As the baseball season winds (or wound) down, it's time for a couple baseball posts. After we find out whether the Twins or ChiSox make it, I'll make some nearly-guaranteed-to-be-wrong playoff picks and eventually before they're announced I'll make my year award choices. But for now it's time to for the last time evaluate my predicted records for every major league team. We'll start with the National League. I made these picks here and evaluated them at the half here.

NL East:

Philadelphia Phillies - final record: 92-70 / predicted record: 87-75
Number of games off: +5 (they were five better than my prediction)
Why I was wrong: Well, first what I was right about - that Jimmy Rollins' 2007 was a fluke and would not be repeated. What I was wrong about was the bullpen. Of course, it all starts with Brad Lidge who was the best closer in the NL (although he still walked too many batters, but that's obviously a minor complaint considering) but it continues with their supporting cast of relievers, Chad Durbin, JC Romero, Ryan Madsen and Clay Condrey who all put together fine years to take a Phillies team with a predictably very good line up and okay but not great rotation with lots of trouble on the back end to a first place finish.

New York Mets - final record: 89-73 / predicted record: 92-70
Number of games off: -3
Why I was wrong: Not far off in the wins column, though that number would at least tie them for the lead. The main thing here though, like with the Phillies was the bullpen. While everyone there put together a good season at the same time, a la 2005 White Sox, everyone in the Mets bullpen shut down particularly in the second half to go along with Billy Wagner, whose peripherals were okay, but who blew 7 saves before he got hurt. Aaron Heilman, Duaner Sanchez, Pedro Feliciano and Scott Schoenweis were all culprits among others.

Florida Marlins - final record: 84-77 / predicted record: 67-95
Number of games off: +17
Why I was wrong: Boy, this was a bad one. Well to look what I got wrong is to see what was the difference between the Marlins of 2007 and the Marlins of 2008. They got a little better at hitting, but not much - it was still a very good hitting team in 2007, and though guys like Jorge Cantu and Cody Ross stepped up this year, they had to replace a MVP-caliber season by Miguel Cabrera (hitting, anyways). It's the pitching, that while still below average, was far closer to average than the previous year, plus the fact that the Fins played a couple games above their pythagorean record, though they finally scored more runs than they allowed by season's end. Chris Volstad was a huge mid-season call up, Ricky Nolasco had a breakout huge year and Josh Johnson's midseason return was critical.

Atlanta Braves - final record: 72-90 / predicted record: 89-73
Number of games off: -17
Why I was wrong: Another stinker. Couple clear things that screwed me here. First, the decimation of their aging pitching staff - losing Glavine, Smoltz, and later Hudson for the season crippled their staff and forced them to start guys who have no business starting in the major leagues (though Jair Jurrjens was a breakout). Jeff Francoeur, who many, myself included thought would have a breakout year and continue his trend of slightly increasing his walk total each year, completely fell apart with a terrible 73 OPS+ for the year. Other than that, they hit okay - it was the pitching.

Washington Nationals - final record: 59-102 / predicted record: 73-89
Number of games off: -14
Why I was wrong: Well, I know they'd be bad, I just for some misguided reason though they'd show a little improvement - I'm not sure why. They really have the least promise of any team in the majors - even KC has a couple potential stars (Grienke, Gordon). Zimmerman is supposed to be their star, but he struggled most of the year. Nick Johnson, one of their best offensive players, was out most of the year which I suppose could have been predicted, and Chad Cordero was injured all year and Jon Rauch was traded. Also Shawn Hill their best pitching prospect (in the generic, as in prospect for winning, rather than prospect as in baseball america, as he's in his fourth season by now, albeit always getting hurt) was hurt as usual and terrible when he did play. Honestly, I'm not sure why I didn't predict them to lose more.

NL Central:

Chicago Cubs - final record: 97-64 / predicted record: 87-75
Number of games off: +10.5
Why I was wrong: Well, I still had them in first, so I get points for that. I knew they were good, but it's relatively easy to see what I didn't predict here, and relatively reasonable I think for not predicting it. I didn't think that Ryan Dempster would come out of nowhere to post a 152 ERA+, that they were acquire Rich Harden who would stay pretty much healthy for them, that Jim Edmonds would come over after being waived for being terrible, to be amazing, hitting for a 138 OPS+ with the Cubbies, or that Mark DeRosa would hit 21 HRs and Ryan Theriot OBP .387.

Milwaukee Brewers - final record: 90-72 / predicted record: 84-78
Number of games off: +6
Why I was wrong: Well, I could make this easy and just say CC Sabathia, who could easily account for the difference. But I'll throw in for kicks, Ben Sheets being healthy all year, though with the sad post script, that he's done for the year before the playoffs. And we'll add as minor little factors, Russell Branyan, Ray Durham and Gabe Kapler being great off the bench and in spot starts. But yeah, that's pretty much it, and I'll note they played 3 games over their pythagorean record.

Houston Astros - final record: 86-75 / predicted record 71-91
Number of games off: +15
Why I was wrong: Oof, another bad one here. I'll first note they played 9 games over their pythagorean and allowed more runs than they scored, which means there's a lot of luck going on here. Aside from that, there's the excellent year Wandy Rodriguez turned in, along with the career year for Ty Wigginton. Also, boy, is Michael Bourne bad, and did they get fleeced in that trade. That's not really a reason for anything, just something I thought I can include. Looking over the team, I can see that they clearly overplayed their hand. Good for them.

St. Louis Cardinals - final record: 86-76 / predicted record 71-91
Number of games off: +15
Why I was wrong: Well, I was right in guessing that the Astros and Cards would have the same record. Not many little things here, but rather a couple of huge things. First, Ryan Ludwick. I had accounted him for nothing and instead he goes out and gives 150 OPS+ and 37 dingers. Damn. The other big one is the amazing job by a couple of no-name (or bad-name) starters - Kyle Lohse with a 113 OPS+ in 200 innings, higher than he's ever had, and 115 for Todd Wellemeyer who pitched more than twice the highest number of innings he's ever thrown in his career.

Cincinnati Reds - final record: 74-88 / predicted record 77-85
Number of games off: -3
Why I was wrong: Here's a good one. I wasn't really. Adam Dunn and Ken Griffey were traded, smartly, but hurt the team a little bit. Aaron Harang disappointed big time, as did Johnny Cueto, and Homer Baily never materialized at all, though this is at least partly made up for by the breakout year of Edinson Volquez. Oh, and Corey Patterson mysterously got way too many at bats. That's it.

Pittsburgh Pirates - final record: 67-95 / predicted record 65-97
Number of games off: +2
Why I was wrong: Pretty close again. The team is bad. They had some breakouts which I didn't anticipate - particularly the excellent seasons by all three outfielders (well Pirates before the all-star break) Nate McLouth, Jason Bay and Xavier Nady (well I expected Bay to come back but couldn't be sure). These were made up by the disappointing seasons from their young pitchers, particularly Ian Snell, Zach Duke and Tom Gorzelanny. These pretty much made up for each other - pretty much just a bad team.

NL West

Los Angeles Dodgers - final record: 84-78 / predicted record: 87-75
Number of games off: -3
Why I was wrong: Wrong order, but pretty good record here. Pierre played too much, and Jones was a disaster, while Kemp and Loney maybe under played what I thought by just a little. The starting pitching was very solid led by Chad Billingsley and Derek Lowe, and their bullpen was excellent - their pitching was best in the league - if they could hit any better, they'd really rack up the wins.

Arizona Diamondbacks - final record: 82-80 / predicted record: 91-71
Number of games off: -9
Why I was wrong: I mean, I knew they didn't hit in 2007. But they featured a bunch of young guys who all seemed to have the potential to get better, and none of them did. I knew Eric Byrnes had a fluke good year in 2007, but not so much that he would be both awful and hurt for most of the year in 2008. In addition, their bullpen was quite disappointing.

Colorado Rockies - final record: 74-88 / predicted record: 89-73
Number of games off: -15
Why I was wrong: As much as I underpredicted the teams in the central, I overpredicted the teams in this division. Troy Tulowitski was hurt a lot and terrible. Todd Helton was hurt a lot. Garrett Atkins was terrible disappointing - their hitting went from 2nd in the league in 2007 to 8th in the league in 2008. Their pitching fell a ton as well - Jeff Francis really fell off and whoever they threw at the back of their rotation was miserable.

San Francisco Giants - final record: 72-90 / predicted record: 69-93
Number of games off: +3
Why I was wrong: Not really wrong here. Some great pitching prospects, but can't hit at all. Their starter with the highest OPS+, 111, was Ray Durham and was traded midseason. Tim Lincecum was Cy Young worthy as the Giants abused the hell out of his young arm for no reason (I'll need at least one more rant about this at some point) and Matt Cain was good, but aside from that everyone struggled everywhere.

San Diego Padros - final record: 63-99 / predicted record: 87-75
Number of games off: -24
Why I was wrong: Nothing like ending with my worst pick. This was one of my dumbest going back as well in that there was really no reason to pick them to have so many wins. That said, there was no reason to have picked them to lose 99 either. Chris Young was injured for half the year, as was, well, pretty much every pitcher. Khalil Greene was just beyond putrid, and well, the team was just bad. Peavy was great, Adrian Gonzalez was great, Brian Giles was reliably strong and Jody Gerut was a nice suprise. Beyond that everything else was bad.

Two more quick things...

...it's amazing to be the disparity between the stat/sabermetric/reasonable thinking/whatever you want to call it baseball community and 95% of baseball writers/broadcasters...I'm so used to reading and talking to people who are, if not up to date on second and third order pitching stats, at least know that wins are meaningless, that clutch hitting doesn't exist, that runs scored and RBI are incredibly team dependent, and that baseball is a largely individual game and players shouldn't be faulted for what the other members of their teams do. So it still blows my mind when I leave that community to for some reason read an article where someone, who, regardless of whether they are into the mathematical side and regressions at whatnot, are at least are willing to think about baseball in a sensible matter. Firejoemorgan.com has made a killing out of crucifying these writers and their refusal to even give an iota of credit to a statistic that didn't exist before the 1950s. So when I read an article by Jon Heyman (who has done this thing many times before) where he specifically dedicates a section to how VORP is a worthless statistic that should come nowhere close to MVP voting I am still for some reason stunned how people who are such close-minded are allowed anywhere near the opinion pages of a major (I suppose the major) sports magazine. In just these couple of paragraphs are the same tropes we see over and over - David Wright shouldn't have been in the MVP contest last year because the Mets choked, even though, as we know, baseball players have very little (if any) influence on one other in the lineup, and Wright did about everything he damn could to make the playoffs.

Heyman of course disparages the notion that we shoudln't count clutch hitting. Now, although I'm not a big fan of it - I can live with doing it in a retrospective sense - see who had hit in the clutch in counting who was best over a past year, and the best way to do it is probably win probability added, something Heyman would surely blast if he possibly knew what it was. But just counting it retrospectively is not enough for Heyman. He must add this little footnote as an extra stab at stat guys - "oddly enough, some stat people think that's just luck, anyway" - I love the preface of "oddly enough" as if he's kind of pointing his head to his friends sitting at his cafeteria table to a bunch of nerd crazies in the corner, and adding the anyway at the end to be extra dismissive. Does he attempt evidence? Proof? Nope. Has he read any comprehensive arguments by any "stat people"? I doubt it. Even if he did, would he even open his head to the possiblity it could be true? I doubt it either.

Forget VORP. That's not what this is about. VORP is a great stat, but by no means the only stat one must use - there are plenty of tools out there which measure different things about the player, and there's plenty or room for argument. What it's about is being reasonable, and being open minded to conclusions that don't jive with what you've thought since you were a kid. That if you grew up believing in clutch, thus that's the way it is, and it will never be otherwise. And that if you still believe in it - you can show it through a well-reasoned argument rather than just acting as if everyone who doesn't agree with you is an out and out idiot. All right, done with that rant for now, but it just pisses me off. The day of reckoning will come when common sense enters the mainstream.



Now, my other item is something entirely and completely unrelated.

I recently was watching the second half the Seinfeld episode The Cigar Store Indian. You know, the one where Jerry calls his girlfriend an Indian giver, and the TV Guide.

One of the greatest cameos in Seinfeld history (perhaps sitcom history?) has got to be Al Roker and his two lines at the end of the episode.

Elaine and Jerry are on the subway at the end of the episode, Elaine holding the TV guide, when Jerry gets out to get a gyro. Jerry tries to make it back, but ends up sticking his hand with the gryo through, which Al Roker takes, and Jerry pulls his arm back and misses the train. Al Roker sits down next to Elaine, and utters his first line (copied from earlier in the episode, from Ricky, the creepy TV guide guy played by the guy who plays Ted in Scrubs, but far better when Al Roker does it):

"Guess your boyfriend's gonna have to catch the next train"

To which Elaine replies as before, "He's not my boyfriend."

Now here's where it gets amazing, Roker replies, "He's not? Interesting." - but what makes this so good is the cartoonishly sheepish grin he gives after the line, and the way he says interesting. What also makes this so great is the perfect choice of person - I can think of few others who would work well as Al Roker - someone famous enough he's recognizable, but not so famous that everyone on earth would recognize him, and someone famous as a zany weatherman, rather than as charismatic or attractive or anything like that.

Also adding to it is the reaction of Elaine as she looks at the TV guide and see Al Roker's face and makes the connection.

Brilliant television.

One problem in sports nowadays is the lack of good nicknames. There's too many lazy nicknames - A-Rod, ManRam, etc - just using people's names, and mashing them together somehow. The origins of good nicknames aren't necessarily immediately obvious - often they involve a quick story, or at the least an explanation. Good ones in today's game include Sean Casey as the Mayor and Travis Hafner as Pronk (though of course who knows Hafner will be around the way his career has turned). I think it's everyone's personal duty to rectify this problem, and good nickname developing starts in the grassroots - nicknames start small and grow in force (some, anyway). Thus, I'm making it my personal duty to push some nicknames into the lexicon, or attempt anyway. I ask that anyone reading this should start using these nicknames when they talk about the player involved, and that they explain to their friends and get them to start using them too. Hell, force a conversation involving these players just so you can get the nickname in there.

Our nickname today will be Bills' safety Donte Whitner as "The Prophet"


Of course, I wouldn't expect anyone to go enforcing a nickname that had no explanation. In this offseason, Donte Whitner issued a guarentee that the Bills would make the playoffs. So far, the Bills are 3-0, their best start in 16 years. Coincidence? I'm not sure, but either way, this start surely makes Donte a (the) Prophet. Now, hopefully the Bills will keep it up, but even if they don't, the nickname stays - that's part of what it means to be a nickname, continuing to be used even if the story that made it true in the first place doesn't hold up exactly anymore.

You've got your nickname. Start using it.

A quick note on the Emmys. I may want to say later, but I'm extremely tired so I'm going to focus on two quick things. I didn't really watch the Emmys as there were sports on, and, frankly, the Emmys are pretty lame, the Academy Awards' little stepbrother who constantly underachieves and makes poor decisions. But I checked back and forth and took a look at the winners of course, so here we go.



First thing, major props for Zeljko Ivanek, one of my all time favorite TV character actors. He won best supporting actor in a drama Emmy for his role in Damages, an absurd legal thriller show that I bonded with my dad while watching last summer. He was eastern european Dennis Hopper's son as Andre Drazon, one of the membes of the villainous family in the first season of 24, and he played Juliet's husband who gets hit my a bus in an episode of Lost. He was a recurring character in Oz as the Governor, and in Homicide: Life on the Street as Ed Danvers. I also had the pleasure of seeing him in a Tony nominated performance in one of the last times I've seen a show, in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. It's about damn time he got his due props and I'm glad to see it happen. So score one for Emmy here.



Second, a word on 30 Rock. I may talk more about it in general - I finished the second season just the other day. But I'm not sure I get why it's so popular with Emmy voters. It's a good show; I like it, and I watch it, and I will continue to. But it's not that good. In my mind, it's kind of a very poor man's Arrested Development (honestly, that's not really an insult) - Liz Lemon is Michael Bluth's straight man dealing with a zany cast of characters trying to hold them together as a show (instead of a family) while sorting out her own not so perfect life. 30 Rock doesn't make me laugh out loud nearly as much as a show like that I feel should (A comparison I make is to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which whether it's the best show or best episode or not, is always guarenteed to have a few parts that just make you laugh out loud). 30 Rock has a lot of parts where it's almost hits - parts where I think to myself "oh, that's clever" or "that's amusing" instead of actually laughing. Allow me a baseball comparison - 30 Rock is the Torii Hunter of television. A very solid player and a respectable citizen who while someone who will always contribute and help the team is nevertheless consistently overrated and paid more money than they probably deserve. 30 Rock serves as a nice compliment to Vlad Guerrero (The Office? (I need to approve this my sports-TV metaphor guy)) but is what it is a compliment - that I hope will continue to get better, maybe show more plate discipline, will probably continue to the same reliable, useful and good but not great player/show who will have a couple huge turns at bat (scenes that make you laugh a lot? I'm not sure where I'm going anymore) but more often will have a 1-5 game with a double, a productive out or two and solid defense.

I'd like to start by saying that I have improbably been up for 38 straight hours and have no idea how I am still awake. I have some general thoughts on all-nighters, but they'll be saved for a later time.

I have two new precepts which I think should be enforced.

First, you know how everybody once in a while says - "if I had a nickel for every time blank blank" in regards to whatever happens to them a lot. (For example, my name is Andrew Weber. If I had a nickel for every time people asked me if my middle name was Lloyd...you get the idea) The government should fund a program in which each person gets to pick one of these "if I had a nickel" situations and the person gets paid off a nickel for each time. There'd have to be rules, of course - you couldn't just say "if I had a nickel for every time someone knocked down a tree in the rain forest..." - the situation would have to somehow be related to you. Also, there'd have to be some sort of monitor - people can't be trusted to monitor themselves. Anyway, these are all minor details, compared to the gradiosity of this immense plan - so I say, government get on it - it has the benefit of giving people something to keep them going in proportion for the happening of something that bothers them the most.

Second - there should be some universal songwriting rules. The one I have in mind is in reference to girls names in songs. There are tons of songs with girls names, but there are tons of repeats - several Allisons for example, among many others, while some names are simply not covered as well. Any guy wanting to make a mix for a girl should have a song available to him with the girl's name in it. Thus, there should be a universal bank of songs with girls' names in them, and bands who want to write songs with girls' names in them, should be required to check the bank and use names that have not been covered, and at the very least not over covered. That's the only way we can guarentee that overlooked girls' names wind up in songs, ensuring that any mix can be designed with any girl in mind.

A few random notes...

...boy I didn't realize the outcry that actually existed over these Seinfeld - Gates commercials - I'd like to reiterate I was on the positive/completely confused side rather than the negative/completely confused side. While I found them extremely bizarre I was certainly more interested in watching them than 98% of the other commercials on TV - now after two spots it appears they're ending, whether as a planned move to the next wave of the advertising push, as Microsoft claims, or because they were pulled due to the massive negative public reaction...

...an official new feature of this blog for the next week and a half and his next one or two starts will be the Lincecum pitch count tracker...tracking how stupid Bruce Bochy/Brian Sabean are in leaving their young pitcher out for pitch counts that no other major league pitcher throws in meaningless games and more than 60 more innings than he's ever thrown (I blame Sabean most of all - it's his job to shut him down for the year and in lieu of that give a strict pitch count)...

...I need to make my pick for my Survivor league...the first week I took what I thought was the obvious pick and went with New England against the Chiefs, thinking it was the only way I could nearly guarentee not embarassingly bombing out in the first week, even if it meant giving up the Patriots for the rest of the season, and with Brady's injury, that's not such a bad thing - even though they're still good, they're not longer a guarentee against most teams. Second week, my decision came down to the Steelers versus the Browns or the Giants versus the Rams, and I went with the Giants after personally watching how putrid the Rams were against the Eagles the week before. So the third week comes, and there are even fewer good picks than last week. The Chargers are temping versus the Jets, but they've been so mediocre so far. I think Tennessee will probably beat Houston, one team that I expect to get better and always underperforms, but I'm not all that confident in it. I half wish I had saved the Giants for this week against the Bengals. Jacksonville's been pitiful so far, but the Colts haven't exactly been gangbusters either, and while the Browns have been bad, I'm still not sold on picking a Ravens team with a QB starting the second game of his young career. I'm honestly leaning towards picking the Bills, though I hesitate - I don't want my fandom to bias my choice, though with the Bills, the bias probably runs in the opposite direction (against the Bills). Still, against Oakland at home, they seem like the best pick. So that's who I stand with until I panic and freak out five minutes before the first game and try to sign into Yahoo only to find out it's too late and I'm stuck with them anyway.

Californication - or, as I call it David Duchovny having sex - Season 1



So, the day was about a week ago, and the time was, I had just finished catching up on Battlestar Galactica, and I needed to follow it with a show that went down easy, a dessert to follow the four course meal that Battlestar had been (with a 10 episode second part of the fourth course to follow in 2009). This meant a comedy, or at least something half hour long and billed as a comedy, and something relatively short. I took a look around at what I had on my computer on hand, and noted that at some point I had downloaded David Duchovny's latest opus, Californication, and that it was only 12 half hour episodes, so I figured why not, I'd been missing my last dose of Duchovny ever since Connie and Carla finished (Note: I did not actually watch Connie and Carla. Please don't quiz me on it).

My expectations were for something passable - not for something great, but for something that at least makes me want to continue watching it, and that's pretty much what I got, and if that sounds like a bad thing, it's really not - not every show can be Arrested Development.

Really, Californication is more a comedy in the way that Entourage is a comedy - there aren't really jokes, and it's not really laugh out loud funny - it's more of a light hearted drama (is that what a Dramady is? In my mind, the two foremost examples of dramady were always Ally McBeal and Sports Night, but I'm not sure why). The first episode didn't exactly draw me in - David Duchovny plays Hank Moody, kind of an asshole-with-a-heart-of-if-not-gold-then-silver who wants to live in his own idiosyncranic way. This Moody is also a writer who wrote a fantastically successful novel which was turned into a fantastically commercially successful movie adaptation which he thinks is crap, and hasn't written a word in the five years since, when he moved to LA from NY to work on the movie. Oh, and also he's separated from the woman he had been with for at least 12 years and has a daughter with, and this woman is engaged to a man who stands for everything Moody hates, and also has a teenage daughter who Moody (first episode spoiler alert) accidentally sleeps with in the first episode (well, not accidentally the sleeping with more, more accidentally in that he was unaware that she was a teen, let alone the teenage daughter of his ex's fiance). So there's your plot summary. And basically in the last sentence, we get a running theme in the show which I prefaced atop my entry - David Duchovny having sex. Though I didn't count, this pretty much happens in every episode, with different women in each episode. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, but if you're into that kind of thing (David Duchovny having sex, that is) I thought I ought to make a point of it. That, and also "David Duchovny having sex" (or "Hank Moody having sex" if we want to stay in character) would be a more straightforward title.

The other main characters are his agent and friend portrayed by Evan Handler, who seems to be popping up everywhere these days and was due to land a main role sooner or later - he had recurring parts in Sex and the City and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, guest apperances in Lost and 24, and well, a starring role in the short lived and quickly forgotten "It's Like, You Know" which was once billed as LA's answer to Seinfeld. His story arcs tend to focus on his relationship with his wife and with his hot goth suicide chick secretary.

With exceptions, most shows live up to the sum of their parts and premises, and you can pretty much tell everything you need to know about the show from what I've already written. Hank Moody don't take no advice from no one and lives on his own terms - he often makes inapproriate outbursts, but at the same time has the courage to take on challenges that people living in the "normal" world wouldn't dare broach. He's kind of a jerk, but you root for him anyway, part because a lot of the other characters are just tools, including most of all his ex's fiance, who doesn't do too much in the storyline explicitly bad, but is still pretty much a tool, and partly because Moody's the main character, and well, if you didn't root for him, it would make the show pretty hard to watch.

He's pretty much the show - the other characters are fine, supporting, but couldn't stand on their own. He deals with the idiosyrancities (yeah, I know I used this word twice. Deal with it) of what a strange place to live LA is, and tries to win back his ex, all while sleeping with as many people as he can. Basically what it comes down to is the show is not a can't miss by any means - unlike The Wire (obviously about as different a genre as it can get) which I tell everyone I meet, even in the urinal next to me in bathrooms to watch, I won't be pushing Californication, but by the time I watched a few episodes, I actually wanted to watch the rest, to the conclusion of the season, and really, that's not at all a bad thing.

Time for an assorted posting of little things...

Sure, Carlos Delgado has been great in the second half but the calls for him to win the MVP are pure lunacy (okay, maybe lunacy's a little strong). Delgado's return to form is a huge boon for the Mets, and has certainly been a factor in their strong second half performance, but unfortunately for Delgado, the first half counts in MVP consideration, and he's probably the fourth best candidate on his own team. Albert Pujols has got to win. Now of course he may not because MVP voters are idiots, but it's hard not to give the award to someone who is leading the league in on base percentage and slugging, with almost .1 higher combined OPS than anyone else in the league all while playing the best first base in the league.

The Giants should be repremanded somehow for allowing their young ace Tim Lincecum to pitch 138 (I wish I could capitalize numbers somehow, but in lieu of that I'll have to bold them I suppose) pitches in a 7-0 complete game shutout against the Padres. Now, fact one is that every single Giants game at this point in the season is completely and totally meaningless. I quickly looked up the pitch count for a handful of the better pitchers on contending teams and couldn't find any count over than 130. Carlos Zambrano had 130 once and CC Sabathia, who has been used recklessly, likely in part because the Brewers only have him until the end of the season threw 130 once. In Lincecum's four last starts, he threw 138, 127, 92, and 132 pitches. He's already thrown 60 more innings than he did last year. GIANTS GAMES DO NO MATTER ANYMORE. Forgetting the idea that there was a 7 run lead by the time he took the mound in the bottom of the ninth. You know, maybe the ghost of Dusty Baker still lingers. Baseball should have like a pitcher's services division who takes away custody of pitchers from organizations which can't be entrusted with them. I don't care how solid his mechanics are and how confident they are he can pitch without injury. The GAME IS MEANINGLESS! There is no point in even taking the smallest chance. I think Lincecum should win the Cy Young as much as anyone - but is it really worth a full out drive at the award for adding a significant chance for injury or arm soreness in his promising young career which could be preserved for a time when the Giants actually matter. And by the way, how is Brian Sabaen not fired yet?

Poor Syracuse football. Once a mighty program - sure, not as big as the USCs and Oklahomas and Notre Dames, but just a tier below - a national title winner years and years ago, but an undefeated team in 1987, and a competitor in BCS bowl games as recently as the late 90s with Donovan McNabb. Forget BCS games, a competitor in bowl games of any sort. Over the last three years under for Texas defensive coordinator Greg Robinson, 'Cuse has gone 1-10, 4-8 and 2-10 with an 0-3 start this year. The program has become a total joke, and it's still unclear why exactly Robinson was brought back for a fourth year. It's time for him to go - it would not be hard to find a promising assistant or mid-major head coach to take on and rehabilitate the program for a few years. I don't think asking for a .500 record is too much.

I have a survivor league for the NFL (in case one is unfamiliar with the concept each week each person picks one team to win - if that team loses, they're out for the year, and each team can only be picked once by each person - so last year you couldn't have just picked the pats every week). Last week, only one other person and I took the obvious pick of the Patriots, and a few people got burned - picking normally reliable Indianapolis and San Diego led to early defeat. This week there are no certainties, and certainly I'm glad I used New England before Tom Brady was out for the year (not that he played all that long in the Chiefs game anyway). I narrowed by choices down the Pittsburgh (against the Browns) or the Giants (against the Rams) and finally settled on the Giants, thinking that the Browns might "get up for the game" (shouldn't every team get up for every game with a week to prepare for it) against a hated divisional opponent, and that the Browns probably aren't quite as bad as they were last week, while the Rams might be. It's risky, though, but without a Tom Brady led Patriots, what pick isn't.

Two commercial posts in a row! Fun. Okay, there's a series of ads for fantasy football at NFL.com which are NFL Fantasy Files, each with a different player. Basically, the idea of each ad is that the player says something like "check this out," after which he performs some sort of unlikely feat with the football, depending on his position, throwing, catching, running, or kicking, and then after he's finished says, "Pick Me." I've taken it upon myself as a service to the online community to rank these ads in terms of quality of feat - which both takes into account impressiveness, uniqueness and overall coolness.

We're start with the worst and work our way up to give everyone something to look forward to.

Marques Colston:



I hate to do this, as Colston is my boy as a Hofstra alum - a school less than ten minutes away from my house - but this is simply the most boring fantasy file. He catches two balls, one behind his back, and one he comes down on as it's zooming by. I mean, sure it's impressive, but it's supposed to be impressive, it's a fantasy file. Nothing wrong with what he says, but nothing so interesting that I can jump him a spot. Sorry, Marques.

Chris Simms



I'm going to have to admit - this one loses some immediate props from the fact that no one will want to pick Chris Simms - he wasn't on a team at the beginning of this season. He throws two balls into garbage cans, and then the last into a garbage can on a moving truck. I do like the fact that he comments on his throws as he's going ("Automatic") and I listened really close to try to figure out what in the world is being shouted at him (something something something smart kid).

Neil Rackers



Rackers tells us we're going to see "something [he's] been working on" - kicking the first two balls into the left upright and the second two into the right upright. Props for telling us what he's going to do before he delivers, but again, entirely boring - not an ounce of creativity there - sure it's impressive, but that's just not going to cut it. Though I do love his plea - pointing out that we need a kicker.

Marc Bulger



Bulger's feat is hitting the sign which indicates the number of down it is, and spinning it around, from 1 to 2, from 2 to 3 and from 3 to 4. It's a pretty lame feat, and I would drop it below Chris Simms if not for the fact that Bulger is at least actually starting for NFL team and has a credible argument for you to actually pick him (though the way the Rams played on Sunday who knows how credible that is for long).

Mike Nugent



I like the jenga element - Nugent aims for a pyramid of six garbage cans - first, depositing the ball in the top without knocking anything down, then in the left and right corners, leaving a diamond, which he then knocks down with his last kick. Very visually pleasing. Indeed, this is the first of the series of videos in which the participant tells us what it takes to be a great whatever position he plays - strength and accuracy to be a great kicker, Nugent tells us. I also like his "I say you pick me" at the end - it sounds a little more forceful than some others.

Andre Johnson



We've started getting into the pretty cool ones here. Johnson sets up the ball-throwing machine, then sprints over in time to catch the ball it shoots out - pretty cool. Not much theater to it, but he has a cool little speech at the beginning, ironically, about the lack of talking he does. Nifty.

David Akers



The most zen speech so far - "Life is about balance. When you achieve balance, the impossible becomes possible" - he then proceeds to kick the stationary ball up in the air a few inches from its placement between his two feet, and then kick a field goal with it. Impressive, but he'd be down a few notches if not for his speech about balance, and his "Pick me, grasshoppa" at the end.

Chris Chambers



The best part of this is the way there's a crowd of people that has been "asking [him] to do this all day." He complies, while facing the camera, catches passes thrown to his back with his left and right hands and then catches on between the two footballs, and then after telling us we should pick him, he adds in that it's our move. A good, but not the best feat, but gets a spot or two for the clamoring crowd at the beginning.

Jason Campbell



He says, "Two recievers, two footballs, one choice" - which sounds kind of cool though it took me a while to figure out what the choice was (presumably him in fantasy football?). Basically, he tosses the two footballs one after each other, as two recievers run routes, one straight out to his left, and one two his right, and the second football his the first, and they both go directly to the receivers. Not too shabby - not too much flash, but one of the more creative drills we'll seen.

Braylan Edwards



This ranking is pretty much predicated on Edwards' speech before and while he does his trick. I'd love to hear some football announcer say this (It's so good, I'm just typing the whole thing up) "You can't see it can you? (laughs) Being a reciever is not about physicality, speed - it's about zen and the art of receiving - seeing without seeing - feeling, emotion, reaching out - seeing without seeing." I mean his trick is kind of boring - he catches a bunch of balls with a blindfold on. But that speech is definitely the best of anyone in any of the ads - coupled with his "Pick me. I am your choice" at the end.

Laurence Maroney



First of all, you know he's going to get some uniqueness points right off the bat since he's the only running back, so there's not a couple other videos that look just like it. Second, what's amazing is that when he says "if there's a hole" it sounds like "if there's a ho." Yes, I know this is stupid. It's still funny. Third, there's a fantastic warning at the bottom which says "Do not attempt unless you are an NFL athlete." Fourth, it's actually a pretty cool stunt - jumping through a car with just the windows open on the front seat. Fifth, he is actively agressive in convincing us to pick him - almost yelling "In your league, you better pick me. Your move."

We're getting down to the final two here...

Chris Cooley



Not quite Braylan Edwards-like but solid beginning describing what you need to be a pass-recieving tight end - strength and instincts - but this is here mostly because this is such an awesome stunt. He caught a ball throught a piece of wood! Plus, he uses the skills he had said were necessary - the strength to push through the wood, and the instincts to realize the ball were there. It's pretty great. Also, is he just doing this in a house being constructed? Aren't the owners of the home going to pretty pissed that there's a whole in their house? Just a possibility. Also if you haven't seen this video of Chris Cooley conduction a fantasy draft with other Redskins, it's worth checking out.

And now the champion...

Mason Crosby



No, he's not just here because he has an awesome name. This is definitely the most creative stunt of them all, coupled with the idea that it's a prank - as Crosby tells us "they hate it when I do this." It's not just the fact that he's artificially making it sound like it's three which makes it great - he could do that at any time and it would be a prank - it's that for some reason he's doing this at 2:59. And yes, he kicks the three footballs to hit the bells, tricking everyone in the vicinity into thinking it's 3 instead of 2:59. For good measure, after he's done, as the screen fades out we here the actual three o'clock bells. Can't beat it.

Time to discuss a commercial I saw recently that has me confused beyond belief. The commercial, posted above, is an ad for Microsoft featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld.

Okay, there have to be at least a dozen different parts of this minute and thirty second Lawrence of Arabia of television commercials that confuse the fuck out of me.

Starting out Seinfeld is eating a churro - I get that part, churros are tasty. He sees cheap shoes, and Bill Gates, and enters a shoe store. So far this makes some semblance of sense. He offers Bill some churro, and Bill politely declines. Now here where the ad begins to go screwy.

Jerry tries to help Bill size up his shoe - okay, it's getting a little weird - not really something I would expect Seinfeld to do - but I can accept it. Jerry tests it out, finds out the shoe is the wrong size, and now, starts folding it in half for some reason - which I guess is because he's trying to wear the shoe in, but I'm not sure, and announcers that the Conquistador, which seems to be either the brand, or model of shoe runs tight.

Okay, now it gets one level stranger. Jerry tells Bill that he wears shoes in the shower. Now that's a strange revelation, but sure, it's something Jerry might say - but what's stranger is we get this weird second long shower scene just showing a man's feet with shoes on in the shower. What the fuck? Why? What is going on?

Okay, now, Jerry does his shower schtick, tells Bill he's a 10, Bill says it feels better and we get to the next super odd part of the commercial. A family of spanish-speaking people for some reason are staring at the window and say two lines - the woman asks "Is that the conquistador?" and the man, presumably her husband responds "They run tight." Consider this the moment of this commercial when my mind official explodes. What is going on here? There are so many questions, and no answers. Why does everyone know what the Conquistador is? Why is it called the Conquistador? Is it common knowledge that these shoes run tight? Why the random spanish speaking people at all? Why are they looking through a window at someone trying on shoes? Are they just interested in watching Bill Gates try on shoes?

As Bill goes to purchase the shoes, the person working the register asks him if he is a Shoe Circus Clown Club member, to which Bill responds "Platinum" and takes out a card with a picture of him looking far younger - perhaps implying that he has been a Shoe Circus shopper for years since before he was big?

Now for the first time, after finding out that the card gets Bill "Big Top points," yet another detail whose use evades me, a minute in to this commercial, Jerry actually brings up Microsoft, asking Bill has melded his brain to other big brains at Microsoft, to which Bill responds in the affirmative. He then asks Bill if Microsoft are working on computers that you can eat while you work - and to comfirm this, requests Bill give him a signal such as adjusting his shorts, which he then does, to Jerry's jubilation.

All this leaves me thinking - what the fuck is going on? Are we really getting computers we can eat? Cause if we are, then one third if this commercial makes sense. If not, none of it does.

Was this the goal of the commercial? To have me unbelievably confused? Maybe. And if it is, then kudos, Microsoft or whatever ad agency did this. You win. Otherwise I give up.

Last stadium on the trip!

First, a note about the seventh inning stretch. For the most part, this is the one area where Shea, or just as much, the people attending games at Shea. Well, for one thing, Take Me Out to the Ballgame seems to be sped up at Shea, possibly to fit in Lazy Mary, a song played at every seventh inning stretch (just about every anyway) which I just learned was by Lou Monte, who apparently was known for recording Italian-themed novelty records in the 50s and 60s, which according to wikipedia "tells the tale of a coversation between a young woman who wishes to be married, and her mother. The somewhat risque song mixes English and Italian verses. The two use double entendre to compare the occupations with the sexual appetities of the various suitors." Now I may be biased because all my friends and I always sing along with Take Me Out to the Ballgame, but it at least seems like a whole lot of people are singing along. In addition, we have our own stupid tradition of, well, during the video which plays during Take Me Out the Ballgame, and shows the lyrics, every once in a while it shows a picture instead of words, like a picture of a baseball for the "ball" in ball game and a picture of the Mets logo for home team. So, copying from a friend of mine who started it, every time it shows the baseball, we say baseball instead of the right words, and mets logo instead of home team and so forth. Yes, it's stupid, but the point is it's our stupid tradition, and it's fun for us.

That said I was surprised more of the parks I visited did not have their own take on the seventh inning stretch. Looking at the wikipedia page, a number of teams have their own seventh inning traditions, but only one of the teams we saw, the Brewers, which I'll mention as I get into talking about Miller Park. I do think it is hilarious that the Rays play Fins in their seventh inning, especially as I only learned this song existed about six months ago.

Wikipedia also lists several possible myths about the origin of the seventh inning stretch, my favorite of which is the idea that President Taft got up in the seventh inning to stretch because, as wikipedia describes it, he felt sore in his backside, and everyone, seeing the president do so, decided to follow along.

One last note before I finish my seventh inning stretch diatribe. Time to stop playing God Bless America during the seventh inning of baseball games, at all. Now, I have several problems with this - but my objection right now centers on one - God Bless America is a terrible song. That's it - it's bad - we'd be far, far better off to play Woody Guthrie's response song to God Bless America, This Land is Your Land. Heed this advice, stadiums.

One last note about Wrigley as well. After the Cubs won, they played a song I had never heard before called "Go, Cubs, Go." Apparently played after Cubs victories, the song is penned by Steve Goodman, write of Arlo Guthrie's only top 40 hit City of New Orleans (Which I used to confuse with the Johnny Horton #1 Battle of New Orleans). I'm pretty much always in support of team songs, another area where the Mets can be proud, having not just one, but two - Meet the Mets, and the 1986 song Let's Go Mets Go.

Okay - Miller Park. Miller Park was unusual compared to the other parks on the trip in that it had a retractable dome. It did not rain so we didn't have a chance to see the dome in action, unfortunately - it only takes 10 minutes to close the dome, so it can be done between innings. However, just the fact that it had the retractable dome shaped the feel of the park even with the dome open, as the park felt indoors in a way the others had not - walls around every level of the deck as well as pretty high up behind the outfield. Watching from the outfield was, as at almost all of these stadiums, a pleasure, but the best vantage point found here was one that I did not see at any other stadiums - a view from right down the right field line essentially. Everything looked a little confusing, angle wise, but it was well worth it - it helped figure out what it looks like to be a right fielder. Sadly, I missed the sausage race.

Also, a quick note about the Brewers' hats - the Brewers were wearing the hat classic icon - at the game I was at, which I was very appreciative. This is one of the best subdued, un-flashy icons in all of sports, and it's good to see that even though the icon has been gone from full time use since 1994, in 2006 the Brewers brought it back as a retro alternate look. Make it full time, I say, and make the modern one the alternate.


Miller Park field view, scoreboard, walls, and all


Just the scoreboard.

New aside for today! Now, of course everyone knows that Mark Harmon (star of St. Elsewhere and NCIS) is married to Pam Dawber, Mindy from Mork and Mindy. But just learned that Mark Harmon is, or was, I suppose, brother-in-law to Ricky Nelson, and is thus the uncle to the members of Nelson. Amazing!

Moving on to St. Louis's new Busch Stadium.

I had the pleasant fortune to see Ian Snell for the second time in the trip (the first at PNC). To get to Busch, I walked from hanging around the arch (yes, it's touristy as touristy gets, but it's still pretty cool - also apparently it was only finished in 1965 - I had always imagined it as being significantly older than that) through the ghost town that was St. Louis's downtown in the evening to Busch. Busch had among the nicest entrances of the stadiums I visited, complete with a very cool brick facade. The view is a nice cross-section of the St. Louis downtown, dotted most importantly, with the arch (I wonder if St. Louis likes or hates being best known for the arch - on one hand, it must be irritating to have everyone just ask about the arch, but on the other hand it might be better to have people know one thing about St. Louis than nothing.) The best vantage points offered were unusually on the upper deck - I walked around and could get a view from just about any angle for which there was upper deck - the best being around the right field corner. Walking around the field level, the only real view was in left field, and it was hard to see over raised stands in many of the places. I experienced my second moment of rudeness during the trip when while attempting to stand in an area in the outfield, the usher not only told us we couldn't be there, but asked us what we were doing there - it was next to a little play area for kids, so my friend Jesse said that he was checking it out to bring his niece, to which the usher incredulously interogated him asking what his niece's name was, with the tone of voice leading us to believe he thought Jesse was lying and that he could trick him with this question. Obviously this was just a minor moment of rudeness, but we were both kind of pissed off. All in all a very good park, and a park I would be reasonably happy to have in my hometown, but not up to the standards of many of the other parks on my trip - the nicest thing about it was definitely the outside facade and entranceway.

If Busch didn't have problems before, it was bound to lose after getting compare to the next park, the truly incromprable Wrigley Field. First things first, Wrigley Field had far and away the best area around the ballpark. It wasn't a parking lot, or even a couple of streets around the ballpark with things, nor was it in a downtown area that had lots of big buildings, but barely seemed alive - it was a leigitimate neighborhood. There were plenty of places to eat and drink before or after and to just put the ballpark in context. I talk a walk around the perimeter of the stadium before going in. Inside, the park did not disappoint - sure it did not have the trappings of the newer parks - it was more confusing to get to the seats, the concourse was not as scenic or as one with the outside, and the seats itself were smaller and less confortable. In addition, unlike the new parks, the extra vantage points were limited. But the atmosphere, and the park itself are unrivaled - it's something you can just create - it's something that exists because of eighty years of tradition (obviously some of the traditions are newer, but they all seem to seamlessly blend in, like the 7th inning recitation of Take Me Out to the Ballgame started by Harry Caray). The view was fantastic, electronic scoreboard-less and all, and I got the pleasure of seeing Carlos Zambrano hit one out. After the game, I was able to walk all the way down to the field, and touch the brick wall between field and stands behind home place. Wrigley Field is the type of desitnation worth working a trip around.


Bush stadium, with the arch in background.



Busch Stadium brick facade


Wrigley, Ivy and all.


Wrigley facade - not sure why Bank of America is the bank of opportunity.

Also - as an aside, I just learned that Marshall Crenshaw wrote the title song to Walk Hard. Phenomenal.

I'm going to try to add a few more pictures this time, and I'll add a few of the stadiums I talked about yesterday.

After Cleveland, I hiked north to Detroit, where Comerica Park beckoned. Comerica Park is one of those stadiums that is placed right next to the city's football stadium, and surrounded by lots of parking lots, though still right within the downtown part of the city, nearby Detroit's Greektown. I had just standing room for this park, and this may have been the best park we went to for standing room, as I think there were the most different vantage points from which a stander could see. (As an aside, one thing I noticed was that Detroit simply does not take enough advantage of the using the Tiger as mascot on apparel - all animal teams should be using their animals, as it's a huge advantage over teams without animals - sure, the D is nice, but how about a few more hats with tigers on them?) For the beginning and end of the game, I stood in the left field standing area, which was right near a series of statues of Tigers' Hall of Famers, like Hank Greenberg and Mechanical Man (one of the great nicknames) Charlie Gehringer. From virtually everywhere on the field level could I peak in and take a look at the game, and I watched parts or full innings from nearly everywhere, and watched a couple of innings in the right field standing area. There was no scenic backdrop to the park, and aside from Milwaukee, which was a strange scenario as a dome, this park felt the most contained within itself, rather than at play at all with the outside world. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing - I'm trying to figure out why this is - I think it's possibly because I felt it was the most lit up park, it seemed like the biggest, walking around (though I'm not sure if it really is), and the lack of a backdrop - really all you saw from any vantage point was the stadium. Also, if one of the two small moments of rudeness I experienced on our trip, when I incidentally walked up towards what was a private deck (which there was no way to possibly know) the woman working there told me to get out like I was a trespasser coming to steal some private views.

Next up, Cincinnati, where I viewed an afternoon game at the Great American Ballpark. My preference for day games was nearly overshadowed by the scorchingly hot temperatures at the stadium. I felt higher in Cincinnati than I had in any other park we had been to in our seats, but that may very well have been a function more of where I was sitting than the park itself. The centerfield view was over the Ohio River, which was pretty nifty, and a couple of bridges that crossed over it. Walking around the park gave me one of the best views I saw at any stadium - in a small area nearby home plate, I was able to get a field level view I stayed at for a couple of innings. The outfield area offered several intriguing vantage points as well - a huge standing area in Center was underneath some apparatus that shot water up in the air for some reason I could not figure out. The outfield walkway also offered great views of the river, and I somewhat unintentially interupted a tender moment between a man and woman when moving in for a particularly scenic view. There was a Reds museum just outside the park, but apparently it was a paid admission, which was sad - otherwise the entrance was really nothing too special.

Here's some pictures taken by one of my traveling companions,


So here's PNC's scoreboard, and the circular ramp entranceway off to the left of it.

Here's a view of the river from the stadium - research tells me it's the Alleghany River



Here's the Indians Hall of Fame Plaques at Progressive Field



Progressive Field and beautiful Downtown Cleveland


Commercia Park and with scenic Ford Field in the backdrop


Tigers retired numbers below their statues



Great American Ballpark