, and more importantly, the entire focus of the NBA trading season wouldn't be on teams trying to unload all of their undesirable players who are locked up to ridiculously awful long-term deals.
Unfortunately though, this remains a pipe dream, and the NBA will remain what it is: A league that doesn't appeal to much of the nation because people don't believe that the players are a) any good, or b) work hard at all. Though I can't blame the uneducated hoops fan for having that perception, it couldn't possibly be more wrong. Sure there are some players who get lazy after signing big deals, but the talent in the NBA is so good, it often renders the game unwatchable because the players play such good, physical defense.
But now I digress. The fact is, I remain a huge fan of the NBA product, but even I'll admit that it could be a lot better. And making contracts non-guaranteed would be a huge step in the right direction.
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March 2, 2005
Turkey Day
Took a lengthy ride in a livery cab the other night -- this, in case you don't know, is basically a limo sedan transformed into a taxi semi-illegally by drivers here in New York looking to make an extra buck on the side. Anyhow, I knew I was going to be in for a potentially noteworthy ride when my driver overheard me ordering a turkey burger over the phone and promptly asked me in his thick accent if I was Turkish. I'm not, to my knowledge, but it turns out he was -- hence his interest in firing up a little conversation about the mother land. Soon after I learned the remarkable tidbit that in Turkey they put chains on their tires to protect against the weather (it was snowing as we virtually crawled on the highway on our chainless tires), the conversation turned to sports, actually by no doing of my own. Turns out that when it came to the world of sport, my aged Turkish friend was something of a knitter -- and by that I mean he liked to spin yarns.
Among the finer tales he regaled me with was the time he drove Alex Rodriguez to go sign with the Yankees. (Since ARod was traded to the Yankees, this punches a wee small hole in his story, but we'll let it slide; perhaps he was driving ARod to his introductory press conference.) Anyhow, as legend has it, ARod offered my friend an autograph, which he swifty and decisively declined -- apparently he doesn't like baseball so much. Not enough action. Apparently he doesn't really like money either -- you'd think anyone in their right mind would accept an ARod autograph if only to see what they could get for it on EBay.
The conversation switched from lighthearted and semi-dubious to grim and mildly terrifying when the driver non-sequited into a story about how one of his friends was the Turkish O.J. Simpson. Unfortunately, he wasn't speaking of how his friend had impressive prowess as a running back, had appeared as a likeable sidekick in a Naked Gun-style spoof or had famously done a series of rental car commercials. Nay, he was suggesting his friend's connection to O.J. via a more damning connection. (And yes, I know that O.J. was found innocent, but this is the driver's story, not mine.) Anyhoo, turns out his friend and his wife became estranged from one another, and got divorced. The wife ended up keeping the house, where she lived with the kids. Apparently at some point this lady began seeing another man, which the Turkish O.J. did not appreciate one bit. He put up with it for a while, but eventually, he had enough. He couldn't stand the fact that his kids were in his house with this guy. He called his ex-wife to tell her that it had to stop. He even called the police, who somewhat shockingly (in the driver's mind) didn't respond. Which of course is not altogether shocking, considering it's no crime to have someone over at your house. Unfortunately, the real crime went down after the police didn't respond to the call. Turkish O.J. -- and this, I would assume, is how he got his name -- went over to his old house, knocked at the door, and shot down his wife and lover, demonstrated vividly by motions of shooting a gun and spittle-reinforced sound effects from my driver. (By this point, I was just waiting for the car to slow down enough so that I could pop the door and barrel roll out onto the curb.) My Turkish friend added an epilogue to the story, saying that he always told T.O.J., who is now in jail, that he had "killed his life." He repeated this phrase multiple times: "he killed his life" (I assume he wasn't just accidentally mixing up the words "life" and "wife," because then his point would have been fairly obvious. And yes, I know that was in poor taste.) Of course, if the police had just responded to the call, the driver posited, this wouldn't have happened. And in Turkey, apparently you'd only go to jail for a couple years for something like this, not life. The drive also said something that sounded fairly mysoginistic about "no divorce," but I didn't really catch it.
As the car ride neared its finish, I really didn't know what to believe. I had never before had a driver brag of brushes with (and subsequent dismissal of autograph offers from) middle infield greatness, nor had I ever witnessed a complete stranger tell me tales of his friend gunning down two people in cold blood. One thing I thought was for certain: Just a little more than a block away from my house, I was pretty sure that the "Turkish O.J." story was the most disturbing thing I'd hear during this car ride. But then, as we prepared to make a left turn onto my street, the cab driver, after very nearly turning into oncoming traffic, confessed that he didn't have very good vision. I didn't ask why this was, but unfortunately, I got an explanation nonetheless.
"When I was young," he said, leaning over his right shoulder, "no boyfriend, no girlfriend. Too much jerk off." And with that, just as he had done before while showing how his friend had shot his gun, he displayed one last time his ability to mime.
Suddenly, the murder story wasn't looking so bad.
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March 1, 2005
Eye of the Liger
What does this have to do with sports? Absolutely nothing, and I won't apologize for it either. Some things just have to be shared with the world.
Yes, my friends, that link is to an article about ligers -- to the layperson, that's a lion and a tiger combined. I guess my main question, other than to wonder how it took so long for these things to hit the mainstream is, how can you write an article about ligers and not mention Napoleon Dynamite, the movie that made them famous? That's just flat-out wrong. Whatever you thought of that movie (I personally found it quite funny, especially the scene when Napoleon's older brother pegs him in the head with a steak to show off his impressive throwing arm), you have to acknowledge that without it, we wouldn't know a thing about the great beast known as a liger. For that reason alone, it's a groundbreaking film in my book.
-Matt Stroup Copyright ©2005 instant-replays.com
