Edit Peter Gammons

The Formidable Aura of Gammonsology

2009-10-27T12:49:00.000-07:00

It's amazing to me that Peter Gammons still has a job, when he continues to write things like this:

"The Philadelphia Phillies are primed to repeat as champs."

Gammons, master prognosticator, has determined that the Phillies, one of three teams (at the time of the writing) still eligible to win the World Series, might win it!

The Phillies wait a week for the World Series, which may rest their pitching staff, and may or may not cool the hitters that pummeled the Dodgers. As the rain beat down Saturday morning in the Northeast, they didn't know if their next game was at Yankee Stadium or The Big A, but it really doesn't matter, because whomever they play had better be ready for the best American League team that plays its regular season in the National League.

I'm pretty sure Peter is confusing the verb " may" with the verb "will". The Phillies' delay before the World Series will cause their pitching staff to be rested (the wait itself did not "rest" the pitching staff); there is no doubt about that. Furthermore, stating that the wait "may" cool the hitters is sufficient, since the word "may" by itself implies that the alternative is also possible. For example, if I say "Peter Gammons may be the worst writer in the history of the Internet," I am implying that it is also possible that he is not (though this is doubtful). Also, "the best American League team that plays its regular season in the National League" is so trite and unnecessarily verbose that I'm now dumber for having read it. Can't he just say "the Phillies play an American League style?" Of course, that's also a dumb thing to say; most teams that play in a bandbox have a lot of home run hitters, regardless of whether they're in the AL or the NL.

How much the Phillies deserved their 2008 World Series rings got a little waterlogged because so many followed the Tampa Bay series on Doppler radar. And while the Rays had won the AL East and defeated the Red Sox and White Sox to get to the Series, there was some fairy-tale perception that further slighted the Phillies' accomplishments.

"Doppler radar?" "Fairy-tale perception?" These are nonsense terms with regard to baseball. Also, he's using classic politician-speak, intentionally ambiguating who, exactly, were the "so many" and who had this "fairy-tale perception" because, guess what? It was Gammons himself leading the Rays fellatio party (and, by extension, "slighting the Phillies' accomplishments"). See my post here, where Peter calls the series "the worst ever". Perhaps the Phillies felt slighted by this, Mr. Gammons?

But make no mistake this year: The Phillies can win the World Series, whether it's against the Yankees or the Angels.

Peter Gammons, boldly going where no man has gone before: predicting that one of the two World Series entrants "can" win the World Series. I find it ironic that he refuses to predict an actual winner, presumably for fear that he will be called out if he is wrong, yet he has no problem writing absolute crap, presumably because he has absolute carte blanche at ESPN.

He spends the next couple of paragraphs reviewing some legitimate reasons why the Phillies are good and can win, which is funny because he's waiting until they've already made the World Series before brashly explaining why they're good enough to win. Again, Peter, just because you stiffed them last year doesn't mean they got no credit for winning, or that they have no chance this year. Then he produces a couple of REALLY important reasons why the Phillies will win:

"...they have played on the Fox stage..."

Do players really react differently depending on which NETWORK is broadcasting their games?

"they had the best road record in baseball (48-33) and aren't likely to be intimidated by the formidable aura of Yankeeology."

Shane Victorino: Hey, coach, can I talk to you for a second?
Charlie Manuel: Yeah, Shane, what's up?
SV: I'm worried about the World Series.
CM: But we won last year. We can do it again!
SV: Yes, but this year we are playing against the Yankees.
CM: Listen, the goal is to get to the World Series. That means, in our case, facing the best team from the AL every year. Last year, it was the Rays, and this year it's the Yankees.
SV: But coach, you don't understand! We're going up against the formidable aura of Yankeeology! I'm intimidated!
CM: Ah, but you see, we had the best road record in baseball. Thus, the formidable aura of Yankeeology (which means the study of Yankees, by the way) shall not intimidate us.
SV: Ohhh. I get it. Thanks, Coach!

The fact that Brad Lidge (4 IP, 1 H, 0 R), Ryan Madson (6 IP, 8 K) and Chad Durbin (4 IP, 0 R) have pulled the bullpen together in the postseason, with J.A. Happ and Chan Ho Park, give them the wherewithal to steal a couple of 7-5, 9-6 games.

There are two incredibly basic grammatical errors in this sentence. First, the prepositional phrase "with J.A. Happ and Chan Ho Park" is misplaced, and frankly I don't know why it's there. Are they good relievers? Did they also pull the bullpen together? Second, "the fact" is a singular subject, so when Gammons finally gets around to the verb, it should be "gives", the singular form, not "give." This would be a moderately difficult question on the SAT. You know, that test that most high-schoolers have to take. You might think that Gammons would raise his game to give the aspiring sportswriters of tomorrow a role model to look up to, but he can't even master the fundamental rules of the English language.

Layoffs affected the 2006 Tigers and 2007 Rockies, and so, too, the Phillies may not be the same come Wednesday. But they are much more experienced than those other two teams, so the rust should never sleep. Bring on the Yankees, bring on the Angels; the Phillies are going to make for a fun November.

Another classic Gammons-ism: hedging the bet. "The Phillies CAN win the World Series, but this is why they might not." Also, another Gammons classic, the retarded mixed metaphor. "The rust should never sleep?" Really? I didn't know rust could sleep.

Then Gammons goes into "Leftover notes from the ALCS", of which one is particularly noteworthy.

2. It doesn't take Sandy Koufax to tell us the Dodgers need a No. 1 starter, but they aren't likely to get one this offseason.

Ok, cute, but I get it, Sandy Koufax himself WAS a No. 1 starter, so presumably he'd know a No. 1 starter if he saw one. Obviously, the Dodgers lack a No. 1 starter. It's so obvious that you don't even need Sandy Koufax to tell you this. But wait! What about Billingsley and Kershaw? They were both pretty good this year, right?

No one seems to be able to say whether Chad Billingsley's leg affected his stuff, but he was not the same the past month.

First of all, why is he so damn wordy? Why can't he just say "No one knows whether..." instead of "No one seems to be able to say whether..." It's so sloppy and childish to add extra words. Second of all, this sentence seems to contradict his thesis, since he's implying that before the last month (when he was "not the same"), he was pretty damn good. Maybe even a No. 1 starter?

Clayton Kershaw has everything it takes to be a No. 1, but he is 21 years old, and the command is a work in progress. "Kershaw's going to be special," Brad Ausmus says. "He has everything it takes in terms of stuff and makeup and drive. Just give him time."

So...in other words, Kershaw is going to be a No. 1 starter. So, after stating that the Dodgers obviously need a No. 1 starter, Gammons proceeds to explain that they had one for most of this year, and another guy who's going to be one. Well played.

Finally, Gammons is such a flake who refuses to take a stand that he didn't even submit a World Series pick on ESPN.com. He did make playoff predictions along with all the other ESPN writers, and guess which team he picked to lose in the first round? (Hint: they had the best road record in baseball, and they are unlikely to be intimidated by the formidable aura of Yankeeology.)

The Chronological Misadventures of Peter Gammons

2009-10-02T11:49:00.000-07:00

As usually happens with blogs, Joist and I slacked off on this one. Harping on one lousy writer, with some Buster on the side, is not exactly worthy of a long-term commitment. And we were mostly just amusing each other, anyway. But yesterday, Mr. Gammons posted an article on his blog that motivated me to resurrect this page, for two reasons: 1) it discusses, primarily, the firing of Eric Wedge, a topic that hits close to home for me; and 2) it contains an immense amount of factual inaccuracy and spuriousness, in addition to the usual grammatical and stylistic atrocities. It proves without a shadow of a doubt both that no one edits Peter Gammons, and that someone absolutely needs to. It also made me realize that Gammons -- a Hall of Fame baseball writer -- is overrated on an unprecedented scale. He has been given the highest honor in his field, but not only is he not all that great -- he is positively terrible at his job.

The headline:

Wedge not to blame for Indians' misfortune

So this article should be primarily about Eric Wedge. But if you know your Gammons, you know it could be a while before we read anything remotely relevant to Wedge. Until then, grab a drink and enjoy the tangential gibberish.

It was late May and the host asked, "Do you think the Red Sox will send Jon
Lester down to the minors?"
"Whaaa …" I stammered.
"He's not pitching well," the host continued. "Callers are saying he's got to go."
"He's 24, he's got the best stuff of any left-hander in baseball, he's won in the World
Series, he was an ace down the stretch last year, everyone believes he'll turn
it around, and if, by chance, he doesn't, the Red Sox don't make the playoffs."
"The callers and most of our anchors have had it," the host said.
"Bobby Knight was, as usual, right," I said. "If you listen to the guys in the stands, pretty soon you'll be sitting up there with them."

Peter Gammons loves telling dubious and completely unverifiable stories about his coversations with unnamed insiders. (As one commenter notes: "Peter, name a source for once - this is baseball, not national security.") This one occurred, apparently, on a radio station, so it should be more difficult for Peter to get away with making it up. And yet, it's bizarre -- were people really calling for the demotion of Jon Lester in May? His ERA was kinda high but he was pitching pretty well and hits were just dropping in. And Red Sox fans LOVE Lester. Sure enough, read the comments -- several Bostonian sportsradio listeners cast some serious doubt on this story. I mean, would any radio host say "the callers and [especially!] most of our anchors have had it"? Sports talk jocks don't call themselves "anchors." And the story of a host talking generally about how most of the hosts on his station feel just doesn't ring true. It's just not in the talk radio style. The whole thing is fishier than a Boston menu.

A smaller point, a tangent on the tangent: Isn't Gammons' suggestion that "if, by chance, he doesn't, the Red Sox don't make the playoffs" an argument for sending Lester down? I don't get it. Don't the Red Sox want to avoid not making the playoffs? Shhh, Peter, that's a rhetorical question.

Finally, note that in an article supposedly about something else, Gammons leads off talking about the Red Sox. No surprise there!

In late September of 2005, the Indians were closing on the White Sox, and
"SportsCenter" was leading with the story of the chase. The Indians were good
and they were hot, but a Chicago sports shock jock ranted about GM Kenny
Williams' being fired because he didn't trade for a hitter at the July 31
deadline. The fact that no significant hitter was traded at the deadline didn't
enter into the discussion.
And the White Sox won the World Series. Shouting is easy.

Ah, here we get some plain ol' bad writing, in classic Gammons style. You read this once, and for a second you might react in suprise, "Wait, Kenny Williams was fired in 2005? Isn't he still the GM now?" Then you remember to repair Gammons' broken English. He meant to say "the shock jock ranted that GM Kenny Williams should be fired," etc.

And: "Shouting is easy." How pithy, Peter. Duh, I'm being sarcastic, y'all! My point is that this phrase is desperately un-pithy precisely when he was trying to be pithy. A hallmark of bad writing.

Still no Wedgie...

Talk radio didn't approve of Red Sox players' coming back to Fenway Park for a
modest celebration after they backed into the AL wild card. I wore my Don
Mattingly Baseball Academy shirt Wednesday because Don Mattingly was a great
player, is an even better human being, and the only time he ever got to
celebrate a playoff berth in his career was in his final season when the Yankees
won the wild card.

Oh look, more Red Sox.

I did not combine these two sentences into the same paragraph. They were adjoined on espn.com, as you see them here. If you follow me a bit, I think that -- only because I am a renowned expert in deciphering Gammons! -- I can explain how the two sentences are related.
Peter wore the Mattingly shirt, you see, because winning the wild card in 1995 was tremendously special for Mattingly, because he finally made the playoffs in the final year of his long and distinguished career. Therefore, we learn from the shirt that winning "only" the wild card can be special and is nothing to laugh at, because it took a special guy like Mattingly umpteen years to win just that (yes, I know the wild card did not exist before 1995, just stay with me here). Therefore, finally, the Red Sox celebrating winning the wild card is perfectly reasonable.

However, the reason (I think) that "talk radio" thought the celebration ridiculous was the fact that the Red Sox, as Peter said, "backed into" the wild card in the midst of a long losing streak. The fact that it is only the wild card, as opposed to a division title, is irrelevant. (Don't get me wrong -- the alleged "talk radio" opinion is silly, because the Red Sox' wild card and their party both celebrated their season-long superiority, not just how they played in the last week.) So as usual, even after making the most possible sense out of Gammons, Gammons still makes no sense.

News today travels by cell phone or by satellite or over the Internet, and its
immediacy demands instant gratification for questions raised. The easy part of
the answer, of course, is fault.

Huh?

Gammons: "Damn kids and their lightning fast satellites."

Yes, I get that the gist of this is that it's easy to point fingers, and that Gammons is just trying to say this creatively. But Gammons' attempts at creative writing are just so mind-bogglingly disastrous.

Mark Shapiro never felt that the 2009 fall of the Cleveland Indians was Eric Wedge's fault, or that any other manager could have done better with Grady Sizemore and Jake Westbrook hurt, with Travis Hafner declining after shoulder surgery, and with an Ohio economy that after the Indians got to within a game of the 2007 World Series forced ownership to move the contracts of CC Sabathia, Victor Martinez and Cliff Lee, knowing that by the end of the 2010 season all would be gone to free agency.

Ah, finally, some mention of Eric Wedge and the Indians, introduced in a magnificent, cascading run-on sentence!

Here begins the chronological fuzziness, even if we have not quite reached the level of outright falsehood. This paragraph of a sentence seems to say that right after the 2007 ALCS, Shapiro had to dismantle an excellent team for purely economic reasons, ala the 1997 Marlins. This is not true. CC Sabathia was traded on July 7, 2008. At that time, the Indians were 37-51, 13.5 games out of first place. Sabathia was to come a free agent at the end of the season and was making $11 million in 2008 already. It made perfect sense, whatever the state of the Ohio economy, to trade Sabathia.

And why were the Indians out of contention on July 7. 2008, even with all the pieces still in place from their 2007 run? Because most of the bullpen arms, and that of Fausto Carmona, completely failed, possibly due to abuse they had sustained at the hands of Eric Wedge the previous season. Other young players also got worse instead of better under the tutelage of Wedge et al., such as Ryan Garko and Asdrubal Cabrera (although he rebounded in 2009). This is just some of the evidence in favor of Wedge's firing that Gammons ignores. More to come. Lee and Martinez, of course, were not traded until 2009, so juxtaposing those trades with the 2007 playoffs is even stranger.

The Jacobs family understands that Shapiro has developed an organization that
has inherent stability given its fiscal restraints in the free agent, amateur
and developmental markets. Even with this season's disappointments, the Indians'
stability has enabled them to twice win more than 90 games over the past five
season, beat the Yankees in an ALDS, get to within a game of the World Series
and maintain an average of 83 wins in a Rust Belt division in which 83 wins in
2009 would have kept them in contention until the final weekend.

Gross inaccuracy no. 1: Dick Jacobs no longer owns the Indians. Sadly, that wonderful savior of the Indians franchise is no longer even living. What any of his family members currently "understand" is plainly irrelevant to the discussion. He sold the team, at an inflated price, to the notoriously cheap and incompetent Dolan family.

Also, observe that this error reveals more than just the error itself. It proves that Gammons' statements regarding what ownership "understands" is complete, half-baked speculation and is not based on any actual interviews or inside information regarding ownership's feelings. It also demonstrates that Gammons is completely unaware of the biggest problem facing the Indians -- the stinginess and incompetence of the Dolan ownership, in contrast with the leadership with Dick Jacobs.

Moving on, does Gammons possess an even basic understanding of math? How does mathematically -- and arbitrarily! -- leveling out the seven years of Wedge's tenure into an 83-win average show the Indians' stability??

Grade-School Gammons: "Mommy! Based on what I learned in school today, I just averaged out all of these numbers. Look at how similar they are now! Isn't that fucking AMAZING?" (In my fantasy, Peter was a foul-mouthed child.)

Then consider that the ultimate result of this pointless mathematical endeavor is that the averaged-out-Wedgie Indians, in 2009 alone, would have been "in contention until the final weekend"... but still would have missed the playoffs in a lousy division. Your point??

Meanwhile, hitting "undo" on that pointless averaging, we see that the Indians finished under .500 in Wedge's first 3 season, jumped to 93 wins in 2005, plummetted back under .500 in 2006, lurched back up to 96 wins in 2007, collapsed to an even .500 in 2008 (only because of a September garbage-time rally), and finally collapsed yet further in 2009 in Wedge's worst season yet. Could a seven year tenure possibly be any less stable?

A constant refrain in the ongoing (excellent!) Ken Burns documentary on the National Parks is that words cannot describe the grandeur and beauty of, e.g., the Grand Canyon. Well, this article is the Grand Canyon of stupidity. There are no words.

But it wait, it gets worse.

When a team loses close to $20 million, when it struggles to win 70 games, when
it sees attendance at The Jake dwindle from close to 43,000 a game during a much
different time to 22,144 with staggering declines in both the population and job
markets, someone had to go. So Wedge was offered up to the fan base.
Reality is that when The Jake was full every night and the Indians were a nightly bash happening, the Ohio economy was far different. There was no NFL franchise. The Cavaliers played in the suburbs. LeBron James was 10 when the Indians played the Braves in the 1995 World Series.

This is where Gammons' timing gets really surreal. Sorry, not surreal -- false.

Let's make this simple. Actual timeline:

April 1994: Indians begin playing at Jacobs Field.
November 1994: Cavs begin playing at Gund Arena, across the plaza from the Jake.
June 7, 1995: Indians consecutive sellout streak begins.
November 6, 1995: Art Modell announces that he's moving the Browns to Baltimore.
March 1999: NFL announces the return of the Browns.
September 1999: Browns are back.
October 2000: Indians miss playoffs for the first time since 1993.
April 4, 2001: Sellout streak ends at 455 games.

The most glaringly false thing about Gammons' list of excuses, of course, is his suggestion that the Cavs played "in the suburbs" while the Indians were selling out games. I have heard him say this on ESPN on tv (whereas Gammons usually restricts his more extreme stupidity to print). It's just not even close to true; the Cavs played mere yards away from the Indians at the time. The Cavs did stink then; but the more salient fact is that the Indians did not stink.
(Plus, even if the factual predicate weren't false -- where does Gammons think the Indians fans come to games from? Two blocks down Carnegie Avenue? East Cleveland? Nobody lives in Cleveland proper nowadays. No, they drive in from the suburbs.)

The Browns point is less inaccurate, but not much more convincing. The Indians sold out most of their games in 1995, before anyone knew of Art Modell's nefarious plans (the Browns had actually made the playoffs in the previous season). They continued to sell out for 2 full seasons after the Browns' return was announced, and over one full season after the Browns actually started playing games again.

Yes, the economy in Ohio has gone to the deep south in the last couple years. But the attendence plummetted way back in 2002... when the Indians started losing. Are you starting to get the pattern? The Indians problem under Wedge has been losing, and the manager has to be held responsible at some point for losing, especially when there are very specific reasons to believe that he bears some blame.

But don't look to Gammons for any meaningful or specific discussion of Wedge's actual performance. Applying reductio ad absurdum to Gammons' claptrap, if a manager can't be fired for woefully underperforming expectations; for consistently underperforming run-loss differential (which is very hard to do -- Wedge has been amazing at disappointing Indians fans); for having young players consistently become worse under his watch (cf. Peralta, Garko, Carmona, Francisco, Shoppach, Rafael Perez, Sowers, Jensen Lewis, Andy Marte, Josh Barfield etc. etc); for biannual bullpen implosions; and for just all-around sloppy, mistake-prone play... then a manager could never be fired. According to Gammons, baseball manager should be a lifetime appointment, like the Supreme Court.

Oh sorry, Wedge is also a lousy tactical game manager.

The Grand Canyon stretches out before me. No words.

The articles goes on a bit more about the Tribe and then moves on to other topics. There's probably a lot more atrocious writing and factual inaccuracies, but I don't have the time or the patience. Perhaps Joist wants to continue the resurrection...

If Gammons were one of the Seven Dwarves, he would definitely be Grumpy

2008-10-29T13:04:00.000-07:00

Wondering, yet again, why I haven't posted in a long time? It's not because Gammons hasn't had anything ridiculous to say. Check out these recent blog headings:

10/24 - Phils, Rays bullpens different yet dynamic (Click here to learn more about how two different teams can have different bullpens that are both dynamic!)

10/17 - For one night, Fenway's ghosts haunt Rays (I thought it was some really terrible pitches to Drew and Ortiz and some bad defense by Gabe Gross - boy, am I stupid!)

10/14 - Red Sox believe they're not dead yet (I always thought a team that went down in a 3-1 series believed itself to be dead, even when said team overcame a 3-1 series deficit ONE FUCKING YEAR EARLIER)

10/14 - Rays better than originally thought (You think so, Doctor?)

I didn't cherry-pick these headlines; these are his last four columns. However, his latest one is, as Foist likes to say, "classic Gammons". You'll see why.

Weather turns Series into worst ever

Oh boy. We're not even past the title and already we have ridiculous hyperbole and negativity.

PHILADELPHIA -- Somewhere in the muck of Monday's episode of "The Perfect Storm Hits the World Series," the astute Julie Kicklighter texted, "the Trop doesn't look so bad right now."

Does Gammons know that a "perfect storm" is a metaphor for "any event where a combination of circumstances will aggravate a situation drastically" (sayeth Wikipedia)? Does he know that the phrase was selected as the number 1 most overused phrase in the English language last year? Maybe he's poking fun at people who overuse the figurative meaning of the phrase by using it literally. Nah.

So true. Almost forgiven is all the noise from the megaboard at Tropicana Field. What could have been a fascinating World Series played by two teams with engaging young players has turned into the worst ever, unless you like baseball sprinkled in with ab machine infomercials and a 46-hour half-inning break.

Hear that, Tropicana Field megaboard? Peter Gammons almost forgives you! Also, "...sprinkled in with ab machine infomercials" makes no sense. I'll address the 46-hour half-inning break in a bit.

If the Phillies were going to win,

How about "If the Phillies win"?

it is a shame that the feeling was iced.

Don't you hate those "iced feelings"?

For baseball, even perfect telecasts can't save ratings or the majesty of a dramatic World Series, which the sport hasn't had since 2002.

WHAT???? I want you, the reader, to read this sentence three times. I defy you not to be MORE confused every time you reread it. Where to begin? First, the introductory phrase "for baseball" is useless and confusing. Second, I'm not sure what a "perfect telecast" is, but it probably wouldn't include ab machine infomercials, so I guess he's not talking about this year. Third, and this always bothers me, NOBODY CARES ABOUT THE TV RATINGS OF A WORLD SERIES EXCEPT THE NETWORK BROADCASTING IT. Since people seem to love blasting Fox's broadcast (and, specifically, its broadcasters, though I don't mind them nearly as much as most), they should, if anything, pray for low ratings in the World Series. This way, Fox will decide not to carry the World Series in the future, and people can stop bitching about the network. Fourth, I don't know what the "majesty of a dramatic World Series" is. Fifth, the 2003 World Series would certainly qualify as exciting, featuring Josh Beckett shutting down the Yankees on short rest in Game 6. Granted, both of those teams were pretty detestable, so I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have, but it certainly didn't lack for drama.

Say the Rays were to come back and win it with James Shields and Matt Garza pitching in the Trop we miss, there will be a hanging chad feel to the championship.

Wrong. They will be thrilled that they came back from a 3-1 deficit. Yes, the Phillies got hosed (ha!) in Game 5, and they have a semi-legitimate beef in the way it was handled by Selig. Nevertheless, if the Rays come back, the "drama and majesty" that Gammons yearns for would probably come back as well, so what, exactly, is it that he wants? Also, that sentence is a run-on.

And as the winds and the rains and even the snowflakes rattled across Pennsylvania,

I can think of many verbs to describe the effect of bad weather. "Rattled" is not among them.

there was no chance they could move the bottom of the sixth inning to St. Pete, similar to what happened in the 1959 Junior World Series between Gene Mauch's Minneapolis Millers and Preston Gomez's Havana Sugar Kings. The first two games were played in Bloomington, Minn., on Sept. 27-28, but the weather turned so miserable that they moved the rest of the series to Havana, where the Cubans beat Carl Yastrzemski and the Millers in seven games.

What is the Junior World Series? Obviously something between Cuba and the US, but considering that I (and, likely, the vast majority of his readership) have no idea what he's babbling about, I don't think it would kill him to take a sentence to explain what the Junior World Series is.

For those who like domes, that was September.

Um, he was the one who almost absolved Tropicana. Also, what is his point? Here are the possibilities:

1. Bad weather affects the ability of players to play baseball.
2. It would not have been possible to move this game to Tampa's home field.
3. Not only was Gammons alive in 1959, he remembers something called the Junior World Series which took place then.
4. ???????

I'll take number 4.

And remember, folks, next year's World Series is going to be a week later.

Good golly. The World Series has, like, NEVER been that late before. (Note: untrue.)

What happened enabled those who blame Bud Selig for everything this side of global cooling to somehow blame the commissioner again,

Nobody, NOBODY, blames Selig for anything unrelated to baseball. People blame Bud Selig for things that Selig screws up. Such as, I don't know, not understanding weather forecasts and then blaming them for being inaccurate. Or supposedly discussing contingencies ahead of time and then not sharing them with the public until after the fact, casting suspicion on the notion that these contingencies were discussed at all.

but he maintained the game's integrity by insisting it will be concluded, one way or another; you can't end the Super Bowl with a college overtime or end the Stanley Cup Final with a shootout.

I agree that the game should not have been shortened by rain. However, this has little to do with the game's integrity, and the comparisons he draws to football and hockey fall short for a simple reason. Well, more than one reason, but we'll stick with the simple one. The rules for football and hockey specifically state that their games cannot end with college overtimes or shootouts. There is no baseball rule, yet, that says that a postseason game must go at least nine innings. That's why the announcers were saying, after Tampa finished the top of the fifth, that the game was now official; everybody was operating under the assumption that the rules that govern every other baseball game apply similarly to this game. You could even argue that the baseball commissioner suddenly changing the rules halfway through a baseball game contradicts the integrity of the game. That said, I agree that Selig really had no choice in this matter.

Credit Joe Maddon for praising the Philadelphia grounds crew, his hotel in Wilmington, Del., the Rays' traveling secretary and players on both teams for making the best of a grungy situation.

We have to praise Joe Maddon for praising other people? Wow, what a man!

When this World Series finally ends, there will be a great deal of discussion about how to avoid this sort of misery.

He's probably right, but there shouldn't be. As he points out above, bad weather can show up even in September. The World Series has been starting at the end of October since MLB incorporated a third round of playoffs in 1995, and this is the first time since then that a game had to get delayed or suspended.

The first will be to figure a way to shorten the schedule. Say the schedule was reduced from 162 to 148 games (records or no records; the Steroids Era made too many baseball records meaningless), then the division series and League Championship Series could be played between Sept. 20 and Oct. 6, with the World Series theoretically completed by mid-October. Granted, the loss of the seven home dates would hit teams' revenue streams, but they'll just have to adjust player salaries; CC Sabathia and Manny Ramirez might have to make ends meet on measly $20M salaries.

This is a terrible idea. First, it's amazing how bitter Gammons STILL is about the Steroid Era, for reasons we've already discussed. Second, Gammons knows every insider in baseball; does he actually think the players union will agree to shorten the season (and, probably, their salaries) by nearly 10%? Third, why effect such a radical change when the likelihood of bad weather is only slightly decreased? Fourth, this is a better idea then the next one he's about to propose.

In the mid-'90s, several owners went to a Miami Super Bowl and discussed the notion of having a 10-day World Series at a neutral site.

I cannot believe he's suggesting this. Football fans don't have a problem shelling out the cash to go to a Super Bowl at a neutral site because it's ONE DAY. How many average families are going to be like, "Let's go to Arizona for TEN DAYS to watch the Yankees"?

They'd have to get local fans to buy into destination and vacation packages.

Delete the word "into" and you're starting to get the idea.

There wouldn't be the feel in Anaheim, San Diego or Los Angeles that there is in New York, Chicago, St. Louis or Boston.

So he's freely admitting that not a lot of fans would make the trip to see their teams.

But then the Cardinals are the only team since the 2002 Angels to win in front of their home fans.

Utterly irrelevant. "Sure, fans of team X, you got to see your team play in the World Series. But you didn't see them clinch! Was it really worth it? Why don't we just move the Series to San Diego?"

It would be a hard sell, but the notion of a World Series week has some advantages.

It has ONE advantage. And lots of disadvantages.

May I suggest Punta Mita, Mexico? The Four Seasons would be a perfect headquarters hotel. Anguilla would work.

I really, really hope this is a joke. Not that it's funny.

The World Series is, after all, significant television programming, and the good folks at Fox would love predictability. It's better than the official first dud of the fall TV season, "The Perfect Storm Hits the World Series."

At the risk of sounding redundant, a "perfect storm" is...ah, screw it.

There are a lot of questions that will be weighed after this, the worst World Series in memory. The first? With plummeting television ratings and the collapse of the economy, will the free agent market continue to inflate, or will it cool the market? The impact of this World Series may last right through into January.

This question is full of grammatical holes ("will it cool the market?" makes no sense because "it" refers to...nothing). I thought he said the first question to be dealt with was how to avoid weather problems in future World Series. I also thought he said this was the worst World Series ever, not the worst World Series "in memory".

The bigger issue, however, is that these radical suggestions (moving the World Series to a neutral site, shortening the season by fourteen games) and the excessive negativity (the "perfect storm", worst World Series ever, etc.) all stem from one game that had to be suspended for two days. If Tampa comes back and wins the Series, most people will look back on it as a particularly exciting World Series interrupted by some crappy weather, not a World Series that should have been good but was ruined by a stinking rain delay. If Philly holds on and wins Game 5, then there's still more drama than there otherwise would have been if the game had been completed on Monday.

Instead of focusing on the positive aspects of the extra drama foisted (ha!) upon this series by Mother Nature, Gammons bitches about how things used to be better back in the days when the United States and Cuba got along and the World Series ended two weeks earlier. He claims that this is the worst World Series ever, seemingly forgetting that the 2007 Red Sox trounced the upstart Rockies in four games that weren't particularly close, or that a clearly inferior Cardinals team ran over a Detroit team that couldn't field the damn ball. This series has at least featured three close games, some good pitching performances, and even a walk-off win. More importantly, it's not over yet. I can think of a number of outcomes that would make this series objectively better than the last few (a walk-off homer by Philly to clinch the Series tonight, Tampa roaring back to take the Series in 7, Philly blowing games 5 and 6 and then rallying behind another brilliant Hamels start to win in 7, etc.) It's worth noting, by the way, that the last scenario I mentioned would only be possible thanks to the two-day rain delay, allowing Hamels to come back for a potential Game 7.

After reading this column and writing this entry, I'm still stuck with some unanswerable questions. Why is Gammons so grumpy about all this? Why is he weirdly sympathetic to Fox? Why is he proposing radical measures to counter one stinking rain delay? Why does he complain about the lack of drama in recent World Series, overlooking the potential drama that still exists in this one? Finally, why is he such a bad writer?

Breaking news from Buster Olney

2008-10-29T11:41:00.001-07:00

To wit:

Relievers will ultimately decide Game 5

Good Lord.

Gammons Needs To Take Lessons From Peter King On How To Incorporate Dumb List Gimmicks Into His Columns

2008-08-07T09:18:00.000-07:00

Say what you will about Herr Gammons, but at least he understands the game, you know? He's just so knowledgeable. There's never a time that you think to yourself, "Man, this Gammons just doesn't get it." Right?

Five things I don't quite get

Oh. Um. Never mind. What is it that you don't get?

1. Why there is so much made of who hits behind whom, when it's who hits in front that counts.

Well, that was a confusing sentence. I think he was so excited to use the word "whom" correctly that he sacrificed coherence to do it. Of course, coherence is so often a sacrifice with him that I'm not sure "whom" had anything to do with it. What he's trying to say is that the hitter who bats after a specific player is not as important as the hitter who bats before him. Now, let's see what "evidence" he brings to support this hypothesis:

Keep your bases-empty stats. The definition of a rally is someone on base.

This makes absolutely no sense. If somebody does well with the bases empty (i.e. gets on base a lot), wouldn't that lead to the "definition of a rally", according to Gammons? Also, if you had to boil down the definition of a rally to something even Gammons could understand, it would probably be "multiple people getting on base", in which case it wouldn't matter who bats in front of whom (ha!) because they would both seemingly need to get on base.

David Ortiz can't hit without Manny Ramirez? He has experience doing just that.

In Sept. 2007, Ramirez played in six games, and Ortiz led the majors with a 1.341 OPS for the month. Ramirez batted behind him in one game.

In Sept. 2006, Ramirez again played in six games, Ortiz was second in the American League in OPS at 1.146.

I love how he says "Ramirez again played in six games", when the "again" refers to something that happened a year later. That's like saying, "In 1996, Bill Clinton was elected president. In 1992, Clinton was again elected." Also, nice run-on sentence.

Then comes a handy-dandy chart showing that Ortiz's OPS is actually slightly better without Manny in the lineup. (The chart, handy-dandy though it may be, does not indicate whether the "without Manny" column refers to Manny not hitting behind Ortiz or to Manny not being in the lineup at all.)

In his Red Sox career, Ortiz's OPS with Ramirez hitting behind him is 1.000. With anyone else, it's .998.

(Minor quibble, but technically Ortiz's OPS did not have a Red Sox career; Ortiz had a Red Sox career.)

From the evidence Gammons brings (and also from what he doesn't say), I wouldn't conclude that the importance of a batting order lies in the batter who hits before a particular hitter, but rather that the importance of a batting order is generally overstated. I would conclude this because Gammons brings absolutely no evidence that Ortiz fares better or worse depending on who hits in front of him. All I can conclude from his arguments is that Ortiz is no worse without Manny in the lineup, which, granted, is a valid point, but does nothing to support his theory.

Moving on to the second thing Gammons doesn't get...

2. What's going on with the Dodgers' money? Greg Maddux would have liked to finish the season with the Dodgers, and the Dodgers wanted the Hall of Famer. But when Maddux cleared waivers this week and the Padres went to trade him, Los Angeles demanded that the Padres pay $2.5 million of the $3 million remaining on Maddux's contract this year, and would not offer a useable prospect. Now, the Dodgers got the Red Sox to pay all of Manny Ramirez's contract, and the Indians to pay all of Casey Blake's deal. When the Dodgers tried to get in on CC Sabathia, they wanted the Indians, who have the second-lowest payroll in the AL, to eat the majority of Sabathia's remaining contract. And when the Pirates talked to them about Jack Wilson, the Dodgers wanted the Pirates to eat most of Wilson's contract for 2008 and 2009.

Um, Peter? I think I get it. The Dodgers are cheap. Next?

3. Two National League scouts this week predicted the Marlins will end up winning the East for the same reason -- their young pitching. Ricky Nolasco is already one of the better young starters in the league at 11-6 after two years of arm problems, but the scouts see Josh Johnson -- a potential front-end guy --as well Chris Volstad and Anibal Sanchez. And it's not only in terms of their 5-2 record and raw stuff, but the fact that they are fresh for August, usually considered the month of the power arms. Johnson and Sanchez have but 83 innings between them -- counting their minor league stints -- and the 21-year-old Volstad is still under 120 innings.

So...what's the part Peter doesn't get? Seems like a well-reasoned argument, if full of typos and incomplete sentences ("but the scouts see Josh Johnson as well Chris Volstad and Anibal Sanchez").

4. The Mets did not put in a claim for Livan Hernandez because they believe John Maine will be back, and they're willing to try Jon Niese if necessary. They will try Eddie Kunz as closer until Billy Wagner gets back.

Can anyone not be happy for Fernando Tatis with his .893 OPS and nine homers in 62 games going into Wednesday night? He says he quit the game in 2004 "because my body and my mind were worn out by the turf in Montreal." Hey, he was once a 30-homer guy, and one of the nicest folks walking.

I guess Peter Gammons is so smart that he couldn't keep the "5 things I don't quite get" gimmick going after number 2. Also, #4 contains two separate points, one of which is an explanation as to why the Mets didn't claim Livan Hernandez. What a mystery! Maybe they didn't pick him up because HE'S LIVAN FUCKING HERNANDEZ.

Also, Tatis is one of the nicest folks walking, but he's an asshole compared to all the cripples in wheelchairs. That is one nice group of people.

5. One NL team's defensive statistics, scouting and ratings have John McDonald of the Blue Jays as the best defensive shortstop in the majors. No surprise. They have Boston's Jed Lowrie at No. 5 among the 62 ranked shortstops, even if his sample is small. Derek Jeter and Jose Reyes, who is still working out mechanical start issues, are in the 40s, among the 62 shortstops. Edgar Renteria and Jeff Keppinger are among the bottom 5.

5 things I don't get about the number 5 thing Gammons doesn't get:

1. What is the difference among "statistics, scouting, and ratings"? Aren't ratings a combination of scouting and stats?
2. Why am I not surprised that Gammons singles out the Red Sox shortstop who's been playing for a month?
3. Who is Jeff Keppinger?
4. What are "mechanical start issues"?
5. How many Yankee fans will take issue with Gammons suggesting that Jeter is ranked in the 40s among 62 shortstops?

There, see, Gammons? It's not that hard a gimmick to maintain.

"Buster" Is Spanish for "Glaring Inconsistencies"

2008-07-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

Today's Buster Olney chat is a work of art. Well, to be more specific, it's a pile of shit. With apologies to the guys at FJM, who do a phenomenal job deconstructing Joe Morgan's weekly chats, I'd like to point out a couple of delightful items in Buster's chat. Before we get to the glaring inconsistencies, let's point to an excellent usage of a made-up word:

George Sherrill (Baltimore?): Hey Buster, where am I going to be August 1st? What should my O's expect in return?

Buster Olney: George: If I had to guess today (and that's all it is -- a guesstimate based on current conditions).

1. Milwaukee
2. Angels

Or 3. Orioles -- Baltimore just doesn't get an acceptable offer. But my guess is that the O's will deal him, because his value will never be higher than it is right now, and while Sherrill is pitching well and is a great, great story, nobody is going to forget that it wasn't long ago that he was an independent league pitcher; he does not have the pedigree of King Felix, as he would be the first to tell you.

Now, as any quasi-intelligent person would tell you, "guesstimate" is a word only an ignoramus would use. Whoever made it up thought she was being cute by combining the words "guess" and "estimate" into one super-word, but since an estimate is, by definition, a guess, there really is absolutely no difference between a "guesstimate" and a regular old "estimate". What makes this usage particularly delightful is that Olney is misusing the word even further by using it to refer to something that's not even an estimate. The only reasonable explanation is that Olney figured that since the words "guesstimate" and "estimate" are synonymous, then, by golly, so are "guesstimate" and "guess".

Eric (Appleton, WI): What are your current predictions on the playoff picture?

Buster Olney: Eric: They were so bad at the beginning of the season that anything I say now will have less than zero credibility, but hey, take them for what they're worth: Mets, Cubs, Brewers, D-Backs in the NL, Red Sox, Rays, White Sox and Angels in the AL.

I will give Buster credit for acknowledging that his preseason predictions were terrible, since some forecasters will just change their "predictions" every week based simply on what happened over the last week and make no reference to their earlier predictions (unless, of course, they happened to be correct). However, this blog is not about giving credit. Instead, I will just point out these aren't really "predictions", inasmuch as all of the teams he named are currently in playoff position. (Yes, I realize that the Dodgers are tied with Arizona and the Phillies with the Mets.) Now, remember these predictions.

Seymour, Brooklyn: Some of you "experts" never learn not to give up on the Yankees in the second half...

Buster Olney: Seymour: I picked them to win the division, so I'd hardly qualify as someone who has given up on them.

But, Buster, you picked them in your preseason predictions, which you yourself admitted were useless. And earlier in this chat, you picked the Red Sox and Rays to make the playoffs out of the AL East. In other words, you predicted the Yankees to succeed earlier in the season, then, asked to update your predictions, you predicted that the Yankees would not succeed. That, my friend, is the very definition of somebody who has given up on them.

This is What Happens When We Skip a Paragraph from Gammons' Column

2008-07-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

We end up missing gems like this:

Two months ago, a general manager said we are watching the unfurling of two dramas we have never before seen in our lifetime, and may never see again.

I will bet you ten dollars that the general manager in question did not use the phrase "watching the unfurling of two dramas". I've alluded to this earlier, but I'm honestly curious how many quotes Gammons either rephrases or makes up entirely.

One is Rick Ankiel, who has played less than two years as a position player and is so good a center fielder and everyday player that he certainly could have been here for the All-Star Game, what with 20 homers, 50 RBIs, an .880 OPS and the defensive show he has put on in center field.

"One" what "is Rick Ankiel"? One drama? But Rick Ankiel isn't a drama. He had a drama, perhaps. But a person cannot simply be a drama. Unless you're Peter Gammons. Also, nice use of the horrible awkward and unnecessary phrase, "what with 20 homers..."

To overcome his pitching nightmare of the 2000 playoffs, then after six years to become a hitter, and then overcome a blown-out knee …

"To overcome"..."To become"..."Overcome" [cue Sesame Street music] Which of these things is not like the others?

… few players are better inspiration for the capacity to never back down or give up.

I swear, I copied and pasted this directly. Peter Gammons actually believes that a person can inspire a capacity. I...have no words.

Josh Hamilton Makes Grumpy Old Man Marginally Less Grumpy

2008-07-15T17:19:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted here in a while, but I just reached a point that I reach every year at this time. It occurs about five minutes into the All-Star Game, when I suddenly remember that the All-Star Game is boring. And every year, I wonder how I forgot this.

But you know who isn't bored by the All-Star game and related festivities? Peter Gammons. In fact, they inspire him to bring his claptrap to a whole new level of inanity.

As you know if you read this blog, Peter Gammons is REALLY angry about the steroid scandal. Like, super duper PO'ed. It's not clear, though, whether he's angry about the fact that players actually took steroids, or that everyone found out, or, as we have theorized, that he didn't break the story himself years ago. His latest article only confuses the issue further.

Hamilton an inspiration in so many ways

That's Peter's headline. If you expect Peter to detail many different ways that Josh Hamilton is an inspiration, then, well, you haven't read much Peter Gammons.

One of the best things about baseball is that someone else comes along and
recreates being the hero.

This is actually a difficult article to pick apart, only because it is SO bad, SO far from being written in readable English (even for Gammons), that it's hard to pick out specific problems. Take this first sentence. "Someone else" besides whom? And what does "recreates being the hero" mean? I don't even know how to correct this phrase. It just isn't English. How do you recreate the state of being something? I know, only from reading the rest of the article, that what Gammons is trying to say here is that every so often, a new person comes along and saves the sport in a new way, or from a new problem, or something. This, to Peter, is "one of the best things about baseball." Makes me wonder if Peter really likes baseball all that much.

By the way, if Joe Buck calls that dark, dank, 1970s monstrosity that is Yankee Stadium a "jewel" one more time, I am pressing "mute."

Out of the embers of the Black Sox scandal came Babe Ruth. As a nation regrouped
between World War II and the Korean War, Jackie Robinson bravely changed the
face of sports and American society.

The metaphor in the first sentence is not that bad, by Gammons standards. But I included it because it highlights how little sense the second sentence makes. How did the nation regroup between World War II and the Korean War? Did the nation actually regroup from the Korean War in advance, before it even happened? Now, we can't really expect a sports writer like Gammons to be an astute scholar of U.S. history, but then why doesn't he just shut up about it? Because he's an arrogant old man that wins Peabodys, gosh darn it.

After the strike that canceled the 1994 World Series and led to the coldest
winter, along came Cal Ripken, the dignity and might of the Joe Torre/Derek
Jeter/Mariano Rivera Yankees, and then the summer of '98 with Mark McGwire and
Sammy Sosa. And when that entire era went to black and the waste depository of
the BALCO and aging clinics, Jose Canseco and gopher slimeballs reached the desk
of George Mitchell and millions wondered if they could ever trust the sport
again.

Okay, the metaphors are starting to get crappier with "the coldest winter." But we're still doing okay. Then... uh oh. The entire era "went to black." We've heard this phrase before -- it usually means, like when your TV goes black, that everything has become still and quiet. Is that what happened in baseball when the steroid scandal broke? Isn't it the exact opposite of what happened?

Next comes the dangling phrase "the waste depository of the BALCO and aging clinics." Where does this fit in the sentence? It's completely out of place. If we read it literally (always dangerous with Gammons), then Gammons is saying that the "era went to the waste depository of BALCO." That of course makes zero sense. But I have no alternatives. I'm lost. Adrift. Confused and sad. I need a hero to recreate stuff and cheer me up.

But let's forget about putting it all together. Let's just take this phrase and look at it by itself, as it dangles in the void, to see if it at least makes sense internally...
the waste depository of the BALCO and aging clinics ...
One sec... okay, no surprise, it doesn't. What is a "waste depository"? It sounds like what they would call a "dump" on a distant planet in a bad Star Trek episode. And the "waste depository of the BALCO and aging clinics"? What is an "aging clinic"? And is BALCO a clinic? Or is it called "the BALCO"? And do these clinics have waste depositories? Is that where they threw out the used needles? Okay, I have to move on, my brain hurts.

Why "reached the desk"? Just another bizarre metaphor choice. Awkward, awkward, awkward.

Finally, let's take the "substance" of this paragraph as a whole. Did you notice that Gammons has cited known steroid users Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa as "heroes" while, in the same breath, citing the Mitchell Report as a bleak crisis? How can he, and his editors (if they exist), miss the rank absurdity of this? This paragraph is only NOT contradictory if, as Joist and I have theorized, Gammons is not mad at actual steroid use at all, but at the people who broke the story (surprisingly, Gammons leaves his oft-uses slander "sewer rats" out of this particular article). Now, it all suddenly makes sense -- McGuire was a hero, because when asked by U.S. Congressmen whether he ever used steroids, he pled the fifth and kept his mouth shut. Mark McGuire, on the other hand, belongs in the "waste depository," because he ratted everyone out. Peter Gammons = Jimmy Conway from Goodfellas.

(Another quick note from the All-Star Game -- Yogi Berra just called Joe Buck "Jack." Buck looked a little flustered for a second, but didn't correct him. I don't mention this mockingly, it was actually kind of sweet.)

Every revelation about Roger Clemens' past and every "collusion" noise that
comes out of some parrot's beak has emphasized the need to move forward.

The metaphors are entering surrealist territory (did you notice I used a metaphor to describe the metaphors? good boy). Parrot's beak? I... don't even know what to say.

Also, Peter Gammons again uses language that conveys the exact opposite of what he wants to say. The claims of "collusion" don't "emphasize" the need to move forward; they do the exact opposite, according to Gammons! What Gammons means to say, of course, is that the prevalence of the Clemens and collusion stuff necessitates moving forward. We just want Gammons to say what he means, and to say it clearly. Is that too much to ask? ...Don't answer that.

That is why no team has signed Barry Bonds, who can still impact any
lineup -- owners and general managers understandably don't want to talk about
the past. They want to try to move on into an era with drug testing, in whatever
form the morphed sport takes.

What does it mean to say that drug testing will take whatever form the sport takes? How can drug testing and the sport take the same form? These are trick questions. That's not really what Gammons is saying at all. He just misplaced a modifying phrase.

By now, Hamilton's story of overcoming demons is two blocks from Hollywood. Oh,
it's easy to give it a Nancy Reagan "he made a choice" and so on and so on and
so on and so on, but the fact is that millions of people in this country get
addicted to drugs and ruin their lives.

Oh no, more metaphors. "Too blocks from Hollywood"? I have no flipping clue what that means. The next sentence is just flabbergasting. Why does he say "Nancy Reagan"? Is this a reference to something the first lady said in 1982 that I don't know about? And why does Gammons say "and so on" four times? Why oh why oh why oh why? Isn't that annoying?

Finally, how does the "fact" that millions get addicted to drugs make it less their fault? I'm not making the argument that it is their fault; unlike Gammons, I don't use my sports-themed blog to make hackneyed political points. But Gammons' opposition in this sentence makes no sense.

After that, the article starts talking about Hamilton's addiction and his efforts to help others, and that stuff is too serious to mock. Besides, that part is not as badly written, perhaps because Gammons is putting aside his tortured attempts at wit and satire to talk about something serious.

But then he gets back into Grump Mode and rambles back into incoherence:

Baseball is not about corporate boxes and extracting licensing pennies from poor
kids or taxpayer dollars donated to construct ballparks to help billionaires
make millions. It is about Babe Ruth changing the sports culture, Jackie
Robinson changing America and Cal Ripken changing lives.

Here Gammons also slips back into one of his annoying habits -- saying "it" is "about" stuff. Just vague, lousy writing.

And how on God's green earth is baseball "extracting licensing pennies from poor kids"? Don't they extract licensing fees from companies wanting to make money off of baseball's intellectual property? Where do the poor kids fit in? If people who run merchandizing companies can be referred to as "poor kids," than society has come very far indeed.

And I'll grant, arguendo, that Cal Ripken's streak was an impressive accomplishment, even though I never found it particularly exciting. But how did Cal Ripken showing up to a lot of games in a row change people's lives??? That is some wacky hyperbole.

Finally, that sentence is just grammatically a complete mess. But I'm getting tired, so I won't get into the details of that. Let's just finish this up...

Baseball has always been able to turn the page because of someone and
something always grew up out of the rubble, and Josh Hamilton began the process
of turning the page on Monday night.

This is one of those times where I wonder if Gammons isn't just getting a little senile and if perhaps we should just let him be. He clearly just lost track of this sentence in the middle. He wrote "because of someone," then forgot about the "of" and wrote, effectively, "because of something always grew up." This is also one of those times where Gammons just needed an editor to give it one lousy proofread.

Okay, let's skip to the last sentence:

We are reminded that baseball can help us remember what we stand for, not against, what we believe, not what we fear, and that while we learn from the past, what we all want is to open the door to the future.

And we come back to my original comment, that this article is so bad that there's nothing to correct. This sentence is just totally incoherent. It just contains a lot of cliches thrown together in one mess of a sentence. And lord knows what it all has to do with Josh Hamilton.

Okay, the All-Star game just got less boring again. Some jerk from the Team That Just Won't Go Away just tied the game up for the AL...

Maybe We Need To Start an "Edit Buster Olney" Blog

2008-07-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

Today, my question isn't, "How stupid is Buster Olney?" but rather, "Which of these two headlines is dumber?"

7/7/08, the day after C.C. Sabathia was traded to the Brewers:

Count on Sabathia having an impact in the NL

7/8/08, the same day Rich Harden was traded to the Cubs:

Don't expect Cubs to answer CC trade

The first headline is the baseball equivalent of, "Count on the sun to rise tomorrow". The second is not only untrue, but was proven to be false less than 24 hours after the column was posted. I leave it to you to decide.

What Is This "Rulebook" Of Which You Speak?

2008-07-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

From Buster Olney's blog, about an umpire who got nailed twice by foul tips in a game yesterday:

But he was OK to travel Wednesday evening; his crew's next series will be in Chicago this weekend. One of the medical personnel whom Welke spoke with mentioned to him that he seemed to be seeing more direct shots back into the umpire's mask in recent years, and Welke has a theory about that: As umpires have worked to adhere to the ball-strike standards imposed by the QuesTec technology, they have had to stand taller behind the catcher.
"You have to get as high as you can to see the ball on the outside," said Welke. The veteran umpire repeated that he was fine, though. "It's just part of the job," he said.

This is what makes me hate umpires (and, to a lesser extent, Buster Olney). Everybody together now: the strike zone is clearly defined in the rulebook, which predates Questec by, what, 120 years? The reason Questec was instituted was that umpires were notoriously creating their own strike zones - calling strikes on pitches a foot off the corner, calling belt-high pitches balls because they're "high", etc. Also, the strike zones varied widely from ump to ump; some were known as "pitchers' umps" because they'd extend the corners, and some had infamously tight strike zones that obviously favored the hitters.

(By the way, an increasingly frustrating subplot to this phenomenon was the blithe acceptance of it by announcers. "Oh, tonight's umpire has a very wide strike zone, so the hitters will really have to bear down and be prepared to swing at those outside pitches!" "Well, this umpire really hasn't been calling that pitch, but at least he's consistent." etc.)

Anyway, along came Questec with the desired result of - get ready - a uniform strike zone! Wow, what a novel concept! Of course, umpires and pitchers were both pissed about it; umpires because they actually had enforceable standards to which they now had to adhere (as opposed to freely interpreting the rulebook to fit what they personally feel should be a strike), and pitchers because the umps' subjective interpretations generally favored them.

This piece, however, takes the prize for "most moronic case against Questec." Welke is apparently blaming QuesTec for making him get into proper position to call the outside pitches. What was he doing before QuesTec, reclining in a lawn chair and guessing wildly where the ball was? "Well, fuck positioning myself to get a call right, I might get hit by a line drive!" Yes, obviously, some risk is involved in standing about 65 feet from a guy throwing 95 mph, but I'm pretty sure he knew about the risk when he signed up to be a professional umpire. In fact, he even acknowledges that he's aware of the risk, when he bravely admits, "It's just part of the job."

As stupid as Welke comes off in this, though, Olney's words might be even dumber. Let's reprise them:

As umpires have worked to adhere to the ball-strike standards imposed by the QuesTec technology, they have had to stand taller behind the catcher.

The key word there is, of course, "imposed". Again, QuesTec did not "impose" ball-strike standards; those have been around as long as baseball itself. It helped "enforce" the standards, or perhaps "strengthen" them. It's one thing for an umpire who, rightly or wrongly, feels like his authority is being challenged and his physical safety compromised by machines. It's quite another for a writer, with no vested interest whatsoever, to imply that MLB caused more umpire injuries by imposing "new" standards.

Ironically, We Have Fewer Posts About Peter Gammons, a Baseball Writer, During the Baseball Season

2008-06-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

It's been, what, six weeks since our last post? Oh, well. Life goes on. Foist is moving soon, I'm lazy, and life goes on. Take heart, though. Gammons continues to befuddle. Observe:

After the title ("Harden Could Be Big Prize"), the first paragraph consists of two words, in bold and italics:

Rich Harden...

I'm not really sure what to make of this. It will be come clear later in the column, but only MUCH later, so in the meantime, let's just assume that Peter is harboring a strange heterosexual man-crush on him.

Indians general manager Mark Shapiro is doing the right thing, collecting due diligence should he decide that trading C.C. Sabathia will bring him more than two draft choices. Cleveland is in the process of thoroughly scouting eight organizations, from the Yankees to the Red Sox to the Cubs to the Dodgers.

Didn't believe me that Gammons continues to befuddle? Consider:

a. "Due diligence" cannot be "collected".
b. As much as he would like to, Shapiro does not get to "decide" whether trading Sabathia brings him more than two draft choices.
c. The last sentence should be six (or even five) words. Five points to the person who can figure out which six.
d. Connection to Rich Harden? Later? Okay, then.

Without Victor Martinez, Travis Hafner, Jake Westbrook, Adam Miller and a defined bullpen*, it may be impossible** for the Indians to seriously challenge*** in the American League Central. Shapiro has made it clear to other general managers that he is prepared to move sooner rather than later, which increases the value of Sabathia (who has a 2.21 ERA over his past eight starts) because if another team acts quickly, it could have the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner for an additional 4-6 starts.

*I feel like this problem is easily rectified.
bullpen –noun

Baseball.

a.	a place where relief pitchers warm up during a game.

b.	the relief pitchers on a team.

There.

**If something "may be impossible", wouldn't that make it...possible? I think perhaps Peter should have stuck with "unlikely". I know he doesn't think it's actually impossible, considering we are not yet halfway through the season and it's not like there's a team in that division running away with it.

***The construction "seriously challenge" is retarded. Either they'll challenge for the title or they won't. Unless he's saying that it's only a "serious challenge" if they get within a certain distance of first place, say, three games, and anything more than that is, I suppose, a "lighthearted challenge" or a "half-assed challenge".

Alright, now we're two paragraphs, and aside from the weird opening words, still no mention of Harden. Obviously there's a connection here, since he and Sabathia are both good pitchers who may well be traded to a contender this year, but of course, we've seen Gammons make a habit of not tying his columns to their titles until he's well into his rambling. Naturally, by the time we get to this point, we have no idea what he's saying, which is why he of all people should probably stick with addressing the title as soon as possible. But, I digress. On with the nonsense.

It did not appear the Yankees would leap into the Sabathia market with a Phil Hughes or a multi-prospect package, but that may change if the right foot injury that Chien-Ming Wang suffered on Sunday afternoon turns out to be a multi-week problem.* Andy Pettitte and Mike Mussina are likely to be gone at the end of the season. Payroll will come tumbling off the books as they move into the Taj Mahal of ballparks** and even if they do not include Hughes, there are enough prospects from Ian Kennedy to Alan Horne (once a Cleveland draftee) to Austin Jackson to Mark Melancon to get a trade done. Shapiro is not going to get the package the Indians got for Bartolo Colon (Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips and Cliff Lee), but that was one of the most one-sided deals of the last decade.***

*This sentence's verb tenses are out of whack. "It did not appear that the Yankees would [trade for Sabathia]..." implies that this appearance was in the past, and presently they would consider it, but then in the second half, he says that "it may change if [Wang's injury] turns out to be a multi-week problem," implying that as of right now, the Yankees remain uninterested in dealing for Sabathia. From reading this, I have absolutely no idea whether the Yankees are considering it as of now. Nitpicky, yes, but the greatest baseball writer of his generation should be nitpicked, no? I hate to bring up the same analogy again, but if a young, budding sportswriter submitted this drivel, an editor would tear it to shreds.

**"Taj Mahal of ballparks"? Seriously?? What makes a stadium that HASN'T EVEN OPENED YET the Taj Mahal? This is the ol' ESPN Northeast Bias at its worst.

Also, re-reading it, the analogy doesn't even make sense. It's easy to compare ballparks, because there are thirty of them (not including ballparks that are defunct, minor-league, amateur, independent, etc.), and lots of information about each one is readily available . But what, exactly, is comparable to the Taj Mahal? How many palaces are there in the world? Do we know anything about them? I refuse to believe that the new Yankee Stadium will be so glorious and magnificent that no other ballpark can even compare. I know, I'm rambling, but this kind of retarded analogy, like much of Gammons' writing, makes sense for about six seconds, but I reread it and it makes less and less sense the more I read it. Am I the only one (besides Foist) who closely examines Gammons' writing and realizes that he makes no sense?

***There is a huge, gaping hole in this argument. Most of this paragraph is about next year's Yankees (the new ballpark, Pettitte and Mussina likely being gone, etc.), and how these aspects would lend themselves nicely to a Sabathia trade, but as everybody knows (and Gammons says), Sabathia will be a free agent at the end of THIS year. The missing link would seem to be that the Yankees would only trade for him if they can sign him to an extension, but it has already been reported that the Indians will not grant a potential trading partner an exclusive contract negotiating window. As we will soon see, however, this is not the most egregious case within this column of Gammons leaving an important piece of information out of a paragraph. Are you on the edge of your seat? Me, too.

[Paragraph listing other potential suitors for Sabathia. Still no word on Harden.]

Rich Harden …

Oh, here's where he must tie in Harden.

Sometime in the next month, Braves GM Frank Wren and Bobby Cox will decide whether or not they can stay within hailing distance of the Phillies, considering all their injuries. Wren plans to do similar due diligence to what Shapiro has initiated, and if the Braves are buried too far in the NL East, they will see if they can get more than they would with two draft picks*. Agent Scott Boras is not likely to do a trade and sign deal, unless the Angels were to decide they could DH Casey Kotchman each day and were willing to deal right-handed pitcher Nick Adenhart, as the Braves need to start retooling their arms.

So after another, apparently Tourette's Syndrome-induced outburst of Harden's name, we get a paragraph only superficially related to either the title or the previous paragraphs. Now we're talking about the Braves, and how they might also be in trouble. Where did this come from? But, more importantly...

*WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? "They will see if they can get more than they would with two draft picks." Is somebody on the Braves going to be a free agent? Why, in an article ostensibly based around Harden and Sabathia (again, hard to tell), is Gammons bringing up an anonymous free agent-to-be on the Braves and NOT naming him?? This makes me very angry. I refuse to look it up, because Gammons (presumably) already knows who he's talking about, so how hard would it be to stick his name in there?

After some consideration, I'd be willing to give Peter a pass on this one (if it weren't for his countless other sloppy mistakes). It's a pretty ridiculous mistake to make, considering that the name of the player in question is the key to the entire paragraph. The question is, where are the goddamn editors? If it weren't for a lack of spelling errors or more obvious grammatical flaws, I would posit that there is simply no way that anybody read this over before it was submitted. Given the unlikelihood of this scenario, however, I am utterly dumbfounded that somebody could have read this paragraph and approved it.

The Dodgers were encouraged by two Brad Penny outings and were talking about trying to deal him for a bat (the coaching staff suggested a deal for Robinson Cano), but the shoulder problems that troubled Penny after his superb April have cropped up*, and he is now likely unmoveable.**

*If the shoulder problems have been troubling Penny since the end of April, then how did they just "crop up"? I don't even know what he means here. Did the shoulder troubles get worse? Is he referring to the beginning of April when he says that the problems cropped up? Why on earth would he use the phrase "cropped up", anyway?

**Ha. One paragraph after I suggested that the lack of spelling errors renders the scenario that Gammons simply has no editors extremely unlikely, what does Peter do? That's right, misspells a word!

No one really* believes Junior Griffey is really* going to leave Cincinnati, and just what the Reds can get for Adam Dunn is unclear; even if Boston were to lose David Ortiz for the rest of the season, his lack of contact scares them** for a mid-lineup hitter***, and might instead look**** at a count worker like the Marlins' Josh Willingham, who is arbitration-eligible at the end of the season and can fill in at DH, first base, left field and even be an emergency catcher.***** Coco Crisp is hitting the way he did in Cleveland, and when he, J.D. Drew and Jacoby Ellsbury are in the same outfield, they have the best defense in the game.******

*Really?

**Another high-school grammar lesson: "Boston", although full of many people, is a singular city, and requires a singular pronoun.

***Earth to Peter: There are major league baseball teams besides the Red Sox, many of which could use an offensive machine such as Dunn. Also, the phrase "his lack of contact scares them for a mid-lineup hitter" is ass-backwards and I have no idea how to fix it because it sucks so bad.

****Following the rules of subject-verb agreement, I believe the noun for the predicate "might instead look" is...Adam Dunn's lack of contact! Well-played, sir.

*****Considering how many asterisks are in this sentence, it has to rank up there with the worst sentences Gammons has ever written. I didn't even mention the startling lack of parallelism in the list at the end. Well, until now.

******Rich Harden? Still AWOL.

The Cubs, who are serious about acquiring another starting pitcher, may not have enough to get Sabathia, have let the Padres know they're interested in Randy Wolf and Greg Maddux and even let it be known to the Mariners that if they want to discuss Erik Bedard, they want in. In time, if Toronto never gets hitting and keeps sitting near the bottom of the standings, the Jays may deal A.J. Burnett rather than allow him to opt out of his deal in November; if I were the Mets, I'd be trying to unload the system along with Carlos Beltran for Alex Rios and Burnett.*

This paragraph is all over the place. Cubs...Blue Jays...blah. This whole column is just a bunch of extremely loosely connected points about what players various teams might or might not trade or trade for. Seems to me like a much better option for Peter would be to just list all the teams he wants to discuss in bullet form and mention all the players each team might trade or trade for. This option would also eliminate the need for Peter to construct coherent sentences and paragraphs, which, if you've read this far, you already know is not his forte.

*Perhaps this is why Gammons is not a GM. He knows a lot about baseball, but this proposed deal seems way off. Why would they unload their reputedly loaded farm system and star outfielder (who, granted, isn't performing up to par) for a lesser outfielder and an injury-prone starting pitcher? For that matter, if the Mets are eager to rid themselves of Beltran, what would Toronto want with him?

Rich Harden …

Ok, a third time? Really? Tell me you're finally going to actually write about him. You will? Oh, thank goodness.

A call came in Sunday morning that said, "Billy Beane has the single most important piece to trade* to win the World Series. But the question is, how many songs do you let Slowhand play before a string breaks."**

*Should be "trade for", assuming that Gammons means that Beane isn't the one planning on winning the World Series by trading Harden.

**If it's a question, where's the question mark?

Also, Slowhand? Broken strings? Nice obscure musical reference. Thankfully, Gammons' bio informs us that he is a "gifted musician". Given how much his bio extols his writing, I will take this musical "gift" with several grains of salt, thank you.

Hello, Rich Harden.* Beane is right** -- Harden is the most dominant pitcher in the American League right now. Nine starts; the last time he had more than that was 2005. Seven quality starts. 11.31 strikeouts per nine innings. 53.1 innings pitched, 40 hits allowed. Has started against Boston twice, the Angels, Detroit and Atlanta once. He has a career 35-18 record, but he's had a career in which his starts have gone from 31 to 22 to nine to seven before 2008.

*Hi!

**Gammons didn't say who made the call that "came in" Sunday morning, but couldn't we logically assume it was not Beane, since the caller refers to him in the third person? Assuming that's true, it's not Beane who's right, it's the mysterious caller.

Actually, now that I think about it, how devious and Billy-Beane-like would it be for Beane to leak an "anonymous" phone call to the most famous baseball writer on the planet telling him that Harden is the best possible trade option for a team with World Series aspirations in order to raise Harden's stock? And how funny would it be if Gammons were in on the ruse and then accidentally ruined it by exposing his "anonymous" tipster the very next paragraph?

I was going to deconstruct this whole argument, using statistics and everything - Harden might be a slightly more attractive option for teams because he won't be a free agent like Sabathia would at the end of the year, but purely in terms of winning the World Series this year, I don't see how you could make the case that Harden's a better option than Sabathia, especially given Harden's fragility (which Gammons does mention later, but only at the end after lovingly floating his name a few times throughout his column). But if Gammons is in cahoots with Beane, that changes everything, doesn't it? Moneyball even mentioned instances when Beane would float rumors to Gammons in order to gauge interest/raise value/whatever. Hmmm...

Announcer Dumbness IV

2008-04-23T17:30:00.000-07:00

This isn't a specific quote, but during the Yankees - White Sox game the Yankees announcers have been going on and on (and on) about starter Javier Vazquez and the fact that he "didn't make it in New York," like "so many other players" who just "couldn't cut it" there because of all the pressure bla bla. This relates nicely to Joist's most recent post about Gammons' latest claptrap. But even if you buy this "if you can make it here you can make it anywhere" stuff in general, it makes zero sense as applied to Vazquez. It's amazing how many people forget this (including Yankees fans, who tend to have severely selective memories), but Vazquez was actually excellent in the FIRST half of his one season on the Yankees, to the tune of a 3.56 ERA at the All-Star Break. Of course, he mysteriously took a tumble in the second half. Did he suddenly realize after the All Star Game, "Holy crap! This city is friggin' 'uge!" (to borrow Michael Kay's pronunciation)? No. Fact is we don't know what happened to him, but can we stop saying it was the "New York pressure"? Thank you.

Gammons Makes His Triumphant Return

2008-04-22T18:44:00.000-07:00

For those of you wondering why we went nearly a month without a post, it's because this blog's namesake has done the same. His previous post was so full of meaningless drivel and ambiguities that I thought maybe some lowly intern at ESPN had read Foist's attack and finally pointed out to Gammons that maybe he should stick to TV or something. Of course, said intern would likely have been fired immediately, but maybe Gammons took his words to heart, took some time off, read our entire blog, and reevaluated the way he writes. Maybe, after a brief hiatus, Gammons has resolved to write informatively and with unique insight. Let's check the title, shall we?

It's very different in N.Y., Boston

Hmm...not looking good so far. Let's check the "Gammons Crappiness Checklist", shall we?

1. Poorly reasoned and/or obvious point?
2. Overly Boston/NY-centric?
3. Unnecessary Boston-specific references?
4. Unnecessary name-dropping?
5. Uninteresting ideas? And, of course...
6. Bad writing?

Let's run through some of the column and see where we stand.

The numbers are not pretty. Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy have started a combined seven games, pitched 30 1/3 innings and are 0-5. Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz have started seven games, and won two.

Alright, so far, so good. Those pitchers have been underachieving, and Gammons sums up this point nicely.

After two of Hughes' losses, there have been references to the Yankees' refusal to trade him for Johan Santana, and recently Hank Steinbrenner expressed his desire to move Joba Chamberlain out of the Yanks' bullpen and to rescue the rotation. In one Boston paper, there have been references to Santana in stories putting Lester and Buchholz in lives-in-the-balance mode ... before the Boston Marathon had even started.

Ugh...so much for that. We've got an incorrect verb tense ("have been" should be "were") as well as a couple of unnecessarily vague statements ("there have been references" instead of "Columnist X" or whoever, "one Boston paper" instead of "the Boston Globe" or whatever). And of course the gratuitous Boston reference at the end - who the fuck outside of Boston knows on what date the Boston Marathon falls? What does it have anything to do with the baseball season?

It's very different for Hughes, Kennedy, Lester and Bucholz than it was for Shawn Marcum and Dustin McGowan as they were allowed to develop in peace in Toronto, or the way the White Sox have slid John Danks and Gavin Floyd into their rotation.

Firstly, didn't Gammons himself point out that the Boston Marathon hasn't occurred yet? Whenever that is? He's already concluding that those young guys won't do as well as Danks and Floyd, who were universally projected to suck this year? This sentence is also a grammatical mess, but I need not get into that. Also, the last clause about Danks and Floyd sounds like something out of a Danielle Steele novel.

Secondly, is the pressure really THAT much worse? The White Sox and Blue Jays (at least in their own eyes) are contenders, so it's not as though they would stand idly by if their young starters struggled for extended periods of time. I'm sure Danks, Floyd, McGowan, and Marcum are also feeling "pressure", to, like, perform or something.

Finally, the "Boston/NY players feel more pressure" argument has always struck me as shallow. I'd like to see a study showing that an inordinately high number of young players struggle in those cities. Seems like for every Ian Kennedy, there's a Joba Chamberlain, and for every Clay Bucholz, there's a Jacoby Ellsbury. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to conclude that young players often struggle when they first get to the majors, whether they happen to play in the Northeast or not?

"It is totally different for those four kids, who are dealing with inordinate pressure," says one GM. "It's really tough. All four should be good major league pitchers; Hughes, Lester and Buchholz should all be top-of-the-rotation starters. But there will be growing pains. But any of them that survive this should be really good."

I think Gammons interviewed himself pretending to be a GM for this quote. Two consecutive sentences starting with "but"? And what exactly is the "this" that they are "surviving"? When is the pressure period over for young players?

Hughes, living with Santana above his locker, had to start in Fenway Park on a Sunday night game televised on ESPN. Buchholz has already had two starts against the Yankees.

I just got this hilarious picture of Phil Hughes and Johan Santana huddled together in the crawl space above the locker room at Yankee Stadium. "Hey, Johan, how about you use some of that $150 million and go get yourself a 2-bedroom apartment in Queens?"

The next section of his column deals with some notable pitchers' declining velocities (Ted Lilly, Barry Zito, Justin Verlander, Jensen Lewis, and Clay Bucholz). It's long and boring and full of half-assed explanations, but two particularly amusing parts stood out to me:

1. Gammons mentions Bucholz as one of those whose velocity was noticeably lower, but doesn't mention this as a possible reason for his early-season struggles, which he talked about in the first section. Maybe he thinks his struggles are consequent of his diminished velocity, which in turn is a result of the rabid Boston media.

2. This explanation:

One general manager suggests that modern spring training is a reason for the lax early season velocities.

"We've made spring training so long [this year's report date was Feb. 14], and it's really become one long stretch where too many players get bored, especially the pitchers," the GM said. "Nowadays, you seldom see the best pitchers out there having to compete. They throw in minor league B games, or simulated games, and really never tune it up against good major league hitters until the season starts. Maybe we need to shorten spring training, but get our pitchers working in real games competing against the best hitters."

Gammons spent the entire article talking specifically about this year's pitchers who have velocity problems. Now apparently it's a result of the entire era, which would seem to indicate that this early-season diminished-velocity issue has been around for a long time. Which is it? Gammons helpfully explains this apparent contradiction as follows:

...

Oh, wait, he doesn't.

Before we go, let's briefly consult the Gammons Crappiness Checklist:

1. Poorly reasoned and/or obvious point? Check. It's actually both; the whole "lots of pressure in New York" angle is terribly overplayed (and therefore "obvious") and Gammons brings nothing other than ancillary facts to support it.
2. Overly Boston/NY-centric? Check. Obviously, it's the point of the entire article.
3. Unnecessary Boston-specific references? Check. In case you were wondering, the Boston Marathon is run every year on Patriot's Day, a holiday occurring on the third Monday in April that is only really celebrated in Boston even though it's not related to the New England Patriots. Not that I'm one to talk - in my city (Los Angeles) "Cesar Chavez Day" is observed on March 31.
4. Unnecessary name-dropping? Check. Among the brief bullet points he writes at the end is a tidbit about Alex Rodriguez's workout routine, an aspect of which Gammons quotes A-Rod as having learned from Ichiro. So Gammons name-drops A-Rod, who is quoted name-dropping somebody else! Nice.
5. Uninteresting ideas? Check. The whole "young pitchers struggle" thing has been done ad infinitum and Gammons brings nothing new to the table. I will give him points for the discussion of pitchers' velocity, since that was something I didn't realize was a league-wide issue.
6. Bad writing? Check. Ambiguous pronouns, vague references, wrong verb tenses - it's all there!

In conclusion: Welcome back, Peter!

Well-Known Error About Error Persists

2008-04-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

An article on a teary-eyed Bill Buckner throwing out the first pitch at the Red Sox home opener included this stock narrative:

In the 10th inning of Game 6, with Boston one out away from its first world
title since 1918, a Mookie Wilson ground ball up the first base line rolled
between Buckner's legs, allowing Ray Knight to score from third and allow [sic] the
Mets to tie the series at 3 games apiece. The Mets went on to win Game 7 and the
series. Buckner, who played part of the 1987 season before being released,
played 22 games for Boston in 1990 before retiring.

The clause "with Boston one out away from its first world title since 1918" is, of course, inaccurate. Boston was in fact only one out away from taking the game to the 11th inning, as the Mets had already tied the game. Bizarrely, this inaccuracy persists, even in reputable news sources, even though one so frequently hears pundits and fans commenting on how prevalent the error is.

Announcer Dumbness III

2008-04-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

Darrin Jackson, in the ninth inning of today's White Sox-Tigers game, after some Bobby Jenks chin music sailed over the catcher's head and narrowly missed the umpire, who somehow resisted the urge to get the hell out of the way:

"The umpire...did not flinch, that was pretty impressive. Didn't blink, didn't do anything."

Darrin Jackson: mediocre color commentator, and Guy Who Can See Through Umpires' Masks.

Will Blog For Currency

2008-04-04T10:26:00.000-07:00

Peter Gammons has some predictions to make, but first he's going to undermine the entire exercise... I think.

Predictions have no currency; they are non-fiction, radio-TV shock-jock stuff.

Huh? I mean.... huh? I think Peter means to say that predictions are flashy and an easy way to get attention, but lack substance. I say this because two of the four descriptions in this opening sentence (specifically, the last two) are consistent with this idea, which is also a reasonably true one.
But... "have no currency"? If he means that they are not current or prevalent, he is certainly wrong, as at this time of year predictions are flying around like unsubstantiated allegations in a Jose Canceco book (that one was for you, Peter). I guess he could mean that any particular prediction has no currency, in the sense that it will never become the prevalent prediction among all prognosticators; everyone will always have their own "hunch." Maybe. That's my hunch (it has no currency).

Far more baffling is "non-fiction." Isn't he disparaging predictions here? I have absolutely no idea, not even a guess, as to why he says predictions are non-fiction.

Joist would definitely quote the 2nd sentence, as it lacks proper parallel structure, but I'm bored with that parallel crap, I'm moving on to the 3rd sentence:

The Red Sox may be the favorites to win the World Series for the third time in
five years (the house postgame show Tuesday opened with "Red Sox Nation's dreams
of a 162-0 season are still alive"), but if anything happens to Josh Beckett or
Jason Varitek, they, as Dylan once said, ain't goin' nowhere.

First, I thought in those parenthesis he would verify that, indeed, they are the favorites. Instead, he quotes an overused joke. Being the guy that says "we're going 162-0!" after a win on opening day is like being the guy in a sauna that says "it's like a sauna in here!" Lame. More importantly here, do you really mean Beckett or Varitek? I understand Beckett, but... Varitek?? Varitek is still a decent player. He has a .788 OPS last year, which is pretty good for a catcher. But he threw out only 24% of runners last year (putting him in the bottom half of baseball), is on the downside of his career, and is on a team full of megastars. But I suppose I haven't factored in his contributions as "Captain." But can't he perform his Captain-ly duties from the bench? I mean, you strain your quads, and then you can't be Captain anymore?

Then Gammons puts on a sarcasm clinic. A clinic, I tell you:

Yeah, we all knew that Fausto Carmona would go from 1-10 to fourth in the Cy
Young balloting; that Dustin Pedroia would hit .182 in April and, with the heart
of a world champion, end up as the AL Rookie of the Year; that the top three
closers in terms of saves would be Joe Borowski, Jose Valverde and Francisco
Cordero; or that three players who started the season in the minors -- Ryan
Braun, Hunter Pence, Kyle Kendrick -- would all end up in the top five in the
National League Rookie of the Year balloting.

Yes, Fauto and Pedroia were surprises. The closers were less surprising, as Valverde and Cordero at least had been plenty good before last year. But how in the world is it surprising that the ROOKIE of the Year would start the year in the minors? You do not need to play a full season to qualify, and it's a contest specifically for players who were oh-so-recently in the minors (or, perhaps, in Japan). These were all very highly regarded prospects on the verge of a call-up. Of course, I would not go so far as to say their finishes were easy to predict, but they're not shocking, and they're certianly not shocking because they were in the minors on April 1.

Gammons then lists the contenders in each division, thankfully NOT listing them in pairs. It's acutally a reasonable list... dare I say, it has currency?

Then we finally arrive at his season-end predictions, which of course he himself has admitted are silly. But let's go back to that second sentence that I skipped:

One can spend six weeks roaming spring training and believe that the Braves
and Red Sox may well be the best teams in their leagues, but we all know
what happens if John Smoltz, Mike Hampton and Chipper Jones get hurt.

I skipped it also because it seemed a reasonable point; the Braves have some old, gimpy players -- especially on the pitching staff -- who are likely to get hurt and miss serious time. Heck, Mike Hampton is virtually guaranteed NOT to pitch (and, indeed, is already on the DL). But think about this: even with those old farts in the lineup, are the Braves even close to the "best team in their league"? Why? Their lineup is decent, but it's probably the THIRD-best lineup in the division, and their pitching could only kindly be described as mediocre, with the strong potential to be far worse than that. What about "roaming spring training" made Peter Gammons believe the Braves are so great? This would be the one interesting thing for Gammons to explain in this column. Fat chance.

But Gammons qualifies this surprising and unjustified assessment with the salient fact that the team is likely to experience some injuries. Fine. But then, still without explanation, he picks the Braves to play in the World Series. Just a total lack of currency. Slated to finish dead last in the league in "currency," Gammons is.

Then he has some other "prognostications," sneaking in a few more bizarre Gammonisms along the way:

Manny Ramirez , Red Sox. Just watch him run. The winter at Athletes' Performance
Center in Tempe, Ariz., changed him physically and mentally, and it doesn't hurt
to have David Ortiz in his tandem.

Yes, Gammons is, as always, absurdly optimistic, Manny is old and will not really get healthier, et cetera. But David Ortiz is "in his tandem"? Is this an actual phrase? Do Manny and Papi ride around together in a tandem bicycle? That must be one strong-ass bike.

Alex Rodriguez , Yankees. Sulk, Jose, sulk. A-Rod's going to Cooperstown, and
you're going into a wax museum.

Gammons spent much of his offseason spewing venom at A-Rod, to an almost slanderous degree. Could it be that Gammons actually hates Canceco even more than that? I shudder to think such hatred exists in this world. And right here on one of our most treasured sports websites.

What he is is the best catcher in the game, the Dodgers' leader, and an intense
offensive machine who can hit .330 with a .900 OPS.

"What he is is"? Gammons, are you three?

3. Derek Lee, Cubs: Best lineup he's had to hit in.

Lee: Aww, coach, do I have to hit in that lineup? FINE. (pouts.)

1. Justin Verlander, Tigers. He may be in the running every year, but in 2008
13.7 runs of support per start may win 25 games.

13.7 runs?? Is that a joke? It actually might be; Gammons is humor-challenged, so it's hard to tell.

2. Josh Beckett, Red Sox. One man for one game.

I have no idea what he's talking about. Sounds momentous though.

2. Carlos Zambrano, Cubs. Freed from contract concerns, he can be a franchise
starter.

Don't you love how in Baseball Pundit Land, being in a contract year can make you play better (because you're motivated) or worse (because you're distracted) depending on, you know, what happens? I wonder if Gammons knows what "spurious" means...

3. Johan Santana, Mets. Dealing with expectations easier with Pedro Martinez at
his side.

This is just so severe and infantile a grammatical error that I will not bother pointing it out explicitly. It's beneath this (stupid) blog (that nobody reads). I will leave it to you, (imaginary) reader who is older than three, to figure it out.

3. Delmon Young, Twins. The plate discipline will come because he wants to be
great.

I want to be great. Where's mine?
Then, after NOT including James Loney on the list of breakouts because "he broke out last season":

9. Corey Hart, Brewers. As if an .892 OPS, 24 homers, 23 steals and 66
extra-base hits didn't constitute a breakout.

As if an .892 OPS, 24... oh. Um, exactly. Isn't it nice when Gammons fisks himself?

Announcer Dumnbess II

2008-03-30T19:15:00.001-07:00

Tonight is opening night, and Joe Morgan was back in the booth once again, much to the chagrin of these guys. Finding examples of Announcer Dumbness in a Joe Morgan broadcast is really too easy, and I could probably just transcribe the entire broadcast into this blog. But I don't have time for that. So I'll just give you a tasty sample, a tip of the iceberg:

Joe Morgan, about Ray King, after King threw a few straight balls: "This is surprising, because his strength is coming out and throwing strikes."

A mere 5 minutes or so before Joe made this statement, ESPN had flashed King's 2007 stats on the screen. Before I even knew Joe would say this, King's walk total jumped out at me: he issued 21 walks in only 39 innings (against only 25 strikeouts).

Me: Wow, that's surprising! Joe Morgan's strength is coming out and saying smart, well-researched things!

Uh oh

2008-03-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

Both Peter Gammons and Buster Olney picked my Tribe to win the World Series this yea r. On the bright side, so did Keith Law.

Perhaps This is Why Gammons' Columns Aren't Edited

2008-03-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

For this Gammons column, I decided to pretend that somebody at ESPN read my blog and decided to give me a job as Gammons' personal editor. This post will probably take me several weeks to complete. We shall see.

Players keep the game great

Peter, you may want to come up with a new title. This one strikes me as somewhat obvious. What else would keep the game great? On the other hand, if you're not saying anything interesting in the column, I suppose you wouldn't want to mislead your readers and make them think that you do have something to say by writing a good title. Point taken.

What We journalists are asked every day is what the Exxon Valdes mess that was the Mitchell report will do to baseball.* Some journalists use their own eyes tests to judge differentiate between users and non-users, with no ESPN classic flashbacks to the 1970s NBA finals or '70s Super Bowl players.**

*The construction "what...that was..." is awkward, and comparing the Mitchell report to an oil spill makes very little logical sense, so I hope you don't mind that I just removed it.

**I have no idea what this last phrase means. Are you referring to the network "ESPN Classic" or to "classic flashbacks" that air on ESPN? If it's the former, you need to capitalize "Classic", since it's a proper name, sort of like Peter Gammons. You do know your rules of capitalization, right? Oh, I guess not, since you also didn't capitalize "NBA Finals". Also, what do the NFL and NBA championships from thirty years ago have to do with steroids in modern-day baseball? Are you bitterly implying that those players were on drugs? If so, you should probably make those accusations a little clearer, and possibly, I don't know, provide some evidence?

Or you can just come off looking like an old, bitter, defeated reporter, who, despite (or perhaps because of) his unique proximity to the players of the sport he covers, failed to expose the biggest scandal in sports in the 21st century. You want to go that route? Okay.

The answer to the question of the impact of the Mitchell report on baseball's future should be is contained in this week's Baseball America piece on the 25 best players who are 25 years of age or younger. Three of the top ten members of the Baseball America 25/25 list appear in working on my MVP and Cy Young Award selections predictions* for ESPN.com, I had including Miguel Cabrera, who was number one on BA's list and runner-up to Manny Ramirez** in my MVP list; Cabrera is No. 1 on the 25/25 list, with two of my top 10 MVP picks, Grady Sizemore and Joe Mauer, in their top 10 in both leagues .

*"Selections" makes it seem like these awards already happened, which is what I actually thought you meant the first couple of times I read this. Additionally, since you only address hitters in this paragraph, your Cy Young predictions, while surely fascinating, are completely irrelevant.

** Manny Ramirez as MVP? Are you sure? You know he's 36 years old and coming off a down year, right? Oh, wait, he's on the Red Sox. Never mind.

At this point, I should point out that I did the best that I could with the preceding paragraph, which was an utterly terrible attempt to convey a somewhat salient point (presumably that the current crop of young major leaguers is quite good). If you were any other writer, I would advise you to scrap the entire paragraph and start over, because there's no way anybody can figure out what the hell you're saying. However, since I have a sneaking suspicion that you don't actually write this stuff, because you're too busy fielding retarded questions from Joe Morgan on Sunday Night Baseball. Maybe you just have some lackey who writes for you and English happens to be his third language. Either way, hopefully this way somebody can decipher your meaning.

In the National League, ? I have my MVP pick is David Wright as my MVP., who is he's No. 2 behind Cabrera in the 25-and-under catagory category*, and in my preseason top 10 I would have include Jose Reyes, Russell Martin, Prince Fielder, Troy Tulowitzki, Hanley Ramirez, Ryan Zimmerman and Jeff Francouer. and** In addition to all of the young, talented hitters, some Cy Young award candidates appear in Baseball America's under-25 list, namely Justin Verlander, Felix Hernandez and Cole Hamels would all be on my Cy Young preseason ballots. All of the players listed above are 25 or under.

* "Catagory?" Look, I understand that you don't have the time to edit your posts and make sure that they make some amount of sense, or that you have an actual point, or that your theories are supported by some evidence. But throw me a bone here. RUN FUCKING SPELL CHECK.

**There are many transition words in the English language. If you switch mid-sentence from talking about NL hitters to MLB pitchers, you may want to make a clearer transition than the ambiguous "and". Just a suggestion.

Every one of these players were signed and entered the minor leaguers in * began his professional baseball career under a strict drug-testing program instituted by Bud Selig at the turn of the century. Is the testing foolproof? Of course not, anymore no more foolproof than the programs in the NFL or NBA.

*I'm really impressed with how many errors you attempted to slip by me here. Let's count them, shall we?

1. "Every one of these players WAS signed", not "were signed".
2. "Were signed and entered" is not parallel, since the first verb is passive and the second is active.
3. Those players did not enter "the minor leaguers".

You sneaky bastard.

But by scrolling through that well-thought-out Baseball America list, you realize that the game -- as it did through the Black Sox Scandal and the canceling of the 1994 World Series -- keeps re-inventing itself*. Watch Ryan Howard's commercial for Dick's Sporting Goods**, or just watch Delmon Young and Evan Longoria hit or Clayton Kershaw and Joba Chamberlain throw, and know that, once again, the players will save baseball***.

*I have no idea what this phrase means. Isn't the game pretty much the same, just (supposedly) without the drugs? The phrase "re-inventing itself" implies that radical changes were made. For example, "Jamie Moyer re-invented himself as a pitcher when he realized he could only throw 76 mph."

**What commercial are you talking about? And how would this help me understand the quality of the young players? Must be one hell of a commercial.

***I know Foist and I have said this many times before, but it's worth repeating: Baseball is doing fine! It doesn't need to be "saved"! It's setting attendance records year after year! Nobody except a few decrepit sportswriters really cares about the steroid usage of the previous generation, which is essentially what the Mitchell report focused on.

It would have been so easy for you to just write the above column, preferably with my corrections, and just omit the first and last sentences in which you, once again, bring up the steroids scandal unnecessarily. It could just be a nice, fun column about how great today's young players are, and even if it's not earth-shattering news, don't you think it would be a nice gesture to recognize the contributions of today's young players without relating them to the Mitchell report?

Mike Boddicker is to Artist as Peter Gammons is to...?

2008-03-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

On the heels of last night's post, I woke up to this Gammons column, which I'm happy (or maybe disappointed?) to report isn't quite as terrible as his other recent columns, at least in terms of his ideas. His word choice and clarity, however, still leave me as confused as ever. The title:

Young pitchers will shape AL East

Okay. This idea is borderline obvious, since we've all been hearing ad nauseam about Hughes, Kennedy, Chamberlain, Buchholz (that name looked really weird when I typed it out - two h's?!), and Lester, all of whom (except Joba) are scheduled to begin the year in their teams' respective starting rotations. Tell me something I don't know.

Ian Kennedy has looked like a young Mike Boddicker, an artist. We have seen Joba Chamberlain, and there is a very good chance that Ross Ohlendorf will be a significant setup part of the Yankees' bullpen.

Here's where Gammons' baseball knowledge trumps mine. I didn't immediately associate Boddicker's name with a pitching "artist", and looking at his Baseball Reference page, I don't see anything particularly artist-like. I see a 3.80 career ERA, which translates to a slightly above-average ERA+ of 108. I'm guessing Gammons just threw in a reference to the first Boston (surprise!) pitcher that he could think of.

In his defense, he did mention Ross Ohlendorf, who isn't somebody I've heard a ton about already. Of course, an opinion of how Gammons thinks Ohlendorf might pitch would be helpful, but let's not split hairs.

The esteemed Bill Madden of the New York Daily News checked with the Elias Sports Bureau and found that no team has won the World Series with two rookies starting 25 games. Indeed, there is a lot of pressure on Hughes, Kennedy, Chamberlain and Ohlendorf, but what is so different in the American League East is that the three teams that can win the division -- and you might be surprised by how many people on the west coast of Florida believe that the Jays have a legitimate chance to win the division -- are all dependent on young pitchers.

Two things here. First, he claims that we "might be surprised by how many people on the west coast of Florida believe that the Jays have a legitimate chance to win the division." The first and second times I read this, I thought, "Oh, goody. Another typo by Mr. Gammons. He meant to say Rays. They are the team that is located on the west coast of Florida." Then I saw the next paragraph, saw it was about the Blue Jays, and was thoroughly confused. Then I finally realized that the "west coast of Florida" referred not to Tampa, although Tampa does happen to be located there, but to the spring training site of the Blue Jays (which is in Dunedin, FL, a cozy suburb of Tampa).

The question is, why? Does he think that if he says "Toronto" instead, some douchebag will call him out on it? "Hey, Mr. Gammons, I hate to break it to you, but the Blue Jays are not currently in Toronto. They're in Dunedin, FL for spring training. Idiot." (On second thought, I probably would have said that.) My guess is that the only writing class Gammons ever attended was the one about figuring out different ways to say stuff. So, instead of saying, "Toronto," or, God forbid, "Dunedin, FL," he comes up with this "west coast of Florida" bullshit. Of course, he then missed the two weeks' worth of lectures on the importance of clarity in one's writing.

Second, would we really be surprised at "how many people" in Blue Jays camp believe the Blue Jays have a chance? Don't most teams enter spring training with an eye toward making the playoffs? I understand that the Blue Jays have the misfortune of sharing a division with the Yankees and Red Sox, but you don't spend tons of cash on Vernon Wells and B.J. Ryan only to say, "Man, if only we had a chance in hell at actually doing something this year!"

I usually don't pick on his bullet points, because it's his long-winded sentences and arguments that truly offend my sensibilities, but this one caught my eye.

The one place that seemed to make sense for Barry Bonds is Seattle, especially if Richie Sexson struggles and they can move Jose Vidro to first base. But indications are that if Sexson doesn't bounce back -- and Sexson's convinced he will -- then Vidro indeed will go to first, but Jeff Clement would get the first shot at being the DH.

I'm with him for part of this. I definitely think the M's could use Bonds, since almost every hitter of theirs is a right-handed hitter with gap power who doesn't walk (I read that somewhere, and it's true - Betancourt, Lopez, Beltre, Johjima, etc.), and Bonds is, well, not that. But two retarded statements stood out to me:

1. "Sexson's convinced he will [bounce back]..." Stop the presses! A player who played terribly last year believe he will improve this year!

2. "Jeff Clement would get the first shot at being the DH." I could be reading too much into this, but doesn't Gammons imply that the Mariners won't go after Bonds because they have somebody named Jeff Clement blocking Bonds on the depth chart? "Well, Barry, we'd love to sign the best hitter of the past 25 years and possibly since Babe Ruth, but we've got this guy Clement, he's had 19 plate appearances in the majors but he's showing a lot of potential, and we believe he gives us our best chance of winning." Is it possible, just possible, that maybe the Mariners won't sign Bonds because it would be a public relations nightmare?

The raves about Oakland's young pitching seems universal.

Incorrect. The raves...seem universal. You are an idiot.

Another Tendency of Gammons Begins to Emerge...

2008-03-17T22:27:00.000-07:00

...and this one ain't good either.

We've been rehashing, over and over again, the fact that a) Peter Gammons doesn't seem to care much for using the English language well, or even correctly; and b) either his editors don't care that his columns contain repeated errors, or he doesn't have editors at all.

What we have only hinted at, however, is that, more and more, Gammons has built entire columns around a theory or idea that is either poorly substantiated, obvious, or thoroughly uninteresting. Let's take a look at his main ideas in the recent columns that we've attacked:

3/13: Either "Twins will be bad this year" or "Twins will be learning from Hall of Famers". The first point is obvious, since the Twins were mediocre last year and then lost the "best pitcher on the planet" (a previous Gammons title); the second point is both obvious (nearly every team has former excellent players who serve as coaches and/or mentors) and uninteresting (who cares?).

3/3: "Torii Hunter is worth what the Angels paid him." I would categorize this idea as poorly substantiated, for a number of reasons (see the link for details), but what really stands out is that Hunter himself admitted he would have signed with the Angels for less than $70 million. Even though the Angels had no way of knowing this fact, I'm relatively certain that it defines the term "overpaid".

2/25: "The Giants are different without Barry Bonds." Obvious.

2/18: "The Mariners are attempting to compete in the AL West...but don't rule out the Angels." This idea is special in that it falls under all three categories:

1. This point was poorly substantiated because Gammons' support for the M's boils down to their acquisition of Erik Bedard, who, while an excellent pitcher, likely will not compensate for the fact that their Pythagorean W-L Record suggests that they were extremely lucky to win 88 games (a fact that Gammons himself mentions, thus undermining his own argument). His first statement in favor of the Angels suggests that Jon Garland is better than (or at least equal to) Erik Bedard, a statement that is patently absurd. (He does go on to make a semi-valid point, which is that most of the rest of their rotation is also pretty good.)

2. The point was obvious, because if a team trades away four minor leaguers to get one pitcher, that is usually a good indication that they are trying to win their division.

3. It was uninteresting because predicting that one of the two best teams in a particular division will likely win it isn't really a prediction at all. What's vexing to me is that Gammons could have tweaked his column ever so slightly and it would have been significantly more interesting. All he had to write was, "M's have a significant chance to win the AL West." That would have been an interesting argument, because everybody and his mother thinks the Angels are the prohibitive favorites. Instead, Gammons wusses out by just titling his column, "M's making a run at the Angels", and then, just in case some reader got the idea that maybe he was actually predicting that Seattle would win the division, hedges his bet even more by later writing, "But don't rule out the Angels." I mean...why else would he write that?

I will now quote from Foist's first post to this blog (emphasis mine):

The Gammons we yearn for -- let's call him Fantasy Gammons -- is a writer with Gammons's scoops, Gammons's insight, Gammons's experience, and Gammons's baseball knowledge who can convey all this goodness to us in a comprehensible form, perhaps entertaining us a bit along the way.

I quote it to point out that when we started this blog, we (or at least I, and Foist seems to imply it as well) weren't really aware of just how egregious Gammons' writing really is. Five months later, we're raising the possibility that Gammons is not only a shoddy writer, but a shoddy writer who really has nothing interesting to say. I doubt this has always been the case; Bill Simmons often waxes nostalgic about his eagerness to open the Sunday Boston Globe so he could read Gammons' weekly "Baseball Notes" column. I also doubt that Gammons would have gotten to the position he's in today if he were this bad at his job from day 1.

Nevertheless, going forward, I will pay close attention not only to the bad writing (which is a sure bet to continue), but also to whether Gammons compensates for his subpar writing skills with the kind of insight one would expect from such a prestigious and renowned writer. So far, to quote my Magic 8 Ball, outlook not so good.

Okay, I'll Play

2008-03-14T11:03:00.000-07:00

Joist quit right before perhaps the best part of the Gammons article, so I guess I'll have to pick it up...

One sees Carew and Killebrew, Oliva and Molitor and the ever-diligent presence of former manager and current Twins executive Tom Kelly drilling players on the back fields. But one doesn't Johan Santana or Hunter, only the lingering question of whether or not they will trade closer Joe Nathan at the deadline if they're trailing by double digits at the All-Star break.

I think (it's always hard to tell for sure) that Gammons' main theme in this article is that the Twins will probably have a rough year, but the club has some promising components as well. Here, he dumbly decides to present this view to us in the form of what "one sees" and what "one" does not "see" when "one" (apparently) gazes at the Twins' spring training facility, something Peter Gammons apparently did.

So what does "one" "see"? "Carew and Killebrew, Oliva and Molitor and the ever-diligent presence of former manager and current Twins executive Tom Kelly drilling players on the back fields."

A few things about this sentence in particular:

1) I've noted this before: Gammons has this strange and clumsy habit of listing things, particularly people, in pairs. Normal English would formulate the list of ex-players as follows: "Carew, Killebrew, Oliva, and Molitor" (or without the comma if you prefer -- I don't). Gammons lists them in pairs, I suppose to keep you on your toes ("You think I'm done naming players after Killebrew? Wrong! I have two more! Maybe I still have two more after that? Ha! I don't, idiot.").

2) How can a person's "presence" be "diligent"? He could have just deleted the words "presence of," they serve no purpose other than to make the sentence even more wrong.

3) "Drilling players"? The first image that popped into my head as I read this sentence was an elderly Tom Kelly pegging Joe Mauer in the back with elderly fastballs. Gammons means of course that he was leading practice drills, but I've never seen "drill" used for this meaning in transitive verb form. Granted, I don't hear the word used as much as people actually in baseball do, but I sure don't trust English-deficient Gammons to know the correct usage.

4) What are "back fields"? Isn't that something in football?

Okay, so now I know what "one" "sees" at the Twinkies' Spring Training facility. Got it, old Twinkies showing young Twinkies how to do stuff. What next? "But one doesn't Johan Santana or Hunter, only the lingering question of whether or not they will trade closer Joe Nathan at the deadline if they're trailing by double digits at the All-Star break."

Whoops! There's something missing from this sentence. Little Billy, you've taken two weeks of grammar in your life, what is it? That's right, Billy! It's a verb! As an expert Gammons decipherer, I have deduced that the missing verb is "sees," as in what "one" does not "see" because of the fact that the things are not there.

The second half of this sentence concerns the question of whether Joe Nathan will be traded. First off, just how does one "see" this? Where on the "back fields" is the question located in relation to the "diligent presence" of Tom Kelly? Does it take the form of a ghostly question mark wearing a Twins hat? But seriously, way to tie everything together Peter, very effective.

Second, just when might the Twins trade Nathan? According to Gammons, they may or may not trade him "at the deadline" if they're behind by 10 games "at the All-Star break." Pop quiz, Billy: When are the All-Star Break and the trading deadline? Hint: They are not at the same time. To further confuse the timing element, Gammons describes the question as presently "lingering." Shhhh, Billy, stop crying, Peter Gammons can't hurt you.

Boof Bonser has reshaped his body, Scott Baker has been bothered by a minor upper back strain but is progressing and Kevin Slowey will get a place in the rotation after going 10-5 at Triple-A Rochester and 4-1 with the Twins last season. There is no pretense of power, just the promise to throw strikes and get to what should be a very strong bullpen with Nathan at the end and Pat Neshek, Juan Rincon, Matt Guerrier, Jesse Crain and the very impressive Nick Blackburn setting up.

Does Gammons know what "pretense" means? What a weird word choice. More importantly, where is there no "pretense" of power? Billy, this is precisely why you don't start your sentences with "there is" -- it's gosh darn vague. Again however, as an expert Gammons decipherer, I gather after a few readings (and based on my recollection that Boof Bonser throws gas) that Gammons is saying that Kevin Slowey in particular is not a power pitcher.

Okay, enough about the Twins, let's skip down to a brief item at the bottom of the post:

Taking in two hours of Bill Belichick with Tony La Russa watching simple spring training drills was fascinating. Belichick asked La Russa to explain almost every drill.

Obviously this makes absolutely no sense. Based only on my knowledge of who Belichick, La Russa, and Gammons are, I can surmise what happened: I think Tony La Russa led some baseball drills while Belichick and Gammons watched. My scenario is not at all what Gammons writes here, literally speaking, but it bears a stronger relationship with reality.

Okay, I've had enough. I'm a bit sick right now, and reading all this Gammons has added nausea to my list of symptoms. Must rest...

I Just Thought of a Really Good Idea For a Saturday Night Live Mock Commercial

2008-03-13T21:37:00.000-07:00

Do you remember those old "Maytag Repairman" commercials, in which the Maytag repairman sat around with nothing to do, because his company's appliances were just so darn reliable? Well, I think it would be funny if SNL did a take off on those commercials, called "ESPN Copy Editor", in which you see the ESPN editor sitting there doing nothing. The twist is, of course, that he actually does have things to do, he just, for some reason, doesn't do them.

The good news: Peter Gammons' latest post has nothing to do with the Red Sox or Barry Bonds.

The bad news? Well, let's see. The title, Educational Year Awaits For Twins, sounds like a euphemism for "Twins Will Suck This Year". But let's not make that judgment just yet, especially because Gammons' attitude, especially during spring training, is one of never-ending, starry-eyed optimism. On to the opening sentence (actually, paragraph):

Delmon Young got excited talking about it.

Okay, well, I guess "it" refers to the only singular noun before it ("educational year"), which appears in the title. Right?

"This is incredible," he said, looking out across the Twins' spring training site (Lee County Stadium).

Oh. So "it" must refer to the Twins' spring training site. I've never been there. Must be glorious.

"Every day I get to work on hitting with Rod Carew and Tony Oliva, and Harmon Killebrew is watching. I get to work on baserunning with Paul Molitor. It's been great for me."

Aha! So "it" is actually learning from former great baseball players! The mystery is solved! I think! (Note to all the kids out there: Do not write like this man. If you really feel the urge to start your essay/paper/story with an unclear pronoun, please follow it with its antecedent. Don't wait two sentences before sort of hinting at the antecedent.)

First of all, the fact that Young not only appreciates working with Hall of Famers but knows who they are speaks volumes about Young as a baseball player. "I've said all along that the Twins got themselves a future star in Delmon," says one AL GM. "That's great that he understands what that means. We have a guy who had never heard of Brooks Robinson or Mike Schmidt."

Ugh. Where do I begin?

1. "The fact that Young...knows who [Carew, Oliva, Killebrew, and Molitor] are" says absolutely nothing about Young as a baseball player. NOTHING. I'm no neurologist, but I'm reasonably certain that the knowledge of past baseball greats and the ability to hit a baseball are located in different parts of the brain.

2. When one uses the "not only...but" construction, the part following the "but" should be more specific/impressive/surprising than the part following the "not only". I'm not the only one who believes this. From the American Heritage Book of English Usage:

Leaving out the also from [the not only...but also] construction tends to intensify the first part of the construction rather than supplement it: She is not only smart but brilliant. He not only wanted the diamond but wanted it desperately.

As you can see, Gammons' use of this construction is backwards. The prosecution rests.

3. Most baseball players are at least a tiny bit media-savvy. Thus, if Delmon Young goes to a new team and sees that there are certain coaches and consultants on the team are treated with a lot of respect, he might easily conclude that they're former baseball greats. Or, maybe he just knows their names but knows nothing about them. Either way, I'm pretty sure that Gammons is giving just a tiny bit too much credit to Mr. Young.

These are the Twins.

Somebody tell me what this sentence is doing here. I know he's writing about the Twins, dammit.

Oh, they've lost to free agency or traded away three-fifths of its starting rotation that was fourth in the league in ERA in 2007, and what's left is a rotation where Livan Hernandez may be their Opening Day starter and the four remaining starters were a combined 21-22 last season.

1. "Where" should be "in which", since a "rotation" is not a specific place. Again, this error is common among high-school students. But this writer is Peter Gammons, who is well out of high school! Why is he allowed to get away with this crap? (Probably because I'm one of ten people who noticed this error and one of three who actually cared. Nevertheless.)

2. I enjoy how Gammons uses ERA to prove how good the Twins' rotation was last year, and then W-L record to show how bad it is this year. Yes, three-fifths of it is gone, but the remaining two-fifths (Boof Bonser and Scott Baker) ain't half bad, and the shoddy W-L record can be attributed mostly to their ghastly offense.

Torii Hunter is now playing with the Angels, and they have some issues in their infield. Oh, by the way, they finished 17 games behind the Indians last season and were outscored by the opposition.

I hate when people say "Oh, by the way" for a completely gratuitous purpose. We get it, Peter. The Twins are in trouble. Maybe his title was, in fact, a euphemism for the Twins' upcoming suckiness.

"We've had to change directions," said manager Ron Gardenhire, who from 2002 through 2006 won four division titles and were 97 games over .500.

This error is considerably more glaring than the previous one I pointed out. Ron Gardenhire..."were" 97 games over .500? Really? WAKE UP, EDITORS!

There's plenty more crappy writing, but as usual, I've run out of steam after the first three paragraphs, because it's just too bad. Foist, care to take a shot at the rest of it?

Announcer Dumbness I

2008-03-10T17:39:00.000-07:00

We're going to kick off a new feature here, "Announcer Dumbness." All of these will contain actual quotes from actual announcers, and most of these will be so dumb as to require little or no comment. Today, overheard on a Mets spring training broadcast (I should note that the Mets announcers are overall among the best, but even they are not immune to ADD (Announcer Dumbness Disease)):

Ralph Kiner (apparently visiting out of retirement): You know, the
thing about [Pedro] Martinez is that his record is better than Sandy Koufax's,
and that's a pretty strong statement right there.

Gary Cohen: Well, especially considering the era that he pitched in, some
of the most offensive-oriented years in baseball history.

Kiner: the steroid era, is what you're saying.

Gary Cohen: Okay.... I'll accept that (laughing neverously).

Sigh. It's a matter of very simple logic that the "offensive era" did not help Pedro's record (assuming, as I think we reasonably can, that he's talking about win-loss record). The lineups on Pedro's teams were just as much a part of that era as his opponents. Is Cohen actually saying that the Red Sox and (snicker snicker) the Mets were not on 'roids even as all their opponents were?

Also, this has nothing to do with announcer dumbness really, but later in the broadcast, Cohen, reading off a card, plugged: "Tune into Jets Nation this week, to find out everything that is going on with Gang Green..."

Does the SNY channell realize just how exactly -- I mean, exactly -- "Gang Green" sounds like "gangrene"?? How did no one at the office pick up on this?

Better analysis, better writing

2008-03-10T12:49:00.000-07:00

I thought I would link to Joe Sheehan's fantastic article about the craptacular Dusty Baker, to make the point that not only is Joe Sheehan a better, smarter baseball analyst than most newspaper and mainstream website writers, he is also a better writer. His prose flows well and is engaging and entertaining.

Buster Olney is so dumb, he confuses himself

2008-03-10T10:37:00.000-07:00

I thought I ought to check in, else Joist will kick me off the blog. I'm happy to report, after my absence, that Buster Olney is still a tool.

First, let's try to figure out what Buster is trying to say here. The headline reads, "Not all big deals are bad deals." It sounds like he is going to point out that some large-value contracts are still worth it because the players are good. But then he lays this opening paragraph on us:

Some players in the game are forever viewed through the lens of their contract. As they are signed, the debate begins about whether they are worth the money, a conversation that continues throughout the duration of their multiyear contract and even beyond. If you separate the player from the money, however, and judge him only on what he provides as a player -- because after all, once the contract is signed, the money is gone -- you might get an entirely different view. There are a number of well-paid players -- players who might even be overpaid -- who serve their team very well.

So now he is actually ignoring the cost of the player, because "once the contract is signed, the money is gone." But the entire point here is whether the player was worth the money, given the alternative ways of spending the same money. That is precisely what made the "big" deals "bad." So ignoring the cost just begs the question. This is like if you had a choice between a Fort Taurus for $30,000 and a Lexus for $25,000, and you came to ask Buster for advice. He would talk about how the Taurus will generally do the job, and will be better than riding a bicycle to work. He will ignore BOTH the cost of the Taurus AND the alternatives you have. Ignoring these things allows you to assert the useless proposition that a player is good because he just shows up every day and plays baseball (and, as we'll see below, Buster actually DOES assert this with regard to a particular player!). The lesson: nobody should ever ask Buster Olney about anything.

Now, to be fair, there is, theoretically, an important point somewhere in here about sunk costs. Once the teams sign the contracts, which in MLB are always guaranteed, the money is indeed gone. So they are faced with the choice of either sticking with what they have or spending additional money on a replacement, and occasionally the player disappoints so severely that it turns out to be worth cutting him lose or sticking him in the minors and paying a replacement for cheap to do the job better (see Cliff Lee last year, the Mets and Bobby Bo, etc.). And often teams fail to recognize that the costs of the first player are gone, and the fact that the money was spent is no reason to go with a crappier alternative. But nobody would argue that any of the players on Buster's list are anywhere near that bad.

Speaking of Buster's list, Buster could (and, perhaps, does? -- it's unclear) argue that some of these deals actually ARE good deals, even considering the cost and even though they were criticized at the time they were signed (see Magglio Ordonez, Derek Lowe, A-Rod and arguably Manny). That would have been a little more useful, ableit still boring. Let's run through a few, shall we?

Gil Meche, Royals: His $55 million contract stunned the industry in the winter of 2006-2007, because going into last season, Meche had never pitched in 190 innings in any season, and won more than 11 games once in his career. But Meche shouldered the responsibility that came with his contract last year, made 34 starts, threw 216 innings and had the best season of his career, with a 3.67 ERA. He went 9-13, but …

That ellipsis is in the original. But WHAT??? Now, I believe Buster is one of those baseball commentators/writers who is dumb enough to think that a pitcher's W-L record actually says something accurate about the pitcher's value. But let's be charitable. Let's replace the ellipsis with "that was due only to the utter putridity of the Royals lineup and bullpen, not any deficiency in Meche." This still shows precisely why the contract was pointless. Why pay premium money for a half-decent pitcher when you are nowhere near contention and will still lose most of your games and when you can instead spend the money and effort on rebuilding a young talent base? Oh that's right, we're ignoring alternatives. Essentially, Buster is just here to inform us that Gil Meche had an ERA of 3.67, which is good (without even examining, by the way, how lucky that ERA might have been). Again, thank you, Buster.

Adrian Beltre, Mariners: He signed a five-year, $65 million deal and has struggled offensively at times, in his first three years with Seattle. But he plays Gold Glove-defense, is perceived to play hard, and has averaged 154 games and 92 RBI in his three seasons. There aren't many third baseman who have been better than that.

We should address this one, because I hear the point made often by Seattlites. The Mariners are a decently wealthy team, but not one of unlimited resources. After all, this is the team that had to shed A-Rod and the Unit for financial reasons. Yes, Beltre is good, but the question is, could the Mariners have paid him less, or done better with the same amount of money, at 3rd base and/or elsewhere on the field? Beltre's VORP last year was 28.6. Not bad, good for 10th among third basemen in baseball last year. Of the nine players above him, one is the aforementioned, unaffordable A-Rod, five have not yet hit free agency, and all three of the remaining players (Chipper Jones, Aramis Ramirez, and Mike Lowell) made less money than Beltre (although it is fair to point out that Jones and Lowell both had injury problems in the preceding two years). Exactly zero of the 3rd basemen with lower VORP's than Beltre made more money than he did last year. VORP fails to account for defense, you say? Beltre is overrated defensively and, according to Baseball Prospectus, was in fact slightly below average last year in that department (a FRAA of -3). Seattle clearly overpaid him based on what everyone outside the Puget Sound area knew to be a freakish 2004 season. The case of Aramis Ramirez is especially instructive -- he was a free agent two years later than Beltre (and thus salaries were more inflated in the interim), had a better, more consistent track record, and signed for less annual value than Beltre.
There, some actual research! It took some work, but I learned way more from that than from all of Buster Olney's columns of all time combined. And I have a very time-consuming profession that is wholly unrelated to baseball (although today is a slow day, as you can see...).

Torii Hunter, Angels: His $90 million contract absolutely stunned executives around baseball, because mostly Hunter is thought of, beyond his spectacular defense, as a very good complementary offensive player -- but not a star hitter. He's 32, has achieved a .290 average, has hit 30 homers once, and driven in 100 or more runs twice. But here's the thing about Hunter. He comes to play every day. He runs down balls in the outfield every day. He is a positive clubhouse presence every day. There will be mornings after night games when other Angels will be lagging and Hunter will lift them. And he will get his share of hits and drive in his share of runs and create more than his share of defensive outs.

I don't need to point out why the Torii Hunter contract was so collossally stupid, or the well-known, alleged fact that the Angels coughed up way more cash than any other team was willing to pay. But how completely lame is Buster's defense? "He comes to play every day"??? What baseball players don't come to play every day? Were the Angels considering some alternative OF who they then discovered would occasionally choose to stay home and watch TV on game day? How will Hunter be less tired than other players on his team for a day game after a night game, and how exactly will he "lift" his teammates? Does he really believe this nonsense? And do these nebulous skills, even if we grant they exist, really require a $95 million outlay? Can't they hire a motivational speaker for $200/hour on those sluggish days? Or maybe they can hire Buster Olney as an inspirational example to show that you can get paid lots of money by the Worldwide Leader in Sports to say absolutely nothing intelligent or interesting.

Peter Gammons: "Good" Columnist

2008-03-03T09:12:00.000-08:00

I don't have the time or the energy to comment on Peter Gammons' entire Torii Hunter suckfest, but check out the title:

Hunter worth Angels' investment

Next, look at what Gammons writes in paragraph 6.

Now, this is not going to be a lecture about whether this is a "good contract" for a midfield player who turns 33 during the season (remember, Manny Ramirez's contract was once considered so horrible that he was put on waivers; and now with options for 2009 and 2010, the Red Sox believe it's a great contract).

There are so many things wrong with this paragraph.

1. He tells us what his column is "not going to be" six paragraphs into it. Why couldn't he just say, "this column is not a lecture about..." since he's right smack in the middle of the column anyway?
2. If this is, in fact, not a lecture about whether Torii Hunter has a "good contract", then why did he write, "Hunter worth Angels' Investment" as his title? Does anybody else see a contradiction here?
3. Unless Torii Hunter also plays soccer, I see no good reason to refer to him as a "midfielder". I suspect Peter is aware that there's no such position in baseball, but I also suspect that, in classic Gammons fashion, in an attempt to convey "interesting", he has managed only "confusing". Does "midfielder" refer specifically to a center fielder? Is it any "up-the-middle" position (CF, 2B, SS)? Most importantly, does Gammons himself know the definition of the baseball term he just made up?
4. Bringing evidence from Manny Ramirez's contract to support a claim about Torii Hunter's contract is ridiculous. They are NOTHING ALIKE. For example:

Torii=CF (midfielder?). Manny=RF.
Torii=good (albeit overrated according to many) defense. Manny=terrible defense.
Torii=career .793 OPS. Manny=career 1.002 OPS. (Holy crap, Manny is good.)

Manny also managed to avoid the decline that most power hitters undergo in their early 30s. Whether Torii avoids such a decline remains to be seen, but even if he stays the course, he's still far inferior to Manny.

(Of course, Gammons also says that he's not lecturing us about Hunter's contract, so maybe the Manny anecdote served only to quell Gammons' desire to gush about the Red Sox, since he had written all of five paragraphs without managing to mention them.)

5. There is NO WAY any self-respecting editor would allow a conjunction following a semicolon to slide, especially since it's so easy to fix - just delete the conjunction! Add in the missing comma, and you've got yourself the makings of a sentence: "Manny Ramirez's contract was once considered so horrible that he was put on waivers; now, with options for '09 and '10, the Red Sox believe it's a great contract."

Actually, the sentence still sucks, thanks to the completely unnecessary passive voice. Here: "The Red Sox once believed that Ramirez's contract was so horrible that they put him on waivers; now, with options for '09 and '10, they believe it's a great contract." THIS IS NOT DIFFICULT.

Oh, and for Foist's sake, the rest of the paragraph:

This is about a good player being rewarded. This is about the values that social leaders like Earl Martin Phalen of Better Educated Leaders for Life (BELL) in Boston have built into hundreds of thousands of children in Boston and New York (and, yes, Phelan was Barack Obama's roommate at Harvard Law School).

What on God's green earth is "about a good player being rewarded"? WHAT IS "THIS"?? Also, I have absolutely no clue what that last sentence has to do with anything. Barack Obama? His law school roommate? Torii Hunter? Social values "built into hundreds of thousands of children"? Taking into account the first sentence that I completely broke down earlier, I present this paragraph as the worst paragraph Peter Gammons has ever written. That is no small feat, as regular readers of this blog are painfully aware.

Oh, and if you're still on the fence about Hunter's contract, look at this FJM entry. Case closed, I believe.

It's Like Rain on Your Wedding Day

2008-02-25T11:26:00.000-08:00

Quick, read this opening to Peter Gammons' latest column and tell me what's so hilariously ironic about it.

"It is," says Bruce Bochy, "different." It is the world of the San Fransisco Giants without the mountainous presence of Barry Bonds for the first time since the end of the George H.W. Bush administration, a world in which Bengie Molina will bat cleanup.

Now, notice that I didn't say what's bad about this opening paragraph, in which case you could point to Gammons' annoying habit of referring to a team as a "world", or his description of Barry Bonds' presence as "mountainous" (which, unless referring to the quantity of steroids he likely took, makes little sense to me).

No, I asked what was ironic about it. And the answer is that Gammons started a paragraph with the word "it", but since somebody else used the word "it", he actually explains what "it" refers to. Now, we, and in particular Foist, have been railing about Gammons' particularly vexing habit of starting a sentence or a paragraph with the word "it" and not having a logical or grammatically accurate antecedent to which the word "it" could refer. Here, in this first sentence, we have proof that Gammons is aware that if somebody uses a third-person pronoun such as "it", a quick explanation of its antecedent, when it is missing or unclear, can be helpful.

(This phenomenon takes me back to the days I used to teach SAT classes. I had a very strict teacher's guide I was supposed to follow, and one of the suggestions I was supposed to give the students for extra practice in the grammar section was to bring in magazines and newspapers and point out errors that the SAT commonly tests. I always laughed at that, because if the editors of major publications couldn't spot errors relating to subject-verb agreement or pronoun-antecedent agreement, how are 16-year-old snot-nosed kids supposed to? Now I want to go back to teaching these classes and just bring in Gammons articles, because I'd be willing to bet the farm that they'd be able to spot some of these errors pretty easily. Where was I?)

[blah blah blah, Giants are different without Bonds, blah blah blah]

Bochy is right when he talks about the pitching. The Giants play in a hitters' graveyard, in a division in which the three California teams all have pitchers' parks.

This sentence is terribly redundant and confusing. Initially, I thought that if he had only written something like, "The Giants play in a hitters' graveyard, as do two of their division rivals," it would have been a nice little sentence, especially since I find the phrase "hitters graveyard" amusing and descriptive. Of course, the problem is that Peter's own web site disputes his claim; although Petco Park truly is a "hitters' graveyard", the Giants' stadium comes in at just about average, and Dodger Stadium actually favors hitters.

Matt Cain may have been 7-16, but if he pitched for a good team, that record could have been reversed; he was 10th in the league in ERA (3.65), sixth in quality starts and seventh in quality start percentage at 69 percent, with Tim Lincecum right behind him at 67 percent with his 122 hits and 150 strikeouts in 146 1/3 innings.

1. "May have been" should be "was".
2. "If he pitched" should be "If he had pitched".
3. "Reversed" should be "inverted".
4. "With Tim Lincecum right behind him at 67 percent with his 122 hits and 150 strikeouts in 146 1/3 innings" should be taken out and shot.

OK, pop quiz. Which of these sentences did Gammons actually write?

a. The Giants' starting pitching might be good enough to compensate for their weak bullpen and offense
b. It may be that the Giants' starting pitching is so good it holds them in games

If you need a hint, look back at previous posts for examples of the way Gammons writes. Better yet, look at the beginning of this post. Remember when I pointed out the irony of Gammons taking the time to explain somebody else's use of the word "it"? Right.

There is a trial and a lot of time and history still to be written before Bonds goes onto the Hall of Fame ballot. But with so much hostility toward Barry and so many voters skeptical of his Cooperstown viability, this thought has run through the minds of some former Giants: How ironic would it be if Jeff Kent were to make it into the Hall of Fame before Bonds?

To write, "There is...a lot of time and history still to be written..." is nonsensical unless both "time" and "history" can be written. This tendency of Gammons, to apply the same verb or adjective to two nouns, only one of which logically agrees with it, will probably be featured in Chapter 2 of my upcoming book, "Top Ten Gammons Errors That Piss Me Off the Most Because He Commits Them All the Time and He Has No Editors To Correct Them".

While we're here, Chapter 3 will be his overuse of the word "with" when he doesn't even mean it. I won't bother writing a chapter about his misuse of the word "ironic", since entire books have already been written on the subject, but see the beginning of my post for a good example of how to use the word. (One could argue that Kent's becoming a Hall of Famer before Bonds, simply based on their statistics, is ironic, but by providing two good reasons why this situation might arise, Gammons has inadvertently convinced us that it is decidedly not ironic, and is in fact likely. Perhaps I am overthinking this.)

Kent seems to be a Cooperstown certainty. Among all-time second basemen, he is first in homers, second in RBIs and slugging,third in extra-base hits, fourth in doubles and fifth in total bases.

If he were to ride his motorcycle into Cooperstown ahead of Bonds, that would be an ironic, yet sad, story. Kent has been a tough, tremendous player, but exactly where his numbers would be without the six years he played with Bonds is hard to quantify.

Oh. So Gammons is arguing that Kent's Hall of Fame election before Bonds' would be ironic because Kent owes his success to Bonds. Well, that is still pretty stupid. First of all, the only stat Gammons mentions that was directly influenced by Bonds' presence in the lineup is RBIs, and any logically minded person would tell you that RBIs are an inferior measure of individual performance precisely for this reason. Granted, most Hall of Fame arguments exist because many voters continue to overvalue luck-based stats such as RBI, but then Kent will also end up in the Hall for many other reasons, most of which have little or nothing to do with Bonds.

Also, I do enjoy Gammons' assertion that Kent's stats without the six years he played with Bonds would be "hard to quantify". This is like saying, "If Franklin D. Roosevelt had run for president against George H.W. Bush, the voting results would be hard to quantify." Should we also penalize all of the Hall of Famers from the Big Red Machine, because Joe Morgan's numbers without Johnny Bench are "hard to quantify"? Argh.

Not To Be Outdone, Peter Gammons Makes Some Bold Predictions of His Own

2008-02-18T16:26:00.000-08:00

I think the Peters get writing tips from each other. I posted this morning about Peter King's prediction that Rod Smith "likely" won't play again, unless something unlikely happens. Now comes Gammons with some bold predictions about the AL West. Specifically:

M's making a run at the Angels

Okay, I can see how the Mariners' deal for Bedard gives them a better shot, at least. Let's see how Gammons supports this idea:

Bill Bavasi deserves a lot of credit for evaluating the Mariners and the fact no team won more games than Seattle's 88 without making the playoffs and realizing their negative run differential meant they had to do something to go after the Angels.

This sentence is absurdly bad. Let's break it down. Bavasi, according to Gammons, deserves credit for (I think) three things:

1. Evaluating the Mariners. I am of the opinion that most GMs at least attempt to evaluate their own teams. I would suspect that if Bavasi didn't evaluate his own team, he'd be summarily fired. Although if he's not getting fired for paying Richie Sexson $174,157.30 per base hit (seriously), it's possible he possesses some seriously damaging blackmail material about his employer, thus ensuring his job security.

2. The fact no [sic] team won more games than Seattle's 88 without making the playoffs. I agree, this is a pretty good accomplishment. Except Gammons doesn't even get to the end of the sentence before diminishing this feat. Observe.

3. Realizing their negative run differential meant they had to do something to go after the Angels. Which is it? If Bavasi gets credit for realizing that they're not that good, he should also be blamed because, well, they're not that good. Instead, Gammons twists the facts so that he gets credit for the team overachieving, and then more credit for realizing that the team overachieved. Oh, and he also gets credit for evaluating them. Well played, sir.

Note, also, the complete lack of any kind of parallel structure in the sentence. I broke it down to a list to make it semi-comprehensible to the reader, but I'm not even sure that was his intention.

So he started with the Mariners' weakness, starting pitching, which was 59-62, 5.16 in 2007. There is no question Erik Bedard is going make [sic - where are the damn editors???] a huge difference, whether or not he's ever thrown 200 innings. He is a power pitcher going from a bandbox to a pitcher's park with the highest strikeouts and lowest base runners per nine innings in the American League.

"Whether or not he's ever thrown 200 innings"? Has he or hasn't he? JUST FUCKING TELL ME! I happen to know that he hasn't, but the casual baseball fan may not be aware. Allow me to propose an infinitely improved version of this sentence (my changes in italics):

"There is no question Erik Bedard is going to make a huge difference, even though he's never thrown 200 innings in a season."

Actually, although it's clearer, it's still Gammons-esque in its verbosity. Here:

"Erik Bedard will unquestionably make a huge difference, even though he's never thrown 200 innings in a season."

Much better.

John McLaren made him the opening day starter to further take pressure off Felix Hernandez, who they believe will be a 20-game winner and their ace after he turns 22 in April. After watching him give up 18 0-and-2 hits last year, they have given Hernadez back the spike curveball he ditched because of his elbow, and with that curveball might lay claim to the best stuff of any starter in the game.

Does he mean that Felix will be a 20-game winner and their ace because he turns 22 in April, implying that he's sufficiently mature and has enough experience that he'll be able to take the next step? Because he uses the word "after", implying that Felix will suck for his first, like, two starts, but then he'll turn 22 and magically morph into a Cy Young-caliber pitcher. Am I being too nitpicky? I say no.

But, as McLaren warns, "Don't underestimate the Angels."

Who underestimated them? Despite Gammons's incredibly persuasive pro-Mariners argument, I'm pretty sure the Angels remain the prohibitive favorites in the AL West. Let's see what reasoning Gammons uses now:

First, remember that Jon Garland is six months younger than Bedard and has 52 more career wins.

Hahahahahahahahahaha. Ha. Does Mr. Gammons really expect us to buy that Jon Garland is on the same planet as Bedard, in terms of pitching ability? Let's take a quick look at some numbers.

Bedard, 2007: 13-5, 3.16 ERA, 182 IP, 221 K, 57 BB
Garland, 2007: 10-13, 4.23 ERA, 208.3 IP, 98 K, 57 BB

The only reason Garland's win total is higher is that he was rushed to the majors by a White Sox team desperate for pitching. (Well, that, and the fact that Garland somehow managed 18 wins in '06 despite a higher ERA.) Only once in six full seasons as a starter has he managed an ERA below 4.00, and that was in '05, when the entire pitching staff sold its collective soul to the devil. Bedard, on the other hand, had one of the best K:BB ratios last year in baseball history, which any statistically minded person will tell you is one of the best indicators of future performance.

Ok, where was I? Oh, right. Gammons. There are many reasons to favor the Angels (Lackey, Escobar, Guerrero, Rodriguez, and Kendrick to name a few). Garland's slightly-above-league-average pitching is not one of them. Certainly not if compared to Bedard, who is probably the best lefty in the AL now that Santana's gone.

Gammons then points out some other boring stuff, Clemens blah blah blah, Cubs, Gagne, some other crap, and then ends the post thusly:

Torii Hunter will be a huge help turning Howie Kendrick into a star.

No explanation. What a weird blanket statement to end a column with. I'm tired.

Peter King Writes a Column Every Week, Unless He Doesn't

2008-02-18T00:09:00.000-08:00

Couldn't resist this gem from today's MMQB column:

It's a sad day for the NFL if [Rod] Smith isn't going to play anymore -- which, barring a very unlikely recovery by the 37-year-old, is likely.

There exist two terrible aspects to this sentence. First, the Gammons-esque ambiguous pronoun to start the sentence - what, exactly, is the "sad day"? If the sad day is the day Smith announces his retirement, then why not say that? If it's the day Smith attempts a comeback but is really still hurt and he runs one route before collapsing to the ground in pain, that would also be sad, but we don't know what he means. Instead, he gives us the extremely abstract "if Smith isn't going to play anymore".

Second, this is the qualifier to end all qualifiers: he's saying that Smith's retirement is only "likely" if his "unlikely" recovery doesn't happen. Way to put all your eggs in one basket, Peter! I'm surprised his Super Bowl prediction wasn't something like, "The Patriots are likely to win, unless the Giants win, which is unlikely. In the unlikely event that the Giants win, the Patriots' chances of victory become significantly less likely."

Gammons Attempts to Reach out to His Urban Readers

2008-02-15T14:00:00.000-08:00

I almost spat out my drink when I saw how Gammons opens this entry (sorry, I know it's belated):

C.C. Sabathia's wish list for 2008 is first, for the Cleveland Indians to win the World Series, and second, for the New York Yankees to miss the playoffs.

Ring.

Then bling.

It took me three times just to figure out what Gammons meant, since, ostensibly, the Yankees' missing out on the playoffs has nothing to do with Sabathia's "bling". Incidentally, I just consulted both dictionary.com and the Urban Dictionary to make sure, and the consensus is that "bling" refers to excessively gaudy jewelry often worn by rappers and African Americans.

As I see it, two possibilites exist:

a) Gammons actually meant to say "Cha-ching", which also rhymes with "ring" and correlates more directly with the Yankees, since (according to Gammons) the Yankees will pursue Sabathia and give him lots of money if they miss the playoffs.

b) Gammons is terribly racist, and used the word "bling" to indicate that Sabathia, as an African-American, is most definitely going to use his upcoming extreme wealth to purchase excessively gaudy jewelry.

Given how chummy Gammons is with all the players, I am forced to go with the former possibility, as fun as the latter would be. That said, it's still a weak argument, even once you get past the poor word choice and missing logical leaps, because the Yankees have always gone after the most expensive free agents on the market, regardless of their level of success the previous year. In fact, because they've made the playoffs every year since '96, and that was also around the time that their ridiculous spending took off, we really have no idea how the Yankees would react if they missed the playoffs entirely. For all we know, they would use the failure as an opportunity to reflect on their wild spending ways, and conclude that perhaps it's best not to overpay dearly for free agents. (Probably not.) Regardless, does anybody really buy that the Yankees are more likely to spend the money to sign Sabathia in the unlikely scenario that they miss the playoffs?

One can argue that the landscape never was the same after the San Francisco Giants gave Barry Zito $126 million last winter, because Zito isn't Johan Santana. Perhaps no one is Johan Santana. He makes the New York Mets the clear favorites to win the National League pennant in 2008, his picture will be up on Hank Steinbrenner's wall next to the picture of Brian Cashman and he is the reason the Indians have no chance of re-signing Sabathia unless someone finds oil in Lake Erie.

What? What landscape? If Zito isn't Johan Santana, then what does Zito have to do with anything? And if "perhaps no one is Johan Santana" (how poetic of you, Peter!) then why is Santana the reason the Indians can't re-sign Sabathia? If anything, Zito, not Santana, is the reason that the Indians can't re-sign Sabathia.

Later:

The Oakland A's received more by trading Dan Haren to the Arizona Diamondbacks than the Twins got for Santana. If the Baltimore Orioles decide to trade Erik Bedard, they will get more for him, who is a week older than Santana and never has thrown 200 innings in a season.

Sigh...

Now, when the Nippon Ham Fighters decide to post Yu Darvish -- the half-Iranian, half-Japanese phenom -- can they expect to get a $100 million posting fee in addition to whatever Darvish can extract from the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox or Los Angeles Dodgers? Probably. No prospects will be involved, and those players carry significant value.

What does he mean by "those players"? "Those Japanese League players"? "Those half-Iranian, half-Japanese phenoms"? "Those players whose first name is 'Yu'"? Kidding aside, assuming he's referring to Japanese League players, why are they more valuable than American free agents? You don't have to give up prospects to sign them, either.

By the way, we're now like eight paragraphs in, and I have absolutely no idea what his point is.

Sabathia might not be Santana in terms of his longterm viability, but we are looking at $20 million per season if the Yankees don't make the playoffs this season and the Mets play the Red Sox in the World Series. No wonder the Indians haven't traded Cliff Lee or Jeremy Sowers, and will keep developing Adam Miller as a starting pitcher.

Again, I have to assume what Gammons means, because despite his inordinately long blog posts, he never explains his (usually flawed) reasoning. I will assume here that "Sabathia might not be Santana in terms of his longterm viability" because Sabathia does not have the best, um, build, and he might be more prone to breaking down (see: Colon, Bartolo). In fact, I don't even know why Gammons says this at all, since he said earlier that "No one is Johan Santana". Then Gammons clarifies his earlier stupid argument that the Yankees would only throw a ton of money at Sabathia if they miss the playoffs, even though recent history would suggest that their lavish spending has nothing to do with missing the playoffs.

I would say I give up, but I will continue pursuing my dream of convincing everybody in Internetville that Peter Gammons, despite his reputation, is horrible at his job.

Taking the Minority Opinion Too Far

2008-02-14T00:20:00.000-08:00

Okay, I realize I've been straying a bit from the original purpose of this blog, which is to make fun of Peter Gammons and express incredulity over the notable lack of editing of his work, either by Gammons himself or by ESPN.com editors. Let's get back to that, shall we?

We don't even have to get to the circus that will remind us why Congress has a 22 percent approval rating. This is where we are: The voices the public is listening to are Jose Canseco, John Rocker, Brian McNamee and Kirk Radomski.

Wow, these are some tortured sentences. First he implies that he somehow already knows that Congress will do a shitty job interrogating Clemens, McNamee, et al. (Did anybody else catch the irony of Gammons implying that somebody in a high-profile job actually performs said job terribly?) Then, he seems to say that the American public is retarded, because it's listening to the voices of a group of people who are, well, less than savory. But wait! If the American people are retarded, shouldn't the fact that they disapprove of Congress shed a positive light on Congress? Am I overthinking this?

Through his designer shades, Canseco saw how much money the players, owners, agents and enablers were making in the steroids era, and he questioned why he shouldn't be making his buck his way. But once Roger Clemens and McNamee are finished in the halls where the Voting Rights Act once was framed, Canseco is going to seem like Madeline Albright.

Damn that Canseco and his designer shades! Why can't he just get the Foakleys for $15 like the rest of us? And isn't Gammons ignoring the pink elephant in the room, the fact that Canseco didn't just see how much money the players were making, he also was one of these players? I mean, clearly Canseco is a weasel just trying to make more money, but Gammons is reduced to sounding like a 15-year-old girl in his criticism of Canseco. I must say, Foist's theory that Gammons is just pissed that he wasn't the journalist to break the steroid scandal looks stronger and stronger every day.

We don't know why McNamee would lie about Clemens and not about Andy Pettitte or Chuck Knoblauch, or why Rep. Tom Davis would say Pettitte corroborated McNamee's testimony. We don't know why Clemens would risk jail and his legacy by risking perjury, or, for that matter, why he kept McNamee in his employ all those years.

It is correct to say that "we don't know why McNamee WOULD lie..." because we're not sure whether he did or not, so it's a conditional statement. It is, however, incorrect to say that "We don't know why Rep. Tom Davis WOULD say Pettite corroborated..." because it's a fact that he DID say that. Also, the phrase "Clemens would risk jail and his legacy by risking perjury" is painfully redundant.

Theoretically, we will learn all that in time. And we will learn whether Rusty Hardin can prove there is a conspiracy against Clemens. Hardin is doing what he is paid to do. The late Edward Bennett Williams might have been the most charismatic, fascinating man I have ever met, and he defended Joseph McCarthy, Jimmy Hoffa, John Connally, Frank Costello …

Somebody please convince me that there's a reason for Gammons dropping the name of Edward Bennett Williams other than him trying to impress us with the fact that he met him. Also, what the hell is the point of talking about some famous lawyer's charisma? I really believe that Gammons writes a coherent column and then just rearranges the sentences around just to fuck with us. So far, we're three paragraphs in, and Gammons has informed us that Congress sucks, Canseco sucks, and Clemens's lawyer is attempting to defend Clemens, in the same way that Edward Bennett Williams defended Joseph McCarthy. Any questions? Me neither.

Clemens is a good guy who worked as hard as anyone in the game, who truly enjoyed working with the Houston Astros' minor leaguers, who savored every moment playing with his son, Koby. Now he has been made into a villain.

Here's my question. Why wasn't Gammons invited to testify before Congress?

Senate Committee: Mr. Gammons, why do you believe Clemens has been wrongly accused of taking steroids?

Gammons: Well, I know that he enjoyed working with the Houston Astros minor leaguers, and he savored every moment playing with his son, Koby.

Senate Committee: How is that even remotely relevant to whether he took steroids?

Gammons: Did you know I once met Edgar Bennett Williams?

If you read the New York papers every day, you would believe the media hates Clemens. Some appear to be consumed by him. They remember his retirement and the ovation the Florida Marlins gave him during the 2003 World Series, his resurrection in Houston, then his return for what supposedly was a higher average annual salary than Alex Rodriguez's, which made greatness seem mercenary. There are daily reminders of him beaning Mike Piazza and buzzing Alex Rios.

A few things:

1. What "supposedly" was a higher average annual salary than Alex Rodriguez's? It's four years later, and you still don't know? Let's see how long it takes me to find out.

...

Okay, that took two minutes. Rodriguez's salary in 2005 was $26 million. Clemens's was $18 million. So, Clemens's annual salary was "supposedly" higher than Rodriguez, but it was actually $8 million lower.

2. "...Which made greatness seem mercenary"? Can anybody dispute that? These are facts! Clemens sold his services to the highest bidder, and demanded all kinds of other special clauses, in exchange for his (allegedly tainted) greatness! That is mercenary!

3. He DID bean Mike Piazza.

If I may summarize what we've learned from this Gammons column: He criticizes Canseco for presenting facts to the public about the steroid scandal. He criticizes the New York media for presenting facts to the public about Clemens. On the other hand, he advocates Clemens, because of some heartwarming bullshit. I ask you: WHAT KIND OF JOURNALIST IS PETER GAMMONS? Onward!

In Houston, where Clemens should live out his life as a Texas legend, he is remembered by too many as the loyal Houstonian who went back to the Yankees for the annual average value, or AAV, which might mean that years from now, to expand on a very funny line, Clemens' stat lines might be DNA, AAV and ERA.

For the eighth time, Peter: Clemens is NOT A VICTIM. You can write that he "should" live out his life as a Texas legend, but HE CHOSE to go back to the Yankees for the "annual average value". While we're here, I like how Gammons tries to sound smart by saying "average annual value" instead of "more money", as if figuring out a player's annual salary, particularly when he's only signing one-year contracts, is some complicated statistical algorithm. Also, if you have to tell us that something is a "very funny line"? Probably not all that funny. That would certainly seem to be the case here.

Barry Bonds wasn't the only one, yet he has honors, riches, glory, fame and nothing much more than a warehouse to show them off. This seems to be where Clemens is headed unless Hardin can break McNamee down into a Perry Mason-esque confession if the defamation suit ever goes to trial.

The obvious error here would be that McNamee would not break down into a "Perry Mason-esque confession", since Mason was the one causing the confession. Yes, I know what he means. Still don't get why he gets to write ambiguously with no repercussions. The less obvious error would be stating that Bonds's life is severely lacking, not because he doesn't have honors, riches, glory, and fame, but that he "can't show them off", and this is the most tragic occurrence of all. Woe be unto Clemens if he suffers a similar fate! Woe, I say!

Maybe Hardin can pull that off. And maybe Bonds, separately, will end up being judged innocent of perjury. But what will Clemens and Bonds have five years from now for all their hard work and greatness?

Umm...more money than God? The reputations, albeit stained, as the best pitcher and hitter, respectively, of their era? Because Gammons's writing is so damned incomprehensible, I'm not sure, but I think he's trying to portray Clemens as a sympathetic character. If this is true, well, it is a sad, sad effort.

Perhaps that is the lesson: No matter what mountain you climb, if you break the law while scaling the peak, it can come back to roll you down the side of the mountain on your behind. If kids look at Bonds and Clemens and ask, "What did 762 home runs and 354 wins get them?" George Mitchell will have accomplished something, as inherently unfair as it might be to those two men.

Another excellent metaphor. I dunno, I kind of like the thought of climbing a mountain and then getting "rolled down" the other side. Sounds fun. More fun than climbing down, anyway. Also: as "inherently unfair" as it might be to those two men? Both have already been tried and found guilty, in the court of public opinion, of using steroids. In fact, federal prosecutors have just confirmed that Bonds failed a steroid test shortly after hitting his 73rd home run in 2003. (EDIT: This story indicates that this confirmation was the result of a "typo". However, my point still stands, as there have been other failed steroids tests for Bonds.) What, exactly, is "inherently unfair" about this?

If you want to argue that it's unfair that Clemens and Bonds catch an inordinate amount of flak for taking steroids, considering that the problem was widespread throughout baseball and there are many, many people at fault, well, that's one thing. (I could dispute that by saying that Clemens and Bonds were the very best of their time and broke records of players who were probably not juicing. Thus, if they did take steroids, which is looking more and more likely, their entire legacies must be called into question. Nobody will remember David Segui and Carl Everett for their incredible baseball accomplishments.) But Gammons doesn't even mention why Bonds and Clemens would find the Mitchell Report "inherently unfair".

Canseco has been right about a lot. Rocker is right when he laughs that only about 80 names were thrown into the media feeding pool through the Mitchell report. McNamee and Radomski have been granted more public credibility than one of the greatest position players and one of the greatest pitchers.

Okay, this has really gone too far. Please, somebody correct me if I am wrong. Is Gammons actually suggesting that, even though mountains of circumstantial and physical evidence point to the guilt of Clemens and Bonds, they should get more credibility than Radomski and McNamee, two guys who have nothing to gain by lying, just because they happen to be two "of the greatest"?

I have really never seen such an egregious display of slanted, factless, biased, obsequious journalism. I do believe that there are arguments to be made in favor of Clemens. Gammons, however, seems to be siding with him, and worse, sympathizing with him, purely based on the fact that he was really, really good. Just...disgusting.

Baseball season really can't get here quickly enough, can it?

I Wasn't Going To Post About Peter King's Moronic, Sanctimonious Bullshit This Week, But Then I Saw This

2008-01-21T09:22:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Week III

"You're good kids. Stay together. Trust each other and be good teammates to one another. I believe there is a championship in this room."

--Ernie Accorsi's prescient final words in his last address to the team as the Giants general manager last season. Those words come from Tom Callahan's revealing read, "The GM: The Inside Story of a Dream Job and the Nightmares That Go With It." Callahan e-mailed Friday to remind me of Accorsi's talk to his team, which I'd forgotten. But how valid it is this morning now that Accorsi's key draft gem, Eli Manning, has helped lead the G-Men to the Super Bowl. The Giants are young enough and good enough at enough important positions to continue challenging for championships.

The reason I despise Eli Manning has nothing to do with his struggles, or the fact that he plays for a New York team. The reason I despise him is because he is the whiniest little bitch on the face of the earth. After every unsuccessful passing play, the camera shows Manning performing some combination of pouting, throwing his hands in the air, and squinting like he can't figure out what's going on. He bitches at his receivers, or his running back, or his offensive line, or his coaches, or the referee.

The best example of his disagreeable nature, however, came way back on the day he was drafted. He actually had the gall to complain publicly about playing for the Chargers, who had the No. 1 overall pick and were planning on drafting him. He went so far as to insist that he wouldn't sign with them, thus forcing the Chargers to trade the No. 1 pick to the Giants so Manning could play for his team of choice. Needless to say, I delighted in the fact that Philip Rivers, whom the Chargers selected with the pick acquired from the Giants, became an above-average starting QB basically as soon as he started playing, while Manning, despite being handed the starting job much earlier than Rivers, was sucking it up for years and being carved up by the media in the very city in which he had insisted on playing.

What does all this have to do with Peter King's "Quote of the Week III"? Well, this little tidbit stood out to me:

But how valid it is this morning now that Accorsi's key draft gem, Eli Manning, has helped lead the G-Men to the Super Bowl.

Accorsi's "key draft gem" fell into his lap because the attention-whore refused to play in a beautiful city where everybody's more or less accepting of your performance. Accorsi's brilliant move was to think to himself, "Hmm, the consensus number 1 draft pick is begging to play for my team. Perhaps I should draft him."

I fucking hate Eli Manning.

Dumbass Game Show Contestants, Part 1

2008-01-20T21:44:00.000-08:00

I beg forgiveness of those readers who came to this space expecting to see another slam of a stupid columnist of Peter, or perhaps Buster. I've elected to branch out a bit and blog about my other love besides sports: game shows.

First, a quick background. My love for game shows started at a very young age. My parents were too cheap for cable, and there weren't that many game shows on network TV back then: it was basically Family Feud, Price is Right, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy. (I refuse to include the ! in Jeopardy; I see no reason for its inclusion. While game shows do put a hop in my step, I tend to find superfluous punctuation in show titles to be aggravating.) The Feud and Bob Barker were on weekday mornings, so I rarely got to see them. Your average kid would go out on snow days and build snowmen or get into snowball fights; I was parked in front of the tube, listening to Ray Combs crack wise and shouting out bids for the Showcase Showdown.

When we would visit my grandparents, who loved television far more than my parents and therefore had cable, it was game show heaven for me. Back then, there was a two- or three-hour block of game shows during the day on the USA Network. I don't recall exactly what they were - I recall Hollywood Squares, Scrabble, and Name That Tune, but there were definitely more.

Fast forward to about ten years ago, when we moved to Seattle and my parents, worried about subpar TV reception in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, did a 180 and purchased not just cable, but digital cable. Flipping through the channels, I stumbled across the Game Show Network, and that's when I knew that technology was unequivocally, undoubtedly a good thing. Since then, 95% of my non-sports TV watching has been the Game Show Network. When I got DVR in my apartment, I stockpiled over 50 episodes of Who Wants to be a Millionaire on the hard drive. Technology and game shows, coming together once again to make Joist a very happy TV watcher.

Anyway, from now on, I may use this space to showcase some of my favorite game show moments, specifically the ones that feature a contestant doing something particularly stupid. Our first entry comes to us from the game show Twenty-One, hosted by a wholly uncharismatic Maury Povich:

Maury: True or False: Before Mark McGwire broke the single-season home run record, it was held by Nolan Ryan.

Jason the Contestant: (Long pause) Um...I'm gonna say...false.

Maury: And you're correct. What took you so long? Nolan Ryan was a pitcher!

Jason: I know.

I'm sure you do.

Watch Out Buster, I'm Bored

2008-01-16T11:13:00.000-08:00

Slow day at work, I resorted to reading a Buster Olney article. Now, I'm still bored, and I'm also 1.3% dumber than before. Bad choice.

Buster's "blog" (yes, ESPN.com's "blogs" require scare quotes, as they are "blogs" in name only) entry today proves that Peter Gammons is not the only writer ESPN.com does not edit. It also proves, once again, that Buster is a tool.

Because Santana is eligible for free agency after the 2008 season, neither the Red Sox nor the Yankees is willing to give up the boatload of young players that Smith really wanted for the two-time Cy Young Award winner, while paying Santana a $125-$150 million extension.

How good a writer do you have to be to know that it should be "are willing," not "is"? That shit only gets confusing when you have two singular alternatives that get lumped together in the writer's mind, leading to a mistake, or where one alternative is singular and the other is plural (and even a decent writer could, conceivably, forget the rule that the last one governs). But either "Red Sox" OR "Yankees" would be plural by itself (not "themselves" here, because I'm referring to the word, not the actual Yankees) -- so how could using both turn into a singular "is"? Would he EVER say "the Yankees is not willing"? Then why would he say "neither the Red Sox nor the Yankees is willing"? Okay, enough.

In fact, if you think of the game "Deal Or No Deal," any $750,000 deal is off the table, too. Smith only has what he regards as subpar offers on the table. We know this, because otherwise he would've pulled the trigger already...

WOW! Isn't it a good thing we have analysts like Buster to come up with such brilliant inferences. "If Smith had gotten an offer he wanted to take, he would have taken it." Again, WOW! My mind is completely blown. To smithereens, even. He goes on...

So if you are Smith, what do you do? Do you take a subpar deal? Or do you simply go to spring training and prepare to start the season with Santana?

Wait a second, Buster! All you showed was that Smith believed he was getting a "subpar" deal. Isn't the purpose of your article to provide your own opinion on what Smith should do? Instead, all you've done is assume Smith is right. So, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that your answer to these questions is Santana "should" not be traded, which is of course only because he has not actually BEEN traded yet by the immaculate Smith...

If I was in Smith's shoes, I'd keep Santana. Because to trade him would be to forgo the opportunity to contend in 2008, when the Twins have a chance to be a good team, with Francisco Liriano returning, with Joe Nathan closing, with Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer and Delmon Young hitting in the middle of their lineup.

Oh, waddaya know, I was right. (As an aside, it should read "If I were in Smith's shoes..."). Of course, if Smith does end up trading Santana, it will be because he's determined that the offer was not "subpar," a determination that is automatically correct, and thus he would still not have done the wrong thing. What a luxury, nothing for the Twins can possibly go wrong here!

Now, on the other side is Buster's optimism about the Twins chances with Santana in 2008. I'm not a professional at statistical analysis -- this blog is primarily about bad writing -- but they're related, so let's do a little amateur, armchair analysis here. (It's also tremendously fun to trash the Twinkies.) Buster believes they will contend, listing 6 names, all of which he must believe belong to players who are good. But there are some serious question marks here.

Let's start with offense. Last year, the Twins scored 718 runs, "good" for 3rd to last in the American League. Their best hitter was Torii Hunter. He's now gone, replaced by Delmon Young, whom Buster mentions here. Young last year had a pathetic OBP of .316 and slugged only .408. He was a well-below-average player. Now, of course, Young has a lot of talent and promise, but how much of that crap have we seen evaporate, unrealized, into the ether? Especially when it has belonged to major nutjobs such as Young, who famously hurled a bat at an umpire in the minors. Yikes. He might still take a step forward in 2008, but it would have to be a giant step forward to replace Hunter (at least the 2007 version).

Yeah, Mauer is good, but last year he continued his habit of not playing very much, appearing in only 109 games and playing only decently in those games. If history is any guide, the disabled-ness will continue.

Morneau is good, Cuddyer is pretty good (although we'll see how much of a fluke his 2007 was), but the Twins have a knack of filling out the bottom -- and sometimes top! -- of their lineups with, not just average, but gawd-awful hitters. Punchless batters such as Luis Castillo, Jason Bartlett, and Jason Tyner were regular starters. Jeffrey frickin' Cirillo played the most games at designated hitter last year of any Twin. Duds such as Mike Redmond, Alexei Casilla, Luis Rodriguez, and Leeeeeeeew Ford all received significant playing time. And, saving the best for last, Nick Punto played one hundred and fifty games, and in those games batted .210, reached base 29.1% of the time, and slugged (gurgle, gag, gulp) .291.

Perhaps I have not been following the Twins closely enough this offseason, but I don't think they've done much else to make up for the loss of Hunter, much less improve their woeful run total from last year. Craig Monroe had an atrocious year last year, and although he was somewhat better previously and had a little pop, he rarely makes contact and almost never walks. It's not clear he will start anyway, since, in addition to Young and Cuddyer, they have Jason Kubel, who was actually not terrible last year (whereas Monroe was). The Twins also signed Adam Everett, who is a terrific fielder but cannot hit baseballs with significant effectiveness. If the signing enables them to move Punto out of the lineup (I guess by shifting Bartlett to third?), it might improve the team marginally, but nothing earth-shattering there.

Now -- pitching! Yes, Liriano is back. Probably. But, who is Liriano now? Nobody knows, and many believe he'll never be the same as he was when he came up. Which is sad, from a baseball fan's perspective, because he was flipping amazing. They had a league-average starter named Carlos Silva, now gone. Booooooooof Bonser and Matt Garza are "promising" and "talented" but, as noted above, who the heck knows, especially with pitchers. They have some other "promising" guy named Slowey, and of course their celebrated set-up man Pat Neshek. I admit, Pat Neshek is a ton of fun, but hitters started figuring him out in the 2nd half last season.

What does this all add up to? A possible wild card team... in the National League! (snap!) In the AL Central, it's a possible 3rd place finish. How much money is that worth in Let's Make a Deal, Buster?

If the Twins struggle early, Smith could dangle Santana again during the season -- and odds are he could get offers in quality to what he has now from the Yankees, Red Sox and Mets, and maybe even better, depending on the level of desperation of the teams involved.

I guess the word "similar" was accidentally deleted from here.

Santana has a full no-trade clause and there have been reports that he could reject any deal once the season starts, but executives involved in these conversations are not concerned with that. They believe it would be very hard for Santana to walk away from a trade if the Mets or Red Sox or Yankees offered him the record-setting contract, despite what he may feel now.

Why would it be hard for Santana to "walk away"? Couldn't he get even better offers at the end of the season, when he can get all the rich teams in on the bidding, not just the ones in position to make a deadline deal? Buster, like a lot of writers lately, fails to address this point.

The rest of the post, which is actually very long, has a lot of tidbits and links, as well as an admittedly interesting and helpful summary of the congressional hearings on 'roids, if you're not sick of that topic yet (I am). But as for the topic -- Santana -- where he sought out to add some analysis of his own, he ended up adding nothing. So again, I'm still bored.

More Gloom from Gammons

2008-01-10T10:56:00.000-08:00

Peter Gammons has churned out some more pointless doom and gloom today on his ESPN "blog."

Before I get down to picking out some hilariously atrocious sentences, I want to address Peter's overall point here. Peter thinks the steroid "revelations" -- which actually "revealed" nothing new other than some particulars -- are as serious a problem for the game as the strike of 94-95, a strike that stopped baseball from being played completely, including one entire postseason. We, the fans, were rather pissed in 1994 because we ARE fans of baseball, and there was no baseball to watch. We could not experience all those emotional highs and lows of seeing if the (finally!) resurgent Tribe could stay in the wild card lead or patch up their bullpen enough to catch the White Sox, to pick an example at random (cough). The steroid abuse, on the other hand, primarily hurt the other players, not the fans -- it put the non-cheaters in the unfair position of either being at a competitive disadvantage or cheating themselves. It didn't disadvantage some teams at the expense of others. The main draw of sports is harmless competition, hoping "our" team beats the other team.

True, because taking steroids is unfair, it is wrong, and because it is wrong, doing so taints' the abuser's accomplishments. And yes, records are a big deal, especially in baseball. But even in baseball, they are essentially a sideshow. Right now, what every normal baseball fan cares about most is, who are we going to field next season? Do we have a shot at first place? Are our prospects going to pan out? NOT, will Prince Fielder's 60 home runs be "tainted"?

And to the extent these stats are important to fans, the solution is simple -- a testing program rigorous enough such that we can just presume from here on out that players aren't cheating, because it's no longer worth it for them. And it appears that is happening. The rest is just a matter for the history buffs who have to sort out all the records and boring Hall of Fame arguments (if you're getting particularly sick of this tedious topic lately, raise your hand!!). I'll go back to biting my nails over whether Fausto can get his sinker over the corner of the plate, whether Sizemore is going to catch up with that ball's trajectory in the outfield gap, and other such matters.

So why is Gammons so incredibly and wildly down on baseball lately, alternately demanding more info and calling informants "sewer rats"? I'm going to play armchair psychologist here: I think it's guilt. This is the kind of thing that journalists are supposed to expose, and even though there were sneaking suspicions, nobody bothered. And since Peter Gammons is, for some unknown reason, one of the premier journalists covering the game, he feels particularly bad about this. He's now channeling this emotion in various ways, sometimes in the form of anger directed at the people who exposed the players -- and in the process, exposed him -- and sometimes in the form of gloomy sadness over the State of the Game. He says this is what "fans of the game" are feeling, but he is really, diagnoses this armchair psychologist, "projecting."

Okay, onto the gibberish...

On a Caribbean beach, it is wonderful not to read or listen to lawyer-speak and lawyer-leak.

I have no clue what he's talking about, and I'm a lawyer. I don't think there's anything left to say about this sentence.

There are drawbacks, such as no Morning Joe or MLBTradeRumors.com on my BlackBerry, but until we know why there is any reason that Brian McNamee would possibly lie or why Roger Clemens would risk it all by testifying under oath and risk jail time, we need to do a little power-yoga breathing and relax.

First of all, shame on you, Gammons, for causing me to picture you in a bathing suit. Second, you are a very bad writer. "Why there is any reason" is redundant and confusing. "Why" already means "what reason." Why, in the name of George Will, would you not just write "why Brian McNamee would possibly lie or why Roger Clemens would risk it all"? It would be nicely parallel and it would fucking make sense! There is absolutely no possible linguistic or stylistic purpose for adding that extra phrase.

Then [in 1994-95], we had then-Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga destroying his franchise as he told fans that beer league veterans liked the game more than real players.

What does he mean when he says "we had" this? This is a lot like his habit of starting sentences with "it's all about..." Just vague and lazy.
Also, uh, what is he talking about? What is a beer league veteran? Who are the "real" players? What does this have to do with Huizenga trading off his expensive stars for prospects? And what does that have to do with steroids? As usual, a pervasive feeling of confusion is creeping over me as I read a Peter Gammons column.

Now, we have steroids as the story line for the 2008 season and the only subject of questions Brian Roberts and Eric Gagne will face.

This sentence is a great illustration of the substantive point I made above. Gammons is wrong. When/if Brian Roberts is traded to the Cubs, he will most certainly "face questions" about his feelings on his former and future organizations. He will also face questions on his possible steroids history, but these will be most relevant to Cubs fans in determining what his future performance will be now that he definitely won't be doing it (due to presumably more rigorous testing).

Bud Selig wishes he had better understood what was going on, and when he tried to purge himself with the Mitchell report, what he got from his esteemed friend was a document that not only would have been graded as incomplete, but left Selig bleeding.

This is confusing. What does he mean that the report "would have been graded incomplete"? Why the theoretical "would have"? Would have, if what? Who's grading it? Why was it incomplete?

There's also a serious sentence structure problem here -- at first it seems like Gammons is saying that the report "would have left Selig bleeding," but that makes even less sense than the first part of the sentence. After a couple re-readings, I figured out that "the report not only [blank], but also left Selig bleeding." But since the two parts are not in the same tense, the sentence is misleading.

But even after I sorted through the stuctural problems, I was still confused. Why is Selig left bleeding? Presumably this is a metaphor, but for what? The Report "wounded" Selig personally somehow? I don't recall reading that the Report blamed Selig in particular. Did it? Is this what Gammons is referring to? He doesn't tell us.

There are vast conspiracy theories -- the most ridiculous is that George Bush knew what was going on in Texas, when most people who knew Bush and Tom Schieffer when they owned the Rangers believe they were such rebels they would have released every player they thought was breaking the law. But the fact remains that there is no concrete proof of the underground allegations.

Maybe I'm not reading enough crazy baseball blogs, but I have only seen this George Bush "conspiracy theory" twice, and both times were in Peter Gammons' blog. If he thinks it (whatever the theory is, which is unclear) is so ridiculous, why does he keep repeating it? And once he says it's "ridiculous," why say "but the fact remains there is no concrete proof"? You just said it's ridiculous -- it's ridiculous, "but" it's not true? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??

Okay, deep breath (this post is particularly aggravating, even for Gammons). But one more thing -- how does releasing any steroid-using player make Bush and Schieffer "rebels"? I had to re-read the sentence because I thought I missed something "rebellious." But I think it's just another bizarre word choice by Gammons.

Human rights are important, but right now the restoration of faith in a badly tainted business is more important.

I have no idea why Gammons is even mentioning "human rights." I also have no idea why restoring faith in the game and "human rights" are mutually exclusive. In any case, the notion of "human rights" has several different definitions under various philosophical theories, but all such definitions would make it, without question, FAR more important than fixing steroids in baseball. And it's not close. Again, Gammons, what the fuck are you even talking about.

It's not solely Selig's responsibility; it's the responsibility of everyone making money in the business -- players, agents, owners, media outlets -- to take the public eye away from the tawdry, shabby lawyer talk and remind the public why some of us love to watch Jeter and Josh Beckett, Johan Santana and Pujols, Hanley Ramirez and Martin play.

Obviously, this is a typically clumsy, run-on sentence, but I wanted to draw particular attention to the phrase, "tawdry, shabby lawyer talk." Huh? What "lawyer talk" is he referring to? The Mitchell report? Unclear. Whatever the subject is, I am a lawyer, and say what you want about legalese, but it is quite the opposite of "tawdry" and "shabby." It is cold and technical, sometimes absurdly so.

Bottom line (we have a refrain here): Gammons, please, please, for the love of God, tell me, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

Gammons Makes Ass Out of Himself and Me

2008-01-04T08:05:00.000-08:00

Apparently, Glavine and Maddux are good. The news about them is that there is no news about them. If you don't understand, Peter Gammons will, in his own form of broken, rambling English, explain:

At this point in sports history, we cannot assume anyone's innocence, but no one has ever tied Greg Maddux or Tom Glavine to any scandal involving steroids, HGH or anything else.

Note that Gammons says you "cannot assume" that Glavine and Maddux are innocent, but then writes an entire blog entry extolling their virtuous careers based entirely on the assumption that since their names have not yet surfaced in connection with steroids, they are innocent. Well, that and their terrific stats, but we all knew about the latter already.

Before they retire in the next year or two, if they remain unquestioned, then their first-ballot elections may produce a higher percentage than one can now imagine.

I just imagined really hard, and came up with 100 percent. I guess there must be a percentage higher than that.

Then, after talking about the impressive number of Wins the pair has compiled in the last several years, Gammons says:

Granted, Maddux and Glavine pitched for some very good teams, but Maddux has won four Cy Young Awards, with one second- and two third-place finishes. Glavine has two Cy Young Awards, one second-place finish and two thirds, and he closed out the 1995 World Series with a one-hitter.

This fallacy is not unique to Gammons, but what should come after the admission that the Wins were dependent on the quality of the rest of their teams is some evidence illustrating how they were good independent of their team quality or win totals. Instead, he cites their Cy Young results, which of course depend largely (and retardedly) on... Wins. It's like saying, "Santana wasn't the best pitcher in the AL last year -- he only had 15 wins! Granted, his team regularly featured Jason Bartlett and Nick Punto, but he also finished only 5th in the Cy Young voting!" Which of course was only because... aw, you get the idea.

There's also the small point that Clemens also pitched for some excellent teams in that span. I haven't checked who actually received more run support during that time, but I'm sure Gammons hasn't either. He doesn't even bother to re-read what he writes even once...

Cubs pitching coach Larry Rothschild maintains that Maddux may be the only pitcher who essentially invented two pitches -- the cutting fastball that rides either back over the inside corner to right-handed batters or over the outside backdoor corner to lefties -- as well as throwing the changeup inside, a practice that was taboo for generations.

Here once again Gammons gets lost in the middle of one his long-ass sentences. He names the first pitch -- the cutting fastball -- and then when he finally gets around to naming the second invented pitch, he leads off with a verb. If he, or some editor, had just re-read this thing once, he would have realized (maybe) that it should have read "as well as the inside changeup." Of course, perhaps he did realize this but then also realized he would have to change the wording of the subsequent phrase ("a practice..."), and said, eh, to hell with it.

Ask Derek Lowe or Chris Young or any young pitcher who'll listen, and they'll tell you how Maddux changed the way they watch games, study hitters and pitch.

Any pitcher who will listen? You mean listen to you ask the question? Or you mean any pitcher who will answer? Gammons, are players ignoring you when you ask them questions? There there. There there. Um, also, is Derek Lowe a "young pitcher"? I guess compared to Bob Feller.

This has been a trying time for those who care about the game. We don't know what's real and what isn't, who's lying and who's telling the truth, which rats are telling the truth they so long skirted.

Here he goes with the "rats" again! (At least this time they're not "sewer rats.") I think Gammons is in the Boston mob. Little known fact: Jack Nicholson based his character in the Departed on Peter Gammons.

We have judged players by their appearances, and in this time have watched Maddux and Glavine go from phenoms who threw in the 90s to guys who figured out somehow, some way to beat hitters while appearing like a couple of insurance salesmen playing golf at the country club.

Obviously you can't say "somehow to beat hitters," but still, if Gammons had just ended the sentence after "insurance salesmen," I would have been okay with this sentence. I get it, they look like a couple of nerds who somehow excel at sports. Well, Maddux does, anyway. But playing golf at the country club? Do they look rich too? How does that make their athletic success ironic? Gammons, you are a weird man.

So, on a Christmas when too many lights have burned out and too many stars and ornaments seem to have fallen from the trees,...

Was it an especially windy Christmas or something? ... ohhh, it's a metaphor. (Gag.)

...it seems like the right time to put the careers of a couple of 41-year-olds in perspective, and appreciate that if any two players embody the good old days, they are Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine, Hall of Famers.

You know, so long as you do what I admitted you can't do at the top of the article, namely, assume they're innocent.

It Gets a Little Fuzzy After Twenty

2008-01-01T23:20:00.000-08:00

Can Peter King count? You be the judge.

Here's something for you to consider, though, when thinking about how much I hate the Patriots: Five of my 22 all-pro starters were Patriots...

Now look back at his all-pro ballot and count how many players are listed. What's funny is that I was going to make a crack in yesterday's post that it's a good thing that King's not a head coach because his teams would get flagged for having twelve men on the field, since he voted for 12 all-pros each on offense and defense. Then I figured, nah, King knows more about this crap than I do; for all I know, the AP all-pros comprise twelve positions. But, as it turns out, even King thinks he only voted for 22 all-pros altogether. Good times!

Peter King Continues To Talk Directly From His Rectum

2007-12-31T15:48:00.000-08:00

I know we should change the name of the blog by now, seeing as how I've been focusing pretty much exclusively on Peter King, but we're in the heart of football season, and somebody has to put a stop to King's douchebaggery. I made up that word and I love it. Anyway, if I go through a whole King MMQB column again, my eyes will start bleeding, as will yours, the reader. So I'll just pick a couple of choice comments.

In re: Belichick's and Coughlin's decisions to play their starters for Saturday's game that meant nothing to their playoff standings:

I loved the call. Loved it. Football players should play football, particularly with so much on the line, and coaches should read their players, which Coughlin did so well.

1) I hated that sentence. Hated it.
2) "Football players should play football..." I'll let that one speak for itself.
3) "Coaches should read their players" Gee, Coughlin managed to figure out that his players would maybe enjoy potentially knocking off the heretofore undefeated Patriots? What a genius! What a mind-reader!

Giants punt. Patriots punt. Giants punt. Then the silliest drive of the season happened. Pats' ball at their 35, and after a first-down incompletion, Randy Moss sprinted up the right sideline and beat coverage, but Brady, under pressure, underthrew him and the ball slipped off his fingertips. Third down. Surely Brady would do something to move the chains now, with 11 minutes to go, down 28-23. "The play was supposed to be a clear-out route for Wes [Welker], and it was supposed to go to him for a first down,'' said Moss. In other words, Moss takes two cover guys with him, streaking down the right side, and there's just single coverage on the elusive Welker. "But the Giants' corner and safety both trapped Wes and tried to trap Tommy into throwing it to him.'' At the same time, Giant corner Sam Madison pulled up lame, and safety James Butler was slow to respond. By the time Brady looked up, there was Moss running free up the right side. AGAIN. This time Brady had time, threw it deep and hit Moss right in stride.

I watched this drive, and then read this summary. There was absolutely nothing "silly" about the drive. Tom Brady threw deep twice to Randy Moss. The first time, Brady was pressured and underthrew Moss. The second time, he was not under pressure and he hit him. This drive is the opposite of silly. This drive is pretty much what has happened in Patriots games all year. Moss has 18 catches of more than 20 yards this season, and an NFL-record 23 receiving touchdowns, so the fact that he caught a long bomb for a TD was, in fact, very unsilly. I think Peter King went to one day of one English class, and on that day, the professor taught about the benefits of using hyperbole. King fell asleep for the second part of the lecture, in which the professor warned against the overuse of hyperbole and brought countless examples of writers who lose credibility in doing so.

Defensive Player of the Week

San Francisco DL Bryant Young. Just one tackle in the last game of his life, the 49ers' loss at Cleveland, but the game has lost an excellent player and an even better ambassador.

First of all, I had to read the rest of the paragraph before I realized that Young didn't actually die, he just retired. Second of all, I am fully aware of how meaningless King's "awards" are, but why put Young in here and then shamelessly admit that he didn't do shit this week? His column is already seven million words long; he couldn't have found another place to pay tribute to him? He's mocking his own meaningless awards! Third, I don't know what an ambassador for the league is, exactly. But I would imagine that he's better at playing than ambassading. One day when it's not New Years' Eve I will actually take the time to go through an entire MMQB column and count the instances in which King exaggerates, gushes over merely above-average players, or otherwise stretches the truth. Expect the number to contain three digits.

Special Teams Players of the Week

Cleveland KR/PR Josh Cribbs. Imagine having 129 punt-return yards at the end of the first quarter. His 74-yard touchdown on a punt return was the first punt return score of his career and cemented his status as the returner of the year in the NFL -- with all due respect given to Devin Hester. I'm not saying Cribbs is better than Hester, because he's not. But he had more opportunities, and he had 629 more return yards. And in this game, he had a 94-yard kickoff return for touchdown called back on a horrible holding call against wedge-man Lennie Friedman.

Where do I begin with this morass? Well, in the interest of full disclosure, I will admit to being a Bears fan, and am therefore somewhat biased in my opinion of Devin Hester. (Translation: I have a healthy heterosexual man-crush on Hester.) Now that we've got that out of the way, um, what? Let's see the ridiculous sentence again.

His 74-yard touchdown on a punt return was the first punt return score of his career and cemented his status as the returner of the year in the NFL -- with all due respect given to Devin Hester.

First of all, to say that Cribbs's status was "cemented" as the returner of the year is ridiculous, because while King makes a case for Cribbs, it's a weak case, and at best it's debatable whose season was better. Second of all, regarding the actual argument, Cribbs' "cementing" was achieved via his first career punt return for a touchdown, occurring in the last game of the season. He had a total of three touchdowns this season, including kickoffs and punts. An excellent season. All Hester did was set a motherfucking record for most touchdown returns in a season, with six. For the second consecutive year. Sorry for the italics, but the point needs to be made.

King's arguments, such as they are, revolve around two points: a) Cribbs had more return yards, and b) Cribbs had a touchdown return nullified by a questionable holding call. Well, in the words of Jules Winnfield, allow me to retort. In response to a), I would point out that King himself admits that Cribbs had more opportunities, resulting in the extra 629 return yards. What he fails to mention, because it significantly weakens his argument, is that the reason Cribbs got all these extra opportunities is because teams aren't scared shitless to kick to him. I saw a graphic during the Packers-Bears game that said that the Bears had set an NFL record for most opposing kicks (kickoffs + punts) out of bounds. Although this record is, technically speaking, a team record, it is due to one man, and one man only: Josh Cribbs. Just kidding! It is Devin Hester.

b) is hardly an argument, since holding calls are basically by definition questionable, and Hester has been similarly victimized.

Quote of the Week IV
"He has good aura with the football team. The team believes in the guy.''

-- Kansas City coach Herman Edwards, on quarterback Brodie Croyle, named the Chiefs' starter for 2008.

I read this quote and thought to myself, Edwards is begging to get fired. Why else would he spout nonsensical statements like this one? Let's see what Peter King thinks:

Good aura. Hmmmm. Herman Edwards could sell grain alcohol at a temperance convention.

Okay, putting aside the lame joke, is anybody besides King "sold" on Brodie Croyle now that we're aware that he has a "good aura"? My lord.

The next section is way too long to cite here, but King makes an impassioned yet pointless argument extolling the virtues of one Vincent Testaverde.

Check out where he ranks in NFL history against some of the greatest quarterbacks of all time in the key passing categories before you dismiss him as just some loser who lasted a long time.

But he is a loser who lasted a long time! All of the "key passing categories" King mentions are cumulative numbers - attempts, pass yards, TD passes, etc. - that one will accrue if one lasts as long as Testaverde did. Obviously he must have been decent enough to hang around for that long, but that's the only argument one can make.

Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week
This happened the week before last, and I'm sorry to say I simply forgot to use it. But on the New Jersey Transit train from suburban New Jersey into Manhattan 12 mornings ago for the Inside the NFL show at HBO, the Bill Parcells/Atlanta story was roiling, and I spent the first 35 minutes of a 42-minute commute on the phone with various club and league officials about it. The train is packed as a rule, and I always try to speak in a near-whisper on the phone because I hate listening to the phone calls of others. After the fourth and final phone call, I sat up from my bent-over position, trying to keep things quiet, and a 60ish woman in front of me, with fire in her eyes, hissed: "Can you please not make another phone call!''

"OK,'' I said.

When we exited the train, she stared at me for a full five seconds, tsk-tsked me, and harrumphed her way up the stairs to the street. Just another pleasant Wednesday in Commuterville.

This woman is my hero.

Joist's Pick: A Generally Well-Respected Columnist Named "Peter" Will Write Something That Will Piss Him Off

2007-12-27T08:50:00.000-08:00

Football prognosticating is, generally speaking, a pretty foolish endeavor. TMQ, over on ESPN, has run all kinds of data showing that the most accurate football game forecasts involve generic predictions, such as Better Team Wins or Home Team Wins, which obviously don't even require one to know what teams are playing. And even these systems will only produce a winner around 60% of the time or so.

Peter King, however, ignores the innate futility of accurate football prognosticating. Not only does he pick games, he picks exact final scores of games, and he'll even occasionally predict something dopey and specific to happen in the game, like, "Willie Parker rushes for 124 yards and 2 TDs as the Steelers run all over the Bengals." (By the way, apropos exact final scores of games, TMQ used to have a hilarious running item about "the august New York Times' quixotic attempt to pick an exact final score" - scroll down here almost to the end of the column for an example - and give a running tally of its successes.)

What's also especially amusing about King's picks is that Sports Illustrated decided to run some sort of contest pitting readers against King's weekly picks, and if you beat him in a given week you get entered in a drawing to win a truck or something. At that point, why not just have a "taking candy from a baby" contest?

Ok, enough chitchat. On to this week's Peter King Challenge! (Note: link will only be relevant to this post for the next few days, and I can't figure out how to access the archives. Basically, if you're reading this after Sunday, you'll just have to trust me that he actually said these things.)

I say Bill Belichick gets Tom Brady his two touchdown passes to set the NFL record and plays hard for 16-0. Remember the one thing I've been harping on all season when it comes to the Patriots and how they approach these games. It's something you heard the NFL Films mikes capture on HBO's Inside the NFL show in November, when Belichick, late in the Pats' win at Indianapolis, exhorted his defense by saying over and over, "Sixty minutes! Sixty minutes!" That's why I think Brady will be playing well into the second half.

Patriots 29, Giants 13

Peter King is some kind of savant. After fifteen weeks of watching the Patriots running up the score on everybody, he has determined that the Patriots play hard all 60 minutes. In case we have forgotten, though, he's "been harping on [it] all season." By the way, I inferred the thing that King has been harping on, because he doesn't actually explicitly mention it, just a bunch of vague pronouns and an NFL Films quote. Also, how cute is it that he predicted the Pats to score 29 points? How is that even possible? Does he think they'll go for 2 after a TD for no reason? Or will it be three TDs, three field goals, and a safety? Does he just pick a number from 10 to 40 out of his ass? I'm loaded with questions here.

Talk about a waste of of jet fuel, with an awful infusion of greenhouse gases in the environment. I mean, wouldn't the crowd at the Georgia Dome prefer to see a nice scrimmage between the Falcons and the Sugar Bowl-bound Georgia Bulldogs?

Seahawks 17, Falcons 13

Up until two years ago, when King started doing the NBC show that he yammers about incessantly, SI flew him out to a different game every week so that he could "cover" it for his MMQB column. Now he sits on his fat ass in New Jersey to write his column, and it's exactly the same. Conclusion? He is a giant waste of jet fuel. He is also an arrogant son of a bitch.

The Saints win a wintry game in Chicago 11 months too late, then get eliminated from the playoffs while their charter is somewhere over Missouri on the way home. Through no fault of Drew Brees, by the way.
Saints 33, Bears 16

This is what I mean by specific, dopey predictions. The charter will be "over Missouri"? Do people really like reading this arbitrary shit?

Let me go on record as saying the Bengals going 6-10 does not surprise me, and I never bought into the Bengals before the season. Cincinnati is paying for having a bottom-10 defense in four of Marvin Lewis' five seasons.
Dolphins 20, Bengals 17

What he means: "Ha ha! I got a prediction right! I predicted the Bengals' downfall, after they went 8-8 with more arrests than wins last year! I am a genius! Hahahaha!"

Did you know that any of eight teams could be tied for the 13th pick in the NFL draft by the end of play Sunday, and these are two of them?

Eagles 30, Bills 17

After poring this little tidbit over for entirely too long, I think what King means to say is that it's possible that as many as eight teams will finish 7-9 (or possibly 8-8), which would qualify them for the 13th pick in the draft. The reason this statement is particularly stupid, in addition to the incredibly vague wording, is that "two of them" (i.e. the Eagles and the Bills) will not finish with identical records, since they have the same record now and they're playing each other. They could tie, yes, but then they would each be 7-8-1, which would not tie them with six other teams. It's also stupid because, needless to say, you can't "tie" for a specific pick in the draft - the NFL uses tie-breaking formulas to determine which teams pick ahead of others with identical records. Basically, in trying to present a meaningless and uninteresting fact (is it even remotely surprising that a whole lot of mediocre teams in a mediocre league would finish with equally mediocre records?), King has managed to confused the hell out of his readers. Well played, sir.

In what is believed to be a sportsbook record, not a single wager is placed on this game by any man, woman or gecko in the state of Nevada.
Buccaneers 13, Panthers 12

This is funny not because of King's line about geckos not wagering on this game in Nevada, but because this is yet another retarded final score prediction. 13-12? How many 13-12 games have there been in NFL history? (Hint: not many.)

Finishing .500 is a lot more important to Houston than entering the playoffs with some phony momentum is for the Jags.
Texans 20, Jaguars 9

This sentence is an absolute contradiction. The only way finishing .500 would help the Texans is if it gave them some sort of psychological lift for next year. (I refuse to use the word "momentum".) If you really buy into this whole psychological edge thing, which team is more likely to benefit from a win in this game: a team playing its next game in seven days, or a team playing its next game in seven months?

If I'm a Broncos fan, I like the fact that Jay Cutler's jawing with Philip Rivers. Shows me the guy's got a little chippiness to him. Reminds me of the time Phil Simms and former teammate Jim Burt jawed at each other when Burt defected to the Niners in the late 1980s. I want that feistiness and fervor in my quarterback. Oh, the game? The Vikes' balloon got deflated for me when they looked the Toledo Mud Hens last Sunday
Broncos 27, Vikings 24

If you've read this blog before, you know why the last sentence in this paragraph is a classic example of how fickle football commentators. In my previous Peter King post, I quoted King thusly:

j. I'm no ratings maven, but I'll bet a dime that a Dallas-New England or Green Bay-New England Super Bowl would draw the biggest audience in American television history.
k. Why do I think the Vikings might have something to say about that?

On which I commented that King's an idiot (actually, I used the word "fool") for thinking that the Vikings are suddenly amazing just because they beat a few bad teams in a row. Now, less than three weeks later, King jumps off the bandwagon even more quickly than he got on. By the way, he gets paid an exorbitant sum of money to "analyze" football, while I've yet to receive a dime for my football analysis.

I say Rams coach Scott Linehan stays, in part because the ailing owner who hired him, Georgia Frontiere still loves him, and in part because team president John Shaw can't find anyone he likes more. It's a decision I support. Simple reason: The more you change coaches without a better alternative in mind, the more your team stays in turmoil.
Cardinals 33, Rams 27

More King arrogance. He supports their decision not to fire a coach who's been there one year. People in the Rams' front office just breathed a sigh of relief. Thank God we have Peter King's support!

The Steelers still have a prayer to win the third seed, so they've got to play this game hard. Re: Baltimore: If you could have predicted a nine-win decline in 2007, you're a better prognosticator than I. (I'm sure you are anyway.) By the way, a big Ravens fan friend of mine asked the other day, "Sometimes, when Brian Billick has that quizzical look of his on the sidelines, doesn't he remind you of Dwight Schrute?''
Steelers 23, Ravens 10

Don't let his sudden self-deprecating statement fool you. He's still arrogant; he's just reeling you in. In fact, I'll just take what he says at face value: Yes, I am a better prognosticator than he is.

So Tony Dungy figures he owes the Browns nothing, which is his right -- a right I support wholeheartedly. But he thinks: two years ago, we sat Peyton Manning all but one quarter in Game 15 against Seattle, and for all but one series in Game 16 against Arizona, and the Colts went out in their first playoff game and stunk it up against the Steelers at home and lost.
Colts 23, Titans 20

It took two paragraphs for the arrogance to come shooting back. Peter King "wholeheartedly" supports Tony Dungy's right to owe the Browns nothing. This statement is nonsense, Peter. Also, nobody cares what you think. They just want to outpick you and win the truck.

I should point out, in all fairness, that I actually agree with him. People have bitched that the Colts owe it to the integrity of the game to play their hardest to beat Tennessee, since the game has a direct effect on whether the Titans or Browns end up as the number 6 seed in the AFC. It's an indefensible position, but it's been claimed before. I remember two years ago, the White Sox had wrapped up their division heading into the final weekend, and the Yankees, Red Sox, and Indians were all fighting for two playoff spots. Ozzie Guillen announced he'd be resting a slew of starters for Chicago's weekend series against the Indians, and Yankees and Red Sox fans alike were skewering Guillen and the Sox for ruining the integrity of baseball by not playing their hardest. Guillen, of course, shot back with a response like, "If your team had just played better you wouldn't need our help," or some such thing. Of course, it ended up being very much irrelevant, as the White Sox's scrubs swept the Indians out of the playoff hunt. Sorry, Foist.

What was I talking about again? Oh, yeah. Peter King is retarded and annoying, and he started that last paragraph with the word "so". What a douche. The end.

Gammons' Writing Leaves Confused Feeling

2007-12-26T07:59:00.000-08:00

After a long weekend, I'm back at work. I'm sick, I'm jetlagged, and I gotta take it out on someone. Then I remembered seeing, a couple weeks ago, Gammons' particularly muddled contribution to the pile of sanctimonious nonsense written after the Mitchell Report came out.

It begins thusly:

When I awoke this morning, I felt as if I had spent a fortnight sleeping underneath the Gandy Bridge.

I take it the Gandy Bridge is in Boston. I refuse to actually look this up, because I am that confident that Gammons would not reference a place outside of Boston, and also because I do not care.

George Mitchell did what he was paid to do, and because baseball's rampant drug culture is as well-sealed as underground weapon silos and stealth bombers at Davis-Monthan AFB, we were left to a sordid tale of associations, hearsay and the witness cooperation of sewer rats.

What a mess. Can a culture be sealed? Why not just stick with the weapons silos -- are the stealth bombers also "well-sealed"? I suppose it would be difficult to steal them, but "sealed" doesn't seem the right adjective. Again, I don't care what or where Davis-Monthan AFB is. Finally, sewer rats? Isn't that a little harsh? These are the people that cooperated. Are you a mob hit man or something?

Also, I didn't read the entire Mitchell Report, because I have better things to do, but it sounded like most of the evidence consisted of "testimony" by a couple of former clubhouse attendants who claim to have actually supplied drugs to some players. This is not "hearsay." The definition of hearsay is easy, because it's implied in the word -- "I heard so-and-so say." If the clubhouse attendant says "I gave Clemens 'roids," this is not "hearsay," because he was there and actually gave Clemens the 'roids. This information might be unreliable for other reasons, but I hate it when people call anything they consider unreliable "hearsay" without paying attention to what the word means.

Not that most owners had enough time to really understand this, which is why it's fortunate that Mitchell did not go back to the period when George W. Bush owned the Texas Rangers -- which Jose Canseco and others have fingered as a performance-enhancing Wal-Mart -- because there is no way Bush had any idea what was alleged in Canseco's book.

I've read this sentence repeatedly, and I do not understand what Gammons is trying to say with this George Bush thing. How is the likely fact that Bush had "no idea" about the steroids a reason why it is "fortunate" that the Report did not "go back" to the period when he owned the Rangers? At most, this fact is a reason why it doesn't matter whether the report discussed that period. Is Gammons concerned about the good name of the sitting president? I doubt it, but even if he is, the fact that Bush didn't know that steroids were used by members of his team isn't particularly damning. It's not good, either. It is just kind of irrelevant. As Gammons himself says, most of the owners probably didn't know what was going on. So what is the point here? Who knows.

Baseball wanted him to look at the period. He did, as best he could, and emptied it like a box of trash, with little differentiation between Roger Clemens and Brian Roberts, whose name was revealed without evidence of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

Brian Roberts confessed.

In this era of vigilante journalism, if it's a name, it's got guilt, and the fact that some "news" services ran with a phony report with 76 names Thursday morning puts "news" right there in the culture of the sewer rats.

"If it's a name, it's got guilt." This sentence is, of course, nonsensical. I guess he means, "if a name appears in a document, it means the person named is guilty of the crime discussed in that document." Implied in this (guessed) meaning is, "if a newspaper lists names that are listed in a document, the newspaper must be saying that the people named are guilty of the crime discussed in the document." There, we sure cleared that up!

(By the way, for a great example of "vigilante journalism," Gammons could have linked to his own nasty and completely unjustified undressing of A-Rod.)

Next, take a look at Gammons' own first recommendation to the owners:

1. Demand that every team carefully monitor all employees, including clubhouse kids, grounds crew members, etc. It doesn't matter if the average player makes $3 million a year, there is always an attraction to hangers-on, enablers and gophers. There's always a need for a guy who can get the satellite or stereo system at street prices, someone to pick up a girlfriend at the airport or drive a car north from spring training. The laundry list of problems stemming from guys is virtually endless; the Red Sox once had a spring training clubbie who turned out to be a drug dealer.
[and, redundantly:]
3. Make sure that each team spends the money to oversee each player's offseason conditioning program. Private strength and conditioning trainers and coaches lead to all kinds of issues; just go check out the 3:30 p.m. grunters at most commercial gyms.

As evidenced by this and the numerous "sewer rat" references, the overall theme of this piece is that Gammons actually blames the clubhouse attendants for baseball's drug problem. This is ridiculous and indefensible. These menial (as Gammons would have it) workers are not preying on helpless, desperate souls, but on multi-millionaires looking for an edge. I have never seen it alleged that HGH or steroids are addictive; physically damaging, sure, but not in any way depriving of the user's self-control. The players knew what they were doing, were in control the entire time, and could have easily gotten the drugs no matter whom the teams employed. Gammons seems to be advocating an elitist witch-hunt against everyone at the bottom of the MLB totem pole. He seems to think players are babies who won't get anything not brought to them in their clubhouses and that every "grunter" paid to do menial jobs for them is a scumbag. Lovely. And this is the opinion of a righteous, kind-hearted soul who wants to clean up the "vigilante" media.

2. Have MLB and the players association work out a strict set of guidelines for all player agencies. Mitchell did not mention the role of agents and agencies in the report, but it has long been suspected that there are a few agencies who have helped out their clients. One player told me, off the record, that one agency he interviewed offered limo and escort service in each road city, as well as separate bank accounts to hide money from spouses. The players association has been reluctant to monitor and discipline agents because they need agents to hold the players in line during strikes, but it isn't worth the side affects.

Hey, remember what Gammons said about "vigalante journalism"? Here he relies on what "one" player "told" him, "off the record" (so much for that!), about an agency offering perfectly legal services that have absolutely nothing to do with steroids for an assertion that sports agencies are assisting players in obtaining drugs. Unbelievable. And, by the way, this IS hearsay!

4. Beg the media to re-examine its vigilante world, where names and public figures have no rights. Look, there has been extraordinary journalistic work in this drug culture world done by the San Francisco Chronicle, New York Daily News and, now, with Mark Fainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn, ESPN.com. But we're not the National Star. Roger Clemens and Miguel Tejada are not Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

More of Gammons preaching to, I guess, himself. Gammons fails to explain why it is okay to smear Spears and Hilton, but not Clemens or Tejada. Also, the National Star is not an actual thing that exists. I guess he means Star Magazine?

Finally, has there really been "extraordinary journalistic word done with Mark Fainaru-Wada and T.J. Quinn"? Has there also been negligent editing work done "with" ESPN.com's editors on this article? I'll let you answer the second question.

Monday Morning Quarterback? More Like Monday Morning Punter

2007-12-12T19:54:00.000-08:00

Peter King, who writes the weekly Monday Morning Quarterback for si.com, has writing issues different from those of Gammons. His grammar is generally passable, and one can usually comprehend what he means. However, while Gammons tries almost too hard to be "poetic" and comes off sounding "retarded", King makes absolutely no effort whatsoever to sound interesting. He is in fact an exceptionally boring writer. Also unlike Gammons, King is not free from detractors - there are other people on the web who express their distaste for his work.

That said, the similarities definitely go beyond their first names. They have both spent years cultivating unparalleled connections within their respective sports (although King doesn't quite have the ubiquitous power that Gammons holds). They both use particularly tired cliches, and spend a lot of time fawning over players and passing off the fawning as analysis. Finally, the most aggravating thing to me is the constant name-dropping. In this respect King may be an even worse offender than Gammons. Anyway, enough with the preamble. Let's dig in!

"And the legend grows,'' Eddie George said just after 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon at the NBC studios, staring up at the nine-television wall the crew members of NBC's Football Night in America fixate on every Sunday during the NFL season.

This is how he opens his column. Why is he telling us this? Is he trying to make us jealous of NBC's crew, that they get to "fixate" on a nine-television wall? Also, this quote from George is neither insightful nor accurate; even Tony Romo is not a "legend" after one and a half good seasons. By the way, in case you were wondering whether Eddie George is cool enough to hang out with Peter King...

George, a former Heisman Trophy winner...

Oh, ok, whew.

...stayed over to visit with his good buddy Jerome Bettis...

Gratuitous name drop number 2.

...and to see how our show is put together.

I guarantee you Eddie George doesn't give two shits about how the show is put together. What, he can't think for the life of him how an NFL studio show is put together? He's never seen one before? He can't figure it out? Or is it just the awesome Peter King's show that he's curious about? This bullshit is something King pulls incessantly; he makes shit up, for the sole purpose of making himself seem more important. Then he goes off on a boring speech directed at team owners about not spending a lot of money on coaches, and about how quarterbacks are more important. I won't cut-and-paste the entire thing, because this post is already going to be super long. Here's a nice piece of advice:

There's something more important than a $4 million coach -- a quarterback.

Call me crazy, but isn't King supposing here that these owners who hire expensive coaches don't care about having a good QB, only the expensive coach? The very nature of the quarterback position is such that it's impossible to tell which QBs will succeed in the NFL. Every single owner tries his hardest, I'm guessing, to land the best possible QB in the eyes of his front office personnel. To grab one of his examples, I don't think Wayne Huizenga, the owner of the Dolphins, thought to himself, "I'll just get Nick Saban and not bother trying to get a good quarterback. Even though Saban has never coached in the NFL before, he can succeed with any kind of QB!" As it turned out, Huizenga made a mistake in acquiring Daunte Culpepper, but the amount of money his coach makes did not, I'm guessing, play any kind of role in the decision to get Culpepper.

Coaches can't do it without quarterbacks.

We get the point. A good coach needs a good quarterback. Shut up already. This sentence appears in paragraph 8 of his argument. How dense does he think his readers are?

The moral of the story? Patience, a good personnel staff and a quarterback.

Couldn't the coach be considered a member of the "personnel staff"? And what does patience have to do with anything? Yes, some QBs struggle early on, but that has nothing to do with expensive coaches. Not only that, King stated earlier that Gibbs "waited too long to play Jason Campbell." "Waited too long" sounds an awful lot like patience to me, doesn't it? Or were they too patient?

What caught my eye Sunday:

The faith Tony Romo showed in Jason Witten and the tight end's historic day. "I should have been the goat today,'' Witten said over the phone from Detroit. "But Tony didn't give up on me.'' With six minutes left, Romo hit Witten with a pass, and Witten bulled for what should have been the winning 10-yard touchdown ... except he fumbled at the Lions 1, giving the ball back to Detroit.

First of all, you had to tell us that you spoke with him over the phone? Who cares? And how else would you speak to him? Second of all, look at that first sentence again. Let's review the following salient points, which were all true right before the game-winning play:

1. Jason Witten was having a ridiculous day. In fact, as King later points out in his awards section, Witten set an NFL record for most catches in a game by a tight end.
2. Jason Witten is in fact one of the best tight ends in the NFL.
3. Jason Witten had one crucial, but aberrant, fumble, earlier in the fourth quarter.

Given this information, what would you expect Romo to say? "Well, Witten is awesome, but he fumbled earlier, so I just have no faith left in him, despite the fact that he caught the ball thirteen other times in this game and didn't fumble." So many insane, unpredictable things happen in the NFL every week, and King chose, as the first item that "caught his eye" on Sunday, Tony Romo "showing faith" in one of the best tight ends in the NFL, who happened to be enjoying a record-setting game. Excellent.

"I'm coming back to you, so don't worry,'' Romo said to a downcast Witten, who thought he'd blown the game.

I guarantee you Peter King made up this quote. Also, at that point the Cowboys were down by one with 6 minutes left and the Lions pinned deep. Did he really think the game was totally over?

Wasn't this supposed to be New England's toughest game since Indy? It was, but Belichick let his tired team -- after three straight night games, culminating in the emotional Monday-nighter at Baltimore -- skip practice on Wednesday and go lighter than usual Thursday and Friday. That's not the sole reason the Patriots manhandled the Steelers, but it helped.

This statement is only funny because in King's "weekly pickoff", which I can't figure out how to link to because it only shows the current week's picks, he listed five reasons that the Steelers would beat the Patriots, and one of them was that Belichick didn't make his team practice on Wednesday before the game, thus indicating that his players were really tired. When I initially read that, I thought to myself, "Wouldn't giving his players a day off help them recuperate and shake off their fatigue? I would be more concerned if Belichick, knowing his team was tired, made them practice their asses off anyway." But what do I know? Peter King is the master prognosticator. Only he can use a fact as a predictor that the Steelers would beat the Patriots, and then use that same fact in hindsight to explain why the exact opposite happened.

The Fine Fifteen

Ah yes, often the most enjoyable part of the column. King lists the top 15 teams in the NFL, in order. I sense some fawning is in order. Take it away, PK!

3. Dallas (12-1). Name the quarterbacks you'd take over Romo for the next few years. Brady and Manning. OK. Now who? Big Ben, Carson Palmer? Maybe. But it's a discussion.

Roethlisberger is a bad choice. He's had exactly one decent year ('05), when the Steelers' running game and defense were so good that he basically didn't have to do anything; one bad year ('06), after his own motorcycle accident (which was a breach of his NFL contract, by the way); and one good year ('07). Romo is a far better choice than Roethlisberger, even if he's not yet a "legend".

11. Tampa Bay (8-5). Think the Bucs are flukish? A lie. Three different quarterbacks have engineered the team's last four games. Including the kicker and punter, 23 of their 24 starters are signed at least through the end of 2009. (Only center Jon Wade will be a free-agent next March.) Good thing the Glazers hung onto Jon Gruden after last year's debacle.

Hey, Peter. On page 1 of this column, you argued that a good QB was really important, and a big-name, big-money coach is less so. Now you're saying that the Bucs are not fluky (sorry, "flukish") because they keep changing their QB and they held on to their big-name, big-money coach. Clearly, you have completely forgotten what you wrote three pages ago. Nicely done. Also, the fact that they have all of their starters signed through '09 does not serve as evidence that they are not "flukish"; it just means that if they are, in fact, not a fluke, they will continue to be good for the next couple of years. However, if they suck next year, then we'll pretty much know for a fact that they were a fluke, since they will have the same personnel as they do this year.

15. Washington (6-7). A reward for their perseverance -- and for the best game of Todd Collins' life.

Joe Gibbs brought his team together before the Thursday night game to give them a motivational speech: "Men, we need to win this game. Not because one of our best players was recently murdered and it would be a nice tribute to him to win a game. Not because if we win we're somehow still in the playoff race in our horrible conference. No, we have to win because if we do emerge victorious in this game, Peter King might, just might, give us the tremendous honor of being named the fifteenth best team, out of 30, in the NFL. I ask you, what further motivation could you possibly need?" And yea, verily it came to pass.

Then we come to the awards section, in which King arbitrarily names the top performers on offense, defense, special teams, as well as some other useless crap. In the middle of his gushing over Todd Collins, the Redskins backup QB whom the Artist Formerly Known As The Bears Defense allowed to complete wide-open passes all over the field, PK offers us this:

First snap: incompletion. Second snap: short completion. Third snap: sack, fumble, Chicago ball. Fourth snap: 21-yard perfect strike for a touchdown to tight end Todd Yoder.

Objection, your honor. Relevance?

Later, in the "Coach of the Week" category, we have Wade Phillips!

But Phillips has done some really smart things this year, not the least of which is making Terrell Owens a team leader by having him stand in front of the team -- often -- and talking like a leader. Maybe T.O. isn't the perfect guy to do that, but it makes Owens feel like a king and makes him toe the line as a team player. The Cowboys are 12-1 because they don't wilt when the pressure's on. Phillips was the right hire at the right time.

This entire paragraph is nothing but a collaboration of sanctimonious bullshit and outright falsehoods. "Talking like a leader...makes Owens feel like a king...makes him toe the line...they don't wilt when the pressure's on..." Who the hell enjoys reading this crap? And they're 12-1 because they don't wilt when the pressure's on? What? Maybe they're 12-1 because they're a fucking good team and the Lions linebacker decided to try to scoop up a fumble that the Cowboys then recovered rather than just falling on it and icing the game. And wouldn't Witten's fumble, the one King specifically mentioned earlier, qualify as "wilting when the pressure's on", if there really is such a thing? Does the fact that he later scored the game-winning touchdown exempt him from any previous displays of wilting? Did he successfully unwilt? One more thing. What does any of this have to do with Phillips being coach of the week? You're telling me Witten wouldn't have caught the game-winning pass with, say, Lovie Smith or Mike McCarthy or Cam Cameron on the sideline? Peter King, I hate you.

Next, we get to the quotes of the week section:

"Well done is always better than well said. That's been the motto of this team.''

-- New England quarterback Tom Brady, three days before the Patriots beat Pittsburgh. He was responding to reports of Steelers safety Anthony Smith guaranteeing a Pittsburgh victory in the days before the game.

Am I alone in thinking that Brady always says the right thing? I mean, always? So I asked him: Where'd you learn the "well done'' line, and who taught you to always say things the way your coaches and parents and fandom would want you to say them?

Peter King, you should be fired. What the fuck is this? Yes, you are alone in thinking that Brady always says the right thing. As my friend Josh has pointed out, Peter King's idea of heaven is a threesome with Tom Brady and Brett Favre being filmed by Hines Ward. Stop drooling, you look like a tool. Also, stop making up words to sound smart. "Fandom" is not a word. Just say fans. Your writing is boring anyway; it can't possible sound worse. Wait, it can? Let me see!

Which leads me to my ...
Text Message of the Week

"Ben Franklin said that. I learn from where we all have, my dad!''

--Tom Brady.

I really think King is just trying to make us jealous that he has Tom Brady's cell phone number and can text him. Attention, Mr. King: We don't care. Thank you.

Enjoyable/Aggravating Travel Note of the Week

Brett Favre flew from Green Bay to the Teterboro Airport in suburban New Jersey late last Tuesday afternoon, then was driven into New York to accept the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year award that night.

The first 756 miles of the trip, in the air, took 105 minutes.

The last eight miles of the trip, on the ground during rush hour, took 65 minutes.

That's 432 mph on phase one of the trip, 7 mph on the second leg.

This is traditionally one of the most annoying parts of his column. He'll often complain about people yammering on a cell phone while he's enjoying his first-class compartment on the Amtrak Acela Express, which (by the way) he gets to write off as a business expense. This week, he has no travel story of his own, and he hasn't managed to suck Brett Favre's dick yet in this particular column. So he mentions this story. Of course, this story is boring, not enjoyable or aggravating. Wait, there's traffic in New York City? It took him a long time to drive through it? Can't he just skip a weekly item if he has nothing interesting to write about? On second thought, that wouldn't leave him much of a column. Never mind.

Ten Things I Think I Think

This title, the core of MMQB, has already been made fun of incessantly. Suffice it to say that this is King's attempt at humor. The issue I haven't seen tackled is the fact that this part of the column is in outline form. Within any 1 (out of the 10 things he thinks he thinks), there might be an a point, a b, etc., sometimes as many as 10 or 12 divisions. It ends up being a lot more than 10 things. For example, this week, number 1 is:

1. I think these are my quick-hit thoughts of Week 14:

He then lists off eleven quick-hit thoughts. So just after number 1, we've already exceeded ten things. You've exceeded the quota, Mr. King. Stop your column. Included in these quick-hit thoughts:

c. Whatever happened to Matt Leinart? Has he been kidnapped?

No. He's on injured reserve. He went down for the year in Week 5. There's nothing interesting to say about him. Way to joke about a felony though. Good stuff.

j. I'm no ratings maven, but I'll bet a dime that a Dallas-New England or Green Bay-New England Super Bowl would draw the biggest audience in American television history.
k. Why do I think the Vikings might have something to say about that?

Because you're a fool. According to every commentator and columnist, every NFL team is only as good as its previous few games. Four weeks ago, the Vikings were in last place, at 3-6, and Tarvaris Jackson looked like me at QB, and Peterson was hurt. They play a couple of patsies, and suddenly they're going to beat the Cowboys? I think this is hyperbole even for you, Mr. King.

g. I know the Steelers lost, but Ben Roethlisberger's touchdown throw to Najeh Davenport was a thing of beauty. Big Ben stepped out of trouble in the pocket, waited for just the right moment for Davenport to shake his coverage, and put a perfect rainbow into his arms in the end zone. A couple of years ago, I don't think Roethlisberger would have had the pocket presence to sidestep the pressure on the play, and I don't think he'd have thrown the ball with such beautiful touch.

This thought actually occurs under number 8, titled "I think this is what I liked about Week 14". My thought is that while the sidestep of the pressure was nice, the throw was a wobbly duck, the guy was wide open when he threw it, and he almost threw it too softly, since the Pats defender, completely out of position when the ball was thrown, was almost able to get back into position to make a play on the ball. The throw was certainly not "a perfect rainbow", nor did it have "such beautiful touch". One doesn't need to express man-crushes on players to analyze them accurately, or to be entertaining.

i. Not to compare the two, but Eli Manning played his second straight clutch fourth quarter Sunday, this time in Philly.

Given the lack of comparative language or anything else suggesting a comparison, nobody would have suspected this. Now that you said, "not to compare the two", I think it is a comparison. If this blog post weren't so insanely long already, I would write my own column: "Ten things I think I think about the things Peter King thinks he thinks, which I think is actually far more than ten things."

g. I wish PR people would edit post-game quote sheets. When a writer has 16 sheets and has to wade through 15.8 pages of total bullcrap, it tends to aggravate him at 3:23 a.m.

Wow. Just...wow. Somebody hands you a sheet with all of the post-game quotes, because you're too high up the Sports Illustrated ladder to go get the quotes yourself, and you complain about it? And you want us to feel sorry for you? Look, either have us be jealous of you because you have Tom Brady's cell phone number and you get to watch nine football games at once with a bunch of famous ex-football stars, or try to get our sympathy by complaining about post-game quote sheets and NYC rush-hour traffic. I don't think either venture will work, but both definitely will not. And how old are you that you're bragging about staying up until 3:23 a.m.? 3:23! We're impressed! You're a tool. Go to sleep.

10. I think these are my non-NFL thoughts of the week:
a. The Heisman voters got it right. What quarterback, in any league, has ever thrown more than 20 touchdown passes and rushed for more than 20 touchdowns in a year? Tim Tebow had 51 combined. And, apparently, Tebow is a heck of a kid.

You're a journalist. Figure out if a quarterback has ever done that. Do some goddamn research. Or did the stat sheet that those despicable "PR people" you complained about earlier brought you not mention it? "And apparently, Tebow is a heck of a kid." Well, he's never met Tebow, doesn't know shit about him, doesn't cover college football, but Peter King will be damned if that's going to stop him from gushing over him. Wait! It gets better.

Hard to imagine a kid who was raised better, and is more mature as a college sophomore, than Tebow.

By using the word "apparently", King indicated that he didn't personally know much about Tebow, just what he'd heard. Now, based purely on hearsay, King is willing to posit that it's hard to imagine a kid who was raised better? Who is more mature as a college sophomore? Where are the editors on this one? If King doesn't know Tebow, how does he know how he was raised? How does he know how mature he is? This whole Tebow item reeks of a lack of journalistic integrity. I would maybe accept these statements from Tebow's father, or his coach. From a national writer who doesn't cover college football and doesn't know Tebow to unabashedly fawn over him? Ludicrous.

Finally, here's a nice summation of the entire column.

Peter King By the Numbers

3: Number of words King made up in the column ("flukish", "sackman", "fandom")

43: Number of things King actually thinks he thinks (not, as you might guess, 10)

14: Number of times while reading MMQB that I wished Peter King was right in front of me so I could punch him in the mouth.

4: Number of names King drops gratuitously, in a transparent attempt to make us jealous of him for personally knowing these people (Eddie George, Jason Witten, Jerome Bettis, Tom Brady)

I've talked to many people who have used the word "tool" as an insulting term for people. Nobody knows exactly what it means, but for some reason it describes certain people perfectly: Carson Daly, Dane Cook, etc. Peter King? Perfect example of a tool. I look forward to continuing to bash his column in the weeks to come.

At Least He Doesn't Take Any Cheap Shots At A-Rod

2007-12-12T19:38:00.000-08:00

Here's some breaking news, courtesy of Herr Gammons:

Twins taking it slow with Santana

You mean...they haven't traded him yet? What a story!

So, how can anyone criticize Twins general manager Bill Smith for taking his time to make sure he gets the best deal he can for Johan Santana?

This reminds me of research papers I wrote in school. I would write a sentence like the one above, and my teacher would say something like, "If you just make a vague assertion that some people have expressed a certain opinion, without any definite citation, that doesn't really qualify as 'research'." My question is, how can the mighty Gammons not spend just a tiny bit of time finding somebody who offers said criticism? Frankly, I'm not even sure it exists. Who the hell would criticize Smith for not rushing into a deal for, as Gammons pointlessly and laboriously goes on to argue, one of the best pitchers in the game?

When Red Sox GM Theo Epstein said, "I don't put deadlines on other teams trading their own players," he spoke for the majority of general managers who respect everything Smith and his former boss Terry Ryan have stood for over the last 15 years.

I love that, in a story about the Twins' GM, he manages to sneak in a backhanded compliment about the Red Sox GM. What a righteous man, that Theo Epstein! Always respecting the game, always speaking for the majority of general managers! Gammons's bio should simply say, "Gammons covers the Red Sox for ESPN.com, and occasionally compares them to other MLB teams as well."

Gammons Is Definitely "Trending Down"

2007-11-29T22:59:00.000-08:00

Not much in this post from our friend Gammons, as it's filled mostly with charts. A couple of brief things, though.

If you are the Phillies or the Dodgers and thinking about going to four years on Mike Lowell, you look at the trend line and see that his OPS has risen each of the last three years. That's what the Yankees faced in the real world of the Mets going hard after Jorge Posada, and what the Diamondbacks realized when they went to $10M a year for Eric Byrnes.

Please focus on the part that reads, "That's what the Yankees faced in the real world of the Mets going hard after Jorge Posada." Is he saying that the Yankees paid a lot for Posada because the Mets were chasing him, or because he had this retarded "upward trend line"? Did the Mets only chase him because of this upward trend, which in turn caused the Yankees to pay more? I'm so confused. And what the hell does he mean by "real world"? If anything, the one team that appears to operating outside this metaphorical "real world" would be the Yankees, since their concept of spending money differs from that of literally every other team.

So Monday morning it appeared Lowell might leave Boston, because the Red Sox would not budge from their three-year offer, and take with him the World Series MVP award, a rising trend line, and mountains of goodwill from the way he plays and treats people.

I understand Gammons is speaking metaphorically here, but even then I can't understand what the hell he means when he says that Lowell is taking "a rising trend line and mountains of goodwill". He sounds like a senile sportswriter desperate for a new angle. "You have to sign Lowell! He has a rising trend line! And goodwill! Nay, mountains of goodwill! He wipes his ass with goodwill toilet paper!"

More importantly, there are different conclusions one can draw from this data, which he proceeds to present. Here are two:

1. A rising trend line indicates that a player is improving, and should be paid accordingly. (Obviously, a falling trend line would have the opposite effect.)
2. Teams should be extremely wary of players with rising trend lines, since these trend lines may reverse course due to the law of averages or the phenomenon of aging players. On the other hand, players with a falling trend line may rebound, and may be available at a discount, so it's a good idea for teams to pursue these players.

The real conclusion probably lies somewhere in the middle: with younger players, rising trends will tend to indicate actual improvement, while older players are more likely to have reaped the benefits of a fluke season, and will probably decline in future years. Gammons, of course, offers no such analysis, and instead lumps young guys and old guys together. Just look at the first two people in his first chart: Curtis Granderson and Barry Bonds. We should be drawing the same conclusions from their respective rising trend lines? Really?

Gammons, however, has no time for silly things like "analysis". He's busy copying charts from the Bill James Handbook and throwing mountains of goodwill at Mike Lowell.

Tune in tomorrow as I dissect a real doozy. Try to see how many indefensibly stupid and/or incoherent things he says, and then we'll see how well we match up.

Candidates, Don't Hire Jim Caple as Your Poll Analyst

2007-11-15T15:09:00.001-08:00

Jim Caple has a characteristically dull article up on ESPN.com today, slamming the 60% of web readers who stated via an ESPN poll that they didn't want A-Rod on their team.

Now, before you read Caple's article, I'll give you three seconds to come up with the most obvious reason why the vast majority of these people voted this way.

One...

Two...

Three...

Ready? All together now: "Because my team would then not be able to afford any other good players, and you cannot win with one player." That was easy, right? Not for Jim Caple.

He starts by mocking the people who voted this way and talking about how baseball is the most individual sport and how it hasn't mattered how much of an ass various great players have been. Fine, I'm with him on that. And clearly a subset of those voters are morons who think they are more likely to win with David Eckstein at short than A-Rod, even if the rest of the team stays the same, because of Eckstein's grit and piss and vinegar and all that.

Eventually, he gets around to addressing the more obvious reason for the majority vote against having A-Rod, and gives us the following syllogism:

I understand people worrying that signing A-Rod would preclude their team from obtaining other necessary players. But that's a needless concern. Signing someone like A-Rod, Derek Jeter or Manny Ramirez to a contract for $20 million to $25 million per year isn't what hurts a team financially. It's signing the likes of Jeff Weaver for $8 million and Richie Sexson for $15 million, then trading for Horacio Ramirez and his $2 million salary (not that I have any particular team in mind).

Uhhhh.... CAN'T IT BE BOTH? Or, perhaps more accurately, either?

If you're a small-market team, EITHER spending big bucks on decent players OR huge bucks on great players can sink you. If the Mariners had spent their money more wisely, for a pitcher actually worth closer to $8 million or a first baseman worth closer to $15 million, or multiple players for less than that, they would be a far better team. But they would not have been able to spend this money at all if it was tied up in ONE player, A-Rod. And actually, the Mariners aren't such a bad team as it is. Not a great team, but not a bad one.

Given a choice, I would rather have A-Rod than Weaver plus Sexson. But both options are bad. The ESPN voters were not asked to assume that if their team would not sign A-Rod, it would waste the money on total flops. Why is Caple assuming this? I guess because, being a Seattle writer, he's focused on the Mariners. So focused in fact, that he misses a painfully obvious logical point.

*EDIT: I decided I was too hard on Caple. Yes, purely as an explanation of how people voted in the online poll, the article sidesteps the point. But his main purpose there was to debunk the widely and genuinely held opinions about A-Rod being a "cancer" and not a "winner," etc., making many of the same arguments that I've personally made to neurotic Yankees fans. So on a second reading, I identified with him, and was filled with tender feelings of regret. Okay, maybe that's going a little far...

Edit Buster Olney!

2007-11-15T13:20:00.000-08:00

Although Buster Olney doesn't make as many indefensible writing mistakes as Peter Gammons does, far be it from us to overlook some colossally bad writing on his part. To wit:

Imagine that Alex Rodriguez was running for president against Hillary Clinton and John McCain and Barack Obama, and then ask yourself this: How much would they have paid for the negative publicity he got over the last 18 days?

Okay, Buster. And I'm using your name, not just using the little kid nickname "Buster". As ridiculous as your proposed scenario is, I imagined this scenario. I asked myself the question, and myself answered, "What are you talking about? Why would they pay anything for negative publicity?" And I said to myself, "Myself, haven't you ever heard the expression, 'No publicity is bad publicity?'" And myself responded, "Yes, but I'm pretty sure that does not apply to presidential candidates. When you're running for president, negative publicity pretty much destroys your campaign." And I got angry and tried to erase myself's mind, Men In Black-style, but I couldn't, because myself is a part of me. So I decided to post this entry instead.

Ten million dollars? Twenty? Fifty million?

Again, I'd probably go with nothing.

Because for 18 days Rodriguez got hammered by everyone, everywhere. By our respected colleague Peter Gammons, who wondered forcefully if this sort of gauche hubris explained why Rodriguez hadn't yet played in the World Series.

First, Buster, you forgot "inexplicably" when you mentioned "respected colleague Peter Gammons". Second, "wondered forcefully"? You can't wonder something forcefully. That sounds like something Peter Gammons would say. I would use the phrase "bitched excessively". There, much better. Finally, "gauche hubris"? I suspect that you consulted a thesaurus here, because "tactless balls" just doesn't sound right, but is "gauche hubris" really any better?

A-Rod got hammered by print columnists, by Mike and Mike, by Mike and the Mad Dog, by Michael Kay in New York and Mike Felger in Boston and the Mad Dog in Lansing and Softy in Seattle. A-Rod got hammered from sea to shining sea, after word of his decision to opt out of his record-setting contract leaked out in the middle of Game 4 of the World Series -- an act for which his agent Scott Boras first blamed on the Yankees; then blamed on a mistake; and then, probably cajoled by
his All-Star client, finally blamed on himself, acknowledging what everybody in
the game thought anyway.

Oh, how cute, there are a lot of radio personalities named "Mike" or "Mad Dog". Apparently, "Softy" is the closest that the West Coast has to offer to those names. Also, check out "an act for which his agent Scott Boras first blamed on the Yankees" - this is positively Gammons-like in its excessive use of prepositions. If we re-arrange this sentence, we get: "Scott Boras first blamed for this act on the Yankees." Also, although this list has correct parallel structure, I don't see how the three parties that were blamed could be "Yankees", "a mistake", and "himself". Which one of these is not like the other? (Hint: the "mistake" must have been made by somebody.)

He (Boras) somehow managed to badly overplay the perfect hand.

Wait...I'm confused, Buster. What does poker have anything to do with Scott Boras? Can you explain what you mean? In the next paragraph, perhaps?

Boras held four aces, in a sense, and yet his client's contract will be somewhat lighter.

And Buster comes through! Thanks to the phrase "in a sense", I now understand that the whole "perfect hand" thing was a metaphor. Groundbreaking stuff, those poker metaphors. Don't believe I've ever seen one of those before. It's good to know that Gammons is not the only "respected" writer for ESPN.com who can't write.

But Beckett Got a Ring, Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah Nyah

2007-11-14T08:22:00.000-08:00

As expected, C. C. Sabathia won the Cy Young award over Josh Beckett yesterday by a substantial margin. Peter Gammons chimes in, repeating what he has already said numerous times in just the last few weeks, with the ultimate point, apparently, that winning a championship is more important (duh).

Gammons' title is "Ring is Next on C.C.'s List," so you might expect the article to tell C.C.'s story, extolling his accomplishments and discussing his future expectations and such. You would be wrong. It is written mostly from (the superior) Beckett's point of view.

While C. C. Sabathia earned the Cy Young, Josh Beckett earned his place alongside Johan Santana as the best pitcher in baseball.

Wait, how can two people be "the best pitcher" in baseball? It's amazing the nonsensical things you can say when you don't write proper English. This might actually be grammatically correct, since the subject of the sentence is technically still just Beckett, but substantively makes no sense. If he's "alongside" Santana, then does that not imply that they are together at the top? I guess Gammons just wants to say that Beckett is the best pitcher in baseball (ignoring his persistent blisters and struggles during much of his career with the Marlins and his first season with the Red Sox), but wants to cover himself by mentioning the more obviously correct choice, Santana. And he can do this, because he doesn't give a crap about making sense.

Now, Gammons commences the recycling:

One of the reasons Beckett was good and reliable and fresh in October -- taking the role of a No. 1 starter, carrying his team through three straight series and winning a world championship for the second time in five years -- is because he didn't have to do what Sabathia did in the regular season. And the award is based solely on the regular season. Sabathia threw 40 more innings, faced 143 more batters and threw 478 more pitches than Beckett. He picked up the slack with Jake Westbrook disabled, and Cliff Lee and Jeremy Sowers back in Buffalo, and deserves top 10 MVP votes for getting the Indians to a tie with the Red Sox for best record in baseball. But all those innings, batters and pitches showed in October. Velocity is never an indicator of wear or injury -- command is. And the man with the 5.24 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio was clearly gassed trying to deal with the hitting approach of Boston's hitters.

Gammons, a week ago:

These days, starting pitching depth is extremely important, as we saw by the contrast of Josh Beckett and C.C. Sabathia in the postseason. Beckett is in a youthful prime at 27 years old, and even though logging 43 fewer innings than Sabathia may have lost him the Cy Young award, it won his teamates World Series rings.

Gammons, October 25:

As the rest given to Josh Beckett during the season might have cost him the Cy Young but gained him historic October stature, so the way Papelbon and Okajima were handled is a significant part of their 17 1/3 innings of postseason shutout relief.

Gammons, October 20:

Now, in Game 7, Daisuke Matsuzaka goes out with Hideki Okajima, Josh Beckett and Jonathan Papelbon capable of a combined five or six innings because of the way Francona backed off all three pitchers during the season. He sat Okajima in September. He forced Beckett onto the DL in one stretch and backed off him in September, which is why C.C. Sabathia will win the Cy Young while Francona has the best of Beckett in October.

There might be more, but that's enough. You see my point. Now, I'm not doubting this theory. It actually is plausible, even if I'm not as sure as Gammons about its veracity. I mean, geez, something happened to Sabathia in October, and the huge number of innings is as reasonable an explanation as any. But Gammons is so excited by actually having a plausible theory, that he feels the need to repeat it to us on a weekly basis. Peter, time for some new material.

Also, velocity is never an indicator of fatigue? It's always command? You sure about that?

Beckett won one more game (20-19), but C.C. had the better ERA (3.21 to 3.27), threw more innings, had more quality starts (25-20), had the higher quality-start percentage (74 percent-67 percent) and had 1.05 runs per start less support. But as C.C. will tell you, he'll gladly trade the award next year for what Beckett has won twice this century -- a World Series ring.

Beckett won 2 World Series by himself, apparently. Little known fact. And I guess that means he singlehandedly missed the playoffs last year when he posted an ERA over 5? Also little known -- players care more about winning the World Series than winning individual awards. At least the ones that respect the game and prioritize winning (YEAH I'M TALKING TO YOU A-ROD!). Read Peter Gammons, learn new things.

After a brief and characteristically over-optimistic discussion of the Indians' pitching depth in '08, Gammons says:

Sabathia has worked diligently to earn this Cy Young, and a rare place in the game's hierarchy.

Obviously, the comma does not belong there and causes some initial confusion. But "rare place in the game's hierarchy"? Just weird. Gammons' attempts to write creatively always come off as awkward and just plain weird.

Then, he finishes off the article with two sentences on the Red Sox that don't mention Sabathia at all. These sentences also recycle what he has already said numerous times in this article and elsewhere:

He paid for that diligence and durability in October, and now has something else to shoot for -- Beckett's crown as the premier money pitcher in the sport. The Red Sox's ace is a 6-0, 1.73 ERA in 10 career playoff appearances (72 2/3 IP), and only Curt Schilling has more World Series rings in the 21st century. Between them, Schilling and Beckett are 16-1 in the postseason this decade, and their teams have won nine of the ten series in which they've pitched.

As shown above, the "innings cost Sabathia in the playoffs" thing is well-covered, but the rest of this is also repetitive. Cf., Gammons, just last week:

[Schilling] is 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA in 19 playoff starts (sorry, but the postseason is not random), and Schilling's ability to win under pressure is a major factor in his teams' 10-2 record in postseason series, which is what it's supposed to be about.

This was just about Schilling, but obviously Beckett's "money" status has also been well-documented, ad nauseum, by Gammons. We get it, Peter -- Beckett and Schilling always win in the playoffs, all by themselves, because they are just so clutchy. Except when they stink and miss the playoffs altogether. I'm bored.

Peter Gammons Doesn't Believe in God, Because If He Existed, A-Rod Would Already Have Been Struck Down By a Lightning Bolt

2007-11-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

I think this post is bad even by PG's standards. Let's get right to it, starting with the title.

Wright shouldn't move for A-Rod

Given this title, I wonder if perhaps Gammons will be taking some shots at A-Rod? What? He's done that before?

It's not hard to understand the lure of Alex Rodriguez's siren song.

Good start to the column, Peter. Since a "siren's song" is defined as "the enticing appeal of something alluring but potentially dangerous" what Gammons means to say is, "It's not hard to understand the allure of Alex Rodriguez's allure."

Now, thanks to some horrible parallel structure, a Gammons specialty, Gammons will now attempt a grammatical feat never before achieved: include four different tenses in one sentence. Let's see if he can do it:

Ten years from now (future), he might have outhomered Barry Bonds (future perfect), approached Pete Rose's hit record (past) and be regarded as one of the greatest players who ever lived (present).

Amazing.

It's not hard to know why Scott Boras engaged the Mets in discussions; he wouldn't be representing Alex if he didn't try to get another New York team in on the last waltz.

This is what would happen if we went shopping at Costco for crappy Gammons writing. First Gammons gives us four tenses in one sentence, and then he follows that up with a single sentence that contains a bizarre expression ("engaged the Mets in discussions"), needless hyperbole ("wouldn't be representing Alex") and a made-up metaphor ("the last waltz").

Puh-leaze.

Yes, he really writes that. He then writes three whole paragraphs, which I can summarize as follows: David Wright plays third. A-Rod plays third. Therefore, the Mets don't need A-Rod. In the midst of this earth-shattering conclusion, Gammons offers us this:

But Wright, at 24, accepted every responsibility when the Mets struggled down the stretch. While the majority of his teammates practically hid out and ducked under tables in the players' lounge, Wright was there to answer the tough questions. "I feel," he said one day, "that it is my responsibility."

Goody for him. How the hell is this relevant to anything? Apparently, denigrating anything and everything A-Rod isn't enough; Gammons has to pump up every other third baseman to make A-Rod seem less desirable, his "siren song" notwithstanding. How the fuck is this "objective analysis"? You'd think Wright was on the Red Sox or something.

Granted, Rodriguez was a Gold Glove shortstop who moved to third base, but he initiated the action to get out of Texas.

Tiny voice inside Peter's head: Maybe A-Rod isn't such a bad guy. He did volunteer to move to third base to accommodate Derek Jeter, after all.

Peter (sputtering): Fiddlesticks! A-Rod's an asshole! He "initiated the action" to get out of Texas!

Tiny Voice Inside Peter's Head: But that action was good for both teams. Texas got rid of most of his monster salary, and the Yankees got another superstar slugger.

Peter (fuming): But Rodriguez doesn't care about winning!

TVIPH: Then why would he leave Texas and go to New York?

Peter (really mad now): Oh yeah? Well, Rodriguez doesn't respect the game! So there!

TVIPH: What does that even mean?

And when the Yankees took a hard line in regards to his negotiations with the players associated, he had no choice but to move over in respect for Derek Jeter.

I have read this sentence over and over again and still don't know what it means. What negotiations? What "players associated"? I also love (read: hate) that Peter insists that a seemingly benevolent action by Rodriguez is something he "had no choice" but to do. And if he really had no choice, then he didn't move over out of "respect", he moved over because he had to! My head hurts.

This is different. Wright is the Mets' best player; he's not moving to another position.

Actually, that's exactly the same. A-Rod was the Yankees' best player when they got him, but he moved to another position anyway. The reason it's different is because this time, the incumbent (Wright) would be the one asked to switch positions, not the new guy (Rodriguez).

He and Willie Randolph were the two people who stood and accepted the harsh music down the stretch, and after seeing how Randolph was carved up, now Wright has read that he is fungible.

Another weird, made-up metaphor here. "Accepted the harsh music?" Does he mean "faced the music"? And wouldn't "acceptance" when one's team is folding be a bad thing? Wouldn't you want your star player and manager to refuse the "harsh music"? Whatever "harsh music" is?

They also need Wright, his talent, his extraordinary character, his leadership, his face on the franchise's banners for the next decade.

The italics are Gammons's. We get it, Peter. You don't like A-Rod. You love everybody else. Can we move on please?

I actually agree with his main point -- that the Mets don't need A-Rod because they have Wright -- even if it's blatantly obvious. I just find it ridiculous that Gammons will use any excuse to mount his anti-A-Rod crusade. Can anybody reading this defend him? I'm curious.