Draft Dodging

I can hear Mike North now.

It’s a little redundant. It goes like this.

Blah blah blah blah blah they didn’t draft a quarterback blah blah blah blah blah Grossman stinks blah blah blah blah blah respect my authorit-eye blah blah blah blah blah 27 interceptions since 2006.

Yes, the Bears do not have a quarterback, but in the words of draft day uber-nerd John Rice, “Ask yourself who the best quarterback is in their division. John [freaking] Kitna.”

In other words you don’t need a quarterback to compete in the North.

Rice, an architectural analysis major (whatever the hell that is) at Philadelphia University was quick to point out that while the Bears draft was questionable, it stuck to one of the basic fundamentals of football - a quality o-line can make a bad quarterback good and a good quarterback great.

One of the inarguable truths about Rex Grossman is that when threatened he gets skittish. Now obviously 1^st round pick Chris Williams isn’t going to come into the NFL and dominate the way he did at Vandy (he’s allowed zero sacks in his previous 11 games) it sets the groundwork for what could be one of the best offensive lines in the NFL.

So (and of course this is all hypothetical) let’s say the Bears’ o-line makes Rex a little better (and let’s not forget that when Rex is on top of his game he’s actually a very good quarterback), and the added depth at wide receiver improves him a little more, then the Bears have a chance to be one of the better offensive teams in the NFC.

But what about the rest of the draft? The Bears have taken heat for their entire draft, beyond the quarterback position. Again I default to Fried Rice:

“They addressed every other position that was an issue, they just may not have addressed the positions with the best possible players. And [explitive] Tom Brady was drafted 199^th, let’s talk about this in a year.”

Well put Ricie

Hypothetically Speaking

Far-be-it from me to pass judgment on anyone’s individual life choices. Who am I to say if, given the chance, I wouldn’t have taken steroids in Little League to improve my fastball? Maybe I would have finally struck out Jimmy Waddington, and who knows, my whole life could be different.

And if I chanced my way into the majors, but started to lose the movement on my curveball, I might find myself sneezing into my glove from time to time, finding ways to junk up the ball.

But the umpires these days, they’ve got sharp eyes. So maybe I get caught throwing illegal pitches. Now my fastball’s no good, and my curveball doesn’t curve, and I’m barley making the Major League minimum. So I call up my friends in the “labor union” and tell them I’m going to intentionally bomb my next start in exchange for a few dollars.

Ah, Bud Selig knew I was a shady character and was monitoring my phone calls. Now I’m off the team, banned from baseball and I’ve got a mafia problem to deal with.

Thankfully my life didn’t go down that road, and I’m in the luxurious position of watching other people make mistakes.

The point is, we don’t know what leads people to make the decisions they do. We wanted Roger Clemens to be an uber-human, so he became one and we got mad at him. We have no idea about any aspect of Pete Rose’s life that didn’t occur on the diamond except that he liked to gamble, so we damn him to hell (meanwhile Dwight Gooden could have been one of the best pitchers ever, but had a bit too much of “the white stuff,” so now he’s just a tragic figure who achieved redemption).

Athletes are human beings who make decisions, and fans and the media have gone a little off the deep end in recent years, condemning everything they say or do. The athletes deserve a chance to explain themselves, but when they do, they best be frank.

If hypothetical pitcher me was caught juicing, cheating, betting and tanking, I would not call a press conference to say I thought these accusations are appalling. I would say, look you got me. I wasn’t that good. I tried to be. My bad.

And then it would be over, I’d go on with my life, you’d go on with yours and this would be readdressed only in future games of Trivial Pursuit and when I died. Somehow Athletes fail to realize that part of the equation.

Take, for example, the three Olympic relay runners who wish to retain their medals even though their teammate Marion Jones is serving a prison sentence for lying to a grand jury about whether or not she was running a small chemistry set in her bloodstream during the 2000 games.

Her teammates say they didn’t know, and honestly, I’m in a bit of disbelief at their disbelief. At the time Jones was breaking records while becoming a media darling. They shared a training space, a locker room and numerous flights – to say nothing of their personal lives – with each other.

But they didn’t notice their teammate’s steady transformation into a mutant.

And you know what, even if their claims of ignorance are true, they don’t deserve the medals anyway. On that relay team, Jones was John, Paul and George, while the other three were all Ringo.

The Death of a Teacher

Lots of people taught me baseball.

When I was barley old enough to pee straight, I saw a movie about a corn field with the guy from the Bell Atlantic commercials in it, and although I didn’t quite understand what was going on, Kevin Costner taught me there was something special about this silly game, something that went beyond the final score.

When I was a little older, my dad taught me how to actually play. He taught me that you score runs not points, that if you swing at three pitches and miss you have to sit down, but if you don’t swing at four bad pitches you get to go to first base, kind of like a hit. Years later when it became clear that my 34 m.p.h. fastball wasn’t going to get me to the bigs, he taught me to sit in the stands, studiously filling in my scorecard and cheering until my face was the same color as my Phillies hat.

Then, one evening after a Phillies game, I happened on a guy who seemed right out of one my old man’s union parties. He was on TV, but didn’t have the stiffness and apathy that too often comes with objective journalism. He was a smartass without being a jerk. He was bombastic without making himself into a sideshow. He still had his Philly accent and definitely wasn’t scared to be a fan. That was John Marzano, and it was never anything short of a joy and privilege to let him teach you a thing or two about the game.

Chicks might dig the long ball, but Johnny Marz could talk for hours about the beauty of a perfectly executed squeeze play. Strikeouts are sexier than groundouts, but Johnny Marz would be quick to point out that that double play ball is a helluva rally killer. All the finer points of baseball, the overlooked nuances both mental and physical, John Marzano was happy to share with the Delaware Valley. And never was it condescending, instead it was like a talk from your big brother before he took you to the sandlot for the first time.

When asked to comment about Marzano’s passing, ESPN senior baseball writer and former reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer Jayson Stark echoed that sentiment, while also pointing out Marzano’s ability maintain the veneration of the people he worked with and covered.

“[John Marzano] understood his audience wasn't the players or the manager, but the people watching and listening. So he wasn't afraid to say what needed to be said. But he showed up at the park all the time with a smile on his face, was always willing to listen to anybody's complaints and earned incredible respect in a short time.”

I’m not going to sit here and pretend that the John Marzano’s death is tragically impacting my life. The pain and frustration his wife and daughters are going through is far greater than that of any of his viewers. Our relationship with Johnny Marz was one of post-game detachment. But for a lot of us who learned from him it doesn’t feel that way, because nothing about John Marzano was detached from the Philadelphia fan mentality. And I, like a lot of Philadelphians, felt a genuine sadness when I realized Philly-sports carnival barker Michael Barkann would never again excitedly yell, “Johnny Marz is in the house!”

I Don’t Give a Damn ‘Bout My Bad Reputation

Growing up, I really liked reading Bill Conlin tell me why the Phillies were inept in the pages of the Philadelphia Daily News. And nothing could make me chuckle like Rick Reilly’s last page sarcasm in Sports Illustrated. And Jay Mariotti – awe hell who am I kidding, I can’t stand Mariotti.

The point is, there are a lot of well established writers out there – some of whom were a direct influence on my decision to go into journalism instead of something profitable like business or funeral home operations – who feel that bloggers are cheapening their once noble profession.

I find this troubling for a number of reasons. First and foremost, these are the guys I want to emulate, who before I was even aware of it were teaching me how to write. Until the day I die I'll site Reilly's column about Jayson Williams murdering his limo driver as one of the most infuriating and important pieces of opinionated journalism. And I still can't imagine getting through a Phillies season without Conlin's guidance.

But apparently they hate me and my ilk.

Some quotes from sportswriters:

"There's some good journalism, and some really horrible crap on [the Web] from guys holding down the couch springs in their mother's basement that have never been in a locker room but are pining on this and that. And this gives them cache, and then they're being quoted? What? This guy is in his underwear. They could us a Greyhound bus full of editors and it still wouldn't help them. So this is the 'new style of journalism' we gotta learn?”
- Rick Reilly (I feel it’s worth noting that Reilly is being paid $17 million dollars to write for ESPN, which hosts numerous blogs)

“Know what, pal? Bash this. . .Tell your bloggers, my career against theirs…”
- Bill Conlin in response to criticism from FireJoeMorgan.com

And other sports media personalities:

“It's fascinating to read what fans say. The Internet gives all these people a voice. What's the old saying, freedom of speech just makes it easier to identify the idiots?”
- ESPN Anchor (who hereto-fourth seemed like a cool guy) Scott Van Pelt

"It’s one thing if somebody just sets up a blog from their mother's basement in Albuquerque and they are who they are, and they're a pathetic get-a-life loser, but now that pathetic get-a-life loser can piggyback onto someone who actually has some level of professional accountability and they can be comment No. 17 on Dan Le Batard's column or Bernie Miklasz' column in St. Louis. That, in most cases, grants a forum to somebody who has no particular insight or responsibility. Most of it is a combination of ignorance or invective. It's just a high-tech place for idiots to do what they used to do on bar stools or in school yards, if they were school yard bullies, or on men's room walls in gas stations. That doesn't mean that anyone with half a brain should respect it.''

- Bob Costas (who clearly doesn’t understand his everyman appeal)

And Mark Cuban (via a Dallas Mavericks Press Release):

“The Dallas Mavericks will not allow ANY writer into the locker room areas pre-game and post-game whose primary purpose is to blog no matter what affiliation.”

If anything, I would say this is probably generational. Sportswriters like Buster Olney and Ken Rosenthal (who are both under 50) have their own blogs that actually utilize the format so that it informs in a way that a newspaper column could not (Rosenthal is so net savvy that he’s been known to post on fan hosted message boards).

ESPN - who once quoted a DeadSpin report in one of its stories and profiled DeadSpin in its magazine – is now in complete denial of the existence of Will Leitch et al. So intense is this mandated denial of the DeadSpinners that according to Leitch’s book, it is now punishable to mention the website either on air or in print.

And that right there is why blogs are so important. Yea, there’s a lot of crap out there, but it’s keeping the mainstream media on their toes (and despite what a lot of bloggers would have you think, sports fans desperately need the ESPNs and Sports Illustrateds otherwise we'll be left with...just bloggers). If the press is the fourth estate, bloggers are the fourth-and-a-half estate.

So memo to Bob Costas, Rick Reilly and everyone else who thinks I’m just a fat slob in his mother's basement sipping on Red Bull and writing my thoughts between innings: It’s the United States of Wikipedia, and brothers, you’re living in the past, it’s a new generation.

Regarding Regret

When you're little, it's about the physics defying pornography of home runs. Home team down 6-0 in the eighth? Nothing like a solo shot to get every six year old on their feet for no discernable reason.

When you're a little older it's about being at the game, figuring out which beer guys don't card, spying cute girls and hassling David Bell (maybe the latter only applied to me).

Then, like all lasting relationships, it becomes routine.

Sure, you still get a little tingly when that guy who used to be Ken Griffey Jr. knocks one out of the park…and the girls are still cute, but good lord was that one wearing braces…and David Bell finally hung up the cleats…

But really, that's all silver lining in one big dark cloud of regret.

Why did he swing at that pitch?
Why didn't the manager pull him an inning earlier?
Why did we pay so much for a new center fielder?
Why did we pass on Brian McCann in the draft?
Joe Carter.

God I love baseball.

With that kind of optimism in mind here are the teams in each division that are in for the most regret in 2008. That's not suggest these teams will finish in last place (although some might), but more likely they'll come tantalizingly close to the playoffs, teasing themselves with glimpses of the light at the end of the tunnel, only to have it all joylessly ripped away in September. And since we live in the Wild Card era, I'll throw in an extra team per league.

AL East

Blue Jays

Whenever I think of the Jays, the first thing that comes to mind (besides that whole Joe Carter business) is that scene in the Matrix when Joe Pantoliano's character laments his decision to leave the pretend world of the matrix saying, "Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill?" It's kind of like that for Toronto. Playing in baseball's most consistently competitive division hasn't given the Blue Jays a chip on their shoulder or an extra drive to succeed, it's just kept them out of the playoffs every year since…you know. Expect more of the same this season, as Toronto struggles to get out of third place in the East despite improving their offense and bullpen.

AL Central

Twins

Remember 2006?

The Twins started the season terribly, then on the same night Roger Clemens returned for the Astros they got beat on national television by Minnesota rookie Francisco Liriano. Then the Twins stopped losing games, Nick Punto, Jason Tyner, Jason Bartlett and Luis Castillo were lovingly named "The Pirahanas" by White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillien (that may have been the only time Ozzie Guillien's name and the word "loving" ever appeared in the same sentence) and on the last day of the season they took the division from the (then surprising) Detroit Tigers.

That was awesome!

Remember last year?

The Twins flirted with .500 early then seemed to make some noise after the All Star break before steadily freefalling and finishing the season four games south of even and third in the Central. Then Torrii Hunter went for the big bucks and warm weather in Anaheim and Johan Santana got shipped to the Mets.

That sucked!

And it looks like this season is going to be worse. With the Indians pretty much fielding the same team as last season, the Tiger’s fielding the single scariest lineup since the Yankees of the mid 90s and the White Sox looking to bounce back from an uncharacteristic fourth place finish, the once mighty Minnesotans have the potential to overtake the Royals as worst team in baseball’s best division.

Strictly speaking that doesn’t make the Twins a disappointment, but the loss of two markee players on an already disappointing squad is going to make for a lot of unhappy Norweigans in 2008.

Thank god for Joe Mauer.

AL West

Angels

The wherever-the-hell they’re from Angels have won the West four of the last five years. In the Mike Scioscia era the only thing that keeps them from playing baseball in the cold (or as cold as it gets in Southern California) is a competitive division (with the noted exception of 2004 – if ever you needed proof of East Coast media bias, check out the 2004 AL West standings and then imagine if that had happened in the AL East).

This year the Mariners have the potential to improve on last season’s surprise (near) success. In fact, on paper Seattle looks like a significantly better team. The Angels have an alarmingly overlooked lack of power from players not named V. Guerrero (one more for that East Coast bias). It’s so bad that their projected starting infielders combined for 29 homeruns in 2007, less than half of the homerun production of the Mariners infield. And while sophomore Angels GM Tony Reagins’ fetish for overpaying aging centerfielders coming off contract seasons has created a convenient logjam to compliment Mr. Guerrero, Raul Ibanez and Brad Wilkerson are nothing to balk at either (and I hear that Ichiro guy is pretty good too).

Waive those rally monkeys all you want Angels fans, your team is going to win a lot of games in 2008 - but the Mariners are going to win more.

NL East

Phillies

For the second time on this blog, I am going to openly admit to shedding tears on the last day of the 2007 season when Jimmy Rollins hit his twentieth triple and the Phillies won the NL East. It was my single greatest moment as a sports fan, and I wake up every morning to this picture proudly hanging above my bed.

But as much as I hate to say it, I’m feeling nothing but dread heading into 2008. The Mets are more talented than their 2007 record and have only gotten better with the addition of Johan Santana.

(it’s certainly not helping matters that all the news coming out of Clearwater consists of the Phillies talking trash to the Mets and Brett Meyers playing jokes on people)

And the Braves, oh god the Braves.

All this ESPN, Daily News and New York Post talk of a budding I-95 rivalry between the Phillies and the Mets silently leaves out Bobby Cox, Chipper Jones and the Atlanta Braves – you know, that team who mercilessly won the Division thirteen years in a row. They leave out that the Braves have only one hole in their lineup (Mark Kotsay) an even mix of proven veterans and promising youngsters, to say nothing of one of the few pitching staffs in baseball without any question marks (except maybe Tom Glavine, and that’s a question mark I would love to have).

NL Central

Cardinals

The Brewers will compete. The Cubs will compete (and probably win). The Astros might even compete. The Reds and the Pirates are in trouble, but the Reds are quietly building a talented young team and the Pirates aren’t expected be much more than the Pirates, so no disappointment there.

The Cardinals, once the class of the National League and two seasons removed from an improbable World Series win, are in for a lot of hurt.

I guess watching Rick Ankiel from April to September will be pretty cool and you can never really count out Pujols, but when Kyle Loshe is your big off-season acquisition, hopes aren’t exactly high.

If Cardinals fans thought 2007 was a harsh shot in the gut, 2008 is looking like swift knee to the face.

NL West

Rockies

With less power hitters than any other division in baseball (Adrian Gonzalez, Chris Young and Matt Holliday are the only players in the West who hit more than 30 homeruns last season), the NL West will likely be won on pitching. That thrusts the Padres and Diamondbacks to the front of the pack with each team having the luxury of two Cy Young winners (Jake Peavy and Greg Maddox on the Padres and Bandon Webb and Randy Johnson on the Diamondbacks) and at a bevy of Cy Young candidates pitching behind them.

The defending pennant winners just don’t have the arms to compete. Ubaldo Jimenez is young enough and has the velocity to develop into a legitimate ace, but really do you want to rest your hopes on the shoulders of a guy named Ubaldo?

The Rockies were able to squeak out at the end of last year by relying on a group of streaky hitters (Holliday, Tulowitzki and Helton aside) who all got hot at the exact same time. That’s not suggest that it wasn’t impressive, but it’s not going to happen again.

Wild Cards

Mets, Yankees

The current reigning champions of regret, the New York Mets, have certainly improved with the addition of Santana, but he still only gets to pitch once every five days. If the Braves turn out as good as I’m afraid they are, that poor little tyke could find himself on the cover of the New York Post twice – an impressive feat for someone not old enough to commit adultery.

The Yankees could get done in by the stacked talent in their own division and the AL Central. If the Yankees and Red Sox beat each other up whenever they play and the Blue Jays are a consistent spoiler, the Yankees are going to have a difficult time amassing more wins than whoever is second in the Central (and Hank Steinbrenner seems pissy enough as it is).

Good luck Joe!

What's in a Name?

Today’s blog is brought to you by Subway, Lays Cheddar Cheese and Onion Potato Chips, Acebutolol prescription beta-blocker and Miller Lite (so please, excuse any spelling errors).

Cynicism aside, corporate sponsorship dominates the world of professional sports. To sit here and pontificate on the proliferation of Visa Halftime Shows, Rolaid Relief Awards and Ex-Lax end-zones would be a redundant waste of time.

Sponsorship exists.
Sponsorship isn’t going anywhere.
Deal with it.

But as Sam Zell prepares to sell the naming rights to Wrigley Field, one of the game’s (and country’s) most important landmarks stands threatened.

Yes, I am fully aware that the name itself is one of corporate sponsorship, but it’s corporate sponsorship from almost a century ago. The ballpark at the corner of Clark and Addison is so entrenched in the American consciousness and history (Jesus, I sound like a voiceover in a Ken Burns movie) that any name change would be an imposed commercial and would take at least a generation to be fully accepted.

And don’t talk to me about compromises. Wrigley Field at Chase Bank Plaza is not Wrigley Field (and that hypothetical would be the ultimate slap in the face to Chicagoans still fostering a Second City inferiority complex – it was not too long ago that Chase Bank was Chase Manhattan). If a location is historically significant and can be bought and sold, how is a warped version of the Wrigley name any different from saying the Battle of Bull Run at Harold’s Chicken Shack Meadow? (There’s a really nerdy joke in there. Do some research)

Chicago has had nothing but bad luck with stadiums in recent years. New Comiskey had to undergo seven years of renovation, becoming US Cellular Field in the process, an acceptable, albeit characterless place to watch a game. Solider Field almost got renamed (to the chagrin of soldiers everywhere), but instead got transformed into a leftover set piece from Independence Day.

Wrigley however added bleacher seats after the 2005 season and it was widely considered a success. This is due, in part, to the strict construction laws that govern Wrigley because it is considered a historical landmark.

Zell hopes to “relax” Wrigley’s historical status to allow the name to be sold. Blair Kamin at the Trib pointed out the problem this presents for the city, far beyond sports. If Mayor Daley allows the historical status to be jeopardized, it sets a precedent for other historical landmarks around the city to relax their own statuses.

Here’s hoping the mayor doesn’t set precedent.

The Case for Barry

Increased media coverage.
Higher ticket sales.
Larger national interest.
And a few historic* home runs.

Those are the reasons that the Tampa Bay Rays (still doesn’t sound right) should sign Barry Bonds.

Sure, there are the obvious drawbacks. Bonds brings with him an almost unprecedented media circus, the scorn of baseball writers across the country, a really big chair and the risk of being unable to play due to his indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice. And he’s not exactly the most upbeat guy on the planet.

(I would also have included fan alienation as one of Bonds pitfalls, but you need to have fans for that to be a concern)

But if no press is bad press, the Rays could stand only to gain from signing the demonized slugger.

Tampa Bay has had the misfortune of playing in the AL Northeastern Coastal Cities division since it’s inception in 1998 and has yet to finish above .500 or higher than fourth place. They do consistently out sell the cross-state Marlins, but to deem them a successful franchise based on that comparison would be the same as rewarding a D student for outscoring Forrest Gump on an aptitude test.

But thing’s aren’t all bad in Tampa Bay. Scott Kazmir, Dioner Navarro, Willy Aybar, Rocco Baldelli, Carl Crawford and B.J. Upton represent a group of gifted young players who are capable of developing into a talented core. Highly touted third base prospect Evan Longoria is waiting in the minor leagues and will likely see big league playing time this season. The franchise continues to benefit from revenue sharing, making a splash in the 2006 off-season, signing Japanese infielder Akinori Iwanmura. All of these factors should combine to make the Rays a competitive team.

In 2011.

Before then, general manager Andrew Friedman needs focus on building as much revenue as possible so they can sign the young players to long-term deals and continue to improve via free agency.

Bonds represents the perfect opportunity for the Rays to get cash fast. Future almost-Hall-of-Famer Omar Vizquel told Sports Illustrated that he likes not having Bonds around because it allows the team to focus primarily on baseball. That’s all well and good for the Giants, but the Rays have no business just focusing on baseball in 2008. They are not going to win their division, not by any stretch of the imagination, they probably won’t even sniff a .500 record and will have serious competition from the Baltimore Orioles for a fourth place finish.

But they can use Bonds to get attention and attention begets revenue and in today’s MLB, revenue begets success.

Besides, it’s not like the Rays are afraid to use nonsensical disproportionate beast-things to appeal to their fans.