Thursday, December 20, 2007
Bill Parcells getting back into the game would be a whole lot more interesting if he was on the sidelines coaching. I don't doubt for a moment that he is motivated by the success of his erstwhile sidekick, the dapper Bill Belichick. You can almost hear the inside of his head: "I'll show them who's a genius!"
I suppose it might work out for the Fish-- he could hardly do a worse job-- but it seems to me that Tuna has always done his best work as a coach rather than as a GM or as Supreme Ruler of All Football Operations. It's interesting that he couldn't take the gig without screwing someone else over. That's also been a pattern with him, and you just know that Gregg Esterbrook is firing up one of his macros: what you get when you hire a coach who is only interested in himself is a coach who will screw you as soon as he sees an opportunity.
I've been thinking about what Belichick would do if the Pats run the table and win the Super Bowl. In many ways the Bills run is still one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen in sports because they kept getting back up, but 16-0 would be hard to top, and I'd have to think that retirement would look like the way to end on a high note. With Parcells back, though, and in the AFC East,it seems to me that Belichick would feel like he owed himself one more year. He has the horses, after all, why not?
I suppose it might work out for the Fish-- he could hardly do a worse job-- but it seems to me that Tuna has always done his best work as a coach rather than as a GM or as Supreme Ruler of All Football Operations. It's interesting that he couldn't take the gig without screwing someone else over. That's also been a pattern with him, and you just know that Gregg Esterbrook is firing up one of his macros: what you get when you hire a coach who is only interested in himself is a coach who will screw you as soon as he sees an opportunity.
I've been thinking about what Belichick would do if the Pats run the table and win the Super Bowl. In many ways the Bills run is still one of the most remarkable things I've ever seen in sports because they kept getting back up, but 16-0 would be hard to top, and I'd have to think that retirement would look like the way to end on a high note. With Parcells back, though, and in the AFC East,it seems to me that Belichick would feel like he owed himself one more year. He has the horses, after all, why not?
Monday, December 17, 2007
I have the 45 somewhere, but it didn't come in this sweet looking sleeve. It's on iTunes, and now it's on my iPod, too.Thursday, December 13, 2007
Looks to me like The Rocket is the biggest name in the Mitchell Report, although there is certainly no shortage of big names. Looks like the Mets were as close to being at the center of the problem as anyone else.
Clemens is going to be badly damaged, I'd say. He'd had a great career with Boston, but his real credentials are from the time he left, from '97 on. 3.02 ERA with the Sox over 13 seasons; 3.28 over the next 11 with Toronto, New York and Houston. He was a great player and a borderline Hall of Fame player before he left the Sox, but it's the second half of his career that really put the ! on his resume. All that stuff about going into the Hall with a Yankees cap was true: he needed a World Series title to ice it.
In a funny way, Barry Bonds may benefit from all this. He's been made the steroids goat, probably mostly because he is such a disagreeable guy, probably also because of race. If you look at the numbers, it is pretty plain that both Bonds and Clemens should have been spotted as doing something, but Bonds is the guy who they threw syringes at. Clemens got written up for his amazing fitness regime. Are they both out? I don't think so-- and that means that they both have to go in.
A couple of further thoughts, both Bill James related. James writes somewhere that Whitey Herzog, just turned away from the HOF, incidentally, was one of the few people who came away from baseball's last drug scandal with his reputation intact. The White Rat didn't tolerate recreational drug use at KC or in St. Louis-- it contributed to his losing his job with the Royals, and he took all kinds of heat in St. Louis when he traded Keith Hernandez. I wonder if there is a similar figure that will emerge from the current mess.
A related question (maybe from the same James essay): baseball is a mirror of society-- when we think about the late 70's and early '80's we recall that baseball had a drug problem, but we don't necessarily recall the ubiquity of drugs in American culture as a whole. Is the use of performance enhancing drugs in baseball just the visible manifestation of a larger issue in American society? I haven't seen anyone writing about this, yet, but I think it is something we are going to have to get our minds around.
Update, 1214/07 Looks like the newspaper of record disagrees with me on the cap thing: the front page picture of Clemens shows him in Blue Jays gear. Sure, that's the earliest date his steroid use is said to have occurred, but the fact that the Times has an ownership interest in the BoSox couldn't have been a factor when they were making layout decisions, could it? Two years with the Jays, who have among the fewest links in MLB in the Mitchell Report (Yanks are #1, Mets and Orioles tied for second, Dodgers third, and what does that tell us?). Two years in Toronto and this is the thanks they get.
Clemens is going to be badly damaged, I'd say. He'd had a great career with Boston, but his real credentials are from the time he left, from '97 on. 3.02 ERA with the Sox over 13 seasons; 3.28 over the next 11 with Toronto, New York and Houston. He was a great player and a borderline Hall of Fame player before he left the Sox, but it's the second half of his career that really put the ! on his resume. All that stuff about going into the Hall with a Yankees cap was true: he needed a World Series title to ice it.
In a funny way, Barry Bonds may benefit from all this. He's been made the steroids goat, probably mostly because he is such a disagreeable guy, probably also because of race. If you look at the numbers, it is pretty plain that both Bonds and Clemens should have been spotted as doing something, but Bonds is the guy who they threw syringes at. Clemens got written up for his amazing fitness regime. Are they both out? I don't think so-- and that means that they both have to go in.
A couple of further thoughts, both Bill James related. James writes somewhere that Whitey Herzog, just turned away from the HOF, incidentally, was one of the few people who came away from baseball's last drug scandal with his reputation intact. The White Rat didn't tolerate recreational drug use at KC or in St. Louis-- it contributed to his losing his job with the Royals, and he took all kinds of heat in St. Louis when he traded Keith Hernandez. I wonder if there is a similar figure that will emerge from the current mess.
A related question (maybe from the same James essay): baseball is a mirror of society-- when we think about the late 70's and early '80's we recall that baseball had a drug problem, but we don't necessarily recall the ubiquity of drugs in American culture as a whole. Is the use of performance enhancing drugs in baseball just the visible manifestation of a larger issue in American society? I haven't seen anyone writing about this, yet, but I think it is something we are going to have to get our minds around.
Update, 1214/07 Looks like the newspaper of record disagrees with me on the cap thing: the front page picture of Clemens shows him in Blue Jays gear. Sure, that's the earliest date his steroid use is said to have occurred, but the fact that the Times has an ownership interest in the BoSox couldn't have been a factor when they were making layout decisions, could it? Two years with the Jays, who have among the fewest links in MLB in the Mitchell Report (Yanks are #1, Mets and Orioles tied for second, Dodgers third, and what does that tell us?). Two years in Toronto and this is the thanks they get.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
New HOF ballot is out; first-timers include: Brady Anderson, Andy Benes, Delino DeShields, Shawon Dunston, Chuck Finley, Travis Fryman, David Justice, Chuck Knoblauch, Mike Morgan, Robb Nen, Tim Raines, Greg Swindell, Randy Velarde, Mark Wohlers.
Other than "Rock" Raines, who was really the NL Rickey Henderson, this is not a group I'm excited about. David Justice was married to Halle Berry- that's enough for any man. Chuck Knoblauch? Be serious. Brady Anderson? When was he good? Maybe this will be Goose Gossage's year. If I got to vote I might go for Jim Rice, too, even though I have said I wouldn't in the past.
Other than "Rock" Raines, who was really the NL Rickey Henderson, this is not a group I'm excited about. David Justice was married to Halle Berry- that's enough for any man. Chuck Knoblauch? Be serious. Brady Anderson? When was he good? Maybe this will be Goose Gossage's year. If I got to vote I might go for Jim Rice, too, even though I have said I wouldn't in the past.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Bowie Kuhn is in the Hall of Fame? In the dictionary, sure, next to "stuffed shirt", but not in the HOF. And Walter O'Malley! Say nay! It has become popular in recent years to view O'Malley's treachery as a great act, opening up baseball to the West, but I'd say rather that he set the stage for the generations of sports franchise owners that followed, allowing them to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from communities terrified that their team might pack up and go.
O'Malley and Kuhn, two of the biggest rats in baseball, but The White Rat, Whitey Herzog, a legitimate great, a true contributor to the game, gets passed over. Not cool. Not cool at all.
