Thanks, Fridaynosaur. For those of you interested, Left Handed Toons just hit their one thousandth comic, and it's a doozy. I would recommend checking it out. So, the Cubs didn't do so hot yesterday, losing 9-1. And now we get the Giants and Reds coming through town to put us down even further. What a mess this team is turning out to be. I have to say, though, this Pirates-Brewers series intrigues me. But, I don't get either of those teams on TV. Oh well. In hockey, the Sharks finally did something good in the playoffs, taking game seven from the Red Wings. For those of you not following hockey, you should. And secondly, San Jose had taken the first three games of this series, and looked to have a stranglehold on at least two, if not all three of the next games. And managed to lose all of them. So, like the Canucks before them, the Sharks were facing a pretty humiliating collapse. Thankfully, order was restored, and we get a one-two match up in the west. The East, not so much. A pair of sweeps gave us the fourth-seeded Tampa Bay Lightning against the third-seeded Boston Bruins. That will still be a great series, even without the apparently cursed Capitals. And the Stanley Cup should be great regardless, but I'm sticking by my Vancouver pick. That's really about all I have for today, I've got some other things I need to take care of. First, I have to make a hotel reservation and call one of my cousins to let them know I'm coming for my uncle Charlie and aunt Dottie's 40th wedding anniversary. I also need to try reinstalling Open Office so I can get wedding invites printed. I had them all designed, but my printer insists they need to be printed landscape, no matter how many times I tell it it's wrong without any hint of being right. And, my home internet being what it is (pilfered), I haven't had any luck downloading it at home. By the way, if you were expecting a Save-the-Date and didn't get one, shoot me an email or message. No offense was intended, and there's a very good chance one was sent, but I didn't have the proper address or it was otherwise lost in the mail. I'm also thinking about trying to arrange some interviews for the blog, but I need some way to record the calls, and I have no idea how to do that with a cell phone. Any ideas? And on that note, Happy Friday the 13th. Okay, so I know this title is probably going to get some classicists and ancient historians all bothered, because Zeus was the god of the sky, and therefore rain fell under his domain, rather than Poseidon being god of the sea. But there is no movie called "Zeus Adventure" that I know of, and Poseidon is more immediately connected with water than Zeus, so there. Plus, it's my blog and I get to make the rules.*
*Okay, so that's not entirely true. Just because it's my blog doesn't mean I get to just decide how Greek mythology works. To quote my buddy Patrick, "There are certain things you don't say around a classicist." Of course, that was in response to a comment that another buddy of mine, Collin, said about Roman infantry. I don't remember what it was, but long story short, when you're the political scientist sitting in a room with a classicist and a historian, there are some arguments you're probably going to lose. Anyway, so the Cubs won big last night, and it seemed to be in large part due to the 53 minute rain delay. Going into the rain delay, St. Louis led 1-0 with Jake Westbrook pitching better than I've ever heard of in a Cardinal uniform.* Garza was looking pretty good, too, mind you. Maybe his best as a Cub. But the Cards looked like they were rolling along. Then the monsoon came, and Westbrook had nothing. *I'm not entirely sure I had actually watched Westbrook until last night. I had certainly heard of him when he came over from the Indians, and I knew a little about him, but I don't think I'd ever actually seen him. I never realized how sidearm he threw the ball, and I'm not sure I've ever heard of somebody throwing that kind of sinker sidearm like that. The Cubs scored six in that inning, five charged to Westbrook. Jason Motte came in to try to get through the inning, which he did, but not without some trouble. I kind of have a hard time calling Motte a pitcher. He is a converted catcher, and he looks like one. To paraphrase Bob Brenley, he just winds up and throws the ball as hard as he can in the direction of the umpire. He also said Gerald Laird (another player I had no idea had signed with the Cards) was wasting his time giving signs behind the plate, which made me chuckle. Now, if you looked at Carlos Marmol, on the the other hand, you would think he was always a pitcher. Part of that is body type, I think. Motte is, shall we say, solidly built. Marmol is kind of lanky. But Marmol actually looks like a pitcher out there and throws a pretty devastating slider. Motte just throws. After Franklin finished the job of sinking the Cardinals (I thought Koyie Hill was going to get two triples last night), the game was pretty much over when the Cards came to the plate in the 9th, but I'm glad I kept watching. Darwin Barney (who had been a stirrup hero but has since gone back to pajama pants) flipped over to Starlin Castro, who made a very nice acrobatic turn to finish the double play. That alone is great, but even better is the fact that he legitimately had the bag covered when he caught the ball. None of this "neighborhood" call crap, which is one of the things I detest about our modern game. We don't give first basemen the "neighborhood." Probably not third, either. But middle infielders can just sort of pretend to hit the bag and get credit. As a second baseman, that drives me nuts. Maybe it cut down on my double plays, but I always made damned sure I got the bag, because that's what the rules say I had to do. Kind of like Eddie Izzard talking about British vs. American pronouciation. "You say "erbs," and we say "herbs." Because there's a fucking H in it." That same bit also has the "cheating at Scrabble" line that I love so much and look for occasions to use it. The rubber match is in a few hours, which I will be paying close attention to. I really need the Cubs to win this game so I have a little bit of ammo when I head down to Missouri next week to see the most hardcore of my Cardinal family. I might hold out hope that the Cubs might slip in front of the Cards by then, but with the Giants and Reds on tap next (along with a surprisingly strong Florida team), all my apples are on this series. So, the Cards took round one, 6-4 last night. The Cubs didn't play badly, but there were some, um, less-than-good things that contributed to the loss. First off, in the thirteen hits the Cubs got,* none of them were for extra bases. Thirteen singles. And they drew two walks (along with two hit-batsmen). It's hard to score a lot of runs when you're only moving one base at a time. Still, they scratched up four runs, which isn't bad.
*All thirteen hits came off Carpenter, which is a career high for him. And the Cubs still couldn't get the win. The only problem with scoring four runs is giving up six. And two of those runs were less than kosher hits. I wouldn't have scored them as errors either, but they weren't your average plays. Just unfortunate for the Cubs. First off, Geo Soto did something to groin muscle while blocking a ball in the first inning. He didn't even get an at-bat. Hopefully it's nothing serious, I haven't really heard. That meant Koyie Hill had to do the catching, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I like Koyie Hill a lot and he is a fine catcher. But he isn't the hitter Geo is, and he unfortunately couldn't hold on to a great Fukudome throw that would have cut down the runner by a mile.* That hurt, but at least it looked like a baseball play. *I wanted to say it was Berkman, but my scorecard says Berkman A) didn't score a run, and B) didn't have an official at-bat. Two walks (one intentional) and two sac-flies. There can't be that many four plate appearance, zero at bat games in MLB history. Before that happened, though, Alfonso Soriano. . . well, he did Soriano things. Nick Punto, who I've never been entirely convinced could hit enough to stay on a big league roster (Twins fans, feel free to tell me I'm wrong), hit a line drive right at Soriano, which off the bat I thought was a pretty sure out. Except, when the camera panned out to show left field, Soriano was either on his face or his back. Neither way is very helpful in catching a baseball. So Punto turned it into an RBI triple.* At that moment, my brother and I both started typing texts to each other. *This could have been much worse, but the Cubs were spared when Punto was called out for leaving early. Replay showed he was fine, but it was close enough that I had no problem calling him out on appeal. They had to slow it down quite a bit to decide that his foot was still on the base. Full speed, he sure looked like he was cheating off. Me: Welcome to adventures in outfielding, this week hosted by Alfonso Soriano. Him: Since when did you guys pick up Manny in the outfield? It was not a good play at all. Even worse, Soriano had actually made some really nice plays earlier in the game. But all Cubs fans should know better than to take that for granted. In fact, all baseball fans should know better than to take that for granted. On some more positive notes, Zambrano looks a whole lot better this year. The Cards are a very good hitting team (best in the majors by the stats, I believe), and Z battled and battled and battled out there, and some up on the good end most of the time. Seven solid innings to follow up a very good outing against the Dodgers. He looks as improved as Dempster looks lost. And, well, that's kind of the problem with the Cubs this year. No homers last night, though a couple were probably robbed by a strong wind blowing from right to left for most the game. Round two starts at 8 (Eastern). Hopefully Garza didn't tire himself out too much playing cheerleader last night so he can out-pitch Westbrook. Also, for the minor-league minded, you should set your DVRs to record MLB network at 11 so you can catch the Indy Indians play the Durham Bulls. I believe this will be in the regular Durham stadium, though. The teams played a throwback game on Monday in the stadium where they filmed Bull Durham, and both teams looked sharp. I don't know why, but Durham's pinstripes on top and solid whites on the bottom really worked for me. A few notes before we get going today. First off, apparently people love Jason Verlander as much as I do. I had my third highest hit total yesterday while I talked up my little man-crush on Verlander. Joe Posnanski wrote about him yesterday, too, which was a very good article. But he kept a level of restraint that I did not.
Secondly, the Pittsburgh Pirates have clawed their way back to above .500, sitting at 18-17 after beating the Dodgers 4-1 last night. It may be the second week of May, but this is already the furthest into a season the Pirates have been able to claim a winning record since 2004. STATS Blog has a pretty good write up about this. They also note the '92 Pirates had a winning record for the entire season and ended up a 96-win team. Hard to fathom now, but hopefully they're headed back in that direction. Now, after that appetizer, on to the main course. Tonight at 8:30 or so in Chicago, the rivalry will renew for its 2011 iteration. Now, if you've read the About Me section, you may see where maybe I'm coming from a different angle than most. But, I would posit that the Cubs-Cards rivalry might be the most friendly in sports. Now, I realize that I'm a Cubs fan from a family of pretty hardcore Cardinal fans, so maybe that's softened my view, but I don't think that's everything. I know a little something about bitter rivalries. Purdue and Indiana can get pretty nasty. Wabash and DePauw has been really nasty (though thankfully has calmed down in the last decade). I don't know it personally, but apparently Giants-Dodgers is much more hateful than I realized after the beating of Bryan Snow outside Dodger Stadium. ESPN has made sure we know that Yankee fans and Red Sox Fans don't get along. Cubs-Cards, though, while certainly a rivalry and teams that want to beat each other, is not a bitter one. There's plenty of razzing, sure, but it's all taken in stride. It could be because the Cubs have only won two World Series championships, both coming over a century ago. The Cardinals, of course, can claim ten such championships, which is good for second in baseball. That sort of disparity can kind of kill some of the seriousness, unless you're as out of touch with reality as Boston fans. It seems it's something beyond that, though. Even in years when the Cubs have the upper hand, it's still a pretty chill place. You see Cubs fans and Cards fans sitting side by side all the time during the games, both in Wrigley and Busch. I regularly wear at least a Cubs hat around St. Louis and into the stadium. I get some comments, but they're all said with a smile and nothing very nasty. I haven't been to Wrigley during a Cubs-Cards game yet, but I would imagine you would get more ire for wearing White Sox gear than Cardinal gear. My brother has gone to Wrigley in Cards stuff, and I don't think he was hassled. And I think it generally comes down to the fans are just friendlier. I don't think I've ever met a Cubs or Cards fan that didn't seem friendly and just interested in seeing a good ball game. I have definitely seen some Sox fans that were more hostile. My brother and I got to walk right by a fight as we were leaving Comisky a few years ago. And, as you might be aware, the neighborhood around Wrigley is just a little bit nicer than around Comisky. That was the only time where I was a little uneasy leaving the park after a game.* *Admittedly, seeing a brawl as we were leaving the stadium probably had me a bit on edge anyway. So, will I be rooting hard for the Cubs to win this series? Of course. Will the rest of my family be rooting just as hard for the Cards? Sure. Will there be any taunting? Not really. Hard feelings? Definitely not. But we can all rest easy knowing that the Cards have the better history, while the Cubs will always have Wrigley. And next year, maybe the Cubs will also have Pujols. Before I get into how awesome Jason Verlander is, let me throw out a congratulations to my alma mater. They won the NCAC outdoor track championship yesterday, and shattered the conference records for points in the championship meet. Not too shabby. They won the indoor championship a few months ago, too. I don't know how all these championships are affecting academics, but it sure looks nice on the sports page.
Now, you may have saw Jason Verlander threw his second no-hitter this weekend, just a walk off a perfect game. I truly believe Verlander will get a perfect game before he's done, and I would probably argue that he's the best pitcher going today and of this generation. He loves going the distance, which is always an admirable trait. The dude will light up triple digits in the ninth inning, and then drop a nasty, ought-to-be-illegal breaking ball the next pitch. He is an insane competitor, but has the unfortunate luck to play for the Tigers. Now, the Tigers are almost unimaginably better than they were in the late '90's, early 2000's. Those teams were pushing for worst record of all time. But, the Tigers are one of those teams that are always good, but not that good. They did make a run to the World Series in '06, but ran up against Pujols' destiny. True, that Cardinal team only won 83 games to Detroit's 95. But Detroit was a wild card that year, finishing a game back of Minnesota. But that was (obviously) a very, very good Cardinal team that was much better than its record would indicate. This post isn't about St. Louis, though. Detroit's 2006 run started off by dismissing the Yankees in four games by a combined score of 30-14. They then swept Oakland, the closest games being a pair of three-run wins in California. The Cardinals, on the other hand, did take care of business against San Diego, but played one of the craziest NLCSes in recent history against the Mets and pulled it out in 7. If people thought the Tigers were the better team, I wouldn't necessarily blame them. But I could tell you as somebody who pays a lot of attention to the Cardinals that they had the better roster in my mind. And it showed pretty quickly as Detroit totally forgot to bring their defense back from the golden west. Plus, Verlander was a rookie, and it showed in that World Series. He may have been the Rookie of the Year, but Reyes was the rookie stud in game one. Game five was no different, Verlander throwing wild pitches and contributing to the defensive problems by throwing into left field instead of third base. Even with all that, it was pretty clear Verlander was going to be something. He was a ROY and second pick in the draft. And he has certainly pitched like that kind of stud. Two no hitters, absolutely filthy stuff, and no sign of slowing down. If the Tigers can ever claw their way back to the post season, they are going to be so dangerous just because of Verlander. They've got some other pitchers, too, but he is the clear ace. He is about the only pitcher that makes me react out loud with the ungodly breaking stuff he throws. I feel so bad for hitters when all they can do is watch that one explode across the plate. There is nothing you can do when he has his A-game, which is most of the time. He may be the only pitcher (certainly today) I would have no problem believing he could average a no-hitter every year for the rest of his career. Maybe two a year. I'm surprised it hasn't happened more. Alas, for poor Verlander, his Tigers have played in the same division as the Twins and White Sox. The Tigers, while a very good team, have just not been quite as talented for the past several years. With those two teams off to a slow start, this could be the Tigers year. But the Tigers have had problems of their own, stumbling off to a 17-18 start. A lot better than the Twins and Sox 12 and 13 win starts, respectively, but certainly not as good as the surprise Indians 22 win campaign so far. Should Cleveland fade, as many expect (I'm undecided at this point), it seems the Tigers are in prime position to take advantage, as Kansas City has already started to come back to reality.* *Of course, I don't think KC has brought up their stellar prospects yet, either, so they may be in for a midsummer surge. Verlander is only 3-3 to this point, but looking at pitchers' records is so old fashioned. Instead we can look at his 3.18 ERA, which is solid. Not lighting the world on fire, but solid. He's already thrown two complete games, which is awesome for this era. He has walked quite a few, but that's been his MO. You can't uncork that kind of otherworldly stuff and always have it go over the plate. Related to that, he's already struck out 55 in 57 innings. That's a pretty darned good ratio, and I actually expect it to get better. His WHIP* is 0.98. That means he averages a 1-2-3 inning. If the Tigers can right the rest of the ship and get into October, I have no problem seeing Verlander putting the team on his back as often as he needs to and get back to the World Series. That's a big if. *For the uninitiated, that's Walks and Hits per Inning Pitched. There's a substantial number of the stat-minded that think this is the most important pitching stat. Or maybe they just think talking about WHIP makes them sound smart, I don't know. Okay, that's enough for today. I just get so impressed with Verlander I have to spout some man-love now and then. But, if he never gets a World Series ring, I have a hard time blaming him and I will be downright shocked if he doesn't get into the Hall of Fame comfortably. A little bit of an exaggeration. (No! Really?) But is there anything worse than reading along and realizing there's no end parenthesis? And when it starts your day, that brings a lot of unresolved tension to the table that just sticks with you. XKCD* covered this not too long back. And it's true. Bothers me on a deeply personal level. Don't abuse parentheses, people! And that includes you, baseball trivia calendar! Here is what I was greeted with when I was helpfully informed today is May 6. *I'm never sure whether to capitalize that or not. I usually err towards big letters, though. I guess it makes me feel less hipster that way. Can You Believe It? On August 25, 1922, the Cubs beat the Phillies in the highest-scoring game in major league history. For how many runs did the two teams combine? A. 41 (21-20) B. 46 (27-19 C. 52 (28-24) D. 49 (26-23)* WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME, CALENDAR PEOPLE! I took a pen** and fixed option B. *D is the correct answer, for those of you playing along at home. **I just realized I don't have the slightest clue where the pen I just used came from. The pen I thought I used is sitting harmlessly on my desk, cap on it. The mystery pen is missing its cap, sitting closer to the calender. Wait, I have a camera on my phone. Look! This is officially a freaky Friday. I'll let you know if Jodie Foster or Jamie Lee Curtis drops by. You know, depending on if you prefer the original or the remake. Now that that's off my chest, let me put in a little plug here. If you're in the Dayton area, you need to go out to Wiley's Comedy Club and support Luke Robbins in the World Series of Comedy. I'm wasn't best friends with Luke or anything, but I had some classes with him and watched just about every play he was in. The dude is funny, and anything to help him get to Vegas for the finals is good with me. Comedy is harder than it looks, my brief foray into roasting Jesse James.* Page four of that article will tell you why there was a roast of Jesse, and since he lived across the hall from me and I liked ragging on him, I seemed like a good choice. Problem is, I decided to wing it and I'm not a very good comedian. I learned a lot that day, and didn't get many laughs in the process. So, yeah, I have a lot of respect for Luke and wish him all the best.
*Yes, that's his given name. And he has a penchant for sweater vests. As far as actual sports are concerned, I'm predicting both Boston and San Jose move on tonight. A pretty boring second round of the NHL playoffs after such a great opening round. The Conference finales promise to be better. Problem is, I didn't watch any sports last night, and I didn't really give myself any leads yesterday. Hmm. The Cubs and Dodgers played a throwback game yesterday. The Dodgers wore their faux-satin jerseys again, which is about the best thing going on for the Dodgers right now. That will change if Either can extend this streak, but he's still too far off for me to get too excited about it yet. The Cubs wore some throwbacks from 1944, which also looked pretty darned good. It might have been even better had it not been 90 degrees out. Why's that? Because these sleeves are awesome, that's why. Look at Sean Marshall congratulating himself on being the best looking ballplayer out there. Carlos Pena, on the other hand, can now add uniforms to my long list of disappointments since he got to Chicago. True, the first disappointment was him arriving in Chicago, though I tried to talk myself into him being okay. He has not been okay, and he does not look okay. One flop after another. On the bright side, Chicago did win the game, and won yesterday. The Pirates won yesterday, too, bringing them to 15-16 and good for third place in the division. It's still early, but at this point last year, they were 12-15 and sitting in fifth. That doesn't seem like a huge difference in record, and it's not. But, at this point last year, the Pirates had been outscored 93-179. When you're only three games under .500, 80 runs is a lot to be behind. This year, it's 115-132. Still down, but 15 is a whole lot more respectable than 80. Or 86 and 17, if you don't like my rough rounding. The best run differential, I hear you more curious types asking? Well, the Cleveland Indians, of course. Even with all those last inning heroics they've had, they're sitting pretty at 151-103 for the year. They're the only American League team with 20-wins so far.* They're supposed best players, Choo and Sizemore, have only just come to life. Just in time for Choo to realize that drunk driving is maybe frowned on more here than back in Korea. It's early, but I'm adopting the Indians as my AL team this year. *The Phillies are the other 20-win team at the moment. I'm not sure who got there first, but I thought it was Cleveland. The Kentucky Derby is Saturday, and Calvin Borel couldn't get a top ride. How insane is that? Even somebody who is not exactly a horse racing expert like me knows that Calvin Borel wins Derbies. There are certain people who are just built for one purpose. Albert Pujols is a hitting machine. John Lennon was a musical machine. Tiger Woods was a golf machine before we found out he was really a sex machine. And Calvin Borel? He's a Kentucky Derby machine. And what is the Triple Crown about? Winning. Duh. And Calvin Borel is Tiger Blood. How does a top trainer not put Mr. Borel on the payroll to ride his horses in the Derby? I don't understand. But then, I don't really understand a lot about horse racing outside the actual race itself. But I may have to go to my local OTB and put down a few bucks on Twice the Appeal, which according to an ESPN story about Borel, is sitting at 40-1 right now. On a totally not-related to sports note, I might have been the last person to see Rebecca Black's "Friday" video on YouTube. I don't want to bash the girl, from what I can tell she's a pretty normal 13-year-old who got a chance to have some fun and make a music video. But, seriously. It is bad. Her singing is not great (and that's as far as I'm going to go with her), but not even the Three Tenors could make this song work. To whoever put pen to paper and came up with this song: "Your music is bad and you should feel bad!"* *With thanks to Zoidberg from Futurama. I don't know how many people haven't seen this video yet, I know I read a ton about it before I finally jumped on board. In case you have been living under the proverbial rock, though, knock yourself out. Here it is. And no schedule-slippage! How about that? Well, not any serious slippage. There's been later in the day posts, but I've hit every weekday. Next step: readers! There are a few of you loyal types out there, and that's great. I would sure appreciate a few more of you, though.
A quick note before we get into today's discussion. First off, congrats to Francisco Liriano. Granted, if you're going to throw a no-no, the White Sox would be the team to do it against right now. But that's still a hell of an accomplishment. I don't think I've ever even thrown a no-hitter on a video game. So consider me suitably impressed. And my calendar informs me it's Miguel Cairo's birthday today. Happy birthday, Miguel. You were one of my dad's favorites when you were with the Cards. I think I promised to talk about my gripes with football today. And, well, I don't have a better idea, so I guess that's what we're going to talk about. First, let's talk about problems (Can we call them quirks? No? Okay, fine.) with me that translate into me having problems with football. And when I say football, I generally mean the NFL for this writing. First thing, I hate rooting for a front-runner. I get bored with teams who are always good, which is probably why I'm only "eh" about the Colts, though they are pretty easily my favorite NFL team. It's no fun if you always win. That is also why I would consider myself a bigger Wabash basketball fan than I would a Wabash football fan. Even in a "terrible" year, Wabash is only going to lose four games and would be considered bowl-eligible if they were Division I. In basketball, Wabash is generally pretty good, but you can never (except the very bottom of the barrel) count on them to win a particular game. Is it maddening at times? Of course. You want to pull your hair out because they will beat or at least really push national championship contenders, but then look mediocre at best and drop a game to a middle-to-bottom of the conference team. But, it makes it fun. The unexpected makes it enthralling. Typically the student section is more entertaining for basketball, too, but this past year kind of dropped the ball on that. Least enthusiastic and just outright boring Wabash student section I've seen in the eight or nine years I've been going to games. Problem two with me is I'm sure I'm more than a little bitter that I don't think baseball gets the attention it deserves compared to football. You hear football news year-round. I've griped on more than one occasion, including yesterday, about Mike & Mike doing this, though they are far from the only offenders. As annoyed as I am with this, I am more than willing to accept that this is little more than sour grapes, so I won't waste any more space with this. The bigger issues here are my problems with football that don't necessarily spring from personality clashes. First off, this lockout highlights a few issues about how the money is split up. The signing bonuses for rookies (first rounders, anyway) has gotten entirely out of control. Reward them for their football career up to that point, sure, but there is no reason somebody who has yet to see a single NFL down has no business making more money than somebody who has been doing this for five years, even doing an average job. It's just a ridiculous way to run your business, and it seems that is one point where the players and the owners agree. Which is good, so this gripe will likely be short-lived. But, we're kicking the players out of the facilities because the owners don't make enough money? The NFL is a $10 billion dollar business. That is a lot of zeros. This many, in fact. $10,000,000,000. That's more than the GDP of 69 countries according to the World Bank. Of course, some franchises are doing better than others, but if you can't find a way to split up the entire output of Mozambique and keep everybody relatively happy, there's a problem. Related to this, the NFL always wants more. Charging full-price for pre-season games ought to be criminal. Baseball doesn't do this with spring training, and the NBA doesn't do this with their pre-season. I guess I don't know about hockey, but I would be shocked if they charged full price. Yet, the NFL does, because the NFL is arrogant enough to think they can get away with it. And then wonder why those games don't sell as well. Or wonder why people grumble about having to buy those games as part of their season tickets. And, just to highlight the arrogance of the NFL, what is their solution to this problem? Let's make the last two pre-season games regular games! Yes, clearly the fans are telling us they want 18 games! Except no amount of research backs that up. Here is just one article discussing it. There are plenty more where that came from. Related to the 18 game schedule, football gives plenty of lip service to safety, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of action on this front. There has been a lot of buzz lately about how bad playing football is on your brain due to repeated blows to the head and concussions. The NFL says its concerned, yet there hasn't been any action to try to mandate safer helmets, which are currently on the market. Not a panacea, but it sure wouldn't hurt.* And you may also recall that a few Eagles players had concussions this past year and went right back into the game. I want to watch a game, not a snuff film. And looking at how former players have been treated just makes me sick. *You might make an argument about baseball and the S100 helmet. There is a modicum of truth here, but it's quite a stretch. For one, it is mandated in the minor leagues, and concussions in baseball are much, much rarer. It's awfully rare to see a batter get hit in the head, and when they do, it's unusual for a concussion to result. Not impossible, ask Edgar Gonzalez. But, yes, baseball players for the most part are able to avoid concussions. And when they happen, they get all the time they need before they're forced back into service. So, to summarize, we have a game that doesn't care about its fans, although they shower it with money and ratings. Doesn't care about its players or their health. Doesn't care about its past players or their health. That pretty much covers everybody but the owners, who are crying about the money they make, and yet refuse to show any proof of this poverty they are forced to endure. Why am I jumping on whatever product they're selling? I had an urge to make this a more politically-themed post in light of recent news, but I'm going to resist this urge. This is supposedly a sports blog, so let's write about sports.
I felt let down again by Mike & Mike this morning. From almost the moment I turned on the radio, they talked about how somebody had a legitimate criticism of their show, and let this go for a couple segments. The suspense was killing me, probably purposely done. As loyal readers might guess, I have a few criticisms of Mike & Mike. That's going to be true of any show, of course. And Mike & Mike isn't a bad show (try listening to Colin Cowherd sometime), but I'm not sure I would say it's a good show. I've griped here about the show before. I struggle to call it a sports show. It's excellent if you want to hear football news. It's pretty decent for baseball during baseball season. Basketball? Not outside the playoffs. Hockey? I'm not entirely sure Greenie or Golic realize it exists. Are there reasons for this? Sure. Golic is an ex-NFL player. Football (unless a protracted lock-out really changes things) is easily the most popular sport these days.* So, yes, football reigns supreme. Golic does seem to be a legitimate big-time Indians fan, so I'm sure that helps along the baseball talk during baseball season. But don't expect much during the winter. Hockey, unfortunately, is not as popular in this country as I think it should be, plus ESPN lost that contract to Versus/NBC. So that gets sadly ignored. Basketball, though, I don't quite understand why it gets the short end. *I've got my issues about this, too, but it is an undeniable fact. Maybe I'll write about that tomorrow. The NBA is shown on ESPN and ABC, so it seems it would be good business for Mike & Mike to talk it up. And Greenie kind of got his big break covering the Jordan-era Bulls, so you think he would be all for talking basketball. But it seems to be totally ignored in favor of off-season football talk unless it's the playoffs. That's a big problem for me. If you want to call it a football show, that's fine. But let's be honest about what we're tuning into. Another issue (which seems to have gotten slightly better) is the roles they play. Golic is not a dumb guy. He has his degree from Notre Dame, which isn't exactly Indiana St.* I would also guess ND Finance & Management isn't the easiest course of study. Again, I'm not an alum, maybe I'm wrong. But that would be my guess. Greenie is also not some pencil-neck geek. He's been around sports, apparently playing sports through high school. Even at a small high school, you have to have some athletic talent to play at that level. But, to listen to the roles they play, you would think Golic is just like every dumb jock you knew in high school, and Greenie had never set foot on an athletic field. It's just insulting to everybody. *Sorry, Sycamores, but your academic reputation is not great. I could go on, but I need to wrap up this story, as there's more I want to get to. None of these issues were tackled. Instead, as I was pulling into work, Greenie talked about an email a listener had sent him. To paraphrase, she said if you hadn't watched Lakers-Mavericks game last night (which Dallas won), you wouldn't think the Mavs had much to do with winning that game. Just one excuse after another about why the Lakers didn't play to potential. Greenie owned up to it, and gave a good rationalization for it. When we think something, whether it be a game or business deal or whatever, is going to happen one way and it doesn't, it's common to start figuring out why you were wrong instead of just reporting what your eyes told you. So, rather than to say the Mavs really clamped down their defense to facilitate their big comeback, you talk about how the Lakers went cold and panicked at the end. This isn't just a Mike & Mike problem, everybody does that. Good to Greenie to talk about it, but I was disappointed. Now, the other thing I wanted to touch on, which inspired the title. Joe Posnanski, who you may know is my favorite writer going today, has recently started doing a podcast. Or Poscast, if you will. In his latest, he chatted with Ian O'Conner, who wrote a book about Derek Jeter. A very good book, by all accounts, though I haven't read it. As you might expect, most of the podcast focused around Derek Jeter and his struggles this year.* That, then, inspired Joe to write this excellent (if depressing) article. Basically saying you can rage against that good night all you want, but time marches on. And, eventually, time will march without you. And you never see it coming. *49 hits away from 3,000. I'm a card-carrying Yankee-Hater, but I am rooting for Jeter to get there. I have been going through a bit of an existential crisis. If you click on that link, it will take you to a Wikipedia article, and I can tell you that I'm a Case 2. I'm not exactly sure what triggered it. This is a big year for me. I'm turning 25 and getting married this year. I don't know if that's what actually got me thinking about morality. I'm sure it played a role in prodding me along, that realization that I am no longer a kid. Life is by no means infinite, and at some point will end. And then what? Well, nobody really knows. And, well, that's bothersome, to say the least. Sure, everybody's got their theories with varying levels of certainty. Most of them are religious and many have very strong conviction about this. The problem, though, is that's the reason it's faith. There is a reason it's called belief. You don't have to believe in gravity. You can see it at work. You don't have to believe your hand will get burnt if you put it on a hot stove. You can find that out for yourself. But, well, unlike the seafaring explorers of old, nobody comes back from death to tell us what is waiting for us. If anything is waiting for us. And that is what I can't bear. I understand I do not have enough time. I do not have enough time or wealth to do everything, see everything, know everything. I do feel fortunate to live in a world rich enough that I will never claim its treasures or know all its secrets. Not even the great trees of the northwest that have been growing for millennia can claim that. But, to be denied that chance to see what I missed in life is too terrible to contemplate. Which, of course, I have been contemplating, which leads to the crisis. I comfort myself thinking this gets easier, but Joe kindly kicks me in nuts and tells me it doesn't. So, how to end this. Well, that's kind of point, isn't it? There is no end here. It's that grand old human condition. Until humans can claim immortality, the only end does nothing to answer these questions. Of course, immortality wouldn't answer these questions, either. Just severely delay every individual's discovery. All I can do is keep my fervent belief that someday I will get to the great research library in the sky. Let me apologize folks. It's before noon (Illinois time), so I'm not horrendously late. But my web stats tell me there are impatient people out there waiting for their content. I am happy to oblige. I took some extra time reading the news this morning, though, as you might understand. A world without bin Laden is a better world indeed. Is this as big of news as it would have been in 2001 or 2002? Probably not, but it is still undoubtedly huge. Congratulations to our military, especially the special forces involved to get their man without any casualties.
As for this weekend, it was great. Saturday saw the three of us (myself, Kristine, and Katelyn) win big at Jillian's before the game. After we walked over to Victory Field, though, the day got even better. The Indians were thumped by the Durham Bulls. Judging by their record and what I saw, that's going to be a common thread all year. But the game was still good, the ballpark atmosphere was great, especially for a lopsided game. It made me want to live in Indy again so I could make more games. Also, Wabash won their first NCAC Baseball crown. That was pretty big news, as far as Wabash is concerned. I'm sure I will keep you posted on how they do in the national tournament. Sunday, my brother (Andrew) came over, and after doing some grilling, we got down to work on some game development. It's not a finished product, but we have a really good base developed. I took a picture but wasn't able to get it posted yet. I will. At it's base, we blended MLB Showdown and APBA Baseball. Those games have been discussed in earlier posts. For most rolls, a twelve-sided die is used. Basically, any checks are done with this die. So, rolls for advantage (pitcher vs. batter), running, and fielding are made with the D12. Two six-sided dice are used to determine the play, which are found on play charts. Here is a quick walkthrough of an at-bat in our game. Whoever is on defense rolls the D12. If the roll plus the pitcher's control is more than the batter, the pitcher wins advantage. If that sum is equal to or less, the batter wins advantage. The player with advantage then rolls the two D6's. One die is designated as tens, the other ones. So, we'll say a 21 is rolled. The player then finds 21 on the appropriate player card to get the play number. Find the play number on the chart, and that will tell you what happens. We'll say for this example, it's a deep double, which means the player has an option to try to stretch it into a triple. If that is decided, the player on defense would roll the D12, where the roll and outfielder's* fielding rating must beat the runner's speed. Obviously if this fails, the runner is safe. If it passes, the runner is out. *The play chart tells you which outfielder (or infielder, if it's a double play attempt) to use. And that is pretty much the game. There is (or will be, I think Andrew is working on it now as I type) a bunting chart and some other special situations, but that last paragraph is essentially the game. Just like baseball itself. On the surface, it's a simple game. You throw the ball, you hit the ball, you catch the ball. With a little bit of digging, though, you start to peel back layer upon layer of strategy and possibility. I would like to think our game does its best to get the best of both worlds. A simple base with the flexibility to handle almost any strategy you can throw at it. I'm going to be spending a decent amount of this weekend making player cards, in theory based on last year's Danville Dans and Chillocothe Paints. That was last year's Prospect League championship, so that seems like a good starting point to try balancing the game. If things go right, and I can get a lawyer friend to say it would most likely be fine, I plan on doing the rest of the Prospect League. That probably won't be the version we end up selling, though. We'd have to get rights to the Prospect League name, and they would probably have to approve it on a team-by-team basis. It might be worth a look, because I would assume getting those rights would be pretty cheap, and it would open up a new avenue for selling the game. But, we'll see. I'm not sure if we would be able to use the actual players or not, either. I know NCAA video games just use the player numbers, and I'm sure there's a reason for that. We'll cross that bridge when we get there, though. |
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