An Un-Inspired Re-Mix

You would think that someone whom enjoys blogging and writing (especially about sports) would have plenty to say after a five months of silence. You might also think that the given all that is currently going on in the world of sports (World Series, end of the PGA Tour season, the NFL season in full-swing, and the NBA season tipping off in less than a week), it would be easy to think of many topics to write about in an article. However, if you think that both of these things are true, you are mistaken – very mistaken.

Before I started typing this “article,” I was going to write about the top ten athletic achievements occurring in my lifetime. I thought it sounded like a great piece, and the idea stemmed from a question posed on my facebook profile wall by Owen Handy a few weeks ago. We were discussing the end of the Braves run of division titles, when I told him (rather off-handedly) that I felt it was one of the top three athletic accomplishments of my lifetime (yes, “3” was an arbitrary and random number I selected for no reason at all). Naturally for Owen (especially if you know him), he wanted to hear my thoughts. Here are his exact words (dated September 13th, 2006):

“What would you list as the ten most significant athletics accomplishments of your lifetime? As an aside, I feel obligated to say that when I was watching Agassi's final match as a professional I felt that I was watching one of the great sportsmen of my lifetime play for the last time, so I would also like to know the top 10 sportsmen of your lifetime. I realize that these may take some time.”

I have been completely stumped by this question. Honestly, I don’t even know where to begin. I have started cataloguing a few ideas (Tiger Woods will be prominently involved), but it is going to take me a lot longer to come up with a coherent list that I can truly say is my definitive Top Ten for either category. Sorry you are going to wait for a while longer for that one - the idea is just a bit too grandiose for me at the moment.

The next topic I thought about covering was the Sports Guy’s impending “retirement” from ESPN. He made a Tiki Barber reference in his NFL column today so that his fans won’t be completely surprised when he pulls a Barry Sanders in a few months. Here is his exact quote:

"By the way, in case you haven't heard, Tiki Barber has been plugging away for 10 years, and even though he has 2-3 solid years left in him, he's quitting this winter to pursue other ventures. Um, Tiki? That was gonna be my move! You stole my idea! I'm outraged! Now I'm going to look like a copycat if it happens. Great."

Now, Mark and I have discussed (quite often actually) his impending retirement. I found out a few months of ago as I was randomly searching on the internet and came across a very interesting and enlightening interview with him on Sports Illustrated’s website. He makes mention of the fact that he never wanted to just be the Sport’s Guy for his entire career and is ready to start pursuing other kinds of writing (ie, TV/movie scripts). Here’s a link to that Chris Ballard article (article), and I recommend it to any Bill Simmons fan out there (sidenote: I checked out the sons of the sports guy website mentioned in the article (SOTSG), and I thought it was the dumbest thing I have ever seen. Crap like this would make me seriously consider other options as well). However, I have decided that I would rather hold off comments on Simmons until his official retirement from ESPN at the end of winter.


Well, obviously you can see that I am struggling to come up with a topic to write about for this article. So, I started to think about what (in sports) have I devoted significant amounts of time towards in the past few months? Since I live in West Virginia and go to Medical School, I have not seen my Falcons play a single game this season. I haven’t watched any Braves games since the beginning of August, so I really can’t comment on the state of the team heading into next year. I have read every preview about my Atlanta Hawks this season, but I know that the franchise will never turn the corner until the ownership issue is settled (predicted to be settled before the playoffs by Scoop Jackson today in his NBA preview – thank God). Thus, there is no real point in really commenting (however, since I cannot resist commenting, here’s a quick summary – we will battle the Bobcats for the last spot in the Southeastern Division all year. Shocking, I know). So, I have decided to take the easy way out for this post. I am going to publish an unfinished response (that is going to be EXTREMELY dated) to Mark’s article back from October 25, 2005 (almost one year ago today) with new comments added in italics. I realize this kind of article is not the kind of high level work many of you have come to expect from the VT, but I do think it is still an enjoyable article. Also, I am finishing up another quality, unfinished article from that same time period. I am going to get both articles up this weekend, and hopefully two old (but new to you) columns can/will fulfill my quota for the month of October. Before you read what is below, check out Mark’s original VT article “Fantasy Football’s Most Robust Performers,” so that you can be familiar with the ideas I am responding to below. Here’s a link.

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Below is the article where I last left it almost a year to the day. There are unfinished thoughts and misspelling a plenty, but I am just going to add my comments to it as it currently stands. Remember, my new thoughts from today are in italics.

My ReBUTTal:
- Peyton Manning is not a bust. While he has been disappointing, I’m not sure how someone who is in the top 10 in the league in ANY category (unless it is a negative one) can be considered a bust. He’s in the top 10 in both passing yards and TD’s. He’s having a typical good year for a QB. Not meeting expectations means that you are disappointment. I reserve the BUST category for much more significant failures to produce. Also, one more side note, I predicted in the off-season that Peyton wouldn’t throw for 40 TD this season. No one believed me, but then again no one believes me on stuff like this. Finally, I don’t want to hear the counter-argument that because Peyton when #1 overall in some drafts that it makes him more of bust. People who take QB’s in the first round are fools in my opinion anyways. You are looking for consistency and quality in the first two rounds of a draft, which is why wise owners always go RB. I totally predicted a relative “decline” for Peyton last year. Of course, THIS year, fantasy Running Backs have been the BUSTS, so I guess I have no idea what players to take in the first round of a fantasy football draft.

- Stephen Davis may have BUSTed out from a TD standpoint (7), but he still is averaging less than 3 yards per carry (2.7). If averaging less than 3 yards per carry makes Kevin Jones a BUST, the same argument should counter any notion that Davis is a breakout. Of course my opinion on this matter has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I traded all of Davis’ Touchdowns for the oft-injured Julius Jones. This trade went on to ruin my fantasy football season. Julius Jones missed a few more games with nagging injuries (pretty much the whole year he was injured) and put up horrible numbers even when he was playing. Eventually I became so fed up with Julius Jones that I benched him during Week 16 when I was playing Girden for 3rd place in our league. Julius exploded for 218 yards and 2 TDs. I wanted to kill him. I traded him to Noah before the start of this year to move up in the draft to take Willie Parker (who’s been inconsistent himself – horrible on the road but great at home). I guess I can’t win. The lesson is to always play your “studs” regardless of how inconsistent they maybe be because you never know what may happen (note: I had to relearn this lesson this year when I lost last week because I had Hines Ward on the bench for his 8 catch, 171 yard, 3 TD game).

- On a completely unrelated side note, anytime I hear the word comBUSTable, I am reminded of the Cosby Show. Apparently Bill was known as Heathcliff “The ComBUSTable” Huxtable. It was featured in the episode where his old 4 x 400 relay team challenged his old collegiate rivals. Not sure how this actually applies to this article, but I wanted to show my versatility as a writer based on my ability to reference many different cultural phenomena. Also, I realize that the Cosby Show reference in no way did that. Looking back on this comment, I still laugh (even if you didn’t). However, now when I think of the Cosby Show, the scene from High Fidelity where Jack Black makes fun of John Cusak’s horrible sweater by calling it a “Cosby sweater.” I still hate Jack Black and think he is highly overrated as a comedian, but that scene always makes me laugh.

- I also wanted to add Clinton Portis to the BUSTing the Seams Category. He’s on his way to a huge second half now that he’s gotten over his TD drought. Of course, this is probably wishful thinking on my part. In my opinion and regardless of the numbers, he’s still the 2nd best overall back in the league behind LDT. He always gets easily over 100 yards a week, and the TD’s will come like rain this second half. Also, stay tuned for an upcoming article on why CP is so sweet. Of course, I tease about upcoming articles a lot, so consider yourself warned. I guess I am still a tease. Oh well. Portis did go on a big TD run to close the season (and propel me to the fantasy football playoffs). Of course, he is still really inconsistent and his poor performance last week helped me lose to Seume in the aforementioned Hines Ward game.

- As far as Perennial BUSTs, I’ll admit that I bought the Michael Bennett hype this year. I’m pretty sure that I spent a 4th round pick on the man, which is way too high. Luckily, I was able to trade him away before he ever played a game for my storied fantasy football franchise. Of course, there is nothing storied or heroic about my franchise’s history, but nonetheless I will never again will I buy the Michael Bennett hype. I actually promise (with all two or our readers as my witnesses) to never have Bennett on my team again. I’m not wavering on this issue; it’s that serious. Michael Bennett is now on his 3rd team since this article was originally written (he was traded to the Saints before they drafted Reggie Bush and then the Chiefs acquired him to help back up Larry Johnson since Priest Holmes has still not recovered from his injuries). The Rams also signed the above mentioned Stephen Davis this year as well to help back-up LJ.

- As far as Brain Greise, I still think he’s a legitimate FF QB. Of course, he’s injured and out for the year, so you might want to think of other options for the rest of this season. Essentially my love of Greise stems from my ability to pick him up last year after he became the starter in Tampa Bay. He threw for 20 TDs over the last two-thirds of the season, which of course translates to 30 over a full season. Only Peyton Manning owners would complain about a season with these numbers from their starting QB. Of course, with the emergence of Cadillac Williams (how good are SEC RBs by the way), Greise probably wasn’t going to be able to duplicate his numbers from last season anyways. The SEC RB comment kills me. Cadillac has been an injury prone disappointment pretty much since this article was originally written. He’s played well the last few weeks since the QB change, but I am pretty sure Ekwall would trade him in a second if he received a decent offer). Greise went on to sign in the off-season with the Bears. Rex Grossman has played well enough this season (except for the Arizona game and he bounces back this weekend against the 49ers) that no one really ever expects Greise to play this season at all. He did carry me the year before this article was written as hilarious as it is to think of him as a legitimate fantasy QB now.

- Finally, my response to Mark’s inflammatory and controversial opening follows. First of all, to our one female reader out there who may have been offended, I apologize. I’m personally as face and smile guy, but Mark didn’t set up the debate that way. I think I was trying desperately to be funny and clever. Also, I have always played up being a sensitive guy to the girls (even though I am not – ask all two girls that have been in a relationship with me). The dichotomy exists, and I am squarely a BUTT man. Also, who was I kidding, no females read the VT.

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Well, thanks for taking the stroll down memory lane with me. Sorry it was so complicated, but I hope that it was still enjoyable and you had plenty of things to read and check out (Simmons’ interview, Sons of the Sports Guy website, and my previously unreleased article). I’ll see you with one more article in a few more days about my favorite commercial of all-time.

What Went Wrong

Contrary to popular opinion, I have actually decided not to leave my day job at AIU and quit writing for the VT in order to begin a career of picking baseball playoff games. In fact, as you may have noticed, I followed up my 0-4 record in the Division Series by not picking the LCS, or mentioning the World Series before it had actually started. And I’d defend this by saying that if you were waiting for me to make my picks so you could bet your house on them, you’re just an idiot, and if you were waiting so you could pick against my selections, I’m not really interested in helping you.

I have always been of the opinion, though, that it’s generally a good idea to try and learn from one’s mistakes, and in rare instances even alter one’s behavior based on this. And in this case it’s clear that my playoff baseball rules need some serious tweaking.

First the Twins and A’s…I really just picked the wrong team here. I still think the AL Central was a lot better than the West this year, and I still think that’s a legitimate consideration. I just forgot what’s now going to be rule #5, which is that you never pick a team from Minnesota to win a playoff series unless they’re heavily favored and there’s almost no realistic way they could lose. I don’t know why this is – maybe it’s the Metrodome, maybe it’s karmic payback for their undeserved reputation as a good sports down, or maybe it’s just a run of bad luck. But that’s how things are working out right now, and it kind of sucks for the fans out there, but there’s no point in fighting it at this point.

When I picked the Yanks over the Tigers, I simply forgot the #1 most important rule of picking any playoff series in any team sport – in the playoffs, a great defensive team can, and probably will, shut down the best offensive teams they play, and the only chance the offensive team has to win is if they have a good enough defensive to respond in kind. Well, it was obvious that the Yanks didn’t have such a defense…in fact, even though all of my picks were obviously wrong, this was the only one that I’m willing to say was downright stupid. Rule #6 is also in play here, and that’s that you can’t win in baseball if you have more than a couple of crappy relievers on the playoff roster (although based on the teams that did make it through, it’s apparently ok if one of your crappy guys is the closer…should make for some interesting finishes).

Now, the Evil Empire must go back to the drawing board, and they should keep this rule in mind. I was really hoping they would start by firing Joe Torre (bear in mind that I don’t want the Yankees to do well). Look, Torre is one of the all-time great managers, it’s established by now. Winning four championships in eleven years is an absolutely ridiculous expectation, as is making the playoffs eleven times in a row, especially in baseball, the only major sport left where multiple good teams miss the playoffs every year. And yes, I know that all eleven of those teams should have made the playoffs this year, but still, how many managers do you know that make the playoffs every time they have a playoff-caliber team? That’s what I thought. Take this year, for example: the Yankees had a great team on paper, but still a very flawed one, especially as far as defense and pitching were concerned. Once you factored in the injuries they had, you could easily make the case that the White Sox, Red Sox, Angels, and Indians were all just as good or better on paper…and yet none of those teams were within four games of the playoffs, and one of them wasn’t even .500. And that’s not even mentioning the fact that Torre has to deal with Stienbrenner, the New York media, the New York fans, and more goofy, Tysonic, head-case players than there are on any other baseball team. After what Torre has done, he should be allowed to manage the Yankees until he doesn’t want to any more, even if it winds up hurting the team for a couple of seasons towards the end (like the Packers have allowed Brett Favre to).

As for the NL teams, my biggest problem was that I really didn’t follow the National League at all this year aside from my fantasy guys, and went ahead and made picks anyway. I don’t know what I really expected. For the Cards over the Padres, I’ll just invoke Rule #7: If one team seems just looks way better than the other team on paper and is just too obvious…pick them! And the Dodgers did have several likable guys who had been in the playoffs a lot, but I kind of ignored that they were predominately guys who lose in the playoffs a lot. So apparently when you build an entire team of guys that always lose in the playoffs…your team loses in the playoffs. Surprise, surprise. Side note about the Dodgers: I actually was going to put something on the Dodgers to win it all at the beginning of the playoffs, except that they were only getting 7.5 to one odds. Considering that there are 8 teams in the playoffs, and that (based on seeding/record) they should technically have been the underdogs in the whole thing, I thought those were pretty crappy odds. Sports betting is such a crock, remind me never to do it (although the Cards were 12 to one, which looks great now).

So who am I picking in the Series? Well, sorry Detroit fans, but I’m going to pick the Tigers in six. They just remind me of the 2005 Sox in every possible way, other than that they finished the season poorly, which they’ve clearly rebounded from. Plus, this is the worst Cardinals team of the last three years – any St. Louis fan will admit this – so it would be a little odd (although maybe a little fitting) if this was the one that finally broke through. And yes, I already know that Detroit is down 1-0, and that the Cards starters are all pitching over their heads (which is key in the playoffs), but I’m not really that shocked that Verlander looked bad in game one – he doesn’t really step up in big games and tends to give up the long ball too often, which is why the Sox always lit him up this year. But the Tigers are coming back with another solid starter, as they will each game this series, and I can’t think the St. Louis starters are going to keep this run going. And if you think this was a jinx attempt to prevent Magglio, Pudge, and co. from winning the whole thing…well, you can draw your own conclusions.

The playoffs are in action, baseball is as popular as it ever was pre-strike, and this summer I finally got to the point where I could stand watching the occasional baseball game (thank you fantasy sports, thank you): sounds like the perfect time to write another baseball article for the rejuvenated Village Tavern!

Last year at about this time, I wrote about how baseball had it all wrong when it came to individual awards. This year, I’ll tackles a different problem facing America’s Favorite Past-time. As the playoffs have started, one team has arisen as the over-whelming favorite to win it all. The New York Yankees. On top of that, the New York Mets are the odds-on favorite to win the pathetically weak National League. Once again, the larger the market team, the more likely they are to succeed.

It seems every year the Yankees or Red Sox are able to make an extra move at the trade deadline (which somehow passes, and 5 moves are still made in the following 3 weeks, could someone please explain this to me?) to put them over the top. This year, once again, it was the Yankees getting Bobby Abreau. The Yankees went from being in a tight race with the Red Sox, to the dominating Division Champs. They also went arrived as having the most dominating hitting lineup in baseball (history?), whereas before they were… well, still really freakin’ good! But still, it was a move that helped secure their spot as the odds-on favorite to win the World Series (which, by the way, happened before the MLB season began. It was called the World Baseball Classi, and Japan, not the US of A or any south American country, won it).

I’ve always hated the Yankees. Hate the New York hype, hate any team that seems to always win (unless it’s my team of course), and even before I had any other reason I always hated that stupid logo with the pin-striped top hat and baseball bat. It’s the most retarded logo in sports, at least until the 90’s hit and we were blessed with the Grizzlies, the Orlando Magic, and the Washington Wizards…


But don’t blame the Yankees for winning, and don’t blame them for the fact that when the MLB season starts, there are only a small handful of teams with a real chance of winning. In an age where parody has made the NFL far and away the most popular professional sports league in America, MLB is insulting its fans every year. Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Colorado and many others; what chance do they have? Why should their owners spend as much money as possible, to maybe, just maybe, finish around .500 and still out of the playoffs? Look at Toronto. They’re spending money, but does anyone really think they can outspend the Yankees or Red Sox? They might make the playoffs here or there one year (especially if the Red Sox don’t shape up), but it won’t be because they spent more money. If it happens, it’ll be because they got more bang for their buck.

If you were a major league team in a sport with no salary cap, would you pass up on a player you could pay a little extra to get at the trading deadline if it guaranteed you a playoff birth and World Series contention? I wouldn’t. If you’re honest with yourself, neither would you. Don’t blame the Yankees, this is Major League Baseball’s problem. They need a salary cap, revenue sharing, and regulations that require small market teams to spend a certain amount of money (I’m not oblivious to the fact that teams like Pittsburgh turn a huge profit every year and refuse to spend enough to be competitive). It’s not going to be an easy change, but it’s a necessary one. But until it happens, don’t blame the Yankees. Don’t hate the player, hate the game…

Breaking Out the DS

The other day we had some cheesecake with cherries at work (sometimes having a job rocks, although it’s rare). One of my co-workers is pregnant, and she mentioned that, while the cherries were good, it would be better topped with strawberries…or chicken. The lesson here is that pregnant women are nuts.

You know what’s equally nuts though? The Village Tavern’s been running as a sports site for a year now and nobody is picking playoff games on here yet, other then when I (correctly, of course) picked the last Super Bowl. Well, we’re changing that now.

Minnesota Twins vs. Oakland A’s:

The Tigers could have made this a lot easier by beating the Royals once and setting up Tigers/A’s and Twins/Yankees, as I could have then simply gone with the “pick against the teams that lose in the ALDS every year” strategy. Instead, we get the battle of the two teams that always gripe about their “small market” status (ok, their fans do), yet routinely make the playoffs and play in two of the largest stadiums in baseball. I actually think the big football stadiums are part of the reason these teams lose in the first round so often – in the playoffs, you either have 60,000 people at a baseball game, half of whom have seats facing random places in the outfield, or you have several empty seats at a playoff game. Either one just feels weird, and home-field advantage is as much about the home team being comfortable as it is anything else. Anyway, this one’s a really tough call, so I’m going to apply what I’ll call MLB playoffs rule #1: If it’s not obvious, pick the team from the better division. That’s the Twins in this case, so I’m taking them.

New York Yankees vs. Detroit Tigers:

This is another tough one. I’ll say that the Tigers remind me more of the 2005 Sox than any other team playing this year, including the 2006 Sox: they have a great rotation, all of their relievers are having career years, they don’t make mistakes defensively, they can manufacture runs, and they have a good mix of guys that are genuinely likable and guys that are a little bit abrasive (and you need both). But rule #2 comes into play here: “Don’t pay attention to the second-half record like everyone else does, just look at what the team did in the last week and a half or so.” Look, winning a five or seven game series requires something totally different than sustaining excellence over a 162-game season, and it frequently just comes down to who’s hot at the right time. From looking at it quickly, I thought the Tigers, A’s, and Cardinals all looked bad, while one team (we’ll get to that later) looked really good. The most disturbing thing was the pitching for Detroit – over the last six games they gave up 3, 7, 8, 9, 9, and 10 runs. And the Yankees have a slightly better lineup than the Royals do.

Also, although I hate to be involved in giving this more coverage than it’s going to get, I love moving A-Rod (it’s an annoying nickname, but it’s also really easy to type…) down in the lineup – as a 3 or 4 hitter he absolutely kills you because he never comes up big in the clutch, but as a 5 or 6, where the pitcher’s a little worn down from facing the heart of the lineup, and you can go 0-fo-5 without killing the team, it’s perfect. Of course, now that he’s not being expected to carry the offense, it’s no longer sufficient to just say that A-Rod is the most overpaid athlete in sports. I’d now say that if you made a list of the ten most overpaid people in the world, Rodriguez would probably be number four or five, and everyone else on the list would be a close friend or relative of a third-world dictator. But, with all that said, I’ll take the Yankees (I’m now going to go take a bath in Listerine).

St. Louis Cardinals vs. San Diego Padres:

This is one of those weird picks where it almost feels like both teams are a little too obvious: San Diego because they’ve been relatively hot, especially considering how the Cardinals backed their way in, and the Cardinals because they’re clearly the better team on paper. I’m going to go with the Padres, partly because the San Diego Chicken makes me crave some cheesecake, but mostly because the Cards have so many problems. They don’t have a closer (and it was one of those situations that was such as mess that nobody even got excited about picking up the backup closer in fantasy leagues when Isringhausen went down), between the late season skid and all the injuries the season kind of has a “it’s just not our year” kind of feel for them, other than Carpenter the rotation’s been hideous, and they’re starting to get to that dangerous point the Braves were at where nobody really gets all that excited about just making the playoffs. Also, both rule #1 and rule #2 are in effect in this case. We’ll call this one rule #3: Don’t pick a team based on talent unless there’s at least one other decent reason to pick them. So Padres it is.

New York Mets vs. Los Angeles Dodgers:

Ok, here’s the thing – the Mets are the best team in the NL this year. It’s obvious enough that it can’t really be denied. They probably would even have been a playoff team in the American League. But the best team doesn’t always win a five game series. And there’s something about the Dodgers this year – the way they lost Gagne for the season without being affected at all, that goofy five homerun game, the way they managed to avoid getting lit up or going on a costly losing streak, despite not really having a starter that you would seriously consider an ace. This sort of thing only happens to special teams. Plus, the Dodgers are pretty much a collection of players that should be in the playoffs, even if you don’t think of any of them as Dodgers – Nomar, Maddux, Kenny Lofton, Jeff Kent, Rafael Furcal, Odalis Perez (just wanted to see if you were awake), and even Derek Lowe. It’s completely realistic to expect any of those guys to come up huge in this series. But the biggest factor in play is rule #4: Teams that win those crazy wild-card races with the entire league should scare the crap out of you. If you’ve been following baseball, you know what I mean – it’s frequently the wild card in the inferior (at the top) league, so the temptation is to write them off, but by default it’s a team that’s hot at the right time, and usually is from a good division. Plus, I can’t pick both New York teams. That would be sickening. So Dodgers it is.

And for the rest of it…you’re just going to have to wait.